Borg (Star Trek)

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The Borg

A Borg drone, in the Hollywood Entertainment Museum, Los Angeles
Founded Before the 15th century
Base of Operations Delta Quadrant
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The Borg are a fictional pseudo-race of cyborgs depicted in Star Trek. The Borg appear in many elements of the Trek franchise, playing major roles in The Next Generation and Voyager TV series, notably as an invasion threat to the Federation, and the means of return of the stranded Federation starship Voyager. The Borg have become a symbol in popular culture for any juggernaut against whom "resistance is futile."

The Borg are depicted as an amalgam of cybernetically enhanced humanoid drones of multiple species, organized as an inter-connected collective with a hive mind, inhabiting a vast region of space with many planets and ships, and sophisticated technology. They operate towards one single-minded purpose: to add the biological and technological distinctiveness of other species to their own, in pursuit of perfection. This is achieved through forced assimilation, a process which transforms individuals and technology into Borg, enhancing individuals by adding synthetic components.

In their first introduction to the franchise, little information is forthcoming about the Borg or their origins and intents. In alien encounters, they exhibit no desire for negotiation or reason, only to assimilate. Exhibiting a rapid adaptability to any situation or threat, with encounters characterized by matter of fact 'resistance is futile' type imperatives, the Borg develop into one of the greatest threats to Starfleet and the Federation. Originally perceived on screen as a homogeneous and anonymous entity, the concept of a Queen and central control is later introduced, while spokespersons for the Borg are sometimes employed to act as a go-between in more complicated plot lines.

In Star Trek, attempts to resist the Borg becomes one of the central themes, with many examples of successful resistance to the collective, both from existing or former drones, and assimilation targets, with at least one species being shown as having superior capabilities to the Borg. It is also demonstrated that it is possible to survive assimilation (most notably Picard), and that drones can escape the collective (most notably Seven of Nine), and become individuals, or exist collectively without forced assimilation of others.

Contents

[edit] Assimilation

In the Star Trek fictional universe, assimilation is the process by which the Borg integrate beings and cultures into their 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 encountered and assimilated thousands of species and (reportedly) trillions of lifeforms throughout the galaxy. The Borg identify species uniquely with a number assigned to them upon first contact.

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 just their technology, being less interested in individual lifeforms. It is postulated that assimilation of individuals emerged as an efficient additional method for the Borg of gaining new knowledge and therefore enhancing the collective, as seen through the assimilation of Picard.

A Borg infant was found in the Borg cube, suggesting they reproduced rather than assimilated lifeforms. (TNG: "Q Who?"). This however is theorized to be their method of assimilating children and/or pregnant female sentients only. In their second appearance, "The Best of Both Worlds", they were shown to assimilate individuals—namely, Picard—into the collective by surgically altering them. This method is generally agreed to be the preferred method of assimilation in regards to fully matured biological lifeforms.

Jean-Luc Picard as Locutus
Jean-Luc Picard as Locutus

The method of assimilating individual lifeforms into the collective has been represented differently over time. Throughout, infant and fetal humanoids have been grown in an accelerated state and surgically receive implants tied directly into the brain, as well as ocular devices, tool-enhanced limbs, armor, and other prosthetics.

Later, in Star Trek: First Contact, the method of (adult) assimilation was depicted with the more efficient 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. 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. Assimilation by nano-probe is depicted on-screen as being a fast acting process, with the victim's skin pigmentation turning grey with visible dark tracks forming where presumably blood vessels once existed.

In "Mortal Coil", Seven of Nine states that the Borg assimilated the nanoprobe technology from "Species 149", suggesting that other improvements in assimilation technology could have been assimilated, as well as indicating that the Borg's interest in assimilating technologies has not lapsed.

Assimilation is depicted as the preferred way for the Borg to gain information,[1] especially about species of which no individuals have been previously assimilated. However, in several episodes drones are depicted as first interrogating alien technologies for tactical knowledge, rather than immediately assimilating the few individuals who may be present, as seen in "Q Who?".

