Is the Borg a collective?

[Centurion]

Of course' date=' the problem here is clearly that we're essentially not just trying to understand something but trying to reconcile the fact that each writer has put their own spin on the idea and of course, added stuff along. So we've essentially got a hodge-podge of information - some of which conflicts with each other.[/quote']

 

That's true.

 

Since we're discussing the Borg here, let me ask the following: how could the same Borg Queen that Data and Picard killed on First Contact show up on Voyager? Are there many Queens or that one was replaced through cloning or some other method?

 

I don't remember if an explanation was offered on Voyager...

[Soulreaper]

Isn't the 'Queen' actually just an Avatar for the collective / queen ?

[queenhank]

Here are the things we actually know about the Borg:

 

1. They assimliate people and technology

2. They have something that might be referred to as a "collective consciousness"

3. There exists a Borg Queen, whose function is wholly unknown

4. There have been at least 2 Borg Queens

5. The Borg are cool

 

Everything else is really just speculation. Just because somebody said it on a show or in a movie doesn't mean it's true; that just means that they thought it was true. Only those things which we have actually witnessed can be said to be certain.

[theaveng]

I disagree with point 5. They *used* to be cool, but now they've been watered-down 'til they're no longer scary.

 

troy

[voyager69]

if the borg are of one how come thay can be just as mad as q

[MustHaveDS9]

I thought the Queen was done rather well in First Contact, despite my reservations about the entire idea. I chose to see the Queen as an instrument of the collective. Something that the collective created, and could use in deceptive manners. It's obvious through TNG that the assimilation process is not perfect and doesn't completely suppress a person's identity. The Queen seemed almost like a tool to comfort and direct Picard to embrace the collective, to open his mind and gain all his knowledge that much faster. And with Data, the Queen was, so the Borg believed, able to manipulate him since they could not directly assimilate him. In that way, the intelligence of the Borg hive is highlighted.

 

Voyager ruined the idea and turned the Queen into a megalomaniacal psycho who simply used the Borg to try to conquer the galaxy. Then again, this is also the show that said you could only travel in a straight line at warp speed. I wasn't terribly surprised.

[Tenebrae]

1. They assimliate people and technology

 

Well... they started out doing technology but now they seem to be pretty much people orientated... which makes them a bit more boring. If they went after both, that would be interesting but hoping the Borg can be rehabilitated after Voyager is a LOT to hope for.

 

3. There exists a Borg Queen, whose function is wholly unknown

 

Not wholly, it's clear that she serves to act as a focus for the collective but yes, beyond that - it's a bit complicated. It was pretty obvious she just gave lazy writers someone to bounce dialogue off... and it gave Voyager its very own Bond villain.

 

4. There have been at least 2 Borg Queens

 

While possible, that seems unlikely given that the Queen says something like "you think in such 2 dimensional terms" when Janeway points out that she should be dead but obviously, we don't really know enough about the function of the Queen to know whether there would be the need for more than one.

[queenhank]

We know there have been two because there was one in First Contact, and another in Voyager. It is possible that they are not actually individuals, and thus there is really only one Borg Queen, but I simply meant that there have been, physically, two different ones, from which we can infer that the Borg Queen isn't some person who has always existed with the borg, whom there is only one of.

[oblisk]

I always thought the Borg as a fascist group of some sort.

[Tenebrae]

Oh, physically two different ones - yes, that would seem to be a logical conclusion to come to. The fact that the Queen can - if we assume that there is only one at a time - be reconstituted, it seems foolish that everytime Voyager blew her up (yes, I know it was just the once).

 

The thing that I'd be interested to know about - what kind of fallout was there from the Hugh incident and the events of Dark Frontier/ Scorpion. I mean, we know the Borg have a great deal of resources but the Queen blows up cubes like there's no tomorrow in Dark Frontier. It's just more undermining of the Borg as a credible threat, really... and that's of course not even taking into account they blew up a transwarp hub at the end of Voyager.

 

Most of which was the Queen's fault.

[GhostShadow]

Well in Armada 2 The borg Queen is sperated from the Borg in the Delta Quad. DO you think the borg in the Delta Quad started Spazing out and attking every one or would they "Adapt" to there missing leader and make a new leader???

[GorunNova]

Maybe having a Queen coordinating the Borg (as well as disconnections from the collective, etc.) were lasting side effects of the Hugh virus... maybe it left what was formerly a collective terminally flawed (and thus all the dumb, uncharacteristic stuff that happened later?)

[macrovirus]

According to post-Voyager novels, queens are created when thezlast one is destroyed. For example. in Endgame, the BQ was destroyed, and in the following novels, we discover the process in which a new one is created.

 

But these aren't really seen as true Star Trek cannon, so there's still quite a bit of speculation about it.

[Tenebrae]

Out of interest - how is a Queen created?

[queenhank]

Now, the queen cannot be the result of Hugh, because she knew Picard, from when he was Locutus, which was some time before Hugh ever met the starship Enterprise.

[GhostShadow]

I think i have a new view on the queen. The borg always have mis-haps like hue or unimatrix 0, this means that the borg are far from perfect too. mabe the queen is just a mistak like the others, something that just happened. The borg adapted if you will, to a new need and thus made a queen...

[netshark]

Is anything known about the origin of the borg? friend of mine told me once that the borg queen was the first borg, after she belonged to another race of course. I mean she is the one having the strong will to "perfectionize" herself and therefore the collective. She developed the assimilation principe for that purposeand assimilated the first individuals and made them to drones. She founded the borg, but always intended to have a higher place in the hierarchy than the others, who should be equal. And in my opinion, a collective of equal individuals cant work, or not with the given facts, because where should this only intention come from? there must be a superior being which determines the will of the collective, she´s therefore not only a representative of it, but the ruler, of course. this is my point of view, hope you unterstood my text, opinion and explanations ;)

[TetsuoShima]

I highlu doubt that the Queen was the first Borg to exist, since the species the queen originates from is called species 125 by the Borg, ob viously that is not species 1 and it is clear that the Borg name the species in the order they encounter them...

 

There are many ideas about the Borg and the queen, if you take the most likely and the best part from some of the more dominant ideas, this is what I come up with:

 

The queen acts like some sort of ant queen and suppreme commander to the borg in her immediate vicinity, she controls them very meticulously, therefore, if she dies, the Borg in her vicinity will temporarily cease to function properly. The queen is further, some sort of spokesperson for the Borg as a collective, the will of the 'hive' is spoken through her. Therefore, she cannot be killed unless you kill the entire collective... She uses both the words we and I, so it is clear that she represents the entire collective, and the collective represents her. When she dies a new, nearly identical queen is constructed. This continues for as long as the collective exists. The queen therefore is no more than a drone who is easily replacable, but can cause some temporary disorder while she is dead. It is this disorder and the Borg drive to create order, that causes them to reconstruct a new queen.

[queenhank]

I think the biggest question is: is there more than one queen at a given time? Maybe there's a queen on every cube. Maybe there's a queen for every quadrant. Maybe there're as many queens at a given moment as there need to be. I would like to know the answer to that one.

[netshark]

nah i guess its only one..

 

but what is species 1 then and what´s the borg´s origin?