The BORG, and the Lost potential

It's a weird one, where the Borg figures out a way to transport civilizations or worlds by creating artificial wormholes into Borg space. The Borg inadvertently takes a federation ship to another galaxy.

 

Or about meeting a civilization that is in good relations with the "Q Who" Borg. Like Guinan pretended to be possible for the Federation at some point in the future.

 

Well, we don't really know whether the Borg might have evolved to become more than what we've seen them as, eventually.

 

The problem with the Borg is that they kept contradicting what was apparently previously established.

 

Development =/= contradiction

 

^ ?

Retcon = retcon

The whole point of “Locutus” was to create a humanoid mouthpiece for us low-functioning individuals to understand what’s happening. He used “we” and seemed as mechanized as the rest of them. The Queen used “I” and presented more like a sauntering ruler than another facilitator unit.

 

I'm not entirely sure what we saw with the Borg that rises (falls?) to the level of a retcon, especially given our extremely limited exposure to them.

 

But a retcon isn't a contradiction. It's the elimination of an apparent contradiction.

Let me ask you this:
Are the Borg in Best of Both Worlds the same as the Borg in Q-Who?

 

Retcon is contradiction. It retroactively redefines continuity.

That they’ve done it before is secondary. Dilithium is a retcon from Lithium. They could retcon Kirk to be a repressed homosexual whose (arguable) womanizing and passionate friendships with Spock and “Bones” are a result of fundamental unhappiness. It’d be retcon and canon, and interesting for a day, but then...KHAAAAAN!

 

It astonishes me how so many members on this forum don't get that. It's probably the reason why they're so receptive to these changes because as is in Hollywood's acceptable lie; the retcons were not what they seemed to be but were REALLY planned right from the start.

 

Example of a retcon:

original fact: Boba Fett's real name is Jaster Mereel

later apparent contradiction: Boba Fetts real name is Boba Fett

later Retcon: Boba Fett used the name Jaster Mereel as an alias for some time.

A retcon is used to bring harmony to a contradiction/revision so that the original story and the revised story are both fully true.

In your example:

original fact: Lithium powers starships

Later fact: Dilithium powers starships

I'm not sure this could qualify as a contradiction, but a proposed retcon could be: Lithium and Dilithium are a related substance, both are used to power starships. The latter came to be preferred.

Or another proposed retcon: Lithium and Dilithium are the same thing. Dilithium is sometimes simply referred to as "lithium," as lithium as different meanings in the future.

So a retcon is not simply a revision that causes an apparent contradiction, but the answer to that contradiction.

 

^ incorrect. Boba Fett’s name was never mentioned on screen as anything beyond Boba Fett. It’s not beyond imagination that it might have been an alias or a title, so that could have gone either way. They chose theirs.

Lithium crystals never existed after the retcon. Something on screen was retconned = contradicted. It’s only choosing to go back yet again and explain why they were using lithium that would “answer” the contradiction. (And it would likely only draw attention to the obvious, making the Byzantine retcon only more jarring.)

 

This made me wonder. In 'First Contact' (movie) Picard said to the Queen "you were there always".
(even if quite obviously she wasn't)
Why did the Borg use Picard as a mouthpiece, they had the Queen, or so they said later. Assimilating Picard for his information about Federation and all that makes sense but he really didn't need to be a spokesperson for the Borg. Or was it a twisted way for the Borg to introduce themselves. "Hey, I used to be human, now I'm a Borg and if we get it our way, you will be a Borg too."

The Borg Queen, such an awful idea.

 

But it didn't go either way. The publishers introduced a retcon to harmonize earlier stories with later stories.

Here's an example of how a publisher uses the word retcon:

A retcon is a solution that adds, or attempts to add consistency.

As far as I am aware, no retcon has been attempted to reconcile Lithium/Dilithium.

Here's another example of a retcon:

originally: Klingons look like humans

later apparent contradiction: Klingons do not look like humans

later retcon: Klingons tampered with human dna, and created a virus that caused some of them to look like humans.

Whether for better or worse, the retcon was an attempt to solve and explain a perceived contradiction.

 

Which changed the likely intent of both earlier stories, creating a third “alternate universe” in which the retcon made sense...to whatever extent it actually did make sense.

Not necessarily. It’s in the wording itself. It’s retroactive [new] continuity. It’s unnecessary to create a term for simply finding out something new. The thing that makes it retcon specifically is that it alters something. If I don’t learn my boss’s middle name until a year into the job, it isn’t retcon.

Per Leland Chee, Continuity Database administrator aka Keeper of the Holocron for Lucas Licensing, Starwars.com July 20, 2012:
Everything outside of the films collectively known as the Expanded Universe serving as an extension of the same universe as the films. If something happened in a book or a comic, it could potentially affect everything else happening in the universe. Any discrepancies that resulted would be resolved or retconned (short for retroactive continuity, i.e. changes from previously established continuity) across the board to try and create some consistency.

Per Google:
(in a film, television series, or other fictional work) a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events, typically used to facilitate a dramatic plot shift or account for an inconsistency.

Per Dictionary.com:
a subsequent revision of an established story in film, TV, video games, or comics:
“In an awkward retcon of his origin story, the hero’s parents survived the attack but suffered complete memory loss.”

 

sorry.

Anyways, I think the development of the Borg can easily be viewed either way. Either the nature of the Borg was continually changed with each appearance creating discontinuity, or we simply learn more about them with each appearance.

If you were to take the episode Q-Who in a vaccuum, you might assume that the Borg are a distinct race, from a distinct place, and that they procreate, and don't assimilate other species. Q says "They're not interested in your life form. They just want your ship."

But in Best of Both Worlds, we learn that they do assimilate other species, and not just Picard, but they plan on assimilating everyone.

As for the Queen, she seems to mostly just be assembled to communicate with non borg, and can apparently be assembled anywhere, as she is destroyed every time we see her. The Borg would need to have some kind of guiding program to give them direction and purpose, and adopted a queen at some point, which takes a physical form to communicate with Starfleet.

Locutus was a different case. They abducted and assimilated Picard for strategic reasons, both to know what defensive measures Starfleet would have in store for them, and for the propaganda value of using Picards face to show to the Federation.

 

Since Hugh was the first to gain individuality and somehow spread this new programming into the Borg then he would be the leader of this new form or to the other sects a contagion. With this new sect of the Borg, Hugh-Borg, could be more of a threat to the region than the Borg because assimilation of a technology may just be the icing on the cake. The cake may be something far more sinister or could be a melding of the minds to find a unison of what they are - - cyborgs. I would like to explore the sinister part, we've seen Data going into some sort of self-destruct programming* where he's engineered to commit to Soong's desires in TNG episode "Brothers", could the Borg administer some sort of re-engineering of the purpose to be something more dangerous?

*Self-destruct programming means losing a persons own individuality and not blowing up. I have to write this because they are some here who will troll any meaning their small minds can't comprehend.

 

Hugh was a two-time shot, we've never seen or heard from him after that ever. It's not a bad thing though as that last episode was not very good.

 

It would have been interesting to see the Borg in the two different initial concepts we got only glimpes of. One was the Jarada..and the other the Conspiracy Aliens..