Borg cube with commercial grade SW technology

[Prozac the Robert]

(Chuck's fic got me wondering a little.)

Assume that the federation is conquered, but the borg stay off the radar for a while. At some point, the borg manage to aquire a bunch of technology that's in the hands of traders and the like in the ST galaxy. (Maybe the empire relaxes it's guard and starts sending transports without escort. It's vaguelly possible that some anomaly might cause one to lose it's hyperdrive, possibly with aditional damage. Or maybe some other ST race has bought the stuff legitimately and is transporting it in it's own ships. And just maybe the collective becomes a registered company and buys the stuff, although that one is unlikely )

Now a borg cube isn't up to much by wars standards, but what it does have is a lot of volume. So what if the borg were to fill a cube with a network of civillian grade SW reactors for power, and then bolted on whatever armour, sheilds and weapons they could find?

On the one hand it wouldn't have been built as a dedicated warship, but on the other, it's already designed for redundancy, and this design doesn't reduce that any. Standard borg shields and weapons might become more powerful just by having more power behind them, but if not then a good number of smallish SW weapons might allow it to take on a ship with less, but individually more powerful, weapons. If nothing else, it certainly has enough magazine space for a lot of torpedoes and concussion missiles if it can get them.

So do we have any idea how powerful such a construction would be?

[jareth1138]

I personally don't think I would matter any difference. Maybe the cube would last a little bit longer but no more then a few seconds from a fleet.
Civilian reactors while puting out a lot of power compared to borg reactors are still only civilian compared to the Military ones on Warships.
Same would apply to shields and weapons unless they are captured from smugglers .

[Darth Servo]

The sheer gap between SW tech and Borg tech would have the nanoprobes saying "what the hell is this stuff?"

[Hedgehog's Roommate]

So do we have any idea how powerful such a construction would be?

Compred to what? If we're talkin' civvie wars ships then yes. Military wars ships would of course be another matter.

Now if we're talking about trek ships then chances are that 99% of the time they'd wipe the floor with whoever they went up against.

If you filled most of the available space with reactors, weapons, etc, etc then you're potentialy lokin' at a pretty nasty opponent. Dependent on who you're fighting of course.

[Bounty]

Now if we're talking about trek ships then chances are that 99% of the time they'd wipe the floor with whoever they went up against.

Which they already do, most of the time. A single cube is already equivalent to a medium-sized fleet of nearly every mainstream Trek power.

[Hedgehog's Roommate]

I meant that even those few races that haven't been conquered yet would quickly fall.

[wilfulton]

They'd make excellent target practice, now that they won't simply disintegrate after a couple good hits from point defense batteries.

[Solauren]

The Borg are still screwed. There just a big overcrewed smuggler ship like that.

If they wanted a chance in hell, they'd have to some how swipe a Star Wars military warship (i.e at least a Frigate) somehow, hide it from the Empire, and spend YEARS reverse engineering the technology.

Then, they might have a chance.

However, by the time they finished reverse engineering the technology, the Empire may have put anything of the new resulting down int the category of 'Outdated Starfighter weaponary - obsolute'

[Ender]

Scaling by volume alone (obviously erronious, but just to give us a shot in the dark guess) from an Imperator its peak power would be ~6*10^26 watts

[tempest]

The Borg are still screwed. There just a big overcrewed smuggler ship like that.

If they wanted a chance in hell, they'd have to some how swipe a Star Wars military warship (i.e at least a Frigate) somehow, hide it from the Empire, and spend YEARS reverse engineering the technology.

Then, they might have a chance.

However, by the time they finished reverse engineering the technology, the Empire may have put anything of the new resulting down int the category of 'Outdated Starfighter weaponary - obsolute'

The Borg dont need to reverse Engineer, they just assimilate the engineers, technicians and specalists. They just stay on the hidden side for a while, doing beam and assimilate missions so they can boost their numbers. After assimilating some slicers they might do a little droid work and upgrade some systems. Modify their personal shields to handle blasters.

The real beauty of the BOBW borg was their brutal repair technology, they were repairing large peices of their cube in realtime, They lost a big chunk, and just patched it up in a matter of minutes. How do you stop a SSD than can pull the 10 minute repair job. And the borg can pop to warp without "nav" computer, so ditching combat for a quick repair can be a tad easier than it would be for a small ship like the Falcon. Quick warp skips might be handy in a firefight.

I figure that the Borg would take appropriate tactics for the situation, rather than just zombie walkin with a resistance is futile soundtrack. The Zombie walk is fine for intimidating the technologically weaker, and the whole lack of cowardice can be a bit disconcerting.

