Federation Post-Endgame weapons

[SirNitram]

*giggles*

I love Trekkies. One moment they declare the Borg unstoppable because their shields react by adapting, the next it's 'There's nothing different between Borg ships and normal shields..'. Borg shields only work if they've adapted to the weapon being fired. If this TPT resists adaptation, it'll fly through the shields as if they don't exist. It'll then probably punch through the weak, PVC piping which forms the Cube's 'armour', and head for the reactor. If it has a timer or a special fuse to go off when it finds the reactor, boom.

Of course, Imperial shields do /not/ work like that, and Imperial armour is much heavier than some junk thrown together.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Also, Borg ships have no armour. Guess what a phaser did to it's hull. Did it explode on contact? No. Did it blast a good chunk? No. It went right through the hull.

[SCVN 2812]

You're stereotyping Nitram, a sign of your own ignorance.

As for phasers going straight through a cube, obviously you haven't seen First Contact or the misc. episodes of Voyager, seems the Borg have made some improvements to hull integrity.

[TheDarkling]

Let me jump in before a full flare war explodes.

We have no evidence that borg shields only work based upon modulation - the modulation lessens a weapons affect but if the torp could be stopped by stadard shields the borg would erect them.

I think the key here is that magic phase phrase - phase devices in the past have been those that circumvent normal space ie phase cloak.

The reason it hits the hull (if indeed it does) is because the torp cant rephase into matter thus getting between the shields and the hull is the way to go.

The above is speculation - when I get endgame I will know more.

[SCVN 2812]

There is a noticeable delay between "hitting" the hull and detonation and the explosion appears to be from the inside outward. And yes phase is the magic phrase here.

[Howedar]

What "phase" implies to me is that the torpedo is somehow tuned to the shield frequency, ignoring the shields because it is out of phase with them, as it were. This is the only way we know of bypassing shields, and there's no reason to invent a new reason to explain an old phenomion. In any case, the torpedos cannot be phase cloaked as we did not see them disappear into the hulls of the cubes.

[TheDarkling]

Its possible that the torp seeks the magic frequency however that goes against your earlier reasoning.

There is no evidence that TPTs are any good against anyone but Borg, considering Kim's failure to use them against the Klingons.

We know te klingons have the magic frequency so what you are saying now clashes with what you said earlier.

Also couldnt the Borg simply remodulate their shield frequency as they have done so before - randomly switching freq would make the torp ineffective yet the borg dont do this.


trans-
Across; on the other side; beyond: transpolar.
Through: transcontinental.
Change; transfer: transliterate.


To change Phase is what the phase cloak does so Transphasic would mean to change phase - phase is usually the state of matter (at least in trek) ala The Next Phase .

Transfrequency Torp would seem to be a torp that changes the frequency of its shield to match the freq of the shield it was penertrating.

However the above evidence may be offset by something in the episode that I cant remember.

[SCVN 2812]

If it simply just matched itself to the frequency of Borg shields then they would call it a frequency modulated torpedo there would be no point in calling it anything else as frequency modulated weapons have long been used against the Borg.

The inclusion of trans and phasic do strongly imply phasing out of our continium (which btw, is what happens to matter hit by a quantum torpedo so obviously the base of the technology is already in existence it's only a matter of refining it to the point of phasing objects and being able to re-phase them again, a technology already successfully achieved once by the Federation- the ship testing the phase cloak was destroyed by reintegrating inside of an asteroid due to a mutiny onboard not because the device did not work, in fact the D used it with no problems at all.) or phasing through something- like a ship's hull and shields.

The technology to phase objects exists, it's only a matter of refining it to the point where it can be done, and the Federation had 20-30 years to do so (I can't remember the exact figure).

[Howedar]

We can see them. They cannot be "out of phase".

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

As for phasers going straight through a cube, obviously you haven't seen First Contact or the misc. episodes of Voyager, seems the Borg have made some improvements to hull integrity.

Or they partially "adapted" to the weapon.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

We have no evidence that borg shields only work based upon modulation - the modulation lessens a weapons affect but if the torp could be stopped by stadard shields the borg would erect them.

