I heard an answer to this on a podcast once,
The deathstar could easily one shot a cube, but they would never be able to do it again, because the borg adapt
If the cube is wiped in a single shot, there might not be enough borg left with enough data to adapt. They aren't adapting magically, they are able to analyze the shot and adjust their shields to block shots.
Ill bet, if they could sneak up on some cubes they could pop a few before the Borg really got wise.
I imagine the first cube would get some drones on the Death Star before being destroyed. It would take some time to assimilate the whole thing, so the Death Star might be able to take a few more cubes before being too far gone, but my guess is the first (or maybe second if the Death Star was lucky) cube would be the end of it.
Fair point, either way the borg always win in the end
WE WILL ADD YOUR BIOLOGICAL UNIQUENESS TO OUR… WAIT, YOU'RE ALL IDENTICAL? WTAF??
Sigh — please kill me…
Actually, at that point in the empire, 0BBY stormtroopers were no longer clones
If you lined up and infinite number of Borg cubes in a straight line, how many of them would a single shot of the Death Star destroy before they could adapt? 🤔
Are we just not going to talk about the fact that the cube is made of Legos?
WE NEVER TALK ABOUT THAT. 😣
Well the borg know some of the most deadly items in existence are legos so obviously they’ll add that weapon to their arsenal.
The Borg cube would find the inherent flaw in the Death Star and exploit it. Borg cubes can't be destroyed easily just through weapons fire because they're self-repairing and have adaptive shielding.
So all the Borg needs is a superstar flyboy hero type in a little one manned spacecraft with a little energetic torpedo to fly an impossible space battle against thousands of TIE fighters, fire his way to the Death Stars surface, fire his torpedo in an exact location and blow up the entire thing on his own.
If you go by the screenshots of the movie when it shot Alderaan, the laser blast would envelope the entire cube.
This came up a few months ago, and I wasted most of a day figuring it out. Here's a compilation of what I said at the time:
The Borg's main advantage is its ability to counter energy weapons. They do this with the Adaptive Shield Matrix:
All phasers are generated on a particular subspace phase compression pulse frequency, whilst torpedo warheads all possess their own shielding which also possesses its own subspace phase compression pulse frequency. Adaptive Shielding works by remodulating the shields to the identical subspace compression pulse frequency of torpedos and phasers...
So, it seems like the Borg's sheilds adapt to the subspace pulse frequencies of phasers and torpedos. Phasers are a type particle weapon that Gene Roddenberry made up when he realized lasers didn't work the way he thought they did, and they don't really have much basis in the real world like lasers or plasma weapons do. The problem is that 99% of the weapons in Star Wars are plasma weapons, except for the Death Star cannon, which is a laser.
Since the Adaptive Shield Matrix specifically works by adapting to subspace frequencies, there's really no reason to think that their shields would have a distinct advantage over lasers or plasma bolts the way they do phasers. Star Fleet seems to agree, as they theorized plasma phasers would be effective weapons against the Borg in Best of Both Worlds. Picard was also able to easily kill several Borg with hard-light bullets in First Contact, further demonstrating their inability to counter non-phaser weapons.
It also doesn't seem like the Borg have an innate ability to adapt to enemy weapons. Aside from only countering phaser weapons, the rotating-frequency strategy was pretty effective throughout TNG and First Contact. It seems more like that Adaptive Shield Matrix was just a piece of technology they assimilated rather than an intrinsic ability to counter attacks.
So, if the Borg shields don't nullify the Death Star's weapons like they do Star Trek weapons, and they don't have a special ability to counter enemy attacks, this just comes down firepower. The superlaser should be able to destroy any Borg cube multiple times, and even without the superlaser, they're massively outgunned. This is 3000 meter ship against a 75 mile wide battle station. Even if the 10,000 turbolaser, 2,500 laser cannons, 2,500 ion cannons can't overpower them (and by the way, it sounds like those, "lasers," are actually plasma weapons according to wookiepedia, because of course Star Wars can't be consistent), and the 768 tractor beam projectors can't immobilize the cube, the 7,000 individual tie fighters would probably overwhelm the it. Hell, if the Death Star is faster, they could probably just smash into them and still survive the damage.
I think the Death Star has this by a mile. I hate to admit it, but I don't see a win condition for the Borg here.
The Borg would want that technology so after that first cube is destroyed they'd be back with enough firepower to overwhelm the shields and get drones on board. Even if they lost a couple of hundred cubes it would likely be worthwhile.
The Borg have several trillions of drones many thousands to millions of vessels. They can go full Russia tactics with capturing the death star if needed.
If this is the first death star though, they'd just beam some drones aboard while it was busy destroying them.
There were small gaps in the shields of the first Death Star; the Empire believed that this was harmless since only small ships could wiggle through the gaps.
If a small ship can get through then a transporter beam is definitely getting through.
Yeah, the Borg hordes would overwhelm the Death Star. The last time this was posed was as a single Borg Cube vs. the Death Star, so I'm assuming that's what OP was asking.
