BORG ORIGIN STORIES - A Good Idea?
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- Опубликовано: 29 авг 2024
- In this inaugural episode of Supplemental, I rant about Borg Origin Stories. In my opinion they're the best Star trek villains, but are Borg origin stories any good and are they even a good idea?
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Here is my theory for the current collective.
Guinan said the Borg are millions of years old, but in VOY the Vaadwaur said the Borg only ruled a few systems a few hundred years ago. If both statements are to be correct, then something must have happened to the Borg. Most likely, a galactic alliance almost annihilates the Borg over and over again. Then the Borg regain strength. And so on.
(The Borg also have gaps in their history records, which supports the theory.)
What if the last time there was too little Borg to form a stable collective? Instead, a queen was created to act as the stabilizing center of the collective. The queen would then indeed be the collective itself, even though she is an individual.
I think the word you were looking for was 'parochial'.
Borg scary race of aliens
Thx for the spoiler time stamp mate. Gunna order this book now.
I have heard there is an idea that the Borg occured several times. Each time the Borg are the result of a Civilization accidentaly going down the wrong path with nanotechnology.
I'm sure that Q could explain the origin of the Borg in great detail, if it didn't bore him and somebody thought to ask.
Love this
Why Q dont get back in time and get the borg there where they cannot be dangerous for the Q from behind
@@ets2atstruckermartin527 Look at it from Q's perspective. The Borg have just as much right to live as any other civilization. And the Borg do not pose a threat to the Q. The Q are just as likely to enjoy watching the mayhem as they are to intervene to frustrate the Borg.
That about covers it.
@@surferdude4487 sure but i mean they can drive the wheel there before the borg comes at this point similar as Quinn did with rikers forevather
I've been kicking an idea around for a while that the Borg were an earlier civilization that the Q had put on trial, similarly to how they put humanity on trial in Encounter at Farpoint. The Borg failed that trial, however, and as a result the Q inflicted their hive mind on them, reasoning that without the capacity for individual thought the Borg would no longer be able to progress as a species. The Borg got around that by developing assimilation, though.
In my mind, the best origin story for the borg would be a slow one, not a cataclysmic singular event but more a possible path a civilization could take.
This is going to sound kind of like an "internet bad" take, but in my mind the borg should start with perfected communication technology. The ability to exchange ideas with the whole world at the speed of thought with no chance of misinterpretation... Eventually, disagreements start to fall away, the whole species begins to think alike. Every member of the species has the same collective history and memories that shapes them all as a species, until individuality is completely lost... but there's a desire to learn more, something they can't get from their own species, so they branch out, try to find more experiences, more technologies and add these people to their collective consciousness. Before you know it perfect communication becomes the Borg, with a desire to grow and expand because beyond that there is nothing for them that they haven't already done. It's a process that could have taken hundreds of years of technological growth, which is what any effective science fiction race should aspire to have gone through.
And since everyone's consciousness is digital, the original body doesn't really matter all that much anymore. Why not add components, make it better at doing things, hell even loan it out to someone else if you're not using it at the moment. Again, it would be a slow change, a natural progression of technology.
Also the borg queen is a stupid idea.
The borg queen could fit in with your idea. The queen could have started out as a safety protocol, in case the collective become to cohesive, and they lost their individualism but the queen becomes corrupted and instead just order the hive around like her own army. No longer even caring about the individuals of the hive mind. May be this even happen through assimilation where they assimilated a species where a queen did order around a hive.
Was just thinking the same. Might not be a super fantastic origin. But much more realistic.
I came to make this exact post. Good job.
I always like to think that the Borg got started by accident, by scientists in a lab experimenting on how to work in collaboration better by linking their minds together but the link is too deep, they become a gestalt whole, and things slowly spiral out of control from there.
Yeah this. I always liked the idea of it being some iterative evolution of a race's technology and philosophy being used with the best of intentions culmination into this galactic nightmare.
Honestly this makes the most sense.
My personal take on a Borg Origin is to essentially say "The Borg always come from somewhere." Have some time agents explain that the Borg have been erased from history dozens of times over the millennia, and they just keep emerging again and again. Because any species that is made of individuals and develops the tech required can potentially be a new origin point for the Borg. You could cover for the discrepancy of the first appearance of the Borg vs the later ones via this. That different iterations of the Borg have been around for a while, sometimes they stick on a 'only care about tech' stage for a while, but that the threat always comes up eventually. You could reference every current attempt to do an origin as having happened before 'and who knows how many others' because the Borg is more accurately called a type of life and threat than a species. (It'd be like calling all viruses by a single viruses name.) So the little 'prevent Borg' plans of your viewpoint characters need to be derailed, because it's better that things be kept manageable than risk rolling the dice again.
