1. Every dirty thought you ever had will be known to others, including where you hid those Orion woman's underwear catalogues when you was 15.
2. If a Twilight, My Little Pony Is Friendship or Justin Bieber fan is asimultaed, your a instant fan too......
I don't think Twilight, Little Pony or Bieber would pass even as the smallest footnotes in a 24th century history book. As far as Orion woman's underwear catalogues..... i am not ashamed of what i am. :rolleyes:
For the Borg that do not willingly leave the Collective, utter destruction is the only means to ensure peace. They simply can not be trusted.
I don't think it's a question of whether drones might decide to "willingly leave the Collective". From all I've seen, the idea seems to be that individual Borg drones are not actually conscious, any more than any other part of the wiring of a Borg cube - the Collective is one giant computer built out of brains and bits of stolen machinery. There is no "they"; you're dealing with an "it".
"It", considered as a person, seems to be ruthless, unimaginative (it gets new ideas only by stealing them), and a bit slow on the uptake, except on practicalities like the best way to block a tetryon beam. It's prone to silly superstitions for some reason (Omega Molecules, species 8472). It's on a mission to "upgrade" itself by all possible means, currently robbery.
And it seems as if it has trouble grasping the idea of talking to individual beings. When it sends a hail, it addresses it to a population or a ship. That makes sense, I suppose; to an entity like the Borg Collective, whose "body" is made up of loads of beings, talking to one being would be weird, like talking to somebody's big toe!
I don't think that would work in the long run. Originally the directive was simple: "Learn all that is learnable". As the Borg evolved that directive remained but the process changed. Rather than exploration they assumed assimilation as the most efficient means of gaining the knowledge of countless species.
Well, if the methods could change once without changing the basic aim, they could change again. In fact, the "One" episode suggests that they eventually do; the nanites from the future seem to have shifted tactics to cloning other people's stuff rather than stealing it. As Seriousxeno says, though, deliberately getting them to change tactics would be one heck of a hacking job. Where did you get "Learn all that is learnable", by the way? I don't think I've heard that.
Here's the thing with the Borg: they're not a "species", they're more like a single entity with their collective mind. For them, negotiating or making peace with us is like talking to ants or individual cells. The sheer scale of the hive mind is such that they have trouble even noticing individuals (it's mentioned several times in TNG they don't really assimilate individuals very often and usually only target large groups, mostly for the same reason if you're dealing with ants you attack the anthill), and from the interactions we see in Voyager, they find the experience of interacting with individuals extremely tedious.
To the Borg, people are noisy, small, stupid, and won't get to the point. Remember, the voice of the Borg isn't a single one, but a sociopathic chorus. Much like we're not actually single entities but rather a few trillion very tiny entities that are all bonded together. The Borg are a massive super-entity, so talking to us... well, who the hell cares what the bacterium have to say? Even if they could talk, they rarely have anything to say that interests you.
But then, my pet theory is that the Undine themselves are less a civilization and more the immune system of some unimaginably colossal organism, with fluidic space being it's bloodstream. No wonder they and the Borg hate each other: it's the first time the Borg have run into another being like itself.
But then, I always liked a more Lovecraftian take on the Borg, in the sense that the Collective's hive mind is so huge, well, it just plain doesn't really think of us as people, when it deigns to notice us at all.
There are a lot of directions you can go with the Borg if you aren't afraid to risk changing them up.
I think an obvious way to go is psychological. A bit of Philip K. A bit of Karel Capek.
They have been prone to deception. They need to incorporate deception more.
We've seen them slowly adapting this tactic. Locutus was given what almost seemed like individuality, enough to function for intimidation. (But it may have been true individuality; he wasn't a drone.) The Queen learned to lie over the course of Voyager.
So I'd think the next step is to create individual personas which are deployed. Maybe initially to ease species into recruiting by concealing the truth that individuality is lost by having drones who are designed to act like they have retained their individuality. Rather than expend resources taking a species by pure force, you boost efficiency by lying to them and having drones behave as though they have individuality and emotions. It's simulated, like Data acting in a play.
