Who would win in a battle between an Imperial Super Star Destroyer and a giant space octopus?
I think the Lego simulation settles that.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Who would win in a battle between an Imperial Super Star Destroyer and a giant space octopus?
I think the Lego simulation settles that.
TEAM OCTOPUS
Nice!
Something similar happened in an episode of “Babylon 5: Crusade” (the short-lived spin-off series). The space ship conceded when the crew realized the tentacled space creature was trying to, erm, mate with the space ship.
The cavemen, of course.
Oh, sorry, I was having Joss Whedon flashbacks.
The octopus.
For some reason this brings me back to playing Master of Orion 2, where your planets would occasionally get attacked by monsters from space, like a “space dragon” or a “space eel” or a giant crystal.
Does the giant space octopus have a poorly designed exhaust port?
That thing’s priorities are all out of whack. First Jar-Jar Binks, THEN the Imperial Super Star Destroyer.
But can the octopus shoot LASERs from its eyes?
Kirk!
Kirk would win!
And he’d get the girl too!
The answer, as always: Kirk!
Borax, will you have my baby?
Oh come on! Just “sour the milk” already!
Oh wait, that’s Star Trek: TNG.
I realize that “size matters not” but could Vader conceivably Force-choke something that doesn’t seem to require air?
I’mma have to go with the space octopus here, though the Star Destroyer will probably scorch the shit out of it in spots.
Besides, the octopus is smarter.
I have to go with the SSD because 1) it has range weapons and 2) it can go into hyperspace to stay out of reach. That’s assuming the space octopus can’t shoot lasers or go into warp.
Randomfactor, If I had a dollar for every time I was asked that question, I would have a dollar. OK. I’ll have your baby for a dollar.
Forgot to mention the SSD would also have enough Tie fighters to turn the octopus into sashimi before it can even get close. A bunch of little things with a small bite can really add up. Ever see Monster Bug Wars when some large armored insect stumbles upon an ant colony? The ants always win.
Clearly it has been growing larger over the years.
We should have killed it when it was young.
Obviously the giant space cephalopod, given that there is only one way to kill it.
Also, though it may not have laser beam eyes, you don’t wanna get shot with any matter-packets from its tentacles.
@bcmystery #6
Seriously, am I the only person who likes Jar-Jar?!
thumper1990
No. Lucas likes him. At least I think he does given how he lived through episode 3.
The real question is why that Star Destroyer didn’t have its deflector shields up. Also, given that is not an Imperial-class Star Destroyer (the command tower is missing) but a Super-class, that is one big fuckin’ octopus.
Also, all capital ships have support vessels. Which are armed and capable of shooting the octopus.
All that said, unless the Navy gets its act together, that octopus is going to win.
The octopus should win but if it doesn’t then its much larger mother will avenge it.
I’ve spent about 15 minutes now trying to come up with a good X-Men/Brood Saga reference, but I guess I’ll have to leave that to someone else.
@Esteleth
If we’re being specific to the picture, I think it must be noted that octopus has already torn off the bow of the spaceship. So technically it’s already one.
@Alverant
Good point :) I was about to say that this means I can live safe in the knowledge that he will survive, but Disney just bought the franchise, didn’t they? They might kill him off :( bastards.
Looks like someone chose to sacrifice the Council
Thumper, the Kuat Drive Yards (who designed and built the Star Destroyers) built in bulkheads to protect against explosive decompression. The loss of the nose of the ship, assuming that those bulkheads worked properly, should not have led to the decompression of entire ship. I mean, the ship will have a harder time aiming at things, and will have lost some important sensors located in the bow in those parts, but it should still be spaceworthy.
Don’t laugh, busterggi, that actually happened to me with spiders once. That’s why I no longer drop large horticultural textbooks on spiders, but rescue them with a glass and a beermat; I did it once and when I returned there was one double the size sitting in exactly the same spot. I could see this escalating swiftly until the spider could barely fit in the room, and I have never harmed another spider since.
In other news, long before I was a Tolkien nerd, I was a Star Wars nerd.
Also, there is still fanfic I wrote on the internet. And no, I am not saying where, or what my author-nym was. I will say that fourteen year-old-girls who don’t understand basic biology should not be writing sex scenes.
