But the Borg are all about attacking assumed threats, a single changeling could destroy an entire cube with an explosives device just by shifting into a drone and going about their business, no technology present would cause the changling to be invisible to the Borg.
Like I said, Founders could be the most dangerous thing for the Borg to face (assuming they fail/struggle to assimilate them). The Dominion is easily capable of defending itself to the same extent that the Federation has. But if for some reason it came to an all-out Borg invasion, it wouldn't matter if the Founders destroyed thousands of Cubes and the Jem'Hadar thousands more. The Borg would take the losses and keep coming. The Dominion would, eventually, be assimilated.
Borg were easy to kill since they never really bothered to adapt in future shows or movies. Just keep retuning phasers and voila: 200 shots later they're largely dealt with. Or, far better, how come the Borg never send TWO cubes as a big theatrical epic spectacle? TNG killed the Borg as a credible threat long before Voyager started to use them (with a brief return to making them a credible threat before driving them into the ground, "Scorpion" is one of the best Borg outings from any of the franchises and only Voyager's later outings with the Borg felt subpar... not to mention does killing a queen kill every Borg everywhere or is another queen conjured up before the lot of them fall to pieces?) The Breen weren't really used much... to the point that all we really know is that Princess Leia dressed up as one to get Han Solo out of carbonite in Jabba's hut... A Founder could shapeshift into a Borg Drone, if not a tsetse fly, and quickly gnaw through the entire Collective's circuitry before it knew what was destroying it? (Kudos to Space 1999 for Maya doing something like that, in an otherwise typically-lackluster outing for its second season...) The Jem Hadar definitely are given the most compelling backdrop and never got driven into the ground, they were pretty consistently written as a big threat. They get my vote.
Seems to be a lot of support for the Borg, but I think such a chaotic factor like the changlings and the single mindedness of the Jem'Hadar would make it a pyrrhic victory in a best case scenario for the Borg. One would consider the Founders lack of care for mono form life would mean they would no doubt favour destroying populated worlds in order to deny the Borg humanoid drones and other resources, a scorched earth policy.
this thread is ridiculous. maybe the dominion can handle like 1 cube. maybe 5 cubes. maybe even 10? what about 50? 500? 5000? come on.
If the borg assimilated a single changling, they would pretty much have the knowledge of the entire great link with all of their battle plans. No room for error there.
If the Borg absolutely need to they will fight to destroy the dominion if they can't assimilate it. It would be a grinding war but the Borg would be able to churn out drones and ships a lot faster than the dominion could. If necessary they could assimilate species like the Kazon or even pre space age species to fill their manpower needs. But the Borg would prevail. They'd lose a lot of drones and a lot of ships and would come out bloodied and battered but they'd still come out on top.
Do we know how fast the Borg can build ships and assimilated people? We know that the Dominion can build very fast and the Changelings can't be assimilated.
We don't know for sure if the Changelings can't be assimilated or not. As for building ships, I look at STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT as a point of reference. In a matter of what seems like an hour or so, the Borg converted Engineering and a decent number of Starfleet personnel. I think they beat out the Dominion in terms of both ships and accumulation of drones, so long as both are within reach of a Borg ship.
I like the point made about Section 31 creating a virus to infect the Changelings. If they found a way into them, so can the Borg, to assimilate them -- even if the very changeable Changelings can morph into something like floating fire, as Laas demonstrated. The JH are exquisite killing machines, but they're not invincible. They might slice drones in half, but eventually they'd get stabbed with those tubules, and it's game over. Whatever the Breen look like under their encounter suits, the Borg are used to assimilating very alien aliens from across the galaxy(s). They wouldn't make it either. The Borg are relentless. They outnumber everyone by a lot. And They Have A Plan.
I don't see why the Borg would not have encountered species similar changelings in the past and would have protocols to deal with them.
We don't even know that there are any species similar to the Changelings in existence. You can point to various creatures that have multiple forms, like the Chameloid from STVI or the Salt Vampire, etc, but those were all seriously limited in comparison to Odo's people, and relatively easy to kill as well, which changelings definitely aren't.
seems pretty inconsequential wether or not they can assimilate any of the dominion. A few cubes would be enough to smash their fleet. The borg have so many vessels to throw at them if this is not the case. without voyager's plot armour, a cube is still a fleet destroyer. I don't understand how this is being debated. Even 5000 dominion warships is no match for a dozen cubes.
It's being debated because there is no consensus on the actual scenario involved. Of course the Dominion can't survive a *full-scale* Borg invasion. How do we know that? Because *no-one* can survive a full-scale Borg invasion. So what exactly would be the point of that discussion? Yet the Federation has beaten the Borg several times over, because it seems the Borg just aren't that interested in such a full-scale invasion. So, if we're talking about the Dominion vs. the Borg in the same kind of scenarios that we have seen the Federation fighting the Borg, then there is something to discuss and plenty of reason to be optimistic for the Dominion. And, also, as has been mentioned: even in the case of a full-scale Borg invasion, there is some reason to believe that the unique status of the Changelings would allow the Dominion to provide far better, more effective and more drawn out resistance than any other political entity we know of, including the Federation. Which is a sort of (hollow) victory, even though they would eventually lose.
There were the silver bloods, among other creatures throughout Star Trek that could shape shift. The Borg have probably encountered such beings at some point or another and if nanoprobes don't work they probably have designed a method that does. And in the worst case scenario the Borg are capable of destroying and not assimilating. 10 Borg ships around the dominion homeworld-give them six hours or so and the Dominion will be destroyed. A Borg Dominion War would be a gargantuan struggle that's for sure and probably would have a body count in the trillions but the Borg would win.
I spaced out of Voyager halfway through, so I don't think I ever saw those. Based on memory alpha, I'd say the Changelings are still more sophisticated. Shapeshifting into technology is big, but not as big as shapeshifting into mist, et al. And while I agree the Borg would eventually win an all-out war, destroying the changelings isn't as easy as you make it sound. The only reason anyone ever found the Changeling's world was because of Odo. Maybe the Borg could do better than the AQ, although Intelligence work isn't exactly their strong suite, but there's no way they could do it without warning the Dominion that they're coming after the Founders. Once that's clear, the Founders scatter and fight to the death one after another, probably taking down a ton of drones, maybe even cubes with them. Or they abandon the Dominion altogether and set up shop somewhere else.
If you had watched more of Voyager you would know the Borg have a whole transwarp infrastructure Galaxy wide, hundreds of thousands of ships and probably trillions or at least hundreds of billions of drones. Not to mention an industrial potential much greater than the dominion. A full scale war would se the dominion probably winning many victories and the Borg suffering many casualties but they'd keep coming and coming and would adapt and sooner or later they'd assimilate a Vorta or Jem'hadar if not a changeling. The Borg would win.
If the Borg assimilated a changeling, it would be a huge blow to the Dominion, but the Dominion was very careful not to let Changelings anywhere near where they might be captured. I think you're giving too much credit to the Borg. They had trouble with the Federation multiple times, they had trouble with Species 8472.
The Borg never sent their full might against the federation and Species 8472 had a biological resistance to the nanoprobes and were super advanced themselves.