A topic of increasingly more debate recently is the age-old fanboy attack: Star Wars vs. Star Trek. As for which I have a higher opinions of, I feel that they both have merits but that Babylon 5 is superior.

Technically speaking, it has been said that the Galactic Empire would school the United Federation of Planets in space combat, but that the UFP would have the upper hand in a land-based campaign.

While this is "true", the comparison is unfair. The Galactic Empire is the "big dog" of the Star Wars galaxy, controlling about 89% of the galaxy at its height. The UFP, however, barely controls 10% of the galaxy. For the contest to be fair, I propose we look at a fight between the "big dogs" of each universe: the Empire vs. the Borg.

We'll look at an engagement between each of the forces' standard capital ships (for technical information, I used this site for an ISD, and DITL for a standard Borg Cube).

We'll start the battle in space: the 1,600 meter-long Star Destroyer is dwarfed by the 3,036 meter-per-side Cube. As the Borg approach, they issue their standard greeting: "We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile." This would get the Imperial OIC uppity, and he would scramble his 72 TIE-series fighters to deal with this menace. Star Trek is noted for not having starfighters, but there is a good reason for this. The computer targeting systems in Star Trek ships are very precise, especially on the larger ships. Once the Borg locked on to the starfighters, its plasma and cutting beams would be hard-pressed to miss. The Imperial-class ship would by this time bring its considerable armament to bear, peppering the cube's surface with turbolaser and ion cannon damage. But soon, the Imperial headway would cease, as the ship's adaptive shielding would nullify the energy weapons' effect. The ISD would then likely find itself in a tractor beam, and under fire from the Borgs' powerful weaponry. Eventually the Star Destroyer's shields would give out, and then the sheer difference in the Borgs' strategy would be revealed, as they began beaming aboard to assimilate the ship and its crew.

So now we move the battle aboard the Star Destroyer. At first, the ship's 9,700 troops would easily mow the Borg down, despite the cyborgs' tendency to beam aboard behind their defensive line. But then, as occured with the ship, the blasters would suddenly lose effectiveness as the drones' adaptive shielding adapted to absorb the superheated bolts of ionized gas. The Imperial crew of 46,780 (standard crew plus soldiers) would succumb to the Borg onslaught of 100,000, joining the Borg collective and giving the Borg exacting intel on Imperial fleet strength and movements in that sector.

Let's make the borading operation more fair, shall we? Along with stormtroopers, what if the Imperial ship is manned by some dark Jedi? The Jedi would easily carve through the Borg, and maybe even kill a few with the Force, before the Borgs' personal shields adapted to the lightsaber's blade and nanite tubuoles violated the Jedi's neck.

What if the ISD captain, seeing his fighters being picked off, decided to flee? The Star Destroyer couldn't outrun the Borg cube (the cube has transwarp, after all), and the calculations for a hyperspace jump would probably take too long for falling back to be much of an option.

So there you have it. Though the Borg only control about 38% of their galaxy, their stratagem of overpowering their foes with size and numbers would win the day. Now, I know some of you will see this contest as unfair, and claim that a Super Star Destroyer could kill a Borg Cube easily. While that may be "true", there were fewer than a half-dozen SSDs around at the height of the Empire, while the Borg navy boasts hundreds (if not thousands) of Cubes and Tactical cubes. The Executor would not get the opportunity to fight only one cube.

Feel free to comment and question, though please don't flame me or each other.