Borg Transwarp

[USSHermes]

The Borg seem to have overcome Warp barriers in three ways - I was hoping someone could clear this up for me.


Firstly in Next gen we see them using what looks like 'regular' warp drive, faster than a Galaxy class but needs time to increase speed to this level.

Secondly in Next Gen (and endgame) we see them using warp conduits which presumably are like 'white water rapids' through space at unimaginable speeds.

Thirdly we see in Voyager the return to the 'super warp drive' version except it has a green blur effect when jumping to warp and space outside has some weird doctor-who style effect.

Is this just inconsistency or just different visual effects?

 

[Marten]

The two last one's are probably the same thing, and just diffent effects, just as you say.

 

[BolianAuthor]

The Borg must have been using some form of transwarp all along... even at Voyager's warp 9.975, we know it'd have taken them 75 years to get home to Earth, so for the original Borg Cube to get from System J-25 in the Delta Quadrant to Federation territory by TNG's 4th season would indicate that some form of transwarp was used.

 

[Mike Farley]

But system J-25 wasn't THAT far away. Data says it would only take the Enterprise about 2 1/2 years to return to Federation space.

 

[Timo]

Indeed, the only "Borg location" in TNG that was ever said to be in the Delta Quadrant was the place where Lore's merry cyborgs were hiding in "Descent".

And if our heroes had any sense, they would conclude from this that the regular Borg might be anywhere and everywhere except the Delta Quadrant! Yet for some strange reason, in ST:FC, Dr. Crusher seems to think that the Borg originate from the Delta Quadrant. There's no episode or movie that would have provided her or Starfleet with this information (which may or may not be true), so we're left wondering if something interesting happened offscreen to convince her of this.

As for the Cube in "Q Who?" getting from J-25 to Earth... Why would it need to? We have no evidence that it would have been the same Cube. We only know that to Data's inexperienced eye, it looks more or less the same. But then again, probably all Cubes do.

However, VOY gives us plenty of reason to think that the Borg have had these transwarp conduit things for a long time, and it would be strange if the Cube in "Q Who?" didn't have access to one. Perhaps the conduits only go to and from interesting places, though - which is why there was no conduit yet going directly to Earth, or directly from Jouret to Earth, in "BoBW". One got built later on, though, to see use in "Endgame"...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

One of the big problems with the whole Borg concept in TNG was that you can't have a menacing race of super-beings capable of marauding our Galaxy at such extreme speeds and still have much of a Galaxy left for our heroes to explore.

The Borg either (1: only became extremely violent in the very recent past, and were not a serious threat before that time, or (2: the Borg only developed their high-speed capability in the very recent past, and likely were much more limited before that time, or (3: if the Borg have been that violent and that fast for a very long period of time, something else must've kept them preoccupied throughout most of the "thousands of centuries" of their evolution Guinan spoke of in "Q Who". Take your pick.

 

[Timo]

How should we define the Borg as "violent"?

To our knowledge, they haven't made their existence known much. They have attacked Earth twice, assimilated the Jouret and Ivor colonies, roamed around in the Argolis Cluster a little, and that's that. They could have kept that up for a million years, and the galaxy would be none the wiser; the average starfaring culture could explore to its heart's content without getting into trouble with the Borg.

The cyborgs are a background nuisance, not a major enemy or anything. Ignore them and you can live a happy life - until you get assimilated. Resistance would be futile anyway...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ Which opens the door to two other possibilities.

1) FC and VOY take place in an alternate timeline with a similar but noticeably different history from the rest of the Trekiverse (I prefer this explanation, since it allows us to imagine that the Borg Queen doesn't really exist)

2) The Borg ARE hyperviolent, but not consistently ambitious or expansionist and will only go after you if you have something they particularly want.

In tis case, the Borg's intentions in BOBW could be interpreted as an attempt to bully Earth into giving up some vital material they use for fuel and make arrangements to provide it (along with anything else they need) whenever ordered. Normally, just that one cube would be sufficient to impose this; there's no "borg fleet" as such, just an individual cube running its own business. You might think of this as the "bandit model" of Borgism.

Then there's the expanded collective where different ships are linked as well, unified by the Borg Queen, that does sneaky pseudo-clever things like time-travel invasions and sending individual catsuited drones on deep cover recon missions. while rarely or never using the vast amounts of brute force they obviously must have. You might think of this as the "Cobra Commander" model of borgism."

