That's a good point. Think of all the lives you would save as a result. However....... the law of unintended consequences and all that, you never know downstream effect that would have.
How Would You Have Handled The Borg Threat?
- Thread starter M.A.C.O.
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That's a good point. Think of all the lives you would save as a result. However....... the law of unintended consequences and all that, you never know downstream effect that would have.
The virus could mutate and wipe out all humans, Result- Peace on Earth goodwill to all Vulcans.
The first time that I saw "I,Borg", I thought Picard made the right decision.
Sending Hugh, with his rediscovered individuality intact, back to the collective, seemed to be a good alternative to the genocidal virus option. Introducing a subversive element usually is a good way to undermine a totalitarian regime/society. Hugh's individuality mindset should have been the element that would have undermined the Borg collective without mass killing, in theory.
If it worked, Picard would have had his cake and ate it too. He would be the hero who resolved the Borg threat and got to keep his hands blood free. As another poster mentioned, there was no way the writers would have allowed Picard to carry out the genocide virus option.
After I saw "Descent", I thought otherwise. I remember Hugh being angry at Picard for leaving him and his newly individualized Borg friends in chaos. They were hapless and many drones starved according to Hugh. Picard's decision turned out to be not so humanitarian after all.
I agree with @Mojochi. The drones, for the most part, are a lost cause. It would be more merciful to just wipe out the Borg.
Sending Hugh, with his rediscovered individuality intact, back to the collective, seemed to be a good alternative to the genocidal virus option. Introducing a subversive element usually is a good way to undermine a totalitarian regime/society. Hugh's individuality mindset should have been the element that would have undermined the Borg collective without mass killing, in theory.
If it worked, Picard would have had his cake and ate it too. He would be the hero who resolved the Borg threat and got to keep his hands blood free. As another poster mentioned, there was no way the writers would have allowed Picard to carry out the genocide virus option.
After I saw "Descent", I thought otherwise. I remember Hugh being angry at Picard for leaving him and his newly individualized Borg friends in chaos. They were hapless and many drones starved according to Hugh. Picard's decision turned out to be not so humanitarian after all.
I agree with @Mojochi. The drones, for the most part, are a lost cause. It would be more merciful to just wipe out the Borg.
Marynator, there is no rule, written or assumed, that prevents cross-pollination from other Trek shows. Even relative examples from non-Trek shows can be informative. As the moderator in the TNG forum, I only look for a thread to avoid being hijacked too far from the Original Poster's subject. Then, I'll try to gently poke it back on topic.
I wasn't intending to single anyone out for being a killjoy, least of all you, @Marynator. I totally agree with @Herbert. It's certainly a two-way street. I like to think that while I do offer up speculation on the show, I'm always open to debate or dissent about it. It's that discussion I'm looking for, honestly. So I certainly agree if anyone is going to insist theirs is beyond reproach, they're just as much contributing to a stymieing of expression as someone who thinks we shouldn't speculate at all.
So, are we talking about freeing the people who were assimilated, or just busting up drones, to provide them an opportunity to become a person? & if you haven't done that for them yet, is death really all that much of a loss? & are they really required to provide a nonperson an opportunity to become one... At the risk of their own safety, no less?
That's enough Borg philosophy for today, I guess. Lol
but none of them were who they'd once been. That person is arguably gone. So, with the exception of Picard, from an ethical point of view, you're not ever really going to save the person who got assimilated. At best, you can de-assimilate then into whatever empty vessel is left
So, are we talking about freeing the people who were assimilated, or just busting up drones, to provide them an opportunity to become a person? & if you haven't done that for them yet, is death really all that much of a loss? & are they really required to provide a nonperson an opportunity to become one... At the risk of their own safety, no less?
