How did the Borg get to earth, before they got Transwarp?

[Infern0]

I am assuming that they assimilated Transwarp from Arturis' people and did not have it during B.O.B.W.

So how were they able to move around the galaxy so fast?

Even if we assume the Ship from Q Who is the same one in B.O.B.W, they still got from J25 to earth in incredibly impressive time with no transwarp capability, 10,000 light years in around a year.

 

[The Wormhole]

The Borg had transwarp at least ten years prior to Q Who, according to Voyager. Dark Fontier establishes this.

But even if we don't want to accept this, presumably they could have used one of those subspace corridor thingies from Descent. After all, it transported the Enterprise and Lore's Borg ship to the Delta Quadrant and back again.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think the Borg's transwarp hub system is somewhat unreliable, with perhaps some parts of the Galaxy (like the Alpha Quadrant) accessible for only a certain period of time if transwarp corridors are natural subspace phenomena that appear and then disappear after awhile.

 

[Devo]

The Borg had transwarp at least ten years prior to Q Who, according to Voyager. Dark Fontier establishes this.

But even if we don't want to accept this, presumably they could have used one of those subspace corridor thingies from Descent. After all, it transported the Enterprise and Lore's Borg ship to the Delta Quadrant and back again.

Hang on, I thought that transwarp conduit only had a distance of 65 light years? At least that what Riker says.

 

[Christopher]

I am assuming that they assimilated Transwarp from Arturis' people and did not have it during B.O.B.W.

You're confusing two different propulsion systems. Arturis's people used quantum slipstream drive.

We know that the Borg already had transwarp as early as 2353, when the Hansens followed a Borg cube through a transwarp corridor to the Delta Quadrant, as seen in "Dark Frontier."

 

[The Wormhole]

The Borg had transwarp at least ten years prior to Q Who, according to Voyager. Dark Fontier establishes this.

But even if we don't want to accept this, presumably they could have used one of those subspace corridor thingies from Descent. After all, it transported the Enterprise and Lore's Borg ship to the Delta Quadrant and back again.

Hang on, I thought that transwarp conduit only had a distance of 65 light years? At least that what Riker says.

This computer display from Descent makes it clear they're in the Delta Quadrant.

 

[at Quark's]

It would be very unlikely that the Borg, having conquered as large a territory as they have, having assimilated thousands of species, and being so old, would only have acquired transwarp in those last few years.

Before it became evident they used conduits, I simply assumed they had warp capability significantly more advanced than that of the federation. For all we know, that still could be the case, I don't think I can remember any reference to a cube's conventional 'top speed'

 

[Timo]

Hang on, I thought that transwarp conduit only had a distance of 65 light years? At least that what Riker says.

This computer display from Descent makes it clear they're in the Delta Quadrant.

And the reason for the confusion is that our heroes made two trips along that fancy conduit before reaching Lore's lair. At first, they are caught in the conduit in the wake of the Borg vessel, try to fight it, and return to normal space somewhat haphazardly, somewhere in the Delta Quadrant. They then fight the Borg, and lick their wounds, and LaForge shows the above diagram and tries to explain what happened. Then the Borg again appear and use the conduit, and Data escapes in a shuttle; when the heroes follow the shuttle by goading the conduit open all by themselves, that trip takes them 65 lightyears further into the Delta Quadrant.

Probably the conduit system was just as "nonstandard" as the fancy-looking ship of the renegade Borg: the creation of a deranged (hive) mind, grotesquely and somewhat inefficiently imitating the achievements of the regular Collective.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Phily B]

I thought Borg ships just had way faster warp speed than the Feds.

 

[Devo]

Thank you for enlightening me, Timo.

Now then, the question remaining is where the Borg got their transwarp technology to begin with. From which race was it assimilated? Or did the Borg create it themselves (unlikely as that is, since the Borg have no imagination, poor bastards)?

 

[Christopher]

Everything the Borg have is assimilated from somebody. They've been expanding through the galaxy for thousands of years, so they've accumulated a lot of tech -- and since their territory is in the Delta Quadrant, they've no doubt assimilated and destroyed countless civilizations we've never heard of and never will.

Although we know from "Dragon's Teeth" that the Borg only controlled a few systems as of the year 1484, which suggests their assimilation of transwarp occurred somewhat later.

 

[Anwar]

That's assuming the Vadwaar encountered something more than just some new expansion of the Borg all those centuries ago. Because it doesn't mesh with Q talking about the Borg existing for thousands of centuries.

