another Star Trek/Star Wars crossover question..

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Everyone keeps saying that the Borg definitely has the advantage of numbers on their side, but I’ve seen nothing to substantiate this. The Borg has had a difficult time doing jack to the Federation, after all. However, I’m willing to concede that point.

Torpedoes… come on, people, don’t you think that’s being a bit anal? “Proton torpedo” and “Photon torpedo” are NAMES. They could be called “Proton bananas”, it doesn’t matter, they’d still do the same thing.

The Borg shields manage to negate Federation weaponry by matching the “frequency” of phasers and such… turbolasers don’t have a “frequency”, they’re just big hunks of superheated plasma. While Borg shields would undoubtedly provide protection, they wouldn’t be capable of “adapting” by matching the frequency. Likewise, Star Wars shielding doesn’t work on a frequency basis… essentially, they’re energy-generated brick walls… so the only way Borg can get through a Star Destroyer’s shield is to pound on it enough.

As for the Empire, we should assume the Borg is facing the Empire at its peak (why should we pit them against the Empire when it’s at its weakest? There’s no point). The Empire built around 25,000 Imperial Class Star Destroyers… probably similarly large numbers of Victory Star Destroyers, Carrack cruisers, Nebulon-B frigates (the Empire built those… the Rebellion stole them), Dreadnaughts, Lancer frigates, Loronar Strike Cruisers… not to mention a half dozen or so Super Star Destroyers (the Executor, the Lusankya- although that was buried on Coruscant- the Iron Fist, the Intimidator… probably a few others), a good number of Imperial-II Star Destroyers, millions of TIE fighters, TIE interceptors, TIE bombers… also TIE Advanced and TIE Defenders (those rock), gunboats, Skipray blastboats, etc. etc. etc.

It can be argued that a single Star Destroyer can be a match for a Borg cube… however, it can be argued that a single cube can take out a hundred Star Destroyers. I leave that up to everyone else to figure out. My point is, the Borg isn’t the only side to have numbers on its’ side.

As for the Force… Vader or the Emperor aren’t going to go about choking drones left and right, but there’s a helluva lot more the Force can do than constrict an esophagus. Clairvoyance, mind reading (and when you’re only reading one mind, that ain’t too tough), altering the environment, etc. Who knows? Maybe, if Vader or Palpatine had the inclination, they could find a way to disrupt the Borg collective’s consciousness. If we’re going at this at a “good-guy vs. bad-guy” Hollywood basis (where the good guy always wins), I think the Empire would be less-bad than the Borg… chancey things would go in their favor.

Incredible… the same idea that I semi-poo-pooed in the first thread is coming back to aid me… how ironic… hehe…

22

if its not obvious to some people having read my thread, i believe the borg have better chances of winning a war with the empire. here are a couple things should be taken into consideration:

  1. sure the federation may have thwarted the attempts of a borg invasion, but consider that only one cube goes to federation space at a time (the borg are at least fifty thousand light years away from federation space), giving the federation an advantage

  2. there is nothing to indicate that the borg collective is not vast in spacecraft number. just stating that the empire has over 10000 star destroyers (correct me if im wrong about that figure) and a slew of other vehicles does not negate what the borg might have. the star trek series does not show every single type of craft used, similar to the star wars movies that does not show every type of vehicle or even the novels. since star trek voyager has dealt more with the borg issue, they have shown some spherical ships and i believe a diamond-shaped scout ship of some sort, which makes me wonder how many other shapes theyll use before the revert to picasso-like asymmetry to be used in their designs

  3. there was mention of the shields used in star trek & star wars. think of what the borg do best… they adapt. given that they have assimilated well over 4000 warp-capable species, they can come up with a way to effectively go around the empires shields. as they usually say, “we will add your distinctiveness to our own”. say the borg shields are frequency based while the empires shields are “energy walls” or whatever, the borg will assimilate a star destroyer, thus unlocking the “oh-so-magical-and-mysterious” properties that make up the shields used by the empire and use it to improve their own shields. i dont see the shields used by the empire as being infallable (sp?). they are not perfect and neither are the borg, although the borg are attempting to seek perfection.

  4. yeah, the force is something powerful in the empire, but is it really? i mean, the empire is a vast… empire, consisting of hundreds of planets with billions of people, a vast military force with millions of personnel. the empire was not formed simply because darth vader killed off all the jedi, thus making the sith the ruling force-people; there were political forces at work. im sure emperor palpatine went to some banquets where the most influential senators were at and he would bump into one of them and say “oh excuse me, i made you drop your wine glass, here let me get you another” and he would use the force to move a wine glass from a table to a senators hand and say “hey, how would you like to overthrow this republic and start a totalitarian state? you can be a general!” also, palpatine could have walked by some senators at the senate while they were voting on a bill that would give total control to palpatine and while they were casting their votes, he would just wave his hand around and if anyone asked what he was doing, he would just say that he was stretching. in any case, what im getting at is that the force can account for some of the strength of the empire but it is not the determining factor of its economic, political or military forces.

