We’ve ended the werewolf fighting (for now), but we’re bringing back a subject matter we’ve hit on again and again – ROBOT WARS!
This week, Major Spoilerite Rich wants to know who would win in a fight between Captain Picard’s greatest foe, The Borg, or Doctor Who’s foe, the Cybermen.
Stephen Schleicher began his career writing for the Digital Media Online community of sites, including Digital Producer and Creative Mac covering all aspects of the digital content creation industry. He then moved on to consumer technology, and began the Coolness Roundup podcast. A writing fool, Stephen has freelanced for Sci-Fi Channel's Technology Blog, and Gizmodo. Still longing for the good ol' days, Stephen launched Major Spoilers in July 2006, because he is a glutton for punishment. You can follow him on Twitter @MajorSpoilers and tell him your darkest secrets...
34 Comments
As much as I can’t stand Star Trek I have to say Borg. I have seen the same tricked used more than once to defect the Cybermen (disabling their emotion inhibitor). Those very few times I have seen Star Trek with the Borg I haven’t seen them been defeated the same way twice.
Since I’ve never seen an episode of Dr. Who (here it comes…), I have to vote for the Borg.
I wonder if this is going to turn into the next franchise poll. Who’s waiting in the wings to take on the winner? Terminators? The Lost in Space Robot? H.A.R.D.A.C.? The Buffy Bot? … Terry Crews doing the Robot Dance? Can’t wait to see where this one goes.
Did someone say the Robot Dance?
http://www.youtube.com/user/Chris29Brown#p/a/u/0/0Nt9Qr3P6RM
Terry Crews Vs. The Chappell Show Robot Guy! Now THAT is a show down. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMQU9fJDdZo
Showin some Terry Crews love. This man should be on Dancing With the Stars. I’d actually watch the show then. (p.s. – loved him in the Expendables too!)
I’ve seen and love both and I have to go with the borg. I think that in a battle the Borg would simply adapt their shields to the cybermen lasers and render them useless. Also, the Borg have huge cubes that can rain death down from space and have assimilated tons of technology from countless civilizations. Also, while the borg could potentially assimilate the cybermen, I don’t think cybermen could turn a borg into one of them. Because the borg are for the most part just mindless drones and thus can’t have a chunk of their brain removed and turned into a cyberman. Basically, it’s just not a fair fight.
Borgs all the way, even in Voyager after they get half annihilated by Species 8472 they spring back to life to continue been the Universe’s bogeyman and unlike the Cybermen no matter how bad the setback they suffer they always remain a powerful empire. Also the Borg adapt, while the Cybermen stay the same even if round one goes to the Cybermen the war will always go the Borg.
P.S- Picard’s greatest foe is hair loss, not the Borg.
I don’t care if the Doctor can trick the Cybermen over and over, he is a freaking timelord! The Cybermen are first, and they look cooler. The Borg are HR Giger leftovers. Cybermen for the win.
The Daleks have similar levels of technology to the Borg and they’ve beaten the living circuits out of the Cybermen, no tricking needed for them to be inferior to the Borg. That been said voting for the character that was first created is as good as any other reason to pick who to vote for and as Stephen has said it is a popularity contest.
Yes, but the Daleks were fighting alternate universe Cybermen, who were inferior to the regular ones.
Cybermen Hands down!
Borgs are mindless solders that follow a common collective. Cybermen are not mindless, they can think for themselves. They can also convert new people onto Cybermen without needing to bring them back to the collective.
Oh, and they can also Time travel!
CYBERMEN!
The Borg can time travel aswell, “Star trek: First Contact” is based on that fact.
The Cybermen were created first and are very terrifying in their own right.
Unfortunately, the introduction of gold as a weakness explaining that it clogged their ability to breathe wasn’t that bad. Unfortunately the Doctor Who writers under John Nathan Turner made it worse by having them die within seconds of touching gold.
The Borg on the other hand are usually a force of nature that can always adapt. They steal and then incorporate tech into their own collective for the betterment of society. Kind of like North Korea.
The Borg would trash the Cybermen. End of story. The Cybermen do not wish to adapt, they wish to remain the same and that is what will get them every time.
The Borg all the way. A better question would be which is sexier, Seven-of-Nine or CyberWoman?
Next week it should be the winner versus the Daleks1 :)
Cyberman all the way you can come back from being turned by the Borg, you are screwed if you become a Cyberman
Yeah, it’s hard to come back from being a bunch of bones and meat bits. Seven of Nine wouldn’t look to hot then.
Borg, I’m a fan of both series, but I have to go with my true loyalties. Also because at their worst the Borg never looked like wind-up robot toys.
May be talking out my butt, but I hear in the first appearnce of the Borg, on a computer screen on the Enterprise the names of the first 7 doctors are listed.
