Was something wrong with Alice Krige?

[exodus]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

It doesn't matter who played the Borg Queen as there shouldn't have been one to begin with.

And that is my snide answer to that.

So you have a group of drones all connected together into one giant mind, and you get upset when that mind starts acting like one mind?

And other than to have a tangible villain, why do we need a queen for that to happen? The whole point of the Borg was that they were essentially like an intelligence connected through the internet, or a sentient internet itself. The concept was far reaching and rather scary.

Adding a queen does nothing but unnecessarily humanize them so the story can have a cliche "mastermind" character. The Borg without a queen were more alien, more machine like, and a greater concept because it was about an intangible ruling mind.

That was the problem.
Because the Borg came off as too alien without the Queen, the audience wouldn't get the concept that Drones are slaves. The very definition of Drone implies the Borg don't think for themselves and are followers of a leader. The Borg have been humanized from the very fact that they started off "BOBW" showing the Borg enslaved an entire world. They enforced that by showing humanity within Hugh upon his separation from the collective. Following that evolution of story telling, the Queen was logically the next step. The Borg is simply a metaphor for slavery and how the slave master the is the single voice for all the races he/she enslaves. It takes the Borg from a simple dismissive species into a philosophical issue of the dynamic of slavery.
Seriously, how is the act of being taken against your will, being stripped of all your rights, culture and family and being forced to work in what is equal to a sweat shop not scary?

 

[Transk53]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

I thought that both actresses aquited themselves quite well. Out of the two I did prfer Alice Krige. One because she is well fit, second I thought Krige had a more menacing edge. Thompson, while equally as good, seemed to have a softer demeanor.

 

[The Dominion]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

So you have a group of drones all connected together into one giant mind, and you get upset when that mind starts acting like one mind?

And other than to have a tangible villain, why do we need a queen for that to happen? The whole point of the Borg was that they were essentially like an intelligence connected through the internet, or a sentient internet itself. The concept was far reaching and rather scary.

Adding a queen does nothing but unnecessarily humanize them so the story can have a cliche "mastermind" character. The Borg without a queen were more alien, more machine like, and a greater concept because it was about an intangible ruling mind.

That was the problem.
Because the Borg came off as too alien without the Queen, the audience wouldn't get the concept that Drones are slaves. The very definition of Drone implies the Borg don't think for themselves and are followers of a leader. The Borg have been humanized from the very fact that they started off "BOBW" showing the Borg enslaved an entire world. They enforced that by showing humanity within Hugh upon his separation from the collective. Following that evolution of story telling, the Queen was logically the next step. The Borg is simply a metaphor for slavery and how the slave master the is the single voice for all the races he/she enslaves. It takes the Borg from a simple dismissive species into a philosophical issue of the dynamic of slavery.
Seriously, how is the act of being taken against your will, being stripped of all your rights, culture and family and being forced to work in what is equal to a sweat shop not scary?

But the Borg already used representatives, so why did they need to make it a queen, implying leadership? They weren't an empire, they were a species that was capable of reproducing, but assimilated people for knowledge and advancement. Adding a queen was the point when they went from being the Borg to a zombie cult.

 

[Gary7]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

I thought that both actresses aquited themselves quite well. Out of the two I did prfer Alice Krige. One because she is well fit, second I thought Krige had a more menacing edge. Thompson, while equally as good, seemed to have a softer demeanor.

Well said.

 

[tighr]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

They weren't an empire, they were a species that was capable of reproducing, but assimilated people for knowledge and advancement. Adding a queen was the point when they went from being the Borg to a zombie cult.

I agree, I didn't like the insinuation that they needed to assimilate in order to reproduce. They should have been technologically advanced enough to clone the drones they needed, using their advanced maturation techniques. The only reason to assimilate anyone is to add their biological and technological distinctiveness to their own.

 

[exodus]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

They weren't an empire, they were a species that was capable of reproducing, but assimilated people for knowledge and advancement. Adding a queen was the point when they went from being the Borg to a zombie cult.

I agree, I didn't like the insinuation that they needed to assimilate in order to reproduce. They should have been technologically advanced enough to clone the drones they needed, using their advanced maturation techniques. The only reason to assimilate anyone is to add their biological and technological distinctiveness to their own.

Which is missing the point of slavery and contradicts already established canon within the Trek universe about cloning.
This is Star Trek people, everything is meant to be relatible to aspects of the human condition and the social and political injustices of society. Everything is a metaphor that relates back to that. The farther you get away from that, the more you loose what Trek's core theme is.(ENT. is proof of that) The Queen was designed to be a slave master and the drones, her slaves for that reason.
Besides, a clone is an imperfect being due cell degradation(We've seen this and the effects of it with the Jem Hadar and Vorta. It caused chaos within perfectly working order. ) and would taint the collective.

 

[The Dominion]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

And before they were turned into a dictatorship, they were relatible to the concept of machines running people as well as the total loss of individual creativity, which is why they were unique to begin with.

 

[exodus]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

And before they were turned into a dictatorship, they were relatible to the concept of machines running people as well as the total loss of individual creativity, which is why they were unique to begin with.

Clearly those that created them didn't agree, which was obvious when they used individual Borg drones like Locutus & Hugh to relate to the audience the Borg structure. Even before the Queen, they were relating the Borg to us on an individual level. Locutus told the Enterprise crew about how they'd all be slaves to the Borg. In the very second ep. featuring them, they "took" an entire civilization. There was never anything unique about the Borg. They were always giving us hints that it was always about slavery.

