Not a bad theory.. I like it

It would explain why all the ships had to fire, they had to "dig" through the cube to find the ship. And why Data didn't think it was an important part, once Borg tech had taken over all other functions the remaining peices of the ship were just vestigial components. We know the Borg ignore anything that isn't of immediate threat/use/interest so it makes sense that the couch cushions would be left sitting in some corner.

C. I. Read the comments and you will see your question was already answered.

"We know the Borg ignore anything that isn't of immediate threat/use/interest so it makes sense that the couch cushions would be left sitting in some corner."

watch the first 15 seconds of this video to see that I am right.

Perfection

Ahh.... But would said gelato machine be able to create anything taste good? Remember the time Seven Of Nine forced fed her fellow drones to eat burnt carbon?

The King Of Waffles I imagine it would be like the Replicators on the Heart of Gold from Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. “So you want the taste of plant glucose, and milk... squirted from a cow, mixed together and frozen... I need a second to interface with the Hive Mind.”

Chris Amon In Hawaii we have this dish from sliced and diced aquatic protein that's served over shaped cooked plant grains wrapped in dried aquatic salted algae. It's a great hit with the tourist. You can even find this dish in Safeway. xD

That is a frightening thought. Do they have pistachio mint?

thats what i thought

Building on that, that's just a first-generation ship. Second and Nth-generation ships are the result of cutting cubes into eight and building back out to standard size, so there's even smaller amounts of captured vessels in later generations of ships. Somewhere out there is a cube with a couple of metres of corridor from one of the very first ships the Borg assimilated centuries ago.

In Star Trek Online, during the Special Task Force mission "Khitomer Vortex," you encounter an assimilated Romulan Scimitar warship that looks suspiciously like it's starting to undergo a conversion into a Borg sphere: sto.gamepedia.com/File:Donatra%27s_ship.jpg. So, even given this non-canon inference, it's not really outside the realm of possibility.

I agree, Borg are parasitic by nature. This seems like it would translate to their spacefaring.

@@LoreReloaded But why would they still have that? I mean logically they would gradually dismantle that ship and use it's mass to build outward./ Think of it like digestion. The Borg are gradually consuming the original ship, breaking it all down as they go and using its mass to make new mass for the forming Cube. And I don't mean drones chewing up old pieces of hull I mean they would dismantle the old ship from the inside, rework systems to be more efficient and when they found new matter they could assimilate they would use that in the building of a new outer hull. Their nanomachines could theoretically break down any matter into new matter so long as they had the material to work with. There's no real reason why the entire old ship should still be intact deep inside the Cube. I mean your body hasn't got large chunks of old cows inside it. No chicken carcasses yet your body has broken down hamburgers into their different components. You've assimilated the proteins and sugars to build your DNA you've used the sodium in their salts to fire your neurons.

aperson22222 "And then you will be theirs" had a frightening quality to it when Q delivered so simple a line.

Never bring a drone to a bat'leth duel. 🤣

William Knape Worf didn't even have a bat'leth. He chopped those fuckers up with a mek'leth just the same as he grass-cut the Klingons who boarded DS9. Badass.

asperson22222:Species 8472.Anything else to say?

Following this logic, could you imagine the havoc caused by dead drones or the presence of any converted tech? The drone dies, the tech goes offline, then its nanites go to work self replicating, converting additional systems, or infecting personnel... terrifying.

Verry interesting

Species 8472 - The player who uses cheats

Indeed

No kidding. Just look at Doctor Who. Steven Moffatt even said that the in-story reboot of the universe during the 11th Doctor's run brought the universe back just as it was before "minus any inconvenient plot-holes".

I was thinking more like "abstract "

we know there are actually mass-effect fields in ST because o'brien used one on ds9's first episode - a 'mass-dampening' field i think they called it, so it seems probable something the size of a cube would _need_ one just to move around without tearing apart from shearing forces.

Jarrad Scarborough I remember that. That was yet another reason why O'Brien is a boss.😎

My theory is that the queen still was able to influence Picard, told him to fire there. It was part of her major plan of getting her sphere into the past

aragos32727 maybe.

aragos32727 : How does that strategy work? Surely it would be better to launch the sphere, whilst having the cube intact, to keep Star Fleet busy. Sphere goes in to the past and not followed. However, none of the Borg's plan actually makes any sense at all. It's not as if the Federation were a thorn in their side and needed to be wiped out. If they were, they could have easily have sent a full invasion force, with multiple cubes, to achieve this. Assimilating Earth in the past is pointless. They get no tech from that. Just a planet of drones. They have plenty of those. Maybe going back to the past was a back up plan. But again, why not just send more than one cube? Why was plan A somewhat ill equipped? You can definitely blame Voyager for taking a lot of the mystery out of the Borg. Once you realise they have thousands of cubes, and get to pretty much anywhere, quickly, via conduits, they become lousy strategists. The whole Alpha/Beta Quadrants could have been assimilated within a few months, with little resistance. If cubes were a sparse resource, then perhaps, their plan in FC has a little more weight.

