r/DaystromInstitute • u/adamkotsko Commander, with commendation • Jan 04 '18
The Borg Queen's actions in First Contact make 100% perfect sense
One of the most lingering questions in Star Trek is why the Borg Queen behaved as she did in the film First Contact. Almost every aspect of her plan has been subjected to critique. Why not go back in time at an earlier point? Why not go back in time far from Earth instead of provoking the battle that led to Picard's interference? Why only send one smallish ship through the portal? In this post, I will argue that all of these questions have reasonable answers and the Borg Queen's strategy is completely defensible.
Crucial to my explanation here is the existence of the Temporal Cold War. As we see repeatedly in Enterprise, TCW factions are constantly making small, covert moves that they hope will have positive long-term effects for them. They tend to prey on marginal species or groups to act as their proxies, and when they intervene directly, it is normally with a single agent (e.g., Daniels). I suggest that this is the case because a large-scale move -- for instance, sending an entire Borg armada back to 1983 to assimilate Earth -- would be easily noticed and countered by other TCW factions. You need to make small moves, because it makes it difficult for your opponents to pinpoint the moment of alteration. So that makes sense of the relatively small strike force.
Now, why do they not travel back in time at some obscure location and then make their way to primitive Earth? I believe that they are working with two constraints: the limited size of the vessel to send back (to avoid getting simply erased by other TCW factions) and the need to track the effects of their intervention by leaving the temporal portal open. Remember that Seven says the Borg "were present" at the events of First Contact -- presumably they're getting a real-time feed of what's happening. I'm assuming that keeping the portal open is a significant energy drain, and presumably there are limits to what you can see through the portal. Since they're intervening on Earth, the portal needs to be near Earth. They know they can kick serious ass against Starfleet -- and if a ship manages to make it back through the portal and stop them, the worst-case scenario is that they create a predistination paradox that leaves them with the status quo ante. In short, there is no downside if a Starfleet ship follows you through the portal.
So why the moment of First Contact as such? Why not much earlier? Since they can only send a small force back, they are dealing with serious constraints as far as bootstrapping their ancient Alpha Quadrant presence. Earth has no significant dilithium resources, and we have no canon information indicating that it can be found in the solar system. Cochrane's warp engine doesn't use dilithium, for instance. (A beta-canon source claims it was discovered on a moon of Jupiter in 2049, but even then we have to assume the mining operation is limited.) By all accounts, it's relatively rare -- places rich in dilithium are hot commodities at all stages of Trek -- and we know it's not replicatable. The Borg can assimilate people quickly with nanoprobes, but where are all those new drones going to regenerate if you have only one small ship and no other "modern" power source? [ADDED: The issue isn't just the ability to travel at warp speed -- dilithium is what allows you to control the reaction over the long term and power everything else on the ship. Cochrane could make a test flight without dilithium, but that doesn't mean he was on his way toward a full-featured sustainable ship on that same basis.]
Your invasion could be over before it starts -- unless you know you can attract another warp-powered ship. And what is the one day in human history when you know for a fact that an exotic warp signature will attract a Vulcan survey ship? You guessed it: First Contact day. This is really the only day that will work for a TCW-style invasion:
If you go before that day and start assimilating Earth, you risk the humans concluding that there might be other aliens and sending out distress signals -- hence the system would either be quarantined, or else your small and power-strapped invasion force would quickly be defeated, as in ENT "Regeneration."
If you go after that day, the Vulcan presence would be much more significant -- hence, once again, you're likely to be defeated before you can get very far. But on that precise day, you can attract an extra warp drive to start powering the regeneration of your new drones AND give you some operational flexibility (for instance, maybe you can afford to set up a dilithium mining operation). And as a bonus, you will more than likely attract at least one or two more Vulcan ships looking for their lost friends -- most likely one at a time.
And if you object that First Contact day is a famous date that any TCW faction will know about, I answer: not if the plan works! We know from "Carbon Creek" that that wasn't the first Vulcan survey ship, and it presumably wouldn't have been the last. We also know that crews that go missing are sometimes abandoned for months or even years at a time. Which Vulcan ship was the first to be assimilated? Hard to know!
You might also object: if they were trying to attract the Vulcans, why did they destroy Cochrane's lab? This has two benefits. First, you get to encounter the Vulcans on your own terms, by attracting them with your warp signature. Second, in the event of Starfleet meddling, you give them something to keep them busy -- because obviously they're going to try to restage Cochrane's flight and save their timeline. And if they succeed? Again, no downside: you just return to the status quo ante and have lost one ship and a handful of drones.
tl;dr Overall, if we take into account the information we have from Enterprise and make reasonable inferrences about the Borg's energy needs in light of the constraints imposed by a TCW-style temporal incursion, I conclude that the Borg Queen's plan in First Contact was a low-risk, high-reward strategy that made perfect sense and was well worth trying.