SyFy, who will produce a movie with that very plot with change found on LA buses, and hence make a profit despite its mediocre ratings and the disdain of any view with half a neuron. Of course they’ll need to scrub the serial numbers off the Star Wars bit.
Re #6;
I posit that Jar Jar is aboard the Star Destroyer. Nothing less would provoke the normally gentle Space Octopus.
@Esteleth
It is well known that the bulkheads in Super-class star destroyers are the space-going equivalent of the bulkheads on the Titanic ;)
(Yes, I made that up. I am not that well-read on Star Wars).
Lol I really want to read your fanfic now, just to see what disasterous “sex scenes” your 14-year-old self came up with :)
@Ing
Thread won!
Hey look, I used the right one that time! (see what I did there?… I’ll get my coat).
Star Destroyer’s commander : “It’s a trap !”
Admiral Ackbar : “Muahahhahahahahah !”
Esteleth
That is true of sooo many more types of people.
And really, you won’t link?
no faaairr!
That isn’t Ackbar. Siphons are wrong.
That could, however, be a Quarren.
Right, if the space kraken is so damn effective, why bother with concentrating all fire, that’s what I want to know.
Borax & randomfactor lose all their geek points.
In fact since there is a picture of the Star Destroyer and they still mixed it up with the Death Star means they probably never had any geek points to start with. :-P
oooh
fighting words!
No, it’s true…
Esteleth:
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease.
Harbinger wins unless Shepard invokes the space magic from the starchild to use the Crucible for synthesis, control or destroy.
They should have gone to ludicrous speed.
Before we were married, my wife, who had had ST fanfic collaborations with Astrid Anderson published in T-negative started working on a ST/Lensman crossover story. Never got finished, but…
–Phasers are ineffective against polycyclic screens
–Photon torpedoes get sucked into polycyclic screens and blow out the generators when they go off.
–warp drive + Bergenholm inertialess drive goes *really* fast
–future microelectronics make if possible to build a Bergenholm that can “free” the Enterprise that fits in the palm of your hand (and doesn’t need Uranium coils)
–The Entrprise’s library contains the entire canon of E. E. “Doc” Smith’s _Lensmen_ works, so the Arisians want them to go home ASAP (but they need the assistance of a 4-D intellignece: Nadreck, which means they have to help Nadreck finish his current project *first*).
–Spock gets a Lens (Kirk decidedly does NOT).
Re: my fanfic:
NO.
It is largely indistinguishable from other bad fanfic, insofar that I subscribed to the “magical stretchy orifice” theory of sex.
Gotta agree with Chas. Kirk. period.
Imperial Admiral: We can’t withstand tentacles of that magnitude!
Both irrelevant; it’s already in melee combat, which means 1) it’s too late for ranged attacks, and 2) if the SSD tries to go into hyperspace, either the Mighty ‘Pod goes with it, or its mass prevents the ship from actually going anywhere. And/or 3) the melee continues…but in hyperspace!!!…due to Rule of Cool.
Again; 1) too late! Melee rules apply, and 2) what, with the launch bays held shut by all those tentacles?!?
–
Excellent point!
–
Yes. Long before it came to melee.
Seriously, the SSD’s only hope is that the octopus gets all tangled up on its initiatives-by-tentacle, and on the Grappling Rules. There may also be Attacks of Opportunity to be considered.
Otherwise, crack it like a coconut, it will, mmm, yes; then swim away wearing the shell it will!
–
Perhaps it’s a despair squid that crossed dimensions into the star wars universe? Less likely, the SSD ended up in the Red Dwarf universe. Either way, the cephalopod wins as all the crew live their worst fantasies and commit suicide.
Well, there were only a handful of SSDs ever built, due to the extreme cost of building and staffing them – also, they were so big as to be impractical for day-to-day operations.
Each of the SSDs had something unique. If that is the Lusyanka, then if it still has its repulsorlift cradle, it can use it to literally push the octopus away. Alternatively, it could restrain it and then torture it to death. If that is the Executor, then that is Vader’s flagship. Why is he not Force-choking the octopus? If that is the Razor’s Kiss, then the hull is lined with bombs. Blow it up! If that is the Iron Fist, then the octopus can eat it for all I care. Fuck Zsinj.
And, once again, I will argue that capital ships have support vessels. Which are armed. And even if the octopus is blocking the doors of the fighter bays, the support ships also have snubfighters.
