[OmniBack] Can the Borg assimilate a Founder?

[darth_timon]

Simple as that really. Can the Borg assimilate a Founder of the Dominion?

We already know the Borg can't assimilate everything (Species 8472), but is a Founder sufficiently 'evolved' enough to be impervious to Borg assimilation?

[Starglider]

Probably not. Borg assimilation tech couldn't handle data, and for what it's worth we don't ever see any drones with other exotic biologies (breen, horta, anything other than very-close-to-human). But there isn't enough evidence to be conclusive.

[ShadowSonic]

They couldn't assimilate Data? I thought the Queen wanted Data to give in willingly first (like she wanted with Picard) instead of just ripping him to pieces and taking the info they needed, and since he acted like he had given in they didn't assimilate him?

[Bounty]

They couldn't assimilate Data? I thought the Queen wanted Data to give in willingly first (like she wanted with Picard) instead of just ripping him to pieces and taking the info they needed, and since he acted like he had given in they didn't assimilate him?

Data says he can't be assimilated. Granted, he's probably bluffing, but considering the Borg didn't even try, even though they had all the time and equipment they needed, I'd say assimilating him was beyond what the Borg can do.

[ShadowSonic]

I thought they didn't try because the Queen wanted him to give in willingly. And Picard was able to "hear" Data's voice through his residual link to the Collective so he was a part of them, but retianed his individuality somehow.

[Stark]

So either they can't or we don't know. We have evidence they struggle with other nonstandard biologies, and are so staggeringly stupid if it doesn't work they just keep trying instead of altering their nanoprobes. Frankly, I think FC makes it pretty clear they can't assimilate Data. And how can they 'assimilate' him when they can't even interface with his brain?

With relevance to the OP, I seriously doubt they could assimilate a founder without somehow suppressing their ability to change the nature of their biology.

[ShadowSonic]

But if they couldn't assimilate him or even interface with him, how did Picard hear Data through his connection to the Collective?

[Flagg]

I don't know that the Borg could ever really do it without somehow freezing their ability to shapeshift. I mean the founders are able to fool Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Cardassian sensors and scanning technology, including medical equipment. Right down to the blood cells at least. I think if ever at war with the Dominion, the Borg would simply try to completely wipe the founders out.


As for Data, I think the Borg could probably assimilate him easily if they chose to. IIRC we've seen Data interface with Starfleet technology on more than one occasion and we know they Borg can interface with it from First Contact and Voyager. What it comes down to is whether or not Data can block access to his neural net, and if the Borg can get through that firewall without taking his "brain" apart piece by piece.

[Balrog]

I believe, at the very least, the Founder could turn into gas and let the nanoprobes fall out. Though to be frank, the possibility of a pissed-off Founder in combat mode getting jabbed by the vampire tubes is pretty slim to begin with.

[brianeyci]

I think Data is a red herring. I agree that a founder can't be assimilated by the Borg, but not because the Borg can't assimilate Data. You don't have to prove the Borg can't assimilate everything with a counterexample: people have to prove that the Borg can assimilate X.

A better case is 8472, if you absolutely must have proof the Borg can't assimilate everything.

As for Borg versus Dominion, the Dominion bypassed Federation shields to start with, with their phased polaron beams. The Dominion are so massive and powerful it's hard to imagine the Borg haven't taken an interest in them. My best guess is Borg's frequency adaptation wouldn't work on Dominion ships, who use ramming and "phased" weapons. I'm assuming the phased part has some relationship to being able to change frequencies quickly to bypass shields. The Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant is more technologically and economically advanced than all the Alpha Quadrant races put together. Witness how a small expeditionary force nearly defeated the Federation. Their battleships are three times as powerful as a Galaxy class and far more massive (five times? ten times? haven't done a volumetric comparison) and that's some garbage they cobbled together using native Cardassian shipyards.

So saying the founders would get involved in a war between Borg versus Dominion is like saying the Jedi would get involved. No need to bust out the founders at all, unless it's a covert mission. They would just use their conventional forces. And the nature of the Borg makes an infiltration like Martok not very useful.

