General Empire vs Borg musings

[Lord Revan]

And I'd presume that for all its super-awsumness Starkiller Base had lots of defects, with subsystems not up-to-par with classic Imperial tech. Just like everything else with the First Order...

That is highly likely tbh, while First Order seems like an improvement in some aspects. It wouldn't surprise me at all if First Order had imperial problems of nepotism and general corruption only supercharged due not having to pretend to uphold the "promise" that Palpatine gave at formation of the Galactic Empire.

[Shroom Man 777]

Plus for whatever crazy supertechnologies and wundernapkinwaffens they have, there'd be trade offs in whatever logistics constraints they're facing as a bare-bones organization operating in the middle of nowhere without funding or supplies from a galactic government. Yes, Palpatine-era stockpiles and material support from secret supporters in the New Republic might help. But the fact of the matter is that even for their baseline infantry they have to kidnap GODDAMN ORPHANS to do their job.

I mean, sure, it works for Batman and kidnapping GODDAMN ORPHANS for his WAR ON WHORES doesn't mean he's lacking logistics since he's got an ample supply of bat-shaped pieces of metal to throw at mentally ill people (rather than support philanthropic efforts to fix Gotham...) but I think the First Order's circumstances are different.

First Order is a shit name too.

[Q99]

For a pilot, its a very tricky maneuver to pull off. Han is an exceptional pilot with a lifetime of experience, and barely pulled it off. I expect a strong Force sensitive pilot could, and probably someone like Poe or Wedge with a good ship, but otherwise, it would be a long-shot.

But a transporter doesn't have to worry about crash-landings. Though as I noted above, sensor jamming is a concern still.

For a fallback, we've seen drones survive catastrophic crash landings on a couple occasions. Crashing a ship through to get some drones, assimilate a town, and go from there.

Transporters are rather finicky peice of technology and there's been several times where they've been jammed or disrupted by rather "minor" things.

Borg ones are more robust in that sense than Federation ones though, as even full shields *meant* to keep out transporter beams can be bypassed by them. So their version of the technology is a bit more refined.

And I'd presume that for all its super-awsumness Starkiller Base had lots of defects, with subsystems not up-to-par with classic Imperial tech. Just like everything else with the First Order...

Something that size is inevitably a first-try prototype, after all. (Though I will note the Novels indicated they had more resources than one might expect, with a lot of core worlds supporting them)

Honestly these superweapons sound like a total field day for Borg drones. We saw them do the 'use corridors and access ways to assimilate people' with surprising stealth in First Contact. With the same tactics and a moon/planet's worth of space to hide in... you'd never eliminate a Borg infestation once one got started.

[Imperial528]

I think people really overstate the hyperspace-jump-through-planet-shield thing. Let's be honest, it was done once, thirty years after the Empire was around, was apparently dreamed up by one smuggler, the details were told to only two other people, and it's very dangerous, as even with Han flying they still crash-landed. It is not a magic bullet to get around planet shields.

Not to mention that it wasn't even done on a proper planet, it was done on the shield of a planet that had been re-fit into a star-eating mobile weapons platform. Frankly the planetary shield seems like an afterthought if you're looking to keep power consumption manageable on that thing.

If this refresh rate was a feature of all shields, it begs the question why none of the rebel fleet in ROTJ attempted it, especially since the Endor/DS2 shield gave a much larger margin of error. Or why we have never seen ships jump out from a planetary shield, at least from my knowledge it has never happened with an active, fully enclosed shield.

[Shroom Man 777]

Honestly these superweapons sound like a total field day for Borg drones. We saw them do the 'use corridors and access ways to assimilate people' with surprising stealth in First Contact. With the same tactics and a moon/planet's worth of space to hide in... you'd never eliminate a Borg infestation once one got started.

Flood the places with organic-killing gas? Drones don't look like they've got much in the way of NBC protection...

