Who would win: Borg Cube or Death Star?
Who would win: Borg Cube or Death Star?
Not OC
You know it's all the same people in all three groups, right? (/s)
29I don't know what the /s is there for. In my experience, if you like Star Wars, you also like Star Trek. Just a matter of degrees of preference. With few exceptions, like the "God hates Jedi" guy, the rivalry is made up.
Stargate people are cool, too.
7It's just there because I find I need it on Lemmy, way too many people think I'm being sincere when I'm just goofin'.
4Maybe I'm showing my age, but I remember a time when star trek vs star wars was a pretty heated debate and some people legitimately hate the other for not being the right "Star-" franchise.
We all know the correct answer (outside of -gate) is [Battle]Star Galactica.
1
And here comes Carter with the
folding chairexploding sun!27
13If not Mackay can always blow up t̶h̶̶r̶̶e̶̶e̶̶ ̶̶q̶̶u̶̶a̶̶r̶̶t̶̶e̶̶r̶̶s̶̶ ̶ three fifths of the solar system.
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So here's how I imagine the scenario going down. Let's say the Death Star and a Borg Cube meet in high orbit over Abydos. Both vessels are alone and unaided by their respective nations, carrying their full typical complement of personnel, weapons, ammunition, technology etc. Both are informed "There is a large enemy ship approaching" and given no other details.
THE BORG CUBE
A Borg cube dwarfs a Galaxy-class starship, perhaps a couple kilometers to a side. Borg Cubes are equipped with fairly typical Star Trek phaser arrays that punch about at their weight class, a single Borg cube is more massive than and more than a match for a Federation battle fleet. The Cube contains many thousands of drones that are individually capable of assimilating non-Borg people, which is typically their main goal. Borg cubes tend not to be equipped with weapons of mass destruction, nor do they carry anything resembling fighters or interceptors. Borg cubes are equipped with Trans-warp drive and are able to travel many thousands of times faster than the speed of light. They are also equipped with transporter technology which is entirely unfamiliar in the Star Wars universe. Deflector shields in the Star Trek universe seem to be more capable of outright stopping damage, though they can be overwhelmed, causing them to fail. The Borg are able to quickly measure the nature of any attacking weapon and adapt their shields to be impervious to that weapon after a few attacks.
THE DEATH STAR
A space station of truly astronomical size, the Death Star is mistakable for a dwarf planet or moon, though it is much less massive being mostly hollow. The Death Star is staffed by squadrons of TIE fighters and an army of storm troopers equipped with blaster rifles. The Death Star's surface is studded with point defense lasers, and much of the upper hemisphere is occupied by the crater-like dish of the main turbolaser, which is capable of blasting an Earth-like planet to boulder-sized chunks in a matter of seconds. The Death Star is a weapon of mass destruction/ultimate terror. Personal teleportation is unknown in the Star Wars universe and the Death Star is not designed to defend against them. Deflector shields exist in the Star Wars universe though they seem less important or effective. The Death Star is equipped with hyperdrive allowing it to travel at some speed faster than light; the original Death Star flew from the Alderaan system to the Yavin system under its own power. Both Death Stars are depicted as fairly easily destroyed by weapons carried by fairly small craft, damaging the central power system will cause it to explode with enough force to blast the entire space station to smithereens.
THE BATTLE
The Borg could win this fight by warping in very close with their vastly superior speed and immediately transporting many hundreds of drones aboard to assimilate the confused and unprepared crew, especially if targeting the upper command staff. The storm troopers may have early success fending off the invaders, until their weapons suddenly stop being effective.
They could, but probably wouldn't. The Borg tend to prefer to hang back and taunt their opponents over the radio for a minute "We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. We will add your uniqueness and distinction to our own." etc. Their whole opening monologue is enough time to prepare and fire the Death Star's turbolaser, which would effortlessly obliterate the Cube and the moon behind it.
The final winning move here would be to jump to hyperdrive as soon as possible to avoid any issues with individual drones that may have survived who might make it to the Death star and start a First Contact "they've assimilated deck ten" scenario, which I honestly don't see the Empire winning without destroying the Death Star. The Empire isn't as good at treknobabble as the Federation, so Grand Moff Tarkin isn't going to confuse the Borg to death with a paradoxical equation or whatever.
If a Sith is present, he will probably hold his own with a light saber until the Borg adapt, and then make his way to a waiting escape ship using Force powers to throw drones out of the way.
