Remember that time Beverlump and two ultra-green academy graduates easily destroyed a gigantic Borg ship in "Descent, Part II"?
Nothing involving Janeway comes close to the absolute pure fail of that.
Voyager made the Borg wusses
- Thread starter Bry_Sinclair
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Remember that time Beverlump and two ultra-green academy graduates easily destroyed a gigantic Borg ship in "Descent, Part II"?
Nothing involving Janeway comes close to the absolute pure fail of that.
In "Jem'Hadar" it was Starfleet's first encounter with the Dominion (even the Ferengi who'd been doing business in the GQ had never heard of them), so its understandable that three attack ships could out-fight an explorer (which was only destroyed by a suicide run). That episode showed that the Dominion was a serious threat and meant business.
In "Descent" it was a non-Collective ship that Crusher destroyed (with Barnaby and Taitt's help), though they only managed to do this by luck more than anything else. They didn't out-fight the Borg ship, but utilised a crazy scheme and the power of a star to do that.
In "Descent" it was a non-Collective ship that Crusher destroyed (with Barnaby and Taitt's help), though they only managed to do this by luck more than anything else. They didn't out-fight the Borg ship, but utilised a crazy scheme and the power of a star to do that.
yes, there's a built-in bias against Voyager that explains all of the criticism of it as well as its use of the Borg. It's all a colossal unfair bias and nothing else.
Voyager did use a nebula in "Drone" to destroy a Sphere (or rather the uber-Borg did) and I don't have a problem with that. It was a case of using what was at hand to take out a superior force. But often they don't need natural phenomena, because Seven saves the day time and again due to her knowledge and nanoprobes.
The Borg were just overused and they defeated them too frequently. But that's just how I see it.
The Borg were just overused and they defeated them too frequently. But that's just how I see it.
With the Dominion, you knew there was a war on and that elsewhere Starfleet was taking a beating. The only time the DS9 crew had victories was with a massive fleet behind them, or the help of the Prophets, they were rarely just a single ship acting alone.
There's a difference, though. The Dominion were never meant to be a nigh-invincible force of facesless, personality-less adversaries; they were supposed to be the Federation's equal and its imperialistic counterpart. They were never meant to have a permanent advantage.
The Borg, on the other hand, are not characters, nor are they supposed to be the Federation's equals. They're not characters, they're monsters -- that is, creatures that exist within a story to be scary and nearly impossible to defeat. Monsters in fiction become less scary the more the audience learns about them.
VOY didn't actually depict the Borg as losing all that many firefights to the U.S.S. Voyager. In fact, most of the time when Voyager engaged a Borg ship, she either got her ass handed to her and had to run away ("Unimatrix Zero") or she was only up against a scout ship ("Dark Frontier"). But that doesn't matter -- the simple act of depicting the Borg that often is what made them less scary. The degree to which a monster is scary is directly proportional to the degree of ignorance the audience and characters have about that monster.
ETA:
However, the Destiny novel trilogy did much to rehabilitate the Borg back into scariness -- compensating for how much more we knew about the Borg by depicting a full-scale invasion, and all of the horrific consequences thereof.
There were yes, but not all that many. Here are the main ones (since its a comparison between the Borg and Jem'Hadar I've discounted engagements with the Klingons or Maquis):
Season 3
The Search P1&2 – The first appearance of the Defiant. The ship was under cloak and utilising stealth for the most part, but when she did engage the Jem’Hadar they did get their asses kicked, were boarded and captured.
The Die Is Cast – The Cardassian/Romulan attack on the Founders. The Defiant is under cloak again and on a rescue mission, they aren’t focused on fighting, just saving Odo and Garak. They do take a few hits, etc but the Jem’Hadar are focused on the Cardassian/Romulan fleet.
Season 4
Starship Down – The Defiant takes a beating, heavy damage and casualties, whilst they play cat-and-mouse in the atmosphere of a gas giant.
To The Death – The crew teams up with Weyoun to put a stop to a rogue group of Jem’Hadar. The Defiant doesn’t see much action in this episode, but the crew are pitted against the Dominion on their own (though with help from Weyoun and his soldiers). The rogue group was never said to be all that many, and the crew to take losses and injured.
Broken Link – The Defiant goes into the GQ alone to help Odo. They are surrounded by Jem’Hadar and know that fighting their way out would be suicide.
Season 5
The Ship – On a GQ planet, the crew faces a squadron of Jem’Hadar. No Defiant in this one, but it is just a runabout crew. They do lose over half the team on the mission and another runabout.
