Erm, not lol, they are not. Photon torpedoes are just regular torps, but imbued with photon energy. Well i dunno the exact terms but photon toprs have a physical part, the warhead. So, they cant be considered as energy weapons. The Borg adapt to the energy type, but not the warhead itself.
Photon torpedos are actually an antimatter explosion.
Bullets require aiming which requires sights-ever seen sights-even iron sights, on a Phaser? No...why? because it shoots line-straight with no recoil, whereas a firearm or other projectile weapon has both a curved trajectory, and felt recoil that can disrupt the shot.
basically, guns aren't as inherently accurate or easy to use, as phasers or disruptors-when you consider how often people miss with phasers or disruptors, guns wold be a case of catastrophic-false-sense-of-security against the Borg.
No, but most of the weapons seen in Star Trek have a normal sight radius. This allows some degree of "point shooting" accuracy at the engagement ranges seen in the show.
That's why the "dustbuster" phaser of TNG era are nonsensical, whereas the tradition pistol design is logical and more intuitive.
Kinetic impact has nothing to do with wound ballistics.
And velocity is only a factor when it comes to range, accuracy, and (in some cases) penetration. But there is a point of diminishing returns when it comes to high velocity rounds.
Size of the round in question does matter. Especially if the smaller round doesn't have some unique ballistic property for generating a larger wound channel, or isn't a frangible round (preferably one with controlled fragmentation/expansion).
"Needler"/flechette guns and man portable rail/coil guns are not outside the realm of possibility. But the rounds are still subject to the understood basic principles of wound ballistics. The problems that would apply to these weapons would make them inefficient compared to traditional firearms ammunition technology.
I stand corrected on the actual physics of the rounds... I'm not a shooter and was under the impression that the kinetic transference, resulting from the overall velocity, was the primary factor...
Still, the general notion behind the use of guass weapons, or indeed any form of solid projectile weapon, given the lore at hand, is still sound...
Bullets require aiming which requires sights-ever seen sights-even iron sights, on a Phaser? No...why? because it shoots line-straight with no recoil, whereas a firearm or other projectile weapon has both a curved trajectory, and felt recoil that can disrupt the shot.
basically, guns aren't as inherently accurate or easy to use, as phasers or disruptors-when you consider how often people miss with phasers or disruptors, guns wold be a case of catastrophic-false-sense-of-security against the Borg.
This is clutching at some VERY big straws... Characters always miss on the show simply for dramatic effect...
Though (as stated above) I may not be a shooter, the few times I have handled a gun, it's really not that hard to hit a target within 30-50 metres... I might not win a shooting contest, but within 30 meters, aiming a gun is virtually just point it and pull the trigger...
You are speculating too much. The same way i have the right to especulate saying the Borg will eventually adapt to kinetic attacks. Again, you never saw a pure kinetic weapon in the entire franchise fired against the Borg. So, sorry but you cant arguee that kinetic attacks are effective against the borg. It doesnt make any sense. And if starfleet never thought on using kinetic attakc maybe is because they are smarter than you :P, and they assume they eventually will adapt to em as well.
Holographic bullets. Kinetic energy. Because that's the only way they have of exerting force on normal matter. That's all that kinetic energy is: matter in motion.
Worf's bat'leth. Kinetic energy.
Data killing drones barehanded. Kinetic energy.
Cube ramming Undine bioship, resulting in mutual kill. Oh, look, more kinetic energy.
Once is a freak accident. Twice is coincidence. Three and up? You've got a pattern. And you still haven't answered the question of how, if the Borg can adapt to anything, why aren't they already invulnerable to kinetic attacks? I strongly doubt they've never fought a species that used firearms.
The show states multiple times that the mechanism for Borg adaptation is frequency-reliant. Guess what? At the macro scale (the important one; to hell with quantum physics), matter does not have a frequency. Starfleet hasn't figured it out yet because in-universe the pattern is that they look for high-tech solutions to their problems, especially in the later series. (Out of universe, it's just because pew-pew looks cooler than near-invisible mass driver rounds.)
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Iconians, you're grasping at straws and making excuses for a very blatant plot hole.
I've already acknowledged it was a plot hole. I'm offering an explanation because that was what the OP wanted. They didn't want a confirmation it was a plot hole.
Just be aware you are accusing me of grasping at straws in regards to a fictional franchise with fictional physics, whose entire realm of "Cause and Effect" revolves around the only rule...
