Are the Species 149 Ennis/Nol-Ennis?

[Reymet_2]

In Mortal Coil, Neelix dies and is resurrected by Borg nanoprobes - according to Seven of Nine, the Borg have assimilated this technology from a species that the Borg designated as Species 149.

In DS9 episode Battle Lines, we have seen a prison moon in the Gamma Quadrant where inmates were made immortal basically the same way (we don't know the exact name of their species, all we know are the names of the factions exiled to that moon - Ennis and Nol-Ennis). Can the species from Battle Lines be the Species 149? The Borg are from Delta Quadrant but they have been to Alpha so could have been to Gamma too.

 

[Dukhat]

Unless that was the intent of the scriptwriter, we don’t know. If it was their intent, they certainly didn’t go out of their way to acknowledge it. Plus, there was no indication that Neelix is now immortal.

 

[Finn]

I doubt Species 149 was the only one to come up with such technology...just the only species assimilated by the Borg up to Seven's separation from the collective.

 

[at Quark's]

I don't think so.

The Ennis/Nol-Ennis immortality doesn't sound as if it's technological, but a weird property of the moon they're on. Kai Opaka wasn't injected with nanoprobes (or their non-Borg equivalents) either before she was revived, which would mean the nanoprobes were ubiquitous and probably would have been absorbed by all of them). In that case, you'd wonder whether all members of the mission would have been effectively been immortal after having been on the moon, but those effects didn't work elsewhere. Dax was killed, for example, Kira in another timeline when she traveled back to the past. Then again, it doesn't seem Neelix is immortal now, either.

Also, there's the small issue that the Nol-Ennis are in the Gamma Quadrant and the Borg are in the Delta Quadrant, quite a long distance away, whereas species 149 would imply a species the Borg met early in their history, which also makes it unlikely they're the same species. Then again, the Ferengi are only Species 1-8-0, and they (presumably) don't live too far from the Federation.

So, based on these indications I think it's unlikely, but I can't disprove it.

 

[Christopher]

The Trek galaxy is enormous, with countless thousands of sentient species. Any attribute or technology possessed by one species is statistically certain to be possessed by multiple others. So there's no sense in assuming two species are the same just because they have one thing in common, any more than it makes sense to assume two people are the same because they have the same height or the same first name.

The human brain is predisposed to imagine connections between similar things; it's how we learn to recognize patterns and identify things from partial information. But it's a tendency that evolved when the world we occupied was relatively small and local, so that a similarity was often likely to be evidence of a genuine connection. Applying it to a far vaster context is unwise, because in that case, similarities are far more likely to be coincidental.

The Ennis/Nol-Ennis immortality doesn't sound as if it's technological, but a weird property of the moon they're on.

No, Bashir explains that it results from artificial microbes that are akin to nanites and are reprogrammable. Indeed, that's always been one of the biggest conceptual flaws in the episode, because Bashir is confident that the microbes can be reprogrammed to stop healing people, but it never occurs to anyone that they could be reprogrammed to work outside of the moon and therefore bring immortality to everyone. (DS9 season 1 had a bad habit of doing this. Combine the quick-cloning from "A Man Alone" with the mind transfer tech from "The Passenger" and you've cured death forever, but both technologies were forgotten after their episodes.)

 

[at Quark's]

^I had completely forgotten about those artificial microbes.

I'd say it's not impossible the possibility of reprogramming those probes did occur to them, but they didn't perhaps want to. If the Federation doesn't want genetic engineering, it's not inconceivable they abhor the idea of nanites repairing cellular damage (or even nanites enhancing natural capacities of bodies), too. Perhaps the Federation wants immortality but only in 'natural' forms, such as the 'metaphasic radiation' from Insurrection.

 

[Christopher]

I'd say it's not impossible the possibility of reprogramming those probes did occur to them, but they didn't perhaps want to. If the Federation doesn't want genetic engineering, it's not inconceivable they abhor the idea of nanites repairing cellular damage (or even nanites enhancing natural capacities of bodies), too. Perhaps the Federation wants immortality but only in 'natural' forms, such as the 'metaphasic radiation' from Insurrection.

That makes no sense. They use dermal regenerators and drugs to heal cell damage, so why wouldn't they use nanites the same way? The ban on genetic engineering isn't because of some crazy Luddite fear of "unnatural" medicine -- hell, all surgery and most modern medicine is "unnatural" by that definition -- but for fear of one group giving themselves an unfair advantage over others. The Federation does allow genetic therapies that cure disease or save lives; the ban is only on transhuman augmentations. (Or transhumanoid, I guess.)

 

[somebuddyX]

I think...sure, why not.