General Empire vs Borg musings

[Lord Revan]

Yes that would be the way, though I'd say it might even take centuries, not that it really matters to the Collective as the Borg Collective can have infinite patience if they want to. Also I would argue that Borg (or any other enemy for that matter) doesn't have to beat the Galactic Empire to be a threat to it, only inflict enough damage that the Empire would collapse due to internal conflict.

[Solauren]

That's certainly appears to be what happened in the Disney-timeline. Palpatine and Vader is dead, no one knows what to do, there are uprisings, and the Rebellion steam rolls them.

In the old EU, the fighting still went on for years.

[Lord Revan]

That's certainly appears to be what happened in the Disney-timeline. Palpatine and Vader is dead, no one knows what to do, there are uprisings, and the Rebellion steam rolls them.

In the old EU, the fighting still went on for years.

Actually the empire fractured in the legendaries as well but in the new EU, the New Republic was more succesfull at exploiting that fracturing, while in the legendaries the New Republic wasn't able to deal with various imperial warlords due to it's own internal conflicts hence the Civil War dragged on compared to the current EU.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, the Empire doesn't appear to have had much holding it together other than (initially) Palpatine's personal popularity and charisma (and possibly Force mind control powers), and (eventually) the threat of massive retaliation to any disobedience.

Take that away, and the whole house of cards collapsed real fast.

[Lord Insanity]

Yea, but trek ships shred fighters- remember the three somethings sent against the Cube when it passed Jupiter in BoBW? Three shots, three booms. The Ent-D has done similar. Naboo's in big trouble there, and Tatooine's small craft aren't much better off (torpedoes don't create big enough booms to blow up something that big unless used in large quantity, and the fighters aren't going to last long).

The ability to shred Trek tech level fighters does not equal the ability to shred Wars tech level fighters. Have you ever actually read the main page that this forum is attached to? Slave I is the tactical equivalent of a Galaxy Class starship. Do you remember what happened to the Borg cube the first time it was fired on by the Ent-D? There is every reason to believe the Naboo fighter squadron could cut through a cube like a hot knife through butter with just their blasters. Unlike the Ent-D's phasers, blasters have no coherent frequency to adapt to. If a small starship like the Defiant can successfully dodge cube fire so could a Naboo fighter.

Hm, I wonder if Borg jamming can prevent a call out... because none of the dead colonies managed it and they have communications as well. Holonet often seems finicky, to boot, and the Borg seem to attack quite rapidly.

Why would the Borg even be aware of hyperwave communications, let alone be able to jam them? That is like expecting a Roman chariot to know a modern Humvee just radioed for an air strike. They don't even know what "radio" is.

The Borg basic industry is a highly flexible and reasonably high-energy industry base to begin with (something that gets lost in the insistence on the Roman analogy). It is extremely suited to building midway steps even for things it cannot directly produce- and in Star Wars, the knowledge of what's needed to make X or Y is stuff that is often not remotely priority knowledge.

Yes by Trek standards the Borg have an amazing industrial capacity compared to the Federation. So did the Romans compared to Brittany. That doesn't change the fact that having the tech equivalent of a Roman iron forge does not give them the ability to make the tech equivalent of industrial grade steel.

Another area where drawing an analogy fails- Sure, a small planet may be the equivalent of a 'town' to the galaxy at large, but it's still an actual community with usually millions of people and the knowledge and education centers that goes with (there's no sign that, say, everyone goes off to Coruscant to get educated, most people do seem to live on their planets most of their lives and that means they get educated there), and many have some manufacturing to boot.

The Naboo fighter, for example, was designed using Naboo technology as was Padme's royal ship, so they have the capacity to design and build ships, and the Gungans have their own technological base somewhat divergent from the galactic and naboo technology. Take Naboo and not only do you have well-educated human population known for their sleek high-quality craft, but you have an entire body of SW knowledge that isn't that well know even within SW, and literally the entire industry and knowledge base behind it.

