Breaking Borg, Part III

The last time we saw the Borg, they were seemingly vanquished. The Queen has been corrupted and the virus implanted by Admiral Janeway had apparently sealed the fate of the Collective, infecting the core to destroy the body.

But is that where it all stopped? The Borg we’re back to their malevolent best - possibly their most dangerous form since Picard drew a line and allowed them to go no further. 

Picking up 18 years after the events of Nemesis, 2020’s Picard brought the Borg out of semi-retirement but this was a very unusual Collective and focused purely on one, lonely disconnected Cube.

A cube that had been severed from the Hive mind and subsequently held by the Romulans as a reclamation centre, repatriating drones (XB’s) from the horrors of the Collective. 

Led by director Hugh, the facility seeks to restore something to the lives of these apparently broken individuals and Picard shows us, within the events of The Impossible Box that these drones are struggling to regain themselves after a life of enforced servitude.

Del Arco's take on this version of Hugh is a lot lighter and more sensitive than I would have imagined. He is a shining example of someone who has truly regained his individuality and has sought to better others lives. I'm not in the least shocked by his extreme reaction to the execution of the other XBs by Narissa but Hugh is now the exception to the rule. While I, Borg may not have initially seemed a good idea, here we have the expansion of Picard's decision in the right way that Descent, Part II didn't quite muster. Here Hugh has a strong purpose, he leads and sees the positives everywhere while Picard and Seven actually have a leaning towards the darker events of the galaxy. 

Notably Picard chooses in no way to ‘cuddle’ the Borg and give them a humanising slant that we have witnessed before and has been done with every major alien race in Star Trek. In this series we are exposed psychologically and physically to the terrors of assimilation and years of torment associated with being part of the Borg Collective. 

The Impossible Box in fact takes us back to Wolf 359 and, as noted in the review of that episode, Star Trek actually addresses PTSD. Jean-Luc is visually shaken by his first trip back to a Borg cube since he was partially assimilated into the Collective and for a few moments we see him revisiting that traumatic time. It’s not something that dominates the series but it is addressed and dealt with alongside the correct material. Family dig into the immediate aftermath and here we have the long term effects and we have Jean-Luc interacting with the two people who can understand his pain the most; Hugh and Seven. 

Picard does nod to First Contact but it’s real focus is The Best of Both Worlds as well it should be. That was the keystone of his experiences with the Borg and the series hits the damage caused by their incursion head on.

Picard does nothing to make the Borg seem less than menacing. Seven’s own past with the Borg is resurrected with the savage murder of Icheb for the acquisition of Borg technology pushing the visual envelope of the franchise that bit further than ever before. This also reflects the severe hatred for the Borg - there’s no grace in removing the implants for profit and they are only seen as a resource nothing more even in XB’s.

The future of the Star Trek universe isn't quite the utopia we have seen before by the time we get to Picard. A lot's changed with contempt for the former Borg drones just being one tip on the iceberg. The Borg threat itself may not be as present as it was thanks to the intervention of Admiral Janeway but the fear of assimilation is still there.

When Seven reconnects with the limited-scale Collective in order to defeat the Romulans, one of her first actions is to reactivate the dormant drones and reconnect them to a smaller hive mind controlled by her. It's a dangerous narcotic for the former Borg with a demonstration that the Collective is a brutal force even in reduced numbers.

Ultimately these XB's - or whatever is left of them by the end of the series have chosen to stay away from returning to the unified consciousness. Perhaps the most telling moment of the season is the conversation between Seven and Picard as she leaves the La Sirena which delivers the blow that neither has ever truly been the same since their time with the Collective even though its two decades in the past. There's always going to be a part of each of them which will be associated to that period.

What Picard chooses NOT to do is answer what has happened to the Borg in the years since Endgame. The acquisition of the Artifact indicates that the Borg have been active since Voyager ended but it does nothing to indicate what damage was done to the Collective or how it survived or rebuilt itself following Admiral Janeway's attack. 

We don't even know if this was a lone cube which assimilated the only Romulans to ever to part of the Borg or if there was a fleet - it's all kept very vague and in some respects this goes right back to the more ambiguous roots that we discussed in Part I. 

Picard has taken just one element of the Borg and focused on it, choosing to dig into the torments and terror that comes from life after being separated from the hive mind and leaving us to imagine what has occurred elsewhere.

The cube is still terrifying and the fact that they have been collecting new drones nods to the fact that the Collective are back to their singular, emotionless focus to become better and strike down everything in their path. The Borg are, it seems, very much still out there....so maybe this isn't the last time we'll be seeing them in the franchise.

