Borg cube

Borg cube
Affiliation:	Borg Collective
Type:	dreadnought
Service period	22nd through 25th century
Dimensions
Length:	3,040 meters
Width:	3,040 meters
Height:	3,040 meters
Specifications
Decks:	1,700
Crew:	640,000 Borg drones
Speed:	warp 9.99, transwarp drive
Armaments:	36 adaptive weapon arrays, 12 focused neutron beam banks; 24 tractor beam emitters, shield depletion pulse
Defences:	regenerative shields
Auxiliary craft:	1 Borg sphere

The Borg cube was the primary starship class of the Borg Collective's fleet. Borg cubes were designed as a combined weapons platform and factory. Their main purpose was to destroy the military capacity of a species and assimilate the survivors into the Collective. Starfleet designated these ships as dreadnoughts. In the first few years after the first were encountered by the United Federation of Planets, they were also known simply as a "Borg vessel". Among other starship classes of the Borg fleet, the Borg cube went through three different versions in the 22nd, 23rd and 24th century respectively. (ST reference: The Star Trek Encyclopedia, CCG set: First Contact, card: "Borg Cube", Decipher RPG module: Starships, TNG video game: Echoes from the Past, ST video game: Legacy)

Service history

The Collective began to use cubes shortly after its creation and the cube soon became the symbolic and feared icon of the Collective. (ST short story: "The Beginning"; et al.)

In the year 2367 a single cube was able to defeat a fleet of 39 Federation Starfleet starships. (TNG episode: "The Best of Both Worlds")

A Borg cube came through the Bajoran wormhole in 2369. Fortunately, the wormhole was undergoing subspace compression at the time and destroyed the cube. (DS9 novel: The Siege)

A unusual hybrid starship encountered by the USS Enterprise-D in 2370 included components from a Borg cube. (TNG comic: "Strategy")

In 2380 remnants of the shattered Collective in the Alpha Quadrant created a massive new cube, and grew a new Queen to command it on a mission to destroy humanity. This cube was initially disabled, and the Queen destroyed by the crew of the USS Enterprise-E. Unfortunately, the cube was not as dead as it seemed, struggling for the survival of the Collective it developed beyond anything any cube had achieved before and independently planned to restore the Collective. It assimilated Kathryn Janeway and made her its new Queen. It then prepared to attack Earth, absorbing, rather than the less efficient assimilation, anything that got in its way and anything it required. It very nearly succeeded, growing to a huge size and incredible power but was stopped by the efforts of the Enterprise crew and Seven of Nine. (TNG novels: Resistance, Before Dishonor)

Later, in 2381, several cubes launched blitzkrieg attacks into Federation space. This was deemed to be the starting point of the 2381 Borg Invasion. During the invasion, several cubes were destroyed by Federation and Klingon forces using transphasic torpedoes. Eventually, however, the Borg sent a force of 7000 cubes through the subspace tunnels in the Azure Nebula and into the Alpha Quadrant. Once there, the Borg armada decimated the allied fleet assembled at the nebula, leaving only the USS Voyager intact. The armada wrecked a path of destruction across the Alpha Quadrant, leaving dozens of worlds destroyed and billions dead. (ST - Destiny novel: Mere Mortals)

When the Caeliar dismantled the Collective, the remaining Borg cubes in the armada were transformed into silver sea urchin-like spheres. (ST - Destiny novel: Lost Souls)

Overview

Borg cubes were not constructed as such, but grown, in their own way being a lifeform within the Collective. Prior to 2380 no cube had ever been created outside the Delta Quadrant. Cubes could vary in size, but were typically large vessels; several kilometers in each dimension, up to the size of a small planet in exceptional circumstances. (TNG novel: Before Dishonor)

Features

Like all Borg vessels, Borg cubes operated in a completely decentralized manner with no bridge or engineering but duplicated systems all over the cube so that theoretically even if as much as eighty percent of a cube were destroyed it could continue to operate. In fact, cubes did not even have a single unified hull but instead feature multiple forcefield projectors which are able to extend and contain the atmosphere in a cube as necessary. The internal pressure aboard a Borg cube was two kilopascals above what would be normal on a Federation starship, humidity was an average 92 percent, and temperature was at 39.1° Celsius. (The Collector's Edition Issue 32: "{{{3}}}"; TNG movie, novelization & comic adaptation: First Contact)

A cube's decentralized systems included extensive weaponry; 36 programmable weapons arrays capable of producing phaser beams and torpedoes, 12 focused neutron beams capable of cutting through starships' hulls and 24 tractor beam emitters. Cubes are also equipped with 240 sensor arrays and a variety of propulsion systems, impulse engines, multiple warp field conduits capable of propelling the cube in any direction at a cruising speed of warp 8 and top speed of warp 9.99 and multiple transwarp coils allowing the cube to enter and traverse the Borg's transwarp network. Earlier estimates by the Federation hinted at at least warp speeds of 9.9, allowing the vessels to travel 7,000 light years in one calendar year. (The Collector's Edition Issue 32: "{{{3}}}"; TNG video game: Echoes from the Past)

Environmental conditions aboard a Borg cube: average internal temperature of 39.1° Celsius, 92.5% relative humidity, an artificial gravity of 1.098 Gs, and an atmospheric pressure of 106.46 kiloPascals. (ST - New Worlds, New Civilizations short story: "The Heart of Darkness")

The cubes also had an "unknown projection field" which was capable of blocking Starfleet transporters. (TNG video game: Echoes from the Past)

By 2377 the Collective had developed a way to join eight cubes together to form a single large vehicle called a fusion cube. (ST video game: Armada II)

Layout

Notable locations within a cube included a primary subprocessing matrix as well as numerous assimilation chambers. (VOY video game: Elite Force)

Appendices

References

• VOY - Myriad Universes - Infinity's Prism novella: Places of Exile
• PIC novel: Firewall

External link

• Borg cube article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.