I agree completely. I firmly believe that any inconsistencies with the Borg are due entirely to the person seeing those inconsistencies having a slightly incorrect interpretation of the Borg.
Contact with the Borg
- Thread starter Alienesse
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I agree completely. I firmly believe that any inconsistencies with the Borg are due entirely to the person seeing those inconsistencies having a slightly incorrect interpretation of the Borg.
...Although it wouldn't have hurt if the writers maintained a bit more continuity between "Third of Five" and "Seven of Nine". 
Hugh would be explained just fine if we assumed he was assimilated while one year old, too. Or four, for that matter.
I'd tend to trust Seven over anybody else on that.
Timo Saloniemi
Hugh would be explained just fine if we assumed he was assimilated while one year old, too. Or four, for that matter.
I'd tend to trust Seven over anybody else on that.
Timo Saloniemi
I feel that since Hugh was so quick to adapt to being separated from the Collective he had lived a fairly long portion of his life before being assimialted.
Seven was a young girl when she was assimilated, and she found it hard. Picard lived decades before being assimilated, and he was back on duty within weeks.
Seven was a young girl when she was assimilated, and she found it hard. Picard lived decades before being assimilated, and he was back on duty within weeks.
But if Hugh had a life before assimilation, he'd have reverted to his pre-Borg self after being freed like Picard. They wouldn't have had to give him a name.
The difference between Hugh and Seven is the crux point here: Why was he so okay with being taken from the Collective, feeling next to no real loyalty to them whereas Seven was wanting to go back?
Why did NONE of Hugh's Borg feel the way Seven did?
I still think it's because none of them were assimilated like Seven was, they were all "Born Borg".
Seven's own claim that the Borg only assimilate made no sense either, because then the Hive Mind would be made up entirely of people who were forced into the Collective and thus the Collective wouldn't be the aggressive thing it is.
The difference between Hugh and Seven is the crux point here: Why was he so okay with being taken from the Collective, feeling next to no real loyalty to them whereas Seven was wanting to go back?
Why did NONE of Hugh's Borg feel the way Seven did?
I still think it's because none of them were assimilated like Seven was, they were all "Born Borg".
Seven's own claim that the Borg only assimilate made no sense either, because then the Hive Mind would be made up entirely of people who were forced into the Collective and thus the Collective wouldn't be the aggressive thing it is.
If he was only one one year old at the time of assimilation, he wouldn't remember anything of his pre-Borg life.
I think that's where the Queen comes in. She seems to represent some kind of brain or central controll mechanism that is guiding the Borg conciousness towards one specific direction.
But what about all the other Borg on Hugh's ship? Since none of them reverted either, that means none of them were ever individuals either.
So either there's the spectacular coincidence that EVERYONE on Hugh's ship was assimilated as infants, or there's the more likely possibility that they were the type of Borg who were "born" Borg like what we saw in "Q Who?".
And I can't believe that the Queen could be powerful enough to control a Hive Mind made up entirely of reluctant individuals, especially if they number in the trillions.
Isn't it easier to just think that the Collective mostly ISN'T assimilated people, and the majority are the "Born Borg" types? It reconciles both the TNG portrayals and the post-FC portrayals.
So either there's the spectacular coincidence that EVERYONE on Hugh's ship was assimilated as infants, or there's the more likely possibility that they were the type of Borg who were "born" Borg like what we saw in "Q Who?".
And I can't believe that the Queen could be powerful enough to control a Hive Mind made up entirely of reluctant individuals, especially if they number in the trillions.
Isn't it easier to just think that the Collective mostly ISN'T assimilated people, and the majority are the "Born Borg" types? It reconciles both the TNG portrayals and the post-FC portrayals.
It would be an equally spectacular coincidence that everyone on Hugh's ship was born as a Borg.
Don't think of the Queen as a person or an individual. I think she's more like the embodyment of some kind of Borg core, much like central technobabbel device that created the Borg in the first place.
Not if assimilation wasn't all that commonplace (which was how it was, back in TNG).
The aggressive thing? The Borg assimilate because they believe they are doing you a favor! Being in the Collective is like a really great drug trip - as long as you are on that trip. It's only when it ends that you realize you were being given the nightmare treatment, being forced to do things nobody actually would have wanted to do if in his or her right mind.
The Collective appears to take virtually zero heed of the individual Drone's opinion. But that doesn't mean there is an overriding force within the Collective that overrules each every single Drone - it probably simply means that there are way too many Drones speaking at once for any single one, or even any single million, to have any real impact.