"Because the script called for it."
That is the only truth to anything in Star Trek. Once you get over that, everything else is, by your definition, grasping at straws.
Right now, on my ship in game my shipboard replicator can crank out hand phasers in any amount I want, along with other complex equipment like personal shield generators, planetary shield generators(!), communications gear, industrial energy cells, and can even replicate more replicators! A simple 20th century firearm would be absolutely elementary. The only reason it's not done is the writers haven't thought of doing it.
Now we're talking STO game mechanics. Not Star Trek technology.
In STO game mechanics I can put someone on ignore for saying something dumb. People in Star Trek were never able to just hit the mute button on another cast member (except maybe if they were a hologram) if their character said something dumb.
Obviously the ignore feature is a plot hole not addressed in Star Trek.
Regarding the TR-116 replicator pattern, canonically, "Chief O'Brien points out that only Starfleet officers have access to those files," so any of us should be able to replicate it. And there is a TR-116 in the game. But it was a pre-order bonus, so no, you can't get one. Also (in canon) apparently "regenerative phasers" and compression phaser rifles were considered more versatile weapons than the TR-116. Because techno-babble, hand-wave, this is not the technology you're looking for.
So what you're saying makes sense, but (most) Trek writers and the game devs have (more or less) chosen not to seriously explore the issue.
The TR-116A was a pre-order bonus. But as of the new crafting update, now we have the TR-116B, which anyone can get, in theory.
A force field doesn't allow physical matter to pass through it. I don't see any reason why a Borg drone's shields wouldn't be capable of the same thing.
Why the Borg are not impervious to projectiles/melee is beyond me. It's pretty inconsistent, but it just so happens to be the way that it is.
The Borg would have to have protections against physical damage at least for their ships. If they didn't they'd get cored out by the first spec of matter they flew past in space.
... since the Borg can adapt to any energy pattern directed at them, yet have never once been able to adapt to physical attacks, why has the Federation never utilised older projectile technology as weapons against the Borg?
Think about it, how many times have you seen main characters and security personal resort to the butt of their phaser rifle as a last ditch effort against a Borg drone? Then there's Picard in First Contact using a holodeck Tommy Gun, with the safety protocols disengaged, to kill a pair of drones...
Even now in STO, they will never adapt to melee weapons...
Surely, with their level of technology, the Federation could perfect 'rail gun' technology, a weapon that is already so well along in development we may well see them on the battlefield - in one form or another - within a decade...
I can't help but think of a scene in the Battle Star Galactica reboot, where it's mentioned the Colonies went 'backwards for defense' as they were fighting an enemy that could hack any computer network... The Galactica survived because it used older technology the Cylons could not compromise...
Why are we still trying to use energy weapons against an enemy that can simply adapt to them, when they seemingly cannot adapt to physical impacts from even the simplest of projectile weapons (based on their inability to adapt to melee strikes)?
Has there ever actually been an explanation for this?
I can not tell you if it would work for ground combat, but I can defiantly tell you it will not work for space combat and the reason for that is the Navigational Deflector.
The navigational deflector (also known just as the deflector, or the deflector array, the deflector dish, the main deflector or the nav deflector for short) was a component of many starships, and was used to deflect space debris, asteroids, microscopic particles and other objects that might have collided with the ship. At warp speed the deflector was virtually indispensable for most starships as even the most minute particle could cause serious damage to a ship when it was traveling at superluminal velocities.
Photon torpedos are actually an antimatter explosion.
Yes but the physical torp needs to reach the point of detonation. It acts like a regular torp, passing through the hull of the ship (seeing in a lot of episodes) and not only photons, other torps as well act the same way when yo see em in the shows. So, yes we could say a photon torp is also a kinetic weapon. In one of Voyager's episodes, when the chroniton torp impacts with the ship and it gets stucked in the hull without detonating, there you can see that they are just regular projectiles, nothing more, but improved, we could say.
Holographic bullets. Kinetic energy. Because that's the only way they have of exerting force on normal matter. That's all that kinetic energy is: matter in motion.
Worf's bat'leth. Kinetic energy.
Data killing drones barehanded. Kinetic energy.
Cube ramming Undine bioship, resulting in mutual kill. Oh, look, more kinetic energy.
Are you really to name these examples? lol... :P you really dont have a clue how adaptation on Borgs work.. i see.
