nBSG Cylons vs Borg What are Your Thoughts?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

It seems the Cylons best strategy in space is to pop into transporter range, get a bunch of skinjobs with suicide nukes beamed into the Borg craft, then detonate.

Considering that transporter technology is present in the 'Battlestar Galactica' universe-- unless I missed something in Seasons 1 & 2-- I wonder how the nuke-armed Cylons will get aboard the Borg craft. Maybe let the Borg board a basestar, have a nuke-armed Cylon grab onto a drone and not let go, and hope that both the drone and the Cylon will be beamed back aboard the Borg craft?

Er.. Question: I have watched episodes in Season 2 and 3, but don't recall any transporters. Or did I miss something?

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

tow big are the patrols? One or two ships may allow the Cylons a chance to get away from their base in the delta-quadrant before getting destroyed, but any more and The Borg will probably wipe out the Toasters in one pass.

Voyager encountered random Borg ships from the Probe to the Sphere to the Tactical cube while on its trek home. Putting aside the real possibility of complete retardation on the part of the Voyager crew, the encounter with the Tactical cube occured mid way through season 6. The point where Voyager was in Borg space occured in Scorpian which was at the cliff hanger point between Season 3 and 4.

Meaning Voyager had around 1 - 2 seasons worth of time to put distance between them and the Borg. Yet they encountered more than a few Borg ships including the Tactical cube supposed to be an uber cube and even found a Transwarp hub in season 7 even further away than where they found the Tactical cube I hope.

Basically meaning their is the possibility that similar Hubs could be located elsewhere and defended just as heavily as well as the added risk of passing ships anything from a Probe to a Tactical cube.
The Probe is more than likely going to get completely creamed compared to a Cube against the Cylons if it tries to take them all out but the chances of it doing a Rambo arent so great if the Borg know enough to realise it dosent have a chance of success.

We know from TNG that Borg did send scouts like Hugh's ship that didnt go around assimilating everything in sight. Just like the cube that came to rescue him didnt go on a rampage which would suggest the Borg do have some concept of discreation. There is the issue with the Romulan and Federation bases of course. If that WAS the Borg and the cube the E-D encountered in QWho was the Borg sending a proper assimilation ship then that would indicate the Borg will send a ship of appropriate strength to assimilate the target.

The Federation has only managed to defeat the Borg Cube assualts by the barest of margins so there is the possibility the Borg would have sent a much stronger force. If memory serves me didnt the Borg send a fleet to assimilate a race during Voyager, Dark Frontier I believe ?

Regardless, the Borg fleets we saw fighting in Scorpian, not just for defense but also for attack based on the 15 cubes smoking Voyager would serve to show that the Borg can and do realise some concept of sending more than one cube to engage the enemy. At least in the sense of defending themselves against destruction.

Scenario 1 depends entirely on what kind of ship the Cylons get the draw on. If its a probe and they are smart they will hopefully start packing before the cube(s) arrive thus securing a greater chance of survival. Although the chances are still rather slim given the fact they are essentially located in a region where the Borg have a significant free reign.

Scenario 2 depends more on the Borg actually. The Borg have demonstrated a slight ability to be diplomatic if they realise they can gain more through the ruse of cooperation so the Borg may just lay low until they have a power base before picking fights with tough opponents.

The OP seems to indicate that the Cylons are operating in a little patrolled area, givin that the Borg ill take some years to find them. It seems then, that 'finding them' will be done by a probe of some sort, and unfortunately, I don't see the Cylons running from that, but they probably also won't trigger an 'OMG massive threat, send many Cubes' but even then, it looks like the Cylons are out this one.

Nold: I think there was supposed to be a 'Not' in there, and that the Cylons should try to get beamed aboard rather than beaming themselves on board, but either way, the Cylons are unlikely to go a suicide nuking route, Historically, they prefer a more subtle approach (okay, subtle until the finishing blow) and will probably try to infiltrate sleeper agents, either disguised as drones, or designed to survive assimilation with some hidden individualism/loyalty to the Cylons. and use them to gain an eventual advantage rather than an immediate one.

[Lost Soal]

What makes you think that when the Borg Assimilate a skin job they
a) won't realise that that its a cybernetic humanoid very much worthy of further study and assimilation
b) that any programming will survive the assimilation process. Saying they hid within human civilization is a far cry from hiding within the Borg collective after being assimilated and being connected for their every thought and memory to be seen

[Sidewinder]

It seems the Cylons best strategy in space is to pop into transporter range, get a bunch of skinjobs with suicide nukes beamed into the Borg craft, then detonate.

