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Similarities between the Borg and the Federation.
sannia1
Member Posts: 46 Arc User
in Ten Forward
Consider this a long form version of a system chat conversation, but the Borg are still bad guys, right?
They are the scariest aliens in all of Star Trek. Why? They're a powerful faction, but they aren't the most powerful. The Q, species 8472, Iconians, arguably the Dominion, the Voth, and many 'aliens of the week' with seemingly supernatural power levels could win fights against the Borg. The Borg certainly aren't the most omnipresent villains either. They're rarely seen in TNG or Voyager, are absent from TOS and Discovery, were shoehorned into one episode of Enterprise and the prologue of DS9.
I think the reason why they're so scary is because they represent a primal fear we have. They're something we could conceivably become. The similarities between the Federation and the Borg were mentioned by Edington, but the Federation clearly isn't 'worse than the Borg'. Rather, the Borg is a mutated version of Federation ideals:
Cooperation between species:
The vast majority of factions in Star Trek consist of a single species. Of the exceptions, most of those are empires like the Dominion where you have one species exerting control over others. There is also the Xindi, which are a collection of species, but they're all from the same planet, and aren't actively recruiting more members.
The Federation is almost unique in consisting of multiple species in equal partnership, which actively expands and seeks out new members. Unique, ofcourse, except for the Borg who also are a collection of species who actively attempt to bring new species in to their collective.
Pursuit of science and exploration:
Both the Federation and the Borg prioritize learning new things. While the Borg's preferred method of scientific advancement often involves assimilating other species, their edge in combat depends upon already having more technology than their target. This is a catch-22. The Borg would never have gotten an edge in the first place if they weren't willing to do R & D on their own. Besides, what the Borg certainly are *not* is a group willing to reject science because of tradition or superstition.
Sacrifice:
Those in Star Fleet are expected to be willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. As Spock said, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". Well, the Borg sacrifice the needs of individual drones for the good of the Collective every day.
Rejection of Greed:
Both the Federation and the Borg have done away with money or desire to acquire personal wealth.
Acceptance of others:
The Borg does not discriminate. They're willing to assimilate anyone regardless species, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, social class, etc. There may be a handful of species the Borg would *temporarily* skip over because they aren't advanced enough, but by comparison the Federation also has an application process which has turned some species away. Ideally, both groups *want* to take in everybody, but can't.
Lack of internal conflict and infighting:
The Borg does not have internal factions, infighting, favoritism, or internal discrimination. All drones are equal.
Now, I'll bring this conversation into toxic territory. In Star Trek: Picard we're seeing a Federation which "isn't as good as we thought it was" in that they're reluctant to help Romulan refugees and are skeptical of synthetic lifeforms. Well, if the Borg were around, they'd be happy to assimilate the Romulans, and being cyborgs wouldn't see synthetic life as anything different than what they already are. So clearly, the Borg are better than this new Federation, right?
Obviously not, so let's pound in the one difference between the Borg and the Federation, to make it clear: The Borg don't care about individual rights while the Federation does. This is because in the Federation, the ideals and the science are tools to serve the people. In the Borg, the people are tools to serve the science and the ideals. The *only* difference between the Federation and the Borg are what is the master and what is the slave.
This distinction means that, no, the Federation has not changed. The state has to be subordinate to the desires of the citizens, and the citizens have flaws, fears, biases, factions, all sorts of nasty things. They, infact, *need* those nasty evil emotions to survive, as per the TOS episode "The Enemy Within". If a person were to stamp out *all* the evil inside of them, they'd find themselves completely devoid of willpower and subject to any whim of anyone around them. They'd be fit to function as a Borg drone, maybe, but nothing more. They would not be able to function as an individual, and without the individual, the Federation would have no purpose.
So, preach your egalitarian ideals, by all means they're good ideals to have. But remember those ideals are a tool to *serve* humanity, not the other way around. When you start making demands that others make sacrifices to serve your ideals, you're venturing into 'abomination' territory. Just like the Borg.
They are the scariest aliens in all of Star Trek. Why? They're a powerful faction, but they aren't the most powerful. The Q, species 8472, Iconians, arguably the Dominion, the Voth, and many 'aliens of the week' with seemingly supernatural power levels could win fights against the Borg. The Borg certainly aren't the most omnipresent villains either. They're rarely seen in TNG or Voyager, are absent from TOS and Discovery, were shoehorned into one episode of Enterprise and the prologue of DS9.
