Exactly how many years of a gap?

[Sela]

is there between Starfleet, The Borg, and Star Wars?

To give a preliminary estimate:

" GUINAN
They [the borg] are a mixture of organic and
artificial life that has been
developed over a thousand
centuries." (TNG 2-16)

And realizing that borg 'development' includes stealing other civilizations' technologies despite huge disparities (though obviously there are limits as evinced by Data). A thousand centuries, of course, meaning 100,000 years for them to get to where they were in that time (before the events of TNG, some of the movies, and Voyager).


Compare that to Star Wars, which states in "The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons" that the last time Coruscant's surface saw light was around 95,000 years ago. Or that the Kwa had constructed the Infinity gate 100,000 years ago (as per wookiepedia).

Quantify: How many years longer has the 'strongest' Star Wars faction(s) had to develop than Star Treks' strongest faction(s)?
Quantify: How many years longer (or less) has the "tech level overall" of Star Wars developed than that of Star Trek?

Qualify: Can we single out an example of some race in Star Trek that - in the same amount of time as some faction in Star Wars - has developed less/more?

[The Romulan Republic]

is there between Starfleet, The Borg, and Star Wars?

To give a preliminary estimate:

" GUINAN
They [the borg] are a mixture of organic and
artificial life that has been
developed over a thousand
centuries." (TNG 2-16)

And realizing that borg 'development' includes stealing other civilizations' technologies despite huge disparities (though obviously there are limits as evinced by Data). A thousand centuries, of course, meaning 100,000 years for them to get to where they were in that time (before the events of TNG, some of the movies, and Voyager).


Compare that to Star Wars, which states in "The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons" that the last time Coruscant's surface saw light was around 95,000 years ago. Or that the Kwa had constructed the Infinity gate 100,000 years ago (as per wookiepedia).

So Coruscant's been a city world for about as long as the Borg have existed? Pretty impressive. I'm a bit surprised by the age though. I guess I had sort of assumed that Coruscant was only about as old as the Republic.

About the Borg, though, wasn't their a Voyager episode where they met some cryogenically frozen aliens from about ten thousand years back who said that the Borg were limited territorially in their time? Which suggests that the Borg have undergone a rapid expansion in recent history.

Quantify: How many years longer has the 'strongest' Star Wars faction(s) had to develop than Star Treks' strongest faction(s)?

I don't think we know. First of all, the Borg are hardly Trek's strongest faction, even discounting things like the Q.

As for Star Wars factions, the current civilization dates back at least 25000 years (probably older given what you've said about Coruscant). However, their were other, older civilizations that are now lost that possessed even more advanced tech. Don't know much about them though.

Quantify: How many years longer (or less) has the "tech level overall" of Star Wars developed than that of Star Trek?

I don't know, I'm afraid.

Qualify: Can we single out an example of some race in Star Trek that - in the same amount of time as some faction in Star Wars - has developed less/more?

Well, according to you the Borg are about as old as Coruscant. But they are nowhere near the level of the Republic/Empire. I would guess this is the result of them depending too heavily on assimilation to advance (and they can only assimilate stuff near their own level or below anyway).

[Bounty]

I don't think you should take Guinan so literally. Unless you subscribe to the theory that she's not who she says she is, her only contact with the Borg was the destruction of El-Auria and it's not even certain she witnessed that herself.

That leaves 1484 AD as the first confirmed date of a spacefaring, cybernetic race calling itself "Borg", putting them on roughly the same tier development-wise as the Vulcans and Klingons (capable of FTL travel, control over multiple star systems) and about 700 years ahead of the Federation. In SW terms, newbies.

Quantify: How many years longer has the 'strongest' Star Wars faction(s) had to develop than Star Treks' strongest faction(s)?

By far the strongest, largest and oldest known faction in Trekverse is the Dominion, which became an interstellar power somewhere between 10.000 and 2.000BC. At the extreme end, that would make them about one-fifth of SW-verse humans civilization's age (conservatively assuming the development of Coruscant occured at the same time as the development of interstellar spaceflight; human civilization is probably much older).

