Even though Picard's actions and the
Bewitched ending bothered me, there was always something that bothered me more and that was Guinan's words of wisdom were ignored from the end of
Q, Who?.
Q set a series of events into motion, bringing contact with the Borg much sooner than it should have come. Now, perhaps when you're ready, it might be possible to establish a relationship with them. But for now, for right now, you're just raw material to them. Since they are aware of your existence...
It would have been more satisfying, for me as a reader, for the Federation to have found a way to co-exist with the Borg.
Guinan was full of shit when she said that.
You can't
co-exist with the Borg Collective. It is, by definition, an entity that can only exist -- indeed, that can only perpetuate itself -- by violating the rights of sentient beings by mind-raping them. It is not a normal culture that simply has needs and wants that can be met, and with whom peaceful relations can be established so long as neither side begins engaging in imperialism.
The Borg Collective
cannot exist without imperialism. It is the ultimate embodiment of an imperial impulse -- because that is
all there is to the Collective. There is no art, no commerce, no religion, no desire for peaceful co-existence, no philosophy, no education, no government, no faction, no literature, no
society. The Borg Collective is nothing more than the imperial impulse given form. There's no co-existing with the Collective, because beyond its imperialism, there is nothing there to co-exist with.
Indeed, the very idea if antithetical to
Star Trek's principles of humanism and liberty. The Federation coexists with the Klingon Empire in part because doing so is gradually causing the Empire to lose its own imperial designs on the galaxy, to loosen its grip on its conquered worlds and its desire to conquer new worlds. That's the Federation's general policy -- peacefully co-exist with belligerent nations in order to persuade them that equality is better than imperialism. But you can't do that with the Borg; there's nothing else to them. The Collective will never let go of its slaves.
That's why the ending of
Destiny is far more in tune with
Star Trek's principles; the Collective is dismantled, euthanized for the insane and suffering creature that it is, and its slaves are given instant liberty and equality. And all this without killing the slaves while they are still under the Collective's control, as the military solution would require.
)
yeah, thats the exact look i was talking about.
) about my concerns regarding some of the crew members in his book Ex Machina, and how they treated their superiors, such as Spock and Bones.
