1.
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The Borg: This scene was produced as described, and it showed that Borg cubes are almost entirely hollow, with vast, open interior spaces (a similar scene was shown in STFC).
This indicates that the size of Borg cubes is somewhat exaggerated; while their volume is large, it is mostly empty space. There is no intelligible reason to build their ships this way (it vastly increases their targeting profile for no good reason), and it indicates either staggering stupidity or a psychological warfare motive (making their ships look really big so they can cow their opponents into blind terror).
Some have suggested that the interior cavity may serve some useful function such as carrying captured vessels, but that is a flimsy rationalization at best; there is no visible opening through which a large vessel could be drawn in
, and they could just as easily do their work inside a ship parked next to theirs rather than dragging it inside (particularly since we know they can drag ships along with them at warp speed if necessary).--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Borg Ships are built supidly larger for reasons of fear? Last time I checked the 1600m ISD and 24000m SSD is kind of Big!!! Borg Cubes may be bigger than an ISD, but those SSD are way bigger and would be considered dumb to build. Also, the Borg ship does carry other ships, in the finale episode of ST:VOY the Voyager was pulled into a Borg Sphere, and In ST:FC a small sphere was launched from a Cube, the Door seen clearly in the shot!
2.
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Species 8472: As shown onscreen, the ships all contribute energy toward a centrally located different-looking and presumably special planet-killer ship. This beam strikes the planet, and as described in the screenplay, sets off some kind of chain reaction which moves across the planet.
From a thermodynamic perspective, the long delay before explosion (15 seconds after the start of initial firing and several seconds after cease-fire) indicates a chain reaction, as described in the screenplay. In a direct energy transfer situation, the planet would begin expanding immediately (as Alderaan did), because it is impossible to add energy to something without increasing its energy state (see first law of thermodynamics), and there is no delay (a delay would imply that the missing energy is magically stored somewhere without any physical manifestations).
It would be interesting to know how this weapon would interact with a planetary shield, since any chain reaction would presumably be ineffective.
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Species 8472 are a very powerful race. With ships no bigger than 200m they can destroy Borg vessels (3000m+) in a single shot. True the Borg talk first then fire, but the shields on a Cube is extremly powerful and can adapt to all known weapons. This just shows how powerful an 8472 ships energy weapon really is.
The Death Star can destroy a Planet faster than 8472, but this requires a lot of Energy and the DS is clearly way too big. it only takes 9 8472 vessels to combine energy and fire a shot into a planet. Also, as advaned as a Borg ship is, i am sure an entire Borg planet has a shield grid on it, this might in fact be the reason of its slow destruction rate.
Well, more to come, but what do you SW people think?
