Would Rom's Cloaked Minefield Work on the Exit Aperture of a Borg
- Thread starter Photon
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Possibly. Though mostly I'm hung up on the phrase "Exit Aperture of a Borg".
As long as the mines are properly assembled and the activation signal is sent, there's no reason why they shouldn't work. Now, finding an exit aperture is another matter.
--Sran
--Sran
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Borg transwarp network
The Borg transwarp network
The Borg transwarp network was a vast series of transwarp conduits spanning the entire galaxy. The conduits were connected by several transwarp hubs, and were supported by a series of interspatial manifolds, which were protected by shielding regulated from the central nexus by the Borg Queen herself. The network maintained thousands of exit apertures in all four quadrants, allowing the Collective to deploy vessels almost anywhere in the Milky Way Galaxy within minutes, giving the Borg a decisive tactical advantage.
The transwarp network was destroyed in 2378 when Kathryn Janeway's counterpart from 2404 was able to infect the Queen with a neurolytic pathogen, an act which interfered with the Queen's ability to regulate the shielding protecting the interspatial manifolds. This allowed the crew of the USS Voyager to fire a series of transphasic torpedoes, destroying the manifolds and causing the network to collapse. (VOY: "Endgame")
There were some discrepancies between the display graphic of the network and the dialogue about it. According to dialogue there were six transwarp hubs in the galaxy, while the graphic only showed four hubs, one in each quadrant. Additionally, according to dialogue, there were only exit apertures in the Alpha Quadrant, while the graphic shows a hub in the Alpha Quadrant as well.
^Yes, I'm familiar with the concept of a transwarp hub. That doesn't tell me exactly where one of the apertures will be. Perhaps the apertures are able to move within a predetermined distance based on instructions from the Borg Queen.
--Sran
--Sran
These things need not be eternal or ancient. For all we know, these conduits are created by "snowplowing" them with a transwarp coil, and then either kept open with help from a transwarp hub, or left to deteriorate and collapse.
It may also be that one needs to establish a conduit at both ends, meaning one has to fly to the far end at conventional warp speeds first. Which is what the Borg have only done twice before "Endgame"; perhaps it took two tries? Or a third, unfilmed one?
What Janeway did in "Endgame" is far from clear. Perhaps she collapsed the entire network, perhaps she just hurt that one hub. Only the younger Janeway believes in "dealing a crippling blow"; Admiral Janeway merely speaks of blowing up the local hub and getting the crew home.
The dialogue doesn't actually tell us that those four dots on screen would be hubs. At that point of the show-and-tell, the heroes merely discuss the exit points in all the four quadrants; those four could be examples of such, just before a more complex schematic of the corridor network is displayed.
What part of the dialogue should be taken to mean there aren't hubs in the Alpha Quadrant?
Timo Saloniemi
It may also be that one needs to establish a conduit at both ends, meaning one has to fly to the far end at conventional warp speeds first. Which is what the Borg have only done twice before "Endgame"; perhaps it took two tries? Or a third, unfilmed one?
What Janeway did in "Endgame" is far from clear. Perhaps she collapsed the entire network, perhaps she just hurt that one hub. Only the younger Janeway believes in "dealing a crippling blow"; Admiral Janeway merely speaks of blowing up the local hub and getting the crew home.
The dialogue doesn't actually tell us that those four dots on screen would be hubs. At that point of the show-and-tell, the heroes merely discuss the exit points in all the four quadrants; those four could be examples of such, just before a more complex schematic of the corridor network is displayed.
What part of the dialogue should be taken to mean there aren't hubs in the Alpha Quadrant?
Timo Saloniemi
It would work the first few times.
I have a feeling the Borg would be able to assimilate the technology really fast.
I have a feeling the Borg would be able to assimilate the technology really fast.
I don't think so. Not to technobabble an explanation, but the one thing that both transwarp drives and transwarp conduits have in common, is that at the opening end of an aperture you have a high number of gravimetric distortions. I would assume that when one opens, those distortions would interact with the mines and possible cause them to detonate prematurely.
Rom's minefield worked on the Bajoran wormhole because it was at a fixed point - everyone knew where the wormhole was, how to get there, and how to deploy the mines.
That's not the same as the Borg technobabble conduits - they can open pretty much anywhere the Borg decide to exit into normal space. Obviously they didn't have this technology durin' the events of TNG 'Q Who', 'The Best of Both Worlds, Part One' or First Contact.
Don't forget, it took time for the Defiant to lay the minefield across the wormhole's access point, and the mines weren't cloaked until the entire field was ready.
So, how exactly would anyone be able to predict where the Borg would show up, from one vector/origin, and figure it out in time to produce the mines and lay 'em out in a field without detection?
