Is it safe to assume the Borg virus wouldnt have worked?

[GeneHunt]

I think its safe to say that after Picard pussied out of infecting the Borg; Section 31 would have stole the virus somehow and tried it out themselves so im assuming since the Borg are still here it didnt work.

Could the hansons have been 31 agents? trying to perfect the virus but Seven has no memory occuring of these events?

Thoughts?

 

[Anwar]

If it worked at all, it would have just affected Hugh's one Cube the way his individuality did.

 

[Crewman47]

Could the hansons have been 31 agents? trying to perfect the virus but Seven has no memory occuring of these events?

Thoughts?

The Hansons went looking for the Borg before the virus was ever thought of and they had no contact with Starfleet or Section 31. Also they would've been assimilated and part of the collective by the events here anyway.

 

[BillJ]

I think its safe to say that after Picard pussied out of infecting the Borg; Section 31 would have stole the virus somehow and tried it out themselves so im assuming since the Borg are still here it didnt work.

Could the hansons have been 31 agents? trying to perfect the virus but Seven has no memory occuring of these events?

Thoughts?

I guess the answer to this question is "how many times has Data been flat wrong?"

Data says it'll work. In my book that means it'll work.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I think its safe to say that after Picard pussied out of infecting the Borg; Section 31 would have stole the virus somehow and tried it out themselves so im assuming since the Borg are still here it didnt work.

Could the hansons have been 31 agents? trying to perfect the virus but Seven has no memory occuring of these events?

Thoughts?

I guess the answer to this question is "how many times has Data been flat wrong?"

Data says it'll work. In my book that means it'll work.

Except then the borg were shown to cut off any ships that had something goes wrong with them in Voyager and say what you will about VOY but at least they showed a reason why they plan probably would work.

 

[Anwar]

Voyager was just following what TNG itself established in "Descent" with the Collective cutting off malfunctioning ships.

 

[Mark 2000]

Section 31 is such a nonsense concept it's shouldn't be brought up in reference to tng. The federation doesn't employ spooks or attempt to covertly crumbly governments. That would go against the prime directive.

As for the virus, it was designed specifically to be something of interest to the entire collective. They would funel their resources into it in an attempt to understand it. At that point it would take them all down. It wouldn't have taken out a ship at a time.

 

[SonicRanger]

If it worked at all, it would have just affected Hugh's one Cube the way his individuality did.

Yeah, this probably.

 

[Vanyel]

As for the virus, it was designed specifically to be something of interest to the entire collective. They would funel their resources into it in an attempt to understand it. At that point it would take them all down. It wouldn't have taken out a ship at a time.

I've said it before I'll say it again, the Borg have undoubtedly come across things like Pi and otherirrational numbers and Transcendental numbers. After a few moments, maybe enough time for the Collective to blink, it might have worked to a degree. Then the Borg would understand that this "virus" never ends and is unsolvable and stop working on it, or - at most - dedicate a portion of itself to study the "virus" and see if it does end. But in the end, it would not have hurt the Borg.


Edit: I couldn't get rid of the bold face type, no matter what I tried. It kept coming back.

 

[Mark 2000]

I don't doubt that. It seemed nonsensical to begin with. But, assuming its some kind of super space number we today could never get and it really would do what Data describes it wouldn't just hit one Cube.

 

[sonak]

As for the virus, it was designed specifically to be something of interest to the entire collective. They would funel their resources into it in an attempt to understand it. At that point it would take them all down. It wouldn't have taken out a ship at a time.

I've said it before I'll say it again, the Borg have undoubtedly come across things like Pi and otherirrational numbers and Transcendental numbers. After a few moments, maybe enough time for the Collective to blink, it might have worked to a degree. Then the Borg would understand that this "virus" never ends and is unsolvable and stop working on it, or - at most - dedicate a portion of itself to study the "virus" and see if it does end. But in the end, it would not have hurt the Borg.


Edit: I couldn't get rid of the bold face type, no matter what I tried. It kept coming back.

yeah, the way the "virus" was supposed to work was a silly idea that was more like Kirk in TOS short-circuiting complex computers with simple logic word games.

The idea that a technologically sophisticated civilization like the Borg would be crippled by what's basically an optical illusion brain teaser was ridiculous.

They'd analyze the puzzle for five seconds, decide it was irrelevant and discard it.

 

[MikeS]

Why didn't the virus affect Data? Was that explained?

 

[Bob Karo]

Why didn't the virus affect Data? Was that explained?

Paradox absorbing crumble zones in his positronic neural net.

 

[Paulcpick]

Section 31 is such a nonsense concept it's shouldn't be brought up in reference to tng. The federation doesn't employ spooks or attempt to covertly crumbly governments. That would go against the prime directive.

I dont know if that was meant to be funny or not, but I laughed.

 

[Ghrakh]

The idea that a technologically sophisticated civilization like the Borg would be crippled by what's basically an optical illusion brain teaser was ridiculous.

It was a bit more complicated than that.

Why didn't the virus affect Data? Was that explained?

He knew it was impossible.

 

[Vanyel]

The idea that a technologically sophisticated civilization like the Borg would be crippled by what's basically an optical illusion brain teaser was ridiculous.

