Starship Troopers beat Aliens, Robots AND Chuck Norris to WIN in a FIGHT

Weekend Big Data The Big Data has spoken, and has answered the Great Question of pub/water-cooler debate: Who Would Win In A Fight?

It doesn't matter just who's fighting who, as our pioneering bigdata analysis included nearly every kind of specfictional protagonist - and surely the readership of the Register contains the greatest repository of knowledge on the attributes of these contenders that is available to humanity.

Heading the rankings, however, are the Heinlein-version Mobile Infantry from his book Starship Troopers. These tremendously hard men, each one having passed through a training process as selective as that of today's SAS and significantly more dangerous, is equipped with powered armour as tough as a tank and able to manoeuvre like a jet-assisted Parkour runner. He's armed with a fearsome assortment of weaponry up to and including man-portable guided nuclear missiles.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, as the cap troopers combine the special abilities of many of their opponents (special forces, cyborgs, robots etc) they came out top. Second were robots specifically designed for war, and third were the acid-blooded, tooth-tongued alien monsters from the Alien films.

In what could be seen as a bit of an upset, the indestructible Chuck Norris placed sixth - narrowly beaten by Kate Beckinsale style armed, sexy vampires in revealing outfits.

The rankings have also settled the eternal Ninja/Pirate debate: the Ninjas' throwing stars, chop-socky and possible powers of invisibility have vanquished the pirates' flintlocks, cannon, cutlasses and broken rum bottles.

So that you all can settle whichever combo takes your fancy (who would win? Klingons, or the SAS?) here are the rankings in full:

1: Starship Troopers (book) Mobile Infantry - 698

2: War Robots - 519

3: Alien aliens - 494

4: Predators - 387

5: Hot Vampires With Guns - 357

6: Chuck Norris - 355

7: Jedi - 321

8: Daleks - 316

9: Special Forces (SAS, SEAL Team Six etc) - 315

10: Cyborgs - 315

11: Really Big Robots - 312

12: Colonial Marines from Aliens - 290

13: Proper Werewolves That Become Wolves - 222

14: Ninjas - 219

15: Humanoid Robots - 160

16: The Bugs from Starship Troopers - 156

17: Pirates - 136

18: Plucky Civilians With Improvised Weapons - 132

19: Klingons - 117

20: Fast Zombies - 114

21: Cannon-fodder troops - 100

22: Humdrum Vampires - 70

23: Werewolves which Just Get a bit Hairy - 39

24: Shambler Zombies - 30

We'll sign off with perhaps just one more tiny big-data slurp:

Cheerio for now. ®