Despite their unique tech the Gungans were regarded as primitives.

Just because the Naboo design and build their own ships does not mean they actually have all of the infrastructure and manufacturing on their planet. Star Wars has a galactic economy. The tech base allows planets to not be self sufficient at "galactic" standards of living. Just like in modern day a U.S. car is only about 40% made in the U.S. Assimilating a guy that works in the car factory doesn't help you learn how to build the infrastructure to make the factory. It also doesn't tell you how to make the components that arrive already assembled from a totally different factory.

Slowly, patiently, and carefully, and the Borg could, eventually (and I am the first to say, it would take years, if not decades) become a threat to the Empire/GFFA.

Yes that would be the way, though I'd say it might even take centuries, not that it really matters to the Collective as the Borg Collective can have infinite patience if they want to. Also I would argue that Borg (or any other enemy for that matter) doesn't have to beat the Galactic Empire to be a threat to it, only inflict enough damage that the Empire would collapse due to internal conflict.

This is really the best case scenario for the idea. Even if they managed to assimilate enough engineers to understand the entire logistics chain, they would still have to build from scratch an industrial base and infrastructure completely alien to their own. I would say decades at minimum and more likely centuries. But that is still way faster than the millennia Wars took to get where they are.

[FaxModem1]

That was the old canon. The new canon can have starfighters shot down by a blind guy with a stick, and their bombing runs just barely strafe a platform.

[Imperial528]

A point on Naboo: I remember from the Ep.1 ICS that the majority of the Naboo starfighter was manufactured on Naboo, but that the hyperdrive and sublight engines were imported from Nubia.

According to the old EU, Nubia's manufacture of hyperdrives and starships was important enough for the Empire to place a garrison on the planet complete with an orbiting Imperator-class and declare martial law to prevent the Rebellion from gaining favor with them and potentially access to material to construct warships.

[Q99]

Keep in mind that a) those things in BoBW were not identified, but were considerably larger than Star Wars fighters, to my recollection. Nor were they particularly maneuverable.

True, but point is, most trek ships do have rapid-fire pretty accurate weaponry.

Yes that would be the way, though I'd say it might even take centuries, not that it really matters to the Collective as the Borg Collective can have infinite patience if they want to. Also I would argue that Borg (or any other enemy for that matter) doesn't have to beat the Galactic Empire to be a threat to it, only inflict enough damage that the Empire would collapse due to internal conflict.

I doubt it'd take that long, they do have a million ships to start with. But yea, good points.

The ability to shred Trek tech level fighters does not equal the ability to shred Wars tech level fighters. Have you ever actually read the main page that this forum is attached to? Slave I is the tactical equivalent of a Galaxy Class starship. Do you remember what happened to the Borg cube the first time it was fired on by the Ent-D? There is every reason to believe the Naboo fighter squadron could cut through a cube like a hot knife through butter with just their blasters. Unlike the Ent-D's phasers, blasters have no coherent frequency to adapt to. If a small starship like the Defiant can successfully dodge cube fire so could a Naboo fighter.

Wars fighters are pretty fragile, even a shielded one will normally die to a single burst from TIE's cannons which are not very high power (Indeed, it's pretty easy to argue that a Runabout or Peregrin has the advantage over SW fighters, what with their wide-angle weapons coverage and much more robust shields), and... their blasters and torpedoes simply don't cause large enough damage, not near enough. Even if the Borg was unshielded completely, it's a 3x3x3 km cube of metal. The Ent-D's torpedoes are much larger and stronger explosives than we've seen from normal SW fighter weapons.

Slave 1 has big booms, but let's try comparing the capabilities of the units actually involved, yes? It's not like even most mid-sized ships carry anything as heavy as those charges, the Millennium Falcon didn't and it engages in space battles often and is even noted to be upgunned for most ships it's size (suggesting that Slave 1 is a *real* outlier for packing so much power), and the Naboo fighters certainly don't. It also doesn't hurt to mention that an E-D is absolutely no match for a Cube, and the First Contact Cube took on huge numbers of ships in a running battle all across the federation. If the local defense force has the equivalent of half a dozen Galaxy classes, well, they're screwed.

