Watching "In the Flesh" after a decade

[zar]

I already answered to that, Anwar. Of course the torpedo explodes when it hits the hull. What else would you expect it to do? Just because it explodes doesn't mean it did any damage. They exploded in the second half of "Q Who" too, yet Worf specifically announces immediately after that they had no effect.



Now consider this.

Based on special effects alone, we know that when Starfleet weapons are at their full effectiveness (as in, not adapted to), they can leave gaping holes in a cube:

But in the scene you mention, despite your claim that they lost their adaptive ability, the only leftover evidence that they were hit at all was this pathetic display of green sparks (which dissipated soon after):

So Anwar, if the Borg lost their ability to adapt to torpedoes in "First Contact", why don't I see any gaping holes in this shot? Or any discernible structural damage at all, for that matter? If they were constantly under attack for hours and unable to adapt, shouldn't they be completely destroyed by this point?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Lets just make some assumptions.

Cubes are autorepaired by nanoprobes.

Nanoprobes (like sperm) are tasked to one purpose at a time (we'll assume which is why it was so difficult for the anti8472 weapon to be mass produced.).

Repair nanoprobes are not going to assimilate and self replicating nanoprobes are not going to repair or assimilate, even they they are constantly creating new nanoprobes for a multitude of defined tasks per current scarcity vs mission requirements.

Federation weapons are not going to be effective until a Cube runs out of repair tasked nanoprobes and selfreplicating nanprobes who are no longer able to refurbish force depletion.

Borg Cubes have a healing factor more so than out and out invulnerability that you have to destroy theship faster than than the nanoprobes can rebuild while destroying the nanoprobes faster than they can build new stocks.

A cube that is not thinking/considering about going into battle will not have a significant number of it's nanoprobes tasked towards the repair of catastrophic damage, which is not saying that it cannot phase out unessentialy tasked nanoprobes and redeploy task assignments quickly to it's existing stocks of nano probes. This juggling of priorities, retasking duty priorities might only take minutes or even seconds but if constant torpedo detonations are destroying billions of nanoprobes persecond and the Cube is only capable of creating thousands of new nanoprobes persecond, they are going to fall short on their minimum requirements for space worthiness quite quickly.

This explains why the first shot in Q-Who was so devastating and also why Picard couldn't have done what he did in First Contact if every one else hadn't been hammering the Queen's Cube for the previous nine hours.

 

[Anwar]

Then why were the 8472 so effective against the Borg? Are their single shots just powerful enough to destroy a ship so fast they can't do anything but die?

 

[zar]

A cube that is not thinking/considering about going into battle will not have a significant number of it's nanoprobes tasked towards the repair of catastrophic damage

In Both Worlds, someone (Shelby?) said something like the cube could still function if 80% of it was destroyed. So in Q Who maybe they didn't even consider it a threat that the Enterprise had the ability to blast enormous holes in them.

And in the first half of the battle in First Contact, the cube could have just let them destroy 80% of it while it focused all its effort on the adapt-o-matic, working out how to nullify the effects of quantum torpedoes. And then spent the rest of the time rebuilding itself with nanoprobes.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Was it the best of nboth worlds or QWho where they asked Wesley if he could manufacture a nanite colony to kick the Borgs ass for them? Either was he replied that he need a wek to make what they needed in significant supply which really just underscore who terribly the federaion Scientists didn't understand Borg technology that they didn't "notice" how simniotic(infested? Rithing?) Borg tech is with "nanites" which like fighting humans without noticing they need air to breath and considering how one can leverage that vulnerability.

Unless you destroy the nanocolony permeating through the %20 Borg remnant, it's only going to be a matter of time, minutes to hours till that 20 percent starts looking like a full sized Cube again.

Maybe 80 percent of it havd been destroyed and the nanoprobes had just been rebuilding the damage phyrically with concessions tht it was easier to rebuilding the Cube smaller as the federation ships chipped away at it which is kinda how ablative armour works. If the mass of the Cube is even variable depending on it's situation and requirements mass could be cast off or converted into fuel to aid towards their final agenda.

 

[JarodRussell]

So Anwar, if the Borg lost their ability to adapt to torpedoes in "First Contact", why don't I see any gaping holes in this shot? Or any discernible structural damage at all, for that matter? If they were constantly under attack for hours and unable to adapt, shouldn't they be completely destroyed by this point?

Just green sparks, really?

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/firstcontact/ch4/firstcontact0132.jpg
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/firstcontact/ch4/firstcontact0144.jpg
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/firstcontact/ch4/firstcontact0197.jpg
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/firstcontact/ch4/firstcontact0198.jpg

 

[Guy Gardener]

Then why were the 8472 so effective against the Borg? Are their single shots just powerful enough to destroy a ship so fast they can't do anything but die?

Not powerful, ineffable.

Borg tech is designed to be specific elegant counter to every attack.

If they don't understand the attack, then they can't counter.

And they don't understand shit until they assimilate their target.

8472 had living ships if I recall which probably had an even more complex biology than 8472.

Too complex or dense for the Borg assimilation nanoprobes to make headway against.

 

[zar]

Just green sparks, really?

Yes, really. I know you're probably just playing devil's advocate but I'll play along...

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/firstcontact/ch4/firstcontact0132.jpg
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/firstcontact/ch4/firstcontact0144.jpg

Saying those explosions are damage to the cube is like taking a picture of an egg exploding against a wall and saying it shows damage to the wall.

These are shots of the torpedoes exploding on impact. The damage they leave behind is obscured until the flames die out. The shot I posted shows, just like I said, "the only leftover evidence that they were hit at all", which is just green sparks.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/firstcontact/ch4/firstcontact0197.jpg
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/firstcontact/ch4/firstcontact0198.jpg

Those shots are from after Picard gives coordinates to the weakspot.

Like I said:

And in FC we saw the torpedo piercing the hull and exploding, as in blowing up a part of the outer hull.

No we didn't. Not until Picard told the fleet where the unshielded section was.

 

[JarodRussell]

Those shots are from after Picard gives coordinates to the weakspot.

Like I said:

And in FC we saw the torpedo piercing the hull and exploding, as in blowing up a part of the outer hull.

No we didn't. Not until Picard told the fleet where the unshielded section was.

We don't know why this section was special. No word about it being unshielded or anything.

 

[zar]

We don't have to know why. Picard knew why, and we can take his word for it because we know he had inside knowledge. I got the "unshielded" idea from Saito S, who said the novelization explains something about that section losing "adaptive shielding".

 

[Guy Gardener]

It wasn't a weak spot.

The Queen wanted him to blow up and the cube and chase her into the past.

The art of seduction.

Their marriage was on the rocks and she had to do something desperate to save it.

 

[JarodRussell]

It wasn't a weak spot.

The Queen wanted him to blow up and the cube and chase her into the past.

The art of seduction.

Their marriage was on the rocks and she had to do something desperate to save it.

Never looked at it that way. Not bad, not bad at all.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Well if you consider that she could have time traveled back to 2063 before she ventured out from the dq and then leisurely cruised off into earth-space unmolested by anyone, it's a certainty that she either needed somethign in the present before she leaped back, or the Queen was afraid of something very powerful in the past she wanted to wade through less than the entire Federation Fleet.

That is assuming that Time Travel was her "plan A".