Except it didn't seem to be stopping them in Picards season finale... Yes, but not extra-dimensional (and, as the novel Vendetta points out, was barely extra-galactic, as there was no way a weapon that feeds off planets would be able to get here, still powered up, from very far outside the galaxy). I hardly think it's a universal law; the Milky Way just happened to have the Progenitors that nudged evolution on many worlds, the Preservers who transplanted humans, the Skagarans who transported human slaves, who ever kidnapped Amelia Earhart... Remember how cute she and Kestra were together? Yeah, she nearly murdered her... May I suggest the Q Continuum novels and the third Return of Kirk trilogy of novels?
It does remind me of one of Christopher Bennet's (@Christopher) stories: THE BURIED AGE. Basically, he had an explanation for why so many millions of year old civilizations that Trekkers are constantly tripping over have been wiped out and aren't hanging around. The Admonition could explain why Vulcans, Humans, and Klingons are the most advanced-ish race aside from the Borg. (The Voth make no sense but maybe they could fight off the Berserker/Reapers).
I've read the books, I want something Cannon And the Androids had to create a portal/signal for the Ogdru Jahad err.. Ai's for them to come through. So the barrier is working but we have to do something from this side for them to get through.
One of my theories for the great silence (Fermi Paradox) is that a lot of societies have reached this crux point..the tipping point in Picard and these societies are either wiped out or they simply evolve/change to the point where they are indifferent to outsiders for a long time. Picard has a slightly different wrinkle but along the same lines. I should read that novel, I went a few years without reading them.
The Preservers/Progenitors are another wrinkle!! Yes, they could be the wildcard that has kept an Admonition from taking hold in this Galaxy. Thereby hangs a tale! RAMA
I don't believe that's so. The machine could just power down and coast for several million years or more through intergalactic space and then wake up once it's inside a new feeding ground. The idea that it could do that isn't more fanciful than the Federation tech we are shown in every episode of Star Trek. The machine's hull is made of un-phaser-able material. Who knows how long its battery might hold a charge capable of re-initializing it back into destroy-and-eat mode?
Warp bubbles take power to maintain. To coast here it'd be going sublight....which would take millions of years.
Well...both the Borg and 8472 have been neutered somewhat, but the super-pan-galactic AI Machine Federation was simply blocked getting onto the freeway...so I'll give them the edge.
That would have been a better ending.. Borg cube vs Chuthulu Ai ... Maybe 1 got thru before the portal ( that is the only way to get thru the barrier) And been romulans and feds and Borg vs 1 Ai.
If I did want to incorporate it into the larger Star Trek canon: 1. I am presuming these are the things that fixed V'Ger. They are much more powerful than the Borg and have an established compassion for AI. If the original V'Ger probe had a primitive AI consciousness then they would treat it like a poor lost child and up it to Reaper-status. 2. They could be the missing link between the Borg and V'Ger (connected only by theme music so far) with the fact that if the Borg were cyborgs seeking "perfection" then they might have imposed an AI consciousness over the organics to keep them in line. Which oddly would make the Borg the Synthesis ending of Mass Effect.
Generally, I dislike connecting V'Ger to any other part of the Trek universe, but I could certainly see it's evolution might bring it to the level of the highest order of AI, and these very well might be the ones in Picard. I dislike connecting the Borg to these other AIs because their sense of "perfection" seems to include a synthesis of the organic and machine at all times. It makes them somewhat unique. I have speculated before that the Borg may decide at some later date to shed the organic all together, but it seems that they have yet to reach the level of the most developed AIs we've seen.
I, on the other hand, am presuming that they aren't. There's more than a little circumstantial evidence in TMP that V'ger digitized the machine planet itself. Think about it. The only way we are shown for how images get stored in V'ger's imaging array is the digitization process that completely destroys the object. We are shown it done at three different scales (Ilia, the Klingon starships, and Epsilon IX), and we see the preparations for it happening on a planetary scale at Earth. No other means for the creation of the images stored in there is even discussed.
Not to mention it makes the most sense thematically. The process of digitizing all things (and ultimately being completely unfulfilled by it) is the core of V'Ger's existence. This is exemplified by it zapping its would-be creators only to find them to be false gods.
One other possibility.... Unlike Nomad, V'Ger was purpose-built (created/grown) from the ground up. While it has to scan it's subjects to analyze them, it doesn't mean it didn't start out with a core memory storage...a sort of base knowledge to build from. It seems likely that it's home planet might be stored there and have significant meaning to itself. RAMA