FIRST CONTACT BORG QUESTION

[Gkar]

ok here is one for you guys. The Borg always claim that there is no individual in the collective and that "we are many". However, for a species that is "many" why send only 1 borg cube to assimilate an entire species that has resisted them before (Wolf 359 battle) ? Why not send "many"?
Seems like a species of "many" has succumbed to the collective arrogance that one individual who believes he can't lose a fight usually suffers from!!!

What are your thoughts???

 

[RoJoHen]

The Borg are more emotional than we give them credit for, and they suffer from arrogance and pride.

 

[Christopher]

Gkar said:
ok here is one for you guys. The Borg always claim that there is no individual in the collective and that "we are many". However, for a species that is "many" why send only 1 borg cube to assimilate an entire species that has resisted them before (Wolf 359 battle) ? Why not send "many"?

It appeared that their main objective was to get the time sphere close enough to Earth that they could use it to go back and assimilate humanity in the past. The cube was presumably just a means of getting it there.

After all, the Borg value efficiency. And to them, the Federation was just one remote society out of the thousands they were assimilating over much of the galaxy. Why expend an entire fleet against the UFP when a single time sphere and an escort would suffice to eradicate it from history?

The real question is, why didn't they just go back in time first and then travel across space to an undefended Earth? And the even bigger question is, if they have time travel technology, why did they only use it this once?

 

[Peach Wookiee]

The Borg are number crunchers...

 

[jayrath]

Seeing as how a single ship damn near beat all combined Federation forces, I think it was quite sufficient.

It's a good thing they didn't send two!

 

[BriGuy]

Do you think the sphere and assimilating humanity in the past was really plan A, or was it a backup plan B?

The problem in sending more than one cube is to write it so it's believable that our heroes can prevail.

I think the only time a ship encountered more than one Borg cube was when Voyager got run over by the Borg "armada" that got destroyed by 8472. That was an awesome scene, IMO.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Based on what we saw of the Borg on VOY, it seems inexplicable that the Borg never sent an armada to assimilate the whole Alpha Quadrant. There, you have several highly advanced, intelligent species, whereas the Delta Quadrant seemed to be full of backwater bumpkins and fallen empires. I mean, if they went to all the trouble of invading Fluidic Space, you'd think it wouldn't be that hard to dedicate a significant task force to wiping out all resistance in the Alpha Quadrant.

But yeah, there's that little plausibility problem. It'd be pretty hard to defeat them in terms of firepower, and you can only find creative ways to defeat them so many times before it becomes a cliche.

 

[Jon1701]

BriGuy said:
Do you think the sphere and assimilating humanity in the past was really plan A, or was it a backup plan B?

It plays out onscreen as plan B, but i'd like to think it was plan A. You get the impression that the Borg would have won the initial battle had it not been for that pesky Jean Luc Picard and his knowledge of the [Insert Technobabble here] on the Borg ship.

It's a far too convoluted a plan really. I would think that they planned to travel back in time all along, and simply chose an impromptu moment to lauch the time-sphere-thingamibob.

 

[votd]

Maybe the Borg didn't just travel back in time before is because they are aware of the effects of causality; travelling back in time, then travelling in space to the Federation may have a huge knock on effect on the Borg empire somehow in the future; maybe it was plan B because of this.

 

[Timo]

Well, if the villain enjoys more than one-off access to time travel, no outcome other than the one desired by the villain makes any sense. If the adventure ends in something the villain didn't want, he can always go back in time again, and again, until he succeeds.

Since the Borg time-sphere seems like something they could construct at will, as many times as required, I thus prefer to think that the Borg did win that round. Perhaps they wanted to help Cochrane build his warp drive and contact the Vulcans, so that a Federation would be born and would develop all these nice technologies for them to assimilate (since, as said, the Delta natives weren't all that useful in this respect). And perhaps Cochrane could never have succeeded unless assisted by somebody like LaForge. So the Borg created a time loop where a future engineer (perhaps not LaForge the first time, or every time) would go back in time to help with the first warp engine, then the future LaForge would learn about that engine at school, go back to help Cochrane some more, and so forth - until finally, the design got perfected, and the time loop grew stable.

By no means too complex a plot for the Collective to handle; they'd only have to put up token resistance, do token harm to Starfleet and then to Cochrane in order to motivate the future engineer. They might do such things as a matter of routine, to kick-start advanced societies. And every now and then, they might get more than they wished for, and would have to go to the defensive for a while - but ultimately, they'd be the stronger for the experience.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

BriGuy said:
Do you think the sphere and assimilating humanity in the past was really plan A, or was it a backup plan B?

That possibility occurred to me, but it seems unlikely that something as powerful as time travel would be kept as a backup or an afterthought. I mean, given that Borg don't time-travel routinely, it follows that they don't have time spheres as standard equipment on every cube. So why would this cube have included a time sphere if that hadn't been key to their plans all along?

Honestly, the whole idea falls apart if you think about it too much. Giving the Borg time travel ability and then never having them use it again anywhere was just lame.

