THIS; was the Borg

[RobertScorpio]

There is a story out (I would hot link but I am not sure if we can hot link to newstory) today about how they now believe there is one super-mega colony of ants taking over the world. These Argentine ants, which are in south-american, USA and JAPAN, and parts of Europe, act as if they are in the same colony...

This is how I thought of the Borg. A colony of "ants" that, when a scout found something of value, would swarm and come get it. Bees are often more compared with the Borg, but not me...ants. But, as Q/Guinan state, there was no way to negotiate with the borg because they had no leader, just the common collective...

And then...the Queen came in FC and changed all that and made the Borg just another bumpy headed race with a leader (in this case a horny borg queen) and the Borg, IMO, from that moment on were de-clawed; or jumped the shark if you will.

Anyway, if you can, check this story out about the ants and their super colony. Its all over the place (I saw it on Drudgereport)

Rob

Ants getting together to take over the world? Never mind the Borg, has anybody seen Phase IV?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070531/

Sean

Yes.. I did see PHASE IV..one of the lost gems of the 70s

Rob

 

[USS Kongo]

Let's just hope it remains a cinematic gem of the 1970s and not a prediction of things to come.

Sean

 

[timelord1010]

The Queen could have worked, if they had presented her as an avatar rather than as a controlling force.

I thought they did present her as just that. She says to Data when he asks if she's in control of the Borg, you imply a disparity when none exists.

While it was never spelled out, I always assumed the Borg Queen was an adaptation of the hive to their encounter with the Federation. When we first see them, they are a faceless hive of drones. They are unable to absorb the humans fully (thanks to Q's intervention), but when they next encounter the Federation, they absorb Picard in order to make him a spokesman. When he escapes through individual ingenuity, the Borg adapt further and develop the Queen, an individual who is one with the hive, and who exists to interact with and facilitate the assimilation of the Federation.

Where the Borg jumped the shark was in not having them continue to adapt during Voyager. Instead the Queen devolved into a moustache-twirling one-dimensional villain with the drones as her minions. Had the Borg instead adapted further to humans - perhaps absorbing the changes of individuality introduced by Hugh - then they would have remained terrifying nemeses.

That's what made TNG episode "Decent" so good. The Borg in that episode were what the Borg should have become, and instead of the Queen, Lore should have been the leader of the Borg, or at least a faction of the borg. He could have gone around assimilating the regular Borg and caused more problems for the Federation.

 

[RobertScorpio]

The Queen could have worked, if they had presented her as an avatar rather than as a controlling force.

I thought they did present her as just that. She says to Data when he asks if she's in control of the Borg, you imply a disparity when none exists.

While it was never spelled out, I always assumed the Borg Queen was an adaptation of the hive to their encounter with the Federation. When we first see them, they are a faceless hive of drones. They are unable to absorb the humans fully (thanks to Q's intervention), but when they next encounter the Federation, they absorb Picard in order to make him a spokesman. When he escapes through individual ingenuity, the Borg adapt further and develop the Queen, an individual who is one with the hive, and who exists to interact with and facilitate the assimilation of the Federation.

Where the Borg jumped the shark was in not having them continue to adapt during Voyager. Instead the Queen devolved into a moustache-twirling one-dimensional villain with the drones as her minions. Had the Borg instead adapted further to humans - perhaps absorbing the changes of individuality introduced by Hugh - then they would have remained terrifying nemeses.

That's what made TNG episode "Decent" so good. The Borg in that episode were what the Borg should have become, and instead of the Queen, Lore should have been the leader of the Borg, or at least a faction of the borg. He could have gone around assimilating the regular Borg and caused more problems for the Federation.

NO NO NO NO...DECENT is where the Borg started to go off-track. The Borg became another 'gooberish/fuzzy buzzy' alien in that awful two-parter. First, they come off as whimps. Second, they lose their 'zombie-swarm-cant negotiate with them' persona by putting Lore as their leader. FC compounds this with the Queen..

Any attempt to put a 'head' at the top of the Borg negates anything that Guinan/Q said. Because if LORE or a QUEEN could lead the Borg, then why couldn't a person, a nice person like Picard or Barak Obama, talk them out of their evil ways as well.

Sorry...the BORG were ruined by DESCENT, further ruined by FIRST CONTACT, and utterly and compeletly obliterated by Voyager. They became your typical 'bumpy' headed STAR TREK alien race. They had their balls taken away! They were nutured!

And, IMO, this is one of those events that fuels the belief that STAR TREK loves to ruin great ideas; another example? The Hirogen.

Rob
Scorpio

 

[plynch]

What we really need is for someone to find away to make ants...tasty. Then we could feed the starving world with ants. Heck, I would eat them if they made them taste good!

Rob

Ants are tasty.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I'm OK with Decent because I view it as a separate Borg, not the main collective (I feel the same way about Unity). So both episodes are cool in my book.