I think the reason why they're so scary is because they represent a primal fear we have. They're something we could conceivably become. The similarities between the Federation and the Borg were mentioned by Edington, but the Federation clearly isn't 'worse than the Borg'. Rather, the Borg is a mutated version of Federation ideals:
Cooperation between species:
The vast majority of factions in Star Trek consist of a single species. Of the exceptions, most of those are empires like the Dominion where you have one species exerting control over others. There is also the Xindi, which are a collection of species, but they're all from the same planet, and aren't actively recruiting more members.
The Federation is almost unique in consisting of multiple species in equal partnership, which actively expands and seeks out new members. Unique, ofcourse, except for the Borg who also are a collection of species who actively attempt to bring new species in to their collective.
Pursuit of science and exploration:
Both the Federation and the Borg prioritize learning new things. While the Borg's preferred method of scientific advancement often involves assimilating other species, their edge in combat depends upon already having more technology than their target. This is a catch-22. The Borg would never have gotten an edge in the first place if they weren't willing to do R & D on their own. Besides, what the Borg certainly are *not* is a group willing to reject science because of tradition or superstition.
Sacrifice:
Those in Star Fleet are expected to be willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. As Spock said, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". Well, the Borg sacrifice the needs of individual drones for the good of the Collective every day.
Rejection of Greed:
Both the Federation and the Borg have done away with money or desire to acquire personal wealth.
Acceptance of others:
The Borg does not discriminate. They're willing to assimilate anyone regardless species, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, social class, etc. There may be a handful of species the Borg would *temporarily* skip over because they aren't advanced enough, but by comparison the Federation also has an application process which has turned some species away. Ideally, both groups *want* to take in everybody, but can't.
Lack of internal conflict and infighting:
The Borg does not have internal factions, infighting, favoritism, or internal discrimination. All drones are equal.
Now, I'll bring this conversation into toxic territory. In Star Trek: Picard we're seeing a Federation which "isn't as good as we thought it was" in that they're reluctant to help Romulan refugees and are skeptical of synthetic lifeforms. Well, if the Borg were around, they'd be happy to assimilate the Romulans, and being cyborgs wouldn't see synthetic life as anything different than what they already are. So clearly, the Borg are better than this new Federation, right?
Obviously not, so let's pound in the one difference between the Borg and the Federation, to make it clear: The Borg don't care about individual rights while the Federation does. This is because in the Federation, the ideals and the science are tools to serve the people. In the Borg, the people are tools to serve the science and the ideals. The *only* difference between the Federation and the Borg are what is the master and what is the slave.
This distinction means that, no, the Federation has not changed. The state has to be subordinate to the desires of the citizens, and the citizens have flaws, fears, biases, factions, all sorts of nasty things. They, infact, *need* those nasty evil emotions to survive, as per the TOS episode "The Enemy Within". If a person were to stamp out *all* the evil inside of them, they'd find themselves completely devoid of willpower and subject to any whim of anyone around them. They'd be fit to function as a Borg drone, maybe, but nothing more. They would not be able to function as an individual, and without the individual, the Federation would have no purpose.
So, preach your egalitarian ideals, by all means they're good ideals to have. But remember those ideals are a tool to *serve* humanity, not the other way around. When you start making demands that others make sacrifices to serve your ideals, you're venturing into 'abomination' territory. Just like the Borg.
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and the case of the kazon isn't them being 'primitive' - the borg have assimilated other primitive species before
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
In both cases, the attitude is the target species is unripe fruit that should be left alone for now in hopes that it will develop into something better later. Ideologically, both organizations want to take in everybody eventually.
Now, there is a difference in standards. The Borg primarily care about technological advancement and disregard social advancement, while the Federation's only technological standard is warp capability while their social standards are much stricter.
While this difference in entry standards isn't petty, it's nested in the one real difference. The Borg don't care about the individual, thus culture and social structures are meaningless to them. They do want to acquire new cultural distinctiveness, but only as an entomologist wants his butterflies - dead and mounted on a display. The Borg would record a culture's customs, rituals, and traditions as historical information to be preserved in some unimatrix functioning as a museum, and they'd preserve that information forever. But without individuals, the Borg have no one to actually practice the cultures they acquire, so they can afford to have a low social standard for assimilation.
