Why did the Borg only use one cube to attack Earth?

[Charles Phipps]

I go with option 5#

"The Borg actually don't care about assimilating humanity and have pretty much all the tech they could want from us by taking the ships they have."

It's the Ender's Game explanation.

The two cubes they sent were the equivalent of waving their hand vaguely at a fly.

 

[Christopher]

In-universe - Four possible reasons.

There's a fifth reason, connected to the first: The universe doesn't revolve around us. From the Borg perspective, the Federation is a small, remote power in the distant fringes of the galaxy. There are no doubt thousands of advanced civilizations far closer to Borg territory and far more urgent for them to deal with.

 

[Charles Phipps]

There's a fifth reason, connected to the first: The universe doesn't revolve around us. From the Borg perspective, the Federation is a small, remote power in the distant fringes of the galaxy. There are no doubt thousands of advanced civilizations far closer to Borg territory and far more urgent for them to deal with.

The Voth really strike me as the people they probably deal with on their own terms.

But, seriously, the Borg don't have emotions so why should they go after humanity? It's not a threat. They can get anything they need to know about us from the computer of a single Starfleet vessel. Humanity's biological distinctiveness is matched by all the hundreds of other human-like races.

Starfleet has destroyed a number of cubes but every single one of those has basically been via one-off circumstances or dumb luck.

 

[Six of Twelve]

But, seriously, the Borg don't have emotions so why should they go after humanity? It's not a threat. They can get anything they need to know about us from the computer of a single Starfleet vessel. Humanity's biological distinctiveness is matched by all the hundreds of other human-like races.

And the Borg Queen had said that humans were "below average" in many ways. Doesn't make sense that she'd be obsessed by us.

 

[Qonundrum]

I can't explain that.

But the mistake is rectified in other works. In the Star Trek: Armada series, the Collective dispatches whole fleets to deal with the Federation in 2376 and 2377, including a Fusion Cube (that's eight fused cubes), and with the option of building Tactical Fusion Cubes.

In TNG: Before Dishonor, Starfleet repels a Supercube in 2380, and 3000 Borg cubes attack the local powers in 2381 in Star Trek: Destiny.

By 2409, Borg are techonogically inferior to the Federation, but threaten it by sheer numbers, in Star Trek Online.

Ideally, the movie should have enough exposition to show us the Borg adapted. Not tell us the spoonfed one-liner. Given that "Our modified phasers will work once, maybe twice, before they adapt" and then after seventy shots later their advantage only finally starts to run out... ugh. (Oh, okay, it's more like seven but they always whip out the exposition and they always get double their estimates or better.) I'm far more surprised that, after one successful defeat, they wouldn't just send 2 cubes and have a better roll of the dice, so to speak. Or a cube and a sphere. Or two diamonds, they'd look like gigantic novelty earrings.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=294806

The "Fusion Cube"... it is pretty cool!

There's a fifth reason, connected to the first: The universe doesn't revolve around us. From the Borg perspective, the Federation is a small, remote power in the distant fringes of the galaxy. There are no doubt thousands of advanced civilizations far closer to Borg territory and far more urgent for them to deal with.

And yet they go out of their way anyway.

I suppose the real reason to send just one cube again might be to employ the time travel gambit, having used 1 cube as a bluff to lull the troops with, then risk the escape sphere's destruction by - while still in the epicenter of battle - go back in time and set up the stage to create more numbers of disposable drones. In which case all they'd need do is go back in time long before engaging the Federation (don't ask about the honeymoon) and sock it to humanity long before the 24th century displayed on the clock and save themselves a whole cube's worth of drones in the process.

The movie's setup just doesn't work no matter which way one tries to patch up the plot holes, which are big enough for a Fusion Cube to go through.

 

[ISS Enterprise]

As a good friend of mine says when a person questions a movie's plot.....

Because the director told them too lol

 

[Agony_Boothb]

I hear that they wanted two cubes, but the second one started making crazy demands like increased salary, billing in the opening credits and a dressing room. It was a total diva.

 

[Phily B]

Kind of off topic, but I only watched Voyager when it aired and I remember the finale the Borg had a wormhole right to Earth's doorstep. Am I remembering that right?

Who the fuck came up with that?

 

[Timo]

...The Borg?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DonIago]

Kind of off topic, but I only watched Voyager when it aired and I remember the finale the Borg had a wormhole right to Earth's doorstep. Am I remembering that right?

Who the fuck came up with that?

A transwarp hub, not a wormhole...but yes.

Presumably the writer(s) of "Endgame" came up with it.

When and how the Borg built it without anyone being aware of it is a question left to the viewer.

 

[johnnybear]

I thought that the writers were hinting that the Borg had been destroyed at the end of Voyager? If not it sure seemed like it to me to be honest!
JB

 

[Sophie74656]

I thought that the writers were hinting that the Borg had been destroyed at the end of Voyager? If not it sure seemed like it to me to be honest!
JB

the borg took a big hit but they certainly weren't destroyed. We're never going to know for sure so i guess it doesn't really matter

 

[johnnybear]

Probably not, Sophie, since that Voyager episode aired in 2001 and apart from that ENT episode we haven't seen anything from them or that era since Nemesis and probably not likely to!
JB

 

[Blamo]

I have to admit, I don't understand why they sent a cube to Earth in 24th century to time travel back to the 21st. They could have time traveled at any point in their journey, why only when they reached Earth and during a massive battle.?

