The original Borg concept from "Q Who" was the most interesting and relentless - it's still the best Borg episode - the idea of a species that is so purely devoted to material advancement that no practical/organizational means on any scale is beyond their consideration. Really, we have to admit that the slow creep toward Voyager rendering them a shoot-em-up enemy, started as early as "Best of Both Worlds" which ignored some of those elements - giving them a Queen in "First Contact" humanized them too much, and making them akin to zombies missed the point that they were a civilization that had made a conscious choice. So they have been on the slide from that original Lovecraftian cosmic horror for 90% of their on-screen history. But they served as an important meta-arc for the Federation - after Cold War political rivalries with the Romulans and Klingons, the Borg represented a greater existential challenge for a civilization that had transcended that level of rivalry.
@@subraxas I'm a fan of the theory that the Borg couldn't figure out how The Enterprise suddenly appeared and then suddenly disappeared without them being able to pursue. It looked like technology they wanted. They couldn't find any information about it in the parts they stole from the ship, so they headed for Earth to find it. The other therey I like is that the Borg know about Q through their vast numbers of assimilated technologies and cultures, and they are interested in any species that Q is willing to interact with on the assumption that Q would not bother messing with species who are inferior, uncomplicated, or lacking in potential. When they saw the Enterprise sent and saved by Q right in front of them, they had no choice but to go to Earth, specifically, to find out what these humans were all about and why Q would bother with them.
subraxas No, they couldn’t have. Because it was a retcon. As in retroactive continuity change, the Borg as introduced in TNG were not interested in assimilation of people or technology. Then it was shown that they were in fact interested in both of those things not just after that point but consistently for decades and centuries before that encounter. So you must mean that the Borg spent their entire existence assimilating people and technology, then stopped for a bit.... then started again. Not likely.
Maybe it's retconning, but I've always assumed the babies they showed in "Q Who" were from species they'd assimilated, and had been placed in maturation chambers to accellerate their growth.
I always thought that Borg cubes could be combined like Lego. I don't know why I just thought that level of modularity made sense for a race that recycles it's "dead".
It would be cool if they did that. As well as Armada II, there was a moment in William Shatner's novel Star Trek: The Return where multiple Borg cubes fused together into a spear-like shape. It also played on the idea that V'Ger was at the heart of the Collective and even gave the Borg a home planet.
Isn't there concept art from First Contact where the Borg ship was a huge rectangular shape made up of cubes? I could be wrong, been years since I've seen it
I loved the initial idea of the Borg not giving a damn about assimilating people but just their technology. They weren’t just another black hat, but a force of nature.
Where is the horror aspect of that? Just give them your tech, and they will move on. But assimilating people and making them into slaves/drones without an own mind and with nasty and very invasive body modifications, this is why the Borg were so feared... I mean, yes... I dont like how Voyager showed them. But Voyager got always away too easy. They missed the opportunity on this show to make it more "survival"-like.
That episode was really well written & is one of my favourites from the first two season. Bringing the Borg back again which was said to be considered for the fifth season might have been pushing it though
I'd pay real money to see a series about a Ferengi Deep exploration vessel seeking out new trade routes. To make money where no one has made money before.
The Borg really seemed to lose their teeth in Voyager, at least after Scorpion. But Voyager always seemed to scrape through too easily. So many missed opportunities in Voyager to make it a story of truly desperate peril, but it always seemed like they just wanted to make more TNG.
If the Voyager writers really wanted to convey how horrific the Borg could be, they should've had crew members being lost to assimilation while liberating Seven of Nine. This way, the pain of loss could've been ameliorated through the gain of the invaluable Seven. But that would've required taking caution and throwing it into the proverbial wind, something those writers never felt comfortable doing after tossing Voyager into the far side of the galaxy.
Agreed. Voyager made the Borg far less of a threat which was a real shame. Also agree they could have done so much more with the danger level of the crew's situation. I never really got a sense they were in true peril or desperation..
Here’s a strong statement that I don’t think I have heard before.... the Borg changing from eldrich horror to documented and understood species is how it’s supposed to go. The whole concept of “un knowable “ is just plain antithetical to the premise and moral foundation of Star Trek. Or at least what Trek had turned into by TNG. Taken as a single story arc, the Borg have gone from new seemingly impossibly powerful and single minded to something the characters eventually learn to be not all that different from them in some ways and certainly not as simple and monolithic as they were originally perceived. It’s the Horta’s story drawn out over years and decades. While they were a successful way to pull TNG out of the rut it made for its self with Genes strict rules if left as they were originally created they would have been a black mark on the ideological foundation of the franchise. Besides, if not changed they would have had two choices for them ultimately. They would either A: be forgotten and never used again like several other powerful enemies. Or B: they would have to either destroy them or leave the ultimate destruction of the federation looming out there in the future.
But how much more interesting would it have been had the Federation learned that they were a completely different society. It didn't have to become yet another group of aliens that are hell-bent on conquest, led by a vengeful leader... basically a new version of the Klingons. They can change from unknowable horror to something that is understood, but why did it have to be something so unoriginal?
@@GeeVanderplas I think there's plenty of room for that not to be the case, I don't see the queen as a leader at all. But as a tool used by the collective as they used Picard. Not a vengeful individual leading an army of drones but a drone that exists to direct the collective at times when a singular perspective is suitable. I also like to think that the actions of the Borg that taken as a whole seem random and inconsistent (which a few single cubes when they could easily send a thousand to take earth then the quadrant?) Take on a wholly different appearance when you look at them from the perspective of the Borg them selves. There's a lot more that could be uncovered about the Borg and I don't think they are anything like the other enemies.
Yes and voyager shows progress in technology allowing us to overcome the Borg they didn't get weaker voyager had to become stronger they out adapt the Borg. Voyager is just like guns in hp lovecraft you're dead it's unknown unkillable you're de- I have a gun (bang) these gods were the fear of primitive creatures I have learned I have adapted I have a guard dog at miscatonic* university so you ain't getting this book we aren't as stupid as we were.
One thing that bothered me with Voyager and it's depiction of the Borg, was that they hardly ever encountered anyone who was aware of them (the parents of the kid who used him as a Typhoid Mary and the guy whose species was assimilated are the only ones I can think of off-hand). You'd think the entire quadrant would be swarming with them, but it takes Voyager about 3 years to meet them. We could have seen anti-Borg resistance cells, the Doctor could have an entire episode dedicated to learning from someone a way to fully remove implants, Janeway could encounter a primitive planet with a crashed Borg ship and it's few survivors forcibly assimilating the indigenous species to repairing the ship and struggle with the Prime Directive, a few space-faring Ocampa could have been captured and now the Borg have psychics so we finally see what Q means by "Don't provoke the Borg!", non-bipedal Borg as they find a species with a unique genetic quirk that they like (xenomorph Borg anyone?), Voyager is chased by a cube and trapped in a nebula that is slowly eroding it's hull plating, and the crew have to negotiate with the small group of ships who have hidden there for years and are struggling with dwindling resources, but know that if they leave the safety of the anomaly they'd be captured. The Borg decide to go after the Q but will work their way up and so decide to target the Caretaker's species, or something like the nasty from Where Silence Has Lease and shenanigans abound. Omega Particle data gets leaked somehow (I don't like how Voyager just screw over an entire species and don't have the courtesy to tell them why or give them some energy tech), and now they are actively hunted by Borg. Borg find androids or sentient robots and start assimilating them. And that's just ideas off the top of my head. And Unimatrix Zero is just bad. I don't buy into any plan that involves me getting pumped full of nanotech and mutilated. Janeway and co are lucky they still have all their original limbs and eyes after that fiasco. The Borg are frankly, bloody terrifying, the bogey-men of Star Trek, eldritch abominations that even Picard thinks that killing their victims means you're doing them a favour. They aren't as bad as Cthulhu, but should be up there.
Just in thinking about it, maybe in gaining Seven of Nine, it would have required then sacrificing crew members to assimilation, like Kes since she was being written off. Or maybe have the female Caretaker being encounter the Borg and see if they could assimilate her into their collective. If not, then she could remove the Borg at will by dragging them into her realm and ruthlessly torturing them for her own demented amusement. Or have Voyager be fully assimilated by the Borg, only to have one survivor go back in time to prevent the assimilation from occurring by offering up a sacrificial lamb in one species being assimilated in Voyager's stead. They really missed out on fantastic story-telling opportunities by turning the Borg into the run-of-the-mill bad guy of the week.
It’d also be cool to see more species acting like the Genii from Stargate Atlantis: Basically, they “hide in plain sight” from the Borg by pretending to be technologically inferior, while their true capabilities are hidden deep underground on their home planet. Voyager accidentally blowing their cover & trying to hide the evidence before the Borg fully catch wind would make for a tense episode.
I knew Captain Power's aesthetic had to be part of the Borg design. They just looked too much like Lord Dread. Check out Captain Power, it was written by JMS who made B5. Also, the Cybermen had to be an inspiration, too.
