General Empire vs Borg musings

[Q99]

Back to the Borg and assimilating frontier and underprotect worlds, even if there's a larger ship or two in defense, the Borg do have one tactic we've seen them use against stronger foes they can't beat conventionally, and which is one that also seems reasonably effective in Star Wars- Ramming. A cube smacking into a ship will mess up most vessels pretty darn bad!

So as long as they send in groups (which they often do, we see two examples of this in Voyager, the Slipstream species had their homeworld hit by hundreds and even the last straggler ship had four pounce on it to be sure), then even a capital ship in orbit doesn't necessarily mean the mission is a wash. Granted that won't allow a proper assimilation of the capital ship, but use a sacrifice play and they can still get the targeted planet plus some wreckage.

[The Romulan Republic]

Ramming works only if you can get close enough to do it. Without an effective cloak, I"m skeptical that a cube could. They are not terribly agile ships, and are likely to be easy to target.

[seanrobertson]

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.

Please pardon the sniping It is not my intention. As I think I said earlier, I'd like to revisit this thread when I have more than a Kindle with which to respond.

Anyhow, while I don't doubt the First Order could include better filters for Stormtrooper armor (I'm told the novelization clarifies just that, but I've not read it), the troopers from ANH *did* have special backpacks and, I would presume, airtight armor -- something Luke and Han lacked.

One might counter that Luke and Han weren't properly fitted to their suits, didn't know how to make the suits airtight or, perhaps, a combination of both. Luke "couldn't see a thing" in his helmet, and Leia even emasculated the poor bastard with the "little short for a Stormtrooper?" comment

To that, I'd simply turn around and point to the unique objects affixed to those spacetropers' backs.

[Q99]

Ramming works only if you can get close enough to do it. Without an effective cloak, I"m skeptical that a cube could. They are not terribly agile ships, and are likely to be easy to target.

They did swerve fine to intercept the 8472 in Scorpion.

They're pretty easy targets, but they can move.

Hm, of course the smaller ships could try ramming as well. A Borg Probe ship is half the size of Voyager and more agile than a full Cube. A scout Cube is, well, we've never seen one but they're both quite heavy for their size and smaller than a full cube.

[Lord Insanity]

Then along comes Rogue One with an original style always on planetary shield.

You fucking what mate? Are you saying that because you didn't see it blinking on and off it's not doing so?

How fucking ignorant are you? The fractional refresh rate isn't something *visible* particularly not at the 25-60 FPS rate of the cinema screen.

We clearly "see" the Scarif planetary shield. It is obviously a different type than the one on starkiller base which is invisible to the naked eye.

Yeaa, that doesn't say anything about Trek being Romans who can't possibly learn SW tech even with SW people who know SW tech and yadda yadda. It does say that Star Wars is more advanced in a variety of ways- and I agree! Which is why, the crux of this discussion is about trying to gain Wars tech and infrastructure.

That 'it can't even be learned' thing, and 'Trek industry can't be used to make Wars stuff either directly or via making tools to create wars stuff,' is an assumption on your point and not supported or by what you linked.

A larger industrial base (and note, the Borg base, while not as large as the Imperial one to be sure, is far in excess of the Federation one in the comparison, by several orders of magnitude) is not the same as incomprehensible industrial tech, especially with transfer of experts, and says nothing about machine tooling.

I am not saying it is impossible or that the tech is incomprehensible. I am saying it would be way harder to pull off than you are assuming. We have multiple examples of minor Trek races holding off the Borg. Even if they succeed at assimilating a working knowledge of the entire chain of Wars tech they still have to build the infrastructure to use it. Even if we assume they already have the equivalent of a Wars industrial Tibana gas mine (for blasters and turbolasers) they would have to build thousands more just to be competitive in an all out attack scenario. I agree the Borg have an industrial base far larger than the Federation but it is no where near what the Empire has. They can't just magically poof the logistics chain into place to be competitive against a galactic power.

You do realize ships are made of material and that if something is made of material, it takes energy to destroy that material, right? Also, furthermore, a concentrated attack may deliver it's energy to a limited space, and it won't destroy much outside that area.

