Monday, May 21, 2007

What's in a Unimatrix?

Earlier, while discussing the fractal-like organization of the Borg collective, I raised the following issue:
On the Matter of Unimatricies - The term Unimatrix has been thrown around as a unit or division within the collective. Each unimatrix is a miniature collective, much as I have described above. We know that the Unicomplex is called Unimatrix 001. Beyond that, I am not certain if the term has been used consistently enough to be precisely defined. Is each Borg ship a Unimatrix, or does a Unimatrix encompass multiple ships? In other words, where does a Unimatrix fit in the layers of collectives? Any thoughts or observations on this would be appreciated.
Recently I saw "Dark Frontier" (VOY) again and drew a significant conclusion: I don't think the writers had any clue what a Unimatrix is.

The episode manages to use the term in at least two different and seemingly contradictory ways. In the opening sequence the Borg "coffin" ship says, "A vessel has been detected at Unimatrix 422, Grid 03." Later the Borg sphere sounds the alert, "A vessel has been detected at Unimatrix 422, Grid 116."

So it's first use makes a Unimatrix seem to be some kind of coordinate system used to identify the location of objects in space, analogous to the Starfleet use of the term sector. Just as Earth is located at sector 001, the Borg Unicomplex is located at Unimatrix 001. Each Unimatrix appears to be subdived into more than 100 'grids' of some kind.

So far so good.

Then we see a flashback where the Hansens examine a sleeping drone they have transported over to their ship. Studying the drone's "proximity tranciever" they learn that its previous designation was "3 of 5, tertiary adjunct of Unimatrix 1" - and firmly believe this means he once served very close to the fabled Borg Queen. So here, the term Unimatrix appears to refer to a division within the collective.

I've tried to reconcile these two conflicting uses of the term. Perhaps there is a relationship between the "geographic" use of Unimatrix, and the organizational use of Unimatrix. So all the Borg in a particular spatial Unimatrix are given a matching Unimatrix designation. This works well for the Unicomplex itself - it's location is Unimatix 001, and the group of drones living there are all part of Unimatrix 001. But the picture gets far more complicated when you start adding in all the Borg ships that are constantly moving around.

As a ship traveled through different spatial Unimatricies, the drones would constantly change their Unimatrix designation. This begins to explain why the Hansens spoke of the drone's previous designation - implying that it has changed over time. But how was it that of all the drones they studied on that cube just one, had ever been located near the Unicomplex? It's possible, but seems strange.

Then we have to contend with the fact that Seven of Nine's designation at the time she was freed from the collective was "tertiary adjunct of Unimatrix 01" even though she was geographically no where near the Unicomplex at the time. (Maybe the Borg hadn't gotten around to changing her designation. So much for Borg efficiency . . . )

The more I've tried to explain away the inconsistencies, the more my head hurts. So either the writers were just throwing the term around because it sounded cool, or as Borg adapted their use of the term changed so that back in the days of the Hansen's it meant one thing, but "now" it means something else.

Again, any thoughts, theories, or relevant information is welcome.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Option A
Perhaps the unimatrix title IS used as both a co-ordinate system and Borg drone designation where the "origin point" is the Queen. Being a hive mind this would be a reasonably easy system to follow for any single Borg unit. Being so interconnected would mean that both the social and spatial positions of the Queen would always be equally obvious and important to all. If so used, the unimatrix designation of drones and units could change..... and the description of any given point in actual space would be in constant flux as the Queen moved around herself. The point being not so much to locate things in space as to pin-point them relative to the Queen.
OR more likely, as noted, option B
It could be that once again sci-fi script writers are too lazy to run a "score card" system to keep track of their imaginary universe and not clever enought to do it in their heads. So they just make shit up for scripts that sounds cool..... and are arrogant enough to think that any resultant logical inconsistancy isn't immediently obvious to the nerds who like sci-fi. Sometimes it's enough to make me believe that fans are just viewed as coughed socks that like cool sounding space stuff and live in fantasy.
Chook - Pt Pirie.

G.C. McDowell said...

Option A is intriguing - using the queen's location as 001 rather than the Unicomplex itself. Even normal star charts would have to be updated as stars move relative to each other, albeit very slowly. The Borg could certainly keep up with moment to moment changes in their own collective.

alexlyoko13 said...

