Editing FederalSpace:Peoples (section)

=== Commentary ===

'''David Rhode:''' The Borg as a concept I thought were very good. I've considered writing serious science fiction about electronically-integrated human mass-minds based on contemplation of cell phones. Consider how ubiquitous cell phones are... people carry them and use them in theaters, and have begun getting them for younger and younger children. I have seen people walk side-by-side, both yapping on cell phones to completely different people at the same time. As cell phones become smaller and smaller, and more and more powerful, and integrate into society at younger and younger ages, who's to say that eventually it won't be an electronic implant into children at birth (or earlier)? Such individuals may never develop anything we would recognize as an independent personality or social consciousness. The resulting gestalt entity might well be a completely alien mentality.

'''Shadowjack:''' This is a wonderful way to get a "hive mind", without taking it literally. An entire society of absent-minded cell-phone users… Not that far-fetched, but very, very alien. 

'''David Rhode:''' Seriously, the Borg had better technology, why wouldn't they always start off with the best weapons and defenses they had available, instead of leaving themselves completely open at first contact? Isn't it just as easy, nay, easier to analyze someone's weapons while they are bouncing off your shields rather than vaporizing your innards? And on a related topic, I don't think 'adaptation' is as easy as they made it look. Again, a modern analogy: consider how easy it is to find answers to questions via Google. There is lots and lots of information on the internet, and if you can find it, you can learn all kinds of things. But, there is a great deal of difference between looking up and relaying information, and understanding and applying it. And what if the answers aren't there? The hardest thing to do on the internet, and the thing that earns the most kudos, is Creating New Content. I would think that a mass mind based on storing and sifting information would have a very difficult time inventing and innovating.

'''Shadowjack:''' Yeah, I'll be ditching the "hyper-adaptable" routine. In fact, it seems that a Borg Hive might be ''slower'' to adapt, at first, because it would have trouble perceiving new trouble and agreeing upon a course of action. Only once consensus was reached would they spin-off.

On the other hand, thinking of them as ''societies'' turns it back around—those groupings which do adapt to a problem will split-off from the main hive. You might see, under crisis, a hive ''splinter'' into multiple organizations, and later the survivors reform. 


'''s/LaSH:''' Let me be honest: A lot of this sounds exactly like what I proposed a while back for a rebooted Trek, although mine had no aliens whatsoever, and was exclusively about posthumans. This accounts for my interest, because this is going further and fleshing out a very interesting scenario.

Key to my scenario, however, were the Borg, humanity's first experiment with transhuman mind structures. Borg Corporation produced the greatest developments in history with their think-tanks, and kickstarted the great human diaspora, first through warp drive, then through transwarp corridors (in this interpretation, possibly system-to-system transporters). This created the colonies that eventually became the recognisable Trek races.

But then the Borg-we-made became the Borg-we-fear, claiming that they were better, that people were happier like them, and Connecting people to their network by force, and all over the galaxy, colonists human and posthuman alike rose up and fought them. Resistance was futile; the Borg controlled the high orbitals and the paths between worlds, and could easily have glassed their enemies. But they didn't. They withdrew, destroying their technology behind them.

This caused an end to the First Interstellar Era. Without the Borg transwarp corridors, interstellar travel slowed to a warp-speed crawl, and it took centuries for people to put the pieces together again. This did mean there was no parity between original Trek and my version - the timeline put Kirk in the 27th century, although I'm sure some corners could be cut. The other thing that happened was the Borg were still out there, as a sort of historical bogeyman that hadn't been seen for centuries.

The idea was, the Borg would eventually return, but not as unintelligent drones completely undeserving of their fearsome reputation. They would return as glimmering beings of resplendent might and fearsome knowledge; one Borg mind could control an entire warship, a sleek and beautiful thing like a poem written on space. The Borg Drones we saw on TNG would be either historical artifacts or broken attempts by various races to adapt Borg remnants to their own ends or, perhaps, a Borg garbage scow designed to clean up small things like planetary civilizations.

