S. 8472 vs Empire

[Mr Bean]

Allow me to handel this
Sean ISD's carry Gigton, Mega-ton and Tetraton weaponry, The Heavy Turbo Lasers used in Cap Ship fights are in the Low Teraton range by all accounts, The Mediums in the Low Gigtons and the Lights in the low low Megatons prehaps Kiltons

Now then There are Heavy Turbo Lasers mounted on the Top of ISD along with Lights and Mediums, Medium on the aft sections along with Concussion Missle Launchers and Lights, And the Venteral Side has Mediums and Lights and depending on the model of SD Heavys as well now then

Now then from any side you attack form your facing Medium and Light Turbo-Lasers
Undersstand so far?

Well then here is where the kicker comes in
It takes less than one Giga-ton to destroy Voyager, E-D or a Defianit
E-D is roughly 320 Megs to kill, The Defiant 380 and the Voyager if you take by the end of the series is rougly a low 600s to kill

Now then Borg and 8472 are stronger but NOT that mucher Stronger than Federation ships, Borg estmets put Cubes down at 900-1.2 Giga-Tons with 8472 at about the same prehaps 2 Gigatons at the most

Now then that the kicker, The MEDIUM TurboLasers have Gigatons of FP and LOW END damage for them is estamed at 2 Gigatons going all the way up to 12 Giga-Tons
Understand?

No Matter where the Ships go when attacking and ISD they are going to be attacked by a minium of Ten Mediums TurboLasers....
All of which have slight more power then is nessary to kill an 8472 ship
Understand?
The nice nine ship formation takes time to set up because of what we can see in Scorpine and elswhere Fludic space is nice but you can't come out in that nice formation and that takes time, Roughly ten seconds say to form up then the additonal five seconds for the weapon to charge and fire
Assume they come out pretty much near each other thats a minium of fifteen seconds for them to assemble up for the planet killing blast

All the while be shot at by things that can kill them in one shot, Fire ever two seconds and have been know to hit fighters with decent accurasy. Things 12.5 Meteres Long VS trying to hit a 200 Meter target. And during the charge up and formation assembly they are bascily sitting ducks


I'm sorry but you need a minium of at least four ship groups to pull this off and even then its up in the air because unless they count on loosing the first three the third and fourth will be in range of more of the ships guns..

Understand now?

[septesix]

Now then Borg and 8472 are stronger but NOT that mucher Stronger than Federation ships, Borg estmets put Cubes down at 900-1.2 Giga-Tons with 8472 at about the same prehaps 2 Gigatons at the most

How can you make this assumption that the bioship will be destroyed by a 2 gt shot? We've never seen sheer firepower done it before. By all account we don't know.

[SirNitram]

Now then Borg and 8472 are stronger but NOT that mucher Stronger than Federation ships, Borg estmets put Cubes down at 900-1.2 Giga-Tons with 8472 at about the same prehaps 2 Gigatons at the most

How can you make this assumption that the bioship will be destroyed by a 2 gt shot? We've never seen sheer firepower done it before. By all account we don't know.

It's called kinetic energy. It's what destroyed those bioships. It's something turbolasers have gigatons worth of.(Ref: Slave Ship)

[Mr Bean]

But we DO know Septsix
Both from the fact the borg where able to hurt them at all, And watching the show to see how much damage they took from Borg Weaponry which we know the capablitys of

There are quite a few ways to find out how powerful a ship is rest assured we have the proof to back this up.

Both on Mikes page and elsewhere there are quite a few estmates of ST power(It was not untill ICS that people knew how bad the Federation would get thier rears handed to them when people found out that a twenty year old TRANSPORT had enough shielding to take hammering from ten E-Ds for over an hour and be at 50%+ shield strength and had Two Hundred Gigaton Weapons, welll...)(OAN Avarage Trecky weapon power is under 100 Mega-tons)

[seanrobertson]

"Species 8472 has penetrated
That is the standard apologist Trekkie excuse. Unfortunately, it bears no resemblance to reality. We saw a major battle in the beginning of Scorpion, and it involved only 15 Borg ships. We saw one planet being destroyed, and that resulted in the destruction of only two cubes. If that is typical, then 312 lost Borg cubes would be the result of 20 major battles and 6 destroyed planets.

