I'm all for a new space monster. Something akin to the Crystalline Entity, but different. Giant Space Kraken! Eeegaaaads! Massive, tentacled, gaping-mawed, deadly plasma-spewing...thing from the far reaches of...someplace...in space!
the story of V'ger was told and completed over 30 years ago, why go back to make some campy marvel-comic-book like connection? It's unoriginal and there are plenty of new stories to be told.
^This
You know you can say the same thing about Voyager's story being completed as soon as it left our solar system, but someone instead used his imagination and came up with the story of V'Ger and I'm happy he did because it's pretty impressive.
For a short time we did have part of the Undine storyline connecting partially to Tin Man with the Gekli's. But that didn't survive the Temporal Incursion and ceased to exist.
Why would you ask to have such a thing in an expansion that isn't even 2 months away from release? You do know that they finalize what'll be in content updates months before their announcements of the updates, right?
It is implied that the Borg were responsible for V'ger. The Borg Command Ships in the alerts look like V'ger and even have a torp that can PFFT a ship just like V'ger.
Nope. In canon V'ger has no connection to Borg.
Pretty much agreed, not 1 single writer has ever kept the story lines straight!
V'ger was concieved some few hundred years in the past of the prior timeline, yet the borg are listed to have existed several thousand centuries ago, and than again later said to have only existed for a shorter period of some 900+ years.
It goes to show that despite any of it all, canon script is always contradicting itself, made worse by book writers to boot!
V'ger achieved what it was after, why would it need assimilate civilizations?
And, if it did assimilate any beings, I highly doubt they would be Borg in stature!
Fun discussion. I'm with those those who don't think V'ger has any relationship with the Borg Collective at all. Here is why:
Spock observes the following in his record for his spacewalk deeper inside of V'ger:
Spock: "Curious. I"m seeing images of planets, moons, stars, whole galaxies all stored here, recorded. It could be a representation of V'ger's entire journey."
Could (Spock's speculation) represent an entire journey. At that point he isn't certain of his speculation. However, he does confirms this to Kirk. Following his mind-meld with V'ger.
Spock: "V'ger has knowledge that spans this universe."
Whole galaxies. Plural. More than one. Not necessarily including the Milky Way. But certainly including details of it's most recent Milky Way journey through Beta Quadrant toward Earth.
Only later, when V'ger's true indentity is revealed do both Decker and Kirk speculate as how this was possible.
Decker: "Captain, Voyager Six disappeared into what they used to call a black hole."
Of course, Decker's explanation of a black hole has (in general) been accepted by most to suggest a wormhole. Which are not necessarily limited to connecting points within only a single galaxy. It could connect two galaxies.
Kirk: "It must have emerged on the other side of the galaxy. And fell into the machine planet's gravitational field."
Spock, however, already told them a bigger picture. Data from TNG might have chosen to dispassionately correct them. While being told by Picard to stop rambling. Spock at this point in his story is emotionally invested in the events. I (assume) that Spock simply didn't see this as the moment to correct them. He simple picked up on the point regarding the machine planet and speculated further from there.
Or Kirk's line mentioning the other side of the galaxy was evidence of the sloppy screenplay history that is well-known. He should have said, "It must have emerged in another galaxy..." Keeping the story consistent. Oh, well.
Assuming V'ger's enhanced origin was intergalactic and not just interstellar, I postulate that it's return trip needn't be limited to a two-dimensional map course along our galactic plane. V'ger could easily re-enter our galaxy from any point above or below the galactic plane. Permitting it to travel through only a small portion of Klingon territory on it's way to Earth. Something that, IMO, opens up considerably more story opportunities.
(/\) Exploring Star Trek Online Since July 2008 (/\)
Pretty much agreed, not 1 single writer has ever kept the story lines straight!
V'ger was concieved some few hundred years in the past of the prior timeline, yet the borg are listed to have existed several thousand centuries ago, and than again later said to have only existed for a shorter period of some 900+ years.
It goes to show that despite any of it all, canon script is always contradicting itself, made worse by book writers to boot!
V'ger achieved what it was after, why would it need assimilate civilizations?
And, if it did assimilate any beings, I highly doubt they would be Borg in stature!
The Borg thing is just an example of how atrocious Voyager and later Enterprise (same people) was written. It doesn't help that they rewrote the Borg entirely because, and I really want people to realize this fact, they believed the cinema audience to be too stupid to follow the plot without a "sexy" evil opponent (the queen). The Borg queen and their new existence as zombie-vampires was not an elaborate plot, it was because they thought people are too dumb to understand the concept of a collective mind. Of course, since the whole queen thing inherently contradicts what was established in TNG the Borg fell apart from that moment on.
That's one of those writing TRIBBLE-ups that I can't forgive to this very day. We don't have to make it worse by pulling V'Ger into this mess. No connection, not even implied. Cryptic used V'Gers visuals to form the "Borg command ships" (which in itself make no sense. Borg command? See the problem?) as an homage, maybe they even think there can be a connection but I just hope they are never going that way. In fact, I hope the temporal incursion from butterfly somehow removed the queen and all of VOY and FC wuss-boarg history and brings back TNG Borg (wishful thinking ).