POST SCENARIO
Should the Death Star make a clean escape, a follow-up encounter with another Borg cube would likely not go as well. They wouldn't have had a chance to witness the Borg's adaptation ability or indeed learn much about them. They probably destroyed the first cube with a less than full power shot, and trying that again might not work this time. It is my understanding that the turbolaser requires time to recharge between shots, and this may be enough time for the second cube to move in and begin their attack/assimilation. The Death Star is many orders of magnitude slower than a Borg cube and unable to escape.
The Death Star has no hope against two Borg cubes; it may destroy one while the other successfully closes to deploy drones.
A Borg cube is much smaller than the Death Star, and seeing the Death Star survived a collision with a super star destroyer, I imagine a direct collision with a Borg Cube would only admit entry by surviving drones.
A Goa'uld pyramid ship is by far outclassed by both vessels. SG-1 would take down the Borg cube with three men, one woman, four P90s and a kilogram of naquadria, though Daniel Jackson would die at least twice. There'd be a really uncomfortable body horror scene where a goa'uld symbiote and Borg nanotechnology fight for control of a Jaffa.
19Would Stormtrooper helmets and their (near worthless) armor at all prevent or counter the Borg assimilation tech by the drones?
Would a pissed off and ambitious Sith like Vader see the Borg tech and instead of fleeing attempt to board the cube and take control through force manipulation or just endless light saber rampage?
I think the mass teleportation strategies from the Borg could also create a near bloodless or at least low body count victory if they quickly and decisively took control of the bridge, then had the remaining crews report to their barracks for some "equipment"upgrades. In a sense, the Empire have created a drone-like society and Sith overlords love that shit.
4I doubt stormtrooper armor would significantly slow assimilation; it actually exposes the side of the neck if the trooper tilts his head to the side. Plus, doesn't a guy in First Contact get assimilated through a space suit?
I doubt a Sith would attempt something like that. I'm imagining a fight to get off the Death Star during which the drones adapt to lightsabers, and then he resorts to Force shoving them out of the way. An attempt to board the Borg cube would be met with phaser fire enough to take out any small craft the Death Star is depicted as carrying.
Would the Borg be able to adapt to force lightning?
2
Though there is the question about whether the Borg can adapt their shields to most Star Wars weaponry. The death star main laser is the only weapon similar to Star Trek phasers, everything else is more of a plasma weapon. There isn't any precedent that would say how plasma weapons and Borg shields would interact. It's possible the Borg wouldn't even need to adapt to them and their shields would trivially stop them but it's also possible they couldn't adapt.
And even the main laser weapon is questionable. On the one hand, its frequency is constant as I understand it, as it needs to resonate with khyber crystals, but on the other hand, its amplitude is orders of magnitude higher than any weapon I can remember from Star Trek. A shield would need to do something with that energy or maybe match it to cancel it out. That said, I still think you're right that the Empire wouldn't be able to follow up with many more destructions of Borg cubes, just not because of the shields but because of how trivial it would be for the cube to avoid being hit.
Also, I'm not sure trans warp is faster than Star Wars ftl travel. In Star Wars they seem to very trivially travel to wherever they want in the galaxy. Time to travel is never a big plot point. In ep 2, Anakin and Padme are closer to Obi Wan than Corrusant, but the Jedi arrive with clone troopers (which would have required a detour) just a few hours after they do. Also, trans warp requires conduits, so it would also depend on where they end up meeting.
3Star Wars tends to use the word "blaster" for anything from handheld pistols to light point-mounted machine guns, and "laser" for basically anything larger, from the main guns of an X-wing to the main gun of the Death Star. So I'm approaching Star Wars lasers as intense beams of photons. Other weaponry exists in the Star Wars universe but I don't believe the Death Star have any, such as the "ion cannon" that stun locks a star destroyer in Empire Strikes Back.
I haven't the vaguest idea what "phasers" actually are. The Star Trek universe also contains lasers, at least once Worf says "They're firing lasers at us, sir" to indicate an opponent is pathetically outclassed by the Enterprise D, also "disruptors" seem to be a competing technology. So I think the Borg would be able to adapt to Star Wars energy weapons, they've likely been exposed to multiple types of energy weapons.
I imagine the Death Star's TIE fighters would be completely ineffective against the cube; Star Trek phasers seem to have a much longer effective range than most Star Wars lasers and blasters, so they'd be shot out of the sky before even beginning to engage.
