Borg vs. ISD

[Baffalo]

Alright, this is something that has been bouncing around my brain and has me wondering. Suppose a single ISD is ambushed by a fleet of Borg cubes. The Borg, intent on capturing the technology, beam aboard several drones after they pound the ISD's shields away, aiming for the bridge and other key areas.

The major questions I have are, could the Borg adapt to blasters?

Could the Borg assimilate stormtroopers through their armor?

Would standard Imperial anti-boarding techniques work well enough to save the ship? This one I'm almost sure of but still, it's worth asking.

[Big Phil]

Alright, this is something that has been bouncing around my brain and has me wondering. Suppose a single ISD is ambushed by a fleet of Borg cubes. The Borg, intent on capturing the technology, beam aboard several drones after they pound the ISD's shields away, aiming for the bridge and other key areas.

The major questions I have are, could the Borg adapt to blasters?

Could the Borg assimilate stormtroopers through their armor?

Would standard Imperial anti-boarding techniques work well enough to save the ship? This one I'm almost sure of but still, it's worth asking.

1. What prevents the ISD from jumping to safety?
2. What prevents it from self-destructing to prevent capture?
3. Which borg assimilation technique are you referring to? The magical instant assimilation we saw in First Contact, or the more drawn out one done to Picard?

Assuming you handwave those away for some reason (hyperdrive is damaged, no self-destruct, etc.), you still have to assume that there are either no limits (i.e., anything the Borg try, even things never seen in Trek, will work), or the Borg are in a shitload of trouble the first time they walk into an E-Web at a chokepoint.

The only way the Borg take the ISD is if you severely handicap the Imperials, plus ignore any and all limits and assume adaptation is magical and the Borg can adapt to anything, which is absurd on the face of it, which of course means that every Trekkie under the sun is in favor of the idea.

Edit - Mind you, the Borg would almost certainly succeed under the handicap scenario, but it would cost them a lot of drones.

[Baffalo]

1. What prevents the ISD from jumping to safety?
2. What prevents it from self-destructing to prevent capture?
3. Which borg assimilation technique are you referring to? The magical instant assimilation we saw in First Contact, or the more drawn out one done to Picard?

Assuming you handwave those away for some reason (hyperdrive is damaged, no self-destruct, etc.), you still have to assume that there are either no limits (i.e., anything the Borg try, even things never seen in Trek, will work), or the Borg are in a shitload of trouble the first time they walk into an E-Web at a chokepoint.

The only way the Borg take the ISD is if you severely handicap the Imperials, plus ignore any and all limits and assume adaptation is magical and the Borg can adapt to anything, which is absurd on the face of it, which of course means that every Trekkie under the sun is in favor of the idea.

Edit - Mind you, the Borg would almost certainly succeed under the handicap scenario, but it would cost them a lot of drones.

This is going to take quite a bit of thinking to keep this realistic, so if I make a mistake, someone please catch me and correct it.

1) The ISD is in some sort of gravitational field, perhaps close to a gas giant and its moons that make jumps to hyperspace difficult enough that she can't escape before the Borg can get in close enough to attack.
2) Perhaps a VIP that must be protected at all costs, and they do not risk launching shuttles incase the Borg might capture them.
3) Please clarify the third. Do you mean the assimilation that only takes a few minutes to make someone act on behalf of the Borg, or the one where they're surgically enhanced?

[Adam Reynolds]

3) Please clarify the third. Do you mean the assimilation that only takes a few minutes to make someone act on behalf of the Borg, or the one where they're surgically enhanced?

He is referring to the varying speeds of assimilation shown in Best of Both Worlds versus First Contact. In Best of Both Worlds to assimilate Picard the Borg had to beam over to the Enterprise and abduct him, while in First Contact the Borg now had nanoprobes that could instantly assimilate someone turning them into glorified vampires. See here for more detail:http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Ess ... nBugs.html

[Stark]

How many borg have boarded? Is it a small squad like in First Contact that has no support and needs plenty of time to build up strength, or did they crash a sphere into the ISD and have a large number of drones?

[adam_grif]

The borg adaption seems to be related to the Trek concept of "frequencies", where if you match the "frequency" of your shields to the "frequency" of the incoming phaser, you can render it nearly ineffective. This can be overcome by shifting frequencies constantly, or by brute forcing them (i.e. overpowering the shields rather than trying to slip through the cracks). Enterprise had an episode with the borg (continuity nightmare but nobody gives a shit) where they managed to kill drones by cranking up the power of the phase pistols. We also see in First Contact that if you just keep on firing at borg ships, you'll eventually wreck their shit, regardless of adaption.

