Combined military might of the universe

[TeChameleon]

I might be misremembering but wasn't Age of Apocalypse an actual change to the present of the main universe caused by time travel? If so, there are apparently exceptions to their time travel "immunity".

Both Age of Apocalypse and House of M were changes to the 'main' (616) Marvel Universe, although House of M was reality warping rather than time travel... but I'm pretty sure it was still considered a separate timeline..? And AoA ended up having its own universe number when later writers wanted to revisit it (Earth 295), but that was a retcon.

As far as I can tell, the rules are slightly different when either psychic time travel is involved, or else when reality warpers are mucking around with things (given that David Haller/Legion, who caused AoA, was both a psychic-powered time traveller and a reality warper, things get a little muddied).

If we're talking time-travellers in the superhero universes, let's see if I can throw out some of the main ones from the big two...

Marvel:

- Kang the Conqueror and his various incarnations (Iron Lad, the Scarlet Centurion, Pharaoh Rama-Tut, and Immortus) seems to be the most accomplished time-traveller, able to consistently mess with whichever universe he wants, rather than just splitting off parallel timestreams.

- Cable seems to be able to wander the timestream with relative impunity, and also seems to be able to have at least modest effects on things without causing parallel universes. Blaquesmith and Rachel Grey-Summers/Phoenix II/Mother Askani also seem to have that ability, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent, or at least they haven't shown it as much.

- The Time Variance Authority seems to be more or less competent at patrolling the timestream, and can lay out enough future-tech firepower for a single agent to believably challenge Thor, so there's that.

There are a ton of other time travellers in Marvel, but they seem to be more prone to spinning off parallel timestreams, or else are close enough to the 'no infinites' clause (like Franklin Richards or Agamotto) to not really be under consideration.

DC:
Basically anyone who does the superhero gig long enough ends up time travelling at one point or another, but these are the ones for whom time travel is their primary gig, or for whom it happens often enough to be, maybe not their main thing, but definitely a thing.

- The Linear Men. Rip Hunter (the Time Master), Liri Lee, Waverider, and Booster Gold are their primaries. Waverider is made out of pure temporal energy (... superhero physics, everyone!), so that's a thing. I suspect even the Doctor would be a little nonplussed by that.

- Metron, he of the Mobius Chair. Goes anywhere in time or space, without any appreciable limitations. Mostly just observes stuff, but has been shown to be able to change things if the mood takes him. Comes with a (literally) godlike intellect and immense reality-warping abilities.

- The Legion of Superheroes; the various Brainiac 5s (I hate that that's a sentence that makes perfect sense in context. Yay, comics.) pretty much inevitably invent a time bubble, and the Time Beacon (to be able to find their way back to their home reality), making time travel range from 'sorta difficult, but doable' to 'utterly trivial'.

- The Flash, both Barry and Wally, along with Impulse/Kid Flash II. While they occasionally have difficulty with controlling where they end up, contact with the Speed Force basically lets them flip both physics and causality the bird with an 'I do what I want'.

- Hourman III. A sentient machine-colony android from the 853rd Century, he could time travel (and control time) with enough power that Metron was grooming him as his successor. Packs enough of a punch to compete with Waverider in the 'mess with time' game.

- Green Lantern. Any Green Lantern- it's a base feature on their rings, to the point that a group of them has taken a reality revision to the face without any more harm than brief disorientation. Not necessarily something they all have a lot of experience with, but it's something they can do.

- Dr. Fate; with him it mostly just seems to be part of the magic gig, although his tower does exist outside of space and time.

And then there's the villains. Hoo, boy. Just gonna list them off, because bloody hell, there's a lot of them.

Per Degaton, Reverse-Flash, Abra Kadabra, the Legion of Super-Villains, Extant/Monarch (same guy, different points in his own timestream), Epoch, Time Commander, Black Barax, Gloriana Tenebrae, Glorith, Time Trapper (... several of him? His/her existence is a little unclear), Inertia, Harvest, Knodar, and Chronos, and probably others I'm forgetting.

So while 'time war' isn't something that the superhero 'verses are really set up for, they're not exactly helpless on that front.

[Porcupinata]

Q would need to be demonstrably finite in capabilities.

The thing with the Star Trek universe is that it doesn't just have the Q continuum.

It has the Organians, the Prophets, the Douwd, the unnamed species that became the Greek gods, the Thasians, the Iconians, whatever species Trelane is, the planet-eating matter-energy cloud, the Cytherians, whatever species Gorgan is, whatever species the being at the centre of the galaxy that claimed to be "God" is, and dozens more ultra-powerful aliens.

Wherever you draw the line between finite and infinite, there's bound to be a Star Trek species that butts right up against it.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

The thing with the Star Trek universe is that it doesn't just have the Q continuum.

