Star Trek vs Star Wars (multiple scenarios)

[liammozz]

this is one for you math wiz kids out there

 

say 1million borg teleport down to corosaunt with its 1trillion people

 

at a rate of one new borg every 5min how long would it take for them to assimilate the population with the rate of new borg exploding due to the new borg being created it shouldn't take that long

[ProfessorWalsh]

this is one for you math wiz kids out there

 

say 1million borg teleport down to corosaunt with its 1trillion people

 

at a rate of one new borg every 5min how long would it take for them to assimilate the population with the rate of new borg exploding due to the new borg being created it shouldn't take that long

 

Borg are not God-like, I don't know why you seem to think that they are.

 

Anyway to answer your question:

 

If, every borg can create 1 new borg every 5 minutes, and we start with 1,000,000 borg (a tactic we have never seen the borg use BTW) then...

 

993,280,000,000 - 105 minutes

 

Which they wouldn't do... Because they never did this against any planet in Star Trek ever...

 

Here is what they would do:

 

The Borg would show up above Coruscant, they would make contact, they would go through their whole speech, "We are the Borg, your uniqueness will be added to our own, resistance is futile, you will be assimilated."

 

Coruscant would raise the planetary shields and call for the fleet.

 

The Borg would begin being pounded by the planetary defenses, quickly Coruscant would realize the energy weapons weren't working, missiles and mines would be launched against the cube. The Borg, never encountering this kind of thing before and having ALWAYS had no defenses against physical weapons, would be defeated.

 

A backup group of Borg would begin developing new tactics. Star Wars people would begin studying the Borg wreckage... Lather, rinse, repeat.

[liammozz]

Borg are not God-like, I don't know why you seem to think that they are.

 

Anyway to answer your question:

 

If, every borg can create 1 new borg every 5 minutes, and we start with 1,000,000 borg (a tactic we have never seen the borg use BTW) then...

 

993,280,000,000 - 105 minutes

 

Which they wouldn't do... Because they never did this against any planet in Star Trek ever...

 

Here is what they would do:

 

The Borg would show up above Coruscant, they would make contact, they would go through their whole speech, "We are the Borg, your uniqueness will be added to our own, resistance is futile, you will be assimilated."

 

Coruscant would raise the planetary shields and call for the fleet.

 

The Borg would begin being pounded by the planetary defenses, quickly Coruscant would realize the energy weapons weren't working, missiles and mines would be launched against the cube. The Borg, never encountering this kind of thing before and having ALWAYS had no defenses against physical weapons, would be defeated.

 

A backup group of Borg would begin developing new tactics. Star Wars people would begin studying the Borg wreckage... Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

a borg cube holds well over 1million borg

 

we have seen them beam down to a planet but only in the camera shot it is safe to presume thats not the only place there attacking on the planet

 

once they have borg on the planet it doesn't really matter if the cube is destroyed there there and given the way that planet is built skyscrapers built on multiple levels of slums the planet would be over whelmed with in minutes with borg being teleported to different levels of the slums and skyscrapers there would be to much panic and chaos over the entire planet at once for the security forces to cope

Edited August 15, 2012 by liammozz

[Astarica]

Grey goo isn't some kind of unstoppable weapon. Just because you can create more of yourself doens't make you unstoppable. Beyond the fact that such weapons would have almost no practical application (the energy needed to create a new whatever could've just been used to destroy stuff instead), we already know Star Wars universe can deal with 'grey goo' type attacks. In the Tatooine Empire planet arc, an ancient Rakata device starts converting people into zombies with some primitive degree of Force powers. The fact that the converted guys have primitive Force powers pretty much makes them more dangerous than equivalent grunts of any similarly progressed space faring civilizaiton, but with the aid of the IMPERIAL RECLAMATION SERVICE plus the player, this threat is stopped. Depending on your dark/light side you either killed all the infected guys or just blew everything up with a high yield baradium charge.

 

It's true that the Imperial Recalmation Service may have enlisted a rising Sith Lord to achieve this, but we're not exactly talking about a military powerhouse and even they know how to handle the 'grey goo'. Sure you can build a stronger grey goo but then instead of dealing with a joke organization you might run into say the Imperial Guards instead.

[liammozz]

Grey goo isn't some kind of unstoppable weapon. Just because you can create more of yourself doens't make you unstoppable. Beyond the fact that such weapons would have almost no practical application (the energy needed to create a new whatever could've just been used to destroy stuff instead), we already know Star Wars universe can deal with 'grey goo' type attacks. In the Tatooine Empire planet arc, an ancient Rakata device starts converting people into zombies with some primitive degree of Force powers. The fact that the converted guys have primitive Force powers pretty much makes them more dangerous than equivalent grunts of any similarly progressed space faring civilizaiton, but with the aid of the IMPERIAL RECLAMATION SERVICE plus the player, this threat is stopped. Depending on your dark/light side you either killed all the infected guys or just blew everything up with a high yield baradium charge.

 

It's true that the Imperial Recalmation Service may have enlisted a rising Sith Lord to achieve this, but we're not exactly talking about a military powerhouse and even they know how to handle the 'grey goo'. Sure you can build a stronger grey goo but then instead of dealing with a joke organization you might run into say the Imperial Guards instead.

