truth of the month. bloody incredible... last few pages has been nothing but bashing and BS...
Have any of the novels ever just made you mad? (
- Thread starter darkwing_duck1
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truth of the month. bloody incredible... last few pages has been nothing but bashing and BS...
Nardpuncher
Rear Admiral
Nice!
That's a great idea. Let's get some good Godwinning here and this thread's dead!
I'll go first. The Borg are like Hitler!
That's a great idea. Let's get some good Godwinning here and this thread's dead!
I'll go first. The Borg are like Hitler!
indeed.
now they are not.
JarodRussell, hotlink to images on sites you don't own is against the rules on this board, please don't do this again.
They could have had a nice simple career painting townscapes in the Delta Quadrant, but no....
I always thought of the Borg as a hippie commune that got out of control.
Well in an attempt to bring the thread back on topic (as impossible as that may seem at this point.)
This is not so much the book but some characterizations in it, but was anyone else annoyed by Kirk in Inception. I mean some guys may think nu-Kirk in Trek XI was an asshole but he dosen't have anything on Inception Kirk. Seriously an environmentalist tries to reasonably state his position and tries back it up. But does Kirk see them as someone who may have someone who eithers valid points you and can find a resonable compromise with at best or is just misinformed at worst, Hell no they don't agree with him so their obviously EVIL! I mean EVERYTIME Kirk meets this guy he has to try to prove him wrong and seems to tack some preverse pleasure in pissing him off, real mature there Jimmy. Not to mention the whole writting off the near extinction of a species. Look James T. Kirk the real James T. Kirk only doesn't care if he is killing off a species if there is no other way to stop it's last survivor from killing people (see the Man Trap and Devil in the Dark). Though other then those Kirk seems about right. Not to mention Carol Marcus comes off as somewhat arrogent about the project, but then again its not like she realized what would happen if Genesis fell into the wrong hands so that wasn't too much of a problem. Then there's Leila Kalomi's relastionship with Spock being her just having a crush on him and Spock NOT BEING INTERESTED SO DROP THE SPORES LADY YOU'RE JUST N THE FRIEND ZONE! I mean did they have to make the only character I really give two s@#ts about about be the antogonist of the novel (the already mentioned environmentalist).
This is not so much the book but some characterizations in it, but was anyone else annoyed by Kirk in Inception. I mean some guys may think nu-Kirk in Trek XI was an asshole but he dosen't have anything on Inception Kirk. Seriously an environmentalist tries to reasonably state his position and tries back it up. But does Kirk see them as someone who may have someone who eithers valid points you and can find a resonable compromise with at best or is just misinformed at worst, Hell no they don't agree with him so their obviously EVIL! I mean EVERYTIME Kirk meets this guy he has to try to prove him wrong and seems to tack some preverse pleasure in pissing him off, real mature there Jimmy. Not to mention the whole writting off the near extinction of a species. Look James T. Kirk the real James T. Kirk only doesn't care if he is killing off a species if there is no other way to stop it's last survivor from killing people (see the Man Trap and Devil in the Dark). Though other then those Kirk seems about right. Not to mention Carol Marcus comes off as somewhat arrogent about the project, but then again its not like she realized what would happen if Genesis fell into the wrong hands so that wasn't too much of a problem. Then there's Leila Kalomi's relastionship with Spock being her just having a crush on him and Spock NOT BEING INTERESTED SO DROP THE SPORES LADY YOU'RE JUST N THE FRIEND ZONE! I mean did they have to make the only character I really give two s@#ts about about be the antogonist of the novel (the already mentioned environmentalist).
I think of them more as fire ants. I did a report on fire ants for high-school biology class way back, and when the Borg came along, they struck me as very similar. I've always remembered a phrase I came across describing what fire ants did to a territory they infested: "simplifying the ecosystem." Which is a euphemistic way of saying they consumed every resource for themselves, wiped out every living thing except themselves, and left only a wasteland behind when they moved on.
