posted
I don't think that the complex seen in "Dark Frontier" was anything more than a space station. Important to the organization of the Collective? Sure. But I don't think there's any evidence that it was that important. We don't even know what a unimatrix is. The name itself seems somewhat contradictary. If there is more than one, then it isn't a unimatrix, is it?
Besides, Seven wasn't a temporary adjunct to unimatrix 01, she was a tertiary adjunct.
Now, back to this "Scorpion" thing. I'm going to have to dig out the tape, assuming I still have it recorded. Depending on the amount of signal degradation, a "queen" might have still been needed.
So, assuming the unimatrices represent some of those command sections that Data spoke of, what would an adjunct be? An aide? Or perhaps...a representative? Maybe even a spokesperson? Perhaps "unimatrix adjunct" is Borg jargon for queen. Personally, I'm starting to like this solution. It gives us a proper, if unwieldy, name for the "queen". It also explains away some of Seven's behavior in "Scorpion". Though, as I said, it's been awhile since I've seen the episode. I might be remembering her actions wrong.
------------------ "And much of Madness, and more of Sin, and Horror the soul of the plot." -- The Conqueror Worm, by Edgar Allan Poe
The First One
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed
Member # 35
posted
Omega, I hesitate to explain the Collective as a gathering of Querens. However, I DO like your idea of the Queens as the Unimatrices, the routers we've been trying to explain them as.
------------------ "The next time the workplace seems especially hectic, remind yourself it could be worse: you could have two-dozen sharp-toothed creatures chewing on your nipples." - James Lileks
1)From Sol: "Hence, the Collective exists as an entity seperate from the minds of the assimilated.
In other words, the Borg Collective is an intelligence that coopts the minds of those who it assimilates.
Now, how does that relate to the "queen"? It suggests that the Collective stored certain important files in her to be used when cutoff from the rest of the Collective. Is she special? Only in a situation where there is no contact with the rest of the Borg. Zap a "queen" sitting on Planet 3832/X83129? Nothing happens. She wasn't doing anything that can't be done in a different matter. Zap a "queen" who's with some Borg in, say, 8472's space, and the drones connected to her die.
In fact, now that I think about it, that makes a lot of sense. Seven WAS a "queen"! Think about it...the plan was for her to take Voyager into fluidic space and use that weapon against 8472, yes? Well, that would set up conditions identical to First Contact. A small group of Borg in a situation where they were cut off from the rest of the Collective. (Of course, there's a nagging voice at the back of my head suggesting that she might have been in contact with the rest of the the Borg even while in fluidic space, which would negate this. Anyone?)"
This is exactly the train of thought that I was following, though I was getting there in a roundabout sort of way. The queen is a connection to the rest of the Collective, and is used whenever a new collective is started, when the simple distances demand it, etc. But she is only a connection, a filter. The Borg may store files in her as ROM or something given any of those special situations but in ordinary situations (your planet 3832) there's nothing all that special about her. She just is a juncture for flow of information to and from the Collective. Which brings me to:
2) From The First One: "Whether just a router, a centralised processor (but not THE central processor, I've always tried to draw parallels with the power distribution nodes) or whatever, there is something different about her. You can't just deny that because it goes against everything the Borg are supposed to be about. The fact remains: she's not a drone. But more damningly, you missed the point that got me started on all this in the first place: The Borg are NOT a collection of minds. That would imply that it is a sum of the parts, and there are going to be a hell of a lot of parts that aren't happy at being mere parts. How many Borg were there on the Enterprise? How many of those do you think were ex-Starfleet? Most. There's no way that this mini-collective wouldn't come to be dominated by them! And what happened in "Unity?" Given the chance, the drones chose to be individuals again. Never mind that they then decided to re-establish a partial collective to enable them to function better together. . ."
I think Sol answered most of this admirably. The Collective is a separate entity above and beyond the minds of those assimilated. The memories, etc, are taken but the will is not. I would never argue that the Collective was just a group mind or some sort of mass democracy where the individual mind-votes were tallied. The drones in Unity were re-asserting their individuality because they were cut off from the collective. The drones in FC died not just because they were cut off but because their queen/connection was destroyed in their presence (my guess, anyway) causing a feedback effect. But my primary purpose in all of these discussions has been to argue for what Sol has just pointed out, and that is the idea of the Collective as an entity beyond just those assimilated. That's the only way it can stay a true Collective, otherwise you run into exactly the sorts of problems you're pointing out, First One. And the problem I have with the CPU analogy is that it leads us exactly where you've stated, even if you have more than one queen and they are not THE central processor, you're inevitably drawn into assuming that there must be some THE central processor somewhere. Then you've built up a hierarchy, and talk about going against what the Collective is supposed to be about! Of course the queen is not an ordinary drone, in the sense that there are more drones than queens, but I think the presence of a queen is pretty ordinary acting as a connection for the flow of information. As to me straying from your original question (though I've tried to come back to it here, and Sol has stated pretty well what I've been talking about) that's why I asked earlier if we should start a new thread.