 

there's one big difference between tat and corosaunt miles of empty desert hard to find new people to assimilate skyscrapers with 1000's of people tightly packed together same goes with the slums

[ProfessorWalsh]

a borg cube holds well over 1million borg

 

we have seen them beam down to a planet but only in the camera shot it is safe to presume thats not the only place there attacking on the planet

 

once they have borg on the planet it doesn't really matter if the cube is destroyed there there and given the way that planet is built skyscrapers built on multiple levels of slums the planet would be over whelmed with in minutes with borg being teleported to different levels of the slums and skyscrapers there would be to much panic and chaos over the entire planet at once for the security forces to cope

 

That isn't correct. If that was correct then Earth would have fallen in Star Trek to the Borg.

 

1. They can't transport through the planetary shield.

2. They ALWAYS contact and do their speech.

 

You are working out an unrealistic scenario pain and simple.

[ProfessorWalsh]

there's one big difference between tat and corosaunt miles of empty desert hard to find new people to assimilate skyscrapers with 1000's of people tightly packed together same goes with the slums

 

Basically put... I'm leveling the playing field.

 

You want to use unrealistic scenarios... Then I am pulling out the Jedi. The big guns.

 

Here is what happens:

 

Borg show up, oddly the Republic fleet is ready. The fleet opens fire with solid state projectiles and ion weapons, these are devestating to the Borg. The Borg are unable to transport to the planet due to the shield. They scramble and decide to try to crash the cube through the shield and reach the planet. This works... Only a few thousand Borg make it onto the planet...

 

The Borg beam down in 30 groups of 100 Borg each...

 

Instantly they are beset by superhumanly fast melee combatants who seemed to know exactly where the Borg would teleport to and were waiting for them. Borg begin dying in droves unable to defeat this foe and unsure of what exactly it is. The Borg are defeated at the battle of Coruscant within 15 minutes.

 

Utilizing all of the resources at their disposal the Jedi Order works with the Aiing-Tii monks and decides on a devastating counter attack. Suddenly on every Borg cube a massive bomb appears, through their shields and all of their countermeasures. A series of explosions lay the Borg fleet to waist.

 

Meanwhile, appearing in the throne room of the Borg Queen seemingly from nowhere stands a man. His hair is blond and he is weathered with age. At his belt resides a lightsaber. The Borg Queen's forces try to attack him but are flung backward by an invisible energy that they cannot detect. The blond man raises a hand and points at the Borg Queen, "I am sorry." The man whispers as the Borg Queen's mind, and the mind of the collective, is obliterated in an instant.

 

Luke Skywalker vanishes through the same technique he used to arrive.

 

... Now do you really want to try to do a vs argument when we use unrealistic though theoretically possible tactics available to the universe?

Edited August 15, 2012 by ProfessorWalsh

[billyboyjennings]

What motivation would the Q have to do that? Also... The Celestials were on the level of the Q.

 

Actually... If we go on Star Trek the Celestials could actually kill Q's... According to Voyager Q can be killed by forces equaling a supernova which we know the Celestials could generate and create nearly at will.

 

So wrong. Like Paeris said, the supernovas were the byproducts of the war in the Continuum. They don't kill Q.

 

Please show me this evidence that the Celestials were equal to the Q. The Celestials weren't even on the level of the Douwd, who can do things like instantly erase entire space faring civilizations from existence with a mere thought. Or Trelane's race, who are able to create entire planets, move them around, re-arrange the structure of matter nearly instantly, reshape environments and generate complex and powerful energy fields on mental command. The Q can do all this and travel to any point in space or time (like before the Big Bang), alter the size of any object (like reducing starships to subatomic proportions), create realities, change the constants of the universe, etc etc. All they have to do is think it and it happens.

The Celestials aren't that impressive in comparison.

[liammozz]

ok lets be realistic then

 

the borg warp to the planet at close orbit

 

they open up the comminications with the planet

" we are the borg you know the rest blah blah blah"

 

planetary shields are raised so the borg cant teleport down

 

a fight peruses in space ships are being assimilated because the borg would get through there shields with weapons fire but ultimately the borg ship does sustain heavy damage and crashes to the planet like you said 1000 borg survive

 

realistically the jedi wouldn't be able to know exactly where they are so we have 1000 borg assimilating one person every 8min it take about 20-30min to track down each team of 30 (need you to do the math again sorry how many borg are we looking at by the time they have been tracked down)

 

even with the jedi there going to be hard pressed to stop them

[Astarica]

If the Borg are as awesome as people claim then whenever you see 1 of their drones that should be treated like a planetary extinction event, except characters in Star Trek clearly don't do this. And by the way, if they're really that powerful, either they'd be the only race left in Star Trek or they'd have been extinct by now. You would never attempt to negotiate with a race where if a single member got next to some other civilians it can wipe out the planet, which is what people are claiming.

