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In the 22nd century, after the Enterprise NX-01 destroyed a Borg ship, Doctor Phlox told Captain Archer about a subspace message he was receiving when he was infected by the Borg's nanobots. The numeric sequence of that message was decoded to the spatial coordinates of Earth, which led to the conclusion that they were sending the location of Earth to their home world. Archer also decoded the location to where the message was being sent, it was somewhere deep in the Delta Quadrant. Then, T'pol said that it would take at least 200 years for a subspace message to reach Delta Quadrant. And, Archer replied something similar: "Sounds like we have just postponed the invasion temporarily until 24th century."

Now, my question: It was Archer's first encounter with Borg and he didn't even know the name of their race. There wasn't even any evidence of them in the Vulcan database. So, he didn't know anything about their Transwarp Conduit / Transwarp Corridor. It was normal to think like this: "The subspace message would reach their home world in 200 years. Then, they would start their journey to Earth. As the speed of warp vessels was less than the speed of subspace transmission, it would take at least another 200 years to reach Earth." So, with normal thinking, it should be the 26th century. But Archer concluded it would be the 24th century. How?

user931
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4 Answers4

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Look at what they saw in that one episode (Regeneration):

  • The Borg (although Starfleet never learned their name) modified a shuttle with a maximum speed of warp 1.4 to travel at warp 3.9. Then, within a short time, it's modified even more to travel at warp 4.8, and by the time the Enterprise catches up with it, it's traveling at close to their full speed. That's Borg tech working on a Starfleet ship, not on their own ship.

  • At this time, Vulcan ships have only achieved Warp 7, so they also have no way of knowing the asymptotic upper limit exists.

  • Phlox reports that the voices in his head indicate they are some type of collective intelligence, able to easily communicate with others of their kind over at least short distances in space.

  • They have nano-technology and personal shield technology that's far beyond anything the Enterprise has seen.

  • They were using the transport to escape (and send the signal), but, again, that's Starfleet tech, so it's also quite possible this advanced race has even more advanced tech on their own that would have sent an even faster signal

Also, if it took them 200 years to reach Earth, there would be almost no point in invading an area that far away unless they had a faster way to reach it. Their new territory would be cut off from them and unable to get help or reinforcements from the Borg home land (or collective, as we know it), so if they are exploring and invading an area that far away, they can likely reach it in a reasonably short time (with their technology), otherwise, there would be no point in tipping their hand with a scout ship or pre-invasion force.

So Archer has seen enough to know this species is extremely advanced, and if they're using their own tech (instead of modifying Starfleet tech), that they'd way ahead of humans. He also knows there's no logic in invading a place so far off it can't easily get reinforcements when they would be surrounded by enemies.

