Tom Paris tiny little brain wouldn’t be able to understand whatever the Q off each other with, so the magic muskets were some device Q provided for the humans to use the Q weapons. They were really neutron bomb slingshots or something.
Based on canonical Trek battles, we’ve seen a single Cube wipe out large portions of Starfleet (“Best of Both Worlds” and again in First Contact). We can therefore conclude, I believe, that a Cube can handle attacks from multiple imperial targets. TIE’s would be a joke, and Star Destroyers would offer little resistance.
So, the Cube could take out several Star Destroyers, scores of TIE’s, and probably a Death Star without a functional superlaser. The superlaser could destroy the Cube (unless Trek shields are that much better than their Star Wars counterparts, which I doubt, or Cubes are constructed such that the laser would blast straight through without fatally damging the structure, which is slightly more likely).
However, what if a small contingent of Borg snuck aboard as the Cube went up, and began assimilating the crew (a la First Contact). I think that we can all agree that a Borg drone beats a Stormtrooper hands down. Their shields will be ready after the first few shots, and Imperial types aren’t as wily as Starfleet in matters of technobabble, so they’re effectively disarmed in the first few seconds of fighting. Further, the Stormtrooper’s uniform would conceal the newly assimilated, adding much confusion to the melee.
If Vader and Palpatine are aboard, that’s a different story. They’d sense the Borg presence much sooner than the normal crew, and could probably fight back much more effectively.
This an area where we have to wonder how the technologies would be compatible. Can a lightsaber slice through a Borg shield? Based on TPM, I’d say probably not, but maybe. Can Force Lightning? That depends on what you think Force Lightning is. Is it actually electricty? Then I’d say that the Borg could adapt to it. It is, in fact, a more mystical construct of the Force itself? Then the Borg are pretty much screwed.
In any case, if the Death Star is boarded, the Jedi will soon be overrun by their former sunordinates, who are now too alien to mind control, and who do not seem afraid to die. Most likely scenario, Vader and the Emperor set the Death Star to “Blow Up Now” and escape in a shuttle.
Snucking is irrelevant.
Snucked?
If Wedge were around, he’d kick the Borg’s ass!
WEDGE RULES!!!
Probably because Vader and the Emperor aren’t omnipotent. I don’t think you’ll find anyone seriously arguing that Q couldn’t simply snap his fingers and make the Death Star turn into a banana.
Besides, the Death Star doesn’t need Vader or the Emperor to win this. They just need a single turbolaser blast.
Uh, no. Considering that you’d need well over a thousand Galaxy-class vessels to equal the firepower of a single Imperial Star Destroyer - based on the most recent numbers given in the Incredible Cross-Sections book - you’d either need a huge number of Cubes, or a smaller Imperial ship.
Though TIE’s would be cannon fodder… but that’s sorta the point. 
No problem. We know from First Contact that the Borg can’t adapt to projectile weapons. Ergo, when (or “if”) the Borg adapt to Stormie blaster rifles - who will NOT be under orders to allow the Borg to escape, mind you - they’ll simply break out their flechette rifles and such, and tear the Borg to pieces.
Come now, we know that Trek - type personal shields can stop bullets - “A Fistful Of Datas”. InFirst Contact Picard was counting on getting rid of the Borg in the holodeck with his tommy gun before they could adapt to it. Notice that he didn’t bother to alert the crew to replicate assault weapons to fight the borg with.
Hey, just imagine an assimilated Death Star! We are Sith! You will be assimilated! Resistance is Futile, may the force be with you!
…come now SPOOFE, ICS is only canon on Spacebattles.com and Stardestroyer.net, the Straightdope is ICS free!!!
Y’know, about this adaptation thing… are you telling me that the Borg have never encountered fast moving solid objects before? Or even fast moving holographic projections of solid objects?
Nope, don’t buy it. Borg adaptation is overrated, period.
Sorry, buckaroo, but I started the big time SDMB “Enterprise vs. Star Destroyer” thread years and years ago, long before I heard of Mike Wong or Spacebattles. I’m sure the Straight Dope, in its interests of fighting ignorance, would LOVE to hear about 200 gigaton turbolaser blasts…
We should also explore the pursuit/evade of this encounter.
Let us assume that Hyperspace velocities and Transwarp Speeds are comparable.
Hyperdrives are wicked fast, but limited in the fact they are locked into one speed and one direction during each jump; to change direction, you must drop out of hyperspace, re-orient yourself, calculate a new course, and make the jump.
In Transwarp, you canspeed up, slow down, and veer in any direction you want.
Also, Gravity Wells…either natural or artificial, tend to pull a vessel out of hyperspace. That is not a problem with warp drive. In ST: The Voyage Home, Kirk & Co. jumped to warp while still in Earth’s atmosphere!
Sure, hence the ‘magic’ bit, but are you really telling me that humans with Q weapons are just as dangerous as Q with Q weapons? Do frogs become lethal adversaries if we give them assault rifles? How come they didn’t just make the crew’s brains run out of their ears, or move faster than they could possibly register and take the guns away? That episode really doesn’t fit with what the Q were established to be earlier, and like I said, I’m happy to ignore it.
Uh Banquet Bear, no-one says ICS is canon anywhere. Lucas says it’s official though, and if you want to announce that round here is “ICS free” you’re gonna have to give a reason. Besides, it’s not like it’s needed to make an ISD comparable or better than a Cube (one of the more over-rated craft around IMOSHO), let alone the DS.
No sir, I don’t buy it. I’d admit for a certain amount of weapons superiority for the Imperials, but we’re not talking peashooter and RPG’s here. Besides, while the Imperials have more structurial armor than Trek craft, their shields are much less important, making them easier targets for the Borg. In any case, if it comes down to comparing the output of different cannon in terrajoules, it’s not fun and it’s barely canonical, at best.