Unshielded trek ships aren't exactly fragile- surviving falls from orbit and that kind of thing- but the point is, this is a 3x3x3km thing of metal and Wars small craft weapons simply do not cause sizable areas of destruction (seismic charges and the like excepted) as big as the Enterprise D's attacks there, even when they're shooting at things that aren't protected, so they are not going to have an easy time blowing up a Borg cube simply due to it's raw size alone, before one even gets into it being shielded and adapting to those blasters.

We see Han blowing chunks out of a building to rain down on stormtroopers with his hand blaster. We see AT-ST gun blowing chunks out of trees while gunning for rebel troops and Ewoks. We see Slave I ripping through asteroids with its blasters in a vain attempt to shoot a space wizard. Wars guns hit well above their Trek counterparts. That doesn't mean the Borg would necessarily lose to a squadron of Naboo fighters. It would likely mean they were prevented from quietly sneak capturing the cities like in the Trek neutral zone.

That's a page that says shields have frequencies and all that- which is both true and not an argument against what I'm saying (I mean, for one thing, Borg shields are visibly different in effect than Federation shields), in that weapons not having a narrow frequency is not the advantage against Borg adaptation many assume as we see the Borg shields work fine on stuff without a narrow frequency.

Heck, fair sections of that are pretty much exactly what I'm saying- "The knife cuts both ways. An attacker could penetrate a phase-coherent shield by matching frequencies and being 180 degrees out of phase."

Or in other words, the page you linked has a section saying that a specific frequency weapon could piece a shield where a weapon not tuned to a specific frequency wouldn't.

You're just pointing to arguments on the main page that happen to have the same words as mine even though they don't disagree with and even line up with my points. "Look at the main page" is, one, both pretty lazy if you can't quote what part you mean, and two, doesn't help if reading it reveals that the argument in the articles in question are either not on the subject to which you're trying to reply or in active agreement.

Now that one was entirely my fault. I misread what you were saying. I though you were trotting out a silly Trek argument that frequency weapons magically find the weakness in shields where non-frequency weapons can't get through at all. Non-frequency weapons will always partially get through a frequency based shield. Though I should point out that even in First Contact the adapted to phasers were still causing "leak" damage. While highly useful Borg adaptation is far from a magic invincibility mode.

[NecronLord]

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.

Except the kids tie in books clarify that the empire also operates a mental conditioning programme and poaches kids out of school that are never seen again for Huxdaddy's stormtrooper programme.

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...

Yeah, but again, everything made by the First Order is said again, and again, and again, to be quality, and better. There's no reason to think their planetary shields are worse, and the quote doesn't say that nor leave much room to conjecture it.

[Shroom Man 777]

Fine... though I don't see why Hux' dad had to disappear kids for a stormtrooper programme. Is it a normal stormtrooper programme? But there are so many troopers... that means every school in the Empire has Hogwarts-level of child disappearances. What the hell.

[NecronLord]

He was running a trial programme the Empire wanted run out everywhere, Brendol Hux was inspired by the Jedi's training systems, incidentally.

The First Order's so special that even in exile their training is what the Empire wanted to have but couldn't.

Yep.

[Shroom Man 777]

But what kind of stormtroopers were they making? Cyborg ninjas? Giants and shamans? Solid Stormtroopers, Liquid Stormtroopers and Solidus Stormtroopers? The stormtrooper that The Boss envisioned? Albino stormtroopers wielding samurai swords? What's the point of secret kidnapping programs if the results are just grunts?

[Q99]

I am not saying it is impossible or that the tech is incomprehensible. I am saying it would be way harder to pull off than you are assuming.

And I've laid out point by point what they'd need in order to get *everything* that SW people used to make the tech, including infrastructure, and you haven't backed up your assertion with anything but, 'no, Roman Forges,' so far which doesn't even work as an analogy.

We have multiple examples of minor Trek races holding off the Borg. Even if they succeed at assimilating a working knowledge of the entire chain of Wars tech they still have to build the infrastructure to use it. Even if we assume they already have the equivalent of a Wars industrial Tibana gas mine (for blasters and turbolasers) they would have to build thousands more just to be competitive in an all out attack scenario. I agree the Borg have an industrial base far larger than the Federation but it is no where near what the Empire has. They can't just magically poof the logistics chain into place to be competitive against a galactic power.