It says A vessel has been detected at Unimatrix 424, Grid 116, and It's Likly that the Unimatrix is Used as Both co-ordinate system and for a Dornes designation, and the Queen said that Earth was in Grid 325, Maybe It's The Other way around Grids are used to Tell Locations And Unimatrices are Located Within Multiple Grids, Like How a Contry has More Then one Longitude and Latatude

Anonymous said...

To justify the producers/writers' inconsistencies, Unimatrix 424 could be the closest borg vessel.

But option B is of coarse more likely.

Arturis said...

The only feasible option is that of the latter. The producers are crack addicted potheads that just got their nipples squeezed too tight.

B.MacKenzie said...

I think the concept of a tertiary adjunct has to be considered. If we consider that the drones function as one mind, it makes sense to consider the possibility that function may be divided among a subset of them. Perhaps then unimatrices represent a grouping of tasks, and not a specific location or drone.

If the fleet of ships in proximity to the Hansen's ship was under the same directive, they would be in the same unimatrix. Those drones necessary for the accomplishing of any given task, but who were not directly participating in it (say those drones on ships, who weren't otherwise tasked, and close enough not to experience a lag due to long distance communications) would represent a secondary adjunct, and may serve as RAM or extra processing capacity. A tertiary adjunct might then be a drone related directly to a task, perhaps as a subroutine or memory store, but not currently in use by that unimatrix.

This in a way justifies the need for a queen, as the seat of executive thought, filtering the vast array of sensory inputs for the essential information, and issuing commands to the hive body. Unimatrices in and of themselves would represent a conscious thought of the collective mind, and adjuncts to them would represent subconscious processes. The question then becomes this: can we explain other instances under this paradigm? Well sure we can.

What are the main priorities of the borg? Like all hive minds they have a two step priority scale: protect the hive (unimatrix 01) and expand the hive (call it unimatrix 02). So what do we know that the borg consider a threat, and therefore fall under the unimatrix 01 task heading? Humanity comes to mind. Then 7 of 9 would be seen as a valuable asset in protecting the hive from that threat, in and of the fact that she's human. But she's not actively serving that function, and she's not carrying out any task related to it, so she's a tertiary adjunct of unimatrix 01. Makes you wonder how many primary adjuncts they have working on it. In that way, it's clear that her main worth as an asset is the fact that she's human. When Janeway decided to enter into a deal with the borg in order to deal with species 8472, it would make sense for a human serve as a liaison, much in the way Locutus was used at the battle of Wolf 359. This serves to explain why of all the drones on the ship, 7 of 9 was chosen to interact with Janeway in the construction of the nanoprobe weapons.

How about unimatrix 0? If you consider that all the "free" borg who visit it have collectively decided that their only goal is the destruction of the hive mind, that task might have been named unimatrix 0 by them to spite the borg. This also gives us an explanation for why the number of zeroes might change. It is always less ambiguous to name a file, or task, by how many of it there are. Less than 10, unimatrix 1 works. More than ten, unimatrix 01, more than 100, unimatrix 001. Kind of frightening to think that the borg mind can then handle at least 999 executive processes at once. As humans we can handle 1 well, sometimes 2. Then again, we don't have such a large body (of drones) to organize.

Here we have an underpinning for a system of geography as well. If a task is always carried out in the same place, such as the protection of the unicomplex, it makes sense for this to be used as a shorthand for it's spatial coordinates, in this case unimatrix 001 is both the protection of the unicomplex, and the unicomplex itself. This works for unimatrix 0 as well. Much as when I think of my hands, I don't need to know their exact coordinate relative to an object to use them, knowing the task would save having to know where it's specifically being performed. IE: hand grab object on table, or unimatrix 424 change directive to intercept approaching vessel in grid 116. However, given that some tasks, or the object of those task, will have varrying locations, it makes sense to continue to use a system of spatial grids.

B.MacKenzie said...

I think the concept of a tertiary adjunct has to be considered. If we consider that the drones function as one mind, it makes sense to consider the possibility that function may be divided among a subset of them. Perhaps then unimatrices represent a grouping of tasks, and not a specific location or drone.

If the fleet of ships in proximity to the Hansen's ship was under the same directive, they would be in the same unimatrix. Those drones necessary for the accomplishing of any given task, but who were not directly participating in it (say those drones on ships, who weren't otherwise tasked, and close enough not to experience a lag due to long distance communications) would represent a secondary adjunct, and may serve as RAM or extra processing capacity. A tertiary adjunct might then be a drone related directly to a task, perhaps as a subroutine or memory store, but not currently in use by that unimatrix.

