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Hi. I'm Andy Rooney of Borg. Ever wonder why resistance is futile? And what does it mean anyway when we say "You will be assimilated?" That's one thing that has always annoyed me. You see, it can mean different things to different carbon based units. Particularly with the vocal inflections used by the Borg when we say that.

I had to reference that word, assimilated, in an educational database to make sure I understood it correctly. What must it be like to look up words, I wonder, for civilizations that don't have their brains plugged directly into a computer. Especially in North America where people are so badly educated that many of them can't read. How do you look up a word if you don't even know how to read it?

Then there's the vocal inflection. If you are a civilian carbon based unit, you might assume that it means you will be assimilated whether you like it or not. Which it does. On the other hand, or whatever the Borg will attach to your arm to replace it, it has an entirely different meaning to military and psuedo-military carbon based units like fictitious Star Fleet officers.

When I was an army goon, a long time before I was assimilated, one thing they taught me was that if a superiour tells you you will do something, that was a direct order and was not subject to interpretation or debate. You just humped your not yet tin plated ass over the top.

And this is what bothers me about that: I don't have the authority to give such an order because I'm not a duly authorized superiour of the aforementioned fictitious pseudo-military carbon based unit.

Besides, if I order a pseudo-military carbon based unit "you will be assimilated," it doesn't make sense. But then, nothing the military chain of command does makes sense anyway, and the Borg hierarchy is definitely a militant chain of command.

Personally, I think the problem is that such an order isn't grammatically correct.

You'd think that a civilization with its brains plugged directly into a computer would be able to look that up. Don't you?

Copyright 1994, 2001 Michael Nellis