What would have been Locutus role if Starfleet capitulated to the Borg?

[JirinPanthosa]

Once everybody was assimilated he would have basically been a normal Drone. Or possibly if the Borg have some sort of hive hierarchy between the Queen and Drones he'd be a command drone for the sector.

 

[Prax]

Can't they get upgrades over time? Perhaps Seven got the implant for her 5th year anniversary as borg.

 

[Mojochi]

Fair enough. But they did explicitly gouge out Seven's left eye in order to fit the ocular implant. That wasn't done on Locutus (yet?), and one would think the implant could have been hooked onto a "bypass" setup like LaForge's VISOR sockets just as well.

Or did little Annika manage to stab herself in the eye at the last minute, necessitating the replacement, which then turned into an improvement?

Timo Saloniemi

Hard to say. Isn't it also possible she lost the eye as a Borg, or lost the use of it, & had it replaced thereafter?

Can't they get upgrades over time? Perhaps Seven got the implant for her 5th year anniversary as borg.

That's a possibility too. Admittedly, my Voyager knowledge has holes in it, but I like to imagine that Borg implants serve the function of being replacements for biological assets, as well as augments. So maybe they only take your eye out if it's useless? I mean clearly they adhere to the general humanoid form, even though, if they saw no need for a human arm, such that they'd just throw it away, in lieu of a prosthesis, then why not just augment drones with all mechanical appendages, or even provide additional ones?

There's even the possibility that being a Borg, all crisscrossed with technology, isn't altogether harmonious for biological bodies, & that being in such a state, their bodies can degenerate, which might explain why they all look like half zombies, with almost necrotic looking flesh & an inability to grow hair. Does an assimilated Borg even continue to bleed anymore? In some ways a Borg body looks only half alive, which could mean it deteriorates, as a result, & requires the replacements to keep it functional, & not just as augments.

I'd think they get a butt-ton of mileage out of having learned about Picard's mechanical heart. That's probably a pretty popular upgrade now, perhaps even allowing drones to stay active beyond points they might otherwise have... That's assuming that bodily organs are used at all, I guess.

 

[Timo]

VOY doesn't necessarily go into specifics, but it covers a lot of ground in its Borg episodes anyway. What we learn with Seven is that even after decades of Drone existence, she has enough human flesh left for the Doctor to "reactivate", and is not missing any organs of note other than her explicitly mentioned and shown left eye, plus whatever went unmentioned in the introductory "The Gift" and was never brought up later on, either. Seven's troubles later on don't derive from her being diminished as a human, but from her having Borg junk remaining and either malfunctioning or then trying to do its thing out of context.

Does a Drone use human organs? Well, Drones appear to suffocate in space unless they have time to prepare; Seven needed her lungs. There's also a blood circulation system that just happens to be thick with nanites. The rest remaining and being functional is conjecture from Seven retaining all the vital stuff after reconversion to human; might be the conjecture is wrong, and the Doctor simply replicated her a full set of new organs, like he created the new left eye.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Prax]

...I don't know... There's an episode where the doctor takes apart her skull, and it looks very mechanical, and there's that episode where Icheb gives her his cortical implant where her head ejects a giant battery thing, and it looks like she has a terminator skull underneath.

There's also the episode where she fights the Rock, and we see her in a tank top. She has wires coming out of her arm.

What would Locutus do if Starfleet surrendered? As thousands of humans were led into the assimilation chamber, he would stand at a kiosk by the entrance saying "welcome to the borg," "welcome to the borg," "welcome to the borg."

 

[at Quark's]

I think Locutus would have become an ordinary drone - though perhaps a high ranking one. After all, Locutus was not a particular drone, as much as a function, a function that was no longer needed after the Federation would have been assimilated.

A related question though... what would have happened to Data?

From BOBW:

LOCUTUS: …"The android, Data. Primitive artificial organism. You will be obsolete in the new order. "

A few snippets from First Contact:

BORG QUEEN: Why do you insist on utilising this primitive linguistic communication? Your android brain is capable of so much more.
<….>
BORG QUEEN: Human! We used to be exactly like them. Flawed, weak, organic, but we evolved to include the synthetic. Now we use both to attain perfection. Your goal should be the same as ours.
<…..>
DATA: I understand that you have no real interest in me. That your goal is to obtain the encryption codes for the Enterprise computer.
BORG QUEEN: That is one of our goals, one of many. But in order to reach it I am willing to help you reach yours.
<..>
BORG QUEEN: As you can see I have already found an equal. Data! Deactivate the self-destruct sequence.
<…>
DATA: She brought me closer to humanity than I could have thought possible. And for a time I was tempted by her offer.