...And, theoretically, at any time.
V'Ger origins: Borg or not?
- Thread starter xvicente
- Start date
Damn. Forgot about that bit. Good catch, everyone. Still, theorizing V'Ger's augmented origin as Borg feels like a retro shoe horn. I don't buy it. I read Shatner's novel where he describes the event, putting it in context of Borg (not sure if this was Preserver or The Return), but even that just felt like a what-if... And of course, non-canon.
^^It was The Return. And what a terrible novel it was.
So I have heard.
Among other accomplishments, Shatner terminates the borg - by pressing a lever.
That series of novels should have as subtitle 'The adventures of Shatner's enormous ego'.
V'ger is definitely not of Borg origin, it just does not fit their Modus Operandi.
Also, what Roddenberry said in an interview is not cannon, we can only go with what was seen on screen. V'ger is not Borg.
Also, what Roddenberry said in an interview is not cannon, we can only go with what was seen on screen. V'ger is not Borg.
I'd like to think that maybe V'Ger and the Borg were both created by the same root race of machines, experimenting with different principles of mechanically-enhanced consciousness. They saw in Voyager 6 the "kindred spirit" of a mechanical device, however primitive, and gave it "life". They saw in the Borg, probably nothing more than a humanoid species tinkering with cybernetics at the time, the potential to be greater than the sum of its parts and acted according to the needs of the target being altered. CLEARLY the "machine planet" didn't have its own version of the Prime Directive against cultural contamination. The need for mechanical perfection and ascension through that perfection is evident in both V'Ger and the Borg and is the driving force of their individual existences. We all know the Bord assimilated other cultures to add to their technological and biological distinctiveness to the Collective. V'Ger cruised the universe, sucking up the "patterns" of whole civilizations and galaxies in an effort to know everything, ascend, attain perfection, and touch its creator. Two means to the same end. Perhaps the Living Machines themselves were looking for a way to evolve into a higher kind of life form and they used V'Ger and Borg in an attempt to attain that evolution through fundamentally different kinds of "vessels". Hell, they may have even been responsible for the Nomad/Tan Ru incident, especially since many in the fandom always felt that The Motion Picture was nothing more than a retelling of "The Changeling" anyway... Maybe that was the point!
As mentioned before, time frame incompatibility and/or rationalization is irrelevant, as Voyager 6 went through a black hole and could have appeared at any place in space and time. Only the creation of the Borg would need to have been fixed in time (but then again, I'm thinking so "three dimensionally", aren't I?). Removing the Shatnerverse POV from the context for a minute and looking at it from a slightly different perspective, I honestly don't think it's as far-fetched as some people here are saying.
As mentioned before, time frame incompatibility and/or rationalization is irrelevant, as Voyager 6 went through a black hole and could have appeared at any place in space and time. Only the creation of the Borg would need to have been fixed in time (but then again, I'm thinking so "three dimensionally", aren't I?). Removing the Shatnerverse POV from the context for a minute and looking at it from a slightly different perspective, I honestly don't think it's as far-fetched as some people here are saying.
I personally never liked the idea but I could go with the idea that the Machine World was responsible for building V'Ger and the Borg at some point but not that the Borg are responsible for V'Ger. V'Ger's goal was to understand its origins and explore further concepts of life and reality. The Borg are only interested in absorbing and overtaking life forms. The Borg are, in some ways, the antithesis of V'Ger.
Before Star Trek: First Contact and to a much lesser extent The Best of Both Worlds, assimilating (or as you put it "absorbing and overtaking") life forms didn't seem as important to the Borg as it did in later episodes. In the TNG episodes, at least to me, assimilation seemed to be more of a means for gaining technology than the end itself as it was presented from First Contact on. What shouldn't be forgotten is that Mr. Roddenberry's statement and when The Return was written was before First Contact and Voyager redefined the Borg.
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