Scorpion had two Cubes going after a fleet of 30-some ships who all had weapons they didn't have adapted defenses to.

Also, the frequency thing has been addressed upthread- The Borg have adapted to non-frequency weapons like Photon Torpedoes, and we also have them using shield geometry to cancel out the effects of a type of plasma phaser where they couldn't pin down the frequency (the scorpion scenario). That's an old fallacy that people simply assumed because it's a common factor in one type of weapon they face, but it's simply a matter of phasers being narrow-band to maximize their power, not that everything the Borg faces works the same, it doesn't even apply to all Federation weapons, torpedoes are just explosions.

I mean, they hung out close to a star once. Stars aren't noted for being narrow band frequency.

One can't assume something is a limitation when it's shown to not be a limitation on multiple occasions.

Yes by Trek standards the Borg have an amazing industrial capacity compared to the Federation. So did the Romans compared to Brittany. That doesn't change the fact that having the tech equivalent of a Roman iron forge does not give them the ability to make the tech equivalent of industrial grade steel.

And they don't have the equivalent of a Roman forge for highly discussed reasons.

This is just bad arguing, "But Roman forge..." while ignoring the actual differences and capabilities. The Borg are an industrial power with nanites and replicators, a massively versatile system that can literally put anything they can materialize in whatever machine shape they need. Your analogy would only apply if Roman forges were more flexible in what they could make than a modern forge.


It's much more akin to... oh, a town of watchmakers and precision machinists. Sure, they may not have made anything with as much *omph* but they have a ton of knowledge of machines and experience making a very wide variety of stuff.

And this has been explained to you in depth so I get the feeling either you're not reading, and you have been skipping over other arguments too like the frequency thing so it wouldn't surprise me, or you simply don't have a very good grasp of how industry works. If you're only response is to make an analogy and insist things work exactly like the analogy even when they visibly do not, you have a poor argument.

Just because the Naboo design and build their own ships does not mean they actually have all of the infrastructure and manufacturing on their planet. Star Wars has a galactic economy. The tech base allows planets to not be self sufficient at "galactic" standards of living. Just like in modern day a U.S. car is only about 40% made in the U.S. Assimilating a guy that works in the car factory doesn't help you learn how to build the infrastructure to make the factory. It also doesn't tell you how to make the components that arrive already assembled from a totally different factory.

Good thing the Borg aren't limited to single planets, yes? They will be assimilating what they can from a variety of low-protection worlds, and each is more puzzle pieces.

Imperial528 mentions they imported the hyperdrives, and made the rest- which is excellent for the Borg, as hyperdrive is not nearly as crucial for improving their capacities as engine, shield, and weapon tech, which is nice and home grown on Naboo.


Another thing about a galactic economy is, sure, people will trade stuff all over, but in a lot of cases it is still cheaper to make stuff locally because shipping some things in large enough number to supply the population of each world is in a number of cases going to be redundant if the system in question has the resources to build stuff in-house. If you can make a thousand Xs on-planet, you can often undercut people who need to ship their equivalents long range. This doesn't apply to everything, but it does apply to many goods- and each planet will be making it's own stuff.

We see many locally made stuffs- there's pirate fighters, Black Sun has their own custom units, as do Hutts, Naboo made their fighters, Gungans may not be as fully advanced by their shield tech is excellent, etc..


Additionally, many people on planets will have knowledge of how to make stuff even if their. Naboo imports hyperdrives from Nubia? How many people from Nubian industries immigrated there for retirement? Bet it's a few considering the strong business ties. Pirates kidnap people with technical expertise, people move between industries and homes, etc..


And the Borg don't have to make the leap to Imperial level in one go. Like I said once before, if their technology becomes the equivalent of 80 year old Wars stuff, the stuff that's all leaked into the public domain so to speak, then their threat level goes up massively and they can target much tougher spots for assimilation. At that point they can go after places with Imperial ship garrisons and all that.

