The ominous thing for me at that age was watching the Borg-Assimilation process with the drill going inside Picard's head... that cybernectic surgery scared me [in addition to seeing Robocop on home video]
If I recall correctly, after the battle, the Federation Council was contemplating contacting the Romulans and offering territorial concessions for their aid. That is how desperate the situation was.
It makes you wonder how that would have gone if they did contact the Romulans since the Borg was attacking them, too. I doubt even with the Romulans and the Klingons helping out, the Borg would still destroy all the ships that got in the way.
@@TheFirstEvil100 I suspect the Klingons would have had a greater effect. The Borg had already assimilated some Romulan technology and personel. But as far as we know had not assimilated anything Klingon.
@@archades115 True. I mean, we have seen assimilated Klingons from First Contact and star trek voyager, but it is hard to pinpoint when they got assimilated.
@@TheFirstEvil100 There's some dialogue in various episodes that talk about the fact that the Klingons did send ships to Wolf 359. It's not clear how many, only that they did have ships on the field.
@@Alnarra If I remember right, that's more of that the Wolf 359 battle also refers to the series of battles that started there. Some things pointed towards a situation where after the massive loss, any of the ships that showed up later continued to harry the cube on it's way towards Earth, and those were also counted as the same event in the history books there, and the Klingons showed up to late for the major battle, but participated in both rescue operations and harrying the Cube.
The USS Endeavor would go on to fight the Borg Cube at the Battle of Sector 001 as well and survive that encounter as well. I guess you can call it the Wedge Antilles of Star Fleet.
Endeavor would go on to be apart of Picard's Romulan blockade during Klingon Civil War, fought at the Battle of Sector 001, and helped retake DS9 during the Dominion War.
That could of been made full canon if they put a part in the series where susko gos brog are attacking sector 001 all crew report to the defiant and go full warp to join the fleet and leave it to that soon as wolf leaves
Wolf 359 was Starfleets Kobayashi Maru scenario. It was unwinnable. Starfleet had little experience with the Borg and the Borg were just too far ahead. Starfleet was also used to fighting noble battles, but this showed them that, that doesn't work. It was a hard lesson, but they needed it for the Dominion.
No there was an option. The novels explored it. short warp jump, drop out inside the borg cube, and detonate your reactor. Think Hyperpace ramming from Star Wars. Difference is, the ship, being in subspace, bypasses the outer hull of the Borg Cube before dropping out of warp. You'd be killed near instantly, yes. But so would the Borg. To beat the Borg, you gotta think outside the box.
@TruckerMarine That option was almost used in Best of Both Worlds. Right before Data makes contact with Picard, Riker almost orders the Enterprise to warp, colliding either the cube. However, the novels are wrong thinking it's a sort of "teleport" thing where the subspace field will allow you to pass into a ship. That would completly degate the purpose of the deflector. It doesn't matter, the end result would be the same, a wrecked cube. However, Starfleet didn't do things like that normally. It wasn't a tactic that was taught. As a result, it wouldn't have been done a Worlf 359. I think the opening to the other Gene Roddenberry show Andromeda says it best, they too competent, too caring and too brave. They aren't referring to starflert, but Starfleet and the High Guard had a lot in common.
And I believe that was q's plan all along. Unless you go by the other theory that the borg used the federation to further there desire for perfection. Oops we have stalled. Send a qube to attack earth before letting Yousef get destroyed transmit all new tech and info back home.
@jhmcd2 it is true. I think a desperate enough Captain would try it regardless in that situation. And unless I'm wrong, the ship at warp enters subspace in a bubble of real time. I always took that as the vessel was removed from normal space time which would allow it to do the jump. Though I did forget the sorts of drift ships have when dropping out of warp. But I agree it would still work. And ramming seems to be a last option for all of them in Starfleet. That or Worf likes the idea of big explosions.
@@ancaplanaoriginal5303 They arrogantly assumed they would have time to assemble a fleet. Borg ships are FAST when they want to be. From the moment the cube was detected to the moment it reached Earth, was only a handful of days. That's from well beyond Federation territory to it's heart, which would take even the fastest Alpha Quadrant ships more than a month to travel.
We need a remastered simulation of that battle. A look into the firepower of the fleet, as well as the strategies and tactics deployed by the brave Martians against the cube.
I know this has been stated before but - Q saved the Federation. After introducing the Enterprise to the Borg (Q Who S2 E16) and making them aware of the Federation, their assault on Earth forced Starfleet to update their fleet. They built new ships specifically for combat - along with newer multipurpose ships while finally removing an older group of ships that probably should have been scrapped long ago. They were building newer vessels for the future - thus they were prepared for the Dominion War.
I agree with this 100%. If the Feds went into the Dominion war with the same fleet they used during the Cardassian war things would have gone very badly.
My own opinion was that Q did save the Federation, but it wasn't to prepare them for other threats. The Borg were going to encounter the Federation at some later point, and they were going to do so without the vast distances separating them. Q forced the confrontation early, which both showed Starfleet how little they understood about the threats awaiting them and pitted them against the Borg at a time when the Borg hadn't prepared a full swarm to steamroll the quadrant. The resulting loss of ships and lives were high, but far fewer than the complete annihilation that would have happened if the Borg decided when their meeting happened. By the time the Borg decided to do more than probing strikes, Starfleet had adapted themselves and could put up a credible defense. Of course, the truth is that the Borg never really showed their true strength. The swarming Borg tactics they used in all other encounters never happened, probably because the Borg were busy with other threats and the encounters with Federation starships didn't cause them to consider the Federation as more than a minor civilization that didn't rate more than a single cube at a time.
Hanson's ship was only the Battle section. The Saucer was not attached at Wolf 359. Could be why the Borg ignored the saucer during the Enterprise's attack.
Hansons ship was the Melbourne, Im pretty sure. Just before communications are cut off during the battle, you can see the old late 23rd century "red alert" animation behind Hanson, which a Galaxy wouldnt have. And when the Enterprise arrives at the debris field, the last ship Shelby mentions is the Melbourne, with a dramatic pause.
@@SvendleBerries Also, the Melbourne is the ship they offered to Riker at the beginning of part 1. I always kind of saw that as a “that could have been me if I’d accepted that command” moment.
Admiral Hanson was abroad the USS Liberator, an old Connie refit commanding the fleet at Wolf 359. It was briefly mentioned in the TNG novel Vendetta about Wolf 359 and Admiral Hanson.
One fun detail about the improved Starfleet force we see in First Contact, is that it still has some older ship designs in it, including a pair of Miranda-class ships doing attack runs on the Cube. I like to think those are the two Mirandas we see flying on the Defiant's wing in some of the DS9 fleet battles.
I too think the battle was lost from the start, even without Picard's assimilation. The Feds just didn't have enough time to more radically change anything in either their doctrine or tech. And the Borg had already encountered and completely neutralized a Fed flagship just a year before. There was nothing the Feds could have thrown the Borg's way that the latter could handle or would not be ready for. What the assimilation of Picard did though, was turn a defeat into an absolute disaster. A complete wipeout in a matter of minutes.
I don't know about that.. If Picard hadn't been assimilated.. IF the fleet had all engaged at the same time (including the Enterprise) (because if there had been no assimilation and instead the Borg just disregarded the Enterprise's efforts as being a stall tactic) and then unleased the (now a surprise because no Picard knowledge) Deflector Dish weapon while the fleet engaged at the same time.. That may have done the job. But, lol we can never actually know for sure.
I don't think that was the problem. JP was the main issue. The fleet would have met the same fate but over 2 hours of battle and the cube would have taken on a bit more damage than it could've completely repaired but the next thing was fed tech not being up to date and not enough ships and not enough fire power as well as this is a very new enemy even Gynna said that we weren't meant to meet the borg yet but Q crazy self knocked them into our territory.
@@JayC2k08 Agreed. JP was the issue. Refused to contemplate that the Borg would have knowledge of Starfleet tactics because of their assimilation of Picard. Also, his tactics were weak. I mean, retreat and regroup? A more savvy flag officer would have realized that the Borg cube was an existential threat, and thrown everything he had at them. Even ramming them if possible.
Interestingly enough, Picard being assimilated also led indirectly to the Borg's defeat during that incursion, as the crew was able to use his connection to the Collective (and Picard's still hanging-on free will) to get the Borg to overcharge their energy banks and self-destruct. One wonders if they might have succeeded through brute force if Picard had never been given that connection and was forced to rely on conventional means to defeat the Cube.
Beautiful ship choice for this video. Excelsior is such a pretty ship here. I wonder how much the Admiral didn't factor in Picards knowledge for this. I still remember how shocking it was at the time when I think the largest number of ships we had seen before were the wargames against the Daystrom computer with what 4/5 Constitution versus the 1701. Knowing nearly 40 ships and thousands of crew had been killed in minutes was a scale that we just hadn't seen before. David Mack I think touched on the only real alternative option in the Destiny books when a full Borg annihilation fleet arrives. Ramming the ships and warp core breaching within their fields.
Not just killed but many were assimilated, too. In Voyager, we meet several ex-Starfleet personnel in the Delta Quadrant that were on duty at 359, were assimilated, and then sent back to the Delta Quadrant via a Sphere as the Cube advanced towards Earth. Plot shenanigans happened that had them freed from the Collective, where Chakotay encounters them. There were also other encounters with the Borg not mentioned in tNG, too: one was a Federation ship that was attacked, was boarded by Drones, basically raided, had most of its engineering crew abducted and assimilated, and then fled before the ship could pursue. It was in that Voyager episode where Seven develops multiple personalities from those assimilated on the Cube due to a malfunctioning bit of Borg tech (Vinculum?), and one of the personalities that surfaced was that of an assimilated Bajoran Starfleet engineer that told her tale. In Beta canon, there are scenes in the novels where Picards meets the "missing personnel" that were in that slice of the Saucer taken by the Borg -- they'd been assimilated, including one crewwoman who had a husband and child on the D at the time.
Surely there were fleets larger than 5 ships before this point. We hadn’t seen them yet because there wasn’t the other material but it would make sense. I doubt the largest battle of the Romulan-Earth war was less than 5 ships. Obviously, though, 40 is still way more than anything in the romulan war. There were also the border wars (which Starfleet could have won if the federation council didn’t handicap them) which probably had larger engagements.
@@auspiciousman I was specifically talking about what was seen on screen. Where most fights were one on one exchanges. Or seeing I think 3/4 Romulans surround the 1701 in Enterprise Incident. Or I am pretty sure there was old suggestions that there were only 12 Constitution class in TOS era. Obviously retroactively shows like Disco have changed that drastically. But when Best of Both Worlds first aired back in what 1990? That was a drastic loss for the Federation.
The Battle of Wolf 359 was a watershed moment in Federation history. They had grown complacent. In Kirk's time, they were tough and willing to fight if the situation called for it. By TNG season 1, they couldn't fight because they were too arrogant in their pacifism. The Borg woke them up to the reality of the universe (it can be unkind and dangerous).
@@williampaz2092 very true. Pre-Wolf359 Federation would have fallen easily to the Dominion. The Federation may not have liked it, but Q gave them an actual chance to survive
Agreed. The Battle of Wolf 359 was a disaster for the Federation BUT it woke the Feds up and made them realize how complacent and fat they'd become so they re-militarized Starfleet and made new types of ships so by the time of the Dominion War, the Federation was much stronger in terms of military prowess.
@@jameslauder3984 Maybe that encounter got the attention of the borg, though. I suppose that was inevitable anyway. But yeah, I think his intention was to warn Picard.
In Picard Season 3 Episode 4, "No Win Scenario", Captain Liam Shaw states that he was aboard the USS Constance at the battle of Wolf 359. That can account for the one of the ships with a missing name.
@@triton302 Found it! The USS Constance was a Contellation -class starship. New article: memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Constance There's an unnamed Constellation-class in the lower right of the image at 1:43. We've narrowed it down to that one.:) Also, at 2:22 it's in the 1st wave of shops that attacked the Borg cube. They didn't stand a chance.:(
one of the best and memorable Space Battles in history ... that we never saw a good thing they hadn't the Budget for that in the early 90s Also get well soon Rick!
@@menacelurkingyet8345 CGI might was and it took about 4 more Years until Babylon 5 pushed it in a Large Scale for TV, but not physical Models! Only that it would be also VERY expensive to make the Battle with Physical Models, even if you could source the most off of ATM Kits for backgroundshouts
Great Video. I remember as a kid when Best Of Both Worlds first aired way back in the day my friends and i were so disappointed that we didn't get to see the Battle of Wolf 359. I understand now that it was for budgetary and plot reasons but it would have been glorious to watch way back then. Thankfully DS9 gave us lots of fleet battles in it's later seasons.
