Borg

An occupied Borg "alcove" prop on display at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum

The Borg are a fictional race of organic cyborgs and major antagonists in the Star Trek universe which have formed over thousands of years. The Borg use nanoprobes to assimilate others, like humans or vulcans, into their group consciousness. The only exception to assimilation are races either too primitive to assimilate (who are ignored) or races too dangerous to assimilate (who are destroyed). The Borg's group consciousness is led by the Borg queen, who's role is similar to that of a queen bee in a bee hive.

Defeating the Borg

Despite their ability to adapt to various attempts to destroy them, the Borg can be defeated several ways:

1. Commander Data linked with the assimilated "Loctus of Borg" (Jean-Luc Picard) and sends a command that starts the Borg regeneration sequence and effectively put them all to sleep; the command caused the Borg power net to feed back on itself and triggered a self-destruct sequence in The Best of Both Worlds
2. Data and La Forge came up with an invasive program designed as a geometric form that could not actually exist in physical space. In the Borg collective memory each step to understand the program would start anomalous solutions that would interact with each other, resulting in an endless, unsolvable puzzle. Eventually, the Borg neural network would collapse under the strain of attempting to solve the paradox, resulting in a total system failure across the entire Collective in I Borg
3. A Borg experiences being an individual; this is so dangerous that the Borg Queen will destroy an entire Borg Square/or Sphere if even a hint of individuality is about to form in one Borg."I Borg"; "Unimatrix 1 and 2" and "Endgame".
4. Species 6339 developed a synthetic pathogen so that when they were assimilated by the Borg, it would be spread to the Borg vinculum. From there, it caused all drones within range to experience the Borg equivalent of multiple personality disorder, eventually leading to their self-destruction. The process would be repeated when another Borg vessel retrieved the vinculum, and so on in "Infinate Regress"
5. Future Admiral Kathryn Janeway had herself injected with a neurolytic pathogen and allowed herself to be assimilated by the Borg Queen who in turn self-destructed " along with The Borg transwarp complex and many Borg Spheres. "Endgame"

How many species assimiliated?

• Humans are referred to as "Species 5618"
• By the time of Voyager, the Borg have assimilated 10,026 species

Encounter With the Federation

• It is later portrayed that, due to the events shown in Star Trek: First Contact, ENT: "Regeneration", and VOY: "The Raven", and VOY: "Infinite Regress" the Borg already knew of Earth's existence and were on their way. In VOY: "Death Wish", Q would say that without his own actions in "Q Who", the Federation would have been assimilated. In "First Contact", when the remains of the Borg sphere crash landed on Earth, it became frozen in the Arctic Circle in 2063. During the events of "Regeneration", which are set in 2153, scientists discover the wreckage and are assimilated. Despite the Enterprise NX-01 destroying the rest of the Borg, they are able to send a signal out into the Delta Quadrant, where it takes 213 years to reach the Borg, leading them to send a Borg cube towards Earth in 2366. Then, the events of "Q Who" take place in the fictional history of the series, delaying the invasion of Earth. In "Dark Frontier", it is portrayed that the Federation was aware of an entity known as "The Borg" 12 years prior to this episode but dismissed such as a thing as mere "rumors or sensor ghosts". Furthermore, the Borg assimilated the Hansens, citizens of the Federation, in 2350.
• On 42761.3 (2365) the Enterprize encountered The Borg due to actions by Q; Q argues that they need him since they are not prepared for what awaits them. Picard claims that they are ready to confront the unknown, and Guinan adds that the Humans' ability to adapt is their great advantage. In rebuttal, seeks to test how prepared they are, and casually tosses the Enterprise seven thousand light years into uncharted space. Q then makes the Borg threat perfectly clear to Picard: "You can't outrun them; you can't destroy them. If you damage them, the essence of what they are remains; they regenerate and keep coming. Eventually you will weaken, your reserves will be gone… They are relentless." Q prepares to leave the crew to their fate, as Picard implores him to end the confrontation. Q asks the captain why he should now terminate this encounter between the Enterprise and the Borg. Picard responds by pointing out that if they are destroyed, Q will not be able to gloat. He admits that they are frightened, and that Q has, for the moment, shown them to be inadequate. "You want me to say, 'I need you'? I NEED YOU!" Picard exclaims. With a snap of his fingers, Q flings the Enterprise away from the Borg ship and back into the same spot in Federation space they originally were.Q appears besides Picard in Riker's chair, but instead of gloating, he looks thoughtful and even somewhat impressed. "Another man," he muses, "would have been humiliated to say those words"', even to the point of sacrificing himself and his entire ship rather than admit he needed help. Picard tells Q he understands the point out of what they have been through, but feels the lesson could have been learned without the loss of eighteen members of his crew (assimilated by the Borg). Q is unapologetic, telling him that if Humanity wants to explore the galaxy, then it promises a universe of wonders, but they must also be willing to confront dangers they have never imagined.Reflecting upon events in Ten Forward while playing three-dimensional chess with Picard, Guinan says that the encounter with the Borg happened before it should have. She believes that at some point, perhaps, it might be possible for the Federation to establish some kind of communication between them and the Borg, but for the time being, they are just raw material to be consumed. Guinan begins, "Since they are aware of your existence…" … "they will be coming," Picard continues. Guinan ominously warns, "You can bet on it." Picard comments that perhaps Q did the right thing, for the wrong reasons, to shake Humanity out of its complacency for whatever lies ahead.

Borg catchphrase

"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"

Related pages

• Seven of Nine
• Star Trek: First Contact