Hope and Fear

[McAvoy]

Not at the time those episodes were made. They were retroactively declared to be the result of the Borg.

Well, given that Maurice Hurley went on record saying that The Neutral Zone was to be the first of a trilogy of episodes that would introduce the Borg, you're at least partially wrong.

Again: those mind-controlling alien insectoid parasites were originally going to be the opponents, but they were abandoned.

Well, I did find a brief note that the Conspiracy parasites were supposed to feed into the Borg. This could be misremembering, or cut when they decided the Borg weren't going to be insectoids, or something dropped when the trilogy was dropped, or Maurice Hurley screwing with Tracy Torme. Nobody can really say.

--

Regardless, it doesn't matter what didn't happen.

Yeah Maurice Hurley's only real true positive contribution to Trek.

He even the second season to end with the Borg which got pushed back to season 3. Instead we got the worse Star Trek season finale of all time.

[McAvoy]

It's also possible the Federation might not have devoted the resources to fighting the Borg ship that they should have. Their entire knowledge of the Borg at that point came from the Enterprise's two encounters with them, one of which was so recent that the data was probably still being analyzed, and the other was part of a Q manipulation, so it comes with a big "was this even real?" asterisk.

Some Admiral or another may have looked at the situation and decided, sure, the Borg cube is big, but if we outnumber them forty to one, that oughta be enough; no need to pull more ships away from their important work than we have to.

It sounded like they were devoting resources to figuring out the Borg by BobW. Shelby being the one that cut through all of the bickering and bad ideas. That if I recall, Shelby did mention there were weapons or plans in motion but wasn't ready yet.

We also know the Defiant was being developed either right before or after Wolf 359. Sisko went there after the battle. If you buy into the idea all of the new First Contact ships are anti Borg ships then Starfleet was busy. That and they made a better showing against the Borg this time even before Enterprise came in.

There is a common fan theory that before the Borg, Starfleet was complacent. They were confident in their own superiority that the fleet was no shape or form to actually fight against something like the Borg. The Borg woke them up.

If you think about it, there were mentions of wars Starfleet fought before TNG and they all sounded like border skirmishes then actual wars. The Cardassian war may have been only one that may have actually tested them but I can easily see that as small scale.

To me, Starfleet was probably operating on a full time peacetime fleet. Like operating at half capacity with more of the less combat capable and more science oriented ships being crewed.

[Madner Kami]

If you think about it, there were mentions of wars Starfleet fought before TNG and they all sounded like border skirmishes then actual wars. The Cardassian war may have been only one that may have actually tested them but I can easily see that as small scale.

To me, Starfleet was probably operating on a full time peacetime fleet. Like operating at half capacity with more of the less combat capable and more science oriented ships being crewed.

Yeah, I mean just look at the Galaxy-class. It's a flying hotel with enough space for the entire population of a small city and it carries civilians routinely, families of the crew-members. That's insane for anything that might end up in actual combat for a myriad of reasons. Personally, I feel this is down to writers just not understanding scale, but in-universe and hindsight... yeah. Starfleet was not a military, it was a luxury cruise company at that point.

As for the Cardassian War, I dunno if DS9 was actually going for that angle, but you can read quite some disturbing subtext there. The Cardassians fought a true war or thought they did and went full scale Russian on the Federation. And what does the Federation do? Essentially nothing. At best, they half-arsed it and left their troops out to dry, while they had absolute numerical, technological and logistical superiority. The Federation should have, by all accounts, moped the floor with the Cardassians and instead agreed to a disadvantageous peace-treaty which left sizeable parts of Federation citizens behind enemy lines and royally screwed over planets like Bajor. The terrible truth is: the Maquis was right. Starfleet, argueably the entire Federation, wasn't willing to fight for it's ideals or, worse, it's own people.

The show TNG or even Trek as a whole could've become, if it weren't for that damn self-contained episodic format, if you think about it... DS9 was so endlessly great, precisely because it steered away from self-contained story-telling and going for story-arches. Imagine that in TNG. Or Voyager. The famed Year of Hell, which should've been the entire series...

