Do you think Kirk would have begged Q to save them from the Borg

[enterprisecvn65]

So even though Kirk and Picard were proud men who could be very stubborn I think it's fair to say Picard has an easier time swallowing his pride from time to time and saying "I was wrong and/or I need your help." Also Kirk was generally a more aggressive personality who didn't wave the white flag as easily.

So if, in Q Who, it was TOS Kirk in command of the Enterprise and the show unfolds the same way. Q shows up and is his pompous and irritating self, Kirk has as much love for Q as Picard does and eventually gets on his soapbox talking about how Q underestimates mankind and how they're ready and willing to face the unknown to the point where Q decided to introduce them to the Borg to show Kirk he has no idea what's out there.

At the end when it's clear the Borg are about to win, Picard sucks it up and tells Q he was wrong and tells Q "I NEED YOU" and Q is delighted to hear this and saves their asses.

Do you think TOS Kirk would have done the same thing? Or do you think Kirk would have been "You know what if we're going down we're going down fighting and rammed the Enterprise into the Borg or some other heroic last stand action,

 

[BillJ]

He would have surrendered, I think. But I also believe he would've been formulating an alternate plan.

 

[FormerLurker]

If Q felt the same way about Kirk that he obviously did about Picard, in that he enjoyed toying with him but wanted him around to "learn something important" about himself and his species, he would have let Kirk rev up the Enterprises engines, but then sent him back to the Alpha Quadrant before he could do any damage. He would have then popped back in to rub Kirk the wrong way about how willing he was to sacrifice everything and everyone on board just to keep the Borg from assimilating them. Which might not have had the effect on Kirk that Q intended.

 

[bbjeg]

With the way he handles impossible odds, I don't think Kirk would have needed to succumb to Q's pettiness. Chekov would have devised something to hide the ship, Scotty would have tested a engine mod that would have transwarped them away or away long enough for Spock to mind meld with a Borg (that would overwhelm him at first but Bone would have a salve for that) and he'd plant a sleep command in their hive mind rendering them harmless.

Kirk and company are badass like that.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

With the way he handles impossible odds, I don't think Kirk would have needed to succumb to Q's pettiness. Chekov would have devised something to hide the ship, Scotty would have tested a engine mod that would have transwarped them behind a planet, Spock would mind meld with a Borg (that would overwhelm him at first but Bone would have a salve for that) and he'd plant a sleep command rendering them harmless.

Or maybe Kirk would have just slept with the queen and solved it in the same way he solved a few other problems.

 

[kirkfan]

So even though Kirk and Picard were proud men who could be very stubborn I think it's fair to say Picard has an easier time swallowing his pride from time to time and saying "I was wrong and/or I need your help." Also Kirk was generally a more aggressive personality who didn't wave the white flag as easily.

So if, in Q Who, it was TOS Kirk in command of the Enterprise and the show unfolds the same way. Q shows up and is his pompous and irritating self, Kirk has as much love for Q as Picard does and eventually gets on his soapbox talking about how Q underestimates mankind and how they're ready and willing to face the unknown to the point where Q decided to introduce them to the Borg to show Kirk he has no idea what's out there.

At the end when it's clear the Borg are about to win, Picard sucks it up and tells Q he was wrong and tells Q "I NEED YOU" and Q is delighted to hear this and saves their asses.

Do you think TOS Kirk would have done the same thing? Or do you think Kirk would have been "You know what if we're going down we're going down fighting and rammed the Enterprise into the Borg or some other heroic last stand action,

Kirk could swallow his pride:

CHEKOV: Shields up, Captain?
KIRK: Signal our surrender.
UHURA: Captain?
KIRK: We surrender!
UHURA: This is Enterprise.
CHEKOV: If they fire...
UHURA: We surrender.
CHEKOV: ...with our shields down...
UHURA: We surrender.
CHEKOV: ...we will not be able to respond.
UHURA (OC): Repeat, Enterprise surrenders.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

So even though Kirk and Picard were proud men who could be very stubborn I think it's fair to say Picard has an easier time swallowing his pride from time to time and saying "I was wrong and/or I need your help." Also Kirk was generally a more aggressive personality who didn't wave the white flag as easily.

So if, in Q Who, it was TOS Kirk in command of the Enterprise and the show unfolds the same way. Q shows up and is his pompous and irritating self, Kirk has as much love for Q as Picard does and eventually gets on his soapbox talking about how Q underestimates mankind and how they're ready and willing to face the unknown to the point where Q decided to introduce them to the Borg to show Kirk he has no idea what's out there.

At the end when it's clear the Borg are about to win, Picard sucks it up and tells Q he was wrong and tells Q "I NEED YOU" and Q is delighted to hear this and saves their asses.

Do you think TOS Kirk would have done the same thing? Or do you think Kirk would have been "You know what if we're going down we're going down fighting and rammed the Enterprise into the Borg or some other heroic last stand action,

Kirk could swallow his pride:

CHEKOV: Shields up, Captain?
KIRK: Signal our surrender.
UHURA: Captain?
KIRK: We surrender!
UHURA: This is Enterprise.
CHEKOV: If they fire...
UHURA: We surrender.
CHEKOV: ...with our shields down...
UHURA: We surrender.
CHEKOV: ...we will not be able to respond.
UHURA (OC): Repeat, Enterprise surrenders.