[NecronLord]

The ability to shred Trek tech level fighters does not equal the ability to shred Wars tech level fighters. Have you ever actually read the main page that this forum is attached to? Slave I is the tactical equivalent of a Galaxy Class starship. Do you remember what happened to the Borg cube the first time it was fired on by the Ent-D? There is every reason to believe the Naboo fighter squadron could cut through a cube like a hot knife through butter with just their blasters. Unlike the Ent-D's phasers, blasters have no coherent frequency to adapt to. If a small starship like the Defiant can successfully dodge cube fire so could a Naboo fighter.

Slave 1 has greater firepower than the whole planet of Naboo too; we see the initial explosion from the naboo photon torpedos, it's impressive but it's not seismic charges. Seismic charges would *themselves* have ripped through that battleship.

A seismic charge dropped on that droid army would have killed them all without battle or contest.

And Naboo is only an example.

Mandalore and Alderaan are a better ones, pacifists are everywhere in the Star Wars galaxy, just waiting to be beamed up into the assimilation chambers.

[Imperial528]

I'll have to dig up the sources and their canon status, but as far as I remember, Naboo has almost no spacecraft industry. All of the Naboo royal starships' space frames were hand-built and outfitted with systems imported from Nubia, and the ICS doesn't specify what parts of the N-1 starfighter was actually built by the Naboo.

Basically my feeling is that the pacifist worlds of SW probably don't have large scale industries. I mean Naboo could only muster a dozen or so starfighters to attack the blockade; if they're only building that many I doubt they would have budgeted the facilities to mass produce them.

[The Romulan Republic]

The ability to shred Trek tech level fighters does not equal the ability to shred Wars tech level fighters. Have you ever actually read the main page that this forum is attached to? Slave I is the tactical equivalent of a Galaxy Class starship. Do you remember what happened to the Borg cube the first time it was fired on by the Ent-D? There is every reason to believe the Naboo fighter squadron could cut through a cube like a hot knife through butter with just their blasters. Unlike the Ent-D's phasers, blasters have no coherent frequency to adapt to. If a small starship like the Defiant can successfully dodge cube fire so could a Naboo fighter.

Slave 1 has greater firepower than the whole planet of Naboo too; we see the initial explosion from the naboo photon torpedos, it's impressive but it's not seismic charges. Seismic charges would *themselves* have ripped through that battleship.

A seismic charge dropped on that droid army would have killed them all without battle or contest.

And Naboo is only an example.

Mandalore and Alderaan are a better ones, pacifists are everywhere in the Star Wars galaxy, just waiting to be beamed up into the assimilation chambers.

Isn't it generally agreed that despite the "pacifist" label, Alderan had a full planetary shield? Plus it was considered a good target for a demonstration of the Death Star's power by Tarkin, apparently.

Probably not the best example of an easy target.

[Q99]

Wookieepedia says N-1s were built on Naboo and had a styling characteristic of Naboo technology, saying there is a such thing as Naboo technology (though with important Nubian engines), it's just not really for mass production. Indeed, it was made by the Theed Palace Space Vessel Engineering Corps- a design firm, possibly more valuable for learning about how technology works than even a simple direct production place!

Pacifist planets would have highly educated people in it- Naboo has people who hand-craft starships, which says a lot about the facilities required for most of the work but also the level of knowledge they possess, they almost certainly know the systems very intimately if they are making top-of-the-line ships. Frontier planets would have people with practical knowledge and lower-end production facilities and tons of varied technological samples from all over the galaxy- to be examined with the knowledge of the Theed Engineering Corps and other absorbed bodies of knowledge.

The Borg do not need to assimilate large scale facilities directly- general familiarity with the technology, educated people, heck, historians who have studied technological progress (Alderaan and Mandalore *used* to be highly militerized- assimilating experts that know the workings of historic ships because they, say, repair them for museum peaces or identify found artifacts, is another knowledge source of use), samples of technology and smaller scale production facilities, all this will tell them what they need to make to make their own facilities in Cubes to upgrade them.

