Best Space Navies in Science Fiction

[Music] hi friends welcome back to another episode of generation films my name is alan almost a year ago we started an epic best space navy video series we looked at a variety of different factions and talked about each navy's 10 flaws and 10 advantages at the end of each one of those videos we asked you guys to rate each faction and now a year later we have thousands and thousands of votes and at the end of this video we'll tally up all those votes and once and for all determine which space navy is superior enjoy the video [Music] at the battle of endor the empire assembled a fleet of around 30 imperial class star disorders led by one larger command ship it's probably one of the largest fleets ever assembled during the galactic civil war until at least the battle of jakku but in reality it was actually a very small small portion of the entire galactic navy as a matter of fact the galactic empire had 25 000 imperial class star destroyers and that's just one type of ship so the fleet of endor defending the second death star was far less than even one percent of the entire imperial fleet so why couldn't the empire muster more forces up like the gigantic fleet we see in the end of mass effect 3 for instance for one commander shepard wasn't there to unite the empire also the rebel alliance was pretty small of a threat i mean their fleet was mobile and made up of mostly warships that were converted from civilian models so you don't really need a gigantic fleet really to go against them but the more pressing issue is the galactic empire was simply way too large in territory the galactic empire sprawled across much of the known galaxy and had millions of core systems and millions of more colonies in outer territories there were of course fortress worlds shipyards and other strategic systems but for the most part one star destroyer or maybe even something smaller like a light cruiser could be responsible for multiple planets and systems so every time you pull off one star destroyer from its posts you end up leaving many many systems vulnerable to attack for any of you guys who play strategic 4x games you probably are quite familiar with this problem as your military grows you need new resources but in order to protect those new resources you need more military and so on it's like a cyclical problem that never ends the size of the galaxy is probably one of the major reasons why the old republic had de-militarized and decentralized the republic navy and its funding to local systems defense forces in the beginning everything was relatively good the clone wars had just ended bringing an era of stability both politically and economically the galaxy had started healing itself guided by the careful policies of emperor palpatine [Music] the military industrial complex and several strategic resources were nationalized by the empire and the clone army was disbanded in favor for civilian soldiers this lowered unemployment and created stability but then we'll have tarkin entered the picture hailing from a rough outer rim world tarkin had a relatively paranoid and dangerous mindset that was completely out of touch with how the rest of the galaxy worked this was a man who viewed polite society and all the regimenting and regulation as a fragile piece that only worked in periods of economic prosperity he believed in the worst parts of human nature and thought that true order and discipline could only be reinforced with ample punishment keep in mind tarkin was from a family that sent their young out into the wilderness and a rite of passage where they basically had to survive with basic tools in extremely dangerous situations and no i'm not talking about like upstate new york and some black bears i'm talking about extremely dangerous like jurassic park level fauna dangerous so the guy had a really crazy and messed up childhood which led him to create the tarkin doctrine his idea was to make the consequences for treason so high that no one would ever dare step out of line it's basically the same thing you would do to a wild animal beat it into submission the problem was the citizens of the empire were not rabid animals that could be beat into submission [Music] the imperial class star destroyer and deathstar were important parts of the tarkin doctrine the isd was an incredible ship covered in a ridiculous amount of firepower but quite flawed and expensive to maintain the death star was another brainchild of tarkin or at least that's what he says [Music] this was an exorbitantly expensive and inefficient use of galactic resources he would go on to use the death star in a totally uncalled for attack on alderaan this would increase recruitment for the rebels and also lead to a lot of defection from the galactic navy to the rebel alliance without the tarkin doctrine the rebellion would have never had the fuel it needed to continue growing it's probably a lesson that we can apply to a lot of the things going on in our own world i mean take a look at antifa they can't really survive without which supremacists and white supremacists can't really survive without antifa they they almost need each other in a really messed up way there's like this hatred but there's also this sexual frustration you know they just they need to do whatever that is what is that [Music] so anyway a lot of the vehicles in the imperial navy were designed for form over function the isd with its 1.6 kilometer length was probably unnecessary for most types of situations it encountered at the time most of the empire's problems came from pirates or smugglers something that a small frigate or even a corvette could handle with a tight grip on the shipbuilding industry it was relatively difficult for non-imperial navy organizations to get their hands on anything larger than a civilian freighter so instead of building 25 000 imperial class star destroyers the navy could have built an even larger number of lighter cruisers and other small vessels this would have given the empire the ability to protect more worlds and at the same time field larger fleets with capital ships like isds without worrying about any gaps in their local defenses the isd and a lot of the larger command ships in the imperial navy all had gigantic towers on which the bridge was placed on it gave the command deck a romantic and inspiring view but ultimately proved to be a structural weakness in these larger ships a much more functional approach would have been placing the bridge inside the ship and using cameras and sensors to navigate [Music] the imperial navy favored giant turbo laser batteries for most of their ship's offensive power this fits in with the tarkin doctrines emphasis on entering the enemy and impregnating them with gigantic sticky loads of plasma and fear turbo lasers had a massive amount of energy behind them and were cheaper compared to other projectile weapon emplacements but the problem with these weapons was their line of sight so in larger fleet battles sometimes the lasers could be obstructed turbo lasers also lost power the further they traveled they're also quite easy to dodge given ample time and distance this meant the majority of capital ship battles in star wars happened at ranges where basically no one wins because everyone dies the separatist lines during the clone wars had used guided missiles and torpedoes to great effect it was probably a more civilized time and it gave their ships flexible firepower that could be fired without exposing the crew to any immediate danger but the empire with their obsession of penetrating the enemy with long cylindrical turbolasers were at a great disadvantage because they decided to go old school which would make it harder for them to fight longer-range modern navies [Music] although most star destroyers were heavily armed when compared to other ships in their class they also usually lacked a robust point defense system some of this was due to the arrogance of imperial leaders during the attack on the first death star will have tarkin doubted that a few small snow fighters could do any serious damage to the huge space station of course he was wrong as were many imperial officers who decided to test their ship's defenses against the rebellion's motley assortment of fighters no matter how large an imperial class star destroyer was a proton torpedo was still a proton torpedo even if it was fired from a small snub fighters and proton torpedoes will ruin your day in most other franchises and in real life blue border navies here on earth larger battleships and carriers that are vulnerable against single pilot craft are usually protected by smaller picket ships ranging anywhere from destroyers to gunboats while in the stars galaxy we do occasionally see escort fleets the majority of imperial class star destroyers deployed seem to lack any escorts at all while a star destroyer might have problems defending itself from a slash-and-run attack from a squadron of a-wings a light cruiser or corvette armed with some guided munitions will make those rebel pilots think twice about making that attack run then we had the first death star which was basically all by itself and had to rely on its own weapons and placements for protection now maybe again the imperial fleet was spread then but guys if you can't afford to protect one of the most expensive space stations ever built with some escort ships maybe you have no business building that station in the first place [Music] you can see one of the reoccurring themes right now the imperial navy for all its size and power really lacked the power projection you would expect from a navy that big now one of the major problems of course was the concentration of resources into a smaller fleet of larger ships but equally as important was the lack of any good starfighters in the imperial navy well at least in the earlier years the galactic civil war the tie fighter in space superiority craft was nimble fast but it lacked shields lacked the hyperdrive lacked heavy weapons and even lacked life support it was just a bare-bones craft something more suited for planetary defenses or short-range ship defense and to be fair that's all the galactic empire really needed in the earlier days but when the rebel alliance started fielding advanced x-wings and a-wings the tie fighter was woefully outclassed which is quite wasteful because tie fighter pilots actually were amongst the best trained in the galaxy and went through a lengthy and expensive process to earn the right to become fighter jockeys this was a huge investment that the empire committed to an investment they then shoved into the starfighter equivalent of a fiat 500. look i know it's a really cute looking car but you will not survive an american highway in something that small the fact that a tie fighter lacked hyperdrive severely limited its range and the effective operation range of the ships carrying them the rebel snub fighters did have hyperdrives which allowed them to operate without a carrier this made their fighting force more flexible and able to split into smaller groups and find openings in the enemy's defenses now eventually empire would invest money into more advanced designs but by the time the tie defender and interceptor were ready for combat the rebel alliance was already firmly rooted and not going anywhere [Music] the imperial academy was an extremely cut-throat experience it's basically like hogwarts but everyone's slytherin some might think that the empire was a meritocracy and that's probably what the empire wants you to think but it was closer to a nightmarish darinistic society that was very closely modeled to basically sith ideology officially speaking imperial cadets weren't supposed to actively sabotage each other or kill each other but what was really important was making sure you didn't get caught in the act so this naturally was an environment where sociopaths and scumbags thrived in of course there were some good officers that succeeded through talent and ability alone but the overall environment went far beyond good nature competition to something more destructive and ultimately detrimental for the entire galactic empire i mean what you really want is officers competing to see who can serve the empire better but instead he had officers who were competing to see who could serve themselves better and when those officers left the academy and entered service that competition only got crazier as the stakes got higher officers were constantly looking at opportunities to destroy their enemies and climb in the command chain this sometimes led to deliberate negligence and even sabotage this was because the imperial officer pipeline naturally attracted selfish people and despite what most people think the empire is a massive place and the federal government lacks the necessary oversight they really keep order in the entire galaxy regional governors and moffs are what really dictated the local imperial culture and working standards so while some planetary systems were model examples for an imperial world other systems were the exact opposite with local imperial forces heavily involved in corrupt activities and sometimes they've been working alongside criminal elements for personal gain the thing is no matter how terrifying the emperor might seem some systems are really just too far from coruscant for that to matter there are many ways to motivate someone in a capitalist society it's usually money i mean for millennials it's a little different we want you know a voice to make a difference to change society which basically means you're not paying me enough for this stupid mundane job i want more money so actually it's also about money you could also lead through love be such a magnetic personality that people will be willing to literally move mountains for you or in the case of warhammer 40k killed the mountain for the emperor because warhammer 40k then there's the third way which is motivated by fear in darth vader's case that fear usually led to death there's really no problem with trying to discipline your men but if you make the consequences for failure too high and also the parameters for what failure is way too ambiguous well you might just impede the decision making skills of those under your command instead of trying to take the initiative maybe being a little bit creative when problem solving the only thing they're thinking about now is how to avoid dying darth vader was known for carrying out dramatic executions of underlings even while in the middle of an operation this also usually led to confusion and gaps in the command chain in general it was not effective and really lowered morale [Music] probably one of the biggest advantages that the galactic emperor had was its incredibly fast ftl travel using a device known as a hyperdrive ships are able to enter an alternate dimension known as hyperspace and travel across ridiculously long distances in extremely short time hello there the star wars galaxy is about the same size as the milky way galaxy and based on what we've seen in the movies it takes about two or three weeks to cross the entire distance depending on which hyperspace lanes you are using in comparison star trek voyager estimated that it would take 70 years to cross the milky way galaxy so it doesn't really matter how advanced your ship's weapons and armor is if you arrive to the battle years after it's over fast cyber drives allow the galactic empire to be extremely mobile and respond rapidly to threats across its systems with relative ease [Music] although it's not talked about much the star wars galaxy also has extremely advanced anti-gravity technology the empire's mastery of anti-gravity allows it to construct gigantic repulsors which then allow for gigantic ships like the imperial class star destroyer to fly in atmosphere which is a pretty incredible feat but one of the most interesting gravity technologies that the empire does have is the gravity wall projector these devices basically created a gravitational footprint that would pull nearby ships out of hyperspace and then prevent nearby ships from going into hyperspace this is because every starship has a safety feature that pulls ships into real space when they detect a gravity well this prevents a starship flying in hyperspace from crashing into a planetary body a star or maybe a fleet of enemy ships hyperspace is technically another dimension but everything in the real world has its own counterpart in the hyperspace world as well used strategically by imperial officers like thrawn and the interdictor could dictate when and where a battle was fought it was also useful in ensnaring more mobile forces into a track instead of pouring ridiculous amounts of resources into the death star the empire probably could have refitted a significant portion of its cruisers and star destroyers with this technology making it incredibly difficult for the rebel alliance to continue escaping the empire this technology was so good it could have single-handedly ended the entire galactic civil war before it even really started the empire also has tractor beams on their ships which in the hands of a creative captain can create some very interesting problems for the enemy tractor beams were basically focused gravitational energy beams that locked onto an object and reeled it in [Music] another interesting piece of technology that spawns out of the empire's grasp of anti-gravity technology was the inertial compensator this was another device that controlled how gravity worked on a ship it created a bubble around the ship decreasing drastically the g's on a pilot and the structure of the ship this allowed star wars fighter pilots to survive maneuvers that would otherwise crush their bodies into a bloody sack this inertial compensator along with repulsors allowed unwieldy craft like tie fighters and x-wings to be able to fly in a variety of different atmospheres despite the fact that these ships have the aerodynamic profiles of a flying brick more old school or perhaps daredevil pilots like han solo routinely dialed their inertial compensator down a few points so that they could have a better feel for how the ship is performing this type of technology also allowed star wars ships to have gravity inside without any kind of rotating structure [Music] while some of the space forces that we'll be talking about rely on kinetic energy weapons and also explosives the majority of the galactic empire's firepower comes in the form of highly heated particle bolts fired out of turbolasers these were incredibly powerful thermal projectiles that could melt through multiple layers of bulkhead and because they were powered by some kind of gas or fuel each ship could carry a relatively large amount of ammunition now in our last video we talked about some of the drawbacks for the turbolaser um it's basically just a line-of-sight weapon it's unguided and over long distances it usually lost power but at close range very few navies had ships that could go toe-to-toe with an imperial-class star destroyer in a broadside exchange and in general it's harder to shield and armor your ship from thermal energy weapons when compared to kinetic energy weapons [Music] another important weapon in the imperial arsenal was the ion cannon or ion torpedo these weapons spewed out high-speed ionized particles that wrecked havoc on enemy electrical systems and computer systems an ion weapon could also take down a ship's shields and then disable their engines life support and weapons leaving them virtually defenseless while the empire's enemies have routinely used ion weapons themselves against the imperial fleet the galactic empire also incorporated these weapons into their ships because ion weapons cause damage at the molecular level through its high speed particles it was almost impossible to properly shield equipment from it iron weapons also allowed the galactic empire to take out enemy forces with relatively low collateral damage [Music] now despite what we see in the films the galactic empire actually had some of the best pilots and officers in the entire galaxy after the clone wars ended and the jedi order was wiped out the empire went through a process where it completely replaced its clone troopers with citizen soldiers imperial academies popped up across the galaxy and many different manufacturing industries and resources were nationalized the government essentially created billions and billions of jobs overnight by increasing the size of the government and military eventually local school systems were completely replaced by a galactic-white system that eventually served as a pipeline for training imperial pilots and officers that meant that anyone with any talent or skill usually ended up in the imperial navy for most people especially outside the core regions of the galaxy the best job they could wish for would be to be an officer in the imperial navy while the overly competitive nature of these academies and officer corps sometimes led to destructive behavior corruption and infighting it also produced some extremely deadly and capable officers [Music] most larger starships in the galactic empire navy had reflect most larger ships in the galactic empire navy had deflector shields and these were incredibly robust types of defenses these usually were made up of three different types of deflectors there was the navigational shield which protected the ship from space debris and other flotsom floating in space then there was a shield that blocked thermal energy weapons like plasma bolts from a turbolaser and lastly a shield that stopped kinetic energy like proton torpedoes or a suicidal a-wing this gave the galactic empire a layered shield system that was incredibly flexible and could counter many different types of munitions this was especially useful when they were encountering aliens for the first time [Music] compared to some of the other factions we're going to be