What if the Borg had invaded during the Dominion war?

[ktanner3]

During the Dominion war they were all tied up. The Borg would have done what they had come to do. Of course, if the Borg ever smartened up and sent TWO ships at once, it be over then too.

Of course, who knows what the dominion may do. They may realize that once the Federation is within the Borg's grasp, the Borg may go after the Dominion. The Dominion may call a truce.

It all depends on whose writing the story:

-If it's the DS9 writers you would have had a long interesting arc of the federation losing the battle and having to retreat from Earth to Vulcan space. The BORG would have sent an armada of ships to take over Earth for a period of time and you would have seen earth assimilated. Eventually of course, the federation would have won out and driven the Borg out of federation space.

-With Berman and Braga, you would have gotten the usual one ship invasion that gets blown up because of Picard's "insights" or the usual reset button.All within a one hour show.

 

[Capt. Vulcan]

Someone just needs to go to the museum of ancient technology and find an old iBook. Then it's just a matter of uploading a virus, and the borg are toast!

 

[FalTorPan]

If the Borg added the Founders' biological distinctiveness to their own, then the Borg would have become an army of T-Xes -- imagine how large Seven of Nine's boobs would become then.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

While the rest of the Federation was fighting the Dominion, the Enterprise would single handedly stop the Borg invasion. Federation wins.

You know it's true.

 

[Lookingglassman]

I think the Dominion would have taken advantage and wiped out as much of Starfleet as possible, then fell back to protect their own territory.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

The answer to that question is as the line from Aliens goes: Game Over Man Game Over.
But in all seriously

The Jem'Hadar would Probably just ram the crap out of the Borg, then blow up a couple of stars just to make sure they got them all.

 

[Vanyel]

Menacing Horta said:

Problem is, the Changelings don't know of the assimilation procedure (at least to our knowledge), plus the procedure itself is almost instantaneous.

The Dominion's intelligence gathering can't be THAT weak! The Borg are well known to the Federation, so they'd be known to all societies that have any degree of interaction with the Federation.

I'm going with the notion that Founders are un-assimilatable. And Jems wouldn't last long as drones; they'd run out of k-white and die. What a wonder fail-safe against disloyalty.

So that just leaves the threat of assimilated Vorta!

I too think the Founders cannot be assimilated.

The Jem'Hadar could possible be assimilated with Borg technology. In the medical knowledge that the Borg have assimilated, there could be a way to remove the Jem'Hadar's reliance on White. Or the nanoprobes could take the place of the White in Jem'Hadar physiology.

Once the Jem'Hadar and several Vorta are assimilated all the hiding places of the Founders could be found. Once the Borg chase down the Founders leaving them no place to run, the Borg would destroy them. I say that because the Borg should have learned their lesson from Species 8472. If you can't assimilate, destroy them. They should learn through assimilation that Founders can be killed.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

I think the Borg would assimilate what they could and destroy what they couldn't. The Dominion would put up a good fight but, in the end, they'd fall. The Founders would once again be a hunted species.

 

[Deks]

Hm ... on an evolutionary scale the Founders would probably be nowhere near the 8472.

Just because the Founders are shape-shifters and on a higher evolutionary scale than others (at least from their perspective, since not all races next evolutionary steps would be the same) it wouldn't necessarily make them immune to assimilation.
They are vulnerable to viruses after all.
Of course 8472 are as well, but not to conventional ones.
The 8472 were attacked on a cellular level using Borg technology (nano-probes act like a virus after all).
The Founders were brought to their knees (And almost killed them) by a virus which was non technological in origin.

The Jem'Hadar might prove a bit difficult to assimilate due to their genetic enhancements (they were mentioned to have better immune system in general), but that would only be temporary.

Also, their addiction to Ketracel White would have been eliminated by the nano-probes, because as I already stated, they rewrite the DNA of the victim (and their addiction was encoded in their DNA by the Founders along with their loyalty to them to begin with).

The Dominion in general only demonstrated superiority to the Feds in their first encounter.
Much of that superiority was compensated by the Feds.
In general though, the Feds fought mostly with outdated ships (for which we don't know if all underwent latest upgrades as the only old ship we know that received upgrades was in fact the Lakota).
Most of the newer designs that were built a few years prior to the Wolf 359 incident and afterwards proved to be far more effective against the Dominion.
The Defiant itself when it was first introduced in DS9 'The Search' demonstrated that it's shields for one thing were capable of keeping Dominion weapons from penetrating them (and that was before they got their hands on the crashed Jem'Hadar bug ship).
The anti-Borg systems SF was working on and started to implement were obviously able to protect the Feds from Dominion weapons, but probably not all ships underwent those upgrades because certain admirals in SF were a bit arrogant, plus the writers would probably keep it simple and only say several ships got the upgrades, while in 'real life' the Feds would probably upgrade their entire fleet the moment a Galaxy class ship was destroyed with all hands.

So in contrast, I have to say the Dominion would have fallen as easily as the Feds would if the Borg decided to actually conquer them.

 

[WalkinMan]

Interesting question, Borg vs. Dominion. Reminds me of the joke that Voyager would get home and there was nothing left, all destroyed.

However...

1. The Dominion had long-range plans for the Federation. Supposedly they knew of the AQ powers and were planning to confront them as part of a natural expansion within several hundred years, but the wormhole discovery sped that up.

With a long-range plan for galactic supremacy, the Dominion would not necessary rush into conflict. That said, it seemed that this earlier principle did not play as big a role later on in DS9.

2. The Dominion preferred to manipulate or use outside conflicts to its advantage. Sort of like the Romulans, the Dominion attempted to instigate a war between the Federation and Tzenkethi. They also probably had a role in causing the Klingon-Cardassian war.

The Dominion has been known also for forgoing short-term strategic advantages for a long-term benefit later on.

If the Borg attacked the Federation, the main power in the AQ, the Dominion might simply step back and watch as the Federation was severely weakened by its cybernetic nemesis, then attempt to sweep in and pick up the pieces.

3. Dominion vs. Borg? In the GQ we saw no evidence that the Dominion had encountered the Borg. IMO, both sides have compelling strengths and weaknesses against the other, stacked up somewhat closely. However, I tend to give the advantage to the Borg in terms of weapons adaptability (although the polaron beams were quite devastating at first, as pointed out by other posters they became less effective, and the Dominion did not evidently regain that advantage). IMO the Jem'Hadar are good assimilation stock, and the Vorta can be assimilated as well (provided they don't activate their termination implant in time).

However a possible trump card are changelings, which may be able to infiltrate cubes disguised as metals, etc. But it would be a war of attrition; I suspect that the Borg might be able to assimilate a weakened changeling but might opt for destruction instead.

The Dominion might reevaluate its strategic interests in the event of a Borg invasion of the AQ, and retreat and consider options against a Borg invasion of the GQ.

I do think that the Federation shown initial weakness in terms of raw numbers and power than the Dominion, but has a greater strength in adaptability, ingenuity, and special technologies over time. This enabled them to defeat the Dominion, and the Borg on a number of occasions. The freedom of thought encouraged by Starfleet officers, but lacking in the rigid discipline of the Jem'Hadar, makes the Dominion more vulnerable to the Borg in multiple engagements.

 

[patlandness]

Rarewolf said:
You only need one ship to defeat the Borg, and we didn't see her fight the Dominion war on screen.

Which is why the Dominion War went on for so long.