In the latter case, the only explanation for why the Borg haven't conquered the galaxy yet is the Borg Queen: there's only so much you can accomplish when your entire civilization is run by a glorified Bond villain. In the former case, the reason is the fact that, as Q described it, the Borg don't actually conquer people, they just run around taking whatever they want whenever they want it.

 

[Timo]

Really, I'd think the Borg would be independent of the lesser cultures of the galaxy, needing nothing from them either materially or spiritually. They'd be disinterested in conquest or expansion -and indeed we see neither, even though Picard in ST:FC rants and raves that such expansion is taking place at the UFP's expanse.

The bit about the Borg wanting to improve the life of everybody else may be literally true, but it need not be the driving force behind them. The bit about them wanting to improve themselves is no doubt true, and may be the crucial factor: it's probably best achieved if one doesn't involve lesser mortals.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BolianAuthor]

Yet for some strange reason, in ST:FC, Dr. Crusher seems to think that the Borg originate from the Delta Quadrant. There's no episode or movie that would have provided her or Starfleet with this information (which may or may not be true)

Umm... actually, post BoBW, yes, there is... when Picard was linked to the Borg Collective, he knew everything they knew. I'm SURE he was questioned by Starfleet Intelligence, after his recovery, on any critical information he may have retained, including the Borg's home space.

 

[Timo]

Good point. Yet one wonders... The Borg have made some noises about sharing knowledge in an egalitarian manner, but Locutus still wasn't told about the Queen. Or allowed to retain the memory, at any rate. Would knowledge of Borg home turf have been allowed to remain in Picard's head?

Indeed, do we have knowledge of Borg home turf even at the conclusion of the shows and movies? It was never really stated in VOY that the Borg would have originated in any particular place, or made any particular place their home. Unimatrix One was in the middle of the Delta Quadrant, yes, but this may be a recent construct.

In any case, "the Borg are still in Delta" sounds like a fallacious statement if uttered in the 2060s. They were verifiably close to the border of Beta in the medieval times already ("Dragon's Teeth"), and they seem to have assigned relatively low Species Numbers to some not particularly far-ranging Alpha dwellers such as the Ferengi. ANd then there's the bit about them being hundreds of millennia old, and secretive as Bigfoot. Perhaps Locutus was indeed told that the Borg have a center of operations somewhere in Delta, but Picard or Starfleet drew the wrong conclusions about that?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[EmperorTiberius]

I think Picard simply forgot a lot of information about the Borg, just like he forgot about the Queen.

My main problem with the Borg is that they are too many in number. Somewhere along the line, someone (Borg Queen for example) lied about their true numbers and capabilities. Either that, or they only grew powerful recently due to exponential increase in numbers and knowledge (as you would expect to happen through assimilation) and there is presently an easy way to defeat them, otherwise Federation and the rest of the known Alpha Quadrant would have been assimilated by hundreds of cubes

 

[BolianAuthor]

Good point. Yet one wonders... The Borg have made some noises about sharing knowledge in an egalitarian manner, but Locutus still wasn't told about the Queen. Or allowed to retain the memory, at any rate. Would knowledge of Borg home turf have been allowed to remain in Picard's head?

Indeed, do we have knowledge of Borg home turf even at the conclusion of the shows and movies? It was never really stated in VOY that the Borg would have originated in any particular place, or made any particular place their home. Unimatrix One was in the middle of the Delta Quadrant, yes, but this may be a recent construct.

In any case, "the Borg are still in Delta" sounds like a fallacious statement if uttered in the 2060s. They were verifiably close to the border of Beta in the medieval times already ("Dragon's Teeth"), and they seem to have assigned relatively low Species Numbers to some not particularly far-ranging Alpha dwellers such as the Ferengi. ANd then there's the bit about them being hundreds of millennia old, and secretive as Bigfoot. Perhaps Locutus was indeed told that the Borg have a center of operations somewhere in Delta, but Picard or Starfleet drew the wrong conclusions about that?

Timo Saloniemi

Well, regarding the Queen, I would offer this... in BoBW, when Data was trying to bring "Picard" back, he (Data) was accessing various key Borg databases... and if you remember, O'Brien told Data that the Borg might be trying to sever their link with him, possibly because they knew that any key information that Data could tap into, could be used against them. If that be the case, it's likely they either "deleted" or otherwise withheld knowledge of the Borg Queen, maybe to maintain that security.

