Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone..

[ProtoAvatar]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

Of course, not much about the plot of FC makes a great deal of sense to begin with, so the lack of deflector blasts may well be one of them.

If you're talking about 'why didn't the borg travelled into the past in the Delta Quadrant and then assimilate 21st century Earth with no problems' - this is hardly a plot hole; indeed, it's easily explained satisfactorily.

It's obvious the borg's A plan was to assimilate 24th century Earth; and, as the movie showed, they had a very good chance of doing just that.

Travelling into the past was the B plan - and for obvious reasons; instead of assimilating advanced 24th century humanity, they would assimilate some rag-tag communities, remnants of a primitive society that was just ravaged by a catastrophic war.
As assimilation targets go, 21st century humanity's value would be beneath the kazon - which were too uninteresting/lame to be an assimilation target - if not for humanity's future proeminence.

Which is most likely why the borg don't employ routinely time travel into the past. This strategy would severely decrease the value of any assimilation target, each time it would be employed.

And, of course, any 'time travel into the past' mission is likely to change the future borg that sent the mission - for someone which believs itself to be perfect, that would be another BIG reason NOT to do it.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

I was referring to how Pegasus could just go right at Basestars, fire off nukes and blow them up. Before the Pegasus arrived the Basestars were like instant doom, afterwards they were beatable.

They were ALWAYS beatable; Galactica had nukes too, remember? But two warships against three enemy ships is a better bet than a single warship that is, from the very beginning, already outflanked.

Stuff like finding out how to use the engines' of the Constellation to destroy the Doomsday Machine (yeah I know it was more because Decker killed himself), creating a bomb powerful enough to kill the Space Amoeba, etc.

Yep. Make use of what you have, what you have available, what your ship is known to have in its internal stores. You shouldn't be sitting here trying to invent a totally new device just for plot purposes, simply repurpose one that you already have. Hell, at the risk of breaching on a badly abused cliche, it would make alot more sense to use the deflector dish for that; if nothing else, it would finally feature the deflector being used in a way you would expect a futuristic parabolic disk TO be used: ultra long range communication with an alien race.

Or maybe--just MAYBE--the more dramatically pleasing solution is also the simplest, the least complicated, and the most suspenseful?

It makes the VOY crew seem suicidal and not even bothering to try anything else.

Walking up to the Borg and trying to propose some kind of alliance already fits that criterion. If you're going to do something suicidally dangerous anyway, you could at least make sure it isn't monumentally stupid.

Yes. The El Aurians are still alive. In point of fact, so is Icheb's entire civilization, after a fashion, having been reduced to a technical level that the Borg no longer find interesting.

Good point, and they did say that they didn't go for the Kazon for being less advanced. The continued existence of others like the Vidiians, Hirogen, Krenim and others shows that either they can fight off the Borg or they weren't interested (although they are more advanced than the Feds in some ways).

Actually, I tend to think Seven was only referring to their civilization being unfit for assimilation. The same might very well be true of the Klingons and the Romulans, since neither of them seem to have had any Borg trouble over the years.

Here's a whimsical thought: suppose the objective of the borg in Best of Both Worlds wasn't to BORGIFY humanity as much as to force their compliance for a very specific and very complicated material need? The Borg DID say that they needed Picard because they felt a singular authority figure would aid them in their dealings; was this simple hubris on their part, or was Locutus being selected as their mouthpiece in ALL future dealings between the Borg and Humanity? I could almost see that devolving into a "Torchwood - Children of Earth" scenario where the Borg hover over the Earth for several months demanding the transport of a specific number of humans with certain mental and physical attributes.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

Of course, not much about the plot of FC makes a great deal of sense to begin with, so the lack of deflector blasts may well be one of them.

If you're talking about 'why didn't the borg travelled into the past in the Delta Quadrant and then assimilate 21st century Earth with no problems' - this is hardly a plot hole; indeed, it's easily explained satisfactorily.

It's obvious the borg's A plan was to assimilate 24th century Earth; and, as the movie showed, they had a very good chance of doing just that.

Travelling into the past was the B plan - and for obvious reasons; instead of assimilating advanced 24th century humanity, they would assimilate some rag-tag communities, remnants of a primitive society that was just ravaged by a catastrophic war.
As assimilation targets go, 21st century humanity's value would be beneath the kazon - which were too uninteresting/lame to be an assimilation target - if not for humanity's future proeminence.

Which is most likely why the borg don't employ routinely time travel into the past. This strategy would severely decrease the value of any assimilation target, each time it would be employed.

