The Borg don’t spark, either. I think it’s because they have a lot of on-board electronics that have to run from fairly beefy internal power supplies. Borg units have to function outside of broadcast power range.
Federation phasers, tricorders, things like that are probably mostly solid state with embedded power supplies; the power conduits are probably etched directly into the components at the molecular level. There’s no empty space in a coms badge; it’s all solid tech. Like modern cell phones, only even less componentized. In TOS, they physically modified phasers and such to make them do other things; by the time of TNG, they just reprogram them.
But mainly, the Borg a) have no sense of aesthetics, so they can just cobble together whatever tech without regard for making it look nice, and b) individual Borg are disposable. Wires hanging off to get caught on stuff and ripped out, causing an individual to malfunction or function at reduced efficiency - preventing that is not as important as growth. Borg are fungible, not unique individuals with value. Lose one, another takes its place.
The Federation values individuals, and they want to look damned good while they’re doing their thing. So: streamlined, sleek, compact, safe, and reliable.
And yet the Borg have wires; what do they know that we don’t?
The Borg don’t spark, either. I think it’s because they have a lot of on-board electronics that have to run from fairly beefy internal power supplies. Borg units have to function outside of broadcast power range.
Federation phasers, tricorders, things like that are probably mostly solid state with embedded power supplies; the power conduits are probably etched directly into the components at the molecular level. There’s no empty space in a coms badge; it’s all solid tech. Like modern cell phones, only even less componentized. In TOS, they physically modified phasers and such to make them do other things; by the time of TNG, they just reprogram them.
But mainly, the Borg a) have no sense of aesthetics, so they can just cobble together whatever tech without regard for making it look nice, and b) individual Borg are disposable. Wires hanging off to get caught on stuff and ripped out, causing an individual to malfunction or function at reduced efficiency - preventing that is not as important as growth. Borg are fungible, not unique individuals with value. Lose one, another takes its place.
The Federation values individuals, and they want to look damned good while they’re doing their thing. So: streamlined, sleek, compact, safe, and reliable.