A new solution to the hated Borg Queen...

[Siroth]

Disclaimer: If you love the idea of the Borg Queen then you probably will not like the idea presented below. Therefore it is only fair to warn you in advance that the content of this post might seem offensive even though I by no means intend to cause any - it is simply an idea and I do not claim it is any better than other ideas people have had over the years.

During the run of TNG a new alien race appeared in Star Trek. Typically most hostile species in Trek were selfish in some ways, either savage and raging like the Klingons or sly and manipulative like the Romulans, but this new race was different. They were called The Borg, and they were different because they were evil in ways that defied understanding. Mostly they were evil not because they enjoyed the suffering they caused, but rather due to their cold indifference. They had all the emotions of a machine, and with their cold precision they turned people into their willing zombies, much like vampires in old horror tales. They were scary because there were no emotions to appeal to and nothing to reason with. Not that they weren't intelligent, far from it, but the intellect that controlled the Borg was the Collective where all Borg pooled their thoughts. This made the Borg more scary because they enslaved both body and mind. As such they took away thought and freedom and became the very embodiment of anything that was in opposition to Gene Roddenberry's hopes for the future.

Then something happened... The Borg became less than they had been. Suddenly a single Borg drone could threaten the entire Collective... Then drones could be abandonned by the Collective... Then, in Star Trek: First Contact, they were suddenly not just a Collective of minds, but rather ruled by a singular entity called the Queen.

Personally I don't hate the Queen, but she does sort of ruin or lessen then horrifying ingenuity of the Borg for me because now there suddenly *is* a singular entity you can hate in the race. The very beauty of the Borg Collective was fighting them would be a losing battle because there was no weak point to attack - you could destroy a single or a single ship and it still wouldn't matter at all because it would mean nothing to the Collective. With the Queen that changed. Now killing the Queen meant disrupting the Collective. No longer was the Collective this almost omnipotent/evil god-like thing that you could not even argue against. It stopped being this infinitely superior intellect that did not whether people lived or died and didn't see any value in the individual because it was itself so much more. Instead it became this this individual that embodied the Collective, yet was still very much an individual itself. It took away from the idea because it went from being this huge collective of minds to being merely another individual. Before you could almost have excused the Collective for its evil as it did not understand the concept of what individuality was. Since that was now no longer possible, it instead became "just" another villian. Granted, the Queen might have worked as a mere embodiment of the collective, but she wasn't described as such. Indeed, she consistently used the singuler "I" over the plural "we". The consequence was unmistakable - she fully understood what she did to people, yet she did it anyway. That made her evil by the usual 'lowly' human standards, and so the 'superior evil' of the imposing Collective was lost...

However, recently I went to see Matrix Reloaded and it made me think... You might rightly ask what that has to do with the Borg Queen. Well, in the world of Matrix, one very important point is that the world isn't always what we think it is. Indeed, the very world we believe in can be a complete fabrication or lie. In that way the Matrix films are similar to the works of sci-fi authors like Philip K. Dick.

Now, why couldn't something similar be possible in Star Trek? No, I'm not saying that the Federation is an illusion, but I am wondering that maybe the Queen could be. After all, she did turn up rather conveniently in Star Trek: First Contact, and note that Borg chose a human representative to deal with the Federation when they first met them (Picard). When Picard then eluded them, the Borg might have realized something - maybe this concept of individuality was inherently destructive to their collective. Indeed, the events of TNG's "I, Borg" and later "Descent" might support that. So what do they Borg then do? Well, they send another cube to Earth, and when it fails a sphere is sent into the past. When the Enterprise follows the Borg already know the danger: Picard is free, but he can still 'touch' upon their Collective minds. That makes him dangerous to their plans, but just as he can 'hear' them, they can hear his thoughts. They sense his emotions of guilt and vengeance and give him a distraction - the Queen. They have even used the bond to Picard to give him false memories of this Queen and so give him something to focus his anger on. Why? Well, the Borg have simply analyzed humans and realized that as an authority-driven society they will usually attack the perceived leader of the enemy, so if they let them see such a leader in the queen, the Federation will most likely try to attack her instead of trying to fight the collective itself. Though the plan fails, the distraction of the queen is itself a success to such a degree that the Collective subsequently uses the tactic whenever they deal with humans from that point on, especially when they are dealing with human drones that have been freed from the collective. This explains why Seven of Nine confronted the Queen several times on Voyager as she too is a wayward drone.

