Voyager: Was I the only one who enjoyed the Borg appearances?

[Saito S]

Its not all the fault of the VOY. I blame the TNG movies as well for treating a Borg like a normal alien race. Like the Borg WAS the Dominion.

I'm assuming that by "TNG movies", you meant "FC", since the other three didn't deal with the Borg.

And hardly. Yes, they introduced the Queen in FC, which many people think was a mistake (and I agree). But in terms of their power as an adversary, they were not at all treated like "just another alien bad guy". It took a fleet of unknown size coupled with a "I'm still logged in" deus ex machina from Picard to bring down that cube, and even then, sending the cube to assimilate the Earth turned out to only be plan A. Plan B was thwarted, but not by much, and combat against Borg drones was quite nightmarish throughout the movie.

The Borg weren't castrated by Voyager, they were castrated by TNG in "The Best of Both Worlds", more so by "I, Borg", and it just kept getting worse the more often they appeared. Voyager didn't reconnect the lines, so to speak, it just continued the downward trend of the Borg. Voyager's big castration was Species 8472 - a race that was only in 3 episodes that started out wanting to wipe out humanity as an infestation and by the 3rd episode was cutting deals with the Voyager crew for some shitty reason...

The Borg were changed by the later TNG Borg eps. But in BoBW, one cube completely mowed down a fleet of 40 ships, shrugged off the Ent-D's deflector dish mega-shot, and was only stopped via another deus ex machina (it's interesting to wonder what might have happened if the Borg HADN'T assimilated Picard. Starfleet might have fared better, and/or the Ent-D deflector dish mega-shot might have worked... but if the Borg still survived those things and made it to Earth, the Ent-D crew wouldn't have been able to "hack" them... Locutus was a double-edged sword). In "I, Borg", they hid from them because they didn't want to have a fight a Borg ship, knowing that doing so was likely a losing proposition.

Hardly a "castration." A retcon in terms of how they work, yes; the change from impersonal "all we care about is your tech" to more personal "we will turn you into us" is considered by some to be unfortunate, because those people felt it made the Borg less scary. But they were never depicted as being easy to defeat. It's partly about an attitude, at least for me, when it comes to what VOY did that was so bad with the Borg. "Borg ship? Oh... raise shields and target their weapons. *yawn* Maybe we can scrounge some spare parts off of em!" That, and they just showed up too often.

I would agree that TNG retconned them into something different than what they were in "Q Who." And I can see why some would feel those changes weakened them as a villain. But "castrated" them? Nah. VOY was the one that really DID begin to treat them at times as "just another villain race."

I agree with you that the final Species 8472 story was ridiculous, though.

Outside the episode Unity, I wish Voyager would've left the Borg alone. The Borg were nothing more than a crutch to the Voyager writers who were unable to come up with interesting, sustainable adversaries.

VOY's very premise meant they'd never be able to create sustainable enemies.

But yeah, they were a crutch regardless.

Just because the VOY writers were unable to come up with sustainable enemies for their show doesn't mean it cannot be done.

Not really, no. Not unless this was some deranged individual who was willing to go after the same folks for 7 seven over tens of thousands of Light Years away from his/her home for some reason.

That very narrow, very specific class of villain is not the only one that would have worked.

Besides, I maintain that a major, recurring villain wasn't NEEDED for Voyager to begin with. If they insisted on having one, they could have done a lot better than they did, but it wasn't absolutely necessary anyway.

There isn't a single example of such a foe out there, and no the NuBSG Cylons don't count.

This is an interesting thing to hear from a guy who likes to accuse people of holding "double standards" at the drop of a hat. Why, exactly, do the Cylons not count as an example of a sustained villain?

And on top of that, the audience would just complain that the VOY crew were a bunch of losers for not being to defeat one person.

Not going to get drawn into your "the audience would have..." insanity today, thank you.

Back to the Borg: The whole concept of them needed work before they should've been used on Trek.

For starters, there should never have been a larger Collective of Borg to begin with. Instead, there should've been dozens if not hundreds of Collectives all opposed to one another spread throughout the Galaxy. Nearly every single Borg ship should've been a Collective unto itself, taking orders from no one but itself. And everytime they'd be contacted the "Many voices" voice should've been different enough so we'd know it was a different voice.

This would wrap up the TNG Borg story quite well: The Cube from "Q Who?" and BOBW would've been the only Cube of that particular Collective, it chose to attack the Federation on its own and it never told the other Borg about the Alpha Quadrant. Thus, when it's destroyed they have no fear of future Borg attacks because the other Collectives don't know they exist.