We are the Replicators Om Nom Nom Nom Nom

we are the flood AAAARRRRRGGHHHHH!!!!!

WE. ARE. THE. CYBERMEN. YOU. WILL. BE. DELETED.

I am the Doctor, and if Daleks, Cybermen, or the combined forces of Genghis Khan couldn't get through those doors, then I very much doubt that you could either!

Don't forget the Spanish inquisition!

My perception is he had some kind of insight to fire there as it was a weakness… perhaps a subliminal suggestion implanted by the Borg queen because he’s still feeling a connection… But logically, it makes sense to focus all the energy weapons on a single spot: smoke’em if you’ve got’em, so to speak. By firing at no particular place, they were likely to achieve no particular damage that their shields or whatever couldn’t sustain because it was defocused in intensity.

In a comment I saw the poster believed that due to the damage received (as spread out as it was) the borg were running energy through it for repairs (even though lore dude said it was waste extraction) thus triggering a cascade of failures resulting in its destruction

Thats what i said.a year later.lol

he defs had insider info

Exactly! The Borg never put their shields up initially; at least, not with the Federation. That's why every episode of any Star Trek show that includes the Borg has the crew able to beam over to the cube.

@@jetfowl beaming technology was so underutilized in Star Trek. Boarding party? Beam them into space! Or if the Federation morality doesn't support that beam them to a cargo hold with just enough atmosphere to survive. I'm very surprised that the Romulans or Cardassians don't use this tactic. Klingons wouldn't out of the love for a fight. Probably some treaty to never use transporters for live munitions

Sounds like Star Trek Online ships

They couldn't detect weapons so it's possible

I was going to make this exact argument. In the initial contact with the Borg they're operating on complete ignorance. By the time of First Contact they've tangled with the Borg numerous times. After every encounter their intel would only grow on the Borg.

Stofsk. Remember though, the rest of the fleet didnt seem to know about any such weakness. It was Picard through a lingering connection to the Borg who knew where to hit them.

I just put it down to improved sensor technology.

DrewLSsix They could read the subsystem but didn't see the value in attacking it. I think this is a very plausible explanation.

I'd argue the Borg Queen in First Contact laid that foundation. A leader of a hive mind that can give orders that contradict the hive mind, and if she dies all nearby borg die? Yeah. Really useful.

useful and logically and scientifically sound: the queen is the only one who has a defined personality, a distinct mind and individual fears and aspirations, the drones are merely extensions of that mind, linked to the queen via some sort of signal, that is obviously stronger the nearest to the source (that's how signals work). now, what would happen in case of the queen's death? all her emotions, fears, everything will go into the signal, overloading the drones, frying the circuits, basically deactivating them, because they're drones, they don't have and don't need the computing power to process emotions or fears, they only need to process "go A to B". and, 7of9 doesn't count, she was a "special" drone, she was supposed to become queen at some point, so her capacity was way higher than standard drones

Wasn't the entire point of the Borg, that they were a singular collective conciousness, in which the individual was irrelevant? The Queen was a massive step backwards from what made th Borg so scary, the fact that there was no anthropamorphic face to the collective, because they were just that, a collective. No leaders, no underlings, just this unstoppable juggernaut that could not be intimidated, bargained with or bribed. The Queen, created a fundamental weakness in the Borg by giving them a singular leader and one riven with pride, wrath and arrogance, all those things that the Borg were supposed to be free of, as beings of cold, ruthless logic, seeking nothing less than perfection.

