@@NealX_Gaming I have to say, the Borg voice they used to have at 3:03 was pretty poor. They only had two people's voices working together to be the Borg. They picked it up much better in Best of Both Worlds and beyond to convey the idea of hundreds of thousands of voices speaking at once, as one.
Best in all of Trek when they started, but a joke by the time their greater arc across multiple franchises ended...a shame Christopher Pine never was given a shot at them
First Contact Borg are utterly terrifying. Prior to that their fear inducing nature was limited by tv budgets. Once they got the movie treatment, that cybernetic zombie aspect they got was enough to give you nightmares, especially since something like these Borg are far more likely to happen in real life than zombies.
Most spend their whole lives trying to speak to or otherwise relate to a Q like entity. Picard wants nothing more than to swat his with a fly swatter, no wonder they hugged at the end of their journey.
I always got a kick when the Borg drone intensified his disruptive scanning of the Enterprises systems after he turned to face the crowd, like he was saying, "you dare interfere?! This is your penance!"
@@sethwinslow I thought the same but then I thought, maybe a Borg would look to gauge their reactions, that's important information about the species they plan to assimilate. How do they think? Would they resist further, or would they submit?
@@missilemassacreonline in this situation the borg are investigating a completely new technology to them. They aren't too much interested in the biological beings
I like how the Borg beam back the live crewman but only want specific components from the dead one. They could have beamed back both and done a more thorough recycle job of the dead one.
@@thehantavirus They're accurate, But this is there first time encountering the Borg and don't have their ship schematics on file. Most ships, in ST follow a certain deign philosophy but the Borg has a completely alien design. Most likely, they tried targeting power sources until they finally just hit the emitter array.
I like to think that they were aiming for the power source or mechanism of the tractor beam rather than the emitter. That would explain why they didn't shoot at the source of the green light.
I remember watching this episode for the first time, so good, the Borg were so cold and callous, calculating and seemingly unstoppable. Gave me the shivers.
Originally they were awesome, more like a bacteria or a virus. Emotionless and systematic. Got progressively ruined as new writers decided to mess with it. Remember First Contact? That was just bizarre.
Joke's on the Borg. They may have acquired tactical data, but they also downloaded Riker's holodeck logs. Since they share a hive mind, they've all seen it! 🤣
I mean, the Borg were, for the first time ever, threatened with total annihilation by a determined aggressor (8472). Even a hivemind will make an exception when the alternative is extinction.
Man, anyone else remember the time before Voyager when the Borg were legitimately terrifying? The Borg shown in TNG (not counting the movies) were almost like some cosmic horror straight out of HP Lovecraft. They would show up in the skies over worlds, excise whatever people or technologies drew them there, and move on. They could not be bargained with, or persuaded, or intimidated. Just like with the drone shown in this episode, even if you somehow stopped them, it would only be a temporary reprieve because they would send more ships that had counters for whatever you used to stop the previous attempt. Moreover though, they were something that was a rarity in Star Trek as a whole: a species that was truly _alien_ . All the rubber forehead aliens in show were essentially just humans with different cultures and maybe certain behavioral traits amplified. We, as an audience, could still relate to them though. But the Borg were something different. They were a hive mind: vast, unknowable, and with motivations so inscrutable that we could only guess at them. That was, until the writer's decided to create the character of the Borg Queen. Giving the Borg a 'face' with the Borg Queen was completely asinine. With that one move, everything I just described vanished. The Borg just became yet another rubber forehead alien race that happened to be powerful. The Queen had emotions, could hold grudges, acted arbitrarily, and had all the foibles a single person would have. Any sense of an 'unknowably vast consciousness' was destroyed. The Borg just became a bunch of cybernetic robots obeying the dictates of some petty tyrant of a woman.
I thought the very same but with an origin story of a science project gone wrong and took over the original race and tech and kept taking over the surrounding planets and systems and so on
I think the Borg queen was initially cool but she keeps getting watered down. Let's face it, the Borg are cool but they're essentially cybernetic bees.
When the Borg were first introduced in Voyager, the were also quite terrifying. The reason that they lost that feeling was due to Species 8472 and, the lead up to Voyager's pact with the Borg. Besides, we tend to get less and less afraid of things as time goes on.
@@phillippi2 We tend to get less and less afraid of things as time goes on.... if the writer fails to maintain the dangerous fear. If it's a good writer then the writer would be able to make something more terrifying as time goes on.
My goodness. Even watching this back years on from when I first saw it and acknowledging the depiction of the Borg evolves through this and other Trek series, its spine chilling. A triumph of storytelling.
"Mr. Worf! Use whatever means to neutralize the intruder." "A simple "Kill Him", would have sufficed Captain. Grandstander..." "Oh, screw you Michael! You just won't let it go, will you?!"
