What would the Borg have become like, if the writers didn't introduced assimilation and the queen?

[Unimatrix Q]

What would the Borg have become like, if the writers developed them further on what was shown in "Q, Who?" and never brought in the concepts of biological assimilation and later the queen?

In "Q, Who?" they only wanted to get the technology of everyone they encountered. So let's speculate in this thread about why they wanted to get other peoples tech and what they would have done with it and what might have been their goals, if the writers never developed the concept of biological assimilation and later the queen.

Let's try to develop an alternate version of the Borg, with "Q, Who" as the only canon episode for this scenario!

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[Qonundrum]

The very first retcon in order to expand their lore was TBOBW. Without that, I suppose the Borg might not be seen as anything other than "glorified Pakleds that are the parodied mirror image of the Federation".

Sadly TNG went back to "Keep them a single race" instead of "expanding via assimilation" in "I, Borg" (thanks to Dr Crusher's single entendre), though one could argue that all these assimilated beings could become a race of their own (as a form of fan-based retcon). STFC revitalizes the assimilation aspect (and then some), which was definitely what was needed to return them to a sense of actual palpable threat.

Was the Queen necessary? Not really... but there is an extension to the collective/hive ideology that justifies a Queen (either cube-level, collective-level, or both.) And, dang, the actor hired knocks it out of the park. Both Borg Queen actors were well cast and for the most part the dialogue was solid or better to begin with. It's better that way.

Why would the Borg need anyone else's technology when it's pretty crystal clear the Borg are better than everyone else in the room and then some? Why would they care for a Federation outpost? (Ditto for, presumably, Romulan ones given this was at the neutral zone?) To annex more territories? as their numbers grow they need more space. Ditto for finding out enemy numbers and relative strength, I'd guess. They needn't assimilate every last diode but even lesser technology can be utilized or innovated upon in ways they, despite their bulk, hadn't fathomed - even a single collective mind can't think of everything on cue. Not even the scripts can and that's when fun for fans begins.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

The very first retcon in order to expand their lore was TBOBW. Without that, I suppose the Borg might not be seen as anything other than "glorified Pakleds that are the parodied mirror image of the Federation".

Sadly TNG went back to "Keep them a single race" instead of "expanding via assimilation" in "I, Borg" (thanks to Dr Crusher's single entendre), though one could argue that all these assimilated beings could become a race of their own (as a form of fan-based retcon). STFC revitalizes the assimilation aspect (and then some), which was definitely what was needed to return them to a sense of actual palpable threat.

Was the Queen necessary? Not really... but there is an extension to the collective/hive ideology that justifies a Queen (either cube-level, collective-level, or both.) And, dang, the actor hired knocks it out of the park. Both Borg Queen actors were well cast and for the most part the dialogue was solid or better to begin with. It's better that way.

Why would the Borg need anyone else's technology when it's pretty crystal clear the Borg are better than everyone else in the room and then some? Why would they care for a Federation outpost? (Ditto for, presumably, Romulan ones given this was at the neutral zone?) To annex more territories? as their numbers grow they need more space. Ditto for finding out enemy numbers and relative strength, I'd guess. They needn't assimilate every last diode but even lesser technology can be utilized or innovated upon in ways they, despite their bulk, hadn't fathomed - even a single collective mind can't think of everything on cue. Not even the scripts can and that's when fun for fans begins.

You've got some really good points here, but i actually think the original concept of the Borg was scarier, in an almost lovecraftian way, than what they became after the episode.

Imho they lost a lot of potential when they were reduced to a mashup of different species interested in reaching perfection through assimilation, while we knew absolutely nothing about their goals and why they stole other people's tech in the original concept.

What i also find extremely interesting in that episode was Guinan talking about a possible coexistence between the Federation and the Borg, when we may have become more advanced. Something that couldn't really work with what was made with the Borg in later episodes.

 

[JesterFace]

Assimilating might be scarier instead of just wiping you out. You would exist but as something else, something you wouldn't want to be and wouldn't be able to control. Probably you wouldn't even know you exist.
In 'I Borg' Geordi did say something like being assimilated would be worse than dying.
Adding assimilation was a good storyline but later the Borg Queen came around and basically ruined the whole concept of the Borg.
I stay away if the story has the Queen in it. When it comes to the Queen, it's good that she didn't appear in any TNG episode.

 

[at Quark's]

As Q said: Understand you? You're nothing to him. He's not interested in your life form. He's just a scout, the first of many. He's here to analyse your technology. <...>The Borg is the ultimate user. They're unlike any threat your Federation has ever faced. They're not interested in political conquest, wealth or power as you know it. They're simply interested in your ship, its technology. They've identified it as something they can consume.

