Star Trek

We will never ever have a definite answer. My guess is that it depends on the first blow. We have seen over and over that the borg will stay still warning all their potential victims of the futileness of the resistance, whilling to take whatever shots other ships want to and then addapting. If in this time the Death Star shoots the main weapon and hits the cube, it would be before it has time to adapt and would be blown away... battle over in a couple of seconds. But if the Empire hesitates or the Borg are made aware of the potential of the superlaser, I think it would be a long battle but the Borg would prevail.

for the most part we are on the same page trekking, but i feel obligated to comment on the issues that you brought up.

The blasters use compressed gas and ion power so I think the Borg would not know what hit them and could not adapt.

but in the end they are still energy when the blast leaves the emitter. therefore there is not reason to think that, after the usual 1 to 12 drones it takes to adapt to a weapon, the borg should not be able to adapt to blasters. I have often thought that lightsabers could be a different story, but how many imperials would be caught carrying one of those things around after what happened to the jedi.

Yes but the Stormtroopers might not know the exact specifications of the laser. Only the engineers would. I think the Borg would all die!!

and niether did Picard when he was captured by the borg in BOBW, yet they were still able to, as locutos put it, use his knowledge to help defend themselves against the deflector weapon. on top of that they would still know about the defences around the DS, not to mention basics about the SL. put this all this assimilated information together and the borg would definatly have a better chance of takeing the death star.

Marshall:

hmm never remembered seeing you just give up like that.  Kinda disappointing.

I just... can't keep making replies of that sort of length to two people.... I simply don't have the time, and even if I did I'm not sure I really want to be using up that sort of amount of free time on such a pointless topic. Maybe to one of you with replies spaced over a week, but not at this sort of length...

Besides, I've already participated in previous, identical discussions on this topic before about three times already, with almost identical arguments (sometimes from the same people!) cropping up again and again as if they'd never happened... to be honest, it's just not really that interesting anymore.

In Return of the Jedi, we saw a star destroyer collide with the Death Star.  This didn't affect the Death Star significantly.  A star destroyer probably has a compariable mass to a borg cube.  That means that the Death Star could set a collision course and maybe win that way.

I'd perhaps argue that the Borg would back up a bit; they may not be renowned for snappy manoeuvring against enemy fire, but having a whole moon on a collision course with them would probably coax them into reverse (for example, they seemed to have the wit to move away from their exploding planet in Scorpion).

Perhaps the Death Star could use its transctor beams to hold the cube in place to do whatever it wants, maybe even use the super laser then.

I'd never thought of that; presumably they might be able to hold it in place with multiple tractor beams.

-star wars tech is made of durasteel so the injection tubials or nanoprobes could not penetrate or assimilate it.

Never heard of that one before; I don't see what would make durasteel special.

-the jamming thing with the transporters

I think it's also the combination of jamming with energy shields, neutronium-impregnated armour and a magnetic field that make it likely that transporting would be inhibited; the Borg would have to overcome multiple transport inhibiting  phenomenon and there's little evidence that they can do this beyond exploiting shield frequencies (which isn't really applicable to Star Wars shields as they don't use the Federation's gravity-based shielding technology); they'd have to practically invent a whole new methodology of transportation from the ground up.

-star wars weapons are not frequeny based so the borg cannot adapt to it

Not adapt to it as efficiently, at least. It should be noted however that turbolasers do actually appear to use frequencies - they're described as 'coherent' beams, which I believe may imply phase coherency within the context (although I freely admit that I'm no science expert; please correct me if they're any other applications that 'coherent' could refer to).

-ICS star wars book states that the turbolasers are so powerful that they could destroy a borg cube in one shot that would make a transphasic torpedo look like nothing in comparison.

To be honest, the Death Star has such a vast number of secondary weapon systems it's able to bring to bear against a single target that even the lesser pro-trek firepower calculations would end up with the thing getting blown to bits from overwhelming firepower.

-there's some weird left over AI bot program in the Death Star's computers (forgot the name of it) which they thought would have successfully been able to resist the assilation process.

