The Borg were a pseudo-species of cybernetic humanoids, or cyborgs, from the Delta Quadrant known as drones, which formed the entire population of the Borg Collective. Their ultimate goal was the attainment of 'perfection' through the forcible assimilation of diverse sentient species, technologies, and knowledge which would be added and absorbed into the hive mind. As a result, the Borg were among the most powerful and feared entities in the galaxy, without really being a true species at all. (TNG: "Q Who", "The Best of Both Worlds"; Star Trek: First Contact)
In 2378, the original Collective was crippled by a neurolytic pathogen introduced by an alternate Kathryn Janeway, leading to their decay over the next two decades and eventually their presumed destruction on Frontier Day, 2401. (VOY: "Endgame"; PIC: "The Last Generation")
Physiology[]
The physiology of each Borg drone varied according to the species which it was assimilated from. (Star Trek: First Contact) Drones were typically humanoid, although the Collective demonstrated a willingness to assimilate non-humanoid lifeforms. (VOY: "Scorpion")
A set of Borg implants after removal
Upon assimilation, a drone would cease to grow body hair and would develop a pallid skin coloration, differing from its original skin pigmentation. Cybernetic implants were either surgically attached to the body or grown internally by nanoprobes injected into the bloodstream; in certain cases these implants could cause severe skin irritation. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds"; Star Trek: First Contact) The nature of these implants varied from drone to drone depending on the drone's intended function, but the basic nodes of interlink for communications with the Collective and a myo-neural cortical array to control movements were implemented in every drone. In most cases, an eye would be replaced with an eyepiece that improved its vision and an arm would be amputated altogether to make room for a functional prosthetic; in tactical drones, a weapon would be included, and some drones had medical tools built in to heal drones who had minor injuries. (VOY: "The Gift", "Dark Frontier") The implants of a fully assimilated drone allowed it to function for extended periods without shelter, food, water, or even air. A drone could even survive in the vacuum of outer space. Lily Sloane, a Human observer local to the Earth of the 21st century, characterized Borg drones as "bionic zombies" after hearing a description of them, albeit before observing them directly. (Star Trek: First Contact)
A drone's only requirement was a supply of energy to maintain the implants that in turn maintained its biological functions. This energy was supplied during regeneration cycles within a Borg alcove. Upon receiving damage, a drone would return to the alcove for assessment of the damage. Severely damaged drones were disassembled and scavenged for reusable parts. (TNG: "Q Who", "I Borg")
Infant Borg
The Borg did not procreate; they would add to the Collective's population only by assimilation. (VOY: "Drone") Borg infants were not accepted to the collective until they matured to a certain age. Until reaching this age, assimilated infants and youths were placed inside maturation chambers. (TNG: "Q Who"; VOY: "Collective")
Commander William T. Riker, in 2365, observed an infant Borg and speculated the infant represented the Borg's natural offspring, with artificial implants first added immediately after birth. (TNG: "Q Who") Later episodes, such as VOY: "Drone", presented the idea that the Borg do not procreate amongst themselves and that youths taken by the Collective were placed in maturation chambers to accelerate their growth into adult drones.
Borg drones were equipped with myriad technologies integrated into their bodies which enabled them to perform their duties within the Collective, several of which were universal to all drones. A neural transceiver kept them connected to the hive mind. (VOY: "Scorpion, Part II") A personal force field protected each drone from most energy-based attacks. (TNG: "Q Who") A drone was able to communicate with their ship by signals across a subspace domain, the basis of their hive mind, which Data likened to a transporter beam. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II") Each drone possessed a pair of assimilation tubules embedded in one hand for the purpose of instantly injecting individuals with Borg nanoprobes. (Star Trek: First Contact) A cortical processor allowed a drone to rapidly assimilate visual information. Borg drones were also equipped with a neural processor, which kept a record of every instruction that particular Borg receives from the collective hive mind. Captain Picard used one such processor to discover that the Borg were attempting to use the deflector dish of the USS Enterprise as an interplexing beacon to contact the Borg in 2063. (Star Trek: First Contact)
Drones also contained fail-safe mechanisms designed to deactivate and even vaporize their own bodies, thereby allowing the Collective to eliminate damaged or dead drones without leaving their remains to be exploited by outsiders. (TNG: "Q Who") The captured drone Third of Five also made comments indicating that this vaporization may have been a form of resource re-absorption. (TNG: "I Borg") One of these fail-safes was also intended to deactivate drones automatically if they experienced strong emotional states, which the Borg interpreted as a sign of disconnection from the hive mind. (VOY: "Human Error")
The Borg typically operated in an atmosphere with a constant temperature of 39.1 °C (102.38 °F), 92% relative humidity, an atmospheric pressure of approximately 102 kPa, and trace amounts of tetryon particles. According to Amina Ramsey, the Borg smelled like old trash bags. (LD: "Much Ado About Boimler").
