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this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
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So here's how I imagine the scenario going down. Let's say the Death Star and a Borg Cube meet in high orbit over Abydos. Both vessels are alone and unaided by their respective nations, carrying their full typical complement of personnel, weapons, ammunition, technology etc. Both are informed "There is a large enemy ship approaching" and given no other details.
THE BORG CUBE
A Borg cube dwarfs a Galaxy-class starship, perhaps a couple kilometers to a side. Borg Cubes are equipped with fairly typical Star Trek phaser arrays that punch about at their weight class, a single Borg cube is more massive than and more than a match for a Federation battle fleet. The Cube contains many thousands of drones that are individually capable of assimilating non-Borg people, which is typically their main goal. Borg cubes tend not to be equipped with weapons of mass destruction, nor do they carry anything resembling fighters or interceptors. Borg cubes are equipped with Trans-warp drive and are able to travel many thousands of times faster than the speed of light. They are also equipped with transporter technology which is entirely unfamiliar in the Star Wars universe. Deflector shields in the Star Trek universe seem to be more capable of outright stopping damage, though they can be overwhelmed, causing them to fail. The Borg are able to quickly measure the nature of any attacking weapon and adapt their shields to be impervious to that weapon after a few attacks.
THE DEATH STAR
A space station of truly astronomical size, the Death Star is mistakable for a dwarf planet or moon, though it is much less massive being mostly hollow. The Death Star is staffed by squadrons of TIE fighters and an army of storm troopers equipped with blaster rifles. The Death Star's surface is studded with point defense lasers, and much of the upper hemisphere is occupied by the crater-like dish of the main turbolaser, which is capable of blasting an Earth-like planet to boulder-sized chunks in a matter of seconds. The Death Star is a weapon of mass destruction/ultimate terror. Personal teleportation is unknown in the Star Wars universe and the Death Star is not designed to defend against them. Deflector shields exist in the Star Wars universe though they seem less important or effective. The Death Star is equipped with hyperdrive allowing it to travel at some speed faster than light; the original Death Star flew from the Alderaan system to the Yavin system under its own power. Both Death Stars are depicted as fairly easily destroyed by weapons carried by fairly small craft, damaging the central power system will cause it to explode with enough force to blast the entire space station to smithereens.
THE BATTLE
The Borg could win this fight by warping in very close with their vastly superior speed and immediately transporting many hundreds of drones aboard to assimilate the confused and unprepared crew, especially if targeting the upper command staff. The storm troopers may have early success fending off the invaders, until their weapons suddenly stop being effective.
They could, but probably wouldn't. The Borg tend to prefer to hang back and taunt their opponents over the radio for a minute "We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. We will add your uniqueness and distinction to our own." etc. Their whole opening monologue is enough time to prepare and fire the Death Star's turbolaser, which would effortlessly obliterate the Cube and the moon behind it.
The final winning move here would be to jump to hyperdrive as soon as possible to avoid any issues with individual drones that may have survived who might make it to the Death star and start a First Contact "they've assimilated deck ten" scenario, which I honestly don't see the Empire winning without destroying the Death Star. The Empire isn't as good at treknobabble as the Federation, so Grand Moff Tarkin isn't going to confuse the Borg to death with a paradoxical equation or whatever.
If a Sith is present, he will probably hold his own with a light saber until the Borg adapt, and then make his way to a waiting escape ship using Force powers to throw drones out of the way.
POST SCENARIO
Should the Death Star make a clean escape, a follow-up encounter with another Borg cube would likely not go as well. They wouldn't have had a chance to witness the Borg's adaptation ability or indeed learn much about them. They probably destroyed the first cube with a less than full power shot, and trying that again might not work this time. It is my understanding that the turbolaser requires time to recharge between shots, and this may be enough time for the second cube to move in and begin their attack/assimilation. The Death Star is many orders of magnitude slower than a Borg cube and unable to escape.
The Death Star has no hope against two Borg cubes; it may destroy one while the other successfully closes to deploy drones.
A Borg cube is much smaller than the Death Star, and seeing the Death Star survived a collision with a super star destroyer, I imagine a direct collision with a Borg Cube would only admit entry by surviving drones.
