Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Borg Babies

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Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Now I'm pretty sure that this has been talked about before but just in case I'm bringing it up. If I remember correctly the discussion was about if the Borg reproduced or if they just assimilated. Last night I was watching the voyager ep with the 29th century Drone. Anyway Seven says that its maturation is 25 times faster then normal Borg maturation. Unless this is a snafu the Borg have kids.

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Death before Dishonor!
However Dishonor has
quite a disputed defintion.

Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :

Seen "Q Who"? In it Riker discovers the "Borg nursery". Considering 7's line it doesn't make sense. In fact, before she said that it never made any sense, why would the Borg procreate like that?

One theory I thought of was those were infants of some race the Borg assimilated but couldn't do anything so the Borg just stuck them in the "nursery" until they were a certain age and are ready to serve the collective.

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Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

I think Hobbes' theory is a very good possibility.

In fact:
1: Seven herself is proof that the Borg do not just assimilate adults, but children too.
2: More than ones it is mention that they assimilate ENTIRE species, which (most of the time) includes children, babies AND pregnant people.

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Yes. Uh, I'd add more, but what else is there to say?

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"If you are going to be my girlfriend please don't dump me after I like you."
--
Michael

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Altair does seem to sum it up. One might note that the infants (we only saw one, though) in "Q Who?" were pink, not the grey hue always associated with assimilated individuals. So probably they weren't assimilated postnatally, but were born by drones who were pregnant when assimilated. While this might be a rather mariginal way for the Borg to multiply their numbers, it certainly is *one* of them.

It seems unlikely that adult Borg drones could bear children, though. In the very same episode, Q makes a point about saying the Borg are neither male nor female. Okay, so this may be surgically reversible, so that Picard now is male again and Hansen is female. But during Seven's existence as a drone, she should have been incapable of having children, if we take Q literally. So babies are only harvested when the option arises immediately after an assimilation attack, but not specifically produced...

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

I think the Borg are capable of reproduction, and they might have special drones assigned to this task, or they could have special genetic techniques (cloning) for this. It could be essential for their survival to rely on their own species if not sufficient other species (a limited resource) can be assimilated.

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A somewhat different Janeway in VOY: "Living Witness"
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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

That's a very cool thought. So many comparisons have been made between the collective and an insect hive. Maybe there is a special reproduction unimatrix. The fetuses develop to a certain stage, are harvested, and put into maturation chambers to accelerate their growth. Interesting thought. Thousands of "people" who were born Borg and have never known anything but the collective mind.

Not a very pleasant thought, but interesting.

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"Resolve and thou art free."

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

Well, there's nothing wrong with the Borg way of life; the problem is with the assimilation, which isn't an issue for anyone who is a Borg to begin with.

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Is that Frank taking an evolved position?

At any rate, I agree. There isn't anything fundamentally wrong with a collective consciousness, as far as we know. The problem is that the Borg Collective just happens to believe itself to be the most perfect entity in the universe, and that which all others should aspire to. Zealotry at its most dangerous.

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"If you are going to be my girlfriend please don't dump me after I like you."
--
Michael

Posted by Black Knight (Member # 134) on :

Borg Sex...
hehehe

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Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

Black Knight: Snickering? Consider that the Borg might just harvest gametes rather than having adult Borg mate. The gametes could them be scanned for "imperfection" and only the "perfect" ones used to create new Borg.

They could possibly implant them in living hosts, perhaps of either sex. After all, if they can harvest an individual for parts, they could implant a womb in any likely donor (or do they only salvage electro-mechanical bits?) I would imagine that if they could harvest organs, they might just put harvested wombs in a box, so to speak (with appropriate support machinery to keep it in functioning order). This would allow infants to be grown without having to weigh down a Borg adult with the extra mass and nutritional burden required to carry an infant to term internally.

Once the fetus reached a sufficient level of maturity (not necessarily term, for the borg) it might be transferred to a maturation chamber, as suggested above.

Neither racy nor romantic, but possibly efficient.

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Hmm. Borg axlotl tanks? Cool...

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"If you are going to be my girlfriend please don't dump me after I like you."
--
Michael

Posted by Sunspot (Member # 77) on :

I think that the idea of a preggers Borg walking around would be awesome. It would show how imperfect the Borg really are at this point in time, having to occasionally turn back to the biological to sustain the advancement of the technological.

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

I meant it was sort of scary thought for us individuals. But I think you're right that the only thing "wrong" with the Borg way of life is that it is so undesireable to those outside the collective.

As far as a preggers Borg, I had more the idea of a bunch of drones strapped down in a medical unit doing nothing but being implanted and being harvested until their biological systems failed.

Eeeeew!

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"Resolve and thou art free."

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

I would imagine that, if the Borg chose to grow their own children, they'd dispense with using drones altogether. Much more efficient to just use biomechanical wombs.

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"If you are going to be my girlfriend please don't dump me after I like you."
--
Michael

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

If the Borg were unable to grow babies outside of an actually living drone, I think they just wouldn't bother. They'd see it as more trouble than it was worth. That why you'll never see a pregnant Borg.

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-Commander Adams, Forbidden Planet

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

That is illogical. Even though the Borg assimilate other races, their biological components will require replacement at a rate that might possibly exceed the rate at which they can "harvest" new races. There is also the necessity to establish an infrastructure to distribute new biological units to where they are needed.

It would be more efficient to produce more biological replacement parts wherever they were required, to avoid the possibility that new "recruits" might not be readily available precisely when required. Assimilation, no matter what rate at which it is occurring, will not always result in the desired amount of good replacement biological units when and where required.

--Baloo

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Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
--Mark Twain
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
http://members.tripod.com/~Bob_Baloo/index.htm

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

I don't think that TSN is arguing with you. He's just saying that, while the Borg might use such artificial wombs as have been postulated in this thread, they are unlikely to waste a whole drone for that purpose. Which means we all agree, yes?

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Will Rigby

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

Yes. And they should really have harnessed the whole invitro-concept, as it would be in their interest!

And if extensive cloning makes borg-DNA degenerated after a thousand generations like the marisposans, they could just assimilate someone and have a new fresh batch of DNA to spoil!
They should have quiet a lot of alternatives to "fill their ranks", seeing as Borg ethics is just about nil.

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