From there, things like fear, love, lust, hope, various emotions might be seen as having evolutionary efficiencies and the potential to spur innovations. So then you start downloading entirely fabricated emotions and personalities into drones. They become fully emotional and conscious, just not the original consciousness assigned to them and task based. Think, for example of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse and the personality/skill downloads. Congratulations, three of twelve, you're now assigned the (completely made up) role of Dr. M'Jakk, a quantum physicist obsessed with warp dynamics after the death of his daughter. The warp core's repaired? Now three of twelve gets assigned the role of Captain Botak, a gruff police officer. Wait? Intruders are aboard the cube? Retract and conceal disfiguring implants. Activate holographic clothing subroutine. Three of twelve is now jazz singer femme fatale Sonya Kapowski, intent on seducing the leader of the enemy away team and once he's at his weakest, three of twelve becomes Bo'tali, a hardened assassin.
And these personalities become so evolved that they start changing the Collective.
Though I think it's crucial to keep the sheer alienness of the Borg. They have a view of the universe and world we cannot really understand. It's part of what makes them so interesting as antagonists, that they're really one of the most alien aliens in Trek. That and they're not like fighting an army; they're like fighting a hurricane.
The Borg represent Technophobia. The opposite of Gene Roddenberry's bright vision for technology in the future.
That said, they are a popular villain and a trek staple. They're here to stay as bad guys just like Daleks, Cybermen, and Cylons. Occasionally there will be ones that break their villainous programming and become allies but that's about it.
Where did you get "Learn all that is learnable", by the way? I don't think I've heard that.
I believe that's a reference to the fan theory that the Voyager 6 probe (or "V'ger", as it came to call itself) somehow caused the Borg to come into being. Of course, this disregards considerable evidence that the Borg existed a loooooong time before the Voyager probes were launched - or before humans figured out how to build ocean-crossing ships, for that matter - but the "learn all that is learnable" line is part of Decker's restatement of V'ger's purpose in Star Trek: The Motionless Picture. (No idea what happened to the "bring that knowledge back to the Creator" part, though.)
Where did you get "Learn all that is learnable", by the way? I don't think I've heard that.
"Learn all that is learnable" was the basic mission of the Voyager probe, which eventually returned to earth as the V'ger in the first TOS movie, and V'ger the thing that STO's borg command vessels are designed around.
the basic theory behind that being that the 'machine race' that found V'ger, repaired it and sent is back to earth were probably an earlier form of the Borg.
Real Temporal Operative: Purchased the Special Temporal Agent pack before it was even officially announced!
"Learn all that is learnable" was the basic mission of the Voyager probe, which eventually returned to earth as the V'ger in the first TOS movie, and V'ger the thing that STO's borg command vessels are designed around.
the basic theory behind that being that the 'machine race' that found V'ger, repaired it and sent is back to earth were probably an earlier form of the Borg.
Even if it was the Borg who did that, why would their mandate for a probe reflect their own core mandate as a species?
I use a toothbrush to clean my teeth. If I upgraded a toothbrush, I would upgrade it to clean teeth better or maybe in a show of power to clean all teeth perfectly. That doesn't mean I come from a culture whose sole purpose is perfect teeth.
V'Ger's goal was always to gather knowledge. It was simply upgraded to do the job better. It doesn't even mean that the machine people who found it cared to gather all knowledge. They were simply enhancing V'Ger's ability to perform what it was designed to do.
The Borg have murdered countless alliance personnel in an attempt of my way or the highway actions.....eradication of the borg threat is the only action permissible
I believe that's a reference to the fan theory that the Voyager 6 probe (or "V'ger", as it came to call itself) somehow caused the Borg to come into being. Of course, this disregards considerable evidence that the Borg existed a loooooong time before the Voyager probes were launched - or before humans figured out how to build ocean-crossing ships, for that matter - but the "learn all that is learnable" line is part of Decker's restatement of V'ger's purpose in Star Trek: The Motionless Picture. (No idea what happened to the "bring that knowledge back to the Creator" part, though.)
It's a funny thing - The Borg did not exist or were anywhere near Earth during Cochrane's maiden flight of the Phoenix, yet there they were.
Time is a funny thing. Very fluid. I still adhere to the belief that V'Ger, Ilia and Decker were the "parents" of the Borg we know today. Throw in a predestination paradox and we have Borg preexisting their own creation. In the universe of Star Trek, it's not that far-fetched a concept.
I think the big thing about the Borg as an unyielding, unchanging, voiceless force of nature is that there are fewer stories in that. Or, at least, you have 1-2 basic stories per character that boil down to "he escapes the Borg"/"the Borg kill him". How many stories are you interested in seeing about a storm or a tornado? Actually, that could be really novel once or twice but people are going to insist on the Borg appearing more than there are stories for a faceless natural force and if they appear more often than that, they have to take on character. Character relies on mistakes and incidents. Which means you're eventually going to see lots of "The Borg come to the captain with a problem."