History[]
- Main article: Borg history
A Borg skeleton on a ruined planet
The precise origins of the Borg were unclear. As of 1484, they were reported as controlling only a handful of systems in the Delta Quadrant, but by 2373, they had assimilated thousands of worlds. In addition to this stronghold in the Delta Quadrant, the Borg also dispatched vessels throughout the galaxy via transwarp conduits. (VOY: "Dragon's Teeth", "Scorpion", "Endgame")
A Borg vessel traveled back in time from 2373 in an unsuccessful attack on Earth in 2063. (Star Trek: First Contact) Drones which survived this defeat were discovered and reactivated by Human scientists in 2153, and transmitted a subspace message to Borg space before being destroyed by Enterprise NX-01. (ENT: "Regeneration")
The Borg entered the home system of the El-Aurians at some point in their mutual history, swarming through it, scattering its native inhabitants and leaving little to nothing of the El-Aurians in their wake. (TNG: "Q Who", "I Borg") In 2293, the Federation offered aid to the El-Aurian refugees fleeing the Borg. (Star Trek Generations) These refugees included Guinan, who would later provide secondhand knowledge of the Borg invasion of the El-Aurian system to the crew of the USS Enterprise-D during an encounter in the 24th century. (TNG: "Q Who", Star Trek Generations) However, these earlier incidents contributed almost nothing to the Alpha Quadrant's awareness or understanding of the Borg Collective.
By the 2340s, rumors of an alien race called "The Borg" had reached the Alpha Quadrant, inspiring exobiologists Magnus and Erin Hansen to set out in search of them. Their research took them all the way to the Delta Quadrant, before they and their daughter Annika were assimilated in 2350. (VOY: "The Gift", "The Raven", "Dark Frontier") Borg activity in the Alpha Quadrant, including the assimilation of the USS Tombaugh in 2362 and assimilation of outposts along the Romulan Neutral Zone in 2364, were complete mysteries to Starfleet. (VOY: "Infinite Regress"; TNG: "The Neutral Zone")
The Collective's true nature was finally revealed to the Federation in 2365 when Q took the USS Enterprise-D to meet a Borg cube near the J-25 system. (TNG: "Q Who")
In late 2366, a Borg cube invaded Federation space and assimilated Jean-Luc Picard, whose tactical information contributed, along with the Borg's own vastly superior power, to Starfleet's disastrously one-sided engagement with the cube, the Battle of Wolf 359. A fleet of forty starships assembled to combat the cube. All but one of these Federation ships were destroyed, while the cube itself remained intact, damaged but healing rapidly. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds", "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II"; DS9: "Emissary") The Enterprise-D recovered Picard and used his connection to the hive-mind to disable the cube before it could attack Earth. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II")
During the 2370s, the Borg were beset by several major setbacks in the Delta Quadrant, as witnessed by the crew of the USS Voyager.
The Borg-Species 8472 War decimated the Collective from 2373-2374. (VOY: "Scorpion", "Scorpion, Part II") Voyager's liberation of Seven of Nine allowed Unimatrix Zero to create an active resistance movement in 2377. (VOY: "Unimatrix Zero", "Unimatrix Zero, Part II")
In 2378, a crippling blow was delivered to the Borg when Voyager discovered one of their transwarp hubs and destroyed it, killing the Borg Queen (again) and devastating the Unicomplex in the process. During this battle, the Borg were infected with a neurolytic pathogen, which was carried by an alternate future version of Admiral Janeway and designed to disrupt the hive mind, to 'bring chaos to order'. It was this pathogen that killed the Borg Queen and allowed Voyager to destroy the transwarp hub. (VOY: "Endgame") The pathogen decimated the Borg Collective, leaving them reduced a handful of drones slowly cannibalized to sustain the Queen's last remaining body by 2401. (PIC: "The Last Generation")
In 2384, a Borg cube rendered dormant by the neurolytic pathogen was encountered by the USS Protostar. The crew proceeded to venture into the cube in order to access the vinculum to gain information on how to remove a weapon called the living construct from their ship. When the Medusan Zero volunteered to be assimilated to get the information, this act caused the cube and the drones aboard to wake up. The crew barely managed to escape as they helped Zero to break free from the Collective, who then managed to put the Borg back to sleep. (PRO: "Let Sleeping Borg Lie")
The Borg emerge from Jupiter on Frontier Day, 2401
The Borg Collective was still believed to operate as late as 2399, (PIC: "Maps and Legends") although in 2401 Dr. Agnes Jurati referred to the Borg as "effectively decimated, functionally hobbled." (PIC: "The Star Gazer")
On Frontier Day in 2401, this was confirmed after discovery that the main faction of the Borg were working with the rogue Changelings in a plot to assimilate the Federation via a different means than normal. With the Changelings infiltrating the Federation and spreading Picard's Borg-altered DNA through the transporter system, the Borg were able to quickly gain control over 339 starships, and their crews with only those over 25 years old being immune to their takeover. (PIC: "Võx") This proved to be the last stand for the original Borg with the Cube, the Queen and all of her remaining drones being destroyed by the rebuilt USS Enterprise-D, presumably bringing an end to the Borg threat. (PIC: "The Last Generation")