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Fun discussion. I'm with those those who don't think V'ger has any relationship with the Borg Collective at all.
I don't believe V'Ger was created by the Borg nor do I believe the Borg created V'Ger, but I do believe V'Ger encountered and influenced the Borg at some point during its journey. There were a handful of similarities between V'Ger and the Borg:
Both were only interested in technology until they encounter humans
Both chose a human to represent them
Both wanted to merge with humanity
Of course the Borg would change in future media, and it turns out they've always assimilated life forms. However their desire to merge with humanity could still come from their encounter with V'Ger. After merging with the creator, V'Ger evolved beyond our understanding. After encountering humanity, the Borg wish to merge with humanity in order to better themselves. The difference between the two though is that Decker wanted to merge with V'Ger and freely gave himself to it. The Borg on the other hand forcibly assimilate cultures into their collective against their will, but they can't evolve unless someone gives themselves freely. This is implied by Picard and the Queen in First Contact.
Borg Queen: Are you offering yourself to us? Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Offering myself...? That's it, I remember now! It wasn't enough that you assimilate me... I had to give myself freely to the Borg. To you! Borg Queen: You flatter yourself! I've overseen the assimilition of countless millions. You were no different! Captain Jean-Luc Picard: You're lying. You wanted more than just another Borg drone. You wanted a human being with a mind of his own, who could bridge the gulf between humanity and the Borg! You wanted a counterpart! But I resisted. I fought you. Borg Queen: You can't begin to imagine the life you denied yourself.
I'd like to think the Borg desire to follow in V'Ger's path but don't know how to do it.
Borg Queen: Are you offering yourself to us? Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Offering myself...? That's it, I remember now! It wasn't enough that you assimilate me... I had to give myself freely to the Borg. To you! Borg Queen: You flatter yourself! I've overseen the assimilition of countless millions. You were no different! Captain Jean-Luc Picard: You're lying. You wanted more than just another Borg drone. You wanted a human being with a mind of his own, who could bridge the gulf between humanity and the Borg! You wanted a counterpart! But I resisted. I fought you. Borg Queen: You can't begin to imagine the life you denied yourself.
(...)
That dialogue makes me cringe so hard. It makes no friggin sense.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
I always felt that V'ger looks like a Borg command ship because it is (at least the shell) of one.
The Voyager probe got lost on the far side of the galaxy or even in another one entirely and then was found by the machine world beings and was given new directives and sent back to find it's creators.
On its way back here it passes through Borg space and on encountering a Unimatrix ship believes it to be useful in helping it complete its mission. So the V'ger probe assimilates the Borg, rather than the other way round. Maybe the Unimatrix ships are very ancient and from a time predating the current zombie Borg or maybe it had technology useful to V'ger's mission.
By falling through a "black hole" or wormhole Voyager could have come out in any time period in theory so any knowledge it picked up on the way could be very ancient. The thing could have be on its return journey to earth for millions of years for all we know.
Borg Queen: Are you offering yourself to us? Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Offering myself...? That's it, I remember now! It wasn't enough that you assimilate me... I had to give myself freely to the Borg. To you! Borg Queen: You flatter yourself! I've overseen the assimilition of countless millions. You were no different! Captain Jean-Luc Picard: You're lying. You wanted more than just another Borg drone. You wanted a human being with a mind of his own, who could bridge the gulf between humanity and the Borg! You wanted a counterpart! But I resisted. I fought you. Borg Queen: You can't begin to imagine the life you denied yourself.
(...)
That dialogue makes me cringe so hard. It makes no friggin sense.
From what I've been able to piece together, since at the Wolf 359 battle we saw at the beginning of DS9, the ships were being destroyed and their crews killed...and yet from Voyager, we know that the Borg assimilated those crews.
Apparently, the Borg originally stopped to assimilate everyone...but that gave the Klingons time to arrive and since the Borg had never encountered their weapons and they were in such number, that they overcame the Cube. The Queen and the assimilated Starfleet and Federation crews (why they weren't evacuated before the battle is beyond me) ejected on a Sphere (in first contact, the Queen said that Picard thought in three dimensional terms, implying time travel), which travelled back in time one day.
The Queen met with her earlier self and told her to just destroy the fleet and head to Earth...the sphere then returned to the Delta Quadrant with their victims.
Personally, I think that Locutus should have gone with them and been in the Delta Quadrant...and I would have liked Jennifer Sisko to have been assimilated, or been there instead of Riley in that episode of Voyager.
I won't comment on that AWFUL idea that I heard about the Borg never having used nanoprobes until it assimilated Picard and learnt to build them, from his knowledge of Wesley Crusher's nanite experiments
It would have been fun to have Locutus make a guest appearance in Voyager...I'm also going off on a tangent here, but instead of that awful eleventh hour relationship with Chakotay (I also disliked that Seven couldn't have just been a cold fish and not incapable of emotion) and Axom had turned up.
(...)
