The personal comm might’ve been more of an identifying thing than an actual device name. It might’ve been more as a way to identify the person’s own seperate comm device vs their work comm. or it might’ve meant a lower class of comm, vs a comm meant for military use, even at the Academy level. Like is it only military comms that can contact ships in orbit, whereas personal comms can only work on a planet (unless they are linked upto a higher power transmitter)?
Most significant additions to lore in LitVerse and the things you wish were canon
- Thread starter Danlav05
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I know some fans think that "Regeneration" creates more problems for the status of the Federation's knowledge of the Borg come TNG; in the original shows (due to new episodes inventing new ideas), it seems like the Federation didn't know about the Borg's assimilating people; Q never brings it up when describing them in "Q Who," keeping his focus solely on their interest in acquiring technology. In "The Best of Both Worlds," everyone is mystified why the Borg would demand that Picard surrender himself to them, wondering if their "priorities have changed" from collecting technology and ignoring other lifeforms.
However, in "Regeneration," the Borg encountered perform mass assimilations that Starfleet personal witness. Phlox is even assimilated himself, doing research on the nanites and being able to report on the process and the hive mind nature (I also recall that the episode didn't really explain why his radiation treatment to kill the nanites couldn't be replicated for use in the future, but I do like fan-theorizing that as "only Denobulans could survive the necessary rad levels").
Granted, for all we know, the dots between Acher's "unidentified cyborgs" and the Borg wasn't connected until after "Best of Both Worlds," but, while I think this's under the "too small to worry about" in terms of continuity oddities, I have wondered about how all this fits together, esp. since "Regeneration" is clear that their story is a "predestination paradox" prequel to the original Borg episodes, not a "new story in an altered timeline" thing.
There were significant differences in design and behavior between the early-TNG Borg and the FC-style Borg seen in "Regeneration." If we assume those differences are Watsonian rather than Doylist, i.e. that they exist in-universe rather than just being alterations in the depiction of the species, then it's possible that Starfleet just didn't recognize the Borg as the same species Archer encountered -- similar, but not necessarily identical. After all, "cyborg" is not a unique concept. There can be more than one cyborg species in the universe, and indeed there are non-Borg cyborgs in Trek, both in canon (the Bynars, Airiam, Detmer, and technically Geordi and Picard with their bionics) and in Trek Lit (the Choblik).
That might have been an attempt by the writers to provide an in-universe explanation as to why the Borg were assimilating people now. Maybe at the time they wanted to show a change in the behavior of the Borg from "Q, Who?". And had future Borg episode writers kept to that, that this was a change in Borg tactics after "Q, Who?" it might have worked. But they didn't. Future episodes indicated assimilation has always been the Borg MO. I suppose you could make an argument that the Borg weren't interested in assimilating humans at first (they don't assimilate everyone--see the Kazon)--but that'd be a weak argument. The Federation was an advanced society with a lot to "offer" the Borg and it'd be hard to imagine the Borg as we now know them would have dismissed humans as not worthy of assimilation.
So it's hard to reconcile, in story, the changes in Borg behavior between "Q, Who?" and later Borg episodes and First Contact. It's pretty much a case where I have to chalk it up to what typically happens in many TV shows. They retcon things based on the need of the story they want to tell. Now it's not totally inconsistent. They're still very interested in technology, they're still a collective, their ships have a certain uniformity to them, whether they are cubes or spheres, etc. And I enjoyed most of the Borg stories so it makes it a bit easier to swallow.
I never had much issue with "Regeneration" though. As I noted somewhere else, in a way, it actually served to strengthen the Borg saga a bit. We know that some in the Federation knew about the Borg before "Q, Who?" so this episode gives a potential reasoning for why that might be. Now Captain Picard and co. are unfamiliar with the Borg but then that could easily be explained that it's just a bit of forgotten history. Many things happen in history that seem significant at the time but after decades passed it just becomes forgotten. I'm sure there's info in the computer about it that they could look up, but let's be honest, Archer and co. didn't learn a whole lot about the Borg (they were careful not to reveal the name of the Borg in the episode) so the info. probably would have been of limited usefulness anyway. Guinan was an eyewitness so she probably provided the best info regardless (other than Q I guess).
Not that that ambiguity lasted; in Part II, after Locutus is captured, he can't shut up about how the Borg are going to be assimilating the Earth, and the Enterprise, and the Klingons, but not Data.
Costumes aren't that big a deal; we've seen dozens of Borg configurations (and both styles look like the same "species"), so that should fit. As far as different behavior, maybe? Frankly, I think the "differences" between the TNG Borg and post-First Contact Borg are overstated (but that's me; mileage may vary).
On the other hand, Earth Starfleet did have a lot of first-hand information and samples from "Regeneration" (the scans from the Arctic expedition that Phlox and Malcom use to study the Borg's technology, the Borg tech that the assimilated Tarkaleans spliced into Enterprise, and Phlox's research into the nanites. In theory, that information would be in the database when Picard and co. where having their TNG dealings with the Borg, which raises some interesting implications.
