ONGEG Video: The Neutral Zone

[Kodiak]

When are you going to review the episode with Riker's dad? You know the one where we learn that the ultimate expression of the martial arts is two blind-folded buffoons with oversized flashlights trying to kick each others asses.

Did someone mention Anbo Jyutsu? You can tell from my avatar what an impact that episode had on me

[Patrick Degan]

I loved in the episode how the stock broker in less than 5 seconds proved himself competely and utterly superior to Riker. Yep stock broker knows in a second that the Romulans are arrogant pricks who don't have a clue. Riker who is the pride of starfleet has no idea what so ever.

Howzabout the stockbroker proving himself superior to just about every officer on the damn ship —he figures out how to get to the bridge simply by keeping his eyes and ears open, and is smart enough for at least five minutes to not draw attention to himself. And nobody thinks to put even the least measure of security restriction on this zeeb either. Good job for Picard and co. that Ralph Offenhouse wasn't actually an assassin.

"The Neutral Zone" has its moments; unfortunately, you have to wade through a sewer to get to any of them so that by the end, you've lost the point of being there to begin with. And did anybody wonder just when Picard would answer Ralph's questions about his bank, his investments, and his lawyers with something like: "We don't use money, your bank doesn't doesn't exist anymore, and two hundred years ago, we had all the lawyers shot"...?

One cowbell.

[Swindle1984]

From what we've seen of security on the Enterprise-D, just about anyone could talk their way onboard ("Hi, I'd like to visit your impressive spaceship!"), waltz onto the bridge, shoot the entire bridge crew before they have time to respond, play a recording of Picard talking to the computer so you can lock out everyone not on the bridge, then take the turbolift to the shuttle bay, walk in, and simply fly off in a shuttle. The E-D is now flying on cruise control and most of the main cast is dead.

Alternately, you can take a tour of engineering, leave a time bomb in a hidden crevice next to the warp core, and then steal a shuttle. By the time they respond to your having stolen a shuttle, the warp core just got breached and the entire ship exploded.

A third option would be to just take out the main computer. If the ship doesn't go berserk and fly into a star while firing weapons at random and playing weird music over the intercom while futzing with the environmental controls, it will spontaneously explode.

You gotta wonder why the Klingons, Romulans, Dominion, Cardassians, etc. always insisted on shooting Federation starships when there were far easier methods of destroying them.

[Teleros]

You gotta wonder why the Klingons, Romulans, Dominion, Cardassians, etc. always insisted on shooting Federation starships when there were far easier methods of destroying them.

I'm willing to bet that that "barcode" in various species' DNA coded for "military idiocy" or something .

[Swindle1984]

You gotta wonder why the Klingons, Romulans, Dominion, Cardassians, etc. always insisted on shooting Federation starships when there were far easier methods of destroying them.

I'm willing to bet that that "barcode" in various species' DNA coded for "military idiocy" or something .

I think post-WWIII humans were bred for stupidity too.

[His Divine Shadow]

Yeah the preachiness of Trek is one of the biggest flaws, fortunately alot of DS9 lacked that, as did latter TNG, but god damn I sure wanted to see faces impacting upon fists sometimes when I watched the boring preachy blandness that is supposed to be the future. I'd lock myself in a holo room and never go outside again if I was there.

[Tribble]

Good review as always...

One thing has always bothered me about this episode, more then its inherent stupidity.

What happened to the Borg ship that was destroying the outposts???

[Bounty]

What happened to the Borg ship that was destroying the outposts???

It's probably the same one that showed up in BoBW, raiding the border before it went for Earth.

[Captain Seafort]

Couldn't have been - unless it attacked the outposts, headed 7000+ lightyears to J-25 where it encountered the Enterprise, and then headed back to Earth. If it had gone straight from the outposts to Earth BoBW would have been the first episode of season 2 (as IIRC, was the original intention, give or take).

[Bounty]

Couldn't have been - unless it attacked the outposts, headed 7000+ lightyears to J-25 where it encountered the Enterprise, and then headed back to Earth.

Not even the Enterprise crew were certain the BoBW Cube was the same as the J-25 one.

[Tribble]

What happened to the Borg ship that was destroying the outposts???

It's probably the same one that showed up in BoBW, raiding the border before it went for Earth.

Its possible though I find it rather unlikely. Think about it. A borg ship attacks and absorbs several outposts along the neutral zone. From these outposts, it should have gained some knowledge of the federation or the romulans, and a rough idea of where they were located.

One would think that as soon as this knowledge was gained the Borg ship would have made a beeline into federeation territiory to begin the attack.... it would have been like BOBW, ableit a year sooner and with the feds being totally unprepared.

That never happens of course. The next encounter with the borg is months later in "Q-Who" and the borg don't attack fed space until over a year later.

I chalk it up due to writer incompetence, but I'd like to speculate anyways

I'm guessing that either the borg ship was too small for a general attack or it attacked Romulan space instead. The latter is certainly plausible, as the ship had hit Romulan outposts as well as fed ones. Perhaps it attacked the Romulans and was destroyed, and the Romulans covered it up.

[Bounty]

Its possible though I find it rather unlikely.

What's so unlikely about it? The Borg find the outposts, assimilate them, and learn about the Federation. For whatever reason they bump an invasion down on their priority list - until the J-25 Cube runs into the Enterprise and the Federation all of a sudden becomes a lot more interesting (5000ly+/s stardrives? They don't know it's Q...), so they message the Cube that's loitering on the border to go get 'em.

