"“We are the borg. Resistance is futile”":: reflections, numbness, and transhumanism in the Star Trek universe

• Autores: Francisco Collado Rodríguez
• Localización: The posthuman condition in 21st century literature and culture: interdisciplinary Insights / María Ferrández Sanmiguel (ed. lit.), Esther Muñoz González (ed. lit.), Carmen Laguarta Bueno (ed. lit.), 2025, ISBN 978-3-031-83701-2, págs. 29-47
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This work analyzes the impact and meaning of a cultural artifact created in the Star Trek franchise by the end of the 1980s and its relation to the transhumanist project: The Borg. The work studies the symbol of this particular cyborg-zombie creature as one of the most relevant cultural icons of the posthuman condition at the turn of the millennium by interrogating the role they play in the light of some of the most remarkable theories developed by Marshall McLuhan. His critical perspective, combined with hypotheses formulated by Norbert Wiener, offers a way to explain the abundance of mirrored situations in many of the episodes where the transhuman zombie species plays a part. The proposal analyzes the Borg as reflections of the humanist and transhumanist endeavors of the Federation of Planets, themselves fictional representatives of Western humanist thought and conflicts. Despite their transhumanist origins and the producers’ emphasis on reflective symbolism, Star Trek protagonists only consider the Borg as evil enemies, never as a warning of human (bio)technological endeavors. This work traces the importance that some reflective scenes between the human protagonists and the Borg Queen have as foreshadowing caveats of the effects the transhumanist project might have.