We really need to see the Borg win for once. Humanity always avoids them or beats them Evwntually, but the Borg need a solid victory. That'll influences how scary they are.
Borg don't need victory. Borg picking themselves up after confrontation with Voth or 8472 and damage to transwarp network, assimilating Q ... Borg, in a way, are like W40k Orcs. Can beat them, but just can't weed them out. Wether it takes 1,10 or 100 thousands of standard years - they will, eventually, grow back.
Allegedly, one of the original ideas for First Contact was going to have the Borg travel to Renaissance Florence. It would have apparently featured Riker getting into a sword fight with one of the Borg. Come on don’t pretend you wouldn’t want to see that
The Borg were *excellent* until they gave them a queen. The whole terror of the Borg was that it had no head, but rather was an undifferentiated hive mind. As soon as I had a central power it became like all other baddies.
I always found the early TNG Borg to be far more disturbing and frightening than what they became later with an emotional Queen, territory, green lights everywhere, etc. In TNG, they were faceless and a true collective with zero emotion, zero 'leaders', and dead-cold grey ships.
I had a theory long ago... That more then one version of the Borg exist , and the potential reason why they seem to differ from time to time is that .. it is a different faction within the same area. We living on earth have hundreds of different cultures. I believe it makes perfect sense for these separate factions to exist.
I love the expansion of our knowledge of Borg society. A one-dimensional, unbeatable BigBad is borrrring from a storytelling standpoint. It also makes sense that nearer to their home space in the Delta Quadrant there would be a more complete and multi-faceted society than on individual ships sent to other parts of the galaxy.
If you like Babylon 5, seek out Captain Power. Even though it looked like yet another 80’s half hour toy commercial, the show was written by J. Michael Straczynski and had incredible depth. A few elements from that show was even repurposed for B5. You won’t be disappointed.
Holy, hell is is actually a very interesting, a good idea for a series, exploring different sci-fi factions lore, and development is an ingenious idea. I’d love to see you do the Tau’ri from Stargate, it would be very interesting to see you talk about the development of humanity from a primitive age, to a galaxy exploring galaxies.
Ironically, Star Trek Online gave some of the horror of the borg back IN SPITE OF the Laws of Gameplay making them killable to any player. The GRUESOME way that they experiment on the Undine to work around their immunity to assimilation give the Borg back their street cred as this horror that can never be truly destroyed.
"If the Enterprise could beat them every other week they'd lose their impact as villains". Pity no-one ever reminded the Voyager writers of that. There MUST be more than 11 Borg episodes too, seems like I remember at least 1 a month for a bit in the later seasons. And Scorpion, Dark Frontier, Unimatrix Zero and Endgame were all 2 parters so that's 8.
@@illegalclown Totally remember these. The vehicles were light guns shaped like space ships you could put the figures in. They actually interacted with the show, you could shoot at the screen, they also worked as laser tag, where the figurine would eject if you got "hit". Very much ahead of its time. =D
lol I know of Captain Power but never actually saw the show, GI Joe, Transformersm He Man & Thundercats were my main shows....and Knight Rider just the theme alone was pure gold
For me, the best Star Trek villain was the Dominion. They posed more of a threat to the Federation than the Borg ever did, who were completely ruined by Voyager.
They should of said they are related to Klingons that one thing would make them a lot more interesting or if not I wish they had a more original design they split the predator into two species the hunter and the dreadlock guys lol the videan's were the best species though those were the diseased guys right? I wish they would of did a thing with them vs the Borg just so we can hear the science babble about how they biology does or doesn't work together
You should do a Lore Evolution on SG1’s Replicators. They were closer to that Lovecraftian vibe the Borg tried to do. With the Borg, they were still bipedal humanoids, so we could understand them to a point. In the case of the Replicators, they’re just relentless non human bugs. Yeah, they were made humanoid in Atlantis, but initially, they were damn creepy.
Christopher Jones They were made humanoid in SG-1 first. And while functionality identical, the Ausran replicators in Atlantis had no connection to the replicators in SG-1.
To be fair, much as they might comment on how unusual Picard's conversion to Locutus was in BoBW, the same two-parter makes more that a few references to the assimilation of the Federation, and specifically its people. Locutus makes mention of wishing to "raise quality of life, for all species", humanity being assimilated as easily as Picard was, etc.
They did, however I didn't mention it here as there were pretty much identical to how they were in First Contact and didn't really expand the lore. Fun episode though :)
What i love about that episode is that its partly a tribute to H.P.Lovecraft's mountains of madness. It does not add to the lore. The signal they send is meant to be what originally attracted the Borg to Earth though.
Loved this pilot and would love to see what other characters of long-running franchises you do! Always the highest quality dude! Keep out the great work!
Captain Power was a J M Straczynski project. There was a robot army that was digitizig humanity and or putting them in concentration camps, etc. The story line was almost as dark as Exosquad's.
Reminds me of the Future Past arc from X-Men, too. Sentinels take over, put everyone in camps (or just kill them), and there's very little chance of survival.
The Borg themselves didn't change - we just learned more about them at the same time our heroes did and new ways to fight them where found. I simply don't think it is right to claim that Voyager turned the Borg into a joke or any other claims like that!
I know you meant discovery, but inexplicably 70s star trek would be great XD All the white suits from next gen movies in polyester with the Bee Gees writing the soundtrack, Picard doing more than the mambo on the bridge
Star Trek Destiny is so, so great. I would love CBS all access to turn it into a sweeping 8 episode miniseries, but I doubt that would/could ever happen. Do a recap of that trilogy!
It was awesome, but it actually DOES end Federation as we know it and has Deus Ex Machina happy end where just single core world survive. Yeah, it would be great 14 episode mini series but.... too late for that.
That's a good idea! I always thought that the borg where a "perfect" democracy, just that everyone had the same way of thinking and the same informations all the time, making their actions look like mindless drones but in reality they are just thinking completely alike. In this regard, the queens task would not have been to command the drones but to reevaluate old and invent new thinking-patterns for the borg to improve. Like a unit solely dedicated to work on software improvements, while the drones work on hardware improvements. This way the Borg could be used as villains, who don't just want to assimilate all lifeforms and their technology but who would run experiments on newly created software and/or hardware. Like that all other lifeforms would not only be assimilation targets but lab-rats for their upgrades. Like they had said, their end goal is not complete assimilation but perfection. It kinda strikes me as odd that they would leave improvement up to enemy analysis instead of self-analysis.
@@nicholaswulf4563 that also interesting but then why are the queens bad and problem solve or creativity thinking. Are thy only good at it by borg standards or because the collective dis not understand creativity properly.
In one of the books they said that VEJAR had been saved by the Borg and they had upgraded it, they explained this by having the Borg think spock was already one of them because of the mind meld in the film he had made with it.
It is worth seeking out Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. This was a sci fi series originally created to sell a line of toys. This was the first interactive tv series, for if you got the Captain Power gun, you could shoot at the biodreads and other bad guys, and I believe the gun kept score. If I’m wrong about the gun, someone can correct me. But what I do know is that it evolved into a credible sci fi show of its own. The characters and stories went far beyond just an infomercial for a line of toys. Yes, it was the 80s, and you hear 80s slang like “piece of cake”. And yes, they have 80s haircuts as well. But if you look past this, you’ll see a show that’s worth watching. And you may also come to feel like many including myself did, that it deserved more than its one season. The episodes are here on TH-cam.
The Borgs really reminds me of the Necrons from Warhammer 40k in that they both began as these soulless, relentless and near unstoppable foes that couldn’t be negotiated with only for someone to later come along and change them into something that they were never meant to be.
My head cannon has the Borg not assimilating people until they ran up against humanity and discovered that our greatest technology was...us. In "The Best of Both Worlds" episode the shift in priority is even noted by the characters on screen. Picard might have actually been the first "alien" biological organism ever assimilated by the Borg. Combine that with the Hugh arc and you get a very different Borg by Voyager's time than you had previously. I imagine the queen was originally simply a kind of distribution node for the collective but Picard's force of will and Hugh's regained individuality caused this radical shift in organization and priorities. In essence, Picard defeated the Borg by simply making them beatable. It would also explain the Borg's obsession with Earth.
Tyranids are like Borg - "just different". Tyranids are more aggresive, for Borg assimilation is instinctive reaction, simply part of existance. Borg rely on efficiency ( concept alien to wholesale Tyranids ), do things mostly slowly and frequently ignore others, when unchallenged.
Loved your mention of the Star Trek Destiny trilogy. In my personal opinion it is the best and exciting origin story of the Borg. If any of you guys watching this video or reading the comments did not read it yet, you definitely should.
I liked the idea of that queen type Borg, as if she created the Borg herself and rules them as a unique, using the collective's new tech for her own gain
Voyager's depiction was inevitable. Star Trek is about seeking out new life and civilizations. Janeway can't be in the Borg's backyard without finding out more about them as a civilization. It wouldn't be Star Trek to keep them an unknown force with no development for so long.
