SMART Borg Cubes vs. an ISD

[Mr Bean]

The Tanative IV is supposed to have MTLs

Not Captial class weaponry though I don't think those are 200 gigaton guns, probably alot less, High Teens at best


Anyway BTW to the previous fokes of the thread

"THRAW IS A BRILLANT TATICAL COMMMANDER NOT A SCIENTIST" He can't give the Borg ANY Technology Just like A Modern day Nuclear Physist can't give 1200th Century France a Nuclear Warhead!
Why? They lack both the basic matieral of uranium(IE Hypermatter) The nessary metelurgical processes(IE Armoring, Shielding ect) and also in ST case, unless your going to give them 200 years, they also lack the time as not only do they have to MINE the Hypermater along with find it, they also have to refine and shape the engine core for it to go in, in the mean time somehow keeping the Hypermater stable, this from a guy who as about as much knowledge about Hyperdrive engines as the Avarage American does on how thier Car works

[FettKyle]

None of those asteroids were moving at anything resembling .1C and yet they caused the ISD captains great distress. From my non-mathmatical point of view, I find it hard to believe that asteroids moving at .01C at best could injure an ISD so, but an object hitting at .6C can just be dismissed off hand? Something there just does not add up...

The only time there was Actual damage shown was when the asteroid hit that Bridge but at that moment they had there Shields down to communacate they probaly had them down the entire time so they could keep communacation as they were trying to find Han.

[FettKyle]

Mr Bean Wrote:

MINE the Hypermater along with find it

Where has anyone said you have to mine Hypermatter as far as I know it is matter that is thrown into Hyperspace in a Reactor and then Annihilated at least the said that on AOTC guide thingmajiger I'll get the name some time.

[Master of Ossus]

One TREK does not have any hyperspace capabilites and two ISD can track ahead light hours...they would detect a Borg vessel very quickly.

If you read the first post of this thread, you would see that the Borg do have access to a valuable SW resource - Grand Admiral Thrawn. Whether or not he could secure a means to get the cubes into hyper space is another matter.

Thrawn has no ability to construct a hyperdrive from Borg technology. Seven of Nine, though she understood how transwarp worked, could not construct such a device with the materials on board Voyager. Concession accepted.

Also, while ships can be detected and tracked in hyperspace, there is nothing the ISD can do until they come OUT of hyperspace. If the jump were precise enough that the ships appeared one light second away, the ISD would only be able to get 2-4 salvos off before the surviving cubes started impacting the shields.

2-4 salvos is 2-4 times as many as would be required to destroy a Borg cube. Concession accepted.

Though to keep more in line with SW is SW and ST is ST, perhaps a transwarp conduit (TWC) would be more appropriate - but does a TWC preserve the momentum of the vessels passing through?

Even dumber tactic given they now know EXACTLY where the Borg vessels will appear.

While the borg have been given the advantage of knowing about SW capabilities courtesy of Thrawn, why do you presume that the ISD will automatically be able to detect the transwarp conduit? While I know the computer game shows these to be big jump-gate like constructions, from the TNG episode I recall seeing, it was more like a wormhole in that it was completely invisible - even when activated. It was not until the Enterprise crew modified their sensors that they were able to detect it. Since a TWC is not hyperspace, and is not visible to the naked eye, there is no reason to assume that an ISD will automatically detect its presence.

LMAO! Transwarpm which has been repeatedly demonstrated in Voyager as being visible in real space, is not visible because of one TNG episode that you cannot even name (or, even vaguely make references to)? Moreover, the VOY transwarp conduits were BORG transwarp conduits, indicating that they would be the ones that the Borg would use. Additionally, hyperspace is not visible to the naked eye, either, and you are still ignoring the laughable structure of a Borg cube, which would absorb the vast majority of the impact of the cube with the ISD, transferring exceptionally little impact to the ISD. Add in the mass-lightening effect of ST vessels and the extraordinarily hollow cube, and you get one ship that ramming won't work with.

Am I saying that this trick would work more than once? Unlikely as all it takes is a probe droid with the ISD's logs/sensor data to give the SW Hi-IQ guys the info they need to modify the systems to scan/track both hyperspace AND TWC objects...

Who cares if it can work several times? It still would not do enough damage to harm the ISD.

Master of Ossus did bring up a good point - since the cubes are pretty much hollow, there is only so much energy that will be transfered to the ISD before the cube disintergrates from the force of the collision. Has anyone done calcs along these lines?