That's not the same as the Borg technobabble conduits - they can open pretty much anywhere the Borg decide to exit into normal space. Obviously they didn't have this technology durin' the events of TNG 'Q Who', 'The Best of Both Worlds, Part One' or First Contact.
Don't forget, it took time for the Defiant to lay the minefield across the wormhole's access point, and the mines weren't cloaked until the entire field was ready.
So, how exactly would anyone be able to predict where the Borg would show up, from one vector/origin, and figure it out in time to produce the mines and lay 'em out in a field without detection?
It still does not matter, the minefield could not damage the Borg cube enough for it to be a concern. Look at how many ships it too Starfleet to finally take out the cube (with Picard's knowledge of a week spot no less) in First Contact. Do you really think a couple dozen mines would stop the progress of cube that would just regenerate itself.
You're assuming too much continuity. In TNG transwarp was just a "superior power source" that could go faster and longer than warp. The Enterprise was able to keep up with the Cube for awhile in Best of Both Worlds for example and stay within striking distance. In First Contact one assumes it was the same given the Federation fleet was able to still intercept the Cube rather far from Earth to engage it in a long running battle(unless you choose to believe the Enterprise E got from the Neutral Zone to Earth in a few hours).
By the time the Borg came to Voyager in Scorpion, they were still using the "superior power source" mode of travel. Otherwise the "time to travel through our space" argument is just two fold stupid, the Borg for proposing it and Voyager for believing it. Otherwise they should've just been able to drag Voyager to the edge of their space, heck drop them off at Earth for the cure.
It wasn't until Dark Frontier they started changing things to suit the various plots of the week. There was the transwarp coil that apparently anyone can just walk onto a Borg ship and grab. By all accounts it functioned similarly to the "quantum slipstream drive" that was used in Timeless which Seven supposedly adapted from Borg technology. It used the same tunnel graphic too. The Delta Flyer was able to use one of these to fly to Borg Space and back in the space of one episode.
In Unimatrix Zero by all accounts, they just seemed to have forgotten they had this technology as suits the plot as Voyager was able to intercept Borg vessels at will... except in the same episode they retcon this again since the "rebel Borg" ships joined them in a facepalming scene.
It wasn't until Endgame that transwarp hubs with exit apertures were brought up. Which given the way the Borg and Voyager had already used "transwarp' to fly from non-fixed destinations. Heck they even maneuver while at transwarp. The whole reason of being for the transwarp hub was a plot device designed to be "important" enough to give Admiral Janeway an excuse to martyr herself to destroy while simultaneously getting Voyager home with the Earth exit aperture which apparently the Borg just didn't feel like using in the two previous attacks.
Huh. I pride myself on being an old school Trekkie, having watched every hour ever produced on TV and in the movies, and I never thought about the transwarp inconsistencies until I read your post. Nicely done.
I never thought to ask after watching Endgame why the hell they'd need a transwarp network if their ships had transwarp coils.
Picard mentioned the Borg having a superior power source to explain how they got to Fed space so fast in a year and a half from their first encounter with them. He was being hypothetical. After they found out about Transwarp Conduits, it's most likely they realized "Oh, THAT'S how they got here so fast."
Which adds to the Transwarp Conduit thing. The ships don't have super-duper Warp Drives, they use the Conduits to get places fast from the Delta Quadrant/anywhere else.
They could have, but that'd end the show.
They still have it, but perhaps Transwarp Conduits drain a lot of power and should be used only for the big long-range trips.
The idea of the Borg having Conduits was originally from TNG, though. "Descent".
Fully possible they just hadn't created that particular conduit yet, and another reason Future Janeway destroyed it was because that conduit was just finished and she knew it'd be used for another invasion in the future.
EDIT:
The Coils are to help use the Transwarp Network as well as boost normal space warp drive. The Network is still superior to their normal ship drives.
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And after they learned a bit more about the Borg, they most likely realized "Oh, so they where here all the time and didn't need to get here from anywhere"...
There was no mention of the "Q Who?" or "BoBW" Borg doing anything called transwarp, so we can't claim that transwarp changed just because the Borg after these episodes started moving differently.
Or perhaps they simply don't go to all that many places, and take a lot of effort to construct. So you take the conduit to a location close to your destination, and fly the rest of the way by more conventional means.
Back then, we could speculate that this was something specific to Lore's deranged Borg. Nowadays, we can speculate that only the unique looks of the "Descent" conduits (and their ship) were due to the insanity of Lore's mini-collective.
Or perhaps a coil is an absolute requirement for opening a conduit mouth and entering, except in "Descent" where the conduit was abnormal because of its builders being abnormal.
It could also be that the coil is needed for plowing new conduits into untamed space, and in "Dark Frontier" Janeway had no idea that there also was a preexisting network of readymade conduits available to her, so she desperately wanted to steal the snowplow.
Timo Saloniemi
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