“Unimatrix Zero” (Part 1)
Written by Mike Sussman and Brannon Braga & Joe Menosky
Directed by Allan Kroeker
Season 6, Episode 26
Production episode 246
Original air date: May 24, 2000
Stardate: unknown
Captain’s log. On board the unicomplex, the Borg Queen interrogates a drone who is malfunctioning. She asks him about Unimatrix Zero, but the drone doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She separates the drone from the collective, and then deactivates him and orders him dissected.
On Voyager, Seven has a vivid dream while regenerating that she’s in a forest with a bunch of other people of various species, one of whom reaches out to her and calls her, “Annika.” Then she wakes up. She immediately goes to sickbay, thinking this to be some kind of malfunction, but the EMH says that dreaming is a normal part of being human. However, he gives her a device that will measure her REM sleep, just in case.
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When Paris reports for duty, he is informed that his demotion has been reversed, and he’s a junior-grade lieutenant again. Since his duties haven’t changed in the least—he’s still the alpha-shift conn officer and the backup medic—this promotion is particularly pointless.
Voyager responds to a distress call, but arrive too late to save a planet from being destroyed/assimilated by the Borg.
When Seven next regenerates, she’s back in the forest, and the person who called her Annika introduces himself as Axum and says she’s in Unimatrix Zero. This is a virtual-reality setting where a tiny percentage of drones—about one in a million—are able to go and retain their individuality while regenerating. However, they have no memory of the place when they wake up. It turns out that Seven visited there regularly when she was a drone, but this is her first time back since Voyager separated her from the collective.
Seven meets various other folks, including a human woman named Laura who was assimilated at Wolf 359, and a Klingon named Korok. Later, Seven also discovers that she and Axum had a romantic relationship during their regenerative cycles in Unimatrix Zero.
Axum also informs Seven that they need her help: the Borg Queen has discovered the mutation (she calls it a malfunction) that allows Unimatrix Zero to exist, and wants to eliminate it.
When she awakens, Seven reports this to the senior staff. The EMH confirms that it in fact wasn’t a dream—she didn’t achieve REM sleep when she regenerated. Seven likens this to a distress call, and the staff agrees, but Janeway wants more information. Tuvok offers to serve as a telepathic conduit between Seven and Janeway’s minds, allowing Janeway to join Seven when she regenerates in Unimatrix Zero.
Janeway meets Axum and the others, and suggests they try to find a way for the drones to keep their memories of Unimatrix Zero when they wake up. They can form a Borg resistance.
Meantime, the Borg Queen has isolated Unimatrix Zero, and while she can’t destroy it or cut off access to it, she can send drones into it. She does so, and some of the folks in Unimatrix Zero are woken up forcibly, disappearing from the forest. Some of the drones fight back, notably Korok and Janeway. The Borg Queen sees that Janeway is in Unimatrix Zero, and she’s now both pissed and worried.
Upon returning to reality, Janeway instructs Torres and the EMH to create a virus that would allow the drones to retain their individuality upon departing Unimatrix Zero. She also makes sure that Chakotay is with her on this, not willing this time to just barrel ahead without his okay like she did when allying with the Borg and going after Captain Ransom.
The plan is for Janeway to invade a Cube and upload the virus into the central plexus. Tuvok and Torres insist on accompanying her, Tuvok because of regulations regarding a captain entering hostile territory needing a security guard, Torres because she has the mad engineering skillz needed to upload the virus. Janeway doesn’t want them to come along, but Chakotay insists that his support that she asked for is contingent on his taking the other two with her.
The Borg Queen contacts Voyager and tells Janeway in no uncertain terms to stay the hell out of any involvement with Unimatrix Zero. She even makes noise about offering a faster way home in exchange for staying out of it. Janeway refuses.
Janeway, Torres, and Tuvok take off in the Delta Flyer. Voyager fires on the Cube, and when the shield harmonics fluctuate, the away team beams onto the Cube—just before the Flyer is destroyed by the Borg.
Voyager continues to fire on the Cube while the away team moves through the corridors of the Cube. Eventually, the drones adapt to their phaser fire and trap them in force fields, until they are captured and assimilated.
Once the EMH determines that their life signs are destabilizing, Chakotay orders Voyager to break off.
The last shot is Tuvok, Torres, and Janeway fully Borgified.
To be continued…
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Borg Cubes are said to have a central plexus and shield emitters that can be targeted, even though the word on the Borg from the moment we met them in TNG’s “Q Who” was that their technology was completely decentralized.
There’s coffee in that nebula! Janeway says she won’t negotiate with the Borg, which is a big change from two years previous when she did negotiate with them…
Mr. Vulcan. Tuvok gets to be a bridge to mind-melding Seven and Janeway. When asked if he’s ever performed it before by the EMH, Tuvok says no, but he did observe a Vulcan master perfect the technique. I find myself reminded of a bit in the Red Dwarf episode “Bodyswap,” when the android Kryten wants to try to download someone else’s mind into Lister’s body. Kryten says he’s done it before, and when Lister asks, “And it worked?” Kryten says, “No—but I’m pretty sure I know what I did wrong.”
Half and half. Torres creates the virus and insists on going on the away team to help deliver it.
Forever an ensign. Kim speaks for the entire viewership when he wonders aloud why Paris has been re-promoted when he himself remains an ensign. Nobody replies.
Please state the nature of the medical emergency. The EMH tries to reassure Seven that dreaming is normal and is incredibly dubious about this latest use of Vulcan telepathy.
Resistance is futile. Seven apparently spent her regenerating time when she was a drone going to Unimatrix Zero and having hot monkey sex with Axum. She doesn’t entirely remember this, and is pissy when she realizes that Axum didn’t come out and mention that from jump when she showed back up.
She also can appear completely human in the forest, and after the second time she arrives, does so.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Paris threatens to sabotage the Flyer to keep Torres from going on the mission. He’s incredibly unhappy about his woobie going on this mission…
Do it.
“It’s a shame you’re not alive to experience disembodiment. It’s the epitome of perfection.”
–The Borg Queen waxing rhapsodic about decapitation.
Welcome aboard. Susanna Thompson is back as the Borg Queen, following “Dark Frontier.” Mark Deakins plays Axum/Five of Twelve, having previously played Turanj in “The Killing Game” two-parter and Tournel in Insurrection. Jerome Butler plays Korok, Joanna Heimbold plays Laura, and Ryan Sparks plays the alien boy. They’ll all be back for Part II.
Also Tony Sears plays the drone the queen deactivates in the teaser. He previously played an ill-fated Prometheus crew member in “Message in a Bottle.”
Trivial matters: The Battle of Wolf 359 happened in TNG’s “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II,” and was seen in part in DS9’s “Emissary.” As with other Alpha Quadrant folks who we’re told were assimilated at Wolf 359 (“Unity,” “Infinite Regress“), it’s not clear how someone assimilated in that battle could possibly have wound up in the Delta Quadrant, given that the Cube that fought that battle was destroyed over Earth.
Mike Sussman’s original story pitch was that Seven’s father, Magnus Hansen—seen as a drone in “Dark Frontier”—had started a Borg underground resistance.
