I always thought of the Borg queen to be an AI that exists in the entire collective, and that she chooses to manifest herself in a physical form in some areas . That would explain how we have seen her destroyed only to see her again with the memories of the previous events.
Agreed. The physical manifestation of the queen is but an instance. If destroyed, her mind and neural essence exists in the collective, able to be reinserted into an existing Borg body (mind wipe) and then customized to suit the trappings of the Queen.
I believe the Queen is a repository of the collective egos of drones, essentially its drive to persist despite obstacles thrown against the Borg. The Queen is a much a slave as an individual drone holding the desires, fears, and dreams of billions, if not trillions, of minds.
@@cytherians I'm wondering why they used footage of the Nakai from Stargate Universe when talking about the Caeliar? They are from two different franchises
This exactly. I always wondered why people (and characters in the show) didn't understand this! She appears to be the sum of the gestalt: she IS the collective, and her bodies are just hosts / mobile platforms. Hence she can't truly be killed, but each body does have a history. It also means that lack of a collective damages her intellect- something they actually did well in Picard Season 2 (maybe the only thing they did well).
Props to the video editor on this one; pulling from a huge variety of episodes/movies just for tiny snippets. Your work is both recognized AND appreciated.
On the Power On El Shaddai Elohim Adoni Ahcad Shama Israel El Roi On the Power On St Gabriel On the Power On St Michael On the Power On Virgin Mary All the Ufo and bad gad illuminate witchcraft will be in the middle in the volcano forever Amen forever Amen
The Borg are 100% not dead. Even if this universe's Borg are crusty mummies or an allied faction, the technology they used to breech dimensions and invade still existed, and they didn't stop at species 8472, because the next time we saw them they were assimilating species 10024 two years later. There are likely Borg spurs in several thousand other dimensions waiting to come back through to the prime universe.
Quite possibly, the whole Borg collective is interlinked on a quantum level... and somewhere in the universe is a hidden nexus of cyborg units that comprise the Borg root. It not only monitors and reacts to all Borg neural activity, it serves as the ultimate backup. And it would only make sense that there is more than one Borg root. It's a worthwhile investment to have more. The ultimate failsafe.
@@WardenWolf Assuming after 30 years they dont have a way to counter it. Also there are Borg ships that went into sleep mode just sitting out there. As seen in prodigy all it would take is one ship trying to salvage Borg tech to reactivate a cube and have it revert to its base programing and it would start assimilating and reactivating other ships.
My lore theory is that the Queen is a preserved consciousness dating from the origins of the Borg, and she integrates with host bodies in a way that's analogous to a Trill symbiote joining with successive hosts. So the Alice Krige and Susanna Thompson variants were the same Queen, but melded with different bodies. In the case of Thompson, the Queen discussed memories of her host's origin and assimilation. When we had a Queen played by Krige again, perhaps it was a purely synthetic body recreated in the image of the First Contact-era Queen's body (or a Borg drone, perhaps the Thompson drone, cosmetically altered to resemble the Krige host). This might indicate that the Queen's inherent consciousness had a particular affinity for some aspect of the Krige host - or even, after a time, has all of her hosts cosmetically altered to resemble her original organic form.
I think we might see the Borg again. We have the more friendly collective from Season 2 along with whatever became of the Cooperative...and, potentially, anything that might be reactivated out in space such as we saw in Prodigy
100% agree. Greatest tragedy that mankind's arrogance is to be blamed for creating the enemy, that will later be presented to stopp humans from being so arrogant. Hernandez will fix this. 😄
Alice Krige (along with the other Borg-Actors and the (mechanical) Make-Up Artists) did an amazing job. And the visual effects used in the assambly scene really payed off.
I've always wondered in the Voyager episode Unity, Ex-Borg Riley says she was assimilated at Wolf 359 but that cube was destroyed by the enterprise D in The Best of Both Worlds Part II. So how where the newly-assimilated Borg transported back to the Delta Quadrant. As the spacial trajector was a newly-assimilated technology as Hugh explained to 7 of 9.
I never had a problem with there being a Borg Queen. I always wondered how the Borg came to be, but also I speculated there had to be something or someone behind the scenes we hadn’t seen.
I raised an eyebrow when we were introduced to the Queen in First Contact. But in the end had no real problem with it. I understood why she was introduced.
I dont think they really intended this but if you rewatch the first episode of PIC you see data playing poker holding a hand of 5 queens. That kind of turns out prophetic because there have been 5 queens. Alice, Susanna, Annie, Allison and Jane. In effect they portray 5 unique perspectives and 5 emotions. Its possible they might even represent the 5 stages of grief. Though the pattern would be out of order. Denial = Suzanna Anger = Jane. Bargaining = Annie Depression - Allison Leaving Alice as Acceptance which only kinda works if you treat Acceptance as the state before the grief began. Or maybe if you look at her as the beginning and end of the cycle.
I would think Jurati and her collective still exists, otherwise I would think they would have mentioned that they were somehow wiped out in the 3rd season of Picard.
I think considering the overall state of the Borg and the Queen in Picard, that it wouldn't be a bad thing to see their story concluded. Picard gave them their sense of fear back and they felt like a more sinister, credible threat to rival their appearance in Best of Both Worlds. BUT if they hadn't been able to get themselves back up and running in 30 years or so, then I don't think they would have ever. At least, not without the new plan they initiated. But their defeat in the concluding episode of Picard felt final, leaving the door open for perhaps a new enemy somewhere down the line.
I think for now the borg are completely destroyed but they are just like any sci-fi villain. If a future writer wants to bring them back they will, and so long as they have a great story and explanation for their return id welcome it.
