"You may encounter Enterprise crew members who've already been assimilated. Don't hesitate to fire... believe me, you'll be doing them a favor." - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Says Picard, a man who was rescued from the Borg and was fine. And 7 of 9. And those Borg kids from Voyager. And Hugh. Probably more I'm forgetting Seems like it's not too hard to undo assimilation lol
“We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”
Q did humanity a solid by letting them know what was coming. It was clear they were moving towards the Federation since the message from the 22nd century. His second deft move was giving Voyager a shortcut home that just so happened to have them run across a Borg trans warp hub that would eventually get them home and also leave the Borg broken and reeling.
Time paradoxes being what they are, Q also initiated the series of events leading to the Borg wreckage/drones ending up on 22nd century Earth to send the signal back to the collective. If Q hadn't made that introduction at all, it's possible that the Borg may not have come knocking on Starfleet's door. Though, it's more likely a matter of when given the Borg's expansionist attitude. The Federation also would have been even more ill-equipped to combat the Dominion without its experience gained from fighting the Borg. A solid by Q, yes, from a certain point of view considering that all the while he was also pestering various members of the species why humanity should be allowed to exist at all and not be snapped out.
@@thegreatboto It's worth pointing out that those ships using the newer design paradigm that we first saw with the _Enterprise-E_ were Star Fleet's new construction designed to fight the Borg; the Federation might not have been able to survive the Dominion War without the weapons they built for the Borg.
The Borg are arguably one of the most chilling science fiction races ever conceived of. Especially as they cannot be reasoned with, cannot be bought of or convinced to leave you alone. If you have something they want they will come and take it and everything else that makes you, you making you like them.
They are the closet you can get to Eldritch abomination without going full Lovecraftian. Personal I am fan of them being a lot like the flood from Halo and the true existence of the borg is beyond space and time and the collective is only their physical connection on the physical plane. This would explain why their origin is so fragmented and gives them a true chance to appear again in the future. All it needs now is the right conditions for the collective to return.
Utilitarianism pushed to the maximal extent. Everything has a purpose, nothing is wasted. The collective is an expression of cosmic horror without going into spiritualism. Purely technological. Their overall goals are inscrutable, unknowable and would shatter the mind of the individual if shown it as a whole. In a sense the Tyrannids of 40k, their Zerg copies in StarCraft, the Flood of Halo and the Necromorph Brethren Moons are perhaps some of the closest peers in other universes. Though those are all biological in origin, I’m not sure which is more terrifying.
And it might just be your resources are useful. You could be an already assimilated species sample, with your technology lower than what the Borg use, but your colony has useful resources and the residents of the colony can be gathered and assimilated, all to produce another Borg Cube.
"They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!"
With the rise of New Trek like Lower Decks, Picards S3 and especially Strange New Worlds, my hopes are up for a new, old school type series of a 5-year mission in the gamma-quadrant, set right after DS9. Who knows whats still kicking about there. Maybe we just severed a tiny arm of the Borg in the Delta Quadrant, and the true leviathan rests somewhere else.
@@GrandmasterDevo You know some idiot scientist(s), government bureau, secret spy network, etc. has some Borg bits just laying around that they're waiting to use...until the Borg use them.
"In their collective state, the Borg are utterly without mercy; driven by one will alone: the will to conquer. They are beyond redemption, beyond reason." - Jean-Luc Picard, unknown, quoted by Kathryn Janeway, 2373
Quite the comprehensive assessment of the Borg. Still, for as devastated as they are, they may be weakened, but not necessarily gone. Somewhere and sometime, they'll probably be back. But resistance it would seem, is not so futile.
One twist I like to think about is an AU where the Borg do try diplomacy. After all, conquest by force only works for so long until you run into something stronger. Instead, imagine them as the slow, creeping horror of a hive mind that's kind, friendly, and slowly working it's way into every civilization. Someone struggling with depression or a critical injury? Go get assimilated, we assure you you'll be just the same person, even if instead it's the hive mind using the captured mind to put on a happy little act. Criminals, the outcast and the unwanted would be given to the Borg as a way of 'making use of bad rubbish'. Scientists and artists would want to join due to the illusion of keeping their own mind, where as instead they merely added to the collective. And in the end, once the drones were everywhere and knew everything about the civilization? The conquest would take less than a day.
The Borg and The Flood from HALO would truly be the worst ways you could die. Fates worse than death. And with the Flood, you are still alive in there somewhere, in pain, forever…
Fact: Giving the Borg a Queen and making them somewhat reminiscent of bees was a horrible idea. If they are a collective then they don't need a Queen. "Assimilation is futile." - Ensign Alexander Munro
I never thought of her (them?) as being a literal queen or leader; that's just the Federation drawing an analogy. I imagine the Borg Queen as being a short of living vinculum, a focal point where the Collective's many voices are drawn into one. Like the destruction of a Borg ship's vinculum, the death of the Queen disrupts at least a large portion of the Collective for a time, but it just produces another one. So I really don't think the "Queen" is anything more than a specialized drone at the end of the day.
Ah the Borg. Once the scariest race in all of Star Trek. Rendered into comic villains that could be beaten every other episode in Voyager, much like the Daleks.
Remember when the Borg were the most terrifying thing in Star Trek? Remember when they were this faceless, Lovecraftian leviathan, baring down on the galaxy from out of the darkness, mysterious and utterly unstoppable except by the most profound effort and even then, they were just stalled rather than defeated? And the Voyager ran them into the ground and they became just another incompetent badguy, constantly failing every single time...
Mmm Voyagers writing may have mishandled them at times and made them feel much less overpowered but Voyager was they made after the first major battle with the Borg Collective and was developed around the same time as the Defiant and much closer to a proper warship than the outgoing Enterprise D. So in universe it makes far more sense why the Borg threat isn’t as overwhelming. Despite that I think Voyager made the Borg far more interesting race as we actually get to learn more about them.