As we've seen in this three part overview, the Borg have certainly had their fair share of change - they have been adapted to the show and each of the times they have been utilised either on the big or small screen. Picard has returned the mysticism to the Collective while at the same time bringing the horrors of their actions back to the fore and away from the occasional sensitive mush that Voyager meandered into during its sixth season. 

Even if you don't agree with moving corridor walls and a slightly different aesthetic to the Borg (not the first time), you can't help but feel that Michael Chabon and his Picard team have really gone back to the roots of the Borg and what made them interesting. I was originally intending to deal with Seven in here but now I think she's worth her own future supplement - and that's on the way.

You can read the rest of Breaking Borg here

Enjoyed this article? Why not like and share to spread the word!

Like our page on Facebook 

Follow us on Twitter

Find us on Tumblr 

Breaking Borg, Part II

The arrival of the Borg in Voyager was anticipated almost from Caretaker.

Read Part 1 here...

The Delta Quadrant was their home so the trip back to Earth would have to encounter them at some point.

For three years we waited, knowing that at some point the crew would encounter the Federation's greatest foe. What would it be like to actually get to the core of the Collective? Experience the essence of the Hive? 

Once we'd pushed past the Kazon and the Vidiians it took until season three's Blood Fever to even get the suggestion of what could be heading their way. The final reveal of the Borg corpse hidden amongst the vegitation is truly chilling. I encourage fans to watch the episode back and pick up on all the references to the state of the planet on which they find the body as it screams "Borg Attack" in every line but I only really caught these on a second viewing. Why I didn't notice originally is probably down to the mediocre nature of the rest of the episode with that massive payoff almost tagged on.

Unity finally brought Voyager into the realms of the Borg with the splintered community but there was still a sense that the show was holding back. Somewhat akin to Descent, this was a group of Borg separated from the Collective with the twist here that they were, for the most part, benevolent and had begun to rebuild their lives to some extent. However one faction from their cube had chosen more hostile activities and the eventual reactivating of the collective consciousness looks to be the only way of creating a unified, benign society.

It sets up some really interesting points. We have our first derelict cube and the notion that even the Borg can, unusual as it might be, get it wrong. Chakotay experiences the power of the Collective, leading him to do their bidding and actively reconnect their mini-Collective. We have a first inkling of the draw that the connection has even if it is limited amongst former Borg. Unity exposes a chink in their armour and the possibility that something could actually cause problems for the Borg would grow stronger and into the third season cliffhanger, Scorpion.

One of my favourite Voyager episodes, leaves the group from Unity behind and gives us an enemy who can defeat them and it seems, fairly easily. Cubes are in bits within seconds and the danger that the Borg present is culled in the series' shortest ever pre-titles sequence. 

Scorpion does question the Borg's supremacy in the galaxy and dislodges them from that unstoppable "top spot" if you will. Species 8472, while more powerful are individuals and their arrival, I feel, does lessen the impact of the Borg considerably even if it is there for dramatic purposes and to send a shiver down the spine of the Collective. They can be defeated. That said, Scorpion does give us our first look at the Collective en masse with fleets of ships rather than the single cube we've encountered in First Contact or during The Next Generation.  Species 8472 are the very antithesis of the Borg even to the stage that their ships are organic and there's got to be some form of analogy to nature defeating technology in there somewhere. For the first time in Star Trek history, the Borg are here in numbers but still manage to get their wings clipped through their own arrogance.

The unnatural alliance between the Borg and Voyager suits both parties for a time yet there is still something that doesn't sit right. We know the Borg only hold the alliance together because they need the pathogen  contained in the Doctor's holomatrix to stop 8472 infecting them but for a race which has all the answers and can adapt, they are unable to change their plans at this stage to combat Voyager's tactics. 

Scorpion at least continues the visual look of the Borg from First Contact and provides gravity to the realisation that we are now entering Borg space and it's going to be the most challenging part of the journey home. Fifteen Borg cubes is jaw-dropping but would they really have missed the chance to add the Voyager crew to the Collective and increase the number of drones available? I understand that Species 8472's incursion in the "North West Passage" was their priority but wouldn't you think that they'd have added to their fleet?

It's a satisfying cliffhanger nonetheless with Voyager gripped in a Borg tractor beam - yes, saved by the Borg - to flee from a Species 8472 attack but the subsequent conclusion would alter franchise history.