Slave 1 has greater firepower than the whole planet of Naboo too; we see the initial explosion from the naboo photon torpedos, it's impressive but it's not seismic charges. Seismic charges would *themselves* have ripped through that battleship.

Also would've killed the firing fighter, I bet ^^

I do wonder where Jango got those, they seem pretty special armament that's not at all standard issue. Nasty pieces of kit, to be sure.

We see TIE Bombers bomb asteroids in ESB and it was also using smaller charges.

[The Romulan Republic]

Maybe the seismic charges were something he got from either the Kaminoans (who must have either the capability to manufacture or the wealth and connections to purchase a lot of powerful weaponry, since they outfitted the Clone army), or from Dooku.

[Q99]

Maybe the seismic charges were something he got from either the Kaminoans (who must have either the capability to manufacture or the wealth and connections to purchase a lot of powerful weaponry, since they outfitted the Clone army), or from Dooku.

Dooku would be my bet- he'd want his bodyguard/bounty hunter to be as well equipped as possible for missions, and Sith definitely squirrel away the best stuff.

[NecronLord]

Isn't it generally agreed that despite the "pacifist" label, Alderan had a full planetary shield? Plus it was considered a good target for a demonstration of the Death Star's power by Tarkin, apparently.

Probably not the best example of an easy target.

Are you sure that'll stop them?

[Bridge]

RIKER: Shields up.
WORF: Aye, sir.

[Engineering]

RIKER [OC]: All decks, stand by.
(A humanoid with a mechanical arm beams in)
LAFORGE: Security, report to main Engineering. We have an intruder.
(The intruder is studying wall panels and consoles while the tiny Enterprise hangs nose to whatever with the huge cube)
PICARD: Lieutenant? Status.
LAFORGE: It seemed to make a visual survey of the engine core, sir, then it moved in here.

It might be just a matter of field intensity, or it might be that their transporters use something like say, the transwarp teleporter principle, to bypass shields and it might not present any obstacle to them.

[Lord Insanity]

Let me fix this for you.

That was the old canon. The new canon can have starfighters shot down by a blind guy with a stick force sensitive with a blaster, and their bombing runs just barely strafe a platform.

You mean like the "hand grenade" photon torpedo in Star Trek V. In both Trek and Wars low yield examples do not erase nor invalidate high yield examples.
Lets not forget that your examples are from the same movie where blowing a chunk out of the side of a planet can be passed off as a mere mining accident.

Wars fighters are pretty fragile, even a shielded one will normally die to a single burst from TIE's cannons which are not very high power (Indeed, it's pretty easy to argue that a Runabout or Peregrin has the advantage over SW fighters, what with their wide-angle weapons coverage and much more robust shields), and... their blasters and torpedoes simply don't cause large enough damage, not near enough. Even if the Borg was unshielded completely, it's a 3x3x3 km cube of metal. The Ent-D's torpedoes are much larger and stronger explosives than we've seen from normal SW fighter weapons.

Slave 1 has big booms, but let's try comparing the capabilities of the units actually involved, yes? It's not like even most mid-sized ships carry anything as heavy as those charges, the Millennium Falcon didn't and it engages in space battles often and is even noted to be upgunned for most ships it's size (suggesting that Slave 1 is a *real* outlier for packing so much power), and the Naboo fighters certainly don't. It also doesn't hurt to mention that an E-D is absolutely no match for a Cube, and the First Contact Cube took on huge numbers of ships in a running battle all across the federation. If the local defense force has the equivalent of half a dozen Galaxy classes, well, they're screwed.

I am not talking about the Seismic Charges and Tattooine was one of the possible targets being discussed. (where Boba Fett hangs out a lot.)

The main blasters on Slave I are on the same level as the main phasers on the Ent-D.
Read the main pages.

