Borg Designations

[ray gower]

A little pedanticism (sp?)

But what is the logic behind Borg Designations? How does it allow each Borg in a population of hundreds of millions to have a unique identifier?

If we take Miss Seven of Nine Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One as an example:

I have no idea what a Tertiary Adjunct actually does in Borg heiracy, but it suggests that they only have nine to serve the needs of a whole Unimatrix. This does not seem a lot for an organisation with 10's if not 100's of millions of people. As she appeared to spend her time on a ship, what do all the other cubes use in the place of a Tertiary Adjunct?

At best such a system could only permit a crew of a few hundred, before becoming unmanagable.

 

[Dave]

I can't really help, except that no one ever said that the Borg were always assembled into units of nine.

It would be nice to think that 'Tertiary Adjunct' implied that some kind of Base 3 hierarchical system was involved (i.e. 3 - 9 - 27- 81 - 243) but as usual the creators aren't consistent with the designations:

Hugh was 'Third of Five' remember, (and by that system 'Seven of Nine' should really have been 'Seventh of Nine' anyhow).

edit: Also there was 'Three of Five', the new Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix One - Former Ktarian, now tactical drone. Assigned to the Borg Queen.

Maybe the more drones in a cell is an indication of seniority. This is assuming that a 'Tertiary Adjunct' is the drone in charge.

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Before I read it, I thought that this thread would be about the species designations. I'm not sure how they work either: Is it simply the order in which the Borg met the particular species.

from a Borg Designations website (cached page from google)

Species 125 - The Borg Queen claims to be from this species. Whether or not this is the species from which the Collective originated from is unknown.

Species 189 - Ferengi

Species 218 - Talaxians

Species 259 - Unknown alien race. They had regenerative technology.

Species 329 - Kazon

Species 3259 - Vulcans

Species 5618 - Humans

Species 6339 - Unknown alien race. Were fighting against the Borg. Hoped to stop or destroy the Collective by infecting a Borg Vinculum from a destroyed cube with a virus. Captain Janeway was forced to stop this because it was affecting the health of Seven of Nine.

Species 6961 - Ktarian

Species 8472 - Unknown name. Responsible for the destruction of many Borg ships, planets and drones. Use biotechnology and invincible to assimilation.

Species 10026 - Unknown alien race, with a facial ridge reaching from the forehead to the nose. 390,000 from this species were assimilated in 2376. Whether or not this planet was an colony or their homeworld is unknown. Only four survived, one of which was partially assimilated. They possessed a modulating phaser pulse which could easily destroy a Borg vessel, though it was easy to adapt against.

Only that would imply that they made First Contact with Ferengi before Talaxians and Kazon!! That doesn't seem right!

 

[ray gower]

Posted by Dave
Hugh was 'Third of Five' remember, (and by that system 'Seven of Nine' should really have been 'Seventh of Nine' anyhow).

edit: Also there was 'Three of Five', the new Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix One - Former Ktarian, now tactical drone. Assigned to the Borg Queen.

Actually this makes things somewhat more limited. The 'Third of Five' is the units designation, whilst the rest is merely function.

How many Third of Five's or Seven of Nine's do the Borg possess and how do they control individuals?

For a so called 'logical' race, the system seems to manage a severe limit in logic.

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As for how they identify the race designations, considering how large Borg Space realy is, I suppose it would be possible for them to identify them as they discover races. It just depends upon which dirction they head in first?

 

[ray gower]

Here comes another Borg designation imponderable:-

If Unimatrix Zero is in sector 00 acording to them, then why is, also according to them, in sector 01?

What sectors are all the other small irriatating races that infest the galaxy in?

They really are n ot a very logical bunch are they?

 

[Darth Simpson]

I always understood it to be small collectives within the main collective. In Hughs case there were only five on his ship (we see the crashed ship and other drones) There are only five, so they are numbered one to five.

On a larger ship, or in a nexus base (or Unimatrix), they would be divided into sections. I always understood the Tertiary adjunct to be a small section within the Queen's inner complex where nine drones were stationed.

For example there could be three or more 'sections' to the queens inner chambers. Seven's section was the third section (or Tertiary Adjuct) and she was only one of the nine drones stationed there. The secondary adjunct may only have six drones assigned to it and the Primary adjuct may have twelve drones.

