The Borg vs Tyranids

[Heartgobbler]

Two powerful gestalt organisms, both assymilate all they encounter and both are the scourge of their respective universes. But which are the more powerful?

(I assume you all know the Borg. For those who don't now the Tyranids, they are a race evolved to survive without any kind of technology. Their "species" is composed of thousends of types of organisms, which perform different roles within the swarm, from drones and soldiers , to weapons [ which grow symbiotically on the creature's body] and even spaceships. You can imagine them as classic "aliens" with guns except the guns are also aliens. Their manner of assimilation is also very straightforeward. They absorb things into the swarm's bio-mass by eating them up. A hivefleet moves from planet to planet, bombarding the surface with seeds of Tyranid plants, which grow extremally rapidly, taking all the nutrients from the soil; then the swarm makes a planetfall and eat everything , including any resistance they may encounter, until they leave a dead, bare rock.)

[Sabaku no Ira]

Tyranids.

From your description, Tyranids doesn't seem to have the "Collective Network security" problem, while the Borg doesn't have a very good record of network security (their network got bust at least twice)...

[braindx]

I think it depends on the power of their energy weapons against the shields/hull armor of the other. My initial instinct tells me that antimatter based weapons are usually one of the strongest weapons out there.

The Tyranids do have a better method of "assimilation" or gaining resources though... although if a drone was absorbed into their biomass, they would still have a few seconds which is more than enough to inject nanoprobes. The question is... is Tyranid DNA as dense as Species 8472 (which would code for a superior immune response basically eliminating anything foreign within the cells). If it does not, the borg should be able to win easily.

Without more information I can't really specify an answer.


Eh, regardless, I still regard the Borg security breaches plot hole no jutsus.

[Cthulhu-versailles]

.. I am really not interested in this fight because it's happenned already man.

Star trek voyageur the borg get pwned badly by species 8472 which are a weaker version of the aliens your describing. Borg are weak against completly organic evolving type aliens this is fact.

I am interested however in these tyraids what series are they from ?

[Sabaku no Ira]

Originally Posted by braindx

Eh, regardless, I still regard the Borg security breaches plot hole no jutsus.

Hum... seems to me that having problems with security not just once but at least twice (not counting in Voyager since I don't have info for that series) during the TNG series is more than just "Plot holes". I just can't believe with all those people creating the ST universe would miss things like that repeatedly. It seems that the Borg are meant to have security problems.

[Jeltz]

Originally Posted by shika shika boo

I am interested however in these tyraids what series are they from ?

Aren't they from Warhammer 40k? I think so but since I have never played that game or read any of the nvoels I don't know how strong they are compared to the Borg.

[organizedcrime]

Tyranids seem to have this one. The Borg's main trump card is that they can beat back technology because of their shield frequencies to fight off lasers. Don't use lasers (or any other weapon like that), but rather an organic weapon, a strong one, and you should win.

[Sabaku no Ira]

Originally Posted by organizedcrime

Tyranids seem to have this one. The Borg's main trump card is that they can beat back technology because of their shield frequencies to fight off lasers. Don't use lasers (or any other weapon like that), but rather an organic weapon, a strong one, and you should win.

Which is pretty interesting. While they can shield themselves from energetic weapons, machine guns and knives >>> Borg. So if the Borg went a little too far into the past in First Contact and went into Medival Ages...

[organizedcrime]

Wait, what happened? You might need to explain.

[Sabaku no Ira]

Originally Posted by organizedcrime

Wait, what happened? You might need to explain.

Well, let's just say that Picard killed two Borg drones with a machine gun in the holodeck (ie, the bullets aren't real). Also, Worf killed one drone with his mek'leth.

Throughout the movie, the Borg were not attacked by bullets or bladed weapons again, but I'm really surprised that the Borg never encountered anyone using physical weapons against them throughout their millions of years of conquest. So either it is a plothole, or the Borg can't adapt to physical weapons at all. So if a knight in shinning armour charges in with a lance...

[braindx]

I can't for the life of me remember which site it is on, but it goes over and refutes everything about the holodeck "bullets" and physical weapons in general. If you google the star wars vs. star trek (or borg vs. the empire), then you should be able to find it.

I highly doubt that the Tyranids are stronger than Species 8472. The borg can basically assimilate anything organic or technological which is why I'm assuming they have an advantage. It's not often (or really ever) that we encounter super dense DNA that could code for such a powerful immune response (Species 8472). I still would like more information on the Tyranids though.. no one seems to have any (or you guys are withholding from me!).

Oh yeah, if the borg didn't have "security issues" they would basically be unstoppable and assimilate earth. To make them not invincible (besides 8472) they have to have a 'plot hole no jutsu' so that humans can "outsmart" them. Heh.. come on now.. should be pretty obvious!

[Sabaku no Ira]

As I've said, when a feature has repeated itself for more than once throughout a series, it should be considered as a cannon characteristic rather and a "plothole". Besides, I don't see any contradiction for the Borg to have security problems at all.

Unless, of course, there are incidences where the Borg is shown to have high security. Care to name them?

BTW, info for Tyranids:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrannids

[braindx]

Eh, well as for the plot holes or characteristics or whatever, it won't really affect them here. It's not something the Tyranids can exploit.

