Origins of the Borg

[Seafoam Understone]

All that Star Trek talk has got me to thinking about the Borg and their origins.
Me thinks it was Captian Kirk who created them when he allowed Cmdr Decker to meld with the Ilia probe and thus V-ger traveled back with this messed up idea that it was okay. Probably from Decker's memory of Starfleet's mission of finding new worlds and associate with them got messed up with assimulate them.
Looking at the Borg Queen for the first time in Star Trek First Contact I thought Ilia.
Also I recall something that Shatner wrote that shows Kirk being the guy responsible. I dunno...
weird though...

[Ylva Kresh]

But has not the Borg been at work for a very long time in the delta quadrant? Can V-ger have gotten that far. Of course, it could have jumped in time though....

[aTOMiC]

that is a very interesting theory. My first impression is that the V'ger entity when merged with humans would have created more of cosmic super being than the borg. I wrote a fan fiction where that super being manipulated time/space to send Kirk & the enterprise forward into time to be destroyed by an un knowing Voyager. Q steps in at the last minute and sacrifices himself to allow both ships to escape the V'ger entity who as is turns out is seeking revenge on Kirk for allowing it to be created in the first place.

[Fist and Faith]

I had also been thinking that the Borg have been around a lot longer than that, but maybe there's no particular reason to think that. I don't have any quotes to back it up. Did 7 ever say anything along those lines?

I haven't read all that many Trek books, but I read Vendetta. Anybody else? Aside from the stupid, and almost completely useless love story running through it, it's a fantastic book, tying the Borg with the Planet Eater and the... the... oh crap, what's that hypothetical race that put those Native American-ish folks on that planet? Damn!! It's an easy word, and I can't think of it!! Starts with a P? Sheesh, is it Providers?? Anyway, some extremely cool and powerful space fights!

[Ryzel]

Can someone say "Time travel"? Of course Kirk travelled back and messed it up.

[Skyweir]

that is a very interesting theory. My first impression is that the V'ger entity when merged with humans would have created more of cosmic super being than the borg. I wrote a fan fiction where that super being manipulated time/space to send Kirk & the enterprise forward into time to be destroyed by an un knowing Voyager. Q steps in at the last minute and sacrifices himself to allow both ships to escape the V'ger entity who as is turns out is seeking revenge on Kirk for allowing it to be created in the first place.

you wrote a script that involved a 'Q'?

I do remember when 7 was with the Voyager crew some indications of Borg origins were explored .. or maybe i am thinking of when Picard was with the borg Queen ..

Actually i too think the existence of a borg Queen is incongruous with the borg collective .. I know the idea is a hive mind .. and to maintain the bee- analogy there is a Queen .. but the Queen we are introduced to .. is in a unique positon and can even deceive the hive mind .. if she wishes ..

This gives an individual .. a concept foreign to the borg .. immense power!

mmm .. i will have to think about this more .. cos i can see some congruous factors now .. hinging on the compliance element To control a hive the size of the borgs .. compliance would be a absolutely requisite .. compliant to who?

maybe it is right to have a ruling head?

mm .. i dunno .. i need to mull this over more

[Skyweir]

oh and if the origins begin with the Queen .. then how did it evolve in such a short period of time .. into a significantly large assimilating drone force?

oh yeah i remember 7 or someone talking about the borg being a regular humanoid race .. but methinks they encountered the origins of borg technology and to aid the survival of their race they employed borg technology .. and assimilation to enhance their distinctiveness and galactical presence .. they expanded their reach and thus enhanced their race.

assimilating new and distinct qualities, intelligence and natural ability from a wider range of specimens.

now this is what my memory is telling me so long as i am not confusing it with something else.

[Michael Giantfriend]

Here's my theory.

