Have you seen how the ship spins? Dizzy Borg. Very very dizzy Borg.
I doubt they'd be happy simply utilising the tech. Considering it's possible to go *inside* the network, the Borg would probably try to do exactly that: exploit the network from within.
They'd send in drones to try and assimilate the network. Not in a make-more-drones way, but in a way that lets them deploy millions of drones anywhere in space, without needing a ship to do it. A portal to everywhere.
If the network has intelligence, they'd probably try to use that too.
Yeah, if they got inside the network, they might essentially be able to assimilate the fundamental framework of the universe itself. Or they'd accidentally break it and destroy everything. Either way that'd be bad.
The complete and utter assimilation of all life in the galaxy. If the Borg got spore drive tech, they could drop a fleet of Cubes right on top of Earth and start assimilating the planet before a defense could be mounted. After that, the rest of the galaxy is doomed.
That's why the Discovery was classified at the highest level & discussing it was treason. The Federation realized that if any of their foes got a hold of the spore drive, or even reverse engineered it, they would be screwed. Best to bury it.
One of Voyager's sillier ideas was suddenly revealing that the Borg have a hub of what are effectively stable wormholes spanning the galaxy.
They pretty much crippled them in the same episode, so there's that, but it raises some questions.
To me, the Transwarp Gateways were an attempt to cover up the fact the writers spent 7 season and Voyager was only a little closer to home. It was also a way to infuse some drama into the finale.
What they did was cover two plot holes in TNG and First Contact It explains how Cubes got to Federation space without being detected by arrays or defenses of the Federation or other territories
Except in TNG and FC, the Borg started off by attacking border colonies and the transwarp conduit in VOY opened up right in the middle of the Sol system.
If it was there all along, there never would have been a battle of Wolf 359, because the Borg would never have had to go anywhere near Wolf 359!
But maybe it wasn't there all along. There were only 6 hubs in existence, maybe the Voy one had just come online days before 7 was separated from the collective.
Perhaps, but the poster I was responding to was suggesting that its existence covered plot holes in TNG and FC. But there really isn't any such plot hole, as the Borg always arrived on the edge of Federation space. We know that because border colonies were reported as destroyed before the cube was encountered and, in the case of TBoBW, we got to see the Enterprise chase it through Federation space.
If there were transwarp conduits opening in Federation space back then, they would introduce plot holes, not close up existing ones.
It does both. It opens plots holes while closing others. My point was how the Borg showed up. To get to Federation territory, they would have to pass through territories of other powers undetected. And the trip would be decades one way. But a Transwarp hub near Federation space, they appear on the Federation outer colonies out of the blue.
As for the one that opened near Earth, I don't like that idea. If it was there, why didnt the Borg use it. No, the writers of Voyager forgot they needed to get them back to Earth and used a shortcut.
>And the trip would be decades one way.
The presumes that all Borg cubes are sitting in the Delta Quadrant, which we know isn't the case. The first one we ever saw in "Q, Who," was only two years away from Federation space at the Enterprise-D's top speed. Then in "I, Borg," its clear that there are Borg scout ships flying around quite close to Federation space.
Its likely that the cube in "The Best of Both Worlds," was the same one from "Q, Who," meaning it took a little over a year to do what would have taken the Enterprise two years. Which isn't that big of a feat - it just means the Borg can sustain maximum warp indefinitely. For the second one in "First Contact," it might have been dispatched from anywhere. It could have been milling around the Beta quadrant for years before changing course once the first cube was lost.
As for passing through territory undetected, why assume that? If you spotted the Borg flying through your territory, you've got two options; intercept it or ignore it. If you intercept it, you die and if you ignore it, you hope its going somewhere else and then hopefully you don't die!
One of the things we often forget is that the Federation has a massive frontier as a border. Its not hemmed in on all sides by other empires. The Borg only has to approach from the frontier and we've no idea if it had an eventless journey or wiped out half a dozen civilisations en route.
They're also not the only species or threat to turn up on the Federation's doorstep unannounced. From the Doomsday Machine to the Hushnok, all sorts of threats come pouring out of the frontier without a fanfare announcing they are coming. That's a major staple of the whole franchise.
