Maybe it's retconning, but I've always assumed the babies they showed in "Q Who" were from species they'd assimilated, and had been placed in maturation chambers to accellerate their growth.

The original Borg concept from "Q Who" was the most interesting and relentless - it's still the best Borg episode - the idea of a species that is so purely devoted to material advancement that no practical/organizational means on any scale is beyond their consideration. Really, we have to admit that the slow creep toward Voyager rendering them a shoot-em-up enemy, started as early as "Best of Both Worlds" which ignored some of those elements - giving them a Queen in "First Contact" humanized them too much, and making them akin to zombies missed the point that they were a civilization that had made a conscious choice. So they have been on the slide from that original Lovecraftian cosmic horror for 90% of their on-screen history. But they served as an important meta-arc for the Federation - after Cold War political rivalries with the Romulans and Klingons, the Borg represented a greater existential challenge for a civilization that had transcended that level of rivalry.

I always thought that Borg cubes could be combined like Lego. I don't know why I just thought that level of modularity made sense for a race that recycles it's "dead".

I loved the initial idea of the Borg not giving a damn about assimilating people but just their technology. They weren’t just another black hat, but a force of nature.

I'd pay real money to see a series about a Ferengi Deep exploration vessel seeking out new trade routes. To make money where no one has made money before.

The enterprise episode was also pretty entertaining. I think villains like this are best when they aren't explained too much.

We really need to see the Borg win for once. Humanity always avoids them or beats them Evwntually, but the Borg need a solid victory. That'll influences how scary they are.

Allegedly, one of the original ideas for First Contact was going to have the Borg travel to Renaissance Florence. It would have apparently featured Riker getting into a sword fight with one of the Borg. Come on don’t pretend you wouldn’t want to see that

I knew Captain Power's aesthetic had to be part of the Borg design. They just looked too much like Lord Dread. Check out Captain Power, it was written by JMS who made B5. Also, the Cybermen had to be an inspiration, too.

I always found the early TNG Borg to be far more disturbing and frightening than what they became later with an emotional Queen, territory, green lights everywhere, etc. In TNG, they were faceless and a true collective with zero emotion, zero 'leaders', and dead-cold grey ships.

One thing that bothered me with Voyager and it's depiction of the Borg, was that they hardly ever encountered anyone who was aware of them (the parents of the kid who used him as a Typhoid Mary and the guy whose species was assimilated are the only ones I can think of off-hand). You'd think the entire quadrant would be swarming with them, but it takes Voyager about 3 years to meet them. We could have seen anti-Borg resistance cells, the Doctor could have an entire episode dedicated to learning from someone a way to fully remove implants, Janeway could encounter a primitive planet with a crashed Borg ship and it's few survivors forcibly assimilating the indigenous species to repairing the ship and struggle with the Prime Directive, a few space-faring Ocampa could have been captured and now the Borg have psychics so we finally see what Q means by "Don't provoke the Borg!", non-bipedal Borg as they find a species with a unique genetic quirk that they like (xenomorph Borg anyone?), Voyager is chased by a cube and trapped in a nebula that is slowly eroding it's hull plating, and the crew have to negotiate with the small group of ships who have hidden there for years and are struggling with dwindling resources, but know that if they leave the safety of the anomaly they'd be captured. The Borg decide to go after the Q but will work their way up and so decide to target the Caretaker's species, or something like the nasty from Where Silence Has Lease and shenanigans abound. Omega Particle data gets leaked somehow (I don't like how Voyager just screw over an entire species and don't have the courtesy to tell them why or give them some energy tech), and now they are actively hunted by Borg. Borg find androids or sentient robots and start assimilating them. And that's just ideas off the top of my head. And Unimatrix Zero is just bad. I don't buy into any plan that involves me getting pumped full of nanotech and mutilated. Janeway and co are lucky they still have all their original limbs and eyes after that fiasco. The Borg are frankly, bloody terrifying, the bogey-men of Star Trek, eldritch abominations that even Picard thinks that killing their victims means you're doing them a favour. They aren't as bad as Cthulhu, but should be up there.