I would argue that this is a case of infinitely adaptable (the Borg) meets an equally adaptable force with a side of stubborn (Starfleet, and humanity in particular). The Borg's weakness was always its lack of understanding of the individual, and even when creating the Queen, it was with the mindset of Loyalty to the Whole without a reason to be loyal. In other words, there was no Purpose. Starfleet has a Purpose. "To seek out new life and new civilizations." They go out to explore. Loyalty is built into being a part of Starfleet, they work as a team, but relying on diversity united voluntarily to accomplish a goal. Troi told that Romulan commander that to defeat an enemy, you must first understand them. It took Locutus, Wolf 359, Seven, and a lot of death to understand the Borg, but understand them they did. Thus, once Starfleet got its hands on Seven's Infinite Frequency Infinite Combination weapon, the Borg became something manageable. Dangerous to be sure, but they can be held in check.
@@BigHeadClan Nah, the _Intrepid_ class wasn't one of the Federation's anti-Borg warship classes. _Those_ have a distinct look, as typified by the _Sovereign_ class ships, but others showed up for the later parts of the Dominion War. It's also worth noting that _Voyager_ is a relatively small ship, less than half the size of the _Enterprise-D._ By all rights it should have been less powerful... and, yes, it would have somewhat better tech than _Enterprise,_ but then, the Borg are getting new technology, too.
@@boobah5643As I said it was constructed during the same period as the Defiant, while not specifically tailored for battle against the Borg the Intrepid was the result of a more combat focused design and laid the ground work for many of the key features later anti Borg ships would use as standard. The Intrepid was muuuch smaller than the enterprise yes, but the Enterprise D was effectively a cruise liner carrying large swaths of non combatants and families. StartFleet removed the civilian aspects allowing for a much smaller/maneuverable ship with a more advanced warp core, faster computing thanks to its neural gel packs, while sporting a similar number of phaser banks, advanced shielding and sensor arrays all of which was on par or more advanced than the Enterprise D. StarFleet effectively cut all the fat away from the Enterprise D, tossed in the newest tech they were working on as a field test for the Enterprise E. It may not seem like it but Voyager and the ships of her class are more capable than even the Galaxy class in a fight. It’s also worth keeping in mind a voyager in the show was constantly being improved as it was exposed to new technology, including notable improvements by the Borg themselves.
Ah the Borg. A masterclass in how to create a great villain and then water them down with every apperance until you go "ah it's just the Borg again, who's got the technobabble bullshit way of getting rid of them this week"?
I was wondering when the Templin Institute would release a video detailing the Borg Collective yesterday, and to my surprise they have uploaded it today! Surely I'm being monitored...
"My people encountered them a century ago. They destroyed our cities. Scattered my people across the galaxy. They're called the Borg. Protect yourself, Captain, or they'll destroy you."
@@Aeon08897 and if was not Q introducing them, she may not even tell until all federation were scattered like here people. That makes me think if Q was referring as Guinan being dangerous creature for her silence of upcoming threat.
Wow! This is the best Templin Institute video I have ever seen! VERY thoroughly researched, and planned out to encompass the whole Borg history from the very old up through the latest most recent events and occurrences! Excellent!! Very nicely done! Thanks for this!
My favourite is the Necron faction video, more existential dread ;). Same kind of unstoppable galactic force that is supposedly powerful enough to toy with the other factions combined, yet is continuously stymied by the protagonist faction's plot armour. Over the years, I've grown tired of David vs Goliath stories, because, as the protagonist is always a David, Goliaths always end up losing.
I really wish you guys would tackle The Culture by Iain Banks' series of novels. I know there's not a ton of media for it but it's one of the most amazing fictional societies ever created.
@@supernukey419They do alternate worlds. There's little film media for Warhammer but plenty of videogame related content. There's tons of depth for The Culture, at one point it was the largest article on Wikipedia. Banks created an amazing world but it is so vast it'd be hard to do properly in film. Omniscient robots that treat organics as pets. Technology so advanced they scoff at living on planets. And perhaps my favorite line of all time "money implies poverty," I just think Templin could generate a lot of content on something not a lot of people are familiar with.
Ah the Borg. I can still remember being a kid in the 90s watching when Q introduced them. Going to see First Connect. Good memories. And as a kid I did often wonder why they only kept sending one Cube to earth when they had such resource.
Efficiency. During TNG, they figured that one Cube could overwhelm the Federation's defenses (and they were very nearly correct), so they didn't need to send any more. For First Contact, they only needed one Cube and one Sphere to make it to Earth and then time-paradox everything, so that's all they sent. The Borg don't like to waste resources.
I'm sure the reapers would easily take over the borg and add them to their husk army shit I think even the flood can stop the borg if they have a grave mind that can infect the collective with that one virus it infected cortana with
I am fully convinced that in our "modern" society countless people would happily join such a collective, giving up every kind of individuality or private thought, if it would be marketed to offer some sort of convenience, advantage, or if simply enough people would be already part of it.
Question. Using in-story logic, why is their chosen name the "Borg?" Now we the audience knows it means cyborg. However, what does "Borg" mean to the Borg?
Exactly that, if beta-canon is to be believed. Have you read the Star Trek: Destiny trilogy? The Borg's origins are explained in that one, they came about from a group of time-displaced humans who were infected by the catoms of a sole surviving Caeliar. As one of the humans was being infected and forced into the gestalt mind, his last free thought was that he would not become a cyborg. His mind joined the gestalt midway through that last word, so "borg" was the first word spoken by the new collective consciousness, and became their name.
@@cmdraftbrn It is actually a swedish word. It means fort (like fortress), I'll guess you could say castle but if you define castle as a nice building and a fort as a military instilation, then fort is the better word
I don't think the Borg is scary because its different, I think its because it is the fact that it is two sides of the same coin when it comes to the federation, its how similar they are. The Federation is about improving one's self and life for others, and the Borg is doing the same in the way they calculate it, the Borg embodies 'the needs of the many, outweighs the needs of the few'.
“We are The Federation. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is acceptable; we can wait.”
