Why do people keep saying Voyager weakened the Borg?

[exodus]

zar wrote:

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You're right there were no bodies, but then again Guinan didn't say there were bodies either, she said there was "little or nothing left". This was the first clear hint in BOBW that it was in fact the coming attack that Guinan predicted. In QH they merely scoop out part of the Enterprise's hull, for "information gathering". In the real attack they scoop up an entire planet at once, just like Guinan said happened to her people.

There shouldn't be any bodies.
Seven, Hugh, Picard, Icheb and the Borg kids, the 3 from Survival Instinct, Janeway, Tuvok & B'Elanna were all Borg and all still kept very much alive.

[zar]

exodus wrote:

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It isn't writer incompetence.
As a writer and producer, why would you sabotage the future of the Trek universe and you're own job by assimilating Earth and ending any future of Trek?

No, writer incompetence put the transwarp conduit 1-light year from Earth in the first place. They put themselves in a situation that has no reasonable explanation as to why it wouldn't lead to ending the future of Trek.

[Luminus]

zar wrote:

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You're right there were no bodies, but then again Guinan didn't say there were bodies either, she said there was "little or nothing left". This was the first clear hint in BOBW that it was in fact the coming attack that Guinan predicted. In QH they merely scoop out part of the Enterprise's hull, for "information gathering". In the real attack they scoop up an entire planet at once, just like Guinan said happened to her people.

And by the way your first hotlink doesn't work... here it is on tinypic: http://i51.tinypic.com/fkzf40.jpg

Both links work for me, but thanks.

exodus wrote:

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Yet they still have to figure out the shield & phaser frequency every time?
Hasn't the tech of the Federation been developing for thousands of years too?
Are the Borg just a mirror of us, if we allowed tech to overrun us? Isn't that why Picard & Janeway both keep talking about that's why individuality is better than the hive mind? Isn't that why we keep finding loop holes in their "superior" technology because they don't think of everything?
Didn't Guinan also mention the more the Federation got used to the Borg, we might be able to learn how to deal with them?
So it was planned back then that we'd be able to be somewhat equal in time.

Starfleet alternates their shield and phaser frequencies, when fighting the Borg. This was stated on screen. There's no way that we could ever be equal to the Borg. It just doesn't work that way. It's like saying that one day, we're going to make germs go away. No, we're not. It just doesn't work that way.

The reason they kept finding loopholes is because the writers decided that they should find loopholes. Nothing more.

exodus wrote:

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It isn't writer incompetence.
As a writer and producer, why would you sabotage the future of the Trek universe and you're own job by assimilating Earth and ending any future of Trek?
So again going by what Guinan said, one day the Federation would and can get around the Borg. The writers were following their own canon the whole time.

Well, whatta you know, I'm a writer, too. Small world/big Internet. They didn't have to sabotage anything. When creating an enemy that's outrageously overpowered, the best thing to do is (a) keep their appearances to a minimum and (b) all encounters with them must lead to HEAVY repercussions/casualties. Anything less than this is incompetence.

It happened with Doomsday. It happened with Venom. And it happened with the Borg.

[Anwar]

zar wrote:

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In reality both of them were left with closure to the immediate threat, yet open-ended, which is a good way to end a story because it gives the writers the most freedom for the future.

BOBW did NOT give closure to the immediate threat. ALL they did was destroy ONE Cube. That's not closure, that's just barely surviving while the enemy is still out there and still knows where you live and how weak you are.

If all writers followed your logic that our heroes finding a way to kill an enemy means their threat is gone forever, we'd never have any recurring enemies at all.

No, it means that overpowered enemies who depend solely on how overpowered they are, are a BAD idea. The Borg were utterly boring without their overpowered status, which is what the core flaw with them was in the first place.

It depends what "have under control" means. If it means there is only one planet that has ever been raped by the Borg, yes that would be a letdown considering we already know they've been at it for centuries.

However if it means they are actually controlling the world with some type of government... well, in that case I'd be satisfied with them having zero planets under their control.

So, basically you'd be dis-satisfied either way. Typical.

No I wouldn't mind. They could pass through a peninsula of Borg-dominated space and only have to confront one cube.

