Borg or Dominion??

[DonIago]

Actually the drones that were "freed" by Lore did fire at people. And I'm sure the Borg would adapt to having firearms if they ever felt like they needed to.

You shouldn't assume that just because nobody's replying to a point means that they're not paying attention. It could, for instance, be due to a lack of interest in rebutting that point. Or it could be that you're right.

The bottom line is that we've never seen a Borg try to assimilate a Jem'hadar or a Vorta, and the only way to know whether or not they _can_ is to see them try. You're only immune to poison/foreign objects until you find one you're not immune to.

[Deks]

Acetylhexene wrote:

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The biggest plothole being, if they had time travel technology, then why not go back in time FIRST and THEN travel to the Alpha Quadrant?

They didn't even have to go back very far, just to any time before "Q Who?" was set.

Remember that the Borg are not really threatened by the Federation.
They probably wanted to see how their cube would fair against SF second time around, and should it fail, send a smaller ship to the past from the AQ.

I know I know ... if the cube was again destroyed, the Collective could have sent a vessel from the DQ to the past and again travel to the AQ.

Makes no sense I know ... but it's possible the Borg were aware of the fact that they should send a signal to themselves in the past (NX-01 Enterprise events) thus completing a temporal loop which would result in the present time-line while not really knowing just how would any other course of action fair.

[DonIago]

I still think that, in the end, the Borg are just testing the Federation, knocking down some anthills, seeing how they react.

Let's face it, if the Borg ever launched a real assault on the Federation the Feds wouldn't stand a chance.

[Jono]

Deks wrote:

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There is 0 indication the Dominion is larger and more powerful than the Federation.
Sure it's ahead of the Feds in some departments, but technologically and how much space they occupy ... they seem to be rather same.

Also the Dominion war was poorly handled in my opinion on-screen.
Unrealistic for Star Trek itself and incredibly dumb-ed down.

So I will repeat it again, if SF had huge problems with the Borg and has to send a fleet to take care of 1 ship, the Dominion would fare the same.
Plus, the Borg can easily stop ramming through extremely powerful (shield draining) tractor beams, and taking into consideration just how massive a single cube is (not to mention the density of it's armor and adaptation capabilities) ... the Dominion would have a tough time just like the Feds did.
Also, numerous Borg ships could activate energy shields around their vessels.
The phased polaron beams would have little effect since the Borg would learn how to adapt (just as the Feds did ... and the Defiant's shields ... which were part of anti-borg systems were capable of stopping Dominions weapons from penetrating them before the crew brought a damaged Jem'Hadar bug to SF for analisys).

The Dominion seems to have a superior military machine then the Federation with its vast armies of clones and speedy ship construction. The fact that if the Dominion could reinforce its alpha quadrant foothold that all the sides considered that the war would be lost for the Federation and Klingons points to an empire in size and power that is greater then both the UFP and Klingon Empires combined.

Also as for the Defiant's shields, in Call to Arms Weyoun states that Federation shields were useless to Dominion weaponry, so I don't think the Defiant's shields would have been any different. I can only remember the Defiant under attack by the Jem'Hadar once before the war and that was during the events of The Search two-parter...which I don't remember clearly to say how her shields functioned in that instance.

myselfeneye wrote:

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Furthermore...I noticed someone up above said that Vorta and Jem'Hadar are immune to poison AND foreign objects. Someone else countered the part about poison, but I saw no argument for why their immunity to foreign objects is invalid. If you're going to counter...pay attention!

I think this is directed at me. I said that the we know the Vorta are immune to poison because Weyoun says as much and demonstrates it. Nothing is said of the Jem'Hadar having a similiar ability and it isn't really necessary as they don't consume anything but white.

As for foreign objects, that seems to be a speculative extension to the poisons fact about the Vorta that is also added to the Jem'Hadar. Just because you can safely break down a poison doesn't mean that your system can handle tiny nanoprobes injected into your bloodstream.

[Deks]

The only notable area in which the Dominion seems to have an advantage over the Feds is ship construction which was stated to be faster.
Other than that, the Feds are also perfectly capable of cloning and extensive genetic manipulation.
Problem is ... they don't utilize such measures in wars.