Because assimilation depends on nanoprobes, species with an extremely advanced immune system such as Species 8472 are able to reject assimilation.

The capability of nanoprobes to absorb improved technologies they encounter into the Borg collective is demonstrated in the Voyager episode "Drone", where Seven of Nine's nanoprobes are fused with the Doctor's futuristic mobile emitter, creating a drone with enhanced capabilities to current drones, that then attempts to contact the collective. Fortunately for Voyager, this drone’s enhanced capabilities are not disseminated throughout the collective; the drone, in fact, sacrificed itself to save Voyager’s crew.

In William Shatner's novel The Return, Spock is nearly assimilated by the Borg, but is saved by the fact that he mind-melded with V'ger. This is because, according to Shatner's novel, the alien race that found V'ger was an earlier form of the Borg. Spock was saved from assimilation because he had part of the Borg Collective in his mind after he mind-melded with V'ger.

[edit] Borg Queen

Borg Queen in First Contact
Borg Queen in First Contact

The movie Star Trek: First Contact introduced the Borg Queen (played by Alice Krige). The Borg Queen is the focal point within the Borg collective consciousness and a unique drone within the collective, who originates from Species 125, that brings "order to chaos", referring to herself as "we" and "I" interchangeably.

In First Contact, the Borg Queen is seen as apparently present during Picard's former assimilation at the start as flashbacks in Picard's mind, and was believed destroyed on the Borg cube those years earlier, before she directed her attentions to Data in the film. After his capture by her drones, she tried to tempt him with live flesh to comply with her. The Queen was also seemingly destroyed in at least three other instances: during Star Trek: First Contact by Data, most likely for good; "Dark Frontier"; and "Endgame". In the Star Trek: The Experience attraction The Borg Invasion 4-D, the Borg Queen re-appears after Voyager returns to the Alpha Quadrant, but as Admiral Janeway attempts to kill her, she activates a transporter allowing her to survive.

In the Star Trek: Voyager relaunch novels, the Borg Queen isn't a single, irreplaceable entity, but the product of a program called "The Royal Protocol" that shares its name with a Starfleet document outlining requirements when dealing with foreign royalty. This program is used to create a Borg Queen from any female Borg, commanding the technology within her to alter and adapt to the Protocol's specifications. In the relaunch novels, one of the leaders of Starfleet Intelligence gets her hands on "The Royal Protocol" and, with the use of an Emergency Medical Hologram, turns herself into a new kind of Borg Queen who cares about and loves her drones.

In the Mirror Universe story, "The Worst of Both Worlds", by Greg Cox the Queen is portrayed as a male. This version apparently can inhabit both male and female bodies, depending on the situation, but prefers females.

[edit] Depiction

[edit] The Next Generation

The Borg (or Borg Collective and Borg Collective Consciousness as they would later be addressed) first appear in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Q Who?", when the omnipotent lifeform Q transports the Enterprise-D to the outskirts of the Delta Quadrant to challenge Jean-Luc Picard's assertion that his crew is ready to face the unexplored galaxy's unknown dangers and mysteries. The Enterprise first encounters them while scanning a planet that has been stripped of all technological components.

The Borg (as Guinan officially designates them) appear in a strangely generalized "cube shaped" ship, with no apparent life signs aboard, although it is later revealed that the Borg have the ability to mentally link with their ship in order to perform routine tasks and while doing so no longer register as individuals (how locomotive Borg go undetected by the sensors is never explained).When first mentioning the Borg, Q states, ominously: "The Borg is the ultimate user...they're unlike any threat your Federation has ever faced." Guinan later refers to them as being "made up of biological and technological life, which has been developing for thousands of centuries". It's interesting to note here that Q first describes them using the singular designation of "is" rather than the pluralities which would be routinely used in reference to them in later appearances. After a hopeless battle with a single Borg vessel in which the Enterprise-D finds itself completely outclassed, Picard asks for and receives Q's help in returning the ship back to its previous coordinates in the Alpha Quadrant. At the episode's conclusion, Picard suggests to Guinan that Q did "the right thing for the wrong reason" (a T. S. Eliot quotation) basically stating that Starfleet can now fully understand just how dangerous the Final Frontier can truly be. The episode suggests that the Borg may have been responsible for the destruction of Federation and Romulan colonies in the first-season finale, "The Neutral Zone".[2] The episode further hints that Q had planned the entire encounter with the Borg in a kind of Machiavellan scheme in order to accelerate Humanity's encounter with a technologically superior mortal enemy which would have inevitably assimilated it otherwise.

