The Truth about the Borg that should Horrify Fans

[@arkangel7782]

The Borg are Genestealers?

[@ANDREALEONE95]

Kinda yes, but it would be creepy think if they actually operate like them.

[@BrokenEyes00]

That’s their Plan B. Their Plan A is to act like the Flood anf just swarm in. Hell their plan C is probably some AI Virus Logic Plague that assimilates the computers of ships and stations before delivering the crew for assimilation. Plan D be some sort of indoctrination signal due to bring in close proximity to the tech that encourages those nearby to try and signal the Borg that someone “found their stuff”.

[@JeanLucCaptain]

“We steal nothing, we merely add your biological distinction to our own”.

[@TheWarSword]

Borg ain't going to assimilate my jeans! *tightens belt*

[@antonymaddox6632]

Came here to say that

[@RickySpanish12344]

I think it would be cool if a Star Fleet ship left the known galaxy to another one, and found that the Borg had assimilated the entire galaxy and that the Borg the Federation fought against was simply a Borg seed that had been sent to start the cycle in the Milky way

[@boothbyaw]

Damn, thats an awesome idea. Be a great way to reintroduce them as an even bigger threat than they've ever been too.

[@ravnica1989]

Well that's the kicker,in star trek discovery, 3 vessals did penetrate the galactic barrier and did get to a nearby galaxy. It's why in the show they were not effected by "the Burn" which was an event that detonated all the dilethium on board ships in the galaxy that was using it.

[@bryancampbell9622]

That would be a good mission for the Enterprise J.

[@edoherty9097]

Plausible and FUCKING TERRIFYING

[@sethmaki1333]

Now that's an idea you can sell to the folks running Paramount.

[@Falstaff0809]

Brilliant! At their first appearance on TNG, I found the Borg the most terrifying enemy possible. Over the years, the writers gave them weaknesses that made them beatable, so . . . less terror. But you have just returned them to high terror level. The Borg victory seems inevitable.

[@matthewcaughey8898]

The Borg will never succeed. Those of us who survived Wolf 359 decreed “ never again”. We will fight this enemy forever of need be.

[@quantashonjamaldigglerbury4934]

@@matthewcaughey8898 The borg make a lot of sense though if you think about it. Given enough time anything can happen and the borg were probably just some random species or civilization that were consumed by a collective-like AI and their affinity for technology. And then it went out of control. We wont want to admit this but Artifical Intelligence civilizations will always outpace a biological civilization which has spent millions of years evolving. Hell its even a miracle the borg didnt just turn into a centralized skynet sort of AI and become even more intelligent then the Q. If the borg existed IRL this is what would happen. If this iteration of the borg was finally destroyed another one would eventually rise up,technologically outpace and dominate all biologicsal civilizations and do the same shit. This can be after a century,millennia,100k years,1 million years,10s or 100s of millions of years and even billions and 10s of billions of years after. Hell the current borg might not even be the first iteration of a borg/techno collective dominated civilization. This could be the 1000th or 10000th iteration of the borg. The milky way galaxy is 13+ billion years old and has existed since the dawn of time and the universe.

[@JD-ul8qu]

Resistance is futile.

[@newnewnwo4-life497]

The first appearance was cheesy and poorly done and didnt improve until first contact and voyager

[@sourabhkarmakar8040]

I heard that the mirror universe borgs are even more ruthless merciless

[@pyrioncelendil]