I would make an educated guess that each borg ship have a queen, each queen are connected by a higher level than just the hive network and also have access to the hive mind. Think of an admin network and a work place network for the same company. They could have many buildings across the world and many workers. The admins have a separate network and control everything the workers can see or do but not the other way around.
I like to think of the Borg as a hivemind that can't be destroyed simply by killing a part of it. Think 3D hologram, or even the "holographic universe" principal. If some part of it exists, you can extrapolate the rest of it. The queen in my mind serves a center of their consciousness, much like we have background thoughts and feelings but we perceive one "consciousness" even with all that background noise. This central consciousness makes final decisions, etc., but destroying it would not necessarily mean it's gone. Splitting it in half would only temporarily create 2 until they merged again. This would make sense since rogue borg assimilate and seek to return to the collective. As we saw in TNG, interacting with it can slowly introduce new ideas and thoughts into it which it will bring back to the collective... in that particular case, the idea of individuality that is normally stripped away when one is assimilated. Multiple queens should easily exist and then merge back together since they are replicas of the same mind. Like 2 troughs in a wave meeting, they only amplify each other. The idea of individuality being a crest which would neutralize the "oneness" until we see it more gently introduced in Picard and allowed to be both individual and many at once.
I always considered the "Borg Queen" to be something in the middle of "control nexus" and "queen bee" , like if you've ever seen bee's swarm, they just take off like a colony and then land somewhere as a swarm, essentially harmless until someone/thing gets too close then the guns are out. So no queen, borg are nerfed. Or at least that "part" is severed. So the borg were not destroyed by Voyager, but the loss of the queen at that point, meant a new queen (back in the delta quadrant) likely immediately took her place. Where as the PIC-S2 finale is something different.
"was not bifurcated for this scene", what a shame, that'd have definitely picked up some awards, that'd have been several best practical effects, likely unbeaten for a few decades yet!
My head canon of the Borg Queens (yes, plural) is that why they might have been "individual" drones, the current "persons" we encounter are purpose designed clones, built from the ground up to be Queens. Also, as I've been sayng, I do believe there are multiple queens, even multiple lineages of Queens: the Krige Lineage "dying" in Best of Both Worlds and First Contact, the Thompson lineage encounter by Voyager. I also believe the consciousness is actually a part of the collective the bodies only being avatars of it which explains their "resurrections." This would also mean another lineage of Borg could survive the Last Generation, the Krige lineage was crippled by Janeway and finished off the Enterprise crew but other Lineages might have survived (in fact, another theory is that Seven was being groomed for Queendom and if they're clones, her escape from the collective might not have stopped that.)
As far as I understand it, the neural pathogen the borg queen inherited when she assimilated Admiral Janeway severed her connection to the collective, leaving her stranded with only a handful of cubes. Many cubes out in the void seem to have switched to an inactive, regenerative state. From the looks of the queen's cube in Picard, she fused the cubes available to her together and set sail to find other cubes to add to her collective of cubes, mainly to add new juice to her dwindling source of life energy. Apparently, she foud about 500 of them, so there should be quite a few left over. Some might have been destroyed by other factions out there, some might have ended up as a facility to study borg tech, some might have joined the Cooperative or the Jurati Borg, but there are most likely more out there, some even carrying a queen double. Due to the lack of connection, these would be on an information level from before the "main" queen got janewayed and went on her merry journey of revenge...
I like to think that the Borg Queen is like an Anchor to the greater collective; that's why one had to be sent with the Sphere back in time and why one was on the Cube with Locutus, shes needed as a connection for Drones that far away from the central Borg Hub. I also like to believe that there are several Queens who were chosen early in the collectives history, possibly due to something in their mind or genetics, and is cloned whenever a new one is needed.
I saw in a commentary (not sure exactly which but one of the DVDs), that the sequence where the Borg Queen was lowered into her body in First Contact, the animators spent thousands of hours on it. When they saw the edit where it cuts to Datas face and back to her they were NOT happy - if they knew of the intended edit they could have saved hundreds of hours of work!
This is a great vid! I LOVE the queen. Too bad Picard forgot all about the second season. It would have been neat to see something come out of that. They did ask to join the Federation. Argh!
Jurati's collective is separate and unique from the main Borg Collective. Jurati's collective still exists. Picard did not forget about the 2nd season, or Jurati's collective. Capt. Shaw brings them up in S3, episode 4 - "Forget about that wierd [stuff] that happened on the Stargazer. The REAL Borg are still out there!". That "wierd [stuff] on the Stargazer" was Jurati and her collective.
We also have Borg from First Contact in the Enterprise episode “Regeneration”. The sphere that ejected from the cube crashed in the Artic, where the drones were frozen until scientists in Archer’s time discovered and thawed them. It was implied that these drones sent a signal to the collective in the Delta Quadrant advising them of Earth’s existence.
There are so many stories to explore with the borg. I always kind of assumed that like bees there are different hives with different queens but watching this ig i was wrong. But i love this picsrd concept of a borg queen that assimilates people that want to be assimilated. I wish that was explored more somewhere.
I thought the Borg was such a brilliant idea for a new enemy when I first saw them on that TNG episode where Q transported the Enterprise into Borg space, an enemy made up of billions of cyborgs but all acting with a collective consciousness, but then the writers predictably had to ruin it by giving them a "queen", and one who acted like a petulant human at that.
