Janeways Ownage on the Borg

[Triskelion]

Ripley/Weaver is a role model to women (and lesbians) for a reason.

Janeway, while hyper competent, was a control freak whose success was necessitated on the weakening of her XO, Commander Charomatherapy, and all the maliens she encountered. For her, disagreement was an offense. Whom did she love? A programmably docile holocharacter. A neutered svengali. A bookshop hermit. A lesser engineer. A dude with a hair bun and love of fabric whom she could ply with sweets. A certain married Vulcan junior officer whom she could dress down on occasion. But not Q. Not her superior officers, who were all in their dotage. No Rikers, no Picards around the Queen.

I don't consider it a cultural paradigm shift, I consider it a La La Land subcultural foist on the rest of us.

The Star Wars galaxy aliens should take one look at the Skywalker legacy and figure out who keeps dragging the galaxy back into war every few years, and nip that legacy in the bud.


Picard may have weakened the Borg (owing to dramatic constraints of recurring antagonists), but his assimilation was tragic and dramatic. A walk in the park for the Voyager company. Almost an afterthough in the service of commercial breaks.

 

[F. King Daniel]

But Voyagers ability to deal with the Borg without ever being brutalized beyond repair is laughable and one of the weaker points of the series, as far as being purely preposterous.

Nah, Janeway was just better at dealing with them than Picard

 

[stardream]

We also have to keep in mind that Janeway knew more about them than Picard. She had the advantage of having the records of those who had encountered them before.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It's just as terrible as Kate Austin from LOST can do all those fantastical things on that show while the men bleed, & stumble like idiots in a similar situation.

This also makes me question whether you ever actually watched Lost. The thing Kate was best at was getting captured and having a gun placed at her head. Most of her roles in episodes involved lying to a lot of people to fulfill her personal psychological hangups. I can't think of any examples where Kate Austen had a fantastically graceful performance at something a man failed to do.

If the Voyager Borg were as strong as the TNG Borg, they would have adapted to the assimilation virus the first time Icheb used it. It would have never worked in Endgame.

 

[at Quark's]

One question that stands out to me, if the Borg are so powerful. Why isn't the entire galaxy assimilated?

We see the Borg from the perspective of the Federation, and to them they are a lethal threat and hence seen as a menace to the entire galaxy. But there might be far more advanced races out there that are content with simply keeping the Borg off their lawn (or even within certain limits), and not interfering otherwise.

For example, I suspect that species on par technologically with, say, the Voth, could wipe the floor with the Borg collective, had they wished to do so. (and that's not even considering the likes of the Dowd, the Organians, or the Q continuum).

 

[STEPhon IT]

Ripley/Weaver is a role model to women (and lesbians) for a reason.

Janeway, while hyper competent, was a control freak whose success was necessitated on the weakening of her XO, Commander Charomatherapy, and all the maliens she encountered. For her, disagreement was an offense. Whom did she love? A programmably docile holocharacter. A neutered svengali. A bookshop hermit. A lesser engineer. A dude with a hair bun and love of fabric whom she could ply with sweets. A certain married Vulcan junior officer whom she could dress down on occasion. But not Q. Not her superior officers, who were all in their dotage. No Rikers, no Picards around the Queen.

I don't consider it a cultural paradigm shift, I consider it a La La Land subcultural foist on the rest of us.

The Star Wars galaxy aliens should take one look at the Skywalker legacy and figure out who keeps dragging the galaxy back into war every few years, and nip that legacy in the bud.


Picard may have weakened the Borg (owing to dramatic constraints of recurring antagonists), but his assimilation was tragic and dramatic. A walk in the park for the Voyager company. Almost an afterthough in the service of commercial breaks.

Good point. I can totally see that. I think women characters can strive with some chinks in the armor and still be all powerful. It just needs some thought and execution.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

In early TNG we see the Borg as a patient, systematic invader. They didn't take over the galaxy because they were taking their time until they faced real threats.

 

[James T Kirk]

Seems kind of funny people will resort to irrational tactics to defend the logic (Or lack thereof) of the series. Its extremely outlandish at best and we all know it, cmon now.

