Had the Borg stayed like they were presented in "Q Who" I'd agree (also since I prefer that version of them) however, the Borg Queen in First Contact mentions that they started out like most other species:
Could be symbiosis. Some alien race and machine race combine together for some reason and the Borg is the result. The Borg might be striving for the Technoorganic where machine and flesh become one.
Cool concept. Plus if you go back to their first appearances in TNG, they did not assimilate organic life. Instead they raised young in tanks al la the Matrix and their main interest was alien technology.
IIRC that was "fixed" by Voyager, stating that the Borg only reproduced by assimilation and that those children in the chambers were those assimilated at a young age.
Had the Borg stayed like they were presented in "Q Who" I'd agree (also since I prefer that version of them) however, the Borg Queen in First Contact mentions that they started out like most other species:
The theory of machines with flesh implants is too good to throw it out of the window just yet.
We don't know much of the Borg Queen's origins. Maybe she is talking about her species which enhanced themselves with cybernetics, and that made them a target for assimilation by the Proto-Borg - to acquire the knowledge how to merge flesh to their machine forms.
I think it will be the Borg, Omega is holy for them and the Queen ordered to assimilate it at any cost. I am sure when they found out that the Voth were starting to use Omega that made them to the primary target for the Borg.
I think it will be the Borg, Omega is holy for them and the Queen ordered to assimilate it at any cost. I am sure when they found out that the Voth were starting to use Omega that made them to the primary target for the Borg.
The thing is, that the Voth started to use Omega because of the Borg (if it's the Borg) invasion, though.
As far as I understand.
Then again, the Voth have highly sophisticated technology which should help the Borg's preparation for the Iconian arrival anyhow.
Gotta be the Borg. If its not?that would be so dumb if they put in some random species that appeared in one episode.
1. That dev post somewhere stated the Borg might have a return/larger role, IIRC.
2. Both Voth and Borg have transwarp tech and (I assume Voth) have control of a lot of territory, so it is inevitable they would encounter one another.
3. Cutscene weapons fire implies Borg; dialogue also. I mean, just screams Borg.
3 episodes after encountering the Voth, Voyager enters the heart of Borg territory. If the Borg are capable of being a major threat to the Voth, then seasons 1-3 of Voyager would've been nothing but Borg episodes. Logically, the Voth are whats keeping the backend of the Delta Quadrant from becoming completely assimilated. (and roving Hirogen hunting parties are whats keeping them in check on the other side) This just feels like another attempt by the devs to rewrite the Voth.
Had the Borg stayed like they were presented in "Q Who" I'd agree (also since I prefer that version of them) however, the Borg Queen in First Contact mentions that they started out like most other species:
She could be speaking from the perspective of her organic half.
You guys do realize that Quarra is a canon world? It's the planet from "Workforce".
Just saying. Not implying you don't know it, but it sounds like it to me?
Oh, and if the Voth are at war with the Quarren... to hell with that.
From everything I would extrapolate from the episodes, a Voth City ship could wipe the floor with their entire civilization.
They have Federation level technology minus a well working replicator-based industry... the Voth on the other hand should be hyper-advanced in comparison.
Should...
that means nothing, the quarren could of brainwashed voth to be obedient workers but also learn a lot of information from within the persons mind and then block it from them. the quarren could of easily learned the strengths and weaknesses of the voth, their ships and how to improve their own ship designs to compensate. you mentioned it yourself, they are highly industrialized, so they could churn out advanced ships in no time and in baulk, so much so that the voth cant adapt to it. strength in numbers.
but i looked up on yout just now for the dyson rep cutscenes and discovered the weapon used to attack that large voth ship. it looks most certainly borg. perhaps a sphere judging by how low the beam is coming from.
this cutscene also helped me understand why the Jenolan sphere disappeared, its the same one most probably considering what the voth defector mentioned.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
that means nothing, the quarren could of brainwashed voth to be obedient workers but also learn a lot of information from within the persons mind and then block it from them. the quarren could of easily learned the strengths and weaknesses of the voth, their ships and how to improve their own ship designs to compensate. you mentioned it yourself, they are highly industrialized, so they could churn out advanced ships in no time and in baulk, so much so that the voth cant adapt to it. strength in numbers.
