Death Star vs Borg Cube-Who Would Win? (PLEASE READ)

[Mith]

So you are telling me that the Borg can adapt to SW technology?

Yes...simple plasma weapons aren't all that new to them. They adapted to them in one episode.

I doubt it.

Your opinion is meangingless.

They wouldn't be able to beam drones aboard, due to jamming technology that disrupts transporters.

They don't even have transporter technology in Star Wars.

Also, the Death Star superlaser is immensely powerful, and official canon Star Wars technological books gave estimates of it's power. Anyways, Borg cubes are smaller then planets, as the Death Star can destroy any physical object below the rank of a planet.

Yeah, this is easily circumvented by simply manuevering to the other side of the Death Star. You know, the side without the massive planet destroying cannon? Yeah, that side.

[Mike DiCenso]

1. What is your evidence of the massive amount of EM being emitted? What is your evidence that it would surpass the energy released under the kinetic form?

2. The Cubes were destroyed precisely when the milky veil passed over them, not by EM that would cross space much faster.

The onus is on you to disprove that EM radiation is not what we are seeing hitting the Borg cubes. Based on the sequence of events, it is clear that the cubes are being overtaken by a massive secondary amount of radiation, and if the cubes have already been bombarded by black body gamma and x-ray, which have already taken a severe toll on their shields. Either way, the cubes are being hit with massive energy levels, just over a slightly longer timeframe rather than getting hit all at once. But the end results are still the same. Teraton Borg shields.

What we can see is that what takes the Cubes down is certainly not EMR. It's an expanding surface of smoke and debris which moves at a speed that is just too silly low.
It's a sequence that's good looking and that's how far it goes.

No, I know you don't like the implications of Borg shielding well into the single or low double-digit teraton range, but that "milk veil" was glowing white hot as it expanded outwards the result of the bright flash of the planet's exploding apart, and looks little different from other similar high-energy shockwaves like those we've seen in ST: Generations and Star Trek 2009, which destroyed whole planets.

I notice that they fly away, but in order to almost outrun the white sphere that expands to something like one planetary radius per second or more, the Cubes would need to move just as fast.

So would the camera, since it still stays relatively close to the Cubes. But the the whole group Cubes+camera were moving away from the planet as fast as needed, we'd see the planet shrink (that's what happens when you fly away from a planet at more than a planetary radius per second).

The planet did shrink considerably. Look at where they were before the 8472 bioships showed up in this Trekcore image:

http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... on1270.jpg

If that doesn't work, used the thumbnail gallery here:

http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... 56&page=19

And compare to the pre-explosion view here at the thumbnail gallery:

http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... 56&page=21

They moved at least a couple of planetary diameters away from the doomed planet before the explosion goes off and they get hit. The molten debris never reaches the third cube towing Voyager since it has already overtaken them considerably in in speed.

It's highly conjectural and not necessary. It also changes nothing to the problem here.

It is important because this cube survived only being a few tens of km out in front of the others. Being shields by the other two means we haven't found a threshold where a cube can survive under these conditions.
-Mike

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

Yeah, this is easily circumvented by simply manuevering to the other side of the Death Star. You know, the side without the massive planet destroying cannon? Yeah, that side.

AAHHHH the "do not stand in front of the shagging great gun maneuver".......thus far a unknown and unused tactic in the SW galaxy.

[Mr. Oragahn]

So you are telling me that the Borg can adapt to SW technology?

Yes...simple plasma weapons aren't all that new to them. They adapted to them in one episode.

I doubt it.

Your opinion is meangingless.

They wouldn't be able to beam drones aboard, due to jamming technology that disrupts transporters.

They don't even have transporter technology in Star Wars.

Also, the Death Star superlaser is immensely powerful, and official canon Star Wars technological books gave estimates of it's power. Anyways, Borg cubes are smaller then planets, as the Death Star can destroy any physical object below the rank of a planet.