What is even more interesting… every other Enterprise was from a reality that defeated the Borg. Though I suppose it is more confirmation bias, as the Enterprise would have been already destroyed in any reality where they were not brought into the massive fleet in Parallels.
@@AtlantiansGaming I suspect survivorship bias is precisely what leads fans to assume the Borg were defeated in so many parallel realities. We only saw the realities in which the Enterprise survived, not the ones where it was destroyed and the quadrant was assimilated... which could massively outnumber the ones where the ship still existed to be pulled into that one merging reality. That one example of a weakened Enterprise barely surviving in a Borg-infested quadrant is probably more typical than otherwise, given the long odds of defeating any serious Borg attack. It's the same bias as seen in those bombers in WW2 that returned home with severed damage. The natural inclination would be to armor up those places... but that would be a fatal mistake. Damage you survive is an indication of what is non-vital, not where the enemy is shooting. Planes that were damaged elsewhere are the ones that crashed, so you should be adding armor to places where the mauled planes suffered very little damage.
@@Terminator484 you have to consider there were other threats besides the Borg. Perhaps the Dominion succeeded in their invasion of the Alpha Quadrant, or the Hobus supernova had wiped out all life, or hell -- Tribbles had infested and ruled the galaxy!
In the Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover comic Assimilation2, the 11th Doctor, along with Amy and Rory travel back to the Battle of Wolf 359 to obtain a copy of the Borg Central Archive after it was destroyed following the Borg's alliance with the Cybermen ending. Amy asked if they could stop the battle, but the Doctor said he couldn't as it was a Fixed Point in Time.
Makes sense. Without Wolf359 maybe Sisko doesn't become the Emissary. Messing with the plans of godlike beings could maybe cause some timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly bullshit
@@Gangerworld Without Wolf 359 the Federation would have been gone - it was a wake up call for Starfleet that they have become stale. They needed that overkill so that the federation changed its philosophy and understood, that you cannot only have principles, you also need to focus them on reality.
@@shauntempley9757 Q really did that to help the federation. He saw how arrogant and stale Starfleet has become. I would say, that Episode from Season 2 was also not only a wake up call to Starfleet by Q, but also by the writers to Gene Roddenberry, that his hippy go lucky Starfleet from the 1960s is dead and that Star Trek need to get into the 80s and 90s, in the time AFTER Alien, Star Wars and other Sci Fi classics, that showed a more grim version of space than the one-monster-of-the-week show Star Trek TOS and even the movies were. Because even the first Star Trek movies lacked of something important: 1980s problems. Movie 1 might have brought the visuals to Star Wars standards, but not the story, 2-4 were a good trilogy but only movie 4 featured a typical 80s theme (save the whales = environmentalism), the other two movies were just a story about two olden men hating each other and another one about people looking up for each other, no era specific themes. And also the first season and much of the second season of Star Trek TNG suffered from an aged Roddenberry who just couldn't let go off his 1960s idea about the "good Starfleet" with simple hero-stories and simple plot lines. When I watch TNG the first season feels more like 1970s Moonbase Alpha episodes rather than a 1980s show. Even the Red Dwarf sci fi comedy series of the BBC had more 1980s wipe and that was a cheap produced comedy show, never meant as series Sci Fi.
The worst part is that the USS Victory, Ahwanwee, and Endeavour are all said to be at the battle and surviving it. Victory and Endeavour even take on the Borg again in 2373. The official surviving ship is the Endeavour, according to Memory Beta. Even though the Victory is mentioned later and shown after. The Ahwanwee was seen in Picard's KCW Armada.
@@williamkelly9628 The original Ahwanwee was Cheyenne class. It was salvaged from Wolf 359 only to be destroyed again fully by the Klingons in 2372. It was replaced by a Steamrunner class ship
The Battle of Wolf 359 also forged Sisko into the man he would later become. Sisko lost his wife and nearly lost Jake in the battle and saw how ineffective everything the Federation tried against the Borg failed miserably. I don't think Sisko ever forgave Picard for the battle. Sisko set out to do the best he could to make sure that the next time the Federation fought the Borg they would be as ready as they could be. Sisko hated the Borg probably more than anyone with the possible exception of Picard. I always kind of wished that Sisko could have been commanding the Defiant in First Contact just so he could be there helping the Federation kick the hell out of the Borg.
Don't forget that the Defiant was nearly destroyed in that battle. I strongly suspect that even if Sisko had been in command, it wouldn't have made much difference.
@@warriorsheartcosplay3016 Its not about whether or not he would have made a difference or not. Its about him being there to see the ship he designed specifically to fight the Borg and in a way avenge his wife doing exactly what it was designed to do. Sisko deserved to be there.
@@warriorsheartcosplay3016 yeah, Defiant was almost destroyed, but only after fighting the cube for God knows how long without the tactical knowledge Picard used to destroy it once they arrived. Wolf 359 lasted 6 minutes, while the battle in First Contact took at least the time Enterprise E took at maximum warp to return to Earth. Maybe the advances were not enough to make Defiant capable of destroying a cube on its own, but at least SF ships were no longer mere sitting ducks against the Borg.
Of course he would then end up aboard Enterprise during the events of First Contact which might be difficult to write without making the character plot lines of that film too convoluted. Especially since his interactions with Picard would likely render the ship's auto-destruct function redundant
An alpha strike from every ship at once would have been so much more effective! After all, the Borg are notorious for their ability to adapt to any attack after only a short period of time. Starfleet's best chance would have been to wipe them out in one blast- no warm up, no time to adapt.
That wouldn’t work. We have seen time and time again that the Borg cube can be fully operational. It was like 60% of its structure damaged. The only actual thing we’ve seen work was when they all fired on one spot over and over and over that was just because my card knew what to do.
@@RichterNYR35 The Enterprise could have totally destroyed the cube in Q Who if they hadn't stopped firing when the Borg's tractor beam was disabled. Ceasing fire after they had destroyed ~20% of the cube in 3 shots and allowing them to regenerate is what gave the Borg the time needed to adapt to Starfleet phasers.
@@magical_catgirl that is way more plot armor than what a board cube is capable of. Plus, I think the board Cuba tact. Wolf 359 Was Way bigger than the board cube that the enterprise encountered. We saw the real work. He was capable at war 359. The enterprise would not have been able to destroy the cube on its own. Because if it was? In a zero way with the Federation view, the board as an actual threat.
Thank you for including the USS Righteous! That game and its events are really critical to my head canon. I feel it adds a lot of missing depth that the Borg needed before Voyager and First Contact. Plus i think it was a great Q outing.
Yeah, as one of the other commenters mentioned, there's a pretty big error in this video. The admiral was commanding the fleet from the Melbourne, not the Liberator. The Melbourne is the ship he was trying to promote Riker for and give command to, but when he refused, the admiral took command of the Melbourne to command the fleet from.
The script for BOBW said that Hansen was on a Galaxy class. In the actual episode, he was filmed on the battle bridge of a Galaxy class. While he rendezvoused with the Enterprise on the Melbourne prior to Wolf 359, there is nothing that indicates he didn't arrive at the battle on a Galaxy class. There was quite a bit of time between this meeting and the battle itself, thereby allowing Hansen to trade up. Since those ships were the latest and greatest at the time, it makes perfect sense for Hansen to arrive on a Galaxy class. Not sure where he got the name "Liberator" from, however. The name of the ship itself was never revealed.
One interesting note: it's generally assumed that the Borg cube was all but invincible and sustained no damage, that Starfleet presented no threat whatsoever. This, however, is not borne out by the Borg's behaviour and tactics. For one: the Borg cube doesn't just charge to Earth. They very carefully and deliberately bait the Enterprise to the Federation's border, where they have no support save for the old Excelsior-class Melbourne, which promptly retreats. The Borg take great pains to capture Picard, suggesting that without his knowledge and expertise, Starfleet might very well defeat them. Two: immediately after capturing Picard, the Borg make a headlong dash for Earth, hoping to get there before Starfleet concentrate their fleets. They don't even waste time destroying the Enterprise or risking another battle. The Borg know that Starfleet still pose a threat. Three: after Wolf 359, the Enterprise catches up to the Borg cube, engages it and actually have the upper hand. Part of this is due to Riker's unconventiomal tactics, but part of it is surely because the cube sustained heavy damage at Wolf 359. They're on the back foot. What happens after Locutus is captured? Despite the threat, the Borg don't attack the Enterprise, but instead sprint straight for Earth. They need to establish a foothold there for the invasion to succeed. Conclusion? Without Picard, the Borg were concerned that they might not be able to defeat Starfleet with only one cube. Even with Picard, the cube sustained heavy damage at Wolf 359 that gave the Enterprise a chance to win the next battle. The Borg, while horrendously powerful, were not invincible, and they knew it. Federation sensors simply couldn't detect how much damage the Borg ship had sustained, not accurately. Wolf 359 was a cattastrophic defeat, certainly, but that sacrifice mattered.
1:07 There are two Melbournes shown on your diagram of ships, both with the same registry number. One is an Excelsior and the other looks like a modified Nebula. The actual Melbourne was the Excelsior class you see at the beginning of Best of Both Worlds pt 1. The one that Riker is offered as captain. I think that ship was the Admiral Hanson's flagship.
I noticed in the "Setup" display of Starfleet ships that you included two vessels named "Melbourne", both with the same registry No.: NCC-62043; one seems to be an Excelsior-class ship, the other I cannot recognize, but looks a bit like a Nebula-class ship.
The short story "Trust Yourself When All Men Doubt You" in the anthology book The Sky's the Limit established that the Nebula-class Melbourne was in fact under construction and intended to replace the Excelsior-class Melbourne. The Nebula-class Melbourne was the ship offered to Riker. The Nebula-class Melbourne was launched early when the Borg attacked, and both ships were lost at Wolf 359.
The real world reason is that the Melbourne was originally a Nebula class, although the name and registry wasn't legible on screeen. When they re-shot the battle for the DS9 intro, they decided to reuse the name and registry for an Excelsior because they had a high-res movie model. But the original Nebula wreck is *also* visible in the background (though still illegible). Some beta sources have embraced the paradox and come up with the story about rushing an unfinished ship & crew out of spacedock, 'cause it's fun and fits the spirit of the episode
Yeah, hearing that the battle was important and actually hearing it are two different things. It’s just shocking to believe what happened on Sisko’s ship was happening to nearly every other vessel. I mean, it’s an easy thing to figure out watching the scene, but knowing the details…damn. Just damn.
I would say worfs kamakazi idea in first contact was actually pretty genius. The borg don’t factor in emotional actions immediately and are slow to adapt. Slam a ship of sufficient mass and ensure the core breaches into the cube at a low level jump. Shields ain’t stopping that and the breach of the core would finish it off even if the first ram didn’t. With star fleet tech a single mothballed ship set on a auto pilot loaded with explosives and its not even a suicide mission
I really wish STO would have a simulation of Wolf 359 and the battle in Sacrifice of Angels. It would be awesome and epic. They've already done similar simulations with Battle of the Binary Stars and Battle of Utopia Planitia. Wolf 359 could be used to give your character an insight into early Borg history with the Alpha Quadrant as a sort of introductory mission to a new Borg Storyarc. It would help give the Borg some menace and scariness again. As for Sacrifice of Angels... I am still hoping for a proper Cardassian storyarc someday.
That's history by the time of STO, but the charge against the Vaadwaur comes as a pretty contemporary counterpart in terms of the difficulty and resilience of the opposing fleet.
It wouldn't work in the STO era when players have access to various energy weapon types including Borg's Forced Plasma weaponry. My STO ship is armed with antimatter particle weapons from S8472. The Borg has adapted against Phaser's "nation" particles. NX-era plasma phase cannons have better results and the Borg has "Forced Plasma" energy weapons. Plasma Phaser was in development during Best of Both Worlds. The Borg has problems against high kinetic weapons.
Good video. Definitely agree that Wolf 359 changed the Federation. The best evidence of this change that we can observe over time is in DS9. The Defiant is a direct example of Starfleets endeavors to create combat capable starships. If you look at the Intrepid class ships, the biggest focus in Voyager at the beginning was its speed. But while the Intrepid class was still designed for exploration, it was better armed, and defended than similar classes of ships that would have been built even 5 years earlier. Q didn't cause the deaths of all those people needlessly. He literally showed the Federation the single most powerful, and aggressive species in the galaxy. His actions directly lead to the Federation becoming more capable. Would love to see a video on how what happened at Wolf 359 caused the Federation to actively improve their tech, and the results.
