FOREWORDBecause the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager were stranded on the other side of the Galaxy, it was inevitable that they would encounter unfamiliar cultures with new ships. Until VOYAGER’s third season, a new ship involved a massive investment. Physical models had to be commissioned and built, then filmed in a laborious process that took hours to produce seconds of footage. The adoption of CG technology made a radical difference. Suddenly the VFX team could produce ships almost at will. As a result, the space lanes of the Delta Quadrant became more crowded – so much so that we’ve had to devote two volumes to the ships that were encountered there.
With the help of the original VFX team, we’ve been able to retrieve almost all of the files that were used to create the ships. Most of the renders on the following pages are taken directly from the original CG assets, meaning that they couldn’t be more accurate. Where that wasn’t possible, we’ve built our own CG models, filling in the handful of gaps that were left. There was one exception: we see so little of the Etanian ship in ‘Rise’ that we decided it was beyond us. The folders from the VFX team are empty, so this one vessel remains a mystery.
Despite the introduction of CG technology, STAR TREK’s VFX team didn’t have infinite resources, so they reused various ships for species that could never have met each other, let alone exchanged technology. We offer those ships without comment. Whatever problems it causes, they were identified on-screen (or in the case of the Antarian Trans-stellar Rally, simply appeared) and we see it as our job to record the facts. The original series explained the appearance of several Earth-like planets by citing Hodgkin’s Law of Parallel Planetary Development. We’d like to suggest that Hodgkin may have had another law that related to the development of spaceships.
For those of you who don’t know, this book is part of a series, and there are other volumes that cover Starfleet, the Klingons, and the other alien races that fill the STAR TREK Universe. This volume and its companion, which covers the rest of the Delta Quadrant, is one of the fullest and most varied, since it includes dozens of races and radically different approaches to Starship design. We hope you enjoy reliving Voyager’s journey and that you will find a few unexpected gems on the pages that follow.
BORG CUBEIn 2373, a Borg cube containing a Borg Queen battled a Starfleet armada on its way to assimilate Earth.
A Borg cube attempted to assimilate Earth and fought at least 30 Federation ships in the Battle of Sector 001 in 2373. It appeared to be the same as the two previous Borg cubes encountered by Starfleet.
The stark, brutalist-looking cube was massive and measured almost three kilometers per side, with an internal volume of around 27 cubic kilometers. It was largely made from tritanium and contained thousands of Borg drones. Normally, a cube was run by 5,000 drones, but numbers varied widely and could be as high as 179,000 drones.
As with other Borg cubes, it was equipped with an array of weaponry. This included cutting beams, high-power disruptor beams, and high- yield torpedoes. Its defensive systems included ablative hull armor and a regeneration shield matrix that could almost instantly repair damage. The cube could achieve very high warp speeds, more than matching Starfleet’s fastest ships, and attain even faster velocities through its transwarp technology. It used a network of transwarp corridors and hubs, and was able to travel safely through them without breaking apart from extreme gravimetric shear, by projecting a structural integrity field in front of it.
BORG LEADERThe Borg cube that invaded Federation space and headed to Earth in 2373 included several features that had not been seen on cubes before. Most notably, it contained a Borg Queen. Previously, the Borg had never shown signs of a hierarchical command structure on their ships, but the Queen appeared to be the focal point of the Borg collective consciousness. She seemed to have overall authority over the other drones, directing and coordinating their tasks. Whether this was true or not was not clear, but the fact that the Queen referred to herself as “we” and “I” interchangeably suggested that she was more like the personification of the Borg collective’s will, rather than the supreme leader of the Borg.
This cube also carried another Borg ship within it that had not been previously encountered. This smaller, spherical ship was launched through a circular hatch in one of the cube’s sides. It appeared to be an escape vessel, since it was launched seconds before the cube was destroyed. The sphere was roughly 600 meters in diameter and contained the Borg Queen and hundreds of drones. It was able to form a temporal vortex by projecting chronometric particles in front of it, allowing it to travel back in time.
In 2373, the Borg made a second attempt to destroy Starfleet and assimilate Earth with just one cube. Its incursion was first reported by Deep Space 5, when the cube obliterated a Federation colony on Ivor Prime. Vice Admiral Hayes, who was in charge of Starfleet’s response fleet, contacted Captain Picard and ordered him not to enter the fray. Hayes felt that Picard’s previous traumatic experience with the Borg and his partial assimilation to become Locutus in 2367 would bring an “unstable element to a critical situation.”
ENGAGING THE BORGHayes’ fleet, which consisted of at least 30 ships, was mobilized in the Typhon sector and ordered to intercept the cube. Listening to a broadcast of the battle, Picard was unable to stand by passively as the fleet was suffering heavy losses, so he took the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-E into the battle. When the Enterprise arrived, much of the fleet had already been destroyed, including Hayes’ flagship, and Picard therefore took charge of the remaining ships. He used his knowledge of the Borg from his residual link with the Collective to launch an attack on the cube. Every available ship was ordered to target their weapons at a seemingly noncritical point on the cube. The sustained onslaught caused massive damage to the Borg vessel as its power grid became unstable.
Before the cube exploded, it launched the sphere, which entered a temporal vortex. The Enterprise-E was able to follow the sphere and destroy it. During the Battle of Sector 001, the Borg inflicted high losses on Starfleet, much as they had done previously during the Battle at Wolf 359. However, once again, through the heroic efforts of the Enterprise crew, Earth was saved and the population escaped assimilation.
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