On more than one occassion we have heard Seven of Nine mention that such and such species make excellent 'type' drones. The most recent example were the aliens in "Think Tank" that she said made excellent tactical drones because of their current cultural occupations. We also heard mention of Vulcans making excellent analytical drones, and Talaxians were implied to be excellent combat drones.

Now, while I certainly wouldn't want to imply that any one drone can do the same job as any other drone I do think that his points to something interesting. Namely that the Borg use the pre-existing neural pathways of each individual assimilated (combined with their knowledge of that species neural physiology) to determine the assignation of each drone. For example, the fact that the species in Think Tank were essentially bounty hunters and were accustomed to thinking in tactical terms implies that their neural pathways had formed in a manner that reflected that. The Borg, recognizing this, chose to assign members of that species to tactical areas for reasons of efficiency. Simple physiological facts would make those Borg more accustomed to dealing with tactical situations and would therefore make the transfer of information and situation reactions much more efficient in their new position.

Another example that occured to me was the case of Geordi, what might he be assigned? My guess is that he would be assigned to a long range scout vessel. His intimate knowledge of many forms of technology and his engineering experience would make him a valued member of any team and the fact that his brain had already become accustomed to receiving and processing cybernetic information through his ocular implants would make him an excellent choice for missions which involve scouting new areas, viz his ability to interpret myriad feedback data simply by looking at a strange landscape or metal would be invaluable.

None of this is a breakthrough, of course, but I do think that it begins to give us insight into the organizational systems of the collective. They do specialize to some degree, as evidence by these situations. Now the question is: to what degree and how does it relate to the Queen, and other popular issues.

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Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.