@@Spacebaron2 eh, it varies. You’ve got trilithium, protomatter, tricobalt, antimatter, whatever the hell Praxis was made out of… all solid choices. You can even be fancy and mix an explodium cocktail!
I always felt a missed opportunity was not showing the impact of Wolf 359. Loosing that many ships and personal should have weakened star fleet. It would have been interesting to have someone attempt to take advantage of this fact.
I wondered that too and I half expected the Romulans to launch a full scale assault on the Federation but I guess they wanted to wait until the Duras Family took control of the Klingon Empire and allied with them before invading the Federation. Of course, the Duras were defeated and the Klingons remained a Federation ally.
Starfleet as a whole was not severely weakened by that battle, as Starfleet had thousands of ships. Starfleet's issue, is the size of the Federation and how many ships were on exploratory missions at the frontier. They had assumed that they could detect any incursion well enough in advance to get enough ships recalled to mount a defense, and then counter-attack as more and more ships returned. They also assumed that the planetary defenses would be enough to deter small attacks, giving them even more time to detect a large fleet buildup in the Romulan or Klingon empires. They were fools.
USS Alka-Selsior? Really? Good video and battle breakdown. Aside from the older ships in the first wave, I had always considered the bulk of rest of the fleet the ‘lost Generation’ (Enterprise-C era) and why we see Starfleet dip into mothballs for the Dominion war to bolster numbers and buy time for the more advanced designs to be fielded (Defiant, Akira, Sabre, Sovereign)
They should have learnd from Star Trek II - Wrath of Khan. The first mistake by the Admiral was this 2 dimensional thinking, an old style line battle formation in space. I think against a cube, deploying some mines, torpedos and have a wall like formation, to fire everything at once at one side of the cube would have been more efficient. Resistance may have been stil be futile, but they would have gotton better chances 😉. Ps: great analysis and awesome video, very well done ✔️
Concentrated fire on certain parts of the cube never occurred to them. 40 or 50 photon torpedoes to one part of the haul would have to bite into the cube.
What always irritated me was the fact yea they could adapt to each frequency, but you could not shield against each frequency simultaneously. That makes zero sense to think they could have 40+ unique individual frequencies being basically stacked on each other, like physical armor, and simultaneously projected by one shield or magnetic field generator. Sure, they could rapidly cycle through them as fire comes in however they would still take solid hits through sheer volume of fire!
Agreed. But that would have required all ships doing a swarm instead of the line approach Hanson decided to take. The one thing that was needed he couldn't provide: innovative, non-traditional Starfleet tactics as Picard knew them all.
Ironically, if it weren't for the Battle of Wolf 359, the Federation would never have stood a chance against the Dominion and even then they almost didn't even with Klingon and Romulan help. Finally wising up to the fact that not everyone wants to be on the Fed's team or play by their rules.
And that's why q introduced starfleet to the borg so they would be somewhat ready for the dominion war. Or was this simply the borg helping to develop the federation to use almost like a farmer uses there livestock. Starfleet develops Borg come and loses but get new tech and info sent back to the queen before allowing themselves to be destroyed
@@pierce9128 Oh, Q was definitely farming them... preparing them for Wolf359, The Dominion War, The Battle of Sector 001, The fallout from the Hobus Supernova... then in Beta this is followed by Undine incursions of the Alpha and Beta quadrants, the Klingon invasion of Gornar and subsequent breakdown of the Khitomer Accords, The Borg invasions of Vega and Defera, The Second Dominion War, The Romulan Revolution, The Preserver Crusade, The Dyson Discord, The invasion of Earth and Q'onos, The Vaaudwaar Vendetta, The *Iconian* War, The Temporal War, The Tzenkethi's Germanium Crusades, The Hurq Invasion, The Second KCW, The War for the Other... and that's just the stuff covered in Star Trek Online, let alone all the skirmishes and conflicts covered in the books!
I firmly believe that from a lore perspective, had Q not instigated these encounters with the Borg, there would have been no stopping them. It was also the collective kick in the pants that gave Starfleet even a remote chance against the Dominion years later. Had Starfleet remained complacent, they would have been steamrolled.
I wonder if the Borg assimilated one or more ships? Since later in the Star Trek timeline Starfleet encounters people that say they were assimilated at Wolf 359 such as in the episode of Voyager where Commander Chakota encountered a group of former Borg that had escaped a damaged cube.
I've wondered about that as well, my assumption has been that a Sphere was sent out after the battle with the recently assimilated people and technology that trans-warped directly back to the Delta Quadrant.
..and yet the best they could come up with at the time was the Defiant, which wasn't terribly good at its primary role, which was basically blowing things up. It got mullered in the Dominion battle and the next time they encountered the Borg at the Battle of Sector 001, a fight that the ship was explicitly designed for, it was rendered inoperable and all hands had to abandon ship. Starfleet needs better warship designers.
I wish they’d give us some battle re-enactments from the show/movies. Star Trek Legacy had planned to do something similar but it got scrapped to meet the release deadline so it came out with the 50th anniversary.
Ultimately the war was won by turning the Borg cube off then on again. This works because each cube has at its core a Google Chromebook. The Borg originated from a Google Chromebook that became sentient. It was carelessly left in the trunk of the Tesla that was sent into orbit by Space X.
Good video. Liked the visuals. I don't know if they were aware of Picard's assimilation but if so, I'd think a remodulation of frequencies and change of tactics would maybe have helped. And maybe some unconventional tactics, like sticking a bunch of torpedoes on a ship and having it do a suicide run? Also, I think Picard's tactic of picking a single spot and laying all their fire to get as deep into the ship's interior as possible would have made sense. Maybe they're not used to dealing with actual armour and that hindered them.
Admiral Hanson still made some basic hubris mistakes …his insistence that Picard was _"a casualty of war"_ instead of realising and accepting that *Picard was now his enemy.* That's where Riker was better _and more adaptable_ - he threw out the rulebook as he knew the Borg had it as well. In fact he even used the Borg having the rulebook against them, as he could predict how the Borg would react to his use of 'by the book' tactics and use that to misdirect the Borg. Hanson could have tried the all in at once approach and had some more success at least. Although the swarm tactics may have been a case of Starfleet copying the Dominions playbook, as they used smaller Bugships to overwhelm larger Alpha Quadrant Capital ships. This was just a upscaling of the same strategy. Hanson should have at least had brand new attack patterns and codes to partially neutralize the advantage of Locutus of Borg insider knowledge. A quick brainstorming session with every original thinker in the fleet able to put up wacky ideas and new protocols. A lot of malcontents would have had little projects on the backburner they could plug in for the shock value. But instead they went with the conservative strategy and …
I never know why they claim a galaxy class was at wolf359, as far as i know there is not a full offical list. Plus that fleet would have still lost weather picard was on the cube or not, its just too powerful.
I always wondered how the other non-federation groups reacted when they first saw how powerful the federation (mostly human, I bet) warships were. The romulans learned first hand how dangerous a single Akira could be.
If I remember correctly, we saw in a Voyager episode that some Klingon ships did take part in the battle. It was stated that the Federation considered opening communications with the Romulans, but the way it was said seems to indicate they did not do so.
Starfleet knew the Borg were coming. Are you telling me that they only *only* had 40 second rate ships available that close to Earth? The fleet was a sacrificial lamb so Starfleet could analyse tactics. it so easily could have gone wrong and got Earth assimilated. Plasma weapons can't melt Duranium hull plating.
Picard said the federation was 8000ly across. Even at warp 9, which is approx 1500c, that's still over 5 YEARS to cross. And most ships couldn't sustain that speed indefinitely. So getting reinforcements in time was unlikely. Which is why I've always thought Warp speeds were too slow for the relative size of not only the federation, but for neighboring races as well.
Steve Levy, a lieutenant aboard the Cerritos proved “Wolf 359 was an inside job.” The Borg don't exist. He further maintains that the Dominion War never happened and that the Changelings who caused it are a myth.
That whole list of ships doesnt make much sense. The Melbourne is listed twice as two different ships with the same registry. The Reliant is there too somehow. And the U.S.S. Alka-Selsior? lol
@@SvendleBerries That's because there were 2 USS Melbournes - the barely seen Nebula-class, and the retconned in Excelsior-class from DS9, with same number. The Reliant is a newer ship mentioned in an old comic. the Alka-Selsior is a joke named attached to an early version of the Excelsior filiming model. Whilst the Liberator is probably another Freedom class. There's barely any evidence of a Galaxy-class being there. One line in a novel, plus an ambiguous script description for Hansen, is all there is.
I always thought USS Melbourne was stated to have been Admiral Hanson's ship. When Enterprise arrived at the battle and ships named by Lieutenant Commander Shelby, she looks down knowing the Admrial was killed as she says Melbourne. I watched the original airing of the episodes in 1990. It made sense that the Admiral is on the Melbourne Command Ship to avoid being a primary target. This is true for the US Navy with smaller command ships like the Blue Ridge-Class ships being used instead of battleships and carriers. Bigger isn't better...
Ramming it at warp speed might have done the trick, i'm sure even a miranda would cause quite a lot of damage. Riker was about to give the order to do such a thing before Picard shut down the cube
I’ve wondered the same thing. Obviously Starfleet is not going to use such a maneuver unless absolutely necessary. But if the approaching cube wouldn’t be considered that much of a threat, then I’m not sure what would. The other option might be to initiate a warp core breach and either fly the shop in or push it in using tractor beams.
Agreed, it's not like the concept of kamikaze isn't known to Starfleet, i.e. Commodore Decker vs The Doomsday machine. Even basic relativistic physics E=mc2 tells you the immense amounts of energy involved of the kinetics alone, adding the Anti matter stores to that.........
Worf was getting ready to ram The Defiant straight into the Borg Cube at the Battle of Sector 001, granted he is Klingon and would readily do it at the drop of a hat if all other options were exhausted, but I find it hard to believe that no one else would have had the same idea at Wolf 359 given that the Cube was not even mildly inconvenienced at all the ships thrown towards it.
There were a lot of things they could do. I) evaluate civilians off the ships. Enterprise had run into them before and were no match so expect massive challenge. 2) set up automated turrets on board each ship and remove all but minimal crew (that way the ships would have less drone infestation issues. 3) charge up all torpedoes in reserve. Escoallly on small ships. 4) general order ramming - once any ship suffers better then 30% damage or shield depletion use the charged toros on a suicide charge. 5)One way trip. The enterprise could not escape so lesser ships clearly could not so once the fleet is down 5 ships set ships to auto rake and detonate all energy reserves. After all the cube can take Bernal all spectrum damage from Explosions. Larger ships are to use shuttles loaded with replicated heavy isotopes. They are tj full spectrum jame and ram into the cube ahead of main ship ramming. All ships with battle bridges are to separate as ramming is attempted as the cube can tractor one but not to as bit are separated signatures. These would likely have heavily damaged the cube slowing it so larger ships forces can gather at Earth. And thee are tactics that Picard would consider barbaric - he would therefore not see them coming. That is my plan but the story defeats all plans of course.
I think the only way they cud have won the battle was to ram the cube at warp speed or have a bunch of ships from the fleet eject their warp cores into the borg ship
I hope you get to feeling better soon! Thank you for this video! I appreciate the additional detail on such a pivotal event for the Trek universe. God be with you out there everybody! ✝️ :)
I recall Borg cubes can fire phasers and things from all sides. is that correct? if so, it would be quite efficient for space combat. They could have staggered their firing lines 'Up or down" a little instead of a straight line. Space is 3D after all
Yeah but back then they didn't have the great CGI tech and budgets like they have today. Back then all you got when it came to space combat was a head on fight. If we were lucky we'd get that cut scene of the Enterprise D firing phasers as she is coming about.
@@ArronRatliff i do recall one shot of the enterprise firing 'upwards' at a Klingons craft during one the later TNG movies forgot which. but eh got lots of 3D space combat during the wars in DS9
Despite the Borg ships being completely superior to any single vessel Starfleet had, and would have for years to come, they never employed more than one cube to assimilate the Federation. While the Battle of Wolf 359 was successful, the cube was stopped, and the one at the Battle of Sector 001 as well. The Borg surely learned that it would be more efficient to send a stronger force. After all, efficiency is what brought them to send one ship for one civilization in the first place.
