Rant about the Borg Queen

[carcinoGeneticist]

Watched First Contact fairly recently, and I have a few questions, mainly about the Borg Queen. I'm aware the general consensus among the fandom is that the Trek movies are dogsh*t but I can't help but wonder some of the decisions made her. Mainly, the concept of the Borg as a whole is changed entirely by the existence of the Queen. Before the Queen, the Borg were a unique entity, something that doesn't form naturally on Earth. Something completely alien. One being with a unified consciousness. I'm getting mildly carried away, but you get the point. Add in the Borg Queen, and now they're just... bees. Or ants, I guess. My point being that the Borg Queen takes the Borg from a hive mind system that's completely unnatural to just a colony, something that we've all seen mirrored on Earth. Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but I think the Borg would have been much better off without addition of the Queen.
When you think about it, same sort of goes for Locutus. Not the bees thing, but the fact that any Borg being an individual, such as Locutus, sort of makes the Borg into one big contradiction of themselves. I know Locutus is supposed to be the collection of the Borg's voices to connect with other races or whatever, but the Borg already have a collection of their voices, that being, THEIR VOICES! I don't have as big a problem with Locutus as I do with the Borg Queen, though.
Oh, well. I'll stop yapping now.

 

[Humanoid #77]

Captain Liam Shaw: The real Borg are still out there. And they have a name for you. Locutus of Borg. The only Borg so deadly, they gave him a goddamn name.

I don't know where I am going with this, I just find this quote very cool

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Guys, I think this is a topic better suited for General Trek Discussion. Moving to that forum!

 

[Qonundrum]

Unlike my ex, it's complicated:

Okay, first thing's first: Every actress playing the Queen has made the role far more than the sum of its parts.

But in what was once creative as a gestalt, a hive mind where all minds work in unison and with redundancy and distributed methods to minimize downtime ("The Best of Both Words" that more than 78% of a Cube needed to be damaged before the Borg could effectively be hindered at all), now becomes a bunch of quaint sections, shedding redundancy, and making it easier for any old crew to blow it up. Even Picard's "blow them up at the specific area", ignoring the fact he could send that information from where he was and thus save a lot more lives and equipment in the process, is also antithetical as clearly far less than 78% of that Cube was damaged.

Somewhere, somehow, small shifts in the timeline were retroactively induced, if you want an in-universe explanation. In real life, writing a script, too many restrictions can hamper creativity or dealing with a big bad. Too few just looks bad, with the Queen - which could have been created as a result of Locutus, as opposed to "I was always there you puny things limited by 3d thinking", but the timeframe in which to deliver a finished script is the other semi-cloaked elephant in the room and the end result has to be better than the sum of its parts+nitpicks.

Plus, the Queen in Voyager sure is fun to watch as she battles Janeway. Now explain why "Scoprion" pretended there was no Queen when STFC was already released half a year earlier. So there can be multiple hives out there that aren't interconnected. Or could be at a later time, there is a rich tapestry, but the Borg are long since burnt out - how many fans (never mind as means to bring in new viewers) really care about "The Borg Origin Story Where They Created, Splintered Off, With Splinters Being Re-Assimilated, And Borg Babies And When Other Species Got Assimilated" and in how many episodes again?? Much fan canon already exists and, at most, fanon tie-ins with VGER don't add up to a total explanation either. The idea that humans created it is so beyond cliché as well, if you want to burn out an overused antagonist then say it was vaused by VGER that went through a space/time portal and landed in the whocareswhere quadrant...

 

[at Quark's]

Watched First Contact fairly recently, and I have a few questions, mainly about the Borg Queen. I'm aware the general consensus among the fandom is that the Trek movies are dogsh*t but I can't help but wonder some of the decisions made her. Mainly, the concept of the Borg as a whole is changed entirely by the existence of the Queen. Before the Queen, the Borg were a unique entity, something that doesn't form naturally on Earth. Something completely alien. One being with a unified consciousness. I'm getting mildly carried away, but you get the point. Add in the Borg Queen, and now they're just... bees. Or ants, I guess. My point being that the Borg Queen takes the Borg from a hive mind system that's completely unnatural to just a colony, something that we've all seen mirrored on Earth. Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but I think the Borg would have been much better off without addition of the Queen.
When you think about it, same sort of goes for Locutus. Not the bees thing, but the fact that any Borg being an individual, such as Locutus, sort of makes the Borg into one big contradiction of themselves. I know Locutus is supposed to be the collection of the Borg's voices to connect with other races or whatever, but the Borg already have a collection of their voices, that being, THEIR VOICES! I don't have as big a problem with Locutus as I do with the Borg Queen, though.
Oh, well. I'll stop yapping now.

