The Ultimate Rumble!

[acreRake]

A google is 1 followed by 100 zeros, that is 10 to the 100th power.

Bugs, i guess.

[Killer Cyborg]

I don't know nearly enough aboud the Systems Failure bugs... could Telemechanics help prevent them from tampering with electronics/mechanics?

[Swift-13]

I'm gonna go with the Mechanoids. They've still got a Homeworld to fall back on, along with a happy little Doomsday Device, and they could always adapt their genetic structure to where they could survive longer without life-support. They've also got a few organic minions living around their bases that don't rely wholly on technology (that Blob-thingie, for instance).

And to boot, I'm thinking that ample use of Telemechanics-related powers could negate tampering with their systems. Of course, that's assuming the Bugs can actually tamper with cybernetics...

All in all, tho' I don't know much about the "Bugs", I'm guessing the Mechanoids would go so far as to try to make an alliance with them for the sake of wiping out humanoids. Gawds help the Megaverse.

[Skiles99]

I actually agree that they would make wonderful allies (or terrifying ones) but in an all-out fight my impression is that the bugs would win. The description of Telemechanics provided in Systems Failure seems to indicate that it would not help counter bug-infested technology.
However, this is guesswork. We really know nothing about the bugs' ability to travel through space, or how they'd fare in interstellar conflicts. Still, if even one bug gets into a Mechanoid ship, the ship is doomed. The Mechanoids themselves are too dependent on hard technology to overcome the bugs.

Then again, the humans seem to be doing pretty well against them...

[Swift-13]

What? Forget? Object Read, then Telemechanics...tadaa, one Universe Ender comi*

[The Beast]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume that the bugs can't enter the system of a borg (I don't have the book). Mechanoids don't use computers, they use Brain Pools, which are cybernetic computers.

[Jefffar]

Mechanoids have a large number of vehicles and robots the Bugs could control, in addition to the potential confict for the borg bodies.

At least the bug could jump into the borg body and electrocute the organic component if it couldn't take over completely.

[Rallan]

Mechanoids, for a few reason.

1) There are no landlines in interplanetary, interstellar, or intergalactic communications.

2) The mechanoids could lose a few entire solar systems worth of stuff to Bug infection and just "cauterize the wound" by blowing the everloving bejesus out of it all without missing a beat.

In a war in one reality, the Mechanoids just flat-out win hands down with these two points. The bugs don't have interstellar travel beyond random dimensional rifts, and they have no defence against an invasion force that eats whole planets for breakfast.

And even if the war is a matter of Bugs popping in from their home universe to corrupt planets, with the Mechanoids incapable of finding a way to travel to that universe, the Bugs would never be more than an irritation. There's just no way they'd be able to infiltrate a significant proportion of the Mechanoid's resources, especially when a lot of Mechanoid technology is partially organic, and the entire race is more or less a hive-mind of fanatical conformity thats been known to do genocidal purges on itself to root out even slightly unorthodox thinking.

[bradshaw]

Mechanoids, for a few reason.

1) There are no landlines in interplanetary, interstellar, or intergalactic communications.

2) The mechanoids could lose a few entire solar systems worth of stuff to Bug infection and just "cauterize the wound" by blowing the everloving bejesus out of it all without missing a beat.

In a war in one reality, the Mechanoids just flat-out win hands down with these two points. The bugs don't have interstellar travel beyond random dimensional rifts, and they have no defence against an invasion force that eats whole planets for breakfast.

And even if the war is a matter of Bugs popping in from their home universe to corrupt planets, with the Mechanoids incapable of finding a way to travel to that universe, the Bugs would never be more than an irritation. There's just no way they'd be able to infiltrate a significant proportion of the Mechanoid's resources, especially when a lot of Mechanoid technology is partially organic, and the entire race is more or less a hive-mind of fanatical conformity thats been known to do genocidal purges on itself to root out even slightly unorthodox thinking.

I'll second that

[Rallan]

i vote they kill each other out.
The Mechanoids would spend too much time gunning them down and the bugs would keep on coming.
they'd be losing alot of their bots to the bugs. They'd might just nuke each other out.

You forget that the main reason Mechanoids are so scary is that there's so damn many of them, and they make more of themselves so damn fast. They mass-produce everything, including hordes of vat-grown Mechanoid organisms for all classes and purposes. And when they invade a solar system they don't just take it over, they utterly annihilate all hostile intelligent life before blowing entire planets apart to harvest them for raw materials.

The Bugs could be a nasty surprise at the planetary level, but that's about it. They've got no technology of their own, they can't get into space without hijacking a spacecraft with enough automated features for them to pilot via their control of electronics, and they don't really have any defense against, say, an invasion fleet that decides to carpet-bomb the entire planet with antimatter bombs.

About the only thing the Bugs have going for them is that they're not humanoid and never ally with humanoids. Sure, they're rapacious invaders who are hostile to all other life and will probably have a crack at the Mechanoids because they can't help themselves, but they might not have to worry about being exterminated. After all, the Mechanoids are only insane genocidal maniacs when they're facing humanoid foes. If they get a Bug infestation they might just limit to burning the infestation out and quaruntining a few Bug homeworlds where those creepy energy-sucking arthropods can do their own thing in world-size national parks. And if the Mechanoids are feeling bored, they might even try and find ways of rounding Bugs up onto spaceships (preferably spaceships ran entirely by biological mechanisms to prevent a Bug takeover) and seed Bug colonies on humanoid worlds just for a laugh.

