It's a matter of adapting: if the heroes figure out how to tie the Borg shoelaces together, then it doesn't really matter whether one Cube or a thousand succumb to that trick. A conventional fight where the Borg crush their enemy by numbers, though... We haven't seen one yet, really. Their "BoBW" and ST:FC Cubes just provoked the UFP instead of destroying it, thereby making it all the more delicious as an assimilation target. And when the Borg stormed the home of Species 10026 in "Dark Frontier", they only had 400,000 people and 39 ships left - crushing them was something of a formality, not requiring scores of Cubes to be allocated as such. (We never saw all that many anyway.)
Was the crushing of Arturis' home before "Hope and Fear" more like an actual invasion in force? Arturis speaks of defenses gradually weakening, dozens of outer colonies falling, sentry vessels being swept aside, the home system of Species 116 besieged by hundreds of Cubes - a much grander affair than the S10026 mop-up. This was also a rapid campaign, or the rapid culmination of a centuries-long grooming process anyway: it all happened between "Scorpion" (where Seven knows nothing of this conquest plan yet) and an unknown timepoint at least a few months before "Hope and Fear".
I gather this might be what the Borg would ultimately do to the Federation - but the Feds would have to be cut down a bit first, as obviously they would have more than "dozens" of outer holdings. Perhaps this is what they are already doing at the time of ST:FC, where Picard claims they are advancing and the UFP is retreating. Alternately, the Borg might gobble up the Federation whole, using even more force (or perhaps more finesse), thus leaving a big power vacuum in the middle of the quadrant and perhaps allowing younger civilizations to start thriving there. Or would the Borg actually conquer territory?
Taking DS9 would probably be a mere curiosity-satisfying exercise, rather than part of a greater assimilation campaign...
Timo Saloniemi
Was the crushing of Arturis' home before "Hope and Fear" more like an actual invasion in force? Arturis speaks of defenses gradually weakening, dozens of outer colonies falling, sentry vessels being swept aside, the home system of Species 116 besieged by hundreds of Cubes - a much grander affair than the S10026 mop-up. This was also a rapid campaign, or the rapid culmination of a centuries-long grooming process anyway: it all happened between "Scorpion" (where Seven knows nothing of this conquest plan yet) and an unknown timepoint at least a few months before "Hope and Fear".
I gather this might be what the Borg would ultimately do to the Federation - but the Feds would have to be cut down a bit first, as obviously they would have more than "dozens" of outer holdings. Perhaps this is what they are already doing at the time of ST:FC, where Picard claims they are advancing and the UFP is retreating. Alternately, the Borg might gobble up the Federation whole, using even more force (or perhaps more finesse), thus leaving a big power vacuum in the middle of the quadrant and perhaps allowing younger civilizations to start thriving there. Or would the Borg actually conquer territory?
Taking DS9 would probably be a mere curiosity-satisfying exercise, rather than part of a greater assimilation campaign...
Timo Saloniemi
