B5 Shadows vs The Borg

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman · Post by **Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman** » 2003-01-02 06:34am

Don't bother to ask why, but let's say that the Shadows invade Trek galaxy with one goal: to annihilate the Borg. Who's gonna ass-rape who??

The Nomad · Post by **The Nomad** » 2003-01-02 07:00am

Well, given that the ST powers have FO status in the B5verse ( thanks to 60 MT photorps and transporters ), I'd say that the Borg could eventually adapt to the Shadow molecular slicer ( multi kt-range according to babtech-onthenet ), and then, the issue would depend on the efficiency of Shadow cloak. The Borg could eventually win, but it depends on their stupidity level.

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2003-01-02 07:56am

I'd say the Borg.
The Shadows haven't really done anything all that impressive. I mean they were beaten more then once by the Younger Races. And the Borg could probably adapt to the shadow death ray (ther purple thing).

Do the Shadows even have a cloaking device? I though that they just phase in and out of hyperspace.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-02 09:27am

Their "cloak" is uncertain. Shadows themselves can go invisible but still be HERE, as witnessed many times on the show when people get pissed off at Morden. For instance, when Sheridan first held Morden, he was able to defeat their cloak by scanning various rarely used frequencies of light and discovered that the shadows were there. However, if this applies to their ships I don't know. It might, since the ships are biologically related to the Shadows.

But even if it does not, Shadow ships can still phase into hyperspace and maintain full sensor abilities in realspace, effectively cloaking them. This would probably be their greatest advantage against the borg, being able to slip in and out of hyperspace without loosing sensor contact.

However, in typical Shadow fashion, they're more likely to go after the boarg by planting subersives, and have a few species/worlds on their side fight for them instead of them actually fighting. If their shields are unable to block phasers they're screwedand if borg can adapt (which is unlikely since shadow beams are non-frequency based) then they're going to have to vary the frequency or start using different weapons.

I give this to the Shadows, but it wont be won for atleast a century.

seanrobertson · Post by **seanrobertson** » 2003-01-02 09:40am

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:Don't bother to ask why, but let's say that the Shadows invade Trek galaxy with one goal: to annihilate the Borg. Who's gonna ass-rape who??

That's a tough one.

On a per unit basis, the Borg smoke the Shadows. It might take
a dozen or more spiders to match a cube.

The Shadows are slower FTL than the Borg, also. It took
the [Vorlons and] Shadows several days to attack a few targets
within a 70 ly radius. Even without the "transwarp hub,"
the Borg are capable of vastly greater velocities. (If this
ever erupts, don't worry. I'll provide plenty of specifics

The importance of this is obvious.

The big hope for the Shadows is that they operate several
missile clouds to attack important Borg planets and unicomplex
hives. Still, those things are far from indestructible. Its missiles
would be lethal to just about any ship it attacked, but all
that's required is roughly one Excalibur-level shot to the CC
to shut the thing down (well, and a collision). This could potentially be done at range if the ECM didn't screw up a cube's targetting sensors.
If that's the case, send lots of small ships (probes, scout cubes) to ram the damn thing; they'd probably be small enough to avoid missile
hits while they accelerated toward the heart of the "cloud." Or send in
one of those neutronic mines.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-02 09:43am

OK, change the scenario. Put a bunch of rabid Trekkie "Cult of Borg" fanboys into a room with a bunch of rabid Fiver "First One Fanatics". Who wins?

seanrobertson · Post by **seanrobertson** » 2003-01-02 09:44am

How could the Shadows plant people inside the Borg
Collective, though? The Queen can tell when one
person on a ship thousands of light years away is
no longer connected to the Hive.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-02 09:45am

seanrobertson wrote:How could the Shadows plant people inside the Borg
Collective, though? The Queen can tell when one person on a ship thousands of light years away is no longer connected to the Hive.

But they can't tell when 50 people are wandering around a Borg cube until they open fire.

white_rabbit · Post by **white_rabbit** » 2003-01-02 09:49am

seanrobertson wrote:How could the Shadows plant people inside the Borg
Collective, though? The Queen can tell when one
person on a ship thousands of light years away is
no longer connected to the Hive.

So all the times people have diconnected, boarded borg ships, planted bombs etc etc..

The Queen meant for it to happen ?

seanrobertson · Post by **seanrobertson** » 2003-01-02 09:55am

Darth Wong wrote:OK, change the scenario. Put a bunch of rabid Trekkie "Cult of Borg" fanboys into a room with a bunch of rabid Fiver "First One Fanatics". Who wins?

Hmm...

I'd be inclined to jump in and help the Borg Cult just because I hate
FO Fannies so much. Result: the First One worshippers are
going to have a bad day

(Obviously, my experience with
the Borg Cult is limited. It's been ages since I've seen any
argument hinging on "adaptation.")