The idea of there being multiple queens not only makes a lot of sense, but given how each Borg unimatrix is sectioned off up to and including their own nomenclature (Borg designations aren't just "x of y," but also include function and rank in a numbered unimatrix), it's reasonable to presume that each unimatrix has a queen, they operate semi-independently from each other but in tandem when the collective is threatened, and Janeway infecting that one particular queen couldn't have destroyed the entire collective, just that one unimatrix. That said, the Borg having a plan B doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because the very phrase "your culture will adapt to service us" isn't so much a declaration of the Borg having a backup plan in case they get wiped out, it's a declaration that at that very point in time, the particular target species now has to figure out how to successfully resist assimilation or be assimilated. That's how the Borg evolve: they approach a species that has the potential to resist a single cube, test it with that single cube, and if it resists, great, it's worthy of continued poking and prodding and will remain so until that species inevitably falters and gets assimilated. It's why the Borg don't simply zergrush species worthy of assimilation with all the cubes. The Borg altering the DNA of single members of a species that could conceivably be reintroduced into the greater population of that species doesn't strike me as a means of facilitating long-term covert assimilation as it does, say, tagging a species for future observation. Kinda like how we chip animals with RFID tags and radio transponders to track their movements. Now, the collective continually being aware of individual members of a species that've since been liberated from the collective makes sense at least in the regard that they expect species worthy of assimilation to figure out ways to reverse the process, but would they recognize DNA manipulation and moreover determine what the manipulated DNA does? For all of the Federation's scientific advances, they still got blindsided by this, so if there are multiple unimatrices with other operational Borg queens still out there and post-Picard Humanity has reversed the genetic manipulation tagging and attempt at assimilation (let's be honest with ourselves, this is the Rube Goldberg machine of Borg assimilation plots), great, it just makes them that much more worthy of assimilation in the distant future. After giving them time to develop even better technology, and optionally to get complacent once more. And this fits well with the notion that Jack Crusher-Picard has his own trial.

[@EthanKristopherHartley]

An excellent argument that I thoroughly agree with. 👏 I have a couple of points that might add to it too (that may contain spoilers in case someone hasn't seen Picard S3). Firstly, we know that Starfleet have the McGuffin to remove the changes via the transporter because one of the (many) epilogue was about Beverley fixing it. The second point is that genetic alteration to then be transmitted through reproduction is a slow, imprecise, and risky approach. Slow because you're looking at a minimum of 15-20 years for the first generation to come of age, and we don't see many huge families in 24/25c Federation so we're probably going to be at maybe 1.5 children per adult - requiring a lot of pre-assimilated "seed" cases. As for imprecise and risky, look at the amount of variation we get from not just generation to generation, but pregnancy to pregnancy. Almost every sibling has different genetic mutations, from simple hair/eye colour to susceptibility to genetic illnesses. How could they ensure and guarantee that their Borg mutation wouldn't be able to be overwritten by a random change to the DNA? 🤔

[@ArchReverend]

The Borg poking a species that is able to resist in order to advance and adapt makes perfect sense. It also means that every victory for the federation is really a loss in the over all picture. Eventually humanity will be un able to resist, the Borg will have adapted enough times to best them and then humanity will join the collective, and the collective will use the advancements learned from those battles to assimilate even more species until they come across another advanced one that is able to resist, and the cycle begins again.

[@krel3358]

Given that the Voyager episode where the queen forces 7 to return to the collective telling her that she was chosen to leave the collective as an experiment, suggests to me that the Queen was either grooming 7 to become a new queen or to design a new type of drone that could function independantly, even think like a human but still be bound to the collective. The entire plot of that episode is that the queen wanted to covertly assimilate humanity.

[@pyrioncelendil]

@@krel3358 Or the third possibility is that she was lying to try to give 7 the impression that up to that point, she'd been doing what the Collective wanted her to do the entire time. Do note that it's a plot point that comes up later, once 7 is briefly reintegrated with the Collective, that the Queen attempts to lie (again?) by claiming that Voyager had been captured and 7 calls her out on it.

[@ScottZapper]

i think you also have to consider what the view of genetic manipulation is in the federation consider the xenophobia they have to any genetic manipulation and you have to consider their technology on such science is stunted so it could be considered a blind spot for the federation due to that. so hiding something in the genes of a race that wont even manipulate their own genes to remove sickness and birth defects would be trivial.

[@SandPenguinn]

I’m glad you posted this. My thoughts are that they Borg are the ultimate existential threat to all life in the galaxy save for beings like the Q and Species 8472. I always think about TNG Parallels when the alternate timeline Worf and Riker are desperate to not return to their timeline because, as Riker pleads, “the Borg are everywhere!”

[@Decrepit_biker]

The borg are ultimately a threat even to the Q and 8472. Q even told young Q not to provoke the Borg. The Borg will prevail, eventually.

