We continue our "Versus" series of probing intellectual questions with the following:
I expect this entire series of polls will form the basis of a hard-hitting PBS series any day now.
Anyway, on to our very erudite and cerebral analysis. With laser guns, PEW-PEW!
On the one hand, the Empire has Sith warriors who can read minds and throw lightning and wield light sabers (sometimes two at once!). A big chunk of the Cylons are human enough that the Force would work on them, which means they're vulnerable to Dark Side powers.
On the other hand, the Empire is made up of 99% regular ol' people, not Sith, all of whom are vulnerable to being replaced by humanoid Cylons themselves. It's hard to win a war when an unknown percentage of the people manning your guns and driving your impressive array of ships work for the other guy.
The Cylons have a record of highly successful coups, almost completely annihilating their human adversaries. The Empire, on the other hand, got its ass kicked by teddy bears and only came to power through clever voting techniques in the Senate. The Senate! So we've got a bunch of underhanded bureaucrats versus bloody-handed genocidal robot people. Yeah.
Given that, I'd probably vote for the Cylons. Plus there'd likely be a cool scene where Darth Vader discovers he's actually the Father of the Cylons, which would be awesome.
Who do you think would win, and why?
I can’t logically argue this one, because I haven’t watched Battlestar since the 70’s. I never got into the new one. Go, I’m going with the Troopers. Just because they can’t aim, and bonk their heads on doors, and get beat by teddy bears, and…wait, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, Empire all the way. Ugh.
I have to protest and call for clarification regarding the Cylons – are we talking original 70s Cylons, or new 2000’s Cylons? If it’s 70s Cylons, they’re toast (get it?). Empire all the way. If it’s 2000s Cylons, the Empire is toast. ‘Cuz the Emperor don’t look NEARLY as hot as Number Six.
I say the Troopers would win. It would have to be the 70’s BSG because the so called new BSG sucked so bad they would be vacuumed into space before they could fight.(I don’t even like calling the new one by the same name.)
Uh, no. The Cylons couldn’t even wipe out twelve colonies of humans and later had trouble destroying two battlestars and a small fleet of civilian ships. The Empire spans millions of systems and thousands of military ships. And it was stated in the 2000 series that the humans were able to keep the Cylons at bay through superior numbers.
Then the Daleks swooped down and destroyed the lot of them.
two words, the force.
I’m going with Empire, but the reasoning took some looking into. Sure, Stormtroopers might be outclassed by Cylons. Cylon Raiders may even outclass TIE Fighters. But the ability to win this war will be determined by the ability to hold star systems through the use of capital ships, and frankly, Basestars are no match for Imperial Star Destroyers, no matter which series we were talking about.
Since I haven’t seen the new BSG, and the original was more obviously a rip-off of Star Wars (I still like it, though), I’m going with Empire, since originals beat copycats. Also, cylons are robots so they could easily get frazzled by Force Lightning.
Assuming the new series of BSG, which was awesome, I’m going with the Cylons. Unlike the stormtroopers they could shoot with better than suck accuracy and you actually feared them when they showed up to cause trouble. The only time the Empire seemed to hit anything is when the target was as big as a planet. And that was as easy as…well…shooting the side of a planet.
The coolness of Darth Vader is the only thing that could sway me to choose the other side. Throw in Boba Fett as an agent of the Empire and things start to tip. Unfortunately the general atmosphere of Stormtrooper incompetency pushes it back over to the Cylons.
I have to agree with Tophat. To quote them, “You are superior in only one respect. You are better at dying.”
Relating to the question however, I’d have to go with the cylons. Now I’ve never truly watched all that Galactica, however I have seen star wars. In a straight out firefight, the troopers are screwed. They have the worst aim in the history of fiction and in a battle, they couldn’t hit anyone. Only if a sith were involved, would they win on land.
In a space battle however, they would win. They have superior firepower and numbers in spaceships. They would wipe out the cylons in an instant.
In a battle of subterfuge, the cylons would win. With their humanoid androids and gynoids, they would make mincemeat of the empire when it comes to spies.
With a slide of 2-1, I have to give it to the cylons.
If you are basing marksmanship on movies or TV no one can shoot and hit a target. Every show out there shows the person shooting 5 or 6 rounds before they even hit. Now if you put it in real world terms(as much as you can using sci-fi) the heat of the battle can miss up someones shot, but most troops are train to shot under these conditions. You have to look at the armor as well, how good can they move in it. If it slows down their reaction time then they are toast. They to look at it without the marksmanship, then see what you think. But you could put this into four groups, SW-Stormtroopers, SW-Clones, BSG-Cylons, and nuBSG-Cylons. I think all and all the Clones would clean house.
I’m going with the Empire, and you want to know why?
“We can’t repel firepower of that magnitude!!!!!”