The Borg next appear in The Next Generation's third-season finale and fourth-season premiere, "The Best of Both Worlds". In the third-season cliffhanger, Picard is abducted and subsequently assimilated by the Borg and transformed into Locutus. Being the Latin term for speaker, "Locutus" is the Borg method of describing the former Picard as the representative of the Borg in all future contacts related to Humanity. In the fourth-season premiere it is revealed by the Borg (through Locutus) that they are now enhanced by the tactical knowledge and life experience assimilated from Picard, and later use this information to easily defeat a Starfleet armada at Wolf 359 consisting of 39 starships, some of the ships being sent from the Klingon Empire. Picard is later "deassimilated" and gives critical information about an overlooked weakness of the Borg to the android Data, who uses it to plant a command into the Borg vessel's computer network in order to misdirect them into regenerating or, "going to sleep." Almost immediately the Borg ship self destructs as a fail-safe due to network corruption by Data. The episode ends with Humanity saved from assimilation and Picard (as Captain again) deep in thought as he looks out upon the image of the Earth. It's interesting to note that the psychological aftermath of Picard's abduction, violent assimilation and his personally held guilt over "betraying" Starfleet are fully addressed in the following episode, "Family". The Battle of Wolf 359 itself is depicted in brevity in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine pilot, "Emissary", in addition to the death of protagonist Benjamin Sisko's wife, Jennifer Sisko. This episode sets the stage for a source of conflict between Commander Sisko and Captain Picard due to Sisko holding Picard personally responsible for his wife's death.[3]

In the fifth-season episode "I, Borg", the Enterprise crew rescues a solitary Borg who is given the name "Hugh" by Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge. The crew faces the moral decision of whether or not to use Hugh (who begins to develop a sense of independence as a result of a severed link to the collective consciousness of the Borg) as an apocalyptic means of delivering a devastating computer virus that would theoretically destroy the Borg, or to humanely allow him to return to the Borg with his individuality intact.[4] The episode ends with Hugh being returned to the Collective with his individuality left intact and suggests that allowing Hugh to remain "free" may ultimately prove to be more beneficial to humanity (and possibly the Borg) rather than allowing him to return as simply a weapon of mass destruction.

The sixth-season cliffhanger "Descent" follows up on the events which took place after "I, Borg" depicting a group of rogue Borg who had become deassimilated after assimilating Hugh's corrupted "individuality" programming. These rogue Borg were under the control of the psychopathic android Lore, the "older" brother of Data. In cult leader-like fashion, Lore had manipulated the Borg of a derelict Borg vessel into following him by appealing to their restored emotions and exploiting their new found sense of individuality. Their fear at being separated from the Borg Collective and of being unable to run even the basic functions of their vessel allowed Lore to exploit them and manipulate them into becoming his followers, for the later purpose of attacking the Federation. After slowly "convincing" Data to join him after an earlier away team battle with the rogue Borg in which Data exhibited the emotion of anger, Data and Lore forge an alliance and mutually pledge their desire to destroy the Federation in front of an audience of cheering Borg and the captive party of Captain Picard, Deanna Troi and Geordi La Forge. In the seventh-season opener it is revealed that Lore had triggered Data's earlier angry reaction and eventual cooperation through the use of the stolen emotion chip (now in Lore's possession) which Noonien Soong (Data and Lore's creator) had intended for Data and Data alone. In the end Data's ethical subroutines are restored (having been suppressed by Lore through use of the emotion chip) and he manages to deactivate Lore after a battle in which a renegade Borg faction led by Hugh attacks the main complex of Lore and his followers and helps to free Captain Picard, Geordi La Forge, and Doctor Beverly Crusher. Data reclaims the emotion chip, Lore is mentioned as needing to be dismantled (for safety) and the surviving Borg fall under the leadership of Hugh. The fate of these deassimilated Borg (or Bio-Borg) is not revealed in the series. It is important to note that "Descent" is the first appearance of the insignia of the deassimilated Borg, in the form of a Red Borg Claw facing upright. This is not the insignia of the Borg Collective (as is commonly misconstrued) since the Borg have no need for aesthetics of any sort.

