Dominion Borg

[foxmulder710]

So I always thought it would be awesome for the Borg to encounter and assimilate the Founders. It would be really an amazing combination - Borg technology, Changeling shapeshifting ability...

Now, I know Star Trek: Online will supposedly have Jem'Hadar Borg. But has anyone ever considered Founders-made-Borg?

I have they have those. They'd be impossible to beat.

There was also a fan fic long ago where this happened, called Star Trek: Assimilation. Damn good story.

 

[Nevyn]

I don't think the Founders can be assimilated; I believe there shape-shifting abilities might prevent nanoprobes to do their job.

As for Star Trek: Online having Jem'Hadar Borg, I've got to see it before I believe it. They don't give us any new ships to play with either, just refits of existing models, so I'm very sceptical about the game.

 

[RoJoHen]

Back in my fanfic-writing days (when I was like 14), I wrote a story about the Borg assimilating the Found Homeworld. They basically shot a biological weapon into the Great Link, and it infected them like the disease they had in DS9 Season 7.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I don't think the Founders can be assimilated; I believe there shape-shifting abilities might prevent nanoprobes to do their job.

Yep. Plus the Founders aren't on the front lines and are unlikely to be personally threatened by the Borg.

Vorta have termination implants, which provide an easy defense against assimilation. Jems don't care if they die, so they'd just kill themselves by whatever means are at hand. Maybe the Founders would start outfitting the Jems with termination implants too, just to make the process more foolproof.

So basically the Dominion is immune to the Borg. Which would make it very interesting if the Federation, Romulans, Klingons etc were being really hammered by the Borg (which after all, should be what happens) and had to depend on the Dominion to rescue them.

 

[RoJoHen]

So basically the Dominion is immune to the Borg.

Meh, I don't like this line of thinking. I'd like to think the Borg would find a way if they really wanted to. I mean, if the Founders can get infected with a disease, surely they can get infected by nanoprobes.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The Borg don't strike me as creative thinkers at the same level as Section 31, who must have been pretty innovative to come up with a disease that could infect a shapeshifter.

But let's assume that the Founders' enemies (S31 again?) want to remove the Founders' strategic advantage against the Borg and manufacture nanoprobes that can infect Founders, and allow the Borg to simply come across them and start replicating them. Then the Founders would simply use Vorta and Jems as shields against invasion.

The one surefire effective strategy against the Founders is to have foot soldiers who will kill themselves at the first sign of assimilation, and can be readily replaced. None of the other galactic powers are likely to be able to do that. Unless they opt for an all-AI military, but if the Feds did that, there would be moral issues equivalent to having humanoid soldiers. The Klingons would find that an unacceptably degrading and cowardly strategy. The Romulans, maybe, but it just doesn't feel right for them either.

PS, LOVE your avatar!

 

[RoJoHen]

But let's assume that the Founders' enemies (S31 again?) want to remove the Founders' strategic advantage against the Borg and manufacture nanoprobes that can infect Founders, and allow the Borg to simply come across them and start replicating them. Then the Founders would simply use Vorta and Jems as shields against invasion. The one surefire effective strategy against the Founders is to have foot soldiers who will kill themselves at the first sign of assimilation, and can be readily replaced.

Well, I'm not saying it would easy.

PS, LOVE your avatar!

Thanks!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Having the Founders be susceptible to Borg assimilation would be too much. It would make the Borg literally unstoppable by any means. There could not possibly be any defense against Borg who can shapeshift. All life would be Borg within a fairly short time. That would be the end of everything. And we can't have that, obviously.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

The Borg don't strike me as creative thinkers at the same level as Section 31, who must have been pretty innovative to come up with a disease that could infect a shapeshifter.

But let's assume that the Founders' enemies (S31 again?) want to remove the Founders' strategic advantage against the Borg and manufacture nanoprobes that can infect Founders, and allow the Borg to simply come across them and start replicating them. Then the Founders would simply use Vorta and Jems as shields against invasion.

The one surefire effective strategy against the Founders is to have foot soldiers who will kill themselves at the first sign of assimilation, and can be readily replaced. None of the other galactic powers are likely to be able to do that. Unless they opt for an all-AI military, but if the Feds did that, there would be moral issues equivalent to having humanoid soldiers. The Klingons would find that an unacceptably degrading and cowardly strategy. The Romulans, maybe, but it just doesn't feel right for them either.