And then the audience would go "What a rip-off, why did I waste my time with this when I can watch Sisko fight the Dominion every few episodes?" and change the channel.

Or they could do the sensible thing and run like hell at the first sight of Borg.

"What a bunch of spineless cowards. Kirk never ran from any Gods or Planet Killers, and the TNG crew didn't abandon Earth to the Borg but these pansies can't do anything right."

Besides that, though, your argument is already self-defeating. It's based on the assumption that the Borg can't coexist in "claimed" space, yet at the same time you're claiming that they own the entire Delta Quadrant despite the fact that we see other affiliations living there as well.

Again, no-win scenario. They should have either explained that the Delta Quadrant is loaded with species as powerful or more powerful than the Borg and these guys are keeping the Borg at bay (and from launching massive invasions of the other Quadrants) or have them as a constant threat assimilating everyone VOY encounters throughout the show.

Seeing how the audience reacted to the idea that there was even ONE species out there that could fight the Borg (the 8472), having the Quadrant be full of such species would just enrage them moreso. And the second option again just makes the VOY crew a bunch of incompetents for not finding ways to save anyone from the Borg (if they DID find a way of saving them from the Borg, then the Borg are emasculated no matter how well-written it is).

You just can't win.

[zar]

Anwar wrote:

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BOBW did NOT give closure to the immediate threat. ALL they did was destroy ONE Cube.

...Which WAS the immediate threat. That was the entire invasion they sent. That single cube scooped up an entire planet, which thus far was the extent of what we had learned their full force was capable of. We were given no reason to believe they HAD another invasion, let alone were capable of having one reach Earth. Not until VOY revealed an entire fleet sitting on the other end of a conduit leading directly to Earth.

Anwar wrote:

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The Borg were utterly boring without their overpowered status, which is what the core flaw with them was in the first place.

Core trait, you mean. It's only your lack of imagination that makes it a flaw.

Anwar wrote:

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So, basically you'd be dis-satisfied either way. Typical.

What do you mean, "either way"? Only one "way" was being discussed. The opposite, "other way", would have been that it turns out the Borg had raped millions of planets instead of just one. In which case, no, I would not be dissatisfied. So please Anwar, for the love of Kolk'r. Stop. Putting. Words. In. My. Mouth.

Anwar wrote:

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And then the audience would...

No. Stop.

Anwar wrote:

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Again, no-win scenario. They should have either explained that the Delta Quadrant is loaded with species as powerful or more powerful than the Borg and these guys are keeping the Borg at bay (and from launching massive invasions of the other Quadrants) or have them as a constant threat assimilating everyone VOY encounters throughout the show.

Your "no-win" is easily solved by not having them completely overrunning the entire quadrant in the first place.

[Anwar]

zar wrote:

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...Which WAS the immediate threat. That was the entire invasion they sent.

Which doesn't match up with the "Swarm" Guinan mentioned.

We were given no reason to believe they HAD another invasion, let alone were capable of having one reach Earth.

Guinan said "Swarm", not "single ship". Nothing in Q Who? implied that one Cube was their total force, otherwise the end of BOBW would have them mentioning that they've destroyed the Borg's totality and not just one ship.

Core trait, you mean. It's only your lack of imagination that makes it a flaw.

If the only core trait an enemy has is that they've been stupidly overpowered, they're still a lamely thought out enemy.

What do you mean, "either way"? Only one "way" was being discussed. The opposite, "other way", would have been that it turns out the Borg had raped millions of planets instead of just one. In which case, no, I would not be dissatisfied. So please Anwar, for the love of Kolk'r. Stop. Putting. Words. In. My. Mouth.

You said you'd be dissatisfied if you either had them run into a world they ruled or a world they raped. So both choices dissatisfy you.

No. Stop.

History vindicates me saying what they'd expect.

]Your "no-win" is easily solved by not having them completely overrunning the entire quadrant in the first place.

Which doesn't fit how they were portrayed in TNG as an unstoppable force with an insatiable hunger to conquer and assimilate everything around them. How can they be taken seriously if they couldn't even conquer their homeland?

You just can't win.

[zar]

Anwar wrote:

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You said you'd be dissatisfied if you either had them run into a world they ruled or a world they raped. So both choices dissatisfy you.