I am a firm believer in there being one true Borg Queen, but multiple possible proxy Queens. Taking a closer look at the Queen in First Contact, she is largely artificial with only a small number of organic components. That could be because this version of the Queen was manufactured to represent her on this mission. This would be at least somewhat necessary. These Borg weren't connected to the collective of the past. Bringing a Queen with them would be the only way to properly control the drones, especially after the Sphere was destroyed. It's my belief that every Borg vessel has the ability to create a proxy body for the Queen. But after Admiral Janeway's attack, the Queen tried and failed to use her resources to make a whole new body for herself. This is the zombie body we see in Picard. Apparently the information to repair necrotic tissue was lost to Janeway's virus. So as the voices dwindle, she makes the last attempts she can to stab at the Federation, including opening a new transwarp conduit in such a way that it would have destroyed many worlds. That or the Queen's mind is simply embedded in the collective and makes the bodies when she feels she needs to.
@@Donnagata1409 Yeah. The fact that it says- *"Written By- Jack Kiely"* -at the end means I can say that with at least a comfortable amount of certainty, yes... 🍄
I'd forgotten how much I disliked The Borg having figure-heads (Locutus of Borg, The Borg Queen(s)), and yet I so appreciate the characters, the make-up, and the actors. I guess The Borg are kind of like some of the other great SciFi villains, every time they're 'used', and the lore is added to, they get diminished. (Weeping Angels.) As always thank you so very much for the videos. And is often the case (and problem) in long running stories, no villain (like The Borg) can ever truly die, or stay dead.
My favourite Borg theory isn't directly about the Borg, but about the TOS planet killer having been created as a weapon to fight the Borg. I just can't remember the novel.
I haven’t read that novel but I don’t see how that theory would work since it contradicts what we saw in the TOS episode “The Doomsday Machine”. In that episode the doomsday machine went from solar system to solar system destroying all of their planets. It completely ignored the Federation starships until they interfered with its mission. All a Borg cube would have to do is do nothing and the doomsday machine would ignore it. In addition, science fiction writer Norman Spinrad, the screenwriter of the episode, was pretty clear about it being analogous to the nuclear standoff between the US and USSR. The whole idea of a doomsday machine is that it’s never intended to be used. The only time it would be used is as act of revenge against the other side after its creator had been destroyed.
Nah, they are still remaining Borg scattered throughout the Galaxy. Either they managed to break the Collective's hold and survive to create a Community of former Borg Drones like in the Season 3 Voyager Episode Blood Fever. Or just simply die off like the Queen in the end of Picard Season 3.
I definitely preferred the Borg before the queen was introduced. Mysterious and terrifying. The more you explain about them, the less terrifying they become.
Everyone just ignores Picard season two like it did not even happen. The Borg at that time asked to be part of the Federation and were going to be the "gatekeepers." Where did they go? What happened? Is that all we can do is pretend that season does not exist?
A lot of people seem to want to do just that. In reality, Terry and his writing staff decided to not mess up anything with Jurati and her collective. Their story was left to another writer or showrunner to fill in. Jurati's collective was mentioned in Picard S3 (by Capt Shaw). They exist, but were just not part of S3. Jurati's collective is its own thing. It wasn't and isn't part of the "main' Borg Collective. The destruction of the Queen and her Supercube appear to be the death-knell of the main Collective. But Jurati's collective lives on.
@@nooneatall8072 If they were part of the Federation could they have come to help with the "real" Borg? Anyway, I missed what Captain Shaw said about them. Can you please tell me what was said? Thank you!
I always imagined that the origins of The Borg would be something similar to the Mechanicum/Mechanicus of the WH40k universe. Some environmental catastrophe on their homeworld that led to incorporating technology into their bodies in order to survive. Then they met some aliens. With better technology. And then a habit formed.
I love that idea, better than the often hinted at "the humans made the borg" crap that enterprise tried to pull and is vaguely mentioned in this video when the said the borg queen was maybe a human scientist
I prefer a video like this than one where Sean comments on American politics and looks embarrassedly into the camera while alienating half of his potential audience. Good video. Thanks.
It would have been a bit better if the “Queen” functioned like a queen bee or ant where each colony has its own who functions as an necessary executive bud off a critically huge colony. That way each Borg colony could have somewhat unique evolved characteristics and could even have a story element where the different colony-nodes have to regularly meet to disseminate the assimilated information to the entire collective
The Queen was the worst idea, I still can't stomach it to this day. What made the Borg cool was the mystery about where they were from and how they operated, that doesn't mean we needed an explanation.
Very, very nice deep dive!!! Sweet Oogly Moogly! I love the Borg Queen Sooooo much, and thought I was all-knowing. I was very wrong. Thanks for putting me in a Happy Place! Happy Pride🌈!
Borg are the ultimate adversary. Adaptable, persistent, ruthless, efficient. Inhuman. CBS might arguably vandalize Trek's legacy, but they'd never dare put the Borg down. Borg are a commonality for Trek fans from all but the very earliest iterations of the show.
I like the multiple origin stories thing.... it makes sense that there would be such a disconnect given the fragmentation of early memory. Additionally, I think about how in earth's history, animals evolved the same traits multiple times throughout history. Is it possible that mutiple versions of the borg were started and later came together? (I am by no means a hardcore fan like I was as a kid. I am, at this point in my life, very casual.)
I assert that Borg Queen wasn't created until the crew of the Enterprise introduced individuality through Hugh. This would mean that Lore and The Queen were both fighting to take leadership of the Borg. This might also mean that Lore is the Borg King, and would certainly explain The Queen's fascination with Data.