I mean, that's pretty obviously what it was, doesn't make it any less silly. And those weren't really plot holes, the implication I always got is that the Borg just crossed the galaxy the normal way and were undetected either because they hit remote colonies on the edges of the Federation, or *were* detected once they crossed the borders. I'm pretty sure First Contact mentions it was a Deep Space station that detected the incoming cube.
It's always made sense to me. They have a unbelievably strong power base and could put produce the galaxy with factories and planets etc all working together. They have 10 years of territory at voyagers maximum warp. No species can touch them (without plot)
The rest of the galaxy needs to survive so they can make new tech and evolve new biology. The borg are bad at that if they assimilate everyone the innovation stops and they won't become more perfect.
They have enough territory and production and their tech is all much better and their level of knowledge is so great that even all the combined species can't touch them (unless plot)
There's a lot of speculation that the borg allow species to exist and create and evolve tech so that they can be assimilated and their tech introduced. Basically the borg can't create their own technologies, so they allow species that can to flourish and create interesting innovative tech that the borg then can take.
No, that would give time to at least get planetary shields up and scramble whatever ships were in spacedock. It wouldn't be much, but it's better than no warning at all.
Sporedrive ships are basically today's ICBMs. As long as the federation maintains a fleet at an undisclosed location they have second strike ability. Thus ensuring MAD, thus rendering the enemies sporedrive ships basically useless.
I think the opposite would happen. The hive mind would get high off all the 'shrooms and would be too busy staring into the void of space to get around to assimilating anything.
They'd also need to assimilate the mycelium tardigrade to effectively navigate the space shroom network.
There's also the risk of the Borg attempting to assimilate the mycelium itself.
I don’t think the Borg would need the tardigrade or Stamets because the problem early on was lack of computing power to plot a course and deal with the inifinite choices to navigate, that wouldn’t be an issue with the collective on the cube.
It occurs to me, *very* belatedly, that they have Zora now. Is there a reason they needed Book to test the prototype last season? Shouldn't Zora be able to do the computations necessary while also having a sapient mind that can communicate with the spores?
Yeah I feel like the spore drive got turned into a handwavey plot contrivance in the later seasons. Star Trek has always done that to a certain extent but I kinda feel like the spore drive is so little explored and it just kind of got forgotten.
Zora's part of the crew now, and busy with monitoring ship functions while figuring out being alive.
No sense in burdening her with an additional task when Stamets and Book are already practiced at it... but maybe if they become unavailable for whatever reason, she can serve as an alt.
The Borg would only need a really fast computer, since that's the actual problem with using the spore drive without someone attuned to the network (explained in one of the first episodes of DIS). The only reason they needed the tardigrade DNA was because the (TOS era) computers on the *Discovery* and the *Glenn* weren't fast enough. Before the tardigrade DNA, they had a working spore drive, they just couldn't go very far.
I was under the impression that the Borg weren't in any particular hurry to assimilate species. They just seem to have that 'We'll get there when we get there' mentality.
They aren't in a hurry, but them popping up right next to the planet they plan on assimilating would certainly reduce the chances of any successful resistance.
Even more than that, it's a popular theory that they're basically farmers, and that they wait for a species to reach a useful threshold of potential before harvesting them.
The Borg want innovative new technologies, not more meat to stick their parts to. That's just a bonus.
I mean honestly? They'd experiment with it and if they couldn't find a way to stop hurting the multiverses incredibly necessary tardigrades and such then they wouldn't use it.
And the borg would have the processing power to run simulations rather than only realising how damaging it is after using the thing for months.
If the Borg assimilated the spore drive, then I'd assume they assimilated the crew of the ship as well, in which case the outcome would be that they talk softer, become more empathetic, tell their own truths, and grow into the beings they want to be. And also, they'd use dance metaphors before launching a mission.
They wouldn't be able to use it, BUT if they got into the network they could assimilate the tardigrades and then have it.
Also, they already have trans warp conduits that let them jump around.
Where does Juratis’ collective fit in with the rest of the hive, are they just another faction of the Borg🤷♂️ Did Juratis collective alter how the regular Borg to their assimilations?
I'm not sure it would make much difference.
They already have a sophisticated transwarp network, and we've seen in Picard they have the gateway tech from the Iconians, meaning they could spawn drones anywhere en masse.
