Why do people keep saying Voyager weakened the Borg?

[Anwar]

Which all ties back to the original problem: If they were going to stupidly overpower the Borg like they did in Q Who? and BOBW, then they shouldn't have dug themselves even deeper and give them millions of Cubes and a huge area of Space.

VOY did the sensible thing by showing that the Borg have at least one enemy who can wipe the floor with them, and keep them at bay (the 8472). This solves all real problems with the Borg, and despite that it was critically panned.

You just can't win.

[zar]

Anwar wrote:

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then they shouldn't have dug themselves even deeper and give them millions of Cubes and a huge area of Space.

They didn't. VOY did that.

"But... but Guinan said they swarmed through space!"

Anwar wrote:

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You just can't win.

I've noticed.

[exodus]

How do you think they found out that the Borg were a fan favorite in the first place? Just because people tuned in to BOBW? They did receive feedback, you know.

Yes, and....?

has there ever been a letter-writing campaign over something so mundane? It's not like they killed off a favorite character.

If it's mundane, why are we even complaining?

I'm not an expert on the process, but I'm pretty sure the extent of the producers' direction is something like "Let's do a Borg episode." Then deciding whether to accept a story once it's submitted. Handling the actual story is up to the writer.

No, a producers job is to over see the entire production of a show and is way, way more than "Let's Do A Borg Ep." Producers are often part of the writing bull pin and are over see the direction of the show.

A writer's job isn't necessarily to keep track of the audience, but it IS their job to keep track of the characters they're writing and keep their portrayal consistent. Inconsistent portrayal is the root of the audience's dissatisfaction. "Weaken" is a relative term.

Voyager eps. were meant to be repeated out of sequence and had shows aired out of production order during it's original airing. Voyager was meant to be stand alone eps. and never meant to be 100% consistent. Voyager like ENT from the start was meant to bring back the casual viewer that doesn't notice or care about inconsistency. There were inconsistency in TNG, the most popular one and the audience never caught them and/or didn't care.

[exodus]

Luminus wrote:

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You asked about the loopholes and I gave you the answer. I'm not breaking the 4th wall, here.

And, as a result, the producers/writers creation fall heavily out of fan favor. Gee, I wonder why? No one trashes the Klingons or the Romulans. No on trashes the Green Goblin. And no one trashed Lex Luthor, until, you guessed it, the producers/writers (i.e., you) decided to overuse/misuse him.

The Klingons are fan favorites, but you never saw them suddenly becoming logical. They never started becoming calm. They never inexplicably started to say, "Today would be a good day to die, if it wasn't Sunday." And they never decloaked a space station that was 1-light year from Earth.

The reason the ratings kept jumping, is because people kept coming back to see if the writers were actually going to write a good Borg episode. I know, because that's why I kept watching.

I was the obsessed Borg fan at one point. I had almost all Borg paraphernalia, right down to that Borg bank that had a tractor beam on the Enterprise D all the way to a mini borg cube paperweight. So, of course, feedback for the Borg themselves was positive. I AM the audience the producers were catering to and as that audience I am telling you the producers screwed up. I came back, because I was hoping for a better story. I was hoping they would be redeemed. I was hoping for an origin story. All I got was increasingly weak Borg with terrible Borg Queen portrayals. (At 1 point the Borg queen is shown treating her drones as if they were common thugs, instead of treating them as an extension of herself, you know, like the Borg are supposed to be.) But they were Borg and Borg were exciting, like that very good lover who cheats on you, you keep coming back for more, because that loving is soooooo good. But the "aftertaste" is terrible and the regret is huge.

Stick to the rules that I mentioned before and you'll be fine. You want to show the Borg every season? Fine. But people have to die. Significant property has to be destroyed and not rebuilt in the very next episode (I'm looking at you Delta Flyer). Tears must be shed.

Just because something is popular, doesn't mean you abuse it. A good writer knows this.