Former Picard Research Assistant Jörg Hillebrand has established that the fleet gathered in the fleet formation mode consisted of a grand total of 339 starships from 17 different ship classes. [1]
In the far future, extant Borg assimilated into galactic society, with Borg children learning side-by-side with children of other species. (LD: "Temporal Edict")
Alternate timelines[]
Confederation of Earth[]
Borg Singularity in 2401
In 2401, an atypical Borg Queen reached out to Admiral Jean-Luc Picard seeking membership in the Federation. Much to the Federation's confusion, this Borg Queen was vastly different to the Queen that had been encountered before and her Collective wasn't nearly as outwardly hostile. However, once aboard the USS Stargazer, the Queen began assimilating the ship and through it, the Stargazer's fleet. In response, Picard activated the ship's auto-destruct, stopping the assimilation. (PIC: "The Star Gazer")
In that moment, Q had removed Picard, Agnes Jurati, Seven, Raffaela Musiker, Cristóbal Rios, and Elnor from this timeline, and placed them in an alternate 2401. In this timeline, the Borg had been hunted to extinction by the Confederation of Earth, leaving only the Borg Queen. (PIC: "Penance")
The Singularity and Federation vessels deflecting the energy burst
After being returned from 2024 to 2401 by Q, Picard deactivates the auto-destruct, having deduced that the strange Borg Queen was actually the Queen from this timeline that had merged with Dr. Agnes Jurati in 2024 and had set out to create a different Collective, one based on mercy and choice. These Borg had sought out the Federation's help to stop an energy wave that threatened countless lives and by combining the shields of the Federation fleet and the Borg ship, the two former mortal enemies were able to stop it. However, the Borg didn't know the source of the energy wave or the massive transwarp conduit that emerged from it, only that it was a threat to everyone. Picard granted the Borg Queen's request to grant the Borg provisional membership in the Federation so that the Borg could be "the Guardian at the Gates" watching out for whatever this new threat was. (PIC: "Farewell")
Parallel universes[]
Picard's death[]
In one alternate quantum reality, Captain Jean-Luc Picard was lost in the Battle of Wolf 359 and William T. Riker succeeded him as the captain of the Enterprise-D with Worf as his first officer. (TNG: "Parallels")
Victory over the Federation[]
A disheveled Riker of a Borg controlled quantum reality
In another alternate quantum reality, the Borg, after emerging victorious at Wolf 359, successfully conquered the Federation. A battered Enterprise-D, which was likewise under Riker's command, was one of the few remaining Starfleet ships by 2370. The Riker from that reality was desperate not to return to his universe once all of the Enterprises began spilling into a single universe from a quantum fissure.
After the present reality's Enterprise-D fired lightly upon the other ship to draw the alternate reality crew's attention away from that crew's attempt to prevent the closing of the fissure, the heavily damaged ship was accidentally destroyed when its shields collapsed and their warp core overloaded, due to having a weakened warp containment field, as Riker presumed, from fighting with the Borg. (TNG: "Parallels")
Borg-Earth[]
Borg-assimilated Earth
In another alternate timeline, the Borg were successful at preventing First Contact in 2063 and had assimilated the Earth. In 2373, the assimilated Earth had an atmosphere containing high concentrations of methane, carbon monoxide, and fluorine. It had a population of approximately nine billion Borg drones. (Star Trek: First Contact)
Culture[]
A trio of Borg drones, including one of Klingon origin
- See also: Borg philosophy
The Borg Collective was made up of, at the very least, trillions of humanoids referred to as drones. (VOY: "Dark Frontier") Through the use of their cybernetic implants, the Borg interacted by sharing one another's thoughts in a hive mind. Upon assimilation, these trillions of "voices" would overwhelm the drone, stifling individual thought and resistance to the Collective's will. (TNG: "Family") To some drones these voices could eventually become a source of comfort, and their absence a source of pain. (TNG: "I Borg"; VOY: "The Gift")
Borg philosophy was governed by a primary directive to add the biological and technological distinctiveness of other species to that of the Borg. In this manner, the Collective sought to achieve its definition of perfection; all other pursuits were deemed irrelevant including commerce and trade. Accordingly, Borg drones did not engage in any activities except their duties and regeneration. (TNG: "Q Who", "The Best of Both Worlds"; VOY: "Scorpion, Part II") Individual drones have demonstrated puzzlement at other species' unwillingness to be assimilated, the drones believing in the superiority of their way of life.