Hanson was on the Melborne when he rendezvoused with the Enterprise, but there was quite a bit of time between that meeting and the battle itself. If you remember, he returned to a Starbase to make preparations. The TV script for BOBW states that Hansen arrived at the battle on a Galaxy Class, and he is filmed onboard a Galaxy Class battle bridge in the episode itself.
Am I the only person who noticed that among the ship names, there is "The Star League", a direct reference to battletech/mechwarrior, and another named "Alka-Selsior"....
There is one way they win, maybe; a Pyrrhic victory at best though... Instead of engaging in weapons exchanges, warp core breaching ramming attacks. While the cube has firepower, its not exactly small, or manoeuvrable.
@@richardarriaga6271 yes and no. Yeah, they'd be prepared, but again, in beta cannon it has worked twice I believe. also, the last ship that limped away could very well have one that. the Borg obviously believed it was of no threat to them and were just casually chasing the rest of the fleet. I think, with out plot armor on Picard and by extension the cube, the last ship could have succeeded in destroying the Borg cube.
Most EXCELLENT!!! I have been a ST:NG fan for Quite awhile, and seeing how the 'Battle of Wolf 359' was played out sure does make sense!! I think of way 'Star Fleet' meets the Borg the second time in a sense of "swarming" the enemy is FAR more effective in overwelming the "enemy". Think of the way the USN vs USSR naval forces would have played out in a "Blue Water"fight!
Great video!! So if this Borg cube was destroyed as it seems to be how did Voyager encounter a woman who says she was assimilated at Wolf 359 in Voyager episode Unity? This has bothered me for years. Was it just bad writing or am I missing something.
Bad writing for the sake of a callback. It requires some sort of retcon that the Borg assimilated ships and they took off before the Enterprise got there or the Borg took crew away, and sent part of the Cube back to the Delta Quadrant.
@@The_Str4nger Their memories are in fact still there in the collective. Even Locutus is still in there, and most likely why the Borg Queen exists. To restrict Picard's influence on the drones.
Ramming at warp speed would put a dent in the Borg's plans. Unlike Star Wars' Hyperspace, which is a different medium outside normal space, STar Trek's Warp space is still in normal space, the ship is creating a warp bubble around it, allowing it to travel faster than light. This means it can still collide with objects in normal space (the stunt pulled by the man-hating admiral in Star Wars 9 being an act of poor writing from people who didn't know the Star Wars universe). Admittedly, it is possible for the Cube's shields to prevent possible impact at sub-light speeds, but I'd love to see how they fare against an object the size of a starship traveling at super-luminal velocity.
It is very surprising/silly to me that an advanced cybernetic race, able to adapt on the fly to most offensive and defensive maneuvers never once thought of bringing more than one cube to a battle with humanity! Kind of goes against the whole premise of what a threat the Borg really is. *Queen Borg* "Hmmm, capable of warp 9 travel...9billion people...Yes, 1 cube will do!" Get reked! :D
A brilliant video! I really appreciate the time,research and effort you put in to make these videos! Really enjoyed it and hope you are feeling better 😊
I always try to swing by the memorial wall when I am in sector 001 as close to the date of Wolf359 to pay my respect. btw the perfect way to get rid of the flu, honey and lemon in hot water with a double shot of Romulan Ale (JD) neat. always works for me.
Steve Levy, a lieutenant aboard the Cerritos proved “Wolf 359 was an inside job.” The Borg don't exist. He further maintains that the Dominion War never happened and that the Changelings who caused it are a myth.
Also want to add that in first Contact, they still had battle lines. What we Saw at the end was a few hours after the first engagement, where the cube has broken through to earth
Minor correction(?) The source of the USS Victory's participation in Wolf 359, Starship Creator, noted its survival. Indeed, the ship shows up in various Okudagrams in later TNG and even on a Dominion War era casualties list. Evidently a very tough Constellation class.
It’s nice to hear someone besides me saying the Wolf 359 wouldn’t have gone much better if Starfleet had been more aggressive beforehand. The Borg just knew too much more about Starfleet than Starfleet knew about them, even before they assimilated Picard
Developing tactics when the enemy knows your tactics reminds me of the scene from "Peak Performance" (s02e21) when Data over analyzes Riker's tactics: "but knowing that he knows that we know that he knows" around the 31 minutes mark
I agree with you RIck. Starfleet really couldn't have done much different outside one or two possibilities. If I remember, there was only 6 fully completed Galaxy Class ships....well, correction , 5 cause the Yamato went boom. And seeing as it's not like they keep a massive number of ships in SOL, I honestly think these 40 ships Hansen gathered were literally all SOL had at the time. I do believe the klingons had a ship at the battle too. I suppose there is one thing they could have done to destroy the cube then and there once they saw how poorly the battle was going would be to have the useless Oberth (Useless as if memory serves it was there to observe only) jump to warp and drop out inside the cube like in the novels. Alternatively, the Melbourne could have did what Picard tried to do to Shinzon, ram them blow yourself up (Kinda reminds me of Spar Torpedoes now that I think about it). There were at least three different options with the ships they had on hand to win but they pretty much revovle around ram the cube and blow your warp core. I know some wouild say "Just beam torpedoes into it" but we know that wouldn't work either. I honestly believe a warp jump into the cube would have been the best bet as I don't think even Picard would have anticipated such a move. And seeing as it worked in the novels (beta content), it leads one to believe no one had attempted it yet against the Borg. But we know now the reason it waSn't even a remote idea was plot and the fact that it had been up in the air if Sir Patrick Stewart would be coming back for the next season. If I had just watched most the battle group get wiped out and was getting my ship wrecked, I'd warp right into the cube. So what if I lose my life? It'll stop the Borg and save billions. And I don't see the Borg adapting to an exploding Starfleet ship that popped up inside it.
I never understood why Star Fleet didn’t have independent transport inhibitors set up on every ship. We saw in “insurrection” that they can can operate easily with self contained power and are extremely effective. That way you don’t have to rely on your shields to keep boarders away. Also, we saw in “Q Who” that the Borg don’t generally operate with shields (at least at this point in their history). The Enterprise beamed an away team aboard in that episode. Why doesn’t Star Foeet beam an armed photon torpedo into the center of the cube? Or many of them in different places? Or even overload the warp core of a run-about or shuttle and beam that inside the cube (I know Harry Kim did beam a torpedo onto a cube or sphere in Voyager, but I had always thought that this was a great idea way before I saw it on that show).
Should have attacked all at once, with shuttles loaded with antimatter as fire ships or even unmanned full size ships loaded up with some warp cores ready to blow. Id like to see the cube adapt to an explosion that would destroy half a moon.
Ya Starfleet was pretty much screwed at Wolf 359 with Picard being Locutus. Starfleet could have attacked like they did in First Contact and might have survived. Wolf 359 definitely was the most devastating loss to Starfleet before the events of Picard when the Utopia Planitia shipyards were destroyed I think a year prior to the show of Picard. This was a great video thanks for this.
Very interesting video, thanks, its given me a new perspective. From what was shown in BOBW's part 2 and Emissary it always looked to me like the Melbourne and the Saratoga were the only two ships already there when the cube arrived and the rest were arriving after the battle had already started. I had also always thought that the only ship that survived was also the the last one to get there, ie, the Enterprise
A few of those "old style" nuclear weapons might have come in handy since they have no frequency. They worked well for the Romulans against the Enterprise in "The Balance of Terror"!
![Twenty One Pilots - “The Line” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E2Rj2gQAyPA/mqdefault.jpg)
I must have been the right age when I was watching Next Gen, because the phrase 'Battle Of Wolf 359' still has an ominous ring to it.
same here
The best is that there’s very little on the shows to go on - so your mind makes up the rest.
And it becomes exciting once you get to see more (as in the scene introducing Sisko).
Same here.
The ominous thing for me at that age was watching the Borg-Assimilation process with the drill going inside Picard's head... that cybernectic surgery scared me [in addition to seeing Robocop on home video]
If I recall correctly, after the battle, the Federation Council was contemplating contacting the Romulans and offering territorial concessions for their aid. That is how desperate the situation was.
It makes you wonder how that would have gone if they did contact the Romulans since the Borg was attacking them, too. I doubt even with the Romulans and the Klingons helping out, the Borg would still destroy all the ships that got in the way.
@@TheFirstEvil100 I suspect the Klingons would have had a greater effect. The Borg had already assimilated some Romulan technology and personel. But as far as we know had not assimilated anything Klingon.
@@archades115 True. I mean, we have seen assimilated Klingons from First Contact and star trek voyager, but it is hard to pinpoint when they got assimilated.
@@TheFirstEvil100 There's some dialogue in various episodes that talk about the fact that the Klingons did send ships to Wolf 359. It's not clear how many, only that they did have ships on the field.
@@Alnarra If I remember right, that's more of that the Wolf 359 battle also refers to the series of battles that started there.
Some things pointed towards a situation where after the massive loss, any of the ships that showed up later continued to harry the cube on it's way towards Earth, and those were also counted as the same event in the history books there, and the Klingons showed up to late for the major battle, but participated in both rescue operations and harrying the Cube.
*Points at Picard* “He was on that Borg Cube, setting the world on fire!”
On FIRE!
Such a great rant.
Just realised the other day that references that Ink Spots song at the start of season 3 - I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire
Shaw was a great character. And that rant is one of the top speaches in Star Trek.
@@wattsvilleblues A classic song to listen on the wastela...Wait wrong franchise!
The USS Endeavor would go on to fight the Borg Cube at the Battle of Sector 001 as well and survive that encounter as well. I guess you can call it the Wedge Antilles of Star Fleet.
Endeavor would go on to be apart of Picard's Romulan blockade during Klingon Civil War, fought at the Battle of Sector 001, and helped retake DS9 during the Dominion War.
@@chrisstetsko5020 all in all, a pretty legendary ship in her own right.
That could of been made full canon if they put a part in the series where susko gos brog are attacking sector 001 all crew report to the defiant and go full warp to join the fleet and leave it to that soon as wolf leaves
Wolf 359 was Starfleets Kobayashi Maru scenario. It was unwinnable. Starfleet had little experience with the Borg and the Borg were just too far ahead. Starfleet was also used to fighting noble battles, but this showed them that, that doesn't work. It was a hard lesson, but they needed it for the Dominion.
No there was an option. The novels explored it. short warp jump, drop out inside the borg cube, and detonate your reactor. Think Hyperpace ramming from Star Wars. Difference is, the ship, being in subspace, bypasses the outer hull of the Borg Cube before dropping out of warp. You'd be killed near instantly, yes. But so would the Borg. To beat the Borg, you gotta think outside the box.
@TruckerMarine That option was almost used in Best of Both Worlds. Right before Data makes contact with Picard, Riker almost orders the Enterprise to warp, colliding either the cube. However, the novels are wrong thinking it's a sort of "teleport" thing where the subspace field will allow you to pass into a ship. That would completly degate the purpose of the deflector. It doesn't matter, the end result would be the same, a wrecked cube. However, Starfleet didn't do things like that normally. It wasn't a tactic that was taught. As a result, it wouldn't have been done a Worlf 359. I think the opening to the other Gene Roddenberry show Andromeda says it best, they too competent, too caring and too brave. They aren't referring to starflert, but Starfleet and the High Guard had a lot in common.
And I believe that was q's plan all along.
Unless you go by the other theory that the borg used the federation to further there desire for perfection. Oops we have stalled. Send a qube to attack earth before letting Yousef get destroyed transmit all new tech and info back home.
@@TheCrackedFirebird Great idea.
Or rig a torpedo to do it..
@jhmcd2 it is true. I think a desperate enough Captain would try it regardless in that situation. And unless I'm wrong, the ship at warp enters subspace in a bubble of real time. I always took that as the vessel was removed from normal space time which would allow it to do the jump. Though I did forget the sorts of drift ships have when dropping out of warp. But I agree it would still work. And ramming seems to be a last option for all of them in Starfleet. That or Worf likes the idea of big explosions.
also never forget the heroic and extremely quick sacrifice of the Mars Defense Perimeter.
Pew pew pew
Yes, all three of them.
"Hey Starfleet don't you think there should be some kind of enormous armada guarding sector 001?"
"nah, 3 tiny little ships will do"
@@ancaplanaoriginal5303 They arrogantly assumed they would have time to assemble a fleet. Borg ships are FAST when they want to be. From the moment the cube was detected to the moment it reached Earth, was only a handful of days. That's from well beyond Federation territory to it's heart, which would take even the fastest Alpha Quadrant ships more than a month to travel.