The Queen met with her earlier self and told her to just destroy the fleet and head to Earth...the sphere then returned to the Delta Quadrant with their victims.
(...)
That's the whole point. There was no queen. As I posted earlier, the queen was invented for the First Contact movie because - literally - the creators thought the audience was too stupid to follow the plot otherwise.
The Borg is one mind. There is no need for a "leader" (and as such, no "command ships" - a cube is a cube because it is a decentral entity). Also, as you pointed out, the Borg did not assimilate people back then. The Drones are organic people fused with technology. Borg bred, had young. They/it was only interested in technology to perfect itself. Opposing force was destroyed (as also stated by Guinan, and for millenia). Locutus was a new approach as they wanted someone to negotiate with humanity (because humans are always special in Star Trek ). The idea that Locutus needed to be because queen mom felt lonely adds so much nonsense to the plot it is staggering. And also pretty sexist. Of course queen mom needs a man by her side... If the Queen had existed back then (which wasn't the case as nobody thought about it yet), Locutus wouldn't make sense.
The Borg isn't a "faction" or "villian", there is no credo, no desire to conquer or control territory. It is like like a natural desaster. Cubes roam the galaxy, assimilate technology and destroy opposition (Original Borg line: "If you defend yourself, you will be punished.") They'd ignore people and go their business, if you don't resist you wouldn't provoke the Borg at all. With the queen who shows emotional claims and gets angry, who verbally adresses drones to perform orders and with them zombie-like assimilating everything the whole "they ingore us if we don't do anything" makes no sense at all.
The writers killed off the Borg when they turned an interesting, alien sci-fi concept into one-off moustache twirling villians for a popcorn movie. And the error was never rectified.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
(...)
The Queen met with her earlier self and told her to just destroy the fleet and head to Earth...the sphere then returned to the Delta Quadrant with their victims.
(...)
That's the whole point. There was no queen. As I posted earlier, the queen was invented for the First Contact movie because - literally - the creators thought the audience was too stupid to follow the plot otherwise.
I actually thought it was because without her the borg weren't nearly threatening and fearful enough. I never found them threatening or fearful in the shows. I mean you can walk around their ships without a care and they won't bother you. They were even less fearful than the crystalline entity.
The borg queen giving them a sort of human megalomaniacal consciousness goes a long way toward making them a true antagonist and not just some lifeless robots that might assimilate the good guys or just ignore them and let them walk around their big, scary ship without a care.
Borg Queen: Are you offering yourself to us? Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Offering myself...? That's it, I remember now! It wasn't enough that you assimilate me... I had to give myself freely to the Borg. To you! Borg Queen: You flatter yourself! I've overseen the assimilition of countless millions. You were no different! Captain Jean-Luc Picard: You're lying. You wanted more than just another Borg drone. You wanted a human being with a mind of his own, who could bridge the gulf between humanity and the Borg! You wanted a counterpart! But I resisted. I fought you. Borg Queen: You can't begin to imagine the life you denied yourself.
(...)
That dialogue makes me cringe so hard. It makes no friggin sense.
From what I've been able to piece together, since at the Wolf 359 battle we saw at the beginning of DS9, the ships were being destroyed and their crews killed...and yet from Voyager, we know that the Borg assimilated those crews.
Actually, we didn't SEE the battle the first time we simply saw the aftermath. One suggestion I heard somewhere is that the Borg used some sort of Transwarp beaming technology to send captives to another Borg ship. Also it seems possible that the wrecks we see on screen are at least partially functional with some survivors on board them. In one case there's a big chunk missing from a saucer, the rest might still have at least partial life support.
Actually...the Queen was invented because they couldn't fit the Borg central "computer" for want of a better word in Engineering. She was a logistical invention. Picard was actually also only on the Enterprise, because Patrick Stewart threw his toys out of his pram...it was supposed to be Riker, Troi and Worf...
(...)
The Queen met with her earlier self and told her to just destroy the fleet and head to Earth...the sphere then returned to the Delta Quadrant with their victims.
(...)
That's the whole point. There was no queen. As I posted earlier, the queen was invented for the First Contact movie because - literally - the creators thought the audience was too stupid to follow the plot otherwise.
The Borg is one mind. There is no need for a "leader" (and as such, no "command ships" - a cube is a cube because it is a decentral entity). Also, as you pointed out, the Borg did not assimilate people back then. The Drones are organic people fused with technology. Borg bred, had young. They/it was only interested in technology to perfect itself. Opposing force was destroyed (as also stated by Guinan, and for millenia). Locutus was a new approach as they wanted someone to negotiate with humanity (because humans are always special in Star Trek ). The idea that Locutus needed to be because queen mom felt lonely adds so much nonsense to the plot it is staggering. And also pretty sexist. Of course queen mom needs a man by her side... If the Queen had existed back then (which wasn't the case as nobody thought about it yet), Locutus wouldn't make sense.