[Stark]

The time period is also irrelevant because the Borg are dumb as shit. Given the tech stagnation in Trek (espeically pre-TOS where the Vulcs and Klinks had been warp-capable for ages) they would have very quickly caught up to the status quo and sat there unable to develop anything else for ages, whereas the SW galaxy has seen repeated periods of galaxy-wide war in a vibrant galaxy-wide civilisation with access to energy densities the Borg can't even imagine.

[Singular Intellect]

About the Borg, though, wasn't their a Voyager episode where they met some cryogenically frozen aliens from about ten thousand years back who said that the Borg were limited territorially in their time? Which suggests that the Borg have undergone a rapid expansion in recent history.

That was the Voyager episode "Dragon's Teeth". Seven was trying to find a new home for the aliens, who had been in stasis for about nine hundred years. Upon coming across a promising planet during their search via astrometrics, Seven pointed out the system was now occupied by Borg. The alien then commented the Borg had spread like a plague, having only assimilated a 'handful of systems' during his time.

[The Romulan Republic]

About the Borg, though, wasn't their a Voyager episode where they met some cryogenically frozen aliens from about ten thousand years back who said that the Borg were limited territorially in their time? Which suggests that the Borg have undergone a rapid expansion in recent history.

That was the Voyager episode "Dragon's Teeth". Seven was trying to find a new home for the aliens, who had been in stasis for about nine hundred years. Upon coming across a promising planet during their search via astrometrics, Seven pointed out the system was now occupied by Borg. The alien then commented the Borg had spread like a plague, having only assimilated a 'handful of systems' during his time.

Pretty impressive. If Guinan is also right, that means that in just the last 1% of their history, the Borg have apparently gone from "local nuisance" to "Galactic Superpower". Not bad at all.

[Stark]

You think it's 'not bad' that they wasted most of their lifespan due to being retarded? You could speculate that they've 'improved' (ps they still suck even locally with huge areas out of their control) due to simply stealing some technology that aids them, and that they sucked for the rest of the time because they're dumb as shit. That's not good, that's a damning indictment of their whole system. Didn't you notice the DQ was full of people the Voyager outclassed?

Even IF you take a the word of barstaff as gospel, for which there is no real evidence.

[Singular Intellect]

Assuming the information gleamed from the episode I quoted is correct, it implies the Borg Collective went from a handful of systems to a galactic power that seemingly strolls throughout the galaxy at leisure, taking whatever and whomever they wish when it suits them. It's obviously doubtful they did so via diplomacy, which means they effectively declared war against thousands upon thousands of species, assuming they didn't completely subjugate them outright.

Over a span of nine hundred years, I'd consider that a relatively impressive track record.

[Stark]

I'd love to hear how that refutes my statement that since they just assimilated some key technologies at some point in the recent past, it's far more significant that they spent such a huge period of time TOTALLY SUCKING. I mean, shit, the Federation has explored (and secured) a pile of space in a hundred-odd years against parity enemies (ie not the jokers in DQ) without magic assimilation and magic immunity to weapons. What's more impressive?

And the borg are in NO WAY a 'galactic power'. Voyager seems to suggest they don't even control a majority of the Delta quadrant, they can be defeated in about 18 days of fighting, and they pick on individual planets. You can fart around in their backyard and not see them for MONTHS, and even with their massive industrial superiority many groups resist assimilation for ages. They have an APPALLING track record outside of 'we attacked xyz lowend planet and beat it with dozens of cubes'.

[Sela]

Unless the events of Generations aren't considered canon for some reason; isn't it true that Guinan *does* have a sort of '6th sense' that allows her to know things she otherwise would have no business knowing? And there was Time's Arrow wherein we saw her status as a time-shifter get confirmed. Further, there was Yesterday's Enterprise where her 6th sense was the critical plot point for the whole episode.

