Junghalli wrote:Spacebeard wrote:Borg ships do have critical points which can cause a chain reaction when they are hit.
True, but I think you have to know where to aim. Remember that the cube in FC had suffered considerable battle damage. The reactor that Picard targeted was already damaged.
The transphasic torpedoes don't require special knowledge of the Borg like Picard had, and they are still able to cause a cascade of explosions that eventually destroy a Borg ship.
Spacebeard wrote:I was already operating under the assumption that the Star Trek and Star Wars shields and weapons were roughly equalized, including the Borg. Weapons which have equivalent firepower to Federation weapons relative to Borg shields but do not oscillate on and off on some frequency will have a much easier time penetrating Borg shields since they won't "adapt" to them.
As according to your hypothesis the Borg shield technology is entirely based on phase coherence taking away this weakness is part of the levelling out of firepower.
No. The Borg
"adaptation" defense is based entirely on matching frequencies. Without that defense, their shields are as vulnerable to Star Trek weapons as any other ship, hence they will also be vulnerable to Star Wars weapons with equal firepower. Making the adaptation magically work against weapons which don't contain the same weakness goes far beyond "levelling firepower".
Spacebeard wrote:We definitely didn't see "hundreds" of Starfleet ships onscreen. The main site here says "dozens", and if I recall correctly the Enterprise-E was the largest of them.
We know a Borg cube has the firepower of at least thirty to fifty Federation starships (ref. the battle of Wolf 359). An ISD has the firepower of about 14 starships. Just looking at the size comparison of a cube and an ISD you can see that with pound for pound equality a cube has to be equal to at least four or five ISDs.
No, an ISD has the
SIZE of fourteen of the
LARGEST Federation starships. It also has a far greater weapon to size ratio than any Federation ship. Add that up and it is equivalent in firepower to many more than just fourteen
Galaxy-class ships (which I must again note are the Federation's largest warship, and none of them that we know of were at Wolf 359), plus it is far better armored even with firepower levelled.
Spacebeard wrote:With the Borg unable to "adapt" to Imperial weapons, a star destroyer could quickly destroy a cube's tractor beam and cutting beam emplacements as they are fired, as the Enterprise-D did in "Best of Both Worlds"
The OP is that Borg shields work against Imperial weapons.
No, the OP is:
Junghalli wrote:
We nerf Wars firepower (or increase Trek's firepower, whichever you prefer) so that the two sides have pound-for-pound equality. That is to say a Trek ship and a Wars ship of equal size and an equal number of guns will have about the same firepower.
This says nothing about the Borg's "adaptation" technique. No matter what the power level of the weapon or shield is, they can't "adapt" to a weapon which has no frequency to "adapt" to. They're stuck with resisting Star Wars weapons about as well as they resist phasers before adapting to them, or fists, solar flares, debris, or Tommy guns.
Spacebeard wrote:And, of course, debating one-on-one duels isn't very meaningful, since the Empire's speed advantage will allow them to pick and choose their battles, engaging only when they have an advantage in numbers.
Definitely true for the Federation. Maybe less so for the Borg as they have their transwarp conduits (I'm not sure exactly how transwarp compares to hyperdrive but it does allow travel between distant parts of the galaxy in relatively short time, so it has to negate the logistical advantages somewhat).
It won't negate them, but it will offset them somewhat, at least until the transwarp hubs are destroyed. The evidence seems to suggest that Borg transwarp depends upon conduits and hubs, which must be created and can be destroyed, for the best speed gain. Without the hubs, it's better than warp drive but still not as good as hyperdrive. (Or else Voyager could have returned home in a few hours in the episode where they recovered a transwarp coil. If I recall correctly, it lasted them a number of days and they travelled several thousand light years).
Lord Pounder wrote:Also add the structural frailties that Federation ships suffer from and in short they are fucked 6 ways from Sunday
Agree, Federation ships still get dominated by Wars ships because they
just plain suck. But this doesn't come into the equation in a normal vs. because of the enormous power differentials.
The differences in speed and numbers are still present in this scenario, though, and they also mean that the Star Trek galaxy's slapdash ship construction is just icing on the cake.
Lord Pounder wrote:The Borgs tatic of draw up to point blank range, with the shields down, and demand surrender, are hardly ground breaking either.
As much as I love the Borg I have to agree with you. The Borg have the same problem as Shep's Draka in our fanfics. Their entire military doctrine is geared toward going bringing massively inferior opponents to heel. Faced with an equal or superior opponent they run into major problems (as we saw in their war against 8472).
They're also thoroughly adapted to the technology in the Star Trek galaxy, hence their over-reliance on being able to adapt to opponents' weapon and shield frequencies. They run into problems when they meet someone totally outside their experience, such as Species 8472 or the Empire. The hive mind may be quick to adapt to a new phaser frequency, but it seems very unwieldy and slow to adapt to entirely new threats which require a re-evaluation of their tactics rather than a frequency adjustment. Hence why Janeway and crew were able to come up with a weapon to use against Species 8472 before the Borg collective could.
