How do partially assimilated drones work? (Long!)

[Astrostars2025]

This might be long and overdetailed, sorry in advance and thanks so much for reading!!!

So in a scene in ST first contact:

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We see the Enterprise crew getting captured and assimilated as they fail to fend off the Borg during the Borg take over of the ship while attempting to boost their numbers. After the crew members have been overpowered and forcibly injected with nanoprobes to start the assimilation, they are taken by the Borg to a new assimilation chamber for processing. Once a drone "guiding" a newly assimilated woman arrive at the assimilation chamber, the camera pans out so we can see other newly assimilated drones from the former Enterprise crew members, awaiting to undergo augmentation to finish the process of becoming drones.

During this scene, the new drones seem to already have cybernetic implants that have grown on their faces... Some more then others as assimilation has progressed. The woman who had just arrived with her escort drone still has "regular" human skin and only a few small facial implants (clearly still forming) similar to Seven of Nine (which of course had been removed). The next crewman to appear has progressed a lot, he now has the pale Borg skin and his implants are a lot bigger. Another part of the movie where Picard, Worf and Lt. Hawk are attacking and disabling rhe Borg modified deflector dish, Lt. Hawk is assimilated:

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As you can see, he rather quickly forms implants rather quickly and seems to gain extra Borg stregnth rapidly just after having his biological distincticiveness added to the collective. Moving on back to the assimilation chamber scene, the newly assimilated members get thier final modifications: arm amputation for robot arms, eye modifications adding a Borg lens to the basic implants that previously grew on the eye, and explating which completes the assimilation process. The Borg drone loses hair shortly after.

So after a VERY long and uncessaru detailed pointsz my question is what happens if a drone is only partially assimilated and how does this impact a potential drone?

From what I can tell due to the compiled evidence above, partially assimilated drones, if not taken to an assimilation chamber and augmented, will still form Borg implants as seen on the newly assimilated Enterprise crew and lt. Hawk. Of course the affected person will pass out first, but once he wakes up, he will be a drone because the implants will have gone through his body. The new drone likely has regular Borg stregnth (like Hawk?) and some sort of Borg functionality. In a Star Trek Online (using beta cannon sources also) mission called "Scorpion's Abyss", the player and BOffs form basic implants such as small eyepieces , tubes, and a "wrist probe" which enables assimilation and basic plasma weapons without full augmentation shortly after being assimilated. Would partially assimilated drones be like this?
AGAIN, SORRY FOR THE VERY LONG PARAGRAPH, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!!!

 

[NCC-73515]

Klingon drones keep their beards though

 

[Astrostars2025]

Klingon drones keep their beards though

Too important to lose!!!

 

[David cgc]

The Borg nanoprobes seem to be able to construct some small number of implants out of materials within the victim. It was also (mostly) a dream and might not be reliable (though Seven thought it was plausible), but we saw in VGR once that the cheek-flower Picard sprouts in his nightmare at the beginning FC is a real implant that can be generated moments after someone is injected by a Borg.

Larger and more complex implants apparently have to be manufactured and attached surgically, but it the nanoprobes on their own seem to be able to make a minimum viable drone that’s controlled by the collective. If it was alone, the new drone could probably build more elaborate implants on its own from materials it gathered, either conventionally with its hands, or by ingesting them and letting the nanoprobes do the work, like Jurati was implied to have done in PIC season 2 when she apparently (sigh) ate all those car batteries.

Hawk could be the limit of what a nanoprobe-only assimilation looks like, at least without the drone having the chance to gather more material, but he’s taken away by the drone that gets him, and we don’t know what happened. The assimilating drone could’ve used some of its own implants on Hawk, or the nanoprobes in Hawk might’ve harvested materials and electronics from his spacesuit (though probably not a lot, since the implants are restricted to one side of his face, and seem to be more “sprouters” rather than large single pieces).

 

[matthunter]

Perhaps you could find out how they work by demanding they send an email listing five things they accomplished this activation cycle?

 

[mithril]

The Borg nanoprobes seem to be able to construct some small number of implants out of materials within the victim. It was also (mostly) a dream and might not be reliable (though Seven thought it was plausible), but we saw in VGR once that the cheek-flower Picard sprouts in his nightmare at the beginning FC is a real implant that can be generated moments after someone is injected by a Borg.

Larger and more complex implants apparently have to be manufactured and attached surgically, but it the nanoprobes on their own seem to be able to make a minimum viable drone that’s controlled by the collective. If it was alone, the new drone could probably build more elaborate implants on its own from materials it gathered, either conventionally with its hands, or by ingesting them and letting the nanoprobes do the work, like Jurati was implied to have done in PIC season 2 when she apparently (sigh) ate all those car batteries.

Hawk could be the limit of what a nanoprobe-only assimilation looks like, at least without the drone having the chance to gather more material, but he’s taken away by the drone that gets him, and we don’t know what happened. The assimilating drone could’ve used some of its own implants on Hawk, or the nanoprobes in Hawk might’ve harvested materials and electronics from his spacesuit (though probably not a lot, since the implants are restricted to one side of his face, and seem to be more “sprouters” rather than large single pieces).

most likely, the "grey skin and basic implants" stage is the 'baseline' assimilation, with all the rest of the stuff most drones have being add-ons done later as part of the collective giving the new drone a semi-specialized role by way of the additional implants used.

From what I can tell due to the compiled evidence above, partially assimilated drones, if not taken to an assimilation chamber and augmented, will still form Borg implants as seen on the newly assimilated Enterprise crew and lt. Hawk. Of course the affected person will pass out first, but once he wakes up, he will be a drone because the implants will have gone through his body. The new drone likely has regular Borg stregnth (like Hawk?) and some sort of Borg functionality. In a Star Trek Online (using beta cannon sources also) mission called "Scorpion's Abyss", the player and BOffs form basic implants such as small eyepieces , tubes, and a "wrist probe" which enables assimilation and basic plasma weapons without full augmentation shortly after being assimilated. Would partially assimilated drones be like this?

in the STO example, the borg in question are an alternate universe variety with a lot of differences in operation, being far more aggressive, having 'vinculum drones' to act as localized control nodes, being led by a 'borg king', etc. so it's not really safe to draw assumptions about prime universe borg from that mission, even for the STO universe. given the way those borg operate, the more elaborate baseline assimilation and the built in weapons may be a side effect of the more aggressive nature causing those borg to prioritize creating new shocktroops as the default level, instead of the prime borg's more sedate and measured process of just subsuming the person into the collective and making them physically receptive to further mods.