# Classic Borg vs. Original Death Star **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 26, 2018, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783 "2018-06-26T17:37:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/61 "2018-06-28T14:50:03Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > We know from pure observation that Star Wars guns aren’t actually lasers. From other sources, we know they fire plasma. Now, from _ST:First Contact_, it seems the Borg shields can’t adapt to physical weaponry. So the question becomes - does the blaster plasma count as an energy weapon or a physical one? Yes, I’m aware in RW physics that’s a dumb distinction to make, but in treknobabble terms, where does plasma lie? Clearly the cubes are able to stop photon torpedoes (but those are gamma ray bursters, not hot plasma), but the shielded drones appear unable to stop physical attacks. Apparently in the Trek verse, plasma weapons are a slightly more primitive weapon than phasers - in Enterprise, the ships weapons were originally plasma before getting upgraded to early phasers. But they’re still in use even in the later Trek series, so they’re not that obsolete. > [@](#): > > Also, beyond stormtoopers - can the drones assimilate droids? Because there seem to be a few of those around the Death Star… Oh, good question. They couldn’t assimilate Data, but they were very interested in talking him into joining voluntarily. Would they find droids similarly interesting? And now I’m picturing the Borg Queen trying to seduce C3PO. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/62 "2018-06-28T15:36:49Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > On the Jedi Mind Trick: I think that, if the drone is in contact with the Collective at the time, it’d be like trying to Mind Trick the entire Collective, which would be hopeless. But, if the Empire’s forces can block that connection for even a moment, then everything changes: Now it’s just one drone, the epitome of a weak mind, and so the Mind Trick works flawlessly. And then, when the drone re-establishes contact with the Collective, it gets uploaded, like the Federation was planning on doing with the virus they were going to give to Hugh. I don’t see it working this way. I never saw the Jedi mind trick as a permanent subjugation of an individual’s will, just a momentary befuddlement that eventually goes away. Luke could use Bib Fortuna to get into Jabba’s throne room but he didn’t have him permanently in thrall. I think Vader could probably dissuade a particular Borg from taking a particular action (presuming the drone was cut off from the collective), but the idea of that disseminating through the entire Borg consciousness wouldn’t work —as Geordi notes, the Borg have safeguards against anomalous or harmful instructions, and Vader’s commands would get buried in the noise. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/63 "2018-06-28T15:40:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > On the Jedi Mind Trick: I think that, if the drone is in contact with the Collective at the time, it’d be like trying to Mind Trick the entire Collective, which would be hopeless. But, if the Empire’s forces can block that connection for even a moment, then everything changes: Now it’s just one drone, the epitome of a weak mind, and so the Mind Trick works flawlessly. And then, when the drone re-establishes contact with the Collective, it gets uploaded, like the Federation was planning on doing with the virus they were going to give to Hugh. Or with the ‘sleep’ command that they _did_ give, back when, right? ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/64 "2018-06-28T16:05:35Z")
> [@swampspruce](#): > > The horror…the horror… Have the borg ever looked at a society and said “nope, we don’t need to assimilate you” Naboo and the pacleds are likely entirely safe from assimilation. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/65 "2018-06-28T17:13:25Z")
> [@simster](#): > > Have the borg ever looked at a society and said “nope, we don’t need to assimilate you” > > Naboo and the pacleds are likely entirely safe from assimilation. Voyager Borg, yes. Seven of Nine said the Borg determined that the Kazon, primary antagonists for the first few seasons, were not worth assimilating. There were also societies that pretended to be low tech in order to avoid assimilation. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/66 "2018-06-28T17:40:46Z")
I strongly suspect the Borg would not respond to the Death Star the same way they did to the Enterprise-D. I suspect the smaller ship and estimates of their tactical abilities were involved in their decision to just send over a single drone to assimilate data. I don’t think we can count on that as being their strategy with the Death Star, which is basically an artificial planet. My idea is that they’d actually beam into one of the lesser ships, and start from there. If the drone and the ship is destroyed, as I suspect it would be, then I would expect them to beam in and assimilate, and then say everything is fine. Then they get full info, and make a plan of attack from there. Destruction of the Death Star would be easy, given the fatal exhaust port flaw, but they probably want to assimilate the tech. So they probably go for assimilation of the people to get the new tech. And, yes, they can assimilate Droids, since they can assimilate technology. They didn’t assimilate Data because he had a code they needed but couldn’t get that would automatically destroyed the second they tried to forcibly remove it from his brain. The only way I see them “losing” is if the Death Star self-destructs to stop them. Stopping them with a weapon that takes 10 minutes to warm up is just unlikely, and they’ll already know about it. I do not believe the whole “sleep” idea would occur to the Empire, since that took letting some android interface with a drone to find out the available commands. I don’t think a simple Jedi Mind Trick would get the same level of access, and I don’t expect them to use their own droids, as droids are not really all that highly valued, unlike Data. So it’s either a win for the Borg, or a stalemate. As for scenario 1: if transporters don’t work, I suspect the Borg just get out of dodge until they are in full working order, before checking in on a new threat. So there is no fight unless it becomes scenario 2. The Borg attack from a position of strength whenever possible. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/67 "2018-06-29T00:29:55Z")
