When did the Borg begin assimilating, onscreen?

[Smellincoffee]

The Borg were originally introduced as being interested in technology, not lifeforms. By Voyager's time, they seemed to be interested mostly in turning people into Borg drones, with their interest in the Omega particle being a reminder of their once-tech oriented roots. Was Picard the first person to be assimilated, on-screen? And after that, did the writers find the concept of individuals losing themselves to the Collective fundamentally more interesting than an implacable enemy collecting new technology?

 

[-Brett-]

Yes, Picard was the first person assimilated on screen. As I recall, there's a line of dialogue in "Best of Both Worlds" acknowledging the change.

I suppose if they were only interested in technology, they could be too easily appeased. Just give them the occasional hard drive detailing everything your civilization knows or has built.

 

[jimbotron]

The Borg were bees in Q Who, and technology was their pollen. As long as you don't swat at them, they won't bother you.

In BOBW, they continued to act like bees, only now they were coming to get people. A change more than a retcon, they did so only to make Picard a Borg for the neat cliffhanger.

Once Braga had his way with them, they were zombies controlled by an easily duped queen. Tons of retcons and continuity errors abound.

 

[Melakon]

The first two replies are pretty much accurate, as I remember.

 

[Christopher]

Once Braga had his way with them, they were zombies controlled by an easily duped queen.

Well, the "zombie" Borg and the Queen were introduced in First Contact, which was written by Rick Berman and Ron Moore as well as Braga. Indeed, Braga was the junior member of that collaboration.

But yes, in TNG the assumption was that Borg drones were incubated from infancy as drones and never had any other identity. Picard's assimilation was portrayed as a rare thing. When Hugh and other drones were liberated in "I, Borg" and "Descent," they had no prior lives; they were empty vessels seeking to create identities. Even in First Contact, the assimilations we saw were the result of the Borg being low in numbers after the destruction of their cube and needing to assimilate personnel in order to replenish.

So it wasn't until VGR that we began to see assimilation portrayed as a normal practice. But that wasn't because of Brannon Braga. It began in the third season, while Jeri Taylor was the showrunner, starting in the episode "Unity" written by Kenneth Biller, in which we encountered a colony of former assimilated drones. It then continued in "Scorpion," which was written by Braga and his writing partner Joe Menosky, but still under showrunner Taylor (and, of course, answering to Rick Berman).

The explanation I offered in my TNG novel Greater Than the Sum was that the Borg in the Delta Quadrant had been severely depleted by the war with Species 8472 and thus had to assimilate more aggressively than before to replenish their numbers. True, VGR showed us plenty of drones assimilated before then, but I figured they always used both methods, assimilation and incubation. But they kept the incubated drones in the further reaches of their territory as a rule, because those drones would be less likely to rebel if they were cut off from the Collective.

 

[SonicRanger]

Ah, but the Star Trek: Borg game (1996) featured characters being assimilated during the battle of Wolf 359, years before it became a VOY trope.

 

[jimbotron]

Eh, I just like blaming Braga.

The Borg were an idea that was awesome in Q Who and BOBW, flipped on its head but still enjoyable in I Borg, and approaching tired in Descent. First Contact really put them into the public consciousness, unfortunately they had strayed too far from what made them unique and terrifying, simply becoming monsters with a nifty tagline.

I wouldn't have minded the changes so much had it not been for the retcon that the Borg Queen was on the cube in BOBW. Had they said that a Borg Queen was newly created as a leader in response to the defeat in BOBW, that would have been a change that made sense. Instead, they George Lucas'd TNG's best episode to fit the movie's narrative.

 

[Tiberius]

Yes, Picard was the first person assimilated on screen. As I recall, there's a line of dialogue in "Best of Both Worlds" acknowledging the change.

Shelby: "I thought they weren't interested in Human life forms. Only our technology."

Picard: "Their priorities seem to have changed."

However, if we watch Trek in the order it is set in, we see drones assimilating people in Enterprise, so it seems that we aren't looking at a change in the Borg's behaviour, but rather humans not being aware of something and then becoming aware of it.

 

[Tiberius]

But yes, in TNG the assumption was that Borg drones were incubated from infancy as drones and never had any other identity. Picard's assimilation was portrayed as a rare thing. When Hugh and other drones were liberated in "I, Borg" and "Descent," they had no prior lives; they were empty vessels seeking to create identities. Even in First Contact, the assimilations we saw were the result of the Borg being low in numbers after the destruction of their cube and needing to assimilate personnel in order to replenish.

So it wasn't until VGR that we began to see assimilation portrayed as a normal practice. But that wasn't because of Brannon Braga. It began in the third season, while Jeri Taylor was the showrunner, starting in the episode "Unity" written by Kenneth Biller, in which we encountered a colony of former assimilated drones. It then continued in "Scorpion," which was written by Braga and his writing partner Joe Menosky, but still under showrunner Taylor (and, of course, answering to Rick Berman).