Since blasters do not operate on frequencies, the borg cannot adapt their shields to be more effective against them. Blasters are at least as good as bullets or will make walls explode from their billion yottatonne blasts depending on who you believe, but either way it doesn't matter, the borg are unlikely to be able to mount an effective defense. If they can, then the empire busts out the heavier guns and cranks up the firepower of their blasters to overcome their shields.

The borg can probably jab their dicks through the soft spots on the Stormtrooper armor, we are given no reason to believe that star wars fabric is especially resistant to cutting or tearing. That said it will be kind of awkward since only tiny portions of the Stormtroopers are vulnerable to the jabby things.

[Baffalo]

I would assume the faster assimilation method, if only to give them a slightly better chance at winning.

How many borg have boarded? Is it a small squad like in First Contact that has no support and needs plenty of time to build up strength, or did they crash a sphere into the ISD and have a large number of drones?

From the premise I would assume they beam over lots of drones from each ship, hoping to overwhelm the ship.

The borg adaption seems to be related to the Trek concept of "frequencies", where if you match the "frequency" of your shields to the "frequency" of the incoming phaser, you can render it nearly ineffective. This can be overcome by shifting frequencies constantly, or by brute forcing them (i.e. overpowering the shields rather than trying to slip through the cracks). Enterprise had an episode with the borg (continuity nightmare but nobody gives a shit) where they managed to kill drones by cranking up the power of the phase pistols. We also see in First Contact that if you just keep on firing at borg ships, you'll eventually wreck their shit, regardless of adaption.

Since blasters do not operate on frequencies, the borg cannot adapt their shields to be more effective against them. Blasters are at least as good as bullets or will make walls explode from their billion yottatonne blasts depending on who you believe, but either way it doesn't matter, the borg are unlikely to be able to mount an effective defense. If they can, then the empire busts out the heavier guns and cranks up the firepower of their blasters to overcome their shields.

The borg can probably jab their dicks through the soft spots on the Stormtrooper armor, we are given no reason to believe that star wars fabric is especially resistant to cutting or tearing. That said it will be kind of awkward since only tiny portions of the Stormtroopers are vulnerable to the jabby things.

I like this post because it gives more fuel for thought. We saw in First Contact that the Borg were vulnerable to bullets from a tommy gun, though whether that was simply because they hadn't 'adapted' yet is questionable. If infact the Borg can't stop projectiles... then why the fucking hell would Starfleet insist on using phasers? Hell, at that point I'd start replicating rifles and ammunition like mad. Give me a .30-06 rifle and plenty of ammunition and I'll go to town on some Borg.

So with that in mind, the plasma from a blaster would certainly tear up the Borg. Either the Borg would continue working ineffectively, or actually do something about it and try grafting armor on, though even that would fail against an E-web. Transporter ability might give them an edge if they can beam around behind the stormtroopers, though even then they'd be vulnerable for a few critical seconds. They'd have to overwhelm and flank the stormtroopers from all sides, taking heavy losses, though with all those cubes, it might not be that big a handicap.

[Big Phil]

1. What prevents the ISD from jumping to safety?
2. What prevents it from self-destructing to prevent capture?
3. Which borg assimilation technique are you referring to? The magical instant assimilation we saw in First Contact, or the more drawn out one done to Picard?

Assuming you handwave those away for some reason (hyperdrive is damaged, no self-destruct, etc.), you still have to assume that there are either no limits (i.e., anything the Borg try, even things never seen in Trek, will work), or the Borg are in a shitload of trouble the first time they walk into an E-Web at a chokepoint.

The only way the Borg take the ISD is if you severely handicap the Imperials, plus ignore any and all limits and assume adaptation is magical and the Borg can adapt to anything, which is absurd on the face of it, which of course means that every Trekkie under the sun is in favor of the idea.

Edit - Mind you, the Borg would almost certainly succeed under the handicap scenario, but it would cost them a lot of drones.

This is going to take quite a bit of thinking to keep this realistic, so if I make a mistake, someone please catch me and correct it.

1) The ISD is in some sort of gravitational field, perhaps close to a gas giant and its moons that make jumps to hyperspace difficult enough that she can't escape before the Borg can get in close enough to attack.

So what prevents the ISD from simply accelerating away without jumping? Borg cubes aren't exactly known for their sublight acceleration.

Also, if there's a gravitational field, how did the Borg get there without the ISD detecting them from quite a ways away?

