What happened to the Borg ship from "The Neutral Zone"?

[Tribble]

One of the big mysteries in Star Trek for me was what the hell happened to the Borg ship from the Neutral Zone. The only thing we really know about that ship was that it attacked several Federation and Romulan military outposts along their border. We don't know what class of ship it was, we don't know what its intentions were and we don't know where it went. Here are my thoughts on the issue:

First off, although a signal was sent to Borg Space in ENT's "Regeneration" it is never confirmed whether any portion of the signal was successfully retrieved. It is my belief that either the signal did not reach Borg space at all, or if it did the signal had become too decayed to be of much use. For that matter, we do not know how much information the Borg obtained after they assimilated the USS Raven and the Hansens. For all we know the Hansens had wiped their computer core of key information while they were being chased, as they knew what would happen if that information became available. Although their minds would have contained some info on the Federation, it would probably be rather limited in scope. This could explain why the Borg ship travelled along the Neutral Zone rather than striking the heart of federation territory from the outset. While the signal and the Hansen's memories did not contain specific information, perhaps the Borg ship was sent because they decided that the area was worth investigating.


Of course this raises the issue of why the ship chose to leave rather than continue to attack. After all, it must have gathered some information from the outposts it assimilated. At the very least, the Borg must have learned of (or confirmed) the existence of the Federation at that time. So why not attack right then?

Reason #1: The Borg ship was too small to launch a full-scale invasion. For example, it might have been a sphere, and while it was big enough to handle the outposts, the Borg felt that it could not handle an all-out assault. After doing it's job of investigating the area, it left and never returned.

Reason #2: If the ship was a cube, it's possible that after assimilating the outposts the Borg felt that the Federation was not worth assimilating at that time. After-all, the outposts were located along an area of space which had not seen any action in decades, so they might not have been up-to-date with the latest technology. Or even if they had been, the Borg might not have been really interested until the Enterprise's vanishing trick in "Q Who." It was implied in "Q Who" that the timeline had been altered due to Q's actions, and the Federation was originally supposed to have met the Borg at a far later date, when they may have been ready to deal with them. Perhaps in the original timeline, the ship from the "Neutral Zone" studied the federation, determined it wasn't worth the effort of assimilating just yet, and left it at that. There may have been no invasion planned but Q's meddling piqued their interest.

Reason #3 (which is related to reason #2) - the Borg ship originally left because it deemed the Federation unworthy of it's attention, but after the events of Q-Who it eventually turned around. It may have been THIS ship that was seen in BOBW. After all, the idea that the Borg cube originated from J-25 was mere speculation on the Enterprise crew's part. If this were the case, it could call into question how fast Borg ships really are when they aren't using trans-warp. For all we know (updated graphics aside) the cube from First Contact may have been the ship from J-25, and it may have taken that long for it to get there. This could explain why only one cube was sent in First Contact, as perhaps the J-25 cube was the nearest one available after the cube from the Neutral Zone was destroyed in BOBW.

Reason # 4 - The Borg ship did attack right away, only it chose to attack the Romulans! Of course, there is no hint of this in any series, but then again we viewers only tend to see what goes on in the Federation. Despite the Romulans assurances that they would share information, it would come as no surprise to me that they chose to cover up an invasion if it had occurred. After all, would the Romulans really want to tell the Federation that a single unknown ship successfully penetrated their borders and caused who know's what amount of damage before it was stopped? If anything, I'm sure that if an attack did happen the Romulans would have done everything possible to make sure that all evidence of it disappeared pronto.

At any rate, those are a few of my ideas of what went on... what do you guys think?

[Ted C]

Surely the Federation has enough long-range surveillance and embedded agents in the Romulan Empire that they would know about something as big as a Borg Cube intrusion, so I think we can write off #4.

