Spoilers The Borg and Quantum Tunneling

[Unimatrix Q]

I think it's possible that instead of using the cutting beam in combination with the tractor beam, like it was implied before, the Borg use quantum tunneling (the portal weapon seen in the first episode of PIC Season 3) or a similar technology for planet scooping.

Could explain how they are able to rip away all settlements and installations on a planet in only a short amount of time. And it has the possible benefit that the people, that would most likely die if the cities and buildungs were cut from the planet and tractored away, could probably kept alive for assimilation.

What do you think?

 

[Christopher]

Interesting idea. I've often been bothered by the incongruity of scale in the idea that a single Borg cube could depopulate an entire planet. (See also the Doomsday Machine. How does a cement wind sock a mile long eat a planet more than 10,000 miles in diameter?)

Although it annoys me that they're calling it "quantum tunneling" when it's nothing of the sort. Quantum tunneling is a particle-scale process that happens routinely in semiconductors, diodes, and other electronics, and it's apparently involved in photosynthesis as well. What we saw in Picard was more like a wormhole effect.

 

[blssdwlf]

The Doomsday Machine doesn't eat an entire planet. It just blasts it to rubble and only eats what it needs to refuel.

 

[Verteron]

Interesting idea. I've often been bothered by the incongruity of scale in the idea that a single Borg cube could depopulate an entire planet.

Just to put some meat on these bones, I think it is big enough.

A Borg cube is 3km on each size (stated on screen) so each deck would be 9 sq km. If an alcove and the piece of corridor in front of it is 1 sq metre, that's about 9 million alcoves per deck.

Vertically, I'd estimate each deck is about 5 metres tall from what we've seen, so 3km would be about 600 decks.

This gives us roughly 5 billion alcoves on a Borg cube.

Plenty of space for a colony sized population, even if half the internal space is actually taken up by machinery or resource stores. Most colonies don't have populations in the millions, let alone billions.

 

[Christopher]

Just to put some meat on these bones, I think it is big enough. A Borg cube is 3km on each size (stated on screen) so each deck would be 9 sq km. If an alcove and the piece of corridor in front of it is 1 sq metre, that's about 9 million alcoves per deck.

Vertically, I'd estimate each deck is about 5 metres tall from what we've seen, so 3km would be about 600 decks.

This gives us roughly 5 billion alcoves on a Borg cube.

Plenty of space for a colony sized population, even if half the internal space is actually taken up by machinery or resource stores. Most colonies don't have populations in the millions, let alone billions.

Intriguing. Still, presumably the cube would have to have enough empty alcoves to begin with.

Although the idea that the Borg normally assimilate people is a retcon from Voyager. In TNG, the Borg were mainly interested in technology, and "Q Who" showed that drones were incubated from infancy. The drones in "I, Borg" and "Descent" had no pre-Borg identity that they regained upon liberation, but were complete blank slates, never having been anything but drones. Assimilation was something done in special cases like Locutus, and in First Contact to replenish the depleted numbers of the Borg that escaped in the Queen's sphere when their cube exploded.

But Voyager's writers either forgot that or, more generously, decided it was more interesting to stick with the idea of the Borg as infectious zombies. VGR even claimed that Borg increased their numbers exclusively through assimilation and never procreated, which just doesn't make any sense -- that's like subsisting by hunting and gathering rather than agriculture, a far less productive and reliable method. And what's the point of assimilating a species's biological distinctiveness if you lose it again once all the drones assimilated from that species die of old age? Obviously they have to reproduce their drones.

In the TNG paradigm where the Borg mainly assimilate technology, let's see... If you've got 600 x 9 = 5400 square kilometers of deck space, that's about what you'd get if Manhattan were totally covered in 90-story buildings. That's room for a fairly hefty amount of tech, enough to absorb several modest colonial cities, though not nearly enough to totally de-urbanize a heavily populated planet.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

And what's the point of assimilating a species's biological distinctiveness if you lose it again once all the drones assimilated from that species die of old age? Obviously they have to reproduce their drones.

From what we've seen of Queen Jurati being a few centuries old by the time of the end of Picard S2.

If Borg Assimilation "Slows down Aging" dramatically, doesn't make you immortal; but let's say increases your life-span by a factor of 10x or 100x, wouldn't that change the pace of needing drone replacements?

 

[Christopher]

If Borg Assimilation "Slows down Aging" dramatically, doesn't make you immortal; but let's say increases your life-span by a factor of 10x or 100x, wouldn't that change the pace of needing drone replacements?

