Why do people keep saying Voyager weakened the Borg?

[zar]

So what, there is no point of reference. The other cubes weren't called "Strategic" or "Class 1" so these words are meaningless when comparing the cubes. Even if we assume, for example, that a higher "class" number means a weaker ship, it's still useless information because the other cubes could just as easily be "Class 15" as "Class 1".

This is the line where the "class 4 tactical" was introduced:

SEVEN: This is a class 4 tactical vessel, heavily armed. The central plexus is protected by multi-regenerative security grids. We'd be detected long before we could reach it.

How can anyone look at this line and claim that it's describing a ship that's weaker than what we're used to?

 

[stj]

The repeated scenes of people roaming about Borg cubes without being harmed shows the Borg as essentially unaggressive. Which I think counts in the minds of many fans as weak. Of course, the characters always said the Collective was aggressive, merciless, etc.

But why are people still driveling about Voyager and cubes tactical, cubes strategic and cubes sugar? The single individuals in Survival Instinct went up against the entire Collective and escaped! It takes billions of galactic pussies to get whipped by three people.

 

[Civ001]

So what is the difference between a Borg Cube and a Assimilation cube? I saw on a starship chart that Borg Assimilation cubes are really big compaired to tactical cubes.

 

[Saquist]

Okay, but here's the real problem.

If the Borg want to assimilate the Feds, why just send one Cube? Why go to all the trouble to time travel a la First Contact? Why try and formulate some kind of plot like Dark Frontier?

All they'd really need to do is gather up a few thousand Cubes, transwarp to Earth (or use a hub) and get busy, honestly. Maybe a few million, if they really want to make sure they'll clean house.

You've got to have a little suspension of disbelief with these guys, both in TNG and VOY.

Most of that is because the borg were not fully formulated and developed by the writers (even though they were) They kept adding abilities and technologies and ended up forgetting what they started out with.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The same between an intrepid and a Sovereign class Starship perhaps?

Different ships require and spend different resources. Cost benefit ratios. You might need a huge cubes sometimes and a tiny shuttle craft another time and an entire of rainbow of Borg hijinx inbetween.

Have you ever seen those sad bastards in real life who would rather drive their SUV to the convenience store rather than commit to 5 minutes of walking? Now imagine some one thinking that should use a helicpoter for the same trip, a coulpe hundred meters, to buy eggs and milk?

 

[zar]

So what is the difference between a Borg Cube and a Assimilation cube? I saw on a starship chart that Borg Assimilation cubes are really big compaired to tactical cubes.

There's no official reference to "Assimilation cubes" (I'm not sure where that term comes from, the Armada video game maybe?), and tactical cubes were never seen simultaneously with the original cubes for comparison. All we know is that the tactical was a "heavily armed" version of cube.

 

[T'Girl]

there is no point of reference

SEVEN: This is a class 4 tactical vessel, heavily armed

Just so, there is nothing to reference the 'tactical cube" to. Heavily armed compared to what? A sea otter with a sharp rock? Given that the Voyager routinely and casually beats the crap of out of whatever Borg vessel they come across, not "heavily armed" in comparison to the Voyager.

The "heavily armed" label might simply be yet another of Seven's pro-Borg patriotic statements.

 

[froot]

]Just so, there is nothing to reference the 'tactical cube" to. Heavily armed compared to what? A sea otter with a sharp rock? Given that the Voyager routinely and casually beats the crap of out of whatever Borg vessel they come across

This has been addressed - no, they didn't. They killed a ship with lesser firepower once, and everything else was with quite a bit of help (or luck.)