But the Borg would also be very strange, and decidedly imperfect, particularly in their interaction with the younger races. They kept on advancing in their own empire-beyond-space, and a single Borg with an agenda for the 'throwbacks' could cause all manner of trouble for the more-numerous but less-advanced cultures of the Alpha Quadrant. They can fill in for god-beings and, ironically, the Q continuum, to a certain level.

I didn't like the original Trek interpretation of the Borg; they were a caricature of transhuman philosophy, a sign of deep conservatism amongst TNG-era writers (see also the Federation's stance against genetic engineering in DS9). I much prefer scifi that isn't a milksop to modern sensibilities, proclaiming small-town sentiment to be the peak of moral development; that's very much the opposite of what Roddenberry had to say, I think, and his successors did him wrong. Federal Space is clearly much more open in that regard, which makes me happy. By all means, feel free to ransack my ideas.

['''Shadowjack:''' I agree with your analysis there—the later series grew increasingly and unfortunately "conventional." And I shall ransack as I please, thank you!.]

(An alternate interpretation is to replace Borg Corporation with some kind of 'Ancients' created by humans during the 21st century, and have the traditional Borg as just another one of their projects - but having the Borg as the Ancients solves the issue of "Why did the Ancients collapse/leave?" by saying "Because they were kinda a bunch of dicks", or at least "We disagreed with their philosophy on the future course of humanity", and gives them the mental capability to create technologies that modern races simply can't fathom, thus allowing a rapid diaspora followed by a slow reunification process.)

'''Shadowjack:''' Now this is another interesting alternate—not for use here. But I find myself noting the points of similarity. Having the Borg being an offshoot of the original Terran cultures, for example—that's important to me, because it emphasizes their humanity. But they've been gone from home for a very long time…

I think that "Borg Corporation", in '''''Federal Space''''', was probably an early social clade, possibly dating from just before the "Eugenics Wars" period. Originally incorporated as a company (probably a stakeholder enterprise or high-tech co-op), and dedicated to pushing the new technologies as far as possible, they would have been one of the first groups to colonize Out There—away from the Empire—and they shared their developments with others. We can see how this meme-set of "universal technology!" has mutated and changed in their descendents' aggressive recruiting methods… Heh. I just realized that I just wrote how Microsoft has sometimes characterized the Open Source movement—"They're trying to assimilate our codebase!" :D


'''Myth:''' What if these Terran-made Precursor Borg developed a virus? Something designed to auto-assimilate new beings into the Collective, but with a fatal flaw that slipped past QA? This we get slow, stupid Borg like those 50's sci-fi rejects we saw, rather than the glorious transhumans who developed the Warp Corridors that used to tie the galaxy together? They're still out there, but Alpha Quadrant is quarantined, and we'll see them only through some sort of remote-projection technology that is safe for them to use.

'''Shadowjack:''' Well, it'd be more of a ''social'' virus than either a physical or computer one. It would make sense that some of the early encounters could be with the less successful Hives, though! By Borg standards, those guys might be thought of as equivalent to terrorists or psycho killers—not part of their concept of polite society. 


'''Ragnarok_Engine:''' Something mentioned in passing in the Culture books that always fascinated me: the classic Borg/Von Neumann plague is referred to as an Aggressively Hegemonizing Swarm and is not tolerated. Some more intelligent Swarms, however, are amenable to diplomacy rather than requiring destruction. If such a Swarm can be convinced to alter its recruitment strategy so that it will only absorb sentients or their property ''if it gets consent'', it is reclassified as an Aggressively Proselytizing Swarm and is perfectly welcome in Galactic society. :D

In addition to being reasonable, lends itself well to cartoons/running jokes.

'Late Sunday morning, on a world on the borders of Federal Space:

*knock knock*

"Yes, how can I - SWEET HOLY KRSNA!"

"Greetings, fleshy sentient. Have you ever considered joining with the Transcendent and Luminous Glory of the Many?"

"Er, no. No, I'm perfectly happy with my clade. Um, thanks for stopping by, though."