Star Wars: Slave-1
Main guns: 64 TW (2 kilotons per shot, 480 rpm firing rate onscreen in AOTC for time-averaged power output rather than peak output)

Star Trek: Enterprise-D
Phasers appear to be much less effective against armor than they are against shields. The TM states that 2.4TJ is sufficient to vaporize one cubic metre of tritanium which is used in starship hulls, so if phasers were equivalent to 30,000 TW of EM radiation they would vaporize 12,500 cubic metres of Federation tritanium starship armor every second! This obviously doesn't happen- phasers appear to destroy less than 5 cubic metres of starship armor per second of continuous impact, so they seem to be tactically equivalent to 1-10 TW lasers. This is undoubtedly due to the negative impact of heavy transuranium elements on the NDF chain reaction.

---

The first time the Ent-D encountered a Cube it blew massive craters in a cube. Any Wars ship or ships in the same ballpark as Slave I (like a squadron of Naboo fighters) could do the same thing on raw power alone. Unlike the Ent-D, Wars is using a technology base that is completely alien to the Borg.

From one of the main pages: "...there are relatively tiny civilizations in the Delta Quadrant which have been successfully resisting Borg assimilation for decades, and in some cases, centuries. {The Hirogen, not to mention Arturis' people, who held off the Borg for centuries despite having only one star system (see "Hope and Fear").}"

There is no reason to believe the Borg have the ability to adapt to Wars tech in any useful time frame.

And they don't have the equivalent of a Roman forge for highly discussed reasons.

This is just bad arguing, "But Roman forge..." while ignoring the actual differences and capabilities. The Borg are an industrial power with nanites and replicators, a massively versatile system that can literally put anything they can materialize in whatever machine shape they need. Your analogy would only apply if Roman forges were more flexible in what they could make than a modern forge.

Nanites and replicators are not some magic tech that lets the Borg recreate what ever they want. From the last main page quoted: "the Empire is thousands of times larger than the Borg civilization even at nominal strength. Borg civilization may seem vast to us, but while they have thousands of star systems under their control, the Empire has millions. Borg expansion may seem breathtaking to us, but while they have catalogued more than ten thousand species, the Empire incorporates more than 20 million. Borg transwarp drive may impress us, but while it can traverse our galaxy in months, the Empire can traverse it in hours or days."

You can whine about the Roman versus Modern day analogy all you want it doesn't make it any less true.

An "unarmed" Wars planet is highly militarized by Trek standards. (People don't seriously think Alderaan was literally completely unarmed when we clearly see the princess flying around in an armed corvette do they?)

[FaxModem1]

Let me fix this for you.

That was the old canon. The new canon can have starfighters shot down by a blind guy with a stick force sensitive with a blaster, and their bombing runs just barely strafe a platform.

You mean like the "hand grenade" photon torpedo in Star Trek V. In both Trek and Wars low yield examples do not erase nor invalidate high yield examples.
Lets not forget that your examples are from the same movie where blowing a chunk out of the side of a planet can be passed off as a mere mining accident.

How about the time(in the old EU) Dash Rendarr shot down Slave 1 with a blaster and his shoulder pads of doom in Shadows of the Empire? Or when Ahsoka was able to crash Slave 1 by breaking its wing in Clone Wars while it still was in atmosphere, such as in this clip? Boba Fett's ship is very stylistic, but it's very fragile.

Poe's (stationary and parked) X-wing was also taken out by hand held weaponry in The Force Awakens.

So, our two options are, A. everyone in Star Wars carries the equivalent of Star Wars fighter weaponry on their hip, even though that doesn't seem to be case most of the time with their blasters.

Or B. Star Wars fighters are relatively fragile when shot at, and Borg weaponry would be up to the task of taking them down.

Also, STV is the one where the Enterprise gets to the 'center of the galaxy' within a day, Spock has a long lost half-brother, and they meet God. If you want to count that one as canon, sure, just know that it's a rather wacky example for Trek analysis.

