The Borg vs. The Daleks

[Meshakhad]

This matchup is interesting to me, not merely because of who might win, but of the parallels between the two factions.

Both the Daleks and the Borg represent the ultimate foe in their respective shows (Doctor Who and Star Trek, respectively). They are virtually unstoppable, and cannot be beaten with conventional firepower. They are a unified force that seeks to defeat all others, whether through assimilation (the Borg) or EXTERMINATION (the Daleks).

More importantly, the only way to defeat either one seems to be cleverness, something that both the Borg and the Daleks lack. So, what happens when they meet (and immediately try to kill one another)?

My tentative guess is that the Borg will win. Eventually, the Borg will adapt to the Dalek death-rays, at which point the Daleks are fairly screwed. But could the Daleks overcome this problem?

The only thing I am certain of is that I would pay good money to see this fight.

My conditions for this are:

1. Assume both factions have roughly equal resources to call upon.
2. Anyone who tries to turn this into a Star Trek vs. Doctor Who thread, or even an Enterprise vs. the TARDIS thread, will be EXTERMINATED.
3. Speaking of which, assume that the Doctor is
a) On board the Enterprise-D, while the TARDIS is in the shuttlebay.
b) Is watching the battle on long-range sensors from Picard's ready room.
c) They are both providing running commentary on the battle.

[chiasaur11]

The Borg are superior in one respect:
They are better at dying!

I'm giving this to the omnicidal salt shakers. At least they don't get beaten by Janeway. Also, the Cybermen are pretty much the Borg. The Daleks handed them their collective arses.

[Tensu]

Well, I don't really know what I'm talking about, having not seen much of ether show (I know, I know, and I call myself a nerd:smallfrown:) But it seems to me that the Borg would be replenishing their numbers by assimilating their captives, thus they would easily win in a war of attrition.

[Turcano]

My tentative guess is that the Borg will win. Eventually, the Borg will adapt to the Dalek death-rays, at which point the Daleks are fairly screwed. But could the Daleks overcome this problem?

Well, even though the Borg could probably adapt to the Daleks' ZA WARUDO death ray, they probably couldn't do the same with their Toilet Plungers of Death.

[Athaniar]

An important question: are Daleks (I'm thinking the mutants inside the armor) vulnerable to assimilation? Could we potentially have Daleks running around (figuratively) shouting "AS-SIM-IL-ATE!"?

[kamikasei]

1. Assume both factions have roughly equal resources to call upon.

You'll have to pin this down a bit. The Daleks are far and away the more advanced. So, if by "equal resources" you mean "equal numbers of ships and/or individual units" the Daleks have a huge advantage. If you mean something weighted by unit strength, on the other hand, you're basically handicapping the Daleks until it's an even fight, which rather defeats the purpose.

The two questions on which the whole thing hinges are:
- Can the Borg assimilate Daleks?
- Can they adapt to Dalek weaponry?

I don't see any reason why Dalek biology would be assimilation-proof, but an intact Dalek armor should be; they can disintegrate bullets before they hit them, it's likely they can prevent anything (nanites or nanite-delivery mechanisms) from making contact if they don't want it to. So assimilation will only be an issue if the Borg can incapacitate armors and then take their time with them. As to adapting to weaponry, well, they never seemed to adapt to Species 8472; it's possible that if the power difference is great enough, if the enemy can destroy entire ships outright in single shots or volleys, that adaptation isn't possible. (Never mind that it's a terribly thought through and inconsistent idea in the first place...)

So, by pretty much any measure I would give this to the Daleks by a mile. They're just a much more advanced and powerful civilization. The real problem of course is that both shows play fast and loose with consistency and internal logic so that a rigorous comparison is basically impossible.

It's an interesting pairing, though, since the two are almost totally antithetical. The Borg seek to attain perfection by incorporating all else into themselves; the Daleks believe themselves to be perfect and want to destroy everything that isn't them.

[chiasaur11]

You'll have to pin this down a bit. The Daleks are far and away the more advanced. So, if by "equal resources" you mean "equal numbers of ships and/or individual units" the Daleks have a huge advantage. If you mean something weighted by unit strength, on the other hand, you're basically handicapping the Daleks until it's an even fight, which rather defeats the purpose.

The two questions on which the whole thing hinges are:
- Can the Borg assimilate Daleks?
- Can they adapt to Dalek weaponry?

I don't see any reason why Dalek biology would be assimilation-proof, but an intact Dalek armor should be; they can disintegrate bullets before they hit them, it's likely they can prevent anything (nanites or nanite-delivery mechanisms) from making contact if they don't want it to. So assimilation will only be an issue if the Borg can incapacitate armors and then take their time with them. As to adapting to weaponry, well, they never seemed to adapt to Species 8472; it's possible that if the power difference is great enough, if the enemy can destroy entire ships outright in single shots or volleys, that adaptation isn't possible. (Never mind that it's a terribly thought through and inconsistent idea in the first place...)

So, by pretty much any measure I would give this to the Daleks by a mile. They're just a much more advanced and powerful civilization. The real problem of course is that both shows play fast and loose with consistency and internal logic so that a rigorous comparison is basically impossible.

It's an interesting pairing, though, since the two are almost totally antithetical. The Borg seek to attain perfection by incorporating all else into themselves; the Daleks believe themselves to be perfect and want to destroy everything that isn't them.

If you mean equally weighted by unit strength, the fight should be great fun.

One Dalek.

Five or so Borg cubes.

Hours upon hours of entertainment.

[Ascension]

If you mean equally weighted by unit strength, the fight should be great fun.

One Dalek.

Five or so Borg cubes.

Hours upon hours of entertainment.

Daleks are really that strong? And yet they're consistently defeated by a single guy with a fancy multitool, a time machine, and the ability to come back from the dead? How?

>Ascension's knowledge of Doctor Who all comes second-hand.

[SmartAlec]

He's a MacGyver-esque hero from the one race more technologically and scientifically advanced than the Daleks are. And he doesn't fight fair!

[Selrahc]

Daleks are really that strong? And yet they're consistently defeated by a single guy with a fancy multitool, a time machine, and the ability to come back from the dead? How?

Because he doesn't fight them, he beats them with a clever plan.

[chiasaur11]

Daleks are really that strong? And yet they're consistently defeated by a single guy with a fancy multitool, a time machine, and the ability to come back from the dead? How?

>Ascension's knowledge of Doctor Who all comes second-hand.

Well, the Doctor is a member of one of the oldest races in the galaxy, has a freaking incredible time machine (which he operates by himself despite the fact it's designed for a crew of six), he's killed a couple of satan analogues, and generally been what cosmic horrors tell campfire tales about.

And I probably exaggerated the Daleks a tad, but they are fairly tough. Four Daleks took a huge army of Cybermen (who are basically the Doctor Who equivalent of the Borg) without breaking a sweat. Or whatever Daleks break in stressful times.

Mind, I haven't seen that much Doctor Who either, so take this all with a grain of salt.

[X2]

Well since the Borg have strength of numbers and can assimilate the organisms in the shell (as well as the shell itself if they need it) I'd have to say Borg.

But then again I like Star Trek slightly over Doctor Who.

[Ravens_cry]

The Borg.
Sure, a few drones would be 'EXTERMINATE!'-ed, but pretty soon the Borg would adapt. And our plunger wielding nemesis would be bye-bye once the Borg a developed a nanite that could eat through the casing and assimilating the Dalek directly. I think it would have an effect on the Borg though, assimilating the Dalek. Their battle cry would become, "Resistance, is, futile, you, will, be, EXTERMINATED!"
Shuddersum thought. I should write a fan fic!

[hamishspence]

actually, as of more recent Star trek novels (just before the Star Trek: Destiny arc) that really is their warcry

"You will be exterminated. Resistance is futile... but welcome."

[Friv]

One trick you're going to run into is that Daleks have vastly varying power levels depending on when they're encountered. As a time-travelling species with thousands of years of development, any stage of which could be encountered at any given moment, they're kind of hard to pin down.

Similarly, the Borg at their best were an order of magnitude stronger than the Borg in Voyager. In their first appearance, the Borg slaughtered most of the Federation's fleet without breaking a sweat. In First Contact, a single Borg cube was up to the combined forces of the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans, all fighting together. Later on, Voyager is taking down Borg cubes by itself with no good reasoning.

At their best, this goes to the Daleks hands-down, simply due to them having better time travel than the Borg. On the other hand, the Daleks at their peak were promptly thrown into war against another time-travelling race, so they now retroactively never existed.

Assuming both species are at their peak, and neither has much in the way of time travel, I'm going to tentatively give this to the Borg. Once they adapt to Dalek death rays, the Daleks are going to be in a certain amount of trouble, and the Borg are better able to replenish their ranks by converting entire species to throw into the fray. It will be a brutal fight, though, since it'll take vast amounts of Borg firepower to stop each Dalek, and they are still vunerable to physical murder.

[Meshakhad]

I think we can all agree, however, that a Borg-Dalek war would be awesome to watch, especially if we have the Doctor and Jean-Luc Picard giving snarky commentary.

[Athaniar]

My prediction:

Whichever side wins is severely weakened, and then Species 8472 comes in and finishes them off.

I really think we should have seen more of Species 8472. And that they should have been given a proper name.

[GoC]

They're both ridiculous.:smallsigh:
The Daleks much more so.

I'd give this to the Daleks, at least the ST writers don't have a universe that oscilates between Rule of Cool and Rule of Funny.

EDIT: Gah! The Cybermen! I had nightmares about them! I dreamt I had to avoid seeing them because otherwise my IQ would drop.:smalleek:
Yes I actually dreamt that.

EDIT2: According to a Dr. Who fanboy I know the Daleks have in fact conquered hundreds of galaxies. Stupid I know.:smallannoyed:

[Llama231]

I would say the Daleks simply because of time travel.

[chiasaur11]

They're both ridiculous.:smallsigh:
The Daleks much more so.

I'd give this to the Daleks, at least the ST writers don't have a universe that oscilates between Rule of Cool and Rule of Funny.

EDIT: Gah! The Cybermen! I had nightmares about them! I dreamt I had to avoid seeing them because otherwise my IQ would drop.:smalleek:
Yes I actually dreamt that.

EDIT2: According to a Dr. Who fanboy I know the Daleks have in fact conquered hundreds of galaxies. Stupid I know.:smallannoyed:

What can I say?

They are very, very mean salt shakers.

[Tensu]

Well, seeing as how I'll bet time travel is impossible without creating dimensional-implosion causing paradoxes, infinite loop scenarios, or something else in that vein, let's say nobody has any time travel. Then what?

[GoC]

I would say the Daleks simply because of time travel.

The borg have that too.

[chiasaur11]

Well, seeing as how I'll bet time travel is impossible without creating dimensional-implosion causing paradoxes, infinite loop scenarios, or something else in that vein, let's say nobody has any time travel. Then what?

It is possible, however, in both settings discussed.

In fact, it is rather key to both settings.

Also, even if we're talking one Dalek, fifty billion Borg, and the Dalek only has a plastic spork...

Well, the Dalek would lose. But it'd be a close fight.

[Krrth]

Well, as of the latest Dr. Who Episode I'm familiar with, the Daleks developed a device that destroys all life in every time stream possible, and teleport entire planets around at will.

The Borg are nasty, but I have a sneaky suspicion that the Daleks will win simply because they have a Seer leading them. Someone able to see the entirety of space/time and plan accordingly makes for a hell of a foe.

[Llama231]

Oh well, I guess that I will have to work around that.

Data:
Daleks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek)
Key Points

The death ray possesses incredible firepower for its size. It can kill almost any mortal life-form, level houses, and destroy entire spacecraft. Under certain circumstances, Daleks are shown equipped with additional weaponry...

The armour has a forcefield that evaporates most bullets and absorbs most types of energy weapons, though normally ineffective firepower can be concentrated on the eyestalk to blind the Daleks. [16] The shields however can be penetrated by their own weaponry.
May edit in more later.

Borg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_(Star_Trek))
Borg Cube (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_starships)
Key Points

In terms of offense and defense, a Borg cube is a fleet in and of itself. Common capabilities of cubes include high warp (transwarp) capabilities, self-regeneration and multiple redundant systems, rapid adaptability to almost any assault, and various beam (tractor beams and cutting beams) and missile weapons. A single Borg cube has, on multiple occasions, taken on entire Federation fleets and held its own. Cubes have been known to carry sphere ships in cavities covered by large slide-away hatches in the outermost layers; however, it is unknown if this is common.
May edit in more later.


Yeah... Wikipedia does not say much information...

[streakster]

Ahem.

The Daleks take a stroll through an army of cybermen, and a special forces team. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXwBDQK2ZeE&feature=related)
The Daleks do diplomacy. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCsXO7r6-z4)

I'm giving this one to the Daleks, here.

[Ascension]

Ahem.

The Daleks take a stroll through an army of cybermen, and a special forces team. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXwBDQK2ZeE&feature=related)
The Daleks do diplomacy. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCsXO7r6-z4)

I'm giving this one to the Daleks, here.

Judging from these videos...

Dialogue, firepower, shielding... Daleks win.

Special effects? Borg win big time.

I had no idea Doctor Who looked so... low budget. Not necessarily a downfall, but still...

[yukigono]

I am going to have to agree with the majority of the people in this thread and say the Daleks would win. I haven't seen as much of Dr. Who as would like, but from what I have seen, and from what I've heard of their abilities, they would run roughshod over the Borg.

[Starscream]

The Daleks can:
a) Travel through time
b) Slip between universes in a void ship
c) Teleport entire planets across the galaxy
d) develop weapons that will literally destroy not only the entire universe but every possible parallel universe as well
e) Fight the single most intelligent and advanced species in creation to a standstill

Yeah, the Daleks would win. But it's really an apples to oranges comparison, as they have completely different technology, motivations, and enemies.

Borg vs Cybermen would be a better match up. Even though the Borg were actually somewhat based on the Cybermen, I'd give the edge to the Borg in this one. They seem more clever.

Whereas the Cybermen, when last we saw them, were turning silly looking gorillas into sillier looking gorillas in masks and making steampunk mechas out of rubbish.

Maybe the original Mondas Cybermen would stand a chance (if they even still exist), but the Cybus versions are just souped-up earth technology.

[Avilan the Grey]

Daleks.

It's not even a competition. It is DEFINITELY not war. It is PEST-CON-TROL.
I'll give this hands down to the ultimate space-nazis.

[Avilan the Grey]

Borg vs Cybermen would be a better match up. Even though the Borg were actually somewhat based on the Cybermen, I'd give the edge to the Borg in this one. They seem more clever.

Been done. 5 million cybermen against 4 daleks. Cybermen lost.

[Serpentine]

Daleks are really that strong?Cyber Leader: Daleks, be warned. You have declared war upon the Cybermen.
Dalek Leader: This is not war - this is pest control!
Cyber Leader: We have five million Cybermen. How many are you?
Dalek Leader: Four.
Cyber Leader: You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?
Dalek Leader: We would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek!

[Meshakhad]

After reviewing these comments, I will agree that the Daleks would probably win.

I have one counterpoint in favor of the Borg: their ships. My knowledge of Doctor Who is limited to the Ninth Doctor, so the only armament I know that Dalek warships carry is their missiles. I find it extremely unlikely that the Borg can't adapt to Dalek missiles if the Federation couldn't figure out a way to get their torpedoes to penetrate Borg shielding. Borg drones v. Dalek soldiers is probably going to be a bloodbath, but what about Borg cubes v. Dalek saucers? I don't know about the Cybermen, but did they fight the Daleks in ship-to-ship combat?

[kamikasei]

I don't know about the Cybermen, but did they fight the Daleks in ship-to-ship combat?

No (not in nuWho, at least). The Cybermen didn't have ships.

But you have to assume that Dalek ship technology is far in advance of Borg; they're a universe-spanning force, one of the two most powerful in existence. That they're only seen using missiles means two things:

- missiles are more dramatic than energy weapons (since a missile can be fired and in flight before being prematurely detonated, deflected etc.)
- their missiles are more powerful than their energy weapons, or more generally better suited to whatever task they were using them for. Just because a Dalek missile is better than a Dalek energy weapon to use against a TARDIS doesn't mean a Dalek energy weapon couldn't cut a Borg cube into amusing and aesthetically pleasing shapes with impunity.

Since both shows take so much dramatic license and neither are anywhere near rigorous in their internal logic, at a certain point you just have to acknowledge that the Daleks operate on a higher level than the Borg.

[SmartAlec]

I don't know about the Cybermen, but did they fight the Daleks in ship-to-ship combat?

No - though at their height, the Daleks did fight the Time Lords in ship-to-ship combat. And it should be noted that the Time Lords' arsenal isn't limited to small TARDISes; they have all sorts of bizarre tricks, ranging from ships that are essentially giant spaceborne crossbows to ships that can open and close black holes. And the Daleks fought them to a bloody stalemate, so they must have something going for them.

[Meshakhad]

No - though at their height, the Daleks did fight the Time Lords in ship-to-ship combat. And it should be noted that the Time Lords' arsenal isn't limited to small TARDISes; they have all sorts of bizarre tricks, ranging from ships that are essentially giant spaceborne crossbows to ships that can open and close black holes. And the Daleks fought them to a bloody stalemate, so they must have something going for them.

Good point. And since I doubt the Borg would stand a chance against the Time Lords...

[chiasaur11]

Good point. And since I doubt the Borg would stand a chance against the Time Lords...

The really fun thing is the Time Lords aren't even the most powerful guys in the history of the Doctor Who universe.

You bring up, say, the Osirians, and then things really start getting crazy go nuts.

[DeathQuaker]

I usually avoid vs. threads, but this is Doctor Who, so I can't resist.

Okay. Warning: EXTREME WHOVIAN NERDNESS FOLLOWS:

First of all: the Time Lords are wusses. NuWho makes them out to be all powerful because absence makes the heart grow fonder, but at one point in time, Gallifrey got invaded by some high tech humans and the Sontarans, because they managed to trick the Gallifreyans into dropping their shields. (See The Invasion of Time). The only badass Gallifreyans were the ancient ones, and the Renegades who realized most Time Lords are wusses and left to go do their own thing (see: The Doctor). The only thing the Time Lords have on their side is the ability to alter time, and they won't do that except in extreme circumstances. Why do you think the Time Lords sent the Doctor to destroy the Daleks before they were created (see The Genesis of the Daleks)? They knew if the Daleks improved their time travel skills, Gallifrey would be screwed. And so they were. The Doctor's guilt not only comes from the outcome of the Time War in general, but because he had the opportunity way back in Genesis to wipe out the Daleks forever, and opted not to for a sense of the Greater Good.

As for the topic at hand: if we're talking classic Daleks versus Borg, it would be a very tough fight. But I see the Borg as much like the Movellans (see Destiny of the Daleks)... they probably similarly find a means to use biological and chemical warfare against the Daleks where artillery would fail, and probably do so very effectively. Daleks are set in their ways whereas Borg are adaptive, and thus Borg have the advantage (since as far as I can see it, their tech is relatively similar on a high level).

On the OTHER hand, as a few other posters point out, what would happen once the Borg assimilate the Daleks? Since the Daleks are mutated humanoids (first the Kaleds, then genetically altered humans), they'd be easily assimilatable. But the indomitable Dalek spirit wound into the Borg psyche. The Borg might well be overtaken by the Daleks' drive and thus in their own way, become them. And then, you see, ultimately the Daleks win either way. Creepy, huh?

Now, with NuWho, episodes like Doomsday and Journey's End show the Daleks to be so nigh-invulnerable, that basically, their tech level is equivalent to PLOT and they are capable of PLOT and can always beat everyone else because of PLOT and also deus ex machina. And also, PLOT. Except, of course, unless you are a magnificent temp from Chiswick on an enhanced brain high who manages to press a couple buttons in the right order, in which case, since the Daleks' chief technological power is PLOT, they can also be defeated by PLOT.

Of course, arguably, the Borg had the same PLOT powers and weaknesses by the time we hit Voyager, in which case, that means in the fight between the latest and greatest Daleks versus the latest and greatest Borg, the ultimate winner will, of course, be Donna.

I shall close with this:
Daleks: We are the Daleks!
Borg: We are Borg.
Cybermen: We are the Cybermen.
Cybusmen: We are human .2.
Daleks: We are the superior beings!
Borg: Your technology and culture will be added to our own.
Cybermen: You belong to usssss.
Cybusmen: If you are compatible, you will be upgraded, or...
Daleks: You will be EXTERMINATED!
Borg: You will be assimilated.
Cybermen: You will become like us.
Cybusmen: You will be deleted.
Daleks, Borg, Cybermen, and Cybusmen: RESISTANCE IS USELESS!!

I'm done now.

[DeathQuaker]

I usually avoid vs. threads, but this is Doctor Who, so I can't resist.

Okay. Warning: EXTREME WHOVIAN NERDNESS FOLLOWS:

First of all: the Time Lords are wusses. NuWho makes them out to be all powerful because absence makes the heart grow fonder, but at one point in time, Gallifrey got invaded by some high tech humans and the Sontarans, because they managed to trick the Gallifreyans into dropping their shields. (See The Invasion of Time). The only badass Gallifreyans were the ancient ones, and the Renegades who realized most Time Lords are wusses and left to go do their own thing (see: The Doctor). The only thing the Time Lords have on their side is the ability to alter time, and they won't do that except in extreme circumstances. Why do you think the Time Lords sent the Doctor to destroy the Daleks before they were created (see The Genesis of the Daleks)? They knew if the Daleks improved their time travel skills, Gallifrey would be screwed. And so they were. The Doctor's guilt not only comes from the outcome of the Time War in general, but because he had the opportunity way back in Genesis to wipe out the Daleks forever, and opted not to for a sense of the Greater Good.

