Star Trek: Borg

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Star Trek: Borg video game manual

Star Trek: Borg is an interactive movie/computer game and audiobook set in the Star Trek universe. It was written by Hilary Bader, directed by James L. Conway, and featured an original score by Dennis McCarthy. It was released in 1996 by Simon and Schuster for Macintosh and Windows 95.

1 Plot
2 Trivia
3 PC Version Technical Note
4 External links

[edit] Plot

In the midst of a new Borg incursion ten years after the Battle of Wolf 359, Starfleet Cadet Qaylan Furlong is given an opportunity by Q (John de Lancie) to go back in time and prevent his father's death in the historic battle.

Q sends Qaylan to the USS Righteous, his father's Excelsior class starship, just before the Battle of Wolf 359. Originally, the ship's security officer Coris Sprint was killed by a Borg intruder over four hours before the battle. Q gives Quylan control of Sprint's body at this point, allowing him to change history. Since Sprint is Bijani he has the ability to go into a "Bijani Pain Trance" which allows him to complete jobs even when feeling immense pain, and is an important plot point in allowing the character to complete the game.

Meanwhile, Q takes over the role of Dr. Thaddeus Quint, whose personality suits him.

[edit] Trivia

The designs for the Borg in this video game are based upon their appearances on the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV Series, and precede their redesign for the film Star Trek: First Contact, which was released the same year as the game.

The USS Righteous sets are mostly redressed versions of the sets of the USS Voyager from the Star Trek: Voyager series, with the exception of the bridge, which was a redressed form of the bridge of the USS Excelsior as seen in the Voyager episode "Flashback".

Visual effects shots for this game were originally produced for the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine pilot episode "Emissary".

Jeff Allin, the actor who portrayed Ralph Furlong, also guest-starred as a single parent in the TNG episode "Imaginary Friend".

The Starfleet uniforms worn by the crew of the Righteous are inaccurate for the time in which the story takes place. Although the Battle of Wolf 359 took place in 2367 (the beginning of Star Trek: The Next Generation's fourth season), the uniform used for the game was not introduced until 2371.

Additionally, the Battle of Sector 001 seen in First Contact took place in 2373; Qaylan Furlong is from the year 2377, ten years after Wolf 359. This same year, a Borg sphere pursued the USS Voyager to Earth through a transwarp conduit and was subsequently destroyed. The (non-canon) Borg attack faced by the Starfleet of Qaylan's time is probably unrelated to either of these events, particularly given the real-life year in which the game was created.

[edit] PC Version Technical Note

Unlike its predecessor, Star Trek: Klingon, the PC version of Star Trek: Borg was intended exclusively for use with Windows 95 (the most advanced Microsoft operating system of its day). To enforce this, the OS and graphical settings of the user's computer are checked whenever the game is run. This causes difficulty for players with modern hardware, as the game automatically assumes that any system not running Win95 with 16-bit color is incapable of supporting the program's minimum system requirements. A patch was later released which allows the game to be installed and run with Windows 98, but the color settings must be set to 16-bit before the game will launch.