[Q99]

Nanites and replicators are not some magic tech that lets the Borg recreate what ever they want.

No, but they are highly flexible manufacturing methods capable of producing a very wide array of things, and even when not capable of directly making things are capable of making precision tools that can be used to make them if the knowledge is present.

As I've said a lot.

I am solidly in the "you are arguing in bad faith," view at this point.

From the last main page quoted: "the Empire is thousands of times larger than the Borg civilization even at nominal strength. Borg civilization may seem vast to us, but while they have thousands of star systems under their control, the Empire has millions. Borg expansion may seem breathtaking to us, but while they have catalogued more than ten thousand species, the Empire incorporates more than 20 million. Borg transwarp drive may impress us, but while it can traverse our galaxy in months, the Empire can traverse it in hours or days."

Yea, you know the Borg have literally a million ships, right? And much of the time on attack, they don't even take worlds, they just strip them. They're far more space-based than planet-based. Even though they have fewer worlds, their size and industry is quite impressive- and besides, their strategy revolves around stealing enemy capacity, including infrastructure, to begin with.

Indeed, the number of minor planets the Empire has is actually key to the argument- if the Empire had fewer well defended systems, the Borg would go splat, but instead they have countless systems with just a little defenses that can be snapped up, which you may have noticed if you were listening to other's viewpoints and arguing in good faith.

You can whine about the Roman versus Modern day analogy all you want it doesn't make it any less true.

I'll toss that back at you. You're not defending your analogy by responding to criticisms, you're just complaining that we're not accepting it even when it doesn't fit.

And now you're trying to throw insults because you can't respond to the presented arguments.

An "unarmed" Wars planet is highly militarized by Trek standards. (People don't seriously think Alderaan was literally completely unarmed when we clearly see the princess flying around in an armed corvette do they?)

As has been covered, really not. Naboo's defense forces are not very impressive by trek standards. Bajor is a high defense system by Trek standards with DS9, it's Runabouts, and the Defiant, which are a heck of a lot more forces than the light defenses of minor Wars

[Q99]

The first time the Ent-D encountered a Cube it blew massive craters in a cube. Any Wars ship or ships in the same ballpark as Slave I (like a squadron of Naboo fighters) could do the same thing on raw power alone.

Wars guns don't cause explosions near that big when they hit the ground or other unshielded object. Do you think that Borg ships are some sort of tinder that will expand the size of explosion caused by hits? Because they won't.

That is, btw, an example of photon torpedoes blowing away, what, a half-a-kilometer of metal wide/deep/thick section? Ironically, you're citing a firepower example that disputes your views on Trek firepower, those were considerable explosions, and are considerably powerful even if we assume a cube is no tougher than loose soil- Not surprising, considering torpedoes are anti-matter bombs.

Also we have the 'hang out near the star' example. The energy there is also well in excess of what you think Trek ships put out/they can't handle.

Unlike the Ent-D, Wars is using a technology base that is completely alien to the Borg.

Once they assimilate people familiar with it, it's no more alien to them than it is to the people they assimilated.

You really don't seem to get assimilation. It involves people actually changing side and imparting their knowledge to the collective.

[The Romulan Republic]

Isn't it generally agreed that despite the "pacifist" label, Alderan had a full planetary shield? Plus it was considered a good target for a demonstration of the Death Star's power by Tarkin, apparently.

Probably not the best example of an easy target.

Are you sure that'll stop them?

[Bridge]

RIKER: Shields up.
WORF: Aye, sir.

[Engineering]

RIKER [OC]: All decks, stand by.
(A humanoid with a mechanical arm beams in)
LAFORGE: Security, report to main Engineering. We have an intruder.
(The intruder is studying wall panels and consoles while the tiny Enterprise hangs nose to whatever with the huge cube)
PICARD: Lieutenant? Status.
LAFORGE: It seemed to make a visual survey of the engine core, sir, then it moved in here.