Yeah, this is easily circumvented by simply manuevering to the other side of the Death Star. You know, the side without the massive planet destroying cannon? Yeah, that side.

1. If Trek beaming has trouble through natural strong magnetic fields, it possible that a particle shield like Death Star's which is capable of repelling mountain sized debris (it's a progressive-layer shield, not a hard-surface one) could be a problem.

2. The Borg have absolutely no reason to even decide to go the other way round. They don't even bother doing that generally, and the Death Star's point defense cannons are more than enough cumulative firepower to deal with the Cube single handedly.

1. What is your evidence of the massive amount of EM being emitted? What is your evidence that it would surpass the energy released under the kinetic form?

2. The Cubes were destroyed precisely when the milky veil passed over them, not by EM that would cross space much faster.

The onus is on you to disprove that EM radiation is not what we are seeing hitting the Borg cubes. Based on the sequence of events, it is clear that the cubes are being overtaken by a massive secondary amount of radiation, and if the cubes have already been bombarded by black body gamma and x-ray, which have already taken a severe toll on their shields. Either way, the cubes are being hit with massive energy levels, just over a slightly longer timeframe rather than getting hit all at once. But the end results are still the same. Teraton Borg shields.

You are certainly not beginning to prove that the levels of EMR are anywhere high enough to warrant any high result at all. Not even high enough to warrant a mere 1 kiloton per square meter.
That white wall, a milky and translucent layer, is matter.
It is not EMR. If you want to claim that this thing we see move slowly is EMR, then as it's visible, it would have to be blinding white to begin to say it could be a danger.
Now, since it's not moving at lightspeed at all, obviously it's not visible EMR. But it is visible nonetheless.
It is not invisible EMR either, obviously.
It is matter or some kind. What is clear is that its intensity is low.

Besides, 75,000 km is extreme. However, when we work with more reasonable altitudes, we realize that the numbers get absurd.
A sphere that has a total radius = altitude + planetary radius = 20,000 + 6,000 = 26,000 km, has an area of 8.5 e15 m². With 2 e32 J released by the planet's explosion, you have 2.353 e16 J/m² of KE.
A single face of a 3 km wide Cube will have an area of 9 e6 m².
And therefore the all too convenient low end makes the shields able to cope with 2.177 e23 J. One OoM short of the petaton range.

But that planet expanded rather violently, so let's actually stick to the "facts". My observations allow to peg the beginning of the expansion at the series of the brightest flashes. Many debris fly faster, but the whole greyish volume takes about 32 frames (at 23.976 fps) to cover a planetary radius. If we assume the planet is 12,000 km wide, it gives an expansion speed of roughly 4,500 km/s.
Say it's mainly a ball of rock, we get a mass of 2.11 e24 kg.

The KE is then 2.136 e37 J. It's about five orders of magnitude greater than 2 e32 J.
Now your Cube shielding is comfortably sitting in the mid-exaton region.

In a way or another, you're arguing that a Cube can tank something like the total of the gravitational binding energy of the Moon.
This is not exactly what I would call a reasonable result.

The other problem is that it doesn't say how much of that actually ended being EMR either.

What we can see is that what takes the Cubes down is certainly not EMR. It's an expanding surface of smoke and debris which moves at a speed that is just too silly low.
It's a sequence that's good looking and that's how far it goes.

No, I know you don't like the implications of Borg shielding well into the single or low double-digit teraton range, but that "milk veil" was glowing white hot as it expanded outwards the result of the bright flash of the planet's exploding apart, and looks little different from other similar high-energy shockwaves like those we've seen in ST: Generations and Star Trek 2009, which destroyed whole planets.

That slow translucent milky sphere of death was nowhere bright hot. We could see through it when it killed two Cubes, and the same when the camera was *inside* it. Yet it's that same sluggish thing that destroyed two Cubes and nearly managed to hit the third one and Voyager. Seen from the inside, it was nothing more than a cloud of smoke and debris. In other words, magic explosive pixie dust that flies at a silly low fraction of the escape velocity of a planet of this size.

