Borg

Discussion in 'General Trek Discussion' started by David F. Weisma, Jun 6, 2012.

  1. T'Girl

    T'Girl Vice Admiral Admiral

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    It hard to respect slavery. I never have bought into the "collective" thing, the majority of the Borg are slaves, pure and simple. If they actually were a collective, think of it this way, if you went to a penitentiary and told the prisoners that they were in change now, that their collective were completely running things, the first thing they would do is free themselves.

    And so would the Borg majority, certainly the newly assimilated. The fact that he accepted the whole collective BS, shows Picard having one of his idle-minded periods.

    After Picard and Seven that's impossible. They did show that Picard had psychological problem after only a few days with the Borg. Seven's problems were more protracted with her ingrained Stockholm syndrome, they never completely separated her, not really.

    But would the nanoprobes cure the Jem'Hadar of their addition? Or perhaps they could produce the white as well.

    :)
     
  2. Temis the Vorta

    Temis the Vorta Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I mean, writers respecting the Borg as characters, not the audience respecting the Borg as if they were real beings.

    VOY managed it. I was thinking in particular of one episode where the EMH turned everyone into Borg to infiltrate the Collective and then medically de-Borged them at the end of their mission. Yeesh. That sort of thing must never happen again - turning the Borg into a joke.

    That would be a clever adaptation of the Borg, wouldn't it? I could forsee a fun arms race between the Dominion and the Borg, with the galaxy as the prize. :D
     
  3. Gary7

    Gary7 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Cynics Corner put it quite aptly:

     
  4. David F. Weisma

    David F. Weisma Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    The only reason I brought in the Ferrengi is because they would be the most likely to help the Borg organize some sort of cult, if it were profitable, and not worry about things like the Borg increasing their numbers until they could once again try and assimilate all intelligent life. On the other hand, the Dominion might work better. The Ferrengi might just get themselves exterminated.

    I agree that defeating the Borg shouldn't have been so easy, but we have to start with what went before, and only a few scattered ships being left. Or do we?
     
  5. Enterprise is Great

    Enterprise is Great Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'm only aware of the origin of the Borg from the Destiny trilogy. I don't think it's been ever covered elsewhere.
     
  6. -Brett-

    -Brett- Vice Admiral Admiral

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    What sales boost would the Borg bring? For the casual audience, maybe, but that crowd doesn't read the books and never will. The book crowd are hard core Trekkies who are, by and large, sick to death of the Borg and regard their extinction as an "about damn time" sort of thing.

    Trumpeting the return of the Borg, loud and proud would lead to more groans and eye rolling than anything else.
     
  7. Temis the Vorta

    Temis the Vorta Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Ah, the Cynic's Corner...:rommie:

    Thanks for reminding me of the Borg Queen's TV set and how utterly hilarious it was that she'd have a TV set.
     
  8. Alrik

    Alrik Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I can understand where you are coming from. Considering how things ended up playing out, your analysis is pretty spot on. However, if TPTB could have/would have portrayed the Borg in the way that they were originally conceived, it would have been brilliant.

    In concept, the Borg were supposed to be insectoid, going hand in hand with a true worker/drone collective/hive mind. By Q Who they knew they didn't have the budget to convincingly bring the Borg to the screen as insectoid, so instead, we got what we got. Fortunately TPTB held true to the ideal of the hive mind operating as one, and just how menacing the prospect of going up against it is.

    Although BOBW is one of my favorites, I must admit that it did a lot to deflate the idea that the Borg were this unstoppable menace. Why would the "ultimate user" need a talking head. There wasn't going to be negotiation when they got to earth. Why would the need a former human to help to 'facilitate' the assimilation of earth. (Trust me, I know the answers for both in universe and real world. ;) )

    Contrary to what some others think, I didn't feel that I Borg completely diminished the overwhelming threat that had been the Borg. It held true to the idea that the drone, as long as it was in contact with the collective, was controlled by the collective. However, it did introduce the possibility for individuality. Not good.

    Descent really didn't do anything one way or the other. It just expanded on the idea that Borg could become individuals. Like I said, not good.

    The nail in the coffin for the Borg being the ultimate Trek villain came as a result of my favorite TNG movie, First Contact. I get that most hives do have a queen but, no matter how enjoyable it was to watch, the execution of how the queen was portrayed sealed the deal for the rest of Trek. If she would have be portrayed as the embodiment of the Borg's ruthlessness and cleverness, that would have been one thing. But by having her be a overly horned up seductress, just set the tone from that point on.

    If the Borg are ever re-introduced, much in line with what Temis said, the best bet would be to return to the original concept and stick to it.
     
  9. Edit_XYZ

    Edit_XYZ Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    The mysterious, impossible to negotiate to menace gets old quick. If the writers had stayed with that portrayal of the borg, the borg would have become one-note boring.
    Any player that is shown repeatedly needs to be developed for it to stay interesting; horror shows are, ultimately, repetitive and stale.


    Invincible: in Dr Who, it's the daleks - invincible malevolence; and yet, their purpose in the show is to be defeated.