[Tribble]

Another thought just occurred to me. In order to explain why there were Wolf 359 survivors in the DQ, it has been suggested that at some point a 2nd ship got involved during BOBW. Instead time travel being involved, couldn't it have simply been the ship from the Neutral Zone? If that were the case, it would explain a LOT. I'd even go so far as to suggest that the ship from the Neutral Zone could have been the "Klingon sphere" seen in Unimatrix.

Here's how that scenario could have played out:

1. The Borg receive info from the Hansens and/or the transmission from "Regeneration". The info is not very specific, so the Borg decide to send the nearest ship, which in this case is a sphere, to investigate.
2. The Borg sphere attacks federation and romulan outposts along the neutral zone. Either the Borg decide that the federation isn't worth assimilating at that time, or the sphere is simply too small to do the job by itself. The sphere leaves.
3. Due to the events of "Q Who," the Borg decide to launch an attack. While the cube heads out from J-25, the sphere turns around and makes it's way back towards federation space. The timing is coordinated so that the two could work together.
4. The sphere and the cube dock together, and they proceed to attack the federation. They decide not to make a bee-line towards Earth even though in all likelihood they had the location via the E-D's computer. Perhaps they were being cautious and wanted to see what resistance they could expect before taking the plunge towards the heart of federation territory.
5. After encountering the E-D and assimilating Picard, the Borg now know for a certainty that the Federation haven't had enough time to prepare. NOW they head straight for Earth.
6. Either immediately before or during Wolf 359, the sphere leaves the cube, presumably to assist in the attack. At that time it assimilates the people seen later in the DQ.
7. The sphere is dispatched to deal with the Klingon task force, while the cube continues towards Earth. The task force was small enough that the sphere was able to deal with it on its own. Remember that the Klingons would have had less time than the federation to get ships together as apparently the federation did not ask for help until after Picard was assimilated. They also had a greater distance to travel.
8. The cube was destroyed before the sphere had a chance to rejoin it. As for the Queen, I've always thought of her as an avatar which is given a physical body from time-to-time, so it was no biggie if that particular body was blown up. Although the sphere was not being threatened atm, the Borg determined that it was not powerful enough to do the job by itself. As a result, the sphere heads back towards a trans-warp hub (which is where it may have been originally heading to after the Neutral Zone), and eventually it makes its way back to the DQ.
9.1 At some point it briefly joins up with the Borg cube seen in "Unity" and transfers over some of the assimilated Starfleet members.
10. Voyager eventually encounters the sphere again in "Unimatrix," after the Klingon crew members have taken it over.

I know its a stretch to imagine that the sphere was involved in all those circumstances but given what transpired on screen I think 1-8 is certainly plausible. We don't know how often Borg ships encounter each other and if they do whether or not crew transfers take place. It could be that the after the sphere returned to the DQ the crews were over time transferred from ship to ship until they ended up being on the ships seen in Unity and Unimatrix, so its hard to say whether its the same sphere involved in all those cases. So 9-10 would be a hell of stretch, but I think its stil technically possible.

Out of the scenarios I've come up with, which if any do you like best? I like this one because it can explain things without involving time-travel and what-not.

As for the Borg invading the Romulans, I've always thought the Romulans as being FAR more aggressive than the federation. Whereas the E-D stopped shooting the Borg cube in "Q-Who" the moment the beam was terminated, I always imagined that the Romulans would have blown the entire ship to pieces. IF a Borg ship of some type had been encountered, they may have dealt with it far more quickly than the federation had, and the resulting incident might have been small enough to effectively cover-up. Though I agree that this is probably the least likely scenario.

[Tribble]

*please delete*

[Tribble]

If the Borg had attacked the Romulans, would the Federation have become aware of it? Sensor-wise, I don't think so. The outposts, despite being designed for specific purpose of monitoring the Neutral Zone, didn't see the Borg ship coming until it was too late. They never even got the chance to send a description. And the E-D never saw any trace of it even though they were only a couple of days behind at most. I doubt federation sensors would be able to see that far into Romulan space. Especially if the Romulans didn't dick around and blew it up the moment they had a chance.