Of course, if you pick the arm of a borg you can destroy it. Or do you expect the Borg to have a super rounded reactive shield that protects all his body like a ship?? lol. The adaptation doesnt work that way. The same reason borg ships can only adapt until a point. After that point, they start to crush as every other ship.
If a borg ship crushes with another one, it explodes, like everything else.
The fact is , we will never know if the Borg can adapt to projectile weapons or not. Because the creators of Star Trek never had that in consideration. And because of that, the only thing we can do is to wonder, nothing more.
You are speculating too much. The same way i have the right to especulate saying the Borg will eventually adapt to kinetic attacks. Again, you never saw a pure kinetic weapon in the entire franchise fired against the Borg. So, sorry but you cant arguee that kinetic attacks are effective against the borg. It doesnt make any sense. And if starfleet never thought on using kinetic attakc maybe is because they are smarter than you :P, and they assume they eventually will adapt to em as well.
One thing, we did not see but in my opinion is logical. The borg do not adapt and that frequency, damage type, never affects them ever again. Otherwise by now they should be superman minus the kryptonite. So it seems they don't keep a particular damage adaption. best reason is the adaptions are situational as there is only so much you can block on individual drones. (And certain levels. Note a borg ship destroyed by a sparked solar flare at close range.)
So them ignoring physical/kinetic attacks may be due to the rarity of them.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Erm, not lol, they are not. Photon torpedoes are just regular torps, but imbued with photon energy. Well i dunno the exact terms but photon toprs have a physical part, the warhead. So, they cant be considered as energy weapons. The Borg adapt to the energy type, but not the warhead itself.
In any matter-antimatter reaction (like, say, the one that all photon torpedoes use) one particle of antimatter and one particle of matter annihilate each other to form two photons.
The torpedoes' "physical part" gets converted into energy (in the form of photons) during the detonation, thus making the damage caused by a photon torpedo detonation to be energy-based.
Due to the fact that antimatter technology is commonplace in the ST universe, it stands to reason that the Borg had already encountered similar weapons and adapted to them, resulting in them being resistant to photon torpedoes when the Enterprise D first encountered the Collective.
In any matter-antimatter reaction (like, say, the one that all photon torpedoes use) one particle of antimatter and one particle of matter annihilate each other to form two photons.
The torpedoes' "physical part" gets converted into energy (in the form of photons) during the detonation, thus making the damage caused by a photon torpedo detonation to be energy-based.
Due to the fact that antimatter technology is commonplace in the ST universe, it stands to reason that the Borg had already encountered similar weapons and adapted to them, resulting in them being resistant to photon torpedoes when the Enterprise D first encountered the Collective.
The physical part of an Explosive warhead is converted into Energy during the Detonation too, does that make a conventional 20mm Hispano Cannon circa 1940 an energy weapon?
When it comes to "energy" weapons what really defines energy weapon?, I've always taken it to be any weapon whose primary damage dealing component is a directed Electromagnetic or particle discharge.
So when it comes to Torpedoes in Trek, Whats really doing the damage? If it collides with the Shields and detonates, we can presume that the Energy released during the reaction will have a detrimental effect on the shields, but that energy is easily dissipated ( At least in STO ) but the explosion has no material in space to propagate through, so its likely not going to do much
Collision with the Hull is going to transfer that physical shockwave into the ship, and we see this since the bridge crew wobble and fall over , but theres also the energy released as well, whats the real damage dealer is my question, the intense EM energy released, or the Shockwave?
These are the Voyages on the STO forum, the final frontier. Our continuing mission: to explore Pretentious Posts, to seek out new Overreactions and Misinformation , to boldly experience Cynicism like no man has before.......
I stand corrected on the actual physics of the rounds... I'm not a shooter and was under the impression that the kinetic transference, resulting from the overall velocity, was the primary factor...
Still, the general notion behind the use of guass weapons, or indeed any form of solid projectile weapon, given the lore at hand, is still sound...
The entire energy transference (or "energy dump") theory that's still popular in defensive shooting circles has largely been debunked by serious researchers in ballistics, such as Fackler, Roberts, etc.
However, there are some in the shooting and hunting community that stubbornly cling to it. It's doesn't help that you still have marketing hype from the established munitions makers adding fuel to the fire.
I loooove Cosmos, but matter has to touch. If matter didn't touch, we wouldn't have protons and neutrons being able to bind with eachother. Without that, there would be zero matter. Electrons are around them, not within them, causing that arguement to be null, IMO. Some of what is stated in Cosmos is a theory, not a law.
