Borg Collective verses Imperium of Man

[Vince 520]

Rules. The borg don't have millions of cubes, they have millions of space craft including everything. Maybe thousands of cubes for their thousands of systems. IoM firepower calcs based of actual examples of bombardment NOT hyperbole or shell velocity extraplations. IoM fighting speeds are not .75C (so silly), but more along the lines of BFG and RT. 

How ya think things play out? 

[Khas 12,158]

Going by what I remember, Exterminatus usually requires special weapons (e.g; Cyclonic Torpedoes, Virus Bombs, etc), and though flat out orbital bomardment can be used, it requires specialized munitions.

 

When it comes to Pure Infantry combat, the Borg are going to give the IoM nightmares.  The average ST energy weapon has an output in the megawatts range, which in 40K, is only matched by the Necrons (going by the Third Edition Codex.  Don't know what the Fifth Edition says).  However, this doesn't take into account the tanks and Titans used by the Imperial Guard, which would quickly turn ground combat in the Imperium's favor.  At least temporarily.

 

In VOY's "Dark Frontier", Tuvok mentioned that the Borg Unicomplex had "trillions of life-forms", and had a width of 600 km, indicating that it has a population equal to that of a more prominent Hive World, and also bigger than almost anything the Imperium can build.

 

Logistically, the Borg have the Imperium beat.  We see in "Endgame" and "Descent" that the Borg transwarp network allows vessels to cross large chunks of the galaxy in minutes, if not seconds.  Considering that each Borg ship has its own transwarp drive, it shouldn't be too hard to get into the transwarp network.  My guess as to why they use standard warp more often is because it lets them remain in realspace, instead of dipping into subspace like with transwarp, and thus, lets them find and assimilate potential targets easier.  However, even without transwarp, the Borg would still beat the Imperium when it comes to logistics.  This is due to the nature of the Imperium's FTL travel - going through the Warp - which is pretty much what you get when you combine hyperspace and hell, and add in large chunks of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey... stuff.  Time flows in all sorts of bizzare ways in the Warp, to the point where It's been noted that ships arrived either millennia after they left off, or long before they were even built.  This isn't due to slow speeds, but rather, the nature of the Warp.  This is also assuming that the Chaos Gods - especially Tzeentch - don't decide to screw with things.  Even without Chaos screwing around - which, let's be honest here, IT WILL - there's also the chance that the Gellar fields, which keep daemons and other nasty Warp-entities out, will fail, causing Imperial ships to fall to Chaos.

 

And then there are Borg superweapons, which, if they deem the Imperium to be of a significant enough threat, which, they will, considering its sheer size, they will not hesitate to use.  Such as the Multi-Kinetic Neutronic Mine:

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Multi-kinetic_neutronic_mine

 

Creates a subspace shockwave of 5 light-years, and is powerful enough to screw up a solar system.

 

There's also the chance that some of the Adeptus Mechanicus might see the Borg as a kindred spirit, marrying flesh to metal in search of perfection.  I mean, let's face it, there are tech-priests who are so close to being Borg drones it's downright scary.

 

My prediction is that the Borg will win, but not without a bloody nose and broken arm.  

 

As for me saying that Tzeentch will screw with the Imperium in this fight, let's face it, he will.  I mean, his theme song is practically this:

 

 

Also: Introducing the Borg-Tyranid Hybrid, Borgnid!

[Khas 12,158]

Another thing, it can take the Imperium decades to build just one cruiser.  

 

Also, Imperial loading times SUCK, as it takes thousands of slaves to load the guns, rather than just using some auto-loader, or even a guy operating some machine.

[Vince 520]

That song is mad whack hahah

[Khas 12,158]

It's the "Trololo" song, Theme of Trolls, which, let's face it, Tzeentch is the God of Trolls, so, it's naturally his theme.

[Vince 520]

I think logistics will need some more thorough comparison. And I thought the transwarp was quite limited in its routes?

Indeed most of the time we hear that [the big] ships take decades to build, but a ISD sized escort can be banged out in a few years. BFG mentions a 5km ship being put together (probably from pre-built modular pieces) in six months. Typical trans-galactic journeys may take months to years, but in a bad case decades or even a century. 

 

I have to disagree about the infantry comparison, I mean come on, the Guard face among the most menacing enemies in all of sci-fi! Despite what the third edition said about guass rifles, everything else implies many man-portable weapons are megajoule range or even higher. 

Check these out...

 

"It operates on a ninteen megatule range and can therefor utilize any Departmento Munitorum sanctioned power packs."

 

The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer

Assuming thule = joule (supposedly the author confirmed this) i' speculate its those over-charged maximum power shots that drain the power pack within a few shots. Still, it should allow a guardsmen to overcome adapted shields for a few shots, going by the 10 mega business in Enterprise. 

 

The Guard also have heavy weapons in every platoon, ranging from heavy bolters firing fist sized supersonic AP rounds with mass-reactive cores, to plasma guns and meltas... which can do really nasty, nasty things...
 

 

Caduceia reached over and fired a blast of superheated plasma down the barricade, the stench of burned meat washing over her as three men disappeared in a crimson cloud of vaporized blood. Daemon World

 

And melta's.. 

 

His voice was drowned out by the abrupt hiss of the melta as Jurgen fired into the wall, instantly flashing a dozen cubic meters of ice into steam... Caves of Ice

Vaping 12 tons of ice. 

 

He leapt over the Marauder's fuselage and sprinted towards the molten hell of the wrecked bunker, its walls now flowing like wax across the ground.

