Our matchup this week pits two titans of sci-fi fiction against each other. Your task is simple -- choose who would win in an all-out war between the Borg and the Cylons (from the new BSG):
Take it to the comments to persuade us that your choice is right. Will the human/robot hybrids of the Cylon Empire overcome the soulless collective of the Borg?
I present, you decide!
Borg all the way. They just adapt to darn fast for the cylons.
Resistance is futile!
I’m actually anticipating any explanation on how the Cylons could defeat the Borg. Not that I believe there could be a serious, engaging argument to that effect, but fanboy gumption should prove entertaining.
Resistance, is indeed, futile…
🙂
I voted Cylons because I like the show better. So no logical arguments here. Just pure good ole fashioned geek bias.
@ dblade – we assimilted you before that sentence was finished. We are the borg, Resistance is futile!
Now that’s a classic nerdfight strategy. Attack the validity of the argument before there’s even one presented. Score 1 for Team Borg! 🙂
I wanna BE Borg. My sister and I have a pact that if either of us is ever assimilated, we’ll come for each other first. If current technology could make the two of us a wee bitty hive mind, I think I’d do it. Anyone else in?
Oooo…good one, Jeffrey!
I throw in with the Borg on this one, not because the Borg would more than likely overwhelm the Cylons as the 1’s and the 6’s bicker incessantly back and forth, but because of sheer superior firepower. The biggest guns the Cylons have are nukes. Borg gots energy-laser-zappo-technospeak beams ‘n’ stuff that would blow the toasters outta the sky with a sneeze.
(I’ll add that there’s a very good possibility that the Cylons could be sold out entirely by one of their own. The 1’s could recognize that their chance to be total machine is at hand and go running to the Borg for the chance to be assimilated en masse.)
Have to go with the cylons, get a few in there, infiltrate the computers and just tell the borg to calculate Pi, if not shut them down and nuke them into oblivion.
Borg would adapt to the Cylon attacks, then they would add the Cylon technological distinctiveness to their own. Of course, if one was talking about the original Cylons (the 1970s version) it would be a very slow battle because neither faction could move particularly fast unless aboard ships. So there’d be some excellent (and very short) space battles instead of ground campaigns.
Wait a minute! Didn’t the Daleks defeat the Cylons in the previous poll? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have the Borg go up against the likes of the Cybermen or the Terminators? Just a thought.
And, yes, Cylons would be assimilated to the Borg collective in record time.
Resistance is futile.
Mr. Q
this just get me thinking of a cat fight between a 6 and Seven of Nine!
I voted Cylons simply because I’ve come to dislike the Borg. Don’t get me wrong, they were fantastic in their first appearance, but over time, they just lost me.
(They steal your tech and kill all your people is a solid concept. Their tech is better than yours anyway and really they want to steal your people, is a bit problematic. They’re ruled by a queen, like an insect colony, instead of being a true collective, is where I start just shaking my head. And that’s aside from the fact they start from damn near unbeatable and just go downhill from there….)
Okay, I got sidetracked. I do have a weak argument to back up my knee-jerk reaction: Since Cylons predated human civilization on Earth by many thousands of years, any Borg they meet should similarly be thousands of years less advanced than the Borg met by the Enterprise. Borg super-weapons and adaptable shields should still be just a gleam in a young queen’s eye.
Yeah, let’s bring out the real contest here, who would you rather be conquered by 6 (Tricia Helfner) or 7 of 9 (Jeri Ryan)?
This assumes the Cylons they can even be assimilated.
Let’s see, the Borg brought the UFP to its knees. The Cylons couldn’t even take on one ship that was crewed entirely by cowards.
The Borg wins
You left out that the Cylons annihilated the rest of humanity first.
Now which episode was it that the Borg completely took over the Federation? Must have been the last episode since the series couldn’t continue after that.
Borg will just assimilate the Cylons, infuse with their technology and gain any advantages that gives them. This includes becoming Grace Park or Tricia Helfer. The Borg win.
The Cylons (masters of computer infiltration and hacking) will simply turn off the Borg before you can say “Resistance is…”
Borgs lose. Kept as sad elementary school art sculptures.
Cylons win and celebrate with sexy parties.
If I can’t justify voting for the Empire and their Death Star beating the Borg a few months back, I don’t see how I could vote for the Cylons. I mean, I love Star Wars, and I’ve never watched the new BSG. (Note to self: see if I can download BSG episodes from Season 1). Sadly, I’m left a little ignorant this week, but the Cylons nearly wiping out humanity pales in comparison to the Borg assimilating whole worlds.
Sorry dblade, I love your passionate defense of the Cylons on this one, but I’m voting Borg.
I still stand by the Cylons turning off the Borg. The cylons made a clean sweep of humanity by turning off their ships and defenses. The Borg will fall the same way.
Cylons win!
Borg accumulate dust. Cleaning is futile.
I like that an advertisement for Battlestar Galactica Online is in the corner of the page as I write this.
Yeah, but, the Cylons turning everything off was dependent upon the hyperactive sexually charged narcissism of a human. I don’t think Six would be able to pull the same trick with a Borg.
A simple change of tactics and planning and “click”. Borgs off.
While slightly less one sided than the Daleks vs. the Cylons, this one has to be one of the most one sided curb stomps in the history of HeroMachine. There is absolutely no conceivable way for the Cylons to survive the Borg except by being so technologically inferior as to not draw the Borg’s attention.
