We are Hugh

[ivyfic]

I just finished rewatching season five of TNG, which means watching the episode "I, Borg." As I was watching it, I was thinking--this is what SGA is missing. An episode like this, where everyone has to address their prejudices and think long and hard about their kneejerk hatred of the enemy, despite what that enemy has done. It's a fantastic episode of learning to hate the war, not the soldier.

SGA came close a few times, with Todd and with Michael. But each time, as you got to that place of understanding, where the Atlanteans had to look at this one wraith as an individual, both wraiths reverted to mustache-twirling villainy, freeing the Lanteans of the responsibility of having to reevaluate their view of the wraith as a whole.

I was particularly struck by how, in "I, Borg," as soon as the possibility is raised of planting a computer virus in Hugh that he would bring back to his race to destroy them, people immediately voice ethical objections, particularly Dr. Crusher. When similar suggestions were made on SGA, with respect to the replicators or the wraith, everyone just went great--do it. That means that not only did SGA lack a certain moral depth, but it lacked drama. What on TNG was a serious ethical struggle and source of conflict between the characters, on SGA was just a bit of technobabble.

(Also, the actor playing Hugh? OMG adorable. They have an interview in the special features with him from 2002 in which he still looks barely twenty.)

Comments

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

BSG had the same set-up and the same pitfall. They suggest annihilation of the cylons through a virus, and ONLY HELO, the guy fucking the cylon, has any moral objections to this. It lacks depth, it lacks drama, it lacks development.

I really love "I, Borg." It's so thoughtful and sweet. And it shows just how menacing the Borg threat is. They don't just enslave you. They take your identity.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

What's also unique about "I, Borg" is that you have likeable characters on both sides of the debate. You have Dr. Crusher having a kneejerk humanitarian reaction, Worf and Riker want to kill the Borg as soon as possible, and you have Picard wanting to use the Borg against the rest of them. And Guinan, who is pissed at Picard for allowing Crusher to care for him. And you see some of the characters, like Geordi, won over quickly (he has some sort of magic touch with artificial life forms--they always love him), and others, like Picard, really wrestling with it. You also get one of the few times when someone goes to Guinan for guidance and she, instead of being all wise, says I don't even know why you're talking about this. Just kill the thing.

That they allowed characters to take unlikeable moral stances is one of the hallmarks of TNG. Like when Worf refuses to help a Romulan and Picard stands by his decision, even though the Romulan dies. Most shows don't allow their characters to express such controversial ideas.

SGA never allowed the characters to be less than heroic, meaning that when they thought someone was a villain, they had to be a villain. Which in the end makes the SGA heroes not heroic at all.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

AHHH I had originally talked about "The Enemy" and deleted it. You read my mind! Yes, you have Worf, who has been persecuted his whole life based on his race--and yet his own personal prejudices are not so easily surmounted. He lets the guy DIE. It felt honest, and real.

I thought Guinan in this was great. You have the wise, balanced, so-old-she-knows-everything-character--who is so overwhelmed by her own prejudices that she doesn't even *see* a debate. Kill him. I also think of the trill episode, when Dr. Crusher falls in love with that guy, and then he occupies Riker's body. When he inhabits Riker's body he swears up and down that it's not the body that matters, it's the person. But in the end when he gets transferred to a woman's body, she says she CANNOT do that. It's a line for her. She can't. Again, I thought that was really honest. It would have been bolder for her to go for it, but the show wasn't *that* bold.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

And you have the episode "Ethics," which I always disliked because it featured Alexander, but on a rewatch, it has some serious debates. You have Picard supporting Worf's decision to kill himself, Crusher vehemently opposing it, and Riker not really knowing what to do. And on the rewatch, I noticed that you have the entire climax of the episode and it's just women. Worf's unconscious, Alexander's standing there, but the only people active in the scene are Crusher, Troi, and the guest doctor. A whole scene with just women that has nothing to do with men! Awesome!

