Goodbye, Kes! Have fun being ascended!
You know, Scorpion has some really great music. Just listen to these tracks.
Anyway, it continues to bug me that nobody considers talking to Species 8472. I mean, yeah, they don't seem real social with their "you'll contaminate us! the weak shall perish!" chatter, but if you can reason with the Borg you can reason with almost anybody. Nobody's saying befriend them, but they might be amenable to "Listen, beat up the Borg all you like, but when you've finished with that, if you're so afraid of contamination it's probably both safer and easier to just go home and lock the doors. Nobody will follow, first because you're scary and also because we just don't want to. Why even would we? You don't really want to be here, do you? Well, we feel the same way about your territory."
Next episode also bugs me. They talk and talk and talk about how the Borg stole young Annika Hansen's right to self-determination, and they're not wrong, but Seven's not wrong either - Janeway will see any desire to return to the Borg as proof that she's not capable of making her own decisions. It's a trap. Not that Seven did herself any favors with her impulsive recklessness, like, what was she thinking? (She wasn't, no more than she was thinking when she suggested they could just leave her on a planet in Borg territory to be picked up. If she had been she'd know perfectly well that the Collective wouldn't trouble itself to rescue one stranded drone, not if there was no real benefit to them.)
It would have been a lot better to be honest and say "Yeah, Seven, but look at it from our point of view. Every ex-drone is a win for the Federation, hell, for all non-Borg species. Sure, it's not as efficient as blowing up cubes left, right, and center, but we're still not going to return you to the collective just so they can use you to assimilate a few dozen more hapless children." (And when they bring her around to their point of view she can help them fight the Borg, which is better and better.)
Also, side question: All the Borg we've seen are humanoid, and about the same height, and all their infrastructure seems designed around this. Species 8472 is not. Does non-humanoid assimilation involve even more body horror than we already knew about? Or does the Borg have specialized vessels for different body shapes? (Did the Borg ever assimilate any tardigrades?)
*********************************
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You know, Scorpion has some really great music. Just listen to these tracks.
Anyway, it continues to bug me that nobody considers talking to Species 8472. I mean, yeah, they don't seem real social with their "you'll contaminate us! the weak shall perish!" chatter, but if you can reason with the Borg you can reason with almost anybody. Nobody's saying befriend them, but they might be amenable to "Listen, beat up the Borg all you like, but when you've finished with that, if you're so afraid of contamination it's probably both safer and easier to just go home and lock the doors. Nobody will follow, first because you're scary and also because we just don't want to. Why even would we? You don't really want to be here, do you? Well, we feel the same way about your territory."
Next episode also bugs me. They talk and talk and talk about how the Borg stole young Annika Hansen's right to self-determination, and they're not wrong, but Seven's not wrong either - Janeway will see any desire to return to the Borg as proof that she's not capable of making her own decisions. It's a trap. Not that Seven did herself any favors with her impulsive recklessness, like, what was she thinking? (She wasn't, no more than she was thinking when she suggested they could just leave her on a planet in Borg territory to be picked up. If she had been she'd know perfectly well that the Collective wouldn't trouble itself to rescue one stranded drone, not if there was no real benefit to them.)
It would have been a lot better to be honest and say "Yeah, Seven, but look at it from our point of view. Every ex-drone is a win for the Federation, hell, for all non-Borg species. Sure, it's not as efficient as blowing up cubes left, right, and center, but we're still not going to return you to the collective just so they can use you to assimilate a few dozen more hapless children." (And when they bring her around to their point of view she can help them fight the Borg, which is better and better.)
Also, side question: All the Borg we've seen are humanoid, and about the same height, and all their infrastructure seems designed around this. Species 8472 is not. Does non-humanoid assimilation involve even more body horror than we already knew about? Or does the Borg have specialized vessels for different body shapes? (Did the Borg ever assimilate any tardigrades?)
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Pilot buys pizza for passengers after emergency landing leads to 7-hour layover
Many stable atoms have ‘magic numbers’ of protons and neutrons. 75 years ago, 2 physicists discovered their special properties
The woman who revolutionized the fantasy genre is finally getting her due
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These beaches are among LA's favourites. They're engineered.
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Who gets shipped and why?
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What Do US Vehicle Regulators Have Against Tiny Cars?
How to Fix America’s Dangerous Roads
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This Video Game Controller Has Become the US Military’s Weapon of Choice
United Cajun Navy stages big storm response for Hurricane Milton
Women are horseback-riding heroes bringing supplies, support to new moms after hurricane devastation
Meteorologists Get Death Threats as Hurricane Milton Conspiracy Theories Thrive
Florida’s Risky Bet
Just how doomed is home insurance?
Did Canada Betray Afghanistan’s Female Soccer Players?
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no subject
Date: 2024-10-11 12:36 pm (UTC)And I wonder that too about the Borg. Why do we only see drones that look like humans?
no subject
Date: 2024-10-11 01:09 pm (UTC)Why do we only see drones that look like humans?
The Doylist reason is obvious but I share the wish that the writers/worldbuilders had been more creative about the Watsonian reasons. The body horror of forcing every species into a humanoid form would be very fitting but maybe beyond the current FX technology.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-11 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-12 12:41 am (UTC)For some inexplicable reason most actors are humans, so I do understand that, but it does raise so many questions if you think too hard, which of course I always do.
And as you say, they could just be honest and say no: that's not a choice they're going to give her. Period.
I could respect that a lot more than the mendacity. I mean, fair's fair, I wouldn't give Seven a choice either, medical autonomy can go fuck itself.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-12 12:42 am (UTC)Edit: Also there is this story apparently. Oh my goodness!
no subject
Date: 2024-10-12 05:11 am (UTC)Also, I don't I've ever seen a toilet on any star ship. Do they not go potty in the a fantastical version of the future? Maybe they just use the transporter to remove waste.
I've always looked at the Borg as communists.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-12 02:00 pm (UTC)Re: toilets, people talk about there not being toilets mentioned in all kinds of literature, but generally I feel like it's the kind of thing you're not going to mention unless there's a plot reason to mention it. Same in movies/TV series. If you think of movies broadly, most don't have toilet scenes. So I don't think it's a weakness of Star Trek that they don't bother explaining how toilets/sewage work on the starship. I mean, it could be interesting if they *did* have an episode in which sewage systems were a plot point! But they're busy doing other stories, and that's okay with me.
Re: the Borg and Communists, it's not the way I think of them, but it's definitely an interpretation that people make.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-13 08:41 am (UTC)Okay that's AWESOME
no subject
Date: 2024-10-13 03:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-13 03:54 pm (UTC)