Star Trek: Picard

[The Mother of The Others]

On 1/20/2020 at 12:00 PM, Mindwalker said:

Great to see Seven, sort-of-Data, and Hugh back. Troi, too, although I never much liked her romance with Riker. 

Troi and Seven were trapped in amber on their shows, prevented from shining, because of.... the show runner not knowing what to do with women so he kept them anesceptic?   For the love of God, let's see a Seven who's fully transitioned into human behavior and keeps her robo skills around only as a toolkit, not as her persona.  That Seven stint on Voyager was hellishly acted.  No more, please!  Just the one shot of her moving and talking normally in the trailer is already better.  And let the Troi actress control her own character because she's way more valuable to trek as HER than the character version TNG showed.

On 1/24/2020 at 1:29 PM, Corvinus said:

Why not send someone to the Kelvin universe, and steal the super-awesome interstellar transporter that makes ships obsolete? 

Khan would be on that.  That's why we needed him running things.  These admirals we've got....  .  The best of them keep taking demotions to captain for the fun factor.  And the rest?  ......  fuck ups.

On 1/24/2020 at 2:16 PM, Werthead said:

What would be more helpful is Q showing up in a good mood.

I would have kept the business card of that earthborn Lady Q.

.....Picard or Crusher would have the inside track on being able to summon her, too, due to their past connection!   If you have a godling neice, definitely set something up with her, like "Use your god ears to listen for this Bat Signal we'll broadcast if we humans ever reeeeeeely need you."    That's just basic stuff.  Gotta network with your human goddesses.   Then the other Q's could keep her from being a constant plot device by saying she's too involved with her grubby native species.  Q conflict of interest laws.  

On 1/25/2020 at 12:52 AM, DaveSumm said:

 remember in Threshold where Paris invented Warp 10 but turned into a lizard? And then the Doctor completely cured the lizardness with zero side effects? 

. 

....and then, five minutes later.... 

 

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

I wonder, is Voyager worse than Enterprise? 

But Enterprise's crew is somehow even more bland, ...if I had to choose I'd probably re-watch Voyager. 

I was incredibly sexed up by the 8472 species vs. borg war.  And the time ship two-parter that killed everyone's timeline (genocides) just so Redd from That 70'S Show could get his wife, Kitty, back.  that was hot.  On Enterprise, what floated my boat was the Xindi as pawns of a Bald Alternate Dimension Sorceress Monk Invasion.  And the temporal cold war.  So.... it's a tie between 2 shows with about as many episodes that rose to greatness from the usual mediocrity.

On 1/20/2020 at 4:01 PM, RumHam said:

Aron Eisenberg who played Nog died in september.

Nog.   that makes me actually angry at Death.  Which rarely happens.

On 1/19/2020 at 6:06 PM, Rhom said:

To say nothing of all the politics/social agenda in TOS of course.

First interracial kiss on TV.  The half black/half white guys who hated each other.  etc

Most other examples of past shows' politics were brave, though.  Uplifting.  Just nakedly doing a mexican border parable would be comparatively the easy move, giving in to present day politics moreso than showing a future of better politics.  Thus a groaner.  (Harry Groaner was awesome as mayor of Sunnydale, but that's neither here nor there.)  I haven't seen the show or the sites you're talking about, though, so this is but a guess of a reply/explanation.  And don't wanna get into it over that anyways.

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Enterprise has several things going for it. It's much shorter (which is a huge boon), it doesn't have nearly as much technobabble, it has much more serialised story arcs and when they realised they were making a mistake, they generally rectified it and did something better. It also got better as it went along. They differentiated each season as well.

I really enjoyed the first two seasons of Enterprise. This was really exploring and visibly a different time. The Xindi arc was a little much and over the top. What didn't work well was this whole 'temporal cold war' nonsense (although that would be something they could touch upon again with the Discovery stuff now, since this was never properly resolved in Enterprise).

They should have focused more and earlier on the coming war between the Romulans and Earth.

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Voyager seems to double down on the mistakes it made and there seems to be more of a feeling that it got worse as it went along, or maybe peaked with Seven joining and started trailing off around Season 5, when it became clear that they weren't going to make the Borg back into the unstoppable enemy they should have been. The show also evolved remarkably little as it went along. Aside from Kes being gone and Seven being, you can swap episodes around from its entire run without any problem at all.

