"Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. We wish to improve ourselves. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours."
The Borg, in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Best of Both Worlds, Part I (1990)
Among those of us who wear our nerdiness on our mustard-yellow, polyester sleeves, it's a point of pride to say with certainty that one has seen all 704 episodes of all five Star Trek series, most of them multiple times. Suffice to say that I know the Borg when I see them (they're not particularly covert, anyway), which is exactly what's got me worried: I seem to be detecting traces of proto-Borgness here in my own society.
Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight I'd like to diverge a little from the "traditional" environmental path by focusing on cutting-edge human technology, and where it might be leading us. Please step into the Assimilation Chamber, just beyond the fold...
These are the Borg.
For a starship captain, even the best day can be ruined by the appearance on the viewscreen of the Borg approaching in one of their creepy, gigantic, cube-shaped ships. Here's some YouTube dude's mashup of what such a captain could expect to experience next:
For the benefit of those who can't/don't wanna run the vid, most of what the Borg have to say is comprised of variants on the following:
We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.
or, put more simply,
WE ARE THE BORG. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.
They're not pleasant creatures, these Borg, and they don't take "no" for an answer. They first assimilated their way into popular culture during the administration of Bush the Elder, when they nearly destroyed the USS Enterprise in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Q Who. By the time of Bush the Lesser, they had reliably served as fearsome enemies in several episodes (plus a feature film) of The Next Generation, as well as a significant role in Star Trek: Voyager (one of the main characters was a reformed Borg) and a handful of scenes and episodes in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Enterprise. Perhaps not surprisingly, their name was adopted in the computer world to reference ruthless business practices – Microsoft has frequently been compared to the Borg (indeed, they've even achieved verb status: to be abused by Microsoft is to be "borged"), and a photoshopped picture of Bill Gates as a Borg has seen wide circulation among the people who circulate such things.
The producers of Trek summoned the Borg so many times precisely because the idea of horrific, cybernetic monstrosities resonated with an audience growing increasingly accustomed to seeing science fiction play out on the evening news. The Borg are a hive mind, with all thoughts shared by the entire collective* and all actions the result of nigh-on-instantaneous group think. With near-universal perception, they can quickly modify and adapt to changing threats and conditions, and suffer virtually no regard for the losses they take along the way – to the Borg, the individual is completely irrelevant. As the character Q put it,
You can't outrun them. You can't destroy them. If you damage them, the essence of what they are remains. They regenerate and keep coming. Eventually you will weaken, your reserves will be gone. They are relentless!...The Borg is the ultimate user, they're unlike any threat your Federation has ever faced. They're not interested in political conquest, wealth, or power as you know it. They're simply interested in your ship, its technology. They've identified it as something they can consume.
ST: TNG, "Q Who?," May 8, 1989, via TV.com
If you look at humanity from the perspective of a small furry creature in the Amazon jungle (I do this frequently), we certainly would seem a lot like the Borg – a mindless, destructive force of nature. The Borg do have their rationale, though, as was revealed in the film Star Trek: First Contact and many episodes of Voyager: the pursuit of "perfection." Presumably, this will be achieved when everything in the galaxy has been either destroyed or assimilated into the Borg Collective.
Humanity, while nowhere near the Borg's capabilities vis-a-vis assimilating galaxies, are no slouches on a planetary scale. We are lumbering toward "perfection" in our own way, even if the concept is so remote that we almost never think of it – and like the Borg, we're certainly destroying a lot of life we consider irrelevant. We're also beginning to manipulate environments and technology at from the macro to the microscopic level, just like the Borg.
* To Any Trekkers Who Might Be Reading This: I know, I know...this is a simplistic explanation that doesn't take into account the occasions where some Borg are shown to shield their thoughts or otherwise act in an un-collective manner, but please remember that this is not a Star Trek diary – it's a Greenroots piece, and I'm just beating a metaphorical non-functioning cyborg horse. – u.m.
From Whence Come The Borg
Beyond the knowledge that they started out as 100% organic humanoids, the origins of the Borg are unclear – perhaps they deliberately chose to become half-machine, half-organic zombies, or maybe their own advances got away from them, right in front of their yet-unenhanced eyes. I'm with the latter theory, and I'll take it one step further and guess that it was nanotechnology that turned them into the monsters we know and will fear. Nanites – tiny machines that can repair or otherwise muck about with stuff on the cellular level – are the means by which the Borg assimilate, usually through injection tubules that are standard equipment on every Borg drone. What would have driven the pre-borgs to develop a technology that could infiltrate and alter their very cells is laid out pretty convincingly in this article from Zyvex, a manufacturer of nanotechnology:
Manufactured products are made from atoms. The properties of those products depend on how those atoms are arranged. If we rearrange the atoms in coal we can make diamond. If we rearrange the atoms in sand (and add a few other trace elements) we can make computer chips. If we rearrange the atoms in dirt, water and air we can make potatoes.