I don't really see how a boarding party is going to help them much, though. Stormtroopers aren't the most competent soldiers, but Borg aren't going to be better protected from the plasma in their Blasters than the Cube is from the Death Star's plasma and laser weapons. It's possible they could assimilate someone with strategic knowledge of the station or find something useful in their computers, but they're going to get wrecked before they can pull that off. The cube is also too big to get through the Death Star shields, so they can't use the exhaust port trick to blow it up.
I mean, after being shot through by the death stars laser weapon, the borg would launch their time travel device so as to go back and include some ridiculous vulnerability in the death stars plans that they could then take advantage of. Say, like a single vent shaft that ran from the outside of the fort all the way to it's power source 🤣 I also imagine they would be able to get drones aboard. however, I could also see the hivemind being vulnerable to force manipulation tactics. A larger consciousness might be harder to sway, but the power of Darth Vader can't be summarily dismissed in this capacity. I think Darth would attempt to control them.
Yeah, I suppose time travel could win them the day, but that feels like cheating. I'm not sure boarding party would do much better. Those personal shields the Borg have are...weird. They stop phaser fire like a ships shields, but they don't stop physical objects (for example, Mr. Worf's fists) like a regular shield. But there's no reason to believe that they would stop plasma bolts from a Blaster, so there's no reason to think a Borg boarding party would get wrecked by a barrage of (admittedly inaccurate) Stormtrooper fire before they could do much damage. Plus the Cube would probably get destroyed before they could send more than one or two waves of drones over.
Death Star might win the battle, but the Borg win the war
The first cube is obviously dead. But the Borg will send a decent amount of cubes next time, and even if the shields on the death star can block beaming will have them down and drones on board before every cube is gone.
After that the Borg have a super sphere.
I don’t think even Borg shields can adapt to the main weapon on the Death Star. But as you said, they don’t really need to. Send multiple cubes. They don’t even need to beam over. Borg do fine in vacuum, just throw a bunch of drones at the Death Star, they’ll eventually find their way inside.
Yep, the raw power of the death star overcomes shields. But the Borg don't care about loosing multiple ships if the prize is worthwhile.
Thinking about it how quickly can the death star even recharge and fire again after the first shot? If it's not quick then the Borg might only need to sacrifice one cube and a few thousand drones.
Simple. The cube gets one shotted. The Borg Collective, which is linked across subspace, will notice a Cube suddenly going dark. They will send two spheres. The first gets one shotted, as the Death Star is simply too powerful to block its main weapon with adaptium shields. The second sphere beams over drones. The Death Star is assimilated. Resistance is futile. The Borg now have assimilated the technology of a planet killer weapon. Not that it matters. The Borg have the technology to wipe out entire star systems in one go. They choose not to, as that would go against the Identify, Adapt, Assimilate mindset. You can't ascend other species into the Collective if you vaporise them all.
They are in space and the cube can approach from the opposite side of the main weapon. The death star would take a long time to rotate the main weapon at the cube and it can keep moving out of the way.
Cube wins.
Just like first contact. The cube gets one shot, but it only takes one Borg landing on the death star for the station to slowly fall.
Given that Storm Trooper rifles are the most basic-ass laser weapons imaginable and don't even consistently kill a person wearing physical armour, let alone a shield, this battle is over basically the minute the Borg beam over to the Death Star. The cube will be destroyed by the main D.S. gun, but it takes so long to aim and charge that half the station would already be assimilated - or at very least full of laser-immune Borg.
Additional thought: 70%-ish of a Borg cube needs to be destroyed before its distributed system collapses. If the D.S. main gun is too powerful it may just shoot straight through and leave the Cube with enough intact to keep going at least one more shot.
The 2nd death star shoots a cruiser out of the sky in ROTJ so they get at least 1 of the 20,000 borg cubes
They can dial in the power of the death Star shots to match the target.
Who ever lands the first shot. I never believed that adaptable Borg shields couldn't be overwhelmed with enough energy. They just need a big enough wack every time. Eventually, the Borg ship's energy will be depleted.
The Death Star has enough energy to vaporize an entire planet. The only action the Borg has would be to overwhelm the firing rate and land drones to take it over.
Considering since Rouge One, we know the Death Star can fire lower energy blasts, presumably at a higher rate, who knows what rate the DS can take out Borg ships.
The problem is the death star is designed to target planets which can't really dodge out of the way. I imagine aiming the death star takes time and a Borg cube could probably just keep moving and it wouldn't be able to target it.
Which Death Star? Death Star II was shooting down rebel craft pretty quickly. We don't know if Death Star I couldn't.
The Culture.
Well the Empire lacks any OSHA standards so they’d totally miss the change in environmental conditions as the Borg slowly assimilates the station…
Depends how fast the Death Star can traverse. It's built for attacking stationary targets.
It can travel through hyperspace, so it can handle speed, it's maneuverability that will cost it
