Borg vs kenetic weapons

[TheMasterOfOrion]

Sorry if this one has come up before

I did a search and found many Borg threads on trekbbs but none that answered my question

Lots of Borg fans here so I wanted to know your thoughts on Borg vs bullets/hammers/swords that kind of thing

I've seen a number of sites the past month and bashed the Borg species, mostly StarWars and Halo websites.
Anyhow the fanboys say if the Borg fought these guys they could assimilate their technology but not before their soldiers come after the Borg with a bag of baseball bats, tommy guns and hammers and beat the crap out of the Borg

 

[USS KG5]

I think this is all a bit of a red herring based on Picard killing a couple of Borg with a machine gun, and Worf's success with his sword.

Generally I'd imagine Boeg just don't protect themselves against bladed weapons as they dont often face them.

Logically though they would adapt pretty quickly if you came at them full force with sharp pointy sticks, or they would never have conquered as much as they have.

 

[Dream]

I'd imagine all the races worthy of assimilation only use phasers. The ocassional attacker with a gun or sword would be rare.

 

[theenglish]

LOL--this reminds me of when we used to play the FASA RPG as kids. The guy who played the Captain always had a traditional pistol along in case they encountered "phaser" problems...I used all kinds of excuses as to why he shouldn't but he insisted and I always had to find ways to get around this problem.

 

[Cyke101]

I tried to reason that Picard could kill the Borg with a tommy gun because the bullets themselves were holographic, in that they were energy bolts that the Borg had not yet encountered (really, the idea of using forcefields and photons as holographic but lethal bullets was a novel one by the writers). I would think that, had a few more drones entered, their personal shields would have stopped the bullet fire, having adapted to the holographic matrix pattern or something equally technobabbly.

As for swords and other physical weapons: I dunno.

 

[Timo]

I'd rather argue that the swinging of a sword or a fist is too close to certain vital non-attack functions that the Borg could ever completely block such an attack.

Guns they'll no doubt block easily enough (but only after the first two Drones have fallen to the attack, since the first two Drones always fall to an attack no matter what attack technique is used). The basic defensive technique would be simple: a standard shield, which is known to be quite effective against conventional explosions or ramming attacks. Just ramp up the power, and apply a bit of inertia control, and a Drone could quite plausibly become impervious to artillery shells.

But a slowly moving sword or a fist acts too much like, say, an object the Borg would wish to grab. They can't erect a forcefield against a fist because they need access to the fists of their victims for assimilation purposes. They can't put a tractor beam on a sword because they need to be able to manipulate slowly swinging metal levers, even sharply edged ones.

At least, that's how the requirements of drama would go. It would be too big a plot complication, not to mention too much of a tech contradiction, if the Borg could somehow block a swinging fist.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cyke101]

It would be too big a plot complication, not to mention too much of a tech contradiction, if the Borg could somehow block a swinging fist.

Even then, I would imagine Borg durability would be pretty impressive compared to your standard humanoid H2H attacker. We've seen a drone take the butt of a phaser rifle from a fit human attacker with no apparent effect, so I imagine that in most cases anyway, a drone wouldn't need to block a fist anyway.

That could also imply that forcefields aren't a drone's only way of adapting to an attack as well.

 

[James Wright]

I'm glad someone asked about this!
There's one other thing the Borg Drones can't adjust their personal shields against, Species 8472.

James

 

[Timo]

Is there? I thought the only two shortcomings the Borg had vs. the 8472 were

a) the adaptation routine didn't work on the 8472, that is, the nanoprobes didn't take, and
b) the 8472 guns were too damn powerful to be stopped by the best Borg defenses - they could blow up entire planets, after all!

Individual Drones probably weren't at a particularly great disadvantage against individual 8472 members.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Warp Coil]

Sometimes I wonder why the crews never replicated various types of guns, blades, darts, arrows, grenades, etc. in an effort to fight the Borg. Once they'd adapted to phasers, they were useless, so why didn't anyone consider using an alternate method of attack - one that doesn't involve energy beams and that the Borg can't adapt to? Sure, it may seem low-tech, but it doesn't matter so long as it's affective.

 

[USS Triumphant]

It has always seemed to me that a weapon that utilizes energy as ammunition (phasers, disrupters, etc) would be easier to disperse with shields, which are also just structured energy, than weapons that drive a mass (swords, pistols, railguns, etc). Against those, the strength of physical armor would become much more important. For the Borg to adapt to energy weapons merely requires them to adjust the frequency and power used in their personal shields. The only way for them to adapt to mass-driven weapons is to improve the physical armor worn by each drone - and there is probably more of a limit to what each drone can be outfitted with in that regard.

 

[Myasishchev]

It always vaguely bothered me that the Borg drones were individually too retarded to disrupt their routine to deal with physical assaults, or, for that matter, boarders.

