Why do people keep saying Voyager weakened the Borg?

[Anwar]

Well, frankly I found Picard rather OOC that whole movie even though I was entertained. That line really made no sense as the Borg had clearly NOT assimilated whole Federation worlds or forced them to fall back by the time of FC.

Unless he was talking about all worlds they'd attacked and the "we" simply referred to ALL their victims.

[zar]

Anwar wrote:

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That line really made no sense as the Borg had clearly NOT assimilated whole Federation worlds or forced them to fall back by the time of FC.

Clearly?

That line is the entirety of the information we have on the subject of whether or not they had done so. And it says they did. So, clearly, they did.


And don't think I didn't notice that you dodged my other answer. In Way of the Warrior, the Defiant finds victims and passes by them because it would be too risky to try to help; in other words, they "decided to leave them to their fates because they were scared".

That clearly matches what you asked for.

It's one of several examples where the heroes either fail to help someone, or decide helping would be too risky.

[Saito S]

In my post, I said "Even if there aren't any...", in reference to Anwar's demand for examples from TOS, TNG, and DS9 of the characters trying and failing to save others, or deciding not to try/being unable to try in the first place. Clearly, there ARE several examples, as has been made clear in the posts that have come since. Including this one!

zar wrote:

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Brilliant shot, zar. And I'm not sure how I didn't think of that either... haha.

Just a couple little things:

Anwar wrote:

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Well, yes.

Uh... why? That's be pointless, and futile. The Ent-D engaging three Borg cubes would be suicidal, and would accomplish absolutely nothing. The Ent-D crew would know this and thus wouldn't attack. Now, they might try something ELSE (get reinforcements, try and create a diversion, etc.) rather than just leave the people to their fate, but they wouldn't just attack. Neither would (or should) Voyager, in that situation, and there's no reason they couldn't have done one of those other things to try and help.

It's the Borg, "they don't do anything piecemeal" remember?

I find it massively ironic that - to back up your point that the Borg WOULD either win 100% and assimilate/kill everyone they were attacking, OR lose 100% and be stopped completely - you quote GUINAN. From "Q Who?" A member of a race who was attacked in FULL FORCE by the Borg... yet she survived. A BUNCH of them survived. So, the Borg won, they destroyed El-Auria... yet a number of them survived. Proving my point; there ALREADY EXISTS precedent within the filmed canon for a Borg incident that ends with neither a complete victory for the Borg (assimilate or destroy everything, no survivors) and the Borg being stopped and completely unable to reach their goal (little or no damage to their main target).

That said!

I've been down this road before, and we are - as always happens - back where we started to some degree, with Anwar claiming the vitriol of the Hatedome (even though it doesn't exist) as the reason for his assertions, and claiming that everyone hated what "Scorpion" did to the Borg (despite the fact that everyone loved it), tossing around opinions or suppositions carelessly as if they were facts, refusing to deal in anything but extremes, completely ignoring half of what we say when replying (STILL waiting for you to show a source proving that "Scorpion" was widely panned!) etc. It's like the previous conversations didn't even happen. That's why I only responded to those two specific points about the Borg in this post, and not anything else, because "anything else" consists of stuff I've ALREADY responded to, quite thoroughly, in other threads long past. It's bizarre, yet it's still been entertaining for some reason... to a point. I may or may not bother posting after this in response to Anwar, we'll see.

[Anwar]

zar wrote:

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That line is the entirety of the information we have on the subject of whether or not they had done so. And it says they did. So, clearly, they did.

Picard said that FC was what he had feared for 6 years, a Borg invasion. Meaning that nothing happened with the Collective in those 6 years. 6 years prior was BOBW and there was no "falling back as they assimilate worlds" stuff.

Picard was speaking in the abstract about what the Borg do to everyone, and the "we fall back" thing referred to what all life in the Galaxy has done. It really makes no sense taken any other way.

And don't think I didn't notice that you dodged my other answer. In Way of the Warrior, the Defiant finds victims and passes by them because it would be too risky to try to help; in other words, they "decided to leave them to their fates because they were scared".

Risky to their actual mission, which was to save the Detapa Council. If they had scanned for potential survivors, then those guys and Dukat would definitely be dead.

So it was a choice between folks who were definitely going to die without them, or guys who may not even be there. It's not the same as abandoning clearly endangered folks because you were too spineless to think about helping them.

Uh... why? That's be pointless, and futile. The Ent-D engaging three Borg cubes would be suicidal, and would accomplish absolutely nothing. The Ent-D crew would know this and thus wouldn't attack. Now, they might try something ELSE (get reinforcements, try and create a diversion, etc.) rather than just leave the people to their fate, but they wouldn't just attack.

It'd still be more than just running away, which is what zar thinks would be adequate for VOY.

I find it massively ironic that - to back up your point that the Borg WOULD either win 100% and assimilate/kill everyone they were attacking, OR lose 100% and be stopped completely - you quote GUINAN. From "Q Who?" A member of a race who was attacked in FULL FORCE by the Borg... yet she survived. A BUNCH of them survived.

