Borg Cube: The Decaying Final Boss Battle for Starfleet

[@LoreReloaded]

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[@ericmadsen7470]

If you ran Starfleet or the Federation at large how would you correct the errors that keep appearing within its continuity?

[@thelawngnomeslayer]

I think you may have glossed over one important detail. In the beginning the federation knew nothing about the Borg and thus didn't know how to defeat them. The Borg underestimated Humanity's ability to learn and adapt. The later eras show the Borg as weaker not because they became weaker from assimilating inferior technology but because every officer and cadet in Starfleet had become familiar with standard practice tactics for fighting the Borg. Another thing to note is the earliest appearances of the Borg lacking certain technologies is sometimes explained by a limited special effects budget at the time of production. You can also see strong evidence of the Borg having core systems in voyager episode Dark Frontier where they discover and use a transwarp coil. Also, in the movie First Contact where Picard orders the fleet to fire on a specific spot on the cube even though there did not appear to be any significance suggests he knows where the Borg are concealing their core systems.

[@spartanx9293]

I'll install it if you stream it for 2 hours you should be willing to play the game your advertising

[@acmenipponair]

Sorry Lore, but 2 Minutes of "commercial" for a stupid mobile click game with a 13 min video? Is this nowadays necessary?

[@heeman1203]

Thing is Borg can't really innovate, only steal what some other species has already done. Its only natural that they become less of a threat the more they are understood.

[@entropy11]

IMO, as the Federation learned more about the borg they simply became more able to deal with their adaptation defenses, developed shielding subroutines tuned to their weapons (much like they nullified the initial critical advantage of Dominion polaron weapons) and developed effective tactics to fight them, none of which were present at Wolf359.

[@pouncerlion4022]

My thought runs in a similar direction, but add in the Borg lack the ability to innovate on their own, they really can only assimilate tech, not create new tech. As the Federation and their allies innovated the Borg could only adapt, not innovate in return.

[@jonathanellis6097]

Yeah, I don't think the Borg became less effective, Starfleet just became more effective.

[@tenofprime]

I think lots of the influence of the Borg can be seen in the dominion war. That experience was a costly that not everyone you meet out there is nice or someone you can negotiate with. Sometimes you have to be ready to fight to survive.

[@jonathanellis6097]

Without the Borg encounters Starfleet would have been in no position to effectively defend against the Dominion, the ship and weapons designs to defend against the Borg enabled Starfleet to compete. Having won the Dominion war, the technological jump for Starfleet was massive, while the Borg basically stood still. The Borg were an important encounter for Starfleet, one that gave them a good kick. The Borg didn't get weaker Starfleet just upped their game.

[@namekman01]

yeah, i think they had their phasers automatically cycle frequencies between shots. i dont remember where i saw that.

[@AdamDraconaQuest]

To quote Data, "The Borg do not evolve; they conquer." I feel like the reason the Borg constantly get weaker as time progresses is because their enemies get stronger, and enemies like Starfleet and Species 8472 keeping them at bay making it more difficult to assimilate power cultures.

[@22steve5150]

Exactly. I've been saying this since the damn 90's. The Borg don't INNOVATE, they adapt, and their real weakness is when their enemy innovates. Longterm this puts them at a bigger and bigger disadvantage vs the Federation and other civilizations that are known for great innovation and creativity / thinking outside the box to solve problems. When I say the Borg ADAPT, I mean they adapt their systems to increase efficiency against a given foe's weapons, defenses, or recognized strategy. But each adaptation to increase efficiency in one way results in a reduction of efficiency in another area or requires new physical systems to be constructed using materials and energy that previously went to other systems on board (like adding physical armor plating or the power generation requirements for "new" systems like adaptive shielding....adding these "takes away" from something else on the vessel). So there's always ways to defeat that, and the first way we see the Federation work on this is with frequency variation for their energy weapons and energy defenses, now extrapolate those sorts of improvements over several decades all while new weapon systems and defenses are created, and as tactics specifically against huge starships are created and tested, or ways to disrupt the common bandwidths of subspace frequencies that Borg hive-minds tend to use, etc.

[@TheRyujinLP]

That and their greatest enemy: Por Wri'Ters.

[@TheLunacyofOurTimes]

That is truth. The borg never assimilated the Kazon because they were worthless scrap-hounds.

[@TheDownrankTrain]

We never really learn how much of the collective is actually left after Species 8472 kicked the shit out of them, but they were at imminent risk of total destruction. Thousands of ships had entered the heart of their space, with only a handful required to destroy a planet. It is very possible that they never recovered from that.

[@markc1548]

FYI At 4:00, 3,037 meters is NOT 1 mile 1,609 meters is 1 miles So a Borg cube is about 1.88 miles on each side.

[@brokedude1663]

Metrics is for Heretics

[@markc1548]

@@brokedude1663 lol, the 3 countries using imperial have it tough, especially when you consider "They don't make yard sticks any longer" Sorry but I couldn't help myself.

[@brokedude1663]

@@markc1548. 😍🥰🤯🤫 We just substituted a Baseball Bat instead "When You don't have a hammer, use a rock" Yankee Logic 😆🥳

[@ericspecullaas2841]

To be fair I thought the cubes were 1km cubed. But either way still really big ships

[@markc1548]

@@ericspecullaas2841 So... I just looked it up on Star Trek Wiki (for what that's worth) and they say the cube is 3,000m per side, So that's 27km3. To put that into perspective (and I'm not saying this would be comfortable) but if you could put an average of 6 people in a 2meter cubic area That would fit the entire current population of Earth 1.7 times over. JUST IN SPACE obviously there needs to be a toilet somewhere.

[@Noisemarine]

The decline of the Borg does kinda make sense. The borg dont learn or innovate at least not in the way we think they can be sneaky, but there tech is always assimilated from other species. So unless they were assimilating other races more advanced or powerful than the federation they would lose there technological fighting edge more quickly.

[@DragoonMS]

Prime example: Species 8472. They've been basically wiping their buttholes with the Borg. So the Borg can't assimilate them...so no new powers.

