Rolly-Polly Deathmatch #4: A Match Made in Space

[suburbanhell]

Star Wars > Star Trek. Star Destroyer FTW.

[RedSwitchblade]

All it takes is ten or twenty Borg goons wth good placement on that Star Destroyer to take down the whole damn fleet.

Viral humans FTW.

[The Widowed]

Originally Posted by RedSwitchblade

All it takes is ten or twenty Borg goons wth good placement on that Star Destroyer to take down the whole damn fleet.

Viral humans FTW.

How did they get through the Star Destroyer's shields first? They can't just beam onto the Star Destroyer right from the get-go, you know.

(This is already shaping up to be a good deathmatch, isn't it? )

[RedSwitchblade]

Originally Posted by The Widowed

How did they get through the Star Destroyer's shields first? They can't just beam onto the Star Destroyer right from the get-go, you know.

(This is already shaping up to be a good deathmatch, isn't it? )

Shields don't stop teleporters, or moving physically through it and punching into the hull with a deployment pod, or something. Borg have dispoable numbers, so just send a flood and if at least one squad makes it, Borg win.

[Gold Rush]

Canon is Star Trek is at best "iffy", given the Lucas money-whoring machine.

Same thing goes for Paramount. All them tech-books...out!

I do remember the Voyager (and later ships) doing that; one reason I hate Voyager, of which, I will post an accurate joke to in the future. Needless to say, their daily wine and cheese buffets on board did nothing to hamper their situation of being "Lost in an unknown universe".

I will accept that Star Fleet has counter-measures currently for the Borg, but you can't say that about Star Wars ships; one of the big complaints about ship-to-ship conflicts were how powerful Star Trek shields have been shown in the past, although currently, they DO seem weak.

Like Red said, it has been shown Borg can transport inside a ship and just carry on a boarding action from there. So, this is really not a "classic" ship-to-ship fight; it has hand-to-hand combat more than anything. If I remember right, the Borg cube's weapons also had a considerable punch on shields, so from my view, if Star Wars shielding < Star Trek, there'd be no chance. I think your game-playing also proves out my theory. But I will say, shields depicted in Sci-Fi movies/TV is not an exact science.

Still, that doesn't stop the Borg from boarding.

Hey, like Burbs said, I still prefer Star Wars but Borg can be too silly-powerful much of the time. They need more weaknesses.

[Silentkilla866]

I was a star trek nerd before I was a star wars nerd.

[The Widowed]

Sure, they have a weakness. It's called "blasting the bajeezus out of them before they figure out what to do about it". And the Empire has some really big guns.

I'm still reading around about Star Trek transporters (and trying to re-find what I read about the telepads-versus-shields thingie), but I begin to wonder if it was only Federation transporters which can't transmit matter through energy fields, a limitation which the Borg may have surmounted.

(Incidentally, the only weakness illustrated by my "game playing" (as you put it) was that shields in Star Wars can be distributed equally around the vessel or they can be concentrated towards one bearing, leaving the opposite side of the ship comparatively undefended; this same kind of shield management made the job of flying the more advanced TIE craft in the game a minor chore, even though that TIE Defender had a really sweet tractor beam for making short work of those pesky A-Wings. Moving the shields 100% to the front of my TIE Defender before charging head-on with a well-armed Blockade Runner, targeting the bridge and pumping out every proton torpedo I had on board was one of TIE Fighter's many metal moments. )

(And that Mon Calamari frigate's shields were apparently concentrated towards the frigate's bow (which was, of course, facing the Imperial flagship and the rest of their fleet), which would explain why the shields protecting the stern were weaker. Of course, shields protect against laser cannons and warheads but not against energy-sapping ion cannons, which is why I was able to cripple the turbolasers without incident. After that, a couple of heavy explosive rockets battered through what was left of the frigate's rear shields and the rest of the rockets slammed directly into the thrusters and the hull, giving the Mon Calamari frigate a very nasty enema which the Rebel scumbags on board didn't live to whine about. )

(Yeah, I loved those rockets. On those missions whenever I got a gunboat or a TIE model which could be outfitted with warheads, I always loaded the rockets whenever I was expecting a large enemy ship to show up. The heavy rockets have a hell of a lot more kick than proton torpedoes do because the rockets are larger and they've had their guidance systems hollowed out and replaced with even more explosive. And when your TIE's entire field of vision is filled with the buttcheeks of a humungous Mon Calamari vessel, who cares about guidance? Just fire up some Megadeth and let 'em rip.)