[edit] First Contact

The Borg return as the antagonists in the film Star Trek: First Contact. After again failing to assimilate Earth by means of a direct assault in the year 2373 by a single Borg cube, the Borg (in a Borg sphere launched after the destruction of the cube by the Enterprise-E) travel back in time to the year 2063 in an attempt to stop Zefram Cochrane's first contact with Vulcans and in effect erase the Federation from the 24th century. The incident where the Enterprise shoots down a Borg sphere that crashes into the Arctic was subsequently used as the premise for the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Regeneration". The movie also introduces the character of the Borg Queen, a recurring character in Star Trek: Voyager.

[edit] Voyager

The Borg make frequent appearances in Star Trek: Voyager, which takes place in the Delta Quadrant. The Borg are first discovered by Voyager in episode "Blood Fever". Later Chakotay discovers a population of ex-Borg of various species in "Unity".

In "Scorpion", as the ship nears Borg space, the Voyager crew devise a defense against Species 8472, a species who has inflicted heavy losses on the Borg and which the Borg are unable to assimilate. The crew offers the Borg their technique in exchange for safe passage through Borg space. Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01, is dispatched to Voyager to facilitate this arrangement. After Voyager crosses Borg space, Seven of Nine attempts to assimilate Voyager and is severed from the hive mind and becomes a member of Voyager's crew. Seven of Nine's rediscovery of her humanity becomes a recurring plot point of the series.

Flashbacks and allusions in several episodes, such as "The Raven", establish that prior to her assimilation, Seven of Nine was Annika Hansen, the child of scientists who studied the Borg in the Delta Quadrant independent of the Federation.

In "Drone", an advanced Borg drone is created when Seven of Nine's nanoprobes are fused with the Doctor's mobile emitter in a transporter accident. The drone, who adopts the moniker "One", involuntarily sends a signal to the collective, bringing a sphere to Voyager. One destroys the Borg ship and lets himself die to protect Voyager from further Borg pursuits.

In "Dark Frontier", after recovering Borg data nodes from a destroyed Borg probe ship, Captain Kathryn Janeway uses the information to plot an attack against a nearby damaged Borg scout ship to retrieve a transwarp coil to aid in Voyager's journey home. The Borg Queen learns of the plot and communicates to Seven of Nine an offer to spare Voyager if Seven rejoins the collective. Voyager recovers the transwarp coil and uses it, with the Delta Flyer, to save Seven from the Queen. Voyager uses the transwarp coil to travel 20,000 light-years.

In season 5 episode 17 “the Disease”. Seven of Nine states the Borg definition of romantic love as "an attraction based on sexual desire, one that facilitates procreation, physiologically bearing a strange resemblance to disease." "A series of chemical responses that trigger an emotional cascade impairing normal function."

In the Voyager finale, "Endgame", a version of Janeway from a future alternate timeline travels back in time to aid in Voyager's return to the Alpha Quadrant. This Janeway allows herself to be assimilated, delivering a neurolytic pathogen that disrupts the Borg to the point of killing the Borg Queen and destroying the Borg Unicomplex. Voyager uses a transwarp hub to travel back to the Alpha Quadrant.

