Right. Because even without the whole assimilation angle, the Borg have no need whatsoever of shipyards, factories, mining facilites, etc.

You would have to be pretty damn dumb to just dump the Death Star because you know all about Imperial tech. It's still a formidable capital ship.

What is this? The Cobra school of taking over the galaxy?

The ablity to build SW ships is beyond the Borg's tech level, due to superior metallurgy in the GFFA. Durasteel contains Neutronium. In VOY:'Thinktank' 7 of 9 clearly states that the Borg do not have the ability to produce Neutronium (and that anyone who can must have highly advanced technology).

It should also be noted that the DSII's ability to target ships wasn't inherent. If the Borg have assimiated it, they must have kick out IG-88a, which leaves them without the ability to target single ships.
Just for argument's sake, lets say they assimilated IG-88a as well (in spite of First Contact's precedent to suggest that the Borg cannot assimilate sentient droids).

Galaxy Gun. Problem solved.

It still has thousands of turbolasers it can use.

It is essentially impossible to quantify or measure the ability of the Borg to incorporate SW tech into their own base, becuase we don't know much about the assimilation process (aside from its zombie like nature). Simply assimilating alot of people is not a guarantee of gaining the requisite technical/scientific aptitude to reverse-engineer tech. They might be able to build SW stuff on their own by assimilating techs and engineers and stuff, but I don't think they'd be building Borg-SW hybrids without far more effort (hyperspace tech, for example, can be built and operated without understanding the underlying, fundamental principles behind that. THe borg would have to assimilate the right kinds of scientists to gain that knowledge.)

I didn't propose attacking it with ships. I also assumed that it can still target individual ships anyway.

There was a thread which discussed a possible tactic against the DS, using ships the Empire had around at the time. A concetrated attack by multiple ISDs, SSDs and a single Eclipse Class could well cripple the DSII.

Regarding Borg ship regenerative abilities:
The only time such abilities have been clearly demonstrated was in TNG:'Q Who?'. In ST:FC we saw a Borg ship with obvious damage that was not showing any sign of regenerating. Either-
A) The Borg cannot regenerate their ships in the middle of a battle.
B) The Borg have no actual regerative ability, and Q was doing it to put the scares into Picard.

Yeah but that's all you really need. The cube was regenerating whilst at high-warp velocities, which would have been a big power-drain.


There is a third option, in that the borg cube was only meant to get the Sphere into launching position, if you assume that the Borg's Plan A was actually that rather than it's Plan B.

Anyway, your A option is refuted by 'QWho', while B option flies in the face of Q's entire motive for doing what he did in the very same episode. First Contact makes several departures from the Borg we came to expect from TNG. I blame Berman, Braga and Moore.

I was more under the impression that the Cube was simply being damaged faster than it could regenerate in FC.

By Option A I wasn't thinking terms of available power, but of system stability. According to BOBW, the Borg have a great deal of redundancy built into their ships. While they are continuing to be damaged, they more than likely have to keep rerouting power through different systems.
It is on this basis I assumed that they cannot regenerate during a battle.

Even if the FC cube's only purpose was to get the sphere to Earth, why wouldn't it keep regerating itself throughout the battle? It would maximise it's efectiveness by doing so, and if it's so easy to do, there's no reason not to (though, the example of FC also raises serious questions about the Borg's adaptive abilities).

I don't see how my B option goes against Q's objective. He wanted to scare Picard with the idea of there being nasty stuff out there. Making the Borg look scarier than they actually are only helps him shatter Picard's confidence in the Federation's ability to face the dangers of space. I mainly suggested this because of the lack of any other examples of the Borg demonstrating the ability.

But most importantly...So do I. I have actually had to ask people in a Borg versus Wars argument if they were talking about TNG Borg ( ZOMG!!! scary as shit!) or VOY Borg ( hahahaha!!! these guys are sooooo stupid!).

But that would mean the Borg don't have infinite adaptive/regenerative ability...

Don't forget that the Borg were repairing (repair = regenerate??) the cube during that battle, Picard 'hears' them. That's how he knew where to focus the fleet's attention. To scans it appeared to be nothing vital, but Picard knew they were rerouting shit through there or something something QUANTUM.

(Picard having telepathic contact with the borg is one of those wtf elements I was talking about.)

I had somewhat forgotten about that. Been a while since I watched FC (no prizes for guessing why). Wouldn't them rerouting quantum *stuff* through there mid-battle, while not showing outward signs of recovery, somewhat agree with my theory as to why they can't regenerate effectively mid-battle, but can do so at warp?
e.g. Having to deal with the damage they are currently receiving would prevent them from repairing damage that was done earlier.

