Star Trek Thread: Set Picard to Stun (spoilers)

[Jaxom 1974]

Wait.  What? Romulan space borders Hirogen space...???  Whaa...?

 

As to the Borg and when they're meeting the Federation and when and who first, let's just suggest that Section 31 buried anything Archer put down on paper, as well as reworking some of the El-Aurian stories in the 23rd century, yet there are fragments and rumors out there that trigger the Hansen investigation, which Section 31 also sabotages thus making it information so compartmentalized that Picard and crew and rest of Federation are caught unawares by Q's reveal...

[sifth]

49 minutes ago, Toth said:

 

The problem is just that this specific incident wouldn't make them aware of the Borg, it would make aware of something. In the meantime the name the Borg could have only been known at the time when the Federation started taking in refugees and even then they were not really taking it seriously as this was all stuff happening comfortably far away.

 

 

Do the Hansens ever call them the Borg, prior to setting out on their journey? I just remember them mentioning reports of "strange cyborg people, living out in deep space". I could be wrong though, because I've not seen those episodes in a long while.

[Lord Varys]

I've just watched the two-parter where the Borg Queen first shows up and Seven briefly rejoins the Borg. There it is quite clear her parents did look for the Borg, and not just some rumored cyborg people.

Starfleet didn't give them their ship, but the Federation Council did. Also, they didn't travel to the Delta Quadrant themselves. They crossed some Neutral Zone (either the Romulan or the Cardassian, one imagines), found a cube, and tagged along in their transwarp conduit.

They didn't have any idea that the Borg live in the Delta Quadrant.

Enterprise later established that First Contact sort of established a 'hidden Borg knowledge' on Earth, but none of that helps explaining how Seven's parents could have known anything about the Borg as Borg prior the events depicted in TNG.

Guinan only tells Picard about the Borg once they first encounter them, no? Implying her people didn't really tell them much about them, either.

The Hansens quickly invent super technology allowing them to infiltrate and study Borg ships, etc. - something that makes no sense at all if the Federation didn't have any direct contact with them or their technology up to that point. Not to mention that them as not being Starfleet wouldn't have had any secret knowledge about 'the mysterious cyborg hive mind threat' Archer and Cochrane rambled about.

[sifth]

Then all I got is, the Federation clearly knew about the Borg in some way before Q Who.

[Werthead]

According to Guinan, the Borg destroyed the El Aurian homeworld a century before the events of Q Who?, so c. 2265. They were reduced to wandering the galaxy as refugees for a time. The El Aurian transport in Generations wasn't directly fleeing the Borg, as it was almost thirty years after the events in question. I get the impression the El Aurians spent a while like the Quarians in Mass Effect before finally scattering and living amongst other races.

Quote

Wait.  What? Romulan space borders Hirogen space...???  Whaa...?

Nope. The assumption is that in Q Who?, Q flung the Enterprise-D 7,000 light-years towards Borg space, but not as far as the Delta Quadrant. That would put system J25 in clear and empty space beyond the Romulan and Klingon Empires' territory. Based on information from Voyager, there appears to be a large swathe of unexplored territory and minor powers between Romulan space and the Delta Quadrant, and more beyond that to the borders of known Delta Quadrant races.

However, the ancient alien communications network that Voyager used to transmit the Doctor back to Federation territory and was later claimed by the Hirogen did appear to extend into the Beta Quadrant and to the borders of Romulan space. Since the network was destroyed, that became a moot point. The Hirogen had not encountered any Alpha/Beta Quadrant species before and vice versa. Voyager later clears Hirogen space and never runs into them again (although their area of influence seemed quite large, thanks to the massive plot hole between Seasons 4 and 6 of Voyager where the writers kind of forgot that Voyager had travelled 20,000 light years closer to home in Dark Frontier). 

Incidentally, the Netflix streaming quality for TNG's HD remaster is bizarrely poor. Glad I still have the Blu-Rays.

[Jaxom 1974]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

 

Nope. The assumption is that in Q Who?, Q flung the Enterprise-D 7,000 light-years towards Borg space, but not as far as the Delta Quadrant. That would put system J25 in clear and empty space beyond the Romulan and Klingon Empires' territory. Based on information from Voyager, there appears to be a large swathe of unexplored territory and minor powers between Romulan space and the Delta Quadrant, and more beyond that to the borders of known Delta Quadrant races.