She and those others survived because they weren't there when it happened, there were never targeted by the Borg to begin with.

[23skidoo]

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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Actually, it was TNG: The Best of Both Worlds Part II that hopelessly kneecapped the Borg, by so easily defeating them with the sleep command. Before anyone tries to come back with "but it wasn't so easy", let's imagine how many species the Borg have assimilated. Are we to believe that none of them are as ingenious or capable as humans? Puh-lease.

That and also the notion of giving the Borg personalities and individuality by establishing Locutus, and later the Borg Queen. The Borg were most effective when they were these nameless drones acting with a hive mentality. Once you reveal that they're acting under orders from someone, and that there is individuality present, you do kneecap them a bit. When we learned that Seven was part of a "team" or "family" that weakened things even more. The Daleks in Doctor Who were never the same after Davros was introduced, and the creation of the Cult of Skaro further weakened aspects of them as a race to be feared.

Had the Borg remained the way they were depicted in early TNG - faceless, no individuality, acting as a hive - the introduction of a Borg regaining her humanity as Seven did would have been much more powerful (especially if they'd kept it so that she was the only one as well - remembering the later Voyager episode in which several others were freed from the Borg).

Alex

[Anwar]

Also, BOBW introduced the idea of assimilation. Before that we were led to believe that the Borg were one species that had willingly chosen to become a cybernetic Hivemind, and that they were truly united in their goals.

Then we found out they actually turned survivors of their attacks into other Borg who were unwillingly forced to serve them, and we're left wondering why (if so many are unwilling) this doesn't affect the Hive Mind's strength and ability to operate.

An interesting way to examine this would be to have every single Borg ship be its own Collective mind unto itself, with the peoples assimilated into each one creating a different "personality" for each vessel. Some, composed of peaceful folk put into the Hive Mind, would end up becoming benign pacifistic beings.

This would keep the Borg as powerful, but make it clear that not all Borg are destructive zombie creatures and that assimilation can be harmful as well.

Maybe the only truly destructive Borg would be the ones who are of the original Borg species that willingly became Borg and stayed mostly "Pure" over the centuries while the Borg ships that assimilated too many non-violent people lost that destructive aspect via dilution.

[zar]

Anwar wrote:

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Picard said that FC was what he had feared for 6 years, a Borg invasion. Meaning that nothing happened with the Collective in those 6 years. 6 years prior was BOBW and there was no "falling back as they assimilate worlds" stuff.

"They invade our space and we fall back."

Anwar wrote:

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Picard was speaking in the abstract about what the Borg do to everyone, and the "we fall back" thing referred to what all life in the Galaxy has done. It really makes no sense taken any other way.

On the contrary, it makes no sense to assume he was speaking in the abstract. The whole outbreak would be bizarre if he was talking about abstract possibilities happening in parts of the galaxy that he has no connection to or awareness of what's going on.

The problem, once again, is your failure to interpret it in anything but extremes: either they're leaving the Federation completely alone, or they're sending a cube into the heart of Federation territory. As always, there is a middle ground: The Borg could have been attacking planets at the borders of Federation space, while the Federation repeatedly abandoned and retreated from those borders. He might also be referring to the trail of destruction that happened in BOBW prior to the standoff at Wolf 359.

Anwar wrote:

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So it was a choice between folks who were definitely going to die without them, or guys who may not even be there.

Yes! Exactly! Congratulations, you just described a scenario that wasn't an extreme! They weren't just spineless cowards, they were keeping priorities. Now, see if you can stretch that imagination and picture a similar scenario that could have happened in VOY, and you see our point.

[Anwar]

zar wrote:

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As always, there is a middle ground: The Borg could have been attacking planets at the borders of Federation space, while the Federation repeatedly abandoned and retreated from those borders.

If that had happened, he wouldn't have said that "The moment I have been dreading for 6 years is upon us: The Borg have begun an invasion of the Federation." Because attacking the borders and pushing said borders back would very much be an invasion even if it didn't penetrate further in.

Anwar wrote:

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Yes! Exactly! Congratulations, you just described a scenario that wasn't an extreme!

A choice of certain death over probable death?

They weren't just spineless cowards, they were keeping priorities.

Yes, they had a more important mission to accomplish that involved saving more lives than their side-stop would have.

Now, see if you can stretch that imagination and picture a similar scenario that could have happened in VOY, and you see our point.

Abandoning a world to the Borg to save their own skins? Less then 200 people over millions or billions?

VOY has no mission in the DQ over "go home", no greater purpose. Nothing that could ever justify abandoning a world to the Borg aside from "We can't do anything" or "we're too scared".

Suppose Sisko and co ran into a world being invaded by the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant, they see it being bombarded and receive a distress call from them begging for help. Sisko says that they can't possibly affect the outcome, and orders them out of there. The Defiant flies off as the world burns behind them.

What would you think of him from that point on?

Also, notice you ignored my own suggestions on how to flesh out the Borg without depowering them and still be able to use them a lot.

[zar]

Anwar wrote:

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Abandoning a world to the Borg to save their own skins? Less then 200 people over millions or billions?

