You forget that if Enterprise had fired it BEFORE they assimilated Picard, it probably would have worked.
You'd think they would have tried that by now instead of some of the retarded Bond Villain schemes cooked up by the Borg Queen.
Anti-Borg technology and tactics
- Thread starter Hando
- Start date
There are limits to the amount of energy a ship/cube can produce thus how strong the shields can be, overpower them and blow them to pieces, there is NOTHING to adapt to, same with photon torpedoes what's there to adapt? Nothing, matter and aniti matter collide= boom, more matter and anti matter = bigger boom, there is nothing to adapt to, make a 6000 gigaton tnt torp and you'll vaporize a cube no matter if its know to the Borg that it just a really really reeeeeaaaaally big torpedo.
Nope - the point is that Starfleet has nothing that could overwhelm the Borg adaptation ability by sheer force alone. The search for a weapon that works even after assimilation is futile.
What situation so far would have called for that? The Borg aren't exactly losing or anything.
...And we have discovered that the Federation cannot reach those limits.
We don't know if it is because they just can't build bombs that are big enough - or because they don't know how to deliver such bombs. The backstage story of the three smallish spacecraft that tried to approach the Cube near Mars in "BoBW" was that they were flying bombs. Well, didn't work...
Timo Saloniemi
I always wondered whether a warp-speed ramming technique would be effective against the Borg - just build a reasonably-sized automated ship and slam it into a cube at warp 9...a waste of resources against more conventional opponents but against a threat like the Borg it could have merit...
I thought the OP was referring to the Destiny trilogy of novels, which ended the Borg in 2381.
As for techniques to use against them, send Kirk to seduce the queen.
Several ships tried to approach the Borg cube and were defeated by its tractor or cutting beams in "Q Who?", "BoBW", "Emissary" etc. Would they have had more success by going FTL?
Well, the idea is obvious enough - and if ships were so willing to perform suicide runs at STL speeds, surely a few must also have tried FTL, at least after seeing how STL was achieving nothing.
Yet the Borg were not defeated off camera. So either the things that looked like STL suicide runs (say, the plunge of the Melbourne towards the Cube without firing a shot in "Emissary") were something else and nobody but Riker was willing to attempt glorious suicide - or then FTL ramming does not work. The odds of it never having even been attempted are pretty low in comparison...
Timo Saloniemi
Well, the idea is obvious enough - and if ships were so willing to perform suicide runs at STL speeds, surely a few must also have tried FTL, at least after seeing how STL was achieving nothing.
Yet the Borg were not defeated off camera. So either the things that looked like STL suicide runs (say, the plunge of the Melbourne towards the Cube without firing a shot in "Emissary") were something else and nobody but Riker was willing to attempt glorious suicide - or then FTL ramming does not work. The odds of it never having even been attempted are pretty low in comparison...
Timo Saloniemi
Exactly. Come up with a bunch of NEW weapons that can crush them before they adapt to them. They didn't NEED to adapt tot he deflector blast, they got to literally pick Picard's brain and learn all they needed to know about it. If they hadn't gotten Picard, Best of Both Worlds would have been a one-parter.
Any situation in which the Borg actually desire to assimilate Earth. First Contact, for example, would have resulted in victory for the Borg if they had simply deployed two or more cubes to the job. As it stands it took the combined efforts of the entire fleet just to take down that one cube; the arrival of a second or third would have been lights out for Starfleet.
Not that this is going to get much traction, but it needs to be recognize that the single most troublesome thing about the Borg -- their ability to adapt -- is a rather inexplicable addition to their capabilities that appears to be a misunderstanding of Guinan's line from "Q, Who." According to Guinan, "the ability to learn and adapt" was actually STARFLEET's main advantage, not the Borg.
The BORG'S main advantage is that you can't really kill them. As Q put it "If you damage them, the essence of what they are remains. They regenerate and keep coming. They are relentless." And even in the early stages of "Best of Both Worlds" discussions about what to do with the Borg centered around THAT aspect, the fact that a Borg Cube could still fight effectively even if 70% of it was inoperable.
My sense is that this is and should always have been the main aspect of the Borg. It's not their ability to adapt that's the problem, it's the T-1000-like ability to get blown to smithereens and then pull themselves back together like nothing happened. If you want to make them more menacing, give them the ability to regenerate their entire ship in seconds or minutes instead of hours.
The BORG'S main advantage is that you can't really kill them. As Q put it "If you damage them, the essence of what they are remains. They regenerate and keep coming. They are relentless." And even in the early stages of "Best of Both Worlds" discussions about what to do with the Borg centered around THAT aspect, the fact that a Borg Cube could still fight effectively even if 70% of it was inoperable.
My sense is that this is and should always have been the main aspect of the Borg. It's not their ability to adapt that's the problem, it's the T-1000-like ability to get blown to smithereens and then pull themselves back together like nothing happened. If you want to make them more menacing, give them the ability to regenerate their entire ship in seconds or minutes instead of hours.
...Which is the opposite of the idea I was commenting on and declaring unworkable, that of creating a weapon so powerful that it renders all adaptation meaningless.
The 8472 had something of that caliber: a death ray capable of destroying planets. The Xindi had the same, thanks to future help. But those weapons demonstrated no anti-ship capabilities, so a force of Cubes still stands invincible against brute force attempts on screen.
It did result in Borg victory: Earth was assimilated. This was done with subtle Borg trickery (time travel) rather than with brute force.
That it was later (earlier!) undone does not disqualify the original concept as such.
