In "Infinate Regress", Seven identifies the Ferengi as Species 180. My question, how the hell can the Ferengi be so low?! MAYBE Species 5180...
------------------ Lyta Vorlon: "Our great mistake. Our failing. And now your failing. The error is compounded." Delenn: "What mistake?" Lyta Vorlon: "The first one, the one from which all mistakes proceed: The error of Pride..."
Well, considering the Borg must have encountered lots of and lots of species anyway (millions, assuming non-humanoid ones, non-sentient ones, etc.), the numbers must be based on a logarithm system or something.
------------------ http://frankg.dgne.com/ Robot: "Hey, I'm stuck up here!" Cyclonus: "Everybody's got to be somewhere."
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I've always assumed that the Borg only catagorize sentient species with a number, while nonsentients go under a different system, since there are so many of them.
But I rather like the logarithmic idea as well. After all, who says a hive mind would be as linear as we are?
------------------ "And though I once prefered a human being's company, they pale before the monolith that towers over me." -- They Might Be Giants
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Well I rekon it is linear and I just put it down to being something cool to find out about - i.e. what really did happen, I mean maybe a ferengi bought passage to the delta quadrant a LONG time ago
------------------ Alamaraine, count to four...
Posted by Chimaera on :
Perhaps a Borg cube came across a Ferengi ship a long time ago, assimilated it, but then never bothered to after the rest of the Ferengi.
The fact that the borg have only encountered or assimilated 8000+ species doesn't bother me. There may be a lot of life forms out there, but very few would be sentient, and even fewer would have a high enough technological level to interest the Borg. I haven't seen anything to suggest there are, say, more than 1000 sentient species in the Alpha quadrant (correct me if I'm wrong here), so if the Borg assimilated species over several quadrants over thousands of years, something just below 10,000 species sounds about right...
------------------ "Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you." -Commander Riker, USS Enterprise
Posted by The Vorlon (Member # 52) on :
Actually, the Borg are around 10,500 by now, I'd presume (having added Species 10,026 in "Dark Frontier").
------------------ Lyta Vorlon: "Our great mistake. Our failing. And now your failing. The error is compounded." Delenn: "What mistake?" Lyta Vorlon: "The first one, the one from which all mistakes proceed: The error of Pride..."
------------------ I can resist anything....... Except Temptation
Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :
Vulcans are Species 3259; I'm not sure we know what number humans are.
------------------ "Audaces fortuna juvat." "Fortune favours the bold."
Posted by The Vorlon (Member # 52) on :
Terrans are Species 5618, from Grid 325.
------------------ Lyta Vorlon: "Our great mistake. Our failing. And now your failing. The error is compounded." Delenn: "What mistake?" Lyta Vorlon: "The first one, the one from which all mistakes proceed: The error of Pride..."
------------------ I can resist anything....... Except Temptation
Posted by bryce (Member # 42) on :
Maybe the number is based on how dangerous they are! Maybe it's the priority number for assimulation; why would they want Ferengi in the collective?
Think about it, the Ferengi pose no threat to the Borg. They have nothing the Borg would want to have either.
Another fact to support my first idea is species 8472. They are dangerous, they have a high number. I bet the human number was higher than 180 too, but lower than 8472. I can't remember it now though.
We know they want to assimulate humans, I bet they'd like to find a way to assimulate 8472 also.
Up till now, everything said about the way Borg designate species is when the species were first encountered by the Borg. That is really all I know about their designation system. It doesn't really explain why a species closer to them has a higher # than humans or vulcans.
------------------ One silly, twice foolish. -Dr. Weaver, ER
Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :
The higher-the-number-higher-the-resistance/threat thing makes little sense. Arturis's people were Species 116. They were very powerful and resistant. And Species 10026 from "Dark Frontier" had 39 ships and 300,000 individuals. Hardly menacing.
I'd suggest going with the reverse, but the Ferengi wouldn't be very threatening either...
