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Mikey wrote:

Mark wrote:IT was destroyed by something

This is possible without having to suppose a new, unseen "big bad." Remember, all the while that this initial cube was raiding settlements, people were shooting back at it. Given enough return fire, attrition will affect even a Borg cube.

I doubt it. Given the borg cube's regenative abilities, and the fact it was scooping up plenty of raw materials, I'm sure they had plenty of resources to keep going.

Early on the Borg cube's abilities to regenerate meant the Federation had difficulty doing permanent damage to them. Unless they ran into someone with much bigger guns than the Fed I don't think they'd be stopped.

Tyyr wrote:Early on the Borg cube's abilities to regenerate meant the Federation had difficulty doing permanent damage to them.

Early on the Feds couldn't concentrate enough ships to stop them

Unless they ran into someone with much bigger guns than the Fed I don't think they'd be stopped.

The Feds did fine in FC - probably because, after Wolf 359 and the building Dominion threat, they'd been withdrawing ships from the extremities of their space to provide a sufficiently powerful Home Fleet to deal with potential threats. Plus Picard came up with the brainstorm of concentrated fire.

Yes, when they concentrated fire (don't know how that requires brainstorming) they did alright. However you'd think someone with that level of technology and size of fleet would have been found in what is effectively the Federation's back yard. Unless of course we just assume the cube met it's end way out near the rim.

Or maybe it took its new captured humans back to Borg space in the DQ to study them in more extensive facilities?

Possibly, who knows. Personally I like the idea of a cube just puttering around out there assimilating people and having a look at what's out on this side of the galaxy.

Aye. It could have just been a recon vessel. Sent to assimilate just a handful of minor undefended colonies or isolated ships, with orders to avoid major confrontations to hide its origins from the locals.

Even for the Borg recon makes sense. Shows them where they need to focus. I think that might explain their obsession with the Federation. If given the couple centuries it would normally take the Borg to reach them the Federation could advance so far as to kick their ass, so the Borg are trying to assimilate them now before that can happen.

Tyyr wrote:concentrated fire (don't know how that requires brainstorming)

Did we mention that this was Starfleet?

Conceded.

Tyyr wrote:Even for the Borg recon makes sense. Shows them where they need to focus. I think that might explain their obsession with the Federation. If given the couple centuries it would normally take the Borg to reach them the Federation could advance so far as to kick their ass, so the Borg are trying to assimilate them now before that can happen.

But supposedly the Borg didn't KNOW about humanity and the Federation (which didn't jive with a base being assimilated already OR that mess that ENT made in season 1) when the E-D first encountered them. Hell, the Borg were still vulnerable to the E-Ds weapons at the time, and had Picard kept shooting MAY have destroyed the cube before it adapted.

The ease with which the Borg handled the E-D at J-235 makes me think that the cube was never really threatened. If the E-D had kept up a serious fusillade, the cube would have just pulverized the ship rather than take out a slice.

Didn't the E-D vaporize around 30% of the ships with just a few phaser blasts? (I'm trying to remember, it's been awhile)

It did. The first few shots blasted the heck out of it. If they'd kept firing, I imagine they would've vaporized the entire Cube.

Instead they stopped firing, and then had all senior officers leave the bridge and go have a meeting as to what to do next, while remaining within spitting distance of the cube