Could there be a Borg King?

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Is the gender of the central borg important like with bees?They need a coordinating leader for the hive but I don't see why that leader needs to be female. Even if the female hormones were amping something up plenty of assimilated race wouldn't even have the same hormone receptivity.

 

[R. Star]

"Gender is irrelevant?"

Actually maybe not. If the Borg Queen can seduce Data, why not a Borg King with abs of steel seducing Janeway and Seven? That's what it would be too. A sexy hot Borg to appeal to the female viewers.

Actaully this thread is predestined to end with a facepalm.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

In the Mirror Universe, the Borg DID have a King ("The Worst of Both Worlds"). They also travelled in diamond shaped (not cube shaped) ships.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

"Gender is irrelevant?"

Actually maybe not. If the Borg Queen can seduce Data, why not a Borg King with abs of steel seducing Janeway and Seven? That's what it would be too. A sexy hot Borg to appeal to the female viewers.

pfft, we don't need a Borg King to seduce Janeway and 7, the Borg Queen does just that just fine.

Actaully this thread is predestined to end with a facepalm.

It was a genuine question. We (or at least I) think of the Borg as a hive and their leader as a queen, like hive insects. But I don't think we've seen any reasons for the leader to be a specific gender. I'm just interested in what others think about this.

In the Mirror Universe, the Borg DID have a King ("The Worst of Both Worlds"). They also travelled in diamond shaped (not cube shaped) ships.

Now that's interesting!

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Borg_King

I picture the Borg King being like David Bowie in Labyrinth.

 

[Dream]

Locutus was the closest thing to that, until the TNG characters decided to ruin it for the Borg by bringing back Picard.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

He would have been the Borg Queen's Hand, to borrow from GoT.

 

[Tiberius]

Is the gender of the central borg important like with bees?They need a coordinating leader for the hive but I don't see why that leader needs to be female. Even if the female hormones were amping something up plenty of assimilated race wouldn't even have the same hormone receptivity.

The Borg Queen is a mind that is formed from all the drones being connected together, just the way that your mind is formed from all your brain cells connected together.

By itself a brain cell has no gender identity, and neither does a drone.

But when you connect a lot of brain cells together, it forms a mind that DOES have a gender identity.

Likewise, the mind formed from all the drones connected together, has a gender identity, and it is female. The Borg Queen. There is no Borg King because there are no drones available to form another mind. All the drones available are being used as part of the Queen's mind.

And we know it's a female mind because every single time it's chosen to use a body to represent itself (controlling it like a puppet), it has chosen a female body.

(That's how the Queen keeps surviving - the body may be destroyed, but the mind is safely spread across the entire Collective.)

 

[spot_loves_data]

We (or at least I) think of the Borg as a hive and their leader as a queen, like hive insects. But I don't think we've seen any reasons for the leader to be a specific gender.

I read somewhere that the borg were originally meant to look something like insects. In the end, TPTB decided against using so much of the budget for CGI.

If they'd looked more like social insects, a queen would have been mandatory. As the borg are now (humanoid), I don't see any reason to favor one sex over the other.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Is the gender of the central borg important like with bees?They need a coordinating leader for the hive but I don't see why that leader needs to be female. Even if the female hormones were amping something up plenty of assimilated race wouldn't even have the same hormone receptivity.

The Borg Queen is a mind that is formed from all the drones being connected together, just the way that your mind is formed from all your brain cells connected together.

By itself a brain cell has no gender identity, and neither does a drone.

But when you connect a lot of brain cells together, it forms a mind that DOES have a gender identity.

Likewise, the mind formed from all the drones connected together, has a gender identity, and it is female. The Borg Queen. There is no Borg King because there are no drones available to form another mind. All the drones available are being used as part of the Queen's mind.

I didn't mean a king in addition to a queen, I meant a king instead of a queen.

And we know it's a female mind because every single time it's chosen to use a body to represent itself (controlling it like a puppet), it has chosen a female body.

But why is the gender identity always female?

 

[R. Star]

But why is the gender identity always female?

If you go by the Destiny novels, it's because the being who created the Collective was female.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Well what's the canon answer?

 

[R. Star]

Well what's the canon answer?

There is none beyond some holywood execs wanting a "face" for the Borg in the movie.

 

[EmoBorg]

According to scientists, the first sex to develop was female. The male gender then developed from the female sex. That is why males have nipples because females are the default sex in nature and the male gender developed from that. The Borg collective has a female leader maybe because it is the default gender.

Females are the first sex/gender according to scientific research. Eve came before Adam in the real world.

 

[Dream]

Well what's the canon answer?

There is none beyond some holywood execs wanting a "face" for the Borg in the movie.

The Borg became much less threatening the moment they got a face. They were never as scary as they were in Q Who.

 

[Maurice]

I read somewhere that the borg were originally meant to look something like insects. In the end, TPTB decided against using so much of the budget for CGI.

CGI? CGI to create aliens? In 1989? On TV? Not a chance.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

According to scientists, the first sex to develop was female. The male gender then developed from the female sex. That is why males have nipples because females are the default sex in nature and males developed from that. The Borg collective has a female leader maybe because it is the default gender.

Females are the first sex/gender according to scientific research. Eve came before Adam in the real world.

I like this. In their search for perfection the Borg start with the first gender from which the other gender(s) develop.

 

[Tiberius]

Is the gender of the central borg important like with bees?They need a coordinating leader for the hive but I don't see why that leader needs to be female. Even if the female hormones were amping something up plenty of assimilated race wouldn't even have the same hormone receptivity.

The Borg Queen is a mind that is formed from all the drones being connected together, just the way that your mind is formed from all your brain cells connected together.

By itself a brain cell has no gender identity, and neither does a drone.

But when you connect a lot of brain cells together, it forms a mind that DOES have a gender identity.

Likewise, the mind formed from all the drones connected together, has a gender identity, and it is female. The Borg Queen. There is no Borg King because there are no drones available to form another mind. All the drones available are being used as part of the Queen's mind.

I didn't mean a king in addition to a queen, I meant a king instead of a queen.

Sorry. The thread title threw me. Sounds like you were asking if there could be a king in addition to the queen, not instead of the queen.

And we know it's a female mind because every single time it's chosen to use a body to represent itself (controlling it like a puppet), it has chosen a female body.

But why is the gender identity always female?

What do you mean, always?

It's always the same queen we are seeing, because it's always the same mind that is controlling it. And that mind just happens to be a female in the same way as Amber Benson happens to be a female. It's just an emergent property.

 

[Tiberius]

I read somewhere that the borg were originally meant to look something like insects. In the end, TPTB decided against using so much of the budget for CGI.

CGI? CGI to create aliens? In 1989? On TV? Not a chance.

*coughcrystallineentitycough*

 

[JarodRussell]

Well there's no king in bee hives either.

 

[Brit]

But why is the gender identity always female?

The only reason I could ever come up with was the "perfection" of the arrangement of the chromosomes in the female gene.

But then one has to wonder do all females of all alian races have this arrangement? Well no because not all Terrian species have the odd pairing of chromosomes ending in a male.

In birds, the opposite is true: the male is the homogameticsex, having two Z chromosomes (ZZ), and the female (hen) is hetergametics, having one Z and one W chromosome (ZW).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_linkage

I see no reason that there wouldn't have been Borg Kings. Maybe we only saw Queens.

Well there's no king in bee hives either.

Well yes there is but he only serves one purpose and quickly dies afterward.