Is Control in Star Trek: Discovery being used as an easter egg?
So, I just watched the Star Trek: Discovery episode "Perpetual Infinity" (S02E11). Control is a pure mechanical AI. But I had a suspicion.
When Control took over Leland's body, the scene seemed to be very reminiscent of Borg. Struggling is pointless... Resistance is futile... even nanites with even a very similiar flooding and blood colour change, even mechanical parts spreading themselves out, though only afterwards.
Though, Control is a time travelling pure mechanical AI, it only achieved its goal through the Sphere's data... As we saw, it gained a portion of it. Maybe it's a bad guess, but I could see that DSC will use the lack of a data as the reason why Control decided to merge with the universal biosphere to achieve its end goal of what seems to be universal order, rather than killing everything...
Is this scene just a happy easter egg... or are we seeing DSC trying to use Control as a origin story to the Borg? Or is there just too much differences in Borg Lore that couldn't allow for Discovery to make such a, in my opinion, bad origin story?
Best Answer
Control is not the only "non-organic" entity in the canon. This season, you've also seen the sphere (whose data was passed to Discovery), another similar "singularity-like" entity.
The timeline doesn't match up for Control to be the origin of the Borg (as commented by Memor-X-).
It's not impossible for this to be retconned (e.g. if Control get access to time travel and somehow decides to travel to the past instead of the future), but that has not been established so it's just a wildly unfounded idea.
However, the Borg and Control seem to be variations of the same "machine singularity" trope that is pervasive in scifi. Almost always, a plot containing robotic life ends up in a singularity attempt (whether through corruption, misguidance, or willful intent).
A great example of this are the Cybermen from Doctor Who. They represent the machine singularity, and they have been (separately) invented countless times, always leading to the same result: an attempted maching singularity.
The fact that they always look the same can be attributed to it being made clear to the viewer that this is another variation on the Cybermen. In theory, there's no reason for the machines to look the same other than recognizability to the viewer.
In that sense, it seems that the Borg's existence and that of Control follows the same general progression, whereby they assumption is made that a singular universal mind is better than a universe with many divided minds.
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What happened to control in Star Trek: Discovery?
In the Star Trek: Section 31 novels predating Discovery's season 2 Disavowed and Control, "Control" of Section 31 was an Artificial Intelligence which evolved within the computing systems of a covert United Earth (later Federation) surveillance network known as Uraei (\u03b2). This Control was stopped by Julian Bashir.What is control in Star Trek: Discovery?
Located within Section 31's Forward Operating Base in its data center, Control was Starfleet's threat-assessment system. Relying on artificial intelligence from the future that Starfleet had harnessed, they relied on it for recommendations regarding all critical strategic decisions.Was control the Borg?
Control could be a time-traveling proto-Borg In Discovery Season 2, Control behaved like a primitive version of the Borg, complete with nano-probes capable of taking over human bodies. Perhaps Control went to the distant past of the Romulan people and assimilated them.Why did Star Trek: Discovery fail?
Most of the characters in Discovery, the ones important to the story anyways, had stunted character development arcs. Sure there are a few exceptions to that statement but overall, Discovery failed its characters. The Next Generation explored each character with vivid detail.Star Trek Discovery- 2x14 || Season Finale || Philippa Georgiou vs Control/Leland || CBS
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