[edit] Enterprise

A group of Borg, although not described as such in dialog, discovered in the Arctic in "Regeneration" send a transmission toward the Delta Quadrant. According to dialogue, their transmission would reach its destination in 200 years, essentially establishing a closed time loop with the events of "Q Who", explaining why the cube in the latter episode was already en route to Earth. These Borg are "survivors" of the Borg sphere shot down in Star Trek: First Contact, but never identify themselves as such throughout this episode. The episode's events prompt characters to allude to Zefram Cochrane's claims that "strange cybernetic creatures from the future" tried to interfere with first contact.

Another Enterprise episode, planned for the fifth season of the show (which never materialized), would have featured Alice Krige as a Starfleet medical technician who encounters the Borg and is assimilated - thereby becoming the Borg Queen seen in First Contact.

[edit] Other media

In the non-canonical Star Trek: The Manga, the crew of the Enterprise under James T. Kirk discovers an alien station operating near a black hole. The commander of the station appears to be abducting races in a desperate attempt to cure a strange plague among his people. Using his own daughter as a guinea pig, he is able to create a cure for the plague, though the end result is always assimilation into his daughter's, the future Borg Queen, consciousness for those cured.

In the Star Trek novel Probe, which takes place following the events of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the Borg are mentioned obliquely in communication with the whale-probe as spacefaring "mites" (the whale-probe's term for humanoid races) who traveled in cubical and spherical spacefaring vessels; the Borg apparently attacked the whale-probe and damaged its memory in some fashion prior to the events of the film.

The novel Vendetta reveals that the planet killer weapon from the Original Series episode "The Doomsday Machine" is a prototype for a weapon against the Borg.

[edit] Origin

Model of a Borg cube
Model of a Borg cube

Over thousands of centuries, the Borg have encountered and assimilated thousands of species (as attested by Guinan and the Borg Queen). However, little information regarding the true origin of the Borg millennia ago has been divulged in Star Trek canon. In Star Trek: First Contact, the Borg Queen merely states that the Borg were once much like humanity, "flawed and weak," but gradually developed into a partially synthetic species in an ongoing attempt to evolve and perfect themselves.

In TNG's "Q Who." (stardate 42761.3) Guinan mentions that the Borg are "made up of organic and artificial life... which has been developing for... thousands of centuries." In the later episode of Star Trek: Voyager called "Dragon's Teeth", (stardate 53167.9 ) Gedrin says that before he and his people were put into suspended animation over 900 years earlier, the Borg were just a few assimilated colonies inside the Delta quadrant and viewed somewhat like a minor pain. Now awake in the 24th century, he's amazed to see that the Borg control a vast area of the Delta quadrant.

It is speculated in the Star Trek Encyclopedia that there could be a connection between the Borg and V'ger, the vessel encountered in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (TMP); this is advanced in William Shatner's novel, The Return. Coincidently, in the novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (written by Gene Roddenberry), 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, it is aware that "the resistance was futile, of course", which is almost identical to the Borg phrase, "Resistance is futile".

The extra section of the game Star Trek: Legacy contains the "Origin of the Borg" which tells the story of V'ger being sucked into a black hole where space and even time are bent. Through whatever providence, this machine survived. Living machines found the probe and altered it. Its programming was a mystery to them. They interpreted it as best they could. Returning to the creator, but it could find nothing. No others like it and none that could have created it. In that moment, the probe decided all carbon-based life was an infestation of the creator's universe leading to assimilation. That was their only useful purpose...as tools for it to learn and grow. It catalogued all carbon-based life and their technology. It created drones in their image and merged them into a collective consciousness. This is where the Borg began, sent out as heralds to find its creator and to learn all that is learnable and return that information to V'ger for assimilation. As the collective grew the necessity for a single voice became the only logical recourse. The Collective found the females of certain species displayed a mental prowess, enabling them to shift through thousands of thoughts and bring order to chaos. Installing these females as the Collective's processors of information, they became much more efficient. With thoughts and desires of her own, she was no longer bound to serve V'ger. But the destruction of the Queen put a limit on the life of the Collective. With its size and power unregulated, it would become chaotic. This explanation however is not canon. This however does not discount the major possibility though that there is in fact some sort of connection between V'ger and the Borg.

