Mr. Rilch and I were in Vegas earlier this week, visiting my family. Our schedule didn’t permit going on Star Trek the Experience, but we did go to Mandalay Bay for the sake of visiting Quark’s Bar, and the gift shop, where we got the Borg teddy I’ve been coveting since our last visit!
He’s trying to assimilate the other animals, with no success. Griselda the smiling witch is doing spells on him, and he can’t get anywhere with Samwise the Bear. No one who’s been to Mount Doom is going to be intimidated.
Anyway, Neil the Eagle, along with Hagrid and Tony the Frat Boy doll, have been asking him how the Borg originated: if they started out as one or two that assimilated others, or if they were created by a live person whom they later overpowered. He answers only “The Borg are one…The Borg have always been…”, but I’m curious too. I haven’t seen every Borg episode, but I did see Q Who, Best of Both Worlds, and First Contact, but none of them explained this. I’m also unsure where the Borg Queen fits into this: maybe she was the prototype?
My assumption has always been that they were always a bunch of jerks and that the species were tech stealers, but very good at integrating what they stole with what they already had. So they get cybernetics and some nifty technology that lets them communicate instaneously across great distances on some special bandwidth. They start organizing themselves in this way and before they know it it’s out of hand and they are but one mind. The Queen is the physical instantiation of this mind, IIRC.
Well, if it’s any help, there are a couple of clues. One semi-official, one official.
If anyone remembers the “Machine Planet” seen in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Gene Roddenberry apparently made a half-joking speculation years later that that planet may have been the Borg homeworld.
And in a Star Trek: Voyager, one episode (“Dragon’s Teeth”), as I recall) featured Voyager thawing out a bunch of aliens from suspended animation on the Alien’s long-decimated homeworld in the Delta Quadrant (The Delta Quadrant is the quarter of this galaxy that the Borg are native to, BTW). The aliens had been frozen for about…600 years, I think? Maybe more, maybe less. Anyway, While Voyager’s Captain Janeway is chatting with the alien’s leader, she mentions the threat posed by the Borg, at which the Alien leader expresses surprise, and noted that in his time, the Borg had only assimilated “A handful” of solar systems.
I hope I’ve been of some help, and that I haven’t made a complete social pariah of myself.
I’ll go sit in the corner now.
Ranchoth
I read one theory about the Borg’s origins: Pleasure. It mentioned that in one episode of Voyager, Chakotay had been linked to a sort of “collective” similar to the Borg’s (or maybe it was the actual Collective, I don’t remember), and he mentioned that the experience was like a wave of pleasure, or something.
The theory then went on to speculate that perhaps the Borg began as a simple pleasure-sharing device used by a particular species. The device connected the minds of people. Ultimately, as more and more people got addicted to the experience (and began spending all their time connected), a single collective consciousness formed. Over time, they kept adding more and more stuff that would make their tenure in this “pleasure land” easier to stand… and, ultimately, became the Borg as they are (or were, after Endgame).
Heh… it also sounds like the name of a Scandinavian porn star…
Another thought about the creation of the Borg: Really, all you need is a simple “out-of-control” scenario to occur with just about any sort of nanotechnology. An even more interesting idea would involve the Doomsday Scenario of Nanotech… a single rogue nanobot goes out of control, and begins making more and more out-of-control nanobots, which in turn begin making more and more out-of-control nanobots, on and on, until all the matter on the planet has been converted into nanobots.
From there, it’s a simple matter of evolution, where the nanobots keep destroying and recreating each other, occasionally developing glitches in each successive series… ultimately, they get smarter, finding ways to link each one into a single collective unit. After that, it’s a simple matter of latching onto the first passing sentient being…
For some reason I always got the impression that the Borg’s development was a decision they made together; not that it had got out of hand. The individual mind just didn’t compare to the fun they found themselves having as a collective: remember the fear felt by those who are disconnected after a long time in the hivemind. They feel lonely and isolated.
They also remind me of the Cybermen from Dr Who, who are automatons, but were once human. They started replacing bits of themselves bionically, ending up as robots. No hivemind there but a deliberate self-induced transformation.
From what I can see the basis of resisting the Borg seems to hinge on everyone being really into individuality - which is an illusion anyway, because we generally express our individuality by following trends and fashions. I propose that if we all just gave in and got assimilated we might find it’s pretty cool after all. Come on, be honest. Who’s cooler: Picard or Locutus?
Hey, yeah, how come Locutus got a name instead of a number?
We were trying to come up with a name for the teddy. Now I don’t think we will: just a number. Although the other animals may insist on calling him something.
There are just so many possibilities I can think of about the possible origins of the Borg… but I don’t want Paramount to ever explain it. Much like the Force/midichlorian connection in Star Wars, it would completely ruin the mystique and coolness of the Collective… well, what little coolness they have left after Voyager turned them into a bunch of overrated girl scouts.
I don’t really have anything to contribute here, but I’ve got to say that a Borg teddy bear sounds incredibly cool. Do you have a picture? Is there any way to order one online?
A long time ago, the inhabitants of a planet devised a means of transmitting electronic data in a non-centralized way. This “collective” of routers for relaying packets of data became known as the InterWeb. It worked so well that virtually all economic and social activity involving the exchange of data became dependent on it. Eventually it became impossible to meaningfully participate in society without constant access to the InterWeb.
At first people relied on fixed stations in their home and work for access. Then it became first desireable and then necessary to carry a mobile link at all times. This originally took the form of small handheld communications devices. Then people started wearing headsets that could transmit and receive visual and sound data. With the advent of bioelectronic implants, it became a simple matter to send the data first to the optic and auditory nerves, and later directly to the brain. Obtaining one’s first implants became a rite of passage.
Eventually the line between one’s internal self and the external InterWeb became blurred, and the gestalt mind known as the Borg emerged.
Lumpy, does this mean that the Borg hive mind is really just a super-efficient on-line chat room with sector 0-0 as the server and the queen as the administrator? Cool!
