Transcription
Tumblr post by arctic-hands:
When I was a teenager and still on Neopets I was part of a pretty big Star Trek guild and eventually became part of its council, with the solemn duty of creating weekly polls. Well one day I created the poll “Which would win in a fight? Borg Cube or Death Star?”. Naturally, since this was a Star Trek guild, the answer was overwhelmingly “Borg Cube”, but someone did have the rationality to point out we were biased.
So I look up a pretty prominent Star Wars guild and message one of their council and ask them to poll the same question and get back to me in a week. They do, and naturally the fuckin geeks said “Death Star”.
So then I look up a Stargate guild and messaged the lead council member, saying the same thing, and they get back to me almost immediately saying that the Death Star would immediately one-shot a Borg Cube but they would never be able to do it again to another Cube. And I took that wisdom back to my guild and we were mollified, and for one moment the Nerd World was peaceful.
Reply from evilsoup:
An image depicting the story of the "Judgment of Solomon", where Solomon is labelled "stargate fandom", and the two women are labelled "star trek fandom" and "star wars fandom". The Star Wars lady is standing grumpily with her hands on her hips, while the Star Trek woman gestures with open arms. Between the two of them, on the floor, is a baby in a wicker basket. Solomon sits over them in judgment.
I would guess (though I certainly don't have the knowledge or evidence to support this guess in a Daystrom-like environment) that it's basically just about the range of frequencies. A normal shield is designed to protect against a wide range of frequencies because you don't know where the attack will come from. This, I posit, has the effect of spreading the shield thin and making it easier to damage. Like trying to charge through a shield wall (as in mediaeval warriors) with a single layer where each defender is a metre apart.
The Borg's adaptation is to spend all their energy on a very narrow frequency range, making it much, much stronger and more difficult to damage. Like if they shield wall were three rows deep and the fighters are standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the point you're trying to charge through (but there are fewer-to-no enemies at other locations).