The only thing you can do from there, is go with what's written. Dialogue doesn't say anything, and only the official script would reveal that the planet blew up. Yet it wouldn't give any useful information about how energy was released exactly.

Notice, btw, that teraton shielding or not, since the E-D could poke through them on their first encounter with a Borg Cube and leave gaping holes in it, the same will happen with fire coming from the Death Star. That's without counting the SL.

I notice that they fly away, but in order to almost outrun the white sphere that expands to something like one planetary radius per second or more, the Cubes would need to move just as fast.

So would the camera, since it still stays relatively close to the Cubes. But the the whole group Cubes+camera were moving away from the planet as fast as needed, we'd see the planet shrink (that's what happens when you fly away from a planet at more than a planetary radius per second).

The planet did shrink considerably. Look at where they were before the 8472 bioships showed up in this Trekcore image:

http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... on1270.jpg

If that doesn't work, used the thumbnail gallery here:

http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... 56&page=19

And compare to the pre-explosion view here at the thumbnail gallery:

http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... 56&page=21

They moved at least a couple of planetary diameters away from the doomed planet before the explosion goes off and they get hit. The molten debris never reaches the third cube towing Voyager since it has already overtaken them considerably in in speed.

You need only one thing: looking at the moment when the planet explodes. It's excruciatingly easy to see that the planet is not shrinking at all on the screen, so the camera is clearly not moving away from it at thousands of km/s. Therefore neither do the Cubes.

It's highly conjectural and not necessary. It also changes nothing to the problem here.

It is important because this cube survived only being a few tens of km out in front of the others. Being shields by the other two means we haven't found a threshold where a cube can survive under these conditions.
-Mike

You'd think that if they wanted to properly shield the third Cube, they'd actually place themselves between the third Cube and the stuff that flies from the planet.

[Praeothmin]

They don't even bother doing that generally, and the Death Star's point defense cannons are more than enough cumulative firepower to deal with the Cube single handedly.

You mean the guns that, when hitting an X-Wing only blew it up?
First of all, SW gunners have shown themselves to be horrid shots.
Secondly, not all those guns will hit at the same time, and none of these single turrets will pose a threat to a 3km Borg cube.
By the time they actually sufficiently track it to fire many bolts at a time, the Borg will have adapted.
As for the transporters, Borg transporters beam through shields, unlike Fed trnasporters, so I don't see why the DS's shields would stop them...
And yes, if they're stupid enough to stand in front of the big Dish of Death(TM), then they will get killed, but I'm not sure even the Borg are so stupid and that they could not detect the power of the weapon facing them...
In FC, they only ran when facing the E-E alone with the sphere, but the Cube came in directly at Earth because it knew nothing could hurt it bad (the Borg didn't know about Picard's knowledge of their weakness)...

[Mr. Oragahn]

They don't even bother doing that generally, and the Death Star's point defense cannons are more than enough cumulative firepower to deal with the Cube single handedly.

You mean the guns that, when hitting an X-Wing only blew it up?

I don't think they were set at max power, or even could be considered to be the heaviest guns there.
Besides the EU list a good many other weapons which aren't seen in activity against the Rebel fighters. Some of these weapons are clearly better suited for long range attacks and heavier targets.
The ROTS novelization pegs TLs at capable of vaporizing a small city; it's still way more powerful than what hit the X-wings, and probably better than the silly showings seen in TCWS.
We have ISDs in TESB capable of 180 g if I recall RSA' deceleration calc correctly. This gives them a large power capacity. It's possible they have some sort of mass lightening at play though.
And then there are other EU references which easily give an ISD the capacity to produce petawatts of power: the same source that gives terajoules of firepower to frigates gave the same firepower to the less powerful weapons of an ISD.
And there is this case:



Even if you consider that what we see is a flash, it's absolutely clear that it's very powerful. Powerful enough to mask with sheer light intensity a large region as large as this area (32 km wide), if had been firing at Earth.