[@RickySpanish12344]

You're forgetting that they assimilate people. Their tactics, and adaptability is the combined thoughts, and idea's of the entire collective. Combined with their advanced computer systems, and processing power, they should be able to advance themselves much more quickly than conventional species.... I mean look at Earth right now. Imagine how quickly we would advance if every single person were working for a singular purpose. If we all wanted the same thing, and worked together to achieve it. We'd advance very quickly. The Borg have assimilated like thousands of species (and have trillions of drones) so their ability to analyze, and adapt to new technology should be incredibly fast. Species 8472 was such a lame idea. The Borg with trillions of minds couldn't devise a way for their probes to work, but the doctor who was made of Federation technology was able to do so in short time. Made no sense. It was a perfect example of plot armor.

[@OllamhDrab]

@@RickySpanish12344 You're forgetting a slightly more advanced Starfleet can chew their arses up. If someone has something they can steal past a point of advancement, they get their arses kicked. Basically the Borg steal the best they can and overhype themselves, then believe that hype. But they don't actually change. And they lose. Their transwarp network isn't even something they understood and they got it blown up.

[@OllamhDrab]

@@RickySpanish12344 And as I said in another post, the Borg are only as good as what they can steal. The Feds can make quantum torpedoes but no one can shrug em off yet, so the Borg has nothing to 'adapt' to them *with.*

[@drawbyyourselve]

@@RickySpanish12344 no I disagree, the borg assimilate and marginally improve, but they dont invent. To invent something you need ideas and those require individuality. Maybe the queen can have ideas, but as much as I have seen them they try to use what they have instead of what they could make. Only in the most extreme cases do the borg make "new" tech, and then they have had help from other species or were extremely slow.

[@andrewm3210]

The Borg used to kick ass...but now they spend all their time playing Raid Shadow Legends!

[@tenofprime]

To me the reason the Borg became less of a threat was the franchise using them more. When you see them for the fourth or fifth time the terror starts to wear out. The key to making a villain scary in many cases is to not overplay them, especially not when they are often loosing when we see them.

[@JoducusKwak]

true, look at Doctor Who, sure Daleks and Cyberman are from an in universe point of view still terrifying but to the audience they are more often than not just a comic relief Villain. Give it another 40 years and people watching Star Trek go "hehe look at the silly Borg go 'ASSIMILATE' i wonder how the Captain of the Enterbrise K will defeat them"

[@Colin4763]

The Borg were doomed from the beginning. As an ultimate adversary who can counter your every attempt at stopping them without breaking a sweat they were great. As an enemy designed to challenge you and force you to up your game, to survive encounters and eventually defeat, they were bad. The Borg had to be degraded in order to tell stories that included them.

[@BlazingOwnager]

>The Borg had to be degraded in order to tell stories that included them. I disagree. They could have, but you HAVE to beat them with unconventional means. Like, seriously unconventional, like finding one of the Iconian Gateways or something. They made them just another ship.

[@TheMultiGunMan]

At one point the Borg were the best villains in Sci-Fi history. But, after assimilating the inhabitants of Clown World they began to slowly degrade and became a fraction of what they once were.

[@NimhLabs]

I thought the Borg opted to not assimilate the Kazon?

[@alanmike6883]

@@NimhLabs Kat, even the borg has some standards and the borg were like 'hell nah' 😂

[@acethesupervillain348]

I think that the lack of Borg shipyards shouldn't be taken too seriously. I don't think we ever see Klingon or Cardassian shipyards either. I think that the Borg modify ships to make them more comfortable to themselves, and I do think Hugh and Seven indicate that they seem to have a sense of comfort, but ultimately they fly whatever ships they capture back to their shipyards and break them into scrap for cubes. Given that Borg seek perfection, I think they would feel inherently unsatisfied with pirated ships and would prefer to make their own perfect cubes back at home.

[@SVSky]

30 years after I first saw the Borg on TV they still occasionally make appearances in nightmares. Saving the last bullet for myself is real in those dreams.

[@TheAnon03]

My personal theory is that Borg Cubes actually grow like a lifeform, the older the Cube the stronger it is.

[@laurarules3642]

I buy that

[@Dlstufguy2]

I would like to add to that a bit. With the regeneration abilities, the best way to make more cubes would be to divide cubes like cells.

[@tonts5329]

@@Dlstufguy2 That is actually a pretty cool idea, it reminds me of what I think were called, seeding vessels. The idea was on Isaac Arthur's channel and it is that a large colony vessel would harvest resources and split to form splinter fleets that grow and go on to colonize new worlds and split off more fleets. The Borg could theoretically be doing the same, I suspect they also mine from meteors for the raw materials to expand their vessels. Of course facilities like Unimatrix Zero could exist to churn out Borg Vessels consistently. Though the idea of lone Borg cubes forming up into fleets of borg cubes after harvesting civilizations sounds a lot more ominous.

[@ryanventer9221]

The introduction of a queen is what killed the Borg. They went from a terrifying, singular focused entity that had to be fought boots on the ground to just another basic military controlled by a generic general that could be bargained with depending on their personal situation. They really took the teeth out of their bite with First Contact.

[@JezOnYT88]

I hate the shit that voyager gets for downsizing the Borg. People seem to forget that 1) the boeg don't touch enemies unless they provoke them and 2) at the time when voyager got to borg space they were at war with Species 8472 which were easily beating them, so their attention was elsewhere.

[@rwalper]

Voyager actually made the Borg more powerful, fleshed out and technologically advanced. When Voyager encountered the Collective for the first time, a Borg cube tractored Voyager in one hit despite having full shields up and beamed Janeway off without a problem. Then proceeded to drag Voyager around like a mouse on a leash until they negotiated being let go. After that, Voyager was upgraded with Borg tech, miscellaneous other alien tech, a huge benefit of a ex drone with vast amounts of knowledge from the Borg Collective, and the Borg queen more than once directly admitting the Borg deliberately left Voyager alone because of Seven of Nine.

