We Are the Borg
- "We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."
- —The Borg Collective
We Are the Borg was the fifth Bravo Fleet Fleet Action which ran from 27 October, 2023 to 8 December, 2023. It consisted of three phases that each progressed the story of the return of the Borg Collective to the galactic scene. While the Collective is not the indomitable power it once was, taking the time to adapt and rebuild after the rigours it has suffered the last quarter century, the Collective's sudden surge in activity spelled only one thing - they were not vanquished and they are back.
The Story
Background
Frontier Day brought chaos to the Federation and Starfleet, but was believed to hold one bright spot: the end of the Borg Collective. The Queen had been killed and her hold over young officers broken. Starfleet spent months rebuilding and recovering, but soon after learnt that their optimism was ill-founded. The Borg Collective remained. Reports and sensor records proved Borg ships were still active, venturing to distant reaches of the Beta Quadrant and continuing to operate in the depths of the Delta Quadrant. This was not a mass mobilisation, but after years of near-silence from the Collective's fleets, the chaos of Frontier Day appeared to have stirred this dormant fleet.
This movement was not limited to far-flung regions of space. Wherever Borg technology had been seized, such as the scattered remains of the Artifact, the black market, or research stations across the Federation, homing signals aboard became active. It was clear that the Borg's plans included the identification and, perhaps, recovery of what they had lost.
Fourth Fleet response
Trying to avoid mass panic, Starfleet responded with caution. Once again, they turned to the Fourth Fleet, whose original operational mandate was to respond to the Borg, only for the Dominion War to divert them. Fleet Command activated an ancient and unused protocol, 'Directive Four,' which directed all available ships to respond to this crisis.
In scattered pockets, alone and in small units, the Fourth Fleet ventured into the shadows where the Borg stirred. Some ships were dispatched on missions of investigation and reconnaissance, studying Borg ship movements and trying to ascertain shifts in their territories without drawing unwanted attention. There was little sign of fresh aggression from the Collective; early on, it became clear this was not a new invasion. But as the Fourth Fleet watched and studied, the Borg shifted their borders, abandoned regions they could not hold, and established new territories based on the strategic need for more resources and to replenish the ranks of their drones. This was done cautiously and slowly by both sides, and Starfleet began to understand that the Borg was consolidating what they had and were making ready to, gradually, rebuild.
Within the Federation's borders and nearby, ships worked swiftly to locate and silence the homing signals on Borg technology. This included lost ships, wreckage lying in labs, or even, sometimes, within drones themselves. Starfleet was not alone in noticing these signals, and many less scrupulous figures of the underworld raced to recovery this Borg technology, which holds untold value on the black market.
Across the galaxy, the Fourth Fleet faced perhaps the most impossible task of all: not only to try to contain the Borg threat but, more importantly, understand it.
Outcome
After weeks of activity, the Borg's operations subsided. The Fourth Fleet's efforts ensured Starfleet had some understanding of what had happened. The Collective was, reports insisted, reforming after the ravages of the pathogen deployed by the USS Voyager, and was indeed now consolidating its territory and recovering lost technology so it could rebuild. Multiple ship captains were commended for their essential role in bringing Starfleet's strategic intelligence about the Collective, including its ship movements, up to date in the face of tremendous threat.
But two key pieces of information rose to the forefront. The first was confirmation that the Queen's activation signal from Jupiter on Frontier Day had triggered this renewal from the Collective. This was not, Starfleet believes, its intent, but a command signal from a Queen nevertheless redirected the battered Collective from a dormant state of suffering into a condition of reformation and reconstruction. Further contact with a group of survivors from Unimatrix Zero by the crew of the USS Daedalus uncovered more information, specifically the startling revelation that the Borg had further adapted since Frontier Day: No more did they have a Queen.
By the end of June, the Borg's activities had died down, but a new status quo had been established and identified by Starfleet.
Individual Winners
The top 3 individual winners of We Are the Borg were: