Idea for making the Borg scary again

[Doran]

Okay, if you want to make the Borg scary again here goes:

The borg come back in time and assimilate Simon Cowl (sp?) and take over all the talent shows on current day TV. Next season it's: "Dancing with the Borg" and "America's got Cyborgs!"

On the serious side: have them infiltrate on a small scale with their cybernetic parts hidden, only to resurface once they're exposed (just for effects sake). Kinda like "Invaders" or the like.

 

[SilentP]

Wasn't that the concept with the aliens in the 'Conspiracy' episode? In fact, I remember someone stating that the Borg were meant to replace those aliens.

 

[Kaziarl]

I remember hearing that as well, practically got excommunicated from fandom for mentioning it once... lol.

 

[Peter the Younger]

As I have said many times before, the only way to redeem the Borg at this point is to take a few dimensions AWAY from them and reduce them back to the ineffable demolition machines they were depicted to be in Q Who: they simply show up unannounced, strip everything of value, and then vanish. I've suggested before it would work best if you presented them as sort of like the reavers from Firefly: starships encounter them in deep space from time to time, sometimes without incident, but every once in a while a Borg cube will "get hungry" and head for a nearby station or vessel, rip it to pieces, dissect the survivors for spare organs and tissues (no assimilating; the Borg breed their own, everyone else in the universe just raw materials to them). They'd become the great sharks of the galaxy: unstoppable, unpredictable, and completely incapable of anything resembling communication. You can't outrun them, you can't destroy them; even if you damage them, they regenerate and keep coming. All you can really do is pray you have nothing they want, because if you do, you're screwed.

Amen. I recall thinking when I saw Q Who, "These are the Berserkers of the Star Trek Universe!" (meaning the Saberhagen creation, not the crazy Norse guys.) I thought of the cubes as being roving semi-independent units, like beehives, which ensured you would never face more than one ship at a time*. Once they made the whole species into one mega-collective, it started to fall apart for me. It became clear they would either have to dumb down the collective to ridiculous levels, or the Federation would be toast. Then they got a Queen, started acting like zombies with Radio Shack bits glued to their faces, and their great adaptive ability was reduced to guessing phaser frequencies.

I suppose you could resurrect this interpretation by saying that, after Janeway's mega-strike against the collective, they all broke down into little one-ship collectives, each going their own way. But it doesn't look like either the books or the STO MMO are going to go in that direction.

* (I know the Berserkers had some level of organization, but in most of the stories they operate alone, that's the spirit of them I remember.)

 

[Temis the Vorta]

It would be really creepy if they actually changed strategy and tried something like diplomacy.

That's Dominion turf - and that is what makes the Dominion creepy, that they are not hamfisted and obvious like the Borg or Klingons, or even the Romulans. They are truly a dark version of the Federation, and can use all the Fed tricks against them. So if you want a villain like that, use the Dominion.

The way to make the Borg scary is to stick with their core characteristic - their terrifying and pure simplicity. No trickery or diplomacy, they are straightforward and machine-like. Lose the Borg Queen idea or any whiff of individuality. Think simple, simple, simple.

The Borg need credibility. They have lost their terror because they get defeated too much. There must be an ironclad rule that Starfleet never defeats them and only rarely even escapes with a bloody nose. Have the Borg win over and over and over again, and they will be scary.

The other ironclad rule: Assimilation is permanent. NO frakking exceptions. EVER! The minute you start rescinding assimilation, it's all over for the Borg. They become jokes.

No ethical Borg. No whiff of them being normal humans. They have lost their humanity (or humanoid-anity) permanently. This is another variation on the no-go-backs rule.

And let them assimilate a beloved main character, for good, no go-backs. Someone like McCoy or Trip. Gotta be a real gut-punch.

So the key here is that the Borg must be used sparingly. You can't have them blowing up the Enterprise more than once (tho I'd let them do it once) or assimilate McCoy, Spock and Chekov just for good measure in one episode.