Moreover, a mere four million drones on 312 ships and 8 planets is simply pathetic; it indicates that most of the planets being "destroyed" were either not really destroyed at all, or they were almost entirely barren (in which case one would wonder why they had to destroy the planet).

A minor nitpick, my lord:

"Four million, 612 Borg" might refer to something other than individual
drones (a'la "200,000 'units' are ready"). I agree, it is apologetic, but in "Collective" we learn that the minimal complement of a Borg cube is 5,000 drones. Most we see have a complement of over 50,000 (e.g., 129,000 in "Dark Frontier"); and since large spheres and cubes do seem to be the typical Borg ship, one would expect that losing over 300 of them would result in a loss of 15 million drones. Minimum, we'd be looking at 1.5 million drones on the ships alone. That is a significant fraction of
4 million, leaving potentially only 310,000 some thousand drones on
the average planet attacked.

The one Borg planet we do see looks extensively populated, with all
that Borg junk all over the surface like Earth in "First Contact." And
these are all planets pretty deep within Borg space, presumably...it's
hard to believe that, in each case, the planet's population would number so few when Earth could sustain 9 billion drones. All should've been
occupied for at least as long as Earth had been at that point (over
300 years).

Oh well. VGR's writers throw us a big turd yet again.

Besides, the S-8472 cult is ignoring simple questions such as energy production. A truly vast civilization may be able to conjure up billions or trillions of megatons of energy at will, but S-8472 simply can't be that big if they were worried the puny Federation would invade and conquer them.

<bows deferentially>

Here I must take issue, m'lord. The Eights never indicated as much.
They had an exaggerated sense of the Federation's power because
VGR herself had managed to aide the Borg the way she did. I don't
think they were really concerned that they'd be conquered.

In order to physically destroy 8 planets (as opposed to simply destroying tiny installations on the surface, which would be more consistent with the number of casualties reported), they would need around 2E33 joules of energy.

At (for example) 100,000 TW per reactor, they would need a million reactors running for 600 years in order to come up with that much juice! And their power sources are limited; remember that we know what their power source is: M/AM reactors, as determined by the boarding team. They're not using some extradimensional power source, black holes, hypermatter, etc. For all we know, the single planet-killer ship we saw was their ultimate weapon (even if it used a chain reaction of some sort, which seems necessary in light of the otherwise inexplicable delay between weapon impact and the planet's explosion) and they couldn't do it again for years.

One other point of depature, m'lord:

The Species ships don't use antimatter as a power source (at least,
as their *sole* power source). I watched "Scorpion I" recently, specifically
looking for information about their power generation abilities. While
walking around in the bioship, someone did mention antimatter,
but IIRC it had nothing to do with the ship's power source. To be sure,
no one said anything of a M/AM reactor.

I'll look for the specifics and report back, not that it really makes
a difference WRT this topic.

Sean
Analyst http://www.babtech-onthe.net/

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

A very slow moving Borg Cube completly destroyed a 8472 ship in "Scorpion 2"

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

If a borg cube is 1 billion metric tons (very generous as they're very hollow) and was moving at 1 km/sec, thats a wopping 119 kilotons of KE. In comparison, the ISDs in the Hoth asteroid field took "megatons" of KE and weren't harmed significantly.

[seanrobertson]

Allow me to handel this
Sean ISD's carry Gigton, Mega-ton and Tetraton weaponry, The Heavy Turbo Lasers used in Cap Ship fights are in the Low Teraton range by all accounts, The Mediums in the Low Gigtons and the Lights in the low low Megatons prehaps Kiltons

Hiya Bean

Yes, I'm with you. The Imperator Mk. I and Mk. II (and
maybe even III!) carry teraton heavy turbolasers. Light cannons?
I always figured they were similar to the most numerous weapons
on an Acclamator; i.e., low megaton-range or so. Maybe double-digit MT/shot. I'm sorta sketchy on the medium TL issue...my Jefe, Boss
Brian, discussed this possibility at TL Commentaries (which Lord Wong
has charitably preserved: hail, Wong!, LOL ). But is there anything
other than turbolaser "bolt" lengths to substantiate the idea of MTLs?

Now then There are Heavy Turbo Lasers mounted on the Top of ISD along with Lights and Mediums, Medium on the aft sections along with Concussion Missle Launchers and Lights, And the Venteral Side has Mediums and Lights and depending on the model of SD Heavys as well now then

Now then from any side you attack form your facing Medium and Light Turbo-Lasers
Undersstand so far?

