Simple Borg Destruction

Jon · Post by **Jon** » 2004-12-30 09:43am

Is it true, as my own memory of the episode (I. Borg I believe) a little rusty, that the feddies came up with a working method to destroy the Borg, by showing one of them a picture of a very complex impossible object that would overload their concsiousness as they tried to make sense of it and ultimately destroy the collective?

And further to that, they didn't do it for fear of committing genocide?

Jason von Evil · Post by **Jason von Evil** » 2004-12-30 09:49am

It was some kind of unsolveable geometric puzzle. The intent was that the Borg would dedicating more and more resources to solving it, that they'd simply die off.

They didn't use it because Picard was a pussy to suddenly felt sympathy for a damn drone. This was after BoBW, mind you.

Tommy J · Post by **Tommy J** » 2004-12-30 10:54am

Aya wrote:It was some kind of unsolveable geometric puzzle. The intent was that the Borg would dedicating more and more resources to solving it, that they'd simply die off.

They didn't use it because Picard was a pussy to suddenly felt sympathy for a damn drone. This was after BoBW, mind you.

I've gone back and forth with that ethical dilemma myself. Did he act like a pussy and not kill all the Borg via Hugh or should he as Admiral Nachev admonished him later should have done everything to protect the federation and be damned with his consience.

Lets use a metaphor -- lets say that psychological warfare experts some how were able to insert a hidden message into the more evil parts of the Koran where it instructs people to kill etc. And lets say the CIA was able to distrubute such books covertly to terrorists cells world-wide. Within the hidden instructions in the Koran would be a subliminal message to committ suicide. (remember folks we're suspending our disbelief on this metaphor)

As Amercians would we want our government or military to comitt such an act, even upon people that have never harmed us? To perhaps even people who were planning to try to harm us?

I say we would not want to harm an innocent or semi-innocent person.

The movie Minority Report as most know touched upon the what-if we could stop crime before it happened and the consequences of choice.

In a free society which supposidly the Federation is, we don't committ murder against those who may or may not harm us. We prosecute people who have done so in a court of Law.

The Federation has an obligation to protect/defend itself -- yes. But the Federation does not have the right within its own laws to committ genocide against those that haven't harmed them, even when those that have harmed them are planning to do so again.

Thus Picard was a poor Military Officer by not following orders -- but I think he was morally right.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2004-12-30 11:11am

The Borg drones aren't people anymore and as Picard himself said by killing them the Federation would have been doing them a favour.

I could understand Picard not sending Hugh back with the virus if he decided that he wouldn't sacrifice Hugh’s life to destroy the Borg however he sent Hugh back anyway and thus effectively ended his life (or would have if the re-assimilation had taken).

Tommy J · Post by **Tommy J** » 2004-12-30 11:32am

TheDarkling wrote:The Borg drones aren't people anymore and as Picard himself said by killing them the Federation would have been doing them a favour.

I could understand Picard not sending Hugh back with the virus if he decided that he wouldn't sacrifice Hugh’s life to destroy the Borg however he sent Hugh back anyway and thus effectively ended his life (or would have if the re-assimilation had taken).

We learned in Voyager that some of the Drones were able to at least temporarily escape 'Borgism' via Uni-Matrix Zero and were liberated. Presumably after Uni-Matrix Zero was destroyed there are errant Drones throughout the Galaxy trying to destory/overtake their ships.

Robert Walper · Post by **Robert Walper** » 2004-12-30 12:56pm

I highly doubt the attack would've been successful. For example:

STTNG "Descent": Hugh's individuality infected a single Borg vessel. The Collective as a whole remained unaffected.

STVOY "Infinite Regress": Species 6339 allowed several of it's individauls to sacrifice themselves for assimilation to infect the Borg Collective with a virus. Again, only one vessel was infected and the Collective as a whole was unaffected.

STVOY "Child's Play": The Brunali race created a Borg pathegon that was injected into Icheb by his parents. He was then sacrificed for assimilation to attack the Collective. Only one vessel was infected and the Collective as a whole was unaffected.

The Borg appear to cut off any vessels that are attacked via such means. Given the evidence, we have every reason to believe that had the Enterprise actually gone through with the attack, it would've affected only one vessel.

Jon · Post by **Jon** » 2004-12-30 01:01pm

Yeah but wasn't the point something along the lines of the whole collective resource being put to the task, not just a couple of drones sitting looking at pretty pictures?

