First Contact and the Borg attack

[wulfio]

Have you ever wondered why did the Borg travel to Earth orbit to fight when moving into the past, if they had just jumped into 2063 somewhere else Enterprise wouldn't have followed them and prevent their plan to assimilate Earth in the past.

It would have made a pretty boring movie but still...

My thought process is that the traveling back in time was a last ditch effort once the invasion failed.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Bjut that makes for an absolutely moronic backup plan.

I don't think it was a backup plan at all. It was just something decided right then and there by the Collective. Their idea of a Hail Marry pass.

You're a college quarterback watching your line collapse like a bunch of girlscouts in an avalanche. Five defensive linemen and two backers gunning for you with the fires of hell burning in their eyes. It's 4th and 12 and there is no way you can run for a first down without getting murdered.

Do you:
a) Try desperately to find an open receiver and make a last-ditch throw before you get destroyed
b) Run for the sidelines and hope to find an opening
c) Throw the ball out of bounds to avoid a possible fumble and/or giving away yards to the offense
d) Take a knee
e) Pull a time machine out of your ass, travel back to the beginning of the game and steal the other team's water bottles in the hope that they will be too thirsty to win the game later.

There is only one wrong answer to this question.

The question itself is wrong.

My thought process is that the traveling back in time was a last ditch effort once the invasion failed.

Same here.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Bjut that makes for an absolutely moronic backup plan. Going back and assimilating Earth BEFORE they have any useful technology is complete waste of time, especially if they first go out of their way to murder the only people on the entire planet who know anything about warp drive.

The Borg don't assimilate you because you're useful. They believe they're doing every species a favor by bringing them closer to 'perfection'.

Tell that to the Kazon.

By which I meant they don't assimilate you *just* because you're useful. In other words: they were going to assimilate you anyway - the fact that you're useful is just a bonus.

I doubt if even the Federation has all that much technology that would be extremely useful to them.

Then what exactly happened in "Q Who"? The Borg were uniquely disinterested in humans as a species then, only in their technology. Picard speculates "their priorities seem to have changed" in Best of Both Worlds, and in First Contact they're showing the exact opposite extreme:

"They're not interested in your technology. They're simply interested in your species. Your genome. They've identified it as something they can improve."

Trek has been somewhat inconsistent over the years about the exact motives of the borg, but the drive to create perfection for all species always seemed to me to be the most consistent portrayal (the one we were shown most often). And the other portrayals are not always automatically inconsistant with it. In Q Who, the borg are portrayed as scouting the enterprise - they haven't yet made the decision if they should stop what they were already doing to immediately assimilate this new ship. Also - the extremely unusual appearance of the ship in the system (by the highly advanced Q drive ) most likely significantly piqued their interest in the technological side of the enterprise over the biological.

The only character who outright says that the borg aren't interested in the crew at all is Q - and he's all about playing games with people.

One sphere may not be able to guarantee success against the entire human race.

Since when? Once cube was supposed to accomplish that against the entire Federation. One sphere against a single planetbound species that has neither spacecraft nor any kind of coherent central government? Cochrane's flight should have been the LEAST of their concerns.

The sphere is clearly much smaller and much more fragile than a cube. The Enterprise destroys it utterly with a single torpedo spread. The Human race is relatively primitive, but still capable of building orbital warships. Not to mention the fact that humans have already proven themselves unbelieveably resourceful in their efforts to thwart assimilation in the 24th cen. If the Borg where to lose the sphere, they would be forced to create an entirely new fabrication center using exclusively 21st cen. materials and technologies which may not be anywhere near as effective as what can be accomplished using a cube as a base, and it would make them earthbound and thus vulnerable to nuclear strikes.

 

[Robert Comsol]

Then what exactly happened in "Q Who"? The Borg were uniquely disinterested in humans as a species then, only in their technology. Picard speculates "their priorities seem to have changed" in Best of Both Worlds.

My reply would be something like this:

The Borg had been to the Neutral Zone and assimilated the Earth and Romulan outposts ("The Neutral Zone"), "Q Who" confirmed this:

WORF: Captain, the sixth planet in the system is Class M.
DATA: There is a system of roads on this planet, which indicates a highly industrialised civilisation. But where there should be cities there are only great rips in the surface.
WORF: It is as though some great force just scooped all the machine elements off the face of the planet.
DATA: It is identical to what happened to the outposts along the Neutral Zone.

The Borg turned back because they found nothing of interest to proceed further. The Borg later encountered and examined the memory banks of the Enterprise-D, possibly wondering how a Federation ship could have travelled that far. The memory banks provided no clue. They pursued the "D" only to witness her unexpectedly disappear thanks to the "Q Drive".

Because the Borg were only interested in technology and definitely technology superior to theirs, it is a logical conclusion that they intended to add this "Q Drive" to their technology.

Whether the "Q Drive" was secret technology not listed in the memory banks or some kind of psychic ability of the humans remained unknown to the Borg. The logical course of action was to apprehend and assimilate the captain of the Enterprise-D because he probably knew. Apparently, the Borg vessel from "Q Who" signalled the Borg vessel returning from the Neutral Zone to find the Enterprise-D and assimilate its captain (or crew) if necessary.

