Rethinking the Borg

[Gaius Marius]

Something always bugged me about the way the Borg is depicted in Star Trek. They have usually shown to be simply interested in assimilating everything worthwhile without stopping, just harvesting everything in the galaxy until there is nothing left to be consumed.

However, there are moments the Borg acts in very... illogical and inneficient way. I mean, sending a single cube for your 2nd Earth invasion?

This is why I propose a new way of having a Borg presence on Galactic Politics:

A core element of the Borg is that they don't develop technologies themselves. They simply capture and assimilate ships and technology, adapting these into their whole consciousness. Obviously, they can put pieces together and optimize stuff easily. Where Race X invented Superphaser Alpha, and race Y invented Hyperreactor Beta, the Borg assimilated both technologies to make them work together, achieving greater power than any specie alone can hope for.

So, since they don't develop technologies themselves, the Borg is quite content to let cultures develop on their own here and there. An assimilated culture is actually a loss to the Collective, since it's a potential technology breeding ground that is lost.

However, the Borg aren't against raiding fortified worlds once in a while just to grab as much new stuff they can. It's even possible they deliberatly reveal their presence to some species so they try to develop high tech stuff to try and defeat them, which only brings more to the Collective.


The Borg thu is some sort of Galactic Overlord, collecting (stealing) technological tribute. Sometime, they even come and scoop-up whole cities in order to increase their drone pool.

They aren't actually interested in consuming everything. They are gardeners of civilizations. Maybe they could even act as protectors to the Galaxy against Tyranid-like invaders.


Give more ideas if you want about it. I just want to give a new dimension to a race I think has been flanderised too much over the years.

[shadow_archmagi]

I really want to imagine the Borg as being more like the Zerg or their precursors, the Tyranids, where they actually adapt to threats on a larger scale than what color their bubbles are.

It'd be really neat to see different borg xenomorphs and combat weapons being deployed to suit the situation. Imagine a dozen somethings like a fusion of a Droideka (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Droideka) and a Headcrab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headcrab) rolling around on the walls of an Enterprise, blasting and infesting as it went.

*sigh*

I never will, though. I never will.

[Parra]

However, there are moments the Borg acts in very... illogical and inneficient way. I mean, sending a single cube for your 2nd Earth invasion?

Supposedly the story originally had a Borg fleet at earth, with only the final one launching the time traveling sphere when the attack had failed. For whatever reason that idea got cut during production.

[Joran]

Gaius Marius,

Have you played Mass Effect? ;)

P.S. I've never understood the "ignore something until it's a threat" part of the Borg.

[GenericGuy]

Gaius Marius,

Have you played Mass Effect? ;)

P.S. I've never understood the "ignore something until it's a threat" part of the Borg.

The reapers don’t care that much about our technology though, given that its mostly just deviations of their own.

As for why the Borg acted “illogical” in regards to ignoring intruders and only sending one Cube to invade the Federation, the Borg are presented as being very arrogant and consider themselves the peak of technological advancement and interspecies unity. They view everyone else as delusional children who will inevitably be added to them. We never see the Borg commit right out genocide because the honestly believe they are doing the species they assimilate a favor. And remember that one Cube in “The Best of Both Worlds” and the movie “First Contact” really did come inches close to succeeding in its goal. It was essentially luck in both invasions that allowed the Enterprise crew to win.

The Borg are best when used sparingly. Make them a distant threat that controls most of the unknown sectors of the Galaxy, and are only just now taking an interest in the Alpha and Beta quadrants (In fact I wanted DS9 to end with the Dominion suddenly finding the Borg in their backyard and retreat from Alpha and Beta quadrant to try and deal with this unknown, to them, threat and lose horribly). The Borg have other larger concerns in the Galaxy and the Federation is perceived as a mere bump in the road that will be dealt with in earnest in a few centuries. After all to the Borg they have all the time in the Universe, why rush?

[averagejoe]

P.S. I've never understood the "ignore something until it's a threat" part of the Borg.

I think it's a risk/reward thing. The whole thing that defines the borg (or, defined. I'm talking as if the post TNG movies/series' didn't happen). Pretty much the whole thing that defines them as a species is having a whole that's dependent on many, many interchangeable, and individually expendable, parts. I would suspect that even the loss of a cube wouldn't be a huge blow to the borg (and those used to be a lot tougher/scarier as well). Even if that which you're ignoring does turn out to be a threat, you have the chance to learn from it and adapt to it without having anything of real importance lost. They can't cut off your hand; they can't even cut off a finger. No matter what anyone does, the "threat" will be fairly insignificant. You fail to take a world, you have thousands more to choose from.

[Tiki Snakes]

The Borg, ah.
I have plenty of my own problems with the Borg. Simply put, however, I think that their increasing woobification is almost an inevitability of their ethos, tactics methods and so on.

The way I see it, they lack quality control or the kind of excellence in concept and design that a society can draw from individual efforts. They are a big, amorphous and unambitious grey mass. They chaotically mash together often conflicting territory and genetic information into one great mess that they then hold up as being infinately greater than any of it's constituent parts.

However, I strongly suspect that the oposite is quite likely true and that all the technologies they have harvested are largely wasted in the mix. Not to mention that any promising line of scientific inquiry is promptly severed the moment the scientists in question are lobotomised into being Borg #321-B and loses everything that made him special in the first place.

The fact that they are pretty uninventive tactically in addition, completely incapable of the subtleties of political and social manouvering that make up such a large portion of meaningful large-scale conflicts and many other factors just leaves me with the basic conclusion that there's no logical fate for them other than the following two;

They make themselves such a blatant threat that they get tag teamed into complete annihilation by every sentient spacefaring race going (or one of the settings all to numerous godlike superbeings).

Or alternatively, they are hoisted by their own petard. Entropy finally has enough, and their genetic distinctiveness harvested from and added to by a million targetted cultures eventually just starts breaking down, combinations causing unforseen defects and/or similar for their technology. I could even, depending on how efficient their ability to share assimilated genetic and technological distinctiveness between the cubes and so on, as they are seperated across space becoming different enough from each other as to no-longer recognise each other as sufficiently borg, creating some kind of mad cannibalistic feeding frenzy.

It just seems a system designed to crash horribly, to me. Perhaps just because of the strange directions my train of thought takes, though. Your mileage will almost certainly vary.

[Coidzor]

Sort of like the drow, the borg do desperately seem to need it.

[McStabbington]

A core element of the Borg is that they don't develop technologies themselves. They simply capture and assimilate ships and technology, adapting these into their whole consciousness. Obviously, they can put pieces together and optimize stuff easily. Where Race X invented Superphaser Alpha, and race Y invented Hyperreactor Beta, the Borg assimilated both technologies to make them work together, achieving greater power than any specie alone can hope for.

So, since they don't develop technologies themselves, the Borg is quite content to let cultures develop on their own here and there. An assimilated culture is actually a loss to the Collective, since it's a potential technology breeding ground that is lost.


Ugh, no. That was something added by Voyager in order to make the plot of Scorpion work. If you watch The Best of Both Worlds Part I again, you'll note that they did not have to assimilate any part of the Enterprise in order to adapt to and defeat the Enterprise's technobabble (IIRC, I believe the phrase was "modulating shield nutation.") What's worse: if they had thought about it a little harder, the writers of Scorpion wouldn't have needed to add that gaping plot hole and thereby nerf the Borg like that. This critique is largely adapted from SF Debris' (http://blip.tv/sf-debris-opinionated-reviews/voy-scorpion-review-part-1-of-3-5014354) masterful review of Scorpion, which I would recommend any Borg or Star Trek fan watch.