On the other hand, when Picard was restored to his former self, and Riker asked him how much he remembered, Picard did state that he remembered everything, including Riker's strategy with the deflector and saucer-sep, so it's also possible that maybe the information about the Queen was buried so deep within Picard's mind, that only close proximity to the Borg themselves could trigger the memories, or something like that, like when Picard said he could "hear" the Borg, in FC.

 

[Deks]

I still think the concept of the Queen was something that weakened the Borg overall.
It introduced a concept that provided a one character villain for the heroes in comparison to a collective mind by itself that doesn't/isn't likely to make mistakes.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ And to put that in perspective:

Take any scene in any Trek production that features dialog between the Borg Queen and any other character. Then remove the queen and imagine the "hive voice" of thousands of drones all speaking at once. On some level this is a bit corny, but it changes the entire conversation when the "person" you're talking to is actually the collective intelligence of thousands of people. With the Queen around the Borg just look like some kind of sick puppet show, not the unstoppable collective we were lead to believe they were.

 

[Timo]

Really, they could have had Queen the actress present there - just not doing any lines. She might have saved verbal communication for dealing with our heroes, acting as a Locutstress of sorts. In other cases, a chorus of voices could have spoken both for her and with her. Eerie enough...

otherwise Federation and the rest of the known Alpha Quadrant would have been assimilated by hundreds of cubes

Only if the aim of the Borg is to assimilate. They might have other aims that take precedent - and since so many planets are in their native state still, this is almost a given. (By "native state", I of course mean "terraformed by ancient civilizations to Class M, then inhabited by later cultures"...)

...maybe the information about the Queen was buried so deep within Picard's mind, that only close proximity to the Borg themselves could trigger the memories, or something like that, like when Picard said he could "hear" the Borg, in FC.

I'd say they never managed to dig all the Borg gear out of Picard's head. Realistically, they shouldn't have been able to; Bashir wasn't able to remove the much more macroscopic wire from Garak's midbrain, either.

So Picard retained a subspace transceiver in there. And when the Borg wanted, they could dial Picard and insert whatever memories they felt useful for their cause. Thus, they could both invite Picard to the past with them in ST:FC and preprogram him with the right ideas so that he would do their bidding and help Cochrane create the first Earthling warp engine, thereby giving birth to the Federation which would become such a wonderful source of assimilable ideas in the future...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Marten]

Perhaps the writers are psychic, and predicted the ENT-episode that places the Borg-transmission in the Delta Quadrant, and let Crusher connect the dots.

 

[BolianAuthor]

Well, Borg implants, while highly advanced, are pretty much designed by machines, and thus have specific and dedicated functions, that are fairly straightforward. I would imagine that anything manufactured by an organization like the Obsidian Order would be MUCH more complex, layout-wise, and far more sinister in the way it worked. We know that much like the Tal'Shiar scientists, Obsidian Order scientists don't have much compassion for their test subjects, and are pretty ruthless in their means of extracting the desired information, so I would think it should be easier for Bashir to remove a basic Borg neurotransmitter, than a Obsidian Order brain implant.

 

[Timo]

...However, much of Borg stuff is apparently built in situ by, and perhaps out of, the nanoprobes in the victim's bloodstream. Complex machinery could lie "dormant" in Picard's body, distributed like all Borg hardware, until called for to combine into functional pieces.

Uprooting something like that would be more difficult than cutting out even the most sinister and booby-trapped macroscopic piece of machinery, purely as a surgical operation, and before considering the finer aspects of survival of the patient. Plus, Bashir never mentioned having to worry about any sort of booby traps before he started saying that he'd need to learn more before he could start trying to extract the device. Apparently, there were straightforward medical concerns there even before one added the possibility of hidden sinister functions.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BolianAuthor]

^

That's a very good argument. I'm not going to disagree with it, but I can only offer this much... the one thing we DO know about Locutus, is that he was basically still a WIP when Worf and Data rescued him. I'm sure if he had remained on the Borg Cube, and allowed to continue on unmolested, the Borg would have done a LOT more to him... maybe the fact that he was "unfinished" made the extraction of the Borg implants easier for Beverly. IDK... just a guess.