As for the area the Dominion occupies and how many ships was fighting in the AQ...
Keep in mind that there were convoys coming in from the wormhole for some time before the war started and the Dominion gained a foothold in the AQ by allying themselves with the Cardassians who lend their military to the war effort.

In numerous battles the Dominion did not face the Feds on their own.
In 'Sacrifice of Angels' the battle was between Dominion/Cardassian forces versus SF ships only (which were outnumbered 2 to 1) that managed to hold their ground in combat even after suffering some losses ... and then the Klingons intervened which opened up a hole the Defiant utilized to get to DS9.

The capabilities the Dominion showed were nothing too impressive (aside from their faster ship construction) when compared to SF and the Federation.
Their phased polaron beams as I stated were not passing through the Defiants shields in 'The Search' and that ship was carrying anti-Borg technology (something that was supposed to have been introduced 14 months after BOBW and then presumably delayed ... which was stated for the Defiant because the Borg threat was apparently not emminent).
So the fact that SF got their hands on the bug ship doesn't automatically insinuate they were able to circcumvent their weapons like that (although it's a very good possibility).
The tech was probably there before just never utilized (you know that SF was portrayed in this idiotic fashion before).

Given the fact the Dominion never fought on their own in large battles against combined forces of the Federation/Klingons/Romulans but with help ... it stands to reason they would most likely be a tad smaller or the same like the Federation.
It's possible their space is larger as well, but it was never insinuated nor confirmed.

Plus if SF was in Dominions position, even they would have additional 2000 ships ready to come through the wormhole in the mid of the war after gaining an ally and securing their economy to their needs into another quadrant to fight.

[Cyke101]

Deks wrote:

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But the issue is that ships in DS9 large battles behaved in such a fashion as if shields were non-existent and that their hulls were on 10% of structural integrity at all times.

It was artistic license I'll grant you that ... but ended up incredibly dumb-ed down for the sake of 'cool' factor and drama.

Some of those battles did last for hours, though. Say, for Operation: Return, we saw the Defiant join two lowly Miranda-class vessels (the Sitak and the Majestic). Later on, we see the same two ships escorting the Defiant, but then getting destroyed with a few shots.

Since a time span of a few hours elapsed between the start of the battle and the destruction of those ships, I'm going to have to say that it's perfectly logical that those ships took a heavy amount of fire before biting it (and yes, the way they were both destroyed was pretty cool, at least for a Trek show).

[Jax]

The Federation Alliance only won because the main bulk of the Dominion fleet was wiped out in that wormhole and that the Feds got control of the wormhole back. (the Cards switching sides helped too)

A full strength Dominion empire would give The Borg a money but there resources are better so eventually The Borg would probably win though the founder most likely cannot be assimilated.

I always wanted to see the entire Borg species get thrown into a war with the major powers of the entire Galaxy to null the Borg threat once and for all. Just imagine...

Feds, Roms, Klingons, Cards, Breen, Thoilans, Kazon, Vidiians and many more all teaming up to kick some Borg ass.

[pimp]

NX_01 Mark wrote:

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I always wanted to see the entire Borg species get thrown into a war with the major powers of the entire Galaxy to null the Borg threat once and for all. Just imagine...

Feds, Roms, Klingons, Cards, Breen, Thoilans, Kazon, Vidiians and many more all teaming up to kick some Borg ass.

and also the Dominion joining in the fight because now they have Odo influencing their ideas about the Federation.

[Jax]

pimp wrote:

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and also the Dominion joining in the fight because now they have Odo influencing their ideas about the Federation.

Didn't realise I missed out the doms, meant to stick them in but yeh it would be a great thing to watch or read...or even play

[Marie1]

Hi, Newbie here- is anyone reading the DS9 relaunch in novel-forum?
Sorry if this has been brought up...


*SPOILERS*******




In one of the Mission Gamma novels, it was discovered that the Borg did indeed entre the Gamma Quadrant, and I believe a single dominion ship took them on. It did heavy damage to the Borg right away, so they were cut off from the collective. Both ships ended up destroyed in the end- crashing into a planet, no ramming, from battle damage. But it would appear that the Dominion would win, if they only need one ship to win. Plus the strength of the Jem'hadar- with bladed weapons the Borg can't adapt to- and if the Dominion got wind of the metal/chemical projectile weapons the federation is working on... then maybe the Borg can be eliminated. There is ref. to the Borg in the relaunch Sect. 31 novel, which also rocked.