One of the borg's great technological advantages is their ability to adapt to anything with truly MAGICAL SPEED. We see it most often with weapons - after a few shots, your weapons are useless against the borg, and the borg can tear through your shields like through paper.
This adaptation rivals ANYTHING the creative minds in the Federation/Starfleet can come up with - how many times did Geordi made Enterprise immune against powerful aggressive warships a few seconds after the battle started?

The borg may not be able to assimilate founders AB INITIO - but they will adapt and, eventually, learn to assimilate Founders.

Of course, assimilating Founders won't make the borg more dangerous - they won't use the new drones for spying or anything innovative because that's not their modus operandi - their tactics are as rigid as they get.

About vorta and jem'hadar - suicide could keep them from becoming drones - but the borg don't need vorta or jem'hadar for drones.
All the collective has to do in order to EASILY replenish its drone numbers is find and assimilate a species that has yet to develop interstellar flight = a few BILLION insta-drones.

 

[Nevyn]

But the Borg's war of adaptation is more one of forcing a way; changing the frequency of your shields ans weapons to penetrate others and at the same time preventing enemy fire from penetrating their own shields. Creating for example the Section 31 virus is impossible for the Borg, a process of trial and error won't do them any good here. The only thing they can do is assimilate some one, aka a human, who knows the formula of the virus.

The Borg are unable to create new technology, the only thing they can do is assimilate it.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

But the Borg's war of adaptation is more one of forcing a way; changing the frequency of your shields ans weapons to penetrate others and at the same time preventing enemy fire from penetrating their own shields. Creating for example the Section 31 virus is impossible for the Borg, a process of trial and error won't do them any good here. The only thing they can do is assimilate some one, aka a human, who knows the formula of the virus.

The Borg are unable to create new technology, the only thing they can do is assimilate it.

The borg adaptation technology is FAR MORE than merely changing the frequency of their shields and weapons.

You see, the borg adapt NOT only to weapons, but to ANYTHING - tactics, strategies, attempts to hack the hive ming, to disable nanoprobes or other components, etc.

About weapons - energy weapons are FAR TOO COMPLEX (to be exhaustively described by "frequency" and adapted to by merely changing the frequency) and FAR TOO DIVERSE (phasers, disruptors, plasma weapons. matter-antimatter warheads, quantum torpedos - and I'm not even mentioning the more exotic ones).
And the Borg can adapt to them ALL - at least, all we saw on-screen - except 8472's, but those weapons were out of this world/the trekverse (literally) - plus, you can be sure 8472 did some adapting of its own.

The borg adaptation technology works on the same principles as darwinian evolution - through trial and error.
If a slightly better (more adapted) version is found (after trying a large numer of versions AKA through trial and error), it is retained and improved (through the same process).

Darwinian evolution used this process to make life - and us (extremely complex creations).
The borg use a similar process to adapt.
The difference is - darwinian evolution needed BILLIONS of years to do its job.
The borg only need SECONDS to adapt - as I said, a TRULY MAGICAL SPEED.

It is a truly remarcable technology - second to none (which includes creative federation engineers) and better than most (when it comes to weaponry, it proved again and again to surpass by far the likes of Geordi or B'Ellana).


In order to assimilate a founder, all the borg have to do is try to assimilate one with their nanoprobes. From the BILLIONS of nanoprobes used (all trying something else), some will behave a little better than the rest. The borg will use these second generation nanoprobes and repeat the process. In a short time, the borg will obtain nanoprobes effective against the founders' "anatomy" - much like S31's virus was.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

About vorta and jem'hadar - suicide could keep them from becoming drones - but the borg don't need vorta or jem'hadar for drones. All the collective has to do in order to EASILY replenish its drone numbers is find and assimilate a species that has yet to develop interstellar flight = a few BILLION insta-drones.

Which means the Dominion should use a scorched-earth strategy against the Borg: race around in advance of the Borg attack and wipe out all life forms in the area that the Borg could use as drones to clear a defensive space around Dominion territory. Of course, that might require wiping out large swaths of Federation space or Fed colonies...doubt the natives would be too happy...

