Last Thursday, maybe...new episode, new things to complain about.So basically Thursday on TrekBBS
The xBs
- Thread starter Big Data
- Start date
probably, but I'm not bored enough to create a thread about the missing Riker Maneuvre in today's episode.
Maybe tomorrow... or someone beats me to it
I thought the XBs were the ones who came up with the name.
That seemed to be Hugh's comment to Picard. That picking a new name was the first step toward independence, or something like that.
Also, they are working hard on the X-Box.
Yes, but ‘Hugh’ is a riff on ‘you’, yourself, an individual, whereas ‘xB’ embraces a group identity forming around being former Borg. If anything I’d have imagined Hugh downplaying and avoiding such a designation/nickname in favor of individual names, which were memorably used in “Descent” (even if some remain prior designations like ‘Seven of Nine’ — it was still Seven’s choice to use that).
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It sounds like they wanted the designation.
I am sure the other ex Borg have individual names, why would they not? But why in the world would you assume they'd forgo a name for themselves as a group? Having a name for themselves as a group is as important as having individual names.
And they are former Borg. It's irrevocably part of their history and shaping how they are as people. Some might have never known any life but that like Hugh or Icheb, some might have been assimilated as children like Seven, and some might have been taken as adults like Picard. And their great commonality is being part of the collective, and now being apart from it and now they have to heal, to exist as individuals, and to face a world in which they are feared and treated as less than human. Of course they have a common name for themselves as a group when they have nothing but each other.
Because the implication has usually been that they’d put their past behind them to varying, incompatible degrees (depending on how long they’d been assimilated). Picard “recovered” after two episodes and only has issues of the week. Seven had initially retained some Borg ideals, but seems to have abandoned quite a few by now. How do you naturally form a group around that?
Seven was usually treated as more than human with specific limitations to be positively addressed, while Picard’s own humanity was never in question (except for scenes like Sisko’s emotional reaction or Starfleet’s concerns in FC that Picard eventually used to everyone’s advantage). But this is 2399, by which time even the Federation is fine with former Borg being “reclaimed” in Romulan space or hunted for parts elsewhere?
They have their families, relatives, and if nothing else the Federation, even if the Romulan Empire or other governments are a different story. That was the hope: you’re unassimilated and integrate back into society, making the best of your current abilities. The appearance of ‘xB’ on PIC is more indicative of failure and the scope of the problem.
The group calling themselves XBs are living together on the cube, a closed community. Hugh made the point that as a Federation citizen he is the only one who is permitted to leave if he chooses. They aren't free, they don't have families to fall back on and integrate with. Many of them are probably half a galaxy from where they were assimilated. Is it any wonder that they would form a group identity, in those circumstances?
Except, we have seen a variety of reactions. Ex-Borg in VOY who had their own little group after being abandoned.
A group can form naturally around several different elements, but usually a common goal.
But, they are not Federation citizens. The cube is a Romulan project, I thought?
Regardless, there is no reason that they cannot remain together to adapt to life as an individual. Who better than Hugh who struggled with his own group after attempting to go back to the Collective?
”There is no more despised people in the galaxy than the xBs.” This suggests a wider scope for the term than just one cube (presumably not of galactic infamy?), and also failure on a massive scale to communicate the nature of the Collective: that it uses individuals as processing units without free will.
But Hugh is a Federation citizen, the Borg there aren’t all-Romulan, and it doesn’t really look like Romulans are too interested in repatriating their former citizens, so perhaps the goal should be to promote Federation ideals and look for settlements inside the Federation.
Seriously? Have you ever heard of Alcoholics Anonymous? It's an organization made up of individual support groups from all walks of life and different experiences, formed around a shared addiction. And there's other types of support groups: for people who lost their children, for rape survivors, for cancer survivors, for people who survived domestic violence, or eating disorders. Hell, there's support groups for family members of addicts. They have different experiences, and different living situations, and different histories of trauma, but they share trauma, and that is a strong impetus to form groups in order to find support, strength, and someone who went through the same and has a unique insight into what you went through.
No it doesn't? That's still dialogue from Hugh. All we know from it is that he is using that term but there's literally nothing there "suggesting" anything about how widespread or known the term is outside of the community on the cube.
Where are you getting it from that they aren't doing that? It's the reclamation program, and from the looks of it the deal with the Romulans is that they get to study the cube (and get copies of any research the visiting Federation scientists conduct) and all the parts of the drones that can be taken without killing them, and Hugh gets to help the former drones to integrate into life outside of the collective. The drones still there are the ones still inactive, the ones working with Hugh, or the ones recently awoken and in the process of healing. And for all we know, they stay until they are well enough to brace life outside. One of the clues that this might be the case is that we are told that harvesting former drones for parts is a cottage industry. And those former drones have to come from somewhere. The implication being that people are preying on former drones that left the cube.
I doubt that's an immediate process and that they would benefit from the group work environment to support their building individuality. Again, we have seen different groups of former Borg group together to support each other, even outside the Collective.
Prompting Federation ideals is all well and gone but forcing them to go from one to the other with no middle ground is, well, traumatizing.
Of course, but you’re freely applying real-world experience to a fictional reality that had been constrained by the Roddenberry box for three times seven seasons. Are we to say that TNG was a highly censored version of “reality”, VGR less so, DS9 even less and PIC, well, not at all? Or do they dovetail and we can compare and contrast examples from the shows? O’Brien went through simulated decades of harrowing imprisonment… and was fine by the next episode. Was it censorship, or how did that work in his case?
Inside the Federation? Where are they resettled and how are they monitored if that’s possible?
No that was damn reset button and a missed opportunity into exploring the long term consequences of a unique situation. And yeah, that one of the weaker parts of the old shows, that consequences often lasted to the end of the episode and were then promptly. What this has to do with looking at the Borg reclamation program through the lens of trauma survivors (which they are clearly meant to emulate) or to get back to the point of contention what this has to do with them referring to themselves a certain way seems a riddle for the ages.
How would I know? I just now that apparently there's people specialized into hunting down ex Borg for parts. And those ex Borg have to come from somewhere. Likely from the cube, after they felt secure enough to go out into the world.
What it has to do with that is that some types of stories don’t work in a framework that was previously bounded by the Roddenberry box. Even if the ‘xB’ designation is in fact local, we still have to ask ourselves why Hugh is an exception and Seven used to be? Why didn’t we see more from Picard outside the Borg episodes? If the xBs can get off the cube, why couldn’t they be protected inside the Federation, rather than face clear danger in lawless regions? The Federation couldn’t grant them asylum on that basis?
It’s similar with Raffi’s alcoholism and total alienation from her son: serious issues that are trivialized by appearing in a framework that hardly ever addressed them past one episode. One pretty much starts thinking about other examples from past series (there might be some, but nothing that stands out), asking oneself where the Federation system went wrong in this case, how this went from A to B to C, which totally destroys the intended moment. PIC’s continuity has been relatively good, but continuity also comes with expectations. Is it going to be “now you’re seeing what was previously censored”, or a general handwave of changing times?
I'm sorry I have no clue what it is you're actually complaining about.
My concern is:
after the killing of Hugh's XB friends (and then Hugh himself), did any of the XBs on the Artifact survive?
But we are not seeing the Federation as a system. We are seeing highly specific instances were people don't want help (Raffi) or choose to exist outside the Federation (Freecloud).
Groups develop their own identity. I think this is trying to generalize something that is actually highly specific.
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