The Borg isn't a "faction" or "villian", there is no credo, no desire to conquer or control territory. It is like like a natural desaster. Cubes roam the galaxy, assimilate technology and destroy opposition (Original Borg line: "If you defend yourself, you will be punished.") They'd ignore people and go their business, if you don't resist you wouldn't provoke the Borg at all. With the queen who shows emotional claims and gets angry, who verbally adresses drones to perform orders and with them zombie-like assimilating everything the whole "they ingore us if we don't do anything" makes no sense at all.
The writers killed off the Borg when they turned an interesting, alien sci-fi concept into one-off moustache twirling villians for a popcorn movie. And the error was never rectified.
The role of the queen, could imply that there is a form of artificial intelligence at work, one which uses the queen as the link to the human world as we like to call it.
After all, when a drone dies, it is forever lost, but the queen is destroyed and the essence of her, is saved and planted into a new shell.
The possible AI, could in fact be operating if only superficially, and find itself having difficulty bridging the gap between its own intelligence and that of humanity, hence wanting a companion for that role, and the possibility of being alone in its goal. [the loneliness part is only speculation]
Also, less we not forget, that villainy sells tickets!
We had a whole what, 2 ST films that didn't really have a huge villain for say in them, and they didn't really rock the box office sales.
So, most of the films revolved around the villain ploy, as it sells tickets well for most other films, hence introduce the Borg Queen villain plot, because people don't want to pay to see space zombies alone. [ST isn't space dawn of the dead]
from the changeling, to V'Ger to the Borg I've always felt they were one character. that the writers wanted to make the connection and what wasn't told from one character was added to the next. but after time there were so many disconnects they had to exists as separate entities. I think if they had it to do all over again it would have been the borg from day one and the character and story would have been more complete.
I actually thought it was because without her the borg weren't nearly threatening and fearful enough. I never found them threatening or fearful in the shows. I mean you can walk around their ships without a care and they won't bother you. They were even less fearful than the crystalline entity.
The borg queen giving them a sort of human megalomaniacal consciousness goes a long way toward making them a true antagonist and not just some lifeless robots that might assimilate the good guys or just ignore them and let them walk around their big, scary ship without a care.
From MA: "The appearance of the Borg Queen in First Contact was a controversial one in the Star Trek universe. Though the Borg provided for a threatening and intriguing alien enemy, their lack of a single villain presented a challenge for the writers. To counter this, and to expand some on the original notion of the Borg as an insect-hive type of race, they created the Borg Queen as a focal point for their story."
I read the writer's interview at one point which said something similiar but not as sugar coated. You are partly right, they thought that a collective couldn't "deliver the dramatic effect" they were going for - which shows how uncreative the writers were in the first place. The Borg episodes were the most succesful in TNG and they did what all good (crappy) writers in hollywood do and milk a cocnept until it is truly dead. What nobody noticed or seemed to care about was that this rewrite was entirely incompatible with the introduced Borg concept which was deliberately different from the insect-hive the Borg originally should be. They effectively ended the collective concept in favour of a, as you point out, megalomanical vampire queen. She clearly shows emotion, personal strife, the Borg are her personal army. It's a hive controlled by one mind when it was supposed to be a collective working as one mind.
What's scary about that is that you are originally not dealing with a enemy but a natural phenomenon (kind of). With the Borg queen you can reason (which was the backdoor again and again. Janeway and Picard and Data talked her to death, teased her, played with her emotions). With The Borg as outlined originally there is no reasoning, you could just as well talk to an asteroid. As Q said, they are relentless. And when faced with resistance they will destroy you - they would probably do so on a large scale without resistance as well. They aren't robots, this is the important thing here, people who claim Borg are machines did not grasp the concept behind it which has a technosceptical message also found in Rodenberry's original Star Trek.
Actually, we didn't SEE the battle the first time we simply saw the aftermath. One suggestion I heard somewhere is that the Borg used some sort of Transwarp beaming technology to send captives to another Borg ship. Also it seems possible that the wrecks we see on screen are at least partially functional with some survivors on board them. In one case there's a big chunk missing from a saucer, the rest might still have at least partial life support.
I'd specualte that the Equestronauts were flying in and taking the survivors back to rainbow country. Seriously, this is such a long shot to somehow try to make peace with a nonsensical change in writing which on it's own makes no sense... no. "Q, Who" and "Best of both worlds" Borg works and is consistent with the delivered exposition. "I, Hugh" already made changes to the concept, but in the early stages it is simply different. I'd wish people would not want to kill it by retconning nonsense into it.
Actually...the Queen was invented because they couldn't fit the Borg central "computer" for want of a better word in Engineering. She was a logistical invention. Picard was actually also only on the Enterprise, because Patrick Stewart threw his toys out of his pram...it was supposed to be Riker, Troi and Worf...
See above. It was a "dramatic" decision. Popcorn cinema needs one villian with maniacal laughter. Otherwise people fall out of their chairs and cry.
The role of the queen, could imply that there is a form of artificial intelligence at work, one which uses the queen as the link to the human world as we like to call it.(...)
If the queen would serve as a link, Best of both Worlds would be entirely pointless. Locutus' name literally translates to "one who talks" - this was the link to the human world. If th queen existed and was present on each ship (because infinite copies) the whole story falls apart. Up to "Best of both Worlds" it was consistent, however. The Borg Queen is supposed to be one individual (and a very emotional, angsty one at that) to control her slave army of drones, like a bee queen or something (and even that analogy falls short because it doesn't work that way. But hey...)