Voyager could have been great if they had really tried to make this 'we are stranded far away from home' believable and if they had had focused even more on serial storytelling and character development than Deep Space Nine. DS9 was a space station, the Voyager a ship completely isolated - a lot of potential to have many recurring crew characters, and to develop them and their personal stories. But there is literally none of that as far as I recall.

This should have been the show where people became friends and lovers and dropped protocol because they had to, not DS9. Trying to spin this one as them remaining 'starfleet as usual (in the 1990s) simply isn't believable.

And the lack of character development is very striking. If I recall correctly what little attraction they showed throughout the show was Janeway-Chakotay and Seven-The Doctor - and then, I'm told, Seven ends up with Chakotay in the end, which makes pretty much no sense (even the Paris-Torres wedding takes part offscreen, no?). And isn't Kim not still an Ensign at the end of the show? Not that promotions would have been the way to go in a place where there is no starfleed and no Federation, but it definitely underlines the fact that there was no development there.

I might be mistaken, but it might be that Voyager is actually the show with the least character development aside from TOS (although the characters there do develop if you also count the TOS movies).

[Mindwalker]

1 hour ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Troi and Seven were trapped in amber on their shows, prevented from shining, because of.... the show runner not knowing what to do with women so he kept them anesceptic?  

While at the same time stuffing them in tight catsuits and/ or having them show tons of cleavage...

I think all of that was mainly Rick Berman. (I've read up on him, and the stories Terry Farell tells... ugh.)

For all the proplems DISC has (sloppy writing, bad characterisation, soap opera instead of drama, etc.), they've been doing well in that department. For the first time in Star Trek, IMO. (Haven't watched ENT, so can't judge that one.) One of the reasons I wish I could like it more.

I disagree about Seven, though. I thought her stories were usually well-acted and her relationship with Janeway the most interesting on VOY. Granted, that's not saying much, and I actually thought sometimes Janeway was a bit patronzing. Let Seven decide when, whether, and how she wants to explore her 'humanity,' damnit! Plus, I mean, Chakotay, of all people?!

Anyway, her 'borgness' is a huge part of her heritage, and I wouldn't want to see that completely erased.

ETA: Speaking of Seven - I really hope that short scene in the trailer, where she is cradling a presumably dead man in her arms, crying, means it's Chakotay...

[williamjm]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

Voyager seems to double down on the mistakes it made and there seems to be more of a feeling that it got worse as it went along, or maybe peaked with Seven joining and started trailing off around Season 5, when it became clear that they weren't going to make the Borg back into the unstoppable enemy they should have been. The show also evolved remarkably little as it went along. Aside from Kes being gone and Seven being, you can swap episodes around from its entire run without any problem at all.

I skipped at least one (might even have been two) complete season after getting sick of it before watching a few more and despite jumping over so many episodes I didn't feel like I had missed anything.

Returning to Picard:

I'm wondering a bit about whether Dahj is really dead? Being hit by the combination of corrosive liquid and an exploding phaser rifle would kill any normal character, but we don't really know anything about how much damage she could take and still be repaired. We don't get to see if there's anything left of her after the explosion.

[Lord Varys]

1 minute ago, williamjm said:

I skipped at least one (might even have been two) complete season after getting sick of it before watching a few more and despite jumping over so many episodes I didn't feel like I had missed anything.

Returning to Picard:

 

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I'm wondering a bit about whether Dahj is really dead? Being hit by the combination of corrosive liquid and an exploding phaser rifle would kill any normal character, but we don't really know anything about how much damage she could take and still be repaired. We don't get to see if there's anything left of her after the explosion.

 

Yeah, the weapon was exploding, not she. And since somebody obviously cleaned up afterwards it is possible that her remains can be repaired.

One also has to wonder whether those Romulans could pull something like that off without help from within the Federation.

[Gertrude]

8 hours ago, RumHam said:

I wonder, is Voyager worse than Enterprise? I watched Voyager as a child and liked it well enough. Now as an adult I realize it's a terrible show that almost immediately betrayed it's premise. 

But Enterprise's crew is somehow even more bland, and the setting kept them from doing anything too interesting most of the time. It did get better towards the end. 

Honestly, I didn't really like any of Voyager's characters. Janeway intrigued me at first, and I liked the doctor. Never really cared about anyone else and I had checked out before Seven was really introduced so that's a gap in my Star Trek viewing. I actively disliked Chakotay and Paris - Torres got on my nerves and I know she was kind of supposed to but I never turned the corner on her.