That's enough Borg philosophy for today, I guess. Lol
Well what if Hugh and his friends were Borg from birth, and just never knew another life? I feel actually Borg have to reproduce, because they have to have some organic growth right? You do see Locutus and Seven of Nine retained memories from their old lives, so surely you could bring people back? But even if you can't, you can at least see they can become good people who will lead free lives if liberated, so I don't see how you can really say there's no hope for them at all? I guess I just feel killing is an absolutely terrible thing, and should only be done as an absolute last resort if you've completely exhausted all of your other options.
Thank you everyone for clearing things up for me! I don't really watch Voyager or Deep Space Nine very much, so I don't know them as intimately, and I don't really care for them either, so sometimes I guess I sort of just pretend they don't exist, lol.
I do like funny discussions and ideas, but I sort of like to just laugh and say "Oh yes you've got a good one, thank you for making me laugh" and then move on, but sometimes I feel people want to carry that on as if I should accept it as real, which I just have difficulty doing?
Thank you everyone for clearing things up for me! I don't really watch Voyager or Deep Space Nine very much, so I don't know them as intimately, and I don't really care for them either, so sometimes I guess I sort of just pretend they don't exist, lol.
I do like funny discussions and ideas, but I sort of like to just laugh and say "Oh yes you've got a good one, thank you for making me laugh" and then move on, but sometimes I feel people want to carry that on as if I should accept it as real, which I just have difficulty doing?
There is still the option of doing to other drones what Picard and LaForge did to Hugh. Kidnap/obtain a drone, liberate their minds and then send them back to the collective in order to infect other drones with the individuality mindset. If tried on a massive scale, it just may bring down the Borg collective without mass killing.
However, this option brings about another set of problems. As we saw in "Descent", liberated drones are essentially hapless. This option would condemn drones to a miserable post-liberation existence and eventual death. If you go with this option, shouldn't the Federation also have to do the equivalent of a post war occupation? If the Federation want to be humanitarian, it would have to take care of the liberated drones until the drones can take care of themselves.
From what happened at the end "Descent", Picard said good luck and left Hugh and his pathetic drones to their own devices. Apparently, the Federation didn't have the will or desire to help see the liberated drones to self sufficiency.
Does Picard or the Federation have any obligation to help Hugh and his liberated friends, since Picard was partly responsible for liberating Hugh?
Also look to 7 of 9 on Voyager. Season 4-7 of VOY spent dozens of episodes as "Seven learns a lesson" stories. Seven could function as a drone/worker with a job, but not as a functioning person without a lot of stewarding and mentoring.
There are billions of drones in the Borg's Hive. Billions of people and aliens who, if liberated, would need to be reconditioned and trained to be normal again.
An expedient solution after liberation, would be to send them to an isolated world. Treated ostensibly like a leper colony. Leave them to their own kind, until they're ready to rejoin society.
I'm in the camp that thinks they don't reproduce. I'll grant that they hadn't always envisioned it being the case, but it did become the accepted understanding, because it's been said, & the only thing to refute it is one errant comment from Riker, after a momentary glance at an infant Borg cube resident. How does he know it was birthed by a Borg?
Do they? They sure don't look like they're growing organisms anymore. IMHO they look like puppeteered corpses. Heck, even the Borg Queen herself, isn't even a whole functioning organism, just a brain stem, wrapped in some flesh & a few skeletal parts, stuffed into a robot chassis.
I consider Picard a singular exception. He is the only known established example of a Borg being returned to who they previously were, & there's any number of reasons why that might be, like having only just been assimilated, within hours, or maybe a day or two.
As @M.A.C.O. points out, Seven literally had to be rebuilt as a person. I'm not entirely familiar with all the details of her post-Borg development (I'm not much of a Voyager fan) but despite whatever residual carryovers from her former life, She is not Annika Hansen anymore, & never will be by any metric the show seemed to suggest. Hugh & Seven are newly born people when they were separated from the collective
"Can become a good person" My overall point is that when they are a Borg Drone, they are not a person yet, nor are they that person they once were, anymore. IMHO, their personhood has been destroyed, and only when they are broke free from the collective, do they then have an opportunity to become a person again, but if you kill one before that takes place, you aren't killing a person, any more than if you terminated a newly fertilized human zygote.
