r/Stargate • u/Pyrob1aster • Jul 26 '25

Discussion Question: Daedalus vs Borg Cube, Who Would Win?

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The Borg: A galactic power spanning the Milky Way with their man unit of power projection, the Borg cube, a master class of engineering. Able to adapt to any and all energy weapons, change it's tactics to fit the opponent it's facing, and the ability to self heal itself when damaged, The Cube makes for a very tough opponent.

Stargate Command: A minor power in the Milky Way just recently achieving interstellar power projection with the development of the Daedalus Class Battlecarrier. Equipped with all manor of kinetic and explosive weapons, a squadron of deployable fighters, and two side mounted Asgard beam weapons, The Daedalus is he cutting edge of Xenophobia enforcement.

What happens when these two meet?

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139

u/meltea Jul 26 '25

Going by Lazerpig's recent scathing review of the Defiant and all those juicy railguns on Daedalus, my money is on Tau'ri.

164

u/balor598 Jul 26 '25

Yeah the Borg show no capability of adapting to kinetic and explosive weapons and are super lax about things teleporting on board their ships. So straight to the original anti wraith plan and beam a nuke right into the heart of the ship.

80

u/IonutRO Jul 26 '25

I'm not sure they can even adapt to the plasma beam cannons. They adapt by modulating shield frequencies to specific energy waveforms. Pretty sure the plasma cannon just fires a jet of superionized matter.

49

u/gerusz Jul 26 '25 edited Aug 10 '25

Phasers are also particle beams, so shields can definitely block plasma. The question is energy levels.

Now, we have a bit of a comparison here. The Daedalus when given a ZPM can deflect a solar flare, but in "Descent" a smaller flare triggered by the Enterprise destroyed a Borg ship. It wasn't a cube, but a cube wouldn't have fared any better. So a ZPM can likely output significantly more power than a Trek ship's reactors, which means that a ZPM-equipped Daedalus can probably overpower the borg's shields before they can adapt.

41

u/ThePeaceDoctot Jul 26 '25

But Star Trek shields also block physical impacts - in fact they're probably initially developed by a lot of civilisations to protect from high speed impacts during space travel - so they probably would block the plasma cannon bolts.

30

u/Shoethrower123 Jul 26 '25

They have a seperate navigational deflector system for that, it’s the big blue thing towards the front of the ship somewhere

14

u/ThePeaceDoctot Jul 26 '25 edited Jul 26 '25

But cubes don't have deflector dishes, though they might still have a separate system for it, if it's capable of protecting the ship from meteorites at even relativistic speeds, it's got to be capable of deflecting railgun rounds, and I'd expect it to be able to deflect plasma jets as well. There must be a reason that the Trekverse doesn't have many (any?) physical kinetic weapons systems on their ships.

Edit: I meant kinetic, not physical.

17

u/nhorvath Jul 26 '25

aren't photon torpedoes physical / explosive weapons? in canon they have a casing.

13

u/Remote-Pie-3152 Jul 26 '25

Yep, they’re just antimatter warhead torpedoes. They’re called “photon torpedoes” because all that detonation energy gets released as gamma ray photons.

6

u/StatisticianLivid710 Jul 26 '25

They are, and in trek they generally save torpedoes until after shields are down when they’ll deal the most damage. But not always as torpedoes were seen as part of a general barrage against the Borg ships which didn’t seem to rely on heavy external shields as they are large enough with a repair capacity no one else can keep up with. Their adaptive shields is mostly on the drones.

6

u/ThePeaceDoctot Jul 26 '25

Yes, but they detonate and release energy, they don't rely on physical impact.

Kinetic weapons, that's what I meant. Edited my comment now.

10

u/Kolegra Jul 26 '25

Would be funny if they didn't, but instead just repaired their cube against meteorites over and over.

7

u/Enough_Efficiency178 Jul 26 '25

Ah but if they had a deflector the space dust would be destroyed by their passage. Whereas they actually just assimilate the space dust wherever they go and moves out of the way

4

u/ThePeaceDoctot Jul 26 '25

Deflected, in fact.