And, writing this while also writing in a military-forum, where we are currently discussing certain figures who advocate for peace in Ukraine. It looks all too familiar. Their reasoning being: War creates suffering and suffering is bad. So if Ukraine just surrenders, the war is over and there will be no suffering, no death. And yes, true. There wouldn't be any further death. But there would also be no Ukraine. No ukrainian people. And a cultural genocide would happen, argueably even a completed genocide. These "doves", that is the Federation during the Cardassian War. And what did their refusal to fight give them? Massacres like on Setlik III. The Bajoran occupation. Tens of thousands, if not houndreds of thousands of traumatized personell and citizens. Disloyal personell and, further down the line, just another, completely preventable war, which cost billions of lives and brought the Federation to near-collapse. Just like peace at all costs in Ukraine would destroy the Western World.

[hypocratus]

The Bajoran occupation had been happening for decades before the Federation was in that area of space. Now if you mean that the Federation did nothing to stop it, yes that is true and crappy.

[Madner Kami]

The Bajoran occupation had been happening for decades before the Federation was in that area of space. Now if you mean that the Federation did nothing to stop it, yes that is true and crappy.

The working thought was, that a Cardassian Military under proper pressure, would be forced away from Bajor, either by force of arms or due to necessity, as the occupational forces would be needed elsewhere. Besides, the Federation can't pretend that what was happening on Bajor was an internal matter of the Cardassians and very much had a moral duty to intervene in some way (not necesarily militarilly though). The Bajoran Occupation began in 2319, the border wars began somewhere in the late 2340s and more or less kept going until the late 2360s. Plenty of time to do something at least. Instead the Federation twiddled it's thumbs and rewarded an agressor with additional territory and subjects...

[Frustration]

I wonder whether the name 'Borg' had been chosen at the time of the insectoid plans. In any case, it is quite clear that the 'Borg' they were originally planning for and the 'Borg' they ended up with are the same in name and broadest possible approach to existence only.

Both were fill-ins after people realized the Ferenghi weren't suitable villains for a variety of reasons.

[Riedquat]

I wonder whether the name 'Borg' had been chosen at the time of the insectoid plans. In any case, it is quite clear that the 'Borg' they were originally planning for and the 'Borg' they ended up with are the same in name and broadest possible approach to existence only.

I can't see how that would've been the case; "Borg" is clearly short for "Cyborg."

[CharlesPhipps]

I wonder whether the name 'Borg' had been chosen at the time of the insectoid plans. In any case, it is quite clear that the 'Borg' they were originally planning for and the 'Borg' they ended up with are the same in name and broadest possible approach to existence only.

Both were fill-ins after people realized the Ferenghi weren't suitable villains for a variety of reasons.

The Romulans were decent enemies but had the absolute SHITTIEST fashion sense. Like, they're the worst dressed fascists in scifi/fantasy.

[McAvoy]

I wonder whether the name 'Borg' had been chosen at the time of the insectoid plans. In any case, it is quite clear that the 'Borg' they were originally planning for and the 'Borg' they ended up with are the same in name and broadest possible approach to existence only.

Both were fill-ins after people realized the Ferenghi weren't suitable villains for a variety of reasons.

The Romulans were decent enemies but had the absolute SHITTIEST fashion sense. Like, they're the worst dressed fascists in scifi/fantasy.

Yeah. That was the late 80's and early 90's showing through. Giant shoulder pads were a thing then especially for women. TNG really does date itself on the hair and fashions they used.

No so apparent in the other shows though.

[clearspira]

I wonder whether the name 'Borg' had been chosen at the time of the insectoid plans. In any case, it is quite clear that the 'Borg' they were originally planning for and the 'Borg' they ended up with are the same in name and broadest possible approach to existence only.

Both were fill-ins after people realized the Ferenghi weren't suitable villains for a variety of reasons.

The Romulans were decent enemies but had the absolute SHITTIEST fashion sense. Like, they're the worst dressed fascists in scifi/fantasy.

Yeah. That was the late 80's and early 90's showing through. Giant shoulder pads were a thing then especially for women. TNG really does date itself on the hair and fashions they used.

No so apparent in the other shows though.

I don't disagree, but one thing I kind of liked about the Romulan uniforms and haircuts in retrospect is that it made every Romulan look exactly the same. The shoulder pads evened out the physical differences and the uniforms flattened down the boobs a bit to give an asexual look. I like this because it shows just how authoritarian and conformist they are. Everyone is just a tool of the state. Man or woman, young or old. You are the Romulan state. Its a scarier version of the Borg in a way because this could actually happen.