As for the topic at hand: if we're talking classic Daleks versus Borg, it would be a very tough fight. But I see the Borg as much like the Movellans (see Destiny of the Daleks)... they probably similarly find a means to use biological and chemical warfare against the Daleks where artillery would fail, and probably do so very effectively. Daleks are set in their ways whereas Borg are adaptive, and thus Borg have the advantage (since as far as I can see it, their tech is relatively similar on a high level).

On the OTHER hand, as a few other posters point out, what would happen once the Borg assimilate the Daleks? Since the Daleks are mutated humanoids (first the Kaleds, then genetically altered humans), they'd be easily assimilatable. But the indomitable Dalek spirit wound into the Borg psyche. The Borg might well be overtaken by the Daleks' drive and thus in their own way, become them. And then, you see, ultimately the Daleks win either way. Creepy, huh?

Now, with NuWho, episodes like Doomsday and Journey's End show the Daleks to be so nigh-invulnerable, that basically, their tech level is equivalent to PLOT and they are capable of PLOT and can always beat everyone else because of PLOT and also deus ex machina. And also, PLOT. Except, of course, unless you are a magnificent temp from Chiswick on an enhanced brain high who manages to press a couple buttons in the right order, in which case, since the Daleks' chief technological power is PLOT, they can also be defeated by PLOT.

Of course, arguably, the Borg had the same PLOT powers and weaknesses by the time we hit Voyager, in which case, that means in the fight between the latest and greatest Daleks versus the latest and greatest Borg, the ultimate winner will, of course, be Donna.

I shall close with this:
Daleks: We are the Daleks!
Borg: We are Borg.
Cybermen: We are the Cybermen.
Cybusmen: We are human .2.
Daleks: We are the superior beings!
Borg: Your technology and culture will be added to our own.
Cybermen: You belong to usssss.
Cybusmen: If you are compatible, you will be upgraded, or...
Daleks: You will be EXTERMINATED!
Borg: You will be assimilated.
Cybermen: You will become like us.
Cybusmen: You will be deleted.
Daleks, Borg, Cybermen, and Cybusmen: RESISTANCE IS USELESS!! (Futile, whatevs)

I'm done now.

[GoC]

The Dr. Who universe looks like it was designed by a three year old and implemented by a mad man.
Any argument about it can be countered because of it's complete lack of self-consistency.

EDIT: I'm being unfair, make that a kindergarden class instead of a three year-old.

[kamikasei]

The Dr. Who universe looks like it was designed by a three year old and implemented by a mad man.
Any argument about it can be countered because of it's complete lack of self-consistency.

It's a show about a time-traveler aimed at children. A lack of self-consistency isn't much of a criticism, though it doesn't make it very suitable for versus threads.

However, Trek really isn't so much better in this regard that it can throw stones. The writers have a terrible habit of introducing ideas whose implications they haven't thought through, and then developing them in nonsensical and, yes, inconsistent ways. And I say this as a trekkie.

[Ganurath]

Borg and Daleks meet. Borg win initiative due to hivemind bonus.
Borg attempt to assimilate a sample of the Daleks. Intended sample disintegrates probe, shortly followed by the attached drone.
Daleks attack Borg. Borg adapt to energy beams.
Borg open fire on Daleks. Unable to assimilate Dalek shield data, their weapons are only effective when ship-to-ship weapons are firing upon individual Daleks in space.
Daleks close the range so that the Daleks can start boarding. Borg inflict casualties with that phaser-grapeshot trick, but Daleks start boarding.
Borg attempt to escape with the boarding parties as sample. Dalek ship reveals to the Borg the value of tactical time travel by going a fraction of a second into the future in time and just ahead of the Borg's intended route in space.
Dalek boarding parties, knowing their beam weapons are now ineffective, attempt to use the Toilet Plunger of Death. Borg fail to adapt.
Borg are EXTERMINATED.

[Ravens_cry]

Unable to assimilate Dalek shield data,
Why? Adapting is what Borg DO. I admit I know more about Borg then Daleks, but this seems to be a bit of an Idiot Plot (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotPlot) point. And if the Borg, actually do just capture a single saucer, then the Borg learn those nice little tricks of
tactical time travel. So all the advantages the Dalek might have from that time period, become Borg advantages. As I said before, I do think the Dalek mindset would have a strong effect on the Borg, possibly creating a fusion of the two in the process. But again, this is what the Borg DO.

[FoE]

The Borg have been shown time and again to have limitations on their much-vaunted "adaptability." The only way they learn is through assimilation, and there's been two occassions where that ability failed them: they couldn't assimilate Species 8472 or Data.

If they can't assimilate Dalek technology, then they are absolutely pooched. Even if they manage to shield themselves against the Dalek energy weapons, Daleks have about a thousand other ways to kill a combatant that shields can't stop. Yeah, I give this to the Daleks.

Now, here's another interesting question: what does the Doctor do about the Q that started this mess? :smallwink:

[Haven]

The Dr. Who universe looks like it was designed by a three year old and implemented by a mad man.
Any argument about it can be countered because of it's complete lack of self-consistency.

EDIT: I'm being unfair, make that a kindergarden class instead of a three year-old.

<cosgrove>Cut it out.</cosgrove>


Why? Adapting is what Borg DO. I admit I know more about Borg then Daleks, but this seems to be a bit of an Idiot Plot point.

I don't think the Borg would be able to get close enough to a Dalek to assimilate it. Their nanoprobes probably couldn't get through the force field, and, they'd get lasered, or plungered, or exploded...Daleks have access to lots of weapons, and it seems like it takes quite a few hits for the Borg to adapt. And if the Federation can come up with that "modulating phasers" stuff, the Daleks could too.

If nothing else, Daleks have a self-destruct mechanism--and the fanaticism to use it--so they could destroy themselves if the Borg tried to assimilate them.

But the Daleks have access to time travel, so they could just go back and make the Borg cease to exist (they'd have to do some research, but because of the line "It's not just energy, it's information! That Dalek just absorbed the internet!" they can do it). And since there aren't any time lords or flying time gargoyle monkeys or anything in the Star Trek verse, they totally would.

The Daleks in general show levels of technology vastly beyond what the Borg have. This is partly because of the milieu: Doctor Who is very, very soft science fiction, Star Trek tries to keep itself on the hard side. I don't think the Borg stand a chance.

(I don't know anything about old/classic/pre-RTD Doctor Who, but I also don't know anything about Voyager other than the understanding that the Borg lost, a lot, in that show.)

[Llama231]

Now, here's another interesting question: what does the Doctor do about the Q that started this mess? :smallwink:

I vote that this be turned into a Doctor vs. Q thread.

[streakster]

The Dr. Who universe looks like it was designed by a three year old and implemented by a mad man.
Any argument about it can be countered because of it's complete lack of self-consistency.

EDIT: I'm being unfair, make that a kindergarden class instead of a three year-old.

Actually, Doctor Who is completely internally consistent, except that you have to factor in the effects of the whole "timey-wimey ball" cosmology.:smallbiggrin:

[chiasaur11]

Actually, Doctor Who is completely internally consistent, except that you have to factor in the effects of the whole "timey-wimey ball" cosmology.:smallbiggrin:

You forget the all important wibbly wobbley.

Key to the whole setting.

[Starscream]

I vote that this be turned into a Doctor vs. Q thread.

Depending on which Doctor we are talking about, I imagine they might actually hit it off.

[Brewdude]

The writers have a terrible habit of introducing ideas whose implications they haven't thought through, and then developing them in nonsensical and, yes, inconsistent ways.

From what I gather from the one time I had a chance to talk to a trek writer, this was intentional passive aggressive introduction of stupidity into cannon caused by writers getting regularly screwed by producers, but producers being unable to distinguish sensible science fiction from unsupportable gibberish.

The Ferengi Homeworld episode of DS9 is a case in point.

[SmartAlec]

There was an episode - Death to the Daleks, I think, Jon Pertwee era - in which a group of Daleks, upon finding their energy weapons were ineffective because of a peculiarity of the planet they were on, refitted their movement chassis with machine-guns.

[chiasaur11]

There was an episode - Death to the Daleks, I think, Jon Pertwee era - in which a group of Daleks, upon finding their energy weapons were ineffective because of a peculiarity of the planet they were on, refitted their movement chassis with machine-guns.

And as we all know, the Borg have a weakness to tommyguns.

[Theodoriph]

However, Trek really isn't so much better in this regard that it can throw stones. The writers have a terrible habit of introducing ideas whose implications they haven't thought through, and then developing them in nonsensical and, yes, inconsistent ways. And I say this as a trekkie.


So true! They can't even keep basic concepts consistent. In Star Trek: TNG, the federation is horrified at the loss of 39 ships at Wolf 359. Shelby says they'll have the fleet back up in a year.

In Deep Space Nine, during the war with the Dominion, the Federation was fighting an enemy that had 30 000+ warships and...they were winning.

Since the Federation was the strongest member of the Federation Alliance (the Dominion seemed to think so, and the Feds seemed to take the lead)...that would put their strength at...15 000 ships at the minimum.

With over 15 000 ships, the loss of 39 shouldn't be a huge deal. It wouldn't even be worth noting, let alone making the comment that you'll have "the fleet back up in a year". And which fleet was Commander Shelby talkign about? From DS9, elements of the 2nd and 5th fleets comprised 625 ships. These are elements of two fleets, not two full fleets. So each fleet likely has 300-1000 ships. Even to a single fleet, 39 lost ships wouldn't be a huge deal. It would be nothing to the federation fleet as a whole. We don't even know how many fleets there are. The highest number we hear in DS9 is the tenth fleet, but that's not evidence that there are only 10.

Hell it makes you wonder what exactly their wars with the Romulans and Klingons entailed if each side has thousands or tens of thousands of ships...but losing 39 is traumatic.


Of course...it's always possible that the Federation learned after the Borg incident occurred and in the intervening 8 years...built a fleet comprising 15 000+ ships, with the Klingons and the Romulans building ships too...but if they could do that...why would they have waited when they were previously at war with each other and vying for dominance.


There's a lot that doesn't make sense in Star Trek when it comes to consistency. :smallsmile:

The most aggravating thing to me is the anti-power creep that bad guys suffer from.



EDIT: I did some research...and it's likely Starfleet has built over 70 000 ships. Which further makes the idea of 39 being a huge loss...laughable. Now some of those 70 000 would have been retired, but in 2365, Pulaski transferred to the Enterprise D from a ship that had the registry number NCC 2544. So we know some of the earlier numbers are still in commission. So it's quite possible they still have 60 000+ operating, which would make sense.

[Theodoriph]

And as we all know, the Borg have a weakness to tommyguns.

Actually they aren't. They have the appropriate shielding for that :smalltongue: Picard's trick worked because of....POWER OF PLOT.

Star Trek is hilarious in the way everyone always seems surprised someone is using a projectile weapon. :smallbiggrin: The line in DS9 about Odo learning about powder burns from 20th century crime novels always cracked me up. :smallbiggrin: Though to be fair...Odo was never taught how to be a security officer and investigator.

The especially funny since one of the best weapons Starfleet can make is a projectile weapon. It was crafted by a Vulcan officer/serial-killer. Another was made by Chief O'Brien. You take a rifle, attach a micro-transporter and use a targetting scope which lets you see through walls. Boom. You fire and the transporter beams the bullet a few centimetres from the victim, where the bullet then proceeds on its course and kills the victim.

It's actually a far superior weapon to a phasor in many respects and exceptionally easy to mass produce (it can be replicated).

[Avilan the Grey]

I just don't see how the Borg would manage to assimilate a Dalek. I have not seen any Borg weapon that would be able to penetrate the actual salt-shaker.

On top of that, it seems the Borg is unable to adapt against physical attack. No matter how many times they fight an enemy it seems they can always be hit over the head or shot by physical projectiles.
(As a side note this is why I would much rather face the borg armed with a Kalashnikov than a blaster).

Anyway, add to this the Daleks different mindset: The Borgs (misguided) goal is to "learn everything" by investigate and assimilate species.
The Borg is the ultimate Nazis. Their goal is to kill every inferior life form in the universe. That includes every higher form of life in the universe, and quite a few lesser ones too. And other Daleks, at times.

[Theodoriph]

Oh the Borg can set up a shield against physical attacks. It's been done before. :smallsmile:

As I said, in the show and the movie, they didn't because of....POWER OF PLOT! It'd be lame if Worf and Picard didn't get their moments of awesome. :smalltongue:

[Avilan the Grey]

Oh the Borg can set up a shield against physical attacks. It's been done before. :smallsmile:

As I said, in the show and the movie, they didn't because of....POWER OF PLOT! It'd be lame if Worf and Picard didn't get their moments of awesome. :smalltongue:

True. But then we have to consider that the Daleks, on top of a much higher technology level and pure raving evil madness combined with genocidal tendencies of epic proportions just operate on such a much higher Level Of Awesome. :smallbiggrin::smallcool:

[Theodoriph]

True. But then we have to consider that the Daleks, on top of a much higher technology level and pure raving evil madness combined with genocidal tendencies of epic proportions just operate on such a much higher Level Of Awesome. :smallbiggrin::smallcool:


Not to Star Trek writers. :smallbiggrin:



Daleks appear in pornographic material anyway, so I'd give the win to the borg since they aren't consumed by the corruptions of the flesh. All a borg would need to penetrate their armor and assimilate them is to disguise themselves as hot naked females....or hot naked males :smalltongue:



Edit: After further thinking about Borg-Dalek relations, I think I've scarred myself.

[Kato]

Okay, more of a Trekkie than a Who'er here, but I had my fair share of both.

I'd guess the Dalek would be in most ways far superior in the beginning and in probably every possible way and the Borg'd lose a hell lot of ships. Though, the thing with the Borg is, they just need to get a foot in the door. If they get hold of a single ship or maybe just a single Dalek they'd be able to adapt their technology and handle it with relative ease. After all, what have the Daleks ledft once you take all of their technologic superiority? They are (it seems) unable to adapt or onvent, so with a foe of their level they'd probably be defeated, especially if his special ability is to steal your ships and use them against you.

[GoC]

Actually, Doctor Who is completely internally consistent, except that you have to factor in the effects of the whole "timey-wimey ball" cosmology.:smallbiggrin:

You get intelligence inconsistencies (actually the most common type in media). Creatures that are supposed to be intelligent having IQ 17 when it comes to certain things.

[Avilan the Grey]

You get intelligence inconsistencies (actually the most common type in media). Creatures that are supposed to be intelligent having IQ 17 when it comes to certain things.

And that is different from any other TV-show, movie, book or comic how?

PLOT-induced stupidity is most frequent in situations that involves cheerleaders in underwear-or-less but it happens all the time.

[Theodoriph]

And that is different from any other TV-show, movie, book or comic how?

PLOT-induced stupidity is most frequent in situations that involves cheerleaders in underwear-or-less but it happens all the time.


I believe the phrase "actually the most common type in media" was being used to denote that it is not in fact different from many other shows (e.g. Star Trek), movies (e.g. Star Wars III) or comic. :smalltongue: It was pretty explicitly stated...I'm not sure from whence your misunderstanding derives.

[kamikasei]

It was pretty explicitly stated...I'm not sure from whence your misunderstanding derives.

Well, it does seem strange to come in to a thread about a comparison between two shows too inconsistent to be very usefully compared, and criticize one of them for being inconsistent like most other media, including the show to which it's being compared.

:smalltongue:

[Theodoriph]

Well, it does seem strange to come in to a thread about a comparison between two shows too inconsistent to be very usefully compared, and criticize one of them for being inconsistent like most other media, including the show to which it's being compared.

:smalltongue:

Previous to that post, I spent time criticizing how even basic aspects of Star Trek were inconsistent. :smallsmile: So honestly, it's not weird at all :smalltongue: Since not everyone knows everything about both shows, with most tending to know more about one than the other, it actually makes far more sense.


I mean I could rattle on for hours about inconsistencies in Star Trek...from the intelligent doors, to DS9 seemingly unable to decide whether it was spinning or not from one shot to another...to a billion other important (or not so important) inconsistencies. For instance, Odo should retain his mass when shapeshifting. He then proceeds, in other episodes, to turn into a small bird and fly away or to turn into handcuffs around Kira's wrists. I even have books dedicated to the inconsistencies in every episode of Star Trek :smallbiggrin: But when it comes to Dr. Who, I don't know as much =D So it's quite useful to have people who say it's madly inconsistent like Star Trek is. :smalltongue:

[kamikasei]

I mean that GoC gives the impression he's criticizing Who as being worse than Trek in this regard - implying that it's inconsistent but Trek is not. Either that or he's just venting some Whohate. I may be wrong on either count, of course.

[Theodoriph]

I mean that GoC gives the impression he's criticizing Who as being worse than Trek in this regard - implying that it's inconsistent but Trek is not. Either that or he's just venting some Whohate. I may be wrong on either count, of course.

I have a better explanation...you guys are being overly defensive. :smallwink:

[Manga Shoggoth]

(Not a fan of either series, but I grew up watching Dr Who and watched much of ST:OS and ST:TNG).

I suspect that "who wins" really depends on how long the war takes.

From Wikipedia:

"Because assimilation depends on nanoprobes, species with an extremely advanced immune system such as Species 8472 are able to reject assimilation."

The Daleks have been shown to be susceptible to germ warfare (one of the original plots had the Daleks creating a plague and then being infected by it). They aren't any more resistant to such things as the next race. Forcefields aren't going to be much of a help unless they are hermetically sealed (in which case the Dalek will have other problems).

In fact, in the original series Daleks were never portraied as unkillable, just fairly difficult to kill.

So, looking beyond the "uber-opponent" image:

Dalek strengths: High tech level; ruthless

Dalek weaknesses: Not invunerable to biological warefare; overconfident

Borg strengths: High tech level; ability to adapt to new technology (as has been said: It's what they do...); Hive structure; different host races give broad spectrum immunity to germ warfare

Borg weaknesses: Still dependent on living hosts so biological weapons would be effective


So, how would things go?

The Daleks would win provided that they can take out the borg fast enough to prevent them adapting to their technology. (The only time I saw Species 8472 was the start of the episode where one of their ships took out three cubes in three shots - very fast and not enough time to gather data and adapt).

However, the longer the conflict takes, the more likley a Borg victory will become. All the Borg have to so is use delaying tactics, and avoid committing their forces to a full engagement.

[Avilan the Grey]

(Not a fan of either series, but I grew up watching Dr Who and watched much of ST:OS and ST:TNG).

I suspect that "who wins" really depends on how long the war takes.

From Wikipedia:

"Because assimilation depends on nanoprobes, species with an extremely advanced immune system such as Species 8472 are able to reject assimilation."

The Daleks have been shown to be susceptible to germ warfare (one of the original plots had the Daleks creating a plague and then being infected by it). They aren't any more resistant to such things as the next race. Forcefields aren't going to be much of a help unless they are hermetically sealed (in which case the Dalek will have other problems).

In fact, in the original series Daleks were never portraied as unkillable, just fairly difficult to kill.

So, looking beyond the "uber-opponent" image:

Dalek strengths: High tech level; ruthless

Dalek weaknesses: Not invunerable to biological warefare; overconfident

Borg strengths: High tech level; ability to adapt to new technology (as has been said: It's what they do...); Hive structure; different host races give broad spectrum immunity to germ warfare

Borg weaknesses: Still dependent on living hosts so biological weapons would be effective


So, how would things go?

The Daleks would win provided that they can take out the borg fast enough to prevent them adapting to their technology. (The only time I saw Species 8472 was the start of the episode where one of their ships took out three cubes in three shots - very fast and not enough time to gather data and adapt).

However, the longer the conflict takes, the more likley a Borg victory will become. All the Borg have to so is use delaying tactics, and avoid committing their forces to a full engagement.


I still don't see the Borg winning. If all things fail (which I doubt, as you know, I still bet on the Daleks) Daleks would rather do anything than being assimilated.


Sidenote: (I have only seen the original Species 8472 episode(s), not Prey and others; the original premise might turn out to be different later) Species 8472 seems to be immune to assimilation. In fact, Species 8472 does their own semi-assimilation of the borg (their immune system is so strong it takes over the borg (or any other life form) from the inside before killing it). In the original episode the Borg has apparently found a gateway to the Species 8472 own dimension and attacked it to assimilate it (Species 8472 is the only thing alive in their own dimension, it seems) and instead being defeated. By the time the Voyager arrives, the battle has been going on for quite some time; it is not a question of "attacking too fast for the borg to adapt". The Borg can't adapt.

[kamikasei]

the original premise might turn out to be different later) Species 8472 seems to be immune to assimilation... it is not a question of "attacking too fast for the borg to adapt". The Borg can't adapt.

The Borg aren't supposed to rely on assimilation, though. They're supposed to be able to adapt to weapons used against them, whether they can assimilate the weapon-holder or not. They should have been able to adapt to Species 8472's weaponry, simply from being shot at enough. Possibilties:
- an individual cube has to do the adapting, so they can only adapt to weapons that leave enough of one intact to rebuild. So, if the weapon is powerful enough, the Borg cannot adapt directly.
- the adaptation only works against phasers (all weapons seem less effective against Borg, but it may just be that photon torpedoes didn't have enough punch to penetrate their tough shields, not that they were being perfectly neutralized).
- the writers didn't think this stuff through.

