The Dominion vs The Borg

Sonics2k

So as usual for this time of year, I've gone on a massive binge of Star Trek ranging from TNG, Voyager and DS9.

Now to me growing up, the Borg were always the great big bad. The ultimate enemy who simply could not be bettered (ignoring Species 8472). Wolf 352 was always been seen as the greatest lost for the Federation.

However I've decided to watch through the later seasons of DS9 and it seems to me that Dominion just seem to be endless and brutal, with the Dominion wiping out a massive Federation fleet of 120 ships and only 14 escaping.

So nerds, who should be more feared. The Dominion or the Borg. Who would win in a battle between the two?

Evade

I think both the Dominion and the Borg would each win a defensive war if the other species invaded their home territory because they can both pump out ships and soldiers very quickly. If they clashed while trying to annex the same bit of new territory it's a lot harder to answer.

Does the Jem'Hadar shroud hide them from Borg ocular implants? If not could a batch of Deltas be created with shrouds that do? Can you assimilate a Changeling? Or a Jem'Hadar?

If the Jem'Hadar can be assimilated I could see the Founders outfitting them with a self destruct of some sort which might make the borg hesitant to try assimilating them.

Inviere

If we're talking about the Borg from Q Who & Best of Both Worlds...then the Borg would win easily.

If we're talking about the Borg from Voyager, then it's more difficult to say.

TLDR - The Borg got progressively neutered by Star Trek, so it's not an easy answer.

IvySlayer

Can the Borg assimilate a changeling? If they can't, they can do lots of damage on a Cube, but changelings will tire and can be killed by weapons. Jem'Hadar can't be drones with the ketracel weakness maybe but the non-Jem'Hadar species can be.

If the Borg chose to exterminate the Dominion launching an attack with hundreds of Tactical Cubes I don't see how the Dominion can survive it. The Borg will eventually adapt to Dominion attacks and overwhelm them. Unless they stick to their send one Cube at a time strategy.

The Federation fought the Borg and the Dominion at the same time and won :P

Kiith

Hard to say for sure, with how little we know of the Dominion home territory. Did they ever say how large the Dominion was in the Gamma Quadrant? I'm assuming they have thousands of ships, if they were able to send over 2000 through the wormhole for reinforcements. I always assumed the Founders sent those ships back to the Gamma Quadrant as well, as killing them would be a pretty big step. The biggest threat they have to the Borg would be kamikaze style attacks. Jem'Hadar don't care about staying alive, so they'd just warp into the Borg at every opportunity.

I still think the Borg would win, and would eventually annihilate the Founders homeworld. They can't be assimilated, so destruction would be the only course. I figure they'd assimilate some Vorta, get the homeworld location, setup a transwarp straight there with 100 Cubes, and cut the head off the snake.

Would be pretty cool to see though

Sonics2k

IvySlayer wrote: »

Can the Borg assimilate a changeling? If they can't, they can do lots of damage on a Cube, but changelings will tire and can be killed by weapons. Jem'Hadar can't be drones with the ketracel weakness maybe but the non-Jem'Hadar species can be.

If the Borg chose to exterminate the Dominion launching an attack with hundreds of Tactical Cubes I don't see how the Dominion can survive it. The Borg will eventually adapt to Dominion attacks and overwhelm them. Unless they stick to their send one Cube at a time strategy.

The Federation fought the Borg and the Dominion at the same time and won :P

I'd imagine the Borg wouldn't be able to assimilate a changeling as they are liquid, they struggled to battle Species 8472 because they couldn't assimilate them.

It's certainly true the Federation took on the Borg and won, but they never (to my memory) took on more than 1 or 2 cubes at once.

IvySlayer

Kiith wrote: »

Would be pretty cool to see though

I bet Q did it once when he was bored

Inviere

Sonics2k wrote: »

I'd imagine the Borg wouldn't be able to assimilate a changeling as they are liquid, they struggled to battle Species 8472 because they couldn't assimilate them.

8472 could destroy entire planets, & had weapons that could punch holes through Cubes. When you think of BoBW & how you couldn't even scratch the paint off a cube with a Photon torpedo....& then in First |Contact the Starfleet ships could damage the cubes with weapons (though difficult to do)...they really neutered the Borg

Fuzzytrooper

Sonics2k wrote: »

I'd imagine the Borg wouldn't be able to assimilate a changeling as they are liquid, they struggled to battle Species 8472 because they couldn't assimilate them.

It's certainly true the Federation took on the Borg and won, but they never (to my memory) took on more than 1 or 2 cubes at once.

We don't know much about a founder's genetic structure.. Species 8472's immune system was hyper aggressive so it's a slightly different case.

ScumLord

The biggest problem is all the civilizations in star trek tend to be exactly the same, use the same type of weapons, same kind of shields, and tend to just sit there firing at each other. They don't even use long range weapons, they just cruise up to each other and start firing. Voyager was one of the worst for it, they'd sit there getting fired upon and somehow end up winning or running away even though in space there's literally nowhere you can hide. DS9 did WW2 style dog fights but they're not really suitable for space fighting either.