The Borg have superior defenses (shields, EM fields, regenerative hulls capable of withstanding multiple antimatter/matter explosions), superior weaponry (weapons capable of dispatching vessels with the above defenses), superior faster than light travel (galaxy spanning in moments), superior sensors, superior numbers, superior infrastructure; fashion aside I am having trouble coming up with a single field in which the Cylons are not horrifyingly overmatched. The only reason they were able to defeat the colonies so easily was extensive infiltration in advance and the planting of a back door in the colonial computers, a tactic that would be impossible to repeat against the Collective.
I’m probably a bit biased, having just come off of archive binging BSG on Netflix, but I think the cylons are smart enough to win.
Remember, a big the reason the Cylons got as far as they did was that the Humans were looking at large, high-powered robots as the enemy, totally oblivious that the main threat was the clearly not-robotic Humanoid Cylons. They could not have been Cylons: Cylons are big, metal, heavily armed, and they have “Glowy red eyes”.
I see hundreds of scenarios, ending in victory for either side, but many of the more likely ones favor the Cylons.
Most likely, I see this: the “Obvious” Cylons (If there are any left by then) are quickly and suddenly assimilated, but the Humanoid Cylons are left intact. They are attacked by their own, and manage to disable one. They run a type of diagnostic on the infected Cylon, determining source and capabilities of the Borg. Using some form of Cylon Phlebotinum, they trace the signals to the Queen, and manage to extract codes that will shut down individual Borg members temporarily. When used against the Queen, however, that would wipe out the entire hive mind indefinitely.
Remember, the Cylons couldn’t take Galactica because it was not hooked into the network (Internet, basically). The Borg essentially IS a giant network.
Stargate Replicators will own both Cylons and Borgs, ok. And no, I’m not rational here.
Once again though, the only reason the Cylons were able to do anything to the network was the backdoor they built into the Command Navigation Program. First, that they needed a backdoor to begin with to get into the network indicates they probably aren’t that good at hacking in general even when they completely understand the system they are infiltrating, let alone the completely alien and unfamiliar systems of the Borg Collective. Second, the Borg have demonstrated considerable computer security, being able to block Data when he was connected directly into the Collective from all vital systems, where Data has demonstrated considerable skill in breaking into computer systems at multiple points over TNG.
Also, the Cylons have never demonstrated any particular knack for reverse engineering technology. They operated from a considerable technological advantage when they attacked the Colonials, and Star Fleet, despite being very adept at reverse engineering, having people on hand with firsthand knowledge of the Borg like Seven of Nine and Picard and captured Borg technology were never able to do what you suggest.
Also worth noting is control through a network goes both ways. If the Cylon’s get into the Borg hive mind there is absolutely no guarantee the Borg would not be able to assume control over whatever systems were attempting to send the signal.
One final note, if anything, it would be the human form Cylons the Borg would assimilate, not the mechanical ones. We know this because when Locutus was first captured by the crew of the Enterprise he told Data, quote, “The android, Data. Primitive artificial organism. You will be obsolete in the new order.” If Data is considered too primitive to bother with, the toasters certainly would be. Even if they were to drop a Borg, and were somehow capable of reverse engineering it, the Borg come back for their dead. After a few drones, the Borg will have adapted to whatever the Cylons could throw at them and would easily overrun wherever the drone was being dissected long before they could use it.
No, there may have been hundreds of scenarios once, but now they are all Borg.
I’d agree with that, actually. The Replicators have demonstrated the ability to quickly adapt new technology to theirs, improve upon it, and the SG universe in general displays a higher tech level at the Asgard/Ori/Ancients level than ST does, at least as far as combat goes. Further, the Borg don’t seem to have much in the way of internal defenses and the Replicators have about a half dozen ways to board a Cube. Given one replicator drone 3 hours on a Borg Cube and you’d have an unholy terror on your hands.
**This may be less accurate, as much info is second- and third-hand.
The only way I can see the Cylons winning would be ‘programming’ one of their own to, without knowing what they are doing or why, wait until the last second before capture, slamming the last piece of an EMP device into place. Then, after a massive EMP burst, requiring parts replaced by Borg, loosing multiple computer virii a la Independence Day. Even this may not be enough unless they teach captured Borg human angst and suicidal tendencies like TNG taught ‘Hugh’ individualism, because a second wave of Borg might conceivably build EMP shielding.
Now it’s a true nerdfight! Introducing new contender into the mix!
I voted Borg, but in the interest of fairness, the Cylons didn’t need the backdoor to get into other people’s computers. There was one episode of BSG where they had to network all their computers together to compute jump coordinates, and the Cylons, who had no way to know this, started hacking it automatically. The not connected computers on the Galactica just weren’t large enough to accommodate Cylon code. Any sufficiently advanced network is vulnerable, just like Windows is easier to hack than Basic.
The Cylon infiltration skills would be of little use against the Borg, Borg are also good at hacking, and fight, and win, against foes with much more miraculous technology. Nuclear missiles seem to be pretty rare in BSG, but a single Borg cube can carry antimatter missiles by the hundreds, as well as stronger arbitraments like ‘quantum torpedoes’, and shrug them off pretty easily to boot.
Cylon?
Unless the Borg act Janeway Incident stupid, they lose.
Not sure if any one thought of this yet but the Cylons can’t be assimilated therefore Borg will know nothing about them.
The Cylon blood would have immunity from the Borg nanoprobes so it would be impossible to assimilate the humanoid Cylons. And everytime the Borg would kill them they would just keep being reborn with more and more information on how to defeat the Borg. The Cylon Centurions could also kick the Borg Drones’ collective butts!
However, I would prefer to be assimilated by 7 of 9 given the choice cause the Cylons would just kill me 🙂