Having no regard for individuality, Borg drones were identified with designations rather than names. A drone's designation typically described its position within a group, e.g. "Third of Five." To identify a drone more specifically, its function could be appended to this designation, for example "Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01." In the same manner, the Borg referred to alien species by number rather than by name. (TNG: "I Borg"; VOY: "Scorpion")
If a drone was sufficiently injured or otherwise in distress, other drones would offer assistance. (TNG: "I Borg"; VOY: "Dark Frontier") However, if a drone was deemed irreparable by the hive-mind, the Borg would deactivate it and redistribute any salvageable components throughout the Collective. (TNG: "Q Who")
Borg drones ignored alien species until they demonstrated the potential to be a threat, or to be a suitable candidate for assimilation. This indifference even extended to their attitude to people boarding their vessels; the drones went about their business as long as the intruders did not interfere. When addressing a small number of individuals, drones would simply attempt to assimilate them without comment. Before assimilating a larger population, such as a starship or an entire culture, the Borg would collectively transmit a standard announcement of their purpose and the futility of resistance. (TNG: "Q Who"; VOY: "Dark Frontier"; Star Trek: First Contact) Species which the Borg found unremarkable or detrimental would be deemed unworthy of assimilation. As of 2374, the Borg considered the Kazon beneath their notice, and by 2376, they only took interest in the Brunali if they detected sufficiently relevant technology. (VOY: "Mortal Coil", "Child's Play")
Even examples of civilizations which had previously been targeted for assimilation could be passed over; while moving to engage the dire threat to the Borg presented by Species 8472, a group of Borg ships encountered Voyager, but, while one ship did pause momentarily to scan the Federation vessel, the Borg ship and its companion ships quickly moved on without attempting to attack or assimilate the interloper in their space. (VOY: "Scorpion")
Representatives of the Collective: Locutus with the Borg Queen
On the rare occasions that the Borg were willing to open any dialogue with individuals, they would choose a single drone to speak for the Collective. Jean-Luc Picard was assimilated and given the name Locutus in the misguided assumption that such a representative would lower the Federation's resistance to assimilation. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds")
Seven of Nine speaks for the Collective
The Omega molecule
When Kathryn Janeway successfully negotiated a truce with the Borg and refused to discuss the terms via a neuro-transceiver, the Collective agreed to communicate via Seven of Nine. (VOY: "Scorpion, Part II")
The Borg Queen also spoke for the Collective, acting not as a mere liaison, but as a physical manifestation of the hive mind. The exact nature of her role is unclear. (Star Trek: First Contact)
The Borg possessed a near-reverence for particle 010, which they considered to be an expression of perfection. The Collective's fascination with assimilating this molecule has been compared to a religion. (VOY: "The Omega Directive")
Tactics[]
The Borg had a tendency to "scoop" all machine elements from a planet, leaving great rips in the surface where remaining sections of the road system suggested a city had once been. (TNG: "The Neutral Zone", "Q Who"; VOY: "Child's Play")
The Sakari colony attacked by the Borg some sixty or seventy years before 2373 seen in "Blood Fever" appeared destroyed in a more conventional manner.
The Borg were known to retrieve their own damaged technology, including nonfunctional Borg cubes. However, when a cube underwent submatrix collapse, the collective would immediately sever its link to the afflicted population, considering it dead. (VOY: "Unity"; PIC: "Maps and Legends")
Technology[]
- Main article: Borg technology
Borg technology was a combination of technologies assimilated from other cultures, and technology developed within the Collective itself, in order to overcome obstacles to its goals. When confronted by a problem it could not solve with its existing resources and/or configuration, the entire Collective would work in concert to consider all possible solutions, and implement the one determined to be the most efficient. By applying the unique skills of each drone to a task, the hive mind could engineer new technologies and solutions at a pace that would astound an individual. (TNG: "Q Who", "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II")
The Borg were usually exceedingly quick to adapt; their shields would often nullify nearly any energy weapon, and their weapons could usually penetrate nearly any shield or defense, within minutes. (Star Trek: First Contact)
Spacecraft[]
Borg cubes, arguably their most iconic ship design
Borg vessels were highly decentralized, with no distinct bridge, living quarters, or engineering section. Each ship was collectively operated by its complement of drones, under the general direction of the hive mind. Owing to the Collective's disregard for aesthetic considerations, the architecture of Borg ships took the form of basic shapes such as cubes and spheres and were made from a tritanium alloy. Borg ships were capable of regenerating from damage. (TNG: "Q Who"; VOY: "Endgame")
