Brain bug

A brain bug is any concept or feature in a fictional franchise that starts out small and insignificant but grows to ridiculous proportions. What began as something seen on one or two TV episodes or novels becomes a universal feature of the franchise down the road, often to the point of making absolutely no sense. What could initially be chalked up as an oversight of some kind becomes common practice, even though the concept is utter stupidity if one were to stop and think about it. Brain bugs are particularly offensive when they begin as a character trait of one or a few members of a particular group, race or species, and that trait is subsequently applied to every member of that group.

Examples

• Jefferies tubes: In TOS, certain repairs on the engines and transporters could only be done in a narrow access tube. In TNG and later, numerous repairs were carried out in such tubes, which comprised almost as much of the ship's volume as the regular corridors.
• Cross-species matings: In TOS, Spock was the product of the marriage of a Human and a Vulcan, and his conception apparently required significant medical intervention. In TNG and later, humans and aliens could interbreed without medical assistance to produce fertile children, and such hybrids were surprisingly common.
• Monolithic cultures: In TNG and later Star Trek series, races which might have seemed culturally diverse when introduced quickly degenerated to revolve around a single cultural element. Examples:
  • The Klingons (who became Space Vikings) and the Ferengi (who became fanatical anarcho-capitalists who literally worship commerce). Numerous one-episode alien cultures were also depicted as obsessively revolving around a single activity.
  • Star Wars is not innocent in this regard: Hutts all seem to be space gangsters.
  • Other franchises are also affected: the Predator movie series started with one alien trophy hunter coming to Earth to hunt dangerous humans, but by the first sequel, the entire species was obsessed with trophy hunting.
• Borg assimilation: The idea of Borg assimilating other civilizations evolved to become so extreme that they did nothing else. They didn't do research; they didn't invent; they didn't even breed. They only acquired new knowledge, technology, and population (drones) by assimilating cultures that already had those things.
  • When the Borg first appeared in TNG "Q Who", they had no interest in the humans on the Enterprise, they only wanted the ship itself for the components and resources that they could use. They somehow reproduced, and their infants received their first cybernetic implants immediately.
  • In TNG "The Best of Both Worlds", the Borg decided to conquer Earth, turning humanity into a servant species. To this end, they turned Captain Picard into a Borg to facilitate the conversion. This was the birth of the brain bug.
  • In Star Trek: First Contact, the purpose of the Borg had completely changed. They were now uninterested in human technology; they wanted to convert all humans into Borg drones, and instead of surgically altering them one-by-one, they had specialized weapons to assimilate humanoids in moments.
  • In VOY "Scorpion", the transformation is complete. The Borg are completely unable to deal with the problem of Species 8472 because they can't assimilate them. The Doctor on Voyager is able to devise a solution using Borg technology within a few days, but even knowing that the humans developed this solution using their own technology, the Borg are unable to reproduce it themselves.
• Second Breakfast: In J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (written in 1937), independently wealthy hobbit Bilbo Baggins starts a "second breakfast" after a particularly stressful night with a dozen dwarves. In Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring movie (2001), "second breakfast" and an assortment of other daily meals (totaling seven) is standard hobbit behavior.

External Links

• Mike Wong's essay on Brain bugs