Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Borg?

[Timo]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

It's fully possible that aside from the Klingons none of the other Alpha Quadrant species thought the Borg were a real threat or the Feds were over-reacting to a possible incursion.

Or then everybody had their hands full with their own Borg problem. For all we know, the Borg had scheduled a low-key assimilation event for this general vicinity of space in the 2360s, and everybody got their share of these piecemeal "attacks" (which may never have been intended to be more than scouting missions).

In the opposite case, since the biggest attack we saw involved an apparent attempt to assimilate a single homeworld, and failed at that, most cultures might have been happy to see the Borg survive and grow in strength so that they could do that again and free the galaxy of the pestilence of the Federation once and for all. The Borg probably wouldn't be seen as a common enemy if all they did was hit a select few cultures.

On the issue of assimilees from "Best of Both Worlds" being seen around the galaxy, ENT "Regeneration" provides a fairly natural explanation to that. The Borg there assimilate a starship, and slowly turn it into a Borg vessel. In the aftermath of Wolf 359, there'd be plenty of starships to assimilate. A dozen new Borg vessels might have been born that day, spreading the assimilees in many directions and on many missions.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Subcommander R.]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

There were Klingon borg in First Contact.

 

[Anwar]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

I don't think we saw every Borg encounter between BOBW and First Contact, it's fully possible that random ship disappearances for Klingons/Romulans/Cardassians/Ferengi can be partially attributed to random Borg encounters.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

Come to think of it, I misremembered about the Starfleet assimilatee from "Survival Instinct." Neither that episode nor my story said she was assimilated at Wolf 359, just that she was on the Excalibur when assimilated. (The Excalibur was seen intact but in drydock for repairs in "Redemption," a year after BoBW, so it could've been the one ship that survived, but that's unclear. However, there's a novel featuring it intact just a couple of months after BoBW, so for the purposes of my story, I decided the Excalibur had suffered a separate Borg attack sometime prior to 2368, which is when the flashbacks of "Survival Instinct" occurred. There's a story depicting a conjectural version of that Borg attack in the anthology New Frontier: No Limits, but it sets it in 2369, which can't be right.)

I remember now -- it was in my novel Greater Than the Sum that I offered that explanation of how drones assimilated at Wolf 359 could've ended up in the Delta Quadrant.

Anyway, yeah, there does seem to be evidence here and there of other Borg incidents beyond those seen onscreen. There's Picard's speech in First Contact: "They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again! The line must be drawn here, ...this far, no further!" We never saw them assimilate an entire world that the Federation tried to defend. It's possible that Picard was referring to the beginning of the film where the Borg went back in time and the E-E crew saw a long-assimilated Earth before following the Borg through the warp, but it doesn't sound that way (because there was no falling back there, just pursuing).

 

[Anwar]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

Well, he had access to the Collective mind. Maybe he was just referring to worlds he'd seen them assimilate in memories and was letting his anger get the better of him when he said "we fall back".

 

[Brian]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

I've never understood all the debate and retconning attempts to explain stuff like assimilated people from Wolf 359 winding up in the Delta Quadrant. Or how the Borg Queen should have died in First Contact, but wound up on Voyager.

It all was explained in First Contact, with this exchange:

PICARD: You were there all the time. But that ship and all the Borg on it were destroyed.
BORG QUEEN: You think in such three-dimensional terms. How small you've become.

The Borg have some technology that has not been explained. And doesn't need to be, IMO. They have the means of doing it, that's all I need to know.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

Well, he had access to the Collective mind. Maybe he was just referring to worlds he'd seen them assimilate in memories and was letting his anger get the better of him when he said "we fall back".

Well, it sounds like the screenwriters were trying to imply that the movie was the culmination of an escalating series of Borg attacks on the Federation, because that was more dramatically effective than saying this was only the second one. Sometimes drama trumps a strict adherence to continuity.

I've never understood all the debate and retconning attempts to explain stuff like assimilated people from Wolf 359 winding up in the Delta Quadrant. Or how the Borg Queen should have died in First Contact, but wound up on Voyager.

It all was explained in First Contact, with this exchange:

PICARD: You were there all the time. But that ship and all the Borg on it were destroyed.
BORG QUEEN: You think in such three-dimensional terms. How small you've become.

The Borg have some technology that has not been explained. And doesn't need to be, IMO. They have the means of doing it, that's all I need to know.

That's one way of reading it. But I think the simpler explanation of the Borg Queen's line there is that the Borg Queen is not an entity that resides in a single body, but a core element of the collective consciousness that pervades the entire Borg Continuum. So if one Queen dies, a new Queen is generated and the same core consciousness downloads into it. Destroying one Queen body doesn't affect the Queen's essence. Thus, the Queen transcends the limits of 3-dimensional, corporeal existence.

 

[Anwar]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

I do agree that there were other Borg attacks between BOBW and FC, just not major invasions on Earth or other core worlds.

 

[Andymator]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

I've never understood all the debate and retconning attempts to explain stuff like assimilated people from Wolf 359 winding up in the Delta Quadrant. Or how the Borg Queen should have died in First Contact, but wound up on Voyager.

It all was explained in First Contact, with this exchange:

PICARD: You were there all the time. But that ship and all the Borg on it were destroyed.
BORG QUEEN: You think in such three-dimensional terms. How small you've become.

The Borg have some technology that has not been explained. And doesn't need to be, IMO. They have the means of doing it, that's all I need to know.

