Borg (Star Trek)
The Borg (also sometimes referred to as the "Cybermen") are a race of cybernetic organisms. They originated on Earth during the twentieth century, and became one of the galaxy's most feared lifeforms. The Borg are part man and part machine, the earliest Borg were more Human than their later counterparts, being mostly Human but using a primitive device with wheels attached in order to move. Humans referred to these early Borg as "paraplegics", and made them compete against each other in an event known as the "Paralympic Games", this was a source of great amusement for Humans, and a source of great resentment for the Borg. All Borg belong to an organisation known as the "Borg Collective", the original name of this organisation was the "Campaign for Disabled Rights". The name originated from a meeting of the Campaign for Disabled Rights, in the Swedish city of Göteborg. It's members decided that disabled people would never receive equal rights whilst they were members of the Human race, and decided to form their own race, known as the "Borg" (named after the city of Göteborg). The Borg decided to enhance themselves with artificial technology, and quickly became far more advanced than mankind. They later left Earth to colonise a planet of their own. The Germans refer to the Borg as "Borger", (this is not to be confused with "Burger").
Origin[edit | edit source]
To begin with the Borg were a peaceful race, and meant no harm to any other species. However they were unable to apply for membership of the United Federation of Planets, as their was no wheelchair access into the Federation government building. This meant the Borg were unable to even enter the building in order to submit their application. This led to great anger and resentment amongst the Borg, and many turned to a dissident Borg, who believed that the Borg were the "Master Race", for answers. This Borg was called "Stephen Hawking", and as well as believing that the Borg were superior to every other species, he also believed that it was the duty of the Borg to assimilate all other races. Stephen Hawking became the Borg leader, and over time, as the Borg Collective became more advanced, the Borg became linked to one another, and began to act as a single entity. This resulted in all Borg having the same views as Stephen Hawking. For this reason many galactic historians blame Stephen Hawking for causing what they call, "The Age of the Militant Borg".
The First Borg Collective[edit | edit source]
The first Borg Collective traces it roots back to Earth, and the origin of the species. The early Borg used the operating system Windows Vista, as it was believed to be more reliable than Windows 7. The first Borg Collective is most notable for including the first appearance of the famous "Borg Cube". At the time of it's first appearance, people speculated that this design was chosen to deliberately look different to ships used by other races, as the Borg believed themselves to be superior. However it is now generally accepted that the cube design was used in order to maximise the ships surface area, so that there would be enough space inside to provide wheelchair access to all decks. This is because all Borg in the first Borg Collective were paraplegics, as they still retained some emotion, and believed that the use of "legs" was the trademark of those who had oppressed them.
The principal Borg leader during the first Collective was Stephen Hawking, and he led the race during it's early expansion, and it's early assimilation of other races. In 2260, the Borg Civil War broke out, after the Borg disagreed on whether to update the Borg operating system. Some Borg believed that it was "time for change", the most notable Borg with this opinion were Barack Obama, and Davros. Whilst other Borg, including Stephen Hawking, believed that as Windows Vista was performing adequately it didn't need to changed. They believed "why fix it, if it isn't broken?". The Civil War lasted for 3 years, and ended with victory for the "time for change" faction. Davros became the new Borg leader, and the Borg operating system was updated. With the Civil War over, the Borg were once again able to attack and assimilate other races, and in 2270 Davros decided it was time to attack Earth. The Borg attacked Earth with great success and decimated the planet's defences. Unfortunately on the verge of victory, disaster struck for the Borg. The operating system the Borg used at the time, displayed a pop-up of a paper-clip, known as the "Microsoft Office Assistant" on each individual drone's internal computer when they engaged in combat. Normally this wasn't a problem, but as all drones in the Borg Collective were in the same place, the enormous amount of RAM needed to run all of these Microsoft Office Assistants, caused the Borg Collective to "crash". In the resulting disarray Starfleet was able to defeat to Borg. Although Starfleet's victory was caused by a flaw in the Borg operating system, Captain James T. Kirk later took all the credit, insisting that it was he who programmed this flaw into the operating system deliberately. Starfleet command believed him, and he was promoted to Admiral. This defeat marked the end of the First Borg Collective.
"Locutus of Borg" and the X-Men[edit | edit source]
Starfleet command knew that although they had defeated the Borg, they would return as they were not totally destroyed. In order to protect themselves from a future Borg invasion, Starfleet experimented in giving Humans various powers. These Humans were known as Mutants and an their organisation was named the "X-Men". The Borg quickly realised that the X-Men were a threat and quickly hatched a plan to infiltrate their ranks. The Borg had a new leader, an inexplicably female Borg known as the Borg queen. At the time it was believed that the kidnap, and subsequent assimilation of Captain Jean-Luc Picard was because the Borg queen was lonely, and wanted an "equal". However it was later discovered that this was not the case. The Borg kidnapped Picard and turned him into a Borg known as "Locutus", in order to infiltrate the X-Men. Locutus was a Borg spy, and was sent to destroy the X-Men from within, under the fake name "Professor X", or "Professor Charles Francis Xavier". Professor X became the leader of the X-Men, and murdered all it's members one by one. How Starfleet did not realise that Professor X and Captain Picard were in fact the same person, as they looked almost identicle, remains a mystery.