Well, just an idea...

[Balok]

So far I haven't run any Borg stories -- but I view the Queen as a failed experiment in adapting the "leader" principle from humans (since Picard was so successful against him, even while he was Locutus).

It's my opinion that after the events of "First Contact", the queen concept would be subject to re-evaluation, and certainly after Voyager (and the destruction of an entire transwarp hub), the queen would be seen as not an asset, but a liability, and deactivated or relegated to a lesser role.

[Argyle]

The only way I can deal with the Borg Queen is as an adaptation aimed at the Federation, which has proven resistant to assimliation. She was an elaborate ruse designed to play upon human weaknesses. The "Lower your shields and surrender your ships. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile." speech and scary ray-guns weren't cutting it, so the Borg did what they do best: adapt. If the humans (and their androids) want to negotiate, we'll give them someone to talk to and beat them that way. They probably cooked up this plan when they nabbed Picard, so that's why he remembered her from that time. Locutus was Plan A. The Queen was Plan B. She doesn't run the Collective any more or less than any other specialized drone.

Voyager may or may not invalidate this theory. I think I've seen exactly three episodes.

[CorpBoy]

Here's how I see the queen:

It seem pretty obvious that the queen is an advanced android, and as such there could very well be more than one of them. That's how she knew that she could tempt Data ("I know your weakness. It's only a matter of time") - because she herself (or others like her) has succumbed to the tempation.

Truth be told, can you actually believe that the collective could functon without some form of leadership? On its own the collective is nothing more than billions of minds that try to work together to accomplish some goal. With billions of minds all expressing their opinions I would be surprised if the collective could actually get anything done at all.

What I'm getting at is that, IMO, the collective either created the queens, or bargained with them by offering the power and technology at its disposal. The queens sole function is to interpret the objectives of the collective and use those objectives to direct the billions of drones at its disposal.

In fact, it could be argued that the queen could very well be responsible for creating the evil aspects of the collective. If they did assimilate a willing queen, she could have had ulterior motives of her own (imagine if Lore had been approached by a growing, peacefull, collective). If the colletive built the queens then perhaps they interpreted their programming in a way inconsistent with the intent of that programming.

And once the first queen is assimilated and control of the collective is placed in it, it wouldn't be hard to turn the resources of the collective to creating other queens to make sure that there would always be at least one to lead them all.

[CorpBoy]

Originally posted by Argyle
She doesn't run the Collective any more or less than any other specialized drone.

Well, something has to run the collective. Without a central leadership figure the collective is forced to send everything "to committee" (i.e. it has to consult the billions of minds that are linked together). With so many minds having so many different opinions, I doubt the collective could get anything done outside the realm of self-preservation.

[Rayaru]

The "Queen" routine in the Borg core programming is like the central processor of a computer: it takes all the input from the drones and outputs orders for them to do to insure the Collective wins. The semi-emotional façade that she used was probably no more than a device to facilitate finding weaknesses in the humans.

Just as it's not possible for a computer to run without its CPU, it would be impossible for the Borg to operate without its "Queen."

[Pratt of Borg]

I think it's possible that the Queen is more of a focus of the collective's power rather than a ruler of it. Whenever we've seen the Queen, it's always been at events that have been highly important to the collective. If the collective can put all of it's will and brain power into one being, than they could more directly impact the situation.

Then again, the Borg Queen may also serve to draw the attention of others. If a hostile enemy thinks the Queen is at the center of it all, then the collective can but there efforts in other places while that enemy goes on a wild goose chase.

