Are the Borg actually space zombies?

[Overmind One]

Something that crossed my mind after reading something online from a fan...are the Borg a form of space zombie? They mindlessly perform their duties and follow the direction in the Borg Queen who has enough control to order them to kill themselves. They spread their numbers by "assimilation" which is much like a zombie bite. Then they turn green and shit starts installing itself all over the body as the nanoprobes construct Borg implants...

Does anybody think we will ever see the Borg again in Star Trek?

 

[Tripler]

Good points . I'd say there space zombies indeed . There butt ugly , I'm sure they smell bad and they look pretty dam scary with all there acutramon .
Will we see them again ? I think so because they always seemed to be the better episodes on TNG . I wonder if a Q character will also be in a few as he introduced the Enterprise Crew to the borgee worgee's in the first place ...

 

[Gatefan1976]

Zombie's do not possess a hive mind or queen.
So, no.

 

[Overmind One]

Zombie's do not possess a hive mind or queen.
So, no.

Not literal zombies. Space zombies. The Borg assimilation process is closest to zombies than any other familiar monster trope. Much like the Wraith of Stargate Atlantis were like space vampires, even though they did not drink blood with fangs.

 

[shavedape]

Zombie's do not possess a hive mind or queen.
So, no.

Good point but some zombie lore has them acting as henchmen and/or tools via controlling entities like Haitian witches, sorcerers, etc. The term "zombie" seems to be changing due to how they are portrayed in popular culture now. Still, the Borg could be defined as space zombies in a sense.

 

[Overmind One]

Good point but some zombie lore has them acting as henchmen and/or tools via controlling entities like Haitian witches, sorcerers, etc. The term "zombie" seems to be changing due to how they are portrayed in popular culture now. Still, the Borg could be defined as space zombies in a sense.

Precisely. The ORIGINAL zombie, the one for which the word "zombie" came from, was a corpse raised by magical means to do the bidding of the sorcerer or witch doctor. Funny you should say what you did because the person I was discussing this with was a West African and he brought up the similarity. In popular culture, zombies are of the Romero type, "turned" by a bite.

 

[Gatefan1976]

Not literal zombies. Space zombies. The Borg assimilation process is closest to zombies than any other familiar monster trope. Much like the Wraith of Stargate Atlantis were like space vampires, even though they did not drink blood with fangs.

Sure, thy -look- like zombies, but they act nothing like them, much like SGU -looks- like Scifi, but is just crap.
It's a wrapper, and does that really mean much?

 

[Tripler]

Zombie's do not possess a hive mind or queen.
So, no.

Hey ,,,we said Space Zombies buddy ,,, Not Zombie's

 

[Overmind One]

Sure, thy -look- like zombies, but they act nothing like them, much like SGU -looks- like Scifi, but is just crap.
It's a wrapper, and does that really mean much?

Yeah, the wrapper means a lot actually. If you take the exact same effect of something appearing and disappearing with a transporter or accompanied by the chime sound from Bewitched, the two events *seem* and *feel* different, even though they are exactly the same visually. You just gave me a great idea.

 

[Overmind One]

I also posted this video on the Brad Wright thread. I made it in about 15 minutes from still photos of two coasters on my coffee table, two glasses and a couple of familiar sound effects. Though the effects are technically EXACTLY the same (one fades in), they feel different because of how they are presented (the wrapper). This is how you can create Wraith from vampires, and Borg from zombies.

 

[Joelist]

The Borg are not space zombies to me.

Then of course the portrayal of the Borg has been inconsistent across Trek. In TNG the first time we saw them they had babies and only cared about consuming technology. Then we saw them assimilating Picard and the babies were forgotten. The Borg stayed pretty consistent from this point until the movie Star Trek First Contact, where they got a queen who despite being described as a personification of the collective consciousness was basically a female Ming the Merciless.

Up until the queen the Borg were a mass mind. After the queen the Borg have been more like an anthill, with the exception that instead of the queen bearing all of the young they were instead converted from other species (and saying that, had they instead had the queen literally having hundreds of babies which then are augmented it would have worked very well).

 

[Bluce Ree]

Sure, thy -look- like zombies, but they act nothing like them, much like SGU -looks- like Scifi, but is just crap.
It's a wrapper, and does that really mean much?

They have very limited free will to act within the context of servitude. They act on instinct when necessary but are otherwise, for all intents and purposes, mindless. They assimilate by infecting. Aside from the fact that they are controlled remotely and they have cool tech as implants, what's the difference?

 

[Overmind One]

The Borg are not space zombies to me.

Then of course the portrayal of the Borg has been inconsistent across Trek. In TNG the first time we saw them they had babies and only cared about consuming technology. Then we saw them assimilating Picard and the babies were forgotten. The Borg stayed pretty consistent from this point until the movie Star Trek First Contact, where they got a queen who despite being described as a personification of the collective consciousness was basically a female Ming the Merciless.

Up until the queen the Borg were a mass mind. After the queen the Borg have been more like an anthill, with the exception that instead of the queen bearing all of the young they were instead converted from other species (and saying that, had they instead had the queen literally having hundreds of babies which then are augmented it would have worked very well).