Izkata
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Tango
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  • You posted as I was typing up mostly the same thing, so I just added one of my reasons to your post =P – Izkata Jan 31 '12 at 00:43
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    Also, there's one more thing that's pure theory: Near the beginning of the episode, Archer is reading about Zephram Cochrane's speech about the Borg, but all he explicitly says is "the future". It is possible the century was mentioned there. – Izkata Jan 31 '12 at 00:44
  • @Izkata: That's a good point -- the century may have been mentioned by Cochrane. But as to the asymptotic curve, the cure is in how we measure warp drive speeds, not in actual speeds. That was done because in the original series there was never any upper limit, so speeds went to higher and higher warps. Roddenberry wanted a speed limit so we'd get tense as the numbers got closer to it. – Tango Jan 31 '12 at 01:03
  • Power consumption rises asymptotically just before each full Warp speed (1, 2, 3...), and levels off a bit after reaching it. It never levels off once it starts just before Warp 10, hence, asymptote. Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Warptable.gif – Izkata Jan 31 '12 at 01:13
  • @Izkata: Yes, you're right. It's the power consumption. I've even pointed that out in answers previously. I forgot about that as an issue. Thanks for catching it. – Tango Jan 31 '12 at 01:25
  • The main point I liked: As there wasn't any speed limit known due to power problem, it was likely for Archer to think that they would be capable of traveling infinitely fast (w.r.t. distance between Earth and their planet) because they modified a poor starfleet transport vessel to travel at Warp 4.8 within 12 hours which was a deal of thousands years for even Vulcan. – user931 Jan 31 '12 at 06:15
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    @SachinShekhar: Another related point is if we can conceive of transwarp conduits now, that it's quite possible they were able to imagine that there was something like that which an advanced race might use. – Tango Jan 31 '12 at 06:17
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    They also had knowledge from the future, if I recall the episode right. Doctor Cochran(sp?) and his assistant Lily had had first hand knowledge of the Borg when Picard and crew visited in First Contact. In the episode they mentioned that Cochran had spoken about them in one of his speeches. – Xantec Jan 31 '12 at 14:54
  • At this time, Vulcan ships have only achieved Warp 7, so they also have no way of knowing the asymptotic upper limit exists. Well that makes no sense. In order for warp drive to exist, scientists would have to understand the principle. If they didn't know there was an upper bound then they didn't understand the technology enough to use it. It doesn't matter that they never witnessed it themselves; indeed, barring an unfortunate mishap on the part of Voyager's writers, it is fundamentally impossible to do so. – Lightness Races in Orbit Jun 07 '14 at 14:39
  • @LightnessRacesinOrbit See Warp 13… Was this overlooked? for an explanation. Also, for a real-life example, there's a 4 GHz limit on CPU speed (which, granted, isn't a hard limit and can be overcome with better cooling systems, but it was unknown until we started approaching it a decade ago. And similar to approaching the limits of Warp drive, there are diminishing returns - massive amounts of energy (cooling) needed for small gains) – Izkata Jun 07 '14 at 18:46
  • There's also the database from the future that Archer and T'pol used more than once –  Mar 04 '16 at 02:41
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The answer may lie in the question: "When does an invasion begin?" When they decide to start their journey or when they reach their destination? I think it is safe to say that Archer was airing on the side of caution, not knowing the technological advances that would occur over the next 200 years, there would be no way of accurately calculating when they would arrive. So he went with the invasion starting when they got the message and by extension when they would begin the trip.

NominSim
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  • If he was targeting their decision event, he'd never had said that he postponed the invasion.. – user931 Jan 30 '12 at 17:15
  • If he hadn't acted, the invasion would have taken place immediately but since he did act he postponed it, until 200 years later when they received the message.

    There is no way Archer could be expected to predict the exact time that they would have arrived after receiving the message, so he states correctly that the postponement was 200 years.

     – NominSim Jan 30 '12 at 17:40
  • Are you saying, Archer was dumb enough to assume that they would be capable of traveling with infinitely high speed in 200 years... so, its not safe to extend at least 1 century?? – user931 Jan 30 '12 at 17:46
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    No... I am saying he was too smart to assume that there wouldn't be any advancement in ship speeds in 200 years, so he said the only time that he could be sure of, 200 years. He wasn't going to just arbitrarily extend the time by making some uneducated guess. The invasion would start when they received the message and began their journey. – NominSim Jan 30 '12 at 18:03
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    @SachinShekhar: Given what Archer had just seen, it really wasn't safe to extend at least one century. Archer was smart enough not to assume that they wouldn't be capable of travelling with infinitely high speed in 200 years. (He was right, too; Borg can move at the speed of plot.) – Tynam Sep 28 '12 at 12:14
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He surmised within the episode that the Borg he was encountering were the same as the invading aliens from the future, mentioned by Cochrane some time prior in his Princeton commencement address; with this knowledge, it's not a significant deductive leap to deduce that he was witnessing the beginning of the causality loop first-hand: as soon as that message reaches Borg space, they're going to go "ooh, humans, yes let's go get 'em" which, again, he already knows is going to happen. The timeframe he specifies is loosely the time at which the Borg collective as a whole are highly likely to begin their entire anti-humanity campaign.

Lightness Races in Orbit
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-1

The subspace message sent from that assimilated transport ship was stated by T'Pol it would take at least 200 years to reach the Delta Quadrant.

At some point in the 24th century (around the year 2346), the Hansens set out to study the Borg (probably originating from Starfleet's original scant data from the 22nd century and El'Aurians report from the 23rd century) and it is likely they set a course for region of space outside the Alpha Quadrant - even Annika's mother said that they deviated from their flight plan). So, eventually, they encounter and shadow/study the cube for 3 years (2349) and get assimilated (Annika is 6 years old at this point).