While from a fiction standpoint it makes sense to have a 'face' for your villain, for the Borg it doesn't make logical sense. The goal of a hive mind is to basically consider every possible angle to a problem in mere milliseconds, and the majority would decide the best solution to said problem from all possibilities. A single leader can make mistakes, a true hive mind far less so. That's probably the problem and why they introduced the queen. You can't just keep using the Borg as your big bad every time, because it would get ridiculous to see them losing all the time. That's the inherent problem with a race like this in fiction though. There's no logical way for your heroes to beat them time and time again. Also, the 'useful/logically and scientifically sound' answer is not really so straightforward. If the case was that she overloaded all nearby drones when she was killed because of that, then why would she put herself at the forefront of a situation that would result in that very thing happening? Also, yes they may be drones, but most of them used to be individuals, and they still have the biological components that process emotion, they're just in a dormant state. It's even stated in an episode of Voyager that drones have a fail safe mechanism built in that shuts them down if they start experiencing strong emotions. What is not stated or shown is that it 'fries' the drone like we see in First Contact. It says the cortical nodes shut down the higher brain functions when the drone experienced a certain level of emotional stimulus, in order to, to quote memory alpha 'deactivate the drone'. This implies that drones are indeed allowed to feel a minimum level of emotion, but anything higher results in shut down. So really we do not know why the drones all died when the Queen did. It's inconsistent at best. We see in Endgame that even though the Borg Queen is dying, there are still Borg who are close enough to hear her thoughts that do not experience any difficulty at all. We really don't know how the Borg hive mind works. Take for example, we've seen several crashed Borg in ST, and usually they begin regaining their individuality. However in the ENT episode Regeneration, we have DEAD drones that somehow come back to life, and despite them being on Earth with no link to a Queen back in the delta quadrant, somehow these 2 drones are still fully connected to the collective. Despite the fact that they later establish in that very episode that a subspace signal would take 200+ years to reach the delta quadrant. There's a lot of problems to contend with.

From a storytelling perspective it does make sense though, call it the Superman problem. The Borg were set up in TNG to be so powerful, only a 'plot device' would be able to beat them. That might be cool at first glance but it does provide huge narrative problems.

If I said 3 miles, I obviously misspoke

Don't make fun of those with different abilities. Specially those that can't count in base ten for their messurements U_U

Vicho Deivis we can... We just prefer to be difficult. We are Americans after all. 🤗

Crashing proves into mars is part of that? XP

Vicho Deivis it's probes. And that lacky was mocked mercilessly for his crime against math. 😈Always convert your units. 😎

.... I KNOW RIGHT!?!

The crew doesn't need to eat.

In Voyager they were described as disruptors.

In STO they're plasma beam.

nichodo and yet, every time Starfleet does so on screen, it is both interesting and effective.

Your biological & technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.

*grabs an M16* bring it on.

*Hakai.*

OPEN FIRE!!!

That was so funny for species 8.... to hear

Service you? We can service you... all night long, if necessary! (courtesy of Robot Chicken's Enterprise-D night crew skit)

We are the Borg. Surrender your vessel, and prepare for assimilation. From this time forward. Your culture will adapt to service ours. Now disarm your weapons. You will escort us to your homeworld where we will begin assimilating your culture and technology. Resistance is futile.

"Assimilate This..." -one bad@ss Klingon

ALTHOUGH IT HASN'T BEEN IN THE PAST IT DEFINITELY IS NOW

kunicross a fleet of dominion ships would line up to make kamakazeee attacks on Borg cubes out of honor and zeal. Wolf 359 only happened because starfleet are cowards

deadlyNytshayd I doubt such attacks would be as efficient against the borg, their ships lack weaknesses. If it would turn out that jem'hadar are not usable as drones do to their genetic engineering that would give the dominion an edge.

kunicross all anyone has to do is over load the warp core and ram a Borg ship creating subspace tear thus problem solved. You're welcome.

Phazers pretty much are replicators of energy. They have no magazine.

J Garza I would love to see that

I wouldn't doubt it given starfleet knew of the borg at this point from the fist contact sphere wreckage, and Archer's log from star trek enterprise.

Yes, so Burnham can effortlessly turn them back and put off invasion for another century or so because she's just that awesome. /massive sarc

So if Discovery is pre Enterprise they know about the cyborg like creatures that Enterprise had a run-in with and Zefram Cochrane talked about. But if you remember from Enterprise it was considered the ramblings of a Madman, the speech Cochran gave about the Borg. So the Federation and Starfleet aren't too concerned and in the episode on Enterprise it said it would take some odd number of centuries before the signal reached its destination. I still subscribe to the theory that Q made Jean-Luc encounter board earlier than they were supposed to in order for Starfleet to get ready for them. It his own little way of course

Discovery isn't pre Enterprise (Archer). It's almost contemporary with the original series. A few years, short of Kirk. In Discovery, Pike is still the captain of the (TOS) Enterprise.

glad you enjoy it!

clearspira. Considering how long the battle was implied to have lasted and that we dont see much of the cube at all you can assume the thing was regenerating the whole time. Perhaps its resources were dwindling by the time the E showed up and it either no longer could regenerate or regeneration was halted to preserve resources. It could also be why they had a single vulnerable point at that time. Accumulated damage forced systems to be routed through ever smaller pathways.

It would make mince meat out of anything in star wars for sure

Darth Oculus pakled ships could make mince meat in star wars

in first contact that cube was being pounded on continuously for hours, the first time u see a cube heal the ent-d was just sitting in front of it and cube was under no pressure, it had all the time in the world - 2 situations not really comparable. cube never got opportunity to _completely_ focus on repairs in first contact.