Each Borg spacecraft was equipped with a vinculum to interconnect its crew, which was in turn connected to a central plexus that linked the ship to the Collective. (VOY: "Infinite Regress", "Unimatrix Zero") In addition to warp drive, vessels were fitted with transwarp coils that could achieve even greater speed by opening transwarp conduits. (TNG: "Descent"; VOY: "Dark Frontier") When critically damaged or otherwise compromised, a Borg ship would self-destruct to prevent outsiders from studying Borg technology. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II") In other situations, only the valuable technology would self-destruct, such as the case of the crew of Voyager's first attempt to steal a transwarp coil. USS Voyager encountered several damaged Borg vessels, notably including the cube carrying Icheb, Mezoti, Azan, and Rebi, and a sphere carrying a transwarp coil, which Voyager stole. (VOY: "Collective", "Dark Frontier")
- See also: Borg starship classes
Infrastructure[]
Borg structures were located in deep space, in planetary systems, or on planets themselves. Each planet that the Borg modified showed a typical climate and assimilated infrastructure adapted from the previous inhabitants. (Star Trek: First Contact; VOY: "Dark Frontier", "Dragon's Teeth")
Their buildings consisted of simple shapes, similar to their geometrical ships, and rather than being single structures they were annexed together and added to when needed. By joining the new structures to existing ones, they would form a uniform complex. These buildings were gargantuan in scale, with structures so big that they could house Borg spheres which would dock inside. (VOY: "Dark Frontier")
The Borg also constructed structures that had specific functions, such as the transwarp hub. There were six such known hub locations in the galaxy that allowed Borg vessels to deploy rapidly to almost everywhere within it. These transwarp hubs had many structures for opening portals on them, and inside their corridors were interspatial manifolds which supported the transwarp conduits. Several of these manifolds that led to the Alpha quadrant were destroyed by Voyager via transphasic torpedos and collapse of the conduit itself on the vessel's return to the Alpha Quadrant. (VOY: "Endgame")
Appendices[]
See also[]
- Borg Collective
- Borg language
- Borg philosophy
- Borg spatial designations
- Borg species
- Borg species designations
- Borg starships
Appearances[]
A Borg in the database of Voyager
- TNG:
- DS9: "Emissary"
- Star Trek: First Contact
- VOY:
- "Blood Fever"
- "Unity"
- "Scorpion"
- "Scorpion, Part II"
- "The Raven"
- "The Killing Game"
- "Living Witness"
- "One"
- "Hope and Fear"
- "Drone"
- "Infinite Regress"
- "Dark Frontier"
- "Survival Instinct"
- "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy"
- "Collective"
- "Child's Play"
- "Unimatrix Zero"
- "Unimatrix Zero, Part II"
- "Imperfection"
- "Flesh and Blood"
- "Shattered"
- "Q2"
- "Endgame"
- ENT: "Regeneration"
- PIC:
- "Remembrance"
- "Maps and Legends"
- "The Impossible Box"
- "Broken Pieces"
- "The Star Gazer"
- "Penance"
- "Assimilation"
- "Watcher"
- "Fly Me to the Moon"
- "Mercy"
- "Hide and Seek"
- "Farewell"
- "Võx"
- "The Last Generation"
- LD:
- "Envoys" (holograms)
- "Temporal Edict"
- "Crisis Point" (hologram)
- "I, Excretus" (holograms)
- "wej Duj"
- "Twovix"
- PRO: "Let Sleeping Borg Lie"
Background information[]
Concept and development[]
The conceptual genesis of the Borg, who were intended to replace the Ferengi as Star Trek: The Next Generation's main villains in its second season, was as a race of insectoids, an idea that would ultimately require modification due to the series' budgetary constraints. As Maurice Hurley explained in the March 1990 issue of Starlog (#152, p. 33): "What we really wanted to do, but couldn't because of money, was create a race of insects...insect mentality is great because it is relentless. The Borg are a variation of an insect mentality. They don't care. They have no mercy, no feelings toward you. They have their own imperative, their own agenda and that's it. If all of them die getting there, they don't care. We needed a villain who could make you dance, and the Borg could do it!"
Hurley made it a plot point in "The Neutral Zone" that Federation and Romulan starbases along the Romulan Neutral Zone had been mysteriously wiped out, having been "scooped off" the face of the planet in the same way that would later be referenced in "Q Who" and shown in "The Best of Both Worlds". Intentions to lay more extensive groundwork for the Borg's introduction were frustrated by the Writer's Guild strike of 1988. By the time of their first appearance in "Q Who", the species had been changed from insects to their more budget-friendly cyborg form. (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, pp. 169 & 180)
The Star Trek Encyclopedia, 3rd ed., p. 52 stated: "Writer Maurice Hurley derived the name Borg from the term cyborg (cybernetic organism), although it seems unlikely that a people living on the other side of the galaxy would know of the term."
