Like everything in the Star Trek universe, the Borg are not nearly as black and white
as they appear.
That's not to say you'd want a Borg cube for your Neutral Zone neighbor, though, as there
are some pretty weird aspects to these Star Trek villains.
The Borg made their first appearance in Star Trek canon in the second season of The Next
Generation, and like so many problems faced by the Enterprise, it was all Q's fault.
"Mon capitaine, he's back!"
After Captain Picard declines Q's offer to join the crew, the omnipotent trickster flings
the Enterprise across the universe into an unknown sector of space that just happens
to be the heart of Borg territory.
Instead of turning around and hightailing it back to the nearest starbase, Jean-Luc
decides to poke around a little bit, and the crew soon find themselves face-to-face with
the ominously iconic Borg cube.
Naturally, our heroes try to make peaceful contact, but the Borg are not that kind of
collective.
They catch the Enterprise in a tractor beam and carve off a piece like a birthday cake,
killing or abducting 18 members of the crew, and proving themselves to be more than a match
for the Enterprise's defenses.
Deciding that they need a new strategy, Commander William Riker takes a small away team to visit
the Borg on their home turf.
Given what Q has told the Enterprise about the Borg, one might expect the drones - Borg
temporarily disconnected from the collective - to go into attack mode immediately when
they spot the Starfleet officers aboard their ship.
Instead, Riker and his pals are largely ignored, left to explore the cube without being hassled.
Why?
Because the Borg are busy repairing their ship, and can't be bothered with any of these
tasty Starfleet Officers.
Clearly, they don't think these guys cut it, and aren't worth the three extra seconds of
not fixing their ride it would take to assimilate them.
Ouch.
Sorry, Riker.
Klingon apologies, Worf.
Not only are they a frightening presence from Day One, they're also kind of a bunch of snobs.
And forget about it if you're a Kazon.
"Were they assimilated?”
“Their biological and technological distinctiveness was unremarkable.
They were unworthy of assimilation."
One of the things that makes the Borg so terrifying during their introduction is that they're
completely unknown to the crew of the Enterprise.
Well, almost completely.
Guinan,the Enterprise's wise, mysterious, and seemingly immortal bartender played by
Whoopi Goldberg, knows quite a bit about them.
As she tells Captain Picard, they killed her people, and he absolutely should not be messing
with them.
According to her, they're not on the same level as the Romulans, the Ferengi, or even
the Klingon Empire.
The Borg are a whole new ballgame.
But, as so often happens when a woman speaks truth to power, her warnings fall on deaf
ears.
When Picard decides to reason with and then attack the Borg, he not only loses a handful
of his own crew members and a hefty section of his ship, he winds up sparking their interest
in the Alpha Quadrant, leading to the devastating conflict that plays out throughout the series
and even through the time stream itself.
Picard eventually learns what we knew all along, and pays the price for it: Guinan was
right.
The Borg are, indeed, a different kind of villain, an unstoppable foe that they'll be
forced to reckon with, time and time again, with devastating consequences.
In the Next Gen film, First Contact, the Borg order the Federation ships opposing them to
lower their shields and surrender with this warm and fuzzy greeting:
"Your culture will adapt to service us.
Resistance is futile."
Considering the Borg's overwhelming offensive powers, it's about as good an offer as most
civilizations are going to get.
It seems like there's no one who would be able to put up a fight against such an intimidating
enemy.
Of course, loyal fans know that resistance isn't quite as futile as the Borg would like
you to think.
We've seen several instances of someone successfully fighting off the Borg, the first being Captain
Picard.
After being assimilated into the collective in the iconic two-part episode "The Best of
Both Worlds," he was restored to himself after a meeting of the minds with Data.
Later, we learn about Species 8427, an enemy even more menacing and cruel than the Borg.
"Over the past five months, the Borg have been attacked by them on at least a dozen
occasions.
Each time, the Borg were defeated swiftly."
Captain Janeway of the Voyager attempts to trade their secret biological weapons to the
Borg in return for safe passage through the Collective's territory.
This all happens during a violent, devastating war between the Borg and Species 8427 which
ensnares the Voyager crew.
It's so intense that Janeway, Seven of Nine, and the Voyager's hologram doctor have to
go to rather spectacular lengths to emerge from the Borg's clutches relatively unscathed.
Clearly, resistance to the Borg isn't entirely futile.
It's just really difficult and requires a lot of gymnastics on the part of the writers.
Thanks to her experience patching up Captain Picard after his tenure as Locutus, Dr. Beverly
Crusher has a surprisingly good track record of restoring humanity to the drones absorbed
by the Borg collective.
Of course, few Starfleet medical officers would've had the chance to try their hand
at it even once, but Crusher pulls it off a second time when the Enterprise encounters
Hugh, a solitary Borg drone, disconnected from the rest of the Collective and rescued
on the fringes of Federation space.
Picard, having had his own traumatic brushes with the Borg in earlier episodes, would like
nothing more than to keep Hugh, the Borg formerly known as Third of Five, in the brig, and even
entertains the idea of using him as a Trojan Horse to wipe out the entire collective with
a virus.
Crusher, however, insists he be treated like any other sick patient, and she slowly nurses
him back to health.
Inspired by their own cybernetic pal, Data, the rest of the Enterprise embraces Hugh as
well, helping him cope with life outside the collective.
He begins to develop an individual mindset, succeeding in convincing even Captain Picard
that Borg can be rehabilitated.
Hugh eventually returns to his cube, a changed Borg.
Hugh's new individuality manages to infect the rest of his Cube's unified hearts and
minds, causing so much disarray that it falls into the sinister hands of Lore, Data's black
sheep brother.
Hugh does, however, eventually triumph over Lore, in part because of his ability to disconnect
from the collective and think on his own.
As Star Trek's first sympathetic portrayal of a Borg drone, Hugh sets the stage for Seven
of Nine, and a longer, deeper exploration of what it means to be human, Borg, and a
creature stuck somewhere in between.
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