This is exactly what happened in "Best of Both Worlds". Of course, that still didn't do the Borg any good because there was no "Q Drive" aboard the Enterprise-D. Obviously they couldn't grasp the concept of the omnipotent Q (think V'ger) or dismissed it as some kind of safety implant in Picard's brain not to reveal the "Q Drive" secrets.

The next logical course of action was to proceed to the source (Earth) in yet another attempt to gain knowledge about the "Q Drive".

This is my rationalization approach to unite the observed facts from "The Neutral Zone", "Q Who" and "BoBW" in one theory with the "Q Drive" being the major motivation to return to Federation territory (which after "Q Who" was to be most definitely expected).

Bob

 

[Grendelsbayne]

But then why do they bother assimilating anyone who doesn't have such special knowledge? (Like, for instance, Seven of Nine and her family...)

 

[Mytran]

Maybe there was a drone shortage on the Cube that week? Even if tech is the primary goal, the Collective will still need workers.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think the Borg also use assimilation as a means of exploring new things they come across (such as the ill-fated Raven), with the side benefit of expanding their numbers.

The Borg may only be hesitant to assimilate those from a very primitive (pre-warp or even pre-industrial) civilization. But we've also seen instances in which Starfleet personnel have been able to move among Borg drones and be totally ignored unless they start becoming a nuisance.

 

[Robert Comsol]

But then why do they bother assimilating anyone who doesn't have such special knowledge? (Like, for instance, Seven of Nine and her family...)

Personally, I take most post-TNG depictions with grains of salt, especially once they become increasingly difficult to rationalize.

Essentially, Seven of Nine's family was spying on the Borg and gathering intelligence. I believe there was a point in time where the Borg perceived the family as a threat and felt the urge to assimilate.

On the other hand, through assimilation the Borg learned how fast humans can gather and proccess information, such knowledge may have been a helpful tactical information for their next encounters with humans.

Bob

 

[Mytran]

The "assimilate everyone" policy only really takes off with the advent of nanoprobes though, which simplify the whole process (for the Borg) enormously. Since they don't need to spend hours performing surgery on each new drone any more, why not grab a few more volunteers if the opportunity arises?

 

[Robert Comsol]

If the Bussard Ramscoops of the Enterprise-D take space matter / energy in to save onboard fuels, then the Borg would probably do the same and also assimilate compatible lifeforms to serve the collective to save onboard "supplies".

Bob

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Personally, I've always believed that the Borg couldn't possibly have become as big a threat as they are without assimilating as many people as possible. They're too willing to throw away the lives of drones for even the smallest imaginable gain - they clearly consider drones not just replaceable but immediately replaceable, like replacing a battery. Even cloning probably wouldn't produce drones that fast in that large numbers, so the logical explanation is they expect to replace every drone lost and more as soon as the resistance is overcome and assimilation begins.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

My thought process is that the traveling back in time was a last ditch effort once the invasion failed.

Same here.

Me too.

As for why the Borg didn't go back in time when they were still in the Delta Quadrant (and thus unreachable by Starfleet)? Hubris, probably. The Borg believe that they can afford to wait until whenever they want. They're so confident in their ability to overcome any threat that they don't take a lot of steps to get around it. So they felt no need to time travel until it was absolutely necessary.

 

[austen_pierce]

This is purely subjective, but I could never reconcile the Borg's pursuit of perfection with those ugly rubber implants. Assimilated 24th Century tech should have been so much more efficient and subtle.

 

[BillJ]

This is purely subjective, but I could never reconcile the Borg's pursuit of perfection with those ugly rubber implants. Assimilated 24th Century tech should have been so much more efficient and subtle.

Agreed. Though beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe the Borg Queen was into S&M before she became queen?

 

[Ithekro]

Perhaps the Borg decided at the last moment that they needed to nuetralize the threat of the Federation in the past, but instead of assimilation, they go with time travel and assassination because they simply want to open the door for their future 24th century assimilation mission, when the larger cubes can take over worlds like Vulcan and Andor. I half imagine that the Vulcans could have destroyed the Borg attempts to assimllate Earth shortly after the arrived. And even if they did not, it wouldn't have been as much of a gain for the Borg in the 21st century, but would have been viable by the 24th century.

But that isn't really about the battle is it? How many ships did Starfleet send against that cube and how long was that running fight from contact all the way back to Sol? It should take a while to get from the Romulan border all the way back to Earth even with one of the fastest starships in the fleet. One would speculate days rather than hours, but travel across Federation space has never been very consistant. Nor has the Romulan border always been extremely far away given that it still had to be within fighting range of at best Warp 5 equipped starships for the Romulan war that was over two hundred years prior to this attack by the Borg.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

This is purely subjective, but I could never reconcile the Borg's pursuit of perfection with those ugly rubber implants. Assimilated 24th Century tech should have been so much more efficient and subtle.

Agreed. Though beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe the Borg Queen was into S&M before she became queen?

Safe words are irrelevant. Resistance is futile.

 

[austen_pierce]

This is purely subjective, but I could never reconcile the Borg's pursuit of perfection with those ugly rubber implants. Assimilated 24th Century tech should have been so much more efficient and subtle.

Agreed. Though beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe the Borg Queen was into S&M before she became queen?

Safe words are irrelevant. Resistance is futile.

Right... the Alice Kridge + Data scenes weren't remotely sexual.