What would happen if The Borg crossed into the Star Wars Universe?

gulberat

Where has a blaster left a cartridge? I don't remember ever seeing that...

rattler2

Blasters are NOT kinetic weapons. I would classify them as Plasma based. If we use the technical manuals that describe the use of Tibana Gas as a part of how a Blaster works, then that indicates a Plasma based system. Even the "Turbolasers" would actually be considered Plasma based as they would work on similar properties, but at a MUCH larger scale.

While Star Wars does have the advantage of speed and range in terms of interstellar capability, Star Trek tech does have advantages of its own. Star Wars shields are nowhere near as effective as those used in Star Trek. If a target is Ray Shielded, a projectile such as a torpedo can penetrate that shield, hence DS1 going boom. They need 2 different kinds of shields for full protection. Star Trek shields allow for full coverage on their own.

The fighting style between Star Trek fleets and Star Wars fleets are also vastly different. Star Wars relies more on broadside slugfests with fighters darting around. Star Trek fleets are more Submarine Warfare or what I like to call "knife fight", trying to outmaneuver each other. And that's not taking into consideration Klingon and Romulan Cloaking technology, which was VASTLY superior to the old Star Wars EU cloaks as they could still see where they were going. I believe the Star Wars cloaks had a "Double Blind" detail.

Then we again come to the weapons. Star Trek regularly makes use of Matter/Antimatter warheads. Something I do not believe Star Wars has encountered before. Something the size of a Photon Torpedo doing MORE damage than a kamikaze A-Wing slamming into the Executor at full speed. Not only that, there is a much wider array of energy types in Star Trek. Phaser, Disruptor, Tetryon, Polaron, Plamsa, and Antiproton just to name a few. There is also the detail of things encounted in Star Trek that would probably scare the TRIBBLE out of the Empire, such as the Doomsday Machine from TOS. A weapon made out of SOLID NEUTRONIUM and impervious to attacks. The Planet Killer was eventually stopped by blowing a ship up in its mouth, but it was NOT destroyed. Then we can bring in the Whale Probe from ST4, that was capable of disabling anything that got too close, the Krenim Weapon Ship capable of altering time itself and was immune to conventional attacks until sabotaged from the inside...

The problem with these kinds of debates is, while some people will have good points for BOTH sides, others will just fanboy/girl their prefered franchise to victory and nothing anyone says will change their minds. Its "I'm right. You're wrong. I win. I can't hear you!" It usually degenerates into nerdrage.

It would be better to compare two franchises with similar tactics, such as Wing Commander or even Halo, than two with vastly different tactics.

markhawkman

YEah... we should compare Predator and Sith tech instead.

dareau

jonsills wrote: »

The gripping hand here is, can an assimilated Jedi still use the Force? If so, the SW universe would be doomed...

Since Force-use is tied to Midichloridans, once the Borg get their hands on the knowledge via assimilation, and get the Feddie Scientists to program Borg Nanites to produce midichloridans - then the Sith/Jedi-Borg will curb-stomp everyone they meet...

And I've always viewed the "damage scale" thing as ST Energy Weapons, SW energy weapons, SW Projectiles, Photon Torpedo (yeah, antimatter is painful...)

Now, as far as Hyperdrive vs. Warp Drive, remember:

One can warp out from a planetary gravity, one can't hyperdrive out of a medium-sized asteroid's gravity field. Feddie scis spamming grav well can freeze SW fleets in their tracks.

Star wars sensors seem to only "see" larger mass shadows / energy signatures (flare-sized, fully functional Death Stars are still a surprise when they're at a hyperspace drop-out point...) while at hyperlight, ST can see "everything" - even that little trace of plutonium energy that's being used to track someone through space. Which is why the "plan" of warp-strafing with anti-matter spreads / photon torpedo barrages is considered Trek's "combat superiority"...

zebulongiles

Actually Star Trek ships have shown the ability to go to warp within gravity fields created by planets. The Interdictor cruisers wouldn't stop them from going to warp, and wouldn't pull them out of warp either as I understand it at least. The Klingon Bird of Prey Captain Kirk and crew used, went to warp within the upper levels of the Earth's atmosphere. For safety reasons the larger ship usually won't, except perhaps in emergencies. But I don't think it's been shown. And if a single Federation ship was outfitted/refit or retrofitted/however with Star Wars energy generation systems, shields, weapons and hyperdrive systems it would clear out a battle field of enemy ships likely by itself in it's own galaxy (here The Milky Way).