3) Omega asked about the Unimatrix. My personal guess, though I don't think we've got enough to go on for sure, is that Unimatrix is Borg for Queen. Seven, in some episode, says "The Borg do not have family. We have unimatrices." As far as the one complex we saw being called Spacial Grid 1, etc. I would just hazard a guess that that doesn't mean it's the primary Unimatrix, just the first. Perhaps the Borg spot of evolution or something. But in keeping with the Collective idea and staying away from hierarchies the idea that it would be designated chronologically and not in order of importance seems more likely.
"Quick recap: the queens are the true collective, and each queen has absolute control of the drones in her (his?) subjunction, but the collective controls the queens. If the collective is not available for some reason, be it temporal displacement or a dampening field, the queen has complete control of the drones in the area. If the queen fails, and nothing is available to take her place, the subjunction dies. Any problems with this theory?"
Take away the 'queens are the true collective' substitute our ideas about the separate nature of the Collective, remove 'absolute control' and substitute the idea that queens only DIRECT the drones according to the will Collective (or that the Collective directs the drones THROUGH the queen -perhaps a better way of saying it) and I think we've got it (by George!!).
------------------ Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.
[This message has been edited by jh (edited September 22, 1999).]
The First One
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed
Member # 35
posted
We are indeed getting somewhere. I've always maintained that "the Collective exists as an entity seperate from the minds of the assimilated." We got bogged down in arguments about how the Queen relates to this. We've been attempting to use the Queen's role to define the nature of the Collective - putting the cart before the horses, in fact! Rather we should return to the nature of the Collective, and from there try to identify the Queen's role.
So what IS the Collective that controls all those drones? There are several options:
1. The collective small c) SUBconscious of the parts of the Collective. My "Creatures from the Id." Deep inside all of us want to belong, to just be one of the herd. Maybe the Borg are the ultimate manifestation of this. "Yes!" cried the Jews in The Life Of Brian, "we are all individuals!" - the Brian view!
2. The Collective is just software that exists in the body of the Collective - the Matrix view!
3. The nanoprobes. Something in their programming allows them to convert living tissue to be suitable hosts for them, and to connect to other hosts. Alone or spread thinly, nanoprobes are creatures of instinct, following urges to do the above. But once they reach a certain 'critical mass' true Consciousness results. Interestingly, this could then cast the Queens as symbionts rather than hosts. . . This is the Parasite view! 8)
Any other ideas?
------------------ "The next time the workplace seems especially hectic, remind yourself it could be worse: you could have two-dozen sharp-toothed creatures chewing on your nipples." - James Lileks
The Borg are scary in that the members of their "society" are nothing but an X. Everyone that is assimilated becomes one with the mainstream mind and loses all individuality. Each drone uniquely contributes to the mainstream but each drone only thinks with and serves the mainstream aka collective.
Like all other Trek aliens, the Borg represent an aspect of humanity. In this case the Borg represent our fear, yet need, of being swallowed by society.
Is the collective mind perfect? It's scary, but the human race would act like the Borg if we were in a collective like theirs. We would become heartless and arrogant assimilaters.
I hope this has made some sense.
------------------ "Forgive me if I don't share your euphoria!" (Weyoun to Dukat, DS9 'Tears of the Prophets') Dax's Ships of STAR TREK
[This message has been edited by Dax (edited September 22, 1999).]
The First One
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed
Member # 35
posted
I must admit, it explains a lot of Seven's behaviour. Having to think for yourself, to go out into a world where nothing is certain. . . scary, especially for someone who whose remnants of emotions are those of a little girl. I wonder whether her malleability as a child Borg could have made her eminently suitable for Queenhood, and maybe therefore a little more individual than most drones. After all, Janeway noticed there was something different about her, from the way she was specially de-niched for the occasion, to her general bearing.
But I digress. We've put aside the question of the difference between Queens and Drones for now. . .
Personally, I think option 2 is the one I would choose. There's something a bit too cerebral, too allegorical about option 1. Much as I'd like to see the Borg as the Evil Krell. Option 3 is definitely the most interesting one, though. . .
------------------ "The next time the workplace seems especially hectic, remind yourself it could be worse: you could have two-dozen sharp-toothed creatures chewing on your nipples." - James Lileks
posted
I think Option two is probably the closest, though still limited. It must be more of the 'software', the greater whole, the knowledge availabe than anything else.
For me, trying to explain collective consciousness isn't any easier than trying to explain our own. And philosophers have been hung up on that for centuries.
Personally, I think the best way to think of the Collective is as an incomplete omniscience. Of course that's a bit of a contradiction but I don't mean it literally. It must be akin to omniscience though because the Collective would embrace everything and anything within it's physical purvue (and beyond, counting the memories, emotions, and knowledge of those assimilated). Imagine the mind of Q and how vast it must be. The Collective, obviously isn't as powerful as that but the Collective consciousness must be closer to that than to our own. Don't you think? Or is that more along the lines of "What's it like to be a Collective consciousness?" Of course then you have the ultimate question (which is I think very important to the Borg and one reason I favor this view of Collective consciousness): Q is omniscient but can retain the perspective of the individual, whereas the Borg have sacrificed that perspective. Is their quest (for Locutus, Data, Seven in Dark Frontier) to bridge the gap between them and humanity essentially an attempt to get closer to the real feeling of true omniscience? To have the knowledge and perspective of the Collective AND be able to revert to an individual perspective, a la Q, at the same time? Seems interesting.