The Iconians considered the Quarren's brainwashing techniqes interesting, but ultimately too inefficient for large scale use.
I can't really see how those techniqes would help them in a full scale shooting war.
If the Quarren would be able to get all the knowledge from any species they want (even a far more advanced species like the Voth), they would have figured out how to make their industry less dependend on manual labor.
The Iconians considered the Quarren's brainwashing techniqes interesting, but ultimately too inefficient for large scale use.
I can't really see how those techniqes would help them in a full scale shooting war.
If they Quarren would be able to get all the knowledge from any species they want, they would have figured out how to make their industry less dependend on manual labor.
there could be other effects involved with bringing manual labor to the whole thing then spending a lot of money on machines to do the job. while cost and time efficient, manual work may have a lot more benefits. at the time of the voyager crew brainwashing the planet was lacking a lot of labor which is why some resorted to brainwashing. it could of started up again after voyager left the area and millions of other aliens may have been brainwashed.
if we stretch that to sto canon, it could of been refined for larger scale use on the planet, who knows this technology the iconians were interested in, they had their agents smuggle a copy and gave it to hakeev for his usage. what better way to test something then by doing it elsewhere with chaos everywhere a lot of potential subjects and where such technology is unknown.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
there could be other effects involved with bringing manual labor to the whole thing then spending a lot of money on machines to do the job. while cost and time efficient, manual work may have a lot more benefits. at the time of the voyager crew brainwashing the planet was lacking a lot of labor which is why some resorted to brainwashing. it could of started up again after voyager left the area and millions of other aliens may have been brainwashed.
I don't question that the Quarren are brainwashing aliens into servitude.
I am just pointing out that the need for so many workers (look at the episode. Their work spaces are full of laborers, very few things are automated) is a weakness, and no strength - in the long run.
All the major powers we know are using automation based on computers with Virtual Intelligence and the heavy utilization of industrial replicators.
Even the Iconians recoginze (SoI) that the lack of such automation is the weakness of the Quarren. They want to give them knowledge of modern industrial methods in exchange for detailed information about the Quarren brainwashing methods - which they hope to integrate into their own brainwashing techniqes (see Elachi psychic indoctrination and Tal Shiar holographic conditioning) and improve upon it.
In itself, the Quarren brainwashing has some military use, no question, but I just don't see it being the deciding factor in a war against a power like the Voth.
A power which should be able to deactivate their ships remotely and beam them into the next star.
But hey... the enemy of the Voth is the Borg. To much things add up to it being the Borg.
Had the Borg stayed like they were presented in "Q Who" I'd agree (also since I prefer that version of them) however, the Borg Queen in First Contact mentions that they started out like most other species:
One thing that must be pondered is this: Why isn't the Species designation for the Borg Queen's race species 0 or 1?
IF the Borg started as an organic race wouldn't THAT race be the first?
Also the Borg Queen talked about when SHE was assimilated.... so... the idea that the Borg started as inorganic life seems plausible.
Had the Borg stayed like they were presented in "Q Who" I'd agree (also since I prefer that version of them) however, the Borg Queen in First Contact mentions that they started out like most other species:
The Queen may have been referring only to herself rather than the Borg as a whole, as she does have a grammatically awkward habit of interchanging "we" and "I" due to the nature of the hive mind.
The faulty assumption with the Borg IMHO is that they began as organics that strapped on technology. I've seen that take in books and games. It's not very interesting and doesn't resonate for me. I see them as machines that began strapping on flesh. I think what they did with Data in First Contact is how they began (and it explains WHY they'd strap flesh on an android).
Wait. <adapting> So, let's say, this idea:
Originally, the Borg were 100% human(oid). (Like Queenie said).
Then, they invented computers,
eventually AI,
the AI computers took over,
and we have the Terminators...
except the Terminators WON.
But, they found a fatal flaw: they required ENERGY for everything - including self-replication...
But (this is where the idea may fall apart) - the human(oid) body can use energy efficiently. (this may be wrong, but roll with it, and flame me later...)
So they decided that re-assimilating human(oid) bodies was the easiest way to take advantage of this 'feature' of biological life,
so,
Borg as we know them today.