Numbers I have seen online indicate Star Wars ship are millions of times faster then the best warp drive systems known in Star Trek. Except perhaps the episode that The Traveler character appeared in during TNG, where they went to the edge of the universe after traveling near another galaxy or two during the warp field testing.
(one site I found with what I believe are reasonable numbers for both Star Trek and Star Wars: http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/FiveMinutes.html ) That is not my site though, found it while looking for sites comparing Star Wars and Star Trek speeds, weapons and power generation that seemed to take a reasonably fair approach to comparing numbers from both sides.

And those saying Star Wars weapons are kinetic are correct to my understanding as well. To the best of my knowledge we haven't seen Star Wars weapons acting the same way beam/energy weapons do in Star Trek, like the Enterprise D for instance, or here in STO.

Well, this is my two cents/EC.

rattler2

zebulongiles wrote: »

And those saying Star Wars weapons are kinetic are correct to my understanding as well. To the best of my knowledge we haven't seen Star Wars weapons acting the same way beam/energy weapons do in Star Trek, like the Enterprise D for instance, or here in STO.

No... they are not Kinetic weapons. As I said earlier, I would classify them as more Plasma based. The actual Plasma shot being invisible while the visible energy bolt being a harmless byproduct of firing the weapon. There are no solid projectiles involved with blaster technology. And we have seen bolt type energy weapons before. Or did everyone forget the Defiant's Phaser Cannons or a lot of the Klingon Disruptors on B'rels?

zebulongiles

That's cool.

It does seem like Star Wars weapons pack more of a punch on average per shot, don't they? Either way it's still cool in my opinion.

I'm a fan of both Star Trek and Star Wars though.

rattler2

zebulongiles wrote: »

It does seem like Star Wars weapons pack more of a punch on average per shot, don't they? Either way it's still cool in my opinion.

If we go by the upper limit of firepower... IE Planet Killing... Star Trek technically has the advantage. They needed a mobile battlestation the size of a small moon to be able to outright destroy a planet in Star Wars. There are things in Star Trek, like the Undine Bioships working together and the Planet Killer, that can achieve this with a FRACTION of the size.

zebulongiles

Oh yeah, The Undine/Species 8472 could tear apart both Death Stars and more before they got a single shot fired probably. Regardless it seems of small exhaust ports on the station. Guess that escaped my mind momentarily. *shrugs*. I wonder then if that firepower from the Undine is enough to destroy the planet killer weapon we saw in TOS, or the one in STO?

rattler2

That is a good question. We are talking a solid Neutronium hull against Planet Killing firepower.

farmallm

I like both Trek and Wars. Each one has their differences. So I'm not getting into who's better or not.

If the Borg was there. They could be stopped for a little bit? Until they adapted. As it proves what they don't know will hurt them. Until they "learn" their target. Then your dead in most cases. I see the same with this if they went to Star Wars.

Worse fears on this. Star Trek most of their ships are under 4,000 meters in length. And this is your Borg Cubes, and Voth City ships. Both are which about the largest in the Trek universe. So with them taking over some of the Empire ships. They will gain ships over 10k meters in length, and if they got a Death Star. Your looking at many Kilometers in size. As it was a huge mobile station. And will adapt their tech to theirs. So your looking at a really nasty Borg.

zebulongiles

As far as what would happen in my opinion, if a single Borg Cube found itself in the Star Wars Galaxy, in the time frame of the movies, it would literally be by itself. For the sake of discussion lets say the Star Wars Galaxy is some 400 - 500 million light years away. And the time frame in the movies might just be barely becoming visible now if viewed. (doesn't matter if I'm wrong, if I am wrong, just play along. This is for the sake of discussion) And the following is my opinion.