Based on what I've seen, the Collective appears to have some sort of compartmentalization where drones are directly connected to each other on their ships/installation and send/receive information through the central plexus. Without that, information is disseminated more directly, but not so much that the drone's brain is overwhelmed.
no, they are not dead. it just doesnt make any sense. we learn from lower decks that there are still cubes active after endgame. its unlikly there got killed. And Janeway would never have obliterated the complete collective with her virus
_[..] You can't outrun them, you can't destroy them. If you damage them, *the essence of what they are remains*. They regenerate and keep coming.[..]_ - ah, the Cyber-Tyranids and their Servitors...
I will always assert that Q made the Enterprise meet the Borg on purpose, to better help them prepare and give them a head start. I will die on that hill.
It's pretty clear even in that first episode that the encounter with the Borg was the point. An episode synopsis: Picard brags that they can handle anything, Q responds by throwing them at the Borg, and Picard cries uncle. The Borg were chosen because, unlike, say, the Founders, the Borg gave Picard a chance to see how out of his depth he was; a Jem'hadar fleet would have simply destroyed the _Enterprise_ and there wouldn't have been anyone left to learn the lesson.
One of the best touches with The Borg for me is the sound before the message, that sort of an old TV being turned off and at the end the sound like a radio channel being tuned, I can never explain why its just something that takes things to such a higher level of internal threat.
This was great! Especially on the now supposedly dead collective. Just one small little detail that was pointed out but not made later. So long as a single drone exist a new collective can be born. As long as a Borg vessel, structure, or even nano bot is still functional or capable of function and still able to retain the primary purpose of the original collective. The threat of the BORG will remain. This is the horror of the collective now. Not knowing if it is dead or in some distant corner of the galaxy . After all that is the one ally the BORG has. Time. Like some ancient lovecraftian monster hiding in the dark in some ancient tomb in the void until someone one day opens the door.
"With treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross, but it is NOT for the timid." I see you out here, Templin Institute, quoting our favorite puckish hyperdimensional collective of abstract genius.
Cool video guys, although I think there was a major point that may have been missed. One of the most terrifying assets of the Borg Collective was its ability to rapidly adapt to any adversity. A weapon that was effective on one or two drones would suddenly become as useful as a flashlight as every single drone adusted their shields to completely nullify it. On a less critical note, I think my favorite Borg moment was when Seven assumed control of the derelict cube that the Romulans called The Artifact. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.
What ST:P failed to do in the 3rd season was make the Borg a bit more interesting with Agnes sending some of her own Borg troops to defend the Federation. She is after all the only person to beneficially change the Borg queen as a collective alliance. "We are Borg. We seek peace. Lower your shields and prepare for diplomacy."
Best sci fi race ever hands down Legit unbeatable. Legit only times they lose is when the writers back out in thr final seconds. Flood, Tyranids, Zerg. No mass sci fi force could beat them. They'd ever be assimilated adapted. Truly a worthy foe to the federation. One is cohesion by unity of choice The other, by mutilation and force
The flood are certainly able to beat the borg, they are every bit as intelligent if not more so, and can assimilate the borg in turn. The Zerg would be food Tyranids are...probably too boundless and dangerous to assimilate. The Borg would be eaten, but are not infectable like other races the Tyranids face. Necrons would probably run over the Borg, their whole thing is how powerful their tech is. You wouldn't even assimilate one of them. not one.
It's writer's fiat whether Borg nanotech can work on any of those; if it does, the Borg can walk all over them. If not, the Borg have problems, because their drones are just more biomass for their opponent.
What do 'mutilation' and 'force' mean to an organism that is to us what multicellular life is to the paramecium? Is it mutilation and force for humans to eat? To breathe? You're thinking too small.
Been waiting for this one for a very long time. Now to wait for the Cybermen… The Borg might be the most horrifying enemy race encountered by the Federation…but they still got nothing compared to the Daleks. I can only imagine that an encounter between Borg and Dalek would go the same way as Dalek meets Cybermen. We all know how badly that went for the Cybermen…
@@GrandmasterDevo On the other hand, it could have been a calculated move to gain access to the TARDIS, which allowed them to study Time Lord technology and their temporal mechanics.
It was in the Season 3 episode 'Blood Fever' where the crew of Voyager found the remains of a dead Borg drone that showed them that they were in the home territory of Starfleet's deadliest enemy.
It would be nice to see truly non-human Borg drones- like Xindi Insectoids. It would be cool to see (in the Picard era) Jem Hadar and Vorta drones as well.
Templin institute can you make this videos 1 the ecclesiarchy from warhammer 40k 2 the imperium of ninjago 3 the ice hunters from chima 4 the krang from 2012 tmnt 5 planet bone from shadow raiders 6 orcs and goblins from warhammer fantasy 7 cities of sigmar from warhammer aos 8 the atomicron alliance from atomicron 9 the horde from warcraft 10 the jennerit empire
Have you ever considered taking the most powerful race from each sci fi setting and ranking them? Be curious to see how the Borg would fair against the tyranids of 40K.
I'd give it to the tyranids, partly due to everything in 40k being a little over the top. Tyranids fight with acids, psy energy, hardened biology and consume biomass. Not much there for the Borg to adapt against. They can try to assimilate, but a whole of of their drones are going to get chopped in half, melted, or driven mad in the process of trying and the dead drones would get tossed into the tyranids' reclamation pools.
@@boobah5643, definitely. Difficult to say. Though, the nanoprobes are already disadvantaged since they usually need close contact and some level of restraint of the victim to apply them. I'm sure there are other methods of delivery (such as via transporters as seen in Picard S3, but Tyranids don't have/use transporters), but if it's limited to manual injections, drones need to survive a lot of being hacked to pieces, melting and not being driven mad in order for nanoprobes to have a chance.
@@thegreatboto I think you are massively underestimating the Borg. One successful assimilation and in an instance, the Borg would know all the Tyranid's strengths and weaknesses. Plus the technology in ST is far superior to 40K .... even though 40K is my favorite universe just because everything is so over the top.
people may see Q as a menace, but he did the federation a solid by warning them of the borg, and people would have only believed him if he did it in the way that he did.