This in a way justifies the need for a queen, as the seat of executive thought, filtering the vast array of sensory inputs for the essential information, and issuing commands to the hive body. Unimatrices in and of themselves would represent a conscious thought of the collective mind, and adjuncts to them would represent subconscious processes. The question then becomes this: can we explain other instances under this paradigm? Well sure we can.

What are the main priorities of the borg? Like all hive minds they have a two step priority scale: protect the hive (unimatrix 01) and expand the hive (call it unimatrix 02). So what do we know that the borg consider a threat, and therefore fall under the unimatrix 01 task heading? Humanity comes to mind. Then 7 of 9 would be seen as a valuable asset in protecting the hive from that threat, in and of the fact that she's human. But she's not actively serving that function, and she's not carrying out any task related to it, so she's a tertiary adjunct of unimatrix 01. Makes you wonder how many primary adjuncts they have working on it. In that way, it's clear that her main worth as an asset is the fact that she's human. When Janeway decided to enter into a deal with the borg in order to deal with species 8472, it would make sense for a human serve as a liaison, much in the way Locutus was used at the battle of Wolf 359. This serves to explain why of all the drones on the ship, 7 of 9 was chosen to interact with Janeway in the construction of the nanoprobe weapons.

How about unimatrix 0? If you consider that all the "free" borg who visit it have collectively decided that their only goal is the destruction of the hive mind, that task might have been named unimatrix 0 by them to spite the borg. This also gives us an explanation for why the number of zeroes might change. It is always less ambiguous to name a file, or task, by how many of it there are. Less than 10, unimatrix 1 works. More than ten, unimatrix 01, more than 100, unimatrix 001. Kind of frightening to think that the borg mind can then handle at least 999 executive processes at once. As humans we can handle 1 well, sometimes 2. Then again, we don't have such a large body (of drones) to organize.

Here we have an underpinning for a system of geography as well. If a task is always carried out in the same place, such as the protection of the unicomplex, it makes sense for this to be used as a shorthand for it's spatial coordinates, in this case unimatrix 001 is both the protection of the unicomplex, and the unicomplex itself. This works for unimatrix 0 as well. Much as when I think of my hands, I don't need to know their exact coordinate relative to an object to use them, knowing the task would save having to know where it's specifically being performed. IE: hand grab object on table, or unimatrix 424 change directive to intercept approaching vessel in grid 116. However, given that some tasks, or the object of those task, will have varrying locations, it makes sense to continue to use a system of spatial grids.

Anonymous said...

Or, it's a TV show and well maybe you should leave it at that.

Anonymous said...

It is possible that the designation of a drone (Geographical designation, that is) is assigned by where the Drone was when is was assimilated. That would mean that 7 of 9 was assimilated in the vicinity of Unimatrix 001. or it could refer to a fixed patrol region, although the cube is in motion, it is responsible for the space around it as well as a fixed region of space. I like the idea that the spatial component of a Borg's designation is assigned by the location that the drone was acquired, or perhaps where it was connected to the collective, rather then a transient designation that is reassigned with each transit to a new region (the whole cube would need to be reassigned and re-designated relative to to the drones existing in the region. The Borg have redundant designations, but not conflicting ones.) There is a "7 of 9" for each region of space where enough Borg drones have been acquired. I think they might reuse old designations when a drone is rendered inactive, so the next drone acquired in Unimatrix 001 would logically be designated "7 of 9". the rank is just that, a rank. 7 of 9 of Unimatrix 001 is a unique designation, although 7 of 9, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 001 is also a viably unique designation, with the adjunct number being serial and nothing else.

Gaby de Wilde said...

It is to obviously a serial numbering system started when this queen was created. Just like the lower species numbers are those first encountered?

Uni could short for "Unidirectional" : Moving or operating in one direction only. It gets rid of the complexities of 3d space by putting everything in one row. Much like we would sort names in alpahbetic order.

Gaby de Wilde said...

I think it just a serial numbering system started when this queen was created. Just like the lower species numbers are those first encountered?

Uni could short for "Unidirectional" : Moving or operating in one direction only. It gets rid of the complexities of 3d space by putting everything in one row. Much like we would sort names in alpahbetic order.