Question: Why do Borg always attack earth with only one single ship? We already know from ST: Voyager that Borg have so many ships in the delta-quadrant that they sometimes attack with 10 or more ships at the same time. Why don't they just send 2 or 3 of their cubes next time? Borg knows that the Federation needed their very last resources and a lot of luck to defeat the Borg Cube last time (Battle of Wolf359). So 2 ships at least should do the job this time. Instead they again send one cube and risk defeat.
Goekhan
1st Jan 2018
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Answer: The Borg don't care that much about Earth, or losing a single cube. They are mostly testing the water before fully expanding towards the Alpha Quadrant. Their space is in the Delta Quadrant and still a long way from expanding into the Alpha Quadrant.
Not entirely true because the Borg queen was on board the cube, and they had a contingency plan to go back in time, making their efforts quite elaborate. They have attacked Earth twice now, because they know about it from the Enterprise (and Q) and plan on conquering it and expand into the Alpha Quadrant. A cube is equivalent to an entire fleet of ships and Picard accurately calls this action by the Borg an invasion (the second one).
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Answer: The Borg think like machines. They have calculated that one cube is enough to conquer Earth so they send one cube. Both times they were defeated because of incalculable events. Both times they didn't have a reason to send more than one cube.
lionhead
This is wrong. Borg do have a big reason to send more than one cube the second time. They know that Locutus (Picard) is there somewhere and can log-in into the Borg hive when Borg are near him. He received visions from the Borg shortly before battle and calculated with this information "unimportant" weak-spots which destroyed the second Borg cube. If someone knows your weak spots and this someone is nearby, then Borgs should be more precautious than last time.
Goekhan
The Enterprise was not at the battle, the Borg knew that, Picard went in against orders and intervened. This time the Borg took more than just a cube anyway, they took time travel with them. They probably had it as a contingency plan.
lionhead
The contingency plan is even more brainless, explaining one plot hole with another one. There is absolutely no need to fly into the earths atmosphere to start their time machine. They could've done it even more safely before entering federation territory.
Goekhan
That doesn't make any sense. They didn't have to enter the atmosphere, I don't even think they did. The sphere escaped the exploding cube and almost immediately opened a vortex. Also, saying that they "could have done it even more safely before entering federation space" is nonsense since they needed to be in federation space for the contingency plan anyway. Nothing safer about it doing it outside of federation space, just takes more time.
lionhead