Poll Is age a factor in which season you prefer?

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Because the whole premise of the Borg is that they remove individuality, so to be controlled by an individual just feels like hypocrisy. I like the Borg as a force of nature that can't (typically) be reasoned with, and the idea that when you speak with one of them, you're speaking with all of them. If there's a single 'leader' then it also creates a rather stupid single point of failure as well...if she was really present on the Borg ship in BoBW, then one could ask why the Collective didn't collapse when that ship was destroyed. It's also a lot more alien to have a species that you can't address as individuals than to have yet another alien race where you may have a chance of being able to negotiate with the leader of that race.

More to the point though: why would the Borg have a queen? I'm okay with the idea of them creating one to speak with humanity, but that goes back to the idea that she's subservient to the collective, not the other way around. What advantage does it give them?

It also leads to IMO awful moments like the Queen verbally issuing orders in, IIRC, "Unimatrix Zero".

BoBW: I took FC to suggest that she was either projected into Locutus's mind through the collective, or she was there in the flesh, but her body went up in flames with the cube while she survived digitally. It would line up with her declaring that he thinks so three dimensionally, how small he's become.

I took all the Borg on the Ent-E dying with the Queen as creative liberty to give the film an ending. In-story, perhaps the because the collective was small, her dying the way she did shorted everyone out? Maybe if it was a full-size cube and she died, they might have survived? Heck if I know.

I always understood her as being more of a manager than a leader. She brings order to chaos, oversees, gives orders. She said she's one, many, she IS the collective.

When the Queen gives verbal orders in UZ, it's like when you think out loud. You don't need to, but it's something you just do sometimes. We've seen the Queen "think" orders in the movie and in DF, but we've also seen her give verbal orders to. Maybe it's one of those "depends on her moon" kind of things? I dunno.

I love the Borg as villains, something you cannot negotiate with like the Terminator, but I also like at the center of it all, there's the Queen, something far more terrifying. She's more than a force. She wants YOU to be her drone!

 

[DonIago]

I see your POV, but I think having a queen makes them less terrifying than if they have no particular face at all, and based on some of the reactions I've read to FC, I think a lot of people agree. I can see why TPTB felt Our Heroes needed the Borg to have a face for that film, but I also see why S31 was an awesome thing for DS9 to create but may have subsequently gotten wildly out of hand.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I see your POV, but I think having a queen makes them less terrifying than if they have no particular face at all, and based on some of the reactions I've read to FC, I think a lot of people agree. I can see why TPTB felt Our Heroes needed the Borg to have a face for that film, but I also see why S31 was an awesome thing for DS9 to create but may have subsequently gotten wildly out of hand.

This might not be a great analogy, but are the Borg kind of like space zombies to you? If zombies had an undead leader who strolled around with villain monologues, that might ruin zombies too, or at least that one film anyway.

 

[137th Gebirg]

That's kind of how they started when Q first introduced them to the E-D crew - a massive and terrifying force of nature where, if you kill 100, there are 1000 behind them to take their place. That's how many of the adversaries start. The Dominion/Jem'Hadar were the same way, wiping out the USS Odyssey in a suicide run in the Gamma Quadrant to send an indelible message to Starfleet. The Suliban's orbital attack on Earth, etc. Then they invariably get nerfed to make them more manageable for the story.

The Kazon don't count, though. They were always worthless. Pakleds with cooler hair.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

That's kind of how they started when Q first introduced them to the E-D crew - a massive and terrifying force of nature where, if you kill 100, there are 1000 behind them to take their place. That's how many of the adversaries start. The Dominion/Jem'Hadar were the same way, wiping out the USS Odyssey in a suicide run in the Gamma Quadrant to send an indelible message to Starfleet. The Suliban's orbital attack on Earth, etc. Then they invariably get nerfed to make them more manageable for the story.

The Kazon don't count, though. They were always worthless. Pakleds with cooler hair.

I dunnp. For me, the Q, Borg, Dominion, and Suliban never lost their fear factor.

 

[Cap'n Calhoun]

Shaw just says "forget that weird shit that occurred. The real Borg are still out there." Which is just aggravating on many levels.

I don't really have a problem with it. He's confirming to the audience what was already implied, which is that Jurati's collective was a separate entity that didn't supplant the existing Borg. It was a potential source for confusion, and they cleared it up with a brief snippet of dialogue.

