as for the endeavor i do not believe it was at wolf 359. do most of you believe that all one on one confrontations with a borg cube in the vastness of federation space, the borg cube encounters the enterprise. i believe that in the time frame between w359 and first contact, the borg has "probed and proded" the federation. and the endeavour must have been sent out to confront them.

didn't janeway quote aminsov on that particular episode. why would one quote a rescue ship captain on the behavior of the borg. Normally a retrospect quote on the behavior of the enemy has been quoted from a person of great importance and intellegence, a little over qualified for a rescue ship capt..

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PS: I have yet to learn how to do italics.

Also, Wolf 359 is in the heart of the Federation, more or less. I'm sure there were at least a few ships in the surrounding area that could make a quick dash over to pick up escape pods and be gone before the Enterprise arrived.

Regardless, I never meant to imply that the idea was all that logical or necessary. Just that I like it.

My impression was that the system was uninhabited, perhaps even devoid of planets. There would certainly have been some concern by the E-D crew over the fate of the local inhabitants, had there been any. I doubt any civilian starships would have been in the vicinity.

Why did the Cube come to Wolf 359? Why not go around the system? Presumably because the Cube wanted to battle Starfleet in order to assimilate its tactics and weapons.

But why did Starfleet go to Wolf 359? What reason did they have to think that the Cube would stop there? Or fly through that system so that it could be forced to stop? What was special about Wolf 359? AFAIK, it doesn't lie in the direction of Delta quadrant, but more like "northeast" from Earth. Was Jouret IV exactly in that direction (which is usually the direction given for the Romulan Star Empire, as in the DS9 Tech Manual map)? Was Wolf 359 by an incredibel coincidence smack in the middle of the most direct route from Jouret IV to Earth?

(And PopMaze: Why would you say there was only one escape pod? We saw two others fly by as we watched the Saratoga explode. While those may not have been from the Saratoga due to the flightpaths, I'm sure the Saratoga would have launched several pods as well. Sisko probably simply stayed so long with his dead wife that he boarded the very last pod out of the Saratoga.)

Personally, I'm guessing that the Borg were using something like the transwarp conduits, but they accidentally missed and ended up on the other side of us. They had to turn around and go through W359 to get to Earth. Either that, or the cube that came to Earth just happened to have previously been on the opposite side from the DQ. When the Borg decided to attack, that cube was closest, so they sent it.

I think I like best TSN's idea that the Collective just dialed up the most suitable Cube already in the region, instead of sending one all the way from Delta quadrant. There could easily be unexplored space "east-southeast", especially beyond Romulan space, with Cubes teeming around unbeknownst to the Feds. Who knows, perhaps there might even be a big Borg-assimilated planet there, and this planet is sending all the Cubes that have attacked Earth or scouted around the RNZ.

Even the later "Sector 001 attack" of ST:FC (which this thread is about ) need not necessarily have come from the direction of the Delta quadrant at all. All we know is that the Cube passed Typhon sector, which in turn was "relatively close" to the RNZ. It's all incredibly vague.

1. - The Borg wanted to avoid crossing Romulan and Klingon Space... so went around them to come at Earth from the "south"

2. System J25 was beyond the direction of Wolf 359 - and that ship was INDEED the ship they had encountered previously... so ever since its encounter with the E at J25 its been making a Bee-line to Earth.

We never found out where J25 was (cause they hadn't invented the quadrant sys yet) we only know that it took a damn long time to get back to Federation space...

In any case, J-25 cannot be in Delta. It was mere 7,000 ly away from the Federation, and the nearest point of Delta (namely, the galactic center) is 24,000 ly away from Earth. Are we really to believe that the Federation extends as much as 14,000 ly from Earth towards the Delta quadrant? Even the Encyclopedia doesn't make such an outrageous claim. J-25 can easily be in Beta, though.

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If the Cube met by the E-D at J-25 really was the same that hit Earth in "BoBW", then there's an oddity. Starfleet was surprised by how the attack came earlier than thought (they were obviously thinking that the Cube in "Q Who?" was the nearest to Earth), yet it was obvious that the Cube that performed the attack was not faster than the E-D at all. To the contrary, Riker caught up with it rather easily. If the Cube had a better drive for long-distance travel, why didn't it use that drive on the final leg of its journey?

Earlier, we could speculate that the long-distance drive wouldn't work at short distances. But now we know that transwarp conduits can be erected anywhere, and there is no need to e.g. establish them at both ends before use.

So now there are two choices. Either the Borg at that time did not have transwarp (at least not aboard that specific Cube), or they for some reason volunteered not to use it. The latter seems like the less implausible explanation of the two - but why, oh why would the Borg volunteer that way?