And being vulnerable to bullets when a phaser blast gets stopped cold makes no sense at all. That's like a tank shrugging off RPG rounds, but getting knocked out by massed musket fire.

 

[Star Wolf]

Sometimes I wonder why the crews never replicated various types of guns, blades, darts, arrows, grenades, etc. in an effort to fight the Borg. Once they'd adapted to phasers, they were useless, so why didn't anyone consider using an alternate method of attack - one that doesn't involve energy beams and that the Borg can't adapt to? Sure, it may seem low-tech, but it doesn't matter so long as it's affective.

I remember an old Hill St Blues story arc were Lt hunter was demoted to Sergeant because he used unauthorized ammo off duty. After a fight between a Sergeant and First Sergeant in my division (1st Inf in the late 80s) the General banned all of us from carrying any knife from a Boy Scout or Swiss Army knifes to after market fighting knives. Examples on what seems to be in the character of the Federation; that only authorized weapons with a non lethal setting would be authorized. It was only the Borg threat which spurred the design of a dedicated warship, Defiant, which wasn't put into production until the Dominion War began. It seems with no recent Borg advances the Federation went back to normal form.

 

[Anticitizen]

What I never understood is why our protagonists never tried simply overpowering the Personal Borg Shield (TM). Any time shields are fired upon in ST, the shields are weakened. Yet when the drones 'remodulate' their shields to adapt to phaser frequencies, our heroes give up. They never seem to have tried firing more in hopes to overpower the shield and penetrate it.

Alternate nitpick: Why must drones move along so damn slowly, like zombies?

 

[Icemizer]

I dont believe any thrown weapon would have any effect after the first 2 drones go down to them. The shields would adapt and the weapons rendered useless.
As for swords we have seen drones adapted with special arms and hands. Fitting them with both bladed weapons and small shield projectors would be simple enough. Of course once the borg sword contacts your flesh the nanoprobes take effect.

 

[USS Triumphant]

It always vaguely bothered me that the Borg drones were individually too retarded to disrupt their routine to deal with physical assaults, or, for that matter, boarders.

And being vulnerable to bullets when a phaser blast gets stopped cold makes no sense at all. That's like a tank shrugging off RPG rounds, but getting knocked out by massed musket fire.

No it isn't. Phasers and bullets are apples and oranges. RPG rounds and musket fire are apples and, well, really BIG apples.

I agree about boarders, though. You'd have to think that at some point they'd have assimilated that having strange people roaming your ship is a security risk.

 

[Cyke101]

What I never understood is why our protagonists never tried simply overpowering the Personal Borg Shield (TM). Any time shields are fired upon in ST, the shields are weakened. Yet when the drones 'remodulate' their shields to adapt to phaser frequencies, our heroes give up. They never seem to have tried firing more in hopes to overpower the shield and penetrate it.

Well, if it takes 10 shots to overpower a drone's shield, and you're getting swarmed by an ever-increasing number of drones ready to corner you, then you look for a more efficient means of taking down the enemy.

As an aside, with the exception of Worf, I don't think there are any main Trek heroes who rely on beam-spam anyway.

Alternate nitpick: Why must drones move along so damn slowly, like zombies?

Drones can't think for themselves, are pale skinned, and have an almost primal urge to turn you into one of them. They're zombies alright

In-universe reason: no idea. You would think that with that many mechanical enhancements, a drone would be more like the Terminator than Robocop.

 

[Star Wolf]

Well we call them drones so we expect them to drone. Battle tactics are irrelevant as the mass of drones will eventually wear you down and assimilate you. They will assimilate you faster then you will kill them of this the Queen is sure. Drones freed from the collective did seem more Terminator the Robocop.

 

[James Wright]

Hey Timo remember that pile of Borg bodies Kes saw in her vision? I'm just guessing here and if I'm wrong you all will let me know it, I'm guessing that a single member of Species 8472 made that pile of bodies, Harry Kim met the dude, sort of!(Might've been a dudette!)

James

 

[Timo]

Then again, that entire Cube was badly hurt by what supposedly were 8472 starships; the Drones could have gone down as part of the Cube, rather than as victims of personal violence.

On the matter of using bullet guns as an alternative when phasers fail, I'd argue that phasers are inherently more reconfigurable than bullet guns. Thus, it might be more worthwhile to try and find new modulations on your phaser than to go and fetch a bullet gun that will only work once and can never be modified or modulated.

On the matter of the Drones moving slowly and not engaging in counterattacks or fancy martial arts moves... Perhaps the Collective deems it more valuable that they continue their original work, or fight the intruders by operating the Cube rather than by combating the boarding party directly? Difficult to find a good justification.

Timo Saloniemi