 

[Dukhat]

I have to admit, I don't understand why they sent a cube to Earth in 24th century to time travel back to the 21st. They could have time traveled at any point in their journey, why only when they reached Earth and during a massive battle.?

And not only that, they could have traveled to any point in time they wanted. Why didn't they just go to the prehistoric times and assimilate everything?

 

[Spot261]

They ran out of cubes.

 

[Christopher]

I have to admit, I don't understand why they sent a cube to Earth in 24th century to time travel back to the 21st. They could have time traveled at any point in their journey, why only when they reached Earth and during a massive battle.?

I wonder if the time travel was a backup plan once their more straightforward assimilation failed. But that requires too much imagination for the Borg, as I've mentioned. The whole thing was a deeply contrived excuse for a time-travel story and it doesn't really hold up to analysis.

And not only that, they could have traveled to any point in time they wanted. Why didn't they just go to the prehistoric times and assimilate everything?

Well, they don't consider a world to be worth assimilating unless it has enough technology to be of use to them. They're scavengers, not builders. So they'd need a planet with both biological and technological resources they could scavenge.

 

[Dukhat]

Well, they don't consider a world to be worth assimilating unless it has enough technology to be of use to them. They're scavengers, not builders. So they'd need a planet with both biological and technological resources they could scavenge.

But in this particular instance, assimilation was not their primary goal; their goal was to avert humanity's first contact with the Vulcans, thereby preventing the creation of the Federation. Which in and of itself is a very silly goal. If one has the power of time travel and wished to eradicate an enemy in the past, then there are a multitude of better time periods in which to do that, with little to no resistance. How did the Borg know that the Vulcans wouldn't just contact humanity at some later time and still form the Federation? Why didn't they just go back to the year 10,000 B.C. and just destroy Earth then? Or Vulcan, for that matter?

 

[Christopher]

But in this particular instance, assimilation was not their primary goal; their goal was to avert humanity's first contact with the Vulcans, thereby preventing the creation of the Federation.

But assimilation is always the Borg's primary goal. They don't see themselves as destroyers; in their view, they're giving other species a gift by absorbing them into the perfection of the Collective, as well as gaining new resources for themselves. When faced with a setback in assimilating the biological and technological distinctiveness of the Federation, their question would be, "How do we resolve the setback and succeed in assimilating it?" Preventing it from existing at all would be a waste of something of value that they wish to add to their whole. It would be a loss for them, not just for their adversaries.

Which means, of course, that preventing the Federation's existence costs them all the technology that the Federation's members developed over 2-300 years of cooperation -- one more reason why the premise of the movie is fundamentally out of character for the Borg. But I suppose they might figure that if they wait until first contact, at least Earth, Vulcan, and the other worlds will have warp capability and still be somewhat worth assimilating.

How did the Borg know that the Vulcans wouldn't just contact humanity at some later time and still form the Federation?

Because, again, the Borg did not simply go back to destroy, but to assimilate. Remember, when the Enterprise was caught in the temporal wake and saw the altered timeline around them, Earth was not a lifeless ruin, but a planet of 9 billion Borg drones. Picard explicitly said "They went back and assimilated Earth." So if that first contact hadn't happened, then the next time Vulcans came to take a look at Earth, they would've found a planet overrun by Borg. Or, more likely, the Borg of Earth would have already come to assimilate them.

 

[Dukhat]

When faced with a setback in assimilating the biological and technological distinctiveness of the Federation, their question would be, "How do we resolve the setback and succeed in assimilating it?" Preventing it from existing at all would be a waste of something of value that they wish to add to their whole. It would be a loss for them, not just for their adversaries.

As you mention, right before the Enterprise travels back in time, we do see an assimilated Earth, so yes, assimilation still was their primary goal. My question still remains as to why the Borg chose that particular point in time. Assimilating Earth in the 1980's, say, would have ended in the same result as assimilating Earth in 2063. Why does disrupting first contact with the Vulcans have anything whatsoever to do with their ultimate goal?

Which means, of course, that preventing the Federation's existence costs them all the technology that the Federation's members developed over 2-300 years of cooperation -- one more reason why the premise of the movie is fundamentally out of character for the Borg. But I suppose they might figure that if they wait until first contact, at least Earth, Vulcan, and the other worlds will have warp capability and still be somewhat worth assimilating.

But they were trying to prevent First Contact. So how does that help them assimilate what they want in the future if Earth never becomes the Federation's primary world? Of if the Federation even exists in the future because of that?

It seems to me that the Borg were more interested in making sure the Federation didn't exist in the future so that they could assimilate the Alpha Quadrant unimpeded, rather than worrying about whether they'd reap the benefits of its assimilation.

So if that first contact hadn't happened, then the next time Vulcans came to take a look at Earth, they would've found a planet overrun by Borg. Or, more likely, the Borg of Earth would have already come to assimilate them.

Which again doesn't really make sense if they still want to reap the benefits of 24th century Federation technology.