In all likelihood, it'd be a pretty dull "conflict" though. The
Borg people would just stand there, maybe slowly lurch back
and forth pretending to ignore the "nonthreatening species."
At worst they'd repeat the Resistance is Futile speech a few
times.

The First One Fannies would similarly just stand there. Some
might make cryptic comments about the future, like, *Kosh Voice*

"...(funny background noise: car honking, cow bell ringing,
Sinatra hitting a very flat note) Today...we eat at Taco Bell."

The Shadow fannies would pretend to be Mr. Morden, smirking
like they just ate the last Twinkie in the cupboard, and probably
wouldn't say much unless the discussion came to their "associates"
(their moms coming to pick them up after the play-date).

seanrobertson · Post by **seanrobertson** » 2003-01-02 10:13am

white_rabbit wrote: So all the times people have diconnected, boarded borg ships, planted bombs etc etc..

The Queen meant for it to happen ?

Heh, no, definitely not.

I meant if the Shadows ran around sticking Keepers
on stuff or tried to convert drones into Morden-types, the
Collective would "no longer be able to hear their voices,"
which would send up a red flag after awhile.

A platoon marching around a cube or planting bombs
isn't the Shadows' style. I was talking about them
trying to "plant operatives" within the Borg.

seanrobertson · Post by **seanrobertson** » 2003-01-02 10:25am

Darth Wong wrote: But they can't tell when 50 people are wandering around a Borg cube until they open fire.

This reminds me of something really funny that used to be
at Wayne's site. You probably wrote it in fact

It went something like this:

"If you are a drone, you see an alien standing on your ship
with a gun, then you turn your back to him and slowly march
away, you are an IMBECILE."

In "Q Who?" the E-D away team spent some time aboard a
cube walking around. I can't remember exactly how long,
but it was several minutes.

In "Dark Frontier," the flashbacks from which took place
before TNG, we're told you can only walk around on a Borg
ship for 3 or 5 minutes before some kind of alarm is set
off (one or the other; I can't remember). That's why Seven's
daddy came up with a "bio-dampener" to mask his lifesigns.
(Oddly enough, he was still visible. This indicates an overreliance
on the ship's security sensors...the drones could still SEE him!)

Good old Burhead and Blitzo, going in to add things to
the series' "consistency" whereever they saw fit. Bastards.

That's really dumb, anyway, even if we ignore the potential
incontinuities with "Q Who?" and "BOBW." An intruder alert alarm oughta go off immediately! The second some turd steps into your cube, WAHHHH! Off goes the alarm. Don't wait several minutes for him to load something up with bombs before you take him seriously.

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2003-01-02 10:25am

Darth Wong wrote:OK, change the scenario. Put a bunch of rabid Trekkie "Cult of Borg" fanboys into a room with a bunch of rabid Fiver "First One Fanatics". Who wins?

We all do since we don't let those A-hole fanboys out!!!

BenRG · Post by **BenRG** » 2003-01-02 10:31am

Well, the Shadows do occasionally act directly, either in support of their allies/slaves or to further sow confusion amongst the younger races. You have to understand their motives, though: They think that the occasional war is good for evolution, so they try to create interspecies conflict to speed up the development of engineering and the sciences. The Borg, whose intention is the creation of a perfect society and life-form by mixing the best of biology and technology from every species, is a culture that is close to being an antithesis of theirs.

So, as with the Vorlons, you would expect the Shadows to use their direct millitary capability (spider cruisers, dart fighters and those crab-thing scouts, and don't forget the death clouds) to oppose the Borg. We don't know about the minuate of Shadow technology, but it is organic, so it might be vulnerable to nanoprobe action like Species 8472 (who were, after all, Shadow rip-offs).

The Borg are highly inflexible, and they base their defensive technology on frequency-based adaptation. There is no indication of frequency 'windows' in Shadow energy shields (which can resist a powerful particle beam for upwards of 15 seconds). Nor is there any reason to beleive that Shadow weapons have a particular 'frequency'. I think that the Shadows would have a considerable space combat advantage.

At an infantry level, a Borg drone would be able to beat a Shadow's invisibility camoflage by adapting to the right scanning frequencies. However, the assassination of Kosh 1 shows that the Shadows apparently have powerful offensive psychic capabilities. I don't see how the Borg could detect or counter these.

The big unanswered question is how the Death Cloud's energy field-dampening effect would effect Borg technology. If it works, and the Borg cannot adapt to it, then it would be a war-winning technology. As part-machine, the Borg would not be able to fight effectively if their power systems were compromised or dampened.

As I say, it is difficult to be certain. I would suspect that the Shadows would win after a long, destructive war that would lay most of the Beta Quadrant to waste. However, if the Borg were able to assimilate a significant number of Shadows and their bioships, then the war would go to the Collective. Everything depends on the anti-virus (literally) capabilities of Shadow biotechnology.

