Slow moving Borg?

posted on February 22nd, 2010, 5:42 pm

Even though the Borg don't have feelings, they exude a kind of arrogance and are always over confident.  They simply believe that they are the most powerful force in the galaxy and that no one is capable of resisting them for long, if at all.  This gives experienced crews like those of the Enterprise just enough room to maneuver against a far superior technological force.

They assimilate (steal) people and ideas, because they have no original ideas of their own.  That's why the rescue plan to get Locutus worked, because before Picard was "stolen", it was understood that the saucer was of no consequence.  They had no idea that Riker would use the battle section as the actual diversion, with the real threat being the saucer and it's shuttlepod.

That's also why triggering the solar flare worked in "Descent", because the renegade borg understood that their ship was superior to the Enterprise.  They were still learning individuality, and didn't realize that an inferior ship can still be creative and win the day.

This overconfidence in the collective has always been their achilles heel, and the only way we've really ever beaten them.  Not counting Voyager's zombie borg of course.

The Borg are a great "villain" because of that "arrogance."  However I don't believe it is actually arrogance imo.  Running isn't necessarily biologically efficient.  On top of that, most of their mechanical parts seem to be task specific.  Also, I have noticed they rarely seem to attack individually.  Maybe they do recognize the intimidation factor of walking slowly in groups?

posted on February 22nd, 2010, 7:56 pm

I always thought it was limited processing power. Its a hive mind so there is so much going on its hard to multitask. That why I thought they would ignore stuff until it became an immediate threat. Kinda like we can't spare the processing power on this unimportant stuff.

Does anyone remember when they didn't use nano probes to assimilate. How about the fact that they some how had people reproducing. Aka they had a room filled with babies. It didn't seem like the original tng borg assimilated every living thing on a ship.

posted on February 23rd, 2010, 2:36 pm

We don't know they didn't use them, we didn't see much TNG assimilation except Picard, and we saw him when he was already half-way through.

Having babies onboard also doesn't mean they were reproducing, unless you think the Borg are unwilling to assimilate babies and children? the Enterprise crew saw babies and jumped to conclusions.

posted on February 23rd, 2010, 3:19 pm

Having babies onboard also doesn't mean they were reproducing, unless you think the Borg are unwilling to assimilate babies and children? the Enterprise crew saw babies and jumped to conclusions.

Exactly, from what we know the Borg also assimilate babys. 7of9 mentioned several time special chambers onboard Borg vessel in which assimilated childs would remain until they are fully matured.
When Voyager met the borg childs there was an assimilated baby in such a chamber. Most likely they use some kind of technology the accelerte the maturation process. The borg don't spare any potential drone.

So on topic ... I always supected that Borg just don't run/ move faster because they don't need.
Why run when you can swarm an entire ship with drones? They heavily rely on there advanced transporter.
If somebody runs away just beam another two or three drones in front of him! Resistance is futile!
They assimilated hundred of species this way, so why alter tactics?

posted on February 23rd, 2010, 6:00 pm

If they were merely looking to increase their numbers it would be easier to artificially produce lifeforms, and them assimilate them.

posted on February 23rd, 2010, 6:52 pm

But that wouldnt help their diversity any.

posted on February 23rd, 2010, 11:22 pm

But that wouldnt help their diversity any.

Sure it would - diversity is created by biological processes - and a certain biological process is veeeery important for diversity

TNG writers had babies in the Cube because at that time they weren't really sure whether to go with "only assimilation" or just "different society, different rules". They hadn't nailed down what the Borg were. As far as I'm concerned, having those trillions of lifeforms and seeming (relative) disregard for individual drones means they must have some form of biological reproduction - whether by artificial combination and cloning, or by physical sexual reproduction. Since they are quite mechancal, I'd vote for artificial insemination and test tube babies

posted on February 23rd, 2010, 11:51 pm

It is certainly possible that they experimented with naturally producing drones, but even if they accelerated maturation, it would not increase their numbers faster than if they assimilated people. Also growing drones does not actually add to their diversity of knowledge. The Borg are, self admittedly, after "perfection". Obviously we don't know a whole lot about what this "perfection" entails and they themselves probably have no clue what perfection is, though they have already decided that perfection is mostly mechanical. It is likely that in the distant past the Borg were a race of individuals who latched on to the idea of perfection and all strove for it. They obviously at some point became a collective, a hive mind, still with that central goal of achieving perfection. They assimilate other cultures and species firstly to determine whether any facet of that species' technology (or culture but that is less important to them) will bring them closer to "perfection". Secondarily, they wish to both expand their numbers and eliminate anything which could prevent them from obtaining that perfection. Ultimately the Borg don't really care about biological diversity very much; a drone is a drone is a drone. Each one is just another unit which can be given instructions or rather is an part of the whole which can carry out an individual task.

