The BORG, and the Lost potential

[Marynator]

I believe it would take us many centuries to get to the point of the Borg. We have demonstrated however that we are willing to sacrifice freedom for the sake of security. I believe that we would give up little pieces of our identity at a time until we evolve into something like them. I feel that our collective greed could be the driving force if we allow it to get the best of us. We could avoid the fate of the Borg by embracing what makes us individuals, which is why I say it is something we could become rather than something we will become. The potential is there if we make the wrong choices and value the wrong ideals.

 

[Discofan]

The Borg actually started out as a group on Twitter...

 

[johnnybear]

Question, how do you explain the differences in the Borg during the television episodes of TNG and the more cadaver like zombies of the First Contact movie and later VOY? You could say that the drones were being converted during the acquisition of new technology from conquered planets but in the VOY episode The Raven and even the ENT episode we see the Borg in their later look rather than historically the earlier black and grey suits!
JB

 

[johnnybear]

and people have gotten tired of them and some of their apperances have been seen as rather lack lustre.

Not sure if it's still the case but believe at one point there was a contractual obligation for the Daleks to appear on a fairly regular basis (so the money keeps rolling in for the estate of Terry Nation).

A lot of that disinterest has come from lousy scripts written by Stephen Moffat who believes his own legend! When written well, The Daleks, The Borg and any other alien machine race can be enjoyed no matter how often they return!
JB

 

[DonIago]

Question, how do you explain the differences in the Borg during the television episodes of TNG and the more cadaver like zombies of the First Contact movie and later VOY? You could say that the drones were being converted during the acquisition of new technology from conquered planets but in the VOY episode The Raven and even the ENT episode we see the Borg in their later look rather than historically the earlier black and grey suits!
JB

Effects improved over time?

 

[johnnybear]

Quite, but like I said, in flashback episodes like Voyager's Raven and the ENT episode. they clearly show the Borg in their later zombified guises rather than the chalky faced metal men of TNG!
JB

 

[saladdays]

Quite, but like I said, in flashback episodes like Voyager's Raven and the ENT episode. they clearly show the Borg in their later zombified guises rather than the chalky faced metal men of TNG!
JB

That still can still be chalked up to better effects. The powers that be must have taken the position that that is how the Borg were envisioned from the beginning, and therefore did not change it back to TNG-era garb.

 

[ItIsGreen]

Quite, but like I said, in flashback episodes like Voyager's Raven and the ENT episode. they clearly show the Borg in their later zombified guises rather than the chalky faced metal men of TNG!
JB

They don't discuss it with outsiders.

 

[Butters]

Agree with much of what’s been said. The Borg were over used and over developed.

They worked best when they were lone cubes out on the edge of the unknown. So powerful they scared the shit out the crew and the only option was run, hope to not get caught. Slipping from their grasp, but never scoring a victory. Encountering worlds that weren’t so lucky, build up the tension that way, then run!

 

[johnnybear]

That still can still be chalked up to better effects. The powers that be must have taken the position that that is how the Borg were envisioned from the beginning, and therefore did not change it back to TNG-era garb.

Well yes but it's like the continuity of the Borg has been ignored! I know all the television shows do it but that doesn't make it right! The newer look is obviously better, more horrible, undeadish and the like but that is put down more to upgrades in their function!
JB

 

[Discofan]

Maybe there is more than one kind of Borg. We already know of at least two independent communities.

Plus One was a Borg from the future and he kicked some serious current Borg's ass. So that means that they get stronger with time.

 

[DonIago]

Actually...we could speculate that prior to FC most/all of the Borg Our Heroes encountered were the sort raised as Borg from infancy, whereas from FC forward Our Heroes were primarily encoutnering assimilated individuals.

 

[Discofan]

Actually...we could speculate that prior to FC most/all of the Borg Our Heroes encountered were the sort raised as Borg from infancy, whereas from FC forward Our Heroes were primarily encoutnering assimilated individuals.

It's never been quite clear if they assimilated individuals or cultures... Guinan said that the Borg never did anything piecemeal.

 

[DonIago]

Whether the individuals were assimilated as individuals or were from entire planets that had been assimilated is somewhat immaterial to my point, I think.

 

[Discofan]

Whether the individuals were assimilated as individuals or were from entire planets that had been assimilated is somewhat immaterial to my point, I think.

Not necessarily, if they assimilate entire cultures then it's conceivable that they will then use the drones for reproduction and get their Borg mostly from birth inside the collective.

 

[johnnybear]

Originally they were written as cybernetic humans that destroyed cultures and stole their technology but by the time of Best of Both Worlds they included the idea of assimilating those cultures into themselves and the odd space travellers too!
JB

 

[STEPhon IT]

I'm not sure Berman and Braga realized how much damage Voyager did to the Borg? These aliens were made to be in movies, not 1 but as many times as the Klingons been on celluloid. The Borg were TNG's baddies and they should've been in one after another - hip to hip with them; there's so many scary stories could be told for a 2 hr movie and done with a good budget, but as soon as Janeway, WTF how???, made a deal with the Borg the walls was breaking down with their reputation. In your opinion, if Berman was allowed to produce one final outing of TNG with the Borg what would it be about? Could we finally have an understanding between the races and maybe the Borg may find other ways to assimilate?

