Our introduction (or re-introduction as it may be) to the big bad Romulans and yet another opportunity for the crew to brag about how humanity has advanced so far especially in comparison to those 20th century troglodytes. So is it just me or are we supposed to think the outposts along the neutral zone, that have seemingly just been scooped up off the surface, are evidence of a Borg attack?

It didn't really make sense to set that up as being the Borg, since we were told later that the Borg were thousands of light-years away and no threat to Earth/humans/etc. The Romulan Neutral Zone is much closer than that.

@revengine said:

Our introduction (or re-introduction as it may be) to the big bad Romulans and yet another opportunity for the crew to brag about how humanity has advanced so far especially in comparison to those 20th century troglodytes. So is it just me or are we supposed to think the outposts along the neutral zone, that have seemingly just been scooped up off the surface, are evidence of a Borg attack?

I believe it was intended to be some other enemy (maybe the Conspiracy aliens - I think I heard that somewhere, but I'm not positive because it's been a while). When they thought up the Borg a short time later, they just attributed it to them so the idea didn't go to waste I guess. And then they just kind of forgot about the scooping up cities part after Q Who, because when did we ever see the Borg do that?

@Moonglum9 Yes that's true. Q doesn't introduce the Enterprise (and the Federation) to the Borg until season 2 in Q Who. I'm pretty sure it was made mention of in the two parter The Best Of Both Worlds where the Borg take to scooping up outposts, which is probably why when I heard it in a rewatch of The Neutral Zone I immediately thought it was the Borg. But it was probably like you said, they didn't want the idea to go to waste - they had set up this premise and didn't want to leave it hanging out there so they adapted it to the Borg. And it makes less sense when you consider the Borg are still 7k LY away.

Just 7k? I thought Q threw them farther than that.

@Knixon said:

Just 7k? I thought Q threw them farther than that.

Well, I'm going by the episode synopsis on imdb, so who knows. But the number sounds about right although memory could be failing me, wouldn't be the first time. It's interesting to consider that we learn from the series finale of Voyager that the Borg have use of a transwarp hub (not sure if that's the exact name) where Voyager travels from the delta quadrant to the alpha in a matter of minutes - apparently much farther than the 7k light years Q transported the Enterprise. So, for the Borg to travel the 7k light years and then travel back shouldn't have posed much of a challenge. Although, of course, I highly doubt that the writers of Star Trek had even conceived of the Borg's transwarp hub during Q Who or The Neutral Zone (not that we've concluded it was the Borg in the latter). It would all have to be considered retcon work if true I suppose.

I just saw the Voyager series finale again recently, and I believe they said that the transwarp corridor "portals" in the Alpha quadrant were all exits. Which would mean that the Borg could get TO Earth that way, but could not RETURN via the transwarp corridor.

Something else I thought about later, regarding the Neutral Zone episode: if the Romulan outposts were also scooped up like the Federation ones had been, and if they were supposed to be those aliens from the "Conspiracy" episode, did that mean that maybe the Romulans had had some of their people taken over too?

Who knows? Romulus seems to be like Las Vegas, whatever happens there stays there. Maybe Spock knew about it. Those Conspiracy aliens are a curious bunch. I wonder if they're like the Trill society where they have a host and a symbiotic organism because I'm wondering how they would even become a space faring society if it's just a bunch of creepy crawly things (other than that giant slug that took up residence in Remmick).

But remember, the great majority of Trill humanoids go through their entire lifespan without being "joined." They don't rely on joining, but the "slugs" sure do.

That's true. I think the Trill symbiots are a way of passing on life experience, kind of like how the Vulcans use melding with their children. Anyways, my point was more about how the Conspiracy aliens even plan on taking over. It's been a while since I've seen the episode but from what I do remember, it was pretty much sheer chance that led some starfleet people to the planet where the aliens are and got them infected. I suppose part of all that strange goings on within the Federation that Data mentioned was the aliens making plans to send a bunch of people to their home world to become hosts. It was the signal we heard at the end that kind of confused me - who was the signal sent to?

Presumably after hundreds or thousands or perhaps even millions of years, there must be whole planets and even whole civilizations that have been taken over. They would be able to receive the signal.

Something else I thought about later, regarding the Neutral Zone episode: if the Romulan outposts were also scooped up like the Federation ones had been, and if they were supposed to be those aliens from the "Conspiracy" episode, did that mean that maybe the Romulans had had some of their people taken over too?

No it wasn't suppose to be the the aliens from Conspiracy the scooped up outposts had been taken by the Borg it is supposed to be the first introduction to them (without mentioning them or showing them laying the foundations for Q Who?)

@sukhisoo: I share your opinion about this episode, but I have to admit that I was relieved when the Romulans became the villians. I've always felt that the Ferengi were just too silly to take seriously as bad guys.

BTW, how is your wife doing with her research on the career of Jack Lord?

@Nexus71 said:

Something else I thought about later, regarding the Neutral Zone episode: if the Romulan outposts were also scooped up like the Federation ones had been, and if they were supposed to be those aliens from the "Conspiracy" episode, did that mean that maybe the Romulans had had some of their people taken over too?

No it wasn't suppose to be the the aliens from Conspiracy the scooped up outposts had been taken by the Borg it is supposed to be the first introduction to them (without mentioning them or showing them laying the foundations for Q Who?)

Not sure how I missed this before. But as I posted already, It didn't really make sense to set that up as being the Borg, since we were told later that the Borg were thousands of light-years away and no threat to Earth/humans/etc.

In fact Q at least hinted, and Guinan flat-out stated, that humans weren't supposed to encounter the Borg for a long time yet.

So either the scooped-up outposts were originally meant to be done by the Conspiracy aliens (or perhaps more accurately, some of their hosts) and then badly retconned to be the Borg and they hoped nobody would notice the contradictions, or, the whole Borg thing was just a mess... not even from the very start, but actually BEFORE the very start.

I suppose it's also possible they were trying to set up another new opponent, but those plans fell through somehow and it was later shoehorned/retconned to the Borg.

I'm pretty sure it was made mention of in the two parter The Best Of Both Worlds where the Borg take to scooping up outposts, which is probably why when I heard it in a rewatch of The Neutral Zone I immediately thought it was the Borg.

Revengine is correct and this is why the Borg were responsible for the disappearing outposts in The Neutral Zone plus I believe that Seven Of nine's parents went out to investigate that region of space because of these disappearances .Finding out later that it had been the Borg who were responsible for those outposts disappearing