[ProfessorWalsh]

ok lets be realistic then

 

the borg warp to the planet at close orbit

 

they open up the comminications with the planet

" we are the borg you know the rest blah blah blah"

 

planetary shields are raised so the borg cant teleport down

 

a fight peruses in space ships are being assimilated because the borg would get through there shields with weapons fire but ultimately the borg ship does sustain heavy damage and crashes to the planet like you said 1000 borg survive

 

realistically the jedi wouldn't be able to know exactly where they are so we have 1000 borg assimilating one person every 8min it take about 20-30min to track down each team of 30 (need you to do the math again sorry how many borg are we looking at by the time they have been tracked down)

 

even with the jedi there going to be hard pressed to stop them

 

Here is actually another problem... So, how many Borg survived? In my estimate I give around 3,000 Borg.

 

So if they can assimilate, each one person, and then that person added to the total, every 8 minutes...

 

Lets go with a median amount of time to find them, a minimum of 24 minutes (giving each group a chance to triple their numbers... This of course assumes that people aren't running and screaming from the Borg, which they likely would do.) to find and reach them. Realistically they'd be very easy to find through the Force, as they are a Hive mind and we have a precedent for that. (Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor.)

 

So, that would be a maximum of 240 Borg per group.

 

So, 10 groups of 240 targets.

 

Using the current numbers of Jedi realistically they would only be able to dispatch 3 Jedi and the rest are droids and military personnel. Borg would be extremely vulnerable to ion pulse grenades which can be used around people without harming biologicals. Blaster bolts are problematic, we don't know if the Borg can adapt to them but I am going to assume that they can. By this point however they should know that the Borg can adapt due to the space battle.

 

Republic battle droids are pound for pound physically stronger than Borg and cannot be assimilated.

 

This is where the Borg lose.

 

When the Borg are engaged people will be evacuated, cutting off the supply of Borg candidates for assimilation. This is made better by the fact that non-energy projectile weapons are very common for the Republic and readily available. This means, in this first incursion, the Borg eventually fall to attrition due to the Republic having access to soldiers that the Borg cannot assimilate.

 

This is one of the one Achilles Heel of the Borg... They are basically a zombie plague. Slow moving, they die in droves, but their strength comes from being able to replenish their own forces as they deplete the enemy forces simultaneously.

 

We have seen Worf with a Batleth (one of the dumbest designed melee weapons of all time) drop 5 Borg himself and still retreat. I have no problem believing a group of Jedi could succeed at the same. Between solid projectiles, ion pulse grenades, and melee weapon specialists the Borg attack would fail.

 

Now... This would be the initial incursion of course... This would be basically each side feeling the other out. Both sides would then adapt and round 2 may go differently, as might round 3.

 

Edit:

If we go with your estimate of 1,000 borg survivors that means from my 24,000 number you now only have 4,000...

 

If they are all in one group.... They are toast.

 

Ion bombardment, solid state projectiles, droids, jedi... No contest. Quarantine them and kill them by attrition.

Edited August 15, 2012 by ProfessorWalsh

[GarfieldJL]

Here is actually another problem... So, how many Borg survived? In my estimate I give around 3,000 Borg.

 

So if they can assimilate, each one person, and then that person added to the total, every 8 minutes...

 

Lets go with a median amount of time to find them, a minimum of 24 minutes (giving each group a chance to triple their numbers... This of course assumes that people aren't running and screaming from the Borg, which they likely would do.) to find and reach them. Realistically they'd be very easy to find through the Force, as they are a Hive mind and we have a precedent for that. (Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor.)

 

So, that would be a maximum of 240 Borg per group.

 

So, 10 groups of 240 targets.

 

Using the current numbers of Jedi realistically they would only be able to dispatch 3 Jedi and the rest are droids and military personnel. Borg would be extremely vulnerable to ion pulse grenades which can be used around people without harming biologicals. Blaster bolts are problematic, we don't know if the Borg can adapt to them but I am going to assume that they can. By this point however they should know that the Borg can adapt due to the space battle.

 

Republic battle droids are pound for pound physically stronger than Borg and cannot be assimilated.

 

This is where the Borg lose.

 

When the Borg are engaged people will be evacuated, cutting off the supply of Borg candidates for assimilation. This is made better by the fact that non-energy projectile weapons are very common for the Republic and readily available. This means, in this first incursion, the Borg eventually fall to attrition due to the Republic having access to soldiers that the Borg cannot assimilate.

 

This is one of the one Achilles Heel of the Borg... They are basically a zombie plague. Slow moving, they die in droves, but their strength comes from being able to replenish their own forces as they deplete the enemy forces simultaneously.

 

We have seen Worf with a Batleth (one of the dumbest designed melee weapons of all time) drop 5 Borg himself and still retreat. I have no problem believing a group of Jedi could succeed at the same. Between solid projectiles, ion pulse grenades, and melee weapon specialists the Borg attack would fail.

 

Now... This would be the initial incursion of course... This would be basically each side feeling the other out. Both sides would then adapt and round 2 may go differently, as might round 3.

 

Edit:

If we go with your estimate of 1,000 borg survivors that means from my 24,000 number you now only have 4,000...

 

If they are all in one group.... They are toast.

 

Ion bombardment, solid state projectiles, droids, jedi... No contest. Quarantine them and kill them by attrition.

