Were the Voth more powerful than the Borg?

[Saquist]

Scientist say the Asteroid that collided with Earth at the Yucatan 65.5 million years ago.
Janways comments reflect that cap. There is no doubt regardles of how much time one thinks evolution took to advance a species the point is that the Dinosaurs have been around for 160 million years. Mammals to humans was 61.5 million years. In the grand scheme of evolution humans evolved very quickly within 8 million years so the real question is why nothing else evolved intelligence. Voyager's episode capitalizes on that question suggesting there was another sentient species in the interval.

Many people don't actually comprehend the length of time of millions of years but this is such a massive amount of time.

(Note I do not believe in macro-evolution)

 

[Guy Gardener]

This is the basis of the original Stargate movie. Man was plenty advanced enough to build pyramids 12 thousand years ago and then they were persuaded to fall back to barbarism because their new Alien leader was a dick... What else would you call the dark Ages? If Rome hadn't fallen, we might have been sending rockets to Mars in the 12th century (Which REALLY hammers home the plot of the episode about religion hating on anything heretical like the truth, science or an honest account of history.) ...

Frak Aliens, there been a few pockets where civilization could have risen and fell invisibly during the last 2 hundred thousand years where upon man could have built a society and then it's all Ozymandias look upon my wonders and marvel, but it's obvious that we all came from Caprica running from the Cylon Apocalypse and the Apes are going to take over after that flu kills all the dogs and cats... relly, what do you think that Zoe Greystone said to Skynet when it started getting all paranoid thinking that it was the first AI life form to teeth?

"Chillax, this has happened before and it will happen again."

 

[Kai Winn]

CHAKOTAY said:

I see something very different, Minister. An ancient race of Saurians, probably the first intelligent life on Earth, surrounded by some of the most terrifying creatures that ever lived, and yet they thrived, developed language and culture and technology. And when the planet was threatened with disaster, they boldly launched themselves into space, crossed what must have seemed like unimaginable distances, facing the unknown every day. But somehow they stayed together, kept going, with the same courage that had served them before, until they reached this quadrant, where they laid the foundation of what has become the great Voth culture. Deny that past and you deny the struggle and achievements of your ancestors. Deny your origins on Earth, and you deny your true heritage.

i posted this on page two.

Chuckles clearly says that they got frightened and buggered off under their own power back in dinosaur times.

chuckles is speculating, and trying to suck up to madame minister. 65 million years ago, the hadrosaurus lumbered on four legs, long before the ability to use a screwdriver evolved. does it not make more sense to stick with janeways guess that they survived the meteorit 65 million years ago, and a more recent extinction event drove them off? wasn't there one some 70,000 years ago, that almost killed off humanity? or they couldn't cope with the cold of the ice ages.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I doubt that Chakotay would have been making stuff up while talking to an authority on the subject, it's a fast way to get (literally) crusified when we could as easily suppose that the humans on Voyager in shock asked Vir and his step pappy Gegen about almost a million stupid questions while waiting for the inquisition to start....

"ctrl (and) F (at he same time)" starts up a find function with your browser which you can use to find words of phrases inside a browser frame.

I opened the page for the script url I supplied above.

Typed in the word "million" into the find field and this is what I wrought...

GEGEN: For millions of years our people have believed that we were the first intelligent beings to evolve in this region of space. The first race. This assumption underlies everything that we hold dear. But that belief has been questioned in recent years, not only by the Circles of Science and Philosophy, but by the common people as well. Lying before you is proof of the Distant Origin theory. These remains demonstrate beyond doubt that we arose elsewhere in this galaxy, that we evolved on a far away planet, and travelled to this space millions of years ago, our true history lost.

Yeah, just perhaps they weren't kicking back in the AQ to notice any ELEs on earth 70,000 years ago.

And to think I was about to waste another 40 minutes of my life watching this episode for the 20th time if that is evidence to the contrary factualizing that all resistance to my will and vision is futile.

How far into an argument here about Voyager do we each feel compelled to back up our memory with a second viewing of the episode when 10 year old memories might be somewhat hazy and there's every chance that our most earnest heartfelt convictions are gobshite?