In the graphic novel Star Trek: The Manga, the origin of the Borg is explained by a result of medical nano-machines and a diseased species. A species of alien was under threat of extinction by a disease that was wiping out its population. In order to find a cure, it built a repository satellite containing test subjects infused with body parts, organs, and DNA of multiple species along with cybernetic enhancements put in place by advanced medical technology. The satellite is maintained by nano-machines and in essence is self repairing and also monitors and cares for the patients in hopes of finding a cure. The species itself is capable of transwarp corridor travel and also are able to time travel as the Borg are able to with their systems of transwarp corridors. The medical facility eventually deteriorates, its test subjects still under care by the nano-machines. The nano-machines, falling in a state of disrepair and corrupted programing, begin infusing themselves to the patients, interpreting them as part of the satellite in needing repair. Among the patients is the daughter of head medical researcher of the satellite. The satellite eventually falls apart in an encounter with an away team from the Enterprise under the command of James T. Kirk. In the final moments of the satellites destruction and the escape of the crew members of the Enterprise with the patients, the subjects display qualities inherently resembling the Borg; injection of nano-machine probes, rapid adaptation to weaponry, and a hive mind consciousness, as all the subjects begin following the whim of the daughter. As the succumbing of the disease was inevitable, and the corrupt nano-machine programing infused in to the bodies, the final image of the page of the manga Borg origin is left with the daughter turned borg queen, stating "Resistance is futile."

[edit] In computer games

The Borg appear as antagonists to the player in the following Star Trek game titles:

Activision at one point planned to release Star Trek: Borg Assimilator, in which the player would play a Borg, but later canceled the game.

[edit] As a cultural allusion

In the text commentary to the Collector's Edition of Star Trek: First Contact, Mike Okuda revealed that Star Trek: The Next Generation writers began to develop the idea of the Borg as early as the first season episode, "Conspiracy," which introduced a coercive, symbiotic life form that took over key Federation personnel but who were thwarted by the Enterprise crew and presumably never heard of again. Plans to feature the Borg as an increasingly menacing threat were subsequently scrapped in favor of a more subtle introduction, culminating in the encounter between Borg and the Enterprise crew in "Q Who?".

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 technology will eventually transform humanity into monsters. This theme has been, of course, reflected in the story of Dr. Frankenstein, among countless other manifestations, most notably the Cybermen of the British sci-fi series Doctor Who, to whom the Borg bear a striking resemblance.

The behaviour of the Borg are strongly reminiscent of traditional villains Vampires and Zombies, modernised for the science fiction genre. The Borg assimilate their victims using two small injection tubules which inject the hostile nanomachines into the victim's neck, mimicking the vampire behaviour of biting the neck, and leaving the same telltale double puncture marks. Depending on the depiction of the vampire, a single bite may not necessarily turn the victim into a vampire, a Borg's "bite" has the sole purpose of assimilating the victim into another Borg Drone. Additionally, the Borg usually move with the same slow monotonous pace of modern depictions of zombies, and work with the same unified will.

The Borg are one of the more recognizable and popular Star Trek villains, and the term "Borg" has been used to describe conformist individuals or organizations in the vernacular of science-fiction literates.[citation needed]

On Australian radio program Get This, the month of 'Borgust' was celebrated, with listener sending in photos of themselves dressed as the Borg.

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

[edit] References

  1. ^ Star Trek Voyager: "Scorpion" Parts 1 and 2
  2. ^ Okuda, Mike and Denise Okuda, with Debbie Mirek (1999). The Star Trek Encyclopedia. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-53609-5. 
  3. ^ Erdmann, Terry J.; Paula M. Block (2000-08-01). Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion. Pocket Books. ISBN 0671501062. 
  4. ^ Nemeck, Larry (2003). Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-7434-5798-6. 

[edit] 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 0-312-29557-X. Pp. 143-167.
  • Thomas A. Georges. Digital Soul: Intelligent Machines and Human Values. Boulder: Westview. ISBN 0-8133-4057-8. p. 172. (The Borg as Big Business)

[edit] External links

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Bajorans · Borg · Breen
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