The Borg Queen knows that Voyager has had contact with Starfleet, referring to the events of “Message in a Bottle,” “Hunters,” “Pathfinder,” and “Life Line.”
Paris was demoted to ensign in “Thirty Days.”
Janeway says that the last time she heard the words, “My mind to your mind,” she had a headache for two weeks. It is possible she’s referring to her deep mind-meld with Tuvok in “Flashback.”
The Delta Flyer joins a large number of Voyager’s shuttlecraft in Support Vessel Heaven, as it’s destroyed. A new one will be constructed in “Imperfection” next season.
Set a course for home. “How are things in the collective?” In much the same way that, over time, the producers of DS9 took everything that was interesting and alien about the beings who lived in the Bajoran wormhole and made them trite and boring, so too with Voyager’s producers and the Borg. The “ultimate user” species that Q described as utterly uninterested in the nuances of human behavior or communication but only was interested in technology they can consume has turned instead into a mustache-twirling villain who taunts her arch-nemesis and gives monologues and isn’t actually dangerous to attack.
There’s no sense of menace here. The Borg Queen, introduced as a haunting, scary ghost in the machine in First Contact, has turned into an ineffectual villain helplessly trying to keep her drones under control and stymied by the machinations of Janeway and her crew. Susanna Thompson does the best she can, but the script does her no favors, stopping just barely short of having her shake her fist and saying, “Curses, foiled again!”
These are the same Borg who wiped out forty ships at Wolf 359, who almost destroyed the Federation before it started, and yet somehow this one stranded Federation starship can run rings around them, and it cuts off the air supply to my disbelief.
Which is too bad, as the basic concept here is a good one. I like the Unimatrix Zero setting a lot, as it provides a way to foment a Borg resistance in a way that’s convincing. But it’s in service of an episode that just sits there, lifelessly. Paris’s promotion makes no sense, made more absurd by Kim still being an ensign, an absurdity the script comes right out and admits to. Janeway asking for Chakotay’s support is a nice touch, especially in light of her running over her first officer in the “Equinox” two-parter, but Torres’ sudden willingness to go on a likely suicide mission comes out of nowhere.
And the ending is utterly ineffective. Picard being made into a Borg was devastating in 1990, but a decade later, it’s hard to work up any excitement over the same being done to Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres, especially given the sheer tonnage of Borg reversals we’ve seen in those ten years (the folks in “Unity,” Seven, the Borg kiddos—and speaking of them, what a blown opportunity to not have Icheb, Mezoti, Azan, and Rebi be part of this storyline!).
Worse, Chakotay acts like he expects them to be assimilated, which means it’s bizarrely all part of the plan (as we’ll see in Part II), which drains what miniscule excitement there is from the cliffhanger.
Warp factor rating: 4
Keith R.A. DeCandido‘s recent and upcoming work includes the thriller Animal, written with Dr. Munish K. Batra; the novella All-the-Way House, part of the Systema Paradoxa series about cryptids; the short story “Unguarded” in the forthcoming Devilish and Divine anthology; essays for two upcoming anthologies, BIFF! BAM! EEE-YOW!: The Subterranean Blue Grotto Essays on Batman ’66 and Outside In Wants to Believe: 158 Unique Perspectives on 158 Ten Thirteen Stories by 158 Authors; the short story “In Earth and Sky and Sea Strange Things There Be” in the charity anthology Turning the Tied; and a reprint of his 2005 Spider-Man novel Down These Mean Streets in the collection Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours Omnibus, alongside Spidey novels by Jim Butcher and Christopher L. Bennett.
Even if the rest of the episode had been compelling, which it wasn’t, it still would have been a complete loss based on the implausibility of having Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres willingly allow themselves to be assimilated. Complete bullshit. I realize this is more of an issue with Part II, but we knew full well that Janeway et al. were not going to forever remain Borg, and indeed, by the end of the episode, they were fully cured with no scars, no implants, and their hair magically regrown to full length. It’s fortunate that they received the Diet Assimilation treatment in that they didn’t lose their arms or eyeballs. Assimilation used to be a traumatic, gruesome experience, but now, it’s akin to visiting an S&M club and involves shaving your head, putting on a rubber suit, and gluing vacuum cleaner attachments to your body.
And just what has Tom Paris done in the last year to merit promotion, other than screw around on the holodeck, watch TV, and fall in love with a shuttlecraft? 🤔 The fact that Harry Kim remains an ensign after six years in ridiculous, especially since we all know that ranks are pretty much irrelevant on Voyager compared to ones job assignment.
The one and only thing I really like about this episode is, as you said, the fact that Janeway asks for Chakotay’s support, but above that, how he managed to talk her out of going alone, with her finally giving in. Although, really, that conversation shouldn’t have had to happen. I can’t buy her argument ” if that Cube attacks Voyager, you’ll be needed here,” and whatever her reason was for refusing help (stubbornness??) it really wasn’t a good idea to refuse help from volunteers, not for something this important. Still, I guess that’s what first officers are for, right? I can’t pretend or deny Janeway is the only captain to have done something questionable before being corrected by an XO.
Honestly, given the usual disregard for continuity on Voyager, I wonder why they even bothered. What things they do and don’t decide to follow up on in this show seems to be inversely correlated to how interesting the event in question is. Paris losing his rank was the least-interesting part of the episode it happened in, and as KRAD and others have pointed out, it’s not like it changed his duties, pay, or level of influence on the ship in any way so what on earth (heh!) does it matter if he gets it back or not?
This is a total aside, but the third screencap always reminds me of how annoying I find the constant “make sure Janeway is blocked so she is physically looking down on people she is talking to” thing. That’s the sort of tired, type-A cliché you get in self-help books directed at aspiring businessmen today, and I always found it bordering on silly here on Trek, and they do it *a lot* (so much so that a certain other reviewer put together a whole montage of clips of it).
Other than that, I mostly agree with KRAD. The idea of Unimatrix Zero is an interesting concept, and it actually makes some level of sense to me that the biggest threat to the Borg would end up coming from inside, not outside. That said, the “intentional assimilation” thing is ridiculous. The fact that no one seems to experience any negative effects of it (physically or mentally) is also ridiculous. Considering how against transhumanism most people in the future are, you’d think that getting carved up and having metal shoved into you would bother people after the fact, even if they were committed to the mission. And while Unimatrix Zero might have had a lot of punch if the Borg hadn’t been so thoroughly defanged by this point, well, they had, and that just makes them seem even more neutered. “The Borg are now being threatened by *rolls dice* the power of dreams. Sure, why not?”
There’s no sense of menace here. The Borg Queen, introduced as a haunting, scary ghost in the machine in First Contact, has turned into an ineffectual villain helplessly trying to keep her drones under control and stymied by the machinations of Janeway and her crew.
Right. Usually, “just go kill them” is something said in frustration to the protagonists. This time, seriously, Borg just go kill Voyager. The only way Voyager (and arguably the Federation) survives is because they’re so far down the Borg priority list– sure, maybe it would be nice to go assimilate Voyager, but space is big and dedicating enough ships to do a search and then take the ship down just isn’t worth it, because the Collective only has so many ships and a very long list of things it would like to get around to doing.
