Krall's Swarm Fleet vs. A Borg Cube

[Winter]

Krall's Swam Fleet is easily one of the most dangerous ships we've seen in Trek, it can easily dodge torpedoes and are largely resistance to the ships phasers. On top of that their weapons (such as Krall's life draining trick) are some of the most dangerous in Trek canon with one being able to cut through several people at once.

Then we have the Borg who can adapt to almost anything, can assimilate people even in the field, and weapons so dangerous that they are capable of taking out an entire fleet of Federation Star Ships in a matter of minutes. Even with the the upgrades the Federation made after the Borg first attacked it was only enough to slow the Borg down and had it not been for Picard still having a link to the Collective they might have still failed to stop the Assimilation of Earth.

Not counting god like being like Q or the Prophets the Borg and Krall's fleet are possibly the most powerful adversaries the Federation has encountered outside of the Romulans, Klingons and the Dominion (the last one is also one I've wanted to see go up against the Borg just to see the Founders get a bit more humble when they see what the Collective is capable of) and it would be interesting to see the two fight.

Personally I think Krall would come out on top given how fast his fleet is and how shields are no obstacle to the Swarm. BUT I do think Krall's fleet would be pretty much crippled after said fight as the Collective would be able to adapt to the situation as even the Enterprise was able to almost escape Krall's swarm in the first film. Also, a Cube is massive so while I have not doubt that the Swarm would win I don't think more then half the ships would be destroyed in the effort.

So, in the end my money's on a draw. The Borg would be destroyed but the Swarm would be crippled and on deaths doorstep soon after. Thoughts?

[McAvoy]

That swarm fleet went through the thinnest parts of the Enterprise. The neck, the pylons etc. While the Abrams Enterprise is much larger than the Geneverse Enterprise, she is still smaller and less massive than the Borg Cube.

Honestly I could see that swarm getting stuck in the cube after passing through for a few hundred meters.

Borg Cubes can also be overwhelmed in pure power too.

[Winter]

That swarm fleet went through the thinnest parts of the Enterprise. The neck, the pylons etc. While the Abrams Enterprise is much larger than the Geneverse Enterprise, she is still smaller and less massive than the Borg Cube.

Honestly I could see that swarm getting stuck in the cube after passing through for a few hundred meters.

Borg Cubes can also be overwhelmed in pure power too.

I doubt the Swarm would be able to cut straight though the ship but they could hit the surface over and over again in a Death by a thousand cuts method. If the Borg can adapt so far and no further, assimilate so fast and no faster then it stands to reason that their regenerating has its limits too. Just keep cutting on the surface of the ship enough and the Borg would start to feel it sooner or later likely sooner if the Swarm hit enough of the cube at the start of the battle.

[Madner Kami]

That swarm fleet went through the thinnest parts of the Enterprise. The neck, the pylons etc. While the Abrams Enterprise is much larger than the Geneverse Enterprise, she is still smaller and less massive than the Borg Cube.

Honestly I could see that swarm getting stuck in the cube after passing through for a few hundred meters.

Borg Cubes can also be overwhelmed in pure power too.

Let that sink in for a moment...



"Thinnest part" is very relative in the JJ-Verse

[TGLS]

That swarm fleet went through the thinnest parts of the Enterprise. The neck, the pylons etc. While the Abrams Enterprise is much larger than the Geneverse Enterprise, she is still smaller and less massive than the Borg Cube.

Honestly I could see that swarm getting stuck in the cube after passing through for a few hundred meters.

Borg Cubes can also be overwhelmed in pure power too.

Let that sink in for a moment...



"Thinnest part" is very relative in the JJ-Verse

OK, Enterprise's vs. Borg Cube Size:

Link

Let's be really generous and say the Swarm ship went through the entire length of the JJ-Prise (~720 m). This gets half way through a tactical cube before presumably running out of steam. If it's one of the really big Borg cubes, it probably hits a stop sooner.

Star trek ships are huge but Borg cubes are ridiculous.