@Logicphile The "sufficed" line is referencing dialogue between Picard and Riker from the TNG episode Contagion. The "screw you Michael" is from the Family Guy episode Not All Dogs Go To Heaven, where Stewie builds a transporter and beams the TNG cast from a convention.
"They don't do things piecemeal. When they come, they'll come in force." And yet, twice they invade Federation space with a single ship. Writers needed to pay more attention.
Yeah I wondered about that two and also why does the borg need to travel back in time to beat startfleet,lol.I think the problem with the borg was the writers made them powerful but gave them a small weakness to give starfleet a chance to make the story Interesting.The borg should of been more on the level of above the minor races to be bothered or strong enough to be a tough fight and still keep the assimilation and limited adaptive capability.Say to where it took multiple phasers from 2 to 4 people to take them down.
@@robertstevenson5145 Good point on the last. It would have made more sense if the borg had a weakness whereby they couldn't adapt to phaser frequencies quickly enough. Starfleet personnel could get a few shots off before they adapted, but sometimes changing the phaser frequency gave them additional shots. So, two phasers being fired at different frequencies might give them more shots. Once they adapted to that, add a third at a different frequency. Eventually, the Borg wouldn't be able to switch frequency adaptation quickly enough so phaser fire would get through. Unfortunately, writers tend to get stuck with an idea and don't completely follow through. I'd be great at CinemaSins.
@@daviddavies3637 Well, multiple sources indicate they can't adapt to melee or projectile attacks, yet Starfleet never capitalizes on this, except for Picard in First Contact.
the argument here is incorrect, the Borg see a civilisation as being worth assimilation they're going to send a Cube to both assess and try and assimilate, but if they fail they've gained the knowledge they need to try again, and again, and again if they so choose. They don't need to send a thousand cubes, eventually they'll overwhelm you and they'll assimilate you, and you'll become a launching platform for your region of the Galaxy to send out more Cubes elsewhere. When Guinen says they won't do it piecemeal she's not talking thousands of cubes, she's saying if they want you, they'll send a few hundred Drones at once and you're done as the Borg are relentless.
Unpopular opinion: This episode is the only time when the borg seemed like a legitimately horrifying enemy. Cold, calculating, completely alien. The moment that they gave them a voice and special avatars (i.e. The Queen, Locutus) they were kinda ruined.
I don't know, Patrick Stewart was pretty menacing as a Borg. I think it was when the Borg started losing for stupid reasons like not bringing enough ships to conquer a species that they stopped being a threat and we stopped taking them seriously.
@@ILikeMyPrivacytbtI think the temptation to use the Borg was just too high with their popularity for the executives to ignore. But they didn’t realize that every time they used them, obviously the main characters would have to beat them because otherwise *poof* no more show. Let’s be real, had the Borg ever sent more than 1 ship to any of their earth assimilation attempts, they would easily win. My only idea is that Q silently manipulated the Collective to give the federation a fighting chance. It’s the only thing that makes sense in my mind.
@@cetialpha-vi I didn't mind them sending 1 ship the first time, it was clearly more than enough except for deus ex plot armour, and maybe it was one that had been traveling/scouting for some time. But once we saw in Voyager that they have hundreds of thousands of cubes, and can cross the galaxy at will, it indeed becomes silly that they'd keep sending one.
@@hansolo631 I can agree with that, at least the FIRST time. I really sorta wish there had been a more permanent solution to the Borg threat after BoBW, some kind of justification for *why* they don’t return again until First Contact with a wacky convoluted time travel plan when all they need to do is just up the number of cubes they send by 1 every time until they succeed 😂
Wow, the first time they dropped they're misson statement they simply said the Enterprise couldn't resist and that resistence, despite the warning, would be met with punishment. Later, it turned into the mission statement we all recognize.
I always thought it was funny that the second Borg pulled out what I'm assuming were critical components from the dead one, and then they just transport them both out anyway.
This is sort of why I disagree that the Borg don't have feelings in "TNG." People forgot they're not cyborgs but humanoids with prosthetics. The Collective itself is an allegory for "Friends"-watching Allied Nordicist Yankee "Seinfeld"-haters. They dispose the individual and its about the bigger whole but it's more in an arrogant and sinister way. Mind you Denmark, Sweden are Nordic but Russia, also Nordic, is a darker mirror of what those countries could have been (not that they arent bigoted "Friends"-loving Allied Nordicist Yankees to begin with but they're aren't totalitarian like Russia; culturally Russia is like Sweden, Denmark, Spain, all Nordic, they're just not Western). The USSR and even Russia today disposes the individual without remorse, all for the larger state.
It's odd because sometimes they suggest the Borg in some episodes just disintegrate their dead, and other times they suggest they recover them to try to put them back together or salvage.
