Star Trek Vs Modern Earth

[Mikey]

True - the best defense against the Borg is avoidance.

[Duskofdead]

The continuity break with regards to the Borg was the "just adding more firepower > adaptation" idea. It was applied inconsistently after First Contact; for instance Voyager on some occasions was able to damage Borg ships and on other occasions got flat feedback that their weapons had been adapted to and had no effect. (Even after "One" upgraded the output of their phasers against the sphere.)

A better preparation against the Borg would have been to diversify the weapons technology in the fleet, rather than simply slapping more weapons on each ship. A ship which could fire disruptor technology and phaser technology in alternating volleys "should" perform much better against the Borg in terms of penetration and doing damage and getting around adapted shields than a ship which simply tweaks or upgrades its phasers.

Unfortunately we wind up impassing because the show has provided canon for both trains of thought, that the Borg have a "maximum limit" and great firepower of ANY sort will blow them up, even "enough" ships firing x-ray lasers, and that Borg adaptation is such that any level of firepower with weapons operating off the same physics won't do you any good after they've adapted.

[Mikey]

OK, so canon itself screwed us. Great.

[Teaos]

Maybe it is just rather impractical to have both disruptors and Phasers on the same ship. That and the fact that the Feds seem to like clean weapons.

Although I could see them using Polaron beams or what ever the Dominion used.

[Captain Seafort]

Unfortunately we wind up impassing because the show has provided canon for both trains of thought, that the Borg have a "maximum limit" and great firepower of ANY sort will blow them up, even "enough" ships firing x-ray lasers, and that Borg adaptation is such that any level of firepower with weapons operating off the same physics won't do you any good after they've adapted.

We've never seen any evidence of the latter, merely that it's a lot easier for a given type of weapon to damage them pre-adaptation than post-adaptation. Superior firepower will trump any defence. All adaptation (be it sloped armour or whatever the Borg do) can do is raise the limit, but enough firepower will still destroy the target.

In part response to your previou post, I never suggested that KE weapons would be effective anti-ship weapons. The Borg have been seen to use KE shields aboard their ships - it's the drones that don't have them.

[Mikey]

Mixed weapon types would probably give a few extra shots, much in the same way as "remodulated" phasers do. However, after those couple extra shots, the Borg would adapt to disruptors the same as they did to phasers.

[Teaos]

Cycling frequencys seems to work just fine now they know to do it.

[Mikey]

I thought that modulating the frequencies still only gets them a few more shots (per FC, etc.) Is it different for ship-to-ship combat?

[Teaos]

I thought every time you changed the frequency your phasers worked at maximum again. And since there would be unlimited options yu could do it forever.

[Mikey]

That would make sense, but in FC we see people with phasers set to remodulate randomly, yet becoming ineffective after a short bit.

[Teaos]

Maybe they only had a few options to rotate between. So even though it was random it was only out of a few options.

[Mikey]

Possible. Then again, that was HTH combat; ship-to-ship might work differently.

[Teaos]

Bigger guns have more options maybe.

[Duskofdead]

I thought that modulating the frequencies still only gets them a few more shots (per FC, etc.) Is it different for ship-to-ship combat?

Well adapting against the energy particles phasers use to do damage-- regardless of the frequency-- is a different monster from adapting the shields to also equally absorb a different type of particle or energy interaction. I think the Borg shields would still to some degree "work", but I think "perfect resistance" against a given weapon type wouldn't be possible in a situation where two, three, five different kinds of weapons are involved in the same battle.

I think the shape, frequency, burst of the weapon discharge do affect what sort of defense would be optimized against said weapon-- this is the idea behind abandoning beam phasers in the primary weaponry of the Defiant, for example. (Sorry I'm delving off into my own conjecture here- not citing this as canon) An example would be when the Borg Queen asked Seven's opinion on how to best adapt to an enemy fleet engaging her ships, and there was some exchange about modifying the shield grid to absorb their phaser pulses. Not just their "phasers" or their "weapons", but their phaser pulses... implying both the type of weapon and the shape of the energy discharge were factors in adaptation.

However even BETTER would be if you had a ship firing disruptors, some firing phasers, some pulse phasers, some poleron weapons etc. This is why I always wanted to see Klingon backup during a Borg attack-- supposedly one was present during Wolf 359, or some were dispatched, but I don't recall whatever happened with that idea. At any rate they had no effect on the outcome of the battle, but it still would have been neat to see. Almost certainly any future "direct assault" on Earth should involve either Klingon or Romulan ships in support, if not both, now that the Dominion War is over.

I agree merely "working" a disruptor into a ship design meant to carry phasers isn't like a patch job. I was just suggesting that in terms of anti-Borg preparedness, that would have been a more sensible route (hybrid weapon systems, dual weapon systems) than just tweaking phaser output and adding more torpedoes.

[Duskofdead]

That would make sense, but in FC we see people with phasers set to remodulate randomly, yet becoming ineffective after a short bit.

It's just like the lucky shot that disabled the tractor beam in Best of Both Worlds, when they were rapidly alternating random phaser frequencies. The energy requirements to actually optimize a shield to be effective against every possible frequency of every possible type of weapon, energy or radiation would be impossible/prohibitive. You'd basically need countless different types of fields overlapping to protect against "everything." The problem is that if you have endless resources and minds working together to figure out a way to adapt a shield grid to best defend against say, phasers, you can eliminate all energy or frequencies phasers can't make, and then just provide a defense against the ones phasers do. Making it really, really stupid to rely on any one kind of weapon against the Borg, and smarter to rely on several different types which don't operate on exactly the same principles.