They've got millions of ships, thousands of planets, all with replicators (+ methods better than replicators, particle synthesis) as well as an unknown numbers of static facilities, including Unimatrix 01 which has trillions of drones on it's own.

Once they have the knowledge of how, it gets spread through the collective. Every single ship can begin with making the machine parts needed to construct SW industrial machines. Every ship converted.

This is exactly what makes the Borg scary, they can build the infrastructure out of their current infrastructure, through methods that have been gone over in detail.


Also, it's largely gone unstated, but once they're up to snuff, then they don't have to compete with the Empire in raw production- Because they still assimilate. They can still work on gaining forces not by building it, but by taking it. They are not limited to attempting to match a galaxy's capacity, but absorbing parts of that galaxy's capacity.

We see Han blowing chunks out of a building to rain down on stormtroopers with his hand blaster. We see AT-ST gun blowing chunks out of trees while gunning for rebel troops and Ewoks. We see Slave I ripping through asteroids with its blasters in a vain attempt to shoot a space wizard. Wars guns hit well above their Trek counterparts.

Odd examples to start with.... considering on the personal scale we've seen hand phasers make stone vanish. Slave 1 is the best example there, and... ripping through asteroids (This scene is I believe what you're referring to) isn't going to be a quick kill against a Cube, or really not a kill at all, the asteroids killed by the guns were small ones, Cubes are huge, that's still pretty small damage compared to it's size even if one assumed the Cube was an asteroid. Only the seismic charges (which both killed larger asteroids than the guns and kept going indicating their power wasn't near spent) look like a threat there.

It should be noted that a single large Trek ship's torpedo load can kill a massive asteroid like this one from 'Pegasus,' (which is partially hollow but still huge as you can see), but it takes a fleet to kill a Cube.


It's really the Wars capital guns that blow Trek stuff out of the water and the difference in firepowers between the two powers really start showing. The smaller stuff? It doesn't beat Trek capital firepower, is certainly not near the firepower shown needed to kill Cubes.

Wars > Trek in firepower by a good amount, but not to the point where small scale weaponry trumps big scale weaponry. Fighter guns are only a threat to Wars ships because they can pinpoint weak spots and be used to go in when shields are down.

That doesn't mean the Borg would necessarily lose to a squadron of Naboo fighters. It would likely mean they were prevented from quietly sneak capturing the cities like in the Trek neutral zone.

Your examples don't really indicate that small craft would stop them, seems to me with the amount of firepower you just mentioned they'd cause some surface damage before being swattered and then the cities captured.

Seismic charges are the only small craft weapon that really comes to mind as showing the amount of raw damage to kill a target that big that doesn't have a weak point to knock out like a bridge or a generator.

Now that one was entirely my fault. I misread what you were saying. I though you were trotting out a silly Trek argument that frequency weapons magically find the weakness in shields where non-frequency weapons can't get through at all. Non-frequency weapons will always partially get through a frequency based shield. Though I should point out that even in First Contact the adapted to phasers were still causing "leak" damage. While highly useful Borg adaptation is far from a magic invincibility mode.

Right, I do suspect that what they were doing in first contact was trying to make the Borg adapt to as many frequencies as possible so it couldn't optimize the weapons against any specific one (the whole fleet had modifications to make them better for Borg fighting after all), and also the fact that torpedoes work and visibly have an effect show broad-spectrum attacks never go completely out of style, even if they are relying on leak damage

The optimal attack against a Borg who's encountered you before is a narrow-frequency blast in a new band they aren't adapted to.

The least optimal attack in the same scenario is a narrow-frequency blast they have completely adapted to, which will have minimal effect unless their shields are badly taxed already or it has overwhelming power.

In the middle is a non-narrow frequency attack which won't punch through completely but will get more leak damage in, and a partially adapted narrow band one does about as well.

[Q99]

Onto the wider war, assuming the Borg manage to level up, once they level up, however many ships used up that takes to make it that far (a thousand? ten thousand?), it's a tricky strategic scenario for the Empire. Because they outnumber and outproduce their opponent, but every time the Borg take a world, all of it is converted to the Borg side. They'd convert warships to their fleet, they'll probably even convert big civilian ships into warships. So, it's a growing problem that gains industry as you lose it, trying to Katamari it's way up to you.