A commune is something where people cooperate to ensure that every individual is given to equally, and taken from only as far as the individual can bear. The Borg don't give anything to their drones, just take. To the Collective, as with fire ants, all resources exist for them to consume -- and they count living beings among those resources. Far from being hippies, the Borg symbolize consumerism run amok.
Although once they introduced the idea of the Borg Queen, it became viable to treat them as analogous with a religious cult like the Branch Davidians, where a charismatic leader entraps others with hollow promises of unity and transcendence while merely exploiting them to serve the leader's own cravings for power.
One of the wonderful things about the Borg is that they're a flexible enough concept that they can symbolize many different political and economic systems.
Cult hippies
See, I just find that characterization of the Borg confusing, because my understanding of the hippie movement is that it's defined by individualism and anti-authority views.
Although I'm suddenly getting a mental image of a Borg cube painted in psychedelic colors like a stereotypical VW hippie bus, and it's kind of awesome...
"Hey, man, we're, like, the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness totally rocks our aura. Wanna get assimilated? Resistance is, y'know, uncool. Peace out, man."
Although I'm suddenly getting a mental image of a Borg cube painted in psychedelic colors like a stereotypical VW hippie bus, and it's kind of awesome...
"Hey, man, we're, like, the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness totally rocks our aura. Wanna get assimilated? Resistance is, y'know, uncool. Peace out, man."
Someone needs to write this...I nearly sputtered my water across the keyboard.See, I just find that characterization of the Borg confusing, because my understanding of the hippie movement is that it's defined by individualism and anti-authority views.
Although I'm suddenly getting a mental image of a Borg cube painted in psychedelic colors like a stereotypical VW hippie bus, and it's kind of awesome...
"Hey, man, we're, like, the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness totally rocks our aura. Wanna get assimilated? Resistance is, y'know, uncool. Peace out, man."
God, Christopher, calm down. I'm merely giving an opinion (politely I thought). I'm not out to attack anyone in RL personally and certainly not to insult anyone who has or is suffering from a "mood disorder."
I'm not a psychiatrist so maybe my use of he term "full-blown psychosis" is medically incorrect.
I used a common layperson's understanding of the term which is that psychosis is any severe mental disorder where the suffererer loses contact with reality or has a very distorted contact with same. Indeed, to be clinically bipolar (which is what I wrote in my earlier post and to which you took no personal offence) is to suffer from a psychological illness that is actually much more complicated and severe than "mood disorder" suggests.
As to the substantive part of my post I see you have not responded, so I'll leave it there.
Which is a bizarre mischaracterization of Picard's behavior in this novel. You may have disagreed with his interpretations of events, but that doesn't mean he was experiencing delusions. At all times, he was perfectly aware of what was happening, what people were saying to him, who they were, etc. He wasn't hallucinating that there were Borg drones hiding behind his back and that Geordi was a giant talking fern. He wasn't suffering the delusion that Q had created the Borg just to persecute him. He wasn't spouting word salad or unable to associate his thoughts and perceptions correctly. There is no way in which Picard's behavior in Destiny meets any of the diagnostic criteria for psychosis. (And no, I don't think his sense of being guilty or "cursed" at having these things happen just after he tried to start a family constitutes a full-blown delusional disorder, since it's not something he believed to be literally true; it was simply a reflexive emotional reaction to having the world repeatedly fall down around him right after he took a chance at happiness. We all have the occasional feeling of persecution without actually suffering from delusional paranoia.)
Actually, no. "Mood [affective] disorders" is the official World Health Organization ICD-10 classification for the category of behavioral disorders to which bipolar affective disorder (block F31) belongs. Granted, as the link shows, bipolar affective disorder can include psychotic symptoms (as can mania or depression by themselves), but it generally does not.
Someone needs to write this...I nearly sputtered my water across the keyboard.
It made me laugh too. It would also make a great signature here on the BBS!
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Therin of Andor
The thalaron weapon was not used because it was a 'weapon of mass destruction' and using weapons of mass destruction is contrary to federation morals.