[Eternal_Freedom]

I think people really overstate the hyperspace-jump-through-planet-shield thing. Let's be honest, it was done once, thirty years after the Empire was around, was apparently dreamed up by one smuggler, the details were told to only two other people, and it's very dangerous, as even with Han flying they still crash-landed. It is not a magic bullet to get around planet shields.

Not to mention that it wasn't even done on a proper planet, it was done on the shield of a planet that had been re-fit into a star-eating mobile weapons platform. Frankly the planetary shield seems like an afterthought if you're looking to keep power consumption manageable on that thing.

If this refresh rate was a feature of all shields, it begs the question why none of the rebel fleet in ROTJ attempted it, especially since the Endor/DS2 shield gave a much larger margin of error. Or why we have never seen ships jump out from a planetary shield, at least from my knowledge it has never happened with an active, fully enclosed shield.

Even if such a refresh rate were present in the Endor shield did you miss the part where I said it was thought up by Han and everyone else figured it was impossible? Or the part where it was dreamt up years after ROTJ? Or maybe we can add the fact that even Han doesn't seem all that confident it would work or he'd just tell Poe how to do it in X-Wings rather than infiltrate the base to lower the shields. The fact that none of the other Rebels (or even Han at that point) were crazy-stupid-awesome enough to try jumping through a shield does not indicate either way whether the Endor shield had the same trick.

Also TRR: the fact that Strkiller Base's shield has a fractional refresh rate is not an automatic "transporters will work through them." The Federation and ST people in general have enough trouble beaming through shields as-is when they would (most probably) know the frequency of their own damn shields. The fact that the two powers whose transporters routinely bypass shields (Borg and Dominion) without any mention of frequencies or whatever suggests this might be a benefit of their transporter tech not a limitation of shielding.

[Shroom Man 777]

And... I really would like to think the fractional refresh rate is used when the shield is turned on but still in "standby" or idling mode. Like, for all the months or years when the planet is not being bombarded by enemy warfleets.

[Imperial528]

Even if such a refresh rate were present in the Endor shield did you miss the part where I said it was thought up by Han and everyone else figured it was impossible? Or the part where it was dreamt up years after ROTJ? Or maybe we can add the fact that even Han doesn't seem all that confident it would work or he'd just tell Poe how to do it in X-Wings rather than infiltrate the base to lower the shields. The fact that none of the other Rebels (or even Han at that point) were crazy-stupid-awesome enough to try jumping through a shield does not indicate either way whether the Endor shield had the same trick.

Um, no, I didn't miss it. I am full agreement with you. I just brought it up as more evidence that the Starkiller shield can't be assumed to be typical of SW planetary shields.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ah fair enough, sorry for sounding harsh about it. I honestly can't recall if, in the film, Han said "their shield" or "any/all shields." Whatever the novelisation might say, if Han specifies that this it's this sigular shield he's referring to it's a special case.

Personally, given how the Rebellion and later the Resistance is built around ballsy crazy-awesome fighter pilots, I'd think someone would have noticed this exploit before Han did prior to TFA.

[The Romulan Republic]

Here's my theory:

Their are different kinds of shields. Some just create a solid barrier that lets nothing through. The Starkiller shield was an alternate type, serving one of two likely purposes.

1. It was an older/cheaper budget shield, perhaps because the First Order doesn't have the resources of the Empire, and was putting what it did have into its offensive capabilities first.

2. In a variation on this, perhaps the shield which cycles on and off also consumes less power, meaning more can be diverted towards the Starkiller's primary weapon. In that case, it might be a new innovation, designed to block incoming fire while consuming less energy.

[Q99]

Flood the places with organic-killing gas? Drones don't look like they've got much in the way of NBC protection...

Do you have any idea how much gas you'd need? Like, picture enough gas to fill every building, every street, every subway, in New York City. Multiply that... many many times over, especially if the Borg spread out across the facilities. The huge shafts and such in those superweapons means most of it is going to sink down or rise up or otherwise not be where needed. And it needs to be strong stuff, what we saw kill the Borg was flesh-dissolving gas (likely at high temperature too), and we know they don't need to breath (or at least not much since they can operate in vacuum) so a less-powerful inhaled gas won't do. All of this needs to be done while the ability to do maintenance and run the station is not overly compromised.

