You mean when the assimilation probe is about to be inserted into your neck? Too late to wish you used the virus then
How Would You Have Handled The Borg Threat?
- Thread starter M.A.C.O.
- Start date
I think @Mojochi I feel the opposite! I feel it's the Borg who are above us and can't really comprehend our existence because their collective consciousness is like totally on another plane than ours?
Think about Guinan's conversation with Captain Picard, she says one day when the Federation's ready you can have a dialog and relationship with them, but right now they view you as "raw materials".
I feel that's really the core of our metaphor, the Borg are actually what humans of today relate to, and the Federation is like the rain forest or something. So like can you imagine trying to understand how trees are a living culture that we'd communicate with and respect? No we just chop them down and use them for resources, and we do the same with metals and water and animals and everything. Even when you try to imagine talking to them you always anthropomorphize them because like we can't even conceive of something other than us. The Borg just fly around and view other life as like not even recognizable to them at all, just resources to harvest and consume? Just because we can't understand them and they're such a terrible threat to us, I don't feel that means they deserve complete eradication?
Think about Guinan's conversation with Captain Picard, she says one day when the Federation's ready you can have a dialog and relationship with them, but right now they view you as "raw materials".
I feel that's really the core of our metaphor, the Borg are actually what humans of today relate to, and the Federation is like the rain forest or something. So like can you imagine trying to understand how trees are a living culture that we'd communicate with and respect? No we just chop them down and use them for resources, and we do the same with metals and water and animals and everything. Even when you try to imagine talking to them you always anthropomorphize them because like we can't even conceive of something other than us. The Borg just fly around and view other life as like not even recognizable to them at all, just resources to harvest and consume? Just because we can't understand them and they're such a terrible threat to us, I don't feel that means they deserve complete eradication?
The difference is the Borg communicates with their 'raw materials' and understand when their 'raw materials' talk back. They don't consume the beings they meet, they turn them into zombies whether they like it or not. They recognize the sentience of the Federation, Romulans etc but they just don't care about it. If the rain forest turned around and en mass and stated to human kind 'Don't chop us down or we'll blow your brains out' I doubt we would keep chopping.
I don't feel that affects the metaphor really? I mean it's a metaphor not an allegory right? Guinan said once you're advanced further you'd be able to have a relationship with the Borg, it's just right now you're so far below them they can't imagine talking to you or coexisting with you. And like you might want to calm down an animal before you slaughter it, right? It doesn't mean you respect your animal, you're just doing something so you'll get results you want better.
And I think you're last comment sort of supports my point, what I was saying? Like if our rainforests communicated with us on our level, we'd treat them different, right? That's kind of exactly what I was saying with my metaphor, that when the Federation is ready they can have dialog with the Borg and things will change?
When did she say that or was she just speculating.
She says that at the end of Q Who? Since it's Guinan I feel she is pretty insightful as we've seen before, so I trust her judgement. She says one day the Federation will have a relationship with the Borg, but right now humans are too far beneath them, and she actually says you're just raw materials, that's why I made like the rainforest comparison.
Let's use an extreme real world example. World War 2: until the Germans surrendered, (cos they were losing) no amount of dialogue was going to end their murderous, genocidal ways. You think if they had the upper hand they were interested in peaceful conversation while sending millions to their deaths? Including wanting to exterminate an entire ethnic group. While they were behaving like genocidal, racist maniacs they had to be dealt with severely. A Kum Ba ya session was not going to work.
However she did not have the ability to predict the future. She was speculating
Guinan can tell when her timeline is altered? I always felt she was far more than she appeared and even Q says that same thing? She understands things better than anyone else on the Enterprise I feel.
Telling that time is altered does not mean she knows what will happen next. Unlike the Organians who told Kirk that one day the Klingons and Feds will be allies she never made such a definite statement. After all her race was destroyed by the Borg , they did not see that coming did they?
They kidnap, and harm, and and kill, and destroy, and conquer vast areas of space.
it's difficult to see how you don't consider the Borg to be the enemy of the people they go after.