Put simply, the Borg have a certain way of thinking: they think big, and they think purely in terms of icy, remorseless logic. The Borg don't care if it costs a million drones to assimilate a species of four or five billion. But by the same token, the Borg aren't going to understand a species that reasons in an entirely different way. Had the Voyager writers developed Species 8472 in a way that makes them vulnerable to quick tactical defeats that Voyager's weapon offered, they could have made the Voyager weapon entirely consistent with canon: the Borg didn't fail to develop it by failing to assimilate it. The Borg considered what would ultimately be the successful option and discarded it because they didn't understand their foe. By bluffing successfully, Voyager could have pretended they had a master anti-8472 weapon while simply using a quick and easy modification of your boring standard nanoprobes.



However, the Borg aren't against raiding fortified worlds once in a while just to grab as much new stuff they can. It's even possible they deliberatly reveal their presence to some species so they try to develop high tech stuff to try and defeat them, which only brings more to the Collective.

The Borg thu is some sort of Galactic Overlord, collecting (stealing) technological tribute. Sometime, they even come and scoop-up whole cities in order to increase their drone pool.

They aren't actually interested in consuming everything. They are gardeners of civilizations. Maybe they could even act as protectors to the Galaxy against Tyranid-like invaders.


Give more ideas if you want about it. I just want to give a new dimension to a race I think has been flanderised too much over the years.

While I don't like your reasoning above, I wouldn't necessarily dismiss this out of hand. The trick would be to make this a means to their stated ends. If you pose the Shadow Question to the Borg ("What do you want?"), the answer you will get is: Perfection. That's why they steal technology: by adding other species' biological and technological distinctiveness to their own, they make themselves more perfect. Now, it might be that on occasion, they will find a species that offers absolutely nothing biologically or technologically distinct to them. If that's the case, then the Borg would likely be uninterested in them, and ignore them if they are not a threat; destroy them if they are. But they may also leave some species alone, or challenge them just enough, to force them to create something distinct about them.

[KillianHawkeye]

Now, it might be that on occasion, they will find a species that offers absolutely nothing biologically or technologically distinct to them. If that's the case, then the Borg would likely be uninterested in them, and ignore them if they are not a threat; destroy them if they are. But they may also leave some species alone, or challenge them just enough, to force them to create something distinct about them.

Yeah, I believe the Kazon from Voyager were later mentioned as not being worth assimilating.

[factotum]

The problem here is, the Borg changed their focus after their first appearance anyway. When the Enterprise first encountered them it was technology they harvested--it only became *people* on subsequent occasions. That, plus the whole gradual decline of their threat (see: Borg Queen and pretty much any episode of Voyager containing the Borg, ever) mean it's hard to recover them now!

Better to invent a new race than to try and rescue the Borg from the wreckage, IMHO.

[Traab]

I see the borg as being not very intuitive, and thats their big weakness. They adapt only when they encounter something new. They dont seek to improve themselves until they encounter something they cant curb stomp. Then, once they can beat it, they stop trying to advance further. With the arrogant attempt to take the federation with a single cube, I see it as more of the borg running a simulation, using the basic knowledge of relative tech levels, and deciding that a single cube is all it would take. They cant account for any inventiveness and out of the box style thought because they dont experience it themselves. They see that the federation weapons cannot penetrate their shields, and dont even consider things like the federation being able to hijack their collective signal and force a shut down. It is just too far outside of the expected to be taken into consideration beforehand.

[deuterio12]

I really want to imagine the Borg as being more like the Zerg or their precursors, the Tyranids

Nitpick, but the nids aren't the first assimilator bug race in fiction. That would be the starship trooper bugs, from which the zergs were based.

Meanwhile nids started as Alien clones. They only become a full assimilation bug race in the 3rd edition of 40K, also by cloning the starship trooper bugs.

[Lamech]

They got a lot worse in Voyager. In Next: Gen, they didn't need to assimilate crap, had decent tactics (when not ignoring things), didn't let tech get captured ect. I mean really a race with RnD in combat as their main tactic can't invent things? Really, Voyager should have hand waved their new nano-probes as "It simple, I just used [piece of random technology voyager had picked up] to add a small [technobabble], field around each nano-probe." For example, something from the caretakers array, or the doctor's holo emitter.

[factotum]

"It simple, I just used [piece of random technology voyager had picked up] to add a small [technobabble], field around each nano-probe." For example, something from the caretakers array, or the doctor's holo emitter.

Yeah, because if there's one thing Voyager needed, it was more technobabble. :smallwink:

[shadow_archmagi]

Nitpick, but the nids aren't the first assimilator bug race in fiction. That would be the starship trooper bugs, from which the zergs were based.

Meanwhile nids started as Alien clones. They only become a full assimilation bug race in the 3rd edition of 40K, also by cloning the starship trooper bugs.

I didn't say the 'Nids were the first ever, only that they were precursors to the Zerg, which, given the multitude of shared fluff between Warhammer and Starcraft, I think it's pretty fair to say that the Zerg drew heavily from the 'Nids in their initial conception, although they've grown apart and evolved since then.

[Kato]

Urgh... too much discussion.

Short and simple: They suffered from woobification. The Bord are pretty much the worst example in Trek, as far as I can recall.
a single cube, big as it may be, was able to annihilate fleets at times yet on other occasions a single ship (Voyager) defeats one deftly, even if maybe the Voyager was able to develop technology helping them to fight Birg soecifically it was still a sign the Borg just used to be much to powerful so they had to be scaled down. Same applies to their technology. I guess we have little proof of it but I don't think the Borg are unable to develop anything on their own, so if they can't even come up with 'we modify our nano probes, our most common technology, to defeat 8472' then it's just so the Voyager could be somehow useful and the whole story could be set up... It's really mostly bad writing which is hard to justify.


As for the Borg being protectors... no. They may not seek to destroy civilizations but they seek knowledge so much and genetic perfection if anything they'd leave all other civilizations crippled and frightened unable to explore space as they wish.

[Prime32]

Urgh... too much discussion.

Short and simple: They suffered from woobification.You're thinking of Villain Decay (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainDecay). A woobie (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWoobie) is a character who goes through a lot of pain and you want to hug.

[Traab]

Urgh... too much discussion.

Short and simple: They suffered from woobification. The Bord are pretty much the worst example in Trek, as far as I can recall.
a single cube, big as it may be, was able to annihilate fleets at times yet on other occasions a single ship (Voyager) defeats one deftly, even if maybe the Voyager was able to develop technology helping them to fight Birg soecifically it was still a sign the Borg just used to be much to powerful so they had to be scaled down. Same applies to their technology. I guess we have little proof of it but I don't think the Borg are unable to develop anything on their own, so if they can't even come up with 'we modify our nano probes, our most common technology, to defeat 8472' then it's just so the Voyager could be somehow useful and the whole story could be set up... It's really mostly bad writing which is hard to justify.


As for the Borg being protectors... no. They may not seek to destroy civilizations but they seek knowledge so much and genetic perfection if anything they'd leave all other civilizations crippled and frightened unable to explore space as they wish.

Its like I said, they lack out of the box style thought, and have no ability to grow outside of running into a brick wall, then hitting that same brick wall over and over until they figure a way through it. Never considering going over, around, or under it instead. Take 8472. The real problem for the borg wasnt that they couldnt assimilate them, it was that they didnt have enough time to keep hammering away at them, "adapting" with every mistake, until they figured out a way to make it work. 8472 was just killing them too fast in every encounter for them to keep rotating frequencies or whatever, until they found one that worked.

Their total lack of innovation is why they didnt already think of the solution of gigantic explosions that toss improved nanoprobes everywhere in the galaxy. (and man was that ever a really bad idea to give something capable of assimilating entire universes from a distance to the borg) Because they arent capable of doing anything with assimilated technology except using it exactly as the original species did. They dont know how to mix and match. "Ok, this species mastered nano technology to an extreme level, this species has weapons capable of dispersing biological material over thousands of light years, lets slap the two techs together and kick some psychic fluidic space alien butt!" Never occur to them.