Nuf said
Empire all the way. Superior numbers, superior firepower, superior technology. And they are familiar with cloning, so the flesh and blood cylons would be easily discovered and countered.
Look, with apologies to all for their well-reasoned, erudite explanations of why one would prevail over the other, it all comes down to basic fundamentals of the human condition:
The Emperor is a shriveled little prune.
Six is hot babealiciousness defined.
AND, it goes without saying…they have a plan…!
The Empire has dealt with Shape-shifters, Assassination Droids, and just about anything else that the Cylons has to throw at them…
The Cylons would be a minor problem for some incompetent Moff out in the hinterlands, not a threat to the whole Empire!
Oh, and the Emperor himself might be a shriveled old prune, but the Emperor’s Hand (Mara Jade) is a hot babe WITH Force powers!
Game Over!
We all know the Daleks would kick both the Empire and Cylons from the universe
Aha! And a new option is added to the debate. Now this is a real geek showdown.
Empire wins, because cylons are robots, and empire certainly knows how to kick robots in the cow bells. I mean, that’s what the Clone wars were all about.
Cylons.
@Kalkin: The humanoid cylons are made of synthetic flesh – they’re neither cyborgs nor robots. The cylon centurion, who are basically robots, are way more robust than the droids who appeared in SW. The cylons knew how to undermine a corrupt government and find people in key positions who are susceptible to corruption. All they need to bring down the empire is the right Gaius Baltar, and all the sith and jedi in the universe won’t be able to stop them.
thejay (20)
They’re still artificially created robots. And the Empire is hardly alien to the concept of human-looking robots. Hell, they created the Human Replica Droid. In fact, the Empire could probably pull their own infiltration mission by disguising an HRD as a humanoid Cylon.
Besides, trying to slip a traitor into the ranks won’t work when you’re talking about people who can read minds.
I vote Daleks. Although I may be biased by having just watched a Doctor Who repeat.
Well…then I vote Sue Sylvester.
Well then, I’ll go with R. Daneel Olivaw if you’re bringing in, if you lot are bringing in them. He’ll influence the entire universe with the help of the First and Second Foundations. Asimov trumps all!! (well except maybe Arthur C. Clark…6
The Cylons, new ones, would win because in the Vader-era they would have been smart enough to hid in both of the rebel and empire forces. This is an important point because they could then just wait to see who would win the war and take over the weakened winner. When everyone was defending the deathstar you go after anyone of the empire planets you want.
Well, if that’s the way it’s going to be, then it would behoove me to point out that if these polls have taught me nothing else, they’ve taught me that Batman can beat anyone, anywhere, anytime. Trump card! Batman will personally make the Cylons, Empire, Daleks, and anyone else his personal bitches.
Yeah, I’m not entirely certain I’m being sarcastic there. Probably, but I’m not certain.
For me too, it depends on which series. Sure, the Force is awesome, but the Empire only has the Emporer and Vader. Stormtrooper numbers might surpass Cylon numbers, but one Cylon is worth a thousand Stormtroopers easily. After all, Cylons don’t always miss. And the Cylons have a huge numerical advantage over the competent parts of the Empire – i.e. Vader…
Old series Battlestar? Empire all the way. No contest.
Impirial Leader: Old Man.
Cylon Leader: God.
God has a greater firepower than the deathstar so cylons may win XD!
The Empire. In both versions of Battlestar Galactica the Cylons only win the initial battle by a surprise attack. No in the re-imagined series they were smart enough to capture the Colonials codes so they could take control of all computer systems, rendering them pretty much useless and gaining them another advantage in their surprise attack. But in many respects the Twelve Colonies had grown complacent since the last Cylon War and though they had a military it wasn’t really on any kind of alert.
The Empire, by comparison, has far more troops in an immediate state of combat readiness, especially as their not only putting down a rebellion but their also conquering new territory, dealing with pirates and smugglers, having to deal with traitorous officers turned would be warlords turning on the Empire itself, and even getting involved in local civil wars across a galaxy. Not to mention any new threats that might be encountered. Many different fleets and military instillations, getting ahold of the codes to gain control of the computer systems for each would be a daunting task. Of course maybe they could just launch nukes, accept for the shielding would make doing that more difficult. Not to mention Imperial slicers would target the Cylon’s own computer codes, turning them against themselves. And the thousands of Star Destroyers would target the Basestars. They’d certainly be a match for the Basestars, if not more than a match. And even with the re-imagined series Resurrection Ships the Cylons wouldn’t be much of a threat to the Empire as they’d be a priority target, wiped out before moving on to the Basestars themselves.
And of course there’s the whole Force element, Palpatine and Vader weren’t the only Force-users in the Empire. Many of Palpatine’s Hands were Force-users and there were many dark side alcolytes under Palpatine’s command. The Cylons wouldn’t be able to figure out who was a Force-user and who wasn’t until it was too late.
cylons are about to kick ass, daft punk comes to get there helmets back.