I did like the Enterprise characters, but I can't deny they were a bit bland. I felt there was more potential there, though and sometimes they capitalized on it, but mostly not. I really liked Trip a lot, and I love Scott Bakula as an actor, so didn't have issues with Archer (but I think I might have if it was a different actor). I was really intrigued by Hoshi as a reboot of Uhura but as a vital team member. They never quite got there with her, but I liked her and kept hoping they'd do more with her. Empress Sato was the most interesting she ever got. And honestly, I really liked the tech level they were working with - it felt more real and lacked the polish that got a little boring on the other shows.

Anyway, overall I liked Enterprise more - but both lacked true inspiration.

[Rippounet]

Not sure what to make of that first episode. Patrick Stewart was absolutely amazing as Picard, but the other characters less so, and the plot was far too predictable. It's intriguing, but not much more at this point.

The problem with having a truly great actor like Stewart is that other performances pale in comparison. It's obvious he's having fun, but the others just aren't at his level - or don't have the lines to work with. It feels that whenever Stewart is not in a scene the quality drops dramatically.

[RumHam]

1 minute ago, Gertrude said:

Honestly, I didn't really like any of Voyager's characters. Janeway intrigued me at first, and I liked the doctor. Never really cared about anyone else and I had checked out before Seven was really introduced so that's a gap in my Star Trek viewing. I actively disliked Chakotay and Paris - Torres got on my nerves and I know she was kind of supposed to but I never turned the corner on her.

I did like the Enterprise characters, but I can't deny they were a bit bland. I felt there was more potential there, though and sometimes they capitalized on it, but mostly not. I really liked Trip a lot, and I love Scott Bakula as an actor, so didn't have issues with Archer (but I think I might have if it was a different actor). I was really intrigued by Hoshi as a reboot of Uhura but as a vital team member. They never quite got there with her, but I liked her and kept hoping they'd do more with her. And honestly, I really liked the tech level they were working with - it felt more real and lacked the polish that got a little boring on the other shows.

Anyway, overall I liked Enterprise more - but both lacked true inspiration.

I like Bakula, but think Archer is the worst captain. A lot of that of that is probably the shitty early writing where his character should have been established. but I dunno you could see Stewart or Brooks or hell even Shatner making it kinda work. The way Bakula plays archer is so one dimensional, and it's not an interesting dimension. 

 

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

The problem with having a truly great actor like Stewart is that other performances pale in comparison. It's obvious he's having fun, but the others just aren't at his level - or don't have the lines to work with. It feels that whenever Stewart is not in a scene the quality drops dramatically.

Harry Treadaway - the guy who played the Romulan in the cube facility at the end - played a terrific psychopathic killer in the TV series based on King's Mr. Mercedes. I expect some good acting from him in the future and he is part of the main cast (although hardly seen in the first episode). Also have to say that I really like the setup of this being a show with a political plot and not being about a space ship all the time. I guess they will go there eventually, but it is great to make it about people and the larger world rather than go with the standard ship routine (which we also have in Discovery).

2 hours ago, Gertrude said:

I did like the Enterprise characters, but I can't deny they were a bit bland. I felt there was more potential there, though and sometimes they capitalized on it, but mostly not. I really liked Trip a lot, and I love Scott Bakula as an actor, so didn't have issues with Archer (but I think I might have if it was a different actor). I was really intrigued by Hoshi as a reboot of Uhura but as a vital team member. They never quite got there with her, but I liked her and kept hoping they'd do more with her. Empress Sato was the most interesting she ever got. And honestly, I really liked the tech level they were working with - it felt more real and lacked the polish that got a little boring on the other shows.

The main problem with the characters, in my opinion, is that they were far too homogenous even for a mostly human crew of the early days - two Americans and an Englishman whose family had been always in the navy? Seriously? TOS had more diversity than that! - and the black space kid also needed to have an African-American/English family background indicated by the name of Travis Mayweather.

Hoshi was good, of course, and Phlox and T'Pol, too, but it would have been much better if the main officers had had a more diverse background.

[DaveSumm]

12 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

For the love of God, let's see a Seven who's fully transitioned into human behavior and keeps her robo skills around only as a toolkit, not as her persona.  That Seven stint on Voyager was hellishly acted.  No more, please!  

