The Uncommon Geek

The Borg. Fewer things instill a chill in a Trekkie than seeing a Cube on the view screen. Equivalent to the Daleks of Doctor Who, no matter how many you defeat, their always seems to be more around the corner. The Borg’s primary focus: Assimilation of all species.

The Jedi. Peacekeepers of the Old and New Republic. They survived several wars against the Sith, and have always come back to maintain order to protect the Republic. The symbol of the Jedi Order, as everyone knows, is the lightsaber. An elegant weapon for more civilized times.

A subject that I bring up to friends and random strangers alike is what would happen if the Jedi found themselves in a battle against the Borg? Strong arguments have been made on both sides of this scenario…

Who would win? If the Borg assimilate a Jedi, would the Borg be able to use the Force? Could the Borg adapt to a lightsaber?

This is the first installment in a series called Star Trek Versus Star Wars. I will pit Star Trek and Star Wars against each other using ESTABLISHED CANON technologies. Plugging science and physics into the equation, I will look at who might have the upper hand and how these battles on the final frontier in a galaxy far, far away might go.

Firstly, let us examine the technologies that the Jedi and Borg possesss and how each work using established canon. I shall also plug in real world physics and theories the best we can.

Weapons:

Jedi – Lightsaber

The lightsaber, according to Wookieepedia (the wiki for established Star Wars canon, which takes into account the movies, comics, novels and some fanfiction), operates by converting high levels of energy into plasma though a series of focusing lenses. That plasma is then projected through a series of lightsaber crystals, which give the blade various properties. These crystals can be adjusted to alter the blade’s length and power. Other various components can also be installed to affect the blade power output.

Once the plasma is focused by the crystals, the plasma is sent through a series of field energizers via an emitter matrix. This matrix is what encases the plasma into the magnetic field, thus giving it shape and form. Once the blade reaches a pre-determined length, the energy is arced back towards the emitter matrix and into the power cells via a super conductor, thus completing a circuit.

The real world physics of the lightsaber:

The primary constitution of the blade itself is plasma encased in a magnetic field. And just so we get it out of the way: plasma is a super-heated gas. It isn’t a solid. According to MIT, plasma is created when a substance is heated to the point where large concentrations of atoms become ionized, which causes ions and electrons to be separately free. If the number of electrons and ions are unequal, then the plasma will have a net charge density, which will give rise to an electric field. Basically, depending on the ionization rate of the atoms, the plasma could have a wide range of densities from being as solid as a wall to allowing objects pass through it.

Plasma reacts to magnetic fields due to the particles being charged; this makes plasma a conductive. Since plasma can be encased in an magnetic field, it can be given shape. Depending on the intensity of said magnetic field, the density of the plasma can also be altered. Taking magnetism into account, this could be why and how lightsaber blades can not go through one another: due to a repelling magnetic effect.

Their are two main types of plasma: hot and cold, and each has a different lifespan. Hot plasma has a shorter lifespan than cold plasma. Hot plasma can burn and melt various substances, whereas cold plasma does not, as the name infers.

If we look at the facts as established by canon for the lightsaber, we find the following: it has a defined shape from plasma encased in a magnetic field; it can cut through and melt various metals (except Mandalorian iron); if you cut off someones body part, the wound is cauterized (except in Episode IV in the cantina); and the wielder can hold the blade next to their face without experiencing discomfort. This last fact contains some issues.

In order for a Jedi (or Sith) to be able to hold the lightsaber blade next to their face, or anything for that matter, without it melting, warping or catching on fire, the plasma will have to reach thermal equilibrium. This is the state where the temperature of a substance is equal to its surrounding ambient temperature. If this is the case, then the lightsaber would not be able to cut through anything. At most, it would only be as effective as a wooden bat. Furthermore, according to a 1992 article in Physica Scripta by Ding Ping Xi, magnetic and electrical fields encasing plasma are only stable if the plasma has reached thermal equilibrium. This means that if the plasma is hot enough to cut through metal or turn a blast door white hot like in Episode I, the magnetic field of the lightsaber blade would be unstable to the point of possible collapse. Not to mention, that the lightsaber hilt would become so hot that the Jedi (or Sith) couldn’t hold it, if it wasn’t beginning to melt in the first place. According to Wookieepedia, the lightsaber blade ONLY emitted heat and energy once it came into contact with an object, though it does not go into technical detail as to how this is executed.

Jedi – The Force

I know the Force is not a weapon, but I am certain that the Jedi would use the force in an offensive manner against the Borg in order to defend themselves and the Republic. Established canon tells us that the Force is an energy field created by all living things. Unfortunately, established canon also tell us that we would not know about the Force with out… Midi-chlorians. These are small symbiotic organisms that live within every living thing in the galaxy. They “speak” to us and tell us the Will of the Force. The higher the midi-chlorian count per cell, the stronger the creature, whether Jedi, Sith, or other, is with the Force. More specifically, it is a measurement of the potential of Force manipulation.

