In the Star Trek fictional universe, Borg starships are huge interstellar spacecraft used by the Borg race to assimilate other species. All of their ships are simple geometric solids with greebled exteriors and very generalized and decentralized designs.
Contents |
A Borg Cube, as seen from the Main Bridge's viewscreen on board Enterprise NCC 1701-D. |
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| First appearance | Q Who? |
|---|---|
| Affiliation | Borg |
| References | "The Best of Both Worlds" Star Trek: First Contact |
| General characteristics | |
| Armaments | Cutting beams Torpedoes |
| Defenses | Regenerative hull Subspace field |
The archetypal Borg cube is a variety of immense, cubic starship that functions as part of the Borg Collective. It was first seen in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Q Who?" upon the Borg's first contact with the Federation Starfleet in 2365. The cube appears to be the principal spacefaring unit of the collective; it is by far the most common Borg craft seen on-screen and the type of vessel used in both the episode "The Best of Both Worlds" and the film Star Trek: First Contact.
The only unifying principles in the design of a cube are its shape, a decentralized/generalized arrangement, a size of several thousand meters per edge, and a hosting of tens or hundreds of thousands of drones. Erin Hansen, the mother of the future Seven of Nine remarks that the cube they studied was 28 cubic km in volume. This number sizes the length, width, and height dimensions at over 3 km. In Star Trek: First Contact, the atmospheric pressure aboard a Borg ship is described as being two kilopascals above what would be normal on a Federation starship, relative humidity is an average 93%, and its internal temperature is 39.1°C.
In terms of offense and defense, a Borg cube is a fleet in and of itself. Common capabilities of cubes include high warp (transwarp) capabilities, self-regeneration and multiple redundant systems, rapid adaptability to almost any assault (though not complete immunity, in Star Trek: First Contact it's shown that sufficient firepower from Federation ships could still destroy a Borg Cube after it adapted to their weapons), and various beam (tractor beams and cutting beams) and missile weapons. A single Borg cube has, on multiple occasions, taken on entire Federation fleets and held its own. Cubes have been commonly known to carry sphere ships in cavities covered by large slide-away hatches in the outermost layers.
Two basic styles of cube have been seen. The first, seen in The Next Generation, had an outer layer composed of a thin, mostly perpendicular framework of greebles, allowing a yellowish glow to emanate from within. The second, seen in Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Voyager, has a more solid-looking exterior with perpendicular and diagonal greebling, and less of a noticeable green inner light. The differences between the two types are due to enhanced detailing and use of computer-generated imagery between series.
In the apocryphal game series Star Trek: Armada and its sequel, the Borg cubes serve as the capital ships in the Borg fleet. Fitting with their behavior in the series, cubes are equipped with a "holding beam" which immobilizes an enemy ship while sending Borg drones over to assimilate the ship's crew. Cubes also have the ability to assimilate the special weapons of enemy ships, which can then be fed through a secondary structure to equip every cube with the same weapon. For gameplay reasons, cubes are nowhere near as massive or as powerful as those in the actual series, though they are still slightly more powerful (and expensive) than the other races' capital ships. In the sequel, eight Borg cubes or their tactical cube variants can be joined together to create the Fusion Cube and Tactical Fusion Cube, respectively. These massive vessels carry the collective capabilities of their component ships, including crew, offense, and defensive systems, bringing their capabilities more in line with those of the cubes in the series.
The Borg tactical cube ship is a heavily armored variant of the standard Borg cube. It was seen in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Unimatrix Zero".
This type of vessel is also featured in the Star Trek: Armada II video game, where the only difference between tactical and regular cubes is improved offensive and defensive capabilities. The tactical cube was also featured in Star Trek: Legacy, in which it is a larger and more powerful Borg cube.
First seen in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Dark Frontier", this small, oblong-shaped Borg vessel is about half the size of an Intrepid-class Federation starship. It has about the same amount of firepower, and is capable of transwarp speeds.
In 2375, a Borg probe confronted the USS Voyager in an attempt to assimilate the ship and its crew. Voyager fought back, and at one point during the battle the probe was forced to remodulate its shields. During this vulnerable moment, Voyager beamed a photon torpedo aboard the probe which detonated near the power matrix, resulting in the probe's destruction.
The probe left behind eight kilotons of debris, from which Voyager salvaged a variety of equipment including: two power nodes; two data nodes; twelve plasma conduits; an auto-regeneration unit made of some kind of lightweight polytrinic alloy; a servo-armature from a medical repair drone, which included a laser scalpel, biomolecular scanner, and micro-suture all rolled into one instrument; and a transwarp coil damaged beyond repair by fusing its field regulator (per Borg protocol when a vessel is critically damaged).
