I think the Borg, as a concept, somewhat falls apart when we considering that natural, biological systems are actually often perfect models for the efficiency that the Borg claim to strive for.

Do you want Khan? That’s how you get Khan!

The Borg are together, not the same. In their pursuit of perfection, they seek biological distinctiveness as much as they do efficiency.

I don’t think I would agree with the claim that “natural, biological systems are actually often perfect models for … efficiency.” Natural, biological systems tend to get the job done (natural selection at work), but often do so in bizare, highly inefficient ways.

For example, most of us have eyes. Our eyes generally do an extraordinarily good job absorbing reflected light and allow us to perceive an enormous amount of visual information regarding our surroundings. So far, so good.

Look a little deeper, though, and the structure of our eyeballs quickly shows the vestiges of it’s bogosort design process: vertibrate eyes all have a blind spot where the optic nerve blocks some incoming light from reaching our photoreceptor cells. We generally don’t notice this because we have two eyes, and our brains are pretty good at merging the images we get from each one to cover for whatever the other missed (including constructing some outright fabrications where needed). Essentially, the human eye is a camera with the power cord routed across the lens: an obviously idiotic design decision that persists because it wasn’t quite bad enough to be completely debilitating and could be mostly compensated for. Cephalopod eyeballs, which evolved independently of ours, do not have this particular weakness (although they do have their own suboptimal quirks).

It’s not hard to look at the bevy of ingenious yet plainly stupid constructs that evolution has created and decide that they fall well short of any idealized standard of “perfection.” Why should the Borg accept a visual sensor with such a glaring flaw, when they know they can do it better?

I think the Borg, as a concept, somewhat falls apart when we considering that natural, biological systems are actually often perfect models for the efficiency that the Borg claim to strive for. And, to clarify, I’m not saying the concept falls apart from a doylist perspective - I think that the fact that Borg technology evolves independent of any particular intent and is highly automated to take the most efficient route to its endpoint kind of reveals the folly of the Borg, which would be super interesting to explore. They’re just recreating systems which already exist in nature, from a certain point of view.

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.

Considering the miracle of dermal regenerators and similar technology, I actually think Assimilation is highly reversible. Just still really traumatic.

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.

PS - I’m not really sure on what the policy is on linking topics from the subreddit but I’m trying not to post on Reddit so.i guess this is my way of transitioning. Remove if not ok, I guess?

We haven’t worked out any formal cross-posting policy between cDaystrom and rDaystrom, but what you have done here is definitely acceptable. We do not and never did have any intention of disrupting the standard goings on in rDaystrom (definitely check with the rDaystrom mod team before trying to crosspost anything from Lemmy to Reddit), but of course we’re more than happy to host offshoot discussions that started with a Reddit post here on Lemmy.

With regards to number 2 I had often wondered just what the big deal was about returning someone to pre-Borg state. I think we can see the allegory of addiction coming into play in these scenarios as well. It’s much easier for someone to “kick” being a Borg if they’ve only spent a little bit in the collective. The longer you spend in the collective the more of a psychological impact it has and therefore the trauma makes reversion to the pre-Borg state more challenging at the individual level.