Editing Borg (section)

==Spacecraft==

Borg vessels were highly decentralized, with no discrete bridge, living quarters, or engineering section. Each ship was collectively operated by its complement of drones, under the general direction of the [[Hive Mind]]. Owing to the Collective's disregard for art, the architecture of Borg ships took the form of basic shapes such as [[Borg Cube|cubes]] and [[Borg Sphere|spheres]]. (TNG: "Q Who")

Each Borg spacecraft was equipped with a [[Vinculum]] to interconnect its crew, which was in turn connected to a [[Central Plexus]] that linked the ship to the Collective. (VOY: "Infinite Regress", "Unimatrix Zero") In addition to [[Warp drive]], vessels were fitted with transwarp coils that could achieve even greater speed by opening transwarp conduits. (TNG: "Descent"; VOY: "Dark Frontier") When critically damaged or otherwise compromised, a Borg ship would self-destruct to prevent outsiders from studying [[Borg]] technology. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II"). However, USS Voyager encountered several damaged Borg vessels, notably including the cube carrying Icheb, Mezoti, Azan and Rebi, and a sphere carrying a transwarp coil, which Voyager stole. (VOY: "Collective", "Dark Frontier")

That the Borg seem to have changed their attitude toward destroying damaged ships was not explained. It may have simply been a change in general policy between the last encounter in TNG and Voyager's first. Alternatively, the Borg may have felt more comfortable allowing damaged vessels to limp home within the [[Delta Quadrant]], much of which is Borg space, and virtually devoid of major threats. A specific rationale for the cube carrying the Borg children (which was critically damaged) may be because they were released from their [[Maturation Chamber]]s early, and did not have the complete set of protocols and capabilities full drones would implement.