The Death Star is obviously providing much more power, and can leave a whole side uncharged to let the hemisphere facing the Cube shoot with everything it has.

First of all, SW gunners have shown themselves to be horrid shots.

They're not stellar, but their heavy long range weapons don't suck, and the Cube is clearly not piloted like a fighter either.
The gunners of Echo Base could still fire their ion cannon and hit a 1.6 km ship located thousands of kilometers away.



The NEGtWaT gives such a cannon an effective range of 4,000 km and a maximum range of 180,000 km.
A planetary turbolaser is given an effective range of 1,100 km and 9,600 km for the maximum range.

Secondly, not all those guns will hit at the same time, and none of these single turrets will pose a threat to a 3km Borg cube.

Within seconds all cannons will be firing. Besides, a single ion cannon, apparently powered by its own generator scavenged from a star destroyer, managed to knock out a 1.6 km long ship.

By the time they actually sufficiently track it to fire many bolts at a time, the Borg will have adapted.

Adaptation is misunderstood. The Borg don't suddenly pull magic rabbit joules out of nowhere.
What the Cube did in the first contact with the Enterprise-D either was to modify its defenses as to be able to withstand the odd weapons that new craft used to damage it, or leave itself open to some attacks to test them and understand them.
In a way or another, the Cube produced much more power than the E-D, so it could easily defend itself even against raw power.
Against the Death Star's defenses, the story will be much different.

As for the transporters, Borg transporters beam through shields, unlike Fed trnasporters, so I don't see why the DS's shields would stop them...

Perhaps, but those were starship shields. Not those which are magnitudes more powerful as much as to be able to deflect mountain sized debris. The sheer difference in power could be a barrier on its own merits, beyond the technical details of how UFP shields work.

And yes, if they're stupid enough to stand in front of the big Dish of Death(TM), then they will get killed, but I'm not sure even the Borg are so stupid and that they could not detect the power of the weapon facing them...

The entire Death Star will flare up on their sensors. All the EU plans show that the superlaser is both fed by a chamber located in the center of the station and by capacitors located around the upper section of the central core or something. The superlaser is only a conduit for all of this, so there is nothing that's really going to give off the superlaser more than all the other weapons dotting the battle station's landscape. Preparing everything for a shot, from powering the gauss ring to focus the beams, to running the core and cocking the gun with the capacitors' reserves, is fast, as seen in Death Star. Besides they don't need to go for a maximum yield shot.

In FC, they only ran when facing the E-E alone with the sphere, but the Cube came in directly at Earth because it knew nothing could hurt it bad (the Borg didn't know about Picard's knowledge of their weakness)...

Even after losing one Cube, the Borg didn't behave in a way that would have them wonder if they UFP didn't have some secret stuff they only pull off in most extreme situations. Obviously they were aware to some degree that their first Cube got smocked out in one big shot after all.

Also, knowledge being the key, it's still good to remember that they will have none in this case.

[Mike DiCenso]

You are certainly not beginning to prove that the levels of EMR are anywhere high enough to warrant any high result at all. Not even high enough to warrant a mere 1 kiloton per square meter.
That white wall, a milky and translucent layer, is matter.
It is not EMR. If you want to claim that this thing we see move slowly is EMR, then as it's visible, it would have to be blinding white to begin to say it could be a danger.
Now, since it's not moving at lightspeed at all, obviously it's not visible EMR. But it is visible nonetheless.
It is not invisible EMR either, obviously.
It is matter or some kind. What is clear is that its intensity is low.

Besides, 75,000 km is extreme. However, when we work with more reasonable altitudes, we realize that the numbers get absurd.
A sphere that has a total radius = altitude + planetary radius = 20,000 + 6,000 = 26,000 km, has an area of 8.5 e15 m². With 2 e32 J released by the planet's explosion, you have 2.353 e16 J/m² of KE.
A single face of a 3 km wide Cube will have an area of 9 e6 m².
And therefore the all too convenient low end makes the shields able to cope with 2.177 e23 J. One OoM short of the petaton range.