[@samsmith4242]

@@rwalper I definitely think Seven of Nine is an experiment for the Borg. They did attempt to reintegrate her once, but that didn’t work. Meaning true individuality couldn’t exist within the Borg collective but observation of said drone still provided valuable results. I doubt the Borg were planning to let Voyager reach home with seven of nine onboard initially. But, with the baseline knowledge for the intrepid gained in the war with 8472 they could view how the knowledge of the Borg could be integrated into star fleet systems and any knowledge could later be gained from federation ships once the data streams became normal as well. Meaning interacting directly with voyager became less important again The Borg are also stupid. The collective doesn’t need permission to acquire vessels but the genocide makes little sense. There ideals of reaching perfection should literally preclude assimilation of an entire species since it costs them a valuable source of knowledge. They’d work better as a natural disaster. A force of nature that would just take over outposts, vessels and colonies out of nowhere

[@AsbestosMuffins]

While I admit they made the ships weaker, they did make the drones substantially stronger, voyager introduced the ability to instantly assimilate people using nanoprobes, which made them instantly absolutely terrifying since they just had to touch you to win, plus they went down an interesting road with the borg's Matrix thingy, but only used it as a weakness instead of writing it in as a strength

[@jon-580]

@@samsmith4242 Borg assimilate entire species (if they can) because Borg don't reproduce asexually so assimilation of civilizations is one of the main ways they grow their population. There is also evidence that they reproduce through cloning but cloning can introduce flaws and the drones created in that manner don't bring anything new to the collective since their only experiences are ones the collective has experienced. This is also why their weapon systems are geared towards capturing ships instead of destroying them.

[@jon-580]

@@AsbestosMuffins The instant-assimilation was actually used in TNG: The Best of Both World's when the Borg captured Picard. We just see a lot more of it in Voyager.

[@Rohirin]

The Borg always seemed to be focused on efficiency. They send out a cube and it gets destroyed. Then they send another, each one having something the previous one didn't. They could have sent multiple cubes, or at least a tactical cube for support, but it wouldn't have been as efficient. If they lose the cube, it was only one unit. If it succeeds, they get a new species/sector/quadrant. We have to remember the Borg are working across the Galaxy, so they have to spread those resources around.

[@andysat1318]

Clearly the Borg assimilated humans, then had conflicting systems of measurement to deal with which slowed their adaptation speed since the had to constantly check their conversions.

[@maisiesummers42]

And once again... "Warp" does not require nacelles. It does not require dilithium, or even a warp engine. All you have to do is curve spacetime so that the ship is, in effect, sliding downhill. Starfleet uses nacelles because their method of warping spacetime creates radiation, so they put their generators out on sticks, away from the ship. (NB: the "engine" we see, although called a warp core, is really just a power generator. That device does not, by itself, create the warp bubble. It just makes power, which is piped to the nacelles, which contain the actual warp field generators.) Similarly, the Romulans use a singularity for power generation. But, again, the singularity does not generate the warp field. They have nacelles for that, and presumably their tech is similar to Starfleet's in that respect. All this means is that the Borg have some other method for curving spacetime. One that doesn't require nacelles. It's still a warp drive, but the actual method is unknown.

[@Noisemarine]

My interpretation was that the Borg simply used a decentralised scaled down method of warp travel e.g. micro nacelles or something similar something that Starfleet could probably produce but was too complex to run when big nacelles were easier to physically operate or fix.

[@Scylon1]

From what I understood the lore behind the borg was they used gravimetric weapons and propulsion. EG, just create a gravity field and your ship moves that way. And you can use Sci-fi BS to stop the crew from flying towards it.

[@Noisemarine]

@@Scylon1 Fair enough trek does like its scifi gravity magic. (Captain! We have lost main power and shields but artificial gravity which should require huge amounts of energy still works fine!)

[@spawnof200]

@@Noisemarine wasnt the borg variant called transwarp?

[@maisiesummers42]

@@Scylon1 A gravity field is exactly what warp is. Just a question of how you make one.

[@davitto01]

I noticed the Borg changed significantly after Lore took over a group of them. It makes me think that up until that point, the borg didn't have a Queen. But after Lore showed them how efficient it is to have a driving consciousness to make decisions for them, that is when they made the Queen and that is when their tactics changed.

[@shanehudson3995]

Except the Queen claimed to be active when Picard was a Borg.

[@nixboox]

You imply disparity where none exists. The Borg cubes didn't get weaker...the Federation got stronger because it adapted and it had insider knowledge from the Liberated Borg that it took into its fold.

[@DrewLSsix]

And I assert this is how it's supposed to be in trek, the whole philosophy of the franchise revolves around learning and understanding. A thing beyond comprehension is just antithetical to the purpose of the show. There's room to argue that making the Borg understandable could have been done better but I don't think there's any rational way to preserve them as perpetually unassailable. For one that leaves the fate of the Federation and the galaxy pretty well sealed, the Borg will eventually win the last fight and the franchise is dead.

[@Rhewin]

The writers definitely made cubes easier to defeat. The speed at which the used to heal is almost completely dropped. More importantly, the are supposed to be nearly infinitely adaptable, even without assimilating. They should have been able to outpace the Federation.

[@callummacalister]

They nerfed it with the 1996 update, then OP'd the starships. They're trying to rebalance it, but there are coding issues and the next update is already behind schedule. Crunch time I guess.

[@HeadlessChickenTO]

Borg have no R&D functionality, they don't make discoveries through scientific breakthroughs but rather they basically steal it through their assimilation process. This only works well if they can encounter and assimilate other powers who are of equal footing or greater..and hopefully survive said encounter. So without other galactic powers to cull for technological knowledge from, the Borg stagnated. They seem to have also "harvested" as much as they could in the Delta quadrant, that or there was slim pickings due to rapid expansion. So much so that they send ships to the Alpha/Beta quadrant, and into Fluidic space in a desperate attempt to scout and assimilate what they can there.

[@ZontarDow]

3037 meters is 1.9 miles, not one mile.

[@christiansandin5537]

Was gonna point that out as well

[@davidmangle]

Didn't see this before posting

[@Martin-gf1hh]

Math is racist

[@RickySpanish12344]

I remember reading somewhere that some people didn't like how often the Borg were used on Voyager. The argument was that for the crew to survive, the Borg had to have more and more weaknesses. That's pretty much how they went from terrifying to just kind of scary. The very first time they were on was their best version. They acted more like the Terminator. No emotion, and could not be reasoned with. They were driven to simply assimilate technology, and would adapt to any threat. Then they introduced the Queen, and the need for perfection, and the "collective" was no longer a collective but drones following a queen.

[@jasonreed7522]

Its a many faceted issue but a few basic points are that if the federation loses to them its almost certainly the end of the show so the Borg must eventually lose each encounter which weakens their utility as an unstoppable threat if they keep getting stopped, so limiting use of the trump card scary villain is a tricky writing challenge. Additionally they are still the strongest enemy, most federation conflict end 1 of 2 ways, either a peaceful diplomatic solution is reached (Picards favorite) or the hostile ship explodes. With this in mind its interesting to note that the borg cubes are almost never exploded with a lot of effort being put into it and most of voyager's victories are more of a running away at max warp (the borg are faster but probably don't see it as worth while to give chase).