 

[tighr]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

Which is missing the point of slavery and contradicts already established canon within the Trek universe about cloning.
This is Star Trek people, everything is meant to be relatible to aspects of the human condition and the social and political injustices of society. Everything is a metaphor that relates back to that. The farther you get away from that, the more you loose what Trek's core theme is.(ENT. is proof of that) The Queen was designed to be a slave master and the drones, her slaves for that reason.

We don't see a queen until Star Trek: First Contact, and only then because the film needed a villain with a face (read about the development for that film, there wasn't always going to be a queen).

In slavery, you have individuals being subjugated to other individuals, or a ruling class. In the Borg, there are no individuals. Everyone is equal. Any newly assimilated drones are immediately made equal to the others. That doesn't describe slavery, it more closely describes Collective Communism.

Which is precisely why I was disappointed that they ever introduced a queen.

 

[JarodRussell]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

Maybe they can insert the Queen into TNG Remastered.

 

[exodus]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

Which is missing the point of slavery and contradicts already established canon within the Trek universe about cloning.
This is Star Trek people, everything is meant to be relatible to aspects of the human condition and the social and political injustices of society. Everything is a metaphor that relates back to that. The farther you get away from that, the more you loose what Trek's core theme is.(ENT. is proof of that) The Queen was designed to be a slave master and the drones, her slaves for that reason.

We don't see a queen until Star Trek: First Contact, and only then because the film needed a villain with a face (read about the development for that film, there wasn't always going to be a queen).

In slavery, you have individuals being subjugated to other individuals, or a ruling class. In the Borg, there are no individuals. Everyone is equal. Any newly assimilated drones are immediately made equal to the others. That doesn't describe slavery, it more closely describes Collective Communism.

Honestly, I'm unaware of communists entering other governments and stealing people. That I've come to associate that with enslavers. Wouldn't communists go after the governmental bodies instead of the individual civilians?

 

[tighr]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

Honestly, I'm unaware of communists entering other governments and stealing people. That I've come to associate that with enslavers. Wouldn't communists go after the governmental bodies instead of the individual civilians?

Well, the aftermath of WWII resulted in the rise of the Soviets, which added many countries and territories to their union. Those new citizens weren't slaves, but rather added to the sociological make-up of the union as a whole. The general theme of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" seems to imply that everyone had equal part.

As far as entering other governments and "stealing people", I refer to the Roman Empire, which conquered many lands, yet rather than enslaving the people they simply allowed them to become Roman citizens. It was the only way to remain in control of a VAST empire without dissension, and was a strategy that seemed to work for 1000 years.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

It was hilarious when they wouldn't let Asterix compete in the Olympic Games until he remembered that Gaul had been conquered by Caesar and that he was a Roman Citizen.

 

[exodus]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

Honestly, the Roman empire sounds more like Dominion than the Borg too me. They are the ruling body while keeping the civilizations they touch intact. They didnt try to break you by stripping you of your culture and forcing you to take on theirs. That and labeling a person a drone still sounds like slavery too me.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

You understand that digitally removed from the body, the personality of every drone lives a whole and happy life, an immortal life well past the limitations of the flesh that borne it, as part of the collective on their server farms as part of the ruling elite?

Unimatrix Zero wasn't a special Unimatrix, it was just a secret Unimatrix. the conciousnesses of all those who have been assimilated have universes worth of artificial reality to compose and repose.

To keep with the analogy, the Roman Army marches into Briton, seeing nothing but naked peasants smeared in shit and blue paint, drinking and killing each other over women or 10 feet of land while praying to wind which had really gotta piss off the real gods. The Romans take these illiterate toothless dregs without civilization or education, and give them a seat on the Senate.

Saying you are a slave to the borg becuase your flesh is used for mechaical labour after your higher conciousness is broadcast someplace else is like saying saying that hairdressers are kidnappers and murderers for sweeping up hair cuttings and putting a decent chunk of your livng body in the garbage before burning.

(Yes, I know that all hair is technically dead.)

 

[exodus]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

Unimatrix Zero was only accessable to one random drone out of a thousand.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

Unimatrix Zero was accessible to any drone including the Queen if they had the correct access codes/knew where the frack it was hiding in all the zillions and zillions of lines of code that compose the Collectives collective girth.

The drones that went there accidentally were mutants who couldn't help but fall into unimatrix zero without knowing how to get there through the usual routes on the Borg informaton highway. but the once the queen paid a visit the frakker was mapped and tagged. No longer hidden.

It's like living in a house for years and then finding out that there's a shower in a second bathroom you assumed was a closet. True story. Well it was a friends house I spent every week end at becoming quite drunk inside as a teenager, but after 4 years, I was waiting to use the bathroom and he tells me to use the other shower down the hall.

 

[Lord Manitou]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

Don't forget the Borg Empire is suppose to be the result of a braniac child somewhere in the galaxy. How the Borg should be improved upon is silly because this is how we exist. We are the Borg.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

Perfection is not a fixed point. It's a sliding scale

 

[The Dominion]

Re: Was something wrong with Alice Kringe?

Prove that to the Borg and I wonder if you could get them to go Nomad and implode over the paradox of searching for the impossible.