That logic completely collapses when Voyager becomes a menace worthy of the Queen’s personal attention. Janeway’s a complication, the Queen is engaged in real-time communication so has a pretty good idea where the ship is, let’s see how tough Janeway is when up against five cubes. Oddly enough, Season 6 Borg are less intimidating than Season 2 Kazon. It’s too bad, there’s a good story with this premise somewhere, but this isn’t it.
And yes, I made two Red Dwarf references, one obvious, one more subtle: Support Vessel Heaven is a bit of a riff on Silicon Heaven, which, in the RD universe, is the afterlife that mechanical beings and AI’s all believe in. When Lister tries to convince Kryten that there is no Silicon Heaven, that it’s a myth, Kryten is devastated. “But where do all the calculators go?????”
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, smeghead
What drives me crazy about this one — and about “Endgame,” which does the same thing — is the opening scene where the Queen gives her drones orders. No. That’s not how it works! The Queen is not a captain of a ship! The Borg Collective is a single mind made up of billions of brains and computers. The Queen is merely the central organizing node of that mind. The drones are not the Queen’s crew or subjects — they’re the cells of her brain. You don’t look at one of your neurons and give it orders. It’s part of you.
The only way those scenes make any sense to me is if they’re strictly symbolic — if they’re fictitious dramatizations of the Collective’s internal control processes, like in Pixar’s Inside Out or the sitcom Herman’s Head where parts of the personality were depicted as separate characters talking to each other.
Otherwise, the concept of Unimatrix Zero is okay. It makes sense that the most effective way to hurt the Borg would be from within, by finding and exploiting a lapse in control of their own drones. So I actually don’t mind it as much as some of the other ways Voyager has won out over the Collective. But it is rather a big coincidence that Seven was part of it.
@@@@@ krad – When is Kryten devastated? I can think of two “Where do all the calculators go?” uses, and both of them are rhetorical. The first is with the first reference to Silicon Heaven and is Kryten showing Lister that it’s obvious Silicon Heaven exists (though Human Heaven was of course just made up to prevent all the humans from going nuts), the second is later in the same episode when Kryten explains to Lister that he was lying to his replacement about Silicon Heaven not existing.
They seem to have filled the pothole of AQ Borg from Wolf 359 showing up in the DQ with the scene in ST: Picard that showed the derelict cube having something like an Iconian gateway onboard.
I get that we need to see the Borg communicating for storytelling purposes. It would be boring to just watch the Borg scurrying around without any narration, but I agree that verbal communication goes against the very concept of the Borg. An acceptable compromise would have been to “hear” the Borg Queen via voiceover while the Borg act out their scenes in silence
@8/JasonD: As I’ve said before, I think it’s likely that the invading cube just sent a few samples from Wolf 359 back to the Delta Quadrant in a sphere ship like the one launched from the cube in First Contact. There were a couple of days, I think, between Wolf 359 and the attack on Earth, plenty of time to send off a sphere.
@9/bgsu98: “I get that we need to see the Borg communicating for storytelling purposes.”
Do we really need that? Until this episode, we got through a whole decade of Borg stories without ever requiring a scene like that. There could have been another way to present the necessary exposition. But the producers got lazy and fell into the trap of thinking of the Queen as a “leader” like any other villain. As Keith said, she was one step away from a cliched mustache-twirling baddie. They just weren’t thinking it through anymore.
What it is about Janeway as a Borg that looks so goofy? Is it the bald cap? Does she need a laser eyepatch? Something about that design ain’t working.
Can we also complain that talking about a “mutation” across species is pretty ridiculous?
These dream people also seem to undermine the idea that Borg drones are not individuals but are instead individuals controlled by their implants. Which I suppose is a problem dating back to Locutus but he was supposed to be special.
Good thing the tactical cube didn’t have a tractor beam or Voyager would have been screwed. Making it a sphere or a probe would have been much more reasonable.
Good thing the tactical cube didn’t have a tractor beam or Voyager would have been screwed. Making it a sphere or a probe would have been much more reasonable.
@12, that’s a great point, and the pieces are all there. They can even make it the sphere that assimilated the colony at the top of the episode– Voyager tracks it down but it hasn’t fixed its battle damage yet, hence making it a soft target, at least by the standards of going up against the Borg. Instead they try to ratchet up the tension with the “tactical cube” nonsense, which just makes the Borg look absurd. And, yeah, it’s a variant of what I was saying in 4. It’s one thing for Borg to ignore Starfleet Officers or even Starfleet Ships under “normal” circumstances if they don’t pose a threat. But surely the Collective would have adopted a “destroy or assimilate Voyager on sight” order under the circumstances. Patching this would by no means fix this episode, but it would help.
@12/noblehunter: “Can we also complain that talking about a “mutation” across species is pretty ridiculous?”
Not really. Every species has countless mutations in its genes in every generation. Most of those mutations are useless or harmful and won’t amount to anything, but the occasional few are beneficial enough to be propagated. Humans have a variety of mutations with effects such as being supertasters or having low cholesterol, as well as harmful mutations that cause cancer or cystic fibrosis.
So any population that the Borg assimilated would have a wide variety of different genetic mutations within it, and thus — as long as we accept the conceit of humanoid aliens that are genetically similar enough to interbreed — it stands to reason that certain individuals in those different species would happen to have mutations of the same gene that would manifest in the same way.
“These dream people also seem to undermine the idea that Borg drones are not individuals but are instead individuals controlled by their implants.”
Of course they would be individuals if their personalities were not suppressed. But the Borg Collective itself is not made up of individuals. It’s a single program running on all the drones’ brains in parallel, crowding out their own thoughts entirely as long as they’re active. That’s why the Unimatrix Zero drones could only “wake up” when they were regenerating, when they weren’t actively engaged in running the Collective program and their minds were thus free to do other things.
It’s like how a Trill host and symbiont join into a single hybrid personality. If you take out the symbiont, the host regains their individuality, but as long as they’re combined, neither one exists as a separate individual. Or like Tuvix — neither Neelix nor Tuvok existed individually while Tuvix existed, only after they were separated. The Borg are the same way, just with trillions instead of two.
Glad you brought up the nonsense of the central plexus, KRAD. My first thought upon hearing that in this episode was “They’re the Borg. They don’t have central anything!”
@15/kradeiz: Unfortunately, Voyager gave up the decentralization idea long ago — no later than season 5’s “Infinite Regress,” with the Vinculum, a single central processing device at the heart of every cube that was responsible for controlling all its drones. Heck, even in First Contact they had that scene where Picard ordered the fleet to target the single vulnerable spot that he knew would allow the cube to be destroyed.
I think I’ve got it. It’s those things on Janeway’s head. They’re almost positioned like the classic horseshoe pattern on some bald men. It’s giving her a Peter Boyle/Don Rickles quality.
