Borg invasion

[Mikey]

IU, perhaps the input from the bionic eye is meant to be used in combination with that from the natural eye. In which case, replacing one eye would mean that the information received is correlated as "normal" visual sensory response.

Of course, that's because every single damned sapient species in 'Trek is a humanoid with forward-facing binocular vision...

[Tyyr]

Still, with their abilities it seems like less trouble to simple wire in a third input instead of removing one and grafting a new one into it.

[Lighthawk]

Klingons: Well first they would celebrate, because lets face it, prior to the dominion war, they didn't have much going for them as a warrior race. Hard to call yourself a proud warrior when you spend most of your time puttering around space wishing someone would give you a reason to shoot them. With the war over, that's what the Klingons would have to look forward to, a return to *shutter* peace. So the possible doom of their whole civilization would be something to look forward to, a practical holy war. " Free trips to sto-vo-kor for all involved!"

Anyway, the Klingons would probably win, but their loses would be horrendous. They would swarm the cube under with numbers, taking heavy loses with every wave, but chewing up the cube, probably faster than it could repair itself. It would be an ugly battle, cause lets face it, Klingons will take the brute force approach just about every time if they can. Their only real tatic is cloaking to slip behind their foes, and a Klingon cloak would be about as effective against borg sensors as a 10th level rogue's stealth against an 80 elite (Wow terms just in case someone might not know what I'm talking about)

I doubt they would ever get to hand to hand combat. I know they love to slice enemies up with their swords, but lets face it, even Klingons might be a little hesitant to beam onto a ship while the majority of their fleet is shooting at it. If they really want to be sucidial, they'll probably sooner resort to ramming.

End result: Klingons win the fight, but the cost in lives and ships would be detremental to their empire. C+

Romulans: Tough call on them. Their lack of numbers would be a real blow to their chances, and although their ships are fairly powerful, the borg cube is just so much more powerful that it really cancels out their strategy of building fewer but more powerful ships. Against a force like the borg, it's really better to have numbers. A romulan warbird may be pretty heavily shielded against ships of the other major powers, but against the weapons of the borg, it's a token difference. I look at it like mid-evil warriors facing a modern day combat vehical. Yeah, the heavy armor of mounted knights made it harder for someone to stick a sword in them, but that armor doesn't really mean squat against high speed explosive rounds.

End result: Even if they did win, the aftermath would be the total collapse of their empire. The political backstabbing would begin before the cube's debris even finished cooling off. The empire would quickly be carved into a series of independant kingdoms as every romulan with a desire for power (read: all of them) tried to grab some control. D-

Cardassians: Epic fail. They just don't have the right stuff for this, not enough ships and not strong enough. And in regards to their mech infitranty. Well if they got the chance to face borg drones, yeah they would probably carve them up real good. But given the events of First Contact, orbital bombardment seems a likely tatic of planetary assimalation. Yeah, the sphere was not at all as powerful as a cube, but consider what they were facing, a human race blown nearly to extinction. Yet they still decided to sit in orbit and rain down death from above. I know the borg can be stupidly indifferent to hostile forces, but surely they would at least consider orbital bombardment, seeing as it is an option for them. Against that, the ground forces would be totally fucked.

End result: Barjorans everywhere celebrate. F

Federation: Assuming they have learned anything (which the more militraristic ships they started building seems to suggest), they'll pull off a win. It'll be ugly, and casualties will be high, but they'll do it. They'll do it a lot better if they have the foresight to invite Picard to the fight, so he can do his " I used to be a borg and now can see weak spots in their ships" voodoo.

End result: Another case of good kicking evil's ass regardless of the odds. And as the federation never seems to get hit with lasting consenquences, whatever loses they suffered will be replaced at the next convinant plot point. C+ without Picard's magic eye, B- with it.

Oh and as for the whole removing an eye to jam a device in the socket. Out of universe, yeah it's for the "horror" factor. It's not enough that the borg will rape your mind and steal your soul, they also like to poke out eyes, the bastards! In universe, I imagine they do it that way because the second eye is, for them anyway, redundant. The whole point of binocular vision is to give you greater depth perception. ( Try walking around all day with an eye patch). Well given that even today you can go buy a range finder that'll fit in your pocket, I can say with certainy that the borg could easily compensate for the loss of binocular vision when they pop out that eye, and that they remove just because it'd be more efficent to let some device to that job, and probably a dozen others on top of it. To be honset, I'm surprised they let anyone keep any of their natural eyes, I would sooner expect them to remove both and replace them with superior electronic devices.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

IU, perhaps the input from the bionic eye is meant to be used in combination with that from the natural eye. In which case, replacing one eye would mean that the information received is correlated as "normal" visual sensory response.

Of course, that's because every single damned sapient species in 'Trek is a humanoid with forward-facing binocular vision...

Ah... no. The Horta, at least?

[Tsukiyumi]

IU, perhaps the input from the bionic eye is meant to be used in combination with that from the natural eye. In which case, replacing one eye would mean that the information received is correlated as "normal" visual sensory response.

Of course, that's because every single damned sapient species in 'Trek is a humanoid with forward-facing binocular vision...

Ah... no. The Horta, at least?

TOS Gorn. Compound eyes.

[Sionnach Glic]

Yeah, but what about ENT Gorn?

Welcome to the site, Lighthawk.

[Tyyr]

Gah, we'll just let anyone in here.

[Mikey]

Ah... no. The Horta, at least?

The italics and eye-rolling were to denote hyperbole.

TOS Gorn. Compound eyes.

Yep. and still forward-facing, binocular vision.

Gah, we'll just let anyone in here.

Friend of yours?

[Tyyr]

Yep.

[Lighthawk]

Welcome to the site, Lighthawk.

Thank you, I must say this is a fairly impressive collection of fellow nerds.

And yeah, Tyyr and I know each other through mutual suffering. I proofread his stuff, he proofs mine.

[Tyyr]

Actually he proofreads mine, I give vauge unhelpful comments about his. The thought of me giving pointers on spelling and grammar is laughable.

[Lighthawk]

Well I wasn't going to say anything...

[Tyyr]

Please, fire away. I know I have problems with that stuff.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Ah... no. The Horta, at least?

The italics and eye-rolling were to denote hyperbole.

Sorry, but it denoted more exasperation to me. As if you were sick of it always being the case.

And the Borg have employed tractor beams multiple times to simply 'scoop up' cities and colonies. System J-25, the Neutral Zone colonies, the one at the beginning of BOBW all were tractored up to their ships.

[Mikey]

Were they tractored? I don't remember mention of that - just that the areas in question were decimated, and a crater left. I remember a reference to one site being "as if" it were scooped up, but the remains could indicate destruction as well as abduction.