Beauty it seems is in the eye of the beholder. I consider the thing a chaotic mess. From a distance, it looks solid but close up you see how nothing inside is symmetrical to any degree. I agree it's powerful and the design seems to lead to great redundancy, but beautiful? Not to me.

Main editor is my cat

He's a real hard ass, that cat.

That cat is awesome reminds me of the last cat I ever had , he thought he was human

glad you enjoyed

Donald Hudson Well.... If your enemy has a ship of geometric shape design it's kind of hard to find it's *proverbial* ass! Since every sentient lifeform has some sort of constipation problem. It's a *fact* of life.

Life on Earth: predominantly, tubes that occasionally flap.

Each cube could be made up of the components from several dozen ships. They could grow the original assimilated ship by welding other vessels they assimilate until eventually it is cube sized. Over time I imagine the Borg nanobots would restructure the assimilated ships into the standard cube shape as they went along. Idk just a thought I had

What...did they build that thing with Miranda as basis?^^

@@NashmanNash perhaps, but probably not. it probably would have been a much larger ship for the weakness to ever be and issue. in this case the assimilated ship at the core was large enough and powerful enough for some systems to be expanded in there already centralized form. the original cube was probably built from the ground up because its systems are much less centralized.

@@NashmanNash considering how easily the weakness exploded it probably was a Oberth class

Thanasis Geronimos always wondered with time travel tech why not connect their consciencenes throughout all time? Use something like Daniels did in Enterprise when talking to 22nd century people. Borg would gain new knowledge and disseminate it across the collective throughout time.

Maybe they got the time travel stuff by assimilating the Krenim?

aperson22222 They did. The Krenim have a designation, meaning they do encountered them. They most likely assimilated some of their ships before the Krenim Empire made disappear itself like the dummies they were.

Daniel Bennett I actually think the most op thing for the Borg would be to surround themselves with a time field that forces time to go faster within their bubble, like the replicators and later the Deadalus in Stargate SG1. There goes the knew adaptive power : they adapt to your weapons even before it hits them. Then they fast forward and exit the bubble with unbeatable new tech. Game over.

Luc Fauvarque actually that kind of system leads to it's downfall as it advances so much that it breaks before it's optimized.

"If the writers left the Borg as is the only future available would be the darkest outcome as shown in the episode "Parallels" where Rikker has a crazy ZZ top beard and tells us the Federation is gone and the Borg are everywhere." I don't know... if I remember that specific timeline correctly, it was one where they failed to rescue Picard from the Borg, hence the Borg victory over the Federation. Also, the Borg Queen in First Contact has parallels (no pun intended) with the Zerg Overmind (from StarCraft) who became overconfident when learning the location of the Protoss homeworld of Aiur. While the Overmind succeeded in claiming the Protoss homeworld, and driving them from their homes, he was killed by the Protoss during the event. The Borg queen was similarly overconfident, and met a similar fate. The Borg have a major weakness in their lack of creativity, stemming from a lack of individuality, and unless they incorporate some individualism, like they did when they assimilated Picard into Locutus, they won't be able to outsmart mankind. And the same goes around in StarCraft, where the Zerg became even more devastating when the Queen of Blades, an assimilated human, eventually took control of the Zerg swarm after manipulating the protagonists into helping her eliminate her competition.

I remember that Novel. Should’ve been the second TNG movie instead of First Contact. Kept the Borg terrifying, but then the solution was even more terrifying.

ya, all you do is back up the toilets and EVERYTHING GOES TO SHIT.

Jean-Luc Martel with the Borg it's probably a heat waste management so overheating due to combat.

COUGH DEATH STAR COUGH.

David Dyster. Because trek was so consistent before Berman lol.

Fortunately the Enterprise is well versed in the Technobabble and Deus ex Machina victory.

Zerg could do it. Kerregan fighting the Borg Queen. What would you call that fight.

Borg assimilate Zerg... That's an apocalypse and a half.

To face the Borg we need a *Q Ex Machina*

No shipyards but you do see a hub

You also see Unimatrix One, the Queen's remote office

Vicho Deivis interesting if they could separate into micro cubes then grow into full size cubes by consuming machine elements from other worlds and ships.

Then you have 4 Borg-Spheres whit Edges.^^

a Borg quabe

It would be pretty scary if the cube wasn't destroyed, and all the pieces were capable of attacking and maneuvering.

I dunno, "The Borg Rectangular Prism" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Wasn't there an audible version of that Borg whisper around? Or is there only the actual transcript?

In enterprise there was an automated repair station that operated similar to how the borg repaired itself with similar speed. So nothing to do with nanites and more to do with replicator repair like some 3d printer differential backup restoration techniques.

I try, after getting folks upset about it.. I tried to make it more accessible.