The Borg; Dissection by Article

[Zanten]

I wrote an article about four days ago related to the Borg's apparent inability to take down Earth, and their horrid tactics in trying (one cube, anyone?) And, even though it was probably for plot reasons, I nonetheless decided to try and find a relatively logical explanation.

Here it is:

http://www.telewatcher.com/Science-Fiction/Star-Trek/The-Borg-Picked-Apart.103664


I'm basically looking for constructive feedback on the article. And, if you liked it, I have more at this link (not Star Trek related, though. X3 )

http://www.triond.com/users/Zanten

 

[USS Excelsior]

Sounds plausible.

Everything from not being too interested in Earth and the perception that they're week to feel the need to send a large fleet after them.

 

[Zanten]

Thank you. ^^ One of the things I love best about Star Trek is the chance to try and find explanations for elements that were probably just there for plot's sake.

 

[Lokhtar]

Yea, it makes no sense to send one cube. One cube almost brought down the whole federation - send 500....

It is implied they have millions. The Federation controls an appreciable amount of territory - surely a couple hundred cubes are nothing.

 

[Zanten]

Well, as mentioned in my article, the probably reason that that is, since the Federation is considerably distant from the regular Borg sphere of expansion, as evidenced by the presence of 'Borg Space,' the Federation classifies as low priority; the Borg care little for territory, methinks, only for the technology they can gain from it, and the Federation is a curiosity, at best. They figure they'll reach the Alpha Quadrant eventually, and there's no rush.

They only send the occasional cube on the off chance it will succeed and, as you've mentioned, it nearly has a couple of times.

 

[Blueicus]

I still think that people in general have vastly underestimated the difficulties of a group even as supposedly powerful as the Borg face when their whole modus operandi is to make as many enemies as possible as quickly as possible with almost no means of negotiation. Behind the bluster of invincibility the Borg are a group that is precariously juggling its resources to hold off hundreds of threats and expand their technology and industrial base. Well, that's my opinion at least.

 

[Zanten]

I don't think it's quite so precarious; consider that, despite the heavy losses they suffered at the hands of Species 8472, the Borg were more than capable of stabilizing their hold on their territory; they didn't seem to suffer much in the way of side-effects from the war.

...I think way too much about Star Trek. x_x

 

[Crewman47]

Question I just thought of, what do you suppose the galaxy would look like if the Borg managed to assimilate all races of the galaxy they could and eliminated the ones they couldn't, do you think they'd eventually try to start on other galaxies before getting defeated entirely?

 

[Timo]

The official Borg party line is to improve the quality of life for everybody, to the point of perfection if possible. It would go against that credo to stop conquering just because there's nothing in the immediate vicinity to pose a threat to you.

Unofficially, they seem to have a thirst for information that they quell by assimilating. This goal seems to override their hunger for security, as they often poke around in dangerous places in an arrogant manner. The Collective might well see the danger in assimilating everybody and being done with it, as this would stop the information from flowing. Thus, there could be an overriding policy of letting "opponents" survive, even when they might locally pose a potent threat against the Collective. The longterm threat of the opponent going away would be far more frightening than the shortterm threat of the opponent winning.

As for the case of Earth and the Federation, it's difficult to see it in the right perspective. The Borg are supposedly hundreds of millennia old and galaxy-wide; the threat against Earth is as local as it gets, and we have seen only decades of it. The bigger picture might be quite different. Perhaps the Borg have been visiting Earth every three thousand years or so, looking for the sort of technological potential they would like to assimilate. And perhaps they still think the UFP hasn't attained sufficient levels of technology for "terminal assimilation" - instead, the Federation currently is being considered for "continuing assimilation" by piecemeal, repeating strikes against both its fringes and core.

...Perhaps these aspects could be added to the already interesting and entertaining article?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JoeZhang]

The borg let the Federation win because they want them to advance to a technological stage where it's worth assliminating them.

The periodic appearance of a cube is to spur technological development via conflict - on the day they actually want to absorb the federation, hundreds of cubes will just transwarp in the heart of the federation and take the lot before anyone can react.

(opps Timo beat me to it).

 

[Zanten]

That's an interesting point of view, although considering the solutions that were utilized to defeat the Borg in TNG bordered on 'miraculous,' it seems that the Borg would have been taking a bit of a long shot. What if, say, Picard died before he could be used, or Data had never been built? Would the Cube hover menacingly above for a moment, then turn around and mosey back out of Federation space?