According to Michael and Denise Okuda in their Star Trek Chronology, 2nd ed., p. 290, there had been plans to connect the parasitic beings from "Conspiracy" to the Borg, but these were ultimately abandoned: "At the time the episode was written, this was apparently intended to lead to the introduction of the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation's second season. The Borg connection was dropped before 'Q Who?' (TNG) was written, and the truth about the parasites remains a mystery." They also noted that, following production of the latter episode, it was "half jokingly speculated" by Gene Roddenberry that the machine planet encountered by Voyager 6, leading to its transformation into V'ger, "might have been the Borg homeworld." (Star Trek Chronology, 2nd ed., p. 23)
A Borg insignia
The Borg insignia, which first appeared in "Q Who", was described on its own Star Trek: The Next Generation - Inaugural Edition trading card (82-A) as "Resembling a great red claw over a background of circuitry, the symbol of the Borg is as mysterious as the race it represents. The Borg symbol may possibly define an amalgam of living tissue with computer circuits..." [2]
Westmore's Borg make-up is reviewed for "Q Who"
Michael Westmore revealed that the Borg actors were glued into their suits, and had to be unglued if they needed to use the bathroom. [3]
The idea for the sound of the Borg's multiple voices speaking in unison was thought up by sound editor Bill Wistrom and co-producer Merri Howard. After experimenting with different techniques, they discovered a way to lay multiple voices over one another and "make it sound like it was 8 million people," explained Wistrom. (Star Trek: Communicator issue 147, p. 32)
Chronologically, the first known in-universe appearance of the Borg to Humanity was in the 1996 motion picture Star Trek: First Contact, in which the Borg traveled back to the year 2063 to enslave the Human race. The writers of the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Regeneration", Michael Sussman and Phyllis Strong, stated, in the audio commentary on the ENT Season 2 DVD release, that it was their explicit intent to have the episode deal with the consequences of events depicted in Star Trek: First Contact, the Borg wreckage encountered in that episode being the debris of the Borg sphere destroyed by the Enterprise-E in that movie.
While it is not explicitly stated in "Q Who", Q implies that the sole focus of the Borg is on the technology of the USS Enterprise-D, and the Borg show no interest, in that episode, in the crew (although the segment of hull that the Borg remove from the ship apparently contained several crew members). By their next appearance, "The Best of Both Worlds", the Borg's objectives had changed to the assimilation of lifeforms, and this change of premise was referenced in dialogue. Subsequent episodes ignored the change in premise entirely.
Director Cliff Bole, who directed the "Best of Both Worlds" two-parter, thought highly of the Borg. He enthused, "The Borg are like Klingons. You can do anything you want with them. They're fun and a real expensive thing to play with. With them, you can do a big production value [...] The Borg allow you to have fun with the camera, the lighting and everything else. They challenge the imagination." ("Cliff Bole – Of Redemption & Unification", The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine issue 17, p. 31)
Through the course of Star Trek history, further retroactive continuity changes appear to have been made in respect of the Borg. As of "Q Who" and "The Best of Both Worlds", it appeared that Starfleet had never heard of the Borg. Subsequently, Star Trek: Voyagers "Dark Frontier" and Star Trek: Enterprises "Regeneration" showed that not only was Starfleet previously aware of the existence of the Borg, Federation scientists actually pursued them – even if they were considered mere rumor. Further, although Guinan indicates in "Q Who" that her people were attacked by the Borg, it is implied that Starfleet was not aware of the threat. However, it was later revealed in Star Trek Generations that Starfleet, in fact, rescued the El-Aurian survivors of the Borg attack including Guinan, and it seems unlikely that Starfleet would not inquire as to the cause of their plight.
