Daystrom Institute
Welcome to Daystrom Institute!
Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.
Read more about how to comment at Daystrom.
Rules
1. Explain your reasoning
All threads and comments submitted to the Daystrom Institute must contain an explanation of the reasoning put forth.
2. No whinging, jokes, memes, and other shallow content.
This entire community has a “serious tag” on it. Shitposts are encouraged in Risa.
3. Be diplomatic.
Participate in a courteous, objective, and open-minded fashion. Be nice to other posters and the people who make Star Trek. Disagree respectfully and don’t gatekeep.
4. Assume good faith.
Assume good faith. Give other posters the benefit of the doubt, but report them if you genuinely believe they are trolling. Don’t whine about “politics.”
5. Tag spoilers.
Historically Daystrom has not had a spoiler policy, so you may encounter untagged spoilers here. Ultimately, avoiding online discussion until you are caught up is the only certain way to avoid spoilers.
6. Stay on-topic.
Threads must discuss Star Trek. Comments must discuss the topic raised in the original post.
Episode Guides
The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:
- Kraetos’ guide to Star Trek (the original series)
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Animated Series
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Darth_Rasputin32898’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- OpticalData’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
- petrus4’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
view the rest of the comments
In Trek, at least, they seem to be less efficient, but more adaptable. A computer, even in Trek is faster, more responsive, but unless it is independently conscious, lacks the flexibility to work outside of its programming, occasionally in self-destructive ways.
This is particularly apparent when it comes to dealing with inherently-illogical things like emotions, which might cause the them to shut down permanently (Rayna and Lal), or go slightly mad (Lore, and M-5).
The Borg seem to be trying to get the best of both worlds, by trying to keep and cybernetically augment existing biological systems, which would ideally keep their adaptability, whilst adding the durability and rapid processing of cybernetics. It might work, but they're held back by both limitations of their technology, and their nature as Borg.
Because the Collective does not recognise individuality, the only way that they can improve is via assimilation, and there aren't very many species that would allow themselves to be assimilated by the Borg, whilst also being their technological superiors. They don't really foster the kind of environment that would allow them to improve their own technology, absent any external pressure/input to do so.
Although from what we see in Picard, that seems to be a Federation technology. Other species don't have quite that advanced medicine, and the changes are rarely so surface-level. If First Contact is to be believed, there are deeper, underlying changes that may not be reversible, and in Voyager, ex-Borg drones that have been drones for long enough can't be completely unassimilated. The cybernetic parts in their bodies are beyond even the Federation's ability to safely remove, and are dependent on the other Borg hardware to function properly.
It might be possible to use a transporter to extract all of it at once, but the resulting shock might just kill them instantly, if it didn't leave lethal wounds.