It has the Organians, the Prophets, the Douwd, the unnamed species that became the Greek gods, the Thasians, the Iconians, whatever species Trelane is, the planet-eating matter-energy cloud, the Cytherians, whatever species Gorgan is, whatever species the being at the centre of the galaxy that claimed to be "God" is, and dozens more ultra-powerful aliens.

Wherever you draw the line between finite and infinite, there's bound to be a Star Trek species that butts right up against it.

If you include the novels, Trelane's also a member of the Q Continuum (Q-Squared by Peter David).

[Quertus]

I might be misremembering but wasn't Age of Apocalypse an actual change to the present of the main universe caused by time travel? If so, there are apparently exceptions to their time travel "immunity".

Shrug. My personal head canon is that which universe we're watching / others "connect" to changes. One comic long ago seemed to indicate that Marvel had (effectively) a "universe recycling mechanism", that, in effect, destroyed "uninteresting" universes, restoring their matter / energy / space for more Marvel universes to spawn.

@Quertus: see, the funny thing about the Book is that if you rule it as non-infinite and less than universe-sized, that generates the possibility of destroying it and recovering it from beyond its range of effect! And since it is explicitly at least planetary in effect and stated to effect the world it is on, this turns it from a single-use universal WMD to multi-use planetary+ WMD. (It is also a D&D style spellbook with 9 9th level spells in it, so...)

Same applies to the Monolith. You can rule it as conceptually non-infinite... it still remains a setting-hopping time-hopping piece of crap, equivalent to TARDIS from Doctor Who. (Not a comparison invented by me; I've seen it in multiple third party reviews.)

Well, the Book *could* reappear outside its AoE… if it has a longer "rebuild" range than its AoE… and it *somehow* got destroyed. Not really sure how anyone would accomplish that last bit.

If you include the novels, Trelane's also a member of the Q Continuum (Q-Squared by Peter David).

If she's a crazy cat lady (young puppy love girl? Something like that…) then wasn't it a televised episode?

[Khedrac]

Even if one ignores Time Travel the Dr Who universe is going to be hard to beat. For one thing, it's a full universe - large numbers of populated galaxies, something (in my experience) very rare in both games and novels. Also, they too have a few immensely powerful races e.g. the ancient Orisians (if I have that right - them from the Pyramids of Mars) plus the Black and White Guardians.

The forces of the Lensman Universe are immensely powerful (especially if we take it before the conclusion of the war so both the Arisians and Eddorians are still around). High-tech combatants lead by powerful and skilled psionicists with the assistance of beings not killable by physical force. However, there are only two populated galaxies. An explicit point of the universe is that most galaxies have less than 10 stars with planets, only those were galaxies have passed through each other get more (lots more). This means even quite weak forces in large enough numbers are likely to be able to reduce their numbers to just the most powerful individuals who may not be at an advantage against their opponent's leaders.

The Marvel universe appears to have a load of immensely powerful beings, but it's worth double checking. We know that those of the Marvel Universe find them very hard to kill, but also we know that Adam Warlock only had to explode 3? populated planets to tear a breach in the universe - which suggests that the actual offensive capabilities of the inhabitants are not that great when compared with many science fiction universes.

So, to throw another name in the ring - but one that is probably disqualified for not being an RPG setting - let's stick with EE Doc Smith and go to the Skylark universe.
OK, we have now gone from lots of powerful beings to just a handful, but this handful were able to go through an inhabited galaxy chucking half the occupied plates into suns while moving the other half to orbit suns in a different galaxy in a matter of minutes - and they did it from a long way outside the galaxy in question (the hostile inhabitants could have killed them if they stayed in there).
The have a weapon range against arisian-type beings that is probably about as big as the observable universe (one ship either side they create a field of force to enclose them and then shrink it down to about that of a pea trapping all non-material beings in the process. Their big factor is the range at which they can beat people - it's pretty much anywhere in the universe. Their only lack is time travel, and they have a small amount of access to that through extra dimensions.

[I3igAl]

This no-infinite rules is weird since most fictional universes are infinite and would be able to mount infinite armies. Even something like DnD has layered infinity with multiple infinite plains.

The Marvel universe appears to have a load of immensely powerful beings, but it's worth double checking. We know that those of the Marvel Universe find them very hard to kill, but also we know that Adam Warlock only had to explode 3? populated planets to tear a breach in the universe - which suggests that the actual offensive capabilities of the inhabitants are not that great when compared with many science fiction universes.

Marvel has been around for 80 years. It has had dozens if not hundreds of different writers many of whom did not know what the others did. And even many writers do not really care about consistency in that regard.
When it comes to their upper limits in power, Marvel superheroes are probably the most inconsistent characters one can find.
If you look at Thor, you can find comics, where he crosses the universe in less than a second easily moving 1000s if not more times the speed of light. You can also find comics, where he is to slow too even hit Wolverine. There are comics where he fights in the center of the sun and then there are comics, where he nearly fries to death flying to close by it.