talking about in this series the galactic empire's average ship was massive the imperial class star destroyer was one of the most prolific capital ships in the empire and it was 1.6 kilometers long and the navy fielded over 25 000 of them across the galaxy now against a small mobile fleet of rebels the star destroyer might have some problems but against another larger traditional fleet like the ones we are comparing the empire to in the series there are very few navies who can stand up to the sheer firepower and size of the galactic empire navy for some more primitive navies a 1.6 kilometer long star destroyer would be easily the largest ship in their entire force [Music] another advantage with the galactic empire was the majority of their ships had a contingent of space marines on board aka stormtroopers the start to record was definitely a separate branch of the military from the navy but worked hand in hand with these larger ships the stormtrooper corps relied on the imperial navy for transport and lodging in return the stormtrooper corps could provide the imperial navy with capable ship security and very heavily armed ground teams larger ships like the imperial class star destroyer could hold an entire legion of storm troopers star troopers also specialized in breaching and taking over enemy ships so in a pitched navy battle these on-board personnel provided an imperial commander with some creative options [Music] as an outsider if you looked at the galactic empire you'd realize that this was an organization that was ready for total war by nationalizing so many different industries and resources the galactic empire was able to lower production costs by huge amounts in the short term the nationalization of the entire military industrial complex increased jobs in certain areas while destroying all other non-military-related jobs in general poverty would increase as wages would decrease the middle class saw their purchasing power slide drastically but palpatine's most brilliant move is probably replacing the clones with imperial citizens because nothing starts a rebellion faster than having your civilian populists have high amounts of unemployment and once your paycheck comes from the government and you're actively working for the military you're much less likely to oppose it [Music] uh [Music] the military first policy of the galactic empire probably destroyed many social institutions and generally made life worse for everyone in the galaxy but it also made the empire an incredibly formidable fighting force as long as the empire is fighting some existential threats you can expect the imperial navy to put up a crazy fight against the enemies the first flaw to discuss is the warp just about every single space navy out there has some form of faster than light travel for without it their forces wouldn't get far in the universe in the imperium of man faster than light travel is accomplished by way of the warp a psychic dimension parallel to real space only one small issue traveling through the warp is like the most dangerous thing one can possibly do in the entire universe next to introducing your girlfriend to sly marbo the warp is inhabited by the malevolent powers of chaos and their demonic servants the warp and the realm of chaos within are corrupting and any journey through the warp has a chance of being a treacherous one aside from the presence of the gods of chaos the imperial navy faces other difficulties during warp travel as well such as unexpected currents that can drive vessels off course and mammothly destructive raging storms it's also impossible to detect the spatial movement of warp space once the ship is inside the warp meaning that navy crews are blind once in the warp and must trust their course to navigators the good news is that aside from everything i just mentioned the warp is completely safe [Music] the next flaw is massive bureaucracy the imperium of man at large is presided over by an infinitely complex convoluted bureaucratic structure that no one can truly quite understand it is 40k after all in the case of the imperial navy let's first note that the entire vast imperium is divided into five fleet zones known as segmente majoris every starship of the navy is then assigned to one of these segmented and falls under the command of a lord high admiral whose job it is to command the imperial navy assets of that segment then each segment is divided into sectors sectors themselves are massive regions containing 8 million cubic light years of space then sectors contain multiple subsectors which are collections of star systems that can be up to 20 light years in radius each segment has control over imperial navy starships which are divided amongst the sectors into battle fleets now the goal here isn't to break down the entire bureaucratic structure of the navy but just to show that the physical and logistical obstacles separating a lord high admiral of a segmente and say an admiral of a sector's fleet are great with each level lower in the navy hierarchy being eons of space away from the one above by the time we get to the admiral level there is likely to be much disorganization and lack of cohesion among the ranks [Music] the next flaw is implied by the last massive territory the imperial navy is responsible for their fleets of starships throughout the territories of mankind this in effect means that they play a huge role in maintaining order throughout the imperium of man and must provide logistical support for the imperial guard across and even beyond its borders perhaps no force in space combat history has been presented with a mission of greater scope except for sly marba chuck norris makes sly marbo jokes both the terran federation space navy and starship troopers and the colonial marines and aliens don't seem to have nearly the territory to cover they occupy planets here and there but the imperium of man consists of over 1 million inhabited worlds this is almost an impossible amount of territory to cover simultaneously the navy must oversee logistics and combat over the entire imperium and is likely to be constantly spread thin and forced to pick and choose where to offer its strongest support [Music] the next flaw is reserve fleets of the segmentum obscurus the region of imperial space that is home to the warped storm known as the eye of terror the primary base for the forces of chaos in the milky way galaxy one of the most important jobs of the imperial navy is to maintain substantial reserves of vessels around the eye of terror in order to be prepared to deploy against the forces of chaos should need be interestingly enough while the imperial guard never seems to be short on numbers the obscura battle fleet does not possess the manpower to maintain the number of reserve crews necessary to patrol the eye of terror it is said that entire shipyards are filled with what are now antiquated vessels that were built for deployment in segmentum obscura should the need for a surge around the eye of terror arise these older inactive ships will be commissioned into service and often crewed with green recruits or ratings from destroyed ships these servicemen are unlikely to have experience with their new vessel and yet they are tasked with patrolling one of the most dangerous areas in the imperium of man again this only happens in desperate situations but the 40k universe is a perpetually desperate situation reserve fleets are prone to mass panics and mutiny a vulnerability that chaos warfleets can easily exploit all in all though not often discussed the fact that the imperial navy is not quite fully capable of responding to warp havoc is one of the imperium of man's most significant flaws the next flaw is battleships now before you scream heretic i am not here to insult the master vessels of the imperial navy they are quite impressive but if one aspect of the inn's fleet could be labeled inefficient it would be their battleships okay i'm here to insult them battleships are massive spacecraft i mean we are talking between six and eight kilometers long and can carry tens to hundreds of thousands of soldiers they are well armed and armored limitlessly powerful machines and usually take on the role of flagship for an imperial lord admiral but the battleships have their issues for one with size comes a reduction in speed and maneuverability and indeed battleships like the emperor class battleship are slow and cumbersome and battleships are also expensive to build and maintain meaning they require cautious handling and care unfortunately this means that battleships are usually only deployed as part of larger fleet formations and in the most important battles and don't have much versatility in terms of use it's great that battleships are unstoppable forces of man's creation but if they drain the resources of the imperium more efficient alternatives need to be considered for the long-term benefit of mankind [Music] the next flaw is rank and file the imperial navy has very proficient officers but below them the imperial navy isn't really made up of highly skilled and specialized recruits the basic enlisted crewmen aboard warships are called ratings ratings carry out menial tasks like hauling weapons cleaning and maintenance and even fight when necessary ratings are volunteers as the pay is good enough and the navy allows them to escape their desperate worlds so it's not like they were dragged into the navy but they aren't very impressive either armsmen transport and maintain weapons on a ship and protect the crew when called to do so voidsman on the other hand possess at least minimal training and skill and can perform ship maintenance and repairs but neither of these groups consist of irreplaceable soldiers who add significant value to a naval crew the imperial guard is defined by its specialist soldiers and elite units where the navy is defined by its elite ships which is the most important thing for a navy to have but it's sorely lacking in terms of the individual crewman this brings us to our next flaw which is indentured servants indentured servants or slave workers fall below the ratings in terms of rank they are taken from slums and penal colonies to do hard labor aboard naval vessels they are dragged to the navy these poor souls often die as a result of malnutrition accidents and disciplinary actions basically they exist to die for the fun of everyone else and can do little to improve their station in life though i have heard the rock is going to star in a movie called warp ninjas about an indentured servant from a hive world who rises to become a lord high admiral but i digress manpower is good but the kinds of conditions that the lower ranks of the imperial navy face aboard vessels is not conducive to producing strong loyal and skilled soldiers and perhaps on the contrary puts any given naval ship at high risk of mutiny the next flaw to discuss is space hulks space hulks are formed from the wreckage of abandoned starships and debris that have been fused together by the forces of the warp and often are so large that they have their own atmosphere and gravity kind of like my first girlfriend except space hulks don't have beards the imperial navy often loses ships and when they do what remains is at risk of becoming part of a space hull and space hulks pose a threat to the imperium of man where they exit the warp back into real space the forces of chaos and even xenos often inhabit these hulks and have to be destroyed by the imperial navy and because no hulk is the same as another it's hard for the navy to model them for assault planning purposes hulks present a uniquely challenging threat to the imperial navy [Music] the next flaw is a lack of intelligence capabilities the imperial navy does have a branch that handles intelligence but it's not quite clear how much they're able to accomplish though little is known about them it is thought that they at least control a militarized spy network during the sabbat world's crusade navy intelligence operatives discovered a plot being carried out by lord high militant general hector drover to advance his career using malicious methods that would allow him to usurp the position of warmaster from marshall makarov the naval intelligence operatives were able to act in time to deal with the issue that said this event only represents intelligence gathering concerning human dealings due to the scope of territory in the imperium of man and the amount of different species and threats they deal with it's likely that naval intelligence doesn't provide the navy with much of an advantage and even if they had the manpower and resources to spy on their enemies effectively they would still need time to communicate their findings back through the naval hierarchy anyway stands an astropath at the ready and of course spying on enemy xenos requires alien language skills as well and the last time i checked rosetta stone's website did not feature a dark tongue course though they do offer something called dari which i think is an orc language [Music] the last flaw is a lack of uniformity the imperial navy's battle fleets share little in common with each other even fleets within the same segmentum can vary significantly from sector to sector these fleets have been separate from one another and evolving on their own for millennia according to their own needs a battle fleet in segmentum solar could look very different from a battle fleet in segmentum tempestus both fleets will have been shaped by different environments enemies battles and peoples this means that it's very hard for lord high admirals to understand the units they have command over or know how to best use their forces battle fleet cadia for instance faces constant war thanks to the unrest surrounding the cadian gate and thus is a very active fleet likely to have a much higher number of inexperienced ratings due to the constant losses they experience and also are probably more prepared for conflict than other fleets as well the first advantage is cruisers in the flaws video we took some time to criticize imperial navy battleships for being slow and cumbersome and for the expense of resources required to build them that makes them a rare sight cruisers make up for the shortcomings of the battleship at least in terms of capabilities cruisers a mainstay in the imperial navy fleet are not as powerful as battleships but are much faster and still extremely offensively capable they are more agile than a battleship but more powerful than an escort boasting the firepower speed and maneuverability for a variety of different missions from patrols to raids to all that war wow sorry thought sly marbo was behind me for a second there are a variety of different types and classes of cruisers but they usually are between four and six kilometers long and can hold anywhere between ten thousand and one million crewmen light cruisers favor speed and maneuverability while heavy cruisers favor defense and firepower then there's the more antiquated grand cruiser that is a solid mix of a cruiser and a battleship and can be used in a range of ways from heavy raider given its speed to flagship the next advantage to talk about is what i believe might be the advantage that separates the 40k imperial navy from all other space navies the battle fleets of segmentum obscurus why is it that a small country like israel for instance is so advanced in terms of its military capabilities well it exists in close proximity to many threats and this has driven them to focus on developing their military throughout their history segmentum obscurus is the home of the eye of terror a warp storm and warp rift of psychic energy 20 000 light years across that houses the largest concentration of the forces of chaos in real space the most malevolent and abhorred demons of chaos break free into real space constantly from the eye of terror the bastion fleets acadia agrippina scarus and corona and even to a degree battle fleet gothic exist in a perpetual state of warfare they eat nightmares for breakfast darkness for lunch and death for dinner and that's on a good day this constant state of hell has led these fleets to become the most hardened the most prepared the most adept in the imperium of man the bastion fleets put the shield in holy shield battle fleet cadia guards the kady and gate the literal exit of the eye of terror can you imagine if they had the luck of trading universes with navies from other science fiction franchises the galactic empire would be the equivalent of a luxury vacation for the 40k imperial navy after dealing with the abominable and corrupting forces of chaos that spill forth from the warps rectum to poison the hearts and minds of man tearing him apart from both the inside out and outside in put up against any other naval force the obscurus battle fleets would rain down hell on their opposition not out of an untempered aggression but out of a supreme vigilance and desensitization to total war and the most depraved forces of evil in any existence [Music] the next advantage to discuss is one we've mentioned before forge worlds forged worlds are entire planets dedicated to the manufacture of machines weapons and other technology yes it takes an unreasonable amount of time and resources to construct ships in the 40k universe and yet they have an abundance of them having entire planets run by the adeptus mechanicus the imperium entity employing scientists engineers and technicians and charged with overseeing the imperium's technology allows the navy to have the requisite vehicles to maintain a presence throughout the entire milky way galaxy i don't want to overly complement the adeptus mechanicus they hold back the imperium in many ways but forged worlds are a plus forged worlds are the explanation for how the imperium is able to have an extraordinary amount of just about everything including massive ships which are typically constructed in large shipyards orbiting the forge worlds [Music] the next advantage is the fury interceptor the fury an attack craft used for void combat is the most common starfighter in the imperial navy's employ housed by the thousands on cruisers battleships and other carriers the fury interceptor is a very versatile ship and can be used as a fighter as an interceptor that shoots down enemy torpedoes and bombers as a scout and reconnaissance ship or as an escort for the imperial navy's star hawk bombers during their own assaults furies can even attack planetary targets within an atmosphere but being that they range between 40 and 70 meters in length they are best used in space the fury is also well armed with all of its patterns able to be equipped with high explosive anti-starship missiles and several banks of forwards firing laz cannons naturally our next advantage is atmospheric aircraft after the horus heresy the imperial navy was broken up into the imperial guard and imperial navy the navy was given control over all aviation and air support capability including atmospheric aircraft the two anchors of which are the lightning and thunderbolt the thunderbolt is the flying man's aircraft it's gritty well armed and armored and altogether well-rounded it has good speed and maneuverability powerful nose mounted weapons and missile loadouts on its wings the thunderbolt is primarily an air superiority fighter seeking out an engaging enemy aircraft but like many other navy ships it's also very versatile and can be used in multiple roles including as a high altitude escort fighter a low altitude fighter bomber or even as a reconnaissance aircraft the lightning on the other hand is even faster and more agile than the thunderbolt but gives up a bit in terms of armor the lightning is armed with a single ventral mounted long barrelled auto cannon two wing mounted last cannons and four wing mounted heal strike missiles the lightning is primarily used as a reconnaissance aircraft or an interceptor the aircraft is able to perform short takeoff and landing allowing it to be scrambled quickly during an enemy attack the lightning is also capable of limited space flight in a vacuum and atmospheric reentry and thus it can be launched from imperial starships in orbit [Music] the next advantage is astropaths i know we previously hated on the imperial guard for a lack of communication technology but most space forces would face difficulties in trying to communicate between the millions of planets and ships encompassed by the imperium across the entire milky way galaxy at least the imperium of man has psychic beings called astropaths who make such communication possible astropaths use their telepathic abilities to carry out super luminal communication and thus link mankind throughout the galaxy after being honorably selected kidnapped into the imperium's employ they are then dutifully trained tortured in order to better resist the forces of chaos in a process called soul binding this allows the astropaths to enter their minds into the warp and transmit communications throughout the galaxy in an instant without being corrupted by the evil forces of immaterial in terms of the imperial navy warships often have a chief astropath along with an astropathic choir on board who are responsible for maintaining adequate long-range communications that said they can do more than just long-range communication they have many other advantages they add to a naval crew as well such as the ability to control the minds of gunners on enemy ships or the ability to dull their own crew's primal instincts to make them fearless earning astropaths the nickname vodka of the skies the next advantage is navigators navigators are human mutants who possess the navigator gene giving them the ability to navigate starships through warp space navigators have a third eye called a warp eye on their foreheads which allows them to sense the tides of the warp as we discussed in the flaws video naval crews can't detect the spatial movement of warp space once their