I agree that as a concept the Borg were absolutely better and more chilling, more alien, before the introduction of 'individual' drones (be it Locutus or the Queen). But there's only so many stories that can be told about a faceless horde that cannot be reasoned with, a force of nature almost. In First contact, Picard and Data needed a 'face' to play against, someone to argue with, and I think that's why the Borg Queen was introduced.

At first they still tried to present her as more of an 'avatar' of the collective rather than an individual ('you imply a disparity where none exists; I am the Collective'), but I think that distinction got lost over the years, when Voyager had her talking about which species she belonged to before assimilation, and so on.

 

[Frontis]

Didn't the Borg always have a queen?
At least I didn't hear the opposite.
Anyway, there must have been a central control station or something or someone that tells the thrones what to do.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Didn't the Borg always have a queen?
At least I didn't hear the opposite.
Anyway, there must have been a central control station or something or someone that tells the thrones what to do.

They were retconned into always having a queen.

 

[1001001]

They were retconned into always having a queen.

The Queen was always there, just not seen.

Like Chekov in Space Seed.

 

[Humanoid #77]

haha Chekov. The most repercussive of the Star Trek characters

 

[publiusr]

Occasionally, hives can be invaded by outside pests:

Ant mimicry by spiders - wildmacro - extreme macro photography

Ant mimic spiders disguise themselves as ants to escape predation and improve hunting strategies. Read about ant-mimicking jumping spiders.

wildmacro.de

I might have the idea of a Queen be something new…were I to write fan fiction, I’d have the Borg Queen oust a Xenomorph Queen.

Before she can celebrate—she too is ousted and the Borg become leaderless once again.

 

[Qonundrum]

Didn't the Borg always have a queen?
At least I didn't hear the opposite.
Anyway, there must have been a central control station or something or someone that tells the thrones what to do.

What @1001001 said because, given how the Borg are analogous to ants, it makes sense that she was there already...

But I still like to believe that it makes more sense (if not merely linear continuity rather than a shoed-in retcon) that the Borg wanted Locutus as a focal point for species indoctrination, but then decided to add to their hierarchy as another form of adaptation, like ECC in computer memory to ensure data integrity (so no drone thinking of drinking lemonade would get the rest of the drones to feel thirsty as a result during an assimilation process or whatever). But, in their first televised outing, they were just a combined mind based on all of the drones working collectively to get stuff done faster. The mesh network is another extension of efficiency and redundancy as well.

Chekov, like Kyle, just appeared one day without exposition stating he was transferred or anything, so his having been on lower decks during Khan's visit is an even easier issue.

 

[ananta]

That was the downside of FC to me. I hated the way that because she was female, she had to be sensual, seductive and hyper-sexualised.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I'm aware the general consensus among the fandom is that the Trek movies are dogsh*t

No, not at all. Many of the Trek films, such as ST:FC, are great! They are not dogshit at all.

As for the Borg Queen, I think we all know why they had one. It was just for dramatic purposes, so the audience could have a character to relate to. If the Borg were real, they wouldn't actually have a Queen, it was just dramatic license. Just having that monolithic Borg voice in the background would get kinda boring after awhile. So they needed to have a singular character to speak for them, to move the drama along. Can't really blame the filmmakers for that.

That said, one of the ideas they'd floated about for the (never made) fifth season of ENT would have had Alice Krige play a Starfleet medical technician who would be assimilated and become the Borg Queen. (The novelverse did something along those lines.) I would have L OVED to see that!

 

[at Quark's]

Yes the Borg Queen was sexualized, but I suppose that to some extent, that was also a functional element of the story (after all, she tried to tempt Data with becoming more human, feelings, and sex.).