The criterion of determining whether a weapon is of mass destructioin or not is the potential to kill and destroy on a large scale - NOT the potential to kill painfully or not; by this criterion, a knife could be used to provide a more painful death than either vaporisation (or severe burns/other injuries) by photon torpedo or turning into ash by thalaron radiation.
And both photon torpedos (matter/antimatter warheads) and thalaron radiation have the potential to kill/destroy on a massive scale.
LaBarre
Christopher tends to obsess over insignificant minutiae. This tendency of his gets worse when he's annoyed.
Still - you can't say he doesn't do the research, can you?
The thalaron weapon was not used because it was a 'weapon of mass destruction' and using weapons of mass destruction is contrary to federation morals.
The criterion of determining whether a weapon is of mass destructioin or not is the potential to kill and destroy on a large scale - NOT the potential to kill painfully or not; by this criterion, a knife could be used to provide a more painful death than either vaporisation (or severe burns/other injuries) by photon torpedo or turning into ash by thalaron radiation.
And both photon torpedos (matter/antimatter warheads) and thalaron radiation have the potential to kill/destroy on a massive scale.
LaBarre
Christopher tends to obsess over insignificant minutiae. This tendency of his gets worse when he's annoyed.
Still - you can't say he doesn't do the research, can you?
Someone needs to write this...I nearly sputtered my water across the keyboard.
"Those Borg implants really tie the room together."
Nardpuncher
Rear Admiral
Aw crap it was almost going normal then went out the wondow again. I guess page 22 was but a small respite.
Christopher, I stll, respectully, disagree.
I accept that my use of the term "full blown psychosis" was woefully overblown. Upon reflection, and for the second time - because clearly more is required, then let me make it clear that I was wrong and I aplogise for it and thank you for your corrective - if not for the personal abuse that accompanied your post.
To the acutal issue at hand (which isn't actually directed at you), I never said I thought Picard was experiencing delusions. What I said was that this is where Mack's characterisation brings us. As written, it's not a case of "simply a reflexive emotional reaction to having the world repeatedly fall down around him right after he took a chance at happiness."
And it's much more than "We all have the occasional feeling of persecution without actually suffering from delusional paranoia."
Tell me, how are we as readers expected to read this:
"Picard was on all fours, doubled over, face almost touching the carpeting of the bridge, hyperventilating and sobbing. Then he stopped with a sharp intake of breath and he clawed at the deck for several seconds before bunching his hands into fists under his chin. His body quaked as if he'd just come in from the cold."
Keep reading p402 onward of Lost Souls and tell me I'm wrong insofar as the trilogy is concerned (as distinct from RL - which inexplicably you dove into and then decided to hold me responsible for).
"As desparately as Riker wanted to defend Picard's pride by concealing this display from the rest of the bridge crew, he knew that it would even more damaging to see their captain carried off the bridge." Lost Souls.
I accept that my use of the term "full blown psychosis" was woefully overblown. Upon reflection, and for the second time - because clearly more is required, then let me make it clear that I was wrong and I aplogise for it and thank you for your corrective - if not for the personal abuse that accompanied your post.
To the acutal issue at hand (which isn't actually directed at you), I never said I thought Picard was experiencing delusions. What I said was that this is where Mack's characterisation brings us. As written, it's not a case of "simply a reflexive emotional reaction to having the world repeatedly fall down around him right after he took a chance at happiness."
And it's much more than "We all have the occasional feeling of persecution without actually suffering from delusional paranoia."
Tell me, how are we as readers expected to read this:
"Picard was on all fours, doubled over, face almost touching the carpeting of the bridge, hyperventilating and sobbing. Then he stopped with a sharp intake of breath and he clawed at the deck for several seconds before bunching his hands into fists under his chin. His body quaked as if he'd just come in from the cold."
Keep reading p402 onward of Lost Souls and tell me I'm wrong insofar as the trilogy is concerned (as distinct from RL - which inexplicably you dove into and then decided to hold me responsible for).
"As desparately as Riker wanted to defend Picard's pride by concealing this display from the rest of the bridge crew, he knew that it would even more damaging to see their captain carried off the bridge." Lost Souls.
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