Totally agree, she’s the most over rated character in the history of Trek. She had a great arc to get her teeth into across 4 seasons and, whether the actress or the producers choice, she stays exactly the same. You could trade her acting in the finale for her debut and not notice the difference. I don’t think Jeri Ryan is a bad actress, she does well when she plays the Doctor, and when she turns schizophrenic with all the other personalities in her. But she’s just not good at Seven. She’s constantly stand-offish, cold, and seems like she has a chip on her shoulder about something the whole time. Then we have all the crew talking about how far she’s come in discovering her “individuality” (I think she got paid by how many times she could say that word in an episode), and we don’t see any of it on screen.

Frustrating as well that they had to break a serious rule of the Borg just by creating the character at all; you’re supposed to basically die when you get assimilated. As Picard says in First Contact “if you see any assimilated crew members, shoot them. Trust me, you’ll be doing them a favour.” Hugh wasn’t whoever Hugh was before assimilation, he was still Borg ... just one isolated from the collective. But Seven is sort of Annika Hansen, sort of Borg? Now all of a sudden, assimilation is just an inconvenience to be overcome. Picard was apparently flat out murdering crew members that could have been treated. And they double down on it all the time, Echeb and the other kids, Unimatrix Zero, the four Borg who were left alone for a while and just started remembering who they were...? 

[Lord Varys]

7 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Totally agree, she’s the most over rated character in the history of Trek. She had a great arc to get her teeth into across 4 seasons and, whether the actress or the producers choice, she stays exactly the same. You could trade her acting in the finale for her debut and not notice the difference. I don’t think Jeri Ryan is a bad actress, she does well when she plays the Doctor, and when she turns schizophrenic with all the other personalities in her. But she’s just not good at Seven. She’s constantly stand-offish, cold, and seems like she has a chip on her shoulder about something the whole time. Then we have all the crew talking about how far she’s come in discovering her “individuality” (I think she got paid by how many times she could say that word in an episode), and we don’t see any of it on screen.

I think that's just part of the general non-development of Voyager characters, is it not? Are Janeway, Kim, Chakotay, Torres, or Paris any different at the end? Not that I recall, aside from the fact that the Maquis gang is integrated into the Voyager crew.

But I admit that with Seven this is pretty striking considering she would be one of the people who should have gotten a proper character development from the start due to the very nature of the character.

7 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Frustrating as well that they had to break a serious rule of the Borg just by creating the character at all; you’re supposed to basically die when you get assimilated. As Picard says in First Contact “if you see any assimilated crew members, shoot them. Trust me, you’ll be doing them a favour.” Hugh wasn’t whoever Hugh was before assimilation, he was still Borg ... just one isolated from the collective. But Seven is sort of Annika Hansen, sort of Borg? Now all of a sudden, assimilation is just an inconvenience to be overcome. Picard was apparently flat out murdering crew members that could have been treated. And they double down on it all the time, Echeb and the other kids, Unimatrix Zero, the four Borg who were left alone for a while and just started remembering who they were...? 

Well, this could be explained by Picard simply having no clue how Borg drones could actually be remade into individuals again. I don't recall how the Seven thing goes, but don't the Borg send her to Voyager as some sort of an envoy? Don't they change her to a point of 'more individuality' before the Voyager people continue this? It has a long time since I last watched this.

I assumed that technically the Voyager could have stumbled on knowledge how to 'deborg' people in the Delta Quadrant - but I don't know whether the show properly establish such knowledge.

But you definitely have a point with it being problematic that Seven sort of recovers parts of her original identity rather than learning to become a new individual with all the baggage that one would have as being 'ex-Borg'.

[Werthead]

7 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Totally agree, she’s the most over rated character in the history of Trek. She had a great arc to get her teeth into across 4 seasons and, whether the actress or the producers choice, she stays exactly the same. You could trade her acting in the finale for her debut and not notice the difference. I don’t think Jeri Ryan is a bad actress, she does well when she plays the Doctor, and when she turns schizophrenic with all the other personalities in her. But she’s just not good at Seven. She’s constantly stand-offish, cold, and seems like she has a chip on her shoulder about something the whole time. Then we have all the crew talking about how far she’s come in discovering her “individuality” (I think she got paid by how many times she could say that word in an episode), and we don’t see any of it on screen.

The only reason why Ryan was even cast was because Dark Skies, the excellent show she was on previously (it basically The X-Files but done properly), was cancelled, otherwise she wouldn't have been available. It makes you wonder who'd have been cast in her place.