There is another Borg Origin story that I've always kind of liked. It was published in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds #6 (2003). SNW was, for those who might not know, was a series of books featuring Trek stories written by fans who had not previously made professional sales. (One of those fans was Dayton Ward, who went on to write several Trek novels.) The story in question was called "The Beginning" by Annie Reed. In it we are introduced to a girl who is the granddaughter of a planetary ruler and also suffers from a horrible disease. The ruler directs the entirety of the planets medical research toward the development of a cure for his granddaughter's illness. The cure comes in the form of "biological regenerators" to be injected into her and these little machines will fix what ails her. As you've guessed by now, it does not go well.
I found the story quite good, for basically fanfic and very credible as an origin for the Borg. They were just something that kind of got out and couldn't be stopped.
parallels with the cybermen, reminds me of “World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls” where we see the origin of the cybermen and Bill Potts as the first fully converted
The Borg vs Species 8472 were my favorite episodes involving the Borg. By that point the fact that the Borg were a very powerful and all consuming threat was well established. So to have them encountering a species that could seemingly get the better of them was utterly thrilling and compelling. I only wish it had lasted longer.
It would be interesting if they made a sci-fi movie and not realize it was origin story of the Borg, until the end. Something kind of similar to Prometheus. It would be neat too if you didn’t realize it was set in the “Star Trek Universe”...no indication of the Federation or any of the familiar aliens. To have the “Sixth sense” shocker at the end.
It would include the Doomsday Machine from ST:TOS. That episode said that machine was a prototype of a larger machine built to fight a deadly enemy.
I really, really like that idea! Unfortunately for us, the current custodians of Star Trek have neither the imagination nor the inspiration to come up with an idea like this.
@@geraldstephens6612 "Vendetta" by Peter David does cover this. It is a TNG/Borg novel with Picard and the Doomsday Machine.
You can do it just don't call it star trek
I always thought the iconians created the Borg, (as a service species) who then rebelled against them and aided in the iconian downfall.
blue blue blue
The Borg were an offshoot of the Cylons that went wrong!!
The Borg don't need some arbitrary origin lore. Where they came from isn't as important as what they are narratively
Vger , and the Borg are two different things.
The way the Borg indirectly imprint their own name onto themselves with the first assimilation in Star Trek Destiny was absolutely genius. Blew my mind when I read it.
Oh yeah it's utterly chilling to read :)
Agreed. And sorry. But it's always going to be the canon origin of the Borg for me. Even if I thought the resolution of the trilogy weaker, it's a great story and an inspired origin concept.
@@RowanJColeman i havnt read the books yet but il order them in.... can you tell me why or when the pursuit for perfection started.. like mow im wondering when did morals go out the window... the maco assimiliation was an act of desperstion but moving forward....
for the an original new idea id like the borg to be something which started off as an act of survival, i mean one whole planet who realise they cnt procreate anymore... something similiar to the asgard from sg1... they delved in cloning which over time was failing so they incorporated machine and organic bodies to survive.... they would have an ai which would control the central hub.... they have a central hub where the mind gets downloaded... the ai would then put each mind into a body.... but they failed to realise in doing so the ai and millions of individual personalities overwhelmed the ai... they started to die out one by one due to the ai not coping... to stop their deaths the ai would numb the personalities to stop individual thought an emotions... imagine the ai being similiar to guilty spark in halo... itd wanted the best for its creator. but in doing so created the borg.... now goin from her the ai would change....it would have the traits of its creators which warped its logic circuits.... the ai would then seek out knowledge to free its creators and return individuality back to them, but this would not work... so the the ai and borg are on a everlasting quest for new technology to gain new knowledge.... the ai does not have a physical body... so it would use its creators numbd out drone bodies to assimilate new aliens into it,,, but the information isnt quite right, so the ai would use the new aliens out in space to seek more aliens.... basically its a snowball effect... so now over centuries there would be 100s if not thousands of different species turned into drones seeking out knowledge or perfection... the idea of perfection and bring order to chaos is silly in my opinion but we have tng an first contact canon suggesting this line of thinking... they really should not have given the borg a queen,, it devalues them.. but were stuck with that idea.... so guess my origin theory is in the bin lol
It honestly feels disappointing to me
I always thought that borg origin was linked to the perfection of society. As they constantly say.