[Tiki Snakes]

I like to think that it's the rampant assimilation that explains their villain decay, really. It's like the whole Evolution Fallacy.

Which is to say, the Borg make the same assumption about their own assimilation-based Evolution as people make about regular old Darwinian Evolution. Specifically, they both assume that it is a matter of Improving over time, whereas it is only really change over time and can be for the better or worse.

Rampant, uncontrolled mutations may give you heat vision and the ability to walk through walls, but it's no good if it also halves your lung capacity and makes every bone in your body as brittle as glass.

[Yora]

Something always bugged me about the way the Borg is depicted in Star Trek. They have usually shown to be simply interested in assimilating everything worthwhile without stopping, just harvesting everything in the galaxy until there is nothing left to be consumed.

However, there are moments the Borg acts in very... illogical and inneficient way. I mean, sending a single cube for your 2nd Earth invasion?
As good as the movie is, it completely took everything appart that defined the borg up to that point. Then you got the Borg as antagonists in Voyager and nothing of the original concept remained.

[bloodtide]

The Borg never worked out for the simple need to have drama on TV. A mindless/emotionless/non interactive enemy simply has no drama. A TV show needs things for actors to do, and bad guys for them to interact with.

At the first appearance of the Borg, they ignored people all together. That makes for no drama: 'look a Borg', Borg ignores person. So the Borg 'suddenly' notice people and suddenly start acting with more drama. And the Borg just went downhill from there.

[Yora]

I don't think it does. However, it's much simpler to have generic bad guys and make up generic plots than to get creative and have the characters face unusual challenges.

[McStabbington]

The Borg never worked out for the simple need to have drama on TV. A mindless/emotionless/non interactive enemy simply has no drama. A TV show needs things for actors to do, and bad guys for them to interact with.

At the first appearance of the Borg, they ignored people all together. That makes for no drama: 'look a Borg', Borg ignores person. So the Borg 'suddenly' notice people and suddenly start acting with more drama. And the Borg just went downhill from there.

Erm, there are many words I would use to describe "Q-Who" and "The Best of Both Worlds". "Without Drama" is basically the opposite of most of them.

Actually, the real problem is simply that they were too tough for writers to work with. As written in those two episodes, any solution will only kill a part of them and it will only work once. If First Contact had involved a fleet of, say, 30 Borg Cubes, one would have to marvel if the Federation could have destroyed 3 or 4 of them before they reach Earth.

[Yora]

I think the borg make for excelent one-shot villains, but are difficult to use as a reoccuring threat.

In their first appearance, Q showed them that there is a danger which they have barely any chance to survive, but he choses to at least tell them beforehand since he enjoys them so much.
Then you have the borg heading for earth, and the enterprise is forced to try to stop them, as the price for failure is just too high.

But after that, it becomes more difficult to come up with good plots. The borg don't want anything that they can't take from your corpses, they don't negotiate and they can't be intimidated. The only meaningful way of interaction is sneaking in and hoping not to be noticed, but there is no good reason to do that unless you want to sabotage the ship and blow it up. Which might work once, butthen that's exhausted as well. Maybe evacuate some people from a ship or station that is currently dismantled by borg who have no need for more drones, but that's it.

The borg are great to discover and to understand what they are. That's a great story. But it's a lot more difficult to continue on that. Even in TNG they turned to such plots like a rogue drone or a rogue sub-collective hijacked by lore, which both aren't exactly cases of standard borg behavior.
It's a great concept, but difficult to work with.

[GloatingSwine]

P.S. I've never understood the "ignore something until it's a threat" part of the Borg.

You ignore the bacteria in your body unless they make you ill.

That's the scale the Borg operate on. Individual fleshbags wandering around in a cube are of absolutely no interest unless they actually do something.

[Ravens_cry]

I never liked the retcon of the Borg Queen always been there. I like the idea of the Borg being this mass impersonal collective with no central point. They are the Borg. There is no I, no me, only Us.
It made them much, much creepier for me. There was no central villain, scheming in a villainous way, they simply were, a true hive.
It also repeated a common biological error as the queen of an ant colony is more akin to ones genitals than a true ruler.
My personal fanon was that she, the 'Queen', was an experiment in centralized leadership after the successes with Locutus at Wolf 359.
If the Voyager encounters are any indication, the experiment was a big collective failure.

[Malimar]

However, there are moments the Borg acts in very... illogical and inneficient way. I mean, sending a single cube for your 2nd Earth invasion?

In fairness to the Borg on this count, a single cube did wipe out most of Starfleet. Twice. At the Battle of Wolf 359, they blew up most of Starfleet and were only defeated by a fancy trick abusing Locutus's connection to the collective consciousness. Presumably, the Borg plugged this hole the second time around, and then were only defeated by Picard's insider knowledge at the Battle of Sector 001 after, again, blowing up most of Starfleet.

It would have been illogical and inefficient for the Borg to spend any more resources than they needed to. A single cube was demonstrated to be more than enough to take down all of Starfleet; why waste more than one at a time on a milk run like assimilating Earth? The Earthlings don't have power, they have the ability to come up with tactics that negate power imbalance. More power won't solve that, so it's safer to send one cube at a time until Starfleet has run out of new tactics.

And note that, to my knowledge (I don't think I've seen 100% of the Borg episodes of Voyager), Voyager did keep the Borg at the same level of strength. Voyager never took down a Borg Cube on its own until the very last episode, when they used a combination of at least three different technologies from the future to take down a little bit of Borg infrastructure.

---


In their first appearance (Q Who): Q throws the Enterprise-D at the Borg without a care in the world, using them for no other purpose than to taunt Picard. They care only about assimilating technology, not people. Drones are born, not assimilated. The Collective is completely decentralized.
In their second(-ish) appearance (Best of Both Worlds): They use an apparently one-time process to assimilate a single individual human (Picard) for a specific purpose.
In all subsequent appearances: They make a habit of assimilating individuals like it ain't no thang. The Collective is centralized in the form of the Borg Queen.
In a much later appearance (Q2): Q tells his son, "If the Continuum has told you once, they have told you a thousand times: DON'T PROVOKE THE BORG!".


Most people seize upon the "they were after technology, then they suddenly decided to be after both technology and biology" difference, but the "Q is all like 'come at me bro', then later is all like 'don't provoke the borg!'" difference strikes me as more important.

My personal theory: some time between Q Who and Q2 (probably between Q Who and BoBW, or at least not long after BoBW), the Borg somehow manage to assimilate a Q (presumably in some non-nanite-related way). (Bear in mind that Q's position is that the Q are not omnipotent so much as that, technologically, the Q are to humanity as humanity is to ants.)

Q and the rest of the Continuum hadn't realized this was possible until it happened, so their DON'T PROVOKE THE BORG policy was only instituted immediately after the incident in question.

This assimilated Q is what we refer to as the Borg Queen. With her awesome mental powers, she seizes direct control of the Collective and shifts its goals and modus operandi to suit her own inscrutable purposes. She doesn't try to assimilate the entire Q Continuum, perhaps because the Q start defending themselves much better (their overconfidence being the only reason the Borg managed to assimilate one in the first place), or because she doesn't want the competition for control of the Collective.

The Borg don't become noticeably more powerful when she joins up, either because they're already so powerful that the addition of a Q's "omnipotence" is just a drop in the bucket, or because the Q Continuum manages to strip her of some of her powers (A capacity they demonstrate at least one or two occasions).