Perhaps if this "consume" part had been developed more, the Borg would have been developed as an artiifical networked intelligence, but with a "computer virus" mentality, that also had a physical manifestation. Imagine something like the Iconian virus (but more aggressive), rewriting soft-and hardware if only the smallest "reproductive" part was inserted into an alien computer system (like that of the Enterprise-D), and occasionally "infecting" people too (which would explain the drones), but not as a goal in itself and hence far less frequent than what we saw onscreen, when considered useful to further its goals (that would remain elusive to us, except that it seems to want to "eat" our computer systems and sometimes even us.)

 

[Unimatrix Q]

As Q said: Understand you? You're nothing to him. He's not interested in your life form. He's just a scout, the first of many. He's here to analyse your technology. <...>The Borg is the ultimate user. They're unlike any threat your Federation has ever faced. They're not interested in political conquest, wealth or power as you know it. They're simply interested in your ship, its technology. They've identified it as something they can consume.

Perhaps if this "consume" part had been developed more, the Borg would have been developed as an artiifical networked intelligence, but with a "computer virus" mentality, that also had a physical manifestation. Imagine something like the Iconian virus (but more aggressive), rewriting soft-and hardware if only the smallest "reproductive" part was inserted into an alien computer system (like that of the Enterprise-D), and occasionally "infecting" people too (which would explain the drones), but not as a goal in itself and hence far less frequent than what we saw onscreen, when considered useful to further its goals (that would remain elusive to us, except that it seems to want to "eat" our computer systems and sometimes even us.)

Interesting idea, but what would actually happen with the tech they have taken from other species in this scenario?

And wouldn't being like a computer virus actually prevent a peaceful coexistence in later times when the Federation became more advanced, what Guinan in this episode thought to be possible? Similar to how it would be with the Borg after this episode.

 

[Prax]

They really don't seem to have any potential to appear again without the assimilation part. They are just a boogie man in Q Who. If you can't talk to them, reason with them, defeat them, or appease them, there's no story that can expand them.

Also, Q Who only works because of Q. The story isn't about the Borg, but Q trying to teach Picard that he's arrogant and in over his head.

The Enterprise episode "Regeneration" is able to repeat a story like Q-Who(this time as an homage to "the Thing") only because the characters have never been introduced to the Borg before, and have no idea how to stop them.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

They really don't seem to have any potential to appear again without the assimilation part. They are just a boogie man in Q Who. If you can't talk to them, reason with them, defeat them, or appease them, there's no story that can expand them.

Also, Q Who only works because of Q. The story isn't about the Borg, but Q trying to teach Picard that he's arrogant and in over his head.

The Enterprise episode "Regeneration" is able to repeat a story like Q-Who(this time as an homage to "the Thing") only because the characters have never been introduced to the Borg before, and have no idea how to stop them.

Actually the introduction of biological assimilation reduced the potential of the Borg imo. They basically became a one-trick-pony with the assimilation shtick, while the original concept was open enough to allow to show a more diverse and alien collective and culture later on. You could also go other ways than to simply let them stay as the ultimate threat which can't be stopped, as hinted at by Guinan's comment...

 

[Prax]

Ironically, they do indeed fulfill what was hinted at by Guinan's "maybe one day"

 

[Unimatrix Q]

Ironically, they do indeed fulfill what was hinted at by Guinan's "maybe one day"

Not really, as the collective was possibly destroyed at the end of Voyager and the Borg might be in disarray in Picard. I thought more about coming to terms and having a constructive dialogue with it, without it being diminished.

 

[JesterFace]

Seems like the Borg is an enemy that is hard to use more than few times, succesfully.
Those few times are interesting though.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

Seems like the Borg is an enemy that is hard to use more than few times, succesfully.
Those few times are interesting though.

Yeah, that's why i think it may have been better to go another route with them. Who says they should have stayed being the indefeatable adversary? With a little thought about it, the writers could have gone a lot of other ways...

Would be great to use this thread to make up some new ways of what to do with them, without assimilation and queens.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

By the way, i actually think that when the first part of "Best Of Both Worlds" was released, full scale assimilation of other species still wasn't a part of the cultural make up of the Borg as there was only Picard being made into a drone and the talk was just about humanity having to serve the collective. Which could also just mean for us to become kind of slaves producing tech for them.