I'm not suggesting that an offhand "over hundred thousand centuries" means that she was giving an exact number; but to dismiss her simply because we can seems a bit much. Especially when there is no hard evidence to contradict her - unless, of course, you have some that you just haven't felt like sharing.


Also - you seem to have missed the point of my question from beforehand (quite possibly because I didn't make it clear, sorry - bad habit of mine!) Frequently the phrases "The Federation learns fast and adapts - give them (x) years and they'll figure it all out!" and the other phrase, "Starfleet is retarded - look at this ridiculously long bill of bad decisions made. Granted, it's the authors' faults for writing the characters this way, but S.O.D." Now, I was thinking a great way to substantiate the latter claim while debunking the first would be to *show* a parallel of growth. How long did it take SW galactic civilizations to go from "sentient life arrives" to "Traveling through space" and from there to "Hyperdrive"? Compare those numbers to Starfleets' and you get a concrete, evidenced parallelization. And so I figured naturally, while we're at it, why not lump in the borg? We do have interesting tidbits and data that we can glean from them - and they've developed rudimentary "faster than warp speed" of sorts, in that they can establish fixed transwarp conduits.


As for why it might have taken them tens of thousands of years to become more vicious and a serious threat; that can easily be chalked up to their changing as a race. Do we have some way of knowing (that I forgot) that the 'original' Borg were even remotely like their modern-day counterparts culturally? As in, that they didn't 'decide' to go on a bloodthirsty willy-nilly rampage of destroying everything that they can and would? Guinan's quote discusses the borgs' *origin as a species* as being 100k years ago; not their development into a space-power. There's a good chance the Borg had not yet developed the technology to function as a collective - or to assimilate - or both until several thousand years later. Or that they had a very strong peace-nick culture (ala: Vulcans) until the last 10k years or so (or 2k, if we take the other quote that was shared).

Also - is there any proof that the Borg are incapable of growing without assimilating? I recognize that in the case of S-8472 it was a plot point that they couldn't absorb/adapt/reconstruct the enemies' weaponry without first assimilating them, but that by itself shouldn't rule out the capability of the Borg to evolve without assimilation. In Q Who? We see a Borg nursery with *fully organic* 'humanoid' children. Thus, we can know that some Borg in their earliest stages of development at one point do not yet have cybernetic enhancements. Unless somehow these perfectly-designed cybernetic enhancements were always available, it makes perfect sense to consider that they weren't always as they are now - that they used to exist in flesh. And without some biological pheromone-type system (which *still* would not be binding), a 'collective consciousness' including every last drone in the entire species seems to be a stretch. Queen of the Borg in First Contact once said "... we were once like you, flawed, weak, organic!" (lending further support to the theory).

So here's the point: If they were organic, and then *stopped* being so, and further they began to develop their own cybernetic enhancements (or stole the design from someone else and then came up with their own way to build it), that by itself represents the ability to develop their own technology. No question they've gotten 'spoiled' on simply assimilating rather than putting in their own R&D work - but to say they're incapable of it is certainly a bit of a push - unless, of course, there's evidence I overlooked and I'm totally off base.

EDITed for clarity, prior to being responded to.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'd love to hear how that refutes my statement that since they just assimilated some key technologies at some point in the recent past, it's far more significant that they spent such a huge period of time TOTALLY SUCKING. I mean, shit, the Federation has explored (and secured) a pile of space in a hundred-odd years against parity enemies (ie not the jokers in DQ) without magic assimilation and magic immunity to weapons. What's more impressive?

You may be speaking to Bubble Boy here, but since I made a very similar post I'll go ahead and reply.

Yes, the Borg are overly dependent on assimilation. I already acknowledge that in an earlier post. The Borg do not innovate quickly. Their sudden growth in strength is impressive, but given how long they've been around, they should have done better.