@17 I also think that Kate Mulgrew struggles a little with the physicality of being Borg. That’s not a knock against her, she is a great actress and I enjoy her performances, but I think a lot of her acting is in her facial expressions and tone of voice (as opposed to say, Nana Visitor, who I always thought had an outstanding physical presence in her acting), neither of which she gets to use much as Borg!Janeway. Kind of like how a lot of actors struggle to portray Vulcans in ways that aren’t just “physically and emotionally wooden,” I think it is easy for people playing the Borg to, well, come across as people stuffed into a robot suit with a whole bunch of stuff glued to their face. One of the reasons I wish Seven of Nine had stayed more Borg-y for longer was I thought Jeri Ryan did really well acting through the costume.
(18)
All I get from Mulgrew’s facial expression is, ‘Dear lord, what has happened to this show? Where did my career go? People just couldn’t give Mrs. Columbo a second chance, could they? I wonder if they’ll ever make a sequel to Throw Momma from the Train? Probably not. No momma, no movie.’
@18:
Kind of like how a lot of actors struggle to portray Vulcans in ways that aren’t just “physically and emotionally wooden.
Yeah, especially considering Leonard Nimoy’s performance provided the enduring template and because he made it look so easy when it’s not.
I think Jonathan Frakes made the same observation about how subtle and challenging Brent Spiner’s performances as Data ultimately were when they were casting Lal for “The Offspring”.
@19,
Yeah, the look on Mulgrew’s face in that shot is a quintessential ‘FML’ expression — or alternately a ‘God, now I know what Ethan [Phillips] goes through and I’m so, so sorry…”
@16/CLB: I guess you either die a villain or live long enough to become a parody of yourself.
I don’t think I have the energy to go into how this episode, and ultimately two-parter, and generally this series by this point has become so much drivel. Voyager ruined the Borg for god’s sake! I’m not even a fan of the Borg Queen and they ruined her too. She really talks too much. Voyager’s the little ship that could – able to take on superior Borg vessels and live to tell about it. Put Janeway and Tuvok and Torres in Borg makeup and prosthetics and there’s your cliffhanger image to end your season on! Pure flashy gimmick. Not only does it look silly but we know there’ll be no consequences. It’s just dress up and go undercover for Janeway and gang like it was for Sisko and team in “Apocalypse Rising.”
What is it with the writers continually and casually referencing Wolf 359 so that we can all be reminded of those much better episodes from other Trek series in which that event/locale was used? Even if that Borg cube that attacked Earth hadn’t been destroyed, as if the Borg would bother or care to assimilate some Starfleet officers during the battle and ship them back to the DQ to work as everyday drones. Sure.
The line where Harry has to vocalize why he hasn’t been promoted from ensign yet and the bridge crew responds in awkward silence is pure sticking it to Garrett Wang on the part of the writers/producers. They really were punishing him and not even being subtle about it.
Bring on the dregs of Season Seven! If Seven of Nine had been especially prominent in Season Seven we could also call it the Season of Seven, but alas, that was more like Seasons Four and Five.
@19: I love your idea of Mulgrew in voiceover contemplating her acting career up to that point. Lol
@21: Remind me why that line sounds so familiar? Is that from The Dark Knight?
@22/garreth: “Bring on the dregs of Season Seven!”
I actually think season 7 is somewhat better than season 6. Not great, but it does some interesting things.
@24/CLB: Okay, I was perhaps exaggerating. Season 6 vacillated wildly in quality with very high highs and supremely low lows. Season 7 was more uniformly okay, with a few episodes I really liked, but a lot of blah, capped off with a series finale that was so disappointing and unfulfilling. But I’ll save critique for that when the appropriate time comes.
@25/garreth: I should clarify that my general appreciation for season 7 very much does not include “Endgame.”
Kenneth Biller did some things in season seven that I appreciated, but it was simply too late to be of much good. 🤷♂️
I agree with the general sentiment that season 7 was actually pretty good (with the same caveat as Christopher Bennet that “Endgame” was…not good). I’m actually curious to see how it holds up on rewatch, though, because a lot of the episodes were good, but felt like they addressed things we should have seen earlier in the show’s run, or should have been reoccurring issues. I suspect that catching them as individual episodes on re-runs was more enjoyable than watching them in the full context of the show.
@23/garreth: Yeah it’s from The Dark Knight. The original line was “Either you die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
“It’s my understanding that, when we receive a distress call, we respond. Starfleet protocols.”
The Borg. Must be Episode 26.
I think it’s unfair to say that the Borg have been defanged by this point. Voyager continues its knack of going up against a cube and surviving when they really shouldn’t, but the episode demonstrates how implacable they are. No matter how many drones you knock down, there are more to come and sooner or later they’re going to get you. I’d forgotten about the early sequence of Voyager stumbling across a destroyed colony, but it underlines how much of a threat the Borg are, even if it’s not entirely clear whether they assimilated the inhabitants or blew it up just because.
I do accept though that the concept of the Borg Queen is starting to get a bit problematic. It’s understandable why she’s there in storytelling terms: A booming disembodied voice is a bit too impersonal and it helps to have a recognisable face of the enemy. Problem is she’s a bit too personal: Rather than the representation of a force of nature, she comes across as just another enemy commander barking out orders and, hilariously, treating Janeway like her arch-nemesis. Her ringing Voyager to trade barbs is more likely to provoke a smile than a shiver.
The concept of Unimatrix Zero is an interesting one, as is the idea of Voyager teaming up with a group of dissident Borg drones. Janeway’s plan to start a Borg resistance movement is a bit ambitious both for the characters and the show, but that’s something to worry about going forward. There’s a few interesting character vignettes: Chakotay is more behind Janeway than he usually is in season finales (and their holding hands before she heads off to the Borg cube is a surprising moment). Kim is idealistic while Paris objects the most to the danger, especially when Torres ends up in the firing line, and the Doctor demonstrates his usual disdain for Vulcan mind melds.
Not sure what to make of the history between Seven and Axum. It was perhaps inevitable the show would want to at least make an attempt to give Seven a romance at some point, and this is a good way of introducing the concept by showing she actually does have a history in that regard, but it doesn’t seem entirely necessary to the plot.
While Chakotay’s “So far so good” makes it clear this is part of the plan, ending the season on three of our main cast turned into Borg is a disconcerting image all the same.
Paris gets his lieutenancy back while Kim stays stuck on the lowest commissioned rung: I think his reaction is the first time the show’s bit back at Garrett Wang’s complaints about still being an ensign. To be honest, it seems a bit contradictory to call Paris’ promotion pointless while at the same time wondering why Kim hasn’t received an equally pointless promotion. You could call Tuvok’s promotion pointless as well. I guess they were just a lieutenant short and Paris had managed not to try and blow up a reactor plant for a year and a half. Neelix is reduced to a non-speaking character: Apparently Ethan Phillips spent hours in make-up just to stand next to Chakotay looking mildly worried!
@28/wildfyre: “a lot of the episodes were good, but felt like they addressed things we should have seen earlier in the show’s run, or should have been reoccurring issues.”
That’s basically what I liked about it — that it finally stopped ignoring those things. Better late than never.
It could have been a really great comic beat if after Kim’s line about no pip in a box for him, the whole bridge staff, including Janeway, turn around to stare at him blankly and then go immediately back to the day’s ship’s business. Then you cut to a reaction shot of Kim looking down sad. I know, I know. Too mean-spirited for Star Trek.