Yes and found it to be quite a bit less than 20TT(that's shields not the hull of the ISD)

I'll admit to not being an engineer nor a physicist and so cannot verify these numbers myself. However, the only calculations I have seen assume that the ST vessel in question is using the mass lightening technique. As mentioned in a previous post, the cube will be using classical acceleration techniques to arrive at .6C so their mass should actually be much higher than it normally would be.

What are you talking about? The mass lightening effect would work to make the impact of the Borg far smaller than it would actually be. Moreover, the weak construction of the Borg ship would absorb the vast majority of the impact if it his a comparatively solid, and well reinforced ISD. The hollow sections of the Borg cube would lower the ship's mass, even if the mass-lightening effect did not.

So what kind of impact are we talking about if, say, a 3km/side cube made of iron (yes, I know cubes are hollow - just follow the point) moving at .5C hit the ISD?

The main reason I ask is because of the significant damage the ISD's were taking in the asteroid field in TESB. None of those asteroids were moving at anything resembling .1C and yet they caused the ISD captains great distress. From my non-mathmatical point of view, I find it hard to believe that asteroids moving at .01C at best could injure an ISD so, but an object hitting at .6C can just be dismissed off hand? Something there just does not add up...

Okay, except that the asteroids transferred virtually all of their energy to the ISD and there were literally thousands of impacts, over the period of hours if not days. Further, some of the ships had already been damaged by ion-cannon fire from Hoth, and likely had damaged or disfunctional systems. Against a Borg cube ramming attack (which, BTW, has still never been seen except at laughably slow speeds), an ISD would be in relatively good shape. It would have all of its systems operating at close to full capacity. It would have an enormous advantage over the Borg cube in that the Borg cube would absorb virtually the entirety of the impact, due to its poor and un-reinforced structure. Something that absorbs virtually all of its own impact will simply not do nearly as much damage as it ordinarily would to an ISD. Additionally, the cube is hollow and uses a mass-lightening field to make its mass far less than its mass actually would be if it were a solidly constructed ship with a more Newtonian approach to movement. All of this indicates that an ISD would be able to withstand the impact. Moreover, where is this ".6c" statistic coming from, and why have the Borg not used similar tactics against Species 8472, if it is possible for them to do so?

[Sriad]

.6c was a totally arbitrary number that I picked because it seemed reasonable (but for the rest of the post I'll be using .5c because it's easier to calculate with), and the Borg aren't ramming species 8472 because, frankly, they're kind of dumb. That's why I gave them Thrawn for this thread, so that they would have some reason to invent interesting new tactics...not that ramming is particularly new, but it is terribly effective, as we'll soon see.

If I'm doing my equasions right, a Cube traveling at .5c would have KE of 3.15E26 Joules per kilogram per cubic meter. (That is, it's total energy would be 3.15E26J if its average density were 1 kg/meter^3. So if the density were 2kg/m^3 it would be 6.3E26...)

Yes, that's a lot. In fact, it's so much kinetic energy that it would still be orders of magnitude above what the shields could take even if the cubes density really was 1/1000th that of water and even if only 1% of the cubes energy were transfered to the shield.

As to why the Borg would want to ram the SD... Well, since it would take them -thousands- of cubes to destroy it otherwise, it seems like a pretty good idea to me.

So I guess the real question is if we can somehow make a cube go at .5c...

[Sriad]

Sorry for the double post.

Just read in the "better name for borg cube" thread that their density IS really low. I don't know where Isolder74 got his info, but they weigh 180 grams per cubic meter, which means my estimates were high by a factor of about 6 times.

In any case, lots and lots of KE.

[Daimyo]

One TREK does not have any hyperspace capabilites and two ISD can track ahead light hours...they would detect a Borg vessel very quickly.

If you read the first post of this thread, you would see that the Borg do have access to a valuable SW resource - Grand Admiral Thrawn. Whether or not he could secure a means to get the cubes into hyper space is another matter.

Thrawn has no ability to construct a hyperdrive from Borg technology. Seven of Nine, though she understood how transwarp worked, could not construct such a device with the materials on board Voyager. Concession accepted.

I am quite aware that Thrawn is no engineer not would have the resources to get Hyperdrives onto borg cubes - hence the "Whether or not he could secure a means to get the cubes into hyper space is another matter." The question was asked about the utility of hyperspace as a means to get the cubes into ramming range of an ISD and it was answered. Is it going to happen? - as I said, not likely.

