Borg Sphere

Ship Information
Affiliation:	Borg Collective
Century of Service:	24th Century
Class Name:	Borg Sphere
Vessel Dimensions:	600m
Crew Compliment:	11,000
Weapons Systems:	High Power Borg Disruptor Beams High Energy Tractor Beams
Defence Systems:	Ablative Hull Armour Automated Regeneration Matrix Internal Shield Matrix High Power Structural Integrity Field
Maximum Warp Factor:	9.98
Known Vessels of this Class:	Sphere 634 Sphere 878

The Borg Sphere is the second most common ship design used in the Collective with a diamater of 600 meters. They are very large and extraordinarily resillient vessels, due partly to their reduction in size. The Sphere's function in the Collective is that of a hybrid science and combat platform - analysing potential targets worthy of assimilation. Housing significantly less Borg drones within comparison to that of the Cube.

Vessel Design

General Operation

Image is the property of Paramount Pictures.

Due to their reduced size Spheres demand significantly less power resources for systems such as: shielding and due to their perfectly aerodynamic shape Spheres are capable of easily withstanding subspace stress and transwarp speed torrents.As a result the vessels structural integrity field also requires much less resources. Identically to all Borg vessels, Spheres forego such irrelevencies as cantinas, personal quarters (sonic showers, food replicators, personal computers), holodecks, turbo-lifts, stairs, internal com system and an interactive voice-activated computer system. In doing so the vessel saves a great deal of power which is re-routed in-to other more vital systems such as weapons and shields, sensory making it capable of utilizing its power systems to much greater efficiency and focus within comparison to that of the enormous Cube. Each drone which is no longer required, running low on power simply or damaged simply returns to its regeneration alcove and due to the massive crew compliment, drones are not required to leave their assigned deck - however may also do so using the ships transporters. The interior of a Sphere consist primarily of an internal curved cylindrical core housing hundreds of catwalks, walkways, hangar bays, pipes and conduits lined with Borg alcoves. Spheres possess a generalised interior design, there are no specific bridge, living areas or engineering sections and due to all drones possessing equal technical knowledge and maintanence capabilities, simply the closest drones to a malfunctioning system are assigned. Disimillar to the design of all other races, Borg vessels typically possess no particular exit or entry hatches from the exterior to the interior of the vessel as the entire ship is essentially open to the vacuum of space. The interior pressure of the Sphere is however maintained by high energy forcefields and structural integrity fields with multiple redundancies.

Combat

Due to their hybrid design the Sphere class vessels also possesses a number of different sub-classes of which are designed to fulfill varying functions, which greatly influences a Spheres combat capability.

Despite the unusual design of using symmetrical geometric shapes, there is also a great deal of logic and many advantages in doing so. Each side is identically armed and armored, denying enemy species the luxury of any directional weaknesses in defenses and blind spots in firing arcs. An additional benefit of the generalised interior design is the aspect of presenting no particularly beneficial and specifically vulnerable targets of which enemy vessels may focus attacks upon. As a result of the vessels highly decentralized design and endless redundencies the ships vital functions may be run from any part of the ship, resulting in a Borg Sphere being capable of remaining operative even after taking substantial damage.

Scout Sphere

Primary Function: Star System Charting and Transwarp Conduit Mapping

The Spheres primary function is mapping Transwarp Conduits and charting uncharted space. With its extensive array of sensors the Sphere may also scan planets, vessels and station however it will avoid engagement.

Whilst these Spheres themselves are not dedicated combat platforms like the Cube. Typically lacking the multiple layers of ablative and tritanium armour whilst possessing a mere 10 Borg energy beam emitters and no torpedo tubes on its external surface as its entire armarment this class of Sphere possesses other strengths of which comply with its intended function. This class possesses greatly improved maneuverability over the other classes of Sphere within addition to multiple transwarp drives: allowing it to quickly traverse great distances and maintain a permanent transwarp velocity. Within addition to this the vessel also possesses vastly superior regenerative abilities over the other classes of Sphere due to possessing multiple regeneration matrixes throughout the vessel.

