I liked the Borg more before the Borg Queen and Q before Voyager.

[LeadHead]

Q always has some amusing moment to win me over during his appearances, but lets face it Q was never better than when he was squaring off with Jean-Luc Picard.

As for the Borg, they went from being a villan that destroyed 39 ships with just one of theirs to not being able to take down the USS Voyager. Yeah, they went wimpy to keep them in Voyager, not a great move. Scorpion was a fantastic episode well fantastic 2 episodes, Part 1 better than part 2 due to no Seven of Nine. They had their Borg episodes very well done, when Kes threw Voyager out of Borg Space, they should have actually been out of Borg Space. The fact that their Primary Unimatrix was over 10,000 light years from their territory just makes them sound stupid. Which in and of itself is stupid because the Borg are supposed to have the knowledge of thousands of worlds running through them. Nobody on any of those planets got the good idea to NOT place your Headquarters, where your Queen who, if compromised can lead to the destruction of your Entire Collective somewhere other than your most protected interior system in your own territory?

The Queen aspect was good in First Contact, Alice Krige did a great job. It's to bad they took that and decided to try to use that success to remake Voyager adding Seven, having them face off with the Borg Queen, etc. Making the Borg a regular part of the series, no. Just no.

[Praetor]

I'd argue with some of that, LeadHead. I think it was a mistake to give VGR a makeover to capitalize on the success of FC, and that it ended up cheapening the Borg to 'villain of the week.' However, I don't think this was inherently the fault of the Seven character, as much as it was the way she was handled, and, overall, the way the Borg were handled.

[Myasishchev]

^Wholeheartedly agree. Although what else Voyager was going to do for season after season, I have no idea. I guess you're on point that it was just an execution thing--it usually is.

I mean, in theory, even the Kazon could have been interesting...

[Sci]

Praetor wrote:

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Dude, that's brilliant and I agree. I'd expect no less from you, of course.

I suspect you guys would like the recent trilogy of novels, Star Trek: Destiny and its follow-up, A Singular Destiny.

Destiny's essential premise: The Borg stop dicking around. They launch a full-scale invasion of the Federation with the intent of exterminating every planet in the UFP.

A Singular Destiny is set in the wake of the Borg invasion, which devastated entire worlds and drove entire species to extinction, and features a new, ideological enemy for the Federation that is not just another conquest-driven empire.

[rramarr]

I agree with the Q but I thought Alice Krige was pretty hot and eerily seductive in her role.

[plynch]

exodus wrote:

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I see the Borg more as a philisophical debate.

If the collective are of one mind, who's one mind is dominate over the collective? So like in a Bee hive, the Queens one mind rules the collective by sending out commands thru frequency. Just like the Borg.

If it is a collective, there wouldn't BE one mind to dominate. "It" would be a mind. I have 100 billion neurons. Together they make a mind, but no one neuron dominates. Trek is written for a very individualistic culture. Think of Picard saying one of his We-work-not-for-gain-but-to-develop-our-talents-and-individuality speeches. Very 70's Humanist-Maslow-Rogers derived: I for myself, maybe my family, don't think of the greater community. Most humans who have lived on earth were integral parts of communities who lived, worked, ate, died together as a band/village/community with its own life and properties. Now we much more live separate lives in separate homes pursuing separate careers. So the Borg has to be shown as evil with a dominator, as the queen evolved into, especially in the recent Destiny fiction trilogy. GR didn't see a next, collective step as a necessarily bad thing; see my previous post.

exodus wrote:

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A Borg vessel is a metaphor for a sweat shop, I believe that's was the implication in "First Contact" of why a Borg Cube is so hot.

That's great! Also, when we're cramped and don't feel like we have enough PERSONAL space, it feels hot and stuffy. Reinforcing the "evil" of losing separate identity.

Odd that so many new spiritualists (Tolle foremost in the public's mind) emphasize losing or putting aside one's separateness in order to sense one's true, total, "real" being. This is close to the Borg IFF Borg had not evolved from a true collective into slaves as the shows went on. It was SO cooler in the beginning.

Karnbeln wrote:

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I think the Queen works best if you show her to be not just the one to whom the collective is enslaved, but that the queen is also the slave of the collective. The collective will of the Borg is what drives her entire mind, and the actions of the Borg are driven by the queen. She is the center of the hive mind, not the leader of it. She would not exist with a body except as a Locutus-like mouthpiece.