While I like this a heck of a lot better than your "The cube in BoBW should have been the only one, so that there were no more Borg ever" idea, I'm not too keen on the "multi-collectives" idea. Though they have been retconned a couple of times and mishandled on occasion, I think the "one massive collective" concept is an important part of the Borg menace.

Another problem is that they showed that it's possible to de-assimilate someone just as they had introduce the concept. So real fears over losing yourself to the Borg were negated by knowing you can be restored.

Maybe if they said "After 48 hours you can't be restored" or something then there's more menace to it while maintaining BOBW.

I don't think it lost much from Picard's de-assimilation.

One: it clearly took a lot of work to restore him, physically.
Two: he was still connected right up until the MOMENT the cube exploded. Would they have ever been able to sever his link without destroying that ship? It's never made clear.
Three: Given what happened in "Family" and "FC", I think it's a pretty big stretch to say that "real fears" were "negated". The psychological damage was quite severe, and Picard never truly recovered, not completely. In the novels, he NEVER completely got past it until

Spoiler: the Destiny trilogy

the Borg were completely erased from existence.

 

[Anwar]

There isn't a single example of a "One ship all on its own, constantly on the move" type show that had a sustainable enemy. ANYWHERE.

The Cylons don't count because they were a mobile civilization themselves who lived on a big space-traveling colony ship, an they were actively at WAR with the Battlestar fleet. It made SENSE they'd never, ever, give up the chase since they had no home system to return to. Their home was what they used to chase the Colonials. The humans and the Cylons were the only two intelligent species in the NuBSG-verse, no aliens. In the Trekverse where the place is over-loaded with aliens this long chase still wouldn't make sense.

Unless it's a deranged individual, or an entire group that lives on their ship and has a DAMN good reason to want to go around the Galaxy in pursuit of the heroes, sustainable enemies aren't an option.

I think making the Borg more like the Goa'Uld from Stargate is the best way to handle them: It keeps them powerful, but it factionalizes them SO MUCH that you can't expect there to be a major attack on the Federation by them because they all hate one another too much to work together on anything.

And also, different Collectives gives the writers breathing room to tell a wider variety of stories since each Collective can act differently with some Collectives having nothing but weakling Spheres and Probe ships under their control. That would work fine in VOY because they can say "Yes, these Borg have nothing but weak ships and no Cubes at all but they're one of the weaker Collectives."

Crusher said it would be simple to de-assimilate Picard without the link to the Cube, and it was shown that powerful enough energy surges can be enough to sever these links. If they said "Picard's been assimilated, we have 48 hours to de-assimilate him or he's gone for good!" then there's more urgency.

 

[Nightdiamond]

The Borg concept was like winning the Lottery and then wasting it all because you don't know what to do with all the money lol.

Two Borg factions fighting each other, Lore leading one of them.
When Janeway decides to raid the Borg for spar parts.
Borg children.
Numerous "I am a former Borg" episodes.
"Out of all the Borg you are special" dialog.
Unimatrix stuff.

The money is gone! (Although I did like Scorpion)

They were simply not threatening anymore at that point.

 

[Anwar]

You mean like how raiding a Romulan ship for the cloaking device made them unthreatening, r how seeing young Klingons/Cardassians made them unthreatening, renegade Klingons made them unthreatening, etc?

 

[DS9]

I think the idea of having the Borg in Voyager was good at first but after a while the got overused and it got so overused that they even created a Borg main character to be aboard Voyager, i.e. Seven of Nine. Now I am not saying that Seven was a bad character, she is great, I just believe that they may have gotten a little crazy about the Borg.

I also think the Borg in Voyager are a lot "weaker" then the Borg portrayed in First Contact or TNG. In Voyager they seemed much too weak and they were easily defeated. If the Borg are supposed to be as powerful as they are supposed to be, they shouldn't have been that easy to defeat or talked into doing things as easily as they were in countless episodes.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Romulans were portrayed as having some of the same emotional and physical weaknesses as humans, which Kirk and Spock exploited.

The Borg were emotionless or supposed to be, and originally the entire ship was always seen as dangerous if you interfered with something.

The Borg was supposed have all kinds of deadl,y little understood technology.

If the raid succeeded that's great, but facing the Borg later after that might not have the same suspense as before.

