The Borgs interest in the Federation because of Q?

[Vanyel]

Really, could the Borg's interest in the Federation be because of Q's actions in Q Who? where he rescued the Enterprise by snapping his fingers and freeing the Enterprise and sending them well away from the Borg. Could they have started thinking there is more to the Federation than what they have assimilated. Or, after assimilating Federation starships have alerted the Borg about the Q making Q himself be the Borg's interest in the Federation. Could the Borg's half hearted attempts to assimilate the Federation just be a way to attract Q so they could try to assimilate him?

Just a thought. What's your thoughts or opinions?

 

[Ethros]

Really, could the Borg's interest in the Federation be because of Q's actions in Q Who?

Well it was the Borg who were behind the mysterious colony attacks in the TNG s1 finale The Neutral Zone, so really it wasn't like Q Who was the Borg discovering "hey there's this thing called the Federation in the Alpha Quadrant" to begin with anyway.

So that's 1.

Then as the Trek franchise expanded you have 2, Voyager establishing the Hansen's had contact with the Borg and were eventually assimilated in the 2350s (Q Who takes places in 2365)

3. Voyager Infinite Regress later established the USS Tombaugh was assimilated 13 years prior to the episode (2375) making it 2362. Again before Q Who took place.

4. Enterprise Regeneration has the leftover First Contact Borg sending out a signal to their 22nd Centry Delta Quadrant brethren about Earth, but it will take 200 years to reach them anyway.






So I'd kinda look at it as a whole as maybe the Raven incident occured first making them aware of us, then maybe recieved the 22nd Century tranmission and were like "hmm let's go check these guys out."
The Tombaugh was probably a long range deep space vessel they encountered and that got them more interested so they decided to go check out some outer colonies around the Federation (weren't Romulan colonies destroyed too, its been ages since I saw The Neutral Zone.) And then after the Q Who incident of a prominent Federation vessel been that close to their space they went "ok let's send out a Cube right into this Federation/Earth then" (obviously leading to Best of Both Worlds)


Or maybe they recieved the ENT transmission inbetween Q Who and Best of Both Worlds and that's what made them want to go for Earth. Either way the ENT transmission is almost irrelevant anyway; I think they would have gone for Earth with or without it. It's just a cool thing for the end of the episode.

But that's how I'd generally look at it anyway

 

[TheSubCommander]

+1

Well said.

 

[Vanyel]

I'm just thinking that, once they came upon the Enterprise, maybe knowing the class was the top class ship in the Federation from all the people and Romulans they had assimilated in The Neutral Zone and suddenly seeing it get away without, at the time, explanation, really caught the Collectives eye. Then later from other assimilated ships the find out about the Q and Q's interest in Picard. The Borg would see that the Q would be the way for them to bring order to the galaxy in an instant. Trying to assimilate the Federation might have been their way of drawing Q out so they could try to assimilate him.

It would still fit with the transmission from ENT, and the Hanson's going hunting for Borg in Voyager. It would also explain their interest, yet seeming inability to conquer the Federation. They are after a bigger fish. Guinan said the Borg don't do anything piece meal, when they come they come in force. That one episode in Voyager where they were tricked into thinking the Federation had sent them a new faster starship to get them home also mentioned the Borg coming in force. Only races already decimated by the Borg, or completely incapable of defending themselves would require one ship. But the huge Federation Starfleet, gets only one Cube at a time. There has to be more to it. Q could be that more.

 

[MacLeod]

I'm just thinking that, once they came upon the Enterprise, maybe knowing the class was the top class ship in the Federation from all the people and Romulans they had assimilated in The Neutral Zone and suddenly seeing it get away without, at the time, explanation, really caught the Collectives eye. Then later from other assimilated ships the find out about the Q and Q's interest in Picard. The Borg would see that the Q would be the way for them to bring order to the galaxy in an instant. Trying to assimilate the Federation might have been their way of drawing Q out so they could try to assimilate him.

It would still fit with the transmission from ENT, and the Hanson's going hunting for Borg in Voyager. It would also explain their interest, yet seeming inability to conquer the Federation. They are after a bigger fish. Guinan said the Borg don't do anything piece meal, when they come they come in force. That one episode in Voyager where they were tricked into thinking the Federation had sent them a new faster starship to get them home also mentioned the Borg coming in force. Only races already decimated by the Borg, or completely incapable of defending themselves would require one ship. But the huge Federation Starfleet, gets only one Cube at a time. There has to be more to it. Q could be that more.

Well sme of that only sending 1 ship could be perhaps be down to that the UFP has shown a greater ability to adapt to Borg technology than other raes, so by sending only 1 ship you learn what they have and can adapt against it. Sure it might cost you a ship but you gain overall.