GREAT show, though!
On a lighter note, let's just dish out a Wil Wheaton Boff that puts the entire Borg entity into a "Shut up Wesley" loop. They wouldn't be able to stop. We'd just walk by them, give them high-fives and make them face-palm themsevles.
The torpedoes' "physical part" gets converted into energy (in the form of photons) during the detonation, thus making the damage caused by a photon torpedo detonation to be energy-based.
And still, the torp need to pass through the ship's shield and reach the hull to detonate (as we saw a lot of times in the shows). Until then, it is still basically a projectile.
The physical part of an Explosive warhead is converted into Energy during the Detonation too, does that make a conventional 20mm Hispano Cannon circa 1940 an energy weapon?
When it comes to "energy" weapons what really defines energy weapon?, I've always taken it to be any weapon whose primary damage dealing component is a directed Electromagnetic or particle discharge.
So when it comes to Torpedoes in Trek, Whats really doing the damage? If it collides with the Shields and detonates, we can presume that the Energy released during the reaction will have a detrimental effect on the shields, but that energy is easily dissipated ( At least in STO ) but the explosion has no material in space to propagate through, so its likely not going to do much
Collision with the Hull is going to transfer that physical shockwave into the ship, and we see this since the bridge crew wobble and fall over , but theres also the energy released as well, whats the real damage dealer is my question, the intense EM energy released, or the Shockwave?
Shock wave is the more dangerous kinetic enrgy to deal with. The movement of gas or liquides creates a whipinng effect against the surrounding matter. Any damage done is left to how accepting or resisting that mates is. RL ammunition uses the shock wave to contine to disrupt any matter that isalong it's path.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I was Klingon before Klingon was cool.
I loooove Cosmos, but matter has to touch. If matter didn't touch, we wouldn't have protons and neutrons being able to bind with eachother. Without that, there would be zero matter. Electrons are around them, not within them, causing that arguement to be null, IMO. Some of what is stated in Cosmos is a theory, not a law.
GREAT show, though!
On a lighter note, let's just dish out a Wil Wheaton Boff that puts the entire Borg entity into a "Shut up Wesley" loop. They wouldn't be able to stop. We'd just walk by them, give them high-fives and make them face-palm themsevles.
But in order for matter to "touch", it has to overcome the electrostatic repulsion of the protons. This is why atoms are formed in supernovas, stars, and particle accelerators not in comfortable environments where the temperature is 0 to 500 Kelvin. In everyday life, matter does not "touch", but we encounter electrostatic repulsion.
Easiest way to overcome the whole need for hauling around magazines of solid ammunition is the same way the Hazard Team in Elite Force solved carrying around 10 different weapons. Store them in a miniature transporter buffer and simply "summon" them when you need it.
The reason why no writer has chosen to realistically explore the avenue of taking "old technology" en masse into Star Trek. It's the same reason that weaponized transporters have never been explored either.
The side (ab)using "old technology" or weaponized transporters would be disgustingly overpowered.
Siege of AR-558.
Yeah, imagine if Starfleet had future-versions of the M16/M4/SCAR with underslung M203s or M26s mixed in with M249s and emplaced M240s and M2s, all pointed at the choke-point the Jem'Hadar had to file through, which they gleefully did, simply walking into the kill-zone, not even taking cover?
Massacre. All Jem'Hadar KIA with closed caskets. Starfleet would suffer minimal, if any casualties.
One the subject of fire arms for dealing with borg, the best choice is the Kalashnikov.
It's simple and easy to maintain as well as legendary reliability and easy to train to operate, in a starship corridor, fully automatic you can't miss
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Yes, you can hack a C64, but unless there's a way to remotely access them, they're not going to be TRIBBLE... It was the rise of the internet that really opened the door for hackers...
Galactica's systems were not networked, so the Cylons could not get access to them remotely in order to hack them...
I think he was not talking about Galactica, the ship, but about the planetary defense system of the colonies (betrayed by "No more Mr. Nice Gaius" Baltar).
Easiest way to overcome the whole need for hauling around magazines of solid ammunition is the same way the Hazard Team in Elite Force solved carrying around 10 different weapons. Store them in a miniature transporter buffer and simply "summon" them when you need it.
The enemy could counter that with a transport inhibitor though.