That happened to Q as well, incidentally.
I think people who want the Borg to remain a static force for ever are viewing things from RPG/simulationist/in-universe logic, not storyteller/screenwriter's logic. Which I think by necessity does and should trump in-universe logic.
From my vantage point, the question should the TNG universe continue is, "What problem will the Borg show up asking for the Federation's help with next?" And before you suggest subverting this, Brannon Braga already did in the comic Star Trek: TNG Hive, set post-Nemesis.
And he killed off a major character and blew up Andoria, contradicting both the novels and STO. Though I think STO could incorporate that if they really wanted to by acknowledging the character's death and resurrection and, well... Was anyone really paying attention to Andoria here?
Going by STO depictions they're really not going well in the 'adapt and survive' department. We all routinely slaughter them by the thousands and the Voth, Undine and Vaadwaar are all capable of holding their own against them too.
They barely featured at all in Delta Rising, apart from the scattered remains of them getting picked off and rescued by The Cooperative.
They've gone from significant threat to minor hinderance, and by now driving them to extinction would be a more likely future scenario than peace. The Borg don't really have a leg to stand on, even if they do attempt some sort of diplomatic compromise.
I think the big thing about the Borg as an unyielding, unchanging, voiceless force of nature is that there are fewer stories in that. Or, at least, you have 1-2 basic stories per character that boil down to "he escapes the Borg"/"the Borg kill him". How many stories are you interested in seeing about a storm or a tornado? Actually, that could be really novel once or twice but people are going to insist on the Borg appearing more than there are stories for a faceless natural force and if they appear more often than that, they have to take on character. Character relies on mistakes and incidents. Which means you're eventually going to see lots of "The Borg come to the captain with a problem."
That happened to Q as well, incidentally.
I think people who want the Borg to remain a static force for ever are viewing things from RPG/simulationist/in-universe logic, not storyteller/screenwriter's logic. Which I think by necessity does and should trump in-universe logic.
From my vantage point, the question should the TNG universe continue is, "What problem will the Borg show up asking for the Federation's help with next?" And before you suggest subverting this, Brannon Braga already did in the comic Star Trek: TNG Hive, set post-Nemesis.
And he killed off a major character and blew up Andoria, contradicting both the novels and STO. Though I think STO could incorporate that if they really wanted to by acknowledging the character's death and resurrection and, well... Was anyone really paying attention to Andoria here?
Better question than "What problem are they going to ask for help with next?": How long do you think the Federation, or perhaps the Klingons and Romulans, are going to be able to keep a straight face before bursting out laughing and then blowing them clear back to the Delta Quadrant?
I can see Eleya's response: "Phekk you. You made your bed, now lie in it. Tess? Lock phasers."
It's never going to happen. I disagree with your entire premise. Consistent storytelling should come first, and everything you just said is completely inconsistent with the Borg portrayal from day frakking one. I'm frankly ashamed of IDW that they greenlit that story, although my opinion of Brannon Braga as a writer is so low already I'd find it hard for it to disappoint me.
As a writer myself, I'd rather see the Collective burn than subject them to that level of Villain Decay.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Better question than "What problem are they going to ask for help with next?": How long do you think the Federation, or perhaps the Klingons and Romulans, are going to be able to keep a straight face before bursting out laughing and then blowing them clear back to the Delta Quadrant?
I can see Eleya's response: "Phekk you. You made your bed, now lie in it. Tess? Lock phasers."
It's never going to happen. I disagree with your entire premise. Consistent storytelling should come first, and everything you just said is completely inconsistent with the Borg portrayal from day frakking one. I'm frankly ashamed of IDW that they greenlit that story, although my opinion of Brannon Braga as a writer is so low already I'd find it hard for it to disappoint me.
As a writer myself, I'd rather see the Collective burn than subject them to that level of Villain Decay.
You can have consistency or you can have story. Story is entirely about upsetting consistency, at least temporarily, even if the consistency re-emerges at the end of the story.
You can have consistency or you can have story. Story is entirely about upsetting consistency, at least temporarily, even if the consistency re-emerges at the end of the story.
