Battle of the Space Stations - who should win? (Page 2 of 2)

Alrighty SCI FI Geeks, this debate has been around for a while but we have to be sure what each station has.  I read up on the wikis of each station and this is what i've come up with if these two space stations went head to head.

DS9:  Phaser Banks, Photon Torpedos and Defensive Shields.  Runabouts and the Defiant will be at the ready as well.  Should be stated that runabouts are not military vehicles they're merely transport shuttles with shields and phasers.  The Defiant is a military ship and its equip with rapid fire phaser pulse cannons and quantum torpedoes.

B5:  Particle Lasers, Pulse Cannons and Plasma Cannons with 8-12 meters of armored hull plating for defense.  Babylon 5 also houses 48 starfury fighter class ships that carry Pulse Discharge cannons. 

  Now we all know how massive these stations are on our TV but how do they compare with each other?  The diameter of DS9 is 1.4km which is about 0.9 miles.  Babylon 5 is 8.06km long and is roughly .84km in diameter.  This is about 5 miles long and with 8 to 12 meters of armor around it makes Babylon 5 a very big tank. 

  Now the offensive capabilities of both ships are very impressive.  I have to state that phasers in the star trek universe are a little more advanced then the B5 weapons.  Not that there's a lack of power at all, in comparison but just that phasers are more efficient. 

  Now the real battle between the station will take place between the Defiant & Runabouts versus the 48 starfury fighters that are docked in B5.  Now i've never seen more then a few runabouts in a combat situation.  DS9 relies heavily on the defiant and its own weapons systems.  Yes the runabout has shields but energy shields and a single phaser turret will do little against an attack from a military fighter squadron.  The shields will only give them enough time to jump to warp before the shields fail.  The Defiant on the other hand is definitely a war ship.  It will be able to punch thru the fighter squadron and hold its own for a little while against the Starfury fighters.  Even though the Defiant has Quantum torpedoes there will be fighters to intercept them along with lasers to shoot them down.  Even though the Defiant is a tough little ship, it still comes down to one ship against a battle station.  Yes it has shields and yes it has superior fire power, but the Defiant wont last long against the fighters and the cannons that come bearing down from B5.  The only ace that the Defiant has would be with their warp drive which will let them run, but battles aren't won by running away.

  Now being a big DS9 fan myself, its hard for me to say this.  Even with the Federation weaponry on this Cardassian built space station, their photon torpedoes against B5's outer hull will be like throwing hand grenades at a castle wall.  Sure the grenades will do damage but they wont hurt anyone inside the walls.  Yes DS9 and the Defiant will be able to inflict significant damage onto B5, but not before the squadrons of Starfury fighters and B5's own weapons systems take down its shields and weapons turrets.  Babylon 5 is ultimately too massive for Deep Space 9 to handle in a station versus station battle.

  B5 was meant to be a battle station after all while DS9 is a retrofitted Cardassian out post.  DS9 will do more than just hold its own in the battle, but B5 was built for combat.  Even without a shield generator the station will overwhelm DS9 and its defenses.  The Earthforce squadron of star fighters will be sure to keep the Defiant and her weapons in check until B5 gets into position to fire down onto DS9. 
 
  To me this all came down to numbers, B5 is almost five times bigger then DS9, it has more guns and more ships to aide in a combat situation.  What won me over though was the fact that B5 is a military vessel meant for combat while the only true military vessel DS9 has is the Defiant.

http://poncherello.mybrute.com/

You also forget that as of season 3 (which is when DS9 got the Defiant) B5 also had Whitestars. While the whole Ranger army wasn't always at or near the station, there was always at least one Whitestar (Sheridan's) present. So the fighter squadrons wouldn't have to deal with the Defiant - the Whitestar would make it a ship-to-ship battle. Now we can argue which ship is better, but I'd say they are evenly matched, which tips the battle again in favor of B5, because it would be Whitestar + fighter squadron vs. Defiant.

However, you haven't taken into consideration the surrounding space of both stations. B5 had the Great Machine on Epsilon III, which could aid the planet's (and by proxy the station's) defense. DS9 on the other hand had the Worhole and the Wormhole Aliens/Prophets. Unfortunately, B5 emerges victorious yet again, because the Great Machine has been shown to defend the station directly ("A Voice in the Wilderness," episodes 1x18 and 19), while the Wormhole Aliens protected DS9 only indirectly by either shutting the Wormhole down or destroying armadas within it ("Sacrifice of Angels," episode 6x06). So unless B5 or any of its ships would have to go through the Wormhole to reach DS9 the Wormhole Aliens would be powerless to help.

P.S.: I love "scientifically" supporting my arguments by citing episode names and numbers!