[list=1]
[li]How do the Imperials know to try this?[/li][li]They have large numbers of projectile weapons? Why?[/li][li]They Borg can adapt to bullets. Picard surprised them. It wasn’t in their default sheild settings probably because of energy concerns. That, and no one uses bullets in the 24th century.[/li][li]So what? They kill alot of Borg, who slowly take assimilate the crew, can beam themselves around the station more or less at will, and are utterly unafraid of death.[/li][/list=1]
Nope. Drone takes storm trooper.
More like Homo erectus with a neutron bomb he can throw like a rock.
Death Star vs. One Borg Cube; over in seconds. I’d give a Borg Cube a reasonable chance against a Star Destroyer; the individual batteries don’t dish out enough punishment to destroy the cube in a single volley and then the Borg would adapt themselves to be immune to them. Even with support ships it would only drag the fight out a little longer. The Death Star is another matter; one shot and it’s over.
Death Star vs. a Borg Fleet is a tougher call. It depends on if the Borg’s magictech has unlimitted power. One shot destroys a cube and then the rest adapt to not let that shot work again. Then it comes down to if the Borg’s shields even with their adaption could absorb enough force to reduce an earth sized planet to a cloud of loose rubble and vapor. We’ve never seen anything in the Trek-verse on that powerscale; even the Doomsday machine would just slowly eat a planet. I think it’s reasonable to expect that the adaption wouldn’t work and the Death Star continues to pick off the slow moving cubes one by one. The Borg’s one useful tactic of beaming on board (assuming this isn’t the second Death Star in orbit around Endor) is negated by the fact that the Imperials don’t care if you take out one of their officer, they’ll keep firing.
Yeah, I doubt even the Borg has enough power to keep their shields up when they are directly hit with a weapon designed to vapourize things thousands of times the size of a cube. They’ll probably send out TIEs crashing into the cubes to slow them down until the Death Star can recharge.
I don’t think that there’s any conceivable way that a single vessel of either universe would be able to survive a hit from the superlaser (even with “adapted” shields), so that’s a trump card. To make things more interesting, let’s consider the Death Star without the superlaser.
In that case, I think that the question becomes one of whether Borg transporters will work through Imperial shields. If so, then transporters, in turn, become a trump card. The Borg drones are, of course, more combat-effective than Stormtroopers who can’t hit a man-sized target from thirty feet away down a narrow hallway, but even at that, they don’t need to be better fighters. The Borg can beam directly to any given spot on the DS they desire, and take over that spot without having to go through any of the defenses.
If both superlaser and transporters are unusable, then I’m going to favor the Death Star, in a long, drawn-out slugfest. Based on size alone, I imagine that the Death Star has a good deal more firepower, and is capable of soaking up more damage. But neither would be able to take out the other quickly or easily. On the other hand, the cube should have an advantage against the smaller Star Destroyer, but it’d be a close fight.
If it comes to running, then I suspect that either side could escape the other. The effective speeds of hyperspace and transwarp may or may not be comparable, but the technologies are completely alien. I doubt that an Imperial ship would be able to track a warp target to follow them, or vice-versa.
I don’t know why people keep thinking that the Death Star’s super laser would even hit the Borg. Surely the Borg would understand pretty quickly that they should stay on the other side of the Death Star from it, which renders it moot. They’d adapt to the laser cannons and ion cannons, and start beaming drones over for assimilation.
I also think Darth Vader would brown his cybernetics when he perceived the mind behind the Borg. Mind control works on weak minds; the Borg is, collectively, a terrifically powerful mind. Even the Emperor would be running for his escape shuttle.
Nope. Borg all the way.
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It’s instantanious. We saw the charge period inside the Death Star but to outware appearances it just shoots and things blow up.
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There’s no where to hide from it. The borg ships move slowly in normal space, almost leasurely. The Death Star doesn’t sit still.
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They have to approach it from some direction, they can’t just appear on top of it. The Imperials are not likely to open hailing frequences when ships that large start approaching at high speed.
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We’ve never seen the Borg deal with a shot that powerful. We’ve never seen anyone in the Trek-verse deal with a shot that powerful. We’re not talking powerful enough to blow something up thousands of times larger than the cube as one poster said, we’re talking trillions of times larger (roughly 8 trillion times larger by my math giving the Borg cube a size of a half mile on a side and a roughly earth sized planet with an 8000 mile radius). Their ability to adapt to other tech may be good but just as a turtle is adapted to handling impacts and can survive being struck by a car with it’s hard shell, a six mile across asteroid striking it directly is still going to be overkill.
A Borg fleet doesn’t stand no chance but that big gun is a trump card that’s going to be hard to beat.
Didn’t you just say that? And didn’t I just reply? (you know, the bit you snipped) I’ll add the question of just why the Q make their weaponry easily usable by humans. Very thoughtful of them.)
hansel, isn’t the entire Borg strategy based around adaption rather than pre-emptive action? IOW the first Cube will sit still and get nuked, the second might try to dodge (whether it’ll work or not is another question, Cubes aren’t that manouvrable on the whole). And as has been said many times before, adaption is not a magic spell of protection against x. I’m sure they can increase their resistance to SW weapons, but I see no reason why they get to become utterly immune. We’ve only seen them fighting ships thousands of times smaller than them, and beating up ones supposedly far more primitive than them. Except of course when they get battered and finally destroyed by those primitive, tiny ships.
Chronos, I cannot believe you’re saying the Borg are better soldiers than Stormies. The former stagger around like the living dead, the latter actually have guns and tactics. Both are equally ineffectual against main characters 90% of the time, so that’s hardly an argument.