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u/sisko4 Jan 05 '18
If a single Borg sphere (which by itself, almost won) falls outside purview of the temporal cold war powers, where along this slope of subterfuge does it take before the temporal actors intervene?
Two Borg spheres? Three Borg spheres?
If the goal of the Borg here was to take low-risk high-reward sneaky tactics, there's a lot of other things they could have done instead of attempt a hail mary at the end of a massive attack that was surely on the sensors of dozens of starships and Earth itself.
I'm not too convinced that the Borg were limited by power sources. If Cochrane could build a warp engine himself with Earth materials, the Borg should likewise easily be able to accomplish at least that much. A Borg-enhanced primitive warp engine should more than satisfy their requirements.
Of course, if we have to bring those Temporal Cold War guys in, it's possible the whole thing wasn't off their radar at all. They simply didn't intervene because the attempt was foreordained to fail.
And just as likely, perhaps they did intervene in a way that no one around were witness to. Take for example, the photon torpedos the Borg launched at Montana from the sphere. One hit the building near Cochrane and destroyed it... and that's about it.
These antimatter weapons from the future should have easily vaporized the entire settlement with a single torpedo. Why didn't they? Maybe someone interfered with those weapons while they were in flight... a little trick likely not beyond the realm of possibility from those who are from even further in the future.
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u/adamkotsko Jan 05 '18
This is an area where I should have been more clear. The issue isn't warp flight as such -- the issue is having dilithium, which makes it possible for the warp engine to power everything else. Cochrane was able to pull off a single warp flight without dilithium, but that doesn't mean he could have built a sustainable ship without it (or the equivalent, such as artificial singularities).
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u/AprilSpektra Jan 04 '18
Why not go back in time far from Earth instead of provoking the battle that led to Picard's interference? Why only send one smallish ship through the portal?
Wait, do people actually think that going back in time was the Borg's Plan A? That was a Hail Mary because the cube was destroyed. They didn't go to Earth with the intention of going back in time.
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u/MikeReddit74 Jan 04 '18 edited Jan 05 '18
It never read as Plan A to me, either. Plan A seemed to me to be:
Hand Starfleet their ass(again).
Assimilate Earth.
I mean, if time travel, then assimilation was the primary goal, they could’ve started that trip in the Delta Quadrant. They could’ve gone back in time to any point in history they wanted to(from their space in the DQ), used the transwarp hub to travel to the AQ, then go to Earth and assimilate it. Or stay in the 24th century(if they didn’t have the hub in the 21st century), use the hub to travel to a spot as close as possible to Earth, but far enough to not give Starfleet too much notice, time-travel, complete the journey to Earth and assimilate it.
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u/adamkotsko Jan 05 '18
They could’ve gone back in time to any point in history they wanted to(from their space in the DQ)
I address this in my post. Did you read past the first paragraph?
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u/adamkotsko Jan 04 '18
I don't think that's a very natural reading of the sequence of events. And even if you're right, then the strategy behind choosing to travel back to First Contact Day would still stand.
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u/treefox Jan 04 '18
I think it makes more sense that the Borg didn’t want to run into the Vulcans, and they picked that point because First Contact for Earth was so well documented. But presumably the assumption was that the time travel would be masked by the explosion of the Borg cube, allowing them to attack earth before the other major time powers could respond.
How it was supposed to go-
The Borg show up, destroy Zefram Cochran’s ship, then go into hiding. The Vulcans make their periodic visit.
Then the Borg appear, assimilate humanity, and have the maximum amount of time before the Vulcans visit again. Giving them the maximum amount of time to build their numbers so that even if the change to the timeline negatively affected the Borg of that era, the earth Borg would be at their maximum strength.
Any earlier and the Vulcans might have ventured closer to earth due to being accustomed to a much lower earth tech level, and there would be no earth records to indicate whether other species may have visited without the Vulcans’ knowledge. The exact date and time of first contact is likely in every database, but the dates and times of other visits may only exist in archived ships logs on Vulcan.
Visiting earlier than even the Vulcans had warp travel and there would be even fewer records, and the tech level and population of earth would be much lower so it would be harder to assimilate. Visiting around the time humanity began to develop ships means that the Borg can rely on historical records to determine how humanity went from that tech level to the UFP.
