You know about al the hulks floating around the 359 Graveyard? Why are they like that? I mean, if they got blown up, they would be flying off in all directions. Like the Oberth-class Bonestell, which got hit by the cutting beam and kept on going. Likewise, the USS Melbourne was hit, its saucer exploded, and the ship fell to the side as the cube moved on.

Solution: All the hulks in the Graveyard were the ships that were latched onto at some point by the Borg tractor beam. That would covert movement of the target ship to that relative to the direction and velocity of the cube. When released, the target vessel would remain at that same direction and velocity, unless subsequent explosions or whatever would push them on a different vector.

This brings the Melbourne into question, as it spins off to one side when the tractor beam releases it. I surmise that the tractor beam would arrest the movement not immediately, but eventually after locking on (this is common sense). Since the cube locked onto the Melbourne only long enough to destroy it, its forward momentum would not have been totally cancelled, hence why it kept on going after being released. The Saratoga, on the other hand, was locked onto for longer, and was obviously stopped.

Therefore, we can assume that the hulks in the graveyard were locked onto for similar lengths of time. However, let's assume that the cube destroyed ships in at three different ways in the battle: with the cutting beam alone (Bonestell); with the cutting and tractor beam, only long enough to destroy the ship but not stop its movement (Melbourne); and with the tractor beam for a period of time, stopping the ship for some wierd period of time (Saratoga). The next question is: why?

[Aside: I'm not counting when the Borg were using that green pulse weapon - but that's a whole other topic altogether]

Well, we can easily hypothesize that the Borg locked onto the Sartoga and held it long enough, for the purpose of assimilation - while there is no direct evidence for it, it's the most likely explanation for why the cube held the Saratoga long enough for Sisko to make it from the bridge to his quarters, have a dramatic scene over the body of his wife, get to the escape pods, and leave. I think that while all this was happening, Drones were busy in other parts of the ship, assimilating people and technology.

Therefore, if we can say that the other ships in the Wolf 359 graveyard were locked onto for similar lengths of time as the Saratoga, we can surmise that this was repeated for each of those ships. When relased, the hulks would be moving at the same speed and direction of the cube. Assuming the cube didn't change course through the system (which is unlikely given that they were on a "direct course to Earth"), then the hulks would create a graveyard scene of ships almost stationary relative to each other.

Why these ships? Well, note their sizes - they're almost all pretty big. We didn't see any smaller ships in the mix (Oberth sized or thereabouts). Perhaps the Borg focussed their assimilation efforts on the larger, people-packed starships, instead of on the smaller wouldn't be as worth assimilating, and better to just destroy - hence the Bonestell.

And what of the poor old Melbourne? Well, this fits in nicely with my theory that the Melbourne was an older, unmanned ship sent to ram the cube first off. She never fired, never tried evasive maneuvers. My idea is that the Borg, with Picard's experience in tactics, saw this and after a scan determined the best way to disable the Melbourne was to blow off half the saucer and push her out of the way, and thus to concentrate on attacking and assimilating the other ships, starting with the Saratoga. The Bonestell, getting in the way, was popped off without a second though (I think that she was trying to help the Saratoga by taking on survivors, but that again is a whole other post).

I've surely missed a few points, but I think I'm going in the right direction with this. Thoughts?

Mark

PS - Yes, I'm thinking about all this for the Wolf 359 Battle Analysis we ALL want to do. If we can figure out enough about it, we just may be able to write a beginning-to-end analysis for the whole thing.

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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

The only problem with your idea is that there are still some relatively small ships in the graveyard. As I understand it ships like the Springfield and the Challenger were pretty small - with scaled-down saucers and nacelles? They would be around the same size as the Saratoga...

Oh. (Sorry, I'm thinking as I type here. ) Right, the Saratoga was one that was (according to this theory) nearly assimilated. We know from Voyager that there were a bunch of survivors that were assimilated and somehow returned to the Delta Quadrant. They probably came from these ships...

Sounds like a great theory.

The Saratoga wasn't destroyed by the tractor beam either, it exploded the second the cube activated an additional cutter beam, during the pod-launch.

I hardly think the borg invaded the ships, they didn't have time to divert further from their course. Besides, they wouldn't blow the ship up but tractor it into the insides of the cube if they wanted it so bad.
I think they reasoned that if they succeeded in assimilating earth, they could take the ships after that. And if they didn't succeed...

And I too am so fed up with the Melbourne-yadda.

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You can't kill me, I'm charming!

And Nimrod: I think we've abandoned trying to convince others of the rightness of our respective opinions. Mark was just stating fact.

Fact: There was a Nebula-Melbourne in "BoBW".
Fact: It was also used in "Emissary".
Fact: There was also an Excelsior-Melbourne in "Emissary".

Everything else is conjecture and interpretation.

--Jonah

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"It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."

--Col. Edwards, ROBOTECH

Perhaps the Borg cube stopped debris from flying to the ship becuase a big enough debris can damage to cube alot.

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Predict the unpredictable, but how do you unpredict the unpredictable?

The way "Emissary" was cut, it seems that the bulk of the battle took place while Ben was searching for Jennifer - before that, there were no wrecks, and after that, there were no intact ships left. So the Cube probably didn't really "put some ships on extended hold" while dealing with others, as much as it just processed them simultaneously.

I fully agree that all the wrecks we saw were victims of assimilation - that explains their relative immobility and the fact they weren't blown to even smaller pieces. I wouldn't wonder if some ships self-destructed when the Drones started beaming in, to avoid capture. Thus the lack of Ambassador or modern-Nebula wrecks in the graveyard: those would probably have been priority targets, and the Borg would have tried to take them intact, but they failed. Their biggest catches were the proto-Nebula and the Niagara. I wonder if the Saratoga was in reality blown up by a quick-witted member of her crew as well?

Or did the Borg in fact succeed in taking the biggest ships intact, and used these to ferry the assimilees to the nearest transwarp conduit for a trip to Delta quadrant?

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"The Starships of the Federation are the physical, tangible manifestations of Humanity�s stubborn insistence that life does indeed mean something."
Spock to Leonard McCoy in "Final Frontier"

And the Saratoga most likely didn't self-destruct. The Borg cutting beam is clearly seen hitting the port nacelle, which then exploded, followed by the rest of the ship. Probably just a lucky shot - or, the Borg were trying to extract a part of the nacelle for assimilation, hit some plasma, and accidentally detonated the ship... Oops, time to move on to the next target.

Mark

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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

However, the point is true that numerous people were assimilated at Wolf 359. "Unity" and "Unimatrix Zero" are at least two such examples where assimilees show up. Then there was that Bajoran woman from the Excalibur, who was also not from Wolf 359.

Hey, y'know what? All these assimilated Starfleet officers or crew are FEMALE! What's going on? What was the Queen looking for in her victims?

Mark

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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

I never thought the Borg could have their 'one who brings order to chaos' as a bisexual...maybe its just me .

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"There will be a substantial reward for the one who finds the Millennium Falcon. You are free to use any methods necessary, but I want them alive. No disintegrations."

-Lord Darth Vader (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back)