So the guts of it are, that the Borg with their technology as presented would reign havok on the empire. But the borg as handled by the writers would just assimilate and ignore, and quickly perish, heck as written I'm suprised that they havent got a bad computer bug that kills them all, (ala the Iconian probe that trashed the Yamato). So any inkling that I have that the borg could win is pretty much stomped by lousy writing.

[Stark]

Oh dear.

How are they going to establish the infrastructure, science and industry? Assimilation! What's a limit?

They can repair huge amounts of high-denisty armour because they fixed a bunch of pipes once! What's a limit?

They'll demonstrate tactics never before seen! Just like... that time.

Based on this, the Borg would pwn the Empire!

It's like deja vu, all over again.

[Patrick Degan]

The Borg are still screwed. There just a big overcrewed smuggler ship like that.

If they wanted a chance in hell, they'd have to some how swipe a Star Wars military warship (i.e at least a Frigate) somehow, hide it from the Empire, and spend YEARS reverse engineering the technology.

Then, they might have a chance.

However, by the time they finished reverse engineering the technology, the Empire may have put anything of the new resulting down int the category of 'Outdated Starfighter weaponary - obsolute'

The Borg dont need to reverse Engineer, they just assimilate the engineers, technicians and specalists. They just stay on the hidden side for a while, doing beam and assimilate missions so they can boost their numbers. After assimilating some slicers they might do a little droid work and upgrade some systems. Modify their personal shields to handle blasters.

The real beauty of the BOBW borg was their brutal repair technology, they were repairing large peices of their cube in realtime, They lost a big chunk, and just patched it up in a matter of minutes. How do you stop a SSD than can pull the 10 minute repair job. And the borg can pop to warp without "nav" computer, so ditching combat for a quick repair can be a tad easier than it would be for a small ship like the Falcon. Quick warp skips might be handy in a firefight.

I figure that the Borg would take appropriate tactics for the situation, rather than just zombie walkin with a resistance is futile soundtrack. The Zombie walk is fine for intimidating the technologically weaker, and the whole lack of cowardice can be a bit disconcerting.

So the guts of it are, that the Borg with their technology as presented would reign havok on the empire. But the borg as handled by the writers would just assimilate and ignore, and quickly perish, heck as written I'm suprised that they havent got a bad computer bug that kills them all, (ala the Iconian probe that trashed the Yamato). So any inkling that I have that the borg could win is pretty much stomped by lousy writing.

Don't you just love the No-Limits Fallacy presented here?

[Edward Yee]

Well, tempest did say that the canonical Borg are "idiots" (if that applies) and would still get pwned, yes?

[tempest]

Oh dear.

How are they going to establish the infrastructure, science and industry? Assimilation! What's a limit?

They can repair huge amounts of high-denisty armour because they fixed a bunch of pipes once! What's a limit?

They'll demonstrate tactics never before seen! Just like... that time.

Based on this, the Borg would pwn the Empire!

It's like deja vu, all over again.

Did you even notice it, the borg would get creamed because theyre written as a bunch of mindless zombies!!!!.

Besides borg tactics as dumb as they are shouldnt just remain static regardless of situation(the writers would still pull "resistance is futile" garbage). For instance in a game of checkers, when a player is up by a peice it makes sense to trade peices as quickly as possible, for the down player it's is a matter of holding the ratio as close to even as possible.

The guts of the argument is that the borg have tech that can allow them to use SW tech in a matter of hours. Within days being able to manage some serious repairs. The need to establish infrastructure is irrelevant, they dont need to fight the empire in a fistfight to win. They just need to use stealth, assimilation, and their nice beaming skills to be a very impressive threat.

As far as the limits go, It can be assumed that assimilation can occur within 12 hours, as seen with the assimilated crewmember in St-8. Picard had a special case thing going on, so they expended some extra time, trying to make him some sort of ambassador drone. But if your playing stealth, the assimilations have to be quiet, and that might take time. Infecting the right people at the right time is what their game would need. They can't just "assimilate a crew" in a rush, but if they have drone in key positions, they just comandeer the key parts of the ship.

Commander : Why is everyone getting the Zabrakian Flu Vaccine this week doctor?
Doctor: Because resistance is futile, er um because it's a um resistant strain. Your scheduled first thing tomorrow, don't be late.

Um I didnt say they could repair high density armour.. That is totally dependent on who and what they assimilate, and if it's even possible to repair it on ship.. The borg can't just magic fix things, but they do seem to have that plumbing thing goin on. That can still be nice for fixing similar stuff found on SW ships.