Conversely, you can't really *re* take a Borg world (even an assimilated one as opposed to a ripped one) or ship, you can just kill the drones there and the Borg would modify all the technology (who needs keyboards when you're Borg and all that) so you probably need to rip that out/blow it up too.

The Empire's gameplan here, then, should be to try and get into pitched battles, wipe out as much Borg stuff as possible, and scorch the Earth. The Borg's gameplan should likely involve circling around the Outer Rim and similar, absorbing as many low-defended and moderately defended worlds as possible to slowly chip away at Galactic industry/to build their own up. Even once they can get stuff up to Star Destroyer level they don't want to engage in big fleet battles for a good long time (also, once they have SW tech, they're likely going to eventually end up somewhat ahead of the curve, simply due to assimilating ships from a wider variety of manufacturers so they'll combine the good aspects of different designs). Fortunately for the Borg, they're patient, but flipside a long-term strategy involves more time figuring out their strategy and acting accordingly.

The Empire will have to be careful in it's counter offenses to not overlook worlds or pockets, because if you leave a Borg world or small fleet behind you in your advance across Borg worlds, it might just turn and attack the worlds your fleet's ships came from. It's a real extermination project where all the rats in an area have to be wiped out or they'll spread where you aren't looking. That minor world barely on the charts may be worth overlooking if it was a small rebel base, but a small Borg world with a handful of smaller ships will try and set off a chain of assimilations in the rear line. This also means they need to plan for longer campaigns because if they pause in an advance to consolidate/resupply as they normally might after large victories, small Borg territories have opportunity to grow into larger ones. Destroying a Borg fleet of a few hundred ship needs to not be taken as a 'ok, time to rest up before deciding what to do next,' signal, especially as the Borg *are* completely willing to make large scale sacrifice of forces in order to achieve a strategic aim. That fleet of a few hundred ships may just be a distraction to allow the assimilation of a world with shipyards.

So, the Empire needs to be decisive, they need to be thorough, and they need to act with endurance in mind for their campaigns. The Borg need to rely heavy on asymmetrical strategies and attritioning the Empire's least-defended areas, they need to drag things out, and they need to take advantage of the Empire likely thinking of them as a more conventional foe.

That's my analysis of how each side *should* fight.

[Shroom Man 777]

How fast does it take for the Borg to absorb entire planets?

[Q99]

How fast does it take for the Borg to absorb entire planets?

Unknown in specifics, but likely variable dependent on forces and pretty rapidly.

Ripping cities seems a quick thing, and Species 116 lost all it's 23 colony planets in hours- but that's how long it took for them to be called lost, conversion may have taken longer than that, and hundreds of Cubes were involved in that conflict.

First Contact shows that a small number of Borg can expand their number significantly over time sorta like a zombie horde (one or not much more became hundreds in a day or two), assimilating individuals does not take long at all, even a small force could conceivably take a planet in a week or two (depending on the size, and assuming no force can wipe them. Knowing to wipe out such incursions from orbit is something the Empire should learn to do!).
out).

[Shroom Man 777]

That also depends on the density of these colonies. I mean, if it's the stereotypical few-towns planet, or the SW or ST equivalent of the Stargate "random peasant planet that has a buncha settlements in what looks like the Canadian wilderness..." then I don't think absorption of those worlds will count THAT much. From all these holocrons chronicling Jedi versus Sith duels in woods across the galaxy there are LOTS of those useless worlds.

Though sure the Borg can absorb Dathomir and have nanite-infested Rancors as their new class of Drones and they can reverse-engineer Dathomir witchcraft. Imagine a Borg Cube shooting out those glowing green ghost-witches from Rebels, hitting a Star Destroyer! The spirits possessing everyone and Vader telling whoever's left alive "it's a trick, get an axe!" and then going "Hail to the Sith, baby" as he decapitates possessed Stormtroopers. Shop Smart. Shop Sith Mart. YA GOT THAT?!

