Thoughts on the Borg Queen (First Contact, Voyager, etc.)

[CrockAlley]

I haven't watched FC or VOY's Borg episodes in a while, so my memory is a little fuzzy. The concept of a Borg Queen sounds antithetical to what we were told of the Borg earlier in TNG.

What was the rationalization for introducing the Borg Queen? How does she fit into the hive idea? Locutus seemed like a new experiment for the Borg, but it turns out they had a leader the whole time?

The Borg Queen died in FC, but showed up again in Voyager. What's up with that? Who was the Borg Queen in Picard? Are these supposed to be iterations of the same individual, or all new entities each time? Is it possible to really kill the Borg Queen permanently?

 

[1001001]

She’s nice now.

And she sings!

 

[fireproof78]

She is the avatar of all their wrath and discontent. We walk in the garden of her turbulence!

 

[sonak]

I think that they introduced her for the movie because it was perceived as more effective drama to have a villain with a specific “face” as opposed to a faceless one, similar to the idea of why Locutus was used in BOBW. And Alice Krige gave a great performance in ST:FC, the movie was very popular, and it went from there.

 

[Finn]

She’s nice now.

And she sings!

She makes a mean peach cobbler these days, I heard.

 

[F. King Daniel]

We find out in PIC S2 that the queen's can sense and perceive alternate timelines. I tend to think it's the sum total consciousness resurrected in different bodies. PIC S1 seems to imply each ship has it's own queen too.

 

[XCV330]

The Borg know when to use a personification within the collective for effect, just like with Locutus. Borg Queen is just another tool in their arsenal. A Borg Queen might go many years or centuries without being needed.

 

[Oddish]

I personally think the Borg were scarier when they were just an impossibly huge wall of circuitry infused with green light, speaking totally without emotion.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I personally think the Borg were scarier when they were just an impossibly huge wall of circuitry infused with green light, speaking totally without emotion.

True, but how many stories can you tell before it gets boring? Borg Queen made it personal, especially with Janeway.

 

[XCV330]

I think it's perhaps even more disturbing to allow for the calculus of emotion to be something that the Borg could use and shelve as needed when it suited them, like using Locutus as terror weaponry. It leaves Vulcans as children in the sandbox when it comes to logic. The Borg have assimilated enough sentiment to know how to use it and weaponize it.

Admittedly I wish the Borg hadn't become bad-guy of the week in the late 90's. It diluted them.

 

[Oddish]

True, but how many stories can you tell before it gets boring? Borg Queen made it personal, especially with Janeway.

There is that. And Harry, though the latter never went anywhere. Just like every other idea on what to do with the character.

 

[Rahul]

I sometimes wish we would see more specialised Borg. Like a group of Borg beam down, and then there's one of them that's just a giant, walking & talking scanning machine. The rest standard multi-function working bees. A few "Warrior" drones with two weapons instead of arms. And another one that drills into the ground and becomes a living WiFi router for the collective.
And on ships have "pilots" that are fused with the ships. Hell, have other Borg that are essential fixed machinery on these cubes. You could really do some great body horror there.
And then the queens are kind of the "tactical centers", that do the situational thinking and improvisation, without whom the other drones just stupidly continue their tasks, with reason or without.

 

[maneth]

I personally think the Borg were scarier when they were just an impossibly huge wall of circuitry infused with green light, speaking totally without emotion.

Yes, this. Granted, I haven't seen Picard yet, but the Borg queen started the process of ruining the Borg as the scariest villains on Trek, and that was completed by Seven. I'm not sure if she ever completely overcame the trauma of being a drone but she was well on the way of regaining her humanity by the time Voyager ended.

 

[Oddish]

I'm not sure if she ever completely overcame the trauma of being a drone but she was well on the way of regaining her humanity by the time Voyager ended.

Remember that Picard was a reclaimed drone as well. He just spent less time in the Collective.

 

[at Quark's]

And he still wrestled with the trauma for a long time.

 

[somebuddyX]

I think the Borg Queen was decent in that one scene where seduces Data, but that's also partly due to the idea of using Data's emotions and desire to be human against him, and I guess anyone could do that. Other than that I've never liked the character. I understand the idea of them wanting a face for the zombie army in the film and there is also something interesting in Seven being caught between two different maternal figures. It's inevitable evolution for the Borg in bringing in a figurehead and they pretty much did it in their second appearance anyway. But I prefer the zombies to be honest.

 

[Oddish]

First Contact was a great story, but it definitely made the Borg seem a lot less unstoppable than they had been. I mean, Data kills one barehanded, Worf slices one down with a mek'leth, and Picard guns down two with a 450-year-old Tommy gun. If the Borg are vulnerable to blades/bullets, why not just replicate a bunch of submachine guns? Or better yet, assault rifles with bayonets, and maybe a few Vietnam-era claymore mines?

 

[gweeps]

Would have been more interesting to show the origins of the Borg, no need to retcon anything then.

 

[at Quark's]

Remember that Picard was a reclaimed drone as well. He just spent less time in the Collective.

First Contact was a great story, but it definitely made the Borg seem a lot less unstoppable than they had been. I mean, Data kills one barehanded, Worf slices one down with a mek'leth, and Picard guns down two with a 450-year-old Tommy gun. If the Borg are vulnerable to blades/bullets, why not just replicate a bunch of submachine guns? Or better yet, assault rifles with bayonets, and maybe a few Vietnam-era claymore mines?

I would expect Data to be far stronger than the average Borg, even if their strength has been enhanced. As for the machine gun, I'd chalk that down to unexpectedness of the weapon, not that they're actually that vulnerable to it.

And the Borg vulnerable/invulnerable thing has always been a weak point in the story in the first place, long before First Contact. Why couldn't they simply be invulnerable to all reasonable phaser frequencies (other than for plot reasons I mean, which vary greatly as well, and as a consequence we sometimes see them adapt after a single shot, and at other occasions Our Heroes can take a dozen shots at them before they finally adapt)? After all they must have met dozens of species before that tried similar tactics and they still didn't generalise their response.

 

[Citiprime]

I would expect Data to be far stronger than the average Borg, even if their strength has been enhanced. As for the machine gun, I'd chalk that down to unexpectedness of the weapon, not that they're actually that vulnerable to it.

In "Best of Both Worlds," Locutus calls Data a "primitive artificial organism" that will be "obsolete in the new order." That's why I always felt the Borg Queen was full of it in First Contact, and the second after the Phoenix was destroyed she would have turned on Data, instead of giving him a position similar to Locutus, if he had actually betrayed the crew.