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Mark wrote:One thing that I always wondered about. The E-Ds phasers were highly effective against the cube till they adapted. But the photon torps never even made the slightest scratch. It seemed they adapted against them before they were ever fired.

I just figured they'd already encountered similar technology before. They do seem somewhat prevalent.

But then at the same time, phasers shouldn't really have worked either. Wouldn't it have been almost certain that the Borg had encountered tech close enough to have already adapted?

Mark wrote:But then at the same time, phasers shouldn't really have worked either. Wouldn't it have been almost certain that the Borg had encountered tech close enough to have already adapted?

One should guess that M/AM explosives is pretty common, as to pure energy weapon vary a great deal between civilisations. Phasers for the Feds, Disruptors for the Klingon/Romulans/Breen, Phase Coils for the Cardies, Polaron Beam for the Dominion...

SolkaTruesilver wrote:One should guess that M/AM explosives is pretty common, as to pure energy weapon vary a great deal between civilisations. Phasers for the Feds, Disruptors for the Klingon/Romulans/Breen, Phase Coils for the Cardies, Polaron Beam for the Dominion...

Pretty solid point. Matter/Antimatter reactions seem to be fairly common as a source of energy in Trek. There are some like the Romulan's artificial singularities or that Delta quadrant race's polaric energy but M/AM seems to be the default. It's also pretty simple to weaponize.

Mark wrote:But then at the same time, phasers shouldn't really have worked either. Wouldn't it have been almost certain that the Borg had encountered tech close enough to have already adapted?

The torps could have detonated against heavy shields, and the phasers were slightly different enough to get through. First Contact showed that existing Federation weaponry (applied liberally) is enough to steadily wear down a Borg cube.

Tsukiyumi wrote:

GrahamKennedy wrote:...Hell, at J25 when Picard knocked out the tractor beam he probably could have destroyed that whole cube if he'd just fired another half dozen shots at it. His Starfleet "minimum force" ethos was dead wrong for what he was facing, but he didn't know it at the time.

I've always thought that exact thing myself. If he'd really known what they were up against, he might have taken more drastic action.

If I remember the episode rightly, the 18 people who were killed would propbably be alive if Picard had told Worf to let loose straight away, rather than having him take out the tractor beam with minimal force.

Or beamed a spread of torps inside the cube, before they adapted to the transporter beam.