Yes. Which is why I don't understand the assertion that the Borg are antithetical to the Federation. Tge Federation seeks out new life and new civilisations to assimilate them into tgeir collective, or else go to war with them, like the Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians. Or the Borg.
I always thought that the borg where a "perfect" democracy, just that everyone had the same way of thinking and the same informations all the time, making their actions look like mindless drones but in reality they are just thinking completely alike. In this regard, the queens task would not have been to command the drones but to reevaluate old and invent new thinking-patterns for the borg to improve. Like a unit solely dedicated to work on software improvements, while the drones work on hardware improvements. This way the Borg could be used as villains, who don't just want to assimilate all lifeforms and their technology but who would run experiments on newly created software and/or hardware. Like that all other lifeforms would not only be assimilation targets but lab-rats for their upgrades. Like they had said, their end goal is not complete assimilation but perfection. It kinda strikes me as odd that they would leave improvement up to enemy analysis instead of self-analysis.
You need to see Captain Power. It's not well known but it has J. Michael Straczynski's name associated with it is among the first series using full-CG characters. It's primarily for teens, but rather easily watchable. The end titles are awesome.
The Borg are the best sci-fi villains in my view. They're Robot Alien Zombies, what could be better. No really, they took the idea of zombies and adapted it to the futuristic sci-fi universe and I think they are a brainchild of very inventive, clever people and I thank them for the Borg. I love the Borg.
5:20 Oh I agree the idea of a 'leader' for a hive mind is stupid. Thankfully some works have tried to hammer home that her appearance at being an individual is a facade. And the queens are more like relay stations than entities.
If they had geared the story towards developing the Borg into what they became, I wouldn't complain. Go ahead and introduce a queen, but don't just plop in onto the screen as if it had always been there. If you want to change the color scheme, go for it! But throw in a little dialogue where the characters make note of the difference from their own encounters and remark that it may be a delta quadrant specific adaptation. Make it a memorable addition to the lore and not just evidence of a better set budget. Enemies, factions, etc. Are definitely supposed to evolve and become more complex, revealing weaknesses as you get to know them. Maintaining the story in a way that gives the Borg a permeant lack of depth, a stagnant motivation, and essentially invincibility is going to be just as damaging as making them too easy to defeat.
Personally my favorite versions are either the Q Who original one, or the First Contact one. The first might be more outright threatening and force of nature like, but the second one concept of assimilation via nano probes was far more chilling. It also made far more sense for their marauder style of organization and tendency to send only one ship, searching for perfection by raiding and learning from all other entities of the galaxy.
Also, in best of both worlds the Borg tell Picard that his culture will adapt to service theirs, implying that they would enslave earth, not assimilate it.
That's when they ruined the borg. The borg were this unstoppable force against which they could have no hope of being victorious...but they were far away and didn't care about earth and the federation existing. this episode suddenly made the borg care and making earth a prioriy. Given their huge technological advantage, they could have easily achieved this. They "tried" with 1 cube, almost succeeded, and the never bothered again. Makes no sense at all.
@@BamBamGT1 Of course, it does. Because of Borg obsession with efficiency. Civilisation that long becomes stagnant and doesn't drop anything they are doing just because in some backwater something new came up. They are patient - can act decisively when necessary, but in most cases, don't need to. This is not Galactic Empire.
"Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future" was a saturday morning Cartoon based on a couple of Mattel toys that could interact with on-screen action. It featured some of the earliest CGI.
2:15 never heard of it? i actually hear this alot. i had a bunch of the toys and video tapes. the episodes are currently on an obscure service called nightflights plus.
Thx!!!! Now I really know what I ever thought, that the BORG also were inspired by die design of Lord Dread of Micheal J. Straczynskis "Captain Power"-TV-Show of the 80ies.
Seems a connection to V'ger is the origin that multiple depictions subscribe to. Apart from Star Trek Legacy a V'ger connection is also hinted at in Star Trek Online (Borg Unimatrix ships are essentially mini V'gers complete with torpedoes that will disntegrate a ship if they destroy it) and in the comics that fill in some of the gaps in the 2009 movie (The Borg tech in the Narada is drawn to V'ger).
Captain Power was a very good "kids" science fiction show by the creator of Babylon 5 (but it was made prior to that show). It had fairly sophisticated plots & an overarching storyline. It was cancelled because some groups objected to the shows episodes as long commercials for toys. There was a Power Gauntlet that could be bought "allowing" the audience member to fight alongside Captain Power & his Troopers. Of course you could really only hit an enemy already slated to be shot in the story, but the interaction was still kind of cool.
Captain Power was conceived of and written by JMS of Babylon 5 fame. It lasted one season was “for kids” and ran afoul of “shows shouldnt sell toys to kids!” Lawsuits in the US.
The Borg were just rehashed cybermen from Dr. Who. Even in the Patrick Troughton episode "Tomb of the Cybermen" the cyber-leader tells them, "Your resistance is futile. We will freeze you and make you like us."
The Borg are a thousand years old at the time of Voyager. We've not seen the last of the Borg even though they are more complex , have been defeated, and maybe even have weaknesses seen in TNG. They are resourceful and work well as humanity's villain because "they play on how intimately human existence depends on technology and it hold the opposite values the Federation holds dear, freedom, diversity and individuality" as Trekspertise argues in the "History of the Borg" video.
No 7 of 9 later told that the borg changed the time-line so that the borg queen never did her journey. But what happens after Yoyager:Endgame is a good question ? Did they do it again or do they create a new or stay that way ?
@@Fiercesoulking When did she say that? I recall her telling Harry & B'elanna that the Borg were present at the events of the Phoenix's warp flight, but not what you speak of.
Honestly, I really like both pre-Queen Borg and post-Queen Borg, the only problem I have is simply that they might as well be two separate powers with how abrupt the change is. Maybe it would have worked better if the Borg becoming less mysterious to The Federation was worked into the show gradually instead of suddenly dropping all at once in First Contact.
The borg were originally designed in a way that made them way to powerful, ominous, and overall undefeatable considering the sheer scale of their existence. However in voyager it was emphasized that the Borg did anything to survive and expand, and showing that a hivemind such as the Borg, could indeed negotiate when needed, and every single encounter was treated like this: "is this beneficial to the collective? is it worth the resources". It was also shown that the borg could be defeated, and that their space was vast and extreme, and that yes they did have a Queen, which was not an individual, but rather a manifestation of a unimatrix. Believe it or not even in modern real hiveminds personalities can form, and even behavior. Make no mistake the borg are NOT artificial intelligence. They are repurposed intelligence. Meaning that the borg were a horde of unstoppable "space zombies" (when they kill you, you add to their numbers). It was almost like it was hopeless. And believe it or not, Star Trek voyager only encountered Unimatirx 01, not the implied dozens of unitmatricies, so this so called weakness, which could only happen by a time travelling captain who gave her own life just to disrupt, not destroy, one transwarp hub and Unimatrix, so voyager could return home. The borg are infinite, kill millions, millions and more will take their place, the borg are still the most bad ass enemy in all of star trek.
They are more like PosBis, there ships are direct rip-offs even. But they certainly had become Cybermen by the time their suits were finished. (Which look like the Fremen suits from the Dune movie, which in the books had been described as being the colour of sand.)
@@davidwuhrer6704 i'd never heard of PosBis until now but their ship is suspiciously the same. I can certainly see the resemblance in the Freman as well.
'borg children', uh, those were assimilated kids, who were spat out early because they were the only drones still alive after the rest of the crew died, leaving them with only 7 drones to man an entire cube meant to house thousands if not hundreds of thousands. And the Cooperative was a band of ex-drones who just wanted to be left alone. And then the collective in Scorpion were dealing with a species as eldritch as their own. And the queen does show how big the borg reserves are, when she's willing to blow up entire ships just to take one or two drones that have broken free of the collective, they have billions to spare.
You are thinking of the broken Borg drones that tge Voyager crew aassimilated. The video was showing the drawer with the baby Borg that the away-team of the Enterprize-D found in the Borg cube in Best of Both Worlds.
@@XX-sp3tt You're right. I was thinking of around the 3:00 minute mark. You referenced 6:48. I was confused by how he said borg children were a novel concept in Voyager, which it obviously was not.
I wept for the protagonist in this at, “Captain Power and the soldiers of the future; something I’ve never heard of.” Thankfully, it’s just a story. Such tragedy rarely happens in real life.
Rowan I don't know about you but I'm looking forward to Star Trek Picard, as we'll finally see what happened after Romulus was destroyed. BTW if you want to know more about what happened that made Nero from the 2009 reboot, a villain obsessed with torturing Spock, there is a comic book called Star Trek Countdown that explores what the events in universe leading up to the reboot were. It also shows the fate of several Next Generation characters
After the Best of the Both Worlds, they had only two options on how to continually feature the Borg given how powerful they'd been established as. Either nerf/develop their weaknesses to give the Federation a fighting chance or to make their thinking so alien that the reasoning for not just sending more cubes to try and conquer the Alpha Quadrant again are wholly inconceivable to the characters and the audience. For better or for worse, they went with the former option. It did make for some interesting episodes, but there's an interesting "what if" of the Borg being left as a mysterious threat always lurking on the fringes of Federation space and it being totally unknown in how they would emerge again.