Anyways, if the Borg Cube was by itself, and found itself against the first Death Star after a day of traveling and seeing nothing in that time span(lets say the first Death Star can target large ships like that, like the second one was able to do). The Borg Cube transmits their normal message after scanning. Perhaps miscalculating what it truly is capable of. Or even though they have no emotions as shown, the effect is the same of extreme over confidence in themselves. Shields and weapons they have never seen before. If needed the Death Star could hyperspace accross the galaxy in a few hours or less perhaps, leaving the Cube by itself. But the Empire likely would fire the main Death Star Super Laser first. Especially after a declaration of war by the Cube. "Lower your defenses" etc. Even if the Borg could adapt to that type of weapon. I don't think the Borg have ever been shown to be able to adapt to something with that much raw fire power in a single blast from planet destroying super weapons. In that situation I personally believe the lone Borg Cube would be completely destroyed/disintegrated/blown up/nothing left after one blast. And the Collective from the Cubes present time would never learn of the Star Wars Galaxy, or time frame.

(They do call it lasers, turbo lasers, Superlaser of the Death Star, etc. But they don't act like lasers in any way) And the Borg being in a galaxy far, far away, and a long time ago would be at a disadvantage I believe. Numerical disadvantage too. Not to mention absolutely no star charts, no navigation charts, don't know where common trade routes are, etc. We still don't want the Borg getting a hold of any stations with the size or fire power of any Death Stars, the Borg could build a few of them or more in their home space with the rest of the galaxy not knowing about it until it was too late perhaps.

This is my opinion though, and like I said I am a fan of both. If some of you think I am wrong, that's cool too. We each have our own opinions of this, and things in general. I'm not invalidating anyone else's opinion or anything of the sort, just expressing my opinion of the question/topic.

rattler2

zebulongiles wrote: »

Anyways, if the Borg Cube was by itself, and found itself against the first Death Star after a day of traveling and seeing nothing in that time span(lets say the first Death Star can target large ships like that, like the second one was able to do). The Borg Cube transmits their normal message after scanning. Perhaps miscalculating what it truly is capable of. Or even though they have no emotions as shown, the effect is the same of extreme over confidence in themselves. Shields and weapons they have never seen before. If needed the Death Star could hyperspace accross the galaxy in a few hours or less perhaps, leaving the Cube by itself. But the Empire likely would fire the main Death Star Super Laser first. Especially after a declaration of war by the Cube. "Lower your defenses" etc. Even if the Borg could adapt to that type of weapon. I don't think the Borg have ever been shown to be able to adapt to something with that much raw fire power in a single blast from planet destroying super weapons. In that situation I personally believe the lone Borg Cube would be completely destroyed/disintegrated/blown up/nothing left after one blast. And the Collective from the Cubes present time would never learn of the Star Wars Galaxy, or time frame.

I would have to agree on this part. A SINGLE Cube would not stand a chance because of the difference in technologies, especially faced with a planet killer that can aim at ships. And considering the nature of the Collective, unless a Queen was aboard the Cube, they would be more vulnerable because they would be totally cut off from the Collective due to a combination of distance and time. The Borg in First Contact were trying to build some kind of beacon on the Enterprise-E deflector dish to contact the Collective in the past. When the Borg assimilated the Starfleet team in the arctic in the Enterprise episode Regeneration, they were cut off from the Collective and were trying to establish contact, and eventually sent a normal subspace message aimed at the Delta Quadrant, which set the stage for Best of Both Worlds.

So the single Cube would be vulnerable.

themetalstickman

angrytarg wrote: »

@artan42

artan42 wrote: »

Non-canon . Problem over. The stagnation only exists between TPM and TFA now .

That's... unsatisfying

(...)
Yes, please do tell us how hyperdrives are less advanced than warpdrives. The only thing ST has over SW in terms of common tech are replicators and transporters.

I don't have nearly any knowledge of Star Wars that goes beyond the movies and some games so I can't speak of hyperdrives, but

Picard also noted that Atlecs could fire until their lasers ran dry and they still wouldn't have caused any damage to the Enterprise

I'd say a typical nerdrage starship battle between a Trek ship with hundred thousands of kilometres ranging photon torpedoes and phasers against a Star Destroyer with Turbolasers (where it's canonically confirmed that a hit to the bridge takes the ship out of combat, an A-Wing to the bridge makes it explode) would end pretty fast with a score for the Trek ship

To be fair, the Executor only blew up when it was dragged down by the Death Star's gravity well. If the Death Star wasn't there, it would have remained in space. Its command crew would be dead, which would take it out of action for a while, but otherwise it would be the same as a phaser shot to a Federation ship's bridge.​​

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artan42

Again. Turbolasers are not lasers. They're kinetic so they will eventually get through the deflector shields. Or watch DS9 and see how effective shields are in a full on battle.

