Borg

[ProtoAvatar]

I disagree, and think there are far more topics that could be covered, including a number of open threads from Destiny. They could be brought back to drive a story, not to solve it, from a number of different perspectives.

"number of different perspectives."

Such as?
You could do a story about the federation searching for the new caeliar. That's it - and it's being done in Voy lit

The second the new caeliar actually appear, there's no story, no suspense. Only deus ex machina problem solving - the federation&co being, once again, passive children, watching in admiration/worship how the grown-up do things.

They were made to be too strong, and recently, they don't even have the character problems that make the Q and others interesting.

Frankly, they overstayed their welcome already in 'Destiny' - and even there, the facile ending they generated was dissapoinnting.

 

[JD]

It disappointment you. I think there are still plenty of interesting things that can be done with the Caeliar, they don't necessarily need to be the problem or it's resolution, there are plenty of other roles a group can play in a story. I trust the authors to be able to come up with interesting stories if they decided to bring them back.

 

[chelly]

I agree

 

[ProtoAvatar]

It disappointment you.

Deliverance stories were never my cup of tea.

I think there are still plenty of interesting things that can be done with the Caeliar, they don't necessarily need to be the problem or it's resolution, there are plenty of other roles a group can play in a story. I trust the authors to be able to come up with interesting stories if they decided to bring them back.

Name a few of those interesting things, then, JD.

 

[JD]

Bah, that was supposed to be disappointment to you. I really need to remember to check these things before I post them.
As for ideas, I don't have any, but I'm not one of the people paid to come up with them. All I'm saying is that just because you don't have any doesn't mean that someone else couldn't come up with some.

 

[TerraUnam]

What, a small, closed society with lots of tech and a frightening bent towards xenophobia is suddenly wrenched into a new state of diversity with a sudden influx of newcomers. That's supposed to go well? Well, I don't know. And I won't get any more specific than that.

While the Caeliar have some nice toys, the Federation has lived as a plural, peaceful society for 200+ years while engaging fully with anyone they come across. That's not easy and I'd say the Federation has the decided advantage on social skills.

Or the juicy suspense of the fact that the existence of the Borg can be laid at the feet of Humanity and Earth alone through the fact that Columbia came from that very narrow span of time when there was independent, pre-Federation Earth Starfleet. It's one of the few interstellar incidents that Humanity is responsible for itself, outside of the Federation. Vulcan and Andor got roasted because of the Borg.

Well, that's got to make for some tension.

Or the fact that there is another Caeliar civilization (Kintana) in another galaxy. The Enterprise made a trip there in Mere Mortals. I have no idea why, but it's still an open thread.

Or the whole question of back-engineering Borg and Caeliar tech as mentioned in A Singular Destiny.

These are just open threads lying around in the books. Original story incorporating the Caeliar are the purview of the writers.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

TerraUnam

"What, a small, closed society with lots of tech and a frightening bent towards xenophobia is suddenly wrenched into a new state of diversity with a sudden influx of newcomers. That's supposed to go well? Well, I don't know."

All those who had contact with the new Caeliar gestalt described it as practically perfect. So yes, it did go well - and now, the new caeliar society is far better than the federation's - unity and individualism combined.
In order to squeeze a story out of this, you would have to devolve (retcon) the new caeliar from their perfect state to having serious problems (a rather large demotion).

The consequences of humans having a hand in creating the borg or all players reverse engineering borg tech (not much caeliar tech around) do NOT involve the caeliar - only the ususal players.

That civilization that darkened a galaxy has nothing in common with the new caeliar - or the old caeliar, for that matter.
Its evolution diverged from the caeliar an ETERNITY ago -13 BILLION years. We're much closer to bacteria than that civilization is with the caeliar.
And what is this 'Kintana' name? That civilization remained nameless.

So - you could only involve the caeliar in a story if you devolve them.
Mentioning them is NOT involving them in a story.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

As for ideas, I don't have any, but I'm not one of the people paid to come up with them. All I'm saying is that just because you don't have any doesn't mean that someone else couldn't come up with some.

JD, my point is, the new caeliar don't have much story potential left in them.
It was exhausted at the end of destiny, when every problem/issue they had was resolved.
No internal conflict (caeliar society being 'perfect'), no external one (their overwhelming power was also established) = no story.

