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The Borg ships VOY introduced

Tactical sphere...? Where'd that come from? I don't recall any episodes referring to a sphere specifically besides the cube or tactical cube. Was it Korok's sphere in Unimatrix Zero, Part II?
 
I know VOY gets flack for being able to do any damage whatsoever to any Borg ship, and it was considered "heresy" that they could blow up that Probe ship that one time

Do please get over yourself, people don't think this.
but there's something else I've noticed:

The Borg Tactical Sphere and the Borg Tactical Cube shown in the series were actually both still MUCH smaller than the massive "Assimilation" Cubes we saw in Q Who?, BOBW, FC and Scorpion.

Is it likely that despite having cooler names both of these ship types are actually much weaker than the "normal" Cube type seen (which was practically unstoppable)? I saw a size comparison chart once that showed a Tactical Sphere not being that much bigger than a few Sovereign class ships, certainly not the massive Cube size seen in FC or BOBW.
Do you remember where you saw the size comparison? I'm interested.
It was also mentioned in "Dark Frontier"
The Hansons talked about the Cube they followed from the AQ to the DQ meet up and docked within an even larger one.
 
Why need "Tactical" ships? For species that can actually fight back and the Borg can't just easily adapt to. They'd have to exist or the Borg would rule the DQ completely by the TNG era.
Exactly.
This was covered in "Hope & Fear".
When the Borg were described as a "force of nature" and if you prep properly, you can hold them off or avoid them completely.

Plus in "Q Who?", Q describes the Borg as "one" of the dangers in the galaxy. Not that they were the worst or unavoidable. Seeing as how Picard was Q's favorite "pet", I don't think he would introduce him to an enemy he couldn't be saved from or beat. The Borg were never the threat the fanbase makes them out to be. The debate of individuality vs. collective mind was always our upper hand over them from the start. It also why Species 8472 & the Dominion are bigger threats and I'm pretty sure Q is aware of species even worse than them.

So it's not like those in charge did already tell us, the Borg are lower on the totem pole of galactic threats.
 
I really think you're missing my point. The Borg, as introduced in TNG, have ships that are crazy powerful already. One single Borg cube managed to break past all of the Federation's defenses. If it hadn't been for Locutus being tricked into making the cube self-destruct, Earth would have been toast. They had no need for "tactical" ships. One regular Borg ship took care of the job just fine.

But TNG was the first one to show that there were more types of Borg ships than the Assimilation Cube. The Borg Scout vessel showed up in TNG first, even before First Contact.

Until Species 8472 arrived, FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION, the Borg had absolutely no problems assimilating anybody with their regular Cubes.

Q said they were just ONE of the powerful forces out there, not that they were the dominant one. That the rest of the Galaxy wasn't under Borg control showed already that there had to be folks out there who could fight the Borg and win. They just went for the Feds because the Feds were so weak compared to them.

Also, the nature of Borg technology and society (as it was until VOY decided to invent all this other crap) was redundant. Borg Cubes had no power core. They had no primary defensive grid. Nothing about a Cube stands out, and every drone in the Collective is as unremarkable as the next. It wouldn't make sense, given the Borg's mindset, to have different classes of ship. Every Borg ship would be identical and be able to accomplish the exact same goals.

They made those observations on the massive Assimilation Cube, not on things like other Borg ships or any Borg stations or planets they encountered. What was stated about the Borg in TNG was from incomplete observations, not utter truth. Plenty of room to expand on that (because frankly what was stated about the Borg in "Q Who?" alone makes them VERY boring after 2 appearances).

Now, I realize VOY changed the rules and made the Borg society a much different animal, but I'm arguing from the perspective of how the Borg were originally conceived. I mean, the Borg in "Scorpion" are still pretty much the same as they were in "Q, Who?" and "BOBW." It wasn't until later that all these changes were introduced.

Like I said, it was TNG that created the idea of multiple Borg vessels to begin with. VOY simply expanded on them in way that HAS to be done when anyone shows up more then once or twice.

I maintain my position. Maybe Lore and Hugh stole it, and then they upgraded it with Borg technology. I just don't believe it was originally of Borg design.