That's exactly how I read the Picard finale. It was a confirmation that Janeway took out the collective, and Picard and friends finished off the Queen and her last cube.

The Collective was significantly damaged by Janeway's actions. We see some of the after-effects in "Let Sleeping Borg Lie" (Prodigy) with the "sleeping" cube woken up by the kids. Producer Aaron Waltke has implied that this this cube's scans was what gave the Queen the technology for her weapon in season 3

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and that it may be the same cube that was later put out of commission in Romulan space and considered "the Artifact" in Picard season 1

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. Here's what he told Trekmovie:

If that cube was the Artifact or not is not entirely as relevant as, did Zero wake up a cube, and then that cube woke up others and got the Borg going again?

I can’t answer that definitively because it’s not on screen yet. But what I can say is, I think Borg space is very big. And whether you want to believe that every single Borg cube went dormant, or a lot of them went dormant and some of them were just heavily weakened. I think any of that works. But the important thing is they are not the same after Janeway’s neurolytic pathogen attack.

Via https://trekmovie.com/2022/11/11/in...ts-galileos-fate-and-the-spirit-of-starfleet/

So, long story short, the Borg were lying on the mat but not completely down for the count.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I don't really have a problem with it. He's confirming to the audience what was already implied, which is that Jurati's collective was a separate entity that didn't supplant the existing Borg. It was a potential source for confusion, and they cleared it up with a brief snippet of dialogue.


The Collective was significantly damaged by Janeway's actions. We see some of the after-effects in "Let Sleeping Borg Lie" (Prodigy) with the "sleeping" cube woken up by the kids. Producer Aaron Waltke has implied that this this cube's scans was what gave the Queen the technology for her weapon in season 3

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and that it may be the same cube that was later put out of commission in Romulan space and considered "the Artifact" in Picard season 1

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and

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. Here's what he told Trekmovie:


Via https://trekmovie.com/2022/11/11/in...ts-galileos-fate-and-the-spirit-of-starfleet/

So, long story short, the Borg were lying on the mat but not completely down for the count.

I don't follow this stuff on social media. I just follow the finished product. If he wanted all of this to be connected, why not just put it in the actual show? All this "but you have to follow social media for it to make sense" is just annoying BS.

 

[Firebird]

I don't really have a problem with it. He's confirming to the audience what was already implied, which is that Jurati's collective was a separate entity that didn't supplant the existing Borg. It was a potential source for confusion, and they cleared it up with a brief snippet of dialogue.


The Collective was significantly damaged by Janeway's actions. We see some of the after-effects in "Let Sleeping Borg Lie" (Prodigy) with the "sleeping" cube woken up by the kids. Producer Aaron Waltke has implied that this this cube's scans was what gave the Queen the technology for her weapon in season 3

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and that it may be the same cube that was later put out of commission in Romulan space and considered "the Artifact" in Picard season 1

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and

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. Here's what he told Trekmovie:


Via https://trekmovie.com/2022/11/11/in...ts-galileos-fate-and-the-spirit-of-starfleet/

So, long story short, the Borg were lying on the mat but not completely down for the count.

It speaks volumes to the issues with Picard’s writing that Prodigy had to pick up the slack and think the concepts through for them.

 

[Cap'n Calhoun]

All this "but you have to follow social media for it to make sense" is just annoying BS.

You don't need this stuff for the shows to make sense. They're "value added" threads that you can pick up on if you watch the details. Some of these things were posted in response to fans picking up on their presence. It's not like it's plot-critical to any particular show, and it would often be awkward-to-impossible to get these connections through on-screen without some very ham-fisted monologues (and maybe not even then), so it's probably best that they didn't try to force it.

It speaks volumes to the issues with Picard’s writing that Prodigy had to pick up the slack and think the concepts through for them.

This was the result of communication between the writing teams to deepen the story and reward people who paid close attention to each show. That's why the Prodigy episode seeding the technology the Borg Queen would use was able to air six months before the plot thread subtly paid off in Picard (and was then noticed by a few fans who paid very close attention to the production design when it reappeared in Prodigy season 2). Between the early filming of Picard season 3 and the long lead time for CG animation, I'm not even certain which episodes went into production first.

