posted
That's possible. They could have been created in another galaxy or whatever.
I think the borgs was slowly introduced much before Q-Who?, and I think it was the episode where we first saw the return of the Romulans. Remember there were unknown attacks along the netural zone and both Romulans and Federation outpost were attacked. Vulcans's species number were lower than humans but then if they destroyed an outpost it wouldnt be a problem since the first alien they cataloged could have been a Vulcan officer.
Registered: Jul 2005
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I don't think it's a mystery that "The Neutral Zone" featured Borg attacks. I mean, that's explicitly confirmed later.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Yeah but i like a build to a new enemy or at least an introduction. We never got that with the Xindi. We weren't able to connect with them and they may have personalize the whole Xindi confilict with Trip's sister but then we never met her so that was pointless. They should have killed a member of Mayweather's family, which we saw before the Xindi conflict, and maybe the Xindi conflict would have been a better arch.
They gave a mystery as to a new enemy with "The Neutral Zone" and that new enemy was the Borg. In DS9 they introduced the Dominion well in advanced but we all thought that they were a federation in the gama quadrant only to find out later that they were the anti-federation. It's good writing.
Registered: Jul 2005
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Dont think for a mnute they had the Borg in mind when they wrote The Neutral Zone the way they foreshadowed the Dominion- most of early TNG was made so it could be shown out of order in syndication.
The whole "mysterious alien menace to be followed up with later" was also the lure of the parasite aliens, but that got forgotten in favor of more holodeck/Alexander tantrum/ Luwaxana Troi tantrum/ Data goes crazy-gets possessed fucko episodes.
Sadly, in later TNG, the looming Borg invasion threat was far more intresting than when they actually showed up.
I secretly yearned for a Cube to come through the wormhole in DS9's first two seasons though, to spice things up. Now I'm glad they never made an appearance.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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I was trying to point out that the "foreshadowing" of the bOrg in TNG was neither intentional when it was written nor was it "good writing", but I'm tired and rambling.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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I'm not sure what foreshadowing we're talking about. All we get is "Someone attacked these outposts in a freaky way!" and then, half a year later or so, "It was these guys!" I am perhaps not at the top of my game either.
Registered: Mar 1999
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But as to when exactly the Borg were all figured out, you'd have to ask Maurice Hurley, I guess. Clearly they changed a lot in the development process, from actual insects to humanoids, and then, in the episodes themselves, from an apparently self-contained hive mind to an expansionistic one.
(So what has he been up to lately, I asked myself. Writing for 24 apparently, which is not bad at all. He also wrote the Sci-Fi Channel late-night favorite Groom Lake. Maybe that film is not really a favorite, but I've noticed it twice. Amy Acker is in it! And Shatner. Which is a curious combination, but then it turns out the creator of the Borg wrote it, and Shatner directed? Huh. Anyway, Amy Acker is awfully charming.)
Registered: Mar 1999
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Is this a new show? Mmmmmm Amy Acker! Shatner? Is Boston Legal still going?
Groom Lake? I was just looking at it via google Earth the other night!
Go north from Groom lake and there is a giant equilateral triangle containing a series of concentric rings etched perfectly into the ground. Oh and it points EXACTLY North. There seems to be a giant '3' etched into it too.
Looked around for some other triangles.
MOST probably a target for bombers.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
Oh re: the Borg in DS9 I thought it was a good idea what Peter David did in the beginning of "The Seige" the first stand alone DS9 novel.
The Wormhole was undergoing some sort of weird behaviour - sort of like those inversions from "The Visitor" and a Borg vessel comes through at that moment and it's only glimsed at being a cube before it is obliterated due to the crazy antics of the wormhole. The unexpected destruction of a cube like that was then relayed back to the collective and that region of space was labelled in the collective as a 'no-go zone'.
Thus we never see the Borg coming through the wormhole or anywhere near that region again. Nice throw-away bit.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
What if the Borg the Borg only list species that they would consider assimilating. I mean, there are more than 250 species on a single planet, but perhaps the Borg only assimilated the inteligent ones (people, when the Borg come, your hamster is safe).
It could be that the Borg orriginate in an area of the galaxy that has planets where little or no inteligent life has evolved. Or Texas.
-------------------- I have plenty of experience in biology. I bought a Tamagotchi in 1998... And... it's still alive.
Registered: Apr 2005
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Ginger: No, because the Borg gave the Kazon a number, but deemed the Kazon as "unworthy of assimilation". (It's nice to know that even the Borg have some standards. )
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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Actually i'd like to see a series about the parasite threat. They may have or may not have intended "the Netural Zone" to be the first introduction of the borg, but if they were thinking about creating an enemy and then thought it up for "Q-Who?" then it's fine with me.
As for the numbering, they probably reference lower species to the dominant species. Like hampsters would be referenced to humans.
Registered: Jul 2005
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Re: AndrewR's thought of the Borg only arriving in the Milky Way 1000 years ago or so:
While that's possible, I would've expected the Borg to be much more advanced when they got here. Intergalactic travel isn't exactly a walk in the park.
An alternative, given the Borg habit of crossing dimensional boundaries, would be that they themselves came from somewhere else . . . i.e. the Borg aren't from our corner of the dimensional plane. This idea would have certain intriguing advantages, not the least of which is that whatever technology they had might not be compatible with our universe and thus, they'd basically have had to start from scratch. Still, though, I'd have expected them to develop faster.
So assuming they originated in our galaxy, then here's a thought . . . suppose the Borg didn't even have warp drive until sometime between 1476 and 2145? It would certainly explain their control of a mere handful of systems early on.
On the other hand, if the Borg existed for thousands of centuries but only in the past thousand years or so really got cracking as a spacefaring civilization, then the question becomes one of what they were doing before that. I mean, just ponder the idea of 21st Century proto-Borg considering a space program. Why would they bother? How could they design a ship if they have no technological creativity?
And so we'd have to assume that the Borg either only became a collective after their race's space program was already in place, or else it somehow happened before that but someone from another system dropped in to say hello. And if someone else dropped in, it really only makes sense if they had warp drive or very-high-sublight engines, unless it was a probe.
(One can almost imagine the original Borg race with Apollo-esque capsules having an advanced sublight probe drop in on them. Assimilating the technology and deciding to go visit the senders, taking the probe's tech and their own and saying "We will adapt.")
But, we're forgetting something. If the Borg were a collective making use of primitive 21st-Century-style tech, then anyone who got too far away couldn't have been a part of that collective, until subspace radio and/or vincula were created. So, until FTL communication was a reality, it hardly seems likely that the Borg could've successfully conquered anyone.
"Resistance is futile. We are the . . . er . . uh . . . who are we?" "Well, I think I'm Bob." "And I'm Steve." "Ah, yes, right. And I'm Jack. Resistance is futile for some reason. Actually, lemme get back to you on that."
And as a raw issue of communication, just what is the bandwidth of the Collective? I mean, can the Borg Collective's networking apparatus ("I can hear their thoughts") be maintained by a megabit connection? Gigabit? Hi-Fi Wi-Fi? Could the early Borg even go wireless without a temporary disconnect from the Collective? Are they using XML?
There are easily a hundred different fanfics that could be written from just these sorts of questions, each taking a different tack on the history of the Borg.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
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