It was, later shows said so. And if it's upgraded with Borg tech then for all intents and purposes it IS a Borg ship.
 
I was generally annoyed that VOY introduced different kinds of ships at all.

FC introduced the Sphere only because it needed to give the Queen a means of surviving. If they hadn't invented the Queen character, that Sphere probably would not have existed.

Having so many different kinds of ships really goes against everything we knew about the Borg at the time. Why would the Borg need tactical ships? Probe ships? The very nature of the Borg assumes that one type of ship should be able to accomplish all of its goals.
Well for example, what if the Borg wanted to assimilate a race on the other side of something like the Badlands. A large Cube couldn't navigate thru the ion storms without suffering major damage. A smaller ship like a probe can. A Tactical Cube can defend against some species that are more powerful than the Borg. The Voth, for example.
 
The Borg were never the threat the fanbase makes them out to be. The debate of individuality vs. collective mind was always our upper hand over them from the start. It also why Species 8472 & the Dominion are bigger threats and I'm pretty sure Q is aware of species even worse than them.
the dominion a bigger threat than the borg, that's a joke, isn't it? we had a couple of voyager episodes showing borg installations with fleets of cubes outnumbering dominion and all alpha quadrant empire fleets combined, and single cubes defeated whole federation fleets with ease. i'm positive the borg would have defeated 8472 as well, they had the technology all along, and the doc of voyager, by a stroke of insight, just figured out first how to adapt it. adapting is the specialty of the borg, however. i don't know if they were aware of the dominion, if so, they must have regarded it as unworthy of assimilation. it's technology is obsolete compared to what the borg already have, and for the species, the founders are a pool of goo, the jem-hadar have no brains, and the vorta are freak accidents of tinkering with dna. i think q's furious "don't provoke the borg" to his son in q2 makes it clear that even the q are concerned about the borg.
 
The Borg were never the threat the fanbase makes them out to be. The debate of individuality vs. collective mind was always our upper hand over them from the start. It also why Species 8472 & the Dominion are bigger threats and I'm pretty sure Q is aware of species even worse than them.
the dominion a bigger threat than the borg, that's a joke, isn't it? we had a couple of voyager episodes showing borg installations with fleets of cubes outnumbering dominion and all alpha quadrant empire fleets combined, and single cubes defeated whole federation fleets with ease. i'm positive the borg would have defeated 8472 as well, they had the technology all along, and the doc of voyager, by a stroke of insight, just figured out first how to adapt it. adapting is the specialty of the borg, however. i don't know if they were aware of the dominion, if so, they must have regarded it as unworthy of assimilation. it's technology is obsolete compared to what the borg already have, and for the species, the founders are a pool of goo, the jem-hadar have no brains, and the vorta are freak accidents of tinkering with dna. i think q's furious "don't provoke the borg" to his son in q2 makes it clear that even the q are concerned about the borg.
the Borg showed when fighting 8472, that having the tech didn't mean they knew how to use it against an enemy they couldn't assimilate. By your own admission, if the Borg wouldn't or couldn't assimilate the Dominion they wouldn't have insight on how to beat them nor 8472. The Borg don't think outside the box, individuals do. Trek eps. dealing with the Borg have stated that point REPEATEDLY. Q are concerned about not provoking the Borg because they don't want other species that are their play things assimilated. The Borg wouldn't be much fun to the Q to play with because they can be manipulated the same why individual humanoids can.
 
Uh, of course the Borg think outside the box, that's what their ability to adapt IS. It's a lot of individuals contributing to their overall planning and collective intellect.(of course, they're contributing involuntarily)

But look at their changes in strategy from "Q Who," when they didn't bother with individual assimilation, to "BOBW," where kidnapping Picard was their whole plan. By, FC, they've got the Borg Queen using seduction of Data as a strategy.

That's called thinking outside the box.
 
