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The nature of the Borg?

Posted: 2004-06-30 03:48pm
by Luzifer's right hand
Do the Borg gather most of the forces and drones near objects like the Unimatrix and not near/on planets?

It seems that many Borg Planets have only few inhabitants.
Prey:
Seven: "They were the only species to offer true resistance to the Borg. They destroyed millions of drones hundreds of our worlds. I have reason to be agitated."
Are the Borg truly expansionists?

Maybe the Borg have a core territory in the delta quadrant from which they send ships out to forage humanoids(new drones) and new technology.

The Borg e.g destroyed colonies near the neutral zone, El-Aurian planets, a federation outpost in "best of both worlds"(foraging after a long journey imho).
And the Voyager crew found a dead Borg drone on a planet with a destroyed civilization.

It seems the Borg incorporate only chosen planets into the the collective and destroy others because they are a threat/have interesting technolkogy/they forage new drones.

It's just a theory but I would like to hear what other people think about the nature of the Borg,

Posted: 2004-06-30 06:28pm
by Crazedwraith
Fits all the evidence as far as i can see it.

Completely Off-topic but i think the SoF&I quote in your sig rocks.

Posted: 2004-06-30 08:46pm
by Solauren
The Borg also ignore low tech species (i.e the Kazoon)

It also fits there behaviour that they might be using piecemeal tactics to motivate species to advanced technologically to bring something new to the Borg

Posted: 2004-07-01 02:13am
by Sarevok
The Borg seem to ignore very hightechnology species as well. The never made any attempts to assimilate the Voth despite they being in the same quadrant. The Voth are well a well known species that according to "Distant Origins" were the first sentitent species in the quadrant. Other species knew about them so the Borg should have learned aboutt them by assimilating other species.

Posted: 2004-07-01 08:59am
by Jon
and the Voth are pretty much neighbours of Borg space with Tech far in advance of the Federation.. no canon evidence but maybe they have had run ins with the Borg... I still hate the Borg fascination with Humanity, bah!

Posted: 2004-07-01 09:16am
by Darth Wong
evilcat4000 wrote:The Borg seem to ignore very hightechnology species as well. The never made any attempts to assimilate the Voth despite they being in the same quadrant.
It's far more likely that the Voth kicked their asses when they tried.
The Voth are well a well known species that according to "Distant Origins" were the first sentitent species in the quadrant. Other species knew about them so the Borg should have learned aboutt them by assimilating other species.
Or perhaps they are simply not capable of taking them on without either flailing hopelessly at the Voth defenses or being wiped out in the Voth counter-attack.

Posted: 2004-07-01 09:58am
by Saint Marcus
It seems that many Borg Planets have only few inhabitants.
But on the other hand, the assimilated Earth in FC had 9 billion drones living on it. Not that many inhabitants, indeed, but still not bad (ie more people than present day earth, more people than B5's centauri prime).
Or perhaps they are simply not capable of taking them on without either flailing hopelessly at the Voth defenses or being wiped out in the Voth counter-attack.
Logical thinking never stopped the Borg. They were also clearly outmatched against Species 8472, yet they still invaded. The Voth's strenght can't be the reason the Borg haven't invaded them.

Posted: 2004-07-01 10:06am
by Vympel
Saint Marcus wrote:
Logical thinking never stopped the Borg. They were also clearly outmatched against Species 8472, yet they still invaded. The Voth's strenght can't be the reason the Borg haven't invaded them.
As I understand it (and this is 2nd-hand), the Borg attacked S8472, then the S8472 attacked the Borg. By the time Voyager showed up, the Borg were clearly on the offensive. The Voth may not have had S8472s drive to destroy them.

Posted: 2004-07-01 10:10am
by Darth Wong
Saint Marcus wrote:The Voth's strenght can't be the reason the Borg haven't invaded them.
Who says they didn't try?

Posted: 2004-07-01 10:45am
by Luzifer's right hand
Saint Marcus wrote: But on the other hand, the assimilated Earth in FC had 9 billion drones living on it. Not that many inhabitants, indeed, but still not bad (ie more people than present day earth, more people than B5's centauri prime)..
But it's odd that 8472 did not destroy a single world with billions of drones on it.

The Borg had only a single damaged ship, maybe they were not able to return to the main collective and had to stay on earth and create the infrastructure to build new ships/communication stations first.
And there is no reason to leave an already established base later after they contacted the main collective again.

Posted: 2004-07-02 12:42am
by Sarevok
Vympel wrote:
Saint Marcus wrote:
Logical thinking never stopped the Borg. They were also clearly outmatched against Species 8472, yet they still invaded. The Voth's strenght can't be the reason the Borg haven't invaded them.
As I understand it (and this is 2nd-hand), the Borg attacked S8472, then the S8472 attacked the Borg. By the time Voyager showed up, the Borg were clearly on the offensive. The Voth may not have had S8472s drive to destroy them.
According to "Scorpion" it was the Borg who opened the portal to fluidic space. It was like throwing a rock at a bee hive.

