Vorlons/Shadows vs Borg

[Howedar]

So many words, so little substance.

You tried reading through me and Batman's exchanges? Think how much of a headache it gives me having to reply to Batman's nitpicks, claiming that the entire payload of the Ent-D can destroy a Borg cube. I'm putting it off for as long as possible so I can absolutely crush his argument with a picture of White Star bombarding Mars with some screenshots (IIRC decidely kiloton level), argue that three Sharlin warcruisers can destroy a Shadow ship, and thus kiloton level beams can destroy a Shadow ship since Batman wants to use the Pegasus event, why not use the lowest estimate of beam firepower in B5 (if you have any lower estimate, tell me where to look and save me the trouble).

Brian

Excuse me, I was referring exclusively to Typhonis 1's post.

[Eleas]

To be honest, it wouldn't matter if the Borg had a significant size advantage. They have no way of tapping into Hyperspace, and both Vorlons and Shadows have shown that they are capable of using the odd properties of hyperspace in various thoroughly nasty ways. They also, unlike the Borg, have demonstrated the tactical sense to concentrate their forces, ambush opponents, and hide their fleets in Hyperspace.

That means that they, if necessary, would be perfectly capable of waiting in hyperspace until only weak Borg forces were present, whereupon they could pounce at will. The Borg have nothing to counter this unless they find a way to enter Hyperspace, a territory with which they have no experience whatsoever. If they did so, the combination of volative energies and enemy forces who are perfectly at home in this place should quickly tear the Borg apart.

But the Borg have transwarp! I hear someone say. Yes, I'm looking at you.

Granted that it would allow them to respond quicker to an attack than regular Warp, but the Borg have shown poor reaction time in the past, and in such a defensive war with so many planets to defend, the ability to strike without warning is actually more effective than realspace FTL. Finally, the Vorlons and Shadows draw borders on a galactic scale - their FTL speed in Hyperspace isn't shabby at all.

End result, even if Borg ships had a tactical advantage over the Vorlons and Shadows, they have the strategic advantage in any kind of assault war.

[brianeyci]

Shadow ships aren't that tough, but Trek ship hardiness is up in the air as well. And let's face it; Borg weapons aren't that powerful, otherwise they'd be killing ships on the first hit (we see what appears to fit this criterion in STFC, but those ships have been engaged for some time; the E-E easily shrugged off a direct hit at close range with no damage).

Am I going in the right direction with my debate with Batman? We seem to be arguing over trivial points as Howder said, the crux of the matter is escaping me and possibly him.

I know, but claiming that 200, 400 or even 1000 photon torpedoes can down a Borg cube is a stretch for me. If so, why not just put a DS9 around orbit of Earth and be done with it? Like you mention below, cube firepower is Fed range so the space station would last long enough to empty its payload. Using the 0.1 MT torpedoes and 30k TW phasers Borg ships are more resilent than Shadow vessels who have been seriously crippled by 12 MT direct hits.

Also, in ST:FC, the Ent-E moved in close, fired a few shots, and veered off and didn't stay longer than necessary to beam the Defiant's crew on board (how they accomplished this I have no idea). I believe we see the Borg holding beam in action, and a few disruptor shots that last a few seconds. If Borg weapons are in the Fed weapon range, then there's nothing wrong with that. Borg firepower is at least as powerful as Fed firepower.

Brian

[The Silence and I]

Some points I will try to address, noticed while skimming the thread--I didn't finish so go easy if some have been done.

Borg materials science:
The size of Borg cubes was mentioned as a point in favor of Borg materials science; a counter argument was made which boiled down to the statement that as Borg FTL and STL might not have Newtonian related stresses the size of their mst common vessels means nothing.
My counter is that Voyager encounted severe, ship-threateening stresses while following a cube through a transwarp conduit (anyone who has actually *shiver* watched, recall the episode name?). There is evidence Borg cubes are subjected to severe stresses commonly and in some likelyhood posses superior hull strength than the Federation, even with its SIF. Furthur, AFAIK there is no mention of extensive use of SIF in Borg hulls, so crediting such strength to SIF fields is baseless.