[Q99]

That also depends on the density of these colonies. I mean, if it's the stereotypical few-towns planet, or the SW or ST equivalent of the Stargate "random peasant planet that has a buncha settlements in what looks like the Canadian wilderness..." then I don't think absorption of those worlds will count THAT much. From all these holocrons chronicling Jedi versus Sith duels in woods across the galaxy there are LOTS of those useless worlds.

These weren't super long-term colonies so I bet no more than a city or two per world, though the species was an industrial power with Particle Synthesis so they were likely able to put up infrastructure very fast.

And even minor worlds add up if you get enough of them! Heck, a *minor* minor world can still often contribute hundreds of thousands of drones, which isn't nothing.

Though sure the Borg can absorb Dathomir and have nanite-infested Rancors as their new class of Drones and they can reverse-engineer Dathomir witchcraft. Imagine a Borg Cube shooting out those glowing green ghost-witches from Rebels, hitting a Star Destroyer! The spirits possessing everyone and Vader telling whoever's left alive "it's a trick, get an axe!" and then going "Hail to the Sith, baby" as he decapitates possessed Stormtroopers. Shop Smart. Shop Sith Mart. YA GOT THAT?!

Witchcraft, being a force power, is one thing I'm pretty sure the Borg can't get. Too much is mental/emotional.

[Shroom Man 777]

It really depends. I mean, you've got interstellar societies that somehow are threatened with extinction when their homeworld is blown up or endangered... as if they don't have healthy populations of millions+ off-planet? Vulcan in nuTrek, maybe the Romulan worlds from Nero's verse... the Klingon homeworld in Undiscovered Country when Kirk went "LET THEM DIE."

Either that means their homeworlds are super built up or their colonies are worthless population-wise. Fine, that could mean the colonies are barely-staffed, barely-populated resource extraction colonies... huge swaths being eaten by Von Neumann machinery that feed their replicator infrastructure... while there are terraformed "Jedi in the woods" places for the few cities (that we see on-screen, that look monotonously similar so probably using pre-fab shit).

[Q99]

It really depends. I mean, you've got interstellar societies that somehow are threatened with extinction when their homeworld is blown up or endangered... as if they don't have healthy populations of millions+ off-planet? Vulcan in nuTrek, maybe the Romulan worlds from Nero's verse... the Klingon homeworld in Undiscovered Country when Kirk went "LET THEM DIE."

I do notice that all of those are movie examples (which is also the home of 'the only ship in the quadrant')... the series doesn't tend to treat things quite so homeworld centric and has a somewhat better sense of scale.

And hey, more spread out centers of population in a target is good for the Borg. If a species is really one-world-centric, that means you need to get their most heavily defended place to get their best tech. The existence of mid-tier worlds is good for them.

Either that means their homeworlds are super built up or their colonies are worthless population-wise. Fine, that could mean the colonies are barely-staffed, barely-populated resource extraction colonies... huge swaths being eaten by Von Neumann machinery that feed their replicator infrastructure... while there are terraformed "Jedi in the woods" places for the few cities (that we see on-screen, that look monotonously similar so probably using pre-fab shit).

It should be noted in the case of Species 116/Arturis's species, even their 'homeworld' wasn't likely their world of origin. They'd avoided the Borg for some time when the Borg were less powerful (viewing them as an oncoming storm), until they were effectively cornered.

It seems likely they moved to this one world and then once it was considered fairly safe, spread out from there.

[Shroom Man 777]

And hey, more spread out centers of population in a target is good for the Borg. If a species is really one-world-centric, that means you need to get their most heavily defended place to get their best tech. The existence of mid-tier worlds is good for them.

But those shit-worlds have nothing.

I mean, those worlds are the Firefly equivalent of Mudtown or Ebolatown. Hooray, the Borg assimilate the Ballad of The Man They Call Jayne or they assimilated a bunch of fringe worlders who need antibiotics that Niska also stole.

Of course, I'm sure there are the worlds that you want. Mid-tier with actual things.

I'm just bitching about stupid planets.

It should be noted in the case of Species 116/Arturis's species, even their 'homeworld' wasn't likely their world of origin. They'd avoided the Borg for some time when the Borg were less powerful (viewing them as an oncoming storm), until they were effectively cornered.

It seems likely they moved to this one world and then once it was considered fairly safe, spread out from there.

Nomad people sound cool.