 

[Farscape One]

I haven't gone through all the posts, but regarding to a question as to why the Borg were so deadly in the Delta Quadrant...

I think it's because of something I noticed about the Delta Quadrant that separates it from the others. There's no real multi-species alliance in the Delta Quadrant. The Alpha Quadrant has the Federation, the Gamma Quadrant has the Dominion (even though it is more having subjects tgan a cooperstion), and we don't really know about the Beta Quadrant. I think the different strengths of various races in an alliance is how to combat, or at least keep at bay, the Borg threat.

It was said that the Dominion was supposed to be an anti-Federation mirror. I rather look at the Borg as the ultimate opposite of the Federation... a cooperation of hundreds of races and views, strengths, weaknesses, technology, and science, vs. a single race (basically) that turns every different person into a homogenous, same race that uses the same technology and science and has the same strengths and weaknesses.

 

[Matthew Raymond]

It was said that the Dominion was supposed to be an anti-Federation mirror. I rather look at the Borg as the ultimate opposite of the Federation... a cooperation of hundreds of races and views, strengths, weaknesses, technology, and science, vs. a single race (basically) that turns every different person into a homogenous, same race that uses the same technology and science and has the same strengths and weaknesses.

The Federation and the Borg really shouldn't be different, except in one respect: consent. Worlds choose to be in the Federation, but the Borg don't give anyone a choice. If you're not exploring the fundamental duality of a voluntary collective versus an involuntary one, you're wasting the Borg's potential.

 

[Ghost]

The Borg, they used to be one of my favorite sci fi villains * sigh *

But like others here have pointed out, after their initial appears on "Q Who" and "Best of Both Worlds" which really established them as a major antagonist their concept started to suffer from both bad writing and the fact that you can not keep a villain invincible/unknowable permanently if the main characters should be able to win from them. (I doubt Star Trek would have ended with the Borg being victorious and some remnants of the Federation fleeing into deep space)

Personally I liked the assimilating part as I felt that it made them more frightening. They don't just take your civilization, technology and resources, they take you; your mind and your body and re-purpose it in a way they find useful. They can even revive the dead if they want to in order to make them into Borg drones.

I also did not dislike the team-up between Voyager's crew and the Borg during "Scorpion" even if it was obvious that the Borg would eventually betray the crew.

But the Borg Queen for me was one of the more damaging changes to the Borg (well Lore in Descent could also be considered part of that). I can understand that people who oversaw the production of First Contact wanted the villains to have a "face", a clear leader who leads "the bad guys" because facing off against an enemy doesn't show any reaction back than just sending in more troops and are more of a faceless force might work in an episode of a book but doesn't always make an exciting storyline. Even in natural disaster movies there are still clearly human villains. (the person who would discard the lives of others to save themselves, the foolish politician who underestimated the threat etc)

I saw her as a "voice of the Collective" as well at first, being a representation of the Collective rather than some kind of leader who controls the hive mind, but that changed in episodes like "Dark Frontier" and "Unimatrix Zero" in which she became the ruler of the Collective, now the swarm and displayed emotions like obsession and anger.

The Borg recovered a little in Enterprise Season 2 "Regeneration" but they still ended up defeated because they were written as weaker (and a bit foolish) and not because the main crew managed come with a clever strategy or other insight that helped them determine a weakness. Phlox could perhaps have been used for this.

So the Borg could never have lasted for a long time but I wish their final appearances on the screen weren't so poor.

My point is I don't believe the villains (Insurrection, & Nemesis) after First Contact were in the league of the Borg.

Yeah, the So'na and Shinzon and the Remans were never in the same league as the Borg. Neither had a good prior build up. (the So'na really should have appeared in DSN)

So if you had a chance to write or develop a Borg movie after FIRST CONTACT, what would've been your direction for Star Trek's space zombies? Or what were the potential of the Borg you saw where the production should've explored and why?

If the budget was unlimited I might have gone for something like other posters here mentioned; a big epic with major stakes as the Borg invade the Federation and neighboring civilizations in large numbers with the intention of assimilating everything.
And while Starfleet and the Federation have to deal with the invasion itself they also have to deal with displaced refugees, species and civilizations hostile towards the Federation seeing opportunities to expand their own territory or just in and steal whatever they can, and the realization that the Federation might actually fall which also puts its leadership under strain.

What I don't have yet is a solution for the crisis but I would not want it to rely on a deus ex machina. It would have to be something that has been introduced before.
The Borg Resistance and the Omega Molecule could perhaps be brought in but that would require the movie watcher to know Voyager and having seen the episodes in which these appeared.
What also would be cool if the major civilizations of the Alpha and Beta Quadrant band together to face this threat so that various recognizable faces could appear in the movie.

In the end the Collective would be defeated or weakened enough that it no longer poses a major threat and explained why they would not re appear in follow up series and movies.