The unveiling of Seven of Nine in the concluding part - and first episode of season four - would be a gamble for the show overall but it was a familiar move if you look back to The Best of Both Worlds. 

Both stories relied on a second part where a human (now Borg) acted as a voice for the Collective. Seven and Locutus clearly fit the bill with both regaining their humanity - or being on the path to it by the end of the episode. Seven's addition to the crew unquestionably changes the dynamic of the show and adds the "observer" element that is a constant throughout the franchise and sorely missing in Voyager until this point.

Seven meant there was a constant Borg presence on the show right through to Endgame and in a way that softened the impact of the Borg episodes. Yes the ship was travelling through Borg space but their return did not become the big event that it once was. Ok, The Next Generation had used a Klingon as part of the crew from day one so surely this was a natural progression from there. Season four was, oddly for a show that had declared itself to be entering Borg space, devoid of specific Borg episodes with only Te Raven revealing more of Seven's origin story and Hope and Fear exploring the aftermath of the Borg through a story of vengeance. 

Season four plays it safe with a lot of episodes focusing on utilising the Seven character yet the race from which she escaped is conspicuous by its absence. Even the first half of season five is Borg-free with the feature-length Dark Frontier marking their return to the screen in force.

It's a great backstory for Seven building on The Raven and an unusual episode in which we focus as much on the flashbacks to the Hansens' research as we do on the present and the crew versus the Borg Queen. However crow-barring in the Borg pre-Q Who raises its fair share of issues that are never addressed (see also Regeneration). According to that episode of The Next Generation Q had to introduce Picard to the Borg and there's not a single hint that humans have encountered them before. I know that is possible but Dark Frontier, for all its good points does mangle that issue somewhat within its narrative and then there's the whole piece around their look versus the original The Next Generation episode.

What it does manage to do is restore some of the Borg's darkness and malevolence that was missing from their semi-neutering in Scorpion. We have them back to their assimilating best but are foiled by the Voyager crew once again and by this point they've almost become the Daleks of the Star Trek world. Seemingly indestructible and unstoppable but then are destroyed and stopped in every encounter. If you were the Borg Queen you'd be holding a board meeting to discuss your future plans. Amazingly Janeway makes it look a lot easier than Picard ever did. Indeed he needed a fleet of the most advanced ships in the fleet to take one Cube down in First Contact. Does this make Janeway the greatest Starleet captain ever? Singlehandedly defeating the Borg's plans on multiple occasions? Lazy writing? Audience expectation? All of the above and more?

Season five does play both sides of the Borg coin if you will with Drone. Voyager's answer to I, Borg and The Abandoned, it provides the chance to humanise the Collective through the creation of One but actually has the Borg doing what they do best - relentlessly pursuing the ship to acquire the 29th Century tech merged into the drone. 

One provides the human element here, showing that the Collective might "evolve" but as his own Hive mind, he understands the danger he poses to Voyager because of his unique nature and what it could mean to the Borg should he be fully assimilated. Where Drone does succeed is that this is not a contemporary of the Collective; an active part if you will - as we had with Hugh and the junior Jem'Hadar in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. It doesn't work to undermine the current status quo and still manages to offer something new in the lore of the Borg.

One thing that Voyager does differently to how we have viewed encounters with the Collective in The Next Generation and even the Deep Space Nine pilot is that there were always consequences to meeting them. Voyager sidesteps this every time. Seven might have a slight crisis of consciousness and waiver towards rejoining the Collective but she always remains loyal to Janeway.  The incident with One is never mentioned again as a second example. How the hell Seven isn't mentally traumatized by seeing her father as a drone I don't understand and this could have been a point to have continued over several future episodes, even bringing him back - but alas no, it's dropped by the end credits. Dark Frontier has Voyager poking the Collective with a big stick and the Borg, to a degree, rolling over and taking it. 

Survival Instinct from season six would be the first distinct Borg single length episode since  Unity with Seven reuniting with former members of her unit. Adding a further layer to the Seven character it illustrates how easily the Collective can either a) fall apart when something goes wrong or b) shed issues with lightning quick reactions. Maybe it actually does as much for them as I,Borg did during The Next Generation reinforcing the notion that the heart of the Borg is driven, focused and single-minded in its vision but the drone army are, as we would expect, unwilling slaves to the machine. However, Seven is resilient in her desire here to return to the Collective potentially demonstrating that the longer you are a part of it, the more it becomes familiar, addictive and, bizarrely, a family.