Eek, this topic just took an odd turn lol
I agree but think in this case they changed the Borg not for the better...
The Borg and the Vidiians are both past redemption for different reasons.
The Vidiians... they CHOSE to harvest other people, knowing full well what that will do to those they harvest from. My sympathy ends when you try to murder my crew or anyone under my jurisdiction... Federation world, colony, station, ship, allies, etc. The attackers get the full force of my weapons after a warning.
The Borg... how can there be redemption for a species that, since we have no evidence to the contrary, doesn't actually exist? The Borg are made up entirely of other races. They are basically technology run amok that was not shut off when things started to go wrong. They are a deadlier version of M-5, Skynet, Cybermen, and every other 'machine gone wrong' thing scifi has created. They should be treated as such, despite the fact the drones were all formerly people. I think we would be doing them a favor. Living as a drone, capable of no individual thought, performing killings and mutilations on billions of other people, for who knows how many decades, if not centuries? (We don't really know a Borg's lifespan, but considering how much of their bodily functions become mechanical and the organic parts are fixed on a regular basis by the nanoprobes, including surviving the vacuum of space AND falling into an atmosphere AND being frozen for a century AND revive itself, each drone could theoretically be immortal.) I don't think there is a hell worse than that, and if I were ever assimilated, I would thank whoever it was that killed me.
In other words, the Borg will get the full force of my weapons without a warning.
The Vidiians... they CHOSE to harvest other people, knowing full well what that will do to those they harvest from. My sympathy ends when you try to murder my crew or anyone under my jurisdiction... Federation world, colony, station, ship, allies, etc. The attackers get the full force of my weapons after a warning.
The Borg... how can there be redemption for a species that, since we have no evidence to the contrary, doesn't actually exist? The Borg are made up entirely of other races. They are basically technology run amok that was not shut off when things started to go wrong. They are a deadlier version of M-5, Skynet, Cybermen, and every other 'machine gone wrong' thing scifi has created. They should be treated as such, despite the fact the drones were all formerly people. I think we would be doing them a favor. Living as a drone, capable of no individual thought, performing killings and mutilations on billions of other people, for who knows how many decades, if not centuries? (We don't really know a Borg's lifespan, but considering how much of their bodily functions become mechanical and the organic parts are fixed on a regular basis by the nanoprobes, including surviving the vacuum of space AND falling into an atmosphere AND being frozen for a century AND revive itself, each drone could theoretically be immortal.) I don't think there is a hell worse than that, and if I were ever assimilated, I would thank whoever it was that killed me.
In other words, the Borg will get the full force of my weapons without a warning.
The Jem'Hadar have exhibited some free will. We have seen examples of this with Omet'iklan, Ramat'iklan, and Goran'agar. Omet'iklan didn't have to kill Weyoun, but he did because he questionedtheir loyalty. Ramat'iklan knew they were heading into a trap, but he went on anyway for reasons he stated in "ROCKS AND SHOALS", but I also think he knew his people were doomed to a horrible fate with the withdrawal, and felt this was a better way to die. Goran'agar wanted his soldiers to be free, but had to go kill them to prevent their fatefrom being a worse death.
The Jem'Hadar have some will, it is just sort of boxed in with their preprogrammed ideals, not unlike a lot of religious people I have met over the years. The Borg have zero free will. So they can't really be compared to the Borg.
The Changelings have total free will, and their choices were shaped by their past experiences with solids. Do I condone the attempt at genocide? No. I do think it was too convenient that the Federation got to get off scott free by letting Section 31 do that dirty work. It did lead to Odo giving the cure and ending the war.
I liken that situation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki of WWII. Dropping those bombs on civilian targets was horrible, but it did end the war right there, stopping hundreds of thousands, if not a million or more, from dying in a further protracted war.