Uh, of course the Borg think outside the box, that's what their ability to adapt IS. It's a lot of individuals contributing to their overall planning and collective intellect.(of course, they're contributing involuntarily)

But look at their changes in strategy from "Q Who," when they didn't bother with individual assimilation, to "BOBW," where kidnapping Picard was their whole plan. By, FC, they've got the Borg Queen using seduction of Data as a strategy.

That's called thinking outside the box.
Voyager stated the Borg can't adapt to what they haven't assimilated before. They've assimilated humans before Picard, so they knew what strategy to use. They knew how to get to Data because whatever Picard knows, they now know. They couldn't adapt to Species 8472 because they couldn't assimilate them to understand them. They didn't think outside the box, they stole the knowledge.
 
That's right, even in their very first appearance they had to first slice a chunk of the ENT-D out to analyze it and sent two drones over to hack the computer banks before they learned how to adapt to the Federation's weaponry. Before they did that, a full power shot crippled them.
 
OK, So maybe the first Borg cube gets defeated easily by Species 8472, but the next Borg cube that encounters them should be able to make improvements using that new knowledge, right? Otherwise, it seems like taken literally, "unable to adapt to what they haven't assimilated" would mean the Borg could never conquer new species! If they encountered a new strategy from an unfamiliar foe that they had trouble with, they would continue to be defeated by that same method, over and over again.
 
OK, So maybe the first Borg cube gets defeated easily by Species 8472, but the next Borg cube that encounters them should be able to make improvements using that new knowledge, right? Otherwise, it seems like taken literally, "unable to adapt to what they haven't assimilated" would mean the Borg could never conquer new species! If they encountered a new strategy from an unfamiliar foe that they had trouble with, they would continue to be defeated by that same method, over and over again.
Yes, the Borg can fend them off now thanks to Voyager but if 8472 change or improve their weaponry, then the Borg are back where they started.

No, it doesn't mean the Borg can't conquer a new species because as they also stated, 8472 is one of the few species that is highly resistant to assimilation due to their cellular structure. Most other humanoid species with similar cellular structure to humans probably can be assimilated. However yes, it does mean based on what we were presented in "Hope & Fear" that new strategies and better tech. can fend them off and the strategy from "Child's Play" can hopefully defeat them as we saw in "Endgame".

It's basic tactics of war. It's why the Russians send out spies into other countries. it's why the every nations military has intelligence recon. It was the point behind Voyager showing the Borg so much and giving us more info about them each time. The more you know your enemy, the stronger chance you have to build a better mouse trap. Just like learning more about the Founders on DS9 helped the Federation scientists to come up with a virus against them. Knowing they have to assimilate to gain knowledge is a plus in our corner & a detriment to them. It's why the Queen didn't want Janeway poking into Borg affairs in "Unimatrix Zero".
 
Keep in mind, Borg shields still have their limits like everything else. There are some species out there whose weapon tech is just so advanced that the Borg could never adapt and would probably always take the some amount of damage in every engagement unless they get some tech from another assimilated species that helps them offset the power differences. With the 8472, the sheer power of their weapons would ALWAYS be enough to blast chunks out of Borg Cubes and their adaptation powers would be totally nullified.
 
Voyager stated the Borg can't adapt to what they haven't assimilated before. They've assimilated humans before Picard, so they knew what strategy to use. They knew how to get to Data because whatever Picard knows, they now know. They couldn't adapt to Species 8472 because they couldn't assimilate them to understand them. They didn't think outside the box, they stole the knowledge.
yes voyager stated that, but it appeared to be a plot device for scorpion, even though you made some valid points. a couple of episodes later, when 7 cuddled up to a borg queen (dark frontier?) we watched on the screen how the queen adapted tactics and weaponry, and the same in endgame. don't we ever see again the future technology brought home by voyager for the reason that using it would enable the borg to adapt, so let's keep that ace in the sleeve as a last resort? the omega directive said that the borg experimented with that molecule. i think assimilating 8472 turned out to be impossible, but defeating them is a different thing.

That's right, even in their very first appearance they had to first slice a chunk of the ENT-D out to analyze it and sent two drones over to hack the computer banks before they learned how to adapt to the Federation's weaponry. Before they did that, a full power shot crippled them.
not exactly. first they sent drones, then carved the ent-d out, followed by ent-d banging on them. why not adapt before, and avoid damage to their ship alltogether?
 