It was a bit more complicated than that.

It was:

A topological anomaly is a type of invasive program, a paradoxicalhttp://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Paradox geometric form designed to overwhelm a computerhttp://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Computer's processing functions by spawning an infinite number of interlocking anomalous solutions...The program was expected to cause "total system failure" amongst the Borg after several hundred computational cycles.

Link

And like I said before the Borg have undoubtedly come across similar anomalies, or just trying to calculate Pi. Most likely they would have encountered it from assimilated races that used these such anomalies as either art or a way of testing a an AI to see if it would know when to stop and say, "I can't solve this. Purge it from memory or, stop working on it, isolate it, hold onto it and see is a more powerful AI can see a solution."

It's true, the Borg tend to "forget" weapons used against them in the past (The Federation can't have been the only race ever to have used phasers in the 1000+ years of the Borgs existence.), however something that could, in theory, bring down the collective would be something the Collective would be on the look out for.

Why didn't the virus affect Data? Was that explained?

He knew it was impossible.

The Borg would know it too. Even if they didn't they wouldn't keep trying to solve it just to solve it. It would be an "inefficient" use of resources.

 

[Ghrakh]

And like I said before the Borg have undoubtedly come across similar anomalies, or just trying to calculate Pi. Most likely they would have encountered it from assimilated races that used these such anomalies as either art or a way of testing a an AI to see if it would know when to stop and say, "I can't solve this. Purge it from memory or, stop working on it, isolate it, hold onto it and see is a more powerful AI can see a solution."

Which episode was this in?

It's true, the Borg tend to "forget" weapons used against them in the past (The Federation can't have been the only race ever to have used phasers in the 1000+ years of the Borgs existence.), however something that could, in theory, bring down the collective would be something the Collective would be on the look out for.

That wasn't the point of the story. Despite that, I thought the writers did a fine job of giving this weapon some substance. They had a drone to examine, modify, and return to the collective. This wasn't just showing them an Escher flash card...

He knew it was impossible.

The Borg would know it too.

According to the episode, this anomaly would have registered to the borg as an actual object.

 

[Kelthaz]

Of course it wouldn't have worked. Television never lets their heroes kill the big bad that easily.

 

[Vanyel]

And like I said before the Borg have undoubtedly come across similar anomalies, or just trying to calculate Pi. Most likely they would have encountered it from assimilated races that used these such anomalies as either art or a way of testing a an AI to see if it would know when to stop and say, "I can't solve this. Purge it from memory or, stop working on it, isolate it, hold onto it and see is a more powerful AI can see a solution."

Which episode was this in?

None. Please read my post again.

It's true, the Borg tend to "forget" weapons used against them in the past (The Federation can't have been the only race ever to have used phasers in the 1000+ years of the Borgs existence.), however something that could, in theory, bring down the collective would be something the Collective would be on the look out for.

That wasn't the point of the story. Despite that, I thought the writers did a fine job of giving this weapon some substance. They had a drone to examine, modify, and return to the collective. This wasn't just showing them an Escher flash card...

True it wasn't an "Escher flash card" but it was an unsolvable mathematical equation. In our what? 5000 years of Human civilization have figured out that some things just can't be solved and go on forever, like Pi. The Borg have assimilated countless civilizations, assimilated vast amounts of data and from one of those civilization they would have learned there is no real reason to extend Pi beyond 3.14159(maybe to 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510). They would also know that if Cube X is infected and can't break out of a loop, cut it off from the Collective and destroy it if possible. That's what happened when Hugh's idea of individuality infected his ship, it was cut off. Ships where just one Borg was in Unimatrix Zero were destroyed to protect the Collective. The virus put into Icheb caused the Cube he was in to be cut off. It would seem that any ship(s) infected with anything that could potentially destroy or harm the Collective are cut off.

He knew it was impossible.

The Borg would know it too.

According to the episode, this anomaly would have registered to the borg as an actual object.

That would not mean the Borg would seen the anomaly and not recognize it as unsolvable and just dump it, or that the Collective would see a ship caught in a loop and cut off.

 

[Timo]

The quoted dialogue explanation (a partial one, mind you) of the invasive program has two aspects that would make it much more than a mere intellectual challenge to the Borg.

1) It was specifically "designed to overwhelm a computer's processing functions". It's not just something that makes you lock up into your study for weeks until you starve or get to your senses - it blows up your brain when you look at it.

2) It was supposed to do its fatal damage after "several hundred computational cycles". That's, what, half a nanosecond of computing? The Borg would of course have failsafes to stop them from getting stuck with an impossible task. But this isn't an impossible task - it's a frigging BOMB merely camouflaged as an impossible task, blowing up essentially immediately.

The problem with the attack wouldn't be that the Borg would have defenses against it. The problem would be that the attack would kill all the local Borg in a split second, leaving only a slim hope of propagating it further into the Collective.

Unless, of course, the attack would have a delay fuse. Perhaps the offensive part of the anomaly would only be triggered several days after insertion, not when the first segment of the Collective glanced at it. Since the attack was not attempted, we don't know how soon our heroes really expected it to work.

Timo Saloniemi