posted
Just watched "Conspiracy"...So. Did those Body Snatcher things ever show up again? The episode ended with the bug things having sent off a beacon to some unexplored part of the galaxy...
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
No. They became the Borg. Not that there was any actual connection between the two, but Conspiracy was an attempt to cook up the new Enemy. The Ferengi had failed, and so they introduced space bugs, who were then completely altered in the mind of Maurice Hurley to become the cybernetic collectivists on the top of everyone's list.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
At what point did Hurley (and the rest of the team) hammer out the details of the Borg? Before Q Who? Before Time Squared (which was originally meant to lead into it, I believe), or had they already figured everything out about the cyborg hive mind before The Neutral Zone?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Not that there was any actual connection between the two, but Conspiracy was an attempt to cook up the new Enemy.
Actually, that's not entirely accurate. The original backstory about the whole "conspiracy" within the Federation dealt with a group of Starfleet officers who were dissatisfied with the way Starfleet was being run, & wanted to change it. There was no "alien intelligence" behind the plot. This was during "Coming of Age" when we saw Remmick & Quinn for the first time. However, GR didn't want to open up a can of worms about the Federation, since he wanted to show Starfleet & the Federation in a positive, touchy-feely light. Therefore, this story idea was abandoned in favor of the alien parasite infiltrators, a much less imaginative idea than the former backstory. Ironically, the whole Maquis storyline would parallel the original conspiracy storyline later in the series.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
But I'm just talking about the squishy aliens with a taste for grubs, not the larger plotline.
Anyway, I don't think anyone ever nailed down the Borg. They were, for a time, supposed to be a literal hive of insectlike aliens. I don't know if this was after "The Neutral Zone" or not. And then they were cyborgs who consumed technology. They weren't given a hunger for other cultures and ideas and warm bodies until The Best of Both Worlds.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
True. Although in the BOBW, they actually mention that the Borg have changed priorities. "I thought they weren't interested in human life forms, only our technology" (or words to that effect). By the time of "I, Borg" though, everyone had forgotten this. Tsk.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
As to the Borg, from the interviews I read with Maurice Hurley the Borg were supposed to appear right at the start of season 2, but the writer's strike threw everything off and they didn't show up until Q Who.
I also recall reading that his plan was that the Borg were going to completely destroy the Romulan Empire, and that at the final stand the last Romulan ship finally managed to destroy the Borg (only one ship was to do all this), and Picard and co. would spend a long time trying to figure out what the Romulans had done.
As to Conspiracy, when I pitched some scripts to TNG back in 1989 I wrote a follow-up to it, called "The Unseen", but my agent told me the show wasn't really interested in buying scripts that used elements from previous episodes by other writers, because the show would have to pay them some residuals.
I had fun with the script though. I still think the first three acts are pretty good. I never quite nailed the ending the way I should have. Ah well.
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
Interesting idea regarding the Romulans facing the Borg. At the SSM forums we got into a debate as to what the Romulans were upto during their "time away", and the Borg were at the top of my list of things that could have kept them busy.
I also wonder howwell (orpoorly) the Klingons would fare versus a Borg cube ripping through their space. Not well at all, I'd guess.
Does anyone here think that the Dominion has had these problems with the Borg? After all the Dominion has lasted for over 2000 years....and the Borg would have certainly explored the Gamma Quadrent waaay before the Alpha/Beta quadrants as the distance is probably much less.
Prahaps the Founders made some sort of deal with the collective (as Guinan tells Picard that the Federation may one day be able to). I can't see a Founder being vulnerable to Borg Assimilation.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
No, but they would be vunerable to being shot with big guns.
At what point did the Borg get to the Alpha Quadrant anyway? Where were Seven's parents when they were picked up?
They were probably there just before the "Neutral Zone", but even if you follow the Voyager idea, they only got into the Alpha Quadrant a couple of decades earlier. And perhaps the Alpha Quadrant is closer to the Borg than the Gamma Quadrent?
And in any case, the Borg have never struck me as a race that feel the need to rush things.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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capped
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posted
its always sad, a 7 year show always lays down so many storylines that deserve followups. but then again, nowadays whenever they followup on a story, different writers change all the premises so much that its obvious they didnt plan any and it makes little sense compared to the original (Trill, Borg, wormhole Prophets).
Registered: Sep 2001
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