 

This has so many faulty assumptions it's laughable.

 

1. Borg are not droids, they have organic components, while you could argue that ion grenades may have some effectiveness (until they adapt), it wouldn't be entirely effective.

 

2. Difference between a Droid and a Bat'leth is that you can't assimilate a Bat'leth nor can you hijack it via hacking... Combat droids in Star Wars (excluding HK-47, IG-88, etc.) generally were controlled from a central location and given orders remotely. It would be child's play for the Borg to take control of the droids. There is nothing for them to hijack concerning a Bat'leth.

 

3. In case you didn't know there is a real life Martial Art which utilizes the Bat'leth, it is a viable weapon in real life.

 

4. There would be a lot more than 3,000 Borg drones surviving, because they would not only be assimilating ships in orbit, but the crews as well. Every person on the opposing ships would be a potential new drone. That's what makes them so scary. All they have to do is get a hand on a person and they inject nanites into their victim which will turn that individual into another Borg. That is why Worf retreated, to keep from being overwhelmed by numbers.

 

5. While solid projectiles would be rather effective, it seems the Borg have issues adapting to low tech weapons, we don't often see low tech weapons in Star Wars.

 

6. Every time a Borg is terminated the others learn more information about the weapon used. Blasters would be rendered useless fairly quickly, as would disruptors. Lightsabers may take a little longer because each lightsaber is slightly different, the lack of standardization may make lightsabers more effective for a time, but chances are the Borg will adapt to those as well.

 

7. The Borg are very good at taking down shields, the fact they didn't get a ton of drones beamed down on Earth is rather simple, they didn't have enough time to knock down the planetary shields. In First Contact, they chose to beam to the Enterprise E, because if they had beamed to Earth, they would have been easily tracked down...

 

Now the Jedi using the force would probably be very effective when throwing around solid objects with the force, but then it comes down to overwhelming numbers.

[Rayla_Felana]

Here is a more likely scenario, unlike the Federation, the republic and the Jedi especially are seen as a major threat with lots of technology and many species, the borg sends a massive fleet of hundreds, just like with Species 8472.

 

The Borg turn up, the Republic decimate the first wave, the second wave has adapted but still takes some casualties, some republic vessels get taken over and assimilated, all their technology and defences, etc... are assimilated and their knowledge allows the Borg to systemically wipe out system after system, by this time the Borg have enormous galactic foothold, the Borg are still taking severe damage, the Queen sends more ships, starts building Transwarp conduits, the Republic starts to argue amongst themselves, their greatest weakness, in the confusion the republic's every man for himself strategy makes the Republic efforts entirely futile, after a long drawn out war, the Borg win due to a lack on the part of the Republic, just like any other faction to manage to adapt as fast as the Borg can.

 

If the Republic does however manage to mount some serious resistance, the Borg use their one ace in the hole, temporal wormholes, the Republic gets assimilated in the past when they are far more vulnerable.

 

Honestly, thinking about it, only the Rakatans would really be a serious opponent, but because we don't know enough about them, we can't make that argument.

[GarfieldJL]

We also know that a Star Ship's warp nacelles are their achilles heel. Damaging these even slightly causes a catastrophic explosion of the entire ship. They would be one of the primary targets in war, yet in Trek we often see them ignored in lieu of other targets, such as the main body, that has the heaviest shielding and armor.

 

While yes that can cause a lot of damage the examples you give often leave out certain factors that when people call you out on them, undermines your case and your credibility.

 

The Warp Nacelles are usually fairly heavily protected, and there are ways to prevent damage to the warp nacelles from destroying the ship...

 

We also know that Trek ships have poor targeting or that their ability to negate targeting systems has far surpassed the capabilities of their targeting system, often missing ships that are barely moving, that are massive in size. Tactically speaking, once the targeting systems become that poor the ship should go to a manually targeted firing methodology as the primary use and only use the targeting systems as a backup.

 

They have trouble against small fast moving targets, that is true, however I don't think Star Wars ships are all that fast, considering a Proton Torpedo according to wookieepedia only has a range of 2 kilometers... Since proton torpedos can actually stand a fair chance of taking out TIE Interceptors, I think it's fairly safe to say that starfighters in Star Wars aren't all that fast at sublight speeds...

 

The added issue in the case of Star Wars Starfighters, particularly Imperial ones, is the fact they have no shields. TIE Fighters have a very good chance of being blown up by electronic countermeasures (unshielded ship flying through cloud of antimatter, the results will not be pretty), not to mention phasers can be fired in sheet beams and cone beams that don't deal as much damage, while that may not be all that effective against shuttles, and small ships in Star Trek that have shields... In case you have forgotten, TIE Fighters do not have any shields whatsoever..

 

Trek ships also have serious tactical weaknesses in their combat design which small, fast moving ships, could exploit. Case in point, the NCC 1701-D has it's primary phaser array located on the underside, and upper side, of the saucer section. It has a torpedo bay located on the mid point of the ship's "neck" and a secondary at the rear of the ship. The primary phaser array is omni-directional and allows very high coverage but has a serious flaw...

