Species 8472: What were their motives?

[The Overlord]

Species 8472: What were their motives? In Scorpion they seemed to be a bunch a genocidal social Darwinists who believed that strong must destroy the weak, so they had to kill every other living thing in the galaxy. Yet in "In the Flesh" they seem far less aggressive, suddenly their motive is just wanting to be left alone.

Doesn't the alliance with the Borg in Scorpion, not make sense if Species 8472 were not as evil they first appeared to be? Doesn't that mean Janeway made a really bad call in scorpion, if Species 8472 was not the greater of two evils?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Well that's a given.

Was getting rid of Hitler worth getting into bed with Stalin?

Was getting rid of Gadaffi, trying to g... Standing up to Gadaffi worth getting into bed and arming Saddam Hussein?

There's a novel, which might have been written before caretaker came out, where Kathy is annoyed because she can't broker peace between these dinky little warfleets, and eventually attacks both sides until they team up to destroy the Federation, who they are not completely aware is on the other side of the galaxy.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Yet in "In the Flesh" they seem far less aggressive, suddenly their motive is just wanting to be left alone.

8472's first contact with Voyager must have had quite an effect on them. Got them to change their tune, so to speak.

 

[The Overlord]

Yet in "In the Flesh" they seem far less aggressive, suddenly their motive is just wanting to be left alone.

8472's first contact with Voyager must have had quite an effect on them. Got them to change their tune, so to speak.

It makes them seem kinda wimpy though, Voyager gives them a bloody nose and then they back down. Didn't they realize that committing galactic genocide would be a very bloody affair? You can likely expect a few casualties if you declared on every other species in the universe. They seemed to go through some pretty big villain decay, if they go from nightmarish creatures to poor misunderstood beings who want to be left alone and need a hug, in the space of couple episodes.

Well that's a given.

Was getting rid of Hitler worth getting into bed with Stalin?

Was getting rid of Gadaffi, trying to g... Standing up to Gadaffi worth getting into bed and arming Saddam Hussein?

There's a novel, which might have been written before caretaker came out, where Kathy is annoyed because she can't broker peace between these dinky little warfleets, and eventually attacks both sides until they team up to destroy the Federation, who they are not completely aware is on the other side of the galaxy.

But if Species 8472 goal was not galactic genocide, they were not akin to Hitler. So it be like allying with Stalin to defeat someone who turned out to be a big paper tiger.

 

[Guy Gardener]

According to the 8472 pretending to be Boothby, they were just pretending to be scary as to make the Borg (And the Borg's allies on Voyager) run so that they wouldn't have to kill them all... Which is a policy that worked for both the power blocks from the 1980s.

 

[Dream]

It makes them seem kinda wimpy though, Voyager gives them a bloody nose and then they back down. Didn't they realize that committing galactic genocide would be a very bloody affair? You can likely expect a few casualties if you declared on every other species in the universe. They seemed to go through some pretty big villain decay, if they go from nightmarish creatures to poor misunderstood beings who want to be left alone and need a hug, in the space of couple episodes.

That's Voyager for you.

Invent the most power alien species ever that can destory the Borg.

One episode later, turn them into wimps that can be killed with a torpedo invented by Voyager.

 

[The Overlord]

According to the 8472 pretending to be Boothby, they were just pretending to be scary as to make the Borg (And the Borg's allies on Voyager) run so that they wouldn't have to kill them all... Which is a policy that worked for both the power blocks from the 1980s.

And yet Kes was reading malevolent thoughts from various members Species 8472, its easy to tell lies with your mouth, but keeping your true thoughts hidden from a telepath would be far harder. I think this comes of as a poorly done ret con, rather then natural character evolution. Frankly I preferred the scary version of Species 8472 in Scorpion, to the kinda of scared and sheepish version in "In the Flesh".

 

[Guy Gardener]

You do remember that Kes was a shit teep?

She might have been coming into power in a couple episodes, but the girl had no control.... 8472 were also power telepaths, and was it that she was in their mind reading, or were they broadcasting into her mind... I mean there is precedence with Dee emphatically reading assholes light years away, but these bastards were thousands of miles apart from the dinky Ocampa yet we're supposed to believe that Kes could get a lock on these lads thoughts if they weren't helping her complete the connection and control the narrative?

 

[The Borg Queen]

Perhaps the 8472s that were involved with the fight against the Borg were their armed forces, specifically trained to kill their enemies, and the 8472s from In The Flesh were just regular 8472 people or something?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Regular people planning an invasion of the Alpha Quadrant?

 

[The Borg Queen]

Regular people planning an invasion of the Alpha Quadrant?

I never said they were nice people.

 

[The Overlord]

You do remember that Kes was a shit teep?

She might have been coming into power in a couple episodes, but the girl had no control.... 8472 were also power telepaths, and was it that she was in their mind reading, or were they broadcasting into her mind... I mean there is precedence with Dee emphatically reading assholes light years away, but these bastards were thousands of miles apart from the dinky Ocampa yet we're supposed to believe that Kes could get a lock on these lads thoughts if they weren't helping her complete the connection and control the narrative?

It still doesn't make sense to send out malevolent thoughts, if the enemy they are fighting, the Borg, don't have telepathic powers and generally are not effected by emotions like fear. There is no point in trying to make yourself appear scarier then you are really are, when dealing with an enemy like the Borg. So who were they trying scare, random alien races they had no beef with, who had telepaths? What does that accomplish besides making new potential enemies?