I liked the idea of a queen they are called a collective and like a bee hive or a ant colony they work as one. So a queen is a interesting twist in the story. Like bees it would be interesting if you could have different hives or collectives who are the Borg but with subtle differences. It could be a fun path to take with that character.
I have actually. However I'm hesitant because there aren't a whole lot of visual elements to include in a video. I'd love to talk about those books though
@@RowanJColeman I sure hope there is some chance you can make a video on this topic in the future. Do you prefer that timeline of the books or the of the Star Trek Online game?
From my perspective , instead of a New Description of an old idea , The Roman Assimilation Campaign. The Borg Represent what we would "Really" become in space , rather than the Idealist "Federation".
Voyager destroyed the Borg. By the time Votager was over the Borg weren't scary and they weren't that much of a threat because Voyager all alone was able to best them at every encounter
The Borg became the toothless wolf, trying to frighten others with its bark. They were a sad, pathetic shell of what they could've been: the future rulers of the galaxy.
I don't fully understand the continued complaints about the Borg changes. Some were bad, but most were good. There's no way they could stay the same forever. They were introduced as a species that used assimilation to adapt and improve rapidly. How can you expect them to be static? They followed the same kind of arc that other Trek villain races did. Klingons were unrepentant and murderous enemies in TOS and the films. TNG and Undiscovered Country changed everything about the Klingons and made them just another race. TNG did much the same with the Romulans (and that work was continued in DS9 and the TNG movies). The Dominion went from unknowable, all-powerful evil empire to just another race across 7 seasons of DS9. Voyager gets a lot of blame for demystifying and weakening the Borg, but they didn't do anything to the Borg that wasn't done to other races before them. After all the changes made in TNG and First Contact, all of the on-screen improvements made by the Federation through years of fighting and researching the Borg (and the Dominion War), of course they became better at fighting them. They studied the Borg technology. They had access to the Borg mind, albeit briefly, through Locutus and Data, then the memories of Picard once he was saved. They had all of his implants, alterations, and technology to study, reverse engineer, and improve upon. They saved him, mentally and physically, without much complications at all. Hugh was easily broken out just by being physically separated from the Collective (a prelude to Seven). Lore took them over with nothing more than an emotion modulation chip. The Queen's grand plan to assimilate Earth in the past was undone by a few dozen officers with nothing but a nearly crippled ship. By the Time Voyager inherited the Borg in Season 3, they had already been made more an equal footing enemy than an overwhelming power enemy. Voyager kept the danger up by making it Borg space, their home turf. Voyager was one ship against an entire species. And, like always happens, the Borg were given an even bigger fish to run from with Species 8472. The Klingons faced ecological destruction. The Romulans faced political upheaval (and then ecological destruction also, thanks Trek 2009). The Dominion faced extinction through the Founders virus. all of those weakened and humbled the previously overpowered races. It's a tried and true method for the franchise. It even worked for the Ferengi. The way they started off was cruel, buffoonish. The Federation didn't know much about them and feared them as a major power. They lied about much of it and bluffed some of it. Sure, they could afford to buy great weapons, and the richest among them could afford ships that would stand face to face with the best Starfleet had, but as an overall race or faction, they weren't much different from any other. All of them rely on fear of the unknown to terrify and hint at what the truth might be. However, that's the whole mission of Starfleet. Explore, find new stuff, sometimes dangerous stuff (like the Iconian gateways or Tin Man), and then learn about it. Understand it. Assimilate that knowledge and put it to use for yourself. Sometimes that means decades of researchers pouring over ancient ruins. Sometimes that means fighting an aggressive species of cyborgs until you can undo their entire hive mind with a Trojan horse virus. In the end, it's all the same mission. The Borg were just one more faction/species to understand. It will always go that way, because if it didn't, the Federation would be destroyed and the franchise would end.
You can see the germ of the Borg Queen idea from the TNG era. It's taken me a while to come around, but I genuinely like the concept of the Borg Queen. If you think about it Locutus was a first run at the concept of an 'avatar' for the collective. Latin for 'He who speaks,' Picard becoming Locutus was not only a strategic move by the collective, but also a practical move in terms of its psychological impact on the Enterprise crew and the Federation as a whole. It's like the Borg have come to understand humanity a bit more since their first encounter with them and know the value of having a commander-like figure to be a singular voice for the entire collective. The Borg Queen is an evolution of this concept. Rather than stealing a figure to use as their leader, they create their own. The Borg Queen embodies more than just the basic will of the collective, it's a fully-realized personality that is far more intimate a character than the 'borg voice'. It also works as an autonomous unit, able to travel in a sphere or other smaller craft to visit a world and basically deliver the 'We are the Borg' speech in person. It could be far more intimidating if one Borg Queen coming in and saying "Surrender or die" than by a hollow collection of voices.
Difference is he didn't go around saying "I'm the collective." And acting like he was a leader. He was just a tool to discourage other species from resisting. He was disposable. He was not powerful at all. In fact this was a traumatizing experience, so much so that he cries in "Family." Ain't nothing about Locutus leader-like. He is nothing like the Borg Queen. Although yes he was more an avatar in the sense. Truer in that sense than the Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen destroyed the best aspect of the Borg for me. It was a race of individuals that had chosen to function as a collective of equals - a hivemind in truth. In First Contact they became drones and the only intelligence and hence motivating force was the queen. It lessened them severely.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 91 | คู่เอก "คมอาวุธ vs อเล็กเซย์"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/V0RkEfYFsgM/mqdefault.jpg)
The original Borg concept from "Q Who" was the most interesting and relentless - it's still the best Borg episode - the idea of a species that is so purely devoted to material advancement that no practical/organizational means on any scale is beyond their consideration.
Really, we have to admit that the slow creep toward Voyager rendering them a shoot-em-up enemy, started as early as "Best of Both Worlds" which ignored some of those elements - giving them a Queen in "First Contact" humanized them too much, and making them akin to zombies missed the point that they were a civilization that had made a conscious choice.
So they have been on the slide from that original Lovecraftian cosmic horror for 90% of their on-screen history. But they served as an important meta-arc for the Federation - after Cold War political rivalries with the Romulans and Klingons, the Borg represented a greater existential challenge for a civilization that had transcended that level of rivalry.
W specifically says they have no interest in their technology or culture, Next time... they want their technology and culture.
Yeah, well, they could re-evaluate and change their minds / the collective mind.
@@subraxas I'm a fan of the theory that the Borg couldn't figure out how The Enterprise suddenly appeared and then suddenly disappeared without them being able to pursue. It looked like technology they wanted. They couldn't find any information about it in the parts they stole from the ship, so they headed for Earth to find it.
The other therey I like is that the Borg know about Q through their vast numbers of assimilated technologies and cultures, and they are interested in any species that Q is willing to interact with on the assumption that Q would not bother messing with species who are inferior, uncomplicated, or lacking in potential. When they saw the Enterprise sent and saved by Q right in front of them, they had no choice but to go to Earth, specifically, to find out what these humans were all about and why Q would bother with them.
@altrocks
Yeah, that's a great way of thinking.
subraxas No, they couldn’t have. Because it was a retcon. As in retroactive continuity change, the Borg as introduced in TNG were not interested in assimilation of people or technology. Then it was shown that they were in fact interested in both of those things not just after that point but consistently for decades and centuries before that encounter.
So you must mean that the Borg spent their entire existence assimilating people and technology, then stopped for a bit.... then started again. Not likely.
Maybe it's retconning, but I've always assumed the babies they showed in "Q Who" were from species they'd assimilated, and had been placed in maturation chambers to accellerate their growth.
I always thought that Borg cubes could be combined like Lego. I don't know why I just thought that level of modularity made sense for a race that recycles it's "dead".
Like in star trek Armada II
Pudlord Tynan the cubes should have been made up of thousands of Borg holding hands
That made think of critters 2 when they all combine to form that big death ball
It would be cool if they did that. As well as Armada II, there was a moment in William Shatner's novel Star Trek: The Return where multiple Borg cubes fused together into a spear-like shape. It also played on the idea that V'Ger was at the heart of the Collective and even gave the Borg a home planet.
Isn't there concept art from First Contact where the Borg ship was a huge rectangular shape made up of cubes? I could be wrong, been years since I've seen it
I loved the initial idea of the Borg not giving a damn about assimilating people but just their technology. They weren’t just another black hat, but a force of nature.
It can be argued that people are just more raw material to them. Munch munch! "You're nothing but raw material to them."
Where is the horror aspect of that? Just give them your tech, and they will move on. But assimilating people and making them into slaves/drones without an own mind and with nasty and very invasive body modifications, this is why the Borg were so feared...