23

as SPOOFE Bo Diddly mentioned above, imperial sields are basically brick walls of energy. there is no way “around” them, only through them, and the only way through a shield is by either pounding it until it dissipates or with an ion cannon. if there were any other way around the shields dont you think the rebels would have found a way to do so by now since they fight the empire on a regular basis? if there were a way around a shield it would have been shown in the movies or in a book.

which brings me to my next point: ion cannons. ion cannons effectively disable anything mechanical. this would be extremely effective against the borg. ok so now youre going to say “once someone fires an ion cannon at a borg the rest will adapt to it…” ion cannons go THROUGH all types of shields, big shields, small shields, short shields, tall shields. the borg would not be able to adapt to an ion cannon because as soon as one is hit, it would go down, not giving it any time to send a signal to the rest of his borg buddies telling them how do adapt.

now you say “eventually the borg will assimilate ion cannon technology and use it on the empire.” i dont disagree with you, but the empire’s forces arent entirely mechanical (stormtroopers, noghri, dewbacks, etc.), whereas the the borg’s forces all have little itty bits of mechanical implants along with biological parts. ion cannons would work on any and all of the borg forces. ion cannons can be made small enough and cheap enough for even a jawa to carry and afford (used on r2d2 in episode 4), so the empire would have no problem issuing them to loyal troops or mounting them on larger vehicles.

i agree, but i am not arguing that the force is the determining factor of the empires strength, im arguing that it gives the empire more tools to be utilized for their own defense. i mean if you have the ability to read someones mind it really allows you to prepare ahead of time to thwart off enemy attacks. i mean think about it, all the empire has to do is catch one borg, and sit it in a dark room with a force-sensitive mind reader and the empire would know the borg’s every move. their collective consciousness would work against them.

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As for the Force… Vader or the Emperor aren’t going to go about choking drones left and right, but there’s a helluva lot more the Force can do than constrict an esophagus. Clairvoyance, mind reading (and when you’re only reading one mind, that ain’t too tough), altering the environment, etc.
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i agree. there is a dark side force power called force destruction. Basically its a ball of energy that is thrown at living things and it sucks the life force out of anything living, has no effect on mechanical things and mechanical things have no effect on it.

24

the borg are not biological – they are cybernetic. extra crispy even said it. the force doesn’t affect anything mechanical.

another thing.

the majority of the empire’s military force is human. that said, the borg have already assimilated human thought. human actions can be controlled. any human that goes up against a borg will lose.

that sums things up right there. since the empire’s force is mainly human, then the empire doesn’t stand a chance since human thought and culture has already been assimilated.

the borg function as one. meaning, what affects one member affects the whole. so if one dies, all the others feel it. but for that split second before death, that one borg would have assimilated the ion cannon technology and pass it on to its fellow members.

25

Exsqueeze me? Baking powder?

vandal sez:

I must have hallucinated the scenes wherein Vader flips a switch with the force and says “All to easy.”

Likewise a cold upside-down Luke whose lightsaber flew into his hand via the force.

Also when Luke lifted R2-D2 into the air on Dagobah and speaking of which Yoda making Lukes X-wing rise out of the bog and fly through the air.

Luke being pummeled by flying objects and flung out of a “window” that was broken by said flying things which were controlled by Vader.

Not only that, but consider this…

“He’s more machine now than man, twisted and evil.”
~Ben “Obi Wan” Kenobi, referring to Darth Vader

At the end of episode VI, did not the Emperor use the force on a very mechanical Vader? Or did I imagine that too?

Have you even seen Star Wars? The empire doesn’t have anything that would fire an ion beam at a single foot soldier. The ion cannon in question are huge, and are used to disable entire ships with a few shots. Smaller models are mounted on gunships for much the same purpose, but used en masse.

I don’t know who would win, and I would have to think about it deeply to come up with a plausible answer and reasons why I decided the way I did.

But when I read things like the above quote, I have to point out how patently false that statement is.
Makes ya wonder about other statements, doesn’t it?

26

Lexicon, I’m talking about mind control here.

Sure, the force can be used to move shit around like light sabers and robots, but it cannot be used to control light sabers and robots.

Yes, I’ve seen Star Wars. No, I don’t remember Palpatine using the force on Vader.