I DO think the federation would eventually hear of it through their intelligence agencies. The question is: how soon? The Romulans would only had to have maintained the cover-up until Q-Who, because afterwards the situation would be moot. And even if they did hear about it before Q-Who, that information may not have been available to Picard. After all, we only see things through the E-D's eyes. I'm not saying that its LIKELY, but I do think its at least possible. I'm of the personal opinion that it was a sphere, and that sphere turned around to join the cube from J-25 in BOBW, but I'm just taking a look at all the options.

[FaxModem1]

If a Borg vessel was blasting through Romulan space, I think Starfleet might notice sudden fleet movements and the sudden war style communications and distress signals, whether the Borg were undetectable or not.

[Tribble]

Alright, so it's safe to scratch number 4. What, if any of the other alternatives do you think would be more likely? Or are there any other ideas I haven't thought of?

[Prometheus Unbound]

Dropped out of transwarp next to the colonies, did a bit of explosions and capturing of the buildings, transwarped out again in the space of a couple of hours. They never knew what hit them.

[Replicant]

If a Borg vessel was blasting through Romulan space, I think Starfleet might notice sudden fleet movements and the sudden war style communications and distress signals, whether the Borg were undetectable or not.

If I remember correctly, when the Romulans show up while investigating the missing outposts it is stated by Picard that this is the first contact with the Romulans in a very long time.

Assuming the Romulans fight a short war against the Borg right after this incident it is entirely plausible that the Federation has no embedded agents in the Romulan Star Empire at this time.

[FaxModem1]

Which is more likely: the Romulans have gone silent, even to the point of whole fleets being destroyed and major colonies being assimilated, or the Romulans were simply never attacked, and kept silent through stealth and were still monitored by Starfleet? Even if there have been no formal communications, Both sides would be monitoring each other.

As an example, if say China pulled out of all diplomacy and relations with the US, the US would still monitor them in some fashion.

[TheHammer]

I don't think option 4 should be so easily dismissed.

Militarily, at least pre-borg/dominion war days, I'd expect the Romulans to be more powerful than the federation. This due primarily to the fact that unlike the Federation they did have dedicated warships and the mindset to use them. Given that your D'deridex class Warbird was supposed to be at least on par with a GCS, and given the Enterprise's initial effectiveness against a borg cube its certainly within the realm of possibility that a strike force could have knocked out a cube, and certainly any smaller borg vessel.

As to whether the Federation intelligence knew about it, perhaps they did. But given the nature of intelligence, they wouldn't make that information (to whatever extent) to be common knowledge for fear of exposing their agent.

[Batman]

How does the GCS compare to the D'deridex volume-wise? Not just length x width x height, but volume actually occupied by the ship as opposed to bits of ship being around lots of empty space? I've not run any calculations but eyeballing it it (which admittedly has a reliability of 'little if any') I'd call the total volume of a D'deridex at about on par if not less than a GCS, at which point (assuming I'm right) we have to deal with the fact that a dedicated romulan bigass warship is about on par with a Federation explorer that has guns because 'you never know what you may find out there'.

[fordlltwm]

here you go

[fordlltwm]

Ghetto Edit:


I'd say it does occupy a bit more volume, but what's more important is what the volume is used for. If a GCS can hold a thousand people, quite a few of them civvies and scientists in comfort, then a ship of war the same size might be able to hold two thousand plus in the same space.


A real world example was of the original QE and QM liners, which hold joint records for number of people shipped transatlantic at once, having a usual capacity in civilian life of Capacity: (2,283 passengers, Crew: 1,000+) about 3,000, as a troop ship, they sailed with over 15,000 people on board.

[Tribble]

I just realised we've kinda been missing the obvious here... the Federation had just lost a bunch of outposts which were specifically designed to monitor activity along the Neutral Zone and Romulans space. Wouldn't this have left a pretty big gap in their sensor coverage, at least until those outposts were rebuilt or a fleet was temporarily dispatched to the area? We know that a fleet was NOT dispatched for some time at least because the E-D did its investigation alone. If the Borg attacked during that time, or immediately after, it's conceivable that the attack and/or the communications could have been missed entirely.