Of course that approach can have a downside, they might come up with something you can't adapt against.

 

[Vanyel]

I'm just thinking that, once they came upon the Enterprise, maybe knowing the class was the top class ship in the Federation from all the people and Romulans they had assimilated in The Neutral Zone and suddenly seeing it get away without, at the time, explanation, really caught the Collectives eye. Then later from other assimilated ships the find out about the Q and Q's interest in Picard. The Borg would see that the Q would be the way for them to bring order to the galaxy in an instant. Trying to assimilate the Federation might have been their way of drawing Q out so they could try to assimilate him.

It would still fit with the transmission from ENT, and the Hanson's going hunting for Borg in Voyager. It would also explain their interest, yet seeming inability to conquer the Federation. They are after a bigger fish. Guinan said the Borg don't do anything piece meal, when they come they come in force. That one episode in Voyager where they were tricked into thinking the Federation had sent them a new faster starship to get them home also mentioned the Borg coming in force. Only races already decimated by the Borg, or completely incapable of defending themselves would require one ship. But the huge Federation Starfleet, gets only one Cube at a time. There has to be more to it. Q could be that more.

Well sme of that only sending 1 ship could be perhaps be down to that the UFP has shown a greater ability to adapt to Borg technology than other raes, so by sending only 1 ship you learn what they have and can adapt against it. Sure it might cost you a ship but you gain overall.

Of course that approach can have a downside, they might come up with something you can't adapt against.

Right, eventually the Federation might find a way to stop the Borg if the Borg come only one at a time. If they really were after the Federation hundreds or thousands of ships would keep Starfleet too busy fighting and making stands at planets with the hopes that some of the fleeing civilians ships would get away from the Borg and not be assimilated.

 

[The Wormhole]

Really, could the Borg's interest in the Federation be because of Q's actions in Q Who?

Well it was the Borg who were behind the mysterious colony attacks in the TNG s1 finale The Neutral Zone, so really it wasn't like Q Who was the Borg discovering "hey there's this thing called the Federation in the Alpha Quadrant" to begin with anyway.

So that's 1.

Then as the Trek franchise expanded you have 2, Voyager establishing the Hansen's had contact with the Borg and were eventually assimilated in the 2350s (Q Who takes places in 2365)

3. Voyager Infinite Regress later established the USS Tombaugh was assimilated 13 years prior to the episode (2375) making it 2362. Again before Q Who took place.

4. Enterprise Regeneration has the leftover First Contact Borg sending out a signal to their 22nd Centry Delta Quadrant brethren about Earth, but it will take 200 years to reach them anyway.






So I'd kinda look at it as a whole as maybe the Raven incident occured first making them aware of us, then maybe recieved the 22nd Century tranmission and were like "hmm let's go check these guys out."
The Tombaugh was probably a long range deep space vessel they encountered and that got them more interested so they decided to go check out some outer colonies around the Federation (weren't Romulan colonies destroyed too, its been ages since I saw The Neutral Zone.) And then after the Q Who incident of a prominent Federation vessel been that close to their space they went "ok let's send out a Cube right into this Federation/Earth then" (obviously leading to Best of Both Worlds)


Or maybe they recieved the ENT transmission inbetween Q Who and Best of Both Worlds and that's what made them want to go for Earth. Either way the ENT transmission is almost irrelevant anyway; I think they would have gone for Earth with or without it. It's just a cool thing for the end of the episode.

But that's how I'd generally look at it anyway

Good points, but the timing of TBOBW being only a little over a year after Q Who shouldn't really be ignored, either. Yes, the Borg were already scouting around the Alpha Quadrant but weren't making any real moves towards the Federation. Then they encounter the Enterprise, which is likely lots more advanced than the Raven or even the Tombaugh. Add onto that from the Borg's perspective right when they're kicking the Enterprise's ass it suddenly disappears. This probably sets off so many red flags for the Collective and reclassifies the Federation as a priority target.

 

[Bagofmostlywatr]

...
So I'd kinda look at it as a whole as maybe the Raven incident occured first making them aware of us, then maybe recieved the 22nd Century tranmission and were like "hmm let's go check these guys out."
The Tombaugh was probably a long range deep space vessel they encountered and that got them more interested so they decided to go check out some outer colonies around the Federation (weren't Romulan colonies destroyed too, its been ages since I saw The Neutral Zone.) And then after the Q Who incident of a prominent Federation vessel been that close to their space they went "ok let's send out a Cube right into this Federation/Earth then" (obviously leading to Best of Both Worlds)


Or maybe they recieved the ENT transmission inbetween Q Who and Best of Both Worlds and that's what made them want to go for Earth. Either way the ENT transmission is almost irrelevant anyway; I think they would have gone for Earth with or without it. It's just a cool thing for the end of the episode.