Class modifications:

• Standard adaptive shielding matrix.
• Triple Automatic Regeneration Matrix
• Automated Regeneration Droid Units (ARU's)
• Additional sensor arrays.
• Several transwarp cores.

Long-Range Tactical Sphere

Primary Function: Tactical Engagement

This class of Sphere's function is to engage unassimilated vessels and to determine their offensive and defensive capabilities to their fullest by making full use of the Sphere's rapid adaptivity.In the event the vessel poses a threat to the Sphere it will retreat to be replaced by a Cube.

This class of Sphere is the standard combat platform for the Sphere class, renowned for their resillience via regeneration, rapid adaption capabilities high maneuverability and multiple transwarp cores allowing it to traverse great distances with ease. Due to its reduced size in comparison to the Cube causing a significant decrease in the vessels weapon systems, these Spheres do not rely solely upon unrelenting stength and brute force to overcome their opponents. Utilizing their vast array of additional sensors and rapid adaption multi-spectral shield matrix Borg Spheres are capable of extremely rapid adaption and re-modulation of all weapons and shielding allowing them to quickly nullify almost any attack. When adapted, the Sphere is capable of inverting the vessels incoming phaser fire to a frequency to which the Sphere has already adapted, absorbing the energy using its shield system which is then immediately expelled along the beam back to its source. This class also possesses an external port which may open for the purposes of capturing and entrapping enemy vessels within its internal hangar bay which houses a dampening field and additional tractor pulse emitters. This within addition to the standard tractor pulse allows this class of Sphere to use their advanced technology alone to overwhelm, out-think and overpower any threat which it encounters.

Class modifications:

• High-energy tractor Pulse.
  • Computer Uplink via Tractor Pulse
• Rapid-adaption multi-spectral shielding matrix.
• Standard Automatic Regeneration Matrix
• Automated Regeneration Droid Units (ARU's)
• Additional tritanium hull layer.
• Multiple transwarp cores.
• External hatch accessing an internal hangar bay.

Interior Architecture

Generic Interior

Internal core of a Borg Sphere

Interior corridoors in a Borg vessel filled with alchoves and interfaces.

Drone standing in a Borg alchove.

Central Plexus

Central Plexus within a Borg Tactical Cube

The Central Plexus device is shown in the center of the room

Exposed Borg circuitry inside of the Central Plexus device

Transwarp Chamber

Internal view of the transwarp drive chamber.

An exposed transwarp coil.

Shield Matrix

Internal view of the Shield Matrix aboard a Borg vessel.

onboard facilities maturation chamber, assimilation chamber, hangar bay

Power Systems

The Borg utilize a unique method of powering almost all their on-board systems, maintaining their highly decentralized interior design they do not rely upon a single warp core or such devices in order to solely generate power for the entire vessel. Each vessel generates its own power via power nodes - each device capable of generating an enormous amount of power. Borg vessels however possess hundreds, thousands perhaps even millions depending upon their size and class. These power nodes are spread throughout the vessel collectively producing a sufficient amount of power which the vessel requires at any given time. Only a fraction are active at any one time with additional redundant power sources located throughout the ship (TNG - Best of Both Worlds) which activate and begin generating power as another power node fails. As their power demands increase as a result of construct additional weapons and alcoves for newly assimilated drones the vessel may construct additional power nodes. Additionally, the method of dispersing their power ouput makes it almost impossible for intruders to sabotage the entire vessels power systems at once, in the event one power node is disabled only the small section which it powers and the devices in that section lose power for 4.8 minutes causing a manipulation effect in the vessels subspace field before another node activates and restores power (VOY - Dark Frontier, TNG - Best of Both Worlds). The only system which does not rely upon power nodes are the transwarp drives which are powered by the transwarp coils themselves.

Weapon Systems

Disimilar to that of all other races, the Borg's weapon systems do not vary from ship class to ship class, all using identical weapons systems utilizing the latest and most efficient weapons from newly assimilated species.