I'm not sure what the point of this exercise is on your part here. When the planet explodes we see a bright flash, then chunks of the shockwave and chunks of planet go everywhere. If the EM isn't there, then where is it? If it's not in the shocwave, then where is it? You can't argue little or no EM when we clearly see some, and black body radiation explains that which we cannot visibly see.

As for the distance I chose earlier, that is to provide a fairly conservative estimate as I am sure you are able to figure out on your own. Yes, at the actual distance the cubes are away from the planet when it goes boom and they get hit by the shockwave, it is much closer to the Borg planet than when the Death Star fired on Alderaan. I made this point before, so there is no need to retread this ground. All you have done in your fancy roundabout way is simply confirm my earlier point.

That slow translucent milky sphere of death was nowhere bright hot. We could see through it when it killed two Cubes, and the same when the camera was *inside* it. Yet it's that same sluggish thing that destroyed two Cubes and nearly managed to hit the third one and Voyager. Seen from the inside, it was nothing more than a cloud of smoke and debris. In other words, magic explosive pixie dust that flies at a silly low fraction of the escape velocity of a planet of this size.

The only thing you can do from there, is go with what's written. Dialogue doesn't say anything, and only the official script would reveal that the planet blew up. Yet it wouldn't give any useful information about how energy was released exactly.

Notice, btw, that teraton shielding or not, since the E-D could poke through them on their first encounter with a Borg Cube and leave gaping holes in it, the same will happen with fire coming from the Death Star. That's without counting the SL.

All right, this is a bit of BSing on your part in order to try and minimalize the event. It is not a milky white thing of smoke and debris, it is clearly a high-energy shockwave. Whether that is where the majority of the energy is tied up in from the planet exploding or not is unknown at this point, but it is not some trival thing. We know that the Voyager towing cube was not unscathed as it's shields are stated in "Scorpion, Part 2" to be completely down when earlier they were weakened by the bioship strafing run, but not completely knocked down. So since the cube managed to stay just ahead of the debris, that other energy had to have come from somewhere.

You need only one thing: looking at the moment when the planet explodes. It's excruciatingly easy to see that the planet is not shrinking at all on the screen, so the camera is clearly not moving away from it at thousands of km/s. Therefore neither do the Cubes.

No, the camera staying motionless during this secene, or appearing to do so is irrelevant, since the important thing is that we can compare how much the planet subtends the field of view versus how much it did before, and can see that the planet has shrunk considerably in the field of view compared to when Voyager had first arrived in the system, and when the S8472 bioship begins the attack. That is many thousands of kilometers travelled in a short period of time. How did they do that , if they are only going a few km a second?

You'd think that if they wanted to properly shield the third Cube, they'd actually place themselves between the third Cube and the stuff that flies from the planet.

They may not have had time, and opted to extend their shields.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

I don't think they were set at max power, or even could be considered to be the heaviest guns there.
Besides the EU list a good many other weapons which aren't seen in activity against the Rebel fighters. Some of these weapons are clearly better suited for long range attacks and heavier targets.
The ROTS novelization pegs TLs at capable of vaporizing a small city; it's still way more powerful than what hit the X-wings, and probably better than the silly showings seen in TCWS.
We have ISDs in TESB capable of 180 g if I recall RSA' deceleration calc correctly. This gives them a large power capacity. It's possible they have some sort of mass lightening at play though.
And then there are other EU references which easily give an ISD the capacity to produce petawatts of power: the same source that gives terajoules of firepower to frigates gave the same firepower to the less powerful weapons of an ISD.
And there is this case:

While those guns were certainly not at their maximum power level, it would take guns 1000 times more powerful to damage a Borg cube, said cube was capable of taking the full might of a GCS (arguably as, if not more powerful then an ISD) and retaliate in kind, before quickly adapting…

They're not stellar, but their heavy long range weapons don't suck, and the Cube is clearly not piloted like a fighter either.
The gunners of Echo Base could still fire their ion cannon and hit a 1.6 km ship located thousands of kilometers away.