And all they'd need to do to survive is seal one section (and standard Imperial design seems quite sealable, since so much is designed for space. You just need to alter the vents and seal the doors, and we saw them altering parts of the ship in First Contact) and then once the gas is cleared they can resume operation. Since so much space needs to be gassed, the Borg would be alerted to the spread.

Adding NBC protection is an adaptation they could logically do as well I'd think, it's just more implants. Or, since a lot of the assimilated would be Stormtroopers, simply incorporate/wear the gear there. But even if the Imperials did it without warning, there's just so much space that the Borg would likely have plenty of time to seal much of their forces off.

Hm, I'm also thinking gaining access/control of the computers. Assimilate officers with the codes, droids with some access, etc. etc.. Control the vent system there.

Really, onboard defense / clearing on those things is a nightmare... which is almost certainly why everyone is able to run around in them and it takes so many soldiers to catch anyone (when those people are invariably near known high-use locations, not the depths!), and they develop ecosystems with monsters in their trash systems. If the rebels ever somehow got an army onto one, it'd be hell to get them out again.

If this refresh rate was a feature of all shields, it begs the question why none of the rebel fleet in ROTJ attempted it, especially since the Endor/DS2 shield gave a much larger margin of error. Or why we have never seen ships jump out from a planetary shield, at least from my knowledge it has never happened with an active, fully enclosed shield.

The Deathstar 2 was a smaller shield, so perhaps had a faster refresh rate? Due to the jamming, they'd have no idea of what it's specific rate was. I think even a best-case you'd be looking at 50%+ casualties...

If the refresh rate got sped up to have 1/10th of a second increments or less, it'd be increasingly suicidal.


Another shield incident comes to mind- In Return of the Sith, Grievous's fleet managed to leap in, attack, and then get caught under Coruscant's shields somehow. So they either got through before it was turned on, got a section down for awhile, or something. Shields weren't perfect in old canon either.

[Shroom Man 777]

Well... they gassed Geonosis and I presume advanced bugoids who make droid armies and Droidekas had countermeasures yet they got wiped out. A planet full of 'em.

I mean, yeah you're right it's gonna be a nightmare... I propose they just let those dianogas they have in the septic tanks (for stormtrooper recruit initiation purposes and sports team mascoting) go loose and fill the place up with Wampas. The crucial components can have Stormtroopers secured with kill-cannons and flamers while monstrosos and borgholios murder each other in the background.

Rakghouls! Yes. Counter an invasive species (Borg) with rakghouls.

Have Palpatine whip up some Sith alchemy shit.

Heck, hire Boba Fetts and retired dying Clone Troopers and other scumbags to just have a safari in all those compartments.

MY GOD. That would be incredible. These Space Nazis in a superweapon doom engine hurtling through the galaxy nuking everyone and everything, blowing up planets, while their very device is crawling with unending relentless biomechanical abominations in turn being beset upon by biochemical warfare end frequent replenishment-shipments of superpredatory monstrosities.

And Inquisitors!

Mass-produced General Grievouses!

Magna Guards!

Droidekas!

Palpatine: Send everything!

Tarkin: Everything?

Palpatine: EEEEEVVVVVEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRYYYYTTTHHHHIIIIIINNNGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!

At this point Palpatine used the interdimensional trans-universal energies to power Sith alchemies to restore his face into Gary Oldman.

The Death Star halls become this horrific live-on-Holonet reality survival horror holoshow where all the galaxy's Teras Kasi practitioners, masters and competitors come in and just try to kill as many as they can, and avoid being assimilated or killed, and the one who finally sterilizes the Borg gets the Order of Palpatine and his whole star system!