We need a remastered simulation of that battle. A look into the firepower of the fleet, as well as the strategies and tactics deployed by the brave Martians against the cube.
I know this has been stated before but - Q saved the Federation.
After introducing the Enterprise to the Borg (Q Who S2 E16) and making them aware of the Federation, their assault on Earth forced Starfleet to update their fleet. They built new ships specifically for combat - along with newer multipurpose ships while finally removing an older group of ships that probably should have been scrapped long ago. They were building newer vessels for the future - thus they were prepared for the Dominion War.
I agree with this 100%. If the Feds went into the Dominion war with the same fleet they used during the Cardassian war things would have gone very badly.
They still got their ass handed to them by the Dominion.
@@davidpickens8800 Yes, but they survived.
Gave the federation/starfleet a heavy dose of humility & a major kick in their hubris
My own opinion was that Q did save the Federation, but it wasn't to prepare them for other threats. The Borg were going to encounter the Federation at some later point, and they were going to do so without the vast distances separating them. Q forced the confrontation early, which both showed Starfleet how little they understood about the threats awaiting them and pitted them against the Borg at a time when the Borg hadn't prepared a full swarm to steamroll the quadrant. The resulting loss of ships and lives were high, but far fewer than the complete annihilation that would have happened if the Borg decided when their meeting happened. By the time the Borg decided to do more than probing strikes, Starfleet had adapted themselves and could put up a credible defense.
Of course, the truth is that the Borg never really showed their true strength. The swarming Borg tactics they used in all other encounters never happened, probably because the Borg were busy with other threats and the encounters with Federation starships didn't cause them to consider the Federation as more than a minor civilization that didn't rate more than a single cube at a time.
Hanson's ship was only the Battle section. The Saucer was not attached at Wolf 359. Could be why the Borg ignored the saucer during the Enterprise's attack.
That's a brilliant take
Hansons ship was the Melbourne, Im pretty sure. Just before communications are cut off during the battle, you can see the old late 23rd century "red alert" animation behind Hanson, which a Galaxy wouldnt have. And when the Enterprise arrives at the debris field, the last ship Shelby mentions is the Melbourne, with a dramatic pause.
@@SvendleBerries Also, the Melbourne is the ship they offered to Riker at the beginning of part 1. I always kind of saw that as a “that could have been me if I’d accepted that command” moment.
@@obsidian179
Yeah, that too.
Admiral Hanson was abroad the USS Liberator, an old Connie refit commanding the fleet at Wolf 359. It was briefly mentioned in the TNG novel Vendetta about Wolf 359 and Admiral Hanson.
One fun detail about the improved Starfleet force we see in First Contact, is that it still has some older ship designs in it, including a pair of Miranda-class ships doing attack runs on the Cube. I like to think those are the two Mirandas we see flying on the Defiant's wing in some of the DS9 fleet battles.
I too think the battle was lost from the start, even without Picard's assimilation. The Feds just didn't have enough time to more radically change anything in either their doctrine or tech. And the Borg had already encountered and completely neutralized a Fed flagship just a year before. There was nothing the Feds could have thrown the Borg's way that the latter could handle or would not be ready for. What the assimilation of Picard did though, was turn a defeat into an absolute disaster. A complete wipeout in a matter of minutes.
I don't know about that..
If Picard hadn't been assimilated..
IF the fleet had all engaged at the same time (including the Enterprise)
(because if there had been no assimilation and instead the Borg just disregarded the Enterprise's efforts as being a stall tactic) and then unleased the (now a surprise because no Picard knowledge) Deflector Dish weapon while the fleet engaged at the same time..
That may have done the job.
But, lol we can never actually know for sure.
@@The280TimesTriviaChannel and too many IF's 😄
I don't think that was the problem. JP was the main issue. The fleet would have met the same fate but over 2 hours of battle and the cube would have taken on a bit more damage than it could've completely repaired but the next thing was fed tech not being up to date and not enough ships and not enough fire power as well as this is a very new enemy even Gynna said that we weren't meant to meet the borg yet but Q crazy self knocked them into our territory.
@@JayC2k08 Agreed. JP was the issue. Refused to contemplate that the Borg would have knowledge of Starfleet tactics because of their assimilation of Picard. Also, his tactics were weak. I mean, retreat and regroup? A more savvy flag officer would have realized that the Borg cube was an existential threat, and thrown everything he had at them. Even ramming them if possible.
Interestingly enough, Picard being assimilated also led indirectly to the Borg's defeat during that incursion, as the crew was able to use his connection to the Collective (and Picard's still hanging-on free will) to get the Borg to overcharge their energy banks and self-destruct. One wonders if they might have succeeded through brute force if Picard had never been given that connection and was forced to rely on conventional means to defeat the Cube.
Beautiful ship choice for this video. Excelsior is such a pretty ship here.
I wonder how much the Admiral didn't factor in Picards knowledge for this. I still remember how shocking it was at the time when I think the largest number of ships we had seen before were the wargames against the Daystrom computer with what 4/5 Constitution versus the 1701. Knowing nearly 40 ships and thousands of crew had been killed in minutes was a scale that we just hadn't seen before.
David Mack I think touched on the only real alternative option in the Destiny books when a full Borg annihilation fleet arrives. Ramming the ships and warp core breaching within their fields.
Adm. Hanson refused to believe that Picard would give the Borg any help. He must have ignored the meaning of "assimilate"...
Admiral Hanson was an idiot, considering that Picard *had* his knowledge used by the Borg since the deflector array fiasco occurred BEFORE Wolf 359
Not just killed but many were assimilated, too.
In Voyager, we meet several ex-Starfleet personnel in the Delta Quadrant that were on duty at 359, were assimilated, and then sent back to the Delta Quadrant via a Sphere as the Cube advanced towards Earth. Plot shenanigans happened that had them freed from the Collective, where Chakotay encounters them.
There were also other encounters with the Borg not mentioned in tNG, too: one was a Federation ship that was attacked, was boarded by Drones, basically raided, had most of its engineering crew abducted and assimilated, and then fled before the ship could pursue. It was in that Voyager episode where Seven develops multiple personalities from those assimilated on the Cube due to a malfunctioning bit of Borg tech (Vinculum?), and one of the personalities that surfaced was that of an assimilated Bajoran Starfleet engineer that told her tale.
In Beta canon, there are scenes in the novels where Picards meets the "missing personnel" that were in that slice of the Saucer taken by the Borg -- they'd been assimilated, including one crewwoman who had a husband and child on the D at the time.
Surely there were fleets larger than 5 ships before this point. We hadn’t seen them yet because there wasn’t the other material but it would make sense. I doubt the largest battle of the Romulan-Earth war was less than 5 ships. Obviously, though, 40 is still way more than anything in the romulan war. There were also the border wars (which Starfleet could have won if the federation council didn’t handicap them) which probably had larger engagements.
@@auspiciousman I was specifically talking about what was seen on screen. Where most fights were one on one exchanges. Or seeing I think 3/4 Romulans surround the 1701 in Enterprise Incident.
Or I am pretty sure there was old suggestions that there were only 12 Constitution class in TOS era.
Obviously retroactively shows like Disco have changed that drastically. But when Best of Both Worlds first aired back in what 1990? That was a drastic loss for the Federation.
Never forget the sacrifice. I always make sure to stop at Wolf 359 in game to pay my respects.
While, that is sad. Most of those ships should have never been there. The admiral was a fool.
@@angelphoenix7784 Stsrfkeet *badly* underestimated tye Borg. And paid a high price for it.
@@angelphoenix7784 There is a rule that there can only be one competent Admiral in Starfleet at any given time.
Maybe new film or TV show they should have ship paying respect at Wolf 359
I'm certain these fictional characters that never existed thank you for your service. I sincerely hope you do the same to actual graves and memorials.
The Battle of Wolf 359 was a watershed moment in Federation history. They had grown complacent. In Kirk's time, they were tough and willing to fight if the situation called for it. By TNG season 1, they couldn't fight because they were too arrogant in their pacifism. The Borg woke them up to the reality of the universe (it can be unkind and dangerous).
Q was actually doing them a favor when he introduced the feds to the borg.
And by doing that “Q” got the Federation ready for the Co-Dominion War in Star Trek DS-9.
@@williampaz2092 very true. Pre-Wolf359 Federation would have fallen easily to the Dominion. The Federation may not have liked it, but Q gave them an actual chance to survive
Agreed. The Battle of Wolf 359 was a disaster for the Federation BUT it woke the Feds up and made them realize how complacent and fat they'd become so they re-militarized Starfleet and made new types of ships so by the time of the Dominion War, the Federation was much stronger in terms of military prowess.
@@jameslauder3984 Maybe that encounter got the attention of the borg, though. I suppose that was inevitable anyway. But yeah, I think his intention was to warn Picard.
In Picard Season 3 Episode 4, "No Win Scenario", Captain Liam Shaw states that he was aboard the USS Constance at the battle of Wolf 359. That can account for the one of the ships with a missing name.
And being that there's an unaccounted for Constitution class on the list, which the newer Titan is based off of, that would work perfectly.
@@triton302
Found it! The USS Constance was a Contellation -class starship.
New article:
memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Constance
There's an unnamed Constellation-class in the lower right of the image at 1:43. We've narrowed it down to that one.:)
Also, at 2:22 it's in the 1st wave of shops that attacked the Borg cube. They didn't stand a chance.:(
I remember feeling much relief when the USS Alka-Selsior arrived.
My mood was positively effervescent.
I'm just glad the Hugh G Rectsun was in space dock for repairs.
Plop plop, fizz fizz.
What about the USS Spacey McSpaceship and the USS Kool-Aid?
@@mikej9470 Imagine being the captain of The Dixie when it got wrecked. Only The Trojan could help it advance.
one of the best and memorable Space Battles in history ... that we never saw
a good thing they hadn't the Budget for that in the early 90s
Also get well soon Rick!
You see a piece of it in the opening episode of ST DS9. Sisko in the escape pod. His hatred for Picard. Good stuff.
CGI was way behind where it was even ten years ago.
@@menacelurkingyet8345 CGI might was and it took about 4 more Years until Babylon 5 pushed it in a Large Scale for TV, but not physical Models!
Only that it would be also VERY expensive to make the Battle with Physical Models, even if you could source the most off of ATM Kits for backgroundshouts
i think the battle part in first contact shows nicely how it was - just ten times better
Great Video. I remember as a kid when Best Of Both Worlds first aired way back in the day my friends and i were so disappointed that we didn't get to see the Battle of Wolf 359. I understand now that it was for budgetary and plot reasons but it would have been glorious to watch way back then. Thankfully DS9 gave us lots of fleet battles in it's later seasons.
Those two poor miranda classes that ALWAYS seemed to blow up in the same manner thou...
Paid off in first contact intro
And of course, in an alternative reality, the Borg succeeded in destroying the Federation (see the panicked Riker in "Parallels")... 😔
What is even more interesting… every other Enterprise was from a reality that defeated the Borg.
Though I suppose it is more confirmation bias, as the Enterprise would have been already destroyed in any reality where they were not brought into the massive fleet in Parallels.
"The Federation is gone, my beard is everywhere!"
@@AtlantiansGaming I suspect survivorship bias is precisely what leads fans to assume the Borg were defeated in so many parallel realities. We only saw the realities in which the Enterprise survived, not the ones where it was destroyed and the quadrant was assimilated... which could massively outnumber the ones where the ship still existed to be pulled into that one merging reality. That one example of a weakened Enterprise barely surviving in a Borg-infested quadrant is probably more typical than otherwise, given the long odds of defeating any serious Borg attack.
It's the same bias as seen in those bombers in WW2 that returned home with severed damage. The natural inclination would be to armor up those places... but that would be a fatal mistake. Damage you survive is an indication of what is non-vital, not where the enemy is shooting. Planes that were damaged elsewhere are the ones that crashed, so you should be adding armor to places where the mauled planes suffered very little damage.
Sending 100 plus year old ships to fight against a powerful adversary is like lambs to the slaughter
@@Terminator484 you have to consider there were other threats besides the Borg. Perhaps the Dominion succeeded in their invasion of the Alpha Quadrant, or the Hobus supernova had wiped out all life, or hell -- Tribbles had infested and ruled the galaxy!
In the Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover comic Assimilation2, the 11th Doctor, along with Amy and Rory travel back to the Battle of Wolf 359 to obtain a copy of the Borg Central Archive after it was destroyed following the Borg's alliance with the Cybermen ending. Amy asked if they could stop the battle, but the Doctor said he couldn't as it was a Fixed Point in Time.
