A Borg Queen in 2373
The Borg Queen was an entity that existed within and served as a central nexus for the Borg Collective.
History
The origin of a Borg Queen was, and still is, unclear. It could be that she was created by the Borg Collective to serve as a representative, such as when Jean-Luc Picard was assimilated and chosen to speak for them (as Locutus) in order to facilitate their introduction into Human-like cultures. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds", "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II") (An alternate theory is that the Borg Queen was originally the first Borg, constantly replaced with a similar drone when destroyed, but this, like the previous theory, is purely speculation.) What is certain is that she had full control over the Borg Collective and was able to command every Borg drone throughout it. To disconnect a drone from the Hive mind or destroy a Borg vessel required merely a thought from the Queen. The full might of the Borg Collective was at her disposal. When a drone was disconnected from the Hive mind and Borg Collective the Queen was still able to contact it when the drone in question was regenerating in an alcove.
It is unknown when a Borg Queen first appeared within the Collective, but she was already present in 2354.
Borg Queen being assembled in 2376
A Borg Queen defined herself as, "I am the beginning... the end. The one who is many. I am the Borg." Although this might suggest she would be an individual within the Collective, when spoken to she would refer to drones as "My drones", she is not. The purpose of a Borg Queen was to bring order to chaos.
Her appearance was that of a humanoid female of Species 125. In accordance with the Borg pursuit of perfection, a blending of the organic and synthetic, very little of her original humanoid form remained. Her face and upper torso were organic while the rest of her body, including her skull and spinal cord, were synthetic. Because of her disembodiment she saw herself as the epitome of perfection. The Queen had her own chambers within the Borg Unicomplex from which she could oversee the Borg. Whether she had her own ship or not was unknown, but she used different Borg vessels to travel, such as a Borg Cube or sphere. However, it can be inferred that the Borg diamond is the Queen's ship, as the only recorded sightings of the diamond have had the Queen aboard at the time. When her physical presence was not necessary her organic part resided above this chamber while her synthetic parts were stored below it, under the floor. If she desired to do so both could be brought together and in doing so create a humanoid form for herself.
A Borg Queen in 2376
In Human terms, a Borg Queen could be characterized as ruthless. She would do anything to protect the Borg Collective. Where drones showed no emotions, the Queen herself did. When necessary she would employ psychological tactics, like extortion or plain intimidation to get what she wanted. The Queen even displayed self-preservation when she was held at gunpoint by Captain Janeway, who threatened to kill her. On a personal level she considered Seven of Nine her favorite drone, because the Queen considered her to be unique. This had to do with Seven's experiences as an individual when she served aboard Voyager. The Queen's goal was to re-assimilate Seven into the Collective to enhance the Borg's, and so her own, perfection. She failed to do so. (VOY: "Unimatrix Zero", "Dark Frontier")
The death of a Borg Queen does not seem to affect the Collective or its hive mind. When a Borg drone died, its memories would still be within the hive mind. There was no evidence that a Borg Queen would be more than a drone. Borg drones were capable of functioning without a Queen for any length of time by forming a hive mind of their own. (VOY: "Unity")
It was thought by Federation exobiologist Erin Hansen that the Borg Queen functioned like the queen of an insect hive, to coordinate the drones, but there was no evidence of this kind of behavior.
The Borg Queen that was present in 2377 was assimilated when she was a child, together with her parents. Years later she could still hear them. (VOY: "Unimatrix Zero, Part II")
First encounter
The existence of a Borg Queen was first established sometime prior to 2365 by the exobiologists Erin and Magnus Hansen. However, because the Hansens where assimilated their discovery never reached Starfleet. (VOY: "The Raven") It was not until 2373 that the Federation became aware of her when the Federation starship USS Enterprise-E prevented the assimilation of Earth. This was the second attempt by the Borg, also known as the Battle of Sector 001. They traveled back to Earth's past to prevent First Contact, and by doing so would be able to assimilate Earth.
During this conflict, while Captain Picard was trying to destroy the Borg, she claimed to have been present during the Battle of Wolf 359, and even admitted that Locutus of Borg – the assimilated Captain Picard – should have been her counterpart, intended to ease the burden of loneliness, but when Picard continued to resist even when he couldn't control Locutus' body, she had to turn him into just another drone. Whether or not she physically took part in the Battle of Wolf 359 is unknown.