Hmm, though it is a little presumptuous of you to assume that they do not have access to any resources beyond what the borg has. If they have access to Thrawn, he would know where the people and materials from the SW universe could be found to add such capabilities. So if anything, the concession is yours for failing to read the entire thread.

Also, while ships can be detected and tracked in hyperspace, there is nothing the ISD can do until they come OUT of hyperspace. If the jump were precise enough that the ships appeared one light second away, the ISD would only be able to get 2-4 salvos off before the surviving cubes started impacting the shields.

2-4 salvos is 2-4 times as many as would be required to destroy a Borg cube. Concession accepted.

Is Ossus Greek for "I cannot be bothered to read the entire thread?". Yes, we all know that a single shot from even the smallest gun on an ISD can destroy a cube. But we are not taking about a single cube. Again I must refer you to the first post as the question is how many CUBES would be needed to take out an ISD. Not withstanding that Thrawn would choose an angle of attack the would ensure that only 50% of the ISD's guns could be brought to bear, we can assume that the ISD would destroy 2-4 cubes x the number of guns it possesses in the time alloted. So there is only so many cubes it could destroy within that 1 second. So, if the borg were able to launch an attack with more than that number, I guess those remaining ships would get through... Is there an echo? Oh yes, I already said "the ISD would only be able to get 2-4 salvos off before the surviving cubes started impacting the shields. " in the post you replied to! So, nothing conceded beyond your lack of reading comprehension skills.

While the borg have been given the advantage of knowing about SW capabilities courtesy of Thrawn, why do you presume that the ISD will automatically be able to detect the transwarp conduit? While I know the computer game shows these to be big jump-gate like constructions, from the TNG episode I recall seeing, it was more like a wormhole in that it was completely invisible - even when activated. It was not until the Enterprise crew modified their sensors that they were able to detect it. Since a TWC is not hyperspace, and is not visible to the naked eye, there is no reason to assume that an ISD will automatically detect its presence.

LMAO! Transwarpm which has been repeatedly demonstrated in Voyager as being visible in real space, is not visible because of one TNG episode that you cannot even name (or, even vaguely make references to)? Moreover, the VOY transwarp conduits were BORG transwarp conduits, indicating that they would be the ones that the Borg would use.

I will have to take your word for the demonstrated properties of a TWC in Voyager as I never watched that show. As for my inability to name the show in question, my many humble apologies for failing to recall one episode of a show I have not watched in ages that aired some 7-8 years ago. If you want details, as I recall it was a "The Next Generation" episode around season 6 or 7. The Enterprise was pursuing a borg scout ship when it disappeared in front of their eyes. They went through the routine about cloaking, yadda, yadda, yadda... and figured out they used a tachyon - or was it gravition? whatever - pulse to open a spacial anomaly and followed them through. I seem to recall that the borg scout had nabbed Data (hence the pursuit) and that Lore and Hugh the borg were ultimately involved. I would bother looking it up, but since you cannot seem to be bothered actually reading and comprehending my post, much less the flow of this thread, I'll leave that up to someone who cares.

Additionally, hyperspace is not visible to the naked eye, either,...

And now being invisible means that it has the exact same properties as another invisible object? Hmm, last I checked, I do not think my radeon detector would pick up x-rays. Nor can my radiation badge tell me the speed on direction of the wind outside. As I recall, hyperspace works through the alternate dimension theory of FTL travel whereas TWC works more along the lines of wormhole theory. Detecting ships moving through a parallel dimension does not equate to being able to detect ships using a space folding technique.

and you are still ignoring the laughable structure of a Borg cube, which would absorb the vast majority of the impact of the cube with the ISD, transferring exceptionally little impact to the ISD. Add in the mass-lightening effect of ST vessels and the extraordinarily hollow cube, and you get one ship that ramming won't work with.