I don't know why Picard is given so much props...He's told to head back he stays and hangs around.Was told hey these guys destroyed my people and he let's the borg make all the first moves.Then when he had a clear advantage to destroy the threat knowing how dangerous they was he decides to have a field trip.Picard in another encounter waits until his shields are drained dry before acting.Im sorry picard should be an ambassador planetside or only a starship captain on a science vessel.
@Moabman there was only 1 time I had an issue with kirk.If I was an admiral I would of punished him for this.I forget which episode but the ship was being pulled down to the planet.Scotty did everything he could and kirk wasn't able to do anything on his end yet moments before the ship would be destroyed and everyone on the ship would die....he fires Mr scott??..Wtf kind of jerk move is that to the guy that saved many a bacon.
@@robertstevenson5145 I originally thought Picard was only the introduction captain and Riker would soon become captain.... since Picard was so old and Riker would logically be able to do more movies and sequels. Picard was far too trusting and friendly... overall personality of Picard was never admired by men or women.
@@nishihundan1257 If Picard was in his 30s or 40s and not so overly friendly then Picard would have been good. Unfortunately Picard was the age of most great grandpas and he was way too friendly with dangerous encounters. Of course he's better than the woke feminists flying as captains today.
I've admired the BORG since this episode was first aired- the attachments, even with phasers at maximum setting it only neutralized the scout, when it shouldve vaporized it. And personal shield generators? even the shields- never saw shields that were geometric in shape.
Worf, the most incompetent security chief in Starfleet. First, he allows captain to enter engineering without securing the area first. Second, after witnessing the intruder produce what could be a weapon, Worf doesn’t get the captain to a safe location.
That's because the Borg were not posing a direct threat to them yet. They were just examining and surveying the ship like the Swedes did to the lands in both North America and Sweden before hoards of those "Friends"-watching Allied Nordicist Yankee "Seinfeld"-haters came and conquered the native people
Remember what Guinan says, "They don't do that individually. That's not their way. When they decide to come, they're gonna come in force. They don't do anything piece meal." Geordi was far from incompetent. The situation was confusing to the crew. They never dealt with an enemy like the Borg before. Although they weren't dumb - Data instantly knew they were a collective species and that's why individual life was not found by the censors.
Love when picard in later episodes uses a weapon that constantly jumps frequencies so the borg can't adapt yes definitely going to watch all episodes again when I'm finnished doing the same with red dwarf.
If this was happening on my ship.... and Picard, Worf and others allowed the enemy to do all these things.... I would have dumped them into space with the rest of the garbage.
I am reminded of the comic book story of Superman vs Alien in which Superman attempted to talk and reason with the Xenomorphs. As you can imagine that did not go well......lol
If you have not read the book before you go saying the Xeno's would not stand a chance against Superman bear in mind you are correct with a yellow star but they were in, I believe, a green star system and Superman's power was very limited.
Slug throwers are a terrible idea on a SPACE ship, there's concern about decompression and damage to vital systems, let alone shrapnel from missed rounds. Plasma weapons are just hot gas, I imagine the ship's internal structure is a little resilient to hot gas. Besides, I'm sure the Borg can adapt shields to fast moving projectiles. "Babylon 5" made this argument.
You can't reason with them unless they WANT to reason with you. The Borg ended up invading another dimension and PISSED OFF an entire species which then did it's damn best to KILL every last single Borg in the Galaxy. As a result the Queen probably assessed they needed an expendable asset to fight the battle for them and sadly Captain Insaneway never once questioned the Borg let alone suspected Voyager was being used in a war that the Borg started.
He's not scavenging him for parts, he's separating him from the group consciousness. In effect, killing him. Later on they'll strip him for components.
The way they just stand next to each other and talk about an alien across the room who is damaging the ship. Makes me think the writers and director were smoking something.
Picard was always too trusting and too friendly.... it's like he had no balls. Guinan even warned them about how the Borg annihilated many of their cities.... yet Picard is treating the Borg like some lost puppy.
Sounds almost Terminator like with John Carpenter's The Thing added to it. Most of the time the borg cannot be bargined with, nor reasoned with nor compromised with. They just advance on anything and everything and either assimilate or destroy whatever gets in their way. Makes one wonder if any of the Star Trek actors ever watched Carpenter's The Thing
0:51 The first time TNG killed Data. Apperently the show thought Brent Spiner was so good at playing machine characters that "He will make an excellent drone"
Capt. Picard: How do we reason with them, let them know that we're not a threat? Guinan: You don't. At least, I've never known anyone who did *Janeway has entered the chat*
Picard shoulda just been like "Mr. Worf, grab your battleth." They might have shields against phasers, but ain't no shield against gettin' your head chopped off by an angry Klingon.
Chain of Command at work. Picard delegates to Worf, Worf delegates to nameless ensign who gets knocked across the room ahahha!
get rid of your most disposable.