And the borg are in NO WAY a 'galactic power'. Voyager seems to suggest they don't even control a majority of the Delta quadrant,

Fair enough. They are a regional power, who can take most other states in the galaxy one-on-one, and could do so even more easily if they used their tech more effectively.

they can be defeated in about 18 days of fighting, and they pick on individual planets.

Source for the 18 days claim? Are you talking about 8472? And source for the notion that they can only take on individual planets (if that's what you're suggesting)?

You can fart around in their backyard and not see them for MONTHS,

The galaxy's a big place. And the Borg have a know policy of ignoring those that are not a threat or not deemed worth assimilating.

and even with their massive industrial superiority many groups resist assimilation for ages. They have an APPALLING track record outside of 'we attacked xyz lowend planet and beat it with dozens of cubes'.

They nearly crippled the Federation by taking Earth twice with a single cube (plus a little time traveling sphere the second time). They're not technologically weak. Just tactically and strategically inept. They certainly don't need "dozens of cubes" to attack a "lowend planet".

[Stark]

Well the Borg consider themselves perfect and only add what they think is an improvement (the plot explanation for so many rubes being right next door to the Borg and unmolested) so it's hardly impossible that they simply don't develop anything because they're perfect but are willing to adopt things they encounter to 'improve' themselves. This is why many speculate that the Borg at some point in their history were pretty much just some cyber-cult until they gained the tech that gave them their big advantages (like assimilation, adaptive shielding, etc).

EDIT for RR: yeah, I'm talking about 8472 and while this is hardly representative of a normal opponent, a true galactic power isn't crippled by the loss of a few random planets (nor are they generally so totally outfought due to their own stupidity). Since they have a non-linear layout, I'd hesitate to call them a regional power either, especially combined with their crazy doctrine of 'ignore everyone unless we want to rip off their planet', but it's hardly 'your territory' if you haven't secured it or bother to interact with people in it (indeed, there are unassimilated groups apparently living INSIDE Borg space). To my knowledge, every time someone talks in Voyager about Borg eating their planet it's just one planet; this is pretty piss-poor for guys with probably hundreds of worlds and super-powerful cubes. Your example of the Federation demonstrates what's wrong with your mentality; if they were a galactic power they wouldn't need serious effort to defeat single planets (like that VOY ep where it's shown that dozens of cubes are used in the DQ where range isn't an issue). If the DQ was Borg as far as the eye could see, I'd be impressed, but due to their stupid doctrine, their stupid religion and how they're so stupid, they are basically a really big motorcycle gang. Trying to rationalise early cyber-thief Borg with later space-vampire Borg is probably more trouble than it's worth.

[The Romulan Republic]

EDIT for RR: yeah, I'm talking about 8472 and while this is hardly representative of a normal opponent, a true galactic power isn't crippled by the loss of a few random planets (nor are they generally so totally outfought due to their own stupidity).

Was a number given for the number of worlds lost to 8472?

As for "outfought due to their own stupidity", I have to agree. 8472 caved fast when they started taking losses due to the bioweapon. If the Borg had been more capable at inventing new tech than Voyager's doctor, they might have been able to win on their own.

Since they have a non-linear layout, I'd hesitate to call them a regional power either, especially combined with their crazy doctrine of 'ignore everyone unless we want to rip off their planet', but it's hardly 'your territory' if you haven't secured it or bother to interact with people in it (indeed, there are unassimilated groups apparently living INSIDE Borg space).

They are one of the strongest local powers, and can take almost everyone else one-on-one. I'd say that makes them a power of some sort, even if they are a bit thinly spread out.

To my knowledge, every time someone talks in Voyager about Borg eating their planet it's just one planet; this is pretty piss-poor for guys with probably hundreds of worlds and super-powerful cubes.

What about that alien who tries to get Voyager assimilated as revenge for stopping 8472 and saving the Borg? Didn't he say something about multiple worlds? I can't remember.

Your example of the Federation demonstrates what's wrong with your mentality; if they were a galactic power they wouldn't need serious effort to defeat single planets (like that VOY ep where it's shown that dozens of cubes are used in the DQ where range isn't an issue).

