I WAS WRONG: Borg are vulnerable to solid matter + force.
Norman Doering
The Borg vulnerability to solid matter weapons:
In a post a few days ago I told someone who pointed to a problem
with that scene in First Contact where Picard shot the Borg on the
holodeck, firing a machine gun, that the Borg simply hadn't
adapted to that weapon yet. I was wrong. I forgot that Worf was
later able to cut off a Borg's arm with his blade weapon. This
should not have been possible if their sheilds had ajusted to that
form of physical force. Yet further evidence that the Borg are
vunerable to this type of weapon is the fact that Picard ordered
the crew to fight in hand-to-hand with the Borg after the Borg had
adjusted to all phaser frequencies. This indicates that Borg
armour is worse than a mideval knight's armour -- you can slice
and punch through it almost as it wasn't there. Which seems mean
that the Fed are idiots for not having a stock pile of solid
matter projectile weapons on call for the Borg now. When you
encounter the Borg, replicate elephant guns ASAP. If they ever
encounter the Borg in a fight again they'd be stupid not to use
them now that this vulnerability has been established.
Is this a flaw? Not yet. Picard didn't necessarily know he should
have found other weapons to fight the Borg from the begining, and
the replicators probably didn't work anyway. He might have
discovered this in a moment of desperation. And if it does become
a flaw it will be a flaw in Starfleet intelligence not in the
Borg. Still, Borg sheilds should have some effect on projectiles,
swords and punches to be more credible. It would be more credible
if you could knock the Borg about with that force, but not slice
or pierce them so easily, the sheilds should at least activate if
not stop that kind of weapon.
Dangermouse
Norman Doering <dave...@prairienet.org> wrote
> In a post a few days ago I told someone who pointed to a problem
> with that scene in First Contact where Picard shot the Borg on the
> holodeck, firing a machine gun, that the Borg simply hadn't
> adapted to that weapon yet. I was wrong. I forgot that Worf was
> later able to cut off a Borg's arm with his blade weapon. This
> should not have been possible if their sheilds had ajusted to that
> form of physical force
Bullets travel at supersonic speeds, Worf's metleth doesn't. Remember that
physical weapons operat in a variety of different ways, all of which have
to be adapted to - stabbing, slashing, using the flat of the blade etc.
Asmaul (McChesney)
I don't think the Borg can adapt to physical attack, maybe just slow it down
somewhat. After all, the Borg have assimilated hundreds of species if not
more right? DOn't think that in all that time they would have encountered
a race that tried physical attack, at least bullets?
Do you remember tht little food replicator that PIcard gave to the Uxbridges
one time? I say turn that into bullet replictor and add a firing mechanism
to it.
-------------------------------
Jasper <Asmaul> McChesney - ja...@javanet.com
http://www.javanet.com/~jasp/asmaul1.htm
Please remove ".nospam" when replying
Asian Mafia
Asmaul (McChesney) wrote:
> Do you remember tht little food replicator that PIcard gave to the Uxbridges
> one time? I say turn that into bullet replictor and add a firing mechanism
> to it.
I say they build a bullet replicator right into the the gun so that they
have unlimited bullets.
411 on Jeri Ryan
http://members.aol.com/ChiChiX/jeriryan
Norman Doering
in
news:348974...@javanet.com
"Asmaul (McChesney)" <ja...@javanet.com> wrote:
> Dangermouse wrote:
>>
>> Norman Doering <dave...@prairienet.org> wrote
>> > In a post a few days ago I told someone who pointed to a problem
>> > with that scene in First Contact where Picard shot the Borg on
>> > the holodeck, firing a machine gun, that the Borg simply hadn't
>> > adapted to that weapon yet. I was wrong. I forgot that Worf was
>> > later able to cut off a Borg's arm with his blade weapon. This
>> > should not have been possible if their sheilds had ajusted to
>>
>> Bullets travel at supersonic speeds, Worf's metleth doesn't.
>> Remember that physical weapons operat in a variety of different
>> ways, all of which have to be adapted to - stabbing, slashing,
>> using the flat of the blade etc.
Why would a sheild have to know so much about the weapons it's
attacked with? That it would stop a force at such and such a speed
but not a force at another speed? Still, it has dramatic potential
if it comes as a surprise to those who think the Borg are simply
vulnerable to physical force.
> I don't think the Borg can adapt to physical attack, maybe just
> slow it down somewhat.
bullets and swords, but not block the inertial force of such a
weapon.
> After all, the Borg have assimilated hundreds of species if not
> bullets?
What if there are only a few hundred very specific forms of attack
that a Borg sheild can deal with. It doesn't matter what the Borg
have met before, they have to adjust to / (select for) what you're
going to use in a very specific mannar. What if the price for
selecting any sheild modulation is that the Borg can't use that
form of force itself? This would also explain, though not
perfectly, why an aggresive race like the Borg don't carry their
own energy or force weapons. Whatever weapon they used would be
the one you could use on them.
> Do you remember tht little food replicator that PIcard gave to
> the Uxbridges one time? I say turn that into bullet replictor
> and add a firing mechanism to it.
>
leper_messiah
The Borg use an electromagnetic field to dissipate the light energy of a
phaser blast. Such a field would not be able to protect the Borg very well
against kinetic weapons because the power supply to repel a bullet
travelling at 1200 feet per second upon impact would be too large to be
integrated into the Borg. Glock 9mm pistols should be standard issue in a
Borg threat (imagine the damage of a 24th century handgun:faster,harder
hitting,larger capacity,better accuracy,no recoil...)
Mike Bonneau
Shadow Hardware Inc.
leper_...@msn.com
Asmaul (McChesney) wrote in message <348974...@javanet.com>...
>Dangermouse wrote:
>>
>> Norman Doering <dave...@prairienet.org> wrote
>> > In a post a few days ago I told someone who pointed to a problem
>> > with that scene in First Contact where Picard shot the Borg on the
>> > holodeck, firing a machine gun, that the Borg simply hadn't
>> > adapted to that weapon yet. I was wrong. I forgot that Worf was
>> > later able to cut off a Borg's arm with his blade weapon. This
>> > should not have been possible if their sheilds had ajusted to that
>> > form of physical force
>>
>> Bullets travel at supersonic speeds, Worf's metleth doesn't. Remember
that
>> physical weapons operat in a variety of different ways, all of which have
>> to be adapted to - stabbing, slashing, using the flat of the blade etc.
>
>I don't think the Borg can adapt to physical attack, maybe just slow it
down
>somewhat. After all, the Borg have assimilated hundreds of species if not
>more right? DOn't think that in all that time they would have encountered
>a race that tried physical attack, at least bullets?
>
Chris Wagner
leper_messiah wrote:
> The Borg use an electromagnetic field to dissipate the light energy of a
> phaser blast. Such a field would not be able to protect the Borg very well
> against kinetic weapons because the power supply to repel a bullet
> travelling at 1200 feet per second upon impact would be too large to be
> integrated into the Borg. Glock 9mm pistols should be standard issue in a
> Borg threat (imagine the damage of a 24th century handgun:faster,harder
> hitting,larger capacity,better accuracy,no recoil...)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!! You are so dumb. Phasers have nothing to
do with light. Why did you make this up??? Do you want to sound
smart? Why don't you learn something, then you will be smart. You are
a charlatan. Stop trolling this newsgroup. Watch the show, read the
tech manual, LEARN something, then come back.
I am not going to give this post the dignity of an actual response.
sobriëtas
I disagree.
because the technologie is based on energy weapons not on sollid matter
weapons. The borg have to provide themselves with old fasiond shielding like
bullitprove vest etc. to adapt a sollid projecteil.
Norman Doering heeft geschreven in bericht
<66an15$glm$1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>...
>
>The Borg vulnerability to solid matter weapons:
>
>In a post a few days ago I told someone who pointed to a problem
>with that scene in First Contact where Picard shot the Borg on the
>holodeck, firing a machine gun, that the Borg simply hadn't
>adapted to that weapon yet. I was wrong. I forgot that Worf was
>later able to cut off a Borg's arm with his blade weapon. This
>should not have been possible if their sheilds had ajusted to that
Dangermouse
Norman Doering <dave...@prairienet.org> wrote
> That would be an odd way to explain that Borg vulnerability away.
> Why would a sheild have to know so much about the weapons it's
> attacked with? That it would stop a force at such and such a speed
> but not a force at another speed? Still, it has dramatic potential
> if it comes as a surprise to those who think the Borg are simply
> vulnerable to physical force.
The shield wouldn't, but I'm assuming that the Borg has to select which
function to switch the shield to, and/or program that function.
> This would also explain, though not
> perfectly, why an aggresive race like the Borg don't carry their
> own energy or force weapons. Whatever weapon they used would be
> the one you could use on them.
You mean like the Cybermen again?
Actually the Borg do use energy weapons, and yes, they are vulnerable to
them. This probably more explains why Borg away teams or scout parties
rarely use them - they find out what the enemy's weapons are like, but
don't allow any of their own to fall into enemy hands, thus giving them an
advantage.
Dangermouse
QarnoS <qar...@mindless.com> wrote
> Hmmm... I'm not tech expert but I thought the general jist of shields
> is that they absorb energy. If so, this would include kinetic energy
> as well, wouldn't it?
Yep. Otherwise the Enterprise would be smashed to pieces just by
interstellar dust and micrometeoroids, let alone any decent-sized rocks...
James Park
It seems like the Borg would be stupid to not be able to devise a shield
against projectile weapons. Worf himself did it using some simple
improvisation, in the episode a Fistful of Datas. If Worf could come up
with that, I don't see how the borg wouldn't be able to also... Wasn't it
like a subspace shield or something? Don't remember, but it repelled
bullets just fine.
--James
Blackrobe
Actually, the shields of a starship are not what protects the ship from
micrometeoriods and interstellar dust. The deflector dish generates an
anti-proton field that repells matter. This is not to say that the shields
couldn't do the job (I'm not sure if they could) but there is a specific
piece of equipment that protects against matter-impact damage.
Blackrobe
--
Robert R. Ballecer Jr., SJ
"The Original TechnoWeenie!"
rballec**@orion.it.luc.edu
---Remove all asterisks to email me---
Chris Wagner
Chad Millar wrote:
>
> Borg cube's are vulnerable to projectile weapons as well - Quantum and
> Photon Torpedos were striking the ship in FC with ease (although with
> only minor effect)
I woudn't call torpedoes projectile weapons... They carry multi megaton
warheads. Thats a lot of energy to counteract in such a short time.
That is why they affect the Borg at all.
Chris Wagner
sobri=EBtas wrote:
> =
> I disagree.
> because the technologie is based on energy weapons not on sollid matter=
> weapons. The borg have to provide themselves with old fasiond shielding=
like
> bullitprove vest etc. to adapt a sollid projecteil.
Keep this in mind too: Those were holographic bullets with all the
force of the holodeck force fields behind them. Far far more than a
normal bullet. It was NOT the same as if you went up to one with a a
=2E357 and opened fire. As for Worf slicing off the Borg arm, the Borg
have to *lower* their shields to engage in hand to hand combat, which
seems to be their preferred method of attack. If they kept their
shields up they would not be able to grab anybody or inject them with
nanoprobes.
Adam Hodkin
The Borg may not have adapted to the bullets (holographic bullets, at that)
or the metlef. After all, there were only two Borgs who were shot, and only
one whose arm was shot off. But, the lack of adaptation raises another
question: since the Borg have conquered thousands of worlds, didn't any of
the others use machine guns? You would think they only have to adapt once.
However, it is interesting that in First Contact Data withstands a fusillade
of bullets from a machine gun, whereas the Borg were instantly killed by a
machine gun. Also, an apparent inconsistency: in one episode of STNG, Data
is impaled by a metal spear that passed entirely through his body. If he
couldn't handle that, why could he withstand being shot multiple times at
point blank range?
Dangermouse wrote in message <01bd022f$b4fadda0$LocalHost@lgwujvnl>...