I always thought it would have been neat if the Borg queen would have been depicted speaking in thousands of voices when trying to persuade Seven to her side – I know this is in the next episode but it’s part of this storyline.
If you have thought this too, you should watch Picard
@26 @28 At the risk of going off on a rabbit trail, I also don’t think Endgame was good. I can’t wait for Krad to get to that one — I keep wondering if our opinions for disliking it will differ.
@24,
I think one factor in Season 6’s vacillating quality was that it was the first time since early 1993 that there was only one Trek show airing.
DS9 had just ended its run and VOY was now carrying the banner by itself (and Insurrection hadn’t really provided a franchise bump the way First Contact had). So we no longer had the high quality red-headed stepsister to distract us from Twinkie Trek as I used to call VOY (i.e. a fast food Trek with carbs and sugar and not much else).
So I can respect the pressure the show musrt of that extra burden of having to carry that banner by itself (on top of already being UPN’s flagship show and all those headaches).
@32:
It could have been a really great comic beat if after Kim’s line about no pip in a box for him, the whole bridge staff, including Janeway, turn around to stare at him blankly and then go immediately back to the day’s ship’s business. Then you cut to a reaction shot of Kim looking down sad. I know, I know. Too mean-spirited for Star Trek
The Harry-Janeway dyanmic for me is kinda best summed up this particular SF Debris gem:
Shoulder Spider: YOU SHOULD EAT HARRYYYYY!
Janeway: For the last time, I am not eating Harry! Not while he’s still of use to me.
@35: Are you my twin? Haha. I used to refer to VOY as the McDonald’s of the Trek franchise. Sure it smelled and tasted good initially, but then it has a bad after taste and ultimately wasn’t good for you. Where as the prior three series were like gourmet meals because of their complexity and they were actually good for your brain. To continue with the food theme, I suppose ENT would be like a bland paste. Something you serve in a mental ward so you don’t overly excite the residents.
That’s true regarding VOY being the sole Trek flag-bearer beginning with this season. But that also meant they could have welcomed with open arms the staff writers of DS9 and be reinvigorated with the latter’s creative juices. That actually happened with Ron Moore initially but then Braga had to go and be a dick to him.
I’ve never seen that particular SF Debris review before but I love that Janeway shoulder spider! Unhinged Janeway is a pretty fun character!
I remember being profoundly disappointed when word got out before the season had even begun that Ron Moore had quit. I had been hoping that Ron would bring some of DS9’s quality to Voyager.
@35 That’s an interesting thought, that “pressure from being the only Star Trek show” is a reason for Season 6’s “vacillating quality.” But I’m not sure it’s true…I’ve read through Ronald D. Moore’s AOL posts, and from what I gather, Voyager had more pressure from executives and the studio because of its status as Paramount’s “flagship” show on UPN. (I think studio pressure is the reason they had to create Seven of Nine.) Ron said that meant the writing staff on DS9 had more freedom (not “complete” freedom, but “more” freedom) to do what they wanted. At the same time, Voyager was being promoted, but DS9 was somewhat put to the side. Here are his chats.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Memory_Alpha:AOL_chats/Ronald_D._Moore
I tried very, very, very hard to find specific examples in the database of what he was talking about, but to no avail.
In any case, my guess is, Voyager was already carrying a banner, and thus I don’t think being the “only Trek show” on the air gave the writers any more pressure than they already had.
Surely the UPN execs were asshats and the producers had to placate them to a degree. But that doesn’t excuse the writers from not writing Janeway consistently, defanging the Borg, character assassinations (Kes), the lack of internal continuity, not developing the recurring characters (Carey, Samantha Wildman, Vorik), taking risks like multi-episode arcs (beyond a Kazon collaborator arc), and on and on.
@36,
I’ve never seen that particular SF Debris review before but I love that Janeway shoulder spider! Unhinged Janeway is a pretty fun character!
Heh, Shoulder Spider has actually become a running joke between me and my best friend. It’s out go-to-refrence for problem solving.
And there are some fun gems in Chuck’s “Unimatrix Zero” review, too. I’m saving them for Part II. :D
But re: VOY-as-McDonalds-Trek, it’s funny how DS9 has been increasingly vindicated in years past. Everybody mocked it for not going anywhere, that VOY was the fast, fun, sexy-driven ship, and blah blah blah.
And now, with the passage of time, and the advent of streaming and more serialization in TV, and the long drought of Trek conent…more and more people are understanding in retrospect why DS9 was so special and how hollow and flawed VOY was in comparsion.
Hi at all,
in this Voyager Rewatch I have seen, that you all think the crew complement of USS Voyager is inconsistent throughout the series. Except a few mistakes, which the authors did make, Voyagers crew complement is quite logically.
Beginning from ‘how many maquis did join’ to ‘how many crewmen did die’ we know everything.
You can check here at Ex Astris Scientia, which did a great analysis in this matter:
https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/voyager-crew.htm
Everything about Voyagers Crew Complement is seen and explained here.
Best regards, Tony
@40/Mr. Magic: I don’t know who you’ve been talking to all these years, but in my experience, most people including myself recognized DS9 as the superior show while it was on. There’s nothing remotely recent or revisionist about that opinion. Heck, I realized around the time “Year of Hell” came out in 1997 that DS9 was where you went for smart, sophisticated writing and VGR was where you went for flashy, cinematic action and spectacle. And I was always frustrated by VGR’s shallowness and its many, many missed opportunities.
And this was talked about at the time. I remember that before I got to pitch for DS9 and VGR, I read an interview with a writer who said they’d been told by the DS9 producers to focus on character development instead of high-concept plots, but when they pitched for VGR, they were told to focus on high-concept plots instead of character development. Then I pitched for both shows and had essentially the same experience. We always knew VGR was the dumber one.
@41/TonyLeung: The Ex Astris crew complement analysis fudges a lot of the onscreen numbers to make its model work, making a lot of assumptions about numbers being rounded off or whatever. Keith is reporting the actual numbers stated in the episode, without fudging, and he is absolutely correct about its inconsistency.
@42/CLB: As I understand it, while those who actually watched both DS9 and VOY in their first run airing, they recognized DS9 as the superior series. However, there was a segment of the fandom and probably more casual viewers who sampled DS9 or never gave it a shot because of its setting (“it doesn’t go anywhere”) or because it was too dark. It’s only been in more recent years that more and more people have embraced the series due to their exposure with it on streaming where they can binge watch it – a satisfying viewing practice that goes hand-in-hand with DS9’s more serialized format. You hear DS9 cast and crew describe this feedback from fans in the documentary on their show that came out a few years ago.
@42:
Nothing is fudged there, it is a structured analysis of all mentioned crew numbers in a complete overview of the whole series. If in season 7 (Repression) from Chakotay comes a mentioning about actual maquis-numbers, the analysis adapt this for “Caretaker” and names a number for the maquis from the beginning. It is a complete overview and not just a episode-review.