Ah yes, IG-88 A in the second Death Star's computer; that was a... strange story. The less said about that plot point the better...

I think we can reasonably say (without diving into the chain reaction crap) that a hit from species 8472 weapon would be comparible to the death star's superlaser fired at low power.  Borg cubes have been able to still function when they got hit on the side of their cube.  So even a hit from the superlaser wouldn't necessarily end the conflict.

I was under the impression that side hit wasn't from a planet killer charged shot, though?

It's also a bit anomalous; ordinary bioship weapon shots were shown to blow Cubes to bits in one shot - logically a glancing hit should have just sheared through and still caused massive damage. I'd perhaps suggest that that particular shot was either reduced in power (to enable a higher rate of fire, perhaps?) or maybe even came from a dying bioship and was therefore less potent.

yeah, i definatly know of the IG-88 bounty hunting driods. i just never heard that one of them was used in the DS2.

I just... can't keep making replies of that sort of length to two people.... I simply don't have the time, and even if I did I'm not sure I really want to be using up that sort of amount of free time on such a pointless topic. Maybe to one of you with replies spaced over a week, but not at this sort of length...

then by all means, take your time answering posts. but in the future, if you are getting tired of the same old agruements, i would suggest that you try to avoid these topics (which would be a bad thing, as there are always new people joining these boards and they will need to see these arguements in order to stay informed).

I enjoy both franchises so i consider my opinion unbiased, however in this debate i would have no choice but give victory to the borg collective, all they would have to do was beam aboard ds, assimulate a few people, learn of the death star's blatent ventelater shaft flaw send word to the cube & BOOM, however this is just a simplified senario, & i'm prepared to recieve counter arguments pointing out where i was wrong, but thisquestion will never be fully explained in a way where everyone will agree, like who shot first Han or Gweedo (obviously Gweedo) but it is fun to hypothocise

The Borg! The Borg can get on t the ship with no one knowing. Also the Borg puts the Zinda to shame! 

Camorite:

So in your opinion whenever something is mentioned about the death star it has info that has never been used before. with the exception of the Jedi Acadomy Trillogy, Dark Saber, Death Star Novel, and the books for episodes IV and VI (which are the novels that i know of that go into info on the DS that were not in the movies), give me specifics on these insights.

But we weren't discussing whether every single source provides a completely unique scrap of information, though - we were discussing the validity of sources outside of the movie; this tangent was created when you said "well that is just too bad vorta, as, since we only really see the death star in action in the movies, novels just don't count here. compain and wine about it all you want, but it is the truth" when I brought up the points regarding jamming.

However, am I right in thinking that you have since conceded this as you appear to agree that EU is canon and yourself give examples of additional information being provided in novels?

first off, did EVER say that you were one of those people. Most of those people left the boards long ago, or just stopped making a big deal about it.

So why when I asked you how my posts could be considered "whining" did you reply to my question by bringing up things said by other people long ago on different threads?

second i am not argueing that it is canon, only that the amount of info that the EU gives on this perticular subject is not enough to make any difference.

Again, that is simply not the case as evidenced by the very thing that spawned this tangent - I mentioned jamming (something described in the EU and with a potentially massive impact on the discussion as it stops Borg beaming aboard) and you tried to discount it as it wasn't part of the movies, despite it clearly being able to make a huge difference to the discussion.

possibly when it comes to contacting the main collective, but there is no proof that it would effect the conection to drones on a ship.

The Collective is the connection of the drones to each other; they're a hive mind.

until you can prove that this it is possible to discinect ALL the drones on the ship from each other, with subspace jamming, your point is defeated, and thus there is no reason to continue it.

...

agian prove that they are cut off from each other and we will continue this debate, otherwise you might as well give this one up and concede the point.

Jamming interference scrambles all signals in its area of effect; that's its point. Once in its area of effect, the Cube and its occupants will have their subspace communications interrupted, just like any other ship would - and thus their neural connection to each other also.

That's a false analogy though; destruction dealt out by weapons has nothing to do with signal transmission strength. 