And, of course, any 'time travel into the past' mission is likely to change the future borg that sent the mission - for someone which believs itself to be perfect, that would be another BIG reason NOT to do it.

There are two problems with this explanation:

1) Why would they have resorted to such an elaborate Plan-B, when a much simpler and more effective contingency plan would be simply SEND MORE THAN ONE FUCKING SHIP?

2) If their objective was to assimilate EARTH, why did the Borg travel back through time specifically to prevent First Contact? Would it not be more efficient--and indeed, more useful--to travel back to the mid 23rd century, when no one on Earth had ever heard of the Borg and had no idea how to fight them? Hell, traveling back to the 2350s would have accomplished that just as well, wouldn't it?

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

Of course, not much about the plot of FC makes a great deal of sense to begin with, so the lack of deflector blasts may well be one of them.

If you're talking about 'why didn't the borg travelled into the past in the Delta Quadrant and then assimilate 21st century Earth with no problems' - this is hardly a plot hole; indeed, it's easily explained satisfactorily.

It's obvious the borg's A plan was to assimilate 24th century Earth; and, as the movie showed, they had a very good chance of doing just that.

Travelling into the past was the B plan - and for obvious reasons; instead of assimilating advanced 24th century humanity, they would assimilate some rag-tag communities, remnants of a primitive society that was just ravaged by a catastrophic war.
As assimilation targets go, 21st century humanity's value would be beneath the kazon - which were too uninteresting/lame to be an assimilation target - if not for humanity's future proeminence.

Which is most likely why the borg don't employ routinely time travel into the past. This strategy would severely decrease the value of any assimilation target, each time it would be employed.

And, of course, any 'time travel into the past' mission is likely to change the future borg that sent the mission - for someone which believs itself to be perfect, that would be another BIG reason NOT to do it.

There are two problems with this explanation:

1) Why would they have resorted to such an elaborate Plan-B, when a much simpler and more effective contingency plan would be simply SEND MORE THAN ONE FUCKING SHIP?

2) If their objective was to assimilate EARTH, why did the Borg travel back through time specifically to prevent First Contact? Would it not be more efficient--and indeed, more useful--to travel back to the mid 23rd century, when no one on Earth had ever heard of the Borg and had no idea how to fight them? Hell, traveling back to the 2350s would have accomplished that just as well, wouldn't it?

Why didn't the borg send more than one cube - both in BOBW and FC?
Because assimilating Earth is not high on the borg's list of priorities. Not even close. The borg's low interest in Earth/humanity was proven repeatedly during star trek.
The borg was not willing to waste more resources than one cube (sent after long periods of inaction) on a world at the other end of the galaxy, but it was sending 2 cubes and a diamond for some minor species closer to its territory.
Also, the borg - and even Picard - had no problem time travelling. Casual time travel. So much for plan B being 'ellaborate'.

Why didn't the borg travel to the 23rd century?
Because a 23rd century fleet could have destroyed that sphere easily enough. Picard's ship destroyed the sphere with a torpedo barrage, in seconds.
When the borg saw it won't get to assimilate state of the art 24th century humanity, but, from the future perspective, a backwards civilization (which applies both to 21st and 23rd century humanity), valuable - more or less - only for its role in the future, it choose NOT to go to a time when resistance is likely to be substantial (23rd century), but to a time when resistance will be minimal (21st century).

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

^ Except the Borg keep telling everyone resistance is futile... evidently they don't really believe that.

Moreover, even the Borg have to realize that humanity will have NO ROLE AT ALL in the future if they wind up getting assimilated first. And my question was why they specifically sought to prevent First Contact (they spent more time trying to accomplish this than actually assimilating Earth!) thus preventing humans from developing any level of technology that would make them the least bit useful. They might as well start assimilating apes at this point.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

^ Except the Borg keep telling everyone resistance is futile... evidently they don't really believe that.

The borg was defeated more than once - species 8472 being the clearest example.
The borg believes that, in the fulness of time, it will assimilate everything of value from the entire universe, not that it will win every battle, especially not if it charges in idiotically, with no plan beyond brute force.

Moreover, even the Borg have to realize that humanity will have NO ROLE AT ALL in the future if they wind up getting assimilated first. And my question was why they specifically sought to prevent First Contact (they spent more time trying to accomplish this than actually assimilating Earth!) thus preventing humans from developing any level of technology that would make them the least bit useful. They might as well start assimilating apes at this point.

The borg wanted to assimilate humanity because of its potential (build a federation, etc - star trek's humanity 'je ne sais quoi') - it determined that humanity's bilogical distinctiveness is of relative value.