Todays manufacturing methods are very crude at the molecular level. Casting, grinding, milling and even lithography move atoms in great thundering statistical herds. It's like trying to make things out of LEGO blocks with boxing gloves on your hands. Yes, you can push the LEGO blocks into great heaps and pile them up, but you can't really snap them together the way you'd like.
In the future, nanotechnology will let us take off the boxing gloves. We'll be able to snap together the fundamental building blocks of nature easily, inexpensively and in most of the ways permitted by the laws of physics. This will be essential if we are to continue the revolution in computer hardware beyond about the next decade, and will also let us fabricate an entire new generation of products that are cleaner, stronger, lighter, and more precise.
On second thought, maybe it's okay to unleash dirt-into-potato transmogrification technology upon the people of the world. I see no ways in which this and similar abilities could ever be abused, and since it's about potatoes and not rockets, nanotech clearly has no military applications. By all means, let us take off the boxing gloves and beat Mother Nature into shape properly.
Nanites are a burgeoning field here in the early 21st century world, complete with online resources that praise the munificence of our little sub-cellular creations/friends. boston.com recently reported the extent to which the nanites are already among us:
Long the stuff of hype and occasional hysteria, nanotechnology is quietly merging into modern life, its minuscule particles infused in an array of products, ranging from stink-proof socks to life-saving cancer medications.
The technology today underlies some $200 billion worth of workaday items, some prescribed by doctors but most sold directly off retail shelves. From a gleam in the eye of a few far-seeing scientists, nanotech has leapt with little fanfare to shopping centers and workplaces.
For now, though, most nano-products are almost numbingly prosaic: stickier dental adhesive, mildew-resistant paint, and stain-proof khakis. Plus a handful of pharmaceuticals whose nano-properties make them somewhat more effective than standard treatments, but hardly wonder drugs.
The same article mentioned that the "cool stuff is still in the labs," and reassured us Chicken Littles that
That's a far cry from a few years ago, when nanotechology aroused feverish visions and fantastic fears. Futurists predicted microscopic "nanobots" coursing through human systems to root out cancer cells, scrub clogged arteries, and repair tissue. Alarmists raised fear of "gray goo" - self-replicating swarms of nano-particles - devouring the planet.
...but it closes with some cautions that have their genesis in exactly those same alarmist concerns:
Environmentalists and other activists complain that nanotechnology is so diverse and poorly understood that it is slipping under the radar of regulators - teensy materials, they warn, could pose big dangers to humans and ecosystems.
"There is concern about toxicity and mobility," said Richard Denison, senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund.
(snip)
Analysts note that every new technology poses fresh dangers, and that even infamously toxic materials, like asbestos, may never have become such scourges had they been handled more carefully.
Funny that the topic of asbestos should be brought up, as this June 17, 2009 article from Caroline Scott-Thomas at foodnavigator-usa.com asks exactly that question: Nanotechnology: The new asbestos?:
Dr Burdock claims that manufacturers lack understanding about how particles can change when they are shrunk to nano-size, and the current economic situation has exacerbated potential dangers, as some cost-cutting companies could look to cheaper, less reliable safety assessments.
Dr. Burdock, who runs a food safety and regulatory consulting firm, has a beef with the fact that nano-particles don't act like their super-atomic counterparts, making them essentially entirely new substances. Industry and its lackeys in FDA don't want the additional testing and regulation such a designation might entail, so they're content to leave things at the current, anything-goes status quo. Meanwhile, we as a species may unknowingly be melding ourselves with our own technology every time we sit down to eat. This brings us back to the initial question: How did it all being for the guy on the right?
Hive Mind
One of the Borg's greatest strengths is the ability to communicate telepathically over long distances – each drone is "connected" permanently to an Internet comprised of the thoughts and memories of every member of the Collective. This allows the Borg to interface almost perfectly with their own technology, act in complete unison, and even to regenerate damaged ships. This facet of Borg communication has occasionally proven an Achilles' Heel, but for the most part, it's a critical component to their domination of the galaxy.
The technology at the root of Borg hive mind communications may well be being developed today. Under the entirely noble banner of helping paraplegics to control computers, scientists like Dr. Jon Spratley are developing microchips that allow for an interface between man and machine:
Using his micro-engineering and nano-technology skills he developed a tiny sensor which could be implanted onto the surface of the brain.