I think this is what makes TNG such a good series is that they will really wrestle with dilemmas, not just hold them up as examples of the right thing to do. There are episodes where you're not sure they made the right decision. SG1 also did this, in its good days. SGA never ever did. The characters seemed to act in this bizarre bubble where no one ever called them on their questionable decisions. Which is why I made this icon.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Great episode. It's refreshing when characters have to struggle with difficult decisions and there's no right answer in a given situation. It's even better when they're allowed to make mistakes and fail from time to time.

The moment that Picard realizes that Hugh is an individual still moves me every time. And it's chilling to see him playing the part of Locutus again.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I was going to mention the BSG set up. I think that one is coming from a different place, however, since the humans are a lot less secure than just about any of the planets in the Federation. They're less patient with morality (as Cain proves).

I find myself still coming down on the side of genocide, Borg or Cylon. Because they're an entire race made of soldiers who live to eradicate everyone else; ergo, there are no civilians so the war doesn't just end when the soldiers get orders to stop fighting. Although the Cylons are able to be reasoned with, the Borg are not. You can't leave Borg left alive or they'll just come back.

Basically, what do you do when the enemy is entirely composed of enemy? I mean, you can't win the war with that enemy without killing every last one. That's genocide, yes, but what other alternative is there?

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I think you're right, that genocide still may be the only answer, but seriously muddies the waters.

It's one of the interesting things I find about Andromeda. Because in that, they point to negotiating with the Magog, rather than wiping them out, as the choice that destroys the Federation equivalent and sends the galaxy into chaos. I always found it an interesting commentary, that you have a Magog who has reformed. Which means the Magog aren't like locusts, you can't just wipe them out, morally. If there weren't any reformed ones, you could. Andromeda (in its first two seasons) also had a character that was all for the mass extermination of the Magog and the Nietzscheans--a character that actually does kill thousands of them. And is still sympathetic.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

It is! Because you see how lost and confused Hugh is, and how much it hurts Picard to take on that persona. But that was the only way Picard would have trusted him, because he knows what it's like to be Borg.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

Well I think it's pretty clear from both "I, Borg" and Seven of Nine that the Borg can be restored, at least partially, and allowed to rediscover their lives. I think that's enough reason not to wholly annihilate them. But I'm a hippie about these things.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The problem is that there are no civilians in these species, really. Genocide refers to an eradication of a species, which no one wants but which you kind of can't help so long as that entire species is going to keep fighting to the death to kill you. It is genocide, but it's also just war.

The issue of reformation is a moral one, but it's also a logistic one. In a war with civilians, it makes good sense to win over hearts and minds, etc. and intelligence gathering depends on reforming the enemy to your point of view (as does long-term, post-war stability). But if you're in a war where the only way to reform an enemy is pretty much to do it against their will or isolate them so far from their fellows that they lose all sense of themselves, it's hardly a better choice. That's conversion, which isn't really all that better from what the Borg do. You get some more leeway with the Cylons, as I mentioned, since they're able to defect.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's a fair argument and a perfectly moral opinion to have. I cannot argue to kill all Borg/Cylon/what have you without admitting that, yes, it would be genocide. (Though I'm not sure how to count that for the Borg given that they are not a race. Not really.) Basically, though, if you get into a war with those enemies, there isn't a single one of their species that won't keep trying to kill you for as long as the war persists.

Basically, I find myself arguing the opposite position from what I did when I was talking with ivy03 about Torchwood. Morality demands that those who can be saved must be saved, but it's so impractical and dangerous to try and save an individual Borg that infinitely more lives will be lost if you don't just kill them. (That's the lesson of First Contact.) If saving an individual puts entire civilizations at risk, the individual becomes harder to justify saving, even if there is a moral imperative.

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

I loved this episode too. And Hugh's final decision to go back to the Borg because he knows they'll come after him and hurt Geordi is heartrendingly sweet. And yes, Hugh is adorable (esp when he's like "we are Hugh").