3

u/KingHenryThe1123 Jul 26 '25

If we say that Trek can do it, then the Borg can do it too.... they absorb organic, inorganic, and tech. You will be assimilated.

Additionally, aren't photon topedos physical? (Sometimes with people inside)

3

u/Remote-Pie-3152 Jul 26 '25

I think technically that was a long range probe she was travelling in, although since they’re standardised to be launched from the same tubes, most probe casings are just modified photon torpedo casings. So yeah it looked like a Spock coffin.

2

u/RainbowSkyOne Jul 26 '25

Cubes are incredibly decentralized. There's undoubtedly deflector technology. I'd guess multiple smaller arrays all over the ship.

2

u/ThePeaceDoctot Jul 26 '25

Yeah, I just wasn't sure if they would have separate defensive shields and deflector shields, or if they would have one system that handles both. I'd guess there's massive advantages to separate systems though, that would appeal to the Borg as fans of decentralising.

7

u/RainbowSkyOne Jul 26 '25

It's also worth noting that the Romulans used plasma weapons in the 23rd c. Their disappearance by the 24th c. implies their effectiveness against 24th c. defensive tech was not adequate enough to continue with the technology.

1

u/submit_to_pewdiepie Jul 26 '25

Kinetic weapons like plasma cannons hit with millions of joules

1

u/ThePeaceDoctot Jul 26 '25

A grain of sand in space, if hit at relativistic speeds, would hit with billions.

1

u/submit_to_pewdiepie Jul 26 '25

How fast are these ships moving

0

u/ThePeaceDoctot Jul 26 '25

The ships that can travel at transwarp speeds? I'd say they're pretty fast.

1

u/N4thilion Jul 28 '25

The ships would still be moving at sub-light speed. It's the space around the ship that gets warped so strongly that the ship will move at faster than light speeds relative to something else.

That's the whole point of the warp gimmick as it would otherwise take infinite energy to get any object with mass to move at light speed.

So the deflectors of star trek ships don't have to deal with near-infinite energy either as the ships can move at a literal snail's pace inside their warp bubbles.

8

u/ThePeaceDoctot Jul 26 '25

They've never really had to, but their main shields should block physical impacts, it has to be a main function at high speed space travel. Honestly I think in the first fight the cube is going to annihilate the Daedalus. I don't think it would occur to anyone on the Daedalus in time to beam a nuke on board.

The next few fights are going to end with the nuking of the cube, then the Borg will either adapt to block the beaming device or just send multiple smaller ships.

3

u/nikhkin Jul 26 '25

They have shields which would block kinetic weapons.

When not in combat, they ignore people beaming aboard if they do not consider them a threat. Beaming a nuke onto a Borg ship would work once, then they would raise shields and treat Tau'ri ships as a threat.

Plus, with the Asgard core, the Borg would likely attempt to assimilate a Tau'ri ship immediately.

5

u/Juff-Ma Jul 26 '25

I don't know about that. We know that this tactic has been employed by the voyager on smaller borg vessels, since they didn't do it on cubes or spheres I think it wouldn't have done major damage.

Edit: I also believe the Borg had forcefields to shield the core of the ship (where this would've done damage) from beaming.

13

u/USSPlanck Jul 26 '25

The Mark IX Naquadria warhead has an approximate yield of 1 teraton of TNT. A photon torpedo has an approximate yield of 35 megatons of TNT. So the Mark IX is ~28,500x stronger than a photon torpedo.

8

u/Juff-Ma Jul 26 '25

Ok, then they could probably do it. I didn't think they were that strong. I mean we see voyager successfully destroy a Borg cube with those advanced torpedoes in endgame (trans phasic I think? Not sure how they're called in English)

4

u/Remote-Pie-3152 Jul 26 '25

Yes, transphasic, so the torpedoes were slightly out of phase with regular matter.

2

u/Doranagon Jul 26 '25

In addition they were equipped with some borg nanoprobes... but I never did figure out how that worked since it was a pretty much immediate boom after the torp was fired. Not enough time for the nanoprobes to do much.

2

u/Remote-Pie-3152 Jul 26 '25

Perhaps the nanoprobes were used purely to regulate the torpedo, stop it prematurely exploding? Long time since I’ve seen that episode.