Si.

Well then here is where the kicker comes in
It takes less than one Giga-ton to destroy Voyager, E-D or a Defianit
E-D is roughly 320 Megs to kill, The Defiant 380 and the Voyager if you take by the end of the series is rougly a low 600s to kill

That's actually pretty generous

My own estimates for those ships are something like this:

The Enterprise-D was expected to handle about 120,000 terajoules
of solar energy in "Relics" on secondary power. With main power
online, she probably could've done a *little* better...say, 150,000 TJ.

That means she could withstand about 36 megatons of energy before
her shields failed (btw, I think the shield's instantaneous capacity
is somewhat higher than their steady-state bombardment tolerances,
similar to that of Imperial warships). That's pretty reasonable I guess.

VGR is less than half the size of the E-D. Her fuel reserves (and therefore total power generation) are MARKEDLY smaller than the E-D's...even with
the enhancement of Borg technology via Tits of Nine, I find it unlikely
that VGR's shielding could prove even half as tough as the E-D's.

Same said for Defiant. She was certainly built with teeth--quantum
torpedos and machine gun phasers are awesome weapons in ST--but
she *doesn't* take much damage before succumbing. Indeed, in
MANY episodes, Defiant seems to have comparatively far greater
firepower than she does shielding...no surprise, given that she WAS designed as a gunship/destroyer. (Such episodes include "One Little
Ship," "The Search Pt. I," "Defiant," "Paradise Lost," and "Sacrifice of
Angels.")

Galaxy-class starships are the battleships of the Federation fleet.
Save for the Sovereign and Prometheus, nothing compares to
them.

Now then Borg and 8472 are stronger but NOT that mucher Stronger than Federation ships, Borg estmets put Cubes down at 900-1.2 Giga-Tons with 8472 at about the same prehaps 2 Gigatons at the most

This is pretty reasonable, though we don't really know what it takes to
"kill" a bioship (or even a cube, for that matter). Gigatonnage should
get the job done, though, I agree.

Now then that the kicker, The MEDIUM TurboLasers have Gigatons of FP and LOW END damage for them is estamed at 2 Gigatons going all the way up to 12 Giga-Tons
Understand?

Sure--IF you believe the so-called medium turbolaser is a standard
shipboard armament. I myself have never had much faith in the idea...I
think there are small laser cannons meant to nail fighters (like Jango
Fett's 600 GJ/shot blasters), light turbolasers yielding into the megaton
range, and on ISDs and bigger ships, high gigaton to mid-teraton-ranged/shot heavy guns.

No Matter where the Ships go when attacking and ISD they are going to be attacked by a minium of Ten Mediums TurboLasers....
All of which have slight more power then is nessary to kill an 8472 ship
Understand?
The nice nine ship formation takes time to set up because of what we can see in Scorpine and elswhere Fludic space is nice but you can't come out in that nice formation and that takes time, Roughly ten seconds say to form up then the additonal five seconds for the weapon to charge and fire
Assume they come out pretty much near each other thats a minium of fifteen seconds for them to assemble up for the planet killing blast

They didn't need fifteen seconds to form up and start shooting
in the episode, though. I also don't know that it's necessary for
the Eights to form up in a "star cluster" to kill an Imperial warship...possible, definitely, but not at all conclusive.

All the while be shot at by things that can kill them in one shot, Fire ever two seconds and have been know to hit fighters with decent accurasy. Things 12.5 Meteres Long VS trying to hit a 200 Meter target. And during the charge up and formation assembly they are bascily sitting ducks

I'm sorry but you need a minium of at least four ship groups to pull this off and even then its up in the air because unless they count on loosing the first three the third and fourth will be in range of more of the ships guns..

Understand now?

I understood before, my comical British friend

I'm one of the biggest Imperial supporters you'll find. I think the Eights are a definite threat; even though their planet-killer does involve some
sort of super-physical action, I've NEVER seen such firepower in miniaturized form in any filmed sci-fi. People like to compare the Eights
to Vorlons, but the Eights would eat the Vorlons for breakfast.

Why?

