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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 1: And I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 2: And it is Star Trek week again here on Stuff

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Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind. We did it last year and

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Speaker 2: we're doing it again this year, aligning with internationally recognized

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Speaker 2: Star Trek Day. That's September 8th. And that, of course,

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Speaker 2: is a reference to the broadcast premiere for the original

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Speaker 2: Star Trek series on that day in 1966. So this

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Speaker 2: is a pretty big one, 60 years of Star Trek.

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Speaker 2: And so this year, we're going to double down on

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Speaker 2: one of the most iconic villain factions of the next

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Speaker 2: generation era of Star Trek. We're going to be talking

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Speaker 2: about the Borg.

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Speaker 1: Now, just before we started recording, Rob and I were

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Speaker 1: talking about how it has now been There has been

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Speaker 1: more time elapsed since the introduction of the Borg and

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Speaker 1: now than between the debut of the original series and

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Speaker 1: the Borg. So we have like more Borg with Borg

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Speaker 1: Star Trek than without Borg Star Trek.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And we were also chatting about just not

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Speaker 2: to say Star Trek Next Generation is old, because to

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Speaker 2: say that would make me feel old, but. Every time

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Speaker 2: I end up actually looking up the dates of when

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Speaker 2: it debuted, it itself debuted in 1987, which is far

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Speaker 2: earlier than it seems like it should have in my head.

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Speaker 2: Because in my head, it began when I was watching it,

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Speaker 2: which would have been more firmly in the 90s, watching

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Speaker 2: reruns of it, syndicated reruns of Star Trek The Next Generation,

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Speaker 2: every weekday evening at, I believe, 9 p.m. That was

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Speaker 2: just my ritual. It's like every every evening I would

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Speaker 2: watch it on a little television set in my room.

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Speaker 2: I'd watch an hour of Star Trek before going to bed.

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Speaker 2: And it had a special place in my heart.

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Speaker 1: Now, Rob, before we say anything else, I feel like

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Speaker 1: I've got to put my disclaimer at the top of

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Speaker 1: the episode here. I always feel a little sheepish when

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Speaker 1: we do the Star Trek episodes, not because I'm not

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Speaker 1: excited to talk about this stuff. but because I am

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Speaker 1: relatively under-immersed in Star Trek compared to, I'm sure, a

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Speaker 1: lot of the people listening and certainly compared to you.

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Speaker 1: I mostly know the original series cast movies, a few

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Speaker 1: of the original series episodes. And as I talked about,

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Speaker 1: I think, last year, I watched a long time ago

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Speaker 1: the first season of The Next Generation, but didn't actually

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Speaker 1: make it to the big Borg arcs. So I did

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Speaker 1: a little homework for today and that included watching the

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Speaker 1: debut episode of the next generation with the Borg. That's

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Speaker 1: Q who, which we're going to talk about. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: of course I watched, uh, the weird house cinema movie

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Speaker 1: we're going to be doing this week, which is the

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Speaker 1: next generation, the first next generation movie, uh, which is

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Speaker 1: star Trek first contact, both of which feature the Borg

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Speaker 1: as the primary villain. I did not have time to

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Speaker 1: make it to the, uh, the, the famous two part series,

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Speaker 1: the best of both worlds that has, uh, The assimilated Picard,

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Speaker 1: which I'm sure you're going to want to talk about later.

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Speaker 1: But you're going to have to really fill me in

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Speaker 1: on that part.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I had to refresh on all of

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Speaker 2: this as well because I hadn't seen these Borg episodes

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Speaker 2: since the 90s. I don't believe. And so I, you know,

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Speaker 2: obviously I watched First Contact for this Friday. I rewatched

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Speaker 2: Q Who. And I also rewatched the first part of

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Speaker 2: that big double part episode, The Best of Both Worlds.

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Speaker 2: Didn't have time, as of this recording, to watch any

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Speaker 2: of the other original Next Generation Borg adventures. And I

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Speaker 2: also need to drive home that I, too, am no

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Speaker 2: Star Trek expert. My fandom is mostly based on my

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Speaker 2: relationship with the Next Generation, also with Star Trek Deep

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Speaker 2: Space Nine. And more recently, I've really enjoyed watching Star

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Speaker 2: Trek Strange New Worlds. That's the more recent one. But

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Speaker 2: they're a whole series that I have never actually watched.

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Speaker 2: And just know a little bit about them from reading

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Speaker 2: about them online and so forth and general pop culture consumption.

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Speaker 2: But I think between the two of us, I think

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Speaker 2: we're well situated to have this discussion about Star Trek

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Speaker 2: and about the Borg because, you know, obviously there are

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Speaker 2: any number of podcasts out there where you can really

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Speaker 2: dive deep into the lore and into the deep history

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Speaker 2: behind the fandom and these different episodes. And, you know,

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Speaker 2: we're not here to compete with any of that. You know,

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Speaker 2: we're here to break it down and talk about these

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Speaker 2: episodes and this faction, the Borg, within our own sort

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Speaker 2: of pyramid of interests here on the show. And throughout

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Speaker 2: all of it, we're going to have some listeners who

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Speaker 2: are going to have some thoughts like, oh, well, they

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Speaker 2: really need to know about this thing that happened in

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Speaker 2: Voyager or this thing.

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Speaker 1: Forgot about that. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And certainly we invite you to write in with all

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Speaker 2: of that. And we'd be thrilled to chat with you

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Speaker 2: about it in our future listener mail installments. But let's

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Speaker 2: go ahead and get started here. Let's begin with a

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Speaker 2: breakdown of the Borg. What are they? How do they

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Speaker 2: factor into the Star Trek universe? We're going to try

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Speaker 2: and get down to brass tacks here without actually describing

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Speaker 2: what Star Trek is. We're just going to assume at

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Speaker 2: least a bit of what we're talking about. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: we're going to discuss related topics and interpretations here. We're

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Speaker 2: going to do two episodes on the Borg for our

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Speaker 2: core episodes this week. And then on Friday... We're going

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Speaker 2: to jump into a more devoted discussion of Star Trek

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Speaker 2: First Contact on Weird House Cinema. All right, so let's

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Speaker 2: go back to the introduction of the Borg. As a

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Speaker 2: faction in the Star Trek universe, everything begins in the

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Speaker 2: second season of Star Trek The Next Generation. In the

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Speaker 2: 16th episode, these were big series orders back in the day.

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Speaker 2: 16th episode originally aired May 5th, 1989. And it was

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Speaker 2: an episode titled Q Who? With the question mark.

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Speaker 1: So it's a Q-centric episode, like a lot of episodes

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Speaker 1: in The Next Generation, or at least Q played into

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Speaker 1: the first season, which I watched. He's in the very

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Speaker 1: first episode, the debut of The Next Generation, appearing as this.

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Speaker 1: weird godlike figure who does not behave in a very

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Speaker 1: godlike manner but seems to be omnipotent and is kind

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Speaker 1: of an annoying trickster.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's more of a trickster god than anything.

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Speaker 2: And at this point, I think he's been in, what,

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Speaker 2: two or three episodes? Maybe more. We're familiar with his

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Speaker 2: antics by this point. And it probably begins to be

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Speaker 2: uninitiated like it's going to be just another Q episode.

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Speaker 2: But it ends up introducing this entirely new threat. So, yeah,

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Speaker 2: we both rewatched this episode, and I think it's a

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Speaker 2: pretty strong one. It begins with some lighthearted fun. We

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Speaker 2: have Ensign Sonia Gomez, played by Licia Naff, who would

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Speaker 2: go on to appear in Total Recall as the lady

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Speaker 2: with three breasts. And there's this back and forth where

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Speaker 2: she's chatting with Geordie LaForge, about how AI systems are

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Speaker 2: everywhere and it doesn't cost her anything to be polite

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Speaker 2: to them while she orders a hot chocolate from the replicator.

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Speaker 2: And then she goes on to accidentally spill the hot

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Speaker 2: cocoa on Captain Picard in the hallway.

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Speaker 1: And, you know, I gotta say, Picard is not super

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Speaker 1: gracious about it. He is visibly annoyed.

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Speaker 2: But, I mean, he doesn't have her whipped or anything.

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Speaker 2: I mean, this is Starfleet, so it's, you know, he's like,

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Speaker 2: I guess I'll go change. It's fine. But, you know,

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Speaker 2: for the most part, some lighthearted fun. I think they were...

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Speaker 2: I was reading, I think they were introducing this character

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Speaker 2: to be more of a long-term romantic interest for Geordi

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Speaker 2: the Forge. And they ended up abandoning it for some

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Speaker 2: reason or another. And then much later, shows would bring

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Speaker 2: this character back as a more highly ranking member of Starfleet.

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Speaker 1: In this episode, there is some awkward flirtiness.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So that's just the intro. The main plot, as we've related,

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Speaker 2: concerns a random appearance by the godlike trickster known as Q,

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Speaker 2: played by John Delancey. Always a lot of fun on

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Speaker 2: the show. And at this point, we quickly learn that

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Speaker 2: Q has been kicked out of the Q Collective. The

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Speaker 2: Q Continuum. The Q Continuum, yes. He's been kicked out

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Speaker 2: of the Continuum. So he's even more of a rogue,

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Speaker 2: even more of a scoundrel at this point. And he

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Speaker 2: transports Picard alone in a shuttlecraft to a distant location

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Speaker 2: and refuses to return with the ship until he hears

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Speaker 2: out his request. And so finally, Picard is like, OK,

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Speaker 2: I'll hear you out. So they transport then back to

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Speaker 2: Tin Forward, the bar and lounge aboard the Starship Enterprise.

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Speaker 2: And Q reveals this is where he reveals he's been

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Speaker 2: kicked out of the continuum. And he says he wants

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Speaker 2: to join the Enterprise to help out. even offering to

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Speaker 2: renounce his powers. And of course, this is nobody's first

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Speaker 2: rodeo with Q here. Nobody is buying this. I think

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Speaker 2: there's some serious doubt that he would go so far

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Speaker 2: as to give up his own powers. He seems to

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Speaker 2: enjoy using them quite a bit. But he gets a

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Speaker 2: little defensive here and he insists, nope, you need me

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Speaker 2: given what's awaiting you out there. And he insists that

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Speaker 2: they're expanding too fast. The Federation, Starfleet, expanding too quickly

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Speaker 2: in a dangerous universe, and they are just not prepared

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Speaker 2: for the threats ahead.

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Speaker 1: The thrust of this kind of changes as the episode

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Speaker 1: goes on. At the beginning, it's more like Q literally

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Speaker 1: wants to be a member of the Enterprise. By the

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Speaker 1: end of the episode, it feels more like he is

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Speaker 1: using this as a teaching moment in humility.

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Speaker 2: He is trying.

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Speaker 1: to humble Picard and the other officers of the Enterprise

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Speaker 1: and make them see how weak and unprepared they are.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because Q joins the crew. Like, that's a standalone

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Speaker 2: episode in and of itself, right? And it'd be easy

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Speaker 2: to assume that's where the episode is going, but it's not.

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Speaker 2: So Q has this wonderful little bit. He has several

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Speaker 2: great little bits where he gets to to warn everyone

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Speaker 2: about the doom to come. And he says, quote, You

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Speaker 2: judge yourselves against the pitiful adversaries you've encountered so far.

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Speaker 2: The Romulans, the Klingons, they're nothing compared to what's waiting. Picard,

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Speaker 2: you are about to move into areas of the galaxy

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Speaker 2: containing wonders more incredible than you can possibly imagine and

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Speaker 2: terrors to freeze your soul. Now, Picard is not going

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Speaker 2: to be easily pushed around with all of this. He

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Speaker 2: assures Q, the Enterprise and its crew, they're ready for anything.

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Speaker 2: So Q instantly transports the ship, I think literally snaps

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Speaker 2: his fingers, and transports them 7,000 light years ahead. Two

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Speaker 2: years travel from the nearest outermost Federation starbase, we're told,

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Speaker 2: to get a taste of what's coming. So obviously this

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Speaker 2: is going to be an encounter with the Borg, And

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Speaker 2: Q is just on a lark, on a vengeful lark,

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Speaker 2: pushing up the timeline of the Federation's contact with this hostile, dangerous,

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Speaker 2: and technologically advanced civilization.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's like Q has teleported them out of

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Speaker 1: the playable area. You are off the map, or you're

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Speaker 1: on the new map now. And in the words of

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Speaker 1: Shang Tsung, now for a taste of things to come. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So they instantly start doing what the crew of the

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Speaker 2: Star Trek Enterprise does. They start doing scans, seeing what's around.

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Speaker 2: They find an M-class planet that's been stripped of its resources.

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Speaker 2: Like some mysterious planets near the neutral zone, this was

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Speaker 2: a hint in season one, I believe. So they were

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Speaker 2: already preparing for the Borg encounter in season one of

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Speaker 2: the series. And then they quickly, after this, they encountered

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Speaker 2: a gigantic cubicle ship a very generalized design, so no

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Speaker 2: centralized command center, no living quarters, no life signs, and

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Speaker 2: no shield or weapon systems of known design.

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Speaker 1: So it almost looks like it could be just a

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Speaker 1: big cube made of pipes in the middle of space

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Speaker 1: with nobody home.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I think everyone's seen a Borg cube by

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Speaker 2: this point, but yeah, it's very industrial looking. It's not

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Speaker 2: designed to be aesthetically pleasing, but it is very utilitarian

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Speaker 2: in what it does. So they're trying to figure this out. Meanwhile, Guinan,

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Speaker 2: a long-lived traveler aboard the ship, this is a Whoopi

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Speaker 2: Goldberg character, instantly identifies them as the destroyers they are.

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Speaker 2: And then it's pretty quickly after that that the Borg

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Speaker 2: begin beaming aboard the Enterprise to check things out. And

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Speaker 2: we see our first Borg. Joe, how would you describe

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Speaker 2: the Borg? I don't know. I realize it's difficult because,

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Speaker 2: I mean, we know what the Borg look like. We've

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Speaker 2: kind of grown up with the Borg. But how would

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Speaker 2: you describe one to someone who's never seen one before?

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Speaker 1: Well, it is a basically humanoid in shape with the

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Speaker 1: exposed parts of the skin are pale, sickly and slimy looking.

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Speaker 1: But much of the body is covered in a kind

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Speaker 1: of black spandex suit with technology just pasted all over.

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Speaker 1: So there are bits of machine parts and components covered.