And you seem to be ignoring this thread. Yes, we know the cube is a hollow structure and that much of the KE would be absorbed by it vs. the ISD. And yes, we know that ST ships use mass lightening when moving at warp so that the faster they go, the less mass they possess. BUT, if you would bother to follow this thread, we have already brought up the point of using classical (i.e. - no mass lightening techniques) acceleration to get the cubes up to .6C for ramming purposes. I am no physicist, but as I recall, under our current model of how space/time works - as a body accellerates to C, the mass of said body increases. But for the sake of easier calculation, let's assume that mass stays constant regardless of velocity. Let's use an object that is also hollow - the tennis ball. I throw the tennis ball at you at a paltry 20mph. You'll feel the hit but it will not amount to anything. Now I hit it with a racket sending it speeding into you at 60mph. The impact will smart, but no real damage. Now I wander over to the ball server machine and crank it up to fire at you at 120+mph. I'm guessing it will hurt and that you're going to have a nasty bruise. Now I wander over to my mass driver powered tennis ball launcher (WTF!?!?) and take aim. Will you be feeling more or less pain than before? Considering a mass driver in atmosphere should be capable of launching projectiles up to ~2000m/s I'm guessing we're talking lethal force here. But wait! We're talking about two elastic bodies here... well guess what, I'm not an engineer an cannot tell you what the characteristics of the impact of my mass driver fired tennis ball against an armored vehicle are. My guess - won't hurt it but it'll ring the crew's bell. No matter what, some % of the KE is transferred to the target. The key is can you deliver enough KE fast enough to do some damage against the target.

I'll admit to not being an engineer nor a physicist and so cannot verify these numbers myself. However, the only calculations I have seen assume that the ST vessel in question is using the mass lightening technique. As mentioned in a previous post, the cube will be using classical acceleration techniques to arrive at .6C so their mass should actually be much higher than it normally would be.

What are you talking about? The mass lightening effect would work to make the impact of the Borg far smaller than it would actually be. Moreover, the weak construction of the Borg ship would absorb the vast majority of the impact if it his a comparatively solid, and well reinforced ISD. The hollow sections of the Borg cube would lower the ship's mass, even if the mass-lightening effect did not.

Sheesh, I'm beginning to feel like I am wandering down the Grand Canyon with all the echoing! One more time - NO MASS LIGHTENING - we're turning it OFF. Just using some big'ole engines to accelerate these cubes until they hit .6C. Since we've turned of the technobabler, the laws of physics as we know them apply - i.e. an object approaching C increases in mass. Yes, the cube is hollow and that means it a) has less mass and b) will absorb a disproportionate amount of any collision. How does that prevent it from increasing in mass as it accelerates to C?

The main reason I ask is because of the significant damage the ISD's were taking in the asteroid field in TESB. None of those asteroids were moving at anything resembling .1C and yet they caused the ISD captains great distress. From my non-mathmatical point of view, I find it hard to believe that asteroids moving at .01C at best could injure an ISD so, but an object hitting at .6C can just be dismissed off hand? Something there just does not add up...

Okay, except that the asteroids transferred virtually all of their energy to the ISD and there were literally thousands of impacts, over the period of hours if not days. Further, some of the ships had already been damaged by ion-cannon fire from Hoth, and likely had damaged or disfunctional systems. Against a Borg cube ramming attack (which, BTW, has still never been seen except at laughably slow speeds), an ISD would be in relatively good shape. It would have all of its systems operating at close to full capacity. It would have an enormous advantage over the Borg cube in that the Borg cube would absorb virtually the entirety of the impact, due to its poor and un-reinforced structure. Something that absorbs virtually all of its own impact will simply not do nearly as much damage as it ordinarily would to an ISD. Additionally, the cube is hollow and uses a mass-lightening field to make its mass far less than its mass actually would be if it were a solidly constructed ship with a more Newtonian approach to movement. All of this indicates that an ISD would be able to withstand the impact. Moreover, where is this ".6c" statistic coming from, and why have the Borg not used similar tactics against Species 8472, if it is possible for them to do so?

Quick physics refresher as I know it: KE (or force) =Mass x Velocity. Additionally, we'll multiply this by the % absorbed by the target. For further sake of clarity, we'll assume that a 40m^3 asteroid (someone mentioned that figure earlier) has the same mass as a 3km^3 borg cube. We'll call that mass 'M' and use meters per second as the unit of measure for velocity:

Asteroid KE = M x 1,000 m/s x 1.0 .... the 1.0 being that 100% of KE is transferred to target
Borg KE = M x 179,875,475 m/s x .001... thats .1% is taken by the ISD in the impact....

Again, math is not my strong suit, but it looks like even if the borg cube absorbs 99.9% of the energy of the collision, they still impart near 180 times more KE than any of those asteroids. So if those asteroids over a period of hours over even days could damage an ISD - damaged or otherwise - then why does a cube striking with that much more force fail to cause a dent? Sure the ISD had fought at Hoth. As I recall, all the rebels had were an Ion cannon (which disrupts systems but causes no structural damage) and fighters (which were all assigned to escort transports). So I grant you the shields may have been down - but their hulls should have been nearly intact upon entering the asteroid field. And yet they sustained damage from these slow moving rocks.

