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| Unicomplex base of the Borg, in the Delta Quadrant. |
| Founded: "...thousands of centuries ago." |
| Leader: Borg Queen |
| Base of operations: Unicomplex, Delta Quadrant |
| Official language: any and all languages previously assimilated. |
The Borg or Borg Collective is a race of cybernetic organisms in the Star Trek fictional universe. The Borg are an amalgam of several humanoid species which have been assimilated and enhanced with cybernetic implants (giving them both improved mental and physical abilities). This biological and technological synthesis is carried out to achieve the self expressed goal of "perfection."
The Borg Collective function as a single entity. An individual Borg drone functions as an automaton, and has no sense of individual identity. The minds of all Borg drones are connected through implants and networks to a hive mind, which is organized by a Borg Queen and controlled from a centralized hub called Unimatrix One. According to the Borg, they only seek to "improve the quality of life for all species" in their so-called quest for perfection. They advance themselves by traveling the galaxy, increasing their numbers, expanding their territory, and assimilating the technology and biological uniqueness of other intelligent civilizations.
The Borg assimilate individuals by injecting them with nanoprobes and surgically implanting their victims with cybernetic prosthetics. This process quickly changes the individual's physical anatomy and biochemistry to the Borg standard. After the individual's biological systems become integrated with the artificial Borg components, the individual takes on a necrotic appearance, devoid of all hair, and appearing pallid with underlying black tissue and fluids. The individual is then connected into the hive mind, whereupon identity is lost.
The Borg are notorious for their extraordinary strength and their quick ability to adapt to most defenses. Although the Borg may continue to operate under inhuman conditions (including the cold vacuum of space)* they must eventually regenerate (or "sleep") in a regeneration module (devices which are specifically designed to maintain the Borg systems). The Borg are also capable of persisting in a hibernative state for years on end without life support systems or suspended animation modules, awaiting reactivation.
However the hive mind clearly has its limitations. Despite some claims that the Borg can respond instantly due to their hive mind, in reality, the Borg cannot instantly respond to anything. In fact, Borg drones react slowly to incursions, often only reacting when an enemy soldier destroys something or attacks somebody. In Q Who, the Borg did nothing for so long that the Enterprise's crew was able to hold meetings, decide what to do, and then explore their ship! This is probably due to inefficiencies in their giant symmetric multi-processing system (it's no secret that SMP introduces extra overhead; the inability of trillions of minds to equal Voyager's holo-doctor shows every indication that they have reached and then surpassed a scalability limit, thus explaining why they react so slowly). In fact, the only time the Borg react quickly was "Descent", when they were not part of a collective.
Overview
The Borg are known both within and beyond Star Trek fandom for their relentless pursuit of what they want to assimilate, their rapid adaptability to almost any defense, and their ability to continue functioning after what may seem a devastating or even fatal blow seemingly unaffected. As such, the Borg have become a powerful symbol in popular culture for any seemingly unstoppable force against which "resistance is futile". Similarily, being "assimilated by the Borg" is the process (and name of the mental condition) of the loss of psychological identity of those who have been assimilated. The resulting collective identity is known as a hive mind, in which all indications of individual thought and identity are non-existant.
Despite being perceived as an evil conquering juggernaut by all who know of or have encountered them, the Borg harbor no ill will to anyone; they merely fulfill their imperative to assimilate and achieve perfection. As they say, "Resistance is futile — you will be assimilated." They make good on that threat through their ability to quickly adapt to any attack, rendering it harmless. Thus, any successful defense depends on the ingenuity of the opponent to find a method to stop the Borg completely before they can neutralize it. So far, the only civilizations known to have successfully repelled Borg attacks have been the United Federation of Planets and the extra-dimensional civilization known only as Species 8472.
However, the common belief that the Borg can adapt to any sort of weapon is unsupported by the onscreen evidence. In First Contact, Borg cubes and other vessels were repeatedly destroyed by weapons with which they should be already familiar. In the Voyager episode Scorpion, Species 8472's weapons were still highly effective against Borg cubes after weeks of battle.
Moreover, while capable of adapting to phasers, Borg drones have never been observed to develop any kind of defence against blunt-force physical attacks. For instance, the drones where defenceless against machine gun fire in First Contact and Species 8472's simple claws were still effective against individual drones even after enough drones had been killed to leave piles of drone bodies laying about the corridors of a Borg cube. This suggests that their adaptability is overrated.
Although the cyborg concept has long existed within science-fiction literature, it is probable that the general concept of the Borg — a ruthlessly efficient race of biomechanical beings bent on galactic conquest — was heavily influenced by the Cybermen and the Daleks, which feature in the popular UK television series Doctor Who and who display similar rationales and methods as the Borg, including wanting to conquer and assimilate individuals to augment their own race. They also bear significant resemblances to Fred Saberhagen's Berserker series. A very similar race of "positronic-biological" beings, nicknamed "Posbis", also features in the German Perry Rhodan series. Borg starships, in particular, bear a striking resemblance to those of the "Posbis". The Borg's interlink and use of nanotechnology are also similar to that of the Conjoiners from Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space series of novels, while their ability to adapt to any attack resembles a faster version of the Inhibitors' ability in the same series. The Borg, according to official Paramount sources, represent 'corporate culture', a noticeable habit of which is to espouse the same 'collective mind' under which the Borg operate.
History
Origin of the Borg
Over hundreds of centuries, the Borg have encountered and assimilated thousands of species. However, little information regarding the true origin of the Borg millennia ago has been divulged in canon sources.Given this and the Borg species numbering system, it is probable that the species originally giving rise to the Borg would have been designated as Species 1 (or possibly 0). The Borg Queen is a member of species 125 – meaning she is of an early species assimilated by the Borg. Thus, species 125, or that particular individual, was an ideal choice for Queen or was bioengineered for this purpose. The relatively high index number could mean one of two things: either the Borg did not need a Queen for the early part of its history, or they replaced their previous Queen when a superior one was found or engineered.
"Borg from V'ger" theory
It has been speculated that there could be a connection between the Borg and V'ger, the vessel/entity encountered in The Motion Picture (TMP) and found to be built around the modified Earth space probe Voyager 6. This is indicated in the Star Trek Encyclopedia. The two entities are similar in concept and philosophy:
- The Borg are born as wholly organic beings and are melded with hardware to become biomechanical hybrids. They somewhat idolize an entirely artificial state (which allows the android Lore to influence a group of them in "Descent" (TNG)).
- V'ger is originally a machine – an interplanetary probe that was programmed to learn what it could about the universe. But while away from Earth V'ger is significantly enhanced, and later wants to see and touch its creator (a human), in order to continue its mission and evolve to a higher level of existence.
V'ger "melds" with two people (Captain Decker and Ilia) and, in so doing, achieves the evolution it is aiming for. Conjecturally, this evolution could have represented the birth of the Borg - a fusion of the organic with the cybernetic.
Following the release of First Contact, the "Borg from V'ger" origin theory is presented with a number of serious obstacles:
- In 2063, the Borg attempt to use the Enterprise-E's deflector dish as a subspace transmitter to contact the Borg existing at that time in the Delta Quadrant. As of 2006, only Voyagers 1 and 2 had been launched. Assuming that V'ger (Voyager 6) was launched some time in 2006, by 2063 a spacecraft traveling at high sublight speed would be no more than a short trip from Earth even at relatively low warp - so this would hardly be a distance requiring a subspace transmitter.
- V'ger had not merged with its creator by 2063, and thus would not yet be part human.
- Even before the film was released, Guinan mentioned that the Borg had existed for millennia, so they would already have been around long before V'ger was ever created.
- In 2376, the Vaadwaur (VOY) reported encountering the Borg 900 years earlier, placing this contact around the 13th century.
- In First Contact, the Borg queen states that the Borg originated as an organic race which grew to incorporate artificial components.
- The Borg refer to humans as 'Species 5618' - indicating that they became aware of humanity only after an extensive campaign, if not of conquest and assimilation, then at least of exploration. If the Borg were born of a space probe from Earth it seems unlikely that humans would have been assigned such a high reference number.
There are possible solutions to some of these problems, however. One possibility addressing the issue of inconsistent time periods arises from the fact mentioned in ST:TMP that Voyager 6 disappeared when it fell into a wormhole. One of the known properties of wormholes is that, due to special relativity, they can be holes through space and time. Therefore, the wormhole that Voyager 6 (V'ger) fell into could be assumed to have taken it across the galaxy and backwards in time thousands of years.
Even so, the "Borg from V'ger" theory, while an amusing diversion, is generally considered unnecessary and is unsupported by Star Trek canon. Comparisons between V'ger as it appears in The Motion Picture and the Borg as presented in later series and movies reveal significant differences between the respective entities' cultures and technology. For example, the immense 'cloud ship' in which V'ger arrives at Earth far outstrips, in terms of sheer size and firepower, anything the Borg have yet been seen to possess. Additionally, the apparent stylistic variations between Borg ships and that of V'ger would seem to set them far aside from each other.
"V'ger from Borg" theory
The V'ger origin story described above could be reversed into a "V'ger from Borg" theory: V'ger could have been aided by the Borg. V'ger mentions in a visual presentation of its origin that it was once a smaller machine, one of NASA's Voyager space probes. It was then rescued and augmented by a 'race of machines'. The name or nature of this machine planet, however, is never elaborated upon, so it is possible that it belonged to the Borg. This theory is advanced in William Shatner's novel, The Return, in which the objection that Borg would just assimilate the probe is voiced and countered with the argument that back then the Borg may have been behaving somewhat differently. A fact sometimes advanced as supporting evidence for this theory can also be found in the novelisation of Star Trek: The Motion Picture written by Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek. In the novel, the V'ger entity notes that the Ilia probe is resisting the programming given to it because of the residual memories and feelings for Decker. When V'ger becomes aware of this, the novel describes V'ger's conclusion that "the resistance was futile, of course", which is almost identical to the Borg's "catchphrase": "Resistance is futile". The Star Trek novels - even the books of the films - are not considered canonical, but the writings of Gene Roddenberry himself could be considered at least as being circumstantial evidence. On the other hand, the phrase 'resistance is futile' is a concise expression of a fairly basic concept, and as the article on the phrase itself notes, it has been used elsewhere - at least in similar format - by characters ranging from Vogons to Daleks. It could be said that drawing such a conclusion from a single appearance of this phrase is unsafe. It may even be simply that Roddenberry liked the phrase, and hence it found its way into The Next Generation.
One could go even further and pose the question of why, if the Borg have been around for thousands of years, have they not yet succeeded in dominating the galaxy. There are few examples of effective resistance against the Borg, and the two battles of Sector 001, both of which ended in at least a nominal defeat for the Borg, are notable for this reason. Human beings do not make contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life until 2063, and Species 8472, the other race on the short list of those who have defended territory against the Borg, does not enter space as we know it until about 300 years later. Again, however, the Vaadwaur might provide an answer by stating the species had several encounters with the Borg, and "lived to tell the tale". This would suggest that for the majority of their history the Borg were not the overwhelming force they have become in the 24th century. Further, it may also be the case that the Borg simply tried to assimilate species that it found sufficiently interesting and add to their "perfection": Seven of Nine once stated to Neelix that the Kazon were not worth assimilating because they would not add to the Borg's perfection (this was perhaps an in-joke by the creators of Star Trek: Voyager referring to the negative fan reaction to the Kazon).
Another possible explanation may lie in the particulars of the evolution of the Borg. V'ger's mission is "to learn all that is learnable" – perhaps to an intelligent machine, 'all that is learnable' is too abstract. Were V'ger to join, perhaps become an emissary for, a race (or collective) of computers whose purpose is to collect all of the information in the universe – to dominate the Platonic realm, one could view the Borg as having more machine history than cybernetic and see the mission of the Borg as it is more commonly understood – one of acquisition and integration of all of the life, culture, and technology in the universe – as having been born the day V'ger "joined" with Captain Decker. The purpose of this joining was to enable V'ger to understand "the rest of the picture" – could this terrible menace be machine, though sparked by a glimpse of human understanding?
The obstacle to a "V'ger from Borg" theory is the apparently great distance between Earth and the space dominated by Borg. Possible rationalizations to address this include:
- Since the Borg obviously were able to travel back through time in the film, it is conceivable that they travelled back at another point to establish a hive in the 21st century.
- V'Ger mentions in its visual presentation of its origin that it passed through a kind of disturbance, possibly a wormhole, on its trip to the machine world.
Another issue would be that V'ger appears to have a far more advanced technology than the Borg (if we are to judge it by the size of his vessel and its shields). It could be assumed that V'ger was enhanced by the Borg but continued to improve itself by studying the universe and the technologically advanced species encountered without stopping to assimilate them (thus considerably speeding up the process and meeting far less resistance).
Note that this theory is peppered with considerable inconsistent and irregular references. It is far more likely that there is no relationship between the Borg and V'ger.
Nanobot theory
Though not in the formal continuity, a speculative story in the recent short story anthology Strange New Worlds VI offered a theory of their creation. It stated that the Borg came about on a world suffering from a devastating plague. One of the victims was the granddaughter of the planet's ruler, and she forced the scientists treating the plague to attempt a new treatment upon her. Nanotech was introduced into her body, which eliminated the virus and restored her. However, the nanotech was programmed not to make her as she had been before, but to make her perfect. Since she was naturally imperfect, they changed her body and brain, augmenting them with technology and creating the first Borg Queen. The scientists who changed her were put to death by her grandfather, who tried to kill her with gas. Her body adapted to this, removing the need to breathe and allowing her to introduce her nanobots into the wall of the room holding her, melting it, and allowing her to escape. While fighting her guards, she accidentally put the nanotech into one of them, thereby creating a link and changing him. In this way, the first Borg were born. After assimilating their homeworld, the Borg began to assimilate other planets. As the Borg designation for the race of which the Borg queen is a member is Species 125, this explanation is highly tenuous.
However this theory, and related forms have had great store put upon it given the nature of the Borg Queen as seen in First Contact. She appears to have suffered tremendous damage biologically, and must have been extremely important to have warranted a level of cyborgization that she has - and that same level could only have had a dramatic effect on her psychology. Strong emotions and rages, triggering desires for revenge and for enforced peonage, the same drives that caused her initial 'conversion' to be inflicted on others. It is pleasant to suppose that her first actions on being revived would be the assimilation of the medical scientists who performed the 'saving' of her, followed shortly thereafter by her opressors, who saved her perhaps for a socio-political motive inherent in either a conquest or subjugation - which then implies the unimatrix was just that - a willing participation at first, and perhaps very limited nanoprobe interaction in the style of the 'Borg Co-operative' later encountered by Cmdr. Chakotay. Commentators have often commented that the Borg could have been extremely beautiful in form - such beauty is implied by their mastery of cellular organisation, but would have perhaps detracted from their true menace.
Integration of more 'crude' machines and componentry could have either been an attempt to bring a feeling of greater unity with the heavily cyborg Queen, and initally had a military purpose only. That purpose should then have become commonplace and eventually the 'racial' basis of a subsumed and totally military force with the growing hegemony of the Borg in the Delta Quadrant.
However, in later episodes of Voyager it is shown that if the Queen dies (such as at the end of First Contact, a new Queen will succeed, taking over the last conscious memories of the old Queen. Multi-dimensional time travel and interlinked consciousness-fields over Galactic distances are a probable explanation, and the Queen mentions to Capt. Picard in ST:FC that he has 'become small, limited' in his views of both space and time, coupled with a certain disdain for both simultaneous paradox on the part of the Queen. This too is implied by the Queen on her first conversation with Lt. Cdr. Data 'You imply a disparity where none exists : I am the Collective.'
Therefore, species 125 may merely be a species number/descriptor of the successor Queen - though such a distinction again seems tenuous, given the canon nature of the Queen's relationship with the Collective (see above), and that surely Species Zero One would surely be that of the Borg's own Home Planet. There is no consensus among either Fans or Paramount Pictures on this issue, and the Studio appears to consider it a minor plot issue at best.
Early contacts with the Federation
Having gradually developed over thousands of centuries (see Origin of the Borg) in the galaxy's distant Delta Quadrant, the Borg's first formal contact with Starfleet occurred in 2365 by interference from Q in the The Next Generation episode, "Q Who?". Q transported the Enterprise-D to System FGC-J25, in the deep far-flung part of the Beta Quadrant, just long enough to expose them to the Borg. The Enterprise-D was hopelessly outclassed by the Borg cube they encountered, and after Picard retracted his earlier "We are ready" boast, Q brought them back to the Alpha Quadrant. At the episode's end, Guinan tells Captain Picard, "Now that they know of your existence...", and Picard finishes, saying the Borg would never stop until they found them. Picard later realized that the Borg cube was already on a course towards Federation space, so in effect Q gave them an advance warning, doing "the right thing for the wrong reason".Before this contact, however, there was evidence that the Borg had recently been in the Alpha Quadrant. When Picard decides to explores J25 (over Guinan's warning not to), Worf observes about the civilization's disappearance, "It is as though some great force just scooped all machine elements off the face of the planet. It is identical to what happened to the outposts along the Neutral Zone." The first-season episode "The Neutral Zone" reintroduced the Romulans during a crisis stemming from the complete destruction of several Federation and Romulan bases along both sides of the Neutral Zone. The Borg were originally supposed to introduce themselves in this episode, but time constraints forced them to remove the Borg from the storyline. There is a continuity problem here, even with the rationalization that perhaps the Borg had previously found the Federation and Romulans not worthwhile to assimilate and where just surprised by the Enterprise's sudden high-speed disappearance in "Q Who", not realizing that it was actually Q's doing this wouldn't explain their continued interest after numerous encounters and assimilations. The apparent lack of a trail of destruction from the Delta Quadrant means that the Borg would have probably used their transwarp conduits to get to the Neutral Zone, so then why was the original Borg ship ("Q Who?" and "Best of Both Worlds") traveling at much slower warp speeds?
