What do the Borg do when not assimilating people or destroying planets?

[The Wormhole]

If the Borg would arrive here, now, I guess they would just take a look and fly on their merry way..? Earth of today doesn't have much to add to the collective?

Presumably. The Borg felt the Kazon were too primitive to assimilate, and they're more advanced than present-day Earth. They did have warp capable ships, even if the stole them instead of making them themselves. But then apparently run-down Earth a decade after nuclear war devastated the planet is worthy of assimilation the day before they launch their first warp flight, so who the hell knows?

 

[woodstock]

A Borg office party...

 

[Griffeytrek]

Presumably. The Borg felt the Kazon were too primitive to assimilate, and they're more advanced than present-day Earth. They did have warp capable ships, even if the stole them instead of making them themselves. But then apparently run-down Earth a decade after nuclear war devastated the planet is worthy of assimilation the day before they launch their first warp flight, so who the hell knows?

I just assume that the Borg took one look at the Kazon and said "Ick! These people haven't even invented Shampoo!". Wither that or Rabid infestations of head lice are the ultimate protection from the Borg.

 

[at Quark's]

I'd vote for the 'ruthlessly seeking perfection' as their imperative.

However, assuming that they are capable at all of reaching their definition of 'perfection' at some point in time, what would they do after that ?

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I would imagine on a regular day a borg cube operating like clockwork. Every part doing their job and making sure the cube is running at 100% efficiency. I don't imagine a lot of scientific research, their research is finding species that have the science to assimilate.

 

[Vandervecken]

rin FC

Presumably. The Borg felt the Kazon were too primitive to assimilate, and they're more advanced than present-day Earth. They did have warp capable ships, even if the stole them instead of making them themselves. But then apparently run-down Earth a decade after nuclear war devastated the planet is worthy of assimilation the day before they launch their first warp flight, so who the hell knows?

They're retroactively judging here; advantage of time travel. Humans are worth assimilating pre-high-tech just because they're that great (probably in intuition), but even more because without them pffft no PITA Feds.

Which says something interesting about what the Borg expected of time travel. They expected THEIR timeline to change in FC. Yesterday's Enterprise seems to also support this as what happens with some time travel, through the visual reality imposition/change we see for Picard.

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So we have double-verification of your-timeline-is-the-one-that-changes-from-time-travel. For some. Voyager for sure contradicts that.

 

[The Wormhole]

I just assume that the Borg took one look at the Kazon and said "Ick! These people haven't even invented Shampoo!". Wither that or Rabid infestations of head lice are the ultimate protection from the Borg.

As removing hair seems to be a standard part of assimilation, I don't see why the Borg are worried about lice.

rin FC
They're retroactively judging here; advantage of time travel. Humans are worth assimilating pre-high-tech just because they're that great (probably in intuition), but even more because without them pffft no PITA Feds.

Except, the Borg Queen even says that as a species, humanity doesn't have much to offer the Collective. It's what they've accomplished in the 24th century that makes them so interesting. That didn't exist in the 21st century, therefore there's no reason to assimilate humanity of that era. If the Borg were just trying to eradicate the Federation's existence, an orbital bombardment of the planet (which they were doing anyway) would take care of that.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Totally Serious Answer

Spoiler

 

[Destructor]

the Borg Queen even says that as a species, humanity doesn't have much to offer the Collective. It's what they've accomplished in the 24th century that makes them so interesting.

With that is a given, could it be that the mission the Queen attempted to undertake in First Contact was NOT the elimination of humanity (who didn't really offer that much, technologically, in the 21st century), but rather the creation of a new timeline in which they were afraid enough to rapidly expand, create new technologies, and be a more useful apple for the Borg to pick, when they did finally show up? Maybe the Borg mission succeeded, and is something they routinely do when they encounter a species that is less advanced than they'd like it to be- send a few drones backwards in time to 'speed up' the evolution of the species, so that they can assimilate a species that has been driven to be more inventive and creative?

Maybe this is what the Borg do in their spare time- run experiments on the most efficient way to get other cultures to do their innovation for them.

 

[Destructor]

Also they clearly run experiments on trying access/assimilate other realities such as fluidic space (although perhaps that was precipitated by the assimilation of a species that had already succeeded in that experiment).

 

[Capn Nick]

I always thought the Borg harvested. They want the life forms to be as advanced as possible to better add to their "perfection" but not so advanced they pose a threat. I imagined they monitor certain planetary systems (patrols and seeing if any species developed to a prime point to assimilate).

Other than that, I imagine, to your point about research, they would have a lot to do. If they assimilate a human who knows about warp fields and, say, a Romulan who knows about warp fields, they probably see whole other connections and possibilities that those species haven't considered because they don't share information. I would think they would also be constantly working on their ships and hubs to update with any useful information they had assimilated.

 

[T'Elann]

its likely that drones have specific jobs and when they are not doing those jobs they simply regenerate, these probably include scientific research so as to upkeep their technological expertise as well as construction and maintenance of the cubes and hubs

 

[Destructor]

The power and resource management requirements of the collective are also quite likely to be byzantine and intricately interwoven. They probably routinely reconstitute drones when they realize they don't need them anymore so shouldn't be wasting resources keeping them alive, then build some more when their requirements change and they need more manpower. Large portions of every Borg cube and station are probably depowered and deatmosphere'd when not in use.

 

[woodstock]

The power and resource management requirements of the collective are also quite likely to be byzantine and intricately interwoven. They probably routinely reconstitute drones when they realize they don't need them anymore so shouldn't be wasting resources keeping them alive, then build some more when their requirements change and they need more manpower. Large portions of every Borg cube and station are probably depowered and deatmosphere'd when not in use.

Ooh, morbid, but I could see that.

 

[Six of Twelve]

I would imagine on a regular day a borg cube operating like clockwork. Every part doing their job and making sure the cube is running at 100% efficiency. I don't imagine a lot of scientific research, their research is finding species that have the science to assimilate.

But they do take all the knowledge they've assimilated, and find a way to make it all work together. With each new species assimilated, they evaluate what's useful and relevant and integrate it with what they already have, and discard the rest. With some types of knowledge, such as the Omega molecule, it required bits and pieces of info from several different species, before they could put it all together into something useful.

 

[Kirby]

In First Contact, Data report that the altered Earth had a population of "Eight billion... all Borg." That's a lot of Borg to keep busy.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Your mom.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

They play tennis.

 

[FormerLurker]

The power and resource management requirements of the collective are also quite likely to be byzantine and intricately interwoven. They probably routinely reconstitute drones when they realize they don't need them anymore so shouldn't be wasting resources keeping them alive, then build some more when their requirements change and they need more manpower. Large portions of every Borg cube and station are probably depowered and deatmosphere'd when not in use.

I doubt they reconstitute drones, but I wouldn't be surprised if half the drawers on a given cube have drones held in stasis chemically, ready to be roused, outfitted and deployed as needed. The chemical stasis is so they don't expend energy holding them in a stasis field, while keeping them around means they have the resource available, and don't have to wait to grow new drones.

 

[UnknownSample]

I see them all as caught in a trap of continually assimilating, all of them, with no real purpose and no end to it. What great unspoken purpose could it all be for? What's all that perfection meant to achieve? What would justify all the assimilating? I think that somewhere, there's a control panel with a lever marked "Assimilate"... which is jammed in the "on" position.