However they managed to pull it off, 9 small bioships blew a Borg planet into pieces...they didn't do so as violently as the Death Star blew Alderaan
apart, to be sure, but we're looking at 8 ships some 200m in length
and one that extends some parts to maybe 250m in overall length?
In the vein of those who call things "uber," I say, Mein Gott! THAT is
some seriously mean consolidated firepower. It's not the determining
factor in a war, to be sure, but it remains impressive nonetheless. Among
the "Big Three" in sci-fi, I say the Empire and Species 8472 are the true
"big guns." All else pale in comparison.

Sean
Analyst http://www.babtech-onthe.net/

Sean
Analyst http://www.babtech-onthe.net/

[Patrick Ogaard]

"There's a chamber beyond this opiening, 40 meters wide, high concentrations of antimatter particles. Looks like a warp propulsion system of some kind."

Also, when a bioship later attacked Voyager and its escorting cube, the bioship showed all the telltales of standard Star Trek warp propulsion: it began to move at warp after it exited the quantum singularity doodad, and a dense pattern of glowing amber patches appeared along the hull. On a standard ST warp vessel, those glowing patches would be plasma glow from the warp nacelles.

As I stated in the other 8472 thread, the bioships basically appear to be a big gun attached to a big matter/antimatter-powered warp and impulse drive unit.

Since 8472 tech worked the same without obvious modifications in fluidic and real space, and the same goes in reverse for Voyager, the underlying laws of physics of both realms must be the same, with no more than the most miniscule of tweaks. What that strongly indicates to me is that fluidic space is a fairly large space, but not a full-fledged alternate universe or dimension. Rather, it appears to be the same sort of thing as the realm from which the psycho clicking lizard surgeons from TNG's Schisms episodes came from, the physical realm of the Q Continuum, or the exclusive realm controlled by the counterpart of the Caretaker. They all appear to be pocket universes of limited size, with customized environments, and the means of accessing them are broadly similar. Likely the temporal weasels of the 29th Century keep their headquarters in a similar subspace domain doohickey. References from Unimatrix Zero indicate that the interface between fluidic space and real space may constitute a zone that can actually be localized as an area of space, much the same as the realm of the caretaker's counterpart seemed accessible primarily from a particular region of space.


Warning, pointless, unscientific blather follows. You have been warned:

It brings up an interesting way of looking at those good old SF standbys, subspace and hyperspace. Taking the two terms at face value, and accepting the idea of the universe having additional dimensions beyond our three, the additional dimensions being unobservable, here goes:

Subspace is constituted of those dimensions lower than our three dimensions, though it would then take technobabble to access them. Messing with spacetime, such as through large masses or energy fields, distorts subspace. Selectively warping subspace by means of these effects allows rippling of subspace (subspace radio), while the setting up of a major distortion can allow a vessel to scoot along at FTL speeds without running into regular 3D limits. Selectively unfolding the lower dimensions and selecting any three lower dimensions makes the regular three collapse from the POV of those occupying the newly unfolded dimensions. Allowing one or more lower dimensions to collapse between one's new set of dimensions and the regular ones separates one more and more from real space, making access more difficult.

Hyperspace works the same way, but is constituted of higher dimensions. Hyperspace comms and travel require higher energy levels to access than subspace, but achievable speeds are much higher, by several orders of magnitude.

This would, unfortunately, make subspace and subspace technologies the poor man's solution, to be used only where the energy expenditure required of hyperspace systems is not worth it, or the ability to use hyperspace technology has not yet been developed.

[seanrobertson]

If a borg cube is 1 billion metric tons (very generous as they're very hollow) and was moving at 1 km/sec, thats a wopping 119 kilotons of KE. In comparison, the ISDs in the Hoth asteroid field took "megatons" of KE and weren't harmed significantly.

Yes.

Of course, shield strength and firepower aren't interchangable; the
Species 8472 warships might sacrifice defenses for firepower (or vice-versa...we really don't know).

However, I can't agree that a Borg ship is "very hollow." The outer
hull is certainly diffuse, but if you look closely in "Q Who?", as the
cube repairs itself the "latticework" is only something on top of
the outer hull (if that makes sense).

Borg ships are probably quite massive. The scout cube, with a mere
complement of *5* drones in "I, Borg," massed 2.5 million metric
tons according to Data. As I noted earlier, the 28 cubic km Borg cubes
are built to function with a minimum of 5,000 drones. Thus, the largest
cubes should be roughly 1,000 times larger than the scout cubes--and
over a thousand times more massive to match.