Initially, it wanted to asimilate humanity's technological distinctiveness, too - plan A - but that failed when its cube was destroyed, so it went with the suckier plan B.

Once in the past, it lost the battle with Picard and was destroyed - which is why it failed at assimilating 21st century Earth.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

The borg wanted to assimilate humanity because of its potential (build a federation, etc - star trek's humanity 'je ne sais quoi') - it determined that humanity's bilogical distinctiveness is of relative value.

I understand that worked as a post-facto explanation. But how do you go from "They're not interested in conquest, they're only interested in your technology" to "They don't care about your technology, they're only interested in your biological distinctiveness." That's a pretty radical change IMO.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

The borg underwent pretty radical changes between 'Q, who' and BOBW and between BOBW and FC.
Real world reason - the writers were refining the concept of 'borg'.
In universe explanation - Guinan/Starfleet's information on the borg was incomplete, in flux.

Also - by FC, the borg was interested in both the biological and technological distinctiveness of humanity.
That's why it attacked, initially, 24th century Earth. Soon, it became clear it'll fail in this attack.

So - it settled on the next best thing: assimilate only the biological distinctiveness - much better than wasting a cube, remaining empty-handed.
It went back in time to the nearest period when resistance will be practically non-existent, its success assured - 21st century, after WW III.

 

[Anwar]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

Yep. Make use of what you have, what you have available, what your ship is known to have in its internal stores. You shouldn't be sitting here trying to invent a totally new device just for plot purposes, simply repurpose one that you already have. Hell, at the risk of breaching on a badly abused cliche, it would make alot more sense to use the deflector dish for that; if nothing else, it would finally feature the deflector being used in a way you would expect a futuristic parabolic disk TO be used: ultra long range communication with an alien race.

Bottom line, they have a means to get the 8472 to the area that's a tad less suicidal than "Fire at them and pray they don't easily overtake and kill us in a nanosecond.". Voy's maximum warp speed thing was never effective when dealing with Uberfoes like the Borg and 8472.

Walking up to the Borg and trying to propose some kind of alliance already fits that criterion. If you're going to do something suicidally dangerous anyway, you could at least make sure it isn't monumentally stupid.

It was the lesser of two evils, at the time since the 8472 were the superior foe and utterly xenocidal compared to the Borg. And they knew they'd get stabbed in the back anyways and prepared for it. Worked out for them in the end.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

Voy's maximum warp speed thing was never effective when dealing with Uberfoes like the Borg and 8472.

I'll again remind you that Voyager managed to outrun the bioships from their very first encounter. Moreover, Voyager's purported maximum cruising velocity of Warp 9.975 should have been enough to outrun any alien vessel and more than enough to stay slightly ahead of the Borg... if only the writers bothered to stick to their own background info.

 

[Anwar]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

I'll agree on that, but for tensions sake I can see why they made them slow enough to be caught and not be able to run from everything. Maybe giving it such a high warp speed was the bad idea, not them not using it. Or they should've admitted that the maximum warp could only be maintained for a very short period of time and they'd be stuck at warp 7 afterwards for a while.

 

[Saxman1]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

I'm just hoping Abrams and crew don't bring The Borg into the next film or two. I've had enough of The Borg to last the rest of my life. They've replaced The Klingons as the most overused Trek baddies.

 

[Eckauskas]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

I'm just hoping Abrams and crew don't bring The Borg into the next film or two. I've had enough of The Borg to last the rest of my life. They've replaced The Klingons as the most overused Trek baddies.

As a bit of a freak for continuity, I sincerely pray to the gods that they don't bring the Borg into any film set pre-TNG.

 

[T'Girl]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

What about a Borg-Khan who attacks the nuEnterprise using the Doomsday Machine?

And nuKirk has trouble dealing with the emergency, because in the beginning of the movie the nuEnterprise is transporting the Dolman of Deanna Troyius and she (or he?) has already shed a tear on nuKirk's finger.

 

[Saxman1]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

What about a Borg-Khan who attacks the nuEnterprise using the Doomsday Machine?

And nuKirk has trouble dealing with the emergency, because in the beginning of the movie the nuEnterprise is transporting the Dolman of Deanna Troyius and she (or he?) has already shed a tear on nuKirk's finger.

Hear that loud boom? That was my head exploding!

 

[Paradon]

Re: Anyone else think they should have left the Borg well enough alone

Hey, they killed the Romulans because they introduced the Remans...! [laugh]