Not that it matters in the least, because for all of that "combined intelligence" theyre still mindless zombies. So that means that they can't McGyver a way through the situation. Well until they assimilate McGyver. (and hire those writers)

So as written the Borg get OWNED.... note: a mindless zombie with an assult rifle is no match for a space marine with a chainsaw (DOOM et all).

[Stark]

Let's play 'let's pretend': a thought experiment.

A borg cube is in orbit over University Planet of Engineering and Industry. They grab some extremely knowledable peeps from the planet, and assimilate them. They now have a theoretical knowledge of, say, hyperdrive and it's associated industries. Note I'm being pretty generous here.

What now?

They can't make the fuel. They don't have the industry or technology base to build the drives. Their ships aren't built for it, and will all have to be refit or scrapped entirely. Their computers and interface systems are worthless for controlling the devices.

This is a brick wall. They'd be forced to fall back to Borg Zone, rebuild their entire, 'took a hundred thousand years' fleet, create an entirely new series of related support industries to produce the devices and fuel, and in the end won't be recognisably the Borg at all. This still leaves them horribly outmatched militarialy, with useless weapons and defences.

If you ever want to post shit like 'the borg have tech that can allow them to use SW tech in a matter of hours' again, just don't. You'll look a lot smarter.

Your idea of stealth is utterly laughable. Not only does SW have doorframes that routinely detect shapeshifters, but Borg assimilation is NOT subtle. The Borg apparently don't care about infiltration, and anyone assimilated is *obviously* assimilated. Any Borg trying to re-enter society would probably get mugged and shot on a SW planet. You're talking about a group of Borg-like people, but it sure as fuck isn't the Borg.

Oh, and SW armour is ultra dense, neutronium-seeded material with inline shielding, blah blah blah, Borg fix this how, la la la, and I'm spent.

[Stark]

Ghetto EDIT: It occurs you seem to have the Borg confused with vampires. I'm an open-mined guy, but honestly, some people.

[Edward Yee]

It occurs you seem to have the Borg confused with vampires.

Not to take his side on "could the Borg do major damage vs. SW with commercial-grade SW technology," but according to Darth Wong's article on Brain Bugs, well -- so did the writers.

P.S. Is it me, or am I assuming that hypermatter is somehow "mined" from hyperspace?

[tempest]

Ghetto EDIT: It occurs you seem to have the Borg confused with vampires. I'm an open-mined guy, but honestly, some people.

ok, What part of "THE BORG GET OWNED" don't you get???? Do you even READ, come on.. The borg are zombies. As long as they do the stupid stuff your talking about yea, theyre getting spanked. As long as they are the borg they'll get spanked.

The Borg BUILDING SW tech, that's laughable, they might be able to OPERATE it and reconnect the peices after assimilating an expert, not re-engineer the fricking thing.

The ONLY thing I'm remotely saying is that their technology, if "properly" applied would cause a mess for the SW universe. And the only way to fight would be asymetric combat, because a borg vessel would get pimp-slapped.

um.. an ewok can use sw-tech in a matter of minutes, boom ride a speeder bike, so thinking that a smart person using borg tech can't figure out the operation of a hand blaster seems a bit pretentious..

The borg arent sneaky, but I'm betting that reversing the ugly part of borg probes wouldn't break reality. 7 of 9 has reverted both directions, so it isnt out of the question.

um I am no expert on the repair of fantasy materials, I just assume that if a material can be manufactured, then it can be replaced. I assume that there SW armor is manufactured. So I assume that bolting a plate down might be possible for even the zombie borg. And all in all it just NIFTY, not unstoppable, just a fun little psych-out when they see that damage on a ship is "healing".

[Ford Prefect]

P.S. Is it me, or am I assuming that hypermatter is somehow "mined" from hyperspace?

If I recall correctly, and it is very hazy, it comes from black holes or something like that.

Also, Stark reminded me, would you call the neutronium that appears in durasteel actual neutronium. I seem to remember finding a seam of the stuff on some dust ball. I'm not exactly up with my degenerate matter, but doesn't neutronium have to come from a neutron star? I think I might be missing something vitally important though.

[Edward Yee]

Hmm -- the problem is, I don't know ANYWHERE where hypermatter was elaborated on. Though thanks for your idea.

[Stark]

Ghetto EDIT: It occurs you seem to have the Borg confused with vampires. I'm an open-mined guy, but honestly, some people.

ok, What part of "THE BORG GET OWNED" don't you get???? Do you even READ, come on.. The borg are zombies. As long as they do the stupid stuff your talking about yea, theyre getting spanked. As long as they are the borg they'll get spanked.

The Borg BUILDING SW tech, that's laughable, they might be able to OPERATE it and reconnect the peices after assimilating an expert, not re-engineer the fricking thing.