Also, less we not forget, that villainy sells tickets!
This. Is the whole reason. People don't want to see alien concepts with hints of social criticism when they see a movie, they want a moustache twirling villian that in the end goes down screaming in a fireball, so America wins again
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
First I'd like to point out that the Borg Queen isn't all that illogical if you think about it. We know from "Hugh" that Borg Drones separated from the Collective regain individuality. After Hugh returned to the collective and influenced other Drones, they also regained their individuality and became lost and confused. They immediately took to following Lore because he gave them purpose and brought order to their chaos. This is what the Queen does for the entire Collective and when you take her into consideration, it makes sense why the scared Drones flocked to Lore when he stepped in for the Queen they were disconnected from.
Second, there are many contradictions when it comes to the Borg but it shouldn't be that hard to piece the information together in a coherent way. Here is my take on the Borg's history.
The Borg civilization is thousands of years old, but do not begin as a half machine race.
"Human! We used to be just like them. Flawed. Weak. Organic." - Borg Queen
Around 900 years ago in the 15th century, the Borg "evolve" to include the synthetic and begin to assimilate local systems. The Borg are cold, logical and only interested in technology. The Vaadwaur would have many encounters with the Borg.
Borg from the 24th century encounter Starfleet of the 22nd Century, 2153. Humans are introduced to the Borg for the first time but their identity remains a mystery.
The El-Aurian civilization is destroyed by the Borg in the 23rd century. Refugees make their way to the Federation in 2293.
In the 24th century, 2354, Erin and Magnus Hanson set out to find the Borg which only exist as rumor. They could have learned about the Borg through various means, such as Starfleet's encounter in 2153 and rumor spread from or about the El-Aurian's who survived. In 2356 the Hanson's are discovered and assimilated by the Borg. They've now been given a small taste of humanity. Around 2364 the Borg destroy several Federation and Romulan colonies near the Neutral Zone.
In 2365 Q sends the Enterprise towards a Borg Cube and the Federation makes their first official contact with the Borg. Scanning the Enterprise computer and sampling eighteen Starfleet personnel, the Borg get a better understanding of humanity. They assault the Enterprise in an attempt to consume the Starship but Q intervenes and the Borg lose the Enterprise.
Theoretically, this could be where the Borg Queen gains a consciousness. While she/it could have been a single tool used by the Borg to bring order to trillions of voices, a sentient consciousness could have formed after encountering humanity. The new Queen would desire to merge with humanity.
In 2366 the Borg begin their attack on the Federation. Their priorities have now changed: They desire to add humanity's biological and technological distinctiveness their own in order to improve themselves.
Despite the number of humans assimilated by the Borg, they never achieve what the Queen desires because humans continue to resist them. A human must willingly give itself to the Borg.
Personally I think a lot of that makes sense in that order. Although suddenly being interested in humanity makes slightly less sense. Of course if we insert V'Ger into the equation then it does start to add up. For all we know, V'Ger's "Twelfth Power" energy level could have come from being powered by Omega and Omega is the closest the Borg have to spirituality as they see it as pure perfection. 7 of 9 said that the Borg learned of Omega from civilizations they assimilated in 2154. Perhaps those species encountered V'Ger on its travels and the information they recorded led the Borg to it. The Borg then gain an almost spiritual appreciation for Omega and V'Ger could be the Borg's closest equivalent to a deity. A sentient machine intelligence powered by the most perfect substance in the universe? How could the Borg not love that?
So maybe the Borg lost contact with V'Ger because all attempts at communication failed and all Borg vessels that approached were consumed by it. V'Ger makes its way to Earth and after learning it was created by humans or "carbon units" it then merges with a human and evolves into a new life form. When the Borg encounter humans they gain access to a Federation database and discover what happened to V'Ger. This could be when their priorities change because they wish to follow V'Ger and evolve. So they do what V'Ger did and merge with humans, but they do so by force. Decker had wanted to merge with V'Ger and allowed himself to become one with it. Humans continue to resist the Borg however and so they can never achieve what they desire.
Well if the other option is to ignore part of the TV show.... well, I'm going with the complicated retcon. There's a whole lot of gaps in that ep that leave a lot of room to reinterpret what the Borg did.
I know the borg aren't robots but I also know they weren't the least bit scary to me. Terminators are scary. They are just as relentless as the borg (or even moreso), their purpose is to annihilate humanity which is similar in a way to the borg's purpose of assimilation, but James Cameron succeeded in making them an incredibly intimidating and frightening enemy while the writers and directors of TNG didn't even come close with the borg.
For me anyway. I found the Dominion a much more intimidating and frightening enemy than the borg.
I think the borg would be more frightening if they never introduced the idea that you could walk around their ships so long as you didn't appear a threat.
I love beating them up in this game but like the writers of First Contact apparently said, the borg as of TNG had no dramatic effect.