Frankly with the raw power Species 8472 demonstrated, they didn't need to put on a scary front, the Borg clearly bit off more then they could chew when they invaded their space and no other race in the DQ would be suicidal to fight them, if they didn't have a reason to. If other races thought Species 8472 wanted to destroy them regardless, they would have reason to fight Species 8472, otherwise other alien races would just avoid contact with them.

This also makes Janeway look kinda foolish, that she made an alliance with the Borg based on Kes' telepathic impressions of Species 8472, so if Kes' impressions were wrong, she made one of the worst diplomatic and tactical errors in Star Fleet history. Species 8472 was planning on invading the federation because of Voyager's alliance with the Borg, so Janeway almost doomed the Federation with this error. Heck, letting Species 8472 continue their war with the Borg, would servilely weakened the Borg Collective, making things safer for Voyager and the universe as a whole.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Purging the galaxy would have taken millions of years.

Spending three years wiping out the Borg and then going home for a breather that might just last forever, there is no conceivable reason for anyone in the Alpha Quadrant to follow them back into fluidic space to find out if 8472 is coming back to finish off the job.

The least 8472 could do and still call it a victory was destroy the Borg, and the Borg's allies.

Besides, after they killed Janeway, it really doesn't matter what they said to Janeway, and since they WERE going to kill her, it already didn't matter what they said to her as they said it.

I mean it's not like Enterprise was made of Cobinite or Voyager had a Photonic cannon, but wasn't it hilarious when the Klingon's didn't think they were stupid enough to fall for the same bluff which the Cardassians had 4 years earlier that DS9 had secretly been transformed into a death dealing gun platform.

 

[The Overlord]

Purging the galaxy would have taken millions of years.

Spending three years wiping out the Borg and then going home for a breather that might just last forever, there is no conceivable reason for anyone in the Alpha Quadrant to follow them back into fluidic space to find out if 8472 is coming back to finish off the job.

The least 8472 could do and still call it a victory was destroy the Borg, and the Borg's allies.

Besides, after they killed Janeway, it really doesn't matter what they said to Janeway, and since they WERE going to kill her, it already didn't matter what they said to her as they said it.

I mean it's not like Enterprise was made of Cobinite or Voyager had a Photonic cannon, but wasn't it hilarious when the Klingon's didn't think they were stupid enough to fall for the same bluff which the Cardassians had 4 years earlier that DS9 had secretly been transformed into a death dealing gun platform.

The thing is if they hadn't been giving malevolent thoughts, Voyager wouldn't have helped the Borg and that weapon never would have been developed. So who were they trying to fake out? Again I don't think these scare tactics would work against the Borg, they don't have telepathic powers and are generally not effected by emotions like fear. Besides why would the Borg care if Species 8472 are genocidal psychopaths or not? Species 8472 would be at war with the war if they were extreme social Darwinists or just want to be left alone, because of the incursions the Borg made into their realm. The Borg collective doesn't care about non Borg races, so pretending to be pure evil and genocidal wouldn't effect them, one way or the other.

And really pretending to be genocidal social Darwinists seems like overkill. Their raw power already gives non Borg races plenty of reason not to mess with them, but spreading the idea that they want to kill every single being in the galaxy, gives other races a reason to challenging them, reducing the chance they will be left alone.

 

[Guy Gardener]

8472 was going to destroy the Borg.

No pretence.

Remember World War Two?

I mentioned it earlier.

It was in all the papers.

What's a paper?

Anyway.

The US had two atom bombs.

Just two.

Boom.

Not so bad.

Boom.

Starting to get annoying.

The point is that Truman, threatened to continue bombing city after city unless Japan surrendered unconditionally.

Which they did, fearful of a third strike.

Even though the US only had two bombs.



It's how you play the game of kings.

You win or you die.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Why are you all assuming that the malevolent thoughts were their actual plan rather than just a collective xenophobic hostility directed at anyone different than them, much like you hear babbling out of drunk racists. Their default position.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Their xenophobia was understandable.

They were alone.

Anything else, any other life-form, friend or foe, was outside the limits of their imagination.

The usual first contact routine.

Well, except that 8472 had explored all space and time, only to find that they were alone.

Until the Borg.

Question?

If they were alone... Why were they so well armed?

However.

Humans in the real world are very well armed too, despite that we're alone as far as we know.

But you get my point.

8472 doesn't have a unified front.

What they did to the Borg, they must have already routinely done to themselves.

Why else have a pre-existing war machine?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

If that had occurred to Voyager they could have attempted to pit one faction against another, though they were too alien to get a handle on really. The opposite of the cartoon Kazon.

Still Kes could have been misreading them, whether it was projected at her or she was just scooping it out of the nether. Maybe to some fluffy delicate race of telepaths humans seem to be seething with hostility because we are always ready to defend ourselves be it our words or whims.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Kes is a Unicorn that farts rainbows.

Who doesn't seem like unquenchable evil from her naive childlike hick perspective?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Species 8472, plan A: Kill everything, everywhere. Just because.

Species 8472, plan B: Spy on everyone to make sure they don't secretly want to kill you.

Species 8472, plan C: Total surrender to Janeway.