>
>
>Norman Doering <dave...@prairienet.org> wrote
>> In a post a few days ago I told someone who pointed to a problem
>> with that scene in First Contact where Picard shot the Borg on the
>> holodeck, firing a machine gun, that the Borg simply hadn't
>> adapted to that weapon yet. I was wrong. I forgot that Worf was
>> later able to cut off a Borg's arm with his blade weapon. This
>> should not have been possible if their sheilds had ajusted to that
Blackrobe
> However, it is interesting that in First Contact Data withstands a
fusillade
> of bullets from a machine gun, whereas the Borg were instantly killed by
a
> machine gun. Also, an apparent inconsistency: in one episode of STNG,
Data
> is impaled by a metal spear that passed entirely through his body. If he
> couldn't handle that, why could he withstand being shot multiple times at
> point blank range?
Which episode? In any case, a metal spear can actually have more force
behind it than a bullet. Whereas bullets are relatively light projectiles
made of soft lead, a spear (assuming that it is made out of steel or
tritanium) thrown with enough force can be a deadly weapon. (It's just much
slower)
Blackrobe
James Grady Ward
Adam Hodkin wrote:
>
> The Borg may not have adapted to the bullets (holographic bullets, at that)
> or the metlef. After all, there were only two Borgs who were shot, and only
> one whose arm was shot off. But, the lack of adaptation raises another
> question: since the Borg have conquered thousands of worlds, didn't any of
> the others use machine guns? You would think they only have to adapt once.
>
Perhaps the borg only project the shields that the expect to
be needed at any one time.
--
buckysan
annapuma and unapumma in 98
44% of people think there is intelligent life besides earth
44% of people think there is intelligent life in washington DC
Jason C Fleshman
Excerpts from netnews.rec.arts.startrek.misc: 7-Dec-97 Re: I WAS WRONG:
Borg are v.. by "Adam Hodkin"@msn.com
> or the metlef. After all, there were only two Borgs who were shot, and only
> one whose arm was shot off. But, the lack of adaptation raises another
> question: since the Borg have conquered thousands of worlds, didn't any of
> the others use machine guns? You would think they only have to adapt once.
>
> of bullets from a machine gun, whereas the Borg were instantly killed by a
> machine gun. Also, an apparent inconsistency: in one episode of STNG, Data
> is impaled by a metal spear that passed entirely through his body. If he
> couldn't handle that, why could he withstand being shot multiple times at
> point blank range?
It's not necessarily inconsistent. Kevlar can withstand gunshots (it
spreads out the impact force, IIRC) but can be cut, stitched, etc.,
without too much hassle. I'm not saying it'd slice up like a piece of
cloth, but you may be able to ram a spear through it.
As for the Borg, they only try to assimilate civilizations they feel
will help them (or in FC, wipe out a strong enemy) and those
civilizations probably only used high-energy particle weapons similar to
phasers/disruptors. They may have never come up against bullets; not
many species get a second chance at the Borg, after all.
--Jason
QarnoS
>> The Borg use an electromagnetic field to dissipate the light energy of a
>> phaser blast. Such a field would not be able to protect the Borg very well
>> against kinetic weapons because the power supply to repel a bullet
>> travelling at 1200 feet per second upon impact would be too large to be
>> integrated into the Borg. Glock 9mm pistols should be standard issue in a
>> Borg threat (imagine the damage of a 24th century handgun:faster,harder
>> hitting,larger capacity,better accuracy,no recoil...)
Hmmm... I'm not tech expert but I thought the general jist of shields
Chad Millar
Asmaul (McChesney) wrote:
>
> Dangermouse wrote:
> >
> > Norman Doering <dave...@prairienet.org> wrote
> > > In a post a few days ago I told someone who pointed to a problem
> > > with that scene in First Contact where Picard shot the Borg on the
> > > holodeck, firing a machine gun, that the Borg simply hadn't
> > > adapted to that weapon yet. I was wrong. I forgot that Worf was
> > > later able to cut off a Borg's arm with his blade weapon. This
> > > should not have been possible if their sheilds had ajusted to that
> > > form of physical force
> >
> > Bullets travel at supersonic speeds, Worf's metleth doesn't. Remember that
> > physical weapons operat in a variety of different ways, all of which have
> > to be adapted to - stabbing, slashing, using the flat of the blade etc.
>
> somewhat. After all, the Borg have assimilated hundreds of species if not
> more right? DOn't think that in all that time they would have encountered
> a race that tried physical attack, at least bullets?
Borg cube's are vulnerable to projectile weapons as well - Quantum and
Charles Spalton
Adam Hodkin wrote in message ...
>The Borg may not have adapted to the bullets (holographic bullets, at that)
>or the metlef. After all, there were only two Borgs who were shot, and
only
>one whose arm was shot off. But, the lack of adaptation raises another
>question: since the Borg have conquered thousands of worlds, didn't any of
>the others use machine guns? You would think they only have to adapt once.
What is more, shouldn't they be able to pre-adapt by using the processing
power of upwards of 8000 races linked into one collective to _anticipate_
the capabilities of a system used against them? The Borg collective as
portrayed in First Contact is limited by being cut off from the rest of the
collective, but what about the initial attack by the cube? They've
assimilated Star Fleet bases before, they should be able to extrapolate to
defend against the technology used against them in FC. And what about the
combined tactical genius of that many minds working as one?
An answer? The scriptwriters came up with a good idea for an enemy, but the
enemy should have been too powerful to be defeated, so they had to be
downgraded so the Federation could win.
Charles.
Dangermouse
Blackrobe <rballec*@orion.it.luc.edu> wrote
> Actually, the shields of a starship are not what protects the ship from
> micrometeoriods and interstellar dust. The deflector dish generates an
> anti-proton field that repells matter. This is not to say that the
shields
> couldn't do the job (I'm not sure if they could) but there is a specific
> piece of equipment that protects against matter-impact damage.
That repels matter from ahead of the ship. When the ship is sitting in one
place, with said matter hitting it from angles other than directly ahead,
the shields take care of it.
As proof, we have seen the shields take the impact of bits of wreckage and
shrapnel during battle.
Dangermouse
Adam Hodkin <aho...@msn.com> wrote
> However, it is interesting that in First Contact Data withstands a
fusillade
> of bullets from a machine gun, whereas the Borg were instantly killed by
a
> machine gun
I wouldn't call it instant. And the Borg are organic underneath (in this
case two former Enterprise crewmen), whereas Data is entirely artificial.
Kroagnon
Chad Millar wrote in message <348A9EEB...@australia.net.au>...
In all the previous Borg episodes, torpedoes exploded harmlessly against the
cube. This can be seen in Q-Who, Best of Both Worlds, and Descent. First
Contact is the first time we have ever seen torpedoes have any damaging
effect on a Borg cube.
Kroagnon
to respond via E-Mail, remove the nope- before my E-Mail address
WRobert525
>Subject: I WAS WRONG: Borg are vulnerable to solid matter + force.
>From: dave...@prairienet.org (Norman Doering)
>Date: Sat, Dec 6, 1997 00:15 EST
>Message-id: <66an15$glm$1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>
>
>
>The Borg vulnerability to solid matter weapons:
>
>with that scene in First Contact where Picard shot the Borg on the
>holodeck, firing a machine gun, that the Borg simply hadn't
>adapted to that weapon yet. I was wrong. I forgot that Worf was
>later able to cut off a Borg's arm with his blade weapon.
*Edged weapons v. projectiles. Both solid, true, but they're
different kinds of animals to protect against, probably
even by energy shields. Also, I don't know that anyone
made a rule that "if a Borg doesn't adapt __immediately__,
he/she won't be able to adapt at all!" :-) Sometimes it
takes several blows for the Borg to figure out what's going
on, just like with the phaser modulations.
This
>should not have been possible if their sheilds had ajusted to that
>form of physical force. Yet further evidence that the Borg are
>vunerable to this type of weapon is the fact that Picard ordered
>the crew to fight in hand-to-hand with the Borg after the Borg had
>adjusted to all phaser frequencies. This indicates that Borg
>armour is worse than a mideval knight's armour -- you can slice
>and punch through it almost as it wasn't there.
*But a mideval knight's armor wouldn't protect him from a high energy phaser
blast!
Which seems mean
>that the Fed are idiots for not having a stock pile of solid
>matter projectile weapons on call for the Borg now. When you
>encounter the Borg, replicate elephant guns ASAP. If they ever
>encounter the Borg in a fight again they'd be stupid not to use
>them now that this vulnerability has been established.
*Hehe. The advantage wouldn't last very long, I assure you.
See above.
>
>Is this a flaw? Not yet. Picard didn't necessarily know he should
>have found other weapons to fight the Borg from the begining, and
>the replicators probably didn't work anyway. He might have
>discovered this in a moment of desperation. And if it does become
>a flaw it will be a flaw in Starfleet intelligence not in the
>Borg. Still, Borg sheilds should have some effect on projectiles,
>swords and punches
*Swords might be alright for a little while, but punches?!
No way. Borg are stronger than Vulcans and Klingons--
even a partially cybernetic female Borg can overpower an adult Vulcan ("The
Raven," ST: VOY). Punching their armor
wouldn't be a great idea, especially when very few races
(and I dare say, no humanoids) would have the physical
strength to back it up. Data is the only Starfleet I've seen
that can handle them, and he's probably able to deadlift about
5,000 kilos!
to be more credible. It would be more credible
>if you could knock the Borg about with that force, but not slice
>or pierce them so easily, the sheilds should at least activate if
>not stop that kind of weapon.
*Probably would.
-Sean
Ron's Inspector's Inspector
The problem in fighting them hand-to-hand is the Borg method of
assimilation, as described in "First Contact" and elaborated upon in
Voyager. If the Borg can touch you and get one of their needles into you,
you're assimilated. So, though you can probably kill a Borg soldier with an
adequately sharp pencil, you'll probably end up taking his place in the
collective. The Borg would certainly consider this a better-than-even
trade, because not only do they get your body, they get your knowledge and
"distinctiveness" added to their own.
Norman Doering wrote in message <66an15$glm$1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>...
James Grady Ward
This is a good point, a human even with lots of borg parts has lots
of internal parts that have to continue working for them to be alive.
Data on the otherhand has no need for his body at all. There has been
at least one time in which it was shown that Data's head can operate
by itself if his body is messed up.
Towline
Although the Borg have shown themselves somewhat vulnerable to
physical attacks, its quite possible its merely that they didn't have
time to adapt. Remeber, that even when you fire a phaser on a
different frequency, it takes time for them to adapt. But remember,
its still a phaser they're firing, its entirely possible that it takes
longer to adapt to a completely different weapon.
If, however, they are vulnerable to physical weapons, I think the
federation can do better than "machine guns" or "gloc 9mm's". They'd
probably go more into the line of railguns.
Towline
"I may be half-witted, but I have survived with
half my wits where many have died in full
posession of theirs, therefore it seems that
quality of wits is more important than quantity
of wits" Sir Derek Jacobi, I Claudius.
Kasey Chang (fix address before replying to me!)
On 7 Dec 1997 18:36:06 GMT, "Blackrobe" <rballec*@orion.it.luc.edu>
wrote:
>> QarnoS <qar...@mindless.com> wrote
>> > Hmmm... I'm not tech expert but I thought the general jist of shields
>> > is that they absorb energy. If so, this would include kinetic energy
>> > as well, wouldn't it?
>> Yep. Otherwise the Enterprise would be smashed to pieces just by
>> interstellar dust and micrometeoroids, let alone any decent-sized
>rocks...
>Actually, the shields of a starship are not what protects the ship from
>micrometeoriods and interstellar dust. The deflector dish generates an
>anti-proton field that repells matter.
Not an anti-proton field... A GRAVITON field, i.e. a "broad-scope"
version of a tractor beam.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Kasey Chang DCL, Fremont, CA k a s e y c @ d i s c o p y . c o m
PDOXWIN, Star Trek, Computer Games, Science Fiction, Writing, && more
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Commercial use of this e-mail address implies your consent to pay me
amounts of up to US$100.00 per e-mail message from you received by me.
Chris Wagner
Chad Millar wrote:
> I disagree... I consider Torpedos projectile weapons because they
> explode after contact with a ships shields or hull. In 'Best of Both
Projectile weapons are things like spears and bullets. The primary
attack is acomplished by the mechanical transfer of KE. Photon
torpedoes use gamma rays and a minor shock wave to acomplish the attack
and transfer KE. That is *not* a projectile.