I was reaching for my copy of season 3.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Well we can surmise that the Voth left earth and arrived in the Delta Quadrant 20 million years ago. This comes from Nana Voth - "We are not immigrants! I will not deny twenty million years of history, and doctrine, just because one insignificant Saurian has a theory!"

I like to think that the Voth evolved after the KT event and obviously thrived on earth. There is evidence (albeit highly debated and generally disregarded) to suggest that non-maniraptoran dinosaurs (those that didn't evolve into birds) may have survived anywhere between 40,000 - 1 million years beyond KT. The Voth could have been impacted by the middle miocene disruption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Miocene_disruption

At this point the voth rebelled, evolved and had a plan to go on a BSG type quest across the stars. One has to wonder though why they decided to settle in the delta quadrant.

I hope someday that a novel or (fingers crossed) a future series follows up on the voth. It would pretty cool if Nana Voth decided that Earth wasn't such a lousy home after all and decided to kick out the current tenants.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It happens on Doctor Who all the time.

Silurians.

 

[Ness]

I know this thread is ancient, but I just rewatched Distant Origin again and saw the Voth just completely own Voyager and immobilize the ship like someone snapping their fingers. With all of the technology they possess, transwarp, remarkable cloaking technology, the ability to transport a starship within a vast "city ship", and dampening fields that can essentially turn a starship "off" while rending all handheld weapons on board useless...I don't see how the Borg would have a chance.

Like others have stated, Federation starships like Voyager would have at least been able to put up some kind of fight against the Borg, and in rare instances destroy one of their ships. There was at least the possibility of escape. Against the Voth, they were captured in what seemed like seconds and literally had no defense. The Voth didn't even have to use any kind of weapons from their ship to disable Voyager.

 

[Guy Gardener]

the Borg don't use those methods because they assume that everyone wants to be assimilated.

They're surprised every time someone puts up a fight.

It's really confusing for the Borg.

 

[Ness]

It would have been interesting to see the Voth overtake the Enterprise D or E. I wonder if having Data would have at least delayed the Voth overtaking. I'm guessing no.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Think about he methods the Federation's Anthropologists have to examine developing early cultures invisibly.

If Janeway can't take Kirks Enterprise, with the same ease that the Voth pwned her, then she's really not playing the game.

 

[Ness]

What are you talking about? What does Kirk have to do with this?

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Voth pwn Voyager because they have a vastly superior technology that laughs at Voyager.

In turn...

Voyager "should" pwn Kirk's Enterprise because she has a vastly superior technology that laughs at the 1701.

Economies of scale.

But...

How manhandled would Kirk be by the Voth worse than Janeway?

 

[Ness]

The Voth pwn Voyager because they have a vastly superior technology that laughs at Voyager.

In turn...

Voyager "should" pwn Kirk's Enterprise because she has a vastly superior technology that laughs at the 1701.

Economies of scale.

But...

How manhandled would Kirk be by the Voth worse than Janeway?

Alright, what is your point in regards to The Borg vs. The Voth?

And I think the gap between The Voth and Voyager is much greater than the cap between Kirk's Enterprise and Janeway's Voyager.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's page four, relax, the thread is supposed to get away form you.

Are the Borg and the Voth on the same level?

The voth have 20 million years of recorded History(look it up) meanwhile the Borgs memory for just nine hundred years ago is fragmentary (look it up) when thy only occupied a hand full of star systems.

The only way to measure their respective power is by how completely they pummel federation technology.

The Voth counters it perfectly on first contact.

The Borg however get their asses handed to them at every encounter for the past decade (I'm not counting Archer, first Contact in the past, or the Hansens.)

How far back woul kathryn have to go to meet a comparatively primative culture which she could "counter perfectly"?

I mean janeway had trouble treadding water in 1996, which is nothing I suppose compared to Archer's shuttlecraft get pantsed by a couple p-51 mustangs in 1946.

It's like fighting children.

Is it easier to fight a baby, a 5 year old or a 16 year old?

In any case you'd have a baseball bat, so it's clarly not a fair fight even with a 16 year.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

To be fair to my fav Captain... she had "trouble treading water" in 1996 against someone using technology 500 years more advanced than her own.

And yet... she STILL kicked the evil computer CEO's buttocks AND prevented the 29th cent Temporal police from destroying her ship.

 

[Guy Gardener]

A monkey with a machine gun.