The ONLY thing I'm remotely saying is that their technology, if "properly" applied would cause a mess for the SW universe. And the only way to fight would be asymetric combat, because a borg vessel would get pimp-slapped.

um.. an ewok can use sw-tech in a matter of minutes, boom ride a speeder bike, so thinking that a smart person using borg tech can't figure out the operation of a hand blaster seems a bit pretentious..

The borg arent sneaky, but I'm betting that reversing the ugly part of borg probes wouldn't break reality. 7 of 9 has reverted both directions, so it isnt out of the question.

um I am no expert on the repair of fantasy materials, I just assume that if a material can be manufactured, then it can be replaced. I assume that there SW armor is manufactured. So I assume that bolting a plate down might be possible for even the zombie borg. And all in all it just NIFTY, not unstoppable, just a fun little psych-out when they see that damage on a ship is "healing".

So aside from a lot of banter about the magical Borg that exist only in your head, you also can't see the parellels between your 'convert people and use them to secretly undermine the Empire' Bizarro Borg and ... well... vampires. The Borg? Secret? Imaginative? Flexible? That's right: in your head.

You say they can use SW tech. If they can't repair it, refuel it, maintain it, interface with it... on what level are they 'using' it? Oh noes, they can fire blasters! That must mean they can, oh, use capital ship weapons, FTL sensors, hyperdrives, droids, etc etc. That makes so much sense! The Borg couldn't even assimilate DATA, for fucks sake.

You say their technology would cause a mess for SW (providing no evidence, just mumbling about the way Borg work in your head), and ignore all the reasons why they couldn't do jack or shit to the Empire, without being changed on such a fundamental level as to not be Borg at all.

And finally, I love your description of Borg healing. Would a SW-cube be full of drones dragging ultradense armour plates around, ready to patch up holes? How is this NOT absurd?

[Darth Wong]

um I am no expert on the repair of fantasy materials, I just assume that if a material can be manufactured, then it can be replaced. I assume that there SW armor is manufactured. So I assume that bolting a plate down might be possible for even the zombie borg.

And where are they going to get replacements?

And all in all it just NIFTY, not unstoppable, just a fun little psych-out when they see that damage on a ship is "healing".

Borg "healing" is only known to work for their soft-as-butter cube structures, which are probably made from a material which is conducive to this sort of thing. It certainly doesn't work by drones lugging pieces of stolen plate armour around, crawling on the outside of the cube, and welding it in place.

[brianeyci]

The Borg couldn't even assimilate DATA, for fucks sake.

That is of course, because Data is superior to anything anybody can ever manufacture. He has self-regenerating power cells, and is a perpetual motion machine. He has defied the laws of logic by travelling back in time and inserting his own head back on his torso. He is eternal, because no matter what happens there will always be a little Datalette ready to take his place when the original sacrifices himself in a blaze of glory. Oh yes, Data is the pinnacle of human evolution, we should be more like him and forget that he wants to be like us.

Sorry I couldn't resist lol.

Brian

[tempest]

um I am no expert on the repair of fantasy materials, I just assume that if a material can be manufactured, then it can be replaced. I assume that there SW armor is manufactured. So I assume that bolting a plate down might be possible for even the zombie borg.

And where are they going to get replacements?

And all in all it just NIFTY, not unstoppable, just a fun little psych-out when they see that damage on a ship is "healing".

Borg "healing" is only known to work for their soft-as-butter cube structures, which are probably made from a material which is conducive to this sort of thing. It certainly doesn't work by drones lugging pieces of stolen plate armour around, crawling on the outside of the cube, and welding it in place.

Ummmm.... just because the holes are getting filled in with "soft as butter" filling doesnt mean that it wont be a bit disconcerting to behold in battle. well assuming that they dont leave a parkay trademark on the patches.

As far as getting replacements, I figured that they would get it the same place they got the ships "fantasy-land".

Not that the Borg would survive combat (and replace their armor).

Even if they managed to get a full on ISD (with assimilated crew), they are way to dumb-slow to have a reasonable chance against Slave-1. Heck they wouldnt even raise shields until after the start of a fight BOBW-P-1.

[Darth Wong]

Ummmm.... just because the holes are getting filled in with "soft as butter" filling doesnt mean that it wont be a bit disconcerting to behold in battle. well assuming that they dont leave a parkay trademark on the patches.

Nonsense. They'll just keep blasting until the cube is rendered inoperative. You honestly think they'll look at the Borg desperately trying to slowly fill in the gaping holes in their cube and say "omigod, what are we going to do?"