By Infernos Light – The Dominion come through the Wormhole. DS9, the Defiant and the runabouts are all that stand in their way (I’m not including Dukat as we all know what he did). DS9 was supposed to be far from the fleet, and though other ships would be heading out to assist, they are still very much alone and facing certain death. However it doesn’t come to blows.
Call To Arms – As the Defiant mines the Wormhole (defended by the Rotarran) the Station engages a Dominion fleet. They are massively out-gunned and out-numbered, but they pull out all the stops in order to distract the Dominion from the real battle at Torros III. Their enhanced weapons array proves to be more than able to handle the Dominion fleet long enough to complete their mission objectives before retreating.
After this, we are into the war and most (not all) of their engagements with the Dominion are as part of a fleet.
So the Dominion can ignore the Defiant and focus on some other assault, which allows them to escape and no one thinks it's a bad story.
VOY could've told a story where a Borg Cube is too busy decimating an alien armada which allows VOY to escape and the only reaction would be "After wiping out that Armada the Cube should've tracked down VOY and destroyed it easily."
You just can't win.
VOY could've told a story where a Borg Cube is too busy decimating an alien armada which allows VOY to escape and the only reaction would be "After wiping out that Armada the Cube should've tracked down VOY and destroyed it easily."
You just can't win.
The problem is simply one of over-use, not in how they were used when they were.
The Borg are TNG's most famous enemy. Yet throughout the entire seven seasons of TNG, they had exactly four appearances. And in two of those, it wasn't the collective that the Enterprise was dealing with.
I think that First Contact diluted the Borg concept by introducing the queen, but it wasn't unsalvageable at that point. Voyager did an excellent job of using the Borg in Scorpion and managed to introduce Seven of Nine. They should have left it at that. One big, bad Borg story that ends with Voyager being on the other side of Borg space and then we rarely, if ever, hear from the Borg again.
The Borg are TNG's most famous enemy. Yet throughout the entire seven seasons of TNG, they had exactly four appearances. And in two of those, it wasn't the collective that the Enterprise was dealing with.
I think that First Contact diluted the Borg concept by introducing the queen, but it wasn't unsalvageable at that point. Voyager did an excellent job of using the Borg in Scorpion and managed to introduce Seven of Nine. They should have left it at that. One big, bad Borg story that ends with Voyager being on the other side of Borg space and then we rarely, if ever, hear from the Borg again.
Voyager didn't kill the Borg, the need for the evolution of nemesis just made them tired as more was revealed. At first were were a leviathan, an ant-like race described as a collective (which we find they do have a social structure that is much like ants or bees on earth) and they procreate through assimilation. But, let's be real, humans defeat the Borg over and over again mostly with sheer luck, time travel, ridiculous oversights on the part of the Borg leadership, etc... at a certain point, this question has to be answered: If the Borg are truly this powerful and THAT interested in Earth, they could clear conquer the Federation at anytime with a full assault and just choose not to? -- it doesn't make much sense. They even wanted a human to be their spokesman, so you can no longer sell us that they see humanity as little more than passing drones.
Solution? Destroy the Borg. Invent a new enemy. I was very glad that DS9 stuck with the Dominion, a far more complicated and nuanced enemy to deal with with hundreds of actors and alliances and political maneuvers.
Solution? Destroy the Borg. Invent a new enemy. I was very glad that DS9 stuck with the Dominion, a far more complicated and nuanced enemy to deal with with hundreds of actors and alliances and political maneuvers.
Knight Templar
Commodore
I thought that "I, Borg" which was Michael Piller's brainchild was the beginning of the end of the Borg.
If that was the one with the "humanized" Borg that they ended up sending back w/o a virus (dumb decision by Picard) then yes, I agree.
Assuming that it would have worked, how many people (in Starfleet and the galaxy as a whole) did Picard personally condemn to death and enslavement?
What need for evolution?
Sure it does. The Borg never launched a full assault of Earth because they weren't that interested in Earth. It took them over a year before they even investigated the events of "Q Who" and that involved a ship that could mysteriously disappear. Even Scorpion proves this with the Borg launching an invasion of fluidic space rather than the Federation.
No, they wanted a human to serve as their spokesperson only while they were directly dealing with the Federation. Assimilating a high-ranking member of the enemy for their tactical knowledge and to serve as a spokesperson for that individual species seemed like standard operating procedure for them. I'm sure the Borg have had thousands of Locutus' in the past.
