One ISD against the Borg Collective...

[Robert Walper]

(This post is inspired by Mike Wong's "One ISD in the ST Galaxy")

Successfully turning all the above mentioned AQ powers into ripe pickings for their enemies, with Picard in chains and Janeway ejected out the airlock(for mouthing off to an Imperial offcier), Q informs the ISD crew that the Borg Collective took advantage of the Empire's weakened state and began a campaign of assimilation(a lie, but he uses his powers to convince them). Believing that the Emperor's command would certainly extend to this threat, the ISD restocks and loads up all necessary supplies to deal with them, with even a few intimidated planets in the AQ now for resupply.

I'll just quote the same questions Mike Wong wrote:

Question #1: How much damage could this ship realistically do before it is either destroyed in action or it runs out of fuel? Assume reasonable competence on the part of the ISD's commanding officer (obviously, given his speed and lack of support, hit and run tactics make the most sense).

Question #2: If you were in control of the Borg Collective, what tactics might you try to use against this marauder? Is there any hope? Or is the only hope to bend over and kiss the Collective ass goodbye?

[Darth Garden Gnome]

ISD vs. Borg Collective = "Prepeare to be assimila-" *SQUISH!* Borg die, escpecially if the ISD has a resupply base.

And if I was the leader of the Collective, I'd pack up my transwarp hubs and hit the road! Or march slowly through the halls of a malfunctioning ISD, getting mowed down by half-sleeping stromtroopers, while your cube is atomized by TL fire.

Which ever seems to make more sense.

[Jack Lain]

I think it depends if the Borg wise up or not. If the continue to send one cube at a time, the entire Collective is doomed - one cube at a time.

If they smarten up - 1 ISD cannot defeat a hundred cubes, a thousand cubes, ten thousand cubes.

All a matter of smarts on the borg side. Of course, since they don't have any smarts - the ISD probably destroys the entire borg collective.

[Mr. B]

The first target would be the unimatrix. Once that is gone the collective will crumble.

[SPOOFE]

Pretty similar results as to the first one... the ISD will cause a crapload of damage before the captain runs out of supplies and self-destructs the ship. 'Course, it'll be a little bit harder, because the Borg are (well, are supposed to be, anyway) stronger than the AQ races.

Then again, Voyager pretty much snipped the balls off the Borg. Pity.

[SCVN 2812]

Considering the Romulans and Cardassians can feel pretty confident about destroying the crust of a planet in an hour with just 20 ships and not even bat an eye when it's reported that a significant portion of the planet's crust is destroyed in the opening volley and Borg Cubes are significantly larger and in some ways more advanced than most Alpha Quadrant races (damage control is really the only way that they are more advanced than the AQ's that really matter, although the offensive tractors are pretty impressive, tore the nacelle right off a ship in First Contact but that's not hard to do given Starfleet's tendency to design them to be as far away from the main body of the ship and on thin pylons,) the Stardestroyer captain is facing significantly greater odds. Hit and run raids are really the only option, a full scale attack against any heavily fortified base would be suicidal if examples of Star Trek not being hopelessly outmatched in TOS and DS9 are not lightly discarded. Note the use of the word hopelessly (I am not maintaining that they are on even terms, just that there is not such a wide gulf in weapons and endurance as some would like to believe.) Hit and run raids will wear down the defenses of bases and single combat with a Cube is a victory for the Empire. Hitting supply lines is the best bet as going up against well supplied bases is as I said before suicidal.

This is, however, a hopeless battle for the Star Destroyer. It may succeed in delivering some nasty blows to the Collective and hurting them but not before extensive combat operations burns through the ISD's supplies at a drastic pace considering the tempo required to do major damage due to the scale of the Collective. The advantage of strategic mobility is still present as the ISD can jump in, attack with lightning speed, and jump out to a part of the galaxy the Borg don't have a major pressence in where it can do repairs and repeat.

Now, if we just throw out TOS and DS9 the Star Destroyer still looses because it will probably run out of probe droids to explore the Delta quadrant before it finds every Borg installation. Taking out the transwarp hubs will post pone any significant Borg threat for many months and likely force the Borg to concentrate on rebuilding their transwarp conduit system and also spreading their forces thinly throughout their borders to insure their security as they have just lost their ability to respond to an attack on any part of their space within minutes. However, even this lone mighty Star Destroyer can't take on an entire race with just one load of supplies. Without a support infrastructure (which would take some time to set up given the fact that ISD's are warships, not mobile factories, and the existing infrastructure in the recently conquered area is still heavily disputed (what you think people, even people accustomed to being able to live lives of luxury, aren't going to have a problem with a new regime being put in place?) and incapable of producing the required supplies without substantial retrofitting or just full out replacement. Without adequete supplies conquest is impossible.

The ISD will have the effect of keeping the Delta Quadrant a non-threat though as the Borg will likely go on an assimilation spree to help recover from the lossess incurred fighting the ISD.