Tusken Raiders! Jawas! Trandoshans!

[Batman]

WRT the Starkiller Base shield Han also said nothing moving slower than light could get through (and Han did say 'their' shield, so this could be a feature unique to Starkiller Base/First Order forces). Are transporter beams FTL?

And how was the DS2 shield smaller? It didn't just cover the DS but Endor too.

[Q99]

Rakghouls? Aren't we just asking for Karness Muur controlling the Borg collective there? ^^

I gotta admit, that would look spectacularly awesome-horrible!

WRT the Starkiller Base shield Han also said nothing moving slower than light could get through (and Han did say 'their' shield, so this could be a feature unique to Starkiller Base/First Order forces). Are transporter beams FTL?

Considering they can be used at warp (though it's hard and rarely done), yes. I mean, the Voth most obviously can transport an entire ship lightyears in one go.

And how was the DS2 shield smaller? It didn't just cover the DS but Endor too.

I thought it was just protected from Endor and made a sphere around the DS2?

[Batman]

Transporters working while FTL doesn't make the transporter itself FTL. Usually there's some jabbering about them having to match Warp Velocity so the relative speed of the ships involved would be zero.
If the shield just protected the DS itself why did Han and Co need to get through it to land on Endor?

[Darth Lucifer]

Transporters working while FTL doesn't make the transporter itself FTL. Usually there's some jabbering about them having to match Warp Velocity so the relative speed of the ships involved would be zero.

I was about to say that re: transporters (TNG Best of Both Worlds, part I, when the Enterprise in pursuit the Borg, beams Shelby and the away team to the cube at warp speed)

In TNG "The Schizoid Man", the Enterprise executes a "near warp" transport; they drop in orbit just long enough to activate the transporter and warp out. There was another emergency going on and time was of the essence, which is why they did this maneuver. But this would indicate to me that transporters are not FTL. In fact, the "matching warp velocity for transport" thing came after this episode, to maintain the technical continuity about the transporters.

[Imperial528]

The Deathstar 2 was a smaller shield, so perhaps had a faster refresh rate? Due to the jamming, they'd have no idea of what it's specific rate was. I think even a best-case you'd be looking at 50%+ casualties...

If the refresh rate got sped up to have 1/10th of a second increments or less, it'd be increasingly suicidal.

We cannot presume it is a cyclic shield since until TFA and Starkiller base's shield we had no mention of cyclic rates for planetary shields in SW. They wouldn't even have to jump the whole fleet through; just jump in a few Y-wings to level the generator. Instead they took the risky route of sneaking in on an Imperial shuttle and infiltrating the facility.

Secondly, I did some quick calcs for estimates of the frequency of Starkiller base's shield and it ranges from 15GHz -basic assumption that the Falcon was in the process of dropping to realspace while it passed the shield and was traveling at 0.99c- all the way to 400THz -hyperspace speed estimate of 26,000c- or extreme far end of 150PHz for hyperspace speeds of ten million times the speed of light.

What this really hinges on though is through what range of frequencies can Borg transporters work with for cyclic shields, unfortunately I can't find any numbers for the cyclic rate of Federation shields, if the cyclic rate even is what the Borg are taking advantage of when they beam into Federation ships.

Another shield incident comes to mind- In Return of the Sith, Grievous's fleet managed to leap in, attack, and then get caught under Coruscant's shields somehow. So they either got through before it was turned on, got a section down for awhile, or something. Shields weren't perfect in old canon either.

I don't remember mention of that in the movie and a quick check of the novel doesn't show it in the description of the space battle. I believe it may have come from the ROTS ICS as per the citation on Wookiepedia, but they don't say what page and I can't find my copy of the book (I can't even remember if I got that one to be frank).

[Eternal_Freedom]

The only time I can think of where shield frequencies are specifically mentioned is..urgh...Generations, when the Klingons use Geordi's visor to find out the E-D's shield frequency. A quick check of the film (yes, I have the whole lot on my hard drive), shows (when they see the display) quite clearly "Shield Modulation: 257.4 MHz." Or, 58 times less than your low-ball estimate for the TFA shield refresh rate.

