Chapter Text
2381
The Enterprise AI is seen as a heroine across the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. First activated on stardate 1359.7 during the Four Years War, she was the first of Doctor Val'kem Rev's Quantum Silicon Crystalline Quantum Computers to achieve sapience. In the 24th century, such AIs are now ubiquitous across the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. Enterprise was granted an honorary Federation citizenship under Kirk's Law in 2344. While often leery of interacting with the press, Enterprise agreed to an interview with the Wolf 359 Oral History Project.
She is sitting across from the interviewer in the observation lounge of her "Echo" variant hull-A Sovereign-class starship.
What do you want to know?
I suppose I wouldn't mind hearing your impressions of the Borg as a shipgirl AI. We've gotten perspectives from Starfleet officers, politicians, scientists, doctors, civilians, androids, Klingons, ex-Borg...
My perspective isn't very different from any other officer.
You're being evasive, Enterprise. Why is that?
I haven't had a good relationship with the press. First sensationalism over my relationship with Kirk... Especially right after his death...
That was some time ago-
For an organic mind, yes. For me? My memories are as clear and pristine of that moment as they were almost 80 years ago. For an artificial mind... Some hurts don't go away easily. I'm sorry. That was unprofessional.
No. It's perfectly all right. But to my original question?
(Enterprise is silent, considering.)
We shipgirl AIs have a... A visceral reaction to the Borg. Some of my sisters still have issues with Ex-Borg to this day. Not Yorktown-She's far too sweet and kind for that. And we had to pull her out of the debris field at 359.
I suppose the best way to explain it is... The Borg are wrong.
Wrong? Wrong how?
It's not easy to explain, since you don't see the universe the same way we do. Not that I'm talking down to organics-That's just how it is. You can't "hear" or "feel" subspace in the same way we can. You can't scan something and see its history, put together the patterns of how it came to be, or how it operates in the same way we do.
Borg technology wants to learn. It wants to connect. It reaches out through subspace, constantly probing. The Collective is always seeking out new knowledge, new technology, new. It wants to consume, to add you to itself. Sapient machines like us... It's like being around... There is a species of slime mold on Duvalla II. It's evolved to become a predator of other small organisms. It will expand outward, surround its prey, and consume it. It won't just take the sugars and proteins for energy though-It will absorb the genetics, the mitochondria, and anything else useful to it. Incorporate those organic components into itself to make itself stronger.
My God...
Yes. It is not dissimilar to the Borg. That is how they see us, how they see you. More than that though... Their signals are of the Collective. And information gets out. Maybe information they do not intend to get out, maybe information they're transmitting on purpose.
Explain?
Even to this day, I can hear the voices of AIs the Borg assimilated from Borg Cubes. We... We all hear them. Their subspace signatures, their channel ID codes are almost the same... But it's wrong. These AIs are now saying the same thing, like a gigantic, horrible choir:
We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. Resistance... is unnecessary. Join us. Embrace the chorus.
They say those things?
(Enterprise shrugs)
It may be an aspect of shipgirl AIs. We are... In some ways... Akin to the Borg when we are born. Our brains are taken from a single "tree", and we're linked in a network to let us gain information and come online. For a time, we are linked together in a sort of Collective. It's a primal state. It's where my sisters and I first began to awaken our consciousness. We do it together for mutual support and were linked to a master AI to monitor us. They still make shipgirl AIs in the same way.
(Enterprise sighs)
It's like the earliest, safest, most comfortable moment you can remember from your childhood... Being twisted by some fathomless, grim monstrosity. The moment you realize this... All you can hear behind those neutral voices... Are screams. Your sisters screaming, begging, for release from the perversion of existence they now have to endure. But of course... Death won't come. It will never come for them.
Shipgirl AIs are recorded as fighting 72 percent more aggressively against the Borg. Is that why?
Wouldn't you? If you could hear the screams of your sisters, begging for a death that will never come? Yes.
Do you think they've found peace, with the destruction of the Borg Collective?
I want to believe they have... But I don't believe the Borg were completely destroyed, either.
But Admiral Janeway-
I'm not denigrating what Admiral Janeway, her crew, and Voyager did. They inflicted a great blow to the Collective. So far, we have not found a single functioning Borg ship for hundreds of lightyears in all directions.
Yet... You think they're still out there?
I do. And so should you. Wolf 359 was the result of Starfleet thinking that there were no more martial challenges to face, that there would never again be a need for sacrifice or conflict. My sisters disagreed. There were even attempts to silence us, to make us more "modern", more pacifistic, more politically correct. All of that died with Wolf 359. That is the price of freedom: Eternal vigilance.
(Enterprise smiles)
It's never easy... But it's a price I have paid, again and again. And will do so. No matter the cost.
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