While the cube isn’t piloted like a fighter, it has done maneuvers only dreamt about by an ISD Captain in a few encounters…
And one successful shot does in no way negate the Tantive IV “miss-fest”, all the RotS and TCW misses at short range, etc…

The NEGtWaT gives such a cannon an effective range of 4,000 km and a maximum range of 180,000 km.
A planetary turbolaser is given an effective range of 1,100 km and 9,600 km for the maximum range.

Within seconds all cannons will be firing. Besides, a single ion cannon, apparently powered by its own generator scavenged from a star destroyer, managed to knock out a 1.6 km long ship.

Really?
And you get that from where?
The ROF against the fighters wasn’t anything impressive, and certainly not something threatening to a Borg cube…

Adaptation is misunderstood. The Borg don't suddenly pull magic rabbit joules out of nowhere.
What the Cube did in the first contact with the Enterprise-D either was to modify its defenses as to be able to withstand the odd weapons that new craft used to damage it, or leave itself open to some attacks to test them and understand them.
In a way or another, the Cube produced much more power than the E-D, so it could easily defend itself even against raw power.
Against the Death Star's defenses, the story will be much different.

Of course not, they don’t immediately and magically adapt, but I think you are overestimating the effects the first (and few) hits will have on the cube…

Perhaps, but those were starship shields. Not those which are magnitudes more powerful as much as to be able to deflect mountain sized debris. The sheer difference in power could be a barrier on its own merits, beyond the technical details of how UFP shields work.

Since we have no idea if the reason they bypass Fed shields has to do with power, and not simply frequency matching or other technobabble, I see no reason to believe it would be any different with the DS’s shields…

The entire Death Star will flare up on their sensors. All the EU plans show that the superlaser is both fed by a chamber located in the center of the station and by capacitors located around the upper section of the central core or something. The superlaser is only a conduit for all of this, so there is nothing that's really going to give off the superlaser more than all the other weapons dotting the battle station's landscape. Preparing everything for a shot, from powering the gauss ring to focus the beams, to running the core and cocking the gun with the capacitors' reserves, is fast, as seen in Death Star. Besides they don't need to go for a maximum yield shot.

Actually, since these beams need some sort of containment in order to behave the way they do, then the DS would have powerful emitters in its array.
And while it is “fast”, the movie shows it to be “slow” enough that a weary opponent could evade…

Even after losing one Cube, the Borg didn't behave in a way that would have them wonder if they UFP didn't have some secret stuff they only pull off in most extreme situations. Obviously they were aware to some degree that their first Cube got smocked out in one big shot after all.

Also, knowledge being the key, it's still good to remember that they will have none in this case.

Except in this case, they don’t need to wonder, they can plainly detect the power emanating from the DS, which would be anything above and beyond what the Fed ships could muster…
Although, the more I think about it, the more I see the Borg Cube stand there, deliver the “You will be assimilated” speech, and get destroyed by the DS (btw, could the DS I target ships?).
If there are 2 cubes, though, then things become very different…

[Mike DiCenso]

Adaptation is misunderstood. The Borg don't suddenly pull magic rabbit joules out of nowhere.
What the Cube did in the first contact with the Enterprise-D either was to modify its defenses as to be able to withstand the odd weapons that new craft used to damage it, or leave itself open to some attacks to test them and understand them. In a way or another, the Cube produced much more power than the E-D, so it could easily defend itself even against raw power. Against the Death Star's defenses, the story will be much different.