La *falla cronológica estuvo muy presente* en muchas de las acontecimientos relatados. Pero aún así es un relato digno de escuchar de *the templin institute* .
Picard Season 3 may represent something more terrifying. A _cycle._ The Borg have existed for thousands of centuries. They rise. They fall. They rise again. The Borg had hundreds of thousands, if not _millions,_ of starships. All that has to happen is someone to get greedy, to emulate Weyland-Yutani's USCSS Nostromo, to start the whole cycle over again. It was said once that the Borg are eternal. Perhaps, terrifyingly, it is _true._
Thank you for doing a vid on the Borg! A fascinating deep dive! I wonder what would happen if the Borg encountered the Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise. My guess: the aliens would be successful resisting in the short term but eventually the Borg would gain the upper hand, adapt to their defenses and ultimately assimilate a Xenomorph into the collective.
My head cannon has always been that the Queen was a backstop to the collective consciousness, perhaps created as a response to cataclysmic failures of the past where the collective ran away with itself and advanced extreme risk/reward scenarios that backfired horribly. Perhaps originally she was created to stop them when they ran away from themselves, but overtime she herself became corrupted and intruded on more and more decisions, eventually approving and controlling everything. This was why she wanted another counterpart: to stop her as well.
What makes individuals separate is that it's impossible to share every thought immediately with the whole society. But we're working hard to change that. If there's a hive mind in our future, it will rise from social media and be too crippled by advertising and algorithmically manufactured outrage and narcissism to drive "engagement" to pose much of a threat to anyone else. "We are the Karen. We will talk with your manager. Resistance is futile."
"We are the borg. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Your societies, your cultures will adapt to service us. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. Resistance is futile."
"You may encounter Enterprise crew members who've already been assimilated. Don't hesitate to fire... believe me, you'll be doing them a favor."
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Unless it’s me; definitely don’t shoot and try to rescue me
Picard, probably 😂
Quickly Mr. Data lock out the main computer!
that scene was really fucking scary
_"Halfway to Hell is still not a recommended destination."_
- Jean-Luc Picard (Picard S2E3 "Assimilation" 2022)
Says Picard, a man who was rescued from the Borg and was fine. And 7 of 9. And those Borg kids from Voyager. And Hugh. Probably more I'm forgetting
Seems like it's not too hard to undo assimilation lol
“We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”
First Contact, the Battle of Sector 001
Assimilate this! Worf, Star trek FC
Borg Queen: Data!
Data: Resistance is futile.
No words have ever struck fear into federation, greater than this.
Standard Borg hail
Q did humanity a solid by letting them know what was coming. It was clear they were moving towards the Federation since the message from the 22nd century. His second deft move was giving Voyager a shortcut home that just so happened to have them run across a Borg trans warp hub that would eventually get them home and also leave the Borg broken and reeling.
Time paradoxes being what they are, Q also initiated the series of events leading to the Borg wreckage/drones ending up on 22nd century Earth to send the signal back to the collective. If Q hadn't made that introduction at all, it's possible that the Borg may not have come knocking on Starfleet's door. Though, it's more likely a matter of when given the Borg's expansionist attitude. The Federation also would have been even more ill-equipped to combat the Dominion without its experience gained from fighting the Borg. A solid by Q, yes, from a certain point of view considering that all the while he was also pestering various members of the species why humanity should be allowed to exist at all and not be snapped out.
@@thegreatboto It's worth pointing out that those ships using the newer design paradigm that we first saw with the _Enterprise-E_ were Star Fleet's new construction designed to fight the Borg; the Federation might not have been able to survive the Dominion War without the weapons they built for the Borg.
Q: the destroyer of empires, and Mexican cosplayer.
I love how he jsut quotes Q at the start ^^
Mustn't forget that Q have junior a very stern warning...
"Don't Provoke the Borg!"
The Borg are arguably one of the most chilling science fiction races ever conceived of. Especially as they cannot be reasoned with, cannot be bought of or convinced to leave you alone. If you have something they want they will come and take it and everything else that makes you, you making you like them.
They are the closet you can get to Eldritch abomination without going full Lovecraftian.
Personal I am fan of them being a lot like the flood from Halo and the true existence of the borg is beyond space and time and the collective is only their physical connection on the physical plane. This would explain why their origin is so fragmented and gives them a true chance to appear again in the future. All it needs now is the right conditions for the collective to return.
Utilitarianism pushed to the maximal extent. Everything has a purpose, nothing is wasted.
The collective is an expression of cosmic horror without going into spiritualism. Purely technological. Their overall goals are inscrutable, unknowable and would shatter the mind of the individual if shown it as a whole.
In a sense the Tyrannids of 40k, their Zerg copies in StarCraft, the Flood of Halo and the Necromorph Brethren Moons are perhaps some of the closest peers in other universes. Though those are all biological in origin, I’m not sure which is more terrifying.
And it might just be your resources are useful. You could be an already assimilated species sample, with your technology lower than what the Borg use, but your colony has useful resources and the residents of the colony can be gathered and assimilated, all to produce another Borg Cube.
They're communists.
**Eagle screeches** What was that you said about Ame... the Borg? :)
"They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!"
_"You broke your little ships... see you around, Ahab."_
"I......Will make them PAY for what they've done !!!"
The Borg are the dark forest. So long as even one drone, one nano probe exists the borg remain. Never shall our galaxy be safe.
Exactly. As long as any Borg technology still exists in the galaxy, there's the possibility that a new collective will rise.
With the rise of New Trek like Lower Decks, Picards S3 and especially Strange New Worlds, my hopes are up for a new, old school type series of a 5-year mission in the gamma-quadrant, set right after DS9. Who knows whats still kicking about there. Maybe we just severed a tiny arm of the Borg in the Delta Quadrant, and the true leviathan rests somewhere else.
@@GrandmasterDevo You know some idiot scientist(s), government bureau, secret spy network, etc. has some Borg bits just laying around that they're waiting to use...until the Borg use them.
As long as writers run out of new ideas, the borg will return.