 

[CommanderTrip]

i think constantly being able to defeat the borg is what weakened them as powerful antagonists. IMO, if the writers wrote a few episodes where the borg won, but our heroes managed to escape, it would have kept the borg as a more menacing enemy (Example: The Alien of the Week's homeplanet is being assimilated. Voyager tries to help and fails. The ship moves on, maybe loses a few crewman to the borg. Then maybe spend a future episode on the assimilated crew.) Then again, aside from a few plot threads and SSN 1-4, Voyager wasnt known for carrying plots from one episode to another

 

[Triskelion]

This also makes me question whether you ever actually watched Lost. The thing Kate was best at was getting captured and having a gun placed at her head. Most of her roles in episodes involved lying to a lot of people to fulfill her personal psychological hangups. I can't think of any examples where Kate Austen had a fantastically graceful performance at something a man failed to do.

If the Voyager Borg were as strong as the TNG Borg, they would have adapted to the assimilation virus the first time Icheb used it. It would have never worked in Endgame.

I never watched Lost, so I can't comment, but you know I will anyway.

You know when I think that all started? Who I blame for that sort of weak male whipping boy role in the shadow of the fearless warrior princess? That guy who played the whipping boy to Xena's Warrior Princess. Remember that dude?

As a matter of fact, I think Hercules was the only man's man on that show. All the other guys were evil or incompetent. No, strike that. They were all incompetent, some were also evil.

But Lucy Lawless was actually awesome, so....

 

[Six of Twelve]

As others have said, the Borg couldn't have been totally unbeatable, or that would have ended the show in fairly short order. But I find it rather unbelievable that some of the crew losses were not due to assimilation of some of Voyager's "redshirts".

Another thing I always have wondered about:

Hugh's individuality returns with no real resistance or trauma, just by talking to Geordi for a little while.

Compare this to all what Seven of Nine went through, where it was obvious that a short conversation with Janeway wasn't going to do the trick.

I mostly attribute the difference between Hugh and Seven of Nine to the fact that the Borg weren't as well defined in TNG as they were in Voyager.

Or it's always possible there were different classes of drones, that react to things differently. Perhaps the answer will come if the Borg are further defined in any future shows or movies.

 

[Triskelion]

Remember the Voyager episode "Collective?" When Seven's own Borg craft crashed, the drones she was with began to recall their true lives in short order. Seven was the exceptional case, having been assimilated at an early age. Not sure if Hugh was assimilated or cloned. In any case, he just seemed very, very impressionable.

 

[stardream]

Remember the Voyager episode "Collective?" When Seven's own Borg craft crashed, the drones she was with began to recall their true lives in short order. Seven was the exceptional case, having been assimilated at an early age. Not sure if Hugh was assimilated or cloned. In any case, he just seemed very, very impressionable.

I believe you are thinking of Survival Instincts.

 

[Triskelion]

Right, Collective was the Borg Babies. !@#$% generic titles!

I mean - I was just testing you and you passed, stardream!

 

[stardream]

Right, Collective was the Borg Babies. !@#$% generic titles!

I mean - I was just testing you and you passed, stardream!

I don't know whether to be pleased or alarmed that I can rattle off trivia like that.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

I never watched Lost, so I can't comment, but you know I will anyway.

You know when I think that all started? Who I blame for that sort of weak male whipping boy role in the shadow of the fearless warrior princess? That guy who played the whipping boy to Xena's Warrior Princess. Remember that dude?

As a matter of fact, I think Hercules was the only man's man on that show. All the other guys were evil or incompetent. No, strike that. They were all incompetent, some were also evil.

But Lucy Lawless was actually awesome, so....

Joxer?

You blame JOXER????

He was the comic relief, not an icon of manhood.

Hercules and Iolaus were 2 guest stars that did the male of the species proud on that show. Autolycus was another great example and while he may have been the King of Thieves, one would not dare to call him "evil". Other guest stars that had a 1 or 2 ep role on XWP that were not weak or evil were her many exes or wannabes, like Darius, Marcus, or Petracles from season 1, not to mention her brothers (living and dead) Toris and Lyceus. The Centaur Phantes who courted Ephiny, or the Centaur Kaleipus who raised Xena's son were also respectable men on the show and that just includes a cursory review of the first 25 eps.