Borg Shielding Estimates:
A ~1 GT figure for Borg shielding was reached, with the assumption Federation photon torpedoes are 5 MT each and only a few were fired. This 5 MT figure is considered more reasonable in light of "Pegasus." Instead of using the 40 ship battle I would call attention to First Contact with a 3+ hr running battle with possibly a few hundred Federation vessels, who were still losing I might point out. (Ships were severely damanged/destroyed within seconds of engaging the Borg cube--3 hours later, the casualties must have been appaling, and still there were a fair number of vessels at Earth)
So, making the assumption it takes the cube 1 full minute to destroy a ship (not seconds like we know it can do), and noting there are 180 minutes in 3 hrs, a hopefully reasonable number of 180 or so ships were so damaged as to be useless or outright destroyed. Assuming a total number of 200 ships is not generous IMHO, and for a great many minutes dozens of surviving ships were firing torpedoes and phasers at a target they would not miss. Akiras after 3 hrs are still firing multiple torpedoes, a reasonable estimate for Borg shielding is much greater than 1 GT.
Most ships can average 1 Torp / sec, but I'm assuming some were conservate with ammo and will only assume 1 torp in 5 seconds. 200 ships, losing 1 per 60 seconds, all firing at 1 torp per 5 seconds.... I find 3780 torpedoes fired (I graphed remaining ships as Y and time as X, area was dvided by 5 to find torpedoes fired--I think it works, but it is late and my brain is muddy from break). At 2 MT hitting the cube each, that is simply 7560 MT, or a little over 7.5 GT.
I stress this is with a conservative fleet size based on a conservative destruction speed (remember all the cube need do is damage the engines, purposefully or otherwise, to negate that vessel as the chase was at warp, as disablement/destruction time is reduced from 60 seconds fleet size only goes up.

AFAIK B-5 cannot match this.

I was going to post more, but this is taking too long to write and it is late, 'night.

[Eleas]

Last part was unclear. I meant to say that the Shadows and Vorlons they have the strategic advantage in any kind of assault war.

[Howedar]

There are many incidents in which we might have seen poor Borg materials performance. Among these would be the crashed Borg ship in TNG "I, Borg" and the destruction of Borg cubes by (IIRC) relatively slow-moving chunks of rock in VOY "Scorpion I" (I think). Possibly also in the ENT "Regeneration", and any other time we've seen a Borg ship get blown up. I don't recall exactly what any of these incidents showed, but if pressed I don't think that the Scorpion explosion showed any great physical durability for Cubes. Quite the opposite, if memory serves they got toasted by chunks moving no more than a few hundred m/s. I think.

Wouldn't be too hard to check up on if someone's interested.

[brianeyci]

Silence you will get flamed. Although I agree that it is reasonable that the Feds would have deployed hundreds of ships to engage the Borg cube, this is what you will get flamed for (and not by me, I'm being civil),

1. Batman and others will say no evidence of hundreds of ships engaging the Borg cube.
2. Pegasus actually gives a 0.1 MT torpedo yield, not a 5 MT torpedo yield, the first figure we used was 25 MT, then 5 MT, then after I dug up the Pegasus number, 0.1 MT.
3. Batman will flame you for *assuming* that Fed ships fire torpedoes at 1 per five seconds knowing full well that we have no way of knowing the refire rates of all classes. I suggested one per second, even one per five seconds no doubt gives the Borg cube an advantage over the Shadow ship and will piss off Batman.

Brian

[NecronLord]

The Borg have nothing to counter this unless they find a way to enter Hyperspace, a territory with which they have no experience whatsoever.

To be fair, they did find a way into seme... err fluidic space.

[brianeyci]

End result, even if Borg ships had a tactical advantage over the Vorlons and Shadows, they have the strategic advantage in any kind of assault war.

The Borg is that they concentrated two trillion drones in VOY in their transwarp hub IIRC. The estimate for the entire Fed is two trillion. So, the Borg are very centralized, and possibly are not as vulnerable as you think to hit and run from hyperspace if they deploy their cubes properly.

Meanwhile a fleet of cubes go into the B5 verse and start assimilating the YR. That should get the Vorlons/Shadows attention and force a decisive battle. They're supposed to be guardians after all.

Brian

[Gustav32Vasa]

The Cube "estimates" are in no way similar. We have two sets of data and they are not in agreement. We've seen the Borg in combat against their most deadly foe to date, and we saw not more than a few hundred cubes. We've seen the Borg center of operations, and we saw not more than a few hundred cubes. We've seen Borg border space, and we saw not more than a few dozen cubes. Pray tell, where the fuck did the rest of them go?

I would expect them to be scattered throughout Borg space attempting to stop species 8472. When your invaded you don’t pull back everything you got to one place and letting the enemy free reign over your territory.