Voyager Borg Episodes

Blood Fever: A dead drone; not applicable.
Unity: The cube was destroyed by the ex-drones via an overload; not applicable.
Scorpion: Didn't destroy any Borg; Borg destruction was performed by Species 8472.
The Gift: No Borg ships; not applicable.
Raven: No Borg ships; not applicable.
One: No Borg ships; not applicable.
Hope and Fear: Eventually avoided the Borg via Quantum Slipstream Drive; not applicable.
Drone: Borg sphere was destroyed by a Borg drone that was 500 years advanced than the current Borg (plausible). However, the lack of a swift attempt of an attempt to destroy and/or obtain the future drone is implausible.
Infinite Regress: The Borg ship had already been destroyed via an alien pathogen; not applicable.
Dark Frontier: A Borg probe is destroyed; Voyager had comparable firepower. However, the probe did not perform reasonable adaptation (partially implausible). A Borg sphere is boarded but not attacked by either party (not applicable). A Borg diamond (the Queen's Lair) was destroyed via torpedo destruction of a transwarp conduit (plausible).
Survival Instinct: No Borg ships; not applicable.
Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy: All Borg destruction with a photonic cannon is fantasized by the Doctor's imagination subroutine; not applicable.
Collective: The Borg cube's crew has already been destroyed/deactivated via an alien pathogen; five underdeveloped drones are in control of the cube. Voyager emits an energy pulse to retrieve Chakotay, Paris, and Neelix; however the pulse destabilizes the cube's transwarp core and the cube is destroyed (plausible due to the lack of adult/matured drones).
Unimatrix Zero: The destruction of a Borg Tactical Cube is performed by Voyager and a Borg Tactical Sphere (implausible).
Q2: The Borg cubes appear via young Q. The cubes quickly overcome Voyager's shields and board the Bridge. A drone attempts to insert his tubules into Janeway's neck when Q reappears. "If the Continuum has told you once, they have told you a thousand times: DON'T PROVOKE THE BORG!" (plausible)
Endgame: Several Borg ships (including a Borg Transwarp Hub) are destroyed using future Janeway's advanced armor and weaponry. Considering future-Janeway is later assimilated, the knowledge of the advanced technology should have been quickly counteracted (very implausible).

Meh, the Borg episodes of Voyager are more plausible to prior plot development from TNG and First Contact. I wouldn't call the Borg pussified.

This can basically be re-quoted forever. "Endgame" is the only truly off-the-wall one out of the bunch when it comes to destruction. I'd argue the last point is moot, though, since they were sort of suffering from a virus at that point. They should have used McAfee.

Seriously, the Borg just existing and being so ultra-powerful and not wiping out the Federation in two minutes with all the ships at their disposal is already implausible on its own.

And why "perfection" entails 50,000 pounds of extra armor and plastic tubes and walking around stiffly, we may never know.

 

[zar]

True, neither "class 4" or "heavily armed" necessarily mean that it's weaker or stronger, but I think the latter phrase gives the stronger impression that it's supposed to be a badass, easily canceling out some obscure reference to the British navy implying that it's weak.

 

[Anwar]

We don't know that the Tactical Cube was a heavily armed version of the Assimilation Cube, we just know that it's a heavily armed Borg ship. Nothing in the dialog compares it to an Assimilation Cube and the visuals of it in comparison to VOY have it as MUCH smaller than an Assimilation Cube.

A Tactical Cube is 1500 M in diameter, an Assimilation Cube is 3040 M in diameter, the Tactical Cube is 1/4 the total size of the one from "Q Who" and BOBW.

http://www.st-minutiae.com/misc/comparison/

As for why the Borg only send one Cube at a time: The writers overpowered the Borg, realized it and hoped we'd never complain about it. They got lucky.

 

[zar]

We don't know that the Tactical Cube was a heavily armed version of the Assimilation Cube, we just know that it's a heavily armed Borg ship. Nothing in the dialog compares it to an Assimilation Cube ...

Yes, I acknowledged that above.

... and the visuals of it in comparison to VOY have it as MUCH smaller than an Assimilation Cube.

Impossible, since there was no actual on-screen size comparison. There was as much direct comparison in visuals as there was in dialog: None.

