ENT Regeneration and Borg Stupidity

[Seaward]

The Borg's behaviour stands and falls with the question on whether there's a distinct central intelligence or if it is a true hivemind. If the later, then repeating the same mistakes except with more personell isn't out of question, possibly quite the contrary. The hiveminds we know of, aren't very bright on a particular level. What makes these hivemind smarter than the individual is aggregate behaviour and, almost literally, swarm-tactics. For example, ant-streets aren't a result of targeted behaviour, it's a result of lots of ants using the particular way and leaving their pheromones, so more ants follow a naturally good route, leaving more pheromones, enticing more ants to use the same road and so on and on.

Thing is, the Borg hive mind isn't like the hive minds we could observe in nature here on Earth. Ant colonies aren't particularly bright because ants themselves aren't. But the Borg are made up of a bunch of beings with human-like intelligence who can literally hear each other's thoughts. Surely one would expect them to behave more intelligently?

[TrueMetis]

Ants and bees and what not aren't actually mentally connected. So the Borg are not only made up of human level intelligence's, as they experience everything everyone else does they should never make the same mistake twice. IE if ants had this then traps and left out poisons should only ever work once. Since all the other ants in the hive would be instantly aware of exactly what happened. Even assuming that this networking doesn't increase the overall intelligence of the collective and the whole thing is more or less human base standard you've got a bunch of human level intelligence beings that would have not only the training and education of some of the best in the galaxy via assimilation, they would all also have first hand experience of every individual from every battle they've every taken part in.

Give a human general that last one, not even a particularity good one either, and they would be able to roll over their enemies with ease. With damn near perfect scouting they would notice virtually every move his enemy made and been able to instantly exploit mistakes and react to enemy movements and at the same time by knowing exactly where their people are they'd also be able to keep their men in proper position and act always at the proper time. They would also understand first hand the mistakes made in previous battles rather than simply learning about them, which would lead to a seriously increased learning curve.

And like I said your strategy and tactics wouldn't even have to be that good.

So why don't the Borg work this way? Because they would be completely unstoppable. Even without that strategy and tactics edge their numbers and tech should already make them that. So making them idiots is pretty much the only way the Federation can win.

[HalcyonDays]

Some people have suggested in the past, it's possible the Borg merely don't view it as that big of a deal. So they lose a couple of ships to humanity, big deal they have many many more. While I agree that this was probably the case early on, it's when the queen got introduced that things went to the complete absurd. Wanting Picard to 'service the collective' as it were, is ridiculous. Why would a cybernetic being like her be interested in physical pleasure, something she should by all rights view as irrelevant. In later episodes of Voyager she even talks about how humanity is not very important and rather bland as a species, yet she's still designed a brand new way to assimilate us that they've never used before, and will never mention again. That's the trouble of creating a true hive mind enemy I think. Either they're completely unbeatable except in very specific circumstances, or they're a farce. The early Borg were fine, because they simply didn't care if they lost one or two ships. The Federation is a resource like any other, if one proves difficult to acquire you move on to one that is less so.

[Darth Wedgius]

I almost wrote that the Borg trying to assimilate Earth might be like me getting the keys from my pocket. I may not even realize I'm doing it; I just know I need to get into my car. I certainly don't plan on what each finger does, and I'll really only give it much thought if something goes really wrong.

The fingers have informed me that the pocket is empty? Oh yes, the keys are on my desk. No big deal. It's one trivial expenditure of resources (reaching into my pocket / sending a cube with tens of thousands of drones) for a trivial gain (getting keys / conquering the Earth). If I mess up a couple of times, I don't really change my life-long habits to avoid it.

But, going by maps showing the alpha and beta quadrants, or even just DS-9 dialog about the alpha quadrant, the Federation seems to control a substantial part of the galaxy. I don't know if I can make my not-a-big-deal explanation fit. That's not just getting my keys, that's the whole drive to the store when my wife wants ice cream, and if I don't return home with Ben & Jerry's I will suffer in ways the Geneva Conventions didn't dare even bring up in case it would give people ideas.

In my semi-noble quest to lower human suffering, starting with my own, I put at least a minimal amount of conscious planning into that.

I guess this ends up as YMMV, like a lot of things. The Borg not blowing up the Enterprise D after grabbing Picard bothers me, but not enough to ruin what I think of as the best episode of Trek.

[Enterprising]

After this episode I was left wondering why on Earth our heroes aren't just using freezing air con & bullets, war with the Borg is as good as won using those.

[turbo_sailor67]

My first thought when I saw this episode was literally "What the hell?"

Yours and mine. To think, this is going up as a Mini Review in the category of "Best of" Star Trek episodes, which to my understanding was going to be "10 out of 10" episodes. It's his show and far be it for me to declare what should and should not be a Mini Review for YouTube; it just came as a surprise to me.

I thought about doing Captain Archer with a more Sterling Archer from Space Race look for the cover art, but I wouldn't want to elevate Captain Archer in that manner. Despite my feelings about the episode (don't like it save for it not being a Voyager episode with Captain Mary Sue making the Borg her bitch because we have to make her the most awesomest character EVER!) I'm still going to try my best to come up with something good looking.