You've got the definitions of "consistency" and "status quo" confused. Yes, story is about upsetting the status quo within the limits of plausibility. I would find it highly implausible for anything resembling either your scenario or the OP's to take place given the evidence of the nature of the Collective.
I remind you that even when the Borg were within months of extinction, they didn't seek Janeway out for help, she offered assistance to them.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
You've got the definitions of "consistency" and "status quo" confused. Yes, story is about upsetting the status quo within the limits of plausibility. I would find it highly implausible for anything resembling either your scenario or the OP's to take place given the evidence of the nature of the Collective.
I remind you that even when the Borg were within months of extinction, they didn't seek Janeway out for help, she offered assistance to them.
Well, blowing them all up would upset consistency too. Or having them assimilating everything would as well.
But the point being, you can't have a story that keeps everything in precious glass cages.
Also, a really daring story is one that hinges on selling an wildly implausible premise, although, sure, you can bite off more than you can chew given time and quality constraints. Generally, though, if the underdog doesn't win, you're looking at a Bambi vs. Godzilla scenario which is primarily funny because it subverts expectations. A perfectly plausible premise is a simulation, not a story, because there is no incident.
Starfleet fancies itself a mass of Picards, even if they usually act more like Kirk (or even Greene). If an offer of peace from the Collective seemed sincere (although this would seem highly improbable, and would require one heck of a hard sell to us as players), I could see Command ordering cooperation - with caution, of course.
On the other tentacle, we already have the Cooperative, which is hard at work co-opting any "lenient" elements from the Collective. So there's that.
Well, blowing them all up would upset consistency too. Or having them assimilating everything would as well.
Nope, it would just majorly upset the status quo of the setting, like Star Trek: Destiny did when they closed with the mass liberation of the Borg Collective at the cost of several major planets and sixty percent of Starfleet (eventually leading to the formation of a new power bloc to rival the Federation, the Typhon Pact). If well-written it could be perfectly internally consistent. For example you could have a Starfleet captain agonizing over having pulled the trigger even though it saved trillions of lives, a la Sisko in "In the Pale Moonlight".
But the point being, you can't have a story that keeps everything in precious glass cages.
Also, a really daring story is one that hinges on selling an wildly implausible premise, although, sure, you can bite off more than you can chew given time and quality constraints. Generally, though, if the underdog doesn't win, you're looking at a Bambi vs. Godzilla scenario which is primarily funny because it subverts expectations. A perfectly plausible premise is a simulation, not a story, because there is no incident.
I'm talking about plausibility in terms of willing suspension of disbelief here, something STO is already having problems with in copy-pasting Fed storylines onto the KDF and Romulans, never mind where they disregard the fact that the player character is invariably the ranking officer present in a given scenario but their input is ignored (if it's even asked for).
For example, it is utterly implausible that a warp-capable culture would need to fight wars over water (the Kazon), given how it is one of the most common molecules in existence. No water where you are? Go someplace else. That kind of thing just makes you look like a bad writer. It would likewise be implausible and inconsistent with his character for Picard to fire the first shot against anyone (except the Borg after BOBW).
Likewise, viewers found it implausible that a species that acted as silly as the Ferengi could possibly be the major villain of a series, which was what eventually led to the introduction of the Borg in the first place.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Likewise, viewers found it implausible that a species that acted as silly as the Ferengi could possibly be the major villain of a series, which was what eventually led to the introduction of the Borg in the first place.
Case of "truth is stranger than fiction" there... :-)
Nope, it would just majorly upset the status quo of the setting, like Star Trek: Destiny did when they closed with the mass liberation of the Borg Collective at the cost of several major planets and sixty percent of Starfleet (eventually leading to the formation of a new power bloc to rival the Federation, the Typhon Pact). If well-written it could be perfectly internally consistent. For example you could have a Starfleet captain agonizing over having pulled the trigger even though it saved trillions of lives, a la Sisko in "In the Pale Moonlight".
I'm talking about plausibility in terms of willing suspension of disbelief here, something STO is already having problems with in copy-pasting Fed storylines onto the KDF and Romulans, never mind where they disregard the fact that the player character is invariably the ranking officer present in a given scenario but their input is ignored (if it's even asked for).
For example, it is utterly implausible that a warp-capable culture would need to fight wars over water (the Kazon), given how it is one of the most common molecules in existence. No water where you are? Go someplace else. That kind of thing just makes you look like a bad writer. It would likewise be implausible and inconsistent with his character for Picard to fire the first shot against anyone (except the Borg after BOBW).
