We are Borg. Resistance is Futile. You will be Assimilated.

If only... See, I got into SF through Star Trek. I got into Star Trek through the Borg. They're more than cool-ass robot-looking things (always a plus in my book). The Borg are a collective. They are a hive mind. They are... the perfect family.

We first see the Borg in "Q Who", where John "Growl at Mr. Tatara during the '97 Boston Con" DeLancie transports Picard and the NCC-1701 D crew into the Delta Quadrant, teaching them the lesson that humans are VERY weak little creatures. They're like ants (Anyone get this B5 reference?).

The Borg tear through the Enterprise, golden beings made of the perfect fusion of flesh and steel. They wield the power of god.

Deus ex Machina.

We next see the Borg in "Best of Both Worlds". In this two part episode, the Collective enters into Sector 001 (passing through Wolf 359) and make the Minbari proud. Picard gets assimilated and teaches the Borg to sleep.

We then meet a very different Borg in "I Borg". We meet 3 of 5, named Hugh by our friend Geordi. Hugh's been disconnected from the Collective and must learn to think for himself AND IT IS HARD. The Collective was Mother. The Collective was Father. It was the perfect family. A thousand voices constantly whispering, guiding the body as a whole. It was the democratic Grecian city states of old. The Enterprise crew debates giving Hugh a virus to shut down the Borg and other nasty options. Basically, they pondered sending the kid home with a bomb strapped to his chest. Picard does not allow this. Picard knows that the Borg are dangerous, but he knows that it is NOT his place to mess with the internal workings of a sovereign people. What happens? Hugh goes home with his new-found individualism. Picard hopes it will spread.

It does. We meet the Borg one final time in "Descent". In this two part episode, the Borg of the Argolis Cluster have come under the wing of Data's evil brother, Lore. We find out that Hugh's individuality has spread and it sucks. The voices were gone. The clarity has been disrupted. There were ripples in the pond. In the end, Data experiences emotions and Lore is dismantled.

Our next meeting with the Borg occurs in the big screen film "First Contact". The Borg go back in time to assimilate Earth long before Starfleet and the Federation. Picard, pissed, goes back to stop them. Along the way, we see the sleek new Borg consisting of a bodysuit and -- maybe -- two wires, a spherical ship, and the Borg Queen. Borg Queen? Hold on, the Borg were a Collective! It was the perfect family. Everyone was equal. There was no loneliness. There was no sorrow. It was the perfect family. A thousand thoughts merged to form a single driving consciousness.

I guess that the Queen is the result of this driving consciousness. The voices decided that having a singular head would allow for faster decisions and reaction time.

"I am Borg," the Queen would say. She was. She was born of the Collective to serve it. Still, all Borg were drones. All Borg were equal. But, looking at "Best of Both Worlds", we see Locutus. He was a speaker. He was an ambassador. He was a specialized unit.

This can be seen in a 30 page short story I wrote after seeing "Generations". In the story, Kirk is revived by the Borg (Shatner wrote an eerily similar novel called "The Return" which focuses around the same central issues). All my Borg scenes were pretty much the Teep War. Still, I needed a centralized antagonist. I created Cale of Borg. Cale was much like Locutus. He was a specialized unit. He was a hub of leadership thoughts and emotions. He was a vassal of commanding voices. I know what you're saying. I've got to be full of myself for including a personal work in this whole rant about the Borg, but I'm a Borg purest. I take them VERY seriously. Further, I can say with complete sincerity that my 30 page short story is better than ever appearance of the Borg in Voyager.

We first meet the new brand of new Borg in an episode that actually aired prior to "First Contact". I don't recall the name simply because the Voyager episodes are horrid in their depiction. I've got it on tape somewhere... maybe. Anyway, Chakotay gets sick and this team of rag-tag non-Collective ex-Borg use their healing powers fix the wounded Maquis. Their whole thing was that the hive mind was powerful, but it was EVIL if they were connected to the Collective.

Sure.

Anyway, I'd like to take a step back. Each Borg is connected to each and ever other Borg. It worked this way in TNG, at least. It's not a direct link, though. Each drone needs their ship to link them to the vast Collective. There were smaller groups, denoted by their numbers, that made up progressively larger and larger pools. As a thought progressed, it made its way through each successively larger pool. That's another thing. There were no secrets. There were no lies.

The next VOY appearance was in the two part "Scorpions". The Borg learn fear. Pardon the language, but bullshit! The Borg learn fear? Ha! This episode was just a ripoff of a ThirdSpace draft. Janeway teams up with the Borg for a bit and 7 of 9 joins the crew.

Kes leaves the crew in an episode to soon follow.

There's an episode called "The Raven" where we learn 7's tragic past. Boohoo, the evil Borg captured a little girl. Hey! How's a StarFleet vessel predating Voyager get into the Delta Quadrant anyway?

