Starfleet's Response to Assimilation

When the Borg assimilate a person or vessel, they gain the technology and knowledge that officer knew. Starfleet therefore needs to have protocol's in place to deal with a lost vessel or officer so let's speculate on what those might be.

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This Video is for critical purposes with commentary.

Outro Animation made by @icarogabriel17

[TheGuardianofAzarath]

It still boggles the mind that the crew of voyager didn't even think that when they agreed to send their captian, chief of security and chief engineer on to a cube to get makeovers, that there wasn't a posssibility that the borg would get their access codes eventually. Which they did. As soon as the doctor said there was a problem with Tuvok, the _FIRST THING_ Chakotay should have realised was "Oh shit, he knows our command codes. Wipe them!"

But _no_ his first order to Paris is "Get us into their weapons range."

[Etrune]

The most important information a captain has is the number of lights there are.

[josephmassaro]

"Admiral, what is the first thing you do if you lose a starship to the Borg?"
"Well, the first thing I do is cancel my credit cards and then change my passwords to my email accounts."

[jacara]

A few books have the "Borg Protocol" where the ship itself will cause a high energy warp core breach that can cause a subspace tear to hopefully destroy the Borg ship with it.
Another book from the early 2000s had the Federation losing to the Borg, so to save everyone they used the Omega molecule to destroy subspace in the Alpha and Beta quadrants, it sent everyone back to prewarp but without subspace even the borg couldn't get anywhere.

[CristySFM]

A giant middle finger to the assimilating threat...

Perfect line

[baystated]

The Battle of Earth Space Dock in Picard S3 will need lots of therapists. The fleet's older commanders summarily xcuted by surviving younger officers during their temporary assimilation, traumatized officers who need to step into those open command roles. Not to mention un-portrayed atrocities on other Sol system worlds' surfaces and facilities.

[GleefulNihilism]

Had a Star Trek TTRPG game once where the captain was an Andorian who survived the Battle of Wolf 359, served for a long time on a classified joint Federation-Klingon Anti-Borg task force, then when given the Captain's chair told his senior officers that he voluntarily had a device implanted in his head that if it detects the Borg are trying to assimilate him will activate and wipe all potentially dangerous intel from his mind and prevent such a breach of sensitive information to the Borg.

The CMO was the first to figure out that the "device" was basically just a grenade that pulls its own pin when it detects a nano-probe nearby...

[johntauren]

Talking about needing therapy and rehab after being assimilated, I adore what happens in the last episode of Picard, when the junior officers are freed from the collective, the first thing is that Seven immediately hugs Sidney LaForge. The one person there would who understand the trauma and helplessness.

[mittensfastpaw]

A nice little overview!

Considering how broken my brain is I'd give a whole cube crippling depression.

[williamgeorge]

Adding Borg tech to their ships.... I know Picard had a couple of decades of untold tales behind it, but maybe Starfleet should have focused on advancing that Borg one-shot-kill tech Janeway brought back with her instead.

[andylongman]

This has quickly become my favourite Trek channel. Great knowledge, but some really interesting, unique subject matter too.

[samfowler]

Remember when the Borg got Voyager's access code after assimilating Tuvok and then installed a sunroof in the saucer? I think you just put more thought into this video than the Voyager's writers ever put in to any of their scripts.

[Von_Splatterblast]

"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"

Starfleet "hold our beer, we'll do it ourselves!!!!"

[Ramschat]

Borg: "New protocol: target first officer for assimilation"

[CosmicOutpost]

Great vid! I would have thought the Chief Medical Officer relieving the assimilated crew members of their duties or command and entering that in their log would be swift way to shut down codes etc. from compromised crew?

[GraniteGhost]

Everyone raise a glass for that poor Oberth!

[Hrafnskald]

Great video :)
It's interesting considering what Starfleet hasn't done. For example, in The Expanse, the MCRN Donnager illustrates a different approach via Condition Zero. Ships set in this manner would automatically self destruct, with no time delay or override, if any of three critical areas was compromised. Likewise, Starfleet appears to have decided not to widely distribute the various anti-borg nanoviruses they developed, or that weird geometrical paradox thing they decided not to try. Given how the Borg can only grow through assimilation, making every ship or colony assimilated a potential weapon or pathogen unleashed inside the Borg would be quite effective, if likely too dark for the TNG era Noblebright Federation >:)

[DiehardMechWarrior]

In regards to Halo’s Cole Protocol, I believe it was primarily enacted to hide the location of *Earth, * not simply the rest of the UNSC’s colonies, from the Covenant.

[guyvanarsdall]

Seems like the first course of action by a federation ship after a Borg ship is sighted would be for all that ships crew members to remove the pips from their uniforms. No pips, no way the Borg know the ranks😅

[Phil-D]

Carry old style kinetic firearms when engaging the borg. If they beam on board, adapt to hot lead.