And he was just fresh out of the academy too. Now he has a cave where his chest was. :(
@@NealX_Gaming I have to say, the Borg voice they used to have at 3:03 was pretty poor. They only had two people's voices working together to be the Borg. They picked it up much better in Best of Both Worlds and beyond to convey the idea of hundreds of thousands of voices speaking at once, as one.
Plenty more ensigns where that came from.
I love how this guy that's never been around before was just hanging in the back. You just KNOW he was gonna get fucked.
Picard: "Mr Worf."
Worf: "Ensign."
Ensign: "I hate this job."
Ensign looks for an underling. "Damn."
@@kevhead1525 Ensign: "Harry." (voyager)
Ensign: “Computer, locate acting ensign Wesley Crusher.”
Not wearing red anymore didn't help them
Literaly😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
The BORG is still the best and scariest adversary the writers ever came up with and the immense cube vessel is terrifying.
Best in all of Trek when they started, but a joke by the time their greater arc across multiple franchises ended...a shame Christopher Pine never was given a shot at them
@@billybones6463qqQQQQAQQqqàaa 4:55 aa❤
For a second I thought you ended with "the immense technological cult reference is terrifying.". Then I blinked. 🤭🤔
Until Voyager cut off their cybernetic balls
First Contact Borg are utterly terrifying. Prior to that their fear inducing nature was limited by tv budgets. Once they got the movie treatment, that cybernetic zombie aspect they got was enough to give you nightmares, especially since something like these Borg are far more likely to happen in real life than zombies.
I always get a laugh out of Q's total lack of respect for Picard's personal space
Most spend their whole lives trying to speak to or otherwise relate to a Q like entity. Picard wants nothing more than to swat his with a fly swatter, no wonder they hugged at the end of their journey.
Remember in Tapestry when he was in bed with Picard? 😂
@@TheLocutus70 that bit was hilarious. I love how Picard was just resigned to it. Didn't even argue.
I always got a kick when the Borg drone intensified his disruptive scanning of the Enterprises systems after he turned to face the crowd, like he was saying, "you dare interfere?! This is your penance!"
Borg are based on the Lutheran Swedes, they don't say "penance". Nothing Roman about them, idiot.
"You dare interfere?! That's what you get, scumbag."
Picard was always too trusting and friendly... in the real universe if such dangerous enemies existed Picard would never survive the first month.
I like how the Borg turns to look at them after Worf's phaser does nothing.
Hmpf.
I don’t. I think a true Borg would have ignored them completely as irrelevant.
@@sethwinslow I thought the same but then I thought, maybe a Borg would look to gauge their reactions, that's important information about the species they plan to assimilate. How do they think? Would they resist further, or would they submit?
@@missilemassacreonline in this situation the borg are investigating a completely new technology to them. They aren't too much interested in the biological beings
I like how the Borg beam back the live crewman but only want specific components from the dead one. They could have beamed back both and done a more thorough recycle job of the dead one.
"Locate the exact source of the tractor beam!"
"Locked"
"Fire!"
(Misses by half a kilometer.)
Looking surprised - "They still have us!"
federation sensors arnt very accurate, this includes thier targeting systems.
Fire exactly once, Mr Worf!
@C. Caner Telimenli It always amazes me how people leap to defend sloppy continuity in the production of movies, TV, etc.
@@thehantavirus They're accurate, But this is there first time encountering the Borg and don't have their ship schematics on file. Most ships, in ST follow a certain deign philosophy but the Borg has a completely alien design. Most likely, they tried targeting power sources until they finally just hit the emitter array.
I like to think that they were aiming for the power source or mechanism of the tractor beam rather than the emitter. That would explain why they didn't shoot at the source of the green light.
I remember watching this episode for the first time, so good, the Borg were so cold and callous, calculating and seemingly unstoppable. Gave me the shivers.
they remind me of an appraisal district
And then they got ruined on Voyager.
Originally they were awesome, more like a bacteria or a virus. Emotionless and systematic. Got progressively ruined as new writers decided to mess with it. Remember First Contact? That was just bizarre.
yeah me too, no leader just an unstoppable mass. sadly they were over used later.
Same, the way that they show how quickly the Borg adapt with no words is frightening.
Joke's on the Borg. They may have acquired tactical data, but they also downloaded Riker's holodeck logs. Since they share a hive mind, they've all seen it! 🤣
they watchd enterprise?
Picard: "How do we reason with them..."
Guinan: "You don't."
Janeway: Reasons with them on a regular basis because reasons.
came to make the same comment haha
I would not necessarily call it reasoning, more like bartering or working against a common enemy.
Janeway doesn't reason, she demands. The Borg even say "State your demands" in Scorpion.
I mean, the Borg were, for the first time ever, threatened with total annihilation by a determined aggressor (8472). Even a hivemind will make an exception when the alternative is extinction.
That's why I hated ST:Voyager. It was just an extended Kobayashi Maru, with the same solution Kirk came up with.
One of the all time great episodes across any Star Trek series. Fantastic writing and acting.
How would you handle the Borg?
Excellent music in this episode too, chilling.
My guy hops onto the ship, gets mildly inconvenienced, finishes the job and leaves. A true gentleman.
The dead drone left a stain on the carpet, gross.
PICARD: MR Data activate carpet cleaning protocol. MR Data: Captain, which room fragrant should I use, potpourri perhaps????
Housekeeping will take care of it.
How rude!
Big stink imprint!
'The Borg will pay for this!'
That physical model Borg vessel was imposing, and amazing.
Man, anyone else remember the time before Voyager when the Borg were legitimately terrifying? The Borg shown in TNG (not counting the movies) were almost like some cosmic horror straight out of HP Lovecraft. They would show up in the skies over worlds, excise whatever people or technologies drew them there, and move on. They could not be bargained with, or persuaded, or intimidated. Just like with the drone shown in this episode, even if you somehow stopped them, it would only be a temporary reprieve because they would send more ships that had counters for whatever you used to stop the previous attempt.
Moreover though, they were something that was a rarity in Star Trek as a whole: a species that was truly _alien_ . All the rubber forehead aliens in show were essentially just humans with different cultures and maybe certain behavioral traits amplified. We, as an audience, could still relate to them though. But the Borg were something different. They were a hive mind: vast, unknowable, and with motivations so inscrutable that we could only guess at them.
That was, until the writer's decided to create the character of the Borg Queen.
Giving the Borg a 'face' with the Borg Queen was completely asinine. With that one move, everything I just described vanished. The Borg just became yet another rubber forehead alien race that happened to be powerful. The Queen had emotions, could hold grudges, acted arbitrarily, and had all the foibles a single person would have. Any sense of an 'unknowably vast consciousness' was destroyed. The Borg just became a bunch of cybernetic robots obeying the dictates of some petty tyrant of a woman.
I thought the very same but with an origin story of a science project gone wrong and took over the original race and tech and kept taking over the surrounding planets and systems and so on
I think the Borg queen was initially cool but she keeps getting watered down. Let's face it, the Borg are cool but they're essentially cybernetic bees.
When the Borg were first introduced in Voyager, the were also quite terrifying. The reason that they lost that feeling was due to Species 8472 and, the lead up to Voyager's pact with the Borg. Besides, we tend to get less and less afraid of things as time goes on.
@@phillippi2 We tend to get less and less afraid of things as time goes on.... if the writer fails to maintain the dangerous fear. If it's a good writer then the writer would be able to make something more terrifying as time goes on.
NGL THE QUEEN WAS DOPE AF
They just leave Ghinan in the conference room, like "Uh guys do you want me to come with you or...?"
One of the best villains in all if sci-fi.
Just an outstanding idea.
I love how they stay and talk on table,when Enterprise stay in front with borg cube,and nothing happen. Borg waithing them to end table metting. :D
Picard "Mr Worf, please neutralise the dangerous intruder"
Worf sends in the nameless yellow shirt
My goodness. Even watching this back years on from when I first saw it and acknowledging the depiction of the Borg evolves through this and other Trek series, its spine chilling. A triumph of storytelling.
That was the most polite encounter with an intruder I've ever seen.
Picard speeches don’t work on the Borg.
That's part of why they were so terrifying. They could never be reasoned with, and TNG was all about using reason to get out of bad situations.
"Terminate that beam. Fire when rea-"
Awww, I was getting into that!
The best and most frightening Borg moves but doesn't react an "identity.The humanity isn't suppressed, it's dead
I love how the borg stare at them as they start to engage their computer system.
4:26
The Borg helping themselves to a triple decker sandwich from the saucer section XD
Whats ingenious is the writers made it so that the borg wasn't completely invulnerable.
I bet John Delancey had a lot of fun playing Q
Everything in the show's universe is symbolic for something in our own universe.
"Mr. Worf! Use whatever means to neutralize the intruder."
"A simple "Kill Him", would have sufficed Captain. Grandstander..."
"Oh, screw you Michael! You just won't let it go, will you?!"
What is being referred to here
@Logicphile The "sufficed" line is referencing dialogue between Picard and Riker from the TNG episode Contagion.
The "screw you Michael" is from the Family Guy episode Not All Dogs Go To Heaven, where Stewie builds a transporter and beams the TNG cast from a convention.
Q years later: "Do NOT provoke the Borg!!"
- shoot the source of the tractor beam!
- shoots easily 500 meters below where the beam is coming from
"They don't do things piecemeal. When they come, they'll come in force." And yet, twice they invade Federation space with a single ship. Writers needed to pay more attention.