[Killer Cyborg]

The Bugs could be a nasty surprise at the planetary level, but that's about it. They've got no technology of their own, they can't get into space without hijacking a spacecraft with enough automated features for them to pilot via their control of electronics, and they don't really have any defense against, say, an invasion fleet that decides to carpet-bomb the entire planet with antimatter bombs.

And the mechanoid spaceships don't have automated features, because the spaceships are mechanoids too.

[Rallan]

The Bugs could be a nasty surprise at the planetary level, but that's about it. They've got no technology of their own, they can't get into space without hijacking a spacecraft with enough automated features for them to pilot via their control of electronics, and they don't really have any defense against, say, an invasion fleet that decides to carpet-bomb the entire planet with antimatter bombs.

And the mechanoid spaceships don't have automated features, because the spaceships are mechanoids too.

Well, partially mechanoids. Maybe. While an awful lot of Mechanoid technology is basically bionics with psychic mechanoid organisms grafted into it, they still use a fair bit of conventional technology. They've got a variety of autonomous robot drones for use on the battlefield, and presumably have a bunch of less exciting robot drones for use in other tasks. Plus not every function really needs to be ran by a psychic cyborg. So it's probably safe to assume that on a typical Mechanoid ship that's big enough to haul cargo and passengers, there's probably gonna be a lot of purely technological functions that the Bugs could potentially mess around with, and the Mechanoids would probably have to custom make a Bugproof vessel from scratch.

[Killer Cyborg]

And the mechanoid spaceships don't have automated features, because the spaceships are mechanoids too.

Well, partially mechanoids. Maybe. While an awful lot of Mechanoid technology is basically bionics with psychic mechanoid organisms grafted into it, they still use a fair bit of conventional technology. They've got a variety of autonomous robot drones for use on the battlefield, and presumably have a bunch of less exciting robot drones for use in other tasks. Plus not every function really needs to be ran by a psychic cyborg. So it's probably safe to assume that on a typical Mechanoid ship that's big enough to haul cargo and passengers, there's probably gonna be a lot of purely technological functions that the Bugs could potentially mess around with, and the Mechanoids would probably have to custom make a Bugproof vessel from scratch.

Maybe, but maybe not.
Think about how many autonomous functions we take care of with our own brains, within our own bodies.
I don't think it would be a problem for a mechanoid designed to have a spacecraft for a body to take care of and control that body in much the same way we do with our own.

[Rallan]

And the mechanoid spaceships don't have automated features, because the spaceships are mechanoids too.

Well, partially mechanoids. Maybe. While an awful lot of Mechanoid technology is basically bionics with psychic mechanoid organisms grafted into it, they still use a fair bit of conventional technology. They've got a variety of autonomous robot drones for use on the battlefield, and presumably have a bunch of less exciting robot drones for use in other tasks. Plus not every function really needs to be ran by a psychic cyborg. So it's probably safe to assume that on a typical Mechanoid ship that's big enough to haul cargo and passengers, there's probably gonna be a lot of purely technological functions that the Bugs could potentially mess around with, and the Mechanoids would probably have to custom make a Bugproof vessel from scratch.

Maybe, but maybe not.
Think about how many autonomous functions we take care of with our own brains, within our own bodies.
I don't think it would be a problem for a mechanoid designed to have a spacecraft for a body to take care of and control that body in much the same way we do with our own.

I dunno about that. If they're willing to make robots to perform a lot of tasks for 'em, it's probably safe to assume that they'll use even simpler technology to do an awful lot of stuff where you just don't need a living brain overseeing things all day long. A mechanoid ship might have an organic pilot organism or even a whole crew hardwired into it to take care of important stuff like navigation, weapons systems, scanning & targeting, and so on, and it might have biological systems to deal with other things as well (life support springs to mind), but there's probably an awful lot of relatively minor functions that just aren't vital enough to slave to the pilot organism and aren't worth designing a purpose-built mechanoid for.

[Lenwen]

the bugs because they could control the mechanoids mechanical shell

Re-read Systems Failure. Bugs can't control tech that advanced(unless the mechanoids are using early-21st-Century-Earth tech for their outer shells).

Mechanoids .
They "process" entire friggen planets ... for resources ..
The Bugs might be an inconvience , if anything at all ..
The bugs prolly wont even know what to do if a mech planet eater ship simply started to eat the planet ...
Let alone know thier underattack until thier already dead ..

This 1 is a no brainer ..

[Rallan]

personally i could see the mech trying to take and make slaves of a few or add least to capture the big lighting bug.

Not necessarily. The Bugs are an intelligent non-humanoid race with a long history of rapaciously destroying entire humanoid planets. The mechanoids have a long history of letting non-humanoids do their own thing as long as they don't cooperate with humanoids, which is something the Bugs will never be likely to do. From a Mechanoid perspective, there's just no good reason to be hostile to the Bugs except in self defence. And even then it's probably more desirable to limit yourself to fending off Bug attacks, letting the species live, and herding it towards some humanoid targets rather than exterminating it.

[The Beast]

to update my perspective.
the mecs would desire an alliance, think of if the the mecs study the way the bugs travel to other dimensions and find away to travel with them. Whole new human worlds to terrorize and torture. The bugs can be gluttons and the mecs get to brandish there own form of genocide. Scary.

No they wouldn't. Too many of the demons are humanoid in appearance.

[GeraldClamar]

I think the Mechanoids would eventually win. They have proven to be quite adaptable in the beginning of their war against humanity and as my brother would say, supreior tech would always find a way to win.