I mean, yes... I dont like how Voyager showed them. But Voyager got always away too easy. They missed the opportunity on this show to make it more "survival"-like.
The enterprise episode was also pretty entertaining. I think villains like this are best when they aren't explained too much.
That episode was really well written & is one of my favourites from the first two season. Bringing the Borg back again which was said to be considered for the fifth season might have been pushing it though
I'd pay real money to see a series about a Ferengi Deep exploration vessel seeking out new trade routes. To make money where no one has made money before.
The Borg really seemed to lose their teeth in Voyager, at least after Scorpion. But Voyager always seemed to scrape through too easily. So many missed opportunities in Voyager to make it a story of truly desperate peril, but it always seemed like they just wanted to make more TNG.
If the Voyager writers really wanted to convey how horrific the Borg could be, they should've had crew members being lost to assimilation while liberating Seven of Nine. This way, the pain of loss could've been ameliorated through the gain of the invaluable Seven.
But that would've required taking caution and throwing it into the proverbial wind, something those writers never felt comfortable doing after tossing Voyager into the far side of the galaxy.
Voyager ruined everything it touched
@Brian Nevs
I mean, in the least the show introduced Hirogen.
Agreed. Voyager made the Borg far less of a threat which was a real shame. Also agree they could have done so much more with the danger level of the crew's situation. I never really got a sense they were in true peril or desperation..
@@subraxas And literally...literally turned them into Nazis.
Here’s a strong statement that I don’t think I have heard before.... the Borg changing from eldrich horror to documented and understood species is how it’s supposed to go.
The whole concept of “un knowable “ is just plain antithetical to the premise and moral foundation of Star Trek.
Or at least what Trek had turned into by TNG.
Taken as a single story arc, the Borg have gone from new seemingly impossibly powerful and single minded to something the characters eventually learn to be not all that different from them in some ways and certainly not as simple and monolithic as they were originally perceived.
It’s the Horta’s story drawn out over years and decades.
While they were a successful way to pull TNG out of the rut it made for its self with Genes strict rules if left as they were originally created they would have been a black mark on the ideological foundation of the franchise.
Besides, if not changed they would have had two choices for them ultimately. They would either A: be forgotten and never used again like several other powerful enemies. Or B: they would have to either destroy them or leave the ultimate destruction of the federation looming out there in the future.
But how much more interesting would it have been had the Federation learned that they were a completely different society. It didn't have to become yet another group of aliens that are hell-bent on conquest, led by a vengeful leader... basically a new version of the Klingons. They can change from unknowable horror to something that is understood, but why did it have to be something so unoriginal?
@@GeeVanderplas I think there's plenty of room for that not to be the case, I don't see the queen as a leader at all. But as a tool used by the collective as they used Picard. Not a vengeful individual leading an army of drones but a drone that exists to direct the collective at times when a singular perspective is suitable.
I also like to think that the actions of the Borg that taken as a whole seem random and inconsistent (which a few single cubes when they could easily send a thousand to take earth then the quadrant?) Take on a wholly different appearance when you look at them from the perspective of the Borg them selves. There's a lot more that could be uncovered about the Borg and I don't think they are anything like the other enemies.
Yes and voyager shows progress in technology allowing us to overcome the Borg they didn't get weaker voyager had to become stronger they out adapt the Borg. Voyager is just like guns in hp lovecraft you're dead it's unknown unkillable you're de- I have a gun (bang) these gods were the fear of primitive creatures I have learned I have adapted I have a guard dog at miscatonic* university so you ain't getting this book we aren't as stupid as we were.
One thing that bothered me with Voyager and it's depiction of the Borg, was that they hardly ever encountered anyone who was aware of them (the parents of the kid who used him as a Typhoid Mary and the guy whose species was assimilated are the only ones I can think of off-hand). You'd think the entire quadrant would be swarming with them, but it takes Voyager about 3 years to meet them.
We could have seen anti-Borg resistance cells, the Doctor could have an entire episode dedicated to learning from someone a way to fully remove implants, Janeway could encounter a primitive planet with a crashed Borg ship and it's few survivors forcibly assimilating the indigenous species to repairing the ship and struggle with the Prime Directive, a few space-faring Ocampa could have been captured and now the Borg have psychics so we finally see what Q means by "Don't provoke the Borg!", non-bipedal Borg as they find a species with a unique genetic quirk that they like (xenomorph Borg anyone?), Voyager is chased by a cube and trapped in a nebula that is slowly eroding it's hull plating, and the crew have to negotiate with the small group of ships who have hidden there for years and are struggling with dwindling resources, but know that if they leave the safety of the anomaly they'd be captured. The Borg decide to go after the Q but will work their way up and so decide to target the Caretaker's species, or something like the nasty from Where Silence Has Lease and shenanigans abound. Omega Particle data gets leaked somehow (I don't like how Voyager just screw over an entire species and don't have the courtesy to tell them why or give them some energy tech), and now they are actively hunted by Borg. Borg find androids or sentient robots and start assimilating them. And that's just ideas off the top of my head.
And Unimatrix Zero is just bad. I don't buy into any plan that involves me getting pumped full of nanotech and mutilated. Janeway and co are lucky they still have all their original limbs and eyes after that fiasco. The Borg are frankly, bloody terrifying, the bogey-men of Star Trek, eldritch abominations that even Picard thinks that killing their victims means you're doing them a favour. They aren't as bad as Cthulhu, but should be up there.
Just in thinking about it, maybe in gaining Seven of Nine, it would have required then sacrificing crew members to assimilation, like Kes since she was being written off.
Or maybe have the female Caretaker being encounter the Borg and see if they could assimilate her into their collective. If not, then she could remove the Borg at will by dragging them into her realm and ruthlessly torturing them for her own demented amusement.
Or have Voyager be fully assimilated by the Borg, only to have one survivor go back in time to prevent the assimilation from occurring by offering up a sacrificial lamb in one species being assimilated in Voyager's stead.
They really missed out on fantastic story-telling opportunities by turning the Borg into the run-of-the-mill bad guy of the week.
well Voyager was fucking retarded -- so there's that
Space is BIG.
Simple, the Kazon and Talaxians sucked so bad that not even the Borg wanted to assimilate them.
It’d also be cool to see more species acting like the Genii from Stargate Atlantis: Basically, they “hide in plain sight” from the Borg by pretending to be technologically inferior, while their true capabilities are hidden deep underground on their home planet. Voyager accidentally blowing their cover & trying to hide the evidence before the Borg fully catch wind would make for a tense episode.
I knew Captain Power's aesthetic had to be part of the Borg design. They just looked too much like Lord Dread. Check out Captain Power, it was written by JMS who made B5. Also, the Cybermen had to be an inspiration, too.
We really need to see the Borg win for once. Humanity always avoids them or beats them Evwntually, but the Borg need a solid victory. That'll influences how scary they are.
Borg don't need victory. Borg picking themselves up after confrontation with Voth or 8472 and damage to transwarp network, assimilating Q ... Borg, in a way, are like W40k Orcs. Can beat them, but just can't weed them out. Wether it takes 1,10 or 100 thousands of standard years - they will, eventually, grow back.
Allegedly, one of the original ideas for First Contact was going to have the Borg travel to Renaissance Florence. It would have apparently featured Riker getting into a sword fight with one of the Borg. Come on don’t pretend you wouldn’t want to see that
The Borg were *excellent* until they gave them a queen. The whole terror of the Borg was that it had no head, but rather was an undifferentiated hive mind. As soon as I had a central power it became like all other baddies.
My thoughts were similar to ALIENS introducing a queen. Oh now the lovecraftian horror is just Starship Troopers space bugs now.
yeah Brannon Braga turned the Borg into his own personal virgin sadsack leather BDSM fantasy >
I always found the early TNG Borg to be far more disturbing and frightening than what they became later with an emotional Queen, territory, green lights everywhere, etc. In TNG, they were faceless and a true collective with zero emotion, zero 'leaders', and dead-cold grey ships.
I had a theory long ago... That more then one version of the Borg exist , and the potential reason why they seem to differ from time to time is that .. it is a different faction within the same area. We living on earth have hundreds of different cultures. I believe it makes perfect sense for these separate factions to exist.
I love the expansion of our knowledge of Borg society. A one-dimensional, unbeatable BigBad is borrrring from a storytelling standpoint. It also makes sense that nearer to their home space in the Delta Quadrant there would be a more complete and multi-faceted society than on individual ships sent to other parts of the galaxy.
If you like Babylon 5, seek out Captain Power. Even though it looked like yet another 80’s half hour toy commercial, the show was written by J. Michael Straczynski and had incredible depth. A few elements from that show was even repurposed for B5. You won’t be disappointed.
The Borg just slid downhill. They have lost their teeth.
The reasons you give are exactly correct.
Interesting in Star Trek online, in both instances we see a planet being assimilated, the only option is save who you can and FALL BACK!
Holy, hell is is actually a very interesting, a good idea for a series, exploring different sci-fi factions lore, and development is an ingenious idea.