Some (though not all) objections to this theory:
1.) The Borg were retconned to have been assimilating individuals all along. E.g., Seven of Nine. But my theory doesn't hinge on the change of tactics, so it's okay that the tactics were retconned to not have changed.
2.) If the Borg were really that terrified of Species 8472 because of their nanite immunity, why not just use the presumably non-nanite-related technique they used to assimilate a Q (who are presumably also immune to nanites)? This is answerable: the Queen banned any further use of this ability because she didn't want any competition for control of the Collective. She would rather see the Collective destroyed than lose control of it, but she would rather make a deal with Voyager than see the Collective destroyed.
3.) In First Contact, the Borg Queen claims to have been "at" the Battle of Wolf 359. It could just be that she was assimilated between Q Who and BoBW, or she could have been assimilated afterwards and was only "there" in the sense that she has effectively become the Collective, and the Collective was there. Either way, not really a problem.

---

If the above theory is correct, consider this possibility:

Future!Janeway destroyed Unimatrix 01 and completely destroyed the Queen herself by infecting her directly with the neurolytic pathogen, in a way that the Queen won't come back from. The surviving Borg revert to their old, pre-Queen culture, concentrating on assimilating technology rather than individuals, but willing to assimilate individuals. Willing, even, to assimilate things using the non-nanite-based system, now that the Queen's prohibition on it is lifted.

What happens when the Borg expand into Dominion territory? They'll easily overcome the Dominion's defenses. What happens when the Borg assimilate the Great Link? Liquid Borg that can take any form, that's what happens. The Federation (still in ruins after the Dominion War) has to ally with the tattered remnants of the Dominion to try to take down this even more powerful Borg threat.

Meanwhile, peaceful communication with the Dominion and careful investigation of the incident of In The Pale Moonlight reveals to Romulan forensic experts that it was a fake (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qKcJF4fOPs), so diplomatic relations between Romulus and the Federation collapse altogether, and the Federation has to fight a war on two fronts. The Klingons and Cardassians are ruined after the Dominion War, and they're not keen to ally with the Dominion, and almost less keen to ally with the Federation once the ItPM incident comes to light, so they stay out of it entirely or even side with the Romulans.

Enterprise-E loads up with all Section 31's data on the Founder plague and the Federation's foremost experts on Borg and Founder physiology and psychology (Picard, Bashir, Tuvok, maybe a handful of other crewmembers from DS9 and Voyager), takes on a Dominion observer (Weyoun! or else Odo, but consider also the possibilities of assimilated!Odo as BBEG), and sets off on its own through the wormhole into the Gamma Quadrant to try to stop the Borg. The Federation may be gone by the time they get back, but there won't be anything left at all if the Borg get there.

That's a series I would watch forever. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ContinuityPorn)

[Lamech]

In their first appearance (Q Who): Q throws the Enterprise-D at the Borg without a care in the world, using them for no other purpose than to taunt Picard. They care only about assimilating technology, not people. Drones are born, not assimilated. The Collective is completely decentralized.Pretty sure they always assimilated people. Picard-drone IIRC, was talking about things like raising the standard of living and assimilating everyone. So assimilating tech and taking people generally had two different purposes: when taking tech they improved resources, when taking people they improved lives. And finally there were some exceptions when people needed to be assimilated; to steal battle plans, or if they suddenly were low on drones, and probably similar deals.

IMO, the borgs next tactic for invasion of the alpha quadrant should have been "Hello we are the Borg. We offer eternal life and a high standard of living. Please let us help you." Would have been great if it wasn't for the suddenly losing all innovation that got introduced in voyager. I suppose those are probably the mirror universe version of the Borg.

[Yora]

I never liked the retcon of the Borg Queen always been there. I like the idea of the Borg being this mass impersonal collective with no central point. They are the Borg. There is no I, no me, only Us.
It made them much, much creepier for me. There was no central villain, scheming in a villainous way, they simply were, a true hive.
It also repeated a common biological error as the queen of an ant colony is more akin to ones genitals than a true ruler.
My personal fanon was that she, the 'Queen', was an experiment in centralized leadership after the successes with Locutus at Wolf 359.
If the Voyager encounters are any indication, the experiment was a big collective failure.
The strength of the entire concept was, that you couldn't talk to anyone. That you would have to have an antagonist for a movie might have been an accurate observation, but that pretty much single handedly removed the defining aspect of the whole species.

[Malimar]

IMO, the borgs next tactic for invasion of the alpha quadrant should have been "Hello we are the Borg. We offer eternal life and a high standard of living. Please let us help you." Would have been great if it wasn't for the suddenly losing all innovation that got introduced in voyager. I suppose those are probably the mirror universe version of the Borg.

But remember (regardless of whether or not you think the concept is realistic) that the Federation is, canonically, already a post-scarcity utopia. Replicators mean nobody needs to work for a living and nobody wants for anything, medical science has cured virtually all diseases, and humans routinely live well into their 100s (more than long enough to get bored). What can the Borg offer that's better than what you already get for being a Federation citizen?

[Ravens_cry]

The strength of the entire concept was, that you couldn't talk to anyone. That you would have to have an antagonist for a movie might have been an accurate observation, but that pretty much single handedly removed the defining aspect of the whole species.
Pretty much, yes.
Those long, still views into the heart of the cube with only the voice of the legion answering was much freakier than a bald lady with bad skin who was into fetish wear.
A sexy bald lady with bad skin who was into fetish wear perhaps, but I digress.

[Traab]

I think voyager was able to kill a borg cube or two on their own over the course of the series. Im actually glad for species 8472, because if we didnt get that arc, we would have gotten "Year of Hell 2.0" as voyager reels from battle to battle trying to make their way through borg space until we got the kess macguffin to save the day again.

[Ravens_cry]

Except the Deus Ex Kes part, that is how it should have been, as the Delta Quadrant is where the Borg came from, or at least where they were when Q brought Picard over for a visit.

[McStabbington]

The problem here is, the Borg changed their focus after their first appearance anyway. When the Enterprise first encountered them it was technology they harvested--it only became *people* on subsequent occasions. That, plus the whole gradual decline of their threat (see: Borg Queen and pretty much any episode of Voyager containing the Borg, ever) mean it's hard to recover them now!

Better to invent a new race than to try and rescue the Borg from the wreckage, IMHO.

Watch Q-Who again. Just before they encounter the Cube, the Enterprise comes across a system that's just been assimilated. Where there should be cities, there's just great big rips in the crust. The population isn't mentioned, but they don't try and talk with anyone, which suggests they aren't there any more. While they don't explicitly say it, there's nothing in Q-Who that is inconsistent with the idea of assimilating people in addition to technology.

In point of fact, the closest the early references come to some kind of inconsistency in the Borg's assimilation process is explaining why Ben Sisko wasn't assimilated after escaping from the Saratoga at Wolf 359.

[Eakin]

You ignore the bacteria in your body unless they make you ill.

That's the scale the Borg operate on. Individual fleshbags wandering around in a cube are of absolutely no interest unless they actually do something.

If I had the ability to direct my body on a cell by cell level, and a particle that looked kinda like Ebola floated by, you can bet that I'd nuke the $#!& out of it without asking too many questions

[Traab]

Except the Deus Ex Kes part, that is how it should have been, as the Delta Quadrant is where the Borg came from, or at least where they were when Q brought Picard over for a visit.

The problem with that is you cant run the same arc over and over again with a different face on the bad guy and keep it interesting. And yes, the delta quadrant is the borgs home. The other problem with doing a "year of hell" is that it would have taken WAY longer than a year to get through borg space. Combined with the fact that there is NOTHING in borg space but borg, so no place to gather supplies, no safe harbor to make hasty repairs, and no hope of survival since the borg are way stronger than the kazon were. It was a death trap, with no real options other than to go for it, because it would have taken decades to skirt around the borders of borg space iirc.

That in fact, was the whole point to the borg/voyager alliance, janeway knew they had no hope of getting through borg space in one piece, she had to accept the alliance and pray it held in order to get to the other side safely. They would have died of old age trying to go around borg territory instead of through it, and would have died from massive explosion or assimilation if they tried to sneak through it.