Hmmm…I picked the Cybermen BECAUSE they look like wind-up robot toys…Different strokes for different folks, different lanes for different brains!
If it’s a question of who’s the creepier concept, I’d say the cybermen. Isn’t the whole idea that the mind of the people in those shells is the same…just without input? At least the people absorbed into the borg aren’t really conscious of themselves in the same way.
Far creepier to know who you are and just be locked away forever. *shudder*
The Borg drones are fully concious while they are mutilated to have limbs and organs replaced by machinery and while they do the same to friends and familly.
I’ve always found the Borg rather boring and uninteresting. The only times I’ve ever liked the idea is when there is a twist to it. The Cybermen, on the other hand, are always interesting since the show never really sticks to one thing.
So I’m voting for the more interesting enemy. I’m also pretty sure that Borg can’t infect the Cybermen.
I voted Cybermen. The Borg seemed to suffer from the “all powerful force” problem which made them uninteresting. The Cybermen have character and flaws and depth. The Borg are just boogeymen given whatever power is convenient to make them dangerous to the protagonists. Plus, I believe it would be possible for Cybermen to convert Borg, but not vice versa because Borg tend to be more reliant on flesh to complement their “enhancements.”
The Borg as a concept were interesting at first, then totally wrecked in Star Trek: First Contact, largely due to a lack of imagination on the part of the writers. The Borg were the ultimate communist society, and the introduction of the Borg queen turns them into a fascist dictatorship.
As for Borg vs. Cybermen, if you’re talking one on one, Cybermen all the way. They’re bigger, stronger, and, like others here, I don’t think they’re assimilatible. And as a concept, I think they’re scarier, since, as others have noted, there ain’t any coming back once they’ve put your brain in that shell. But, if you’re talking ships, I probably have to give the edge to the Borg; their ships are dang tough (though they seemed to get easier to destroy as the various series progressed), and, while we don’t really know the capabilities of Cyberships, they seemed to get blown up a lot.
Of course, this is all moot if the Daleks are brought into this contest, because they’d kick everyone’s ass; after all, they were able to fight the Time Lords to the point of such mutual annihilation that the Time Lords were ready to destroy the entire universe to end it.
No question there, Daleks beat anyone not named Q in the Star trek multiverse.
–WE ARE THE BORG. LOWER YOUR SHIELDS AND SURRENDER YOUR SHIPS. WE WILL ADD YOUR BIOLOGICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN. YOUR CULTURE WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE US. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.–
I vote Cybermen!
1) They have cyber-pets
2) They build steam-punk cyber gundam to trash Victorian era London just because.
3) It took them 40+ years to lose their nasty sci-fi edge (they were originally nothing more than “humans” that wanted to improve themselves…kinda like we do now), whereas it took the Borg about a year to turn into cyber-pansies (ehem, Hugh…and Lore as Borg leader…)
I’m gonna go with a write-in on this one.
The Swedish Chef from the muppets.
I’ll have to vote for the Borg on this one. For one thing, I’ve always thought that Cybermen were clunky horrible looking creations that again could be bested by climbing a bunch of stairs, or you know, running. They’re slow and they can’t show any emotion either, which I know isn’t gonna happen with the Borg either but any one Cyberman is indistinguishable from another. It’s nice for low budget because you can have 5 of them and keep shooting at different angles to make it look like a ton but there’s little character to them. The Borg have a very Cenobite looking appearance and each one is fairly unique, given the different technological enhancements. Hopefully each one is using different tech from different cultures instead of only one single set of powers for everyone. Once the Cybermen’s lasers have been nullified all they have left is what, brute strength? Plus to create more Cybermen you’re going to go through way more resources to build entirely new bodies where the Borg use what’s already there and replace various pieces with advanced technology.
I guess I could always throw a vote over to K-9 though.
Oh, the different iterations of the Cybermen, always changing (in theory, if they could afford a costume-revamp). Both “races” stand for the same thing: a fear of technology taking over and removing our human emotions. Both are horrific. Both are analogous to zombies in some ways. They are both the same… but the Cybermen where there first. And frankly, they still scare me more than the Borg ever did. I still have nightmares hearing that old 60’s voicebox-voice from “Tomb of the Cybermen” (with it’s inability to pronounce the letter K): “You will be li*e us. Resistance is useless.”
And the Cybermen are not even that high on my list of big bads in scifi. Hm, I must like the Borg less than I thought…
Another write in for the Swedish Chef and his brussel sprout shooting shotgun.
If it was the ORIGINAL Cybermen they’d win hands down. The ones from the new series are a bunch of pansys.
I have to say the Cybermen. After all when you become a Borg there still a chance that you become human again (i.e Picard, Seven of Nine, ect) but once you turned into a Cyberman, that’s it. There no going back.
It’s got to be the cybermen for me; if you’ve seen them in their latest appearance, then you know that they can now adapt just as much as the borg.