Foxbat wrote:Assuming the Borg find something distinctive enough to assimilate, I would think the assimilation of the Jem'Hadar to not be too difficult, using technology to get around or replace the Ketrecel dependency. Once they get a transwarp hub up and running that spills out into the Gamma Quadrant, I think the tide would turn on the Dominion pretty quick.
Teaos wrote:The Dominion like the Borg have the ability to have vast numbers at their command and replace losses very fast. Also it appears that the borg don't attack on mass so the dominion should be able to repel them rather well. They wouldn't win and take teritory but they wouldn't lose.
Yep. I submit that the Borg might not find it worth the effort to assimilate. They can be brutally rational and calculating, so if they would gain only a little technology (which could be gained after just assimilating a few ships, by the way), but if they tried to conquer them it would be extremely costly.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
True the borg don't tend to destroy a civilisation for the hell of it they only do it in defence.
The Dominion could repel them rather well.
I think the borg would only go for the kill if they were at risk.
What does defeat mean to you?
Nothing it will never come. Death before defeat. I don’t bend or break. I end, if I meet a foe capable of it. Victory is in forcing the opponent to back down. I do not. There is no defeat.
The only way I can see a war between them happening is if the Dominion starts expanding into borg space.
What is the status of the borg after Voyager? Or do we know?
"You've all been selected for this mission because you each have a special skill. Professor Hawking, John Leslie, Phil Neville, the Wu-Tang Clan, Usher, the Sugar Puffs Monster and Daniel Day-Lewis! Welcome to Operation MindFuck!"
The borgs abbility to travel is crippled at least in part of the galaxy but they still hold all of their space. I doubt the Founders are dum enough to pick a battle with the Borg.
What does defeat mean to you?
Nothing it will never come. Death before defeat. I don’t bend or break. I end, if I meet a foe capable of it. Victory is in forcing the opponent to back down. I do not. There is no defeat.
Good point.
Especially after an extended war with the Alpha quadrant.
"You've all been selected for this mission because you each have a special skill. Professor Hawking, John Leslie, Phil Neville, the Wu-Tang Clan, Usher, the Sugar Puffs Monster and Daniel Day-Lewis! Welcome to Operation MindFuck!"
Appart from the illness I don't think we did that much damage to them. we only had a small portion of their total fleet here and we only destoryed part of that.
What does defeat mean to you?
Nothing it will never come. Death before defeat. I don’t bend or break. I end, if I meet a foe capable of it. Victory is in forcing the opponent to back down. I do not. There is no defeat.
Forgot about that. Maybe they'll just be a bit more cautious about who they attack from now on.
"You've all been selected for this mission because you each have a special skill. Professor Hawking, John Leslie, Phil Neville, the Wu-Tang Clan, Usher, the Sugar Puffs Monster and Daniel Day-Lewis! Welcome to Operation MindFuck!"
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
"You've all been selected for this mission because you each have a special skill. Professor Hawking, John Leslie, Phil Neville, the Wu-Tang Clan, Usher, the Sugar Puffs Monster and Daniel Day-Lewis! Welcome to Operation MindFuck!"
It's worth repeating that the the Allies did NOT defeat the Dominion. They defeated - or would have defeated - that fraction of the Dominion forces which had been put into the Alpha Quadrant.
How big a fraction that is, we can't know. Personally I doubt it was more than, say, 10% of the fleet. If something like half the Dominion's total fleet had been sent through the wormhole and then cut off, it would have had mighty serious repurcussions back home. Yet the Dominion was not only still standing, but standing ready and waiting with thousands of ships when the minefield was lifted. And apparently the total loss of THAT fleet didn't cause the Dominion to fall or anything, either.
None of that is really conclusive, but since we know the Dominion fleet in the Alpha Quadrant was something like 10,000 strong (given the quote in 'Tacking Into the Wind' that 1,500 Klingon ships will be outnumbered 20 to 1 by the combined Jem'Hadar, Cardassian and Breen fleets), it seems fairly clear to me that the total Dominion fleet must be on the order of 100,000 plus.
But then, according to Chakotay in Scorpion the Borg have millions of cubes. I really don't think a Dominion fleet of one or two hundred thousand is more than a temporary inconvenience to that.