The Borg is a cautionary tale of becoming too obsessed with technology. The culture became fused with their cybernetics, and the permanent networking became the collective which drowns out all individual thought. They are a 'democratic dictatorship' if you will, enabled by the technology which got out of control. The majority of individuals dictate the hive mind's actions, but without anyone in particular being aware of it. The strive to integrate more technology into the collective became the driving force. Interesting, as this was long before social media. It is a force of nature without agenda, politics or territories.
Then came the rewrite, and we got the line of 'cultural distinctiveness' which makes no sense since Borg never ever adapt any kind of culture. For all they (now plural) are supposed to be, they never show anything of what made them a threat. At this stage, granted, they could be a libertarians nightmare.
And then came the third rewrite, and the canonical status quo. Ironically, the least scary form to date. A bunch of zombies controlled by a queen. And this queen is not a metaphor, a representation or some fancy algorithm. We know from creator interviews that she is supposed to be a literal person, owning her personal zombie slave army and she has the temper and sexual maturity of a teenage girl.
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> The Borg and Federation have the same end goal in mind, to group together the various species into a single culture. (...)
This is a false statement. There is no Federation culture, because it's, well, a federation. They try to achieve peaceful cooperation based on a common set of values, yet Vulcan culture is still different from Tellarite or Andorian. And this is something people get wrong all the time. In RL (considering where the UFP idea is rooted) as well, by the way. Most people don't really know what the EU or UNO is about or how it works.
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Exactly. It is true that the Federation wants others to join them, but they don't demand them to give up their culture. There is a set of common interests and ideals that need to be shared, but that is kinda a practical limitation of any alliance.
STO hasn't forgotten that either - when we visit New Khitomer in the future, the Federation ambassador present is a Klingon that still values personal honor and combat ability. You probably wouldn't hear such words from an Earth-born human ambassador, or a Vulcan-born Vulcan ambassador (and their words and focus wouldn't match, either.)
The Federation still respects each culture, and is made stronger by its diversity. The Borg, on the other hand... have NO diversity and strip away everything that makes cultures and individuals unique. Just another cog in the machine that must be changed to fit perfectly in said machine.
Basically... The Borg could be seen as like the uber ULTIMATE form of Communism taken to the extreme negative, or even just a virus, everything belongs to the Collective, no identity outside the Collective... you EXIST to serve the Collective...
Also the only innovation the Borg have is stealing from others. If they can't assimilate something, they don't understand it. One of the main reasons why the Undine tore the Borg Structurally Superfluous new behinds. The Borg just couldn't figure them out until Voyager negotiated for safe passage. It took the Federation to learn about the Undine. And even then... the Borg didn't get that information because Janeway fully expected a double cross the second Voyager's usefulness ended.
The Federation encurages diversity. One of the reasons the Federation is so advanced is because of that diversity. Rather than force everyone to conform to one technology, everyone contributes their own.
Values are the basis for a culture. Values change and with that a culture if enough people decide to follow suit. For example. the Free World has a common set of values and similar culture among the countries it applies to. Hence the term Western Culture or Civilization. Granted there are differences. Take for example the United States and France where freedom and liberty are front and center, in Star Trek terms it would be like Earth and Vulcan.
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Which is impossible to avoid with an interstellar community. The only way to avoid adding or adopting biological, technological, and cultural distinctiveness from other cultures is to become a bunch of xenophobes either through isolation or slaughter. Even war with another race would cause the technological and cultural distinctiveness of the enemy race to alter their culture by learning about the enemy and their technology.
Yea... only way to stay "pure" is go full 40k Xenophobe and Exterminatus everything. Also view alien tech, even if it is superior in some way to your own, as evil and must be destroyed because it is an affront to the Machine Spirits and the God-Emperor.
And unless your culture is already extremely isolationist and xenophobic - you would still change your culture. And I would argue that no culture is that isolationist or xenophobic to begin with. Because you already managed to build a culture of more than one person, you must have some willingness to work with others and find a common ground. And once you encounter your first alien that aspect of your culture will want you to reach out, even if another aspect of your culture wants you to isolate yourself or destroy the alien.