I'm basing the estimates of speed on language alone; they often refer to ships in Star Wars as jumping "to light speed" which, yes, on a galactic scale is hilariously slow. I don't think we ever see a hyperdrive journey in real time; but for example during the trip from Tattooine to Alderaan(s debris field), Han and chewie are hanging out in the passenger compartment with Luke and Obi Wan passing the time. There may have been hours or days trimmed from this trip. And the Millennium Falcon is established as the very fastest ship in-universe, the Death Star is capable of hyperdrive but not particularly fast. Borg Cubes in their universe are capable of easily outrunning even the fastest Federation ships.
The Death Star's planet killer laser: It is shown in Return of the Jedi firing an underpowered shot to destroy one of the rebel capital ships, so at least the second Death Star is capable of accurately tracking and hitting starship-sized targets. It's established to the point of cliche that if hit with enough power, Star Trek shields can be overwhelmed to the point of failure. So that raises these questions: Can the Borg adapt to a reduced power shot calibrated to destroy the cube's mass? Would their shields, even if adapted, withstand a full power planet popper shot? Would the crew of the Death Star decide to use full power on such a small target before the Cube closed to transporter range? Would they have time to fire a low power shot, see it not work, recharge the laser and fire a full power shot?
The Borg have basically no hope of significantly damaging the Death Star; it's so huge that it's capable of just tanking a collision with a super star destroyer, their play here is boarding and assimilating.
Also, I want to change my earlier answer: Daniel Jackson doesn't die twice, he gets assimilated. Then the Borg Queen tries to do some weird psychological power play with O'Neil by showing him Drone Daniel, but Teal'c shoots the Borg queen with a Zat gun, which they haven't used at all the entire mission so the Borg aren't adapted to it yet. O'Neil pulls a tube out of the stunned Queen's head, she screams and dies, Carter configures the Naquadria to detonate their main core or whatever on an Alienware laptop the Air Force issued her for some reason, Drone Daniel is hunched over because of the death of the queen, they take him to the Tok'ra, Tollan or Asguard to get him fixed depending on what season it is. Episode ends in the SGC conference room with General Hammond saying "Who knows how many of them are still out there?"
2
The only thing is, in a 1 on 1 scenario, the dearth star could shoot the cube and it wouldn't have time to analyse or send back data to be analysed for the next Borg cube to become immune to the Death Star shot. If there are 2 cubes, we can also assume there can be 2 death stars, and coordinated shots would achieve the same result. But if the Borg cubes are more than the death stars, or if the shots have a bit of a delay between each Death Star, the data could be analysed and transmitted back for other Borg. If a sith was involved, he could use the force and I don't think the Borg can find a way to become immune to the force. And then the sith can destroy any number of cubes or drones or mother borgs or whatever. A sith might not do that though, which might be their downfall, as they might want to control the Borg and create a great army instead which could lead to enough possibilities for the Borg to win.
1
Everyone's all like "but the Death Star destroys planets". Yeah, but they'd have to hit the Borg cube - significantly smaller and way more maneuverable. In the end, it comes down to how easy Empire tech is to assimilate. If it comes to a fire fight, we all know storm troopers can't target for shit.
6They only can't hit protagonists.
6The Borg's better play would be a couple of spheres. Too small to be hit by the Death Star's main weapon, and should be able to tank any fighters sent after them. Probably the surface turbo lasers, as well.
The Borg only need to get within transporter range. Once they have a few drones on board and start assimilating at an exponential rate, it's over.
51500 M is big enough to hit with the main weapon. Mon Calamari Cruisers are only 1200 M in length and the DS 2 blows up two of those and a medical frigate which is even smaller, in the battle of Endor
Also while the design team on First Contact made that sphere 1500 M in diameter, they are listed in the tech manuals as being 3000 M in size.
2Yes. How long until the Borg are firing turbo lasers? Then, it's definitely over. Unless the Empire has some kind of resistance to assimilation like those insect things from Voyager that were wrecking the Borg.
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End of Return of the Jedi. They take several rebel ships out that are significantly smaller than a Borg cube. Hitting them isn't an issue, and they can hit the cube outside of transporter range while the Borg are still yammering about adding their technology to the collective.
3
Replicators would take out both, even if Borg Cube and Death Star joined forces.
5Han Solo should still have The Sun Crusher stashed away somewhere. How would they fare against a Starfighter that can blow up stars and their solar systems?