I do think the Borg lost some of their terror level when the Queen was introduced. They were no longer a collective with no oart more important than another, where you could kill as many as you wanted, there were always more to take their place. But that was brought back a little bit by showing that even the Queen's death didn't truly matter, there was always another queen. However, until proven otherwise, I'm of the mind that Janeway nearly destroyed the Borg entirely, and Picard finished them off. There may be pockets that were separated or were able to separate in time, but without the full Collective behind them, or a queen to guide them, they'll be lost, or even beginning to regain their individuality. In either case, the Borg, as we know them, are dead.
I wonder if when the Borg Sphere travelled back in time in First Contact caused a new Queen to be required since the original wouldn't have been in the same time period 🤔
Maybe they could make the Borg more of a challenge to any future crews with any future appearance. The Borg are very slow and clumsy for a good adversary.
Somehow I doubt that the end of Picard will be the last we see the Borg, given they were everywhere in the Delta quadrant, and once disconnected, who knows what those severed drones got up to as "independents"... :P
The character Frost in Mortal Kombat 11 has a nice Borg Queen reference, as one of her fight intros shows her head & spine lowering into her cybernetic body.
I have a theory about the Borg Queen. I don't think she existed before Locutus was removed from the collective. The Borg think of themselves as perfect, therefore any change in the collective to make them better would have to be retroactively remembered as having always been a part of the collective. After Locutus left the collective, the Collective decided that they were better with a single leader, and so the position of queen was created. Every drone had their memory modified so that they remembered having a queen forever. When Picard comes into the influence of the Borg, likely for the first time since the end of Best of Both Worlds, he seemed surprised to suddenly remember things he had not remembered before. I think this was when Picard received the memory update that included the queen. The queen mentions her time from before but I think both Picard and the queen remembered events that never actually took place. If the Borg had a "single voice" that could speak for them then why did they take Picard to fill that role? It makes sense to me at least.
"Your uniqueness will be added to our own" What's to say they didn't come across an ambitious individual? Perhaps "borg queen" is another collective within the collective, creating a "top of pyramid" and "bottom of pyramid" type hierarchy. This makes sense to me.
Given that Voyager ran into some adolescents (Icheb amongst them) who had been assimilated while youngsters, I think one can deduce that the Borg maturation chambers are for Borg who are born that way and not children who are assimilated.
I've seen the Borg Queen destroyed not one but multiple times in the ST series since First Contact. With that said, I doubt the Federation has seen the last of the collective after Voyagers Borg queen was infected in Endgame, then destroyed in Picard finale. This does not count another queen who was an assimilated Vulcan in Legacy. Which leaves me to wonder if the alpha queen was an AI with knowledge of the species who originally created them.
This was an interesting video. As for whether or not the Borg survived, anything is possible--and stranger things have happened in Star Trek. After all, there is precedent for some Borg to exit the Collective and setup their own mini-collectives, which is one possible way by which they could turn up again in future. From a villainous perspective, few characters topped the Borg and their Queen in the Star Trek Universe, IMHO.
I always thought of the Borg queen to be an AI that exists in the entire collective, and that she chooses to manifest herself in a physical form in some areas . That would explain how we have seen her destroyed only to see her again with the memories of the previous events.
I'm pretty sure i read somewhere that the collectiv can "rebuild" as many queens as they want to?
Agreed. The physical manifestation of the queen is but an instance. If destroyed, her mind and neural essence exists in the collective, able to be reinserted into an existing Borg body (mind wipe) and then customized to suit the trappings of the Queen.
I believe the Queen is a repository of the collective egos of drones, essentially its drive to persist despite obstacles thrown against the Borg. The Queen is a much a slave as an individual drone holding the desires, fears, and dreams of billions, if not trillions, of minds.
@@cytherians I'm wondering why they used footage of the Nakai from Stargate Universe when talking about the Caeliar? They are from two different franchises
This exactly. I always wondered why people (and characters in the show) didn't understand this! She appears to be the sum of the gestalt: she IS the collective, and her bodies are just hosts / mobile platforms. Hence she can't truly be killed, but each body does have a history. It also means that lack of a collective damages her intellect- something they actually did well in Picard Season 2 (maybe the only thing they did well).
Props to the video editor on this one; pulling from a huge variety of episodes/movies just for tiny snippets. Your work is both recognized AND appreciated.
Thanks 👍
Indeed! Outstanding work! The quality immediately caught my attention.
And I very much appreciated your sneaky inclusion of the Nakai...
When they pulled in Start Gate Universe footage though ...
Alice Krige's performance as the Borg Queen was head and shoulders above the others.
I'll see myself out.
🏆
🤦
😃
On the Power On El Shaddai Elohim Adoni Ahcad Shama Israel El Roi
On the Power On St Gabriel
On the Power On St Michael
On the Power On Virgin Mary
All the Ufo and bad gad illuminate witchcraft will be in the middle in the volcano forever Amen forever Amen
🥁
The Borg are 100% not dead. Even if this universe's Borg are crusty mummies or an allied faction, the technology they used to breech dimensions and invade still existed, and they didn't stop at species 8472, because the next time we saw them they were assimilating species 10024 two years later. There are likely Borg spurs in several thousand other dimensions waiting to come back through to the prime universe.
Quite possibly, the whole Borg collective is interlinked on a quantum level... and somewhere in the universe is a hidden nexus of cyborg units that comprise the Borg root. It not only monitors and reacts to all Borg neural activity, it serves as the ultimate backup. And it would only make sense that there is more than one Borg root. It's a worthwhile investment to have more. The ultimate failsafe.
Plus we know the Jerati led Borg are still out there and a part of the Federation.
I don't think they were suggesting the Borg are dead, just that they may not tell any more stories about them.
The problem is that the pathogen will still spread when they relink if anything at all is left of the old Collective.