Prior to these encounters in the late 24th century, there is evidence that the Federation, and Starfleet in particular, had prior knowledge of the Borg. In 2153, a group of cyborgs (though unknown as Borg at the time) were discovered in Earth's Arctic. These Borg were later speculated to have likely come from the future, as referenced in a speech Zefram Cochrane had given, stating what "really" had happened during First Contact with the Vulcans in April 2063. He said that there were "strange cybernetic creatures from the future who wanted to enslave the human race." Cochrane also revealed that the people who stopped them were also from the future. Captain Archer and Subcommander T'Pol of the first Earth space vessel named Enterprise discussed this, but T'Pol dismissed it by saying, "Dr. Cochrane was known to make outrageous statements."
The Borg incident of 2153 was kept secret, due in part to evidence that the Borg had managed to transmit Earth's location to their home space in the Delta Quadrant. Since, however, the message would not reach Borg space for two centuries, Earth and Starfleet authorities were not overly concerned with the Borg. However, in the prophetic words of Captain Archer: "We've only postponed the invasion until what? The 24th century?"
In the late 23rd century, the crew of the newly-commissioned Enterprise-B rescued a ship carrying El-Aurian refugees. Guinan was one of them, implying they were fleeing the Borg's decimation of their home planet. However, the original movie only mentions them as refugees, and Starfleet may not have been aware of the cause of the El-Aurian plight at the time.
In the mid-2350s, as the 200 year time mark of Captain Archer's prophecy approached, Starfleet began a covert operation to learn about the Borg and hired several civilian scientists to perform "unofficial" research and learn about this potential threat to the Federation. The family of Annika Hansen was one such group of scientists (VOY: "The Raven"). Thus, by the time Captain Picard and the Enterprise-D encountered the Borg at System J25, some individuals in Starfleet were already aware of the Borg and the threat they posed.
The Enterprise-D and Captain Jean-Luc Picard
The second official, and first major, contact between the Federation and the Borg occurred in the two-part episode "The Best of Both Worlds", widely considered among Star Trek’s best episodes. In 2366, Captain Picard was captured and assimilated by the Borg to become Locutus of Borg. With his knowledge of Federation technology and strategy, a single Borg cube destroyed a flotilla of 39 Starfleet vessels in the Battle of Wolf 359 and proceeded toward Earth, in Sector 001, with the goal of assimilating the entire planet. The Federation regards this battle as one of the worst military defeats in its history. In the process, however, the Enterprise-D used an emergency maneuver to capture Locutus. Data, with the help of Troi, Dr. Crusher and Chief O'Brien, managed to tap into the Borg collective consciousness to which Picard/Locutus was connected. Their last-ditch actions managed to give Picard enough force of will to tell Data to give the command for the Borg to "sleep", that is, to regenerate. This caused the invading cube to go quiescent and created a feedback loop in the cube's power grid, destroying the ship in Earth orbit. The Enterprise crew later managed to remove most of the Borg implants from Picard. Picard was never the same again; in addition to being left traumatized ("Family"), he apparently retained a residual link with the collective and could hear its thoughts when they were near ( First Contact).In the episode "I, Borg" (the title highlights the contradiction of an "individual Borg" and alluding to I, Robot), the Enterprise-D crew in 2368 captured a single Borg drone, the last survivor of a crashed scout ship. Seeing an opportunity to study their enemy, it was taken aboard the ship. Eventually, separation from the Borg collective consciousness allowed the drone began to develop an individual identity. When it asked if it had a name, Geordi said, "I'm Geordi, she's Beverly, and you...you," and Dr. Crusher suggested, "Hugh." Picard abandoned the initial plan to use Hugh to destroy the collective from within (via a fractal pattern that would lead to collective-wide system failure) and offered Hugh asylum, but Hugh decided to return because the Borg would never stop looking for him. The introduction of Hugh's experiences and newfound individuality had far-reaching consequences for the collective. Some Borg became severed and broke away as a renegade group. Initially dysfunctional and without purpose, this group later stumbled across and joined with Lore, Data's prototype brother, who helped them express their newfound freedom through hatred for all organic beings ("Descent").
Encounters with the Enterprise-E and Voyager
The Borg make frequent appearances in the Star Trek universe afterwards, being the antagonists in the First Contact movie and even having one of their number become a crew member of the starship Voyager — Seven of Nine. During VoyagerThe Borg suffered their worst setback against the Federation in 2378. Voyager discovered a Borg transwarp hub (one of only six in the entire galaxy), which allowed the Borg to quickly send ships anywhere in the galaxy. A future Admiral Janeway travelled back in time and ordered Voyager to use the hub to return to the Alpha Quadrant, but contemporary Captain Janeway was determined to destroy it. Admiral Janeway entered the Unicomplex and the Borg Queen assimilated her. However, the Admiral had surreptitiously infected herself with a neurolytic pathogen before being assimilated; once assimilated into the collective, the pathogen disabled neural links throughout the hive mind. Consequently, the Borg Queen lost connections with her drones and ships, before being overcome and killed, and the Unicomplex exploded. Simultaneously, an anti-Borg enhanced Voyager (with technology provided by Admiral Janeway) destroyed support beams for the hub while entering a transwarp corridor. The Borg hub then collapsed and Voyager was successfully returned to Earth (VOY: "Endgame").