27

vandal…

first of all, when i said “it has no effects on mechanical things and mechanical things have no effect on it” i was talking about that one specific force power called force destruction. and you are incorrect to state that the borg are not biological because if you remember at the end of first contact the enterprise was saved when data broke open this tube that let out a buncha plasma, killing all the biological parts of the borg, killing the borg. my point was that force destruction would have the same effect and that it would go through mechanical things, including shields, to hit living things.

secondly, kasuo argued that most of the battles would occur in space. this gives the empire the decided advantage anyway. at one point in the movie the enterprise flies past the cube, allowing you to compare the size of the two. the cube is maybe 4 times the size of the enterprise, but if you all read the thread about enterprise vs star destroyer it was decided that a star destroyer was many times larger than the enterprise and it would definatly win. the cube had alot of cool weapons, ill give ya that…but it could easily be taken out by one star destroyer and the empire has thousands. id even so so far as to say one superstar destroyer could take out all the cubes. also, the only way the borg could assimilate an imperial ship is by getting aboard it first and as many star trek episodes have established you cant beam aboard a ship if its shields are up. the empire never has to lower shields because they are directional.

thirdly, what are you talking about?

yes the majority of the empire’s forces are human but this doesnt mean they can be controlled by the borg. if that were true there wouldnt have even been a battle in first contact, they would have just said “hey picard, come here” and killed his dumb ass. where are you getting your facts from? i think you need to watch first contact again.

fourthly, the borg are freakin weak! i mean sure they can adapt to weapons fire (and only the borg drones can do this, there was no evidence that ships can) but worf took down like five or six of them in hand to hand, and there are many aliens the empire has at its disposal that can match and beat the strength and skill of worf in hand to hand(ie. wookies, noghri, hell even rancores).

fifthly,

sorry vandal but just the fact that they assimilate ion cannon technology does not disprove what i said before. ion cannons are designed to go through shields, all shields. and like i said before the borg would get their asses kicked in space, they wouldnt have a chance to land troops.

28

vandal sez:

When was the force used for mind control? Other than the “You don’t need to see his identification,” part, has the force ever been used for mind control? Does it even matter? And besides, listen to yourslef…

Oh, I see. The force can move shit around, Vader can throw his lightsaber and control how it flies. He can flip switches, turn his lightsaber on and off, manipulate it like it was in his hand. But he can’t control it. Riiiiiight.

It really doesn’t bloody sound like it sometimes.
Because of shit like this:

Well, if I have to concede a point, this will be it. Palpy didn’t use it directly on Vader, but he was barbecuing Luke with it. When Vader grabbed Palpy to throw him down a big ass pipe, the blue lightning type force stuff seemed to be affecting Vader in a bad way.

Anyway, I figured out who would win: Neither. The Protoss would come on over and kick both their asses.

29

That’s correct, esse. He cannot control it.

30

So, let me get this straight:
he can control it’s flight.
he can control it’s functions such as on off and such.

How is this not controlling it again?

31

He can govern the light saber’s velocity.

He cannot make it retract and protract. Just making it fly is nothing special. It ain’t going to kill any Borg.

32

if vadar he can throw debris at luke using the force why wouldnt he be able to make his lightsabre fly through the air like a helicoper blade or something? the truth is no one has seen vadar in combat with more than one individual. weve never even seen him fighting with anyone other than a jedi. who knows what he can do when hes fighting against someone or multiple someones with far less skill than him, but you have to admit, lighsabre patty-cake is definately not the extent of his ability as a sith. also in episode 1 doesnt kenobi turn on qui-gon’s lightsabre before it reaches his hand? otherwise he wouldnt have been able to land, catch the lightsabre, turn it on, and take a swing at darth maul fast enough. maul would have killed him, i could be wrong this.

as for this mind control crap, the force cannot be used to control anyone’s mind, all it can do is make suggestions, which can be pretty powerful in its own right. since the borg have a collective consciousness wouldnt a suggestion to one make a suggestion to all? vadar could plant a suggestion like “you have already achieved perfection” probably making the borg just go away.

33

if vadar he can throw debris at luke using the force why wouldnt he be able to make his lightsabre fly through the air like a helicoper blade or something? the truth is no one has seen vadar in combat with more than one individual. weve never even seen him fighting with anyone other than a jedi. who knows what he can do when hes fighting against someone or multiple someones with far less skill than him, but you have to admit, lighsabre patty-cake is definately not the extent of his ability as a sith. also in episode 1 doesnt kenobi turn on qui-gon’s lightsabre before it reaches his hand? otherwise he wouldnt have been able to land, catch the lightsabre, turn it on, and take a swing at darth maul fast enough. maul would have killed him, i could be wrong this.

as for this mind control crap, the force cannot be used to control anyone’s mind, all it can do is make suggestions, which can be pretty powerful in its own right. since the borg have a collective consciousness wouldnt a suggestion to one make a suggestion to all? vadar could plant a suggestion like “you have already achieved perfection” probably making the borg just go away.

