BORG ARMAMENT

A Borg cube fires on a Species 8472 bioship. (pop-up window) [Scorpion] Borg cubes fire torpedoes and can fire while rotating which provides an enemy with a relatively non-static target.

Apart from drones possessing injection tubules to assimilate a lifeform, the Borg possess an extensive arsenal which is presumably being improved and added to continually as the Collective acquires more and more data on weapons systems from species it assimilates. This can include an assimilation virus [#110 Dark Frontier, Part Two], [#124 Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy].

Assimilation virus, although this one was part of the Doctor's daydream. [#124 Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy]

[Dark Frontier]

In [Dark Frontier] the sinister reason for the Borg Queen's abduction of Seven is revealed - the assimilation of humanity using an assimilation virus: Borg Queen: "I have a task for you. We're planning to deploy a new mode of assimilation designed for highly resistant species. I want you to program the nanoprobes." Seven: "Your technology has changed since I left the Collective. My knowledge is insufficient." Borg Queen: "Your knowledge for the target species is invaluable: Species 5618, human, warp capable, origin Grid 325, physiology inefficient, below average cranial capacity, minimal redundant systems, limited regenerative abilities. Our previous attempts to assimilate them were all direct assaults. They failed. So we've created a more surreptitious strategy." Seven: "You intend to detonate a biogenic charge in Earth's atmosphere." Borg Queen: "It would infect all lifeforms with nanoprobe viruses. Assimilation would be gradual. By the time they realised what was happening half their population would be drones."

A drone has exo-plating which is vulnerable to Federation phaser fire, but if one opens fire on a drone no more than one or two shots are likely to damage, stop or destroy it because drones adapt to technology and become invulnerable to it. In this way a drone can usually walk right up to an enemy to seize them physically and assimilate them. [TNG: Descent, Part One] established that a forced plasma beam was the destructive energy source used in Borg (and also Ferengi) handheld weapons but in [Star Trek: Voyager] no Borg drone has been seen using a handweapon, other than its assimilation tubules. Borg vessels have the same ability to adapt to enemy technology. However, by remodulating shields to "random harmonics" Voyager has been able to stave off various Borg attacks. In [Dark Frontier], after disabling the shields of small Borg transport vessel, Voyager beamed a photon torpedo onto it and blew it up (although the intention actually was to disable the Borg ship).

Phaser fire is useless as the Borg drones adapt and keep advancing. [Dark Frontier]

The Borg use time as a weapon: see page "Primary adjunct: sub-junction 01: Time travel and the Borg temporal transmitter" here.

Tuvok and Kim, part of Voyager's away team, inside a Borg sphere to steal a Borg transwarp coil. [Dark Frontier]

The Borg have a weakness which makes them vulnerable to attack: it is possible to move around a Borg vessel and be ignored so long as no drone perceives a threat. It was thanks to this vulnerability that Janeway successfully led an away team inside a damaged Borg sphere and stole a transwarp coil [Dark Frontier]. Drones have no individual initiative.

A drone looks at one of Voyager's away team, there to steal a Borg transwarp coil, but the drone does not perceive them to be a threat and ignores them. [Dark Frontier]

Borg neo-natal drones

In [#136 Collective], stardate unknown, Voyager encountered a Borg cube on which all the adult drones had been de-activated by a pathogen somehow introduced to the vessel. Ship-wide malfunctions caused several maturation chambers to open prematurely. Five Borg neo-natal drones, or children, emerged. Their distress signal to the Collective was ignored as the Hive considered them damaged and irrelevant, and four of the children became passengers on Voyager where the Doctor removed most of their Borg implants.

Borg neo-natal drones: male twins and a female child. Later we learn their names are Azan, Rebi and Mezoti. [Collective]

Borg neo-natal drones, designation "First". [Collective]

Borg neo-natal drones: male youth. Later we learn his name is Icheb. [Collective]

Dead drone in picture's foreground. There is another in the background. [Collective]

Corridor containing two dead drones. [Collective]

One of the former Borg, a Brunali male youth called Icheb, was returned by Voyager to his parents in [#139 Child's Play], stardate unknown. It was then that he was revealed as the carrier of the pathogen which had destroyed the Borg adult drones on the cube on which he was assimilated and later found. As the Brunali lived close to a Borg transwarp conduit and the Brunali civilisation had been all but destroyed by Borg attacks, Icheb's parents used their skill in genetic engineering to deliberately breed into their son at birth a Borg-killing pathogen. When Icheb was returned to them, they sedated him and launched him toward the Borg transwarp conduit, luring a Borg vessel out of the conduit to re-assimilate Icheb by making the launch give off a false warp signature in order to interest the Borg.

Icheb, carrier of a Borg-killing pathogen, is sedated by his parents before being sent to the Borg for re-assimilation. [#139 Child's Play]

Voyager and Icheb's small launch caught in a Borg sphere's tractor pulse. [#139 Child's Play]

Voyager narrowly avoided being pulled in by a Borg sphere and assimilated, and managed to rescue Icheb only just in time before he was re-assimilated.

Commander Chakotay used this method to eliminate Borg drones: Voyager's cargo bay 2 space doors open, the interior is depressurised and Borg drones are sucked out into space. (pop-up window) [Scorpion]