Anyone who could squeeze a story out of the caeliar could make a much more interesting story by utilizing other players.

 

[Christopher]

What, a small, closed society with lots of tech and a frightening bent towards xenophobia is suddenly wrenched into a new state of diversity with a sudden influx of newcomers. That's supposed to go well? Well, I don't know. And I won't get any more specific than that.

Yes, the Caeliar are uneasy with outsiders, but the crux of what happened in Destiny is that they realized the Borg aren't outsiders -- they're essentially degenerate Caeliar. And now they're actual, full members of the gestalt. Whatever their faults, the Caeliar are a deeply pacifistic people and quite empathic among their own kind. Certainly there are going to be growing pains and adjustments, but it would be a mistake to assume that the process would be anything like what would happen if an insular human community had to deal with an influx of refugees.

Or the juicy suspense of the fact that the existence of the Borg can be laid at the feet of Humanity and Earth alone through the fact that Columbia came from that very narrow span of time when there was independent, pre-Federation Earth Starfleet. It's one of the few interstellar incidents that Humanity is responsible for itself, outside of the Federation.

That's a misreading of the text that crops up too often around here. The humans didn't cause the chain of events that led to the creation of the Borg. The future Caeliar caused it by sending the disruptive pulse that set everything in motion, so that they could engineer their own creation. The humans just happened to be there at the time, and maybe provided a diversion or a window of opportunity for the real orchestrators of the event. They were as much victims of the attack as the contemporary Caeliar were.

 

[JD]

As for ideas, I don't have any, but I'm not one of the people paid to come up with them. All I'm saying is that just because you don't have any doesn't mean that someone else couldn't come up with some.

JD, my point is, the new caeliar don't have much story potential left in them.
It was exhausted at the end of destiny, when every problem/issue they had was resolved.
No internal conflict (caeliar society being 'perfect'), no external one (their overwhelming power was also established) = no story.

Anyone who could squeeze a story out of the caeliar could make a much more interesting story by utilizing other players.

I'm sorry, but I don't agree. You keep stating this as fact, when all it is your opinion. There have been a ton of times where the authors have come up with a story that really supprised me, so I really think it is a mistake to write something like the Caeliar off just because you don't think there is story potential there. I've learned never to say things like that when we have writers like KRAD, Christopher, the Wardimore duo, and DRGII involved.

 

[TerraUnam]

Christopher:

I really didn't want to get too descriptive of what I thought of the present state of Caeliar society, lest I descend into a story idea. But I believe there is plenty of room for tension, disagreement and growing pains in the New Caeliar Society. I didn't say it would be a civil war, but I do believe there is sufficient potential for tension to be intriguing and entertaining on paper. Your ideas and mine represent two poles on a spectrum between which the Caeliar can swing during a plot, if you will.

Given the whole predestination paradox thing, everybody was both a victim and a cause. Blaming it on the humans may be a misreading, but in the context of political plots like this one, such an interpretation is reasonable for an antagonist to hold. Humanity is the actor who is closest to hand. Whether the antagonist can be disabused of that notion is another question entirely. Given the devastation of Andor and Vulcan, understanding and empathy may be in short supply.

Heck, if the Neyel got a second book, why not the Caeliar?

 

[Christopher]

Humanity is the actor who is closest to hand. Whether the antagonist can be disabused of that notion is another question entirely. Given the devastation of Andor and Vulcan, understanding and empathy may be in short supply.

On the other hand, the Federation, including humanity, is going to be right up there at the head of the post-invasion relief efforts. Germany and Japan had a hell of a lot more reason to resent America after WWII than the Andorians and Vulcans have to hate humans, and yet America's aggressive efforts to help those countries get back on their feet after the war won a lot of good feelings. When it's a choice between some arcane argument that you should hate humans based on something some tiny group of them had an indirect role in hundreds of years ago and the concrete reality that humans are helping to rebuild your homes and cities and infrastructure in the here and now, I don't think very many people are going to be fanatical enough to give more weight to the former.

Besides, does the general public even know that Columbia's crew had a peripheral involvement in the events that ultimately led to the creation of the Borg? I mean, it's not like there were reporters covering the briefing where Hernandez revealed the Borg's origins to the three captains. Just because we readers and the books' main characters know these things, that doesn't mean the common people in-universe know them.

