Re-Imagining the Borg

[Rhob]

As anyone fairly well-versed in Star Trek knows, the Borg started out as this nasty, cybernetic, technology-obsessed race. Over the years and series, a number of unfortunate brain bugs came out of them. I'd like to offer a "re-imagining" of the Borg that is hopefully more realistic and avoids the brain bugs of the later series.

First off, I can see no real reason for the Borg "drones" to be entirely humanoid (aside from TV production budgets). Given their technological zealotry, they would likely take "the right tool for the right job" to an extreme. A myriad of different configurations would exist, each one specialized for a particular task.

In this light, the whole idea of assimilating people is ludicrous. The Borg would only care about organisms for what they could get out of them -- i.e. spare parts and materials. So their behavior regarding the people of the Federation would be more like the alien from Virus. Obviously, it also makes the idea of the Borg growing their own humanoid clones completely unnecessary.

Ironically enough, there is a way to preserve the brain-bug "nanoprobes" with all this. Of course, no longer will they perform Assimilation on Demand. The "nanoprobes" would simply be molecular assemblers, programmed to manufacture Borg equipment from the necessary raw materials. What this means is that, if a Federation citizen is captured by the Borg, he can expect to be dissimilated into his component molecules. He may even be alive when this process starts -- a horrifying thought indeed.

These re-imagined Borg would originate from a species whose members combined into an electronic hive-mind. So all of the drone bodies are merely tools of the hive-mind -- they're not sentient themselves. Perhaps some or all of them can be remotely operated by the collective, but they are not part of the collective itself.

Regarding their behavior, the re-imagined Borg have a lot in common with their canon counterparts. They're aggressively expansionist, seeking to bring ever-increasing amounts of matter and energy under their control -- even if it belongs to other intelligent entities. In other words, they're a technological cancer. However, they don't understand war the same way that we do. Competition, let alone cooperation, is a foreign concept to them. In fact, they've been a hive-mind for so long that they (may) no longer recognize individual intelligences as such. But they do understand the concept of defense, which they readily use when their facilities, installations, and vessels are attacked.

So in a nutshell, the re-imagined Borg are transhumanism gone wrong. Any thoughts? Hopefully the above isn't just a bunch of wankery.

[NecronLord]

There's no reason for them to come into conflict with the protagonists, unless they value aquiring new knowledge or technology, or have some sort of ideology.

If all they wanted was matter and energy, they'd spend all their time building dyson swarms.

The borg can be fixed more simply, by making it literally impossible to defeat them without huge losses, and removing their stupid zombie like behaviour; you attack a drone, it either defends itself effectively, or calls in a fully armoured and heavily armed 'immune system' borg to neutralise the threat. Oh, and no ignoring intruders.

[Rhob]

There's no reason for them to come into conflict with the protagonists, unless they value aquiring new knowledge or technology, or have some sort of ideology.

Ah, good point -- and something I missed in the OP. Yes, I'd say they can recognize other species' technology as such, and are interested in learning about it. They may even be interested in learning about other species' biology. "We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own" and all that.

If all they wanted was matter and energy, they'd spend all their time building dyson swarms.

Indeed. I'd say they do spend a lot of time doing that, to feed and maintain their ever-growing hive-minds.

The borg can be fixed more simply, by making it literally impossible to defeat them without huge losses, and removing their stupid zombie like behaviour; you attack a drone, it either defends itself effectively, or calls in a fully armoured and heavily armed 'immune system' borg to neutralise the threat. Oh, and no ignoring intruders.

Heh, I agree with you there. No more "zombies in spaaaaaace!"

[Flagg]

I would have the Borg be some kind of corrupted AI nanomachine based probe from outside the galaxy that fuses with the crew of a starship and then adopts a perverted form of Federation ideology. Then kind of evolve from there. Rather than some species in the far off Delta Quadrant.

[NecronLord]

I would have the Borg be some kind of corrupted AI nanomachine based probe from outside the galaxy that fuses with the crew of a starship and then adopts a perverted form of Federation ideology. Then kind of evolve from there. Rather than some species in the far off Delta Quadrant.