[Lord Insanity]

I am not saying it is impossible or that the tech is incomprehensible. I am saying it would be way harder to pull off than you are assuming.

And I've laid out point by point what they'd need in order to get *everything* that SW people used to make the tech, including infrastructure, and you haven't backed up your assertion with anything but, 'no, Roman Forges,' so far which doesn't even work as an analogy.

Yes it does work as an analogy. For its time Rome was one of the greatest civilizations on Earth. They easily out produced their neighbors in technology, quality, and quantity of goods. They even had knowledge we currently don't. (We would love to know how they "pumped" water through their aqueduct system with out modern equipment.) They even had a navy far larger than any country today. (A single modern battle group would still utterly crush them.) Even if they magically got full technical knowledge and engineers from the modern day it would still take them decades to upgrade their infrastructure. The only reason it would be that fast is because they already had an impressive infrastructure and logistics capacity.

They've got millions of ships, thousands of planets, all with replicators (+ methods better than replicators, particle synthesis) as well as an unknown numbers of static facilities, including Unimatrix 01 which has trillions of drones on it's own.

Once they have the knowledge of how, it gets spread through the collective. Every single ship can begin with making the machine parts needed to construct SW industrial machines. Every ship converted.

This is exactly what makes the Borg scary, they can build the infrastructure out of their current infrastructure, through methods that have been gone over in detail.

And that is why it would only take them decades to catch up. The Borg have an amazing infrastructure by Trek standards. It is a joke by Wars standards. As I posted earlier in the thread; even if we assume the Borg fleet is 10 million full cubes, the Empire can build the equivalent in less than a year in secret. (meaning no one even notices the resources missing.)

The fancy technical methods are not relevant. The actual production output is.

We see Han blowing chunks out of a building to rain down on stormtroopers with his hand blaster. We see AT-ST gun blowing chunks out of trees while gunning for rebel troops and Ewoks. We see Slave I ripping through asteroids with its blasters in a vain attempt to shoot a space wizard. Wars guns hit well above their Trek counterparts.

Odd examples to start with.... considering on the personal scale we've seen hand phasers make stone vanish. Slave 1 is the best example there, and... ripping through asteroids (This scene is I believe what you're referring to) isn't going to be a quick kill against a Cube, or really not a kill at all, the asteroids killed by the guns were small ones, Cubes are huge, that's still pretty small damage compared to it's size even if one assumed the Cube was an asteroid. Only the seismic charges (which both killed larger asteroids than the guns and kept going indicating their power wasn't near spent) look like a threat there.

Those 3 examples were chosen for very specific reasons. We can clearly see blasters have a large kinetic energy component. We can reasonably estimate with good accuracy the strength and durability of the materials being damaged and calculate the firepower accordingly. (As far as phasers "disappearing" stone this page covers that.)

From the main page: Slave I's blasters are calculated at 64 TW "(2 kilotons per shot, 480 rpm firing rate onscreen in AOTC for time-averaged power output rather than peak output)" On Trek starships: "Against shields, phasers appear to be tactically equivalent to 300 TW plasma cannons and 30,000 to 40,000 TW laser cannons. Against dense armor, phasers appear to be much weaker, in the 1-10TW range."

Against actual ships Slave I's blasters and main starship phasers are in the same general power range. The first time the Ent-D fired its phasers on a cube it left massive craters. There is no reason to assume Slave I would not have a similar effect with just its blasters, let alone the missiles and seismic charges. (And really seismic charges can't be that rare considering Obi-Wan knew what they were.)

Right, I do suspect that what they were doing in first contact was trying to make the Borg adapt to as many frequencies as possible so it couldn't optimize the weapons against any specific one (the whole fleet had modifications to make them better for Borg fighting after all), and also the fact that torpedoes work and visibly have an effect show broad-spectrum attacks never go completely out of style, even if they are relying on leak damage

The optimal attack against a Borg who's encountered you before is a narrow-frequency blast in a new band they aren't adapted to.

The least optimal attack in the same scenario is a narrow-frequency blast they have completely adapted to, which will have minimal effect unless their shields are badly taxed already or it has overwhelming power.

In the middle is a non-narrow frequency attack which won't punch through completely but will get more leak damage in, and a partially adapted narrow band one does about as well.

