Borg and Lightsabre

[2000AD]

For purposes of Bord adaption does a lightsabre count as:

A) an energy weapon - can be adapted to
or
B) a kinetic weapon - can't be adapted to

?

[SirNitram]

From appearance, plasma weapon. AKA, inevitable death(End of FC, anyone?)

[Ted C]

A lightsabre is clearly some kind of energy weapon, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the Borg could adapt to it. The Borg can adapt to phasers because phasers, by nature, must deliver energy in narrow frequency bands. Borg can generate shields that deflect energy in specific frequencies, allowing them to resist phasers. There is no particular reason to think that lightsabres operate on similar principles, so there is no reason to think Borg shields would be an effective defense against them.

Think of it like this. If the weapon were a laser, a highly reflective metal shield would be an effective defense, but if the weapon were a bolt of lightning, that same shield would SUCK as a defense.

For the Borg to come up with an effective defense against lightsabres, they would, at the very least, need a good understanding of the principles that make a lightsabre work. Therefore, they would probably need to at least assimilate a lightsabre (or someone intimately familiar with their engineering) to develop a countermeasure.

[Mr Bean]

NTM it seems to cut through every single ore and metal in existance Except that one and its still can cut through it just slowy(Cause the Light-Saber to short out so you have to swing it back out and cut it back on)

Its kinda hard to come up with a defense aginst it..

[Darth Yoshi]

The fields in TPM prevented Qui-gon and Maul from fighting, although that might be because of the sheer power generated for Theed.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Ted C: I highly doubt a ligthsaber is frequency based, it has the power to cut through all known materials like..um...ever, but apparently not shileds (ref TPM theed scene) for whatever reason, perhaps because both lightsabers and sheilds are pure energy...

And when you mention reflecting a laser I seriously hope you are reffering t a modern day laser adn not that of a SW laser.

[AdmiralKanos]

Lightsabres clash against one another, which means that they can exert physical force. Therefore, they are simultaneously both energy weapons and physical weapons.

An energy-shielded victim of a lightsabre strike might be able to dissipate and re-radiate the heat from the blade. But the only way to stop the blade physically would be to generate the necessary reaction force to stop a Sith lord's sabre thrust. If you wore a shield generator on your belt buckle, this reaction force would drive the belt into your stomach. And given the strength of a Sith lord, it would probably cause severe blunt-force injuries in the process.

If you're a Borg drone, the shield is generated by internal implants rather than a large piece of equipment (this was proven in Voyager when 7 of 9 still had her Borg shielding even with all the exterior hardware removed). Therefore, the reaction forces will be applied to these tiny implants, which will immediately be ripped from their moorings and forced back through cell membranes, blood vessel walls, etc.

In other words, even if a Borg drone had energy shielding with infinite heat dissipation (a rather questionable assumption), and its shield can block the sabre (another questionable assertion), the reaction forces would still cause massive internal injuries.

[Ted C]

Ted C: I highly doubt a ligthsaber is frequency based,

Isn't that what I said?

it has the power to cut through all known materials like..um...ever, but apparently not shileds (ref TPM theed scene) for whatever reason, perhaps because both lightsabers and sheilds are pure energy...

Yes, a sufficiently powerful forcefield does seem to be capable of stopping a lightsabre. Those fields were something like 6 inches thick, of course. I somehow doubt that a Borg drone could generate a forcefield of comparable strength.

And when you mention reflecting a laser I seriously hope you are reffering t a modern day laser adn not that of a SW laser.

I had thought that obvious. My comparison was meant to use energies with well-understood properties.

[Eleas]

(Ted C)
"Borg can generate shields that deflect energy in specific frequencies,
allowing them to resist phasers. There is no particular reason to
think that lightsabres operate on similar principles, so there is no reason
to think Borg shields would be an effective defense against them."

Heyyyy, Ted C! Nice to see you found your way here.

Unfortunately - and I know I'm going to piss all of our warsie kind off
here - lightsabers have shown frequency dependency. In "The Truce At Bakura" (aye, I can hear your screams), Luke's saber failed to deflect the
paddle beamers' shots. And later, after recalibrating his lightsaber,
Luke managed to deflect the shots.

I don't remember this exactly, and will look it up when I come home.
But if they truly refer to it as "recalibration", this may just have
been a defect particular to Luke's saber.

[SPOOFE]

Nope, Eleas, didn't happen. Not in TaB, anyway. I just went through the relevant chapters, and found no mention of Luke doing anything to alter his lightsaber.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Nope, Eleas, didn't happen. Not in TaB, anyway. I just went through the relevant chapters, and found no mention of Luke doing anything to alter his lightsaber.

No it's true, in Truce at Bakura, the Ssi-Ruuk's ion beam paddler majigs shots "bend" around looks lightsaber. He modifies (or recalibrates, whatever) his blade to reflect the beam shots, but they then are useless against blasters. However, I don't actually know if that adds up to a freqeuncy basis or what.

[LordShaithis]

Could what Wong described above be the reason Borg shields don't seem to stop KE attacks?

[Eleas]

"(SPOOFE)
Nope, Eleas, didn't happen. Not in TaB, anyway. I just went through the relevant chapters, and found no mention of Luke doing anything to alter his lightsaber."

Partially, you're right. He just thought it might be possible.