The Second Borg Collective[edit | edit source]
After the defeat of the first Borg collective, a few Borg survived. They were able to shut down, and complete a full "system reboot". Thereby repairing the system failure which caused their defeat in what became known as the "First Battle of Earth". Although Davros had been killed, the Borg had found a new leader, known as the Borg queen. The most notable difference between the first and second Borg collectives is that the Borg of the second Collective were even more machine like. As a result they abandoned their long tradition of being paraplegics. This was because the internal computers inside the Borg decided that legs were more "efficient" than wheelchairs. This resulted in the Borg harnessing the power of "legs" for the first time, (which made them much more formidable opponents in battle). The Borg had learnt their lesson from the first Battle of Earth however, and decided to retreat and attack Earth when they were much more advanced. For the next few decades they concentrated on assimilating other races and their technology. The most noteworthy races to fall and become Borg were the Time Lords, the Wookiees, the Jawas, the Daleks, the alien from the movie "the Thing", and the alien from the movie "Alien".
Eventually the Borg queen decided that the time was right to attack Earth. Just as before, the Borg had early successes and had defeated the Federation fleet and crippled Starfleet. They had also once again decimated Earth's defences. They did not anticipate Starfleet having an artificial life-form of it's own however. A Starfleet android named Data, came up with a plan on how to defeat the Borg. The Borg had adapted their plan since last time, and did not send all their forces to Earth. The Borg were also being commanded by the "Borg Hive", a huge complex in the Delta quadrant. Data hacked into the Borg flagship and successfully changed the "connection priority list" on all the Borg ships, so that the Borg ships connected to Earth's internet instead of connecting to the Borg Hive. As a result the Borg had access to the internet, but where unable to receive commands from the Borg Hive. The Borg simply stopped the attack and remained completely motionless, this allowed Starfleet to defeat them once again. Data received a promotion to Captain for this victory. Starfleet had won what became known as the "Second Battle of Earth". The Borg queen had been killed, and once again the Borg were weakened and in disarray. As the Borg had become more machine like since their last defeat, all the Borg were identical, this meant they were unable to find another leader. This defeat nearly caused the total destruction of the Borg, however after many years another, extremely unlikely leader was eventually found.
The Third iBorg Collective[edit | edit source]
After many years a new Borg leader was eventually found. That leader was C-3PO, who had long since become tired of being used as a servant by Humans. C-3PO was the first Borg leader to be entirely mechanical, and have no organic parts whatsoever. He decided that the Borg's Microsoft operating system was to unreliable, as it had been the cause of both the Borg's defeats to mankind. He decided do adopt a completely new operating system for the Borg, Apple's Mac OS X. This resulting in a new name for the species, they were now known as the "iBorg". The iBorg also decided that they needed a partner species for their next attack on Earth, so that it would be more difficult for the Humans to defeat them by hacking the iBorg collective. This resulted in the famous "iBorg-Cylon Alliance", which came in existence in the year 2388. The iBorg admired the Cylon for their past victories over mankind, and the two races agreed to form an alliance to destroy Humanity.
With their new allies, the iBorg once again launched an attack on Earth, this resulted in the "Third Battle of Earth", and was the final battle between the iBorg and mankind. The iBorg once again decimated Starfleet, and were on the verge of defeated mankind. However on the way to Earth the iBorg had defeated and assimilated the Klingon Empire, this was initially judged to be a victory. Unfortunately the Klingon civilisation had been assimilated into the iBorg Collective, this resulted in the iBorg attempting murdering their superior officers at any sign of weakness. Therefore the iBorg turned on C-3PO, who was judged by them to be too "feminine". The iBorg quickly murdered C-3PO, but without him they had nobody to command them, therefore they simply stopped their attack on Earth and remained motionless, (similar to events in the second Battle of Earth. Starfleet were once again able to destroy the attacking iBorg army, however the Cylon fleet remained. The Cylon fleet could still have destroyed Earth, however mankind had also made an alliance in recent years. The iBorg had been too preoccupied with defeating the Klingon Empire to notice the events of 2289, when the United Federation of Planets had formed an alliance with the Goa'uld, (Humans and the Goa'uld had previously been at war but were now firm friends). This alliance became known as the "Federation-Goa'uld Pact". With Goa'uld assistance, Starfleet was able to defeat the Cylon, and were victorious in the third, and final, Battle of Earth. The iBorg were not totally destroyed but are now severely weakened. They have no overall leader, and are now engaged in their second Civil War.
See also[edit | edit source]