How does the Federation example demonstrate that? The Federation was a long way away, which might explain why they only sent one cube (poor rationalization I know; they really should have sent more the second time at least). But that one cube gave the Federation possibly the worst battle losses in its history up to that point. 40 star ships, and it almost took Earth. I don't know if it could have taken down the entire Federation, but that's hardly an example of "serious effort to defeat single planets."

If the DQ was Borg as far as the eye could see, I'd be impressed, but due to their stupid doctrine, their stupid religion and how they're so stupid, they are basically a really big motorcycle gang. Trying to rationalise early cyber-thief Borg with later space-vampire Borg is probably more trouble than it's worth.

Wouldn't everything be better if we could just dismiss most of Voyager?

Also, given that Borg culture treats other high-tech species as resources to be harvested, and that not everything is even worth assimilating to them, they'd probably have a lot of enemies on their level or higher. Don't forget, their are powerful factions in the Delta Quadrant besides the Borg (those intelligent dinosaurs, the Hirrogen, the Videans, probably others too). Given that, its damn impressive they're as strong as they are.

[Kythnos]

And the borg are in NO WAY a 'galactic power'. Voyager seems to suggest they don't even control a majority of the Delta quadrant,

Fair enough. They are a regional power, who can take most other states in the galaxy one-on-one, and could do so even more easily if they used their tech more effectively.

This got me thinking, not trying to side track the topic, but "How would you Classify the Borg?"

They have the Technology to make themselves a "Galactic Power", or so it seems, but lack the drive/ambition to grow. I am not sure I would even call them a regional power, considering how little they seem to do in their "Regional of Space". After Voyager pass Borg Space there did not seem to be any less Borg activity nor any more activity. The only idea I could come up with is a "Pirate" analogy, they send out ships in almost random directions that take anything they want “if they run over it” in their travels. Possibly the Borg realize their own limitations in developing “new ideas” and leave the races alone to do just that, with the hope that they can assimilate the idea later.

[The Romulan Republic]

And the borg are in NO WAY a 'galactic power'. Voyager seems to suggest they don't even control a majority of the Delta quadrant,

Fair enough. They are a regional power, who can take most other states in the galaxy one-on-one, and could do so even more easily if they used their tech more effectively.

This got me thinking, not trying to side track the topic, but "How would you Classify the Borg?"

They have the Technology to make themselves a "Galactic Power", or so it seems, but lack the drive/ambition to grow. I am not sure I would even call them a regional power, considering how little they seem to do in their "Regional of Space". After Voyager pass Borg Space there did not seem to be any less Borg activity nor any more activity. The only idea I could come up with is a "Pirate" analogy, they send out ships in almost random directions that take anything they want “if they run over it” in their travels. Possibly the Borg realize their own limitations in developing “new ideas” and leave the races alone to do just that, with the hope that they can assimilate the idea later.

That fits fairly well with what we know of the Borg. Though once they find something, they seem to focus on it, so its not all random. Maybe like a spider. They build a big web, and when something flies into it worth eating, they close in for the kill.

But its not a lack of ambition to grow. Its a lack of intelligence. The typical drone's behavior seems to be dumber than that of the average computer game AI. Just a very limited set of responses, with virtually no real tactical or strategic ability. The only one with any innovative capabilities seems to be the Queen, who after the failiur to take Earth in TBoBW came up with a second plan (the time travel), then a third one (disperse nanoprobes in Earth's atmosphere for a gradual covert assimilation), and finally (I think) a plan four (transwarp conduit straight to Earth that Voyager then used). The last plan seems to suggest the possibility that a full invasion with overwelming force was in the works, in which case the Federation would likely have been screwed. The Queen also claimed she let Seven of Nine be rescued in Dark Frontier, right? That suggests a certain amount of long-term planning and manipulation. And she has shown a certain ability to screw with her prisoner's minds.