So really it should all down to numbers, whoever has the most ships to lose should be able to win. But in star trek fights it down to the plot, because everyone's the same they can just say one side has slightly better shields or phasers and tip the fight in their favour. Tactics don't' really come into it at all.

Evade

ScumLord wrote: »

don't even use long range weapons,

That's probably due to the fact that the weapons are generally slower* than the speed of light and the ships and sensors (long range at least) are faster.

Even if a phaser traveled at the speed of light if you fire one from 5 million kilometers away (about 13 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon) you'd have about 15 seconds to warp (or impulse with that amount of time) out of the way.

If you were thinking of closer distances like about half a million kilometers (about 1.25 seconds to hit at that distance) then the reason is drama. It's a lot more dramatic to have lots of ships in the shot trading blows than one lone ship with phaser beams appearing into the from from distant ships

*unless fired at warp obviously

LeBash

IvySlayer wrote: »

Jem'Hadar can't be drones with the ketracel weakness maybe but the non-Jem'Hadar species can be.

The nanoprobs would more than likely get around this. The assumption would be that the borg have assimilated species that don't live in an oxygen atmosphere but they operate in one.

Personally I think the borg would win hands down. Once they assimilated the dominion tech they'd knock the rocks out of them.

2 great bad guys of tv

helimachoptor

Its an interesting one as you say, in the real world the borg win, as is said above, assimilate and eventually you find the home world, transwarp in and destroy the planet.

The Jem Hadar would make excellent tactical drones, and their ability to excel in hand to hand combat and the use of hand weapons means the borg have little chance to adapt, but i think even ship to ship, eventually the borg gain the upper hand

ScumLord

Evade wrote: »

That's probably due to the fact that the weapons are generally slower* than the speed of light and the ships and sensors (long range at least) are faster.

I'd forgotten about the subspace sensors, that does change the nature of the game.

helimachoptor wrote: »

The Jem Hadar would make excellent tactical drones, and their ability to excel in hand to hand combat and the use of hand weapons means the borg have little chance to adapt, but i think even ship to ship, eventually the borg gain the upper hand

Is it not strange that futuristic shielding is able to stop weapons with what must be massive energy outputs yet are useless against a fist?

There's all kinds of nonsensical stuff like that in Star trek combat. In all reality the idea of doing a suicide run at a ship with shielding that's strong enough to withstand these high energy weapons (that can devastate the face of a planet) is also nonsense. The ship doing the suicide run would either crash against the shielding or just push it out of the way.

Star trek doesn't follow the laws of physics so it's hard to make any judgement on who would win anything.

Evade

ScumLord wrote: »

There's all kinds of nonsensical stuff like that in Star trek combat. In all reality the idea of doing a suicide run at a ship with shielding that's strong enough to withstand these high energy weapons (that can devastate the face of a planet) is also nonsense. The ship doing the suicide run would either crash against the shielding or just push it out of the way.

Shields can be used to get through shields and even if they can't get through the shields a warp core detonation is essentially a giant photon torpedo so the ship on the receiving end wouldn't last long anyway.

AMKC

ScumLord wrote: »

I'd forgotten about the subspace sensors, that does change the nature of the game.

Is it not strange that futuristic shielding is able to stop weapons with what must be massive energy outputs yet are useless against a fist?

There's all kinds of nonsensical stuff like that in Star trek combat. In all reality the idea of doing a suicide run at a ship with shielding that's strong enough to withstand these high energy weapons (that can devastate the face of a planet) is also nonsense. The ship doing the suicide run would either crash against the shielding or just push it out of the way.

Star trek doesn't follow the laws of physics so it's hard to make any judgement on who would win anything.

Is it not strange that futuristic shielding is able to stop weapons with what must be massive energy outputs yet are useless against a fist?

Not strange at all. Shields operate as a spatial distortion which can absorb or deflect energy weapons but not necessarily physical objects, Still I don,t think I would try to punch a ship with its shields up

Here is a more detailed explanation

Like most forcefield devices, the deflector system creates a localized zone of highly focused spatial distortion within which an energetic graviton field is maintained. The deflector field itself is emitted and shaped by a series of conformal transmission grids on the spacecraft exterior, resulting in a field that closely follows the form of the vehicle itself. This field is highly resistive to impact due to mechanical incursions ranging from relativistic subatomic
particles to more massive objects at lesser relative velocities. When such an intrusion occurs, field energy is concentrated at the point of impact, creating an intense, localized spatial distortion.


The deflector system utilizes one or more graviton polarity source generators whose output is phase-synchronized through a series of subspace field distortion amplifiers.... Heat dissipation on each generator is provided by a pair of liquid helium coolant loops with a continuous-duty rating of 750,000 MJ. Four backup generators are located in each hull, providing up to twenty-four hours of service at 65% of nominal rated power.