3 reasons the Borg were perfectly handled upon their debut

Motivation

As far as Star Trek aliens go, there really isn’t a lot of unique motivations. Usually, all conflicts boiled down to territory disputes or resource disputes. There was very rarely anything else that caused two sides to flare up.

Either it was a war for a planet, or it was some type of insidious scheme to take down a government from within. All of those disputes would always revolve around the same thing; being the prominent power in the area.

Not with the Borg, however. The Borg didn’t want resources. They didn’t want power. They didn’t even want subjugation. They simply wanted everything. To grow, to amass, and to control. While that may seem no different than say the Cardassians, the key difference is that the Cardassians wanted the Bajoran people to want them.

The Borg wanted everyone they met to simply cease to exist. To lose their individuality. To lose their culture. Their wants and their hopes. The Borg wanted everything to be part of the collective. A total erasure of individuality and culture.

Something even the Cardassians didn’t think of doing. To conquer is one thing, to absorb and erase is another. When you lost to the Cardassians or the Klingons, there were still remnants of who was there, and what happened. Even if you didn’t make it.

With the Borg, you were likely to not make it. And if you were really unlucky, you would make it, only to find yourself a new member of their collective. The Borg were living entropy. The collapse of uniqueness in a physical form.

And that’s terrifying.