ship is inside the warp thus without navigators warp travel would be nearly impossible and the imperium would likely fall navigators can also live up to 400 terran years and as they age their abilities increase in power now navigators aren't only an advantage because of the warp all space navies have to deal with some form of warp space or black holes and navigators could most likely direct ships through any such entity and more they are basically the 40k version of the smartphone [Music] the next advantage is offensive weapon systems imperial navy starships are very well armed and feature a variety of extraordinarily powerful weapons first there's the disruption macro cannon which fires a shell of highly charged ionized deuterium atoms which overload and shut down power transfer systems throughout target ships allowing users to capture enemies alive and ships intact then there are lances which are powerfully directed energy weapons or basically giant last guns that can destroy even the most well-armed ships the navy also employs torpedoes which are gigantic self-propelled ship-to-ship missiles with enormous destructive power while certainly somewhat easily evaded naval captains use torpedoes to get enemy ships to move in specific directions lastly we have nova cannons limitlessly powerful weapons mounted below the front of navy cruisers and battleships nova cannons are mostly unrivaled in terms of destructive potential and can create a blast capable of leveling multiple starships remember in 40k it's not the size of the boat that matters nor the motion of the ocean it's the size of the gun and whether or not you can fire it before a chaos demon convinces you to rip your spleen out through your ear our next advantage comes on the defensive side of things void shields void shields are protective barriers of gravitic or electrically charged energy that form an invisible band around naval vessels that can absorb radiation interstellar dust particle showers and sustained weapons fire they displace ranged attacks by subtly distorting the localized space-time around the point of impact void shields are not great protection in close combat but with the colossal size of imperial navy ships much void combat is done at range where void shields are most protective void shields are unique defense systems that encompass the entire vessel a great advantage even relative to many other space navies [Music] our final advantage is universal reverence it may be true that it is nearly impossible for the imperial navy to keep track of all the imperium's territory and for its leaders to know the peoples and planets of any part of their jurisdiction well enough to dictate intelligent orders down to the lower ranks but what they can almost always rely on when dealing in different parts of the galaxy is the dedicated support of the rest of mankind thanks to the navigator's connection to the golden throne and the warp the ecclesiarchy the state church of the imperium preaches that the imperial navy fleet is an extension of the emperor of mankind's divine will and is therefore sacred thus on many imperial planets the imperial navy is considered holy and deserving of the absolute compliance of imperial subjects this eases the burden of the navy of carrying out operations in unfamiliar imperium territories [Music] the central's alliance or confederacy of independent systems finds its roots in a loose coalition of trade and commerce guilt mainly focused in the outer rims of the galaxy because of centuries of neglect and lack of federal spending the outer rim was never able to develop much commerce and wealth like the inner colonies of the galaxy a lot of this was due to the fact that there was just a lack of infrastructure in the outer rims and there was also a lack of rule of law pirates and bandits were common in the region and they preyed on all types of shipping there are plenty of worlds in the outer rim that were ready to be explored and resources ready to be exploited but it would take a huge upfront investment and online security to make sure this kind of operation would go smoothly the republic at the time was demilitarized and only had a small force of judicials who just weren't well funded or numerous enough to patrol the other room so instead the senate proposed a free trade area in the outer rim to give large corporations more of an incentive to make objectively risky investments in developing the outer rim the program was relatively successful the private sector was able to do something that the republic couldn't mainly because they had more cash flow and capital to be able to sustain these investments overnight resource rich worlds were settled and industrial powerhouses began emerging as a new supply chain in the outer rim began to be the primary driver in growth in the republic kind of like china in the 2000s now not everything was great of course this was pure capitalism with very little to no government regulation yet organizations like the trade federation taking over services and utilities that are usually government-run or at least regulated it's not surprising that the trade federation was accused of price hiking and pressing local citizens into essentially indentured servitude in the decades leading to the clone wars the republic moved to end the free trade zone that had been present for several decades now you had many different type of trade organizations that were functioning on a business model that relied completely on a tax break the effect of no free trade zone was so devastating to the bottom lines of these organizations that it would eventually lead to the start of the confederacy of independent systems these corporate interests believed that they were responsible for developing the outer rim and they deserved to have this tax cut after all they were the ones to make their risky initial investment most of the services and security forces in ireland were also run by private companies the republic without a military presence in the region was about to tax a region of space where they had relatively little influence and didn't really provide any service so the separatist alliance formed as a breakaway confederacy and they weren't really all that ideological i mean these were essentially corporations that had decided that their bottom line was being heavily affected by republic policy that they deemed as unfair this meant the separatist military forces were not ideological either and more focused on preserving their own economic interests this means as a whole though the separatists have a huge weakness if you're able to attack their commerce and business holdings with enough sanctions and military actions it's very likely you're gonna win the war at the end of the day a businessman is always willing to negotiate because they understand the language of money the lack of ideology means that the separatist forces were mainly made up of droids separatist leaders weren't military people and shied away from the front lines and usually appointed mercenaries to lead their armies these mercenaries were usually highly competent and experienced but their loyalty was available for the highest bidder these individuals were usually keen on self-preservation and weren't really attached to any type of cause there's also a general lack of accountability when it comes to employing a mercenary but at the same time mercenary leaders don't necessarily see themselves as part of a command chain which means that they can disobey orders if they want to or even quit a job in the middle of the battle with little consequences when everything is just about money it makes things a lot simpler but it also makes it a lot easier to persuade someone to change sides the majority of the separatist navy finds their roots in the mercantile fleets of the trade federation and other corporate interests this means most of the separatist navy is made up of converted commercial and industrial ships if we look at the lucra hulk battleship it is essentially one gigantic freighter repurposed as a troop carrier slash capital ship what you end up having is a ship designed to carry a huge amount of cargo which creates extra surface space that needs to be defended covered in shields and point defense weaponry these are essentially bolt-on battleships and bolt-on creations will never beat a purpose-built machine like a venator-class star destroyer now obviously the severus line's made up for these inefficiencies and the ship designs by deploying very efficient droid troops but we'll talk more about that in our next video [Music] but the strange thing is even though the separatist alliance uses droids which are cheaper and easier to maintain in field their ships are still built for organics all separate ships still have physical bridges with individual consoles that need to be controlled by an operator this of course is complicated by the use of traditional interfaces like buttons and keypads this is really completely unnecessary a droid should be able to plug straight into a computer without any kind of physical interface adobe most several ships shouldn't need a bridge at all because it provides a vulnerable target for enemy forces instead you can have a heavily fortified control center at the center of your ship or maybe several droid ai brains scattered across the ship for redundancy purposes this also makes a lot of the infrastructure and the ship unnecessary why does a droid run ship need hallways different decks when all interactions can happen through a computer system there's really no need to physically move around the ship at all instead of running on gas or some other fuel the separatist turbo lasers ran on turbo laser shells these larger projectiles were loaded manually into a turbo laser significantly decreasing the fire rate while at the same time increasing the size and weight of all the ammunition these firing positions also required a crew that would fire aim and reload this is obviously something that could be automated and we see this in other ships in the star wars galaxy some separate ships even had their turbolasers fixed in position and these were used in broadside exchanges which seems completely out of place in this more technologically advanced galaxy severus fighters are mainly known for their speed maneuverability and low cost and they're primarily used for defensive purposes simply because they lack any real range for instance the vulture droids use a solid fuel slug not all that different from the ones used in rocket boosters for the space shuttle program and while these solid fuel slugs were quite potent and powerful they only lasted for 35 minutes which meant that the operational range for a vulture droid fighter was comically low especially for something that was flying in the vastness of space this is why the vulture droid was limited to just a defensive purpose it was said during the clone wars veteran clinton pilots were able to predict the movement of ai droid fighters this was due to the limited ai on these ships while efficient and more than capable of overwhelming an enemy the droid fighters were quite predictable and would fall into specific attack patterns and routines for the most part starfighter doctrine in the separators alliance was all about quantity over quality this limited their ability as a fighting force and also limited their options during a battle the majority of separatist ships function with what most organic fleets would call a skeleton crew tips like the munificent class frigate barely had any bulkhead or armor at all simply because there was nothing to protect on board this also naturally meant that separatist ships had very little security which is why the jedi were able to time and time again infiltrate separatist capital ships and encountered very little opposition most navies would have an on-board security detail but most separate ships just had deactivated battle droids that weren't necessarily in use simply put the separatist alliance was very weak against space marines aside from heroes like general grievous or admiral trench the majority of separatist forces were led by commander droids who were pretty incompetent and like the ai brains the ai brains of the droid fighters relatively easy to exploit and predict it's like playing a video game even with the ai on its highest difficulty level you'll begin to see patterns over time and begin to exploit its flaws once the commander droids are taken out all you have left are lower level droids with very little strategic programming or tactical knowledge although they are relatively efficient at running their individual operations they lack their creativity in spark to outmaneuver enemy forces and the reason behind this is that the separatist alliance has purposely capped the processing power of the individual battle droid for one it keeps manufacturing costs down and perhaps more importantly makes the droids easier to control the last thing you really want to have with your droid army is for them to become sentient and then overthrow your rule by making the average droid in the cyprus navy relatively harmless on their own it gives the separatist council a more predictable fighting force the only people that they really need to trust and watch are the individuals they assign to lead these battle forces what they sacrifice though are capable ncos and junior officers that an organic army would depend on these are redundant measures point to place in case your commanding officer dies and ceos and junior officers are still able to lead their men to an objective this also meant that separatist leaders with their top-down leadership structure had to micromanage this meant the separate navy was not as flexible or capable of responding quickly to enemy threats which goes against everything we know about complex ai which reinforces the point that the separatists have put garbage tech running the ai in their droids in our last episode we talked about how short the range of the average droid ship was which essentially relegates them to a defensive role besides this short range these droid fighters were arguably much better than the ones at the clones field for one it took the gar 10 years to grow and train a clone pilot it took the separatist alliance navy probably an hour to produce a vulture droid and even though one clone piloted starfighter can defeat a single vulture droid in battle that clone pilot will definitely lose against 10 vulture droids a droid starfighter core was simply cheaper to maintain and easier and quicker to produce droid ships were also generally smaller than a piloted ship because they didn't have a cockpit life support additional shielding and armor around the pilots and other safety features like inertial dampeners to limit g-forces and ejection seats droids therefore had better power to weight ratio and were more maneuverable [Music] one of the most terrifying weapons in the severus alliance navy was known as the buzz droid usually fired out of some kind of canister or missile these were clusters of droid ships that specifically were designed to latch onto enemy ships and cut through the hole disabling crucial systems and eventually venting the entire craft into vacuum this was an incredibly terrifying ordeal for organics in a smaller single seat fighter very few ships actually had countermeasures to defend against these kind of weapons all one could do is wait for them to cut through your hole and kill you and because of the way they were developed and their diminutive size it was relatively hard to see them on the battlefield and oftentimes pilots didn't realize they had picked up a buzz droid until it was already doing damage to major critical systems on board even when the war was over there are still many active clusters of buzz droids flying around the galaxy which proved to be a huge problem for civilian shipping these were basically space landmines that could only be defeated by space princess diana [Music] the separatist navy happened to be one of the few factions that heavily relied on missile technology missiles were relatively expensive when compared to turbolasers and other energy weapons but they more than made up for in performance see missiles don't work on a line of sight principle they could go around obstruction and they could travel extremely long distances and allow a ship to attack another ship without necessarily exposing themselves the counter attack this is especially true in the star wars universe where most of the separatist alliance's enemies use line of sight turbo lasers the payload on a missile was also far more powerful than a terribilizer although countermeasures were oftentimes more effective against a missile than energy weapons what made the separatists navy so dangerous was that it had line of sight weapons and also missiles it gave them a lot of options when encountering an enemy for force had a huge weakness against ionic attacks and emp pulses the separatists definitely invested heavily in this technology for their own ships the command ship malevolence incorporated a gigantic ionic cannon that could disable the entire fleet on its own this was an unprecedented amount of firepower for one single ship i'd argue it's a much more useful weapon against fleets than a death star's main laser weapon the separatists also use the variety of iron bombs ion cannons and iron torpedoes combine that with everything else we've talked about like the bus droids the missiles and the turbolasers and you have an incredibly incredibly dangerous force the separatist navy was first and foremost an offensive military with an immense amount of destructive power the imperial class star disorder could hold a legion of storm troopers around nine thousand men this is a lot of people if you think about it not only do you have to house these individuals you also need to feed them and give them recreation areas during the republic era some clones were stored in stasis pots to save space on ships but the b1 battle droid which i had as a lego tactic form as a kid folds up neatly into a small shape while in this sleep mode they would recharge and update their software they took a very little space so even the smallest capital ships in the droid army could hold the ridiculous amount of troops on board the munificent class frigate could hold a hundred fifty thousand b1 battle droids while larger vessels like the lucra hulk battleships could hold closer to a million and the providence class command ship could hold 1.5 million this meant that the separatists could move around massive amounts of troops with relative ease and should they be really desperate in the middle of a navy battle they could just board an enemy ship doesn't matter how much more powerful and larger than imperial class star destroyer is compared to a magnificent frigate because those 150 thousand battle droids will definitely beat 9 000 stormtroopers the separatist lines had a much smaller population when compared with the republic and all the new worlds that joined the separatist alliance during the beginning of the clone wars were also smaller colonies this is why the droids had been chosen in the first place heavy civilian casualties were just not sustainable for the separatist alliance this separate destroyed army and navy for the most part was expendable [Music] there was rarely any backlash over the loss of an entire fleet or army the separatist leaders saw them as acceptable business expenses or losses stop it what should we do you stay here i'll be back that's great this emotional de-attachment to their troops meant that the separatist alliance was very cold and calculating and also very goal oriented during a battle this meant the navy was more focused and was alright with sacrificing entire portions of the fleet if it served the mission [Music] there are a lot of advantages of having droids crew your entire ship as we mentioned before it saves space droids are also pretty immune to normal space travel dangers like cosmic radiation exposure to vacuum and cold this meant that hole breaches and other structural damage usually have less of an effect on a separatist crew and should you need to repair the ship a droid could just walk out of an airlock and basically do the repairs without any kind of protective equipment or life support technically speaking separate ships didn't even need light support at all or gravity this was simply put in because most separate ships started out life as a merchant or commerce vessel which were usually run by a small crew of organic officers droids also didn't get fatigued or needed to be rotated in shifts they were basically perfect for space navies [Music] private industry will usually do things twice as fast twice as cheap and twice as unethical when compared to the public sector the zebra's alliance being run by a coalition of private corporations probably ran their military in the same way as a business with efficiency and focus on performance and cost savings as a government the separatists also put into place heavy censorship of what was actually going on in the war covering up details about separatist losses or war crimes committed by the droid armies and navies this combined with almost no civilian casualties meant that the separatist alliance was very resilient to war fatigue as long as the separatist lines continued acquiring assets aka new worlds and their resources they could continue absorbing losses and carry on the fighting [Music] although few in numbers the organic generals and admirals the separatists did have definitely outclassed their jedi counterparts when it came to strategy and tactics this is it your first command don't be nervous i wish everyone would stop saying that i'm ordering you to return to the ship we're going to need your help ahsoka it's too risky get your pilots out of there sir we've got their fighters surrounded it's too late run for it [Music] most of the