We know the borg use special chambers to accelerate a child's development in order to serve as drones. But what about in cases where the aging process is reversed like the Tarkannans in Voy? Do the borg just reverse their aging process so they can be adults again?
I think the Borg probably take that into account. It's not really "reverse aging", but just a different way of aging. They would just stick the "shriveled ones" in the maturation chambers, and the "hairless ones" would be treated the same as old people from other races.
There's no indication the Drayans would have been born "shriveled", though. Only that they die a happy death by becoming children, potentially and presumably again. Sounds like a characteristic that any technologically advanced species would wish to engineer into itself... The Drayans have another quality the Borg might find problematic, though: their days are numbered. Or in their own words, "The energy contained within our bodies remains cohesive for a limited number of years and then it is released. Nothing can change that." I doubt even Borg technology could, when Drayan tech so explicitly can't. But the Borg don't seem to sweat physical longevity - a Drone lives forever in abstract form within the Collective memory, but/thus the body is a commodity of limited value and is often commanded to self-destruct for greater good anyway. Timo Saloniemi
I'm still waiting for a halfway plausible explanation of reverse-ageing aliens in Star Trek, let alone how the Borg would deal with them.
What's to explain? One of the best-paying branches of medical research (or research, period) today is reverse aging. Some day, it's gonna pay off. Timo Saloniemi
The drayans were dumb. So were like 30 something drayans who looked like pimply faced pubescents popping out 4ft grandma and grandpa babies?
My questions relate to specifics of biology as it relates to birth and death, and how the end of life is similar to the start in only the most superficial ways.
Maybe it isn't 100% reversed. After all, how would a being give birth to a child the same size as the parent? So, perhaps, they develop from an embryo like a human, go through the same or similar stages - small infant, toddler, child, pre-teen, teen, full size adult. Then, about the mid-point in their life cycle, they go through the reverse and begin to shrink and shrivel up. Possibly there are noticeable differences between a 40lb 4 ft. Child and a 40lb 4ft elderly individual. Although, Mork and Mindy had Mork lay a small egg that grew to ful term and the full size of Jonathan Winters. Ah, shazbot
I was also going to bring up the Mork and Mindy egg thing. There was also an episode I don't remember of TNG where some alien bragged about it
It doesn't make sense for a being so humanoid as the Drayans to go through a reverse aging process. It must be something genetically engineered into them. Perhaps, like the Kaelons, they have a cultural norm of set lifespans. But instead of forcing them to commit suicide, they hardwire their death cycles by de-aging them to childhood, and then biologically vaporizing them. The Drayans were said to be brilliant scientists before their religious reformation. So, a bit of an idiocracy going on.
Imagine Borg Drone Technology + Jem Hadar Breeding speeds + Genetic Engineering to undo the Drug Addiction Requirement.
There's just one problem with this hypothesis .... the dialog suggests that it's non-technological.... or at the very least, that the Drayans believe it to be / wish to present it to outsiders as such. (though still possible the last two boldened parts are not meant to refer to the 'dying as a child' but more generally to the proess of dying itself).
Alcia also said that her ancestors were brilliant scientists before a cultural reformation. I suppose that those brilliant scientists invented some this biological process that de-ages then vaporizes them after 96 years or so. That dialogue establishes that the Drayans aren't born, they're "created". Was Alcia being poetic, or did her ancestors leave some kind of incubation machines/maturation chambers of their own to make more Drayans. Toss in some fertilized eggs, and out comes a confused old man after a couple years.
Do Borg go through a period in their teens when they insist resistance isn't futile? Perhaps start going out without their implants and hanging around with other types of cybernetic organisms to upset the collective? Perhaps go through a goth phase where they wear make up which....oh, never mind.