And thanks for explaining you POW better, I'll grant you that the info Chakotay got from the link was not complete. However the number of ships is important information to the UFP and its possible IMO that he used that chance to gather important info on the Borg.

[Gustav32Vasa]

This bullshit claim of yours was shredded before, asshole. Chakotay was never linked to the whole Borg collective, and even if he had been, it does not logically follow that he now knows everything that they know, idiot. WHY THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THEY NEEDED 7 OF 9'S EXPERTISE ON THE BORG AFTER THIS POINT IF CHAKOTAY HAD ABSORBED ALL OF HER KNOWLEDGE, YOU WORTHLESS LYING SACK OF SHIT? I made this point earlier, and not only did you not bother answering it, but you keep repeating your earlier claim like a fucking broken record; broken-record debating is not acceptable on this forum, asshole.

See my answer to Howedar.

[Darth Wong]

What the fuck kind of dumbshit answer is that? It's "possible" that he had the information therefore his testimony is sufficient to override all direct observation and logic?

[Gustav32Vasa]

What the fuck kind of dumbshit answer is that? It's "possible" that he had the information therefore his testimony is sufficient to override all direct observation and logic?

If you had a chance of gathering important info on a big enemy, would you do it?

[Eleas]

The Borg have nothing to counter this unless they find a way to enter Hyperspace, a territory with which they have no experience whatsoever.

To be fair, they did find a way into seme... err fluidic space.

Yeah, and what of their track record there? They got their asses kicked in short order, in an environment that hardly seemed as inherently unstable or destructive as Hyperspace.

The Borg is that they concentrated two trillion drones in VOY in their transwarp hub IIRC. The estimate for the entire Fed is two trillion. So, the Borg are very centralized, and possibly are not as vulnerable as you think to hit and run from hyperspace if they deploy their cubes properly.

Two trillion drones? I'll tell you what that says about the number of cubes they used: jack shit.

Meanwhile a fleet of cubes go into the B5 verse and start assimilating the YR. That should get the Vorlons/Shadows attention and force a decisive battle. They're supposed to be guardians after all.

I hardly think the plodding, hesitant attempts at warmaking on part of the Borg can be compared to what the Shadows and Vorlons did after they decided to go all-out. This is a whole different order of magnitude of reaction speed, and does not reflect flatteringly upon the Borg.

If the Shadows and Vorlons, as per the op, were at full war footing and had found the Borg's pathway to their galaxy, I doubt they would allow an enemy fleet to enter unopposed. This might mean that they would have to stand their ground for a decisive engagement, but they would still have their nifty tricks of hyperspace phasing or whatnot, which would be difficult to deal with for the Borg.

Similarly, of course, the Shadows and Vorlons would have a difficult time restricting warp-capable ships from running the blockade, which, if the Borg could use it correctly, would allow them to launch an assimilation spree upon the B5 galaxy.

This is discounting the fact that the Borg have repeatedly demonstrated an utter lack of common sense in the past.

[harbringer]

1) Armour for biolgical animals isn't all that far fetched since a lot of animals (primarily shell fish) use laminate armour, using different materials and the same techniques we develop chobham armour and other such composite armour and the only thing we do know for sure about such things is that the armour in both cases is laminate(M1-A1, Challenger).

(And yes I know a sea cucumber deciding to live in space and exude depleated uranium is stupid but it is an available explanation. Of course the general idea of space faring creatures is fairly stupid...)

I have only seen both series and as I am not a rabid fan of either <shrugs> im not too worried what happens here, but something that occured to me was B5 ships that use hyperspace phasing could simply do it inside a cube probably killing both vessals. And of course the opening of a jump point on top of borg vessals. In the borgs interests though you have manipulation of space time and all sorts of nastieness. Really without DEFINATIVE facts concerning both the elder races and the borg your not going to see a real solution to this. After all what exactly is the output of the white star? on kazahad dum nukes were used before the ship itself became a guided missile.

We know that like species 8472 the shadows and the vorlons use adaptive and self repairing structures there maybe no way for them to be assimilated.

Generally the mimbari war cruiser (black star) destroyed by nukes is used to prove that B5 is inferior but as these elder races are worlds ahead of this level of technology we have no real marker to use. What is known was the shadows did not lose until telepaths distracted them and vorlon tech or its derivative was used. They destroyed everything totally they encountered so that must mean their firepower levels and technology are at LEAST a step if not a magnitude above the YR.

Personally I believe this setup would result in a phyrric victory for either party.

[Robert Walper]

Chakotay has been linked to the Borg, says they have millions of cubes but since we have only seen 15 cubes at the same time they cant have more.