That a federation-like organization existed in the delta quadrant. Like the federation, they wanted to better themselves. It was the cultural zeitgeist. As they pursue perfection, they slowly over time become the Borg we see today. they are evolving incrementally.
I guess it must be my headcanon.
At the end of the day the Borg don't need an origin. They just "are". What's interesting is seeing how the Star Trek universe reacts to the Borg. Once you explain the origins of a malevolent force you lose the mystique and threat it represents. Plus it's a lot more fun to just speculate.
Well said
Yup. This is why villain origin stories are so frequently negative for the overall lore. They deflate the power of that villain.
The Borg started with Elon Musk's Neuralink.
Exactly. But it is inevitable. As we advance further, we'll realise that the hivemind is the way of perfection. Resistance is futile.
@@jyothishkumar3098 I don't know if you are joking or a plain idiot. You like fun and happiness right? There is no place for that in the hivemind. I want to destroy all technology because of blind statements like that. It is not inevitable. The solution would be to just NOT DO IT. Ahaa ^^
E'Musk
But what about Zuckerberg's Meta?
The Borg are an unending faceless mass.
Having an origin story goes completely against how they are designed to scare us.
Indeed , the moment we foubd ou they had a leader/ queen they where less scary
We can always use our imaginations....and that is scary enough!
@@Aleksandar6ix they can also use your imagination, resistance in futile.
They are us. Picard explains progress in this clip: ruclips.net/video/BJEASGxR5yw/видео.html
It's the same reason for which we fear the Borg.
I didn't like Destiny to be honest, because it makes the Borg have a human-linked origin. Small universe if humanity is always at the heart of everything.
Well put
One of my main gripes about ST is how human-centric it is. Really drives me up the wall. However, I didn't mind the human connection in Destiny as, while it wasn't stated outright, it would make the Borg's obsession with humanity make more sense. I hate how the Borg single out humanity, but with Destiny, I viewed it as the Borg recognizing some of who they used to be and it kind of driving them crazy, even if they didn't know why.
I think simply not knowing where they came from, what their origin is or was is for the best. Let's face it if we got through 7 seasons of Voyager where they had a Borg as a crew member and had so much interaction both in and out of the Collective and they never found out then we should just close the lid on that aspect of them and just keep them as this mysterious almost unbeatable foe we all dread to see but love to watch.
7 of 9 was only on 4 seasons I think.
@@ynkybomber Right you are, lol, but I think my point still stands :)
I don't need origins for the Borg. Nor do I need origins for Skeletor, Hordak, Castle Grayskull, Mum-Ra, Snake-Eyes, Doc & Marty's friendship, or Joker.
same here
@Kaagh178 Understand something called inference. Yes, some have been given origins. But do I need them? Np. Tha was the point.
@Kaagh178 Nope. Even Mumm-Ra got an origin. There's a comic that reveals he was an Egyptian high priest who sold his soul to the Ancient Spirits of Evil for immortality and power.
Lazy writing. No origin story means lack of creativity. Nothing can just be. Everything has to come from somewhere or something.
In Voyager the Vaadwaar claim that the Borg were a minor power when they went to sleep 900 years prior. That would make them almost as old as civilization here on earth.
You must have an... _unusual..._ definition of civilization. _Voyager_ is set in the 24th century; we're in the 21st century now. That's more than 2000 years just on the current calendar, and civilization goes back thousands of years before that.
On the scales of civilization, 900 years isn't that far apart. It'd be pretty similar to the Spaniards and English coming over to the Americas and meeting the Native Americans.
@@scarling9367 Well, i assume by " minor power" they meant the borg were either warp capable at that time or headed that way technologically. In this case, 900 years is really, really a long time to develop and assimilate. See for example Earth when they first met the Vulcans, a few hundred years later, with the Federation at it's peak, things evolved drastically. Now imagine the Federation expanding for another 600 years or so..
@@thevividend From where we're standing, yes, it'll seem like a big difference. Going back to scale though, cultures and civilizations with a 1000 years of technological difference have met each other right here on Earth. It's not without precedent.
I think I'd prefer never to know the Borg origins... I do think it would take away from the mystique a bit... but also, as Charles Darwin discovered, a species need not have an origin story as such, and can develop very gradually over time. And a bit of mystery is always desirable in fiction... gives it depth.
I think no one knows when they started and have no idea how. No nearby space faring and trading races survived the initial expansion, and the Borg after all this time probably don't remember, either because it was unimportant or dangerous and it was purged, or because of corruption of the data.