Again with the slave idea. My neurons are not slaves to my mind. They ARE it. She is the voice or executive function OF the mind. She is of it, not ruling it. (At least that's how she SHOULD be in a perfect world. In the recent books, she IS definitely an enslaver.)

(Does ANY cool concept in Trek ever survive unadulterated?? Mind meld, Klingons, Prime Directive, ad nauseum.)

[Sci]

plynch wrote:

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So the Borg has to be shown as evil with a dominator, as the queen evolved into, especially in the recent Destiny fiction trilogy. GR didn't see a next, collective step as a necessarily bad thing; see my previous post.

<SNIP>

Again with the slave idea. My neurons are not slaves to my mind. They ARE it. She is the voice or executive function OF the mind. She is of it, not ruling it. (At least that's how she SHOULD be in a perfect world. In the recent books, she IS definitely an enslaver.)

I'd like to point out a few things here:

1. Destiny and its immediate predecessors, Great Than the Sum and Before Dishonor, established that when a person is assimilated, his or her mind is altered by the Borg to become a supporter of the Collective, agreeing with its goals and objectives and willingly sublimating the self to the whole -- even while a smaller, isolated part of your mind remains intact. (The mind control occurs after a horrific psychic attack on the individual mind in which all of your memories are corrupted -- your favorite uncle molested you, your first love tried to murder you -- to prevent you from being able to retreat to a safe mental place while you're being assimilated.) In other words, they did what they could to save the communalist aspect that the canon, especially under Braga, had largely disregarded, and to reconcile the apparently contradictory depictions of the Collective pre- and post-Queen creation.

2. While you may not like the idea of Queen-as-enslaver, it's important to keep in mind that that's not an idea that originated in the novels. The Queen was depicted as directly controlling the drones, and the drones as being her slaves, throughout her appearances on Star Trek: Voyager. It might have been nice if the Queen had been depicted more as an embodiment of the Collective than a controller/slave mistress, but that's how VOY, especially "Unimatrix Zero" and "Endgame," depicted her. The novels are obligated to be consistent with the canon.

3. For my money, the Big Secret about the Collective that Mack reveals goes a long way towards rehabilitating the idea of Queen-as-enslaver, giving new depth to what had been, frankly, a comic book supervillian-type paradigm on VOY.

[plynch]

Sci wrote:

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I'd like to point out a few things here:

1. Destiny and its immediate predecessors, Great Than the Sum and Before Dishonor, established that when a person is assimilated, his or her mind is altered by the Borg to become a supporter of the Collective, agreeing with its goals and objectives and willingly sublimating the self to the whole -- even while a smaller, isolated part of your mind remains intact. (The mind control occurs after a horrific psychic attack on the individual mind in which all of your memories are corrupted -- your favorite uncle molested you, your first love tried to murder you -- to prevent you from being able to retreat to a safe mental place while you're being assimilated.) In other words, they did what they could to save the communalist aspect that the canon, especially under Braga, had largely disregarded, and to reconcile the apparently contradictory depictions of the Collective pre- and post-Queen creation.

2. While you may not like the idea of Queen-as-enslaver, it's important to keep in mind that that's not an idea that originated in the novels. The Queen was depicted as directly controlling the drones, and the drones as being her slaves, throughout her appearances on Star Trek: Voyager. It might have been nice if the Queen had been depicted more as an embodiment of the Collective than a controller/slave mistress, but that's how VOY, especially "Unimatrix Zero" and "Endgame," depicted her. The novels are obligated to be consistent with the canon.

3. For my money, the Big Secret about the Collective that Mack reveals goes a long way towards rehabilitating the idea of Queen-as-enslaver, giving new depth to what had been, frankly, a comic book supervillian-type paradigm on VOY.

I agree that the Destiny tril did not invent queen-as-enslaver. It does reinforce it with the backstory of who she is/was, which I shall not "spoiler" in this space. My point was just that one of the posters seemed to be implying that a queen was necessarily an enslaver for a collective, and that need not be, as other posters have pointed out.

I kind of like the original Borg. Pursuing perfection, "helping" you attain it along with them. Sort of like the US pursuing global free trade and capitalism, and helping nations see the light and become like us. I jest. Be well!

[Sci]

plynch wrote:

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I agree that the Destiny tril did not invent queen-as-enslaver. It does reinforce it with the backstory of who she is/was, which I shall not "spoiler" in this space. My point was just that one of the posters seemed to be implying that a queen was necessarily an enslaver for a collective, and that need not be, as other posters have pointed out.