@@Stealthwildeyou don't think the Borg can offer anything new?
Because that could be said about other factions too.
"In their collective state, the Borg are utterly without mercy; driven by one will alone: the will to conquer. They are beyond redemption, beyond reason."
- Jean-Luc Picard, unknown, quoted by Kathryn Janeway, 2373
Quite the comprehensive assessment of the Borg.
Still, for as devastated as they are, they may be weakened, but not necessarily gone.
Somewhere and sometime, they'll probably be back.
But resistance it would seem, is not so futile.
They are quile literally like a disease: As long as 1 borg nanoprobe remains activ somewhere, they can come back.
While not entirely canon (as far as I know), Star Trek Online does have the Borg return again in 2409.
One twist I like to think about is an AU where the Borg do try diplomacy. After all, conquest by force only works for so long until you run into something stronger. Instead, imagine them as the slow, creeping horror of a hive mind that's kind, friendly, and slowly working it's way into every civilization. Someone struggling with depression or a critical injury? Go get assimilated, we assure you you'll be just the same person, even if instead it's the hive mind using the captured mind to put on a happy little act. Criminals, the outcast and the unwanted would be given to the Borg as a way of 'making use of bad rubbish'. Scientists and artists would want to join due to the illusion of keeping their own mind, where as instead they merely added to the collective.
And in the end, once the drones were everywhere and knew everything about the civilization? The conquest would take less than a day.
Read upon Genestealer Cults, you'd like that
An even closer parallel to the UFP, I love it! Michael Eddington would be rolling in his non-existent grave
This seems like the approach liberals have towards Islam.
Here's something that has taken 20+ years for me to notice... Borg written language is VERY reminiscent of Gallifreyan.
That's because the Borg were created by them
The Borg and The Flood from HALO would truly be the worst ways you could die. Fates worse than death. And with the Flood, you are still alive in there somewhere, in pain, forever…
Don't forget the tyranid horde from Warhammer 40k. They strip worlds down to nothing. Including plants and germs
@@SectorZeroOne Tyranids just kill and eat you tho, the Borg and Flood enslave you while you're still alive
@@SectorZeroOneAt least the Tyranids just eat you. Honestly they’re merciful by 40k standards.
The Borg wouldn’t be so bad. A drone isn’t in any particular pain and wouldn’t care if it was, and people de- assimilated often miss the collective.
@@Detson404The tyranids are merciful by most standards.
Fact: Giving the Borg a Queen and making them somewhat reminiscent of bees was a horrible idea. If they are a collective then they don't need a Queen.
"Assimilation is futile." - Ensign Alexander Munro
I never thought of her (them?) as being a literal queen or leader; that's just the Federation drawing an analogy. I imagine the Borg Queen as being a short of living vinculum, a focal point where the Collective's many voices are drawn into one. Like the destruction of a Borg ship's vinculum, the death of the Queen disrupts at least a large portion of the Collective for a time, but it just produces another one. So I really don't think the "Queen" is anything more than a specialized drone at the end of the day.
All the "Queen" was suppost to be, was an "oversight ai" bringing order to the chaos!
not an individual, connected to the Hive!
*Ahem* that's Lt. (jg) Alexander Munro.
the borg we're portrayed as a Cult, not a colony
They've a king in the mirror universe.
Ah the Borg. Once the scariest race in all of Star Trek. Rendered into comic villains that could be beaten every other episode in Voyager, much like the Daleks.
I'm honestly amazed the institute hasn't done an investigation on the borg before now
They did, but previous Institute personnel were unfortunately assimilated.
I always preferred the original TNG personal shield; more like a distortion of local space time, than a field, like we got post first contact.
A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
I absolutely love the narrator's voice here. He legitimately makes me scared of the Borg again in the Lovecraftien kind of way.
Remember when the Borg were the most terrifying thing in Star Trek? Remember when they were this faceless, Lovecraftian leviathan, baring down on the galaxy from out of the darkness, mysterious and utterly unstoppable except by the most profound effort and even then, they were just stalled rather than defeated? And the Voyager ran them into the ground and they became just another incompetent badguy, constantly failing every single time...
My impression is managers overruled writers because they have to feel useful
Mmm Voyagers writing may have mishandled them at times and made them feel much less overpowered but Voyager was they made after the first major battle with the Borg Collective and was developed around the same time as the Defiant and much closer to a proper warship than the outgoing Enterprise D.
So in universe it makes far more sense why the Borg threat isn’t as overwhelming.
Despite that I think Voyager made the Borg far more interesting race as we actually get to learn more about them.
I would argue that this is a case of infinitely adaptable (the Borg) meets an equally adaptable force with a side of stubborn (Starfleet, and humanity in particular). The Borg's weakness was always its lack of understanding of the individual, and even when creating the Queen, it was with the mindset of Loyalty to the Whole without a reason to be loyal. In other words, there was no Purpose.
Starfleet has a Purpose. "To seek out new life and new civilizations." They go out to explore. Loyalty is built into being a part of Starfleet, they work as a team, but relying on diversity united voluntarily to accomplish a goal.
Troi told that Romulan commander that to defeat an enemy, you must first understand them. It took Locutus, Wolf 359, Seven, and a lot of death to understand the Borg, but understand them they did. Thus, once Starfleet got its hands on Seven's Infinite Frequency Infinite Combination weapon, the Borg became something manageable. Dangerous to be sure, but they can be held in check.
@@BigHeadClan Nah, the _Intrepid_ class wasn't one of the Federation's anti-Borg warship classes. _Those_ have a distinct look, as typified by the _Sovereign_ class ships, but others showed up for the later parts of the Dominion War.
It's also worth noting that _Voyager_ is a relatively small ship, less than half the size of the _Enterprise-D._ By all rights it should have been less powerful... and, yes, it would have somewhat better tech than _Enterprise,_ but then, the Borg are getting new technology, too.
@@boobah5643As I said it was constructed during the same period as the Defiant, while not specifically tailored for battle against the Borg the Intrepid was the result of a more combat focused design and laid the ground work for many of the key features later anti Borg ships would use as standard.
