I'm going to run a star-trek 40k crossover game for a small local con.

I'm looking for any thoughts on fun and interesting ways to use the differences and similarities between ST and 40k. Its going to be next gen based, and half the PC's are Federation and the other half Ordo Chronos inquisitorial agents. the antagonists will be borgified tyranids, because that's awesome and terrible.

If I get good usable stuff, I'll post the adventure I write.

Just about every single 40k warp capable ship is going to be massively bigger than all but the largest Trek vessels. There's a picture floating around somewhere of size comparions.

Imperial troops and ships are generally geared much more towards total warfare, Federation not as much.

Imperials might see some of the alien species in Trek as abhumans or even just weird humans, depending on how similar they look. Speculative: since a lot of the Trek races had a common origin of sorts their genes might not be that different.

Some of each side's tech will be barely comprehensible in theory let alone practice to the other side. 40k material science is quite nuts, leaving equipment, vehicles and starships with insane durability. Remember, a lot of 40k weapons can be left buried for years, dug up and then used. And they'll often be *better* than the 'modern' equipment. Some of the Trek 'tech of the week' stuff will have the Inquisiton and Mechanicus drooling. The sheer number of techs Trek posess that could be turned to superweapons or high end applications is crazy. Genesis devices if mass produced could cleanse whole sectors and make them fit for human habitation. And the Imperium *will* consider all options, no matter how brutal or unthinkable they might seem to the Federation who do not have the experience of living in the awful 40k milky way.

FTL travel methods will be a weird one. 40k warp travel can be **** fast, especially with navigators guided by the astronomicon. I don't know how the numbers compare between that and Federation warp drive (*very* different method).

Universe cross-overs always make me cringe. Especially ones with incompatable asthetics. I always think "Why stop there► Why not include the Muppet Babies►"

Adeptus-B said:

The Muppet Babies would destroy everyone!

It''s tricky to make a direct conversion between Star Trek style warp velocities and 40k style warp apparent velocities, thanks to the fact that the Empyrean is technically a different universe; so much depends upon "local" conditions and the skill of the Navigator. As a result, Star Trek travel times are far more consistent (and hence easier to put an actual velocity to).

What I can do, is provide the Okuda formula for ascertaining FTL velocity using warp drive (as defined for use in TNG and later), and a link to the original travel time calculation table for 40k Warp travel.

The Okuda formula works cleanly from warp 1.0 to 9.0, at which point there is an asymptotic increase in the exponent of w , meaning it takes far more energy to increase velocity further, with warp 10.0 theoretically allowing the vessel to exist in every point in the universe simultaneously, but requiring an infinite (or greater) supply of power to achieve.
It is as follows:

v = w ^(10/3) c

where v is the velocity, w is the warp factor and c is the speed of light in a vacuum (3x10^8m/s, for reference). From there it''s a case of simply plugging in the distance travelled to find flight time to compare.

The table for 40k travel times appears here (roughly the 15th heading down), and is taken from WD139-WD140 (I''m fairly certain it also appeared in the original Rogue Trader book- W40k 1st edition, back in 1987, but verifying that''d mean a search through the archives or pirating an e-copy to check, neither of which I want to do at this point). Using that table, it is possible to derive a formula to work out apparent FTL velocity, but doing so is beyond my current capacity (it''s after 02:30 in the AM, and I''ve had a long day and a reasonable amount to drink), but even without that, it gives you a very rough guide as to the relative FTL capabilities of 40k and Star Trek.

the inquisition working with heratics and xenos who have AI''s on their tricorders► that should be interesting.

god emperor forbid those free thinkers get loose on a planet and spread ideas like equality and civil rights.

or the federation trying to come to a peaceful understanding with orks….. or chaos….. or dark elder.

another problem is borgafing the nids doesn''t make them that much scearier. mindless unstopable force x2 just doesn''t stack. insects(nids, zerg,alien) mechines (terminator, iron men, borg), zombies, all have the same scare facter so mixing them don''t really mix. (this is just my opinion.) and 40k already has something like the borg. the necrons. now a romulen/chaos mix might work. or anyone in trekverse selling weapons to orks.

The Federation will appear hopelessly naive and ignorant to the Imperium, while the Imperium will appear as unnecessarily paranoid and brutal to the Federation. Which view is closer to the truth very much depends on which milky way said adventure is set in.

A lot of the federation ideals simply cannot work in the Imperium, because of the nature of the setting. The Imperium cannot afford secessionists who think their world doesn''t need to contribute to greater war efforts or free speech which could allow chaos lore to spread. And most alien races really have been trying to kill or subvert humanity. However, in the Trek galaxy, the Imperium''s usual tactics would bring about unnecessary warfare.

Trader Austin said:

Does make me think that the Federation and Tau would play well together.

Until the Muppet babies arrived of course.

I've played a my little pony / 40k crossover, as well as Muppets Deathwatch. So yeah, as far as crossovers go, Star Trek is tame.

Good point about borg + tyranids being simply more of the same.

I've decided to make a genestealer cult a significant part of the plot, something trek characters can do more with, rather than a hive ship. Not that worried about FTL speeds, travel isn't going to play a big part of the game, it will mostly be restricted to a single system. I'll still use borganids as an endgame scene I think. But they might be unnecessary.

Well, tyranid+borg may be more of the same but it did make me think of Mass Effect and how the Reapers "implement" cybered zombie versions of organic races as very useful slaves (best examples in ME3). If you played ME I would mine that for inspiration (I think I'd go for Borg as the reapers, with the Tyranids as a version of the collectors, and during the campaign introduce borgified Eldar, Kroot and Orks each with unique and scary abilities). Just an idea…

Well, I can see how a fderation starship might be following a borg vessel into another universe in their pursuit. They do wierd things like that all the time. They will be in for a nasty shock in the 40k universe though where different laws of physics seem to be apparent. For instance, when they enter warp here, they enter the warp just as Imperial vessels do. But once there, they will be faster though unable to travel without access to navigators. They could modify their shields to resemble a gellar field with some thinkering I would imagine. And once they have the services of a Navigator they could travel just as well as the Imperium can.

I am sure that they would find the Imperium to be even more nightmarish then even their own alternate universe and will be quite abhorrant with the imperial behavior. However, they should be quite capable of disguising themselves to avoid a confrontation. Star Trek is used to dealing with all sorts of cultures after all. Their techlevels will be marvelous compared to that of the imperium and without techpriests will be considered heretical. For that matter, would they not consider the machine cult to be some sort of borgs as well?

To make things a success, you would need to make it apperant that both sides need to work together if they want to succeed. The navigator ploy for example forces the trekkies to negotiate for their services and I am sure that the trekkies can offer some valuable insight of how to deal with the borg.

I propose that despite similar names, warp travel in both universes is very different. In 40k, it involves entering an alternate reality whereas in Trek, it is a material universe FTL drive.

I was acually writing a short story about this a while back. It involved a chess game between Q and Tzench. don't remember too many details about it nowadays but the klingons fell to khorn, picard was executed as a heratic and someone finnaly struck upon the idea to use mass teleporters as weapons.

as has been stated, if the federation ever got into the imperial mind set about war they could make exterminatus look like a joke

" so you can blow up a planet, whooptyfucking do, we can blow up suns!"

As said before the two mindsets clash to the extreme, the federation will see the Imperium of Man as a horrible tyranny (which it of course is) and the Imperium will see the Federation as hopelessly naive.

The Imperium does however allow humans with the wrong ideas to learn about the emperor and become part of the Imperium, abandoning their heretical thoughts. The Federation would also allow the Imperium similar options. I believe the crossover would work best with an exploration vessel from the federation on the fringes of the Imperium where the Emperors law doesn't reach as good or with a rouge trader being thrown into a Federation system by a powerful warpcurrent.