If Enterprise hadn’t been cancelled, Alice Krige was going to play a science officer that gets abducted while trying to make contact with the Borg. That was going to be the original origins of the Borg Queen.
God forgive me but Jesus Christ! That sounds absolutely awful and the queen species wasn't human or from the alpha quadrant so that makes even less sense. Thank God that didn't happen. I will say for a pretty bad series I think the Enterprise finale was absolutely brutal and they deserved so much more!
That was one possible story thread not guaranteed.
But we know from the Voyager episode "Dragon's Teeth" that the Borg existed LONG before that. The Vadwaur recognized Seven as Borg yet they were in stasis for 900 years. They also made mention that the Borg greatly expanded their territory in that span. BUT there was a "dark time" when much of the Borg's knowledge was lost (unknown cause).
That sounds really bad imo.
I think it's best the Borg do not have an official canon origin. The unknown is always better than what they'd come up with.
Something interesting is that every time the Borg received a major defeat in canon, the writers could theoretically leave it that the Borg were destroyed if they wanted to. Schrodinger's Borg.
I totally hear you about making the universe smaller. One of the reasons I can't get into the Trek novels is because they're always making Nurse Chapel Lawxana Troi's aunt or saying the Breen are secretly Pakleds or something.
Nurse Chapel isn't Lawxana Troi's aunt. However she is "Number One's" sister.
Number One, Nurse Chapel, Lawxana Troi are all one creature who changes her species and her identity over the years.
I really liked the laid back tone of this. Just hanging out, talking about the Borg. As you do.
I agree with AlmostSwedish... enjoyable format.
As you do 😉🤘🏻
The Borg were a force. Giving them an origin would just ruin the mystique.
You mean lazy writing? That's just as bad as jj's mystery box.
JJ has nothing to do with the artifact in Picard tho…
I like the idea that the Borg are not a species but a process, and one that has risen and been destroyed multiple times in the history of space faring history. It is a warning and one consistent with the Star Trek universe.
I definitely agree that the Borg origin shouldn't be connected to Earth & Humanity. I get the sense they're ancient, and they've already come out and said they're from a long, long way away. I like them as a 'dark reflection' of the Federation, but that doesn't mean I think they should be related in origin.
What about the slightly less well-known and slightly less plausible theory that they are the illegitimate children of tennis player bjorn borg?
Superb comment , had a lengthy chuckle to it.
I second that, giggled so hard milk came out my nose.
I came up with a BORG origin story. Q was being hunted by the Calamarain, a race of energy beings. It was never explained why they were hunting Q. I came up with the story that Q was doing experiments as the God-like species they thought they were on"lesser species. It eventually got him kicked out of the continuum, but not before he ended up combining his favorite species with the one that ended up hunting him, a combination of Human and Calamarain called the BORG.
I like to think the Borg is a constant. It's something that happens in various ways. It's a state of being that comes around in different incarnations.
Funny, years ago I read a fanfiction story that rogue Starfleet officers did. centuries after meeting the Borg, Starfleet sent time travel science mission to the original Borg world and see the event that leads to the Borg. the local alien species was designing nanites that would help analyse patients medical structure. On this mission, some officers with an EMH doctor decide to create a nanite to kill the Borg before they start. so they do, the crew of the ship finds out about it and try but fail to stop them. the twist is that the nanite that starfleet officers created mingled with the borg one and altered it to create the borg. As things stood on the ship in orbit, the crew did not know what to do because what the rogue officers did was supposed to happen. I read it years ago and I don't even remember its name.
I always assumed that "Borg" came from "cyborg." It seemed obvious and it was a cool-sounding abbreviation. And who needs to be pedantic about etymology in a universe where computers (or story pacing) can translate everything into any language necessary? Maybe the name is a thematically appropriate translation by an inventive computer.
The Energy Field was 82 AU's in Diameter. They changed it to 2 AU's in Diameter
You hit the nail on the head. Not every origin needs to have a tie-in with the past know ST universe.
Another thing about the ST Destiny book trilogy is that the last of that race was lonely, since they had shared minds her being on her own drove her crazy. It's a great book series that answered borg's questions so well and fun. In this book, humans still had a hand in its creation but didn't actually create it. Later on in the series, the books address the borg resolution even better.