However, the Queen still isn't very effective, as shown by the way the Borg have continued to stagnate under her rule to the point that they need Voyager's holodoctor to invent them a bioweapon. I wonder if the Queen is really an intelligence, or simply an AI designed to simulate intelligence with a broader range of responses.

[Stark]

RR, the fact that there are factions (tiny ones) that the Borg can't kill just shows the flaw in considering them a regional power; the Voth and Hirogen have been maintaining detente with them for AGES, with far inferior resources. Sure that's because they're retards hamstrung by their own stupid doctrine, but that same doctrine allows guys to live next door without molestation. It's hardly impressive that the Hirogen haven't stopped them expanding; the Borg are hundreds of times the size of the Hirogen. It's actually laughable and pathetic that the Hirogen continue to exist while hostile to them!

The Federation fighting off the Borg is indicative of why their MO is broken; they're so used to fighting completely backward rubes with no chance they have forgotten how to fight wars (since most of their Fed attacks would have worked if they hadn't been so stupid). This is almost certainly why the Voth etc are still present. Picking on weak hillbilly nobodies with your massive fleet of supercubes from your vast space empire is NOT impressive, but it DOES allow them to cover up their crushing failure at conquest.

[Junghalli]

About the Borg - I think it should be pointed out that we don't know the reasons for their apparent 99,000 years of stagnation (as far as I know). Maybe they gained some technology that gave them a decisive advantage over their opponents. Maybe their goals changed, and the whole assimilation thing is just a recent development in their culture (for lack of a better term). Maybe they didn't know there were other civilizations out there to assimilate until some unlucky explorer stumbled on their home system in the Middle Ages.

Given their apparent lack of creativity (the Collective's vast mind outperformed by Voyager's EMH lol) I wouldn't be at all surprised if they just sat in one system for 99,000 years thinking FTL was impossible and STL not worth it until some poor bastard stumbled into their system in a warp capable ship and got himself captured by them somehow.

[The Romulan Republic]

About the Borg - I think it should be pointed out that we don't know the reasons for their apparent 99,000 years of stagnation (as far as I know). Maybe they gained some technology that gave them a decisive advantage over their opponents. Maybe their goals changed, and the whole assimilation thing is just a recent development in their culture (for lack of a better term). Maybe they didn't know there were other civilizations out there to assimilate until some unlucky explorer stumbled on their home system in the Middle Ages.

Given their apparent lack of creativity (the Collective's vast mind outperformed by Voyager's EMH lol) I wouldn't be at all surprised if they just sat in one system for 99,000 years thinking FTL was impossible and STL not worth it until some poor bastard stumbled into their system in a warp capable ship and got himself captured by them somehow.

Though I find it somewhat implausible, its an amusing theory. It certainly fits the Borg's lack of inventiveness/creativity, and if that home system was Unimatrix one, it might explain why that place seems so much more heavily populated than any other area of Borg space.

[Pablo Sanchez]

I think the issue with the Borg fucking around with hillbillies and never managing to defeat them has to do with their goals and their "method" of assessing threats. The Borg goal is apparently to seize the technological, cultural, and biological uniqueness of other species and incorporate it into the Collective, and we know that they are incredibly bad at figuring out what is a threat or not--in their first appearance they gave the away team free access to their ship for quite a while. So they probably failed to fully eliminate local enemies like the Hirogen because they had already stolen as much technology as they were likely to get and these species, since they no longer posed an existential threat, were of no more interest.

A possible reason for the Borg to expand meteorically in recent history could be them abruptly deciding that other regional powers of the Delta Quadrant were indeed a threat and then assimilating/exterminating them, with the result that the only people left around were the Borg and second-string fuckwits. Observed appearances of the Borg on an individual level have shown that they basically go from totally passive to aggressive without warning immediately upon deciding (for whatever reason) that somebody was a threat. Given that they're supposed to be a collective consciousness they'd probably behave in the same way on the national stage.

