The “Best of Both Worlds” has two storylines adapted from Star Trek: The Next Generation, American science fiction television series. It aims to describe the struggle between the two opposing factions, the Enterprise and the Borg. The Borg intends to conquer Earth, whereas the Enterprise is determined to prevent the Borg from accomplishing this. Before the cube can reach Earth, the Enterprise can destroy the Borg’s protective shield, leaving it/them vulnerable to attack and, therefore, increasing the Enterprise’s chance of success in preventing it/them from conquering Earth. This paper will analyze the second thesis in Cohen's Monster Culture (Seven Theses), The Monster Always Escapes and the third thesis, The Monster Is the Harbinger of Category Crisis; can be applied to this episode of Star Trek. The analysis would help the reader to spot the similarity of the Borg and the monster explained in Cohen’s thesis. The discoveries would further be used to demonstrate how the seven monsters thesis could be used to interpret works of art.
According to Cohen’s theory The Monster Always Escapes, monsters are difficult to control or manage, as they will, at some point, disappear by turning themselves into immaterial things, and then appear at some different place (Cohen, 14). It is clearly stated that the very future of civilization is at stake as the monster is likened to the cultural moments that always threaten to change and shift to appear later in a different worse of a situation (Hark, Ina 34). One might inquire as to why the Enterprise needs to bother fighting such a powerful enemy, especially if it is, as the Borg often says, “futile” to do so. If civilization will be destroyed then what is the point of fighting? The reason is that there is one weakness that can be exploited: by eliminating the source of the Borg hive-mind, one could effectively vanquish them.
The Enterprise’s first clash with the Borg is a frightening encounter, which ends in the sudden kidnapping of Captain Picard. The manner in which the Borg disappear dematerialize (taking Picard with them in the process) is an example of how the Borg does, in fact, “disappear” and “reappear” as Cohen puts it. Application of the Cohen helps explain the fact that just like the monsters the Borg do not face the death, but just disappear, their threat is their propensity to shit. Furthermore, when the Borg continuously adapts to the Enterprise’s weapons and technology, thus effectively becoming immune to them, it is an example of the way in which the Borg keep “returning” from death.
Although the first few Borg drones die in order to gather the required data on the Enterprise’s weapons for future adaptation they do not, in fact, return from the state of death. However, if one thinks of the Borg as one collective being, then it becomes clear that this monstrous entity is, in fact, continuously escaping defeat, capture, and even returning from death in order to fulfill its ghastly purpose. This is one example of how the behavior of the Borg is consistent with that of monsters as described by Cohen’s second thesis on the nature of the monster. The application of the Borg helps relate the Borg to the monster and, therefore, gain insight into fighting it using tactics similar to those used to fight monsters (Cohen, 5). Like the monsters, the Borg resists any systematic structuration.
Cohen further explains, through his third thesis concerning monsters: “The Monster is the Harbinger of Category Crisis” (Cohen, 6). This particular thesis supplements the previous one discussed above. For instance, the monster can both make its move and immediately escape through its ability to inexplicably render the Enterprise defenseless and vulnerable. This baffles the ship’s crew because this largely unknown enemy can adapt and exploit the Enterprise’s weaknesses before the crew of the Enterprise has a chance to respond. In employing a straight-forward interpretation of the story, one can look at the Borg as simply the incidental villain of the story in the midst of a tense situation. But looking at the story in such a way, the core of the story’s meaning would be lost. So, how do/does the Borg serve as the so-called “harbingers” of disarray? This entity seems to predict one’s actions before one makes a decision, almost like playing chess against a CPU. They are so cold and detached, behaving with such indifference to the point that they almost do not seem to have what we can call “behavior” which would make their reconstruction easy. This way, the Borg, is/are almost a non living force rather than living, breathing organisms. How do you kill that which consists of many? In their state of near panic and desperation, the crew of the Enterprise group was prepared to fire whatever means of attack they had left on the Borg cube, which would knowingly destroy what was left of the assimilated Picard in the process. They were fully aware that this weapon might not have any effect. Referring back to the assimilation of Captain Picard once again, we can see the emotionless ingenuity of the Borg collective as they very cleverly use the face of Picard as a psychological deterrent against the remaining crew of the Enterprise, while effectively holding their captain hostage in the process. The maneuver forces the team to act against their interests by firing at the Borg cube without an effect, with this knowledge, the Enterprise has nothing quite as useful to use against their enemy in return. The Enterprise lost warp speed; the Borg brought up their tractor beam but the Enterprise broke free and sped from the Borg and was returned to original position by subject Q. The Enterprise won the battle.
Having described common themes in fiction rather effectively, Cohen provides several arguments for interpreting works of art, and in using his seven theses on monsters as an example; connections could be made with almost any case of monsters in fiction. Some might write Cohen’s work off as being too generic. But rather than looking at the nature of his work this way, one can say that what may seem vague in Cohen’s work is intended to be nonspecific in order to be as all-encompassing as possible. In analyzing, “Best of Both Worlds," it is useful to recognize the Borg as the “monster” described in Cohen’s writing. If no such connection is made, then the story loses its significance of demonstrating the Borg like monsters that appear and reappear and avoid any effort to re-structuration. Application of the Cohen helps the reader interpret the occurrences in the Star trek using the seven monster thesis.
The significance of the story complete with the danger and struggle gives the story its purpose. Structure and themes are so important in storytelling, as they are for people like Cohen, who analyze them. It is through work like Cohen’s that we can ask the question “what can we take away from mythology in our daily lives? What do these stories teach us?”
The discoveries would further be used to demonstrate how the seven monsters thesis could be used to interpret works of art.
Works Cited:
Cohen, Jeffrey J. Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Minneapolis, Minn: the University of Minnesota Press, 1996. Print.
Hark, Ina R. Star Trek: The next generation, The Best of Both Worlds. (parts I and II) Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print.