 

Any ships that get below the ship and use the main body of the ship to block a direct line of fire from the phaser array become virtually un-targetable by the ship. The Galaxy Class ship moves very slow due to its large size and thus smaller, faster, ships would have a field day tearing it apart from the underside virtually unmolested. These are things that tacticians could spot at a glance and yet nobody in Trek ever has... The explanation being that none of the other factions use small ships and the Federation considers fighters to be a non-threat.

 

You honestly don't have a clue about what a Galaxy class is armed with or its capabilities do you... There are 4 aft phasers by the aft torpedo launcher, 1 ventral phaser array on the bottom of the stardrive section, 2 aft phaser arrays on the dorsal side of stardrive section, 1 additional dorsal phaser array on the stardrive section that is exposed to space after saucer seperation, and a phaser array by each warp nacell... These phasers can fire in any direction within line of sight (that's on top of the dorsal and ventral arrays on the saucer section)...

 

Also in case you hadn't noticed, the Galaxy Class's shields are like an egg shaped bubble, unless you're suggesting that all the fighters are suddenly going kamikaze, they are not going to get that close.

 

One of the easiest ways to destroy a Star Trek vessel would be to fly onto it from a low attack vector, attach to the underside of a warp nacelle (which provides 100% cover from the phaser banks and torpedo launchers) and damage the nacelle which, as we have seen, causes catastrophic damage.

 

If you're coming in from a low attack vector via the underside of the ship, you're exposed to anywhere from 3 to 5 phaser arrays right off the bat... In case you didn't know that bump on the side of the strut that the nacell is attached to is a phaser array...

 

Furthermore in case you hadn't noticed unless you are inside the Galaxy class's shields you couldn't get that close to begin with...

 

Finally, if they have done saucer seperation the stardrive section is extremely maneuverable.

[liammozz]

Here is a more likely scenario, unlike the Federation, the republic and the Jedi especially are seen as a major threat with lots of technology and many species, the borg sends a massive fleet of hundreds, just like with Species 8472.

 

The Borg turn up, the Republic decimate the first wave, the second wave has adapted but still takes some casualties, some republic vessels get taken over and assimilated, all their technology and defences, etc... are assimilated and their knowledge allows the Borg to systemically wipe out system after system, by this time the Borg have enormous galactic foothold, the Borg are still taking severe damage, the Queen sends more ships, starts building Transwarp conduits, the Republic starts to argue amongst themselves, their greatest weakness, in the confusion the republic's every man for himself strategy makes the Republic efforts entirely futile, after a long drawn out war, the Borg win due to a lack on the part of the Republic, just like any other faction to manage to adapt as fast as the Borg can.

 

If the Republic does however manage to mount some serious resistance, the Borg use their one ace in the hole, temporal wormholes, the Republic gets assimilated in the past when they are far more vulnerable.

 

Honestly, thinking about it, only the Rakatans would really be a serious opponent, but because we don't know enough about them, we can't make that argument.

 

i think i agree with this one the most

 

heres a good one the romulan empire VS the galatic empire

[GarfieldJL]

i think i agree with this one the most

 

heres a good one the romulan empire VS the galatic empire

 

That would be a relatively interesting fight, considering a Romulan Warbird can be taken down by a Galaxy Class Starship (which is half the size of a Warbird), and based on the blueprints I've seen of Romulan Warbirds, they don't exactly have the same weapons coverage ability that a Galaxy class has, i.e. quite a few blindspots, and the double hull is just asking for trouble.

 

The Romulans have cloaking devices, and knowledge of how to detect other cloaked ships...

 

If a hole could be opened in the shields for star wars fighters to slip through they could position themselves in between the dorsal and ventral hull and just start shooting since they would be inside the shields, and in a pretty major blindspot. It would be best if it were shielded fighters though to have a chance at disrupting transporter locks.

 

Romulans also have a superiority complex that Grand Admiral Thrawn could easily exploit.

 

While the Romulans would probably have technological advantages, their ships have some rather glaring vulnerabilities that in theory could be exploited.

 

I would say it would be a relatively even match up, to slightly favoring the Romulans, the Galactic Alliance with the Jedi would actually be more of a threat because most shields are down when a ship is cloaked.

Edited August 15, 2012 by GarfieldJL

[Astarica]

Here is a more likely scenario, unlike the Federation, the republic and the Jedi especially are seen as a major threat with lots of technology and many species, the borg sends a massive fleet of hundreds, just like with Species 8472.

 

The Borg turn up, the Republic decimate the first wave, the second wave has adapted but still takes some casualties, some republic vessels get taken over and assimilated, all their technology and defences, etc... are assimilated and their knowledge allows the Borg to systemically wipe out system after system, by this time the Borg have enormous galactic foothold, the Borg are still taking severe damage, the Queen sends more ships, starts building Transwarp conduits, the Republic starts to argue amongst themselves, their greatest weakness, in the confusion the republic's every man for himself strategy makes the Republic efforts entirely futile, after a long drawn out war, the Borg win due to a lack on the part of the Republic, just like any other faction to manage to adapt as fast as the Borg can.

 

If the Republic does however manage to mount some serious resistance, the Borg use their one ace in the hole, temporal wormholes, the Republic gets assimilated in the past when they are far more vulnerable.

