Star Trek, technology, I just have to throw my two yen into this one I'm
afraid.  
Data is something that is advanced beyond anything currently imaginable
by modern day technology.  Sure, we almost have the storage and
mechanical capacity to make him a reality, but we still lack in the
personality department.  Soong's greatest advancement was not the
'positronic brain', but the software that was created to 'run' Data (and
Lore, for that matter).  Boomer's are also out of range for the same
reasons.  I don't see us advancing to the point of giving actual emotion
to androids for *at least* a couple of hundred years (assuming we figure
out what gives us emotions somewhere along the way).  The Borg are a
different story all together.  They are a collective of cybornetic
creatures spawned from countless species and technologies.  They adapt
at an incredible rate due to their ability to communicate
instantaneously with all other Borg and make rapid adjustments to their
hardware and sofware, on the fly.  They rely on sheer numbers for
protection, and don't lack much in that department.  Loosing a 'person'
to them is much like us loosing cells, a few and you can attempt to
adapt to whatever is destorying them, loose too many and you can forget
it.  Onward... Warp Drive, Holodeck, Synthehol, while amazing, these are
not the furthest reaches of Star Trek.  The Transporter and Replicator
are.  They pretend to be able to manipulate particles as though they
were balls, to be thrown around and arranged in patterns at will.  At
are current level of Quantum Physical understanding, this is a dream.
Even if we break the Uncertainty Principle, we still have to find a way
to scan, catagorize, ship, and reform some octillion number of particles
within the span of a few minutes (for it to be practical).  I'm pretty
damn sure this is not an easy thing to accomplish.  I don't care what
universe you are in, BGC does not have the level of technology to do
half the stuff you see in ST.  Even in our universe we are a ways away
from being able to do such mystical things as travel faster than light
(seems impossible actually), contain and use an antimatter/matter
reaction (though I believe they are getting close to this one), and
control gravity.  However, some stuff is way behind I think.  I'm sure
our computer technology will have surpassed ST's long before the 23
century, as we are currently coming near being able to, at least, match
it now.  Weapons are another thing.  Phasers seem a bit old fasioned
allready.  We allready have (unconfermed, but pretty sure) have
satellites in orbit that can take out a ground target with a few
millimeter margin of error.  Fortunately, we have strayed away from
nuclear arms, as I don't even want to go there.  Geez, this two cents
has turned into a buck twenty five.  Oh well, I haven't gotten into a
half way decent conversation in a long time.  Later,
PMasters    

"There you go, man!  Keep as cool as you can!  Face piles of trials with
smiles.  It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave,
and keep on thinking free!" - The Moody Blues
/ My anime fanfiction page:
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/ E-mail at:  PhilMasters@webtv.net
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