Year of Hell worked with the kazon because they were weaker than voyager, but more numerous, so they could keep pecking away at the ship, like taking a hatchet to a 1200 year old redwood. It will take awhile, but eventually you can bring it down. On the other hand, a single borg cube is a death match for voyager, and as has been mentioned, each special solution voyager could come up with to squeak a victory would only work once. Eventually they would run out of tricks, or be overwhelmed by a dozen cubes, tired of all the narrow escapes.

[Malimar]

If I had the ability to direct my body on a cell by cell level, and a particle that looked kinda like Ebola floated by, you can bet that I'd nuke the $#!& out of it without asking too many questions

Do the Borg have the ability to direct their Collective on a drone by drone level? I don't know that I would necessarily assume that to be the case, though I don't know that I would definitively say it isn't.

[Joran]

Year of Hell worked with the kazon because they were weaker than voyager, but more numerous, so they could keep pecking away at the ship, like taking a hatchet to a 1200 year old redwood. It will take awhile, but eventually you can bring it down. On the other hand, a single borg cube is a death match for voyager, and as has been mentioned, each special solution voyager could come up with to squeak a victory would only work once. Eventually they would run out of tricks, or be overwhelmed by a dozen cubes, tired of all the narrow escapes.

I'm pretty sure Year of Hell was the Krenim, the time race, and not the Kazon. That made the huge reset button at the end of it easier.


You ignore the bacteria in your body unless they make you ill.

That's the scale the Borg operate on. Individual fleshbags wandering around in a cube are of absolutely no interest unless they actually do something.

Well, except that I normally have bacteria in my body. As far as I know, armed Starfleet away teams are not a standard part of a Borg Cube.

[Traab]

I'm pretty sure Year of Hell was the Krenim, the time race, and not the Kazon. That made the huge reset button at the end of it easier.



Well, except that I normally have bacteria in my body. As far as I know, armed Starfleet away teams are not a standard part of a Borg Cube.

Opps you are right, my bad, I honestly forgot exactly what happened with all that mess. I knew they got hit with a reset button of some kind, but I always get the races mixed up. Especially since the krenim never showed back up in the series after those episodes. And even the kazon only were a factor in the first two seasons.

As far as the bacteria thing goes, yes, you always have bacteria in your system, but you have no way of knowing if HARMFUL bacteria is there until it makes you sick. What I gathered about the borg was, they generally run like a complex computer program. The drones have their assigned duties, and a set of imbedded commands that take effect when specific things happen. If they are attacked, if they register something being stolen from them, that sort of thing. Trying to micromanage trillions of beings to the level of near independent thought would be rather difficult.

Use the matrix as an example. Morpheus and crew are able to enter the program at will, and wander around doing whatever they want without being noticed. That is, until they either bend/break the rules of the program, or use one of the matrix phone lines to connect with their ship outside of the program. That triggers a response and agents are sent out to kill them. Now, the matrix is supposed to control everything, so technically, just being SEEN by someone in the program should be enough to trigger an agent attack, and yet it isnt. Why? Because that level of micromanagement isnt possible, or isnt efficient enough to be worth doing all the time.

[Yora]

Watch Q-Who again. Just before they encounter the Cube, the Enterprise comes across a system that's just been assimilated. Where there should be cities, there's just great big rips in the crust. The population isn't mentioned, but they don't try and talk with anyone, which suggests they aren't there any more. While they don't explicitly say it, there's nothing in Q-Who that is inconsistent with the idea of assimilating people in addition to technology.

In point of fact, the closest the early references come to some kind of inconsistency in the Borg's assimilation process is explaining why Ben Sisko wasn't assimilated after escaping from the Saratoga at Wolf 359.
I think it's a matter of efficiency. You don't warm the assimilators up just to produce 500 drones. When you're the borg and want to create a new supply of drones, you think big scale, like entire planets.
When I have to ants in my house, I don't call the exterminator, it's not worth the trouble. It's when I have a whole hive in my kitchen that I start thinking about large scale solutions. When they encountered the Enterprise, they took a sample for studying, and continued on their way. The enterprise by itself just doesn't have enough raw materials and people to bother about processing it.

[Tiki Snakes]

As far as the bacteria thing goes, yes, you always have bacteria in your system, but you have no way of knowing if HARMFUL bacteria is there until it makes you sick. What I gathered about the borg was, they generally run like a complex computer program. The drones have their assigned duties, and a set of imbedded commands that take effect when specific things happen. If they are attacked, if they register something being stolen from them, that sort of thing. Trying to micromanage trillions of beings to the level of near independent thought would be rather difficult.


It's not about micromanagement or conciously directing your constituent parts to repel unwanted intruders.
It's about having, say, the Borg equivalent of white-blood-cells.

[Parra]

the Borg equivalent of white-blood-cells.

I often wondered about that myself, you would think that some species the Borg have encountered before have beamed onboard with the intent to sabotage and that the Borg being the adaptive critters that they are would have a more active countermeasure.

Even if by some fluke the Feds were the first ones to try this, they have done it so many times by now that you would think there would be a defence in place against such incursions.

[Traab]

It's not about micromanagement or conciously directing your constituent parts to repel unwanted intruders.
It's about having, say, the Borg equivalent of white-blood-cells.

Wasnt the entire point to the crew being able to wander through the cubes supposed to show the total lack of regard for the potential threat the federation posed to the borg? "Come on in! We dont care since you cant possibly hurt us anyways. Even if you did, big deal, there are 50 billion more cubes where this one came from." Hell, you could make a case for each CUBE being a white blood cell.

*EDIT*


Even if by some fluke the Feds were the first ones to try this, they have done it so many times by now that you would think there would be a defence in place against such incursions.

Isnt that what happened alot? The crew would make their first foray into a cube to scout it out, something happens that gets the borgs attention and they escape. They come back with a plan to win and this time the drones are already coming for them? Constant reminders of limited shots before the borg become immune, desperately trying to hold the drones off long enough to enact whatever zany scheme they came up with this time, then escaping with an emergency transport at the last second.

[Parra]

Isnt that what happened alot? The crew would make their first foray into a cube to scout it out, something happens that gets the borgs attention and they escape. They come back with a plan to win and this time the drones are already coming for them? Constant reminders of limited shots before the borg become immune, desperately trying to hold the drones off long enough to enact whatever zany scheme they came up with this time, then escaping with an emergency transport at the last second.

Not quite, I think in pretty much every encounter the Borg ignored the intruders until they did something. Like access a data node, blew up a power conduit, worf got trigger happy etc
I think there was maybe 1 episode of voyager where it was a trap, but that was a unique situation cause the Brog Queen was involved

[McStabbington]

It's not about micromanagement or conciously directing your constituent parts to repel unwanted intruders.
It's about having, say, the Borg equivalent of white-blood-cells.

Yes, but white blood cells are very discriminatory in what they target; you've got all kinds of bacteria in your gut that white blood cells simply will not touch. Good thing, too: not only do those bacteria actually help rather than hurt, but when white blood cells stop being very discriminatory, the usual result is one or more auto-immune disorders. So even granted that the comparison between a Borg drone and a cell of a body is apt, it doesn't follow that the Borg would automatically attack anyone who boarded. I imagine they probably do a quick scan of any boarding party, conduct a quick threat assessment, say to themselves "Okay, this group doesn't have anything that we've seen before that could seriously damage the function of the ship", and from that point on just ignore them until their original assessment is proven wrong.

The Borg do have an Achilles heel in that they'll always let you try to get one good punch in before they adapt. I think you could also argue that if First Contact does anything right, it's show that if you throw enough firepower at them, some will get through simply by overwhelming their defenses. But it's a rare punch, or sustained series of punches, that can knock out even one Cube. So, it's still a very effective strategy.