34

How is this not mind control? The borg have just been manipulated into thinking that they have achieved perfection. Hence, mind control, my black friend.

35

it seems to me that the basis of argument for the Empire winning is the fact that they use the Force. well isnt it just convenient to have an omniscient power that can basically take care of anything from machine/flesh hybrids such as the Borg to plot holes and bad acting :slight_smile:

36

Okay vandal, if you continue to stamp your foot and insist that you are right you will do nothing but propagate the idea that you are a fool. Do you have any basis for this statement?

Dude, are you high? I’ll try to break it down for you:

1)The force can be used to move objects and flip switches.

2)A lightsaber has a switch the extends the blade, and likewise retracts it.

So, thinking rationally, add 1 and 2. The obvious result is

3)The force can manipulate mechanical devices via operation of swithces that are intrinsic to said mechanical devices.

If you can follow this simple path of deductive reasoning, you will see that the force can in fact “control” mechanical devices.
If you are referring to “mind control” then you are right; the force cannot mind control mechanical devices simply because there is no mind to control.

But if you are still insisting that the force, in the fictional context of the “Lucas universe” can’t control mechanical devices at all, then you are a moron in need of a bitch slap.

Can we agree on this point at least? I’m beginning to tire of trying to point out something that seems quite obvious.

What I think we have here is a breakdown in communication.
I think what you are maintaining is that the force can’t “possess” mechanical sentient entities such as droids, and thusly, the borg.

I am simply stating what I have stated above, which is different, in that the devices I am referring to are not sentient beings, rather mechanical devices.

While I beg to differ about the first point, I can see what you are getting at, I think. We need to move beyond this minor point, as I am obviously right and you are not seeing that.

If we can get past this, we can start to ponder whether or not the famed “Jedi Mind Trick” of “You don’t need to see his ID, these are not the droids you’re looking for,” fame will work on the borg, which should be the crux of our debate. Being that this tool would be a invaluable in the struggle against the borg, it is relevant and something that warrants debate.

So, assuming that we concede that a) non-sentient mechanical devices such as switches and knobs and handles and such can be manipulated, we can infer that mechanical parts of borgs could be manipulated in a purely physical manner.

Now, if we also concede that b)the borg are cyborgs (hence the name) and by definition a cyborg is a cybernetic organism and by further definition cybernetics means “the science of communication and control theory that is concerned especially with the comparative study of automatic control systems (as the nervous system and brain and mechanical-electrical communicationsystems)” then we can safely infer that the JMT (jedi mind trick) would indeed be able to affect the borg and all it’s individual manifestations.

Following this path of reasoning, it seems clear that there is a very distinct possibility that the JMT would be an invaluable tool in aiding the Empire in it’s quest to defeat the borg.

Of course, that’s just my opinion, backed up by coherent thought and research though it may be, but I could be wrong.

37

kasuo, everyone is just arguing about the force right now, just another tangent we went off on like the whole usa vs france thing. the empire could kick the borg’s ass, force or not.
vandal, its not mind control because vadar cant just say “kill yourself” and have the borg collective drink poisoned kool-aid…not that anyones done that before or anything… there is a difference between planting a powerful suggestion and controlling someones mind. example: i plant the suggestion in your mind that youre at a greek wedding (when youre really in your kitchen). if you start breaking plates and yelling “OPAH!” thats your own damn fault. i didnt make you do it.

38

This is exactly what I was getting at. I am not as eloquent with words as you are. Please forgive me and my limited English.

39

No need for me to forgive you, my man, I think you do just fine.

But what about all the other things I presented for us to ponder? I am genuinely interested in what you think about them.

Eh? Thoughts? Anyone?

40

Not much to add, except I think it would be interesting to see a Jedi Master try the JMT on a Borg drone: JMT vs. a hive mind one trilion strong. Would the collective strength of the hive mind be any help? Would it cause psychic feedback and take over the Jedi, or at least give him a migrane?

A couple of seperate questions: Vader was also a cyborg. So we know that cybernetics do not affect one’s access to the Force (At least the Dark Side). So, if the Borg assimulate a Jedi, does the new Jedi/drone still have Force powers? Does the Collective get new insight into mastery of the Force?