[@hirozhen7475]

It's been speculated that Q introduced the Federation to the Borg to avert a catastrophic timeline where the Borg become powerful enough to threaten the Continuum. Imagine if the Borg assimilated the power of Q they wouldn't stop at the Milky Way the whole universe would eventually become Borg.

[@Cyborous]

eh yeah but now they have to contend with a new idea of a hybrid. the synergy that happened in season 3 should be used to combat regular borg.

[@saiqasan4702]

Even Q did show some caution when introducing the borg to starfleet. And Voyager did help them against 8572 by developing a nanoprobe torpedo.

[@efwewfwef1549]

@@saiqasan4702 Q can still just wipe them out!

[@OllamhDrab]

Though one flaw in this theory is that it's premised on the idea the Borg had always done what they do in Picard S3. This actually doesn't make sense , since they wouldn't have had to steal Picard's body and then hunt down his son if what they did to make a Locutus as a specially 'human-articulate' counterpart to the Queen as a go-between was like on file somewhere. They'd already have the codes anyway so why take the extra trouble, even if they figured out what Jack could do. Or, they could have grabbed up almost any drone or XB for the same purposes. So I think what they needed from Picard had to have been special, maybe unexpected. I'm pretty sure we'll see that this particular scheme started and ended there, for the most part. At least more or less.

[@matthew8153]

I’m still wondering how the Borg were able to get help from the Changelings.

[@RickySpanish12344]

The idea that the Borg could not bounce back from that virus is silly to me. They could literally just rebuild a new collective with different nanoprobes. The Queen's mindset is about the Borg winning at any cost. If that meant she, and the old Borg had to fade away, and leave it up for a new collective to take over, so be it.... One episode I really loved on Enterprise was the Borg episode. It showed just how terrifying the Borg were. Just a couple of drones were enough to get the cycle started. They took a weak ship, and with a handful of drones dramatically increased its speed, shields, and weapons. The entire Borg collective could be destroyed, and if just one cube survived, it could assimilate a single planet resulting in billions of new Borg drones, and thousands of ships. I'd also assume that the Borg, like the Changelings could master cloning technology and simply clone a huge number of drones.

[@ashendant1317]

I remember someone saying in Prodigy that the surviving Borg Cube no longer uses nanoprobes and goes for a more traditional method to grafting cybernetics. This implies that nanoprobes are now impossible to use at all. While it seems it is possible for the Borg to survive, they can't just use different nanoprobes. I wouldn't agree with the queen was going to let the old Borg fade away in S3. She was desperate to the point of cannibalizing the rest of the Borg, to make sure the Borg survived in some way. That doesn't sound like acceptance, it sounds like utter desperation at the end of her species.

[@Jadefox32]

@@ashendant1317 per the Star Trek wiki "The transwarp network was destroyed in 2378 when Kathryn Janeway's counterpart from 2404 was able to infect the Queen with a neurolytic pathogen, an act which interfered with the Queen's ability to regulate the shielding protecting the interspatial manifolds. This in turn allowed the crew of the USS Voyager to fire a series of transphasic torpedoes, destroying the manifolds and causing the network to collapse." there's no mention of the fact that it interfered with the nanoprobes themselves but the Queen's ability to shield the interspatial manifolds which allowed the Transwarp network to exist. I'm guessing that's a poor writer trying to at least explain that away because they'd still need to connect to the hive mind.

[@tringuyen7519]

@@ashendant1317 The Borg needed Voyager’s help to defeat species 8472. The Borg have weaknesses that they can’t remove from the collective.

[@jasonkelley8697]

I can't remember where I read it but it was said the borg do not like cloning as clones are Inherently flawed so they are not perfection so they would not use clones.

[@nobodyimportant2470]

@@ashendant1317 Not being able to use nanoprobes in Prodigy doesn't mean they are unable to use them ever again. It means that the nanoprobe tech they currently had was no longer usable and they would need to start over from the ground up to make new version that wasn't effected by the virus which takes time. Honestly with the Borg's desire for perfection, genetic engineering makes sense. Assimilate a bunch of species and use their DNA to make genetically superior Borg. The core of Borg space would be these while the fringes are crewed with the inferior assimilated drones who are used as cannon fodder to collect new samples and improve the next generation in pursuit of perfection. This would also explain the queens as genetically engineered Borg from the previous generation sent out to control the drones.