Yeah I wondered about that two and also why does the borg need to travel back in time to beat startfleet,lol.I think the problem with the borg was the writers made them powerful but gave them a small weakness to give starfleet a chance to make the story Interesting.The borg should of been more on the level of above the minor races to be bothered or strong enough to be a tough fight and still keep the assimilation and limited adaptive capability.Say to where it took multiple phasers from 2 to 4 people to take them down.
@@robertstevenson5145 Good point on the last. It would have made more sense if the borg had a weakness whereby they couldn't adapt to phaser frequencies quickly enough. Starfleet personnel could get a few shots off before they adapted, but sometimes changing the phaser frequency gave them additional shots. So, two phasers being fired at different frequencies might give them more shots. Once they adapted to that, add a third at a different frequency. Eventually, the Borg wouldn't be able to switch frequency adaptation quickly enough so phaser fire would get through. Unfortunately, writers tend to get stuck with an idea and don't completely follow through.
I'd be great at CinemaSins.
@@daviddavies3637 Well, multiple sources indicate they can't adapt to melee or projectile attacks, yet Starfleet never capitalizes on this, except for Picard in First Contact.
A Borg cube contains MILLIONS of drones
the argument here is incorrect, the Borg see a civilisation as being worth assimilation they're going to send a Cube to both assess and try and assimilate, but if they fail they've gained the knowledge they need to try again, and again, and again if they so choose.
They don't need to send a thousand cubes, eventually they'll overwhelm you and they'll assimilate you, and you'll become a launching platform for your region of the Galaxy to send out more Cubes elsewhere. When Guinen says they won't do it piecemeal she's not talking thousands of cubes, she's saying if they want you, they'll send a few hundred Drones at once and you're done as the Borg are relentless.
1:15 "Bitch, please."
Unpopular opinion: This episode is the only time when the borg seemed like a legitimately horrifying enemy. Cold, calculating, completely alien. The moment that they gave them a voice and special avatars (i.e. The Queen, Locutus) they were kinda ruined.
I don't know, Patrick Stewart was pretty menacing as a Borg. I think it was when the Borg started losing for stupid reasons like not bringing enough ships to conquer a species that they stopped being a threat and we stopped taking them seriously.
@@ILikeMyPrivacytbtI think the temptation to use the Borg was just too high with their popularity for the executives to ignore. But they didn’t realize that every time they used them, obviously the main characters would have to beat them because otherwise *poof* no more show. Let’s be real, had the Borg ever sent more than 1 ship to any of their earth assimilation attempts, they would easily win. My only idea is that Q silently manipulated the Collective to give the federation a fighting chance. It’s the only thing that makes sense in my mind.
@@cetialpha-vi I didn't mind them sending 1 ship the first time, it was clearly more than enough except for deus ex plot armour, and maybe it was one that had been traveling/scouting for some time. But once we saw in Voyager that they have hundreds of thousands of cubes, and can cross the galaxy at will, it indeed becomes silly that they'd keep sending one.
Nah. Best of Both Worlds was still legit terrifying.
@@hansolo631 I can agree with that, at least the FIRST time. I really sorta wish there had been a more permanent solution to the Borg threat after BoBW, some kind of justification for *why* they don’t return again until First Contact with a wacky convoluted time travel plan when all they need to do is just up the number of cubes they send by 1 every time until they succeed 😂
Wow, the first time they dropped they're misson statement they simply said the Enterprise couldn't resist and that resistence, despite the warning, would be met with punishment. Later, it turned into the mission statement we all recognize.
"How do we tell them we're not a threat?" That's the problem: you're not!
I always thought it was funny that the second Borg pulled out what I'm assuming were critical components from the dead one, and then they just transport them both out anyway.
This is sort of why I disagree that the Borg don't have feelings in "TNG." People forgot they're not cyborgs but humanoids with prosthetics. The Collective itself is an allegory for "Friends"-watching Allied Nordicist Yankee "Seinfeld"-haters. They dispose the individual and its about the bigger whole but it's more in an arrogant and sinister way. Mind you Denmark, Sweden are Nordic but Russia, also Nordic, is a darker mirror of what those countries could have been (not that they arent bigoted "Friends"-loving Allied Nordicist Yankees to begin with but they're aren't totalitarian like Russia; culturally Russia is like Sweden, Denmark, Spain, all Nordic, they're just not Western). The USSR and even Russia today disposes the individual without remorse, all for the larger state.
That is of course until they decided to make them space zombies in "First Contact" and "Voyager."
It's odd because sometimes they suggest the Borg in some episodes just disintegrate their dead, and other times they suggest they recover them to try to put them back together or salvage.
I believe the borg on the ground disintegrated, rather than transported. You don't see the same green lights of the borg transporter on him.
@@antbojo you kind of could see it though a little
I don't know why Picard is given so much props...He's told to head back he stays and hangs around.Was told hey these guys destroyed my people and he let's the borg make all the first moves.Then when he had a clear advantage to destroy the threat knowing how dangerous they was he decides to have a field trip.Picard in another encounter waits until his shields are drained dry before acting.Im sorry picard should be an ambassador planetside or only a starship captain on a science vessel.