Why? Phasers and nural transmitters work along the same priciple. they both send out a type of energy pulse. the only difference is that, in most cases, one is potentially leathal and the other is not.

And that's the problem - you're trying to equate the fact that destructive potential is increased by shooting two weapons at the same spot with signal transmission integrity. Blowing things up has no bearing on whether that energy is coherent or its wavelength properties (indeed many weapons use no coherent frequency at all); a signal transmission on the other hand has its information encoded into its unique wavelength properties and it is this signal's integrity that is the issue. The difference is why it's a false analogy.

Again, however, this isn't really relevant as the Borg drones are not sending exactly the same signals to each other - each drone sends out unique signals relating to its function and activities; there would be a mishmash of many different signals, not a single coherent one reinforced by numerous generators.

No, you were saying that the process would work in reverse and the uninfected Sphere should have cut itself off from the main Collective; in actuality, the infected uni-complex would cut itself off, the Sphere would still be connected to the main uninfected Collective. 

same thing, just a different way of saying it.

No, you were saying it backwards; you said that the Sphere would be disconnected from the Collective, and this isn't the case - the uni-complex would be disconnected, not the Sphere.

but we are not talking about the planet, we are talking about the scene at the begining of the episode when that cube is destroyed.

Er... no, we've been talking about the scene of the planet being destroyed; this whole point was given as an example of the Borg reacting to a planet destroying weapon. You even reference this yourself during the discussion ("and as stated before this is based on one battle, at the begining of the war, as well as a surprise attack on one of thier planets", emphasis mine).

i will also add that that memory bank that they found was from that group of 15 ships that shot past Voyager 10 minutes into the episode.

Apologies... I'm not sure what the relevance of this fact is?

 clearly we are not on the same page here, becuase that is not what i said, or at least what i was intending on saying.

Apparently not - you seem to be talking about an entirely different scene to the one I was using in my example!

What did you mean to say when you said "so becuase of what they did in ONE battle at the begining of a war, as well as a SURPRISE attack, you are going to assume that the Borg didn't change thier battle stategy"?

look even if it was just a tie pilot, he would still have knowledge of imperial tactics and stategies, epsecially if it was a battle vetern (for example Baron Fell). this would also give them knowledge of the jamming, as well as the super laser. Even if it was not enough to defend against the super laser, it would still give them a head up on the DS, which the DS commander would not have on the borg.

It would give them knowledge of their existence, not any details on how they work or how they can be defended against.

Again, you seem to be hinging your theory on them encountering a TIE fighter; there are untold quadrillions of metres of space surrounding the Death Star's immediate vicinity that the Borg could potentially come out of warp into, the majority of which do not contain TIE patrols - what happens in the very likely event of the Cube not coming out of warp on top of a TIE patrol within tractoring range?

 that is where you are wrong. why do you think that so many admirals and captians went on to pursue thier own intrests when the DS2 was destoryed? it was becuase their egos were greater then their loyaty to the empire. this type of attitude is more common before Endor, but it is still there, and very much relevant to the debate at hand.

But I think you're missing the point; even one of those egos (Lord Tion, in this case) bent in a very unusual situation (he was in love and trying to marry into nobility, she was a high ranking Princess); this isn't applicable or replicable to 99% of Imperials.

Additionally, you're generalising regarding the Imperial ego; it was in general a subsection of the ruling classes that were completely ego-driven lunatics, you can't really apply this across the board to the whole rank and file.

and i have already explained that he would not have known the frequencies since the weapon was not even finished by the time he was captured and assimilated. if picard had been captured after the weapon had been finished that would be one thing, but that is simply not the case here.

Yes - and every time you say this, it's pointed out that he doesn't need to know the frequencies, the Borg already know the frequencies, he only has to give them the knowledge that it will be the frequencies that have just damaged them in the previous encounter - which the Borg already know the precise specifications of - that will be being used in the deflector weapon. This has been mentioned multiple times, but you keep kind of... resetting as if I'd never said the above.

being briefed on a plan and actually knowing every detail about it is not the same thing.