@rattler2 @gulberat I'm referring to ship weapons not hand blasters. Why would the Empire engage the Borg hand to hand?

Now the point about photon torpedos is a good one. One Constitution could render an un-shielded planet uninhabitable however the torpedoes have never reached that level of effectiveness in the shows. In fact the Borg assault on the camp in First Contact had less effectiveness than just dropping drones from orbit and letting them just fall on buildings.

And it's meant to be the Borg vs. The SW universe not the Federation or 8472 or Romulans or Q or anybody else.

Unless the Borg reach somwhere important it will take them a while untill they come across a hyperspace capable ship, this will get them towards the Empire or whomever. An Empire that have Interdictors. They have ships who's weapons cannot be addapted to, numerical advantages, the ability to destroy a planet, potential access to large amounts of Battle Droids, and a quarantine procedure for assimilated worlds that would be more effective than anything the Federation would do.

The Borg have two advantages; assimilation and transporters. The latter I can't think of a work around beyond setting Rancors into the transported drones. The former I'm sure could be overcome by having Palpatine or Yoda mind control the Borg Queen.

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rattler2

I still don't believe that ship mounted weapons in Star Wars are Kinetic. They have to be energy based. We have seen Bolt type energy weapons in Star Trek before, such as the Defiant's Phaser Cannons, B'rel Disruptors, the plasma weapons the NX class Enterprise used in Broken Bow, and even the Reboot phasers on the Enterprise. So how do those differ from Star Wars weapons differ in terms of performance? Just because the word "laser" is involved means it MUST be a beam and therefor that cannot be what their weapons are because they fire bolts?

And then we bring up Ion Cannons. An energy weapon that disables.

artan42

The deflectors cannot be used in combat. They face in the direction of travel and are constantly in use for the purpose of space dust. There's been several instances of missles and whatnot being used against ST ships and torpedo impact is kinetic even if the resulting explosion isn't.

The Queen will be easy to find. She's the cackling mustash twirler who can't resist a good float and she's clearly the linchpin for the Borg. Endgame makes it clear that's the case no matter how much it ruined them.

How are Borg assimilating Rancors exactly? It's hard to stick tubeuals into something that's bitten your head off and is doing the same to all your friends.

As for the ships. How long until the Empire comes up with transport inhibitors or scrambles? What does an assimilated SD matter the Empire will just turn their guns on it or set it to self destruct, they're more open to that than the Federation and even Picard was willing to gun down his own crew to save them.
Also 'magnetic sheild' sounds like something that might be useful against transporters.

Worst case the Borg assimilate the DS okay, the Empire flys in and hits the thermal exhaust port. I'd imagine the Queen herself would probably be on that thing.

Droids can be easly be used as suicide troops just ramming cubes with droid ships.

angrytarg

rattler2 wrote: »

I still don't believe that ship mounted weapons in Star Wars are Kinetic. They have to be energy based. We have seen Bolt type energy weapons in Star Trek before, such as the Defiant's Phaser Cannons, B'rel Disruptors, the plasma weapons the NX class Enterprise used in Broken Bow, and even the Reboot phasers on the Enterprise. So how do those differ from Star Wars weapons differ in terms of performance? Just because the word "laser" is involved means it MUST be a beam and therefor that cannot be what their weapons are because they fire bolts?

And then we bring up Ion Cannons. An energy weapon that disables.

The handblasters in "A new Hope" eject cartridges. That's because they were filming using props that shot blanks but it's the hardest canon you can have How a hand blaster behaves in comparision to a ship blaster/turbolaser I have no idea, though, but looking at how "slow" the shots travel they might as well be cannonballs in space.

But as I said before, I don't have nearly as much insight into SW than I have into ST. For which reason I also like to point out that the "Borg are completely helpless against kinetics" argument is kinda nonsensical, @artan42 . Yes, after "Best of Both Worlds" Borg became kinda stupid, especially when the emo teenager took over controlling them, but forcefields able to block projectiles can be improvised from a combadge. I have a gard time believing the Borg cannot figure out to create basic forcefields like that. Also, "Q, Who" Borg drones could foresee melee actions against hem and react with superhuman strength - they "forgot" to do that later on as well - Borg are just a mess regarding the writing ​​

jonsills

Oh, sure, you can spot the body the Borg Queen is using at the moment - but the Borg have a hive-mind consisting of billions of individual minds. Finding which one is the Queen runs up against the needle-haystack problem. (Remember, even the so-called "Queen" isn't truly an individual, not in the way we understand such things. She's an end-user interface for the Borg Collective, basically the ultimate in smart terminals, but still part of the overall network.)

angrytarg

jonsills wrote: »

(...)(Remember, even the so-called "Queen" isn't truly an individual, not in the way we understand such things. She's an end-user interface for the Borg Collective, basically the ultimate in smart terminals, but still part of the overall network.)

