'Dark Frontier' Where the Borg went wrong?

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

AllStarEntprise wrote:

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So I'm still on my first watch through of VOY. After completing Dark Frontier I feel this is where the Borg went bad in Star Trek.

From the introduction of the Mary Sue ship Voyager destroying a Borg ship with a single photon torpedo.

To the Mary Sue and totally inappropriate Hansen family and their quest to study the Borg. How inept are the Borg to let a single ship stalk them for 3 years and even neglect the transporter singles of drones being beamed off and back, and Papa Hasen's on recon on to the cube. OH WAIT THEY'RE GENIUSES. That explains everything, and all their ingenuity.

The stupid frakking Queen, and her duality for 7 of 9's soul against Janeway.

To Tuvok being able to disable the shields for a Borg cube capable of destroying the entire cube.

There are more things I dislike about this episode but what do guys think?

At times it feels more like an episode of NuDoctor Who. Where the 11th Doctor can just talk the Daleks in to submission despite the Dalek's reputation as no BS killers. The Queen is at a Unimatrix with millions of Borgs, and yet she is overcome by Janeway talking to her when she could just order her drones to kill/assimilate Janeway.

Look up the definition of "Mary Sue" - Voyager, as the lead throughout the series cannot be one.

To the rest, no. I thought "Dark Frontier" was a lot of fun. Sorry the Borg aren't the utterly invincible force you wish they were. They never have been. They're powerful, but very slow to adapt to new and different theats. Imagine if Picard kept firing in "Q Who" - the Borg would have never had hours they had to repair and adapt and would have been utterly destroyed in their first-ever appearence by standard Starfleet weapons.

[USS Firefly]

I think that if Picard would have kept on firing at the Borg, they would shoot back faster.

[Melakon]

King Daniel wrote:

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Look up the definition of "Mary Sue" - Voyager, as the lead throughout the series cannot be one.

Thanks, I'd been seeing "Mary Sue" repeatedly referred to out of proper context on posts around here several times lately, and almost mentioned it here, but couldn't write a response that was as polite as yours.

USS Firefly wrote:

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I think that if Picard would have kept on firing at the Borg, they would shoot back faster.

And congratulations on your recent promotion, Lieutenant.

[USS Firefly]

Haha thank you, I hadn't noticed it.
Now lets hope that with promotion comes wisdom

[MacLeod]

AllStarEntprise wrote:

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So I'm still on my first watch through of VOY. After completing Dark Frontier I feel this is where the Borg went bad in Star Trek.

From the introduction of the Mary Sue ship Voyager destroying a Borg ship with a single photon torpedo.

To the Mary Sue and totally inappropriate Hansen family and their quest to study the Borg. How inept are the Borg to let a single ship stalk them for 3 years and even neglect the transporter singles of drones being beamed off and back, and Papa Hasen's on recon on to the cube. OH WAIT THEY'RE GENIUSES. That explains everything, and all their ingenuity.

The stupid frakking Queen, and her duality for 7 of 9's soul against Janeway.

To Tuvok being able to disable the shields for a Borg cube capable of destroying the entire cube.

There are more things I dislike about this episode but what do guys think?

At times it feels more like an episode of NuDoctor Who. Where the 11th Doctor can just talk the Daleks in to submission despite the Dalek's reputation as no BS killers. The Queen is at a Unimatrix with millions of Borgs, and yet she is overcome by Janeway talking to her when she could just order her drones to kill/assimilate Janeway.

Well to be fair the Doctor uses his wits more foten than some sort of weapon, and remember the Time lords are at least equal to the Daleks if not sperior. Whilst the Federation is supposedly weaker than the Borg.

[Melakon]

Oooh, and now I'm a fleet captain. Next stop-- prolonged exposure to delta rays.

[AllStarEntprise]

MacLeod wrote:

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Well to be fair the Doctor uses his wits more foten than some sort of weapon, and remember the Time lords are at least equal to the Daleks if not sperior. Whilst the Federation is supposedly weaker than the Borg.

Please correct if I am wrong (thats not sarcasm that's a genuine request for reproach) but doesn't Mary Sue and Gary Stu define a wish fulfillment character, tropes of themes? All too often Voyager and her 150 member crew are written as the "little engine" that could.

Get their ship commandeered and abandoned on a remote world by the Kazon. Pssh whatever we'll get it back no problem. Great thing Tom Paris was flying in one of those oh so durable shuttlecrafts and it was still warp capable after getting blasted by Kazon Raiders.

Those street gang thugs didn't know who they were messing with. YO!

The Borg needed a weapon to combat Specied 8472. Despite the Borg's ability to adapt to what it enocunters it was the VOY crew who created the nanoprobe weapon. Not the Borg who had millions of casualties and hadn't thought to create such a weapon.

But the VOY crew has got you playa!

Meet Species 8472 again and talk them into submission before they can carry out their attack on Earth. This known dimensional hopping race that can slaughter Borg cubes with a minimal efforts is talked out of attack Earth while in humanoid form. When once again they could've launched an attack and destroyed VOY. It's not like VOY has infinite amount of torpedos. What did they have, about 3 dozen photon only?

See not even the "we make art with Borg bodies", Species 8472 can overcome the VOY crew dawg. Holla back

And finally Dark Frontier and how the VOY crew tactically overpowers, outsmart and outrun the most powerful force in the universe.

Am I the only one who remembers when people spoke about the Borg like this?

[Melakon]

The first Mary Sues were fanfic characters introduced into the world of the main characters, who were gradually revealed to be smarter, prettier/handsomer, braver, more competent, sexier, and basically all around better than any of the main characters, and wound up saving the day/ship/planet/universe. The regular characters became mere pawns in a story all about her, who was generally perceived by readers as a surrogate for the author (usually female). The Mary Sues were often a teenage girl in a world of adults. Wesley Crusher is sometimes described as the first canon Mary Sue regular cast member.

If you haven't yet taken King Daniel's advice, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

[AllStarEntprise]

I read it but I was hoping for a better source for explanation than a Wikipedia page.

[Melakon]

I don't think you'll find it listed in Encyclopedia Britannica.

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

AllStarEntprise wrote:

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I read it but I was hoping for a better source for explanation than a Wikipedia page.

Try these:
http://fanlore.org/wiki/Mary_Sue
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue

[Seven of Five]

Melakon wrote:

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For me, the weakening of the Borg as villains began with TNG's "I, Borg".

I loved that episode. Making Picard look Hugh in the eye and decide if he could still kill him made for gripping viewing.

Now if you want to argue about Descent, then I'm with you. They just shouldn't have bothered turning up for work that day. It was subsequently ignored by FC and VOY, which was definitely the right decision.

VOY went to the well too many times as well. Scorpion was excellent, but making a main character a Borg meant they would use them as a crutch a bit too often. Dark Frontier had good parts to it, and was produced very well, but ultimately made the Borg weak. Unimatrix Zero was the pinnacle of this mess with easily reversible assimilation.

[R. Star]

I call it the Water Down effect. A villain is introduced and is powerful, bad and unstoppable. It takes a minor miracle for the heroes to survive the first encounter or two. But as they're seen more and more, they become weaker and weaker to give our heroes the ability to beat them more readily. Voyager pretty much embodied this with the Borg.

[Guy Gardener]

Every time they used those Borg costumes and sfx they inherited from the movie... They didn't have to invent a new species. Mock up new props and sew up an entire new wardrobe for that species leads and their extras.

The more Borg episodes they did, the more money they saved on production costs.

[teacake]

R. Star wrote:

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I call it the Water Down effect.

And with the tribbles it's a Watership Down effect.