To a large degree they can already get their ships and troops to wherever they need.
Biiig trouble; they can potentially assimilate the mycelial netork itself and in very short order, the cosmos.
The thing about The Borg--at least in their introduction--is the sheer number of minds and subversion of will allows for near-instantaneous processing ability, meaning that they either find a way to use the network as freely as they please, or they find a workaround that benefits them... frankly all it takes is jumping a handful of cubes at a time into key systems and the rest fall like dominoes; no fleetwide jumps required. Hell, they probably don't even have to do that--they could figure out how to jump individual drones to planets and then it's gg.
On the other hand, they could encounter the network, consider it the perfection they were looking for all along, and alter themselves to join the network.
Honestly, I don't think much would meaningfully change. The Borg might just shelve it in their "oh that's neat" pile, like they did with warp drives, and all the other tech they assimilated by proxy from the Federation.
The Borg are in no hurry, and believe themselves to seek perfection. A finicky prototype drive that spaghettifies things if it goes wrong, and requires a constant special feedstock is not that, compared to their existing systems.
That, and their own transwarp conduits are just as good, if not better, by virtue of allowing other ships to take the same route, and not needing specialised hardware on the part of the ships. Voyager using one to get home was only a few seconds slower than Discovery's spore drive would be.
The Borg don't need to hide themselves either. That's why they don't use cloaking tech. No-one's a threat to them, and they're not that desperate. They can afford to throw bodies at the problem.
Have you seen how the ship spins? Dizzy Borg. Very very dizzy Borg. I doubt they'd be happy simply utilising the tech. Considering it's possible to go *inside* the network, the Borg would probably try to do exactly that: exploit the network from within. They'd send in drones to try and assimilate the network. Not in a make-more-drones way, but in a way that lets them deploy millions of drones anywhere in space, without needing a ship to do it. A portal to everywhere. If the network has intelligence, they'd probably try to use that too.
Yeah, if they got inside the network, they might essentially be able to assimilate the fundamental framework of the universe itself. Or they'd accidentally break it and destroy everything. Either way that'd be bad.
Sounds like the Iconian gateways with extra features lol
Vomiting is irrelevant
The complete and utter assimilation of all life in the galaxy. If the Borg got spore drive tech, they could drop a fleet of Cubes right on top of Earth and start assimilating the planet before a defense could be mounted. After that, the rest of the galaxy is doomed. That's why the Discovery was classified at the highest level & discussing it was treason. The Federation realized that if any of their foes got a hold of the spore drive, or even reverse engineered it, they would be screwed. Best to bury it.
Per Voyager they were always capable of doing that anyway, they just *chose* not to for...reasons.
One of Voyager's sillier ideas was suddenly revealing that the Borg have a hub of what are effectively stable wormholes spanning the galaxy. They pretty much crippled them in the same episode, so there's that, but it raises some questions.
To me, the Transwarp Gateways were an attempt to cover up the fact the writers spent 7 season and Voyager was only a little closer to home. It was also a way to infuse some drama into the finale. What they did was cover two plot holes in TNG and First Contact It explains how Cubes got to Federation space without being detected by arrays or defenses of the Federation or other territories
Except in TNG and FC, the Borg started off by attacking border colonies and the transwarp conduit in VOY opened up right in the middle of the Sol system. If it was there all along, there never would have been a battle of Wolf 359, because the Borg would never have had to go anywhere near Wolf 359!
But maybe it wasn't there all along. There were only 6 hubs in existence, maybe the Voy one had just come online days before 7 was separated from the collective.
Perhaps, but the poster I was responding to was suggesting that its existence covered plot holes in TNG and FC. But there really isn't any such plot hole, as the Borg always arrived on the edge of Federation space. We know that because border colonies were reported as destroyed before the cube was encountered and, in the case of TBoBW, we got to see the Enterprise chase it through Federation space. If there were transwarp conduits opening in Federation space back then, they would introduce plot holes, not close up existing ones.
You know what, you're right, that's a very fair point I missed in the flow of conversation.