[@Slavir_Nabru]

I think you're right they're not gone. Seven worried about becoming a queen in Picard S1, which supports the multiple queen theory and demonstrates a way for a new queen to emerge. We also see in Lower Decks and Prodigy, both set after Janeways virus, that there are still Borg ships full of drones floating about other than what we see in Picard S3.

[@EnterpriseC14]

Honestly, when ever someone brought up the Queen or how Voyager changed the Borg, I figured the borg in Voyager were so different from TNG borg was mostly due to Locutis. And from Locutis the Queen....

[@thechroniclegamer4285]

@@EnterpriseC14 that’s what I assumed too, and also the whole individuality from Hugh

[@Anduril74871]

There are theories that the cube awakened by the Protostar could be the Artifact Cube from Picard season 1.

[@FedoReds88]

@@Anduril74871 that is credicle, but they have to explain the extended damage on the picard's one

[@Sparky8472a]

​@Federico Rossi maybe it occurred when they assimilated the mad Romulans?

[@jgr7487]

this theory explains really well the inconsistencies that we find in the Borg timeline. they do disappear, but they come back every time.

[@FutureDeep]

The way I saw it was that Picard's borg receiver genes were uniquely attributed to his function as the voice of the Borg. After he was freed the gene modification eventually killed him. The Borg only sought to take advantage of that gene modification after they were decimated by Janeway. Evolution in that way never seemed like their MO until they had no choice.

[@Nimariel]

Valid, unless the modification was truly a unique part of Locutus alone, just as his role of “counterpart” to the queen and voice to the rest of the Federation seems to have been unique. The only possible explanation for this would be some type of long-term fixation of the Borg upon humanity, maybe stemming from the time loop transmission in “Regeneration,” maybe from the trans-temporal awareness that the queen was said to have in PIC s2, or maybe due to some fear of humanity that is connected to the relationship we have to the Q.

[@ashendant1317]

It was confirmed on the show to be unique to Locutus. Otherwise the Changelings could've used any exborg and didn't have to steal Picard's body to replicate the desired effect.

[@FedoReds88]

That are very good theories, expecially the one that implicate the relationship with Q (an, why not, with the Prophets)

[@Firefox13A]

I believe it was unique to Picard alone.

[@davidmarsh5337]

Well there was this one species that managed to give them a damn good thrashing every time they met lol and the Borg didn’t seem to have much of an answer should’ve just left them to it or tried to ally with them the enemy of my enemy etc 😂

[@quantashonjamaldigglerbury4934]

@@davidmarsh5337Goofy ahh homo sapien-centric fiction created by homo sapiens 💀💀💀

[@LoganBoyle12]

i love how we had 3 seasons with the borg as major plot elements and we saw 2 drones

[@Purple_Lilith]

Star Trek is a continuing franchise. Starfleet will always win.

[@thatguy57]

I think what was stated when the Borg tried to assimilate Species 8472 should be referenced, when the Borg said that Species 8472's assimilation would bring the Borg to perfection. Picard season 3 very strongly echoes what the Borg could do had they succeeded in assimilating 8472, but what was done is just a shadow of what they would have been able to do, had they been successful.

[@maisiesummers42]

I always figured the best way to treat the Queen would be like a central controlling A.I. That is, when you have a billion minds - a billion Borg - you need something to sort through all that knowledge, all those ideas. A central A.I. to "bring order to chaos". Because the Borg have this view of needing flesh to be "perfect", they can download that A.I. software into a specially-adapted clone, giving us a physical Queen. This Queen can be created as necessary; e.g.: when a cube is in the Alpha quadrant and heavily isolated from Borg space. This allows for those occasional breakaway factions: it's a local Queen who makes local decisions.