Guess which one I favour?

[TheRiov]

The Borg can be defeated by an MC Escher painting. Give me a break.

(see ST:TNG Episode "Hugh" )

[Theodoriph]

The Borg aren't supposed to rely on assimilation, though. They're supposed to be able to adapt to weapons used against them, whether they can assimilate the weapon-holder or not. They should have been able to adapt to Species 8472's weaponry, simply from being shot at enough. Possibilties:
- an individual cube has to do the adapting, so they can only adapt to weapons that leave enough of one intact to rebuild. So, if the weapon is powerful enough, the Borg cannot adapt directly.
- the adaptation only works against phasers (all weapons seem less effective against Borg, but it may just be that photon torpedoes didn't have enough punch to penetrate their tough shields, not that they were being perfectly neutralized).
- the writers didn't think this stuff through.

Guess which one I favour?




You should favour the intelligent answer. That being the one that calls the writers stupid :smallbiggrin: It's a fairly obvious inconsistency. It's an inconsistency that's common throughout the Star Trek verse. The Jem Hadar displays the same inconsistency. As does the defiant. Star Trek has an anti-power creep. Everything is awesome when it's first introduced and then, for some inexplicable reason, craps out later on. In short everything cool ends up being inconsistent across a long enough timespan.

[Avilan the Grey]

The Borg aren't supposed to rely on assimilation, though. They're supposed to be able to adapt to weapons used against them, whether they can assimilate the weapon-holder or not. They should have been able to adapt to Species 8472's weaponry, simply from being shot at enough. Possibilties:
- an individual cube has to do the adapting, so they can only adapt to weapons that leave enough of one intact to rebuild. So, if the weapon is powerful enough, the Borg cannot adapt directly.
- the adaptation only works against phasers (all weapons seem less effective against Borg, but it may just be that photon torpedoes didn't have enough punch to penetrate their tough shields, not that they were being perfectly neutralized).
- the writers didn't think this stuff through.

Guess which one I favour?

same as I do :smallwink:

Anyway, the way I remember the episode, the Borg was in total disarray: I remember one of the drones stuck in repeated motion trying to infect a Bioship and constantly failing, but because the Borg has never experienced that before (AFAIK) it just couldn't stop; it kept retrying and retrying.
Around that one was several others that had been infected by the immune system of Species 8472, behaving very much like people infected by the borg (screaming, thrashing around, visible changes on the skin as the infection spreads, etc). It seemed that the very act of trying to infect Species 8472, made the Borg be infected (basically the immune system of Species 8472 is strong enough to invade and move through the "injector" for the Borg nanoprobes, into the Borg themselves, causing the Borg to kill themselves when they try to assimilate Species 8472).

If I would compare Species 8472 to anything it would be a crossbreed between Zerg and Borg, Btw.

Anyway. The Daleks win. (Just had to say it again).

[Tensu]

The Borg can be defeated by an MC Escher painting. Give me a break.

(see ST:TNG Episode "Hugh" )

So? M.C. Escher paintings are among the most powerful of all paintings. They can defeat most humans.:smallbiggrin:

[Avilan the Grey]

You should favour the intelligent answer. That being the one that calls the writers stupid :smallbiggrin: It's a fairly obvious inconsistency. It's an inconsistency that's common throughout the Star Trek verse. The Jem Hadar displays the same inconsistency. As does the defiant. Star Trek has an anti-power creep. Everything is awesome when it's first introduced and then, for some inexplicable reason, craps out later on. In short everything cool ends up being inconsistent across a long enough timespan.

Hence the original Worf Effect.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Daleks would rather do anything than being assimilated.

Agreed... A Dalek would try to go down fighting, then self-destruct to take a few more Borg with it. That might not stop them, however.



Sidenote: (I have only seen the original Species 8472 episode(s), not Prey and others; the original premise might turn out to be different later) Species 8472 seems to be immune to assimilation. In fact, Species 8472 does their own semi-assimilation of the borg (their immune system is so strong it takes over the borg (or any other life form) from the inside before killing it). In the original episode the Borg has apparently found a gateway to the Species 8472 own dimension and attacked it to assimilate it (Species 8472 is the only thing alive in their own dimension, it seems) and instead being defeated. By the time the Voyager arrives, the battle has been going on for quite some time; it is not a question of "attacking too fast for the borg to adapt". The Borg can't adapt.

I see it as two seperate processes:

Adaptation: Adjustments to new technology. The Borg can - very quickly - adapt to new technologies. However, this requires a degree of internal communication. With Species 8472 the cubes are being destroyed before the cube can adapt, let alone transmit the data to other cubes.

Assimulation: Bringing the culture into the Borg collective. This is a slower process (as seen with Jean-Luc) but hey! They're in no hurry.

There is a problem with using the "Species 8472 beat the Borg therefore the Daleks will" arguement - as you say, Species 8472 is extra-dimensional. The Daleks are from this dimension, and originally come from humanoid stock (Specifically, the Kaleds).


You should favour the intelligent answer. That being the one that calls the writers stupid :smallbiggrin: It's a fairly obvious inconsistency. It's an inconsistency that's common throughout the Star Trek verse. The Jem Hadar displays the same inconsistency. As does the defiant. Star Trek has an anti-power creep. Everything is awesome when it's first introduced and then, for some inexplicable reason, craps out later on. In short everything cool ends up being inconsistent across a long enough timespan.

Bad writing? Over time, everything stops being awesome. Humans may not adapt as quickly as the Borg, but we still adapt (and at an increasing rate). A lot of the things that were considered awesome when I was a child are now not even third rate. Just look how the computer has changes since the days when a dedicated machine room would only contain one computer.

I'm not saying that Star Tren or Dr Who were never guilty of bad writing, but assuming a completely static universe is probably worse writing.

I acknowledge that this is a modern viewpoint - very rapid (technological) changes in society are still fairly new. Look at the industrial revolution (and indeed, how it looks in the context of a centuary or so of development).

[Theodoriph]

Bad writing? Over time, everything stops being awesome. Humans may not adapt as quickly as the Borg, but we still adapt (and at an increasing rate). A lot of the things that were considered awesome when I was a child are now not even third rate. Just look how the computer has changes since the days when a dedicated machine room would only contain one computer.

I'm not saying that Star Tren or Dr Who were never guilty of bad writing, but assuming a completely static universe is probably worse writing.

I acknowledge that this is a modern viewpoint - very rapid (technological) changes in society are still fairly new. Look at the industrial revolution (and indeed, how it looks in the context of a centuary or so of development).



You obviously did not understand the point as I'm obviously not talking about a static universe. I'm referring to an inexplicable sapping of strength. That's not true...it is explicable. It's due to poor writing. :smalltongue:

[kamikasei]

Things wrong with Trek about what was mentioned in just the last couple of posts (:smalltongue:):

- Borg drones acting like singularly unintelligent robots. They're a hive mind of individually sentient organisms. You would expect that every drone would act at least as smart as a human, and generally much smarter because the entire collective could act through them (this would, of course, depend on the precise architecture of the hive - whether it uses the brains of its members as a shared computational substrate on which it runs distributed, so that each is interchangeable once its knowledge is uploaded during assimilation, or on the other extreme whether each drone more or less retains its own mind but has the voices of the rest of the collective speaking to it as if telepathically, supplementing its awareness and perhaps drowning out its volition). Instead they act as if the collective was a single malevolent mind that learns your secrets when you're assimilated and then uses your body as a remote-controlled zombie - and doesn't use it very well. Writers, go read some Alistair Reynolds and Charles Stross - the Conjoiners are much more plausible than the Borg.

- Borg being susceptible to "impossible shapes". Much like androids being vulnerable to paradox, it's absurd to suggest that anything from well below human intelligence on up would be fazed by a paradoxical or unresolvable abstract - there are such things as cognitive shortcuts and fail-safes. I can't break you by telling you "I am lying", nor can I apparently break Data, why would I be able to break the Borg or TOS androids?

- Species 8472. The whole thing. Where did they come from? How did they evolve? How do you get a single species with no other life in the ecosystem and why would such a species have aggressive immune systems, starships, and weapons (I suppose you could argue that they fought one another since they were all they had to eat, but an immune system kind of implies pathogens, which imply a biosphere...). These guys were just FAIL from concept to execution (and one of the fastest and most extreme defangings since the Ferengi).

[Llama231]

Google fight says Borg win.
TV tropes says Dalek win, but one is just as powerful as a billion.

[Avilan the Grey]

- Species 8472. The whole thing. Where did they come from? How did they evolve? How do you get a single species with no other life in the ecosystem and why would such a species have aggressive immune systems, starships, and weapons (I suppose you could argue that they fought one another since they were all they had to eat, but an immune system kind of implies pathogens, which imply a biosphere...). These guys were just FAIL from concept to execution (and one of the fastest and most extreme defangings since the Ferengi).

Part of it, I think, is to show what would happen if the Borg was not stopped. An entire universe of one kind of lifeform (and goo). Basically the Borg encountering themselves, as an enemy. I doubt the writers thought of it much longer than that.

[kamikasei]

Part of it, I think, is to show what would happen if the Borg was not stopped. An entire universe of one kind of lifeform (and goo). Basically the Borg encountering themselves, as an enemy. I doubt the writers thought of it much longer than that.

See, my impression was that there wasn't supposed to be any other life there ever, not that Species 8472 had killed it all off. The level of misunderstanding of sciences in general and evolution in particular displayed by the Trek writers makes it an open question whether they were supposed to be an "ultimate race" who arose in complete isolation from nothing whatsoever, or one who wiped out everything else and then remained static at some kind of evolutionary peak.

[Oslecamo]

See, my impression was that there wasn't supposed to be any other life there ever, not that Species 8472 had killed it all off. The level of misunderstanding of sciences in general and evolution in particular displayed by the Trek writers makes it an open question whether they were supposed to be an "ultimate race" who arose in complete isolation from nothing whatsoever, or one who wiped out everything else and then remained static at some kind of evolutionary peak.

It's called statistics and probability. If there are infinite alternate universes out there, then in one of them Species 8472 would indeed have developed by itself out of pure randomess.

Or simply: a mad wizard scientist did it and then got killed and forgoten by his creations.

[Avilan the Grey]

It's called statistics and probability. If there are infinite alternate universes out there, then in one of them Species 8472 would indeed have developed by itself out of pure randomess.

True. And one universe would be ruled by Teletubbies.

[Theodoriph]

It's called statistics and probability. If there are infinite alternate universes out there, then in one of them Species 8472 would indeed have developed by itself out of pure randomess.


Races don't develop randomly. It doesn't matter how many universes there are.




Species 8472 really doesn't make any sense at all. The producers probably just thought it would be cool to pit a race that represents technological perfection against a race that represents biological perfection.

[kamikasei]

It's called statistics and probability. If there are infinite alternate universes out there, then in one of them Species 8472 would indeed have developed by itself out of pure randomess.

I think you have successfully distilled the purest essence of contrivance into a crystalline form. It's an impressive feat but it doesn't really argue in favour of the skills of the writers.


Races don't develop randomly. It doesn't matter how many universes there are.

Well, more properly, when you're talking in those terms you're also opening up the equal probability of finding a universe where anything whatsoever is possible, and raising the question of how the Borg found 8472 rather than, say, an equally improbable but much less "interesting" race. (Actually, it never was addressed how the Borg found 8472 at all, was it?)

[Theodoriph]

Well, more properly, when you're talking in those terms you're also opening up the equal probability of finding a universe where anything whatsoever is possible, and raising the question of how the Borg found 8472 rather than, say, an equally improbable but much less "interesting" race. (Actually, it never was addressed how the Borg found 8472 at all, was it?)



No you're not. Not unless you begin making further assumptions about the nature of creation and the rules that govern the universe. And once you start making baseless assumptions about those things...the whole exercise falls apart.



The Borg found Species 8472 by using a modified deflector dish to drill a hole into "fluidic space" (though they may have encountered scoutships in the delta quadrant and then opened the rift...not sure which event came first). It's exactly what it sounds like...a continuum filled with biological fluid. It's outside of the galaxy and may be outside of the universe. No stars...no planets...no nothing. How anything managed to develop and evolve in conditions approaching absolute zero...who knows. :smalltongue: That's one of the many mysteries!

[Tensu]

. The producers probably just thought it would be cool to pit a race that represents technological perfection against a race that represents biological perfection.

And were right.

[chiasaur11]

So, can we judge them by Primary, secondary, and teterary enemies?

Because no-one has mentioned Abslom Daak yet.

And really, a chainsaw sword wielding convict given parole on the condition of going out and killing Daleks really seems like something worth mentioning.

[Ascension]

So, can we judge them by Primary, secondary, and teterary enemies?

Because no-one has mentioned Abslom Daak yet.

And really, a chainsaw sword wielding convict given parole on the condition of going out and killing Daleks really seems like something worth mentioning.

I was going to call vulnerability to sword a point against the Daleks, but that was before I looked up Abslom Daak on Wikipedia...

Really, I can't fault any hyper-advanced alien race for being taken out by this guy (http://www.dalek-killer.net/dalekview.gif). He'd kick the Daleks' asses, then he'd kick the Borg's asses, and if not contained he'd probably go on to kick all the remaining asses in the galaxy.

[chiasaur11]

I was going to call vulnerability to sword a point against the Daleks, but that was before I looked up Abslom Daak on Wikipedia...

Really, I can't fault any hyper-advanced alien race for being taken out by this guy (http://www.dalek-killer.net/dalekview.gif). He'd kick the Daleks' asses, then he'd kick the Borg's asses, and if not contained he'd probably go on to kick all the remaining asses in the galaxy.

And the thing is, they eventually dropped him anyway. Sure, he got better, but that was their fault too, so they still get some credit.

(Oh, and reading about both gives me the oddest suspicion that CIAPHAS CAIN, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM and Daak were switched at birth. No good reason for it, but...)

[Avilan the Grey]

Races don't develop randomly. It doesn't matter how many universes there are.

Sure they do. Of course it depends on what you mean with "randomly".
Evolution only works with what it already has. Plus disasters (evidence suggests that the dinosaurs were superior to mammals (proto-mammals existed before the dinosaurs but the dinosaurs rushed past mammals in the evolution-race until that meteor struck). There is a lot of chance involved though.

[Eldan]

There's not really a "superior" in nature. Evolution doesn't work that way. Just better adapted to the conditions.

[Avilan the Grey]

There's not really a "superior" in nature. Evolution doesn't work that way. Just better adapted to the conditions.

Again, depends on what you mean: Early dinosaurs adopted in ways (again, because evolution only works with what it already has) in ways that made them better suited to survive and compete than the early mammals. Hence the term "superior".

[kamikasei]

Re: superiority: you can of course compare two organisms and say that under some specified pressure, or in a reasonable "general case", one is the superior. What you can only talk about if you don't understand evolution is the idea of a "perfect species" or "pinnacle of evolution". It's not a ladder and it's not a peak.


Sure they do. Of course it depends on what you mean with "randomly".

It seemed to me that Oslecamo meant "randomly" as in "since evolution can't produce a single species, in isolation, which doesn't appear to have any related life-forms around it, and which is exquisitely adapted to defend itself from things that aren't in its environment, the only way you would get something like 8472 is by pure chance happening to produce it from essentially nothing on the first pass" - the kind of absurdity that gets used to argue against evolution by people who don't understand it, but which if you have an infinity of universes permuting through an infinity of events can be argued to be inevitable in at least one (as would any other vanishingly improbable event).

[Oslecamo]

Races don't develop randomly. It doesn't matter how many universes there are.


Actually they do. It's the whole system of evolution.

Each new generation has random modifications in relation to it's parents. The most effecient ones survive and produce offspring and pass on the random characteristics they acquired. The less effecient die before they can breed offspring so their random capacities aren't.

That's why some lucky people are born as healthy genious and others are born as sick reatarded people. Pure luck when your parent's genes recombine. Anomalies always occur in the fusion, and they can't be predicted.

If those random changes didn't occur, then there wouldn't be evolution

You greatly understimate infinity. Bilogists also tought it would be impossible for anything survive in certain enviroments, and we keep finding new life forms on them. And that's just talking about our planet.

With infinite universes with infinite planets the possibilities are endless!

kamikasei:First, I must say that I suport evolution in it's scientific form that there's no need of an all-mighty force for bacterias to pop up from heated minerals and from there transform into human beings trough a sluggish process that took millions of years.

However randomess was involved in it. Be it "rocks fall out of the sky, dinossaurs die and mammals become the new rulers" or simply the radiation of the sun causing aleatory changes in living beings ADN, randomess is presented in all of evolution's history.

And when you give me endless alternate universes to worck with, then all bets are off and anything goes, because I can make anything happen if I have infinity on my side.

As to why that alien species in particular was found, well, what interest would be for us to see a show where nothing special ever happens and would be a neverending politic and economical talcks between all the diferent intelegent but bland species? It's the alternate universes where things go cray that interest the viewers!

[Dervag]

The Borg found Species 8472 by using a modified deflector dish to drill a hole into "fluidic space" (though they may have encountered scoutships in the delta quadrant and then opened the rift...not sure which event came first). It's exactly what it sounds like...a continuum filled with biological fluid. It's outside of the galaxy and may be outside of the universe. No stars...no planets...no nothing. How anything managed to develop and evolve in conditions approaching absolute zero...who knows. :smalltongue: That's one of the many mysteries!As I understand it, Species 8472 is basically Cthulhu. It doesn't belong in the universe as we know it, and it comes from a very alien environment.

Which is not to say they're unbeatable*, just that they're weird and exceedingly hard to beat by human standards.

*Cthulhu wasn't unbeatable in Lovecraft; he was just unbeatable by us. For a species with greater mental powers and higher technology, he could be faced and defeated.

[Theodoriph]

You guys don't really seem to understand the concept of randomness. None of the species here on Earth are random. They all evolved (or were created) according to a set of rules. They all abide by that set of rules and the interaction of those rules with the specific environment.

The initial claim of randomness was used to support a claim that "anything is possible". This is patently false since there are certain rules in place, no matter how many alternate universes you create. Variation within these rules is possibe, but variation outside of these rules is not.

[turkishproverb]

Why do people think assimilating the daleks would work in the way they think?


They'd probably drive the collective insane the first time they were assimilated, as it would make them "impure", and that thought would spread through the collective.

I'm giving this to the daleks, unless something was assimilated to break the tie.

As to time travel, both have it, but the Daleks are MUCH, MUCH better at it.


Well, the Doctor is a member of one of the oldest races in the galaxy, has a freaking incredible time machine (which he operates by himself despite the fact it's designed for a crew of six), he's killed a couple of satan analogues, and generally been what cosmic horrors tell campfire tales about.

Priceless.


And I probably exaggerated the Daleks a tad, but they are fairly tough. Four Daleks took a huge army of Cybermen (who are basically the Doctor Who equivalent of the Borg) without breaking a sweat. Or whatever Daleks break in stressful times.

Mind, I haven't seen that much Doctor Who either, so take this all with a grain of salt.

Not really much of an exaggeration.

The Doctor: What's the nearest town?
Henry Van Statten: Salt Lake City.
The Doctor: Population?
Henry Van Statten: One million.
The Doctor: All dead. If the Dalek gets out, it will murder every living creature, that's all it needs.
Henry Van Statten: But why would it do that?
The Doctor: Because it honestly believes they should die. Human beings are different, and anything different is wrong. It's the ultimate in racial cleansing, and you, Van Statten, you've let it loose!


Maybe the original Mondas Cybermen would stand a chance (if they even still exist), but the Cybus versions are just souped-up earth technology.

They still exist. They're in the Shadow Proclamation.

[Llama231]

I find a distinct lack of any data or evidence from the OldWho here...

NewDaleks>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>OldDaleks

The olddaleks had so many exploitable weaknesses, and disadvantage in power level, it's not even funny.

[Starscream]

They still exist. They're in the Shadow Proclamation.

Really? Is that from one of the novels? I don't recall them being mentioned in the actual new show, except for the Doctor recognizing the head of one in that museum.

Weird to think that the Mondas Cybermen are so much more "advanced" when they usually looked like they were constructed by whatever was lying around the studio that day. The new ones look much better, even if they are wearing flared trousers.

[Haven]

I find a distinct lack of any data or evidence from the OldWho here...

NewDaleks>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>OldDaleks

The olddaleks had so many exploitable weaknesses, and disadvantage in power level, it's not even funny.

From my perspective, it's balanced out because I don't know anything about either the Old!Daleks or the Voyager!Borg, whom I've heard are also not as badass as the source I know best.

Also, apparently in Old!Who you could beat the Cybermen by throwing gold at them, which means their worst enemy is Scrooge McDuck, which is fantastic.

[BlueWizard]

Tough, but I'd go with the Borg.

[Starscream]

Also, apparently in Old!Who you could beat the Cybermen by throwing gold at them, which means their worst enemy is Scrooge McDuck, which is fantastic.

See, that's the sort of match-up that deserves a thread.

Next up: The Rescue Rangers vs the Sontarans, and the Rani vs. Darkwing Duck!

[kamikasei]

kamikasei:First, I must say that I suport evolution in it's scientific form that there's no need of an all-mighty force for bacterias to pop up from heated minerals and from there transform into human beings trough a sluggish process that took millions of years.