It's sorta easy to kill a monkey?

But you have to stomp on it's spine before Bobo figures out what a trigger is.

 

[Deks]

The Voth have been around for millions of years as a species and apparently have about 20 million years of history as a civilization (and how many more have been 'discarded' or 'forgotten' due to their unwillingness to see themselves as 'refugees' who had to flee Earth).

Granted, we don't know how many setbacks as a society they might have had though, and their 'doctrine' seemingly played a big part in holding them back for quite a while.
Humans and the Federation on the other hand seem to embrace new discoveries and technologies - if you look at Enterprise alone, Humans were able to almost catch up to the Vulcans level of technology in mere 90 years - sooner even, if the Vulcans hadn't been holding back the Warp 5 program.
Other factors have to be taken into account though for this speedy development.
Observation of Vulcan technology in action could have easily gave Humans ideas even if they may have lacked the schematics.
Couple that with slow revamping of economy that focused probably on what is feasible from a resource/technology/manpower point of view alone (resource based economy after money went down the drain).
I would imagine that a lot of humans today would be surprised to know of just what as a species we can do when you eliminate money from the equation and focus on what's doable and release the newest and most advanced technologies as soon as they are conceived of (because, this seems to be the way that SF works).

From a galactic perspective, the Voth could be only several hundred years ahead of the Borg (whose main advantage stems from nano-technology and collective consciousness - but those 2 aspects could be only slight derivatives of technologies that the Feds have at their disposal to do the same thing - the Borg merely used them to develop along a different 'path' and accelerate their growth somewhat - and remember, they mainly assimilate new technologies, they don't invent them - although, its very odd they can't do this given the collective consciousness aspect - nevermind if they 'enslave' the people who are assimilated - their knowledge becomes part of the collective and new ideas could come to mind).

Anyway... I would surmise its definitely possible/likely the Voth are more advanced.
They were certainly around long enough to do that, but we are coming back to their 'doctrine' imposing severe issues in terms of their technological development that could have held them back for most of that time, resulting in far superior technology compared to other sapient species in the galaxy, but the difference at hand might not be as large as some people think.

The Federation might catch up, if not even surpass the Voth well before the 30th century.
Who knows, perhaps the Voth decide to join the Federation in the upcoming centuries (past the 24th of course).

 

[Guy Gardener]

the Voth have a natural abilty to become invisible.

All of them?

Possibly they went through their own Eugenics panic and the thousands of different species of dinosaurs suddenly generating unique talents as well as copying each others traits, which is why all the Voth despite bing completely different "animals" can stand under the same banner...

Their ships are quite invisible too.

If the Borg can't see you they don't see you.

 

[Deks]

Natural ability to become invisible?
Not to my knowledge.
The episode that featured the Voth showed they had devices attached to their arms that allowed them to become invisible.
Tuvok and Paris experimented with one of those devices at and surmised it was based on phasing (much like the phase cloak) - and since phasers operate on similar principles, they were able to disable the cloaking field through frequency adjustment.

We know the smaller scout ship that was tracking Voyager had the ability to phase-cloak, but we don't know if it's applicable to the city-ships (although I would surmise it may be so because the Enterprise-D employed phase-cloaking, and that technology is likely a lot more primitive).

The Voth seem to perceive themselves more evolved than mammalian species (I mean as a species, not necessarily technologically - though the latter is certainly applied), and they very well could be since their ancestors who fled Earth could have been (on a genetic level at the time) comparable to 21st or 22nd century humans (for example).
So from an evolutionary point of view, the Voth effectively have a head start on Humans by at least 20 million years.
They do seem to exhibit the ability to shoot darts for immobilizing potential threats, and put themselves in a self-induced state of hibernation - which could be a byproduct of this long term evolution.

I'm not so sure they dabbled in eugenics to the point of enhancing themselves... or they could have - still, one would hope they would have exhibited even better abilities without technological aid - and they overpowered Voyager mostly on the merit of their superior tech.

Who knows, perhaps the Federation will employ genetic enhancements sometime into the future once they reach a point they think they can handle it as the Denobulans did (most of what this did to the Denobulans, it enhanced their physical attributes, and possibly mental capacity in terms of memory/learning/etc.).

 

[Guy Gardener]

Lets not forget their potency on the basket ball court.