I find this stuff pretty cool, and I'm always psyched when nuances like this come to light. I don't feel like I was missing out on anything important before I learned them, but once I learned them I gained some fresh appreciation for the shows.

 

[DonIago]

This might not be a great analogy, but are the Borg kind of like space zombies to you? If zombies had an undead leader who strolled around with villain monologues, that might ruin zombies too, or at least that one film anyway.

Essentially, yes. As 137 noted, that's how they were originally presented, and while I understand the rationale behind giving them a face, I'm not sure it did the Borg themselves any favors as a perceived threat. My opinion, of course.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Essentially, yes. As 137 noted, that's how they were originally presented, and while I understand the rationale behind giving them a face, I'm not sure it did the Borg themselves any favors as a perceived threat. My opinion, of course.

For me, the Queen was an improvement.

 

[fireproof78]

Essentially, yes. As 137 noted, that's how they were originally presented, and while I understand the rationale behind giving them a face, I'm not sure it did the Borg themselves any favors as a perceived threat. My opinion, of course.

Indeed. It was dramatically convenient, especially with First Contact but i think a lot of the terror was lost.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

You don't need this stuff for the shows to make sense. They're "value added" threads that you can pick up on if you watch the details. Some of these things were posted in response to fans picking up on their presence. It's not like it's plot-critical to any particular show, and it would often be awkward-to-impossible to get these connections through on-screen without some very ham-fisted monologues (and maybe not even then), so it's probably best that they didn't try to force it.

This was the result of communication between the writing teams to deepen the story and reward people who paid close attention to each show. That's why the Prodigy episode seeding the technology the Borg Queen would use was able to air six months before the plot thread subtly paid off in Picard (and was then noticed by a few fans who paid very close attention to the production design when it reappeared in Prodigy season 2). Between the early filming of Picard season 3 and the long lead time for CG animation, I'm not even certain which episodes went into production first.

I find this stuff pretty cool, and I'm always psyched when nuances like this come to light. I don't feel like I was missing out on anything important before I learned them, but once I learned them I gained some fresh appreciation for the shows.

I understand what you're saying. I just don't follow TV showrunner social media stuff. With STAR TREK, I watch the shows, come here, watch YT vids, and that's mostly it.

 

[fireproof78]

I understand what you're saying. I just don't follow TV showrunner social media stuff. With STAR TREK, I watch the shows, come here, watch YT vids, and that's mostly it.

Watch the show, and I read the book of the show.

I appreciate interconnectedness but social media posts is a bridge too far for me.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Watch the show, and I read the book of the show.

I appreciate interconnectedness but social media posts is a bridge too far for me.

Ah ha! Thank you for that analogy, I understand the other guy's POV now. It's like how I buy DVD's and Blu-ray not just to watch the movie/show, but to watch the Special Features and the making of the show.

 

[Cap'n Calhoun]

I just don't follow TV showrunner social media stuff

I appreciate interconnectedness but social media posts is a bridge too far for me.

Yeah, totally respect that. I use it a bit, but I'm not the biggest fan of social media. That said, I've had a few questions that I had about Prodigy answered because I bothered to ask them there and the writers were nice enough to respond, so I appreciate the utility they can provide on that count.

Insights from the writers and producers will pop in loads of places, often because someone asked the right question, and there's no way anyone's going to catch all of them. Bonus features, magazine interviews, news and newsmagazine shows, YouTube interviews, personal blogs, social media posts, fan sites, cons, even personal conversations. Heck, even TrekBBS itself, especially if you're looking for information about the novels since folks like Greg Cox and Christopher L. Bennett frequent these boards. (An insignificant example but one I can find quickly: See the link in my signature to my annotations for my Strange New Worlds 2016 short story.)

No one's going to catch it all, or sometimes we'll only get it when it gets re-reported and makes it way through one of the media we consume more frequently. Several of the posts I quoted above I initially saw in a TrekMovie report (and that was the only way I managed to find them again due to Twitter/X's search being flaky). I kind of accept that I'm going to miss stuff, and when cool stuff pops up in places where it might easily be missed or buried, I try to take note and pass it along when the opportunity arises. I guess it's the modern-day version of writing Gene Roddenberry a question about stardates or something, being pleasantly surprised when you get an actual response, and then sharing it with your local Trek fan club.