The existence of the Borg Queen was a controversial change made to the Borg during the writing of Star Trek: First Contact. While the writers had intended to stay true to the original concept of the Borg as a collective hive, they found it difficult to maintain the dramatic impact of villains without having a central face. Thus, they created the Queen. In the film, she claimed to have been present during the events of "The Best of Both Worlds", which in retrospect would appear to have negated the reason for Picard's assimilation in that episode (it was claimed that the Borg needed a single representative to speak for them). While the Queen appeared to be killed at the climax of First Contact, she apparently survived unaffected by the Borg's next appearance in Voyager's "Scorpion". While many fans have attempted to reconcile this, there has never been an official explanation for her survival (save for an enigmatic comment by the Queen), and the appearance of relatively identical Borg Queens in later episodes. Some, though, have theorized that the Borg Collective contained many queens that served as focal points to different branches of their society. Still another explanation is that the Borg were in possession of innumerable copies of their Borg Queen, and that the superficial death of one version simply resulted in the activation of a similar version to take her place, in a similar fashion to the Vorta. The latter theory was corroborated by Rick Berman in an interview in Star Trek: Communicator. (Star Trek: Communicator issue 121)
Impact and legacy[]
The Borg were considered as an enemy for the Deep Space 9 crew (along with the Klingons, Cardassians, and the Romulans) when Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was in development. Rick Berman later commented, "The Borg are not the kind of bad guys that are practical to use on a regular basis." Whereas the Cardassians were eventually chosen for the main villain role, the Borg made no further appearances in Deep Space Nine after "Emissary", although they were mentioned in episodes such as "The Storyteller", "Playing God", "The Search, Part I", "The Way of the Warrior", "For the Cause", "Let He Who Is Without Sin...", and "In Purgatory's Shadow". (Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before) According to Robert Hewitt Wolfe in a tweet dated 28 January 2019, following the premiere of Star Trek: Voyager, a mandate was passed to the writing staffs of both Deep Space Nine and Voyager that the Borg (along with Q, following his single appearance on Deep Space Nine) were only to be used on Voyager while Deep Space Nine retained creative control over the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Quadrants, which Wolfe called "a fair trade." [4]
The Borg were considered by some commentators to be the greatest villains of Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, they were featured in only six episodes throughout its seven-year run. The creators have stated that this was due to the fact that the Borg were so powerful, and so it was not easy to come up with solutions for beating them. However, as time passed and future series went into production, the concept of the Borg evolved to include inherent flaws that could be exploited in many different ways – leading them to appearing in nineteen episodes of Star Trek: Voyager (although in only a fraction of these appearances were the Borg the primary villains; many episodes had them in supporting or otherwise non-antagonistic roles). This generous use caused many fans to complain that the Borg were being used too often on Voyager. TNG, DS9, and one-time VOY writer Ronald D. Moore once said of their perceived overuse, the Borg had been defeated so many times, that they had "lost their teeth." (citation needed • edit)
Following "Regeneration" and the season it was in, ENT Season 2, Brannon Braga stated, "We have no plans to see the Borg ever again." (Star Trek: Communicator issue 145, p. 30)
In 2006, the Borg were honored with their own DVD box set Star Trek: Fan Collective - Borg, featuring a number of their more memorable appearances in the Star Trek universe.
In an interview with StarTrek.com published on 1 April 2019, the actor Alan van Sprang, who played Leland in Star Trek: Discovery, echoed fan speculation regarding a potential connection between Control and the origins of the Borg: "I think it's very intriguing. When I first read the script I thought, 'Oh, is this the making of the Borg? Is that how it happens?' We're as much in the dark as anybody else, but as soon as I saw that, I thought, 'This is like The Borg.' The Next Generation's Borg episode just blew my mind [when I watched it originally], let alone when Picard became Locutus. That's the first thing I thought of, which kind of tickled me to no end. 'Wow, I'm just going to milk this for all it’s worth.'" [5]
In an interview with TrekCore.com published on 19 April 2019, Michelle Paradise, then writer and co-executive producer of Discovery, clarified: "It's interesting — we weren't thinking Borg at all. I mean, we talked about all sorts of different things in the room, but there was never any intent on our part to parallel that in any way. I can certainly understand why people started to think we were going in that direction, but it was never where we intended to go with it." [6]
In an Instagram story dated 12 March 2020, Michael Chabon, then showrunner of Star Trek: Picard, opined of the same theory: "It has the virtue of making sense. But I don't think it's much fun." [7]
Apocrypha[]
The absence of the Borg from Deep Space Nine was explained in the novel The Siege, when a Borg cube tries to pass through the Bajoran wormhole and is destroyed by subspace compression; Sisko concludes that this event will cause the entire Collective to believe that the wormhole is unstable and would now avoid it.
In the alternate timeline seen in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine book series Millennium, the Borg forged an alliance with the Federation to defeat Weyoun. The entire Borg Collective was destroyed along with the universe. This entire timeline was later reset thanks to Benjamin Sisko.
In an alternate timeline in the game Star Trek: Armada, the Borg succeed in conquering the Alpha Quadrant. Using a clone of Locutus, the Borg manage to assimilate Spock, kill Worf, and assimilate Earth. The timeline was reset thanks to Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-E, who travel back in time with the aid of a ship from the future to prevent Spock's capture.
In the game Star Trek: Legacy, an alternate explanation was given to the creation of the Borg which states that the probe V'ger created the Collective to serve as its heralds in its search for knowledge. However, the creation of the Borg Queen resulted in the creation of an entity that abandoned the original intent of V'ger. This is also similar to the Shatnerverse version of events.
