The Borg sans Locutus/Picard

[Photon]

What is the board's thoughts on the Borg? Did Voyager accurately portray the Borg and their capabilities w/out Picard's knowledge?. Did they portray them as too weak? Too strong?

The Borg seemed formidable w/ or w/out Picard and just have problems w/the way Voyager showed them

 

[CaptainMatt]

I liked the Borg when they were originally introduced as a major enemy to the Federation. Episoedes like Q Who and TBOBW demonstrate their potential as a lethal enemy.
It was shocking when they captured Picard and assimilated him into their Collective mind. After that, I saw I Borg which I thought at the time was a rather creative way of bringing them back so soon without addressing a full scale invasion effort. As for Voyager, i like the show and liked what they did with the Borg. The idea of a Queen as early as FC and then in latter VOY episodes pushed the boundaries but it worked IMHO and then we get a seemingly final onscreen end in Endgame. I felt they did what they did best and their time had come, but one thing remains constant though. They are quite popular to date.

 

[Sho]

IMHO adding the Queen was a mistake. Well, it was the right thing to do dramaturgically for that one movie, but it had the cost of making the Borg a less distinctive and interesting villain in the grander scheme of things. And the Queen just doesn't mesh well with what had been established of the Borg's modus operandi previously.

 

[AmishHacker]

I loved the Borg when they were first introduced. "Q Who" and BOBW were amazing episodes because the Borg were a unstoppable enemy. First Contact made them darker, but I think that it weakened them by giving them a central command structure. To me, the most terrifying part of the Borg was that there was nobody in charge. I feel like they became weaker as they appeared more through TNG and VOY.

 

[Sho]

Yeah, having a central villain made them more relatable and thus less menacing.

 

[Anwar]

All the Borg stories had a "Representative" though, when you think about it.

Q Who? had Q and Guinan to explain stuff to us, basically the Borg's "speakers" without any allegiance to them.

BOBW had Locutus, and the plot hinged upon him.

I, Borg had Hugh.

Descent had Hugh and Lore.

So really, every Borg story had Borg representatives. They were different ones each time, instead of the same one.

 

[G2309]

All the Borg stories had a "Representative" though, when you think about it.

Q Who? had Q and Guinan to explain stuff to us, basically the Borg's "speakers" without any allegiance to them.

BOBW had Locutus, and the plot hinged upon him.

I, Borg had Hugh.

Descent had Hugh and Lore.

So really, every Borg story had Borg representatives. They were different ones each time, instead of the same one.

It was better when the representative could be anyone. Having the borg queen made them more vulnerable after the end of STFC.

 

[JarodRussell]

I think many people might misunderstand the Queen concept (or I misunderstand it but feel superior to others, could be ). The Queen is just another representation of the Borg. The Hive Mind IS one single individual, with needs, desires and even emotions (think of each drone as a brain cell). And it is lonely. And in a tragic irony, the giant mind felt accidentally attracted to a human being it just assimilated: Picard. So it decided to create a humanoid representation of itself: the female Borg "Queen". And it decided to give Picard more individuality than the usual Borg drone, so they both could be together.

That's also why the Queen survived the destruction of the Borg Cube. The giant individual called "The Borg" still existed. It lost a few brain cells that day, but that's about it. And knowing that when they attacked Earth in First Contact they would run into Picard again (since the Borg called him all the time to make sure he would be there), the Borg brought a clone of the "Queen" drone with it.

I like that concept.

And Voyager pretty much ruined it. The Borg Queen shouldn't exist for the Voyager crew, there is no need for it. The Queen was just a representation chosen to interact with Picard. For Voyager, the Borg should have been just as impersonal than they were for the Enterprise crew in "Q Who?"

 

[Anwar]

And like I said, "Q Who?" needed a Borg representative with both Q and Guinan serving as the ones who spoke/described the Borg on their behalf. Well, not exactly but you get what I mean.

All VOY did was give us the same Representative over and over, whereas the TNG episodes gave us a different rep every time.

 

[Alrik]

I think many people might misunderstand the Queen concept (or I misunderstand it but feel superior to others, could be ). The Queen is just another representation of the Borg. The Hive Mind IS one single individual, with needs, desires and even emotions (think of each drone as a brain cell). And it is lonely. And in a tragic irony, the giant mind felt accidentally attracted to a human being it just assimilated: Picard. So it decided to create a humanoid representation of itself: the female Borg "Queen". And it decided to give Picard more individuality than the usual Borg drone, so they both could be together.

That's also why the Queen survived the destruction of the Borg Cube. The giant individual called "The Borg" still existed. It lost a few brain cells that day, but that's about it. And knowing that when they attacked Earth in First Contact they would run into Picard again (since the Borg called him all the time to make sure he would be there), the Borg brought a clone of the "Queen" drone with it.

I like that concept.

And Voyager pretty much ruined it. The Borg Queen shouldn't exist for the Voyager crew, there is no need for it. The Queen was just a representation chosen to interact with Picard. For Voyager, the Borg should have been just as impersonal than they were for the Enterprise crew in "Q Who?"

I really like this concept. It works really well for TNG. Too bad VOY had to go and ruin it.

 

[CaptainMatt]

I agree. The Queen was a wasted character in Voyager although her relationship to Seven of Nine was borderline lesbianism and some might have appreciated that sort of thing.
But Jarrod's suggestion that the Queen was created solely for Picard and at the time Picard was assimilated is an incredulous one, and one I find...fascinating! care to elaborate on that Jarrod?

 

[Anwar]

Let me guess, if the Borg "Representative" in VOY had been someone else (some other assimilated person) none of you would care about the repeated usage.

 

[AmishHacker]

Let me guess, if the Borg "Representative" in VOY had been someone else (some other assimilated person) none of you would care about the repeated usage.

I would have preferred it to be a different person each time. I don't believe that the Borg needed the same drone, Queen or "representative" to deal with Voyager at every turn because they all have the same collective goal.

 

[CaptainMatt]

Let me guess, if the Borg "Representative" in VOY had been someone else (some other assimilated person) none of you would care about the repeated usage.

Wrong. I would care.

 

[MikeS]

What was the name of the "giant-novel" published by pocket books, set after BOBW but before I,Borg? That was a good novel. The Borg were still scary - locusts moving across space consuming whatever they could. And a nice tie-in with a TOS episode. They used a Ferengi as "representitive" - that sounds silly but it was before they became comic relief and it worked.

 

[CaptainMatt]

VENDETTA the Giant Novel. And your right. It was rather good and offered a Borg story they probably would never show on TV. The Ferengi speaker was scary as hell when I read it. It showed what depths the Collective would go to be ...understood. It also tied in to the OS episode "The Doomsday Machine" with a larger planet-killer than what the episode displayed and a backstory involving Picard as a cadet.