confederacy planets were located in the outer rim where planetary defense forces were much more important and active at fighting bandits and pirates this meant unlike the jedi the separatist generals and admirals actually had battle experience prior to the war i have seen his work firsthand a corporate fleet was blockading malistaire a fleet led by trench that's why i recognized the tactics he tore our ships apart we barely escaped with our lives because most of the central worlds in the confederacy were located in the free trade zone that had been put in place almost a century before this also meant that most separatist central worlds were heavily industrialized like we said in our last video it was basically the china of the galaxy a massive manufacturing powerhouse that produced a huge amount of diverse products for the rest of the galaxy one of the major reasons why they wanted to end the free trade zone was because mid-rim and core rim worlds were unable to compete with the outer rim anymore not only were there no taxes on these worlds there was more access to natural resources and land was far cheaper to develop a lack of regulation also meant that corporations were untethered by ethical and safety concerns is the ultimate free market capitalist society this meant that the cyprus alliance could produce droids and ships at a ridiculously fast rate if chancellor palpatine had been involved with the separatist alliance navy secretly then the republic probably would have lost the war within month war has begun excellent everything is going as planned if you look at the numbers they just don't add up at the battle of geonosis the grand army the clones had two hundred thousand troopers while the cyprus alliance had over five million droids like russia or united states in world war ii the cyberdose alliance has huge industrial capacity that they quickly militarize turning them into an unstoppable force the first flaw to discuss is carriers carriers are heavy warships that serve as command centers for fleet commanders now those of you in the know will say that carriers are very powerful ships and that isn't untrue they are heavily armed and protected by plasma shields they also have the versatility of being able to operate in atmospheric conditions or deep space though losing importance due to the rise with void ray carriers play a central role in protoss fleet maneuvers the issue with carriers is offensive capability the ships have purifier beams that are used for glassing or planet cracking however carriers have no other armament aside from interceptors there seems to be no reason for the lack of light or offensive weaponry that can be used for smaller scale combat in space carriers are also slow and bulky and these weaknesses have been exploited by the zerg many have speculated that the reason the carrier is still even in use at all is due to the protos reverence for the ship meaning that their non-progressive society is partly to blame for this flaw [Music] the next flaw is that the protoss are not very unified as collectivist as the protoss might be throughout their history they have had trouble keeping all of the members of their race united under a single set of beliefs and fighting together as one millions of years ago a group of protoss were led away from the rest of their protest kindred by an evil zelnaga named aemon these protoss are called the taldarum or the forged and have evolved to be a fanatical warlike sect of protoss they were also rogue protoss in starcraft prehistory who refused to submit to the kala the main religion of the kalai the most common of the protoss kindreds these rogues were exiled by the kalai and became known as the narazim or the dark templar a group that cuts off their psionic appendages as a rejection of the collective and their literal connection to it and has evolved over time to be much more individualistic than the collide yeah self-amputation you just got owned kalai all of these different groups have different strengths abilities beliefs and behaviors this in itself isn't a flaw but that the collide don't necessarily foster loyalty and fealty and every protoss is possibly a reflection of a flawed system of citizen cultivation the protoss are not able to harness the full alien power of their race [Music] the next flaw is the psionic matrix a psionic matrix refers to the circular matrix used to provide power to protoss buildings allowing them to produce units and research upgrades many might consider the psionic matrix to be an advantage because it allows for the instant deployment of troops and buildings to the battlefield but the problem is that the protoss heavily depend on these matrices for power if a protoss structure loses connection with the matrix it will shut down until it's reconnected meaning that through the matrix the protoss are vulnerable when the term psionic matrix is used what comes to mind is the major one that was on the protoss homeworld of ire this matrix a network of crystals embedded in the crust of the planet that generated and spread psionic energy throughout the copula sector of space had to be destroyed to prevent the malevolence aemon from warping in the golden armada the dismantling of the psi matrix put the protoss force in jeopardy furthermore the protoss would need to build a matrix anywhere in space they went in order to maintain power for their fleet and ground forces and thus the protoss are most effective in their home sector where they don't have to prepare these structures the matrices are basically interplanetary colostomy bags without which the protoss can't do and even with an abundance of matrices they still make prime targets for enemies i suppose they had no other choice though well aside from solar power [Music] the next flaw to discuss is that the protoss are declining population sure the protoss can live for up to a thousand years but they have a low population regardless thanks to constant conflict they're somewhat of an impotent race as well that don't seem to reproduce much i could give the protoss a harder time for this but to be fair their females seem to lack holes their lack of numbers forces them to use robots in their military and for production of resources of which they do not have an abundance of in itself a result of limited population of course a lack of alien power also means a lack of numbers on the battlefield as well one might expect with more protoss to fight in battle with more weapons and resources and with a unified race the protoss would dominate against the zerg and terrance [Music] the next flaw is a lack of skilled crew members from the shuttle to the phoenix the protoss have a great number of capable ships the great fleet is replete with advanced warships and aircraft of all sorts they are technologically advanced enough to dominate space and atmospheric warfare however because the protoss population is in decline there is a lack of ready and able protoss to alien these ships most notably skilled pilots are in short supply meaning that despite advanced technology the ships have to be supplemented with robot droid power this makes protoss pilots integral parts of a ship's crew and if something happens to them an entire mission or even the ship itself could be in jeopardy the next flaw is collectivism and conformity the kalai the central protoss faction does not place heavy emphasis on the individual for much of their history protoss society was organized into a caste system before being abolished by protest leader artanis this has helped to reinforce a class-based mentality in its subjects that robs them of their individuality and promotes the state first this is what led to the dark templar in the first place thus many kalai don't aspire to rise above their brothers and prosper and thus protoss society is most likely not commoditizing the talents of its inhabitants or incentivizing its population to think creatively and be innovative the kalai have achieved advanced technology nonetheless but one can only assume their accomplishments would be far greater if they reinforced conformity less and allowed more talented and creative individuals to rise [Music] this brings us to our next flaw which is that the protoss are slow to accept change any religious society is going to be more conservative than others and this is no different for the protoss the kala is a rigid doctrine of belief and the kalai fear deviating from their religious tenets this is seen clearly in their rejection of the nazarene who could have been valuable members of society but instead were exiled because of their lack of faith the protoss are liable to put the kala before their best interests a vulnerability that their enemies can exploit the protoss follow the religious principles of dai ul great stewardship and kala path of ascension these principles make the protoss an honorable race but also make them act against their own best interest at times such as in protecting weaker races in the galaxy rather than using their time and resources to mobilize themselves into a supreme fighting force [Music] this leads us to our next flaw which is a lack of female protoss in important positions among the kalai female protoss are rarely seen in positions of power and don't play a significant role in protoss society many protoss even look down on terran women but to be fair the only one they've ever really had contact with ended up turning into the devil and trying to kill them all contrast that with my ex and me and the protoss have plenty in common but i digress i'm not saying that as a general rule if females are not in combat positions the society in question is flawed what i am saying however is that the breakaway protoss the narrazim do have a prominent position for females called matriarch and the females in this role have proven to be highly valuable assets razagal was the matriarch of the narrazim and she proved to be one of the most powerful psychics in the galaxy and was known for her stoicism and calmness in times of great chaos and the current matriarch vorazun is a skilled warrior able to teleport around the battlefield killing multiple enemies at once the kalai and their rape culture are as usual limiting their own potential by holding women down in society [Music] the next flaw up is robots the protoss are not a prolific race and thus need assistance to produce things and fight on the battlefield thus protoss military capability often relies on automated robotic war machines with such ubiquitous use of robots they entrust huge responsibility to non-protoss entities entities not necessarily loyal to their cause that pose the threat of uprising the purifiers are a robotic race created by the protoss to replicate the greatest warriors in protoss history given that the aim with the purifiers was to create a fighting force elite even for protoss standards their creation was a serious risk indeed during the protos empire the purifiers rebelled and had to be put down by the protoss then there is the colossi massive robotic walkers designed by the protoss to destroy large numbers of ground targets colossae are a bit antiquated at this point in starcraft history which is probably for the best because some protoss believe they could not be controlled and could also end up rebelling against them if the zerg don't get the protoss their own robots might a lesson we can all learn from especially those of us who own roombas [Music] the last advantage is simple a lack of diversity of enemies sure the protoss have existed for millions of years but over that time their main threat has been the zerg a race that while having variation among its breeds is still somewhat homogeneous as an enemy now that we've covered warhammer on this channel it's only fair to judge other factions relative to the factions in the 40k universe where the enemies are incredibly powerful and of various different forms species and dimensions the protests know how to fight the zerg but if confronted with other threats it's unknown how they'd fare [Music] the first advantage to discuss is the protoss mothership the three kilometer long mothership is a massive protoss support vessel that served as the flagship of the famed golden armada at the core of the mothership is a huge kedaron crystal infused with psionic energy that allows the ship to crack the space-time fabric the power created by this crystal projects a cloaking field that covers the vessel and renders nearby protoss forces and vehicles invisible offensively the ship is a devastating force using its purifier beam to destroy entire enemy squadrons and planets mother ships can also enter planetary atmospheres using inertial nullifiers allowing the ships to take part in surface battles and anchor the entire protoss force in combat [Music] of course we cannot talk about protoss ships without discussing our next advantage the incomparable spear of a dune the spear of a dune is an arc ship a massive protoss warship constructed at the height of the protoss empire first this ship dwarfs many of the largest ships across major science fiction franchises it comes in at kilometers long and 17 kilometers across designed to preserve protoss society and culture in times of great need the ship can carry an entire protoss civilization it can carry multiple armies of protoss warriors fleets of carriers and mother ships in its hangars massive ships in their own right and can sustain itself for generations listen i can't go into every feature of the spear of a dune here that would take a whole video in itself that said the ship is loaded with goodies while in ancient construction its technology is still advanced by current protoss standards its armament is such that it can wage war single-handedly it features a wide array of powerful weapons and abilities such as a harvesting beam thermal lances time bombs purifier beams solar lances time stop and so on the ship can also provide full energy support to surface troops meaning that it's somewhat of a fail-safe in the case that psionic matrices fail the ship also features a star forge in its lower decks which in essence is a mobile war factory producing combat weapons on the go [Music] the next advantage to discuss is technological development the protoss might be the most technologically advanced race in the entire universe though it's not quite fair to call their innovations pure technology because almost everything in their arsenal is powered in part by psionic energy and thus through telepathic energy and the kala their system of belief they are actually spiritually and cognitively bonded with their machines we are going through specific examples of their technology in this video so why make tech its own advantage well because of the grasp that the protoss have over their technology the humans in the 40k universe have awesome tech the only problem is that no one understands it including the people in charge of it the protoss are wiser than this however as they limit their technology at a fear of their inventions evolving faster than they can understand and control them instead the protoss are restrained with their innovations and have developed a slow and steady system of technological development that they have carried out over thousands of years [Music] next up we have warp travel as the protoss have been developing their technology through the ages as you might expect they have mastered warp travel and the complexities of time and space i'd like to be able to rag on them more because they're aliens but i don't know how to use a toaster there's no traveling through hell required for the protoss to traverse the galaxy the protoss are much ahead of their tearing counterparts in this regard they can very easily and seamlessly enter warp space and exit very close to celestial bodies meaning shorter travel times to their destinations the protoss can also open warp space rifts on the surface of a planet using warp beacons meaning that they can warp ships structures and infantry right onto and off of the battlefield there's no need for conventional atmospheric exit plans in the case of the protoss [Music] the next advantage is that the protoss are adaptable harsh conditions and climates can't stifle the resilient protoss they're built tough like fords but unlike the automotive company they're not complete the protoss are built to survive in almost any environment they are strong and fast and are outfitted with sharp claws for more primal engagements yes protoss derives sustenance from light but they can go without light for extended periods of time they need little water and what they do need can be absorbed right through their skin and even without light and water they can still survive when the dark templar lived on shakuras a lightless planet they did what any highly intelligent alien race baseball player would do they modified themselves biologically the protoss are elite physical specimens this brings us to our next advantage the protoss are highly intelligent mind readers the protoss are of unrivaled intelligence and are able to simultaneously process multiple channels of thought and memory in an instant while jim raynor's superpower is an unlimited capacity to process beer in his stomach the protoss can think far ahead of their enemies in battle and they also have psionic powers meaning they can read minds but they can also use their psionic abilities to charge their weapons shield themselves and manipulate matter naturally our next advantage is communication protoss communication is pretty straightforward and efficient when it comes to close range communication protoss have the advantage of being psionically connected to each other and can speak telepathically thus remaining silent to the observer or enemy protoss can even sense each other's emotions using their psionic appendages there is a range limit to their telepathic abilities though but the protoss have invented psychic boosters which you can think of as wi-fi extenders that are used for ship-wide broadcasts and then they use styling spires for communication across interstellar distances and when it comes to cross-species communication the protoss can use their telepathic powers to directly connect to and interface with terran communication systems the protoss have no need for fancy video conference apps in the future google's only consumer is the zerg who continually get demonetized for making youtube videos criticizing terran colonialism [Music] the next advantage is the void ray the void ray is a dark templar escort ship a novel endeavor created through the combination of nerizim and kalai technologies the void ray is constructed around a prismatic core a synthetic crystal that serves as an eternal power source that draws its energy from both the void and kala the faith of the protoss thus the ship is self-sustaining the ship is also equipped with flux field projectors with the void ray aiming at a target and the flux projectors deployed it can shoot a powerful prismatic beam of energy out capable of decimating heavily armored structures and massive warships though only 600 meters in length the efficiency of the void ray has positioned it to replace the carrier as the flagship of the great fleet [Music] the next advantage is armor the protoss have a few different types of armor but zealots the backbone of the protoss military wear powered suits along with being exceptionally reinforced powered suits are outfitted with a plasma shield generator a vital signs monitor navigation tools compression technology and a respirator the suit also enhances its wearer's psionic powers that in itself makes the suit fairly strong but unique to the protoss power armor are psionically calibrated warp stones set on the armor surface when the protoss wearing the suit nears death these crystal matrices have the power to teleport the ailing protoss to safety where of course if the protoss is gravely injured but wishes to return to the fight he can be placed in the shell of a dragoon and sent back into battle but i digress the ability to teleport away from danger makes the already thousand-year natural life expectancy protoss even harder to get rid of [Music] and finally our last advantage is the phoenix the phoenix is a protoss superiority starfighter the ship isn't perfect but what makes it truly special is its speed and maneuverability it can evade and outmaneuver almost any of its enemies phoenixes are so capable that they are frequently entrusted with holding back enemies that outnumber them they are often deployed to the outer rim of protoss territory where they survey deep space for alien threats armed with ion cannons the phoenix is offensively capable incinerating targets with its energy beams the cannons are a good fit for allowing the agile phoenix to fire while moving around its speed but the beams do have a wavelength limit and so close quarters combat against more lightly armored enemies is where it's most effective that said when under threat from powerful enemies by overloading the ship's warp field phoenix pilots can unleash a gravity beam which immobilizes targets for a few seconds the diversion of power necessary for the beam used to reduce the phoenix mobility and strike capability as well but technological improvements in the year 2506 improved the power management systems of the phoenix allowing the craft to use the beam to hit multiple targets and without diverting power from its weapon or propulsion systems and thus the phoenix makes our list [Music] number one no cloaking devices cloaking devices were common on both klingon and romulan vessels the federation's two traditional enemies the federation had obtained a romulan cloaking device in the year 2268 by sending the enterprise to steal one from the romulans they installed the device on the enterprise which enabled it to cloak they obtained another one in 2286 from the hms bounty a klingon vessel stolen by kirk and his crew they could have