There then came a long period where FOX dropped VOY. I missed the whole Borg Queen / Drakh Virus deal. Claudia was going to play the queen. Maybe she was going to be 7. She didn't get the part because she was too recognizable. Plus, she's type-cast as a bisexual Jewish Russian teep.

With 7 on the crew, the Borg are in every episode in some way. We learn how people are assimilated and all the grand Borg mythos are dispelled. The Borg become the Klingons of TOS. It's horrid. They worship Omega, the perfect molecule.

Then, there are the Borg kids. I'm not even going to go into them. The less that is said, the better.

We come to "Unimatrix Zero". What's this? It's another two part story. We learn that the Borg have a fantasy VR dream world they can go to. Thing is, only one in a billion can access it. Still, it's a disruption to the pool and must be eliminated. If not, it could jeopardize the Collective as a whole and we'd need BackStep (Booyah!). The -- incredibly hot -- Borg Queen attempts to stop the spread of Unimatrix Zero. She removes drones from the Collective to try to make them talk. They stand up pretty well for being alone for the first time in their life. They start using "I" and form some pretty powerful sentences. It's funny. Hugh was unable to function at even a BASIC level when removed from the hive mind. He had to be taught to use "I". Oh, the Borg Queen keeps a head museum of sort (Cartagia -- anyone?). Plus, I swear I saw a Brakiri. Janeway and 7 decide to free the Borg.

Let me BackStep (snicker, snicker) for a moment. Purists hate 7. She's a sexpot. What's the purpose of the skintight metallic bodysuit, eh?

7 has a brief romance with some drone. She just kisses the guy 'cause she can. We see the Borg's central hub, too. It looks a lot like my massive hive ships in my story. Only, I didn't use the SAME establishing shot over and over and over and over... Well, the Queen only works to serve her people. But, somehow the Borg are able to lie to her and hold out. THERE ARE NO SECRETS IN THE COLLECTIVE! Go back to Hugh. It is the perfect family. It is bliss. It is not a prison. It is not torture. It is the amalgam of a thousand lifetimes and thousand lives. It is the ultimate spout of knowledge and experience.

Janeway launches an attack against the Borg, taking it upon HERSELF to interfere with the ways of a sovereign people. Hey, that's only breaking some 50 Federation regs. Also, the frighteningly hot Borg Queen offers Janeway transwarp (still the best best way to get from A to B after all these years) tech. The Captain declines. This is only the hundredth time she's passed up getting home. Remember the wormhole, slip stream drive, or Q's offer, people?

So, Janeway takes it upon herself to free the Borg from the evil Collective. Yeah. Great idea. Hugh wasn't messed up when he was unplugged. The Captain gets the great idea of causing a civil war, or as she calls it a "resistance movement". Whatever happened to that Borg plague over Earth? Those people dead yet? Please!

To wrap this abortion of an episode up, Janeway gets assimilated. How original. Captain Picard only got kidnapped by the Borg in "Best of Both Worlds". Still, he didn't get hit with little vampire-like tendrils.

I hate the VOY Borg. They've taken everything. They've tried to classify the Collective and all its nuances. They've done it all wrong.

There is a scene in "Unimatrix Zero" where the Borg Queen stands with an assemblence of drones, trying to isolate the frequency that controls the VR reality. She stares up at a screen with her icy black eyes. Her lips are parted ever so slightly. Her skin is pulled back tight. There is concern etched in her face. She speaks, driven, attempting to extract the access code. She sends drones into the VR world to pull out the radicals. It is a beautiful scene. You can see the pain in her face as her children enter into Unimatrix Zero. She is a slave to the Collective. She is the only slave to the Collective. She was conceived of the hive mind. She was born of the over-will.

Still, she is bad. The Borg are bad. Janeway is doing the right thing.

Here's just a little something else. Voyager goes against a Borg warship. It's a heavily armored cube that's much smaller than a standard Borg vessel. I'm basing the scale on its relative size to Voyager. The 1701 D was dwarfed by a standard ship, but the feisty little Voyager's smaller than the 1701 A and is pretty big against the warship. Anyway, Voyager takes DOZENS of direct hits from the ship. Hey! Go back to "Q Who". Watch the Borg tear through the Enterprise's shields. And, this is WARSHIP, too. Further, the Delta Flyer takes three direct hits from Borg torpedoes. A SHUTTLECRAFT TAKES THREE DIRECT SHOTS FROM BORG TORPEDOES.

What's my point? Why did I write this? Long ago, I couldn't wait for the Borg to show up on VOY. After all, they were in the Delta Quadrant. It was only logical. Yet, now, I wish I could take a BackStep.

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Peter Tatara
5.28.2000

Dairy Farmers For Quebec's Independence