No I didn't. You reworded the question again. There is an ENORMOUS difference between revealing that they only HAVE one, and having Voyager RUN INTO only one.

I answered both questions, and the second one (the one you're quoting here) is the one I said I would have been fine with. It would NOT dissatisfy me.

Stop putting words in my mouth. Especially after I literally just finished saying the exact opposite.


Everything else in your post has already been addressed. I'm getting off this merry-go-round.

[exodus]

Luminus wrote:

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Starfleet alternates their shield and phaser frequencies, when fighting the Borg. This was stated on screen. There's no way that we could ever be equal to the Borg. It just doesn't work that way. It's like saying that one day, we're going to make germs go away. No, we're not. It just doesn't work that way.

The reason they kept finding loopholes is because the writers decided that they should find loopholes. Nothing more.

What is this, Deadpool?
The crew of Trek knows they're finding loop holes due to the writing staff?
Are we arguing Trek Universe facts or real world writer facts because I've lost track?

Well, whatta you know, I'm a writer, too. Small world/big Internet. They didn't have to sabotage anything. When creating an enemy that's outrageously overpowered, the best thing to do is (a) keep their appearances to a minimum and (b) all encounters with them must lead to HEAVY repercussions/casualties. Anything less than this is incompetence.

It happened with Doomsday. It happened with Venom. And it happened with the Borg.

As a producer, one of my main priorities is to my audience. They are what draws in sponsors to create revenue for my show. The Borg, like Venom and Doomsday proved to drawn in viewers/readers/money. TV is a business just like any other. So if my audience is telling me they really like the Borg, Venom & Doomsday by increased sales/viewership, then it's incompetence on my part for not filling the supply of that demand.

The Borg are fan favorites.
Every time they showed up, viewership increased.
Voyager was a show that needed to keep up it's ratings, so as a writer/producer you do what is best to keep the show on the air. If that means showing the Borg every season to get folks to watch, you do it. If the fans don't like it in hindsight, it's too late. While the show was on, feed back for the Borg was positive.

[exodus]

zar wrote:

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No, writer incompetence put the transwarp conduit 1-light year from Earth in the first place. They put themselves in a situation that has no reasonable explanation as to why it wouldn't lead to ending the future of Trek.

Maybe it's a hint to us generally speaking that if they don't take it that seriously, maybe we shouldn't either?

[Gary7]

If there's one thing I find annoying to see, it's "the Borg were boring" in TNG. I do not find that at all. They were intriguing upon introduction. They made mince-meat out of the fleet at Wolf359. But then there was this ambiguity about the "stuck in sleep" trick that Data employed. Since Data knew their frequencies, wouldn't he be able to build a transmitter to put a freshly encountered Borg cube to sleep? It wasn't explored, which was disappointing. Then there was Hugh. I thought that was a great episode, exploring the Borg condition. And then in "Descent" we learn of the Borg faction that was created as a result. Unfortunately, that was it for the Borg in TNG. Given how determined the Borg are, I would have expected more confrontations with the Federation. But, they could have become preoccupied with another species or were improving their security protocols for future Federation encounters.

It's true, without a "face" they aren't as interesting. But then, they are also more mysterious. I had some issues with the introduction of the Queen... but if anything, her emotional behavior just seemed so out of place for what the Borg represent.

[Anwar]

If the only thing that's good about an enemy is that they're "Mysterious" then that just highlights what a poorly thought out enemy they are.

[Luminus]

exodus wrote:

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What is this, Deadpool?
The crew of Trek knows they're finding loop holes due to the writing staff?
Are we arguing Trek Universe facts or real world writer facts because I've lost track?

You asked about the loopholes and I gave you the answer. I'm not breaking the 4th wall, here.

exodus wrote:

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As a producer, one of my main priorities is to my audience. They are what draws in sponsors to create revenue for my show. The Borg, like Venom and Doomsday proved to drawn in viewers/readers/money. TV is a business just like any other. So if my audience is telling me they really like the Borg, Venom & Doomsday by increased sales/viewership, then it's incompetence on my part for not filling the supply of that demand.

