Kes V Seven of Nine

Well, the entire idea of the Doctor being Seven's mentor *was* that it was the blind leading the blind. He was supposed to be ill-equipped for the task--and not realize exactly how ill-equipped he was.

 

I guess there's some humor value in that...

 

Exactly. It was Picardo's idea, and I think a good one. It gave each character something humorous to play--and I think, made their characters more likeable in the long run.

 

I liked Kes and thought that there was still so much left to do with her character.
I never liked Seven of Nine.

 

I liked the idea of the character of Seven very much. The lost girl finding her humanity with the help of the lost crew looking for home. What I didn't like were the torpedo breast and the high heels (really if she had to wear the long tight underwear to regain her human form why wasn't the doctor as concerned about her feet?!)

 

I got that but I wasn't refering to Tuvok wishing to be human, both he and Data go deeper than that. The similarities I saw is how they both were willingly interacting with humans but still found cerain behavour perplexing. How they both had a dry wit even though humor was "alien' to them. How they both were extemely loyal to their captain and were close friends to them as well. How some of their best stories took them out of their comfort zone. etc.

Tuvok wouldn't fit being Seven's mentor because he couldn't teach her to be emotionally invested in anything. He couldn't provide the answers to those questions she needed. Being human is embracing your emotions, he couldn't give her that.

 

Why does she need a Human perspective?

What's wrong with her being 'Vulcan'?

 

It would be a hell of a lot healthier for her than being Human considering that technology in her head that tries to "Put her on standby mode" if she has too strong an emotional reaction.

 

Because she's not Vulcan?

And, Guy, the "technology in her head" never stopped her from experiencing guilt, remorse, grief, anger, anxiety... all very human responses.

 

I'm talking about Icheb's Cortical Node in her head making sure that she only experienced a fraction of her emotional potential.

They gave her Icheb's in Imperfection, and found out that it was retarding her emotional development with a cut off switch in Human Error. Of course who knows if the writing staff remembered this and thought that it wasn't the same cortical node the whole time?

Typical of Voyagers backward moral theme, Seven decided that these Borg imposed Boundaries stopping her from being all that she can be, a complete person, were good. That it was more convenient to be half a person.

This again stinks of the hypocrisy of what happened to Suder. Seven was afraid of being a person, so she hid from her potential and got a pat on the back. Suder was viffilied and kept under lock and key while trying to become a better person.

 

Because Suder wasn't sure he wouldn't kill anybody.

 

I'm not sure I buy the whole "emotional dampener came from Icheb's cortical node" theory. It occurred to me that if Icheb had such a dampener it should have gone off when he discovered he was betrayed by his parents. I mean, these are the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally. Can there be a larger betrayal?

 

But Seven responded to that betrayal more emotionally than Icheb did. He seemed pretty calm about the whole thing.

And Seven certainly responded emotionally many times before the emotional inhibitor was revealed. She went off half-cocked in Dark Frontier--a truly emotional response. She had a completely human emotional response to her own mortality in "Imperfection." The death of One, her feelings of remorse (expressed pretty cogently to Neelix in "Memorial")...

 

O? I assumed that all Borg had encephalic limiters. I was just going for extra credit by mentioning that her node was second hand.

There were some lines in The Big Bang Theory talking about Sheldon's ability to have and express human sentiment.

By definition of what the Borg did to her, because all things are relative, when she assumes that she is feeling strong emotion, it's what anyone else would regard as a fleeting sentiment in the periphery of their cognizances... However EGO reputo EGO sentio , proinde EGO sentio quis EGO reputo, so it's really like comparing different peoples ability to feel and cope with pain, like comparing a bee sting to child birth and watching different people respond the same.

Vulcans have incredibly powerful emotions. Which is why their tools to suppress these volatile romulaness yearning to break free are practically a nuclear response to a proportionate threat... If Seven's emotions only need a band aide to keep them in check then applying Vulcan Suppression methods on herself would most likely thrust the girl into a coma, or merely autolabotomize herself like someone trying to dice carrots with a chainsaw using their tounge as a chopping board.

 

Teenage boys don't do a lot of emoting to begin with although I'm admittedly not an expert. However, Icheb definately didn't want to stay on the planet with his parents but eventually he did so out of love. Then that love was betrayed. If he were wearing a dampener at the time it would have been going off.

 

Perhaps the dampener was aimed toward sexual arousal rather than emotions?

 

But why? What would be the logical point of that?

You can have sex without emotional attachment, so I don't see that this would be an issue for Borg. It's the emotions that could get them reeling and destroy cohesiveness.

Besides, the Doctor clearly said it was an emotional inhibitor.

 

Um, yeah, they do. They don't do a lot of crying--at least in front of others--however they are definitely prone to emotional outbursts.

Yet, at the end of the episode, he was justifying their actions.

Whereas Seven, who's supposed to have this dampener, has been carrying around all sorts of conflicting emotions about her parents since season 4.

 

Maybe the damper just isn't that efficient in Human brains.

Of maybe it had been slowly degrading ever since Kes spazzed her in Scorpion II.

 

The dampener was almost brand new. Icheb had only been a Borg for a few months, and asleep for most of that, before Janewy repatriated him and they cherry picked the lad for parts.

However you can argue that the emotional dampener was set to teenage boy, and not 30 something female, which are two completely different ballgames altogether.