Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x09 - "Võx"

But thats the whole point of creating a TV show. The intent is to entertain an audience, and therefore keep their attention, otherwise people simply won't continue to watch it. Lmao.

 

Exactly. Jurati's Borg are clearly intended to be a seperate group to "The Borg", at least after Picard's group returns from 2024 at the end of Season 2. They are not the same. So we can put that exhausting debate to rest to ease everyone's sanity!

 

They don’t recognise individuals in the way China does not recognise Taiwan. Not that they don’t know what an individual is, or that they think all us unassimilated look the same, and couldn’t distinguish Janeway from Neelix.

 

So you mean they don't recognise the individuals' rights or status as people, as China doesn't recognise that Taiwan is its own nation but instead part of its own territory. How has that got anything to do with humanity and their individuality and how that is interpreted by the Borg?

 

The Borg have always taken it to extremes. Right from day one, they were essentially disinterested — a trait which continues unless you are a threat, or more accurately a threat to their intent.
In a way, they barely recognise the existence of individuality, and for the most part, regard it as a flaw to be eradicated through assimilation.
The whole point in the Queen, as shown repeatedly in her appearances, is this comes from *her* insecurities, *her* loneliness, magnified by the fact that the entire collective essentially exists as an extension of her.
It’s shown repeatedly throughout Borg stories — individuality is anathema to the Borg, but is also a state they do not consider of any worth. They aren’t subtle about hammering how the Borg reject it regularly, nor how it ties in with the Queens psyche. It *always* comes up.
In some ways it is also echoed in The Dominion, which reject and fear it in a different manner.

An argument is easily made that *all of Trek* is about the championing of individuality, and that’s why many of the antagonist species are the way the way they are.
Which shouldn’t be a surprise, as Trek is borne out the Kennedy Era and the Cold War. The Borg and The Dominion are allegorical Communists, in exactly the same way The Klingons and Romulans were. The real fun is working out how that ties into the Socialist Utopia that the Federation is often thought of as.
But then, that is precisely *why* the Borg et al, work as dark reflections of the Federation/Humanity.

The individuality as ignored, rejected, or not recognised by, the Borg is an alien concept to them. The idea that you do not have to subsume the individual to the will of the collective, and yet still be able to achieve by working together, still be able to function in service of the greater good, is at first below their interest and then fascinates, and then is seen as a threat. It’s regularly spelled out on screen.

 

Yeah so they do recognise individuality like I said, they just don't value it.

 

People are able to explore their interests while contributing to the whole.

 

The problem with that system is not everyone will choose to contribute to the whole, and you can't force anyone to contribute, because then it wouldn't follow socialist ideals.

 

Is exploration not a contribution?