 

Honestly, thinking about it, only the Rakatans would really be a serious opponent, but because we don't know enough about them, we can't make that argument.

 

You can't use 'Iwin' buttons against Star Wars universe because Force visions counter any 'Iwin' button. The more impossible it is to defeat something that easier it is for a random padawan to somehow see how to trivially defeat your impossibly powerful mechanism. For example it's not even clear if Sel'Makor has a physical presence and managed to overpower the Voice of the Emperor (he seems to be just like the embodiment of strife, or something), and yet a random Voss following a vision took out Sel'Makor. Temporal rifts would be stopped by vision easily (someone somewhere would also see the exact same spot such a thing can happen and a Jedi would go back in time and so on). Incomprehensible technological advantage would just mean a random guy somehow gained access to the Borg collective not unlike how Picard was able to do so.

 

Now I don't mean to say visions themselves grant invulnerability. Visions are vulnerable to fighting war the good fashion way. For example neither side really saw any meaningful vision to the outcome of the Battle of Corellia, since that battle basically involved Imperials sending a stupid amount of people to defeat an equally stupid amount of defenders, and then Republics found even more stupid amount of people to drive the Imperials out. Even if someone had a vision it'd be like "I figured out the key to defeat them is send even more stupid amount of people than they do" and that wouldnt' be very useful.

 

So let's assume Borg assimilates Republic technology thus giving them an upper hand but not invulnerability (because if they achieve invulnerability they'd instantly lose to a counter Force vision). After all Borgs are not completely immune to stuff they assassilated, just resistant.

 

The usual weakness of the political side of the Republic is irrelevent because after a race attempted to surrender to the Borg and still dies/gets assimilated even the most cowardly species will realize the Borg doesn't take prisoners and have no choice but to fight to the death.

 

While war of massive number/attrition doesn't appear to be the forte of the Republic side, they're hardly a novice at this since they've fought the Empire for a very long time. Without knowing the number of systems the Borg might have it is difficult to say who will win a war of attriton. Obviously Borg is more suited for such a war, but they're not immune to such thing. If half of the Cubes got blown up it's not like the guys they lost just magically come back from the next world they assasimilate.

 

Assuming both side have similar production capability then the Borg ought to win in a war of attrition since they will also have a technology edge, but it's not going to be a 'the more we fight the more guys we get!' kind of deal. At this point the question comes down to whether any of the Republic crackpot superweapons will work. We know the Republic has its own share of superweapon projects. Half of them don't work and the other half gets used against them, but since Borg presumably have no ability to espionage (pretty hard to have an undercover Borg agent) so the latter case is not a concern. So the question is can the Republic actually complete a superweapon project that works on the Borg before they get wiped out, and that's impossible to say but even a broken clock is right twice a day. Given the Republic absolutely do not have to worry about their incompetence turning over their doomsday weapons (Borg cannot possibly conduct espionage successfully) their chance of having some technology that actually works is pretty good, since as a rule the superweapons that Republics build that is actually good invariably gets stolen by the opposition but they no longer have to worry about that in this case.

[ProfessorWalsh]

This has so many faulty assumptions it's laughable.

 

1. Borg are not droids, they have organic components, while you could argue that ion grenades may have some effectiveness (until they adapt), it wouldn't be entirely effective.

 

Oh come on. Ion grenades would knock out the Borg implants. We have seen what happens when that occurs.

 

2. Difference between a Droid and a Bat'leth is that you can't assimilate a Bat'leth nor can you hijack it via hacking... Combat droids in Star Wars (excluding HK-47, IG-88, etc.) generally were controlled from a central location and given orders remotely. It would be child's play for the Borg to take control of the droids. There is nothing for them to hijack concerning a Bat'leth.

 

Actually you are incorrect. The current military assault droids are not controlled by a central location. There is also something preventing them if they were, that is that the Borg aren't there at that moment in time. But no droids in the current time period have been depicted as being controlled by a central location. Even the Separatists phased that out after Naboo.

 

3. In case you didn't know there is a real life Martial Art which utilizes the Bat'leth, it is a viable weapon in real life.

 

No it isn't. It isn't a viable weapon. Even if there is a martial art created by Trek fans the logistics and body mechanics involved in using a Batleth are incredibly horrible, the weapon is literally one of the worst designed weapons of all time.

 

4. There would be a lot more than 3,000 Borg drones surviving, because they would not only be assimilating ships in orbit, but the crews as well. Every person on the opposing ships would be a potential new drone. That's what makes them so scary. All they have to do is get a hand on a person and they inject nanites into their victim which will turn that individual into another Borg. That is why Worf retreated, to keep from being overwhelmed by numbers.

 

No there wouldn't be. Because the ships, in this case, are being attacked by automated planetary defenses. They *called for the fleet* but I never stated that the fleet arrived.

 

5. While solid projectiles would be rather effective, it seems the Borg have issues adapting to low tech weapons, we don't often see low tech weapons in Star Wars.

 

Planetary defenses in Star Wars are a combination of blaster tech and solid projectiles, aka missiles, the Borg cannot adapt that we have ever been shown to missiles.