[Toth]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, this could be explained by Picard simply having no clue how Borg drones could actually be remade into individuals again. I don't recall how the Seven thing goes, but don't the Borg send her to Voyager as some sort of an envoy? Don't they change her to a point of 'more individuality' before the Voyager people continue this? It has a long time since I last watched this.

I assumed that technically the Voyager could have stumbled on knowledge how to 'deborg' people in the Delta Quadrant - but I don't know whether the show properly establish such knowledge.

But you definitely have a point with it being problematic that Seven sort of recovers parts of her original identity rather than learning to become a new individual with all the baggage that one would have as being 'ex-Borg'.

Have you guys forgotten that Picard himself was assimilated, managed to fight it off enough to give the crew a fighting chance against his cube AND was completely restored with no further damage to his self? He was literally the first borg drone reintegrated into society. Seven's problem after being saved was that she couldn't just fall back on being Annika Hansen as she was assimilated as a little kid yet in the process of developing her personality. Being a Borg was all she knew, that's why I find it fitting that she never used Annika in the show but always remained Seven as that was who she is.

I must say that for that very reason I severely dislike First Contact as changing Picard's character for thishamfisted Ahab allusion hurt him very much and I also hate very much how many people love this movie solely for being 'dark and gritty'.

[DaveSumm]

8 minutes ago, Toth said:

Have you guys forgotten that Picard himself was assimilated, managed to fight it off enough to give the crew a fighting chance against his cube AND was completely restored with no further damage to his self? He was literally the first borg drone reintegrated into society. Seven's problem after being saved was that she couldn't just fall back on being Annika Hansen as she was assimilated as a little kid yet in the process of developing her personality. Being a Borg was all she knew, that's why I find it fitting that she never used Annika in the show but always remained Seven as that was who she is.

I must say that for that very reason I severely dislike First Contact as changing Picard's character for thishamfisted Ahab allusion hurt him very much and I also hate very much how many people love this movie solely for being 'dark and gritty'.

First Contact explained this, they never fully assimilated him as they wanted a willing human on their team. I still think Hugh is the best example we have; he began to develop a personality and a code of ethics of sorts, but there was never any mention (that I recall?) of who he was before being assimilated. Whoever that guy was, he died a long time ago.

Seven essentially acted exactly the same after she was ‘liberated’, she just had less tech and more hair. Which makes you question exactly where her personality resides, how is she carrying over so many traits if she’s had all that removed? Or does she still have a largely Borg brain? Maybe it would have been cleaner to go the Hugh route, she’s just a Borg who can’t remember a thing about Annika Hansen, who has no connection to the hive mind anymore.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

First Contact explained this, they never fully assimilated him as they wanted a willing human on their team. I still think Hugh is the best example we have; he began to develop a personality and a code of ethics of sorts, but there was never any mention (that I recall?) of who he was before being assimilated. Whoever that guy was, he died a long time ago.

Seven essentially acted exactly the same after she was ‘liberated’, she just had less tech and more hair. Which makes you question exactly where her personality resides, how is she carrying over so many traits if she’s had all that removed? Or does she still have a largely Borg brain? Maybe it would have been cleaner to go the Hugh route, she’s just a Borg who can’t remember a thing about Annika Hansen, who has no connection to the hive mind anymore.

I don't believe that all Borg are other species who have been "assimilated".  I seem to recall "borg babies" in creches on their ship.  Hugh may never have had an individual personality to start with, whereas "7 of 9" as a human female who was assimilated, did.   

[.H.]

13 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Hugh may never have had an individual personality to start with, whereas "7 of 9" as a human female who was assimilated, did.

Seems plausible, but isn't the question at hand, "Why did 7 not revert back to Annika?"  In other words, to what do we owe the difference between the cases of Picard, Hugh and Seven.

I think the first part would be that the Picard case differs radically from the others, for the reason @DaveSumm points to.  The assimilation of Picard is not "standard issue."

Two, we don't know the circumstance of loss of identity.  As you point out, since we don't know who Hugh was pre-assimilation, we have no idea to what his identity could revert, even if it could.  I guess we could say that, perhaps, if Annika was older, or maybe say, more set-in an identity for some reason, when she was assimilated, then it could be the case that it was more "deeply rooted."  Or, just down to "individual" differences, that is Annika had a particularly "strong" memory, or the like.