P.P.S.: I think not having seen any of the shows in the poll is necessarily something to brag about. If sci-fi's not your thing, fine, but why advertise it on the forums? And if you haven't seen them because you are ignorant, then why advertise that as well? *flame* The shows are apparently important enough for people to create exclusive polls about and write meaningless, long postings about, so get off your ass, watch them, and then come back to discuss two of the best sci-fi shows ever made.

"We're on the side of the demons, Chief. We're evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go."
-- Colonel Tigh

Wow, you guys are definitely earning your geek cred with this one. 

Who?
Never seen DS9..
And a little B5 a saw like million years ago and don't even remember anything about that..
But thanks to poncherello, i know now who will win.
and got really good explanation for my question.

and neither of these two shows will compare to Farscape... quit while y'r ahead...

Wow, so many people talk out of their asses, it's unbelievable ... yes, I am looking at you maccool111

Seriously, "DS9 is armed to the teeth" while "B5 has NO weapons"? Have you seen any episodes of Babylon 5 or bothered to read poncherello's well-researched post? Were you taking a leaking or getting a beer any time these babies were on screen?

Wow, way to compare apples and oranges. Other then being under the huge umbrella of "sci-fi shows" the series have absolutely nothing you can compare. Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5 are shows about space stations with strong, over-arching, thickly-plotted stories, while Farscape is Homer's "Odyssey" in space. I agree that Farscape is one hell of a show with great characters and a great story, but you are doing a disservice to both of those with baseless claims like that.

Just out of curiosity, did you actually see Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5 in their entirety or are you just talking out of your ass? Because god knows there hasn't been much sci-fi around in the last decade or so and picking the good sci-fi out of a very slim base is even worse, but anyone who has seen all three shows knows that together with Battlestar Galactica they are the creme-de-la-creme of sci-fi on TV. You might prefer Farscape and that is perfectly okay, but both those shows very much compare, nay even give Farscape a run for its money. So please, don't scare the n00bs away

Uhm, there's a poll about these shows on the main page and we keep discussing them on a regular basis, so yeah, they are awesome. However, there is a caveat or two: it depends on what you expect from a sci-fi show. Deep Space 9 is great when it gets going with its overarching storyline (about season 3 onwards) and has some annoying elements (Ferengi stories, anyone?). Babylon 5 is pretty much balls-to-the-wall awesome, thought-through sci-fi on a grand scale that hasn't been done before or ever since (and IMHO with the way the TV business is going, never will be again), but suffers from sometimes god-awful dialog and very bad, 90's SFX. Having said that, both shows have terrific writing, characters, settings, and big, sometimes philosophical stories that you won't find anywhere else.

So do not go in expecting anything like Farscape. As I said above, Farscape is a very unique show (with its own flaws), but you won't find the amount of craziness and weirdness (in a good way) anywhere else. So if you liked the characters and the story of Farscape, you should enjoy Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5 as well, even though they are a different breed of sci-fi. If, however, you got off on the total whacked-out-ness of the universe (pregnant ships, etc.), you might find Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5 very safe and "classic."

"We're on the side of the demons, Chief. We're evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go."
-- Colonel Tigh

hehe hey now... the ferengi episodes were funny for fillers.. but the Jake and Nog treasure hunt episodes were the best

now i'm saying a station to station battle.. you have to picture one mile of ds9's photon torpedos and phaser arrays.  now picture that against 5 miles of plasma cannons and phase cannons lined up against it.  It'll be like the Spartans and Thermopylae. 

Now DS9 could be cheap and just transport a Quantum Torpedo over to the station... but then B5 could also just open a Jump Gate on the DS9's promenade (Whitestars have their own jump gate capability).

Me being a huge DS9 fan i had to find out if it could stand up to B5, but with all that fire power and all that armor.... the out come is bleak.  But my calculations didn't take Ben Sisko's connection w/ the Prophets into account, or Mile's O'Briens uncanny ability to boost shield power to a mythic level.  All i did was run the numbers ;-)

http://poncherello.mybrute.com/

As I never really got into either DS9 (eastenders in space)or B5(sorry FX are just too bad..guess I'm spoilt) I can contribute nothing to this deiscussion except try and sway it to a different tangent.

Lets get a real question:

Death Star vs Lexx

Good thing this isn't a discussion forum or something similar, where one might expect you to actually discuss your baseless comments, support them with arguments, or god forbid read somebody's reply. But you are right, tfl;dr is a much better retort ...

"We're on the side of the demons, Chief. We're evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go."
-- Colonel Tigh

Hmmm.... it does say who "should" win. I didn't even notice the exact wording. I guess generally both are what I would think of as good guys. Hard to imagine a battle between DS9 and B5 really, unless one station had knowledge of the future and thought it would serve the greater good to prevent the other station from existing. In such a situation I think DS9 would still try to find some other way while for some reason my gut tells me that B5 might be willing to sacrifice DS9. Oh say to save the known universe from total obliteration. Just a feeling. So I guess I vote for B5