Nope, she's a literal individual, according to Ronald Moore himself. That's what makes her concept so ridiculous. She owns the Borg, they are her personal playthings and she is a very emotional individual. She might be able to transfer her "consciousness" to another body, but drones are her slaves whereas a true collective is a decentralised entity, a democratic dictatorship" if you will.

By doing what they did, they butchered the Borg and it takes a lot of headcanon to rectify it. At this point, the Borg Cooperative is more of a hive/collective than the emo teen-queen Borg.​​

mustrumridcully0

artan42 wrote: »

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

To kinetic and meelee weapons, of course.


People seem to believe Borg can't do that, just because they have seen a few Borg killed by kinetic and melee weapons - but we've also seen them get killed by phaser weapons. They still adapt in the end.


But I think the real deal here isn't about adapting to the weapons - it's just taking the shield and weapon technology their enemy has and use it. Star Wars shields obviously help against their (turbo)lasers and blaster rifles and proton torpedoes, regardless of whether Borg or Federation shields would do it or not.

Because they can't. Their shields change frequency to match the frequency of an energy weapon.
​

And that's what is giving them perfect immunity to damage from these weapons. But shields even protect even when they are not perfectly matched. That's what is happening all the time in Star Trek.

They set up an Interdictor and capture the ST ships in a gravity well.

There has never been any indication that warp travel in gravity wells is not possible. That seems to be a hyperdrive limitation.

pottsey5g

artan42 wrote: »

Oh, please. It'd take forever for ST ships to get anywhere. Warp is standing still compared with Hyperspace.”

Hyperspace is only fast on pre mapped routes. Outside those routs it’s like comparing a horse speed to warp speed. It takes a massive amount of time longer for Star Wars ships to go places off the pre-established highways. Hyperspace can only go to pre explored places/bacons fast. Anything with a small gravity well no hyperspace, anything off the map no fast hyperspace. Hyperspace is useful in peace time for traders it’s not flexible enough for war.

It would be like fighting a war on Earth with one side can use rail roads or foot traffic only. Another army cannot use rail roads but can use road vehicles. The vehicles although slower have a massive advantage.

artan42 wrote: »

“ST weapons rarely work at warp and SW sensors work at lightspeed else their hyperdrives would't work.”

Part of the reason they cannot hyperspace anywhere is sensors don’t work at light speed. They can only hyper drive on mapped paths as it’s the only safe way to hyperdrive and not hit something. Its also clear SW ships cannot shoot at things moving above the speed of light.

artan42 wrote: »

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
No.”#

What’s so funny about a Star Trek ship saying outside the range of SW ships. How would the Star Wars ship handle 20 torpedoes impacting at above the speed of light via warp drive outside the SW ship range and at a speed the SW ships cannot intercept the torpedoes? The kinetic damage alone at that speed would mean 1 torpedo could destroy the large SW ships in 1 shot. Even without torpedoes Star Trek ships massively outrange and out move SW ships.

penemue

arnthebard wrote: »

Can you imagine if the Death Star was assimilated by the Borg? Would resistance be futile? Is there anything that could possibly stop the Borg in that genre? There are a ton of fanboys who think Star Trek is the weaker universe. Please post your opinions below.