posted on February 23rd, 2010, 11:57 pm

I don't see how in any way whatesoever that increasing numbers can be done faster through assimilation, as every encounter leaves dead on both sides, and we can safely assume that they do not suddenly find a trillion life forms all willing to be assimilated at once. Assuming that the Borg will go for genetic recombination through different gametes (non-identical), even a relatively small population of only a few individuals can give rise to millions of different possible gametic makeups. With a pool of thousands, millions, billions, trillions of drones to choose from, the only limit to producing drones in this way would be space and resources. If the writers decided to use this logic, that could be a primary method. Of course, the way Borg were portrayed has changed dramatically from TNG to First Contact to Voyager (and inbetween episodes in Voyager) ... so choose your own version of what Borg you want to see.

posted on February 24th, 2010, 12:10 am

I can't wait for 40 years to pass, and the Star Trek franchise finally gets down to the grand adventures of the Enterprise-P, and the major factions of that time are the Mingons and the Gromulans.  And there are going to be endless debates about how the Gromulans can only phase jump at a frequency of 2.21 Zigahertz, but then someone will argue that if they modified the phase variance of the deflector, they could phase jump at 2.32 Zigahertz, just like was theorized in that one episode.  You know the one I'm talking about.  The one where Captain Doug pretends to be dead to fool the Zerburpium ambassador into revealing the nefarious plot to overthrow the Federation with tribbles?   And then everyone will be up in arms about it.

And the Mingons?  Don't get me started on what the Mingons can and can't do in cannon (see by now, everyone has spelled it incorrectly so many times that the word cannon is acceptable as well. )

posted on February 24th, 2010, 12:29 am

I don't see how in any way whatesoever that increasing numbers can be done faster through assimilation, as every encounter leaves dead on both sides, and we can safely assume that they do not suddenly find a trillion life forms all willing to be assimilated at once. Assuming that the Borg will go for genetic recombination through different gametes (non-identical), even a relatively small population of only a few individuals can give rise to millions of different possible gametic makeups. With a pool of thousands, millions, billions, trillions of drones to choose from, the only limit to producing drones in this way would be space and resources. If the writers decided to use this logic, that could be a primary method. Of course, the way Borg were portrayed has changed dramatically from TNG to First Contact to Voyager (and inbetween episodes in Voyager) ... so choose your own version of what Borg you want to see.

If the Borg move to assimilate an entire species which for what ever reason which has only moderate ability to drive them off it is likely that they can do so with in a month perhaps two weeks at least. They will gain millions if not billions of drones as a result as well as another planet which can be used for resources. Even if they could increase the maturation rate of a humanoid organism to the point that it could grow to adulthood in a couple of weeks (note that I ignore the case of One here because it is an anomaly involving technology far more advanced than contemporary Borg have), they would have to be growing thousands if not millions of embryos to get the same result. However, as I postulated, the Borg seem more interested in diversity of knowledge and technology than of genome and they seem to care very little about how many drones they actually have since any more drones at this point are like pouring a glass of water into the ocean

posted on February 24th, 2010, 1:39 am

About fast moving drones... The Enterprise episode 'Regeneration' had a couple.  The two individuals assimilated on the Tarkalean freighter, and beamed onto the NX-01 (and moved to sickbay) moved quite fast after the Borg technology took hold.  Also, the drones on the Enterprise-E in First Contact, while not fast, were initially fairly stealthy until they had begun assimilation of critical ships systems. (Engines, shipboard computers)  To myself, it has seemed that when in force the Collective has the monolithic (slow) tactics, but that in smaller numbers the Borg will sometimes vary their tactics.

But... speaking of Voyager's lobotomized Collective, did it seem like the Borg Queen (Susannah Thompson's Queen, not Alice Krige reprising the role in Endgame) thought she was a DC or Marvel Universe super villain? (I just keep picturing a silly half-cape hanging off the Borg Queen's back with a bright green "BQ" on the back....)

posted on February 24th, 2010, 3:50 pm

I can't wait for 40 years to pass, and the Star Trek franchise finally gets down to the grand adventures of the Enterprise-P, and the major factions of that time are the Mingons and the Gromulans.  And there are going to be endless debates about how the Gromulans can only phase jump at a frequency of 2.21 Zigahertz, but then someone will argue that if they modified the phase variance of the deflector, they could phase jump at 2.32 Zigahertz, just like was theorized in that one episode.  You know the one I'm talking about.  The one where Captain Doug pretends to be dead to fool the Zerburpium ambassador into revealing the nefarious plot to overthrow the Federation with tribbles?   And then everyone will be up in arms about it.

And the Mingons?  Don't get me started on what the Mingons can and can't do in cannon (see by now, everyone has spelled it incorrectly so many times that the word cannon is acceptable as well. )

ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL!!! 
I read this on break at work and let everyone know what a true Star Trek nerd I am.  This was f...ing hilarious!!

posted on February 24th, 2010, 4:02 pm

Yeah, that's actually very funny. May be we will also get the Corg and the Orengi then 

posted on February 26th, 2010, 12:54 am

Yeah, that's actually very funny. May be we will also get the Corg and the Orengi then 

dont forget the DERPminion