@@WardenWolf Assuming after 30 years they dont have a way to counter it. Also there are Borg ships that went into sleep mode just sitting out there. As seen in prodigy all it would take is one ship trying to salvage Borg tech to reactivate a cube and have it revert to its base programing and it would start assimilating and reactivating other ships.
I think the Borg survived. There are times the Borg were able to disconnect segments when a virus was introduced.
My lore theory is that the Queen is a preserved consciousness dating from the origins of the Borg, and she integrates with host bodies in a way that's analogous to a Trill symbiote joining with successive hosts. So the Alice Krige and Susanna Thompson variants were the same Queen, but melded with different bodies. In the case of Thompson, the Queen discussed memories of her host's origin and assimilation. When we had a Queen played by Krige again, perhaps it was a purely synthetic body recreated in the image of the First Contact-era Queen's body (or a Borg drone, perhaps the Thompson drone, cosmetically altered to resemble the Krige host). This might indicate that the Queen's inherent consciousness had a particular affinity for some aspect of the Krige host - or even, after a time, has all of her hosts cosmetically altered to resemble her original organic form.
A cresche full of krige queen cloned drones....
I think we might see the Borg again.
We have the more friendly collective from Season 2 along with whatever became of the Cooperative...and, potentially, anything that might be reactivated out in space such as we saw in Prodigy
Annie absolutely killed it as the Borg Queen. She will be missed
She was also great in the episodes of The Rookie she was in.
And, in Timeless.
And as Jack Bauer’s sort of girlfriend in 24 (37 episodes in 2009-2010).
I always learn something new while watching. Sean, your humor, my friend, is unmatched, and keeps me coming back!
So pleased you included Star Trek: Destiny, such a good series of books. In my head canon this is the origin story of the Borg.
100% agree. Greatest tragedy that mankind's arrogance is to be blamed for creating the enemy, that will later be presented to stopp humans from being so arrogant. Hernandez will fix this. 😄
"Alice Krieg was not bifurcated for the role."
Good. I hate method acting.
I can just imagine the splitting headache that would cause
🥁
Absolutely love your work. You're an intelligent geek with a great sense of humour!
The 4-D show was amazing! Getting assimilated was a serious trip
@6:57 I really wasn't expecting to see any Stargate footage in this video. No complaints thought. I'm always happy to see it.
Star Trek without the Borg is like Dr Who without the Daleks.........they will be back.
Ye think just like the daleks theyve been used a lot and it has diminished their scare factor a bit. But fans still love to see them come back
Or the cybermen
Pretty much the same idea too. It's all like Berserkers by Fred Saberhagen.
@@liamwilliams1794😮
cast Arnie as a borg king
Alice Krige (along with the other Borg-Actors and the (mechanical) Make-Up Artists) did an amazing job. And the visual effects used in the assambly scene really payed off.
I've always wondered in the Voyager episode Unity, Ex-Borg Riley says she was assimilated at Wolf 359 but that cube was destroyed by the enterprise D in The Best of Both Worlds Part II. So how where the newly-assimilated Borg transported back to the Delta Quadrant. As the spacial trajector was a newly-assimilated technology as Hugh explained to 7 of 9.
I never had a problem with there being a Borg Queen. I always wondered how the Borg came to be, but also I speculated there had to be something or someone behind the scenes we hadn’t seen.
I raised an eyebrow when we were introduced to the Queen in First Contact. But in the end had no real problem with it. I understood why she was introduced.
It is interesting that the Borg queen was from species 125, not species 1
I dont think they really intended this but if you rewatch the first episode of PIC you see data playing poker holding a hand of 5 queens.
That kind of turns out prophetic because there have been 5 queens.
Alice, Susanna, Annie, Allison and Jane. In effect they portray 5 unique perspectives and 5 emotions.
Its possible they might even represent the 5 stages of grief. Though the pattern would be out of order.
Denial = Suzanna
Anger = Jane.
Bargaining = Annie
Depression - Allison
Leaving Alice as Acceptance which only kinda works if you treat Acceptance as the state before the grief began. Or maybe if you look at her as the beginning and end of the cycle.
Interesting theories.
First Contact has always been my favorite of the Star Trek movies.
I would think Jurati and her collective still exists, otherwise I would think they would have mentioned that they were somehow wiped out in the 3rd season of Picard.
I love the random Stargate clip in the middle. When are we getting a GateCulture channel??
I think considering the overall state of the Borg and the Queen in Picard, that it wouldn't be a bad thing to see their story concluded. Picard gave them their sense of fear back and they felt like a more sinister, credible threat to rival their appearance in Best of Both Worlds. BUT if they hadn't been able to get themselves back up and running in 30 years or so, then I don't think they would have ever. At least, not without the new plan they initiated. But their defeat in the concluding episode of Picard felt final, leaving the door open for perhaps a new enemy somewhere down the line.
I think for now the borg are completely destroyed but they are just like any sci-fi villain. If a future writer wants to bring them back they will, and so long as they have a great story and explanation for their return id welcome it.
I did that Las Vegas attraction a dozen times - both before and after they added the Voyager components. It was really something!
I completely lost it at "Borger King" 🤴🏻😂
7:02, thanks for including clip from other great series SG Universe ;)
I don't believe the Borg were in the state they were in Picard 3. Maybe a queen renegade as she was about to be replaced by a clone?
I would make an educated guess that each borg ship have a queen, each queen are connected by a higher level than just the hive network and also have access to the hive mind. Think of an admin network and a work place network for the same company. They could have many buildings across the world and many workers.
The admins have a separate network and control everything the workers can see or do but not the other way around.
Yes, that's the way I always thought of it too. That's the way I conceived it when watching First Contact, before we even saw other Queens.
