The Borg Queen v. The Battlestar Ending

[Siege]

I have never watched the Star Trek TV shows.

[Neil]

The thread title is "The Borg Queen v. The Battlestar Ending", so the events in First Contact should certainly be part of the discussion.

What some of us are trying to point out is that the "queen" in First Contact was somewhat of a misnomer, and should really be disentangled from the shitty "queen" that plagued later seasons of Voyager.

But aren't both equally shitty?

[DontSayBanana]

But aren't both equally shitty?

Believe it or not, a lot of us liked First Contact, Neil.

[Neil]

But aren't both equally shitty?

Believe it or not, a lot of us liked First Contact, Neil.

It's possible to like first contact but still feel that the concept of a Borg queen is retarded.

[DontSayBanana]

It's possible to like first contact but still feel that the concept of a Borg queen is retarded.

Every ship needs a helmsman. My point is that the "queen" in First Contact just fulfilled that purpose. There was some room for individuality in the Borg, or else they would have sucked the second time we saw them, when Picard was given a Borg name. I, Borg was unnecessarily cute, but Hugh didn't destroy the Borg as an enemy, either.

Nerd moment: Aspiration to perfection is an intellectual pursuit. Logically, perfection would be superiority. Until Voyager crapped on us with Species 8472, the Borg were as indomitable a force as the Q Continuum, and they technically don't exist in the normal Trek universe. Drones fulfill functions, so I always assumed the "queen's" function was to house the drive that motivated the Borg.

The First Contact queen actually creeped me out once I thought about what lengths the Borg would go to in order to use the will of their drones as just another tool; I didn't see it as feudal at all. The feudal component didn't come into play until the Voyager episode Scorpion. Dark Frontier is the episode that established the Borg Queen as a feudal monarch and made the crap from Scorpion worse than just a one-shot screwup.

[Caliga]

Borg Queen. ruined one of the coolest scifi villians out there.

  First Contact was overall a good movie, but they sacrificed the Borg to make it so, which is an unacceptable sacrifice.

[Neil]

Every ship needs a helmsman. My point is that the "queen" in First Contact just fulfilled that purpose. There was some room for individuality in the Borg, or else they would have sucked the second time we saw them, when Picard was given a Borg name. I, Borg was unnecessarily cute, but Hugh didn't destroy the Borg as an enemy, either.

The Borg are the helmsman.  That's the whole point of the collective.

Picard as a named Borg did suck, but it was a small thing that was easily overlooked.  Still, by overlooking it, we allowed them to ruin the Borg, as Locutus was the beginning of a path that led to the Borg Queen.

Nerd moment: Aspiration to perfection is an intellectual pursuit. Logically, perfection would be superiority. Until Voyager crapped on us with Species 8472, the Borg were as indomitable a force as the Q Continuum, and they technically don't exist in the normal Trek universe. Drones fulfill functions, so I always assumed the "queen's" function was to house the drive that motivated the Borg.

That's exactly the kind of short-sighted biological thinking that the Star Trek writers had when they ruined the Borg.  The thing that was cool about the Borg is that they had no leadership caste, no individuals.  Their drive was supplied by all of them.

[FunkMonk]

Just rewatched Best of Both Worlds.

[Darth Wagtaros]

The whole point of the Borg was that there was no ego or personality.  Just a chorus of dead eyed drones working in unison for goals that were foggy at best.  Kind of like the Post Office

[grumbler]

...Drones fulfill functions, so I always assumed the "queen's" function was to house the drive that motivated the Borg.

The First Contact queen actually creeped me out once I thought about what lengths the Borg would go to in order to use the will of their drones as just another tool...

The Borg were much scarier when their "drive" was a collective one, without a queen whose death would remove their "drive."  Drones are scarier when they throw themselves into certain death than when they are thrown by some superiors who are the "real " Borg.

[Syt]

The Borg were always sort of the undead of Star Trek.

Pre-First Contact they were more like Zombies, a homogenous horde devouring what stands in their way, turning you into one of them on their way, driven only by the goal to assimilate all there is.

Post-First Contact they were turned into more like space vampires - hierarchically organized individuals that had a past, no matter how buried, that could be saved and reasoned with. Assimilation was still a major goal, but politics played an increasing role.

[grumbler]

The Borg were always sort of the undead of Star Trek.

Pre-First Contact they were more like Zombies, a homogenous horde devouring what stands in their way, turning you into one of them on their way, driven only by the goal to assimilate all there is.

Post-First Contact they were turned into more like space vampires - hierarchically organized individuals that had a past, no matter how buried, that could be saved and reasoned with. Assimilation was still a major goal, but politics played an increasing role.

An excellent analogy, methinks.

[Martinus]

Yeah I have to agree. While the Borg with a queen are still a formidable and interesting opponent, the original Borg is much more alien and thus scary. If there never was the original Borg, I think most people wouldn't see the queen as a bad thing - but then the Borg would probably be much less memorable.

In a world of Star Trek, where being an "alien" simply meant you are like a human with some skin disease, the original Borg were a refreshing change by being truly "alien". The queen made them like any other Star Trek universe race.

[Darth Wagtaros]

The Borg were always sort of the undead of Star Trek.

Pre-First Contact they were more like Zombies, a homogenous horde devouring what stands in their way, turning you into one of them on their way, driven only by the goal to assimilate all there is.

Post-First Contact they were turned into more like space vampires - hierarchically organized individuals that had a past, no matter how buried, that could be saved and reasoned with. Assimilation was still a major goal, but politics played an increasing role.

Very good.

[Josquius]

I'd agree with yes, the borg went to hell, they were reduced from big scary villains to run of the mill baddies. But then this is quite normal development in TV. The Go'Auld in SG1 started as big scary, invincible villains who could wipe out earth at any moment and then were reduced to a joke over time.

The borg queen though was not at all to blame for the borg's weakening. This was more than done in TNG with all its silly plot developments around the borg. The Borg queen came as part of a reinvention of the borg which once more restored their coolness (until voyager started running rings around them every episode of course)