He doesn't need to know every detail about it, all he needs to know is the 60 second overview that was given to the audience which mentions that the weapon is going to be focused on the frequencies that damaged the Cube in their previous encounter.

all a commander has to do is to sign off on a plan and then let the poeple that know how to implement it do thier work, which is the case in BOBW.

A captain has to actually know what the plan is about to be able to sign it off - he's about to be committing the lives of his crew on said plan, and this requires knowing why they think it will actually work and why it's appropriate.

What the audience is told by Shelby is the briefest of overviews; there is no way that Picard would be given a shorter briefing than this.

Additionally, I didn't think the Borg ever stated in BoBW that they were after Picard personally?

so when they ordered picard to lower the shields and beam abord thier ship they were not actually asking for him personally, they were asking for Data or Worf. com on vorta, they as good as told him that they wanted him as the voice of the collective.

Ah, it's been a while since I saw the episodes, I couldn't remember for certain (hence me phrasing my response as a question rather than a statement).

Marshall:

I was just surprised to see you give up that easy based on our previous talks.  In the past I’ve talked with 12+ people at once with longer replies before over on star wars boards.   I would have expected you to be able to do at least that much on a star trek forum while leaning toward the star wars side of things J

Blimey... I have no idea how you have enough time to do over 12 replies of this length! I'm afraid I just don't have that much time to allocate to things like this.

Yes but could the death star outrun even a borg cube considering all the hyperdrives it has?

The hyperdrives would only be used to jump it to hyperspace; sublight, it's relying on its engines.

It depends how powerful their tractor beams are.  Borg cubes are pretty massive.

Not sure what the limits are; Star Destroyers can tractor smaller capital ships, certainly, and according to the Wookieepedia article on them, the primary issue mass - a smaller ship can tractor a larger one, but the smaller one will actually end up being pulled along itself instead!

Durasteel is composed of neutronium.  Neutronium is impervious to scans and phaser fire.  The doomsday weapon and dysons sphere were constructed of neutronium.  Trilithium explosives cannot make a dent in it.  The borg have never been able to artificially create neutronium before.  Its one of the hardest known substances in all of star trek.  But the doctor said that borg tubules could penetrate any known alloy or energy field.  However although neutronium is a known alloy on star trek, durasteel is not.

It's been speculated that - since neutronium can't physically be used in an actual alloy due to its nature - durasteel is actually lined with neutronium pellets, possibly of microscopic size, to enhance its durability. I don't see why Borg nano-technology wouldn't be able to break down the non-neutronium components, however.

I'm also a bit dubious as to the ability of a tubule to penetrate any known substance or energy field; I'd perhaps suggest it was meant to be taken within the context of personal defences since that is the arena the tubules would be used in.

The borg might know of other transporting techniques.  Folded-space transporting for example has demonstrated the ability to transport through shields (TNG “the high ground&rdquo and have a maximum range of at least 40,000 light years (VOY “prime factors&rdquo.  This would explain how the borg queen survived the destruction of the cube in BOTW and how there were drones in the delta quadrent that were assimilated at wolf359.

They don't really seem to employ this though; shield modulation seems to keep their transport ability at bay, implying they are simply using the frequency exploit in Federation shields. rather than a completely new method of transport.

Additionally, I don't think the Queen in FC was supposed to be physically the same one from BoBW - all Queens appear to be the same 'entity' rather than unique individuals. What was the drone from Wolf 359 in the Delta Quadrant from?

No idea.  I was told the star wars weapons are directed energy weapons and that they do not use frequencies.  But if you think otherwise, I won’t complain.

I've re-read the Wookieepedia article on blasters and I was actually slightly wrong on this; apparently, there are actually two types of blasters - plasma based ones and particle beam based ones - and it is the less common plasma ones that focus their energy into a coherent energy beam.

Clone Troopers used the plasma ones commonly though (they were better against droids due to the ionised nature of the plasma), so this might be worth noting if we ever get a Borg Drone vs Clone Troopers thread.