That seems like it could stand to be its own story, not related to the borg concept at all.

[Oskuro]

(warning, the following is an opinion as to how I'd like the Borg from an story-telling perspective, not a technological one)

Hmm, I always had this image of the Borg using organic parts as components, having no regard or respect for the bodies of sentient beings. As a plot element, I liked the feeling of them being this revolting corrupt entity, rather than just technowanked zombies. In fact, I liked the whole Queen-Data exchange in ST:First Contact for that reason.

To put it bluntly, if I could re-design the Borg, I'd contact (or plagiarize) H.R. Giger and his biomechanoid concepts, although, of course, I'd have a rather hard time getting my concept broadcasted

Technologically I wouldn't wank them at all, just play the "they are too many and really don't give a shit if we blow them up" card, with a bit of "they are a freaking sadomasochist race who happens to enjoy being hurt as much as hurting others".

Not that this is anything new to sci-fi, but the otherwise aseptic Star Trek could really benefit from such a depraved opponent. Or such is my opinion.

[NecronLord]

Again, you've not really got the concept of borg there. From their origin, they're collossally powerful, asexualised, hive minded antagonists that the UFP isn't ready for.

What you've got there might be interesting, but it's not the same thing at all, and could be better handled as an original race.

That's the thing with these 'remakes' people come out with, they generally aren't, they're entirely different concepts. Most of the races in Star Trek have a very strong initial concept, and by changing them radically, you'd just make the audience indignant or uninterested.

For instance:

1. The Klingons are warlike, antagnoists and martial.
2. The Romulans are honourable, but militristic (this is somewhat expanded on in TNG to make them sneaky and repressive too, but even there, we see an honourable side to them from time to time. Commander "I will nonetheless make a note in my log that I am not responsible for those eighteen lives... and that I deplore their loss!" Toreth in Face of the Enemy for instance.)
3. The Gorn are agressive and terratorial, but somewhat reasonable.
4. The Tholians are alien and even more terratorial.
5. The Ferengi are greedy capitalists.
6. The Borg are nigh-unstoppable cyborgs bent on taking what you have. (While the idea of assimilating people wasn't there initially, it came in on their second appearance).
7. The Dominion are fascists with cloned armies, led by shapeshifters.

And so on. While you can change those things, for instance, adding extra head ridges, or improving the look of the borg, adding a queen, giving them a really stupid ritual sword, and so on, ultimately, the audience will want justification for why you change things if it totally invalidates the old version. People say that a remake needn't have continuity - like BSG. But even that maintained the bare bones of its antagonist (and protagonist) races; genocidal robot enemies that looklike the offspring of a cyberman and Knight Rider's Kitt.

People's "remakes" of the borg and the Federation and such on here often needn't be the Borg or the Federation at all; and would do better being able to establish a unique identity for themselves. Once you go beyond a certain point, what's the point, aside from brand recognition, of calling it a Klingon, instead of a Narian?

[Axiomatic]

The term was re-imagining, not remake. I seem to have said that before.

[(name here)]

You know, the borg could become an intersting threat if they remembered THEY HAVE GUNS ON THEIR ARMS! they'd have a number of weaknesses, but be a credible threat without looking stupid. Them not responding to intruders would be a cool one-time or more thing, but when a cube actually took damage from it, the borg would slaughter intruders on sight. They could adapt to tactics as well as weapons, but have a couple of reliable weaknesses inherent to their ships that they deem too expensive to retrofit active-duty ships to deal with.

[Junghalli]

That's the thing with these 'remakes' people come out with, they generally aren't, they're entirely different concepts.

I completely agree with this. I think a lot of people who come up with ideas to "fix" Trek tend to take a well-intentioned but overly simplistic approach. They think the key is to change the basic concepts, but really most of the problems aren't with the basic concepts, they're with the writing and execution. I'm going to quote my own post in the "Trek Realism Improvement" thread, it's specifically adressed to realism but I think it will clarify my feelings on the subject in general fairly well.