2There is huge difference between early replicators and later, after beating the Asgard, the replicators have infested an entire Galaxy. So blowing up a single sun is far from enough. And the Asgard could guaranteed also have done that. The replicators were only beaten because of the Ancients gate system spanned multiple galaxies, and could transmit the off code simultaneously to them, so the replicators couldn't react to it.
So in short, the sun crusher is peanuts. Even Samanthe Carter blew up a sun.
2
What about the heat buildup of absorbing or even just deflecting the Death Star? That weapon destroys an entire planet. Whatever the Borg Cube uses, it would build up absurd amounts of heat going against the Death Star.
5Tangentially related: I love the concept of a ship or space superweapon that uses excess heat itself as an additional means of attack.
Something a ton of sci-fi ignores is that heat can't dissapate in a vacuum the same way it does planetside. If you have to put it somewhere, and if we assume you've re-captured/reused as much as is reasonable... then you could fire/railgun superheated stuff at the enemy. Literally make your excess heat someone else's problem. Either hardened solid slugs to penetrate with the heat assistance, or materials engineered to "splash" and glom on on impact like ship sized space napalm.
9Their main armament? A heat pump.
4Battletech has flamers, which are basically like if you took one of those WWII flamethrower tanks and powered it with nuclear fusion instead of napalm. The lack of a WarShip-class flamer for space combat seems like an oversight, though...
2You know your stuff. I sorta knew about the heat massing, but I’m only remembering because you mentioned it here. This is me imaginary friend requesting you
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Star Trek is downright magical with heat, anyway. The TNG tech manual does give a glance to the laws of thermodynamics by sprinkling heat sinks here or there, but it's almost comical. Even at 99% efficiency, warp cires are putting out so much power that warp 5 would cook the crew.
We pretty much have to assume they have some way sinking heat into subspace.
6Put Star Trek ships and people into the MechWarrior/Battletech universe, and watch the consoles explode before they get hit.
1
Why would they never be able to do it again? And this sounds like 2 Borg Cubes versus one Death Star as written.
2The Borg learn the frequency of the weapons used against them and alert the rest of the hive to adapt their shields to that frequency. So Mr. Neopets is saying that the Death Star would win the battle as presented, but any inevitable further confrontation would go to the Borg.
16
Honestly, I disagree. The shields may adapt, but you're still talking about a weapon made to destroy a planet being pointed at something that's maybe 4 or 6 times the size of a star destroyer (don't really fell like calculating that precisely, but memory alpha lists the cubea as roughly 3 cubic kilometers while a star destroyer, from memory, is about 1.6 kilometers long and much less for height and width; for comparison, the first death star is listed as 120 kilometers diameter and the second as 160 on wookieepedia)
I think a better head-to-head would be a Borg cube vs a super star destroyer like Executor (8 kilometers length, powerful but not planet cracking weapons)
It's like if the Enterprise were to shoot phasers at a single drone on the ground. I don't care how much those shields adapt, that's simply too much raw power for a shield generated by a humanoid sized suit and set of implants. I don't remember specifics but i vaguely remember at least one instance in Star Trek where they managed to overpower a Borg's shields. They are not perfect, no matter how good the tech is it still runs on energy and it still uses energy to absorb energy.
And for my biases: I love both, but I've always had a preference for Star Trek. My opinions on this aren't based on a preference for Star Wars at all.
2Are you forgetting about The Executor's main super laser? Sheeve had that thing run the entire length of the ship, it's not a planet killer, but it can do the same thing the DS1 did in Rogue One and wipe out a city, or a capital ship, in one shot.
Same on my preferences, it's just that Admiral Thrown designed some ridiculously overpowered weapons. Like The Sun Crusher
2I'm going to assume you meant Grand Admiral Thrawn, but he had nothing to do with the Sun Crusher or the Maw installation it was built at. That was Admiral Daala, and the Maw installation was built by Grand Moff Tarkin.
Thrawn, meanwhile, was not a fan of super weapons. He didn't need them. In practice, they're impractical outside of generating fear, but they can't be everywhere.
Thrawn could probably defeat a Borg cube with a standard Imperial Star Destroyer, though. Although... the Borg lack anything you could consider "art", but they're not particularly creative in their tactics, relying more on their superior technology and adaptability to overcome adversaries, so i don't think he'd find them overly challenging from that perspective
2
Everyone completely forgets that The Sun Crusher exists, and Han Solo stole the thing.
The Borg would be turbo fucked with cyberdongs in that particular matchup.
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