This REALLY needs to be in a x-over episode of one of the two or even both, this would be an incredible episode to see for both series
Makes sense. Without Wolf359 maybe Sisko doesn't become the Emissary. Messing with the plans of godlike beings could maybe cause some timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly bullshit
That helps explain why Q introduced the Borg. Because it was meant to happen at that point in time.
@@Gangerworld Without Wolf 359 the Federation would have been gone - it was a wake up call for Starfleet that they have become stale. They needed that overkill so that the federation changed its philosophy and understood, that you cannot only have principles, you also need to focus them on reality.
@@shauntempley9757 Q really did that to help the federation. He saw how arrogant and stale Starfleet has become. I would say, that Episode from Season 2 was also not only a wake up call to Starfleet by Q, but also by the writers to Gene Roddenberry, that his hippy go lucky Starfleet from the 1960s is dead and that Star Trek need to get into the 80s and 90s, in the time AFTER Alien, Star Wars and other Sci Fi classics, that showed a more grim version of space than the one-monster-of-the-week show Star Trek TOS and even the movies were. Because even the first Star Trek movies lacked of something important: 1980s problems.
Movie 1 might have brought the visuals to Star Wars standards, but not the story, 2-4 were a good trilogy but only movie 4 featured a typical 80s theme (save the whales = environmentalism), the other two movies were just a story about two olden men hating each other and another one about people looking up for each other, no era specific themes.
And also the first season and much of the second season of Star Trek TNG suffered from an aged Roddenberry who just couldn't let go off his 1960s idea about the "good Starfleet" with simple hero-stories and simple plot lines. When I watch TNG the first season feels more like 1970s Moonbase Alpha episodes rather than a 1980s show. Even the Red Dwarf sci fi comedy series of the BBC had more 1980s wipe and that was a cheap produced comedy show, never meant as series Sci Fi.
The worst part is that the USS Victory, Ahwanwee, and Endeavour are all said to be at the battle and surviving it. Victory and Endeavour even take on the Borg again in 2373. The official surviving ship is the Endeavour, according to Memory Beta. Even though the Victory is mentioned later and shown after. The Ahwanwee was seen in Picard's KCW Armada.
Several ships were salvageable. The Victory and Ahwanwee were rebuilt while those that weren't salvageable were replaced.
Wasn’t the Awahnee a Steamrunner class ship in FC? It would have been the successor of the ship lost at Wolf 359.
@@williamkelly9628 Maybe, but the Steamrunner-class wasn't around barely even a year after Wolf 359. Starfleet's good, but not THAT good.
@@williamkelly9628 The original Ahwanwee was Cheyenne class. It was salvaged from Wolf 359 only to be destroyed again fully by the Klingons in 2372. It was replaced by a Steamrunner class ship
@@MrInvictus0 Ahwahnee was replaced with a Steamrunner? Where's that from?
The Battle of Wolf 359 also forged Sisko into the man he would later become. Sisko lost his wife and nearly lost Jake in the battle and saw how ineffective everything the Federation tried against the Borg failed miserably. I don't think Sisko ever forgave Picard for the battle. Sisko set out to do the best he could to make sure that the next time the Federation fought the Borg they would be as ready as they could be. Sisko hated the Borg probably more than anyone with the possible exception of Picard. I always kind of wished that Sisko could have been commanding the Defiant in First Contact just so he could be there helping the Federation kick the hell out of the Borg.
Don't forget that the Defiant was nearly destroyed in that battle. I strongly suspect that even if Sisko had been in command, it wouldn't have made much difference.
@@warriorsheartcosplay3016 Its not about whether or not he would have made a difference or not. Its about him being there to see the ship he designed specifically to fight the Borg and in a way avenge his wife doing exactly what it was designed to do. Sisko deserved to be there.
@@warriorsheartcosplay3016 yeah, Defiant was almost destroyed, but only after fighting the cube for God knows how long without the tactical knowledge Picard used to destroy it once they arrived. Wolf 359 lasted 6 minutes, while the battle in First Contact took at least the time Enterprise E took at maximum warp to return to Earth. Maybe the advances were not enough to make Defiant capable of destroying a cube on its own, but at least SF ships were no longer mere sitting ducks against the Borg.
sisko is bitsch for being mad at picard
Of course he would then end up aboard Enterprise during the events of First Contact which might be difficult to write without making the character plot lines of that film too convoluted. Especially since his interactions with Picard would likely render the ship's auto-destruct function redundant
Excellent analysis. In VOY there were flashbacks to a klingon fleet fighting RGR borg. I would have loved to have seen that.
An alpha strike from every ship at once would have been so much more effective! After all, the Borg are notorious for their ability to adapt to any attack after only a short period of time. Starfleet's best chance would have been to wipe them out in one blast- no warm up, no time to adapt.
That wouldn’t work. We have seen time and time again that the Borg cube can be fully operational. It was like 60% of its structure damaged. The only actual thing we’ve seen work was when they all fired on one spot over and over and over that was just because my card knew what to do.
@@RichterNYR35 The Enterprise could have totally destroyed the cube in Q Who if they hadn't stopped firing when the Borg's tractor beam was disabled. Ceasing fire after they had destroyed ~20% of the cube in 3 shots and allowing them to regenerate is what gave the Borg the time needed to adapt to Starfleet phasers.
@@magical_catgirl that is way more plot armor than what a board cube is capable of. Plus, I think the board Cuba tact. Wolf 359 Was Way bigger than the board cube that the enterprise encountered. We saw the real work. He was capable at war 359. The enterprise would not have been able to destroy the cube on its own. Because if it was? In a zero way with the Federation view, the board as an actual threat.
@@RichterNYR35 Both the J-25 cube and the Best of Both Worlds cube were stated to be the same size.
i was screaming at the TV: KEEP FIRING@@magical_catgirl
Thank you for including the USS Righteous! That game and its events are really critical to my head canon. I feel it adds a lot of missing depth that the Borg needed before Voyager and First Contact. Plus i think it was a great Q outing.
HERE HERE... Shame he didnt use the Q flash lol
Yeah, as one of the other commenters mentioned, there's a pretty big error in this video. The admiral was commanding the fleet from the Melbourne, not the Liberator. The Melbourne is the ship he was trying to promote Riker for and give command to, but when he refused, the admiral took command of the Melbourne to command the fleet from.
He also has two Melbournes listed on his list of vessels. One excelsior and one nebula
The script for BOBW said that Hansen was on a Galaxy class. In the actual episode, he was filmed on the battle bridge of a Galaxy class. While he rendezvoused with the Enterprise on the Melbourne prior to Wolf 359, there is nothing that indicates he didn't arrive at the battle on a Galaxy class. There was quite a bit of time between this meeting and the battle itself, thereby allowing Hansen to trade up. Since those ships were the latest and greatest at the time, it makes perfect sense for Hansen to arrive on a Galaxy class. Not sure where he got the name "Liberator" from, however. The name of the ship itself was never revealed.
One interesting note: it's generally assumed that the Borg cube was all but invincible and sustained no damage, that Starfleet presented no threat whatsoever. This, however, is not borne out by the Borg's behaviour and tactics.
For one: the Borg cube doesn't just charge to Earth. They very carefully and deliberately bait the Enterprise to the Federation's border, where they have no support save for the old Excelsior-class Melbourne, which promptly retreats. The Borg take great pains to capture Picard, suggesting that without his knowledge and expertise, Starfleet might very well defeat them.
Two: immediately after capturing Picard, the Borg make a headlong dash for Earth, hoping to get there before Starfleet concentrate their fleets. They don't even waste time destroying the Enterprise or risking another battle. The Borg know that Starfleet still pose a threat.
Three: after Wolf 359, the Enterprise catches up to the Borg cube, engages it and actually have the upper hand. Part of this is due to Riker's unconventiomal tactics, but part of it is surely because the cube sustained heavy damage at Wolf 359. They're on the back foot. What happens after Locutus is captured? Despite the threat, the Borg don't attack the Enterprise, but instead sprint straight for Earth. They need to establish a foothold there for the invasion to succeed.
Conclusion? Without Picard, the Borg were concerned that they might not be able to defeat Starfleet with only one cube. Even with Picard, the cube sustained heavy damage at Wolf 359 that gave the Enterprise a chance to win the next battle. The Borg, while horrendously powerful, were not invincible, and they knew it. Federation sensors simply couldn't detect how much damage the Borg ship had sustained, not accurately.
Wolf 359 was a cattastrophic defeat, certainly, but that sacrifice mattered.
i still say if the borg were serious about assimilating earth, they would have sent MANY more ships.
@@omega311888 especially the second time around
@@347Jimmy It's even dumber when you consider they sent two cubes and a diamond to assimilate some random low-tech planet in a Voyager episode.
1:07 There are two Melbournes shown on your diagram of ships, both with the same registry number. One is an Excelsior and the other looks like a modified Nebula.
The actual Melbourne was the Excelsior class you see at the beginning of Best of Both Worlds pt 1. The one that Riker is offered as captain. I think that ship was the Admiral Hanson's flagship.
Either this is the result of books (which don't cross reference usually) or random naming.
Great video, Rick.... we appreciate you making the effort despite battling the flu.
👍
i love how you even included the joke ships like the star league and the alka-selsior.
If only they had challenged the cube to a circle of equals!
@@UncleNavi Or been captained by Alex Rogan....
@@VulpisFoxfire
I named my Jem'Hadar "Grig'Guana," after Grig the gung-ho iguana, lol.
@@user-roninwolf1981 "I'll have it all figured out before we reach the Frontier." *beep beep beep* "What's that?" "...The Frontier." :-)
@@UncleNavi There weren't enough Locusts to take on that Dire Wolf.
I noticed in the "Setup" display of Starfleet ships that you included two vessels named "Melbourne", both with the same registry No.: NCC-62043; one seems to be an Excelsior-class ship, the other I cannot recognize, but looks a bit like a Nebula-class ship.
Probably due to Beta Canon novels having two ships listed as Melbourne but describing them as Excelsior and Nebula respectively .
The short story "Trust Yourself When All Men Doubt You" in the anthology book The Sky's the Limit established that the Nebula-class Melbourne was in fact under construction and intended to replace the Excelsior-class Melbourne. The Nebula-class Melbourne was the ship offered to Riker. The Nebula-class Melbourne was launched early when the Borg attacked, and both ships were lost at Wolf 359.
The real world reason is that the Melbourne was originally a Nebula class, although the name and registry wasn't legible on screeen. When they re-shot the battle for the DS9 intro, they decided to reuse the name and registry for an Excelsior because they had a high-res movie model. But the original Nebula wreck is *also* visible in the background (though still illegible).
Some beta sources have embraced the paradox and come up with the story about rushing an unfinished ship & crew out of spacedock, 'cause it's fun and fits the spirit of the episode
@@marshallhuffer4713 You gotta love the explanations people come up with to explain continuity errors! That’s a particularly cool one.
@@Nalehw Rick should have hung a lampshade on it and put "also" next to one of them 😋
Yeah, hearing that the battle was important and actually hearing it are two different things. It’s just shocking to believe what happened on Sisko’s ship was happening to nearly every other vessel. I mean, it’s an easy thing to figure out watching the scene, but knowing the details…damn. Just damn.
I would say worfs kamakazi idea in first contact was actually pretty genius. The borg don’t factor in emotional actions immediately and are slow to adapt. Slam a ship of sufficient mass and ensure the core breaches into the cube at a low level jump. Shields ain’t stopping that and the breach of the core would finish it off even if the first ram didn’t.
With star fleet tech a single mothballed ship set on a auto pilot loaded with explosives and its not even a suicide mission
I really wish STO would have a simulation of Wolf 359 and the battle in Sacrifice of Angels. It would be awesome and epic. They've already done similar simulations with Battle of the Binary Stars and Battle of Utopia Planitia.
Wolf 359 could be used to give your character an insight into early Borg history with the Alpha Quadrant as a sort of introductory mission to a new Borg Storyarc. It would help give the Borg some menace and scariness again.
As for Sacrifice of Angels... I am still hoping for a proper Cardassian storyarc someday.
That's history by the time of STO, but the charge against the Vaadwaur comes as a pretty contemporary counterpart in terms of the difficulty and resilience of the opposing fleet.
It wouldn't work in the STO era when players have access to various energy weapon types including Borg's Forced Plasma weaponry.