This bullshit claim of yours was shredded before, asshole. Chakotay was never linked to the whole Borg collective,

While true, the group he was connected to had been connected to the whole Collective before. There's no reason to assume they don't have quite a sum of knowledge about the Borg.

and even if he had been, it does not logically follow that he now knows everything that they know, idiot.

I would also point out that having a rough estimate of the overall fleet size of the Collective hardly consitutes knowing "everything" about the Borg.

WHY THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THEY NEEDED 7 OF 9'S EXPERTISE ON THE BORG AFTER THIS POINT IF CHAKOTAY HAD ABSORBED ALL OF HER KNOWLEDGE, YOU WORTHLESS LYING SACK OF SHIT? I made this point earlier, and not only did you not bother answering it, but you keep repeating your earlier claim like a fucking broken record; broken-record debating is not acceptable on this forum, asshole.

I agree with your main point Mike, but I would point out Chakotay's comment about "millions of vessels" (he didn't say cubes) isn't necessarily incorrect. The Borg Collective is a massive organization, with no dedication to non essential constructs like pleasure craft, homes and other useless concepts from their mindset. Yet they do by all appearances control thousands of star systems and planets. That's alot of resources on hand to construct vessels, particularily vessels people have pointed out that are mostly empty space.

[brianeyci]

Generally the mimbari war cruiser (black star) destroyed by nukes is used to prove that B5 is inferior but as these elder races are worlds ahead of this level of technology we have no real marker to use.

Londo used nukes to take out the shadow ships on Centauri on the island of Celini. Also, just because they used nukes it doesn't mean the Shadow ships are that much inferior. We've also seen a 500 megaton (holy shit) nuke used against a Shadow warship that was completely destroyed. So the Londo nukes are at most 500 megatons. Of course, that begs the question why the YR don't use nuclear missiles/mines more often.

Brian

[brianeyci]

I agree with your main point Mike, but I would point out Chakotay's comment about "millions of vessels" (he didn't say cubes) isn't necessarily incorrect.

If we take three quantum torpedoes as the amount needed to destroy a sphere, and let spheres be the majority of "millions", use two million, if quantums are twice as powerful as photons that's around 0.2 MT yield according to Pegasus figures, and 0.6 MT. Now using a Shadow cutter beam at 50k TW, which is 12 MT... spheres would be cut down by the dozens every second before they even had a chance to shoot. Only cubes would have a chance. These figures also tell us that shooting a sphere with three quantums is overkill -- a few seconds of Ent-E's phaser array should have done it. Not so hard to believe that Picard would use overkill, a Type-II and two Type-III's were fired at a rock wall in Insurrection when Sisko opened a hole in a rock wall with a single Type-II on widebeam in DS9. However, the rationale is that the sphere was "powered down" from the time travel, but the sphere can hardly take more than a few MT of firepower.

Brian

[Robert Walper]

I agree with your main point Mike, but I would point out Chakotay's comment about "millions of vessels" (he didn't say cubes) isn't necessarily incorrect.

If we take three quantum torpedoes as the amount needed to destroy a sphere, and let spheres be the majority of "millions", use two million, if quantums are twice as powerful as photons that's around 0.2 MT yield according to Pegasus figures, and 0.6 MT. Now using a Shadow cutter beam at 50k TW, which is 12 MT... spheres would be cut down by the dozens every second before they even had a chance to shoot. Only cubes would have a chance. These figures also tell us that shooting a sphere with three quantums is overkill -- a few seconds of Ent-E's phaser array should have done it. Not so hard to believe that Picard would use overkill, a Type-II and two Type-III's were fired at a rock wall in Insurrection when Sisko opened a hole in a rock wall with a single Type-II on widebeam in DS9. However, the rationale is that the sphere was "powered down" from the time travel, but the sphere can hardly take more than a few MT of firepower.

Brian

I leave the arguement to others. I'm merely pointing out Chakotay's comment can be accurate without appealing to the "millions of cubes" idea.

[18-Till-I-Die]

I think Stofsk made a good point a couple of pages back that is sorta lost in the question of shields and Borg numbers, that is that strategy s going to also play a part in the war.

Even if there are lets say a million Cubes and Spheres, which is sorta up in the air, and even if they have harder shields they still have to be maintained, replaced, supplied. There must be planets, somewhere, which are behind these Cubes and Spheres, ad transwarp networks to supply them right? We can estimate they have some thousands of planets and conduits, so lets look at that for a moment.