The explanation I offered in my TNG novel Greater Than the Sum was that the Borg in the Delta Quadrant had been severely depleted by the war with Species 8472 and thus had to assimilate more aggressively than before to replenish their numbers. True, VGR showed us plenty of drones assimilated before then, but I figured they always used both methods, assimilation and incubation. But they kept the incubated drones in the further reaches of their territory as a rule, because those drones would be less likely to rebel if they were cut off from the Collective.

Let's not forget that in Unity we find out that people were assimilated at Wolf 359, so I don't think it was as a result of the war with Species 8472.

 

[Robert Comsol]

It didn't happen onscreen, but I'd bet that both the personnel of the Earth and Romulan outposts ("The Neutral Zone") and the colonists of Jouret IV ("BoBW") were assimilated and turned into Borg drones.

Otherwise we'd be dealing with lying Borg, because Locutus explicitly told Worf "We only wish to raise quality of life for all species."

In my book the inevitable conclusion would be that the aforementioned outpost personnel and the colonists were turned into drones (add to this that no bodies were ever found).

Bob

 

[Timo]

But yes, in TNG the assumption was that Borg drones were incubated from infancy as drones and never had any other identity.

But then comes VOY and explicitly denies that the Borg would have babies of their own. Which means that the infants seen in "Q Who?" must retroactively be interpreted as assimilation victims, and thus precede Picard's assimilation on screen. So all the Borg seen in "Q Who?" are assimilation victims, and form our first visual evidence of the practice, in terms of Paramount chronology.

In light of VOY, offscreen assimilations appear to have taken place throughout the existence of the Borg Collective, and thus must have begun ages ago, in terms of Star Trek internal chronology. Perhaps those "hundreds of millennia" ago mentioned in "Q Who?", or perhaps at some later stage but still at least about a thousand years ago at a minimum ("Dragon's Teeth").

Shelby: "I thought they weren't interested in Human life forms. Only our technology."

Picard: "Their priorities seem to have changed."

However, if we watch Trek in the order it is set in, we see drones assimilating people in Enterprise, so it seems that we aren't looking at a change in the Borg's behaviour, but rather humans not being aware of something and then becoming aware of it.

Exactly. The "information" our heroes obtained on the Borg in "Q Who?" came from two people principally: a mischievous alien known as the God of Lies, and a Listener who didn't really want to discuss the issue, and in general preferred "cryptic" to "informative" even in (especially in!) matters of life and death. It's no wonder they drew false conclusions.

"They are not interested in you, only your technology" is not a categorical statement, apparently. It's a typical Q quip at Picard, about him and the other heroes not being sufficiently interesting individuals or worthy targets of assimilation!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Robert Comsol]

"They are not interested in you, only your technology" is not a categorical statement, apparently. It's a typical Q quip at Picard, about him and the other heroes not being sufficiently interesting individuals or worthy targets of assimilation!

Yes, I thought that Q was just being a jerk here, too.

Bob

 

[Christopher]

Eh, I just like blaming Braga.

But that's just what bewilders me -- that the people who want to criticize or attack Braga usually do so by ignoring everyone else he worked with, disregarding their contributions altogether and elevating Braga to a level of solo auteurship he never actually had. So in trying to put down Braga, you're actually elevating him and putting down his collaborators.

I wouldn't have minded the changes so much had it not been for the retcon that the Borg Queen was on the cube in BOBW. Had they said that a Borg Queen was newly created as a leader in response to the defeat in BOBW, that would have been a change that made sense.

I don't think that would have made sense, any more than the change of suddenly wanting to turn Picard into Locutus made sense. I mean, the Borg have been around for thousands of years and spread across a great deal of the galaxy. Surely they've had setbacks and defeats before. So it doesn't make sense that one more defeat would've caused them to make a fundamental change in the way they did things. After all, the cube they sent in BOBW wasn't really an invasion by their standards -- it was a survey. One cube out of tens of thousands sent to probe a remote power and assess its suitability for assimilation. Losing that one cube was a setback, but a minor one in the grand scheme of things, and presumably not the first such setback in their millennia of existence.

(Okay, so why was the Queen aboard? Because there's more than one Queen. That Queen body was destroyed, but the Queen herself survived because she's not a physical being, she's a central coordinating program within the collective consciousness, able to be downloaded into various drone bodies as needed. Cubes operating far from the heart of the Collective may need their own local Queens to maintain control.)

 

[Timo]

^I can't fathom why people so often blame ST:FC and VOY for watering down the Borg, when speculation such as above rather suggests that ST:FC and VOY reintroduced science fiction to the Borg concept.

Rather than mere zombies in spaaace!, we get a complex lifeform with frightening and baffling quirks, hidden goals, and an alien form of existence that completely differs from the human one yet might still make perfect sense. Here, finally, is an adversary that doesn't grow less threatening or at least less alien with repeated clashes.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[jimbotron]

^I can't fathom why people so often blame ST:FC and VOY for watering down the Borg, when speculation such as above rather suggests that ST:FC and VOY reintroduced science fiction to the Borg concept.