High Energy Disruptor Beams

Sphere firing upon U.S.S Voyager

High-Yield GravimetricTorpedos

Gravimetric torpedoes are torpedoes used by the Borg Collective, the constuction of each torpedo demanding astounding amounts of resources which makes their construction far too costly and unviable to any other race without the advantages of the vast resources of the Borg. The weapon emits an advanced graviton inversion field with a complex phase variance of gravitons to create a gravimetric distortion causing gravimetric shear in its target which causes severe structural damage.

High Energy Tractor Pulse

Borg vessels utilize a High Energy Tractor Pulse (Tractor Beam) which places extreme gravitational stresses on all sides of the enemy vessel simultaniously. The magnitude of the force is tuned precisely to each ship class and vessel, once perfectly tuned the forces are insufficient to crush the vessel however sufficient to completely overwhelm the vessels impulse engines and maneuvering thrusters even if they are set to full-power they will be unable to compete against such forces. The beam also disrupts the vessels warp field, preventing it from escaping using a warp jump.

U.S.S Voyager held helplessly by a Borg Cube

A Borg sphere using a tractor pulse on the U.S.S Voyager.

A Borg Sphere holding U.S.S Voyager.

Defense Systems

Internal Defense Systems

Crew

One of the Spheres greatest defensive features is its enormous crew compliment, responding immediatly to malfunctioning systems or ship damage of any kind, subsiquently healing and repairing any damaged drones essentially allowing the vessel to always operate at 100% efficiency even during pro-longed battles. Whilst Borg drones are capably of responding immediately to enemy boarding parties, they do not typically do so unless specifically instructed to, deeming enemy boarding parties to be of no threat to the vessel whilst sorrounded by hundreds of thousands of drones and prevented from escaping by means of transporters as a result of the Borg's multi-adaptive shield matrix.

Automated Regeneration Units

Another relatively small however extremely effective defensive feature of a Borg vessel are small spherical droids named Automated Regeneration Units, these droids speedily roam the sub-sections, shafts and conduits of Borg vessels, repairing all technology and imperfections in the tritanium infastructure within the ship adding additional response time and causing the ship to quite essentially maintain itself and its own systems.

Multi-Regenerative Security Fields

These fields are emplaced within Borg vessels to protect the most vital technology from harm, preventing all forms of transporter attacks and preventing biological and technological matter from passing through however they are typically not activated until a threat has already been detected on-board. Borg drones may however walk freely through these fields.

Auto-Destruct Sequence

All Borg vessels are equipped with an auto-destruct sequence which intentionally overloads the primary power systems and detonates all on-board torpedo warheads resulting in the instant destruction of the vessel. The auto-destruct sequence also intentionally sabotages all of the vital Borg technology on-boards such as the transwarp coils (VOY - Dark Frontier).

External Defense Systems

External Borg ship design follows a pattern of foregoing shields as a primary defensive measure in favor of relying upon extremely strong, resistant and regenerative hull armour.

Regenerative Hull Armour and Ship Systems

The exterior hull armor of all Borg vessels and stations have the capability of regenerating quickly and constantly, granting an enormous boost to survivability in pro-longed battles. The exterior of the Spheres hull is covered in all pipes and conduits which act like blood vessels and capillaries transporting type 03 and type 04 nanoprobes to the damaged areas, healing much like a biological body would. The creation and distribution of the nanoprobes are goverened by the ships equivilent of a heart, the Automatic Regeneration Matrix.

Tritanium Shape Memory Alloy Hull

Borg vessels are constructed entirely out of tritanium shape memory alloy which when the regeneration process engages, re-aligns itself to its original configuration, playing a significant role in the regeneration process.

Ablative Hull Armour

As Borg vessels rely upon their hull armor to survive, the entire outer hull layer is comprised of Ablative Armor, which possesses the capability of dispersing particle weapons fire, granting extraordinary protection and resistance to even the most powerful energy weapons.