Tahna Los: You forgot the Krenim.
------------------ "Audaces fortuna juvat." "Fortune favours the bold."
Posted by Chimaera on :
Something here isn't quite making sense. Everything I've seen on Star Trek seems to point to species designation in the order that they are encountered. But if Terrans are species 5618, that would mean the Borg have doubled the number of species they've encountered in only about a decade (assuming the first time they encountered humans was when they first encountered the Enterprise). I suppose its possible that the Borg encountered very few species for a long time and then suddenly began assimilating everything in sight, but I thought the Borg collective was thousands of years old, and so it seems a little odd that their rate of assimilation should go up so much in such a short time.
I don't know what the explanation is, people can speculate all they like, I will simply invoke the golden rule of science fiction and suspend all disbelief.
Or I could invoke golden rule #2: blame the writers
------------------ "Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you." -Commander Riker, USS Enterprise
Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :
They first encountered humans twenty years prior to "Dark Frontier" and "The Raven", aboard (well, obviously!) the Raven; that gives them two decades to double the number of species encountered.
------------------ "Audaces fortuna juvat." "Fortune favours the bold."
Posted by Chimaera on :
*displays confused look*
But wasn't the first human encounter with the Borg that of the Enterprise? When the Raven left on its mission, they already knew of the existence of the Borg, which would put the beginning of the Raven's mission after the first encounter by the Enterprise. Otherwise it would mean that Starfleet already knew about the Borg before the Enterprise mission, but then why didn't they know anything? Surely there would have been at least reports in the computer? This would mean that the timeline is rather screwed up, if the Raven's mission began approximately 20 years before Seven joined the Voyager crew.....
------------------ "Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you." -Commander Riker, USS Enterprise
Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :
It is not anymore screwed up than with Generations' events.
Starfleet may have kept the Borg a secret in the same fashion as Section 31 and the Omega Directive, but since this will start a big debate, I'd suggest another thread for something like this, keeping the species on this one.
------------------ "Audaces fortuna juvat." "Fortune favours the bold."
Posted by The Excalibur (Member # 34) on :
The Ferengi may have fallen through the Barzon wormhole years before the events in TNG.
------------------ The Naked Now
Posted by Gaseous Anomaly (Member # 114) on :
Starfleet found out about the Borg nearly ninety years prior to the Enterprise's encounter with them. They would almost certainly have interviewed the El Aurian refugees once the Enterprise-B made it back to Earth in 'Generations' following Kirk's "death".
------------------ If no-one will play with me, then I'm going home,and I'm bringing the inflatible with me.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Interviewed, yes. But who says they'd tell? Even when actually faced with the Borg, Guinan was extremely selective in the information she would disclose.
------------------ "I'm sick, like Nixon was sick, my defeated heart keeps beating on. I won't die, like Chucky won't die." -- They Might Be Giants
Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
I remember Seven said Vulcans were something around Species 100, but I would have to check it agian. It was probably in "Scorpion".
Bernd: In "The Raven", Seven states the Vulcans to be Species 3259.
------------------ "Audaces fortuna juvat." "Fortune favours the bold."
Posted by Simon on :
As to how the Borg contacted so many species in only a decade it may have something to do with their explorations of alternate dimensions as explained in "Scorpion II".