Considering that transporter technology is present in the 'Battlestar Galactica' universe-- unless I missed something in Seasons 1 & 2-- I wonder how the nuke-armed Cylons will get aboard the Borg craft. Maybe let the Borg board a basestar, have a nuke-armed Cylon grab onto a drone and not let go, and hope that both the drone and the Cylon will be beamed back aboard the Borg craft?

Ghetto edit: transporter technology is NOT present in the 'Battlestar Galactica' universe. Sorry for the confusion. (That'll teach me to check my posts more carefully.)

Er.. Question: I have watched episodes in Season 2 and 3, but don't recall any transporters. Or did I miss something? :?

[Thag]

What makes you think that when the Borg Assimilate a skin job they
a) won't realise that that its a cybernetic humanoid very much worthy of further study and assimilation
b) that any programming will survive the assimilation process. Saying they hid within human civilization is a far cry from hiding within the Borg collective after being assimilated and being connected for their every thought and memory to be seen

Although the skinjobs are cyborgs, aren't most of their bodies, including brains, essentially human? The mechanical components would probably be overwritten, but I would think that their personalities and memories would last for a little while at least, like Picard's did. Not enough to compromise the collective without external help, though.

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

I doubt any random skin-job would put up any more of a fight than Picard, but that's not the point because the Cylon's couldn't win the initial encounter anyway. Their best chance is to run away as soon as possible with as much information as they can get, esp. captured/killed drones which can be reverse engineered to create Skinjobs that can survive assimilation with intact hidden programming. Or perhaps skin-jobs that look like Drones (Drone-Jobs as in were) and are capable of interacting with the Collective like a normal drone, until they are triggered.

Also, I doubt that Skin-jobs are that easy to tell from Humans even on te inside. The fleet has internal imaginng equipment and still turned to Baltar to create a Cylon Detector.

[Sam Or I]

What happens when a skin-job drone gets killed? How much info can the cylons get about the borg when they ressurect?

[Sam Or I]

Heck that would be a plan. Let a borg drone beam over and start assimalating, Self destruct the ship. Gain info about the borg.

[Erik von Nein]

Their best chance is to run away as soon as possible with as much information as they can get, esp. captured/killed drones which can be reverse engineered to create Skinjobs that can survive assimilation with intact hidden programming.

Isn't that like assuming the Federation can reverse engineer Star Wars tech? Was there any evidence that Cylons are even good at reverse engineering anything? I mean, they're working from completely different tech bases, here. It seems like (if the Borg were intent on assimilating them) they wouldn't have the time to do anything like that.

Or perhaps skin-jobs that look like Drones (Drone-Jobs as in were) and are capable of interacting with the Collective like a normal drone, until they are triggered.

Didn't it take them some 40 years to get human Cylon cyborgs down and in place? Besides, how would they get these drones on a cube in the first place? And wouldn't they need to be constantly transmitting to the Collective to successfully pass off being a drone? And how much damage could they realistically cause?

[Sam Or I]

Didn't it take them some 40 years to get human Cylon cyborgs down and in place? Besides, how would they get these drones on a cube in the first place? And wouldn't they need to be constantly transmitting to the Collective to successfully pass off being a drone? And how much damage could they realistically cause?

Isn't it Borg mod of operation to send drones to the enemies ship to assimilate them. Especially if they are not firing. Once that happens jump. And you have a drone if the centurians can secure it.

[Erik von Nein]

Isn't it Borg mod of operation to send drones to the enemies ship to assimilate them. Especially if they are not firing. Once that happens jump. And you have a drone if the centurians can secure it.

To do what with? The drone's not just going to meekly rollover and let them take it apart. So, they've got a handful of dead drones. Good for them. That didn't answer my question about reverse engineering, implating drone-look-a-likes or the amount of time it took for Cylons to infiltrate a non-collective (and where credentials are easier to fake) society. Especially when they have a similar (if not identitcal) tech base.

[Sam Or I]

I was just showing how simple it would be to get a Borg drone, which would not be to hard with a Jump drive.