I’d love to see you do the Tau’ri from Stargate, it would be very interesting to see you talk about the development of humanity from a primitive age, to a galaxy exploring galaxies.
Hadn't considered doing the Tau'ri but that sounds like it could be a good episode. I'll make a note of it :)
Yay, you answered my question.
Also, please do continue this new series as it adds an interesting and different perspective.
Hope it was a good answer :)
Ironically, Star Trek Online gave some of the horror of the borg back IN SPITE OF the Laws of Gameplay making them killable to any player.
The GRUESOME way that they experiment on the Undine to work around their immunity to assimilation give the Borg back their street cred as this horror that can never be truly destroyed.
"If the Enterprise could beat them every other week they'd lose their impact as villains". Pity no-one ever reminded the Voyager writers of that. There MUST be more than 11 Borg episodes too, seems like I remember at least 1 a month for a bit in the later seasons. And Scorpion, Dark Frontier, Unimatrix Zero and Endgame were all 2 parters so that's 8.
Er... Captain Power was an early TV show by JMS! (As I’m sure many are pointing out I the comments as I type this). Great vid thoug!!🤓👍
Captain Power, He-Man, She-Ra, Real Ghostbusters, Murder She Wrote, Twilight Zone... He did loads of stuff.
I loved it as a kid. I had all the toys. The show was way ahead of its time.
@@illegalclown Totally remember these. The vehicles were light guns shaped like space ships you could put the figures in. They actually interacted with the show, you could shoot at the screen, they also worked as laser tag, where the figurine would eject if you got "hit". Very much ahead of its time. =D
lol I know of Captain Power but never actually saw the show, GI Joe, Transformersm He Man & Thundercats were my main shows....and Knight Rider just the theme alone was pure gold
Huh. I had the Captain Power tapes and TV zapper ships.
For me, the best Star Trek villain was the Dominion. They posed more of a threat to the Federation than the Borg ever did, who were completely ruined by Voyager.
If we're going with villains rather than hostile civilizations, it's Gul'Dukat 100%.
Actually, Voy writers understood Borg bettter with most 'fans' who wished to see another Empire from Star Wars.
They should of said they are related to Klingons that one thing would make them a lot more interesting or if not I wish they had a more original design they split the predator into two species the hunter and the dreadlock guys lol the videan's were the best species though those were the diseased guys right? I wish they would of did a thing with them vs the Borg just so we can hear the science babble about how they biology does or doesn't work together
The Dominion weren't very good. Ds9 bored me. And the Borg could wipe out the dominion any day.
You should do a Lore Evolution on SG1’s Replicators. They were closer to that Lovecraftian vibe the Borg tried to do. With the Borg, they were still bipedal humanoids, so we could understand them to a point. In the case of the Replicators, they’re just relentless non human bugs. Yeah, they were made humanoid in Atlantis, but initially, they were damn creepy.
Christopher Jones They were made humanoid in SG-1 first. And while functionality identical, the Ausran replicators in Atlantis had no connection to the replicators in SG-1.
To be fair, much as they might comment on how unusual Picard's conversion to Locutus was in BoBW, the same two-parter makes more that a few references to the assimilation of the Federation, and specifically its people. Locutus makes mention of wishing to "raise quality of life, for all species", humanity being assimilated as easily as Picard was, etc.
True, but there was no leader, that's the difference.
I liked their one-time use in Enterprise, too. This was good. I'm really liking your channel. I just subbed.
Moving from the Gestalt to the Borg Queen was unfortunate
Waitwaitwait, you haven't heard of Captain Power?! HEATHEN! :)
Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future is awesome!
Thanks for the insights of yourself as a person and a creator of media, at the end of the video.
J.Michael Straczynski the creator of Babylon 5 was the head writer for Captain Power and the soldiers of the future.
:-O
How do you not know Captain power amazing show from the 80s LOL I was only a kid but awesome show even the toys
Didn't the Borg also make a appearance in Star Trek: Enterprise?
One episode, but they were never identified as such to the characters.
They did, however I didn't mention it here as there were pretty much identical to how they were in First Contact and didn't really expand the lore. Fun episode though :)
He's not really listing appearances, so much as how they've evolved over time. There wasn't really any evolution to the Borg in Enterprise.
Was a GREAT episode
What i love about that episode is that its partly a tribute to H.P.Lovecraft's mountains of madness.
It does not add to the lore. The signal they send is meant to be what originally attracted the Borg to Earth though.
Nice video I hope you do more videos like this.
Loved this pilot and would love to see what other characters of long-running franchises you do! Always the highest quality dude! Keep out the great work!
Thanks, I have ideas for similar video on The Jedi, The Klingons and more.
Lots of stuff I didn't know in this video! Great job!
Captain Power was a J M Straczynski project. There was a robot army that was digitizig humanity and or putting them in concentration camps, etc. The story line was almost as dark as Exosquad's.
Reminds me of the Future Past arc from X-Men, too. Sentinels take over, put everyone in camps (or just kill them), and there's very little chance of survival.
Captain power was awesome! If you haven't seen it, go and watch it! Fair warning though, the effects have not aged well at all.
The Borg themselves didn't change - we just learned more about them at the same time our heroes did and new ways to fight them where found. I simply don't think it is right to claim that Voyager turned the Borg into a joke or any other claims like that!
Wonder if Star Trek Disco will have the Borg in a ep
Well now that they're in the future, it's possible
I know you meant discovery, but inexplicably 70s star trek would be great XD All the white suits from next gen movies in polyester with the Bee Gees writing the soundtrack, Picard doing more than the mambo on the bridge
I was hoping we’d see someone freak over over Detmer’s cybernetics thinking she was Borg.
STD would ruin it like they've ruined everything else, it's a shame there's been no new Star Trek since 2005, maybe one day we'll get a new Star Trek.
STD is not Star Trek. It’s exactly what it’s name implies. Stop supporting that Garbage
Star Trek Destiny is so, so great. I would love CBS all access to turn it into a sweeping 8 episode miniseries, but I doubt that would/could ever happen. Do a recap of that trilogy!
It was awesome, but it actually DOES end Federation as we know it and has Deus Ex Machina happy end where just single core world survive. Yeah, it would be great 14 episode mini series but.... too late for that.
You could've at least shown a picture of Lord Dread from Captain Power when you mentioned it. It's crazy how close he looks to a Borg drone.
I think the queen borg real job was to maintain a collective after time travel. Has that would cut them off from the collective.
That's a good idea!
I always thought that the borg where a "perfect" democracy, just that everyone had the same way of thinking and the same informations all the time, making their actions look like mindless drones but in reality they are just thinking completely alike.
In this regard, the queens task would not have been to command the drones but to reevaluate old and invent new thinking-patterns for the borg to improve. Like a unit solely dedicated to work on software improvements, while the drones work on hardware improvements. This way the Borg could be used as villains, who don't just want to assimilate all lifeforms and their technology but who would run experiments on newly created software and/or hardware. Like that all other lifeforms would not only be assimilation targets but lab-rats for their upgrades. Like they had said, their end goal is not complete assimilation but perfection. It kinda strikes me as odd that they would leave improvement up to enemy analysis instead of self-analysis.
@@nicholaswulf4563 that also interesting but then why are the queens bad and problem solve or creativity thinking. Are thy only good at it by borg standards or because the collective dis not understand creativity properly.
In one of the books they said that VEJAR had been saved by the Borg and they had upgraded it, they explained this by having the Borg think spock was already one of them because of the mind meld in the film he had made with it.
It is worth seeking out Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. This was a sci fi series originally created to sell a line of toys. This was the first interactive tv series, for if you got the Captain Power gun, you could shoot at the biodreads and other bad guys, and I believe the gun kept score. If I’m wrong about the gun, someone can correct me.
But what I do know is that it evolved into a credible sci fi show of its own. The characters and stories went far beyond just an infomercial for a line of toys. Yes, it was the 80s, and you hear 80s slang like “piece of cake”. And yes, they have 80s haircuts as well. But if you look past this, you’ll see a show that’s worth watching. And you may also come to feel like many including myself did, that it deserved more than its one season. The episodes are here on TH-cam.
The Borgs really reminds me of the Necrons from Warhammer 40k in that they both began as these soulless, relentless and near unstoppable foes that couldn’t be negotiated with only for someone to later come along and change them into something that they were never meant to be.
My head cannon has the Borg not assimilating people until they ran up against humanity and discovered that our greatest technology was...us. In "The Best of Both Worlds" episode the shift in priority is even noted by the characters on screen. Picard might have actually been the first "alien" biological organism ever assimilated by the Borg. Combine that with the Hugh arc and you get a very different Borg by Voyager's time than you had previously. I imagine the queen was originally simply a kind of distribution node for the collective but Picard's force of will and Hugh's regained individuality caused this radical shift in organization and priorities. In essence, Picard defeated the Borg by simply making them beatable. It would also explain the Borg's obsession with Earth.