However, the ancient alien communications network that Voyager used to transmit the Doctor back to Federation territory and was later claimed by the Hirogen did appear to extend into the Beta Quadrant and to the borders of Romulan space. Since the network was destroyed, that became a moot point. The Hirogen had not encountered any Alpha/Beta Quadrant species before and vice versa. Voyager later clears Hirogen space and never runs into them again (although their area of influence seemed quite large, thanks to the massive plot hole between Seasons 4 and 6 of Voyager where the writers kind of forgot that Voyager had travelled 20,000 light years closer to home in Dark Frontier). 

 

Okay.  The above assertion caught me off guard as it made lite no sense on its face...

[Werthead]

23 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Okay.  The above assertion caught me off guard as it made lite no sense on its face...

To be fair, especially coming after the relatively tight DS9, Voyager's approach to consistent and coherent worldbuilding (and characterisation and storytelling and logic) is almost completely non-existent and nonsensical. 

[Luzifer's right hand]

Borg space might not be contiguous if you look at it from a normal space of view. The transwarp conduit network which seems faster than normal transwarp(which the Borg have too) connects it nicely together. 

The Borg never seemed interested in all out conquest anyway. They were able to deploy hundreds of cube against species 116 not long after losing significant ressources against species 8472. Maybe the  El Aurians were crushed in the same way and warning an insignificant power like the Federation would have been rather pointless. I mean a single cube was able to reach the Sol system with ease two times.

[RumHam]

1 hour ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

I mean a single cube was able to reach the Sol system with ease two times.

And both times if they'd just sent two they would have won handily. 

[Jace, Extat]

50 minutes ago, RumHam said:

And both times if they'd just sent two they would have won handily. 

 

[Werthead]

4 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

Borg space might not be contiguous if you look at it from a normal space of view. The transwarp conduit network which seems faster than normal transwarp (which the Borg have too) connects it nicely together. 

The Borg never seemed interested in all out conquest anyway. They were able to deploy hundreds of cube against species 116 not long after losing significant resources against species 8472. Maybe the  El Aurians were crushed in the same way and warning an insignificant power like the Federation would have been rather pointless. I mean a single cube was able to reach the Sol system with ease two times.

The transwarp thing was kind of a retcon, but the way it's presented in the show is that proper "transwarp" (going faster than Warp 10) is impossible without aquatic copulation-related complications, so the only way to safely go transwarp is by building the conduits. This is limited by resources: the Borg have to physically build the network before they can use it, so their expansion speed is limited. The nearest transwarp conduit to the Federation is relatively nearby (probably near System J25, 7,000 ly from Federation space) but once there they have to fly the rest of the way on "normal" warp power. The difference is that the Borg can push their systems to the limit in a way the Federation cannot, and can sustain Warp 9.99 effectively indefinitely, which no Federation starship can match for more than a few minutes. That's how the Borg cube got from J25 to Earth in about 13-14 months, when it would have taken the Enterprise two and a half years (although we should also note this was contradicted by Voyager, which suggested it should have taken more like six to seven years).

I have seen some fanwank suggesting the colloquial use of "transwarp" in Star Trek doesn't actually mean "going faster than Warp 10," which is impossible (since you'd occupy every space in the entire universe at once, extremely briefly), but it means achieving an extremely high threshold beyond previously-established limits. That makes sense since the Excelsior and transwarp drive were introduced in Star Trek III when the old warp scale was still in use (when their Warp 9 was more like Warp 7 for the Enterprise-D, and Warp 9.9 was more like the Warp 13 achieved in the original series by one group of aliens) and before it was recalibrated for the TNG era. Transwarp therefore isn't Warp 10, 11, 12 etc but travelling at Warp 9.9999, then 9.99999 and so on. Because the warp scale is exponential, this would still give velocities far above those of "normal" warp.

Admittedly this is complicated by the Voyager finale having a transwarp conduit access point located pretty much next to the Solar system. You could rationalise it that the Borg Queen's ship assembled it in First Contact before the attack on Earth or something, but more likely is the fact that Voyager had some really, really shitty writers, and none worse than Braga and Berman, and they pulled it out of their arse.

[Luzifer's right hand]

39 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The transwarp thing was kind of a retcon, but the way it's presented in the show is that proper "transwarp" (going faster than Warp 10) is impossible without aquatic copulation-related complications, so the only way to safely go transwarp is by building the conduits. This is limited by resources: the Borg have to physically build the network before they can use it, so their expansion speed is limited. The nearest transwarp conduit to the Federation is relatively nearby (probably near System J25, 7,000 ly from Federation space) but once there they have to fly the rest of the way on "normal" warp power. The difference is that the Borg can push their systems to the limit in a way the Federation cannot, and can sustain Warp 9.99 effectively indefinitely, which no Federation starship can match for more than a few minutes. That's how the Borg cube got from J25 to Earth in about 13-14 months, when it would have taken the Enterprise two and a half years (although we should also note this was contradicted by Voyager, which suggested it should have taken more like six to seven years).

I have seen some fanwank suggesting the colloquial use of "transwarp" in Star Trek doesn't actually mean "going faster than Warp 10," which is impossible (since you'd occupy every space in the entire universe at once, extremely briefly), but it means achieving an extremely high threshold beyond previously-established limits. That makes sense since the Excelsior and transwarp drive were introduced in Star Trek III when the old warp scale was still in use (when their Warp 9 was more like Warp 7 for the Enterprise-D, and Warp 9.9 was more like the Warp 13 achieved in the original series by one group of aliens) and before it was recalibrated for the TNG era. Transwarp therefore isn't Warp 10, 11, 12 etc but travelling at Warp 9.9999, then 9.99999 and so on. Because the warp scale is exponential, this would still give velocities far above those of "normal" warp.

Admittedly this is complicated by the Voyager finale having a transwarp conduit access point located pretty much next to the Solar system. You could rationalise it that the Borg Queen's ship assembled it in First Contact before the attack on Earth or something, but more likely is the fact that Voyager had some really, really shitty writers, and none worse than Braga and Berman, and they pulled it out of their arse.

The transwarp coil Voyager got from a Borg ship created its own transwarp conduits but seemed slower(days for 20k light wars) than the hub based network(minutes for 30k light years) at least when Voyager used it. The Voth also had a transwarp drive.

At least the people that wrote this wiki article seem come to agree that the Borg have transwarp the uses existing conduits and transwarp that uses conduits generated by the ship. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Transwarp_drive

A in universe explanation is maybe that the Borg assimilated the ship based version after their first attack on the Federation while also expanding their conduit network. A conduit near Federation space existed at least as far back as 2354 when the USS Raven followed a cube to the Delta Qudarant.

[Werthead]

3 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

The transwarp coil Voyager got from a Borg ship created its own transwarp conduits but seemed slower(days for 20k light wars) than the hub based network(minutes for 30k light years) at least when Voyager used it. The Voth also had a transwarp drive.

At least the people that wrote this wiki article seem come to agree that the Borg have transwarp the uses existing conduits and transwarp that uses conduits generated by the ship. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Transwarp_drive

A in universe explanation is maybe that the Borg assimilated the ship based version after their first attack on the Federation while also expanding their conduit network. A conduit near Federation space existed at least as far back as 2354 when the USS Raven followed a cube to the Delta Qudarant.

As I said, retcons. There isn't really much they can do to address the discrepancy that in TNG it took more than a year for the Borg to travel 7,000 light-years and in Voyager's last season it takes them minutes to travel tens of thousands of light-years. and they can't explain at all why the Borg simply haven't destroyed the Federation at will since then. Voyager ran roughshod over continuity in a really massive way.

[Lord Varys]

What? Those transwarp conduits have to be built? What kind of stuff is that?

I see no necessary contradiction between warp 10 nonsense and the various transwarp technologies, if they are simply using different technologies the effects might be different. That slipstream stuff also is faster than warp 10 and also doesn't lead to aquatic nonsense and also doesn't use contuits that have to be built.

[Lord Varys]

Other thing:

I rarely ship characters but while rewatching Voyager with my girlfriend - who is autistic and even less interested in relationships and people than I am - but in Voyager is it is really glaringly obvious that Chakotay and Janeway and Seven and the Doctor should have gotten together (or perhaps Seven and Harry Kim). I'm not sure how many episodes there are where Janeway and Chakotay are hinted at having the hots for each other but it must be at least a dozen, possibly more.

And instead these people end up making a couple out of Seven and Chakotay.

Does anybody understand/know why that is? Who came up with that?

And I'm imagining all those hints or were there truly plans to get Janeway and Chakotay together?

[karaddin]

Well the writers of Picard clearly agree Seven and Chakotay weren't right for each other, at least in the long term. I could see him vibing with Janeway but there's some real conflict of interest issues with the CO and XO being together.

Not feeling Seven and the Doctor though.