I've often thought about that comment of hers & how to interpret it, given all the other data we know about them
The parts of that comment to be focused on are the "Right now" & "raw material" parts. The rest is just idealistic hopeGuinan said:
All she's really saying is "You were unprepared, & with preparation & time it might be possible to negotiate with them", but in truth, she admits herself that she was not there to see her world assimilated, & she's no real expert on whether that reality is truly possible. What we've come to know is that the Borg hold no technically inferior lifeform with any respect. "Your defensive capabilities are unable to withstand us" is all that matters to them.
Given that revelation, it seems nearly impossible that any negotiation could ever take place, so long as they actively see you as raw material. The only way for them to stop seeing you as raw material, before you're extinct, is for you to become technically superior, at some point, & given how they don't pursue relations with species that CAN defend against them, like species 8472, then the best one could ever hope for is a tentative mutual nonaggression, at some level, but that's not going to happen as long as they are actively assimilating your species to extinction.
Her comment is just feigning optimism imho, so to more easily break the bad news to Picard. He hadn't yet understood the utter absence of value with which they hold humanity's existence. They're in the middle of a chess game, & I imagine the conversation beforehand being about how ordinarily Starfleet tries to establish relations, even with hostiles. She probably doesn't want to outright burst that bubble for them, because she admires it about them. Frankly, she's just being gentle about it, so they don't get dissuaded from what they do, which I imagine is very possible for a species, when their 1st contact turns into their extinction.
You're making Picard's Crystalline Entity argument, & while I would agree with it in most cases, its case is one where it IS a lifeform, with as much right to be there as humans, as Picard describes it. However, the Borg are not a lifeform. They are a plague spreading throughout other lifeforms. All the Borg you see are other lifeforms
The Borg have no such "Right to be there" so long as it's only possible through the consumption and habitation of existing lifeforms
A virus harms, kills, destroys, spreads over vast areas of domain, & victimizes, but no one should ever consider HIV an enemy. That's anthropomorphizing it. It's an epidemic, & if it were a zombie virus that killed people off, but used their reanimated corpses as its mode of transmission, no one would think this was a race of beings to be treated as such. It's just casualties, in this bizarre fictional case.
A friend of mine used to go on about the Undine years back and eventually he told me they were Species 8472! I'm sure he got that name off of Star Trek Online where he spent every waking moment on his computer playing space battles with his mates!
JB
I guess I'm just not quick to dismiss Guinan's thoughts, I've always felt she's the wisest and most perceptive person on the whole show, so I sort of hold her a little higher and really put a lot of value on her comments. I feel she sees things others don't see and just generally understands things better?
I guess also a lot really depends on how you're looking at the show, I feel a bit drawn to thinking about symbolism and metaphors. I really feel the Borg are a metaphor of humanity like I said, and they view the galaxy like we view our world, just something to consume. I feel their actions are evil, just like we're evil for polluting our planet and everything we're doing you know, but I feel there's always hope. I don't believe our best solution to save our Earth is to wipe out humanity of course, lol.
I feel our best solution is to change, just like Picard's best solution is to change the Borg?
I've heard people before likening our human race to a virus too, lol. I feel calling your enemy a virus is still a form of demonizing, right? I still feel that's so terribly dangerous, and we see it all the time on small scales too, where like when someone wants to do something abhorrent it's easier to justify if first you dehumanize your victim, like saying "Data's just a machine so it's okay to turn him off", and of course it's so common in the real world too, right?
I guess also a lot really depends on how you're looking at the show, I feel a bit drawn to thinking about symbolism and metaphors. I really feel the Borg are a metaphor of humanity like I said, and they view the galaxy like we view our world, just something to consume. I feel their actions are evil, just like we're evil for polluting our planet and everything we're doing you know, but I feel there's always hope. I don't believe our best solution to save our Earth is to wipe out humanity of course, lol.
I feel our best solution is to change, just like Picard's best solution is to change the Borg?I've heard people before likening our human race to a virus too, lol. I feel calling your enemy a virus is still a form of demonizing, right? I still feel that's so terribly dangerous, and we see it all the time on small scales too, where like when someone wants to do something abhorrent it's easier to justify if first you dehumanize your victim, like saying "Data's just a machine so it's okay to turn him off", and of course it's so common in the real world too, right?
Huh?
If the option of destroying this particular enemy presented itself, I'd be the first to volunteer to push the button.
That said, the Borg are not a virus or other sort of unintelligent microorganism. They are guided by sentient intelligence, a defined hierarchy, lead by the queen/queens.