Eh?


However randomess was involved in it.

Of course it was. The process of evolution is a non-random filter (selection) acting on random inputs (variation and mutation) to produce a non-random result (adaptation). You can't predict the end points perfectly, but you can say that selection can't take you from point A to point B for many given points. If evolution could explain anything whatsoever, it wouldn't be much use as a theory. It's the fact that it has constraints and that all we find is consistent with them that makes it a well-supported theory.

[zyphyr]

Also, apparently in Old!Who you could beat the Cybermen by throwing gold at them, which means their worst enemy is Scrooge McDuck, which is fantastic.

Originally, it had to be gold dust - it clogged up their respiratory system. Later it was changed to any gold had an effect akin to silver used against a werewolf.

[Oslecamo]

If evolution could explain anything whatsoever, it wouldn't be much use as a theory. It's the fact that it has constraints and that all we find is consistent with them that makes it a well-supported theory.

You took me wrong. Evolution depends on the enviroment and time, so if we have an infinite number of enviroments and time to play with, we'll have infinite evolution potential.

Earth has a finite enviroments and time, so of course evolution is limited here, but that's not the case with the Stark Treck. Diferent starting conditions wield diferent results.

[Dhavaer]

You took me wrong. Evolution depends on the enviroment and time, so if we have an infinite number of enviroments and time to play with, we'll have infinite evolution potential.

Not really. There will always be some things beyond the ability of a biological process to create. You would be unlikely to achieve a Nightfighter-like organism, for example, through evolution.

[Avilan the Grey]

Not really. There will always be some things beyond the ability of a biological process to create. You would be unlikely to achieve a Nightfighter-like organism, for example, through evolution.

Plus, evolution tends to favor the ones that actually are functional in the environment... If I had an universe completely filled with "goo", I might consider big living spaceship thingies. I would NOT evolve two-legged beings. Fins, biological jets (think octopi), etc yes. Walking legs? Not so much.

[Manga Shoggoth]

I find a distinct lack of any data or evidence from the OldWho here...

NewDaleks>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>OldDaleks

The olddaleks had so many exploitable weaknesses, and disadvantage in power level, it's not even funny.

I refer you to my post here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5966951&postcount=67).

My big problem with the new series (the few episodes I've seen...) is that it has taken the Daleks to ridiculous extremes. The old daleks were extremely dangerous for several reasons, but they were never portrayed as either as pushovers or almost unbeatable. Unfortunately, in the new series there is too much power creep to make them look awesome.

One interesting side note: The first two Dalek stories I thought were very good, particularly because the first actually mamaged to make you feel sorry for the Dalek, despite knowing what it was, and the second used the premise "You've seen what one Dalek can do. Here's a fleet of them...".

[Tensu]

Not really. There will always be some things beyond the ability of a biological process to create. You would be unlikely to achieve a Nightfighter-like organism, for example, through evolution.

yes, kind of like how life couldn't survive in an ecosystem without light.

or in that flesh-scorching ammonia filled hot spring.

or in that near-waterless desert.

:smalltongue:

If there's an environment to adapt to, life can adapt to it given enough time. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a plane-like organism: One that functions like a plane of is merely shaped like one more so than your average avian. one that functions like one seems highly unlikely, but at this point I really wouldn't be surprised.

[GoC]

I have a better explanation...you guys are being overly defensive. :smallwink:

This.:smallbiggrin::smalltongue:

Yeah, ST is probably more inconsistent but it's... just not as ridiculous or as blatent is what I'm trying to say. I think.:smallconfused:

[turkishproverb]

This.:smallbiggrin::smalltongue:

Yeah, ST is probably more inconsistent but it's... just not as ridiculous or as blatent is what I'm trying to say. I think.:smallconfused:

Star trek is at least as rediculous at times. Its just different about it. Frankly some things in Who (Pigmen) are more realistic than people give them credit for (makes more sense than splicing aliens with humans).


Really? Is that from one of the novels? I don't recall them being mentioned in the actual new show, except for the Doctor recognizing the head of one in that museum.

Weird to think that the Mondas Cybermen are so much more "advanced" when they usually looked like they were constructed by whatever was lying around the studio that day. The new ones look much better, even if they are wearing flared trousers.



The Shadow proclamation part is Word of God, the novels just established them surviving whatever war it is the time lords feared that was coming, possibly in a less malevolent form.

And they're different types. The Mondas cybermen just want to survive by any means, while the Cybusmen are Ipodmen.

[Seraph]

And as we all know, the Borg have a weakness to tommyguns.

oh god dammit not this **** again. Picard never shot the borg with a tommygun, he shot them with a forcefield-and-hologram construct shaped like a tommygun, which fired bullet-shaped forcefields. it killed the borg because it was such a ridiculously lateral and otherwise useless way of attacking that the borg had no logical reason to prepare for it.

this is in contrast to the daleks, who can be killed with mundane bullets, provided you aim at the eye stalk.

also, I fail to see the reasoning in saying that an assimilated dalek would rive the collective insane. they're just dogmatic xenophobes, there's nothing about that that makes them special.

[Randel]

If you are putting the Voyager era borg against the New Dr. Who Daleks then I would definatly side with the daleks on this.


Each Dalek is basically a living brain in a deadly robotic tank. The have powerful ranged weapon, a force field that can vaporise bullets and deflect energy weapons (though daleks have been destroyed by suitably powerful energy weapons like the one Jack Harkness made, the dalek-tommyguns that they had equipped their transmuted human slaves, and one big gun that Rose had when they invaded earth.) and the ability to levitate and hack through security systems.

The standard Borg troops each seem to be used as expendable zombie cannon-fodder. They are equiped with no ranged weapons (well, I haven't seen them use them), they get shot down and maybe their fellow borgs will adapt their force-field to handle the weapon... unless their enemy rapidly cycles through phaser frequencies in which case they just keep getting killed while tryinjg to adapt. Tommyguns might be some kind of weakness, though I'm sure they could adapt by growing a bulletproof vest or something. They all seem to depend on their Queen to survive and don't display much in the way of creativity... if they don't assimilate the info from other species or get it by adapting then they don't know it.


As far as equipment goes, the Dalek have insane capacity for making stuff that kills people. They've blown up australia with bombs from space, in one old episode when they came across a planet that jammed their energy weapons they just replaced them with machine guns, they've genetically transformed human prisoners into pig-slaves or human/dalek troops, and in a recent episode they've started grabbing whole planets out of time and space to assemble a giant reality-destroying engine to end the universe itself!

The Borg fly around in big blocky cubes, these have some pretty good capacity to self-repair and maintain function even if 50% is blown off (could come in handy against daleks... until they blow off the other half). They have capacity for time-travel which could be useful. However the biggest weaknes the borg have is their massive hive-mind and their queen.



The fight would probably start off with daleks firing their heavy weapons to blow the borg cubes out of the sky, the cubes might adapt after a while but expect at least 60% of their forces to be dead before the daleks run out of various bombs (at which point they would start inventing new ones). Then the dalek troops would invade the cubes themselves and start slaughtering everyone. Again, borg might adapt to their energy weapons after a while until the daleks start doing the frequency-changing trick.

If one dalek gets his plunger near a borg control terminal then he'll start hacking the hive mind and start destroying borg brains with computer viruses. At about this point, the cube carrying the borg queen will have gone into full retreat and shut off all connections with the other cubes to avoid getting hacked. The daleks will pursue (not sure how fast dalek ships are compared to borg cubes) and eventually run into them again.

The Daleks would be pretty much immune to assimilation since their fields would destroy any nanites sent at them and if they did get infected they would either self-destruct or get blown to bits by the other daleks.

Assuming the borg can find out just where the daleks origionated, they might attempt a time-warp to kill them at the source. If they do, they will run into the origional Kelad homeworld where the two factions are trying to kill eachother with atom-bombs. Expect the primitive Kelads to see a borg sphere coming out of the sky and shoot it down just because it looks bad. THe borg queen will survive by beaming to the surface and her troops will assimilate one of the sides in the Kelad war... after most of the origional force was wiped out.

At that point, she will try killing the origional daleks and meet Devros in his wheelchair... who shoots her in the head and kills her. The Borg queen goes down, the borg die, a paradox kills the present-daleks and devros wins.

[Dhavaer]

yes, kind of like how life couldn't survive in an ecosystem without light.

or in that flesh-scorching ammonia filled hot spring.

or in that near-waterless desert.

:smalltongue:

If there's an environment to adapt to, life can adapt to it given enough time. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a plane-like organism: One that functions like a plane of is merely shaped like one more so than your average avian. one that functions like one seems highly unlikely, but at this point I really wouldn't be surprised.

A nightfighter is an nigh-indestructable spacecraft that flies with wings of pure spacetime. Being able to survive without light isn't comparable to replicated super-tech biologically.

[pondshadow]

The new daleks killed all the time lords, four of them destroyed a cybermen army, they took multiple planets into a warphole. The borg would just fail, fail, fail.

Unless, the borg assimilated russel t davies, who is capable of making every different species in the universe have a different exploitable weakness, each episode. Then it would be a draw.

[Tensu]

A nightfighter is an nigh-indestructable spacecraft that flies with wings of pure spacetime. Being able to survive without light isn't comparable to replicated super-tech biologically.

I know, I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised.

[Manga Shoggoth]

The new daleks killed all the time lords, four of them destroyed a cybermen army, they took multiple planets into a warphole. The borg would just fail, fail, fail.

But oddly are scared ****less by the only remaining one.

(Actually, that is in the original series as well. The only thing the Daleks fear is the Doctor.)

[Starscream]

Actually, that is in the original series as well. The only thing the Daleks fear is the Doctor.

One thing I like about the expanded universe is that it makes it clear that the Doctor is pretty much the Dalek culture's equivalent of the Boogeyman.

Which makes sense, considering that really hasn't been a single stage of their society that he hasn't buggered up for them.

Imagine if every major disaster in your species entire history was caused by one guy, and he's out there somewhere, probably hiding behind a brand new face, just waiting to strike again. Muhuhahaha!

[hamishspence]

And he's gotten some pretty interesting nicknames, especially from Dalek Caan.

The Threefold Man
The Dark Lord
The Oncoming Storm (not Caan)

I wonder if the Time War will get covered in the Expanded Universe novels? (has it already been covered?)

[chiasaur11]

One thing I like about the expanded universe is that it makes it clear that the Doctor is pretty much the Dalek culture's equivalent of the Boogeyman.

Which makes sense, considering that really hasn't been a single stage of their society that he hasn't buggered up for them.

Imagine if every major disaster in your species entire history was caused by one guy, and he's out there somewhere, probably hiding behind a brand new face, just waiting to strike again. Muhuhahaha!


Not just that, but he also has time to deal with other problems. Like gods, demons, the other, minor races you have to deal with...

[Starscream]

And he's gotten some pretty interesting nicknames, especially from Dalek Caan.

Don't forget the classic Ka Faraq Gatri. I'm pretty sure it was only ever used in novels and comics, so you can tell a true fan by whether or not they know it.

It actually translates to "The Destroyer of Worlds", so when Davros called him that in Journey's End, this is what he was referring to.

[hamishspence]

there is also a minor passing reference to him as "the lonely god" in the Inheritance cycle, though he doesn't actually appear:

Adrift upon the sea of time, the lonely god wanders from shore to shore, upholding the laws of the stars above.

Not sure how good a nickname it is.

[Dervag]

yes, kind of like how life couldn't survive in an ecosystem without light.

or in that flesh-scorching ammonia filled hot spring.

or in that near-waterless desert.

:smalltongue:

If there's an environment to adapt to, life can adapt to it given enough time.There really are limits on what you'll see, though.

For example, evolution will not promote the emergence of creatures unable to survive in their own environment- even those same creatures would be immensely badass and threatening when transplanted into your environment.

Evolution will not promote individual creatures that, while very survivable, have very poor reproductive prospects.

Evolution will not promote creatures with a vast arsenal of defenses and abilities that are useless in its own environment. There's no point in evolving thick armor when there are no predators or other threats that the armor is needed against. There's no point in evolving tolerance to exotic chemicals if those chemicals are not naturally present in the environment.

Evolution will, by and large, adapt each creature to its own environment, such that it will do poorly when matched up against other species on their own turf. Polar bears, sharks, and lions are tough. But each of them would be far less effective than the other in that other's own environment.

[BlueWizard]

I'd still go with the borg.

[Foeofthelance]

I know the Borg have time travel, but how precise is it? The only time I can think of them deliberately using it was in Contact, and even then they ended up popping out a few days ahead of schedule. The Daleks treat time travel like reading a book. They scan the table of contents for where they want to go, then just hop to the right page. So I could see them using the half-second trick to beat back any Borg advance. The Borg would need a precision control over time that I don't think they have.

Regarding the battle of Wolf 359, the reason they were so shocked wasn't just the loss of 39 starships, it was the fact that they lost 39 capital ships for absolutely no gain. Compare it to the battle of Gettysburg. The Federation vs. the Dominion is Lee against Meade. Wolf 359 was Lee against the Gurren Lagann. Made all the worst by the fact that the lone ship they were trying to stop was headed directly for the capitol city, and they had no reason to believe it was the smalles vessel the Borg had available.

Personally, I'd give it to the Daleks. They're not quite as hive mind as the Borg, but they've demonstrated an ability to act and think as one based on a singular goal, and are willing to pursue any way to achieve that goal. They have technology based on several millions of years of development, and as mentioned before fought a war against a race that uses black holes as a weapon, and quite possibly have similar weapons. The Borg, for all their capability, can't assimilate a black hole. The only person they fear is the Doctor, not because he's a Time Lord, but because he's simply more vicious then they are. They just want to exterminate all other life from existence. He wiped his own race from existence to try and kill them. To them the Borg are just jumped up Cybermen with glowy shields.

[Seraph]

I know the Borg have time travel, but how precise is it? The only time I can think of them deliberately using it was in Contact, and even then they ended up popping out a few days ahead of schedule.

. . . ahead of schedule? they showed up exactly where they wanted to, days before either the phoenix launched or the Vulcans showed up. The Borg aren't stupid, they deliberately gave themselves a margin of time.

[Foeofthelance]

. . . ahead of schedule? they showed up exactly where they wanted to, days before either the phoenix launched or the Vulcans showed up. The Borg aren't stupid, they deliberately gave themselves a margin of time.

I admit I haven't seen the movie in a while, but didn't they show up an extra day ahead of when they wanted to? If I recall, the plan had been to pop up the day before, blast the missile, and take over. Instead there was a longer period, though that might have been because of the Enterprise...

[Cúchulainn]

1 Dalek.

This thread is over.

[Seraph]

I admit I haven't seen the movie in a while, but didn't they show up an extra day ahead of when they wanted to? If I recall, the plan had been to pop up the day before, blast the missile, and take over. Instead there was a longer period, though that might have been because of the Enterprise...


they didn't need to show up on any particular day so long as they killed cochrane before he launched and destroyed his research facility. then once the vulcans came and went they'd be able to assimilate the entire planet at their leisure. They also knew that there was a chance of a ship following them, so they set themselves a buffer of time before their deadline and set up a contingency in case their ship was destroyed by a tagalong.

[X2]

they didn't need to show up on any particular day so long as they killed cochrane before he launched and destroyed his research facility. then once the vulcans came and went they'd be able to assimilate the entire planet at their leisure. They also knew that there was a chance of a ship following them, so they set themselves a buffer of time before their deadline and set up a contingency in case their ship was destroyed by a tagalong.

When watching First Contact? The viewer wins.

[Lupy]

According to my Star-Trek atlas (hey, you, yeah the one who's sniggering. Stop it or else. :smalltongue:) the borg homeworld alone as a population of 50 trillion, and their civilization is far and beyond even that amount.

Also, if we throw out Voyager (I mean seriously, how could a Federation starship from the 24th century reasonably hope to win against a cube???),
one cube is more powerful than the fleets of the Federation, Romular Star Empire, and Klingon Empire.

Thus, I conclude that it would be a very good fight.

However, 29th century star fleet would come back in time and utterly smash both parties for trying to destroy the galaxy, so the point is moot. :smalltongue:

[chiasaur11]

According to my Star-Trek atlas (hey, you, yeah the one who's sniggering. Stop it or else. :smalltongue:) the borg homeworld alone as a population of 50 trillion, and their civilization is far and beyond even that amount.

Also, if we throw out Voyager (I mean seriously, how could a Federation starship from the 24th century reasonably hope to win against a cube???),
one cube is more powerful than the fleets of the Federation, Romular Star Empire, and Klingon Empire.

Thus, I conclude that it would be a very good fight.

However, 29th century star fleet would come back in time and utterly smash both parties for trying to destroy the galaxy, so the point is moot. :smalltongue:

Ah. The Borg are a much bigger threat than I thought.

This sort of thing looks like it needs TWO Daleks.

[Lupy]

The Borg have been shown time and again to have limitations on their much-vaunted "adaptability." The only way they learn is through assimilation, and there's been two occassions where that ability failed them: they couldn't assimilate Species 8472 or Data.

Species 8472's whole shtick and purpose is that they have no true technology and they aren't from a demension where the Universe obeys remotely similar laws to ours.

Secondly, Data was not alive, and they did not have him for very long. Additionally, the Queen valued him for his individuality.

The borg and Dalek have a huge first fight, the borg lose millions of people, and then capture 1 Dalek. They now know everything the Dalek do, adapt it by the end of the day, and proceed to use their incredibly rediculously overpowering numbers to defeat the Dalek, find their homeworld, and assimilate everyone in the species.

[Fjolnir]

My bet is on the daleks due to 2 things: genocidal insanity and hammer ingenuity. they will beat on the borg with their big guns, then get bigger guns and bigger guns, then slide out of time for a few hundred thousand years and come back the next day with a few hundred thousand more daleks all armed with galaxy destroying bb guns with planet buster sidearms. God forbid if the daleks get assimilated, like hugh, they'd probably screw up the entire collective and make it as genocidal as them

[X2]

Species 8472's whole shtick and purpose is that they have no true technology and they aren't from a demension where the Universe obeys remotely similar laws to ours.

Secondly, Data was not alive, and they did not have him for very long. Additionally, the Queen valued him for his individuality.

The borg and Dalek have a huge first fight, the borg lose millions of people, and then capture 1 Dalek. They now know everything the Dalek do, adapt it by the end of the day, and proceed to use their incredibly rediculously overpowering numbers to defeat the Dalek, find their homeworld, and assimilate everyone in the species.

Yes, thats the position I adopt. We are a minority on this topic yet its so blatantly obvious.

[Lupy]

Hey, at least no one's claiming a Star Destroyer could take on a Romulan Warbird. :smallwink:

[Fjolnir]

the issue is that the Borg have shown themselves weak vs insanity so assimilation would probably cause the Borg to start killing everything that isn't a Dalek then start destroying themselves See: Hugh and other relevant examples. the Daleks are nothing if not totally bat**** crazy, all of them, to a being, even the "adaptable" members of the Cult of Skarro are nuts and dedicated to universal genocide, the thing that holds the Daleks, in all their incarnations back is merely the singular ability of one being to be in the right place at the right time, no matter when it is, take him out of the equation and the universe is doomed to the reign of the salt shakers. the doctor, in not destroying them at the start, ensured the death of all the other time lords later and only "Won" the Time War by locking the beginning up to the last battle in a supposedly impentatrable time loop (of course once it was penetrated, the daleks just decided "screw it, let's just make one weapon to kill EVERYTHING, rather than doing it piecemeal)

[Lupy]

The Borg would not go nuts!

Hugh freaked them out because he was part Borg part not, nothing else.

[Reverent-One]

Hey, at least no one's claiming a Star Destroyer could take on a Romulan Warbird. :smallwink:

Of course not, such a statement of the obvious does not even need to be said. :smalltongue:

And the borg would have issues successfully assimilating a Dalek, as even if they could get past the force field, the Dalek would have no problem self-destructing or the other Daleks might destroy a vulnerable member in order to prevent assimilation.

[turkishproverb]

According to my Star-Trek atlas (hey, you, yeah the one who's sniggering. Stop it or else. :smalltongue:) the borg homeworld alone as a population of 50 trillion, and their civilization is far and beyond even that amount.

Also, if we throw out Voyager (I mean seriously, how could a Federation starship from the 24th century reasonably hope to win against a cube???),
one cube is more powerful than the fleets of the Federation, Romular Star Empire, and Klingon Empire.

Thus, I conclude that it would be a very good fight.

However, 29th century star fleet would come back in time and utterly smash both parties for trying to destroy the galaxy, so the point is moot. :smalltongue:

Well, in all fairness it was "fleets of" not "the fleets of" but still, your right. it might take 2 or 3 daleks.

[Lupy]

Eventually number and firepower win.

Trillions of Borg. With one mind. Bearing down on one saucer. Ignoring casualties.

Think about it.

I won't comment further on Star Wars' relying on non-phased lasers, low frequency shields, and fighters.