As for ramming attacks not being seen.... again, I refer you to the first post - this is Thrawn running the show (God help him I would not want to be in his shoes) and he is going to do every trick he knows and invent some more. Yes, we've never seen a borg ship ram at anything but slow speeds - but Thrawn is rewriting the book on borg tactics... never cared for that Dummies book anyhow... He is:
1) disabling their mass lightening fields so they do not hobble themselves.
2) using their sub light engines, accelerating them to .6C - why? because that was the number Sriad picked. and
3) finding a way to get them to within 1 light second so they can actually hit the thing. oh and I forgot, this is Thrawn, so he is not just going to throw cubes blindly at it - that's the borg tactic remember? He is going to find a situation where he has as much of an advantage as possible. They seemed to have problems locating a freighter in an asteroid field - perhaps he'll have the borg setup a TWC near or in it. Yes, they would lose alot of cubes coming through, but if that's what they need to do, then that's what Thrawn would do...

Oh and as for why this tactic was not used against species8472...
1) Thrawn was not in charge - they're still using their dummies book...
2) Without the mass lightening field, accelerating to a fraction of C would take hours or possibly days/weeks with their engines - and that would have to be straight line acceleration - no maneuvering. Any maneuvering just means you're have to blow alot of energy redirecting your momentum.

Could you do me a favor next time and READ the thread or at least my post before replying?

[Daimyo]

Ghost Rider - I would reply to you post, but I would just be repeating everything I just told Master of Ossus...

Check out my reply to him before you reply again please - I tire of repeating myself and other posts on this thread...

[Yogi]

In the Voyager episode "Infinite Regress" it shows that the Borg have assimilated Krenim, and their temporal technology.

Load up some of those Green Things they spit out with the "Temporal a-synch" aura (that allows trhem to go through shields), put them on shitloads of spheres, let them fly.

[Daimyo]

None of those asteroids were moving at anything resembling .1C and yet they caused the ISD captains great distress. From my non-mathmatical point of view, I find it hard to believe that asteroids moving at .01C at best could injure an ISD so, but an object hitting at .6C can just be dismissed off hand? Something there just does not add up...

The only time there was Actual damage shown was when the asteroid hit that Bridge but at that moment they had there Shields down to communacate they probaly had them down the entire time so they could keep communacation as they were trying to find Han.

I highly doubt that the shields were down for communication needs. We saw in ANH where the rebel squadron was duking it out with Imperial fighters and gun emplacements with their shields up and they were communicating with each other to coordinate strategy. If shields had to be dropped in order to communicate, how the heck are you going to get a message to someone with their shields up? Wave at them?

I will grant you that their shield generators may have been off-line due to being hit by the Ion cannon on Hoth earlier. Though presuming that all the ships in the search party had been hit and lost their shield generators is a bit much...

[SirNitram]

For those that embrace the 'All is canon' quote, Thrawn is QUITE the engineer. The story that makes up TIE Fighter The Stele Chronicles includes Thrawn developing the Missileboat. Just dropping that in.

[Sriad]

Quick physics refresher as I know it: KE (or force) =Mass x Velocity. Additionally, we'll multiply this by the % absorbed by the target. For further sake of clarity, we'll assume that a 40m^3 asteroid (someone mentioned that figure earlier) has the same mass as a 3km^3 borg cube. We'll call that mass 'M' and use meters per second as the unit of measure for velocity:

Asteroid KE = M x 1,000 m/s x 1.0 .... the 1.0 being that 100% of KE is transferred to target
Borg KE = M x 179,875,475 m/s x .001... thats .1% is taken by the ISD in the impact....

Again, math is not my strong suit, but it looks like even if the borg cube absorbs 99.9% of the energy of the collision, they still impart near 180 times more KE than any of those asteroids. So if those asteroids over a period of hours over even days could damage an ISD - damaged or otherwise - then why does a cube striking with that much more force fail to cause a dent

Actually, KE=1/2*mass*velocity^2, but that means that the Cube, if/when Thrawn manages to get it to connect, is carrying a much bigger punch than the one you posted for.

Other than that, well said.