Adaptive Shield System

Whilst the Borg do not use shielding as a primary means of defense, Borg vessels do possess shielding for the purposes of propulsion, internal security and as a second line of defense. Adaptive Shielding casts an extremely low power force-field around the exterior of the Borg vessel which samples each particle beam which passes through. This data is recorded by the Adaptive Shield Matrix which records and remodulates the vessels primary shield grid to the counter-frequency of the opponents weapons, allowing Borg vessels and stations to become immune to that particular weapon frequency.

Shielding

Unlike the majority of the other species in the Galaxy, the Borg do not shield their entire vessel inside of a single bubble extended around the vessels exterior, Instead, they cast their shielding across their hull, re-enforcing it. This is done by dividing the external surface area in-to grids, each grid possesses its own shielding known as shield grids (VOY - Unimarix Zero). This method possesses several benefits, firstly due to the shielding covering a much smaller area, its strength is far greater, this method also allows the drones in each grid to focus upon maintaining and repairing their own grid with greater efficiency than repairing the shielding across an entire vessel. When the shielding of one section is offline, the rest of the vessel may remain shielded and the drones within the damaged grid focus upon repairing their own shield grid as quickly as possible.

High Level Structural Integrity Field

The high level structural integrity field further increases the durability and damage resistance throughout Borg vessels hull and bulkheads which add a further overall increase to the robustness of the vessel itself.

Propulsion Systems

Borg Spheres are capable of rotating in any direction, allowing them to use all of their weapons to their full capacity when needed, allowing for a rapid rate of fire of torpedos and disruptors.

Thrusters

Thrusters are positioned upon the top, bottom and 8 additional angles of the Spheres diamater. Movment is achieved by firing which-ever happens to be the "aft" thrusters in this particular engagement and rotation is achieved by firing one aft side thruster and one frontal thruster.

Warp Drive

The standard warp drive is capable of a maximum speed of 9.98, meaning newly developed Starfleet ship classes such as: Sovereign, Intrepid and Prometheus are able to slightly outmatch the vessel at warp speed.

Transwarp Drive

Structural integrity field allowing the Cube to withstand Transwarp stresses.

Within unison with the Transwarp Hub network maintaining the stability of the Transwarp conduit network, Borg vessels may engage their Transwarp Drive and accelerate to unimaginable speeds, approximated to be twenty times the speed of standard Federation warp speeds, this grants Borg vessels high maneuverabily and quick deployability across the galaxy.

Due to the aero-dynamicly perfect design of a Sphere the Borg may use a significantly less powerful structural integrity field around the external surface of the vessel strengthening the vessels structural integrity enough to withstand the extreme gravametric forces which the vessel encounters when travelling at transwarp velocity.

Theoretical Clarification

Internal Volume and size

The statistics regarding internal volume were all speculation stated on ditl.org by its author Graham Kennedy of which I completely agree with using the Borg interior shots as a reference the entire inside of the vessel seems to be a huge void, which begs the question of where the technology like vinculums and the cone shaped core we see on First Contact are?

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Power Usage

"the vessel saves a great deal of power which is re-routed in-to other more vital systems such as weapons and shields"Speculation based on observation, never seen a turbo lift or staircase in a borg ship so they obviously save power which allows them to put it in-to every other system and it's more efficient anyway which the Borg are all for however as the power source for a Borg vessel is a complete mystery the need to save power is questionable.

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Power Systems

All of the data was extrapolated based upon the figured given by Graham Kennedy's ditl.org without his figured I would have been completely at a loss. The explaination of how the systems work are theoretical but entirely plausable in my opinon.

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Holding Beam

"force is tuned precisely"

Logical deduction because otherwise if they used the same force for all vessels every shuttle would have been crushed like a tin can when they used it.

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Exterior conduits and pipes

" conduits which act like blood vessels and capillaries"

Assumption and speculation based upon the well-founded establishment that the Borg use elements of organic design in everything they do, makes perfect sense and explains why the strange conduits should be covering the outer surface instead of a smooth chrome armor like other races do.

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Thrusters

The way I explaned thrusters is once again not strictly proven or stated anywhere but it's the best guess to explain how a Sphere can both move forward and rotate simultaniously,

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