Date: 24 May 2014 18:30 Title: Premature
This is great stuff! Wow, a newborn Borg suffering "system error". Is this what's become of the child? It's as if his parents knew what was coming. What do they do, hand over sacrificial children to the Borg?
Date: 20 May 2014 05:00 Title: Premature
Great character work here. I really enjoyed this one, and what a fascinating look into a drone.
Author's Response:
Thank you, Mick!
Date: 20 May 2014 03:48 Title: Premature
Poor Icheb. You're doing a beautiful job, Kes, and it makes me want to go watch some Icheb episodes from Voyager. I won't lie, I'm hoping Seven comes into the mix! I would love to see Seven from Icheb's point of view.
Author's Response:
You should totally go watch some Icheb episodes from Voyager. And don't worry, Seven is on her way. :)
Date: 20 May 2014 02:57 Title: Premature
Yep, remember this one too. Very wonderfully written look into the mind of a lone drone, considering everything that he would find important as a Borg. Next please! lol
Author's Response:
Thanks, TS! More, coming right up. :)
Date: 20 May 2014 02:40 Title: Premature
Wow, kes. I love this look into Icheb's character here. Seeing himself as Borg, and then not quite understanding what is happening when he feels the human part of himself. Quite an interesting look into his character.
Author's Response:
Well, Brunali, not human, technically speaking, but I understand what you mean. :) Thanks for the comment!
Date: 19 May 2014 22:38 Title: Premature
Again another well execute scene from Icheb back story. I can well imagine how shocking being a single active unit on a borg cube was to Icheb.
Author's Response:
Or anybody, really. Talk about a shock to the system. Thanks for the comment!
Date: 19 May 2014 21:56 Title: Premature
There was a chilling element to this that reminded me of how I felt watching Q-Who and Best of Both Worlds the first time. Here with the children and the confusion therein. Very good piece.
Author's Response:
Thank you for the compliment! I really strive to stay true to the scary TNG feel of the Borg even though my stories are spun off from Voyager. If VOY hadn't so badly mishandled them, I might never have started writing fic at all!
Date: 19 May 2014 20:14 Title: Premature
Whew. Chilling. The emptiness and fear and the way he's alone ... strikes home. Effectively done and disorienting for the reader as much as it is for Icheb. Poor guy.
Author's Response:
Can you imagine? All alone, with no memories, a half-formed child on a ship meant to carry 5,000? Every one of them dead, but for a few smaller, weaker units still in their maturation chambers? Terror doesn't begin describe it ...
Date: 19 May 2014 19:39 Title: Premature
Another fine piece you have here kes. I could see Icheb's reaction to be disconnected from the hive mind.
Thanks for sharing.
Author's Response:
Thank you!
Date: 19 May 2014 18:44 Title: Premature
My God that's an intense moment. The freedom from the Collective has the converse effect here, with Icheb actually feeling to me the reader as claustrophobic, stifled as he's overloaded with knowledge and sensory input but there's no mind collective to sift through the data and so he is overwhelmed and panicked. Amid it all, he's very Borg despite his assimilation bringing about freedom by contamination for the others. There's no boy Icheb in all of this. It's Borg Icheb, orphaned, marooned, adrift, without guidance, a voice, a safety net. He's left to his own mind. A horrifying new reality after his assimilation. He's Borg and that's what he knows and seeks comfort in and it's all been ripped away from him. Brill.
Claustrophobic is a perfect way to describe him, and I think in some ways, that never really leaves him. He's got the knowledge of multitudes inside his head, but no longer has the context or support to help him understand or carry that dual-edged blessing/burden. And yes, in this moment, there is no Icheb. There is only a half-completed unit, cut off from its whole, without sufficient programming to carry out its mission. It's not even certain what that mission is. So, like any being cut off from its source of knowledge and thrust into a desperate and unfamiliar situation, it reverts to base instinct: the only mission it has now is to survive.
Author's Response:
Date: 19 May 2014 17:55 Title: Premature
I particularly loved this line: " A single mind is insufficient." I think that's the key to the Collective - they can't be alone.
Author's Response:
Yeah, we saw how being alone got to Seven in the episode "One." Quickest way to drive them mad is to put them in isolation.
Date: 19 May 2014 16:16 Title: Premature
Oh, Icheb. How much this moment probably haunted him later. He seemed calm, and yet, you could almost feel the quiet panic at his repetition and searching for the other voices he was supposed to be hearing.
Author's Response:
Nothing scarier for a drone than the silence of one's own mind and the isolation of one's own thoughts. I think this moment transcended "terror" and sent Icheb right into actual shock. Which is probably for the best, as he was reduced to nothing but instinct, or whatever passes for it when speaking of the Borg.
Date: 19 May 2014 15:43 Title: Premature
Oooh so cool! Great to see Icheb's awakening. I know how difficult it can be to write Borg, especially kind-of, sort-of free Borg who are Borg but not connected to the collective. You did a great job here, showing the way the thought process works, the constant dilemma between I and we, and the oh-so precise knowledge (33.02 seconds). I loved this, so nice to see these snippets of your Icheb. Well done!
Author's Response:
It can be a bear to write these characters, but I also find it fascinating the way they dance on the edge of free will when they wake up ... we saw in "I, Borg" and "Survival Instinct" how ultimately, once cut off from the Collective, drones pretty quickly regain their individuality, but sometimes they fear their free will so much they use it to decide to give it up again. Fascinating stuff.