Why do people keep saying Voyager weakened the Borg?

[Civ001]

So I watched some STV and I see a lot of comments on spacebattles.com and other sites that Voyager totaly weakened the Borg a lot. Why do people assume this?

[Anwar]

Because VOY didn't have the cannon fodder TNG did to sacrifice to the Borg, it makes them appear less powerful that they aren't killing lots of people every time they show up.

And also, TNG had the luxury of only ever showing one Borg ship at a time (since the Borg were more of an unknown in terms of numbers) while VOY didn't have that luxury and had to show multiple Borg vessels (in order to compete with how DS9 presented the Dominion) because they were going through the core of the Collective's actual territory.

That, and Trekkers don't like Janeway very much and were hoping Voyager would be destroyed by the Borg each and every time. They were just PO'ed it didn't happen.

[froot]

It's partly a valid complaint in that we do see the Borg quite a bit, which does kill a little of the mystery (well, for some - I never found the Borg design to be visually nightmare-inducing - even in TNG, when they were rampaging around Wolf 359. The BQ is the only thing that really looks truly scary to me.)

However, save for one tiny scout ship, there is never a point in which Voyager single-handedly takes on a Borg ship and wins. They usually run away, are helped by another powerful ship or set of ships, or get showered with magical future technology from a bitter older lady.

The fact that ordinary little Voyager sans backup was absolutely zero match for the Borg was always maintained.

[Anwar]

Look, if being "mysterious" is the only thing that makes someone interesting, that just shows how poorly thought out said creation is in the first place.

[froot]

Hey, when you're on a budget, it's 1989, and all you've got on hand is some leftover tubing and Gorilla Glue and the writers want to make a social statement about the dangers of groupthink, you do what you gotta do. At least they sort of updated the look of the Borg from their '80s iteration into something more convincingly cyborg-ish during VOY and First Contact (if still a little '80s-ish at heart.)

[Anwar]

What I mean is, if fully defining the Borg is what helped "ruin" them then the Borg were a crappy enemy to begin with that defining them does that.

[starlitegirl]

froot wrote:

---

Hey, when you're on a budget, it's 1989, and all you've got on hand is some leftover tubing and Gorilla Glue and the writers want to make a social statement about the dangers of groupthink, you do what you gotta do. At least they sort of updated the look of the Borg from their '80s iteration into something more convincingly cyborg-ish during VOY and First Contact (if still a little '80s-ish at heart.)

It's like they assimilated a species of edgy fashion designers somewhere in the middle.

[Anwar]

I think it would have been interesting if there were two types of visually distinct Borg:

We know from "Q Who?" that the Borg were meant to be a species that willingly chose to become a cybernertic hivemind and that they weren't all assimilated people.

I think they should have kept some Borg that we saw as the way they were in Q Who? and BOBW, just white skin. These would be the "pure" Borg who were always Borg from birth.

The others that look like zombies from "First Contact" onwards would represent the ones who were forcefully assimilated.

So we'd have scenes were the less gross looking Borg would be standing side by side with the mutilated zombie ones.

[starlitegirl]

Anwar wrote:

---

I think it would have been interesting if there were two types of visually distinct Borg:

We know from "Q Who?" that the Borg were meant to be a species that willingly chose to become a cybernertic hivemind and that they weren't all assimilated people.

I think they should have kept some Borg that we saw as the way they were in Q Who? and BOBW, just white skin. These would be the "pure" Borg who were always Borg from birth.

The others that look like zombies from "First Contact" onwards would represent the ones who were forcefully assimilated.

So we'd have scenes were the less gross looking Borg would be standing side by side with the mutilated zombie ones.

They were meant to look like mutilated zombies. That was the whole hive mind groupthink idea that was supposed to be symbolic. It just wasn't done very well at first because I don't think they realized how important it was going to be. I suspect they knew they were going to have multiple episodes, but they hadn't realized its true potential. If they had, they would have done a much better job on the makeup and costumes like they did with Worf and Data. Even the blue alien that cuts Worf's hair gets a better makeup job than the Borg did.

[Saquist]

Civ001 wrote:

---

So I watched some STV and I see a lot of comments on spacebattles.com and other sites that Voyager totaly weakened the Borg a lot. Why do people assume this?

Voyager was prominent at the time and often went with the Borg in the last 2 seasons. But the real culprit is Star Trek First Contact.

First Contact:

Introduced the Borg Queen:
This was a contradiction to what TNG told us about the Borg. That they were a collective. First Contact reversed all that by making it a hive mind. TNG reinforced the collective mind with Troi's empathic perceptions and they further said there were NO individuals. This means that the borg were all conscious individuals working in concert to a common goal. Locutus merely became a figure to represent the Borg to the Human race...a mouth piece.

