Random Borg question

[Pikey]

I was thinking last night, about the Borg and how they can be picky when it comes to who they assimilate, since they rejected the Kazon, 7 of 9 says "Their biological and technological distinctiveness was unremarkable; they were unworthy of assimilation." This got me thinking..

Do the Borg assimilate fat people?

 

[startrekwatcher]

I don't see people who are overweight as not being intelligent or possessing information the Borg see as relevant. As far as being fit enough for the Collective to be a tactical drone or whatever I would assume the nanoprobes would burn up that fat awfully quickly and increase muscle mass so it really wouldn't matter since any victim regardless of weight would be given the Borg Extreme Makeover.

 

[misskim86]

Well I don't think they discriminate like that but for example if a Drone is dying and it has time to only assimilate one person and he can pick a fat person and a non fat person he'll assimilate the non fat person

 

[Timo]

The whole thing about the Kazon being rejected seems inconsistent with what the Borg themselves claim they are doing. If their intention is to improve the quality of life for us poor mortals, why do they deny the Kazon this blessing? Surely the most deficient would be in the greatest need...

And frankly, if a Drone had the choice between an obese victim and a slim one, I think it would have to pick the former. I mean, at its usual zombie speed, a Drone probably can only catch the severely handicapped.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[misskim86]

Well what if they're both tied down?

 

[ITL]

 

[misskim86]

Lol, nice touch with abs in the armor, even Data has them

 

[Therin of Andor]

misskim86 said:
Lol, nice touch with abs in the armor, even Data has them

Lore.

 

[blakbyrd]

Timo said:
And frankly, if a Drone had the choice between an obese victim and a slim one, I think it would have to pick the former. I mean, at its usual zombie speed, a Drone probably can only catch the severely handicapped.

ITL said:

Hilarious!

 

[tachibana]

i guess i am safe from assimilation.

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

I think that the Borg would be just as likely to assimilate obese individuals as non-obese. I mean, it's the borg. They can always mutilate the body until it 'fits' with the look they're trying to acheive at the moment. I almost hate to let my mind wander into this direction, but they could use their saw-arms to open up the skin, and then use some sort of tube attachment to vaccum out unneeded fat tissue. If there's an exccess of skin they could wrap it around the skeletal structure, possibly producing the weird skin the Borg have, or simply remove the unneeded skin.

Heck, The Borg Queen surives with just a head, neck, shoulders, and a spinal cord sort of thing. Maybe they could take the head, neck, shoulders, spine, and organs of the obese person and plug it into a factory-line drone body.

 

[misskim86]

True they could use the vaccumed fat to lubricate essential ship parts, infact obese persons might be preferred for assimilation

 

[Delta1]

Timo said:
The whole thing about the Kazon being rejected seems inconsistent with what the Borg themselves claim they are doing. If their intention is to improve the quality of life for us poor mortals...

Borg propaganda. All their little locuti running around the galaxy may claim they're attempting to better all life-forms, but they're really just in it to perfect themselves.

And frankly, if a Drone had the choice between an obese victim and a slim one, I think it would have to pick the former. I mean, at its usual zombie speed, a Drone probably can only catch the severely handicapped.

The obese victim would have a greater store of biological energy, and thus may pose less of a drain on the collective's power systems. And cleaning up cholesterol and repairing obesity-related damage should be easy enough for the nanites. Furthermore, obesity may be indicative of a sedentary, high-tech culture, one worthy of assimilation.

 

[bentbastard]

How would a Drone 'know' someone was overweight? Would they ask their potential victims what their BMI (Body Mass Index) is? Would they be weighed, measured and then cross-referenced on a graph?

'Obese' is such a social construct!

But I love the pic of Lore et al (or is that eat all?)

 

[StarryEyed]

The Borg probably don't have a hard and fast rule about it. If it's knowledge they are after, the victim's physical state is irrelevant. If they're looking for drone material, they might pass over an obese person. Depends on the circumstances.

 

[Apogeal Alpha01]

IMO, the Borg would not discriminate because of any aesthetic displeasure with an obese person, but because the person would not be in optimal health, usually. In any case, once the person became a drone, he or she would get the amount of nutrition/energy necessary to maintain optimal health, no more, so they would eventually, lose weight. And when a genetic predisposition may cause a person to store fat inappropriately, or any other health issue for that matter, nanites would probably correct those issues.

OTOH, this would necessitate several changes of wardrobe, or even implant refittings. The Borg might consider it an inefficient allocation of resources.

Maybe a nanite assisted crash diet before outfitting with the Borg uni?

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

bentbastard said:
How would a Drone 'know' someone was overweight? Would they ask their potential victims what their BMI (Body Mass Index) is? Would they be weighed, measured and then cross-referenced on a graph?

Yes. These are the Borg, remember. They could figure out all of that information in a quick scan with whatever built-in tricorder type of system they have, do a quick check with the Collective's knowledge base all in a fraction of the time it will take them to lumber slowly to their victim.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

What I find extremely flawed in respect to the Borg is the fact they cannot improve their technology without assimilating it, with this being the case by assimilating all the advanced races in the Galaxy they're basically going to end up coming to a finite point technologically. Without a non Borg race researching and developing new technology the Borg will become stagnant.

 

[StarryEyed]

Fire said:
What I find extremely flawed in respect to the Borg is the fact they cannot improve their technology without assimilating it, with this being the case by assimilating all the advanced races in the Galaxy they're basically going to end up coming to a finite point technologically. Without a non Borg race researching and developing new technology the Borg will become stagnant.

That's probably why they haven't assimilated the Federation. They could just as easily have sent hundreds of cubes to Earth with their transwarp network. They probably don't completely assimilate a race unless they don't anticipate that race developing anymore useful technology in the future.

The Borg attacks on Earth encouraged new technological development that they can assimilate in the future.

Sneaky buggers.

 

[FordSVT]

Yeah, I've always been a fan of the "farming humanity" theory as well. Over the years, the writers have painted themselves into a corner where, "realistically", the Feds would be screwed if the Borg came in force. It would be over in literally a day or two. The Feds are about as technologically advanced as a society could get without becoming too dangerous to the Borg, and civilizations like the Voth are probably too advanced to be threatened in a species-wide way by the them. For now anyways.

As for "running out of" advanced societies to assimilate, there are other galaxies, alternate dimensions, etc. Species 8472 comes to mind, but I think that's a case of the Borg biting off more than they can chew without realizing before it's too late. In any case, there are probably enough societies with unique technology in the Milky way to allow them to assimilate for thousands of more years.