"One alien raised a paddle. A thin silver beam shot out of its narrow point. Confidently Luke stepped toward the beam and swung his saber into it.
It didn't deflect. It only bent slightly."
--The Truce At Bakura, Chapter 16, page 250

"Finally, one unusual quirk of the paddle beamer is its discharge frequency; the ion beam cannot easily be deflected by a lightsaber. Instead, a lightsaber tends to "bend" rather than "deflect" the silvery beam, making it a difficult weapon to defend against. Armor, force fields and the like do not deflect the beam, either.
Commander Skywalker has indicated that he may be able to re-tune the frequency of his lightsaber blade to deflect the ion beam, although this would probably make the lightsaber unable to deflect standard blaster fire."
--The Truce At Bakura Sourcebook, WEG, page 141

Horrible Trek concept, to be sure. But the question is if it's even reliable. The idea that its specific frequency allows it to pierce armor is rather laughable.

I think there was something about this in Essential Weapons and Equipment, but I don't have it with me at the moment.

[Eleas]

"Could what Wong described above be the reason Borg shields don't seem to stop KE attacks?"

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tec ... index.html

[Stravo]

If Worf can chop up Borg Drones in FC with nothing but a Klingon knife and PIacrd can put down drones with tommy guns....then you it damnwell better be certain that a lightsaber is going to make Borg into tiny cauterized pieces.

[Darth Yoshi]

Come on, Prawn. If Borg implants can't handle the KE of a tommy gun salvo which, I might add, is easily handled by modern kevlar, that means Jedi can easily handle them, even without the lightsabre.

[Tsyroc]

Even if a lightsaber doesn't work on the Borg all the time how about the
ol' "Force Wammy"? That worked pretty well against Trade Federation battle
droids, and evil Threepio (SW Infinites: ANH).

In their own way the Borg aren't that much different from the battle droids. They all take their orders from the collective which is similar to the droid control ship just decentralized. Disconnect them from the colective and they are screwed, not as bad as the battle droids being cutoff from their control ship but
pretty close.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

It seems to be both. However energy beams!=borg adaption to it

[Master of Ossus]

It seems to be both. However energy beams!=borg adaption to it

Lightsaber damage appears to be thermal-based (ref. TPM). The Borg have never shown an ability to adapt to such weapons.

Lightsabers do not have frequencies that can be adapted to, even if they are energy-based.

The Borg have never been seen to create particle shields over individual drones (don't tell me they've never come under fire from Thompson sub-machine guns before, or Mek'leths), and I do not think that they would be able to do so in the immediate future. The Borg have also never been seen to adapt to anything anywhere near the firepower of SW technology. The lightsaber must have considerable power at its disposal, in order to cut through armored blast-doors in SW. Borg drones have never been seen to stop such firepower, and it is unlikely that individual drones would be able to.

Conclusion: Borg adaptation would be inadequate against lightsaber-equipped foes.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Come on, Prawn. If Borg implants can't handle the KE of a tommy gun salvo which, I might add, is easily handled by modern kevlar, that means Jedi can easily handle them, even without the lightsabre.

The KE of a submachine gun was, for that matter, easily handled by even Korean War-era flak vests. U.S. marines wore various patterns of flak vest during the conflict, and there were several documented cases of marines taking long bursts of SMG fire to the torso and walking away with nothing more than a big, nasty bruise.

[Patrick Ogaard]

It seems to be both. However energy beams!=borg adaption to it

Lightsaber damage appears to be thermal-based (ref. TPM). The Borg have never shown an ability to adapt to such weapons.

Lightsabers do not have frequencies that can be adapted to, even if they are energy-based.

The Borg have never been seen to create particle shields over individual drones (don't tell me they've never come under fire from Thompson sub-machine guns before, or Mek'leths), and I do not think that they would be able to do so in the immediate future. The Borg have also never been seen to adapt to anything anywhere near the firepower of SW technology. The lightsaber must have considerable power at its disposal, in order to cut through armored blast-doors in SW. Borg drones have never been seen to stop such firepower, and it is unlikely that individual drones would be able to.

Conclusion: Borg adaptation would be inadequate against lightsaber-equipped foes.

It seems quite likely that the Borg would be incapable of dealing adequately with lightsabers. Therefore, I've got to agree with your conclusion.

The nature of lightsabers actually seems pretty clear, though, if one goes by canon evidence. In SW:ANH, for instance, blaster bolts were deflected by the magnetically sealed door and walls of a trash compactor, and later incidents from SW:TPM show a remarkably similar phenomenon when small arms blaster bolts interact with conventional deflector shields.

The deflection of blaster bolts by lightsabers appears to be exactly the same phenomenon. So what basic lightsaber evidence do we have?

1. Lightsabers also have a form of frequency that can affect the weapon's ability to interact with blaster bolts and the ion streams of paddle beamers.

2. Two lightsabers whose blades intersects will clash and spark like electrically charged steel sword blades.

3. While not producing noticeable thermal effects or even producing much light, lightsabers glow, easily lop through limbs and leave these largely cauterized, and cut through metals like the proverbial hot knife cuts through butter. Even a heavy blast door quickly succumbs to a determined lightsaber attack.

What does this tell us? Two things: 1. Paddle beamers are weird alien tech, and 2. lightsabers are almost certainly a form of extremely advanced electromagnetic confinement field (annular confinement beam? ) combined with a plasma torch that is both incredibly powerful and incredibly compact.

Ordinary small arms blasters are vulnerable to being deflected by extremely strong magnetic fields, and the electromagnetic confinement field of a lightsaber would affect small arms blaster bolts the same way. Any substantial physical object intersecting the confinement field will cause a localized break in the containment field, releasing a planar jet of plasma straight into the object. The churning lines of force of the confinement field itself would themselves tear apart most objects. Physically jamming the tip of the field into something like a blast door will cause the plasma stream to pump its energy into the material of the blast door. It does seem to indicate, however, that the power cells of lightsabers must act like microscopic hypermatter reactors in order to produce that much energy on demand.