Why did the Borg go after the Romulans and Federation outposts along the Neutral Zone and just stop there? But when encountering the Enterprise-D in the Delta Quadrant the Borg pursued them all the way back to federation space after being rescued by Q. It always did seem disconnected from the Borg plot. It turns out it was. I read the Borg were supposed to have been introduced after episode "The Neutral Zone" as a 3 part trilogy of episodes but a writer's strike prevented it. So why did the Borg stop further assimilation after the destruction of the outposts originally?
We have no way of truly knowing, as it's all a fiction... and the ideas are / were in the minds of the writers who created and developed the Borg story line. To find some plausible explanation independent of all that, there's many different reasons. I think the Borg were nearly omnipotent in the beginning, because they took so many species by surprise. Whole civilizations who knew nothing of the Borg were suddenly confronted and overpowered. But in time, as other species learned of the Borg, resistance WAS possible. I think the Borg have faced greater challenges over time. Of course, species 8472 was a major blow to them (and would have vanquished them completely if it weren't for Voyager). The Enterprise crew faced down some very powerful beings from time to time, in both TOS and TNG. So you imagine the Borg would eventually run into them and find they couldn't win. I think Captain Picard made an enormous error with Hugh. They should have introduced a virus to the Borg so that they'd all be immobilized and destroyed. I think the Borg were an accident... a race of beings who experimented with cybernetic implants and then once they creative a micro collective, the machine part of them changed their way of life and mission... rather than to discover and learn about new species, instead they would hunt and assimilate new species. This cybernetic abomination should never have happened and needed to be stopped. Picard missed out on a ripe chance... I would hope that Data's Borg virus that was developed would be preserved and stored as a kind of "failsafe" device to be used against the Borg if they ever tried again to invade and assimilate the Federation and its allies. Perhaps the one developed by Janeway's crew in Voyager was close enough to be modified for complete propagation across the Borg collective.
I don't think the Borg were interested in assimilation much. They were just browsing through their garden, aka the Milky Way, and observing that the Sikarians were coming up rather nicely while the Feds required a bit of pruning and the Tkon could use a smidgen of supernova (or did they already do that the previous aeon?). But then, all of a sudden, a Fed asset bloomed with instantaneous cross-galactic transportation, and the Borg jumped to action and decided to reap. And, to their great disappointment, found out that there was nothing to reap after all, the anomaly having been that pesky neighbor kid Q messing up with the garden again. Timo Saloniemi
You already supplied your own answer. The writers strike ended up being more powerful than the Borg. However, for an "in-game" explanation, I likened it to a scouting mission. The Borg were info gathering about the Alpha Quadrant. They found a few settlements, scooped them up and then analyzed. I imagine they did that all over the galaxy. The problem with this is that later episodes and movies changed the map, but if you're looking at this one episode in a vacuum, my explanation works as well as any.
I was thinking maybe they weren't interested enough in the federation to divert resources at that time. But then they became more interested when Q flung them out of their grasp in "Q Who", figuring the federation had the technology to fly around the galaxy at will even though it was really Q that did it.
And in later Borg episodes, you didn't hear much of them doing the scooping thing much any longer, but it was more about assimilation. So, as someone above said, the scooping was likely pre-assimilation scouting missions before they shifted into full assimilation mode. Can't really explain away the Borg baby nursery thing in Q Who, however.
Yeah that's what I would have said too. But they played it off like the Borg are just born that way and Q said the Borg were not interested in them, just their technology.
Which is pretty realistic: it's a first contact, so of course our heroes get it all wrong and remain ignorant for several years thereafter, prisoner to their misconceptions. Yes, Q said the Borg weren't interested in Picard; that must have hurt. It's not really in conflict with the idea that the Borg routinely assimilate people, though. Timo Saloniemi
It was a scouting mission. First, the Borg learn of a potential species. Second, they go out and take samples, both biological and technological, to find out if said species is worthy of assimilation. Third, they initiate "First Contact." It's okay because we learn later that the Borg don't reproduce, but I'm sure if there was a necessity to reproduce, they would have no issues doing so. In Q-Who, Riker is investigating the Borg Cube and relaying what he is seeing. He comes across some maturation chambers and speculates their purpose, but it's merely speculation. He says "we're in what appears to be the Borg nursery." He also says "Captain, this is incredible! It appears that the Borg have discovered a way to connect technology directly into the human brain!" I'm not sure why he's so astonished. Did Riker forget his whole ordeal with the Binars?
If the Borg really were meeting the Feds or the humans for the first time at the Neutral Zone, I'd think they would show some interest towards their distinct biology. OTOH, if they had already inspected Homo sapiens back in 12,000 BC and were only checking on their technological progress here, it would be natural for them to ignore the wetware and to concentrate on the weapons and sensors of military outposts and the like. As for Riker and Bynars, perhaps the feat just never ceases to astonish? On the other hand, every set of heroes always think it's a first when they see a natural phenomenon travel at warp speed. Even when they themselves encounter such for the third time... Timo Saloniemi
By the time that the Enterprise D meets the Borg in Q-Who, the Borg had already assimilated the Hansen family, so it wasn't their first encounter with Species 5618.
The Hansen story is a bit too "backpedaly"... Q Who is basically the first official contact with the Borg, if all time traveling stories are overlooked. If not, would it be ENT and 'Regeneration'? Did Cochrane actually meet a Borg at some point, it's been a long time since I watched 'First Contact'...
I wonder, did someone show a picture or something of the Borg to Cochrane and if he thought they looked Swedish...
Lily made the Swedish comment because Borg is a Swedish surname, as in Bjorn Borg the tennis player and Marcus Borg, the theologian.
I kinda knew where that Swedish joke came from, being from a country that is right next to Sweden. We have our own way of making fun of them, don't know why, but jokes about Sweden are a common thing here in Finland.