Likewise, viewers found it implausible that a species that acted as silly as the Ferengi could possibly be the major villain of a series, which was what eventually led to the introduction of the Borg in the first place.
I know what you're talking about. I am asking you kindly to stop viewing this as an RPGer.
Narrative status quo = narrative consistency. A story is a change to the baseline, hence a consistency interruption.
And what you are talking about is addressed by my statement that you can bite off more than you can chew in terms of time or quality. Anything can be justified but there is a question of whether it is worth justifying.
Kazon could be justified, for example. But doing so would require a rather elaborate explanation that would detract from the story, which is WHY making them have a water shortage was a dumb idea. It was not because it couldn't be justified. Rather, it was because the effort of justifying it would have been misspent time.
Given enough time and enough quality writing, a story could explain and justify Nog singlehandedly defeating the Dominion. However, this kind of story would require many years to both make it plausible and palatable, allowing for almost no missteps on the part of writers, who might have to spend years making it plausible and emotionally satisfying. Hence, setting out to do this would generally be a bad move. Not strictly because it's implausible but because the effort of making it plausible would likely not be worth it for the payoff you'd get.
Nothing is forever implausible. Any ant can defeat any giant. But the question becomes whether it's worth doing.
Regardless, the Borg just floating around out there assimilating things is not a story. It's a status quo. All status quos should be disrupted somehow, even if they're reset at the end, or you have no story.
Also, where the Ferengi go, I've seen at least three pitches that were sent to CBS in the last ten years that leaked (one was by Hannibal-producer Bryan Fuller?) which altered the Ferengi to become galactic class threats.
The Ferengi, as-is, are not.
Every one of these pitches involved something like the Ferengi doing something like buying and selling Xindi/Dominion genetic technology and being gifted with super-weapons from some outside power and then becoming something physically and culturally different over a 100+ year time gap until they wind up with a ruling class of Ferengi augments looking more like the xenomorphs from Aliens or something to that effect, with traditional Ferengi as refugees or wiped out by their more aggressive new competitors within the society.
Generally when something keeps popping up in pitches, it tends to happen eventually because other writers see these pitches and start mulling over how they'd make it happen.
Comments
I don't think Twilight, Little Pony or Bieber would pass even as the smallest footnotes in a 24th century history book. As far as Orion woman's underwear catalogues..... i am not ashamed of what i am. :rolleyes:
I don't think it's a question of whether drones might decide to "willingly leave the Collective". From all I've seen, the idea seems to be that individual Borg drones are not actually conscious, any more than any other part of the wiring of a Borg cube - the Collective is one giant computer built out of brains and bits of stolen machinery. There is no "they"; you're dealing with an "it".
"It", considered as a person, seems to be ruthless, unimaginative (it gets new ideas only by stealing them), and a bit slow on the uptake, except on practicalities like the best way to block a tetryon beam. It's prone to silly superstitions for some reason (Omega Molecules, species 8472). It's on a mission to "upgrade" itself by all possible means, currently robbery.
And it seems as if it has trouble grasping the idea of talking to individual beings. When it sends a hail, it addresses it to a population or a ship. That makes sense, I suppose; to an entity like the Borg Collective, whose "body" is made up of loads of beings, talking to one being would be weird, like talking to somebody's big toe!
Well, if the methods could change once without changing the basic aim, they could change again. In fact, the "One" episode suggests that they eventually do; the nanites from the future seem to have shifted tactics to cloning other people's stuff rather than stealing it. As Seriousxeno says, though, deliberately getting them to change tactics would be one heck of a hacking job. Where did you get "Learn all that is learnable", by the way? I don't think I've heard that.
To the Borg, people are noisy, small, stupid, and won't get to the point. Remember, the voice of the Borg isn't a single one, but a sociopathic chorus. Much like we're not actually single entities but rather a few trillion very tiny entities that are all bonded together. The Borg are a massive super-entity, so talking to us... well, who the hell cares what the bacterium have to say? Even if they could talk, they rarely have anything to say that interests you.
But then, my pet theory is that the Undine themselves are less a civilization and more the immune system of some unimaginably colossal organism, with fluidic space being it's bloodstream. No wonder they and the Borg hate each other: it's the first time the Borg have run into another being like itself.