The Borg are fan favorites.
Every time they showed up, viewership increased.
Voyager was a show that needed to keep up it's ratings, so as a writer/producer you do what is best to keep the show on the air. If that means showing the Borg every season to get folks to watch, you do it. If the fans don't like it in hindsight, it's too late. While the show was on, feed back for the Borg was positive.

And, as a result, the producers/writers creation fall heavily out of fan favor. Gee, I wonder why? No one trashes the Klingons or the Romulans. No on trashes the Green Goblin. And no one trashed Lex Luthor, until, you guessed it, the producers/writers (i.e., you) decided to overuse/misuse him.

The Klingons are fan favorites, but you never saw them suddenly becoming logical. They never started becoming calm. They never inexplicably started to say, "Today would be a good day to die, if it wasn't Sunday." And they never decloaked a space station that was 1-light year from Earth.

The reason the ratings kept jumping, is because people kept coming back to see if the writers were actually going to write a good Borg episode. I know, because that's why I kept watching.

I was the obsessed Borg fan at one point. I had almost all Borg paraphernalia, right down to that Borg bank that had a tractor beam on the Enterprise D all the way to a mini borg cube paperweight. So, of course, feedback for the Borg themselves was positive. I AM the audience the producers were catering to and as that audience I am telling you the producers screwed up. I came back, because I was hoping for a better story. I was hoping they would be redeemed. I was hoping for an origin story. All I got was increasingly weak Borg with terrible Borg Queen portrayals. (At 1 point the Borg queen is shown treating her drones as if they were common thugs, instead of treating them as an extension of herself, you know, like the Borg are supposed to be.) But they were Borg and Borg were exciting, like that very good lover who cheats on you, you keep coming back for more, because that loving is soooooo good. But the "aftertaste" is terrible and the regret is huge.

Stick to the rules that I mentioned before and you'll be fine. You want to show the Borg every season? Fine. But people have to die. Significant property has to be destroyed and not rebuilt in the very next episode (I'm looking at you Delta Flyer). Tears must be shed.

Just because something is popular, doesn't mean you abuse it. A good writer knows this.

[Anwar]

They VOY should've had cannon fodder, instead of just being alone. Of course giving them cannon fodder would violate the premise of the show.

So they did the other logical thing and had there be other species out there as tough as the Borg.

And how did the audience react? They though that since there were other species out there as tough as the Borg the Borg were now irrevocably ruined.

And naturally, if "Scorpion" had been a TNG or DS9 episode, no one would care.

You just can't win.

[zar]

exodus wrote:

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If you tuned in to the Borg eps., regardless of your personal reasons then you gave them the go ahead to create more Borg eps. You aren't giving them the info that you aren't liking the stories, you're giving them just the opposite. You're giving them approval.

How do you think they found out that the Borg were a fan favorite in the first place? Just because people tuned in to BOBW? They did receive feedback, you know.

exodus wrote:

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If you are a writer, then you should have started a letter writing campagine to the studio.

When has there ever been a letter-writing campaign over something so mundane? It's not like they killed off a favorite character.

exodus wrote:

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A writer job has nothing to do with keeping track of what is pulling an audience. So it doesn't matter what you believe a good writer does, honestly. They still have to do what their bosses the producers and studio asks for.

I'm not an expert on the process, but I'm pretty sure the extent of the producers' direction is something like "Let's do a Borg episode." Then deciding whether to accept a story once it's submitted. Handling the actual story is up to the writer.

A writer's job isn't necessarily to keep track of the audience, but it IS their job to keep track of the characters they're writing and keep their portrayal consistent. Inconsistent portrayal is the root of the audience's dissatisfaction. "Weaken" is a relative term.

exodus wrote:

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Martok seemed like a pretty logical and calm Klingon too me.

In which episode?

[Lord Manitou]

This question came about in Endgame when the Transwarp Hub was destroyed. Apparently there are 6 Transwarp Hubs in the galaxy and each one standing by with a Borg complex and millions of drones. This implies only a Transwarp Hub was destroyed and the general facilities that kept the queen. Whether it is possible to cripple the Borg using the same nano-probe type infections is being debated. It is also true if the Borg isn't stopped they will use their technology to conquer the galaxy.
Their are loop-holes concerning the Borg but an unnecessary loop-hole is what happend after the TransWarp Hub was destroyed.