A Tactical Cube is 1500 M in diameter, an Assimilation Cube is 3040 M in diameter, the Tactical Cube is 1/4 the total size of the one from "Q Who" and BOBW.

http://www.st-minutiae.com/misc/comparison/

As I just mentioned, there is no such thing as an "Assimilation Cube" in canon. That comparison chart cites Ex Astris Scientia, which in turn cites Doug Drexler, which Luminus already cited in this thread, and states that the tactical cube was meant to be an upgrade of the original cube.

Here is the Borg ship page on Ex Astris Scientia:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/borg_ships.htm

Which confirms:

The class-4 tactical cube is about the size of a cube (variant 2), but more heavily armed.

And Variant 2 is described as similar size to Variant 1, which is the original from Q Who.

So there you have it. The class-4 tactical is the same size as the original, and stronger. Can we put this to rest now?

 

[Anwar]

Which doesn't match the on-screen visuals and that size chart. We know how small the ENT-D was to an Assimilation Cube, and that the Intrepid class is only half the size of the Galaxy-Class. The visuals of the Tactical Cube/Voyager battle show that VOY is not as small compared to the Tactical Cube that the Galaxy was to the Assimilation Cube. Thus the Tactical Cube is smaller.

So if the Tactical Cube was meant to be an upgrade to the Assimilation Cube, it didn't make it into the show's presentation.

 

[zar]

Which doesn't match the on-screen visuals and that size chart.

Which means the size chart is either wrong, or the "Assimilation Cube" is something entirely different.

We know how small the ENT-D was to an Assimilation Cube, and that the Intrepid class is only half the size of the Galaxy-Class. The visuals of the Tactical Cube/Voyager battle show that VOY is not as small compared to the Tactical Cube that the Galaxy was to the Assimilation Cube. Thus the Tactical Cube is smaller.

Galaxy docked at DS9:

Intrepid docked at DS9:

Thus the DS9 in VOY is smaller than the DS9 in DS9.

 

[Anwar]

...No, it seems the same size in both images.

 

[zar]

Except the Intrepid is supposed to be half the size of the Galaxy, remember? It's no secret that the effects guys were always getting relative sizes of models wrong. If you're going to argue that the cubes in VOY were supposed to be smaller cubes because of how big Voyager looked in the effects shots, despite every other source confirming that they were supposed to be the same size, I don't know what to tell ya.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Half the length but a much greater fraction of the mass.

If you juiced a dozen intrepid class starships you could probably pour them all into Enterprise D's saucer section.

I remember them once mentioning the tonnage of Voyager.

Did they ever reveal the weight of the Enteprise?

 

[Saquist]

...No, it seems the same size in both images.

No it's not. You're letting the acute perspective fool you. DS9 is one of the worse scaled objects in Trek and this is just as bad a job as any. Everytime we see ships Docked at DS9 that all look large...including runnabouts docked in this same location.

 

[Anwar]

Really? DS9 looks the same and VOY seems suitably smaller in that shot compared to the Enterprise. Anyways, the size chart is based on guys even more obsessed than us going over the visual evidence of the series repeatedly, I'll stick with them.

 

[zar]

Those obsessed guys are not in agreement with each other. Bernd Schneider believes the visual evidence in Voyager confirms the official Doug Drexler concept of it being an upgrade of the standard cube:

Visual evidence from VOY: "Unimatrix Zero" supports the assumption that it is of the same size as a 3km cube variant 2.

You're conveniently choosing to ignore this interpretation, despite the fact that it's the one that most closely agrees with onscreen dialog and the creator's actual intent, and go with the one that supports your original assumption. That makes you look awfully stubborn.

 

[Anwar]

Visual evidence from Unimatrix Zero actually supports the "it's smaller" interpretation, not the "it's the same size" one.

http://www.ditl.org/index.php?daymain=/picship.php?brgtacticalcube&1

Look at that shot of it fighting VOY, it's clearly smaller than the ENT-D/Cube confrontations from Q Who? and BOBW.