Could this work logically?
Please reconsider ARC. Please make it optional, at the least. PLEASE.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
Originally, the Borg were 100% human(oid). (Like Queenie said).
Then, they invented computers,
eventually AI,
the AI computers took over,
and we have the Terminators...
except the Terminators WON.
But, they found a fatal flaw: they required ENERGY for everything - including self-replication...
But (this is where the idea may fall apart) - the human(oid) body can use energy efficiently. (this may be wrong, but roll with it, and flame me later...)
So they decided that re-assimilating human(oid) bodies was the easiest way to take advantage of this 'feature' of biological life,
so,
Borg as we know them today.
Could this work logically?
That's the story of Matrix.
Just sayin'. :rolleyes:
Oh, and the "human(oid) bodies as energy source" thingy is indeed flawed.
Energy is energy. You don't get more energy if you let it pass through a humanoid body. The energy is in the matter (in that case food). We generate energy by simple "combustion" with an effiency of .... I think 20 percent maybe? So we are using in a good case 20 percent of the energy stored in what we are eating.
Matter - Anti Matter reaction is far, far more efficient (100 percent).
I also wish to point out that organic from my point of view means "carbon based chemistry." Not alive, not super-fresh-pesticide-free-expensive-farm-food.
"we were once like you, yadda yadda ORGANIC" if you want to go with the machine-life-strapping-on-flesh idea... organic-chemistry-based machine life. Over time they've adapted their chemistry... silicon, polycrystalline, metallic-polymer, something really exotic. It's a bit of a stretch but it could work.
Personally I don't take what he Queen said at face value, she was far too emotional and personal to be anything other than a damaged malfunctioning spokesperson disconnected from the main collective.
In Voyager I see her as an attempt to interface with the ship and crew ala picard/Locutis, and not as the driving force behind the collective.
In both cases a female humanoid was selected because of detailed studies of human/Federation psychology the "queen" personality selected because the cultures of the Federation would on paper respond favorably to a central authority figure.
Going forward, we have the same situation in STO, central authority figure representing the will of the distributed collective. Going after what is in effect a juiced-up uberdrone is a huge waste of time and resources, and the Borg know this. Its a decoy tactic.
3 episodes after encountering the Voth, Voyager enters the heart of Borg territory. If the Borg are capable of being a major threat to the Voth, then seasons 1-3 of Voyager would've been nothing but Borg episodes. Logically, the Voth are whats keeping the backend of the Delta Quadrant from becoming completely assimilated. (and roving Hirogen hunting parties are whats keeping them in check on the other side) This just feels like another attempt by the devs to rewrite the Voth.
This. Given the distance and travel abilities of both factions, the Voth have to be more than capable of raising a big ol' finger to the Borg and blasting them into submission (or just shutting them down like other tech). We're talking about people that have tech the Borg would love to have... but haven't assimilated. Unless I missed an episode or mission where the Borg completely disable a starship and then beam it inside the nearest cube/larger ship for assimilation while it's helpless. Or an episode where they're transwarping without any gate or conduit, as the Voth appear to.
And the Hirogen do kind of get a shortened stick in STO. One hunter did mention that he'd tracked prey across the surface of a star, after all. If they've got gear that lets them walk on stars, the Borg wouldn't be much of a threat to them. Especially since they managed to hunt an Undine. Sure, it was isolated, but given the capabilities of the Undine (which, naturally, STO neutered, as with the Voth), it should have been able to kill them as easily as it would Borg. Except it didn't, either because they never gave it the opportunity or because it couldn't.
Or an episode where they're transwarping without any gate or conduit, as the Voth appear to.
The Borg can at least do that.
Transwarp Coils are made for that reason.
I think you a re giving the Hirogen to much credit.
They are cool and they have nice technology. But I don't think they are Borg level. Not to begin with their fractured society and no true industrial basis to fight a sustained war of attrition against anyone, especially the Borg with their almost limitless ammount of drones and ressources.
The Voth, on the other side, are in my opinion at least the Borg's equals. Less numbers (I guess), but even better technology.
The Borg can at least do that.
Transwarp Coils are made for that reason.