[Cyke101]

Marie1 wrote:

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Hi, Newbie here- is anyone reading the DS9 relaunch in novel-forum?
Sorry if this has been brought up...


*SPOILERS*******




In one of the Mission Gamma novels, it was discovered that the Borg did indeed entre the Gamma Quadrant, and I believe a single dominion ship took them on. It did heavy damage to the Borg right away, so they were cut off from the collective. Both ships ended up destroyed in the end- crashing into a planet, no ramming, from battle damage. But it would appear that the Dominion would win, if they only need one ship to win. Plus the strength of the Jem'hadar- with bladed weapons the Borg can't adapt to- and if the Dominion got wind of the metal/chemical projectile weapons the federation is working on... then maybe the Borg can be eliminated. There is ref. to the Borg in the relaunch Sect. 31 novel, which also rocked.

I dunno if I would count non-televised material as part of this debate, because there's no consistency whatsoever. For one thing, we've seen the damage output of most Dominion ship classes, and if one ship can stalemate a Borg Cube, then the Alpha Quadrant would've been lost LONG ago.

[Sisko4Life]

We are never given a pure taste of the strength of Dominion Battleships and Battlecruisers, in every episode we only see their "puny" attack ships. The Dominion battleship certainly had no trouble obliterating a Defiant class ship, one of the Federation's premier warships. We are only given "twice the size of a Galaxy and three times as powerful." So we have no evidence. Not to mention the massively large Planetary Defenders in What You Leave Behind (again... an ambiguous debate) that if the scaling is correct, would be larger or about the size of a Borg Cube.

And people still seem to forget that if the Prophets didn't close off the wormhole, the Dominion's empire would have overrun the Alpha Quadrant easily. They had 2800 ships waiting to come through the wormhole to slaugther the Federations 627 in SOA, which from what we know is two large complete fleets of only a possible dozen or so Klingon / Federation task forces (fleet 10 was the highest ever mentioned). And that could be just the first wave of Dominion reinforcements... I doubt the Dominion would commit 100% of their military on a single assault.

[DonIago]

What the Dominion could do to the Federation has little bearing on what they could do to the Borg.

The only reason the Federation hasn't been assimilated is because the Borg apparently haven't _wanted_ to assimilate the Federation. One cube cleaned our clocks on two separate occasions; two, twenty, or god forbid two hundred, and the Federation would be toast.

[Jono]

Cyke101 wrote:

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I dunno if I would count non-televised material as part of this debate, because there's no consistency whatsoever. For one thing, we've seen the damage output of most Dominion ship classes, and if one ship can stalemate a Borg Cube, then the Alpha Quadrant would've been lost LONG ago.

I'm pretty sure that it was not a Borg Cube but a Borg scout ship that clashed with the Dominion vessel in the Mission Gamma book...actually just looked it up, it was an assimilated Federation ship, USS Valkyrie, Paladin class. Its crew complement is given as 30, so you'd think it was only around the size of the Defiant class. So consistency isn't an issue here.

Pretty sure in the novel they also specifically states or shows that a Founder cannot be assimilated as the crew of the Defiant who find the two wrecked ships rescue a Founder who was stuck on the planet.

[Apogeal Alpha01]

The Borg. We've never seen the Borg at war except with Species 8472. It's always been a piecemeal battle with in-universe forces demanding one or two cubes at a time for victory. War means an all out battle with the end being dominance of another system, or quadrant. If the Borg had chosen to commit forces with the end being the destruction of the AQ, or GQ, rather than assimilation and acquisition of it's humanoids and technology, it would have happened.

The writers couldn't give the Federation more of a fight than it could overcome, the show must go on. I can't realistically imagine 100 or more Borg Cubes and dozens of Spheres, which they could have easily mustered out of thousands upon thousands of ships, not overcoming any armada the Dominion could field.