From the looks of it, their immune response to nanoprobes (or the elimination of them upon entering cells) is lacking.. and they probably would be assimilated pretty easily. That is, unless they went to all out war.. in which case I think antimatter weapons would reign supreme.. but psychic powers against shields might be pretty cool to watch.

[Sabaku no Ira]

Or subspace radio vs psychic powers. I believe that the Borg will be able to "connect" to the Tyrannid hivemind via an assimilated Tyrannid.

[Heartgobbler]

1 Tyranids do come from Warhammer 40000 universe. (They probably appear as villains in novels as well as GW short comic stories).

2 They seem to be able to do hyperspace jumps and all. Most of their weapons is either close combat (large, mantis-like claws) or ammo. The typical example is "living ammo" a small beetle or worm spat out of the gun, whose muscles and metabolism have been evolved to provide maximum strength at the cost of durability (basically, it has a life expectancy of about ten seconds, but by the time it dies from exhauscion, it will have chewed through your armour and be half way through your guts)
The only "energy weapons" they have are psionic-based. (When they need a strong ranged attacks , they evolve a specimen with huge brain that projects "psionic blasts" )

3 As far as I have seen, dead borg don't assimilate. Those who are ripped to pieces before consumption can probably be digested safely...

4 Large spaceship battles are more of a problem. The Borg have a small number of very powerful cubes, that have tremendous firepower. The Tyranids have a huge fleet of less armed vessels, but more varied weaponry (biological equivalents of torpedoes, psionic-based energy guns and boarding spores that deliver warriors to enemy ships) some hive-ships can also fight in close combat.

5 Both sides can adapt, although the tyranids have shown it on more occassions. The Borg have lots of data from different assimilated species, and could probably find a way to develop toxins deadly for tyranids, or methods to protect themselves in close combat (but why haven't they done it already? )

The tyranids create new types of organisms when facing new threats , such as tyrant guard (a large creature with very heavy shell and lots of secondary "guts", to keep it alive under horrible injury, created to shield key creatures from anti-tank weapons) or genestealers (a creature formed to combat humans. People "infested" by a genestealer seem unhurt at first but then start breeding at abnormal rate, passing tyranid DNA to all their offspring, which within a couple of generations, results in a huge hidden army of tyranid hybryds waiting to support the invasion from within.)
They don't have warriors immune to Borg assimilation, but they can get them as soon as they understand the threat. (as soon as the "prototypes" hatch).

6 I only remember one story where the tyranid collective mind was turned into a weakness, but on that occassion, they were actively using it as a weapon. During that battle, they developed their collective mind (a large land army ) to attack and dominate other lifeforms. It all worked well (no human in range could resist them) until they attacked an imperial tytan (a large walker war machine, whose pilot controls it by merging his mind with its AI.) Such powerful mind gave them battle on equal terms, forcing them to use their all power to attack. Then it turned out that the mind they thought to be the pilot, was in fact a "ghost in the machine", a mind of a former pilot who had died while connected, and now sacraficed himself, dying the final death and dragging them all with him.

[ydraliskos]

I believe the tyranids have greater numbers than the borg. I think if you add all the swarms, you 're dealing with trillions.

[Jef88]

if i'm not mistaking is organics the only weakness of the borgs and the tyranids are organic and are in huger numbers than the borgs
tyranids for the win

[braindx]

um, being organic is not a weakness for the borg because all of the species the borg have assimilated are organic species... like i said, unless they have super dense coded DNA that allows them to have an incredible immune system that instantly destroys anything foreign (species 8472), then they will get assimilated.

[Sabaku no Ira]

I wouldn't know about that one. There are those with a special gene that allows them to "break free" of the collective after assimilation. That's how unimatrix zero come in to be.

[Tarnag40k]

trynids all the way and the nubers are wrong not in the trillions, they use that much for just one planet.. actually they seem to have larger numbers then the orcs, ofcouse still not as much as the imperium of man(which doesn't accaully cant even count all the "hive worlds" or densliy populated worlds numbers are past 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 populace. so may i enter a new side

the imperial guard

think of the closest thing you can get to a conventional army, except bigger lots bigger, and everything based a round out shooting the nemy and having larger numbers. they tend to bomb out there enemys to sublimation then have vaast armoured chrges supported by infantry, and they dont have the hive mind meaning individual thought patterns meaning soldiers may think differently than intisicipated a lot. plus they have las gun, or i like to call them wannabe homocidal flashlights of doom!!!!

and space marines

two words super humans, geneticly engineered humans who ae also the best fighters of the imperium. they have extra organs, bones made denser than ceriteplated steel, and the best of all instant cloting blood stoping bleeding instantly, plus the power armour (think starcraft marines [blizzard acualty even said there marines were based off 40k and so wher the zerg]) is trong enough to take sme of the hardest weapon shots. unforutnately very hard to create and very few numbers. they tend to use rapier like tactics aka they pick out very percise targets.

side note 'nids (trynids we 40k players call them 'nids for short) do have a superencoded dna and their numbers are so large they have been know to have charges of them for the sole purpos of soaking up enemy ammo to leave them ammo-less (like the word ammo-less)