About "I, Borg" and Hugh

[JesterFace]

Some of you, if not all, might have noticed this but... When Picard has a conversation with Hugh in his ready room and notices Hugh calling himself ”I”, that had already happened when Geordi and Beverly are talking with him in the ”lab”. Maybe they just didn't pay enough attention and didn't notice it, since people usually call themselves as I.

Do you think this was a mistake in the script or was it intentional... My guess would be a mistake in the script, but who knows?

Still, an awesome episode and I don't let that little thing ruin it for me.

 

[horatio83]

It has been a while since I have last seen the episode but if I remember correctly the point of Picard noticing that Hugh uses the first person is not so much to state a detail which the audience might otherwise not have noticed but to initiate the beginning of Picard changing his mind.

 

[cheryl/carol]

ugh I can't imagine living with a person with only one hand.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Hugh was still conflicted. Borg "brainwashing" is a powerful thing, it doesn't just disappear completely.

He had gotten comfortable around Geordi & Beverly, then all of the sudden, he's in a room with Locutus.


Wouldn't the Borg, in general, have known Locutus had been unplugged?

That's the part of this episode that I always found odd, that Hugh would refer to Picard as Locutus.

 

[DonIago]

Perhaps from a Borg standpoint Picard is Locutus whether or not he's part of the collective. Or, while it sounds a bit un-Borg-like, perhaps it's just a form of psychological manipulation to continue referring to those removed from the collective by their former Borg identifications. "Call yourself whatever you want, but we know who you -really- are."

 

[jimbotron]

Probably a mistake. After all, Data uses contractions here and there.

Also, unlike the book, there is no comma in the episode's title. It's just I Borg.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Perhaps from a Borg standpoint Picard is Locutus whether or not he's part of the collective. Or, while it sounds a bit un-Borg-like, perhaps it's just a form of psychological manipulation to continue referring to those removed from the collective by their former Borg identifications. "Call yourself whatever you want, but we know who you -really- are."

True. Obviously Seven of Nine was pretty attached to her "designation".

We have no idea how long Hugh was a Borg vs Seven, or even if length of time is a huge factor. In Picard's case it was only, what, days?

 

[Mojochi]

It has been a while since I have last seen the episode but if I remember correctly the point of Picard noticing that Hugh uses the first person is not so much to state a detail which the audience might otherwise not have noticed but to initiate the beginning of Picard changing his mind.

Right. That was the whole point of the episode. Geordi enlightened Hugh to the concept of individuality. Picard did not know that, until he heard for himself Hugh referring to himself as an individual. It was an epiphany for Picard, not the viewer

 

[Timo]

Which makes it sort of irrelevant whether the Borg Drones really use "I" for themselves or not. Later on, in VOY "Survival Instinct", another Drone severed from the Collective uses the pronoun, but other Drones remaining loyal to the Collective (prominently, 7of9) also use it. Possibly unawares, as they, too, are slipping away from the Collective. Or then it's natural for the Borg, as nothing to the contrary is really stated by anybody who really knows what he is talking about.

That is, Picard might know (although his ignorance of Borg basics is a plot point in ST:FC), but he would have every reason to lie to Hugh, who's clearly confused enough not to notice when he's being had.

After all, Data uses contractions here and there.

And why shouldn't he? His supposed "inability" to use them is pure myth. What he has as per dialogue is a general problem with informal patterns of speech, and even that is mostly due to Data being way too harsh a critic of his own skills and achievements. The closest we get to the no-contractions thing is when in "The Offspring" Data asserts that he has not "mastered" their use yet.

Timo Saloniemi