www.ditl.org

I just got done watching the Voyager episode Q2 and Q seemed quite angry when he said to his son "We do not provoke the Borg"! It struck me as odd as I do not see the Continuum being frightened of the Borg. The only reason I could think of is that if a Q provoked the Borg, it would cause them to go on a rampage thru the galaxy, which the Continuum see themselves as some sort of caretakers of. Unless the Continuum really are wary, even frightened, of the Borg.

Can the Borg be provoked? How would you provoke soulless automatons? It's so puzzling to me ever since I saw the episode. I assumed the warning about provoking the Borg was given because the Continuum would punish his son for meddling. There's no mortal being that can harm the Q. Except Sisko.

And speaking of Q, the only time I had seen him agitated (as an invincible being) is when he and Guinan first interact in TNG. Q stops smiling, gives Picard a warning about her true nature, and offers to remove her. Guinan puts her hands up in some kind of karate stance like she can mount a defense against Q.

I'd see it as Q jr poking the Borg, and the Borg expand at the expense of other races nearby (one of whom could eventually develop into a proto-Q).

Similar to "Q Who" when Q sends Enterprise over to meet the Borg. That contact likely made the Borg want to investigate (since they could figure out the Enterprise's top speed and distance it came from), potentially thinking the Federation had a different FTL system.

Of course Q could argue that was encouraging the Federation to wake up, while jr was just poking the Borg for fun.

Nutso wrote:Can the Borg be provoked?

In the sense that any lifeform will respond to external stimuli, potentially in a manner counter productive to the interests of the generator of said stimuli, sure. We know from The Q and the Grey that the Q aren't omnipotent, despite doing a very good impression of it, and they'd naturally want to minimise the risk of stimulating the Borg to develop in a direction that might ultimately pose a threat to them.

Infinite is a long time. The Q could be very easily more concerned about the sort of threat the Borg could become in a few eons if provoked, rather than the threat they present currently.

Captain Seafort wrote:

Nutso wrote:Can the Borg be provoked?

In the sense that any lifeform will respond to external stimuli, potentially in a manner counter productive to the interests of the generator of said stimuli, sure. We know from The Q and the Grey that the Q aren't omnipotent, despite doing a very good impression of it, and they'd naturally want to minimise the risk of stimulating the Borg to develop in a direction that might ultimately pose a threat to them.

Honestly I didn't think of the Borg "adapting" to the Q should they become aware of them. I don't even know how that would begin. How do they catch a Q? The Q are so far ahead of everyone else, traversing time and space is a finger-snap to them.

I always took that to mean don't provoke them by throwing them into contact with other species because once provoked the Borg tend to go on a rampage - just the kind of thing Q himself did with the Enterprise.

We know the senior Q don't like it when Qs go around causing trouble in the universe.

It just struck me as odd the angry way the senior Q said it..."We do not provoke the Borg!" I think that was the first time I have ever seen him show any emotion close to anger. Maybe he said it as a warning to his son since that was one of the reasons why he got exiled in the TNG series.

Anyway, I don't see how the Q can be assimilated, even if the Borg could reach their (I'm assuming) extra-dimensional home.

At the end of the day the Borg are just a standard technology based race like any other. They're more powerful than most we've seen - I'd bet on the Borg to crush the Dominion for example. But the Dyson sphere builders are probably more advanced still. Maybe the Iconians and T'Kon too.

Certainly they don't appear to come anywhere close to the "ascended" races like the Organians. And the Q are probably way up there even compared to them.

Graham Kennedy wrote:At the end of the day the Borg are just a standard technology based race like any other.

When you say "technology-based", I assume you mean the sort that can hand over their weapons to the likes of Starfleet as easily as issuing them with, for example, an 1860s-era rifled musket?

I mean they use technology to accomplish things. Ships, scanners, weapons, tractor beams, warp drives... they're tool users, essentially.

Whereas the Organians and the Q accomplish things just by willing it to be so, at least as far as we've seen.