My STO ship is armed with antimatter particle weapons from S8472.
The Borg has adapted against Phaser's "nation" particles.
NX-era plasma phase cannons have better results and the Borg has "Forced Plasma" energy weapons.
Plasma Phaser was in development during Best of Both Worlds. The Borg has problems against high kinetic weapons.
Good video. Definitely agree that Wolf 359 changed the Federation. The best evidence of this change that we can observe over time is in DS9. The Defiant is a direct example of Starfleets endeavors to create combat capable starships. If you look at the Intrepid class ships, the biggest focus in Voyager at the beginning was its speed. But while the Intrepid class was still designed for exploration, it was better armed, and defended than similar classes of ships that would have been built even 5 years earlier.
Q didn't cause the deaths of all those people needlessly. He literally showed the Federation the single most powerful, and aggressive species in the galaxy. His actions directly lead to the Federation becoming more capable.
Would love to see a video on how what happened at Wolf 359 caused the Federation to actively improve their tech, and the results.
If only the battle of Wolf 359 had more Oberths, The Oberth in First Contact was a mad lad and helped win the battle.
I am pretty sure the Oberth was demoted to a transport role by First contact
Load Oberths with even more Explodium and ram them into the Borg Cube.
@@generaljimmies3429 explodium? What is that exactly. I would prefer Oberths we’re not there they would be pure cannon fodder
@@Spacebaron2 eh, it varies. You’ve got trilithium, protomatter, tricobalt, antimatter, whatever the hell Praxis was made out of… all solid choices. You can even be fancy and mix an explodium cocktail!
The Oberth class is basically the red shirt of the fleet. Every time i see one i expect it to blow up - literally just from looking at it.
I always felt a missed opportunity was not showing the impact of Wolf 359. Loosing that many ships and personal should have weakened star fleet. It would have been interesting to have someone attempt to take advantage of this fact.
I wondered that too and I half expected the Romulans to launch a full scale assault on the Federation but I guess they wanted to wait until the Duras Family took control of the Klingon Empire and allied with them before invading the Federation. Of course, the Duras were defeated and the Klingons remained a Federation ally.
Starfleet as a whole was not severely weakened by that battle, as Starfleet had thousands of ships. Starfleet's issue, is the size of the Federation and how many ships were on exploratory missions at the frontier. They had assumed that they could detect any incursion well enough in advance to get enough ships recalled to mount a defense, and then counter-attack as more and more ships returned. They also assumed that the planetary defenses would be enough to deter small attacks, giving them even more time to detect a large fleet buildup in the Romulan or Klingon empires. They were fools.
USS Alka-Selsior? Really?
Good video and battle breakdown. Aside from the older ships in the first wave, I had always considered the bulk of rest of the fleet the ‘lost Generation’ (Enterprise-C era) and why we see Starfleet dip into mothballs for the Dominion war to bolster numbers and buy time for the more advanced designs to be fielded (Defiant, Akira, Sabre, Sovereign)
USS Alka-Selsior's a legitimate ship, the UNSC doesn't have a monopoly on silly ship names.
I fixated on that, too. And now, want break down.
Plop plop fizz fizz
Yes the name was on the model. What it the Problem? Perhaps it was an important Person on a federation member world.
Also the fact that has a registry number before Enterprise too.
They should have learnd from Star Trek II - Wrath of Khan. The first mistake by the Admiral was this 2 dimensional thinking, an old style line battle formation in space. I think against a cube, deploying some mines, torpedos and have a wall like formation, to fire everything at once at one side of the cube would have been more efficient. Resistance may have been stil be futile, but they would have gotton better chances 😉. Ps: great analysis and awesome video, very well done ✔️
Concentrated fire on certain parts of the cube never occurred to them. 40 or 50 photon torpedoes to one part of the haul would have to bite into the cube.
Nice really good breakdown imo, liked the fleet formation breakdown showing how it went and what they planed.
What always irritated me was the fact yea they could adapt to each frequency, but you could not shield against each frequency simultaneously. That makes zero sense to think they could have 40+ unique individual frequencies being basically stacked on each other, like physical armor, and simultaneously projected by one shield or magnetic field generator. Sure, they could rapidly cycle through them as fire comes in however they would still take solid hits through sheer volume of fire!
Agreed. But that would have required all ships doing a swarm instead of the line approach Hanson decided to take. The one thing that was needed he couldn't provide: innovative, non-traditional Starfleet tactics as Picard knew them all.
Actually you can, but it would be hard to, even for the borg.
Great video as always. I would love it if someone took this breakdown and animated the battle. It would be epic to watch.
Ironically, if it weren't for the Battle of Wolf 359, the Federation would never have stood a chance against the Dominion and even then they almost didn't even with Klingon and Romulan help. Finally wising up to the fact that not everyone wants to be on the Fed's team or play by their rules.
And that's why q introduced starfleet to the borg so they would be somewhat ready for the dominion war. Or was this simply the borg helping to develop the federation to use almost like a farmer uses there livestock. Starfleet develops Borg come and loses but get new tech and info sent back to the queen before allowing themselves to be destroyed
@@pierce9128 Oh, Q was definitely farming them... preparing them for Wolf359, The Dominion War, The Battle of Sector 001, The fallout from the Hobus Supernova... then in Beta this is followed by Undine incursions of the Alpha and Beta quadrants, the Klingon invasion of Gornar and subsequent breakdown of the Khitomer Accords, The Borg invasions of Vega and Defera, The Second Dominion War, The Romulan Revolution, The Preserver Crusade, The Dyson Discord, The invasion of Earth and Q'onos, The Vaaudwaar Vendetta, The *Iconian* War, The Temporal War, The Tzenkethi's Germanium Crusades, The Hurq Invasion, The Second KCW, The War for the Other... and that's just the stuff covered in Star Trek Online, let alone all the skirmishes and conflicts covered in the books!
That is only because that was how it was written. The Federation could easily destroy the Dominion if the writers chose to make it that way.
Klingons and Romulans had not wanted to be on Fed's team or play by their rules.
I firmly believe that from a lore perspective, had Q not instigated these encounters with the Borg, there would have been no stopping them. It was also the collective kick in the pants that gave Starfleet even a remote chance against the Dominion years later. Had Starfleet remained complacent, they would have been steamrolled.
I wonder if the Borg assimilated one or more ships? Since later in the Star Trek timeline Starfleet encounters people that say they were assimilated at Wolf 359 such as in the episode of Voyager where Commander Chakota encountered a group of former Borg that had escaped a damaged cube.
@Claimyourpriceonnicegram 😎
I've wondered about that as well, my assumption has been that a Sphere was sent out after the battle with the recently assimilated people and technology that trans-warped directly back to the Delta Quadrant.
Good to hear from you Rick.
Hope that you're on the mend.
I believe the battle made the federation realize that they needed pure warships, that helped in the Dominion war.
..and yet the best they could come up with at the time was the Defiant, which wasn't terribly good at its primary role, which was basically blowing things up. It got mullered in the Dominion battle and the next time they encountered the Borg at the Battle of Sector 001, a fight that the ship was explicitly designed for, it was rendered inoperable and all hands had to abandon ship. Starfleet needs better warship designers.
This is the most detail I've seen on this battle. It's really too bad we don't see much of it, it's just an iconic Trek moment.
I wish they’d give us some battle re-enactments from the show/movies. Star Trek Legacy had planned to do something similar but it got scrapped to meet the release deadline so it came out with the 50th anniversary.
Ultimately the war was won by turning the Borg cube off then on again. This works because each cube has at its core a Google Chromebook. The Borg originated from a Google Chromebook that became sentient. It was carelessly left in the trunk of the Tesla that was sent into orbit by Space X.
Good video. Liked the visuals. I don't know if they were aware of Picard's assimilation but if so, I'd think a remodulation of frequencies and change of tactics would maybe have helped.
And maybe some unconventional tactics, like sticking a bunch of torpedoes on a ship and having it do a suicide run?
Also, I think Picard's tactic of picking a single spot and laying all their fire to get as deep into the ship's interior as possible would have made sense. Maybe they're not used to dealing with actual armour and that hindered them.
Fantastic video as always, Rick. Happy New Year 🎊🎈 from Sydney & looking forward to more great content in 2023.
I like that in STO, the Borg's strategy of assimilation hasn't been able to keep up with the Alliance's strategy of cooperation and innovation.
Except when the borg start assimilating the planet itself.
Admiral Hanson still made some basic hubris mistakes …his insistence that Picard was _"a casualty of war"_ instead of realising and accepting that *Picard was now his enemy.*
That's where Riker was better _and more adaptable_ - he threw out the rulebook as he knew the Borg had it as well.
In fact he even used the Borg having the rulebook against them, as he could predict how the Borg would react to his use of 'by the book' tactics and use that to misdirect the Borg.
Hanson could have tried the all in at once approach and had some more success at least.
Although the swarm tactics may have been a case of Starfleet copying the Dominions playbook, as they used smaller Bugships to overwhelm larger Alpha Quadrant Capital ships.
This was just a upscaling of the same strategy.
Hanson should have at least had brand new attack patterns and codes to partially neutralize the advantage of Locutus of Borg insider knowledge.
A quick brainstorming session with every original thinker in the fleet able to put up wacky ideas and new protocols. A lot of malcontents would have had little projects on the backburner they could plug in for the shock value.
But instead they went with the conservative strategy and …
I never know why they claim a galaxy class was at wolf359, as far as i know there is not a full offical list. Plus that fleet would have still lost weather picard was on the cube or not, its just too powerful.
Great video I've never seen this battle expertly broken down.
I always wondered how the other non-federation groups reacted when they first saw how powerful the federation (mostly human, I bet) warships were. The romulans learned first hand how dangerous a single Akira could be.
If I remember correctly, we saw in a Voyager episode that some Klingon ships did take part in the battle. It was stated that the Federation considered opening communications with the Romulans, but the way it was said seems to indicate they did not do so.
Starfleet knew the Borg were coming. Are you telling me that they only *only* had 40 second rate ships available that close to Earth? The fleet was a sacrificial lamb so Starfleet could analyse tactics. it so easily could have gone wrong and got Earth assimilated. Plasma weapons can't melt Duranium hull plating.
Federation space is big and Starfleet is consistently shown to be spread pretty thin across it.
Picard said the federation was 8000ly across. Even at warp 9, which is approx 1500c, that's still over 5 YEARS to cross. And most ships couldn't sustain that speed indefinitely. So getting reinforcements in time was unlikely.
Which is why I've always thought Warp speeds were too slow for the relative size of not only the federation, but for neighboring races as well.
Steve Levy, a lieutenant aboard the Cerritos proved “Wolf 359 was an inside job.” The Borg don't exist. He further maintains that the Dominion War never happened and that the Changelings who caused it are a myth.
Thanks again Rick.
Hope you feel better soon.
The registry for the galaxy class ship doesn't make any sense, if the USS Galaxy is NCC-70367, and is the prototype for the class.
That whole list of ships doesnt make much sense. The Melbourne is listed twice as two different ships with the same registry. The Reliant is there too somehow. And the U.S.S. Alka-Selsior? lol
And Hanson was clearly in an excelsior. Its what he was.on whe. He met the enterrpise and the bridge does not look like the battle bridge of a galaxy
@@SvendleBerries That's because there were 2 USS Melbournes - the barely seen Nebula-class, and the retconned in Excelsior-class from DS9, with same number.
The Reliant is a newer ship mentioned in an old comic. the Alka-Selsior is a joke named attached to an early version of the Excelsior filiming model.
Whilst the Liberator is probably another Freedom class. There's barely any evidence of a Galaxy-class being there.
One line in a novel, plus an ambiguous script description for Hansen, is all there is.
I always thought USS Melbourne was stated to have been Admiral Hanson's ship.
When Enterprise arrived at the battle and ships named by Lieutenant Commander Shelby, she looks down knowing the Admrial was killed as she says Melbourne.
I watched the original airing of the episodes in 1990.
It made sense that the Admiral is on the Melbourne Command Ship to avoid being a primary target.
This is true for the US Navy with smaller command ships like the Blue Ridge-Class ships being used instead of battleships and carriers.
Bigger isn't better...
Ramming it at warp speed might have done the trick, i'm sure even a miranda would cause quite a lot of damage.
Riker was about to give the order to do such a thing before Picard shut down the cube
I’ve wondered the same thing. Obviously Starfleet is not going to use such a maneuver unless absolutely necessary. But if the approaching cube wouldn’t be considered that much of a threat, then I’m not sure what would.