Again I figured they just missed an Implant that was still in him or something.

In voyagers final episode, the borg were able to figure out how the armor from the future worked within moments of assimilating the shuttle's armor. This should demonstrate ability to understand how foreign technology works without having to assimilate a designer of the technology. I'm sure information about conventional technology's design would be located in the death star's computer records too.



We see a borg scout vessel giving the order to regenerate their primary shield matrix while in the middle of a battle with voyager here:



Plus in this episode Janeway says that once they disable a borg ship sensor array that it takes them two minutes to regenerate it.



Plus in best of both worlds part 1, here's what was said after they shelby's away team destroyed the power distribution nodes on the borg cube:



then it gets warp power back shortly after in best of both worlds part 2. A borg drone's ability to regenerate their body parts and components is seen in plenty of places like enterprise episode "regeneration", the medical applications mentioned and demonstrated in voyager episode "unity", and when 7 of 9 cut herself in episode "Revulsion" she said that as a drone she would have healed in seconds.



seven of nine could hear the borg when in close contact with a ship in episode "child's play" plus the queen borg communicated with seven of nine a number of times in other episodes



the borg would use replicator technology for that and nanoprobes would do the rapair work.

Being able to assimilate Starfleet tech from the very near future is not indicative that they would be able to assimilate Imperial tech. The Borg were familiar with the Federation materials such as duranium and tritanium. They've almost never seen anything like Durasteel. Refer to VOY:'Think Tank', as I already said. Neutronium alloys are clearly stated to be beyond the Borg's ability to produce. Without the ability to utilise neutronium, the Borg are completely unable to regenerate DS parts.
Do the Borg have access to lommite? Xerxite? Tibanna gas? Any of the exotic minerals of the GFFA?
Can you prove that the Borg would be able to produce hypermatter? (Keep in mind, they can't produce Omega particles, and they've been researching them for years.)

Is it time to mention Imperial subspace jamming protocols yet?

Just to see what happens...
Ram it!
At superluminal velocity!
With the Sun Crusher!

The borg merely never ran into any species which produced Neutronium before. The thinktank does, which proves that the star trek galaxy does have races that have the ability to produce Neutronium. These races just haven't been assimilated yet. Of course the borg have the theoretical potential to produce the stuff if other huminoid races in star trek or even star wars can. We've seen borg nanoprobes assimilate and use 29th century technology also.

That however required one of ST's vaunted transporter mishaps to occur. Who says they can reproduce the effect at will?

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People at birth are naturally good. Their natures are similar, but their habits make them different from each other.
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Seven of Nine says it in this quote from episode "Drone":

No-limits fallacy anyone? Also, Scorpion proves they're obviously not up to the task to penetrate any technology they encounter.

EDIT:
Also, I'd like to know if they could assimilate a wooden watermill. That's technology too after all.

---

人之初
性本善
性相近
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People at birth are naturally good. Their natures are similar, but their habits make them different from each other.
-Sanzi Jing (Three Character Classic)

You asked who said it, I'm merely providing the quote. Just because the borg won't assimilate overly primative technology or species, doesn't mean they can't. Seven of nine said that the nanoprobes utilize any technology they encounter. They were never able to encounter species 8472's biology because the cells had an immune response that instantly destroyed the probe before it could make contact with its cellular structures. Once the nanoprobes were reprogrammed, it did assimilate even species 8472.

Point is that Seven is wrong/using hyperbole. Her quote doesn't prove the Borg can assimilate every technology. Notice that the modified nanoprobes didn't assimilate 8472 tech, they destroyed it without learning any of its workings. Borg assimilation has its limits.

ETA;
O yeah, and also remember that they needed outside help to modify the nanoprobes into being effective against 8472 revealing some rather humiliating deficiencies inherent to the Borg.

---

人之初
性本善
性相近
習相遠

People at birth are naturally good. Their natures are similar, but their habits make them different from each other.
-Sanzi Jing (Three Character Classic)

If seven of nine's quotes mean nothing, then we have no proof that borg were never able to produce neutronium artificially either. Species 8472's cellular structure was designed to pretty much destroy anything that comes in contact with. I've seen no limits to the assimilation process except for this. The doctor said that the tubules are capable of penetrating any known alloy or energy field. Since neutronium is a known alloy, I don't see any problem here.

Seven's quote means nothing because it's been contradicted on screen. Also, if they can assimilate neutronium, why don't they use it?


How "known" would durasteel be for them? There you go. Durasteel isn't all neutronium you know.

---

人之初
性本善
性相近
習相遠

People at birth are naturally good. Their natures are similar, but their habits make them different from each other.
-Sanzi Jing (Three Character Classic)