You guys go on and on about canon and continuity when Star Trek has never had either one, just look at the massive difference between the Romulans of ToS and TNG, they went from calm and calculating opponents to plain thugs. The writers of Star Trek never cared past the episode/movie they wrote.
You guys go on and on about canon and continuity when Star Trek has never had either one, just look at the massive difference between the Romulans of ToS and TNG, they went from calm and calculating opponents to plain thugs. The writers of Star Trek never cared past the episode/movie they wrote.
You guys go on and on about canon and continuity when Star Trek has never had either one, just look at the massive difference between the Romulans of ToS and TNG, they went from calm and calculating opponents to plain thugs. The writers of Star Trek never cared past the episode/movie they wrote.
I know some popular fleet has this stance but I for example see literally no difference in Romulan behaviour (except their visuals) from TOS to TNG. So... point debunked!
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
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My character Tsin'xing
You know you can say the same thing about Voyager's story being completed as soon as it left our solar system, but someone instead used his imagination and came up with the story of V'Ger and I'm happy he did because it's pretty impressive.
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Pretty much agreed, not 1 single writer has ever kept the story lines straight!
V'ger was concieved some few hundred years in the past of the prior timeline, yet the borg are listed to have existed several thousand centuries ago, and than again later said to have only existed for a shorter period of some 900+ years.
It goes to show that despite any of it all, canon script is always contradicting itself, made worse by book writers to boot!
V'ger achieved what it was after, why would it need assimilate civilizations?
And, if it did assimilate any beings, I highly doubt they would be Borg in stature!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Spock observes the following in his record for his spacewalk deeper inside of V'ger:
Spock: "Curious. I"m seeing images of planets, moons, stars, whole galaxies all stored here, recorded. It could be a representation of V'ger's entire journey."
Could (Spock's speculation) represent an entire journey. At that point he isn't certain of his speculation. However, he does confirms this to Kirk. Following his mind-meld with V'ger.Spock: "V'ger has knowledge that spans this universe."
Whole galaxies. Plural. More than one. Not necessarily including the Milky Way. But certainly including details of it's most recent Milky Way journey through Beta Quadrant toward Earth.Only later, when V'ger's true indentity is revealed do both Decker and Kirk speculate as how this was possible.
Decker: "Captain, Voyager Six disappeared into what they used to call a black hole."
Of course, Decker's explanation of a black hole has (in general) been accepted by most to suggest a wormhole. Which are not necessarily limited to connecting points within only a single galaxy. It could connect two galaxies.Kirk: "It must have emerged on the other side of the galaxy. And fell into the machine planet's gravitational field."
Spock, however, already told them a bigger picture. Data from TNG might have chosen to dispassionately correct them. While being told by Picard to stop rambling. Spock at this point in his story is emotionally invested in the events. I (assume) that Spock simply didn't see this as the moment to correct them. He simple picked up on the point regarding the machine planet and speculated further from there.Or Kirk's line mentioning the other side of the galaxy was evidence of the sloppy screenplay history that is well-known. He should have said, "It must have emerged in another galaxy..." Keeping the story consistent. Oh, well.
Assuming V'ger's enhanced origin was intergalactic and not just interstellar, I postulate that it's return trip needn't be limited to a two-dimensional map course along our galactic plane. V'ger could easily re-enter our galaxy from any point above or below the galactic plane. Permitting it to travel through only a small portion of Klingon territory on it's way to Earth. Something that, IMO, opens up considerably more story opportunities.
The Borg thing is just an example of how atrocious Voyager and later Enterprise (same people) was written. It doesn't help that they rewrote the Borg entirely because, and I really want people to realize this fact, they believed the cinema audience to be too stupid to follow the plot without a "sexy" evil opponent (the queen). The Borg queen and their new existence as zombie-vampires was not an elaborate plot, it was because they thought people are too dumb to understand the concept of a collective mind. Of course, since the whole queen thing inherently contradicts what was established in TNG the Borg fell apart from that moment on.
That's one of those writing TRIBBLE-ups that I can't forgive to this very day. We don't have to make it worse by pulling V'Ger into this mess. No connection, not even implied. Cryptic used V'Gers visuals to form the "Borg command ships" (which in itself make no sense. Borg command? See the problem?) as an homage, maybe they even think there can be a connection but I just hope they are never going that way. In fact, I hope the temporal incursion from butterfly somehow removed the queen and all of VOY and FC wuss-boarg history and brings back TNG Borg (wishful thinking
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I don't believe V'Ger was created by the Borg nor do I believe the Borg created V'Ger, but I do believe V'Ger encountered and influenced the Borg at some point during its journey. There were a handful of similarities between V'Ger and the Borg:
Of course the Borg would change in future media, and it turns out they've always assimilated life forms. However their desire to merge with humanity could still come from their encounter with V'Ger. After merging with the creator, V'Ger evolved beyond our understanding. After encountering humanity, the Borg wish to merge with humanity in order to better themselves. The difference between the two though is that Decker wanted to merge with V'Ger and freely gave himself to it. The Borg on the other hand forcibly assimilate cultures into their collective against their will, but they can't evolve unless someone gives themselves freely. This is implied by Picard and the Queen in First Contact.
