Cooperation & Ohniaka III-significant Historical Dates, Holidays
As was discussed in a previous article, "xBs are not unfamiliar with their societal, melancholy-laced days of remembrance." The following section details those holidays in greater length and detail, as they heavily rely on Ohniakan III historical events.
CUBESFALL
One such day of memorialization is known as “Cubesfall,” marking the date of the Progenitor xBs’ crash landing on the Starfleet-outposted Ohniaka III in 2368 when Cube 5219’s submatrix collapsed (and subsequent death of its Queen 49). It is a holiday less to do with “celebration” as more as it is “remembrance,” as Cube 5219’s fall to the planet’s surface was anything but gentle. As are standard Borg cubes, there are typically 5,000 drones within each vessel; out of the Cubesfall wreckage, only 1,265 survived, and 2,957 immediately died upon impact. As is evidenced by the count inconsistency to 5,000, Cube 5219 also suffered a great deal of internal loss even before this crash due to self-induced shutdowns and other unfortunate consequences of singularity, as none of the present drones onboard were mentally equipped to handle the blinding concept of individuality quite yet.
While Cubesfall is observed out of historical respect and used as a time of reflection and communal grief for the pain de-assimilation can bear for non-Progenitors, the date is much more haunting, bitter, and laced with grief for the inception “generation” of xBs that include Executive Director Hugh and Junction Horus. While these Reclaimed celebrate the beauty that is their individuality every day, it did not come without the terrible, horrific cost of leaving the security of the Collective, and nowhere did I see this ache more plainly than when I observed the emotional fog that settled over the Capitol on this date.
If you visit Ohniaka III, reader, I encourage you visit the Memorial to Queen 49- a simple, pointed needle that rises 50 meters from the earth with a blossoming Ohniakan tree at its base, surrounded by massive pylons inscribed with the numerical designations of every lost drone from Cube 5219 in xB script. The plaza stands a sentinel-like guard outside the ruins of Cube 5219; if you do visit this site, please do so respectfully, in silence, and in the awareness that the memory, the echo that the ill-fated Queen (and Cube 5219’s deceased drones) still exists with every still-living xB in some form. While xBs have nothing but disdain for the demiurges that bend the Collective to their will, Reclaimed undoubtedly mourn the Collective’s base-instinct’s victims, and Queen 49 was no exception in her self-immolation and violent rejection of self.
RECONSTITUTION
Despite Cubesfall’s grievous nature of remembrance, it is my delight to report that the Reclaimed do not limit their historical dates of significance purely to wistful, ache-tinged nostalgia. One such celebration is the three-day period of “Reconstitution;” the period marked as the first time, after 10 Ohniakan III years, the Progenitors reached out to the cosmos after their tempering within individuality, and “reconstituted” themselves both inside and out.
Note: Reconstitution, I believe, requires historical context, and while I will cite historical sources in more detailed Federation Archives, I shall briefly recount its history for you here to understand Reconstitution’s significance.
Events, Figures Relevant Leading to Reconstitution
Prior to this event, the years of 2368-2378 marked a time of self-incubation and isolation for the Progenitor xBs; to lay the groundwork for their society, research their own selves on this new homeworld, and temper their interactions with each other before daring to turn their eyes to the stars again. Much of this period was spent in construction, laying the germinating seeds for their society, and understanding what they were after the Enterprise-D had resupplied them with parting goods and power. They had been manipulated by external forces and individuals before, and did not want to fall sway so easily to another outside, tyrannical influence again (be it by the Collective, or the influence of the Soong-type ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇).
But this 2378 opening of galactic communication did not come from a purely explorative drive, as much as it was also an emergency hail. The Progenitors, having exhausted Cube 5219’s resources and Borg-specific power reserves, experienced a crises in the form of mass cortical node expiration and energy depletion, threatening the entire population that their medical junctions had no cure for and required outside resources and intervention.
Despite initial hesitancy, an emergency hail was finally broadcast to the Federation; a decision based upon their history and previously-benevolent interactions with the Enterprise-D.
While Starfleet scrambled to try and offer an answer of what could be done (and volunteers could be scrounged for such an "off-putting" mission as an emergency request to aid dying former Borg), the USS Voyager had returned from the Delta Quadrant just over a month prior, and its photonic lifeform Emergency Medical Hologram Mk. I (also colloquially known as simply "The Doctor") had been searching for further service and purpose. Leaping at the opportunity thanks to his familiarity with Borg-related procedures, this EMH (with the assistance of Seven of Nine, xB sympathizers, and other former Voyager personnel) were given a task force of a Hiawatha and Akira-class starships to Ohniaka III under "Operation House Call," where he and a crew of 328 performed varying levels of 1,227 Reclamation Procedures in 78 hours and follow-up vaccination efforts in collaboration with Progenitor medical advisors.
(Note: this numerical reduction from the original 1,563 survivors of Cubesfall were fatalities from either ▇▇▇▇▇ presence on the planet 10 years ago, suicide, or pre-Reconstitution cortical node failure.)
By the xBs' and Federation’s combined efforts, resupply, and ingenious research, they solved the plight of the cortical node expiration, creating ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇, so that xBs no longer had to live in fear of this technological, Collective-inflicted failsafe.
Post-Reconstitution, Results
Reconstitution resulted in the “shot in the arm” Ohniakan life desperately needed, as I’ve been told by xB historians, and from there life on the xB homeworld only flourished further. The following year cemented Reconstitution’s celebratory nature, as it also marked the signing of the “Ohniakan Accords of 2379” in San Francisco's Starfleet Headquarters. This not only recognized Ohniaka III as the xB homeworld in the eyes of Federation maps, but also the “Liberated Borg Cooperation” as an individual (allied) entity, and the “Reclamation Project” as its humanitarian, space-faring extension (as Starfleet is to the United Federation of Planets). A risky move for the time, considering the tumultuous political strain the Romulan Star Empire was experiencing and their renowned hostility towards Borg/synthetic life; but in a 2390s retrospect, hindsight certainly proves favorable.
Today, Reconstitution is celebrated in the form of increased xB Reclamation Procedure signups, revelry, “partying (as much as a society of former drones can party- which is to say very much so, surprisingly enough),” and overall peace and celebration among xBs. Much like Cubesfall, while younger xBs do not take to it with as much personal history as the Progenitors do, they bask in a time assigned to celebrating the other, and how far this fledging society of theirs has come.
For more information regarding Cubesfall and the following years' Reconstitution, recommended reading includes "Mercy of the Colossus: the Early Political History of the Liberated Borg Cooperation (2378-79)."
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