The Federation would have eventually received this info via spies, but again, that might have taken some time... after Q-Who it would have been moot, And if they received it before that Picard might not have been of high enough rank to know about it.

[Rycon67]

I don't think option 4 should be so easily dismissed.

Militarily, at least pre-borg/dominion war days, I'd expect the Romulans to be more powerful than the federation. This due primarily to the fact that unlike the Federation they did have dedicated warships and the mindset to use them. Given that your D'deridex class Warbird was supposed to be at least on par with a GCS, and given the Enterprise's initial effectiveness against a borg cube its certainly within the realm of possibility that a strike force could have knocked out a cube, and certainly any smaller borg vessel.

As to whether the Federation intelligence knew about it, perhaps they did. But given the nature of intelligence, they wouldn't make that information (to whatever extent) to be common knowledge for fear of exposing their agent.

Even if the kept knowledge of a major Romulan engagement with the Borg classified from the general public or the lower ranking enlisted and junior officers, at the very least every starship or starbase Captain and Admiral would have received some sort of briefing at some point so they'd know what to look out for to sound the alarm and mobilize the Starfleet. It was mentioned in the Neutral Zone episode before they had any clue about the Borg that they felt the loss of various outposts in the region warranted Picard leaving the Enterprise to attend a classified briefing on the matter. Had the Romulans got their fleet ripped apart by the Borg, there would have been some sort of mention at some point.

[Havok]

I call bullshit on that scaling. I've seen the episodes where the Ent faces down with Romulan War Birds and they aren't that big.

[StarSword]

I call bullshit on that scaling. I've seen the episodes where the Ent faces down with Romulan War Birds and they aren't that big.

Screenshot a TV Tropes page had handy:



Although he probably used the TM numbers rather than scaling it, I'm inclined to call the chart accurate. Remember, the GCS is about as wide as it is long, whereas the D'Deridex is about half-again as long as its width. (Starting in DS9: "Tears of the Prophets" especially we get lots of close-in side-shots of double-Ds.)

[Tribble]

Even if the kept knowledge of a major Romulan engagement with the Borg classified from the general public or the lower ranking enlisted and junior officers, at the very least every starship or starbase Captain and Admiral would have received some sort of briefing at some point so they'd know what to look out for to sound the alarm and mobilize the Starfleet. It was mentioned in the Neutral Zone episode before they had any clue about the Borg that they felt the loss of various outposts in the region warranted Picard leaving the Enterprise to attend a classified briefing on the matter. Had the Romulans got their fleet ripped apart by the Borg, there would have been some sort of mention at some point.

I don't think a major fleet engagement was necessary. Despite the fact that the Borg downloaded info from the E-D's computer, the E-D was able cause heavy damage to the Borg Cube. It was only after the E-D ceased firing and gave the Borg time to repair the damage and adapt that its weapons were rendered useless.

If the Romulans engaged the Borg it would have to be sometime after the episode, or else the Romulans wouldn't have gone to the border to ask the E-D for help. I think things would have gone quite differently than what transpired in Q-Who. If they didn't immediately open fire on the Borg ship the moment it came into weapons range, they certainly would the moment the Borg beamed a drone over. There is no evidence to suggest that the Borg would adapt to Romulan weapons any faster than Federation weapons, and I doubt the Romulans would stop firing until the Borg ship was reduced to a cloud of debris. I think it's conceivable for a single Romulan warbird to take out a Borg cube in a first encounter, and it would certainly be able to take out a smaller ship like a sphere.

Given that several of the Federation military outposts were destroyed, there would be a gap in their sensor network. They might have simply failed to detect the encounter, especially if only one or two Roumlan ships were involved.