Easy, they were just starting to go over the data they got and the tech sample they got when they ENT-D fired at them and gave them a REAL taste of their technology. Then while regenerating they added in all the counters to the Fed tech they'd assimilated which made them impervious to further attacks.

Since it was the same Cube that attacked the Feds later in BOBW, they already had adapted to Fed tech in general which is why it was easier for them to adapt to further Fed attacks.
 
Voyager stated the Borg can't adapt to what they haven't assimilated before. They've assimilated humans before Picard, so they knew what strategy to use. They knew how to get to Data because whatever Picard knows, they now know. They couldn't adapt to Species 8472 because they couldn't assimilate them to understand them. They didn't think outside the box, they stole the knowledge.
yes voyager stated that, but it appeared to be a plot device for scorpion, even though you made some valid points. a couple of episodes later, when 7 cuddled up to a borg queen (dark frontier?) we watched on the screen how the queen adapted tactics and weaponry, and the same in endgame. don't we ever see again the future technology brought home by voyager for the reason that using it would enable the borg to adapt, so let's keep that ace in the sleeve as a last resort? the omega directive said that the borg experimented with that molecule. i think assimilating 8472 turned out to be impossible, but defeating them is a different thing.
I'm not exactly sure I'm following your full train of thought here but I'll try and answer what I do.

The Queen adapted because she had assimilated.
She assimilated Adm. Janeway to gain info in the future tech., just as I'm sure the Borg assimilated a few members of the species before assimilating the entire planet in "Dark Frontier". I'm not sure we had any reason to see that future tech Voyager brought home yet or that it's not unlike the Doc's holo-emitter where they can't full understand all of it yet.

I'm not sure how the Omega molecule you mentioned fits the debate? Can you explain what you mean in greater detail? I just remember Seven saying they knew of it and understood some of it from assimilating other species that encountered it. The Borg also would know of it from all the Captains they've assimilated.

why not adapt before, and avoid damage to their ship alltogether?
Same reason why even after knowing our technology, you can still shoot and kill 2 or 3 Drones before they adapt again. The info still has to travel the linking network to reach the Queen to give the command to adapt. As we've seen in "Dark Frontier", the Borg are independant when scouting but direct commands such as "adapt" and "assimilate" come from her.
 
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7 told a few legends the borg learned from other species about omega, true, but she also stated the borg themselves experimented with it, and it took several 100,000 of them out when it blew up. that suggests that the borg not only assimilate, but also research. for all we know the borg discovered the transwarp conduits, and set the networks between the conduits up.
 
We don't know that they discovered the transwarp network, likely they stole it from someone else.

As for Omega, they may have found the research from someone else and tried to harness its' power with all the stolen tech they had thinking it might work for them while it failed for others.
 
7 told a few legends the borg learned from other species about omega, true, but she also stated the borg themselves experimented with it, and it took several 100,000 of them out when it blew up. that suggests that the borg not only assimilate, but also research.
Using the info they stole through assimilation.......

for all we know the borg discovered the transwarp conduits, and set the networks between the conduits up.

But we don't.
They very well could have stolen that tech too during assimilation, just as we've seen them do and Seven's talked about many times.
 
Well, the probe ship to my knowledge was actually a match for Voyager, and they only beat them because of beaming a torpedo on-board and detonating it from the inside.

That was essentially the only time (prior to Endgame) where Voyager engaged and DESTROYED a Borg ship on it's own without external aid (the Drone from the 29th century not withstanding).

The rest of the times it barely got away.

I regret that the Queen as a concept was introduced into the collective.
I preferred them as a hive mind without a single leader (as it was intended).

Other than that, the Tactical cube and Tactical Sphere, not to mention the probe ships... well, the sphere was nothing new.
Like other races, the Borg probably assign different functions to these designs.

The Tactical cube would probably be heavily armed even if it's smaller (although, do we know the ship is actually smaller when compared to the assimilation cube in BoBW)?
 
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