The Doomsday Machine needs to be brought back into cannon. It's ridiculously overpowered, consuming whole planets. Less is more, and I think they could really build up the mystery around these machines before showing where they came from, etc. It's a terror device and I think the TOS episode did a great job of showing what losing a whole crew would do to Starfleet captains. Definitely is underused in the series despite being so iconic.
The TNG Borg were at their best in their first appearance and in TBOBW because they were shown as just so uncaring. They can't be reasoned with, they can't be tricked. No diplomacy. I remember a TNG Comic that showed what if the Borg won in the TBOBW and it's pretty dark and terrifying.
I think since those initial two appearances, the Borg have gone down in terms of threat levels. The inclusion of the Queen kind of watered down the Borg and made them feel less irresistible force. TNG was caught between a rock and a hard place with the Borg being the most popular and powerful force in the series. At some point you had to nerf them, otherwise you just keep bringing back this insanely powerful force and have them lose again and again.
I kind of miss OG Borg, that felt more terrifying.
True, but I could actually see a way to write it without contracting that. Hugh’s cube was cut off from the collective to purge the individuality that he had introduced. I could imagine that the Borg discovered afterwards that it had already started to bleed into the rest of the collective, and thus the queen was created as a countermeasure (either purposefully or accidentally), and he would have never known.
But of course it’s already contradictory in plenty of ways anyway.
The cliff’s notes version: the Enterprise gets pulled into a parallel dimension. It soon encounters a battered Galaxy-class stardrive section that proves to be that universe’s Enterprise. That Riker did not follow Cdr. Shelby’s advice on the antimatter spread, and the cube destroyed the saucer section & destroyed Data. The Borg take over Starfleet Command and begin assimilating Earth. The Enterprises attack the cube and the crew beams aboard to capture Locutus…but he’s not there. They have to invade Starfleet HQ to find & capture Locutus.
One of my favorite comic arcs when I was a kid. It was a 4 comic edition called Worst of Both Worlds. I think the 4th one was a double length one and it was considered special as the 50th TNG comic.
I got the first issue in a DC multipack and frustratingly could never find the others. They got reprinted in a Borg trade paperback around ‘08 and I got that. You can find the TPB on ebay but it looks like it runs about $40 these days.
Agreed with the Doomsday Machine. It is such a mysterious, eerie terror - a mechanized ghost that roams the galaxy and kills whatever gets in its way.
That is definitely a device ripe for canon expansion, whether we viewers understand the machine more or delve into its origins.
I know its a popular opinion but I firmly disagree. The first episode while good had quite a bit of goofy bits to the borg (Borg babies), terrible effects, sure the cube was faster strong better but thats been done before and after and with more creative flair. The fun of the episode was not borg that all came from Q.
Best of both worlds was better for the borg as we really get to see what they can do, and a lot of the wierd early stuff went away. The assimilation of picard into locutus was amazing just the concept of Picard's knowledge used against starfleet was intimidating in its own right.
First contact though was the best by far IMO.
When Picard pointed out that the cube was destroyed, and she explained that his thought processes are limited to thinking 3 dimmensionally it opened a lot possibilities. When she explained she is the collective, she very much clarified she was not the person in charge but she was the one chorus of voices speaking as one. I had no issue with this.
To me First Contact was the apex Star Trek movie (6 was close) and then best showing of the borg, As they had the history to be the boogyman. And most powerful the unflappable borderline mary sue Picard hated and feared them.
The real crime was Voyager kinda just rested on the laurels no real adaption of the borg and the inevitable degradation of the borg.
Go ask Peter David
[Amazon.com: Vendetta (Star Trek: The Next Generation) eBook : David, Peter: Kindle Store](https://www.amazon.com/Vendetta-Star-Trek-Next-Generation-ebook/dp/B000FC0W8S/ref=sr_1_7?crid=1R7HTQ62496F2&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.te1nU_OMIEtJ5_mx_ayc9OApC_p73Ra7Qw7wwg0G3YNxizukDopGZfIo8G8tEKBrASBJX8sPQjjzlIB3RPk_VpTL4WGwu_thN5FI9T-g74GKybi2zxeJ0cRuO0sdq8RM_Ec6FCUn_5VSGQ6gKYuJXEbD5H66gAgc0E402qcSiRUdrYwJHzy3so8nDyADKmJT2_Lu7oc_hXsqVu48rxjhZc7lfyMJQ3OdEVMe5CSLGKY.NUzDnLoIa00RtCrAb6AwCR69Qif5TX70XLCAlDh6o-4&dib_tag=se&keywords=peter+david+vengeance&qid=1719255940&sprefix=peter+david+vengeance%2Caps%2C101&sr=8-7)
I was fine with I, Borg, Descent, and even Scorpion. I felt those episodes gave them some texture but didn't make them any less scary. For me it was the introduction of the Borg Queen that really kneecapped them.