Alternatively, there could be an epic plan involving piloting while performing puppet shows. That could always work.
… … <__>
OMG I JUST FIGURED IT OUT.
The octopus is a giant puppet! There’s a squad of giggling people in the head.
That’s just not true. The Dwarfers defeated TWO despair squids.
@Esteleth
“His hot, throbbing member was so big he could play baseball with it, if he so wished”.
That kind of thing?
I have no idea why this amuses me so much :)
Thumper
No, more of the “lube is never necessary in any context and no matter how big it is, it always fits perfectly. Also, you can always get multiple in there.”
The support ships were all rewarded by being eaten first, by the Octopus’ support school of ravenous space squid, of screen.
It’s Ackbar’s mutated Mon Calamari superweapon.
He does look a bit like a weaponized Dr. Zoidberg larval stage.
The super star destroyer is really just a big giant bomb waiting to be grabbed.
or, in other words. “It’s a Trap! “
I wonder if this can be reenacted in Kerbal Space Program.
No doubt to draw in its prey the giant space octopus camouflaged itself as a moon.
@Esteleth
#51
Japanese Hentai Anatomy?
More or less, yes.
With added hilarity that I had never seen a penis (in flesh or image) and thus did not know what they looked like, or what was a typical size.
Holy shit that octopus is huge. We’re talking something over a dozen kilometers long here, people.
Hentai? What are you gonna call it, “20.000girls1tentacle”?
Dozen?
A Super-class Star Destroyer is 8 km long. It also has a crew of 280,734.
*star whooshes past* The more you know!
One thing about this thread: we have now identified the most colossal nerd on Pharyngula.
*struts*
Oh, and seriously. Zsinj was utter scum.
In fact, I’d say that Zsinj was worse than Isard. Because while Isard was despicable and evil, Zsinj was more creative. And he had more flair.
I have fallen into Wookiepedia and I can’t get out.
*throws a tractor beam around deioridhe*
Mon Calamari and the Cracken family against a Super Star Destroyer?
Yeah, no contest …
So, how closely related are Colossal Nerds to Colossal Squid?
Batman
You only have to connect a few dots to realize why there are no fighters to pew pew at it:
P1. No oxygen required here.
Therefore it doesn’t need to exhaust itself blowing oxygenated water over a brood until they hatch.
P2. Big SciFi animals with lots of babies generally keep them nearby, or even carry them around inside itself.
P3. An octopus can contort itself to fit into glass bottles and such, or really through any hole the beak will fit through.
Therefore there’s an army of smaller space cephalopods that infiltrated the ship inside of storm trooper outfits.
Also during the gunfights in the corridors the actual storm troopers were greatly confused because who knows if the head is in the helmet, chest, or even down in a boot.
Due to the complete lack of scorch marks on the mother it is clear that this ship was first boarded and disabled (and then some tentacle parties were held as they consumed most of the rations,) before she moved in to claim the flotsam. Giant Space Octopus salvaging company has some shrewd negotiators, know for their catch phrases of “scree!” and “bloop.” It’s best to keep them busy rather than letting them grow hungry for work, else they create jobs on their own.
Now I just want to see a giant Zoidberg crushing a Super Star Destroyer.
my god… if an octopus could do this, what would a sharktopus do?!!
The Darius-series battleships are the best (worst?) of both of these. I’d like to see the Star Destroyer take on something like Super Alloy Lantern or Curious Chandelier.
@ 69–
Batman = Always the correct answer
andrewriding @ 70
Now you’ve got me picturing some bizarre mashup of Rogue Squadron with Octodad.
Um… well done.
The Watchmen.
It depends whether Justin Hawkins is on board or not – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRYNYb30nxU
If that is an SSD that’s been captured by the Republic, then they can call on the Rogues. And they’ll destroy that squiddy thing with derring-do because they’re the fucking Rogues.
Is this Admiral Ackbar, mutated into giant form by some unknown cosmic radiation?
At this point it looks like the Octopus wins it. The SSD is damaged and could presumably fire off a few wounding shots to the cephalopod, but if the eight limbed beast is uninjured it seems in a position to carry the fight.
cicely (mumblemumble-SomethingHalf-Witty-mumblemumble)
And then the Shadows intervene.
Which all turns out to be part of Scorpius’s plan.