It's still not actually using the biological distinctiveness, just letting it stagnate in place for a longer period. Per my hunter-gatherer/agrarian analogy, it's the equivalent of preserving food, which is not even remotely an adequate substitute for actually growing new food. All it does is slow attrition, which is not the same as productivity.

There's just no logic to the idea that the Borg don't reproduce. Every assimilated female drone has countless ova already inside her, and every male has the ability to produce millions of gametes as well. It would be an astonishing waste not to make use of that genetic material. Borg are supposed to be super-efficient. They wouldn't just throw out a valuable resource like that. VGR's writers just didn't think it through.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

It's still not actually using the biological distinctiveness, just letting it stagnate in place for a longer period. Per my hunter-gatherer/agrarian analogy, it's the equivalent of preserving food, which is not even remotely an adequate substitute for actually growing new food. All it does is slow attrition, which is not the same as productivity.

There's just no logic to the idea that the Borg don't reproduce. Every assimilated female drone has countless ova already inside her, and every male has the ability to produce millions of gametes as well. It would be an astonishing waste not to make use of that genetic material. Borg are supposed to be super-efficient. They wouldn't just throw out a valuable resource like that. VGR's writers just didn't think it through.

I think the major issue with growing Borg is the actual time it takes for children to grow is very long, and wanting full adult drones takes alot of time, energy, & resources.

Given the rate of growth of Jem Hadar, I'm surprised that "The Borg" don't create their own versions of Borg Drones based off of Jem Hadar. That would literally be perfect for "The Borg".

Have the best of all worlds.

 

[valkyrie013]

Well if Earth was assimilated in 2061, and if they didn't procreate .. They wouldn't have billions of drones on the Earth 300 years latter..

Also the lame thing of only learning through assimilation.. That's crap, you literally have hundreds if not thousands of species and there science. They will adapt ..
With species 8472 they should have seen there ships were organic and made there own biological warhead themselves.

Anyways
I agree with the original.poster, they may just portal what parts they need off the surface.

 

[Christopher]

I think the major issue with growing Borg is the actual time it takes for children to grow is very long, and wanting full adult drones takes alot of time, energy, & resources.

Voyager did establish that Borg can accelerate the maturation of juvenile drones. In "Infinite Regress," Seven told Naomi Wildman that she'd need several months of accelerated growth in a maturation chamber to complete her cortical development, which presumably means it would only take that long to grow her to adulthood.

Anyway, it takes time, energy, and resources to attack other civilizations and assimilate people who are probably fighting back. As I keep saying, it's like the difference between hunting and raising livestock. The latter takes more time and work, but over the long run, it's immensely more productive and reliable.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Voyager did establish that Borg can accelerate the maturation of juvenile drones. In "Infinite Regress," Seven told Naomi Wildman that she'd need several months of accelerated growth in a maturation chamber to complete her cortical development, which presumably means it would only take that long to grow her to adulthood.

Anyway, it takes time, energy, and resources to attack other civilizations and assimilate people who are probably fighting back. As I keep saying, it's like the difference between hunting and raising livestock. The latter takes more time and work, but over the long run, it's immensely more productive and reliable.

Tell that to the "Borg Collective", their data seems to inform their doctrine on how they operate.

Which is more like a virus infestation.

 

[Christopher]

Tell that to the "Borg Collective", their data seems to inform their doctrine on how they operate.

Which is more like a virus infestation.

No, tell it to the Voyager writers who made that nonsensical assertion about how the Collective supposedly worked. It's not like this is actually real. There's just how the writers choose to depict the fictional concept. And in this case, their choice made no sense.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

No, tell it to the Voyager writers who made that nonsensical assertion about how the Collective supposedly worked. It's not like this is actually real. There's just how the writers choose to depict the fictional concept. And in this case, their choice made no sense.

I'm sure you're closer to the Voyager Writing Staff than I ever will be, you're a fellow writer & Trekkie as well.
Plus, you know who the main writers for Voyager were.

 

[Christopher]

That's got nothing to do with it. We're all allowed to critique fiction as an artificial construct and assess whether the creators' decisions were good or bad. We don't have to pretend it's actually real.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

Considering that the bluegills are apparently returning this season, according to spoilers, i think it's even possible that the planet scooping heard of in "The Neutral Zone" and "Q, Who?", and finally seen in "Best Of Both Worlds, Part 1", could be retconned to be something the parasites do and not the Borg. Think it's possible that the parasites seen in "Conspiracy" could be revealed to be an ancient enemy of the Borg, giving the whole thing an entirely new context.