The Borg have Transwarp capability, so it would take them short amount of time to get to the Federation... but once there, I suspect they might decide to use a slower Warp capability.

But, I suspect that when the Borg get the message, it might be badly distorted with a set of incomplete coordinates that would attract them to the Neutral Zone and result in all the outposts on both Federation and Romulan sides to be scooped up (the initial assimilation of Hansens might not have attracted the Borg to the Federation).

Deks
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  • How does this answer the question of how/why Archer came up with the figure of 200 years for the Borg to receive the message & turn up in the Alpha Quadrant? It seems to answer a different question about how the Borg knew that the Alpha Quadrant was a plum target. – Valorum May 22 '18 at 21:55
  • I explained that T'Pol mentioned in the episode it would take the subspace message 200 years to reach the DQ - and this message incidentally prompted the Borg's interest into coming to the Neutral Zone.

    I mentioned the Hansens because the Borg obviously never visited the federation shortly after assimilating them... so the message they received likely prompted more interest and saw the outposts worthy of absorption.

    The message might have told them how to find Earth, but it was also took 200 years to reach them, meaning, it might have been incomplete, leading the borg to the neutral zone

     – Deks May 22 '18 at 22:53
  • Which is fine, but we're back to the assumption that it takes 200 years for the message to reach them, then 0 years for them to travel from the Delta Quadrant to the Alpha Quadrant. You seem to be intent on answering a different (albeit quite interesting) question. – Valorum May 22 '18 at 23:07
  • For which I explained that the Borg have Transwarp capability... meaning it would take the Borg less than a day to get to the Alpha Quadrant (and the Neutral Zone). Once reaching the Alpha Quadrant, they might decide to slow down and absorb more things in preparation for mass assimilation. – Deks May 22 '18 at 23:10
  • Yes. We (the audience) know that the Borg have transwarp. Does Archer know that? – Valorum May 22 '18 at 23:11
  • Archer witnessed the Borg modify a simple Starfleet transport and go from Warp 1.5 to nearly Warp 5 in a matter of days. There was apparently no limit to how much the borg could enhance the engines because they were transforming the ship into something not starfleet... the transport ship served as a raw material which was modified on a molecular level - and Archer knew the nanites already did that in the body and saw what it did to the transport ship. – Deks May 22 '18 at 23:14
  • Extrapolating that they can go from warp 1 up to warp 9.99999999(etc) is a huge leap of the imagination. That would be like me seeing a car accelerate from 0-60 and imagining that it could go into orbit. – Valorum May 22 '18 at 23:23
  • Not such a huge leap of imagination when you see increase from warp 1.5 to Warp 5 in a really small amount of time.

    Besides, this incident might have simply confirmed what Zefram Cochrane said about the Borg earlier on (the things everyone dismissed so easily). Cochrane knew they were highly advanced cybernetic aliens. Plus, Phlox was briefly connected to the collective and heard their thoughts.

    It wouldn't be difficult to imagine that these 'aliens' (at least from Archer's point of view) would have a superior Warp capability.

     – Deks May 26 '18 at 18:38
  • going from "Hey, they can go really fast" to "hey, I bet their ships can travel at near-infinite speeds" is a very big perceptual leap. Superior, yes. Breaking the bounds of understanding entirely, no. – Valorum May 26 '18 at 18:58
  • Who said anything about 'near-infinite speeds' ? Archer was well aware that Warp contains a range of speeds... some of which would allow traveling through a portion of the galaxy in a brief period of time.

    Look at Warp 9.9. Stated to be 4 billion miles per second (21 473 times C), and it would take a ship 3.49 years to traverse 75 000 Ly's. The Borg ship the Enterprise-D encountered was mere 7 000 ly's from Federation space. So the Borg already had few ships in that general part of the galaxy, and Archer could have imagined they would might have spread closer to Earth by 24th century

     – Deks May 26 '18 at 19:16
  • Sure, or maybe he just misspoke. Frankly that's more likely than your answer – Valorum May 26 '18 at 20:00
  • I agree he could have misspoken... but I provided a valid explanation as to why he might have said what he did. Dismissing it out of hand simply because 'you' disagree with it doesn't make it incorrect though. – Deks May 27 '18 at 16:25