[Fjolnir]

RE: star destroyer vs warbird

Certainly the star destroyer CAN take on the warbird, that doesn't mean it can WIN:smallbiggrin:

but the hugh thing is a good example of the issues with the borg, you upload something like "individuality" into the system and it starts throwing gears, imagine putting the mindset of "everything that doesn't look like and think like a dalek must die" into the works. Assimmilation is a BAD idea for the borg in a fight vs the daleks

[WarriorTribble]

the issue is that the Borg have shown themselves weak vs insanity so assimilation would probably cause the Borg to start killing everything that isn't a Dalek then start destroying themselves See: Hugh and other relevant examples.Thing is, the Borg going nuts over individuality seemed to have been retconned away (or they adapted, or something). 7 of 9 for example showed a lot more individuality in various episodes yet the Borg never seemed all that concerned about retaking her.

And why should they? If one thinks about it. The whole shtick of assimilation is that you're own mind is supressed and remade as a piece of the collective. How would even the most insane minds effect that?

[Lupy]

Thing is, the Borg going nuts over individuality seemed to have been retconned away (or they adapted, or something). 7 of 9 for example showed a lot more individuality in various episodes yet the Borg never seemed all that concerned about retaking her.

And why should they? If one thinks about it. The whole shtick of assimilation is that you're own mind is supressed and remade as a piece of the collective. How would even the most insane minds effect that?

Well 7 of 9 also had the misfortune of being a character in Voyager, it wasn't her fault. (Not that I dislike Voyager as a show. It's just rediculous.)

And additionally, if the whole collective brings down it's will on one Dalek to force them in, they cannot fail. It's the few and the many, except the One and the Infinite.


Certainly the star destroyer CAN take on the warbird, that doesn't mean it can WIN

Sigged! :smallbiggrin:

[Reverent-One]

I won't comment further on Star Wars' relying on non-phased lasers, low frequency shields, and fighters.

Nor will I comment on how, due to Star War's incredibly unrealistic (but still canon) power levels, the Slave 1 has more firepower than the Enterprise-D.

[chiasaur11]

Nor will I comment on how, due to Star War's incredibly unrealistic (but still canon) power levels, the Slave 1 has more firepower than the Enterprise-D.

In one missile.

A star destroyer would vaporize a warbird by the numbers.

Heck, an X-wing would have a shot.

[Randel]

R2-D2 could beat the borg by hacking their systems, and there's not a damm thing they can do to stop him because he has no organic components to assimilate.

Heck, R2 could probably take over the the Enterprise single handedly if there wasn't the danger that his console would explode and kill him the second a rock bumped against the ships hull.

[Fjolnir]

the fact that in the star trek universe almost EVERYBODY outclasses the federation in average firepower per vessel at the time of the Enterprise D
(especially since most of the time the federation doesn't make warships of any kind AND phasers < disruptors) makes the example of slave 1 (a dedicated warship) vs the Enterprise D (a glorified armed research vessel) moot, when the federation stops counting on numbers and negotiation, they trot out the Defiant which is their pinnacle of military tech and it's Fast, Maneuverable, and Bristling with weapons AND has tactical invisibility.

the star destroyer is merely big, and slow, with massive blindspots in its sensors as well as being utterly dependant on small scale fighters for close quarters combat, none of their ships have any sort of sheilding to speak of, and the afformentioned non phasic weaponry.

Side by each, the fight might be fair until the faster warbird turns invisible and goes into a sensor blind spot THEN shoots photon or quantum torpedoes into the bridge, which the lack of sheilding doesn't deflect

anyhow back to the matter at hand, the borg and the daleks at the 50 million cybermen:1 dalek comparison I'll be generous and give you 25 million borg:1 dalek an american trillion is a million million so on a firepower analysis you need 2.5 trillion daleks to destroy the borg homeworld pop given at ~100 trillion beings IF they don't decide to just annihilate all time, space and the multiverse from one second out of phase with reality.

[Lupy]

They couldn't undo time or whatever in the ST Universe, we have 29th century time warrior Star Fleet who cause Super Novas.

So, now that the Daleks can't use that trick, how will they hold up against 100 trillion Borg?

That's 100,000,000,000,000 Borg. They have at least a few hundred million cubes. Numbers win.

[GoC]

yes, kind of like how life couldn't survive in an ecosystem without light.

or in that flesh-scorching ammonia filled hot spring.

or in that near-waterless desert.

:smalltongue:

If there's an environment to adapt to, life can adapt to it given enough time. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a plane-like organism: One that functions like a plane of is merely shaped like one more so than your average avian. one that functions like one seems highly unlikely, but at this point I really wouldn't be surprised.
It's pretty weird that I didn't notice this post (but then again I've had little internet access for a week)...
There are many things that life (as defined by DNA based cells) CANNOT adapt to. Living in space is one of them. Too close to the sun? The radiation destroys your DNA. Too far away? You can't get enough energy to keep your heat up. Anywhere at all? Micrometeorites.
There's also those little problems of reproduction and motion. Reproduction will require mass (and of a specific type). This mass may be found on some metoerites but how is this creature going to propel itself looking around? How is it going to see? It'll need a telescope to find the latest asteroid, an advanced brain to do the calculations and a method of propulsion. How will it manage the last one? Chemical propelents? The heat will destroy DNA so a large portion of it will have to be non-living. Muscle power? Please.


I know, I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised.
Just like you said you wouldn't be surprised if our laws of physics where incorrect? And we're actually all muppets?:smallsigh:


They have technology based on several millions of years of development, and as mentioned before fought a war against a race that uses black holes as a weapon, and quite possibly have similar weapons. The Borg, for all their capability, can't assimilate a black hole.
I'm suspiscious here. Why are they using black-holes as weapons (are they idiots?)? How are they doing so?


Nor will I comment on how, due to Star War's incredibly unrealistic (but still canon) power levels, the Slave 1 has more firepower than the Enterprise-D.

Don't be so sure...
Star Wars is very inconsistent (though not as much as Star Trek or Dr. Who). If we want to use the biggest firepower estimates we can also use the The Die is Cast numbers for Star Trek and bring them up to parity.:smalltongue:
Then use basic multiplication to get a Borg Cube=50 Star Destroyer equation.:smallbiggrin:

It's widely accepted that a Federation vs. Empire battle goes to the Empire if the Fed keeps it's plot induced stupidity and goes to the Federation if they get a fresh, fuctioning, pair of braincells.
Then again, given Star Wars military incompetence, very close engagement ranges, poor accuracy (as bad as the Federation) and not-very-fast-or-agile fighters any well designed sci-fi race would be invulnerable to anything they have.

[Lupy]

The fact of the matter is that in the ST universe the borg win because of 29th century star fleet, and in the DW universe the Daleks win because there is no star fleet.

[Reverent-One]

I'm sorry, what's all this about Star Wars having close range engagements? In ROTJ, combat initially occurs at ranges of a few thousands kilometres, eventually closing to a few hundred kilometres ("point blank" according to Lando) until Rebel ships are within a few dozen kilometres of the Executor. Meanwhile, in "The Die is Cast", Sisko orders the Defiant to approach to 500 metres (while taking fire) before shooting at a Jem'Hadar attack ship. Which range is actually shorter.

Non-exsistent shields? Queen Amidala's personal yatch shield's are far more powerful than the Enterprise-D's, and a Star Destroyer's would be rather more powerful than that, so good luck to the Warbird to actually dent the Star Destroyer.

[Cúchulainn]

http://www.gearsandwidgets.com/external/wherethisthreadgoing.jpg

[Fjolnir]

look, not every piece of tech in the SW universe is available to the empire, most of their ships lack any kind of shielding, if they DID, the death star would have had a forcefield over the exaust port at the very least! (well the very least would be a manhole cover... don't get me started on that.) while certain races and beings have shields MOST of them aren't giving the tech to the empire and the majority of the ships in the universe are depicted as sheildless so while we can find issues with the trek vs wars wars the fact of the matter is that there's a good chance that they lack effective sheilding.

where is the 29th century miltaristic, time traveling star fleet from?

and since we've got star wars in this already WHY THE HECK CAN'T JEDI/SITH FLY? I would think that it's simply a matter of levitating and then pulling your levitating body towards an immobile object but apparently they haven't figured it out (not talking about FAST flight, but still)

[Reverent-One]

look, not every piece of tech in the SW universe is available to the empire, most of their ships lack any kind of shielding, if they DID, the death star would have had a forcefield over the exaust port at the very least! (well the very least would be a manhole cover... don't get me started on that.) while certain races and beings have shields MOST of them aren't giving the tech to the empire and the majority of the ships in the universe are depicted as sheildless so while we can find issues with the trek vs wars wars the fact of the matter is that there's a good chance that they lack effective sheilding.

Uhhh....no. Shields are a major part of Star Wars combat, referenced all over canon, including ON Imperial ships.

[streakster]

I'm suspiscious here. Why are they using black-holes as weapons (are they idiots?)? How are they doing so?


Black Hole Carriers. Each equipped with a black hole that can be fired at the target. You check in, you don't check out.

[hamishspence]

Radiation can be handled by some creatures (cockroaches are famously radiation-resistant) and the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans apparently repairs its own DNA unusually rapidly, and lives in nuclear reactors.

similar with space- live but dormant bacteria were brought back from the Moon which had been left on a probe. So, on adaptation to hostile environments, real life-forms can do surprisingly well.

[Tyrant]

look, not every piece of tech in the SW universe is available to the empire, most of their ships lack any kind of shielding, if they DID, the death star would have had a forcefield over the exaust port at the very least! (well the very least would be a manhole cover... don't get me started on that.) while certain races and beings have shields MOST of them aren't giving the tech to the empire and the majority of the ships in the universe are depicted as sheildless so while we can find issues with the trek vs wars wars the fact of the matter is that there's a good chance that they lack effective sheilding.
The large ships all have shields. I have no idea what you are going on about. The Death Star had shields. The port was shielded if I remember correctly. They have more than one type of shield, not omni shields. When they were approaching the Death Star, the mention passing through it's shields and they themselves (them being XWings, fighters mind you) having to adjust their own shields. The Falcon has shields. If it does, don't you think the big Imperial ships have them? The Trade Federation ships in Episode I had sheilds. The Destroyer Droids have shields. The Gungans had shields. Let that last one sink in before you say the Empire doesn't have shields. The shields may not be consistant (or they may require you to accept that the space battles have more going on than what we see like several minutes of sustained fire between capital ships before they collapse). The EU reason for the Death Star (aside from terror) was to crack planetary shields. They've got plenty of shields. If their weapons are as powerful as some source smake them out to be (questionable) then their shields have to be strong enough to withstand them. That might not stop some of the weapons the Federation has (I think it's the quantum torpedo that goes through shields) but it will stop a majority of them.

where is the 29th century miltaristic, time traveling star fleet from?
Voyager is my guess.

and since we've got star wars in this already WHY THE HECK CAN'T JEDI/SITH FLY? I would think that it's simply a matter of levitating and then pulling your levitating body towards an immobile object but apparently they haven't figured it out (not talking about FAST flight, but still)
I'm assuming it's because their TK is somewhat weak. At least compared to say, anyone with TK from Marvel. The better question is why they bother to Force choke people when simply popping blood vessels (or gripping their heart) with the Force will kill them and leave little to no chance for them to break the hold. Force Lightning I understand because it keeps you as a non threat while it's killing you.

As for the actual debate, I think the Borg could win through weight of numbers. Depending on exactly how their nanites work, I think they could assimilate a Dalek. Do the Daleks constantly hover a small space above the floor, or do they roll? If they roll, then their force field is not all encompassing (or at least the "destroy all matter" part is not) because they don't destroy the floor wherever they go. The way to assimilate them will be to let the nanites loose along the ground (if they will work that way) and have them crawl in from the underside. Of course the Daleks are suicidally fanatical, so if they realise it is happening and still enough control they probably would try to kill themselves but all it takes is one. Or possibly one burnt out salt shaker husk to start duplicating their technology. I don't see any reason to believe absorbing one would have any impact on the collective. Does anyone really think they have somehow not absorbed any race that is filled with hate? Come on now. If they can absorb anything technological from them, their numbers will tilt things in their favor. Of course they could still lose via time travel hijinks I suppose.

[Evil DM Mark3]

There is a lot of good sense and a lot of rubbish in this thread. It has been truly stimulating. I will now give my opinion and reasons.

The Daleks win.

As far as I can tell there are spheres of conflict this war can exist in.

Land wars.
Of little direct concern to the Daleks in most cases, save production facilities, planetary landings will be vital to the Borg strategy. They simply need people to assimilate. Here we already have a Dalek advantage, as the Borg attack 3rd party worlds to get reinforcements the Daleks can burn the way before them, genociding planets that the Borg intend to use before they get there. They need not worry about holding or utelising the worlds so the Daleks are more mobile in this regard. When landings take place however, say for emergency resources or valuable 3rd party tech, things are a little more balanced. The Daleks are slow and methodical, both in their strategies and maneuvering. It is perfectly possible that if even one Borg lands the Daleks will meet a full sized army by the time they engage. What is more Borg can maneuver in and use humanoid buildings and vehicles if they have to, Daleks can't. On the other hand Borg seem to engage at close range normally and it has been pointed out how hard going toe to toe with the Daleks would be. I will give this to the Daleks on the grounds that they can avoid most of these fights if they want but the Borg need to do them to keep fighting and those fights that do happen are likely to be over defensible locations where ranged firepower is key.

Boarding actions.
Although this may seem rare, both sides do have teleporters and as I will discuss later each other's tech will prove very useful. As such, as rare as it might seem this, when it happens, may be vitally valuable. We have seen plenty of the insides of both sides ships and the Daleks have the worst of this. Borg ships are cramped and claustrophobic, I doubt a Dalek could even go down most of the alleys, let alone carry out a hit and run attack. Dalek ships however are much more open and whilst I do not pitty the Borg sent into this wasps nest, enough of them would, I think, be at least to get at least some use out of the trip. Borg here, making it all but square, one rare but possibly pivotal battlefield each.

Space battles.
The meat and veg of this war will be space battles and this is a difficult one to call. Both side's ships display truly horrific levels of firepower and ahve very significant defenses and are capable of traveling the galaxy at very high speeds via either transwarp corridors or time based travel. But as with all big battles, this will be won by little details. I expect a certain level of toing and frowing in the overall line but ultimately the winner will be the winner of the most of the others.

Temporal warfare.
Daleks. No seriously.

The Borg can time travel. The Daleks fought the Time Lords and Won. It was some as of yet unknown act by The Doctor that eneded the war, we get the impression from The Master that the Daleks where able to push and push and push, winning almost every major battle. They destroyed Archadia. They captured the Cruciform. The resurrected long extinct races and long deceased war criminals to act as foot soldiers (See monsters and aliens). They pushed the war through the transduction barrier (more or less piercing another dimension) and into the space of Galifrey herself. Anything the Borg try will fail. I am going to assume that, for whatever reason, the Daleks won't try any major direct actions. All in all though, Daleks win.

The arms race.
OK, the real deciding factor in all even vaguely fair wars. Who has the best tech and the skill to use it?
The Daleks start ahead here but unlike many others I am not willing to count out the Borg's assimilation and adaption from the get go. I don't think they can do their usual schtich of assimilating their foes outright (to get at the Dalek requires breaking open the casing, something that more often than not kills the Dalek anyway.) and there would be no point, the Dalek is a an immobile mutant. As for the case, Daleks are not going to like you trying that. Nanotech is not unknown to them and I am fairly certain that they will self destruct first. Adaption would be possible I think, but not easy. However, this is the reason for the boarding actions, both sides need to get at what the other has to take it apart. And as I said, the Borg have the advantage here. But (you knew it was coming)

The Daleks are a race of geniuses. The average foot soldier is (for sake of argument here, let us assume that this is what the episode meant) capable of processing and cross-referencing all of the information on the modern internet in about 60 seconds. The Borg, by comparisson, have some real problems in the brain department. Even as a hive mind the Borg where unable to locate the members of Unimatrix Zero or eradicate the bug that caused it before it would have long destroyed them. This is a race where rapid adaptations will be key and the Daleks are just too smart get outpaced.

I think it will be close, and there will be a LOT of 3rd party casualties, but this will be a long, drawn out, grid fest of a war that the Daleks will win. Of course the idea that such a war will go uninterfered in is ludicrous and the ultimate winner will be the one considered least scary by the most 3rd party groups. When 3rd party groups get involved the Daleks are more likely to go into a tactical retreat than the Borg and are also more likely to get the lion's share of the extra hurt (although they have used other races as pawns extensively over the years, but I am straying from the original point here).

Final conclusion in a word for you TLDR types?

Daleks.

[Lupy]

29th - 31st century Starfleet is referenced in Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space 9, and Enterprise.

They are fighting a temporal cold war with a race who wants to go back in time to prevent humanity from existing.

In a 1 on 1 fight, I would say that the Borg would lose, but that it would be a long, terrible war.

With 3rd parties involved, in either universe, the Borg would win because they are less threatening than the Daleks.
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As for the Empire, they have single frequency shields, and because Phasers are tunable, even the Enterprise-A could cut Star Destroyers to bits after getting the frequency from sensors (the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, etc all change frequencies at rapid speeds during combat). Additionally, after they got the Imperial laser frequency(ies) from their sensors, beam weapons wouldn't hurt them. Add in the fact that physical things like asteroids, tie fighters, and proton torpedoes with alternating frequency warheads can't get through the outer shields, and the Enterprise-A would defeat the whole Star Wars universe.

There. Ya wanna stop cheesing and play fair now, Warsies?

[Reverent-One]

As for the Empire, they have single frequency shields, and because Phasers are tunable, even the Enterprise-A could cut Star Destroyers to bits after getting the frequency from sensors (the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, etc all change frequencies at rapid speeds during combat).

This assumes that changing the frequency of the Trek ship's phasers will let them ignore the shields of the SW ships. Just because Star Trek shields can be vurnerable to a certain frequency doesn't mean Star Wars shields will be.


Additionally, after they got the Imperial laser frequency(ies) from their sensors, beam weapons wouldn't hurt them.

When did the Federation/Romulans become the Borg?


Add in the fact that physical things like asteroids, tie fighters, and proton torpedoes with alternating frequency warheads can't get through the outer shields, and the Enterprise-A would defeat the whole Star Wars universe.

And where the heck are you getting this idea from? Star Trek shields aren't immune to all physical forces.


There. Ya wanna stop cheesing and play fair now, Warsies?

Same to you.

[Lupy]

Every energy has a frequency. There's no "if" about it.

The Borg are far superior to the Federation and other Alpha/Beta Quadrant civilizations in every way. They lose because of their lack of originality.

Star fleet and similar technologically advanced ships have an outer layer of shields that prevents objects from hitting them. This is why undamaged (by combat) ships never run into asteroids and such. Some things, like moons, are too big, and the shields cannot push them aside, or disintegrate them.

Also, Star Trek fans (aside from those Star Fleet universe Kids) don't pull bogus EU constantly. Where do they even state any frequencies or wattages in the movies?

[Reverent-One]

Every energy has a frequency. There's no "if" about it.

The if is on whether or not the Feds/Roms/whoever could technobabble their phasers into ignoring Star Wars shields.


Star fleet and similar technologically advanced ships have an outer layer of shields that prevents objects from hitting them. This is why undamaged (by combat) ships never run into asteroids and such. Some things, like moons, are too big, and the shields cannot push them aside, or disintegrate them.

So what your saying is that an undamaged (by combat) federation ship could run into an infinite number of asteriods, provided they aren't of a large enough size. Riiiiiight....



Also, Star Trek fans (aside from those Star Fleet universe Kids) don't pull bogus EU constantly. Where do they even state any frequencies or wattages in the movies?

Star Wars EU isn't bogus, it's canon, at least to an extent(Some stories are not canon, but that's another matter), so it is valid material to bring up in a debate. Wattages and figures come from A)sourcebooks, B)analysis of what happens in the movies, IE figuring out what sort of force is neccessary to destroy a alderran-like planet in the manner in which is was destroyed to get an idea of the power of the death star superlaser.

[Tyrant]

As for the Empire, they have single frequency shields,
I'm curious where this comes from.

and because Phasers are tunable, even the Enterprise-A could cut Star Destroyers to bits after getting the frequency from sensors (the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, etc all change frequencies at rapid speeds during combat).
They still have to deal with the hull armor (which high end estimates put at ridiculous strength levels), if your proposal works. Given the lengths the Klingons had to go to in Generations to get the shield frequency (unless there is another moment that counters this, which is entirely possible), I don't think it's as easy as you say it is to get an enemy ships shield frequency.

Additionally, after they got the Imperial laser frequency(ies) from their sensors, beam weapons wouldn't hurt them.
I never got the impression it worked this way. I know you can set your weapons to their shield frequency and get through it, but how do you set it so they can't get through your shields? If your answer is "set to a different frequency than their weapons", how does combat work at all in Trek because I assume that you are right and their frequencies do change frequently which would make actually hitting another ship a near impossibility. The shields can clearly get worn down. Based on the numbers that always seem to get thrown around, turbolasers are more powerful by a considerable margin so it isn't beyond belief that they would simply overwhelm the shields. The trick is actually hitting the Enterprise.

There. Ya wanna stop cheesing and play fair now, Warsies?
I'm curious what the basis for most of this is because in the numerous debates on this topic I have seen I have never heard any of these arguments. That tells me one of two things. Either you somehow have a considerably greater eye for detail than any Trek fan who has ever bothered to debate this topic, or these things don't work like you think they do.

[Dervag]

Every energy has a frequency. There's no "if" about it.Does kinetic energy have a frequency?

What is the frequency of a thrown rock? Or a cannonball? Or a car crash? How about the frequency of an exploding stick of dynamite? What's that?

Could you express those frequencies in terms of equations?