The Borg watering down began in TNG in I Borg. It's unavoidable really, since you can't just have Q Who and BOBW over and over again, there has to be something new. I'm OK with that, but I despise retcons. VOY's only crime with the Borg was overuse. Nanoprobes this, nanoprobes that.

 

[WillsBabe]

The Borg were originally introduced as being interested in technology, not lifeforms.

In BOBWI, the Borg say that they want to add our "technological and biological distinctiveness" to their own. I haven't read the whole thread, so it could be that others have also pointed this out.

 

[Christopher]

The Borg were originally introduced as being interested in technology, not lifeforms.

In BOBWI, the Borg say that they want to add our "technological and biological distinctiveness" to their own. I haven't read the whole thread, so it could be that others have also pointed this out.

But that was the Borg's second appearance. We're talking about their debut in "Q Who," where Q said, "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." And also, "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."

That's the point -- that "Q Who" established the Borg as completely uninterested in living beings, but that was limiting from a story standpoint, so when they were brought back for their second go in BOBW, that was immediately retconned so that they suddenly had an interest in assimilating people (or at least one person) as well as tech.

Although I think maybe the producers were too quick to abandon the idea of a totally impersonal menace with no interest in anything but consuming our technology. Stargate SG-1 did that with the Replicators and was able to make it work for several seasons, although eventually they had the Replicators evolve into an android form and develop personalities.

 

[Robert Comsol]

I have no doubt that from a production point of view you are right, but from an in-universe point of view we can still claim that this kind of information comes exclusively from Q (the same who made a big speech earlier this episode how dangerous Guinan was and that it would be best if Picard got rid of her).

Certainly Q didn't even want to watch Picard trying to communicate with the Borg, here's a little reminder from "All Good Things": "You worrying about Commander Riker's career, listening to Counsellor Troi's pedantic psychobabble, indulging Data in his witless exploration of humanity."

The problem then remains Locutus' reply to Worf in BoBW:
"Why do you resist? We only wish to raise quality of life for all species."

Now, was that genuine or a Borg deception? Admittedly, the Borg didn't say a thing in "Q Who" and were left wondering what that mysterious "Q Drive" achieved...

By the time of BoBW they started to talk - maybe they felt that a species capable of the "Q Drive" is worth talking and assimilating?

Bob

 

[jimbotron]

I have no doubt that from a production point of view you are right, but from an in-universe point of view we can still claim that this kind of information comes exclusively from Q (the same who made a big speech earlier this episode how dangerous Guinan was and that it would be best if Picard got rid of her).

That's a disconnect I have when talking about this. To me, the production point of view is always the basis. "In-universe" has no meaning to me, because the universe can be retconned at any moment. In BOBW, there was no Borg queen. In First Contact, there was supposedly a Borg queen there. But when I watch BOBW, having a queen there introduces way too many plot holes, no matter how much Braga, Moore and Berman say otherwise.

In Q Who, the Borg didn't assimilate people, but in Raven (set about 10 years before Q Who), the Borg did assimilate people, oh and some of humanity were already aware of the Borg and a married couple figured out on their own how to appear invisible to them. Too much to swallow. Q's dialogue about what the Borg are and how they operate is what it is. If one were to combine the two conflicting ideas, then Q must be lying or is very misinformed. He is neither - Raven is wrong. But Raven is supposedly canon too, so fans have to come up with theories to explain it. I have no interest in explaining away retcons.

That's one of the reasons I don't bother with Voyager and Enterprise, or the Star Wars prequels and special editions.

 

[Christopher]

I agree that a lot was retconned, but I'm not sure "wrong" is a valid word to use there. After all, it's just one thing somebody made up disagreeing with another thing somebody made up. Neither of them is "right" or "wrong" because they're both imaginary. They just disagree, is all.

Indeed, any long-running canon changes its details over time, and usually it's the earlier version that's treated as "wrong," or rather superseded by the later version. After all, creation is a process of refinement. If we were slaves to the first ideas we had, every work of fiction would be terrible. It's the prerogative of creators to edit and refine their work, to rethink their ideas and improve on them. In a single, self-contained work, you do as much of that as you can before publication; but in an ongoing series, if you come up with a better idea or realize a mistake after an installment has already come out, the only way to refine and improve the work is by disregarding what you said the first time and asking your audience to play along with the conceit that it actually happened this way instead. As if the earlier installments were rough drafts and your later episodes are more polished and refined, with the errors shaken out.

Indeed, there's a lot of that in Trek going back to the very beginning. If only the earliest depiction of a thing were "right," then it would be "wrong" to call Spock a Vulcan rather than a Vulcanian, "wrong" to mention James T. Kirk instead of James R. Kirk, "wrong" to call the Enterprise a Federation ship rather than an Earth ship, "wrong" to refer to warp factors rather than time warp factors, etc.