[Wicked Pilot]

Actually, KE=1/2*mass*velocity^2, but that means that the Cube, if/when Thrawn manages to get it to connect, is carrying a much bigger punch than the one you posted for.

Actually, this is a clear relativistic situation. Newtonian physics do not apply hear. The equation you should be using is KE=(1-(v^2)/(c^2))^(-1/2)*mc^2-mc^2.

[FettKyle]

I highly doubt that the shields were down for communication needs. We saw in ANH where the rebel squadron was duking it out with Imperial fighters and gun emplacements with their shields up and they were communicating with each other to coordinate strategy. If shields had to be dropped in order to communicate, how the heck are you going to get a message to someone with their shields up? Wave at them?

I will grant you that their shield generators may have been off-line due to being hit by the Ion cannon on Hoth earlier. Though presuming that all the ships in the search party had been hit and lost their shield generators is a bit much...

Look I far as I can tell they were using radio frequency to comunicate My evidence being they were not useing Holograms to talk to each other which is only used in subspace or Hyperwave comunication. there were most likely using hyperwave to comunicate since they wanted to keep the transmissions to them selves and we know it is harder to dycrpt hyperwave code unlike subspace. Also hyperwave require the sheilds to be down.

[Ghost Rider]

All in all so far basically he either rams the cubes into an ISD(and the ISD is going to sit there?!)

or they magically get a Hyperdrive(while he did design the Missle Boat that implies because he had the tools at hand...this situation is basically him with the Borg...not him with Imperial tech...though the Stele Chronicles do show he has the ability to do such)

So it looks Thrawn's entire tactic is to throw them in waves upon waves until the other forces are defeated...yeah Captain Branigan he is

And Daimyo...you've yet to answer...where they get this magical tech if all they have Thrawn(oh wait they get the tech to...ah great leap there)

[Pcm979]

Just to remind the general populace that the question is not how, but how many.
P.S. Offhand, I'd say several hundred.

[Pcm979]

So it looks Thrawn's entire tactic is to throw them in waves upon waves until the other forces are defeated...yeah Captain Branigan he is

So Thrawn himself came up with this plan and posted it on this board? In what way are the plans made up by us folk indicative of what the character would do? You are talking about the man who works out what people are going to do before they decide to do it themselves, you know.

[Daimyo]

Actually, KE=1/2*mass*velocity^2, but that means that the Cube, if/when Thrawn manages to get it to connect, is carrying a much bigger punch than the one you posted for.

Other than that, well said.

What can I say? It's been almost 15 years since I even LOOKED at a physics book. Of course since your formula does appear to be correct , I have only one thing to say: OUCH!!!!!!

Funny how this thread got quiet once numbers started entering the equation - if you'll excuse the pun.

[Daimyo]

Actually, KE=1/2*mass*velocity^2, but that means that the Cube, if/when Thrawn manages to get it to connect, is carrying a much bigger punch than the one you posted for.

Actually, this is a clear relativistic situation. Newtonian physics do not apply hear. The equation you should be using is KE=(1-(v^2)/(c^2))^(-1/2)*mc^2-mc^2.

And now we see why Daimyo is not an engineer or physicist.

That does make me curious as to what the final KE would work out to be though... Anyone with a scientific calculator and too much time on their hands care to work this out? I'm not sure I would know where to begin - or more precisely, while I could come up with the proper values for v, c, and m - I know my math skills are not up to the task of processing this formula properly.

[Robert Walper]

Blah! A single Borg cube could effortlessly deflect a DeathStar blast(probably more than fifty times to boot), and 300+ StarDestroyers would be blown apart with low yield Borg weaponry.








Excuse me while I go hide now...

[Isolder74]

Blah! A single Borg cube could effortlessly deflect a DeathStar blast(probably more than fifty times to boot), and 300+ StarDestroyers would be blown apart with low yield Borg weaponry.








Excuse me while I go hide now...

Found and targeted

COMMENCE PRIMARY IGNITION

Really this has been worn to death I hope you were simply JOKING there

[Robert Walper]

Found and targeted

COMMENCE PRIMARY IGNITION

Really this has been worn to death I hope you were simply JOKING there

I hope that was obvious. While some points I'm still debating (like a Borg cube munching on an ISD), a Borg cube surviving a DeathStar blast is purely innocent fun and not meant to be taken seriously. I hastily grant that any such Borg cube would be heavily damaged...er...I mean destroyed.