Maybe a Princess Royal.
Absolutely well played whoever put that Co op logo in the background 👏🤣
Thanks, it was a lot of fun to do 👍😂
I like to think of the Borg as a hivemind that can't be destroyed simply by killing a part of it. Think 3D hologram, or even the "holographic universe" principal. If some part of it exists, you can extrapolate the rest of it. The queen in my mind serves a center of their consciousness, much like we have background thoughts and feelings but we perceive one "consciousness" even with all that background noise. This central consciousness makes final decisions, etc., but destroying it would not necessarily mean it's gone. Splitting it in half would only temporarily create 2 until they merged again.
This would make sense since rogue borg assimilate and seek to return to the collective. As we saw in TNG, interacting with it can slowly introduce new ideas and thoughts into it which it will bring back to the collective... in that particular case, the idea of individuality that is normally stripped away when one is assimilated.
Multiple queens should easily exist and then merge back together since they are replicas of the same mind. Like 2 troughs in a wave meeting, they only amplify each other. The idea of individuality being a crest which would neutralize the "oneness" until we see it more gently introduced in Picard and allowed to be both individual and many at once.
I always considered the "Borg Queen" to be something in the middle of "control nexus" and "queen bee" , like if you've ever seen bee's swarm, they just take off like a colony and then land somewhere as a swarm, essentially harmless until someone/thing gets too close then the guns are out. So no queen, borg are nerfed. Or at least that "part" is severed.
So the borg were not destroyed by Voyager, but the loss of the queen at that point, meant a new queen (back in the delta quadrant) likely immediately took her place. Where as the PIC-S2 finale is something different.
"was not bifurcated for this scene", what a shame, that'd have definitely picked up some awards, that'd have been several best practical effects, likely unbeaten for a few decades yet!
My head canon of the Borg Queens (yes, plural) is that why they might have been "individual" drones, the current "persons" we encounter are purpose designed clones, built from the ground up to be Queens. Also, as I've been sayng, I do believe there are multiple queens, even multiple lineages of Queens: the Krige Lineage "dying" in Best of Both Worlds and First Contact, the Thompson lineage encounter by Voyager. I also believe the consciousness is actually a part of the collective the bodies only being avatars of it which explains their "resurrections." This would also mean another lineage of Borg could survive the Last Generation, the Krige lineage was crippled by Janeway and finished off the Enterprise crew but other Lineages might have survived (in fact, another theory is that Seven was being groomed for Queendom and if they're clones, her escape from the collective might not have stopped that.)
Clones... interesting.
Great comprehensive recap and look through of the connection of "BORG" and the Star Trek timeline. ❤😊
I love these videos and how all the info is put together and delivered. High five to you all!
As far as I understand it, the neural pathogen the borg queen inherited when she assimilated Admiral Janeway severed her connection to the collective, leaving her stranded with only a handful of cubes. Many cubes out in the void seem to have switched to an inactive, regenerative state. From the looks of the queen's cube in Picard, she fused the cubes available to her together and set sail to find other cubes to add to her collective of cubes, mainly to add new juice to her dwindling source of life energy. Apparently, she foud about 500 of them, so there should be quite a few left over. Some might have been destroyed by other factions out there, some might have ended up as a facility to study borg tech, some might have joined the Cooperative or the Jurati Borg, but there are most likely more out there, some even carrying a queen double. Due to the lack of connection, these would be on an information level from before the "main" queen got janewayed and went on her merry journey of revenge...
Fact # 12 - The original Borg Queen was designed by famed paleo artist Ricardo Delgado, who also worked as a design artist for DS9.
I like to think that the Borg Queen is like an Anchor to the greater collective; that's why one had to be sent with the Sphere back in time and why one was on the Cube with Locutus, shes needed as a connection for Drones that far away from the central Borg Hub. I also like to believe that there are several Queens who were chosen early in the collectives history, possibly due to something in their mind or genetics, and is cloned whenever a new one is needed.
One Of One.
I saw in a commentary (not sure exactly which but one of the DVDs), that the sequence where the Borg Queen was lowered into her body in First Contact, the animators spent thousands of hours on it. When they saw the edit where it cuts to Datas face and back to her they were NOT happy - if they knew of the intended edit they could have saved hundreds of hours of work!
This is a great vid! I LOVE the queen. Too bad Picard forgot all about the second season. It would have been neat to see something come out of that. They did ask to join the Federation.
Argh!
Jurati's collective is separate and unique from the main Borg Collective. Jurati's collective still exists.
Picard did not forget about the 2nd season, or Jurati's collective. Capt. Shaw brings them up in S3, episode 4 - "Forget about that wierd [stuff] that happened on the Stargazer. The REAL Borg are still out there!". That "wierd [stuff] on the Stargazer" was Jurati and her collective.
Great observation! The last generation could also be associated with the Borg
I want to know what happened to the shield tech voyager got from the future Janeway. Those looked so cool when deployed.
I think an origin story from the future borg 5hat entails their most recent defeat would be pretty cool
14:20 huge missed opportunity for a "shut up Wesley"
This is still one of my favorite TC episodes.
We also have Borg from First Contact in the Enterprise episode “Regeneration”. The sphere that ejected from the cube crashed in the Artic, where the drones were frozen until scientists in Archer’s time discovered and thawed them. It was implied that these drones sent a signal to the collective in the Delta Quadrant advising them of Earth’s existence.
There are so many stories to explore with the borg. I always kind of assumed that like bees there are different hives with different queens but watching this ig i was wrong. But i love this picsrd concept of a borg queen that assimilates people that want to be assimilated. I wish that was explored more somewhere.