[Singular Intellect]

It should be noted that Guinan claimed the Borg had been 'developing for thousands of centuries'. Taking the quote at face value, this does not mean they had been expanding or trying to conquer anyone during that time. The only substantial evidence we have that the Borg started conquering other species was from my previously mentioned episode reference, which means it's reasonable to suggest they may have in fact only started their imperialistic mission of conquest within the last nine centuries.

[Pablo Sanchez]

As for Star Wars factions, the current civilization dates back at least 25000 years

The Republic, meaning a unified civilization on a galactic scale, dates back 25,000 years, but that's like saying civilization in Italy only dates to the 19th century. The EU apparently references discrete interstellar species like the Columi farting around up to two million years prior to the trilogy.

[The Romulan Republic]

As for Star Wars factions, the current civilization dates back at least 25000 years

The Republic, meaning a unified civilization on a galactic scale, dates back 25,000 years, but that's like saying civilization in Italy only dates to the 19th century. The EU apparently references discrete interstellar species like the Columi farting around up to two million years prior to the trilogy.

Perhaps parts of what became the Republic have been around much longer, and perhaps I worded it badly. I have to ask though, are the two million year old examples still around in any shape or form? Is any remnant or offshoot of their civilization still around at all?

[Pablo Sanchez]

Perhaps parts of what became the Republic have been around much longer, and perhaps I worded it badly. I have to ask though, are the two million year old examples still around in any shape or form? Is any remnant or offshoot of their civilization still around at all?

The Columi are definitely still around and have had a continuous civilization, although they aren't that significant anymore. It seems that whereas interstellar travel has been around for a really, really long time, widespread use of hyperdrive and a consequent population explosion coincided with the establishment of the Galactic Republic. Hyperdrive was evidently retrieved from the wreckage of the Rakatan Infinite Empire as seen in KOTOR. So whereas certain technologies (like space travel) are absurdly old and well-developed, the "winning" species like Humans, Duros, Hutts, et al. are simply the ones who exploited the collapse of the Infinite Empire to best effect.

[The Romulan Republic]

Perhaps parts of what became the Republic have been around much longer, and perhaps I worded it badly. I have to ask though, are the two million year old examples still around in any shape or form? Is any remnant or offshoot of their civilization still around at all?

The Columi are definitely still around and have had a continuous civilization, although they aren't that significant anymore. It seems that whereas interstellar travel has been around for a really, really long time, widespread use of hyperdrive and a consequent population explosion coincided with the establishment of the Galactic Republic. Hyperdrive was evidently retrieved from the wreckage of the Rakatan Infinite Empire as seen in KOTOR. So whereas certain technologies (like space travel) are absurdly old and well-developed, the "winning" species like Humans, Duros, Hutts, et al. are simply the ones who exploited the collapse of the Infinite Empire to best effect.

That's interesting. I didn't know that. So even if the Borg have been interstellar for 100,000 years, these guys are still 20 times as old.

Of course, it doesn't really matter anyway. Its impressive that the Star Wars galaxy has such old civilizations, but it doesn't change the tech disparity either way if the Borg are the same age as any of the Star Wars civilizations or not. At the end of the day, its still like Medeival Europe against the modern United States.

[Darth Ruinus]

Mmmh. This page says that the Columi first evolved around 2,006,200 years before the battle of Yavin, and then, 6,200 years later, have acheived spacce travel.

It also mentions that 1,000,000 million years BBY the Celestials (and perhaps other Architects) were already around, with them possibly forming the Corellian system.

Not only that, but the Sharu precede the Columi by about 2 million years, and were highly advanced (they made some machine that moved about in dimensions, and hid their entire civilization underground). They kept records that show that maybe they were made by starfish shaped aliens, probably the same dudes who made the Silentium.

So, the oldest civilizations in Star Wars are at least a few million years old.

Also, Wookieepdia says that Coruscant was entirely covered by city 100,000 years ago. Unless the whole thing was settled and covered in one year, it was probably around even longer than that.