Unless, of course, the series itself dies firstDarth Wong wrote:In case anyone's curious, I've finally added a new episode to my long-dormant canon database: Scorpion!
I plan to start adding other episodes from other series too, in no particular order. When I made the TNG database, I made the whole thing and then uploaded it at once. This time, I'm planning to add individual episodes or even parts of episodes piecemeal, because I figure there's no point waiting to get a whole series done before uploading.
LOL. (I'm givingENT a chance, but half the episodes bore me to death. They *really*
need an influx of new writing blood.)
I have a few thoughts regarding "Scorpion":
First, I think your note about "thousands of inhabited systems"
is good. At first, I thought it was generous, but then I remembered
that, at the height of its own power, the Krenim Imperium had
over 850 inhabited systems. They, too, spanned several thousand
light years (the dialogue mentioned parsecs), so this adds up
pretty well.
Good thoughts on tubules. They are, in fact, *not* a recent development,
though "BoBW" would make it seem that way. Sometime prior to "BoBW," Seven of Nine used them against three other Borg drones after crash-landing on a planet. I don't remember the episode name, though.
I also agree with your observations regarding 8472's bio-electric field.
This was partly overcome somehow in the episode "Prey," in which
Seven beams an Eight onto a Hirogen ship. (For some reason, I
found that really funny at the time.) FWIW, however, that Eight
was extremely sick/weak...perhaps their bio-electric field isn't wholly
a natural defense?
Added note to that: since the Eights are from a part of the universe
in which they supposedly had no contact w/ aliens 'til the Borg arrived,
what need would they have of a defense that scrambles transporters
and shrugs off tractor beams? We've never seen them use such
technology...they must've developed that response to counter something
else. In any event it doesn't make transporters look rosy...
You also pointed out something I had totally forgotten, about
how the Borg had only been engaged a dozen or so times in
5 months. Your thoughts on that part of the transcript are:
"On another issue, the Borg expected to be defeated in another few weeks at this rate. Even if we assume that the casualty figures (8 planets, 312 ships) reported later to "7 of 9" were only for one major attack as the Trekkies have been angrily insisting, the fact that 15-20 such attacks would defeat the Borg severely limits their total resources, far below what some over-optimistic Trekkies have claimed for them."
I partly agree and disagree here. I don't think these number of attacks
could be indicative of overwhelming the entire Collective...given
that they have thousands of systems, as previously noted, the loss
of a few planets--lightly populated ones at that, apparently--should
be a very minor setback. Why the "war would be lost" if it involved
the arbitrary destruction of Borg assets doesn't make sense.
I offer that the Eights were cutting a path toward an important target,
perhaps a unicomplex or something we haven't seen yet. If they
were indeed able to destroy a Borg command center, it could
make the war effectively unwinnable: if it didn't permanently
disrupt the Collective mind, it could, at least, leave the Borg uncoordinated
for awhile; and as they struggled to re-establish a Queen/locus
of control, they'd be even more vulnerable.
Also, WRT to a cube's big empty caverns:
"Some have suggested that the interior cavity may serve some useful function such as carrying captured vessels, but that is a flimsy rationalization at best; there is no visible opening through which a large vessel could be drawn in, and they could just as easily do their work inside a ship parked next to theirs rather than dragging it inside (particularly since we know they can drag ships along with them at warp speed if necessary)."
Since I was one of the people who suggested that, I have to take
issue, my lord
Seriously, I think it's a good rationalization because we've seen
large ships taken inside cubes. I used to have a vidcap of the
scene I'm thinking about; it's from VGR's "Collective," in which
the Delta Flyer is pulled inside a barely functioning cube.
Their "hangar" is enormous.
And there are in fact openings through which ships can be taken inside
a cube. How visible they are is a bit shaky, though we do see spheres
with such hangar bay doors (notably in "Endgame"), and the passage
through which the sphere left the cube in "First Contact."
VGR and "FC"'s cubes are different than the one seen in TNG which,
as I understand, was built from spare model sprue ( ! ). But if
we assume for a moment that they're in fact outwardly identical,
it might be possible to determine an upper-limit on the size of
ships a cube could drag inside it. Remember how in "Q Who?"
and "BoBW" the Borg would only slice pieces out of the E-D?
Maybe they did so because they couldn't pull the entire ship
into the hangar.
That's not necessarily the case, since the Borg might've--gasp!--actually been SMART and realized that a semi-functioning ship could self-destruct inside the cube. Still, a thought. It's also possible that some Borg
ships are simply not designed to assimilate whole starships, fulfilling
a more tactical role in their fleet.
As far as dragging ships along with a cube at warp, I dunno how
practical that would be. It'd be a lot easier to get the job done
if the ship was actually inside yours, space permitting. (A mechanic
could take apart a car a lot easier if it was inside his shop, but if
he had to constantly leave the garage and lug equipment to another
site, the process would be slow at best.)
This is especially the case given how far Borg ships sometimes
operate from home territory. As the people said in "Unimatrix Zero,"
the Borg have ships all over the galaxy. If, for example, the Borg
were scouting in Dominion space and ran across Jem'Hadar, it'd be greatly to their advantage to take an attack ship in their hangar; if it was outside being dragged along, even at high warp, the enemy could potentially intercept and destroy your catch, rendering the whole scouting mission a failure.
The only other nit I could make would regard this:
"In any case, the bio-ship easily deflects the cube's return fire with some kind of surface effect (it looked like a skin-effect shield system of some sort), which detonates incoming missiles and then deflects any energy they might release. Oddly enough, the cube is using some sort of torpedo rather than disruptor blasts, even though we know from the previous encounter that disruptor blasts can cause serious damage to one of their ships. This may indicate that they normally use torpedoes to "soften it up" for a disruptor blast, or perhaps the cube had previously suffered damage rendering its disruptors useless. Alternatively, perhaps the Borg are simply idiots."
Good thoughts, but KIM the cube was at warp while firing those torpedos.
Their disruptors might not be designed for FTL engagements, even
when the opponent ship is also at warp speeds.
Awesome addition to the Database, though.