[@theloneomega574]

I like to think a borg's ship regeneration is a complex combination of tractor beams, replicators, and transporters to createnew components as needed, transport them into place, and assemble. For major damage, this would take a lot of processing power, explaining the "sleep mode" we see for heavily damaged ships. Also, I don't see the lack of visible warp naccels as a dismissal of the idea they use conventional warp. What if a cube had 300 shuttle-sized naccels across its hull?

[@killingragethrowback]

I'd argue that the point of any "Final Boss" is to be decayed. You can't beat it at first but at the end of the game, you should be able to.

[@BlazingOwnager]

The way the borg went though this is more like the final boss you can't beat at the beginning of the game who at the end of the game gets stuck on a wall and can't hit you at all.

[@acethesupervillain348]

Fun theory for you all: I think that Borg "adaptation" is exactly what the Federation crews do, but faster. When a Federation crew encounters a new weapon, they spit out a bunch of technobabble, like, "We could remodulate the shields to deflect the excess energy into subsystems!", and the captain says, "Do it!" The Borg have billions of voices all sharing ideas like this and immediately implementing them, in less time than it takes to speak the words with your primitive human mouths.

[@flyingfoamtv2169]

its like if billions of beings did that simultainiously.

[@jonathanellis6097]

Without the Borg encounters Starfleet would have been in no position to effectively defend against the Dominion, the ship and weapons designs to defend against the Borg enabled Starfleet to compete. Having won the Dominion war, the technological jump for Starfleet was massive, while the Borg basically stood still. The Borg were an important encounter for Starfleet, one that gave them a good kick. The Borg didn't get weaker Starfleet just upped their game.

[@noahbody9875]

Starfleet didn't win the Dominion War, the Prophets did. Without the Prophets preventing the Dominion from moving ships and troops through the wormhole, Starfleet would have been crushed.

[@ThePCguy17]

The adaptive tech apocalypse couldn't adapt fast enough to overwhelm the Federation's plot armor, even if they did eventually beat the 'cheat code' probability altering torpedoes.

[@fgutz1970]

Did you expect Federation technology and tactics to stagnate after the first early encounters with the Borg? They had been preparing for a Borg attack for years and no doubt put some of their best scientists and engineers to work on the problem--and Starfleet engineers have such a reputation of being miracle workers that even arrogant enemies like the Dominion respect them. A little.

[@lorewalkermaohao4602]

One of my favourite games as a kid was Star Trek Armada. All these ships... The Borg Cube was an absolute beast. The game had an innovative mechanic where you could beam teams onto enemy ships to take over them, which was made easier on damaged ships because there would be fewer crew left. The Borg, however... They assimilated crews. Ships got new, assimilated models when boarded by Borg. If a Cube started to board you, you were screwed.

[@2bituser569]

Worf “we’re being probed!” Riker “breakout the ky jelly!”

[@maddslothii2532]

Riker sure looks like he is in 102 degrees with 94% humidly in "Q who"

[@wilsonwade2238]

your breakdown of borg is always pretty accurate

[@jeizen]

I really like the thought that the Borg are Farming the Federation. In my head-cannon, after encountering the Federation up to and including the battle for Earth in First Contact I think the Borg were seriously trying to end humanity, but they saw how drastically the Federation tech was improving over such a short period of time, so they changed tactics. Go assimilate a few ships every now and then to remind Starfleet that the Borg are still around, pushing them to innovate further, while also improving the collective.

[@KatrinaLeFaye]

Will look forward to your Federation Farming essay you speak of doing... As to what I think of the Borg, and their space craft in particular, Voyager destroyed what the Borg were meant to be, the biggest baddest and parallel to the Federation. To seek out new life and new civilizations to boldly assimilate what no Borg has assimilated before.

[@Vidiocity92]

Interesting how Q reiterates to his son the Contiuum's order "Don't provoke the Borg!" almost like they could be worried about them in the same way they are about Humanity, and Q did put Humanity on trial AND introduce them to the Borg and Humanity (and the Federation though Q doesn't seem interested in them as a whole) learned to fight and win.

[@artembentsionov]

Even ENT showed a ship quickly start to transform as it was assimilated. In the Armada series of games, assimilated ships tend to have extra parts that look eerily like parts of a Borg ship. This doesn’t happen when another race captured an enemy ship

[@Kalebfenoir]

When it came to the cube holding a sphere or other vessels, I always thought it'd be neat if, on the directive of the collective, internal components of a Cube would disengage from the cube itself, and reform as a Sphere, before being launched. I mean, they're all supposed to be uniform components with no differentiation really. Omni-use devices and equipment. So it would have been a neat visual to see the inside of a cube with all its layers and floors and techno-whatsits, and then "DEPLOY SPHERE", and an entire segment detaches like an octopus letting go, but from all directions. Then the pieces retract, reconfiguring into the neccessary hull configuration for the sphere. If the location was low in drones, the Cube would just transport them en masse directly into the finished levels of the sphere. That way any sphere could re-engage with any cube by just entering the docking port (which would form/reform as needed) and then basically dissolve into the structure of the cube as its resources were then put to use for the whole. Not this 'well, they keep a sphere inside. It just sits there until it's used'.

[@crocdogg]

My favorite quote about the Borg comes from a book on the history of the ancient world. At one point the author compares an ancient Indian civilization to the Borg and links to a footnote. The footnote explains the Borg to an unfamiliar person then states "they were entirely unstoppable until the scriptwriters of the eighth Star Trek movie apparently got drunk and gave the collective an individual identity, at which point the crew of the Enterprise mopped them up." Always makes me laugh

[@Crazy-Chicken-Media]

The Borg was an awesome idea but quite honestly it's just another race at this point.