One thing I always thought they missed out on with the borg was the biological traits of the different races.

Nice idea. How about Vulcan Borg that retain touch-telepathy? And are there un-assimilatable races such as the Changelings or the Medusans? Could Starfleet counter a serious Borg attack via an alliance with the Dominion, which starts churning out Jem'hadar foot soldiers who automatically self-destruct when they biologically detect the beginnings of assimilation? Or just recruit whole starships of Medusans?

 

[Rllegge]

I've generally created an account just for this forum.

It wouldn't even be slightly scary having some fanatics handing themselves over and creating a cult. That's very inside the box thinking.

What I think would be fantastic is if they mixed a bit of discoverys programmable matter into the equation; whereby you can physically see adaptions taking place within the drone to accommodate different scenarios, cogs whirring and a tiny emmiter creating a shield appearing on the side of the face, leaving behind decomposing and nanite-riddled tissue as it moves across the skin, almost transformeresque but not in a ridiculous fashion. Bones could crack and eyes could pop open like a biomechanical John carpenter's thing and they could simply put their hand on ship consoles and spill out nintes to corrupt it,

 

[The Wormhole]

I've generally created an account just for this forum.

You created an account specifically to post in a thread which hasn't been active for twelve years?

Ironic.

 

[Rllegge]

I don't think that's what irony is, but thanks for looking at what I've written.

I knew it was out of date

 

[Tuskin38]

I knew it was out of date

I suggest looking at the forum rules.

https://www.trekbbs.com/rules/

 

[CorporalClegg]

Get rid of the queen and go back to the techno-zombie roots. Make the cubes the size of the Death Star (and have a lot of them). And do a full-on modern era Earth invasion.

 

[DaveyNY]

Essentially, it would just end up being a Star Trek version of "V".

And in order for there to be any lasting drama, the BORG would have to be something more than mindless drones.

That's why they changed through the years ON Star Trek.

 

[CorporalClegg]

There is no lasting drama to be had with the Borg, in the same way there's no lasting drama to be had with a tornado.

 

[JesterFace]

There's a way to keep the Borg scary.

Watch 'Q Who' and then 'The Best of Both Words' 1 & 2. Then the Borg story can be finalized with 'I Borg', Picard knows how to turn the Borg into individuals. He has been a Borg and knows how that plan would work. He tells how it would work in detail in 'I Borg'. And then skip 'Descent' 1 & 2. No more Borg.

 

[fireproof78]

No more Borg.

You promise?

 

[JesterFace]

You promise?

I'm unable to make that determination.

 

[fireproof78]

I'm unable to make that determination.

Well, I will hope anyway.

 

[The Wormhole]

I don't think that's what irony is,

Usually when a thread gets resurrected like this, a moderator steps in and locks the thread up. The fact that you created an account specifically to revive a thread and thereby get it locked is the irony to which I spoke.

 

[The Old Mixer]

 

[DaveyNY]

View attachment 22603

I can't do that Dave...

 

[publiusr]

I would prefer they dump the queen and a leader to begin with.

That would make them monolithic again.

I’d start there…but I might push the body horror a bit more. They assimilate the wrong species…like something from Thirdspace where they might as well be cenobites with something like THE MANGLER at its core

 

[Deks]

That would make them monolithic again.

Not really.
Remember what was said in TNG when they first encountered the Borg?
TROI: We're not dealing with an individual mind. They don't have a single leader. It's the collective minds of all of them.
PICARD: That would have definite advantages.
TROI: Yes, A single leader can make mistakes. It's far less likely in the combined whole.

That's what I think they should refocus on.

I’d start there…but I might push the body horror a bit more. They assimilate the wrong species…like something from Thirdspace where they might as well be cenobites with something like THE MANGLER at its core

Not familiar with those.
As for pushing the body horror more... not sure about that. I think assimilation as such works... could be potentially 'enhanced' to make it more terrifying to the characters though.