Would you kindly define frequency for the benefit of our audience here?


Star fleet and similar technologically advanced ships have an outer layer of shields that prevents objects from hitting them. This is why undamaged (by combat) ships never run into asteroids and such. Some things, like moons, are too big, and the shields cannot push them aside, or disintegrate them.Why would undamaged ships run into asteroids without shields? Asteroids and such would be easy to see and avoid in space. Any ship with functioning engines should be able to dodge random hunks of debris, shields or no shields.

While Starfleet ships may very well have a layer of defensive shields to avoid collisions, the fact that they don't run into things in the depths of outer space doesn't prove anything. Space is notoriously empty, and it is very easy to not run into things in outer space.

[turkishproverb]

The fact of the matter is that in the ST universe the borg win because of 29th century star fleet, and in the DW universe the Daleks win because there is no star fleet.

Not really. 29th-31st century starfleet has a tendancy to get themselves in trouble too, and quite frankly, do it fairly often.

The Daleks are good at out timey-wimeying people, as already noted. If you add in the novels, which aren't not canon in doctor who (No official canon for the franchise, but the books and audios have repeatedly been referenced in the show) than it gets much worse as the daleks manage to timey wimey wars to the point the whole thing was a farce they had suddenly been perpetuating on the galaxy all along.

IE:

old timeline Real war, daleks have a bit of trouble
time travel
new timeline: The war was a hoax the daleks perpetrated on the universe while they consolidated power.

[Lupy]

Not really. 29th-31st century starfleet has a tendancy to get themselves in trouble too, and quite frankly, do it fairly often.

Yes, they do get into a lot of trouble, because they are trying to not screw up the timeline. In a no holds barred war, I'm sure they would stop worrying about that and actually fight.

Especially if it's true that they control the entire Alpha-Beta hemisphere and large hunks of the Gamm-Delta hemisphere, since they would have overcome several highly advanced species and/or had them join. Notably, from what I recall, the Klingons and Romulans are part of the Federation by the 29th century. It is, also implied that the Borg are no longer a threat, which says quite something about their capabilities, since although earlier it was agreed that the Daleks would win without lots of third parties on the Borg's side, the Borg's numbers and relentlessness would have made it a terrible war (more so because the Daleks are also relentless).
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Star Wars ships have single frequency shields because, please correct me if I am wrong, there is no evidence that they have any means/reason that they have weapons that alternate frequency.

The number of waves in a given amount of time is frequency.
I'll start with dynamite, that is the easiest one to explain.
When dynamite explodes, it is releasing heat, light, sonic, and kinetic energy.
However, not all of this energy is released at exactly the same time, it is released in waves, and the number of waves in a unit of time is the frequency.

Correct me if I am wrong.

A thrown rock, cannonball, etc. have only kinetic and potential energy.

When the cannon is fired, light, sound, and heat are created, and are emitted in waves. Furthermore, not all of the cannon ball's potential energy is used at once, when it hits the wall (or whatever) it is released in waves with a high frequency. The Kinetic energy is released all at once, so it has a frequency of less than 1 (if we are using seconds). It is still a frequency though.

That all applies to the car crash as well.

The ability to get the frequency of the Destroyer's shields is as simple as someone getting captured by the empire, and then letting a chip relay the frequency of the shield they passed through, similar to Geordi in Generations.

Space is full of small objects, which at high speeds, would tear up a hull. The shields deflect all of those, these range from lead atoms to hunks the size of houses. When you get to half-mile wide monstrosities though, the ship has a much harder time moving them aside or disintegrating them.

[Reverent-One]

There's not much to say to your assumption that the Trek ships would be able to alternate the frequency of their phasers and ignore Star Wars shields, it's an assumption you're making with little backing other than that it works in the Trek universe. So moving onto this...


Space is full of small objects, which at high speeds, would tear up a hull. The shields deflect all of those, these range from lead atoms to hunks the size of houses. When you get to half-mile wide monstrosities though, the ship has a much harder time moving them aside or disintegrating them.

Yes, I fully agree that the Enterprise (or any ship really) has such shields, but these shields can't block unlimited amounts of force, eventually, under enough force, they will fall, just like the shields the enterprise doesn't bring up until battle. And when enemy ships are throwing nearly 100 megaton missiles at this shield, it'll fall pretty darn fast.

[turkishproverb]

I do know you can cycle the frequency of at least some shields in star wars. It has slightly different meaning in the setting though.

Furthermore, the idea that star wars energy shields would even work on the same main principle as star trek shields is stretching it a little. You can't detect powered down shields in the ST universe most of the time, but clearly from ROTJ you should be able to do so in the SW universe.

[Lupy]

The missiles will probably go through, I'll get to that in a second.

My point is that SW combat heavily involves fighters, and that they are small enough that even in the hordes a fleet of the Star Destroyers could deploy (70 apiece, right?) they would bound off of the Enterprise. Throw in 6 Galaxy class ships, 4 Nebula class ships (the slightly smaller cousin of the Galaxy), a good 10 Ambassadors ("patrol" ships), 10 Mirandas (older patrol ships), and you have a fleet smaller than the short-notice Wolf 359 fleet and easily capable of taking on at least 30 star destroyers.

[Dervag]

Yes, they do get into a lot of trouble, because they are trying to not screw up the timeline. In a no holds barred war, I'm sure they would stop worrying about that and actually fight.So... a war against an enemy trying to exterminate humanity and destroy the Federation as they know it doesn't count as "no holds barred" for them?

Also, it seems a little dishonest to say that they have this tremendous amount of power lying around in reserve when they never show any of it. It's all very well to say that they'll break out their equivalent of the nuclear option if they face a tough enemy. But will they be able to recognize that they need it in time to avoid defeat? What, exactly, are the limits of their "nuclear option" strategies? Will they be able to win a temporal war against the Daleks, an enemy that has proven excellent at waging such a war? Even when fighting the Time Lords, a species whose mastery over time and space is second only to that of the Q Continuum?

And, come to think of it, how the hell did the future Federation get dragged into this mess? I thought the Daleks were fighting the Borg...
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Star Wars ships have single frequency shields because, please correct me if I am wrong, there is no evidence that they have any means/reason that they have weapons that alternate frequency.This is based on a deeply flawed assumption about the nature of frequency and of weapons- specifically, that all weapons possess a single "frequency." They don't; see below.

We have no reason to believe that Star Wars (or Dalek) shields are something that can be described by a frequency at all. There are all sorts of things in nature that cannot be described in terms of having a "single frequency," such as rocks and steel plates and sunlight.

Except for lasers and other EM beam weapons, and certain very specific kinds of sonic weapons, there is no known or theorized type of weapon that has a single frequency that you can use to completely neutralize it. So it would be foolish and suicidal to build a defense that can only stop one frequency of attack, because most things in the universe would utterly ignore your defense.
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The number of waves in a given amount of time is frequency.
I'll start with dynamite, that is the easiest one to explain.
When dynamite explodes, it is releasing heat, light, sonic, and kinetic energy.
However, not all of this energy is released at exactly the same time, it is released in waves, and the number of waves in a unit of time is the frequency.

Correct me if I am wrong.What you are wrong about is the assumption of specific frequencies. For example, when a stick of dynamite explodes, it creates a burst of sound in the air around it. But this sound is not restricted to one frequency. It's just a bunch of air molecules banging back and forth.

With suitable equipment, you could record the sound of exploding dynamite and do a Fourier transform (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_transform), analyzing the sound in terms of its frequency spectrum. But this would be a spectrum, not a single frequency. You'd have some very low-pitched sound, some very high-pitched sound, and some of everything in between.

Even if you had some kind of defense that made you immune to sound of a particular frequency (say, 440 Hz), it wouldn't do you a damn bit of good against the sound of exploding dynamite. The explosion would still be loud, because the vast majority of the energy carried on sound waves is being carried by waves of some completely different frequency.

The same goes for the light released by exploding dynamite- the light is spread out over a very large chunk of spectrum, with no one frequency carrying a significant fraction of the total light. Blacking out a specific wavelength of light (say, 550 nanometers) won't have any significant effect on what you actually see.
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A thrown rock, cannonball, etc. have only kinetic and potential energy.

When the cannon is fired, light, sound, and heat are created, and are emitted in waves. Furthermore, not all of the cannon ball's potential energy is used at once, when it hits the wall (or whatever) it is released in waves with a high frequency. The Kinetic energy is released all at once, so it has a frequency of less than 1 (if we are using seconds). It is still a frequency though.The frequency of a singular event is a meaningless concept, because frequency is a notion which applies to periodic effects- things that happen, and happen again, and again, and so on, with a countable number of events per unit time.

A cannonball in flight does not have a definable "frequency." Even using the most esoteric and broad definitions of "frequency" that make sense in physics, a cannonball will certainly have no single frequency. Even after the cannonball hits something, the resulting vibrations don't have a single frequency. Instead, there will be a bunch of different-frequency vibrations stacked on top of each other, all happening at once.

If you don't believe me, consider that you don't need a precisely tuned special-frequency shield to STOP a cannonball. A thick steel plate will do just fine. And that a thick steel plate can stop a wide variety of very different cannonballs, even though you'd expect those different types of cannonballs to have different frequencies according to your reasoning.
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Waves, vibrations, and frequency-dependent phenomena are very important in physics. But they aren't as all-encompassing as you make them out to be, especially not on the macroscopic level. Don't take my word for it, though; take this to anyone with a physics degree. They'll tell you much the same.
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The ability to get the frequency of the Destroyer's shields is as simple as someone getting captured by the empire, and then letting a chip relay the frequency of the shield they passed through, similar to Geordi in Generations.This assumes that a Dalek (or Star Wars) shield works on the same principles as a Star Trek shield. Since the weapons and many other pieces of technology don't work the same between Star Trek and Star Wars (or Doctor Who), I see no reason to assume this will work.

Trying to get the frequency of a Dalek shield might well be as useless a tactic as trying to figure out how to bribe a falling bomb not to explode. There may be ways to defeat a falling bomb, but trying to bribe it is a waste of time; it's simply not applicable to the kind of threat you're facing.
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Space is full of small objects, which at high speeds, would tear up a hull. The shields deflect all of those, these range from lead atoms to hunks the size of houses. When you get to half-mile wide monstrosities though, the ship has a much harder time moving them aside or disintegrating them.Space is not even slightly full of rocks or even things as small as atoms of lead. Ask any astronomer. Do not take my word for it.

As an example, the densest large area of debris in our own solar system is the asteroid belt. When space probes are sent through the asteroid belt, they can easily go through the entire thing without coming within ten million miles of an asteroid, and without colliding with anything big enough to endanger even the (completely unarmored) space probes we use.

Most of the volume in our solar system is much sparser than the asteroid belt, with longer distances between random chunks of stuff. Interstellar space is even less densely populated with stuff.

Again, do not take my word for it. You are welcome, and indeed encouraged, to get a second opinion from someone whose credentials you can verify. I have a bachelor's in physics, but I can't prove that to you, so go find someone who can. They will tell you the same things.
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The missiles will probably go through, I'll get to that in a second.

My point is that SW combat heavily involves fighters, and that they are small enough that even in the hordes a fleet of the Star Destroyers could deploy (70 apiece, right?) they would bound off of the Enterprise. Throw in 6 Galaxy class ships, 4 Nebula class ships (the slightly smaller cousin of the Galaxy), a good 10 Ambassadors ("patrol" ships), 10 Mirandas (older patrol ships), and you have a fleet smaller than the short-notice Wolf 359 fleet and easily capable of taking on at least 30 star destroyers.Given even the most conservative assumptions I can reasonably make about the firepower of a Star Wars star destroyer, and the most liberal assumptions I can reasonably make about the firepower of Star Trek ships, I think you're grossly overestimating the ability of that fleet to handle the star destroyers. But that's largely irrelevant, and off-topic besides.

[Reverent-One]

My point is that SW combat heavily involves fighters, and that they are small enough that even in the hordes a fleet of the Star Destroyers could deploy (70 apiece, right?) they would bound off of the Enterprise. Throw in 6 Galaxy class ships, 4 Nebula class ships (the slightly smaller cousin of the Galaxy), a good 10 Ambassadors ("patrol" ships), 10 Mirandas (older patrol ships), and you have a fleet smaller than the short-notice Wolf 359 fleet and easily capable of taking on at least 30 star destroyers.

Why would the fighters be trying to ram the Enterprise? If I were them, I just shoot at it.

And that fleet might stand a chance against some number of Star Destroyers, except that Star Wars universe ships simply operate on a far greater power scale than Star Trek ships, in terms of weapons and shield power.

[Lupy]

The missiles will probably go through, I'll get to that in a second.

My point is that SW combat heavily involves fighters, and that they are small enough that even in the hordes a fleet of the Star Destroyers could deploy (70 apiece, right?) they would bound off of the Enterprise. Throw in 6 Galaxy class ships, 4 Nebula class ships (the slightly smaller cousin of the Galaxy), a good 10 Ambassadors ("patrol" ships), 10 Mirandas (older patrol ships), and you have a fleet smaller than the short-notice Wolf 359 fleet and easily capable of taking on at least 30 star destroyers.

Next, the matter of the redica-crazy missiles on the Imperial ships: they will punch holes in the outer shields of even a Galaxy class ship. However, correct me if I am wrong, they do not contain antimatter, which means that if the inner shields of the Enterprise-D can deflect a few photo torpedoes (even Mirandas will take 1 or 2), they will be able to take several matter warheads.

I'm not saying that Starfleet wouldn't take casualties, even heavy casualties, especially if the Empire managed to board ships with Storm Troopers, just that they would eventually win.

[Lupy]

Sorry for the double post there.

Well, since Dervag just won the thread, I'm going to go do something else.

At least it was an educational defeat.

I would only question one thing:

When traveling at very close to the speed of light (let's leave Warp out of this), wouldn't be far more likely to encounter particles than going at mach whatever in our small solar system?

As for how 29th-31st century star fleet got involved, I saw after a while that 1 on 1 the Daleks are powerful enough to defeat the Borg (it would be a very long and far reaching war though), that the fact that 29th-31st century star fleet and other futuristic and advanced powers would get involved would turn the tide.

As for how distant future Star Fleet could do this: necessity. The sphere builders are nothing compared to the Daleks, and I bet Star Fleet command did their normal pansying out routine in that war, and that like the War with the Borg, they would pull it together to face the Daleks.

[GoC]

Time for my typical mega-post!


I'm sorry, what's all this about Star Wars having close range engagements? In ROTJ, combat initially occurs at ranges of a few thousands kilometres, eventually closing to a few hundred kilometres ("point blank" according to Lando) until Rebel ships are within a few dozen kilometres of the Executor. Meanwhile, in "The Die is Cast", Sisko orders the Defiant to approach to 500 metres (while taking fire) before shooting at a Jem'Hadar attack ship. Which range is actually shorter.
Apparently, in "The Die is Cast" we find that 30 ships can reasonably expect to melt the surface of a planet in a few minutes. Inconsistent? Yes, but so is Star Wars.
In the movies (either Attack of the Clone or Revenge of the Sith I think) I recall slow-moving star destroyers that got to a range of only a few kilometers. The fighters weren't too fast either. In order to recheck I'd have to pirate it...:smalltongue:


Black Hole Carriers. Each equipped with a black hole that can be fired at the target. You check in, you don't check out.
Ok, so it's confirmed that these are not our type of black-hole and are thus irrelevant to this discussion as we can't find out their effects.


Radiation can be handled by some creatures (cockroaches are famously radiation-resistant) and the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans apparently repairs its own DNA unusually rapidly, and lives in nuclear reactors.
How much radiation can they resist?
Wow. Deinococcus radiodurans is amazing!
Can I have a source on the "living in nuclear reactors" thing? Wikipedia has nothing.
Also it doesn't mention the amount of continuous radiation this nifty bacterium can survive. Do you know?
Anyone know off-hand the amount of ionizing radiation you'll get in space at a distance of 1 AU from the sun? My google-fu is weak.

EvilDMMk3: The borg do not need to assimilate to survive. They can get more soldiers using Dominion cloning technology.

Lupy: That's not quite how the Fed wins. Check out spacebattles.com. We recently had a discussion about the effects of the Federation being competent. It's nasty but not due to frequencies and shields but due to the unfortunate implications of the various technologies the Fed has. The important ones: Teleporters/perfect replicators, strong AI, time travel. Any of those three is a game breaker but all three combined kicks the arses of any universe without all three as well (assuming the Federation gets the above-mentioned competence of course:smalltongue:).

Reverent-One: Do you believe the stardestroyer.net numbers? It's no secret that the SW script-writers didn't particularily care about consistency. Check out the recent discussion on the nature of Ewoks on spacebattles.com. To summarize, treating the movies as completely consistent and canon results in your average Ewok being the equivalent of an entire chapter of WH 40K space marines.:smalltongue:


What is the frequency of a thrown rock? Or a cannonball? Or a car crash?
Simple. Particle-wave duality. Not like you to forget your physics Dervag.:smalltongue:

[Eldan]

Well, I know from the top of my head that Deinococcus Radiodurans can survive about 10'000 gray (10 kill any human almost certainly), but I can't find any good english sites right now. I'll come back later.

Ah, this one seems okay:
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast14dec99_1.htm



Already, Daly and his colleagues have devised D. radiodurans variants that can clean up mercury, a deadly heavy metal, and toluene, a dangerous solvent. This work was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.

[Tyrant]

The ability to get the frequency of the Destroyer's shields is as simple as someone getting captured by the empire, and then letting a chip relay the frequency of the shield they passed through, similar to Geordi in Generations.
That isn't what they did with Geordi. He had to actually look at a computer with the shield frequency on it for them to see it through his visor. A frequency that was not ever changing I might add even though they should have assumed at least a basic combat stance. Also, we have no idea if their communications will work through Star Wars shields. This magic chip could lose signal the moment it hits the shield.

A huge problem Federation ships are going to have against Imperial ships is speed. Not ship to ship combat speed (I think the Federation has that one) but FTL speeds. Hyperspace is far faster than Warp. The Federation is used to dealing with enemies that take hours or days to respond to distress signals whereas the Empire can respond in minutes or less. I believe the Empire also outnumbers the Federation by a considerable margin. Add in that Star Wars weapons seem to come out on top in almost every variation (it's a matter of great the difference is, not that there is a difference) and the picture isn't good for the Federation. However, GoC points out some ways for the Federation to attempt some kind of victory. I don't believe a head on slug fest will end well for the Federation.

Furthermore, the idea that star wars energy shields would even work on the same main principle as star trek shields is stretching it a little. You can't detect powered down shields in the ST universe most of the time, but clearly from ROTJ you should be able to do so in the SW universe.
I could be entirely wrong in how I always understand Lando's comment (which is where this is coming from I assume), but I didn't think it was a matter of them trying to read for powered down shields. I took it to mean they were scanning for shields and they should have either had something or nothing and instead they had the equivalent of static (because they were being jammed) which isn't quite nothing. Like I said, I could be way off but that's how I always took it. Or it's bad writing (say it isn't so).

And, come to think of it, how the hell did the future Federation get dragged into this mess? I thought the Daleks were fighting the Borg...
It will all make sense in the alternate time line the Daleks are working on to win this battle.

[Dervag]

I would only question one thing:

When traveling at very close to the speed of light (let's leave Warp out of this), wouldn't be far more likely to encounter particles than going at mach whatever in our small solar system?Statistically, yes. But the particle densities involved will still be quite low at any speed. It's not so much that you have to worry about running into rocks as it is that you have to worry about running into protons... at speeds where protons become a form of deadly radiation.

But a ship that can take a tactical nuclear warhead on the kisser and keep going has all the shielding it needs to travel at relativistic speeds in normal space. Running into a significant rock (say, a meter on a side) will end your trip real quick, but rocks like that are so far apart you'd almost have to try to hit one.
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As for warp speed, a lot depends on the dynamics of collisions between objects in warp and objects in normal space. Presumably, whatever technomagical effects the "warp bubble" generates normally stop interaction with normal matter, or warp travel would be impossible for any ship, no matter how well shielded.
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As for how 29th-31st century star fleet got involved, I saw after a while that 1 on 1 the Daleks are powerful enough to defeat the Borg (it would be a very long and far reaching war though), that the fact that 29th-31st century star fleet and other futuristic and advanced powers would get involved would turn the tide.My suspicion is that 29th-31st century Starfleet would get involved and that the result would be a temporal war so big and complicated that it would be nearly impossible to sort it all out. There's no intellectually honest way to predict the outcome of something with so many possible contingencies. So much depends on the nature of causality and stuff like that that it would almost have to be resolved by authorial fiat.

But if it's a pure Borg v. Daleks matchup, I think the Daleks are sure to win.
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As for how distant future Star Fleet could do this: necessity. The sphere builders are nothing compared to the Daleks, and I bet Star Fleet command did their normal pansying out routine in that war, and that like the War with the Borg, they would pull it together to face the Daleks.The question is whether the Federation would figure out the scope of the threat in time to stop the Daleks from inflicting unsurvivable damage. Against the Borg, Starfleet came quite close to failing this test.
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Reverent-One: Do you believe the stardestroyer.net numbers? It's no secret that the SW script-writers didn't particularily care about consistency. Check out the recent discussion on the nature of Ewoks on spacebattles.com. To summarize, treating the movies as completely consistent and canon results in your average Ewok being the equivalent of an entire chapter of WH 40K space marines.:smalltongue:Speaking for myself, I believe some but not all of the stardestroyer.net numbers. I think that their basic approach is worthwhile, but that they are strongly biased, which lets them pick and choose which stuff they're going to question rigorously and which stuff they won't.