Tommy J · Post by **Tommy J** » 2004-12-30 01:03pm

Robert Walper wrote:I highly doubt the attack would've been successful. For example:

The Borg appear to cut off any vessels that are attacked via such means. Given the evidence, we have every reason to believe that had the Enterprise actually gone through with the attack, it would've affected only one vessel.

Agreed and one would think that the Borg would have the equilivent of a reset button and the ability to go-back in software before the virus was planted.

Robert Walper · Post by **Robert Walper** » 2004-12-30 02:44pm

Jon wrote:Yeah but wasn't the point something along the lines of the whole collective resource being put to the task, not just a couple of drones sitting looking at pretty pictures?

All three examples I listed above were also intented to affect the entire Collective. None of them did. Apparently the Borg Collective has fail safes for such types of attacks. Just because the Enterprise crew said the plan would work doesn't mean it will.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-12-30 06:08pm

so in short the answer to killing the borg was "Tell me the last diget of pi"

can't they do anything original without raping the original?

omegaLancer · Post by **omegaLancer** » 2004-12-31 04:56am

Robert Walper wrote:
Jon wrote:Yeah but wasn't the point something along the lines of the whole collective resource being put to the task, not just a couple of drones sitting looking at pretty pictures?
All three examples I listed above were also intented to affect the entire Collective. None of them did. Apparently the Borg Collective has fail safes for such types of attacks. Just because the Enterprise crew said the plan would work doesn't mean it will.

but weren't all the virus attack physical pathogens... They would have only been able to effect the single ship crew. Hugh is another matter, are we sure that his development of Self was limited to a single ship, we have many incidents in voyager of Drones developing a concept of self and a hidden underground of individuals.

It may be that Hugh did infect the collective and that the collective all thru out the episodes outline with voyager was combating the plaque.

Now a truely complex Logic bomb could slip thru the defenses and lodge itself into the collective, it may be the Borg Queen is the result of one of these previous attacks. God knows she done more damage to the Borg than starfleet ever did..

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-12-31 04:56am

That's not a simple way. As you said, the means to be used were immeasurably complex.

The simplest way is lots and lots of DET.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-12-31 04:17pm

Rogue 9 wrote:That's not a simple way. As you said, the means to be used were immeasurably complex. The simplest way is lots and lots of DET.

or just equip all federation officers with tommy guns.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-12-31 06:46pm

put one cute anime girl on every federation vessel....

Sorry our queen she beat us in rock, paper scissors, and then gave us something to eat that gave us all food poisoning...

JeanLucPicard · Post by **JeanLucPicard** » 2005-01-13 12:45pm

Aya wrote:It was some kind of unsolveable geometric puzzle. The intent was that the Borg would dedicating more and more resources to solving it, that they'd simply die off.

That's partially accurate...

...The "virus" was a command link that would cause a series of cascading faliures within the collective. Essentially shutting down all the internal organs one right after another. If it was a geometric puzzle, the Borg wouldn't have bothered with it because it did not present a threat, nor a resource that they could assimliate.

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2005-01-13 05:23pm

I would have though that someone would have tried this long before Picard's lot thought of it. The Borg would likely have something to prevent this being catastrophic to the collective.

Robert Walper · Post by **Robert Walper** » 2005-01-14 05:48am

Sharp-kun wrote:I would have though that someone would have tried this long before Picard's lot thought of it. The Borg would likely have something to prevent this being catastrophic to the collective.

You'd certainly think so. I find it hard to believe the Borg Collective for centuries conquered and assimilated thousands of species, and yet one little fed ship's crew can come up with a brilliant plan that'll effectively kill them all off. Picard thought Hugh would infect the entire Collective with individuality as well. Only one ship was affected though, so he was wrong there as well.

Bellator · Post by **Bellator** » 2005-01-14 08:26am

You have to remember that they were quite desperate since at that time they had no real defence against The Borg whatsoever and were willing to try anything.

Robert Walper · Post by **Robert Walper** » 2005-01-14 03:47pm

Bellator wrote:You have to remember that they were quite desperate since at that time they had no real defence against The Borg whatsoever and were willing to try anything.

True enough. Grasping at straws sounds about right.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2005-01-14 04:39pm

nah, they had killed off the real defense against the borg and insane computers...

Mack Dad Kirk...