Comments
My character Tsin'xing
No, but most of the weapons seen in Star Trek have a normal sight radius. This allows some degree of "point shooting" accuracy at the engagement ranges seen in the show.
That's why the "dustbuster" phaser of TNG era are nonsensical, whereas the tradition pistol design is logical and more intuitive.
I stand corrected on the actual physics of the rounds... I'm not a shooter and was under the impression that the kinetic transference, resulting from the overall velocity, was the primary factor...
Still, the general notion behind the use of guass weapons, or indeed any form of solid projectile weapon, given the lore at hand, is still sound...
This is clutching at some VERY big straws... Characters always miss on the show simply for dramatic effect...
Though (as stated above) I may not be a shooter, the few times I have handled a gun, it's really not that hard to hit a target within 30-50 metres... I might not win a shooting contest, but within 30 meters, aiming a gun is virtually just point it and pull the trigger...
Holographic bullets. Kinetic energy. Because that's the only way they have of exerting force on normal matter. That's all that kinetic energy is: matter in motion.
Worf's bat'leth. Kinetic energy.
Data killing drones barehanded. Kinetic energy.
Cube ramming Undine bioship, resulting in mutual kill. Oh, look, more kinetic energy.
Once is a freak accident. Twice is coincidence. Three and up? You've got a pattern. And you still haven't answered the question of how, if the Borg can adapt to anything, why aren't they already invulnerable to kinetic attacks? I strongly doubt they've never fought a species that used firearms.
The show states multiple times that the mechanism for Borg adaptation is frequency-reliant. Guess what? At the macro scale (the important one; to hell with quantum physics), matter does not have a frequency. Starfleet hasn't figured it out yet because in-universe the pattern is that they look for high-tech solutions to their problems, especially in the later series. (Out of universe, it's just because pew-pew looks cooler than near-invisible mass driver rounds.)
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
I've already acknowledged it was a plot hole. I'm offering an explanation because that was what the OP wanted. They didn't want a confirmation it was a plot hole.
Just be aware you are accusing me of grasping at straws in regards to a fictional franchise with fictional physics, whose entire realm of "Cause and Effect" revolves around the only rule...
"Because the script called for it."
That is the only truth to anything in Star Trek. Once you get over that, everything else is, by your definition, grasping at straws.
Now we're talking STO game mechanics. Not Star Trek technology.
In STO game mechanics I can put someone on ignore for saying something dumb. People in Star Trek were never able to just hit the mute button on another cast member (except maybe if they were a hologram) if their character said something dumb.
Obviously the ignore feature is a plot hole not addressed in Star Trek.
The TR-116A was a pre-order bonus. But as of the new crafting update, now we have the TR-116B, which anyone can get, in theory.
...said nobody who actually understands wound ballistics, ever. :rolleyes:
The Borg would have to have protections against physical damage at least for their ships. If they didn't they'd get cored out by the first spec of matter they flew past in space.
I can not tell you if it would work for ground combat, but I can defiantly tell you it will not work for space combat and the reason for that is the Navigational Deflector.
Yes but the physical torp needs to reach the point of detonation. It acts like a regular torp, passing through the hull of the ship (seeing in a lot of episodes) and not only photons, other torps as well act the same way when yo see em in the shows. So, yes we could say a photon torp is also a kinetic weapon. In one of Voyager's episodes, when the chroniton torp impacts with the ship and it gets stucked in the hull without detonating, there you can see that they are just regular projectiles, nothing more, but improved, we could say.
Are you really to name these examples? lol... :P you really dont have a clue how adaptation on Borgs work.. i see.
Of course, if you pick the arm of a borg you can destroy it. Or do you expect the Borg to have a super rounded reactive shield that protects all his body like a ship?? lol. The adaptation doesnt work that way. The same reason borg ships can only adapt until a point. After that point, they start to crush as every other ship.
If a borg ship crushes with another one, it explodes, like everything else.
The fact is , we will never know if the Borg can adapt to projectile weapons or not. Because the creators of Star Trek never had that in consideration. And because of that, the only thing we can do is to wonder, nothing more.
I hope we see a Dennis the Menace/Star Trek crossover.
One thing, we did not see but in my opinion is logical. The borg do not adapt and that frequency, damage type, never affects them ever again. Otherwise by now they should be superman minus the kryptonite. So it seems they don't keep a particular damage adaption. best reason is the adaptions are situational as there is only so much you can block on individual drones. (And certain levels. Note a borg ship destroyed by a sparked solar flare at close range.)