I'm not getting this.
You tuned into a show you felt had weak writing thus contributing to the increased viewership of those eps., in turn giving the TPTB thr green light to do more of them........and it's the producers that screwed up?

You gave them the approval every time you tuned in.

[zar]

exodus wrote:

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Yes, and....?

You were insinuating that people like Luminus didn't give any feedback outside of the fact that they tuned in to the shows, therefore the producers had nothing but "approval" and had no idea what people actually thought of what they were doing with the Borg. That's hogwash.

exodus wrote:

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If it's mundane, why are we even complaining?

I must be out of the loop. Is it customary to only discuss things on this forum that we feel strongly enough about to have started a letter-writing campaign about it?

exodus wrote:

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Voyager eps. were meant to be repeated out of sequence and had shows aired out of production order during it's original airing. Voyager was meant to be stand alone eps. and never meant to be 100% consistent. Voyager like ENT from the start was meant to bring back the casual viewer that doesn't notice or care about inconsistency.

We're talking about consistent portrayal of the Borg's character, not continuity. If they didn't expect viewers to care about that, why did they think viewers wanted to see the Borg's return in the first place?

[Saito S]

I've stayed on the sidelines through this massive thread, having not felt the need to engage yet AGAIN on any of these familiar subjects (several of which have been completely deconstructed multiple times in threads long past). It has certainly been a bizarrely entertaining read, though.

But there was one thing that just jumped right out at me, and I wanted to make sure it had a spotlight shined on it:

Anwar wrote:

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VOY did the sensible thing by showing that the Borg have at least one enemy who can wipe the floor with them, and keep them at bay (the 8472). This solves all real problems with the Borg, and despite that it was critically panned.

You just can't win.

Nope. It wasn't. "Scorpion" was, in fact, critically celebrated. It is widely regarded as one of the best - if not THE best - VOY eps (or two eps, depending on how you look at it), and is considered a great ep among the entire franchise, not just Voyager. And not just on this BBS either, but in general. And the 8472 were well-received (until, of course, "In the Flesh"), in large part BECAUSE the Trek audience - for the first time - was presented with a new alien species that had the capability to completely blow the Borg up. Neither "Scorpion", nor the 8472, were critically panned. If you'd like to assert that they were, provide some proof.

Repeating a falsehood over and over and over (in this case, "You just can't win", which you have literally repeated verbatim several posts in a row now) does not make it suddenly become true.

[Anwar]

The fact that all folks can say when they think of Voyager and the Borg is "Voyager ruined the Borg".

Do they say "Voyager started out okay with the Borg but ruined them later"? Do they say "Voyager had an interesting idea with those 8472 aliens fighting the Borg"?

No, ALL they do is whine about how Voyager ruined the Borg. Every single second, every single appearance, every moment of the crew NOT being spineless cowards when confronted by them.

That's all the proof I need.

[thatborg]

I was bored, and came across this forum and thread and was compelled to chime in.

First I want to call Zar out on what I would describe as purely epic trolling. Your trolling rages on even in the face of facts and logic in the greatest troll style.

Second I think Voyager did a phenomenal job fleshing out the Borg. Using what was fleshed out, I will make some suppositions.

Voyager did actually weaken the Borg, the number of ships and planets that were destroyed in Scorpion was a great loss of resources to the collective. By that extension the Borg was weakened.

Think about it and the purpose of the Unimatrix. Borg colonize planets to extract resources, procure minerals and energy, they transport the materials to the giant to the Unimatrix for processing. The borg use a lot of minerals and energy and use a lot of resources to maintain ships and empires. Species 8472 destroyed a lot of Borg planets and ships, and with it their production and output capacity.

Switching subjects my theory on the cube that was seen in the next generation and a canonical reason why that design was never seen again is that it was a ship of older design. Why wouldn't the Borg recall older ships and scrap them. The Borg have been around a long time, surely they must have a few old Orbeth class cubes floating around in the fleet waiting to be decommissioned.