Borg Queen: Are you offering yourself to us?
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Offering myself...? That's it, I remember now! It wasn't enough that you assimilate me... I had to give myself freely to the Borg. To you!
Borg Queen: You flatter yourself! I've overseen the assimilition of countless millions. You were no different!
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: You're lying. You wanted more than just another Borg drone. You wanted a human being with a mind of his own, who could bridge the gulf between humanity and the Borg! You wanted a counterpart! But I resisted. I fought you.
Borg Queen: You can't begin to imagine the life you denied yourself.
I'd like to think the Borg desire to follow in V'Ger's path but don't know how to do it.
That dialogue makes me cringe so hard. It makes no friggin sense.
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The Voyager probe got lost on the far side of the galaxy or even in another one entirely and then was found by the machine world beings and was given new directives and sent back to find it's creators.
On its way back here it passes through Borg space and on encountering a Unimatrix ship believes it to be useful in helping it complete its mission. So the V'ger probe assimilates the Borg, rather than the other way round. Maybe the Unimatrix ships are very ancient and from a time predating the current zombie Borg or maybe it had technology useful to V'ger's mission.
By falling through a "black hole" or wormhole Voyager could have come out in any time period in theory so any knowledge it picked up on the way could be very ancient. The thing could have be on its return journey to earth for millions of years for all we know.
From what I've been able to piece together, since at the Wolf 359 battle we saw at the beginning of DS9, the ships were being destroyed and their crews killed...and yet from Voyager, we know that the Borg assimilated those crews.
Apparently, the Borg originally stopped to assimilate everyone...but that gave the Klingons time to arrive and since the Borg had never encountered their weapons and they were in such number, that they overcame the Cube. The Queen and the assimilated Starfleet and Federation crews (why they weren't evacuated before the battle is beyond me) ejected on a Sphere (in first contact, the Queen said that Picard thought in three dimensional terms, implying time travel), which travelled back in time one day.
The Queen met with her earlier self and told her to just destroy the fleet and head to Earth...the sphere then returned to the Delta Quadrant with their victims.
Personally, I think that Locutus should have gone with them and been in the Delta Quadrant...and I would have liked Jennifer Sisko to have been assimilated, or been there instead of Riley in that episode of Voyager.
I won't comment on that AWFUL idea that I heard about the Borg never having used nanoprobes until it assimilated Picard and learnt to build them, from his knowledge of Wesley Crusher's nanite experiments
It would have been fun to have Locutus make a guest appearance in Voyager...I'm also going off on a tangent here, but instead of that awful eleventh hour relationship with Chakotay (I also disliked that Seven couldn't have just been a cold fish and not incapable of emotion) and Axom had turned up.
*climbs down off soapbox*
That's the whole point. There was no queen. As I posted earlier, the queen was invented for the First Contact movie because - literally - the creators thought the audience was too stupid to follow the plot otherwise.
The Borg is one mind. There is no need for a "leader" (and as such, no "command ships" - a cube is a cube because it is a decentral entity). Also, as you pointed out, the Borg did not assimilate people back then. The Drones are organic people fused with technology. Borg bred, had young. They/it was only interested in technology to perfect itself. Opposing force was destroyed (as also stated by Guinan, and for millenia). Locutus was a new approach as they wanted someone to negotiate with humanity (because humans are always special in Star Trek
The Borg isn't a "faction" or "villian", there is no credo, no desire to conquer or control territory. It is like like a natural desaster. Cubes roam the galaxy, assimilate technology and destroy opposition (Original Borg line: "If you defend yourself, you will be punished.") They'd ignore people and go their business, if you don't resist you wouldn't provoke the Borg at all. With the queen who shows emotional claims and gets angry, who verbally adresses drones to perform orders and with them zombie-like assimilating everything the whole "they ingore us if we don't do anything" makes no sense at all.
The writers killed off the Borg when they turned an interesting, alien sci-fi concept into one-off moustache twirling villians for a popcorn movie. And the error was never rectified.
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I actually thought it was because without her the borg weren't nearly threatening and fearful enough. I never found them threatening or fearful in the shows. I mean you can walk around their ships without a care and they won't bother you. They were even less fearful than the crystalline entity.
The borg queen giving them a sort of human megalomaniacal consciousness goes a long way toward making them a true antagonist and not just some lifeless robots that might assimilate the good guys or just ignore them and let them walk around their big, scary ship without a care.
My character Tsin'xing
The role of the queen, could imply that there is a form of artificial intelligence at work, one which uses the queen as the link to the human world as we like to call it.
After all, when a drone dies, it is forever lost, but the queen is destroyed and the essence of her, is saved and planted into a new shell.
The possible AI, could in fact be operating if only superficially, and find itself having difficulty bridging the gap between its own intelligence and that of humanity, hence wanting a companion for that role, and the possibility of being alone in its goal. [the loneliness part is only speculation]
Also, less we not forget, that villainy sells tickets!
