We Are The Borg

The Borg are an alien group that appear as recurring antagonists in the Star Trek fictional universe. The Borg are cybernetic organisms (cyborgs) linked in a hive mind called “The Collective”. The Borg co-opt the technology and knowledge of other alien species to the Collective through the process of “assimilation”: forcibly transforming individual beings into “drones” by injecting nanoprobes into their bodies and surgically augmenting them with cybernetic components. The Borg’s ultimate goal is “achieving perfection”.

Aside from being recurring antagonists in the Next Generation television series, they are depicted as the main threat in the film Star Trek: First Contact. In addition, they played major roles in the Voyager series.

The Borg have become a symbol in popular culture for any juggernaut against which “resistance is futile” – a common phrase uttered by the Borg.

The Borg represented a new antagonist and regular enemy which had been lacking during the first season of TNG; the Klingons were allies and the Romulans mostly absent. The Ferengi were originally intended as the new enemy for the United Federation of Planets, but their comical appearance failed to portray them as a convincing threat. The Borg, however, with their frightening appearance, their immense power, and their sinister motive, became the signature villains for the TNG and Voyager eras of Star Trek. In Voyager episode “Q2”, even the near-omnipotent Q tells his son, “Don’t provoke the Borg!”

Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) writers began to develop the idea of the Borg as early as the Season 1 episode “Conspiracy”, which introduced a coercive, symbiotic life form that took over key Federation personnel. Plans to feature the Borg as an increasingly menacing threat were subsequently scrapped in favor of a more subtle introduction, beginning with the mystery of missing Federation and Romulan colonies on both sides of the Neutral Zone in “The Neutral Zone” and culminating in the encounter between Borg and the Enterprise crew in “Q Who”

The Depiction

The Borg are cyborgs, having outward appearances showing both mechanical and biological body parts. Individual Borg are referred to as drones and move in a robotic, purposeful style, ignoring most of their environment, including beings they do not consider an immediate threat. Borg commonly have one eye replaced with a sophisticated ocular implant. Borg usually have one arm replaced with a prosthesis, bearing one of a variety of multipurpose tools in place of a humanoid hand. Since different drones have different roles, the arm may be specialized for myriad purposes such as medical devices, scanners, and weapons. Borg have flat, grayish skin, giving them an almost zombie-like appearance.

Borg are highly resistant to energy-based weapons, having personal shielding that quickly adapts to them. In various episodes, phasers and other directed energy weapons tend to quickly become ineffective as the Borg are able to adapt to the specific frequencies on which these weapons are projected once a ship or an individual drone is struck down by them. Later attempts to modulate phaser and other weapon frequencies have had limited success. Borg shields are ineffective protection against projectile or melee weapons, and several have been defeated in this way, or through hand-to-hand combat.

Borg possess a “cortical node” that controls other implanted cybernetic devices within a Borg drone’s body; it is most often implanted in the forehead above the organic eye. If the cortical node fails, the drone eventually dies. Successful replacement of the node can be carried out on a Borg vessel.

The Borg Collective

Borg civilization is based on a hive or group mind known as the Collective. Each Borg drone is linked to the collective by a sophisticated subspace network that ensures each member is given constant supervision and guidance. The mental energy of the group consciousness can help an injured or damaged drone heal or regenerate damaged body parts or technology. The collective consciousness gives them the ability not only to “share the same thoughts”, but also to adapt quickly to new tactics. Individual drones in the Collective are rarely seen speaking, but a collective “voice” is sometimes transmitted to ships.

“Resistance is futile”

Individual Borg rarely speak, although they do send a collective audio message to their targets, stating that “resistance is futile”, often followed by a declaration that the target in question will be assimilated and its “biological and technological distinctiveness” will be added to their own. The exact phrasing varies and evolves over the various series episodes and film.

In Star Trek: First Contact, the voice of the Borg is spoken by Jeff Coopwood. The Borg’s warning is:

BORG SPEAKING: 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.

Nanoprobes

Nanoprobes are microscopic machines that inhabit a Borg’s body, bloodstream, and many cybernetic implants. The probes maintain the Borg cybernetic systems and repair damage to the organic parts of a Borg. They generate new technology inside a Borg when needed and protect them from many forms of disease. Borg nanoprobes, each about the size of a human red blood cell, travel through the victim’s bloodstream and attach to individual cells. The nanoprobes rewrite the cellular DNA, altering the victim’s biochemistry, and eventually form larger, more complicated structures and networks within the body, like electrical pathways, processing and data-storage nodes, and ultimately prosthetic devices that spring forth from the skin.

In the episode “Mortal Coil”, Seven of Nine says the Borg assimilated the nanoprobe technology from “Species 149”. In addition, the nanoprobes maintain and repair their host’s mechanical and biological components on a microscopic level, imparting regenerative capabilities.

Though used by the Borg to exert control over another being, reprogrammed nanoprobes were used by the crew of the starship Voyager in many instances as medical aids.