[DaveSumm]

Janeway and Chakotay was one of the few relationships I thought they did reasonably well at, they’re both stuck in the Delta Quadrant in command positions where they shouldn’t, professionally speaking, be shacking up with crew members. So they did that one episode where they thought they’d be living together forever and there was some tension, and then they moved on.

Seven and anyone doesn’t sit well with me. Aside from my already established position that she’s the most overrated character in all of Trek, she’s also had 4 years to mature emotionally since she was assimilated (at age 6? 7? Don’t remember) and the Doctor particularly should have had a truck load of programming telling him to steer well clear of such a professional conflict. Sure, there was zero ground work for Chakotay / Seven, but I suppose if I had to pick a relationship it was the least worse option.

[Derfel Cadarn]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

The transwarp thing was kind of a retcon, but the way it's presented in the show is that proper "transwarp" (going faster than Warp 10) is impossible without aquatic copulation-related complications, so the only way to safely go transwarp is by building the conduits. This is limited by resources: the Borg have to physically build the network before they can use it, so their expansion speed is limited. The nearest transwarp conduit to the Federation is relatively nearby (probably near System J25, 7,000 ly from Federation space) but once there they have to fly the rest of the way on "normal" warp power. The difference is that the Borg can push their systems to the limit in a way the Federation cannot, and can sustain Warp 9.99 effectively indefinitely, which no Federation starship can match for more than a few minutes. That's how the Borg cube got from J25 to Earth in about 13-14 months, when it would have taken the Enterprise two and a half years (although we should also note this was contradicted by Voyager, which suggested it should have taken more like six to seven years).

I have seen some fanwank suggesting the colloquial use of "transwarp" in Star Trek doesn't actually mean "going faster than Warp 10," which is impossible (since you'd occupy every space in the entire universe at once, extremely briefly), but it means achieving an extremely high threshold beyond previously-established limits. That makes sense since the Excelsior and transwarp drive were introduced in Star Trek III when the old warp scale was still in use (when their Warp 9 was more like Warp 7 for the Enterprise-D, and Warp 9.9 was more like the Warp 13 achieved in the original series by one group of aliens) and before it was recalibrated for the TNG era. Transwarp therefore isn't Warp 10, 11, 12 etc but travelling at Warp 9.9999, then 9.99999 and so on. Because the warp scale is exponential, this would still give velocities far above those of "normal" warp.

Admittedly this is complicated by the Voyager finale having a transwarp conduit access point located pretty much next to the Solar system. You could rationalise it that the Borg Queen's ship assembled it in First Contact before the attack on Earth or something, but more likely is the fact that Voyager had some really, really shitty writers, and none worse than Braga and Berman, and they pulled it out of their arse.

Yeah, Voyager exited the conduit in Sol; why the Borg didn’t just send five cubes in to take Earth before the Dominion-ravaged fleet could respond is not explained. Though one possible theory is Sol is very heavily guarded, not that it stopped the Breen from attacking Earth without the benefit of transwarp conduits.

[Luzifer's right hand]

8 hours ago, Werthead said:

As I said, retcons. There isn't really much they can do to address the discrepancy that in TNG it took more than a year for the Borg to travel 7,000 light-years and in Voyager's last season it takes them minutes to travel tens of thousands of light-years. and they can't explain at all why the Borg simply haven't destroyed the Federation at will since then. Voyager ran roughshod over continuity in a really massive way.

I do not really care for out of universe explanations when it comes to the discussions of fiction. I would just give up on Trek before doing that because continuity was never its strenght and the number of one-shot technologies that are never used again alone can make you despair.

The Borg never made much sense if you wanted to look at them as territory grabbing conquerors. Just assume that the Borg did not travel as fast as possible to Earth after encountering the Enterprise and things make more sense.

Earth is clearly not a high priortity target because those get swarmed by cubes.

Edith: Maybe the Federation was just a hobby for one or two queens and nothing of real importance to the collective itself.

[karaddin]

47 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Seven and anyone doesn’t sit well with me. Aside from my already established position that she’s the most overrated character in all of Trek, she’s also had 4 years to mature emotionally since she was assimilated (at age 6? 7? Don’t remember) and the Doctor particularly should have had a truck load of programming telling him to steer well clear of such a professional conflict. 

Which actually fits pretty well with them deciding in Picard that she later realises she's gay or bi. It's far from unheard for someone at the level of maturity to have not figured out their sexuality yet.