Anyway, back to the Borg boarding party.

For one, transporter range is very limited--for Borg vessels and for others--though some folks out there do agree that Borg transporters own everyone else's transporters. And if you think that the Star Destroyer's going to let the Borg Cube get that close without firing off a withering turbolaser barrage, launching warheads, deploying a mess of TIE squadrons and generally putting up a hellacious fight, [insert real-estate-related cliché illustrating the folly of gullibility here].

For two, stormtrooper armor > nanoprobes. We've been over that.

For three, Star Destroyers are thick with stormtrooper units who are ready for action 24/7, and stormtroopers are actually wickedly good in a fight. Remember the raid on the Tantive IV? As soon as the stormtroopers made entry, those Rebel dogs started dropping like flies. The Hoth base? It was a slaughter; the stormtroopers overran the base in record time...time enough to set up a tripod-mounted blast cannon and fire on the Millenium Falcon as it made tracks, in fact. And Endor IV? Those stormtroopers almost cooked Han Solo's goose...and they would have cooked his goose if Luke, Lando, Chewbacca and a bunch of fookin' Ewoks hadn't done their collective hero stuff and saved the universe.

So the stormtroopers are the Empire's rigorously trained and heavily armed premier ass-kickers. Would you expect anything less from the Empire's equivalent of the United States Marine Corps? No, of course not. But put Luke Skywalker in front of them and suddenly they all turn into once-a-month amateur paintball players. Suddenly they can't hit the broad side of a Mon Calamari cruiser. Suddenly Luke's dimestore hand blaster starts punching holes though layers of reinforced duraplast armor which is reputed for shrugging off direct blast rifle fire and explosions from concussion grenades. Suddenly a punk-ass farmboy from Tatooine who never in his life killed anything more hardcore than a bunch of measly wamp rats--and who got his little butt stomped inside-out by a bunch of bandage-wearing nomads armed with sticks--turns into a Dirty Harry with dead-eye aim. Why?

It's not the stormtroopers. It's Luke.

After watching Episodes IV-VI over and over and over again, I have a theory which I probably mentioned already: Luke inherited some goofy God Mode powers from his equally Force-sensitive father, and because of the Force he has an inherent, subtle and everpresent form of protection against enemy attacks, namely accuracy debuffs and defense debuffs which he subconsciously inflicts on anyone who comes at him. And the only way to overcome these debuffs is to be Force-sensitive as well. That's why stormtroopers deplete their blast rifles' energy cells in Luke's general direction and hit nothing but air, yet Darth Vader can walk right up and lop off one of Luke's body parts. Naturally, this form of protection has an area of effect which extends to all of Luke's allies. So as long as they're teamed up with Luke, Han and Chewbacca don't have to worry about getting shot either.

If we may break the fourth wall, Luke is also the Big Hero of the story. And Big Heroes trump armies of goons any day.

So there's that. Even if the Borg Cube gets lucky and closes into transporter range without getting reduced to space dust, the Borg they send aboard will be tossed into an uphill battle that is extremely in favor of the stormtroopers. The Borg's only hope of launching a successful transporter raid would be if they somehow managed to assimilate Luke Skywalker beforehand and if they remember to beam Luke over with the Borg boarding party...that is, assuming that Luke Skywalker (or Luke 8 of 12, or Lukutis of Borg...) is aboard this specific Borg Cube in the first place (out of all the other Borg Cubes out there, mind you). Then the stormtroopers won't have a prayer of besting Borg Luke and his newfound buddies from the Collective.

But then again, would assimilating Luke also strip him of both his Force sensitivity and his Big Hero status, both of which might disrupt Luke's conformity with the Collective and hence might be recognized as potential problems? If so, then the Borg could be setting themselves up for a fall by sending him aboard the Star Destroyer, miscalculating his effectiveness beforehand, depleting their numbers (who will inevitably get mulched by the stormtroopers once Luke of Borg fails to live up to the Borg's expectations by debuffing the stormtroopers) and leaving the Cube open for a massive counterattack.

So it would appear that the Empire holds all the cards after all. And, if we learned anything else from TIE Fighter, the Empire loves to reverse-engineer any new technologies they find and add the newfound tech to the Empire's mass-produced assets. Their later lines of shield-bearing TIE craft started with one captured B-Wing, after all. So by pitting a Borg Cube against a Star Destroyer, we may be accomplishing nothing more than delivering invaluable Borg technology--transporters and all--straight into Emperor Palpatine's gnarly old hands.