In the current volumes of the Next Generation Relaunch series of novels, the Borg have been driven to near extinction as a result of the Starship Voyager's destruction of the Queen and the transwarp conduit network. However, they begin to reconstruct the Collective by building a massive cube in the Alpha Quadrant, in order to launch a vengeful new offensive against the Federation; their first strike results in the assimilation of Admiral Janeway and the destruction of Pluto before the Enterprise-E manages to destroy the cube with the original Doomsday Machine.
In Star Trek: Destiny a history of the Borg was presented. They were survivors of the Caeliar Gestalt and the crew of the Earth ship Columbia NX-02 thrown back in time and into the Delta Quadrant following an attack on a Caeliar city ship. The Caeliar forced the Humans into a perverted form of their Gestalt (a mental linking of the Caeliar) based upon the will of the last surviving Caeliar and not the whole. They launched a final attack of Federation space with over 7,000 cubes at their disposal; however, they were stopped after the Caeliar were made aware of their responsibility for the Borg's actions. The Collective was dismantled, and the assimilated Borg drones were accepted into the Caeliar's gestalt. Former drones fully regained their individuality (as evidenced by Seven of Nine's remaining implants dematerializing). This was followed up in the novel Full Circle. Q later noted that this timeline's invasion was provoked by Admiral Janeway's trip to the past in "Endgame", reflecting that, if she had done nothing, the Borg would have eventually launched a massive assault on the Milky Way galaxy centuries in the future that would have completely assimilated all other life. The Voyager relaunch novel Unworthy explores the aftermath of the destruction of the Borg, including some Federation scientists trying to harness remaining Borg technology and Voyager encountering a vast fleet called the "Indign" consisting of species who actually wanted to be assimilated but were considered unworthy of that "honor" by the Borg.
In the Star Trek: The Original Series short story "The Trouble with Borg Tribbles" from the anthology book Strange New Worlds V, a Borg cube encountered a pod full of Tribbles which had traveled through a micro-wormhole from the Alpha Quadrant in early 2268. This was the Borg's first contact with life from that part of the galaxy. The Borg assimilated the surviving Tribbles, only to find that their instinctive drive to eat and procreate was starting to overwhelm the hive mind, causing a widespread series of malfunctions.
The comic book series Star Trek: Countdown shows that Nero's ship, the Narada, was enhanced with a mixture of Romulan and Borg technology. The sequel miniseries Star Trek: Nero has the Borg, the Narada and V'ger originating from an unknown civilization on the "machine planet" that was seen inside V'ger in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
The Star Trek: The Manga story "Side Effects" in Shinsei Shinsei provided a different story to the creation of the Borg, with an experiment gone wrong to save a race through the daughter of one of the 1,000 or so survivors. Cybernetic implants, along with DNA from nine different species designed to keep a disease from spreading caused the girl to go insane and gain a twisted idea of saving her people. However, the intervention of Captain James T. Kirk made the situation even worse, as the laboratory where she was augmented collapsed and was sucked into a black hole. But an escape pod with the girl was launched, and apparently catapulted far into the past by the slingshot effect, where her cybernetic implants and DNA evolved to where she became the very first Borg Queen.
In the game Star Trek Online, the Borg have resurfaced after thirty years and are the main antagonists of several missions. The Borg of 2409 initially looked much more like zombies, with some of their cybernetic implants looking like bones coming out of their bodies, but were visually overhauled to more resemble their TV show versions by "Season Thirty: Incursion". "Incursion" also introduced the mirror counterpart of the Collective, named the "Borg Kingdom", as major antagonists of the "Kings & Queens" story arc.
The Cybermen and the Borg
The comic book crossover series Star Trek: The Next Generation - Doctor Who: Assimilation² involves a plotline in which the Cybermen of the Doctor Who universe alter time and space in order to form an alliance with the Borg. The united cyborg force proves to be a devastating threat to the Federation, but the two races end up turning against each other, with the Cybermen going to war with the Borg and forcing the crew of the Enterprise-D and the Eleventh Doctor and his companions to ally with the Borg to restore the Collective and vanquish the Cybermen. At the end of the series, the Borg start to investigate time travel in order to find a way to assimilate the Doctor.
In The Delta Anomaly, a book set in the alternate reality created by the Romulan Nero's attack on the USS Kelvin, the serial killer known as The Doctor (β) is suggested to be related to the Borg. This therefore establishes an earlier contact with Earth than in the prime reality.
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The Borg of the alternate reality
In Star Trek: Boldly Go, a comic series also set in the alternate reality and after the events of Star Trek Beyond, the Borg make an appearance as the villain in the first arc of the series, seeking the Narada due to their awareness of its ties to the Borg. They attempt to assimilate Spock, but the primitive assimilation of this era is unable to cope with his hybrid DNA. The shock of his escape and the retrieval of other near-assimilated officers enables the Federation and the Romulans to destroy the Borg.
External links[]
- Borg at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
- Borg at Wikipedia