# (ST:VOY) Question about Borg "territory" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 28, 2016, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347 "2016-08-28T23:45:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/21 "2016-08-30T07:12:22Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Borg territory is simply the area of space where the Borg have assimilated planets full of people. That territory might not all be contiguous considering they have transwarp conduits to many different areas of the galaxy, including near Earth. > > Yes - Seven says on a couple occasions that certain species were not deemed candidates for assimilation. I believe the Kazon were one. On a related note, I recall that that _Voyarger_’s first two seasons were about getting out of Kazon space, but when the time came to cross Borg space (and incidentally pick up a new eye-candy cast member), they zipped through in about two episodes. After that, it was just one damn thing after another. Anyway, the Borg _did_ reproduce - or so was suggest in their earliest appearance where Riker and Data discover a newborn in an incubator of some sort on the Borg ship - already fitted with cybernetic enhancements. The Borg were never presented with any kind of consistency - they were overused and the reveal of the Queen character firmly ruined them, as far as I’m concerned. They shoulda followed through with the Escherization Extermination during that “Hugh” episode and been done with them. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/22 "2016-08-30T14:02:43Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > They shoulda followed through with the Escherization Extermination during that “Hugh” episode and been done with them. Agreed. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/23 "2016-08-30T14:09:07Z")
the Kazon should only have been a first season threat. More should have been done with the organ harvesters. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/24 "2016-08-30T19:01:28Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > the Kazon should only have been a first season threat. More should have been done with the organ harvesters. Heck, more should have been done with having nearly half the crew being former Maquis insurgents reluctantly pressed into service and who struggled with Starfleet regulations, procedures and equipment. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/25 "2016-08-30T22:39:02Z")
And more should have been done with the fact that they’re a gazillion lightyears from resupply and short on just about everything, too. I was excited in the pilot when they told us how many photon torpedoes they had: I figured that, now that we knew that, we could keep count, and every one fired would bring us closer to zero, and so it would be super-dramatic whenever it happened. Except that, over the course of the show, the ended up using something like five times that many photon torpedoes. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/26 "2016-08-31T00:37:09Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > There was one episode where destroyed Borg cubes. Species from a nearby warp, distortion, writer’s figment were quite capable of destroying the Borg. > > Sorry, not enough of a fan to remember/catalog the exact show. Not quite sure I can parse your first two sentences. Do you mean these critters?: [Species 8472 | Memory Alpha | Fandom](http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Species_8472) ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/27 "2016-08-31T00:58:03Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Not quite sure I can parse your first two sentences. Do you mean these critters?: [Species 8472 | Memory Alpha | Fandom](http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Species_8472) Bingo; fluidic space and they kicked Borg butt. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/28 "2016-08-31T01:49:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And more should have been done with the fact that they’re a gazillion lightyears from resupply and short on just about everything, too. I was excited in the pilot when they told us how many photon torpedoes they had: I figured that, now that we knew that, we could keep count, and every one fired would bring us closer to zero, and so it would be super-dramatic whenever it happened. Except that, over the course of the show, the ended up using something like five times that many photon torpedoes. I recall something about mining planets, presumably with a transporter, and replicating. The food replicators didn’t work for some theatrical reason. They replicated a lot of shuttles, too. Why do writers and producers like to see things crash? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/29 "2016-08-31T02:51:14Z")
Oh the food replicators worked just fine; they just needed to ration personal use to conserve energy. On the other hand they could still run the holodecks whenever they wanted without a care because the energy they ran on was “incompatible” with the energy the rest of the ship ran on. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/30 "2016-08-31T19:58:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And more should have been done with the fact that they’re a gazillion lightyears from resupply and short on just about everything, too. I was excited in the pilot when they told us how many photon torpedoes they had: I figured that, now that we knew that, we could keep count, and every one fired would bring us closer to zero, and so it would be super-dramatic whenever it happened. Except that, over the course of the show, the ended up using something like five times that many photon torpedoes. Exactly. If I were running the show, I would have in the writer’s room a big board with 160 slots, and every time a new character is added, or even mentioned, they get put up on the board, with the actor’s name and any relevant information mentioned in the episode. If a character dies, their name is red flagged. Every single background character seen walking around gets on the board, too. And I’d make sure I used the same background actors all the time. It would have at least made an effort to keep a realistic situation. Would that have been so difficult to do? ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/31 "2016-08-31T22:21:38Z")