Posted: 2004-07-02 07:49am
by NecronLord
I can see that one now...

"We have analysed your defensive capabilities, and find them more than able to withstand us. Have a nice day..."

Re: The nature of the Borg?

Posted: 2004-07-02 03:11pm
by Ted C
Luzifer's right hand wrote:Do the Borg gather most of the forces and drones near objects like the Unimatrix and not near/on planets?

It seems that many Borg Planets have only few inhabitants.
Prey:
Seven: "They were the only species to offer true resistance to the Borg. They destroyed millions of drones hundreds of our worlds. I have reason to be agitated."
Have you considered the possibility that Seven is simply speaking carelessly (saying "millions" instead of "billions") rather than giving an accurate casualty count?

Re: The nature of the Borg?

Posted: 2004-07-02 04:43pm
by Luzifer's right hand
Ted C wrote:
Luzifer's right hand wrote:Do the Borg gather most of the forces and drones near objects like the Unimatrix and not near/on planets?

It seems that many Borg Planets have only few inhabitants.
Prey:
Seven: "They were the only species to offer true resistance to the Borg. They destroyed millions of drones hundreds of our worlds. I have reason to be agitated."
Have you considered the possibility that Seven is simply speaking carelessly (saying "millions" instead of "billions") rather than giving an accurate casualty count?
Sure.
But there is another qoute which backs this, however it's only a single engagement.

Scorpion:
BORG Collective: Species 8472 has penetrated Matrix Zero-One-Zero, Grid Nineteen. Eight planets destroyed, three hundred twelve vessels disabled, four million, six hundred twenty-one Borg eliminated. We must seize control of the Alpha Quadrant vessel, and take it into the alien realm.

Eight planets with only 4 million Borg on them.

Posted: 2004-07-02 06:31pm
by Uraniun235
Eight planets and those 312 vessels... don't Cubes carry a crew of several thousand? Granted, they might not have all been cubes, but even if only 100 were cubes, if there were 5k drones a cube that would add up to over 500k drones lost just in space alone.

Posted: 2004-07-02 06:54pm
by Jon
Was watching an old episode of VGR on Sky One this evening (infinite regress) one where the ship comes into proximity of a Borg Vinculum (the core processor of a Borg Cube) and Seven starts having shots of Multiple Personallity.

The Borg have most definitely encountered the Voth as would be expected, as in several images in her mind of the personalities of drones in there, a few are notably Voth.

So, though they have managed to assimilate a few, it seem as when Voyager encountered them they were a power to be reckoned with, with a huge territory, the Borg can't assimilate the race... being neighbours if they could have, they would have.

Posted: 2004-07-02 07:42pm
by apocolypse
evilcat4000 wrote:According to "Scorpion" it was the Borg who opened the portal to fluidic space. It was like throwing a rock at a bee hive.
Yeah, the Borg determined that 8472 was the "height of biological evolution", or something along those lines, and tried to assimilate them. 8472 was understanadably pissed, and started kicking the shit out of the Borg.

Posted: 2004-07-02 07:46pm
by Techno_Union
On startrek.com there is a documentary about the Borg, I watched it and it was pretty cool.

EDIT: The third movie deals with 8472 and the Borg.

Posted: 2004-07-03 11:02pm
by Kurgan
Hate to ask an already answered question, and this deals with brain bugs, but I figure it was related.

How do Borg reproduce?

I mean in TNG, they had borg babies, so they reproduced either sexually or they used some kind of test tube style reproduction I assume.

But in Voyager (I have only seen up to and including a few episode from season 5) they act like Borg are ONLY assimilated from existing adult humanoid species (or close to it, I mean wasn't Seven a teenager when she was assimilated?).

If so, then theoretically if they took over earth there could be NO MORE than the existing population to become Borg and then there would never be any more drones, ever. Unless they kept some humans "normal" to create breeding farms for future drones.

That would seem like a serious weakness. I'm just assuming there are Borg babies in the background we just don't see. Or am I missing something?

Posted: 2004-07-04 12:43am
by Sarevok
But in Voyager (I have only seen up to and including a few episode from season 5) they act like Borg are ONLY assimilated from existing adult humanoid species (or close to it, I mean wasn't Seven a teenager when she was assimilated?).
Incorrect. We also saw Borg children in Voyger in the episode where a virus killed off the adult Borg crewmembers aboard a cube. The children were probobly assimilated. Voyger freed them from the collective and accepted them as part of their crew.