I'd tend to agree that this was more or less explicated in "Survival Instinct". People who had extensive memories of past lives were more reluctant to be reassimilated than people with less extensive memories. Two, Three and Four of Nine had more of a past before assimiliation than Seven did; Seven had more of a past than Third of Five did.
Still doesn't mean Third was born a Borg. Merely that he was assimilated when he was younger than Annika Hansen, or when he had "less of a life" under his belt at any rate.
These four "of Nine", the survivors from "Unity", the contaminated Borg who were severed and became Lore's merry men, and the contaminated Borg who were severed and found in "Collective" all had the natural urge to rejoin the Collective. Depending on the means available to them, they either achieved this goal, developed a substitute, or gradually got over their withdrawal symptoms and found their individuality, or refound it if they happened to possess enough of it from their pre-assimilation days. But jumping straight back to pre-assimilation life could only be achieved very rarely, and it usually took outside help.
Timo Saloniemi
Not necessarily. Picard's case was an extreme one, because he was in the Collective for less than a week.
Hugh was a drone for a lot longer. All that it requires is that he had his personality fully developed by the time he was assimialted. Doesn't mean that once he was freed he'd go back to his old life like nothing happened.
All we know is two extremes. Picard and Seven.
Picard was assimialted when he was rather old, and was only a drone for a few days. He had an easy time returning to his old life.
Seven was assimialted as a young child, and was a drone for nearly 20 years. She had a very difficult time returning to life as an individual.
We can assume that there's a spectrum in between. Hugh had an easier time returning to individuality than Seven did, which suggests that he hadn't been assimilated as young as she was.
As I said, because we know Seven was assimilated as a young child. If Hugh was assimilated when he was older - mid teens, perhaps - that would explain the difference.
Hugh's Borg? You mean Lore's borg? And how do you know they didn't. It always seemed to me that Lore was recreating a collective because it was what those drones were used to. He did get upset at one of them for disconnecting himself, after all.
In a group like Lore's, I think it's unlikely that the Borg would all be from the same group. As the number of borg in the group rises, the chances that they will be from both groups also rises.
How do you know that the Collective wouldn't be aggressive? Do you think that the personality of the Collective is dictated by the personalities of those who are assimilated?
Troi said in "Q Who?" that when she tried to mind-scan the Borg Cube she sensed the Collective will of all the Borg onboard, the implication being that they all agreed on the course of action to take (or the majority was enough to utterly drown out any dissent).
If the Collective is made up ENTIRELY of folks who were assimilated against their will, then that collective will should be controlling the Collective.
Unless there is some kind of all-controlling directive/program that really runs the Borg, in which case they really aren't a Collective/Hive Mind at all.
If the Collective is made up ENTIRELY of folks who were assimilated against their will, then that collective will should be controlling the Collective.
Unless there is some kind of all-controlling directive/program that really runs the Borg, in which case they really aren't a Collective/Hive Mind at all.
I'm far from convinced. If a zillion voices speak together, the agenda they will be agreeing on is not going to resemble the agenda of any single individual. Rather, only "lowest common denominator" agendas have any hope of getting through - and those will be so incredibly abstract as to bear no resemblance to any person's thoughts or actions. Essentially, the Collective will not be thinking human(oid) thoughts at all - there will be no cries for freedom there.
So there is no need for an oppressive censoring mechanism - the collective nature of the Collective takes care of that part automatically. What we'll get is truly inhuman agendas that the Collective struggles to translate into something mere humanoids can comprehend. When there is a need to make humanoids comprehend, that is. Most of the time, the Collective just performs its alien tasks without any humanoid flavor to its doings - and loves the job and its perks.
Timo Saloniemi
So there is no need for an oppressive censoring mechanism - the collective nature of the Collective takes care of that part automatically. What we'll get is truly inhuman agendas that the Collective struggles to translate into something mere humanoids can comprehend. When there is a need to make humanoids comprehend, that is. Most of the time, the Collective just performs its alien tasks without any humanoid flavor to its doings - and loves the job and its perks.
Timo Saloniemi
Like Picard was? He was assimilated against his will, and yet his will didn't make any difference. And what about Lt Hawk in FC? Was it his will to kill his boss? The Borg were just letting him live out his innermost fantasy?
Unless there is a universal code running on all computers that can access the internet, in which case it isn't really an internet at all.
Think of people as a bunch of computers, each running a completely unique operating system. Those people who are assimilated will have a new operating system installed, and each assimilated person will have the same BorgOS installed. But the original OS is still there, running in the background, but unable to do anything. Does that make it clearer?
Single individuals vs the thousands of other Borg in who is the majority. Wonder who wins.
Are computers sentient beings?