*synthesized sigh* "Very well. May I present you with a copy of our complementary holozine, "The Observatory"? It includes a commcode for the Mother Brain, should you ever decide to shed your disgusting fleshy envelope and join us in eternal digitized splendor."

"Yeeeah. Thanks. Have a nice day, now."


'''Shadowjack:''' Another Borg thought: While I'm banning personality upload, the Borg might have developed the knack of live sensory interface to a high peak. This explains the expendability of "drones"—they're just shells, being borrowed by whatever part of the Hive needs to use them at the moment. Useful corpses are recycled as shells—you don't want to waste that brain, after all.


'''yorrick:''' My problem with the Borg when I watched them on the series--aside from the same sorts of issues you mentioned about their use of technology--was that you had this civilization that supposedly absorbed the best qualities of the alien civilizations it encountered, and they all looked like albino cyborgs? Really? I wanted to see some unusual looking aliens strapped with Borg comm/control gear. I mean, there was no need for them to all look physically the same unless humanity was the perfect form. Or if the special effects budget was limited. :)

Which is just a way of saying the Borg appearance was a metaphor for their overall homogeneity, and that overwhelming ''sameness'' just didn't jibe (for me, anyway) with a highly adaptive species and civilization. They should be colorful. Their ships should look different from each other, at least in different sectors.

'''Shadowjack:''' Different Hives have different looks. A single Hive may extrude wildly different varieties of craft for particular purposes. ''Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence'' drew a comparison between human artifacts, like cities, and the reefs produced by coral polyps; it seems to me like the Borg would accentuate that resemblance. 


'''Fringe Worthy:''' How's this for a Random Borg concept: 

We have the Borgstrom colony worlds. ['''Gregor:''' Borgstrom?! This puts an entirely ''new'' spin on those guys that I hadn't considered.] A bunch of smaller ones, and some more advanced. Some of them having much concentration in cybernetics and medical gear. 

We're not sure why or how, but that sector got hit by a set of plagues. Something in the worlds ecosystem? Automated biowarfare systems from a killed world seeing targets again? A Failed (Targetted to another species?) nanotech uplift system? Anyways, the results were hideous. 

The desease(s?). It was a long incubation, then a fast burn attack. Flesh would just rot away. One of the few techniques that would work would be to just remove the rotting area. It was running rampant through the area, systems collapsing. 

One advanced world refused to go down, they decided to do whatever was necessary to live. Cut and cyber. You have too little for a full person, attach it to another. Senses gone? That's fine, keep the body living, the mind can be wired to concensual reality. They can do their duty via remote access. 

They fought things to a steady state. they sacrificed, oh did they sacrifice. Many of the people are barely people, almost more just organic controls for machinery. But they can serve, they can live, they have value to the whole and themselves. 

Now, from the outside, they others civilizations were stuck on containment and one way aid. Plague ships were hunted down and turned back or destroyed. How could you tell the heathy for now but contaminated versus the untouched? 

So the Borg have built themselves up, a civilization of the sick, damaged and mad, repairing and replacing themselves, more machine then flesh. 

And now, they are still angry for the rejection, even if it was required, and they are feared... For what happens if they are still sick. The plagues do spring up, not quite in the way they should. 

And the worst thing that can happen to a colony? A collection of Borg cubes come, blockading them and advising them that the models and data show there will be a new outbreak here, and they will not permit the illnesses to spread. The colonies only choice is death or joining them. ( cept for those 3 worlds where the Borg left 3 years later. Hey, models are wrong sometimes )

And they are feared. For, do they follow the plagues, Are they a wellspring of more plagues, or do they bring the plagues? 

( So, part Vernor Vinge Emergency, but without the HR from Hell, James Alan Gardner's Vigilant, and zombie plague horror. )

And the virtues as given the other Civilizations? Endurance, Pragmatism, Sacrifice.

'''Ragnarok_Engine:''' Re: Borgstrom. They started as a group of stranded colonists who were topologically identical to waffles!