The star-trek borg as an all-American captivity narrative

Abstract

The Borg are half-human/half-robot beings that have appeared in various film and television versions of Star Trek since first created in the 1980s for the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Mindless automatons whose only purpose is to turn as many other humanoids into Borgs as possible, the Borg may superficially appear to be a metaphor for world Communism as it was metaphorically represented in Westerns and science fiction from the 1950s onward. However, the Cold War has long since ended and the Borg are as popular as ever in the Star-Trek franchise. This is because they are a modern manifestation of the 400-year-old American captivity narrative - the first distinct literary genre created in the New World. Rather than a metaphoric iteration of the Communist threat, the Borg instead represent the age-old American paranoia of being held in thrall by an Other who would drag Americans where they do not wish to be dragged.