For example, I agree with stardestroyer.net's analysis of Federation ground combat abilities (poor). And their observation that Starfleet teleporters are quite unreliable when faced with adverse conditions (shielding, sensor jamming, natural mineral formations...).

I'm not sure what to think of things like their claim that a Star Destroyer's main battery weapons are easily capable of energy outputs in the high gigaton range. They do point to a lot of converging lines of evidence, and I'm not aware of a comparable body of material that would contradict that evidence.

I'm quite skeptical about parts of their analysis of Federation equipment and sociology, though I think they make some good points.
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Simple. Particle-wave duality. Not like you to forget your physics Dervag.:smalltongue:No, it isn't. And if one remembers the definition of "particle," one will also remember that "particle-wave duality" isn't a meaningful concept when we talk about a macroscopic cannonball.

Moreover, the fact that a particle can be considered to have a de Broglie wavelength does not mean that it has a specific corresponding frequency. For instance, the volleyball that just bounced off my window has a de Broglie wavelength, but that wavelength depends only on its mass. The ball's de Broglie wavelength is identical regardless of whether it's standing still or travelling fast enough to pulverize the front wall of my living room. It has nothing to do with the ball's kinetic energy or speed, and therefore cannot be associated with a frequency.

To make matters worse, the ball's de Broglie wavelength is many orders of magnitude (I dunno; something like a factor of 10^-30 or 10^-40) less than its physical size, which is why it didn't happen to tunnel through my front window and smash the bookcase full of valuable books that would be next on its line of flight. Lucky me, huh?

Also, the merits of the de Broglie wavelength when applied to objects which are not fundamental, indivisible particles are shaky. De Broglie was working before quantum mechanics was properly figured out, and trying to extend his model beyond the electrons whose behavior he was modeling is at best disingenuous.
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Add in that Star Wars weapons seem to come out on top in almost every variation (it's a matter of great the difference is, not that there is a difference) and the picture isn't good for the Federation. However, GoC points out some ways for the Federation to attempt some kind of victory. I don't believe a head on slug fest will end well for the Federation.Another thing to remember is that if we're talking about a far-future Federation centuries beyond the one found in the Star Trek TV series, it's possible that their weapons will have advanced until they are closer to being on par with those of the Empire. Moreover, it appears likely that they will have mastered transwarp drive technologies that reduce the Empire's margin of superiority in FTL speed.

Moreover, while the Daleks are better at time travel than the Federation, the far-future Federation is much better at time travel than the Galactic Empire. If the future-Feds pull out all the stops before being conquered (and I kind of doubt that would happen, to tell the truth), they might very well be able to unmake an attacking Imperial force entirely in this way.

[golentan]

Deinococcus Radiodurans is capable of surviving 5000 rads continuously with no loss of viability. It can withstand bursts as high as 15000 with 37% viability. The ionizing radiation in space at around the habitable zone works out to 1000-1500 rads, so they won't even break a sweat.

Recent studies with fungi show that melatonin is capable of converting ionizing radiation in nonlethal doses into Caloric output (note capital C, this is the unit of nutritional value, not heat). Ideally, this could be used to engineer such life. And regardless, we know that living organisms can survive in vacuum at least in earth's orbit (mostly by encysting and waiting for more hospitable environs). It is not a stretch to say with a large enough population of cells in orbit, or some engineering, you could make the color of space green (well, brown if we go the melatonin route :).

As for black holes, if you have gravity/energy conversion they become one of the best weapons in any science fiction story. Contain a black hole such that your ship's gravy negates that of the hole. This will (depending on the story) take tons of energy or generate it. If it takes lots, you shall be limited in scope to micro black holes (less than the diameter of an atom) by most power generators. However, it's a solar system destroying super weapon: fire it at a sun with insufficient velocity to escape. it will consume the sun, and because of the nature of the consumption will actually cause the outer gas layer to explode outwards. With precision engineering or sufficient carriers, you should be able to accomplish this with days or weeks. Or launch a micro at the enemy ship: As a point mass with extreme gravitational gradients, it's basically unstoppable by conventional means and virtually undetectable. It will tear through armor and overload shields without slowing down, and makes a beautiful implosion weapon.

In addition, evaporation allows you to use them as a power source. Feed some hydrogen gas into the storage chamber: a micro black hole will produce a massive burst of gamma rays, at a higher power output to mass ratio than fusion. I believe it works out to about 7% efficiency (doesn't sound like a lot, but trust me, it is). This can be weaponized or simply used as a generator if you have sufficiently efficient solar panel equivalents.

Alternatively, if negating gravity generates power, you want the largest black hole you can handle. The problem now is storing or radiating the power it generates: Shields now become viable. Think about it: to negate a force, you need an equivalent force acting in the opposite direction. Shields don't conventionally work IRL because if a shot has 500 joules and a cross section of a square inch, a shield needs to output 500 joules across every square inch of the object it is protecting at all times. If your problem is wasting the maximum energy you can, shields are a beautiful option. Then, for weaponry, convert over some of the energy as a beam weapon, or if you have directional containment simply drop it in a direction where there's nothing you care about and CRUSH THE ENEMY WITH YOUR MIND (ahem. I meant power source)

If you can't negate gravity, you can still weaponize black holes, but you have to do it the slow way (use a mass to "tow" them to your target).

Oh, and daleks win. Daleks win so very hard.

Star trek vs. star wars is trickier. In any reasonable world, star trek wins because they can use missile boats intelligently (star wars shields don't work against matter, only energy. Seriously, WTF?). In the star wars universe, nothing makes any sense, and star wars wins because George-ey boy wants it.

Sorry for the lengthy post.

[Oslecamo]

In the star wars universe, nothing makes any sense, and star wars wins because George-ey boy wants it.


Not only that, they win with just one mary sue jedi!:smalltongue:

[Meshakhad]

THIS IS THE OP.

Anyone who even thinks "Star Wars" in this thread will be summarily EXTERMINATED.

This is about the Borg vs. the Daleks. Star Wars has no relevance. The Federation is only relevant for how they have fared agains the Borg.

[Reverent-One]

Star trek vs. star wars is trickier. In any reasonable world, star trek wins because they can use missile boats intelligently (star wars shields don't work against matter, only energy. Seriously, WTF?).

Dang it, I was going to drop out of this discussion because I'm getting too involved into it, but I can't let this pass. The above bolded statement is NOT TRUE. Period. I don't know why this keeps coming up.

And since I'm here anyway, I'll answer the question of what I think of StarDestroyer.net's numbers, which is pretty much exactly what Dervag said. Though I'm more believing of their numbers for turbolaser battery power since they are in the same ballpark as the Star Wars Episode II Incredible Cross-Sections numbers, which I haven't heard isn't canon, so I'm going with the assumption that it is.

[Tyrant]

Another thing to remember is that if we're talking about a far-future Federation centuries beyond the one found in the Star Trek TV series, it's possible that their weapons will have advanced until they are closer to being on par with those of the Empire. Moreover, it appears likely that they will have mastered transwarp drive technologies that reduce the Empire's margin of superiority in FTL speed.

Moreover, while the Daleks are better at time travel than the Federation, the far-future Federation is much better at time travel than the Galactic Empire. If the future-Feds pull out all the stops before being conquered (and I kind of doubt that would happen, to tell the truth), they might very well be able to unmake an attacking Imperial force entirely in this way.
I agree that future Federation could likely deal with the Empire. I was meaning the "present" (TNG, DS9, Voyager) Federation. Future Federation with it's time travel and superior technology should win against the Empire assuming they will interfere.

Star trek vs. star wars is trickier. In any reasonable world, star trek wins because they can use missile boats intelligently (star wars shields don't work against matter, only energy. Seriously, WTF?). In the star wars universe, nothing makes any sense, and star wars wins because George-ey boy wants it.
I have to believe some Star Wars shields stop matter weapons. Otherwise, wouldn't everyone and their brother be using missile boats? The Empire actually has missile boats in fact. They also have bombers. Most rebel ships have missile or bomb capability. Yet everyone is flying around blasting each other with lasers.

Looking into it a little bit, the shields are called particle shields and they are designed to stop physical objects. Ray shields are the ones meant to stop energy attacks. Most large ships have both. If you want an in movie source, look to RotJ. The rebels had to bring down the shield of the second Death Star before they could attack it. Their plan was to fly fighters into the superstructure. If the shields didn't stop matter, this wouldn't be an issue. Now for my admission of inconsistancy on this front. Somehow this wasn't an issue with the first Death Star and you would think it too would be shielded with both.

As for using missile boats intelligently, the ones the Empire has were apparently designed by Thrawn. I have to assume almost anything he designed was made to work effectively.

[Meshakhad]

I agree that future Federation could likely deal with the Empire. I was meaning the "present" (TNG, DS9, Voyager) Federation. Future Federation with it's time travel and superior technology should win against the Empire assuming they will interfere.

I have to believe some Star Wars shields stop matter weapons. Otherwise, wouldn't everyone and their brother be using missile boats? The Empire actually has missile boats in fact. They also have bombers. Most rebel ships have missile or bomb capability. Yet everyone is flying around blasting each other with lasers.

Looking into it a little bit, the shields are called particle shields and they are designed to stop physical objects. Ray shields are the ones meant to stop energy attacks. Most large ships have both. If you want an in movie source, look to RotJ. The rebels had to bring down the shield of the second Death Star before they could attack it. Their plan was to fly fighters into the superstructure. If the shields didn't stop matter, this wouldn't be an issue. Now for my admission of inconsistancy on this front. Somehow this wasn't an issue with the first Death Star and you would think it too would be shielded with both.

As for using missile boats intelligently, the ones the Empire has were apparently designed by Thrawn. I have to assume almost anything he designed was made to work effectively.

EXTERMINATE!

[chiasaur11]

EXTERMINATE!

That's your solution to everything.

[golentan]

@OP: YOU CAN NOT STOP THE EPIC DERAIL! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

@Reverent-One: Wrong. We know star wars shields do not function against low speed matter (with "low speed" being unclear) because we see ships FLY THROUGH SHIELDS. In the movies, we see ships land in shielded ships. We see infantry march through shields. We see troop transports land on shielded planets to advance on the shield generators to allow larger support. The expanded universe edits this, because it is Bat**** insane. But put a nuke through the window of any ship and it is DEAD!

The reason that we're off topic is because it's fairly obvious who wins the original discussion if we go height of power and equivalent numbers, or even height of power and radically unequal numbers. Because the daleks are mobile battleships, required concentrated firepower from antitank weapons to BLIND them (note that weapons have never been observed killing a dalek except the weapons of other Daleks. Daleks invariably kill any thing less than a warship with a single shot). That is their basic infantry unit: simple and mass produceable. They have battleships, they have time travel, and they have succesfully waged war against the whole of the universe. Including the beings that regulated time and space itself. They didn't win, but that's because nobody won.

Compare to the borg. They have never successfully time traveled (at least deliberately). They have superior technology for their time, but they have no personal shields capable of stopping anti-tank rounds. And phasers are not single shot kills, they probably aren't anti-tank. And they haven't managed to beat out the others in their universe or take even a single galaxy. The daleks show up and prevent them from ever originating.

[Reverent-One]

@Reverent-One: Wrong. We know star wars shields do not function against low speed matter (with "low speed" being unclear) because we see ships FLY THROUGH SHIELDS. In the movies, we see ships land in shielded ships. We see infantry march through shields. We see troop transports land on shielded planets to advance on the shield generators to allow larger support. The expanded universe edits this, because it is Bat**** insane. But put a nuke through the window of any ship and it is DEAD!

Utterly wrong. In there SW universe, there are TWO types of shields, energy and particle shields. Ships fly through energy shields, not particle shields. If ships could just fly through all shields, why did the rebels have to wait for their forces on Endor to destroy the shield generator before the Falcon and the fighters can fly in to blow up the second death star in ROTJ?

[Seraph]

Utterly wrong. In there SW universe, there are TWO types of shields, energy and particle shields. Ships fly through energy shields, not particle shields. If ships could just fly through all shields, why did the rebels have to wait for their forces on Endor to destroy the shield generator before the Falcon and the fighters can fly in to blow up the second death star in ROTJ?

name one SINGLE reference to particle shields in the six movies. oh wait, you can't, because they don't exist. all this crap about separate shields and inflated numbers come from the EU, which is a wankfest cluster**** of dueling fanboyism thats so pathetically petty and transparent that it isn't deserving of attention. aside from a single example of an extremely small containment field, everything shown by the MOVIES shows that shields are only useful against energy weapons, and can be penetrated by asteroids, torpedoes, fighters, and infantry.

[Reverent-One]

name one SINGLE reference to particle shields in the six movies. oh wait, you can't, because they don't exist. all this crap about separate shields and inflated numbers come from the EU, which is a wankfest cluster**** of dueling fanboyism thats so pathetically petty and transparent that it isn't deserving of attention. aside from a single example of an extremely small containment field, everything shown by the MOVIES shows that shields are only useful against energy weapons, and can be penetrated by asteroids, torpedoes, fighters, and infantry.

Ok then, if no particle shields exist, answer this question then.

If ships could just fly through all shields, why did the rebels have to wait for their forces on Endor to destroy the shield generator before the Falcon and the fighters can fly in to blow up the second death star in ROTJ?

and I will say again, the EU IS canon. So yes, they exist, get over it.

[golentan]

Right, which is why they never mention such in any of the movies. Like I said, they fixed it in the expanded because it is insane. If we go by what the movies (which every fan has seen, and most fans have as their sole source) my statements stand. And otherwise, my statement that star wars wins in it's own universe because George-ey boy wishes it so holds true. Star wars engines, guns, and everything else are powered by plot devices, and it's just barely lampshaded. Fun fantasy, but hardly useful for determining actual comparative levels.

Edit: Ninja'd. And: Increased power (like from an external generator) may reduce the speed of things that can pass through for all I know?

[Reverent-One]

Right, which is why they never mention such in any of the movies. Like I said, they fixed it in the expanded because it is insane. If we go by what the movies (which every fan has seen, and most fans have as their sole source) my statements stand. And otherwise, my statement that star wars wins in it's own universe because George-ey boy wishes it so holds true. Star wars engines, guns, and everything else are powered by plot devices, and it's just barely lampshaded. Fun fantasy, but hardly useful for determining actual comparative levels.

Just because you don't like the EU doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And you still haven't answered my question. On top of that, take a look at this quote from A New Hope said by Jan Dodanna

"The shaft is ray shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes."
If there's only one type of shield, why would he say mention ray shielding? And if photon torpedoes can totally ignore shields, why aren't they the most common type of weapon used in combat?

[WarriorTribble]

Compare to the borg. They have never successfully time traveled (at least deliberately). They have superior technology for their time, but they have no personal shields capable of stopping anti-tank rounds. And phasers are not single shot kills, they probably aren't anti-tank. And they haven't managed to beat out the others in their universe or take even a single galaxy. The daleks show up and prevent them from ever originating.I can't comment on the strength on the Daleks since I've seen very little of Dr. Who, but I would like to correct some errors in your Star Trek trivia.

1. The Borg have deliberately traveled back in time in the First Contact movie. Picard who has a residual link with them confirmed this.

2. Borg shields protect against phaser fire that could vaporize organic components, and certain rocks/minerals. I'd say they already have or can easily get anti-tank defenses if necessary.

3. Like I mentioned in point two, phasers are very powerful weapons. They can be both one-shot, and anti-tank weapons.

I do have one small question though. If the Daleks consider a group a threat do they start by attempting to erase said group with offensive time travel, or do they use conventional methods first?

[golentan]

Okay: 1. They have not been able to repeat it consistently from what I understand.

2. The ability to get it after iterations and improvements does not mean they have it now.

3. I've seen them vaporize individuals, but I don't think that qualifies as anti-tank, and because of the points (personal shields) made in point 2 I don't believe I would qualify them as one shot kills. There has not been a single individual in the whole of doctor who that has survived being shot anywhere.

It's not clear how they wage war. But they use time travel as part of waging war. And they kill everything across all of time and space until they're the only thing left. And it's not clear they stop there (dalek civil war over the color of their armor).

[Fjolnir]

this seems fairly accurate about shielding in SW: There are Particle shields and Beam shields, a beam shield is relatively cheap as far as both power and availability, HOWEVER Particle shields require MASSIVE outputs of energy in order to maintain functionality (this explains why they needed the shield generator on Endor to beam the shield into space among other things) the Average ship in the SW universe has beam shields but not particle shields due to power issues, however PLANETARY shielding tends to be particle shields


Back to the correct subject. Daleks will use time travel offensively fairly often during the course of the war ESPECIALLY if it looks like they MIGHT lose an engagement, as well as to negate certain advantages the borg have (IE: wiping out the race that gave them adaptive shielding before the borg get there)

[WarriorTribble]

Okay: 1. They have not been able to repeat it consistently from what I understand.They have only done it once in canon, but time travel is a surprisingly common technology in ST. Why the Borg aren't seen using that ability constantly is a plot hole, but I think it's safe to say they can do it. All the lesser powers can afterall (I exagerate, but not by much sadly).
2. The ability to get it after iterations and improvements does not mean they have it now.It's a reasonable assumption. They have destroyed thousands of species who one would imagine used every weapon we could concieve of, and then some. How could the Borg be such a threat if anti-tank weaponry could decimate their ranks? They always shown personally assimilating individuals in close quarters, they'll need some strong shields.
3. I've seen them vaporize individuals, but I don't think that qualifies as anti-tank, and because of the points (personal shields) made in point 2 I don't believe I would qualify them as one shot kills. There has not been a single individual in the whole of doctor who that has survived being shot anywhere.Phasers can do more than vaporize organic matter. Federation hand phasers in their highest setting can vaporize 650 cubic meters of rock per shot ([URL="http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Phaser#Phaser_settings).

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to point out with "There has not been a single individual in the whole of doctor who that has survived being shot anywhere." though...

[golentan]

They have only done it once in canon, but time travel is a surprisingly common technology in ST. Why the Borg aren't seen using that ability constantly is a plot hole, but I think it's safe to say they can do it. All the lesser powers can afterall (I exagerate, but not by much sadly).It's a reasonable assumption. They have destroyed thousands of species who one would imagine used every weapon we could concieve of, and then some. How could the Borg be such a threat if anti-tank weaponry could decimate their ranks? They always shown personally assimilating individuals in close quarters, they'll need some strong shields.Phasers can do more than vaporize organic matter. Federation hand phasers in their highest setting can vaporize 650 cubic meters of rock per shot ([URL="http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Phaser#Phaser_settings).

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to point out with "There has not been a single individual in the whole of doctor who that has survived being shot anywhere." though...

Something's use against rock doesn't qualify it as an antitank round, nor express it's value as an armor piercing weapon. When I say "antitank" I mean a weapon rated against armor built by the same tech level as the gun. I mean that weapons designed for 42 century warfare against armor divisions works to blind daleks, as it barely suffices to damage the camera. Nothing else is effective, and the only things that have done better are plot device guns (which as they are taken from a dalek front organization are likely dalek built), wielded by the core cast.

Damaged, helpless daleks have withstood three years of very smart, very well funded men using everything at their disposal to get inside. They emerged with no more damage then when they went in, all of which was repaired inside of seconds. They have survived nuclear blasts, fallen from orbit with no ill effects, and been submerged in magma to emerge and renew their assault. Their weapons kill invariably with a single hit, and they are so secure in their superiority that they will calmly sit under combined fire while strategizing how best to kill those in the room.

The cybermen have weaponry roughly equivalent to phasers. High damage, high kill. They are immune to any form of small arms fire with modern or near future weaponry. They fall with a single blast like everybody else. A whole platoon engaged four daleks, the daleks were unslowed and barely bothered to note they were being fired upon.

There have been scenes where a dalek did things like activate the fire alarm, and wait for thirty seconds before firing a shot. Reason? The water covered the floor, and conducted the charge of a single shot. Dozens dead in half a second. Dalek beams from a single unit have blown up giant areas, but supposedly the explosion comes from misuse and is a wildly inefficient version of what is truly a Death ray (no explosion, no apparent tissue damage, just insta-dead). Daleks fly. As in "between stars." Individually, and without ships. They are, for all intents and purposes, pocket warships. On at least three occasions, they have swept aside the combined military might of earth in under an hour (not an on screen hour, an on screen minute). Once in modern times, and a few times in the future. They built a weapon capable of vaporizing the multiverse. On of them sucked dry the North American power grid for "a little extra juice." That's about 10.9 Billion Kilowatt Hours a day, by the way.

And that does not minimize the threat of the borg within their universe. It is simply like observing that putting 12 year olds with sticks against green berets is not a fair fight. Sure, they're the biggest baddest guys in their school, but let's be honest here. Give them extra time to catch up, and proper training, and they might make the cut later, but now?

[GoC]

Speaking for myself, I believe some but not all of the stardestroyer.net numbers. I think that their basic approach is worthwhile, but that they are strongly biased, which lets them pick and choose which stuff they're going to question rigorously and which stuff they won't.
Such as the indestructable trees?:smalltongue:


For example, I agree with stardestroyer.net's analysis of Federation ground combat abilities (poor).
Understatement of the year. I think the romans could defeat them!