[Ender]

I highly doubt that the shields were down for communication needs. We saw in ANH where the rebel squadron was duking it out with Imperial fighters and gun emplacements with their shields up and they were communicating with each other to coordinate strategy. If shields had to be dropped in order to communicate, how the heck are you going to get a message to someone with their shields up? Wave at them?

I will grant you that their shield generators may have been off-line due to being hit by the Ion cannon on Hoth earlier. Though presuming that all the ships in the search party had been hit and lost their shield generators is a bit much...

Your opinion is irrelevent to the facts. They can communicate via radio with shields up. but to use subspace or the holonet, they need to drop shields. They were communicating via the holonet. Ergo, shields were down.

[Ender]

And I would love to see the evidence that they can accelerate to the velocities mentioned in here without AMRE.

[Daimyo]

All in all so far basically he either rams the cubes into an ISD(and the ISD is going to sit there?!)

Since the question was posed as Thrawn running the show, I think he would analyse the situation as such:
1) Can we out shoot him? - if a thousand cubes were to train their weapons on a single focus point on an ISD shields, they might get it to flicker... for a fraction of a second. Too bad they do not have that level of precision/accuracy with their targeting systems.... That and they'd never survive long enough even if they did. Nothing viable here.
2) We'll flank them! - an ISD can run rings around a cube. It has better acceleration, top speed and turning radius. Guess clever maneuvers won't carry the day either.
3) Iron Man Competition - A single cube cannot withstand the firepower of the light guns much less the heavier stuff! I guess slugging it out and hoping armor will carry you is out of the question.
4) Overwhelm - sure the ISD is guarenteed a 1:1 shot-to-kill ratio, but it can only kill so fast. The trick here is three fold:
(4.1) The borg must attack with more ships per second than the ISD can destroy per second.
(4.2) The ISD can only be allowed a few seconds reaction time as they can easily out run/out maneuver the borg.
(4.3) The borg that survive the barrage must deliver enough force to cripple/destroy the ISD in those first few seconds or the battle is lost.

So it looks Thrawn's entire tactic is to throw them in waves upon waves until the other forces are defeated...yeah Captain Branigan he is

Hmmm, so if we can't out shoot, out maneuver or out last the ISD with the feeble equipment the borg have, then I guess overwhelming the ISD is our only option isn't it? Yeah, real dumb ass plan... just like the stupid Viet Cong with their Tet offensive! We Americans showed them! Oh wait, they kicked our ass? We didn't win with our M16's, and .50cal machine guns, and tanks, and gunships, and planes and... I guess that even superior firepower can be overwhelmed.

Since I do not pretend to be the strategist Thrawn is, I can only think of one viable option (though Sriad deserves the credit) and that is accelerating to relativistic speeds and ramming the ISD with more cubes than the ISD can destroy in 1-2 seconds. Speaking of which, how fast can you say "evasive maneuvers"? Did that take 1.5-2 seconds? Hmmm, so now Imperial Captains are either telepathic or prognosticators? They can give orders about an attack that has not happened yet? Orders can be followed before they are given? To refresh your memory: the only way a cube assault of this nature is going to have a chance of success is that they need to appear less than one light second away from the ISD. Sriad had mentioned the hyperdrive earlier and I had mentioned a transwarp conduit. Regardless of the specific mechanism, the ISD cannot be allowed more than 2 seconds reaction time as they could easily evade any borg assault once they fired up their engines.

or they magically get a Hyperdrive(while he did design the Missle Boat that implies because he had the tools at hand...this situation is basically him with the Borg...not him with Imperial tech...though the Stele Chronicles do show he has the ability to do such).....


....And Daimyo...you've yet to answer...where they get this magical tech if all they have Thrawn(oh wait they get the tech to...ah great leap there)

Hmm, as I read it, the scenario was Thrawn is running the borg side of the show and they face off against a single ISD... I do not recall reading in the first post where it specified that the combat occurs in a neutral (neither side has access to home tech) or ST battle ground. If the battle occurs in a SW battleground, I think Thrawn would be able to find the people and materials necessary to conduct such an operation. Is there an echo here? Oh yeah, I said that in my last post too! For crying out loud - Watto had a working hyperdrive in his junkyard! And I think Troopers said it best with "Tatooine is the ass end of space". I believe that this demonstrates the ubiquity of the hyperdrive in SW. They throw out old ships like we throw out old v6 and v8 engines. Sure not all of them will work, but to simply say "it can't be done" is a lack of thought and consideration.