In any case, Marvel has the problem of character approaching some form of infinity quite early. Characters like Thor, Hulk and Silver Surfer are already described to have incalculable strength and skyfathers seem to already be able to reality warp basically everything so it depends what exactly OP means by having infinite characters.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I've never read anything from Heir to the Stars/the Suggsverse, but from what I know of it it was specifically written to be the most OP thing to ever OP. Unless we cut them off because even the most mundane characters are apparently omnipotent and omnipotent is another word for infinite they should at the very least have any superhero setting or other universe that relies on the incredible power of a few individuals beaten. And there are apparently officially 330^googolplex of those super mundane omnipotent god characters (which is not infinite), so they should have any setting that relies on having a whole galaxy full of inhabited planets beaten as well.

The bane of these discussions is usually that it's not very hard to make up super powerfull stuff. See also the Doctor Who example: the stuff they make up for the for laughs episodes is probably often more powerful than stuff they take a little more seriously, ones you think it all the way through.

If we stick to the slightly more internally consistent and well known universes I agree that both WH40K and Schlock Mercenary probably stand a decent chance. Schlock has instant teleportation against which the only known defense is another in-universe invention and wisecracking megapowerful AI's popping up at a pace of about one per month, Warhammer has nothing super conventionally powerful in its own right, but most planets in their universe are home to either a billion feral orcs or even more tyrannids. Sometimes both. And chaos pretty much only gets stronger the more you fight it, or the more you foght anything else for that matter.

[Grim Portent]

Dunno, most 40k tech is pretty tame compared to a lot of sci-fi.

High end necron, eldar and dark age human tech is scary, being able to move stars, destroy worlds, time travel and so on. Plus there's various random xenotech world killer devices which can be very cheap to use and nigh indestructible. But the conventional stuff, starships, soldiers and so on aren't really any better than the things Marvel throws around, or are worse. Schlock mercenary armies would probably flatten most 40k factions.

I think 40k would need to abuse it's ability to violate causality to have a chance against a lot of other settings. Various events take place only because the Chaos Gods sent people back in time to bring about the events that led to them being sent back in time. In theory they can snuff out any problem with time travel, but then you come down to questions of whose time travel takes precedence when they come up against the time travellers from other settings.

[Quertus]

I've played 2 different Marvel RPGs; granted, technically, I suppose, Marvel is a *comic* reality (or, as in a recent case, a movie reality) with attached RPG rather than an "RPG reality".

Still, "has an RPG" was my really low bar.

(And I'm not actually sure that all of the entries qualify…)

(Also, "the real world™" is a bonus entry, for calibration purposes)

-----

As for infinity…

Although I can see the arguments, Infinite universe size isn't enough to disqualify a submission: it's only if the *population* is infinite that *that portion* of the population is disqualified.

For example, in D&D, the outer planes are infinite in size. Yet many / most of the outsider populations are explicitly finite. If, however, there are an infinite number of Shadows on the plane of Shadow, or an infinite number of Lesser Demons in the Abyss, then those particular infinite numbers of creatures are not able to participate.

As for an infinitely powered creature? My criteria has been "demonstrably finite". So if it is clear - especially to the other inhabitants of the universe - that a being's (or object's) power has limits / is measurable, then it should be fine.

Yes, the Death Star can blow up planets… but only at a certain rate, at a certain range, and (IIRC) the blast does not penetrate the planet to potentially hit a planet behind it. So clearly finite power.

Whereas an Epic spell could affect an entire infinite plane… in a finite and resistable way. The Book could *maybe* affect an infinite plane in an infinite and unresisted way. Curiously, when dealing with things in the scale of "blow up a planet", considerations of "measurable amount of power in terms of ability to resist" has been less an issue for me than Babylon 5's catch phrase of "it's off the scale". That phrase means that, in B5, all those beings / tech would be disqualified, because the source universe tried and failed to quantify them.

So, yeah, I recognize that my definition is a bit… sketchy. But "no infinite" is kinda a Playground standard, and I'm really not interested in comparing infinities anyway.

Personally, I was kinda hoping that the Star Destroyer / Storm Trooper / infrastructure levels would factor more into the answer than it seems likely to, given "ranged/teleported antimatter planets" and "Time Travel: I defeat you before you even know that we are fighting" are on the table.

EDIT: yes, "omnipotent" beings are clearly unable to participate. How does slugs fare without them?

[Tvtyrant]

If we stick into the realm of western widely-consumed media, it usually comes down to Star Wars or Warhammer 40k or something like that where the writers like to add zeros to every number and don't really understand what it means.

If we expand the realm to the really crazy, there's a couple of animes were giant robots use galaxies as weapons, so I think that probably wins.



Basically, the less the writers pretend to understand reality, and thus the crazier the feats and more zeros are attached to every number, the more powerful the combined forces of the setting are. It doesn't really have anything to do with strategy, tactics, logistics, or technology.

