The names 4 of six or 5 of seven.
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Star Trek: The Next Generation
Nakitaakita-1 — 9 years ago(August 29, 2016 01:17 PM)
The names 4 of six or 5 of seven.
The names are stupid. Think about it there would be hundreds of 4 of sixes on one of the ships as well as one of six and two of six.
It doesn't make sense at all.
The first half one I saw the "Hugh" episode and they asked his name, I thought he was going to say, " 75876889344." Or something like that.
If there are hundreds of their ships there would be thousands of Borgs with the exact same designation. It just doesn't make sense.
It always bothered me.
we need more diversity in sports. Where are the short, fat Asians! -
Geek_XX — 9 years ago(August 29, 2016 01:34 PM)
Remember it's a hive collective.
Each hive is designated a number out of how many in that hive.
It may be stupid but it's how their society works.
Why do we have names? It's unexplained since there are over 1 million Johns and Susans and Daves and Kathys etc.
How can we identify each of those Johns and Kathys? Some even have the same last name. -
Nakitaakita-1 — 9 years ago(August 29, 2016 02:00 PM)
So in Hugh's hive there are 6 of them?
I thought that the entire collective was connected.
Even the other ships were connected.
Like Picard knowing all about Wolf 356.
Or knowing about how to shut down the Borg ship and make them ALL go to sleep.
Not just a few of them.
we need more diversity in sports. Where are the short, fat Asians! -
WyldeGoose — 9 years ago(August 29, 2016 02:23 PM)
It didn't bother me because I see it as a literary gimmick. They could've just as easily had Hugh or Seven say something like 75876889344 as their name, but saying "3 of 5," or "7 of 9," sounds simpler.
Consider how more trivial it sounds to be 3 of 5. He's but one of a group, some nameless group of drones either permanently or temporarily assigned as needed. Hugh may have been 1 of 10 the week prior to the episode. And he could've been 7 of 9 just before that.
That he's a cog in a greater machine is the point, and it doesn't really have to be explained too much (in fact, the problem with the Borg is they've been explained too much). -
WyldeGoose — 9 years ago(August 29, 2016 03:11 PM)
They probably already do, to one another. But, TV and film are visual/audio mediums, and there has to be something of an emotional connection to the audience. The best way to convey that kind of information is in a pithy way, to the point.
Sometimes, the less you say and the more you show conveys more information than raw exposition can ever do. In The Empire Strikes Back, for instance, there's a simple scene of expository dialogue where Admiral Piett walks into Vader's chamber room, to tell Vader that they've lost the Millennium Falcon as it went into an asteroid field, but before that he sees the back of Vader without his helmet on. The helmet comes down, and Vader swivels to face him. Then he makes his report. This scene is used to convey additional information to the audience about Vader, and about Piett, that Vader is something that may have once been human, kept alive by machines, and is exposing some of his physical vulnerability. Yet Piett is still terrified of Vader, and you can see it in the actor's expressions. Whether you realize it or not, you're being fed information about the characters in the scene.
To have Borg drones refer to themselves verbally in binary codes probably would've been a bit too much information for the audience to digest; they'd have got the point, but it wouldn't be the same as saying something like 7 of 9. The audience, if they already know about the Borg from previous episodes, already know there are thousands, millions of drones, and to hear one say she's 7 of 9 indicates that they are mere cogs, interchangeable as needed for the Collective. That they are unimportant enough not to have real names. Having a specific code to represent one drone could convey that they are important enough to have a more specific name. If they have something more specific, it's not known to the ordinary, non-Borg people, and thus not known to the audience. That helps to convey the sense of anonymity among the Borg, that you lose your real identity when you become a drone. I think this was done rather well in light of Picard's assimilation as Locutus. With Locutus having a name, they needed to show how drones are designated, so that Locutus was more important to the Collective. -
foebane72 — 9 years ago(August 31, 2016 12:36 AM)
Wouldn't the Borg be more efficient using binary codes for identification?Something like Borg 100100111101 talking to Borg 1010001110101.
Spending a little time on Windows Programmer's Calculator, I see that:
Borg 2365 would be talking to Borg 5237 (Decimal - more efficient than Binary, don'tcha think??)
Or even better:
Borg 93D would be talking to Borg 1475 (Hexadecimal - more efficient than Decimal, wouldn't you say?)
In fact, converting Naki's example of 75876889344 (in Decimal) would give the following:
11AA9D7300 in Hexadecimal
1000110101010100111010111001100000000 in Binary (OUCH!)
Just in case you're not sure, Decimal is Base 10, Binary is Base 2, and Hexadecimal is Base 16, and all of the above are identical in numerical value, even though less and less symbols are used to represent the values as the Bases increase. Hell, there might even be a Base 26 possible, using every letter of the alphabet to represent numbers!
I'm sure the Borg would have some even more efficient method in use. I'm just showing how inflexible Binary and Decimal would be for representing such huge numbers as Naki did.
Why are you here if you haven't seen the movie yet? -
Nexus71 — 9 years ago(August 29, 2016 03:31 PM)
Seven's full designation is Seven of Nine Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01.
Hence my reply that it would be more efficient for Borg to identify themselves with binary codes,and since we as a viewer don't know what the hell a Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01 is or does we don't really loose much information,unless you are Borg obsessed or actually watched the episodes that deal with the Unimatrix on VOY,and even that won't explain it fully(to my knowledge or I could be wrong).And how can someone designated 7 0f 9 be
tertiary adjunct
shouldn't she be designated Five of Nine or Six of Nine? -
foebane72 — 9 years ago(August 31, 2016 09:35 AM)
Hence my reply that it would be more efficient for Borg to identify themselves with binary codes
Nexus, I've already explained why that is NOT the case. Go read my other posts here.
Why are you here if you haven't seen the movie yet? -
Nexus71 — 9 years ago(August 31, 2016 01:31 PM)
Well since they are highly integrated with the Collective which in effect is a giant computer to which every drone is connected one would assume the Borg would use binary codes to send and receive information to the Collective(going by the assumption computer science evolved in a similar fashion as here on Earth).And when we go by that assumption we must assume that each drone has his/hers own individual identification code when connecting with the Collective so why not use that same identification code as it's identity?Got this idea after watching the Binars a couple of weeks ago and they used binary code as identification,so I asked myself "Why didn't the Borg use a similar system since they seem so much like the Binars?"
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foebane72 — 9 years ago(September 01, 2016 05:51 AM)
Well since they are highly integrated with the Collective which in effect is a giant computer to which every drone is connected one would assume the Borg would use binary codes to send and receive information to the Collective(going by the assumption computer science evolved in a similar fashion as here on Earth).And when we go by that assumption we must assume that each drone has his/hers own individual identification code when connecting with the Collective so why not use that same identification code as it's identity?Got this idea after watching the Binars a couple of weeks ago and they used binary code as identification,so I asked myself "Why didn't the Borg use a similar system since they seem so much like the Binars?"
Did you not eventually check out my post on different numbering bases, Nex?
In it, I stated that a number can be represented by ANY base you choose: Binary is Base 2, Decimal is Base 10, and the point is, whilst the higher the base may need more symbols to represent every unit (0,1 in Binary; 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 in Decimal), the crucial fact is there would be LESS units needed to represent that number (2,4,8,16,32 in Binary) or (10,100,1000,1000,10000) in Decimal. Hexadecimal is Base 16, which is represented as (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F) which has been used in all Computer Science classes since, forever. And I know that "4D7F2A4" is far more memorable than "100110101111111001010100100" and
communicates exactly the same information.
Why are you here if you haven't seen the movie yet?