this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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chapotraphouse

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 9 months ago (5 children)

i am entertained by both of the universes, but the federation of Star Trek just plain has superior technology by several orders of magnitude. the federation inadvertently creates planet and solar system destroying materials fairly routinely that generally are meant to have some higher scientific purpose, but could 100% be weaponized... as is often the threat when some antagonist finds out about them so their development is tightly controlled.

those two jumped into my mind first, but i'm sure every season of TOS and TNG have some doomsday b.s.

meanwhile, the death star took like generations of theorizing and development by like the smartest guy they could find, a completely unique and entire planet's worth of extremely rare, ancient magic materials, and multiple planets of slave labor to make a single doomsday weapon.

the regular armaments the federation tools around with are basically like the space faring equivalent of what the Garda Síochána roll around with in Ireland, because the whole point is find diplomatic solutions to every conflict and not be a cause for escalation. so like space pepper spray, space batons, and space handcuffs. none of that stuff did anything to the borg except when the borg attacked earth and they put the entire defensive armada on it. generally, they always ended up using some weird ad hoc move like hijacking the hive consciousness or whatever. the borg cubes could travel at warp speeds faster than the flagship of the federation.

there is absolutely no chance "hyperspace" is comparable to Star Trek warp propulsion, because in ST they can use it to do time travel.

star wars fandom weirdos usually try to insist that the size of star wars crafts is somehow correlated with their capability. to me, the imperial fleet is more like the absurd dreadnoughts of the late 19th and early 20th century, that were these relics of a mindset that was obsessed with having the biggest guns firing the biggest shells since that was the big scary technology: the ability to fire a giant shell from far away. in star wars every weapon is basically a laser beam and the variability is scale. even the capital ships and death star are just firing really huge lasers. their whole power is based around their unchallenged control of key areas. in Andor it's characterized as a lazy regime that invites rebellion because it is too arrogant to imagine being opposed.

in ST they are always reprograming torpedos and probes to deliver weird ass payloads of bizarre energy, nanite materials or biologicals. the technology and mindset of the star wars deal always felt like it would have been part of the Eugenics Wars.... some supremacist bozos running around doing lots of genocide and slaughtering, but essentially primitive and limited compared to what the federation science would develop centuries later, after the dark ages.

if there were an honest Borg Cube vs. Death Star, the death star wouldn't even understand what the cube was and be paralyzed by incomprehension when it just sort of drifted there and didn't open fire, engage, or even seem to respond. a handful of drones would be "captured" and brought on board to clumsily interrogate, resulting in the entire station being assimilated in like 36 hours lol. the only weird counter-shit SW has is their space wizards and i bet like one space wizard could kill like 3 borg before the borg would adapt and then assimilate the wizard. then there's Borg Space Wizards around, fuckin' shit up. that would be the most interesting legacy of Borg Cube vs. Moon Laser Base 1969.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (3 children)

then there's Borg Space Wizards around, fuckin' shit up.

This would actually be the interesting part of mashing the two worlds together.

Because the force is inherently non-scientific, it would be interesting to see what an assimilated force user might do. Does the Borg retain the ability to use it? Is it lost? Do dark and light force users react the same way?

Does the force gain sentience, essentially using the Borg as it's limbic system? Does the federation start to develop ForceTech and scientize humanity's relationship with the force?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

The force is either consciousness interacting either the fundamental universe at a Quantum level. Or as some star wars stories would have it the force is a lovecraftian artificial intelegence that exists in somekind of subspace that can interact in the universe through a few specific types of exotic paracite. Midiclorians for example. It is unclear which was ment to be the real story or of it matters.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I’m not sure how the Borg assimilates, but unless it can account for an actual mystical property of soul, it would get super fucking weird. I don’t even know how it would go, it would just be incomprehensible.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

Nano-midiclorians

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

The Borg have assimilated at least one Vulcan, and Vulcans have the ability to store and transfer their katra, which are indistinguishable from souls

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Does the force gain sentience

Lots of stuff in canon and from various creators (particularly George Lucas) suggests the force is already conscious and has it's own agenda.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

The Xindi made a planet killer way back in the 2150s, and the one man crew prototype dug a trench from Florida to Venezuela in seconds. That technology is considered primitive by the time the Borg show up.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

I don’t know fuck all about Star Trek but I don’t agree with them being stunned in awe and confusion. These are the close-minded dogs of the Empire, the purest and most heartless sociopaths they could find. I think they might go for the kill just because they don’t know what it is. The Stargate guild had the correct opinion, I think, unless Borg Cubes can withstand the force necessary to destroy an entire planet.

i bet like one space wizard could kill like 3 borg

Counterpoint: Jedi mind trick. Aren’t the borg a hive mind? Could a single mind trick temporarily stun the entire hive, if only once? Would it even bother to adapt if the Jedi that does it doesn’t take the opportunity to do anything hostile? Seems dumb not to, but then, would they be able to without sacrificing visual or auditory processing?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

mind trick only works on weak minded individuals. Very unlikely it works on a vast and sophisticated hivemind with a powerful will

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

Oh, duh. This is where I would bring up the insane bullshit anime tier feats some Jedi or force entities have done in comics or were implied to have done in shows, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to bring that stuff in, and I don’t know much about it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I don’t know fuck all about Star Trek but I don’t agree with them being stunned in awe and confusion. These are the close-minded dogs of the Empire, the purest and most heartless sociopaths they could find.

remember, the empire are basically space fascists. so they're also arrogant in the extreme and the hierarchy is rife with corruption and nepotism, making true leadership abilities among officers rare. they never regard anything as a threat to their power until it's way too late. little dinky cargo ships with some aftermarket upgrades and a clever pilot routinely disable and confound their capital ships. [one of my favorite scenes from Andor, absolutely killer direction and acting]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Also, people don't realize how big the ships of the Federation and their peer civilizations are. The baseline Star Destroyer is 1 km long. A Romulan D'deridex class warbird is 1.3 km long. A Borg cube is 3 km on a side. Yes, the Empire makes much bigger ships than that, culminating in the Death Star, but they always seem to be... more of the same?

Unless the Star Wars galaxy is very small, hyperspace is much faster than normal warp, maybe faster than proto-warp or turn-you-into-salamanders transwarp, maybe comparable to Borg transwarp conduits. But as far as I know, Star Wars ships can't maneuver or fight in hyperspace, and don't have FTL sensors. Which would mean no defense against the Picard Maneuver - except Force precognition. Hope they have Sith tactical officers on every Star Destroyer.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

meanwhile, the death star took like generations of theorizing and development by like the smartest guy they could find, a completely unique and entire planet's worth of extremely rare, ancient magic materials, and multiple planets of slave labor to make a single doomsday weapon.

And they built another one, more than twice as large, very shortly afterwards. And another bigger and more powerful one after that.
Star Wars has tons of planet killing super weapons knocking around, some of which can work from tens of thousands of lightyears away.

but the federation of Star Trek just plain has superior technology by several orders of magnitude

It does more stuff sure, but Star Wars has provided numbers for lots of their ships, weapons and various technologies, and the numbers are far in excess of early-to-mid era star trek. Terrible numbers mind, with seemingly no thought for consistency, but they are canon.

A single star destroyer is enough to liquify the crust of a planet in fairly short order.