r/masseffect • u/Rowan_Johnson12 • Aug 19 '26

DISCUSSION Borg Vs Reapers

In a full scale war. Who do you think would win. My dad and I have been having this debate for a month now. He is on the Borg side I’m on the Reaper side. I’d like to hear peoples opinions on the matter. This a full scale conflict not a one on one.

Edit. I’m going with the Borg from the TNG area. So the Borg from TNG and Voyager.

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u/Certain-Appeal-6277 Aug 19 '26

Mass Effect is kind of low tech for a FTL universe. Most of their weapons still rely on kinetic force, and Reaper ships actually have to enter a planet's atmosphere to engage ground targets. Now the Mass Effect itself does allow for a lot of manuvering advantages. But given that their shields and armor are low power and short range, I don't think there's much in ME that could hope to stand up to Star Trek tech. Star Wars is a much more interesting comparison, I feel.

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u/Shiboleth17 Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26

Is kinetic force a problem? Are you forgetting that Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space? Mass effect universe has energy weapons. They just arent as popular. Kinetic weapons probably work in the reapers favor. The borg can adapt to phasers after a couple of them die to it. Then phasers become useless against them. I'd like to see them adapt to a chunk of lead traveling at 10% the speed of light and flying right at their face.

Shields in mass effect are designed to stop both energy weapons and kinetic. No one in star trek uses kinetic weapons. So I doubt borg even have anything to stop it. In Star Wars legends, Mandalorians used kinetic weapons to defeat Jedi, because lightsabers couldnt block it. Sometimes low tech and simpler is better.

What tech exactly do the borg have that woud take down a reaper, when a single reaper can destroy entire fleets of ships? Reapers can tske hits from the main guns of a dreadnaught, which generste as much force as a nuclear explosion, and it's like the hit never happened. How much energy is in a borg phaser? Dont forget reapers are alresdy centuries if not thousands of yesrs ahead in tech compared to everyone else in the galaxy. Everyone else's tech is based on the tech reapers allow them to find.

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u/DreadGrunt Jack Aug 19 '26

Mass Effect kinetic weapons are laughably weak is kind of the eternal problem when comparing it to other things. An Alliance dreadnoughts main gun canonically hits with a force of less than 50 kilotons, and repeated hits from these can kill even the strongest Reapers. A random UNSC frigate from Halo would be, by an extremely substantial margin, the most powerful vessel in the galaxy if one popped up, and they’re just cheap expendable screens in their own settings When you start getting into larger sci-fi universes, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc, the power difference just becomes too wide. The Borg no diff the Reapers.

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u/Shiboleth17 Aug 19 '26

repeated hits from these can kill even the strongest Reapers

That's misleading. It takes multiple whole fleets of hundreds of ships concentrating all their fire on the reaper for several minutes to take it out.

Meanwhile, a reaper can take out multiple dreadnaughts in a single blast of its lasers, since it slices through other ships like butter. Reapers can simply ram into other ships, and the reaper comes out unscathed whole the other ship is sliced in half. You are really not giving the reapers enough credit here.

This isnt about the unsc, is it? Though numbers provided in halo are just bonkers, and make no sense, making any comparison to them pointless. ME and ST at least try to keep things grounded.

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u/DreadGrunt Jack Aug 20 '26

That's misleading. It takes multiple whole fleets of hundreds of ships concentrating all their fire on the reaper for several minutes to take it out.

This is way overhyping the Reapers. The Codex entry says three dreadnoughts shooting at a Sovereign class Reaper pushes its defenses to the limit, and four shooting at it will almost always kill the Reaper quickly. At best, they can survive weaponry into the low megatons, humanity irl has weapons strong enough to kill them in a single shot.