[@nobodyimportant2470]

Not far off from my theory. There are 2 types of Borg, drones and the species. The Borg seek perfection but you will never get that by assimilating random individuals and if they ever assimilate the entire universe they will go extinct due to a lack of new drones to replace ones that die. Instead the species that started it all was assimilating species and sending the tech and genetic samples home to improve themselves. The drones are just that mindless automatons slaved to the collective for added processing power and manual labor. The species is constantly incorporating the DNA samples taken from assimilated drones into their next generation to bring themselves closer to perfection. Under this format the queens are older generation genetically engineered Borg sent to control fleets of drone ships at the edges of Borg space to collect new DNA and tech. A queen was sent back in "First Contact" to control the drones since they were to far off for the collective to communicate with at that time. This also explains the Enterprise episode where the drones were primarily focused on reconnecting with the collective rather than assimilating the Alpha Quadrant as they were running on default commands to connect for instructions.

[@littleredpony6868]

Lore reloaded drops a video and I watch

[@badwolf66]

Who wouldn't?

[@Crazy-Chicken-Media]

I like the shatnerverse Borg, They definitely operate in other dimensions.

[@dharusiokay9426]

...and have a giant Off-switch in their home planet. But yes, the Shatnerverse Borg's Base in the 4th Dimension was great!

[@mdredheadguy1979]

Wait, what? Are you referring to Borg in TOS? Or a Star Trek book?

[@Crazy-Chicken-Media]

@@mdredheadguy1979 William shatner has like a nine book series. look for a book called "Ashes of Eden" And then don't start reading. It's a really good series.

[@scottmahoney1230]

The voyager episode Drone was a scary premise if the Collective had fully assimilated the 29th century Drone "One" the Borg would've become unstoppable.

[@efwewfwef1549]

Q can stop them ;)

[@cb-gz1vl]

Hmm kind of like letting the Borg have a 24th century ship in the 21st century. Yeah scary.

[@larrytalbot3824]

I wonder why, given that they have the ability to time travel, the Borg never went into the past more often (or the future), beyond the events of 'First Contact', to give themselves fore knowledge & technology to gain an even greater advantage over other races. Or perhaps they could travel into multiple parallel universes such as they did in S3 of 'Voyager' & speaking of which, I always wanted to see what the Borg would've been like if they had actually _succeeded_ in assimilating Species 8472... the stuff of nightmares.

[@lvluptoaverage52]

You forget humanity has Plot armor.

[@obsidian179]

Although, after Starfleet came up with a way to screen for and remove the mutated DNA, they would most likely have shared that technology, so the Borg would have to come up with a Plan C. Adaptation is part of Borg nature, though, so I’m sure that they could.

[@raven4k998]

well the fact that they wouldn't assimilate everyone was the Borgs true weakness in their plan🤣

[@looseycanon]

They would likely not be able to adapt, unless they encountered it in the past. The Borg are not inquisitive in their nature, they don't experiment, they catalogue everything they come across and then search a repository. Case and point, transphase torpedoes in Voyager. The weapons were brought from the future, the Starfleet did not have these, so how did the queen know, what are they? There's really only one way. That the Borg encountered them fighting and assimilating another species in the past, which is why they would identify the weapons, and that the Borg encounter a species, which had developed an effective counter, allowing them to adapt eventually, as discussed by future Janeway and the Queen (implying some adaptations take more time to deploy, explaining, why the Borg retreated from the fight in same episode, after losing two cubes)

[@2019inuyasha]

They could put borg tech in parts of the DNA that are essential. Thus removing the Borg would destroy that cell or individual as a collection of those cells.

[@YRafs]

This makes me even more curious to know what happened to the Borg between PIC's days and DIS's 32nd century

[@Optimistprime.]

I agree, I don't think the borg are dead. I'm not sure if they did this with other species but I definitely don't think they are done yet.

[@digitalcurrents]

The borg will continue to exist in fiction for as long as we need an analogy to real-world hive mentality.

[@APerson-ni1gb]

@@digitalcurrentsjust like the flood from Halo

[@hharvey3]

My running theroy is that when the Borg went back in time in First contact, the Borg weapon was also a bio-metric weapon and introduct neromonic symdrome to earth and started a slow assilulation process that climaxed in Pacard season 3. With technology less advance, the bio-weapon was able to infect the entire population. This would allow the attack to go uncheck and just infect the earth, but just about any species that visited or lived on earth and spread through the Federation.

