Transcription
Tumblr post by arctic-hands:
When I was a teenager and still on Neopets I was part of a pretty big Star Trek guild and eventually became part of its council, with the solemn duty of creating weekly polls. Well one day I created the poll “Which would win in a fight? Borg Cube or Death Star?”. Naturally, since this was a Star Trek guild, the answer was overwhelmingly “Borg Cube”, but someone did have the rationality to point out we were biased.
So I look up a pretty prominent Star Wars guild and message one of their council and ask them to poll the same question and get back to me in a week. They do, and naturally the fuckin geeks said “Death Star”.
So then I look up a Stargate guild and messaged the lead council member, saying the same thing, and they get back to me almost immediately saying that the Death Star would immediately one-shot a Borg Cube but they would never be able to do it again to another Cube. And I took that wisdom back to my guild and we were mollified, and for one moment the Nerd World was peaceful.
Reply from evilsoup:
An image depicting the story of the “Judgment of Solomon”, where Solomon is labelled “stargate fandom”, and the two women are labelled “star trek fandom” and “star wars fandom”. The Star Wars lady is standing grumpily with her hands on her hips, while the Star Trek woman gestures with open arms. Between the two of them, on the floor, is a baby in a wicker basket. Solomon sits over them in judgment.
That’s a good point. Is there any precedent for opening up localized hyperspace channels to just… redirect the energy elsewhere? You wouldn’t need to absorb anything if you can point the laser somewhere where you aren’t. Perhaps to an Imperial planet for bonus points.
Failing that, the borg have a few cubes. They could dispatch them in pairs or have a standby cube within a short hop of some others. If the Death Star pops in, bring in your backup cube. The empire would maybe be able to hit one, but could they recycle the beam to hit two before being overwhelmed?
Considering that years later, Borg couldn’t handle a solar flare when Crusher piloted the Enterprise into a Star’s Corona, the answer is no.
I don’t believe any adaption the Borg have ever displayed could stand up to the energy it takes to vaporize a planet in a single shot.
They also have thousands of disposable fighters, which aren’t nearly as common in the Star Trek universe.
Everyone focuses on the giant death laser… but it’s also a massive garrison. You’d need more than a couple borg ships to overwhelm the death star (assuming a more realistic reaction than what’s shown in New Hope).