Posted by Trinculo on :
The episode "Dark Frontier" indicated that Starfleet knew something about the Borg. I believe they were shifting through rumors and reports just as they were doing in the years leading up to 2364 about the Ferengi. The Raven, with a small crew, was sent to investigate and confirm the reports. I have a wild hypothesis-I believe the Borg were active in Federation space as far back as 2268 when the Archanis colony was attacked. From the conversations in the episode "Devil in the Dark", the Archanis attack was not an imaginary event, it actually occured. The Federation didn't know who attacked the colony. And the Klingons were denying involvement. According to the galactic map in the episode "Conspiracy", the star Archanis is in the northern hemisphere of the galaxy. From that same point, I have come to the conclusion that the Ferengi, who were known to the Klingons (who may occupy a portion of the northern hemisphere), occupy the northern hemisphere. Further, there is mention of a northern passage in the episode "Scorpion, Part 1 and 2". Capt. Janeway wanted to use the passage because it would cut travel time. This suggests passage is easier through the northern passage. I don't believe that it is ever said where the northern passage ends in the alpha or beta quadrant. Conjectural situation- Sometime in the distant past, a Borg scout traveling the n.p. encounters a Ferengi ship on a merchant ship. The Ferengi become species 180. Second conjectural situation- A Borg ship in 2268 using the n.p. travels through Federation space and destroyes the colony on Archanis. Third conjectural situatin- A Borg ship in 2367 using the n.p. enters Federation space and is attacked at Wolf 359. There is no evidence that the Romulans had that particular ship enter their space. BTW, how many Borg ships did enter Fed. space? Based on the evidence from BOBW and Unity, the number is two. (Anyway, the transwarp conduit wasn't used until 2369. Could the Borg have learned of the transwarp conduit from the assimilated Federation captains?)
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
The "Northwest Passage" was just a nickname given to an area of Borg space that happened to be free of Borg, because of 8472. It was named after the nonexistant Northwest Passage that explorers were so eager to find in North America back in the 16th and 17th centuries.
"Dark Frontier" gives a date a lot earlier than 2369 for the Borg to be playing around with transwarp.
------------------ "I'm sick, like Nixon was sick, my defeated heart keeps beating on. I won't die, like Chucky won't die." -- They Might Be Giants
Posted by Simon on :
One explanation could be that a Ferengi in the distant past was travelling with a foreign ship that went to the Delta Quadrant where they were assimilated by the Borg. The Ferengi must have always had contacts with other races. It's not unlikely that one would have hitched a ride at some point in their history.
Posted by Orion Syndicate (Member # 25) on :
Maybe the Ferengi weren't assimilated at all. If they were, the Borg would almost certainly have come after the rest of them because that's what they do when they are aware of the existance of another race, like when they followed the Enterprise back to the Alpha Quadrant after their first encounter.
The Borg don't assimilate everyone, remember the Kazon and how Seven told Neelix that there was no point in assimilating a species that would not add to their perfection (I can't remember the episode). The Borg probably just gave the Ferengi a species number and sent them on their way. Who knows, the Ferengi that they encountered may have even been Arridor and Kol, the two who were in The Price and False Prophets/Profits (sp).
------------------ It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
Posted by Simon on :
Not Unless there was a unmentioned time change that went along with the Barzan Wormhole. The Price happened a while after the Borg would have first met Humans.
Posted by deadcujo (Member # 13) on :
Ack..there are probably a million possible explanations to this
------------------ The Unknown Vulcan
Posted by Trinculo on :
A possibile answer- Could the world F- (the Ferengi Alliance capital) have been a colony of a world that was close to the galactic core? Ships don't need warp drive to travel between stars. Warp drive's benefit is that the travel time is reduced. I don't ever remember the world F- being cited as the birth place of the Ferengi. According to Q in "Q Who?", the Borg have been developing for thousands of years. A possible scenario-
A ship or ships leaves the home world of the Ferengi People The Borg attack and assimilated the population The ship or ships arrive at F- and establish a trading empire
An interesting note-Quark in "The Jem'Hadar" says that the Ferengi never had death camps or slavery. It seems in Star Trek and in real life that such brutalities occur in a society that is multi-ethnic. This suggests to me that the Ferengi who landed on F- were of one ethnic class.
Posted by Simon on :
Well I think Ferenginar is refered to as the Ferengi homeworld. But if the Ferengi are just one tribe of a larger race lost in the past the theory is still possible.
Posted by Coddman (Member # 10) on :
You people really have too much time on your hands.
------------------ post by ��Cody�� the Insane One :-)
