Has anyone ever wondered why the Borg put a tractor beam on the Saratoga during the battle and then destroyed it before the warp core breach? The game Crossroads of Time had drones board the Saratoga but I don' t think that game gave a reason why.
"Emissary" - The Borg and the Saratoga
- Thread starter DS9forever
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It may well be what the Borg do with everybody. After "Q Who?", it seemed the Borg had merged their shield-draining weapon with their tractor beam, and the principal method of dealing with a starship was to grab her and through that action drain her shields, then cut out a sample or send a boarding party to get samples, prisoners or whatnot.
We just didn't see all that much of the battle. Some ships kept on flying - possibly the Borg just hadn't gotten to those yet, possibly they were stronger and able to break free a couple of times. Others perished by unseen means while the camera followed the action inside the Saratoga. Perhaps at one time, half a dozen ships were wriggling in tractor beams?
For all we know, the Borg had little or nothing to do with the destruction of the ship as such. They just rendered her helpless and started sampling; a damaged warp core was the side effect of that, and spelled doom for the ship eventually.
Note that the battle ended in the battlefield being littered with nearly intact but nevertheless completely lifeless starships. Perhaps that was the desired outcome for the Borg, and the Saratoga just blew up in the process because she was so weak, old and/or unlucky. Perhaps the Borg in fact wanted to capture a few ships as intact as they possibly could, and then turn them into further Borg vessels, ENT "Regeneration" style - this would nicely explain how Wolf 359 assimilees later ended up in the Delta Quadrant.
Timo Saloniemi
We just didn't see all that much of the battle. Some ships kept on flying - possibly the Borg just hadn't gotten to those yet, possibly they were stronger and able to break free a couple of times. Others perished by unseen means while the camera followed the action inside the Saratoga. Perhaps at one time, half a dozen ships were wriggling in tractor beams?
For all we know, the Borg had little or nothing to do with the destruction of the ship as such. They just rendered her helpless and started sampling; a damaged warp core was the side effect of that, and spelled doom for the ship eventually.
Note that the battle ended in the battlefield being littered with nearly intact but nevertheless completely lifeless starships. Perhaps that was the desired outcome for the Borg, and the Saratoga just blew up in the process because she was so weak, old and/or unlucky. Perhaps the Borg in fact wanted to capture a few ships as intact as they possibly could, and then turn them into further Borg vessels, ENT "Regeneration" style - this would nicely explain how Wolf 359 assimilees later ended up in the Delta Quadrant.
Timo Saloniemi
Maybe because she was still firing on the cube?
Yes. Of course, in that case Watters wasn't as lucky as Kirk.
I just rewatched Emissary last night and had the exact same reflection. And just as the Kelvin sequence is a fantastic opening to that film, the Wolf 359 opening to Emissary is the best opening of all the pilot episodes.
I assume it was just so it could "control" the battle more, holding a ship so it can't attack its like in a fist fight keeping hold of one attacker so its almost one less to to concentrate on.
My main question re: Wolf 359 is why there are still civilians on the ships attacking the Borg, I mean they had time to mobilise a fleet but not get civilians to safety?
My main question re: Wolf 359 is why there are still civilians on the ships attacking the Borg, I mean they had time to mobilise a fleet but not get civilians to safety?
I got the impression that the 40 ship fleet they managed to cobble together at Wolf 359 was the best they could manage given the timescale. So they may not have had time to visit a planet to off load civillians. Sure you could have abandoned them in excape pods before leaving to join the fleet.
Why would civilians be safer if offloaded? At least they have a fighting chance aboard a combat starship. On the surface of Earth, say, they would have none.
Sisko seems to have a pretty good idea of what he is facing, even if Admiral Hanson put on a brave face earlier on. His wife might already have learned that it is not all that good an idea for her and their son to survive her husband...
...For all we know, the ships took aboard civilians whenever they could, so that they could die decent deaths together with their loved ones serving on those ships.
Timo Saloniemi
Sisko seems to have a pretty good idea of what he is facing, even if Admiral Hanson put on a brave face earlier on. His wife might already have learned that it is not all that good an idea for her and their son to survive her husband...
...For all we know, the ships took aboard civilians whenever they could, so that they could die decent deaths together with their loved ones serving on those ships.
Timo Saloniemi
That's what I think as well. In fact in the Trek EU there were two ships with the same name at the battle because the older ship was on her way to be decommissioned when the call came in while the newer was still in a shipyard having the finishing touches put on her. The latter was offered to Riker at the beginning of BOBW part I in fact and went into the fight with little more then a skeleton crew composed of engineers from the team assigned to construct her.
It would be consistent with the rest of Trek that Starfleet wouldn't keep useful starships anywhere near Earth. They would be better used intercepting the enemy at a distance - and concerns of geometry would dictate that no ships be deployed near the core of the defenses. Also, Earth might be wary of the military having too many guns orbiting over the seat of the government, just like republican Rome did not like the idea of legions anywhere near the capital.
The ships we actually see present at Wolf 359 include many Excelsior study models and other models intended for "pre-TNG era" Trek projects that we could interpret as abandoned projects that never went into series production, with the prototypes still remaining at the Martian dockyards for various testing purposes, or museum pieces for long-retired types.
After all, in space, mothballing would be very different from its Earth equivalent. For one thing, there would be no shortage of space! For another, the environment would be benign, requiring no active preservation measures. It might well be that a starship could simply be powered down and left as is - and again powered up in a matter of minutes if need be.