Force powers can vary with the individual Jedi (or Sith) as well as techniques. These powers can include telekinetic style pushing, pulling or levitation of objects, Force lightning, and short term mind control. All of this coming from manipulation the Force.

The real world physics of the Force:

Without going into metaphysics, how can real world physics explain the Force? Well, I suppose someone could plug in the theory of spacial relativity in some way, but then one could counter that argument and say that density in relation to spacial relativity is only subjectively relative to the mindset of the Force wielder. I.e., Yoda being able to lift Luke’s X-Wing out of the swamp, while Luke was complaining about it being too big and heavy.

Since telekinetic abilities haven’t been proven to be physical law, and the research is so scattered across the board of speculation, the only Force ability we can focus on is Force lightning. In science class, we learned that lightning is a build up and ignition of charged particles in the atmosphere. But, what you learn later in college is that lightning is also a plasma discharge. So, we can plug what we know about charging particles into this.

The canon information about Force lightning doesn’t go into a lot of detail about how the lightning is created, so we will use real world physics to logically speculate. Let us speculate that Force lightning is the Force user condensing and charging ambient particles in a focused form. This would lead us to believe that the resulting lightning would be the exact same lightning that we all know about… only blue… and coming out of someone’s hands. Based on this fact, we can assume that Force lightning is plasma.

The Borg – Nanoprobes

The Borg assimilate humanoid species to reproduce. They do this through the use of self replicating nanoprobes. Small microscopic robots that attach to cellular tissue and begin to reprogram and take over the victim’s body. The nanoprobes then begin to create Borg implants of various types very quickly until full assimilation can proceed on a Borg ship or in makeshift assimilation bays.

Nanoprobes are injected directly into the victims bloodstream via assimilation tubules on the Borg drones hand. These tubules can penetrate just about any known shield technology the Federation has, so personal shields are useless as a defense against potential assimilation.

The real world physics of the Nanoprobe:

Nanotechnology is a real thing. Microscopic robots programmed to perform various tasks came out of science fiction. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have reported that they have created nanoprobes that could be programmed to target and attack specific cancerous cells. And according to Science Daily, New York University scientists have successfully created self replicating nanotechnology.

The Borg – Personal shields

In the Star Trek: The Next Generation time line, force fields are common technology used to secure hull breaches, keep criminals in cells, and to keep radiation confined to specific areas, among other uses. A variation of this technology is the shield. Shields generators can come in various sizes. Some are big enough to generate a shield around a space station, and some are small enough to generate a personal protection shield.

The Borg have personal shields that can adapt to projected energy based weapons. More specifically, they adapt to the frequency setting of that weapon. This adaptive shield modulation could work in a few different ways. On a starship, you could tie the shield grid into the primary or secondary sensor relay, and program the shield emitters to provide a sensory feedback to said relays. This provides the frequency of the incoming energy weapon, and would allow the computer to program an algorithm to automatically adjust the shield frequency, to match that of an incoming weapon. Thus, negating any damage to the shields. Though no established canon has been created to explain exactly how the Borg adapt to energy based weapons, it is theorized that the above may come into play via the Borg Collective.

The real world physics of force fields/shields:

In the real world, scientists have been experimenting with cold plasma to create shield-like technologies that one day could be used on space craft returning back to Earth as a replacement for current thermal shielding. By adjusting magnetic fields with cold plasma, we can control the density of the plasma for various things. It has been demonstrated that pockets of plasma can also allow larger objects to pass through while still holding in atmosphere, or become so dense, that almost nothing can pass through it.

Though it is not explained on screen exactly what shields are comprised of on a starship or the Borg’s personal force field, we can speculate that it could be an advanced form of plasmatic shielding, and that the field generators could be a combination of plasma and magnetic field emitters. NOTE: After publishing this entry, I looked again, and found that Memory Alpha states that a ships deflector shields are highly concentrated graviton particles, though this information has no direct series, episode or movie citation, so I was partially correct. (8/15/13)

Now that we have the primary technology out of the way, we can begin to look at the actual scenario in detail.

The scenario: The Jedi vs The Borg

Note: This is just looking at the warriors themselves and not the ships. That is another topic all together. Please keep this in mind while reading.

Let us say that somehow, a standard Borg cube finds its way to the galaxy far, far away before the fall of the Old Jedi Order. Reports come in to the Republic council, and Jedi are dispatched to investigate.

The initial Jedi scouts report back saying that the ship is cube shaped and that they have lost contact with several outposts and planets in that sector, and request reinforcements as a precaution while they attempt to make contact.

The Jedi attempt to contact the ship via diplomatic means.

“Unknown vessel. You have entered Republic controlled space. Please identify yourself.”