[@larqven0192]

Yes, the Borg did suffer over time and exposure on the show. Although, the first appearance, while impressive, also showed the Borg cube get badly damaged, then 'magically' get better and even more 'magically' become invulnerable due to 'adaptation'. I figure that nanotech must have been the underlying power allowing such recovery and transformations of assimilated vessels. While functions might be highly redundant and diffuse, that the cube got 'knocked out' for several minutes suggests that severe damage could indeed throw a cube for a loop and make its system 'crash'? It's also possible that, rather than being completely 'K.O.ed' per se, the cube and its collective were analyzing the Enterprise's attacks and formulating an effective defensive matrix before bothering to fully repair and aggressively respond to the Enterprise? This would be a macro-level behavior that would be very similar of what the Borg do with individuals just passively letting Starfleet crewmembers just wander around inside until they become a problem? A Borg cube would be a somewhat less than two miles long per side. The idea of captured and assimilated ships becoming Borg ships is interesting and perhaps possible; but with the Unimatrix megastructures, I'd figure that Borg vessels could be constructed there. Back to that first encounter: I just figure that Borg don't all come equipped and programmed with every possible permutation of resistance in mind, and cubes sent to assimilate or otherwise deal with less advanced folk due so with lower active defenses. Starfleet's low aggressive, pleasant, utilitarian front in the form of the Enterprise D may not have triggered any overt defensive response in the cube leading to its being temporarily disabled due to damage. The Enterprise's photon torpedo system being perhaps unexpectedly good resistance? Personally, I would expect that the Borg have long had differing vessel capabilities and functions' but it is true that they make for 'jacks of all trades' in their adaptability. They've been around for several centuries, but might only now be working their way up to confronting and removing the more advanced civilizations of the galaxy from the board? They might now be working much harder than just cranking out cubes and spheres and sending them out to bulldoze and harvest any interesting civilizations? Some 'tall' civilizations, like the one of that guy who had slipstream tech and tried to trick the Voyager crew by disguising his ship; his early demeanor suggested that his civilization was dismissive of the Borg for a long time, until the Borg suddenly sufficiently advanced and proved themselves to be unstoppable? And, of course, it can't be overstated how dangerous the Federation and Starfleet can be when they pull the 'secret technologies' out of the locked drawers and secret vaults and develop new weapons and mass produce them in shipyards. The line of ship classes culminating in the Galaxy were pretty and utilitarian with just enough offensive capacity to serve as a deterrent. Genuine warships clearly making more of an impact. Even so, the Borg would have easily dealt with the Federation with a few more cubes? In any case, between Starfleet and some of the very advanced races the Borg assimilated in recent years, might explain why the Borg are using many and varied weapons and defenses? The idea that the Borg were 'cultivating' the Federation to deliberately make them more technically advanced to sweeten the later meal is interesting. It would explain their relative light touch in dealing with the Federation and Starfleet. On the other hand, the Borg resorting to time travel in First Contact would sort of work against that idea. Then again, why plan on using time travel as a fallback when, again, just sending a few more cubes would have done the job? The Q power displayed might have confused the Borg? Conversely, they might be well aware of the Q, and interested in any civilization that the Q themselves find interesting, and investigate and otherwise treat them differently?

[@silvantheiss8070]

In one of the novels it's explained that the borg had to adapt their technology to combat 8472 after they used some kind of biological agent against the "ship as a whole" type of Vessels to render this virus useless

[@davidgriffiths954]

My theory of how a Borg cube is built: you start with a vinculum which acts as a seed, using built-in transporters and replicators to gradually build the ship around itself.

[@TrifectaGMotoring]

Gotta say. Love your videos man

[@fnordianslippers]

So the Borg used miles as a unit of measure? They never managed to assimilate the metric system?

[@QuantumNova]

Why would they? I'm sure they want to be a superpower race, and their IP holder is the U S of A. 😆

[@DrXanatos]

I just realized that maybe the federation became such a threat to the Borg because they kinda are the anti-Borg. Huge stretch here but listen: They're a collective of species each with ideas and specialties, striving towards a common goal completely freely.

[@carloschristanio4709]

The final boss when you are lvl 50 vs the final boss when you are lvl 99

[@AndrewPonti]

It always made me uneasy watching the ep and Worf goes - CAPTAIN! WE ARE BEING PROBED! and Riker just frowns like, ahhhhh first time for everything.

[@pauld3694]

So here's a question. In the 3rd season Voyager episode Unity, I think it was a character named Riley who said she was assimilated at Wolf 359... and unless I'm forgetting the details of that episode wrong, means she was assimilated and somehow transported off that ship. Could the Borg have a means of transporting people/objects over vast distances of space? Again, I'm just going off of memory, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall another point in Voyager where it was established that a virus could be sent through out the collective by the... central plexis? Which sounds like it could be related. I think it would be highly advantageous to be able to send a cube to assimilate a world, and be able to start sending massive quantities of newly assimilated drones through out the collective going from ship to ship. This might also help explain how the Borg Queen could have been with Locutas after Picard was assimilated, yet survive years later during the events of First Contact. I admit, my theory gets called into question considering the point in Voyager when the Birg children were found, but abandoned by the collective. If the Borg had this ability, wouldn't it have been worth it to send a few hundred drones to that ship to reclaim it, or at least to keep it out of a potential adversaries hands? Again, this is all dependent on my memory of episodes that aren't fresh in my mind, so I could easily have gotten something wrong. I guess I should do my own Borg research to verify this. Thoughts?

[@cb-gz1vl]

They had the transwarp nexus the finale used to get Voyager home.

[@BadwolfGamer]

The Borg have really Fallen since Voyager but every empire falls eventually, in Picard season 2 they literally have a Borg Queen as a sort of conduit to travel back in time! This would never have been possible during mid-24th century!

[@010MACS]

In a ‘race’ that has been spacefaring for 1000+ years, presumably this isn’t the first time era in which they’ve encountered serious resistance. Presumably the power of the Borg ebbs and flows in cycles and they’ll come back stronger every time, before other races catch up/respond, and the cycle begins again.

[@DrOneOneOne]

The borg "headquarters" shown in Voyager probably had shipbuilding capabilities. Plua, the borg use nanotechnology extensively. If it can organise matter at the molecular level, building spacecraft is just another function.

[@JB48632pointfour]

The sphere in FC was much smaller than the one in Endgame. The sphere in FC may been something like the Borg equivalent for a captain’s yacht.

[@cb-gz1vl]

No centralized components - that can be detected. Obscuring central components does make a lot of sense. I thought it would be cool of cubes were really an assimilated ship that then found another ship and another then they form into a cube and the reason things are decentralized is cause the cube has multiple ships with multiple power sources and propulsion driving it.

