Borg

[Oblivion165]

Why are the borg supposed to be gone now?

[sonak]

the Trek books ended the Borg Collective in the "Destiny" trilogy.

[Gary7]

Enterprise is Great wrote:

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

There are several interpretations of the Borg origins. See the Wikipedia entry (Borg_(StarTrek)).


I like to think of it as a nano-machines gone wrong. As technology progresses and humanoids seek to refine and extend life, every person is injected with nano-machines that "borrow" resources from the body, as well as payloads of raw materials delivered via the ingesting of pills, to do various beneficial things for the host. Those machines go about the body, eliminating flaws/cancers and actually improving DNA encoding. But one day, an anomalous change in collective programming occurs in one person (who happens to be a brilliant scientist) and the nano-machines develop a heuristic capability. The goal of "perfecting the body" is adjusted to incorporate machine technology with human physiology, using the copious scientific information of the host individual who had fanciful dreams of a one day creating a cybernetic being, but was never serious about it. The nano machines turn that dream into reality, even going so far as to begin rewriting the programming of the brain to interface with other machines. And then, with the realization of how teamwork would be far more effective, the nano machines create a means of transferring some of them to another human host to repeat the process. And thus, the Borg Collective is born.

You can never completely get rid of the Borg. The nano machines can lay dormant anywhere, virtually undetectable. And then, all they need is a host to accidentally come into contact with them (might be a child who finds a Borg body among some scout ship wreckage on a remote stretch of land), infecting the host and then beginning the process all over again.

[horatio83]

That's a nice Asimovian explanation but I think the Borg work better if you do not know whence they came. First because you keep the mystery, second because there is something terrifying about an enemy you do not understand and who seems to have been around forever (of course not literally but when you can say the Borg emerged in the year XYZ you feel as if you are more in control even if this knowledge is totally useless)..

[Sindatur]

sonak wrote:

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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.

Actually, speaking of the Daleks, they actually did get weakened in the Current Dr. Who Show. The problem isn't that they get defeated everytime they are shown, even if they are shown every season/Series. The problem is when you Millions of them get defeated over and over again. In the Classic Doctor Who Show, you typically, only saw a relatively small group of Daleks (maybe 10 or fewer or 20, and maybe once or twice 50 or so), so it wasn't a problem to see them get defeated, because you always knew in the back of your mind, that they were only barely defeated, and if there were more of them, The Daleks would've won, so, that's how they remained a threat.

The Borg ran into the same problem, at first a single cube was capable of decimating the Federation, and finally Janeway was able to come out on top with her single ship, up against multiple Cubes (And of course, the Borg Queen didn't help matters)

[David F. Weisma]

The most interesting origin idea is that it was mostly deliberate. From the Internet to cell phones, we're always inventing things to enable us to work together more easily. Itcould be awesome to be part of a hive mind, capable of understanding things an individual cannot comprehend. I'm not even sure how it all went wrong, if the drone brains are an important part of the Borg mind, why are they so happy to escape individually from what they create collectively? Yet a big bureaucracy can be like that too.

[Tiberius]

Gary7 wrote:

---

There are several interpretations of the Borg origins. See the Wikipedia entry (Borg_(StarTrek)).


I like to think of it as a nano-machines gone wrong. As technology progresses and humanoids seek to refine and extend life, every person is injected with nano-machines that "borrow" resources from the body, as well as payloads of raw materials delivered via the ingesting of pills, to do various beneficial things for the host. Those machines go about the body, eliminating flaws/cancers and actually improving DNA encoding. But one day, an anomalous change in collective programming occurs in one person (who happens to be a brilliant scientist) and the nano-machines develop a heuristic capability. The goal of "perfecting the body" is adjusted to incorporate machine technology with human physiology, using the copious scientific information of the host individual who had fanciful dreams of a one day creating a cybernetic being, but was never serious about it. The nano machines turn that dream into reality, even going so far as to begin rewriting the programming of the brain to interface with other machines. And then, with the realization of how teamwork would be far more effective, the nano machines create a means of transferring some of them to another human host to repeat the process. And thus, the Borg Collective is born.

You can never completely get rid of the Borg. The nano machines can lay dormant anywhere, virtually undetectable. And then, all they need is a host to accidentally come into contact with them (might be a child who finds a Borg body among some scout ship wreckage on a remote stretch of land), infecting the host and then beginning the process all over again.

I've never been a fan of that kind of explanation.

In my own fanfic "The Hansen Diaries", I go with the explanation that expands on what Peter David wrote in "Vendetta". In it, he postulates that the planet killer from "The Doomsday Machine" was built by the Preservers as a weapon in a war against the Borg.

I extend that by saying that the Borg went to war with the preservers as a result of what they saw as agressive actions, seeding countless planets with colonies of civilisations to protect them (like we saw in "The Paradise Syndrome"). As the war continues, both sides try a desparate tactic. For the preservers, it is the planet killer, designed to use the dead worlds that their colonies had once been on (but are now destroyed by the Borg) as fuel.

For the Borg, it is to use the nanites to enhance their soldiers and gain information about the enemy (such as assimilation). Ultimately, the Borg win, and begin an expansionist period which never really goes away.

[David F. Weisma]

Just once we should see a drone which tries to rejoin the Borg, perhaps some misanthrope whose brain was a central nexus involved in weapons design or something. Or maybe they just find not beige told what to do as they have been all their lives confusing and frustrating.

[BennieGamali]

... Well.. this could be weirder..