Except troop numbers which are hilariously small. Somewhat justified in that ships are expensive and troops take food and precious missile space.

[GloatingSwine]

The Warp can spawn demons, gods, etc. Individually, those are each of finite power. Are their numbers theoretically infinite? Maybe. But it feels to me like the warp, in toto, is actually only of finite power, just like D&D's infinite planes have only a finite population.

So, I think that you *could* mode anything from the warp's play-dough; I just don't think that you have an infinite supply of play-dough with which to manifest all the possible demons at the same time.

If I'm wrong, then WH40K does not get its demons. But that doesn't invalidate the *rest* of WH40K in this challenge / thought experiment.

There are infinite Daemons in the Warp because they can never truly be killed and everything there is controlled by the whim of the chaos gods. But the number that can leave the Warp and act in the Materium is very limited. It requires people to act in certain ways, do things for certain reasons, or intentionally try to call them. The scale and intensity of whatever calls them forth determines how many and how powerful the incursion.

[Cluedrew]

Ah no one picked up the Doomguy joke, oh well. It is kind of a joke about "what about the settings that don't even make sense?" Doomguy is a regular solider who fought off (and then took the fight to) all the forces of hell. Pit of Kid Icarus canonically has infinite lives/retries so can never be killed permanently. And of course there are the extensive comic book stories with absurd beings and powers yet somehow it never actually effects daily life on earth.

Thinking about the interactions between settings is fun though, but I like the weird ones for this. Like Dark Ocean which is a multiverse separated by an endless night filed with monsters and rock. The rocks (and the fact there is air here) stop most spaceships and even if you can get ground forces deployed the monsters will probably tare your apart before you reach any of the settled areas. And even if you start at one getting to the next is getting to the next is going to be a chore and the locals... well they are prepared. I mean they started breeding 10 headed dragons because the old 6 headed dragon breeds just weren't doing enough damage. Also the incredibly terrifying warriors these things are designed to fight tend to also be artists and politicians who are comfortable working on a centuries long time scale. So forget military might, against most other settings they will probably just force a stand-still and then assimilate the attacking universe.

[Martin Greywolf]

For reasonable universes that are thought out in depth, I'd have to go with Schlock Mercenary crowd, the galaxy there is outrageously powerful, more so than the Lensman even. This is mostly because Lensman is older in real world time and doesn't have the AI capabilities the Schlock does, but still.

For the dumb but fun universes, it's a tie between all those that have beings that encompass all reality - so, SCP foundation, Lovecraft verse, Sandman and so on. There are no winners when Yog Sottoth, Pattern Screamers, Scarlet King and Destiny decide to have a team deathmatch.

[Quertus]

OK, from what I've heard, I think I'm prepared to draw up a tentative stat sheet, so that we can get to the dirty business of tearing it apart.

The stats we will need for "Alpha 1" will be as follows:

Time Travel

Does the universe have Time Travel (ie, we kill your ancestors before you know that we're at war)?

Does the universe have defense against Time Travel? (ie, sure you killed our ancestors, but we exist nonetheless)?

Does the universe have the ability to fix Time (ie, if you killed our anestors, we can see what changed, go back in time, and change it back)?

WMD

Does the universe have the ability to destroy things on at least a planetary scale?

What defenses does the universe have against things attacking on that scale?

FTL / Space Combat

Can the beings in the universe move at FTL speeds?

Can they fight at those speeds?

Can they detect things at those speeds?

-----

Real World™

Possesses no time travel, WMD, or FTL. Could potentially nuke a planet or two into sadness.

Star Wars

Time Travel: No known time travel, although "The Force" could potentially predict and actively manipulate events against such meddling, on a universal, deterministic scale. Results unclear.

WMD: Several WMD (depending on universe and time frame); all are single-planet or single-system scale, with limited range, limited RoF and/or limited ammo. Uncertain if any exist in parallel with "Jedi can teleport entire fleets" timeline. Despite planetary shields, no ability to defend against their own WMD, let alone more advanced WMD (except that, as it occurs long ago in a galaxy far, far away, exterminating the "us" of the past may prove difficult for some).

FTL: Able to move FTL, covering galactic distances in a matter of hours or days (or instantly teleport with Jedi assistance), but combat (and sensors) are much more limited to "standard" speeds. Able to pull objects out of FTL speeds.

Note: Predictive abilities granted by The Force may make this universe perform better than anticipated.

Star Trek

Time Travel: Numerous races possess time travel; a few have the technology (or even the inborn innate ability) to sense timeline changes.

WMD: No known WMD. The Federation is able to explode its ships to make an entire... parsec(?) uninhabitable. The Borg and Crystalline Entity can slowly strip an entire planet of its population... but that hardly seems applicable.

FTL: Varies. Standard FTL covers galactic distances in a matter of years; Borg Subspace and Traveler speeds are *much* higher; if of demonstrably finite power, Q appears to simply teleport galactic distances.

