Borg vs kenetic weapons
- Thread starter TheMasterOfOrion
- Start date
Phasers are so inconsistently portrayed it's hard to know for sure what they are. Maybe some kind of plantain.
Theoretically, one way would be to become Neo the Bullet-time Dancer. Since the Borg never come "pre-adapted", but always revert back to their vulnerable basic form at the absence of threats, one might theoretically say that this is what happens when you fire a machine gun at a gaggle of Drones long enough, or when you send in your samurai horde. That is, the Drones are sluggish only on default mode, perhaps because this saves energy, and can easily use their superior bodies and their technological boosters to move very fast - but only when needed for the protection of the Collective. The protection of individual Drones would not merit such an adaptation.
Another possibility would be a shield shell that is impervious to bullets and swords. The former would probably be easy enough, as long as it selectively stopped fast-moving bullets and didn't hinder the Drone from accessing the slowly moving gun wielder it wished to assimilate. But the latter would be a bigger problem, because a swinging sword would not be all that different from this slowly moving assimilation target.
A third counter, good against swords, would be counterattack by a ranged weapon. We saw Lore's rogue Borg utilize those. The regular Borg aren't into infantry attacks, but they could probably adopt ranged weapons if swordsmen became too much of a nuisance.
Timo Saloniemi
Another possibility would be a shield shell that is impervious to bullets and swords. The former would probably be easy enough, as long as it selectively stopped fast-moving bullets and didn't hinder the Drone from accessing the slowly moving gun wielder it wished to assimilate. But the latter would be a bigger problem, because a swinging sword would not be all that different from this slowly moving assimilation target.
A third counter, good against swords, would be counterattack by a ranged weapon. We saw Lore's rogue Borg utilize those. The regular Borg aren't into infantry attacks, but they could probably adopt ranged weapons if swordsmen became too much of a nuisance.
Timo Saloniemi
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
The Borg have adapted to Phasers hundreds of times yet over any length of time when the Feds meet the Borg again Phasers have become useful once more. It takes several shots before the Borg adapt to the Phasers again.
When we saw the Borg blasted with bullets and cut up by a sword they aren't something that happened a lot. I mean as far as i'm aware the Borg were shot only the one time by Picard, certainly not long enough for them to adapt. If it takes them a few shots to adapt to phasers which they've adapted to many times in the past then it stands to reason they might require being shot at least a few times before they adapt to projectile weapons.
If Borg drones can create a shield around them then ANY shield regardless of its frequency will stop bullets. For phasers they tune them better but for bullets no tuning is required.
There's no doubt in my mind that the Borg given more time than one single encounter with bullets would adapt and raise a shield.
When we saw the Borg blasted with bullets and cut up by a sword they aren't something that happened a lot. I mean as far as i'm aware the Borg were shot only the one time by Picard, certainly not long enough for them to adapt. If it takes them a few shots to adapt to phasers which they've adapted to many times in the past then it stands to reason they might require being shot at least a few times before they adapt to projectile weapons.
If Borg drones can create a shield around them then ANY shield regardless of its frequency will stop bullets. For phasers they tune them better but for bullets no tuning is required.
There's no doubt in my mind that the Borg given more time than one single encounter with bullets would adapt and raise a shield.
One wonders. After all, ST:GEN indicated that the Klingon torpedoes would penetrate better if adjusted for the frequency of the victim ship's shields...
Now, how one "adjusts" a torpedo or other physical projectile is unknown. Perhaps a specific shield-penetrating doodad aboard the projectile is tuned in a specific way? That would mean that if the doodad could be sufficiently miniaturized, one could fire RPGs or perhaps even bullets through shields, with the ease of penetration depending on how well the shield parameters of the target were known.
Alternately, perhaps the Klingon torpedoes were not projectile weapons - but I'd hate to use the terminology that way when all other torpedoes in Trek are indeed established as physical weapons. (Even the Romulan "plasma torpedoes" from DS9 are supposedly shipped to their location of intended use, suggesting they are physical ammo; the Romulan plasma weapons from TOS were never given a formal name, least of all "plasma torpedo".)
The third alternative is that the torpedoes were not tuned; only the wingtip disruptors of the BoP were. The Duras Sisters still opened the game with torpedoes, so perhaps those can penetrate even the best starship shields when fired at point-blank range, without requiring any trickery? But if so, the Duras protestations of their BoP being utterly unmatched would sound a bit more hollow, and the value of the shield-negating trick would decrease.
Timo Saloniemi
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Federation forcefields are immediately effective against both directed energy weapons and projectiles. And we have yet to see an "individual" forcefield. Perhaps because the energy consumption is too big?
The borg drones' protection field takes time to adapt to every threat - but when it does adapt, it becomes practically impervious. And it seems to have trouble adapting to projectiles and hand to hand combat - we have yet to see it adapting to these attacks. Plus, it can be mounted on a drone.
That's sufficient evidence to confirm that the technologies are quite different.
I suppose the borg will ultimately adapt to projectile weapons by making drones with a thicker physical armour or by utilizing a different technology for the drones' energy fields.