How about against borg tactical cube?

They did not appear to be so much more sturdy than regular cubes that they'd be able to hold up under that level of firepower.

Yes but conceivably the planet killer is the combined energy of 8 bioships.  This means that one bioship weapon could be 12.5% of a planet killer weapon.  This could be the equivalent of the death star firing at 4% power in that novel.

I'd perhaps hesitate to suggest that an ordinary bioship shot is directly proportional to the planet killer beam; the bioships actually charge up their shots when combining, rather than firing a normal short burst as they do in ship to ship combat.

Additionally, it is difficult to ascertain what the special central ship does to the beam; there may be additional power input/focusing taking place (as well as the fact that some sort of unusual phenomenon appears to be a major component of the beam's planetary destruction ability opposed to basic energy transfer).

Yes they can when they hit dead in the middle of the ship.  We’ve seen several times the borg cubes survived shots when they were nicked.  Like when the borg cube moved in the way of the bioships weapon to protect voyager.

Rewatching the opening scene of Scorpion, it would appear that the bioship weapons aren't actually one shot Cube killers, but often require multiple hits.

However, am I right in thinking that you have since conceded this as you appear to agree that EU is canon and yourself give examples of additional information being provided in novels?

not at all, i only stateing that those were the only sources for any material that was more then just a passing reference to the DS. However since Episode II came out that has made at least two of those sources (the Jedi Acadomy Trillogy and Dark Saber) null in void, as it overwrote the EU canon.

So why when I asked you how my posts could be considered "whining" did you reply to my question by bringing up things said by other people long ago on different threads?

and in the end this has the same feel as those other threads.

Again, that is simply not the case as evidenced by the very thing that spawned this tangent - I mentioned jamming (something described in the EU and with a potentially massive impact on the discussion as it stops Borg beaming aboard) and you tried to discount it as it wasn't part of the movies, despite it clearly being able to make a huge difference to the discussion

and i maintain that they cannot jam something that they have not knowledge of transporters, or even the borg connection, they will not know how to jam them until it is too late.

The Collective is the connection of the drones to each other; they're a hive mind

yet that is not the case as we have seen several times that drones are still connected even when the they are not connected to the main collective.

Jamming interference scrambles all signals in its area of effect; that's its point. Once in its area of effect, the Cube and its occupants will have their subspace communications interrupted, just like any other ship would - and thus their neural connection to each other also.

agian, and i still have yet to get an answer to this one, how can they jam something that they do not know about?

No, you were saying it backwards; you said that the Sphere would be disconnected from the Collective, and this isn't the case - the uni-complex would be disconnected, not the Sphere.

and what is the difference, in the end one end is being disconected from the other.

Er... no, we've been talking about the scene of the planet being destroyed; this whole point was given as an example of the Borg reacting to a planet destroying weapon. You even reference this yourself during the discussion ("and as stated before this is based on one battle, at the begining of the war, as well as a surprise attack on one of thier planets", emphasis mine).

then we are on two different pages here, as i was talking about the opening scene in Scorpion as well as the planet scene.

Apologies... I'm not sure what the relevance of this fact is?

don't know, i was only trying to answer your question.

To Be Continued

What did you mean to say when you said "so becuase of what they did in ONE battle at the begining of a war, as well as a SURPRISE attack, you are going to assume that the Borg didn't change thier battle stategy"?

simply by what i said. the opening scene in Scorpion was, more then likely, the opening shots of the war, and even if they did encounter the planet killer weapon before it was still a surprise attack, and therefore not relevant.

It would give them knowledge of their existence, not any details on how they work or how they can be defended against

yet iut worked when they captured Picard. Asside from the Deflector weapon, he was forced to give them knowledge of Starfleet tactics and weapons. this was more then enough for them to decimate the fleet at Wolf 359.