Also the debate about cubes being different sizes, of course they have cubes of different sizes. Borg scout ships are cube shaped and smaller. Borg probes like the one that voyager destroyed were probably the successor to those.

The cubes in Borg home space are numerous and performing other functions than just being out on the frontier assimilating, you can also assume that

The nature of the Borg makes them inherently uncreative, they rely on other races to provide them with upgrades to their technology and don't generally research it on their own. This is quite a logical draw back.

I think its quite plausible that the federation gained a significant leap forward on the borg because they're creative and motivated. The Borg on the other hand only get new tech when they assimilate it.

The idea of transwarp conduits as far back as TNG is quite logical. The Borg vessel that assimilated the outposts on the neutral zone before Q Who probably took all the assimilated people and everything they scooped up back to the Unimatrix for processing and reassignment.

Also in regards to assimilation, in a prior post it was mentioned that the difference between TNG and FC where one looked like zombies the other was neat and surgical

Think about it like this, the Borg in FC was assimilating people on the Enterprise after they lost their vessel, they didn't have access to proper assimilation chambers to put the finishing touches on the enterprise crew members who were assimilated. They also had other tasks to complete than completely outfitting new drones.

One last point, a previous post in this thread made mention of the fact that having Locutus and Seven of Nine and the Borg Queen completely shattered the idea of the collective mind.

I don't believe that to be the case, I see the Borg as a tightly controlled computer network with user levels. Even among the drones, some drones just have a higher user level than others.

[exodus]

You were insinuating that people like Luminus didn't give any feedback outside of the fact that they tuned in to the shows, therefore the producers had nothing but "approval" and had no idea what people actually thought of what they were doing with the Borg. That's hogwash.

No, that's assuming.
Why would I assume something and address something that nobody has mentioned? I read what Luminus had to say and answered based on the facts he provided.

I must be out of the loop. Is it customary to only discuss things on this forum that we feel strongly enough about to have started a letter-writing campaign about it?

Maybe, because I'm not seeing how this relates or is productive to the topic at hand?

We're talking about consistent portrayal of the Borg's character, not continuity. If they didn't expect viewers to care about that, why did they think viewers wanted to see the Borg's return in the first place? *

I already addressed this when I said popularity.

[Luminus]

exodus wrote:

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No, a producers job is to over see the entire production of a show and is way, way more than "Let's Do A Borg Ep." Producers are often part of the writing bull pin and are over see the direction of the show.

Then the producers are screw ups. That explains the problems, right there. It's why Spider-Man 3 was garbage. Moving along...

exodus wrote:

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Voyager eps. were meant to be repeated out of sequence and had shows aired out of production order during it's original airing. Voyager was meant to be stand alone eps. and never meant to be 100% consistent. Voyager like ENT from the start was meant to bring back the casual viewer that doesn't notice or care about inconsistency. There were inconsistency in TNG, the most popular one and the audience never caught them and/or didn't care.

Not doing the show any favors by revealing this bit of info. TNG didn't have as much glaring problems as Voyager. The biggest problem with Voyager is that the series should have been like "Year of Hell," considering that they were the only Federation ship in the Delta Quadrant. No such glaring problem existed on TNG. When the Ferengi first showed up, they were constantly jumping around and making noises and were about profit. The next time we saw them, there was no jumping around or stupid noises, but they were still all about profit, which is the core of who they are. If they had suddenly been about nobility, then TNG would have gotten blasted as well.

exodus wrote:

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I'm not getting this.
You tuned into a show you felt had weak writing thus contributing to the increased viewership of those eps., in turn giving the TPTB thr green light to do more of them........and it's the producers that screwed up?

You gave them the approval every time you tuned in.

I tuned into the show, during the end of the 3rd season. That's how I got into Trek in the first place. Scorpion was a great 2-part episode and I started watching the rest of Trek, because of it. But after that is where Borg portrayal went downhill. I kept watching because Jeri Ryan and Robert Picardo gave EXCELLENT performances.