Give a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a day. SET a man on fire, and you will keep him warm for the rest of his life...
Good point on the Dominion, I had forgoten about that.
It would all depend on the borgs tactics though. If they used the same tactics (or rather, lack of) as they did against the federation I can see the Dominion beating a cube back. If it was a full scale war however...
"You've all been selected for this mission because you each have a special skill. Professor Hawking, John Leslie, Phil Neville, the Wu-Tang Clan, Usher, the Sugar Puffs Monster and Daniel Day-Lewis! Welcome to Operation MindFuck!"
GrahamKennedy wrote:But then, according to Chakotay in Scorpion the Borg have millions of cubes.
We can't really take Chakotay's off-the-cuff remark as a firm measure of Borg strength. He was, after all making a generalisation that "the Borg are very strong", and in the event when Voyager encountered a Borg system it was defended by only a few cubes. Later, in part 2, an 8472 incursion inflicts losses of 8 planets and 312 cubes, suggesting dozens rather than thousands of vessels per planet. The fact that a couple of dozen such attacks could bring the collective to its knees means that the Borg simply cannot have such vast numbers of ships at their disposal.
I Dominon could never defeat the Borg but with there power to produce huge numbers of soilders and ships they could repel with all but the most massive attack. Anything bellow 5 cubes could be taken I think.
What does defeat mean to you?
Nothing it will never come. Death before defeat. I don’t bend or break. I end, if I meet a foe capable of it. Victory is in forcing the opponent to back down. I do not. There is no defeat.
GrahamKennedy wrote:But then, according to Chakotay in Scorpion the Borg have millions of cubes.
We can't really take Chakotay's off-the-cuff remark as a firm measure of Borg strength. He was, after all making a generalisation that "the Borg are very strong", and in the event when Voyager encountered a Borg system it was defended by only a few cubes. Later, in part 2, an 8472 incursion inflicts losses of 8 planets and 312 cubes, suggesting dozens rather than thousands of vessels per planet. The fact that a couple of dozen such attacks could bring the collective to its knees means that the Borg simply cannot have such vast numbers of ships at their disposal.
The attacks themselves did not bring the Borg to their knees; the prospect of continued warfare against 8472 did. If the Borg knew they couldn't possibly defeat 8472, but had only suffered .1% losses, they still would have tried to find any way to avert further conflict.
Think about it like this: say I have a gun and 100,000 rounds of ammunition, and someone's coming at me with a main battle tank. If I fire one shot and see that it just ricochets off the armour, I know that firing all of my rounds won't do anything either, so I run even though I have hardly expended any ammunition and haven't been injured yet.
GrahamKennedy wrote:But then, according to Chakotay in Scorpion the Borg have millions of cubes.
We can't really take Chakotay's off-the-cuff remark as a firm measure of Borg strength. He was, after all making a generalisation that "the Borg are very strong", and in the event when Voyager encountered a Borg system it was defended by only a few cubes. Later, in part 2, an 8472 incursion inflicts losses of 8 planets and 312 cubes, suggesting dozens rather than thousands of vessels per planet. The fact that a couple of dozen such attacks could bring the collective to its knees means that the Borg simply cannot have such vast numbers of ships at their disposal.
I really don't see why we would discard Chakotay's statement, though. Just because it was an off the cuff remark, that doesn't mean it has to be wildly inaccurate.
For instance, if I was talking about how large the American Navy was I would say they have "hundreds of ships." Nobody who was even slightly knowledgeable would say they had hundreds of thousands or millions of ships when they clearly don't. To me, an off the cuff remark like that certainly isn't likely to be spot on, but it definitely would be in the ballpark.
As for how many cubes were at those planets; we don't know what fraction of cubes hang around planets as opposed to being in deep space. Nor do I remember anything about "dozens" of such attacks; why dozens? Why not hundreds? Or thousands?
And I'm with I Am Spartacus; wars often change on a single engagement not because it is a devastating loss in itself, but because of what it demonstrates about the relative capabilities of the forces. If my wooden sailing ship encounters a WWII battleship, I know I'm in trouble the moment the first broadside bounces off its armour. I don't need to sacrifice half my fleet to know I'm screwed.
Give a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a day. SET a man on fire, and you will keep him warm for the rest of his life...