Again, you seem to be hinging your theory on them encountering a TIE fighter; there are untold quadrillions of metres of space surrounding the Death Star's immediate vicinity that the Borg could potentially come out of warp into, the majority of which do not contain TIE patrols - what happens in the very likely event of the Cube not coming out of warp on top of a TIE patrol within tractoring range?

and your point is Vorta? even if the cube does not come out in an area where there is tie activity, any nearby ships in sensor range will either go to investigate or be sent to investigate a intruder in the area, and therefore be captured and assimilated.

But I think you're missing the point; even one of those egos (Lord Tion, in this case) bent in a very unusual situation (he was in love and trying to marry into nobility, she was a high ranking Princess); this isn't applicable or replicable to 99% of Imperials.

i doesn't matter, in the end Tion's ego got the better of his common sence, as he was trying to impress a woman that came from a planet that had demiliterizerd many many years before she was born. and this is the type of ego that is otherwise present in the empire at the time of the DS.

Additionally, you're generalising regarding the Imperial ego; it was in general a subsection of the ruling classes that were completely ego-driven lunatics, you can't really apply this across the board to the whole rank and file.

and it is also present in its officers, as Tion as well as other officers are prone to show.

Yes - and every time you say this, it's pointed out that he doesn't need to know the frequencies, the Borg already know the frequencies, he only has to give them the knowledge that it will be the frequencies that have just damaged them in the previous encounter - which the Borg already know the precise specifications of - that will be being used in the deflector weapon. This has been mentioned multiple times, but you keep kind of... resetting as if I'd never said the above.

HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS??? the frequency was in the upper EM band, and that could be one of any of a thousand different frequencies.

To Be Continued Again

Marshall:

The Borg Queen admitted she was the same one from BoBW though here in the first contact movie:

I believe that the Borg Queen was pointing out the fact that she, effectively being the persona and ego of the Collective, is not an individual that can be destroyed - destroying a Queen body will not destroy the 'entity' that is the Queen, as she is the Collective (or at least its higher functions), hence her chiding Picard for thinking in such "three-dimensional terms".

We see this in Voyager; she's killed numerous times (and after being destroyed in FC), yet returns in an identical body; one assumes that there are numerous Queen bodies active at any one time spread over the Collective's territory.

Borg from Wolf 359 are mentioned in a couple episodes:

I'd perhaps lean towards them being sent back to the Delta quadrant via transwarp conduit from the BoBW Cube (indeed Memory Alpha speculates the presence of second, undetected Borg ship present, although I'd suggest the Cube simply launching a Sphere) rather than trans-galactic teleportation; there are too many places that techonology should have been used had they possessed it (even in BoBW itself) but was not.

[EDIT: Odd, this has turned red for no discernable reason and I don't seem to be able to change it... sorry!]

3of12:

Agree. Remember that the Borg always scans first for information. That's when they would learn of the big laser. GAME OVER!

The Death Star has sensor jamming, shielding and neutronium impregnated armour, all of which inhibit the clarity of scanning. Even on the Enterprise, the Borg were not able to gain sufficient solely through scanning - they had to manually board the ship and root around in the computers. Additionally, they have an area the size of a small moon to scan from surface to core; this will not be a quick process, by any means.

The other problem is processing the information - as well as having a whole moon's worth of data to sift through, the Borg will be encountering technology in excess of their own based on physics they have never encountered (stellar output hypermatter reactors, hyperdrive, the superlaser); just see the schematics won't give them the knowledge of how the things actually work, nor a way to counter them.

He doesn't need to know every detail about it, all he needs to know is the 60 second overview that was given to the audience which mentions that the weapon is going to be focused on the frequencies that damaged the Cube in their previous encounter.

And again that could have been one of a thousand or more different frequencies that are possible in that day and time.

A captain has to actually know what the plan is about to be able to sign it off - he's about to be committing the lives of his crew on said plan, and this requires knowing why they think it will actually work and why it's appropriate

yes but that info would not include such things as the percise frequency or even the main details of how it is done.

Ah, it's been a while since I saw the episodes, I couldn't remember for certain (hence me phrasing my response as a question rather than a statement).

maybe you should watch that episode agian before we continue this part of the conversation.

sorry i had to split it up like that, i am haveing computer problems agian.