If in season 5 in “Dark Frontier” the Borg scan 143 life forms on Voyager, it totally fits. Just look the 4 seasons before the advancement to reach this number.
Just take a closer look at it and you will see bombproof facts.
Please challenge me: Give to me one thing which is in your opinion wrong there and I will proof to you it is not wrong
@43/garreth: Maybe, but that “segment of the fandom” hardly constitutes the “everybody” that Mr. Magic posited. Just because the opinion existed doesn’t mean it was the universal norm.
@42, 43, 45,
I was speaking too broadly and that’s my fault.
Garreth’s take was what I was trying to say — about the larger, more casual audiences that were put off by DS9’s tone and stationary nature. I could’ve phrased it better.
Is anyone going to mention @1’s gut-busting line: “Assimilation used to be a traumatic, gruesome experience, but now, it’s akin to visiting an S&M club and involves shaving your head, putting on a rubber suit, and gluing vacuum cleaner attachments to your body.”
One of the few times I can say that I actually LOL’d.
Absolutely ghastly.
@36,
To continue with the food theme, I suppose ENT would be like a bland paste. Something you serve in a mental ward so you don’t overly excite the residents.
That is quite possibly one of the most succinct summaries of ENT and all its faults I’ve heard in a long, long time.
Heh, well done. ;)
@49: Thanks! I’m eagerly looking forward to the rewatch of Enterprise on this site. And also listening to SF Debris’ take on the same material. Lol
I like how in “Survival Instinct” we have Marika, the Bajoran who’s been assimilated into Seven’s Borg unimatrix, and has temporarily regained her individuality, realize that her body has been mutilated and violated and voices her shear horror at what she’s become. That is the visceral reaction I would expect a character to have upon seeing someone or themself (once freed from the collective) to being assimilated into the Borg. By the end of the very same season, becoming a Borg is treated as no big whoop.
@50,
You’re welcome!
And as for the Chuck’s interpretation of ENT…well, I think this excerpt from the SF Debris review of “In a Mirror Darkly” speaks for itself. :D
@47 Aw, shucks. 😉
Without a doubt the weakest season finale since Basics part 1. Unimatrix Zero was living proof that Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky were both burned out from years of non-stop work. No wonder Menosky went back to Europe, and Braga shed a lot of the responsibility for Voyager’s final season, taking his time to recharge the batteries and prep for the challenge that was going to be Enterprise.
In theory, the concept of a safe place for Borg drones is a very sound one, as is the notion of them building a resistance (we’ve seen plenty of instances this could eventually happen throughout prior Borg stories on VOY). Sadly, this two parter falters miserably. The ending lacks any real hook. Borgified Janeway is very much a striking visual (which is very much a Brannon Braga approach to scene construction), but without the buildup or stakes that we had with Picard as Locutus. Given it was the exact year they were completing a full decade from Best of Both Worlds, I can see why they’d go for it. It just doesn’t work.
Plus, the same soap opera issues from Dark Frontier come back in full force, ruining most of the Queen’s scenes. They don’t even bother to make sure the Borg act as a collective. All issues that could have been dealt with, if the staff had the energy to address them. Which is why I maintain they were burned out. The Borg wouldn’t be a serious threat again for another three years until Enterprise’s Regeneration.
For what it’s worth, this two parter is the reason Mike Sussman became a lasting writer/producer in the franchise, contributing memorable episodes (including Regeneration) all the way to Enterprise’s ending. So there’s the silver lining of it all. And despite its many issues, Unimatrix is still well paced and atmospheric – a credit to Allan Kroeker, as usual.
As with other Alpha Quadrant folks who we’re told were assimilated at Wolf 359 (“Unity,” “Infinite Regress“), it’s not clear how someone assimilated in that battle could possibly have wound up in the Delta Quadrant, given that the Cube that fought that battle was destroyed over Earth.
@krad: You think in such three-dimensional terms.
I think the issue with the Borg is similar to what we see in a lot of reoccurring alien species. They’re often designed to capture an emotional or political trend at the time. Sometimes they age well; sometimes they don’t.
When the Borg first show up, in the mid-nineties, computer technology in your office and home, something you are in close proximity to, is a pretty new thing. The Borg are more like a computer and a man caught in an unfortunate transporter accident and assimilation is a cross between an abattoir and a Radio Shack. A being is rendered down into chunks with new computer-y bits soldered on.
However, technology moves fast and us 20th century humans get used to it. We get the cute little iMac in the summer of 1998 and by 1999-2000, we’re all becoming part of the collective as cellphones worm our way into our pockets. Voyager introduces nanoprobes (buzzword) for a kindler, gentler assimilation (you don’t need such severe modification to be a Borg, you’ll just get slowly used to it, like any technology) and well, the result is that Borg just aren’t scary anymore.
@55: Actually the Borg were first introduced in 1989 (“Q Who?”) and were implied as early as 1988 (“The Neutral Zone”). The first iteration of the Borg was supposed to be insectoid (still keeping with the hive mind theme), but that was determined to be cost-prohibitive so the Borg were adapted into a melding of humanoid and machine. I’ve heard it was reminiscent of the cyberpunk genre prevalent in the 1980’s – the author William Gibson in particular.
If they want to make the Borg scary again for today’s world, then maybe they need to show the opposite extreme of how being plugged into a collective can leave one feeling like a hollow, lonely husk of a human being, tattooed in a history of likes and hearts and little stars for effort (for what you don’t remember), refreshing your mental home page again and again until a notification from the other drones let’s you know that they know you are alive and appreciated. And then you refresh it again.
Sigh… I really need to delete my Facebook account.
@57: Social media has its pros and cons. For instance, I recently looked up someone, a former close friend, I literally hadn’t seen in nearly two decades, just to reconnect and have peace of mind that there’s no animosity or grudges held between us. It was actually pretty thrilling to get a response from him after all this time and become Facebook friends. And it’s cool to see he’s now a happily married man with kids. I wouldn’t have had this opportunity without social media so I’m thankful for that. But at the same time, if you get nothing out of it or it’s sucking away your valuable time, then by all means delete it.
@44/TonyJeung: It’s neither bombproof nor facts, basically just ignoring every piece of evidence that contradicts their figures. Janeway says there’s 152 people on board in “The 37s”: “Well, er, she was wrong.” There are clear references to losses on both sides and one crewmember is explicitly shown as about to die in “The Killing Game”: “Nope, no-one died there, honest.” The Doctor says he has to test 127 crew in “In the Flesh”: “Well, er, he missed some out.” Tuvok says there’s 152 people on board in “Gravity”: “Um, er, yeah we’re not even going to bother trying to explain that one, he was just plain wrong.” And that’s before we’ve even got to Season 7, when that article is scrabbling to say Torres “rounded up” the number of humans onboard to 140 (rounded up from 130 by their figures, which makes no sense) and the number of people on board goes from 141 to 145 in the space of a few episodes. How can you prove that any of this is not wrong?
EDIT TO ADD: I just want to add that I mean no disrespect to the people that wrote the article: They obviously know what they’re doing and put effort into it. But it’s missing the point to try and present it as incontrovertible proof that the crew compliment isn’t inconsistent. The whole reason the article exists is because the crew compliment is inconsistent, and you have to reinterpret, explain away or just plain ignore the on screen figures in order to make sense of it.