I like the idea of them having an origin, but no specific origin. Like they're an inevitable product of people + technology. They have emerged multiple times on multiple planets and even if the 23rd century Borg were wiped out, they will inevitably emerge again somewhere as long as people are developing technology
I'm sick of prequels and going backwards, to be honest
We don’t need more Borg stories done to death
I think Star Wars inspired that trend.
@@GODCONVOYPRIME I agree, about the last Investor Day I don't get the need to put so much stories between Ep. III and IV. We already had The Clone Wars, Rebels, Rogue One, Solo and Jedi Fallen Order; now we will have Andor, Bad Batch, maybe Lando (if I got it right) and Obi-Wan Kenobi. We get it, people loved Rogue One (not me) and The Clone Wars (which is actually pretty great, nothing to say against it), move on
To find that Mary Sue is responsible for it all
Besides the point that "actually WE are the Borg" or the Borg started due to us humans, Destiny was an incredible series to read.
I remember seeing Vger in the theater and hearing them say 3AU in size. Even as a child, my thought was "damn that's ridiculous size ship" (and yay!)
It was "over 82 AU"
This was AWESOME!! Great job, Rowan!!
Considering the fact that the Vadwaar knew of the Borg and have been placed under ice for about a millenia the Federation can't be responsible for the Borg (unless there's some spacetime travel nonsense, being that far back in time and somewhere in the Delta Quadrant)
In ST:TMP they say that the "Planet of Living Machines" found Voyager, which was damaged after passing through a wormhole, and they created a ship for it to return and find its creator. On the return journey, which took it across half the galaxy, a trip that took three hundred years, it evolved and grew in size by collecting information as it went to the pount that it became self aware. It's suggested that it grew far beyond humans and even the race of living machines who found it. So yes, it could have found a primitive form of the Borg homeworld and evolved way past it on its return to find Earth.
This is not a bad idea. I still think it's better to leave it unexplained and up to people's imagination. BUT your idea will work with one modification. Let's say, in addition to travelling a great distance through the wormhole, it also sent it back in time. That way the Borg would have more than 300 years.
@@StormsparkPegasus Maybe. In the film they called what it passed through a "black hole", which in the 1970s they confused with wormholes. Even now we're not sure how wormholes work. Some believe they're simply shortcuts to other parts of the universe, but some at least could also be breaches in the space time continuum.
@@white-dragon4424 Exactly...some wormholes in Star Trek have one end shifted in time from the other. Remember the wormhole they used in that one early Voyager episode where they were talking to a Romulan on the other end, and later discovered he was like 30 years in the past? Not all wormholes do that, but the fact that some have been shown to would justify that in-universe.
@@StormsparkPegasus I think I vaguely remember the episode. Even though I have all the box sets it's been a long time since I watched them.
@@white-dragon4424 Yeah...there may be more but that's the main one that comes to mind off the top of my head. Also, the way it was worded in ST:TMP was vague enough to be able to do just about anything with it. They said "Voyager 6 disappeared into what they used to call a black hole".
William Shatner himself wrote a novel about V'ger being the origin of the Borg way before Star Trek Legacy. Possibly bases on Gene's retroactive idea!
I'm in the no origin story camp but if they do it they should just expand on what the Vaadwuar say about them in Voyager. That they were just another technologically advanced race in the delta quadrant that was already cybernetically integrated 900 years before the episode Dragon's Teeth.
Check out the Fifth Element, Valerian and hidden Gems like Species and Cleopatra 2525
I always saw the Borg as a dark mirror to the Federation, where assimilation became literal as a dark mirror to the cooperation the Federation represents. It would be interesting if they originated as a Federation-like organization on the opposite side of the galaxy in the Delta Quadrant. You could even use this as a background to why the Delta Quadrant was generally so distrustful of the Federation starship Voyager giving that show a bit of a reframing that could be interesting. The Borg being a twisted alternative to the Federation could even be used to highlight various core themes to Trek in general too as the positives of the UFP are perverted in the creation of the Borg.
I think they should make them a mystery they tried this with the xenomorph from the alien series and it takes away the fun
The most convincing theory I've heard yet is by a youtuber called spaceships resurrected. He put the borg as simply the result of applied technological progression. Computers->Smartphones->wearables->neural implants. Internet, Algorithms. It's pretty easy to imagine any technological inclined species going down that path.
That makes them even scarier as the key components are already there for us.
Didn't the overview in Q Who give enough detail about their origins? Orthe retcons in Enterprise or STFC? It doesn't need to be explored.
V'GER was not modified that massive. It became that massive as a result of it's travels and gathering of knowledge throughout the cosmos, remember V'GER actually assimilated 2 members of the crew in order to better facilitate communication and understanding with the crew of the Enterprise.