That's one way of reading it. But I think the simpler explanation of the Borg Queen's line there is that the Borg Queen is not an entity that resides in a single body, but a core element of the collective consciousness that pervades the entire Borg Continuum. So if one Queen dies, a new Queen is generated and the same core consciousness downloads into it. Destroying one Queen body doesn't affect the Queen's essence. Thus, the Queen transcends the limits of 3-dimensional, corporeal existence.

I have always felt that the intent was to imply the use of the fourth dimension; time. But it's pretty ambiguous.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

Well, the Queen said she was the Borg, was the embodiment of the entire Collective. If you simply take that literally, it inexorably follows that her consciousness resided throughout the Collective rather than actually being confined to that single Queen body. So there's no need to invoke some kind of higher-dimensional escape pod or something; the explanation for the Queen's survival is self-evident. As long as there is a Borg Collective, there is a Queen, because they are one and the same. She is the sum of all its parts. The body that was destroyed was simply a coordinating node of sorts for the nonlocalized sentience of the Collective; all it had to do was replace it, like growing new skin cells to heal a cut.

 

[RAMA]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Borg invasions in Best of Both Worlds?

The Federation was allied with the Klingons during Best of Both Worlds and even the Roumlans would see it in their interests not like the Borg assimilate the Federation.

Also other alien civilizations were not present when the Borg invaded Earth in First Contact and it seems like those rogue Borg from Descent who were slaughtering any biological organisms they find would be a cause for concern for them. Also why were the Borg focused more on the Federation then any other AQ civilization?

It all happened kind of fast, and the Romulans were still not "allies" with the UFP. They would tend to be secretive. The Klingons had their own internal struggles. Only the UFP was prepared enough to fight them, and even then they barely managed.

RAMA

 

[Alrik]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Borg invasions in Best of Both Worlds?

The Federation was allied with the Klingons during Best of Both Worlds and even the Roumlans would see it in their interests not like the Borg assimilate the Federation.

Also other alien civilizations were not present when the Borg invaded Earth in First Contact and it seems like those rogue Borg from Descent who were slaughtering any biological organisms they find would be a cause for concern for them. Also why were the Borg focused more on the Federation then any other AQ civilization?

It all happened kind of fast, and the Romulans were still not "allies" with the UFP. They would tend to be secretive. The Klingons had their own internal struggles. Only the UFP was prepared enough to fight them, and even then they barely managed.

RAMA

Here is Hanson's quote from BOBW Part 2:

HANSON
Your engagements gave us valuable
time. We've mobilized a fleet
of forty starships at Wolf 359
and that's just for starters...
the Klingons are sending
warships... Hell, we've even
thought about opening
communications with the
Romulans...

So it is pretty clear that the Romulans probably aren't at Wolf 359. The Klingons, not so clear. We know that they were sending ships, but like Christopher said up thread, space is a very big place. So did they get there on time? Hard to say.

Now as far ast he UFP trying to get help from anyone else? The Cube was on a high Warp direct path to Sector 001, so there probably wasn't time to try and reach out to anyone else.

 

[Anwar]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

It was said later that 39 Starships were destroyed at Wolf 359, so I'm guessing the Klingons never got there and it was 39 of the 40 Fed ships destroyed.

 

[Arpy]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

I think the Klingons didn't get there in time given that the Starfleeters wouldn't be so callous as to discount the sacrifices of the Klingons had they too lost ships and lives - it's always 39 ships/11,000 people.

The Klingons and Romulans assimilated are annoying but I figure are from basic exploratory assimilations the Borg made to judge whether or not the rest of the species is a threat or assimilation-worthy.

One thing that I wonder about is what the Federation did to enlist the help of other major players in local space. The Tamarians seemed to have equal or slightly superior tech to the UFP; ditto the gaseous or engergy-based Calamarain - are there others? If you say no, then that immediately cuts limits future story possibilities. Imagine if TNG's "The Wounded" were never written because someone got it in their heads that it's only about the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans, period.

And whatever happened to all the super-advanced aliens - the Organians, Metrons, etc. Did Picard pray to Q for assistance only to be met with silence?

 

[Anwar]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

The Q seem to be the most powerful of all of Trek's "God-Aliens", so it's possible that they just asked for all the others to leave the Federation alone during their "Trial" period.

As for the other aliens, I do think that the Feds should have used the Borg Incursion to put an end to most, if not all, of their minor conflicts (and as many major conflicts as possible). But the writers probably didn't want to use the Borg again, and without a physical representation of this threat any peace overtures would be unsuccessful.

 

[Arpy]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

I think the Q are so far beyond us, the Borg, and all the super-aliens that we could all drop off the face of the universe and if it didn't interfere with the order of things the Q would brush it off easily.

The different levels of super-aliens are curious. Some may have vast 2001/Vorlon master plans for the lower ones, and others nada. Some may talk with a Federation diplomat to say that they won't interfere, others may say to ask again in 50,000 years, others may need to be shot with a quantum torpedo to the face before they notice you're there begging for the life of your civilization. I wonder if some cancel each other out, like different Greek gods backing different sides/people in the Trojan war.

 

[Timo]

Re: Why didn't other civilizations help the Federation against the Bor

It was said later that 39 Starships were destroyed at Wolf 359

But it was never said how many survived. Some must have, as they would have been needed to evacuate survivors like Sisko who wouldn't have been able to escape beyond sensor range in lifeboats and shuttles only.

Among the survivors might be a dozen Klingon ships and five Talarian ones, for all we know; none would have a reason to linger after the utter defeat, but these ships could have been the ones responsible for whisking Sisko to safety.

Timo Saloniemi