Masters of the Universe.  Red Dwarf.  Mortal Kombat.  And we revisit Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek.

Let’s start this year’s borg.com Hall of Fame ceremony by talking a little about who is NOT in the Hall of Fame who might come close if borgs were more loosely defined.  We still haven’t included the non-organic: like automatons, androids, or robots.  Think Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation before he met the queen in Star Trek: First Contact–despite his perfectly life-like appearance.  For the bulk of the series Data was always an android, not a cyborg.  He’s just a highly advanced C-3PO–until First Contact. 

Droids from Star Wars, Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still, Robot B-9 from Lost in Space or Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet, the Autobots and Decepticons of Transformers, the police force of THX-1138, Box in Logan’s Run, the perfectly human appearing kid-like star of D.A.R.Y.L., the several automatons of episode after episode of The Twilight Zone, Beta in The Last Starfighter, Tron and Flynn and the other microscopic, human-like bits of data in Tron, Hellboy II’s Golden Army, the future Iowa Highway Patrolman in Star Trek 2009 (we assume he’s just wearing some police safety mask), Rosie the maid in The Jetsons, Hogey the Roguey from Red Dwarf, Marvin the Android in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, X-Men’s Sentinels, Lal and Juliana Tainer from Star Trek: The Next Generation, the title character of CHAPPiE, or Iron Giant, despite their human-like or bipedal nature, none are actual borgs because they lack biological matter, living cells, or the like.

The same applies for the robotic hosts in Westworld–Michael Crichton’s original was clear these were merely automaton robots and we’ve seen nothing from 2016’s HBO series to show that has changed (even the NY Times got it wrong).  Which explains why The Stepford Wives aren’t on the list, or Fembots, either from The Bionic Woman or the Austin Powers series, or the Buffybot in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

So who’s in?

Here is Round 4, the twenty-eight 2016 borg.com Hall of Fame honorees, in no particular order, some from 2016 and others from the past, bringing the roster count to 134 individuals and groups:

First up is Time, yep… Time itself.  From Alice Through the Looking Glass, a powerful Father Time-esque human/clockwork hybrid who rules over Underland–

From George Lucas’s original Force-wielding character as envisioned by Mike Mayhew: Kane Starkiller from Marvel Comics’ alternate universe story, The Star Wars:

The Major, from 2017’s Ghost in the Shell:

Max Steel got his own movie in 2016:

Steel hails from the Mattel action figure who received multiple super powers due to an accidental infusion of nanobots:

Cave Carson from the update of the classic DC Comics comic book series spelunker, the new series Cave Carson has a Cybernetic Eye:

Although he was a charter member of the borg.com Hall of Fame, Darth Vader returned in Rogue One, providing some new images of the classic borg:

More of our inductees, after the cut…

Rogue One included a barely visible view of Darth Vader’s remaining organic body, post-Anakin Skywalker, shown in a bacta tank (better visible as the prop that was in the tank in the behind the scenes feature released in advance of the film).

Here is the cybernetic-eyed gang leader from the comic book Barrens:

Cyborg Superman made his way to the CW Network series Supergirl in 2016:

Logan/Wolverine has a new, older look in 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse, to be continued in 2017’s theatrical release, Logan…

… and Logan is meeting up with the similarly superpowered character X-23:

Another borg from Logan is Donald Pierce:

How did we forget Vincent Price’s (and Tim Burton’s) creation, Edward Scissorhands?

Just like we added Lt. Cmdr. Data from his movie era biological additions, we’re bringing into the Hall Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: The Next Generation, who was born blind and uses optical implants combined with his VISOR, to see.  The VISOR has been twice replaced temporarily with biological eyes and, in the films, permanently replaced with ocular implants:

From Red Dwarf, the Simulants, berserker warlords who have been crossbred with humans to create insane biomechanical entities of pure evil…

… including their leader Dominator Zlurth:

And Kryten 2X4B-523P from Red Dwarf, whose brain was at least at some point partially organic:

And also from Red Dwarf, Dave Lister, whose arm was replaced with a cybernetic prosthesis:

From Masters of the Universe’s early years… the cyborg warrior Extendar:

Mekaneck:

Rio Blast:

Rotar:

Sy-Klone:

Trap-Jaw:

Tri-Klops:

And finally, Twistoid:

The half-organic, half-robotic Bionicles from LEGO qualify as borg:

The Spartans from the Halo series:

From Mortal Kombat, Cyrax…

Sektor…

… and Smoke:

And, finally, from the Star Wars Expanded Universe or “Legends”– Lumiya:

So that’s it for now.  We’ve added these to the borg.com Hall of Fame at the “Know your borg” link on our home page.  Let us know if you find any others we should add next time around.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com