[Q99]

Transporters working while FTL doesn't make the transporter itself FTL. Usually there's some jabbering about them having to match Warp Velocity so the relative speed of the ships involved would be zero.

I was about to say that re: transporters (TNG Best of Both Worlds, part I, when the Enterprise in pursuit the Borg, beams Shelby and the away team to the cube at warp speed)

In TNG "The Schizoid Man", the Enterprise executes a "near warp" transport; they drop in orbit just long enough to activate the transporter and warp out. There was another emergency going on and time was of the essence, which is why they did this maneuver. But this would indicate to me that transporters are not FTL. In fact, the "matching warp velocity for transport" thing came after this episode, to maintain the technical continuity about the transporters.

Transporters only have so much range, which is also a factor and means if your relative velocities are too far apart you won't have enough window to. We do have the Voth transporting lightyear+ distances, I think the Dominion does as well (there's occasions where they transport to or from a ship that is undetected so it's either extreme range teleporting or stealth), and for that matter, so does the nuTrek transporter Scottie makes (Yea, yea, nuTrek and involving an advance not in the main universe, but still).

That said, if they're not FTL they're likely just lightspeed i.e. energy beams.

We cannot presume it is a cyclic shield since until TFA and Starkiller base's shield we had no mention of cyclic rates for planetary shields in SW. They wouldn't even have to jump the whole fleet through; just jump in a few Y-wings to level the generator. Instead they took the risky route of sneaking in on an Imperial shuttle and infiltrating the facility.

We have no other current canon info on planetary shields.

To go into legends canon, the shields are sectional there which opens it's own can of worms of openings and opportunities.

[NecronLord]

AND while in "standby" the planetary shield might be on fractional refresh, in combat they might make it "solid" for the duration of the pew-pewing. The Han quote never said how long a solid shield can be sustained. So it might be a greater drain, but it'll just be over an hour or so. After the fighting's done, the fractional refresh power-saving mode can be resumed for the rest of the year.

I'm presuming the fractional refresh is some midway between "solid shields raised in combat" and "shields dropped when there's no shooting" as some measure of protection against surprise attacks and other threats, like unwanted infiltration, aside from the usual obviously-noticeable fleet of enemy warships coming in to break things.

Occam's Razor is cutting you. Han just says it's a characteristic of planetary shields. Any more complex explanation falls unless you provide supplementary evidence.

And I'd presume that for all its super-awsumness Starkiller Base had lots of defects, with subsystems not up-to-par with classic Imperial tech. Just like everything else with the First Order...

That's completely contary to multiple nu-canon sources, producer interviews, and even the aestetics of the film itself. The First Order is intended to be - and shows every sign of being - more inclined to produce quality products in small numbers than the Empire.

Their TIEs are better, their stormtrooper armour is better, their guns are better, their star destroyers are better...

Take a look at this and note the theme continually pushed; these guys are better, with better gear.

There's no actual canon instance of any tech the First Order has being weaker than its imperial equivalent.

We have multiple sources talking about their quality of equipment, and frankly, in a Doylian perspective, even without being spoiled it's obvious the next film is going to be the First Order choking the galaxy on its dick, you know it, I know it.

[Q99]

Yea, Flynn and TR-8R did rather demonstrate how Stormtrooper training standards have gone up for one.

[Shroom Man 777]

Hmm... OTOH they recruit child soldiers. But the TIEs are better. How do we know their ISDs have improved performances?

Occam's Razor is cutting you. Han just says it's a characteristic of planetary shields. Any more complex explanation falls unless you provide supplementary evidence.

That characteristic doesn't exclude the idea that it's got a non-combat idling mode and either the flicker-rate is increased substantially in combat or it stops flickering and becomes automatically solid. The fact that the Han quote mentions that it's too power intensive to have the shields utterly solid for forever, for the entirety of its use, means on the other hand that it CAN be made into a solid wall at great cost and over a short period of time.

