I just watched this episode and was wondering if it was ever explained what destroyed the outposts?
The Neutral Zone
- Thread starter Silver Roc
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Implying that Q didn't have to introduce them to the Borg since they would have soon met them anyway.
Or then we could argue that the scoopings in "The Neutral Zone" convinced the Borg that humanity was not worth the hassle of species-wide assimilation (since obviously none took place), and "Q Who?" reversed that decision. Thus, Q's actions were in fact elemental in giving that "kick in the human complacency" that the superbeing was speculated to have been aiming for.
If we want to, we can also speculate that the Borg hit the Romulans first, and this was related to the long and mysterious silence of the Romulans. The "more pressing matters" alluded to in "TNZ" might have been the Romulans getting the upper hand in their defensive campaign - and once that campaign was over, the Romulans calculated that the Borg would next hit the UFP. At which point they came up with the clever idea of destroying a bunch of those hated UFP outposts, and blaming it on the Borg whose trademark signature they could now easily reproduce...
Timo Saloniemi
If we want to, we can also speculate that the Borg hit the Romulans first, and this was related to the long and mysterious silence of the Romulans. The "more pressing matters" alluded to in "TNZ" might have been the Romulans getting the upper hand in their defensive campaign - and once that campaign was over, the Romulans calculated that the Borg would next hit the UFP. At which point they came up with the clever idea of destroying a bunch of those hated UFP outposts, and blaming it on the Borg whose trademark signature they could now easily reproduce...
Timo Saloniemi
The original conception of the Borg, where they were a species unto themselves interested in technologies but not involved in assimilation of any kind was, IMHO, far more satisfying than what they became. But I guess that's a topic for another thread.
As to the original question, yes, I think "Q Who?" made it clear those outposts were destroyed by the Borg. And Timo has some good ideas on how to make the Borg behavior there and in "Q Who?" fit with what came later. But the truth is that the concept of the Borg just changed radically after "Q Who?" and, thus, the portrayal of their behavior did too. "Best of Both Worlds" at least melded the two concepts, but after that, it was all about assimilation of people.
As to the original question, yes, I think "Q Who?" made it clear those outposts were destroyed by the Borg. And Timo has some good ideas on how to make the Borg behavior there and in "Q Who?" fit with what came later. But the truth is that the concept of the Borg just changed radically after "Q Who?" and, thus, the portrayal of their behavior did too. "Best of Both Worlds" at least melded the two concepts, but after that, it was all about assimilation of people.
I totally forgot about that in Q Who. I always thought it was the Crystalline Entity. I remember the episode Silicon Avatar when the entity comes at the beginning and destroys all life and everything on the planet. That is why I thought the Crystalline Entity was the cause of the destruction of the outposts.
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I can see where your mixing the two could come from. But remember, Picard & Co. would have known if the destruction at J-25 had been caused by the Crystaline Entity because they had already seen what it had done to Omicron Theta in Datalore. Converting all life into energy leaves the topography barren. "Planet scooping", on the other hand, was an entirely new and horrific thing.
I've always thought the "matters more urgent" Commander Tebok referred to were the Romulan attempts to de-stabilize the Klingon government in order to break up the Klingon-UFP alliance. I've also speculated that Q may have actually screwed things up through J-25. By diverting Borg interest directly toward the Federation, would Q not have removed a powerful incentive for the Romulans to work with the Federation?
You're right. I forgot about Omicron Theta in Datalore. They did see what it could do, and in Neutral Zone it was different. "Planet scooping" was new and a more horrific thing than what the Borg did.
According to the Star Trek Next Generation Companion by Larry Nemecek, "The Neutral Zone" was originally supposed to be the first of a three-parter that brought the Federation and the Romulans into an alliance against the Borg, but a writer's strike nixed that.
^ I've read things like that before, but I don't understand it. I understand that the writer's strike derailed any progress on scripts for a period of time, but why would you completely abandon the concept when the strike is over and the writer's are back to work? They still eventually wrote 22 episodes for season two (well, 21 if you discount "Shades of Grey"). Why not go with their original plan?
I think Maurice Hurley left and Michael Piller came in and had his own ideas about what to do so a number of ideas were dropped and changed.
That may have happened in season 3 with "Best of Both Worlds," but Hurley was still executive producer through all of season 2 when "Q Who?" was made. In fact, it was Hurley himself who wrote that episode. So he could have gone ahead with his original plans if he so chose. Who knows? Perhaps he just changed his mind. But I think the original conception of the Borg was far more effective than what they became.
To be sure, the Borg modus operandi was far more consistent and predictable than the Crystalline Entity one, despite the well-known changes in writer thinking regarding the Borg.
In "Datalore", the CE is nowhere to be seen when the Tripoli arrives, and the plant life is more or less okay. It's only found to be dead or dying when the Enterprise arrives, decades later... Or that's what we can infer from the dialogue where the state of the vegetation comes as a surprise to the E-D crew.
In contrast, "Silicon Avatar", the CE seems to immediately reduce a planet's vegetation to ashes where it hits.
How do these two pieces of the puzzle fit together? Perhaps when the Tripoli came to Omicron Theta and found Data but no colonists, the CE had not yet delivered its fatal blow? Perhaps the colonists were still huddling underground, afraid to show themselves to the Tripoli, while the CE lurked behind some moon, equally afraid?
Our heroes would do well to suspect the CE capable of varying types of destruction... In which case they couldn't rule it out as a perp for the Neutral Zone scoopings, either. Of course, "Silicon Avatar" had not happened yet when "The Neutral Zone" mystery arose, so our heroes might still have had narrow-minded ideas of what the CE did.
I don't mind this sort of inconsistency, really. Both the Borg and the CE were alien lifeforms; it would be silly if our heroes could decipher the complete picture of their behavior within just one episode. We can safely assume that "Datalore" and "Q Who?" both featured our heroes making baseless and erroneous assumptions, such as thinking that the Borg don't assimilate people.
Timo Saloniemi
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