I'll be generous to those misguided First Ones and assume that a Shadow Bioship could resist assimilation. The war goes to the visitors from the B5 multiverse.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-01-02 10:46am

Actually if I understand correctly; are Shadow ships 'biological'? Or more like nano-tech which similates biology? Wouldn't it then stand to reason that the nano-probes the Borg 'inject' the ships with be overwhelmed by the ships own nano-tech?

In the hand to hand arena; technomages were created by the Shadows, can anyone say spell of destruction?

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-01-02 10:49am

I should also add though; if the Borg's weapons are strong enough (I admit that I don't know much about this) then the question is mute. So does anyone know who's got the more powerfull weapons? If it's the Shadows, then I see a slim chance of putting up a valiant fight, but in the end we do know that shear weight of numbers of inferior weapons (mainly the YR) can take them out. And the Borg (no matter how dumb they are) do certainly have that. Right?

BenRG · Post by **BenRG** » 2003-01-02 10:52am

Crown wrote:Actually if I understand correctly; are Shadow ships 'biological'?

From everything said about them in the series, I'm fairly sure that Shadow spacecraft are true life forms (if of artificial origin).

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-01-02 10:55am

Well the reason that I bring it up is that in the Technomage series Anna kept referring the ships as 'the machine'. And in the actual series Delenn and others kept saying that the Shadows used 'living components to place inside their ships' meaning the poor sould like Anna, so it points to technology imitating life.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-01-02 10:55am

I rate borg weapons in the 200-300 MT range myself.
Yes Shadow ships arre at least in part biological. But they have shown the ability to pull a type of assimilation of their own in the EA ships using shadow tech. I wonder which is better at assimilating, borg nanoprobes, or shadow biomaterial.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-01-02 10:59am

Crown wrote:Well the reason that I bring it up is that in the Technomage series Anna kept referring the ships as 'the machine'. And in the actual series Delenn and others kept saying that the Shadows used 'living components to place inside their ships' meaning the poor sould like Anna, so it points to technology imitating life.

One theory is that it is nanotech, but really it's more fanboy imagining. The same guy who wrote that idea also wrote stuff about the excaliburs main gun being quantum powered and other BS.

Here's the site with the essay: Earthforce R&D

It's also home to stuff my Adam Warlock and Outofstep, someof which puts EA light weapons at 362 MT (adam) and 5 TT GOD lasers (OOS)

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-01-02 10:59am

Actually that is a good point. I wonder, could the Shadows try and assimilate the Borg's vessels? But on the other hand, the Omega destroyers that attacked Ivanova were under the direct control of the captain's in charge, and not the tech.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-01-02 11:04am

Crown wrote:Actually that is a good point. I wonder, could the Shadows try and assimilate the Borg's vessels? But on the other hand, the Omega destroyers that attacked Ivanova were under the direct control of the captain's in charge, and not the tech.

That's because the stuff was only external. The stuff on the Warlocks had to be somewhat purges (JMS short story) but could have asserted control, and in an unfilmed episode (but partly shown when Gideon's Omega was destroyed) there was an EA shadow hybrid in control of itself.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-01-02 11:11am

Ender wrote:One theory is that it is nanotech, but really it's more fanboy imagining. The same guy who wrote that idea also wrote stuff about the excaliburs main gun being quantum powered and other BS.

I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss that as 'fanboy'ism' too quickly. I mean the show was horendously ambiguos about the whole subject. The only 'confirmed' bio-tech was the orbs the Drakh planted on Centauri vessels to 'control' them. And yet, the Shadows had to rely on other sentient beings to control their ships. The question is begged; if the Shadows could use their own 'bio-tech' to act as a ship's CPU, then why go to the bother of ubducting other sentient's to do it?

And I will not consider the response; because they needed telepaths on their ships! For two reasons;

The Shadows themselves are telepathic, and so like the Vorlons must at least be able to slice a telepatic gene in their bio-tech, just as the Vorlons did to the YR.
And they had plenty of time to do this, recall that the Shadows were able to get to the Psi-Corps just as it developed to ensure that the telepaths weren't needed in the war and they wiped out all the Narn telepaths in the last war, so the certainly knew the threats.

In short, everything points to the ships being more of a mocking of life with tech. Well that's what I think anyway. Am I wrong?

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-01-02 11:16am

Considering it is said in B5 wars that it is biological and IIRC JMS said so as well, yes. That is why I dismiss it as fanboyism. That and the ending ot that essay, were the reason that the evidence should be interpreated that way is because it is more "cutting edge" and the shadows would have the most advanced tehc. (Yes, they really say that)

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-01-02 11:18am

Well I was drawing my own conclusions. Oh well, if JMS says biological instead of nano-tech, who am I to contradict? It's just the show and the Technomage novels, if anything were pointing in the opposite direction.

Concession Offered.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

B5 Shadows vs The Borg

Who's gonna win in full-scale war??

B5 Shadows vs The Borg

Re: B5 Shadows vs The Borg

This is a toughie