The thing is most of the things on your list are thematic alterations (no time travel, no humanoid aliens etc.). These aren't where the big problem with Star Trek lies. Quite simply, the big problem with Star Trek, realism-wise, is that the writers got fucking lazy. They never bothered thinking through the implications and mechanics of what they were throwing on screen. I get the impression most of their stuff just went straight from brainstorm to script, with little or none of the background worldbuilding and consistency checking that is the hallmark of a well-developed fictional universe.

Look at the examples of egregious stupidity cited in OVEG and OEEG. For instance, Ocampa females give birth once in their lives, and the writer never bothered to think it through enough to go "hey, that means they wouldn't be viable as a species, because they couldn't possibly reproduce at replacement rate". They also have visible breasts, which are basically a visual fertility display, despite the fact that they only mate once. Most of the egregious stupidity in Star Trek is like this. It's the result of the writer going "LOL this'd be cool" and not bothering to think through the implications of what he's saying. Basically, they just didn't give a shit, and it shows.

Most of the truly egregious realism problems with Star Trek would be solved by a writer who actually cares about the universe he's creating instead of just shitting out the first inane thing that pops into his head.

[Sidewinder]

In my opinion, the problem with 'Star Trek' isn't that it needs new ideas, it's that whatever ideas the writers have are executed poorly, e.g., crappy scripts and limited budget. The Borg wanking and nerfing is one example.

Instead of wanking the Borg into an unstoppable enemy, I'd probably devote my efforts and resources to making the Romulans a VERY credible threat, with the pointy-eared bastards starting and supporting proxy wars all over Federation and Klingon space. I WILL have scenes in the Romulan Senate so the audience can understand how the Romulan mind works. I WILL include ground battle scenes featuring armored vehicles and artillery, even if budget limitations mean these scenes can only be CNN-type reports shown on a Starfleet officer's futuristic TV, using scale models and/or CGI to represent the armored vehicles and artillery in action.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I would have the Borg pretty much how they were originally depicted in "Q Who," harvesters of technology and whatever happens to come with it, except that they would never be physically shown in the series; the viewers and characters would never see what they individually look like, only just their ships.

They'd be presented as a mysterious, nigh-invulnerable but rarely encountered antagonist who show up somewhere, take what they want, and disappear leaving little to no survivors. Basically make them some terrible galactic bogyman with a widely spread and rumoured reputation. A Starfleet vessel's first reaction to coming across one should be "OH SHI-!" and getting the hell out of there.

[(name here)]

Nah, the problem with that is that they couldn't really be beaten, it would collapse the reputation that you build up. Intersting idea, but then the borg would be impossible to make into major players, since they'd crush the main characters in any confrontation. the buildup is useable, but when the main characters did beat the borg it would be anti-climatitic.

mind, they'd create the ability to throw a monkey-wrench into simple episodes if you don't overuse them. the enterprise would be going somewhere, see the borg, and cut and run. they could also show up during a major battle, and begin doing something completely unrelated to the battle despite the interfernce of the comabatants, just to drive home the point that they are unstoppable. also, maybe have a bit of intercepted borg transmitions which accords greater importance to a random clump of hydrogen than the enterprise.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Nah, the problem with that is that they couldn't really be beaten, it would collapse the reputation that you build up. Intersting idea, but then the borg would be impossible to make into major players, since they'd crush the main characters in any confrontation. the buildup is useable, but when the main characters did beat the borg it would be anti-climatitic.

Which is exactly why I said I'd have the Borg play the antagonistic role of a galactic bogeyman instead of a regular villain only to become just another notch on Starfleet's belt: to avoid what the show ended up doing with the Borg.

[Anguirus]

They could have salvaged the Borg if they'd just STOPPED HAVING THEM ATTACK. The Feddies rate one cube to them: period. They beat the cube, good for them, maybe we'll roll over them en masse in a few thousand years but we're not going to fret about it.

There's part of me that likes "I, Borg" and "Descent" but even those eps made them too "beatable," and were really contrived to boot.