After these events, the ultimate fate of the Borg is unknown although all the evidence suggests that they where completly destroyed. Some fans have claimed the Borg are also highly decentralized, relentlessly adaptable, and have demonstrated the ability to sever dysfunctional units quickly and efficiently from the Collective so they might still be alive. However this argument does not hold water because by infiltrating the Queen, the virus achieved what computer hackers describe as a "root exploit", which probably gave it unfettered access to the entire Collective irrespective of normal safeguards. The virus displayed a delayed reaction, possibly so that its presence would not be detected and enable it to propagate through the entire Borg Collective. By the time the Queen's virus kicked in, it must have propagated through the entire Collective. The effect would be cascade failures, starting with the Queen and then moving outwards to follow the movement of the virus itself. And indeed the Queen started exhibiting damage from the virus before anyone or anything else.
Borg Queen
The introduction of a Queen in First Contact was a major change in the Borg's previously purely collective nature. The Borg Queen is a locus within the Borg collective consciousness and a unique drone within the collective ("the one who is many"), bringing "order to chaos" and referring to herself as "we" and "I" interchangeably. The function of the Borg Queen within the Borg seems to be that of a coordinator, as in an ant colony, and less so of a leader in the traditional sense. The Queen's unique autonomy allowed her to have an intimate encounter with Data in First Contact. However, her utterance "I am the beginning * the end" (an apparent Christian allusion) implies a possibly crucial function within the collective. It has also been postulated that both the Borg Queen and Locutus functioned merely as spokespeople and tacticians, allowing the Borg to maintain a creative edge while retaining the advantages of a true collective.
A humanoid of Borg species 125, the contemporary Queen's head and upper torso appear mostly biological (externally) with a largely synthetic central nervous system, skull, and upper spine. The biologic portion is generally lowered and secured into a synthetic lower torso.
It is unclear if there are many Borg queens or just one (*see below). As seen in Star Trek: First Contact, one was aboard the cube that assimilated Picard in 2366-7 (though this was lost on Picard initially). When Picard encountered her again and protests that that Borg ship was destroyed, she retorted that he thinks so "three-dimensionally." The Queen was again destroyed, or so it would appear, at the movie's end. She was also destroyed in the two-part Star Trek: Voyager episode Dark Frontier and the Voyager series finale. Upon the conclusion of Voyager, it is unknown whether the Queen survived; however, the Borg were able to function after her apparent destruction, as evidenced by the sphere continuing to chase Voyager.
The Borg Queen was played by Alice Krige in First Contact, by Susanna Thompson in "Dark Frontier," and again by Alice Krige in "Endgame." There is no explanation as to the different appearances of the character, and no speculation as to whether these are the same Borg Queen. However, it is not uncommon in television, especially Star Trek, for a character to be played by multiple actors. Since at least the organic parts of the Borg Queen were destroyed in First Contact, and the Borg Queen is physically identical in "Endgame", it can be assumed that the Borg can recreate the Queen. It is therefore reasonable to infer that the two Queens were intended to be the same character, as there would be no need to recreate different Queens. This does not preclude the possibility of other Borg Queens, however.
- Note: In the novel Engines of Destiny, by Gene DeWeese, there are mentions of other queens and other matrixes in the Borg collective. There may have been queens before the Queen we know, but there may also be other queens of other matrixes.
- Note: In the novels Homecoming and The Farther Shore, by Christie Colden, it is mentioned that the Borg Queen does not exist. The Borg queen is simply a normal drone with a "software update", so when the queen is de-activated, the master control program is simply passed through to the next drone. Novels are not considered canon, however.
Assimilation
- Main article: Assimilation (Star Trek)
Initially, the Borg were a mysterious group of marauders that snatched entire starships or took over entire planets and societies in order to collect and assimilate their technology, being less interested in individual lifeforms ( The Next Generation: "Q Who?"). In their second appearance, "The Best of Both Worlds", they began, rather crudely and frighteningly, to assimilate individuals – namely, Picard – into the collective by surgically altering them. Thereafter, incorporation of different lifeforms into their collective was heightened and their interest in obtaining alien technology became less prominent.
Moreover, the method of assimilating individual lifeforms into the collective has changed over time. Throughout, infant and fetal humanoids have been grown in an accelerated state and surgically receive or develop implants tied directly into the brain, as well as ocular devices, tool-enhanced limbs, armour, and other prosthetics.
The reason for this change in strategy is probably because that mass assimilation using the method they used on Picard would be a vast time consuming project where as with the advent of Nanoprobes, the process became much easer. Where this new technology suddenly came from is a mystery. The Borg collective's innovative capabilities are woefully inadequate due to the fact that diversity of opinion and action is also critical to discovery and technological advancement. In Scorpion, we found out that the entire Borg collective couldn't match the analytical abilities of the holographic doctor, a single computer program running on Voyager! The fact that they've been exploring space for thousands of years but have not been really successful until the last millennium suggests that their sudden interest in assimilating lifeforms and their rapid expansion was due to an encounter with a vessel who’s crew happened to have nanotechnology in their computer and they where able to adapted it for their own use.
This more advanced form of assimilation was seen in First Contact, the method of assimilation is injection of nanoprobes into individuals. Borg nanoprobes are injected into the bloodstream of a victim by a number of tubules (usually two) that spring forth from the top of the hand (or some other extremity) of a Borg drone. It should be noted that the nanoprobes must be injected into the bloodstream rather than just sprayed over the victim. This suggests that Nanoprobes can't function outside the body.The nanoprobes, each about the size of a human red blood cell (RBC), travel through the victim's bloodstream to various tissues and locations throughout the body and latch onto individual cells. The nanoprobes rewrite the cellular DNA, altering the victim's biochemistry, and eventually form larger, higher structures and networks within the body such as electrical pathways, processing and data storage nodes, and ultimately prosthetic devices that spring forth from the skin.