The Intrepid was muuuch smaller than the enterprise yes, but the Enterprise D was effectively a cruise liner carrying large swaths of non combatants and families.
StartFleet removed the civilian aspects allowing for a much smaller/maneuverable ship with a more advanced warp core, faster computing thanks to its neural gel packs, while sporting a similar number of phaser banks, advanced shielding and sensor arrays all of which was on par or more advanced than the Enterprise D.
StarFleet effectively cut all the fat away from the Enterprise D, tossed in the newest tech they were working on as a field test for the Enterprise E.
It may not seem like it but Voyager and the ships of her class are more capable than even the Galaxy class in a fight.
It’s also worth keeping in mind a voyager in the show was constantly being improved as it was exposed to new technology, including notable improvements by the Borg themselves.
Ah the Borg. A masterclass in how to create a great villain and then water them down with every apperance until you go "ah it's just the Borg again, who's got the technobabble bullshit way of getting rid of them this week"?
"Captain, I made an origami sculpture that will totally blow their collective minds, maaaaan..."
I was wondering when the Templin Institute would release a video detailing the Borg Collective yesterday, and to my surprise they have uploaded it today! Surely I'm being monitored...
"My people encountered them a century ago. They destroyed our cities. Scattered my people across the galaxy.
They're called the Borg.
Protect yourself, Captain, or they'll destroy you."
But never mentioned them to the federation previously…..
@@Aeon08897 and if was not Q introducing them, she may not even tell until all federation were scattered like here people. That makes me think if Q was referring as Guinan being dangerous creature for her silence of upcoming threat.
What about doing the ADVENT Administration, I’d love to see you guys do that…
"Assimilate THIS!"
- Lieutenant Commander Worf
Wow! This is the best Templin Institute video I have ever seen! VERY thoroughly researched, and planned out to encompass the whole Borg history from the very old up through the latest most recent events and occurrences! Excellent!!
Very nicely done! Thanks for this!
My favourite is the Necron faction video, more existential dread ;). Same kind of unstoppable galactic force that is supposedly powerful enough to toy with the other factions combined, yet is continuously stymied by the protagonist faction's plot armour.
Over the years, I've grown tired of David vs Goliath stories, because, as the protagonist is always a David, Goliaths always end up losing.
I really wish you guys would tackle The Culture by Iain Banks' series of novels. I know there's not a ton of media for it but it's one of the most amazing fictional societies ever created.
I'll have to check this out. I haven't heard of it.
Funny that you mention the Culture. I read the books and they are amazing.
Not much in the way of visuals for it, though. I don't think they do books, do they?
@@supernukey419They do alternate worlds. There's little film media for Warhammer but plenty of videogame related content. There's tons of depth for The Culture, at one point it was the largest article on Wikipedia. Banks created an amazing world but it is so vast it'd be hard to do properly in film. Omniscient robots that treat organics as pets. Technology so advanced they scoff at living on planets. And perhaps my favorite line of all time "money implies poverty," I just think Templin could generate a lot of content on something not a lot of people are familiar with.
@@johndildine it'd probably need a whole line of series' to do it justice.
Ah the Borg. I can still remember being a kid in the 90s watching when Q introduced them. Going to see First Connect. Good memories. And as a kid I did often wonder why they only kept sending one Cube to earth when they had such resource.
Efficiency. During TNG, they figured that one Cube could overwhelm the Federation's defenses (and they were very nearly correct), so they didn't need to send any more. For First Contact, they only needed one Cube and one Sphere to make it to Earth and then time-paradox everything, so that's all they sent. The Borg don't like to waste resources.
@@CharlesUrban ah very true to be fair. Very Borg like. Appreciated :)
I didnt know i needed this, my resistance was futile
the borg are such an iconic villain faction, they rival the reapers
Listen. I hear you. But in all honesty, can you really compare the reapers to the Borg? The borg are easily S tier. Reapers? B tier tops
I'm sure the reapers would easily take over the borg and add them to their husk army shit I think even the flood can stop the borg if they have a grave mind that can infect the collective with that one virus it infected cortana with
Come to think of it I'm also sure the zerg infestation can also defeat the borg aswell since I think zerg can now take over mechanical units
@@darksaberwolf1175They absolutely would body the Borg, but they'd have to hurry up or else the Borg would adapt
Which Reapers? ME1 or the caricature that ME2, and especially ME3, Reapers were?
"They told you once and I will tell you a thousand times Son, DON'T PROVOKE THE BORG!!!"
You really gotta appreciate this amazing intro.
I am fully convinced that in our "modern" society countless people would happily join such a collective, giving up every kind of individuality or private thought, if it would be marketed to offer some sort of convenience, advantage, or if simply enough people would be already part of it.
Agreed ! If you work in Corporate America this is a reality !!
Buddy 100% in the entire western world, in Asia, Europe, Australia, these others would be forcibly assimilated as a bunch of times in history
ever geard of a place called asia?
Great video as far as technology and ships one of my favorite factions.
Question. Using in-story logic, why is their chosen name the "Borg?" Now we the audience knows it means cyborg. However, what does "Borg" mean to the Borg?
Exactly that, if beta-canon is to be believed. Have you read the Star Trek: Destiny trilogy? The Borg's origins are explained in that one, they came about from a group of time-displaced humans who were infected by the catoms of a sole surviving Caeliar. As one of the humans was being infected and forced into the gestalt mind, his last free thought was that he would not become a cyborg. His mind joined the gestalt midway through that last word, so "borg" was the first word spoken by the new collective consciousness, and became their name.
@@GrandmasterDevo sounds swedish
@@GrandmasterDevo Great read btw.
@@GrandmasterDevo nah I refuse to accept this as canon
@@cmdraftbrn It is actually a swedish word. It means fort (like fortress), I'll guess you could say castle but if you define castle as a nice building and a fort as a military instilation, then fort is the better word
I don't think the Borg is scary because its different, I think its because it is the fact that it is two sides of the same coin when it comes to the federation, its how similar they are. The Federation is about improving one's self and life for others, and the Borg is doing the same in the way they calculate it, the Borg embodies 'the needs of the many, outweighs the needs of the few'.