Of course, that's really irrelevant...when considering the kinetic energy
of two bodies, you go with the LESS massive of the two--the bioship.
Still, I think it might be premature to say that the bioship or the cube
was destroyed by the physical impact alone. The cube was about to
explode when it hit the bioship, so we could be looking at something
similar to a "self-destruct" scenario.

Sean
Analyst http://www.babtech-onthe.net/

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Yes, I'm with you. The Imperator Mk. I and Mk. II (and
maybe even III!) carry teraton heavy turbolasers. Light cannons?
I always figured they were similar to the most numerous weapons
on an Acclamator; i.e., low megaton-range or so. Maybe double-digit MT/shot. I'm sorta sketchy on the medium TL issue...my Jefe, Boss
Brian, discussed this possibility at TL Commentaries (which Lord Wong
has charitably preserved: hail, Wong!, LOL ). But is there anything
other than turbolaser "bolt" lengths to substantiate the idea of MTLs?

3 triple guns mounted right infront of the last raised superstructure

[Shadow]

Look, Darkling, at best a nanoprobe equipped ship will take out one Bioship a volley. A ISD will take out a minimum of six a volley, and keep doing it. You can claim 'magic tech, it's worse', but I do not give a shit. They will take far higher losses against the Empire. The losses will be higher than facing nanoprobes. By your own admission, they are facing a foe they can't defeat, and they will, as you claimed, retreat. Now, if you have some proof they would not retreat from a foe that fills the requirements you yourself set down, post it. Or concede.

Voyager took out 11 Bio-ships with one torpedo. Add this to the fact they had many new torpedo launchers installed, and that there far larger ships capable of carrying many more launchers. This would allow one ship to destroy entire fleets of bio-ships.

[Darth Wong]

Voyager took out 11 Bio-ships with one torpedo. Add this to the fact they had many new torpedo launchers installed, and that there far larger ships capable of carrying many more launchers. This would allow one ship to destroy entire fleets of bio-ships.

Oh no, what are the bio-ships to do? Voyager has weapons that can destroy their ships if they detonate at close range! Omigod ... the horror ... the unstoppable horror of it all ...

Unless ... they shoot back?

Hmmm ... what a novel tactic! When faced with an enemy whose weapons can kill you but who can also be destroyed by your weapons, you ... shoot back! Quick! Somebody call West Point and inform them of this fantastic idea!!!

Here's a news flash for you, Shadow. No war in history has ever been fought by soldiers who were completely invulnerable to the weaponry of the other side. It is the norm, not the exception, for the enemy to have weapons that can kill you if they score a hit, and you normally deal with this by trying to kill him first. The fact that S-8472 ran away after discovering that they were not invulnerable (even though they still had more than enough firepower to blow away their enemies) is proof of their abject cowardice, and all of your excuses won't change that fact.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Yes.

Of course, shield strength and firepower aren't interchangable; the
Species 8472 warships might sacrifice defenses for firepower (or vice-versa...we really don't know).

IIRC a 8472 ship continued to take shots at Voyager and she survived.

However, I can't agree that a Borg ship is "very hollow." The outer
hull is certainly diffuse, but if you look closely in "Q Who?", as the
cube repairs itself the "latticework" is only something on top of
the outer hull (if that makes sense).

The outer hull maybe solid, but in "Scorpion" we see it it is all but open space inside.

Borg ships are probably quite massive. The scout cube, with a mere
complement of *5* drones in "I, Borg," massed 2.5 million metric
tons according to Data. As I noted earlier, the 28 cubic km Borg cubes
are built to function with a minimum of 5,000 drones. Thus, the largest
cubes should be roughly 1,000 times larger than the scout cubes--and
over a thousand times more massive to match.

That's stupid reasoning. An ISD has a 40 000 odd crew and is 60 million tons. A dreadnought is IIRC 6 million tons. Does it have 4 000 men? Nope, 16 thousand. A GCS is 4.5 million with a 1000 crew, while an ICS is IIRC 1 million with only a 150 crew.

I think either Data was wrong (has happened before) or it was a lightly crewed ship.

Of course, that's really irrelevant...when considering the kinetic energy of two bodies, you go with the LESS massive of the two--the bioship.
Still, I think it might be premature to say that the bioship or the cube
was destroyed by the physical impact alone. The cube was about to
explode when it hit the bioship, so we could be looking at something
similar to a "self-destruct" scenario.

