The Psychology of the Borg

[Lord Setheris]

I intend this to be a completely nerd oriented evaluation of Star Trek's Borg. Their psychology, functionality, and very existence.

Personally, I believe that if you pay close enough attention to the dialogue in Star Trek: Voyager, you start to establish that the Borg possess a fanatical paranoia towards that which they do not understand. Because they are one mind at all times, everlasting, that which they cannot understand, or in other words, do not already possess, they fear, and seek to assimilate that much more fiercely.

[Aerozord]

to me its more like megalomania. Constant desire for power and resources, to force your idea of perfection on others, goal to have everything under your influence. Seems to me to be a very typical example of megalomania

[Roy_D_Mylote]

They don't fear anything. They don't have emotions. Voyager shouldn't be regarded as anything like serious information on the Borg. To paraphrase someone else on this forum, Voyager took what was the most fucking scary race in Star Trek and turned them into pussies who were outwitted by a lone science shuttle.

[Aerozord]

Oh come on, it was never hard to out-think the borg. If they used common sence they wouldn't let people wander their giant doom cubes in the first place. (when they first appeared in ST:TNG)

[POS Industries]

Not to mention the fact that, in TNG, all it took to defeat them was a simple "sleep" command. Defeating the Borg isn't that hard. All you have to do is come at them with something they've never encountered before. It's a great trick but you can only do it once, of course.

Anyway, I've been of the opinion for some time that the Borg has actually been allowing the Federation to continue existing intentionally, periodically sending a cube to Earth every few years from far enough away so that Starfleet count mount a proper defense with they latest technological developments. This allows two possible outcomes: First, the cube defeats the fleet and assimilates Earth. The Borg win.

Secondly, however, there's the other possibility that the cube is destroyed. This seems like a failure, but in reality the Borg have had enough time through the course of the battle to study and assimilate the newest Federation technology and send the findings back to the Collective. The Borg still come away stronger and more advanced than when they went in with a minimum of expended resources. As far as the Collective's primary goal of advancement through assimilation is concerned, it's still a win on their part.