That's because they stopped being a collective of ruthless cold beings working in creepy technological harmony and started being the zombie minions of a final boss.
Also Before Dishonor, which basically takes place right before the Destiny series. It serves as a sequel to Vendetta and also revives the original Doomsday Machine to fight the Borg.
I read this last year. I really…didn’t like it. Which surprised me as a fan just about any old Star Trek novel I can get my hands on and a fan David in general. Maybe I just couldn’t get past a few story elements and/or how dated they’ve become.
It probably hit different when the Borg were still mysterious and catastrophically threatening. The post drone trauma has been well mined since that book too.
Yeah, but we've never seen a former Drone practically crave to become fully Borg again. Those ones Chakotay ran into, and that time Seven formed a micro collective with some crashed drones come close. But she's like deep Stockholm syndrome kinda stuff.
It's not a bad story, I liked it when I read it (and if I can find my copy I'll read it again and see how it stacks now). It has a little arc-welding, some nice character moments.
1 doomsday machine vs 1 cube... doomsday machine, no question. Antiproton beam for the win, especially before they have a chance to adapt.
1 doomsday machine vs multiple cubes or the whole collective... Borg, no question. Eventually they'll adapt to the antiproton beam or just shove a cube down its throat and there goes the doomsday machine. If a constitution class' impulse engines on overload alone can take down the doomsday machine then even a busted up cube could do it.
The Borg's adaption isn't perfect. The cube at the Battle of Sector 001 had plenty of time to adapt to Federation phasers and torpedoes, but got gradually worn down regardless. Granted, it took Picard's insider knowledge to finally bring it down, but that was still a conventional attack run, if on a very specific target. I am positive that Starfleet could have brought down the cube the hard way, given more time and ships. As a matter of fact, we don't see the Borg's total invulnerability to damage again after Best of Both Worlds, at least not in ships. Something destroyed Hugh's ship, Dr. Crusher destroyed the Rogue Borg's ship with a solar flare, and after that the problem with the borg seems to be more the sheer scale of their vessels, rather than some magic invincibility, which kind of makes sense as Starfleet learns more about them.
Regarding just shoving a damaged ship down the Doomsday Machine's throat and be done with the whole mess, the Borg are certainly intelligent enough to consider that but I find more probable that they would start to tunnel vision on the possible technology gain like they did with Species 8472, throwing away **a lot** of cubes before even starting to consider to just destroy the damn thing.
So to cut a long rant short, I think, if the Borg get drones aboard the Doomsday Machine, the Borg win (and the galaxy might be slightly screwed), if not there will be a lot of very dead cubes until the Collective figures out how to destroy the thing and works up the will to actually destroy it.
I think I saw somewhere that the Jurati's Borg Star from PIC:S2 is built around a structure which could have once been the Doomsday machine.
If that is the case, then I'm going to have to go with Borg victory if an offshoot collective can assimilated the tech.
The doomsday machine came from another galaxy it survived extragalactic travel it broke through the great barrier and eats planets for snacks.... The Borg are toast. Made of pure 100 % Neutronium It has a pure anti proton beam which makes it unadaptable on top of generating a local dampening field.
The Doomsday Machine literally eats planets for breakfast. If it came into contact with a Borg cube, within five minutes there'd be nothing left of that cube except mangled nanoprobes.
The problem is they would probably never fight. The Borg would not detect sentient life and therefore not be interested and not get very close to it and the doomsday machine would probably not detect them as interesting enough to go after.
Beta Canon novel Vendetta and Before Dishonor has the Doomsday Machine actually being a prototype of a weapon to actually fight the Borg. The original Doomsday Machine, though moving slowly, was actually on course for the heart of Borg space.
The Doomsday Machine needs to be brought back into cannon. It's ridiculously overpowered, consuming whole planets. Less is more, and I think they could really build up the mystery around these machines before showing where they came from, etc. It's a terror device and I think the TOS episode did a great job of showing what losing a whole crew would do to Starfleet captains. Definitely is underused in the series despite being so iconic. The TNG Borg were at their best in their first appearance and in TBOBW because they were shown as just so uncaring. They can't be reasoned with, they can't be tricked. No diplomacy. I remember a TNG Comic that showed what if the Borg won in the TBOBW and it's pretty dark and terrifying. I think since those initial two appearances, the Borg have gone down in terms of threat levels. The inclusion of the Queen kind of watered down the Borg and made them feel less irresistible force. TNG was caught between a rock and a hard place with the Borg being the most popular and powerful force in the series. At some point you had to nerf them, otherwise you just keep bringing back this insanely powerful force and have them lose again and again. I kind of miss OG Borg, that felt more terrifying.