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Speaker 1: Over the eyes, over the arms, instead of a hand,

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Speaker 1: it has this big interfacing drill bit like thing with

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Speaker 1: which it seems to be able to interact with multiple

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Speaker 1: different genres of technology. And so it is a machine

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Speaker 1: human hybrid with the human part looking very. not human

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Speaker 1: in its orientation, if that makes any sense. It's more

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Speaker 1: like a body being used by machines than a body

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Speaker 1: with machine augmentation.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good way of describing it. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: all these different cybernetic augmentations, a lot of visible tubes

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Speaker 2: and coils, technological doodads. And so, you know, one of

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Speaker 2: these appears on the ship and basically it's just looking around,

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Speaker 2: it's doing scans. It's not interested in like attacking anyone.

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Speaker 2: It's just treating everyone there like they're ants. When they

253
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Speaker 2: try and interfere with it, it proves physically strong, capable

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Speaker 2: of throwing a crew member across the room. And then

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Speaker 2: they begin to try and use their phasers on it,

256
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Speaker 2: and it seems very resistant to this as well. But

257
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Speaker 2: it keeps carrying out its reconnaissance mission. Worf manages to

258
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Speaker 2: kill one of the Borg with his phaser, but then

259
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Speaker 2: another instantly appears, now with enhanced shielding, finishes a scan

260
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Speaker 2: of the ship's technology, and then just collects some technological

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Speaker 2: doodads from the fallen Borg, and then beams back to

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Speaker 2: the Borg ship.

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Speaker 1: So this establishes a couple of things about the Borg

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Speaker 1: that I know will show up in these other pieces

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Speaker 1: of media. They certainly show up again in First Contact.

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Speaker 1: One is the Borg defensive adaptation scheme, which is that

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Speaker 1: if you use your weapons, your phasers, whatever on the Borg,

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Speaker 1: you might be able to get one or two of

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Speaker 1: them But quite quickly, the species as a whole adapts and, oh,

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Speaker 1: that phaser setting is not going to work anymore. So

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Speaker 1: you need to use a new weapon. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: New frequency, new weapon, new tactic. Like they learn very

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Speaker 2: quickly and adapt.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And so it's like what is learned by one

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Speaker 1: individual of the Borg collective is instantly known by all

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Speaker 1: the others. Information is shared across the entire species at once.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And so that makes them, of course, a very dangerous,

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Speaker 1: formidable enemy, even if One individual Borg is not invulnerable.

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Speaker 1: It kind of makes the species as a whole feel

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Speaker 1: basically invulnerable in the long run because it's like they

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Speaker 1: just keep adapting so fast. You couldn't really hope to

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Speaker 1: beat them in a pitched fight.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: They effectively roll them out in this episode as a

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Speaker 2: as an almost invincible force.

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Speaker 1: Yeah now the other thing you mentioned there that i

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Speaker 1: think is actually one of the most interesting thing about

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Speaker 1: the borg and one of the creepiest things about them

291
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Speaker 1: makes them a great villain is the way that they

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Speaker 1: do not attack humans on site that they just ignore

293
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Speaker 1: them and go about their business uh and in first

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Speaker 1: contact this is explained as uh that they don't attack

295
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Speaker 1: until they see you as a threat so the You know,

296
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Speaker 1: there's like a Borg infestation on the Enterprise in that movie,

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Speaker 1: and the crew members are just walking past the Borg

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Speaker 1: invaders and the Borg are not interacting with them until

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Speaker 1: they start shooting at them and fighting, and then they

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Speaker 1: fight back. In this episode, as you said, it's not

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Speaker 1: an infestation yet. It's just a Borg scout. The scout

302
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Speaker 1: is doing reconnaissance. It's scanning the ship's, I think, drive

303
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Speaker 1: core and its computers. It's just gathering information. And so

304
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Speaker 1: the crew approaches, Picard tries to speak to it and

305
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Speaker 1: is like saying things and the Borg just totally ignores him.

306
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Speaker 1: And so he asked, what, can it not hear me?

307
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Speaker 1: But that's not the issue. It's not that it can't

308
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Speaker 1: hear you. It's that you are not worthy of its attention.

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Speaker 1: It would be wasting time responding to you. And so

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Speaker 1: I think this actually makes the Borg a really creepy enemy.

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Speaker 1: I personally find it. more understandable and comforting to think

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Speaker 1: about an enemy who hates you, an enemy who feels

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Speaker 1: negative emotions towards you. The Borg do not. The Borg

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Speaker 1: are just there to consume your biological and technological distinctiveness

315
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Speaker 1: and individual interactions you might try to initiate are really

316
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Speaker 1: of no interest to the Borg. They're like the blob.

317
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Speaker 1: They just want to roll over you and absorb you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And in so doing, they just cannot be

319
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Speaker 2: reasoned with. You can't talk your way out of it.

320
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Speaker 2: You can't negotiate your way out of an interaction with

321
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Speaker 2: the Borg. We quickly learn in this episode that they

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Speaker 2: have a collective mind. They have no centralized leadership. And yeah,

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Speaker 2: having deemed the Enterprise an inferior technology, they tell them

324
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Speaker 2: to just prepare to be assimilated. I can't remember if

325
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Speaker 2: they actually say it in this episode or not, but

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Speaker 2: this is where the resistance is futile thing comes into play.

327
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Speaker 1: I don't think they say that. Uh, I think in

328
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Speaker 1: Q who, what they say is we've assessed your defensive capabilities.

329
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Speaker 1: You will not be able to withstand us, uh, lower

330
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Speaker 1: your shields. If you attempt to defend yourselves, you will

331
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Speaker 1: be punished.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

333
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Speaker 1: And that's all they ever say in the entire episode.

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Speaker 1: So it's essentially just like a, It is an outgoing

335
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Speaker 1: message that's saying like, hey, make it easy on us.

336
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Speaker 1: You know, we're going to hurt you if you try

337
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Speaker 1: to resist. And then no further communication is necessary. It's

338
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Speaker 1: just conquest from there. Yeah.

339
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Speaker 2: And they start carving up the ship like a roast,

340
00:19:12,119 --> 00:19:14,639
Speaker 2: as they put it, like pulling out just like core

341
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Speaker 2: segments of the hull with crew members still in it

342
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Speaker 2: and just, you know, harvesting it. But but but slowly, methodically, like,

343
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Speaker 2: you know, they've got all the time in the world,

344
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Speaker 2: you know, no need to process everything at once. you know,

345
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Speaker 2: do maybe like a test core and then get everybody

346
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Speaker 2: out of it, that sort of thing. But it gives

347
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Speaker 2: the crew a little time to respond. So Riker, Data,

348
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Speaker 2: and Worf, they beam aboard the ship where everything is

349
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Speaker 2: black and metallic.

350
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Speaker 1: You mean they beam aboard the Borg cube?

351
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Speaker 2: The Borg cube, yes. Yeah, where everything is riddled with tubes,

352
00:19:46,869 --> 00:19:51,100
Speaker 2: highlighted with green clothes, you know, quite a vibe. And

353
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Speaker 2: they find countless Borg aboard here, individuals hooked up to

354
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Speaker 2: the machine, kind of like in charger stations, like they're Roombas,

355
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Speaker 2: in a kind of stasis.

356
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Speaker 1: And much like in the earlier encounter with the Borg

357
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Speaker 1: scout on the Enterprise, when the away party encounters Borg

358
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Speaker 1: walking around on the catwalks inside the cube, the Borg

359
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Speaker 1: just ignore them. They don't try to fight them or

360
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Speaker 1: even alert the others. They just walk right past them.

361
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Speaker 1: It's like you're so insignificant, it's not even worth our

362
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Speaker 1: time assessing you or interacting with you.

363
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Speaker 2: Yeah, like no immune response is necessary on the part

364
00:20:28,760 --> 00:20:34,270
Speaker 2: of the Borg collective here. So, yeah, Data checks things out.

365
00:20:34,609 --> 00:20:38,050
Speaker 2: He realizes their interface. They're working collectively in a high-speed,

366
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Speaker 2: technologically advanced biotechnological interface. The Borg are one. The Borg

367
00:20:43,330 --> 00:20:46,290
Speaker 2: are the ship. I mean, everything is just interfaced together

368
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Speaker 2: and communicating at lightning speed. And, yeah, we see other

369
00:20:50,510 --> 00:20:54,410
Speaker 2: Borg moving around like drones. They're indifferent. But this also

370
00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:57,379
Speaker 2: works plot-wise because it gives our characters a chance to

371
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Speaker 2: explore more and find more creepy things like The Borg nursery,

372
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Speaker 2: which I think is supposed— well, I don't know. You found

373
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Speaker 2: it creepy. I don't know. I thought the baby looked

374
00:21:08,230 --> 00:21:11,169
Speaker 2: rather happy when they opened the drawer and they have

375
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Speaker 2: the toddlers or them. I guess they're infants. They're kind

376
00:21:14,280 --> 00:21:17,180
Speaker 2: of big infants, but they're decked out with the cybernetic

377
00:21:17,200 --> 00:21:20,500
Speaker 2: enhancements already. But they look happy. They're not all ghouled

378
00:21:20,619 --> 00:21:21,440
Speaker 2: up for the most part.

379
00:21:21,900 --> 00:21:24,260
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. I mean, it is not made to look

380
00:21:24,320 --> 00:21:27,440
Speaker 1: super creepy in the episode. It's conceptually creepy, the idea

381
00:21:27,460 --> 00:21:32,050
Speaker 1: of Borg babies. And they actually explain that they think

382
00:21:32,109 --> 00:21:37,310
Speaker 1: this means that the Borg have... organic offspring that are, uh,

383
00:21:37,470 --> 00:21:41,630
Speaker 1: when they're born, they're just organic, but they are immediately

384
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Speaker 1: after birth, uh, attached to the technology and modified.

385
00:21:45,450 --> 00:21:48,130
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was reading, I think later in either this

386
00:21:48,170 --> 00:21:49,770
Speaker 2: series or maybe one of the other series, they kind

387
00:21:49,810 --> 00:21:51,649
Speaker 2: of retcon this a little bit or explain it and

388
00:21:51,690 --> 00:21:53,680
Speaker 2: say like, okay, these babies would be babies that they

389
00:21:54,160 --> 00:21:58,639
Speaker 2: collected somewhere else and that the Borg are not actively, um, um,

390
00:21:59,390 --> 00:22:03,300
Speaker 2: biologically reproducing, but that's not clearly stated here. Either way,

391
00:22:03,340 --> 00:22:06,120
Speaker 2: we're like, they've got babies in a drawer with the

392
00:22:06,580 --> 00:22:09,760
Speaker 2: cybernetic enhancements added to them. So, you know, it is

393
00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:13,470
Speaker 2: pretty far from what the Federation feels is a normal

394
00:22:13,530 --> 00:22:15,490
Speaker 2: and healthy environment for a child.

395
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Speaker 1: But another thing to emphasize, I think you mentioned this earlier,

396
00:22:20,109 --> 00:22:25,470
Speaker 1: but it's really worth driving home that the Borg- bodies, the,

397
00:22:25,550 --> 00:22:29,590
Speaker 1: the humanoid, you know, uh, cybernetic bodies on the cube

398
00:22:29,750 --> 00:22:33,540
Speaker 1: are not passengers on a ship. They're part of the ship.

399
00:22:34,140 --> 00:22:37,680
Speaker 1: Like the ship is, it is running on them. They

400
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:40,700
Speaker 1: are sort of the engine as well as the collective

401
00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:44,000
Speaker 1: commanders of the ship, as well as the, you know,

402
00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:46,439
Speaker 1: the armies that are being carried by the ship. They

403
00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:49,570
Speaker 1: are fully integrated with the technology of the ship and

404
00:22:49,630 --> 00:22:52,630
Speaker 1: not just like riding on it to somewhere. Yeah.

405
00:22:53,730 --> 00:22:57,470
Speaker 2: And so prior to this, the Enterprise had managed to

406
00:22:57,550 --> 00:23:00,850
Speaker 2: damage the Borg cube. They quickly realize the ship is

407
00:23:01,050 --> 00:23:04,909
Speaker 2: actively regenerating. The crew realizes this and they escape at

408
00:23:04,950 --> 00:23:09,179
Speaker 2: high speed, pursued by the still healing Borg ship. They

409
00:23:09,220 --> 00:23:13,379
Speaker 2: try to fight back, but it's pretty clear that the

410
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:15,780
Speaker 2: cube is going to get the upper hand. So Q

411
00:23:15,820 --> 00:23:18,640
Speaker 2: appears again. He taunts Picard the whole time, telling him, look,

412
00:23:18,660 --> 00:23:20,419
Speaker 2: you've got to admit this is more than you can handle.

413
00:23:20,890 --> 00:23:24,960
Speaker 2: And finally, Picard admits, yes, they're frightened, they're they're overmatched

414
00:23:25,380 --> 00:23:29,139
Speaker 2: and they, yes, need Q. And so Q snaps his

415
00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:32,380
Speaker 2: fingers literally and accelerates the ship back to where they started.

416
00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:34,780
Speaker 2: And he gives them one last warning. He says, quote,

417
00:23:35,070 --> 00:23:38,230
Speaker 2: It's not safe out here. It's wondrous with treasures to

418
00:23:38,310 --> 00:23:41,810
Speaker 2: satiate desires, both subtle and gross. But it's not for

419
00:23:41,830 --> 00:23:45,370
Speaker 2: the timid. And so at that point, the Federation's contact

420
00:23:45,410 --> 00:23:47,930
Speaker 2: with the Borg has again been pushed up considerably, like

421
00:23:47,970 --> 00:23:50,790
Speaker 2: it was bound to happen, but now it's happened way earlier.

422
00:23:50,810 --> 00:23:55,129
Speaker 2: The Borg are now aware of the Federation as well,

423
00:23:55,570 --> 00:23:58,110
Speaker 2: and they're going to be coming soon. But Picard sees

424
00:23:58,150 --> 00:24:00,990
Speaker 2: the silver lining here. He says, well, we're aware of

425
00:24:01,050 --> 00:24:03,970
Speaker 2: what lies ahead now, and maybe we'll be a little

426
00:24:04,010 --> 00:24:07,170
Speaker 2: less complacent as we continue to expand out in the galaxy.