The diference between Kirk and Picard.
@Moabman there was only 1 time I had an issue with kirk.If I was an admiral I would of punished him for this.I forget which episode but the ship was being pulled down to the planet.Scotty did everything he could and kirk wasn't able to do anything on his end yet moments before the ship would be destroyed and everyone on the ship would die....he fires Mr scott??..Wtf kind of jerk move is that to the guy that saved many a bacon.
@@robertstevenson5145 I originally thought Picard was only the introduction captain and Riker would soon become captain.... since Picard was so old and Riker would logically be able to do more movies and sequels. Picard was far too trusting and friendly... overall personality of Picard was never admired by men or women.
@@NTJedi Riker was a fat p*ssy. He moved like a bloated gimp. He was never captain material.
@@nishihundan1257 If Picard was in his 30s or 40s and not so overly friendly then Picard would have been good. Unfortunately Picard was the age of most great grandpas and he was way too friendly with dangerous encounters. Of course he's better than the woke feminists flying as captains today.
I remember watching this for the first time back in 1991 on BBC 2 and at the end of it I thought wow, what a good episode.
1:17 I recall first watching this and that cold stare making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Jeesh, it still does.
The BORG is such an apt analogy to american colonialism.
Or communism.
4:38
Good use of alliteration, Warf. 👍🏼
I've admired the BORG since this episode was first aired- the attachments, even with phasers at maximum setting it only neutralized the scout, when it shouldve vaporized it. And personal shield generators? even the shields- never saw shields that were geometric in shape.
"They don't have a single leader"
Ah yes, that'll be the first thing we ret-con.
Yep
Worf, the most incompetent security chief in Starfleet. First, he allows captain to enter engineering without securing the area first. Second, after witnessing the intruder produce what could be a weapon, Worf doesn’t get the captain to a safe location.
Finally someone else besides me notices this, thank you!
Yeah but that was his first year on the job
That's because the Borg were not posing a direct threat to them yet. They were just examining and surveying the ship like the Swedes did to the lands in both North America and Sweden before hoards of those "Friends"-watching Allied Nordicist Yankee "Seinfeld"-haters came and conquered the native people
Remember what Guinan says, "They don't do that individually. That's not their way. When they decide to come, they're gonna come in force. They don't do anything piece meal." Geordi was far from incompetent. The situation was confusing to the crew. They never dealt with an enemy like the Borg before. Although they weren't dumb - Data instantly knew they were a collective species and that's why individual life was not found by the censors.
Pfffff..... they're carving us up like a roast. lol what a line.
He's probably ate holodeck meals his whole life.
Love when picard in later episodes uses a weapon that constantly jumps frequencies so the borg can't adapt yes definitely going to watch all episodes again when I'm finnished doing the same with red dwarf.
Red Dwarf was my favorite. I was crushed when it wasn't renewed. So much potential.
@@richv8124 it should have been canned before series 7 aired
Worf: "A type of laser beam is slicing into the saucer section!"
Riker: _"Lasers?_ They shouldn't even get through our navigational deflector!"
The slow knife penetrates the shield, Mr. Worf
It is the main reason to watch Q in action in this TV serie - he introduced the borg to the fleet before of the correct time ...
Well thats going to stain the carpet.
You like how worf totally passes the buck on Picard's command?
If this was happening on my ship.... and Picard, Worf and others allowed the enemy to do all these things.... I would have dumped them into space with the rest of the garbage.
I am reminded of the comic book story of Superman vs Alien in which Superman attempted to talk and reason with the Xenomorphs. As you can imagine that did not go well......lol
If you have not read the book before you go saying the Xeno's would not stand a chance against Superman bear in mind you are correct with a yellow star but they were in, I believe, a green star system and Superman's power was very limited.
At 0:24 isn't that Borg data? Correct me if I'm wrong.
2:30 “So they’ll never send one cube at a time towards Earth?”
“No, of course not.”
Tbf, one cube was far more then enough. Starfleet literally got lucky in both encounters, because of Picard.
The old Borg where their scariness is based on metal boxes swinging back and forth on their arms. Looks like a 50s-style robot arm.
I'm surprised Klingons never used firearms. Shields sound real nice until you've got slugs flying at you.
Yeah, fight hand to hand if you have to!
Slug throwers are a terrible idea on a SPACE ship, there's concern about decompression and damage to vital systems, let alone shrapnel from missed rounds. Plasma weapons are just hot gas, I imagine the ship's internal structure is a little resilient to hot gas. Besides, I'm sure the Borg can adapt shields to fast moving projectiles.
"Babylon 5" made this argument.
you cant reason with them.
voyager would have a lot more fans if they didn't violate this.
