Ugh, Justin Long is all the more reason to avoid the PC/non-PC debate!
Can Conservative Star Trek Fans Exist?
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Ugh, Justin Long is all the more reason to avoid the PC/non-PC debate!
I personally am a moderate liberal, but one of my best friends in college was a libertarian, and just as Trekkie as me. His commentary: "Star Trek shows what the Navy would be like if it were run by Commies."
It would appear we have much in common as I could not have described myself any better.
Cheers!
We can see a lot of "ism" in the Borg. First of all, there's the totalitarianism:
1- The absolute elimination of individuality, as both tried by fascist and communist regimes.
2- The absolute dogmatism.
3- The "New Man".
4- The utopia (and the destructive way of building it)
I know this sounds pessimistic, but I prefer to assume that none of my own personal views will ever be reflected in Trek (or any other show or film). That way, logically speaking I will always be either 1) right, or 2) pleasantly surprised. Think about it... 
But when somebody is assimilated, they're not slaves to the Borg - they ARE Borg. The Borg don't enslave other races to make them serve the collective - they make them part of it. You can't be a slave to something that you are a part of.
And the Queen is only a representative of the collective - she is empowered to speak for them, but she doesn't control them. The Borg control themselves, in a way. This doesn't make them any less terrifying, of course, but the distinction is there.
But when somebody is assimilated, they're not slaves to the Borg - they ARE Borg. The Borg don't enslave other races to make them serve the collective - they make them part of it. You can't be a slave to something that you are a part of.
And the Queen is only a representative of the collective - she is empowered to speak for them, but she doesn't control them. The Borg control themselves, in a way. This doesn't make them any less terrifying, of course, but the distinction is there.
True, whilst many of us might be somewhat jaded, cynical belief politicians of all parties are in for themselves. It still doesn't prevent us from going to the polls to cast our vote in the hope that this time will be different.
Outstanding! Indeed we do, sir!
I believe it's Q that describes the Borg as the 'ultimate consumers'. Not a stretch there.
The actual phrase is "ultimate user" in "Q Who", which I always assumed was in the sense of computer user.
Yeah that sounds right...I was drawing a blank, looked up the exact quote briefly and got something like the 'ultimate hunger'. I knew I wasn't exactly right, but it doesn't change the sentiment.
CC, please feel free to further explain your computer user interpretation, I'd like to hear it.
CC, please feel free to further explain your computer user interpretation, I'd like to hear it.
Amen! That is exactly how I feel. Most people think if they hide how they treat someone or a segment of people behind political beliefs, they are safe to say what they want. Denying rights to people based on "it's always been this way" is a poor excuse.
On the other end of political correctness, just because you cloak yourself in good words, but bad deeds for those people, does not mean you get a free pass.
We are, in my opinion, defined by how we treated our fellow man. Were we kind when we could've been crass? Did we listen to their concerns and try and see from their perspective, even if we disagree with them? When they were tired or hungry, without a home or a place to emotionally rest, did we offer ourselves as comfort? The rest, well, the rest is just vanity.
For the record, I am right of center (although not very far) and I agree with this completely.
Any discussion of that has to be prefaced by the understanding that over the span of at least TNG plus STVIII:FC, the nature of the Borg was a moving target. Memory Alpha explains:
There are thus two significant contexts in which to interpret Q's assertion in "Q Who" that, "The Borg is the ultimate user": 1) as they were conceived at the time of "Q Who" and 2) as they were ultimately conceived after all retcons had been applied by the writers. The full line of Q's is:
1. The suggestion in "Q Who" would seem to be that, as initially conceived, the Borg were simply a single species that acquires technology and adapts it to their own purposes. My reading of "ultimate user" is simply that their technology is organized as a fully integrated computer network to which individual Borg are cybernetically connected as cyborgs. In this conception, they are not utterly ruled by the collective to the degree that they are later. Rather, the individuals each contribute decisions towards the whole collective action. At this stage of their conception, the ultimate supremacy of the organic over the cybernetic is implied by the application of the term user to the Borg. (Q's dialog is expository, so we should assume that what he tells us, by way of telling Picard, is true.) This interpretation is further reinforced by the discovery of infant Borg.
2. But by the time the Queen is invented, the interpretation of #1 is out the window and retconned away. Individual Borg can no longer really be thought of as users. Instead, they are victims, by way of assimilation. They do not wield their technology, but rather they are wielded by it. Their technology is less like a computer appliance that they use and more like a computer virus that has run amok and enslaved them.
Although it's possible that the Queen is running the show (indeed, the Queen is the only possibility of a master among the Borg humanoids, at least that we are aware of), they are, frankly, ultimately vague on the details of Borg hive organization. Therefore, a different admissible possibility would be that even the Queen is but a cog in the machine, and there is no organic master at all. This is certainly more in line with the original interpretation back during "Q Who", and, if you'll pardon the pun, would seem to represent the best of both worlds offered by the original queen-less view of the Borg and by the view with the Queen as a dramatic focus. Memory Alpha continues:
Anyway, IMO, the bottom line is that, after all the retcons, Q's line about the Borg as "ultimate user" doesn't make as much sense as it might have originally. YMMV.
CorporalCaptain said:
I have a "limited" understanding of both....limited in the sense that I don't have every line memorized and signed cast photos on my walls.
Maybe I'm way off the mark, but I thought the "ultimate user" line (thanks for the correction) was a direct reference to the fact that they still process what they don't assimilate. Those guys stripped planets of everything in order to have the raw materials to make new ships and drones for the purpose of stripping more planets, to make more drones and ships, on and on in an never-ending circle.
Like in the movie Tron?
My take, based on all I've seen of the Borg in different episodes, is that the Borg are "users" as the opposite of "producers," the Borg don't create anything, they have no original thoughts, they contribute nothing. They travel about the galaxy assimilating the knowledge and works of others.
The Borg are "users."
I alway assume that little that comes out of Q mouth is strictly speaking "true." That he is twisting the facts, leaving something important out, and just generally screwing with the minds of whoever he speaking to at any given time.
But the drones aren't "part" of the collective in so far as they have no personal input into it, if the collective controlled the collective the first thing they would do Mr. Laser Beam is free themselves.
They certainly do not seem to possess the ability to free themselves. They're not part of the collective, they are it's captives. It's slaves.
I disagree, YMMV.
We've seen the queens do things that are acts of pure ego, they control the collective as they see fit. The queens pull information from the brains of the drones and use the drones to perform tasks.
From First Contact.
DATA: Who are you?
BORG QUEEN : I am the Borg.
DATA: ... do you control the Borg collective?
BORG QUEEN: I am the collective.
Seven would occasional say "I am Borg."
But she never said "I am the Borg."
T'Girl said:
I fully agree with all of that except your first point, the Borg produce tons of stuff. Exponential kilotons. However, it's only to the benefit of the Borg and their insatiable instinct to expand to an unknown end. That's what makes them users/consumers.
So I do agree with you, guess I would just word it differently!
I hoped so, but the bottom line is, do the same thing, get the same result.
It's still all about 'me' rather than 'us'. Or I've got mine, you're on your own...
But seriously, there is really no one I wish to vote for.
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