Also there's the fairly drastic measure taken in First Contact of going back in time and trying to assimilate them from the start, (which could be trying to get the most benefit for the least amount of expended resources.) The fact that they want to assimilate Earth before it even forms the Federation would suggest they're also more interested in fracturing the races of the Alpha Quadrant than any technology they'd obtain.

I'm not entirely sure if the Borg have the finesse to stage such an elaborate scare to prompt further technological development. o_o

 

[Timo]

The fact that they want to assimilate Earth before it even forms the Federation would suggest they're also more interested in fracturing the races of the Alpha Quadrant than any technology they'd obtain.

...Then again, the fact that they fail in assimilating Earth and instead succeed in promoting, or actually kickstarting, its technological development, might suggest the opposite. After all, they tried it with time travel. In theory, the odds of failure would have been zero: if the outcome was unsatisfactory, they could always try again. So probably the Borg didn't fail, but instead achieved just what they wanted.

I'm not entirely sure if the Borg have the finesse to stage such an elaborate scare to prompt further technological development.

With time travel, they wouldn't need finesse. They would just do it so many times that eventually they got it right, no matter how Rube Goldbergesque the plot had become by then. They'd know it would work, because it had worked.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wowbagger]

Excellent article. It's very well thought-out. Unfortunately, I'm not certain there is any way to reconcile BoBW Borg with VOY Borg or FC Borg, but this is the most valiant attempt I've seen.

<shameless plug>
My audio drama, Star Trek: Excelsior, is going to be making its own speculations on the Borg's strange one-cube habit in the coming months.
</shameless plug>

 

[Zanten]

Again, an interesting hypothesis; I suppose there's no 'smoking gun' that can prove or disprove it beyond a doubt. It would make sense that the Borg would want to stimulate technological development, since they are both a patient race and one who recognize their innate lack of ability to grow. Still, their method of assimilating an entire race, even those who don't prove a serious threat might be a bit of counter-argument, since to simply take what technology the race had thus far developed it would hardly be necessary to assimilate absolutely everyone.

 

[Timo]

There the secondary motivation of the Borg would come to play. Once they have guaranteed maximum benefits to themselves from the assimilation process, i.e. milked the victim species dry of innovation, they would wish to extend their newly acquired perfection to those unfortunate non-Borg that still have to live imperfect lives. They wouldn't want to improve those "mundies" that still have something to offer to the Collective - but the last stragglers of the newly assimilated species would be prime victims, er, beneficiaries, since by definition they have nothing more to offer.

We don't often see the Borg act defensively. The only entity that was openly classified as a "threat" was Species 8472; from the Borg POV, the Federation and its member species seem to be victims/beneficiaries rather than threats.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lonestar]

Very interesting article.

I read a theory somewhere once that the Borg may only use the Federation as a testing ground for new technologies that they have assimilated to see how effective they are.

 

[Zanten]

I suppose the primary reason I'm a little hesitant to believe it is that, by nature, the victories the Federation achieved have been done by the skin of their teeth; while First Contact's attack may indeed have been a deliberate loss to, as you said, further technological development, (their little information leak did seem a bit too convenient,) the initial cube's defeat was due to a multitude of elements, some which were by no means guaranteed, and a few that might have bordered on impossible.

Of course, I'll be the first to admit, that the first attack might not have been an attempt to spur their development as much as a test to see just how innovative this newly encountered species was. Essentially, if you could stop one cube, congratulations, you're a petri dish of development and if not, well, at least we have a few billion new drones.

 

[Timo]

I heartily agree with the distinction between ST:FC and "BoBW".

The first explicit Borg Cube invasion of Earth may have been an "aggressive reconnoitering" run to find out why all the earlier estimates about Federation technological progress, plus the very recent sampling runs on the RNZ, had indicated a culture not capable of what Picard (actually Q!) did in "Q Who?". It would probably not have been a standard assimilation run, unless the findings warranted such. That is, if the Cube found out that the Federation really was as advanced as Q made it look like, then the Collective would have launched a multi-Cube assimilation or annihilation assault. But quite possibly the recce Cube was able to send back the results of its Wolf 359 battle, as well as the evidence from Picard's brain, to convince the Collective that the Feds weren't truly that advanced and that no immediate action was necessary. The loss of the recce Cube was neither a catastrophe nor a mission setback, then, but an incidental casualty suffered after completion of mission.

The second run, in ST:FC, would have been a more deliberate and preplanned sortie, and possibly the sort of insidious "testing ground" or "spurring up" mission speculated above.

Timo Saloniemi