Honsou leapt onto the remains of the bunker, his iron-shod boots sinking into the molten rock. The heat scorched his leg armour, but it held firm as he pushed off and dropped into the heart of the defense. 

Scorched and blackened limbs lay strewn about, all that remained of those stationed too close to the bunker, the backwash of the melta had burned flesh and bone to cinders in an instant. Storm of Iron

A man-portable weapon bunker slagger! 

 

All ballistic weapons and any energy weapon above a las-gun will likely kill borg all day long. So IMO guard would absolutely dominate the borg on an infantry level, before we even consider their love for armoured devisions and massed artillery barrages... or 300 ton tanks.   

Without exterminatus, a fleet may bombard a planet for an entire week to ensure total world-wide fatalities, compared to what, minutes in TDiC (assuming just one ship firing)? The shittiest exterminatus I have seen takes a full 24 hours to cause near total world-wide fatalities, still orders of magnitude behind ST. The most destructive cyclonic bombards (short of core busting ultra-rare stuff) take a full 24 hours to melt the entire crust, and might be comparable to a single ship from TDiC. 
So the Borg absolutely dominate in planetary bombardment. 

Because they don't stand a chance on the ground, I think the borg will opt for annihilation from the sky. 

[Khas 12,158]

I did say that the Titans and tanks would quickly turn the tide in the Guard's favor.

 

The only way the Borg would get an advantage in ground combat is if they brought assimilated Starfleet photon grenades, as seen in TOS' "Arena":

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Grenade_launcher

 

1200 yards was considered "a little close" when using one of them, and even at that range, Kirk and co. still got hit by some debris.

[Vince 520]

Drones are typically hand to hand combatants that rely on overwhelming numbers and impunity to small-arms to win. In Star Trek they don't have the heavy weapons in every platoon that could kill borg by the dozen(s), where as the Guard do. That mortar fired bomb would kill a lot of men i, but it wouldn't destroy reinforced bunkers, or tanks (which have withstood explosions powerful enough to lift them through the air and continue to fight). To kill a very tough bunker or a tank, that bomb would have to penetrate through the armour first. And what about all the combat taking place at less than 1200 yards?

Watch this video and imagine it were borg instead of orks, imagine how many borg would die in the march toward the marines. 

I do assume borg would adapt the use of their own pulse-phasers wrist mounted though, i just don't think it will be enough against the superior diversity of guard small arms, and the tanks. 

[Khas 12,158]

A ton of drones.  But the Space Marines are the elite of the elite.  And considering the bog-standard guardsman uses a las-rifle, it will only be a matter of time before the average drone adapts.  After all, a laser beam is just light, and all light has a frequency.  As for other weapons, conceded.

 

As for the tanks, I'm really sure I said that that was an IG advantage.  Overall, the Borg could only hope to strike form orbit.

 

Unless, they do what the Borg Queen planned to do in "Dark Frontier", which was where they would release a virus into a planet's atmosphere, and watch as the population is assimilated.  Or, they could just use those mines to spread Borg nanoprobes across multiple systems.  Borg-assimilated Titans would scare Chaos forces.

 

As for the Guard fighting some of the most terrifying foes in all of sci-fi, I can think of a few more terrifying.  The Imperium would be utterly screwed if they fought just a few teams from "Strike Legion".  This is a setting where the basic hand grenades have the power to blow up the planet their user is standing on.  I'm serious.  And it only goes up from there.

[Afishymeadow 534]

Just MAKE SURE Damon Lindelof DOESN'T write the story for this Verse!

[Vince 520]

Thats a very good point Khas, the ability to both bombard and assimilate from space could be a major advanatage here, overcoming the Imperiums overwhelming advantages on the ground.

 

So while the Imperium looses planetary populations to the Borgs space assets, the Borg are actually growing in number and resources. Of-course, relizing the dire threat the borg represent, the Imperium will likely go for all out extermination of Borg held worlds or what not. Using week to month long bombardments OR less than a day exterminatus to wipe out entire planets.

 

An Imperium force may arrive in system within weeks of it being attack, this force may be up to a few dozen ships perhaps, or a handfull of battleships. This fleet has enough firepower to lay waste to an entire planet in days using conventional munitions, no technobabble.

 

So we're talking about up to dozens of warships in defence within weeks, and maybe a similar amount of non-ftl defense ships already in system. How many borg cubes may attack a world, and how long would it take them to get what they need from that world?

 

This might be a difficult qustion, but how fast can the borg react to a planet being attacked and how many ships will they bring? I say this is a difficult qustion because we never see it. The most cubes we have ever seen was like a couple of dozen iirc, fleeing from the bioships. Maybe we could extrapolate from (assuming 1 cube 1 planet) their FTL speed. Or we could assume parity with the Feds, which would mean like weeks or months (too long).

The IoM depending on the defensive capability of the borg may organize many fleets of dozens of ships, or a couple of crusade fleets numbering thousands of ships. Either way we can assume they take months to get between planets.

 

The IoM has a million planets, the Borg have thousands. This makes the IoM a much tougher opponent. The IoM fleet has tens of thousands of warships, the Borg perhaps thousands, BUT, the IoM must spread its forces more finely to defend, while the Borg can (depending on their FTL) gather forces more easily.

Finnaly, we know Borg cubes can endure many many megatons of explosive force and maybe thermal energy, but could they withstand several hundred megatons of KE, like that delivered from a single heavy cannon (a IoM cruiser can have like eight of them too!)?

I'll try an do some research at some point for any of the unknowns.