427
00:24:08,020 --> 00:24:11,550
Speaker 1: But another thing that's interesting, I think, about the way

428
00:24:11,590 --> 00:24:14,890
Speaker 1: the Borg are introduced is that they are unknown to

429
00:24:14,970 --> 00:24:19,150
Speaker 1: the Federation, but they're not completely unknown because they have

430
00:24:19,190 --> 00:24:23,820
Speaker 1: been encountered by peoples the Federation is in contact with. Like,

431
00:24:23,859 --> 00:24:28,100
Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, Guinan's people have already fled from

432
00:24:28,119 --> 00:24:31,780
Speaker 1: the Borg. You know, wherever Guinan came from, the Borg

433
00:24:31,820 --> 00:24:36,200
Speaker 1: were present. So Guinan knows some things about the Borg,

434
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:39,750
Speaker 1: even if they're a new enemy for the Federation. And

435
00:24:39,890 --> 00:24:43,109
Speaker 1: I like the idea there because it presents Star Trek,

436
00:24:43,170 --> 00:24:46,369
Speaker 1: not as just like known space and unknown space, but

437
00:24:46,410 --> 00:24:49,530
Speaker 1: there are like regions and peoples in between and people

438
00:24:49,590 --> 00:24:50,770
Speaker 1: who travel between them.

439
00:24:51,230 --> 00:24:53,350
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it brings to mind, I don't know, reminds

440
00:24:53,390 --> 00:24:54,970
Speaker 2: me a little bit of things like, uh, you know,

441
00:24:54,990 --> 00:24:57,940
Speaker 2: the sea people from, uh, from ancient history, you know,

442
00:24:58,000 --> 00:24:59,919
Speaker 2: where there's some mystery about it, you know, you know,

443
00:25:00,020 --> 00:25:01,820
Speaker 2: who are these people, who these people are, where they're

444
00:25:01,859 --> 00:25:04,139
Speaker 2: coming from. And maybe there it's like, you know, just

445
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:06,859
Speaker 2: distant word of something that's happened and some sort of

446
00:25:06,900 --> 00:25:11,490
Speaker 2: threat that's approaching. But anyway, it's a strong episode. It

447
00:25:11,530 --> 00:25:14,470
Speaker 2: sets events in motion for Star Trek The Next Generation.

448
00:25:15,170 --> 00:25:18,179
Speaker 2: The Borg are out there and apparently have been out

449
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:21,920
Speaker 2: there since before humans developed warp technology. We learn about

450
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:25,840
Speaker 2: that later. And they're going to soon come into direct

451
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 2: conflict with the Federation itself in a major way.

452
00:25:28,910 --> 00:25:30,550
Speaker 1: Now, I don't think this is in any of the

453
00:25:30,590 --> 00:25:33,070
Speaker 1: stuff that I watch, but don't we learn later on

454
00:25:33,150 --> 00:25:36,619
Speaker 1: that essentially, like, one whole quadrant of the galaxy is

455
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 1: Borg space? Like, the Borg already have, like, this whole

456
00:25:39,500 --> 00:25:40,260
Speaker 1: other zone?

457
00:25:40,460 --> 00:25:42,700
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much. Like, it's the, what, the Delta Quadrant?

458
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:46,160
Speaker 2: So it's, like, the far side of the universe. Like,

459
00:25:46,180 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 2: an entire fourth of the universe is pretty much just

460
00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:50,620
Speaker 2: riddled with Borg. Or has been, like, sort of wiped

461
00:25:50,700 --> 00:25:54,270
Speaker 2: clean by the Borg, to some extent. I'm not as

462
00:25:54,310 --> 00:25:56,909
Speaker 2: familiar with a lot of the Star Trek media that

463
00:25:56,950 --> 00:26:00,650
Speaker 2: maybe takes place there. But that's my understanding. It's like

464
00:26:00,730 --> 00:26:05,149
Speaker 2: the Borg have really been running wild. So for the

465
00:26:05,369 --> 00:26:07,870
Speaker 2: remainder of the series, the remainder of The Next Generation,

466
00:26:07,910 --> 00:26:11,139
Speaker 2: the Borg remain a dire threat with, I think, three

467
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:16,200
Speaker 2: major events occurring. I was reading that the writers had

468
00:26:16,300 --> 00:26:19,440
Speaker 2: trouble figuring out how to come back to the Borg

469
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:22,210
Speaker 2: because obviously they realized they had a great concept here.

470
00:26:22,670 --> 00:26:25,510
Speaker 2: Fans were really into it. But they But how do

471
00:26:25,570 --> 00:26:29,090
Speaker 2: you keep having Borg adventures when it's been established that

472
00:26:29,109 --> 00:26:32,430
Speaker 2: they are such an existential threat? You know, it's like

473
00:26:32,690 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 2: any confrontation with the Borg could well be a civilization's last.

474
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:39,859
Speaker 2: And maybe that's one of the reasons a lot is

475
00:26:39,900 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 2: unknown about them, because to come into contact with the

476
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:44,139
Speaker 2: Borg is to become the Borg.

477
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,510
Speaker 1: Well, that actually brings something up I wonder if you

478
00:26:47,530 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: could fill me in on. Sure. there's a gap in

479
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:54,220
Speaker 1: how the Borg are imagined between Q who their first

480
00:26:54,260 --> 00:26:59,050
Speaker 1: appearance and in, uh, first contact. So in Q who

481
00:26:59,109 --> 00:27:05,270
Speaker 1: the Borg seem mainly interested in, uh, absorbing everyone's technology.

482
00:27:05,369 --> 00:27:09,030
Speaker 1: Like the Q says they want your ship. They want

483
00:27:09,070 --> 00:27:13,200
Speaker 1: the enterprise in case it has any technological capabilities they

484
00:27:13,220 --> 00:27:15,739
Speaker 1: don't already have. And it can just absorb those and

485
00:27:16,020 --> 00:27:20,210
Speaker 1: put that into, uh, the Borg's techno culture. Uh, but

486
00:27:20,609 --> 00:27:23,770
Speaker 1: in first contact, there's a much bigger emphasis on the

487
00:27:23,850 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: assimilation of already living organic bodies. Uh, like they want

488
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:33,460
Speaker 1: our bodies also as raw material, essentially as a different

489
00:27:33,500 --> 00:27:37,100
Speaker 1: type of technology. They're like, okay, here's the mobile platform.

490
00:27:37,140 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: We can mod up with our stuff and make another

491
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:40,439
Speaker 1: Borg soldier. Yeah.

492
00:27:41,170 --> 00:27:45,010
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And I'm not sure exactly how this change

493
00:27:45,050 --> 00:27:47,909
Speaker 2: comes about. I imagine it comes about in part in

494
00:27:47,950 --> 00:27:49,969
Speaker 2: the writer's room, just coming up with ways we can

495
00:27:50,010 --> 00:27:52,990
Speaker 2: continue to tell stories about the Borg. But it does,

496
00:27:53,150 --> 00:27:54,750
Speaker 2: there does seem to be this shift, like you're saying,

497
00:27:54,810 --> 00:27:58,710
Speaker 2: in the philosophy of the faction. So it's, it almost

498
00:27:58,770 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 2: becomes this philosophical concept that underlies their whole structure. And

499
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:10,109
Speaker 2: that is that the best possible version of life in

500
00:28:10,130 --> 00:28:13,070
Speaker 2: the universe, the most efficient or what have you is

501
00:28:13,090 --> 00:28:16,109
Speaker 2: going to be this perfect synthesis of the organic and

502
00:28:16,130 --> 00:28:19,910
Speaker 2: the mechanical of the computer and the flesh. And that's

503
00:28:19,970 --> 00:28:22,510
Speaker 2: what they want to implement, which I think is kind

504
00:28:22,530 --> 00:28:25,609
Speaker 2: of clever because otherwise it's easy to wonder like, well,

505
00:28:25,670 --> 00:28:27,970
Speaker 2: why are they holding onto the flesh at all? Like

506
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:32,159
Speaker 2: what possible purpose does the flesh have? When you could

507
00:28:32,180 --> 00:28:34,680
Speaker 2: just have machine processing, you could just give yourself over

508
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:38,700
Speaker 2: to this complete mechanical expression of whatever is important to

509
00:28:38,740 --> 00:28:41,970
Speaker 2: the Borg. But then what is that thing that's important

510
00:28:42,010 --> 00:28:43,730
Speaker 2: to them? And I think we'll get back to this

511
00:28:43,790 --> 00:28:45,610
Speaker 2: idea in a bit. But yeah, it's like, what is

512
00:28:45,650 --> 00:28:47,670
Speaker 2: the thing you're trying to preserve? And what is the

513
00:28:47,710 --> 00:28:51,300
Speaker 2: thing you were spreading throughout the galaxy? Like there there

514
00:28:51,340 --> 00:28:54,219
Speaker 2: must be some concept of what's important. And so, yeah,

515
00:28:54,260 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 2: that seems to that becomes the one of the big

516
00:28:56,740 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 2: things with the Borg is they want to assimilate not

517
00:28:58,940 --> 00:29:03,390
Speaker 2: only technology, but organic beings into this this ideal that

518
00:29:03,430 --> 00:29:03,790
Speaker 2: they have.

519
00:29:04,060 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, the question of, like, what do the Borg want,

520
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:09,220
Speaker 1: I think, connects to another thing that makes them an

521
00:29:09,270 --> 00:29:13,390
Speaker 1: interesting villain. They're kind of frightening because they're represented as, like,

522
00:29:13,890 --> 00:29:18,170
Speaker 1: intelligence without a soul. And I don't there mean soul in, like,

523
00:29:18,270 --> 00:29:22,780
Speaker 1: the literal metaphysical sense of a ghost that is responsible

524
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 1: for the mind. But whatever we think of as, like,

525
00:29:25,180 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: the identity, the personality, you know, the core of a being,

526
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:32,710
Speaker 1: of a living being with sentience, All of the other

527
00:29:32,710 --> 00:29:35,590
Speaker 1: species we encounter in Star Trek, all the you know,

528
00:29:35,610 --> 00:29:38,650
Speaker 1: the Klingons and the Romulans, all that, they all are

529
00:29:38,890 --> 00:29:41,150
Speaker 1: beings with a soul, although they might have a different

530
00:29:41,170 --> 00:29:45,060
Speaker 1: kind of personality and culture. And the Borg just don't

531
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 1: feel like that. You know, they feel like a kind

532
00:29:47,380 --> 00:29:52,500
Speaker 1: of soulless emptiness of intelligence that's just ravenously consuming. Yeah.

533
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:56,860
Speaker 2: We may encounter occasional like straight up monsters that sometimes

534
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:59,550
Speaker 2: end up to have something like a soul or, energy

535
00:29:59,590 --> 00:30:01,530
Speaker 2: beings that may or may not have some sort of

536
00:30:01,570 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 2: a soul going on as well. But yeah, the Borg present, um,

537
00:30:05,090 --> 00:30:08,470
Speaker 2: kind of a new problem to consider. And, and also

538
00:30:08,550 --> 00:30:11,190
Speaker 2: just from a, like, you know, an aesthetic level and

539
00:30:11,210 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 2: a storytelling level, uh, they bring in this fabulous, uh,

540
00:30:15,530 --> 00:30:19,470
Speaker 2: you know, fittingly like a late eighties, early nineties, like

541
00:30:19,550 --> 00:30:22,670
Speaker 2: zombie like concept, you know? Uh, and you can also

542
00:30:22,690 --> 00:30:25,290
Speaker 2: compare it to things like the Cenobites as well, to

543
00:30:25,310 --> 00:30:28,230
Speaker 2: at least some degree. And I believe the Cenobites came first. Um,

544
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:31,740
Speaker 2: there's a little Cenobite DNA in there, I think, uh,

545
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:33,740
Speaker 2: but also a little bit of the zombie and just,

546
00:30:33,900 --> 00:30:37,900
Speaker 2: you know, a longstanding, of course, sci-fi idea of like the,

547
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:39,100
Speaker 2: the mechanized man.

548
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:42,780
Speaker 1: They feel more like horror than many other things we

549
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: get in Star Trek. Yeah.

550
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:47,660
Speaker 2: Yeah. So for the remainder of the series, yeah, the

551
00:30:47,700 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 2: Borg remain like the big bad of Star Trek, the

552
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 2: next generation, you know, I mean, alongside some of the

553
00:30:52,940 --> 00:30:56,670
Speaker 2: other threats, it's not like the Romulans go away or anything, but, uh,

554
00:30:57,280 --> 00:30:59,780
Speaker 2: Let's see, I'm just going to briefly mention the three

555
00:31:00,020 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 2: major events that occur after this because we'll refer back

556
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 2: to some of this. So in the season three cliffhanger,

557
00:31:05,780 --> 00:31:08,990
Speaker 2: a subsequent encounter with the Borg results in the Borg

558
00:31:09,110 --> 00:31:14,750
Speaker 2: capturing Picard and transforming him, assimilating him into a Borg.

559
00:31:15,210 --> 00:31:17,490
Speaker 2: And he's given the name Locutus, which I mean, I

560
00:31:17,530 --> 00:31:20,170
Speaker 2: think means like the speaker or one who speaks Borg.

561
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,540
Speaker 2: And this is a fabulous episode. I just rewatched it.

562
00:31:25,420 --> 00:31:31,050
Speaker 2: It's a long episode, but just nonstop action and intrigue.

563
00:31:31,070 --> 00:31:34,790
Speaker 2: And the stakes are just really high in it. And

564
00:31:34,850 --> 00:31:38,410
Speaker 2: in the first season of season four, we continue with

565
00:31:38,450 --> 00:31:42,620
Speaker 2: this narrative. And so basically the way that all this

566
00:31:42,660 --> 00:31:47,020
Speaker 2: shakes out is the Borg assimilated Picard and they used

567
00:31:47,100 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 2: his knowledge to decimate the Federation fleet. But then the

568
00:31:50,460 --> 00:31:53,740
Speaker 2: Enterprise crew is able to rescue Picard to get him back,

569
00:31:54,150 --> 00:31:57,490
Speaker 2: and then they use him to access the collective Borg consciousness,

570
00:31:57,990 --> 00:32:01,250
Speaker 2: learn what they need to learn to destroy the Borg cube.

571
00:32:01,870 --> 00:32:04,910
Speaker 2: Then they're able to remove Picard's Borg augments, but he

572
00:32:04,970 --> 00:32:08,300
Speaker 2: remains traumatized and haunted by the entire encounter.

573
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 1: And this is important background for the movie Star Trek

574
00:32:12,180 --> 00:32:15,240
Speaker 1: First Contact, because he seems to retain some kind of

575
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:17,380
Speaker 1: link to the Borg, even though he's not still under

576
00:32:17,420 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: their control. Right. Right.

577
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 2: Yeah. Part of it is trauma, but then there's also

578
00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:25,510
Speaker 2: maybe like a deeper understanding of their tactics and motives

579
00:32:25,830 --> 00:32:28,090
Speaker 2: in the same way that they learned all of his

580
00:32:28,130 --> 00:32:30,670
Speaker 2: tactics and motives when he was part of the collective.

