This isn’t a comprehensive compendium of my thoughts on the Borg, which I may or may not write later as time allows. Jay Hailey wrote:
How would assimilated “Drones” be controlled? And still retain their own identity underneath?
I think the drones’ original identities are semi-aware of their status. They simply cannot do anything about that. The hive mind has mechanical control of the body through the neural implants.
Worse I cannot imagine someone so controlled and imprisoned helplessly in his own body for any length of time and not suffering massive psychological damage.
Yes, I agree. A semi-aware Borg drone would remember what it was before assimilation and probably even feel some measure of remorse for the activities he has now been forced to commit, but would be powerless to intervene in a positive way.
Sooo. Why is Seven of Nine so independant? Why is she so self willed in the middle of this. She can percieve life around her and react to it individually
I have a theory. Seven isn’t who she thinks she is. She’s actually a “sleeper” drone.
Is a new “Drone” personality over laid?
To a certain extent.
What is the benefit of that? Why do the Borg even need organic components?
Distributed computing. Brains linked through the neural components. The hive mind is basically a processor array, but instead of using computer processors the Borg use organic processors. And they’re self-repairing.
It’s all too weird it doesn’t work for me.
My problem with the Borg is that they were never weird enough.
As an independant race, they stop making sense if you start asking questions.
The Borg weren’t thought out well enough in advance, and once they started putting a human face on the Borg they robbed the Borg of what made them unique–the Borg’s lack of individuality. Make the Borg individuals, give them dream lives, etc., and you’ve just turned the Borg from a faceless mass into really testy Klingons with a techno-organic fetish. And really, what’s the point of that?
The concept behind the Borg was losely based on the Telepathy Corps from David Gerrold’s “War Against the Chtorr” series, and was their nemesis, Species 8472, were even more losely lifted from the Cthorr themselves (the T-Corps were a group of artifical telepaths using neural transievers, whilst the Chtorr are a super evolved ecology that also happens to posses limited telepathy. Both end up evolving into mass-minds on opposite sides of the conflict).
He wrote one story for them (“The Trouble with Tribbles”) and they’ve been “borrowing” from him ever since then …