We had a whole what, 2 ST films that didn't really have a huge villain for say in them, and they didn't really rock the box office sales.
So, most of the films revolved around the villain ploy, as it sells tickets well for most other films, hence introduce the Borg Queen villain plot, because people don't want to pay to see space zombies alone. [ST isn't space dawn of the dead]
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
From MA: "The appearance of the Borg Queen in First Contact was a controversial one in the Star Trek universe. Though the Borg provided for a threatening and intriguing alien enemy, their lack of a single villain presented a challenge for the writers. To counter this, and to expand some on the original notion of the Borg as an insect-hive type of race, they created the Borg Queen as a focal point for their story."
I read the writer's interview at one point which said something similiar but not as sugar coated. You are partly right, they thought that a collective couldn't "deliver the dramatic effect" they were going for - which shows how uncreative the writers were in the first place. The Borg episodes were the most succesful in TNG and they did what all good (crappy) writers in hollywood do and milk a cocnept until it is truly dead. What nobody noticed or seemed to care about was that this rewrite was entirely incompatible with the introduced Borg concept which was deliberately different from the insect-hive the Borg originally should be. They effectively ended the collective concept in favour of a, as you point out, megalomanical vampire queen. She clearly shows emotion, personal strife, the Borg are her personal army. It's a hive controlled by one mind when it was supposed to be a collective working as one mind.
What's scary about that is that you are originally not dealing with a enemy but a natural phenomenon (kind of). With the Borg queen you can reason (which was the backdoor again and again. Janeway and Picard and Data talked her to death, teased her, played with her emotions). With The Borg as outlined originally there is no reasoning, you could just as well talk to an asteroid. As Q said, they are relentless. And when faced with resistance they will destroy you - they would probably do so on a large scale without resistance as well. They aren't robots, this is the important thing here, people who claim Borg are machines did not grasp the concept behind it which has a technosceptical message also found in Rodenberry's original Star Trek.
I'd specualte that the Equestronauts were flying in and taking the survivors back to rainbow country. Seriously, this is such a long shot to somehow try to make peace with a nonsensical change in writing which on it's own makes no sense... no. "Q, Who" and "Best of both worlds" Borg works and is consistent with the delivered exposition. "I, Hugh" already made changes to the concept, but in the early stages it is simply different. I'd wish people would not want to kill it by retconning nonsense into it.
See above. It was a "dramatic" decision. Popcorn cinema needs one villian with maniacal laughter. Otherwise people fall out of their chairs and cry.
If the queen would serve as a link, Best of both Worlds would be entirely pointless. Locutus' name literally translates to "one who talks" - this was the link to the human world. If th queen existed and was present on each ship (because infinite copies) the whole story falls apart. Up to "Best of both Worlds" it was consistent, however. The Borg Queen is supposed to be one individual (and a very emotional, angsty one at that) to control her slave army of drones, like a bee queen or something (and even that analogy falls short because it doesn't work that way. But hey...)
This. Is the whole reason. People don't want to see alien concepts with hints of social criticism when they see a movie, they want a moustache twirling villian that in the end goes down screaming in a fireball, so America wins again
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Second, there are many contradictions when it comes to the Borg but it shouldn't be that hard to piece the information together in a coherent way. Here is my take on the Borg's history.
"Human! We used to be just like them. Flawed. Weak. Organic." - Borg Queen
Personally I think a lot of that makes sense in that order. Although suddenly being interested in humanity makes slightly less sense. Of course if we insert V'Ger into the equation then it does start to add up. For all we know, V'Ger's "Twelfth Power" energy level could have come from being powered by Omega and Omega is the closest the Borg have to spirituality as they see it as pure perfection. 7 of 9 said that the Borg learned of Omega from civilizations they assimilated in 2154. Perhaps those species encountered V'Ger on its travels and the information they recorded led the Borg to it. The Borg then gain an almost spiritual appreciation for Omega and V'Ger could be the Borg's closest equivalent to a deity. A sentient machine intelligence powered by the most perfect substance in the universe? How could the Borg not love that?
So maybe the Borg lost contact with V'Ger because all attempts at communication failed and all Borg vessels that approached were consumed by it. V'Ger makes its way to Earth and after learning it was created by humans or "carbon units" it then merges with a human and evolves into a new life form. When the Borg encounter humans they gain access to a Federation database and discover what happened to V'Ger. This could be when their priorities change because they wish to follow V'Ger and evolve. So they do what V'Ger did and merge with humans, but they do so by force. Decker had wanted to merge with V'Ger and allowed himself to become one with it. Humans continue to resist the Borg however and so they can never achieve what they desire.
Makes sense to me.
My character Tsin'xing
For me anyway. I found the Dominion a much more intimidating and frightening enemy than the borg.
I think the borg would be more frightening if they never introduced the idea that you could walk around their ships so long as you didn't appear a threat.
I love beating them up in this game but like the writers of First Contact apparently said, the borg as of TNG had no dramatic effect.
I know some popular fleet has this stance but I for example see literally no difference in Romulan behaviour (except their visuals) from TOS to TNG. So... point debunked!
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