Note: Lots and lots of species whose capabilities need only be proven demonstrably finite that are capable of completely outclassing the "standard" races.

Marvel

Time Travel: Numerous individuals possess time-travel capability; questionable whether any would be more effective than Homer Simpson sneezing in dinosaurs. Marvel potentially possesses a strange defense against Time Travel of simply spawning alternate realities instead of changing the source reality.

WMD: No known demonstrably finite WMD? Phoenix can eat stars; Galactus can eat planets. Both are singular entities, fairly slow effects, and close-range.

FTL: Numerous FTL and teleporting entities and races; some predictive and long-range senses; no known FTL combat.

Traveler

Time Travel: No known time travel?

WMD: No known WMD?

FTL: Presumably?

Warhammer 40K

Time Travel: Tzeentch willing, they can, at least, time travel within their own universe... ("High end necron, eldar and dark age human tech is scary, being able to move stars, destroy worlds, time travel"?)

WMD: The "bugs" will slowly consume the biomass of a planet; the Orks will infest a planet to become an Ork world; Chaos will convert entire planets into demon worlds; the Imperium will blow up planets with Exterminatus; etc. Few universes have this many different WMD.

FTL: Only by traveling "the Warp" (a separate dimension), or the "walkways" therein. Nekrons... ?

Stargate

Time Travel: Time manipulation, but no known time travel?

WMD: ??? Population spread out over multiple galaxies, requiring more effort than usual to exterminate.

FTL: Near-instantaneously transport possible through created Gates. Population spread out over multiple galaxies, requiring greater travel capacities than usual to attack. ???

"D&D 3.5"

Time Travel: Teleport Through Time allows some potential here. Unbounded Wishes, Miracles, and deities may also show potential. Limited data exists detailing D&D timbat afaik.

WMD: Sketchy what qualifies without hitting the "no infinite" limits. Certainly, one could create an epic spell to rain fire down on a planet for months without crossing that limit... if epic spells / epic spellcasters weren't disqualified for being able to hit entire planes instead.

FTL: Lots and lots of teleportation, divinations, etc, allowing instantaneous movement and precognitive reaction.

MtG

Time Travel: ??? (only the silver of Karn? otherwise limited "success" - nothing weaponized?)

WMD: Most weapons seem to have a single battlefield in scope?

FTL: Lots of teleporting, but even that is poorly utilized.

Lensmen

Time Travel: None.

WMD: FTL Antimatter Planets, oh my! (Range, RoF, ammo?)

FTL: ?????

schlock mercenary

Time Travel: ???

WMD: Long-Gun galactic-range teleporting plasma (or "anti-proton plasma") cannons, generally aimed "inside the target". Incorporeal (dark matter) Pa'anuri throw planets and detonate stars as a diversion tactic. Can "near-instantly" "digitize" entire planetary population to safety as a defense against loss of life when planets are destroyed; Infrastructure damage???

FTL: galactic-ranged teleport, with defenses, and defense-bypasses...

Doctor Who

Time Travel: Yes, lots. Multiple entire races have militarized time travel, including insulating their species / assets from temporal manipulation. Doing this to other universes while in a fight may well "unhinge" the other universe to boot.

WMD: *lots* of populated galaxies. Also... apparently, "the Cybermen built an army that required the destruction of two galaxies to stop", meaning that destroying multiple galaxies is within their capabilities.

FTL: Lots, plus teleportation. No known battles occurring at FTL speeds, however.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess

Time Travel: the Monolith (sounds 100% like a Tardis to me).

WMD: the Book (destroy all writing and computer-recorded data instantly, effectively ends math & reality within 24-48 hours; world+ AoE)

FTL: Presumably lots of teleportation effects.

DC

Time Travel: lots of individuals who can time travel; a few beings / places that exist outside time.

WMD: ???

FTL: ???

World of Darkness

Time Travel: Sometimes. They can detect and predict temporal disturbances; not sure if they can place themselves outside of time.

WMD: Not... really?

FTL: Teleportation, by the few. Otherwise, no.

D&D 2e (cheaters' edition)

Time Travel: Change time, exist outside time, sense temporal disturbances, divinations - check.

WMD: No? Individual worlds solar systems exist inside individual bubbles, providing a strong defense against most WMD.

FTL: Lots of teleportation, no FTL. But individual worlds solar systems exist inside individual bubbles, making enemy FTL of somewhat less use.

More with even less information

Rifts (I think that they're separate universes; not sure about their capabilities)

Paradox (AKA, "Rifts, but better"). (Many theoretically possible things, but... should lose to most universes with "real" time travel / FTL).

Lovecraft / Call of Cthulhu

Cthulhutech

Loony Toons

Dragonball

Things which might not be RPGs

Culture Universe

Skylark

Super Robot Wars

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Getter Emperor

Demonbane

Xeelee universe (cool weaponized time (including sending tactical data back in time, and spaces outside time)

The Long Earth series

"The Earth Prime universe (Green Ronin) not only has time travel, it has superpowered Time Keepers and Guardians of Time to protect it's "proper" history from outside interference."