“We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ship. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to your own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”

The Borg ship opens fire on the scout, crippling the ship. The Jedi send out a distress call, but it’s too late.

As the Jedi reinforcements arrive, a large group of them board the cube, and a battle ensues.

As we discussed, the lightsaber’s blade is plasma encased in a magnetic field. For the sake of argument, we will embrace the suspension of disbelief and disregard thermal equilibrium in relation to magnetic field stability. And since the lightsaber has a power source, we will also assume that the magnetic field is electrically powered, thus making it an electromagnetic field. This would mean that it has an electromagnetic frequency. We have established that the Borg personal shields adapt to energy based weapons based on the frequency setting of said weapon.

But, lightsabers also have focusing crystals. And crystals have a naturally occurring electromagnetic frequency, you say? Well, the plasma is focused through the Force crystals, but, the electromagnetic field which encases the plasma itself is generated by the field emitter which is separate from the crystals. Based on that, the frequency of the magnetic field would not take into consideration the natural electromagnetic frequency of the crystals. Taking into account what we know, it could happen that after a few Borg are taken down, they could, in theory, adapt to a lightsaber. Let us further speculate that each lightsaber could have a slightly different electromagnetic frequency to the blade emitter. So, we could safely say that it would take a few Borg kills per Jedi before the Borg could adapt to every lightsaber.

So, let us now move the scenario forward a little bit. The Borg have found a way to adapt to the electromagnetic field frequencies of the Jedis’ lightsabers. All the Jedi have left is the Force. The Jedi have been trained for thousands of years to use the Force as a tool, and not a weapon. Seeing that they are outnumbered, they request the help of the Sith.

The Sith, being trained to use the Force as a weapon, use Force lightning. Remember, we have speculated that Force lightning could have the same properties as regular atmospheric lightning, which makes it plasma based. We know that the Borg have in the past been able to adapt to plasma-based firearms, due to the way that hand-held, energy-based firearms are created: they utilize charged plasma particles. But, since the Force lightning is coming from a “natural” source, we will assume that with each use, the Force lightning would have a different naturally occurring electromagnetic frequency.

Force lightning would seem to be the best weapon one could think of against the Borg. All seems to be going well. Drones are dropping left and right.

What could go wrong?

Let us speculate for a moment that the Borg have assimilated a dozen or so Jedi and/or Sith and gained knowledge and theories of the Force and its uses. This knowledge has been transmitted throughout the entire Borg Collective, which means that every drone on this cube and in the reachable universe knows everything that the Jedi and Sith know about the Force.

This is where it gets a little fuzzy about what could possibly happen. Knowing how the Force lightning is created could theoretically allow the Borg, having technology from several thousand species, the ability to adapt, if not to a certain degree, all the way. And since it has been established canon that the midi-chlorians exist in ALL living things, the Borg could choose drones with the highest midi-chlorian count to use the Force against the Sith using the Force lightning. Remember Yoda fighting Count Dooku? Yoda was able to catch the Force lightning and neutralize it.

Would it work that way? It takes years of training to be able to use the Force with relative ease, but if the Borg have all the knowledge, wouldn’t that be equivalent to training?

The Borg have an implant that can repair cellular tissue. Since the midi-chlorians are part of cellular tissue, could the Borg, in theory, be able to reproduce the midi-chlorians and thus be able, via the Collective, program this implant to reproduce the midi-chlorians in every drone? Would they be able to increase the midi-chlorian count beyond anything ever recorded by the Jedi Council? Could the Borg, being of a collective hive mind with billions, possibly trillions of minds linked as one, use the Jedi mind trick on the Jedi and Sith to force them to fully surrender and be “willingly” assimilated?

The speculations of the Force and the Borg’s abilty to use it, it appears, would be the last remaining arguing point of this scenario. Unfortunately, we have no real world physics to help out the Force beyond Force lightning. And even then, it is a very obscure topic shrouded in spirituality and metaphysics.

No matter the possible outcome, it would be an epic battle to end all epic battles!

-END OF LINE-

Sources:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsaber

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Midichlorians

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Force_field

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Phaser

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Assimilation_tubule

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Plasma_weapon

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Nanoprobe

http://www.aldebaran.cz/astrofyzika/plazma/basics_en.html

http://www.fusion-eur.org/fusion_cd/magnetic.htm

http://silas.psfc.mit.edu/introplasma/chap1.html#tth_sEc1.6

http://iopscience.iop.org/1402-4896/45/3/010

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2010/01/29/nanocoral/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111012132651.htm

http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2011/10/12/nyu-scientists-creation-of-artificial-self-replication-process-holds-promise-for-novel-production-of-new-materials-.html

http://www.icmfg.com/crystalglossaryf.html

Star Trek vs Star Wars – The Jedi vs The Borg by The Uncommon Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.