Really, the only hope for beating the Borg in the Star Wars universe is if they attack the Rebels instead. Then R2-D2 just has to interface with their command structure and order them to self-destruct, since that little fucker can basically do anything. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/68 "2018-06-29T02:04:18Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Voyager Borg, yes. Seven of Nine said the Borg determined that the Kazon, primary antagonists for the first few seasons, were not worth assimilating. There were also societies that pretended to be low tech in order to avoid assimilation. ahh - which is different than the usual threat - > [@](#): > > “We are the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.” and > [@](#): > > We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/69 "2018-07-01T20:12:19Z")
Call 'em laser, phaser, masers, or grasers, photon or proton torpedoes, it’s all about [power](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i29dInj73Bc) Oops, sorry. Wrong power. More like [this kind of power.](https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/the-physics-of-the-death-star-c21ccc58ade9) That’s right: _ **a week’s worth of our sun’s total output delivered in one second flat right into the face of the Borg** _. Which the Trek 'verse can’t even begin to touch. Game, set, match to Empire, [w/o even lighting off the Really Big Gun.](http://www.stardestroyer.net/tlc/Power/) I just got a note from “the back room;” apparently, in the Trek 'verse, you can shrug off in excess of a yottjoule by simply modulating the harmonic frequencies of the deflector shields. As long as, Mr. Riker says, it’s _only_ pathetic, antiquated lasers. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/70 "2018-07-01T20:53:16Z")
> [@simster](#): > > ahh - which is different than the usual threat - > > and That “biological and technical disctinctiveness” was the problem, according to Seven. It was decided that assimilating the Kazon would only detract from the Borg desire for self improvement. In other words, assimilating them would only make the Borg worse. It kinda makes sense. They were a warrior race without any of the redeeming factors of the Klingons. The only tech they had was stolen from their captors–they didn’t invent their own. They were very divided among themselves, essentially being multiple nomadic tribes, just with space ships. A single defector from Voyager was able to infiltrate them and become the effective leader of one of the tribes in a few months at most. (As a woman, she preyed on their sexism, becoming the leader’s trophy wife and then controlling him by easily outsmarting him.) She was, in fact, the only reason the Kazon ever really posed a threat to Voyager itself. Out of universe, I think they were trying to cover a possible plot hole–that the Kazon were so close to Borg territory but were never assimilated–while also throwing in a friendly swipe at the earlier attempts to make them important and big threats. The low tech societies exception made more sense to me. The one species I’m thinking of pretended to be at agrarian, pre-industrial levels of tech. I could see the Borg leaving them alone, waiting for them to develop tech. Of course, these people really had advanced genetic tech and created a child who had a pathogen that could take out an entire Borg ship. Which I guess brings us back to the battle stuff. Bio-weapons were the only things that really worked against the Borg. Does Star Wars have any? ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/71 "2018-07-01T21:02:49Z")
Has everyone forgotten Species 8472? They kicked the Borg’s ass. 😉 Served the Borg right for invading another dimension to assimilate a new Species. Quite a surprise when they were actually superior to the Borg. Species 8472 would easily destroy the Star Wars technology. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/72 "2018-07-02T02:16:35Z")
**ExTank** , I think that we can all agree that a hit from the Death Star’s primary weapon would destroy a Borg cube, adaptation be damned. The trick is in landing that hit: It takes a long time to warm up and is difficult to aim. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/73 "2018-07-02T03:11:59Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > That “biological and technical disctinctiveness” was the problem, according to Seven. It was decided that assimilating the Kazon would only detract from the Borg desire for self improvement. In other words, assimilating them would only make the Borg worse. > > It kinda makes sense. They were a warrior race without any of the redeeming factors of the Klingons. The only tech they had was stolen from their captors–they didn’t invent their own. They were very divided among themselves, essentially being multiple nomadic tribes, just with space ships. A single defector from Voyager was able to infiltrate them and become the effective leader of one of the tribes in a few months at most. (As a woman, she preyed on their sexism, becoming the leader’s trophy wife and then controlling him by easily outsmarting him.) She was, in fact, the only reason the Kazon ever really posed a threat to Voyager itself. > > Out of universe, I think they were trying to cover a possible plot hole–that the Kazon were so close to Borg territory but were never assimilated–while also throwing in a friendly swipe at the earlier attempts to make them important and big threats. > > The low tech societies exception made more sense to me. The one species I’m thinking of pretended to be at agrarian, pre-industrial levels of tech. I could see the Borg leaving them alone, waiting for them to develop tech. Of course, these people really had advanced genetic tech and created a child who had a pathogen that could take out an entire Borg ship. > > Which I guess brings us back to the battle stuff. Bio-weapons were the only things that really worked against the Borg. Does Star Wars have any? But even low tech - pre-industrial has one thing the Borg always need - Drones. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/74 "2018-07-08T02:01:37Z")
The ability to assimilate a civilization is insignificant next to the power of the Force. _heavy breathing_ ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2018, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783/75 "2018-07-08T02:50:46Z")
Ya know - I just watched ‘The Last Jedi’ - the Empire can’t even figure out its fighting an astral projection - it doesn’t have much hope against the Borg. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-borg-vs-original-death-star/816783.md?page=3)