They do point to a lot of converging lines of evidence, and I'm not aware of a comparable body of material that would contradict that evidence.
That is certainly coincidence (and the result of picking and choosing evidence). The writer of a science fantasy series will not work hard to make sure all the numbers match up, they're going to go for what's cool, interesting and dramatic.


Moreover, the fact that a particle can be considered to have a de Broglie wavelength does not mean that it has a specific corresponding frequency.
Aye.


To make matters worse, the ball's de Broglie wavelength is many orders of magnitude (I dunno; something like a factor of 10^-30 or 10^-40) less than its physical size, which is why it didn't happen to tunnel through my front window and smash the bookcase full of valuable books that would be next on its line of flight. Lucky me, huh?
:smallbiggrin:


Deinococcus Radiodurans...
Interesting stuff. The more you know...


As for black holes, if you have gravity/energy conversion they become one of the best weapons in any science fiction story. Contain a black hole such that your ship's gravy negates that of the hole. This will (depending on the story) take tons of energy or generate it. If it takes lots, you shall be limited in scope to micro black holes (less than the diameter of an atom) by most power generators. However, it's a solar system destroying super weapon: fire it at a sun with insufficient velocity to escape. it will consume the sun, and because of the nature of the consumption will actually cause the outer gas layer to explode outwards. With precision engineering or sufficient carriers, you should be able to accomplish this with days or weeks. Or launch a micro at the enemy ship: As a point mass with extreme gravitational gradients, it's basically unstoppable by conventional means and virtually undetectable. It will tear through armor and overload shields without slowing down, and makes a beautiful implosion weapon.
The problem is you can't create the black hole in the first place. If you've got enough mass to make a black hole larger than a pin-head then you've got much better ways of using it. Seriously, if you've got the mass of a small planet and you're using it as pin-head sized amunition something is very wrong with you.


In addition, evaporation allows you to use them as a power source. Feed some hydrogen gas into the storage chamber: a micro black hole will produce a massive burst of gamma rays, at a higher power output to mass ratio than fusion. I believe it works out to about 7% efficiency (doesn't sound like a lot, but trust me, it is). This can be weaponized or simply used as a generator if you have sufficiently efficient solar panel equivalents.
Again. You've got the mass of a small planet. You've somehow got the energy to compress it down to a black hole. Why not use that energy in the first place?


If you can't negate gravity, you can still weaponize black holes, but you have to do it the slow way (use a mass to "tow" them to your target).
You've now got a mass larger than a planet and have the engines to move it interstellar distances... whatever you're fighting isn't going to need that star!


If ships could just fly through all shields, why did the rebels have to wait for their forces on Endor to destroy the shield generator before the Falcon and the fighters can fly in to blow up the second death star in ROTJ?
Oooh oooh, pick me!
Ahem.
Because Star Wars is inconsistent.
:smallbiggrin:


and I will say again, the EU IS canon. So yes, they exist, get over it.
Not everyone agrees. It will depend on what the OP says is canon fo the discussion and unfortunately this is a derailed thread.:smallbiggrin:

[Reverent-One]

Oooh oooh, pick me!
Ahem.
Because Star Wars is inconsistent.
:smallbiggrin:

Considering that there is a more consistent explanation available, which is that there are two types of shields, that doesn't really work. (That would, however, be the answer to what size a super star destroyer is. :smalltongue:)


Not everyone agrees. It will depend on what the OP says is canon fo the discussion and unfortunately this is a derailed thread.:smallbiggrin:

I wasn't talking about for the purposes of this discussion, I was talking official canon. No OP in a thread can change that.

[SmartAlec]

I do have one small question though. If the Daleks consider a group a threat do they start by attempting to erase said group with offensive time travel, or do they use conventional methods first?

They'll use conventional methods first, but they won't consider time travel as a last resort if that's what you mean.

As an aside, for those who think that the idea of Daleks using time travel to destroy potential threats is just a hypothesis, I direct their attention to the First Doctor episode 'The Chase', which aired in 1965 - in which an attack team of Daleks in their own time machine pursue the TARDIS across time and space with the intent of destroying the Doctor. Interesting, because up until that point in the series, not only had the Doctor not been that much of a thorn in their side, Daleks hadn't been shown to have time travel yet - which can only mean those were Daleks from the future. Presumably hunting the Doctor before he can cause all the trouble he'll end up causing.

The whole Doctor-destroying-the-Dalek-race-during-the-Time-War is a superb piece of continuity in this respect.


You've got the mass of a small planet. You've somehow got the energy to compress it down to a black hole. Why not use that energy in the first place?

If you're talking about the Time Lords, they do use artificial black holes as their primary energy sources. They just also use them as weapons, too.

[Tyrant]

Right, which is why they never mention such in any of the movies.
Do you know what an Ewok is? A TIE Interceptor or TIE Bomber? An AT-ST? There is an important point to this question.

As to the nonderailed topic, I think the main path to any kind of Borg victory is acquiring Dalek technology. If they don't, there only other real hope is to somehow show up after the Doctor has yet again reduced the Daleks to single digits and overwhelm them with sheer numbers.

[Foeofthelance]

The problem is you can't create the black hole in the first place. If you've got enough mass to make a black hole larger than a pin-head then you've got much better ways of using it. Seriously, if you've got the mass of a small planet and you're using it as pin-head sized amunition something is very wrong with you.

Remember, you're also dealing with time travelers. A massive explosion is nothing more than a pretty light show if someone else can come along later and undo it. If putting a black hole on the spot also screws up the temporal lines around that spot, then no one can come around and undo what you did. In the Satan Pit episodes the Doctor ends up at the edge of a black hole, and starts freaking out because they shouldn't be there. The only reason they got out in the first place was because the black hole itself had been manufactured to size as a prison for something else, and the planet they were on had somehow been exempted from its effects.

(Why they didn't just chuck the guy in the black hole in the first place, I don't know. He might have been powerful enough to escape on his own, at least in his natural form. He was mentally possessing a human body when they finally chucked him in.)

My best guess is that this is what the Doctor did, one way or the other, to seal off the Time War. Then again, this is the same series that claims Earth was built as a hiding spot by a race of spider-like aliens, so that the Doctor, or at least the Time Lords, couldn't finish off genociding them. The only reason the Daleks seem to still be running around loose is because their contigency plans have contingency plans, which have only been triggered by the contingency plans of their other contingency plans.


Understatement of the year. I think the romans could defeat them!

I think the Romans did beat them, at least in a couple of Original Series episodes...

[Dervag]

THIS IS THE OP.

Anyone who even thinks "Star Wars" in this thread will be summarily EXTERMINATED.

This is about the Borg vs. the Daleks. Star Wars has no relevance. The Federation is only relevant for how they have fared agains the Borg.If you're a Dalek you'd exterminate me anyway, and if you aren't that's just cheesy. :smallbiggrin:


Such as the indestructable trees?:smalltongue:Exactly.

That said, there are lots of Star Wars references that indicate that (some) personal hand blasters are roughly as destructive as a modern autocannon, that capital ship turbolasers are quite capable of delivering mass destruction in the nuclear range with a single shot, and so on.

Conversely, there are plenty of Star Trek references that indicate that phasers are capable of things no normal handheld firearm could do (conservation of momentum violations, "stun," heating water for a cup of coffee without vaporizing much, if any, of it, et cetera). And that capital ship phasers are, at high enough power settings, capable of causing mass destruction through some kind of chain reaction effect (setting the atmosphere on fire? I don't know).

For pure brute force, Star Trek doesn't really rate all that high. The effects they achieve mostly revolve around getting as much mileage as possible out of (relatively) small amounts of energy. There are limits to what you can achieve that way, or at least to what civilizations like the Borg can achieve that way.

Star Trek species, including the Borg, just don't have the raw planetcrushing ability attributed to a species like the Daleks (or the Star Wars Empire).

[golentan]

The problem is you can't create the black hole in the first place. If you've got enough mass to make a black hole larger than a pin-head then you've got much better ways of using it. Seriously, if you've got the mass of a small planet and you're using it as pin-head sized amunition something is very wrong with you.


Again. You've got the mass of a small planet. You've somehow got the energy to compress it down to a black hole. Why not use that energy in the first place?


You've now got a mass larger than a planet and have the engines to move it interstellar distances... whatever you're fighting isn't going to need that star!


Except that current theory says that micro black holes are naturally occurring. So we don't need to have the power or mass to make them, just the tech to find and contain them. And since they're already there, it's almost criminal not to take advantage of their unique, war applicable technologies. On the other hand, many of these techniques are war crimes.

Now, current theory might be wrong, as many theories have been in the past. But if we assume microholes exist, your military is going to want some. And the large black hole stuff is useful regardless, and we know those exist. Actually, it's a creepy thought if you ponder it too long (most applications of black holes become far more useful for warships then civilian uses. Black holes should be relatively common given known physical constants and densities (more so then nebulae, less so than stars). There are very few black holes observed. Most social organisms on earth practice warfare in one way or another, a statement which is probably generalizable to other life. We have not made confirmed contact with intelligent life. This is most likely because the drake equation is incorrect, with the two most likely terms being the chance of life developing or the lifespan of radioactive civilization. The latter term can be changed by warfare, both internal and external. And we are broadcasting our position to the universe. Draw your own conclusions).

Note: I am not as paranoid as that last run on makes me seem. I believe life that makes it to the stars must reach some level of cooperative structure that would prevent them from nuking themselves to kingdom come. In addition, interstellar war is such a suicide for both sides that only an idiot would pursue it, and such an idiot would be crushed.

[tyckspoon]

Except that current theory says that micro black holes are naturally occurring. So we don't need to have the power or mass to make them, just the tech to find and contain them. And since they're already there, it's almost criminal not to take advantage of their unique, war applicable technologies. On the other hand, many of these techniques are war crimes.


mm.. how big is the sort of 'micro black hole' that you're thinking about? Because current black-hole theory also says that a black hole under a certain size dissipates very, very rapidly, such that the most commonly created black holes are around for about as long as it took them to come into existence in the first place. That kind of black hole would be functionally unusable as a weapon or energy source.. and manipulating a black hole that was big enough to be self-sustaining would require enough energy that you'd probably have a much easier and more effective weapon by simply applying said energy directly to the enemy.

[golentan]

I'm talking something between the mass of the moon and jupiter. They should have a functional lifespan sufficiently high for warship purposes, if not compared to the length of the universe. And I realize that manipulating them is difficult and requires the use of artificial gravity or some truly impressive magnetic bottles. In the latter case, you are right: it's best applied as a direct weapon rather than futzing about with black holes. In the former case, there are two alternatives: 1. You are applying counter gravity and effectively tidally locking your ship against the black hole. Or you have some way of keeping the beastie where it is relative to the rest of you and your ship is just really tough. You then use it as a superweapon as an object lesson of power. Apply tidal force to planets, nova suns, whatever floats your boat. Also, feed it gas for matter energy conversion at a high efficiency rate. 2. You are converting the gravity into some other form of energy, in which case you go absolutely wild with power. See my above posts.

[Tyrant]

I believe life that makes it to the stars must reach some level of cooperative structure that would prevent them from nuking themselves to kingdom come.
Why? What really prevents schisms within the race from reawakening after they are spread around on multiple planets? Or maybe those old hatreds never really went away? There are always reasons for fight. Spread across enough planets, nuking might not sound like the bad idea we know it to be. If we didn't have to worry about also suffering from the after effects of our nuclear weapons I am reasonably sure we would use them. I think you have to consider that a species that can nuke itself had to have made nuclear weapons at some point to make that possible. If they made the weapons, they at least accepted that they might be used. That means they fight and are willing to cause mass destruction to win.

In addition, interstellar war is such a suicide for both sides that only an idiot would pursue it, and such an idiot would be crushed.
You could argue the same for lots of types of conflict, yet we still fight. We have stockpiles of doomsday weapons. We knew full well what their use would mean and we still kept making more and more. There will always be reasons to fight and there will always be people willing to do whatever it takes to win. Just because everyone knows a course of action is suicidal and will lead to mutually assured destruction doesn't mean they will do the logical thing and change course. History is full or people doing idiotic things and I would assume this would apply to any other intelligent species should any other ever be found.

[golentan]

@Tyrant: Yes. Once there, old schisms are likely to reemerge, and form. And they are likely to be augmented by the potential for speciation between colonies. And they probably did at some point build doomsday weapons. And if they made it to space, it's probably because they used them infrequently enough that they survived without significant backsliding on their technology levels.

And you probably don't know just how suicidal interstellar war is. A nuke costs a few hundred million dollars, and will devastate an area of several square miles. Scary, but acceptable in many circumstances. And it's relatively easy to defend against (screw with the guidance or triggering just a bit and it never goes off).

An asteroid (or better yet, comet. You can use the gases it releases as fuel) with an engine attached accelerating at 0.1 g for a week? It's speed at impact works out to be ~600,000 m/s. Assuming a mass of five metric tons, you get 3 billion joules of energy. That's just shy of a ton of tnt. Not that much, no? Okay, ramp up the acceleration or the mass by a few points. Both is better. Up the distance traveled, or any other number of things. You have yourself a world buster, my friend. Something capable of taking your lovely planet and cracking it like an egg. Final cost: Cost of rock floating in space + engine (works out to between a few thousand dollars and maybe a million) + fuel. Since we have reasonably common (enough to colonize) spaceflight, I'm assuming that last term is low, but even if it's not you could just have the engine sit dormant for a year sweeping up hydrogen. Should work fine.

My point being any sort of interstellar warfare where one or more parties has major population on a planet is like picking a fight when you are at the bottom of a well and he is at the top with boulders. Oh, how arduous it is to flip one over the edge and leave. The metaphor being flawed, of course, because from his perspective it is the exact same suicide.

[Dervag]

We have not made confirmed contact with intelligent life. This is most likely because the drake equation is incorrect, with the two most likely terms being the chance of life developing or the lifespan of radioactive civilization. The latter term can be changed by warfare, both internal and external. And we are broadcasting our position to the universe. Draw your own conclusions).Point the first: as I understand it we are not broadcasting our position to the universe in any effective, unambiguous terms.

Point the second, while you may well be right, you have slightly mischaracterized the problem. The Drake Equation itself need not be wrong; what is likely to be wrong is Drake's guesstimates about the values of the variables in the equation.

The Drake Equation itself is a simple application of probability theory; the problem is that nobody can make realistic predictions about what numbers to put into it given the information available to us.

[golentan]

Point the First: Right, because given a radio signal it is so very hard to triangulate the source to within a few light years, which is much less than it would take to ID the solar system. And SETI isn't signalling everyone and their mother with unambiguous equations, information, and various and sundry other signals. sarcasm

Point the Second: When I refer to the Drake equation being incorrect, I meant the variables. I was probably insufficiently clear on that. Reread the post, you will find I speak of the "Terms" (most probably origin of life or lifespan of radioactive civs) being off. I realize the drake equation is simply applied probability, and has been through dozens if not hundreds of iterations. But most of them say there should be a broadcasting people within two hundred light years of us (on average, duh). Many of them say within 20 light years. We have heard diddly squat. Nothing but background radiation, noise, and random static. When you shift the variables to apply a new one, I feel it makes sense to refer to "old equation" and "new equation," and as such may refer to the "old" or "new" equations being wrong. It has the same (or many of the same) variables, but we are applying different constants in place to calculate a new expected value.

Point the Third: Why are we getting into an argument about the semantics of probability based models of reality? Is it truly important to the topic at hand or are we bickering uselessly while our impending doom approaches? If you are truly interested in probability, statistics, and especially applications of models, algorithms, and so forth I can recommend some conferences you may wish to look into attending. The Data farming community always needs fresh blood. :smallsmile:

Point the Fourth: Final line of my previous post; my paranoid rantings about genocidal warmongers were and are in jest. I explicitly stated so and do so again

[Tyrant]

And you probably don't know just how suicidal interstellar war is. A nuke costs a few hundred million dollars, and will devastate an area of several square miles. Scary, but acceptable in many circumstances. And it's relatively easy to defend against (screw with the guidance or triggering just a bit and it never goes off).
I have my doubts as to how easy is to defend against nuclear weapons.

An asteroid (or better yet, comet. You can use the gases it releases as fuel) with an engine attached accelerating at 0.1 g for a week? It's speed at impact works out to be ~600,000 m/s. Assuming a mass of five metric tons, you get 3 billion joules of energy. That's just shy of a ton of tnt. Not that much, no? Okay, ramp up the acceleration or the mass by a few points. Both is better. Up the distance traveled, or any other number of things. You have yourself a world buster, my friend. Something capable of taking your lovely planet and cracking it like an egg. Final cost: Cost of rock floating in space + engine (works out to between a few thousand dollars and maybe a million) + fuel. Since we have reasonably common (enough to colonize) spaceflight, I'm assuming that last term is low, but even if it's not you could just have the engine sit dormant for a year sweeping up hydrogen. Should work fine.

My point being any sort of interstellar warfare where one or more parties has major population on a planet is like picking a fight when you are at the bottom of a well and he is at the top with boulders. Oh, how arduous it is to flip one over the edge and leave. The metaphor being flawed, of course, because from his perspective it is the exact same suicide.
I believe that if our race is any kind of example as to what other intelligent races might be like (and I don't 100% believe that to be the case) then no matter how suicidal or stupid it may look, there will always be reasons to seriously consider doing it that a number of people can agree with. Just like nuclear war, there will be people who believe that if you hit the other guy first and hit him hard enough he won't be able to hit you back. Or they are willing to risk it knowing that they are at least taking their enemies with them. That last idea sounds insane, but it is reasonably common*. All it takes is one side or the other having a leader with that mindset and enough subordinates willing to carry out his orders to start your suicidal war. With a high enough technology level, you don't even need the subordinates.

*At present, we (we being the US) are developing and employing an ever increasing number of robotic systems in the military. One of the effects of this is that some people won't fight us knowing that even if they fight to the death they may never actually have the chance to kill a live enemy. Fighting nothing but robots and knowing your enemy can just keep sending them while they sit safely halfway around the world can be demoralising. To our present enemies this can be quite demoralising given that one of their patricular tactics is to essentially take as many other people with them as possible. So, the idea of taking the enemy with you is a widely enough held ideal that I don't believe it will disappear anytime soon if ever.

I guess what I am saying is that I don't put much faith in the assumptions that if we have access to space we will become a peace loving race. I don't believe spreading to multiple planets will remove the reasons we fight each other (it may actually give us a few new ones) and it won't remove our ability to be insanely cruel towards one another. All that will change will be the potential scale of destruction.

[GoC]

Except that current theory says that micro black holes are naturally occurring. So we don't need to have the power or mass to make them, just the tech to find and contain them.
Even if they do occur naturally (and I can't think of any process that would create one) finding them will be difficult to say the least. And moving them? Hah! Tried moving any planets recently?
If you can move them with any decent speed then you would be wiser using that energy against your opponent simply because he can dodge your black hole easily if you're anything approaching equivalent energy.


Black holes should be relatively common given known physical constants and densities (more so then nebulae, less so than stars).
Common appears a very relative term for you. There may be one for every super-heavy star that collapsed. The stars that big are fairly rare.


In addition, interstellar war is such a suicide for both sides that only an idiot would pursue it, and such an idiot would be crushed.
Nah, it's only suicide if you declare war. If you calmy kill their planet before they've got interstellar travel then the war will be won easily.
People don't kill whole nations here because A. there's a risk of not destroying all the opponents nukes, B. because we live on the same planet and C. because we are the same species and feel some level of empathy towards our fellow man.

Also, are you aware that using those jet streams to power you ship will be nigh-impossible?

[Dervag]

Nah, it's only suicide if you declare war. If you calmy kill their planet before they've got interstellar travel then the war will be won easily.It's also suicide if any of your equally capable neighbors find out what you did, because if you'd launch a surprise attack against B, there's really not much stopping you from doing the same to C through Z.


But most of them say there should be a broadcasting people within two hundred light years of us (on average, duh). Many of them say within 20 light years. We have heard diddly squat. Nothing but background radiation, noise, and random static.It's not clear just how far undirected radio transmissions actually carry before becoming indistinguishable from background noise. If there were an alien civilization 100 light years away, we might never hear their broadcast noise until and unless they came over this way directly.

[MeatShield#236]

BORG MUST DIE! BORG MUST DIE!

Darleks win, no matter what.

(Sorry, childhood fear of borg, I'm still afraid of the things.)

[Haven]

Imagine if every major disaster in your species entire history was caused by one guy, and he's out there somewhere, probably hiding behind a brand new face, just waiting to strike again. Muhuhahaha!

Heh, I never thought of it like that, but it's true! This is awesome.

Also, I just skimmed the thread and realized that, in response to all the claims that Borg could overwhelm with numbers, no one seems to have said this:

That would not be war! That would be PEST CONTROL!

[chiasaur11]

Heh, I never thought of it like that, but it's true! This is awesome.

Also, I just skimmed the thread and realized that, in response to all the claims that Borg could overwhelm with numbers, no one seems to have said this:

That would not be war! That would be PEST CONTROL!

It was mentioned once or twice, I think.

Still true.

[Manga Shoggoth]

If there's only one type of shield, why would he say mention ray shielding? And if photon torpedoes can totally ignore shields, why aren't they the most common type of weapon used in combat?

If I recall correctly, he mentions that the port is ray-shielded, but not particle-shielded, as putting particle schelds on an exhaust port would prevent it from working.