The Jem'Hadar have some will, it is just sort of boxed in with their preprogrammed ideals, not unlike a lot of religious people I have met over the years. The Borg have zero free will. So they can't really be compared to the Borg.
The Changelings have total free will, and their choices were shaped by their past experiences with solids. Do I condone the attempt at genocide? No. I do think it was too convenient that the Federation got to get off scott free by letting Section 31 do that dirty work. It did lead to Odo giving the cure and ending the war.
I liken that situation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki of WWII. Dropping those bombs on civilian targets was horrible, but it did end the war right there, stopping hundreds of thousands, if not a million or more, from dying in a further protracted war.
You see I feel I have a very strong opinion against demonizing my enemies, I feel it's extremely dangerous. Like your example of us using atomic weapons and murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians, even women and children, I don't feel we can ever justify that. But I feel some people would when you dehumanize your opponent, and you're setting that precedent for them, that if they decide our enemy is subhuman it's okay to wipe them out. Maybe you won't agree with our leaders to which enemy that applies, but you're not likely to be our final authority right? But you've already agreed if that decision's made they're hopeless then genocide and mass murder is fully justifiable?
Like what if Starfleet says "We've been trying to make peace with Romulus for centuries, but obviously there's no hope, and they're too dangerous and violent, so we just need to blow up their sun so we'll never need worry about them again?" Because I don't feel you're talking direct self defense, you're talking about preemptive extermination for what might happen in our future?
I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't feel it's hopeless, I don't believe Borg are sub-human without any chance of redemption, and even so I don't think I'll ever feel I'd be justified in genocide, and I only believe in violence as an absolutel last resort when they're forcing no other choice on me?
Like what if Starfleet says "We've been trying to make peace with Romulus for centuries, but obviously there's no hope, and they're too dangerous and violent, so we just need to blow up their sun so we'll never need worry about them again?" Because I don't feel you're talking direct self defense, you're talking about preemptive extermination for what might happen in our future?
I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't feel it's hopeless, I don't believe Borg are sub-human without any chance of redemption, and even so I don't think I'll ever feel I'd be justified in genocide, and I only believe in violence as an absolutel last resort when they're forcing no other choice on me?
But you already know the consequences of not stopping the Borg.
Not enough free will as a group not to carry out the Founder wishes.
Both cities were military targets.
That "attempted genocide" ended the war when it did end, and how many Founder ultimately died solely owing to the illness?
Once the Founders surrendered the cure was provided.
Yes, they were military targets, but a high number of civilians were killed.
And we have no idea if any Founders actually died from that illness.
And we have no idea if any Founders actually died from that illness.
While I would normally agree with your entire sentiment, this is clearly a singular fictional case where it doesn't apply imho. The Borg are not a race. They exist only through the rape of humanoid life. They are a plague, a pestilent infestation, in the most literal sense. It's only closest possible similarity is a zombie horde. They only exist to wipe you out. They don't possess existence without consuming humanoid life. All the drones you see are repurposed lifeforms. So, they are not the Federation's enemy. That's the wrong word for it. The Borg is the Federation's extinction event
A conscripted soldier or a slave soldier can be your enemy, it doesn't hake a difference that they're not the ones pulling their own strings.
I see what you're saying, but my point is more basic than that. The Borg have no enemies, & therefore are an enemy to no one, unless you're using the word symbolically, like "Routine is the enemy of art". By the prime definition, an enemy is someone engaged in hostile opposition, & while that may be the case for the Federation, it is not the case for the Borg. They are simply collecting for their collective, because without doing that, it wouldn't exist. So, as I see it, rules in how one might treat an enemy don't apply
The Borg aren't so much a foe to be defeated, but a plague to be eradicated, & since, in all cases but one, the drones are no longer the people they'd once been, not much is lost by extinguishing them for the sake of ending that plague, in my opinion. In fact, it's probably a service you're doing not only for the endangered, but for the victims as well
