Gotta love a race who enslaves telepaths, then uses one in each ship as a CPU

B5 SPOILER!!!!

They don't need to use telepaths as their ships. Anyone who has been properly "prepared" can be inserted into a Shadow vessel. They were trying to get some telepaths for their ships because telepaths can disrupt the mental link between ship and operator.

Deathstar might take out a few Crabs but it would simply be overwhemled.

MORE B5 SPOILER!!!!

Why bother sending Shadow Vessles after the DeathStar? Just use the death cloud; the Shadow planet killer.

that good huh? ill have to check it out. though the borg of the books id pit against anyone. they even managed to borg an orgainian. no small feat that

Watch B5 - THEN tell me if you think the Borg would not run away after their first 100 cubes with vivisected by a handful of Shadow Crabs.

I knew the SC: II community was still alive and thriving!

Thanks guys for all the input.

KEEP POSTING!

Oh dear. B5 ships are very fragile by scifi standards (2MT nuke at hundreds of meters destroys Sharlin, et al), and the Shadow death cloud is nothing more advanced than a great big pile of missiles - far less impressive or useful than a 900km, 20,000,000c, planet-exploding starship. It's not necessarily a done thing that the Shadow are superior to the 'lamest villan ever' Borg. The Borg ARE stupid, though, so if the weapon disparity isn't too severe the Shadow could take it with judicious hyper-cloaking.

I think, however, that claiming SC2 'inspiration' for very, very standard races is not a good idea. The Korx are similar to the Druuge? Wow, they're also similar to EVERY MONEY-CENTRIC RACE IN SCIFI EVER. The GalCiv2 races are largely one-notes - like in most TV scifi - so there are always going to be parallels elsewhere.

good god now the trek nerds are gonna bicker that the trek ships are better than then B5 ships, and the b5 nerds are gonna retort....then a SW nnerds is going to say "Well a super star destroyer crewed with jedi would pawn everything."

Well dammit....

CHMMR pawns ALL and if you dont know what a CHMMR then you know nothing of Sci Fi

*snort*

Knute, we clearly need some vs threads here. However, it *is* possible to compare sci-fi universes (and unfortunately, the short range of Chmmr weapons makes them less than optimal )... and 2 megaton at several hundred meters is pretty poor. As you say, modern strategic warheads are that powerful. Even Star Treks' weapons can do better than that.... and Star Wars weapons are so much more powerful it's not funny.

I must prove my nerd-status, however, by pointing out that ST books are totally worthless, being non-canon. Further, the Borg may have defeated piles of ships in BoBW, but in First Contact the Borg were destroyed by conventional Federation weapons... so clearly the military developments in between were effective. Erm, I know too much about nerd stuff.

On the CHMMR:
Even IF the Chmmr is somewhat slow and has a short range gun it doesn't freakin matter. The tractor beam will bring even biggest of ships in range. And then the only weapon that could break through it's perimeter defense were the Khor-Ah blades of ultimate destruction. But if we realize these blades of ultimate destruction are very unrealistic(even for SC:II) then we must come to the logical conclusion that the Chmmr fighting ship is the most awesome thing ever fly the stars and pwn anything that sneezes wrong.

And speaking of "blades of ultimate destruction" do that could be what the Spathi were always refering to???

The answer to the Chmmr Avatar was always...the lowly Thraddash Torch. And with ship names like "Pulsing Hot Thrusters" and "Crotch Rocket" (okay, I made the last one up), you had to love those fat, obstreperous jerks. You also had to love that if you defeated enough of their ships they would honor you as their "great teacher" and change their name - to something like "the fat, obstreperous jerks." You could then encourage them to change their culture to advocate talking in rhymed couplets all the time or try to be "wacky" a la Monty Python. Needless to say, their attempts to follow your "teachings" were pretty funny.

In fact, I'd say that one of the closest links I see between GC2 and SC2 is in the humorous tone both games adopt. The first two MOO games had that too. GC2 has a somewhat different kind of humor (Starcon tended to be more whimsical), but, like MOO and Starcon, it combines surface humor with a seriously good game under the hood.

By the way - to everyone interested in the Starcon franchise - Toys for Bob (the company which made the first two games, but not the third) has expressed interest in developing a true sequel to Starcon as long as there is fan interest in purchasing the game. If you loved Starcon, or if you're interested in it, check out their website and let 'em know you want to see the Spathi take flight again!

Ok maybe the Ur-Quan, although if you piloted the Chmmr well(like me ) you could have your shields hit it enough before it got through

Only the Chenjesu's ball before it breaks could get through and considering the crappy accuracy.......I'm throwing that out

True about the laser although not many ships had lasers and you have to exclude the Human laser because it only ever targeted the shields anyway

Orz and Druuge, yeah but not the Utwig, sorry but most of its little V thing got taken out

I don't think a Yehat counts since it would die getting in range

Are you serious???? A Shofixti???

Thraddash, ah yes changing their cultural values, gotta love that one!! it's gun could make it through also, your correct, but again the danger one took to line a shot like that up is incredible considering one close call and the Thraddash ship would be off to the great after-burning grounds in the sky!

i must prove my nerd-status, however, by pointing out that ST books are totally worthless, being non-canon.

actualy most of the book were. and all of Peter Davids certiany were since he worked close with Mike Okuda, whome he credits in most of his forwards. and he is the main source of Borg information in the books.

