The Power Behind the Borg's Destruction of Guinan's Homeworld

In the expansive universe of Star Trek, legendary races like the Borg are known for their sheer destructive power. This article delves into the methods and technologies that enabled the Borg to destroy Guinan's homeworld, the planet El Aurian.

Why Destroying Planets is a Crowbar to Compare

Within the framework of Star Trek, destroying a planet is a double-edged sword. While ships can easily reduce a planet's surface to rubble, it doesn’t necessarily yield strategic or tactical benefits. Terraforming is a slow and resource-intensive process, and assimilating an entire planet’s populace might be considered a form of "destruction" in the eyes of the Borg, who have their own unique definitions of loss.

Given Guinan’s background as a diplomat and her literal take on “destroying” a planet, we can deduce that the Borg might have had a more comprehensive plan in mind. Assimilating the population would inherently mean that the planet’s cultural and societal fabric would be irrevocably altered, if not entirely mended.

Destruction or Assimilation?

For the sake of argument, let's assume the Borg actually engaged in the physical destruction of the planet itself. It's worth noting that the Borg are not known for subtlety, and their methods often involve overwhelming force.

Methods of Destruction within Star Trek

The Borg have access to an array of advanced technologies that dwarf those of other species. In a scenario where they sought to destroy the El Aurian homeworld, they might have employed several methods.

Surface Extermination

One method involves surface-level extermination. The USS Saratoga, one of Starfleet's smaller and less technologically advanced ships, can still reduce a fragmenting moon to non-existent. This gives us an idea of the kind of firepower we’re dealing with. Surprisingly, even a ship like the Saratoga can cause significant damage to a moon, let alone a planet.

Planetary Armament

The Romulan forces, who are considered peers to the Federation, report destroying 30% of a planet's crust in a single volley with around five ships. This implies that the Romulans have technologies that allow them to cause catastrophic harm to a planetary surface. While Federation ships might be slightly more powerful, Romulan cloaking technology could provide a significant advantage.

Nonetheless, even Federation starships face significant challenges when facing a Borg cube. It typically takes hundreds of Federation starships an hour to even register a dent in a Borg cube's hull once it's adapted. This suggests that a Borg cube is equipped with an extraordinary amount of power.

Assuming that one order of magnitude of this power comes from the cube's adaptability and strategic tricks, while the other comes from sheer raw power, a Borg cube would have at least the raw power of a Romulan ship. Given the relative thickness of planetary crusts, even a small Borg ship could theoretically destroy a planet in a matter of shots.

Specialty Superweapons

Beyond conventional weaponry, the Borg could have used superweapons such as neutronic mines. These weapons are so powerful that they can endanger entire solar systems, and their exact mechanism is uncertain, ranging from the detonation of neutronium to an esoteric effect causing neutrons to decay. Destroying a planet with such a mine would be far less cumbersome than the raw firepower mentioned earlier.

Solar Manipulation

The Borg might have considered other options, such as causing a star to go nova, a strategy that the Federation has demonstrated at least three methods of achieving. These methods are far less resource-intensive compared to what one would expect.

Given the Borg’s unparalleled technology, the destruction of Guinan's homeworld, the El Aurian homeworld, could have been accomplished through a combination of overwhelming firepower, strategic superweapons, and perhaps even solar manipulation. The Borg’s approach would have been swift, exact, and without any trace of subtlety.