But then, I always liked a more Lovecraftian take on the Borg, in the sense that the Collective's hive mind is so huge, well, it just plain doesn't really think of us as people, when it deigns to notice us at all.
I think an obvious way to go is psychological. A bit of Philip K. A bit of Karel Capek.
They have been prone to deception. They need to incorporate deception more.
We've seen them slowly adapting this tactic. Locutus was given what almost seemed like individuality, enough to function for intimidation. (But it may have been true individuality; he wasn't a drone.) The Queen learned to lie over the course of Voyager.
So I'd think the next step is to create individual personas which are deployed. Maybe initially to ease species into recruiting by concealing the truth that individuality is lost by having drones who are designed to act like they have retained their individuality. Rather than expend resources taking a species by pure force, you boost efficiency by lying to them and having drones behave as though they have individuality and emotions. It's simulated, like Data acting in a play.
From there, things like fear, love, lust, hope, various emotions might be seen as having evolutionary efficiencies and the potential to spur innovations. So then you start downloading entirely fabricated emotions and personalities into drones. They become fully emotional and conscious, just not the original consciousness assigned to them and task based. Think, for example of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse and the personality/skill downloads. Congratulations, three of twelve, you're now assigned the (completely made up) role of Dr. M'Jakk, a quantum physicist obsessed with warp dynamics after the death of his daughter. The warp core's repaired? Now three of twelve gets assigned the role of Captain Botak, a gruff police officer. Wait? Intruders are aboard the cube? Retract and conceal disfiguring implants. Activate holographic clothing subroutine. Three of twelve is now jazz singer femme fatale Sonya Kapowski, intent on seducing the leader of the enemy away team and once he's at his weakest, three of twelve becomes Bo'tali, a hardened assassin.
And these personalities become so evolved that they start changing the Collective.
That said, they are a popular villain and a trek staple. They're here to stay as bad guys just like Daleks, Cybermen, and Cylons. Occasionally there will be ones that break their villainous programming and become allies but that's about it.
"Learn all that is learnable" was the basic mission of the Voyager probe, which eventually returned to earth as the V'ger in the first TOS movie, and V'ger the thing that STO's borg command vessels are designed around.
the basic theory behind that being that the 'machine race' that found V'ger, repaired it and sent is back to earth were probably an earlier form of the Borg.
Even if it was the Borg who did that, why would their mandate for a probe reflect their own core mandate as a species?
I use a toothbrush to clean my teeth. If I upgraded a toothbrush, I would upgrade it to clean teeth better or maybe in a show of power to clean all teeth perfectly. That doesn't mean I come from a culture whose sole purpose is perfect teeth.
V'Ger's goal was always to gather knowledge. It was simply upgraded to do the job better. It doesn't even mean that the machine people who found it cared to gather all knowledge. They were simply enhancing V'Ger's ability to perform what it was designed to do.
It's a funny thing - The Borg did not exist or were anywhere near Earth during Cochrane's maiden flight of the Phoenix, yet there they were.
Time is a funny thing. Very fluid. I still adhere to the belief that V'Ger, Ilia and Decker were the "parents" of the Borg we know today. Throw in a predestination paradox and we have Borg preexisting their own creation. In the universe of Star Trek, it's not that far-fetched a concept.
That happened to Q as well, incidentally.
I think people who want the Borg to remain a static force for ever are viewing things from RPG/simulationist/in-universe logic, not storyteller/screenwriter's logic. Which I think by necessity does and should trump in-universe logic.
From my vantage point, the question should the TNG universe continue is, "What problem will the Borg show up asking for the Federation's help with next?" And before you suggest subverting this, Brannon Braga already did in the comic Star Trek: TNG Hive, set post-Nemesis.
And he killed off a major character and blew up Andoria, contradicting both the novels and STO. Though I think STO could incorporate that if they really wanted to by acknowledging the character's death and resurrection and, well... Was anyone really paying attention to Andoria here?
Going by STO depictions they're really not going well in the 'adapt and survive' department. We all routinely slaughter them by the thousands and the Voth, Undine and Vaadwaar are all capable of holding their own against them too.
They barely featured at all in Delta Rising, apart from the scattered remains of them getting picked off and rescued by The Cooperative.
They've gone from significant threat to minor hinderance, and by now driving them to extinction would be a more likely future scenario than peace. The Borg don't really have a leg to stand on, even if they do attempt some sort of diplomatic compromise.