They could have had them be the "unstoppable presence" in Voyager, as Spanky suggests. Which wouldn't stop Voyager from sucking but it would be something.

First Contact, despite the kudos it gets for being a watchable Trek movie, really killed the Borg for me. A grudge-holding queen and space zombies, that lose again and again thanks to plot-induced incompetence? First Contact made them too human-like, which in turn made them stop being so unsettling. Of course it raised the question why keep sending one cube to lose over and over when you could send two and win?

The fundamental problem with the handling of the Borg may have been that they were treated as villains, rather than just as a force.

[Darth Fanboy]

One of the few bright spots of TNG era Trek to me was "Best of both Worlds". THAT is how the Borg should have been portrayed. Minus the intruder-ignoring. Those Borg just oozed evil. Unfortunately in subsquent appearances assimilation turned into a brainbug and suddenly, instead of assimilating key indivudals or small samples of a population, they had to assimilate EVERYONE.

We saw Borg Babies, we saw Picard being assimilated on a surgical table, we saw a Cube stroll its way to the heart of the Federation like a goddamn wrecking ball on their way to Earth and it took a last second miracle to stop them. At that point the Borg should have been kept aside for a real long while, so that the audience would have to bite on ther lip to keep from peeing their pants the next time they showed up. Unfortunately the writers ran out of good ideas quickly, then they ran out of bad ideas, so they started rehashing ideas and part of that meant the Borg. If the writers had NOT decided to go down the route of revisiting the Borg in the ways they did, especially with that terrible two parter with Lore, and found an original enemy for Voyager in the Delta Quadrant.

Part of my initial attraction to BoBW was that the Borg were cold heartless evil machines not acting on sinister motivations, but an emotionless drive so basic it could be the technological equivalent of a primal urge. First Contact pretty well fudged that, and it's unfortunate that FC was the best of the TNG trek movies.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

I thought it would be interesting to try and present both the Borg's strengths and weaknesses in a somewhat more believable format. As they are presented in TNG (Voyager de-balling aside), they are techno-scavengers who are incredibly powerful and alien in thought. They could theoretically smash the Federation flat if they devoted their full forces to it.

Yet, inconsistent this powerful, expansionist mindset is the fact that they aren't greedily expanding into everything, cutting huge swaths out of Klingon, Romulan and Federation territory. There's also the fact that despite being so technologically advanced, they seem to rely on vulnerable, unreliable biological systems a hell of a lot.

So why not keep the Borg as a hive-based, techno-mechanical terror, but provide semi-valid reasons for their strange weaknesses. The 'queens', the hive-minds, or whatever are obviously incredible powers, able to command millions upon millions of drones. Yet they are also an alien equivalent of religious fanatics. Despite their technological superiority, they have it locked in their psyche that organic technology of some sort is the key to further superiority. Thus the reason they seem to deliberately limit their full potential by relying on organics, and the reason they so aggressively attack other races: They seek to expand their genetic library and continue to run experiments with the life they assimilate until they find this magic key and can reach the next level of superiority.

[(name here)]

ooooh, i know the borg's greatest beliveable weakness without straying too far from the concept: Being on the other side of the galaxy!

[Oskuro]

As a side note, I think that conceptually, the Strogg from the Quake series are more interesting as a cyborg warlike race that assimilates people, even though they are quite different themathically.

I'm not saying the Borg should be exactly like the Strogg, but I think the Strogg do take the whole cybernetic assimilation concept in a more interesting direction. On the other hand, the iconic Borg Cube, and the sheer aura of creepiness they have (in the first encounters, at least) is what the Borg are (or were) really all about, IMO.


For those who do not know about them, here's the Wikipedia article: Link

[Major Diarrhia]

The Borg were good up until the end of the battle scene in First Contact, if I have the time line straight.

I would make two main changes to the character of the Borg, it would be a single entity not a damn Queen subjugating a mentally controlled slave network. It should be one of the most intelligent things in the universe. Secondly, the Borg would be curious, they're super smart so they need super distractions and super pursuits.