 

[Dave]

A much more logical system of designations would be to the use the same one as the Bynars, seen in '11001001' TNG.

Since the Borg are a partly machine race, the binary system would satisfy the binary logic of an on-off (1 or 0) machine. It can also build a hierarchy much more easily, with the Borg Queen being Numero Uno, having two deputees 10 and 11, four Captains 100, 110, 111 and 101, eight Lieutenants, sixteen Ensigns, etc.

I can't understand why machines would work in any other base than base 2. Humans use base 10 because we have 10 fingers. Some early societies used base 20 because they used their toes to count as well as their fingers.

Base 9 (as in 'Seven of Nine') or base 5 (as in 'Third of Five') seems to be impractical, time consuming and would be a system quickly discarded by the more efficient Borg mentality.

 

[ray gower]

Simple binary numbers would become too long too quick, especially if any form of aural communication is involved. Who would be able to sort out the difference between all the 1's and 0's. Remembering that an 8 bit binary number only supplies 256 idents.

So something more like the DNS numbers used by the Internet is more in order. The four 8 bit numbers we use at the moment still only provide 4.2 billion names though (and the internet is running out of free numbers). So perhaps hex addresses (16bit) might be more use (18e+18)?

 

[Dave]

Why the Borg speak is a another question entirely. I mean why not just plug in, or use the wireless connection it's established that they have.

Only we have a problem with being able to sort out the long numbers. But I guess I have to take your point since the Borg do use oral communication. So, a Hexidecimal system then. That sounds like a much better idea.

 

[ray gower]

Slightly more definitive list of Borg races (well Paramounts) has appeared at StarTrek.com

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/features/documentaries/article/4109.html

 

[Dave]

Interesting, but it doesn't shed any further light on the point I made earlier concerning the Ferengi:

Species 180

The Ferengi. It is not known why the Ferengi, an Alpha Quadrant race, has such a low species number, which would imply that they were encountered and catalogued very early in the Borg's existence.

Obviously, it was a mistake to use such a low number, but it's Canon now, so they need to make up a believable reason.

 

[ray gower]

Noting that the Vulcans had never met the Ferrengi before Enterprise ran into them.

I wonder if the Ferrengi should be considered as tinkers or gypsies. Small bands roaming widely, stealling, trading and camping as they go.

It could mean that a Ferrengi party managed to reach the Delta Quadrant, or, as there is nothing to say the Ferrengi originated from the Beta Quadrant, came from there?

 

[Dave]

Only that the planet Ferengar is in the Beta Quadrant, but I guess it could be a colony.

We also know that the Ferengi bought or traded Warp drive technology from another race. Considering how alien their ships appear compared to the other major races, we haven't yet met the race they got it from, so it must be quite a long way from the Federation.

 

[mbahde]

Actually this makes things somewhat more limited. The 'Third of Five' is the units designation, whilst the rest is merely function.

How many Third of Five's or Seven of Nine's do the Borg possess and how do they control individuals?

For a so called 'logical' race, the system seems to manage a severe limit in logic.

--------------------------

As for how they identify the race designations, considering how large Borg Space realy is, I suppose it would be possible for them to identify them as they discover races. It just depends upon which dirction they head in first?

If it makes it easier...don't think of Borg designations as names, but as ranks. When Hue told them his designation was 3rd of 5, the response was..."There were 5 on your ship." 7 of 9's designation was "of Unimatrix Zero in Sector 001" So there are 9 in that particular area. or were...
The designations change as your position/job changes and then you are reassigned a new designation according to your ship/planet/sector/location and to how many of those positions are in that area...
When Hue's ship became "infected" it was shut out of the collective to prevent further spread, and Lore had to give them new designations "names". While in the collective each drone has one thing unique to each one for the hive to tell it from others, this is what gave the hive the ability to release just 7 of 9 to act as more of an individual to interact with Voyager. She remained 7 of 9 because her job was not changing permanently...and when freed of the link to the hive mind, it was her last designation. If she were moved to a new position in another location, her designation would have been changed to whatever....could have been 4 of 12 in Waste Management of Sector 217.
And the reason for sector 001...it is probably the origin sector of the Borg...just like what makes Starfleet call Earth sector 001 of the Alpha Quad....everybody's got to be number 1