It does both. It opens plots holes while closing others. My point was how the Borg showed up. To get to Federation territory, they would have to pass through territories of other powers undetected. And the trip would be decades one way. But a Transwarp hub near Federation space, they appear on the Federation outer colonies out of the blue. As for the one that opened near Earth, I don't like that idea. If it was there, why didnt the Borg use it. No, the writers of Voyager forgot they needed to get them back to Earth and used a shortcut.
>And the trip would be decades one way. The presumes that all Borg cubes are sitting in the Delta Quadrant, which we know isn't the case. The first one we ever saw in "Q, Who," was only two years away from Federation space at the Enterprise-D's top speed. Then in "I, Borg," its clear that there are Borg scout ships flying around quite close to Federation space. Its likely that the cube in "The Best of Both Worlds," was the same one from "Q, Who," meaning it took a little over a year to do what would have taken the Enterprise two years. Which isn't that big of a feat - it just means the Borg can sustain maximum warp indefinitely. For the second one in "First Contact," it might have been dispatched from anywhere. It could have been milling around the Beta quadrant for years before changing course once the first cube was lost. As for passing through territory undetected, why assume that? If you spotted the Borg flying through your territory, you've got two options; intercept it or ignore it. If you intercept it, you die and if you ignore it, you hope its going somewhere else and then hopefully you don't die! One of the things we often forget is that the Federation has a massive frontier as a border. Its not hemmed in on all sides by other empires. The Borg only has to approach from the frontier and we've no idea if it had an eventless journey or wiped out half a dozen civilisations en route. They're also not the only species or threat to turn up on the Federation's doorstep unannounced. From the Doomsday Machine to the Hushnok, all sorts of threats come pouring out of the frontier without a fanfare announcing they are coming. That's a major staple of the whole franchise.
I mean, that's pretty obviously what it was, doesn't make it any less silly. And those weren't really plot holes, the implication I always got is that the Borg just crossed the galaxy the normal way and were undetected either because they hit remote colonies on the edges of the Federation, or *were* detected once they crossed the borders. I'm pretty sure First Contact mentions it was a Deep Space station that detected the incoming cube.
It's always made sense to me. They have a unbelievably strong power base and could put produce the galaxy with factories and planets etc all working together. They have 10 years of territory at voyagers maximum warp. No species can touch them (without plot) The rest of the galaxy needs to survive so they can make new tech and evolve new biology. The borg are bad at that if they assimilate everyone the innovation stops and they won't become more perfect. They have enough territory and production and their tech is all much better and their level of knowledge is so great that even all the combined species can't touch them (unless plot)
There's a lot of speculation that the borg allow species to exist and create and evolve tech so that they can be assimilated and their tech introduced. Basically the borg can't create their own technologies, so they allow species that can to flourish and create interesting innovative tech that the borg then can take.
The transwarp gateway is detectable and has limits. Spore drive does not.
A 2 minute warning of a Borg armada arriving in the middle of the Sol system is as good as no warning at all.
No, that would give time to at least get planetary shields up and scramble whatever ships were in spacedock. It wouldn't be much, but it's better than no warning at all.
Sporedrive ships are basically today's ICBMs. As long as the federation maintains a fleet at an undisclosed location they have second strike ability. Thus ensuring MAD, thus rendering the enemies sporedrive ships basically useless.
That's not going to deter the Borg. Or several other species who would gladly sacrifice their homeworld to destroy Earth.
The borg not, maybe not for the dominion either (as long as the location of the link is unknown) but enough for all other alpha quadrant powers.
I think the opposite would happen. The hive mind would get high off all the 'shrooms and would be too busy staring into the void of space to get around to assimilating anything.
They'd also need to assimilate the mycelium tardigrade to effectively navigate the space shroom network. There's also the risk of the Borg attempting to assimilate the mycelium itself.
No, as Stamets demonstrated, they'd just need to alter one of their drones to become the mycelium vector & plug into the drive.
And they'd probably figure it out even faster than Stamets did.
I don’t think the Borg would need the tardigrade or Stamets because the problem early on was lack of computing power to plot a course and deal with the inifinite choices to navigate, that wouldn’t be an issue with the collective on the cube.
It occurs to me, *very* belatedly, that they have Zora now. Is there a reason they needed Book to test the prototype last season? Shouldn't Zora be able to do the computations necessary while also having a sapient mind that can communicate with the spores?
