When did the Borg jump the shark?

Cafe Society
21

Mild hijack, but I don’t see how wiping the Borg out would necessarily count as genocide. It’s not like they’re one species, and the only reason that they have the same “creed” is because they’ve been surgically altered and brainwashed. I don’t recall any reference to a civilization joining the Borg voluntarily. I wonder how that scenario would play out:

SCENE: THE PRESIDIUM OF THE PLANET HODAG, SURROUNDED BY BORG CUBES

BORG COLLECTIVE (V.O.): WE ARE THE BORG. YOUR BIOLOGICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVENESS SHALL BE ADDED TO OUR OWN. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

PRESIDENT OF HODAG: Okay!

BORG COLLECTIVE (V.O.): **PREPARE TO BE ASSIM… …WHAT? **

PRESIDENT OF HODAG: (WITH HUGE GRIN) Come on down! We’re all ready to go!

BORG COLLECTIVE (V.O.) YOU… DESIRE ASSIMILATION?

PRESIDENT OF HODAG: Sure do! Greatest thing since sliced bread! Let her rip, Chalky! What’re you waiting for?

BORG COLLECTIVE (V.O.) ER, WE… WE’LL GET BACK TO YOU.

–Anyhoo, seems like the Borg is more like a virus than a legitimate species. Otherwise, removing those implants from Picard would have have amounted to murder, yes?. The essence of “Borgness,” then, is the technological crap and the forcibly implanted message to spread it to others like the flu. Killing off the Borg with the Escher print would have been wrong not because it was genocide, but because it would have also killed the “hostages”-- the former individuals enslaved to the Group Mind, who might one day be liberated in the same manner as Picard.

22

>I was rather hoping that, after Hugh was re-assisimilated, all the Borg, everywhere, would bear a great affection for Geordi LaForge. Now that might’ve been interesting!<

He he.

Seven of Nine is a challenge for any actor. The transformation from a hive unit to the isolation of individuality should be a mind-crushing experience. Jerry Ryan, well, I’m willing to forgive her alot just for being such a Goddess, she had a task in conveying that. Even just as seeing herself as “beautiful” for the first time. That’s when the Borg got personal for me.

23

Terrifel: Your point about genocide is well made. But if it’s not genocide, it’s some kind of illegitimate -cide. Killing people not because they were attacking you, but because of what they were. Hugh showed that you don’t have to be evil to be a Borg.

24

Actually quite a good Voyager episode. Some of Seven of Nine’s Borg nanites get stimulated and they infect the Doctor’s mobile emitter, which, as I’m sure you remember, Captain Janeway kept from a time-travelling Starfleet captain from the 29th century. They take over a lab and kill a crewman, and produce what amounts to a 29th century Borg. When it emerges from its growth (it started as a baby), Seven of Nine teaches it to be an individual - but not before the Collective gets wind of his existence. Of course, being an individual, and not wanting 29th century technology to be assimilated, it bravely sacrifices itself to save Voyager. Boo hoo, the end.

In this context, NoClueBoy was using it as an abbreviation for “Voyager.” However, in one of the Shater novels, we find out that V’Ger from The Motion Picture was, indeed, part of the Collective:

The Borg get ahold of Spock in the novel and attempt to assimilate him; however, they can’t. When they scan him, they say he’s already a member of the Collective. Why? Because he mind-melded with V’Ger! I thought that was kind of clever. And evidently Roddenberry himself did make allowances for the V’Ger/Borg connection before he died, that V’Ger might have visited the Borg homeworld and what it became was a result of that encounter.

Esprix

25

Insert Jeri Ryan joke here

26

Vasquez: Just watch us.

For me, that moment marked not only when the Borg, but when Nextgen jumped the shark. You’re facing an overpowering opponent that will crush you without mercy and you don’t use your ultimate weapon because you’d rather be preachy? Blech. It’s court-martial time for Picard. That pissed-off admiral chewing him out doesn’t count.

27

When they came back after the first Cube was destroyed.

I got the impression that that WAS the Borg. That one cube. The collective mind, parasitic reaching for perfection thing worked very well for one immense starship. But to stretch it further would be (and was) ludicrous.

28

I waited throughout TNG’s entire first run to find out what I just knew to be true - that the Borg were…us. Humans. Either our progenitors or just distant relatives. That they lived in a society that never developed politics, but had the same goals as Earthlings. Without the need to ‘make nice’, they just took over everything they encountered. Just as the Federation does, but without the treaties and handshakes.

