Kinetic weapons against bioships?

[Mr. Oragahn]

I'm looking for some enlightment on a case of bioship destruction.

I think it's in Voyager Scorpion, where there's a bioship that crashes into a Borg Cube, and explodes.

The impact velocity didn't seem that impressive, so what happened to that bioship?
Is there any solid evidence it was visibly and greatly damaged beforehand?

Would this mean raw kinetic weapons would work well against such ships?

[Who is like God arbour]

Do you have a video sequence?

I can't remember, if we have really seen the destruction of the bioship.

It could be possible, that only the explosion of the cube was shown and that it has concealed the surviving bioship?

[Mr. Oragahn]

Yes, here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUVbu4-U_80

00:50
So, what I see is a bioship turning into a giant fireball (you don't see the fireball starting between the cube and the bioship, with the bioship's silhouette outlined).
...

[l33telboi]

Ships that ram other ships don't usually explode, unless their reactor goes ka-boom. Something that can be very destructive for ships with anti-matter reactors.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Ships that ram other ships don't usually explode, unless their reactor goes ka-boom. Something that can be very destructive for ships with anti-matter reactors.

So you suggest that the bioship had a crack in its antimatter core?

[Mr. Oragahn]

Okay, slight update. Thanks to luck while pressing the play/pause button like a monkey, I managed to get stuck on frames which show that the explosion actually occurs between the bioship and the cube.
Now I'm trying to see if the bioship broke or not.

[Mike DiCenso]

Unfortunately, that is not the full proper sequence of the collision, which not only destroyed the bioship apparently, but very definitely resulted in the destruction of the Borg cubeship as well.

Another important fact: Borg starships are apparently very dense as well, too:

RIKER
We've picked up a vessel on long
range scanners, headed this way.



PICARD
Analysis.

DATA
The vessel is traveling at warp
seven-point-six. Mass:
two-point-five million metric
tons, configuration: ...cubical.

RIKER
The Borg...

DATA
Its dimensions indicate that it
is a scout ship similar to the
one that crashed.


"I, Borg" establishes that a small Borg scout cube of a few tens of meters masses out in the millions of metric tons. Imagine what a 3 km cube would weigh in at!
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

Unfortunately, that is not the full proper sequence of the collision, which not only destroyed the bioship apparently, but very definitely resulted in the destruction of the Borg cubeship as well.

Another important fact: Borg starships are apparently very dense as well, too:

RIKER
We've picked up a vessel on long
range scanners, headed this way.



PICARD
Analysis.

DATA
The vessel is traveling at warp
seven-point-six. Mass:
two-point-five million metric
tons, configuration: ...cubical.

RIKER
The Borg...

DATA
Its dimensions indicate that it
is a scout ship similar to the
one that crashed.


"I, Borg" establishes that a small Borg scout cube of a few tens of meters masses out in the millions of metric tons. Imagine what a 3 km cube would weigh in at!
-Mike

Huge. One thing I don't see Trek fans cite a lot is how the cube that scanned the Voyager at the beginning of Scorpion Part I resumes its course in a sudden acceleration. It's impressive. Okay, it's a burst, possibly achievable very briefly, but still, it's worth a check.

That said, about the crash, what matters is the relative speed and, of course, the momentum. Considering the angle, it's not pointing at something particularily giganormous.
That said, it's possible that the cube's reactor explosion finished the bioship, but I'm about to get fixed on that.

[Mike DiCenso]

That presupposes that the burst of speed in "Scorpion, Part I" that you refer to is actual acceleration, and not the effect of the cubeship jumping back into transwarp.

That being said, it is unclear whether or not the bioship is destroyed by the actual collision, or if the Borg destroyed it by dedonating all the cubeship's reactors to kill it. I'am more inclined to think the former since the Borg cube is suddenly destroyed in a series of catastrophic explosions (Borg design philosophy tends towards highly decentralized, multiple redundancy systems) , rather than just having a big hole punched into it, which it could theoretically recover from, if the relatively modest KE damage alone was enough to kill the bioship.
-Mike

[l33telboi]

So you suggest that the bioship had a crack in its antimatter core?

No, I suggest it turned the containment off (short for rigged itself to explode), making itself one huge anti-matter bomb.

[Mike DiCenso]

I would suggest that since it was the Borg cube that does the ramming, that it is the dedonation of the cube's reactors, not so much the impact that destroyed the bioship.
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

Picture time

[Mike DiCenso]

Hard to tell whether or not the bioship is being consumed (destroyed), or engulfed by the fireball created by the impact.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Indeed.

However, there are things we know or see:

There are small fireballs growing on the bioship's flank, opposite to the cube. Something's blowing up in those regions of the alien ship.

Secondly, the bioship in question was out of the game after the explosion.

It's possible the bioship suffered minor damage due to the collision, which was enough to knock a few systems off, and the cube's explosion finally destroyed the whole bioship.

[Mike DiCenso]

Looking at the second and third frames more closely, I do see what looks like two of the bottom radial fins havnig been bent by the force of the impact.

But yes, as I noted before, it is likely that the Borg initiated the collision to "stun" the bioship, and then dedonated their own power plants on that cube to then kill it.
-Mike