And yes, Starfleet would eventually learn about this via espionage, but it would take time, especially if there was only a single warbird involved. It's not like the Romulans would have posted the report on the local news. An agent would have to receive instructions to look for specific information without being detected, locate and retrieve that information without being detected, and then sent it back to Starfleet without being detected. Not an easy thing to do given the Romulan's secretive nature. Would Picard have access to that kind of intelligence in time for Q-Who? And if he did, would that have made a difference? After all, the E-D was whisked away without notice, and Q never told Picard the enemy he was facing. And even if Picard immediately recognized the cube (assuming that a cube attacked the Romulans and not another ship), would that have changed his actions in the slightest? Both Guinan and Q had warned him of the danger and he disregarded it, he also didn't leave after Data told him that J-25 had suffered an attack identical to the outposts along the Neutral Zone. He was curious, and he wanted to prove to Q that he was ready for any challenge.

[Lord MJ]

I don't think a major fleet engagement was necessary. Despite the fact that the Borg downloaded info from the E-D's computer, the E-D was able cause heavy damage to the Borg Cube. It was only after the E-D ceased firing and gave the Borg time to repair the damage and adapt that its weapons were rendered useless.

If the Romulans engaged the Borg it would have to be sometime after the episode, or else the Romulans wouldn't have gone to the border to ask the E-D for help. I think things would have gone quite differently than what transpired in Q-Who. If they didn't immediately open fire on the Borg ship the moment it came into weapons range, they certainly would the moment the Borg beamed a drone over. There is no evidence to suggest that the Borg would adapt to Romulan weapons any faster than Federation weapons, and I doubt the Romulans would stop firing until the Borg ship was reduced to a cloud of debris. I think it's conceivable for a single Romulan warbird to take out a Borg cube in a first encounter, and it would certainly be able to take out a smaller ship like a sphere.

On the other hand the Ent-D stopped firing so the Borg cube saw no reason to consider the Ent-D as a threat to it's survival and therefore attack the Ent-D with it's own weapons. The Borg wanted to assimilate the Ent-D not destroy it, and would only attack with enough force to destroy the Ent-D if it felt that the Ent-D posed a threat to it's survival. If the Ent-D continued firing the Borg would consider the Ent-D a threat and destroy it. The Ent-D didn't have shields at the time and the Borg's projectile and beam weapons would probably cut through the Ent-D faster than the Ent-D could dish out enough firepower to destroy the Cube.

[Borgholio]

Picard made several tactical blunders in that episode. He didn't ask Guinan for more information about the area they were in...instead he went to study it himself and drew the attraction of the Borg. He didn't heed her warning when she said they should leave immediately, and he called several conferences with the command crew which gave the Borg time to adapt and regenerate.

Given how much damage the E-D did to the cube in the space of a few seconds, had they gone all out with a full phaser and torpedo strike, the cube would have been heavily damaged at least.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Wouldn't that have made things worse though? If the Cube was heavily damaged or destroyed, the Collective would view the Federation as a much greater threat and probably send more than one cube in BOBW. We see in Dark Frontier how they responded to a species that had technology that treatened them, they went in with at least two cubes, not just one.

[Borgholio]

Did the Borg cube in Q-Who know where the E-D came from? If that ship had been destroyed BEFORE Q returned the E-D to Federation space, would the Borg have been able to link the E-D to the Federation?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Did the Borg cube in Q-Who know where the E-D came from? If that ship had been destroyed BEFORE Q returned the E-D to Federation space, would the Borg have been able to link the E-D to the Federation?

The Collective woudl still have the information, and would probably be able to join the dots based on the colonies they stole at the start of BOBW. They may well have called for reinforcements.

I'm not saying that absolutely would happen, but the Borg kept underestimating the Federation. With a destroyed or crippled ship in Q Who that underestimation gets revised.

[Lord MJ]

The Ent-D crew didn't know the Borg could adapt at the time of Q-Who. And it's not necessarily the case the Guinan's people were aware of Borg adaptation either.