There's so much thats unknown about the Borg, which is the shame.

[Siroth]

Originally posted by CorpBoy
Well, something has to run the collective. Without a central leadership figure the collective is forced to send everything "to committee" (i.e. it has to consult the billions of minds that are linked together). With so many minds having so many different opinions, I doubt the collective could get anything done outside the realm of self-preservation.

I'd agree except that you seem to look at it from a very human/individual perspective. The Borg are neither. Of course, a non-individual perspective is very difficult for us to understand as individuals, but then that's the genius of the Borg for me and what makes them so scary and alien.

Look at it this way: Even as individuals we still have many voices within ourselves. Compare to the classic scenario of making a decision with a little devil sitting on one should and a little angel on the other. Which do you listen to? And are there only two? There might be many, yet we have no problem making decisions anyway.

To the Borg collective which contains so many drones, each individual voice would be so inconsequential that it really wouldn't be a problem. Their decisions are made by the instant concensus of the majority. There is no need for debate or discussion because all thoughts are one and thus all are privy to any and all concerns that any one mind might have, meaing that these can be evaluated at a very basic level and so not become a problem.

Another concern is that of different experiences. Often you will the argument in the real world that someone is unfit to evaluate something or make an informed opinion on it because they do not possess certain experiences or specific knowledge. That is not a problem in the collective since they all have exactly the same knowledge and experience.

I imagine the collective was just as chaotic as you describe in the early days when it began, but in time the dissent stopped as the dissenting minds were 'aligned' into a form of unity, which is precisely what the Collective is.

I'd say the real problem with the Borg is writing stories for them since with such a pool of unfathomable intellect, they should be all but infallible. Experience (and poor scripts...) seem to suggest otherwise, however. The only way you can really justify outsmarting the Borg is by introducing technology they know nothing about (like from the future), skills that are beyond their capability (like those of Q), or insight or knowledge that is by its very definition alien to the Collective. To me the latter is the reason why things ended the way they did in "Best of Both Worlds" - the humans had gained contact to Picard, but because Locutus and Picard were the same, that meant that he became a conduit to the Collective itself. In short, the humans might just gain access to the Collective in a way that was outside what the Borg could control, and they had no way to 'disconnect' a particular drone, in this case Locutus. That is precisely what Dr. Crusher talks about when she mentions the interdependency of the Borg. So they chose to destroy the cube and so cut the link to Locutus/Picard, and they left the Federation alone for a long while because they feared how Picard's connection might be abused against them.

[CorpBoy]

Originally posted by Siroth
Look at it this way: Even as individuals we still have many voices within ourselves. Compare to the classic scenario of making a decision with a little devil sitting on one should and a little angel on the other. Which do you listen to? And are there only two? There might be many, yet we have no problem making decisions anyway.

True, but our capability to make decisions is a learned trait. We filter all the information available and discern what we believe to be the "best" course of action. The only problem is that not everyone believes in the same course of action, so the conflict comes when part of the collective mind doesn't agree with the rest.

To the Borg collective which contains so many drones, each individual voice would be so inconsequential that it really wouldn't be a problem. Their decisions are made by the instant concensus of the majority. There is no need for debate or discussion because all thoughts are one and thus all are privy to any and all concerns that any one mind might have, meaing that these can be evaluated at a very basic level and so not become a problem.

While I do believe that the Borg could exist simply by relying on the majority vote, the (possibly multiple) minority opinions would be constantly at war for supremacy. I think that it would be the equivalent of cybernetic multiple personality disorder. How effective can they possibly be under those conditions? The chance for contracting severe psychological problems would be astronomical.

Of course, that could describe the Borg perfectly...

[Phantom]

I don't like or dislike the idea of a Borg Queen. But, the one question I always had about the Borg was "how were they controlled?" I always thought there had to a CPU somewhere, though I had thought it would be more a great machine rather then a humanoid. Anyway, from my perspective the Borg Queen idea works for me...After all the Collective is nothing more then a glorified ant colony.