The probe is referred to as the "Interceptor" in the Star Trek: Armada series of computer games, and is the only Borg vessel therein capable of unassisted transwarp.
The Borg Queen uses an octahedral ship to direct all Borg operations. This ship is contained within the Unicomplex, the Borg's base of operations. Its diamond-like appearance, with its blue octagonal spheres located at the top and bottom, makes it stand out among other Borg vessels. This type of vessel was first seen in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Dark Frontier", where it leaves the unicomplex to participate in the assimilation of species 10026.
It remains unknown about how many of this type of ship were built, but it is conceivable to assume that there is only one, since it is constructed specially, for the personal transportation of the queen, which contains her 'lair' and the central processing center for all Borg operations. The weaponry of this ship includes both fore and aft torpedo launchers. Like the Borg cube it can travel at transwarp speeds as it is seen in the episode 'Dark Frontier' pursuing the delta flyer into a transwarp conduit.
The ship and Queen were both destroyed when the USS Voyager collapsed the transwarp conduit the vessel was traveling in. The ship was rebuilt soon after (or possibly a replacement vessel took its place) as part of the ship's interior (the Queen's lair) was re-seen in the episode "Unimatrix Zero" and again in "Endgame", (in which it was destroyed once again).
Within the Star Trek: Armada computer game series and various other games, this type of ship is referred to as the Borg Diamond and serves as the Borg science vessel.
The Borg scout ship is cuboid in shape but considerably smaller than its counterpart, the Borg cube. The Borg scout ship is only several metres in length, width and depth, and holds a crew of five. A Borg scout ship was found by the crew of the Enterprise-D on a moon in the Argolis cluster in the episode "I, Borg" (TNG).
In the game Star Trek: Armada, the Borg Scout is depicted as a very small and quick ship that is shaped like a cone. The shape changes considerably between the original Armada and Armada II.
The sphere ship was first seen in the movie Star Trek: First Contact, where it was stored within a Borg cube ship under a large slide-away hatch and used as an escape vessel upon the destruction of the cube in the Battle of Sector 001. This particular sphere was seen to be capable of time travel. After traveling back in time and attempting to disrupt humanity's first contact, the sphere was destroyed. Some of its wreckage crashed in the Arctic, as shown in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Regeneration".
It is unknown if other sphere ships are commonly carried aboard cubes or commonly possess time travel capabilities. They are equipped with reactive armor and carry a complement of 10,000 Borg drones.
Borg spheres were also seen in several episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. During the episode "Unimatrix Zero, Part 2", a Borg Sphere is shown firing both phasers and disruptors. In addition, in the final Voyager episode, "Endgame", a sphere is the last ship under the Borg Queen's control and is sent to overtake and destroy Voyager. The sphere does not succeed, and is destroyed by Voyager from within upon exiting the transwarp corridor.
In the Star Trek: Armada game series, they are depicted as light cruisers that have the ability to rapidly regenerate their shields for a short period of time, while in the Voyager episode "Dark Frontier" Seven of Nine refers to one as a scout ship.
In the two-part TNG episode "Descent", a group of rogue Borg began attacking Federation outposts and colonies in several outlying sectors with a new type of vessel, informally known as the rogue Borg ship. This unusual design was asymmetric, totally unlike the standard geometric Borg designs. However, the vessel was still heavily armed, capable of great destructive power.
Only one ship of this type has been observed; the ship attacked the research outpost on Oniaka III, as well as the MS-1 colony, using previously-unknown transwarp conduits to appear suddenly over the target and launch a quick attack.
A schematic variant of this design was briefly seen in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Scorpion, Part 2", which recounted the brief alliance between the Voyager crew and the Borg in their fight against Species 8472. Referred to as a "multikinetic neutronic mine", the drone Seven of Nine proposed it to Captain Janeway as a high-yield weapon for delivering enhanced nanoprobes after having deemed Starfleet photon torpedo as insufficient.
This design is also seen in the game series Star Trek: Armada, which refers to it as an "Assimilator" class. Its special weapon is similar to the cube's holding beam, but can't immobilize ships and transfers the current crew to the general available crew pool instead of transferring new crew over to the vessel itself. In Armada II the newly assimilated crew is stored on the vessel itself, until its maximum crew level of 200 is reached, then the remainder is transferred to the crew pool.
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