easily reverse engineered these cloaking devices and produced them on a mass scale but in the year 2311 the federation signed the treaty of algeron with the romulan star empire it defined the neutral zone between the two powers that each side was forbidden to cross thus stopped confrontation between them but it forbid the federation from developing cloaking technology for their starships whilst the romulans still could so the federation lost out in a big way in order to maintain the status quo sounds like some other one-sided deals i can think of it is clear that the house does not support this deal but tonight's vote tells us nothing about what it does support nothing about how let's not go there now because of that treaty the federation didn't develop cloaking technology on starships doesn't mean they didn't try some factions within starfleet intelligence did develop a cloaking device that enabled ships not to just be invisible but to travel through mata such as asteroids and planets as well it would have made starfleet ships almost invincible but as soon as the device was discovered by the crew of the enterprise d who used it to escape being trapped in an asteroid they owned up to the romulans and vowed not to break the treaty again they could literally have just flown past the romulan warbird and continued to develop the technology in secret but they chose to own up about it instead there was however one starfleet ship that legitimately had a cloaking device and that was the uss defiant that cloaking device was on loan from the romulans and officially could only be used in the gamma quadrant with cloaking technology think how much more effective starfleet could have been against the borg voyager could have traveled back through the delta quadrant cloaked avoiding most of the confrontations and the enterprise e would have fared a lot better against the scimitar but starfleet and the federation was too much of a goody two-shoes organization and didn't want to break the rules number two not many dedicated warships for all of the next generation era and certainly the first half of the deep space nine era starfleet lacked any dedicated warships ships such as the enterprise d were more like luxury cruise liners in space look they even had a yoga studio it's ridiculous and wonderful and a bar that hosted a weekly wrestling event but all that tomfoolery made them unprepared for a serious encounter with a hostile alien force at the battle of wolf 359 they lost 39 ships against a single board cube and at the battle of sector 001 they didn't fare that much better losing at least 20. starfleet did eventually realize their stupidity and start building some dedicated warships such as the defiant class and later the prometheus class which was able to defeat a romulan deredex-class warbird with little effort by utilizing its multi-vector attack mode where the ship split into three pieces but if these ships had been introduced earlier think how many lives could have been saved in the wars with the borg and the dominion number three section 31 an out of control intelligence agency starfleet had a super secret autonomous special operations agency known as section 31. they were somewhat akin to the cia if you believe all the conspiracy theories about that organization they wore black com badges and officially they weren't part of starfleet you don't sound like starfleet because i'm not starfleet we are far more resourceful that's how we found you and don't worry we know how to keep a secret even though they were created by staff lead originally but they could break all of starfleet's rules flox was kidnapped starfleet would never authorize that reread the charter article 14 section 31 there are a few lines that make allowances for bending the rules during times of extraordinary threat in the early days of the nx01 enterprise malcolm reed was contracted by section 31 and for a period of time worked against captain archer's orders in the kelvin timeline section 31 worked with genetically engineered humans to secretly design and build a dreadnought class starship and then tried to cover their tracks by killing the enterprise crew who discovered the plot that ended up with section 31's ship the uss vengeance crashing into starfleet's own headquarters in san francisco in the dominion war section 31 developed a biological weapon in the form of a virus which infected the founders luckily odo passed on the cure to his people saving them from extinction section 31 weren't accountable to anyone they had no known physical headquarters and for them the end would justify the means but simply they could kill whoever they wanted to if they thought that it was for the benefit of the federation but this all created internal conflicts with other officers and just led to instability and death number four the prime directive the prime directive also known as general order one was starfleet's non-interference rule whilst being quite complicated with 47 sub-orders in general it prohibited starfleet from interfering in the internal affairs of alien cultures and also prohibited them from revealing themselves to pre-warp civilizations but this rule whilst being logical for the most part sometimes stopped the federation from mounting rescue missions to save their own people like the time wharf is aboard a klingon ship that is attacked by a rival faction in the klingon civil war or the recent warning i'm going to talk about star trek discovery the recent episode of star trek discovery in which captain pike decides not to take a breakaway human civilization of 11 000 people in the beta quadrant back to earth because they are still at the level of pre-war civilization even though one guy in the group is really clued in about what's going on has already guessed that they have a starship and seems totally up for being rescued the rule also sometimes caused starfleet crews to place themselves in danger in order to avoid revealing themselves to less developed civilizations did the indigenous light form see you no mr spock they did not the prime directive clearly states there can be no interference with the internal development of alien civilization i know what it says which is why i'm running through the jungle going to disguise although it didn't really go as planned in that particular instance basically the prime directive is a nuisance and it's always something they end up messing up anyway [Music] who are they number five the earth is often left defenseless which modern military doesn't put its most advanced weapons and ships in position to defend its home territory the us has military bases all over the country so does the uk when russian bombers fly close to uk airspace eurofighter typhoon aircraft can be mobilized within minutes to intercept but in starfleet they often leave the earth defenseless there seems to be no home fleet to protect the planet and this massive thing in orbit was unarmed can you believe that although it did have 40 weapon mounts on which phasers could be installed and could be ready for battle within wait for it a week the borg aren't going to wait for a week for you to be ready for battle on two occasions board cubes were able to breach the so-called mars defense perimeter which really didn't offer much defense at all look there it is gone and they managed to fly right up to earth orbit on the first occasion the enterprise d was the only ship that could get to earth to stop them on the second occasion starfleet were a bit better prepared with a fleet of maybe 30 ships as a last line of defense for earth number six lack of industrial capacity while other space navies were able to build battle stations the size of small moons 160 kilometers across the biggest thing starfleet was able to build was this starfleet 74 which was apparently 13 kilometers in height the galactic empire in star wars had 25 000 star destroyers that's 25 000 of just one class of ship but starfleet was nowhere near that formidable some nerds online do estimate that there were probably about 25 000 vessels in starfleet's fleet but that includes runabouts which are about the size of a winnebago as well as small fighters so the actual number of capital ships would have been probably closer to ten thousand and many of them were older miranda excelsior and nebula class vessels starfleet's smaller size compared to the galactic empire in star wars or other space navies in star trek were due to their ethics the fact that they didn't use slave labor the death star was built with the labor of wookiee slaves the romulans used slave labor of the riemanns their neighboring planet to build their massive fleet and the borg of course kidnapped the populations of entire planets and turned them into drones to carry out construction of huge cubes and all of the operations of their fleet so starfleet had moral high ground but they also got totally destroyed in battles several times number seven they mixed their civilian population with the military for a long time starfleet didn't build warships which meant that those luxury cruise liner type ships with yoga studios had to double as warships when the time came but these ships carried the crew's family members including wives children and even pets will you take care of spot for me your animal during the battle of wolf 359 commander cisco's wife and son were both aboard his ship the uss saratoga when it engaged aboard cube the ship was an older miranda-class vessel and was easily disabled and then completely destroyed by the board the borg assault blew up cisco's quarters where his son jake and his wife jennifer were cisco managed to save his son but his wife had already died from the blast he was forced to take his son to an escape pod and eject leaving his wife's body on board to be destroyed when the ship blew up the event of course brought serious emotional damage to cisco but could have easily been avoided if starfleet had just been a bit more realistic about the dangers of living on a starship that could be called to fight off alien cyborgs at a moment's notice basically family members of the officers should have stayed at home number eight questionable human resources practices in star trek it often seems like everyone above the rank of captain is a total douchebag just like admiral docherty in star trek insurrection who orders the relocation of an entire civilization and it will destroy just as cultures have been destroyed in every other forced relocation throughout history jean-luc we're only moving 600 people how many people does it take admiral before it becomes wrong or admiral marcus in the kelvin timeline who conspires with section 31 and almost kills the entire enterprise crew leaving me no choice but to hunt you down and destroy you lock phasers wait sir wait wait wait wait i'll make this quick target all aft torpedoes on the enterprise bridge there were also some questionable promotions of junior officers nogg of ferengi reached the rank of ensign after just two years as a cadet at starfleet academy he was the only ferengi in starfleet so perhaps this is what they call affirmative action then there was wesley crusher who was made in acting ensign before he'd even taken the starfleet academy entrance exam picard later promoted him to being a full anson before he had attended the academy as a cadet he was brilliant but he also almost destroyed the ship on several occasions but his mom was best friends with the captain so hey number nine life expectancy of junior officers is very short well this may be cliche but junior officers always die in the original series they wore red shirts [Music] and in later series they wore yellow shirts but basically the rule is whenever they introduce a new crew member in addition to the main cast it's basically because they're gonna die like lieutenant hawk in star trek first contact guess what he dies i'm guessing this crew members just lack the appropriate training or perhaps were just in the wrong place at the wrong time but actually i think it's more like a storytelling element they can't kill off the main characters but they want to know the situation is dangerous by having a few people die number 10 they were kind of racist or speciesist for an organization that was in theory open for any member species of the federation to join and even non-member species could join actually if they got a letter of recommendation from a starfleet officer there sure were a lot of humans serving on these ships and not many aliens the enterprise d only had dwarf on the bridge who was fully non-human troy was half betazoid and data was an android made to look exactly like a human almost the only non-human bridge officer on voyager was tuvak same with the nx01 enterprise it seems the vulcans folded their fleet into starfleet after the federation was formed since we never see any vulcan ships in the prime timeline series except for enterprise which was mostly before the forming of the federation so you'd expect to see more vulcan officers but actually you never do except for this vulcan captain on benjamin cisco's ship so maybe they're just racist or maybe there are actually other federation ships with completely vulcan crews vulcans do say that they hate the smell of humans so it's like they practice segregation perhaps anyway humanity first so i think i'm with the federation on this screw aliens screw dolphins [Music] number one starship design for a long period of time star fleet didn't build warships but after their horrifying defeat at the battle of wolf 359 they were forced to rethink their strategy and eventually when they did reluctantly decide to build some dedicated battleships they produced some really incredible vessels the uss defied is a great example of this the vessel was more compact than other starfleet ships and was equipped with pulse phaser cannons photon and quantum torpedo launchers and ablative armor which would protect the ship when shields failed when weapons fire hit the armored hull the armor would burn off at a controlled rate diffusing the energy of the blast this controlled boil off would create a particle cloud that would defuse weapons fire kind of like a 24th century version of chaff that's used by fighter jets to evade guided missiles then there was the enterprise e a redesigned version of the enterprise d but with much heavier armament suited for more tactical roles such as fighting the board the enterprise e was also able to punch above its weight in its battle with the scimitar a ship with 52 pulse disrupter cannons and 27 photon torpedo launchers even if they did use some unconventional tactics put simply when they finally got their act together starfleet's vessels outclassed those of its rivals number two the ability to amass large fleets for battle starfleet wasn't as big as other space navies like we said in our previous video their reluctance to use slave labor limited their industrial capacity but they were able to amass large fleets for battle at wolf 359 they faced the borg with 40 ships at the battle of sector 001 a similar number but in the dominion war starfleet really pulled its resources together and amassed a fleet of 627 ships to take on the dominion and the kardashians in operation return the effort to retake deep space nine and control of the bajorn wormhole you see multiple galaxy class ships fighting together and other older style vessels so even at this time when they hadn't yet built a lot of dedicated battleships they still packed a punch number three soft power starfleet served the united federation of planets and from the start the federation were diplomats the federation was an alliance formed in 2161 between humans vulcans andorians and telerites to be honest i could cope with the two on the right but that one on the left i don't think i'd even want to be in the same room as that i'm speciesist i know anyway the federation didn't rely on military conquest to expand like the klingons did instead they relied on diplomacy peacefully recruiting member worlds by the latter half of the 24th century the federation had over 150 member planets so kind of like the european union which has just peacefully expanded by recruiting new members ever since its creation with one exception let's not go there and it isn't just member worlds that the federation would use its diplomacy on they were also very eager to negotiate with enemies they ended their war with the klingons with a treaty known as the kirima accords and maintain peace with the romulan star empire with another treaty known as the treaty of aldran which set out the neutral zone between federation and romulan space they were even open to fighting alongside their traditional enemies in order to defeat threats from elsewhere in the galaxy both the romulans and klingons fought alongside starfleet ships in the war with the dominion and the enterprise e also fought alongside two romulan ships to defeat the scimitar which was under the command of the illegitimate roman leader shinzon number 4 intelligence and ingenuity humans are smart and possess a unique way of looking at problems compared to other alien races some of which are very predictable vulcans always use logic for example this is one reason why the borg was so eager to assimilate earth the unique human characteristics you are not bored that's right i hope to stay that way you will be assimilated humans were often able to think on their feet and come up with ingenious solutions to problems outwitting their enemies like the time the crew of voyager were able to modify borg nanoprobes to create a weapon that could take on the seemingly invincible species 8472 which even the borg couldn't defeat or how janeway ultimately defeated the borg when she infected them with a computer virus after being assimilated number five incredible adaptability humans are adaptable a largely human crew was able to man and operate the former cardassian space station tariq noor which they renamed deep space nine the voyager crew were able to adapt to life seventy thousand light years away from federation space in the delta quadrant whilst maintaining star fleet protocol and even use board technology to modify their ship they built an astrometrics lab enhanced the sensors and hooked up a borg transwarp coil to their warp drive system which took 15 years off their trip home number six they had the ability to time travel so when all other options fail why not just time travel and solve the problem before it happens so starfleet were able to time travel but they didn't use it all the time they reserved it for when they were really screwed like the time an alien probe that only spoke whale language started destroying the earth and they decided to go back in time in a stolen klingon bird of prey to collect some whales to communicate with it then there was that time when the enterprise e followed the borg back in time to foil their assassination attempt of zephram cochrane pig trainer and the inventor of warp drive and it seems that starfleet took damage to the timeline very seriously by the 29th century they would have dedicated timeships like the starfleet timeship relativity which specialized in policing illegal time travel and repairing damage that illicit time travelers did to the timeline and she interacted with her past self in front of 15 crew members at a ping pong tournament approximately six minutes ago your time frame of course of course needless to say we need to clean up the timeline number seven the ability to rise from the ashes when starfleet lost control of deep space nine and were pushed back into the inner area of federation territory by the dominion they were really close to being completely annihilated and if dominion reinforcements had come through the wormhole they would have been toast but benjamin cisco persuaded the admiralty to allow one last battle with everything they had available in order to retake deep space nine and stop the dominion reinforcements from coming through the wormhole and they were successful thanks to the klingons joining the battle at the final hour and they were able to stop the federation from being completely eliminated number eight they were incredible at hand-to-hand combat yes starfleet personnel always seem to have the upper hand against aliens even when they're fighting in slow motion [Music] well maybe that was a special case but we do often see starfleet officers beating the hell out of klingons who are supposed to be a warrior race far more formidable than pathetic humans [Music] yeah the klingons lose every time even to smaller female members of the crew like major kira major kira may have been in the bajoran militia but she was no ronda rousey how much time three seconds maybe it's that powerful backhand that everyone in star trek seems to use the only exception is wharf who just always seems to get beaten up and he's a klingon after all so it makes sense i guess they were just a bunch of [ __ ] anyway number nine they weren't afraid to sacrifice we often see star trek officers sacrifice themselves for the good of the federation or even the good of other innocent alien races this ranges from risking their careers like when the enterprise e crew disobeyed a direct order so they can go assist starfleet to defend the earth from the borg or like when kirk went to work on the deflector relays in order to break the enterprise b free from an energy ribbon saving the entire crew and refugees who were on board but dying himself in the process i think this attitude of starfleet officers is summed up in the words of spock the needs of the many outweigh [Music] the needs of the few or the one and that takes us nicely into our tenth and final advantage of starfleet number 10 they had the moral high ground it's over anakin i have the high ground not that kind of high ground the federation was very strong on human rights starfleet officers couldn't just go and rape and pillage lesser developed