I think you a re giving the Hirogen to much credit.
They are cool and they have nice technology. But I don't think they are Borg level. Not to begin with their fractured society and no true industrial basis to fight a sustained war of attrition against anyone, especially the Borg with their almost limitless ammount of drones and ressources.
The Voth, on the other side, are in my opinion at least the Borg's equals. Less numbers (I guess), but even better technology.
It's entirely possible that I give the Hirogen too much credit, but since they could manage to actually hunt the 'perfect' organic being that was fully capable of slaughtering Borg even on an individual scale, I'm inclined to believe that they would at least inconvenience the Borg. A hunter doesn't engage in battles of attrition. A hunter hits and runs, or attacks with overwhelming power when s/he can. Bleed the prey until it is weak if you are not strong enough to kill it/mortally wound it with a single blow. Which is, I think, what ruminate00 was getting at when he(?) posited that the Hirogen could be 'keeping the Borg in check' near the border.
As for transwarp coils... you still have to consider that the Borg have gateways and hubs for a reason. They are logic taken to an extreme that even Vulcans would balk at. If transwarp coils solve all problems that would necessitate a hub or conduit, why have the superfluous installations at all? The resources put into them could have gone into the creation of more cubes, spheres, probes, or even a big ol' unimatrix ship. Why would the Borg have those huge, clunky gates that we can blow up to halt their invasion in an STF if transwarp coils let them just drop ships wherever they want? I will readily admit that they can already do that because their warp tech is superior to 'ours' due to its gravitic/gravimetric/phlebotonium propulsion (I recall Geordi talking about it in an episode, but never referring to it as transwarp), but the fact that they have transwarp hubs and conduits says that it's still not quite enough for them to have 'true' transwarp the way the Voth did in the episode.
does any one remember that one Next Generation episode where these bugs live inside the humans neck and by doing that they gave them inhanced strength an speed. They also took controle of starfleet command and by the end of the episode they have transmitted a message to there home world which I can't remember all the details about that message
It's entirely possible that I give the Hirogen too much credit, but since they could manage to actually hunt the 'perfect' organic being that was fully capable of slaughtering Borg even on an individual scale
That's my point.
I don't consider that to be a great hint to the overall strength of the Hirogen as a species.
As individual hunters, they are great. But individual hunters and even the hunting parties they manage to assemble sometimes are not enough to become a galactic player.
Of course, that could change if some Hirogen with more vision would get it their way and their society would begin to integrate again into a nation or something similar.
I'm inclined to believe that they would at least inconvenience the Borg
I can go with that, no doubt.
Which is, I think, what ruminate00 was getting at when he(?) posited that the Hirogen could be 'keeping the Borg in check' near the border.
Keeping the Borg in check sounds easy. But although I grant the Hirogen that they may be a big inconvenience, disrupting Borg operations in many sectors of space, I don't thinkg they could really "keep the Borg in check".
The Hirogen are not organized enough on a large scale to assemble a hunting party big enough if a hundred Borg Cubes decide to assimilate species xyz, even if it's located in the middle of the Hirogen's "hunting ground's" (lacking a better name for the space they operate in).
They are nomadic, too. Always searching for good prey. They may slow the Borg a bit, but they can not and perhaps do not want to keep them in check.
transwarp coils solve all problems that would necessitate a hub or conduit
Never said transwarp coils are solving every problem.
They have a limited life time and perhaps they are still slower then fixed transwarp tunnels.
Do we know, though, that the Voth's technology functions any different? We saw them travelling at transwarp without using a gate or hub.
The Borg can do that, too.
That doesn't mean that the Voth may not possess hubs and gates for even more efficient transwarp travel, too.
But that's all speculation.
What should be said, though, is that there was at least one Voth Borg drone in Voyager.
does any one remember that one Next Generation episode where these bugs live inside the humans neck and by doing that they gave them inhanced strength an speed. They also took controle of starfleet command and by the end of the episode they have transmitted a message to there home world which I can't remember all the details about that message
They were planned to be linked to what should become the Borg
But the show went another way, and the Neural Parasites were forgotten.
That's one storyline I want STO to pick up.