Come that day, my friends, entire worlds who have joined hands with the Rebel Alliance will bleed. Oh, yes. Worlds. Will. Bleed.

[Gold Rush]

So, among your many points, you are basically saying (for boarding actions) :

Stormtroopers > Star Fleet Personnel/"Red Shirts" ?

I can believe this, even though the Borg always go for the neck and Stormtrooper's necks are not all that invulnerable compared to a normal person's.

You've also got to factor in as the Borg assimilate Stormtroopers, they are gaining allies and Stormtroopers are a finite resource, even on board a massive Star Destroyer. Borgs also gain the knowledge of those assimilated, so that would not be too good for the Empire.

I am still not too convinced about Empire tech > Borg Tech, mainly cause even when personal shields are involved (and I assume Ship shields, too), they can adapt to new harmonics. Star Fleet learned this to change their phaser frequencies to penetrate Borg shields, I do not think the Empire would be that quick on the up-take; maybe 3-4 battles down, they would learn to do this (probably more battles down the line). Again, I agree that the Borg are overpowered in this case, but the Imperial commanders just have to analyze and re-analyze for a weakness and this would take some time, considering the beurocratic (sp) nature of the Empire, which IS a weakness.

Again, Wids has good points. But the Empire is pretty much "the big dumb fighter" and initially, in the first bouts (or more) the Borg would triumph, gain intel on their enemy and counter act. Not an impossible foe to defeat, but I am thinking the Empire, being a beuracacy (again SP) is not up to the task.

And do not forget, those Lasers did not hit Han, Chewie, or the Droids, either. But, I do accept the fourth wall explanation and discount their lousy shooting.

PS : Also getting sloshed for an upcoming party/get-together tonite. Damn friends trying to get me out and hook me up.

[The Widowed]

Heh...apparently you skimmed over the wall of text a little too lightly, Gold. I probably should go back and break it up into smaller posts both for your benefit and for Red's. But for the moment, let's look at your counterstatement (contrasted with the parts of the wall of text which have already addressed your concerns, where applicable).

Yes, I will be breaking your post into smaller individual statements. No, I will not be preserving your poncy gold-colored text.

Originally Posted by Gold Rush

So, among your many points, you are basically saying (for boarding actions) :

Stormtroopers > Star Fleet Personnel/"Red Shirts" ?

Originally Posted by The Widowed

For two, stormtrooper armor > nanoprobes.

No, I'm saying "Stormtroopers > Borg raiders". Or has the Federation taken to nanoprobe technology to repopulate their ranks?

Originally Posted by Gold Rush

I can believe this, even though the Borg always go for the neck and Stormtrooper's necks are not all that invulnerable compared to a normal person's.

I dunno...sure, the neck's only protected by the stormtrooper armor's body glove, but that body glove's no joke either, as it's capable of serving as light body armor in itself and shields the wearer from any number of environmental hazards. Besides, there's still the rest of the stormtrooper you have to contend with before you can get your pointy Borg hands on his succulent neck.

Originally Posted by Gold Rush

You've also got to factor in as the Borg assimilate Stormtroopers, they are gaining allies and Stormtroopers are a finite resource, even on board a massive Star Destroyer. Borgs also gain the knowledge of those assimilated, so that would not be too good for the Empire.

The only Imperial personnel who know anything worthwhile are the officers, and they're usually hidden behind a wall of stormtroopers, droids and blast doors. Speaking of which, the Borg have never had the chance to show us whether or not they can assimilate Imperial probe droids, attack droids and other droids, have they?

Originally Posted by Gold Rush

I am still not too convinced about Empire tech > Borg Tech, mainly cause even when personal shields are involved (and I assume Ship shields, too), they can adapt to new harmonics. Star Fleet learned this to change their phaser frequencies to penetrate Borg shields, I do not think the Empire would be that quick on the up-take; maybe 3-4 battles down, they would learn to do this (probably more battles down the line). Again, I agree that the Borg are overpowered in this case, but the Imperial commanders just have to analyze and re-analyze for a weakness and this would take some time, considering the beurocratic (sp) nature of the Empire, which IS a weakness.

This all assumes that the Borg have had the opportunity to adapt to Imperial weapons, which they have not. Neither side knows about the other right from the get-go, aside from whatever the scans pick up. But more on this in a second.

Originally Posted by Gold Rush

Again, Wids has good points. But the Empire is pretty much "the big dumb fighter" and initially, in the first bouts (or more) the Borg would triumph, gain intel on their enemy and counter act. Not an impossible foe to defeat, but I am thinking the Empire, being a beuracacy (again SP) is not up to the task.