 

[Anwar]

TNG itself showed with Hugh and the "Descent" Borg that they can be overwhelmed by emotions and become sentient beings themselves, so VOY is hardly the progenitor of that.

Frankly, when folks talk about how VOY had it too easy they tend to forget how easy the ENT-D had it in BOBW. When they attack the Cube and get Locutus back the Cube for some reason decided to NOT just one-shot the ENT-D like it just had to an entire Starfleet Armada. The Cube did nothing but try to tractor beam Data an Worf's shuttle and didn't even TRY to shoot at the Saucer or Stardrive sections!

 

[sonak]

yeah, good point above. The Borg's overall strength tended to vary based on plot necessity.

oh well, such are the problems inherent in creating "unstoppable menaces" that need to be stopped by the heroes.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The Borg look cool and it's natural to want to overuse a cool, creepy, distinctive villain like VOY did.

But the Borg are boring once they lose the unstoppable-force-of-nature thing. The more they are defeated and the more they have human qualities such as a Queen or "dissenting Borg," the more un-cool they become. The worst thing was when VOY started treating assimilation in a cavalier way, having the crew "become" Borg like they're dressing up for a night out, and then have EMH un-Borg them the next morning, with not even so much as a hangover.

The Borg simply were never designed for such overuse. They could be brought back (in the Abramsverse, maybe Starfleet encounters them in the 23rd C), but only if a) they are almost impossible to beat (and only if Starfleet is extremely clever; on a brute force level, they are unbeatable); b) they have no human qualities, period; and c) assimilation is P E R M A N E N T, no exceptions. This all means that the Borg can't be used very often, but sparing use would be great, since it would enhance and not destroy their mystique.

Maybe if they said "After 48 hours you can't be restored"

I wouldn't even give them that much of an out. The more outs you give, the more un-cool the Borg become. One touch of an assimilation probe, that's it, you're gone, no go-backs, sayonara sucker. If you want to rehabilitate the Borg as usable villains, you gotta be utterly ruthless about it.

The Cylons don't count because they were a mobile civilization themselves who lived on a big space-traveling colony ship,

The nuBSG Cylons don't count because they never made any real coherent sense as a non-human culture anyway. They were just humans who said they were robots, but what about them was robotic? Their initial plan was poorly thought through and incoherent. They fought among themselves and had individual ideas and factions.

Robots should be much better at advance planning, considering every conceivable possibility. Computers can play chess by calculating every possible move, yet the Cylons didn't consider a Battlestar surviving the attack? Yeesh. Hive-mind robots shouldn't be so completely disunited as the Cylons were.

Maybe it was a "good" story that the Cylons were so fractuous and human, but they aren't a good example of how to write an alien, inhuman culture and don't tell us anything about how to resurrect the Borg as an alien, inhuman culture.

I think making the Borg more like the Goa'Uld from Stargate is the best way to handle them:

Ugh, no! The Goa'uld are terrible villains. How can anyone take them seriously, with their silly, self-defeating behavior?

As misused as they were, at least the Borg were cool in their basic concept, unlike nuBSG Cylons, who are not really anything other than humans, and the Goa'uld, who were in need of a serious rewrite from the start. (How to make the Goa'uld into strong villains is a thread in its own right.)

You mean like how raiding a Romulan ship for the cloaking device made them unthreatening, r how seeing young Klingons/Cardassians made them unthreatening, renegade Klingons made them unthreatening, etc?

Those races all have complex characteristics that make them interesting in their own right. The Borg are not interesting in their own right and never will be, because what makes them cool - their complete and utter simplicity - cuts off any possibility of growth and development.

 

[Anwar]

What I mean by making the Borg like the Goa'uld is to factionalize them: Instead of one big Collective, there are dozens if not hundreds of Collectives varying in strength and size all over the Galaxy (with the original Unicomplex being in the Delta Quadrant). Nearly every ship seen would be a Collective unto itself, not in contact with the other Borg an actually being hostile to them, and with varying goals/approaches.

Every "Voice of the Legion" heard would be different enough that it's clear that while they are Borg they aren't all the same group of Borg. Some wouldn't even have big Cubes to rely on for attacks and have only groups of smaller weaker vessels that can be destroyed in one-on-one combat.

Give proper distinctions to the hierarchy of Borg ships: Probe vessels should be pure cannon fodder; kick in the shin blows it up. No adaptive shields, minimal regenerative power.

Tactical Spheres should be a step up with better regenerative powers and low-level adaptive shields (take a lot longer to fully adapt).