2) Perhaps a VIP that must be protected at all costs, and they do not risk launching shuttles incase the Borg might capture them.

So he must be protected at all costs, therefore assimilation is OK, but self-destruction is not? That doesn't make any sense.


The reality is that the only way the Borg take this is by severely handicapping the ISD and/or making the Imperials as stupid as the Borg. Even then, the Borg take obscene losses in both drones and ships before succeeding.

[Big Phil]

I like this post because it gives more fuel for thought. We saw in First Contact that the Borg were vulnerable to bullets from a tommy gun, though whether that was simply because they hadn't 'adapted' yet is questionable. If infact the Borg can't stop projectiles... then why the fucking hell would Starfleet insist on using phasers? Hell, at that point I'd start replicating rifles and ammunition like mad. Give me a .30-06 rifle and plenty of ammunition and I'll go to town on some Borg.

Perhaps the Federation is simply retarded? And "adaptation" to bullets? WTF?

So with that in mind, the plasma from a blaster would certainly tear up the Borg. Either the Borg would continue working ineffectively, or actually do something about it and try grafting armor on, though even that would fail against an E-web. Transporter ability might give them an edge if they can beam around behind the stormtroopers, though even then they'd be vulnerable for a few critical seconds. They'd have to overwhelm and flank the stormtroopers from all sides, taking heavy losses, though with all those cubes, it might not be that big a handicap.

So we're basically at the point where we're going to magically assign powers and creativity to the Borg that they've never demonstrated before, and eliminate all of the limitations of transporters (unable to transport through armor, dense materials, etc.) to give them the edge. EDIT - that's not a realistic scenario; that's a concession that the Borg are pathetic and would get their asses handed to them without cutting out the ISD's eyes, cutting off its arms, and disemboweling it before the fight starts.

[Kythnos]

How many borg have boarded? Is it a small squad like in First Contact that has no support and needs plenty of time to build up strength, or did they crash a sphere into the ISD and have a large number of drones?

Interesting statement could they just crash their cubes into a ISD and then walk across the surface? (well those that survive of course)

[Ghost Rider]

So after we use the way back machine with Mr. Peabody and shove Sherman into a black hole, we see that the ISD Dumbfuck is on it's fifteen year coffee break.

Now that the Borg are on board, we have to wonder how these retards stop anything?

1. Borg have shown particular poor adaption techniques given the very small range they adapted of Trek's tech. And brute force has demonstrated of winning against them every time.

2. Sure, the ISD Dumbfuck's special Stormies will not only be in hand to hand range BUT also forgo any melee weapons.

3. Nay! The ISD Dumbfuck didn't do anything but sit there. I'm amazed it's repelling boarders.

[Baffalo]

So what prevents the ISD from simply accelerating away without jumping? Borg cubes aren't exactly known for their sublight acceleration.

Also, if there's a gravitational field, how did the Borg get there without the ISD detecting them from quite a ways away?

I was just thinking that hyperdrives are shown to not work in gravitational fields for safety reasons. Whether that means they can jump out of a field or not, I've never seen any canon to support such a proposition. The Borg would need to use warp or transwarp or whatever reason they come up with, and even then I'm not sure if warp works in a gravitational field. Most of what we've seen in both cases is that the ships can't be too close to the surface, and the inverse square law at some point makes the gravitational field weak enough that the computer gives the green light to jump ahead. I don't know if this is strong enough to be tripped by asteroids, but if so, a ship would need to be quite a ways out from even the smallest world, and gas giants even more so. If anyone can provide more information on both hyperdrive and warp drive limitations in gravitational fields, please reply.

So he must be protected at all costs, therefore assimilation is OK, but self-destruction is not? That doesn't make any sense.


The reality is that the only way the Borg take this is by severely handicapping the ISD and/or making the Imperials as stupid as the Borg. Even then, the Borg take obscene losses in both drones and ships before succeeding.

Not necessarily. VIPs could be anyone the Empire needs to get their hands on and doesn't have time to broadcast the information away beforehand. Whether this means the person is an enemy or ally is up to y'all here on the board, but it's sort of like the case with Princess Leia. She was captured and when they couldn't make her talk, had to result to trickery to get that information. If they have someone, say having been caught on a station near the gas giant, then the Borg might have pounced when the ship was docking and fighting trying to get their hands on the VIP. This means that the ISD now has the VIP in hand, and the information is important enough to prevent self destruct. I know that sounds like me pulling a reason out of my ass, but I'm trying to keep both the Borg and Imperial elements true to their own nature as presented on screen.