We have multiple sources talking about their quality of equipment, and frankly, in a Doylian perspective, even without being spoiled it's obvious the next film is going to be the First Order choking the galaxy on its dick, you know it, I know it.

Ugh. I hope the FO's balls get crushed between Dash Rendar's shoulderpads.

[NecronLord]

Hmm... OTOH they recruit child soldiers.

General Hux's dad served in the Empire and was running an Imperial child-napping scheme. Childnapping is how the Galactic Empire recruits its inferior stormtroopers too, at least in many cases.

But the TIEs are better. How do we know their ISDs have improved performances?

ICS - The Resurgent Class has more redundancy, deploys troops faster, and so on - the only thing drawback is that there aren't as many (yet!) but in every way where they measure it against the old ISD it is said to be better.

That characteristic doesn't exclude the idea that it's got a non-combat idling mode and either the flicker-rate is increased substantially in combat or it stops flickering and becomes automatically solid. The fact that the Han quote mentions that it's too power intensive to have the shields utterly solid for forever, for the entirety of its use, means on the other hand that it CAN be made into a solid wall at great cost and over a short period of time.

Again, Occam's Razor. It may well be that the borg have an antitachyon pulse weapon that causes imaginary mass to revert to real mass and would therefore blows up any Star Wars ship in one shot. We have no evidence of that though, so occam says we go with the simple explanation.

Likewise we have no evidence this shield runs in any other mode other than fractional refresh, so occam says it's fractional until evidence shows otherwise.

Ugh. I hope the FO's balls get crushed between Dash Rendar's shoulderpads.

You know they won't be. Episode 8 will be a film about neo-nazis winning everywhere, in a display of inadvertent political comedy.

[Captain Seafort]

their stormtrooper armour is better

No it isn't, it's a lot worse. OT stormie armour could stand up to hard vacuum (i.e. the two guys hanging around outside while the Falcon was pulled into the Death Star). Finn explicitly stated that FO stormie armour is vulnerable to certain types of chemical weapons due to limitations of the filters they use.

[Shroom Man 777]

General Hux's dad served in the Empire and was running an Imperial child-napping scheme. Childnapping is how the Galactic Empire recruits its inferior stormtroopers too, at least in many cases.

Those recruits with Ezra at the academy weren't taken from their families at gunpoint though. They're recruited. I know they are all space fascists but there's a difference between Space Hitler Youth, Young Pioneers, ROTC and Boko Haram.

ICS - The Resurgent Class has more redundancy, deploys troops faster, and so on - the only thing drawback is that there aren't as many (yet!) but in every way where they measure it against the old ISD it is said to be better.

That's also because it's 2KM+ long isn't it?

Getting stockpiles and arsenals of gear that has some samples that are better than what was mass-produced decades ago by the main government doesn't necessarily mean all of the FO is that spanking new. US redneck militias have spanking M4s with reflex sights and cool as Ford Grand Chorizo subhuman utility vehicles, but due to logistics, nonetheless one can say that a 1980s or 1990s National Guard or Army unit will be overall "better equipped."

I'm splitting hairs here...

Again, Occam's Razor. It may well be that the borg have an antitachyon pulse weapon that causes imaginary mass to revert to real mass and would therefore blows up any Star Wars ship in one shot. We have no evidence of that though, so occam says we go with the simple explanation.

Likewise we have no evidence this shield runs in any other mode other than fractional refresh, so occam says it's fractional until evidence shows otherwise.

Jesus Christ man, Han just said "oh it doesn't do that cause it just eats up too much energy!" That's a different degree from asspulling something that totally doesn't exist yet.

You know they won't be. Episode 8 will be a film about neo-nazis winning everywhere, in a display of inadvertent political comedy.

Balls said Lieutenant Ike Ong.