I think we're coming up with a pretty decent premise for the next Trek TV series (and since JJ has tossed the timeline up in the air, there's nothing stopping Kirk & the gang from being involved).

 

[Nevyn]

The borg adaptation technology is FAR MORE than merely changing the frequency of their shields and weapons.

You see, the borg adapt NOT only to weapons, but to ANYTHING - tactics, strategies, attempts to hack the hive ming, to disable nanoprobes or other components, etc.

About weapons - energy weapons are FAR TOO COMPLEX (to be exhaustively described by "frequency" and adapted to by merely changing the frequency) and FAR TOO DIVERSE (phasers, disruptors, plasma weapons. matter-antimatter warheads, quantum torpedos - and I'm not even mentioning the more exotic ones).
And the Borg can adapt to them ALL - at least, all we saw on-screen - except 8472's, but those weapons were out of this world/the trekverse (literally) - plus, you can be sure 8472 did some adapting of its own.

The borg adaptation technology works on the same principles as darwinian evolution - through trial and error.
If a slightly better (more adapted) version is found (after trying a large numer of versions AKA through trial and error), it is retained and improved (through the same process).

Darwinian evolution used this process to make life - and us (extremely complex creations).
The borg use a similar process to adapt.
The difference is - darwinian evolution needed BILLIONS of years to do its job.
The borg only need SECONDS to adapt - as I said, a TRULY MAGICAL SPEED.

It is a truly remarcable technology - second to none (which includes creative federation engineers) and better than most (when it comes to weaponry, it proved again and again to surpass by far the likes of Geordi or B'Ellana).


In order to assimilate a founder, all the borg have to do is try to assimilate one with their nanoprobes. From the BILLIONS of nanoprobes used (all trying something else), some will behave a little better than the rest. The borg will use these second generation nanoprobes and repeat the process. In a short time, the borg will obtain nanoprobes effective against the founders' "anatomy" - much like S31's virus was.

The Borg sure couldn't adapt to Iched's modified genes that were destroying them; they didn't find a way to stop Voyager's nanovirus; their vinculum was unable to adapt when Voyager tried to shut it down; and the only time we saw them adapt to tactics and strategies was when the assimilated Picard (so they already had the strategies and tactics Starfleet was going to use).

Also, they were unable to assimilate Data, otherwise the Queen wouldn't have gone through such a long prosses
Vinculum

Icheb

 

[Nevyn]

The borg adaptation technology is FAR MORE than merely changing the frequency of their shields and weapons.

You see, the borg adapt NOT only to weapons, but to ANYTHING - tactics, strategies, attempts to hack the hive ming, to disable nanoprobes or other components, etc.

About weapons - energy weapons are FAR TOO COMPLEX (to be exhaustively described by "frequency" and adapted to by merely changing the frequency) and FAR TOO DIVERSE (phasers, disruptors, plasma weapons. matter-antimatter warheads, quantum torpedos - and I'm not even mentioning the more exotic ones).
And the Borg can adapt to them ALL - at least, all we saw on-screen - except 8472's, but those weapons were out of this world/the trekverse (literally) - plus, you can be sure 8472 did some adapting of its own.

The borg adaptation technology works on the same principles as darwinian evolution - through trial and error.
If a slightly better (more adapted) version is found (after trying a large numer of versions AKA through trial and error), it is retained and improved (through the same process).

Darwinian evolution used this process to make life - and us (extremely complex creations).
The borg use a similar process to adapt.
The difference is - darwinian evolution needed BILLIONS of years to do its job.
The borg only need SECONDS to adapt - as I said, a TRULY MAGICAL SPEED.

It is a truly remarcable technology - second to none (which includes creative federation engineers) and better than most (when it comes to weaponry, it proved again and again to surpass by far the likes of Geordi or B'Ellana).


In order to assimilate a founder, all the borg have to do is try to assimilate one with their nanoprobes. From the BILLIONS of nanoprobes used (all trying something else), some will behave a little better than the rest. The borg will use these second generation nanoprobes and repeat the process. In a short time, the borg will obtain nanoprobes effective against the founders' "anatomy" - much like S31's virus was.

