I think something went wrong with the quoting in your post,
@Navarro.
Anyway -- as I see it, the overall statements of the two settings are equally matched as far as 'power levels' are concerned just don't hold up. Yes, 40K has impressive tech, but it has intrinsic limitations -- and for the same reason that all those guys in SW have no personal energy shields, for instance. That reason is: Rule of Cool must be conserved.
Coincidentally, I scrolled by this while cross-posting a ship design on twitter earlier today:
That first line is why we even have settings like SW and 40K, and why there are utterly illogical things in both settings... which we have to accept as given to make the setting work. Because otherwise, Rule of Cool fails.
For instance: we know that exceedingly efficient personal shields are possible in SW. Droidekas have them. When even very skilled Jedi (including the guys we are told are the most powerful and skilled Jedi of their generations) face those shielded bastards, they have to
run, or they get captured or killed. Logically, everybody should carry a shield like that. Even if there are power limitations, using it very briefly during intense combat would be an absurd advantage. But does this happen? No. Why not? It would make most of the cool fights impossible.
40K faces the same issue, and handles it a bit differently. Yes, there are energy shields. But the people using them have to face off against others with conventional armour (albeit really cool sci-fi armour), and even against foes who consist entirely of biological matter. And the fight has to have real tension! So the shields must be limited in how effective they are, or they break the setting. If energy shields in 40K are like those droideka energy shields, the Tyranids are automatically a joke, and will never stand a shadow of a chance. The fact that Tyranids can tear through shielded units shows the limitations. In 40K, most energy shields are an equivalent of really good conventional armour. Anything else would... make most of the cool fights impossible.
Now, the question here is what happens if the two setting collide, somehow?
My reasoning is that, since the two franchises deal with the above issue differently, 40K very obviously has the advantage on the ground. They'll mop the floor with any SW ground forces. But in space, as far as I can tell, it's the other way around. 40K shields mostly still act like really good amour, and weapons within the setting have rough parity. With some difficulty, they can all tear though each other's armour/shielding, more or less. Tyranid ships can do this with giant
claws. Conversely, in SW, everybody has the really good SW-typical energy shielding for major vessels. Even a lot of smaller craft are shielded. And the big weapons for space combat are simply scaled up in destructive power to deal with it.
What I deduce from all this can be summed up as:
-- SW has
limited use (basically: not for ground forces!) of
really effective shields, and weapons that demonstrably have the power to match that.
-- 40K has
ubiquitous use (on the ground and in space) of
less effective shields, and weapons that demonstrably have the power to match that.
That's why I think it follows that 40K will win ground engagements, and SW will win space engagements. It's a result of how the two settings have taken different approaches to conserving the Rule of Cool. Naturally, one can easily point out all sorts of internal contradictions. This is all very soft sci-fi. Often, weapons are as powerful as the plot demands. Apply rigid logic, and it all falls apart. Just like the above screen-shot indicates. And yes, we can theoretically fight about this, coming up with all sorts of details, which can be contradicted by other details... but for me, this is just a general look at how these two soft sci-fi settings treat certain issues, and the consequences of that, in the event of a 'collision' of the two settings.
There can be little doubt that if we apply some kind of power parity, 40K wins every time and all the time. The fact that 'war' is in the title of both franchises notwithstanding, the people inhabiting the 40K setting are clearly much better at every practical aspect of it. SW is actually more "Star
Adventures" than "Star
Wars". But this doesn't change the above considerations.
For the record: although I'm more into SW, I like both these settings for what they are, and the notion of "franchise rivalry" is something I have always considered absurd. I don't think treating this as some embittered "versus" debate makes any sense. Investigating
why certain things would play out in a certain way is more interesting. The results of a "versus" contest are ultimately quite
uninteresting, even-- For the same reason that SW would be uninteresting if one faction had ubiquitous personal energy shields, and 40K would be uninteresting if one faction had truly near-impenetrable energy shields. The setting would break immediately, and it wouldn't be fun anymore.
Basically, because the two settings perpetuate Rule of Cool in different ways, having the two settings interact automatically interferes with those ways. So, depending on the specifics, one side has a clear (and suspense-eliminating) advantage. Transplant any SW ground force to the 40K setting, and they get pulped. Transplant any 40K fleet to the SW setting, and they get crunched. Either way, the result isn't very exciting.
More viable ways of having the settings "interact", in my opinion at least, would derive from questions like:
-- Suppose we have the SW galaxy, with its familiar species and whatnot, but instead of the Force and hyperspace... there is the Immaterium. What are the logical consequences for the setting?
-- Suppose we have the 40K galaxy, with its familiar species and whatnot, but instead of the Immaterium... there is the Force and hyperspace. What are the logical consequences for the setting?
