Hollywood Utopia

ultimate survival is finally all that matters. There is absolutely no accommodation
for ethical or individual needs embedded in the organism, much less any
conceptualisation of the other. Data quizzically affirms its anti-human agency
when he says to the Borg Queen in First Contact: ‘Believing oneself to be perfect is
often the sign of a delusional mind.’
Not surprisingly, the Borg is conventionally read within a gender paradigm as in the
Alien trilogy, as the bitch overweening mother figure, especially since the Queen
Borg, played by the actress Alice Krige, typifies the stereotype. But such a potent,
post-Darwinian representation also serves as a metaphor for a ‘pseudo progressive’
organism with no sense of intrinsic individuality or centrifugal control points.
Instead this alien other can adapt to new stimuli or environmental dangers much
more effectively than any other planetary organism, while, at the same time,
remaining resilient to destruction, aided by its hive-matrix type structure. The
ultimately (in)destructible cyber-system does not depend on any form of
interactive symbiotic environment for survival (like the T1000 cyborg in T2 to be
discussed in the final chapter) and therefore can withstand all exterior organisms
and forces. The Borg embodies the representational equivalent of scientific ‘antimatter’.
Consequently, this dystopic signifier can be described both as an
evolutionary nightmare and, at the same time, an antidote to the illusion of human
primacy in nature.
Visually the Borg constituents are so creepy, with their cadaverous complexions and
complex body piercing paraphernalia, that one can appreciate why death obsessed
artists like Damien Hirst cited them as his favourite artistic creation in Star Trek.
Such a potent expression of the ultimate alien being is also reinforced when
counterpointed with human attempts to defeat it. In First Contact this is chilling,
because it evokes so well the fragility of humanity. For example, the visual
vulnerability of Picard walking outside in open space, on the hull of the Enterprise
tied down with magnetic boots, dramatically reinforces both the spatial
inconsequence of man together with the conventional heroic, if precarious, quest
to maintain the ever-present deep ecological Prime Directive, which commands
humans to coexist as equals with all other sentient beings.
This reaffirmation of the individual within the confines of a holistic form of
humanity is both reflected and critiqued by the Borg, since its total unquestioning
commitment to the survival of the greater community, like many 1950s B-movie
antagonists, is both awe-inspiring and frightening in its implications. Such a
phenomenon is analogous to the promotion of the evolutionary paradigm of new
systems theory where boundaries become indeterminable. However, the cult critic
Kevin Kelly notes that ‘eco-systems and other functioning systems, like empires,
can be destroyed much faster than they can be created’. Consequently, Kelly
intones how humanity must ‘listen to the system’ and ‘see where it wants to go’
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