Borg

[sonak]

horatio83 wrote:

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Sure but the best Borg stories (Q Who, Best of Both Worlds and I, Borg) worked well although they did not look particularly scary and FC worked not because but in spite of their zombie looks.
I am not a fan of the shift from the Borg as more of an ideological enemy to this Cronenbergian "assimilation is so horrible" stuff.

"BOBW" and "family" portrayed assimilation as pretty horrible. That wasn't exactly a FC revelation.

[Temis the Vorta]

Well. The Borg used to be awesome. They're an awesome idea, certainly, but as we've all seen, badly misused.

They could be brought back, but the key is, you've got take some advice from Aretha Franklin and treat them with R E S P E C T.

That means: the Borg almost never can be defeated, unless Starfleet is being incredibly clever. Our jaws should hit the floor, they're so clever. Short of that, the Borg wins. Most of the time, the only solution is just to run away.

And assimilation is P E R M A N E N T. No go-backs. No treating assimilation like a dress-up party. The next time the Borg is brought into a story, some popular character should be assimilated and it's permanent. Someone like Chekov. Something that will punch us in the gut, make us really understand, shit is getting real.

[horatio83]

sonak wrote:

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"BOBW" and "family" portrayed assimilation as pretty horrible. That wasn't exactly a FC revelation.

It was implied that it is horrible but it was not really shown and in Family Picard talks more about having being forced to do things against his will than about the assimilation.
Before FC the Borg are far less material creatures than afterwards and as usual TNG worked best when it was about ideas.

[Temis the Vorta]

PS, and leave the Ferengi out of it.

Now if you could figure out a way the Dominion could make use of the Borg, you might be onto something. Can a Founder be assimilated? Maybe not. Could they figure out a way to immunize Jems and Vortas from assimilation? Or would it matter? Just have the Vorta termination implant set to trigger whenever nanoprobes are detected. As for the Jems, cut them off from the white and they die.

If the Dominion were the only force in the galaxy effectively immune from the Borg, wouldn't that be interesting?

[Tiberius]

Has there ever been a Borg origin story that hasn't been based along the lines of either "I'm doing this to help them and make some good - Oh no! It all went wrong!" or Humans somehow being responsible?

[T'Girl]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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you've got take some advice from Aretha Franklin and treat them with R E S P E C T.

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.

No treating assimilation like a dress-up party.

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.

As for the Jems, cut them off from the white and they die.

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

[Temis the Vorta]

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

T'Girl wrote:

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After Picard and Seven that's impossible.

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.

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

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.

[Gary7]

Cynics Corner put it quite aptly:

CynicsCorner.com wrote:

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EUNUCH OF THE WEEK: The Borg Collective, whose demolition by Star Trek's writers is now complete. They now appear to be totally incompetent, and seem to function not much differently than all the other Star Trek "villain races," like, say, the Kazon. They have a sneering lead villain, namely the poorly-conceived and poorly-executed Borg Queen, and stooges stumbling around failing to accomplish anything and doing questionable things like turning on viewscreens with keypads. (Hello? Why would a collective mind, fully integrated into their ships' systems, need to do that?). One Borg cube decimated an entire fleet of Starships ten years ago. Now, one pissant shuttlecraft can enter Borg Headquarters, and escape? The Borg Queen has total control over the ship, modifying shields, weapons, etc., with a mere thought, but when Janeway shoots some dumb little circuit box, all the Queen can do is stand there gaping while Janeway and Seven are whisked away? I could go on and on...

TEMPORAL ANOMALY OF THE WEEK: Not only was the quality of the Borg ruined, but their history was corrupted as well, thanks to sloppy retconning with regard to the Hansens. The Hansens, Starfleet scientists, left to go Borg-hunting in a Starfleet vessel, fully ten years before Starfleet's first contact with the Borg, armed with a perfectly accurate model of a Borg Cube, and run into a real Borg Cube, not in the Delta Quadrant, but right "in the neighborhood" of the Federation? Right. Even now, flocks of Trekkie Rationalizers are busy trying to explain that one away. But the sad truth is that a slight revision of the Hansons' story would have made this bullshit unnecessary. How about this, for instance: the Hansons were eccentric explorers, who left for unexplored space, fell into a (wormhole/conduit/anomaly), ended up in the Delta Quadrant, studied the Borg long enough to develop the crucial tech Voyager needed, and were assimilated. No muss, no fuss, and no screwing with established continuity. Instead, the writers piss all over The Next Generation by messing around with the Borg's timeline, making Picard and company look like idiots for being oblivious to the existence of the Borg.

[David F. Weisma]

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?

[Enterprise is Great]

Tiberius wrote:

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Has there ever been a Borg origin story that hasn't been based along the lines of either "I'm doing this to help them and make some good - Oh no! It all went wrong!" or Humans somehow being responsible?

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

[-Brett-]

BillJ wrote:

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Please. When they need a sales boost, they will be trumpeting the return of the Borg, loud and proud.

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.

[Temis the Vorta]

Ah, the Cynic's Corner...

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

[Alrik]

T'Girl wrote:

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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.

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.

[Edit_XYZ]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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Well. The Borg used to be awesome. They're an awesome idea, certainly, but as we've all seen, badly misused.

They could be brought back, but the key is, you've got take some advice from Aretha Franklin and treat them with R E S P E C T.

That means: the Borg almost never can be defeated, unless Starfleet is being incredibly clever. Our jaws should hit the floor, they're so clever. Short of that, the Borg wins. Most of the time, the only solution is just to run away.

And assimilation is P E R M A N E N T. No go-backs. No treating assimilation like a dress-up party. The next time the Borg is brought into a story, some popular character should be assimilated and it's permanent. Someone like Chekov. Something that will punch us in the gut, make us really understand, shit is getting real.

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.

[sonak]

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.