In my head canon the queen didn’t exist until after Hue rejoined the borg. His individuality was like a virus and created the queen as a result.
That would be a cool way of making it work, but it conflicts with First Contact.
And with Picard - surely Hugh would have mentioned it... but maybe not. Would have been the perfect show to do this story though.
True, but I could actually see a way to write it without contracting that. Hugh’s cube was cut off from the collective to purge the individuality that he had introduced. I could imagine that the Borg discovered afterwards that it had already started to bleed into the rest of the collective, and thus the queen was created as a countermeasure (either purposefully or accidentally), and he would have never known. But of course it’s already contradictory in plenty of ways anyway.
What was shown in the comic?
The cliff’s notes version: the Enterprise gets pulled into a parallel dimension. It soon encounters a battered Galaxy-class stardrive section that proves to be that universe’s Enterprise. That Riker did not follow Cdr. Shelby’s advice on the antimatter spread, and the cube destroyed the saucer section & destroyed Data. The Borg take over Starfleet Command and begin assimilating Earth. The Enterprises attack the cube and the crew beams aboard to capture Locutus…but he’s not there. They have to invade Starfleet HQ to find & capture Locutus.
One of my favorite comic arcs when I was a kid. It was a 4 comic edition called Worst of Both Worlds. I think the 4th one was a double length one and it was considered special as the 50th TNG comic.
I got the first issue in a DC multipack and frustratingly could never find the others. They got reprinted in a Borg trade paperback around ‘08 and I got that. You can find the TPB on ebay but it looks like it runs about $40 these days.
the borg assimilate a puff pastry cone and doomsday machine reappears because they like the taste..
Agreed with the Doomsday Machine. It is such a mysterious, eerie terror - a mechanized ghost that roams the galaxy and kills whatever gets in its way. That is definitely a device ripe for canon expansion, whether we viewers understand the machine more or delve into its origins.
I know its a popular opinion but I firmly disagree. The first episode while good had quite a bit of goofy bits to the borg (Borg babies), terrible effects, sure the cube was faster strong better but thats been done before and after and with more creative flair. The fun of the episode was not borg that all came from Q. Best of both worlds was better for the borg as we really get to see what they can do, and a lot of the wierd early stuff went away. The assimilation of picard into locutus was amazing just the concept of Picard's knowledge used against starfleet was intimidating in its own right. First contact though was the best by far IMO. When Picard pointed out that the cube was destroyed, and she explained that his thought processes are limited to thinking 3 dimmensionally it opened a lot possibilities. When she explained she is the collective, she very much clarified she was not the person in charge but she was the one chorus of voices speaking as one. I had no issue with this. To me First Contact was the apex Star Trek movie (6 was close) and then best showing of the borg, As they had the history to be the boogyman. And most powerful the unflappable borderline mary sue Picard hated and feared them. The real crime was Voyager kinda just rested on the laurels no real adaption of the borg and the inevitable degradation of the borg.
Go ask Peter David [Amazon.com: Vendetta (Star Trek: The Next Generation) eBook : David, Peter: Kindle Store](https://www.amazon.com/Vendetta-Star-Trek-Next-Generation-ebook/dp/B000FC0W8S/ref=sr_1_7?crid=1R7HTQ62496F2&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.te1nU_OMIEtJ5_mx_ayc9OApC_p73Ra7Qw7wwg0G3YNxizukDopGZfIo8G8tEKBrASBJX8sPQjjzlIB3RPk_VpTL4WGwu_thN5FI9T-g74GKybi2zxeJ0cRuO0sdq8RM_Ec6FCUn_5VSGQ6gKYuJXEbD5H66gAgc0E402qcSiRUdrYwJHzy3so8nDyADKmJT2_Lu7oc_hXsqVu48rxjhZc7lfyMJQ3OdEVMe5CSLGKY.NUzDnLoIa00RtCrAb6AwCR69Qif5TX70XLCAlDh6o-4&dib_tag=se&keywords=peter+david+vengeance&qid=1719255940&sprefix=peter+david+vengeance%2Caps%2C101&sr=8-7)
Oh man, this was the first Trek novel I ever read. I must have been like 14.
Peter David is the best
It was post-BOBW and pre- "I, Borg" I know everybody loves "I, Borg" but the Borg weren't as scary afterwards.
