"We aren’t ready. Not for this."
"To speak of 39 starships and 11,000 lives in the wake of the losses sustained throughout the Dominion War, it’s perhaps easy to become numb to such figures. With the cushioning effect of time, as we move further away from the raw immediacy, the horror slips first into memory and then into myth. We run the risk of forgetting that these are not just numbers — not just statistics, dates, and names, but living beings and members of Starfleet. They had lives and their stories deserve to be remembered and to be told."
— The Author, 2396
We Have Engaged The Borg: The Oral History of The Battle of Wolf 359 is a 500-page fan work by The Wolf 359 Project
. It covers the events preceding, during, and after the Battle of Wolf 359, depicted in the TNG episodes "The Best of Both Worlds" and DS9 "Emissary", in which a Borg cube destroyed a Federation fleet of 40 starships.
Tropes:
- Central Theme: With the amount of in-universe redacted information in the book, which the authors have explained may or may not be related to the ENT episode "Regeneration," the main theme is how intelligence agencies will withhold information from everyone else, even after it has become useful.
- Continuity Nod:
- The main conference room at Starfleet Headquarters is named for the humpback whales George and Gracie.
- Dr. Tolian Soran is among those interviewed, along with an addendum that he was later disgraced when it was revealed he was attempting to destroy stars to get back to the Nexus.
- Boothby, the elderly caretaker at Starfleet Academy, confirms that he is El-Aurian and was on the same refugee ship with Guinan and Soran that the Enterprise-B rescued. He found work at the Academy grounds as a way to repay Starfleet for doing everything they could to save his wife, who died after being transported.
- One section is Liam Shaw's full recollection of the battle, in which a lieutenant picked him out of 50 people to get into an escape pod.
- Dr. Migleemo is referred to as having been assigned to support the Picard family following Jean-Luc's kidnapping and assimilation.
- USS Hood survives because her Chief Engineer weaponizes the plasma coolant to take out most of the Borg drones aboard.
- The Starfleet Admiralty meetings include Owen Paris, James Leyton, and Norah Satie.
- Les Buenamigo was involved in the recovery efforts at Wolf 359, utilizing the 23rd century DOTs to assist. He also casually remarks that he's developing new robotic systems that will help minimize the risk for crews. As the interview took place in 2370, it foreshadows his Texas-class ships.
- One of the ships in the Wolf 359 task force was the Thy'lek Shran.
- Thomas Halloway, the unseen captain of the Enterprise in "Tapestry," is the captain of the (Nebula-class) USS Melbourne and is killed when the ship is destroyed.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The entire Battle of Wolf 359 lasts no more than 30 minutes from initial contact to final ship destroyed.
- Dirty Coward: Admiral Satie balks when ordered to remain on Earth rather than evacuate aboard the Cairo.Satie: I’m a lawyer! What possible use could I be here?
Shanthi: You are needed on Earth precisely because you oversee the interpretation and execution of Starfleet’s policies and legal procedures. Before the president departed, she signed a secret order authorizing certain escalations in the event they became necessary to prevent mass panic. I will need your help properly interpreting what is permitted and what it does not in emergency circumstances. [...]
Satie: Then you can consult a computer database! You don’t need me to die to tell you what law and regulation say!
Shanthi: You are also a Starfleet officer, Admiral! As long as you wear that uniform, you will put yourself to the hazard as required! Am I understood?
Satie: (Stunned Silence) - Godzilla Threshold: Discussed when Ross whips up the Star Killing plan; it is emphasized that even if it's successful and stops the Borg, it will kick out an arms race that will tear the quadrant apart.
- Head-in-the-Sand Management:
- A number of the Starfleet admirals try to play down Hanson's concerns about the Borg, saying that they are over 7000 lightyears away and the Romulans are in between them.
- During the crisis, President Amitra makes a speech declaring that the Federation must negotiate with the Borg, feeling a diplomatic solution is possible. That speech ends up destroying her approval ratings and she is voted out of office in the next election.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- The Chief Engineer of USS Hood and a junior engineer pulled this off to wipe out the Borg who boarded their ship and began to assimilate her and her crew.
- Attempted by Admiral William Ross when he insisted on launching the solar probe himself, knowing it would kill him; as it failed, he survived.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Just as the Klingons were about to authorize sending their fleets to Wolf 359, Duras pointed out that Starfleet had withheld the existence of the Borg from the Klingons in violation of their alliance.
- Monster of the Week: Lampshaded. During the meeting of the Starfleet Admiralty where they discuss the Enterprise's encounter with the Borg, Admiral Shanthi remarks that they don't form strategic policy for every planet killer, crystalline entity, ancient sentient probe, or whatever "monster" one of their ships encounters every week.
- Named After Someone Famous:
- The presidential investigation in the Battle of Wolf 359 was chaired by Admiral Lancelot Holland, who was also the British admiral in command of HMS Hood when she was sunk by the German battleship Bismarck.
- The ship that Admiral Hanson travels aboard to meet the Enterprise is named after Volodomyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian President during the 2022 Russian invasion.
- The Neidermeyer: According to Liam Shaw, most of his superiors aboard the Constance were incompetent jerkasses who despised the lower-deckers and got themselves killed by charging directly at the Borg without any attempt at manoeuvre or strategy. After narrowly surviving the experience, he decided to apply to Starfleet Academy because he recognized that the organization needed better officers who knew what it was like to be a hapless Redshirt.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: President Amitra is a stand-in for Neville Chamberlain, whose use of appeasement with the Nazis ended up tainting how people perceived him after the war.
- Ramming Always Works:
- Admiral Hanson tries to save the Saratoga by remote-piloting the uncrewed Bonestell into the cube's tractor beam emitter. The Borg see it coming and destroy the Bonestell from afar before it can close the distance.
- The Borg (accidentally?) destroy the Endurance this way by flying the partially-assimilated Seleya into it.
- Series Continuity Error: The training ship Republic is depicted as one of the Starfleet ships lost at Wolf 359 in 2367; however, DS9 "Valiant" established that the Republic was not only still active as of 2374, but had not left the Sol system in 50 years. However, in a
Twitter post, the authors clarified that the Starfleet training ship at Earth is always called Republic per tradition. When the ship at Wolf 359 was destroyed, they renamed another ship Republic and that became the new training ship. - Shout-Out:
- In his interview, Data compares the structure of the Borg to the Klendathu Arachani and the Internecivus Raptus.
- Captain Marco Amasov recounts the memorials for historical battles like Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, and Tannhauser Gate.
- Hiroshi Murakami refers to a line she read in childhood: "The sky was full of stars, and every star was an exploding ship."
- The Starfleet shipyard on Ceres is named Dawes Station.
- Star Killing: It is revealed that Starfleet's actual plan was to use a probe to make the Wolf 359 star emit a solar flare or even go supernova in the hopes of destroying the Borg cube. Unfortunately it didn't work, and the 40 starships which were meant to delay the cube long enough for the runabout to do its job had to engage the Borg head-on.
- Theme Naming: For the mission, Admiral Ross is placed in command of USS Rhine, one of the first Danube-class runabouts and, like the ones used on Deep Space Nine, named for an Earth river.
- We lost 11,000 at Wolf 359, but their sacrifice ended up saving us all.