581
00:32:31,150 --> 00:32:34,310
Speaker 1: When they get close to a Borg ship in that movie,

582
00:32:34,450 --> 00:32:36,830
Speaker 1: like Picard can hear the voices chattering.

583
00:32:37,030 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now later in season five, we get the episode

584
00:32:41,740 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 2: I Borg, which I definitely saw this one back in

585
00:32:45,860 --> 00:32:48,340
Speaker 2: the day. And I, I, I, Remember quite a bit

586
00:32:48,380 --> 00:32:50,500
Speaker 2: of it. This one is a really good episode. In

587
00:32:50,540 --> 00:32:54,180
Speaker 2: this one, they encounter not a Borg cube, not like

588
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:58,050
Speaker 2: a bunch of Borg, but they encounter a crash site

589
00:32:58,530 --> 00:33:04,210
Speaker 2: and a lone, abandoned, surviving Borg drone that eventually they

590
00:33:04,750 --> 00:33:07,850
Speaker 2: name or learn the name of as Hugh. And so

591
00:33:07,870 --> 00:33:10,490
Speaker 2: they initially plan to use Hugh as a means of

592
00:33:10,570 --> 00:33:13,930
Speaker 2: delivering a destructive virus to the Borg. They see him

593
00:33:13,990 --> 00:33:16,550
Speaker 2: as an opportunity to turn him into a weapon of

594
00:33:16,590 --> 00:33:20,490
Speaker 2: mass destruction. But then what happens? He begins to demonstrate

595
00:33:20,590 --> 00:33:23,190
Speaker 2: free will and they have to make this moral decision.

596
00:33:23,230 --> 00:33:24,450
Speaker 2: What are we going to do? Are we going to

597
00:33:24,750 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 2: use this awakening individual as a weapon? You know, I

598
00:33:29,190 --> 00:33:31,820
Speaker 2: think we know that the crew of the Starship Enterprise

599
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:34,740
Speaker 2: are going to be quite a bit more balanced in

600
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:38,210
Speaker 2: their approach. So they decide to spare him. And Hugh

601
00:33:38,270 --> 00:33:40,710
Speaker 2: refuses to stay with the Enterprise because he says the

602
00:33:40,730 --> 00:33:43,510
Speaker 2: Borg will come looking for him. So they instead return

603
00:33:43,550 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 2: him to the crash site. The Borg might find him there.

604
00:33:47,060 --> 00:33:50,700
Speaker 2: They might not. But Picard holds out hope that Hugh's

605
00:33:51,180 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 2: like growing sense of individuality or returning individuality, maybe this

606
00:33:56,060 --> 00:33:58,980
Speaker 2: will infect the Borg and maybe this will in its

607
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 2: way be a weapon against them, not a weapon of

608
00:34:01,100 --> 00:34:03,800
Speaker 2: like death and destruction, but a weapon of like positive,

609
00:34:03,820 --> 00:34:11,109
Speaker 2: you know, Structural or structural or social change. And guess what?

610
00:34:11,570 --> 00:34:14,610
Speaker 2: It does work because we we deal with the Borg

611
00:34:14,730 --> 00:34:17,410
Speaker 2: once more in the season six finale and then the

612
00:34:17,450 --> 00:34:21,489
Speaker 2: first episode of season seven. So at this point, we've

613
00:34:21,530 --> 00:34:24,920
Speaker 2: had another major villain enter the mix, and that's the

614
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:29,940
Speaker 2: android data's evil sibling, Lore, who is a fabulous character,

615
00:34:29,980 --> 00:34:33,620
Speaker 2: as I remember. So what happens is that Lore has

616
00:34:33,660 --> 00:34:35,580
Speaker 2: been defeated a couple of times by this point, I think.

617
00:34:36,050 --> 00:34:39,150
Speaker 2: And he ends up encountering a group of rogue Borg.

618
00:34:39,750 --> 00:34:42,009
Speaker 2: So apparently Hugh went back to the Borg or was

619
00:34:42,050 --> 00:34:45,219
Speaker 2: collected by the Borg and his sense of individuality like

620
00:34:46,060 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 2: triggered a splinter cell of Borg. You know, I was

621
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:53,580
Speaker 2: thinking in terms of ants, like maybe it's like, you know,

622
00:34:53,700 --> 00:34:55,420
Speaker 2: some of the ants are infected. So they're just like

623
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 2: kicked out of the hive and left on their own.

624
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:00,700
Speaker 2: That's kind of what ends up happening here. But Lore

625
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:04,170
Speaker 2: sees the potential here and being an android, you know,

626
00:35:04,210 --> 00:35:08,109
Speaker 2: he's already you know, well-versed in the machine. So he

627
00:35:08,150 --> 00:35:12,049
Speaker 2: takes them up and turns them into his followers. And

628
00:35:12,110 --> 00:35:15,050
Speaker 2: so this ends up being the big threat. Lore, followed

629
00:35:15,090 --> 00:35:19,670
Speaker 2: by some rogue Borgs, they end up capturing data. They

630
00:35:19,710 --> 00:35:23,890
Speaker 2: give him a dangerous emotion chip. Lore attempts to destroy

631
00:35:23,930 --> 00:35:26,890
Speaker 2: the Enterprise crew, but they overcome him. They end up

632
00:35:26,930 --> 00:35:31,140
Speaker 2: having him disassembled. And then Hugh, remember Hugh, the individualist Borg,

633
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 2: he resumes leadership of the rogue Borg faction. And Data

634
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:39,680
Speaker 2: is meanwhile persuaded to keep his emotion chip, which will

635
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:42,739
Speaker 2: also come into play in Star Trek First Contact. Yeah.

636
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:47,740
Speaker 2: And that's pretty much it for the next generation. But obviously,

637
00:35:47,900 --> 00:35:50,500
Speaker 2: the Borg go on to serve as the primary antagonist

638
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:54,339
Speaker 2: in 1996's Star Trek First Contact, which we'll discuss some

639
00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 2: more in this series. And then we'll get into this

640
00:35:57,739 --> 00:36:00,540
Speaker 2: Friday on Weird House Cinema. And from there, they also

641
00:36:00,580 --> 00:36:02,220
Speaker 2: go on to serve as one of the main threats

642
00:36:02,300 --> 00:36:05,750
Speaker 2: on Star Trek Voyager. and they become, again, a central

643
00:36:05,810 --> 00:36:10,090
Speaker 2: thread in the more recent Picard series, which essentially closes

644
00:36:10,230 --> 00:36:13,689
Speaker 2: out the Borg plotline, I'm to understand. And we can't

645
00:36:13,750 --> 00:36:18,450
Speaker 2: possibly explore all of this as it basically amounts to

646
00:36:18,489 --> 00:36:21,549
Speaker 2: just hours upon hours of Star Trek, quite a lot

647
00:36:21,570 --> 00:36:24,430
Speaker 2: that I haven't seen. So we're mostly gonna talk about

648
00:36:24,450 --> 00:36:27,510
Speaker 2: the next generation in first contact here with occasional mentions

649
00:36:27,930 --> 00:36:31,339
Speaker 2: of other installments if it becomes important to our understanding

650
00:36:31,380 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 2: of the Borg.

651
00:36:42,310 --> 00:36:44,410
Speaker 1: Now rob i know you wanted to talk about the

652
00:36:44,510 --> 00:36:48,890
Speaker 1: conceptual origins of the borg i think this will connect

653
00:36:48,910 --> 00:36:52,910
Speaker 1: to something funny i observed when watching q who which

654
00:36:53,010 --> 00:36:57,299
Speaker 1: is they're first introduced by name by gynon you know

655
00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:00,140
Speaker 1: gynon has encountered these beings before or not personally uh

656
00:37:00,600 --> 00:37:04,180
Speaker 1: gynon knows stories of them and says they're called the

657
00:37:04,420 --> 00:37:07,959
Speaker 1: borg and i was like by who do they call

658
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:12,380
Speaker 1: themselves the borg I think they do later, actually, don't they?

659
00:37:12,739 --> 00:37:15,660
Speaker 1: Which is funny because it's like a shorthand of an

660
00:37:15,860 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 1: English word. So what is Borg in Borg language? I

661
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:23,140
Speaker 1: don't know. That seems just like a funny thing to me.

662
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:26,739
Speaker 2: Yeah, because, I mean, it should come as no surprise

663
00:37:26,780 --> 00:37:29,810
Speaker 2: at all. We all know that Borg, of course, stems

664
00:37:29,870 --> 00:37:34,469
Speaker 2: from cyborg, which in turn stems from cybernetics. And the

665
00:37:34,510 --> 00:37:39,290
Speaker 2: term cybernetics originates with MIT mathematician Norbert Weiner in the

666
00:37:39,370 --> 00:37:43,029
Speaker 2: paper called Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal

667
00:37:43,050 --> 00:37:48,109
Speaker 2: and the Machine from back in 1948. This, talked about

668
00:37:48,250 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 2: this subject ages ago on the show, so I'm going to,

669
00:37:51,580 --> 00:37:53,459
Speaker 2: some of this is rehashed, some of this is me

670
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 2: re-exploring the original material here, but basically this was a

671
00:37:57,580 --> 00:38:01,180
Speaker 2: work that dealt with information theory with a focus on feedback,

672
00:38:01,700 --> 00:38:05,529
Speaker 2: so similarities between a vast group of different phenomena from

673
00:38:05,850 --> 00:38:09,950
Speaker 2: throwing a ball to running a company, you know, initiating

674
00:38:09,969 --> 00:38:12,069
Speaker 2: a weapon system, that sort of thing. And he took

675
00:38:12,130 --> 00:38:16,760
Speaker 2: the name cybernetics from a Greek word. This is kubernetes,

676
00:38:17,620 --> 00:38:23,940
Speaker 2: which I believe means steersman. And basically, he's dealing with

677
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:28,390
Speaker 2: like a constant flow of information governing the interface. And

678
00:38:28,410 --> 00:38:30,250
Speaker 2: it was a science to explain the world as a

679
00:38:30,290 --> 00:38:31,590
Speaker 2: set of feedback systems.

680
00:38:32,170 --> 00:38:36,069
Speaker 1: Yeah, because when you really think about it, what is control?

681
00:38:36,310 --> 00:38:38,629
Speaker 1: What is control of something? It has to be this

682
00:38:39,250 --> 00:38:43,710
Speaker 1: constant back and forth interaction between the giving of orders

683
00:38:43,870 --> 00:38:47,340
Speaker 1: and the receiving of feedback or information about what those

684
00:38:47,500 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 1: orders are accomplishing. Yeah. So like, you know, when the

685
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:55,470
Speaker 1: brain controls the body, it has to be both sending

686
00:38:55,510 --> 00:38:58,620
Speaker 1: nerve impulses that tell the muscles what to do. But

687
00:38:58,660 --> 00:39:01,700
Speaker 1: it also has to be receiving information back from the body,

688
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:05,420
Speaker 1: like proprioceptive information from the limbs and the body and

689
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:08,660
Speaker 1: visual information about the body to know if what's happening

690
00:39:08,739 --> 00:39:12,530
Speaker 1: is what's supposed to be happening and recalibrate if necessary. Yeah, yeah.

691
00:39:12,850 --> 00:39:17,049
Speaker 2: So cybernetics in its original usage didn't like, you know,

692
00:39:17,070 --> 00:39:20,180
Speaker 2: it wasn't just about like plugging things into brains. But

693
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:21,819
Speaker 2: in a way, it is about plugging things into brains.

694
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:26,410
Speaker 2: So the term cyborg then originates with the 1960 paper

695
00:39:26,469 --> 00:39:31,180
Speaker 2: Cyborgs in Space by Manfred E. Klines and S. Klein,

696
00:39:31,900 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 2: one with a C, the latter with a K, different spellings.

697
00:39:35,500 --> 00:39:38,339
Speaker 2: The authors here presented a grocery list of ways that

698
00:39:38,420 --> 00:39:43,649
Speaker 2: technology and medical science and pharmacology could alter and even

699
00:39:43,730 --> 00:39:49,469
Speaker 2: retrofit the human body for life in space, for space explorations.

700
00:39:49,820 --> 00:39:52,060
Speaker 2: And this was, of course, the year before the first

701
00:39:52,100 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 2: human being ventured into orbit. So, you know, it's kind

702
00:39:57,660 --> 00:40:00,940
Speaker 2: of an interesting time capsule, in a way, to go

703
00:40:00,980 --> 00:40:05,130
Speaker 2: back and read this article, which you can readily find online. But, yeah,

704
00:40:05,170 --> 00:40:08,950
Speaker 2: the whole paper is about proposing expedient ways to use

705
00:40:08,989 --> 00:40:12,550
Speaker 2: technology and pharmacology and other practices to alter human beings

706
00:40:12,770 --> 00:40:16,230
Speaker 2: for space travel. Quote, the task of adapting man's body

707
00:40:16,530 --> 00:40:20,020
Speaker 2: to any environment he may choose. And they stress that

708
00:40:20,239 --> 00:40:23,800
Speaker 2: even in high-performance flight at the time, man becomes, quote,

709
00:40:23,890 --> 00:40:27,630
Speaker 2: slave to the machine. And to whatever degree these functions

710
00:40:27,710 --> 00:40:32,969
Speaker 2: can become automated and, quote, provide an organizational system in

711
00:40:33,030 --> 00:40:38,350
Speaker 2: which such robot-like problems are taken care of automatically and unconsciously, well,

712
00:40:38,390 --> 00:40:44,060
Speaker 2: these can leave the individual free to do a variety

713
00:40:44,100 --> 00:40:47,970
Speaker 2: of other important tasks to explore, to create, to think,

714
00:40:48,070 --> 00:40:50,930
Speaker 2: to feel, and of course, above all, explore space.

715
00:40:51,590 --> 00:40:54,550
Speaker 1: So the idea is if we go to space where

716
00:40:54,710 --> 00:40:57,790
Speaker 1: suddenly we will be having to deal with weightlessness, we

717
00:40:57,810 --> 00:41:01,390
Speaker 1: will be having to deal with all kinds of environmental challenges,

718
00:41:01,950 --> 00:41:04,819
Speaker 1: too much of our attention will be taken up on

719
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:08,669
Speaker 1: dealing with those physical challenges. So why not find ways

720
00:41:08,710 --> 00:41:11,650
Speaker 1: of adapting the human body to those challenges so that

721
00:41:11,690 --> 00:41:13,549
Speaker 1: that doesn't have to bother us? We don't have to

722
00:41:13,590 --> 00:41:16,190
Speaker 1: think about those problems and we can focus our attention

723
00:41:16,270 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 1: where we want it.

