posted
If starfleet officers knew about the TR-116 why were they never used against the Borg? The Borg have shields to protect them from energy weapons but are not very good when it comes to solid objects (physical attack by Worf and Data and the Holographic Tommygun).
Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
My guess is that not very many people know about the rifle. Probably only people with a special interest in that kind of thing would know about it.
Also (and I think we've chewed this over before), the Borg would probably eventually adapt to physical attack. They just weren't expecting it and were unprepared for it. If Picard started mowing down a whole crowd o' drones, eventually, they would catch on.
posted
I don't think we ever saw if the TR-116 had automatic capabilities. They probably require some reload time or something, which wouldn't be good against the Borg.
-------------------- "Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."
-Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney, LeMans
Registered: Mar 1999
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I would think that the borg wouldn't be able to adapt to bladed weapons or "fist fights". The TR-116 wouldn't use physics principles much diffrent to that (at least it would be closer to that than it would be to a phasor). Also i would think that even single shot capability would be better than none at all.
Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
They can adapt to antimatter-based weapons. (Energy release)/mass of antimatter reaction >> atomic reaction >> chemical reaction >> physical force. There's a reason why Starfleet vessels use antimatter reactors and instead of having their crews get out and push
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
The general idea of this question, "can Borg protect itself from kinetic-based weapons, ie. guns", has been debated for ages since ST:FC. I think one of the most common responses is that, yes, the Borg can defend themself from things like bullets and other high-speed projectiles; ST:FC involved holographic forcefield pretending to be bullets, and an edged weapon is fundamentally different from guns, being much slower.
Finally, the TR-116 never entered service. It was part of a Starfleet effort to development weapons that would operate in situations adverse to standard energy weapons. Regenerative phasers beat out the TR-116 (whatever the hell that is, writers seem to think slapping "regenerative" in front of a system makes it ultra strong, like "regenerative shields").
-------------------- "God's in his heaven. All's right with the world."
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
"With the holodeck safeties off, even holographic bullets can kill." - Picard, First Contact.
Picard's holographic bullets were nothing more than 'smoke and mirrors', backed up by a forcefield. It was not an attack with a projectile weapon firing bullets with kinetic energy . . . it was a crafty forcefield attack that the Borg had obviously never encountered before, and had therefore not adapted to. The Borg were aware that they were in a holographic environment . . . not only was one of the drones Picard shot an assimilated ensign, but one of the holodeck characters was disrupted by some sort of scanning beams.
Some might suggest that Starfleet officers are all stupid, and that no one ever thought of trying to shoot the Borg with bullets. I suppose it is possible that no one ever tried to bring a gun to a disruptor fight (Borg drones, after all, are frequently armed with disruptor attachments, as observed in "Descent"[TNG], "Drone"[VOY], and "Scorpion"[VOY]).
But, let's look at the evidence:
1. We have never seen projectile weapons used against the Borg.
2. Starfleet has access to modern-design projectile weapons, and can evidently recreate old ones. (reference: "Field of Fire"[DS9], "A Private Little War"[TOS], "The Big Goodbye"[TNG], ST:FC, etc.)
3. Starfleet has studied operational drones and their technology, has extracted technology from former drones, and has studied non-operational Borg equipment. (reference: "Best of Both Worlds"[TNG], "I, Borg"[TNG], First Contact, "Scorpion"[VOY], "Drone"[VOY], "Unimatrix Zero"[VOY], "Dark Frontier"[VOY], etc.)
4. Several Starfleet officers and personnel have spent time as Borg drones, giving them detailed information on Borg technology. (reference: "Best of Both Worlds"[TNG], First Contact, Seven of Nine, etc.)
5. Phasers are particle weapons (reference: Picard in First Contact, Malcolm Reed in "Broken Bow"[ENT], Tuvok in "Endgame"[VOY], et cetera)
6. Borg drone shields stop phasers. (reference: Every Borg episode since "Q Who"[TNG])
7. When Starfleet needed a weapon that would work in conditions where phasers wouldn't, they looked to a projectile weapon. (reference: "Field of Fire"[DS9] TR-116 backstory)
8. Borg drone shields do not stop physical attacks, such as hands or knives. (reference: Every Borg episode since "Q Who"[TNG])
9. The Borg drones are capable of interacting with their environment. (reference: Every Borg episode since "Q Who"[TNG])
One could argue that all Starfleet officers are idiots, but I don't think that's the best, most reasonable conclusion to draw from the above data.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
Yay me! Er, I mean, oh God, not the projectile-weapons-vs-the-Borg thing again. . .
bBasically, we've seen, what, abut three Borg killed with physical weaponry? Two with a Tommy-gun, one with a Mek'leth. Every other exchange we've seen has involved a couple of drones being killed before the nature of the attack was analysed and counteracted. The Borg can't protect against everything all the time, or else they'd walk (or more likely float, or even bounce) around in solid reflective-silver force bubbles.
Now someone brings up the holographic bullets and I get a headache. 8)
posted
It even looks as if the Borg protect themselves against *nothing* as a default. When they go against the Voyager crew, they are vulnerable to hand phaser fire for the first two or three shots, every time. They don't seem to care: instead of using their ocular implants to see "Hmm, that guy is pointing a phaser at me", they rather do the "Hmm, the shot that killed me felt like a phaser shot - let's tell my buddies to adapt to that" routine.
With that sort of mentality, it's futile to draw conclusions about what threats the Borg can adapt to and what they cannot on the basis of two bodies alone. You'd have to test-fire against five Drones at least to be sure. And since the budget for Borg extras calls for no more than eight per episode, you can kill five in the climatic final battle only.
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