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After reading several other questions surrounding the mechanics of the Borg assimilating children and pregnant women, with the use of maturation chambers to mature the child to a point where they are useful, my question is simply why assimilate children?

It takes more effort to add them to the collective than it does assimilating an adult, its unlikely they add anything unique to the collective by being raised in a maturation chamber and they require feeding and sustaining while not returning anything for the period of their maturation.

Surely it would be simpler for the Borg to reduce children to a nutritional goo for feeding to the rest of the Borg, and move on to the next adult in line?

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  • 5
    Because the borg don't breed. It makes little sense to kill a underage assimilee when you can, for the cost of a bit of energy, raise them to working age.
    – Valorum
    Oct 31, 2014 at 10:14
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    You've failed to take into account the marginal cost/benefit of borg labour. For five years in a maturation chamber, you might get a hundred years of work out of a drone.
    – Valorum
    Oct 31, 2014 at 10:16
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    if their labour value outweighs the cost of maturing them then it makes good sense.
    – Valorum
    Oct 31, 2014 at 12:07
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    the point of the borg are not to destroy everything, but to assimilate everything. they want EVERYTHING to become part of the borg collective, killing is a waste to them, so if it lives and can be added it is. its not even about energy or work force, its about borg ethics. also the borg has thousands of cubes and thousands of planets, the energy and time spent on a child drone in negligible when your dealing in 100s of billions if not trillions of drones.
    – Himarm
    Oct 31, 2014 at 13:12
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    Assimilating children adds a hint of child like wonder to the Collective!
    – Daft
    Oct 31, 2014 at 16:48

5 Answers 5

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The point of the Borg are not to destroy everything, but to assimilate everything.

They want "EVERYTHING" to become part of the Borg collective(except for things they deem worthless), killing is a waste to them, so if it lives and can be added it is. Its not even about energy or work force, its about Borg ethics.

Also, the Borg has thousands of cubes and thousands of planets, the energy and time spent on a child drone in negligible when your dealing in hundreds of billions if not trillions of drones.

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  • 6
    "Borg ethics" sounds a bit like "Insect Politics".
    – Joe L.
    Oct 31, 2014 at 17:14
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    @JoeL Insects have politics.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Oct 31, 2014 at 18:26
  • @cde there you go, however if those lower/inferior/or un unique species every get in their way, or become more evolved, they too will join the collective(or be exterminated). as a full universe controlled by the borg would weed out all things un-efficient .
    – Himarm
    Jan 23, 2015 at 21:31
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While the Borg do not assimilate everything (The Kazon were deemed unfit and would detract from perfection), they do try and assimilate anything that might bring them closer to perfection. But I think there is a more base point that can be made.

The Borg do not have sex

The societies they assimilate are usually totally wiped out. They take or kill everyone during the initial assault. Humanity aside, species the Borg assimilate usually cease to exist. They cannot go back and get more of that race later, they need to take every single viable example of a species they can, including infants and fetuses.

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    The Borg have probably assimilated "part of" far more species than they assimilated "all of". It's not just humanity; it's virtually every species that both humanity and the borg have encountered.
    – DougM
    Jan 23, 2015 at 20:44
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    It is implied throughout the series, that the Borg have made extinct more races than not.
    – Tritium21
    Jan 23, 2015 at 20:45
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    Species that have their homeworlds taken usually go extinct, and the Borg can certainly be blamed for causing the eventual extinction of several species, we don't have a single canon example where the borg assimilated every last member of a space-faring species.
    – DougM
    Jan 23, 2015 at 20:52
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    (And there's no evidence that the borg are unable to initiate biological reproduction between two drones of the same species, FWIW. The implication from the very first episode was that there ARE native-born infants.)
    – DougM
    Jan 23, 2015 at 20:53
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    Everything about the borg from Q-Who is put into question by everything else. In Q-Who it is implied that it was a single race that did this to themselves. It is stated explicitly that they do not care about anything biological, only technological.
    – Tritium21
    Jan 23, 2015 at 20:58
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Borg assimilate children because they see assimilation as a good thing.

When the collective encounters a target they deem worthy of assimilation (which can be anything form a single individual to an entire planet), they fairly politely announce themselves and with as little hardship as practical progress the soon-to-be-born into their final state as drones. Part of minimizing that hardship is to keep anyone from being left behind, especially children.

Consider the natural reaction humans have to any threats to children, even those that we are not directly related to. We are genetically programmed to care for our young, even to the point that this biological drive can carry over to other species. If you were to take a human parent and turn them into a Borg, it's a virtual certainty that the new once-human Borg would maintain that genetic program, and would desire to care for the children of their biological race.

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  • I like this answer. I've always felt that the Borg are mis-portrayed as monsters when the reality is that from their own perspective, they're often trying to be helpful.
    – Valorum
    Jan 23, 2015 at 21:23
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On ethics, don't the Borg see themselves as some big happy family? Essentially, with all those minds connected even they would see it as beyond the pale to destroy the infants. By their own twisted ethics it's better to welcome them into 'the family' instead.

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Assimilating children reduces the number of potential threats in the future. For example, if that child were to become instrumental in fighting against the Borg that can't happen if they have already been assimilated.

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    OP clearly said about reducing children to nutritional goo... So, your situation is out of question.
    – user931
    Oct 31, 2014 at 16:14

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