The capability of nanoprobes to absorb improved technologies they find into the Borg collective is shown in the Voyager episode “Drone”, where Seven of Nine’s nanoprobes are fused with the Doctor’s mobile emitter, which uses technology from the 29th century, creating a 29th-century drone existing outside the Collective, with capabilities far surpassing those of the 24th-century drones.

The Borg do not try to immediately assimilate any being with which they come into contact; Borg drones tend to completely ignore individuals that are identified as too weak to be an imminent threat or too inferior to be worth assimilating. Captain Picard and his team walk safely past a group of Borg drones in a scene from the film Star Trek: First Contact while the drones fulfill a programmed mission. In the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Mortal Coil”, Seven of Nine told Neelix the Kazon were “unworthy” of assimilation and would serve only to detract from the Borg’s quest for perceived perfection.

Space Travel

The Borg are a spacefaring race, and their primary interstellar transport and combat vessel is known as a “Borg Cube” due to its shape. A cube was first seen during the Borg’s introduction in the Next Generation episode “Q Who”, which established the vessel as vastly exceeding the capability of the Enterprise – the main ship of the series and Federation flagship – to defend against or escape it without outside intervention. The episode “The Best of Both Worlds” and the film Star Trek: First Contact both depict single cubes as critical military threats, capable of fighting or defeating an entire fleet of ships.

Common capabilities of cubes include high speed warp and transwarp drives, self-regeneration and multiple-redundant systems, adaptability in combat, and various energy weapons as well as tractor beams and cutting beams. As with most other Star Trek races, the Borg have transporter capability. Cubes are also distinguished by their immense size and lack of streamlined aesthetic.

Different types and sizes of cubes have appeared, as well as Borg spheres and some smaller craft.

Assimilation

Assimilation is the process by which the Borg integrate beings, cultures, and technology into the Collective. “You will be assimilated” is one of the few on-screen phrases employed by the Borg when communicating with other species. The Borg are portrayed as having found and assimilated thousands of species and billions to trillions of individual life-forms throughout the galaxy. The Borg designate each species with a number assigned to them upon first contact, humanity being “Species 5618”.

When first introduced, the Borg are said to be more interested in assimilating technology than people, roaming the universe as single-minded marauders assimilating starships, planets, and entire societies to collect new technology. They are discriminating in this area, finding certain races, for example the Kazon, to be technologically inferior and unworthy of assimilation. The Borg then place the assimilated children into maturation chambers to quickly and fully grow them into mature drones.

In their second appearance, “The Best of Both Worlds”, they capture and assimilate Captain Jean-Luc Picard into the Collective, creating Locutus of Borg (meaning “he who has spoken”, in Latin).

The method of assimilating individual life-forms into the Collective has been represented differently over time. The Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation assimilate through abduction and then surgical procedure. In Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Voyager, assimilation is through injecting nanoprobes into an individual’s bloodstream via a pair of tubules that spring forth from a drone’s hand. Assimilation by tubules is depicted on-screen as being a fast-acting process, with the victim’s skin pigmentation turning gray and mottled with visible dark tracks forming within moments of contact. After assimilation, a drone’s race and gender become “irrelevant”. After initial assimilation through injection, Borg are surgically fitted with cybernetic devices. In Star Trek: First Contact an assimilated crew member is shown to have a forearm and an eye physically removed and replaced with cybernetic implants.

The Borg also assimilate, interface, and reconfigure technology using these tubules and nanoprobes. However, in “Q Who” a Borg is depicted apparently trying to assimilate, probe, or reconfigure a control panel in engineering using an energy interface instead of nanoprobes.

The Borg Queen

Before the film Star Trek: First Contact (1996), the Borg exhibited no hierarchical command structure. First Contact introduced the Borg Queen, who is not named as such in the film (referring to herself with “I am the Borg. I am the Collective… I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many”) but is named Borg Queen in the closing credits. The Queen is played by Alice Krige in this film, in the 2001 finale of Star Trek: Voyager “Endgame”, and the character also appeared in Voyager’s two-part episodes “Dark Frontier” (1999) and “Unimatrix Zero” in (2000), throughout the series.

The Borg Queen is the focal point within the Borg collective consciousness and a unique drone within the Collective, who brings “order to chaos”, referring to herself as “we” and “I” interchangeably. In First Contact, the Queen’s dialogue suggests she is an expression of the Borg Collective’s overall intelligence, not a controller but the avatar of the entire Collective as an individual. This sentiment is contradicted by Star Trek: Voyager, where she is seen explicitly directing, commanding, and in one instance even overriding the Collective. The introduction of the Queen radically changed the canonical understanding of the Borg function within the collective, of the hive-mind.

The Origin

The origin of the Borg is never made clear, though they are located in the ‘Delta Quadrant’ on the other side of the known galaxy and have been thriving for hundreds of thousands of years.