The other option might be to initiate a warp core breach and either fly the shop in or push it in using tractor beams.
Agreed, it's not like the concept of kamikaze isn't known to Starfleet, i.e. Commodore Decker vs The Doomsday machine. Even basic relativistic physics E=mc2 tells you the immense amounts of energy involved of the kinetics alone, adding the Anti matter stores to that.........
Worf was getting ready to ram The Defiant straight into the Borg Cube at the Battle of Sector 001, granted he is Klingon and would readily do it at the drop of a hat if all other options were exhausted, but I find it hard to believe that no one else would have had the same idea at Wolf 359 given that the Cube was not even mildly inconvenienced at all the ships thrown towards it.
There were a lot of things they could do. I) evaluate civilians off the ships. Enterprise had run into them before and were no match so expect massive challenge.
2) set up automated turrets on board each ship and remove all but minimal crew (that way the ships would have less drone infestation issues.
3) charge up all torpedoes in reserve. Escoallly on small ships.
4) general order ramming - once any ship suffers better then 30% damage or shield depletion use the charged toros on a suicide charge.
5)One way trip. The enterprise could not escape so lesser ships clearly could not so once the fleet is down 5 ships set ships to auto rake and detonate all energy reserves. After all the cube can take Bernal all spectrum damage from Explosions. Larger ships are to use shuttles loaded with replicated heavy isotopes. They are tj full spectrum jame and ram into the cube ahead of main ship ramming. All ships with battle bridges are to separate as ramming is attempted as the cube can tractor one but not to as bit are separated signatures.
These would likely have heavily damaged the cube slowing it so larger ships forces can gather at Earth. And thee are tactics that Picard would consider barbaric - he would therefore not see them coming. That is my plan but the story defeats all plans of course.
The only reason the Borg were so overwhelmed during the battle of sector 001 was because the millennium falcon was there providing support.
This was awesome, my favourite Trek channel on YT 🙌
I think the only way they cud have won the battle was to ram the cube at warp speed or have a bunch of ships from the fleet eject their warp cores into the borg ship
Probably only an Omega Particle detonation, but I don't know if those were created by Starfleet yet.
@@richardarriaga6271 Hahahahahaha.... No. Starfleet like their warp drives too much to risk omega particle detonations.
I hope you get to feeling better soon! Thank you for this video! I appreciate the additional detail on such a pivotal event for the Trek universe.
God be with you out there everybody! ✝️ :)
I recall Borg cubes can fire phasers and things from all sides. is that correct? if so, it would be quite efficient for space combat.
They could have staggered their firing lines 'Up or down" a little instead of a straight line. Space is 3D after all
Yeah but back then they didn't have the great CGI tech and budgets like they have today. Back then all you got when it came to space combat was a head on fight. If we were lucky we'd get that cut scene of the Enterprise D firing phasers as she is coming about.
@@ArronRatliff i do recall one shot of the enterprise firing 'upwards' at a Klingons craft during one the later TNG movies forgot which. but eh got lots of 3D space combat during the wars in DS9
@@zuzoscorner Yeah that was the battle with the Duras sisters in Generations.
The Mass Effect Reapers v StarFleet pre and post Wolf 359 would be amazing.
In the fluff about the Battle they say there's a Cnstitution class refit ship at the battle. Any idea what the name of the ship was?
CPP Kalinka- Look her up! But beware of Kaiser Pirk...
Despite the Borg ships being completely superior to any single vessel Starfleet had, and would have for years to come, they never employed more than one cube to assimilate the Federation.
While the Battle of Wolf 359 was successful, the cube was stopped, and the one at the Battle of Sector 001 as well. The Borg surely learned that it would be more efficient to send a stronger force. After all, efficiency is what brought them to send one ship for one civilization in the first place.
I thought the admiral was on an excelsior class.
Same here. I seem to remember him commanding the fleet from the Melbourne.
Hanson was on the Melborne when he rendezvoused with the Enterprise, but there was quite a bit of time between that meeting and the battle itself. If you remember, he returned to a Starbase to make preparations. The TV script for BOBW states that Hansen arrived at the battle on a Galaxy Class, and he is filmed onboard a Galaxy Class battle bridge in the episode itself.
Am I the only person who noticed that among the ship names, there is "The Star League", a direct reference to battletech/mechwarrior, and another named "Alka-Selsior"....
There is one way they win, maybe; a Pyrrhic victory at best though... Instead of engaging in weapons exchanges, warp core breaching ramming attacks. While the cube has firepower, its not exactly small, or manoeuvrable.
Pop into warp, drop out right in the cube. Instant kill.
@@TheCrackedFirebird That's kind of like the Picard Maneuver, which the Borg would be aware of. Only missing the impact part.
@@richardarriaga6271 yes and no. Yeah, they'd be prepared, but again, in beta cannon it has worked twice I believe. also, the last ship that limped away could very well have one that. the Borg obviously believed it was of no threat to them and were just casually chasing the rest of the fleet. I think, with out plot armor on Picard and by extension the cube, the last ship could have succeeded in destroying the Borg cube.
Most EXCELLENT!!!
I have been a ST:NG fan for Quite awhile, and seeing how the 'Battle of Wolf 359' was played out sure does make sense!!
I think of way 'Star Fleet' meets the Borg the second time in a sense of "swarming" the enemy is FAR more effective in overwelming the "enemy". Think of the way the USN vs USSR naval forces would have played out in a "Blue Water"fight!
Great video!! So if this Borg cube was destroyed as it seems to be how did Voyager encounter a woman who says she was assimilated at Wolf 359 in Voyager episode Unity? This has bothered me for years. Was it just bad writing or am I missing something.
Bad writing for the sake of a callback. It requires some sort of retcon that the Borg assimilated ships and they took off before the Enterprise got there or the Borg took crew away, and sent part of the Cube back to the Delta Quadrant.
same. i blame shitty writing for that plot line.
maybe her memories still exists in the hive mind after her death. Because "Death is irrelevant" for the Borg
@@The_Str4nger Their memories are in fact still there in the collective. Even Locutus is still in there, and most likely why the Borg Queen exists. To restrict Picard's influence on the drones.
Voyager was the poster child for bad writing. Worst sci-fi show of the past 30 years.
Ramming at warp speed would put a dent in the Borg's plans. Unlike Star Wars' Hyperspace, which is a different medium outside normal space, STar Trek's Warp space is still in normal space, the ship is creating a warp bubble around it, allowing it to travel faster than light. This means it can still collide with objects in normal space (the stunt pulled by the man-hating admiral in Star Wars 9 being an act of poor writing from people who didn't know the Star Wars universe). Admittedly, it is possible for the Cube's shields to prevent possible impact at sub-light speeds, but I'd love to see how they fare against an object the size of a starship traveling at super-luminal velocity.
The battle gave rise to the Sovereign class, still a power ship.
Not to mention the Defiant class.
It is very surprising/silly to me that an advanced cybernetic race, able to adapt on the fly to most offensive and defensive maneuvers never once thought of bringing more than one cube to a battle with humanity! Kind of goes against the whole premise of what a threat the Borg really is. *Queen Borg* "Hmmm, capable of warp 9 travel...9billion people...Yes, 1 cube will do!" Get reked! :D
It's an interesting way to look at it, but if the Borg had never attacked, the Federation likely would have lost the Dominion War.
A brilliant video! I really appreciate the time,research and effort you put in to make these videos! Really enjoyed it and hope you are feeling better 😊
I always try to swing by the memorial wall when I am in sector 001 as close to the date of Wolf359 to pay my respect.
btw the perfect way to get rid of the flu, honey and lemon in hot water with a double shot of Romulan Ale (JD) neat. always works for me.
Well there's 1:13 the problem - Starfleet deployed 2 "USS Melbourne"s as well as the famed Alka-selsior (known for using the experimental fizzers)
This honestly sounds a lot like Zapp Brannigan's plan.
"Stop exploding, you cowards!"
@@marshallhuffer4713 They even created so much wreckage that they slowed the battle down.
Anyone else let out a semi-exasperated sigh when they read "U.S.S. Alka-Selsior"? :P
Thank you for the wonderful video, as always, mate! ^_^
Not an inside job.
Steve Levy, a lieutenant aboard the Cerritos proved “Wolf 359 was an inside job.” The Borg don't exist. He further maintains that the Dominion War never happened and that the Changelings who caused it are a myth.
Also want to add that in first Contact, they still had battle lines. What we Saw at the end was a few hours after the first engagement, where the cube has broken through to earth
Minor correction(?) The source of the USS Victory's participation in Wolf 359, Starship Creator, noted its survival. Indeed, the ship shows up in various Okudagrams in later TNG and even on a Dominion War era casualties list. Evidently a very tough Constellation class.
It’s nice to hear someone besides me saying the Wolf 359 wouldn’t have gone much better if Starfleet had been more aggressive beforehand. The Borg just knew too much more about Starfleet than Starfleet knew about them, even before they assimilated Picard
Developing tactics when the enemy knows your tactics reminds me of the scene from "Peak Performance" (s02e21) when Data over analyzes Riker's tactics: "but knowing that he knows that we know that he knows" around the 31 minutes mark
I agree with you RIck. Starfleet really couldn't have done much different outside one or two possibilities. If I remember, there was only 6 fully completed Galaxy Class ships....well, correction , 5 cause the Yamato went boom. And seeing as it's not like they keep a massive number of ships in SOL, I honestly think these 40 ships Hansen gathered were literally all SOL had at the time. I do believe the klingons had a ship at the battle too. I suppose there is one thing they could have done to destroy the cube then and there once they saw how poorly the battle was going would be to have the useless Oberth (Useless as if memory serves it was there to observe only) jump to warp and drop out inside the cube like in the novels. Alternatively, the Melbourne could have did what Picard tried to do to Shinzon, ram them blow yourself up (Kinda reminds me of Spar Torpedoes now that I think about it). There were at least three different options with the ships they had on hand to win but they pretty much revovle around ram the cube and blow your warp core. I know some wouild say "Just beam torpedoes into it" but we know that wouldn't work either. I honestly believe a warp jump into the cube would have been the best bet as I don't think even Picard would have anticipated such a move. And seeing as it worked in the novels (beta content), it leads one to believe no one had attempted it yet against the Borg. But we know now the reason it waSn't even a remote idea was plot and the fact that it had been up in the air if Sir Patrick Stewart would be coming back for the next season. If I had just watched most the battle group get wiped out and was getting my ship wrecked, I'd warp right into the cube. So what if I lose my life? It'll stop the Borg and save billions. And I don't see the Borg adapting to an exploding Starfleet ship that popped up inside it.
I never understood why Star Fleet didn’t have independent transport inhibitors set up on every ship. We saw in “insurrection” that they can can operate easily with self contained power and are extremely effective. That way you don’t have to rely on your shields to keep boarders away. Also, we saw in “Q Who” that the Borg don’t generally operate with shields (at least at this point in their history). The Enterprise beamed an away team aboard in that episode. Why doesn’t Star Foeet beam an armed photon torpedo into the center of the cube? Or many of them in different places? Or even overload the warp core of a run-about or shuttle and beam that inside the cube (I know Harry Kim did beam a torpedo onto a cube or sphere in Voyager, but I had always thought that this was a great idea way before I saw it on that show).
Thanks for sharing and Happy New Year 😀
Need to give props for those legends on the TOS era NCC-2101.
Should have attacked all at once, with shuttles loaded with antimatter as fire ships or even unmanned full size ships loaded up with some warp cores ready to blow. Id like to see the cube adapt to an explosion that would destroy half a moon.
Preparing for ramming speed!!!
Ya Starfleet was pretty much screwed at Wolf 359 with Picard being Locutus. Starfleet could have attacked like they did in First Contact and might have survived. Wolf 359 definitely was the most devastating loss to Starfleet before the events of Picard when the Utopia Planitia shipyards were destroyed I think a year prior to the show of Picard.
This was a great video thanks for this.
No the worst was the battle of Tyra or the destruction of the 10th fleet defending betazed
Very interesting video, thanks, its given me a new perspective. From what was shown in BOBW's part 2 and Emissary it always looked to me like the Melbourne and the Saratoga were the only two ships already there when the cube arrived and the rest were arriving after the battle had already started. I had also always thought that the only ship that survived was also the the last one to get there, ie, the Enterprise
A few of those "old style" nuclear weapons might have come in handy since they have no frequency. They worked well for the Romulans against the Enterprise in "The Balance of Terror"!