Borg Behavior as symptoms of mass infection

[FireNexus]

In the this thread, I put forward the idea that maybe the change in the borg starting with BOBW was as a result of some kind of infection, perhaps introduced by Q when he sent the E-D to the Delta Quadrant.

That's true, but you can't be as stupid as they apparently were and control such a huge swatch of the galaxy when large galactic powers like the dominion exist. They are also very different between TNG and First Contact/VOY. Drone design, behavior, even the internal environments of cubes has changed. In Q Who, you'd think somebody would have pointed out the 92% humidity when they beamed over. Cubes looked humid, almost foggy, in Voyager. Drones were slick with moisture rather than dry and pale. The looked pale in TNG, they looked sickly in FC/Voy.

Personally, I think some kind of fungal infection started spreading through the collective between BOBW and Scorpion. There are examples of funguses that infect the nervous systems of species and change their behavior on earth. A fungal infection would explain a lot.

1. Assimilation of living beings could allow the fungus to spread, since whatever it is seems only to infect Borg. This is likely due to a need to suppress the immune reaction of drones to prevent implant rejection.

2. Since the functioning of Borg ships is determined by the hive mind, a fungus which infects the brains of drones might cause them to prefer a temperature, atmospheric pressure and humidity level that is most beneficial for the fungus.

3. I may be wrong, but there's not a lot of evidence to indicate the existence of queens prior to TNG. It could well be that the queens started popping up as a result of the infection. The drones who were more susceptible became lower in intelligence and less susceptible drones suddenly started to become more influential. Hell, it could even be that the queens started figuring it out and purposely hid the evidence of infection, not really letting anybody crank the thermostat until it was widespread enough. It would explain why there was apparently a queen in BOBW but the cube seemed dry and the drones didn't look so much like zombies covered in KY Jelly.

I give you the Queen in First Contact:

and in the flashback scene with locutus:


She looks somewhat less sickly there, don't you think? These both came from the same film, so the difference there actually is even stronger evidence than it might otherwise be. I admit it's probably a lighting difference, of course.

In fact, I'll go you one further. The whole point of the events of Q Who were to expose the Borg in the Delta Quadrant to the fungus. Sprinkle a few spores on the Enterprise, fling it into Borg territory and claim you were just messing with old Gene Luck Pickerd and concidentally you introduced a contagion to this potential threat. Why do it that way? Because then Q could plausibly deny realizing what he'd done. Seems like they have their own sort of version of the Prime Directive, even if it's more lax.

Add the 8472 war taxing their resources and suddenly the Borg fall apart. Q displayed a pretty chilling fear of directly riling them too much, "DO NOT PROVOKE THE BORG!" and all.

I completely made this up in the last few minutes, but it very neatly explains the transition of the Borg from chilling post-human conquerors to comicly inept space zombies.

Conversation died there, but I can't stop thinking about this idea. It explains everything we see very neatly. Thoughts?

[Prometheus Unbound]

You'd think then maybe the Doctor would detect it, in Voyager, when he had drones to play with in season 3. And Seven never seemed infected visually when the implants were removed. And no one mentioned it when she had scans or surgeries... by the end of the show, the Doc knew the Borg bio systems pretty much inside out.

Crusher would have detected it, when fixing Picard, no? Or Hugh?

Or the transporter bio-filters. Or the Borg's biofilters?


There'd have to be a great number of things that got missed because of some fungal spores. These guys can scan subatomic particles with exact precision. You'd think they'd pick up a small mushroom.



As a concept, it's a pretty nice idea. I quite like it, actually. But I don't think it could fit into "fannon" due to the above.