The Borg Queen was killed by the android Lieutenant Commander Data while she tried to persuade him to give her the encryption key by which he had locked the Enterprise computer. Warp core plasma coolant released by Data destroyed her organic parts, after which Picard broke her spinal cord to make sure she could not function any more. (Star Trek: First Contact)
Subsequent encounters
The second encounter with a Borg Queen was in 2375 in the Delta Quadrant. Here the lost Federation starship USS Voyager tried to rescue the former Borg drone Seven of Nine, who was then part of Voyager's crew, when the plan to steal a transwarp coil from a Borg sphere did not work out as planned. The Queen also revealed that the drone Seven of Nine was not really freed by Voyager from the Collective, but allowed to leave by the Borg. During this encounter the Borg Queen hoped to assimilate Seven of Nine again, who experienced life as an individual for two years, and so add to her own perfection. However, Seven rejected the Queen and fled with a rescue mission sent by the Voyager in the Delta Flyer. A Borg diamond was sent by the Queen to intercept the shuttle, but it was destroyed in the attempt. (VOY: "Dark Frontier")
In 2376, a Borg Queen was again encountered by Voyager. This time the Queen wanted to destroy Unimatrix Zero, a virtual world populated by regenerating Borg with a genetic mutation. This world was discovered by Seven of Nine and posed a threat to the Borg. During Voyager's efforts to rescue this virtual world the Borg Queen demonstrated her powers by destroying a Borg sphere because she could no longer 'hear' only one drone. When a nanovirus was released to prevent the detection of Unimatrix Zero, the Queen destroyed several Borg vessels, killing 75,000 Borg drones in the process, in the hope of persuading the captured Captain Janeway to give her the antidote. (VOY: "Unimatrix Zero", "Unimatrix Zero, Part II")
A Borg Queen in 2378
Janeway confronts a Borg Queen
The last encounter between a Federation starship and a Borg Queen was in 2378, and again Voyager played a part in it. Voyager accidentally discovered a Borg transwarp hub within a nebula and were helped by Admiral Kathryn Janeway, who came from an alternate timeline, around twenty-three years in the future, to use the Borg transwarp network to get back to the Alpha Quadrant. Because the Borg guarded their transwarp hub closely, Admiral Janeway devised a plan by which she would infect the Borg Queen with a neurolytic pathogen and in doing so making her lose control over the force fields which protected the interspatial manifolds. When the Admiral was captured by the Borg, near the Unicomplex, she was assimilated by the Borg Queen herself. Soon after the Queen began to lose control over drones. The pathogen even made her lose control over her own synthetic parts, as her body literally fell apart. Her death caused the destruction of the Unicomplex and despite her efforts Voyager reached Earth safely. The Borg Sphere sent after them by the Queen was destroyed by Voyager's transphasic torpedoes, given to them by the Admiral from the future. (VOY: "Endgame")
- It is unknown if the neurolytic pathogen infected Borg drones who were not in the Unicomplex at the time. The current status of the Borg and whether or not a new Borg Queen is in place, are also unknown.
Appearances
Background Information
- The Borg Queen was played by Alice Krige in Star Trek: First Contact and VOY: "Endgame". The character was played by Susanna Thompson in the Voyager episodes "Dark Frontier", "Unimatrix Zero", and "Unimatrix Zero, Part II".
- The design of the Borg Queen was influenced by a character from the movie Captain Eo. In the film, actress Anjelica Huston played a villainous woman who lived in the ceiling and would descend on cables.
- The appearance of the Borg Queen in First Contact was a controversial one in the Trek universe. Though the Borg provided for a threatening and intriguing alien enemy, their lack of a single villain presented a challenge for the writers. To counter this, and to expand some on Gene Roddenberry's original notion of the Borg as an insect-hive type of race, they created the Queen as a focal point for their story. However, many fans felt that her very existence undermined the idea of the Borg as a Collective, or Hive Mind, and that the dialogue meant to address this in the movie was inadequate in addition to being intentionally vague.
- Consequently, many different theories have developed over the role of the Queen and the extent to which she may represent a hierarchical structure in the previously supposed to be Collective nature of the Borg. The exact nature of the Queen is still hotly debated and has many possible explanations.
- In First Contact, when asked by Picard how she'd survived when the cube sent to Earth in 2367 was destroyed, the Queen replied that Picard had become small, thinking in three-dimensional terms. The fourth dimension is temporal, not spatial, so it would suggest that she escaped through some subspace or hyperdimensional technology.
- This was further complicated by the re-appearance of a Queen during the run of Voyager but was not directly addressed.
- In 2002, the Borg Queen was placed second in TV Zone's list of the top twenty science fiction television villains. Dukat was fourth, Weyoun was eighth, Q was eleventh and Seska was nineteenth.
- In an early version of the script of First Contact (a script very different from the movie) Geordi La Forge tells Data that he is sending the Borg Queen's remains to the Daystrom Institute for study.
- When asked whether the Queen was a "virtual entity; the personification of the collective", Ronald D. Moore said "This was not the intention. We saw her as a literal person." [1]
Apocrypha
According to the Pocket VOY novel The Farther Shore published after the television series concluded, a Borg Queen can be replaced in mere seconds by using the Royal Protocol. Seven of Nine was specifically mentioned in the Royal Protocol and was most likely to become the next Queen.