 

[TerraUnam]

It's possible, indeed that's one solution, but why give up on a perfectly good point of contention? Where's the drama in that? If the spoilers for Paths of Disharmony are correct, Andor managed to come up with a secessionist party over its reproduction issues.

Information necessary to the plot will always get out, a leak here, a mistake there, a casual conversation and out it comes.

The Columbia may have been a tiny group, but they were members of Earth's space arm and agents of its government. To just write them off is to say that if a military ship fires on a civilian vessel the military vessel's nation isn't responsible. The Columbia's role isn't so easily disposed of.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Regardless of whether humanity's role in creating the borg will be known, this will engender no hostility for the federation.

Why? Because whoever wants to be mad at the federation/humans won't cite some distant event lost in the mists of time, but something much closer: everyone knows that Janeway blew up the borg transwarp hub, which pissed the borg off, resulting in the 'Destiny' invasion.
No one will need any reason beyond this one to seek revenge against the federation - provided one doesn't care about reason, justice, etc. And if one is being reasonable, this reasoning will be insufficient.

 

[Christopher]

It's possible, indeed that's one solution, but why give up on a perfectly good point of contention? Where's the drama in that?

See, my point is, I don't think it is a good point of contention. I think it's a huge reach to think that any significant number of people would hate humanity for such a weak, convoluted, and remote reason, not when they have countless more immediate reasons to perceive humans as benevolent and helpful.

If the spoilers for Paths of Disharmony are correct, Andor managed to come up with a secessionist party over its reproduction issues.

Yes, but that is a good point of contention. Hating humanity because a half-dozen human Marines who would've been dead for centuries anyway were incidentally involved in events out of their control that eventually led, as a side effect, to the formation of the Borg -- you'd have to be fanatically anti-human to begin with in order to latch onto such a ludicrous justification for hating humans.

The Columbia may have been a tiny group, but they were members of Earth's space arm and agents of its government. To just write them off is to say that if a military ship fires on a civilian vessel the military vessel's nation isn't responsible. The Columbia's role isn't so easily disposed of.

Their role was not anywhere near that direct. It's more like saying that the military vessel's nation is responsible if the military vessel's bosun gets some local girl pregnant on shore leave and the girl marries a local man who abuses her child so that the child grows up to be a sociopath who exploits the nation's poverty and social unrest to get elected dictator and lead a war of conquest against other nations, including the one his father the bosun came from. Any rational person would blame the abusive stepfather or the electorate that brought the dictator to power or just the dictator himself. Some few might blame the bosun for not bothering to take responsibility for his child and allowing the kid to go so wrong. But I can't imagine any rational person blaming the nation that the bosun came from, especially when they themselves were among the dictator's victims.

 

[David cgc]

So, all of this could've been prevented if the MACOs issued condoms?

 

[kkozoriz1]

The actions of 19 hijackers on 9/11 led not only to the justifiable invasion of Afghanistan but the invasions of Iraq that had noting to do with the attacks. If you get someone whipping up a mob they'll pretty much go after whoever they're told to. When people are hurt and angry and scared it doesn't matter if they're right, it just matters that they feel they're doing something.

 

[TerraUnam]

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Emotional reasoning vs. impartial logic. Chris is coming from the logic POV.

As long as it sounds somewhat relevant, like making someone to blame, who cares about the details?

 

[Christopher]

As long as it sounds somewhat relevant, like making someone to blame, who cares about the details?

But as I've been trying to explain to you, it doesn't make sense emotionally either. What people are going to see when they look at humanity in the wake of this event is two things: 1) a fellow victim of the Borg, and 2) a species that, despite being victimized, is doing everything in its power to help others rebuild. Okay, some people might be resentful that humanity didn't get hit as hard as others, but when it's human beings rebuilding their homes and replanting their fields and defending their skies, I just don't see that resentment lasting. As I've said over and over every time you bring up this bizarre notion, the only people who'd latch onto this lame excuse to hate humanity are those who already hate humanity anyway and will use any excuse.

 

[TerraUnam]

You'd rather I think that Janeway isn't dead?