Yeah but who's to say the virus plan would have worked. Data isn't infallible.
Why is there resistance to the idea of Starfleet being military?
- Thread starter The Wormhole
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Probably Sisko, consider the Admirals and Captains who went rogue
Here's the thing: when you see a captain "go rogue" like that, it's usually when they're doing something that they believe is morally right or necessary for the Federation even if it's incredibly illegal. Ben Maxwell going on his crusade, for example, or Admiral Ross working with Section 31 to undermine the romulans. From Ronald Tracey chasing the Fountain of Youth to Admiral Dougherty chasing it again a hundred years later.
We have many examples of officers going WAY off script to handle what they believe is some extraordinary circumstance and something needs to be done about it. But we have very few examples of officers refusing to follow orders because they are immoral or illegal or cannot be justified by their conscience. This is, interestingly, one of the things that makes me think that the famous 'General Order 24' is basically Starfleet code for "bluff like hell and pretend we're about to glass their planet," especially in light of the fact that Garth of Izar was basically sacked for ordering exactly this over Antos IV.
In the 24th century -- which could arguably be considered a separate canon from TOS -- the only clear example of an officer refusing to follow an immoral order is "Conundrum" where the order doesn't come from Starfleet at all and the crew just THINKS it does.
As for the situation with Nechayev: for one thing, it's not entirely clear to what extent she is actually in Picard's immediate chain of command and how much authority she actually has ever the Enterprise (or why she has that authority). It's also not clear that she could have actually ordered Picard to carry out that kind of mission; even against a threat as deadly and strange as the Borg, the Federation is likely to consider that a war crime, and I'm pretty sure Picard knows that (consider if they were having this discussion about anyone other than the Borg).
Nechayev is Picard's CO.
They are intentionally vague in iBorg about what kind of result the "virus" would have. It might kill them. It could cause them to become disconnected from the hive mind. They might all die of starvation if they can't find the right outlet to plug into and don't have Geordi there to make them a converter. They might become like the Borg planet in "unity," or the cube in "collective," or their limbs could start falling off and then their whole civilization Explode like in "Endgame."
...Who can say?
They are intentionally vague in iBorg about what kind of result the "virus" would have. It might kill them. It could cause them to become disconnected from the hive mind. They might all die of starvation if they can't find the right outlet to plug into and don't have Geordi there to make them a converter. They might become like the Borg planet in "unity," or the cube in "collective," or their limbs could start falling off and then their whole civilization Explode like in "Endgame."
...Who can say?
It boils down to it would cause the Borg collective to starve to death. This was clearly stated in a conference and there was nothing "vague" about it.
Not necessarily. We've seen Picard take orders from a couple of dozen people over the years both before and after he started having Nechayev breathing down his neck. It's clear Nechayev is in Picard's chain of command, but it's not entirely clear WHERE she sits on it, whether she's his immediate superior, or the admiral in charge of sector defense, or just the local commander of whatever area they were operating in during that specific incident. For all we know, Picard wasn't even under Nechayev's jurisdiction when Hugh was on the Enterprise and her order would be interpreted as "For the current situation with the Borg raiders in this region that I have command over."
Not really. They thought the Borg would all starve to death, but they were equally clear that there was no way to know what would really happen.
We have to accept Data saying it will work. Or else there's no real drama.
^ if there wasn't a near certainty that the computer virus would work, then Picard's big decision was meaningless. Along that line of thought (virus worthless) Picard would be blameless for the continue horror that the Borg inflict upon all parts of the galaxy subsequent to Picard's refusial to use the virus.
Unless it's a setup for a dramatic and ironic plot twist:
"Mister Worf... Fire!"
FWOOOOSH! <not a scratch>
Argument from lack of writer's imagination?
Both in the real world and by dramatic necessity, the possibility of the virus spectacularly backfiring cannot be ignored. They were, after all, equally sure about what would probably happen when Hugh returned to the collective:
CRUSHER: Is there any danger that the Borg might destroy him if they find out what's happened?
PICARD: I doubt it. There'd be nothing to gain. It's more likely that they would simply wipe out his memory of those experiences.
RIKER: Then either way, his memory would have been erased.
PICARD: But perhaps in that short time before they purge his memory, the sense of individuality which he has gained here might be transmitted throughout the entire Borg Collective. Every one of the Borg being given the opportunity to experience the feeling of singularity. Perhaps that's the most pernicious programme of all. The knowledge of self being spread throughout the Collective, in that brief moment, might alter them forever. We leave his memory intact.
PICARD: I doubt it. There'd be nothing to gain. It's more likely that they would simply wipe out his memory of those experiences.
RIKER: Then either way, his memory would have been erased.
PICARD: But perhaps in that short time before they purge his memory, the sense of individuality which he has gained here might be transmitted throughout the entire Borg Collective. Every one of the Borg being given the opportunity to experience the feeling of singularity. Perhaps that's the most pernicious programme of all. The knowledge of self being spread throughout the Collective, in that brief moment, might alter them forever. We leave his memory intact.
This was about as much certainty as Geordi had about his virus plan. In either case, the entire project was based mostly on guesswork about how the Borg operated and how they would respond to an anomalous program. The one assumption we KNOW they got wrong was that Hugh's memories would spread through the entire collective and not just through his own ship; they also didn't know about the existence of the (*gags*) Borg Queen or the development of their nanotechnology and more advanced computer technology. Most importantly, they didn't seem to know that the Borg had actually started assimilating non-Borg as part of their daily operations; the assumption with Hugh was that all of the borg had been BORN into the collective and had never been individuals before (strongly implied in "Q Who?"). Which means that they were quite literally firing blind at a complex system they knew almost nothing about.