First off, Dictionary.com is your friend. Fear the site not. Spell properly you must. Hrm?

But there is one lesson, an everlasting moral which the world has taught to us time and time again, anywhere from David and Goliath, to Star Wars, to a typical Star Trek episode, to Batman comics, to Superman comics, to The Karate Kid. And that lesson is this: Brute force will always take the first round.

Goliath's tale began when he took Philistine tactics in a new direction and challenged random Israelites to one-on-one combat before each battle, the better to demoralize the Israelites before the subsequent battle once Goliath inevitably took each of his comers off at the neck.

The Galactic Empire was conquering renegade worlds and brutally killing off all resistance even before they were called the Galactic Empire. When Leia Organa was found to be a spy, the mailed fist of the Empire responded by barging into her customized Blockade Runner and killing 99.9% of the people onboard, leaving no question in her mind as to who was in charge.

Captain Picard and his crew would always launch each episode by getting their butts stomped by some fancy new enemy warping in from out of the blue...er, black. Even trigger-happy Captain Kirk and his crew once got completely dominated by a small, furry species whose only offensive powers were 1) looking cute, and 2) multiplying like rabbits who are trapped in a pocket of densified space-time.

Bane introduced himself to Batman by completely scrubbing the floor with him and breaking his spine for good measure.

General Zod introduced himself to Superman by flattening him. Doomsday took the introductions one step higher and flat-out killed Superman.

And Johnny Lawrence introduced himself to Daniel Larusso by karate-kicking him up one side of the beach and down the other.

These tales and more support the effectiveness of the time-proven tactic of smashing the other guy's face in repeatedly the very moment he looks at you funny. When the Federation encounters a new menace, they run intense scientific analyses and particle scans while triple-polarizing the auxillary plasmic power conduits to the anterior warp core shielding and blah blah blah. The Empire reacts to new menaces by immediately reaching for the sledgehammer and crushing the menace into comet dust before the menace even realizes what's going on. Why not? As those examples testify, brute force is a very effective way to introduce oneself to a potential threat while letting that threatening party know under no uncertain terms who's the boss...if the menace survives to benefit from the lesson, that is.

"But those examples you mentioned are just cinematic foreplay," you may counter. "Eventually the oppressed good guy rises up and topples the bully. David killed Goliath with God Mode and a rock. Luke killed Vader and Vader killed Palpatine. The Federation has risen up to reclaim the upper hand after figuring out the Klingons, the Ferengi, the Cardassians, the Romulans, the space vampires, the frickin' tribbles, the Gorn and, yes, the Borg. Batman healed up while his understudy Azrael cut Bane's Venom tubes and hammered him into the blacktop. Superman and Doomsday...well, we already covered that ground in a previous Rolly-Polly Deathmatch, so you know the rest. And Danny Larusso trained hard and beat up Johnny along with the rest of Kreese's karate thugs, hence winning the tournament and finally scraping Johnny and his pals off his back."

Yes, but! The reason that these characters all made these comebacks is because they're the good guys, and as long as you're not in the Horror or Tragedy genres, the good guys always win in the end. The Borg are not good guys. They're bad guys, just like the Empire's a bunch of bad guys (peppered with the occasional Lawful Good sort among the ranks who's only there to police the galaxy for pirates and other crooks). And the nice thing about villain-versus-villain fights is that there's no morally imperative assurance that either party will win; victory is won solely through the victor's merits as a combatant.

And my money says that the Star Destroyer has many, many megatons' worth of merits. And they will use these merits to smash the Borg Cube into scrap metal the moment the Borg come on screen and deliver an emotionally neutral yet threatening message, because that's how the Empire rolls.

Originally Posted by Gold Rush

And do not forget, those Lasers did not hit Han, Chewie, or the Droids, either. But, I do accept the fourth wall explanation and discount their lousy shooting.

Originally Posted by The Widowed

...Luke inherited some goofy God Mode powers from his equally Force-sensitive father, and because of the Force he has an inherent, subtle and everpresent form of protection against enemy attacks, namely accuracy debuffs and defense debuffs which he subconsciously inflicts on anyone who comes at him....Naturally, this form of protection has an area of effect which extends to all of Luke's allies. So as long as they're teamed up with Luke, Han and Chewbacca don't have to worry about getting shot either.

Originally Posted by Gold Rush

PS : Also getting sloshed for an upcoming party/get-together tonite. Damn friends trying to get me out and hook me up.