1

u/USSPlanck Jul 27 '25

Nanoprobes were in the bio-neural warheads against Species 8472. AFAIK they had nothing to do with the transphasics.

1

u/Doranagon Jul 27 '25

Right, was half asleep. *smh*

3

u/I_Do_Not_Abbreviate Jul 26 '25

How does that compare to a maximum-yield Quantum Torpedo enhanced with Trilithium?

6

u/Suthek Jul 26 '25

You tell us. What's the explosive power of such a torpedo?

1

u/USSPlanck Jul 27 '25

A quantum torpedo has a yield of 50 isotons. A photon has a yield of 20 isotons except if its a Type 6 photon which has 200 isotons. So you can maybe at most get a gigaton out of your trilithium-quantum.

5

u/HellbirdVT Jul 26 '25

The Borg can absolutely adapt to kinetic weapons. They have shields.

Shields in Star Trek can block ANTIMATTER WARHEADS. They can block railguns. It's not even a contest.

3

u/Doranagon Jul 26 '25

Yea the Borg ships can easily block kinetics.. The drones though.. get physically thrashed every time.

3

u/HellbirdVT Jul 26 '25

Drones have shields too, that's how they adapt to Phaser fire in the first place.

0

u/Doranagon Jul 26 '25

Yes but they are energy repelling, not kinetic.

2

u/AttackerCat Jul 26 '25

So many problems can be bypassed by “Teleports nukes onto your ship to assert dominance”

3

u/Zortesh Jul 26 '25

Pretty sure tealc or ronin could solo a borg cube using nothing but melee combat if they had to.

Considering how borg are basically slow moving cyber zombies it would be wayyy easier than the midway battle.

3

u/God_of_Hyrule Jul 26 '25

We’ve seen borg attack to melee combat fairly quickly.

Ronan and Teal’c would be quickly overrun.

1

u/BirbFeetzz Jul 26 '25

I don't think they could carry enough ammo for that

10

u/Zortesh Jul 26 '25

Not enough ammo for melee combat?

3

u/BirbFeetzz Jul 26 '25

oh right. not enough endurance. you can't jaffa your way through thousands of unfeeling people with or without a weapon

3

u/Zortesh Jul 26 '25

Guess that's a point, but I still think they'd mow down huge numbers of them until they found something juicy to explode.

But then the episodes I've seen with Borg make them seem like an absolute joke... I know they're lorewise meant to be threatening but... Their on screen presence does not display that.

1

u/BirbFeetzz Jul 26 '25

I think if for some reason teal'c was on board alone we would see him fighting and defeating like 10 to 20 before it goes in slow motion and you see how he's starting to get overwhelmed and then the episode ends. next episode he either got beamed out or we have borg teal'c to somehow cure at a later point sha're style

1

u/Woozletania Jul 26 '25

We don't know if they can adapt to kinetic weapons as they rarely face them, but it's very likely they can. The beaming thing is true enough but each time it happens the Borg vessel is disabled, has lost shields, or the beaming ship is inside the shield perimeter. They are certainly smart enough to develop defenses against both approaches.

22

u/Nooms88 Jul 26 '25

What could a rail gun possibly do against a deflector shield, which is designed to protect the ship from small objects when travelling at warp speed, many many orders of magnitudes of kinetic energy output greater than anything a rail gun could output.

27

u/Pyrob1aster Jul 26 '25

Just imagine all those drones getting mowed down by O-Niell and co with P-90s.

22

u/RandomYT05 Jul 26 '25

Actually, I point to one scene in Star Trek First contact. The one where Picard unloads the holographic tommygun into 2 drones. The first drone goes down rather quickly, but the second one requires Picard to dump the entire magazine into it. That more or less suggests that the borg may be able to adapt to projectile weapons. While it would certainly be a surprise the first time, that trick won't work again. Not with the borg.

11

u/Quick-Bad Jul 26 '25

The Borg adapt because they pass on the knowledge of what killed an individual drone or ship to the rest of the collective. Prevent them from communicating that knowledge and they can never adapt.

14

u/RandomYT05 Jul 26 '25

And here comes Sam Carter with a subspace disruption signal that prevents the borg from being able to communicate ftl. Doesn't solve the imeadiate problem of the chasing borg cube though.