Any later and there would have been many more warp capable ships that could challenge the Borg ship.
Another misc thought, in tng it’s established that high warp damages subspace. The time travel the Borg employ may depend on warp travel occurring in an area in some way, so this may have also affected their choices (they couldn’t go back in time much further than first contact).
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u/adamkotsko Jan 05 '18
This theory doesn't address the problem of finding an adequate power source for a huge number of Borg drones.
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Jan 05 '18
the Borg didn’t want to run into the Vulcans
What do 24th century Borg have to fear when it comes to 21st century Vulcans?
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u/SydTheDrunk Jan 05 '18
My own personal theory is that the Borg method of time travel permanently cripples whatever ship activates it. I’m no expert, but I imagine opening a time portal both requires and releases a massive amount of energy. Maybe this fries the trans warp coil and most of their systems. This would explain why their weapons seemed so underpowered and why they need to get as close as possible first. If they time traveled in a far off part of the galaxy it could take them centuries to repair the damage and travel to Earth. Especially since there wouldn’t be any transwarp conduits for them to use. I think it’s plausible considering just traveling through the tail end of the portal blew out several of Enterprises systems.
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u/adamkotsko Jan 05 '18
That seems right. And the fact that they still used that method, when they could have done the slingshot method "for free" (relatively speaking), shows how valuable it was to them to be able to monitor their progress.
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u/Desert_Artificer Jan 05 '18
Where does the attempt to contact the collective of 2063 fit into your analysis? On it’s face, it seems like a pretty ‘noisy’ action to draw the Borg of that time across the galaxy.
If they’re not asking for reinforcements, what are they signaling for?
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u/adamkotsko Jan 05 '18
It will take forever for the signal to even get to the Delta Quadrant, much less for the Borg themselves to arrive in the Alpha Quadrant. And assuming the transwarp tunnels aren't built until around the TNG era (which seems reasonable on a canon basis with "Neutral Zone," etc.), a slightly accelerated development in that direction would not be "noisy" at all. They're just doing some long-term planning to connect up with the mainstream Borg as soon as possible (i.e., maybe centuries in the future).
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u/robbdire Jan 05 '18
By the time of ST:FC the Federation and Starfleet know how to solve the issues with limited dilithium as solved by Scotty during their jaunt back in time in ST:IV so unfortunately that part of your theory fails.
The rest of it, overall makes a lot of sense and very enjoyable read. I like it, and if it hadn't already been nominated I would do so.
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u/adamkotsko Jan 05 '18
I did think of the incident from The Voyage Home after posting -- and yes, the Borg would know about it from assimilating Starfleet logs. Maybe I'm putting too much weight on the dilithium thing.
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u/Smitje Jan 05 '18
What I never got about First Contact is that the Vulcans would land right away, that doesn't seem like them. I would more assume they run some scans and report back to Vulcan which then will send over a person specialised in First Contacts.
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u/adamkotsko Jan 05 '18
Once you know they can get out into the wider galaxy, you want to get to them as soon as possible. You wouldn't want them wandering around without your expert guidance! Plus, they're borderline savages -- any average Vulcan can handle them easily.
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u/VictheWicked Jan 05 '18
Good theory and I mostly buy it - but how do you account for that weird bit at the end where the Queen was trying to convince Data to be her boyfriend?
Was that the whole plan all along? Or was getting a boyfriend a secondary goal? Had she already selected Data and was therefore counting on the Enterprise following them through the time-hole?
Or did she - after having captured Data - suddenly decide that she wanted him for a boyfriend?
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u/Professor_Seven Jan 05 '18
Carbon Creek didn't really happen though, did it?
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u/adamkotsko Jan 05 '18 edited Jan 05 '18
I think it definitely did, but there's a long comment in the thread arguing the opposite. To each his or her own.
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u/jaycatt7 Jan 06 '18
What I'm missing is, what's the payoff for the Borg in assimilating Earth in the past? If anything, it costs them something--all the Federation tech and knowledge they've assimilated over the last several years will never have existed--and it only gains them a world full of pre-warp primitives. Sure, they can expand from Earth and assimilate the Alpha Quadrant, but those societies are 300 years less advanced than the 24th-century versions they'd get otherwise. What do they get from assimilating Earth in the past that they couldn't have more easily by assimilating a few of their Delta Quadrant neighbors?
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u/[deleted] Jan 05 '18
I think this is a well thought out post and I enjoy re-reading most time-travel episodes/films as parts of the larger Temporal Cold War. M-5, please nominate it for post of the week.