Of course not, they don’t immediately and magically adapt, but I think you are overestimating the effects the first (and few) hits will have on the cube…

The Borg also did something we don't really get to see them do later on in future encounters, namely because it was no longer necessary: they sent several scout drones aboard to gather information on the E-D. It is very possible that the Borg might do something like that again when first encountering Star Wars starships. Also the OP does not assume that this is the first encounter ever, so it might be assumed that the Borg cubeship has assimilated smaller, weaker vessels before dealing the Death Star, thus giving them knowledge on SW technology well in advance, and allowing faster adaptation. That being the case expect that conventional SW weapons like blasters, turbolasers, and ion cannons will not be very effective against the Borg vessel.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

The Borg also did something we don't really get to see them do later on in future encounters, namely because it was no longer necessary: they sent several scout drones aboard to gather information on the E-D. It is very possible that the Borg might do something like that again when first encountering Star Wars starships.
-Mike

That is correct, I had forgotten about that...
Then it would be possible the scout Borg get cut off from their main ship, and start assimilating everything they see in order to get a Transponder working to signal other Borg cubes...

[Mike DiCenso]

Except nothing in the OP for this thread really precludes the idea that the Borg cube did not already encounter other SW vessels, assimilating their crews, just as we know that prior to "Q Who?", there had been other contact with a Federation ship, and people were assimilated years before.
-Mike

[Youngla0450]

I would love if the Federation engaged and defeated the Romulan and Klingon Empires, subsuming their territory, and reorganizing themselves into the Terran Empire. The Empire will then annex the Cardassian, Ferengi, Breen, etc. territories, and then push out of the Alpha Quadrant, eventually conquering the Dominion and reaching the borders of the Borg. They then fight and defeat the Borg, although taking numerous losses, and destroy their network by releasing the virus, developed by Enterprise-D, to paralyze all the Borg drones. After conquering the Borg Collective, the Empire would then turn against the Voth, the Krenim, and numerous other minor powers. After annexing or securing treaties with them, the Terrian Empire would span across the Star Trek galaxy. The Empire would rule over forty million member and conquered systems, as well fifty million colonies, protectorates, and allied states, spread throughout the galaxy. It would have transwarp drive, the equivlant to Star Wars hyperdrive. It's phasers, photon torpedoes, and quantum torpedoes would be equal to Star Wars turbolasers, ion cannons, and laser cannons. The Empire would be opressive. I will explore on the possibility of such Empire in another thread on this forum.

[411-RED]

I would love if the Federation engaged and defeated the Romulan and Klingon Empires, subsuming their territory, and reorganizing themselves into the Terran Empire. The Empire will then annex the Cardassian, Ferengi, Breen, etc. territories, and then push out of the Alpha Quadrant, eventually conquering the Dominion and reaching the borders of the Borg. They then fight and defeat the Borg, although taking numerous losses, and destroy their network by releasing the virus, developed by Enterprise-D, to paralyze all the Borg drones. After conquering the Borg Collective, the Empire would then turn against the Voth, the Krenim, and numerous other minor powers. After annexing or securing treaties with them, the Terrian Empire would span across the Star Trek galaxy. The Empire would rule over forty million member and conquered systems, as well fifty million colonies, protectorates, and allied states, spread throughout the galaxy. It would have transwarp drive, the equivlant to Star Wars hyperdrive. It's phasers, photon torpedoes, and quantum torpedoes would be equal to Star Wars turbolasers, ion cannons, and laser cannons. The Empire would be opressive. I will explore on the possibility of such Empire in another thread on this forum.

I think you just trampled on and destroyed everything Star Trek is about.

If that really happened in the movies/episodes, Gene Roddenberry would be turning over in his grave.

EDIT: The combined forces of the Klingon Empire, Romulan Star Empire, and Federation had enough trouble defeating the Dominion, and you're saying the Federation could single handedly defeat the Klinongs, Romulans, Dominion, Borg, Cardassians, Ferengi, Breen, Voth, and every other species in the Galaxy?

[Mr. Oragahn]

Adaptation is misunderstood. The Borg don't suddenly pull magic rabbit joules out of nowhere.
What the Cube did in the first contact with the Enterprise-D either was to modify its defenses as to be able to withstand the odd weapons that new craft used to damage it, or leave itself open to some attacks to test them and understand them. In a way or another, the Cube produced much more power than the E-D, so it could easily defend itself even against raw power. Against the Death Star's defenses, the story will be much different.