“We are The Federation. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is acceptable; we can wait.”
They were the analogy for communism for a reason. The collective good before the individual.
@@TheOneWhoMightBe Klingons: We don't do that here.
Excellent job. The description here really bought the terror back into what the Collective represents.
I am the beginning. The end. The One Who Is Many. I am the Borg.
Great video! The writing and voice acting is always top notch, particularly the intros, and this one is no exception.
Based on what I've seen, the Collective appears to have some sort of compartmentalization where drones are directly connected to each other on their ships/installation and send/receive information through the central plexus. Without that, information is disseminated more directly, but not so much that the drone's brain is overwhelmed.
Very spooky. Great stuff, thank you
i'd love to see a video on the Q Continum
RIP The Borg Collective in this Universe for now.
no, they are not dead. it just doesnt make any sense. we learn from lower decks that there are still cubes active after endgame. its unlikly there got killed. And Janeway would never have obliterated the complete collective with her virus
This reminded me how great the cinematography of Voyager could be. Thinking about which epsiode to rewatch.
If it wasn’t for plot armor, I always thought the Borg could have decimated the Federation on a whim.
_[..] You can't outrun them, you can't destroy them. If you damage them, *the essence of what they are remains*. They regenerate and keep coming.[..]_ - ah, the Cyber-Tyranids and their Servitors...
I will always assert that Q made the Enterprise meet the Borg on purpose, to better help them prepare and give them a head start. I will die on that hill.
It's pretty clear even in that first episode that the encounter with the Borg was the point. An episode synopsis: Picard brags that they can handle anything, Q responds by throwing them at the Borg, and Picard cries uncle. The Borg were chosen because, unlike, say, the Founders, the Borg gave Picard a chance to see how out of his depth he was; a Jem'hadar fleet would have simply destroyed the _Enterprise_ and there wouldn't have been anyone left to learn the lesson.
@@boobah5643 well yeah, Q even stated that much. But I honestly think that Q favors Humanity and wanted to give us a head start and a fighting chance.
One of the best touches with The Borg for me is the sound before the message, that sort of an old TV being turned off and at the end the sound like a radio channel being tuned, I can never explain why its just something that takes things to such a higher level of internal threat.
This was great! Especially on the now supposedly dead collective.
Just one small little detail that was pointed out but not made later.
So long as a single drone exist a new collective can be born.
As long as a Borg vessel, structure, or even nano bot is still functional or capable of function and still able to retain the primary purpose of the original collective. The threat of the BORG will remain.
This is the horror of the collective now. Not knowing if it is dead or in some distant corner of the galaxy . After all that is the one ally the BORG has. Time. Like some ancient lovecraftian monster hiding in the dark in some ancient tomb in the void until someone one day opens the door.
I knew you guys would do this eventually :) What timing too, my day sucked worse than Wolf 359!
ive been really interested in star trek law recently and i love your videos on it
This is a wonderful and beautiful look into the nature of the collective. Thank you
The Borg symbol has always looked like a bear paw to me 🧸
Well put together...bravo
"I am two thousand six hundred and thirty eight of three thousand one hundred and nine
You will be assim.... oh, they've buggered off."
"With treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross, but it is NOT for the timid."
I see you out here, Templin Institute, quoting our favorite puckish hyperdimensional collective of abstract genius.
Cool video guys, although I think there was a major point that may have been missed. One of the most terrifying assets of the Borg Collective was its ability to rapidly adapt to any adversity. A weapon that was effective on one or two drones would suddenly become as useful as a flashlight as every single drone adusted their shields to completely nullify it.
On a less critical note, I think my favorite Borg moment was when Seven assumed control of the derelict cube that the Romulans called The Artifact. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.
Wow, great video. Sent shivers down my spine, and highlighted that the Borg are just a bit more than space undeads.
What ST:P failed to do in the 3rd season was make the Borg a bit more interesting with Agnes sending some of her own Borg troops to defend the Federation. She is after all the only person to beneficially change the Borg queen as a collective alliance.
"We are Borg. We seek peace. Lower your shields and prepare for diplomacy."
Best sci fi race ever hands down
Legit unbeatable. Legit only times they lose is when the writers back out in thr final seconds.
Flood, Tyranids, Zerg. No mass sci fi force could beat them. They'd ever be assimilated adapted.
Truly a worthy foe to the federation.
One is cohesion by unity of choice
The other, by mutilation and force
The flood are certainly able to beat the borg, they are every bit as intelligent if not more so, and can assimilate the borg in turn.
The Zerg would be food
Tyranids are...probably too boundless and dangerous to assimilate. The Borg would be eaten, but are not infectable like other races the Tyranids face.
Necrons would probably run over the Borg, their whole thing is how powerful their tech is. You wouldn't even assimilate one of them. not one.
It's writer's fiat whether Borg nanotech can work on any of those; if it does, the Borg can walk all over them. If not, the Borg have problems, because their drones are just more biomass for their opponent.
The flood def have a shot cus of the logic plague
What do 'mutilation' and 'force' mean to an organism that is to us what multicellular life is to the paramecium? Is it mutilation and force for humans to eat? To breathe?
You're thinking too small.
Resistance is Futile. 🤖
You know you're a terrifying opponent when the Qs have a strict rule about not messing with you.
Been waiting for this one for a very long time. Now to wait for the Cybermen…
The Borg might be the most horrifying enemy race encountered by the Federation…but they still got nothing compared to the Daleks. I can only imagine that an encounter between Borg and Dalek would go the same way as Dalek meets Cybermen. We all know how badly that went for the Cybermen…
We've also seen what happens when the Cybermen meet the Borg. The Borg are scared of the Cybermen.
@@Janoha17 Ugh, I hated that crossover. The Borg should have overpowered the Cybermen, not the other way round.