Why? They could have done that in "Q Who?"

[TheDarkling]

Yes but they adapt to the style of weapon not the specific freq - else when the E-D was modulating its phasers in BOBW they would have done the same amount of damage as they did in "Q who?" meaning something other than (or in addition to) frequency blocking is going on.

They also blocked torps without having them fired at them first, meaning that they must be able to block weapons they havent adapted to.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Just to toss my highly flammable hat into the ring:

There is some evidence for (and some against) the assumption that ST shields do not work against other ST shields when the shields come in direct contact with each other. Typical examples for this assumption would be the Jem'hadars' successful ramming attacks against presumably heavily shielded Klingon warships that had not yet suffered enemy fire, or the successful shield penetration of a Borg cube by a shuttle.

(There are also a few instances where shields apparently physically held off the shields of other vessels, but in those cases I could not tell if the vessels impacting the shields were actually shielded themselves. Examples would be an escape pod bounced off the Enterprise-D by a genetically modified supersoldier, or a Kazon shuttle that rammed its way into the hull of Voyager after another Kazon vessel punched a gap into the shields of Voyager.)

Actually, shield penetration by other shields might make sense if one keeps in mind the apparent frequency modulation of ST shields. ST shields are (at least based on one of two likely interpretations) apparently modulated to switch on and off thousands or even millions of times per second. Thus, a directed energy weapon designed to fire in synchronization with the shield's frequency would effectively ignore the shield, delivering all of the weapon's energy to the hull of the target vessel.

A shielded vessel attempting to penetrate another vessel's shields would presumably employ the interference generated by the two shields interacting to locally cancel the effects of both shields, roughly analogous to the cancellation of noise by counternoise that cancels out the noise.

That provides a possible clue to the function of a transphasic torpedo. Specifically, a transphasic torpedo should be a powerful conventional photon torpedo, albeit of high yield, that is equipped with its own full-power shielding. Using its own shields, the transphasic torpedo rams the target vessel without taking notice of the shields. Simply installing a split-second delay in the detonator's program allows the torpedo to then slam into the target vessel and explode inside instead of wasting most of its energy in a surface detonation.

Unfortunately, that particular interpretation of the functioning of a transphasic torpedo leads to the conclusion that it would be no more effective than any other torpedo when used against SW shields. There is no indication that SW shields have the built-in flicker that ST shields employ. The shield modulation of ST shields apparently allows them to preferentially block particular frequencies, but the SW shields compensate by having much greater brute energy and no exploitable flicker.

So ...

... how plausible does my little analysis sound?

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

From BOBW.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Another possibly irrelevant snippet:

The Borg have lost at least one form of shielding technology.

Specifically, the faceted personal shields employed by the first Borg encountered by the TNG crew were visually identical to the shields employed by the Husnack (sp?) ship recreated by the superbeing that, in a fit of rage, had wiped out the entire species. Apparently he retroactively destroyed the entire species in such a manner that they were never encountered by the Borg and their shielding technology was never assimilated. A pity that the poor superbeing's presence at the initial massacre likely kept his dead wife and equally dead colony world anchored in the reality of the original timeline, and thus dead.

[TheDarkling]

Patrick Ogaard: All torps have shields - I believe Wong said this but I have also read it elsewhere.


Grand Admiral Thrawn: Yes nowhere near the same amount of damage.

In "Q Who?" it took 2 or 3 Phaser blast, in BOBW 39 Fed ships go after them and cant do enough damage, same again in First Contact.

If only Freq mattered then 3 or 4 hits would take a borg out of the game.

There must be something other than feq blocking going on or else one fed ship could win easily.

The Borg still took out the torps without having time to adapt to them.

[TheDarkling]

Patrick Ogaard: I dont think their destruction was retroactive or the colonists would still be alive, however the Bord have changed personal shields.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Yes but they adapt to the style of weapon not the specific freq - else when the E-D was modulating its phasers in BOBW they would have done the same amount of damage as they did in "Q who?" meaning something other than (or in addition to) frequency blocking is going on.

They also blocked torps without having them fired at them first, meaning that they must be able to block weapons they havent adapted to.