Of course not, they don’t immediately and magically adapt, but I think you are overestimating the effects the first (and few) hits will have on the cube…

The Borg also did something we don't really get to see them do later on in future encounters, namely because it was no longer necessary: they sent several scout drones aboard to gather information on the E-D. It is very possible that the Borg might do something like that again when first encountering Star Wars starships. Also the OP does not assume that this is the first encounter ever, so it might be assumed that the Borg cubeship has assimilated smaller, weaker vessels before dealing the Death Star, thus giving them knowledge on SW technology well in advance, and allowing faster adaptation. That being the case expect that conventional SW weapons like blasters, turbolasers, and ion cannons will not be very effective against the Borg vessel.
-Mike

It's quite reaching to consider that it's not the first encounter, in order to obtain more favourable odds. The fact is that we do know the Borg would be unstoppable unless the Star Wars guys suddenly pulled super magic bioweapons or whatever from their hat.
So your sole chance here is to argue that the scenario happens somewhere just after a first contact, so the Borg have collected some information, but not gone rampant over the whole galaxy.
It won't change much anyway, since the Death Star is a secret project. The few drones sent will easily be dealt with, and if one or two manage to survive with personal force fields (assuming such fields are not projected from Cubes - which in this case would be hard since it would be already vaporized), the stormtroopers have access to heavier weaponry, can always block entire sections and wait for Vader to clean the mess.

And adaptation is still highly overrated.
It'd like to see said adaptation allow shields to withstand something like large amounts of power or energy in a much much better after said adaptation occurred. And when I mean large amount of power or energy, I'm talking about a clear statement, or something we can directly gauge, not extrapolated figures based on X, Y and Z themselves solely relying on arguable interpretations about A, B or C events.
In other words, I want to see that adaptation is really some kind of über shield buff, like some added protection bonus pulled out of nowhere like it is made to be, rather than the Borg just modifying their already exiting defenses based on data they have in order to exploit a Cube's raw maximum power production in order to match, and eventually surpass the raw firepower of an enemy weapon which would have never managed, in normal conditions, to yield an amount of energy greater than the Cube's raw power production or capacitor stock of energy anyway, like how the E-D's phasers suddenly become impotent, like torps - which are actually less elaborate than phasers so it's logical that the Borg would already know how to block torpedoes' energy blasts - not necessarily because the Borg adapted, but just because the Borg actually turned their shields on or brought a slight modification to deal with nadion particles and pit their greater power production against the firepower of the E-D's phasers.

The Borg also did something we don't really get to see them do later on in future encounters, namely because it was no longer necessary: they sent several scout drones aboard to gather information on the E-D. It is very possible that the Borg might do something like that again when first encountering Star Wars starships.
-Mike

That is correct, I had forgotten about that...
Then it would be possible the scout Borg get cut off from their main ship, and start assimilating everything they see in order to get a Transponder working to signal other Borg cubes...

Other Cubes?

[Mike DiCenso]

It won't change much anyway, since the Death Star is a secret project. The few drones sent will easily be dealt with, and if one or two manage to survive with personal force fields (assuming such fields are not projected from Cubes - which in this case would be hard since it would be already vaporized), the stormtroopers have access to heavier weaponry, can always block entire sections and wait for Vader to clean the mess.

Really? The first drone that beamed into the E-D's engineering room in "Q Who?", while it was dispatched quickly enough, the following drone was adapted to them, so the same should be true for the Death Star scout drones, especially if they beam into someplace not immediately accessible by the Stormtroopers. If Vader should become involved, assuming he isn't off chasing Rebels somewhere, he will ultimately have to use the Force on the invading drones as there is nothing that precludes adapation to lightsabers.

As for the drone's personal force fields, we have seen in "Hope and Fear" as well as "The Raven", that Borg personal shields are not dependent on power or anything from a cube or Unicomplex.
-Mike