Why there would be many Galaxy kitbashes there that never appear elsewhere in Trek is more difficult to rationalize. Were all these projects failures? Why were at least two ships (the ship seen, and the supposed class ship) built of each anyway? If these types do continue to serve, where do they serve in the Dominion War? Etc.
Timo Saloniemi
The ships we actually see present at Wolf 359 include many Excelsior study models and other models intended for "pre-TNG era" Trek projects that we could interpret as abandoned projects that never went into series production, with the prototypes still remaining at the Martian dockyards for various testing purposes, or museum pieces for long-retired types.
After all, in space, mothballing would be very different from its Earth equivalent. For one thing, there would be no shortage of space! For another, the environment would be benign, requiring no active preservation measures. It might well be that a starship could simply be powered down and left as is - and again powered up in a matter of minutes if need be.
Why there would be many Galaxy kitbashes there that never appear elsewhere in Trek is more difficult to rationalize. Were all these projects failures? Why were at least two ships (the ship seen, and the supposed class ship) built of each anyway? If these types do continue to serve, where do they serve in the Dominion War? Etc.
Timo Saloniemi
During the Dominion War they were the same place as the Enterprise and all the other Sovereign class ships. Namely fighting somewhere just not seen on screen. We definitely did not see every major battle of the war or every allied fleet. I'm not event sure we ever saw every ship in one of the allied fleets that we did see on screen. It seems like a full numbered fleet in the Dominion war was a hundred ships or more after all.
We saw up close the fleet that was deployed the closest to the Dominion citadel world, Cardassia - the Ninth. No Galaxy kitbashes there, despite major exposure from great fleet panoramas. We got guest appearances by the Second and the Fifth in "Favor the Bold"/"Sacrifice of Angels". Zero Galaxy kitbashes there, too.
Why the statistically unlikely absence, unless the designs themselves were rare to begin with? The three fleets otherwise showed a regular mixture of ships from Miranda at the "early" end to Galaxy at the "new".
Things would be slightly different if the fleets we saw sometimes varied in composition. But the closest we got to that was the occasional absence of Galaxies which were rare to start with, or the sudden appearance of Excelsior era kitbashes in episodes calling for wreckage or deep background curios.
No further appearances of Galaxy-style ships in VOY or the movies, either, alas... Perhaps the whole design family was considered a failure?
Timo Saloniemi
Why the statistically unlikely absence, unless the designs themselves were rare to begin with? The three fleets otherwise showed a regular mixture of ships from Miranda at the "early" end to Galaxy at the "new".
Things would be slightly different if the fleets we saw sometimes varied in composition. But the closest we got to that was the occasional absence of Galaxies which were rare to start with, or the sudden appearance of Excelsior era kitbashes in episodes calling for wreckage or deep background curios.
No further appearances of Galaxy-style ships in VOY or the movies, either, alas... Perhaps the whole design family was considered a failure?
Timo Saloniemi
I assume it's because the fleet was hastily put together and there simply wasn't time to get them off. After all, even at warp it takes time to get places.
I too just watched "Emissary" the other day. 
As I recall, the Saratoga's warp core was damaged concurrently with the massive explosion that killed almost everyone on the bridge. That is when the evacuation started and then the ships warp core breached destroying the ship. Not sure why they held it at all nor why they held it for so long. Perhaps being an older Starship she was deemed less of a threat than the Nebula and Ambassador classes that began attacking after she was disabled? Identifying that weakness (Thanks to Locutus); the Borg may have thought they could assimilate the crew of the Saratoga easier than the others and immobilized her for that reason.
What surprised me is that any escape pods were able to make it out of there at all! One would think the Borg would either chew them up or scoop them up.
As I recall, the Saratoga's warp core was damaged concurrently with the massive explosion that killed almost everyone on the bridge. That is when the evacuation started and then the ships warp core breached destroying the ship. Not sure why they held it at all nor why they held it for so long. Perhaps being an older Starship she was deemed less of a threat than the Nebula and Ambassador classes that began attacking after she was disabled? Identifying that weakness (Thanks to Locutus); the Borg may have thought they could assimilate the crew of the Saratoga easier than the others and immobilized her for that reason.What surprised me is that any escape pods were able to make it out of there at all! One would think the Borg would either chew them up or scoop them up.
The idea that the Borg were interested in assimilating members of Federation species en masse didn't appear until after Emissary. Before First Contact assimilation was a very slow process and the only reason they assimilated Picard was to basically have a Federation face to handle communications with the Federation. When Emissary was written the Borg didn't care about the people in the escape pods they wanted to hit Earth as fast as possible.
Well, I don't think that's really the case. In the first few episodes in which they appeared we see the signs of the Borg having "scooped up" entire civilizations. Obviously they took the people as well. I would call that en masse. And in "I, Borg" one of Hugh's common phrases was "You will be assimilated". As it was with Locutus as well. I think the idea was there pre-DS9.
I tend to think that as well, although it's fair to say that the writers probably hadn't quite established it fully yet. As they were originally designed in "Q Who?", the Borg were only supposed to be a threat of the week and not likely to recur. Hence one reason for the Borg nursery. Guinan and Q both make statements that imply they're already assimilating in some fashion though, that the Borg Collective is the "ultimate consumer" and that the crew represent only "raw material" to them.