As to the Queen being an android, I would have to say no. It was established that the Queen (in Voy) was from Species XXX can't remember the number, it was in the low 3 digits, however. Now, how a Borg becomes a Queen I don't know...Probably once one is destroyed an individual is assimalated with special nanites. (shrugs)

[CorpBoy]

Originally posted by Phantom
As to the Queen being an android, I would have to say no. It was established that the Queen (in Voy) was from Species XXX can't remember the number, it was in the low 3 digits, however. Now, how a Borg becomes a Queen I don't know...Probably once one is destroyed an individual is assimalated with special nanites. (shrugs)

And there's no chance that species XXX is actually some kind of advanced android species?

[Trinity Zeldis]

A minor thing, CorpBoy, with the nanites and the programming, and chemical inducements, much of a person's individuality is sublimated to the experience. On a multitude of occasions, when a former Borg attempts to explain the collective, we are given definitions of, "the voices were always there, you are never alone."

This does not necessarily mean a literal use of the word voice, or even alone. The voices could simply be the billions and billions (sorry Carl) of data streams being sent back and forth through the Collective. As for the "aloneness," it could be a simple matter of realizing (a strangely individualistic trait, but valid nonetheless) that you are part of something greater than yourself, which, let's face it, many people want to become (see the various military personell.)

The Collective is made up, on some level, of individuals. In one way or another, these individuals were stripped of the self. Not entirely mind you, but enough that the experience is a sense of being trapped within one's own body and powerless to control it. The Collective itself is an individual with a single thought, and a single purpose.

The two writers for First Contact have stated in several interviews that when they were approached to write the script, they were told that there was an alien race called the Borg that had a hive culture. They did what any non Trek fan would have done, they assumed that a queen was in charge like with bees. They watched the double episode, BoBW and made all their assumptions on that single aspect of the Borg.

So if you want to use the queen, it doesn't matter if she IS the Borg, or is merely the illusory single voice of the Borg, because in the end, she takes something away from what the Borg were meant to be....

A powerful, terrifying enemy used to boost the ratings at a time that ST:tNG was threatened with being cancelled.

Or on a more romantic note...

A powerful, terrifying enemy that was not meant to be comprehensible in any sense of the word.

[Dan Gurden]

To me she is software. We know that Drones can be assigned particular tasks. Well hers is communications, and she is probably the current incarnation of a far older drone concept (Unless you want to believe that the Federation is the first species in several thousands that actually put up a fight)...

She is simply a drone, designed to speak with the voice of the collective, when she says 'I' she is talking about every drone, not herself... Simply using advanced AI software to enable her to emulate individuality in order to better communicate and understand the enemies of the Borg.

This being software rather than organic individuality will also explain why the Borg sometimes loose, as they simply fail to fully grasp the inginuity and unexpacted responses from Individuals... (Lets say it can adapt to 90% of predictable responses)... Of course, if you do something... unpredictable...

[tmutant]

A collective, like an ant colony, works because each specialist has a particular role and does it. Individual survival is unimportant. The Queen does not rule the ant colony. She is as much a slave of the collective as the workers. Her job is reproduction. The Borg queen likewise exists to give direction to the collective, but only in keeping with the overall goal of the collective to assimilate all intelligent life in the universe. However, given adequate programming of the interface matrix, and the assimilation process, there would be no need for her, except as a figurehead. She would be useful when dealing with authority driven races as they are in the process of being assimilated.

On another tack, perhaps the original Queen was the scientist who created the collective in the first place, turning everyone in her species into drones to service her. Later, when contact with other species was established, the assimilation process was extended to force all life to service her. In essence, the collective was created by a megalomaniac, and now centuries after her death is attempting still to carry out her wishes. The current Borg Queen was created by the collective to fill the void left by the death of the original Queen.

[Trinity Zeldis]

I like it tmutant. A much more thought provoking argument. The only downside I see is that it gives DA BORG a more human face. A "race" to be pitied.