A Goa'uld pyramid ship is by far outclassed by both vessels. SG-1 would take down the Borg cube with three men, one woman, four P90s and a kilogram of naquadria, though Daniel Jackson would die at least twice. There'd be a really uncomfortable body horror scene where a goa'uld symbiote and Borg nanotechnology fight for control of a Jaffa.
When can I get a ticket for this?
There are too many executives and shareholders still alive for this to ever be made.
Hmm, good point.
It's not that I want to kill the executives and shareholders... I just don't want them to be alive, anymore.
I want them to be the kind of financially ruined where they're forced to walk around on the street wearing nothing but a barrel held up by a pair of suspenders. Like go full on cartoon here.
Damn! I don't want to get on your bad side.
Naw, Disney just needs to buy the rights for Star Trek like they did for Star Wars and BOOM, this ~~train wreck~~ masterpiece just got green lit!
The way AI has gone, give it another year.
... for someone to fake it in the privacy of their own desktop, not like, for a robotic uprising that removes the obstacle. That'll take slightly longer.
Would Stormtrooper helmets and their (near worthless) armor at all prevent or counter the Borg assimilation tech by the drones?
Would a pissed off and ambitious Sith like Vader see the Borg tech and instead of fleeing attempt to board the cube and take control through force manipulation or just endless light saber rampage?
I think the mass teleportation strategies from the Borg could also create a near bloodless or at least low body count victory if they quickly and decisively took control of the bridge, then had the remaining crews report to their barracks for some "equipment"upgrades. In a sense, the Empire have created a drone-like society and Sith overlords love that shit.
I doubt stormtrooper armor would significantly slow assimilation; it actually exposes the side of the neck if the trooper tilts his head to the side. Plus, doesn't a guy in First Contact get assimilated through a space suit?
I doubt a Sith would attempt something like that. I'm imagining a fight to get off the Death Star during which the drones adapt to lightsabers, and then he resorts to Force shoving them out of the way. An attempt to board the Borg cube would be met with phaser fire enough to take out any small craft the Death Star is depicted as carrying.
Would the Borg be able to adapt to force lightning?
How would the Borg respond to force mind influence? Would it be easier for a Sith to control them because they're essentially already broken or is the science just to strong for their magic?
The Sith cultivated amulets and talismans that enslaved and transformed beings into hive mind subservient (basically vampire) clones, the Borg seem like a pre-built template for that. All the better if the Borg clones are secretly awake inside but powerless to change. That kind of suffering is like crack to old man Palpatine.
Death Star vs Cube(s) and outright conflict I think Borg have the almost certain win, but the force wielders are a wild card to me.
Though there is the question about whether the Borg can adapt their shields to most Star Wars weaponry. The death star main laser is the only weapon similar to Star Trek phasers, everything else is more of a plasma weapon. There isn't any precedent that would say how plasma weapons and Borg shields would interact. It's possible the Borg wouldn't even need to adapt to them and their shields would trivially stop them but it's also possible they couldn't adapt.
And even the main laser weapon is questionable. On the one hand, its frequency is constant as I understand it, as it needs to resonate with khyber crystals, but on the other hand, its amplitude is orders of magnitude higher than any weapon I can remember from Star Trek. A shield would need to do something with that energy or maybe match it to cancel it out. That said, I still think you're right that the Empire wouldn't be able to follow up with many more destructions of Borg cubes, just not because of the shields but because of how trivial it would be for the cube to avoid being hit.
Also, I'm not sure trans warp is faster than Star Wars ftl travel. In Star Wars they seem to very trivially travel to wherever they want in the galaxy. Time to travel is never a big plot point. In ep 2, Anakin and Padme are closer to Obi Wan than Corrusant, but the Jedi arrive with clone troopers (which would have required a detour) just a few hours after they do. Also, trans warp requires conduits, so it would also depend on where they end up meeting.
Star Wars tends to use the word "blaster" for anything from handheld pistols to light point-mounted machine guns, and "laser" for basically anything larger, from the main guns of an X-wing to the main gun of the Death Star. So I'm approaching Star Wars lasers as intense beams of photons. Other weaponry exists in the Star Wars universe but I don't believe the Death Star have any, such as the "ion cannon" that stun locks a star destroyer in Empire Strikes Back.