civilizations in fact the prime directive forbade them from even revealing themselves to pre-warp societies citizens of the federation also enjoyed in general excellent human rights even non-biological species such as androids were given these freedoms it is the ruling of this court that lieutenant commander data has the freedom to choose [Music] yep data was pro-choice he had an abortion no i'm just kidding i support the unborn but there was no one more passionate about human rights and freedom of speech than picard check this out the first time any man's freedom is trodden on we're all damaged [Music] the first flaw to discuss is science now this is a short one but it's important to mention because it sets the stage for all of the other flaws on one hand halo has a very comprehensive lore and so because there is so much information on the unsc navy available as in 40k more flaws are discernible but even beyond that in the halo universe the unsc navy suffers from science you see more than just about any navy we have covered in this series so far halo tries very hard to have all of the unsc's weapons and technology abide by the physical laws of the universe as much as reasonably possible it's easy to tell that halo's creators put in strenuous effort to make things make sense and while that is very commendable it also means that unsc technology is going to have some very real flaws and that there is clearly a very human trial and error-like evolution of their innovations and so we will see moving forward that their flaws will be more practical than we've previously seen we're not going to have hell demons popping out of warp realms to corrupt the mind of man instead we are going to have some shoddy technology the next flaw to discuss is the magnetic accelerator cannon the large coil gun that serves as the primary offensive weapon on unsc warships and orbital platforms now the various different types of the gun are capable of delivering an extremely powerful blast akin to that of a nuclear weapon and without the risk of radiological fallout and if any of you comment on my use of the word nuclear nuclear i swear i'm gonna give you so much money god damn it i suck at dissing but i digress whether firing uranium cores or tungsten rounds the mack gun is a massively deadly weapon so what's the issue well the mack has a lot of trouble destroying covenant warships yes the mack cannon can indeed destroy the covenant's energy shield but it often takes multiple hits to do so not a quality one would want of their primary offensive weapon especially when unsc defenses aren't all that great there have even been instances when covenant ships have withstood hits from the mac with their shields down it's true that super mag cannons on orbital platforms super carriers and the infinity are much stronger but not having those guns mounted on ships throughout their fleet is a huge disadvantage the next flaw is orbital defense platforms odps are large unsc space stations built to defend important assets and locations as we already spoke about odps are very offensively capable as they are armed with super mac cannons that can obliterate covenant capital ships with a single shot no doubt they provide solid protection to unsc planets however there's one big issue odps don't keep their power supply on board as the generators would take up too much space on the platform and would be targets for covenant navy ships instead the power supply is kept on the ground which allows for bigger generators and more efficient power generation again this is great for the odps offensive capabilities the problem is that covenant ground forces can easily target and take out these generators thereby disabling entire platforms and this is exactly what happened during the battle of reach i don't know that the generators would be safer on the heavily defended platforms but it seems that the unsc needs to figure out a better way of defending these space stations that serve as an integral line of defense against covenant invasion of important planets the next flaw is artificial intelligence in the halo universe humanity employs smart ai and roles throughout the unsc smart ai are able to self-learn and be insightful as their intelligence is based off of the human brain they execute various operations aboard navy starships such as controlling weapons and defense systems however the ai that humans have developed is very limited due to rampancy which is the point at which the machines reach the point of being so overloaded with information that no room remains to carry out their tasks or basic functions that was second grade for me at this stage usually seven or so years into an ai robot's life the ai can go crazy and pose a danger to humans and so they are typically terminated before they ever pose a threat a robot experiencing rampancy can begin to think it is superior to humans and desire power thus unscai is liable to rebel and betray humanity the next flaw is titanium a armor titanium a armor is the primary armor plating protecting unsc warships the armor is composed of high grade titanium 50 that is alloyed with other elements for further fortification titanium a plating would be considered very strong armor in 2019 even prior to the human covenant war the plating was penetrable by mack cannon fire then against the covenant it has proven highly ineffective titanium a armor is supposedly heat resistant and yet covenant plasma torpedoes can boil it away in seconds pulse laser turrets can destroy a titanium a reinforced hull in one hit and even energy swords can do damage to the armor it's not even very protective against collisions with other vessels in space titanium a has seen some upgrades over time but without energy shields which humans didn't really develop until after the human covenant war the armor plating is of little help in protecting their ships the next flaw is the punic class supercarrier at almost four kilometers long the punic class is one of the largest class of warships ever produced by the unsc all space navies have proven to need super carriers in order to transport large forces and smaller aircraft vehicles and weapons throughout the galaxy oh what are we kidding super carrier builds are just pissing contests but it's important to piss the best my friends but again i digress super carriers are important in space navies and that is no different with the unsc and the punic class played that pivotal role for them the ship was also well armed being equipped with two super mac cannons multiple minimax and missile batteries the ship was well armored too just not to fight the covenant like many pre-war unsc ships the punic was protected by titanium a armor sans and energy shield this became a major problem for the unsc navy during the human covenant war as many punic super carriers were lost and losing a super carrier meant losing thousands of military personnel and a hugely expensive asset that takes overwhelming resources to produce by the end of the war only a few punit class super carriers remained [Music] the next flaw is the strident class heavy frigate or an italian frigate i wanted this ship to be an advantage it can serve multiple roles including as an escort ship for super carriers a transport ship for infantry or as an assault ship for attacks on the covenant fleet the 575 meter long ship is also well armed boasting a mark iv heavy coil mack cannon two m42 archer missile pods five mark 55 caster naval coil guns six mark 57 arena point defense guns six m870 rampart joint defense guns and three hyperion nuclear delivery systems the ship however has two major issues first they are able to be equipped with energy shields so they don't just have to rely on their titanium a battle plate armor and yet many stridents lack the energy shields due to a shortage of shield emitters and thus are vulnerable to being lost in battle secondly due to the ship's small size it is unable to carry an abundance of ammunition despite being armed with many guns thus much of its combat operations have to take place near supply depots thereby limiting the ship's ability to do battle in deep space the next flaw is the prowler the prowler is a corvette class ship used by the unsc navy for stealth infiltration and exfiltration electronic intelligence gathering and mine laying which is their only direct combat role prowlers are able to stay hidden using a variety of low profile sensor systems and stealth systems that mask the ship from visual and sensor detection anyway it's great that the unsc navy has a fleet of ships dedicated to intelligence gathering whereas many space navies neglect intelligence operations altogether but if the prowler is the best that the unsc has to offer then their intelligence fleet has a lot of issues while prowlers can stay in stealth mode for weeks they aren't completely undetectable after only 15 minutes in combat the ability of covenant sensors to detect prowlers increases exponentially secondly while prowler pilots are well trained in stealth maneuvers the ship itself forces its operator to trade speed for stealth the more engine power used the less stealth capable the prowler is additionally the inability of the prowler to sufficiently hide itself from covenant detection might not be such an egregious flaw if the prowler could reasonably defend itself but it can't as the ship is lightly armed and armored the limited stealth capabilities of the prowler really handcuffed the navy's intelligence gathering abilities especially in the face of far superior covenant camouflage technology that said humans have been able to improve the prowler a bit over time by copying from covenant tech [Music] the next flaw is faster than light travel in the halo universe slipstream space is the medium used for ftl travel slipstream space or slip space is a hyper compressed multi-dimensional space separate from real space the unsc shaw fujikawa translate engine allows humans to travel through slip space the engine rips apart normal space time by using high power cyclic particle accelerators to generate microscopic black holes while the unsc has clearly achieved faster than life travel with the aforementioned technology they have far from mastered it first for the most part only ships with large mass have the ability of ftl travel as their gravity wells are able to stabilize slip space enough for safe travel smaller naval ships could potentially break apart in slip space secondly a slip space drives magnetic coil could drift out of phase when entering and leaving slip space which means they require constant maintenance and repair sometimes such repair is needed during the course of travel and could result in casualties to technicians every 40k fan right now is like so even worse slip space drives are vulnerable to complete mechanical failure which could doom a ship in slip space third slip space travel isn't akin to real space travel in terms of the relationship between distance and velocity journeys through slip space are often affected by currents and other temporal variations therefore travel times even along previously traveled routes cannot be known for sure for humans a good part of ftl travel can be somewhat unpredictable perhaps worst of all as is the case with much of their technology the unsc navy's ftl travel capabilities pale in comparison to that of covenant technology the last flaw to discuss is communication the unsc navy has no real form of real-time interstellar communication when it comes to long distance communication they really only have two options they have the slipspace com launcher the system works by launching a communications probe through a slick space rift it then travels at ftl speed to its preset destination where it enters back into normal space and delivers the message com launchers are extremely expensive and so few have ever been built the other option is the slipstream packet generator this system works by sending a burst radio transmission through slip space instead of a probe the messages have to be fairly short given the power required to keep the slip space rift open and have a maximum range of 15 light years but at that range they are close to instantaneous these messages are also liable to interception by covenant forces so they are often heavily encrypted in any case no real perfect form of real-time super luminal communication has been developed yet by the unsc navy a severe disadvantage that said as humans learn more and more from covenant and forerunner technology their intergalactic communication gets better and better the first advantage is the unsc infinity an experimental infinity class super carrier commissioned into the navy following the human covenant war the infiniti is one of the largest and most versatile ships the unsc employs constructed using forerunner and covenant technology recovered by humans the ship helps to level the playing field for the unsc in their fight against them bastard aliens the over 18 000 foot long ship has a hull composed of the more advanced titanium a3 armor and is the first known ship to be equipped with energy shields an essential addition to the unsc navy given titanium a armor's inability to stop covenant weapons from penetrating their vessels that sounded kind of weird the ship contains hundreds of bays allowing for mass deployment of thousands of smaller ships escape vehicles and space pods the ship is also massively armed boasting super mac cannons a complex missile network for various modes of offensive and defensive combat and nuclear warheads nuclear nuclear warheads nuclear [Music] the next advantage is naval personnel not only does the unsc have a long history of badass commanding officers but general service people officers and enlisted men are also very capable all naval personnel are adept at self-defense and firearms the navy runs multiple elite academies where recruits go through a basic boot camp in which they are trained tested and evaluated some recruits complete additional space training as well whereas unskilled workers fill up the ships in many space navies unsc vessels are populated by well-trained soldiers marines and even spartans certainly the average crew member on a unsc navy vessel is far more capable than the average crew member on a 40k navy ship but i suppose that capability doesn't really matter when the object is to die in the latter case [Music] after personnel the next advantage is organizational structure the unsc navy doesn't just have a linear hierarchy going from top to bottom the navy is structured to assign different tasks to specialized departments at the top is unsc naval command or navcom navcom is then split into three commands fleet command which oversees mission structure ship deployment and space operations such as troop transport logistical operations command which oversees construction maintenance and distribution of supplies and parts and naval special warfare command which oversees special operations including spartan 2 deployment these commands then work in conjunction with unsc central command which oversees specific areas of space which the navy has to operate in lastly there's the office of naval intelligence which is officially subordinate to naval command but at the same time often works directly with unsc entities superior to navcom the combination of horizontal and vertical divisions of power in the navy creates a balance of power that keeps it in check and the division of tasks to specialize commands ensures that the navy is operating in an efficient manner [Music] of course the next advantage is the office of naval intelligence or oni of which many of you issued me death threats on behalf of after the flaws video as i just alluded to oni is officially the intelligence gathering service of the unsc naval command but its scope of responsibilities extends well beyond that whereas many space navies neglect intelligence altogether the office of naval intelligence is a powerful and dynamic agency that plays a significant role across all unsc operations they are able to maintain a tight grip over all communication across united earth government territories and employ citizens throughout the ueg in shadow work they also engage in counter espionage propaganda and top secret research and development programs like the spartan program and project mjolnir they are very much the nsa cia kgb and former east german government baked into one oni also has a large amount of military equipment for an intelligence agency there's the prowler fleet which we criticized last video they have a stealth cruiser and of course oni exerts significant influence over the unsc infiniti [Music] the next advantage is energy shield after experiencing heavy casualties and losing many ships during the human covenant war thanks to inferior armoring the unsc needed to develop a way for their ships to absorb covenant plasma without sustaining serious damage the answer came in the form of reverse engineering kid yard technology to create energy shielding throughout the unsc navy energy shielding now provides extra protection to a fleet formerly only fortified by titanium a armor energy shielding can be equipped on ships large or small and is even used for non-combat reasons such as separating pressurized areas like hangar bays from the vacuum of space energy shielding allows for expensive ships to be more protected from enemy fire and thus last longer of course when ships don't get destroyed it also means less casualties and less of an expense of resources to build more ships thanks to energy shielding the navy is able to focus more on building a lesser amount of more powerful ships like the infinity than on mass producing weaker ships for a war of attrition [Music] the next advantage to talk about is the halberd class destroyer at a length of 1590 feet the halberd is a smaller class warship in the unsc navy that is designed for offensive capability the ship has much more mass than other ships of its size thanks to its thicker and higher quality titanium armor thus allowing it to take a lot of damage that said the ship does not have the energy shielding defenses that larger ships do so why list it as an advantage well its offensive abilities compensate for what it lacks in terms of armoring not only is the ship fast but they are equipped with enhanced weapon systems they boast a spinal mounted twin-linked mac cannon 26 oversized m58 archer missile pods capable of holding over 800 archer missiles three shiva class nuclear missiles and four twin linked m870 rampart point defense guns when using wolf pack tactics a group of halberds can take out some of the most powerful covenant warships the next advantage is the ga tl1 longsword the main starfighter employed by the unsc navy the aircraft doubles as both an atmospheric and exo-atmospheric fighter and interceptor but can also be used as an escort or bomber among other roles the long sword is replete with advanced technology despite being a small four-person crew aircraft it can incorporate artificial intelligence and can even be piloted remotely enabling it for all sorts of more risky missions then of course the long sword is loaded with arms standard armament on a ga tl1 is the m9109 50 millimeter machine linked auto cannon and supplementary weapon systems can include four asgm10 missiles different types of bombs murray space mines and even a shiva class nuclear missile a weapon that is used more conveniently thanks to remote piloting abilities perhaps best of all the long sword is relatively inexpensive to produce meaning the unsc navy is able to deploy the ship in large numbers across their fleet [Music] the next advantage is drop ships the unsc navy deploys very capable and versatile dropships notably the pelican and condor the d77 tc pelican and other models of the pelican are extremely dynamic as far as drop ships go the drop ship's main role as is obvious is rapid insertion and extraction of troops vehicles and equipment from the battlefield the pelican is also capable of both atmospheric flight and limited space flight meaning it can transport troops from orbit to the battlefield what makes the pelican unique is that it is a powerful gunship in its own right the more well-armed variants of the pelicans such as the g77s can be equipped with multiple missile pods turrets and autocannons the d81 lrt condor on the other hand and its variants lack the armament of the pelican however what makes this ship special is that it contains a slipspace drive meaning it is capable of faster than light travel and can be used to transport smaller crews across the galaxy for various missions [Music] the next advantage is strategy and tactics if there is an advantage that is derived from the covenant superior technology it's that humans have been forced to be innovative in their strategies and planning in order to survive and this holds true for the unsc navy unsc legend admiral preston cole used creative slip space maneuvers during the battle of sai serpentis to lure a covenant fleet into a massive onslaught of shiva nuclear missiles resulting in the destruction of over 300 covenant ships other leaders like captain jacob keys and admiral carl patterson are famous for achieving victories against the covenant using creative tactics despite being overpowered the unsc navy also has an array of tactical formations they use in their fleet they have standard and specialist formations for almost every scenario in battle it's hard to talk about specific strategy with the unsc navy because there isn't really any consistency over time which is largely a good thing they have remained innovative and are constantly changing how they approach space combat a fact that in no small part has kept the unsc from annihilation [Music] and finally our last advantage is the nova bomb yes the covenant has far superior technology than humans and yet it might be possible that the most powerful weapon in the entire galaxy