First Person Singularis / universe that eats universes

Heir to the Stars/the Suggsverse

Pit of Kid Icarus

Dark Ocean

SCP foundation

Sandman

[InvisibleBison]

Star Wars

Time Travel: No known time travel, although "The Force" could potentially predict and actively manipulate events against such meddling, on a universal, deterministic scale. Results unclear.

Star Wars does have something time travel-like, though it's unclear whether this technique can be used to change the past.

WMD: Several WMD (depending on universe and time frame); all are single-planet or single-system scale, with limited range, limited RoF and/or limited ammo. Uncertain if any exist in parallel with "Jedi can teleport entire fleets" timeline. Despite planetary shields, no ability to defend against their own WMD, let alone more advanced WMD (except that, as it occurs long ago in a galaxy far, far away, exterminating the "us" of the past may prove difficult for some).

A sufficiently powerful Sith can, in theory, kill everything in a galaxy.

Stargate

Time Travel: Time manipulation, but no known time travel?

Stargate has multiple methods of time travel.

WMD: ??? Population spread out over multiple galaxies, requiring more effort than usual to exterminate.

There are a few large-scale WMDs in Stargate, such as the star-detonation technique, Anubis's superweapon and the Dakara superweapon.

[TeChameleon]

Limiting myself to those universes I consider myself... respectably knowledgeable... about.

Marvel
WMD: No known demonstrably finite WMD? Phoenix can eat stars; Galactus can eat planets. Both are singular entities, fairly slow effects, and close-range.

Hoo, boy.

WMDs:
- Nega-bombs. Planetary-system-sterilizing 'death light(?)'
- Kree Anti-Matter Bomb. Damages/'devastates' planets on a system-wide scale.
- Ultimate Nullifier. Removes target from existence. No exceptions, no limit on scale (has erased entire multiversal branches), violates conservation of mass. Effectiveness varies wildly depending on user's concentration, knowledge, and mindset.
- Annihilation Wave. Massed trans-dimensional invaders with planetary destruction capabilities and intergalactic range.
- Destroyer Armour. Virtually indestructible humanoid armour, animated by life-force and capable of a wide range of matter manipulation, from transmutation to 'planet go boom'.
... long story short, if a space empire exists, it has star- and/or planetary-system-destroying capabilities.

Also, just about any character past a certain power level (Hulk/Thor-ish) can single-handedly destroy a planet, and others have blown up stars (Dr. Strange, for example). And Galactus' planet-destroying is only slow when he's eating the planet- otherwise, it's just 'zap, boom'. There's also guys like Surtur the Fire Giant, who blew up a galaxy to forge his blade in its dying embers, and if said blade got dunked in the Eternal Flame of Asgard, universe go bye-bye.

Lensmen
WMD: FTL Antimatter Planets, oh my! (Range, RoF, ammo?)

FTL: ?????

WMD:
Range on just about everything seems to be galactic to intergalactic.
- RoF on the FTL Antimatter Planets isn't great (if memory serves, it took several months of dedicated work to prepare two shots), but frankly, if you're fighting something that takes more than one FTL Antimatter Planet to kill, you've got bigger problems. Although they apparently figured out a way to mass-produce those eventually (going by a wiki for that, memory is unclear).
- There's also the cheerily-named 'Sunbeam', which is... basically a supernova channelled into a death ray.
- Relativistic antimatter planetoids were also a fairly casual thing, along with relativistic planets as projectiles.

FTL:
- Kind of an odd case here, they use an 'intertialess drive' which also acts as an absolute defense; no inertia = anything that touches you just knocks you out of the way without causing damage. This has the effect of making FTL combat functionally impossible, so nobody really bothers try.

schlock mercenary

Time Travel: ???

WMD: Long-Gun galactic-range teleporting plasma (or "anti-proton plasma") cannons, generally aimed "inside the target". Incorporeal (dark matter) Pa'anuri throw planets and detonate stars as a diversion tactic. Can "near-instantly" "digitize" entire planetary population to safety as a defense against loss of life when planets are destroyed; Infrastructure damage???

FTL: galactic-ranged teleport, with defenses, and defense-bypasses...

Time Travel: Nope. There's precisely one case of time-travel in the Schlockverse, and it only worked because a new universe had been created inside the current one, which was playing merry hell with physics.

Speaking of, the Schlockverse has galactic-level weaponry (with, obviously, intergalactic range), since creating a new universe inside the old one does all kinds of unpleasant things to the old one. Takes a buttload of power to do, though.

DC

Time Travel: lots of individuals who can time travel; a few beings / places that exist outside time.

WMD: ???

FTL: ???