Well, it didn't need to be the case before her appearances in VOY, but her depiction in those necessitates it now.

I kind of like the original Borg. Pursuing perfection, "helping" you attain it along with them. Sort of like the US pursuing global free trade and capitalism, and helping nations see the light and become like us. I jest. Be well!

I do, too, and I always thought that the Queen undermined the scariness of the original depiction of the Collective. Destiny is really the first time since the introduction of the Queen that I found the Borg genuinely scary again

[Dayton3]

Damask wrote:

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I think though the Borg were never really ever going to work if they appeared all the time. Even TNG's Borg stories got stale and they only had about five of them.

I'd be interested to hear how people would make the Borg a reoccurring enemy but not Voyagerize them.

Not too hard.

Have the Borg return.

But at PRECISE intervals of television series time.

For example, there were 31 episodes between Q-Who and BOBW.

Why not have the Borg appear again in force exactly 31 episodes after BOBW?

And so on and so on.

The ominous part is the "countdown" where fans know the Borg will return (and eventually the crew sees the pattern as well) and we see tension rise as we wonder just what new way the crew would come up with to defeat them this time.

[Mr Pointy Ears]

When the borg were first introduced on TNG they were this unbeatable enemy ,but when they turn up on voyager they were getting their behinds kick from species 8472 and voyager able to dfeat them in every encounter.

[Myasishchev]

Dayton3 wrote:

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Not too hard.

Have the Borg return.

But at PRECISE intervals of television series time.

For example, there were 31 episodes between Q-Who and BOBW.

Why not have the Borg appear again in force exactly 31 episodes after BOBW?

And so on and so on.

The ominous part is the "countdown" where fans know the Borg will return (and eventually the crew sees the pattern as well) and we see tension rise as we wonder just what new way the crew would come up with to defeat them this time.

Are they following the Olympic Carrier?

[plynch]

Dayton3 wrote:

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For example, there were 31 episodes between Q-Who and BOBW.

Why not have the Borg appear again in force exactly 31 episodes after BOBW?

And so on and so on.

The ominous part is the &quot;countdown&quot; where fans know the Borg will return (and eventually the crew sees the pattern as well) and we see tension rise as we wonder just what new way the crew would come up with to defeat them this time.

I LOVE the prime number angle, it's like how cicadas have huge birth years every prime number of years (dif. for dif. varieties IIRC) so predators cannot time their own population spikes to eat 'em all. It beats having a Borg episode say, every seven of nine episodes or so. Sorry.

[SomniumRabidum]

I pretty much agree with what most people here are saying. After BOBW the Borg steadily began losing their mystique. Q was without a doubt at his best during TNG, he just wasn't as interesting without Picard.

It's a real shame too, the Borg and Q are largely responsible for making me a big Trek fan.

[Captain Randy Hall]

urbandk wrote:

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Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Borg, like Q, in my opinion became less interesting and more banal the more they were on screen.

I rather liked the idea of an enemy whose existence was totally subsumed into a hive mind. The introduction of some mega-Borg queen seemed to belittle the whole concept.

Likewise, I also felt that Q became increasingly stupid, especially in Voyager.

I'm just writing this thread to complain about two of my Star Trek pet peeves.

And I'm just writing because I agree with you. Every series has a "favorite enemy," whether it's the Daleks for Doctor Who or the Borg in TNG. The problem is: How can you have an enemy you fear after defeating it every single time? Sooner or later, that unbeatable enemy loses that fearsomeness. (Oh, look! It's the Borg AGAIN. Shall we laugh now or wait until the crew kicks hom off the starship?)

As to the Borg when it was first introduced: I really liked the idea of a race that was after only technology. It was frightening wandering through the ship and them not giving two hoots and a holler about the crew.

You also had to beat them head on since there was no lead figure you could trick by saying: "Look over there. It's Raquel Welch!" Then the lead person turns to look and you've gotten some big gun you pull out and that's that.

That was what the Borg Queen was all about. Distract her, and the rest of the crew had a fighting chance. Bah, humbug, even though I enjoyed "The Best of Both Worlds," though Picard should have died when Crusher took out his nanoprobes and no explanation given.

For the Q, he showed up and did what ever he wanted whenever he wanted. If I'd been the captain, I'd assign at least one team to come up with ways to boot him off the ship. (Maybe that's why Q never bothered Kirk and company.)