 

6. Every time a Borg is terminated the others learn more information about the weapon used. Blasters would be rendered useless fairly quickly, as would disruptors. Lightsabers may take a little longer because each lightsaber is slightly different, the lack of standardization may make lightsabers more effective for a time, but chances are the Borg will adapt to those as well.

 

That is possible, but unlikely. Each Lightsaber is completely individual. In my scenario I was assuming Jedi switched to non-Energy weapons. IE vibroswords and/or other melee weapons. Jedi are trained in a variety of combat styles.

 

7. The Borg are very good at taking down shields, the fact they didn't get a ton of drones beamed down on Earth is rather simple, they didn't have enough time to knock down the planetary shields. In First Contact, they chose to beam to the Enterprise E, because if they had beamed to Earth, they would have been easily tracked down..

.

 

Coruscant has planetary shields, in this scenario the Borg wouldn't have had time either.

 

Now the Jedi using the force would probably be very effective when throwing around solid objects with the force, but then it comes down to overwhelming numbers.

 

No. You are giving the Borg way too much credit and the Star Wars universe way too little. It seems all you are even in this thread for is to constantly tout how much better you think Star Trek is than Star Wars in every way.

[ProfessorWalsh]

Also, one thing people seem to forget, the Borg are known for creating temporal shifts, etc... if they went back in time, to a weaker Galactic power, the Empire would never happen, in their place, would be a Borg assimilated galaxy.

 

If the Borg get to whip out their "I Win" power than I get to pull out Force User "I Win" buttons. Trust me. I do that and the Borg don't stand a chance. We are talking about things like the Collective's mind being shut down by a lone Jedi and/or Borg ships being crushed by black holes spontaneously created inside of them.

[Astarica]

It might be better to talk about what kind of special abilities/plot devices that would work on Star Wars.

 

The first thing you don't do is use Iwin buttons, because the Force counters pretty much any power that doesn't guaranteed a predetermined result, and the bigger 'Iwin' power you use the bigger you fail. Don't confuse inevitability with time travel. All the Qs can time travel but even they do not know the ultimate result of any action, or it'd literally be pointless for Q to run through his trial for humanity and similar quests since he'd already know how it plays out! Since Force visions are basically never wrong (only variable is the interpretation) you cannot stop a Vision that sees your Iwin button countered (generally in spectcular ways).

 

However, the Force does not allow you to see Visions to deal with:

 

1. Straight up war.

2. Political intrigue.

 

In fact Force users generally seem to be pretty bad at the political arena. It's well documented that it seems like their own guys distrust the Jedi for their attitude, and nobody probably trusts the Sith either though nobody is going to dare to defy one. I don't think there's ever a case where a Force user consulted a vision to see if someone is making a political move against him. While Force users can sense motives and whatnot they can't actually read someone's mind, and it's been shown even ordinary people can avoid having their true nature detected by Force users. Thus, any species that is good at political intrigue can be effective against both Republic or Empire faction. If you get lucky you can even hijack any of the superweapons in development, as Force does not offer preemptive protection against stupidity, i.e. you can't see a vision like 'we built this super weapon but because we were dumb a random guy walked in stole it'. You might be see something AFTER the weapon has been stolen and blew up a planet or two to prevent the rest of the galaxy from getting blown up but you definitely have a decent window of opportunity to turn any Star Wars superweapon against its creator.

 

Any civilization fighting Star Wars would want a leader who does not possess any superhuman let alone supernatural traits, so the Borg Queen would be a bad idea but Jean Luc Picard would at least be a decent choice. Again Force visions easily offers you insight on how to defeat an immortal God but I sure don't recall Force ever guiding someone to defeat someone who is equivalent of Picard. The Force was no help in fighting Grand Admiral Thrawn, who is really just a great military commander and nothing else. Make sure your commander is located in sturdy, well-known, but not impregnable position because again the more impossible it is to penetrate a location the easier it is for a Force user to actually pull it off. Never rely on secrecy to protect your leader. An equivaelent location like the Corsucant Senate is probably the safest place for you to place your leaders versus Force users.

Edited August 15, 2012 by Astarica

[jtjohnson]

I'm not going to get involved in the whole "discussion" going on hear but I just wanted to point out an error.

Trek ships also have serious tactical weaknesses in their combat design which small, fast moving ships, could exploit. Case in point, the NCC 1701-D has it's primary phaser array located on the underside, and upper side, of the saucer section. It has a torpedo bay located on the mid point of the ship's "neck" and a secondary at the rear of the ship. The primary phaser array is omni-directional and allows very high coverage but has a serious flaw...

 

Any ships that get below the ship and use the main body of the ship to block a direct line of fire from the phaser array become virtually un-targetable by the ship. The Galaxy Class ship moves very slow due to its large size and thus smaller, faster, ships would have a field day tearing it apart from the underside virtually unmolested. These are things that tacticians could spot at a glance and yet nobody in Trek ever has... The explanation being that none of the other factions use small ships and the Federation considers fighters to be a non-threat.