"They don't have a single leader". "A single leader can make mistakes"
That too.
You can't reason with them unless they WANT to reason with you. The Borg ended up invading another dimension and PISSED OFF an entire species which then did it's damn best to KILL every last single Borg in the Galaxy. As a result the Queen probably assessed they needed an expendable asset to fight the battle for them and sadly Captain Insaneway never once questioned the Borg let alone suspected Voyager was being used in a war that the Borg started.
Voyagers borg episodes knock this into fits
well first contact did it first with having single leader.
"Warp 8, any heading!"
*Wesley crashes into the cube*
"Any heading *except* forwards!"
0:25 impressive throw over the captain
What would you call a buffet that only caters to Borg?
They should let the avengers handle this these guys love cubes they even get back in time to get the cube such dedication
3:33 “A single leader can make miatakes”
I’m surprised Picard didn’t say “Ohhh, so you’re saying I make mistakes!!!???”
“It doesn’t feel pity, remorse or pain and it will not stop until you are assimilated”
Did the one borg leave a stain on the carpet
Worf: Captain. The Borg has locked onto us with a tractor beam.
Picard: We’re on our way!
Guinan: …😐…I guess I’ll just stay here.
Why did the 2nd robot scavenge the 1st for parts if they were both going to be beamed back to their mothership anyways?
They're worth lots of credits on the universal black market
@@NTJedi lmao, a million spacebucks?
He's not scavenging him for parts, he's separating him from the group consciousness. In effect, killing him. Later on they'll strip him for components.
I think the other one disintegrates
"They don't do anything piecemeal."
Proceeds to send only ONE cube to Earth...twice.
But do they feel pity, remorse, or fear? And when will they stop, if ever? 🤔
Nobody ever comments about how absurd it is for the command crew to sit down in the conference room, while the Borg cube is right on top of them.
The way they just stand next to each other and talk about an alien across the room who is damaging the ship. Makes me think the writers and director were smoking something.
Picard was always too trusting and too friendly.... it's like he had no balls. Guinan even warned them about how the Borg annihilated many of their cities.... yet Picard is treating the Borg like some lost puppy.
I remember when this aired originally. Freaked me the f*ck out.
3:52 Guinan: "We're dead."
Has anyone tried a well swung battle axe against a single Borg?
This could be THE episode in all Trek.
I never understood why the borg didn't "swarm" into the solar system
Cautious
You can't reason with them? Voyager proved otherwise.
Always a first I guess.
TREKKIES: Read the under-rated TGN/Borg graphic novel "Assimilation2"! Trust me: this is a Trek story that should have been written a LONG time ago!!
4:01 "if they pull down our shields we're helpless" - as if the captain didn't know that!
That information was for the audience, like an "aside" in a play.
Captain Archer encountered the Borg.Why were the Borg unknown to Star fleet in the 24th century?
Because some a-hole left their window open as they went through a black hole and f*d everything up
To be fair they weren’t given a name for them and the mission was likely classified and then buried under centuries of reports and other missions.
Sounds almost Terminator like with John Carpenter's The Thing added to it. Most of the time the borg cannot be bargined with, nor reasoned with nor compromised with. They just advance on anything and everything and either assimilate or destroy whatever gets in their way. Makes one wonder if any of the Star Trek actors ever watched Carpenter's The Thing
Picard will steal the Borg's hair.
1:16 "How do you like them apples?"
There appears to be a 🚽 in the slice the Borg sucked up from the Enterprise. I'd hate to be on can at that very moment.
0:51 The first time TNG killed Data. Apperently the show thought Brent Spiner was so good at playing machine characters that "He will make an excellent drone"
Mr Worf bravely sending the ensign in to fight him
Picard should have been reduced to an ensign for his pathetic fumbling and hesitating.
"Resistance is futile." 😂
Picard: Mr Worf.
Worf: Ensign.
Ensign: (turns to ask someone else): Damn!
Picard: Mr Worf
Worf: Ensign
Ensign: Wesley
Picard: then it's settled, get Wesley down here
Worf can't even aim at the beam's source after Picard orders him to do so.
Was that Brett (Data) who played the first Borg scout?
The borg ship is much larger in later episodes. In Picard S3 E10 the enterprise flies around inside one.
So the borg need human bodies, not superior tech?
Capt. Picard: How do we reason with them, let them know that we're not a threat?
Guinan: You don't. At least, I've never known anyone who did
*Janeway has entered the chat*
I like how Star destiny timelinee book series displayed the borg invasion.
Picard shoulda just been like "Mr. Worf, grab your battleth." They might have shields against phasers, but ain't no shield against gettin' your head chopped off by an angry Klingon.
I love the classic Borg look
Mr Worf, .....Ensign .... Chief....Crewman ...
…cadet… recruit… citizen… student… child…