The borg have no use for a planet killer. They are not malevolent nor vengeful nor punitive - their goal is to assimilate. Remember the episode in Voyager where the man is angry at Janeway for helping the Borg fight Species 12639124651209123 or whatever - he says he can't hate the borg because it is like hating a force of nature - but he can hate Janeway because Janeway is an individual capable of choice. This is who the borg are - what on earth would they want to destroy a planet for?

section31agent

Hmmm...seems like I remember that the first protocol of the Borg is to beam over a landing party and scan the target to learn their capabilities. The Borg would then hack into the galactic information network and download every piece of data. One injection of Borg nanites and the ship/station/Death Star would be disabled or under Borg control. As far as the Force, it would be ineffective much like Vulcan,Reman,and Undine telepathic abilities. The Jedi mind tricks would only work on a weak minded individual [per Jabba the Hut]. Transporter technology would allow for critical areas to be easily accessed bypassing all of the security measures the Empire could muster. The Borg are far from stupid. Remember this the Borg have access to many technologies like Jem Hadar personal battle cloaking devices. They choose not to use them because they are currently seen as inefficient. That might change if the Borg can find a tactical advantage. People forget that the Borg have no rivals save the "Q". Even the very smartest of races could only delay assimilation.The Borg would have access to many different types of weapons and would have no compunction about using them. Using a Gravity Well and a Transphasic Torpedo would wipe out a SW fleet the ensuing explosions in close proximity would be devastating. A simple Scramble Sensors would make the capital ships of SW fire on each other. One other point I would make is SW shields would be useless against Trek weapon types. One other question that needs to be answered what happens if the Borg use temporal technology? They can then use that ability to assimilate the SW universe. Seems like there is a very distinct advantage for Star Trek over SW.

mirrorchaos

All of it is ship power vs ship power, but the borg do not need a cube when they can beam on to a vessel with a hyperdrive, study it, absorb it into the collective by assimilation, the same with turbolasers, they can heavily enhance their own vessels fairly quickly with new adaptations. in which case it becomes a more formidable fight when it comes to ship power vs ship power. thats the problem with borg, you leave them to their own devices and they will adapt and spread like a plague. not even sith or a jedi can stand up to the collective forever, eventually some force users will be assimilated with full knowledge of the force and how force sensitives drones can use the connection to benefit the collective as a whole.

marcusdkane

angrytarg wrote: »

As already pointed out, it's a stupid concept.

Putting aside the major differences in storytelling structure and intention, though, I always wondered about one thing: The technology depicted in Star Wars seems stagnant. In "the old republic" there were R2 units, blasters and all that and they use the exact same technology thousand years or so later. Warfare tactics employed are crude and primitive at best, they let thousands of foot soldiers rush at each other or park starships next to each other to pepper them with ballistic/charged weaponry. Star Wars is kinda like Warhammer 40k with technology nobody really understands and quantity before quality. How come?​​

^^^^This...

Something like the Death Star could one-shot a Borg cube, no question. But... A handful of drones could assimilate the personnel aboard the Death Star... What's a Jedi (or Vader) going to do against oncoming drones? Use the Force to keep them away? That would only work till the individual tired to the point where they lose mental focus... Use a lightsaber to get choppy-choppy? Might work on a few drones, but they would soon adapt to the energy-based weapon and new drones would be protected by their shields...

I think the Borg would wind up assimilating that universe, and given the stagnation of the native technology (adapt to one blaster, you've adapted to them all) probably faster than people would find comfortable...

penemue

rattler2 wrote: »

Blasters are NOT kinetic weapons. I would classify them as Plasma based. If we use the technical manuals that describe the use of Tibana Gas as a part of how a Blaster works, then that indicates a Plasma based system. Even the "Turbolasers" would actually be considered Plasma based as they would work on similar properties, but at a MUCH larger scale.

You lose Trekkie points for being able to try to answer what "blasters" are from Star Wars. At least the idea of a "phaser" makes some sort of attempt at being scientific in nature - assumingly operating under some principle of frequency superposition. "Blaster" is a stupid name that means nothing.

You get the image that the person who came up with the idea of a phaser was actually sitting there thinking about physics and injecting some personal pseudoscience into it.

The person who came up with "blaster" was thinking of those little "pow" and "blam" bubbles from Batman comics.

dalolorn

Actually, 'blaster' literally means 'that which blasts (destroys or at least badly damages)'. True, it doesn't provide any indication as to how it works, but given the context in which it's used (a weapon capable of severely damaging light mechanicals - such as your run-of-the-mill droid - and organics alike), it is appropriate. One can assume that it became a very widespread slang term (not unlike what 'laser' must be, considering what 'laser' weapons actually do in Star Wars) for weapons of its sort.

Phasers, on the other hand, phase... what? Even the writers couldn't make up their minds, I just checked.