Using projectile weapons versus the Borg.

[Davey]

I've been thinking. A buddy of mine brought this point up.

He said that although the borg can always adapt to the frequencies of a phaser, or even a phaser rifle, they can't defy the laws of physics. So, he wondered if using kinetic energy weapons, such as firearms would be a good way to stop Borg drones.

I don't know much about the Borg but from what I do know, they still require that bit of actual 'life beneath those bio-mechanical 'suits' they wear. Guns as we know them, are capable of destroying that 'life.' The only thing is, how much gun would be needed to crack open their armour, and assuming we could crack open their armour, would it work? Do those bio-mechanical augmentations keep them alive or something?

What do you guys think?

[Patrick Degan]

We've seen it —Picard machinegunned two drones in the Enterprise holodeck and Worf did one with his scythe in Worst Contact.

[Davey]

Just for reference, what type of gun (calibre, barrel length?) was it and what episode was it on? I always figured the Borg drones had a pretty thick skin.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

Just for reference, what type of gun (calibre, barrel length?) was it and what episode was it on? I always figured the Borg drones had a pretty thick skin.

First Contact. A Tommy Gun on the Holodeck.

[Stark]

And assuming 'thick skin' refers to armour, it turns out their armour is soft pliable leather. If you really thought human skin could resist .45ACP, you're a crazy person.

[lord Martiya]

Borg anti-projectile defense is grossly inferior to MODERN anti-projectile defense (modern Type II can stop .45 ACP rounds, and they aren't even the stronger defense). So, I'm wondering about an in-universe explanation about the moronic absence of old style firearms to deal against the Borg Scare (even a modern trainee who just learned how aim and fire his assault rifle could deal with a troop of Borg...), because out-universe explanations are too depriments...

[Mr Bean]

Well for one, damn near everyone in Star Trek uses Phasers or energy weapons of some sort, because they offer a host of advantages over tradition slug-throwing weapons(Higher power, variable settings, no need to carry ammunition meaning the gun is light the solider can carry much more misc gear)

And of course, supposedly computer assisted targeting. Not that it seems it's very good computer targeting, but oh well.

So the reason why Borg are so easy to kill with kinetic projectiles is simple. Hardly anyone uses them, so theres no need to to armor drones against it. I don't think slapping Kevlar or it's Star-Trek equivalent on a drone is beyond the Borg's mental facilities. But the've never seen the need up until now, not even Picard got the hint that .45ACP's do a hell of a job on standard drones.

If everyone started using bullets rather than ray guns, I'd expect the Borg to come out with some sort of bullet resistant material/armor to slap on new drones. They might be space zombies, but they arn't drooling.

[Davey]

And assuming 'thick skin' refers to armour, it turns out their armour is soft pliable leather. If you really thought human skin could resist .45ACP, you're a crazy person.

Ah... .45ACP, John Browning's most enduring creation! Good to hear that the old soldier's still fighting!

Yes, by 'thick skin' I referred to armour. I didn't think the Borg would leave their drones unprotected, especially against such 'crude' and 'inferior' threats and old-fashioned weaponry. I thought that they would have seen that oversight long ago. Maybe they didn't. Oh well, in the end I guess that's a good thing!

[DarthShady]

Yes, by 'thick skin' I referred to Armour. I didn't think the Borg would leave their drones unprotected, especially against such 'crude' and 'inferior' threats and old-fashioned weaponry. I thought that they would have seen that oversight long ago. Maybe they didn't. Oh well, in the end I guess that's a good thing!

The Borg are a bunch of space zombie idiots with shit for brains.

Ah... .45ACP, John Browning's most enduring creation! Good to hear that the old soldier's still fighting!

I love guns!

[DaveJB]

Yes, by 'thick skin' I referred to armour. I didn't think the Borg would leave their drones unprotected, especially against such 'crude' and 'inferior' threats and old-fashioned weaponry. I thought that they would have seen that oversight long ago. Maybe they didn't. Oh well, in the end I guess that's a good thing!

They might have just decided that it wasn't worth the effort it would take. Armour doesn't grant immunity to bullets, it just spreads the impact force around rather than allowing the bullet to blast straight into the body. Thus, while you'd have a better chance of surviving one or two gunshots, the amount of force absorbed from a hail of machine gun bullets would still likely cause fatal internal injuries (or hardware damage, in the case of the Borg).