[Captain Seafort]

Then why did they wait so long? It was eighteen months, give or take, between the encounter at J-25 and the invasion. The Neutral Zone is, at most, a few days or weeks high warp from Earth.

[Tribble]

To be fair, the federation response to the attacks in the Neutral Zone is not what I would call stellar. Several outposts send out distress signals and go silent. They send out the E-D to investigate. The E-D reports that the outposts have been completely destroyed by an unknown enemy, and that this same enemy has been hitting Romulan bases as well.

What do they do after that? Sit on their ass and file a report.

If several small towns on the U.S. coast were leveled by an enemy warship, u could sure as hell bet that the US Navy wouldn't just send out one ship to investigate the matter, then call it a day and head home for the weekend!

[Bounty]

What do they do after that? Sit on their ass and file a report.

Evidence of this? It's one small cube in a big galaxy they're looking for. It not being found is hardly surprising.

Besides, as harsh as it may sound... this stuff happens in Trekverse. How many colonies and facilities were wiped out in TOS alone by unknown, one-off assailants?

[Samuel]

What do they do after that? Sit on their ass and file a report.

Evidence of this? It's one small cube in a big galaxy they're looking for. It not being found is hardly surprising.

Besides, as harsh as it may sound... this stuff happens in Trekverse. How many colonies and facilities were wiped out in TOS alone by unknown, one-off assailants?

Who is dumb enough to live on the worlds if they get hit so frequently? Or is this "news blackout"?

[Stark]

Even worse, the Borg are so retarded it takes them some time to reach even simple decisions. Given communication lag and prioritisation, there's no reason to figure they didn't just take some time to crunch the numbers and send the orders. It's not like they're hyper-intelligent decisive guys.

[Bounty]

What do they do after that? Sit on their ass and file a report.

Evidence of this? It's one small cube in a big galaxy they're looking for. It not being found is hardly surprising.

Besides, as harsh as it may sound... this stuff happens in Trekverse. How many colonies and facilities were wiped out in TOS alone by unknown, one-off assailants?

Who is dumb enough to live on the worlds if they get hit so frequently? Or is this "news blackout"?

Dunno, who was dumb enough to go live in the Far West in the 19th century? It's not like this stuff doesn't happen on Earth, either.

[Swindle1984]

Are we 100% certain it was the Borg that attacked the Federation and Romulan colonies, or is it just assumed? It could have been a third party doing it.

And really, what is the Borg's fascination with the Federation anyway? At first, they boarded the E-D and scanned its computer and decided they were worth assimilating. Then they send a cube to attack Earth and assimilate it, rather than the intelligent strategy of assimilating colonies and lesser member worlds like Vulcan. If it's Federation technology they want (which is stated in the first episode they appear in), then they'd achieve their goal by doing that. It only makes sense for them to be so obsessed with assimilating Earth (to the point of using time travel to assimilate it before there even WAS a Federation, meaning Federation technology is largely lost to them.) if their real interest is in humans and not the Federation itself.

But why would they be so obsessed with humanity? Is it more of that "humans are special" brainbug bullshit?

[Captain Seafort]

Are we 100% certain it was the Borg that attacked the Federation and Romulan colonies, or is it just assumed? It could have been a third party doing it.

It was mentioned in "Q Who?" and "Best of Both Worlds" that the damage pattern to the Neutral Zone outposts, the planets in system J25, and the colony the Borg wiped out at the start of their invasion was either very similar or identical.

[Rochey]

I don't think it was ever explicitly confirmed, but the fact that we haven't seen anyone else attacking outposts in such a manner would seem to suggest it was the Borg.

[Bounty]

But why would they be so obsessed with humanity? Is it more of that "humans are special" brainbug bullshit?

The Federation is resilient. Mostly by virtue of plot devices, granted, but the Queen in VOY explains that the Borg want humans because their survival don't make sense: they are biologically and technologically not all that advanced, but they still manage to dodge assimilation at every turn.

I like to think it's hurt pride. The Borg after FC are acting increasingly erratic; maybe an enemy that keeps slipping through their hands simply pisses them off. It's something they can't fit in their very simple world view.

[Palantas]

It was mentioned in "Q Who?" and "Best of Both Worlds" that the damage pattern to the Neutral Zone outposts, the planets in system J25, and the colony the Borg wiped out at the start of their invasion was either very similar or identical.

From the script, we have this dialogue in "Q Who?":
Riker: "It is as though some great force just scooped all machine elements off the face of the planet."
Data: "It is identical to what happened to the outposts along the Neutral Zone."

And this in "Best of Both Worlds":
Shelby: "...we've tested the sections of the Enterprise's hull that were damaged by the Borg. There were some unusual magnetic-resonance traces..."
(Later on the planet) Shelby: "The soil contains the same magnetic-resonance traces. That's our footprint. There's no doubt anymore. It's the Borg."

[Captain Seafort]

Ah, thanks for that. BoBW also gives us this:

RIKER
Then, you're convinced it is the
Borg... ?

SHELBY
That's what I'm here to find out.
The initial descriptions of these
surface conditions are almost
identical to your reports from
system J-two-five.

Which gives further corroboration of the damage at the three sites being almost identical, and the magnetic resonance trace from the last corfirming that the Borg were responsible for that example. Pretty conclusive I think.

[Palantas]

I agree. While they do not come right out and say "It was the Borg on the Neutral Zone," [EDIT: Not that I recall, anyway; maybe they did somewhere] between the evidence in the character dialogue and the writer's intent that "The Neutral Zone" foreshadow the Borg appearance, it's a solid case that the Borg were icecream-scooping Federation and Romulan colonies in 2364.