Yup, pretty much what I said at the beginning, and all along. Voyager started with a pretty good premise and setup. Then proceeded to throw it away and use none of it. A whole big bucket of wasted potential to instead give us a great big bucket of shit. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/32 "2016-08-31T23:25:50Z")
They made more torpedoes. Why wouldn’t they? Certainly didn’t ruin the show for me. It would have been stupid if they couldn’t somehow make more torpedoes. ---
**Author:** ![Chihuahua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dec6dc/32.png) [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/33 "2016-08-31T23:26:01Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Exactly. > > If I were running the show, I would have in the writer’s room a big board with 160 slots, and every time a new character is added, or even mentioned, they get put up on the board, with the actor’s name and any relevant information mentioned in the episode. If a character dies, their name is red flagged. > > Every single background character seen walking around gets on the board, too. And I’d make sure I used the same background actors all the time. It would have at least made an effort to keep a realistic situation. > > Would that have been so difficult to do? That would have been cool. I also hated how they magically repaired (or reset the universe) so that Voyager looked the same every episode. They don’t have a dry dock to pull into for repairs, so I would have liked it better if the ship got progressively more fucked up as the story proceeded. By the last episode it would have all this kluged-together technology dangling off it. Enterprise actually did this in their third season; The ship got shot to pieces and they spent many episodes flying around with all these holes in it. I think part of Voyager’s problem is that they were still stuck in the old paradigm. TV execs at the time still wrote stories in episodic format, and they expected that the setup would be more-or-less the same for every episode. The golden age of serialized dramas (like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones) had not yet dawned, and Voyager was kind of trapped in the halfway point where viewing habits were just starting to evolve. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2016, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/34 "2016-08-31T23:44:10Z")
Oh, serialized dramas had dawned. We were already 40% of the way through the run of _Babylon 5_ when _Voyager_ appeared. But they weren’t yet taken for granted, like they almost are now for non-comedy shows. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/35 "2016-09-01T01:42:11Z")
There was a gray patch on Voyager’s hull in the second or third season. It would be very cool to have the same actors around, but guys doing walk on parts don’t wait around for the same show wanting them again. They need to work elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Gretchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8edcca/32.png) [@Gretchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gretchion)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/36 "2016-09-01T07:13:22Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > They made more torpedoes. Why wouldn’t they? Certainly didn’t ruin the show for me. It would have been stupid if they couldn’t somehow make more torpedoes. And it would have been stupid if the professor couldn’t build a coconut radio on Giligan’s Island. Or if the Globetrotters couldn’t show up. No wonder I can’t take Voyager seriously. Maybe they should have played the Giligan’s Island theme during the credits. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/37 "2016-09-01T07:43:33Z")
> [@Chihuahua](#): > > The golden age of serialized dramas (like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones) had not yet dawned Yes it had. They were making it across the alley on _Deep Space Nine_. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/38 "2016-09-01T08:09:32Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Anyway, the Borg _did_ reproduce - or so was suggest in their earliest appearance where Riker and Data discover a newborn in an incubator of some sort on the Borg ship - already fitted with cybernetic enhancements. The Borg were never presented with any kind of consistency - they were overused and the reveal of the Queen character firmly ruined them, as far as I’m concerned. They shoulda followed through with the Escherization Extermination during that “Hugh” episode and been done with them. And, in Voyager, we found out those were just children who were assimilated. All the Borg Kids were in maturation chambers, and it’s why they survived the destruction of everyone else on their Cube. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/39 "2016-09-01T08:12:27Z")
And TV was better for it, IMO. You now have to watch shows in order, and if you lose any momentum partway through, you miss the rest of the show. Or, at least, it’s been that way for me. I like the days when you could just randomly watch any episode and be fine. That’s what I did to all of Star Trek. (And it’s why I’m least knowledgeable about DS9–it’s harder to follow that way.) ---
**Author:** ![Chihuahua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dec6dc/32.png) [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347/40 "2016-09-01T13:40:46Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > There was a gray patch on Voyager’s hull in the second or third season. > It would be very cool to have the same actors around, but guys doing walk on parts don’t wait around for the same show wanting them again. They need to work elsewhere. Its not impossible. Scrubs had a very consistent set of extras, and by the latter seasons they were giving them names and speaking parts. Snoop Dog Intern was on the show since season one. A more relevant example would be Chief O’brien… He was a background extra on “Encounter at Farpoint” and slowly advanced to recurring character and eventually a starring role. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/st-voy-question-about-borg-territory/764347.md?page=3)