[@Prang972]

That's actually brilliant. The Borg have always seen like either undefeatable or idiotically fragile, this kind of long term planning is would make such behaviour necessary.

[@Dawt_Calm]

So there's this underlying assumption that's made in sci-fi that hardly ever gets any scrutiny because it just seems like common sense. That assumption is that the more sophisticated the technology the "stronger" it is. With that conception of "Strength" comes the idea that sophisticated technology is invulnerable. But in fact we're finding out IRL that just simply is not true. In fact the more sophisticate technology becomes the more opportunities for exploits for potential weaknesses. It's an exponential thing too. It's not a matter of increased levels of sophistication in defensive capability. The more complex a system the more vulnerable it is to attack, no matter how many or how much precautions have been taken it's much easier to break down complex systems, it's entropic. So for instance you have a primitive biological organism with a minimum of parts that it needs for survival Vs a much more advanced organism. Lets say a virus Vs a human. It's not so say that a virus isn't vulnerable to attack, but there are an innumerable amount of ways MORE to kill a human than to kill a virus. That's why a primitive organism is able to kill a much more sophisticated one. So a species that is more technologically advanced does have an advantage in capability, but does have more potential vulnerabilities too. It's just a matter of meeting an opponent that is sophisticated enough to exploit those vulnerabilities. So you might not need to match an opponents level of technological sophistication per se. I guess in a sense you could say, in terms of species survival, there's a potential level of diminishing returns in technological sophistication. So to sum up, yes the Borg's level of technological sophistication gives them impressive abilities that might make them seem undefeatable. But you hit the nail on the head inadvertently, they can also be more fragile. If you're able to find and take advantage of their potential vulnerabilities. Given that the Borg will be encountering all species at some point given enough time, there is every chance that they'll eventually encounter a species that's able to counter them, it's almost inevitable given a long enough timespan. In the ST universe I guess the underlying idea is that the Federation is an example of a less sophisticated thing being able to kill a more sophisticated one. So like, the Federation is a virus that can kill a Borg collective, in a sense.

[@equalium9980]

I think you're ultimately right from a logic Standpoint, but from a "Nu Trek writing" Standpoint, I think the Borg are done. I don't know though honestly, I just have this feeling that the writers want Picard S3 to be the collectives end as well

[@MandalorV7]

The borg will be done until it’s agreed making them a threat again would draw more viewers.

[@jonleonard1555]

I wonder if in the Mirror Universe, are the Borg the "good guys"?

[@shadowpheonix787]

The Borg were beaten in the mirror universe. The terran empire went after them with a ruthless vengeance when they learned of their existence through the prime universe.

[@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis]

I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of something like that happening in general, with a CoOperative structure instead of a Collective.

[@NickK1291]

Assuming your theory is correct, at least we know where the Tyranids came from 😅

[@danehutchins3845]

My belief is the Borg will evolve in something more twisted... The Berg!

[@firstcynic92]

Borg! Borg! Borg! kzbin.info/www/bejne/b2aYmYZ9qN1kgrc

[@mdipltd7404]

Or Thunberg.

[@cameronbalfe241]

The zuckerberg

[@sigiligus]

SHUT IT DOWN

[@jeskerjames3260]

Is there a way for the Borg to come back? Yes. But am I satisfied with how they were destroyed if Picard Season 3 is the end of the Borg? Yes. To me it felt like it was the closing curtain to when the Enterprise first met the Borg so many decades ago. The only thing I would change is to have had Janeway play a role in the Picard finale considering it was her future self that caused the Borg to become so desperate in the first place. Seems like she should have been there to witness the end of the collective.

[@MandalorV7]

Seven was the representative for the Voyager legacy.

[@jeskerjames3260]

@@MandalorV7 I think having Janeway there would have still been appropriate. After all she and the Queen clashed so many times throughout Voyager. I wanted to see that one final clash between them.

[@misterlyle.]

The universe full of the Borg is already established. Remember what Ryker said? "The Borg are everywhere!" That was the Ryker from an alternate universe in the TNG episode "All Good Things." In other contexts, the Borg faced powerful opposition, including the Q, the Organians, Kathryn Janeway, and others.