PS: And I think Seven's being assimilated as a child may have indeed made her more suitable for the role of a queen. Wasn't there actually something said in Dark Frontier along the lines that she was essentially destined or being groomed for just that before she was separated? Didn't the queen in that episode say that she was 'special' even before her separation? ------------------ Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.
Addendum: By the way, what's the record for the longest thread?
[This message has been edited by jh (edited September 22, 1999).]
posted
Longest thread? As far as I know, it was the Creation vs. Evolution thread in the Flameboard (which may be revived soon; we'll see). It lasted seven pages and 151 replies before it was locked.
As for the Borg, the collective consiousness has to be a collection of a lot of little somethings. The question is what it's a collection of. The theories so far are: the queen's consious minds, the nanoprobes themselves, our subconsiousnes, or copies of sentient software stored here and there (in the queens?) that communicate with each other, coming to a general concensus, and controling the drones by transmiting orders to the nanoprobes through the queens.
I personally like the last one. It seems to explain everything we've seen, while retaining the spirit of the Borg. It reminds me of the Joan and Voltaire sims in the Second Foundation trilogy. They made numerous copies of themselves and diseminated themselves throughout the galaxy, so they couldn't possibly be destroyed completely.
Tertiary adjunct. Right. I knew that.
OK, so if she was a tertiary (as opposed to secondary or primary) adjunct, might that imply that she was some sort of low-level queen, different from the other queens we've seen?
------------------ For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. - H. L. Mencken
posted
Well, if you count continuations, the longest thread would probably be the Interrogation of Charles Capps (*shudder*).
------------------ Frank's Home Page "Yes, I routinely run any car with Canadian plates off the road. It makes it easier to yank them out, blind them, and put them to work in my underground salt mine." - Simon Sizer
posted
It might be a mix of all three reasons. Suppose that the moment the first network was created, this intelligence flashes into being upon it. What does it reach for to mold itself after? The conscious minds it has access to? Those are going to be pretty complicated for a newborn entity to handle. But the subconscious...the realm of desire. That might be easier to grasp at the beginning.
Anyway, I've had a thought that's somewhat related to all this. There are a few good things about being assimilated. Namely immortality, of a sort. Seven hinted on this in one episode. The Collective contains every thought you ever had. Every hope and dream and fear. Long after your physical body dies, those thoughts still exist in the Borg. You still exist in the Borg. Forever.
Were I to ever write a script for Voyager, the idea of a species that worships the Borg seems pretty interesting.
------------------ "And much of Madness, and more of Sin, and Horror the soul of the plot." -- The Conqueror Worm, by Edgar Allan Poe
The First One
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed
Member # 35
posted
A species that worshipped the Borg. . . have to be a technologically inferior species, not worthy of assimilation. However, like Talaxians, some might have been assimilated because their body structure made for good drones.
You're right in that it could be a combination of the options: after all, the Collective could be software, and it could be concentrated in the nanoprobes. If any of you have read SF novels concerning the evolution of AI (Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress; Greg Bear's Queen of Angels) you'll see that one likely cause of such evolution is a perfectly normal system mimicking AI then becoming so complex through the number of connections it has, that it becomes self-aware.
------------------ "The next time the workplace seems especially hectic, remind yourself it could be worse: you could have two-dozen sharp-toothed creatures chewing on your nipples." - James Lileks
posted
Worshiping the Borg. Interesting concept, if it's done right, but knowing Voyager's writers, the alien species would try to sacrafice Voyager or something like that. Even worse, try and sacrafice Seven. How many shows do we need to see where Seven tries to return or is forcibly returned to the collective, anyway?
Interrogation of Charles Capps? I'd ask, but judging by your reaction, I'd probably be smited.
Personally, I'd consider immortality in the Borg to be a curse. I'd rather be dead than be used against my friends, but even if you die, it doesn't make any difference. The Borg still have you.
------------------ For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. - H. L. Mencken
posted
First One: That's what I was thinking. A species about as technologically advanced as pre-TOS humans, perhaps. Warp drive, to a point, but no other subspace-based technologies.
I figure the highest ceremony they have is to take a trip to a Borg ship or installation. The person being tested walks in, says a few prayers, switches on the magic amulet (In reality, salvaged bits of more advanced technology.), and waits. The ultimate goal is to be assimilated, of course.
------------------ "And much of Madness, and more of Sin, and Horror the soul of the plot." -- The Conqueror Worm, by Edgar Allan Poe
posted
The Borg are bound to need something that they can't, or at least couldn't, get by assimalation. There must be a thousand ways you could go with that story.
------------------ Outside of a dog, a book is a mans best friend. Inside of a dog, it's to dark to read. Groucho Marx
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