 

[Timo]

The Vaadwaur might have been simply ignorant of the true extent of the Borg empire - or then factually quite correct. After all, the Borg aren't known for their "control of systems". They live in the depths of empty space, they skulk around, they assimilate, and they disappear again. Planets are probably just "consumed" in the process, and any physical occupation thereof is a brief one, a few centuries at most.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Librarian]

Keep in mind that there was a Borg cube skulking around the Neutral Zone in late TNG Season 1. Also, 10,000 light-years isn't that far to cover if you can sustain high warp speeds indefinitely.

 

[Timo]

Keep in mind that there was a Borg cube skulking around the Neutral Zone in late TNG Season 1.

Quite so. The idea that the ship in "BoBW" would have reached the Federation at impossibly high speeds comes from Data's assertion that the dimensions of the ship in the episode are exactly the same as those of the ship previously encountered in "Q Who?", approximately 7,000 ly away from the Federation. And Data might have been wrong.

Or, more probably, Borg Cubes come in standard sizes even if individual ships can be identified by their details. And the details might change with time, as the ships repair themselves or improve themselves. So the ship that scooped up the Jouret colony may not have been the one that offed J-25 previously. And it may or may not be the same that destroyed the RNZ outposts.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

That's assuming the Vadwaar encountered something more than just some new expansion of the Borg all those centuries ago. Because it doesn't mesh with Q talking about the Borg existing for thousands of centuries.

There's a lot about the early portrayal of the Borg in "Q Who" that was retconned or abandoned in later episodes -- the claim that they had no interest in people, only machines; the idea that drones were incubated from birth rather than assimilated; and so forth. A TV series is a work in progress, and early depictions tend to be rough-draft interpretations that get refined and changed over time. There are a wealth of cases where we disregard the early references when later references contradict them. We accept that Data doesn't use contractions even though he used them constantly for half a season before "Datalore" suddenly claimed he didn't. We accept that Khan and his people were created by genetic engineering as stated in TWOK even though the original episode said they were created by selective breeding. We accept that Picard is an expert in archaeology even though "The Last Outpost" portrayed a Picard who knew nothing about the subject and had never heard of the ancient Tkon Empire.

Anyway, I wasn't "assuming" anything. I only said that "Dragon's Teeth" suggested that Borg expansion was a recent phenomenon; I didn't claim it proved it. It's one possible interpretation. Of course there are many, because this isn't real; it's just a bunch of stuff that different people made up in different stories, often contradicting each other, and the best we can do is try to pretend it fits together somehow. So of course there's no actual "right" answer.

 

[Timo]

The retcons are dramatically pretty nifty...

the claim that they had no interest in people, only machines

And doesn't that put the heroes in their place! "Sure, they are interested in people. They just aren't the slightest bit interested in you!"

the idea that drones were incubated from birth rather than assimilated

It's really enjoyable when our heroes on occasion make completely incorrect guesses about alien species, isn't it?

We accept that Data doesn't use contractions

What an odd thing to "accept" when it doesn't even exist! Data keeps using contractions throughout his known existence, and never suggests that he wouldn't. He just tends to use stilted patterns of speech, and readily admits to being wooden in other ways as well.

We accept that Khan and his people were created by genetic engineering as stated in TWOK even though the original episode said they were created by selective breeding.

Another fine example of nothing really being contradicted, because one is the other, just in somewhat different terms. Far more clever than Obi-Wan claiming that "your father was betrayed and killed by Darth Vader" was a "certain point of view"... (But that works just fine, too.)

We accept that Picard is an expert in archaeology even though "The Last Outpost" portrayed a Picard who 1) knew nothing about the subject and 2) had never heard of the ancient Tkon Empire.

Well, 2) is established. But 1) doesn't follow. Schliemann had never heard of Tikal and knew nothing concrete of Mohenjo Daro, but was a halfway credible amateur archaeologist nevertheless. Nobody from Schliemann's days had heard of (or, made) the all-important migration pattern discoveries relating to the settlement of the Americas by early man.

Whether anybody in 2364 knew about the Tkon isn't unclear. Whether the knowledge about them amounted to anything solid or relevant is open to debate, though. Schliemann thought he knew a thing or two about the history of Troy and the ancient Greeks, but he was dead wrong. What archived stories of the Tkon Data was able to access may have been 100% false, too - except it now turned out they weren't. For all we know, Data is having a Daniel Jackson moment here, associating implausible legend with fantastically revealed fact...

Picard being a renaissance man was well established at that point already. His specific credentials in archaeology are open to speculation; his not knowing about the Tkon is not a detour from his character development, any more than his ignorance of certain recent engineering feats is in contradiction with his general grasp of physics.

Timo Saloniemi