> Worlds' it was established Borg cubes don't use regular shields, they
> use a subspace field around the cube. When a phaser hits it, it has no
> effect because the field stops it (there is a shot in FC where an Akira
Um, *all* shields use subspace fields. *All* shields stop phasers. The
only purpose of the subspace field is to contain the graviton field,
which does the actual work of a shield.
> class is firing phasers at the cube, but the shots have no effect like
> in BoBW, for some reason this doesn't effect Defiants phasers which were
> still effective) but torpedos aren't energy so they would pass through
> the field (like the shuttle in BoBW) then strike the cube and explode.
That is because they have such a high wattage. Most of the FC ships had
to combine fire in order to affect the cube.
Chris Wagner
Ron's Inspector's Inspector wrote:
>
> The problem in fighting them hand-to-hand is the Borg method of
> assimilation, as described in "First Contact" and elaborated upon in
> Voyager. If the Borg can touch you and get one of their needles into you,
> you're assimilated. So, though you can probably kill a Borg soldier with an
> adequately sharp pencil, you'll probably end up taking his place in the
> collective. The Borg would certainly consider this a better-than-even
> trade, because not only do they get your body, they get your knowledge and
> "distinctiveness" added to their own.
Definitly better than even. The Borg number hasn't changed but your
number has decreased by one.
Mark Sidloi
Chris Wagner wrote:
>
> Chad Millar wrote:
> > I disagree... I consider Torpedos projectile weapons because they
> > explode after contact with a ships shields or hull. In 'Best of Both
>
> Projectile weapons are things like spears and bullets. The primary
> attack is acomplished by the mechanical transfer of KE. Photon
> torpedoes use gamma rays and a minor shock wave to acomplish the attack
> and transfer KE. That is *not* a projectile.
>
No, Photon torpedoes ARE projectile weapons of a sort and they do NOT
use gamma radiation. Photorps are matter/anti-matter devices. We've seen
photorp casing, they're about 2 meters long. The energy field visible
outside a photorp once launched is there to ensure that the matter and
antimatter are not forced together pre-maturely - sort of the way the
inertaial dampener keep the a ship's crew from becoming a splat on the
wall - though it is quite different (when was the last time you saw a
starship encased in a red glow). Anyway, upon impact, the matter and
anti-matter packets are forced together and they annihilate each other
releasing a large amount of energy.
> > Worlds' it was established Borg cubes don't use regular shields, they
> > use a subspace field around the cube. When a phaser hits it, it has no
> > effect because the field stops it (there is a shot in FC where an Akira
No. Shields are subspace fields.
>
> Um, *all* shields use subspace fields. *All* shields stop phasers. The
> only purpose of the subspace field is to contain the graviton field,
> which does the actual work of a shield.
Shields have nothing to do with graviton, unless you can think of a
reason
for shields to attract matter towards a ship. They also have nothing to
do with anti-gravitons (a fictional construct that exists in Star Trek,
mentioned in STIV:TVH) as anti-gravitons would have no effect on beam
weapons.
>
> > class is firing phasers at the cube, but the shots have no effect like
> > in BoBW, for some reason this doesn't effect Defiants phasers which were
> > still effective) but torpedos aren't energy so they would pass through
> > the field (like the shuttle in BoBW) then strike the cube and explode.
>
> That is because they have such a high wattage. Most of the FC ships had
> to combine fire in order to affect the cube.
No. The first time the USS Enterprise fired phasers and photon torpedoes
at a Borg ship (in "Q Who") the weapons hit the Borg ship as if the ship
had no shields at all and made some nice damage. However, the Borg
adapted to phasers and since that time the only time we ever saw a
phaser beam causing major damage to a Borg ship was in FC. (the USS
Enterprise's hit on the Borg ship in BoBW did take out the tractor beam
but did not cause damage on the level of Q Who or FC). Now the Defiant's
weapon systems (with the exception of the regular phaser which the
Defiant also has) are totally new to the Borg. They have never
encountered pulse phasers, nor have they encountered Quantum Torpedoes
(though they may have encountered Q Torps during the Starfleet's stand
in the Typhon sector during FC which we heard about but did not see).
Mark
Charles Rice
Kroagnon wrote:
>
> Chad Millar wrote in message <348A9EEB...@australia.net.au>...
> >Asmaul (McChesney) wrote:
> >>
> >> Dangermouse wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Norman Doering <dave...@prairienet.org> wrote
> >> > > with that scene in First Contact where Picard shot the Borg on the
> >> > > holodeck, firing a machine gun, that the Borg simply hadn't
> >> > > adapted to that weapon yet. I was wrong. I forgot that Worf was
> >> > > should not have been possible if their sheilds had ajusted to that
> >> >
> >> > Bullets travel at supersonic speeds, Worf's metleth doesn't. Remember
> that
> >> > physical weapons operat in a variety of different ways, all of which
> have
> >> > to be adapted to - stabbing, slashing, using the flat of the blade etc.
> >>
> >> I don't think the Borg can adapt to physical attack, maybe just slow it
> down
> >> somewhat. After all, the Borg have assimilated hundreds of species if
> not
> >> more right? DOn't think that in all that time they would have
> encountered
> >> a race that tried physical attack, at least bullets?
> >
> >Borg cube's are vulnerable to projectile weapons as well - Quantum and
> >Photon Torpedos were striking the ship in FC with ease (although with
> >only minor effect)
>
> In all the previous Borg episodes, torpedoes exploded harmlessly against the
> cube. This can be seen in Q-Who, Best of Both Worlds, and Descent. First
> Contact is the first time we have ever seen torpedoes have any damaging
> effect on a Borg cube.
>
> Kroagnon
> to respond via E-Mail, remove the nope- before my E-Mail address
can't. Keep in mind it took a good portion of the movie for them to
adapt to the crew's phasers in FC when they had previously adapted to
Star Fleet hand phasers numerous times, INCLUDING Q Who.
I think the Borg dont have to adapt to physical weapons often, because
in FC it was shown that only Worf and Data were strong enough/skilled
enough to be a match for any of the Borg in hand-to-hand combat.
Any race with physical projectile weapons(ie guns, spears whatever)
would be effective for a limited time just like the crew was in FC...
though the Borg would adapt quicker because of the more limited range of
energy types(ie blunt kinetic... edged kinetic etc).
As Q WHo and FC showed, any race can be effective against the borg for
awhile, I dont see why a race using physical weapons would be any
different.
Chad Millar
Kroagnon wrote:
>
> >
> >Borg cube's are vulnerable to projectile weapons as well - Quantum and
> >Photon Torpedos were striking the ship in FC with ease (although with
> >only minor effect)
>
> In all the previous Borg episodes, torpedoes exploded harmlessly against the
> cube. This can be seen in Q-Who, Best of Both Worlds, and Descent. First
> Contact is the first time we have ever seen torpedoes have any damaging
> effect on a Borg cube.
>
> Kroagnon
I remember those episodes, and that torpedos had no effect in them. I
was mearly saying that having the torpedos effective in FC added to the
impression that Borg were vulnerable to projectile weapons. (Also, I
don't count anything in 'Descent' as fact about the Borg)
Chad Millar
Chris Wagner wrote:
>
> Chad Millar wrote:
> >
> > Borg cube's are vulnerable to projectile weapons as well - Quantum and
> > Photon Torpedos were striking the ship in FC with ease (although with
> > only minor effect)
>
> warheads. Thats a lot of energy to counteract in such a short time.
> That is why they affect the Borg at all.
I disagree... I consider Torpedos projectile weapons because they
explode after contact with a ships shields or hull. In 'Best of Both
Worlds' it was established Borg cubes don't use regular shields, they
use a subspace field around the cube. When a phaser hits it, it has no
effect because the field stops it (there is a shot in FC where an Akira
David Johnston
Kroagnon wrote:
>
> Chad Millar wrote in message <348A9EEB...@australia.net.au>...
> >Asmaul (McChesney) wrote:
> >>
> >> Dangermouse wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Norman Doering <dave...@prairienet.org> wrote
> >> > > In a post a few days ago I told someone who pointed to a problem
> >> > > with that scene in First Contact where Picard shot the Borg on the
> >> > > holodeck, firing a machine gun, that the Borg simply hadn't
> >> > > adapted to that weapon yet. I was wrong. I forgot that Worf was
> >> > > later able to cut off a Borg's arm with his blade weapon. This
> >> > > should not have been possible if their sheilds had ajusted to that
> >> > > form of physical force
> >> >
> >> > Bullets travel at supersonic speeds, Worf's metleth doesn't. Remember
> that
> >> > physical weapons operat in a variety of different ways, all of which
> have
> >> > to be adapted to - stabbing, slashing, using the flat of the blade etc.
> >>
> >> I don't think the Borg can adapt to physical attack, maybe just slow it
> down
> >> somewhat. After all, the Borg have assimilated hundreds of species if
> not
> >> more right? DOn't think that in all that time they would have
> encountered
> >> a race that tried physical attack, at least bullets?
> >
> >Photon Torpedos were striking the ship in FC with ease (although with
> >only minor effect)
>
> cube. This can be seen in Q-Who, Best of Both Worlds, and Descent. First
> Contact is the first time we have ever seen torpedoes have any damaging
> effect on a Borg cube.
In the first episode, Photorps had a crippling effect on the Borg cube,
and could have destroyed it if Picard wasn't a wimp.
Federal Agent
Dangermouse <mas...@sol.co.ukDEATH-TO-SPAMMERS> wrote in article
<01bd022f$b4fadda0$LocalHost@lgwujvnl>...
Norman Doering <dave...@prairienet.org> wrote
> In a post a few days ago I told someone who pointed to a problem
> with that scene in First Contact where Picard shot the Borg on the
> holodeck, firing a machine gun, that the Borg simply hadn't
> adapted to that weapon yet. I was wrong. I forgot that Worf was
> later able to cut off a Borg's arm with his blade weapon. This
> should not have been possible if their sheilds had ajusted to that
> form of physical force
Bullets travel at supersonic speeds, Worf's metleth doesn't. Remember that
physical weapons operat in a variety of different ways, all of which have
to be adapted to - stabbing, slashing, using the flat of the blade etc.
You would think that of all the races the Borg have assimilated, they
would have run into hand-to-hand combat before. And if they were able to
adapt their shields to it, they would have done so already. There must be
more to it than this or Picard would have armed most if not all of the crew
on the E-E with submachine guns on his trip to enginneering.
Fed
Charles Rice
Chris Wagner wrote:
>
> sobriëtas wrote:
> >
> > I disagree.
> > because the technologie is based on energy weapons not on sollid matter
> > bullitprove vest etc. to adapt a sollid projecteil.
>
> Keep this in mind too: Those were holographic bullets with all the
> force of the holodeck force fields behind them. Far far more than a
> normal bullet. It was NOT the same as if you went up to one with a a
> have to *lower* their shields to engage in hand to hand combat, which
> seems to be their preferred method of attack. If they kept their
> shields up they would not be able to grab anybody or inject them with
> nanoprobes.
inject their transforming nanites could penetrate "any shields",
presumably the Borg's own shields. The basic issue is one of time. The
crew's phasers were effective for a period of time before the Borg had
time to adapt. The same process would have to happen for physical
weapons as well.
Jim Roberts-Miller
In article <348D63BC...@australia.net.au>, fer...@australia.net.au wrote:
>
>A race that only used projectile weapons wouldn't interest the Borg -
>too primitive, and not worthy of assimilation since the Borg seem to go
>after the highly advanced races
If *you* were attacked with a rock moving at .5C I think you might be
interested, if you were still around afterward to talk about it.
Jammer Jim Roberts-Miller
--
Texas A&M University '89,'91
"Sometimes lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for." -- Me
Alfred
> Subject: Re: I WAS WRONG: Borg are vulnerable to solid matter + force.
> >> The Borg use an electromagnetic field to dissipate the light energy of a
> >> phaser blast. Such a field would not be able to protect the Borg very well
> >> against kinetic weapons because the power supply to repel a bullet
> >> travelling at 1200 feet per second upon impact would be too large to be
> >> integrated into the Borg. Glock 9mm pistols should be standard issue in a
> >> Borg threat (imagine the damage of a 24th century handgun:faster,harder
> >> hitting,larger capacity,better accuracy,no recoil...)