Of course, a borg cube is a different matter - there is a HUGE difference between its shields and the shield of a drone.
The borg drones' protection field takes time to adapt to every threat - but when it does adapt, it becomes practically impervious. And it seems to have trouble adapting to projectiles and hand to hand combat - we have yet to see it adapting to these attacks. Plus, it can be mounted on a drone.
That's sufficient evidence to confirm that the technologies are quite different.
I suppose the borg will ultimately adapt to projectile weapons by making drones with a thicker physical armour or by utilizing a different technology for the drones' energy fields.
Of course, a borg cube is a different matter - there is a HUGE difference between its shields and the shield of a drone.
Well the requirements of drama will make the Borg as tough or vulnerable as they need to be to serve the story that week, which is why they appear weaker on Voyager, as the little Fed ship has to get away every week.
You have a point about identification, but surely the software controlling the shields is advanced enough to recognise a blade travelling quickly enough to wound? Even software of the now could probably do that.
It's not just that - it's what the software needs to do. In order to block swords but allow for a fondle of an assimilable console or a grip on the victim's shoulder, the defensive routine would need to raise and drop the kinetic-barrier shield again and again, sometimes very rapidly. Not only would this interrupt important operations, it might be very hard on the shield-generating hardware.
It's all fine and well to erect a slab-sided beam-blocker some distance away from the Drone, as in "Q Who?" and other TNG eps, as long as this doesn't prevent the Drone's hands from assimilating the interesting console. But a shield intended to defeat close-and-personal sword or fist attacks would deal with a different, more mobile situation, and might hinder operations too much. If the Drone could isolate itself inside a largish shield "greenhouse" good against all threats for the duration of its mission, that'd be ideal. But it may not be practicable.
Timo Saloniemi
It's all fine and well to erect a slab-sided beam-blocker some distance away from the Drone, as in "Q Who?" and other TNG eps, as long as this doesn't prevent the Drone's hands from assimilating the interesting console. But a shield intended to defeat close-and-personal sword or fist attacks would deal with a different, more mobile situation, and might hinder operations too much. If the Drone could isolate itself inside a largish shield "greenhouse" good against all threats for the duration of its mission, that'd be ideal. But it may not be practicable.
Timo Saloniemi
Ain't that the sad truth.
First Contact was about the time I started to call bullshit on the Borg's often cited ability to "adapt." If the sum total of your adaptive abilities consists of turning a dial on the personal shield frequency settings, that's pretty poor.
Worf is able to modify a com-badge into a force field in A Fist Full of Data's which lasts long enough to stop him being shot.
The Borg should come complete with a kevlar style bullet proofing included in their armour, and if they don't their nanites should be able to give them such a coating after the collective gets shot at a few times.
Trek changes how it's tech works from episode to episode making it impossible to work out why things are the way they are.
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This line pretty much answers every Tech-related quested on Trek ever. When was the last time we ever saw the deflector dish deflect anything?
Hey, it deflects pesky story complications all the time!
Maybe an energy field that stops bullets and swords is not out of the question. The University of Washington, Seattle, has not been sleepless: They are working on a charged plasma bubble that would protect a spacecraft against interstellar radiation and some particles. Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is working along the same lines.
Well not really sad, it is just a TV show after all, and when keeping consistency for the 0.1% of viewers who will notice starts outweighing storytelling you get real problems.
After all, the crew are supposed to be our "heroes" and therefore in the art of storytelling are capable of extraordinary things.
The great thing is that in the greater scheme of things "real life" stories with a minimum of alteration are just as amazing, look at Band Of Brothers to see a good example.
alright master chief lets get em'!!
Wasn't the cube Janeway was on attacked by a single bioship? Seems to me, (if my memory ain't failing) that the bioship was knocking some pretty good size holes in the cube, until said cube rammed the bioship!
On the topic of Borg shields and guns, if the Borg came across a species that used projectile weapons in their rampage across the galaxy before TNG, they'd eventually adapt, since Picard took out two drones with a tommy gun, the Borg hadn't run into anything like it before, either that or Picard got real lucky!
James
On the topic of Borg shields and guns, if the Borg came across a species that used projectile weapons in their rampage across the galaxy before TNG, they'd eventually adapt, since Picard took out two drones with a tommy gun, the Borg hadn't run into anything like it before, either that or Picard got real lucky!
James
Omega_Glory
Commodore
About the bullets. A lot of folks assume they were minature forcefields but I doubt that. In the first TNG episode they describe the holodeck as using transporters, matter, and forcefields to create the many items in a simulation. There's absolutely no reason to believe that those bullets in FC weren't acutally metallic projectiles replicated by the computer. The holodeck uses raw material to replicate items.
You could always get the Borg with the first couple of volleys of anything. Then they'd adapt. Though they had seen energy weapons before, the Borg were always vulnerable to the first few rounds.
That's the only way that whole scene would make sense, considering Borg shielding allows you to walk through forcefields as if they weren't even there.