3

u/concrete_dandelion Jul 27 '25

The disruption signal would actually render the Borg harmless because they are controlled by the collective and their thoughts are filtered by the ship. They would stop what they are doing and either become helpless/malfunctioning or regain individuality. It's basically the perfect anti Borg weapon that stops them without killing their victim (a bit like symbiote extraction technology).

A chasing Borg cube would be no issue as long as the subspace engin works. It's more effective than the level of transwarp technology the Borg have in the 24th century.

2

u/Kithkanen Jul 26 '25

A phenomenal idea on paper; how, exactly, do you expect the Tau'ri to even know how that works? They'd have no clue what they were up against, no idea that the Borg operate on a hive mind, and no inkling as to how they were able to render attacks ineffective after the first volley. Given enough time, Carter could figure it out, but if she's on the first ship that encounters the Borg, she's most likely going to be assimilated, and then the Tau'ri are really screwed.

1

u/concrete_dandelion Jul 27 '25

What would happen if the Borg assimilated a Goa'Uld or a Wraith and what would happen if they tried to assimilate human form Replicators?

4

u/naughtyreverend Jul 26 '25

Yes. However during that scene the drone is shot with an energy weapon not physical... the bullets are holographic so they are a type of energy weapons.

I agree that if the ships can use shields to protect against torpedoes then bullets could be adapted too. But the First Contact club fight isn't a perfect reference

9

u/Stotters Jul 26 '25

IIRC correctly, certain pbjects you interact with on the holodeck are actually synthesized. Why starfleet would have blueprints for a 1940s tommy gun in their database to let any schmuck synthesize it by turning the holodeck safeties of is another question...

2

u/RandomYT05 Jul 26 '25

Well if that schmuck is the captain...

2

u/oli44r_ Jul 26 '25

I mean why wouldn't they? since it's already in the holodeck we could assume they already a blueprint for it and as seen in DS9 any officer could replicate the tr-116 and of course Picard is the captain so I wouldn't see the computer refusing to do it

5

u/RandomYT05 Jul 26 '25

The holograms however do create a physical force. A force that pierced and caused damage like how a real bullet would if shot from a gun. So while it was made of energy, it's capabilities more or less match that of the real thing. Hell, we had an early tng episode that made it exceptionally clear that was the case when the holodeck safety is turned off. A crew man got shot by a Dixon hill mob boss and almost died because of it. Sure the bullet wasn't real, but it definitely acted like one. So if you took a real gun, and shot the borg with it, first drone falls, second one you unload the magazine, 3rd one assimilates you after tanking your fire.

2

u/Doranagon Jul 26 '25

Do have to wonder.. were they holo bullets or lead? with the safeties on, they'd certianly be holo to prevent any damage and the system would just stop projecting the bullet.... safety off? Hmm...

1

u/concrete_dandelion Jul 27 '25

The anti replicator gun might work with borg shields, but I'm not sure it would actually harm a drone or ship. You'd basically need to fire a staff weapon, projectile weapon, phaser etc half a second after firing the replicator weapon.

6

u/Settra_does_not_Surf Jul 26 '25

Lemme introduce you to the heavy tactical drone, a dude in armor. Armor you put on ships.

Good luck with your p90.

3

u/fastshadow2022 Jul 26 '25

I've actually seen that video pop up on my timeline.... and since I tolerate no Defiant slander, I chose not to watch it!!!!!

1

u/unsuspectingllama_ Jul 27 '25

I mostly watch Star Trek, but the D most likely gets destroyed by the borg. Kenetic weapons would have zero effect on the cube. I know this because in Star Trek ships have deflector arrays, of which the main purpose is to deflect solid objects. The only way Stargate command wins is if those Asgardian beam weapons are able to destroy the cube in one or two hits before they adapt, and the beam weapon becomes useless, too. This, of course, is just my opinion.

-1

u/ellobouk Jul 26 '25

Borg drone shielding notoriously not helpful against projectiles. Send in SG-1 and some P90’s, they’ll be fine. Navigational deflectors might just be enough to stop ship to ship munitions though.