Taylor the Teacher

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BEFORE WE START:

If you don’t watch Star Trek, and you’re thinking as you read this post that people who watch Star Trek are losers, here’s where you went wrong: You’re thinking it’s not you. You’re thinking it’s me. If it’s anybody, it’s definitely you. ~you watch too much Seinfeld!~

Also, If you don’t know who The Borg are, who Seven of Nine is, or what a tri-corder is I suggest you scamper off to Memory Alpha and brush up before someone finds out.

Star Trek is an idealistic show. That’s why I like it. It examines values and presents interesting questions about humanity. ~so stop being a loser and watch it~ I am the proud owner of the Borg Fan Collective DVD set, and watch Voyager at least once every day. ~bonus points if you know why I changed to wikipedia for that last link~ I do not have any Star Wars outfits. I may or may not have a Star Trek TNG badge on my facebook page.

I watch Voyager because of Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01 ~love her whole name. cuddly.~ Seven of Nine wasn’t always Seven of Nine. She was born Annika Hansen to human parents. Annika was assimilated by the collective when she was very young because her parents were crazy enough to follow the Borg around in a space ship. The collective re-named her. Seven grew up in the warm, green goo of a Borg Maturation Chamber with her 8 drone siblings.

A BORG’S LIFE

Borg do not require sleep in the human sense because they have implants, tubules, nodes and processors in them, not to mention nanoprobes. ~that could happen. check this out~ Seven spends her nights in a Borg Regeneration Chamber instead. ~spooning is rendered impossible and considered irrelevant~

The Borg are a hive mind, so all knowledge and decisions come from the collective. If one drone knows something, they all know it. Decisions are made by the collective. When the Borg come in contact with a civilization, they take everything they want from that civilization, be it biological or technological. ~data~ Then they recycle the rest.

A regular person could walk freely around on a Borg cube. The Borg do not know about the existence of the individual. They don’t recognize individuals among themselves, and they are blind to individuals of other species. They are totally unaware of the existence of individuality, even as a concept. ~like you died in the matrix and went to matrix hell~

A Borg drone has no fun. Seven only eats when she requires sustenance. She has never laughed, played a game, or been kissed. ~sigh. poor seven~ She’s also a bitch. But only superficially. If you give her time, you’ll see that her heart is in the right place. Drone Life sucks. But Former Drone Removed from the Collective Life is even tougher, so the Voyager crew cuts her some slack.

And she learns to be an individual.

It’s not easy to become an individual with those implants and receivers in her body ~they couldn’t all be removed without killing her. borg technology is serious shit~ Sometimes Seven picks up random voices in her head just because a Borg vessel happens to be rolling by. The pull of the collective is strong. And the Borg are relentless. They can’t just leave a drone alone.

A drone newly severed from the collective is lonely. For the first time, Seven is all alone in her own mind. ~not to mention that her implants and bitchy disposition cause the crew to avoid her at first~

Fighting so hard for every scrap of individuality, of humanity, has been rough for Seven. When someone who claims to be speaking with the voice of authority tries to tell Seven what to think rather than letting her think for herself, she knows what that means.

WHY THIS MATTERS

The Borg miss the value in everything. They seek only perfection, and they crush interesting, beautiful things in the process because lovely things spring only from individuals who are valued as such.

Seven of Nine should spend some time on the holodeck with Thomas Jefferson. He did some good thinking about the value of the individual. Enough people agreed with Jefferson ~et.al~ that they put down some guarantees so that the individual could feel protected among the collective. They thought it was important that people be allowed to speak their minds.

Seven would appreciate their reasons.

After her talk with TJ, Seven should run a program on the year 2008 in America and do a scan for all collectivist, authoritarian, creativity-crushing, soul-stealing aspects of our society and fire photon torpedoes.