    The same is true about the borg - their purpose is to be defeated; if the writers actually wrote the borg winning, killing billions, eventually assimilating the entire federation - this would get depressing, old, real quick; Battlestar Galactica is more up-beat than this.

    Which means the borg must be made to have chinks in their armor. Why? Because, realistically, a species with the attributes of the borg would curbstomp the federation easily if it knew how to use its abilities to their full potential. No amount of clever tricks would change this, regardless of their cleverness; especially with the borg having the magical ability to become utterly immune to anything tried against them before.
     
  10. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    yup-that pretty much says it.


    Either the Borg can only be used once or twice and retain their scariness, or they get used more and more, but inevitably become less scary, more run of the mill villains.
     
  11. Oblivion165

    Oblivion165 Ensign Newbie

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    Why are the borg supposed to be gone now?
     
  12. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    the Trek books ended the Borg Collective in the "Destiny" trilogy.
     
  13. Gary7

    Gary7 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    There are several interpretations of the Borg origins. See the Wikipedia entry (Borg_(StarTrek)).


    I like to think of it as a nano-machines gone wrong. As technology progresses and humanoids seek to refine and extend life, every person is injected with nano-machines that "borrow" resources from the body, as well as payloads of raw materials delivered via the ingesting of pills, to do various beneficial things for the host. Those machines go about the body, eliminating flaws/cancers and actually improving DNA encoding. But one day, an anomalous change in collective programming occurs in one person (who happens to be a brilliant scientist) and the nano-machines develop a heuristic capability. The goal of "perfecting the body" is adjusted to incorporate machine technology with human physiology, using the copious scientific information of the host individual who had fanciful dreams of a one day creating a cybernetic being, but was never serious about it. The nano machines turn that dream into reality, even going so far as to begin rewriting the programming of the brain to interface with other machines. And then, with the realization of how teamwork would be far more effective, the nano machines create a means of transferring some of them to another human host to repeat the process. And thus, the Borg Collective is born.

    You can never completely get rid of the Borg. The nano machines can lay dormant anywhere, virtually undetectable. And then, all they need is a host to accidentally come into contact with them (might be a child who finds a Borg body among some scout ship wreckage on a remote stretch of land), infecting the host and then beginning the process all over again.
     
  14. horatio83

    horatio83 Commodore Commodore

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    That's a nice Asimovian explanation but I think the Borg work better if you do not know whence they came. First because you keep the mystery, second because there is something terrifying about an enemy you do not understand and who seems to have been around forever (of course not literally but when you can say the Borg emerged in the year XYZ you feel as if you are more in control even if this knowledge is totally useless)..
     
  15. Sindatur

    Sindatur The Gray Owl Wizard Admiral

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    Actually, speaking of the Daleks, they actually did get weakened in the Current Dr. Who Show. The problem isn't that they get defeated everytime they are shown, even if they are shown every season/Series. The problem is when you Millions of them get defeated over and over again. In the Classic Doctor Who Show, you typically, only saw a relatively small group of Daleks (maybe 10 or fewer or 20, and maybe once or twice 50 or so), so it wasn't a problem to see them get defeated, because you always knew in the back of your mind, that they were only barely defeated, and if there were more of them, The Daleks would've won, so, that's how they remained a threat.

    The Borg ran into the same problem, at first a single cube was capable of decimating the Federation, and finally Janeway was able to come out on top with her single ship, up against multiple Cubes (And of course, the Borg Queen didn't help matters)
     
  16. David F. Weisma

    David F. Weisma Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    The most interesting origin idea is that it was mostly deliberate. From the Internet to cell phones, we're always inventing things to enable us to work together more easily. Itcould be awesome to be part of a hive mind, capable of understanding things an individual cannot comprehend. I'm not even sure how it all went wrong, if the drone brains are an important part of the Borg mind, why are they so happy to escape individually from what they create collectively? Yet a big bureaucracy can be like that too.
     
  17. Tiberius

    Tiberius Commodore Commodore

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    I've never been a fan of that kind of explanation.

    In my own fanfic "The Hansen Diaries", I go with the explanation that expands on what Peter David wrote in "Vendetta". In it, he postulates that the planet killer from "The Doomsday Machine" was built by the Preservers as a weapon in a war against the Borg.

    I extend that by saying that the Borg went to war with the preservers as a result of what they saw as agressive actions, seeding countless planets with colonies of civilisations to protect them (like we saw in "The Paradise Syndrome"). As the war continues, both sides try a desparate tactic. For the preservers, it is the planet killer, designed to use the dead worlds that their colonies had once been on (but are now destroyed by the Borg) as fuel.

    For the Borg, it is to use the nanites to enhance their soldiers and gain information about the enemy (such as assimilation). Ultimately, the Borg win, and begin an expansionist period which never really goes away.
     
  18. David F. Weisma

    David F. Weisma Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Just once we should see a drone which tries to rejoin the Borg, perhaps some misanthrope whose brain was a central nexus involved in weapons design or something. Or maybe they just find not beige told what to do as they have been all their lives confusing and frustrating.
     
  19. BennieGamali

    BennieGamali Commander Red Shirt

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    ... Well.. this could be weirder..
     
  20. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Read the Destiny trilogy of novels and find out, they're fantastic.