So them ignoring physical/kinetic attacks may be due to the rarity of them.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
In any matter-antimatter reaction (like, say, the one that all photon torpedoes use) one particle of antimatter and one particle of matter annihilate each other to form two photons.
The torpedoes' "physical part" gets converted into energy (in the form of photons) during the detonation, thus making the damage caused by a photon torpedo detonation to be energy-based.
Due to the fact that antimatter technology is commonplace in the ST universe, it stands to reason that the Borg had already encountered similar weapons and adapted to them, resulting in them being resistant to photon torpedoes when the Enterprise D first encountered the Collective.
The physical part of an Explosive warhead is converted into Energy during the Detonation too, does that make a conventional 20mm Hispano Cannon circa 1940 an energy weapon?
When it comes to "energy" weapons what really defines energy weapon?, I've always taken it to be any weapon whose primary damage dealing component is a directed Electromagnetic or particle discharge.
So when it comes to Torpedoes in Trek, Whats really doing the damage? If it collides with the Shields and detonates, we can presume that the Energy released during the reaction will have a detrimental effect on the shields, but that energy is easily dissipated ( At least in STO ) but the explosion has no material in space to propagate through, so its likely not going to do much
Collision with the Hull is going to transfer that physical shockwave into the ship, and we see this since the bridge crew wobble and fall over , but theres also the energy released as well, whats the real damage dealer is my question, the intense EM energy released, or the Shockwave?
I can touch you, and you can feel it, but I'm actually not really making contact at all. The electromagnetic force of my atoms are repelling the electromagnetic force of your atoms.
Maybe that's why I can't get a date.
Which apparently, you do not, if you are arguing otherwise.
The entire energy transference (or "energy dump") theory that's still popular in defensive shooting circles has largely been debunked by serious researchers in ballistics, such as Fackler, Roberts, etc.
However, there are some in the shooting and hunting community that stubbornly cling to it. It's doesn't help that you still have marketing hype from the established munitions makers adding fuel to the fire.
I loooove Cosmos, but matter has to touch. If matter didn't touch, we wouldn't have protons and neutrons being able to bind with eachother. Without that, there would be zero matter. Electrons are around them, not within them, causing that arguement to be null, IMO. Some of what is stated in Cosmos is a theory, not a law.
GREAT show, though!
On a lighter note, let's just dish out a Wil Wheaton Boff that puts the entire Borg entity into a "Shut up Wesley" loop. They wouldn't be able to stop. We'd just walk by them, give them high-fives and make them face-palm themsevles.
And still, the torp need to pass through the ship's shield and reach the hull to detonate (as we saw a lot of times in the shows). Until then, it is still basically a projectile.
... the Irken Empire could probably survive the Borg.
Shock wave is the more dangerous kinetic enrgy to deal with. The movement of gas or liquides creates a whipinng effect against the surrounding matter. Any damage done is left to how accepting or resisting that mates is. RL ammunition uses the shock wave to contine to disrupt any matter that isalong it's path.
I was Klingon before Klingon was cool.
But in order for matter to "touch", it has to overcome the electrostatic repulsion of the protons. This is why atoms are formed in supernovas, stars, and particle accelerators not in comfortable environments where the temperature is 0 to 500 Kelvin. In everyday life, matter does not "touch", but we encounter electrostatic repulsion.
The reason why no writer has chosen to realistically explore the avenue of taking "old technology" en masse into Star Trek. It's the same reason that weaponized transporters have never been explored either.
The side (ab)using "old technology" or weaponized transporters would be disgustingly overpowered.
Siege of AR-558.
Yeah, imagine if Starfleet had future-versions of the M16/M4/SCAR with underslung M203s or M26s mixed in with M249s and emplaced M240s and M2s, all pointed at the choke-point the Jem'Hadar had to file through, which they gleefully did, simply walking into the kill-zone, not even taking cover?
Massacre. All Jem'Hadar KIA with closed caskets. Starfleet would suffer minimal, if any casualties.
Massive plot-hole exists to keep the drama going.
It's simple and easy to maintain as well as legendary reliability and easy to train to operate, in a starship corridor, fully automatic you can't miss
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
I think he was not talking about Galactica, the ship, but about the planetary defense system of the colonies (betrayed by "No more Mr. Nice Gaius" Baltar).
The enemy could counter that with a transport inhibitor though.