[Madner Kami]

May I remind you, that this thing is a... thing?


youtu.be/tEby2rBiNjQ

youtu.be/iJaRqrW6tkA

It makes minced meat out of the Kelvin-Enterprise at least as fast, if not faster than the swarm-ships.



And there's no reason to assume, that Starfleet couldn't build more of them, if they wanted. I sincerely suggest to not bother comparing Classic-Trek and Kelvin-Trek, for reasons which should be increasingly clear by now.

Oh and we saw that a concentrated attack on an at least already slightly damaged Borg Cube can cut deep and destroy vitals, as seen in "First Contact". The swarm just making a concentrated suicide run should be good enough to get things done in a similar manner, once the shields or deflectors are sufficiently weakened.

[clearspira]

That swarm fleet went through the thinnest parts of the Enterprise. The neck, the pylons etc. While the Abrams Enterprise is much larger than the Geneverse Enterprise, she is still smaller and less massive than the Borg Cube.

Honestly I could see that swarm getting stuck in the cube after passing through for a few hundred meters.

Borg Cubes can also be overwhelmed in pure power too.

I doubt the Swarm would be able to cut straight though the ship but they could hit the surface over and over again in a Death by a thousand cuts method. If the Borg can adapt so far and no further, assimilate so fast and no faster then it stands to reason that their regenerating has its limits too. Just keep cutting on the surface of the ship enough and the Borg would start to feel it sooner or later likely sooner if the Swarm hit enough of the cube at the start of the battle.

The problem of course is the script. Borg adaption is sometimes slow and limited, sometimes it might as well be an immortality engine. We also have to take into account what TNG tells us vs what VOY tells us. The latter claims that the Borg cannot adapt if they cannot assimilate whereas the former showed us that simply is not true. We saw in ''Q Who'' that they are perfectly capable of both hacking your systems and carving out parts of your hull to analyse. They even have a greater variety of weapons - what ever happened to that shield-draining missile?

AND speaking of ''Q Who'' that Cube showed a level of hull regeneration that was quite simply missing from the Cubes from VOY. True, it did have to stop and shut down to regenerate - initially - then we see it doing so at Warp 9. I also put it to you that Lt Shelby's comment that a Borg Cube can continue to operate even after 78% of it is rendered inoperable also does not seem to be true later on.

TL;DR that's my answer: I fancy the TNG-era Borg to take the heavy hitters of pretty much any sci-fi franchise. They're smarter, tougher, and the Queen hadn't been retconned in yet. The Borg starting from First Contact are vastly inferior. But as Chuck has noted, that is the Star Trek way to take its previously badass villains and castrate them.

PS, I do think its worth noting as well that the eventual solution as to how to defeat the Swarm - a technobabble wave - does seem as if it would be in the Borg's power to figure out.

[TGLS]

I feel there's room to argue even the most nerfed Borg would just send a dozen cubes at the swarm, one at a time, eventually destroying the swarm out of pure attrition.

[Mabus]

The Borg cube can still use its tractor beams to hold multiple swarm ships and disintegrate at least a dozen per shot (do those ships even have shields?), like they did in the battle of Wolf 359, where they literally dissolved half the saucer section of USS Melbourne in one second, as well as other ships.
Also, what would stop the Borg from beaming away the ship pilots, given that Scotty had no trouble beaming Spock and McCoy on one of those ships using a(n old) 22nd century transporter? The Borg have dozens of transporters and lots of specialized personnel, this would be easy-peasy.

[McAvoy]

That swarm fleet went through the thinnest parts of the Enterprise. The neck, the pylons etc. While the Abrams Enterprise is much larger than the Geneverse Enterprise, she is still smaller and less massive than the Borg Cube.

Honestly I could see that swarm getting stuck in the cube after passing through for a few hundred meters.

Borg Cubes can also be overwhelmed in pure power too.

Let that sink in for a moment...



"Thinnest part" is very relative in the JJ-Verse

The thin parts of even the huge Abramsprise is still thin. Those pylons are perhaps a few tens of meters thick for example. Which is give or take about six medium sized cars.

Whereas the TOS Enterprise neck is as wide as a medium size car is long.