This would only work if the Cylons knew what they were up against. How I would start to gain knowledge to reverse engineer the Borg. As stated above I would get rather new skin-jobs with limited knowledge about Cylon technology. Let them get assimilated and join the collective. Kill them and ressurrect them. (A base ship sent in with loaded with nukes on a timer, and allow it to start get assimilated the crew does not even need to know about the nukes on board.)

The skin jobs wake up in a resurrection tank with similar knowledge of the borg that have been saved from the collective like Picard, or 7. The cylonds would have intimate knowledge of the borg network. Hell if Data can make them "sleep", imagine what a cylon could do.

[Erik von Nein]

The skin jobs wake up in a resurrection tank with similar knowledge of the borg that have been saved from the collective like Picard, or 7. The cylonds would have intimate knowledge of the borg network. Hell if Data can make them "sleep", imagine what a cylon could do.

But Picard and 7 were both part of the Collective for a fair amount of time. Plus Picard was still hooked up to the Collective when he told them about the command and they sent it via his connection. So, there's still the tech base problem.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Heck that would be a plan. Let a borg drone beam over and start assimalating, Self destruct the ship. Gain info about the borg.

It's likely that the assimilated "skin jobs" would be beamed back to the cube.

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

Or perhaps skin-jobs that look like Drones (Drone-Jobs as in were) and are capable of interacting with the Collective like a normal drone, until they are triggered.

Didn't it take them some 40 years to get human Cylon cyborgs down and in place? Besides, how would they get these drones on a cube in the first place? And wouldn't they need to be constantly transmitting to the Collective to successfully pass off being a drone? And how much damage could they realistically cause?[/quote]

The Cylons effectively reverse engineered the Human Body, to such an extent that they can significantly alter base human physiology without revealing the alterations to internal body scans or simple chemical analysis, and did so in quite a short amount of time (see below).

There's evidence that Skin-jobs may have been in place as early as before the end of the first Cylon Wars (Though the relation of 'Final Five' Cylons to other Skin-Jobs is debatable, We'll have to wait for the next installment for that)

Also, it's probable that any drone captured will be recognizably human underneath Borg alterations, making any attempts at reverse-engineering that much easier. If the Cylons capture drones they will be able to at least map the gross anatomical changes from human base-line and figure what needs to be done to create viable sleeper agents.

Another idea for gaining information on the Borg (instead of self-destructing a whole ship that may or may not even have assimilated Cylons on board), would be to allow Cylons to be assimilated that have implanted cortex bombs (or other, more subtle means of death).
Tamper proofing the bomb (or other method) is a cheap way to ensure that even if the Borg could/would normally disable the bomb, they still won't gain a new Drone and the Cylons haven't really lost anything.

[PREDATOR490]

The Borg drones have demonstrated the ability to destroy the corpse in TNG so remains the possibility that any drone captured will do the same rather than allow an enemy to disect their technology.
Capturing a live drone is going to be alot more difficult given the drone will be transmitting its own collective signal about whats going on. Meaning the Borg will be hot on the heels of the ship holding it.

BoBW showed the cube leaving Picard behind but as soon as he began getting compromised the cube did a 180 and was ripping the E-D apart. Hugh stated that the Borg would come for him if he stayed with the Federation and the Queen's statements about Seven and the ability to communicate with Seven / Picard even after they have been disconnected would imply some connection still existed after the technology was removed.

The Queen has demonstrated she will destroy entire cubes worth of drones just to kill a few compromised drones and in that same episode she could tell how many were being infected from her collective link. If thats the level of connection she and the rest of the collective have then realistically she should be able to know if a drone was captured and kill it.

[jegs2]

Skinjobs will take what they learned from their last death and apply it; thus it is similar, if slower, than Borg assimilation-learning techniques. The Skinjobs are also willing to take a nuke personally into an enemy ship and detonate it and themselves as Gina-6 did on the luxury ship (forget the episode name)

Don't Raiders also resurrect? Remember seeing "Scar" in one episode, and Sharon said the ship had died many times, learned painful lessons about combat, and thus hated the Colonials as much as they hated the Cylons.

[Coyote]

Don't Raiders also resurrect? Remember seeing "Scar" in one episode, and Sharon said the ship had died many times, learned painful lessons about combat, and thus hated the Colonials as much as they hated the Cylons.

Hmmm.... angry kamikaze Raiders with nukes. Owtch.

As for beaming over, I'd assume that the Borg would beam over some skinjobs, particularly in the beginning stages of an invasion. The only reason they were assimilating Enterprise in the past was because it was the only other ship around.