Annie was the best Borg Queen ever! What an amazing actress!
I thought the Borg was such a brilliant idea for a new enemy when I first saw them on that TNG episode where Q transported the Enterprise into Borg space, an enemy made up of billions of cyborgs but all acting with a collective consciousness, but then the writers predictably had to ruin it by giving them a "queen", and one who acted like a petulant human at that.
Thank you for Cher-ing your vocal impersonation of the Diva who would be Queen :) x
I am a firm believer in there being one true Borg Queen, but multiple possible proxy Queens. Taking a closer look at the Queen in First Contact, she is largely artificial with only a small number of organic components. That could be because this version of the Queen was manufactured to represent her on this mission. This would be at least somewhat necessary. These Borg weren't connected to the collective of the past. Bringing a Queen with them would be the only way to properly control the drones, especially after the Sphere was destroyed.
It's my belief that every Borg vessel has the ability to create a proxy body for the Queen. But after Admiral Janeway's attack, the Queen tried and failed to use her resources to make a whole new body for herself. This is the zombie body we see in Picard. Apparently the information to repair necrotic tissue was lost to Janeway's virus. So as the voices dwindle, she makes the last attempts she can to stab at the Federation, including opening a new transwarp conduit in such a way that it would have destroyed many worlds.
That or the Queen's mind is simply embedded in the collective and makes the bodies when she feels she needs to.
Once the Borg Queen "Picarded" herself emotionally over Locutus, the Borg would be destroyed by the shock emotional impact of her love ❤️
Love the video Sean, keep the jokes and puns coming!
He didn't write the jokes or the puns, someone else did.
🍄
@@the_unrepentant_anarchist. Are you sure?
@@Donnagata1409
Yeah.
The fact that it says-
*"Written By- Jack Kiely"*
-at the end means I can say that with at least a comfortable amount of certainty, yes...
🍄
I'd forgotten how much I disliked The Borg having figure-heads (Locutus of Borg, The Borg Queen(s)), and yet I so appreciate the characters, the make-up, and the actors.
I guess The Borg are kind of like some of the other great SciFi villains, every time they're 'used', and the lore is added to, they get diminished. (Weeping Angels.)
As always thank you so very much for the videos.
And is often the case (and problem) in long running stories, no villain (like The Borg) can ever truly die, or stay dead.
The Weeping Angel's were written by King of Paradox Stephen Moffatt so of course they went downhill.
Using the blueberry aliens from SGU as the Caeliar is a thumbs up from me.
My favourite Borg theory isn't directly about the Borg, but about the TOS planet killer having been created as a weapon to fight the Borg.
I just can't remember the novel.
I think it was Intelevore, if I remember correctly.
I haven’t read that novel but I don’t see how that theory would work since it contradicts what we saw in the TOS episode “The Doomsday Machine”. In that episode the doomsday machine went from solar system to solar system destroying all of their planets. It completely ignored the Federation starships until they interfered with its mission. All a Borg cube would have to do is do nothing and the doomsday machine would ignore it.
In addition, science fiction writer Norman Spinrad, the screenwriter of the episode, was pretty clear about it being analogous to the nuclear standoff between the US and USSR. The whole idea of a doomsday machine is that it’s never intended to be used. The only time it would be used is as act of revenge against the other side after its creator had been destroyed.
The book was Vendetta by Peter David.
Nah, they are still remaining Borg scattered throughout the Galaxy. Either they managed to break the Collective's hold and survive to create a Community of former Borg Drones like in the Season 3 Voyager Episode Blood Fever. Or just simply die off like the Queen in the end of Picard Season 3.
I definitely preferred the Borg before the queen was introduced. Mysterious and terrifying. The more you explain about them, the less terrifying they become.
Everyone just ignores Picard season two like it did not even happen. The Borg at that time asked to be part of the Federation and were going to be the "gatekeepers." Where did they go? What happened? Is that all we can do is pretend that season does not exist?
A lot of people seem to want to do just that.
In reality, Terry and his writing staff decided to not mess up anything with Jurati and her collective. Their story was left to another writer or showrunner to fill in. Jurati's collective was mentioned in Picard S3 (by Capt Shaw). They exist, but were just not part of S3.
Jurati's collective is its own thing. It wasn't and isn't part of the "main' Borg Collective. The destruction of the Queen and her Supercube appear to be the death-knell of the main Collective. But Jurati's collective lives on.
@@nooneatall8072 If they were part of the Federation could they have come to help with the "real" Borg? Anyway, I missed what Captain Shaw said about them. Can you please tell me what was said? Thank you!
Great episode
7:02 Just like to say that the scenes with the blue aliens are from Stargate Universe. The one with the Destiny
💜 I love how you randomly included clips from the Stargate franchise with a tacit implication that it was in fact Star Trek... 👍🏻😁
LMAO
maybe credit stargate destiny for the blue alien?
The distributors are credited which is what's required.
*Stargate Universe.
🍄
7:04 that is from Stargate Universe. :D
I always imagined that the origins of The Borg would be something similar to the Mechanicum/Mechanicus of the WH40k universe. Some environmental catastrophe on their homeworld that led to incorporating technology into their bodies in order to survive. Then they met some aliens. With better technology. And then a habit formed.
I love that idea, better than the often hinted at "the humans made the borg" crap that enterprise tried to pull and is vaguely mentioned in this video when the said the borg queen was maybe a human scientist
I prefer a video like this than one where Sean comments on American politics and looks embarrassedly into the camera while alienating half of his potential audience. Good video. Thanks.
