Well, the Federation is about exploration, about meeting other species, about safekeeping, correct?
They teach all cadets, that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, correct?
They try to bring unification to all species, and so promote peace, correct?
Now... isn't that PRECISELY what the Borg actually do, and more than succeed in this?
Yet... these same Borg are considered evil.
Even in 1988, when "Q Who" was written, I recall reading or seeing in interview or documentary where Hurley wrote the Borg as a mirror-like parody (even self-parody) to the Federation. A variation of a theme. So you are not perceiving the paradigm incorrectly.
The Borg merely chose other methods. Which are more sinister and
arguably evil.
I say "Self-parody" - they take "perfection" as making generic gray cubes as spacecraft, as well as other primitive geometric shapes - which counter ironically the level of technology therein, as well as being potential shapes for a special edition package of Lucky Charms. You'll never think of blue borg diamonds the same way ever again... even their verbiage, as if coming from a broken phonograph repeated incessantly as if there's no better way to convince the "inferior" species to drop trou and wait for their proverbial, collective spanking. The Borg's unrecognized problem with hubris would, had Kirk told it to the Queen in her face, would all promptly self-destruct.
The logic eludes me: while the Federation states that the needs of the many (I would assume the greatest need would be peace, as peace brings prosperity?) would outweigh the need of the few (individuality is needed by only ONE person, this being that individual), and yet, the Federation does everything possible to avoid assimilation.
Contrary to what the Federation preaches, they do the radical opposite: fight off the Borg for the egoistic self.
In effect, they place the 'need' of the individual BEFORE the need of the many: Peace.
The Federation struck a larger balance between personal freedom as well as the whole of the Federation. The Borg forcibly comply and to the largest degree.
Now, sure, where the Borg began as one thing, over time it turned into... a caricature of this base origin.
TV Trope: "Flanderization".
Happens all the time as a popularly received TV species is found new ways to be used, they are unintentionally diluted in the process.
Along the way, they (the writers) literally betrayed all what the Borg were about: assimilation.
Let's take Worf 359 as example: If Locutus would have acted a TRUE Borg, things would have gone extremely different.
Let's talk Borg Technology.
A Cube can transfer up to 500 drones in ONE go, and this is 'virtually' immediately.
Memory Alpha/VOY can't make up its mind as to have many Drones can be shoved into a cube (500-129000, apparently).
Locutus has profound Federation tactical information, and can surpass ANY shield with transportation.
Even if Locutus had sent a mere 200 drones per ship, these ships, all 40, could have been assimilated in virtually no time.
Riker both understood and found a way around the impasse of the Borg knowing everything they had.
Picard also knew enough of the Enterprise and high-level plans, but he would not know to the last bit every circuit board and schematic. As the Borg begin to reverse-engineer, they'd be quick to figure it out. Amazingly the Borg never found a way to bypass Enterprise's shields to beam with them up.
When the Enterprise finally dropped in on Worf 359, Locutus could have sent yet another 200 or more drones onto the Enterprise, assimilating it, and thus, having 41 ships besides his Cube, and go to Earth with literally a whole darn fleet.
We'd then be watching an entirely different show. Given how seasons 5-7 turned out, I ain't complainin'...
If we think about a few things, then this massacre is entirely Anti-Borg in nature.
- A drone can hear the voice of ALL assimilated individuals ever, even when the host body has perished decades ago, correct?
This would point to, that the Borg, in their own way, are 'respectful' to life.
I do not recall where that is the case, hearing the conscience of the deceased. Usually their corpses disintegrate after a borg buddy comes over and removes certain circuits. And nobody's gotten close enough to a Borg to try to remove them on their own too.
- If a drone falls in combat, other drones would try to help this drone, correct?
Injured? Or dead? We've seen the latter, yet never the former. Apart from Picard using a tommy gun semiautomatic to get his jollies off with.
This too would point in that same direction, no?
- The Borg are a very tactical species, thus they care for numbers, as numbers make strength, correct?
Numbers mean nothing on their own. I can think of 8,675,309 reasons why...
- The Borg are known to assimilate entire vessels, correct?
- Earth was said to be a highly valuable tactical target, correct?
While about 10'000 crew members are assimilated, the ships were all destrayed, and Enterprise ignored, in contradiction to all logic and tactics.
The Borg prefer to assimilate. But will destroy if no other option exists. Given the strength and might of a Cube, it's amazing it just doesn't sit there for an hour while all 39 ships go pew pew until they expend their fuel... but then there'd be no show. And it'd be more gruesome for Wolf 359 to reveal undamaged yet empty ships. At least for 1990 broadcast standards. In other words, I don't disagree with you.
Later on, this... Queen... abomination wiped entire Cubes out for hardly any reason, even, again going against all logic of the Borg.
BY STFC in 1996 what else could they do? Bring in 2 cubes? The Queen isn't entirely apocryphal but it does bend the established empire the Borg had. But by the time Queenie blows up an entire Cube because of Unimatrix Zero (ugh), it's all become laughably bad. That doesn't stop me from the level of creativity used to figure out a potential idea for what became a subconscious internet used by the drones (on paper it's not half bad, like a VPN - on UPN!
) but on screen... meh.
Let's talk assimilation: literally thousands of species have been assimilated, and one can assume that the Borg learned from all these assimilations.
They perfected the procedure, the effect, they perfected the removal of the individual, they perfected the removal of emotion, in short, they perfected the drone as drone.
And all went well... until suddenly, a woman comes to the front, that introduces herself as the Queen, and leader of the Borg.
But... there is an issue...
This woman is NOT a Borg.
NEVER was.
How so?
Well... for one, she has... individuality, which, per definition, is impossible.
Even worse, on top of this individuality... she possesses emotion...
While thousands of species were assimilated better and better, perfecting the idea of the drone... this... woman thing... suddenly defies EVERYTHING we previously had learned of them.
I fail to understand this move, as it is totally opposite of the established cannon thusfar...?
Chicken vs egg... like the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsiepop, we may never know.
I could also surmise that she would have unique features, not unlike an unassimilated species, to assist in the understanding in finding ways other than brute force - and thus reduce the number of casualties (Borg or the critters they want to assimilate). They will engage in violence as a last resort, if need be. But going back to why they don't let the attacking ships drain to zero while they sit there collectively laughing... could 39 ships really induce enough damage after an hour of pew pew action? To one cube of that size? (Until quantum torpedos, every regular torpedo and phaser blast had either nominal or even zero effect on a cube after a couple shots go out. But this is the same show that had the Enterprise, the only ship with quantum pew-pews told to stay away from the battle. Makes ya wonder which side was dumber by that point... especially as Picard breaks orders in a ha-ha joke, they head there, and every commander of every ship quickly obeys Picard despite standing orders of "He's not supposed to be here. If he shows up, pay no attention to him. He was supposed to be in the retirement village, with rover and number six.")
Like my drunken ex, it's complex. The Borg do prefer assimilation, but will use brute force - either to show the species it's pointless to go pew pew, or
And there's still the biggest mystery of all: How Data hacking their LINUX server's sleep mode led to "self destruct mode" being turned on. Why would the Borg have or need or want such a thing? Data did not indicate, much less imply, there's a switch he turned on (which Picard would not have liked either, and he knew up until the cube explosion what was going on in borgtown...)
(My sincere apologies, I need to cut it short, it's 22.00 here, and I need to get up a 03.00...
Have a good evening, all....)
Another soul who doesn't use AM and PM.
Most refreshing to see.