 

A Galaxy-Class star ship has more than two phaser banks, in fact it has nine more banks on the secondary hull that you missed. Of those nine all but one is available to use with the saucer section connected giving the ship the ability to fire in any direction.

 

As for the discussion, I find these VS. treads pointless but entertaining to read.

[liammozz]

If the Borg get to whip out their "I Win" power than I get to pull out Force User "I Win" buttons. Trust me. I do that and the Borg don't stand a chance. We are talking about things like the Collective's mind being shut down by a lone Jedi and/or Borg ships being crushed by black holes spontaneously created inside of them.

 

ok if you using iwin buttons i got the mother of all i win buttons

 

all this fighting is going on and a Q happens to notice the jedi and doesn't like the seance of noble superiority they seam to have clicks his fingers and removes them from history

 

you cant use the celestial there gone at this point in time

 

no matter how much foresight jedi have they cant travel to the Q Continuum do kill the Q and even if the did some how get there click there gone no matter what you say click its changed

 

because of the Q this all gets stupid and out of hand

[Nydus]

Actually it is incredibly easy.

 

I have to respectfully disagree. And I will flippantly say that on the off chance you are some sort of savant and have skills that require months and months or training for us regular folks; I suggest you join the military. You'll be a star; an Admiral in no time I am sure.

 

Ever used a laser pointer? I have. Ever used an industrial laser spotter? I have has well. Painting a target kilometers away is very easy to do with computerized image enhancement and stabilizers.

 

Professor, I have to bring you back to our scenario. In ST, there is an intelligence war being waged by the computers of the star ships engaged in combat. This makes the computerized enhancement and guidance unreliable. YOU then posed a scenario (even linked to a youtube video) in which two star ships at an unknown range from DS9 are missed. You then indicated that it is "so easy" to hit these targets (which is an odd statement considering we don't know their range) that someone on DS9 could manually hit them by looking out a window.

 

In other words, your solution to my point about the ECM/ECCM consideration is for someone to point a laser out of a window at a star ship and hold this on the target while the said star ships is moving at incredible speeds and changing course, while DS9 is spinning.

 

You have not at all made your case with this example. Perhaps there is another example from the series that would.

 

Remember in space one doesn't have to worry about bullet drop, wind calculations, etc. One of the benefit of energy weapons specifically is that they are far more accurate due to not having to take those things into account.

 

You do have to worry about further distances, faster speeds, spin, another dimension of movement, and longer times to reach the target with your weapons. This is why manual fire is rare in the ST universe. I can only remember a handful of times it happens on screen; usually when the computer is completely fried and can't interpret sensor readings. If memory serves the entire battle in the nebula in ST:2 is manual fire.

 

A naval ship will miss another naval ship usually because of things like having to arc a shell. Put two ships that close to each other with weapons that work on a line of sight principle and watch how easy it is to put a dot on the enemy ship.

 

Yeessss... but they don't have to arc a shell. As the range closes ships attempt to straight line to the hull just below (or at) the waterline (for obvious reasons). They still "miss" in these scenarios but you are making a good point. There is a point to this next paragraph, bear with me:

 

Arc shots were particularly effective against Great War and post-Great War capital ships, which generally had steel sidings but wooden or non-reinforced decks. 1 deck shot could take out or disable an entire ship (as the HMS Hood found out) as the shells would crash through the wooden deck and explode in the middle of the ship. For the more modern ships deck shots were less effective -- the Bismarck itself took a tremendous amount of punishment over a sustained period before sinking, from both the naval air arm and a swarm of capital ships.

 

The point of all this is that post 1941 naval combat underwent radical changes. It was just too expensive for battleships to duke it out with naval artillery (rare even in WW1). The pounding a modern battleship required was intense, and even the ship that survived the engagement was usually in a state requiring extensive repairs.

 

Obviously the next generation (no pun intended) was the naval air arm, but capital ships were were fitted with magnetized and "smart" torpedoes, able to maneuver and home in on targets to a limited extent (and they missed every now and again). Naval artillery began to play more of a sea-to-land operation role, assisting marines and infantry by serving -- essentially -- as a sea based artillery platform.

 

Enter the Original Series, designed by a guy who had participated in the above war. The Enterprise plays precisely the role of a late-WW2 capital ship. Ship to ship combat is costly and rare, more often than not the combat role of the Enterprise is in support of the activities of the crew on a planet's surface. I find TNG and the OS to be fairly consistent in this approach.

 

Now what, pray tell is Star Wars combat based on? Also WW2. George Lucas liked comic books about pilots I hear. You are really saying these have equivalent levels of realism? The pacing of the combat in SW is all wrong; combat takes times and is more suspenseful than thrilling. And I don't blame George Lucas for that (he's making an entertaining fantastical show), not many of us want to see Das Boot in space (I do).

 

- Arcada

Edited August 15, 2012 by Nydus

[Nydus]

As for the discussion, I find these VS. treads pointless but entertaining to read.

 

They are pointless but entertaining.

 

Ultimately, we are dealing with fiction where plots and themes drive events (and should do so).

 

- Arcada

[Lenlo]

The only way to settle this thread is a fight to the death. Trekkies vs. SW fanboys, in a no holds bar cage match.