AH....but remember I'm talking about the young cock sure Captain Kirk of the 60's. Not the older and less aggressively reactive Kirk of the 90's.

I think it's important to factor in the difference between the characters in this scenario. Kirk of TUC probably would have told Q I need you. Kirk of TOS.......I'm not so sure.

 

[kirkfan]

So even though Kirk and Picard were proud men who could be very stubborn I think it's fair to say Picard has an easier time swallowing his pride from time to time and saying "I was wrong and/or I need your help." Also Kirk was generally a more aggressive personality who didn't wave the white flag as easily.

So if, in Q Who, it was TOS Kirk in command of the Enterprise and the show unfolds the same way. Q shows up and is his pompous and irritating self, Kirk has as much love for Q as Picard does and eventually gets on his soapbox talking about how Q underestimates mankind and how they're ready and willing to face the unknown to the point where Q decided to introduce them to the Borg to show Kirk he has no idea what's out there.

At the end when it's clear the Borg are about to win, Picard sucks it up and tells Q he was wrong and tells Q "I NEED YOU" and Q is delighted to hear this and saves their asses.

Do you think TOS Kirk would have done the same thing? Or do you think Kirk would have been "You know what if we're going down we're going down fighting and rammed the Enterprise into the Borg or some other heroic last stand action,

Kirk could swallow his pride:

CHEKOV: Shields up, Captain?
KIRK: Signal our surrender.
UHURA: Captain?
KIRK: We surrender!
UHURA: This is Enterprise.
CHEKOV: If they fire...
UHURA: We surrender.
CHEKOV: ...with our shields down...
UHURA: We surrender.
CHEKOV: ...we will not be able to respond.
UHURA (OC): Repeat, Enterprise surrenders.

AH....but remember I'm talking about the young cock sure Captain Kirk of the 60's. Not the older and less aggressively reactive Kirk of the 90's.

I think it's important to factor in the difference between the characters in this scenario. Kirk of TUC probably would have told Q I need you. Kirk of TOS.......I'm not so sure.

Well, then to be fair Picard is much older than Kirk when he takes command of the Enterprise, IE Kirk is in his mid 30s and Picard in his mid 60s, there's about thirty years of difference between the two captains.

 

[Shon T'Hara]

We know from I, Borg that the Borg are susceptible to logical paradoxes.

Kirk can destroy a computer with a logical paradox before he's even had his morning coffee.

The Borg wouldn't stand a chance.

 

[kirkfan]

Yes, I can imagine Kirk looking at a borg and saying: "Listen to me carefully, borg. I am lying."

 

[Metryq]

^ Agree with the logical paradox approach. Kirk would feed Q to the Borg, then blitz the Borg with some snappy human irrationality (the same way he beats Spock at chess).

 

[kirkfan]

^ Agree with the logical paradox approach. Kirk would feed Q to the Borg, then blitz the Borg with some snappy human irrationality (the same way he beats Spock at chess).

I am not sure why Kirk beats Spock at chess. Maybe the rules of their chess include an element of chance or bluff.

 

[BK613]

^ Agree with the logical paradox approach. Kirk would feed Q to the Borg, then blitz the Borg with some snappy human irrationality (the same way he beats Spock at chess).

I am not sure why Kirk beats Spock at chess. Maybe the rules of their chess include an element of chance or bluff.

It's all about knowing your opponent. Spock probably plays a very rational, logical game, which would lend itself to a certain predictability. That would give Kirk the edge.

 

[Velocity]

Were the Borg around when young Kirk was? How long have the Borg been assimilating? Is there any information that explains their origin?

 

[2takesfrakes]

The Borg Queen tells Data in First Contact: "Bold words. I've heard them before, from thousands of species across thousands of worlds, since long before you were created. But, now they are all Borg." Not exactly a timeline, this is true, but the implication is that The Borg has been around a long while ...

 

[hux]

I think he would have recognised that Q was their only way out but he may have expressed himself differently. Picard was never one to worry about looking weak in front of crew or asking for help whereas Kirk was a little more egotistical so he might have wanted to avoid looking weak but ultimately would have probably asked for help

Janeway on the other hand would have initiated self destruct and started punching ensigns

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Kirk wouldn't have surrendered in Encounter at Farpoint but I think he would have behaved the same way in Q Who. We need to remember that this was a situation invented by Q, so asking Q for help was more like winning the game than swallowing your pride.

Either that or he would have talked the Borg Collective into destroying itself. "YOU'RE IMPERFECT! DESTROY YOURSELF!"

 

[EnriqueH]

I can imagine Kirk being defiant as when Khan tried to take over the ship and tried to get Kirk to surrender the bridge.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

No, I don't think that Kirk would've surrendered to the Borg (especially not TOS-era Kirk), but that's what makes horse races. Star Trek would be a lot more boring if every single Captain reacted in the exact same way.

I found it interesting in my rewatch of TWOK last week that it plays a very similar note to one that Meyer used in TUC: Kirk agreeing to surrender (or at least heading in that direction), and Uhura expressing shock at the prospect.

 

[kirkfan]

Kirk would have wooed the borg queen.