That means the Borg aren't a real Hive Mind, they're a parasitic lifeforce.
They got it right with "The Great Link" on what a Hive Mind should really be like.
You seem to be arguing that the personalities of the majority of people assimialted becomes the personality of the Collective? On what do you base this?
And if you are right, wouldn't we be seeing the Collective NOT assimilating people?
it's not required that they are.
I sorta agree with you here. The drones are still people, they have their original minds still inside and all that, but the bodies are being controlled like puppets, and the Collective is the puppeteer.
I'm saying that if the Borg really are made up of the collective wills of all the drones as one, then the way the Collective acts should be influenced by them rather than vice-versa. If most of the Borg were forcefully assimilated than that should show in the Collective not being a violent conqueror.
It does keep acting like that, meaning the personalities and wills of the assimilated Borg have no part in the make-up of the Collective.
This either means the Borg are NOT a true Hive Mind made up of the combined wills of all the Drones, or the majority of Borg are the "Born Borg" who were never individuals.
Or that the mixing of a zillion individual minds creates an entity incapable of emulating a single mind, at which point the entity assumes an altogether different identity and goals.
You can't cry freedom and liberty at the same time - all you get out of it is an ---e---.
Timo Saloniemi
You can't cry freedom and liberty at the same time - all you get out of it is an ---e---.
Timo Saloniemi
Which means that the Borg still should not be considered a proper Hive Mind/Collective, which is better realized with the Founders and the Great Link.
Either the Borg are actually a cybernetic viral lifeform that infest other lifeforms, or the only real Collective comes from the "Born Borg" and the original Borg species that created the Collective. And even then they still act like a virus infesting all those they assimilate.
Either the Borg are actually a cybernetic viral lifeform that infest other lifeforms, or the only real Collective comes from the "Born Borg" and the original Borg species that created the Collective. And even then they still act like a virus infesting all those they assimilate.
That's an interesting thought, and something of a paradox. How can you have a collective force that goes against the very thoughts of the individuals that govern it?
It's (sort of) raised in the VOY episode "Unity", where the group of ex-drones want to bring about peace amongst their ranks by becoming a collective again. It works, and they seemingly possess no desire to harm afterwards, in fact they actually help the Voyager crew. So where does the desire to forcefully assimilate come from? Simple weight of numbers? If that were the case, wouldn't small scout ships (like Hugh's) with only five drones aboard actually stop wanting to assimlate? Or are scout ships constantly connected to the greater Collective?
The born Borg idea certainly has merit, but perhaps some assimilated races actually did want to be assimilated, and so that desire would continue to spread to other drones. Again, we'd have to go back to the origins of the Borg and ask how they came about in the first place. A race of humanoids experimenting with group consciousness technology perhaps. But the number of drones who wanted to become drones would still have to outnumber those who were assimilated against their will. Or maybe it would still work if they simply pre-dated them - that is, as soon as a new individual is assimilated, the overriding group consciousness that already exists convinces the new individual that it's a Good Thing, and they combine to convince the next new one, and so on. Again, though, that stops being a hive mind, strictly speaking.
And don't get me started on the 'queen' thing. Hrmph.
It's (sort of) raised in the VOY episode "Unity", where the group of ex-drones want to bring about peace amongst their ranks by becoming a collective again. It works, and they seemingly possess no desire to harm afterwards, in fact they actually help the Voyager crew. So where does the desire to forcefully assimilate come from? Simple weight of numbers? If that were the case, wouldn't small scout ships (like Hugh's) with only five drones aboard actually stop wanting to assimlate? Or are scout ships constantly connected to the greater Collective?
The born Borg idea certainly has merit, but perhaps some assimilated races actually did want to be assimilated, and so that desire would continue to spread to other drones. Again, we'd have to go back to the origins of the Borg and ask how they came about in the first place. A race of humanoids experimenting with group consciousness technology perhaps. But the number of drones who wanted to become drones would still have to outnumber those who were assimilated against their will. Or maybe it would still work if they simply pre-dated them - that is, as soon as a new individual is assimilated, the overriding group consciousness that already exists convinces the new individual that it's a Good Thing, and they combine to convince the next new one, and so on. Again, though, that stops being a hive mind, strictly speaking.
And don't get me started on the 'queen' thing. Hrmph.
I agree that the shark analogy of the Borg a,f their surprise at how the 1701D appears and then escapes sparked their curiosity and pushed the Federation up on their list of priorities.
I don't think Shelby got it wrong though. In Q Who?, Q gives then some insight into the Borg. Q tells Picard that:
Some have said in other threads he was actually helping them by giving them "a kick in their complacency." I think that too
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