This should have been the Borg origin. That way, every other race in Federation space would no longer trust humans. Could they turn on us? Will they evolve into Borg? Would’ve made for a much more interesting universe.

But they gave the Borg to Janeway. Oh well.

29

I think the Borg jumped the shark after being beaten by John McEnroe.

30

I vote for the introduction of the Borg Queen. The whole idea of the Borg was that there weren’t any leaders; everything they did was the result of their society-wide collective consciousness. It was a fascinating idea. When the Queen appeared, however, the Borg suddenly turned into a mass of mindless slaves ruled by a single person. It’s like Dr. Robotnik from the Sonic the Hedgehog games: one guy controlling an army of brainless robots.

I liked the episode with the 29th Century Borg guy, but overall I have to say that the Borg should have been “retired” after two or three appearances.

The whole thing with the impossible picture was just stupid. How could the Borg have assimilated thousands of races without ever seeing an optical illusion before?

Voyager being able to beat up the Borg repeatedly was the final nail in their coffin. I’ve got a copy of M.C. Escher’s “Ascending and Decending” hanging in my living room. Someone send a Borg to my place so I can put them out of their misery.

31

Achernar: I would tend to agree, except that the Borg were at that point in the franchise characterized as uniformly bent on assimilation; there was no indication that they were even capable of deciding to behave otherwise. Even Hugh had to first be shielded from the Collective for any spark of individuality to creep back in, and it was emphasized that once he was reassimilated that spark would be lost. True, if the Borg were to collectively decide to give up on the whole “assimilate” deal and settle down on some idyllic planetoid or whatever, then it would be unconscionable to exterminate them out of hand. At that point, though, we had no basis for believing that they had the capacity to stop themselves. The whole “Borg Queen negotiating a peace with Janeway” thing wouldn’t be introduced for several years

Of course, if Picard had wiped out the Borg, then we would have been deprived of all those cool Voyager episodes. So it all worked out in the end.

32

Weird; reading my last post, it sounds like I’m actually arguing in favor of wiping out the Borg with the Escher print. That wasn’t my intention, really. I still think it would have been wrong, but I don’t think that means the Borg weren’t evil by nature. When they leave the Collective, on the other hand, they aren’t Borg anymore.

33

Esprix, i liked that book, too. Show’s Bill is still good something, no?

One of the coolest sound effects in TNG and later, is the sampling and multi-layering (milliseconds out of synch {one possible way I can come up with…}) of the one guy’s voice to give the Hive Mind Millions Voice™. Very effective.

BTW, in the Mirror Universe, would Borg be like the ACLU? Fighting for everyone’s rights and freedoms?

We are the Borg. You will be allowed to live life as you choose. Resistance is measured in ohms.

34

[Completely Pointless Hijack Having To Do With Nothing]

I had a teacher named Ms. Mapp once. She taught geography. I shit you not.

[/CPHHTDWN]

35

NoClueBoy - That’s the best laugh I’ve had all week!

I’ll have the phrase “Resistance is measured in ohms” echoing in my mind for a long time.

36

Glad i could help, lesa.

;j

37

Borg queen, most definitely.

Now, I didn’t really watch Voyager, so I can’t speak on that, but…

Hugh: kind of challenging, but could be ingnored/forgiven.

The queen though, was the shark-jumping instigator.

The borg could have been so much more than they are, which is just another bad guy. A truely ruthless enemy, with immense power, and a decidedly one-tracked mind. Part of what made the borg so great was its/their inability to truly communicate. Remember when they started out, all they could say was “you will be assimilated,” and, “resistance if futile.” sniff I look back on those days fondly.

Then we had Locutus. Well, it was the special Patrick Stewart borg, but even he, with his spark of originality, was just a one-thought entity.

Then Hugh. Well, he was disconnected from the collective, so we can forgive him his transgressions.

Enter the queen. So now we no longer have some totally alien and incomprehensible force/consciousness, but we have a hot babe who talks/acts/thinks like any other human bad guy. Not only did this ruin what mystery there might have been behind the borg, but it was a crappy movie premise too.
If there was one thing ST could have done to re-energise (no pun intended) the franchise, it would have been to not have done First Contact, but a different movie without the stupid queen that maybe brought us to the borg homeworld and left again by the skin of our teeth (what a weird saying), knowing that indeed resistance is futile, and that eventually, when they did decide to come, there’d be no stopping them.

38

ROFLOL! :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue:

39

The Borg aren’t gone yet…

See?

40

[hijack]

May I use this as a sig? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease? :smiley:

[/hijack]