Posted: 2004-07-04 08:19pm
by Agent R
Kurgan wrote:Hate to ask an already answered question, and this deals with brain bugs, but I figure it was related.

How do Borg reproduce?

I mean in TNG, they had borg babies, so they reproduced either sexually or they used some kind of test tube style reproduction I assume.

But in Voyager (I have only seen up to and including a few episode from season 5) they act like Borg are ONLY assimilated from existing adult humanoid species (or close to it, I mean wasn't Seven a teenager when she was assimilated?).

If so, then theoretically if they took over earth there could be NO MORE than the existing population to become Borg and then there would never be any more drones, ever. Unless they kept some humans "normal" to create breeding farms for future drones.

That would seem like a serious weakness. I'm just assuming there are Borg babies in the background we just don't see. Or am I missing something?
You missed the "maturation chambers" for assimilated children. Go back down the hall and turn right at the central plexus. :)

Assimilated adults are put to work as soon as possible. Children are stuck in a maturation chamber until fully grown. The Borg children in Voyager were awakened early because the controls malfunctioned after the adult drones died. Upon meeting the little boy in Unimatrix Zero, Seven remarked that he was in a maturation chamber. In fact, Seven herself said the Borg don't have sex. (I think she even said the Collective saw no point in it.) The Collective sees a species it wants and assimilates it.

Posted: 2004-07-05 11:24am
by Trogdor
Kurgan wrote:Hate to ask an already answered question, and this deals with brain bugs, but I figure it was related.

How do Borg reproduce?

I mean in TNG, they had borg babies, so they reproduced either sexually or they used some kind of test tube style reproduction I assume.

But in Voyager (I have only seen up to and including a few episode from season 5) they act like Borg are ONLY assimilated from existing adult humanoid species (or close to it, I mean wasn't Seven a teenager when she was assimilated?).

If so, then theoretically if they took over earth there could be NO MORE than the existing population to become Borg and then there would never be any more drones, ever. Unless they kept some humans "normal" to create breeding farms for future drones.

That would seem like a serious weakness. I'm just assuming there are Borg babies in the background we just don't see. Or am I missing something?
When TNG was still under Roddenbury, the Borg were good villians whose methods made sense. No queen, and no wanton assimilation. In the first ep with the Borg where Q flings the E-D into the Delta Quadrant, the Borg are shown raising their own babies. In Best of Both Worlds, they assimilated only Picard because of his knowledge of Starfleet's tactics and such and were interested only in Earth's technology. When B&B came into control of the franchise, assimilation became the borg's seemingly sole mean of "reproduction" despite how dumb that is.

Posted: 2004-07-05 11:28am
by Luzifer's right hand
Trogdor wrote:
Kurgan wrote:Hate to ask an already answered question, and this deals with brain bugs, but I figure it was related.

How do Borg reproduce?

I mean in TNG, they had borg babies, so they reproduced either sexually or they used some kind of test tube style reproduction I assume.

But in Voyager (I have only seen up to and including a few episode from season 5) they act like Borg are ONLY assimilated from existing adult humanoid species (or close to it, I mean wasn't Seven a teenager when she was assimilated?).

If so, then theoretically if they took over earth there could be NO MORE than the existing population to become Borg and then there would never be any more drones, ever. Unless they kept some humans "normal" to create breeding farms for future drones.

That would seem like a serious weakness. I'm just assuming there are Borg babies in the background we just don't see. Or am I missing something?
When TNG was still under Roddenbury, the Borg were good villians whose methods made sense. No queen, and no wanton assimilation. In the first ep with the Borg where Q flings the E-D into the Delta Quadrant, the Borg are shown raising their own babies. In Best of Both Worlds, they assimilated only Picard because of his knowledge of Starfleet's tactics and such and were interested only in Earth's technology. When B&B came into control of the franchise, assimilation became the borg's seemingly sole mean of "reproduction" despite how dumb that is.
They said that they wanted to assimilate the humans on earth in BoBW IIRC.

Posted: 2004-07-05 11:35am
by Trogdor
I'll have to watch it again. My apologies, but the borg babies weren't ever seen again IIRC. And didn't Seven at one point say something like "The borg do not procreate, they assimilate?" B&B did fuck up a perfectly good villian race.

Posted: 2004-07-05 11:38am
by Luzifer's right hand
Trogdor wrote:I'll have to watch it again. My apologies, but the borg babies weren't ever seen again IIRC. And didn't Seven at one point say something like "The borg do not procreate, they assimilate?" B&B did fuck up a perfectly good villian race.
It's sucks indeed that the changed they Borg so much.
However it's unimportant for this discussion that B&B fucked them up, we need to use Suspension of disbelief.

Maybe there are differnt factions of Borg?