Borg species identification
The Borg have encountered and assimilated thousands of species and (reportedly) trillions of lifeforms throughout the Milky Way galaxy. The Borg identify species uniquely with a number assigned to them upon first contact.The following is a list of species and their respective numbers, sorted in ascending order by number. Some species have been identified only by their Borg identification and do not have a "name".
| Species # | Species name | Notes | Episode of note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 116 | Arturis' species | "Hope and Fear" (VOY) | |
| 125 | (Unknown) | Borg Queen's species | "Dark Frontier" |
| 149 | (Unknown) | Mentioned by Seven of Nine on VOY: a species with advanced medical knowledge and nanoprobe technology, which the Borg use to reverse cellular necrosis | "Mortal Coil" |
| 180 | Ferengi | "Infinite Regress" | |
| 218 | Talaxians | "The Raven" | |
| 259 | (Unknown) | Omnichordial, transdimensional lifeforms from Galactic Cluster 3 | "The Gift" |
| 262 | (Unknown) | Related to the omega molecule; primitive | "The Omega Directive" |
| 263 | (Unknown) | Related to the omega molecule; primitive | "The Omega Directive" |
| 312 | (Unknown) | Species with similar shielding technology that hid the Ventu | "Natural Law" |
| 329 | Kazon | Considered unworthy of assimilation | "Mortal Coil" |
| 521 | Shivolians | "Survival Instinct" | |
| 571 | (Unknown, Wysanti?) | Species of Four of Nine, the younger male drone | "Survival Instinct" |
| 689 | Norcadians | "Ashes to Ashes" | |
| 2461 | Brunali | Icheb's species | "Child's Play" |
| 3259 | Vulcans | "The Raven" | |
| 4228 | Hazari | "Think Tank" | |
| 4521 | (Unknown) | Most ships resembled pirate ships, deployed asteroid-based shield generators to defend from Borg attacks | Starfleet Command III Borg Campaign: A Day In The Life |
| 5174 | (Unknown, speculated as Hirogen) | ||
| 5618 | Humans | "Dark Frontier, Part 2" | |
| 5973 | (Unknown) | Mentioned as being non-corporeal by the Rebi | "The Haunting of Deck Twelve" |
| 6291 | Yridians | "Equinox, Part 1" | |
| 6339 | (Unknown) | Species invented anti-Borg virus | "Infinite Regress" |
| 6961 | Ktarians | "Dark Frontier, Part 2" | |
| 8472 | Species 8472 | Fluidic space dwellers | "Scorpion" |
| 10026 | (Unnamed) | Assimilated by the Borg in 2375 | "Dark Frontier, Part 2" |
The species numbers seem to be assigned according to the order in which the Borg encountered the species in question. In addition, the assigned numbers generally increase proportionately with distance from the center of Borg space in the Delta Quadrant; the numbers can, therefore, be assumed to be a general chronology of first contact between the Borg and particular species.
As well, there are some inconsistencies with these premises. For example, the Ferengi have a lower designation number than the Talaxians, which would suggest that the Borg encountered the Ferengi first (perhaps somehow encountering the two Ferengi stranded in the Delta Quadrant in "The Price" ( The Next Generation) or somehow learning of them when Quark and company time travelled to 1947 Earth in "Little Green Men" (DS9)). However, Talax(ia) is far closer to Borg space than Ferenginar, so it is strange that the Borg could have encountered the Ferengi before the Talaxians.
Famous maxim
The classic Borg hail is as follows:
- "We are the Borg. Lower your shields and power down your weapons. You will be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile."
In the movie First Contact, the following hail is heard:
- "We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile." The actor playing the role of "Voice of the Borg" in this film is Jeff Coopwood.
This saying bears a striking resemblance to the Cybermen expression: "Resistance is useless!" which was said on many occasions by them. Also in Doctor Who, the Cybermen's head leader, the Cybercontroller (equivalent to the Borg Queen) once stated to the Doctor, "To struggle is futile!" In the serial The Tomb of the Cybermen, the Cybercontroller says, "You belong to us. You will be like us."
A Vogon guard in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy also says "Resistance is useless!", but hardly with the same intentions as the Borg or the Cybercontroller. The link between these two other sci-fi genre sayings, though, is easy to explain. The author Douglas Adams was a screenwriter for Doctor Who before he started to write the Hitchhiker series.
Toward the end of the second season of Starblazers (redubbed from the original Japanese and first broadcast in the U.S. in 1980), the evil Prince Zordar says of Earth defenses, "Their resistance is futile."
Additionally, Locutus (assimilated Picard) was known to say (at the Battle of Wolf 359): "I am Locutus of Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. You will disarm all your weapons and escort us to Sector Zero-Zero-One. If you attempt to intervene, we will destroy you."
And before the battle:
- "I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile. Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service us."
Pronunciation variations
- Most Borg, including Locutus, pronounce futile as "few-tile" although Seven of Nine, Data and the Borg children on Voyager, pronounce it "few-tle".