VYGER created the Borg in the past(after falling into an anomaly) to assist it in the completion of its mission, the directive the Borg follow in the 24th century is a corruption of VOYGER's original mission "to map the universe". i think this works very well as an extension of the craft becoming conscious and having to self interoperate its own purpose, it also plays on the Borg being so interested in humanity.
The Borg always seemed like a social insect species (like bees or ants) that developed intelligence and sophisticated technology.
Ants ARE able to increase their collective intelligence by linking antennae...
Queens do NOT direct the colony, though. Just like the Borg Queen shouldn't really exist.
I always think about what Q said ”don’t provoke the borg”
Don't forget in Star Trek the Motion Picture Spock annalyzed the energy readings of most likely the cloud itself and it wad registered as a '12th power energy field' and that the massive ship itself was generating energy greater than the Earth's sun and that Commander Decker also said that thousands of Starships couldn't generate that much power.
Plot Twist: The Borg are a failed Cyberman Experiment!
Damn Daleks they ruin everything
@@obelic71 the ultimate conqueror of the universe the Daleks
@@svenmartin840 Borrrgggggggg borrrrgggggggggg BORGGGGG
exterminate exterminate EXTERMINATE
I mean if you go with the capaldi era cybermen it works really well.
I was about to say that.....
The books were awesome!!! Loved how they tied it back to Enterprise series.
I prefer the Borg to have a mystery origin. Guinan said their components had been evolving for thousands of centuries. This is nebulous enough to suggest but the only constant of their origin story was the technology and that no single species could be considered their progenitor.
Whatever the case may be, I like thinking about the board as an ancient and vast Menace. More like a malevolent force of nature then an alien species.
I think the Borg can work as a function of convergent evolution. It's possible they didn't start on just one planet, but rather, many different planets who went through a similar process and eventually merged as they encountered eachother
Furthermore, V'Ger was sucked into a black hole and came out into the delta quadrant. There it found "a planet populated by living machines". They saw it as primitive yet kindred. They equipped it with the ability to "observe and record", all these per the movies. So, because of the game (another alpha lore source), we know that the Borg were the ones that found V'Ger
Seems like the shows Discovery and Picard hint at some really big machine threat to the galaxy at large. It would be neat to see how the Borg can become the heroes that helps defeat this threat and become part of the Federation eventually. They hinted in Lower Decks in the far future where we see a member of the Borg sitting in a class learning about the history of the Federation.
I agree that the Borg don't really need an origin, but I did enjoy the Destiny series. It was great to catch up with old characters liek Martok and see the politics of the Federation president during wartime. And the stakes were actually pretty high. I feel like it gave the Borg their teeth back. The Borg's new tag line of, "Resistance is futile...but welcome," was genuinely chilling. And if they have to have an origin that, to me at least, explains why they're so damned obsessed with humanity, I prefer this one.
One theory I heard was the Romulans had something to do with them
While there is not a lot i like about William Shatner’s Star Trek books, I did really enjoy a chapter I read of a starfleet team trying to get through a Borg Hypercube. A seemingly infinite borg ship with more than one sentient flesh pit was satisfyingly dark.
The Borg might be an inevitable consequence of Technological Progress.
A form of Technological Singularity that happens to many civilizations once they reach a certain point.
Whenever two different Borg species with different origins come in contact with each other they merge.
That way the Borg have many different origins and this can be used to explain inconsistencies in the Star Trek Canon in regards to the age and origin of the Borg.
Over I like the video. Personally I think this series would be good for covering more speculative topics such as the orgian of the Borg.
As for a canon orgian of the Borg. If they do go with some we have already seen. They should go with that progenitor race that they keep hinting at in the orginal series and TNG.
Great job on the videos. Keep up the awesome work.
A tiny nitpick, but one that made me appreciate Star Trek The Motion Picture just that much more: V'Ger is described as _82 AUs_ in diameter, which is just utterly mindboggling and beyond overpowering. Which, in my opinion, is what makes V'Ger such a terrific Star Trek "villain", in that it absolutely can't be defeated with firepower or technobabble, but purely through empathy, intuition, and exploration
Beyond that, I agree with you that if they simply must try for an official canonical origin story for the Borg, they really need to knock it out of the park, and definitely not tie it to something we already know. But frankly, I'm not at all confident that they'd pull it off, so I'd prefer it remain a mystery. If anything, if they must bring back the Borg at all, I would like to see them returned to their fearsome monolithic status, with nary a queen in sight. Really dig deep into the original terrifying concept of the Borg as depicted in Q Who, a tireless collective force that will not stop until you are them and they are you
When Wesley joined two of the nanobots in the third season first episode called "Evolution" the nanobots quickly took over the ships computer core while gaining conscience. It even assimilated data for a time. But they agreed to leave to get more raw material in an uninhabited planet nearby to continue to assimilate and grow as such a fast rate until they eventually became the Borg. Wesley created the Borg!!