Even Star Treks' weapons can do better than that.... and Star Wars weapons are so much more powerful it's not funny.

one episode in TNG, photon torpedos were used on a 'force 4' setting to stabilize earth quakes on a colony planet. and there was concirnes voiced about that setting being high enough to cause a core detonation and shatter the planet. most battle setting for photon torpedos are "force 16" as well in one episode torpedos were used to try and start a second stage fusion reaction in a brown dwarf star and 20 torpedos at a setting of force 16 were enough to cause the star in question to go nova. seems pretty clear to me that 'normal' ships weapons (pre Borg upgrading) were atleast as powerful as the deathstars laser, and no need to build a ship the size of a moon to do it.

also the phasers are all in the 5.1 megawat range per emitter, and a total of 200 emitters for the upper dorsal array alone, (the galaxy class has 12 arrays in 2 sizes) with a sustained rate of fire of 45 minuts before a recharge is needed, thats all canon, taken from the TNG technical manual writen by Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda.

now i have no idea how that could be compaired to a turbo lasers output. but in the manual the phasor is referd to as the 'next step forward from laser arrays and particle beams'

also with the changes to ships weapons post borg encounters their power is even stronger with the use of better tuned phasor arrays and the introduction of quantom torpedos (used to destroy the Borg Cube in first contact)

and one other things thats allways impressed me about the borg is their tractor beams. in every encounter with the Enterprise the Borg were allways able to hold the ship with a tractor beam while it carved it up. now in more than one episode of TNG the enterprise useds its own tractors couple with its warp engines to move asteroids and on one occasion it even moved a whole earth sized moon. the power needed to hold a ship that is capable of generating enough energy to move a moon is stagering. now since we know that the Death star II was about 180 kms in diameter and the enterprise alone was able to move a moon of about 2100 KM in diameter, and the borg were able to stop the enterprise cold from moving it seems that the Cubes would have no trouble dealing with ANY of the star wars trash. since the death star was the biggest and best weapon possable and that could have been dealt with by one starship.

there is also referances to the borg using beams of 'pure anti proton' in the books

"pure, said Riker in astonishment. 'a weapon of that magnitude could destroy -----'

' anything', said Data, There was something even more chilling about the way he said it -- with that detached, calm, faintly mechanical air. "absolutely anything. it would sever castrodinium (a starships armor) at the molecular level. "an anti-proton beam, at full strength, would not be slowed by our shields at all'

but as you say the books arent official canon

but in First Contact the Borg were destroyed by conventional Federation weapons... so clearly the military developments in between were effective

yes but the power of the Borg isnt that they have the biggest hulls with the strongest guns, its that they adapt to what we do. a weapon thats devistating to them this week wont even phase them next week. where Star Fleet needed 2 years to develope weapons capable of defeating a Borg Cube (the Defiant and quantom torpedos being only 2 examples and the defiant was smashed in first contact, despite the fact that it was a pure warship designed to fight the borg incursions) the Borg need only a matter of days and in some cases only minuts to develope countermeasures to Star Fleet weapons.

what makes the Borg impressive in my opinion is that they beat you at your own game. they are the ultimate 'tar baby' they learn from your best efforts how to beat you. the harder you hit them the stronger they become. they ......... well i cant even say lose because it isnt true, they take a loss of a ship as a matter of corse.its not a loss it is simply a research experament to them, they learn from it, adapt and come at you harder the next time or the time after that or the 300th time. they simply dont stop coming, and even though we would think of loosing a hand full of cubes as major losses the borg mearly ramp up cube production and continue to send in more.

eventualy they will win, because surrender is not an option. no amount of losses would make them come to the barganing table, its us or them with no hope of compromise that the whole Star trek genra is based on. no way for Picard to give a speach and talk the bad guys into joining us in our 'quest', they absorbed him, striped his personality used his knolodge to defeat the fleet at wolf 359 and there was nothing 'we' could do about it. all the high ideals and pretty speaches didnt do one bit of good. they didnt care, they didnt even care when he was rescued and they lost the Cube, they just sent another, and another , and another , and another.

they even tryed to change the past, something that no other race has ever attempted for obvious reasons, yet the borg tryed. all the unspoken rules of conflict dont apply with the borg, they are incapable of seeing the universe in the same way we are. even if they had managed to change the past and end up creating a paradox, they would have adapted no matter the changes made in the time stream. so long as one borg lives the collectave can be rebuilt.

thats what impresses me. the Ultimate meld of machine presision with the adaptability of organic thinking. and the single persuit of one goal the total assimilation of all life everywhere.

OH YEAH, I forgot about that!!!! Wait, wait, I'm going to try and do my Pkunk impression
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"Twit, moron, dodo, fool, loser"......................*explosion*.......halleluiah

actualy mass drivers would be all but usless, given the fact that a ship moving at almost the speed of light in normal space would need to be shielded against dust particles i cant think of a way you could build mass drivers that couldnt be shielded against, just normal navigation deflectors would be enough. the thing that gives a mass driver its punch is its speed (based on what i know of current mass driver research). but once you develope a system to shield a ship against all forms of matter moving at almost light speed (something you would need to do to be able to move your ships at close to light speed) then a mass driver would have no more effect than a dust particle or an asteroid.

its no accident that you dont generaly see Sci-fie storys using any form of projectile weapons. if its sub light then it can be stoped by normal deflectors, if its hyper light than it has to become either a missle (guided in other words) or it has to be so large that it can destroy any shielding and then it can be shot down (point defence). then there would be the whole dodge factor. the ship your shooting at could be fast enough to out run the projectile, or it could be agile enough to dodge it.


mass drivers are better suited to an artillery roll, best suited against fixed instalations and hardened defences than used in something like ship to ship combat. put a mass driver on a Tank and you got something, put one on a plane and you could never line up the shot.

just think about why the Air Force, has spent the last 60 years building better missles rather than bigger guns and you have your answer.