Really? The TNG crew didn't observe or learn about the Borg's assimilation in their first encounter. That would seem to solve pretty much everything -- as far as that episode goes, at least.
I think the problem is Q states pretty emphatically that they aren't interested in the people on the ships, just the ship and its technology. And Guinan indicates the same thing. She never mentions assimilation--and knowing what we know now that would have been a pretty significant omission.
So I think it is a retcon in the Borg. I think "The Best of Both Worlds" does indicate that at first they were going to try to treat this as a change in the Borg's MO, but later episodes blow that out of the water when they clearly show this has always been something to Borg have done. And they even drop the Borg are born as drones idea from "Q, Who?" (though Christopher writes in one of his books that the Borg do in fact create drones like we see in "Q, Who?" in addition to assimilation).
I thing that's just a case of something that's been forgotten over the decades. The information was probably available but unless you came across it during a Wikipedia search on the Enterprise or something, it's not something you would seek out since you'd have no reason to ahead of time. And perhaps they did. And the information they had from that earlier encounter was probably limited. And you could argue that even if they looked it up there's not guarantee they are the same group of cyborgs, as they were never named on Enterprise. They'd probably be careful not to assume off the bat they were the same. Archer ended up having to destroy their ship to get rid of them, an option Picard really didn't have in his case so the information while maybe helpful in giving them some background on who they could be, really didn't help them find a way to save themselves. They ended up requiring Q's intervention to save them.
Q is the god of lies, to be fair
. So far as I recall, it was never specified if Guinen actually witnessed her people's assimilation, or was off-world and told about it by the survivors. It could very well be that she didn't know that the Borg assimilated (while VOY has indicated that there were species who staved off Borg incursions and learned about it, we don't know where the El-Aurian homeworld was located and all that).I agree it's a retcon, but I think it's one that doesn't create too much "damage." IMHO, I think the TNG crew accessing a transwarp tunnel in the Lore/Borg episode is harder to explain given what VOY showed about the tech then the assimilation retcon.
It was never said that babies were born as drones, just that the crew found an assimilated infant and made some speculations. That scene works perfectly well with later episodes where all drones were assimilated.
Thing is with the whole "non-assimilated drones" theory that Bennett put together for his books, at least the reason I don't really "buy" it, is that the Borg's assimilation aspect was introduced in their second appearance and was the keystone ever since. The only reason to offer such an alternate theory is for the information in "Q Who" -- and that show is pretty vague on those details and the only problems seem to A.) the crew aren't told about assimilation (which can more easily be explained away as Q not mentioning it and Guinen not being aware) and the Borg baby (which is actually consistent with the later shows). Not sure if that makes any sense, but there it is.
That could be.
If you mean "Threshold"'s version of transwarp, VGR's own writers disavowed that episode as apocryphal and went on later to portray the Borg using transwarp conduits basically the same as the ones they used in TNG. But in any case, "transwarp" has been used to refer to several drive systems with apparently different modes of operation, some (mainly the Borg's) using conduits or corridors, others (Excelsior's and the Voth's) not using them. So I take "transwarp" to be a generic term for any faster-than-warp propulsion system.
That scene might, but "Descent" does not, since all of the drones liberated from Hugh's cube were shown to have no prior identity or personality to recover, which is why they were so susceptible to Lore's cult-leader manipulation, which gave them something to fill the void. It's implausible that every single one of those thousands of drones on the same cube was assimilated in infancy. It only makes sense if they were conceived as Borg from the get-go.
And as I've said before, it's illogical to think that the Borg wouldn't gestate new drones in vitro. They're all about efficiency, and it would be far too inefficient to waste the gametes their assimilated drones have to offer. Not to mention that gestating new drones from other drones' gametes would be a far more reliable and consistent source of new drones than the hit-or-miss process of searching for suitable populations to assimilate. There is simply no plausible reason why they wouldn't grow their own.
No, it was not. It was introduced in BOBW as something the Borg did to cultures collectively, since the Borg at the time barely even acknowledged the existence of individuals, and targeting a specific individual like Picard for assimilation was explicitly portrayed as an unexpected change. Subsequently, all drones we saw in TNG, in "I, Borg" and "Descent," were portrayed as pure Borg with no prior identity, with no suggestion that they might have been assimilated from previous lives. They talked about assimilating the Federation, but there was no indication that the specific drones we saw were assimilated. It wasn't until FC that we saw assimilation being practiced heavily, and that was implicitly because only a few Borg made it to the ship and needed to replenish their numbers. It wasn't until VGR that writers started assuming that all drones were assimilated.
And as I've pointed out before, there is no reason to make this an either-or question. It makes sense that the Borg would use both methods -- first it would assimilate a new population, then those assimilated drones would have their gametes harvested and used to breed or clone new generations of drones from that genetic stock. After all, it would be a terrible waste of material to let an entire assimilated species die out after a single generation. How stupid would that be? What's the point of bringing in new "biological distinctiveness" if it never lasts longer than a single generation and constantly has to be replaced? The only way assimilation makes sense at all is if assimilated species are, in fact, reproduced within the Collective so that their biological distinctiveness remains assimilated over the centuries or millennia. There's no point in acquiring livestock if you don't breed it. That's simply not sustainable.