Well, since the Voth were a one-off species, we never got to see if they had hubs or conduits. For all we know, those city-ships could function as mobile transwarp hubs. But at the moment, the only evidence we have that isn't STO-manufactured is that they treat transwarp like it's basic warp.
Did that drone actually have the three-fingered hands, or was it just a case of similar head on a drone? I think I can remember which one you're talking about, but I can't remember if it had the hands to 'truly' indicate it was actually a Voth drone or not.
The Borg suffered changes, even in "Q who" they were initial intended as race of insectoids but for budget reasons they became cyborg form but still, they were never linked to the Borg and cannot be done at this stage.
You cannot reconcile the neural parasites with the Borg because they are totally different at this stage and would be nonsensical.
Oh, I didn't intend to imply that the Borg we got in the end and the Neural Parasites are linked.
They were planned to be connected, but as you said, plans changed.
The Parasites and the Borg have no in-universe connection.
We already have the Undine and I rather we stop going into side adventures that lead to nothing and instead finish all the dangling plot points.
Hm, you have a point here.
Good storytelling could do both, though.
The problem is... S8's story so far was underwhelming.
As in... there was hardly any story.
One thing I'd like to see (assuming season 9 is a Borg resurgence) is the promises of the Undines return, we made an alliance (of sorts) with them in The Light In The Dark, its about time they got off their butts and started actively opposing the Iconians already.
Comments
Could be symbiosis. Some alien race and machine race combine together for some reason and the Borg is the result. The Borg might be striving for the Technoorganic where machine and flesh become one.
IIRC that was "fixed" by Voyager, stating that the Borg only reproduced by assimilation and that those children in the chambers were those assimilated at a young age.
The theory of machines with flesh implants is too good to throw it out of the window just yet.
We don't know much of the Borg Queen's origins. Maybe she is talking about her species which enhanced themselves with cybernetics, and that made them a target for assimilation by the Proto-Borg - to acquire the knowledge how to merge flesh to their machine forms.
The thing is, that the Voth started to use Omega because of the Borg (if it's the Borg) invasion, though.
As far as I understand.
Then again, the Voth have highly sophisticated technology which should help the Borg's preparation for the Iconian arrival anyhow.
3 episodes after encountering the Voth, Voyager enters the heart of Borg territory. If the Borg are capable of being a major threat to the Voth, then seasons 1-3 of Voyager would've been nothing but Borg episodes. Logically, the Voth are whats keeping the backend of the Delta Quadrant from becoming completely assimilated. (and roving Hirogen hunting parties are whats keeping them in check on the other side) This just feels like another attempt by the devs to rewrite the Voth.
She could be speaking from the perspective of her organic half.
that means nothing, the quarren could of brainwashed voth to be obedient workers but also learn a lot of information from within the persons mind and then block it from them. the quarren could of easily learned the strengths and weaknesses of the voth, their ships and how to improve their own ship designs to compensate. you mentioned it yourself, they are highly industrialized, so they could churn out advanced ships in no time and in baulk, so much so that the voth cant adapt to it. strength in numbers.
but i looked up on yout just now for the dyson rep cutscenes and discovered the weapon used to attack that large voth ship. it looks most certainly borg. perhaps a sphere judging by how low the beam is coming from.
this cutscene also helped me understand why the Jenolan sphere disappeared, its the same one most probably considering what the voth defector mentioned.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
even the borg had a starting point, what that was? it was supposed to of been shown on ENT in season 5, but ENT never made it that far.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
The Iconians considered the Quarren's brainwashing techniqes interesting, but ultimately too inefficient for large scale use.
I can't really see how those techniqes would help them in a full scale shooting war.
If the Quarren would be able to get all the knowledge from any species they want (even a far more advanced species like the Voth), they would have figured out how to make their industry less dependend on manual labor.
there could be other effects involved with bringing manual labor to the whole thing then spending a lot of money on machines to do the job. while cost and time efficient, manual work may have a lot more benefits. at the time of the voyager crew brainwashing the planet was lacking a lot of labor which is why some resorted to brainwashing. it could of started up again after voyager left the area and millions of other aliens may have been brainwashed.
if we stretch that to sto canon, it could of been refined for larger scale use on the planet, who knows this technology the iconians were interested in, they had their agents smuggle a copy and gave it to hakeev for his usage. what better way to test something then by doing it elsewhere with chaos everywhere a lot of potential subjects and where such technology is unknown.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I don't question that the Quarren are brainwashing aliens into servitude.