[Arcane_Secrets]

It's not about micromanagement or conciously directing your constituent parts to repel unwanted intruders.
It's about having, say, the Borg equivalent of white-blood-cells.

As a related question, I've often wondered why the Borg didn't come out with aerosolized nanoprobes. They'd make assimilating planets a lot easier, and Borg cubes a lot more difficult to attack because you'd need to find some way to block the probes with energy or some other means to keep them from just assimilating/penetrating space suits and such.

[Traab]

As a related question, I've often wondered why the Borg didn't come out with aerosolized nanoprobes. They'd make assimilating planets a lot easier, and Borg cubes a lot more difficult to attack because you'd need to find some way to block the probes with energy or some other means to keep them from just assimilating/penetrating space suits and such.

Isnt that what their weapons do to planets they bombard? You see a shockwave from point of impact and it all gets mechanical or something?

[Joran]

As a related question, I've often wondered why the Borg didn't come out with aerosolized nanoprobes. They'd make assimilating planets a lot easier, and Borg cubes a lot more difficult to attack because you'd need to find some way to block the probes with energy or some other means to keep them from just assimilating/penetrating space suits and such.

Too much energy to maintain? Although, the Doctor dreamed the Borg had developed them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQo0fBzMO8Y

[No brains]

One thing I would like to see is the Borg tolerating some free-thinking creatures and making embassies where individuals can submit to the collective.

If the Borg are smart and individualism is a problem for them, they should exploit its flaws to their gain.

[Ravens_cry]

One thing I would like to see is the Borg tolerating some free-thinking creatures and making embassies where individuals can submit to the collective.

If the Borg are smart and individualism is a problem for them, they should exploit its flaws to their gain.

Do you create an embassy for bacteria? Negotiation is irrelevant.

[No brains]

Do you create an embassy for bacteria? Negotiation is irrelevant.

Ah, but bacteria do not choose, and bacteria choosing has not been the downfall of the collective time and again!

Suppose the Borg went to the Feds under peaceful terms to create the embassy for those who choose to become one with the collective? Starfleet couldn't just zap them unless they fly in the face of all their treasured 'ethics'. Defectors from all the races of the Federation could bring along any tech they possessed, creating a steady flow of new drones and technologies for the Borg to assimilate. Entire cultures that value respect for the society over the individual could vanish with no casualties and draw no ire from the worst threat the Borg have ever faced. (Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri's Human Hive is a prime example)

Negotiation is relevant; resistance is not futile.

[Ravens_cry]

How old exactly is Borg? As a collective organism, it is certainly much, much, older than individual 'cells', the drones.
What is on our time scale "time and time again", is merely an acute infection by the standards of the Borg.
As stated earlier, my personal fanon is that the 'Queen' is something like this, she did negotiate with Janeway after all, and look where it got them, drones and ships subverted and turned against them, like, from their perspective, a virus taking over a cell, and the Unicomplex destroyed.

[Lamech]

One thing I would like to see is the Borg tolerating some free-thinking creatures and making embassies where individuals can submit to the collective.

If the Borg are smart and individualism is a problem for them, they should exploit its flaws to their gain.Well you see, the borg have done that. In the Mirror Universe. The normal borg are the evil twins of mirror borg. And like the evil twins of thee mirror universe, they continue to follow a path that mirrors the normal universes history, but some how evil without any other major changes, despite it not making sense how that would happen.

The borg in the normal ST universe, are doomed to be the evil twins of the borg in the mirror universe, which prevents them from being effective.

[Eric Tolle]

I would just like the Borg to stop acting like total idiots (http://www.angryflower.com/borg27.gif).

[Hopeless]

I often wondered about that myself, you would think that some species the Borg have encountered before have beamed onboard with the intent to sabotage and that the Borg being the adaptive critters that they are would have a more active countermeasure.

Even if by some fluke the Feds were the first ones to try this, they have done it so many times by now that you would think there would be a defence in place against such incursions.

Unless of course the Fed had the advantage that everyone else realised the insanity of what they were facing and turned tail and run for the hills as fast as they could before the Borg noticed them...

Yes it could also mean the Borg was wondering why this race wasn't running in the first place and took time to try and figure out what they were doing boarding the Cube... perhaps from the Collective viewpoint they thought... "what the h**l is that?!"

[Winterwind]

Honestly, I think the Borg cannot - or at least, should not - be explained or analyzed with logic and reason, because they are the prime example of what I've come to consider as one of Star Trek's main downfalls: Excessive anthropocentrism.

By which I mean that, like very many stories and things in Star Trek, they exist solely to demonstrate how superior humans and human ways are. They are a hivemind, so obviously they must be evil, incapable of creativity, and keep doing stupid and inefficient things, just to demonstrate how superior human individualism is. Anything that deviates from human norms is inevitably shown as bad - be it Vulcan lack of emotions or the Borg hivemind - because at some point, Star Trek's creators decided that rather than merrily speculating how different alien life could be and approaching these differences with respect, showing that alien cultures might be totally, totally different from ours in ways we know couldn't possibly work with humans, but work just fine for said aliens - you know, as self-respecting speculative fiction should - it would be better to instead just keep patting the audience on the shoulder and embrace the completely anti-science-fiction notion that anything that's not exactly like us must inherently be inferior and bad.

That's why the universe will always bend backwards to ensure the Borg are presented in the worst light possible. Yes, it might be logical for them to do X, but then they wouldn't appear to be inferior in every way (except their technology) than humans, so they will do Y instead. It has nothing to do with consistency or anything at all connected with the Star Trek universe, for that matter, it's purely meta-reasons related with the message the writers want to send, therefore discussing why the Borg would do Y rather than X is pointless - they don't do it because it's the Borg thing to do, it's because it's the thing that proves human superiority.

Or at least, that's how I view it. :smallwink:

[Traab]

Ah, but bacteria do not choose, and bacteria choosing has not been the downfall of the collective time and again!

Suppose the Borg went to the Feds under peaceful terms to create the embassy for those who choose to become one with the collective? Starfleet couldn't just zap them unless they fly in the face of all their treasured 'ethics'. Defectors from all the races of the Federation could bring along any tech they possessed, creating a steady flow of new drones and technologies for the Borg to assimilate. Entire cultures that value respect for the society over the individual could vanish with no casualties and draw no ire from the worst threat the Borg have ever faced. (Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri's Human Hive is a prime example)

Negotiation is relevant; resistance is not futile.

Except joining the collective means giving up all knowledge on your race, its scientific and military secrets, (if you know them) and even just logistical targets. (Hey, I may not be president, but I know where he lives) In other words, you instantly become a traitor to the federation because now a foreign power knows all this stuff about it. Its not like applying for citizenship with canada. So...... no. The federation would not just say, "Sure, go ahead and join them!" Or at least, it would only allow certain people to run off and join the borg. No scientists, diplomats, military personel, etc etc etc.

[Gaius Marius]

The idea I proposed is fairly close to what some of you mentioned, about an Embassy. The point is, the Borg can come up with contingency through experience of challenges or develop technologies through assimilation. They won't develop entirely new technologies themselves for lack of individual creativity, overly optimal design (no weakness to overcome) and lack of attention of small-scale details.

Plus, if you let your subject-race develop the techs themselves, you don't waste energy on the R of R&D. The Collective can focus on applied use of these theorical discoveries.

Have some of these subject race be hostile to you so you can still develop new weaponry. For the others, shower with specific gifts/curses so they feel safe enough to develop other stuffs.

Have embassies and propose a program of assimilation of volunteers, to be part of the Whole. Only aggressively assimilate when you are in a bad need of drones.

Otherwise, make sure you are the top dog and that you still have plenty of ressources to build your fleets. You become the galaxy-scale military/economic feudal ruler of a thousand cultures adapted to your service.

