Saturday, August 18, 2007

.

Technology in Star Trek, the Borg

More of the series on technology in Star Trek: the Borg.

I only have a few, brief things to say about the Borg, because, after all, resistance is futile. The Borg, like the holodeck, was something introduced in The Next Generation and exploited in Voyager — coincidentally, the Borg come from the Delta Quadrant, the very place where Voyager is stuck and is trying to get home from. Lots of fun prospects there, and Voyager even picks up a poor orphaned former-human Borg waif, called “seven of nine, tertiary adjunct of unimatrix 01” — or just “Seven” to her friends, though she wasn't crazy about the term.

The Borg in general, and Seven of Nine in particular (her character was added to replace Kes, joining in season 4), drove quite many storylines, and the technology was used to resolve a number of situations. One really can't say too much about this blending of biology and technology — it's certainly an area that screams for suspension of disbelief, and that's fine.

So, here, those few comments:

  1. “Just give me about five seconds to reprogram some of my nanoprobes, and we'll sort things out tout de suite. [momentary pause] OK, there. Great, it worked, and just in time for the light-hearted end-of-episode moment.”
  2. "We're very sorry, Seven, but you're not a Star Fleet officer, so you can't wear one of our horrible dowdy outfits. I tell you what: we'll design you a tight, form-fitting thing that will make your boobs stick out nicely, OK?"
  3. bluetooth earpieceI'm sure no one imagined this in 1989, when the Borg first appeared on TNG, but, well, do you think there was a bit of prescience there?

4 comments:

Maggie said...

Did you talk about the programming yet? "Just let me use a recursive algorithm. There... that's better." LOL. Seven's various parts can be reprogrammed with a few pokes of something that looks like a pin. Unless she has a few factory-pre-programmed "settings," I don't buy it.

The Ridger, FCD said...

Er, what's that? The Maquis get to dress like the rest of us? Well, sure, but they aren't the eye-candy...

D. said...

It's so funny that you show that Bluetooth pic. The first time I ever saw one, my friend Milke was walking around wearing it, and after asking what it was, I told him, "It makes you look like you're part of the Borg."

JP Burke said...

Borg, right.