I am just pointing out that the need for so many workers (look at the episode. Their work spaces are full of laborers, very few things are automated) is a weakness, and no strength - in the long run.
All the major powers we know are using automation based on computers with Virtual Intelligence and the heavy utilization of industrial replicators.
Even the Iconians recoginze (SoI) that the lack of such automation is the weakness of the Quarren. They want to give them knowledge of modern industrial methods in exchange for detailed information about the Quarren brainwashing methods - which they hope to integrate into their own brainwashing techniqes (see Elachi psychic indoctrination and Tal Shiar holographic conditioning) and improve upon it.
In itself, the Quarren brainwashing has some military use, no question, but I just don't see it being the deciding factor in a war against a power like the Voth.
A power which should be able to deactivate their ships remotely and beam them into the next star.
But hey... the enemy of the Voth is the Borg. To much things add up to it being the Borg.
IF the Borg started as an organic race wouldn't THAT race be the first?
Also the Borg Queen talked about when SHE was assimilated.... so... the idea that the Borg started as inorganic life seems plausible.
My character Tsin'xing
The Queen may have been referring only to herself rather than the Borg as a whole, as she does have a grammatically awkward habit of interchanging "we" and "I" due to the nature of the hive mind.
Wait. <adapting> So, let's say, this idea:
Originally, the Borg were 100% human(oid). (Like Queenie said).
Then, they invented computers,
eventually AI,
the AI computers took over,
and we have the Terminators...
except the Terminators WON.
But, they found a fatal flaw: they required ENERGY for everything - including self-replication...
But (this is where the idea may fall apart) - the human(oid) body can use energy efficiently. (this may be wrong, but roll with it, and flame me later...)
So they decided that re-assimilating human(oid) bodies was the easiest way to take advantage of this 'feature' of biological life,
so,
Borg as we know them today.
Could this work logically?
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
That's the story of Matrix.
Just sayin'. :rolleyes:
Oh, and the "human(oid) bodies as energy source" thingy is indeed flawed.
Energy is energy. You don't get more energy if you let it pass through a humanoid body. The energy is in the matter (in that case food). We generate energy by simple "combustion" with an effiency of .... I think 20 percent maybe? So we are using in a good case 20 percent of the energy stored in what we are eating.
Matter - Anti Matter reaction is far, far more efficient (100 percent).
"we were once like you, yadda yadda ORGANIC" if you want to go with the machine-life-strapping-on-flesh idea... organic-chemistry-based machine life. Over time they've adapted their chemistry... silicon, polycrystalline, metallic-polymer, something really exotic. It's a bit of a stretch but it could work.
Personally I don't take what he Queen said at face value, she was far too emotional and personal to be anything other than a damaged malfunctioning spokesperson disconnected from the main collective.
In Voyager I see her as an attempt to interface with the ship and crew ala picard/Locutis, and not as the driving force behind the collective.
In both cases a female humanoid was selected because of detailed studies of human/Federation psychology the "queen" personality selected because the cultures of the Federation would on paper respond favorably to a central authority figure.
Going forward, we have the same situation in STO, central authority figure representing the will of the distributed collective. Going after what is in effect a juiced-up uberdrone is a huge waste of time and resources, and the Borg know this. Its a decoy tactic.
This. Given the distance and travel abilities of both factions, the Voth have to be more than capable of raising a big ol' finger to the Borg and blasting them into submission (or just shutting them down like other tech). We're talking about people that have tech the Borg would love to have... but haven't assimilated. Unless I missed an episode or mission where the Borg completely disable a starship and then beam it inside the nearest cube/larger ship for assimilation while it's helpless. Or an episode where they're transwarping without any gate or conduit, as the Voth appear to.