Following the train of that thought, I wonder why data was considered 'primitive' , and why he would be considered 'obsolete in the new order' at first (according to Locutus). I mean, he certainly was faster and quicker than the average drone, probably mentally, too. Was it because the Borg already foresaw that he probably couldn't be assimilated?

 

[carcinoGeneticist]

That was the downside of FC to me. I hated the way that because she was female, she had to be sensual, seductive and hyper-sexualised.

Yeah. Like that stuff she did to Data. I understand she was manipulating him and making him feel more human with the skin and the other human parts, but couldn't she have manipulated him into making him feel more human and done all the skin replacement stuff without banging him?

 

[Shawnster]

When you think about it, same sort of goes for Locutus.

Actually, no. It's the exact opposite. Locutus was created BECAUSE there was no unifying voice, no one individual that could speak for all the Borg. In essence, no queen.

BOBW part 1

BORG: Captain Jean Luc Picard, you lead the strongest ship of the Federation fleet. You speak for your people.
PICARD: I have nothing to say to you, and I will resist you with my last ounce of strength.
BORG: Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. We wish to improve ourselves. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours.
PICARD: Impossible. My culture is based on freedom and self determination.
BORG: Freedom is irrelevant. Self determination is irrelevant. You must comply.
PICARD: We would rather die.
BORG: Death is irrelevant. Your archaic cultures are authority driven. To facilitate our introduction into your societies, it has been decided that a human voice will speak for us in all communications. You have been chosen to be that voice.


Had the queen existed, there would have been no need for Picard to become Locutus

Now, many here who favor the retcon will hand waive this away that it doesn't mean what I said and that they needed Picard because of whatever. That's fine, but a retcon is still a retcon.

What @1001001 said because, given how the Borg are analogous to ants, it makes sense that she was there already...

But they were not analogous to ants until they came up with the idea of the queen for first contact.

 

[Qonundrum]

But they were not analogous to ants until they came up with the idea of the queen for first contact.

True, but it felt like a natural and logical extension that could be made to fit easier?

 

[Frontis]

What @1001001 said because, given how the Borg are analogous to ants, it makes sense that she was there already...

But I still like to believe that it makes more sense (if not merely linear continuity rather than a shoed-in retcon) that the Borg wanted Locutus as a focal point for species indoctrination, but then decided to add to their hierarchy as another form of adaptation, like ECC in computer memory to ensure data integrity (so no drone thinking of drinking lemonade would get the rest of the drones to feel thirsty as a result during an assimilation process or whatever). But, in their first televised outing, they were just a combined mind based on all of the drones working collectively to get stuff done faster. The mesh network is another extension of efficiency and redundancy as well.

Chekov, like Kyle, just appeared one day without exposition stating he was transferred or anything, so his having been on lower decks during Khan's visit is an even easier issue.

So Locutus would have been the Borg King

 

[Phoenix219]

I'm thinking about the Queen came after Locutus and because of Locutus, but then because of the time travel stuff started a rewrite-loop where she ended up before Locutus also, because of timey whimey stuff during first contact. we didn't technically see her until AFTER the time travel happens.

 

[Lord Exor]

The Borg were retconned in almost every appearance up to the debut of First Contact in 1996. The truth is that they were creatively stifling, and lacked the versatility required to carry interesting stories beyond their first appearance. Since Star Trek is ultimately a reflection of the human condition first and a sci-fi show second, writers do not care as much about whether the Borg qualify as "truly alien" or "hard sci-fi." That's why attempts were made to humanize them—first with the introduction of Locutus to interact with our protagonists on a personal level, and later with characters like Hugh, Seven, and the Borg Queen. The Borg being this unknowable, inscrutable existential threat beyond mere mortal comprehension—in the vein of an eldritch abomination—just wasn't ever going to last, and to be frank, isn't even that interesting beyond being a novelty or a one-off in the first place.

The Borg have only lasted as long as they have because of First Contact. With the Queen, assimilation, and the humanization of Borg drones, you now have a much richer foundation with which to base future stories. The Borg Collective is an empire built on slavery, and there's a lot of opportunity to explore how such a civilization forever traumatizes its victims, how said victims, when liberated, function in a society that now fears them as try to regain their humanity, and how the vanity, insecurities, and narcissism of one person can lead to authoritarianism and atrocities. They work well as an allegory for fascism and indoctrination.