However, remember that a bit of abortive foreshadowing in TNG indicated that Borg scouts had assimilated (or stripmined) several Federation and Romulan colonies. The colonies (at least the Federation ones) likely had comprehensive databases of all standard Federation technology, plus defensive weapons (including torpedo launchers), and the Romulan colonies almost certainly had extensive colony defenses. Therefore, the Borg, if they were the ones that scooped up the colony sites per their SOP, would have obtained plenty of opportunites to assimilate both Human and Romulan technologies, excepting the really cutting edge stuff like knives and tommyguns.

[TheDarkling]

Yes but in that case they should have been ready for phasers.

Did the Raven have weapons or was it never mentioned?

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Grand Admiral Thrawn: Yes nowhere near the same amount of damage.

In "Q Who?" it took 2 or 3 Phaser blast, in BOBW 39 Fed ships go after them and cant do enough damage, same again in First Contact.

If only Freq mattered then 3 or 4 hits would take a borg out of the game.

There must be something other than feq blocking going on or else one fed ship could win easily.

The Borg still took out the torps without having time to adapt to them.

The Borg adapted to the frequency perhaps.


and they were stealing stuff from the database. Maybe they got torpedoes.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Patrick Ogaard: All torps have shields - I believe Wong said this but I have also read it elsewhere.

Standard torps have a form of shielding, no doubt about that, but in all likelihood they are shielded the same way their propulsion works: low-powered handoffs from the launching vessel or installation, not more than a navigational deflector to confuse enemy sensors a bit and sweep dust and gas out of the path of the torpedo, but inadequate to generate interference in the target's shields.

The big change of a transphasic torpedo might be miniaturization of the torpedo systems, allowing the installation of a full-fledged shield system of limited duration.

Then again, maybe not, but it is a relatively simple explanation that does not require the addition of yet more layers of treknology.

[TheDarkling]

Yes I thought about that but it seems odd that they would get Torps and not Phasers.

If they got that far into the database why didnt they get the shield frequency, in fact if the borg had just turned around he would have seen it.

Im not sure that the Torps always have a freq and why have it the same as the phasers ?, it would seem better to have them seperate if the torp has one at all.

This still doesnt answer why the phaser shifting no longer works against the borg.

[TheDarkling]

Patrick Ogaard: Torps can already push past shields if they have the frequency therefore what you describe is already doable by a normal torp - the key is changing the freq (if indeed that would work) and nkowning what to change it too.

Both techs proposed already exist so its not really aiding anything - he simplest explanation is "it does what it says on the box" ie switching phase.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Yes but in that case they should have been ready for phasers.

Did the Raven have weapons or was it never mentioned?

I am not certain that it was ever mentioned whether the Raven was armed or not, but in all likelihood a minimum-size research vessel not piloted by at least a Starfleet Lieutenant Commander would not have been allowed more than the minimal phasers needed to blast recalcitrant space dust. Since the phasers would have had insignificant power levels, and likely did not come equipped with the combat programs needed to aim them at anything more than a speck of relativistic dust, the Borg may not have initially recognized them as a weapons system.

Similarly, attacking and assimilating the Federation colonies could well have yielded no personal weapons technology beyond low-yield phaser pistols. Apparently low-yield phasers are phasers hardwired to be unable to go beyond heavy stun as a setting. As Borg drones seem rather resistant to stun settings, the Borg may have considered adaptation to them a waste of time. Also, even if the colonies were equipped with defensive phasers to engage attacking shuttles or the like, the uncreative Borg would not have made the connection required to realize that those heavy weapons could potentially be scaled down to make the low-yield phassers effective anti-drone weapons.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Yes I thought about that but it seems odd that they would get Torps and not Phasers.

If they got that far into the database why didnt they get the shield frequency, in fact if the borg had just turned around he would have seen it.

It's impossible to tell what he did and didn't get.

Im not sure that the Torps always have a freq and why have it the same as the phasers ?, it would seem better to have them seperate if the torp has one at all.

Feds like to make stuff the same.

This still doesnt answer why the phaser shifting no longer works against the borg.

They can adapt to more then 1 frequency?