[@Locutus]

Good theory. I do think Borg ships are made from other ships, too. I don't necessarily think that they are combined like you suggested. I think the Borg will either consume a ship for resources, use it to create a new ship, or merge it into an existing ship - e.g., they build around it, using it to expand into, rather than integrating its power and propulsion systems.

[@ThomasstevenSlater]

When they assimilated Picard they ultimately doomed themselves as an expansionist power. Whilst the first effect is Picard got Borged the borg also got picarded. The essence and will of Picard was then part of the Borg, and that will doesn't want to borg to be all borgy, and so they fail. Ultimately the borg relation to the collective with be more like the bynars relation to their planetary computer and end up joining or allied with the federation.

[@fyreantz2555]

Well reasoned.

[@TonyP9279]

I bet that Iconian probe could cause some havoc with the Borg. I'd love to see how that would play out!

[@ZoeMalDoran]

Funny you should mention that. Check out the book "Star Trek: Mirror Universe - Glass Empires" for just such an encounter, albeit in the Mirror Universe. It's the 3rd story in the book. :)

[@thetrainhopper8992]

It would make sense if the Borg built ships like cities and took off from the surface of planets. They might assimilate ships too, but surface launch hasn't been ruled out.

[@NulienTia]

That would help explain where they say it looked like cities were just scooped off the surface of the planet in the early Borg episodes, which was a thing the series just kinda never brought up again after Best of Both Worlds. Instead of being scooped up, they're turned into ships and launched off the planet. I like this.

[@farshnuke]

That's interesting. The idea that the Borg might adapt downwards. I personally always took the notion as being that the borg were so set on as rigid definition of perfection that they were effectively like a boss that's terrifying at level 10 but a walk over at level a 100 It's not that they changed to be worse. It's that they stayed the same and the rest of the galaxy advanced around them. I mean the literal borg killer war ship was sent against them during the second invasion of Earth and then the Enterprise that was built to fight borg finished the fight. I also have my own theory that when Q introduced humanity to the borg early he (possibly intentionally) changed time to ensure that humanity was able to defeat the borg and the Dominion. Q did all the song and dance about putting humanity on trial but I don't think his people would have preferred the dominion or the Borg

[@deaks25]

I think the reason for the 'decay' IRl is the Borg being used more and more as the Villain Of The Week (And while I like ST:Voy, it was the biggest culprit for this) and the Borg went from being that almost force of nature that needed a last second save in TNG and First Contact to needing to be beatable. In universe I follow the head canon that Star Fleet became more powerful with the Anti-Borg Fleet designs and also learned about the Borg in general. In that first encounter, it was so alien to the Enterprise it was impossible to make head nor tail of the Cube, but over time, Starlfeet with it's skill at learning and making scientific breakthroughs, learned how to fight the Borg more effectively. I think there is some mileage in the Borg taking ideas from the Federation, and others as well. In trying to adapt to better fight Starfleet and the Alpha Quadrant powers, perhaps even Species 8472 by the time of Voyager, the Borg made the Cube more endurable in combat, they had to introduce a bit more centralisation, create unavoidable weak points. Perhaps when we meet them in TNG the Borg were also in a Golden Era of their own; species they were encountering and assimilating were either weak and easily conquered or quite small, so couldn't' resist for long or were simply not advanced enough. In the Federation, Klingons and Romulans, the Borg had found opponents who would resist very hard but were also large enough and advanced enough with the will, materials and resources to not only resist, but also defeat the Borg, requiring a change that makes the Cube a more conventional opponent, even if it still requires a massive commitment of resources to defeat (ie the Cube at the Battle of Sector 001).

[@TheRedneckGamer1979]

The borg are both existential horror and the lesson of hubris rolled in to one, and I am not entirely sure if that is intentional or not.

[@artembentsionov]

I think when they introduced Species 8472, with a single bioship being able to wipe out a fleet of Borg cubes in a matter of seconds, this kinda made the Borg a lesser threat

[@robertagu5533]

Yeah round TNG these guys were the Hard to Insane level Boss that you didn't want to mess with at ANY cost unless you'd spent half the game specially training and preparing for THIS fight especially. By Voyager they've dropped to Normal to VERY Hard but that's not alot of a drop in difficulty honestly. These guys rank in a class of enemies you basically never mess with

[@Saberjet1950]

I don't think the borg are getting weaker, I think they're suffering power creep. I think the borg lack innovation and are being surpassed by the federation because all they do is innovate. The borg are only capable of reacting to the threats they know and the federation is constantly changing.

[@jasonreed7522]

The Borg were introduced by Q to tell Picard "Stop being so arrogant, you aren't the biggest fish in the sea. Level up or these guys will kill you". And the federation basically crapped themselves and started working on the problem, meanwhile the Borg never stopped being arrogant "Resistance is Futile, prepare to be assimilated" is not a humble line. (Its awesome and terrifying but also 5000% hubris) Also the borg were a trump card of scary enemies nobody wants to tangle with but with every outing the federation had to win (losing was the end of the show after all) and with every defeat their fear factor waned. Its an interesting double edge sword of every time you use your best villain they lose effectiveness.

[@juzoli]

Does anyone know why the Borg cubes are so big? Their volume and mass is 1000x (or more) bigger than a Galaxy size ship. And they are much weaker than 1000 Galaxies… Do they need the volume for something else than beating the enemy? It is not a colony ship or something like that. (And a Galaxy class is already much bigger than its military strength would suggest…)

[@MCMakeruu]

The Borg cube is like a human body comprised of billions of cells. It's heart, engineering. Central nervous system, it's sensors. Fists, its weapons. Drones its blood cells. Tactical drones it's, white blood cells. The collective, it's consciousness. To ask which drone on a Borg cube, "Who's in charge?" Would be like asking a a single cell in the human body the same question. None would reply "I."

[@thanqualthehighseer]

They will use time travel from time to time. I see what you did there.

[@Neoxenok]

My own head-cannon of the borg is that the Queen is an anomaly - a glitch in the Borg's matrix and not really supposed to exist and may be responsible for the "borg decay" because she's an individual perhaps despite her best efforts and can't utilize the borg's full potential as a collective. This could explain why she was aware of but not present for the borg's initial contact with the federation - that cube was free from her control. Her presence diminishes them and has only led them into conflicts they aren't prepared for - such as against species 8472 and severely impairs the borg's ability to adapt to new situations (why the cube in first contact had a vulnerability that could be exploited.) We know that the borg are vulnerable to such things - we see it in Descent episodes from TNG.

