OVEG Unimatrix Zero

[Ahriman238]

I wonder why he didn't put all 3 together on a page as he's done so often in the past.

Oh well, Chuck is reviewing the (almost) final humiliation of the Borg. Enjoy

Part Two and Part Three

[Ted C]

One of the assorted VOY episodes I never watched. I obviously didn't miss anything important.

[ANGELUS]

I half-watched that episode years ago and the only thing I could think of was... seriously? Klingons? the galaxy is huge, the Borg have supposedly assimilated billions of people from thousands of species... and you run into freaking Klingons? the one species which pops up in every other single Trek series all the time. Now you're on a completely uncharted territory on the other side of the galaxy and you are inside a collective mind with thousands of different species, and you get Klingons? Oh! and the best part! they were giving Bathleths to those willing to defend their little paradise, as if they were useful for anything! if you can mind create weapons, why the heck don't you create something better to give your allies? why do you even give them anything at all? shouldn't they be able to create their own weapons of choice too?

Reminds me of that episode where they ran into a Klingon ship in the Delta quadrant. And with Ferengi con men in the Delta quadrant. And with a Federation ship in the Delta quadrant... Do they even grasp the size of the galaxy? I guess you have to give fanboys what they want...

[PREDATOR490]

Stupid episode that has so many things wrong with it: Person from Wolf 359... umm... that ship was destroyed so how the fuck is someone around from that battle. Oh wait "We think in such 3 Dimensional terms" clearly covers that. morons.

Alternatively... Seven's boyfriend is patrolling the edge of S8472 space which magically means he is out of reach: Umm, S8472 occupy a completely different universe so... your telling me the Borg are patrolling the edge of a universe ?

Super awesome cube that is meant to be tactical and shit: One ship manages to engage it effectively and two destroy it. Pro-Tip: If this is the Borg equivelent of building a warship thats worse than their standard cubes then holy shit have they been assimilating the wrong people.

SUPER WIN: If you dont tell me how to stop the virus I will destroy the collective to stop it. You cannot possibly resist such an ultimatium... except the Federation happily considered doing just that and Picard was bitch slapped for not taking the shot. Queen might as well have threatened to destroy the collective if Janeway didnt stop destroy it herself.

[DaveJB]

I think the biggest problem with the Borg in Voyager is how the main characters treated them in their primary appearances. In "Scorpion" and "Drone," the crew knew that they would be completely hosed in the event of a direct confrontation. In "Dark Frontier" they regarded the Borg as a major obstacle, but one they could overcome with some cunning. By "Unimatrix Zero" however, Janeway & Co. almost seemed to treat the Borg as being beneath contempt. And when the characters do that, guess what - that's how the audiences are going to react as well.

(To give it credit, as poorly executed as the episode was overall, "Endgame" at least had the Voyager crew acknowledging they didn't have a prayer without Admiral Janeway's technology, and even then the present-day Janeway was wary of tackling a major Borg installation head-on)

[Lost Soal]

This and Unity raise the most wonderful of unasked questions, how many cubes turned up at Wolf 359* destroying the fleet and assimilating various random people* before fucking off back to the Delta quadrant* leaving Picard's cube to take on earth by itself*.

*For some inexplicable reason.
You know these four words could probably be legitimately added to at least 80% of all Borg actions in Voyager

[PREDATOR490]

If your being generous... you could give the Borg credit and say they only sent ONE cube BUT during Wolf 359 that cube assimilated Federation ships and then had them fly home similar to what they did in Enterprise. Afterall, one drone can magically stick its arm into a wall and instantly borgify it in seconds. A handful of Borg assimilating a ship should be relatively easy making it capable of limping back to the DQ for study. Throw in the Queen jumping ship to keep the 'new' folks in line while Locutus goes on to assimilate Earth...

Best you can really do out of that mess.

[FedRebel]

What about a Sphere?

What if the 359 cube had a Sphere that escaped before the Cube self destructed, the Sphere then retreated to the DQ through that transwarp conduit right at Earth's doorstep. This would explain the shitload of 359 "survivors" in the DQ and the Queen in First Contact was attempting to be intimidating by gloated Borg superiority.

[Ted C]

What about a Sphere?

What if the 359 cube had a Sphere that escaped before the Cube self destructed, the Sphere then retreated to the DQ through that transwarp conduit right at Earth's doorstep. This would explain the shitload of 359 "survivors" in the DQ and the Queen in First Contact was attempting to be intimidating by gloated Borg superiority.