724
00:41:17,370 --> 00:41:21,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. What can we automate? And so they propose using

725
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 2: various bits of technology and drugs to achieve these ends.

726
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:28,299
Speaker 2: And it's not merely a list of like Borg components

727
00:41:28,340 --> 00:41:30,580
Speaker 2: to sub in for existing organs and that sort of thing.

728
00:41:30,620 --> 00:41:33,770
Speaker 2: But they do mention replacing the lungs. with a solar

729
00:41:33,930 --> 00:41:36,070
Speaker 2: or nuclear-powered inverse fuel cell.

730
00:41:36,290 --> 00:41:37,069
Speaker 1: Cool. Yeah.

731
00:41:37,870 --> 00:41:43,490
Speaker 2: I think there's also talk of changing, like, our plumbing

732
00:41:43,570 --> 00:41:45,489
Speaker 2: so that wastewater could go through a filter and then

733
00:41:45,530 --> 00:41:48,520
Speaker 2: right back into your blood, though obviously this could take

734
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:50,839
Speaker 2: the form of something more like a still suit than, like,

735
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:53,859
Speaker 2: Borg tubes going, you know, one end and out the other,

736
00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:54,540
Speaker 2: that sort of thing.

737
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:57,839
Speaker 1: Oh, you're talking about the difference between, like, peeing into

738
00:41:57,900 --> 00:42:00,790
Speaker 1: some kind of filter that just IVs straight back into

739
00:42:00,810 --> 00:42:03,320
Speaker 1: your blood versus... Something you can just drink.

740
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:06,880
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, they're not they don't provide like sketches

741
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:08,879
Speaker 2: of how this would work. They're just they're they're really

742
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 2: shooting from the hip here. And they're just saying, look,

743
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:14,970
Speaker 2: let's rethink like how our bodies work and what needs

744
00:42:15,030 --> 00:42:19,430
Speaker 2: to change and what could change via these adaptations and advancements.

745
00:42:20,270 --> 00:42:23,569
Speaker 2: They say, quote, solving the many technological problems involved in

746
00:42:23,650 --> 00:42:27,230
Speaker 2: man's spaceflight by adapting man to his environment rather than

747
00:42:27,290 --> 00:42:31,390
Speaker 2: vice versa. will not only mark a significant step forward

748
00:42:31,450 --> 00:42:34,669
Speaker 2: in man's scientific progress, but may well provide a new

749
00:42:34,770 --> 00:42:37,729
Speaker 2: and larger dimension for man's spirit as well.

750
00:42:38,989 --> 00:42:43,190
Speaker 1: So changes to the body may also unlock changes to

751
00:42:43,230 --> 00:42:43,790
Speaker 1: the mind.

752
00:42:44,230 --> 00:42:49,660
Speaker 2: Yeah. So again, this paper came out before people actually

753
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:53,460
Speaker 2: entered into orbit, or space, if you will, and years

754
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:56,980
Speaker 2: before even the original Star Trek. And I think in

755
00:42:57,020 --> 00:42:59,739
Speaker 2: many ways, the Borg that we encounter in Star Trek

756
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:05,230
Speaker 2: The Next Generation, they're a reasonable, though obviously highly dystopian

757
00:43:05,310 --> 00:43:09,170
Speaker 2: vision of the Klein's Klein cyborg. You know, the environment

758
00:43:09,290 --> 00:43:13,510
Speaker 2: is hostile and the costs are high. So the budget

759
00:43:13,570 --> 00:43:17,239
Speaker 2: for human existence just has to be slashed. And, you know,

760
00:43:17,260 --> 00:43:21,320
Speaker 2: I realize in the Borg component, these wouldn't actually be humans.

761
00:43:21,420 --> 00:43:23,959
Speaker 2: They would be some sort of humanoid species that served

762
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:28,750
Speaker 2: as the original Borg species. But before they began assimilating others.

763
00:43:28,830 --> 00:43:31,529
Speaker 2: But I'm going to keep saying human for simplicity's sake here.

764
00:43:31,950 --> 00:43:34,310
Speaker 1: One difference I would observe, though, is coming back to

765
00:43:34,350 --> 00:43:37,509
Speaker 1: that idea of if you automate a lot of the

766
00:43:37,660 --> 00:43:40,299
Speaker 1: adaptation processes we would have to make to get humans

767
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:43,540
Speaker 1: into space, to deal with the challenges of space, you

768
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: automate those, it leaves the human mind, the quote was,

769
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 1: free to explore, to create, to think, and to feel.

770
00:43:51,550 --> 00:43:54,799
Speaker 1: which is exactly what the Borg do not do at all. Though,

771
00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 1: you know, it makes me.

772
00:43:56,060 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 2: Some of these things had to be cut. Like I say,

773
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:00,460
Speaker 2: they had to slash the budget.

774
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:04,739
Speaker 1: It does make me think of many technological solutions in

775
00:44:05,100 --> 00:44:09,310
Speaker 1: real life experience that are, you know, the solution is

776
00:44:09,390 --> 00:44:12,089
Speaker 1: introduced saying that it will free you up to do

777
00:44:12,170 --> 00:44:14,690
Speaker 1: all the things that really matter. And in fact, it

778
00:44:14,810 --> 00:44:18,070
Speaker 1: ends up like making, obviating the things that really matter.

779
00:44:18,130 --> 00:44:20,450
Speaker 1: Like you can't do those anymore now. Yeah.

780
00:44:20,630 --> 00:44:22,250
Speaker 2: And this is, I think, one of the great things

781
00:44:22,290 --> 00:44:25,859
Speaker 2: about the Borg in general, too, is it's continually explored

782
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:28,859
Speaker 2: throughout the Star Trek series, is that it also is

783
00:44:28,980 --> 00:44:33,819
Speaker 2: like a continuous meditation on our relationship to technology. And

784
00:44:33,860 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 2: I think that's going to be particularly interesting to talk

785
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:40,480
Speaker 2: about regarding First Contact, where, you know, it's a big

786
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:42,739
Speaker 2: budget action movie. So it's not like they have all

787
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:45,180
Speaker 2: the time in the world. They don't have Star Trek,

788
00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:48,880
Speaker 2: the next generation TV series space really to explore these ideas.

789
00:44:48,900 --> 00:44:50,180
Speaker 2: But I think those ideas are there.

790
00:44:50,620 --> 00:44:55,109
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think definitely it's about our relationship to technology. Also,

791
00:44:55,120 --> 00:45:00,550
Speaker 1: I would say largely about managing the balance between individualism

792
00:45:00,610 --> 00:45:02,550
Speaker 1: and collectivism. Yeah.

793
00:45:02,810 --> 00:45:05,710
Speaker 2: So that leads to my next point. We've already touched

794
00:45:05,770 --> 00:45:09,239
Speaker 2: a little bit about this on this already regarding like,

795
00:45:09,260 --> 00:45:11,420
Speaker 2: what is the philosophy of the Borg? And maybe it's

796
00:45:11,460 --> 00:45:14,490
Speaker 2: essential that they have a philosophy because If you're talking

797
00:45:14,510 --> 00:45:18,230
Speaker 2: about changing things, when you're sending some sort of humanity

798
00:45:18,410 --> 00:45:22,210
Speaker 2: out into space, well, what is essential for the experience

799
00:45:22,250 --> 00:45:24,670
Speaker 2: of humanity? Like what doesn't get cut in the various

800
00:45:24,730 --> 00:45:28,930
Speaker 2: budget slashings? And this is a question that will obviously

801
00:45:28,989 --> 00:45:31,399
Speaker 2: elicit a lot of different answers. But the Borg answer

802
00:45:31,420 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 2: this question, their answer would seem to be just strip

803
00:45:34,620 --> 00:45:36,719
Speaker 2: it down to the bare minimum. Like, I guess, strip

804
00:45:36,739 --> 00:45:39,460
Speaker 2: it down to this idea that the best possible version

805
00:45:39,739 --> 00:45:46,460
Speaker 2: of life is some appropriate cocktail mixture of human and machine.

806
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:51,320
Speaker 2: Like whatever their desired threshold is, they seem to adhere

807
00:45:51,380 --> 00:45:55,830
Speaker 2: to that pretty religiously in their own way. So flesh

808
00:45:55,890 --> 00:45:58,190
Speaker 2: is maintained, but it's reduced to some sort of, you know,

809
00:45:58,350 --> 00:46:01,630
Speaker 2: mere threshold. And then beyond that, like in both directions,

810
00:46:01,670 --> 00:46:05,910
Speaker 2: we have, you know, huge, you know, Borg cubes. So

811
00:46:05,950 --> 00:46:08,819
Speaker 2: we have this like macro scale domination. And then we

812
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:10,739
Speaker 2: also have, and then we learn this later, I think

813
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:13,419
Speaker 2: this is introduced in First Contact, There's also this idea

814
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:16,140
Speaker 2: that they have like nanoprobes. They have nanites inside them.

815
00:46:17,140 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 2: So they're, you know, traveling through space. They seem to

816
00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:25,739
Speaker 2: reside exclusively in megastructures. They've moved beyond planets. They've abandoned

817
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:30,500
Speaker 2: planetary life altogether. So, you know, at heart, they have

818
00:46:30,620 --> 00:46:33,400
Speaker 2: altered themselves to thrive in space. They're kind of delivering

819
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 2: on this original Klein-Klein cyborg message.

820
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:38,660
Speaker 1: To a Borg, it does not matter. They do not

821
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:41,719
Speaker 1: care about looking at the trees or seeing a sunrise

822
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:44,660
Speaker 1: or hearing the birds singing, not interesting to them. They

823
00:46:44,680 --> 00:46:48,900
Speaker 1: want to consume your biological and technological distinctiveness and add

824
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:50,500
Speaker 1: it to their energy stores.

825
00:46:50,780 --> 00:46:53,250
Speaker 2: Yeah. And in this too, you know, it brings up

826
00:46:53,290 --> 00:46:55,910
Speaker 2: questions about like, what is a civilization doing or what

827
00:46:55,950 --> 00:46:59,969
Speaker 2: is an empire doing? Is its sole purpose just to survive?

828
00:47:00,370 --> 00:47:03,590
Speaker 2: Is its sole purpose just to consume? And we'll get

829
00:47:03,710 --> 00:47:05,529
Speaker 2: back to some of that in a bit here. But

830
00:47:05,989 --> 00:47:08,069
Speaker 2: You know, coming back to the original idea of cybernetics,

831
00:47:08,110 --> 00:47:12,259
Speaker 2: they are also the ultimate steersman. They process information at

832
00:47:12,300 --> 00:47:16,140
Speaker 2: an alarming rate, presumably, you know, as much as possible

833
00:47:16,500 --> 00:47:19,340
Speaker 2: while still retaining some level of flesh and blood humanity.

834
00:47:19,380 --> 00:47:21,800
Speaker 2: And again, not becoming just complete machine.

835
00:47:22,340 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 1: It's the ultimate in that command and feedback system that

836
00:47:26,060 --> 00:47:31,010
Speaker 1: we think of as control or cybernetics. Because remember the

837
00:47:31,130 --> 00:47:35,420
Speaker 1: example of the all the Borg drones adapting to a

838
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:37,759
Speaker 1: weapon that has been used on one or two of

839
00:47:37,820 --> 00:47:41,529
Speaker 1: them once or twice. Uh, now like the information has

840
00:47:41,570 --> 00:47:44,650
Speaker 1: gone back to the collective. The collective has now supplied

841
00:47:44,850 --> 00:47:47,710
Speaker 1: all the drones in the field with the information necessary

842
00:47:47,770 --> 00:47:51,350
Speaker 1: to resist. So it's like if every time a cell

843
00:47:51,489 --> 00:47:54,620
Speaker 1: in your body was damaged instantly, your brain could tell

844
00:47:54,719 --> 00:47:57,819
Speaker 1: all the other cells how to not get damaged that

845
00:47:57,860 --> 00:47:58,500
Speaker 1: way again. Yeah.

846
00:48:00,270 --> 00:48:07,060
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the immune system comparison is very apt. And, yeah, again,

847
00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 2: it seems like this is also their solution, their at

848
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:15,900
Speaker 2: least original culture solution, to surviving long term in the galaxy.

849
00:48:16,219 --> 00:48:20,130
Speaker 2: So they've become an inter-solar civilization. They're spanning multiple quadrants

850
00:48:20,170 --> 00:48:23,069
Speaker 2: at this point. Planets and stars, you know, they're going

851
00:48:23,090 --> 00:48:25,839
Speaker 2: to come and go, but the Borg survived. And in this,

852
00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:28,819
Speaker 2: they overcome some of the key existential threats to any

853
00:48:28,969 --> 00:48:32,690
Speaker 2: planet-bound civilization. We've talked about this on the show rather recently.

854
00:48:33,930 --> 00:48:35,710
Speaker 2: If you're just going to stay on one planet, that's

855
00:48:35,730 --> 00:48:38,930
Speaker 2: going to be good for a very, very long time.

856
00:48:38,989 --> 00:48:41,989
Speaker 2: But eventually, things are going to change in your local

857
00:48:42,070 --> 00:48:46,660
Speaker 2: solar neighborhood. Stars are going to use up their fuel.

858
00:48:47,540 --> 00:48:51,320
Speaker 2: Other cosmic events are going to take place that may

859
00:48:51,380 --> 00:48:54,969
Speaker 2: and eventually will put the planet at risk. So you've

860
00:48:54,989 --> 00:48:57,570
Speaker 2: got to have eggs in other baskets or in no baskets.

861
00:48:57,820 --> 00:48:59,820
Speaker 2: With the Borg, it's just eggs flying around.

862
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: Eggs always in the air. Eternal juggling.

863
00:49:04,500 --> 00:49:06,620
Speaker 2: Another thing, and we've talked about this in the show before,

864
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:12,910
Speaker 2: is the potential threat posed by others. This is on

865
00:49:12,950 --> 00:49:16,989
Speaker 2: people's minds. If there is an extraterrestrial civilization out there

866
00:49:17,070 --> 00:49:20,339
Speaker 2: or multiple, they could be hostile to us. Our main

867
00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:23,960
Speaker 2: model for life is us, for intelligent life is us,

868
00:49:24,460 --> 00:49:27,570
Speaker 2: and we know that we would be horrible to encounter.