Agreed - but it's a rather exciting and facilitating addition. Trek is full of such misunderstandings (Data speaks formally -> Data can't contract was just silly; Ferengi are greedy -> Ferengi can't and won't fight was equally silly but in a good way), and usually manages to wring something interesting out of them.
"Q Who?" already showed the Borg adapting anyway: originally, Worf's phasers worked on a Drone, then they no longer did. It was part of the concept in any case, regardless of later misunderstandings, oversimplifications and plain concept evolution.
Timo Saloniemi
Oh yeah, the Borg were totally invincible against Species 8472.
Yep. Totally invincible.
Or at least, it WOULD have if Enteprise hadn't followed the sphere through the vortex.
But even assuming the time travel plot was absolutely necessary (besides being entirely asinine in light of everything we know about the Borg) Enterprise's interference could have been prevented by the presence of a second cube tasked with keeping any starships from pursuing the sphere.
No it isn't. It's a plot device that gives the Borg a highly convenient invincibility screen. This immediately comes around to bite you in the ass since you now have to have your characters find an equally convenient "Shoot here to kill us all" plot device to exploit.
Imagine playing out Best of Both Worlds if the Borg never actually adapted to anything. Not much would change about the storyline itself except that the Borg ship would have to show noticeable damage after very exchange of fire, damage which slowly dissapears shot by shot as the cube regenerates. The decimation of the fleet at Wolf-359 would also by the same, except that you would also have a scene where the Enterprise encounters almost fully-restored Borg Cube, hard at work carving pieces out of the hulks to complete its last round of repairs.
In that context, Data's "I put them all to sleep" technique would finally make sense: Data sends them a command to start regenerating parts of the ship that aren't actually damaged, parts that they continue to perceive are damaged despite the fact that they are perfectly functional. Engine and weapon components start collecting more and more power until they finally blow themselves to pieces and take the Borg with them.
They didn't work on the FIRST drone either; the implication is that the first drone's armor repelled the phaser blast and Worf dialed a higher setting to kill it. The second drone didn't "adapt" to anything; the Borg simply sent one with a shield generator as well as armor.
Quite the opposite, which is my point. The Species 8472 beat the Borg hands down without using their so-powerful-that-adaptation-becomes-meaningless supergun, so that's a further failure to find an example of that strategy ever working.
And this is less exciting than "shoot at them until their ability to regenerate gets overwhelmed", how?
An adversary that simply takes more shots to kill than yer average Klingon sounds just about as boring as adversaries can get...
And this is not adapting for what reason?
Timo Saloniemi
They didn't need superguns. Turns out there Unusually Large guns were more than sufficient. When you've got a weapon that can slag a Borg cube with two hits or less, adaptation is irrelevant.
For the same reason "Aliens" was more exciting than "First Contact."
Because you can't really fight something that slowly and invincibly ambles down a hallway like a mechanized zombie. At a certain point you're reduced to screaming at them while slowly backpedaling and looking really tense, but that isn't a fight as much as it is an obvious waste of time.
Picture the "Last Stand" scene from Aliens, only gump some Borg Drones in place of the aliens and add a scene of a couple of those drones -- having already been shot to pieces -- scooping up their entrails and literally pulling themselves back together until a fully-functional condition. Ultimately it has the same dynamics -- your security team winds up being chased down a hallway by invincible drones -- but the difference is that 1) it actually makes sense to shoot them now because your shots have SOME effect and 2) mechanical zomies getting shot to pieces is a lot more fun to watch than mechanical zombies with CGI forcefields on their chests.
Except they don't die, they just get back up and keep coming, again and again and again, pretty much forever. Which means you're up against an enemy that can't be killed, not because it's indestructible, but because destroying it won't actually kill it. It's a bit like the Flood from Halo 2 and especially 3. In addition to the fact that you get to watch some of your own Marines transformed into mutant killing machines right in front of you, sometimes you gun down those killing machines only to watch them reanimate themselves, get back up and start attacking you again; you have to kill that same mutated marine three or four times, and by the time you've done this your shields are down and you're almost out of ammo.
Anyone can blow up a ship, but Borg ships just slither back together and come at you again. You can only blow it up so many times before your phasers burn out and your torpedo bays run out of ammo, and then they've got you.
In the same sense that Worf wasn't "adapting" when he dialed his phaser up to a higher setting. They didn't analyze his weapon and come up with a countermeasure, they just sent a tougher drone.
Why not just use gold against them?
The Borg want to add Earth's biological and technological distinctiveness to their own. Ultimate Luddite Revolution: Destroy all technology as to not be a tempting target for the technology. And since so many billions of humans without tech (food and health) cannot be sustained, a large part would die of starvation and disease so the Borg wouldnt bother to assimilate Earth's naked apes.
Did I just say continuing war is better than universal peace? Ok, now I'm depressed.
Did I just say continuing war is better than universal peace? Ok, now I'm depressed.
Wouldn't work. Remember, in First Contact the Borg traveled back in time to a point where humanity had basically done that because it would be easier to assimilate them.
Wouldn't work. Remember, in First Contact the Borg traveled back in time to a point where humanity had basically done that because it would be easier to assimilate them.
I dont get the Borg(s) in First Contact. First they try to assimilate Earth by brute force as always.When that failed they sent themselves thru time and are able to assimilate Earth because in the 21st century we have no weapons. Which is kind of pointless because all the technolygy the Borg wanted in the first place wasnt invented yet.
Since they traveled to the exact time of Cochrane they intended to ruin first contact between humans and vulcans. THAT fits nowhere in the Borg plan. I wish they made up their collective mind.
Maybe they assimilated a stupid species and added their stupidity to their own.
:facepalm:
Similar threads
