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this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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Risa
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This is one of my greatest disappointments on all of Star Trek. Why did they have to make a leader for the Borg? And turn them into a cult that hunts down non-believers?
I agree completely. A collective run by everyone’s brain being cybernetically networked was an interesting, unique idea. A culture run by an amoral dictator is boring and painfully unoriginal.
This is what actually made the Borg terrifying.
There was nobody to talk to or negotiate with. There was no mind to change. There wasn't even a leader to assassinate in hopes to alter policy.
They were less of an enemy and more of an immutable force, like gravity or magnetism.
YES. They were truly alien, not just another culture with unusual traditions and weird noses. Communication was easy, but simply didn’t matter.
Giving them a leader with understandable emotions and motivations took that away.
They’re as close as Trek ever got to a Grey Goo event.
I think that's why they got changed though. As cool as they were without a leader, having a major enemy that can't be negotiated with at all, doesn't really work for a show where humanity's diplomacy is supposed to be their most important trait
I don't think that's too big of a concern, to be honest. You can't negotiate with a spacial rift and the show handles that kind of thing fine. I think they were having problems with First Contact's script and decided to solve it with a named antagonist rather than just hordes of Borg.
Nah, it's just shit writers who can't do anything besides low-hanging fruit that has been done before time and again. You could make a very compelling story with the Borg ad a constant threat and they have to convince other factions to help. That's just one example and Star Trek show writers already did it.
The wolves in the Revelation Space series are a great example of a compelling enemy that can't be negotiated with.
That’s one of the things that made them interesting, though. They were the exception that proved the rule.
They could have told virtually the same story (I’m thinking of First Contact) by having the queen lead a breakaway faction of Borg. She would still have all the memories from The Best Of Both Worlds. In fact, those events could have been what inspired her to lead her own group and pursue Picard.
She wasn't too bad in First Contact. The movie implied that she was simply an avatar for the Collective, not too different from Locutus. Later writers didn't get that and VOY turned her into an individual within the Collective who controlled all of it, somehow. Then her depiction just kept getting further and further from her depiction in First Contact, mostly keeping superficial things.
Section 31 went through a very similar shift, where DS9 implies that Sloan and S31 are rogue agents and Sloan is talking out of his ass in regards to any real authority and taking an, at best, extremely liberal interpretation of the Starfleet Charter, then later works making them an official part of Starfleet.
She says that. And then she dies and the Borg are defeated.
On the other hand, on VOY, she says the same, and then proceeds to create a Fascist organization clearly against the goals of the drones. But at least when she dies, the Collective creates a new queen.
About Section 31, my understanding is that it was once official. And then it was disbanded with prejudice, but the high powers don't really want it gone, so S31 has authority even on DS9 and LWD times.
Been a while since I watched First Contact, but I thought they did more than just kill the Queen. Could be wrong, though.
On Section 31, that's the current story, but DS9 had their existence so secret that it's implausible in combination with how open they are in DSC. It'd be like the US disbanding the marine corps and then trying to pretend they never had one. ENT's bit where they quoted the charter also has them pretty clearly deliberately misinterpreting what Article 14, Section 31 actually says.
That sounds like it's intended to be meant to cover the wacky reality destroying shenanigans that Starfleet crews tend to get mixed up in. Breaking time travel laws to retrieve whales from the past so that Earth doesn't get wiped off the map, for instance would be covered under art. XIV, §31. Or interfering with the internal politics of the Q Continuum because they're blowing up random stars. Or landing a strike team on a pre-warp planet because they're messing around with Omega Particles. Messing with Romulan internal politics because they hate us doesn't qualify because the Romulans aren't about to wipe anyone out. Romulans are an ordinary threat, not an extraordinary one. That's just Tuesday in the Federation. Harris' quote also doesn't imply that the charter actually calls for the creation of an entire branch of Starfleet to handle such threats.
Before DSC gave them badges, the logical conclusion was that S31 in the prime timeline was an illegal conspiracy among Starfleet officers, not an official organization in any way. Even Into Darkness' portrayal could potentially be interpreted as a S31 conspirator in that timeline getting high enough ranked to move lots of resources on the sly, though I'll admit that's stretching things.
Oh, it has been a while since I watched it too. I could easily be wrong.
On S31, there is more than a century between those. It's like the US disbanding some intelligence agency by the time of their civil war, and people today not knowing about it. It's not the worst case of document loses on those series.
I thought she was supposed to be like 10Base2 terminator, unplug her and the network crashes.
Section 31. I’m one of those few people who actually wants more S31 stuff, but only if it’s done correctly.
Way too many followups treat it like Starfleet’s CIA (Starfleet Intelligence already exists…) instead of a conspiracy that consists of individuals acting out of various degrees of ideological resolve, and to varying amounts. I imagine most people who are “in” S31 are more like Bashir. They are called upon to look the other way, or do something without being told much about it. Otherwise they have day jobs. I’m sure various Starfleet command level officers are in on some aspect of S31, but that doesn’t make their ships full time S31 ships. Only a very few people further the S31 cause full time, and they are totally off the books. S31 is supposed to be a shady group that parasitically uses Starfleet assets.
I idea of Section 31 black badges is so preposterously mind blowing.
If they don't have a queen then how is the captain going to have a romantic interest?
The beast with a billion backs!
Hum... Are you talking about Janeway here? Because in TNG her crush is on Data.
They had her showing a very charged interest in Picard as Locutus. Data was just the new fling.
Isn't it canon that reintegrating Hugh caused individuality to spread through the Collective, which could only be solved by creating one individual to control them?
Nope, but that would have been a much better take.
In First Contact, Picard has flashbacks and mentions that the Queen was there the entire time while he was Locutus. Gross retcon.
Hugh and the individual Borg led by Lore were just a small subset, maybe a single cube. I can't remember if that was stated directly in Descent or not, but it was implied to be a relatively small group affected.
I like this theory until Picard says he remembers the Queen in First Contact.