869
00:49:27,610 --> 00:49:30,230
Speaker 2: We've seen what has happened on our own planet with

870
00:49:30,790 --> 00:49:35,950
Speaker 2: clashes of civilizations, outside context events. So, you know, what

871
00:49:35,969 --> 00:49:37,779
Speaker 2: do you do about that? Well, in a sense, the

872
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:41,660
Speaker 2: Borg seem to overcome this by always being on the offensive.

873
00:49:41,719 --> 00:49:46,550
Speaker 2: So they're always conquering, always assimilating, but also presumably avoiding

874
00:49:46,610 --> 00:49:49,770
Speaker 2: powers that surpass their own, though I think we see

875
00:49:49,810 --> 00:49:51,930
Speaker 2: very little of this in Trek media, at least that

876
00:49:51,969 --> 00:49:55,850
Speaker 2: I've consumed. When there are more powerful beings out there

877
00:49:55,910 --> 00:49:59,180
Speaker 2: or civilizations, they might be like Q, where, yeah, technically,

878
00:49:59,469 --> 00:50:01,880
Speaker 2: I guess Q could snap a finger and stop the Borg,

879
00:50:02,360 --> 00:50:04,620
Speaker 2: but obviously he has no interest in doing that sort

880
00:50:04,660 --> 00:50:04,899
Speaker 2: of thing.

881
00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:05,360
Speaker 1: Yeah.

882
00:50:05,690 --> 00:50:08,209
Speaker 2: And then finally, I'd also come back to the idea

883
00:50:08,230 --> 00:50:12,210
Speaker 2: that the Borg are, at least initially, and this will

884
00:50:12,230 --> 00:50:14,330
Speaker 2: be important when we get into First Contact, but they are,

885
00:50:15,450 --> 00:50:19,060
Speaker 2: coming back to that original episode, presented as ungendered in

886
00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:21,340
Speaker 2: a way that reminds me a little bit of Donna J.

887
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 2: Haraway's 1985 work, A Cyborg Manifesto, in which she explored

888
00:50:26,140 --> 00:50:28,930
Speaker 2: the idea of cyborg feminism and the concept of a

889
00:50:28,969 --> 00:50:33,279
Speaker 2: world in which everyone is a chimera, And existing in

890
00:50:33,330 --> 00:50:37,810
Speaker 2: kind of a post-gender world of self-creation and self-definition. I'm

891
00:50:39,230 --> 00:50:41,609
Speaker 2: not saying that the Borg concept goes deep into that,

892
00:50:42,070 --> 00:50:46,379
Speaker 2: but certainly at this point, there's just the Borg are

893
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:49,259
Speaker 2: more of an it. And again, they're not even individuals.

894
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:52,390
Speaker 2: They are just little bitty parts of the greater whole.

895
00:50:52,450 --> 00:50:54,469
Speaker 2: They are all Borg, and there is only one Borg.

896
00:50:55,180 --> 00:50:58,190
Speaker 1: I would say that the ungendered aspect of the Borg

897
00:50:58,290 --> 00:51:01,270
Speaker 1: is not presented in a positive way as like a

898
00:51:01,370 --> 00:51:05,330
Speaker 1: type of freedom. Yeah. But rather is presented in a

899
00:51:05,450 --> 00:51:08,230
Speaker 1: negative way in the sense that gender expression is a

900
00:51:08,270 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 1: part of personality and they don't have individual personality. So

901
00:51:13,239 --> 00:51:17,140
Speaker 1: it's rather more that they are denied even the opportunity

902
00:51:17,219 --> 00:51:20,420
Speaker 1: to express degrees of self such as gender.

903
00:51:20,860 --> 00:51:24,610
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Haraway's idea is more about liberations. as I

904
00:51:24,650 --> 00:51:27,489
Speaker 2: understand it, and I may misunderstand aspects of it. And

905
00:51:27,530 --> 00:51:30,210
Speaker 2: it's also, I think, an idea that has evolved over time.

906
00:51:30,270 --> 00:51:33,390
Speaker 2: But yeah, with the Borg, it is more like, oh, gender,

907
00:51:33,450 --> 00:51:36,730
Speaker 2: we canceled that. That wasn't necessary. Don't remove that from

908
00:51:36,770 --> 00:51:37,350
Speaker 2: the equation.

909
00:51:37,810 --> 00:51:39,890
Speaker 1: Yeah. We will be having no gender today.

910
00:51:40,150 --> 00:51:43,669
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. But as we'll see, that will come back

911
00:51:43,710 --> 00:51:56,080
Speaker 2: in the movie. Yeah. So we're going to have a

912
00:51:56,100 --> 00:51:58,140
Speaker 2: lot more to say about interpreting the Borg. Like, what

913
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:00,779
Speaker 2: do we think about when we watch an episode that

914
00:52:00,980 --> 00:52:03,960
Speaker 2: involves the Borg? What are they supposed to mean? But

915
00:52:04,300 --> 00:52:07,560
Speaker 2: at this point, let's get back to this idea of assimilation.

916
00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:11,330
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the most memorable things about the Borg,

917
00:52:11,350 --> 00:52:15,450
Speaker 1: of course, is that they say, lower your shields and surrender.

918
00:52:15,530 --> 00:52:18,730
Speaker 1: You will be assimilated. They say we will add your

919
00:52:18,810 --> 00:52:23,920
Speaker 1: biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. So again, they're

920
00:52:23,940 --> 00:52:25,400
Speaker 1: going to check you out. They're going to see what

921
00:52:25,420 --> 00:52:28,110
Speaker 1: you've got to offer. They might salvage your body and

922
00:52:28,140 --> 00:52:31,970
Speaker 1: your ship for raw materials. If there are interesting things

923
00:52:32,030 --> 00:52:34,730
Speaker 1: about you or capabilities you have, it might take those

924
00:52:34,790 --> 00:52:38,770
Speaker 1: on board. We'll make those capabilities ours now. But either way,

925
00:52:38,850 --> 00:52:41,310
Speaker 1: you will become part of the Borg synthesis.

926
00:52:41,330 --> 00:52:44,089
Speaker 2: I mean, one should be flattered, right? It's like, yeah,

927
00:52:44,110 --> 00:52:47,160
Speaker 2: there's something unique about our technology and our biology. It

928
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:51,000
Speaker 2: would be that someone's probably already done this, maybe even

929
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:53,700
Speaker 2: in canon, but It would be amusing if the Borg

930
00:52:53,739 --> 00:52:56,779
Speaker 2: encountered a civilization and they were like, actually, we're good.

931
00:52:56,820 --> 00:53:00,969
Speaker 2: You've got nothing new. Yeah. You're good. You're free to go.

932
00:53:01,710 --> 00:53:03,830
Speaker 1: Well, but no, in those cases, I think it's implied

933
00:53:03,870 --> 00:53:05,610
Speaker 1: that the Borg would still want to use you as

934
00:53:05,690 --> 00:53:10,290
Speaker 1: raw material. So you're either useful as just a biological

935
00:53:10,370 --> 00:53:15,359
Speaker 1: platform or... fuel or raw metals or something like that.

936
00:53:15,380 --> 00:53:18,820
Speaker 1: Or you may actually have ideas that are worth synthesizing. Uh,

937
00:53:19,700 --> 00:53:21,839
Speaker 1: and I don't get the feeling that they're ever very

938
00:53:21,860 --> 00:53:26,530
Speaker 1: interested in synthesizing the cultures of who they've absorbed. That's

939
00:53:26,660 --> 00:53:30,330
Speaker 1: like the soft stuff that just gets, you know, steamrolled.

940
00:53:30,510 --> 00:53:34,350
Speaker 1: They want the, the hard material and the hard culture,

941
00:53:34,410 --> 00:53:35,469
Speaker 1: meaning the technology.

942
00:53:35,690 --> 00:53:38,250
Speaker 2: Yeah. It might get filed away somewhere, but it's not

943
00:53:38,290 --> 00:53:40,290
Speaker 2: something that's going to, it's just going to go into

944
00:53:40,310 --> 00:53:41,290
Speaker 2: the deep freeze basically.

945
00:53:41,630 --> 00:53:46,509
Speaker 1: Yeah. But anyway, this got me thinking about whether there

946
00:53:46,590 --> 00:53:52,190
Speaker 1: are any parallels to Borg assimilation in real biology. And

947
00:53:53,070 --> 00:53:54,650
Speaker 1: there are a few things, there are a few directions

948
00:53:54,690 --> 00:53:56,930
Speaker 1: you could go with this. But the main thing that

949
00:53:57,160 --> 00:54:02,279
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about is the endosymbiotic theory in

950
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:07,239
Speaker 1: the history of Earth life. So in Earth life, there

951
00:54:07,520 --> 00:54:11,319
Speaker 1: are broadly two different kinds of cells that you might

952
00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:15,719
Speaker 1: remember this from school, there are prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Prokaryotes

953
00:54:15,840 --> 00:54:21,000
Speaker 1: are limited to single-celled bacteria and archaea, and eukaryotes can

954
00:54:21,040 --> 00:54:27,029
Speaker 1: be single-celled or multicellular, but all multicellular organisms are eukaryotes.

955
00:54:27,370 --> 00:54:32,810
Speaker 1: So all plants, animals, fungi, and protozoa are eukaryotes. Eukaryotes

956
00:54:33,050 --> 00:54:37,300
Speaker 1: are structurally distinct because they have a cell nucleus, which

957
00:54:37,610 --> 00:54:40,560
Speaker 1: is sort of the inner DNA fortress, and it's bound

958
00:54:40,620 --> 00:54:45,439
Speaker 1: by a membrane. There they store their main genetic material. Prokaryotes,

959
00:54:45,500 --> 00:54:48,770
Speaker 1: on the other hand, keep their genetic material floating in

960
00:54:48,790 --> 00:54:52,730
Speaker 1: a region called the nucleoid, which is not membrane-bound. It's

961
00:54:52,770 --> 00:54:56,590
Speaker 1: just submerged within and exposed to the cytoplasm. And the

962
00:54:56,630 --> 00:54:59,450
Speaker 1: cytoplasm It's kind of like the blood of a cell,

963
00:54:59,530 --> 00:55:01,799
Speaker 1: the blood inside a cell, except of course, you know,

964
00:55:01,860 --> 00:55:03,540
Speaker 1: you don't have a heart pumping it and there are

965
00:55:03,580 --> 00:55:06,819
Speaker 1: no vessels. It is the fluid medium that fills the

966
00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:11,310
Speaker 1: inside of a cell. But another major distinction between prokaryotes

967
00:55:11,350 --> 00:55:15,969
Speaker 1: and eukaryotes, besides the cell nucleus, is that eukaryotes have

968
00:55:16,290 --> 00:55:22,509
Speaker 1: particular membrane-bound organelles that which you can think of as

969
00:55:22,570 --> 00:55:26,390
Speaker 1: kind of like the organs of a cell. They're like

970
00:55:26,430 --> 00:55:29,050
Speaker 1: the organs in your body. The organelles of a cell

971
00:55:29,110 --> 00:55:33,390
Speaker 1: are little organic machines within cells that do a particular job.

972
00:55:34,030 --> 00:55:38,350
Speaker 1: And a couple of examples of these special membrane-bound organelles

973
00:55:38,430 --> 00:55:43,740
Speaker 1: in eukaryotes are the mitochondria and the chloroplasts. So chloroplasts,

974
00:55:43,800 --> 00:55:46,020
Speaker 1: what are they for? They're for eating the sun up, baby.

975
00:55:46,100 --> 00:55:52,160
Speaker 1: They're the reactors of photosynthesis. So plants and other photosynthetic

976
00:55:52,320 --> 00:55:56,990
Speaker 1: eukaryotes use the chloroplasts in their cells to convert carbon

977
00:55:57,010 --> 00:56:01,470
Speaker 1: dioxide and water into sugars and oxygen in a chemical

978
00:56:01,530 --> 00:56:04,750
Speaker 1: reaction powered by sunlight. So they're used to generate chemical

979
00:56:04,810 --> 00:56:10,170
Speaker 1: energy for the plant. The other examples, mitochondria are also

980
00:56:10,330 --> 00:56:13,980
Speaker 1: used to generate chemical energy in a different way. Specifically,

981
00:56:14,239 --> 00:56:20,000
Speaker 1: they use the breakdown products of sugar to create an

982
00:56:20,140 --> 00:56:24,819
Speaker 1: energy carrying molecule more easily used within cells called adenosine

983
00:56:24,860 --> 00:56:29,360
Speaker 1: triphosphate or ATP. Now, you might think, well, why can't

984
00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:33,279
Speaker 1: cells just use the energy directly from sugar? Why can't

985
00:56:33,300 --> 00:56:35,480
Speaker 1: they just use the sugar as their energy molecule? I

986
00:56:37,340 --> 00:56:39,380
Speaker 1: was reading about this and it seems like sugar and

987
00:56:39,440 --> 00:56:43,930
Speaker 1: its direct breakdown products are like big, highly energetic molecules.

988
00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:47,130
Speaker 1: They contain a lot of energy. And the creation of

989
00:56:47,150 --> 00:56:54,380
Speaker 1: ATP uses that energy to instead generate smaller, easily activated

990
00:56:54,580 --> 00:56:57,360
Speaker 1: packets of energy that are more on the scale of

991
00:56:57,420 --> 00:57:00,500
Speaker 1: what is needed for the energy consuming actions throughout an

992
00:57:00,580 --> 00:57:03,760
Speaker 1: individual cell. So for an analogy, think of it like

993
00:57:04,480 --> 00:57:07,940
Speaker 1: you need to charge 25 cell phones and all you

994
00:57:07,980 --> 00:57:11,430
Speaker 1: have is a case of dynamite. But, you know, the

995
00:57:11,550 --> 00:57:15,100
Speaker 1: mitochondria is kind of like a machine that could turn

996
00:57:15,140 --> 00:57:17,700
Speaker 1: the energy from that dynamite into a bunch of little

997
00:57:17,800 --> 00:57:20,860
Speaker 1: portable cell phone chargers that you can easily just plug in.

998
00:57:21,220 --> 00:57:24,640
Speaker 1: So it makes the energy easily deliverable, accessible, and in

999
00:57:24,680 --> 00:57:28,970
Speaker 1: the right quantities you need to power your devices. So

1000
00:57:29,090 --> 00:57:34,950
Speaker 1: the energy conversion process inside mitochondria is known as aerobic.