Just discovered you’re channel and it’s great , sub’d straight away
The Tyranids are leagues more terrifying than the Borg, especially in the unknowable, relentless force department, but I absolutely LOVE the Borg.
Tyranids are like Borg - "just different". Tyranids are more aggresive, for Borg assimilation is instinctive reaction, simply part of existance. Borg rely on efficiency ( concept alien to wholesale Tyranids ), do things mostly slowly and frequently ignore others, when unchallenged.
Loved your mention of the Star Trek Destiny trilogy. In my personal opinion it is the best and exciting origin story of the Borg. If any of you guys watching this video or reading the comments did not read it yet, you definitely should.
I liked the idea of that queen type Borg, as if she created the Borg herself and rules them as a unique, using the collective's new tech for her own gain
Voyager's depiction was inevitable. Star Trek is about seeking out new life and civilizations. Janeway can't be in the Borg's backyard without finding out more about them as a civilization. It wouldn't be Star Trek to keep them an unknown force with no development for so long.
Wholeheartedly agreed.
I always thought that the Borg where what something like the federation would eventually become.
ooh, interesting
Quite obvious - implants and tech would progress to that level. And as Eddington pointed out in his famous rant, mentality was already in place.
Yes. Which is why I don't understand the assertion that the Borg are antithetical to the Federation. Tge Federation seeks out new life and new civilisations to assimilate them into tgeir collective, or else go to war with them, like the Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians. Or the Borg.
@@davidwuhrer6704 if you dont see any diffrence it means taht you look the federation and the borg from a very superficially point of view
@@nemanjasakic5058 What difference do you see?
I always thought that the borg where a "perfect" democracy, just that everyone had the same way of thinking and the same informations all the time, making their actions look like mindless drones but in reality they are just thinking completely alike.
In this regard, the queens task would not have been to command the drones but to reevaluate old and invent new thinking-patterns for the borg to improve. Like a unit solely dedicated to work on software improvements, while the drones work on hardware improvements. This way the Borg could be used as villains, who don't just want to assimilate all lifeforms and their technology but who would run experiments on newly created software and/or hardware. Like that all other lifeforms would not only be assimilation targets but lab-rats for their upgrades. Like they had said, their end goal is not complete assimilation but perfection. It kinda strikes me as odd that they would leave improvement up to enemy analysis instead of self-analysis.
You need to see Captain Power. It's not well known but it has J. Michael Straczynski's name associated with it is among the first series using full-CG characters. It's primarily for teens, but rather easily watchable. The end titles are awesome.
Great video! Yea the Borg were originally terrifying but turned into boring adversaries.
The Borg are the best sci-fi villains in my view. They're Robot Alien Zombies, what could be better. No really, they took the idea of zombies and adapted it to the futuristic sci-fi universe and I think they are a brainchild of very inventive, clever people and I thank them for the Borg. I love the Borg.
I just finished Destiny. Fantastic books!
Captain Power was the coolest when I was a kid. I always thought that was me projecting that connection.
5:20 Oh I agree the idea of a 'leader' for a hive mind is stupid. Thankfully some works have tried to hammer home that her appearance at being an individual is a facade. And the queens are more like relay stations than entities.
If they had geared the story towards developing the Borg into what they became, I wouldn't complain.
Go ahead and introduce a queen, but don't just plop in onto the screen as if it had always been there.
If you want to change the color scheme, go for it! But throw in a little dialogue where the characters make note of the difference from their own encounters and remark that it may be a delta quadrant specific adaptation. Make it a memorable addition to the lore and not just evidence of a better set budget.
Enemies, factions, etc. Are definitely supposed to evolve and become more complex, revealing weaknesses as you get to know them.
Maintaining the story in a way that gives the Borg a permeant lack of depth, a stagnant motivation, and essentially invincibility is going to be just as damaging as making them too easy to defeat.
I loved watching Captain Power as a kid, I had no idea the Borg came after though - I definitely see the resemblance to Lord Dread.
Personally my favorite versions are either the Q Who original one, or the First Contact one. The first might be more outright threatening and force of nature like, but the second one concept of assimilation via nano probes was far more chilling. It also made far more sense for their marauder style of organization and tendency to send only one ship, searching for perfection by raiding and learning from all other entities of the galaxy.
Also, in best of both worlds the Borg tell Picard that his culture will adapt to service theirs, implying that they would enslave earth, not assimilate it.
That's when they ruined the borg. The borg were this unstoppable force against which they could have no hope of being victorious...but they were far away and didn't care about earth and the federation existing. this episode suddenly made the borg care and making earth a prioriy. Given their huge technological advantage, they could have easily achieved this. They "tried" with 1 cube, almost succeeded, and the never bothered again. Makes no sense at all.
@@BamBamGT1 Of course, it does. Because of Borg obsession with efficiency. Civilisation that long becomes stagnant and doesn't drop anything they are doing just because in some backwater something new came up. They are patient - can act decisively when necessary, but in most cases, don't need to. This is not Galactic Empire.
@@piotrd.4850 Then why did they bother at all?
"Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future" was a saturday morning Cartoon based on a couple of Mattel toys that could interact with on-screen action. It featured some of the earliest CGI.
It was a live action show however :?
@@aquamonkee Yes, it was. It did feature CGI characters.
2:15 never heard of it? i actually hear this alot. i had a bunch of the toys and video tapes. the episodes are currently on an obscure service called nightflights plus.
Captain Power! That was a J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) show, IIRC.
Thx!!!! Now I really know what I ever thought, that the BORG also were inspired by die design of Lord Dread of Micheal J. Straczynskis "Captain Power"-TV-Show of the 80ies.
Ah, the Borg. Or the Cybermen, as they were known when I was a lad... 🖖
Seems a connection to V'ger is the origin that multiple depictions subscribe to. Apart from Star Trek Legacy a V'ger connection is also hinted at in Star Trek Online (Borg Unimatrix ships are essentially mini V'gers complete with torpedoes that will disntegrate a ship if they destroy it) and in the comics that fill in some of the gaps in the 2009 movie (The Borg tech in the Narada is drawn to V'ger).
Captain Power was a very good "kids" science fiction show by the creator of Babylon 5 (but it was made prior to that show). It had fairly sophisticated plots & an overarching storyline. It was cancelled because some groups objected to the shows episodes as long commercials for toys. There was a Power Gauntlet that could be bought "allowing" the audience member to fight alongside Captain Power & his Troopers. Of course you could really only hit an enemy already slated to be shot in the story, but the interaction was still kind of cool.
Captain Power was conceived of and written by JMS of Babylon 5 fame. It lasted one season was “for kids” and ran afoul of “shows shouldnt sell toys to kids!” Lawsuits in the US.
The Borg were just rehashed cybermen from Dr. Who. Even in the Patrick Troughton episode "Tomb of the Cybermen" the cyber-leader tells them, "Your resistance is futile. We will freeze you and make you like us."
The Borg are a thousand years old at the time of Voyager. We've not seen the last of the Borg even though they are more complex , have been defeated, and maybe even have weaknesses seen in TNG. They are resourceful and work well as humanity's villain because "they play on how intimately human existence depends on technology and it hold the opposite values the Federation holds dear, freedom, diversity and individuality" as Trekspertise argues in the "History of the Borg" video.
Also, besides contract immortality, I think the reason the queen reappears after dying is because she's not as much as an individual as she appears.
No 7 of 9 later told that the borg changed the time-line so that the borg queen never did her journey. But what happens after Yoyager:Endgame is a good question ? Did they do it again or do they create a new or stay that way ?
It is tool manifested by Collective.
@@Fiercesoulking that's what is awesome about Borg - be it tens thousands of years, but they eventually WILL return.
@@Fiercesoulking When did she say that? I recall her telling Harry & B'elanna that the Borg were present at the events of the Phoenix's warp flight, but not what you speak of.
@@darthmetallus1977 I don't know which episode this was but it is properly the same she said that the borg undone it and so nobody remember it
have you thought about reaching out to the lore reloaded channel? That guy has some very interesting opinions on the borg as well
Captain Power disrespect is something I cannot tolerate.
Honestly, I really like both pre-Queen Borg and post-Queen Borg, the only problem I have is simply that they might as well be two separate powers with how abrupt the change is. Maybe it would have worked better if the Borg becoming less mysterious to The Federation was worked into the show gradually instead of suddenly dropping all at once in First Contact.
when I was a kid
I had a shit ton of
CAPTAIN POWER FIGURES
my grandmother would buy
them for me at the
FAYS PHARMACY STORE
for like $1 each
Holy shit, captain power was fkin awesome AS A KID.
Rewatched it recently and it fucking BLOWS lol.