Interesting and thought provoking, I thank you for sharing your opinion on this subject. Have a good day
I like the idea that Vger is the final form of the Borg, that the temporal capabilities the Queen bragged about in First contact was used, after accumulating all possible technological knoweledge, they went back to the beginning of time to accumulate an equivelant of historical knoweledge, and it only came across earth by chance.
I think a Borg origin story shouldn't be told. Some things need mysteries to remain a mystery.
The changing episode of the original Star Trek series
Borg was invented by the federation to conquer the Galaxy
They went back in time and infected a race of alines that came the Borg in the gamma Quadrant
Here is where I stand on the origin of the Borg. Ever sense I first saw TMP I have always said that is where the Borg came from, and that was way back in the early 90's. Look at it this way. The "machine planet" discovers the Voyager probe, the modify it, and send it on a search for its creator. Machines being machiens become infected with the desire to learn everything and evolve, kinda like they were infected with a computer virus. That need gets stronger and stronger the more times they evolve until they become the Borg we all know. It just makes sense to me.
Love your vids, I'm enjoying them even if I disagree with your analysis. You have such a straightforward delivery and style that even if you refer to a pet theory of mine as "lame" I just laughed and hit like. Keep it up!
STNG novel "VENDETTA" covers the origin of The Borg quite nicely. I'd suggest reading it to anyone that enjoys authentic Trek.
The Return had a good middle ground. Vyger not only traveled thru space, but time. It then encounter pre Borg race. So Vyger started the Borg. Overtime it forgot this. In the book the Borg take and start to assimulating Spock. They find a version of him already in the Collective. It is much more coherant than the Legacy version.
At the time of Voyager the Borg had been kicking around for 1200 plus years. They didnt start expanding until they found transwarp tunnels.
I would want that the Borg are actually old and a civilization that developed over a long time from primitive animals to what they are now. A civilization that slowly fell into this technological trap.
I thought the origin was obvious. Star Trek is a story on technology that helps and uplifts. The Borg are a warning on technology run amuck and frankly, a warning on our current technological track. Look at where we are now and the direction we're going with implants, neural connections that link everyone to the internet, prosthetics, etc.
Its a society that had it as optional (where we're going) but will eventually have it as mandatory if you want to compete. Then its only a small leap with a despot changing the rules of the neural connections and boom, the first queen and the hive mind.
Its a Cyberpunk warning.
Thought the Vardwah story from voyager maked the most sense..
Back way back when... they were an emerging species that over time they slowly gained strength and took over the delta quadrant.
A borg cube crashed on my land 3 weeks ago and im scrapping all the copper from it. Also some other weird elements that the scrap yard won't take since 3 of their employees got taken in for having metal type objects coming out of their skin and being crazy. I made a million bucks already scrapping copper from that cube.
Lol
I'm not saying that VGER should have created the Borg, but I think that VGER showed how something that tied back to us didn't make the universe smaller and less cool. I think in the same way, if told well, an origin of the Borg tied to something we already know in the Star Trek universe could seek to expand the Star Trek universe and add opportunities for storytelling.
The Borg were just what you said. They were a civilization where their technology outpaced their empathy and they became subsumed by the whole.
Damn, you sure sold me on ST: Destiny! I’m super interested in reading that after what you said about it!!
I assume V'gir would have created the Borg as attendants a long time ago before evolving enough to not need them any more and leaving them behind to evolve/assimilate on their own.
I personally think its fine if we never get a clewe but answer to how the Borg came to be.
It can be fun to speculate on it, but honestly if we never get to know, it's not a problem for me personally.
If Star Trek writers tie the origin of the Borg into the already known universe, they could easily use Ray Kurzweil as the creator.
what about incorporating the cell creatures that Spock and Kirk run across in TOS as they are similar to Borg and could have been what created the Borg. As the assimilate humans to do their will so if they run across a cyborg species and give them a singular consciousness as the did in TOS. Likewise Spock could not detect them as life forms as they were a cell of a larger collective life, thus the cyborg would not recognize them as life until it was to late. Just a thought.