>
> is that they absorb energy. If so, this would include kinetic energy
> as well, wouldn't it?
Hey you're right!!! What about Torpedos??? Borg can adapt to torpedos
right???
Alfred
> Subject: Re: I WAS WRONG: Borg are vulnerable to solid matter + force.
>
> >
> > Chad Millar wrote:
> > >
> > > Photon Torpedos were striking the ship in FC with ease (although with
> > > only minor effect)
> >
> > warheads. Thats a lot of energy to counteract in such a short time.
> > That is why they affect the Borg at all.
>
> I disagree... I consider Torpedos projectile weapons because they
> explode after contact with a ships shields or hull. In 'Best of Both
> Worlds' it was established Borg cubes don't use regular shields, they
> use a subspace field around the cube. When a phaser hits it, it has no
> effect because the field stops it (there is a shot in FC where an Akira
> class is firing phasers at the cube, but the shots have no effect like
> in BoBW, for some reason this doesn't effect Defiants phasers which were
> still effective) but torpedos aren't energy so they would pass through
> the field (like the shuttle in BoBW) then strike the cube and explode.
>
>
Are phaser beams travelling at c? If so, then what about Pulsed
Phasers? It seems to me that (even though it may only be for dramatic
effect) pulse-phasers look like they travel at sub-light speed in the
form of projectiles. Say you've got three Defiant-Class ships, one
armed with Quantum torpedos, one armed with type XIII phaser arrays, and
the other with pulse-phasers...
If they all were accelerating to full impulse at the same rate,
and targeted the same target, which weapon would have the hardest time
trying to hit the target?
A Phaser BEAM should have no trouble since the beam is travelling "at the
speed of light" it should be able to redirect it's direction as the ship
accelerates. Obviously they can be blocked by a subspace field since
subspace fields manipulate particles easily to allow transporters to
work efficiently...
A Torpedo on the other hand can direct itself since it's own propulsion
is independent of the firing mechanism... they can also emit shield
frequencies of their own to detect collision and trigger detonation...
that's why modified Klingon torpedos managed to penetrate a Galaxy-class
ship's shields.
But what about pulse-phasers? They are neither continuous beams nor
missles (like torpedos) yet they have more devastating effects...
Therefore, the question is, ARE pulse-phasers PROJECTILE weapons?
If they ARE projectile weapons, then they should have the same effect on
a Borg ship as bullets from a tommy-gun to a Borg in a Holosuite.
If you watch the Defiant's approach in the movie, it takes three shots,
(i think) and look where AND HOW those shots hit the borg ship...
Ah, an essence of consistency... Trek-writers can thank me later...
BORG??? Hand me my 45!!!
Chris Wagner
Mark Sidloi wrote:
> No, Photon torpedoes ARE projectile weapons of a sort and they do NOT
> use gamma radiation. Photorps are matter/anti-matter devices. We've seen
> anti-matter packets are forced together and they annihilate each other
> releasing a large amount of energy.
HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!! What truck did you fall of of????? What pray tell
happens when matter and antimatter come together??? I'll tell you
what: GAMMA RAYS.
> No. Shields are subspace fields.
> Shields have nothing to do with graviton, unless you can think of a
> reason
> for shields to attract matter towards a ship. They also have nothing to
> do with anti-gravitons (a fictional construct that exists in Star Trek,
> mentioned in STIV:TVH) as anti-gravitons would have no effect on beam
> weapons.
Yawn. Your ignorance apalls me. RTFM. Shields are a graviton field
contained by a subspace field.
> No. The first time the USS Enterprise fired phasers and photon torpedoes
> at a Borg ship (in "Q Who") the weapons hit the Borg ship as if the ship
> had no shields at all and made some nice damage. However, the Borg
That is because the Borg had no idea what SF weapons were like. It was
exactly like when Lursa and B'Tor shot up the E-D when they found the
shield modulation. The Borg apparently only modulate their shields for
*known* weapons.
> adapted to phasers and since that time the only time we ever saw a
> phaser beam causing major damage to a Borg ship was in FC. (the USS
> Enterprise's hit on the Borg ship in BoBW did take out the tractor beam
> but did not cause damage on the level of Q Who or FC). Now the Defiant's
> weapon systems (with the exception of the regular phaser which the
> Defiant also has) are totally new to the Borg. They have never
> encountered pulse phasers, nor have they encountered Quantum Torpedoes
> (though they may have encountered Q Torps during the Starfleet's stand
> in the Typhon sector during FC which we heard about but did not see).
The Borg can adapt in minutes. You don't even know how adaptation works
or why it works. In FC SF is to the level that they can dump more
energy into a cube than the Borg are *able* to counteract. When a ship
fires at the Borg, they create a counteractive energy which cancels out
the energy of the attack. The only way around this is to use *more*
energy than the Borg have available to counteract your attack, for a
given area. If you have 10 phaser beams and torpedoes hitting a small
area of a cube, the Borg just can't get enough energy to that little
area to counteract the phasers and torpedoes. This is why the Defian't
pulse phasers work on the Borg, they contain more watts than the Borg
are able to use against them.
Chris Wagner
Chad Millar wrote:
> Why then in 'Best of Both Worlds' did they say "The Borg use a subspace
> field" Why not just say they use shields? The subspace field stops
> phasers dead. Shields don't. Shields are like a solid wall - nothing can
> pass through them, everything is repulsed away. Subspace fields on the
> other hand, only stop directed energy.. in BoBW a shuttle goes through
> the field no problem, so the same would apply to a torpedo
The shuttle flew through the Borg's *electromagnetic* field. It was
more of an early warning system than a defensive "shield".
> > >
> > > Um, *all* shields use subspace fields. *All* shields stop phasers. The
> > > only purpose of the subspace field is to contain the graviton field,
> > > which does the actual work of a shield.
>
> Shields don't 'stop' phasers, nor do they 'stop' torpedos. They absorb
> and disperse the energy that strikes the shield. Thats why when
> something hits a shield you see a larger area of the shield glow than
> was struck.
Sounds like "stoping" to me...
> The problem with this is, the Defiant had been fighting the Borg for
> hours! The Borg usually adapt within 1-3 hits of energy weapons, but the
> Defiant's phasers were still effective.. possible part of their design?
The Defiants phasers are strong enough to overpower the adaptive
cabalilities of the small area they hit.
The Magicman
>But what about pulse-phasers? They are neither continuous beams nor
>missles (like torpedos) yet they have more devastating effects...
Normal Phasers are emitting the same amount of energy as long as one shot
lasts.
Pulse Phasers are emitting a very great amount of energy at once then a
short time
of recharging an the the next pulse.
Are you familiar with the technology of celllular phones (Handys)?
They ar communicating with the next relais station by pulsed
microwave radiarion. They're consuming much les energy by
transmitting data in (High energy) pulses instead of a continious
evel of radiation wich would also fry your head.
In fact if you would use the same energy neded to emit a continios
level of microwave radiation to emit a pulsed microwave radiation
you would have a much higher communication range.
R. Tang
In article <01bd0468$062d8bc0$6613c2cf@na>,
Federal Agent <cory_...@bc.sympatico.ca> wrote:
> You would think that of all the races the Borg have assimilated, they
>would have run into hand-to-hand combat before. And if they were able to
>adapt their shields to it, they would have done so already. There must be
>more to it than this or Picard would have armed most if not all of the crew
>on the E-E with submachine guns on his trip to enginneering.
OF COURSE THERE IS.
Damned surprised no one's thought of it.
Remember, the Borg ADAPT. Well, how does one adapt? You have to
have a first exposure. It's EXTREMELY inefficient to send an omni-purpose
defense out in Borg terms; all Borg drones are interchangeable and
effectively limitless.
They send out minimally equipped drones, sacrifice 'em to see what
kills them and adapt to the vectore. Simple, effective and efficient.
--
Roger Tang, gwan...@u.washington.edu, Artistic Director PC Theatre
Editor, Asian American Theatre Revue [NEW URL]
http://www.abcflash.com/arts/r_tang/AATR.html
Declared 4-F in the War Between the Sexes
Paul C. Mancini
leper_messiah wrote in message ...
>The Borg use an electromagnetic field to dissipate the light energy of a
>phaser blast. Such a field would not be able to protect the Borg very well
>against kinetic weapons because the power supply to repel a bullet
>travelling at 1200 feet per second upon impact would be too large to be
>integrated into the Borg. Glock 9mm pistols should be standard issue in a
>Borg threat (imagine the damage of a 24th century handgun:faster,harder
>hitting,larger capacity,better accuracy,no recoil...)
>
The borg would adapt in a different way to compensate for this, proably
giving the drones physical armour of some sort, we've seen how
quickly they grow new stuff (that voyager episode where 7 of 9 goes
against the crew. It doesnt make sense that such a superior race would
be vulnerable to small arms fire, they would have a hell of a time
assimilating even primates with spears.
Chad Millar
Mark Sidloi wrote:
>
> Chris Wagner wrote:
> >
> > Chad Millar wrote:
> > > I disagree... I consider Torpedos projectile weapons because they
> > > explode after contact with a ships shields or hull. In 'Best of Both
> >
> > attack is acomplished by the mechanical transfer of KE. Photon
> > torpedoes use gamma rays and a minor shock wave to acomplish the attack
> > and transfer KE. That is *not* a projectile.
> >
>
> use gamma radiation. Photorps are matter/anti-matter devices. We've seen
> outside a photorp once launched is there to ensure that the matter and
> antimatter are not forced together pre-maturely - sort of the way the
> inertaial dampener keep the a ship's crew from becoming a splat on the
> wall - though it is quite different (when was the last time you saw a
> anti-matter packets are forced together and they annihilate each other
> releasing a large amount of energy.
Agreed
> > > Worlds' it was established Borg cubes don't use regular shields, they
> > > use a subspace field around the cube. When a phaser hits it, it has no
> > > effect because the field stops it (there is a shot in FC where an Akira
>
> No. Shields are subspace fields.
Why then in 'Best of Both Worlds' did they say "The Borg use a subspace
field" Why not just say they use shields? The subspace field stops
phasers dead. Shields don't. Shields are like a solid wall - nothing can
pass through them, everything is repulsed away. Subspace fields on the
other hand, only stop directed energy.. in BoBW a shuttle goes through
the field no problem, so the same would apply to a torpedo
> >
> > Um, *all* shields use subspace fields. *All* shields stop phasers. The
> > only purpose of the subspace field is to contain the graviton field,
> > which does the actual work of a shield.
Shields don't 'stop' phasers, nor do they 'stop' torpedos. They absorb
and disperse the energy that strikes the shield. Thats why when
something hits a shield you see a larger area of the shield glow than
was struck.
> Shields have nothing to do with graviton, unless you can think of a
> reason for shields to attract matter towards a ship. They also have nothing to
> do with anti-gravitons (a fictional construct that exists in Star Trek,
> mentioned in STIV:TVH) as anti-gravitons would have no effect on beam
> weapons.
No, he's actually correct here, its mentioned about a contained
graviton field in the tech manual. Incidently, there is no mention that
shields involve subspace fields.
> >
> > > class is firing phasers at the cube, but the shots have no effect like
> > > in BoBW, for some reason this doesn't effect Defiants phasers which were
> > > still effective) but torpedos aren't energy so they would pass through
> > > the field (like the shuttle in BoBW) then strike the cube and explode.
> >
> > That is because they have such a high wattage. Most of the FC ships had
> > to combine fire in order to affect the cube.
>
> No. The first time the USS Enterprise fired phasers and photon torpedoes
> at a Borg ship (in "Q Who") the weapons hit the Borg ship as if the ship
> had no shields at all and made some nice damage. However, the Borg
> adapted to phasers and since that time the only time we ever saw a
> phaser beam causing major damage to a Borg ship was in FC. (the USS
> Enterprise's hit on the Borg ship in BoBW did take out the tractor beam
> but did not cause damage on the level of Q Who or FC).
Correct
> Now the Defiant's
> weapon systems (with the exception of the regular phaser which the
> Defiant also has) are totally new to the Borg. They have never
> encountered pulse phasers, nor have they encountered Quantum Torpedoes
> (though they may have encountered Q Torps during the Starfleet's stand
> in the Typhon sector during FC which we heard about but did not see).
The problem with this is, the Defiant had been fighting the Borg for
hours! The Borg usually adapt within 1-3 hits of energy weapons, but the
Defiant's phasers were still effective.. possible part of their design?
Chad Millar
Chad Millar
Correct
The problem with this is, the Defiant had been at Typhon, so it had
been fighting the Borg for hours! (3 hours by the time Data estimated it
would take E-E to get to Earth) The Borg usually adapt within 1-3 hits
Chad Millar
Charles Rice wrote:
>
> I think the Borg dont have to adapt to physical weapons often, because
> in FC it was shown that only Worf and Data were strong enough/skilled
> enough to be a match for any of the Borg in hand-to-hand combat.
>
> Any race with physical projectile weapons(ie guns, spears whatever)
> would be effective for a limited time just like the crew was in FC...
> though the Borg would adapt quicker because of the more limited range of
> energy types(ie blunt kinetic... edged kinetic etc).
>
> As Q WHo and FC showed, any race can be effective against the borg for
> awhile, I dont see why a race using physical weapons would be any
> different.
A race that only used projectile weapons wouldn't interest the Borg -
Charles Spalton
Chris Wagner wrote in message <348DA4...@pohl.ececs.uc.edu>...
>
>That is because the Borg had no idea what SF weapons were like. It was
>exactly like when Lursa and B'Tor shot up the E-D when they found the
>shield modulation. The Borg apparently only modulate their shields for
>*known* weapons.
>
What I want to know is, how come the Borg, with what we can assume given
that they use subspace signals for their network is infinite bandwidth,
don't immediately adapt to anything that any one of them encounters, if they
haven't already? I mean, they have a network with a propogation rate of
something like warp 9.9997, a large presence in a number of quadrants
already, the networked intelligence of multiple species... If the
scriptwriters didn't want to be able to write more series, I would say the
Borg were unstoppable; in fact, I am surprised that they are not already a
threat to the Q.
Live long and prosper,
Charles.
John Myers
>
> Hey you're right!!! What about Torpedos??? Borg can adapt to torpedos
> right???
>
In the first episode the Borg adapted to Torpedoes before they were used,
the first Photorp salvo was useless despite them having been using only the
phasers previously.
Kroagnon
Charles Rice wrote in message <348C79...@intnet.net>...
>Kroagnon wrote:
>>
>> Chad Millar wrote in message <348A9EEB...@australia.net.au>...
>> >Asmaul (McChesney) wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Dangermouse wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > Norman Doering <dave...@prairienet.org> wrote
>> >> > > In a post a few days ago I told someone who pointed to a problem
>> >> > > with that scene in First Contact where Picard shot the Borg on the
>> >> > > holodeck, firing a machine gun, that the Borg simply hadn't
>> >> > > adapted to that weapon yet. I was wrong. I forgot that Worf was
>> >> > > later able to cut off a Borg's arm with his blade weapon. This
>> >> > > should not have been possible if their sheilds had ajusted to that
>> >> > > form of physical force
>> >> >
>> >> > Bullets travel at supersonic speeds, Worf's metleth doesn't.
Remember
>> that
>> >> > physical weapons operat in a variety of different ways, all of which
>> have
>> >> > to be adapted to - stabbing, slashing, using the flat of the blade
etc.
>> >>
>> >> I don't think the Borg can adapt to physical attack, maybe just slow
it
>> down
>> >> somewhat. After all, the Borg have assimilated hundreds of species if
>> not
>> >> more right? DOn't think that in all that time they would have
>> encountered
>> >> a race that tried physical attack, at least bullets?
>> >
>> >Borg cube's are vulnerable to projectile weapons as well - Quantum and
>> >Photon Torpedos were striking the ship in FC with ease (although with
>> >only minor effect)
>>
>> In all the previous Borg episodes, torpedoes exploded harmlessly against
the
>> cube. This can be seen in Q-Who, Best of Both Worlds, and Descent. First
>> Contact is the first time we have ever seen torpedoes have any damaging
>> effect on a Borg cube.
>>
>> Kroagnon
>> to respond via E-Mail, remove the nope- before my E-Mail address
>when ONE borg (individual or cube) adapts apparently they ALL don't or
>can't. Keep in mind it took a good portion of the movie for them to
>adapt to the crew's phasers in FC when they had previously adapted to
>Star Fleet hand phasers numerous times, INCLUDING Q Who.
>
>I think the Borg dont have to adapt to physical weapons often, because
>in FC it was shown that only Worf and Data were strong enough/skilled
>enough to be a match for any of the Borg in hand-to-hand combat.
Using that logic, the Borg would be in trouble if they boarded a Klingon
ship, which they must have at some point. The Borg are naive, but not that
naive; remember, "strength is irrelevant".
And BTW, Worf must have obtained a hell of alot of strength since "Best of
Both Worlds", where he was tossed off a Borg like a fly, and later was
nearly electrocuted by Locutus if it weren't for Data.
Kroagnon
Chad Millar wrote in message <348BF10C...@australia.net.au>...
>Kroagnon wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >Borg cube's are vulnerable to projectile weapons as well - Quantum and
>> >Photon Torpedos were striking the ship in FC with ease (although with
>> >only minor effect)
>>
>> In all the previous Borg episodes, torpedoes exploded harmlessly against
the
>> cube. This can be seen in Q-Who, Best of Both Worlds, and Descent. First
>> Contact is the first time we have ever seen torpedoes have any damaging
>> effect on a Borg cube.
>>
>> Kroagnon
>
> I remember those episodes, and that torpedos had no effect in them. I
>was mearly saying that having the torpedos effective in FC added to the
>impression that Borg were vulnerable to projectile weapons.
But why would they be suddenly effective? Nothing has changed, although I
suppose that by the time the Enterprise arrived the Borg subspace field
could have been weakened.
> (Also, I don't count anything in 'Descent' as fact about the Borg)
Hah! I see what you mean by that, and share it somewhat.. The scene where
Crusher fires torpedoes at the "Borg" ship while retreating is the scene I'm
referring to.
Kroagnon
David Johnston wrote in message <348D4D...@telusplanet.net>...
>> In all the previous Borg episodes, torpedoes exploded harmlessly against
the
>> cube. This can be seen in Q-Who, Best of Both Worlds, and Descent. First
>> Contact is the first time we have ever seen torpedoes have any damaging
>> effect on a Borg cube.
>
>In the first episode, Photorps had a crippling effect on the Borg cube,
>and could have destroyed it if Picard wasn't a wimp.
You are mistaken. In the episode in question, four photon torpedoes were
fired at the Borg ship while the Enterprise was warping away from it, and
all four had no effect (this was even stated).
When the Borg locked on to the Enterprise with the tractor beam earlier in
the episode, the phasers carved some big craters in the Borg ship. This was
the extent of the damage in that episode.
Kroagnon
Chad Millar wrote in message <348D60F9...@australia.net.au>...
> The problem with this is, the Defiant had been fighting the Borg for
>hours! The Borg usually adapt within 1-3 hits of energy weapons, but the
>Defiant's phasers were still effective.. possible part of their design?
Good point. Since the Defiant was designed to fight the adapting Borg, one
could theorize that both its shields and phasers are constantly changing
frequencies.
I'll bet that the Defiant was the only one to make it out of the first wave
of ships, assuming some did not disengage.
Kroagnon
John Myers wrote in message <01bd0509$e6193c60$48557ec2@default>...
Another good point. It's possible that The Raven fired some Photons at their
attacking Borg ship.
Chad Millar
Chris Wagner wrote:
>
> Chad Millar wrote:
> > Why then in 'Best of Both Worlds' did they say "The Borg use a subspace
> > field" Why not just say they use shields? The subspace field stops
> > phasers dead. Shields don't. Shields are like a solid wall - nothing can
> > pass through them, everything is repulsed away. Subspace fields on the
> > other hand, only stop directed energy.. in BoBW a shuttle goes through
> > the field no problem, so the same would apply to a torpedo
>
> more of an early warning system than a defensive "shield".
If its an early warning system, its pretty hopeless then, the Borg had
no idea they were there.
> > > >
> > > > Um, *all* shields use subspace fields. *All* shields stop phasers. The
> > > > only purpose of the subspace field is to contain the graviton field,
> > > > which does the actual work of a shield.
> >
> > Shields don't 'stop' phasers, nor do they 'stop' torpedos. They absorb
> > and disperse the energy that strikes the shield. Thats why when
> > something hits a shield you see a larger area of the shield glow than
> > was struck.
>
> Sounds like "stoping" to me...
Shields take energy to disperse phaser bursts or torpedo explosions...
the more that hits them the weaker they get. Subspace fields stop
phasers dead in space, not disperse them, with no power loss, so they
don't get weaker and can't be overpowered.
> > The problem with this is, the Defiant had been fighting the Borg for
> > hours! The Borg usually adapt within 1-3 hits of energy weapons, but the
> > Defiant's phasers were still effective.. possible part of their design?
>
> The Defiants phasers are strong enough to overpower the adaptive
> cabalilities of the small area they hit.
The Borg adapt to phaser frequencies... so once its adapted to a
frequency, that frequency cannot penetrate it regardless of the power.
Chad Millar
Chris Wagner wrote:
>
>
> > adapted to phasers and since that time the only time we ever saw a
> > phaser beam causing major damage to a Borg ship was in FC. (the USS
> > Enterprise's hit on the Borg ship in BoBW did take out the tractor beam
> > weapon systems (with the exception of the regular phaser which the
> > Defiant also has) are totally new to the Borg. They have never
> > encountered pulse phasers, nor have they encountered Quantum Torpedoes
> > (though they may have encountered Q Torps during the Starfleet's stand
> > in the Typhon sector during FC which we heard about but did not see).
>
> or why it works. In FC SF is to the level that they can dump more
> energy into a cube than the Borg are *able* to counteract. When a ship
> fires at the Borg, they create a counteractive energy which cancels out
> the energy of the attack.
Bollocks. They alter the subspace field surrounding the cube or borg to
stop that frequency of energy from passing it.
da...@excal.demon.co.uk
On 10/12/97 01:21, in message <66kqn1$ll5$1...@news.ox.ac.uk>, "Charles Spalton"
<charles...@worc.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
The Q, outside of the continuum, seem to be able to do almost anything they
please, the borg do not. The Borg rely on power systems and fairly
recognizable technology (Warp/transwarp/directed energy beams). The Q do not
seem to have any technology, sources of power, it all seems to be done by the
power of the mind. Given that a smeg head like Wesley could step out of time
using the power of his mind do you not think a creature like Q could do a whole
lot more. I would think they could do at least as much as that creature out of
the TNG episode "THE SURVIVORS" can destroy an entire race, anywhere,
regardless of weapons then the Q should be able to deal with the borg without
even batting an eye lid.
Alfred
> Which episode? In any case, a metal spear can actually have more force
> behind it than a bullet. Whereas bullets are relatively light projectiles
> made of soft lead, a spear (assuming that it is made out of steel or
> tritanium) thrown with enough force can be a deadly weapon. (It's just much
> slower)
That's absolutely right... not only that, but Data was falling at the
time he was being shot, so the bullets can more easily be deflected from
his alloy skin. Remember, if his skin (and clothing) are resistant to
the effects of plasma coolant, then perhaps they are much more resilient
to bullets... (or maybe Lily just has miserable aim)
Also, in the episode where he was "speared", the blacksmith stabbed the
spear into him... the spear was not thrown, but rather FORCED into Data's
back, perhaps AT the point where his deactivation swith exists... causing
an overload in his "positronic" neural net. He was in fact shot with an
arrow by Deanna Troi, and it did penetrate him, but it did not "harm" any
of his systems.
So on the otherhand, I guess the inconsistency still remains... that sucks.
Chris Wagner
Kroagnon wrote:
> >In the first episode the Borg adapted to Torpedoes before they were used,
> >the first Photorp salvo was useless despite them having been using only the
> >phasers previously.
>
> Another good point. It's possible that The Raven fired some Photons at their
> attacking Borg ship.
This is because the Borg downloaded all the data from the Enterprise's
computer. Remember that Borg in Engineering? From this data they were
able to adapt to Federation torpedoes even though they had never
actually encountered one yet.
Chris Wagner
Chad Millar wrote:
> > The Borg can adapt in minutes. You don't even know how adaptation works
> > or why it works. In FC SF is to the level that they can dump more
> > energy into a cube than the Borg are *able* to counteract. When a ship
> > fires at the Borg, they create a counteractive energy which cancels out
> > the energy of the attack.
>
> Bollocks. They alter the subspace field surrounding the cube or borg to
> stop that frequency of energy from passing it.
That takes energy. They have a finite amount of energy to do that.
Solution: use more energy than they have to use against you. duh.
Chris Wagner
Chad Millar wrote:
> Shields take energy to disperse phaser bursts or torpedo explosions...
> the more that hits them the weaker they get. Subspace fields stop
> phasers dead in space, not disperse them, with no power loss, so they
> don't get weaker and can't be overpowered.
ROTFL!!! Then every starfleet ship should have impenatrable shields.
The warp engines make a subspace field magnitudes greater than that used
by the shields. A pure subspace field will **not** stop a phaser or
anything else. RTFM.
> > The Defiants phasers are strong enough to overpower the adaptive
> > cabalilities of the small area they hit.
>
> The Borg adapt to phaser frequencies... so once its adapted to a
> frequency, that frequency cannot penetrate it regardless of the power.
So you're saying that the Borg have an **infinite** energy supply???
You carck me up... They couldn't adapt to that solar flare in Descent.
Wait, don't tell me, they hadn't encounterd a solar flare before so they
didn't have time to "adapt" to it yet.
Chris Wagner
Kroagnon wrote:
> > I remember those episodes, and that torpedos had no effect in them. I
> >was mearly saying that having the torpedos effective in FC added to the
> >impression that Borg were vulnerable to projectile weapons.
>
> But why would they be suddenly effective? Nothing has changed, although I
> suppose that by the time the Enterprise arrived the Borg subspace field
> could have been weakened.
You mean the shields. Shields are not a pure subspace field. A
subspace field will not stop a phaser, torpedo, or my car rolling down a
hill in neutral. Photon Torpedoes are **not** projectile weapons, they
are **warheads**.
Chris Wagner
Alfred wrote:
>
> > Which episode? In any case, a metal spear can actually have more force
> > behind it than a bullet. Whereas bullets are relatively light projectiles
> > made of soft lead, a spear (assuming that it is made out of steel or
> > tritanium) thrown with enough force can be a deadly weapon. (It's just much
> > slower)
What you're thinking of is pressure. Its easy to confuse pressure,
force, momentum, and KE. Force, momentum and KE are all directly
related so they can be considered to be the same thing. It is possible
for a spear to have more KE or pressure than a bullet. However a
*thrown* spear can not exceed a bullet. A *rammed* spear can. I human
body can generate a lot of KE very quickly, concentrate that in less
than .1 mm^2 tip of a spear and you can penetrate things even a bullet
can't. More pressure was generated by the spear than the bullet.
> an overload in his "positronic" neural net. He was in fact shot with an
> arrow by Deanna Troi, and it did penetrate him, but it did not "harm" any
> of his systems.
> So on the otherhand, I guess the inconsistency still remains... that sucks.
YATI. Maybe Data was retrofitted with some new armor plating or
something.
CLew
In article <eRAnVxr...@upnetnews02.moswest.msn.net>,
leper_...@email.msn.com says...
>
>The Borg use an electromagnetic field to dissipate the light energy of a
>phaser blast. Such a field would not be able to protect the Borg very well
>against kinetic weapons because the power supply to repel a bullet
>travelling at 1200 feet per second upon impact would be too large to be
>integrated into the Borg. Glock 9mm pistols should be standard issue in a
>Borg threat (imagine the damage of a 24th century handgun:faster,harder
>hitting,larger capacity,better accuracy,no recoil...)
Stop...you're making me drool all over my keyboard!
Hmmm, hypersonic flechettes with a discarding sabot and a few
miniature APHE rounds thrown in for good measure. Attach a replicating ammo
clip to it and rock-n-roll!
Chad Millar
Chris Wagner wrote:
>
> Chad Millar wrote:
> > Shields take energy to disperse phaser bursts or torpedo explosions...
> > the more that hits them the weaker they get. Subspace fields stop
> > phasers dead in space, not disperse them, with no power loss, so they
> > don't get weaker and can't be overpowered.
>
> ROTFL!!! Then every starfleet ship should have impenatrable shields.
> The warp engines make a subspace field magnitudes greater than that used
> by the shields. A pure subspace field will **not** stop a phaser or
> anything else. RTFM.
Pick yourself up for a minute and consider this - I didn't say
regulation Starfleet type subspace fields, I said a BORG subspace field.
The Borg have an indefinately more advanced control or subspace,
Starfleet doesn't know dick about subspace compared to the Borg.
Get it straight, I'm not talking about subspace fields, I'm talking
about BORG subspace fields.
> > > The Defiants phasers are strong enough to overpower the adaptive
> > > cabalilities of the small area they hit.
> >
> > The Borg adapt to phaser frequencies... so once its adapted to a
> > frequency, that frequency cannot penetrate it regardless of the power.
>
> So you're saying that the Borg have an **infinite** energy supply???
They don't NEED an infinite power supply.
> You carck me up... They couldn't adapt to that solar flare in Descent.
> Wait, don't tell me, they hadn't encounterd a solar flare before so they
> didn't have time to "adapt" to it yet.
No actually, they didn't adapt because they couldn't. They weren't
really Borg, remember! It wasn't a Borg ship! What, you've been thinking
that was a proper Borg ship with proper Borg on it? ROTFL! No Borg
collective = no adaption.
Chad Millar
Chris Wagner wrote:
>
> Kroagnon wrote:
> > > I remember those episodes, and that torpedos had no effect in them. I
> > >was mearly saying that having the torpedos effective in FC added to the
> > >impression that Borg were vulnerable to projectile weapons.
> >
> > But why would they be suddenly effective? Nothing has changed, although I
> > suppose that by the time the Enterprise arrived the Borg subspace field
> > could have been weakened.
>
> You mean the shields. Shields are not a pure subspace field.
Gee, thats funny, in "Best of Both Worlds" they specifically called it
a subspace field. Must have slipped their mind to call it a shield! For
crying out loud, the Borg don't have shields, they manipulate subspace
> A subspace field will not stop a phaser, torpedo, or my car rolling down a
> hill in neutral. Photon Torpedoes are **not** projectile weapons, they
> are **warheads**.
ROTFL!
Warheads = solid = projectile
Chad Millar
Chris Wagner wrote:
>
> Chad Millar wrote:
Hell, throw out the frequecy shifting of phasers then, lets just pump
the Borg with all the power we've got. Starfleet must be so incompetant
to have missed this. Changing frequencies of phasers rifles? Forget it,
just keep firing at them till they run out of power to block the shots.
Nice reasoning you have there.
Once the Borg have adapted to a frequency, thats it, its useless, its
not about power. As the Borg say "Strength is irrelevant"
Chad Millar
Chris Wagner wrote:
> > an overload in his "positronic" neural net. He was in fact shot with an
> > arrow by Deanna Troi, and it did penetrate him, but it did not "harm" any
> > of his systems.
> > So on the otherhand, I guess the inconsistency still remains... that sucks.
>
> YATI. Maybe Data was retrofitted with some new armor plating or
> something.
A bit of surplus Defiant ablative armour perhaps :)
Chris Wagner
Chad Millar wrote:
>
> Hell, throw out the frequecy shifting of phasers then, lets just pump
> the Borg with all the power we've got. Starfleet must be so incompetant
> to have missed this. Changing frequencies of phasers rifles? Forget it,
> just keep firing at them till they run out of power to block the shots.
> Nice reasoning you have there.
Frequency shifting of course will help.
> Once the Borg have adapted to a frequency, thats it, its useless, its
> not about power. As the Borg say "Strength is irrelevant"
There are a limited number of frequencies out there. Then how do you
explain how the SF fleet did so much damage to the Borg???
Chris Wagner
Chad Millar wrote:
> > You mean the shields. Shields are not a pure subspace field.
>
> Gee, thats funny, in "Best of Both Worlds" they specifically called it
> a subspace field. Must have slipped their mind to call it a shield! For
> crying out loud, the Borg don't have shields, they manipulate subspace
They said electromagnetic field, not subspace field.
> > A subspace field will not stop a phaser, torpedo, or my car rolling down a
> > hill in neutral. Photon Torpedoes are **not** projectile weapons, they
> > are **warheads**.
>
> Warheads = solid = projectile
A projectile weapon mechanically transfers kinetic energy. A photon
torpdedo DOES NOT DO THAT. A photon torpedo transfers energy with GAMMA
RAYS. True photon torpedoes use a projectile to get TO the target but
that does not make them projectile weapons like bullets, spears,
artillery shells.
Chris Wagner
Chad Millar wrote:
> Pick yourself up for a minute and consider this - I didn't say
> regulation Starfleet type subspace fields, I said a BORG subspace field.
> The Borg have an indefinately more advanced control or subspace,
> Starfleet doesn't know dick about subspace compared to the Borg.
A subspace field is a subspace field. You can time it and modulate it
and manipulate it but its still fundamentally the same.
> Get it straight, I'm not talking about subspace fields, I'm talking
> about BORG subspace fields.
>
> > > > The Defiants phasers are strong enough to overpower the adaptive
> > > > cabalilities of the small area they hit.
> > >
> > > The Borg adapt to phaser frequencies... so once its adapted to a
> > > frequency, that frequency cannot penetrate it regardless of the power.
> >
> > So you're saying that the Borg have an **infinite** energy supply???
>
> They don't NEED an infinite power supply.
Then explain the Defiants phasers affecting the Borg *all the time*.
> > You carck me up... They couldn't adapt to that solar flare in Descent.
> > Wait, don't tell me, they hadn't encounterd a solar flare before so they
> > didn't have time to "adapt" to it yet.
>
> No actually, they didn't adapt because they couldn't. They weren't
> really Borg, remember! It wasn't a Borg ship! What, you've been thinking
> that was a proper Borg ship with proper Borg on it? ROTFL! No Borg
> collective = no adaption.
It wasn't a "proper" Borg ship but they were still Borg. The E's
torpedoes and phasers had no effect on them. Seems like they adapted
quite well. That solar flare was bigger than the Borg ship itself. It
couldn't have "adapted" *no matter what*.
Jason C Fleshman
Excerpts from netnews.rec.arts.startrek.misc: 11-Dec-97 Re: I WAS WRONG:
Borg are v.. by Chad Mil...@australia.ne
> > A subspace field will not stop a phaser, torpedo, or my car rolling down a
> > hill in neutral. Photon Torpedoes are **not** projectile weapons, they
> > are **warheads**.
>
>
> Warheads = solid = projectile
A projectile causes damage through physical impact (bullets making holes
in people, artillery making holes in walls). Warheads use explosions to
cause damage (a-bombs, photon torpedoes, conventional missles). A
shield that would stop a solid object -- the bullet, the shrapnel and
expanding gas from an exploded missle and maybe the high-energey
particles of a phaser/disruptor beam -- may not stop the radiation
caused by an a-bomb or photorp explosion.
--Jason
Michael Wong
>> Once the Borg have adapted to a frequency, thats it, its useless, its
>> not about power. As the Borg say "Strength is irrelevant"
>There are a limited number of frequencies out there. Then how do you
>explain how the SF fleet did so much damage to the Borg???
I think you're both right. As far as I can tell, ST uses frequencies
very generously as a plot equalizer (they can use them to weaken
strong opponents and strengthen weak opponents through
frequency-related technobabble).
Adapting to the correct frequency (something which ST ships have also
done on occasion) allows weapons to punch through shields and it
allows shields to become much stronger than normal, but not so strong
that they are totally indestructible. Enough firepower will
eventually get through.
Also, they were heavily using torpedoes in that ST:FC scene.
Jacob Longwell
maby when troy hit data she hit a week point
it wold be logical thet his vital systems are plated maby the bulits did
penatrate in a feue places
Chris Wagner <wag...@pohl.ececs.uc.edu> wrote in article
<348F39...@pohl.ececs.uc.edu>...
> Alfred wrote:
> >
> > > Which episode? In any case, a metal spear can actually have more
force
> > > behind it than a bullet. Whereas bullets are relatively light
projectiles
> > > made of soft lead, a spear (assuming that it is made out of steel or
> > > tritanium) thrown with enough force can be a deadly weapon. (It's
just much
> > > slower)
>
> What you're thinking of is pressure. Its easy to confuse pressure,
> force, momentum, and KE. Force, momentum and KE are all directly
> related so they can be considered to be the same thing. It is possible
> for a spear to have more KE or pressure than a bullet. However a
> *thrown* spear can not exceed a bullet. A *rammed* spear can. I human
> body can generate a lot of KE very quickly, concentrate that in less
> than .1 mm^2 tip of a spear and you can penetrate things even a bullet
> can't. More pressure was generated by the spear than the bullet.
>
Peter Choi
Then why not railgun?
John Myers
> This is because the Borg downloaded all the data from the Enterprise's
> computer. Remember that Borg in Engineering? From this data they were
> able to adapt to Federation torpedoes even though they had never
> actually encountered one yet.
But strangely not to Phasers.
James Grady Ward
The torpedoes have in effect only one frequency. The phasers
have a broad spectrum of freqencies that they can use. It would
take little to incorporate a simple explosive device into your
defenses, while a variable beam weapon probably would take longer.
--
buckysan
annapuma and unapumma in 98
44% of people think there is intelligent life besides earth
44% of people think there is intelligent life in washington DC
plut...@eng.sun.com
In article 0...@amhnt2.amherst.edu, jhp...@unix.amherst.edu (James Park) writes:
>It seems like the Borg would be stupid to not be able to devise a shield
>against projectile weapons. Worf himself did it using some simple
>improvisation, in the episode a Fistful of Datas. If Worf could come up
>with that, I don't see how the borg wouldn't be able to also... Wasn't it
>like a subspace shield or something? Don't remember, but it repelled
>bullets just fine.
The thing with the Borg is, they're very overconfident in their superiority. They
don't enable their personal force fields unless threatened with an energy weapon.
We have been shown several times that "physical" threats are met with "physical"
attacks (throwing Riker, Worf, grappling with Data, hand-to-hand combat).
When the Borg stepped onto the holosuite (it was labeled a holosuite, not a holodeck)
they analysed it as such and they knew from the minds of the Enterprise crewpeople
that they could not be damaged by holograms (the average crewdude probably does not
have the ability to turn the safeties off, in fact, that may not even be common know-
ledge amongst the crew). We've really only seen senior officers mess with holodeck
safeties, I'd bet that they don't tell everyone that they can be disabled...
So, when Picard started firing the holographic bullets, the Borg were quite suprised
and shocked to feel the impact in their living bodies, and by that time, they were
dead. The Borg then responded to this threat, and it will never work again.
---
Jim Plutnicki
Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation
Jim.Pl...@East.Sun.Com
To err is human, to really screw up it takes a computer.
Kroagnon
Chris Wagner wrote in message <348F32...@pohl.ececs.uc.edu>...
>Kroagnon wrote:
>> >In the first episode the Borg adapted to Torpedoes before they were
used,
>> >the first Photorp salvo was useless despite them having been using only
the
>> >phasers previously.
>>
>> Another good point. It's possible that The Raven fired some Photons at
their
>> attacking Borg ship.
>
>This is because the Borg downloaded all the data from the Enterprise's
>computer. Remember that Borg in Engineering? From this data they were
>able to adapt to Federation torpedoes even though they had never
>actually encountered one yet.
But don't forget, after that Borg took the information, the Enterprise was
still able to "air out" parts of the Borg ship.
If they had known about the photons at that point, why did they not stop the
phasers?
Kroagnon
Chris Wagner wrote in message <348F37...@pohl.ececs.uc.edu>...
>Kroagnon wrote:
>> > I remember those episodes, and that torpedos had no effect in them. I
>> >was mearly saying that having the torpedos effective in FC added to the
>> >impression that Borg were vulnerable to projectile weapons.
>>
>> But why would they be suddenly effective? Nothing has changed, although I
>> suppose that by the time the Enterprise arrived the Borg subspace field
>> could have been weakened.
>
>You mean the shields. Shields are not a pure subspace field. A
>subspace field will not stop a phaser, torpedo, or my car rolling down a
>hill in neutral. Photon Torpedoes are **not** projectile weapons, they
>are **warheads**.
No, I don't mean the shields. Don't forget, LaForge was resetting the
phasers to the upper band, "trying to disrupt their subspace field".
I don't recall that it had ever been established that a Borg cube has
shields (except a passing reference by Torres in "Scorpion", but what does
she know about the Borg anyway).
ANC
Kroagnon
Chris Wagner wrote in message <349035...@pohl.ececs.uc.edu>...
>Chad Millar wrote:
>> > You mean the shields. Shields are not a pure subspace field.
>>
>> Gee, thats funny, in "Best of Both Worlds" they specifically called it
>> a subspace field. Must have slipped their mind to call it a shield! For
>> crying out loud, the Borg don't have shields, they manipulate subspace
>
>They said electromagnetic field, not subspace field.
In Part I, this dialog was said, both by LaForge:
"...adjusting the phaser frequency to the upper frequency band, try to
disrupt their subspace field".
then later, after Picard ordered "fire all weapons":
"Their subspace field is intact. New phaser frequencies had no impact."
Note that "electromagnetic" was not said until Part II, where O'Brien
commented that he couldn't beam through because "The Borg has adapted their
electromagnetic field to prevent main transporter function". There were
others, but you get the point, which is: why would they care about the
subspace field if it wasn't acting as a shield?
Chris Wagner
Chad Millar wrote:
>
> Chris Wagner wrote:
> >
> > > Once the Borg have adapted to a frequency, thats it, its useless, its
> > > not about power. As the Borg say "Strength is irrelevant"
> >
> > There are a limited number of frequencies out there. Then how do you
> > explain how the SF fleet did so much damage to the Borg???
>
> really done incredible damage, just the outer hull and the section that
> Picard noticed. Starfleet was losing before Picard turned up.
They were using phasers and causing damage all through the battle. I
think they just might have pulled off a victory even without Picard.
Chris Wagner
Chad Millar wrote:
> I will say it yet again. You keep saying subspace fields can't block
> energy weapons, because starfleet ones don't. I keep saying, Starfleet
> subspace fields could work just like Borg ones, BUT STARFLEET DOES NOT
> KNOW HOW TO DO IT. Its called more advanced technology.
<siiiiiiiiiigh> A subspace field is NOT the same as a shield. A shield
is a graviton field CONTAINED by a subspace field. Its the graviton
field that stops incoming weapons fire. The subspace field merely
contains it and keeps it from flying apart.
> > Then explain the Defiants phasers affecting the Borg *all the time*.
>
> I can't. They were specifically designed to be anti-Borg so that its
> partly to explain but otherwise, I have no explaination.
Its call POWER.
>
> So the E hit it with a couple of torpedos... so what? What were those
> few torpedos supposed to do, cripple or destroy it?
It shows that they ADAPTED to the E's weapons. They caused NO damage
whatsoever.
Chris Wagner
Kroagnon wrote:
> In Part I, this dialog was said, both by LaForge:
>
> "...adjusting the phaser frequency to the upper frequency band, try to
> disrupt their subspace field".
>
> then later, after Picard ordered "fire all weapons":
>
> "Their subspace field is intact. New phaser frequencies had no impact."
I'll say it again. A subspace field and a graviton field constitute
shields. To disrupt or penetrate the subspace field is to penetrate the
shield. That is why they said that.
> Note that "electromagnetic" was not said until Part II, where O'Brien
> commented that he couldn't beam through because "The Borg has adapted their
> electromagnetic field to prevent main transporter function". There were
> others, but you get the point, which is: why would they care about the
> subspace field if it wasn't acting as a shield?
That is the electromagnetic field that I was talking about. That is why
they took the shuttle THROUGH the electromagnetic field to rescue
Picard.
They cared about the subspace field because it is INTEGRAL to the
shields.
Chris Wagner
Chad Millar wrote:
>
> Look, do I have to state again time they said SUBSPACE field?? Prior to
> their first encounter with the Borg ship in 'Best of Both Worlds' listen
> to Geordi.. quote "At the same time we'll be retuning phasers to higher
> EM base emmiting frequencies... try to disrupt their subspace field." Do
> you need more examples? The first time they fire at the Borg ship Geordi
> says "Their subspace field is intact. New phaser frequencies had no
> impact" More?
Read the other post about this. I'm not going to retype all that.
> How the torpedo transfers energy is irrelevant, this discussion is to
> whether Borg defenses are vulnerable to solid matter & force. The
> projectile stage of the torpedo is the stage where it meets Borg
> defenses, therefore it is effective.
Then why did they use phasers at all????????? Tell me that smart guy.
Everything I tell you goes in one ear and out the other. I have come to
the conclusion that you know I am right but are too cowardly to admit
that you could have been wrong. I have explained every objection you
have come up with and backed my statements up with cannon yet you still
persist.
Chris Wagner
Kroagnon wrote:
> >This is because the Borg downloaded all the data from the Enterprise's
> >computer. Remember that Borg in Engineering? From this data they were
> >able to adapt to Federation torpedoes even though they had never
> >actually encountered one yet.
>
> But don't forget, after that Borg took the information, the Enterprise was
> still able to "air out" parts of the Borg ship.
They hadn't adapted yet. Even the borg can't "instantly" adapt to new
weapons. It took until the chase for them to fully implement their
adaptation protocols.
> If they had known about the photons at that point, why did they not stop the
> phasers?
>
Chad Millar
Chris Wagner wrote:
>
> Chad Millar wrote:
> > Pick yourself up for a minute and consider this - I didn't say
> > regulation Starfleet type subspace fields, I said a BORG subspace field.
> > The Borg have an indefinately more advanced control or subspace,
> > Starfleet doesn't know dick about subspace compared to the Borg.
>
> A subspace field is a subspace field. You can time it and modulate it
> and manipulate it but its still fundamentally the same.
ROTFL! I guess a bi-plane and a steath bomber are pretty similar then,
since they're 'fundamentally' the same! And since shields have to be
manipulated and modulated, you still should be able to shoot through
them, since they're 'fundamentally' the same!
I will say it yet again. You keep saying subspace fields can't block
energy weapons, because starfleet ones don't. I keep saying, Starfleet
subspace fields could work just like Borg ones, BUT STARFLEET DOES NOT
KNOW HOW TO DO IT. Its called more advanced technology.
> > Get it straight, I'm not talking about subspace fields, I'm talking
> > about BORG subspace fields.
> >
> > > > > The Defiants phasers are strong enough to overpower the adaptive
> > > > > cabalilities of the small area they hit.
> > > >
> > > > The Borg adapt to phaser frequencies... so once its adapted to a
> > > > frequency, that frequency cannot penetrate it regardless of the power.
> > >
> > > So you're saying that the Borg have an **infinite** energy supply???
> >
> > They don't NEED an infinite power supply.
>
> Then explain the Defiants phasers affecting the Borg *all the time*.
I can't. They were specifically designed to be anti-Borg so that its
partly to explain but otherwise, I have no explaination.
> > > You carck me up... They couldn't adapt to that solar flare in Descent.
> > > Wait, don't tell me, they hadn't encounterd a solar flare before so they
> > > didn't have time to "adapt" to it yet.
> >
> > No actually, they didn't adapt because they couldn't. They weren't
> > really Borg, remember! It wasn't a Borg ship! What, you've been thinking
> > that was a proper Borg ship with proper Borg on it? ROTFL! No Borg
> > collective = no adaption.
>
> It wasn't a "proper" Borg ship but they were still Borg. The E's
> torpedoes and phasers had no effect on them. Seems like they adapted
> quite well.
No, they're weren't still Borg. The Borg is defined by the Borg
collective, which they were not members of, they were individuals. They
had no access to the Borgs knowledge, learning capabilitys or adaption.
So the E hit it with a couple of torpedos... so what? What were those
few torpedos supposed to do, cripple or destroy it?
> That solar flare was bigger than the Borg ship itself. It
> couldn't have "adapted" *no matter what*.
I never said it did.
Chad Millar
Chad Millar
Chris Wagner wrote:
>
> Chad Millar wrote:
> >
> > Gee, thats funny, in "Best of Both Worlds" they specifically called it
> > a subspace field. Must have slipped their mind to call it a shield! For
> > crying out loud, the Borg don't have shields, they manipulate subspace
>
> They said electromagnetic field, not subspace field.
Look, do I have to state again time they said SUBSPACE field?? Prior to
their first encounter with the Borg ship in 'Best of Both Worlds' listen
to Geordi.. quote "At the same time we'll be retuning phasers to higher
EM base emmiting frequencies... try to disrupt their subspace field." Do
you need more examples? The first time they fire at the Borg ship Geordi
says "Their subspace field is intact. New phaser frequencies had no
impact" More?
> > > A subspace field will not stop a phaser, torpedo, or my car rolling down a
> > > hill in neutral. Photon Torpedoes are **not** projectile weapons, they
> > > are **warheads**.
> >
> > Warheads = solid = projectile
>
> A projectile weapon mechanically transfers kinetic energy. A photon
> torpdedo DOES NOT DO THAT. A photon torpedo transfers energy with GAMMA
> RAYS. True photon torpedoes use a projectile to get TO the target but
> that does not make them projectile weapons like bullets, spears,
> artillery shells.
How the torpedo transfers energy is irrelevant, this discussion is to
Blackrobe
> > Phasers before adaption then torpedos. Quite simple. Remember, SF
hadn't
> > really done incredible damage, just the outer hull and the section that
> > Picard noticed. Starfleet was losing before Picard turned up.
>
> think they just might have pulled off a victory even without Picard.
Not a chance,
Remember, Data says that the cube's exterior was damaged, but none of its
internal systems had been compromised. It was only because Picard knew
exactly where to concentrate SF's weapons that they were able to destroy
the cube.
Blackrobe
--
Robert R. Ballecer Jr., SJ
"The Original TechnoWeenie!"
rballec**@orion.it.luc.edu
---Remove all asterisks to email me---
Chad Millar
Chris Wagner wrote:
>
> Chad Millar wrote:
> > energy weapons, because starfleet ones don't. I keep saying, Starfleet
> > subspace fields could work just like Borg ones, BUT STARFLEET DOES NOT
> > KNOW HOW TO DO IT. Its called more advanced technology.
>
> is a graviton field CONTAINED by a subspace field. Its the graviton
> field that stops incoming weapons fire. The subspace field merely
> contains it and keeps it from flying apart.
Bloody hell, are you just ignorant? Starfleet uses subspace fields
which contain graviton fields. The Borg have the ability to use subspace
itself as a defensive system. I don't care about Starfleet and
gravitons, I'm talking about the Borgs use of subspace itself as a
defensive system.
> > > Then explain the Defiants phasers affecting the Borg *all the time*.
> >
> > I can't. They were specifically designed to be anti-Borg so that its
> > partly to explain but otherwise, I have no explaination.
>
> Its call POWER.
Thats one possible opinion.
> >
> > So the E hit it with a couple of torpedos... so what? What were those
> > few torpedos supposed to do, cripple or destroy it?
>
> It shows that they ADAPTED to the E's weapons. They caused NO damage
> whatsoever.
For christs sakes they didn't adapt! If the Enterprise shot a couple of
torpedos at a Romulan warbird, and the torpedos didn't destroy it, would
you say the Romulans adapted? Borg who aren't part of the collective
can't adapt, full stop.
Chad Millar
Chris Wagner wrote:
>
> Chad Millar wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > > Once the Borg have adapted to a frequency, thats it, its useless, its
> > > > not about power. As the Borg say "Strength is irrelevant"
> > >
> > > There are a limited number of frequencies out there. Then how do you
> > > explain how the SF fleet did so much damage to the Borg???
> >
> > really done incredible damage, just the outer hull and the section that
> > Picard noticed. Starfleet was losing before Picard turned up.
>
> They were using phasers and causing damage all through the battle. I
> think they just might have pulled off a victory even without Picard.
Phasers (Defiant being the exception) weren't doing crap during the
battle we saw, until Picard told the fleet where the Borg were
vulnerable. When Picard first asks for the battle to be put on screen,
we seen an Akira class starship firing phasers at the Cube, and they
didn't hit it.
Without Picard, Starfleet would have lost. The Defiant was dead,
phasers were useless, torpedos weren't doing a great deal of damage, and
the Borg were taking the fleet apart.
Chad Millar
Chris Wagner wrote:
>
> Chad Millar wrote:
> >
> > their first encounter with the Borg ship in 'Best of Both Worlds' listen
> > to Geordi.. quote "At the same time we'll be retuning phasers to higher
> > EM base emmiting frequencies... try to disrupt their subspace field." Do
> > you need more examples? The first time they fire at the Borg ship Geordi
> > says "Their subspace field is intact. New phaser frequencies had no
> > impact" More?
>
Good, because you've already repeated it so many times you're sounding
like a parrot. Its also quite irrelevant which you don't seem to
realise.
> > How the torpedo transfers energy is irrelevant, this discussion is to
> > whether Borg defenses are vulnerable to solid matter & force. The
> > projectile stage of the torpedo is the stage where it meets Borg
> > defenses, therefore it is effective.
>
> Then why did they use phasers at all????????? Tell me that smart guy.
Personal insults? Things are looking bad for you. You're also starting
to argue by answering facts with irrelevant questions.
> Everything I tell you goes in one ear and out the other.
Because you have your mind set to one thing, and even when I correct
you, you again and again restate some minor fact which I dismissed early
in the thread.
> I have come to the conclusion that you know I am right but are too cowardly to admit
> that you could have been wrong.
The fact that you've resorted to name calling tells me that you have
some sort of problem. Perhaps its the fact that you cannot back up your
arguements.
> I have explained every objection you have come up with and backed my statements up
> with cannon yet you still persist.
Canon sources? Are you joking or what? What, your endlessly repeated
graviton arguement? Your repeated arguement that Borg use an
electromagnetic field, when that was mentioned twice, while myself and
another reader provided you with the proof that their defense system is
a subspace field... Which you again responded to with the same old
'Graviton' response.
*I* have concluded that you cannot win this arguement, so in desperation
you set out to insult me. If you cannot respond rationally don't bother
responding at all.
Stephen Eickhoff
In <348BF10C...@australia.net.au>, Chad Millar <fer...@australia.net.au> writes:
>Kroagnon wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >Borg cube's are vulnerable to projectile weapons as well - Quantum and
>> >Photon Torpedos were striking the ship in FC with ease (although with
>> >only minor effect)
>>
>> In all the previous Borg episodes, torpedoes exploded harmlessly against the
>> cube. This can be seen in Q-Who, Best of Both Worlds, and Descent. First
>> Contact is the first time we have ever seen torpedoes have any damaging
>> effect on a Borg cube.
>>
>> Kroagnon
>
> I remember those episodes, and that torpedos had no effect in them. I
>was mearly saying that having the torpedos effective in FC added to the
>don't count anything in 'Descent' as fact about the Borg)
In the first battle with the Borg, The Enterprise heavily damaged the Borg cube with
both phasers and photon torpedoes. Unfortunately, they didn't finish the job, and the
Borg adapted and repaired themselves. But that would have been too easy, now wouldn't it?
---------------------------------------
Stephen Eickhoff
http://www.microserve.net/~etienne
[Team OS/2]
[Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia]
---------------------------------------
Chris Wagner
Chad Millar wrote:
> > > So the E hit it with a couple of torpedos... so what? What were those
> > > few torpedos supposed to do, cripple or destroy it?
> >
> > It shows that they ADAPTED to the E's weapons. They caused NO damage
> > whatsoever.
>
> For christs sakes they didn't adapt! If the Enterprise shot a couple of
> torpedos at a Romulan warbird, and the torpedos didn't destroy it, would
> you say the Romulans adapted? Borg who aren't part of the collective
> can't adapt, full stop.
If the E hit a warbird with a few torps, the warbird would be damaged.
The tactical officer said "direct hit, no damage" when they fired on the
Borg.
Chris Wagner
Chad Millar wrote:
> > Everything I tell you goes in one ear and out the other.
>
> Because you have your mind set to one thing, and even when I correct
> you, you again and again restate some minor fact which I dismissed early
> in the thread.
You dismiss only that which disproves your theory. I dismiss nothing.
> > I have come to the conclusion that you know I am right but are too cowardly to admit
> > that you could have been wrong.
>
> The fact that you've resorted to name calling tells me that you have
> some sort of problem. Perhaps its the fact that you cannot back up your
> arguements.
I feel like I'm talking to the wall.
> > I have explained every objection you have come up with and backed my statements up
> > with cannon yet you still persist.
>
> Canon sources? Are you joking or what? What, your endlessly repeated
> graviton arguement? Your repeated arguement that Borg use an
> electromagnetic field, when that was mentioned twice, while myself and
> another reader provided you with the proof that their defense system is
> a subspace field... Which you again responded to with the same old
> 'Graviton' response.
The EM field has nothing to do with any protective defense system
(shields). I mentioned this from the outset. I'm drawing my statements
directly from the cannon episodes. If you "interpret" the characters
words differently, this is a lost cause.
> *I* have concluded that you cannot win this arguement, so in desperation
> you set out to insult me. If you cannot respond rationally don't bother
> responding at all.
I have concluded that your memory of the eps is faulty. We need to sit
down and watch all the Borg episodes together and hash it out script
line by script line. I grow tired of this. Where the hell are you,
Australia? ...video conference perhaps?
Chris Wagner
Stephen Eickhoff wrote:
> In the first battle with the Borg, The Enterprise heavily damaged the Borg cube with
> both phasers and photon torpedoes. Unfortunately, they didn't finish the job, and the
> Borg adapted and repaired themselves. But that would have been too easy, now wouldn't it?
They didn't use photons in that first battle. Not until the chase
scene, at which point photons were useless.
Dr. Robert W. Dillon
I was right, Borgers belong on the ASB newsgroup! Get thee hence! Thanks.
da...@excal.demon.co.uk wrote in article
<N.121097....@excal.demon.co.uk>...
> On 10/12/97 01:21, in message <66kqn1$ll5$1...@news.ox.ac.uk>, "Charles
Spalton"
> <charles...@worc.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
> > Chris Wagner wrote in message <348DA4...@pohl.ececs.uc.edu>...
> >
> > >
> > >That is because the Borg had no idea what SF weapons were like. It
was
> > >exactly like when Lursa and B'Tor shot up the E-D when they found the
> > >shield modulation. The Borg apparently only modulate their shields
for
> > >*known* weapons.
> > >
> > What I want to know is, how come the Borg, with what we can assume
given
> > that they use subspace signals for their network is infinite bandwidth,
> > don't immediately adapt to anything that any one of them encounters, if
they
> > haven't already? I mean, they have a network with a propogation rate
of
> > something like warp 9.9997, a large presence in a number of quadrants
> > already, the networked intelligence of multiple species... If the
> > scriptwriters didn't want to be able to write more series, I would say
the
> > Borg were unstoppable; in fact, I am surprised that they are not
already a
> > threat to the Q.
> >
> > Live long and prosper,
> > Charles.
> >
> >
>
>
> The Q, outside of the continuum, seem to be able to do almost anything
they
> please, the borg do not. The Borg rely on power systems and fairly
> recognizable technology (Warp/transwarp/directed energy beams). The Q do
not
> seem to have any technology, sources of power, it all seems to be done by
the
> power of the mind. Given that a smeg head like Wesley could step out of
time
> using the power of his mind do you not think a creature like Q could do a
whole
> lot more. I would think they could do at least as much as that creature
out of
> the TNG episode "THE SURVIVORS" can destroy an entire race, anywhere,
> regardless of weapons then the Q should be able to deal with the borg
without
> even batting an eye lid.
>
>