The device picks up neural signals from the brain's motor cortex, and captures the moment a paralysed patient tries to move their limbs.
This impulse is then transmitted to a relay station implanted in the skull, which in turn sends the signal to a receiver housed in simple computers.
--'Telepathic' microchip could help paraplegics control computers, Telegraph.co.uk, 9 September 2009
I have no problem at all with helping Stephen Hawking gain more access to computers, but I have to wonder what will happen when engineers less enlightened in purpose than Dr. Spratley get a hold of the technology. At that point – at the top of the slippery slope – how far would we be from simply having cell phones implanted in our heads? Call me paranoid if you like, but the implications here go way beyond the idea that one's dentist has placed a CIA transmitter in a filling in one's molar – we're talking about giving some entity other than ourselves the ability to track our every movement and to flip switches on and off in our brains.
Strawman, you say, adding that humans would never voluntarily submit to such an invasive threat to control of their own lives? I dunno – seems entirely possible that the process of borgification could begin in the name of safety and convenience, with devices like OnStar paving the way.
Assimilating Nature
Not every aspect of Borg technology is cybernetic – some are purely robotic, but even many of these are clearly derived from organic lifeforms. The Borg assimilate that which is efficient, and there are plenty of things that nature has developed for the efficient handling of situations not conducive to the humanoid form. Ergo, the Borg seek to add the biological distinctiveness of other species to their own.
Humans do the same. From Leonardo attempting to mimic the flight of birds to marine technology inspired by dolphins' speed, we are constantly seeking to incorporate aspects of other species into our lives and affairs. The Israeli military, for example, has determined that the design of the snake is something worth looking into for combat operations. As reported by MSNBC and the Associated Press on June 11, 2009, Israel (is) developing battlefield robot snake:
(Israeli) Channel 2 showed video of the snake twisting into caves, tunnels, cracks and buildings, broadcasting pictures and sound back to a soldier controlling it with a laptop computer.
The "snake" appeared to be about 6 feet long. Covered by fabric in military camouflage colors, it slithered along the ground and climbed rocks, its segments connected with joints that flexed in several different directions. Channel 2 said military researchers studied real snakes to copy their movements.
The article describes the snake as being designed for use as a surveillance device – and indeed, such devices can and have been used to locate victims of building collapses, et al – but it also closes with some speculation on the snake's more militant applications:
The (Channel 2) report suggested another role for the robot — carrying a bomb to blow up militants or a building. In that case, Channel 2 said, it would be a "suicide snake."
As for actually incorporating aspects of animals into ourselves, Decider George W. Bush took a strong stance against the melding of human and animal in his 2006 State of the Union Address, though he coupled his call for a ban on hybrids with an essential cessation of all medical research that threatened to go down the cloning path. Louisiana, at least, listened and obeyed:
Combining human and animal cells to create what are sometimes called "human-animal hybrids" would be a crime in Louisiana, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, under legislation approved Tuesday by a state Senate panel.
(snip)
Sen. Danny Martiny's bill, approved without objection by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was designed to outlaw such practices. It defines and criminalizes various ways of making human-animal hybrids, including combining human sperm and an animal egg, combining animal sperm with a human egg, and the use of human brain tissue or neural tissue to develop a human brain in an animal.
Panel Votes to Outlaw Human-Animal Hybrids, US News & World Report, May 11, 2009
The fear that we're going to combine ourselves with animals is one that goes way back – perhaps it was the great H.P. Lovecraft who best captured the terror of the Borg's horrific manipulation of genetics, even before the words existed to describe it specifically:
...The sounds increased in volume, and I felt that they were approaching. Then—and may all the gods of all pantheons unite to keep the like from my ears again—I began to hear, faintly and afar off, the morbid and millennial tramping of the marching things.
It was hideous that footfalls so dissimilar should move in such perfect rhythm. The training of unhallowed thousands of years must lie behind that march of earth’s inmost monstrosities . . . padding, clicking, walking, stalking, rumbling, lumbering, crawling . . . and all to the abhorrent discords of those mocking instruments. And then . . . God keep the memory of those Arab legends out of my head! The mummies without souls . . . the meeting-place of the wandering kas . . . the hordes of the devil-cursed pharaonic dead of forty centuries . . . the composite mummies led through the uttermost onyx voids by King Khephren and his ghoul-queen Nitokris. . . .
I would not look at the marching things. That I desperately resolved as I heard their creaking joints and nitrous wheezing above the dead music and the dead tramping. It was merciful that they did not speak . . . but God! their crazy torches began to cast shadows on the surface of those stupendous columns. Heaven take it away! Hippopotami should not have human hands and carry torches . . . men should not have the heads of crocodiles...