Perhaps the Federation is simply retarded? And "adaptation" to bullets? WTF?

Well, remember who's running Star Trek at this point (Berman), and that was something that always bugged me. In FC, the crew of the Enterprise runs out of frequencies to shoot the Borg with, never once realizing that every time they went hand to hand. I can recall a few points notably:

1) Worf uses his rifle to hit a Borg in the head, killing him.
2) Data throws one Borg into a group of them, sending them tumbling.
3) Data pulls a drone off Picard and breaks the drone's neck.
4) Worf uses his bat'leth to hack up the drone fighting him on the deflector dish.

They know the Borg don't stop physical attacks, and Picard uses a 20th century weapon to kill them on the holodeck. If that's the case, then why don't they go hand to hand? Or use projectiles? Damn you Berman!

So we're basically at the point where we're going to magically assign powers and creativity to the Borg that they've never demonstrated before, and eliminate all of the limitations of transporters (unable to transport through armor, dense materials, etc.) to give them the edge. EDIT - that's not a realistic scenario; that's a concession that the Borg are pathetic and would get their asses handed to them without cutting out the ISD's eyes, cutting off its arms, and disemboweling it before the fight starts.

While I'm not saying the method is perfect, there will be a few places where such tactics might be used. I'm not saying every time, and if they can beam drones in they could certainly beam the troops there out. I'm just saying that having transporter abilities is certainly an advantage. A small one, given the limitations of the technology even for the Borg, but one none the less. I'm not saying we should limit the ISD in any way, I just want to know if there's a realistic scenario where the Borg might overwhelm an ISD.

[Srelex]

Actually, I recall in DS9 they designed some sort of railgun sniper rifle for anti-Borg use, IIRC.

[Srelex]

Ah, here it is:

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/TR-116_rifle

[lord Martiya]

I'm wondering: what prevents the ISD from just firing its guns and torpedoes and launch everything it has onboard to destroy the cubes?

Actually, I recall in DS9 they designed some sort of railgun sniper rifle for anti-Borg use, IIRC.

Actually, the TR-116 was an actual rifle supposedly designed to work in situations where phasers wouldn't even fire that a novel showed as easily capable to kill Borg drones when the Borg boarded a ship with TR-116 on board.

[Connor MacLeod]

1. What prevents the ISD from jumping to safety?

Come out of hyperspace too close to a potential hazard. Stress on the drive might very well damage it or the ship itself. Malfunction. You could contrive any number of reasons. Why does it matter?

2. What prevents it from self-destructing to prevent capture?

Why would we assume an ISD captain is going to self destruct to avoid capture to begin with? Does he somehow magically know the fate awaiting him? Is he going to know that boarding would automatically fail through omniscience or something? You rant about ascribing unreasonable qualities to the Borg, why should we assume the ISD captain acts any more rationally?

So what prevents the ISD from simply accelerating away without jumping? Borg cubes aren't exactly known for their sublight acceleration.

Hyperdrives tend to be located close to the engines and powerplant at the rear of the ship. Damage to the hyperdrive could arguably affect those other systems too. We know that acceleration compensators are tied to hyperdrives, and that damage to one can affect the other. without the compensators they can't take accelerations greater than human tolerance (and the ships aren't designed for that generally either.)

Also, if there's a gravitational field, how did the Borg get there without the ISD detecting them from quite a ways away?

FTL. SW ships are not immune from "sneak attack' from hyperspace. Hyperdrive equipped ships in the SW universe are known to employ that tactic.

[Stark]

So you're saying its reasonable that a far slower FTL system can ambush a SW ship, even if the ISD still has its own FTL sensors?

Be consistent; either the rationale of the setup is irrelevant or your explanation is as dumb as the OP.

Like I said, without numbers or time the Borg are in trouble, but I'm not seeing why they'd have either. Can they sneak aboard? Can the be in areas the ISD guys won't be too concered about until its too late? You have to let them brew up a bit (and in a crew like the ISD there's a lot of scope) before they can be a threat.

[Connor MacLeod]

So you're saying its reasonable that a far slower FTL system can ambush a SW ship, even if the ISD still has its own FTL sensors?

You know how the FTL sensors work? Are they active or passive? How far away are the Borg ships jumping away from? Are the ISD sensors active 24/7 and always monitoring and someone would recognize an incoming threat?

If you know far more about the operation of an ISD than I am aware of there evidence being, I would like to see the evidence.

Be consistent; either the rationale of the setup is irrelevant or your explanation is as dumb as the OP.