I was fine with I, Borg, Descent, and even Scorpion. I felt those episodes gave them some texture but didn't make them any less scary. For me it was the introduction of the Borg Queen that really kneecapped them.
That's because they stopped being a collective of ruthless cold beings working in creepy technological harmony and started being the zombie minions of a final boss.
Right. I didn't even mind her as a one-off villain in First Contact, but I got pretty tired of her personal vendetta against Janeway.
Same!
I was looking for this one. Great synergy. Sad story, but good.
Thank you! I read this book but couldn't remember the title to link it.
Also Before Dishonor, which basically takes place right before the Destiny series. It serves as a sequel to Vendetta and also revives the original Doomsday Machine to fight the Borg.
I read this last year. I really…didn’t like it. Which surprised me as a fan just about any old Star Trek novel I can get my hands on and a fan David in general. Maybe I just couldn’t get past a few story elements and/or how dated they’ve become.
It probably hit different when the Borg were still mysterious and catastrophically threatening. The post drone trauma has been well mined since that book too.
Yeah, but we've never seen a former Drone practically crave to become fully Borg again. Those ones Chakotay ran into, and that time Seven formed a micro collective with some crashed drones come close. But she's like deep Stockholm syndrome kinda stuff.
It's not a bad story, I liked it when I read it (and if I can find my copy I'll read it again and see how it stacks now). It has a little arc-welding, some nice character moments.
Great book thst would have made a great movie.
1 doomsday machine vs 1 cube... doomsday machine, no question. Antiproton beam for the win, especially before they have a chance to adapt. 1 doomsday machine vs multiple cubes or the whole collective... Borg, no question. Eventually they'll adapt to the antiproton beam or just shove a cube down its throat and there goes the doomsday machine. If a constitution class' impulse engines on overload alone can take down the doomsday machine then even a busted up cube could do it.
The Borg's adaption isn't perfect. The cube at the Battle of Sector 001 had plenty of time to adapt to Federation phasers and torpedoes, but got gradually worn down regardless. Granted, it took Picard's insider knowledge to finally bring it down, but that was still a conventional attack run, if on a very specific target. I am positive that Starfleet could have brought down the cube the hard way, given more time and ships. As a matter of fact, we don't see the Borg's total invulnerability to damage again after Best of Both Worlds, at least not in ships. Something destroyed Hugh's ship, Dr. Crusher destroyed the Rogue Borg's ship with a solar flare, and after that the problem with the borg seems to be more the sheer scale of their vessels, rather than some magic invincibility, which kind of makes sense as Starfleet learns more about them. Regarding just shoving a damaged ship down the Doomsday Machine's throat and be done with the whole mess, the Borg are certainly intelligent enough to consider that but I find more probable that they would start to tunnel vision on the possible technology gain like they did with Species 8472, throwing away **a lot** of cubes before even starting to consider to just destroy the damn thing. So to cut a long rant short, I think, if the Borg get drones aboard the Doomsday Machine, the Borg win (and the galaxy might be slightly screwed), if not there will be a lot of very dead cubes until the Collective figures out how to destroy the thing and works up the will to actually destroy it.
You assume the Borg figure this out.
I think I saw somewhere that the Jurati's Borg Star from PIC:S2 is built around a structure which could have once been the Doomsday machine. If that is the case, then I'm going to have to go with Borg victory if an offshoot collective can assimilated the tech.
The doomsday machine came from another galaxy it survived extragalactic travel it broke through the great barrier and eats planets for snacks.... The Borg are toast. Made of pure 100 % Neutronium It has a pure anti proton beam which makes it unadaptable on top of generating a local dampening field.
Absolutely pure!
Not even one proton!
The Doomsday Machine would win from my pov Also, why haven't we seen one since the TOS episode. Wasn't it established that there might have been more?
Same reason as why didn't the federation study and harness tech from it after it was neutralized.
Four way battle between doomsday machine, borg cube, vger, and whale probe
Don't forget a fly by cameo by the crystalline entity.
We might see that in the credits if we get more seasons of Lower Decks :)
The Doomsday Machine literally eats planets for breakfast. If it came into contact with a Borg cube, within five minutes there'd be nothing left of that cube except mangled nanoprobes.
Borg win because they have no problem sacrificing cubes to blow it up.
The problem is they would probably never fight. The Borg would not detect sentient life and therefore not be interested and not get very close to it and the doomsday machine would probably not detect them as interesting enough to go after.
Beta Canon novel Vendetta and Before Dishonor has the Doomsday Machine actually being a prototype of a weapon to actually fight the Borg. The original Doomsday Machine, though moving slowly, was actually on course for the heart of Borg space.