Under the Pyramids, H.P. Lovecraft, 1924
So is this how the process of borgification begins? Again, hard to say, but it seems (at least in a sci-fi meets reality kind of way) plausible.
Seeking Perfection
I'm going to skip over the implants and procedures humans use to cosmetically approach physical perfection, and go straight to the metaphysical (mostly because the Borg have dispensed with the notion of physical beauty in favor of functionality). The Borg don't have a religion per se, but they do seek perfection on several levels, all relating to a perfect understanding of the universe. In a sense, they're the ultimate Newtonians: the universe is a series of natural laws, and once all those laws are understood/assimilated, perfect understanding/assimilation of the nature of the universe can be achieved.
That's not to say that every effort by the Borg to assimilate their way to perfection works out well. At one point, they encountered and made war upon an un-assimilateable species with weapons and technology superior to their own, because they considered their enemy the apex of biological life and therefore a prime target for assimilation. The ensuing battles did great damage to the Collective, and nearly unleashed upon our universe an enemy against which no defense would have been possible.
Ditto humans and our cutting-edge science – we seem to have some initial hurdles to overcome as we seek to pry out the darkest secrets of the universe, and may even be facing some divine resistance. Great example: The Large Hadron Collider was built specifically to unravel the mysteries of what happened at the instant of the Big Bang – ie., a more perfect understanding of the universe – and though the fears that flicking the thing on would create a black hole that would devour the Earth have proven unfounded, it hasn't exactly lived up to its pre-activation hype. There have been a lot of explanations for why the thing hasn't worked, but one of the more interesting was advanced recently in the (London) TimesOnline:
What Holger Bech Nielsen, of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, are suggesting is that the Higgs boson, the particle that physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be "abhorrent to nature".
What does that mean? According to Nielsen, it means that the creation of the boson at some point in the future would then ripple backwards through time to put a stop to whatever it was that had created it in the first place.
(snip)
The Higgs boson...is thought to give all other matter its mass, without which gravity could not work. If the LHC found the Higgs, it would open the door to solving all kinds of other mysteries about the origins and nature of matter.
(snip)
Nielsen’s idea has been likened to that of a man traveling back through time and killing his own grandfather. "Our theory suggests that any machine trying to make the Higgs shall have bad luck," he said.
"It is based on mathematics, but you could explain it by saying that God rather hates Higgs particles and attempts to avoid them."
A particle God doesn’t want us to discover, The Sunday Times, October 18, 2009
Is that the final step toward transforming ourselves into our own worst enemy – a knock-down dragout with the Almighty? Could be that that's what happened to the Borg: they got too close to their deities' sacredest secrets and were finally cast down, cursed to eternally wander the galaxy as soulless demons, leaving death and destruction in their wake. For whatever it's worth, I consider this one about the least likely of the Borg genesis scenarios, but as a connoisseur of irony, I have to say that I do appreciate some aspects of this take on the eternal conflict between religion and science.
Historiorant
I'm not anti-science by any stretch of the imagination – hell, in 2006 I was writing diaries advocating the construction of a Space Elevator – but I'm just as strong a believer in the predictive qualities of science fiction. For all their horrific alien-ness, there is something about the Borg that's painfully human buried under all that technology – a muted, suppressed rage at being unable to resist assimilation into the Collective, perhaps, or maybe a simple sadness at seeing the plight of the enslaved drone. Whatever it is, it creates an empathy in the viewer (or at least this one), a desire to understand what made the Borg the way they are. And when one considers that for a while, and then flips on the evening news...
Are we the Borg? Nah, not yet. But at the rate our technological prowess is expanding, coupled with what may actually be a regression in the ethics of its applications, we may wind up being little more than integrated components in our own machines sooner than we think. I'm not advocating Luddism or a mass return to living off the land as a solution – the time may well be past that such efforts could stem the tide – so I guess, in the end, what this whole exercise in Borg anatomy has been little more than me covering my butt: Someday, when we're all drones on a cube together, I'm gonna try my best to send a message through the Collective hive mind to all those former humans who thought that the creation a technology simultaneously imparted the wisdom to use it correctly: "See? Told ya so."
GreenRoots is a new environmental series created by Meteor Blades and Patriot Daily for Daily Kos. This series provides a forum for educating, brainstorming, discussing and taking action on various environmental topics.
Please join a variety of hosts on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 6 pm PDT. Each Wednesday is hosted by FishOutofWater.