Was Picard wrong in I,Borg?

[RAMA]

Rojixus wrote:

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First of all, I am saying the Borg Collective as a whole cannot change and will never evolve. You can never change the basic fact that the Borg take people against their will and changes them into mindless drones. The Borg are a type of evil that must be destroyed. So long as one drone remains, it can begin the Collective anew. THE BORG WILL NEVER EVOLVE! Secondly, YOU CAN'T USE AN EXAMPLE FROM SOME OTHER SHOW TO PROVE YOUR POINT. IS IT IMMORAL TO KILL A VIRUS?

Also, you apparently did not read my entire post. I said it was practically impossible and not worth the risk to liberate every drone from the collective. It is time for you to realize the Borg are a despicable force of nature that must be destroyed to the last drone. Perhaps you would change your opinion if you were assimilated?

This is all supposition and not fact...the Borg changed and evolved in I, Borg...the Borg changed and evolved in STFC, the Borg literally evolved in Voyager "Drone"...http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Drone_%28episode%29. This isn't Star Wars...we dont have to see races as all "evil" or all "good".

How do you know that Starfleet won't invent something that can consistently shut of Borg subspace signals on a mass scale, then remove/kill nanoprobes? You are condeming an awful lot of species to death.

Also...http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Unimatrix_Zero??????

RAMA

[Rojixus]

What species am I condemning to death? The Borg? THE BORG ARE NOT A SPECIES!

How do you know that Starfleet won't invent something that can consistently shut of Borg subspace signals on a mass scale, then remove/kill nanoprobes?

You talk to me about supposition and you post this speculation? That is hypocritical.

This isn't Star Wars...we dont have to see races as all "evil" or all "good".

If we were talking about the Klingons or the Cardassians, you would have a point. However, this is the Borg, they are all of one hivemind and that hivemind wants to assimilate the galaxy! That is evil in my book! Also, the Borg always had a queen so they did not evolve and it is apparent you didn't watch Drone at all, the Borg Collective as a whole did not evolve in that episode. THERE ARE NO GOOD BORG! DRONES SUCH AS HUGH AND ONE WERE SEPARATED FROM THE COLLECTIVE AND THEREFORE DO NOT COUNT. Your sympathy for the Borg is naive and childish. I don't think you know anything about the Borg. They are not a race, they are not a civilization, they are a plague to be annihilated. Would you honestly look someone who has lost a loved one to the Borg in the face and tell them the Borg have a right to exist and continue to assimilate innocent people?

[ProtoAvatar]

RAMA

About the borg 'changing':

Picard's words said it best, in 'Scorpion' - "You should not expect reason or compassion from the borg. In its collective stare, it knows no reason, no remorse; only the will to conquer."

The borg is a special case - a sentient mind, without free will; the hive mind follows static, unchanging impuses/drives.
That's why the borg is situated the boundary between sentience and non-sentiece. And make no mistake, there is nothing unstable about its state, nothing amenable to change, to 'evolution' as you call it - its motivation didn't change since its appearance - 'the will to conquer'.

When dealing with the romulans, Dominion, etc, there is always the chance they will choose to have peace.
NOT so with the borg - peace is trully not in its nature, just as it isn't in the nature of a calculator to paint.

You praying for the borg to change is a waste of time - you might just as well pray for the souls of your ancestors to come back from the dead as you remember them and start talking about what's new.

About the Federation inventing some magic gizmo to turn the borg into angels:

Your argument has become that Picard was right not to use the paradox in 'I, Borg' because the Federation will invent a magic solution that can do whatever you want.

Your magic solution is RIDICULOUSLY IMPROBABLE, RAMA! The chances of it coming to pass are so low, I doubt one can calculate them, even mathematically!

RAMA, the borg has assimilated THOUSANDS of starfaring species - at least. Don't you think that, if it was so easy to stop, it would have been stopped long ago?

The paradox virus from 'I, Borg', with its high chances of success against the borg (Picard&crew were certain it would work in 'I, Borg"), was better than anyone could realistically/reasonably hope for!
The Federation couldn't have found a better weapon no matter how long it would have searched. That paradox was a godsend! Thousands upon thousands of advanced, assimilated species stand testimony to that.

Waiting to find something bettrer is not only idiotic, but also suicidal (for your people) and criminal (for the BILLIONS Picard let die).

About the so-called Federation Borg war you mentioned:

RAMA, do you actually think that, if the borg would send - let's say 1000 cubes (by its standards, a small force) - the Federation could actually face it in war to a stalemate and then make peace with it?

1000 cubes vs the Federation woldn't be a war - it would be a massacre! I doubt Starfleet would survive 2 weeks (and these only because the cubes need the time to reach starfllet's fleets).

1000 cubes vs the federation/the romulans/the klingons united will still be a massacre (but hey, now it will take take a whole month for the borg to wipe the alphans out).

That's the disparity in power between the federation and the borg!

As for the borg making peace - well, good luck with those prayers of yours.

[Rojixus]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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But as I said, they DO apply to the Federation. Just because one side might not obey those laws doesn't absolve the other side of its share of the responsibility.

It has recently occurred to me that the Federation might have amended their version of the Geneva Conventions to exclude the Borg from any protections under the laws of war. For all we know, the Federation might not even have a Geneva Convention analogue.

[Anwar]

Rojixus wrote:

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No sir, YOU are wrong. Bottom line: the virus could have worked and might have saved the galaxy from Borg Tyranny.

Nope, it never would have worked. Not ever. Using it would've provoked the Borg into launching a REAL attack on the Federation and doomed them all. Damn warmongers never think things through.

[Rojixus]

Anwar wrote:

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Nope, it never would have worked. Not ever. Using it would've provoked the Borg into launching a REAL attack on the Federation and doomed them all. Damn warmongers never think things through.