[PREDATOR490]

The simplest reason in universe is the Borg dont consider drones worth protecting. They are a massive collective which washes out the 'individual' which means a single drone is meaningless to them. They have a massive force of ships populated by thousands of drones. With Seven's comments in Omega, the Borg considered the loss of (Trillions) ? drones an acceptable loss in pursuit of attaining new technology, I believe it logical to conclude the Borg have lost appreaciation for the loss of a single grain amoungst a beach of sand. Hence they consider the loss of a few drones trivial if the goal is greater.

The interesting thing from Voyager is that in Endgame we saw the Queen talking to the Borg collective. From her own comments in First Contact she is an 'administrator' of sorts and 'brings order to chaos'. Which makes me wonder if the Collective isnt run by some sort of AI computer. If all the individuality of drones has been removed then who was the Queen actually talking too and who exactly is the 'collective' ?

Since we cant say "retcon" in-universe then the Borg we saw in TNG and Scorpian showed no need of a Queen and spoke as the collective. It's possible the Collective has it's own 'self conciousness' from the amount of minds and the Queen acts as source of individual thinking and point of action when needed. Meaning if you were about to directly threaten the collective as a whole or the Queen they may very well choose to adapt to any weapon quicker than if your shooting the common drone.

[Darth Wong]

Yes, by 'thick skin' I referred to armour. I didn't think the Borg would leave their drones unprotected, especially against such 'crude' and 'inferior' threats and old-fashioned weaponry. I thought that they would have seen that oversight long ago. Maybe they didn't. Oh well, in the end I guess that's a good thing!

Dude, we're talking about an organization whose standing policy is to ignore intruders on their spaceships until those intruders do enough damage to make you take notice of them. How fucking stupid is that? Compared to that, refusing to put Kevlar on their drones is perfectly logical.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I thought this thread might be a good place to share one of my creations:



Its a hell of a good shot, even if his eyes are closed.

[Peptuck]

Though you have to admit, it takes a special degree of talent to completely miss the entire crowd while firing a fully automatic submachinegun from the hip, and yet take out every bottle on the bar.

[lord Martiya]

The interesting thing from Voyager is that in Endgame we saw the Queen talking to the Borg collective. From her own comments in First Contact she is an 'administrator' of sorts and 'brings order to chaos'. Which makes me wonder if the Collective isnt run by some sort of AI computer. If all the individuality of drones has been removed then who was the Queen actually talking too and who exactly is the 'collective' ?

Excuse me, but this is funny to me, because according to this Picard, with all his conservative thinking, for a while was the first TRANSEXUAL character of TV (for what I know) as Locutus of Borg, a MALE Borg QUEEN. Maybe he didn't married Beverly Crusher because as Locutus the Borg cutted something...

Ah... .45ACP, John Browning's most enduring creation! Good to hear that the old soldier's still fighting!

I prefer the long hitter .50 BMG, but you're right, that bullet is still a good soldier.

[Gullible Jones]

IIRC Locutus wasn't a Borg queen, more like an ambassador.

Of course, this was back when the Borg didn't have a queen, and were more into disassembling ships and stealing technology than turning people into more drones, wasn't it?

[Terralthra]

The Borg went from assimilating technology to assimilating people in order to have an excuse to kidnap Picard. It was the first step of the massive decay of the Borg as a threat.

I'd imagine the Borg could whip up a forcefield thing too, like what Worf did in A Fistful of Datas (TNG) to save himself during that gunfight. We know the Borg have forcefields; they'd have to think of using them eventually.

We see them with ray shields, have we ever seen a Borg drone with a deflector/force shield?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Though you have to admit, it takes a special degree of talent to completely miss the entire crowd while firing a fully automatic submachinegun from the hip, and yet take out every bottle on the bar.

I put it down to the holodeck not 'counting' those, for some reason. But probably, the censors didn't want a bloody massacre.

[Junghalli]

So, I'm wondering about an in-universe explanation about the moronic absence of old style firearms to deal against the Borg Scare (even a modern trainee who just learned how aim and fire his assault rifle could deal with a troop of Borg...), because out-universe explanations are too depriments...