is wielded by the unsc the nova bomb is the king of all bombs a cluster of nine nuclear fusion warheads which can create a blast capable of obliterating a small planet when the bomb was detonated above joyous exaltation a covenant governed world it scorched a quarter of the planet's surface and shattered a nearby moon when it was detonated on the surface of gleic another small covenant-run world the blast turned the planet into a vast cloud of debris killing everything in on and around the planet instantly despite the unsc navy and larger unsc's many weaknesses the nova bomb is a very respectable trump card [Music] now there are certain people out there who are going to tell you that every culture we encounter should be respected no matter what their values are no matter what their beliefs or actions are um i say shenanigans to that but the covenant are made up of a variety of different alien species and they're actually uh segregated into different casts based on their race in their case there are definitely different racial traits between these different aliens a jackal is most likely going to be smarter than a grunt just like an elite will be physically less stronger than a brute and before any of you covenant sycophants reply that i'm not calling them by their native names well i'm a human so they can all go to hell hashtag remember reach anyway what this imposed caste system actually does is significantly decrease the efficiency of the covenant military and navy and imposes many strict artificial divisions that puts this otherwise advanced force at a huge disadvantage [Music] so the first problem we have is racial segregation the covenant were actually a space firing species they didn't really have a homeworld instead they had a home station that traveled from one world to another now they were a pretty religious society and they basically absorbed new cultures they encountered and forced them to adopt their religious practices but instead of uplifting each alien race they encountered a strict hierarchy was established based on values assigned to them by the profit race these weren't really intrinsic values based on the true potential of each one of these alien species instead it was based on prejudice stereotypes and very shallow examinations of these cultures for instance you had species like the grunts who were tier 6 civilizations stuck in the industrial age when they were encountered by the covenant their world was actually on the brink of collapse due to some ecological disasters that they had encountered the prophets and elites immediately classified them as a slave race placing them at the bottom of their social hierarchy they looked at the grunt's diminutive stature and laughable technological abilities and didn't account for the fact that as a species they were far younger than the prophets and elites and weren't necessarily inferior but just didn't have enough time as a society to develop and advance to the level that they were at as a matter of fact both the profits and elites advanced technology wasn't due to their own intelligence or ability as species but because of their interaction with the ancient forerunner races so by forcing the grunts into slavery they were actually limiting the potential of an entire race which actually made a pretty large percentage of their entire society [Music] the natural progression for highly advanced and efficient species is usually never slavery of organic beings and that's because organic beings are naturally unable to cope with these kind of circumstances it's far more efficient to use ai tech and machines to replace organic workers machines don't have the desires and biological impulses that organics did and were much better at doing quote unquote slave work and because of the suppression slavery and mistreatment the grunts time and time again would rebel against the covenant which made them a really big security risk for the entire faction this was especially a huge problem for the covenant navy because almost every ship employed grunts as basic security forces and maintenance crews so as a covenant leader i not only have to worry about enemy forces in a battle i also have to worry about the fact that my entire crew is made up of individuals who potentially could mutiny because of the mistreatment placed on them by my culture so it goes without saying having this caste system significantly decreased the efficiency of the covenant navy the grunts were basically the equivalent of gang press sailors that the royal british navy used to use the first marines that were employed by the empire weren't actually trained for storming beaches but for ship security and preventing armed mutinies on their ship also by creating a cast system you naturally create barriers for advancement for certain races for the lower races like the grunts and jackals this created low morale i mean why would you risk your life in combat for the covenant if in fact they are pressing your entire race as we've seen in our own history typically free men make far more effective combatants than conscript forces that were deployed by dictators military is made up of volunteers and free men typically have less to worry about when it comes to desertion and morale issues while conscript armies spend a ridiculous amount of energy enforcing discipline and discouraging their soldiers from abandoning their duties it was this lack of fear of their own soldiers that made free armies much more flexible in the battlefield because you have talented ncos who had more control in the small unit level the covenant just didn't have this ability [Music] the caste system also created natural infighting within the covenant navy this is because it encouraged and exaggerated the differences between the different races to the point where each alien race fought for their own species rather than the covenant as a whole in 2462 decades before the human and covenant first contact war tensions between the jackals and grunts reached an all-time high so much so that on the covenant home station of high charity the jackals poisoned our common recreational drug use by the grunts which almost sterilized their entire population in retaliation their grunts attacked the jackal's nest and killed a lot of their eggs the high council made up of elites and prophets saw this as a minor annoyance and basically ignored this whole situation which led to further rebellion by the grunts who were generally just fed up with the situation this was especially problematic for the covenant navy again because you actually had certain ships that were crewed by just one type of alien first contact between the human and the covenant was carried out by a jackal missionary ship which was just like this so when one alien race mutinies you're not only worrying about infighting but you're also worrying about losing a significant portion of your war material this infighting eventually led to an all-out covenant civil war known as the great schism and it's not all that surprising after the prophet of regret one of the leaders of the high council was killed by master chief the late assigned to protecting the prophet was blamed for their lack of ability and so the prophet aliens replaced the elites with the more brutal and aggressive brutes who had only just recently joined the covenant at the same time the brutes replaced the elites in high command positions in the covenant avn army they basically became field masters and shipmasters overnight which completely screwed up the entire command chain [Music] oh and they did this in the middle of a war against the humans the covenant naturally underestimated human beings at the time our navy was relatively weak in comparison to theirs our ships also lack shields we lacked true energy weapons and used kinetic energy weapons and outdated projectiles but the covenant also underestimated humanity's natural ability to survive and also evolve in the face of great strife and adversity we as a species have made great leaps and bounds in technology when we encountered any threats to our existence what the covenant didn't realize was that with each encounter with humanity with each piece of technology that they lost to us we were quickly learning and adapting their own technology into our own military force a great example of this was the energy shield found on the spartan 2 armor design it was clearly reverse engineered from a jackal's personal shield while the unsc navy advanced in leaps and bounds during the human covenant war the covenant navy's technology stagnated the covenant clearly underestimated humanity their only chance to really defeat us was a quick swift blow before we were able to adopt their technology because at the end of the day human culture is superior far superior to the covenants [Music] by limiting an individual's station in life and ability to advance they really made their culture stagnate the covenant navy was full of officers appointed based on their race rather than their ability while the grunts were physically quite pathetic they were actually intelligent species the notion that they were stupid again was caused by stereotypes and prejudice from the elite class and profit class after centuries of suppression it was just expected that the grunts would be subversive and quiet but we've seen as with the case of grunts like the deacon dad dab that grunts could be quite intelligent when allowed to the same could be said about the jackals who were quite intelligent as well but by limiting high command positions only to elites and brutes the covenant were also imposing limits to their own recruitment pools and overlooking talented grunts and jackals [Music] now the covenant government is a theocracy this means that religion dictated the rules and laws of their governments and that affected everything in covenant society all the way down to its navy now we've already mentioned many times during the covenant human war humanity advanced very quickly while the covenant forces basically stagnated this wasn't just due to infighting in the covenant navy but because of how their entire society functioned and was structured around the worship of an extinct alien race known as the forerunners most covenant technology was derived from or as they thought gifted to them by the forerunners by placing this mystical and religious connotation to things like energy shields plasma cannons and slip stream generators it prevents proper scientific research from being conducted on them as humans find out relatively quickly their forerunners weren't gods but a flawed species of aliens and at a biological level were no more special than the covenant or the humans again i can't help but draw correlations between the sci-fi universe and our own actual real world we've seen time and time again nations that don't have a separation between religion and state have huge societal and economic problems countries like iran sudan yemen and afghanistan all are at a severe disadvantage on a global stage because of this it's not that religion is bad or even that it's bad for society there are many positive things that religion brings along with it but a theocracy is fundamentally flawed because its basic rules are judged by religion and religion you know at its core is a very abstract idea every individual interprets their relationship with religion from different points of view and then again you have individuals who aren't religious at all and they basically don't fit in your theocratic system in that way which is why theocracies are rarely established on a predictable and fair set of rules and laws and usually have oppressive directives aimed to quell the centers and portions of the population and that's exactly what the covenant theocratic government does it places its own people into religious castes it also limits their technological discoveries and abilities and it's also started a holy war against humanity which is never a good idea [Music] and to cap things off the religion that this theocratic government is based on is completely false and completely misunderstands who the forerunners actually were the first two species to encounter the remnants of forerunner tech in the covenant were the prophets and the elites the leads had a more hands-off don't touch it approach while dealing with the forerunners while the prophets incorporated for a run of tech into their own military which is why they were able to defeat the elites when they first contacted them but again the prophets biologically speaking didn't possess superior intelligence at all if anything they were quite stupid and closed-minded based on their actions for one they completely misunderstood the purpose of the forerunners and the purpose of the halo arrays they thought that the halo arrays were the pathway to their salvation when in fact it was just a gigantic super weapon that was designed to destroy all sentient life in the galaxy in order to prevent the spread of the flood this was something that master chief and cortana were able to figure out literally days after first encountering a halo ring this is also why the prophets saw humanity as such a threat to them we basically proved that their whole religious society was bogus and that includes their caste system which is the only thing really keeping the prophets in power the covenant were really just first adopters of forerunner technology instead of creating value and progress with that technology they sought to control other beings and suppress other beings in order to protect their own power this is why the covenant are evil and their society is completely flawed the first advantage is the energy projector article 8 clause c of the humanity first code book states when in doubt exterminatus unfortunately sometimes aliens can glass entire planets too coming in a variety of different types from excavation beam to plasma lance energy projectors are exceptionally powerful planet-cracking capital warship destroying weapons even relative to glass and weapons used by other space navies energy projectors fire a thin beam of plasma and require a period of time to charge between attacks most forms of the weapon the covenant uses have a huge range usually somewhere in the realm of a hundred thousand kilometers and don't need to be close to a target to exact supreme destruction energy projectors are easily able to penetrate the unsc's titanium a armor and present a serious challenge to humanity's chances for survival the next advantage is the cas class assault carrier a 17 500 foot long capital warship the assault carrier is designed for ship to ship combat command and control of fleet operations and as support ships for ground forces at over 17 000 feet long the ship is one of the covenant's larger ships and is deployed only during the most important operations such as invasions of important planets the ship is fortified with nano laminate armor strong enough to stop many unsc weapons aside from mac cannons more importantly the ship's energy shields are some of the strongest the covenant fleet has to offer the high profit of regrets assault carrier flagship solemn penance penetrated earth's orbital defense despite facing an onslaught of fire from cairo station the assault carrier has special attack called modular dispersal technology which allows it to detach damaged sections during battle thus increasing the chances of salvaging the rest of the ship the ship is also one of the most well armed in the covenant fleet boasting multiple energy projectors and an array of pulsed laser turrets and plasma torpedoes the next advantage is the cso class supercarrier a covenant capital warship at 95 000 feet long only dumb aliens would build such a big ship the vessel designed for similar operations as the assault carrier dwarfs all other covenant ship classes and given its prodigious size is also like the assault carrier used only during the most important operations of course put next to the assault carrier the full extent of the covenant's creativity is on display super carriers are the covenant's most powerful vessels the ship is armed with seven energy projectors thousands of pulse lasers turrets and plasma torpedo launchers the ship also houses hundreds of smaller ships it can deploy along with entire covenant armies the legendary covenant supercarrier long night of solace played a crucial role in the invasion of reach deploying forces ships and all sorts of technology from orbit to the surface of the planet the next advantage is faster than light travel as we spoke about in our videos on the unsc humans and halo have not mastered ftl travel but for the most part the covenant has like the unsc the covenant fleet uses slip space for super luminal transportation but does so in a much more sophisticated way resulting in much faster journeys from point a to b the covenant slip space drive is more reliable than the shaw fuji cabo translight engine the unsc uses allowing coveted ships to avoid suffering from the temporal fluidity that human vessels do coveted ships cut a very fine hole in the fabric of space-time enter slip space at a precise point execute a series of micro jumps through slip space and also exit slip space at a precise point and time the covenant's more advanced technology allows for much faster and more accurate travel times with their ships able to travel at about 912 light years per day compared to the unsc travel rate of 2.625 light years per day additionally the more precise technology allows the covenant to avoid human defenses and gain positional advantage using quick short slip stream jumps coveted ships can even evade missiles which cannot track through slip space the next advantage is interstellar communication while the unsc has trouble communicating across the vastness of space and utilize very new technology to do so the covenant as with ftl travel have pretty much mastered it the covenant also used slip space for interstellar communications but the covenant have communication relays installed on some of their ships and planets that enable communication across space this communication system is called the proselytization network which not only allows for super luminal communication but also for the profits on high charity the covenant now defunct mobile capital city to stay connected with their armies and ensure their continued obedience at the covenant's height their ships contained an automated messaging system that transmitted orders and messages from ship to ship on a rival or departure from a star system due to covenant arrogance and ignorance of their own technology these messages are not properly encrypted and are liable to interception but nonetheless the covenant is able to rapidly send information across interstellar space the next advantage is the ors class heavy cruiser this capital warship is used for planetary occupations and has support ships for covenant flagships like other ships in the covenant fleet it is well armed and armored the ship is equipped with three plasma beam emitters 16 plasma torpedoes 48 plasma cannons and two energy projectors capable of blowing up worlds or bisecting unsc warships though i suppose my pet gerbil could bisect a unsc worship he is a feral one what makes this ship unique is that it also features stealth technology making the ship capable of reconnaissance missions despite its length of almost 10 000 feet the next advantage is the cpv class heavy destroyer this is of course a destroyer warship coming in at only 5460 feet long and it makes the list because like the ships before it it still packs a punch despite being downsized and that's the thing with the covenant fleet all of its ships are similar as we see with the super carrier and assault carrier the heavy destroyer is the workhorse offensive ship of the covenant navy but it doesn't just engage in ship to ship combat the destroyer is actually the ship that most often engages in glassing operations given its energy projector and crew of misfits and outcasts that were seen as low enough to undertake such missions the ship also has two plasma beam emitters 24 plasma cannons six torpedoes 20 pulse laser turrets and 40 plasma bombardment mortars again all not too unlike other covenant ships but packed into a much smaller vessel affording the covenant a ship made for heavy combat that they can produce and use frequently the next advantage is the covenant spire a structure that serves as the base of operations for covenant forces on the ground the spires allow soldiers vehicles and weapons to be teleported to a planet's surface from covenant vessels in orbit eliminating the need for conventional atmospheric entry spires are also capable of projecting energy shields over a large radius thus affording protection to recently teleported forces and to the spire itself the shields are resistant to conventional weapons and can disable enemy vehicles that pass through them making spire shield zones hazardous areas for the unsc on the battlefield given that the spires are self-protected and difficult to destroy they are a critical part of covenant invasion efforts and a nightmare for unsc forces to deal with the next advantage is the dsc class support ship very few support ships in space navy history are as important as the covenant dsc class one the ship is fairly well armed with a variety of plasma weaponry but it largely stays out of combat the ship instead provides food and supplies to covenant soldiers the ship itself actually contains large hunting preserves with many animals that can be killed and served to its tenant fleet the ship also has assembly forges that manufacture food packs maintenance kits clothing and even small weapons the ships at over 5000 feet long are gigantic mobile factories that the covenant can send along with any fleet the final advantage is high charity in effect high charity was a massive space station that housed billions of covenant denizens and functioned