@55/Eve: Fiction based on the fear of losing individual freedom to a faceless, conformist collective has been around far, far longer than the Borg — see 1984 or Brazil, say. For that matter, the Borg concept is strikingly similar to Doctor Who‘s Cybermen, who were introduced in 1966 and were a reflection of the era’s (in retrospect highly irrational) fears that the then-novel sciences of organ transplantation, prosthetics, and artificial life support would lead to the loss of our humanity. The fear of losing our identity and freedom is timeless; people react to any era’s new technologies with the same fears and doubts.
When you get right down to it, the essence of the Borg concept isn’t the fear of technology, it’s the fear of fascism and authoritarianism — of an oppressive order that crushes our individuality and humanity in service to a higher power. And that fear is more timely and urgent today than it’s been since the 1940s.
@@@@@ 60 – Not only are the Borg suspiciously similar to the Cybermen conceptually, “Resistance is Futile” is suspiciously similar to “Resistance is Useless”, used at various times by both the Cybermen and the Daleks (and a Vogon guard, to skip franchises for a moment; the Vogons were a massive bureaucracy who never evolved, and Voyager‘s writers seem to think that the Borg can’t evolve, just assimilate), and “Resistance is Futile” itself was used by the Master at least once.
@61/Muswell: There’s nothing “suspicious” about story ideas resembling each other. Laypeople keep assuming that, but the truth is that different writers independently come up with parallel ideas literally all the time. It’s impossible to avoid, because there are only so many ideas in the world and creators working with similar concepts are bound to hit upon similar themes through parallel evolution. Assuming theft or dishonest motives when something could just be coincidence is mean-spirited, unfair, and obnoxious. Especially in these cases, where 99% percent of the time, it is coincidence or convergence.
As I just said, stories based on the fear of the loss of individuality and identity are far older than either the Borg or the Cybermen. See Invasion of the Body Snatchers in the 1950s. See folklore about vampires and werewolves and ghouls, monsters that destroy our identity and turn us into more of themselves. It’s not imitation, it’s a recurring theme, an allegory for universal fears.
And “Resistance is useless/futile” is a commonplace phrase you can find all over fiction. The Cybermen have no exclusive claim on it — heck, the first characters to use the phrase in Doctor Who were the Daleks. Darth Vader says “It is useless to resist” in The Empire Strikes Back. The reason both the Cybermen and Borg use it is because lots of characters use it. It’s a standard threat, practically generic. Nobody ever considered it anyone’s exclusive catchphrase until the Borg came along. It was just a phrase.
@59 Cap-mjb:
The analysis from Ex Astris Scientia can only work with given information. In the seven seasons of the series Voyager many informations, hints and crew-numbers were given.
Ex Astris Scientia tried to bring logic and a structure in the crew complement.
Unfortunately a few of this given information were definitely wrong, and this is clearly a mistake from the script-writers. You already named the wrong ones:
The number 152 from Janeway in “37er” (beginning of season 2); or 152 from Tuvok in “Gravity” (season 5). This is sad for continuity and makes it harder for a consistent crew-complement.
Just for showing that Janeways number of 152 in “37s” is for sure a mistake:
In End of season 3 in two Episodes “Distant Origin” and “Displaced” the crew number of 148 is given (one time the Voth scan Voyager (148) and one time you can recognise on a screen 148 inhabitants).
From this logic only four crew members should die beginning from “37s” until end of season 3. But in fact 14 crew members were killed (Bendera, Darwin, Jonas, Bennet, Hogan, Suder, Martin, Kaplan and a few unidentifiable).
So no matter how you argue and try to discuss; Janeways given number is incorrect and should be treated as an early error from the script-writers. I repeat, yes it is sad but not changeable.
You also have to distinguish how exactly the viewer is presented with the numbers. Is it simply a spoken number thrown in the room (like Janeway, Tuvok or Torres) or is it a reliable number based on evidence. Reliable numbers are, for example, all scans performed by other ships. There are the already mentioned Voth with 148, the Borg in season 5 with 143 and even Neelix in “Author Author” with 146. And all this numbers do fit.
Spoken numbers COULD be wrong, because nobody knows always the accurate crew count at any time. For example, you work in a company with around 500 employees and every month many people quit and a random number of people are hired. So the spoken numbers from Janeway and Tuvok, which are clearly mistakes from the script-writers, should be explained like this. This is a mistake from the series and not the fault from the analysis from Ex Astris Scientia.
Ex Astris Scientia tried to bring a structure in the crew complement.
By the way:
what are you meaning that in Killing Game nobody died? Clearly one crew member is killed, it is also listed in the analysis.
“the number of people on board goes from 141 to 145 in the space of a few episodes”
Are you talking about “Workforce”? The number 141 comes from the people, which started to work at the same day plus the people on Voyager, which were not kidnapped. Clearly the correct number should be 145 for this episode, but you don’t know if 4 people started another day to work. Or what is with Naomie and Icheb. Do children have also to work? The 141 is not a reliable number, because you don’t have all the facts.
And the crew count at Voyager is always changing. Yes, people are killed; but there are also people coming onto the ship. Beginning with the Maquis, which are joining the ship; two babies are born on board (Naomie and Miral); 7of9 arrives; 5 more people coming from USS Equinox, and don’t forget the 4 Borg-Children.
If you wish I can also explain to you (in another post) that the Maquis were 36 in the beginning. Season 7 episode “Repression” provide all the needed numbers.
I just want to tell to you, that I am not the enemy; the analysis from Ex Astris Scientia structures all the given numbers, tries to clear out incorrect ones and gives you from the beginning till the end of the show accurate crew numbers.
And I am sure they succeeded.
If you have more questions and comments, ask me anytime.
@63/TonyLeung: “Ex Astris Scientia tried to bring a structure in the crew complement.”
Yes, obviously it did, but the point is that it’s only conjectural. It doesn’t replace or overwrite the inconsistent information actually stated in the show; it’s just one person’s speculation for how to make sense of it. I’m sure other people have made their own attempts to rationalize the inconsistencies and come to different conclusions; they just haven’t published them on as prominent a site as EAS.
@64 Christopher:
Thanks for your fast reply.
but the point is that it’s only conjectural
The point is that it is even not conjectural.
The series has (sadly) script-based errors in the numbers like I mentioned in my last post. If you sort them out and focus on reliable facts it is not conjectural.
Fact is, the ship starts at DS9 with 141 Starfleet crew. Fact is, Maquis will join with 36 (Repression) plus Tuvok, Paris, Kes and Neelix.
Fact is, that “over a dozen people got killed” as the Caretaker took Voyager (Kim in “Nightingale”), the analysis from EAS took 18 to reach the numbers.
Fact is, that 26 more people got killed till end of season seven and 5 people left Voyager without get killed (Kes, Neelix, Borg-children).
Fact is that Voyager gets also additional personnel like 7of9, Equinox crew, babies, Borg children, all together 12 people.