We could go another route and perhaps link it to the duration assimilated.  I don't think Borg would "die" of old age (although maybe I am wrong) so far all we know, Hugh could be 100's of years old, whatever personality he had lost along the way.  Seven, assimilated for less time, might still have had vestigial memories (identity).

Of course, there is no Borg as a fact-of-the-matter to point to, there is only the Bog as a narrative contrivance, so it's no wonder many things don't add up.  Then again, I might have just missed the point of the discussion at hand.

[Impmk2]

32 minutes ago, .H. said:

since we don't know who Hugh was pre-assimilation, we have no idea to what his identity could revert, even if it could.  I guess we could say that, perhaps, if Annika was older, or maybe say, more set-in an identity for some reason, when she was assimilated, then it could be the case that it was more "deeply rooted."  Or, just down to "individual" differences, that is Annika had a particularly "strong" memory, or the like.

We could go another route and perhaps link it to the duration assimilated.  I don't think Borg would "die" of old age (although maybe I am wrong) so far all we know, Hugh could be 100's of years old, whatever personality he had lost along the way.  Seven, assimilated for less time, might still have had vestigial memories (identity).

If I recall the Hugh episode correctly - another point of difference was there was no real effort made to de-borgify him beyond cutting him off from the collective. The whole plan was around reintroducing him back with an anti-borg virus, so efforts to remove implants and return him to human form were minimal. Then when that plan was abandoned they just kinda dumped him back where they found him.

[.H.]

Just now, Impmk2 said:

If I recall the Hugh episode correctly - another point of difference was there was no real effort was made to de-borgify him beyond cutting him off from the collective. The whole plan was around reintroducing him back with an anti-borg virus, so efforts to remove implants and return him to human form were minimal. Then when that plan was abandoned they just kinda dumped him back where they found him.

That is a fair point also.  We could hypothesize, perhaps, that the removal of the majority of implants, plus the assumption of "normative" human interaction (that is, interacting as a human, within a society) could "jogg" more memory (even just on the notion of reverting back to previous conditioning).  Hugh was never "not a Borg" he was just a Borg outside the Collective.

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, Toth said:

Have you guys forgotten that Picard himself was assimilated, managed to fight it off enough to give the crew a fighting chance against his cube AND was completely restored with no further damage to his self? He was literally the first borg drone reintegrated into society.

But wasn't Locutus a 'special Borg drone' who kept more of his individuality than the others? That is how I made sense of the fact that Picard is literally the only Borg that was ever saved from being a Borg.

I mean, the Borg are consistently inconsistent throughout Star Trek. Back when they first show up they do not even assimilate people. They are only interested in technology. Then Picard-Locutus is basically the first human to be assimilated, anyway, right? Then the Borg seem to be destroyed as per the Hugh episode and the two-parter where they are run by Lore, only to be retconned a great threat in The First Contact. Which introduces the Borg Queen - who sort of works as face and mouthpiece (or embodiment) of the collective, but who devolves into an actual queen and concrete drone in Voyager. The Borg are basically constantly rewritten until they become a complete joke. Which is very striking if you consider how rarely they actually show up.

They also never explore what could be alluring about becoming Borg. What you are becomes part of a larger whole and never completely disappears (if the Borg truly are a collective mind). George wrote a lot of story about the fascination of becoming immortal within some sort of collective hivemind (most notably 'A Song for Lya') and it is a disappointment that aspects like these never come up when the Borg are discussed - which they could have in relation to Seven who could have told humanity more about whatever positive aspects there are in Borg culture. The idea of creating Borg-like collective minds for a limited period of time could be a fascinating idea within the Star Trek setting.

5 hours ago, Toth said:

Seven's problem after being saved was that she couldn't just fall back on being Annika Hansen as she was assimilated as a little kid yet in the process of developing her personality. Being a Borg was all she knew, that's why I find it fitting that she never used Annika in the show but always remained Seven as that was who she is.

That makes some sense, I guess. But it might have been a better plot if becoming Borg (the normal, non-Locutus way) might really completely destroy your individual persona and might thus force you to create a new identity for yourself if you are ever successfully removed from the collective. This would have underlined the fact that 'becoming Borg' is really a rather crushing experience.

5 hours ago, Toth said:

I must say that for that very reason I severely dislike First Contact as changing Picard's character for thishamfisted Ahab allusion hurt him very much and I also hate very much how many people love this movie solely for being 'dark and gritty'.