I would keep them making Picard the Locutus. The one thing I would change here is make him tremendously influential in his arguments and actions for submitting to the Borg. He has a hive mind of trillions backing him up, he should be able to come up with something better than just making demands. It would be really interesting if he could actually persuade a bunch of people. His goal isn't to get people to join up but just to do what the Borg want, after all fighting the Borg wastes the Borg's time and they don't care about assimilating people.

The Borg are now curious. This is more of a background thing that wouldn't come to the front until Voyager. The Borg were portrayed as technology scavengers, Voyager took this further and I think without intending it made them appear to be completely dependent on scavenging, to the point where the Borg are incurious and almost never do research or think ahead. Before Voyager they had the possibility of being curious and that curiosity enhances the reasoning behind attacking Earth. The Enterprise-D has tantalizing mysteries, it's a ship that traveled hundreds of light years in no time yet is technologically incapable of doing what it did, it also disappears just as mysteriously. This initially allows the reasoning to head to Earth for the sake of uncovering the possible technology that allowed this mystery but it doesn't work for the subsequent attack, nor the style. Voyager explained it with the Borg testing themselves against humans because of their "resistance factor", which isn't an explanation I really care for.

I would change that slightly to the Borg being mildly interested in humans and playing around with us. Nothing was discovered in previous examinations of humanity and they know there is something to us, not to mention how the sleep routine exploit was uncovered but it's not a big enough mystery to really devote themselves to either. So, the Borg had a spare cube and sent it our way. Why send a time ship in the end, why not, it's more interesting.

As for Voyager Borg, that'll be different. Starting with First Contact, there won't be any Queen, the Borg will finally be explained as a true single galaxy spanning mind. In Voyager itself, the Borg won't have Borg space, that'll just be something other civilizations call the space the Borg are in. The Borg will act like they do on their ships and there will be loads of civilizations in what is considered Borg space, as long as those civilizations don't bother the Borg, the Borg won't bother them. I have to agree though with the comment about Borg defending themselves, they should do it with gusto, no shambling, no being allowed back in. At worst a colony might go missing once in a rare while or a ship might have a hole cut out of it, in order to sample technology and knowledge. The danger won't be from getting assimilated or wiped out unless your civilization makes it self a real drag on the Borg, the danger will be from getting in the way of the Borg when they're doing the big experiments, since bad things tend to happen if you sit around and watch.

That pretty much eliminates the current Borg stories, except the whole Species 8472 thing can still happen. This time, it's about Voyager getting through the war zone because the Borg take care of themselves against Species 8472 they don't need Voyager's help nor anyone else's. That could be Voyager's Year of Hell right there, an entire season of Voyager trying to sneak its way through the war torn "countryside".

[NecronLord]

One of the few bright spots of TNG era Trek to me was "Best of both Worlds". THAT is how the Borg should have been portrayed. Minus the intruder-ignoring. Those Borg just oozed evil. Unfortunately in subsquent appearances assimilation turned into a brainbug and suddenly, instead of assimilating key indivudals or small samples of a population, they had to assimilate EVERYONE.

"Your population will be assimilated as easily as Picard has been. Resistance is futile." Right from Best of Both Worlds, assimilation of all humanoids was one of their chief goals.

Well, apart from Data.

[Shroom Man 777]

Maybe they were originally a race that thought "Borging" themsleves other people was a good thing and that they're programmed to do everyone that favor. Thing is, not everyone wants to be a transhumanified grotesque hivemine cyborg monstrosity.

[NecronLord]

Quite correct; they consider it to be an improvement.

[Uraniun235]

Maybe they were originally a race that thought "Borging" themsleves other people was a good thing and that they're programmed to do everyone that favor. Thing is, not everyone wants to be a transhumanified grotesque hivemine cyborg monstrosity.

Locutus seemed to be confused by the continued resistance of the Enterprise, or at least attempted to get them to question their stance. "Why do you resist?"

[wjs7744]

Don't forget STFC, the queen makes it quite clear that they think they're doing those they assimilate a favour.