The Borg sure couldn't adapt to Iched's modified genes that were destroying them; they didn't find a way to stop Voyager's nanovirus; their vinculum was unable to adapt when Voyager tried to shut it down; and the only time we saw them adapt to tactics and strategies was when the assimilated Picard (so they already had the strategies and tactics Starfleet was going to use).

Also, they were unable to assimilate Data, otherwise the Queen wouldn't have gone through such a long process of getting the Computer's access codes. Which means the couldn't bypass Data's codes, either.

So the borg can't adapt to everything. Their technology has its limitations.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

The Borg sure couldn't adapt to Iched's modified genes that were destroying them; they didn't find a way to stop Voyager's nanovirus; their vinculum was unable to adapt when Voyager tried to shut it down; and the only time we saw them adapt to tactics and strategies was when the assimilated Picard (so they already had the strategies and tactics Starfleet was going to use).

Also, they were unable to assimilate Data, otherwise the Queen wouldn't have gone through such a long process of getting the Computer's access codes. Which means the couldn't bypass Data's codes, either.

So the borg can't adapt to everything. Their technology has its limitations.

True, the borg can't adapt to everything.
To maintain my comparison, life can't adapt to any arbitrary conditions - beyond a certain point, there's just no way to survive in a hostile environment.

However, S31's virus proved there's a way to affect founders on the molecular/cellular level.
And if there's a way, the borg will find it - much like life will survive in amazingly harsh conditions, given the smallest possiblility/chance to do so.

PS - many of the events you described affected the collective ONLY ONCE (a sudden, quick event). The borg may not have had time to adapt. The true measure of the borg adaptability can only be given when the same weapon is used against them a second/third time.

 

[RoJoHen]

PS - many of the events you described affected the collective ONLY ONCE (a sudden, quick event). The borg may not have had time to adapt. The true measure of the borg adaptability can only be given when the same weapon is used against them a second/third time.

I agree. Hell, the Borg can't even adapt to phasers on the first shot! Adaptation doesn't happen instantly. They need to be exposed to something in order to learn how to combat it.

Really, if Section 31 could infect the Founders, the Borg can figure out how to do the same. I mean, the Borg's plan from "Dark Frontier" was to infection Earth's atmosphere with nanoprobes. I'm sure something like that could be modified to work with the Founders.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Of course, assimilating Founders won't make the borg more dangerous - they won't use the new drones for spying or anything innovative because that's not their modus operandi

If the Borg got ahold of the Founders, that sure *would* be their new model. They would use any method possible to increase the rate of assimilation. A single shapeshifting Borg could assimilate an entire world by itself.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Of course, assimilating Founders won't make the borg more dangerous - they won't use the new drones for spying or anything innovative because that's not their modus operandi

If the Borg got ahold of the Founders, that sure *would* be their new model. They would use any method possible to increase the rate of assimilation. A single shapeshifting Borg could assimilate an entire world by itself.

Hardly. Founders can change shape, but they're far from unstoppable.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Of course, assimilating Founders won't make the borg more dangerous - they won't use the new drones for spying or anything innovative because that's not their modus operandi

If the Borg got ahold of the Founders, that sure *would* be their new model. They would use any method possible to increase the rate of assimilation. A single shapeshifting Borg could assimilate an entire world by itself.

Hardly. Founders can change shape, but they're far from unstoppable.

On their own, yes. But a Founder *Borg* would be unstoppable. They would assimilate you before you would even know they are a Borg.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

If the Borg got ahold of the Founders, that sure *would* be their new model. They would use any method possible to increase the rate of assimilation. A single shapeshifting Borg could assimilate an entire world by itself.

Hardly. Founders can change shape, but they're far from unstoppable.

On their own, yes. But a Founder *Borg* would be unstoppable. They would assimilate you before you would even know they are a Borg.

They won't have that many advantages when compared to a "solid" drone.

Remember, founders can't shapeshift into complex technology - we never saw Odo create a functional phaser or tricorder from his substance.
A borg founder won't have the capability to shapeshift its cybernetic implants into existence - meaning they are made from conventional matter - which will gretely encumber the drone.
This means that a drone founder's talents will be far more limited than a founder's, as far as shapeshifing goes.

And, even if the assimilated founder would have all the abilities of a free one, he would be far less dangerous than you seem to think - he won't even come close to "assimilating an entire world by himself".