And the Hirogen do kind of get a shortened stick in STO. One hunter did mention that he'd tracked prey across the surface of a star, after all. If they've got gear that lets them walk on stars, the Borg wouldn't be much of a threat to them. Especially since they managed to hunt an Undine. Sure, it was isolated, but given the capabilities of the Undine (which, naturally, STO neutered, as with the Voth), it should have been able to kill them as easily as it would Borg. Except it didn't, either because they never gave it the opportunity or because it couldn't.
The Borg can at least do that.
Transwarp Coils are made for that reason.
I think you a re giving the Hirogen to much credit.
They are cool and they have nice technology. But I don't think they are Borg level. Not to begin with their fractured society and no true industrial basis to fight a sustained war of attrition against anyone, especially the Borg with their almost limitless ammount of drones and ressources.
The Voth, on the other side, are in my opinion at least the Borg's equals. Less numbers (I guess), but even better technology.
It's entirely possible that I give the Hirogen too much credit, but since they could manage to actually hunt the 'perfect' organic being that was fully capable of slaughtering Borg even on an individual scale, I'm inclined to believe that they would at least inconvenience the Borg. A hunter doesn't engage in battles of attrition. A hunter hits and runs, or attacks with overwhelming power when s/he can. Bleed the prey until it is weak if you are not strong enough to kill it/mortally wound it with a single blow. Which is, I think, what ruminate00 was getting at when he(?) posited that the Hirogen could be 'keeping the Borg in check' near the border.
As for transwarp coils... you still have to consider that the Borg have gateways and hubs for a reason. They are logic taken to an extreme that even Vulcans would balk at. If transwarp coils solve all problems that would necessitate a hub or conduit, why have the superfluous installations at all? The resources put into them could have gone into the creation of more cubes, spheres, probes, or even a big ol' unimatrix ship. Why would the Borg have those huge, clunky gates that we can blow up to halt their invasion in an STF if transwarp coils let them just drop ships wherever they want? I will readily admit that they can already do that because their warp tech is superior to 'ours' due to its gravitic/gravimetric/phlebotonium propulsion (I recall Geordi talking about it in an episode, but never referring to it as transwarp), but the fact that they have transwarp hubs and conduits says that it's still not quite enough for them to have 'true' transwarp the way the Voth did in the episode.
That's my point.
I don't consider that to be a great hint to the overall strength of the Hirogen as a species.
As individual hunters, they are great. But individual hunters and even the hunting parties they manage to assemble sometimes are not enough to become a galactic player.
Of course, that could change if some Hirogen with more vision would get it their way and their society would begin to integrate again into a nation or something similar.
I can go with that, no doubt.
Keeping the Borg in check sounds easy. But although I grant the Hirogen that they may be a big inconvenience, disrupting Borg operations in many sectors of space, I don't thinkg they could really "keep the Borg in check".
The Hirogen are not organized enough on a large scale to assemble a hunting party big enough if a hundred Borg Cubes decide to assimilate species xyz, even if it's located in the middle of the Hirogen's "hunting ground's" (lacking a better name for the space they operate in).
They are nomadic, too. Always searching for good prey. They may slow the Borg a bit, but they can not and perhaps do not want to keep them in check.
Never said transwarp coils are solving every problem.
They have a limited life time and perhaps they are still slower then fixed transwarp tunnels.
Do we know, though, that the Voth's technology functions any different? We saw them travelling at transwarp without using a gate or hub.
The Borg can do that, too.
That doesn't mean that the Voth may not possess hubs and gates for even more efficient transwarp travel, too.
But that's all speculation.
What should be said, though, is that there was at least one Voth Borg drone in Voyager.
They were planned to be linked to what should become the Borg
But the show went another way, and the Neural Parasites were forgotten.
That's one storyline I want STO to pick up.
Did that drone actually have the three-fingered hands, or was it just a case of similar head on a drone? I think I can remember which one you're talking about, but I can't remember if it had the hands to 'truly' indicate it was actually a Voth drone or not.
Oh, I didn't intend to imply that the Borg we got in the end and the Neural Parasites are linked.
They were planned to be connected, but as you said, plans changed.
The Parasites and the Borg have no in-universe connection.
Hm, you have a point here.
Good storytelling could do both, though.
The problem is... S8's story so far was underwhelming.
As in... there was hardly any story.