All Borg episodes to date
Enterprise
| # | Episode | Appearances |
|---|---|---|
| 223 | "Regeneration" | A team of researchers find Borg debris, which had landed on Earth after the events of First Contact, and become assimilated by drones who "survived" the crash. The NX-01 is dispatched to respond to a distress call made by an alien ship, and must battle the growing Borg threat, which could change the future forever. |
The Next Generation
| # | Episode | Appearance |
|---|---|---|
| 126 | "The Neutral Zone" | No Borg are seen or mentioned, but several destroyed colonies are found which are later identified as the site of Borg attacks. |
| 216 | "Q Who?" | Q introduces the crew of the Enterprise to the Borg. |
| 326 401 | "The Best of Both Worlds, Parts 1 and 2" | Picard is kidnapped and assimilated by the Borg, who begin their invasion of Federation space. Locutus/Picard is subsequently recovered from the Borg and used to stop their invasion. The implants are later removed from Picard, restoring him to normal. |
| 402 | "Family" | The Enterprise is docked for repairs after the encounter with the Borg. Picard goes home to France where he copes with his experiences while assimilated. No Borg are seen. |
| 523 | "I, Borg" | The Enterprise rescues a Borg survivor, and Picard plans to use him as a weapon against his nemesis. |
| 626 701 | "Descent, Part 1 of 2" | A group of Borg attack Federation outposts. The crew pursues them through transwarp conduits and discovers Data's brother – Lore, who leads these renegade Borg in a new war against the Federation and organic life. |
| N/A | First Contact | The Borg attempt to assimilate Earth by time travelling to the 21st century. This includes the first encounter with a Borg Queen. |
Deep Space Nine
| # | Episode | Appearance |
|---|---|---|
| 101 | "Emissary" | Commander Benjamin Sisko has flashbacks to the Battle of Wolf 359. (From The Best of Both Worlds) |
Voyager
The following does not include the "usual" Seven of Nine or the Borg children episodes.| # | Episode | Appearance |
|---|---|---|
| 316 | "Blood Fever" | A single drone is shown in the last few seconds. |
| 317 | "Unity" | Two groups of Borg are on a planet after being severed from the collective and become mentally independent. |
| 326 401 | "Scorpion, Parts 1 and 2" | Species 8472 are found to be invading the "Northwest Passage" in an attempt to eliminate the Borg. To combat 8472 and ensure Voyager’s safe passage, Janeway negotiates an alliance with the Borg: Seven of Nine is dispatched to facilitate this arrangement, is later severed from the hive mind, and is 'adopted' by Janeway. |
| 402 | "The Gift" | Kes pushes Voyager well out of Borg territory. |
| 406 | "The Raven" | Seven of Nine experiences Borg flashbacks. |
| 421 | "The Omega Directive" | Seven of Nine gives a brief history of the Borg's discovery and attempts to study the Omega particle. |
| 423 | "Living Witness" | After a backup version of the EMH program is reactivated on an alien world 700 years in the future, the doctor is put on trial for the "crimes" that were thought to be committed by his crew. A poor holo recreation of Voyager's crew show a group of Borg serving on the ship, led by a fully Borg Seven of Nine. |
| 425 | "One" | Seven is forced to operate Voyager on her own, and experiences hallucinations of a Borg cube. |
| 426 | "Hope and Fear" | An alien attempts to send Voyager into Borg space to be assimilated, in revenge for the defeat of Species 8472, who he believes could have stopped the Borg from assimilating his home planet. |
| 502 | "Drone" | A freak accident merges the EMH's 29th-century portable holographic emitter, Seven's nanoprobes, and Ensign Mulcahy's DNA, creating an advanced Borg drone – named "One" – who later helps Voyager fend off contemporary Borg and sacrifices himself to save Voyager. |
| 507 | "Infinite Regress" | The discovery of a piece of Borg technology infected with a virus causes Seven to experience multiple other personalities present in the Collective |
| 515 516 | "Dark Frontier" | This is where we learn that the Borg call Humanity "Species 5618." Second appearance of Borg Queen. First Appearance of the Borg Headquarters, the Unicomplex, and explanation of the Borg's transwarp technology. |
| 602 | "Survival Instinct" | Seven faces her past when she encounters other Borg from the group of Nine who were separated from the Collective and left by Seven to die. |
| 604 | "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy" | While daydreaming, the Doctor fantasises about becoming the Emergency Command Hologram and fighting off a Borg attack single-handed when the rest of the senior staff are nearly assimilated. |
| 616 | "Collective" | The crew encounter Borg children who were severed from the collective in an accident. |
| 619 | "Child's Play" | A Borg Sphere emerges from a transwarp conduit after sensing a false warp signature designed to lure the Borg Sphere to attack Icheb's vessel. |
| 626 701 | "Unimatrix Zero, Part 1 of 2" | A glitch within the Borg allows a small number of drones with a specific mutation to retain their individuality. While they regenerate, they are individually conscious within Unimatrix Zero, a paradisiac simulated reality in which they are free of the Borg but can interact with other Borg that possess the mutation. With the collective getting closer to rectifying the glitch, however, the Borg of Unimatrix Zero ask Seven of Nine and the Voyager crew for help. |
| 702 | "Imperfection" | Captain Janeway boards a damaged Borg Cube to retrieve from a dead drone a cortical node that is needed to help Seven of Nine. |
| 711 | "Shattered" | With Voyager being "fractured" into different timelines, Chakotay (having been hit by a burst of energy when the ship hit an anomaly, and seemingly immune to the timeline changes) encounters the group of Borg drones that inhabited Cargo Bay 9 during the events of "Scorpion Part 2" and "The Gift". |
| 719 | "Q2" | Q's son materializes the Borg to attack Voyager. |
| 725 726 | "Endgame" | The big finale – for the Borg and series. Having travelled back in time, a future Admiral Janeway transmits a neural virus when she is assimilated by the Borg Queen. The virus apparently has deleterious effects and makes the Queen fall to pieces. The virus quickly spreads throughout the collective, has similarly disastrous effects, and causes the Unicomplex to explode, killing billions of Borg. At least one sphere, pursuing an enhanced Voyager as it returns home through a Borg transwarp conduit (whose hub was also destroyed), is apparently spared the effects of the virus but later is destroyed by weapons fire. |
The Borg in computer games
- Birth of the Federation
- Armada: The USS Premonition from the future tells the Enterprise that the Borg plan a new invasion and to clone Locutus.
- Armada II: The Borg have set up a transwarp link between the Alpha and Delta quadrants and plan another invasion.
- Away Team
- Borg: An interactive movie in which the player, aided by Q, has to fend off the Borg invasion of a starship.