The Borg really seemed to lose their teeth in Voyager, at least after Scorpion. But Voyager always seemed to scrape through too easily. So many missed opportunities in Voyager to make it a story of truly desperate peril, but it always seemed like they just wanted to make more TNG.

The Borg were *excellent* until they gave them a queen. The whole terror of the Borg was that it had no head, but rather was an undifferentiated hive mind. As soon as I had a central power it became like all other baddies.

I had a theory long ago... That more then one version of the Borg exist , and the potential reason why they seem to differ from time to time is that .. it is a different faction within the same area. We living on earth have hundreds of different cultures. I believe it makes perfect sense for these separate factions to exist.

Er... Captain Power was an early TV show by JMS! (As I’m sure many are pointing out I the comments as I type this). Great vid thoug!!🤓👍

Here’s a strong statement that I don’t think I have heard before.... the Borg changing from eldrich horror to documented and understood species is how it’s supposed to go. The whole concept of “un knowable “ is just plain antithetical to the premise and moral foundation of Star Trek. Or at least what Trek had turned into by TNG. Taken as a single story arc, the Borg have gone from new seemingly impossibly powerful and single minded to something the characters eventually learn to be not all that different from them in some ways and certainly not as simple and monolithic as they were originally perceived. It’s the Horta’s story drawn out over years and decades. While they were a successful way to pull TNG out of the rut it made for its self with Genes strict rules if left as they were originally created they would have been a black mark on the ideological foundation of the franchise. Besides, if not changed they would have had two choices for them ultimately. They would either A: be forgotten and never used again like several other powerful enemies. Or B: they would have to either destroy them or leave the ultimate destruction of the federation looming out there in the future.

The Borg just slid downhill. They have lost their teeth. The reasons you give are exactly correct.

I love the expansion of our knowledge of Borg society. A one-dimensional, unbeatable BigBad is borrrring from a storytelling standpoint. It also makes sense that nearer to their home space in the Delta Quadrant there would be a more complete and multi-faceted society than on individual ships sent to other parts of the galaxy.

Ironically, Star Trek Online gave some of the horror of the borg back IN SPITE OF the Laws of Gameplay making them killable to any player. The GRUESOME way that they experiment on the Undine to work around their immunity to assimilation give the Borg back their street cred as this horror that can never be truly destroyed.

Yay, you answered my question. Also, please do continue this new series as it adds an interesting and different perspective.

Holy, hell is is actually a very interesting, a good idea for a series, exploring different sci-fi factions lore, and development is an ingenious idea. I’d love to see you do the Tau’ri from Stargate, it would be very interesting to see you talk about the development of humanity from a primitive age, to a galaxy exploring galaxies.

Thanks for the insights of yourself as a person and a creator of media, at the end of the video.

Lots of stuff I didn't know in this video! Great job!

Loved this pilot and would love to see what other characters of long-running franchises you do! Always the highest quality dude! Keep out the great work!

I liked their one-time use in Enterprise, too. This was good. I'm really liking your channel. I just subbed.

Huh. I had the Captain Power tapes and TV zapper ships.

You should do a Lore Evolution on SG1’s Replicators. They were closer to that Lovecraftian vibe the Borg tried to do. With the Borg, they were still bipedal humanoids, so we could understand them to a point. In the case of the Replicators, they’re just relentless non human bugs. Yeah, they were made humanoid in Atlantis, but initially, they were damn creepy.

Moving from the Gestalt to the Borg Queen was unfortunate

To be fair, much as they might comment on how unusual Picard's conversion to Locutus was in BoBW, the same two-parter makes more that a few references to the assimilation of the Federation, and specifically its people. Locutus makes mention of wishing to "raise quality of life, for all species", humanity being assimilated as easily as Picard was, etc.

Nice video I hope you do more videos like this.

Just discovered you’re channel and it’s great , sub’d straight away

For me, the best Star Trek villain was the Dominion. They posed more of a threat to the Federation than the Borg ever did, who were completely ruined by Voyager.

If you like Babylon 5, seek out Captain Power. Even though it looked like yet another 80’s half hour toy commercial, the show was written by J. Michael Straczynski and had incredible depth. A few elements from that show was even repurposed for B5. You won’t be disappointed.