It's always possible that their shields can stop firearms, and they just weren't adapted to the rather unique weapon Picard was using on them. I mean what are the odds anybody else ever shot at them with something that shoots forcefields shaped to simulate real bullets?

Of course this is assuming abilities that have never been proven, and so invalid for any versus debate.

[The Yosemite Bear]

what you didn't see that scene in 300 when the Spartans killed a whole cube full of borg with a thrown spear?

[Stark]

It's always possible that their shields can stop firearms, and they just weren't adapted to the rather unique weapon Picard was using on them. I mean what are the odds anybody else ever shot at them with something that shoots forcefields shaped to simulate real bullets?

Of course this is assuming abilities that have never been proven, and so invalid for any versus debate.

Why would non-safety holodeck bullets be functionally any different? They carry kinetic energy (as seen by the drones dancing a jig in the hail of fire) and they're solid enough to leave ragged holes in leather. The idea that they were magical forcefield bullets which 'tricked' their way into effectiveness is baseless.

[Junghalli]

Yeah, it probably is, it should be ignored for this debate. I was just speculating on a possible in-universe reason besides the old standby of "all the characters are fucking morons" (as reasonable as that is in Trek, sadly).

[Bounty]

Though you have to admit, it takes a special degree of talent to completely miss the entire crowd while firing a fully automatic submachinegun from the hip, and yet take out every bottle on the bar.

I put it down to the holodeck not 'counting' those, for some reason. But probably, the censors didn't want a bloody massacre.

Since the Dixon Hill games are campy detective pulp, the holodeck may be using movie logic - bottles and villains go down while innocent bystanders aren't even scratched.

Or Picard just really, really hates bottles.

[brianeyci]

Its a hell of a good shot, even if his eyes are closed.

You should redo it with Picard screaming.

As for bullets, one thing that annoys me is people going they could automatically replicate many guns. No, Picard having one gun doesn't mean he could replicate five hundred. Actually, it's entirely possible it's a real gun, something he custom ordered from some gunsmith somewhere on Ferengi and can't just replicate.

[PREDATOR490]

When threatened the Borg have shown the ability to react to stop that threat. In the situation of S8472 they reacted by breaking their usual monotone thinking by making a deal with Voyager. The Queen did the same via Unimatrix Zero and Endgame.

Hence, a threat directly to what the collective desires to protect is vastly more likely to produce a defensive reaction. Pathetic as that reaction is the in-universe explanation can be attributed due to their unrivaled dominance in their Quadrant. They have supposedly been around for more than 900 years and judging from Dragon's Teeth they went from a small territory to a much larger one over that period.
They have decimated the local area of races that can oppose them in any meaningful way and built up a technological superiority that easily keeps them ahead.

I'm willing to guess once the Borg eliminated the majority of the competition from other powers they no longer had pressure to advance to stay on par with others. We see the Borg have planets close / near their territory that arent assimilated but any signs of technology are. Gives the impression they are almost acting like the Goa'uld from Stargate. They leach off their technology from other races and keep the local inhabitants at a level which allows them to easily dominate the field.
Over the course of time this has no doubt resulted in the collective becoming stagnant at its progression and eventually lost perspective on the proper way to react to threats against them unless its on a S8472 scale.

Overall, if the threat to the Borg was great enough and the losses inflicted on them enough to make them want to prevent them then it is likely they will develop away to defend against projectile weapons.
We have seen a simple Federation combadge used to generate a forcefield capable of deflecting bullets (Fist Full of Datas) so I would at least hope the Borg have the technological capability to build a similar device.
Especially since their drones already have those defensive shields that can be activated even after Seven was cut off from the collective with a sizeable amount of the cybernetics removed.

Hence, taking out 1 - 2 drones isnt likely to warrant attention for the enitre collective to expend the resources putting armor on their drones or remaking their shields.
Incidentally, it usually takes 2+ drones to die in delayed order before the Borg even adapt to Phasers so Picard being able to nail 2 drones simultaneously in the holodeck dosent strike me as being entirely conclusive in suggesting they dont have the means to defend / adapt against bullets if they choose to.
We havent seen bullets used against them by the Federation despite having projectile weapons on DS9 and Picard definetly didnt seem to note of the effectiveness of the weapon in the holodeck. He has the greatest chance of knowing if the Borg are vulnerable to this type of weapon as a whole or by using it the next 2 drones that came would have adapted.