I haven't the vaguest idea what "phasers" actually are. The Star Trek universe also contains lasers, at least once Worf says "They're firing lasers at us, sir" to indicate an opponent is pathetically outclassed by the Enterprise D, also "disruptors" seem to be a competing technology. So I think the Borg would be able to adapt to Star Wars energy weapons, they've likely been exposed to multiple types of energy weapons.
I imagine the Death Star's TIE fighters would be completely ineffective against the cube; Star Trek phasers seem to have a much longer effective range than most Star Wars lasers and blasters, so they'd be shot out of the sky before even beginning to engage.
I'm basing the estimates of speed on language alone; they often refer to ships in Star Wars as jumping "to light speed" which, yes, on a galactic scale is hilariously slow. I don't think we ever see a hyperdrive journey in real time; but for example during the trip from Tattooine to Alderaan(s debris field), Han and chewie are hanging out in the passenger compartment with Luke and Obi Wan passing the time. There may have been hours or days trimmed from this trip. And the Millennium Falcon is established as the very fastest ship in-universe, the Death Star is capable of hyperdrive but not particularly fast. Borg Cubes in their universe are capable of easily outrunning even the fastest Federation ships.
The Death Star's planet killer laser: It is shown in Return of the Jedi firing an underpowered shot to destroy one of the rebel capital ships, so at least the second Death Star is capable of accurately tracking and hitting starship-sized targets. It's established to the point of cliche that if hit with enough power, Star Trek shields can be overwhelmed to the point of failure. So that raises these questions: Can the Borg adapt to a reduced power shot calibrated to destroy the cube's mass? Would their shields, even if adapted, withstand a full power planet popper shot? Would the crew of the Death Star decide to use full power on such a small target before the Cube closed to transporter range? Would they have time to fire a low power shot, see it not work, recharge the laser and fire a full power shot?
The Borg have basically no hope of significantly damaging the Death Star; it's so huge that it's capable of just tanking a collision with a super star destroyer, their play here is boarding and assimilating.
Also, I want to change my earlier answer: Daniel Jackson doesn't die twice, he gets assimilated. Then the Borg Queen tries to do some weird psychological power play with O'Neil by showing him Drone Daniel, but Teal'c shoots the Borg queen with a Zat gun, which they haven't used at all the entire mission so the Borg aren't adapted to it yet. O'Neil pulls a tube out of the stunned Queen's head, she screams and dies, Carter configures the Naquadria to detonate their main core or whatever on an Alienware laptop the Air Force issued her for some reason, Drone Daniel is hunched over because of the death of the queen, they take him to the Tok'ra, Tollan or Asguard to get him fixed depending on what season it is. Episode ends in the SGC conference room with General Hammond saying "Who knows how many of them are still out there?"
In Legends and canon, laser is an etymological holdover from obsoleted weapons. Laser weapons are no longer actually used, and laser canons/turbo lasers are all blaster tech, just different broad categories.
The only thing is, in a 1 on 1 scenario, the dearth star could shoot the cube and it wouldn't have time to analyse or send back data to be analysed for the next Borg cube to become immune to the Death Star shot. If there are 2 cubes, we can also assume there can be 2 death stars, and coordinated shots would achieve the same result. But if the Borg cubes are more than the death stars, or if the shots have a bit of a delay between each Death Star, the data could be analysed and transmitted back for other Borg. If a sith was involved, he could use the force and I don't think the Borg can find a way to become immune to the force. And then the sith can destroy any number of cubes or drones or mother borgs or whatever. A sith might not do that though, which might be their downfall, as they might want to control the Borg and create a great army instead which could lead to enough possibilities for the Borg to win.
Here's the thing though: We're talking two villains here. Who would win between two villains. I guess I'm old and cynical enough to where the more interesting question to me is "what are the writers going to do in this scenario?"
You're absolutely right, my take is that they'll make the sith and mother borg would somehow put their battle aside for now and team up to eventually lose in a sequel movie/show against the jedi + federation combo
Naw, SG-1 blows both of them up with stuff they carry in on foot.