Maintaining our focus on the Collective and not on the personal journey of Seven, the Borg did get a rest for a while before resurfacing in another season event, this time the conclusion of year six; Unimatrix Zero. 

To date I still firmly believe that this does the worst disservice to the Collective over any other Borg-primed instalment of Star Trek and I even class it below Descent, Part II. The concept of a place where Borg can be individuals again does not resonate well with me. A Borg resistance? Borg who have their own personalities back? I can't see how the deadliest foe in the galaxy would allow this to happen in the first place nor be able to shut it down almost instantaneously. But again we have the return of the Borg Queen and the Collective rolled out for a 90 minute story and another concept that is never spoken of again..EVER, This is Voyager's Force of Nature where a good idea in the writers' room doesn't translate to the screen. The Borg lose their mysticism and their internal strength by pushing the Collective towards an almost unbelievable civil war.

It does mean once more we can see the Borg drones as unwilling victims in the bigger scheme of things however did it need to happen? Did we need to see it and the biggest tragedy is the fake assimilation of Janeway, Tuvok and Torres which ends with no adverse effects for any of them and is forgotten about by the following episode. 

It's not believable and the speed at which they are humanised again without a whiff of trauma is incredible. They might not have been fully augmented and included into the Collective but they must have experienced something that would have left a mental if not physical scar?

Fortunately the Borg are benched for the final season of Voyager meaning that their reappearance in the series finale, Endgame is welcome and they finally gain some teeth again. It's a battle to the last to see if the Borg will be eliminated or survive for another day. It's the ultimate fight with the greatest prize possible - the chance for Voyager to return home after seven years. For one final Voyager time the Borg are genuinely threatening, back to their best but yet completely outplayed by humanity with some neat future tech and the brilliance of the Janeways.

Returning Alice Krige to the role of the Borg Queen as Susanna Thompson was unavailable was a stroke of luck and helped tie the much-vaunted finale back into the larger canon (not that it needed to much but this felt like more of a connection to Picard and co).

The Borg just became too normal, expected and always there for a ratings turn as opposed to being the enemy that offered the very real possibility of defeat. If you look at the back end of Voyager, the major events of the show were all Borg related but the positive was that for once we did see a former Borg drone having to come to terms with and reconnect with her humanity after a lengthy time as part of the Collective. Seven of Nine was an inspired character in Voyager, giving that ability to see humanity from the outside inwards that Data and Odo had managed in previous incarnations of the franchise but somehow had been lacking from the marooned starship.

However, I might challenge that Seven was also a major damaging force in the nature of the Borg. They became stoppable, routine and an armada of Cubes or a trip to a transwarp hub didn't feel as special an event as Picard dispatching a subspace communication that they had engaged the Borg. The mythos was watered down, the threat minimal and even if we were told it was major you knew that there was nothing going to come of it. However, let's tackle Seven in our next piece. 

They would be back in the prequel/sequel Regeneration in Enterprise as discussed in Part I but we would have to wait another 15 years to find out what occurred after Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant...

To Be Concluded...

Enjoyed this article? Why not like and share to spread the word!

Like our page on Facebook 

Follow us on Twitter

Find us on Tumblr 

Breaking Borg; Part I

As synonymous as the Klingons and Romulans are with Star Trek, the Borg were established as one of if not the biggest threat to galactic peace - but where have the last 30 years taken them?

Rambling back to 1988 you start out at Q Who from The Next Generation's second season. You knew when this aired that the opportunity to bring the Borg back wouldn't be lost nor would it be too long in the making. If things had gone the way they were planned, the 88-89 season would have ended Borg rather than Grey. The writers' strike put paid to that but it did mean that Michael Piller came on board and pulled out one of the all-time top episodes of Star Trek; the first part of The Best of Both Worlds. Potentially that strike turned the Borg from being the enemy of the year ad a year that was certainly mixed in its quality into one of the deadliest foes Star Trek ever brought us...to a point.

But just look at the Borg in those fledgling The Next Generation years especially the ambiguous Q Who (in which ironically Q takes a massive backseat). There's no sign of assimilation, there's a nursery which would be revisited and promptly forgotten again in Voyager's episode Collective but that sinister, silent, menacing arrogance is there in every aspect of the race. All they want to do is acquire technology and advance themselves further.

Their appearance had been suggested back in The Neutral Zone in a still unexplained reference to all the machine parts being scooped up in the same way as J-25 and also Jouret IV but when you link everything together this thrown in observation doesn't work - wouldn't the Borg have just continued on if they were that close to the Federation or the Romulan Empire? Anyway, that's a conversation to be filed alongside "What Happened to the Conspiracy Aliens..."