1001
00:57:35,490 --> 00:57:40,310
Speaker 1: This is aerobic respiration process. because it requires oxygen to

1002
00:57:40,390 --> 00:57:44,169
Speaker 1: facilitate this key chemical reaction. And this is the main

1003
00:57:44,230 --> 00:57:46,730
Speaker 1: reason we need to breathe oxygen. I guess it's actually,

1004
00:57:46,750 --> 00:57:49,190
Speaker 1: you could say it's the reason we need to breathe oxygen,

1005
00:57:49,290 --> 00:57:52,530
Speaker 1: because we're animals and we have mitochondria in our cells.

1006
00:57:52,850 --> 00:57:55,970
Speaker 1: And the mitochondria in our cells use that oxygen to

1007
00:57:56,050 --> 00:58:00,330
Speaker 1: convert the breakdown products of carbohydrates into energy that's usable

1008
00:58:00,410 --> 00:58:03,350
Speaker 1: by our cells. So this is how your muscles move.

1009
00:58:03,370 --> 00:58:05,390
Speaker 1: This is how your body does what it needs to do.

1010
00:58:06,820 --> 00:58:09,530
Speaker 1: So how does this relate to the Borg? Well, a

1011
00:58:09,590 --> 00:58:16,170
Speaker 1: longstanding question in biology was where these membrane-bound organelles came

1012
00:58:16,250 --> 00:58:19,790
Speaker 1: from in the evolution of life on Earth. And the

1013
00:58:19,870 --> 00:58:26,750
Speaker 1: leading theory among biologists today is the endosymbiotic theory or symbiogenesis.

1014
00:58:27,450 --> 00:58:31,450
Speaker 1: So this hypothesis was first formulated in the early 1900s

1015
00:58:31,510 --> 00:58:35,800
Speaker 1: by a Russian botanist named Konstantin Miroshkowski. And then it

1016
00:58:35,880 --> 00:58:39,920
Speaker 1: was revived and championed by the American biologist Lynn Margulis

1017
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:44,820
Speaker 1: in the late 1960s. The theory is fairly complex today

1018
00:58:44,860 --> 00:58:48,000
Speaker 1: and it has different formulations, but the core of it

1019
00:58:48,480 --> 00:58:53,820
Speaker 1: is that these membrane-bound organelles, these organs within our cells,

1020
00:58:54,490 --> 00:59:01,230
Speaker 1: were originally, billions of years ago, free-living cells themselves. They

1021
00:59:01,270 --> 00:59:05,430
Speaker 1: were other organisms. And that they were at some point

1022
00:59:05,740 --> 00:59:10,690
Speaker 1: assimilated by the ancestors of today's eukaryotes. cells.

1023
00:59:11,230 --> 00:59:11,590
Speaker 2: Oh, wow.

1024
00:59:11,910 --> 00:59:15,470
Speaker 1: So there is still there's still scientific debate about exactly

1025
00:59:15,640 --> 00:59:18,760
Speaker 1: how this happened. Like, you know, what were the organisms?

1026
00:59:18,860 --> 00:59:22,180
Speaker 1: What were their exact qualities and in what sequence? But

1027
00:59:22,420 --> 00:59:26,360
Speaker 1: one possible story for the origin of mitochondria goes like this.

1028
00:59:27,160 --> 00:59:31,120
Speaker 1: Billions of years ago, There was a cell of anaerobic

1029
00:59:31,220 --> 00:59:38,240
Speaker 1: archaea that somehow surrounded and ingested, without digesting, a cell

1030
00:59:38,470 --> 00:59:44,470
Speaker 1: of aerobic bacteria. And these organisms may have functioned for

1031
00:59:44,530 --> 00:59:49,480
Speaker 1: some time as closely associated mutualists, like they were helping

1032
00:59:49,540 --> 00:59:53,580
Speaker 1: each other out in a symbiotic relationship, much like lichen today,

1033
00:59:54,060 --> 00:59:57,300
Speaker 1: in which you have algae and fungi that live and

1034
00:59:57,420 --> 01:00:00,460
Speaker 1: grow and reproduce together so that they function kind of

1035
01:00:00,500 --> 01:00:05,090
Speaker 1: like a composite organism. Something similar may have been going

1036
01:00:05,260 --> 01:00:09,090
Speaker 1: on with these single-celled organisms billions of years ago. But

1037
01:00:09,130 --> 01:00:12,820
Speaker 1: in the case of the ancestral cells we're talking about, Eventually,

1038
01:00:12,900 --> 01:00:17,070
Speaker 1: they became so dependent on one another that they stopped

1039
01:00:17,200 --> 01:00:23,410
Speaker 1: being recognizable as separate organisms. So the aerobic bacterium became

1040
01:00:23,510 --> 01:00:29,950
Speaker 1: more like an oxygen-using, energy-converting organ within the body of

1041
01:00:30,010 --> 01:00:34,720
Speaker 1: the larger archaea. You had the introduction of multicellular body plans,

1042
01:00:34,800 --> 01:00:40,200
Speaker 1: yadda yadda yadda, and this assimilation of is probably indirectly

1043
01:00:40,240 --> 01:00:43,220
Speaker 1: the reason why animals breathe air. You know, so like

1044
01:00:43,380 --> 01:00:48,140
Speaker 1: animal biology in particular became dependent on aerobic respiration. Though

1045
01:00:48,180 --> 01:00:50,960
Speaker 1: you end up with mitochondria also in the lines of

1046
01:00:51,700 --> 01:00:55,110
Speaker 1: other kingdoms like plants and fungi too. And then you

1047
01:00:55,150 --> 01:00:58,550
Speaker 1: can imagine a similar story taking place with chloroplasts as well.

1048
01:00:58,610 --> 01:01:03,810
Speaker 1: So you get the assimilation of a photosynthetic bacterium like

1049
01:01:03,870 --> 01:01:10,230
Speaker 1: cyanobacteria into a larger single-celled eukaryote with the cyanobacteria eventually

1050
01:01:10,530 --> 01:01:15,500
Speaker 1: becoming the chloroplast for the photosynthesizing cells that would evolve

1051
01:01:15,540 --> 01:01:20,400
Speaker 1: into lines like plants. Now, what's the evidence for this theory? Like,

1052
01:01:20,500 --> 01:01:23,560
Speaker 1: why do we think this is what happened? There is

1053
01:01:23,600 --> 01:01:26,590
Speaker 1: a bunch of technical stuff. I just wrote some of

1054
01:01:26,660 --> 01:01:31,410
Speaker 1: the main reasons here. One is that mitochondria and chloroplasts

1055
01:01:31,670 --> 01:01:37,700
Speaker 1: both physically resemble and somewhat behave like bacteria. So while

1056
01:01:37,920 --> 01:01:42,840
Speaker 1: most eukaryotic cells reproduce by mitosis, you know, the four stages,

1057
01:01:42,930 --> 01:01:45,790
Speaker 1: remember the phases that you may have learned in biology

1058
01:01:45,810 --> 01:01:51,430
Speaker 1: in school, the chloroplasts and mitochondria within cells reproduce by

1059
01:01:51,590 --> 01:01:56,190
Speaker 1: binary fission like bacteria. They're also just kind of the

1060
01:01:56,250 --> 01:02:01,640
Speaker 1: size of prokaryotic cells and their other technical similarities are

1061
01:02:01,960 --> 01:02:05,640
Speaker 1: But it's also important to note that mitochondria and chloroplasts

1062
01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:10,450
Speaker 1: have their own DNA, separate from the nuclear DNA of

1063
01:02:10,510 --> 01:02:14,170
Speaker 1: the cells they live inside. So they don't have as

1064
01:02:14,370 --> 01:02:18,530
Speaker 1: much DNA as a full free-living organism, but it seems

1065
01:02:18,630 --> 01:02:22,800
Speaker 1: that some of the original organism's genome has been retained

1066
01:02:22,880 --> 01:02:26,480
Speaker 1: and copied down the line within these organelles, within the

1067
01:02:26,560 --> 01:02:30,720
Speaker 1: organs within cells. And there's other evidence too, enough that

1068
01:02:30,840 --> 01:02:35,230
Speaker 1: while the particular timeline and sequence is somewhat in dispute.

1069
01:02:35,690 --> 01:02:40,950
Speaker 1: The core idea that certain membrane-bound organelles originally came from

1070
01:02:40,970 --> 01:02:45,100
Speaker 1: endosymbiosis is widely accepted by experts. This seems to be

1071
01:02:45,240 --> 01:02:48,980
Speaker 1: almost certainly what happened, where these organelles came from. It's

1072
01:02:49,140 --> 01:02:53,840
Speaker 1: truly bizarre to think about that one organism came to

1073
01:02:53,920 --> 01:02:57,890
Speaker 1: live inside another and just became part of its body.

1074
01:02:58,410 --> 01:03:00,980
Speaker 1: Not only part of its body, then bodies were built

1075
01:03:01,040 --> 01:03:03,800
Speaker 1: out of multiple cells of those so that you have

1076
01:03:04,200 --> 01:03:09,710
Speaker 1: like fused composite hybrid organisms being the ancestors of your

1077
01:03:09,790 --> 01:03:12,570
Speaker 1: cells that are like, you know, it's just crazy.

1078
01:03:12,610 --> 01:03:12,810
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1079
01:03:13,710 --> 01:03:17,250
Speaker 1: Um, but so anyway, I was thinking about this and

1080
01:03:17,290 --> 01:03:21,690
Speaker 1: comparing it to Borg assimilation. One way that it is

1081
01:03:22,030 --> 01:03:27,640
Speaker 1: arguably not like the Borg is that Borg assimilation is

1082
01:03:27,700 --> 01:03:33,290
Speaker 1: depicted in as a kind of synthesizing predation. There is

1083
01:03:33,490 --> 01:03:37,390
Speaker 1: no apparent benefit to assimilation from the human or the

1084
01:03:37,510 --> 01:03:40,530
Speaker 1: alien's point of view. We could talk about caveats for

1085
01:03:40,550 --> 01:03:43,170
Speaker 1: that in a second, but I think it's fair to

1086
01:03:43,230 --> 01:03:46,690
Speaker 1: say the Borg just devour you, or they use your

1087
01:03:46,710 --> 01:03:49,110
Speaker 1: body for parts, or they take whatever aspects of your

1088
01:03:49,130 --> 01:03:54,160
Speaker 1: biology or your technology are deemed useful to them, and

1089
01:03:54,180 --> 01:03:58,090
Speaker 1: it is generally understood that it is not good to

1090
01:03:58,110 --> 01:04:00,870
Speaker 1: become a Borg. There's nothing that you want out of

1091
01:04:00,910 --> 01:04:01,490
Speaker 1: that deal.

1092
01:04:02,070 --> 01:04:03,810
Speaker 2: Right, right. Yeah, I mean, some of the caveats, we

1093
01:04:03,830 --> 01:04:06,490
Speaker 2: don't know how bad it was for the original species. Like,

1094
01:04:06,530 --> 01:04:08,870
Speaker 2: maybe this was, like, do you want to survive or

1095
01:04:08,930 --> 01:04:11,030
Speaker 2: not survive? And if the answer is survive, well, then

1096
01:04:11,050 --> 01:04:14,920
Speaker 2: we've got to go Borg. Likewise, you know, their perspective

1097
01:04:14,940 --> 01:04:18,780
Speaker 2: could be like, look at these various people. They're so divided. Like,

1098
01:04:19,320 --> 01:04:23,640
Speaker 2: Klingons and humans or any given civilization is fighting with

1099
01:04:23,660 --> 01:04:27,070
Speaker 2: the Romulans. They should all be living in peace within

1100
01:04:27,110 --> 01:04:29,720
Speaker 2: a big Borg cube. Doesn't that sound a lot more

1101
01:04:29,760 --> 01:04:35,740
Speaker 2: efficient and peaceful? But yeah, for the most part, yeah,

1102
01:04:36,420 --> 01:04:39,560
Speaker 2: the Borg answer is presented as not a great answer

1103
01:04:40,060 --> 01:04:43,480
Speaker 2: in Star Trek The Next Generation, though eventually within the

1104
01:04:43,540 --> 01:04:47,740
Speaker 2: self-referential exploration of Star Trek lore, I think by the

1105
01:04:47,780 --> 01:04:50,820
Speaker 2: time of Picard, they do explore the idea, and I

1106
01:04:50,840 --> 01:04:53,280
Speaker 2: think it's like a separate timeline scenario, but there's like

1107
01:04:53,340 --> 01:04:58,270
Speaker 2: another timeline Where there's like a volunteer only version of

1108
01:04:58,310 --> 01:05:01,070
Speaker 2: the Borg. It's like people who want to live like

1109
01:05:01,130 --> 01:05:05,280
Speaker 2: this are able to join like a Borg collective. But

1110
01:05:05,300 --> 01:05:07,360
Speaker 2: that is not your default version of the Borg in

1111
01:05:07,380 --> 01:05:08,480
Speaker 2: Star Trek. Yeah.

1112
01:05:08,620 --> 01:05:15,120
Speaker 1: Well, so at least contrasting with this predatory synthesizing view

1113
01:05:15,160 --> 01:05:17,880
Speaker 1: of the Borg where there's nothing that would compel you

1114
01:05:17,920 --> 01:05:20,540
Speaker 1: to want to be a Borg. Like they're just taking you.

1115
01:05:21,670 --> 01:05:26,670
Speaker 1: The contrast there is that this subsuming of one single-celled

1116
01:05:26,790 --> 01:05:31,150
Speaker 1: organism into another billions of years ago on Earth was

1117
01:05:31,230 --> 01:05:35,820
Speaker 1: not necessarily predatory, and it was not necessarily lopsided in

1118
01:05:35,860 --> 01:05:39,140
Speaker 1: its benefits, at least initially. It could be that the

1119
01:05:39,340 --> 01:05:44,080
Speaker 1: ancestors of a plant cell were a photosynthetic bacterium-type cell,

1120
01:05:44,100 --> 01:05:50,120
Speaker 1: like cyanobacteria, and a larger host, archaea or bacterium, that

1121
01:05:50,400 --> 01:05:54,670
Speaker 1: lived together because they both benefited in some way, like

1122
01:05:54,730 --> 01:05:59,790
Speaker 1: maybe the bigger cell provided physical protection against the photosynthesizer

1123
01:05:59,850 --> 01:06:04,430
Speaker 1: being eaten. And so they were living together, being mutualists,

1124
01:06:04,530 --> 01:06:08,180
Speaker 1: protecting each other. And then over the eons, those living

1125
01:06:08,240 --> 01:06:12,820
Speaker 1: arrangements gradually became more and more and more intimate until

1126
01:06:12,900 --> 01:06:18,560
Speaker 1: the photosynthetic bacterium was re-engineered by evolution as a now

1127
01:06:18,780 --> 01:06:22,940
Speaker 1: fully interdependent component of the host cell. So it's not

1128
01:06:23,080 --> 01:06:27,260
Speaker 1: able to survive on its own. It has co-mingled genetic

1129
01:06:27,320 --> 01:06:32,460
Speaker 1: material with the host cell. The organelle only functions within

1130
01:06:32,500 --> 01:06:35,740
Speaker 1: the cell, and then the host cell really relies on

1131
01:06:35,760 --> 01:06:39,520
Speaker 1: the organelle to survive. So it could have been something

1132
01:06:39,580 --> 01:06:42,140
Speaker 1: that was not predatory in its origin. I think there

1133
01:06:42,160 --> 01:06:44,360
Speaker 1: are predatory ways of thinking about it as well. It's

1134
01:06:44,400 --> 01:06:48,720
Speaker 1: like something that got eaten, but not digested. But yeah,

1135
01:06:48,740 --> 01:06:52,260
Speaker 1: it could have been a mutualism that just got closer

1136
01:06:52,320 --> 01:06:55,070
Speaker 1: and closer and closer until I'm part of your body.