We can prety much figure the Borg arent going to figure out hyperspace anytime soon. And they cant detect a ship or fleet in hyper. So why not attack only the transwarp conduits, stage attacks on them and draw Cubes from the front to defend the supply lines. Or hide a planet killer in hyper, stage an attack deep in a system to lure Cubes and Spheres away, then strike the planet and decimate it. Even the Young Races can do this, with less destructive effect but still enough to cause disruption, with mass drivers.

Plus the Shadows like bio-weapons too right? I dont beleive a Borg is immune to everything, they have some biological needs that can be attacked. The Shadows nanotech bio-weapons could be unleashed in secret, by tricking the Borg into assemilating an infected ship then one Cube might spread it to others, hell maybe to the whole Collective if we're lucky. Maybe the whole Collective being infected is a pipe dream, but one mst admit it sounds like a promising idea, yes?

Also, while a plan i wouldnt use unless victory becomes less of a possibility, but suicide attacks might be a good idea. A weak, wounded Crab or Dreadnaught lost and alone...the Cube comes near to assemilate and...a cluster of powerful bombs detonate taking out the Shadow/Vorlon ship and, hopefully, the Cube with it. It need not even be a suicide attack, since there is some evidence the bio-ships are individually intelligent enough to do this without crews or with one or two men abord.

Meanwhile, while doing this, the conventional war is still going on. So the Borg, not known for 'thinking out of the box', would be fighting a conventional war and a guerilla war simultaniously. I think it would eventually wear them down.

Anyway, thats some suggestions from me. An attempt to use some strategy in this war besides sheer attrition. Some have been mentioned before, of course.

[Bellator]

We can prety much figure the Borg arent going to figure out hyperspace anytime soon.

wether or not they can assimilate the Vorlons and Shadows, they'd most certainly be able to assimilate the YR, and the Borg would learn of hyperspace in that way. They'll never master it in the same way as the OR anytime soon, but they will know it exists and they would be able to enter and exit it themselves.

[18-Till-I-Die]

We can prety much figure the Borg arent going to figure out hyperspace anytime soon.

wether or not they can assimilate the Vorlons and Shadows, they'd most certainly be able to assimilate the YR, and the Borg would learn of hyperspace in that way. They'll never master it in the same way as the OR anytime soon, but they will know it exists and they would be able to enter and exit it themselves.

Perhaps but the Vorlons, and most likely the Shadows too, can cloak while in hyperspace by some means. I forget the exact quote, but it was the first Vorlon PK fleet--it was hidden in hyperspace somehow--and the Shadows already do that weird phasing thing. So even if they do figure it out some time, it may do them no good, and thats assuming they have the required tech to even survive in hyper without being lost or destroyed.

Plus i'd figure the YR would impliment a failsafe--if the Borg start to win a boarding action, detonate a bomb and obliterate the hyperdrive, or at least thats what my strategy would be. No hyperdrive, no hyper tech. Maybe it's primitive, but it works well enough. Swap that bomb for a good sized nuke you might even punch a hole in their shields, damage them, and make assemilation impossible. Again, primitive, but it should do the trick in an emergency. Of course thats a last ditch maneuver.

[Darth Wong]

Shadow and Vorlon ships can actually navigate and maneuver and detect things in hyperspace, while YR ships get lost if they can't find a beacon. The Shadows and Vorlons could eliminate hordes of Borg cubes if they foolishly tried to take them on in hyperspace; the Vorlons can even fold the fabric of hyperspace to create a "pocket" for themselves that is immune to detection without their level of technology.

[Darth Servo]

And thanks for explaining you POW better, I'll grant you that the info Chakotay got from the link was not complete. However the number of ships is important information to the UFP and its possible IMO that he used that chance to gather important info on the Borg.

The neocollective Chakotay was linked to forced him to link. They took control of his mind. I doubt they are going to let him wander around at will in their computers.

[Darth Wong]

And thanks for explaining you POW better, I'll grant you that the info Chakotay got from the link was not complete. However the number of ships is important information to the UFP and its possible IMO that he used that chance to gather important info on the Borg.

The neocollective Chakotay was linked to forced him to link. They took control of his mind. I doubt they are going to let him wander around at will in their computers.

To say nothing of the oft-repeated fact that we have seen Borg forces on numerous occasions and their density of forces is nowhere near what the wankers expect it to be. Unless "ships" includes a lot of insignificant shuttles out there somewhere, they don't have millions of ships.