Robert Maxwell said:
Based on what we saw of the Borg on VOY, it seems inexplicable that the Borg never sent an armada to assimilate the whole Alpha Quadrant. There, you have several highly advanced, intelligent species, whereas the Delta Quadrant seemed to be full of backwater bumpkins and fallen empires. I mean, if they went to all the trouble of invading Fluidic Space, you'd think it wouldn't be that hard to dedicate a significant task force to wiping out all resistance in the Alpha Quadrant.

The portions of the DQ that Voyager visited were relatively backward, but that was only a tiny fraction of the quadrant as a whole, a narrow line with enormous gaps in it. During their time passing through Borg-controlled territory, they made two 10,000-light-year jumps and one 20,000-ly jump. For all we know, the intervening territory is full of powerful empires that are occupying the Borg's attention sufficiently that they can't spare a lot of resources for someplace as remote as the UFP.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Christopher said:

Robert Maxwell said:
Based on what we saw of the Borg on VOY, it seems inexplicable that the Borg never sent an armada to assimilate the whole Alpha Quadrant. There, you have several highly advanced, intelligent species, whereas the Delta Quadrant seemed to be full of backwater bumpkins and fallen empires. I mean, if they went to all the trouble of invading Fluidic Space, you'd think it wouldn't be that hard to dedicate a significant task force to wiping out all resistance in the Alpha Quadrant.

The portions of the DQ that Voyager visited were relatively backward, but that was only a tiny fraction of the quadrant as a whole, a narrow line with enormous gaps in it. During their time passing through Borg-controlled territory, they made two 10,000-light-year jumps and one 20,000-ly jump. For all we know, the intervening territory is full of powerful empires that are occupying the Borg's attention sufficiently that they can't spare a lot of resources for someplace as remote as the UFP.

You could be right. I remember something being implied by the super linguist alien in "Hope and Fear" that the numerous species adjoining Borg space spent a lot of time resisting, and that they saw the 8472 War as a great boon to their own struggles. If the Borg really are surrounded on all sides by species who've spent thousands of years fighting them, I could see how they wouldn't have the resources to throw at the Alpha Quadrant. Enough to take a stab at assimilating some Feds every 5 years or so, but not enough to stage full-scale invasion. Looking at it that way, I guess the Borg don't need to assimilate the entire Federation to obtain an advantage--they can just assimilate ships and people here and there, acquiring their knowledge and technology, so they never lose pace with the technology level in the AQ. They won't be caught off-guard whenever they do opt to come in force.

 

[Mike Farley]

Christopher said:

Gkar said:
ok here is one for you guys. The Borg always claim that there is no individual in the collective and that "we are many". However, for a species that is "many" why send only 1 borg cube to assimilate an entire species that has resisted them before (Wolf 359 battle) ? Why not send "many"?

It appeared that their main objective was to get the time sphere close enough to Earth that they could use it to go back and assimilate humanity in the past. The cube was presumably just a means of getting it there.

After all, the Borg value efficiency. And to them, the Federation was just one remote society out of the thousands they were assimilating over much of the galaxy. Why expend an entire fleet against the UFP when a single time sphere and an escort would suffice to eradicate it from history?

The real question is, why didn't they just go back in time first and then travel across space to an undefended Earth? And the even bigger question is, if they have time travel technology, why did they only use it this once?

The answer to both the original question and your "real" question is the same: Bad Writing.

It unfortunately plagued all the TNG films where being "kewl" was more important than making sense.

 

[Unicron]

It's the same reason the Borg always attack with one ship. The writers didn't know how to handle such a powerful race intelligently, and thus they had to toss out Guinan's line about the Collective never doing anything piecemeal from "Q Who?"

 

[CaptainStoner]

Normally, the Borg wouldn't use time travel because of its inherant dangers.
But with Earth, there was Picard. The 'threat assesment' of Picard was much higher than any normal situation.
So they made a Sphere capable of a time jump. An unusual Sphere and it needed to be close to the planet for some reason. That's why the singular Cube, basically on a suicide run to launch the Sphere. They probably didn't expect to inflict such heavy losses on Starfleet, thinking that Picard would be there from the start.
As soon as the Sphere went back in time, the timeline was changed, and the Borg lost the ability, so it turned out to be a one-shot deal.

Anyway, that's my best attempt to stop the bleeding...

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Hm... possible...

 

[DonIago]

Simple- evolution through chaos.

The Borg send a single ship to Earth every once in a while to see how the humans are doing. The humans in turn toughen up and find a way to beat the single Borg ship.

Eventually, when the humans are as good as they're going to get the Borg send 20 ships and Earth doesn't stand a chance.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Unless the Borg finally get desperate enough and assimilate the Kazon...

 

[Nebusj]

Holly Wookiee said:
Unless the Borg finally get desperate enough and assimilate the Kazon...

After absorbing the Kazon's uniqueness the Borg are finally defeated when the Federation holds up their car keys and jingles the shinies, leaving the Borg-Kazon hopelessly distracted.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Borg are arrogant enough that they feel that it's only a matter of time before everything is assimilated. So they don't have to send a whole fleet, they can afford to send one cube at a time. Eventually, so their reasoning goes, they'll make it.

As for why the sphere went back in time when it was so close to Earth: I gotta go with votd on this. I think they intentionally did this so they didn't cause unforeseen changes to the timeline (by staying too long in the past).