In short, the Borg has already WON. They tease with the Federation just so the Fed tries harder to come up with new goodies. They like the Fed because they already pool the resources of hundred of worlds without oppressing cultural identity like the Cardassians, Romulans or Klingon.

They are the overlords of the Galaxy, and harvest covilizations's progresses like a beekeeper harvest honey. Like a good Shepard, they protect their herd and takes down the disruptive elements, breeding their best studs.

[jidasfire]

This may be a bit scattershot, but I have a lot of ranting about how the Borg were handled after Best of Both Worlds, which is probably the last time we should have seen them, based on later portrayals.

For one thing, I've never liked how the Borg became cybernetic bees. The whole concept of a hive-mind is just a metaphor, yet they made it painfully literal. For this reason, I never liked the Queen, though I will say that Alice Krieg portrayed her about as well as could be done. Personally, I think the Borg work better as an intelligent virus, which fits what they do a lot better than bees. Bees just hang out in their colonies and leave to get food for the queen so she can have more babies. A virus, on the other hand, infiltrates everywhere it can, changing everything around it and usually consuming its host until it or the host dies. They evolve and adapt too. They're basically a virus of the galaxy, and as such, they shouldn't be able to be reasoned with, despite their intelligence. The Borg also shouldn't be evil. They are incredibly dangerous, but they're just obeying their nature, with no greed or malice or misguided idealism involved.

Even at their best, the Borg were inconsistent as far as whether or not they'd attack ships, as opposed to civilizations. They went after the Enterprise fast enough during their first encounter. I know the logic is that they don't waste time, but they're powerful enough when compared to other space-faring races that it wouldn't generally be that much effort for them to capture a ship, assimilate the crew, study their tech, and then go for their homeworld. It's just strange that a race whose literal only goal is the assimilation of all life are so oddly lazy about how they do it.

The Borg also got way too wimpy by the end, when Janeway and company could just pop a dozen cubes by themselves. At that point, they really should have just been retired, though I suppose they have.

[Traab]

I disagree with the virus talk. If they were like a virus, then they wouldnt be connected. There wouldnt be any plan beyond spreading their infection. No rhyme or reason for when where and how they attack. I liked the borg queen idea. I liked it because it provided the borg with a focus, a reason for them to WANT to spread out. If there wasnt a single voice that could command, then they would be total scatter shot as a species as dealing with a collective mind would involve constant arguments over what the next plan should be, as trillions of voice all clamor to be heard. Without that central intelligence, the borg would be destroyed because they would be hopelessly ineffectual against all but the weakest races, which means they wouldnt get very strong off the few people they could conquer in their random helter skelter roaming across the cosmos.

[jidasfire]

I disagree with the virus talk. If they were like a virus, then they wouldnt be connected. There wouldnt be any plan beyond spreading their infection. No rhyme or reason for when where and how they attack. I liked the borg queen idea. I liked it because it provided the borg with a focus, a reason for them to WANT to spread out. If there wasnt a single voice that could command, then they would be total scatter shot as a species as dealing with a collective mind would involve constant arguments over what the next plan should be, as trillions of voice all clamor to be heard. Without that central intelligence, the borg would be destroyed because they would be hopelessly ineffectual against all but the weakest races, which means they wouldnt get very strong off the few people they could conquer in their random helter skelter roaming across the cosmos.

But that would just make the Borg another evil empire, which, frankly, the Star Trek universe already has enough of, between the Romulans, the Cardassians, and the Dominion. The Borg are a unique foe because they aren't subject to rules of either war or negotiation, not to mention the fact that they are utterly alien in the way they think. I highly disagree that they'd be all clamor without the Queen, because they existed before that idea was around and they were plenty focused. They aren't a bunch of voices, they're one voice together, with one mind. They win because they steal, they adapt, and they replenish, and as a result, they're the best of every species they assimilate. Perhaps the virus analogy isn't perfect, but I still think it's a better one than bees.

[Eledragon]

Except the Deus Ex Kes part, that is how it should have been, as the Delta Quadrant is where the Borg came from, or at least where they were when Q brought Picard over for a visit.

I know this was posted long ago, but I actually disagree. I personally own a comic that quite obviously explains where the Borg come from, as well as the Queen. they, in fact, come from the Alpha Quadrant and were released by Kirk himself. if you want more info, ask.

[McStabbington]

I know this was posted long ago, but I actually disagree. I personally own a comic that quite obviously explains where the Borg come from, as well as the Queen. they, in fact, come from the Alpha Quadrant and were released by Kirk himself. if you want more info, ask.

. . .Which completely contradicts the Voyager episode "Dragon's Teeth", where it was said that the Borg had assimilated a few star systems about 900 years prior, indicating that the Collective had existed long before Jim Kirk. Ordinarily, I might not have a problem ignoring what Voyager had to say about the Borg, but this was actually one of their best episodes.

[Eledragon]

. . .Which completely contradicts the Voyager episode "Dragon's Teeth", where it was said that the Borg had assimilated a few star systems about 900 years prior, indicating that the Collective had existed long before Jim Kirk. Ordinarily, I might not have a problem ignoring what Voyager had to say about the Borg, but this was actually one of their best episodes.

hm.

it may not be the start of the borg, then, but I am quite certain that this is the origin of the Queen. I can't remember her name, but she was entombed...or something...with her lover-turned-hater, which somehow managed to destroy the world....I don't know, it was a bit confusing. but she was most certainly the Queen.

[McStabbington]

hm.

it may not be the start of the borg, then, but I am quite certain that this is the origin of the Queen. I can't remember her name, but she was entombed...or something...with her lover-turned-hater, which somehow managed to destroy the world....I don't know, it was a bit confusing. but she was most certainly the Queen.

Well, the Queen is basically the first thing I would put on my chopping block; my goal would not be so much to "re-think the Borg" so much as "resurrect the Borg of Q-Who and BobW". But the episode itself didn't say anything about the Queen. So maybe one could square that circle by saying the Queen didn't develop until later.

I suppose if one has to have Queen, or if one isn't into Canon Discontinuity (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CanonDiscontinuity), one could say that there isn't one Queen so much as many Queens, each with a certain personality that the Collective feels will be beneficial given its current set of conditions. Existential threat like Species 8472? Activate the Warrior Queen. Threat eliminated? Activate the Builder Queen to put our shattered population back together. It's less like some kind of hive and more like creating an AI with a very precise set of preferences, and letting the AI choose on its own.

[Winterwind]

The Queen was obviously intended to provide an actual villain with a face and the ability to voice their point of view for the movie. What it actually did, in my opinion, was instead diluting the core concept of the Borg - non-individualism - and greatly diminished their uniqueness by distancing itself more from the original concept of all of them thinking as one.

So, yeah, I see what they were going for with this, but it ended up being a horrible concept, in my view.

[Prime32]

I know this was posted long ago, but I actually disagree. I personally own a comic that quite obviously explains where the Borg come from, as well as the Queen. they, in fact, come from the Alpha Quadrant and were released by Kirk himself. if you want more info, ask.

hm.

it may not be the start of the borg, then, but I am quite certain that this is the origin of the Queen.Nope, it was the origin of the Borg. However, Star Trek: The Manga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Manga) is not canon (and questionably a manga). The novels (ghost-)written by William Shatner where Kirk is a Mary Sue who beats up the Borg by himself and Borg cubes are larger than Jupiter are closer to canon. But obviously still not canon.

[hamishspence]

The "Shatnerverse" novels have a very different portrayal of events compared to the rest of the "Star Trek Expanded Universe".

The "Star Trek: Destiny" trilogy fits in better with the rest of the Trek EU- and has its own explanation for the Borg.

[Malimar]

From what I understand, the Star Trek EU is conceptually different from most other EUs.