@@GrandmasterDevo On the other hand, it could have been a calculated move to gain access to the TARDIS, which allowed them to study Time Lord technology and their temporal mechanics.
@@Janoha17fanfiction bullshit doesn't count
@@armymatt83I'd hardly call IDW's creative minds fanfiction.
It was in the Season 3 episode 'Blood Fever' where the crew of Voyager found the remains of a dead Borg drone that showed them that they were in the home territory of Starfleet's deadliest enemy.
Finally these vids are y’all’s bread and butter 😃
"Assimilate _this_ !"
- Worf
I CAME HERE AS SOON AS IT POPED UP IN MY PHONE!
"Hell, it's about time."
Wait, sorry, wrong universe!
In the pipe, five by five
@@TheCJUN "I got your Zerg right here."
"We are Borg, resistance is futile."
Assimilation is probably the best thing that could happen to humankind. Its like the next step in evolution
This video is simply brilliant.
The Borg Queen may be controversial but love her or hate her she sure knows how to make a entrance.
It would be nice to see truly non-human Borg drones- like Xindi Insectoids.
It would be cool to see (in the Picard era) Jem Hadar and Vorta drones as well.
Borg offshoot factions such as Unimatrix Zero, The Borg Cooperative, and whatever Jurati/AltQueen are up to might pop up in the future.
Templin institute can you make this videos
1 the ecclesiarchy from warhammer 40k
2 the imperium of ninjago
3 the ice hunters from chima
4 the krang from 2012 tmnt
5 planet bone from shadow raiders
6 orcs and goblins from warhammer fantasy
7 cities of sigmar from warhammer aos
8 the atomicron alliance from atomicron
9 the horde from warcraft
10 the jennerit empire
I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS VIDEO FOR YEARS
How have you NOT done this yet
Have you ever considered taking the most powerful race from each sci fi setting and ranking them?
Be curious to see how the Borg would fair against the tyranids of 40K.
They are both crippled by lore to be beatable, so its weird!
I'd give it to the tyranids, partly due to everything in 40k being a little over the top. Tyranids fight with acids, psy energy, hardened biology and consume biomass. Not much there for the Borg to adapt against. They can try to assimilate, but a whole of of their drones are going to get chopped in half, melted, or driven mad in the process of trying and the dead drones would get tossed into the tyranids' reclamation pools.
@@thegreatboto I figure it depends on how effective the Borg nanotech is against Tyranid biology.
@@boobah5643, definitely. Difficult to say. Though, the nanoprobes are already disadvantaged since they usually need close contact and some level of restraint of the victim to apply them. I'm sure there are other methods of delivery (such as via transporters as seen in Picard S3, but Tyranids don't have/use transporters), but if it's limited to manual injections, drones need to survive a lot of being hacked to pieces, melting and not being driven mad in order for nanoprobes to have a chance.
@@thegreatboto I think you are massively underestimating the Borg. One successful assimilation and in an instance, the Borg would know all the Tyranid's strengths and weaknesses. Plus the technology in ST is far superior to 40K .... even though 40K is my favorite universe just because everything is so over the top.
While on the subject of StarTrek, do you plan on exploring "The Orville" universe?
Moreover, it was amazing, top top, I love these themes of Star Trek from collective Borg, it was very good
The Borg? Sounds Swedish
Definitely not Swedish!
Why I have chills on my back?
Ahh the borg. Bring the galaxy closer, one assimilation at a time.
Nicely Done! Congrats!
Fascinating and informative.👍✨
I've been waiting for this one.
people may see Q as a menace, but he did the federation a solid by warning them of the borg, and people would have only believed him if he did it in the way that he did.
An enemy I've heard before, thank you for providing us with this Intel.
That was such a chilling review!
Am I the only one who would LOVE a Borg origin movie?
La *falla cronológica estuvo muy presente* en muchas de las acontecimientos relatados.
Pero aún así es un relato digno de escuchar de *the templin institute* .
Species 8472/The Borg are My Fav Villians...
I'm not a hardcore Star Trek fan, but I knew the basics about the Borg. I had no idea that they had been destroyed though!
The Borg are fascinating.💙
Picard Season 3 may represent something more terrifying.
A _cycle._
The Borg have existed for thousands of centuries. They rise. They fall. They rise again.
The Borg had hundreds of thousands, if not _millions,_ of starships.
All that has to happen is someone to get greedy, to emulate Weyland-Yutani's USCSS Nostromo, to start the whole cycle over again.
It was said once that the Borg are eternal.
Perhaps, terrifyingly, it is _true._
Thank you for doing a vid on the Borg! A fascinating deep dive!
I wonder what would happen if the Borg encountered the Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise. My guess: the aliens would be successful resisting in the short term but eventually the Borg would gain the upper hand, adapt to their defenses and ultimately assimilate a Xenomorph into the collective.
My head cannon has always been that the Queen was a backstop to the collective consciousness, perhaps created as a response to cataclysmic failures of the past where the collective ran away with itself and advanced extreme risk/reward scenarios that backfired horribly. Perhaps originally she was created to stop them when they ran away from themselves, but overtime she herself became corrupted and intruded on more and more decisions, eventually approving and controlling everything. This was why she wanted another counterpart: to stop her as well.
Very well done.
The Borg is a documentary of humanity's transhumanist future. The story of the Borg is a Dark Omen.
The Borg meeting the Adeptus Mechanicus would be a weird kind of waking nightmare.
@@DetectiveLance There's a solid chance that the mechanicus turns traitor on that day.
@@blackmage665 Again
@@Groza_Dallocort indeed! those toaster fuckers...
What makes individuals separate is that it's impossible to share every thought immediately with the whole society. But we're working hard to change that. If there's a hive mind in our future, it will rise from social media and be too crippled by advertising and algorithmically manufactured outrage and narcissism to drive "engagement" to pose much of a threat to anyone else.
"We are the Karen. We will talk with your manager. Resistance is futile."
Thanks for the content.
would love to see a similar video on the borg kingdom
"We are the borg. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Your societies, your cultures will adapt to service us. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. Resistance is futile."