If you want to "blame" someone as the icon of "weak male whipping boy", blame Steve Trevor.

http://wonder-woman.wikia.com/wiki/Steve_Trevor

Of course, that also begs the question of how do you define "weak male whipping boy"?

Is it anyone who is bested by a female?

In that case would evil Kashyk be considered a weak whipping boy as he left Janeway's bridge that last time, after resigning the game?

I personally think he'd disagree with that characterization.

Was Starling's loss to Janeway more palatable because it was Chakotay on the bridge, ordering the villain to stand down from his plan to visit = destroy the future?

[Bridge]

TUVOK: Locked on.
CHAKOTAY: Hail Starling.
KIM: On screen.
CHAKOTAY: This is Voyager. Pull away from the rift.
STARLING [on viewscreen]: Or what? Your weapons are down, friend. See you sometime.
CHAKOTAY: Chakotay to Janeway. Captain, we have no other choice.
KIM: He's entering the rift.
CHAKOTAY: Fire!
[Turbo Tube One]
Janeway is knocked backwards by the launch gases after she launches the torpedo at Starling's time ship.

I think Starling would scoff at the idea that it was Chakotay who defeated him, if he was told who's hand was on the lever that manually launched the torpedo that destroyed him.

[Timeship]

STARLING: Uh oh!

Uh Oh! indeed.


The Xena WP's showrunner said in order to make his Warrior Princess seem larger than life, he had to make her foes seem larger than life.

The BORG were "one" such LARGER THAN LIFE foe for Janeway and although she seems to "best" this villain with impunity, in reality just surviving each encounter meant she "won".

As has been pointed out above, TNG outright beat the BORG by destroying the original cube sent to Earth by putting the drones to sleep and years later, using Locutus' intimate knowledge of BORG technology they destroyed the 2nd cube that tried to assimilate Earth in the First Contact movie, eventually destroying the Queen's ship in Earth's "past" for good measure.

And as for Janeway et al shaking off their assimilation experience easily compared to Picard, we have to remember that she/they didn't direct the murder of nearly 11,000 fellow Federation citizens who stood between the BORG and Earth's survival while they were assimilated, so the guilt burden was nearly nonexistent.

Picard defeated male villains right and left during his tenure on the bridge of the Enterprise, but for the life of me I can't recall anyone complaining that by doing so it made the men he defeated into weak whipping boys.

 

[Triskelion]

nerd.



( )

 

[Deks]

Correct me if I'm wrong... but nearly every time the Voyager crew encountered the Borg, they barely made it out of the situation alive... in various cases, they suffered a lot of damage and possibly casualties (not to mention intervention of a highly advanced Drone that was analogous to the 29th century Borg, and excessively out of the box thinking to successfully cripple the attacking Borg ship).

There's nothing intricately problematic with 'Endgame' either.
The Federation has a massive technological potential that they aren't really using.
It's possible they began harnessing it in the late 24th and early 25th centuries which allowed them to at least develop effective countermeasures against the Collective.

As for why the entire galaxy hadn't been assimilated... probably because the Borg like to keep certain civilizations around for the purpose of assimilating new technologies.
They might even bring them to the brink of annihilation just to see how they will recover and what technologies they might develop as a result.
The Federation wasn't even in the DQ, so you would imagine that they might send ships periodically there to check on progress.

A civilization could be assimilated in totality if it approaches or reaches a level where they might wipe out the Borg, or present a potential threat to them.

What I don't understand is, why can't the Borg generate new technology on their own?
Hello... deep machine learning anyone?
The Borg effectively embody a collective force of individual minds working together... you're telling me that somehow the Borg are unable to tap into the creative power of all these assimilated minds at will and use it to create new technologies?
I don't think so... in this regard, the Borg were a bit unrealistic (coupled with the premise they needed a Queen to do their bidding - which Troi promptly noted in Q Who that they don't have a single leader who is prone to making mistakes... a collective mind wouldn't need one - maybe that's why it was introduced?).

 

[Catarina]

nerd.
( )

One of my favorite nerds.