Introduced Nanite Assimilation
This didn't fit with the Borg of TNG.
Hugh never tried to assimilate any of his captors
Neither did Lore's Borg attempt this sort of assimilation

Zombie Borg
First Contact portrayed the Borg as zombies, physically. missing body parts. Instead of Pale white they had a translucent veiny apparence, Instead of clean surgical prosthetic their limbs seemed disfigured and incompetently modified. Along with this zombie effect there was critical color added to all borg functions....green...tractor beams, lights of any kind and weapons were suddenly and inexplicably all green.

Lost of Regenerative Abilities.
Borg ships previously had the ability to regenerate at incredible speeds, this is what made defeating the Borg so difficult at wolf 359. No ship ever regenerated in such a way ever again.

All in all First Contact is the origin of the stupid Borg. Voyager just followed suit. So the claim that Voyager is to blame is bit nonsensical. Rick Berman is to blame.

[Supernuke]

But the real culprit is Star Trek First Contact.

I don't agree. Voyager encountered the Borg so incredibly often, that it made them look weak. Look at how massive the Cubes were in First Contact and in The Best of Both Worlds; they dwarf the cubes in Voyager. This makes them a much less threatening enemy in my opinion in VOY. Then Voyager goes on to destroy entire groups of Borg ships without getting a scratch, while in TNG one cube took out 40 starships and in FC one cube is back to being very threatening to large amounts of ships. 8472 also didn't help the Borg in being that powerful race that was supposed to exemplify why humans were naive in exploring the galaxy. Instead this species easily destroyed the Borg, making them look weak. This is just my opinion though, so feel free to rip me apart.

[BlobVanDam]

I don't think Voyager weakened the Borg. I think they did weaken the history of the Borg, with the backstory of 7's parents, but I still think the Borg held true enough to what was established up to First Contact. They definitely had some weak Borg stories though. The Borg babies come to mind.

[froot]

Supernuke wrote:

---

Then Voyager goes on to destroy entire groups of Borg ships without getting a scratch

Repeating what I said above: No - that never happened.

Outside of a small scout ship, Voyager never killed a single Borg ship on its own without outside help of some kind, much less "entire groups." "Endgame" was the only thing I'd consider overkill, but even then they were working with fancy future technology and someone who had spent years upon years dealing with and studying the Borg.

We saw a large group of Cubes just once, in "Scorpion." And the only thing Voyager did was sit there and wet its pants as they flew by.

[Saquist]

Supernuke wrote:

---

I don't agree. Voyager encountered the Borg so incredibly often, that it made them look weak.

That's highly perceptional. Many of the encounters were indirect. Such as Unimatrix Zero (initially) Hope and Fear was extremely indirect, Scorpion was actual a perfect storm was Borg episodes go. A direct encounter of collaboration. One Direct Encounter with the 29th century Borg was direct and extremely unfavorable to Voyager. Even when Unimatrix Zero became more direct they had the help of a Borg Sphere. With what the writers were using from First Contact they were actually doing a good job with special situations between Borg and the Voyager.

Look at how massive the Cubes were in First Contact and in The Best of Both Worlds; they dwarf the cubes in Voyager. This makes them a much less threatening enemy in my opinion in VOY.

I saw no difference in size really.

Then Voyager goes on to destroy entire groups of Borg ships without getting a scratch, while in TNG one cube took out 40 starships and in FC one cube is back to being very threatening to large amounts of ships.

You guys forget Intrepid is Fighting Starship, it's Galaxy equivalent at the least in Firepower. Janeway litterally informs one Borg ship that Voyager can match their firepower and it was no idol threat. Voyager disable their shields in two hits.

8472 also didn't help the Borg in being that powerful race that was supposed to exemplify why humans were naive in exploring the galaxy.

Yeah but Star Fleet advanced. Nothing stays the same. They learned.

Instead this species easily destroyed the Borg, making them look weak. This is just my opinion though, so feel free to rip me apart.

The only thing that Voyager litterally said or did to make the Borg look weak is give them the ridiculous limitation that they couldn't learn anything except through assimilation. You'd think the Borg had never assimilated researchers and scientist that they didn't know how to create work arounds. That's about as stupid as a civilization having tech but not knowing how to fix tech.

[froot]

Saquist wrote:

---

You guys forget Intrepid is Fighting Starship, it's Galaxy equivalent at the least in Firepower. Janeway litterally informs one Borg ship that Voyager can match their firepower and it was no idol threat. Voyager disable their shields in two hits..

That was a tiny scout ship, not a Cube.

Plus I think the Intrepid is itself a scout ship and/or science vessel more than anything.