The Borgs really reminds me of the Necrons from Warhammer 40k in that they both began as these soulless, relentless and near unstoppable foes that couldn’t be negotiated with only for someone to later come along and change them into something that they were never meant to be.

Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future is awesome!

Thx!!!! Now I really know what I ever thought, that the BORG also were inspired by die design of Lord Dread of Micheal J. Straczynskis "Captain Power"-TV-Show of the 80ies.

You could've at least shown a picture of Lord Dread from Captain Power when you mentioned it. It's crazy how close he looks to a Borg drone.

In one of the books they said that VEJAR had been saved by the Borg and they had upgraded it, they explained this by having the Borg think spock was already one of them because of the mind meld in the film he had made with it.

"If the Enterprise could beat them every other week they'd lose their impact as villains". Pity no-one ever reminded the Voyager writers of that. There MUST be more than 11 Borg episodes too, seems like I remember at least 1 a month for a bit in the later seasons. And Scorpion, Dark Frontier, Unimatrix Zero and Endgame were all 2 parters so that's 8.

Ah, the Borg. Or the Cybermen, as they were known when I was a lad... 🖖

Captain power was awesome! If you haven't seen it, go and watch it! Fair warning though, the effects have not aged well at all.

Waitwaitwait, you haven't heard of Captain Power?! HEATHEN! :)

Amazing villains. I was so scared of them when I was a kid

Captain Power was the coolest when I was a kid. I always thought that was me projecting that connection.

Star Trek Destiny is so, so great. I would love CBS all access to turn it into a sweeping 8 episode miniseries, but I doubt that would/could ever happen. Do a recap of that trilogy!

I liked the idea of that queen type Borg, as if she created the Borg herself and rules them as a unique, using the collective's new tech for her own gain

I loved watching Captain Power as a kid, I had no idea the Borg came after though - I definitely see the resemblance to Lord Dread.

The Borg were just rehashed cybermen from Dr. Who. Even in the Patrick Troughton episode "Tomb of the Cybermen" the cyber-leader tells them, "Your resistance is futile. We will freeze you and make you like us."

You called it, Picard and the TNG crew did get one final fight against the BORG.

when I was a kid I had a shit ton of CAPTAIN POWER FIGURES my grandmother would buy them for me at the FAYS PHARMACY STORE for like $1 each

You need to see Captain Power. It's not well known but it has J. Michael Straczynski's name associated with it is among the first series using full-CG characters. It's primarily for teens, but rather easily watchable. The end titles are awesome.

Great video! Yea the Borg were originally terrifying but turned into boring adversaries.

Didn't the Borg also make a appearance in Star Trek: Enterprise?

Captain Power was conceived of and written by JMS of Babylon 5 fame. It lasted one season was “for kids” and ran afoul of “shows shouldnt sell toys to kids!” Lawsuits in the US.

Seems a connection to V'ger is the origin that multiple depictions subscribe to. Apart from Star Trek Legacy a V'ger connection is also hinted at in Star Trek Online (Borg Unimatrix ships are essentially mini V'gers complete with torpedoes that will disntegrate a ship if they destroy it) and in the comics that fill in some of the gaps in the 2009 movie (The Borg tech in the Narada is drawn to V'ger).

J.Michael Straczynski the creator of Babylon 5 was the head writer for Captain Power and the soldiers of the future.

Wonder if Star Trek Disco will have the Borg in a ep

Rowan I don't know about you but I'm looking forward to Star Trek Picard, as we'll finally see what happened after Romulus was destroyed. BTW if you want to know more about what happened that made Nero from the 2009 reboot, a villain obsessed with torturing Spock, there is a comic book called Star Trek Countdown that explores what the events in universe leading up to the reboot were. It also shows the fate of several Next Generation characters

I'll admit, I had some reservations about this series, but I'm very impressed! I hope you make more of these videos because this was awesome! P.S.: Are you a comic book fan? Just curious because of your DCAU vids.

"Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future" was a saturday morning Cartoon based on a couple of Mattel toys that could interact with on-screen action. It featured some of the earliest CGI.

Captain Power was a J M Straczynski project. There was a robot army that was digitizig humanity and or putting them in concentration camps, etc. The story line was almost as dark as Exosquad's.