Virginity is futile. You will be assimilated.

[Gold Rush]

Okay. first part, probably should have provided a clearer answer.

Storm Troopers > Star Fleet.

Just saying we have seen Borg and Star Fleet folks fighting and although Star Fleet officers are trained, they seem to crumple over much like a deck of cards to the Borg. So, this was actually a point in favor of your position, since, I can see Storm Troopers being tougher and more armored than Star Fleet personnel who tend to traipse around in their pajamas most of the time.

It is still up in the air about Storm Troopers over > Borg Raiders. How big is a cube compared to a Star Destroyer. I would think they would have many Borg under hibernation and it will eventually be akin to ants (Borg) taking down a tarantula (Storm Troopers). I can see more Borg replacements than Storm Trooper ones; Infinite vs. Finite.

Originally Posted by The Widowed

This all assumes that the Borg have had the opportunity to adapt to Imperial weapons, which they have not. Neither side knows about the other right from the get-go, aside from whatever the scans pick up. But more on this in a second.

Well, it has been shown they adopt pretty darn fast (again, the "Dragonball Z: Too tough to be believable" thing). They take over ONE guy, even the janitor, they can access what he knows and move up efficiently up the chain of command, absorbing knowledge along the way.

Now as for the Imperial ruthless efficiency in conquering worlds, the Borg most likely have a history with similar governing empires and have won in those cases.

But, this is the first battle; ship between ship. Not all out war yet.

You also mentioned in a first skirmish, Imperial weapons would win out. I would think this would only be possible it they "struck their hammer" pretty quickly to flatten the Borg. Still, I am not convinced one Star Destroyer could do it. Perhaps, but I would not bet on those odds. Maybe Two or Three, but not one. Although I have stated Storm Troopers > Star Fleet personnel, I think Star Fleet Tech/Weaponry > Imperial Tech/Weaponry. Hard to argue Phasor and although you like packing your TIE Bombers with explosives, I feel Photon Torpedoes, while not as destructive, can punch holes in more materials, including energy shields.

Why do I bring this up? You forget Borg shields adapt to the weapons being fired at them, both personnel shields surrounding soldiers and their ship. It has been shown after a few shots, on average three shots, that the Borg create shields that turn on "GodMode" and they can't be hit. For their troops, the same, you may kill off the first two or three Borg soldiers, but their hive mind communicates to their commrades and their Shields modulate to repel blaster fire. Since this IS a first battle between the two, there is no way that an Empire that prefers Brute Force will win this first battle. Maybe a few more battles down the line, where the cowardly Imperial commanders who are hiding may observe this (or their ship's camera's/Black Box recorder) and they eventually adapt, but this "new to Imperial eyes" modulating shield technology would throw them off guard.

Again, part of the reason I hate the Borg; I would love a "canon" fight where they would get their ass's clobbered, but the odds are very slim.

Now, onto other things :

Originally Posted by The Widowed

...Luke inherited some goofy God Mode powers from his equally Force-sensitive father, and because of the Force he has an inherent, subtle and everpresent form of protection against enemy attacks, namely accuracy debuffs and defense debuffs which he subconsciously inflicts on anyone who comes at him....Naturally, this form of protection has an area of effect which extends to all of Luke's allies. So as long as they're teamed up with Luke, Han and Chewbacca don't have to worry about getting shot either.

Again, you are losing me. Seperate arguement, but I will ask rather incredulously, "So, you are telling me, that Luke's "sphere of Influence" protected Lando (whom he never met til then), Leia, the Droids, and Chewbacca while they were escaping to the Falcon when he was seperated from them by however many feet/yards/miles as he was busy with his own problems with Vader?"

Or how about, "So, you are telling me, that while Han, Luke, the Droids, Chewie, much of the Ewok population, a good number of Rebel Soldiers, were all protected by Luke's "Sphere of Influence" while he was not even on Endor for the final battle but many many miles in orbit?!?"

Umm...no. Even if you said, "Yes, he was, he is an all powerful Force-wielder," I would stop listening because of not only other examples where this "sphere" failed but how ridiculous it seems. Again, this is another arguement; I agree Stormtroopers know how to shoot. We don't have to "go there" and this has no bearing on the topic of Star Destroyer vs. Borg Paperweight, but I have my limits and again invoke the "cheese of Dragonball Z" in this "sphere" thing.

And the last comment. That was assimilated many years ago. It is more my "heart" that needs assimilating now. No explanations to that statement.