And this would also explain the need for a speaker (Locutus) serving as a kind of ambassador/overseer/link, who is responsible for getting what the Borg may have wanted to get out of Earth.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I thin even without assimilation they would have gone in the direction of breaking them out of the collective, just the question of whether they can become individuals would be harder because they never were.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

I thin even without assimilation they would have gone in the direction of breaking them out of the collective, just the question of whether they can become individuals would be harder because they never were.

That's actually what happened in "I, Borg". Hugh was originally never planned to have been an individual, that was assimilated by the Borg but was apparently a result of procreation by them. Just like all the other drones, beside Locutus, that we saw in TNG.

 

[suarezguy]

It's really hard to see the crew beating the Borg either with or without the assimilation aspect, either way defeating them would probably seem a big stretch, but even without assimilation they would hopefully have still been rarely used and beating them would probably still involve somehow disabling or taking advantage of their interconnected-ness.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

It's really hard to see the crew beating the Borg either with or without the assimilation aspect, either way defeating them would probably seem a big stretch, but even without assimilation they would hopefully have still been rarely used and beating them would probably still involve somehow disabling or taking advantage of their interconnected-ness.

Yeah, but without assimilation the writers might have been able to give the Borg a real culture, a more multifacetted philosophy and possibly more than one goal instead of dumbing them down into assimilation crazy cyborgs searching for perfection.

 

[JesterFace]

Yeah, but without assimilation the writers might have been able to give the Borg a real culture, a more multifacetted philosophy and possibly more than one goal instead of dumbing them down into assimilation crazy cyborgs searching for perfection.

The Borg had their culture, flying around in space trying to assimilate what they want.
There isn't much more to the Borg and there doesn't have to be.

 

[Takeru]

Yeah, but without assimilation the writers might have been able to give the Borg a real culture, a more multifacetted philosophy and possibly more than one goal instead of dumbing them down into assimilation crazy cyborgs searching for perfection.

The borg were originally supposed to be kinda like a force of nature the heroes couldn't stop just like we can't stop an earthquake, Picard was ready to kiss Qs butt to save the ship, that's how helpless they were. This doesn't work for a recurring threat, change had to happen and it's telling that TNG never used the original concept borg again after Q Who. First they added the assimilation angle and in I, Borg and Descent they removed the collective mind.

Without assimilation the collectiveless borg probably would have stuck as an idea and the borg would have become more of a regular Star Trek species.

Adding the queen might not be everyone's favorite idea but at least it let them still be a collective and considering the borg were in early development supposed to be insects a queen makes sense, even as cyborgs they still got labeled with insect terminology like hives and drones so the writers clearly never moved on from that idea.

 

[at Quark's]

Yeah, that's why i think it may have been better to go another route with them. Who says they should have stayed being the indefeatable adversary? With a little thought about it, the writers could have gone a lot of other ways...

Actually they became a lot more "defeatable" in Voyager anyway. But that was the only way to keep telling interesting stories about them and a little ship with no additional resources that had to cross their home turf.

Interesting idea, but what would actually happen with the tech they have taken from other species in this scenario?
And wouldn't being like a computer virus actually prevent a peaceful coexistence in later times when the Federation became more advanced, what Guinan in this episode thought to be possible? Similar to how it would be with the Borg after this episode.

Well, as I said, I thought of an artificial intelligence. With the 'virus mentality' part I was simply thinking about their expanding ruthlessly into territories without acknowledging weaker species as equals, infecting whatever system they can infect, taking whatever they can take- but only if there's an easy opportunity for it. Perhaps a bit comparable with how Europeans plundered and dominated other continents in centuries past- seeing the people there often simply as resources to be used in labour, selling them as slaves. Had they encountered a people that had equal weapons technology and an economy to support prolonged, organised large scale war, they would have been forced to negotiate, and there would have been some kind of "peace" (or armistice at least) in the long run.

Same could be true for the Borg, had the Federation become advanced enough to offer serious resistance. Guinan simply says, "Now, perhaps when you're ready, it might be possible to establish a relationship with them" - emphasis mine, but it's clear she's speaking very hypothetically. That 'relationship' wouldn't necessarily mean a cosy friendship, it could be something akin to the uneasy treaty with the Romulans. That 'relationship' might simply mean that at least the Borg acknowledge from that point forward there will be consequences for them to pay if they try to invade Federation space, nothing more.

As for the technology they take from other species, why couldn't it just work the same as what we got? A piece of technology gets taken over (say, the ent-D), its principles are studied and if anything new is encountered, that knowledge is added to the database and used whenever convenient. We don't know exactly how much the Borg got from that first computer download, except that they knew the ent-D wouldn't be able to withstand them, but to learn every secret, they still might have wanted to capture the ent-D and study it at its leisure.