I, Borg is really bad

[AntonyF]

I'm on a TNG re-run with Blu-rays, but this is the first episode I've compelled to write about. I enjoyed the episode back in its day, not a favourite but it's okay. And Jon Del Arco is even cute in Borg makeup, which is part of the problem too.

It's just so preposterous that it angers me. The borg kill millions, possibly billions, and there's all this hand wringing about whether it's right to infect Hugh. DO IT! Millions... millions of innocents. This isn't a race, despite them keep calling the Borg a race. They are the antithesis of a race, they destroy races. They are a cancer that take lives, infecting them would not take a single life as those lives are already gone.

Of course what help is Hugh is young, sweet, cute... this isn't some grizzled, nasty, decaying borg. He's a sweet boy with a few wires in him. And he's so polite towards the end, thus making you the viewer conflicted.

Silly scenes, like Picard beaming Hugh to his ready room instead of meeting him in the brig.

Then they decide okay let's send him back, so they can all get a feeling of individuality. Oh that's fine then. A cube full of individuals who can't operate their ship, that's totally not more dangerous than the virus. I'm sure one of them will take the conn and fly them somewhere. But it does give them clean hands I guess.

And where are Starfleet? The thought that the Enterprise can make all these decisions on their own is preposterous.

Maybe it'd have been good if Picard was completely entrenched on the idea, and the rest of his crew overrule him, refuse to do it... something like that. A proper conflict.

You know, I don't over think Trek. Wonky episode, move on... but it's only now rewatching TNG that I just find this episode silly. And I admit DS9 has probably coloured that view, because they can do moral ambiguity well. In the Pale Moonlight, now that's a true dilemma.

But really, infect Hugh and send him on his way. There's no moral story for me here.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

But really, infect Hugh and send him on his way. There's no moral story for me here.

That's what I always thought.

 

[marlboro]

Can an individual who has been assimilated be cured? Yep.

So the question becomes, do you kill millions of people who were assimilated by the Borg, to prevent them from assimilating more? Or do you take a chance and try to cure them, thereby saving the people who are already assimilated and the people whom they may assimilate in the future?

 

[Melakon]

The flaw in the 'impossible object' virus is the thought that the Borg would think themselves to death trying to solve it, instead of just disregarding it once they determine it's impossible. They've already assimilated humans by this point, so they must have some knowledge of how the human brain can conceive of theoretical ideas.

 

[BillJ]

But really, infect Hugh and send him on his way. There's no moral story for me here.

That's what I always thought.

Same here.

 

[Orphalesion]

I understand the moral dilemma. Hugh in his present self had done nothing to warrant punishment. And who here would want to be in his mechanical exoskeleton?
However I do agree that they still should have used him to infect the collective.

It is true that it is theoretically possible to save assimilated people, but it is a slow grueling process so while you "liberate" 12 people, the Borg assimilate billions all over the galaxy.
However it is unclear if the Borg were yet reconned into assimilating people instead of just taking their technology (Locutus was supposed to be a special case in BOBW) so Hugh might have been born a Borg (note that neither here nor in Decent he has any recollection of a past life).

In this case the Borg still murder billions constantly and there are no/very few assimilated individuals that would be lost if the collective was exterminated.

So yeah, as cruel and harsh as it is, infect hi, send him back. It will safe the lives of trillions.

 

[Ghrakh]

Why oh why couldn't they have predicted the events in Descent?

 

[Trekker4747]

But really, infect Hugh and send him on his way. There's no moral story for me here.

You have no problem to use a person, whom after being around for a few days you know is an innocent individual, to go off and infect his entire species with a "virus" in order to commit genocide?

I'd argue there's quite a bit of a moral story here.

 

[IrishNero]

I always felt the flaw of that episode is that it opened the possibility that other Borg could possess likeable qualities,and could be 'saved.' It was a great concept but in practice, it just clouded the issue.

 

[marlboro]

I always felt the flaw of that episode is that it opened the possibility that other Borg could possess likeable qualities,and could be 'saved.' It was a great concept but in practice, it just clouded the issue.

Didn't Picard getting rescued in BoBW do that already?

 

[RoJoHen]

I always felt the flaw of that episode is that it opened the possibility that other Borg could possess likeable qualities,and could be 'saved.' It was a great concept but in practice, it just clouded the issue.

Didn't Picard getting rescued in BoBW do that already?

Nah, I don't think we had a good enough feel for who the Borg were at that point. Plus, Picard was only a Borg for, what, a day?