In "Best of Both Worlds" we saw the Ent-D rotating its phaser frequencies and the beam was cycling through the whole rainbow. In "First Contact" everyone was firing standard orange. It is more likely they were simply overwhelming the adaption effect with raw power. This would indicate phasers are not 100% entirely frequency based. Which both makes sense and is better anyway.

[Q99]

Nomad people sound cool.

They were pretty cool, but unfortunately they were counting on 8472 for their final reprieve, and when Voyager stopped that, that was the end of them. The last survivor used his tech to turn his ship into a faux-federation ship (says a lot about their tech, one person with a ship can completely redesign a ship to resemble an entirely different species' tech) with Slipstream in order to lure Voyager into a trap.

Yes it does work as an analogy. For its time Rome was one of the greatest civilizations on Earth. They easily out produced their neighbors in technology, quality, and quantity of goods. They even had knowledge we currently don't. (We would love to know how they "pumped" water through their aqueduct system with out modern equipment.) They even had a navy far larger than any country today. (A single modern battle group would still utterly crush them.) Even if they magically got full technical knowledge and engineers from the modern day it would still take them decades to upgrade their infrastructure. The only reason it would be that fast is because they already had an impressive infrastructure and logistics capacity.

It fails because you are using it as an analogy for the industrial capabilities of a set of industrial tools that unlike a Roman forge is very advanced and flexible and *fast* and does not at all correspond to the capabilities of Borg manufacturing in comparison to Star Wars manufacturing. It doesn't matter how cool you think the Romans are, if the two industries do not remotely compare along those lines it does not fit. It'd take the romans decades even with modern engineers and examples in your opinion? That's great, but the Borg can literally manufacture new machine tools in seconds, so even if they needed to go through multiple steps, making the tools to make the tools to make the tools, using the timeframe of one on the other is dishonest.

As has been explained to you.

Stop trying to force the analogy. You really come across as latching on to it in lieu of an actual argument on the Borg's capabilities. Ignoring someone's capabilities in favor of an analogy which known-doesn't fit that analogy is bad debating.

And that is why it would only take them decades to catch up.

And you again just pulled 'decades' out of no-where. Based on you thinking that's how fast *Romans* would do it. Really now! You are actually, literally arguing that 'because it takes early iron age people this long to advance even with help, it will take equally long for a species that can construct industrial items and machine tools in seconds.'

The fancy technical methods are not relevant. The actual production output is.

Which you lovingly ignore in favor of repeating 'Romans.'

The Borg output is not simply their direct production but also what they can *steal*, literally taking ships and worlds and transferring them to their control. And, once they have Wars tech, they will be incorporating Wars industrial methods in addition to replicators and particle synthesis. Heck, particle synthesis is a recent acquisition of theirs, their industrial output literally improved mid-show.

Also, translating the Death Star's mass directly to ships is... not really accurate itself. Even at peak militarization they never make ships that fast, ships have a lot of needs that ship-sized bit of DS interior do not. Each ship requires an engine, computer, thrusters, guns, and etc. etc. which just-more-death-star-corridors does not. We also now know even the second death star construction took a really long time, right after AHN and the first's destruction the second looked almost as it does in RotJ.

Plus if the Borg ever got a drop on a giant shipyard of a million ships in progress, or better yet a death star... that's when the 'fun' really starts.

From the main page: Slave I's blasters are calculated at 64 TW "(2 kilotons per shot, 480 rpm firing rate onscreen in AOTC for time-averaged power output rather than peak output)" On Trek starships: "Against shields, phasers appear to be tactically equivalent to 300 TW plasma cannons and 30,000 to 40,000 TW laser cannons. Against dense armor, phasers appear to be much weaker, in the 1-10TW range."

It also notes phasers have a chain reaction component which may make them more powerful than raw output, and Photon Torpedoes are noted to be in the 64 megaton range.

Cherrypicking to neatly sidestep arguments that contradict your point noted... again.

I will additionally point out that Trek armor usually isn't simple armor- structural integrity fields mean it's reinforced with force fields to be more robust than it appears, so I think the main page is (understandably) low-end here, especially as phasers and photons are not *that* far apart in effect... well, that and phasers have a pretty wide range of power and effect depending on how charged they are and the ship firing, they aren't a standardized output weapon.

