Should Janeway have let Seven go back to the Borg?

[Steve]

Yuka, quit before you dig this hole any deeper.

Whatever positives one might attribute to the Borg, there is no getting over the crux of the matter: they take in new members without consent. The Borg do not give you the option of joining their perfection. They identify something in your species that makes you of interest and then they consume you whether or not you wish to be part of their "perfection". They forcefully install implants in your brain, sometimes perform further mutilations, and ruthlessly crush every trace of who you are under the weight of the Collective. Then they use your body as cannon fodder as it pleases them.

There is not one single element of this that is in any way sympathetic or admirable. It is the raping of a sapient being at the most fundamental level, and for someone who's held forth at length on the subject of how evil rape is, I'd think you'd comprehend that fact!

[Yukaphile]

I never said it is right. Just that they don't have petty conflicts like in our society. That's all. And I never denied taking other species like that is wrong.

But the mods have spoken. I'll stop.

[LavarosVA]

I never said it is right. Just that they don't have petty conflicts like in our society. That's all. And I never denied taking other species like that is wrong.

But the mods have spoken. I'll stop.

Here's the thing, yes, they don't have petty conflicts in their society, but. They are engaged in conflict on a universal level with literally any species they deem worthy of assimilation or destruction, which is any species at a certain technological level.

They're basically the Dominion but without the pretense.

[J!!]

Hostis Humani Generis

[Fianna]

The Borg don't really have a society, though, because there aren't multiple Borg to form a society. There's only a single Borg consciousness controlling all the different bodies.

So, yeah, they don't have wars or prejudices or other petty conflicts with each other, in the same way that, if I kill off everyone on the planet but myself, I can say that I've successfully eliminated human conflict, since there aren't any other humans for me to have conflicts with.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The Borg don't really have a society, though, because there aren't multiple Borg to form a society. There's only a single Borg consciousness controlling all the different bodies.

So, yeah, they don't have wars or prejudices or other petty conflicts with each other, in the same way that, if I kill off everyone on the planet but myself, I can say that I've successfully eliminated human conflict, since there aren't any other humans for me to have conflicts with.

This is why it's silly to entertain socialist vs liberal dynamics in this thread. But again, saying that the Borg don't brainwash their victims is fundamentally asinine.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

Praising the Borg for their for their lack of societal conflict is like saying Andrew Jackson ended societal conflict with the Indians in the southeast with the Indian Removal Act. Yeah he "solved the problem", but is that laudatory if it's done through the Trail of Tears?

As far as the question involved, I don't condone getting involved with the business of alien races and species (the Prime Directive is a good thing in this regard), but the Borg are a special case. Different episodes send mixed signals on this occasionally, but the Borg are mostly shown to be made up entirely of innocent people who have been enslaved as mindless drones. As Fianna said, they aren't actually a society.

First Contact treats Picard's attitude toward the Borg as prejudice akin to racism (speciesism), but I'm not convinced Picard as wrong. Any impression he has of one Borg applies to all of them since they aren't actually individuals. This is also why I think Picard's near genocide of the Borg in "I, Borg" was arguably a valid move- there are no innocents or non-combatants, every single one of them is a brainwashed enemy soldier.

[Riedquat]

Say what you want about the Borg, but wouldn't you love to live in a society where there's no conflict? No prejudice? Where every member of that race will back you up? Where you all share in the benefits equally? I wanna live in that society. Granted, what the Borg do makes you "lose" something of yourself in the process, but if they left other races alone, then arguably they'd be the future of the universe. People get so fed up with conflict and division, they wanna be part of a greater whole, no chaos and hatred.

Not if the price of all of that was becoming like the Borg, no, I wouldn't love to live in that society. Not remotely. It's throwing away everything that makes life worth living in order to desperately cling to more mere existence. I'd rather take my chances with conflict than sell my soul to avoid it.

[Riedquat]

First Contact treats Picard's attitude toward the Borg as prejudice akin to racism (speciesism), but I'm not convinced Picard as wrong. Any impression he has of one Borg applies to all of them since they aren't actually individuals. This is also why I think Picard's near genocide of the Borg in "I, Borg" was arguably a valid move- there are no innocents or non-combatants, every single one of them is a brainwashed enemy soldier.

Makes an interesting one, that, because it both looked at Picard's attitudes whilst not attempting to dodge the fact that the Borg are 100% the enemy. Could do with a bit of exploring, that idea.

[Mecha82]

To Picard it's also very personal matter because he has experienced that himself before he was rescued and had implants removed. Because of it he knows first hand what Borg are like and what it's like to be part of collective so what he said in First Contact was spot on. That passion and emotion that he put to the speech really shows how horrible experience it was.