Yeah, but I'm not sure what would be gained by such a lie. He's trying to scare the Picard into letting him remain. Assimilation is damn scary and I think Q would exploit that.
True enough. The essence of the Borg is largely the same, just some of their methods were adapted, and that happens a lot in TV. It's not something I lose sleep over.
Well, to be honest, I kind of assumed what Christopher went with. That both occurred. I figured by later shows it was apparent assimilation seemed the preferred method--since they also wanted to assimilate knowledge from the conquered races. But there might be some value in drones born as Borg as well, and in some areas it might be more practical. It's possible the baby they saw was assimilated as well--after all Riker and Data were speculating. They didn't have all the facts. But I tend to think it was a neo-Drone
In that case, though, it's a retcon that can be explained with some creative storytelling. Any inconsistencies can be handwaved in that case to be made consistent.
Yeah, I agree. I considered them different technologies all together. The only thing that I noted there was it did remind me a bit of the conduits Species 8472 used. Something about it seemed similar. But what the Borg used was much different. I mean, it was something that was added to the Borg later down the line, but you could argue that Starfleet only found out about them later, which is why they weren't mentioned earlier. And "Regeneration" did nothing with transwarp as I recall, so it retains the continuity of what could have been known.
That's interesting. I never gave that a lot of thought. In fairness to Voyager while there was a greater focus on assimilation and we saw a lot more assimilated species, that does not necessarily preclude there were born-Borg in the mix as well.
I don't see it as an either/or. The two go hand in hand. The Borg assimilate species, not individuals. A species, by definition, is something that reproduces and survives for more than one generation. The Borg would not gain anything long-term from assimilating a species if it did not perpetuate the survival of that species after it was absorbed. So yes, the first generation of drones from a given species would be assimilated, but it seems obvious that they would then be used to produce later generations through in vitro reproduction or cloning -- otherwise they'd all be dead within a century or two and what would have been the point?
I still say (as I said in Greater than the Sum) that the most logical explanation for the discrepancy between TNG's and VGR's portrayals is that the Borg in the Delta Quadrant had suffered massive attrition in their war with Species 8472 and thus needed to assimilate a lot of new drones to replenish their numbers. That's why we only saw assimilated drones in the DQ whereas we saw mostly incubated drones in the AQ.
Well, to be honest, I never saw it that way either. Just because we didn't see neo-natal drones after "Q, Who?" doesn't mean it wasn't being done. I just figured assimilation was in addition to it, not instead of.
Like I said, even on Voyager, the focus was certainly on assimilation. But IIRC I don't believe it was ever stated there weren't Borg born as drones. And your explanation makes sense. We didn't see the Borg on Voyager until "Scorpion" and their war with Species 8472 so its plausible the Borg may have had to accelerate assimilations to make up for the lost drones.
Fair point, but I guess I don't see Q omitting that detail (when we take the future information that the Borg always assimilated) as a continuity error or anything to write home about (unlike say Khan knowing Chekov seeming to "need" an explanation, the "Discovery-prise" in general, etc.).
Thing is, unless I'm mistaken, none of the TV shows mentioned how Borg are made until assimilation was invented to make Picard a Borg and the franchise ran with it. So, basically, there's nothing in canon to "prove" that there were "blank slate" Borg that were never assimilated beyond the fact that in a handful of episodes, we have Borg drones who were blank slates with no memories or inclinations of prior lives. In context, it's a more logical assumption that they were simply drones who were assimilated way too young to remember their former lives (we see exactly this with Seven, even if she had a more painful transition then Hugh seemed to have). And yeah, I have heard the "way too many drones like this all be young assimilated" thing, but it's not the first time this franchise has stretched numbers like that and is a smaller plot hole then trying to add a secondary process to the system.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't exactly go for inventing things without grounding in the world building when what is actually there can cover it. Mileage may vary.
Oh, come on, one of the first things Riker's away team found in "Q Who" was an incubation chamber with a baby drone in it. Riker reported, "From the look of it, the Borg are born as biological life forms. It seems that almost immediately after birth they begin artificial implants." That is explicitly mentioning how Borg are made. Just because it was retconned later doesn't mean you can deny that it existed at all.
And I already said yesterday why it makes no sense whatsoever to believe that drones are never reproduced. That means that any new species the Borg assimilated would die out of the collective in a single generation, and whatever biological (and numerical) benefits they gained from assimilating that species would be lost forever. How incredibly stupid and pointless is that?
And what happens when they run out of species to assimilate? The Borg's endgame is to assimilate the entire galaxy, right? So what do you think they plan on doing once they've run out of unassimilated species? Just die out? Of course not. They have to be willing to reproduce their drones. The alternative is utterly nonsensical.