Sean
Analyst http://www.babtech-onthe.net/

Why? Kenetic impacts seem to hurt ST ships. The Odessy, Tears of the Prophets, the Kazon ship in "Caretaker II"

[Mr Bean]

Allow me to respond

Yes, I'm with you. The Imperator Mk. I and Mk. II (and
maybe even III!) carry teraton heavy turbolasers. Light cannons?
I always figured they were similar to the most numerous weapons
on an Acclamator ; i.e., low megaton-range or so. Maybe double-digit MT/shot. I'm sorta sketchy on the medium TL issue...my Jefe, Boss
Brian, discussed this possibility at TL Commentaries (which Lord Wong
has charitably preserved: hail, Wong!, LOL ). But is there anything
other than turbolaser "bolt" lengths to substantiate the idea of MTLs

Two minor Nit-picks, First its Imperal Class(Yes Imperal so they could not think of a more origonal name, sue em)
The Acclamtor carres 200 GT Weapons as stated by ICS and elberatoed by Wong
The point is we know more after AOTC thanks to ICS, The Heavy Weapons of yesterday become the medium weapons of Today
Mediums are the mutli purpose weapon of an ISD, Capable of taking out Fighters with a single hit and manuvrable enough to do it along with being able to Engage low end Cap-Ships quite well

This is pretty reasonable, though we don't really know what it takes to
"kill" a bioship (or even a cube, for that matter). Gigatonnage should
get the job done, though, I agree.

Even if we ignore the Turbo-Lasers we still have the rear-Arc mounted Concussion Missiles that have more KE then the Cube did (Assumption on my part, WAG acutal because we have no numbers on the KE of Concussion Missiles)

Sure--IF you believe the so-called medium turbolaser is a standard
shipboard armament. I myself have never had much faith in the idea...I
think there are small laser cannons meant to nail fighters (like Jango
Fett's 600 GJ/shot blasters), light turbolasers yielding into the megaton
range, and on ISDs and bigger ships, high gigaton to mid-teraton-ranged/shot heavy guns.

Yes I know belive what you want but we have numbers to help
Bacta War for Example a MK II is stated as having "Fifty Heavy Turbo-Lasers, 60 Medium and 60 Light plus 20 Ion Cannons and 10 Tractors

And from estmations on what is needed we can see that Lights are for all intents and purposes about as powerful as the Quads of Solo's Ship the Mediums what used to be Heavys, And the Heavys, BAD ASS

They didn't need fifteen seconds to form up and start shooting
in the episode, though. I also don't know that it's necessary for
the Eights to form up in a "star cluster" to kill an Imperial warship...possible, definitely, but not at all conclusive

Your forgint travel time and the fact they did not pop out of Fludic Space in Formation
Second the mear fact that Voyager survived hits from a 8472 ship when not in Cluster indicates a low 8472 ship vs as ISD has rouglhy 14 hours+ of pounding to do

However they managed to pull it off, 9 small bioships blew a Borg planet into pieces...they didn't do so as violently as the Death Star blew Alderaan
apart, to be sure, but we're looking at 8 ships some 200m in length
and one that extends some parts to maybe 250m in overall length?
In the vein of those who call things "uber," I say, Mein Gott! THAT is
some seriously mean consolidated firepower. It's not the determining
factor in a war, to be sure, but it remains impressive nonetheless. Among
the "Big Three" in sci-fi, I say the Empire and Species 8472 are the true
"big guns." All else pale in comparison.

Suncrusher
Able to Destroy all Life in a System in under an hour,
24 Meters Long oh and the Quantum Armor kinda makes it able to withstand even a Glancing blow of the full power DS beam
Series?
SW

[septesix]

Hum, just before the ramming incident, the Borg shot out tropedos at the Bioship, one of them hit, but there aren't even any visible effect on it.

Could it be that Bioship can take heavy weapon fire, but are less resilient when being smashed by a 27 cubic KM Cubes? just IMO.


Either way, there are other ways for 8472 to continue the war without direct confrontation, such as what they did in "In The Flesh".

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Hum, just before the ramming incident, the Borg shot out tropedos at the Bioship, one of them hit, but there aren't even any visible effect on it.

Could it be that Bioship can take heavy weapon fire, but are less resilient when being smashed by a 27 cubic KM Cubes? just IMO.