Q Who is an exemplary episode introducing us to the cybernetic organisms, their cubic mode of transport and their haunting regenerative ability which we see on the hull of their ship. We're chilled by the way in which they adapt to phaser fire after only a shot and for once the Enterprise looked defeated, relying on the omnipotent Q to save the day. It effectively told us nothing about them. No queen, no real understanding of the hive, no idea where they were from, only that they were coming and come they did.

That flagrant arrogance is even more evident through the lone cubes which attempt to attack Earth in both the legendary two-parter The Best of Both Worlds and Star Trek First Contact but even going solo, their appearances in The Next Generation always brought a chill and a lump to the throat. Their interference was ominous, dangerous to the end and always to be feared. There is not one thing redeeming about them at this point. They exist solely to conquer, assimilate technology and move on, "bettering" themselves at every step.

Both Q Who and The Best of Both Worlds also chillingly pre-empt something else for me - the arrogance of the Federation and more specifically Starfleet. They admit in the two part cliffhanger that solutions to combat the Borg are years off and Picard himself in Q Who believes they are more than prepared for what's out in the great beyond. Starfleet sees itself as untouchable, a force for peace that other races will join or not choose to "oppose" because of its size and potential might (Dominion might have other ideas...) and it takes a cube making it to Earth and be within seconds of attacking before they step up preparations to another level.

The Best of Both Worlds demonstrates everything right about the portrayal of the Borg themselves as they head straight for Sector 001. We still known very little about them and the only assimilation we see on screen is that of Picard to become their figurehead/spokesperson Locutus. Later Voyager does tell us of Starfleet personnel who were taken at Wolf 359 (Unity, Unimatrix Zero, Part II) but at this time the only reason they take Picard is to have a human face and voice when they talk to humanity. The difficulty in defeating them here and in Q Who adds to their menace as an enemy that is keeping Starfleet absolutely on its toes. They are relentless, picking off anything that even looks like it might try and think about putting up some form of defence (Mars defences) or anything that simply gets in its path (USS Lalo) without a care. 

The cube is stopped with the single command; "Sleep" with only the kidnap of Locutus from the cube showing any kind of concern for the Collective but only momentarily. This story remains etched into the core of Star Trek lore to this very day with Deep Space Nine's pilot, Emissary bouncing off the seminal Wolf 359 battle and the loss of Sisko's wife key to the character's motivations. 

Even First Contact opened with Picard remembering his experiences as Locutus. How many references to the encounter are made over the course of the franchise I would hate to count but I think it's a lot and still with Picard it continues to this day. Off the back of it, the season five I, Borg offered the Federation a chance to destroy the race that ultimately backfired but once again that sense of danger posed by them was always there in the background. Hugh may well have broken free from his collective restraints but at the core the Borg were still the cybernetic machines we had seen in Q Who although this time on a little scout ship but there is still something inherent about who this lone Borg is although we are given hints that there is the chance for them to change.

Ultimately we know he returns to the Collective and this is the first point where I think Star Trek managed a disservice to the Borg. Picard's choice not to take out the Collective comes back again and again and for someone who has experienced the true horrors of assimilation, I'm one of those who believes he should have made the call.

The resulting story, Descent, is very much a tale of two halves. The first opens up a lot of questions, adds a new spin to the infamous enemy and then idiotically has Lore show up declare that they are going to take down the Federation. The subsequent season opener doesn't build on this vast opportunity and we have an hour of Geordi trying to convince Data not to torture him. The destruction of the Federation fizzles in ten minutes, the Borg individuality is restricted to a single ship and the edge and action that was borne from the opening firefight and Data's first experience of emotion feel totally underplayed. OK, so it rounds off the Lore story but it left us with the question as to what had happened to the Borg? What's going on with the rest of the Collective?

The Borg here are totally unique. Still drones, still recognisable physically as the beings from Q Who and The Best of Both Worlds the clever choice was to keep this rogue individuality confined to Hugh's ship. I take this as a somewhat standalone Borg piece since they are their own collective unit, not quite total individuals and still somewhat threatening. Perhaps even more deadly given their potentially "illogical" actions such as the desire for revenge we see in the encounter which opens the story. They remained sinister and unknown in these early years with so much unsaid and therefore so much that our imaginations conjectured as to their nature.