Better question than "What problem are they going to ask for help with next?": How long do you think the Federation, or perhaps the Klingons and Romulans, are going to be able to keep a straight face before bursting out laughing and then blowing them clear back to the Delta Quadrant?
I can see Eleya's response: "Phekk you. You made your bed, now lie in it. Tess? Lock phasers."
It's never going to happen. I disagree with your entire premise. Consistent storytelling should come first, and everything you just said is completely inconsistent with the Borg portrayal from day frakking one. I'm frankly ashamed of IDW that they greenlit that story, although my opinion of Brannon Braga as a writer is so low already I'd find it hard for it to disappoint me.
As a writer myself, I'd rather see the Collective burn than subject them to that level of Villain Decay.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
You can have consistency or you can have story. Story is entirely about upsetting consistency, at least temporarily, even if the consistency re-emerges at the end of the story.
You've got the definitions of "consistency" and "status quo" confused. Yes, story is about upsetting the status quo within the limits of plausibility. I would find it highly implausible for anything resembling either your scenario or the OP's to take place given the evidence of the nature of the Collective.
I remind you that even when the Borg were within months of extinction, they didn't seek Janeway out for help, she offered assistance to them.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Well, blowing them all up would upset consistency too. Or having them assimilating everything would as well.
But the point being, you can't have a story that keeps everything in precious glass cages.
Also, a really daring story is one that hinges on selling an wildly implausible premise, although, sure, you can bite off more than you can chew given time and quality constraints. Generally, though, if the underdog doesn't win, you're looking at a Bambi vs. Godzilla scenario which is primarily funny because it subverts expectations. A perfectly plausible premise is a simulation, not a story, because there is no incident.
On the other tentacle, we already have the Cooperative, which is hard at work co-opting any "lenient" elements from the Collective. So there's that.
I'm talking about plausibility in terms of willing suspension of disbelief here, something STO is already having problems with in copy-pasting Fed storylines onto the KDF and Romulans, never mind where they disregard the fact that the player character is invariably the ranking officer present in a given scenario but their input is ignored (if it's even asked for).
For example, it is utterly implausible that a warp-capable culture would need to fight wars over water (the Kazon), given how it is one of the most common molecules in existence. No water where you are? Go someplace else. That kind of thing just makes you look like a bad writer. It would likewise be implausible and inconsistent with his character for Picard to fire the first shot against anyone (except the Borg after BOBW).
Likewise, viewers found it implausible that a species that acted as silly as the Ferengi could possibly be the major villain of a series, which was what eventually led to the introduction of the Borg in the first place.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Case of "truth is stranger than fiction" there... :-)
I know what you're talking about. I am asking you kindly to stop viewing this as an RPGer.
Narrative status quo = narrative consistency. A story is a change to the baseline, hence a consistency interruption.
And what you are talking about is addressed by my statement that you can bite off more than you can chew in terms of time or quality. Anything can be justified but there is a question of whether it is worth justifying.
Kazon could be justified, for example. But doing so would require a rather elaborate explanation that would detract from the story, which is WHY making them have a water shortage was a dumb idea. It was not because it couldn't be justified. Rather, it was because the effort of justifying it would have been misspent time.
Given enough time and enough quality writing, a story could explain and justify Nog singlehandedly defeating the Dominion. However, this kind of story would require many years to both make it plausible and palatable, allowing for almost no missteps on the part of writers, who might have to spend years making it plausible and emotionally satisfying. Hence, setting out to do this would generally be a bad move. Not strictly because it's implausible but because the effort of making it plausible would likely not be worth it for the payoff you'd get.
Nothing is forever implausible. Any ant can defeat any giant. But the question becomes whether it's worth doing.
Regardless, the Borg just floating around out there assimilating things is not a story. It's a status quo. All status quos should be disrupted somehow, even if they're reset at the end, or you have no story.
The Ferengi, as-is, are not.
Every one of these pitches involved something like the Ferengi doing something like buying and selling Xindi/Dominion genetic technology and being gifted with super-weapons from some outside power and then becoming something physically and culturally different over a 100+ year time gap until they wind up with a ruling class of Ferengi augments looking more like the xenomorphs from Aliens or something to that effect, with traditional Ferengi as refugees or wiped out by their more aggressive new competitors within the society.
Generally when something keeps popping up in pitches, it tends to happen eventually because other writers see these pitches and start mulling over how they'd make it happen.