It might be just a matter of field intensity, or it might be that their transporters use something like say, the transwarp teleporter principle, to bypass shields and it might not present any obstacle to them.

I thought it was generally accepted that as this was a case of them adapting to match the frequency of the shield (hence the importance of changing frequencies during battle with the Borg), and that since Star Wars shields apparently don't use the same rotating frequencies, they would likely not have the same vulnerability?

[Lord Revan]

Isn't it generally agreed that despite the "pacifist" label, Alderan had a full planetary shield? Plus it was considered a good target for a demonstration of the Death Star's power by Tarkin, apparently.

Probably not the best example of an easy target.

Are you sure that'll stop them?

[Bridge]

RIKER: Shields up.
WORF: Aye, sir.

[Engineering]

RIKER [OC]: All decks, stand by.
(A humanoid with a mechanical arm beams in)
LAFORGE: Security, report to main Engineering. We have an intruder.
(The intruder is studying wall panels and consoles while the tiny Enterprise hangs nose to whatever with the huge cube)
PICARD: Lieutenant? Status.
LAFORGE: It seemed to make a visual survey of the engine core, sir, then it moved in here.

It might be just a matter of field intensity, or it might be that their transporters use something like say, the transwarp teleporter principle, to bypass shields and it might not present any obstacle to them.

I thought it was generally accepted that as this was a case of them adapting to match the frequency of the shield (hence the importance of changing frequencies during battle with the Borg), and that since Star Wars shields apparently don't use the same rotating frequencies, they would likely not have the same vulnerability?

It's a strong possibility that Borg adapted to shield refresh feequency to beam thru the shields, we know that's possible O'Brien did just that to get onto the Phoenix in the TNG episode "The Wounded", in the same episode it was said it's a highly risky tactic (granted the Borg probably wouldn't care if they lost a drone or 2 trying to match the frquency).

[Q99]

That's hard to say. Matching frequencies to gaps is a tactic that has been used to bypass shields, but at the same time, the Dominion was also able to beam through shields and they'd neither know the frequency nor is figuring out their target's precise capabilities really a thing for them, they were just able to do so. So there appears to be more than one way to bypass shields.


Though we do know that SW shields are in sections and they'll not rarely lower a section or such to let something through. So there's that at least, a planet could lower shields to let a transport through and boom, a few hundred drones beam down and begin assimilating left and right.

[NecronLord]

I thought it was generally accepted that as this was a case of them adapting to match the frequency of the shield (hence the importance of changing frequencies during battle with the Borg), and that since Star Wars shields apparently don't use the same rotating frequencies, they would likely not have the same vulnerability?

Do you remember where you where when the old SDN concept of Star Wars shields as flat, eternal barriers of imperviability died?

I was in the FACT cinema in Liverpool, watching Star Wars Episode VII when I heard...

(1m13s)

Alan Dean Foster put the nails in the coffin.

"No planetary defense system can be sustained at a constant rate. It would take too much power. Besides, it isn't necessary. All planetary shields have a fractional refresh. Instead of being constantly 'on,' they fluctuate at a predetermined rate. Keeps anything traveling less than lightspeed from getting through. Theoretically, a ship could get its nose in when a shield is off. Half a second later, the shield snaps back on and-well, it isn't good for anyone on that ship."

For planetary shields at least - Han's wording in the novel implies other types of shields exist but that running without fractional refresh takes too much power for a large shield like this - frequencies exist, and the whole bag of Star Trek tricks is on the table.

[The Romulan Republic]

Damn. Should have remembered that.

I guess that leaves sensor jamming as the best option, then.

[Q99]

Damn. Should have remembered that.

I guess that leaves sensor jamming as the best option, then.

And if a Cubic ship appeared in orbit of Alderaan or Naboo, would it even occur to them that they need to turn on sensor jamming?

RotJ had the Imperials use jamming, but it was noted to be because they knew the rebels were coming, not an always-on thing, and that was protecting a covert building project.

Beam down drones, disable shields, scoop up cities.