The influence of the Borg does expand beyond just the episodes they appear in with repeated nods to the rebuilding of the fleet following Wolf 359. The way in which the updated Starfleet would appear in the form of the Steamrunner, Norway, Saber and Akira classes were designed with a more military purpose in mind and, of course, in the creation of the Defiant which had one, sole reason behind its existence - to defeat the Borg.

To count the episodic one liners that nod to The Next Generation's creation of the Borg are extensive and in at least one Parallels future there's a big-bearded Riker still commanding (if it hasn't exploded) one of Starfleet's last remaining ships... I'd love to see how that universe evolved.

The movie appearance of the Borg is a massive change from their televisual origins. Given the scope of the cinema screen there's no surprise that the basic outfits and pale make-up are taken to another level, giving the drones an even more menacing physical presence. The armour has a more organic feel and the assembly more patchwork and less perfect. First Contact gave us our first real, graphic look at the assimilation process. In fact this is the first time we ever see or understand that the Borg are out to add more drones to the Collective. Truly a terrifying series of events, to this time only Picard had been joined to them onscreen but now it was an ever-present threat. 

First Contact cemented the hive mind concept with the powerful introduction of the Borg Queen, a character seemingly unrestricted by time and space due to her repeated, inexplicable avoidance of death. Her entrance in the movie is one of the great moments from the last 50 years however did she overstay her welcome after First Contact? 

We'll discuss that later. Here she provides that one-on-one nemesis for Picard, a perfect foil for the captain and for Data allowing the audience to easily follow the story and have a figurehead against whom the crew can be directly pitted. Imagine the movie without the Queen and it would be almost a silent production in some scenes. She is the voice of the Collective and ultimately does her death (spoiler!) truly offer the moment when the Borg should have been defeated? Significantly it's also the only time that the Defiant ever took on the purpose for which it was originally built and only just survives. Back to the drawing board perhaps?

Just as with Locutus, the Queen becomes the face of her people and draws the audience successfully into the nature of the species, how they operate and the motivations behind their actions. I solemnly believe that First Contact is the final point in the franchise where the Borg retain some of their mystery and eeriness that makes them a compelling enemy. I suppose their failing is that mass consciousness which means that there has to be some kind of vocal point to which we have to focus but it doesn't take away from their nature. 

The Borg of First Contact are a calculated step forward wielding more deadly weapons (that never get used) and with empty zombified facial expressions to chill you to the core. There's a much less human feel to the drones than we ever see in The Next Generation as well as those variants on the assimilated species - Cardassians, Klingons and more including the Enterprise crew themselves. Aside from the Queen they do remain faceless and as relentless as always but that mystery is somewhat quashed with the introduction of their imperious leader. 

The Borg Queen would reappear more in Voyager (played by Susanna Thompson apart from the finale where Alice Krige returned) but First Contact offers a pivotal point in the evolution of the Borg onscreen from an army of minions led by a central voice to being overseen by a single entity that refers to itself in the singular rather than the plural. 

Linking nicely to that eighth film - but perhaps not sitting too well with fans is the Enterprise episode - and the final appearance of the Borg ironically - in Regeneration. Now aside from the crew of the NX-01 managing to survive the attack in the first place when the crew of the Enterprise-D barely escaped in Q Who it's a fairly neat idea but does screw around with the continuity a bit but we have to understand that techniques develop over time.

The discovery of the Sphere wreckage from First Contact is a brilliant way to bring the series and the cyborgs full circle almost, giving us a core reason as to why they chose to head in the direction of Sector 001. Aside from introducing us to the Borg before we were introduced to them, Regeneration does have one core feature which aligns itself more correctly with The Next Generation than Voyager. It regains the air of mystery and danger that the species represented in that earlier series and gives away nothing to the nature or reasons for the Borg actions. It is a story which, for all its temporal failings, does stay more faithful to their origins than a lot of the Voyager entries. 

Separating the drones from the Queen and placing them against a less powerful adversary than the later Enterprise-E returns them to the faceless minions they were in Q Who and The Best of Both Worlds but adds in the twist that while the viewer knows what might be around the corner, the NX-01 crew are none the wiser to the escaping Borg and we the viewer appreciate just how damn lucky they are to have been spared from assimilation...

I am a firm believer that The Next Generation presented the best and most frightening presentation of the Star Trek foe even if physically the outfitting of the Borg is the most basic. So if that's the case, what happened when Starfleet stepped into the Borg's home turf of the Delta Quadrant...?

To be Continued...

Enjoyed this article? Why not like and share to spread the word!

Like our page on Facebook 

Follow us on Twitter

Find us on Tumblr