A Borg prequel series would be amazing. Go back to the early founding's of the Borg and maybe follow it over a few centuries.
This list should of said nine things about the Borg Queen then ended with number Seven.
Deep cut with that manga reference.
It would have been a bit better if the “Queen” functioned like a queen bee or ant where each colony has its own who functions as an necessary executive bud off a critically huge colony. That way each Borg colony could have somewhat unique evolved characteristics and could even have a story element where the different colony-nodes have to regularly meet to disseminate the assimilated information to the entire collective
The Queen was the worst idea, I still can't stomach it to this day. What made the Borg cool was the mystery about where they were from and how they operated, that doesn't mean we needed an explanation.
So they needed to be a true networked computer that had no centralized anything. A virus capable of rebuilding itself from even one intact cell.
They need to create a series about the Borg's origins. I know it would be of great interest to many fans.
I loved First Contact - great video x
Very, very nice deep dive!!! Sweet Oogly Moogly! I love the Borg Queen Sooooo much, and thought I was all-knowing. I was very wrong. Thanks for putting me in a Happy Place! Happy Pride🌈!
Borg are the ultimate adversary. Adaptable, persistent, ruthless, efficient. Inhuman.
CBS might arguably vandalize Trek's legacy, but they'd never dare put the Borg down. Borg are a commonality for Trek fans from all but the very earliest iterations of the show.
I like the multiple origin stories thing.... it makes sense that there would be such a disconnect given the fragmentation of early memory. Additionally, I think about how in earth's history, animals evolved the same traits multiple times throughout history. Is it possible that mutiple versions of the borg were started and later came together? (I am by no means a hardcore fan like I was as a kid. I am, at this point in my life, very casual.)
So, what happened to the Borg between Picard S1 & S2? Did I miss something or was that a massively wasted cliffhanger?
I assert that Borg Queen wasn't created until the crew of the Enterprise introduced individuality through Hugh. This would mean that Lore and The Queen were both fighting to take leadership of the Borg. This might also mean that Lore is the Borg King, and would certainly explain The Queen's fascination with Data.
that's art the kind of art i wanna be a part of
How about a STAR TREK: BORG ORIGINS series? Also, nice use of SGU!
I do think the Borg lost some of their terror level when the Queen was introduced. They were no longer a collective with no oart more important than another, where you could kill as many as you wanted, there were always more to take their place.
But that was brought back a little bit by showing that even the Queen's death didn't truly matter, there was always another queen.
However, until proven otherwise, I'm of the mind that Janeway nearly destroyed the Borg entirely, and Picard finished them off. There may be pockets that were separated or were able to separate in time, but without the full Collective behind them, or a queen to guide them, they'll be lost, or even beginning to regain their individuality. In either case, the Borg, as we know them, are dead.
Thank you, Sean. Borg to be wild!
You make such awesome videos 😊
What is the status of the Borg during the later seasons of Star Trek Discovery? (32nd century)
Unknown, we know they aren't unaware of the borg but very little mention.
I wonder if when the Borg Sphere travelled back in time in First Contact caused a new Queen to be required since the original wouldn't have been in the same time period 🤔
Maybe they could make the Borg more of a challenge to any future crews with any future appearance. The Borg are very slow and clumsy for a good adversary.
Somehow I doubt that the end of Picard will be the last we see the Borg, given they were everywhere in the Delta quadrant, and once disconnected, who knows what those severed drones got up to as "independents"... :P
the 7 min mark their was a clip from Stargate Universe ??
The character Frost in Mortal Kombat 11 has a nice Borg Queen reference, as one of her fight intros shows her head & spine lowering into her cybernetic body.
I have a theory about the Borg Queen. I don't think she existed before Locutus was removed from the collective.
The Borg think of themselves as perfect, therefore any change in the collective to make them better would have to be retroactively remembered as having always been a part of the collective.
After Locutus left the collective, the Collective decided that they were better with a single leader, and so the position of queen was created. Every drone had their memory modified so that they remembered having a queen forever.
When Picard comes into the influence of the Borg, likely for the first time since the end of Best of Both Worlds, he seemed surprised to suddenly remember things he had not remembered before. I think this was when Picard received the memory update that included the queen.
The queen mentions her time from before but I think both Picard and the queen remembered events that never actually took place.
If the Borg had a "single voice" that could speak for them then why did they take Picard to fill that role?
It makes sense to me at least.
Great research and the Borg lives forever - for sure. ;)
I did the Vegas 4D thing..was really great
"Your uniqueness will be added to our own"
What's to say they didn't come across an ambitious individual? Perhaps "borg queen" is another collective within the collective, creating a "top of pyramid" and "bottom of pyramid" type hierarchy. This makes sense to me.
Given that Voyager ran into some adolescents (Icheb amongst them) who had been assimilated while youngsters, I think one can deduce that the Borg maturation chambers are for Borg who are born that way and not children who are assimilated.
Great video
Way to use a clip from Stargate Universe in a Star Trek Video!
I've seen the Borg Queen destroyed not one but multiple times in the ST series since First Contact. With that said, I doubt the Federation has seen the last of the collective after Voyagers Borg queen was infected in Endgame, then destroyed in Picard finale. This does not count another queen who was an assimilated Vulcan in Legacy. Which leaves me to wonder if the alpha queen was an AI with knowledge of the species who originally created them.
This was an interesting video. As for whether or not the Borg survived, anything is possible--and stranger things have happened in Star Trek. After all, there is precedent for some Borg to exit the Collective and setup their own mini-collectives, which is one possible way by which they could turn up again in future. From a villainous perspective, few characters topped the Borg and their Queen in the Star Trek Universe, IMHO.