What I find funny is how this eventually ended up in VOY. After her experiences with them, Janeway had absolutely no problem infecting the Collective and trying to bring them down.

 

[Dukhat]

It's just so preposterous that it angers me. The borg kill millions, possibly billions, and there's all this hand wringing about whether it's right to infect Hugh. DO IT! Millions... millions of innocents. This isn't a race, despite them keep calling the Borg a race. They are the antithesis of a race, they destroy races. They are a cancer that take lives, infecting them would not take a single life as those lives are already gone.

Hold on a sec here...When "I Borg" was written, the Borg were a race. The whole assimilation thing (that the Borg were in fact made up of other alien races who were changed into Borg) came later, and the only person the Borg had "assimilated" at the time was Picard. But at the time, the prevailing notion was that the Borg were a humanoid race of their own who added cybernetic implants to themselves, and only assimilated others in order to gain their technological know-how, not to just create more random drones.

It can also be argued that the Borg don't take lives at all, but according to their logic, they are actually enhancing people by assimilation, not murdering them. Yes, the assimilation is against that person's will, but that is irrelevant to the Borg's logic.

So does that make an act of genocide against the entire Borg race acceptable?

 

[Taelon]

What was that thing that Spock said about the needs of the Drone outweighing the needs of the Federation and the rest of the Galaxy?

I hope all of the species that were assimilated by the Borg after the events of "I Borg" appreciated Captain Picard's decision. Really, really appreciated it. Like SOOO much. I bet they'd even celebrate Captain Picard Day. Or what's left of them do, at least. I hear species 10026 even have a shrine praising the Captain for dealing with such a deep and complicated moral dilemma.

 

[mswood]

I have no problem with this episode. And its one of my favorite of TNG. TNG's characters are supposed to be much more "Evolved" then we are. Held to a much stricter morality.

I can see the crew who have really not a ton of data about the Borg. They have had two meetings with them. That have cost thousands of lives. They also know that Guinan's race was scattered due to the Borg.

That's pretty much it. Would those actions and that knowledge be enough for the crew to consider genecide?

It also held great character conflict (something not often done in tTNG), and it made perfect sense for Picard (and Guinean) to see the Borg in the worst light. Picard more then even Guinean, and certainly more then any human would know what they are, what they have done and how wide spread the threat is. If all that information was accessible to Locates.

But with what know of the Borg, and what we know of Picard, I would be very surprised in him trying to destroy the Borg in its entirity.

And interesting enough we get to see how Starlet highs think of that decisions (something you would natural expect from those who naturally look at things on a larger scale then what a Captain would normally. And it also helps explain why, after Picard made such a questionable choice with the Borg in I,Borg, why they wouldn't want him at the forefront defending earth.

 

[Wingsley]

A lot of the argument here hinges on whether Geordi Laforge's home-made "virus" would actually work against the Borg. He's tried to improvise technical tricks to stop the Borg before and was unsuccessful. ("The Borg's subspace field is intact! New phaser frequencies had no impact!")

Giving the Borg "a human face" was a clever, though legitimately questionable move. The argument against "humanizing" the Borg would gain more traction if it weren't for VOY's "Unimatrix Zero" two-parter, which seems to be the logical conclusion of "I, Borg"; the Borg civil war seems to show that even Borg can eventually break out of their "evil empire" mold and overthrow their totalitarian legacy.

 

[Taelon]

Picard should have known how much of a threat the Borg were to, well, everyone.

Or did he think that after their defeat at Wolf 359, the Borg would never ever bother anyone again ever and they could all live happily ever after?

 

[Dukhat]

^He knew what the Chrystalline Entity did before, and yet he still tried communicating with it to try to establish some kind of peace, arguably successfully, before the lady scientist killed it anyway.

 

[IrishNero]

Picard should have known how much of a threat the Borg were to, well, everyone.

Or did he think that after their defeat at Wolf 359, the Borg would never ever bother anyone again ever and they could all live happily ever after?

I think he did. However, the Borg provided a very attractive storyline and that's why the writers returned to them again and again. Braga's crew was never above running anything into the ground.

 

[MikeS]

^He knew what the Chrystalline Entity did before, and yet he still tried communicating with it to try to establish some kind of peace, arguably successfully, before the lady scientist killed it anyway.

Would we say "The man scientist". Sorry, I know this has nothing to do with the thread but that sentence really stood out.

 

[Taelon]

Obviously she should have been referred to as "the Human scientist".