The Borg Queen appeared first in Best of Both Worlds (TNG episode S03E26), and was also played by Alice Krige who appeared as the Queen in First Contact and also in Voyager. There was one other actress who played the Queen. The baby Borg did not appear until Voyager when they started describing "maturation chambers" and showing Borg children. I can imagine offspring from the assimilated drones, especially the dual sexed ones or ones which reproduce by non-sexual means. But why would the Queen allow any sexual relations between drones except as an emergency means to make more drones?

Still, the whole process of becoming Borg is most similar to zombies than any concept in Star Trek.

 

[Joelist]

Um.....baby Borg appeared in the first episode they ever met the Borg (Q Who) - the away team discovered them when they were on board the cube. The queen was introduced in the film "First Contact". There was no queen in "Best of Both Worlds", although First Contact created a retcon scene with here and Locutus. Maturation chambers were introduced in Voyager and explained as being used with assimilated children to make them adult drones more rapidly. In Q Who they did not in any way explain Borg maturation chambers or even hint at the assimilation of life forms.

 

[Overmind One]

Um.....baby Borg appeared in the first episode they ever met the Borg (Q Who) - the away team discovered them when they were on board the cube. The queen was introduced in the film "First Contact". There was no queen in "Best of Both Worlds", although First Contact created a retcon scene with here and Locutus. Maturation chambers were introduced in Voyager and explained as being used with assimilated children to make them adult drones more rapidly. In Q Who they did not in any way explain Borg maturation chambers or even hint at the assimilation of life forms.

The Queen did not appear in the episode herself, but as you said, they retconned her and explained why Picard was chosen and what his Borg function would be. Voyager filled in most of what the Borg were going to become than TNG did. The baby Borg shown in TNG or Voyager did not imply any sort of normal reproductive means for Borg, since they already had implants.

For all intents and purposes, the Borg were not fully developed until Voyager, and it was Borg of the Voyager type who appeared in First Contact (and Voyager was still running when the movie was made). This same thing happened with the Ferengi who were much different when they were first introduced TNG (as well as the Cardassians). When I am referring to the Borg as space zombies, I mean Borg of the Voyager type.

 

[Joelist]

The funny thing is that the Borg as mass mind even was in Voyager until after the Queen was introduced in the First Contact movie. The two parter "Scorpion" which introduced Seven of Nine had no Queen and still had the hive mind.

 

[Overmind One]

The funny thing is that the Borg as mass mind even was in Voyager until after the Queen was introduced in the First Contact movie. The two parter "Scorpion" which introduced Seven of Nine had no Queen and still had the hive mind.

They wanted to give the Borg a single individual "baddie" to fight. I like the way Voyager developed the Borg, and in fact it was the intention of the writers to have the Boirg be the prime enemy that Voyager would encounter. The origin of them was known already as defined by TNG. Still, even with a Queen or without one, the Borg could be considered space zombies in a sense. They are "assimilated" (bitten), always against their will, and after being assimilated, they follow a singularly focused directive assigned by a central hive mind (be it Queen or not). Zombies of the Romero type only want to eat living flesh from uninfected humans (or animals). The original zombie would follow the directives of the witch doctor or priestess who made them into a zombie. They are not the same, no. But they are similar enough for this comparison to be valid.

 

[Gatefan1976]

They have very limited free will to act within the context of servitude.

Yet they can dream even when part of the collective. Their "individuality" is not erased, it is supressed. Zombies have no free will at all.

They act on instinct when necessary but are otherwise, for all intents and purposes, mindless.

No, they are not. You sever the connection to the collective and the Borg are more than capable of functioning independently.

They assimilate by infecting. Aside from the fact that they are controlled remotely and they have cool tech as implants, what's the difference?

Lets remember here, the "modern Zombie" meme is a representation of infectious diseases, not a "historical" zombie. Are they a "space infection"? sure, I can deal with that.

I just don't get it sometimes, you guys argue sometimes that the wrapper does not matter, but then you will say that it does.

 

[Gatefan1976]

OH!!!
Before I get "Picard said every trace of individuality was erased", that is obviously not true as if he were mindscrubbed, there would be nothing to restore, nor would unimatrix zero exist, nor would they be capable of independent action once the connection to the hive is severed.

 

[shavedape]

They wanted to give the Borg a single individual "baddie" to fight.

This. ^

They did the same thing with Aliens when they made a queen for Ripley to fight. In the director's cut of Alien you see the alien creature reproducing on its own without the need for a hive queen. But Cameron jettisoned that idea for the easier gimmick of one specific baddie. Personally I think it's dumb when talking about alien species like Xenomorphs or Borg because they're alien and would be quite different than anything we've encountered. That's what makes them so scary and intimidating.

As writing goes it's unimaginative and easy to make the alien threat anthropomorphic. I don't want unimaginative and easy; I don't want some Borg harlot mincing about the stage making breathy threats while flirting with Data. I want scary. I want intimidating. I want realism. A beehive in space isn't realism to me, certainly not when it's been done to death.