If trying to help would be useless suicide, then it's not a choice between a million deaths versus 200 deaths. It would be a million versus a million and 200.

According to you, Commodore Decker would be the model Starfleet officer.

Anwar wrote:

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VOY has no mission in the DQ over "go home", no greater purpose. Nothing that could ever justify abandoning a world to the Borg aside from "We can't do anything" or "we're too scared".

By that argument, they shouldn't give a shit about the world in question in the first place. It's not part of their mission.

If you grant that they can consider trying to help strangers on an unknown world, then you must also grant that they care about other "greater purposes" in the DQ as well.


You're also conveniently ignoring the second possibility (in bold):

Anwar wrote:

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Luminus and even Guy Gardener said they wanted stories where VOY would have to abandon others to the Borg or fail to help them, so there you go again.

And there are also several examples of the heroes failing to help even though they did try. Which didn't make them incompetent fools, it just meant they were in over their heads.

[zar]

Anwar wrote:

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Also, notice you ignored my own suggestions on how to flesh out the Borg without depowering them and still be able to use them a lot.

So? That was a departure from the "incompetent spineless cowards" conversation thread that you, me, Saito S and RyuRoots are currently engaged in.

[Anwar]

zar wrote:

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According to you, Commodore Decker would be the model Starfleet officer.

Seeing how he repented, and managed to give them the data they needed to stop the Doomsday Machine when he sacrificed himself I would consider him heroic.

By that argument, they shouldn't give a shit about the world in question in the first place. It's not part of their mission.

No it isn't, but they do care anyways because they aren't a bunch of douchebags.

Still no-win though, either they care and they run away because they're scared or they DON'T care and run away because they're too scared. It's equally bad for them to run away from an ally they know as it is for them to run away from folks they don't know but see as clearly in danger.

If you grant that they can consider trying to help strangers on an unknown world, then you must also grant that they care about other "greater purposes" in the DQ as well.

Which still works against them since now it's their friends that they abandon out of cowardice as opposed to total strangers (though abandoning strangers to death because you were too scared is still bad).

And there are also several examples of the heroes failing to help even though they did try. Which didn't make them incompetent fools, it just meant they were in over their heads.

Examples? Most of the time when that plot is used they end up with some kind of success that validates the story and their efforts. The "Borg attack a world and win" doesn't leave room for any real success on VOY's end.

[zar]

Sisko abandoned victims to save his own skin, but you gave him a pass based on the fact that he had a more important mission which getting himself killed would have made impossible.

Then you said a similar scenario would never be possible on VOY because Voyager can't possibly have another more important mission because they don't care about anything other than getting home.

Now you say they do care because they're not a bunch of douchebags.

Make up your mind.

If they do care, they could find themselves in a position comparable to the Defiant's.

(And of course none of this changes the fact that the desire to stay alive alone IS still a perfectly valid reason NOT to dive headfirst into a hopeless battle, even if there ISN'T a third party depending on your continued survival.)

The "Borg attack a world and win" doesn't leave room for any real success on VOY's end.

That's exactly what happened in BOBW. The Borg attacked a world and won. Obviously, showing a defeat doesn't preclude an eventual happy ending.

Now I'm pretty sure I know where this is heading, so I'll save you the trouble: You're about to abandon your original claims (essentially, admitting defeat) and fall back on your old spiel about haters. Something like "It's still no-win because the audience would hate Voyager having ANY kind of victory over the Borg."

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

Anwar wrote:

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Well, frankly I found Picard rather OOC that whole movie even though I was entertained. That line really made no sense as the Borg had clearly NOT assimilated whole Federation worlds or forced them to fall back by the time of FC.

Unless he was talking about all worlds they'd attacked and the "we" simply referred to ALL their victims.

Up until "The Wounded" the Federation was "clearly" not at war with the Cardassians. Up until "Star Trek Nemesis", the Romulans "clearly" didn't have a slave race called the Remans. Up until "Broken Bow" there was "clearly" not a Starship Enterprise prior to Kirk's.

Just because something's not been mentioned, or the centre of a episode, doesn't mean it didn't happen. In that scene Picard was telling Lily and the viewers that the Borg were slowly eating into their territory.

Also remember that there was a whole year between GENS and FC.

[Anwar]

But Picard said at the start of the film that this was the first Borg Invasion in 6 years, with BOBW clearly being what happened 6 years earlier.

(And of course none of this changes the fact that the desire to stay alive alone IS still a perfectly valid reason NOT to dive headfirst into a hopeless battle, even if there ISN'T a third party depending on your continued survival.)

You also never replied to MY earlier post, about what you'd think if Sisko and co saw a world under assault from the Dominion and just ran off.

That's exactly what happened in BOBW. The Borg attacked a world and won. Obviously, showing a defeat doesn't preclude an eventual happy ending.

They attacked a defenseless world that the ENT-D never got a chance to defend because they weren't there in the first place. Bit of a difference from actually seeing said world under attack and deciding to abandon them to their fate.

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

There's a difference between invading the heart of the Federation and taking a few border worlds.