I think the Borg's ductile hulls and stupid ground tactics would make fighting the Dominion very expensive. The Dominion might have stupid war charge, but the Borg shamble like zombies. Borg are worse than Klingons. The Borg probably can't take over the Dominion without throwing everything they have at them.

EDIT: Also I know you put evolved in quotes, but I don't think it has anything to do with evolution at all, even the X-Men meaning of evolution as mutation.

[Socar15]

Their battleships are three times as powerful as a Galaxy class and far more massive (five times? ten times? haven't done a volumetric comparison)

In the episode "Valiant" (the first episode featuring the battleships), it was stated that they were twice the size of a Galaxy-class starship and three times more powerful. Of course, the ones we later see towards the end of "What You Leave Behind" were much more massive. Of the scaling I've seen, supposedly the first was around 1300 meters long, with the later being closer to 4500 meters.

[brianeyci]

4500 meters is so much beyond the capability of the Federation it's not even funny. It's not just the size -- it's the mass. 4500 meters with the same proportion as a Galaxy is just huge. The Federation already makes up for their weak materials science with structural integrity fields.

And this is just some crap they put together to subjugate some primitive worlds. You can see that the Dominion didn't take the war seriously until it was way too late. If they took it seriously, there'd be more than one founder commanding the expeditionary force, and those reinforcements would've come a lot quicker.

[dragon]

4500 meters is so much beyond the capability of the Federation it's not even funny. It's not just the size -- it's the mass. 4500 meters with the same proportion as a Galaxy is just huge. The Federation already makes up for their weak materials science with structural integrity fields.

And this is just some crap they put together to subjugate some primitive worlds. You can see that the Dominion didn't take the war seriously until it was way too late. If they took it seriously, there'd be more than one founder commanding the expeditionary force, and those reinforcements would've come a lot quicker.

It might not be that its beyond them but they realize that building a ship that size would be more of a hindrance than helpful as they can build large scale objects ie. space stations, space docks, arrays and what not. But with out good structural material science then they would just be more vunlarble.

As to the 4500m dominion ships if I remeber right there have been many discussions about those due to graphic errors or something.

[brianeyci]

The problem is, size does matter. If you take a look at the latest Federation ships, they're sleek like hubcaps, thin and elongated (Enterprise-J). A Galaxy is probably as massive a ship that they can make. You can say they can make larger more massive ships all you want but they don't.

At the very least the Dominion battleship is 1500 meters, even if you dismiss the 4500 meter one as graphics errors or some kind of stationary platform over Cardassia Prime (since we ony saw the gargantuan one there.) More than two times the size doesn't just mean two times. Cross sectional area increases by squared and volume by cubed, so the Dominion clearly outclass the Federation.

If it was a home Dominion fleet, fighting on their terms in their space, I wouldn't bet on Federation.

[Flagg]

Considering how quickly the Borg can adapt, and the fact that every conquered world and captured ship makes them more powerful and increases their ranks, I think the Borg would beat the Dominion. It wouldn't be a walk, but transwarp alone gives them a big tactical advantage. The only issues I can see that would really complicate things are the Jem Hadar and Vorta being able to kill themselves rather quickly due to their "self destruct" implants. But there are plenty of other races within the Dominion for the Borg to assimilate.

[brianeyci]

Transwarp is a strategic advantage. Plus the cube travels at slower speeds most of the time, to fight and assimilate on the way.

The Dominion relies on weapons platforms on the home front, shielded huge weapons platforms strong enough to resist a whole Federation fleet. I don't think the Borg advantage is as great as you put it at all. Assimilation and adaptation is overrated, and the nature of Dominion weapons is such that they might not be affected by the Borg's specialized defenses on frequencies. Without their special adaptation defense, the Borg have nothing. It's not like the Borg one-shotted shit in ST:FC.

[Flagg]

The problem is, size does matter. If you take a look at the latest Federation ships, they're sleek like hubcaps, thin and elongated (Enterprise-J). A Galaxy is probably as massive a ship that they can make. You can say they can make larger more massive ships all you want but they don't.