First Contact is a pretty shitty Star Trek movie for this very reason - they certainly should have elaborated more on the traumatic effects the violation of becoming Borg had for Picard. But the place for this would have been the TNG, not some movie taking place years and years after this event.

But if it is true and it is indeed First Contact where the Borg first become this 'vampire race' then the fact that Picard, a former Borg, suddenly becomes the guy who wants to eradicate them no matter the cost even if it means to kill his own crewmen then this is another reason why this movie sucks.

[Toth]

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But wasn't Locutus a 'special Borg drone' who kept more of his individuality than the others? That is how I made sense of the fact that Picard is literally the only Borg that was ever saved from being a Borg.

That doesn't sound right to me. The only thing mentioned was that Locutus was supposed to be the collective's voice with the Federation as they thought him saying 'resistance is futile' might make them sound a little more diplomatic as opposed to it being just some other dude. Well, that and getting his knowledge of Federation tactics was a nice boon in dismantling their defenses I guess. I am a bit baffled where this idea comes from that Locutus was any special, given how he didn't act any different from any other drone.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I mean, the Borg are consistently inconsistent throughout Star Trek. Back when they first show up they do not even assimilate people. They are only interested in technology. Then Picard-Locutus is basically the first human to be assimilated, anyway, right? Then the Borg seem to be destroyed as per the Hugh episode and the two-parter where they are run by Lore, only to be retconned a great threat in The First Contact. Which introduces the Borg Queen - who sort of works as face and mouthpiece (or embodiment) of the collective, but who devolves into an actual queen and concrete drone in Voyager. The Borg are basically constantly rewritten until they become a complete joke. Which is very striking if you consider how rarely they actually show up.

Yeah, it's a shame that the Borg are a heavy case of an unstoppable force of nature being retconned to oblivion. For fuck's sake, in Voyager they barely counted as a nuisance! That's why in my personal headcanon I excised the Lore stuff and almost anything from Voyager, though a few bits there were still pretty interesting. Though I should note that the Borg were not destroyed through Hugh, I believe they were quite certain in this episode that this handful of drones Hugh gathered were just that, a number of rogue drones forming their own faction. Once again I have to point at Star Trek Online beta-canon: I really loved how the "Borg Cooperative" became an actual political entity allied with the Federation there, even though it is still more or less a tiny resistance group paling in comparison to the Collective. There was still nothing more satisfying than fighting side by side with a friendly Borg cube in their missions.

17 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

They also never explore what could be alluring about becoming Borg. What you are becomes part of a larger whole and never completely disappears (if the Borg truly are a collective mind). George wrote a lot of story about the fascination of becoming immortal within some sort of collective hivemind (most notably 'A Song for Lya') and it is a disappointment that aspects like these never come up when the Borg are discussed - which they could have in relation to Seven who could have told humanity more about whatever positive aspects there are in Borg culture. The idea of creating Borg-like collective minds for a limited period of time could be a fascinating idea within the Star Trek setting. 

Well, Seven did show that there is still a lingering longing for the collective there and that the process of disconnecting from the collective is itself already pretty terrifying.

Then again, there was one throw-away line that I personally found very interesting and kinda heavily focus on in my own interpretation of the Borg. Seven at one point says that she takes solace in the fact that she is immortal because as long as the collective remains, a piece of herself will still exist within it. For me that sounded very much like that during the assimilation process your entire self will be uploaded into the collective Borg consciousness and that this one exists unrelated to the Borg drones. Which would explain why drones are just soulless automatons with all higher functions suppressed: The bodies are just tools. Their brains don't matter at all. Which explains why the Borg don't care at all about discarding them as freely as it does as the collective doesn't need them exactly. And which means that whenever people liberated a Borg, all they did was pull out the body, not the mind. Makes you wonder whether one of the myriad of voices within the collective is still a template of Picard doing his thing...

(I actually also combined that with the naturally born Borg from their first appearance in that they can just casually replace any losses with clones... I mean, they strive for perfection, so why are their drones upgraded vagrants they picked up on their way? Why not artificially make the perfect chassis for their implants so to speak, while at the same time boosting their numbers unrelated to the process of assimilation? So assimilation would be just their way of inviting outsiders to their special club)

But... I digress... But you see I have put a lot of thought into this for... reasons.^^