not only as the covenant's capital city and seat of government but also as a holy city and religious center powered by the engines of the decommissioned forerunner dreadnought the structure was 348 kilometers in diameter and 505 kilometers in height high charity was protected by some of the biggest fleets in the covenant armada but the station itself had weapons platforms built into its bedrock with firepower surpassing that of even the most powerful covenant ships the city boasted 32 super heavy plasma lances and 1900 plasma beam emitters both types of energy projectors high charity was then further guarded by a rapid detection network of slip space probes that could track even the smallest objects coming into close proximity of the city and mark them for obliteration of course high cherry also functioned to refit and house thousands of covenant vessels yes i know ultimately high charity was destroyed under extreme circumstances by former child abductee john 1 17 but the covenant's ability to build such a structure is a huge advantage that the covenant's capital city housing its most important leaders technology and a massive covenant subjects was mobile allowed the covenant to avoid the achilles heel that most species in the galaxy face having a home world that is at the mercy of the part of the space it is located in and thus vulnerable to all sorts of changing conditions and threats around it high charity can simply move from place to place as needed now you might point out that high charity required the dreadnought's power to operate but actually only a fraction of the dreadnought's engine's potential output was needed to power the city and high charity also possessed a set of backup auxiliary reactors that were capable of generating enough power for slip space travel point being the covenant can probably build another one and don't need to innovate new technology to do so which is great because they're dumb as hell number one poor health and safety regulations so klingons are those dark blue-skinned bald aliens with christmas tree lights on their armor i'm just kidding i thought that would get you going these are real klingons [Laughter] ah what a bunch of lovely people but sadly working for the klingon empire wasn't so lovely their ships were a bunch of rust buckets but undoubtedly one of the most dangerous places to work would have been in the mining operations on the klingon moon of praxis basically over mining combined with poor health and safety regulations caused the entire moon to explode magnify [Music] what's left of it sir many miners perished in the explosion and praxis was actually vitally important for the klingon empire it's practice sir it's a klingon moon praxis is their key energy production facility and thus the destruction of praxis did great damage to the operations of the klingon fleet they had to divert money from their massive military budget to dealing with the environmental damage to their homeworld cronus which was in close proximity to praxis put simply they couldn't afford a war with the federation anymore and were forced to make peace so put simply over-reliance on a single energy source combined with poor health and safety regulations that caused the explosion led to massive changes in the klingon fleet's war fighting abilities number two a feudal society the klingon empire operated as a feudal society which was founded by chaos the unforgettable a kind of klingon jesus figure his catchphrase was today is a good day to die so maybe not so much like jesus but anyway the title of emperor became a more ceremonial and spiritual position in modern times with a chancellor leading the government in practical terms so it was kind of like a constitutional monarchy like japan let the strength of the samurai be with you always well not really because you see the chancellor was the leader of the klingon high council which was made up of representatives of the 24 great houses and these great houses didn't always get along often fighting amongst themselves they were kind of like feudal lords operating below a king and fighting amongst each other and sometimes they even fought against the interests of the empire like general chang a shakespeare enthusiast trick us do we not bleed wrong us shall we not revenge who worked against the klingon empire making peace with the federation after the praxis incident incoming or the house of jurass whose challenge to chancellor gauran caused the klingon civil war in which klingon birds of prey actually attacked the chancellor's ship [Music] and the chancellor was no saint either chancellor gauran in order to get general martok who he saw as a threat to his position to take early retirement would send him on suicide missions in which he would either die or be disgraced in defeat our next target it's opinion 5. sarkidian is the headquarters of the entire 12th order yes but as you can see martok was very loyal to the empire and shrugged off whatever gowron threw at him i will fight any battle anywhere later actions were taken to rid gauran of his position and install marktock in his place we'll talk about that later number three two trigger happy klingons often shoot first without asking any questions like at the beginning of star trek the motion picture where three klingon battle cruisers encounter the space cloud known as the jur and before they even know what it is they start firing torpedoes at it starfleet also doesn't know why they are firing torpedoes off into space our sensor drone is intercepting this on quad l14 that's within klingon boundaries who are they fighting unknown and it doesn't end well for those three vessels [Music] in deep space nine they launched an attack on cardassia in a hunch that the de tapa council have been replaced by the founders but they haven't and it launches a confrontation with the federation in which the klingons lose a lot of ships and eventually they find out it's actually the klingons who'd been infiltrated by the founders and the cardassians do eventually ally with the dominion which was the very thing that they were trying to stop in the first place through their trigger happy antics number four slow technological development while the klingons had been more advanced than the united earth star fleet back in the 22nd century it would take four starfleet vessels to fight off just one klingon bird of prey back then humans quickly caught up with them and by the 2470s most klingon ships still couldn't go faster than warp 9.6 while starfleet had developed warp 9.9 capable ships such as the intrepid class and the sovereign class klingons were perhaps not really that innovative in the first place even their cloaking technology which was probably their most advanced tech was actually given to them by the romulans their medical science was also underdeveloped since most klingon warriors would prefer to die an honorable death in battle than be revived so they didn't really need doctors [Music] he said today is a good day to die number five crude weapons now it may have been because klingon spent so much time working on hand-to-hand combat with various kinds of knives that their actual ship-mounted weapons weren't anything special most klingon ships used disruptors which were the most common form of energy weapon in the galaxy used by almost everyone except the federation ship-mounted destructors were known for being weak against shields but strong against physical matter could explain why the klingon's disruptors were so effective against the enterprise d when the klingons had found out their shield frequency but in general you'd have to break through a ship's shields before you could hit the hull heavy disruptors also drained a lot of power from other ships systems and handheld disruptors didn't have a stun setting so victims would either be killed or suffer from heavy disruptive burns these weapons were thus viewed as crude by the federation and the vulcans number six weird human resources practices we talked before about weird hr practices in the federation but the klingons are even stranger when commander will riker served aboard a klingon ship as a cultural exchange he learned that as the first officer in order to get a promotion he was expected to kill his captain and likewise the second officer was expected to kill the first officer basically serving aboard a klingon ship would have been one of the most stressful experiences imaginable because you'd always be looking over your shoulder to see if there was a junior officer who was trying to kill you and it wasn't limited to just aboard ships even the chancellor could be challenged to a fight to the death and the winner would inherit the title and rule the entire empire wolf leader of the empire wars [Music] so i think this constant internal struggle would take its toll on the klingon fleet's fighting ability number seven too many smaller ships the klingon bird of prey was the classic klingon attack ship all throughout the next generation era the klingon empire liked these ships because they were cheap to build and they would take advantage of their guerrilla style battle tactics but the bird of prey actually had a lot of design flaws and they were easily outgunned by most federation starships of course the klingon fleet did have other larger ships like the vorchar class attack cruiser and this other one which i can't pronounce but considering that during the invasion of cardassia and the dominion war you see 100 year old katinga class battle cruisers boosting numbers in the fleet their more modern attack cruisers were probably few and far between number eight no special ops forces the federation had section 31 the romulans had the talcia if any one of you defies the tal shiar you will not bear the punishment alone your families all of them will be there beside you and the cardassians the obsidian order i consider the entire conversation as something best forgotten but the klingon empire didn't have any known special operations forces perhaps it was a matter of honor they didn't want to skulk around in the shadows but for a military that spends half its time cloaked i don't think that's very likely number nine their boarding parties sucked klingons are always getting bested in confrontations with other races they were outgunned by bajorans [Music] starfleet officers [Music] and in hand-to-hand combat they are beaten by female trill [Music] [Music] shape-shifters [Music] humans [Music] and species that don't even like hand-to-hand combat really quite distasteful number 10 they can't keep a secret when the klingons are about to attack cardassia they keep their intentions secret from the federation but wharf manages to get intelligence on the attack easily by getting one of the klingon warriors drunk on bloodwine singing some songs and finally he informs wharf of the glorious battle ahead but instead of a glorious battle warf notifies the federation and they foil their plan perhaps the klingons should have paid attention to this world war ii propaganda poster [Music] number one devotion to battle the klingons were a deeply spiritual people kinda they supposedly killed their original gods because they were more trouble than they were worth and were devoted to the legendary warrior chaos kayla's taught that klingons who died an honorable death in battle would join him in stovakore the klingon afterlife where they would have 72 virgins and wait a minute let me just check my notes oh okay no that's not it they would fight an internal battle with chaos against great enemies on the other hand klingons who died a dishonorable death would descend to grethor which looks like this i think the entrance speaks for itself we don't need to see any more thus all klingons developed a determination in their heart to die an honorable death in battle and reach stovokor so they would never surrender even if it meant sacrificing themselves perhaps today is a good day to die prepare for ramming speed so put simply klingons were determined in battle war ran through their veins and influenced every part of their life and thus the klingon imperial fleet was a formidable fighting force number two starship design in the early days klingons were ahead of humans in terms of technological advancement according to quark klingons had developed warp drive in earth year 1947. that's the year that humans had only just acquired alien technology and would need another century or so and this drunkard from montana to develop it into warp capable craft the phoenix [Music] by the time of the 22nd century and the nx01 enterprise klingons had ships that could do warp 6 whereas the enterprise could only do warp 5. they also possessed superior firepower and another one why are they attacking us they're not if they wanted to destroy enterprise they would have done it in the 23rd century a klingon d7 class battle cruiser could take on a constitution class starship and if a fleet of then showed up starfleet would have no choice but to retreat in the 24th century despite having to lower their military budget to deal with the praxis incident and also make peace with the federation the klingons did remain a formidable fighting force who were able to dominate against other enemies such as the kardashian union which they invaded in 2372. commence firing on the weapon platforms number three cloaking devices klingon supposedly obtained cloaking technology from the romulans not strictly canon but whatever and cloaking devices quickly became standard on most klingon vessels this gave the klingons an advantage over non-cloak capable species i've lost the bird of prey she must have cloaked race shields the klingons even developed a method of firing weapons while cloaked which was used by general chang's ship before it was destroyed by the enterprise [Music] the federation would later sign the treaty of alderaan with the romulan star empire which forbade them from using ship-mounted cloaking technology so the klingons would retain this advantage into the 24th century what do you know about the treaty of belgium 2311 it redefined the romulan neutral zone it also outlawed the use of cloaking technology on starfleet vessels number four the ability to punch above their weight the klingon fleet relied heavily on the bird of prey which were cheap to build and were mostly small models compared to the average federation starship but they were often able to punch above their weight especially when dealing with federation vessels that weren't 100 battle ready in star trek three the search for spot a single bird of prey is able to recover from an attack by the enterprise and fire on the ship crippling vital systems forcing the crew to abandon ship and self-destruct in star trek generations a single bird of prey destroys the enterprise d after getting inside info on their shield systems [Music] [Applause] they have found a way to penetrate our shields now that bird of prey was destroyed by the enterprise just before she went down but hey remember what kayla said today is a good day to die number five cavalry style battle tactics the klingons often employed cavalry style battle tactics where they would send ships in on raids behind enemy lines the tactic is to first send a couple of craft to carry out an initial attack then retreat once the enemy thinks the attack is over and brings out crews to repair the damage the klingons begin the real attack with a larger number of ships general martok used this tactic when attacking a dominion base on trelka five but the tactic dates back to the time of core a klingon warrior from the original series who used the tactic when attacking a federation colony on caleb iv on a side note this is what klingons look like in the original series with a limited makeup budget look that's core there now i know they did try to explain this lack of cranial ridges as the results of a vaccine for a virus in enterprise my targ won't even recognize me the future it may be possible to reverse the uh cosmetic effect i suppose this is what i deserve millions of my people will have to live with this disfigurement it'll be passed on to our children but the real reason was just lack of makeup budget interestingly core was actually played by the same actor john colocos in both the original series and in deep space nine when he was in his late 60s he passed away when he was 71. number six an imperial force ah there's nothing quite like the glory of a massive empire subjugating other civilizations under one rule oh the klingons yes so the klingon imperial fleet served the klingon empire which for much of its history was an expansionist power who conquered and subjugated other species using up their planet's resources in the original series episode errand of mercy our old friend core invades organia and installs himself as military governor i am coor military governor of organia were you the kriosians were another species that was subjugated to klingon rule they were one of those types of aliens whose looks were dictated by the lack of a makeup budget just paint some spots on them away we go anyway the fact that the klingon empire was willing to go and directly get involved liberating other species from whatever regime they were subject to and making them citizens of the klingon empire just inspired greatness the federation on the other hand didn't inspire greatness in anyone i know it's so bubbly and cloying and happy just like the federation but you know what's really frightening if you drink enough of it you begin to like it it's insidious just like the federation number seven their bases were well protected now in our ten floors of starfleet series we often talked about how the earth was left defenseless when attacked by borg cubes that wasn't so with the klingons they kept their bases well protected according to starfleet intelligence chancellor galran has relocated klingon military headquarters to tiger corps that will make our job more difficult tiger corps is located in an asteroid field deep in klingon space it is probably the most heavily fortified installation in the empire the tachyon detection grid would scan for cloak ships trying to enter the base and the 30 vessels in orbit would see off any intruders trying to attack klingons also installed orbital defense systems around planets that were under their control basically you knew you were safe when you were being ruled by the klingon empire number eight they did martial arts now if you've seen star trek the next generation you'll have seen wharf's tai chi i mean technically it's a klingon martial art called mokbara but actually it's just tai chi with a few moves slightly changed but anyway klingons were pretty good at martial arts their right of ascension ceremony looked like something out of 36 chambers of shaolin i travel the river of blood yeah they were tough and they had many stories of glorious battles such as this one the battle of cluck de kell brock is a legendary klingon victory over the romulans almost a century ago this was the battle that the klingons won against the romulans using melee weapons such as batlists look this is a batlift i don't know why they didn't just use disruptors i mean both species would have had advanced technology at that time it was only a hundred years before the ds9 era but some things in star trek are just a mystery like why kirk fought gorn in slow motion but anyway the klingons were good at fighting except when the plot of an episode required them to suck basically any time they fought against starfleet number nine luck was on their side the klingons weren't that good at advancing technology but they did sometimes accidentally or by fate stumble across fortune changing advancements like the time they developed this defense for a breen energy weapon that disabled every single ship except for one at the battle of chintaka 311 ships federation romulan and klingon all lost power but one didn't a bird of prey called the katang why what was different about the catan we're not really sure the only thing we can figure is that just prior to the engagement their chief engineer adjusted the tritium intermix to compensate for a containment problem in the warp core i've ordered every ship in the klingon fleet to adjust its reactor the same way maybe it was the guiding hand of kaelus reaching out from stovokor number 10 robust interrogation techniques klingons were into robust interrogation techniques like waterboarding well here we go this guy's like a shadow came into the season got his first finals last time out in detroit now he's coming out here nah even more terrifying than waterboarding i'll let core explain would you like to try our little truth finder i don't understand it it's a mind sifter or mind ripper depending on how much force is used we can record every thought every bit of knowledge in a man's mind of course when that much force is used the mind is emptied permanently i'm afraid what's left is more vegetable than human would you like to be on the receiving end of that i certainly wouldn't only problem was it didn't work on vulcans it should not be underestimated captain it reaches directly into the mind we vulcans have certain mental certain disciplines which enable me to maintain a shield without those disciplines there would be no protection [Music] you

Channel: Generation Films

Views: 891,644

Rating: 4.6754284 out of 5

Keywords: Space Navies, Science fiction, Space Battles, Best space fleet, best science fiction fleet, Star wars, Imperial Navy, Galactic Empire, Imperial class star destroyer, tie fighter, Separatist alliance, Confederacy of independent systems, Separatist fleet, IMperial Navy 40k, warhammer 40k fleet, starcraft, protoss navy, protoss ships, UNSC, Halo, Covenant, Halo UNSC infinity, Pillar of Autumn, Covenant supercarrier, Star trek, Federation, USS enterprise, Klingon

Id: 9DeG3k3WNzg

Length: 181min 48sec (10908 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 10 2020