Regeneration - What the hell were they thinking?

[Marc]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]The Borg stories, taken as a whole, show another type of lack of continuity that I find very annoying: the Borg's inability to learn from their mistakes when it comes to attacking Earth.

In "Dark Frontier" (if I remember correctly), the Borg Queen says she needs Seven's help to figure out the mystery of how the human race keeps foiling the Borg's plans to assimilate them. Â The answer should be obvious: when they attack Earth, the Borg's tactics make no military sense.

In both "The Best of Both Worlds" and in "First Contact," the Borg send a [iost_uid0]single[/iost_uid0] cube against Earth, and they have it travel for hours (or days) towards Earth using conventional warp propulsion, thus giving plenty of time for Starfleet to spot it and to assemble a fleet to oppose it. Â Both these errors could be forgiven in "The Best of Both Worlds," but by the second time around in "First Contact" the Borg should have learned better.

Both of these tactics ignore Borg capabilities that we've seen in other episodes. Â We've seen that the Borg will sometimes attack a planet [iost_uid0]en masse[/iost_uid0], deploying a fleet of cubes against it. Â Given how much trouble Starfleet had in stopping just a single cube in "The Best of Both Worlds" and in "First Contact," tossing in just an extra cube or two (let alone a fleet of them) could easily have made all the difference.

As for this habit of cruising towards Earth in a leisurely way that lets Starfleet know they are coming, why wouldn't the Borg instead use the subspace conduits we've seen them employ elsewhere? Â If they had appeared out of nowhere, without warning, right on Earth's doorstep, the element of surprise could easily have let them carry the day.

Furthermore, why did the Borg wait so long after "The Best of Both Worlds" to take another crack at Earth, rather than hitting it again right away before Starfleet had had a chance to rebuild? Â Why did they likewise seemingly give up after "First Contact"?

For a species that quickly adapts to the weapons used against them, the Borg have shown an unbelievable obtuseness when it comes to learning from their own mistakes. Â The real-world answer, of course, is that if they had done so, the Borg would have won and the history of the Federation would now be over. Â

Star Trek's own writers have recognized that, when you create an enemy that powerful, re-using them becomes a problem. Â One way to do so is to "domesticate" them so that they are no longer quite so menacing. Â The relentless, unstoppable quality of the Borg was at its strongest and most terrifying in "Q Who" and "The Best of Both Worlds"; afterwards, it became greatly diluted and the Borg were basically reduced to the status of a "manageable" threat.[/colorost_uid0]