The numbers are there, it is all based on facts. Now take this facts and put it in relation with all given statements in the whole series. Separate the script-based errors from the correct ones and you get a fluid structured analysis.
(58)
That’s fine and I’m happy that you found your old friend, but we’re talking about the Borg. They’re extremists. There’s little room for nuance when it comes to horror villains. It’s about pushing those buttons that make us uncomfortable, and I was considering what particular buttons we have today related to technology. That’s all.
@62 Invasion of the Body snatchers did cross my mind. I was thinking to myself if I had to rewrite the Borg as they are now (assimilation, overreliance on technology, collective), they’d be masters of genetic/nano level engineering and therefore shapeshifting at some level. You wouldn’t know who was a Borg until his arm morphed into a hideous weapon and blasted your head clean off or her body erupted in dark pores and emitted a toxic smoke. Heck, you could even be one. How do you know your free will is your own and not just an illusion? You could be doing exactly what the Collective wants you to do and you wouldn’t even know it…
@66/G.Spiggott: Like I said, I don’t think the essence of the Borg as a horror concept is technology, it’s loss of identity and freedom. The technology is just the veneer, the current focus of that kind of timeless fear. Heck, First Contact straight-up turns the Borg into zombies, just substituting a technological mechanism for a supernatural one.
(68)
Given all the advancements in the past hundred and fifty years or so, all the drawbacks of technology, how something as wondrous as flight or rocketry, for example, can be used to deliver inescapable death on a massive scale, as was the dread of the Cold War decades from which the Borg sprang, the use of technology as horror is an appropriate exploration in Star Trek, I believe.
That’s still holds true today, albeit through other, more subtle means. Certainly the medium through which the message is carried bears some consideration as well. [pulls Marshall McLuhan into the scene to argue the point]
@69/G.Spiggott: Meh. There are thousands of works of science fiction that paint technology as a threat. That’s hackneyed and trite. It’s a kneejerk reflex, the fear of change and novelty. What made Star Trek stand out from the crowd was that it portrayed technology as beneficial. Yes, it could be abused, but it wasn’t the technology itself that was to blame, it was the way it was misused. ST showed that technology used properly could benefit and enrich us. ST is about looking on change and novelty with hope, not just fear.
I mean, TNG was hardly anti-technology. Data was an android and both Picard and Geordi were cyborgs. So it wasn’t the Borg’s cyborg nature that made them the villains, it was their anti-individualist nature.
@63/TonyLeung: Yes, but that’s the whole point. The numbers are inconsistent. That’s why you, and the writers of that EAS article, are having to ignore numbers and explain away episodes that contradict each other. You can pick and choose which figures to keep and which to ignore, and you can even come up with rules about which numbers count more than others (Janeway coming up with a very definite figure of 152 can be ignored, but Kim giving a vague casualty listing of “over a dozen” is treated as primary evidence?), but the fact is the numbers don’t all match up. If you’ve been following these threads, then you’ll have seen that Keith took the first definite figure given, 152 in “The 37s”, and used that as the starting point to try and make all the later figures work, before eventually giving up when it got to Season 5 and several more deaths later and the figures given were still in the 140s and about fifteen more than they were half a season earlier.
It wasn’t a “mistake” when “The 37s” established a crew compliment of 152, because it didn’t contradict anything already established. The people making the show would have worked forward from that point, not worked backwards from “Dark Frontier” and tried to make all the numbers fit together, which is what the EAS article basically does. It is not a “fact” that the number given in “The 37s” was wrong, because wrong compared to what, an episode written two years later? It’s a “fact” that the numbers given in later seasons are inconsistent with what was already established on screen.
Does EAS try to explain away Tuvok’s inconsistent age as well? Lol
@72,
Sssshhhh!
Heh, watching VOY, perhaps more than any other Trek series, benefits most from what I’ve sarcastically called (and I’ve used this joke before) the Tao of Basil Exposition.
Is that Michael York?
@CLB 62 – Ah, what we have here is a “divided by a common language” scenario I was previously unaware of. When a British person describes two things as “suspiciously similar” we’re not implying anything by it, we’re making a joke.
@76/Muswell: Deadpan humor never comes across well in text alone.
@@@@@ 77 – It’s not the fact that it’s in text alone that’s the issue, it’s the usage. It would never even have occurred to me before today that it was possible to use “suspiciously similar” seriously, or for it to be taken as being meant seriously. Thus, separated by a common language.
When Kim complained about not getting a pip, Janeway should’ve responded with “You’re the captain on every single night shift! What more do you want?!”
@79: That moment could have definitely been milked for greater comedy.
Funny, I can hear your proposed Janeway response to Harry in the styling of the SF Debris guy’s impersonation of the glorious captain:
https://youtu.be/Iidrv9T3mXg
Quoth Muswell: “It would never even have occurred to me before today that it was possible to use ‘suspiciously similar’ seriously, or for it to be taken as being meant seriously.”
So to be clear, it never occurred to you that someone would mean the actual meaning of a word when using that word? That’s what you’re saying?
I really don’t think being British is the issue here….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@80,
Heh. :D
And speaking of that excerpt from Chuck’s “Demon” review…
“Have you never hear of the sunk cost fallacy?!”
That joke oh so succinctly sums up so much of Janeway’s approach to her captaincy during the show, doesn’t it?
I would have supposed that at the end of this episode, or shortly after, the actors assimilated by Borg were discussing terms of employment for next season? No?
@8/JasonD: “They seem to have filled the pothole of AQ Borg from Wolf 359 showing up in the DQ with the scene in ST: Picard that showed the derelict cube having something like an Iconian gateway onboard.”
No, that device was a “spatial trajector,” technology belonging to the Sikari, whom Voyager met in Episode 10 of the first season, “Prime Factors.” It was stated in that Picard episode that the Borg acquired spatial trajector technology when they assimilated the Sikari, which was after the events of “Prime Factors” and therefore well after Wolf 359.
So that doesn’t explain why so many people at Wolf 359 ended up in the Delta Quadrant.
The law of diminishing returns in full effect here… no enemy in Trek, or possibly any TV sci Fi, was diminished as much as the Borg were by their repeated use in Voyager.. I have said that once Seven joined the crew and Kes threw them beyond Borg Space that should have been the last we saw of them. Okay the Borg kids were interesting and perhaps an exception should have been made for them to be introduced, but the Borg queen especially was ruined on this series. The Hirogen were a much more intriguing adversary on this show and should have been used more.
One minor nitpick here: We know that drones who appear in U0 (as all the cool drones call Unimatrix Zero) can be anywhere in the galaxy. We know this as Axum reveals he is conveniently somewhere deep in the Beta Quadrant. Therefore, unless someone or something explicitly stated that Laura was in the DQ, she may very well have still been in some AQ Borg enclave. That being said, who knows what drone and cube shuffling may happen as the hive (or the queen) sees fit? They can transwarp their cubes and spheres pretty much anywhere they want.
Also yeah, I can imagine Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres all about to be assimilated, thinking, “Please, please, PLEASE let me keep both eyes…. YES!” They and Picard all fortunately have the anti-mutilation buff on their plot armor.
Surf Wisely.