You cant provoke the Borg! They will only send the necessary amount of cubes, otherwise they would have sent a thousand cubes the second time around. Damn peacemongers will be the death of us all.

[Anwar]

Rojixus wrote:

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You cant provoke the Borg!

Yes you can, they'll send one Cube to fringers they don't really care about. As soon as the Fringers do anything to make the Borg think of them as a semi-threat (like, trying to unleash a killer virus) they'll start caring and send a REAL invasion force. They won't bother with a real invasion unless you make yourself worth it.

[Rojixus]

Anwar wrote:

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Yes you can, they'll send one Cube to fringers they don't really care about. As soon as the Fringers do anything to make the Borg think of them as a semi-threat (like, trying to unleash a killer virus) they'll start caring and send a REAL invasion force. They won't bother with a real invasion unless you make yourself worth it.

Where is your evidence?

[Anwar]

That they never DID launch a real attack on the Feds, and we know that the Borg can choose to simply ignore species and not assimilate them but pass by not caring.

[Rojixus]

Anwar wrote:

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That they never DID launch a real attack on the Feds, and we know that the Borg can choose to simply ignore species and not assimilate them but pass by not caring.

That is just speculation, how do you know the Borg never launched a real attack? What we do know is the Borg will not send any more ships than what is necessary, your argument is faulty at best.

[indolover]

Mr Troi wrote:

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You are in very dangerous territory if one day you happened to find yourself contemplating genocide because you thought you had a good excuse for it. Inevitably something unplanned happens. A deadlier threat emerges, or everybody gets killed anyway but in different circumstances, or you become so corrupt that people try to kill you.

Compare the Borg to all other great Federation enemies.

They are not like the Klingons. The Borg don't believe in honour, and cannot be reasoned with if you show yourselves to be honourable.

they are not like the Romulans. You can't sign a treaty with them, and let them hide behind the Neutral Zone.

They aren't like the Cardassians. The Cardassian border war only ended since it was a stalemate, and continuing the fighting made no sense to either party. Stalemate between the Borg and the Federation is like a boxing match between Mike Tyson in his prime and a ninety year old man. no contest.

They aren't like the Dominion. Even though the Founders of the Dominion detest all solids everywhere, they (for now) are willing to retreat to the Gamma Quadrant and stay out of the Alpha Quadrant's business. I say for now since I think one day they'll be back, but i'm digressing.

Since the Borg are far superior technologically to the Federation, will not relent until they assimilate the Federation, and never understand the concept of co-existence or peace, then I can certainly understand Picard's reasoning at the start. In a sense it's a "them or us" scenario.

Of course, there is the moral aspect of the argument, which has a strong case. But let's pose a hypothetical scenario. say in Best of Both Worlds, the Enterprise-D under Riker as a last resort warped into the Borg Cube (as they nearly did) and destroyed most of it. However, Locutus and some other Borg survived and beamed down to Earth, and started to assimilate humans on the planet. Would it be bad to infect the Borg with a virus then?

What if they assimilate Earth, and then moved from one Federation member world to the next? What if they attacked Qo'nos, Romulus, Cardassia or Ferenginar? They could easily have done this, since to the Borg the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians and Ferengi would all be good candidates for assimilation. In the good of the Alpha Quadrant, why not act?

[john titor]

wAS PICARD WRONG FUCK NNO!!!. wHY?2 DARe thou asketh?! Well I';ll tell thee why....because Janeway would've wiped them out so Picard by taking the opposite decision was in the right because Janeway is an evil war bithc who makes the wrong decisions all theim thyme. YHeah. DEFENCE DEFENCE DEFENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ProtoAvatar]

Mr Troi wrote:

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You are in very dangerous territory if one day you happened to find yourself contemplating genocide because you thought you had a good excuse for it. Inevitably something unplanned happens. A deadlier threat emerges, or everybody gets killed anyway but in different circumstances, or you become so corrupt that people try to kill you.

You don't seem to understand one thing, Mr Troi:

PICARD DID COMMIT GENOCIDE!

Picard had a chance to stop the borg and he didn't use it, knowing that the borg are and will continue to kill BILLIONS, in an orgy of violence, death and suffering beyond comprehension...

Picard either used the weapon against the borg, destroying the hive mind, or he didn't, in which case he, too, is responsible for the death of BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS at the hands of the borg.
One can only choose the 'lesser evil' in this situation; there's no moral, 'white' choice.

Picard allowed the borg to endure, staining his hands with the blood of BILLIONS.

And why did Picard did this?
He did it in order to delude himself that, even in this situation, he made the perfectly moral, 'white' choice. As for the BILLIONS the borg continued to kill, well, if Picard didn't have to see their faces as they died, he can keep telling himseld they're not his problem, that their blood is not staining his hands, too.

[Anwar]

Nope, he didn't condemn anybody. If anything, he SAVED the Federation from immediate destruction. And his morality was correct as well.

[BillJ]

Anwar wrote:

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Nope, he didn't condemn anybody. If anything, he SAVED the Federation from immediate destruction. And his morality was correct as well.

So it's moral to stand by and do nothing while others suffer? Which is what this argument ultimately comes down to.

As it currently stands the Borg are a remote threat. But a threat that continues to test Federation defenses. So that does constitute them as an 'active' threat? I think it does.

Only distance seems to keep the Borg from launching an all-out campaign against the Federation at the time of "I, Borg".

From my standpoint using the virus is the "moral" thing to do. Sitting on a weapon that may essentially stop a "force of nature" from destroying civilizations is downright wrong. Of course nothing in life is guaranteed... so it may not work. But the distance that seems to keep the Borg at bay still exists