"Once a war has started, it serves no master apart from itself. And it cannot be easily stopped, until the victor has extracted his pound of flesh from the vanquished."
— Admiral Kanos
Conquest is a Star Wars/Star Trek Intercontinuity Crossover fanfic. Written by Michael Wong, it is featured on StarDestroyer.net both as separate chapters
and in pdf form
The fanfic starts when the Federation starship USS Carolina chases a Jem'Hadar ship through a wormhole, and finds itself in The Galaxy Far Far Away. That galaxy had split off the official EU at an unspecified date when Han and Leia were killed, and Anakin Solo has decided to put some order in the galaxy. In short, now he is the new Emperor, and his siblings are his sidekicks.
The Federation crew is captured and interrogated when suspected to be rebels. While eventually discovered not to be, that is hardly better for them. You see, it seems that the Emperor has a small problem. He just crushed the Rebellion... he needs new enemies.
Includes the following tropes:
- A Million Is a Statistic: The Borg give a literal example. Five ships lost, 160 billion drones lost, 12 trillion drones lost...
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Captain Picard, mind destroying the Borg for me? Because if you don't, we'll strip-mine Earth and sell every single Earthman into slavery.
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: The main reason the Borg lose; they're not used to fighting an enemy that can match or surpass their firepower and numbers, so they take far too long to develop a strategy besides endlessly hurling Borg Cubes to the frontline and assuming it'll sort itself out from there.
- Author Avatar: Admiral Kanos - his name is one of Mike Wong's screennames, and his tactics are essentially the same as the ones Wong believes the Empire could use to defeat the Federation. He's also shown to be one of the few relatively principled Imperials.
- Back for the Dead: Jellico gets a brief scene in the final battle, where he dies.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Empire and the Federation finally make peace, the Borg Collective is gone, Coruscant is founded in the past, a Force-sensitive child is born in the Federation, and Jacen is killed. But the Romulans are likely going to be wiped out, umpteen billions are dead, including a lot of main characters, the original Empire is still evil, and Picard is going to need a lot of therapy.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: On one side, The Empire, with all the violence and tyranny that implies. On the other, a cast of increasingly desperate Starfleet defenders who will do anything to defend their utopia, including sacrificing distant colonies to protect Earth. The new Rebel Alliance is also quite grey, being rather brutal in their methods but opposing the Empire nonetheless.
- Bread and Circuses: Anakin seems to follow it.
- Cain and Abel: Jacen and Jaina. Amusingly this plot twist actually became canon with the same two characters in largely the same roles, though in canon Jaina was purely good.
- City Planet: Kerenos IV in the Star Wars galaxy is described as being massively industrialized, with a population of two hundred billion. The crew of the Carolina barely have a chance to marvel at it before it gets obliterated by the Death Star.
- Crossover Relatives: The fic ends with the revelation that the Star Wars humanity is a Federation Lost Colony (after a heavily damaged USS Tanaka makes an emergency landing on prehistoric Coruscant).
- Les Collaborateurs: The Vulcan ambassador Marek thinks this of Picard. In response, Commander Chang gives a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
- Crapsack World: In the basic premise, the Star Wars galaxy is this. The Rebel Alliance defeated the evil Galactic Empire and founded the New Republic… only for the New Republic to turn into a new Empire, because it can't survive the rigors of actually governing, as opposed to rebelling. Now the Empire governs the galaxy with very little opposition, except a new Rebel Alliance, which, in the very first chapter of the book, is virtually wiped out, and is shown to be pretty horrible in their own way.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Pretty much each time the Empire uses the Death Star against the Borg.
- The Romulans decide to follow up the attack on the wormhole by taking thirty-two warbirds through. They're greeted by about half the Imperial fleet, and don't survive the first salvo.
- Curb Stomp Cushion:
- The Federation versus the Empire. They're relatively on par in terms of weapons, which lets Starfleet give the Imperial fleet a bloody nose when fighting ship-to-ship, but the Empire has so many strategic advantages (cross-galactic travel, much greater numbers and manufacturing, access to superweapons, control of the wormhole) that the Federation can win battles but hasn't a prayer in the war.
- Early on, the Enterprise-E faces off against forty Romulan warbirds. It manages to take down several of them, including the flagship, through clever tactics on Picard's part and overconfidence on the Romulans', but it's so badly outgunned that it has no hope of winning.
- Detonation Moon: In the Battle of Earth, thanks to the Obliterator.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The Death Star, of course, whose victims include Romulus, the Romulan homeworld. There's also the Obliterator, an Eclipse-class Super Star Destroyer whose superlaser can devastate planets and shatter moons such as Luna.
- Enemy Mine: There are some strange alliances in the fanfic. The Empire and Picard versus the Borg, for instance.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Admiral Kanos has no problem with blowing up planets… but stealing babies? This is Lampshaded by Q.
- Eviler than Thou: Jacen to Anakin and Jaina.
- False Flag Operation: When Admiral Halsey sees that the President doesn't fight properly, he gets him and several other officials assassinated with Imperial weapons and declares martial law.
- General Ripper: Halsey. He's somewhat sympathetic, given that he's absolutely right that the Federation won't survive without his less-than-ideal methods, but he also starts the war in the first place, despite it being blatantly obvious that the Federation is going to lose very badly.
- I Gave My Word: This is Admiral Kanos's redeeming feature. He offers the newly conquered Federation virtual autonomy (with only a trade tax) if they assist the Imperial loyalists against the Borg and Jacen's rebellion. When he (barely) wins, even his own closest subordinates expect him to break his word, but he keeps it.
- Guilt-Tripping: When Jaina sees that Picard is reluctant to win the Empire's war against the Borg for them (believing that the current Let's You and Him Fight situation is preferable to a possible You Have Outlived Your Usefulness), she basically mind controls him into raping her. When he comes to later remorseful and willing to submit to whatever punishment she demands, Jaina states destroying the Borg will be sufficient.
- Intangibility: The flagship of the Federation's fleet, the USS Tanaka, is fitted with a phasing device useless against a tractor-repulsor beam combination.
- Interstellar Weapon: The Galaxy Gun is mentioned a couple of times, but never used. However, toward the end Captain Picard's final strategy against the Borg is to use probe droid pods loaded with warheads.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: Emperor Solo's new Empire is a few shades lighter than Palpatine's; the Senate still has a degree of power, the racism isn't as obvious, and they're actually willing to negotiate. They still wipe out rebellious planets on a daily basis, mind.
- Manipulative Bastard: Emperor Anakin Solo deliberately provokes the Romulans into destroying an Imperial space station containing millions of civilians, whom he'd carefully chosen to be part of every major group in the Star Wars galaxy, so that the Empire would get sympathy from every part of the galaxy. Then, he uses this as an excuse to invade the Romulans and the Federation, who were innocent (except for one collaborator). All of this is to provide an external enemy, to use as an excuse to maintain the Empire's tyranny.
- Never Tell Me the Odds!: Riker says this to Data, a nod to Han Solo's line in The Empire Strikes Back.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: A couple of cases. First Chang (especially with the failed raid on the Rebel ship), then Picard.
- Noble Demon: Admiral Kanos. He may destroy Luna in the battle of Earth and blow up planets as Romulus and Remus, but at the same time he sees the Federation as WorthyOpponents.
- Override Command: The Empire has installed them on all captured ships.
- Power Creep, Power Seep: Surprisingly, the Empire gets powered down - to Wong, anyway. His calculations and official statistics on SDN say that the Empire's own weapons and shields are orders of magnitude above those of the Federation, while they're shown as roughly equal in the story. If Wong used his calculations, a single Star Destroyer would probably have soloed the Federation, which, needless to say, wouldn't be very interesting.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Picard makes a plea towards this to Halsey when the latter boasts that his fleet can defeat the Empire at Earth, pointing out that at this point, Halsey's method of abandoning member systems to cluster his forces together has made the Federation government so unpopular among its member worlds that they're seceding en masse, and even if he does beat back the Empire, they can just build another fleet, and the Federation can't.
- Ramming Always Works: A memorable case when the Rebels are ambushed on their way to the wormhole. Out of the three Rebel ships, one has been destroyed, the other has all the systems offline—except for hyperdrive. Doesn't quite destroy the enemy ship, but creates enough havoc for the last ship to get through. Later in the book Kanos when fighting Jacen's forces (read: the Death Star) in order to protect Jaina who is in the defenseless U.S.S. Tanaka orders Imperial ships to hyperdrive against the Death Star
- Smug Snake:
- The Borg keep up their "resistance is futile" broadcasts even after thousands of Cubes are gone.
- Halsey is firmly convinced he's the savior of the Federation and that he can beat the Empire back, and while he's a good tactician, he's either unable or unwilling to understand what he's done to the Federation.
- Steal the Surroundings: The beginning has the Rebels rescuing people from a prison complex. They tow the entire complex into transports, flee, and storm it once safe.
- The Strategist: Pretty much everyone is played as one, particularly Picard, Kanos, and Halsey.
- Superweapon Surprise: In the end, it turns out the Ring Station used to stabilize the wormhole can be used as a particle cannon.
- Technologically Advanced Foe: The Empire's ships are more or less on par with their Federation counterparts, but their blisteringly-fast FTL makes defense virtually impossible. Starfleet can only achieve limited Pyrrhic Victories by massing its ships in one place and leaving their outlying colonies completely defenseless.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Commander Chang gets a little bit annoyed when the Vulcan ambassador Marek calls Captain Picard an "Imperial puppet"."He is a Federation officer!" Chang exploded. He looked at the ambassador with contempt plainly evident on his face. "Worthless politician ... you don’t wear the uniform," he snarled, "so you don’t know what it means. You don’t know what it means to risk your life in defense of your world. But I know what it means, and so does Picard. He never had a choice!"
"We always have a choice, Commander."
"Yes, we do, don’t we? Picard chose to accept Kanos’ offer because the alternative was to watch Imperial troops turn Earth into a smoking wasteland. But what about you? Your government signed a non−aggression pact with the Empire without even engaging them in battle! You got on your knees and begged for mercy, so you wouldn’t have to sacrifice any of your oh−so precious and oh−so superior Vulcan soldiers. While the rest of us were fighting and dying, you chose to cower in your homes. And now you condemn Picard for what he did? People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, Marek." - Twist Ending: Some of the characters wonder why humans exist in both the Star Wars galaxy and the Star Trek galaxy. They speculate that Earth (in Star Trek) was colonized by people from the Star Wars galaxy. But at the end of the story, the crew of the starship Tanaka go through the disintegrating, destabilised wormhole. The last words of the book are when Q says:"Let’s just say they ended up in a time long ago. In a galaxy far, far away. On an uninhabited planet that will someday be known ... as Coruscant."
- Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: Though it's a long way from an Excuse Plot, the story's first half is more or less an account of how the Empire could defeat the Federation.
- Ungrateful Bastard: The Rebel Captain Ruk's perception of the Federation. He enters the Star Trek galaxy at great cost (losing one of his few remaining ships), trying to alert them to the threat of the Empire. They try to steal his ship for (from his perspective) no good reason. As a result, he throws them to the Borg.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: That's what Emperor Anakin Solo believes. But his Empire isn't exactly a utopia.
- Vestigial Empire: What the Empire in the Milky Way ends up being at the end of the story. They're cut off from their home galaxy, their fleet's been cut down to size, they only control the few planets they managed to colonize, and Kanos has assumed command.
- We ARE Struggling Together: A major reason the Federation loses is that they can't rally the galaxy together the way they did against the Dominion. The Romulans refuse to be peaceful and employ their Chronic Backstabbing Disorder with disastrous results, the Empire approaches the Klingons first and gives them ships and free reign to conquer other territories, the Cardassians and Dominion aren't interested, and the Borg are too stubborn and proud to ally with anyone. Even the Federation member worlds don't take long to turn their back, after a series of Curb Stomp Battles and Halsey's abandonment of them.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The subsequent fate of Admiral Halsey after he's relieved of command and arrested is never revealed afterwardsnote . Nor is it revealed what became of the Jem'Hadar the USS Carolina pursued through the wormhole at the beginning, even if it's survival in the titanic battle at the other side of the wormhole especially with their ship heavily damaged is unlikely at best.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The Federation ships in the final battle side with the Empire against the Rebels, because they cannot tolerate the tactic of destroying unarmed evacuation transports.
- Worthy Opponent: Admiral Kanos sees Starfleet such way since in the first battle between Starfleet and his forces the former manages to destroy several Imperial ships, including a pair of Star Destroyers, despite being extremely outnumbered.
- You Have Failed Me: Mentioned to be used by Anakin. Done by Jacen.
- You Rebel Scum!: Used by an anonymous Stormtrooper against William Riker in a Rebel raid against a now Imperial outpost.
- Zerg Rush: The big reason the Empire wins is that, thanks to its hyperdrive, it can keep its whole fleet together and attack with hundreds or thousands of ships at once while the Federation has a hard time rallying together more than a few dozen at a time. The Federation's best battle is their stand at Earth, which was the only battle in the war where both sides had even mildly equal firepower.