WMD:
Oddly, tends to be less tech-driven than Marvel's planet- and star-busters. That being said, there's no shortage of people running around that can snuff out stars and chuck planets. Tends to be limited to personal-scale stuff, but when the people in question can move at FTL speeds and rip planets in half with their bare hands, it tends to be enough.

FTL:
Hahahahaha...

Yeah, the DCU has people that can go FTL on foot. And yes, those people can give physics a wedgie and take its lunch money. The two fastest of those nearly ripped reality apart just by racing (back and forth across the universe. Multiple times.)

Barring superspeed insanity, there are a lot of alien races running around with their own variants on FTL drives, to the point that the comics themselves have gently poked fun at it ("Did they go to hyperspeed or warp? I can never keep those straight...").

A standout would be the Boom Tubes, standard travel tech of the New Gods of the Fourth World. Instantaneous transport to... basically anywhere. Any distance, any dimension. As an added bonus, those are typically generated by Mother Boxes, semi-sentient supercomputers with limited reality-warping capabilities. And are about as common as smartphones for Fourth-World denizens.

[Satinavian]

I am not sure how usefull those comparisons actually are.

Sure, timetravel is powerful. But there are a lot of settings that do nonlinear time at least in parts of the setting. Often for contrast or plot device. And the ability to travel to the past can be quite meaningless when there is not really a past or a future.
Also most settings with time travel don't have a logically consistent version which makes it pretty difficult to judge how it would interact with time options of other universes.

The whole WMD stuff is fine. But when we consider more of the fantasy settings and less of the scifi ones, we get a load of option where "planet" is not even a thing. Or interplanetar space. How do you judge a planet buster superweapon spacesstation when attacking a universe without space or planets ?

Similar is true when asking about FTL travel, combat and defenses. Those questions only make sense if relativistic physics even exist, when the speed of light is a thing and also a meaningfull barrier. Which does not have to be the case.

[Batcathat]

The whole WMD stuff is fine. But when we consider more of the fantasy settings and less of the scifi ones, we get a load of option where "planet" is not even a thing. Or interplanetar space. How do you judge a planet buster superweapon spacesstation when attacking a universe without space or planets ?

Similar is true when asking about FTL travel, combat and defenses. Those questions only make sense if relativistic physics even exist, when the speed of light is a thing and also a meaningfull barrier. Which does not have to be the case.

That is true, but most fantasy and sci-fi settings seem to run on a "like reality unless otherwise specificed" principle so if a setting didn't specifically mention (not) being on a planet or the speed of light I would assume it's the same as IRL. Probably not a perfect method, but I'm not sure what the alternative would be.

[Quertus]

Well, I'm clearly going to need to update my stat sheet.

Sure, timetravel is powerful. But there are a lot of settings that do nonlinear time at least in parts of the setting. Often for contrast or plot device. And the ability to travel to the past can be quite meaningless when there is not really a past or a future.
Also most settings with time travel don't have a logically consistent version which makes it pretty difficult to judge how it would interact with time options of other universes.

Clearly, I'm going to need to remember to start that thread on Time.

But what do you mean, "no past or future"?

The whole WMD stuff is fine. But when we consider more of the fantasy settings and less of the scifi ones, we get a load of option where "planet" is not even a thing. Or interplanetar space. How do you judge a planet buster superweapon spacesstation when attacking a universe without space or planets ?

That is true, but most fantasy and sci-fi settings seem to run on a "like reality unless otherwise specificed" principle so if a setting didn't specifically mention (not) being on a planet or the speed of light I would assume it's the same as IRL. Probably not a perfect method, but I'm not sure what the alternative would be.

Citations on "planet is not a thing"?

But, yes, universes without "space" will be rather interestingly protected from some starships. It's an interesting game.

Similar is true when asking about FTL travel, combat and defenses. Those questions only make sense if relativistic physics even exist, when the speed of light is a thing and also a meaningfull barrier. Which does not have to be the case.

Really, I could be talking about "horse-back archery" or "cars with guns vs having to get out of the car before you shoot", as what I am discussing is "moving really fast and shooting".

I don't really care if, say, D&D has no concept of "speed of light", any more than I care whether the world has horses, archery, cars, or guns, only that the star ships move so fast, D&D beings (and other non-FTL cultures) cannot see / track them.

I am not sure how usefull those comparisons actually are.

How fast can you travel?

How fast can you fight?

How fast of an object can you track?

How far can you shoot?

How far can you sense?

How much damage do you do?

These sound like comparisons one makes all the time to me. Not seeing why they would not be useful.

[Satinavian]

Clearly, I'm going to need to remember to start that thread on Time.

But what do you mean, "no past or future"?

To take an example you are probably familiar with consider the prophets in the wormhole from DS9. And how much they have a problem with recognizing that events happen in an order to outsiders and that those care about this order.
That is not really a rare idea. Many settings have introduced beings or areas where the flow of time does not exist in the way we know it. It is an easy way to make stuff exotic and strange or to introduce plot devices.