But that's how I'd generally look at it anyway

Good post, I'd never really joined it all together properly. I was just forgiving it as poor planning as the plot arch was written.

So in his own way Q was actually helping the Federation by alerting them to something which was already happening on their own doorstep, rather than introducing the Federation to the borg.

Like The Wormhole says though, Q probably established the Borg's interest in the Federation, but did he just accelerate the inevitable?

 

[Vandervecken]

I like this idea of the Borg becoming interested in the Q and the whole Federation interest being a Borg snare for Q. It's a cool wheels-within-wheels idea. But really, what can the Borg do to any Q? We've seen that the Q can somehow pass their powers on in mortal parentage, likely involving far more than any kind of physical genetics to do so, and we've seen them bestow and remove their powers (which, by the way, I do not take in any way to be the product of devices; there was never a hint of that. IMO, whatever the Q did to themselves to become what they are, the powers of the Q inhere in the Q.) We have seen no other method of Q power transferal. We know that physical bodies they may have are just clothing to them, put on for the convenience of communicating with "lower" races--they've been the dog, they've been the scarecrow, other Q examining his body so closely as if nothing he's ever seen/experienced before in Deja Q, etc.

So nanoprobes aren't going to work, unless you suppose that, if they're in a physical form and nanoprobes are injected that their minds would be just as vulnerable to assimilation into the Collective as anyone's--but considering how powerful the minds of the Q are, it's far more likely that any such Q would "assimilate" the Collective, not vice versa (an idea used by Jack Chalker in A Jungle of Stars (1976)--the scary and seemingly unstoppable Rhambdan Mass Mind attempts to absorb the Bromgrev, a very powerful and ancient being, and ends up being taken over by the Bromgrev, and as powerful as the Bromgrev was, he wasn't a patch on a Q.)

Then Q just makes the Borg disappear down to the last drone, or makes them never have been.

But, I will admit, the Borg collective doesn't know how hopeless this idea really is, so they/it might try.

 

[erastus25]

Nah...they were already invading the alpha quadrant in The Neutral Zone. If anything, Q was doing the Federation a favor by warning them about the Borg.

 

[Ethros]

There's also the Borg species number designations, which although never confirmed, mostly seem to imply they're based on the order the Borg encounter them.

Humans are Species 5618, so if the Hansens WERE the first humans the Borg ever encountered, then they must have came across some Vulcans before that, as they're Species 3259, quite a lot lower down. So perhaps they were generally exploring parts of the Alpha/Beta Quadrant long before the 24th Century.


And then for some reason for Ferengi are Species 180, so go figure what happened there.

 

[The Wormhole]

^^Thing I always wondered, with the Queen being from Species 125, what did the Borg do for a Queen before they met that species?

 

[Captain Rob]

Just curious. Was it ever established in Generations that the El-Aurian refugee ships, the Enterprise-B was trying to rescue, were fleeing the Borg?

 

[Hando]

There's also the Borg species number designations, which although never confirmed, mostly seem to imply they're based on the order the Borg encounter them.

Humans are Species 5618, so if the Hansens WERE the first humans the Borg ever encountered, then they must have came across some Vulcans before that, as they're Species 3259, quite a lot lower down. So perhaps they were generally exploring parts of the Alpha/Beta Quadrant long before the 24th Century.


And then for some reason for Ferengi are Species 180, so go figure what happened there.

Do not forget about the Preservers. On the other hand there are also all those slavers, who we know used humans, but they could also have used other species for other tasks.

In addition the most ancient Borg memory is from the 14th/15th century.

It could mean that the numbering scheme is significantly distorted.

^^Thing I always wondered, with the Queen being from Species 125, what did the Borg do for a Queen before they met that species?

Perhaps there was no need for a Queen at that time, I guess the Borg had not yet reached the critical mass requiring a central unit and functioned through distributed processing.

 

[The Wormhole]

Just curious. Was it ever established in Generations that the El-Aurian refugee ships, the Enterprise-B was trying to rescue, were fleeing the Borg?

Yes, many times while Soran's backstory is being discussed.

 

[Campe]

"The Lakul is one of two ships transporting El-Aurian refugees to Earth."

That's the only reference to what was going on in the 23rd century with the refugees. But the
Borg are referenced many times later in the 24th century in connection with Soran.

 

[Ethros]

^^Thing I always wondered, with the Queen being from Species 125, what did the Borg do for a Queen before they met that species?

Yeah I never liked that line, before that episode I always liked to think that Borg Queen was from "Species 1"

 

[Timo]

So perhaps they were generally exploring parts of the Alpha/Beta Quadrant long before the 24th Century.

