In the Voyager episode "Unimatrix Zero" we meet one of Seven's Unimatrix friends called Laura who claims she was a Starfleet officer that was assimilated at the battle of Wolf 359.

However, from the TNG episode "Best of Both Worlds, part II" we also know that the one and only Borg cube that took place in the attack was eventually defeated and destroyed.

So, my question is: Assuming that Laura was indeed truthful about being assimilated at Wolf 359, then how did she end up in the Delta Quadrant?

  • Borg cubes presumably include scout ships. – Valorum May 24 '18 at 20:17
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    Presumably, but we don't see any on "Best of Both Worlds". – Rebel-Scum May 24 '18 at 20:22
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    "You think in such three-dimensional terms." – ApproachingDarknessFish May 24 '18 at 20:52

The very short answer is that we don't know. She wasn't the only Wolf 359 survivor to end up in the Delta Quadrant. There were at least two others that we know of, and presumably many more given the various Vulcans, Bajorans and Klingons seen on Borg ships.

We know that Borg Cubes sometimes contain secondary ships like the sphere seen in First Contact and we know from Voyager that even small borg ships can access transwarp. The most likely explanation is that the Cube, as well as heading purposefully toward Earth was also picking up samples (via assimilation), then loading them onto scout ships to be packaged up and sent back to the Delta Quadrant for further study(?) and to be used as forced labour on their ships.

As you can see from this still from VOY: Collective, the Borg don't just assimilate people, they also assimilate their ships and presumably re-purpose them as slave transports. This would go some way to explaining how their home planet has 50 trillion inhabitants.

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    I like your last point - in all the chaos at Wolf 359, the Borg might easily have made off with one of the Federation ships. – Harry Johnston May 24 '18 at 22:21
  • Might also explain what happened to the Queen, assuming it was the same one. She finds lots of lovely new samples and decides to get them back home while the rest of her ship goes ahead with the dangerous battle. – Lightness Races in Orbit Aug 16 at 16:25

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