What reason would the Federation have for doing so? Until the Borg attacks and the Dominion war they seemed to have been living in a pretty peaceful time. I mean they had families onboard their ships. I'm sure if they so chose, they could build a massive warship, but why would they have done so prior to those conflicts? Hell, even their heavy hitter, the Galaxy class was aimed more at exploration than anything else.


And the Enterprise J was massive and built about 200 years after the Dominion war.

At the very least the Dominion battleship is 1500 meters, even if you dismiss the 4500 meter one as graphics errors or some kind of stationary platform over Cardassia Prime (since we ony saw the gargantuan one there.) More than two times the size doesn't just mean two times. Cross sectional area increases by squared and volume by cubed, so the Dominion clearly outclass the Federation.

If it was a home Dominion fleet, fighting on their terms in their space, I wouldn't bet on Federation.

Anyone who would is an idiot. I don't think anyone is arguing that the Federation could take on the full force of the Dominion. The Dominion was clearly more advanced than the Federation both in production and weaponry. But by the time the Dominion and Cardassian forces captured DS9, Starfleet shields could block Jem Hadar weapons and transporters. Even then without the Romulans entering the war, the federation-Klingon alliance was still on the path to defeat.

[Flagg]

Transwarp is a strategic advantage.

True that.

Plus the cube travels at slower speeds most of the time, to fight and assimilate on the way.

Slower speeds that were still faster than the Enterprise D at maximum warp. Do we have any indications at just how fast Dominion warships are? I can't recall anything specific.

The Dominion relies on weapons platforms on the home front, shielded huge weapons platforms strong enough to resist a whole Federation fleet.

Whats the source on that? I don't recall any mention of facilities like that.

All the same, the Borg had essentially won the battle in the beginning of First Contact and it was only Picards ability to hear the collective that allowed Starfleet to destroy the cube by having all ships target a weakness caused by battle damage. So a single Borg cube can resist a Federation fleet. And the Borg had alot of cubes, including more powerful wanker-I mean-Tactical cubes, let alone spheres of various sizes and smaller ships.

I don't think the Borg advantage is as great as you put it at all. Assimilation and adaptation is overrated, and the nature of Dominion weapons is such that they might not be affected by the Borg's specialized defenses on frequencies. Without their special adaptation defense, the Borg have nothing. It's not like the Borg one-shotted shit in ST:FC.

You're assuming the Borg would use their standard assimilation tactics against an enemy like the Dominion, rather than engage in fleet battles like against species 8472. Remember, 8472 could destroy entire fucking planets and the Borg were still able to put up a fight, though they were losing. They may do some of their usual one cube bullfuckery, but if they were particularly intent on assimilating an enemy as formidable as the Dominion I doubt they would do too much of that. And the Borg probably need only capture a few Jem Hadar ships before they would be able to adapt to their frequency altering weaponry. If Starfleet could figure out a defense, I see no reason why the Borg wouldn't. Unless there was some plot device needed for them not to immediately assimilate Voyager, anyway.

[ShadowSonic]

There was a reason they couldn't assimilate Voyager, they had the all-powerful "Character shield" that the Borg cannot adapt to.

[brianeyci]

Actually, as long as you put stuff in their way the Borg will slow down to a crawl just to assimilate and kill shit. It's not as if STFC cube appeared in orbit around Earth instantaneously. BOBW cube slowed down to fight the Mars defenses.

The weapons platforms were Cardassian, not Dominion. Still, I doubt the Cardassians would've had the technical expertise to build them on their own. Memory alpha says one thousand plasma torpedoes per weapons platform. That's as much firepower as a DS9, if not as much endurance. IIRC, the weapons platforms were shielded from a ground based facility like DSII. That's still a lot better than anything the Borg have ever fought.

No doubt the Borg will figure out a countermeasure to bypassing shield weapons, but that doesn't mean their adaptation trick will work on the Dominion. The polaron beam probably works by rapidly changing frequencies to match shields, and that's good enough to hurt Borg. It's probably a better kind of Wesley's mod chip.

The Borg are overrated. You can say that the Borg fought a running fight for days with Starfleet in ST:FC. But then again you can say the Federation held them off with a handful off ships. There was Akira, Steamrunner, Defiant in ST:FC. No Galaxy, no Excelsior, no Nebula, none of the heavy Star Trek capitals. You can say they were all destroyed before the battle, but that's just speculation. For all we know, twenty Federation ships held off a Borg cube, none of them capitals except at the very end with the Enterprise-E. Has anybody read the Star Trek First Contact novelization, and what does it say about the fight?

Some pissant race held off the Borg for centuries with tricks and high speed in slipstream. Their colonies were not on ships, and stationary, and they still managed to hold off the Borg. Borg are overrated. Their cubes are mostly ductile, easily penetrated by munitions, and their ground forces stink. One can imagine a planet full of a real ground army, say like modern Earth, but with transporter jammers. Hundreds of cubes appear in orbit and discover they can't beam, so they send as many drones as possible until they're all out. Then they go back home to cry to their mommy. The only question is whether the Borg would orbitally bombard, and I don't think they would "scoop" a whole colony up. I think that's just a tactic they use when they first encounter a race, scoop a whole colony or cut a whole piece of a ship out, to sample them. It's not as if we see them doing that ever again. The Borg invented some stupid assimilation cloud against Earth.

As long as you can deal with their frequency adaptation, the Borg are easy.

[ShadowSonic]

Actually, we do see a Nebula fighting the Borg in FC.

And I think the weapon platforms we saw the Cardies using that trashed the Fed Alliance fleet was fully Cardie. It may be an explanation for why the Feds and Cardies fought several wars over 20 years: Cardie defensive weapons are tough enough to fight off the Feds, but their ships are weaker for some reason.

[Jark]

Actually, as long as you put stuff in their way the Borg will slow down to a crawl just to assimilate and kill shit. It's not as if STFC cube appeared in orbit around Earth instantaneously. BOBW cube slowed down to fight the Mars defenses.

It might depend on where they have exit aperatures for their transwarp network. Theories I've seen on the matter state that it was either of the 2 cubes that deposited the one we saw in the final episode of Voyager, since that's the only opportunity the Borg would've had to put one there that we know of. If I had to take a guess, I'd say it was the cube in Best of Both Worlds that did it, since the Federation ships would've probably noticed something like that in First Contact.

Actually someone mentioned something on another forum that made some sense. If the cube in Best of Both Worlds did deposit the exit aperature for the network, the cube in First Contact might not have been able to use it due to the size of the exit aperature. For example, when we saw the transwarp hub in Voyagers final episode there were aperatures of various sizes, presumably for the different size vessels the Borg have. It makes some sense that if the first cube in Best of Both Worlds deposited it, that it'd have to be smaller than the cube, which means maybe only vessels the size of spheres or smaller could utilize it.

I don't know, it made some sense when I read it.

The weapons platforms were Cardassian, not Dominion. Still, I doubt the Cardassians would've had the technical expertise to build them on their own. Memory alpha says one thousand plasma torpedoes per weapons platform. That's as much firepower as a DS9, if not as much endurance. IIRC, the weapons platforms were shielded from a ground based facility like DSII. That's still a lot better than anything the Borg have ever fought.

It is a lot of firepower, and the weapons platforms can fire at targets very quickly, if I'm remembering the episode correctly. Or rather the platforms weren't firing very quickly against starships, but when they fired on the asteroid that contained their power supply, they were firing at a very high rate.

From what I remember, Weyoun didn't know anything about the Cardassian weapons platforms prior to Damar revealing them to him. This would suggest to me that they're a wholly Cardassian design that he was apparently saving to surprise Weyoun. It's possible they might have used some technology they aquired from the Dominion to build them though.

No doubt the Borg will figure out a countermeasure to bypassing shield weapons, but that doesn't mean their adaptation trick will work on the Dominion. The polaron beam probably works by rapidly changing frequencies to match shields, and that's good enough to hurt Borg. It's probably a better kind of Wesley's mod chip.

