Why do people keep saying Voyager weakened the Borg?

[Anwar]

But when something like that DID happen, the "Descent" attacks, the Feds still went on full alert to deal with it. I'm sure even border attacks would have been mentioned in the script and not glossed over.

[zar]

Anwar wrote:

---

You also never replied to MY earlier post, about what you'd think if Sisko and co saw a world under assault from the Dominion and just ran off.

Read between the lines. These comments should have told you what I would think of that:

If trying to help would be useless suicide, then it's not a choice between a million deaths versus 200 deaths. It would be a million versus a million and 200.

the desire to stay alive alone IS still a perfectly valid reason NOT to dive headfirst into a hopeless battle

Anwar wrote:

---

They attacked a defenseless world that the ENT-D never got a chance to defend because they weren't there in the first place.

Fine, whatever. The point is, for the umpteenth time, the same thing could have happened on VOY. Your claim was that it couldn't have.

[Anwar]

No, I'm saying that if it DID happen it would just make the fandom hate the VOY crew more than they already do because now they'd see just how incompetent and spineless they were compared to Picard and co.

[zar]

Doing the exact same thing as Picard and co. would make them incompetent compared to Picard and co.?

Another ridiculous claim made by you alone. Thanks for proving once again that you are the "fandom hate".

[Anwar]

Picard and co stopped the Borg from destroying the Federation, whereas VOY would only be able to fail saving anyone or abandon others in fear of the Borg otherwise the Borg are "emasculated".

[zar]

As predicted. You never disappoint.

[Anwar]

If there was ever an occasion where Picard and co DID run away out of fear, you'd have a case. They never did, so you have nothing to say with the "Janeway would do what Picard would do" line since Picard never did that. What Picard and co DID do was beat the Borg and stop them dead in their tracks.

[zar]

Anwar wrote:

---

If there was ever an occasion where Picard and co DID run away out of fear, you'd have a case.

The "case" you're referring to is yours, not mine.

You are the only one here who's positing that the only possible scenario involving Borg victories in VOY would have had to look something like this:

- Voyager flies up to a planet, Borg are attacking
- Voyager runs away
- Borg win
- Roll credits

You have consistently disregarded with no good reason (other than your usual "the audience would hate it" bullshit) our repeated attempts to disclaim that case:

"Voyager doesn't stop the Borg or save the entire planet" does not have to mean "Voyager is completely ineffectual and ever last member of that species is assimilated." There are DOZENS of ways that a story along those lines could go (no I'm not going to list them all out, and no, failing to do so doesn't make me a hater).

Now, they might try something ELSE (get reinforcements, try and create a diversion, etc.) rather than just leave the people to their fate, but they wouldn't just attack. Neither would (or should) Voyager, in that situation, and there's no reason they couldn't have done one of those other things to try and help.

They weren't just spineless cowards, they were keeping priorities. Now, see if you can stretch that imagination and picture a similar scenario that could have happened in VOY, and you see our point.

showing a defeat doesn't preclude an eventual happy ending.

So it would seem, once again, that you are arguing with yourself. While some of us are actually trying to defend the show's potential, YOU are the one refusing to give VOY any chance, even hypothetically -- arguing that in every possible circumstance it would still fail and be hated.

We get it.

You hate VOY.

[Anwar]

You are the only one here who's positing that the only possible scenario involving Borg victories in VOY would have had to look something like this:

- Voyager flies up to a planet, Borg are attacking
- Voyager runs away
- Borg win
- Roll credits

You want to keep the Borg as effective villains (the way TNG overpowered them) this is pretty much the standard.

"Voyager doesn't stop the Borg or save the entire planet" does not have to mean "Voyager is completely ineffectual and ever last member of that species is assimilated."

If VOY is effective against the Borg, the Borg are weakened. If the Borg don't assimilate everyone present, then they're also weakened.

They weren't just spineless cowards, they were keeping priorities. Now, see if you can stretch that imagination and picture a similar scenario that could have happened in VOY, and you see our point.

VOY doesn't have any higher priority or missions other than "save our own skins and run back home". That's the premise of the show. Everything else is secondary, meaning there's no room for "We have a more important mission to accomplish, we can't stop to help." DS9 could tell that type of scenario because there was more at stake than their lives and they had actual missions to perform. VOY had none of that.

showing a defeat doesn't preclude an eventual happy ending.

A defeat that entails the utter decimation of an entire planet and its species, wherein the "heroes" were unable or unwilling to do anything but run away crying doesn't lend itself to anything but a bittersweet ending at best that still paints the "heroes" in a bad light for the rest of the series because of their failure/cowardice especially compared to the heroism of their peers/predecessors.

Kirk can fight Gods and save worlds from destruction at the hands of powerful invaders/destroyers.

Picard can defeat the Borg every major Invasion they send against the Federation.

Sisko can defeat the Dominion in their war for conquest of the Alpha/Beta Quadrants.

VOY's crew can...fail against the Borg and then run away, or just run away at the sight of the Borg despite their victims begging them for help the whole way through because if they manage to do anything significant the Borg will have been weakened as villains.

[exodus]

These are very generalized statements. And unfortunately, arguments surrounding them have gone in circles in this thread. I really thought it was going to be one that would become an interesting reference about the Borg in Star Trek. Instead, it just goes on and on and on... not really accomplishing anything except that the realization that the debate has been going nowhere, thanks to original poster #2.

I don't think it's fair to put the blame solely on one posters shoulders.
It takes two to tango.
It would have been the debate/conversation you were looking for if all parties would just agree to disagree and then push the topic forward.

[zar]

You just reaffirmed everything I just said, so I don't see any point in responding to most of it, but I can't get over this part:

... there's no room for "We have a more important mission to accomplish, we can't stop to help." DS9 could tell that type of scenario because there was more at stake than their lives and they had actual missions to perform.

If the Defiant had uncloaked there they would have likely been killed. You say the only reason this worked in DS9 was because they had a "more important" mission, and therefore had a valid reason for backing out.

Meaning that, if they hadn't had that more important mission to get to, the suicidal rescue attempt would have been the right thing to do.

Do you seriously believe that?

[Anwar]

If they were randomly flying around, heard that the Klingons (who weren't their enemies at the time) were fighting the Cardassians and ran into a debris field and then decided not to do anything because they might get attacked (by whom? Why would either of those guys attack them?)? Yeah, I'd question them and their ethics.

Now, if there was some greater purpose in "Voyager" beyond "Running away and saving our own skins" as the central plot then I could accept them taking on the Borg if they attack a world and then having to withdraw in failure.

But there wasn't.

[zar]

Anwar wrote:

---

heard that the Klingons (who weren't their enemies at the time) were fighting the Cardassians and ran into a debris field and then decided not to do anything because they might get attacked (by whom? Why would either of those guys attack them?)?

[Anwar]

Take away the whole point of their mission (The Klingon/Cardassian conflict), then yeah it does come off as cowardly that they randomly come across a debris field while flying around for no reason and just decide that since there's a possibility it might be a trap set by...someone...they better just keep flying around.

You want to do a story where VOY finds a world under Borg attack and abandons these people? Give them a damn better reason than "We're scared" because that just doesn't fly especially considering the selflessness of their predecessors and contemporaries.

[zar]

The phrase "suicidal rescue attempt" was part of the question. You completely avoided the question by removing that. We've reached the point where you can't even go a single sentence without turning it into a question of two extremes, so I'm out. See you next year.