[@TheGamingSyndrom]

Its not strictly cannon but in star trek elite force voyager gets pulled into a borg cube for holding, so i presume they can do that.

[@madbr3991]

For cubic area the cube is the most efficient shape the borg could use. But when the crews go inside a borg cube they don't look laid out effectively. They almost look like they were designed to be a maze. Or like they were made out of a pre existing ship. With more ship almost grown onto the original frame. Also I find the measurment of 1 mile on each side an interesting number. How many the races are going to use a mile as measurement.?

[@Jennifer-pk4wq]

I like to think that the borg has multiple hives that keep their distance from each other.

[@mattsiede443]

I am matt. I like your videos. I watch your videos at the library after work at the school. My social worker is helping me write this pots. You are good at these. I like to watch all the Breakdown ships. I watch ALL your videos! At the library after I work at the school. I'm glad to have you see this message. You must get a lot. So I hope to see you send me something. Your channel is AWESOME!! Hope you can text me some day. Thank you.

[@rhylin26]

That ad break gave me whiplash! 😅

[@FreeThePorgs]

As seen in star trek non-cannon(or cannon now?????) the borg invasion of 2409 was beaten back with the help of metal projectiles pushed by gun powder(bullets, like what we use now). The borg drone shields could not adapt against starfleet personal with weapons that shoot bullets and not an energy beams like a phaser. A bullet has no frequency to adapt to, it just hits you and your day gets bad.

[@karl810]

Sounds like that writer was more a fan of Stargate

[@antwan1357]

skip ahead to 3:44 for the main narration past the advertisement.

[@comentedonakeyboard]

A Cube with equal height, length and width? Incroiable 😱

[@gurney_3915]

Personally I think the writers either forgot the Borg were scary or realized just how truly unstoppable they otherwise were and decided that the Federation must reign supreme.

[@simonpreston]

Problem with the decaying/Starfleet adapting thing is that we see, in First Contact that a single cube can still cause Starfleet problems. Although it doesn't quite sweep aside the fleet, as it does in TBoBW, it's clear the battle must have been going for quite some time, given the Enterprise has managed to get from the Neutral Zone border to Earth, whilst it is going on. And we know they have the technology to get from the delta quadrant to alpha very easily. A few more cubes would have probably done the job. Don't get me started on how often Voyager takes them on, single handedly, and comes out with barely a scratch. The Transwarp conduit tech was the biggest 'hang on a minute' moment, as it opens up so many questions; a HUGE MacGuffin to get an explosive finale, for Voyager, and get them back home in one go. But that means they can send huge swathes of cubes, whenever they want, but have chosen not to, for reasons best known to themselves. At least, without the conduit tech, we can then assume that Borg cubes have been on a mission for many years, which is why they are scarce. I get the feeling the writers had stopped caring, at this point.

[@Rendarth1]

I always figured that the adaptations were just improved shielding vs. the weapons being used against them. Not magical invincibility like you see in video games. One Galaxy Class starship could never penetrate those levels of defenses, nor could a ragtag fleet of outdated vessels. But a fully modernized navy of hundreds of warships could do some damage.

[@Slavir_Nabru]

I'm not convinced on the Borg in the Picard era being "devastating", but hopefully Picard S2 will give us some more information. The only canonical Borg activity we've seen set post Voyager - Endgame is the Artefact, which is severed from the collective, and the cube at the end of a Lower Decks episode, where all the drones were dormant in alcoves. Future Janeway's plan (I'm convinced it was Q's plan, he introduced Starfleet to the Borg and gave Janeway a flightplan that lead to the transwarp-hub, but will say Future Janeway since that's explicit in the show) might well have worked. (Edit: Unless the Borg were in the latest Prodigy, not seen that yet.)

[@sh4d0wfl4re]

Growing up on Voyager, I never thought the Borg became a lesser threat since their first showing in TNG. The federation's greatest strength was always it's ability seek out to come to understand the unknown, so it always felt inevitable to me that the federation would eventually be able to see the structure of a borg cube. First Contact? While they did skip most of the battle against the Cube there, one cube took out a whole fleet of starships many of which were specifically invented to take out the borg and even then they needed someone to telepathically see which areas within the borg cube were more strained than the rest to have a real chance. If anything TNG weakened the Borg the most and Voyager built the threat back up, sure not every borg ship was a invasion cube, but the innovations the borg made during the course of Voyager? Assimilation of new technologies in an arms race separate from the federation/dominion war yet outpacing the alpha quadrant substantially. Slip Stream Drive combo'd rather crazily well with the establishment of new transwarp corridors; the early borg episodes showcased a telepathic borg network well beyond what we had prior known the borg to be capable of, worse since that episode the borg were shown to have assimilated some rather powerful psionic races. Overall if Voyager didn't have future tech by the end of the series... I highly doubt the Federation would have been ready for the Borg even with those fancy Transphasic Torpedoes without all the other tech Voyager brought back from the Delta Quadrant (a good amount of it taken from the Borg).

[@avarielblackwing6613]

I'm glad your vids these days have better mic gain... the older compilations... not so much.

[@thamirivonjaahri6378]

I always thought that borg cubes are made literally by assimilating a ship and then use this ship as sort of a "seed", from which rest of the vessel is constructed by nanites. No handwork, no welding, no such crap, since borg don't even seem to have any construction tools in their inventory

[@Linno15]

I'm curious if the borg are not necessarily get weaker as time goes on but they send their knowledge into the past so the final time star fleet deals with the borg is actually the borgs first run in with star fleet and this is kind of why the first cube was so powerful but this attempt was stopped in first contact. Not the best theory out there but the borg do manipulate time all the time and can even send entire ships into the past with apparent ease and star trek enterprise shows other species sending information into the past.

[@donovanbradford8231]

To me the biggest issue and draw back to the Borg is they assimilate you and take away the individuality of someone. So in a away the Borg only learn when them assimilate a race or person. You compare that to the other races of the Federation they are always learning so at a certain point the day finally comes when the Federation is either stronger or smarter than the Borg. By the end of Voyager they are both, now I'll give you that was do to the aide of Admiral Janeway from the future but imagine you had Mr. Spock, Cheif O'Brian, Mr. Data, Lt. Laforge, and Mr. Scott all in one and that's what the Borg were going up against at a certain point, so you are going to lose going up against the best problem solvers if the Federation.