- Borg Assimilator
- Voyager Elite Force
- Star Trek Elite Force II
- Starfleet Command III
- VGA Planets: A play by e-mail game by Tim Wisseman
The Borg as a cultural allusion
The Borg were a concept born out of necessity for Star Trek to feature a new antagonist and the regular enemy that was lacking during the first season of The Next Generation, now that the Klingons were allies, and the Romulans mostly absent. Originally intended as the new enemy for the United Federation of Planets, the Ferengi failed to assert themselves as a convincing threat because of their comical, unintimidating appearance and devotion to capitalist accumulation or "free enterprise". They were subsequently reassigned the role of annoying but cute comic relief characters. A new military threat was thus needed to replace the Klingons and Romulans. The Borg, with their frightening appearance, immense power, and most importantly a no-nonsense, totally sinister motive became the signature villains for the TNG era of Star Trek. Its strongest definition is most probably the fearful Luddite prophecy – the vision that unchecked technology may eventually transform humanity into monsters.
Andre Bormanis, one of the science writers for the show The Next Generation, has said on the subject: "The Borg are the dark side of technology. They're what happens if technology falls into the wrong hands and goes awry, and is used to de-humanise rather than let us all live to our full potential."
In a literary sense, the Borg are highly similar to depictions of zombies in popular culture. Their pale complexion, slow yet steady advance, anhedonia, and ability to assimilate their enemies at a touch are all traits they have in common with the Hollywood zombie. Similarly, both show a lack of individuality, or any knowledge of their former lives (albeit with some exceptions).
The Borg are one of the more recognizable and popular Star Trek villains, which has made them icons in American popular culture even outside of Star Trek. Referring to a group of people as "borgs" or "borg" (maintaining the proper plural) means that they are completely given to conformity with one another. A single person who is slavishly conformist can also be called a "drone" or "Borg."
Borg is also occasionally used as a slang verb, meaning to take over or absorb something. Example: "Steve borged (with a hard G) "assimilated" my CD collection, making copies of almost every disc I own." In the context of roleplaying games, the verb "borg" is used to mean repeatedly going to the same location in the game world with the express purpose of killing monsters to accumulate experience points and/or money, usually even when the monsters/NPCs in question are of no significant threat to the character being played.
The website Slashdot, a popular online community which discusses various newsworthy technological stories, uses an icon depicting Bill Gates as a Borg for all stories relating to Microsoft.
Sometimes, someone is referred to as being 'of Borg', indicating they are aggressive in taking over something, e.g. "Microsoft of Borg." This is in reference to the Borg's famous maxim, "Resistance is futile".
Shortly after the introduction of the Pentium microprocessor, a floating-point arithmetic glitch was found which affected the accuracy of calculations, leading to the joke, "We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated."
The website "Cabinet of Wonders" describes HeLa cells as "almost the Borg of the medical world, contaminating and replacing 'normal' cells almost unnoticed in tests." *
See also
- The Integrator, a large blob of living mass from Alan Dean Foster's Sentenced to Prisim. Found on the planet Prisim, it grows and enlarges with every creature is absorbs, stripping them of their individuality, and even dismembering them to use their parts for various tasks.
- Assault#Aparoids, a race of insect-like creatures that were the central antagonist of Assault that sought evolution through assimilation. This continues the Star Fox series' tradition of referencing other science fiction works.
- Berserker fiction written by Fred Saberhagen, beginning 1963; some of the protagonists closely resemble the Borg.
- Cybermen, a cyborg race introduced in 1966 in the TV series Doctor Who. Many similarities have been noted between this race and the later Borg, including their incorporation of other species and use of the similar catchphrases ("Resistance is useless" and "You will be Like Us"). However, they lack visible human features (apart from human hands in their first appearance), and are entirely encased in metal.
- The Replicators are mechanical "spiders" from the series Stargate SG-1 which share some of the Borg characteristics - namely adaptability to enemy attack, no subjectively evil motive prior to contact with humans (they merely seek to replicate). Later, "human form" Replicators develop individual personalities and vendettas in a fashion similar to the Borg Queen storylines.
- Perry Rhodan, a prolific literary fictional series originating from Germany in 1961, whose "Posbis" are similar to the Borg.
- The Conjoiners, a race of cybernetic humans who share thoughts electronically and are dedicated to improving themselves through increasingly advanced technology. From Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space series of novels.
- The Inhibitors, a mechanical race assimilating technological advances and then eliminating starfaring sentient species. Also from Revelation Space series.
- The Invisible War characters#The Omar are a race of cyborgs in the computer game Invisible War. They are very similar to the Borg. They assimilate humans into the Omar (though this is usually voluntary). The Omar are supposed to have at least a partially merged collective consciousness, though many Omar will refer to themselves as "I" instead of "We" like the Borg, indicating some level of individuality. Their ultimate aim is to become capable of surviving in any extreme environment, and then to help initiate an extinction-level event from which they intend to emerge, the only survivors of what was once mankind. Thus they will have created a clean slate on which they can build a harmonious and advanced civilisation for the future.
- The southeastern amusement park, Paramount's Carowinds, prominently features the Borg in its flagship ride, the Borg Assimilator. As the tallest coaster in the Carolinas, it is known for its extreme riding position (head-first supine) and incredibly long lines.
- The Beast, an antagonist race in Cataclysm who assimilate ships by sending in a virus into any organic lifeforms inside via beam.
Further reading
- Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and Daniel H. Nexon, "Representation is Futile?: American Anti-Collectivism and the Borg" in Jutta Weldes, ed., To Seek Out New Worlds: Science Fiction and World Politics. 2003. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 031229557X. Pp. 143-167.
- Thomas A. Georges. Digital Soul: Intelligent Machines and Human Values. Boulder: Westview. ISBN 0813340578. p. 172. (The Borg as Big Business)
External links
- Borg documentary at the Star Trek website
- Borg article at the official Star Trek website
- Source for many Borg images on the Ex Astris Scientia website
- We, Borg: Speculations on Hive Minds as a Posthuman State
- The Borg Collective on Yahoo Groups
- Star Trek Fan Collective: Borg top 10 fan-rated Borg episodes on DVD
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