Why did the Borg only use one cube to attack Earth?

[Spot261]

So rather than delaying the time travel till the last second being a mistake, it was in fact intended to draw the Ent back in time, thus creating the federation and all of the potential tasty morsels it represents?

Interesting, although hardly seems the most efficient way of getting the end result.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

So rather than delaying the time travel till the last second being a mistake, it was in fact intended to draw the Ent back in time, thus creating the federation and all of the potential tasty morsels it represents?

Interesting, although hardly seems the most efficient way of getting the end result.

Yeah it is an interesting idea, but seems uncharacteristically convoluted for a species that is unimaginative in every other way.

 

[DonIago]

Well, there's the related theory that suggests the Borg only send one ship at a time because they want to see if and how Our Heroes defeat it in order to make them more worthwhile for later assimilation.

 

[Timo]

...We know that the Borg are in the habit of doing that because we see it happen in VOY "Child's Play".

OTOH, we see in "Dark Frontier" what is supposed to be the textbook assimilation of a species. It involves dozens of Cubes and a merciless hunt of survivors. This might be our cue that none of the TNG sorties against Earth were intended to be assimilation runs.

The "time travel as bait" model isn't really an exercise in cunning. Rather, it's a typically methodical Borg approach of iteration, in which at first Earth has but a lone madman who mistakenly thinks he knows how to build a warp engine; future generations remember him fondly, and write books about how his contraption might have worked, the way we write about the works of Leonardo or Tesla. Then the Borg lure a future repairman to the past, and he meets this Leonardo but finds out that his wonderful machine was just broken by a "vicious Borg attack". The engineer repairs what he can, using his future skills, and lo, the machine now works! Or at least works a bit better, so that on the next iteration a slightly more expectant repairman will find a slightly better machine in need of repair. Until finally the warp engine does fly.

This still presupposes that the Borg know Cochrane's engine will make a difference. So the scenario might be that the Borg first tried time tampering on something else altogether and accidentally broke the continuum, causing their delicious UFP to disappear in a puff of never-existedness - so, unimaginatively enough, they decide to repair it by doing more of the same, again and again and again.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[David B]

Besides the "in the real world budget constraints..." - in actuality, think about the Borg mind-set. Why dispatch more when the current level of Federation technology was no match for them? In as much as Data's discovering a back-door approach worked, it was really a fluke. All the ships lost at Wolf 359 proved that the knowledge gained from Picard, besides the countless others assimilated by the Borg from the first round that Q did...showed them that 1 cube was more than a match for the defenses of the Federation. It was POST-Wolf 359 that Starfleet gained ground on weapons technology to begin to defeat the Borg. Until that point...there really was no threat...

 

[Paradise City]

Because they are a Delta Quadrant species and are only beginning to penetrate the AQ/BQ. These little borg "invasions" are really just a little probe they've sent out -- and heck why not do a bit of assimilatin' along the way.

 

[Sophie74656]

I've always thought about this. From the battle at Wolf 359 the Borg know that it took the Federation a tremendous amount of effort to take on the one cube, and that they suffered heavy losses doing so. On top of that they had the knowledge of Picard, so they knew a lot about Federation technology and capability. So they know if they want to get rid of the Federation they need to send a small handful of cubes, which is nothing for them, and the Federation is complete toast. But what do they have to gain from that? The Federation is not a threat to them, and since they have already assimilated several members of Starfleet, including the captain of the Flagship, they know all the need to know about the Federation and Starfleet. So they have nothing to gain by taking them on.

 

[Tenacity]

The other cube was in the garage.

And it wasn't going to be available until Tuesday.

 

[tharpdevenport]

To be fair, it didn't seem unreasonable to send only one cube. The ship wasn't even surviving the attack from "Q Who?". If Q hadn't flung them back to and away from the Borg, they have lost. The Borg were obviously technologically superior. To back that up, we have the battle of Wolf 359, where one cube took out a small fleet of starships and suffered to apparent damange when the Enterprise cauhgt up to it. Plus, if we use passed Trek as any indication, there's like, never a friggin' starship around when you need one at Earth or even the immediate solar system, unless you're trying to steal the Enterprise.


It's only later shit Trek ideas of the Borg that made them so weak, including the First Contact film where apparently all you need to do to defeat one cube, is fire on one certain spot of it, even though previously established dialogue in TNG indicates otherwise. Or be the U.S.S. Voyager.