But if that transwarp conduit right off of Earth already existed, why didn't they use it to get to Earth in the first place? Or in First Contact?

[Eternal_Freedom]

What about a Sphere?

What if the 359 cube had a Sphere that escaped before the Cube self destructed, the Sphere then retreated to the DQ through that transwarp conduit right at Earth's doorstep. This would explain the shitload of 359 "survivors" in the DQ and the Queen in First Contact was attempting to be intimidating by gloated Borg superiority.

But if that transwarp conduit right off of Earth already existed, why didn't they use it to get to Earth in the first place? Or in First Contact?

For TBOBW attack, the conduit did not originally exist and the collective decided to combine the main assault with an "exploratory" mission of the Federation itself. After all, they hadn't actually been there before. It's worth having a look round to see what else is there, and since they figured (quite rightly as it turns out) that their ship was largely immune to Starfleet, it wouldn't be a problem. However, having destroyed Starfleet's finest, the cube helped set up the transwarp conduit to allow faster movement of material from the main Borg territory to the newly assiminlated regions in future.

[facetious]At the time of the First Contact assault it was down for essential maintenance. And with the Borg being a massive, unwieldy collective it was not possible to reschedule the activity in time for the attack to occur. [/facetious]

Although actually, the above facetious response is not entirely silly. If we consider the Queen to be in charge, she may have ordered the conduit be made ready for an assault, but due to institutional inertia it was not ready when the Queen became impatient and launched the attack.

[PREDATOR490]

Alternatively: No transwarp conduit existed, no magical sphere existed and the Wolf 359 drones got back to the DQ onboard a small ship that met up with whatever ship the Borg used to nuke the Romulan / Fed neutral zone. We know the Borg have small scouts since Hugh crashed in one and the Borg were scouting around inbetween BOBW / First Contact.

As for the transwarp - we have no idea how they are built. Might as well just claim the combination of a cube destruction and time travel portal somehow created the Transwarp conduit by accident and the Borg were cultivating it for an eventual attack. Not that it really matters, Borg ships have been shown to enter transwarp on their own so they are fully capable of flying back and forth to the AQ without the big super complex. Christ, these fuckers supposedly have the ability to cross into completely different dimensions and patrol the edge of universes. Crossing a galaxy should be simple by comparison.

Incidentally, didnt First Contact happen AFTER Voyager got busy in Scorpion... so we have the Queen fucking around with Earth while the Collective is fighting for survival in the Delta Quadrant. Might explain why no Queen showed up and later Seven directly references the events of First Contact.

[JME2]

Incidentally, didnt First Contact happen AFTER Voyager got busy in Scorpion... so we have the Queen fucking around with Earth while the Collective is fighting for survival in the Delta Quadrant. Might explain why no Queen showed up and later Seven directly references the events of First Contact.

No. FC takes place about midway through DS9's 5th Season (and concurrently, Season 3 of VOY), thereby placing it about half a year before the events of "Scorpion".

[Gandalf]

Speculation away!

Maybe the conduit couldn't handle something the size of a cube, and they couldn't send anything bigger than a sphere.

[Prometheus Unbound]

What about a Sphere?

What if the 359 cube had a Sphere that escaped before the Cube self destructed, the Sphere then retreated to the DQ through that transwarp conduit right at Earth's doorstep. This would explain the shitload of 359 "survivors" in the DQ and the Queen in First Contact was attempting to be intimidating by gloated Borg superiority.

They covered that in End Game. Chakotay suggests just that - why not come out of the conduit at Earth and destroy the structure from that side. Seven / Admiral Janeway responds that all there are, on that side, are exit apertures - there's nothing IN the alpha quadrant.

[RedImperator]

And with Ferengi con men in the Delta quadrant.

That was a follow-up to a TNG episode.

And with a Federation ship in the Delta quadrant... Do they even grasp the size of the galaxy? I guess you have to give fanboys what they want...

A Federation ship sucked into the Delta Quadrant by the same mechanism that stranded Voyager there...and was returning to the same place...and by sheer geometrical necessity would have had to have been on a similar course. And finding Equinox was essential to the episode, which is one of the relative few that actually explored the series's theme and challenged the main characters' view of the world, which is, like, the opposite of fanservice. And it was one of the best episodes of the series, so who gives a shit what the setup was?

I don't even disagree that the writers went back to the familiar species well too often in Voyager, but somehow two of the three examples you picked happened to be ones where it made sense.