The borg were originally designed in a way that made them way to powerful, ominous, and overall undefeatable considering the sheer scale of their existence. However in voyager it was emphasized that the Borg did anything to survive and expand, and showing that a hivemind such as the Borg, could indeed negotiate when needed, and every single encounter was treated like this: "is this beneficial to the collective? is it worth the resources". It was also shown that the borg could be defeated, and that their space was vast and extreme, and that yes they did have a Queen, which was not an individual, but rather a manifestation of a unimatrix. Believe it or not even in modern real hiveminds personalities can form, and even behavior. Make no mistake the borg are NOT artificial intelligence. They are repurposed intelligence. Meaning that the borg were a horde of unstoppable "space zombies" (when they kill you, you add to their numbers). It was almost like it was hopeless. And believe it or not, Star Trek voyager only encountered Unimatirx 01, not the implied dozens of unitmatricies, so this so called weakness, which could only happen by a time travelling captain who gave her own life just to disrupt, not destroy, one transwarp hub and Unimatrix, so voyager could return home. The borg are infinite, kill millions, millions and more will take their place, the borg are still the most bad ass enemy in all of star trek.
I have always thought the inspiration for the Borg was the Cybermen.
I'm not the only one who saw the Borg-Cybermen parallels then.
They are more like PosBis, there ships are direct rip-offs even. But they certainly had become Cybermen by the time their suits were finished. (Which look like the Fremen suits from the Dune movie, which in the books had been described as being the colour of sand.)
@@davidwuhrer6704 i'd never heard of PosBis until now but their ship is suspiciously the same. I can certainly see the resemblance in the Freman as well.
You called it, Picard and the TNG crew did get one final fight against the BORG.
Captain Power was my shit!!!
'borg children', uh, those were assimilated kids, who were spat out early because they were the only drones still alive after the rest of the crew died, leaving them with only 7 drones to man an entire cube meant to house thousands if not hundreds of thousands.
And the Cooperative was a band of ex-drones who just wanted to be left alone.
And then the collective in Scorpion were dealing with a species as eldritch as their own.
And the queen does show how big the borg reserves are, when she's willing to blow up entire ships just to take one or two drones that have broken free of the collective, they have billions to spare.
You are thinking of the broken Borg drones that tge Voyager crew aassimilated.
The video was showing the drawer with the baby Borg that the away-team of the Enterprize-D found in the Borg cube in Best of Both Worlds.
@@davidwuhrer6704 We're thinking of different spots in the video.
@@XX-sp3tt You're right. I was thinking of around the 3:00 minute mark. You referenced 6:48.
I was confused by how he said borg children were a novel concept in Voyager, which it obviously was not.
5:56 Enterprise had the Xindi..... I'm sure you left that out by accident.
I wept for the protagonist in this at, “Captain Power and the soldiers of the future; something I’ve never heard of.”
Thankfully, it’s just a story. Such tragedy rarely happens in real life.
Amazing villains. I was so scared of them when I was a kid
Rowan I don't know about you but I'm looking forward to Star Trek Picard, as we'll finally see what happened after Romulus was destroyed.
BTW if you want to know more about what happened that made Nero from the 2009 reboot, a villain obsessed with torturing Spock, there is a comic book called Star Trek Countdown that explores what the events in universe leading up to the reboot were. It also shows the fate of several Next Generation characters
What about Control from Discovery? Or the new Borg Cube seen in Picard?
After the Best of the Both Worlds, they had only two options on how to continually feature the Borg given how powerful they'd been established as. Either nerf/develop their weaknesses to give the Federation a fighting chance or to make their thinking so alien that the reasoning for not just sending more cubes to try and conquer the Alpha Quadrant again are wholly inconceivable to the characters and the audience.
For better or for worse, they went with the former option. It did make for some interesting episodes, but there's an interesting "what if" of the Borg being left as a mysterious threat always lurking on the fringes of Federation space and it being totally unknown in how they would emerge again.
Like the Reavers from Firefly.
Space is big. There is enough space in space for the Borg to be anywhere at any time.
I liked the idea of a queen they are called a collective and like a bee hive or a ant colony they work as one. So a queen is a interesting twist in the story.
Like bees it would be interesting if you could have different hives or collectives who are the Borg but with subtle differences. It could be a fun path to take with that character.
Great video! By any chance have you ever considered doing a video on the ST: Destiny novels?
I have actually. However I'm hesitant because there aren't a whole lot of visual elements to include in a video. I'd love to talk about those books though
@@RowanJColeman I sure hope there is some chance you can make a video on this topic in the future. Do you prefer that timeline of the books or the of the Star Trek Online game?
From my perspective , instead of a New Description of an old idea , The Roman Assimilation Campaign. The Borg Represent what we would "Really" become in space , rather than the Idealist "Federation".
Voyager destroyed the Borg. By the time Votager was over the Borg weren't scary and they weren't that much of a threat because Voyager all alone was able to best them at every encounter
The Borg became the toothless wolf, trying to frighten others with its bark. They were a sad, pathetic shell of what they could've been: the future rulers of the galaxy.
I don't fully understand the continued complaints about the Borg changes. Some were bad, but most were good. There's no way they could stay the same forever. They were introduced as a species that used assimilation to adapt and improve rapidly. How can you expect them to be static?
They followed the same kind of arc that other Trek villain races did. Klingons were unrepentant and murderous enemies in TOS and the films. TNG and Undiscovered Country changed everything about the Klingons and made them just another race. TNG did much the same with the Romulans (and that work was continued in DS9 and the TNG movies). The Dominion went from unknowable, all-powerful evil empire to just another race across 7 seasons of DS9. Voyager gets a lot of blame for demystifying and weakening the Borg, but they didn't do anything to the Borg that wasn't done to other races before them. After all the changes made in TNG and First Contact, all of the on-screen improvements made by the Federation through years of fighting and researching the Borg (and the Dominion War), of course they became better at fighting them. They studied the Borg technology. They had access to the Borg mind, albeit briefly, through Locutus and Data, then the memories of Picard once he was saved. They had all of his implants, alterations, and technology to study, reverse engineer, and improve upon. They saved him, mentally and physically, without much complications at all. Hugh was easily broken out just by being physically separated from the Collective (a prelude to Seven). Lore took them over with nothing more than an emotion modulation chip. The Queen's grand plan to assimilate Earth in the past was undone by a few dozen officers with nothing but a nearly crippled ship.
By the Time Voyager inherited the Borg in Season 3, they had already been made more an equal footing enemy than an overwhelming power enemy. Voyager kept the danger up by making it Borg space, their home turf. Voyager was one ship against an entire species. And, like always happens, the Borg were given an even bigger fish to run from with Species 8472. The Klingons faced ecological destruction. The Romulans faced political upheaval (and then ecological destruction also, thanks Trek 2009). The Dominion faced extinction through the Founders virus. all of those weakened and humbled the previously overpowered races. It's a tried and true method for the franchise.
It even worked for the Ferengi. The way they started off was cruel, buffoonish. The Federation didn't know much about them and feared them as a major power. They lied about much of it and bluffed some of it. Sure, they could afford to buy great weapons, and the richest among them could afford ships that would stand face to face with the best Starfleet had, but as an overall race or faction, they weren't much different from any other.
All of them rely on fear of the unknown to terrify and hint at what the truth might be. However, that's the whole mission of Starfleet. Explore, find new stuff, sometimes dangerous stuff (like the Iconian gateways or Tin Man), and then learn about it. Understand it. Assimilate that knowledge and put it to use for yourself. Sometimes that means decades of researchers pouring over ancient ruins. Sometimes that means fighting an aggressive species of cyborgs until you can undo their entire hive mind with a Trojan horse virus. In the end, it's all the same mission. The Borg were just one more faction/species to understand. It will always go that way, because if it didn't, the Federation would be destroyed and the franchise would end.
You can see the germ of the Borg Queen idea from the TNG era. It's taken me a while to come around, but I genuinely like the concept of the Borg Queen.
If you think about it Locutus was a first run at the concept of an 'avatar' for the collective. Latin for 'He who speaks,' Picard becoming Locutus was not only a strategic move by the collective, but also a practical move in terms of its psychological impact on the Enterprise crew and the Federation as a whole. It's like the Borg have come to understand humanity a bit more since their first encounter with them and know the value of having a commander-like figure to be a singular voice for the entire collective.
The Borg Queen is an evolution of this concept. Rather than stealing a figure to use as their leader, they create their own. The Borg Queen embodies more than just the basic will of the collective, it's a fully-realized personality that is far more intimate a character than the 'borg voice'. It also works as an autonomous unit, able to travel in a sphere or other smaller craft to visit a world and basically deliver the 'We are the Borg' speech in person. It could be far more intimidating if one Borg Queen coming in and saying "Surrender or die" than by a hollow collection of voices.
Difference is he didn't go around saying "I'm the collective." And acting like he was a leader. He was just a tool to discourage other species from resisting. He was disposable. He was not powerful at all. In fact this was a traumatizing experience, so much so that he cries in "Family." Ain't nothing about Locutus leader-like. He is nothing like the Borg Queen. Although yes he was more an avatar in the sense. Truer in that sense than the Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen destroyed the best aspect of the Borg for me. It was a race of individuals that had chosen to function as a collective of equals - a hivemind in truth. In First Contact they became drones and the only intelligence and hence motivating force was the queen. It lessened them severely.