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Borg - How do they work?

Garren

Lieutenant
Red Shirt
So I watched Raven last night and it challenged some of my preconceptions of the Borg. The questions I ask might have been answered already but:

Do Borg age and grow? We see that they've assimilated children and Seven of Nine was one of them. Now Seven of Nine is an adult. So growth absolutely happened. Does the aging process ever stop for the borg or are they susceptible to mortality as well? I never thought of the Borg as being mortal and believe, because of their artificial adaptive dynamics, they were immortal. So if they are mortal, does that mean the collective assimilates to procreate? Next question,

Do Borg procreate biologically or artificially or use a mixture of the two?

How can there be so many Borg in the Delta quadrant and yet still so many thriving colonies that exist near them that haven't been assimilated?

Wait, exactly how do the Borg know about species to the point that their distinction is cataloged yet they havent been assimilated? Do they observe first and assimilate later? Does that mean they discriminate who they assimilate? Are they racist or speciest?
 
Borg are speed-aged to adulthood.

The number of Borg cubes in the DQ is kind of a continuity error they introduced for the purposes of the episode Scorpion. If there were as many Borg cubes as Scorpion that were as powerful as the one in BoBW, there would be no non-Borg left in the quadrant.
 
How do the borg work? Horribly. They are lazy and go around bothering their neighbors at work mumbling "you will be assimilated" and not focusing on their job at hand. Don't even get me started on their efforts to unionize.
 
OK, OK, all seriousness now.

Do Borg age and grow? We see that they've assimilated children and Seven of Nine was one of them. Now Seven of Nine is an adult. So growth absolutely happened. Does the aging process ever stop for the borg or are they susceptible to mortality as well? I never thought of the Borg as being mortal and believe, because of their artificial adaptive dynamics, they were immortal. So if they are mortal, does that mean the collective assimilates to procreate? Next question,[/quote\

Hmmm... Maybe it is possible for the Borg to achieve some form of "immortality." Perhaps assimilation and the nanites halt the aging process. I don't think it's ever been discussed.

I was on a different DB when Voyager first aired. We were either speculating (or commenting in response to a particular episode) that the Borg may have originated as a means to fight disease. Perhaps the initial Species 0001, the founders of the Borg, developed their cybernetics as a means to combat disease, aging or to better/enhance themselves. Obviously, if this is the case, then it got terribly out of control.

Do Borg procreate biologically or artificially or use a mixture of the two?

I don't see why it can't be a mixture of the two. In the initial introduction of the Borg, we saw a baby Borg no more than a year or two old (from a Terran point of view). Voyager had a baby Borg that they tucked into a closet and forgot about.

In one of the "Star Trek: Armada" games, (I know, non canon) the Borg assimilate a Dominion cloning facility so they could grow a clone of Locutus.

It appears that the Borg get the majority of their drones through assimilation. Every Borg we've seen seems to be an assimilated being.

How can there be so many Borg in the Delta quadrant and yet still so many thriving colonies that exist near them that haven't been assimilated?

The number of Borg cubes in the DQ is kind of a continuity error they introduced for the purposes of the episode Scorpion. If there were as many Borg cubes as Scorpion that were as powerful as the one in BoBW, there would be no non-Borg left in the quadrant.

I'm not exactly in agreement on this one. It might be easy for the Borg to be (or seem to be) a massive group in the DQ and still have vast regions of unassimilated space.

I don't want to get political or bring in non-trek world news into this discussion, but consider this map of ISIS. When you look at the Middle East as a whole, ISIS controlled territory looks like a spider web or corridors instead of large blocks or swaths of land. Now, I know the number of ISIS members and supporters is relatively small in comparison with the total population, but they seem large and in charge at the moment. Perhaps the Borg are the same. Maybe the Borg are really a small group compared to the size of the DQ, but they are so spread out and seem large and in charge only because of their aggressive assimilation nature.

Wait, exactly how do the Borg know about species to the point that their distinction is cataloged yet they havent been assimilated? Do they observe first and assimilate later? Does that mean they discriminate who they assimilate? Are they racist or speciest?

That's not the impression I go from their introduction in Next Generation. The Borg state "You will be assimilated. Your technological and biological distinctiveness WILL be added to our own." Will be added. It hasn't been added yet. In fact, Q and Guinian seemed to indicate the Borg (initially) were not interested in humanity as a whole. They were not interested in conquest or consuming/assimilating every last human. They were only interested in added something new to the collective. For the most part they ignored the Enterprise crew in those early episodes. It was as if (the impression I had) was that once the Borg assimilated and added a SAMPLE of humanity into the collective, they would leave the rest alone. They were only interested in sampling the new life forms they encountered.

This, of course, changed over the years.
 
It would seem to me that the Borg don't sweat bodily immortality. Drones always happily march to their death. Yet connectivity through the Vinculum, the sort that malfunctioned on Seven and caused multiple personalities to surface, would appear to guarantee eternal life for the mind or the spirit - plenty enough to motivate the Drones to voluntarily let their bodies die when necessary, eliminating unnecessary steps of coercion from the process.

In the initial introduction of the Borg, we saw a baby Borg no more than a year or two old (from a Terran point of view). Voyager had a baby Borg that they tucked into a closet and forgot about.
Those would all appear to be assimilated babies, though, as Seven in VOY "Drone" very explicitly insists that a fetal Borg is an utterly atypical occurrence:

"I don't understand. The Borg assimilate. They do not reproduce in this fashion."
Also, the Collective doesn't want manpower, at least if its propaganda can be trusted. It wants to improve the lives of those it assimilates; the creation of "Borg born to be Borg" would detract from that goal.

Maybe the Borg are really a small group compared to the size of the DQ, but they are so spread out and seem large and in charge only because of their aggressive assimilation nature.
Or then the Borg are not aggressive assimilators at all. Episodes like "Child's Play" suggest that they can be quite patient with assimilation, preferring "piecemeal" over "efficient" because the former provides them with a great source for clever defensive/survival adaptations. It might be in Borg interests to hide from 99% of the galactic population so that they can reap the benefits of surprise-assimilating the "ripe" 1% when the time is right. And we do know that they effectively hide, as per "Dark Frontier" and the Bigfoot hunt analogy there.

This, of course, changed over the years.
It could be argued that it always changes over the years: the Borg treat their victim species differently at different stages of the process. First they scout, assign a Species Number, and then wait, perhaps for hundreds of thousands of years. Then they sample. Then they sample more. Then they provoke, and then sample even more. And then they provoke more. When the victim no longer can be provoked into developing anything interesting to protect itself, every last member of the species is carefully assimilated (see "Dark Frontier") and given a better (perhaps eternal) life as a Drone.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Wait, exactly how do the Borg know about species to the point that their distinction is cataloged yet they havent been assimilated? Do they observe first and assimilate later? Does that mean they discriminate who they assimilate? Are they racist or speciest?

In a way, yes. The Borg are only interested in assimilating races that can contribute to "perfection" in some way. For example, the Kazon were technologically primitive and had no attributes that made them desirable as drones so the Collective has no interest in assimilating them.
 
...In the near term. Might be the Borg would eventually work their way down the list to the Kazon, or simply patiently wait for the Kazon to become worthy of assimilation.

The "we want you to help us attain perfection" and "we want to assimilate you for your own good" agendas need not be in conflict (even though both could be utter lies). They just work differently for different victims at different times.

Timo Saloniemi
 
How do the borg work? Horribly. They are lazy and go around bothering their neighbors at work mumbling "you will be assimilated" and not focusing on their job at hand. Don't even get me started on their efforts to unionize.

I lol'd so hard
 
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