Borg Booze - Assimilation Wine

On the Borg label you can see those two lovable characters, well us really, done up in whiteface (like shitface only cleaner) and masked. It’s amazing now just how much we’ve gotten into this whole Christmas wine and label thing, and what we’ll do now to put ourselves into the action. I actually sent away to the States for the Borg mask and make-up kit and we spent quite a bit of time prepping for the shots.

In the cube spaceship background that we superimposed our images over there are actually parts of the truck if you look for them.

For the brochure’s main image we used a different shot, one of the Queen Borg, and with the pick-up truck in the background again.


The story ran:

The Borg had caught the Campbell brothers. They had been assimilated and were cyborgs now, half human and half machine. They had wires and tubes running in and out of their bodies. Ralph kept saying the change was for the good, but more tubing would be nice.

But the Borg were now having problems. Always until this time they had thought and acted as one, as a whole, as one mind, but for the first time the collective was becoming confused.

First they, or rather it, couldn’t understand why nothing taken from the captured green vehicle worked. Everything failed to function, even as hull plaiting. It was all so illogical.

Secondly, the behaviour of the newly assimilated biological units was even more confusing. They were supposed to be connected to the hive but they wouldn’t mind. They not only gave the collective mind a migrane, but they ran around doing bizarre un-Borglike things, playing practical jokes, refusing to do what they were expected. They wouldn’t even respond to any name except the ones they had given themselves.

Colin called himself Smorgas the Borg. He would giggle and run off down the catwalks back to his recharge chamber, which he was rewiring to boost the signal into the pleasure centres of his brain. He was also seen in various sections of the ship taking pipes and parts for his project.

Ralph chose the name Ernest Borg Nine for himself. He also became self-appointed leader of the small creatures that were also assimilated from the truck, the MiceBorg 5, mainly because he was bigger than they were. With them he started the MouseBorg Shooter Bar with him as owner and bouncer.

Numbers of the crew of the Borg ship had started to attend the bar on a regular basis, often ignoring their other duties.

Ernest Borg Nine then introduced cards and games of chance to the club. Smorgas introduced something called pleasure booths.

Since the Borg didn’t have money, the brothers had instituted a kind of Borg barter system, and were soon amassing quite a wealth of gems, unusual artifacts and weapons from the countless cultures that the Borg had subjugated and then assimilated.

The Queen of the hive was aware of the headache in the collective mind but couldn’t for the longest time pinpoint the reason. Thoughts in a certain area were murky. Soon she could not ignore the pain because it was interfering with the normal operations of the cube ship. With effort she pinpointed the source, the recent arrivals. She decided to become personally involved, and had the brothers brought to her chamber. The Brothers Borg arrived in time to watch as she joined her upper and lower selves.

The Queen had by this time compiled a long list of the deviant behaviour of these creatures. During the lengthy interview she told them that she was incensed by their un-Borglike behaviour and it would stop. The production of this thing called alcohol would stop. Gambling would stop. Resistance was futile.

She then had them reprogrammed, twice, then twice more.

Smorgas the Borg left the audience with a slightly glazed smile on his face.

Not long after ‘the audience’ occurred the Queen’s lower body unit started to disappear for extended intervals of time, leaving her stranded in her chambers and very short tempered. The body unit would re-appear sometime later dressed in high heels, garter belt and stockings (all this stuff coming from who knows where) stinking of the products of combustion and fermentation, smoke and alcohol. The Queen now had some idea where the root of the problem lay.

An irate Queen, eager for confrontation, merged with the lower half of herself after it had returned home after one of these absences. She discovered, much to her alarm, that she had an almost irresistible urge to do things like ‘get down and boogie’ or ‘do the nasty’, whatever they were. The Queen was not amused. She left the chamber in pursuit of the brothers.

She found out the bar was not only operating, but expanding still. She entered it during something called ‘happy hour’. It was dark and full of smoke. Rhythmic noise and flashing lights assaulted her. She found herself starting to move in time to the sound, to the beat. It took a considerable effort of will to stop. The noise grated on her nerves, and out of the din assaulting her the only word she seemed to understand sounded something like TillsonBorg. She was not pleased.

As her eyes and sensors adjusted to the interior gloom she noticed a holographic advertising display near the entrance where a holo of her lower portion gyrated to the beat. She was shocked to discover that ‘it’ was a headliner at the club and went by the name of Leggy Lydia. She was really not amused. She approached the image and started to scan the smaller words on the flickering display and discovered that Smorgas was her lower half’s manager. She literally steamed.

The Queen then noticed several unusual looking recharge stations located in corners of the space, some were occupied by Borg who were quivering and clutching at themselves in ecstatic trance. Steam turned to sparks.

When the MiceBorg spotted her they dropped the shooters they were serving and disappeared into the darkness.

The brothers were captured and again brought before the Queen. In addition to their previous uncorrected behaviour more new and alarming information about their activities was beginning to come to light.

Ernest Borg Nine had started a petition among the crew to have him elected as shop steward for a first collective agreement. This would not be tolerated.

Smorgas the Borg was converting more and more of the ship to produce intoxicants which he was then passing on to his brother for the club as well as introducing ‘samples’ into the crew’s recharge stations. This would really not be tolerated.

Ernest and Smorgas, it was decided, were making life on the Borg cube intolerable.

The Borg, who had by now traced from which galaxy, sun, and world the creatures had come, were at this instant entering the Sol system in order to assimilate the planet and claim the resources. After seeing what the creatures from this planet were like firsthand, just these, and how their machinery never worked properly, they changed their mind and decided not to touch the planet with a thousand meter tractor beam, and further decided to head for the farthest, and I do mean farthest, reaches of the galaxy.

The humans were ejected from the ship and the collective, along with the MiceBorg and truck too. They were cast adrift circling Uranus.

When they had gone the Borg gave a collective sigh of relief.


On the back panel of the brochure was the following disclaimer:


This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to person or persons who may or may not be brothers, whether they claim to be related or not, is expressly intended.