The only origin connection to established characters/settings for the Borg in any of these stories I actually liked was one of the older Trek novels which made the giant thing from the TOS episode “The Doomsday Machine” an ancient weapon that was created to fight the Borg. More of an origins for the Machine than the Borg, but I enjoyed that idea.
My theory is the Q contacted and played with a so far unknown race that was a similar or evolving towards a collective, that race then turned themselves into the borg to assimilate others with knowledge that would enable them to get even footing or to rival the power of the Q.
I like the idea of them being some strange technological inevitability, that kinda leaves it ambiguous if they've existed before. Beating them could be about overcoming that inevitability. That would be something that would still jive with the picard storyline and the romulans.
You could throw in some quasi religious computational math into it too, in a way that would be very true to star trek form and values.
I'm with the camp of people that think that the Borg don't need an origin story and, in fact, are better without one. "Q Who" is still my favorite Borg episode and just the best one in my opinion. And the whole point of that episode is Q just absolutely putting these smug, overconfident Federation types in their place by showing them the universe contains things so unfathomable and terrifying that they should really double-check whether they truly want to be out here. The Borg are the embodiment of the terror and unknowable, cold, vastness of space. Honestly, if they'd never made another Borg show or movie after that, I would have been totally fine with that, and I'd still think the Borg were an absolutely brilliant idea.
William Shatner, ghost writer Judith Garfield Reeves Stevens wrote several books and the Borg resurrected Kirk and suggested a V'ger Borg origin planet.
Best orgin story David Mack Destiny Trilogy, circa 2008. memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Caeliar
I like the idea of the Borg’s origins having some vague thematic parallels to the origins of the Replicators from Stargate.
(Namely, born in tragic circumstances out of fear/desperation, that their defining replication/expansion had a concrete purpose at the time of their creation, but now the unchecked continuation of it isn’t necessarily providing any more incremental utility to that purpose.)
The "Destiny" book series had 500 Borg cubes VS the Federation , after the Feds & a portion of the Alpha quadrant powers loose a portion of their fleets .
Guess who won ?
Yeah ... .
Not a great series believability wise , just a lot of hype for it's time .
B- for effort for trying to tie way too many things together in the Trek universe (also known as "self referencing" way too much) , while at the same time sliding back to "blowing up planets" (a cliche at the time of Destiny's writing) as the 'oh noers' .
I agree with the videos conclusion tho , as I also don't want a Borg origin story , especially not one that's done by the hacks currently in charge of Trek .
I concur. But up to Destiny, the Borg were already used way too often in the relaunch-novels. Just think of their super-cube (whatever they called it in the book).
As for David Mack, I think, he gets too muss credit as a Trek-writer. Most of his books are "just okay", at best.
"Resistance is futile.", Three of the scariest words coming from a deep space signal.
great vid Rowan I agree with you on canon.i mean if you watched Enterprise. They encountered the Borg like more than a 100 years before TNG Flox discorvered how to combat the nanobodies and yet Starfleet has no knowledge of the Borg...still fun
No public knowledge or knowledge among normal starfleet officers it seems, or at least officers on the Enterprise-D.
We do know the Hansen went on a mission to track down the Borg in 2353. The Federation Council on Exobiology backed and supported their project. This was over a decade before Picard encounter them. Until at some point they decided to withdraw their support for a unknown reason call the Hansen back, a call they ignored.
We also know the Al Alurian knew of the Borg an were assimilated by the Borg. There no reason why they wouldn't inform the Borg of the threat. Especially as the Al Alurians knew of Earth and presumably of the Federation long before they were assimilated.
We also know that Sloane in First Contact, shared her experiences of the Borg on the Enterprise E with cochrane. We know this because Captain Archer discover reference to machine people in one of the speeches he gave.
So humans have known of the Borg before the Federation came into existence, before we were even sending vessels out to explore.
Q just came an told everyone that Borg are coming and showed just how powerful they are, not that they existed. An well the knowledge need to become public in the Federation. An what better way than tell Picard because that guy give speeches, shout and screams until someone listens to him.
Borg origin story should be grand and tragic, and as far away from Earth as possible.
A book I read called Vendeta. Picard ran across a much larger doomsday machine like the episode with Kirk. The planet eating ship was perfect for eating borg cubes as fuel. It was a weapon from an ancient war between a people that was wiped out by the borg. It happened in a different part of the galaxy. 🚫 Earth connection.