If [you] base a show's worth on ratings alone, then [you] are a screw up. If that's the case, then Sanjaya is one of the greatest performers of all time.

[zar]

thatborg wrote:

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First I want to call Zar out on what I would describe as purely epic trolling. Your trolling rages on even in the face of facts and logic in the greatest troll style.

I think you might have some of our names mixed up.

thatborg wrote:

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Also the debate about cubes being different sizes, of course they have cubes of different sizes. Borg scout ships are cube shaped and smaller. Borg probes like the one that voyager destroyed were probably the successor to those.

The debate wasn't about whether all the cubes were the same size. There was the assertion that the tactical cubes in VOY were drastically smaller than all previously-seen cubes, thus excusing their apparent weakness. But this is nonsense because their original introduction was clearly meant to tell us they were more dangerous, and they were shown in fleets with the First Contact-type cubes, which devastated Starfleet's whole force, and were clearly the same size.

thatborg wrote:

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The nature of the Borg makes them inherently uncreative, they rely on other races to provide them with upgrades to their technology and don't generally research it on their own. This is quite a logical draw back.

I think its quite plausible that the federation gained a significant leap forward on the borg because they're creative and motivated. The Borg on the other hand only get new tech when they assimilate it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "quite a logical drawback". Does this mean "this is quite obviously a drawback" or "the Borg's uncreative nature is illogical"?

Yes, the Feds' advantage definitely lies in their creativity and ability to think individually, but I don't buy that this means they would overshoot the Borg in technological advancement. The Borg can instantly assimilate any race's technology and integrate it with all the existing technology from every other race they have already assimilated. This would easily give them an edge over any single race's technology.

[zar]

exodus wrote:

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No, that's assuming.
Why would I assume something and address something that nobody has mentioned? I read what Luminus had to say and answered based on the facts he provided.

If you were assuming that the producers had no idea what the fans thought of what they were doing, based on the fact that Luminus, a single fan, didn't write them a letter, then your assumption extends far beyond the facts he provided.

exodus wrote:

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Maybe, because I'm not seeing how this relates or is productive to the topic at hand?

I left the quote chain intact so you could easily see how it relates.

exodus wrote:

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I already addressed this when I said popularity.

I just searched through the last 5 pages and you never once even said the word popularity. What are you talking about?

[Anwar]

The biggest problem with Voyager is that the series should have been like "Year of Hell," considering that they were the only Federation ship in the Delta Quadrant.

Look, I know some folks were expecting a show where the entire crew with no exceptions to completely fall to pieces within the first two episodes and spend the entire series hating and plotting to murder one another. At least in their spare time while the rest of it would comprise of them all becoming vicious bloodthirsty space pirates who revel in being free of the Federation and go around ravaging, destroying and stealing everything from every sentient race encountered (especially the nice ones who welcome them) because that's "more true to life" and "better drama" than people who decide to overcome their differences and accept the aid others give them.

But it wasn't going to happen.

[exodus]

If you were assuming that the producers had no idea what the fans thought of what they were doing, based on the fact that Luminus, a single fan, didn't write them a letter, then your assumption extends far beyond the facts he provided.

If that's what you've concluded, then you would be incorrect.
As far as I'm aware, a letter writing campaign is usually a mass number of people signing off on one or a mass mailings of letters. Much like the letter writing campaign to Playmates toys by fans due to their displeasure in the direction of the Trek line.

I just searched through the last 5 pages and you never once even said the word popularity. What are you talking about?

Popularity, Fan Favorite.
Is there really much of a difference?

[zar]

So you think the only indications the producers had in the way of viewer opinion was whether or not they actually tuned in.

Got it.

And they didn't expect anyone to care whether their portrayal was consistent with their earlier portrayal, even though that earlier portrayal was the reason they were popular in the first place.

Okay.