I haven't heard about that aspect of the Dominion weapons. Can you tell me where this is stated?

The Borg are overrated. You can say that the Borg fought a running fight for days with Starfleet in ST:FC. But then again you can say the Federation held them off with a handful off ships. There was Akira, Steamrunner, Defiant in ST:FC. No Galaxy, no Excelsior, no Nebula, none of the heavy Star Trek capitals. You can say they were all destroyed before the battle, but that's just speculation. For all we know, twenty Federation ships held off a Borg cube, none of them capitals except at the very end with the Enterprise-E. Has anybody read the Star Trek First Contact novelization, and what does it say about the fight?

Well we do have the first few seconds of the battle which we heard over the Enterprises comm system. I haven't seen it in a while, but within about 5-10 seconds, we were hearing reports of massive damage and casualties to various ships, and even a warp core breach. I suppose people extrapolate from that and work out from there.

As for the novel, I haven't read it, but I've heard it states the Federation met the cube with 300 ships.

Some pissant race held off the Borg for centuries with tricks and high speed in slipstream. Their colonies were not on ships, and stationary, and they still managed to hold off the Borg. Borg are overrated.

Are you referring to that alien who tried to kidnap the Voyager crew and get them assimilated as part of his revenge plan? If so, I'm not sure how you can call them a pissant race when we really don't know much about them. We only ever encountered that one guy and his single ship.

Not to mention I don't recall any dialogue from the episode detailing what steps the Borg took to try and assimilate them throughout those centuries, how many times they tried, or how that race managed to fend them off. I do recall him saying that when the Borg came in force, their ships were swatted like flies and their colonies were overrun within hours - or something like that, and it eventually ended with hundreds of cubes surrounding his homeworld.

Their cubes are mostly ductile, easily penetrated by munitions, and their ground forces stink. One can imagine a planet full of a real ground army, say like modern Earth, but with transporter jammers. Hundreds of cubes appear in orbit and discover they can't beam, so they send as many drones as possible until they're all out. Then they go back home to cry to their mommy. The only question is whether the Borg would orbitally bombard, and I don't think they would "scoop" a whole colony up. I think that's just a tactic they use when they first encounter a race, scoop a whole colony or cut a whole piece of a ship out, to sample them. It's not as if we see them doing that ever again. The Borg invented some stupid assimilation cloud against Earth.

In the Q Who episode, didn't the Enterprise find planets where entire cities had been scooped up? While not directly stated to be so, it's heavily implied that it was the Borg who did it.

[Kane Starkiller]

A few points:
The Borg have polaron technology as seen in Scorpion. They don't say it's "phased" but the scanning beam did pass through Voyager's shields and hull. Dominion phased polaron beams are as much of a technobabble as Borg's adaptive shields anyway. Nothing but trickery with no firepower.

Secondly Dominion fleet seems to consist mostly of those fighters which are quite frankly pathetic. In Odyssey three of them failed to destroy a Galaxy class ship which was basically shieldless until one of the ships rammed it. Worse they even failed to destroy the runabouts. Later when their phased polaron beam trick was negated they were nothing more but target practice for Defiant and Bird of Prey's.

Now sure the Borg are idiots but if your only hope is that your enemy is stupid enough to send one Borg cube at the time then you are not quite in the same league militarily.

[phred]

A founder? No. Founders have been shown going into liquid, gas, and even fire states. I seriously doubt that the nanoprobes would be able to stick to anything if the Founder recognized the threat and really wanted to get rid of them.

The Dominion? Maybe. It would be interesting to watch provided the Borg do more than the standard one ship and "Resistance is futile" speech.

[ShadowSonic]

Well, the Founders have become so dependent on the Jem'Hadar and Vorta to run the Dominion (although they have tried to ensure the Jem'Hadar and Vorta are also dependent on the Founders) that the Borg have the assimilate the Jem'Hadar and Vorta and take the cloning facilities to beat the Dominion. A long hard battle but a winnable one.