Loved your mention of the Star Trek Destiny trilogy. In my personal opinion it is the best and exciting origin story of the Borg. If any of you guys watching this video or reading the comments did not read it yet, you definitely should.

Captain Power! That was a J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) show, IIRC.

Holy shit, captain power was fkin awesome AS A KID. Rewatched it recently and it fucking BLOWS lol.

Great video! By any chance have you ever considered doing a video on the ST: Destiny novels?

I always thought that the borg where a "perfect" democracy, just that everyone had the same way of thinking and the same informations all the time, making their actions look like mindless drones but in reality they are just thinking completely alike. In this regard, the queens task would not have been to command the drones but to reevaluate old and invent new thinking-patterns for the borg to improve. Like a unit solely dedicated to work on software improvements, while the drones work on hardware improvements. This way the Borg could be used as villains, who don't just want to assimilate all lifeforms and their technology but who would run experiments on newly created software and/or hardware. Like that all other lifeforms would not only be assimilation targets but lab-rats for their upgrades. Like they had said, their end goal is not complete assimilation but perfection. It kinda strikes me as odd that they would leave improvement up to enemy analysis instead of self-analysis.

Question how do you publish your books on Amazon I want to but don't know how please give me advise.

I just finished Destiny. Fantastic books!

Maurice Hurley? The same guy whose only credentials were "Being Roddenberry's Drinking Buddy?" The same guy who drove Gates McFadden to quit? THIS guy came up with the Borg? Wow.

Aww man, you didn't watch Captain Power as a kid? I loved that shit.

5:56 Enterprise had the Xindi..... I'm sure you left that out by accident.

How do you not know Captain power amazing show from the 80s LOL I was only a kid but awesome show even the toys

Also, in best of both worlds the Borg tell Picard that his culture will adapt to service theirs, implying that they would enslave earth, not assimilate it.

I always thought that the Borg where what something like the federation would eventually become.

2:15 never heard of it? i actually hear this alot. i had a bunch of the toys and video tapes. the episodes are currently on an obscure service called nightflights plus.

My head cannon has the Borg not assimilating people until they ran up against humanity and discovered that our greatest technology was...us. In "The Best of Both Worlds" episode the shift in priority is even noted by the characters on screen. Picard might have actually been the first "alien" biological organism ever assimilated by the Borg. Combine that with the Hugh arc and you get a very different Borg by Voyager's time than you had previously. I imagine the queen was originally simply a kind of distribution node for the collective but Picard's force of will and Hugh's regained individuality caused this radical shift in organization and priorities. In essence, Picard defeated the Borg by simply making them beatable. It would also explain the Borg's obsession with Earth.

What about Control from Discovery? Or the new Borg Cube seen in Picard?

Personally my favorite versions are either the Q Who original one, or the First Contact one. The first might be more outright threatening and force of nature like, but the second one concept of assimilation via nano probes was far more chilling. It also made far more sense for their marauder style of organization and tendency to send only one ship, searching for perfection by raiding and learning from all other entities of the galaxy.

The Tyranids are leagues more terrifying than the Borg, especially in the unknowable, relentless force department, but I absolutely LOVE the Borg.

I always figured the Queen was just a spokesperson, a puppet the Collective could use when it wanted to communicate with others, rather than an actual person with actual decision making ability.

The Borg themselves didn't change - we just learned more about them at the same time our heroes did and new ways to fight them where found. I simply don't think it is right to claim that Voyager turned the Borg into a joke or any other claims like that!

In Captain Power the main antagonist Lord Dread would have human beings broken down into data and and transferred into an AI called The Overmind. He had an eye lens like a Borg drone.

From my perspective , instead of a New Description of an old idea , The Roman Assimilation Campaign. The Borg Represent what we would "Really" become in space , rather than the Idealist "Federation".

Captain Power was a very good "kids" science fiction show by the creator of Babylon 5 (but it was made prior to that show). It had fairly sophisticated plots & an overarching storyline. It was cancelled because some groups objected to the shows episodes as long commercials for toys. There was a Power Gauntlet that could be bought "allowing" the audience member to fight alongside Captain Power & his Troopers. Of course you could really only hit an enemy already slated to be shot in the story, but the interaction was still kind of cool.