[@jamesh2321]

I always wondered why they never attempted a "low" or lower tech approach. Borg are still made of organic tissue, at least partially, and the movies showed us a Thompson .45 can rip through drones, so what about acids? High caustics? Blister or nerve agents? Hell, a giant EMP burst set off inside the cube core. You can only adapt so much, materials have limits and so do power sources, if you can break one of their limits, you can break them. It seems as if they are unable to innovate or think on the fly because they are too "collective" to be able to do so. The borg seen with Lore after picking up Hugh attest to this. Individually they can move and fight better, but are now mentally weak.

[@MrMcLovinMcLovin]

The music in this video makes me feel like you are trying to wine and dine me into bed.

[@sneakyking]

Shadows from B5 had same issue

[@michaelcook7107]

The Shadows have a justification for why they are nerfed. If you just steamroller over the younger races you kind of miss out on the whole "rubbing the fact that you're right in the Vorlon's stupid eyeholes" thing. The Borg not so much. You probably could construct a post hoc justification around Species 8472 or Unimatrix 0, but that presumably wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. My most flippant answer is "they're farming the Federation for XP".

[@sneakyking]

@@michaelcook7107 season 1 and 2. Took a naaaaaaaan destroyer and multiple ships sustained fire to take one out. Season 4 pew pew star furies blowing them out the sky.

[@Corbomite_Meatballs]

@@michaelcook7107 *We are here to assimilate your lewtz*

[@QuantumNova]

The shadows intentionally use weaker ships against the younger races. The 'primordial' shadow vessels would have been too powerful, even for the Vorlons and Firstones. At the end of the Shadow war, they basically "won" via Deathcloud. The Army of Light, Vorlons, and Firstones' ships were shutting down and freezing. Also they were surrounded by millions of gigaton rated nuclear missiles! (Just informing the B5 fans that didn't know.)

[@shadmere]

Shadows were always vulnerable, at least. In one of the first encounters where the "good guys" had capital ships, the Narn were able to severely injure one. I got the feeling that in B5, the good guys got better at fighting Shadows because they were learning how to do so. (Sheridan did pull off several wacky space-nonsense bombs, I'll grant you that, lol.)

[@GameHammerCG]

I’m not convinced the Borg got weaker or decayed, it’s more that Starfleet got written into a corner where they were too damn powerful for anything short of a Galaxy-wide threat being able to harm them.

[@dockkid]

I've always wanted a Star Trek series to go back to the original big bad from TNG: the creatures from "Conspiracy." I think its been almost long enough since the last "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" remake...

[@michaeldougherty2807]

After Wolf 359, the Federation started doing the side quests.

[@chimericalical]

Hi!!! I ran track. I ran the half mile, the mile, and the 2 mile, or the 800m, 1,600m, and 3,200m dash. 3,037m is much closer to 2 miles than 1.

[@kalmwind]

I think the Borg need to be a once to twice a season big baddie. The ship or federation would squeak a victory out but at a big cost or just get a butt kicking and loose whole worlds or vital starbase. I liked them better when your imagination had to fill in the gaps on what they were as a whole.

[@CaraBolsaSTUDIOS]

FEDERATION BEAT UNDINE, UNDINE BEAT BORG, BORG BEAT FEDERATION

[@SephiMasamune]

1 US Mile equals 1600 Metric meters, so a Borg cube of 3037 Metric meters tall/wide/deep would be closer to 1-7/8 US Miles in each direction.

[@rmeddy]

They jumped the shark with the introduction of the Borg queen, introducing centralization in that way not only ruin their mystique but their effectiveness Even though it's a lacklustre episode, the episode Descent had the best conceit of the Borg IMO where it's generally decentralized but prone to being hijacked by sufficient advanced tech like a positronic brain which tracks since that's how they were stopped in BOBW pt 2 So the Borg should be like strains and variants like the flu. I felt narrative wise it would've given the writers more wiggle room and optionality for how to conceive the Borg going forward. Also another thing I always thought they should've had more platonic solid shapes for their vessels instead of just the cubes and spheres (although a sphere is not a platonic solid, much like how a fish is not an amphibian)

[@Civilunit]

I like the Borg cube if only for the reason that it fits the Borg. They are all identical and generic with each ship being interchangeable like the Borg themselves. They are less of a ship and more a container as their chief purpose was to hold as many Borg as practically possible, loading up with the raw materials of other cultures they come across. It's simple design really wouldn't work for anyone else because its too simple but for a collective, for a "race" where each is only a piece of the whole and their ships are built or grown in much the same way, simply as a utility to carry the units of the Borg through space. While I am not a fan of Voyager and most will argue that they really watered down the Borg they did give them what I think is a tangible weakness along with their strength that was brought into focus. If the Borg can not assimilate something they can't learn about it, which gives them the advantage of instantly adapting to anything they adopt as their own but unlike Starfleet which learns by exploration and study. This allows them to be an unstoppable juggernaut but if you do manage to beat them and they don't Assimilate you they don't learn why they lost. Which is the reason why I personally believe they didn't just send a huge fleet after the Federation.

[@crystallineentity]

You coulda mentioned a lot more of Voyager dude (even though it's my least favourite series), they had shed loads of Borg action and visits to the transwarp hub and Unimatrix 001 with lots of footage there, also species 8472

[@LoreReloaded]

I did mention a lot of their stuff, yea

[@Thetreetroll]

Best Raid AD Ever

[@lonnyyoung4285]

The first time I saw the Borg (in their first appearance) I was terrified (granted Ibwas only about 8 at the time). Then came Best of Both Worlds Pt. 1, and they were even worse. The victory in Pt. 2 seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime fluke. They got weaker from there. By the time I'd seen them on Voyager for the thousandth time, they were just recurring speed bumps.

[@tonyjackson4078]

I feel the Borg Queen was a huge misstep. The original Borg were a hive mind, no leaders, all doing tasks to assimilate any species. That's what you term a threat. That original statement "We are the Borg". The Borg Queen is a villain. She has an agenda, grudges, and personal interests. She directly damages the idea of the Perfect Hive Mind originally presented. A threat has to be dealt with, or surrender to. You can try to contain the threat of a Volcano, but you can't reason, outsmart, or fool it. A villain, because of individuality can be manipulated, just as Data and Janeway did. She was the Borg, she had an identity and it was downhill.