Tactical Cubes would be their Vanguard/mainstray ship. Takes a squadron or more to fight these.

Assimilation Cubes (the one seen in BOBW) would be the killer, one is enough to take out a civilization. THESE monsters are held in reserve for special stories.

Assimilation wouldn't be an easy thing, they'd need special facilities on their ships to do complete assimilations instead of the "Robo-Vampire tubes in the neck" thing.

And not all species would be susceptible to assimilation either, instead of just the 8472 aliens. Plenty of species would be resistant (and thus have to be killed instead).

Make these sorts of changes, and the Borg can be maintained as a foe while still giving proper breathing room to the writers.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

What I mean by making the Borg like the Goa'uld is to factionalize them: Instead of one big Collective, there are dozens if not hundreds of Collectives varying in strength and size all over the Galaxy

That would de-power the Borg. The main source of their terrifying mystique is that they are unified and every new assimilated person adds to their power, a snowball effect: if they're too powerful to beat now, you're screwed, because they're only ever going to get more powerful, never less.

Making assimilation easier is not a good idea for the same reason: it de-powers the Borg. The trick is to make the Borg usable without destroying what makes them a good villain to begin with.

There's an inverse relationship to how powerful the Borg can be, and how often they can be used. The right solution is to keep them powerful and use them less. Much less.

They could still be terrifying even in their absence. What if one world figured out a way to deflect the Borg from themselves, and onto a neighbor? If this were a Federation world, could that kind of ripple-effect panic undermine the Federation's unity? What if the Founders were the only species immune to the Borg, and used that to strongarm the Federation?

 

[Anwar]

And what kind of enemies would the Borg themselves have, that they had to become the Borg in the first place? That have kept them from conquering the Galaxy thus far?

 

[BillJ]

And what kind of enemies would the Borg themselves have, that they had to become the Borg in the first place?

There is no reason to believe the Borg became the Borg because of an enemy. The Borg may simply be the next step in some species evolution.

That have kept them from conquering the Galaxy thus far?

Resources and technological reach.

 

[sonak]

TTV has the dilemma right:


you either can't use them very often and have them remain powerful and scary, or use them a lot but lose their scariness and mystique.


TNG took the former approach, only taking on the Borg collective in full force THREE times in a seven-year run plus four movies.

Voyager took the latter approach, but then again were in a region that allowed that decision to make some sense.

 

[Tiberius]

Dark Frontier ... is great, because it explores Seven's backstory. I'd have liked to seen the Borg Queen gone for good at the climax.

According to some interpretations of the Borg Collective (including my own), killing off the body of the Queen won't destroy her mind, as the mind exists spread throughout the entire collective. The body is just a puppet.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

There is no reason to believe the Borg became the Borg because of an enemy. The Borg may simply be the next step in some species evolution.

Why couldn't they just be an experiment gone horribly wrong on some alien world at some undefined point in the past? Aliens decide to improve themselves via hive mind link and prostheses, and don't think the consequences all the way through. That alien world becomes Species Zero.

 

[sonak]

Dark Frontier ... is great, because it explores Seven's backstory. I'd have liked to seen the Borg Queen gone for good at the climax.

According to some interpretations of the Borg Collective (including my own), killing off the body of the Queen won't destroy her mind, as the mind exists spread throughout the entire collective. The body is just a puppet.

er, then why did the Borg on Enterprise-E all collapse after the Borg Queen was killed in FC? Watch the scene, Borgs in alcoves start dropping like flies after she goes down.


Which is why it's the height of silliness to have a physical body for the collective because it makes it hugely vulnerable.

 

[Anwar]

She was the only thing maintaining the Collective mind once they were in the past and their ship was gone. Her death caused a low-level system crash (combined with the gas destroying all the other organic matter it hit, including most of the Borg). If you killed the Queen in a casual way while there was still a Ship or the Greater Collective around it wouldn't do anything.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

As the Trek decades passed the Borg became less and less terrifying..

 

[ReadyAndWilling]

There is no reason to believe the Borg became the Borg because of an enemy. The Borg may simply be the next step in some species evolution.

Why couldn't they just be an experiment gone horribly wrong on some alien world at some undefined point in the past? Aliens decide to improve themselves via hive mind link and prostheses, and don't think the consequences all the way through. That alien world becomes Species Zero.

wasn't it stated that the machine in the 1st ST movie was the beginning of the borg?