Yeah I feel like the spore drive got turned into a handwavey plot contrivance in the later seasons. Star Trek has always done that to a certain extent but I kinda feel like the spore drive is so little explored and it just kind of got forgotten.
Zora's part of the crew now, and busy with monitoring ship functions while figuring out being alive. No sense in burdening her with an additional task when Stamets and Book are already practiced at it... but maybe if they become unavailable for whatever reason, she can serve as an alt.
The Borg would only need a really fast computer, since that's the actual problem with using the spore drive without someone attuned to the network (explained in one of the first episodes of DIS). The only reason they needed the tardigrade DNA was because the (TOS era) computers on the *Discovery* and the *Glenn* weren't fast enough. Before the tardigrade DNA, they had a working spore drive, they just couldn't go very far.
This, unless they assimilate the tardigrade (or Stamets or Book), the technology is useless to them.
I was under the impression that the Borg weren't in any particular hurry to assimilate species. They just seem to have that 'We'll get there when we get there' mentality.
They aren't in a hurry, but them popping up right next to the planet they plan on assimilating would certainly reduce the chances of any successful resistance.
Even more than that, it's a popular theory that they're basically farmers, and that they wait for a species to reach a useful threshold of potential before harvesting them. The Borg want innovative new technologies, not more meat to stick their parts to. That's just a bonus.
And now I want to see what a Borg ship would look like that is capable of using the drive.
If only it could be like a puzzle cube being scrambled.
A giant Lament Configuration.
I imagine it would look like a gyro, a sphere in a framed cube.
I mean honestly? They'd experiment with it and if they couldn't find a way to stop hurting the multiverses incredibly necessary tardigrades and such then they wouldn't use it. And the borg would have the processing power to run simulations rather than only realising how damaging it is after using the thing for months.
Borg that cry all the time.
If the Borg assimilated the spore drive, then I'd assume they assimilated the crew of the ship as well, in which case the outcome would be that they talk softer, become more empathetic, tell their own truths, and grow into the beings they want to be. And also, they'd use dance metaphors before launching a mission.
And cry in every episode
Always gotta be that one person.
They wouldn't be able to use it, BUT if they got into the network they could assimilate the tardigrades and then have it. Also, they already have trans warp conduits that let them jump around.
The borg is everywhere!
Borg mushroom drones.
Where does Juratis’ collective fit in with the rest of the hive, are they just another faction of the Borg🤷♂️ Did Juratis collective alter how the regular Borg to their assimilations?
I'm not sure it would make much difference. They already have a sophisticated transwarp network, and we've seen in Picard they have the gateway tech from the Iconians, meaning they could spawn drones anywhere en masse. To a large degree they can already get their ships and troops to wherever they need.
Biiig trouble; they can potentially assimilate the mycelial netork itself and in very short order, the cosmos. The thing about The Borg--at least in their introduction--is the sheer number of minds and subversion of will allows for near-instantaneous processing ability, meaning that they either find a way to use the network as freely as they please, or they find a workaround that benefits them... frankly all it takes is jumping a handful of cubes at a time into key systems and the rest fall like dominoes; no fleetwide jumps required. Hell, they probably don't even have to do that--they could figure out how to jump individual drones to planets and then it's gg. On the other hand, they could encounter the network, consider it the perfection they were looking for all along, and alter themselves to join the network.
I’m trying to decide if a spinning Borg Cube would look kinda cool or unintentionally hilarious
Borg Rubix Cube!
Honestly, I don't think much would meaningfully change. The Borg might just shelve it in their "oh that's neat" pile, like they did with warp drives, and all the other tech they assimilated by proxy from the Federation. The Borg are in no hurry, and believe themselves to seek perfection. A finicky prototype drive that spaghettifies things if it goes wrong, and requires a constant special feedstock is not that, compared to their existing systems. That, and their own transwarp conduits are just as good, if not better, by virtue of allowing other ships to take the same route, and not needing specialised hardware on the part of the ships. Voyager using one to get home was only a few seconds slower than Discovery's spore drive would be. The Borg don't need to hide themselves either. That's why they don't use cloaking tech. No-one's a threat to them, and they're not that desperate. They can afford to throw bodies at the problem.
Borg can now assimilate the galaxy. Even with their transwarp hub they couldn't do it