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Are the Borg really attacking the Q Continuum?
tilarta
Member Posts: 1,801 Arc User
I started to wonder if the snowBorg in Q's Winter Wonderland are actual Borg and they are doing a genuine invasion.
After all, I can just see the Q turning them into snowmen just for a laugh.
And most likely the Borg Hivemind wouldn't care if they'd been physically transformed, the order would be given to attack regardless.
It might even be possible that when Q opens the portals between our realm and Q Continuum, this makes the barriers less resilient due to proximity and the Borg exploit this vulnerability by opening rifts to enter the realm.
In one episode of Voyager, a technological device was constructed that could allow a corporeal starship to enter the Continuum, so it is definitely possible to get there without needing to be a Q.
After all, I can just see the Q turning them into snowmen just for a laugh.
And most likely the Borg Hivemind wouldn't care if they'd been physically transformed, the order would be given to attack regardless.
It might even be possible that when Q opens the portals between our realm and Q Continuum, this makes the barriers less resilient due to proximity and the Borg exploit this vulnerability by opening rifts to enter the realm.
In one episode of Voyager, a technological device was constructed that could allow a corporeal starship to enter the Continuum, so it is definitely possible to get there without needing to be a Q.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Post edited by tilarta on
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At no point was there any danger to the public.
Nothing to see here, please move on.
Highly unlikely that the Borg could even knock on the door of the Q Dimension. So no, no Borg Invasion, just Q having his fun.
Imagine if the BORG actually did manage to assimilate a "Q"...
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Not so much knocking on their door, but it's always possible that they could scan it. And scanning something reveals so much to the scanner; see the USS Kelvin scanning the Narada causing Starfleet technology to jump ahead or the threat of the 29th Century Borg, One, of being scanned (and/or re-assimilated) by current era Borg.
If given the chance to study a Q or the Continuum they might be able to learn how to use it for something, which could be anything. From making the assimilation process more efficient, their ships more powerful to maybe even having defenses to a Q's powers.
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Unless you're the salmon.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
True, but Q is interested in Humanity because of our ability to grow, of the danger we could be if we became something....more. Which has been shown since even TOS, where psionic powers were a known ability and even supercharged to god-like levels when exposed to certain nebula, and were being selectively bred/genetically modified to do so in early TNG.
And, like it or not, everyone's favorite hate-child Wesley Crusher exhibited Q-like powers (or Traveler-like powers) before he quit Starfleet for good, showing no previous evidence of supernatural powers.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
At least, that's how it was explained when they were building the device to send Voyager to that plane of existence.
Granted, they had an actual Q telling them how to build it, but if they could make it out of spare parts, then the Borg might be able to build a version for themselves and thus, send their drones to the Continuum.
Which, if this is true, the Q are using us to hold back the Borg invasion and disguising it as harmless fun.
It was mentioned that if a human obtains the Q version of a gun, they have combat superiority, because the Q have no skill in fighting, either with weapons or unarmed.
Hence why they are sending us to fight the Borg on their behalf, because we're better at it then they are!
Which is another of my theories, these novelty guns are really Q weapons, designed to function only in the Winter Wonderland region of the Continuum.
And as mentioned above, if the Q are specifically avoiding antagonizing the Borg or getting their attention, then it would imply they have reasons to be worried about them.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
i know you posted some comment but I cant see it....
Which is probably why Q Junior shouldn't provoke them - it would force the Q's hand to deal with them, and they don't want to. Probably because the threat of the Borg keeps the Universe interesting and helps some civilizations to advance to interesting levels, or something like that.
Q aren't even corporeal. There's nothing the Borg could do to them.
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I'm sure a certain crotchety, psychotic Iconian would have agreed with you a while back before losing an arm
If they can interact with our reality, we can interact with theirs - although like mentioned above, if the borg -did- break into the Q continium, Q likely would hide the fact by making it a game to get us to sort out the mess without revealing their vulnerability
Also theres also the fact it does not have to be present age borg...it could be borg from the future, or heck a parrallel future - Q can easily break causality, after all
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What if something replaced them that made the Borg insignificant by comparision?
And the threat of the Borg pushed Starfleet to create ships they wouldn't have normally considered, ships of war.
No Defiant, suddenly the Dominion conquered the Alpha Quadrant. Oops again.
No Enterprise-E for that matter either.
And Voyager, well, without the Borg crewmembers and the associated technical expertise/technology they were providing, say goodbye to that ship shortly after it arrives in the Delta Quadrant.
Also, without the Borg threat, the balance of power in the DQ would significantly change.
The Q may seem invulnerable, but they are not.
The female Q was injured somehow and this prevented her from using her powers (manifested visually as a bruise on her forehead).
In the realm of the Q, if you use a Q weapon, they can be injured or killed.
So I'd suspect if any species finds their way into the Continnuum, the Q aren't as invulnerable there.
And if that species managed to recover a Q weapon or the knowledge of how to build one, it would not be good for the Q!
Which might the reason the Q fear the Borg, they might be able to destroy any invaders easily, but could they do so before the Borg transmitted whatever data they gathered back to the rest of the Collective?
Throw enough Borg at the Q, eventually some useful data will be obtained.
Another reason we are sent to fight them instead, so the Borg aren't scanning the Q and determining their weaknesses.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Besides, weighing up the choice between the assimilation of Q and the potential for the Borg to use that power to assimilate the entire universe or the Q continuum completely rewriting the space-time continuum in a potentially unfavourable way, I'd choose the latter, at least that way cultural diversity is maintained.