Oh lighten up. Its a contrived scenario, but many vs are contrived scenarios. you know, like the whole ST vs SW debate itself (its not like the Empire would really have any reason to care or bother with the Feds without contrivance.)

[Thanas]

What is going to happen is the following:

The secondary bridge takes control, holes up, calls for help. If no help arrives, they'll vent the ship and go on their merry way. Given that the secondary bridge is from all we hear designed to stand up to capship firepower, I really doubt the borg can do anything to it besides meakly pounding at the door until they freeze to death.

There is no conceivable way for the Borg to even take an ISD in the first place. They cannot penetrate the shields and charging e-webs is not going to be an option, as these will cut through the Borg like through butter. And that does not even include the niceties like grenades, traps, point defense turrets etc. Fun will also be had when the Imps start launching fighters to blast the Borg ships to pieces. This'll be a field day for the Imperial Fighter Corps - huge targets whose only weapon of defense are slow-moving beams. And who can be destroyed by a single volley of torpedoes.

So the fighters will make quick work out of the Borg cubes or shuttles. At that point, all that is left is the mopping up of Borg left onboard. If that task becomes too hard, just lock them in and wait for reinforcements to arrive.

[Stark]

If it doesn't matter (which it doesn't) it doesn't need stupid explanations that just introduce distractions into the scenario. This is 'Borg boarding an ISD' not 'lets concoct a crossover ambush scenario'.

I'm curious what the internal reporting protocols on an ISD are like - hwo long before random technician is missed? How long will the Borg have squirreled away grabbing people and trying to bootstrap into the ISD before the crew investigates and discovers them?

[Thanas]

I'm curious what the internal reporting protocols on an ISD are like - hwo long before random technician is missed? How long will the Borg have squirreled away grabbing people and trying to bootstrap into the ISD before the crew investigates and discovers them?

Given that the ISB and Stormtrooper corps are obsessed with internal security and the Borg are not exactly Masterspies, I guess not long.

[Stark]

While its true they appear to just stagger around the corridors like they own the place, in First Contact they were able to grab guys for a while before anyone noticed. An ISD is a big place, and maybe if they arrive in Sewage Plant 27 they can capture enough guys to be a threat before anyone bothers to brave the smell to find out why they're not answering their phones.

Then again, what proportion of the crew would have to be assimilated before they were a threat? They're pretty useless.

[Thanas]

While its true they appear to just stagger around the corridors like they own the place, in First Contact they were able to grab guys for a while before anyone noticed. An ISD is a big place, and maybe if they arrive in Sewage Plant 27 they can capture enough guys to be a threat before anyone bothers to brave the smell to find out why they're not answering their phones.

The problem here is the following:

- an ISD is big, true, but it is also very heavily jampacked with people. 46.000 of them is a very huge number. It would be comparable to the Borg trying to assimilate people on a US Aircraft Carrier.
- That assumes they manage to arrive in an unused location and that many people would just happen to move by (as you said, pretty useless strategy)
- it also assumes that the ISD is not organized like a professional Navy in shifts and groups. How long do you think it will be until Master Chief Imperial Hardass notices that technicians idiot and Biggeridiot are not at their posts? They got duty rosters and stuff - and actually bunk pretty close together, so getting to isolated people is going to be a bit of a problem.
- that also assumes the Borg will be able to assimilate parts of the ship, which is by no means certain
- Even further, it assumes the Borg will act in a very stealthy manner. Which is not their usual modus operandi.

My predicition is that the Borg will do their usual song and dance number, they might grab a few unarmed people and then get a huge wakeup call when they try this business with the first stormtrooper watch (Stormtrooper watches (at least in pairs) seem to be a common occurrence above an ISD), at which part the Jig is up. Boarding actions are actually not that uncommon, so I bet SW crewmembers have stations assigned for this.

[Stark]

That's true I guess - do the crew live near their stations, or is there a big 'crew quarters' area?

If ISDs have those little lego car droids, I doubt the Borg could stay hidden for long. Every station seems to have a gun rack, too.

[Thanas]

That's true I guess - do the crew live near their stations, or is there a big 'crew quarters' area?

IIRC the crew have a big quarters area, or at least that is what the ICS says. Even more troubling for the borg is that apparently, at least the officer quarters can be sealed off (or at least that was the case on the Executor, don't know about ISD). We also know that some groups (pilots and iirc engineers) are segregated, so it is not as if the Borg could get the drop on all of them.

If ISDs have those little lego car droids, I doubt the Borg could stay hidden for long. Every station seems to have a gun rack, too.

The Mouse droids? Yeah, they are typical.