One other example would be that a lot of fiction took some real world esoteric and religious ideas and postulated circular events. Evenerything that happens, already happened and will happen. If you want to know the future, you just have to dig to find the past. If you want to see an event that happened yesterday, you could just freeze yourself and observe it later.

Most authors just use that for strangeness and mindscrew but all those things and many more can be set up completely logical and without paradoxa or contradictions. Not that people really care.

Citations on "planet is not a thing"?

But, yes, universes without "space" will be rather interestingly protected from some starships. It's an interesting game.

Have you never seen a flat earth RPG ? Or one that takes any of the thousands of mythical cosmologies and declares it real ? Never played a system where earth and heaven are just bodies of gods and certainly not round or where stars are only lights moving on a wall and beyond is just a sea of divine tears or a place where nothing corporal can exist, only ideas ?

Or we could take a shortcut to the very popular isekai genre which nowadays has spawned RPGs as well and visit a setting that works on video game logic and never bothered with planets. Or physics. Where breathing or athmosphere is not a thing unless underwater when you get a timer, where monsters are not born, but spawn with their treasure as feature of the environment

How fast can you travel?

How fast can you fight?

How fast of an object can you track?

How far can you shoot?

How far can you sense?

How much damage do you do?

Ok. One of the things about FTL is that most people writing about it never understood even special relativity. There can be no slower or faster FTL. Every FTL speed is mathematically the same and only depends on perspective. If you can build one, you can build all. That is because there are events where you cant say what is earlier or later or how much time is between them in a relativistic universe.

But settings that are not relativistic tend to do Euclidian spacetime and have instantanious transport (commonly teleportation) and detection (think contingency or similar stuff) as upper speed limit. Something that has no meaning in a relativistic universe.

[Vahnavoi]

The whole WMD stuff is fine. But when we consider more of the fantasy settings and less of the scifi ones, we get a load of option where "planet" is not even a thing. Or interplanetar space. How do you judge a planet buster superweapon spacesstation when attacking a universe without space or planets ?

That's, generally speaking, easy, because even universes without space or planets often use human measures of distance and time. So if, say, you can shoot a Death Star laser through a Ring Gate and hit something on infinite Plane of Earth, we can gauge how big of a chunk of that plane is now gone.

Continuing on that thought, a lot fantasy without space and planets is so small scale that sci-fi weapons could obliterate entire known settings. The hard part is lining up the shot. For example, whether using AD&D or Amber rules for cross-universal travel, technology and magic just stop working in universes where laws of nature don't support those things. So no matter how big a boom your fancy sci-fi laser would do, it can't deliver that effect to all corners of the multiverse.

[caden_varn]

Although technically invalid as it is a multiverse (kinda?) instead of a universe, I wonder how the Torg cosmverse would fare?

On the face of it, probably laughably poorly, but the High Lords defining power is imposing their reality on you - and if their technological axiom is too low for your superweapon/superpower to work - sorry, it just doesn't (unless the bearer transcends & becomes reality-rated themselves. Although in that case they become a stormer, which is specific to Torg - does that mean they join team Torg by the original 'everyone working together' rules?).
Of course, getting the stelae in place & dropping the maelstrom bridge, required to impose reality, may be tricky. You'd have some issues getting stone-age lizard-men onto the deathstar to prep for that particular activity might be interesting.

Even if you can, it only imposes your reality for a relatively small area (triangles 200 miles to a side I think, although it is pretty easy to add more) - so not really competing on a galactic scale, let alone universal.

[Quertus]

So, I see several factors which can change the answers here.

One is if it isn't a 1-on-1 scenario. If, instead, it is a series of "universe brawls", or even a free for all, that changes things. But I'm hoping to just look at single fights for the moment.

The other is how rules conflicts are handled. If Marvel says all Time Travel just spawns alternate realities, or D&D says all tech becomes artifacts, it impacts how others interact with them (and, presumably, gives Torg an advantage). Speaking of, can a *single* Torg universe actually be a contender? Care to describe the one(s) you feel would fare best?

[Batcathat]

The other is how rules conflicts are handled. If Marvel says all Time Travel just spawns alternate realities, or D&D says all tech becomes artifacts, it impacts how others interact with them (and, presumably, gives Torg an advantage). Speaking of, can a *single* Torg universe actually be a contender? Care to describe the one(s) you feel would fare best?

The easiest (using the word very loosly) way to handle it might be to just say that the laws of reality are dependent on the universe the action is taking place in rather than on the person who's doing it, so if a Terminator time travels in the Marvel universe the time travel works by Marvel rules but if Cable time travels in the Terminator universe it works by Terminator rules.

EDIT: Though now that I think about it that might give an unfair advantage to the universes where time travel can't change history, since they could retroactively wipe out their enemies but their enemies couldn't do the same to them. Suggestion withdrawn.