You might like to watch Captain Power - it has a really interesting episode about it's antagonist - that has been commented on in a good way - it was also written by Joe Michael Strazinski (who has written all sorts of interesting things over the years - but is most know for Babylon 5) I checked and the show is on KZfaq : Here is a play list : kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ZstxdJyjsMDHXYk.html Now remember it was a show made to sell a toy space ship - but with in that and it being a cheap 90's show it's - On a personal Note - I notice the 1st episode is written by Larry De tillio who was one of the Writers on Beast Wars. Worth a look if you fancy checking out something for historical purposes.

I wept for the protagonist in this at, “Captain Power and the soldiers of the future; something I’ve never heard of.” Thankfully, it’s just a story. Such tragedy rarely happens in real life.

It is worth seeking out Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. This was a sci fi series originally created to sell a line of toys. This was the first interactive tv series, for if you got the Captain Power gun, you could shoot at the biodreads and other bad guys, and I believe the gun kept score. If I’m wrong about the gun, someone can correct me. But what I do know is that it evolved into a credible sci fi show of its own. The characters and stories went far beyond just an infomercial for a line of toys. Yes, it was the 80s, and you hear 80s slang like “piece of cake”. And yes, they have 80s haircuts as well. But if you look past this, you’ll see a show that’s worth watching. And you may also come to feel like many including myself did, that it deserved more than its one season. The episodes are here on KZfaq.

You must search more about captain power and soldiers of future. It was a different type of show but they introduced the concept of the borg. People were in slaved by a computer entity.

Please make more videos on borg...

After the Best of the Both Worlds, they had only two options on how to continually feature the Borg given how powerful they'd been established as. Either nerf/develop their weaknesses to give the Federation a fighting chance or to make their thinking so alien that the reasoning for not just sending more cubes to try and conquer the Alpha Quadrant again are wholly inconceivable to the characters and the audience. For better or for worse, they went with the former option. It did make for some interesting episodes, but there's an interesting "what if" of the Borg being left as a mysterious threat always lurking on the fringes of Federation space and it being totally unknown in how they would emerge again.

I liked the idea of a queen they are called a collective and like a bee hive or a ant colony they work as one. So a queen is a interesting twist in the story. Like bees it would be interesting if you could have different hives or collectives who are the Borg but with subtle differences. It could be a fun path to take with that character.

The Borg are a thousand years old at the time of Voyager. We've not seen the last of the Borg even though they are more complex , have been defeated, and maybe even have weaknesses seen in TNG. They are resourceful and work well as humanity's villain because "they play on how intimately human existence depends on technology and it hold the opposite values the Federation holds dear, freedom, diversity and individuality" as Trekspertise argues in the "History of the Borg" video.

Honestly, I really like both pre-Queen Borg and post-Queen Borg, the only problem I have is simply that they might as well be two separate powers with how abrupt the change is. Maybe it would have worked better if the Borg becoming less mysterious to The Federation was worked into the show gradually instead of suddenly dropping all at once in First Contact.

5:20 Oh I agree the idea of a 'leader' for a hive mind is stupid. Thankfully some works have tried to hammer home that her appearance at being an individual is a facade. And the queens are more like relay stations than entities.

Hi, as I have said many time we all have an Opinion, I like the BORG and I agree that when they appeared in NG they were very scary and dangerous, as we see them in Voyager they lose a lot of that scary feeling. A race I like is the Hirogen interesting

Also, besides contract immortality, I think the reason the queen reappears after dying is because she's not as much as an individual as she appears.

I've always saw the Borg as a once humanoid race that developed a type of nanotechnology that went wild

apparently voyager had to wait till after first contact to feature the borg.

Voyager destroyed the Borg. By the time Votager was over the Borg weren't scary and they weren't that much of a threat because Voyager all alone was able to best them at every encounter

Unpopular opinion: Borg Queen was created as a direct consequence of the Enterprise crew making Hugh an individual. In the chaos, The Queen and Lore were jockeying for power within the now shattered collective. This is also explains why we saw so many changes between the TNG Borg and the Voyager Borg.