OTOH, I prefer to think of the TNG series and/or spinoffs as being in a completely different universe as the movies, so it's possible that the transformation of the borg is actually a CONSEQUENCE of Hugh's reformations as half the drones in the collective jumped ship and they had to aggressively recruit to keep their numbers up.
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This was before there was a Borg Queen that could be negotiated and reasoned with. What other solution could Starfleet reach if they felt the Borg could not respond to diplomacy?
All those other civilizations mentioned had a known leadership and command structure. At the time of Necheyev's chat with Picard, the Borg were a unified leaderless force.
As I said in my post, starving is one possibility, but that isn't mentioned in the episode. They are intentionally vague. Geordi or Data say "If this works, and the program starts spreading, within a few months the Borg will experience a total systems failure."
Crusher says "What the hell does that mean?"
He replies "The Borg are screwed without their computers. They'd be destroyed."
(Still pretty vague up to this point) and then Dr. Crusher says "I just want it to be clear that we're talking about the annihilation of an entire race."
No where do they get any more specific about the end result to their biological lifeform. If anything, they're implying that in a few months, they would all start dropping dead. I was speculating on what "destroy" might entail.
But First Contact seems to mess this up. In that movie the Queen says she has always been there and implies that she was present during the events of Best Of Both Worlds, so they have always had a Queen if that's to be taken as spoken on screen.
I like the money issue first yes money is there or how could Tribble cost 10 federation credits and how could Sisko charge Quark five-year of power, rent, and repair bills. So money is in uses ; second the military issue yes star fleet is military and more like medical aid; rescue to those in need ; and police officer in space ; political show of strength and many of areas as well one should think about the United Federation of Planets pooling all of the resources together as one big unit to work as needs arises no matter what that need might be. Thank you
please remember the liberty ships of the world wars they were armada of supplies and transportation for all kinds of support items or personalStop making me laugh
Also, I find it so odd that Starfleet is treated as being "the military" means "no exploring." As pointed out, what was the Royal Navy doing?
As for Pike calling Starfleet a "humanitarian and peacekeeping armada" that doesn't automatically mean that they don't treat Starfleet as military. "Armada" is a pretty specific term that, generally, is used regarding military fleets. At least, in my experience ("Where's that merchand armada?" doesn't have the same ring to it).
Military apparently conjures up specific images of soldiers, warfare and the like. Never mind the fact that the US Navy repeatedly engages in *gasp* humanitarian missions, and the Air Force works closely with NASA.
the great dream of a greater tomorrow and maybe one days it will be reached with lots of hard workGENE'S VISION!!!! UTOPIAN IDEALS!!!! MY STAR TREK!!!!!
And that is one of the problems with the Borg Queen retcon. It makes Starfleet and that previous encounter to look terrible. When the episode was written there was no Borg Queen. That was my point. The episode was written from the standpoint of dealing with an enemy that cannot be negotiated with. An enemy with no leader and no command structure. The Borg were more a force of nature.
The Borg Queen retcon affects this and makes the capture of Picard pointless. But that's off topic.
Picard clearly uncovers his memory of her being there in FC. And it's doesn't make it pointless..it makes his capture specifically something tied to the Borg Queen, who has something of a fascination with human Starfleet captains. I don't think not knowing there's a queen makes much change to the Borg as an implacable foe.
Actually thinking about it we never needed to be told there was a Queen or not in TNG. There must have been some reason that the Borg suddenly changed tactics and needed a human voice for the collective. Why did they snatch Picard unless there was some other internal force directing them to make that change. I mean going off this alone I would have deduced some internal leadership within the borg ranks. There must have been some kind of directing force or motive that said "snatch that human and make him a vessel for us."
But it didn't need to be spelt out. IMHO
But it didn't need to be spelt out. IMHO
Small point, slightly relevant to the topic:
Alot of things make more sense if you take TOS and the movies as a separate canon from the TV spinoffs. If TNG+ are a completely alternate reality, then the incident the Queen is referring to isn't actually "Best of Both Worlds" but would actually be some other undisclosed event from Picard's past. After all, First Contact doesn't specifically reference the incident at "Wolf 359" or anything, so you could easily interpret Picard's memories as being, say, something that happened to him on the Stargazer from many years earlier.
As it happens, I think "Starfleet as the military" makes more sense if you're only talking about TOS and the Movies. TNG+ makes things a lot more fuzzy, and the Kelvinverse makes it clear they're NOT. If those are separate continuities altogether, they actually fit together more consistently. It's sort of like how you could make the case that Starfleet militarized some time after the loss of the Enterprise-C and gave rise to the fleet we saw in "Yesterday's Enterprise." Meanwhile in the Movieverse, they had already been militarized for a hundred years in "Star Trek Generations" but weren't in a state of war and therefore were a lot more relaxed.
I disagree, it's simply a case of gradully learning more about the Borg, a slow reveal. The early theories Starfleet had about the Borg, added by some disinformation by Q, were just wrong.
At the first incounter, the Borg weren't solely interested in Starfleet technology, that was just what they were concentrating on at the time.
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