In the far past (maybe a thousand years before the Federation came into being), the Delta Quadrant was dominated by two races. One was organic, humanoid. The other was mechanic, usiform. When they met, almost inevitably there was war. Each saw the other as a threat, each sought to destroy the other.
But they were so evenly matched that both races came perilously close to extinction. One way or another, be it through political activists on both sides, or a simple last-gasp for survival, the weakest of the weak of each race were forced to merge their technologies to survive. The resulting organic/mechanic hybrids were the embryonic Borg.

[Fist and Faith]

I don't have anything specific. I just figured two folks found a way to do a Vulcan mindmeld type of thing, and it either helped them tremendously, or they just loved it. And they told someone else about it, who tried it with them, and they all loved it. And the first two realized the addition of the third was more than just 2+1. So they started getting everyone they could to join in.

And they all either became so addicted, or the benefits were so profound, that they began insisting that others join. "It's for your own good. Trust us, you'll thank us in the end." And they came up with nifty little gadgets to force the issue.

[aTOMiC]

you wrote a script that involved a 'Q'?

If you are interested.
www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=196953
The story was written during the 6th season of Voyager. It also has a few grammatical flaws I've been meaning to fix, but nothing distracting.

[Zahir]

I always kinda assumed the Borg began as the military of some civilization that linked specialization and cybernetics. Rather than recruit everyone in some kind of war effort, they had a collective directly linked into a battle fleet, designed to not only defeat enemies but actually assimilate them into the whole. In the end, that military absorbed their creators--or maybe they died--and the Borg Collective began to grow on its own.

The Borg always seemed terribly strange to me. If the collective could confidently expect to last as long as the universe itself, then it should have been supremely unwilling to increase entropy (i.e. decreasing diversity) because that would shorten its own lifespan. So either in some fundamental way the collective itself was not "aware" in the same way human beings are--or there was some kind of governing intelligence that was curiously short-sighted. Which is why I didn't mind (too much) the introduction of the Queen. My own impression is that a Borg Queen is "elevated" from among some cache of potentials whenever circumstances require it.

[Sheol]

i think we should accept the fact that it was not vger that became tha collective because in first contact the borg were tring to contact the borg of that time to lead them to earth, so we should just stay away from vger

[Blue_Spawn]

The Borg are more like Christian missionaries. They go around, spreading their beliefs and as it was back in the colonial days, they "assimilate" lesser beings. Its a religious movement really, though perhaps without an idle. Nothing mysterious, just a bunch of cyborgs that got together and want to take over the universe without any particular reason. The Queen tries to explain it numerous times, but it just never gets to me. Supposably being assimilated grants you internal peace and stuff, but if you think about it, all those guys are just empty headed drones that probably don't even have a mind of their own. You have a single hive mind, but what does it do? Does it dream, enjoy life, recreate? Or does it constantly bother itself with assimilating more people? Who knows. I don't think Gene Rodenberry himself knew it, he just liked the idea (if he was the one that made it). So I'm really suspicious about the realism to Borg's intentions. I like to think of it as a computer program instead of a bee hive. Some loop was implemented to perform a single task, without any purpose aside from getting it done, and it just started looping over and over again without any set parameters. I don't think the Borg even know what they're doing or why. They just do it because they are coded that way.

Another thing that bothers me is the way the Borg are able to "adapt." They've been shown adapting to the most advanced technologies in 5 seconds. How the heck would that even work. Alright, lets say they have the most freakishly advanced form of research and adaptation possible and they trully CAN adapt to stuff in second's worth of time. How is it that they are able to upgrade their droids, on the spot, without making any actualy physical changes to the bodies. And also, if the Borg are able to deflect/absorb large sums of beam energies and blasters, why is it that mere bullets kill them (see First Contact)? Don't bullets also have force and energy? If you can absorb laser beams, why can't you do the same with simple meatle.

Ho, well. I know that with a sci-fi I must have imagination and everything, but some things just bother me. What can I say?

[Sheol]

i think that bullets kill them because they cant obsorb them like energy beams. but im not really sure about that, if you send that question to star trek mag they might try to answer it.