It would be extremely odd would they not have done that. In "Q Who?", we get the expert opinion that the Borg are "hundreds of millennia" old. Why wouldn't they have visited Earth and Vulcan in all that time?

Perhaps they experienced setbacks later on, or changed their modus operandi, becoming a less visible galactic presence. But they could quite plausibly have charted all the species that are currently prominent in the Trek galaxy, most of them long before they even gained starflight.

And then for some reason for Ferengi are Species 180, so go figure what happened there.

Well, the Ferengi are old as a civilization, even if new to this starflight business. And Bajorans, another old civilization, are established as having had cities hundreds of millennia ago; the Borg might well stop by and classify a culture like that. Perhaps Bajorans are Species 175?

Thing I always wondered, with the Queen being from Species 125, what did the Borg do for a Queen before they met that species?

The Queen might have been introduced to the Borg long after Species 125 was classified. She may be a relatively new Borg adaptation; an unwanted emergent feature; or even an outside entity that infiltrated the Collective and took over.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

The Borg attacked the Neutral Zone bases back in TNG S1, but they decided after analyzing things that they weren't worth their time.

Then Q teleported them out to J-25 while a Cube had finished assimilating a world, which made them think "Wait, how'd they get out here? Our assimilation studies showed they weren't capable of that!" and gave chase.

Then they see the Ent-D get teleported away which makes them think "Whoa, how did they do that?! We better get back there and check these guys out more!"

So the same Cube from J-25 then goes back to Fed space, taking a little while to get there since they don't have a Transwarp Conduit to the Federation built just yet.

They assimilate Picard and find out that it was all because of Q. Either they figure that a species that Q deals with is worth assimilating or they just figure that since they're there they may as well add a new foothold for the Collective in the Alpha Quadrant.

They get stopped, and since the Feds are on the other end of the Galaxy they don't think it's worth it to continually send Cubes since they have other stuff in their Home turf to deal with. So they only bother sending another Cube years later in FC.

 

[Vanyel]

So perhaps they were generally exploring parts of the Alpha/Beta Quadrant long before the 24th Century.

It would be extremely odd would they not have done that. In "Q Who?", we get the expert opinion that the Borg are "hundreds of millennia" old. Why wouldn't they have visited Earth and Vulcan in all that time?

Perhaps they experienced setbacks later on, or changed their modus operandi, becoming a less visible galactic presence. But they could quite plausibly have charted all the species that are currently prominent in the Trek galaxy, most of them long before they even gained starflight.

And then for some reason for Ferengi are Species 180, so go figure what happened there.

Well, the Ferengi are old as a civilization, even if new to this starflight business. And Bajorans, another old civilization, are established as having had cities hundreds of millennia ago; the Borg might well stop by and classify a culture like that. Perhaps Bajorans are Species 175?

Thing I always wondered, with the Queen being from Species 125, what did the Borg do for a Queen before they met that species?

The Queen might have been introduced to the Borg long after Species 125 was classified. She may be a relatively new Borg adaptation; an unwanted emergent feature; or even an outside entity that infiltrated the Collective and took over.

Timo Saloniemi

Timo, I don't always agree with you, but I do respect your opinion on things Star Trek. So please, back to the original question. Could the Borg's interest in the Federation been enhanced by the events in "Q Who?".
The Wormhole,

...but the timing of TBOBW being only a little over a year after Q Who shouldn't really be ignored, either. Yes, the Borg were already scouting around the Alpha Quadrant but weren't making any real moves towards the Federation. Then they encounter the Enterprise, which is likely lots more advanced than the Raven or even the Tombaugh. Add onto that from the Borg's perspective right when they're kicking the Enterprise's ass it suddenly disappears. This probably sets off so many red flags for the Collective and reclassifies the Federation as a priority target.

Anwar,

The Borg attacked the Neutral Zone bases back in TNG S1, but they decided after analyzing things that they weren't worth their time.

Then Q teleported them out to J-25 while a Cube had finished assimilating a world, which made them think "Wait, how'd they get out here? Our assimilation studies showed they weren't capable of that!" and gave chase.

Then they see the Ent-D get teleported away which makes them think "Whoa, how did they do that?! We better get back there and check these guys out more!"

So the same Cube from J-25 then goes back to Fed space, taking a little while to get there since they don't have a Transwarp Conduit to the Federation built just yet.

They assimilate Picard and find out that it was all because of Q. Either they figure that a species that Q deals with is worth assimilating or they just figure that since they're there they may as well add a new foothold for the Collective in the Alpha Quadrant.

They get stopped, and since the Feds are on the other end of the Galaxy they don't think it's worth it to continually send Cubes since they have other stuff in their Home turf to deal with. So they only bother sending another Cube years later in FC.