Especially after the Borg Queen was retconned into existence. The entire collective became subject to one individual's whims, which were often short-sighted and petty as presented on screen, sometimes sacrificing thousands of Borg just to dab on Janeway.
Absolutely, the Queen was a great addition. But that wasn't until the movie though, right? I think the Borg were always meant to represent capitalism. Other than the word "collective" there really wasn't anything communist in the way they were presented in the show, IMO. I think they borrowed a lot from Terminator, which was a massive cultural thing at the time they were introduced.
At least that was my perception from mostly watching just TNG and DS9, with very little experience of the Borg in Voyager, which probably had a majority of the Borg content between the three series now that I think about it.
I still suspect the Borg were meant to be scary space collectivists perceived through a capitalist realist lens, and I think the liberals running the franchise done goofed and made their clumsy space straw-communists more and more capitalist as time went on.
I've always read the Borg as a criticism of Star Trek fans who took the wrong message from the show. The Borg initially in the first few episodes didn't assimilate people, they only cared about taking technology. Their ships are technological masterpieces but have no function other than to make more of itself. The first drone the Enterprise encounters disregards the characters and only cares about figuring out how the spaceship works.
I took this as a criticism of Star Trek fans who disregard the humanity of the show, who disregard the social messages and instead focus entirely on the cool spaceships and teleporters. The Borg are like if the Federation never cared about social causes or equality. That's why they make such good parallels. The Federation hates how the Borg disregard humanity, the Bord don't understand why humanity is important if you can be a machine.
The "transporters can do anything and can win every battle and make everything in the spaceship show, including the spaceships, obsolete" fans are the worst.
Yeah, scifi fans will get caught up in the trivia of how future technology functions, rather than any other features of the story. It's frustrating. Endless debates about space battles or how warp drives work. They'll treat the genre like it's Dragonball Z. That stuff can be interesting, but the meat of scifi is always about humanity now and how humanity might progress (for better or worse)
The "who would win in a fight" Star Wars discussions that become tiresome midi-chlorian count estimates (with "fantasy football" style team match ups that stack up the counts and compare them) are about as exhausting, too.
That's possible. I know for sure at least some of the writers are self identified dem socs. What I personally think happened was using the word "collective" was how they sold the idea to the executive that was calling all the shots on the show. Star Trek writers and actors are notorious for intentionally going behind the backs of their executives and forcing through the messaging or artistic vision that they had.
For instance, like when Rick Berman forced them to make Elim Garak a straight character and literally everyone involved in the show, actors, writers etc. went forward with making the character gay without the producer noticing.
I heard that Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine character was only given reasonably good character development because Kate Mulgrew threatened to walk otherwise. Seven was originally there for pure factor and the promotional material at the time for the show was exactly that.
All the other shows Berman was involved with were filled with conflict between him and the creative talent so I 100% believe that happened. Almost everything good in star trek was a battle the creative labor fought for and won against the producer (or snuck behind their back and did anyway). Thankfully Berman was a moron and lost constantly.
That really did suck. I didn't mind the person who replaced them, and they made the best of the situation, but that was real shitty. He did the exact same thing to the person playing kes around the same time too.
Especially after the Borg Queen was retconned into existence. The entire collective became subject to one individual's whims, which were often short-sighted and petty as presented on screen, sometimes sacrificing thousands of Borg just to dab on Janeway.
Absolutely, the Queen was a great addition. But that wasn't until the movie though, right? I think the Borg were always meant to represent capitalism. Other than the word "collective" there really wasn't anything communist in the way they were presented in the show, IMO. I think they borrowed a lot from Terminator, which was a massive cultural thing at the time they were introduced.
At least that was my perception from mostly watching just TNG and DS9, with very little experience of the Borg in Voyager, which probably had a majority of the Borg content between the three series now that I think about it.
I still suspect the Borg were meant to be scary space collectivists perceived through a capitalist realist lens, and I think the liberals running the franchise done goofed and made their clumsy space straw-communists more and more capitalist as time went on.
I've always read the Borg as a criticism of Star Trek fans who took the wrong message from the show. The Borg initially in the first few episodes didn't assimilate people, they only cared about taking technology. Their ships are technological masterpieces but have no function other than to make more of itself. The first drone the Enterprise encounters disregards the characters and only cares about figuring out how the spaceship works.
I took this as a criticism of Star Trek fans who disregard the humanity of the show, who disregard the social messages and instead focus entirely on the cool spaceships and teleporters. The Borg are like if the Federation never cared about social causes or equality. That's why they make such good parallels. The Federation hates how the Borg disregard humanity, the Bord don't understand why humanity is important if you can be a machine.
The "transporters can do anything and can win every battle and make everything in the spaceship show, including the spaceships, obsolete" fans are the worst.
Yeah, scifi fans will get caught up in the trivia of how future technology functions, rather than any other features of the story. It's frustrating. Endless debates about space battles or how warp drives work. They'll treat the genre like it's Dragonball Z. That stuff can be interesting, but the meat of scifi is always about humanity now and how humanity might progress (for better or worse)
The "who would win in a fight" Star Wars discussions that become tiresome midi-chlorian count estimates (with "fantasy football" style team match ups that stack up the counts and compare them) are about as exhausting, too.
That's possible. I know for sure at least some of the writers are self identified dem socs. What I personally think happened was using the word "collective" was how they sold the idea to the executive that was calling all the shots on the show. Star Trek writers and actors are notorious for intentionally going behind the backs of their executives and forcing through the messaging or artistic vision that they had.
For instance, like when Rick Berman forced them to make Elim Garak a straight character and literally everyone involved in the show, actors, writers etc. went forward with making the character gay without the producer noticing.
I heard that Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine character was only given reasonably good character development because Kate Mulgrew threatened to walk otherwise. Seven was originally there for pure
factor and the promotional material at the time for the show was exactly that.
All the other shows Berman was involved with were filled with conflict between him and the creative talent so I 100% believe that happened. Almost everything good in star trek was a battle the creative labor fought for and won against the producer (or snuck behind their back and did anyway). Thankfully Berman was a moron and lost constantly.
I'm still pissed about how he was creeping on
and got her character killed off and replaced because she wouldn't do sexual favors for him.
That really did suck. I didn't mind the person who replaced them, and they made the best of the situation, but that was real shitty. He did the exact same thing to the person playing kes around the same time too.