As I said, ST doesn't do well against KE.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Hum, just before the ramming incident, the Borg shot out tropedos at the Bioship, one of them hit, but there aren't even any visible effect on it.

Could it be that Bioship can take heavy weapon fire, but are less resilient when being smashed by a 27 cubic KM Cubes? just IMO.


Either way, there are other ways for 8472 to continue the war without direct confrontation, such as what they did in "In The Flesh".

The thing is that there is a very visible interaction between the bioship's shields and the one Borg torpedo or shield drainer that actually hits.

The bioships shown in battle with Borg cubes show how the bioships managed to do in the Borg cubes. The bioships use the networked nature of the cubes against the Borg, shorting out drones and blowing out power lines (as shown in Scorpion when Janeway nearly buys the farm). The bioships also resist the apparently standard Borg tactic of immobilizing a target ship with a tractor beam and then blasting away nonvital parts to preserve as many of the target ship's crewmembers for assimilation. Voyager's first encounter with a bioship confirmed that the bioships are resistant to sensor scans and difficult or impossible to hold with a tractor beam. Those facts together leave the Borg ships to flail away ineffectually with their torpedoes and beam weapons: in only two canon instances were bioships hit by Borg weaponry, one the first bioship found, which was hit by a Borg disruption beam, the other hit by a single Borg torpedo out of at least 3 salvoes of two torpedoes each. The jamming fields of individual 8472 also invalidate the Borg tactic of transporting victims right into the cubes.

Deprived of comprehensive sensor coverage of the targets, Borg weapon accuracy appears extremely poor. That is hardly surprising when one considers that it is not an individual gunnery crew or dedicated fire control computer directing the weapons, but rather the consensus of all the Borg minds on the ship, and possibly all Borg minds on nearby vessels and planets.

[Mr. B]

bioships have shields. I never noticed this.

[Master of Ossus]

This would appear to indicate that S8472 ships match up well against the Borg, but may not in fact be as powerful as was first suspected when we saw them stand up to Borg cubes. Instead, their systems and tactics foil Borg systems and tactics. None of these advantages would be of significant aid against an Imperial ship. Imperial accuracy is fairly good, and their volume of fire is far greater than that of a Borg cube. Also, their firepower is greater than that of a Borg cube. All of this indicates that a SW ship would do better against 8472 than just a taking a Borg cube and enhancing it to the same level as Imperial ships.

[Crown]

Okay first is the disclaimer: I stopped reading after page 5, so if this point has already been made, feel free to flame me!

However, IIRC, S-8472 retreated to fluid space after 6 (or so) ships were lost, and after Janeway promised to give the nano-tech virus to the Borg. Right?

Now if this is correct, and I hate myself for having to reference this, the Empire is well versed with creating nano-tech virus, ala KJA novel where Mon Mothma, was struck down by one, and even after Bacta therapy and Jedi healing, she was never able to recover her health totally.

So what is stopping the Empire from just using the Borg's tactic of introducing their own nano-tech virus and scarrying S-8472 away?

[Master of Ossus]

Okay first is the disclaimer: I stopped reading after page 5, so if this point has already been made, feel free to flame me!

However, IIRC, S-8472 retreated to fluid space after 6 (or so) ships were lost, and after Janeway promised to give the nano-tech virus to the Borg. Right?

Now if this is correct, and I hate myself for having to reference this, the Empire is well versed with creating nano-tech virus, ala KJA novel where Mon Mothma, was struck down by one, and even after Bacta therapy and Jedi healing, she was never able to recover her health totally.

So what is stopping the Empire from just using the Borg's tactic of introducing their own nano-tech virus and scarrying S-8472 away?

That point has NOT been brought up before, and it is relevent. The novelS in question are: the Jedi Academy Trilogy and Darksaber. That was an excellent point, thank you for bringing that to my attention.

[Crown]

Originally posted by Master of Ossus
That point has NOT been brought up before, and it is relevent. The novelS in question are: the Jedi Academy Trilogy and Darksaber. That was an excellent point, thank you for bringing that to my attention.

Un..able..to..form...thought...

Mind..imploding..from...KJA...being..relevant..!

I am now officially a vegetable!

Who would have thought that the *hack* would have come in handy?

[Master of Ossus]

I'm scared, too.

But the point stands. SW knows about nanotechnology, and can use it as well as any Borg.

[Crown]

Bye-Bye S-8472!