1137
01:06:55,990 --> 01:06:58,890
Speaker 1: And I wonder, you know, I kind of wonder about

1138
01:06:58,950 --> 01:07:01,110
Speaker 1: like that sort of thing with the Borg too. Like

1139
01:07:01,150 --> 01:07:02,930
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like it's fun to be part of

1140
01:07:02,970 --> 01:07:06,370
Speaker 1: the Borg now, but could something that began as a

1141
01:07:06,590 --> 01:07:12,780
Speaker 1: mutualism evolve over time into just this predatory synthesizing impulse

1142
01:07:12,950 --> 01:07:17,080
Speaker 1: where you're like the blob and you just absorb everything. Yeah, yeah.

1143
01:07:17,140 --> 01:07:19,920
Speaker 2: Or thinking about like the slashing of the budget, like

1144
01:07:20,000 --> 01:07:22,760
Speaker 2: what if the thing that needs to be sustained is

1145
01:07:22,800 --> 01:07:25,970
Speaker 2: just like some level of organic life? And so like

1146
01:07:26,010 --> 01:07:28,510
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, does the Borg model

1147
01:07:28,650 --> 01:07:32,710
Speaker 2: allow organic life to continue, albeit in a very altered

1148
01:07:32,790 --> 01:07:37,410
Speaker 2: and machine synthesized way? Well, yes. And like maybe that

1149
01:07:37,450 --> 01:07:40,870
Speaker 2: is like that's like the core philosophy behind all of

1150
01:07:40,970 --> 01:07:44,590
Speaker 2: it is like organic life needs to continue. Organic life

1151
01:07:44,650 --> 01:07:47,810
Speaker 2: works best, certainly beyond a planet when it is combined

1152
01:07:47,830 --> 01:07:50,450
Speaker 2: with machine. Therefore, that's the only thing we're going to

1153
01:07:50,470 --> 01:07:50,930
Speaker 2: focus on.

1154
01:07:52,810 --> 01:07:54,790
Speaker 1: I seem to recall there is a plot line like

1155
01:07:54,850 --> 01:07:59,070
Speaker 1: this in the extremely dark horror science fiction video game

1156
01:07:59,160 --> 01:08:02,820
Speaker 1: Soma series. Where I think there is an artificial intelligence

1157
01:08:02,860 --> 01:08:06,310
Speaker 1: there that is tasked with keeping human life alive, but

1158
01:08:06,370 --> 01:08:08,210
Speaker 1: the only way it can figure out to do that

1159
01:08:08,310 --> 01:08:10,790
Speaker 1: is a fate worse than death. Yeah. Yeah.

1160
01:08:10,850 --> 01:08:14,250
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. You get into, like, long,

1161
01:08:14,390 --> 01:08:18,880
Speaker 2: long-term survival of organic life. Like, what is the answer

1162
01:08:18,900 --> 01:08:20,660
Speaker 2: to that look like? Maybe it looks like the Borg.

1163
01:08:21,640 --> 01:08:23,519
Speaker 1: But then I wanted to come back and talk about

1164
01:08:23,540 --> 01:08:26,520
Speaker 1: that caveat on how it's not good to become part

1165
01:08:26,550 --> 01:08:29,450
Speaker 1: of the Borg. No organism... It says, I want to

1166
01:08:29,470 --> 01:08:32,690
Speaker 1: be Borg, at least initially in that early view of

1167
01:08:32,729 --> 01:08:33,150
Speaker 1: the Borg.

1168
01:08:33,270 --> 01:08:35,910
Speaker 2: And if they do, it's an easy fix. It's not

1169
01:08:35,930 --> 01:08:38,559
Speaker 2: worth devoting an episode to. It's like problems off.

1170
01:08:39,100 --> 01:08:42,000
Speaker 1: I was going to say that to think about this

1171
01:08:42,020 --> 01:08:44,700
Speaker 1: a little bit differently, it could be that from a

1172
01:08:44,960 --> 01:08:51,019
Speaker 1: particular human genes point of view. Borg assimilation is good

1173
01:08:51,540 --> 01:08:55,290
Speaker 1: if that gene proliferates within the Borg culture and thus

1174
01:08:55,370 --> 01:09:01,280
Speaker 1: expands far beyond its normal reproductive reach with just human biology. Though, again,

1175
01:09:01,340 --> 01:09:04,500
Speaker 1: this is at best by analogy when we're talking about

1176
01:09:04,540 --> 01:09:07,780
Speaker 1: what's good from the perspective of mindless entities like a

1177
01:09:07,820 --> 01:09:11,280
Speaker 1: gene or a single-celled organism. Of course, these objects do

1178
01:09:11,340 --> 01:09:14,700
Speaker 1: not have brains. They don't judge good from bad. But

1179
01:09:15,160 --> 01:09:18,689
Speaker 1: we do in biology sometimes talk about these types of

1180
01:09:18,729 --> 01:09:22,700
Speaker 1: entities in teleological terms and what we really mean is

1181
01:09:23,439 --> 01:09:26,860
Speaker 1: tendencies that will on average be realized if they are

1182
01:09:26,900 --> 01:09:30,380
Speaker 1: permitted is kind of like what a gene wants so

1183
01:09:30,439 --> 01:09:32,800
Speaker 1: like a gene doesn't have a mind but it it

1184
01:09:33,080 --> 01:09:36,280
Speaker 1: acts as if it wants proliferation of copies of itself

1185
01:09:37,220 --> 01:09:39,700
Speaker 1: or you could think of the survival and reproduction of

1186
01:09:39,740 --> 01:09:42,979
Speaker 1: an organism as a whole and But obviously, from the

1187
01:09:43,040 --> 01:09:46,360
Speaker 1: whole organism's point of view, Borg assimilation is not a

1188
01:09:46,420 --> 01:09:49,900
Speaker 1: mutually beneficial trade. It does not help me as a

1189
01:09:49,939 --> 01:09:53,519
Speaker 1: person with a mind achieve my goals. So another way

1190
01:09:53,560 --> 01:09:55,910
Speaker 1: of thinking about it is what if the Borg, they

1191
01:09:56,170 --> 01:09:58,770
Speaker 1: actually think they're being generous, but they just don't care

1192
01:09:58,790 --> 01:10:01,250
Speaker 1: about the minds. They only care about the genes.

1193
01:10:01,750 --> 01:10:05,190
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Again, just sort of like stripping things down

1194
01:10:05,250 --> 01:10:08,229
Speaker 2: to a more basic idea of what is important and

1195
01:10:08,330 --> 01:10:13,610
Speaker 2: what must be maintained. beyond a planetary existence. Maybe it

1196
01:10:13,700 --> 01:10:17,260
Speaker 2: is just at the gene level, the genetic level, the

1197
01:10:17,500 --> 01:10:20,340
Speaker 2: level even below flesh. Like, this is the thing that

1198
01:10:21,080 --> 01:10:24,140
Speaker 2: must continue. And then everything else about the Borg is

1199
01:10:24,180 --> 01:10:28,990
Speaker 2: really about just maintaining that continuation over a vast period

1200
01:10:29,010 --> 01:10:30,310
Speaker 2: of time and a vast area of space.

1201
01:10:30,330 --> 01:10:40,180
Speaker 1: Like a Highly intelligent, ruthlessly efficient, but soulless, mindless maximization

1202
01:10:40,380 --> 01:10:41,480
Speaker 1: of the germline.

1203
01:10:41,500 --> 01:10:43,660
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Creepy.

1204
01:10:44,760 --> 01:10:48,920
Speaker 1: It's a great enemy because, again, we so naturally think

1205
01:10:49,260 --> 01:10:55,080
Speaker 1: of anything that is intelligent and technologically capable as in

1206
01:10:55,220 --> 01:10:59,200
Speaker 1: some way soulful, in some way having an appreciation of

1207
01:10:59,300 --> 01:11:03,110
Speaker 1: the importance of minds and the products of minds. That

1208
01:11:03,210 --> 01:11:07,309
Speaker 1: like an intelligent being would be interested to converse with you.

1209
01:11:07,650 --> 01:11:11,900
Speaker 1: That an intelligent being would have an appreciation for, say, culture,

1210
01:11:11,979 --> 01:11:15,920
Speaker 1: the culture an organism produces. It's really frightening to think

1211
01:11:15,960 --> 01:11:19,100
Speaker 1: about a being that is both intelligent and has no

1212
01:11:19,160 --> 01:11:21,300
Speaker 1: regard at all for any of that stuff. Doesn't care

1213
01:11:21,320 --> 01:11:24,840
Speaker 1: about minds, doesn't care about culture, just cares about material.

1214
01:11:24,860 --> 01:11:29,469
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't care about your holodeck simulations, doesn't want

1215
01:11:29,590 --> 01:11:32,760
Speaker 2: any Earl Grey tea. All of these things are just

1216
01:11:32,820 --> 01:11:36,380
Speaker 2: meaningless to it. You know, again, may catalog it somewhere

1217
01:11:36,540 --> 01:11:39,860
Speaker 2: in the archives should it become important later on, but

1218
01:11:39,900 --> 01:11:43,740
Speaker 2: it probably won't. All right. Well, we're looking at the

1219
01:11:43,780 --> 01:11:45,740
Speaker 2: time here and we need to go ahead and close

1220
01:11:45,760 --> 01:11:47,809
Speaker 2: this episode out. But we have a lot more to

1221
01:11:47,850 --> 01:11:51,470
Speaker 2: say about the Borg. We're going to get into various interpretations,

1222
01:11:51,630 --> 01:11:55,250
Speaker 2: cultural considerations of the Borg. What do they represent? You know,

1223
01:11:55,370 --> 01:11:57,950
Speaker 2: what do they say about politics? What do they say

1224
01:11:58,030 --> 01:12:02,040
Speaker 2: about governance? What do they say about any number of possibilities.

1225
01:12:02,420 --> 01:12:04,920
Speaker 2: And then, of course, we will also discuss the Borg

1226
01:12:05,000 --> 01:12:08,300
Speaker 2: Queen a bit. How does this shake up the concept

1227
01:12:08,340 --> 01:12:11,660
Speaker 2: of the Borg? And then how might we interpret it further?

1228
01:12:12,400 --> 01:12:14,349
Speaker 2: So we'll get into all of that in the next episode.

1229
01:12:14,370 --> 01:12:17,750
Speaker 2: So join us again on Thursday. We'll have part two

1230
01:12:17,930 --> 01:12:21,010
Speaker 2: of our look at the Borg. And then stick around,

1231
01:12:21,070 --> 01:12:25,110
Speaker 2: because on Friday, we will talk about Star Trek First Contact,

1232
01:12:25,790 --> 01:12:29,060
Speaker 2: in which, of course, the Borg Queen appears. So that

1233
01:12:29,070 --> 01:12:30,900
Speaker 2: should be a lot of fun as well. Just a

1234
01:12:30,950 --> 01:12:32,820
Speaker 2: reminder to everyone out there that Stuff to Blow Your

1235
01:12:32,860 --> 01:12:35,220
Speaker 2: Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast with core

1236
01:12:35,240 --> 01:12:39,100
Speaker 2: episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short-form episodes on Wednesdays, and

1237
01:12:39,140 --> 01:12:41,360
Speaker 2: on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just

1238
01:12:41,400 --> 01:12:44,740
Speaker 2: talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. We

1239
01:12:44,770 --> 01:12:47,730
Speaker 2: also run a couple of reruns, and this week, since

1240
01:12:47,770 --> 01:12:50,269
Speaker 2: it is Star Trek week, we're rerunning the Star Trek

1241
01:12:50,710 --> 01:12:53,490
Speaker 2: episodes from last year in those slots. So we have

1242
01:12:53,689 --> 01:12:57,350
Speaker 2: the Salt Vampire episode, and then we also have a

1243
01:12:58,439 --> 01:13:03,110
Speaker 2: consideration of teleportation transporters in the Star Trek universe. And

1244
01:13:03,130 --> 01:13:06,330
Speaker 2: then also last year's Weird House Cinema was about Wrath

1245
01:13:06,370 --> 01:13:06,830
Speaker 2: of Khan.

1246
01:13:07,410 --> 01:13:10,930
Speaker 1: Strangely, some themes from Wrath of Khan show up again

1247
01:13:10,990 --> 01:13:13,030
Speaker 1: in First Contact. They do. They decided to go back

1248
01:13:13,090 --> 01:13:14,830
Speaker 1: into Herman Melville territory.

1249
01:13:15,050 --> 01:13:17,730
Speaker 2: Yeah. Except this time it's like, am I the Ahab?

1250
01:13:17,830 --> 01:13:20,930
Speaker 2: I think I might be the Ahab. Yeah. So join

1251
01:13:20,970 --> 01:13:22,450
Speaker 2: us for that. It's going to be a fun episode.

1252
01:13:22,990 --> 01:13:26,810
Speaker 1: Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, JJ Posway.

1253
01:13:27,010 --> 01:13:28,550
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

1254
01:13:28,590 --> 01:13:31,010
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1255
01:13:31,070 --> 01:13:33,189
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1256
01:13:33,570 --> 01:13:44,980
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com. Stuff to

1257
01:13:45,000 --> 01:13:47,760
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For more

1258
01:13:47,800 --> 01:13:51,570
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts, or

1259
01:13:51,590 --> 01:13:53,229
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.