You point out that without the Borg the Delta quadrant would look different, in addition to the many races the Borg assimilated, many races that didn't go to space because of the Borg would have and many of those who did develop space travel due to encounters with the Borg may not. As to Voyager, without the Borg it's entirely possible the caretaker may have been able to find a suitable mate in the Delta quadrant and thus Voyager wouldn't have dragged out of the alpha quadrant and we wouldn't know about the delta quadrant at all.
I disagree that Starfleet would never have built warships, I'm sure that with all the wars and border skirmishes the Federation and the Klingons have thought, the idea of building warships has been floating around the design bureau for many years, the Borg were simply the canon catalyst for putting those plans to use, if the Dominion war forces their hands instead, warships are still built. Besides, the Defiant class didn't actually win the Dominion war the waste of hundreds of formally retired ships by incompetent Starfleet strategists did, the Defiant didn't do anything a BoP couldn't have.
But Iconaians are corporeal and thus can lose arms. Q can't.
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The entire Q Continuum however is a different matter.
While it's not clear exactly what rules they follow, they do have laws.
And apparently interfering in corporeal matters is a fairly serious offence, Q was punished for it, Q2 was incarcerated for doing the same thing, but with much more benovolent intentions.
Whether or not they would uphold those principles when faced with being assimilated is unknown.
Q2 was quite specific that the Q are not immortal or invulnerable, they can be harmed, they can be killed.
The Borg are one of the few galactic powers who might be able to find a way to do it.
Based on these statements, there is no indication Starfleet had been developing warships prior to learning of the Borg.
That they only started when they learned there was a threat their current starships were incapable of defeating.
I assume that Starfleet vessels always had technological superiority over other powers, so never felt the need to go further.
And at this time, the Klingons were not opposed to the Federation, so there would be no reason to fight them.
The Defiant didn't win the war, that is true.
But it was present for many of the major events leading to the defeat of the Dominion.
Remove it from the equation and history would tell a different story.
Also, once it was proven to work, it was replicated many times over.
No prototype, no copies and as a result, less firepower to bring against enemy forces.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Though the whole discussion of what the Trek world would look like without the Borg seems to stray a bit far off course - If the Borg could hypothetically threaten the Q Continuum, that does not mean the Q Continuum would have to remove the entirely from existence in the past, present and future. They could just remove the curent Borg from existence, or alter them.
Beyond that... It's difficult to tell what the limits of the Q are, and if they are based on their power or their internal regulations. Q typically restores things to the status quo, only leaving behind people a bit wiser to the way the world works... Though it seems te Q Civil War in VOY did leave some permanent damage with exploded stars?
After all, our present is somebody's past, so it could still alter the timestream.
And then it gets back to the problem of directly using Q powers on the Borg would give them data to analyse.
The Borg are also capable of utilising temporal manipulation if it suits them, they do have the capability to send data back in time via their temporal transmitter nodes.
The only option the Q could take is to remove the invading groups and find a way to do so without being scanned in the process.
This is assuming erasing several hundred or thousand drones from existence would have negligible impact on the timestream.
And I did think of another problem with erasing the Borg completely, without the attack on Wolf 359, there would never be a Benjamin Sisko in the first place!
It is eventually revealed that a lone Prophet manipulated events to make sure he was born.
But that timestream could only exist if they'd met him in the first place.
No Borg, no meeting, no Sisko, big oops.
It wouldn't have much effect on the Prophets themselves, as they exist outside of time.
But I can imagine they'd be going to the Q Continuum and insisting they correct the temporal paradox by restoring the Borg to existence.....or else.
I assume the Prophets are quite a few levels of power above the Q, so if this theory is correct, the Q would have no choice but to obey them.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Q aren't even corporeal. There's nothing the Borg could do to them.[/quote]
You hit me! Picard never hit me.
I know what ya mean, she could have at least brushed her hair nicer, it's a real distraction.
And don't get me started on those two big round things dangling below her ears.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
One could argue that would be good for the alpha quadrant, certainly for the federation, if Sisko hadn't convinced the Prophets to open the wormhole for all traffic the Dominion would have had to come the long way, by which time it's entirely possible that Alpha quadrant technology would have caught up. Bajor would still be something of an out of the way place but it would still have a significant trade turnover between the Cardassians who would never have had the fleet strength to conduct a war with Starfleet and the Federation who for some reason want Bajor to join them, which would likely happen a lot faster as the commander assigned to DS9 would likely be a lot more enthusiastic about the idea.
Also, if I remember DS9 right, Sisko is actually responsible for the Dominion war, so again, better for the Federation.
I would have expected the Q to punch harder then "tickle ignore".
And if an unenhanced mortal lays you out in two punches, I'd recommend running from the Borg.
The only thing I think of when seeing hoop earrings:
"Wear hoops and they'll catch on something, rip your lobes off, lobes flying everywhere."
Somewhere, a Ferengi is screaming in terror at that statement.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
I think you misremember. The only thing the Dominion needed to be "provoked" by the Federation (or the rest of the Alpha Quadrant) was their mere existenc. Any solids not under Dominion control was perceived as a potential and thus unacceptable threat to the Founders.
The first attack was initiated by the Dominion -they attacked Sisko's shuttle on a small exploration mission, and they destroyed a Bajoran colony. There were no warnings that someone was entering territory under control by the Dominion (and I actually suspect it wasn't in practice, that's why it took so long for the Dominion to react and no one encountered the Jem'Hadar or Vorta before.)
An actual provocation to escalate the situation was done later, when Tal'Shiar and Obsidian Order conspired to launch a massive assault on the Founder homeworld. (And I suspect the genocide of the Cardassian and Romulan people was already put on the long-term agenda of the Dominion back then, even if they politically maneuvered initially to cooperate with the Cardassians and offered a non-aggression pact to the Romulans. The Founders are patient if neccessary.)