Examples:
100% of the Star Wars EU is official canon, albeit a lower level of canon than the movies, and everything in the EU is equally canonical.
Nobody can agree on how canonical the Doctor Who EU is, but the various authors at least sometimes try to keep it consistent.

But the Star Trek novels, comics, and games are more like lots of different EUs than one single continuity. Every author's work is more or less consistent with the TV shows and movies, but no two authors make much effort to stay consistent with any of the other authors.

[Joran]

Honestly, I think the Borg cannot - or at least, should not - be explained or analyzed with logic and reason, because they are the prime example of what I've come to consider as one of Star Trek's main downfalls: Excessive anthropocentrism.

By which I mean that, like very many stories and things in Star Trek, they exist solely to demonstrate how superior humans and human ways are. They are a hivemind, so obviously they must be evil, incapable of creativity, and keep doing stupid and inefficient things, just to demonstrate how superior human individualism is. Anything that deviates from human norms is inevitably shown as bad - be it Vulcan lack of emotions or the Borg hivemind - because at some point, Star Trek's creators decided that rather than merrily speculating how different alien life could be and approaching these differences with respect, showing that alien cultures might be totally, totally different from ours in ways we know couldn't possibly work with humans, but work just fine for said aliens - you know, as self-respecting speculative fiction should - it would be better to instead just keep patting the audience on the shoulder and embrace the completely anti-science-fiction notion that anything that's not exactly like us must inherently be inferior and bad.

That's why the universe will always bend backwards to ensure the Borg are presented in the worst light possible. Yes, it might be logical for them to do X, but then they wouldn't appear to be inferior in every way (except their technology) than humans, so they will do Y instead. It has nothing to do with consistency or anything at all connected with the Star Trek universe, for that matter, it's purely meta-reasons related with the message the writers want to send, therefore discussing why the Borg would do Y rather than X is pointless - they don't do it because it's the Borg thing to do, it's because it's the thing that proves human superiority.

Or at least, that's how I view it. :smallwink:

The reason why the Borg are presented in the worst light is because the Borg is a complete anti-thesis to the Federation. The Federation believes in freedom, individualism, and self-actualization. The Borg are anti-freedom and anti-individualism; it's rightly so that the Borg are viewed with absolute horror.

Still, there was a slightly positive viewing of the Borg in the Voyager episode "Unity", where a mini-collective of Borg were freed from the overall Collective and the drones started to reassert their individuality. With such a mish-mash of cultures, warring factions formed and fought amongst themselves among all of the survivors. A group of the drones, led by a human, force Chakotay to reactivate the collective. The warring ends, but it's a hive mind now.

P.S. I wouldn't say anything non-human is shown to be bad. Frequently in Star Trek, life and intelligence is found in new and strange places. Things like the Horta, Wesley Crusher's nanites, the exocomps, Data, and the Doctor are all recognized as sentient species.

Vulcan, Klingon, and Bajoran cultures are treated with respect.

Star Trek does frequently resort to cliches and shortcuts like "The Planet of Hats" and "Rubber Forehead Aliens", because of constraints in an hour-long television show. Also, Star Trek likes to use the setting to explore contemporary politics and society, like the episode with the people who are white on one side and black on the other. This is frequently the case in sci-fi shows and often the Federation is shown to be on the wrong side, or at least a very morally gray side.

[Arcane_Secrets]

The Queen was obviously intended to provide an actual villain with a face and the ability to voice their point of view for the movie. What it actually did, in my opinion, was instead diluting the core concept of the Borg - non-individualism - and greatly diminished their uniqueness by distancing itself more from the original concept of all of them thinking as one.

So, yeah, I see what they were going for with this, but it ended up being a horrible concept, in my view.

I wonder if perhaps they could've done better if instead of a Borg Queen that clearly looks and acts more human than most Borg, they could've gone with a modified drone that more accentuated just how different the Borg are from everything else in the galaxy? It'd look slightly different each time, remember past encounters, but still speak in the standard flat Borg affect without showing any actual emotions (unlike the Borg Queen, which often seemed capable of anger), so on.

[Lamech]

I wonder if perhaps they could've done better if instead of a Borg Queen that clearly looks and acts more human than most Borg, they could've gone with a modified drone that more accentuated just how different the Borg are from everything else in the galaxy? It'd look slightly different each time, remember past encounters, but still speak in the standard flat Borg affect without showing any actual emotions (unlike the Borg Queen, which often seemed capable of anger), so on.They already were able to get a force to the borg. Locutus. Could have had something similar with the queen. Also I note the enemy doesn't even need a body. It just picks whatever drone it wants.

[jidasfire]

P.S. I wouldn't say anything non-human is shown to be bad. Frequently in Star Trek, life and intelligence is found in new and strange places. Things like the Horta, Wesley Crusher's nanites, the exocomps, Data, and the Doctor are all recognized as sentient species.

Vulcan, Klingon, and Bajoran cultures are treated with respect.

Star Trek does frequently resort to cliches and shortcuts like "The Planet of Hats" and "Rubber Forehead Aliens", because of constraints in an hour-long television show. Also, Star Trek likes to use the setting to explore contemporary politics and society, like the episode with the people who are white on one side and black on the other. This is frequently the case in sci-fi shows and frequently the Federation is shown to be on the wrong side, or at least a very morally gray side.

Most of what you say is true, although humans, and human emotion in particular, are always shown to be the best thing in the galaxy. Vulcans in particular have suffered from this. Despite being a race that cast aside war through logic, becoming pacifists with superior mental, physical, and psionic abilities, they have become in most recent appearances smug jerks at best, cold-hearted obstructionist villains at worst, and let's not even start on the absolute destruction of the species in the recent movie. Even Spock, arguably the noblest Vulcan (only half-Vulcan, I know), is still constantly told how wrong his silly beliefs are by humans who trust their guts, and we're often expected to agree.

As for Klingons, despite their entire society being founded on honor, they are shown to have an incredibly corrupt government, and this is after they become "good guys." It's also notable that members of a martial society that has evolved with natural body armor and super-strenth can be taken down by a good right hook from an average Federation officer. Again, Worf, the noblest and most skilled Klingon, was basically a punching bag for villains on TNG, though he got a bit more respect on DS9.

In truth, I think the problem stems from too many writers without enough of a unifying idea, because I'll grant that the Federation is all about inclusiveness and respect in theory, but the series as written often don't portray things that way.

[Traab]

About the queen, perhaps they should have stuck with a seven of nine style interaction. Select a drone at random to pass on the will of the collective. Its not a ruler of the borg, just a voice outside of the echoing boom of a chorus speaking in unison. It seems to me, speaking from a computer side of things, to be a more efficient method of interacting with the voyager crew. This way you have one drone, an infinitesimal speck of the collective, focusing on voyager, while the rest of the collective is busy doing the other 70 billion actions per second that take place across the quadrants.

[hamishspence]

From what I understand, the Star Trek EU is conceptually different from most other EUs.

Examples:
100% of the Star Wars EU is official canon, albeit a lower level of canon than the movies, and everything in the EU is equally canonical.
Nobody can agree on how canonical the Doctor Who EU is, but the various authors at least sometimes try to keep it consistent.

But the Star Trek novels, comics, and games are more like lots of different EUs than one single continuity. Every author's work is more or less consistent with the TV shows and movies, but no two authors make much effort to stay consistent with any of the other authors.

Early on, yes, but recently, much more effort has been put into creating a coherent narrative- so now there is one major "Trek EU" and a few minor ones, mostly older.

[H Birchgrove]

I know this was posted long ago, but I actually disagree. I personally own a comic that quite obviously explains where the Borg come from, as well as the Queen. they, in fact, come from the Alpha Quadrant and were released by Kirk himself. if you want more info, ask.

The Borg Queen is in fact Ilia, the Deltan who was consumed by V'Ger in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", right? :smalltongue: