Borg drones and blasters

[Sarevok]

Ok what do you think would happen if combat took place between blaster armed Imperial stormtroopers and Borg drones ?

[Questor]

Ok what do you think would happen if combat took place between blaster armed Imperial stormtroopers and Borg drones ?

The borg would be mowed down in job lots. They cannot adapt to the KE in the blasters.

[DarkSilver]

Ok what do you think would happen if combat took place between blaster armed Imperial stormtroopers and Borg drones ?

If this was solo, one trooper vs one Borg, the Borg Drone would be eliminted by the Trooper. The Trooper's have a better range of mobility than the Drones have, even from ST:FC.

If this way a lone trooper against a small group of Drones (ST:FC style), say....30 Drones (enough for most small Borg ships I'd assume), then the Trooper may eventually be taken down, by sheer force of numbers, better mobility doesn't help when Drones have a somewhat decent mobility and can track you.

[brianeyci]

Has this not been done before?

Imperial weapons are powerful. Borg have only been seen to fight NDF weapons, so a case could be made that Imperial weapons would be powerful enough to punch through Borg shielding even if they did adapt to blaster fire.

I haven't seen the episode, but in Enterprise I believe they "power up" a phase pistol to fire at a Borg drone. Now this may be evidence to some that enough energy yield can take out a Borg drone, but not to me. If they could ramp up a phase pistol to kill Borg, why don't 24th Century Feds ramp up the power in their phasers to kill Borg? Because they are stupid? Those Borg were older Borg, and perhaps had a more primitive type of shielding. Therefore this incident doesn't apply to TNG+ Borg.

What the hell do they mean when they say the "Borg can adapt to our frequency"? Well, we don't see the color of phaser beams change so they can't mean the visible spectrum. Therefore, they mean they vary the frequency of the non-visible spectrum. Anybody feel free to correct me on this, as I am not by any means a Physics adept.

Since you can see blasters, they have some sort of frequency. Borg seem to work like this -- drones are set to "default". When one is killed, they tell other Borg around them "it feels like I was hit by frequency X. Shield against it." Therefore, the Borg around them adapt to that frequency. Once you run out of frequencies, you are fucked. But if your weapon can fire on many different frequencies, and randomly change them, the Borg are fucked because the only reason why they would have their drones "set to default" would be because it is not practical for their shielding to guard against every kind of frequency.

So it comes down to this. Can standard Imperial blasters vary their frequency enough so that the Borg won't be able to adapt to every frequency the blasters throw at them? I'm inclined to say no. Federation phasers have 16 different settings, and we have seen numerous people tinker with a phaser to change frequency and perhaps adust their firing geometry. We have not seen this with Imperial blasters.

Needless to say, once the Imperials try different weapons, they will realize the Borg don't remember the "old frequencies" of their weapons, and will wonder why. They would probably create a kind of blaster that could fire on many frequencies, and randomly select frequencies out of the entire spectrum.

And yes, I am aware that there would be no need to get down and dirty with Borg when you can just blow up their ships, but this is about whether or not Empire blasters can hurt Borg, not Empire versus Borg.

Brian

[brianeyci]

The borg would be mowed down in job lots. They cannot adapt to the KE in the blasters.

Why not? Its not like blasters throw people 30 feet in the air. The Borg would be hit, he would fall down or be pushed a few feet back and fall down.

Then he would get up.

Brian

[KhyronTheBackstabber]

If this way a lone trooper against a small group of Drones (ST:FC style), say....30 Drones (enough for most small Borg ships I'd assume), then the Trooper may eventually be taken down, by sheer force of numbers, better mobility doesn't help when Drones have a somewhat decent mobility and can track you.

Drones move slowly, and walk towards their target. The Trooper should have no problem blasting the shit out of them.

[KhyronTheBackstabber]

The borg would be mowed down in job lots. They cannot adapt to the KE in the blasters.

Why not? Its not like blasters throw people 30 feet in the air. The Borg would be hit, he would fall down or be pushed a few feet back and fall down.

Then he would get up.

Brian

Just like they got back up from being shot with a tommy gun?

[brianeyci]

Drones move slowly, and walk towards their target. The Trooper should have no problem blasting the shit out of them.

Again, depends on whether or not an Imperial blaster can vary the frequency of their weapons fire enough so Borg cannot adapt to it. Given that we don't see Imperials ever tinker with their weapons, we can't conclude that their weapons can fire on more than a few frequencies (why would they need to, it not like they fight Borg everyday). Occam's Razor tells us their weapons operate on a few frequencies and standard Imperial weapons can't vary their frequency again by Occam's Razor. Therefore 30 Borg drones versus 30 Troopers, I would give to the Borg drones depending on the setup. For example, if the 30 troopers alpha striked all the drones, game over. However, if the Borg came in one by one and troopers killed them one by one, the Borg would adapt to the frequency of their blasters after a few drones had died and game over. Then "resistance is futile".

Not to say the Empire couldn't engineer a weapon that could fire on many different frequencies and kick Borg ass.

Brian

[brianeyci]

Just like they got back up from being shot with a tommy gun?

Do blasters have as much KE as a tommy gun?

Brian

[SCVN 2812]

The borg would be mowed down in job lots. They cannot adapt to the KE in the blasters.

Why not? Its not like blasters throw people 30 feet in the air. The Borg would be hit, he would fall down or be pushed a few feet back and fall down.

Then he would get up.

Brian

Agreed, the reaction to a blaster hit is generally the same as a phaser hit, a slight twirl and a thud. Though a heavier weapon like the big cannons some of the Troopers carried around on Tatooine or the Clone Trooper rifle might overwhelm a shield with repeated hits.

Whether or not repeated or sustained firepower can bring down a drone's shield has never really been demonstrated since people tend to start running away when their phaser blasts impact shields. I'm inclined to think that Borg personal shields are not significantly different from Borg ship shields, just on a much smaller scale. Given sufficient firepower the shields could be overcome, its just a matter of getting off enough shots to do the job before you've got nano probe injectors sticking out of you and you're feeling a strong urge to stop referring to yourself as 'I.'

[brianeyci]

Whether or not repeated or sustained firepower can bring down a drone's shield has never really been demonstrated...

Well. Seven walked through Voyager being hit by tons of redshirts (yes I know they aren't redshirts but they are Voyager security), and repeatedly in the same spot at the same time.

But that doesn't tell us anything, because phaser beams aren't DET weapons. Blaster fire might bring down a Borg's shields due to sheer volume of fire.

The jury is still out on this one, and probably will be forever unless we ever see Borg fighting DET weapons with a quantifiable energy output.

Brian

[Lord of the Farce]

It might be considered a special case, but IIRC in one of the X-Wing novels, a "laser" sniper rifle was modified - on the fly, if I'm not mistaken - so that it fired specific (tell-explosives-to-detonate) data.

In the same storyline (it's been a while, so I can't recall whether it was in the same book), a TIE's lasers was modified to do the same thing, except that it fired an entire fairly long message piece by piece.

[brianeyci]

It might be considered a special case, but IIRC in one of the X-Wing novels, a "laser" sniper rifle was modified.

Well yeah, it is a special case. Worst case scenario -- 30 Borg totally own 30 troopers. For some reason the Empire wants to get into another firefight with Borg and not blow up their ships.

They make a weapon that can fire on many different frequencies and randomly picks those frequencies. Game over.

Brian

[DarkSilver]

If this way a lone trooper against a small group of Drones (ST:FC style), say....30 Drones (enough for most small Borg ships I'd assume), then the Trooper may eventually be taken down, by sheer force of numbers, better mobility doesn't help when Drones have a somewhat decent mobility and can track you.

Drones move slowly, and walk towards their target. The Trooper should have no problem blasting the shit out of them.

Actually, the First Contact Borg had a decent clip of movement, they didn't walk around like they had a 4x4 shoves up thier ass. they didnt plod along, and while they didn't run at thier opponents, they moved pretty damn swiftly.

[Robert Walper]

If this way a lone trooper against a small group of Drones (ST:FC style), say....30 Drones (enough for most small Borg ships I'd assume), then the Trooper may eventually be taken down, by sheer force of numbers, better mobility doesn't help when Drones have a somewhat decent mobility and can track you.

Drones move slowly, and walk towards their target. The Trooper should have no problem blasting the shit out of them.

Actually, the First Contact Borg had a decent clip of movement, they didn't walk around like they had a 4x4 shoves up thier ass. they didnt plod along, and while they didn't run at thier opponents, they moved pretty damn swiftly.

Actuallly, there's even a scene (where Data is trying to escape) where Borg drones were running to encircle him. And referencing STTNG "Descent", we see that Borg drones can in fact be quite fast and mobile.

Given drones can in fact move swiftly, it's my conclusion the Collective intentionally limits drones from running around. They prefer to adapt rather than avoid enemy fire. However, in cases where speed is necessary (like circling and trapping a andriod with super human reflexes), drones can in fact move quite quickly.

[Drooling Iguana]

I haven't seen the episode, but in Enterprise I believe they "power up" a phase pistol to fire at a Borg drone. Now this may be evidence to some that enough energy yield can take out a Borg drone, but not to me. If they could ramp up a phase pistol to kill Borg, why don't 24th Century Feds ramp up the power in their phasers to kill Borg? Because they are stupid? Those Borg were older Borg, and perhaps had a more primitive type of shielding. Therefore this incident doesn't apply to TNG+ Borg.

The Borg in ENT were leftovers from First Contact. They weren't 22nd-century Borg.

[DarkSilver]

Drones move slowly, and walk towards their target. The Trooper should have no problem blasting the shit out of them.

Actually, the First Contact Borg had a decent clip of movement, they didn't walk around like they had a 4x4 shoves up thier ass. they didnt plod along, and while they didn't run at thier opponents, they moved pretty damn swiftly.

Actuallly, there's even a scene (where Data is trying to escape) where Borg drones were running to encircle him. And referencing STTNG "Descent", we see that Borg drones can in fact be quite fast and mobile.

Given drones can in fact move swiftly, it's my conclusion the Collective intentionally limits drones from running around. They prefer to adapt rather than avoid enemy fire. However, in cases where speed is necessary (like circling and trapping a andriod with super human reflexes), drones can in fact move quite quickly.

point taken Robert

I completely forgot about that part of the movie, and I had assumed he meant Collective borg, not Hugh's Borg from Descent, thus I took into account every scene of "hindered" mobility we'v eseen from Borg Drones plugged into the Collective.

[SirNitram]

Has this not been done before?

Imperial weapons are powerful. Borg have only been seen to fight NDF weapons, so a case could be made that Imperial weapons would be powerful enough to punch through Borg shielding even if they did adapt to blaster fire.

Dialogue clearly indicates it is not the NDF nature that the Borg adapt to, but the frequency-dependency Federation weapons and shields rely on, according to Best Of Both Worlds.

[brianeyci]

The Borg in ENT were leftovers from First Contact. They weren't 22nd-century Borg.

Holy shit how stupid were the writers?

So they just freaking sat around frozen in ice or something for 100 years. So stupid.

I'll figure out a response to the "overload phase pistol" idea later, right now I'm sleeping.

Brian

[brianeyci]

Dialogue clearly indicates it is not the NDF nature that the Borg adapt to, but the frequency-dependency Federation weapons and shields rely on, according to Best Of Both Worlds.

I wasn't trying to imply that non-NDF weapons would go through Borg shielding, just that DET weapons with a higher energy output might overload Borg shielding and go through it. Such as Imperial blasters.

The "Imperial weapon's don't have frequency" idea is bullshit to me. Blaster bolts are energy weapons, and have to have a frequency because the blaster bolt is visible. "Frequency" isn't a Federation only thing, lots of other ST races have their weapons adapted to by Borg. You need to have a frequency to fire your weapons through your shields, unless you make holes in your shields that enemy fire can go through.

Brian

[SirNitram]

Dialogue clearly indicates it is not the NDF nature that the Borg adapt to, but the frequency-dependency Federation weapons and shields rely on, according to Best Of Both Worlds.

I wasn't trying to imply that non-NDF weapons would go through Borg shielding, just that DET weapons with a higher energy output might overload Borg shielding and go through it. Such as Imperial blasters.

The "Imperial weapon's don't have frequency" idea is bullshit to me. Blaster bolts are energy weapons, and have to have a frequency because the blaster bolt is visible. "Frequency" isn't a Federation only thing, lots of other ST races have their weapons adapted to by Borg. You need to have a frequency to fire your weapons through your shields, unless you make holes in your shields that enemy fire can go through.

Brian

But Imperials do use shield holes(Or in the case of droids, push the weapons through the shield a tiny amount) to fire. So no, they don't need to use a frequency for that.

[The Silence and I]

Is frequency all that important here?
Federation weapons operate on a specific frequency; if this frequency is not protedcted against by default borg shielding parameters the weapon exploits the shield weakness and kills the drone. The borg then modify their shield parameters to optimize against the encountered frequency, thus eliminating the weakness.
A weapon without an operating frequency can neither be optimized against by the Borg, but nor can it exploit a frequency-based weakness in the Borg defenses.
So while the Borg cannot(?) adapt to the weapon, they will not be defenseless. Their shields on default configuration will easily engage a blaster shot... how much energy the shielding can dissipate is another matter.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Ok what do you think would happen if combat took place between blaster armed Imperial stormtroopers and Borg drones ?

*What* do I think???

[Ghost Rider]

This has been done bfore...ad NAUSEUM.

And you know what?

Borg have not been shown to adapt to a shot that is around the 5-8 MJ range.

So unless someone wants to show this, I'm locking because this has been over done multiple time and always atrtacts morons who bandy around bits and pieces of info while ignoring the obvious.