In "Best of Both Worlds" we saw the Ent-D rotating its phaser frequencies and the beam was cycling through the whole rainbow. In "First Contact" everyone was firing standard orange. It is more likely they were simply overwhelming the adaption effect with raw power. This would indicate phasers are not 100% entirely frequency based. Which both makes sense and is better anyway.

They've talked a lot about new technologies to counter the borg, from new phaser frequencies to plasma phasers and pulse phasers and quantum torpedoes and so on, so, no, we know it was not simply the same ol' with more power.

And no, them just using raw power doesn't make sense, not with how we know Borg adaptation works and all the advancements we see in the field in DS9 and such. What'd be convenient for you doesn't equal more sense or better.

[Q99]

Pretty much in terms of target priority-

Small planets, good for getting easy bites of tech, and snacks later on. Only have an effect on strategic scenario if assimilated in large number, though the Empire does have to make sure they don't miss any or a small one could become a larger threat behind lines. It should be noted the Borg have more than Cubes, and sending some Probe ships (each about half the size of Voyager) just to assimilate places no-one ever pays attention to/places with very small numbers could be worthwhile.

Medium planets, bread and butter. More likely to have some defenses, but also real industry. Eating them is a much bigger help, and losing them more of a blow. Defending them and quickly razing them if assimilated are Empire priorities. Most of the fighting in a real war is likely to be about these worlds. The Borg ideally want to hold them, or at least long enough to get good production, but denying them to the GE is also important.

Big planets, high risk high reward. Heavy defenses, tough nuts to crack. Lot of reward/industry, lots of population, very valuable to take. Borg should probably avoid these for some time or else they'll throw away too much of their fleet, even if it's upgunned to SW standards, unless they can pull gambits like "sneak a small force into an undercity and try and take it from within or at least make a large diversion." Ultimately the core of the Empire, if one can take or cripple these that's when the industry really takes big hits, but that's an easier-said-than-done situation.

Nomad people sound cool.

Yea. Voyager has a couple and they all tended to be good IMO- 116 uprooted and used their advanced drives to dodge the Borg. The Hiirogan traveled around to hunt (and were in decline numbers wise simply because they were *so* spread out). The Voth had a gigantic city ship (ships? We don't know how many they had).

[Shroom Man 777]

Do you have a clip of the Enterprise phasers going full rainbow? I want to see that, it sounds so cool.

[Q99]

Do you have a clip of the Enterprise phasers going full rainbow? I want to see that, it sounds so cool.

It's... really not full rainbow, more different shades of yellow and orange.

I found a clip of the battle, it's in a music video, it lacks the last shot that succeeds in freeing them, and due to the video quality you can't even really see the variance. 27 seconds in

There's a later scene where they go over battle footage in the briefing room in zoom and it's more clear there's some change iirc (and I think one of the phaser beams looked like a mix of orange and yellow in a repeating pattern), but I can't find a clip of that.

Full rainbow would be pretty cool but we never see that much change in color. Weapon frequency variance doesn't necessarily reflect significant visual frequency variance.

[DarthPooky]

Ok so I'm realy sorry for this long response time.

At 3:47 of the second video it fires several projectile shots that hit dead-on (on ships that look to me like they've lost shields), these are the same weapons that are used to kill the three jupiter defense units in rapid succession. Those would be fighter-killers.

Sure against several multi hundred meter long ships and I'v rewatched the video and the green bolt shots miss several times to.

[seanrobertson]

Ok so I'm realy sorry for this long response time.

At 3:47 of the second video it fires several projectile shots that hit dead-on (on ships that look to me like they've lost shields), these are the same weapons that are used to kill the three jupiter defense units in rapid succession. Those would be fighter-killers.

Sure against several multi hundred meter long ships and I'v rewatched the video and the green bolt shots miss several times to.

If you're talking about the trio of "ships" at Mars' defence perimeter, no: the cube didn't miss its targets. Three up three down.

There's actually not so much a cue to their size apart from backstage info, which indicates those were unmanned craft. In all most probability, they were A.I. missiles a'la the Cardassian equivalent we later saw in VGR's episode "Dreadnought."