If anything, why did the Borg even want to assimilate the human race? What possible technological advantage did humans have that the Borg had never encountered before in all the other races they assimilated? Oh no, they can modulate their sheilds real quickly -- I guess processing speed is like an old 1998 desktop computer.

Also, why even make the out of the way trip to do it? Why can't Earth just be assimilated when the Borg get there naturally? Surely by them the Borg would have evolved so much so technologically that the Defiant would have been utterly useless. Was the Borg Queen just a petty vengeful bitch who wanted revenge no matter what sense it even makes? Assuming we are buying the pure Grade A Balonium First Contact gave us about the Queen being there all the time for "The Best of Both Worlds".


Not to forget the inane shit about stopping the human race from even achiving warp by destroying the Pheonix and assimilating Earth then. What the in possible fucking goat Hell would that do for the Borg? The Federation would never have developed the technology the Borg wanted to assimilated. The battle that instigated the travel back in time would never even have occured, wiping out the events even happening; and don't hand me an alternate timeline argument; if the Borg wanted to assimilate alternate timelines, they could do that all day long.

 

[Sophie74656]

^^ In regards to the one shot taking out the cube...that cube had already been under heavy fire for a long time so it was likely already starting to suffer damage. Picard also knew a vulnerable spot for all the ships to concentrate their fire. That kind of makes sense.

Of course after that incident I'm sure the Borg would adapt to that strategy and it would no longer work in any future attacks

 

[Sophie74656]

If anything, why did the Borg even want to assimilate the human race? What possible technological advantage did humans have that the Borg had never encountered before in all the other races they assimilated? Oh no, they can modulate their sheilds real quickly -- I guess processing speed is like an old 1998 desktop computer.

I have always agreed with this. The Borg had nothing to gain by assimilating humanity/the federation/starfleet.

Borg technology is already superior, and after assimilating Picard they have all the information they need about the Federation. So there really is no benefit to the Borg

 

[OtherGene]

Borg technology is already superior, and after assimilating Picard they have all the information they need about the Federation. So there really is no benefit to the Borg

And yet, despite all that, during First Contact when they were faced with a standard Star Fleet SickBay door their only technologically distinctive way of opening it was to, er, try hitting it a lot.

 

[Christopher]

And yet, despite all that, during First Contact when they were faced with a standard Star Fleet SickBay door their only technologically distinctive way of opening it was to, er, try hitting it a lot.

Those drones were a small contingent cut off from the Collective. They had a fragment of its total knowledge and brain power at their disposal. That's why they needed to assimilate the crew in the first place -- to replenish their badly depleted numbers to a functional level. So I can buy that their available strategic/tactical database was limited as well.

 

[OtherGene]

Those drones were a small contingent cut off from the Collective. They had a fragment of its total knowledge and brain power at their disposal. That's why they needed to assimilate the crew in the first place -- to replenish their badly depleted numbers to a functional level. So I can buy that their available strategic/tactical database was limited as well.

I can get that too and yet they must have managed to breach numerous protocols to take over Engineering so why not a locked door? Oh, yes, poor writing.

 

[Sophie74656]

The locked door presented a physical barrier that needed to be broken down...literally,

 

[Spot261]

I can get that too and yet they must have managed to breach numerous protocols to take over Engineering so why not a locked door? Oh, yes, poor writing.

Because taking over engineering has always been shown as difficult?

 

[Christopher]

Because taking over engineering has always been shown as difficult?

The question is, since they'd already successfully taken over engineering, why were they having trouble getting into sickbay?

 

[Spot261]

I'm guessing because they had the element of surprise when they hit engineering, whereas in sickbay Crusher had at least a modicum of time to prepare (ie lock the door and order the EMH to stand guard)

 

[Sophie74656]

When they took over engineering the crew was not yet aware of what was going on so the Borg were able to take over engineering with little resistance. By the time they were trying to break into sickbay everyone knew what was going on and locked the doors. When they got to sickbak it only took them about a minute to get the doors open. Crusher was just trying to buy a couple of seconds to get her patients out of sickback.

 

[David B]

Taken as a whole, the Borg have but one thought process: bring all to their idea of 'perfection'. Their approach of join us or die, is why 'resistance is futile'. As books go, until the Caliear or however it's spelled, removed the remaining Borg influence from Picard...he was still connected to them on a subliminal level. Pretty much it's been used as a common theme across various sets of books written. Shatner did something similar in his set of books of the return of Kirk.
As Q said when he 'introduced' them to them...they are unlike any other life-form they have ever encountered.