[@PatriciaCross]

I think that Locutus/Vox fit a specific role (The Voice) that the collective needed to work at peak efficiency. The Queen is a similar piece, one more easily replaced. The Voice had specific requirements that the Borg could not replicate in a biological species, and Picard had those traits. The change the DNA of every drone, and did change Picard's DNA; but there was a specific thing that made him different. It is uncommon enough that the Borg did not have a Voice until Locutus, and did not have another until Vox. If they could enact this kind of biological plan without that specific key piece, they could have done it with literally any ex-borg. The would liberate their own drones and wait for them to reproduce and spread DNA. It is unclear if this plan would have been enacted with Locutus, or if Jack is himself that much extra special (this is kind of implied) or if it was entirely a last ditch strategy; but it is clear that they were needed to make it work. There are still Borg, for sure. Jurati's hybridization with the alt-timeline queen exists, though they seem benign. They are guarding something. Whether or not that plot gets picked up anytime is uncertain (I'm kind of expecting this to either show up in Discovery this final season or to lead to a cross franchise event or something); but this potentially could be Borg. There are also the extra galactic species seen at the end of Picard season 1,which could also be some version of The Borg (and also possibly connected to the Jurati plot). I think the Queen is a replicatable ai that can be reproduced in a new body, as evident by her death in First Contact. She is also able to sense/communicate to a degree across timelines, and alternate versions of herself definitely exist in other timelines. Some version of her will always exist and she can come back. There are definitely going to be inert cubes out there waiting for some event (or accidental idiot) to activate them. It is also possible that the Queen was a renegade from a larger collective that operated without any kind of hierarchy at all (something pointed out as seeming out of place in the Borg collective as far back as her introduction) and she was possibly an aberration, and perhaps that is out there. The Borg are gone only until someone finds a creative way to bring them back.

[@Dancestar1981]

So over the Borg done to death on Voyager

[@ajc-ff5cm]

Its like what Q said: you can kill one, but the essence of who they are remains. Theyre relentless.

[@christopherbrandt3703]

Of course, the Borg are unending we still have a collective under Jeraldi from season 2 finale of Picard they left that end open. And I would want to know more about that Borg ship and those who had been assimilated or crewed that ship.

[@TwistedSMF]

Well one thing I always wondered about is the Agnes Jurati Borg at the end of Season 2. What happened to them now?

[@charlescassels3826]

Great to see you regularly popping up on my feed again!

[@ryanthompson5761]

Borg are all gangsta in star trek online until a Vaadwaur Juggernaut shows up with Cannon Scatter Volley.

[@59rlmccormack]

The Cybermen of the Star Trek universe, but nearly ten times scarier.

[@malkorassorek1876]

So there is the potential for who knows how many of these cycles going back maybe millions of years? To be honest, that kinda makes them even more epic and terrifying then before.

[@silversonic1]

I have long played with the idea that the Borg could set up sleeper hives. However, Picard Season 2 seems to have put that to bed. Jirati showed the alternate Queen that the Borg were doomed to failure, using the temporal technology that links Borg Queens across time and dimensions. Of course, I always found the idea of the Borg having the ability to communicate through time troublesome because they could always tell themselves what went wrong to prevent failure.

[@justin3415]

Great points,the borg are never truly gone.But i belive why the borg fail in end is the unknowable's, those things u can't plan on no matter what u plan or they plan for,And that is what makes humanity and many other's some how pull off the impossible,and there is the Q and other powerful entities watching and helping where not alone against the borg or things like them,even if we are,Humanity will survive in some form and survival is a win at a basic level.great video.

[@Decrepit_biker]

WE ARE THE BORG. WE WILL ADAPT, WE WILL CONTINUE TO ADAPT. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

[@justin3415]

@@Decrepit_biker AND YET WE RESIST! AND YET WE SURVIVE!

[@wesbrown5601]

Here's something I haven't seen talked about, voluntary assimilation. It's a given that the Federation and all others are studying and researching Borg tech, we've already seen bits of what appear to be that in Discovery. Detmer has implants that are reminiscent of Seven's, then there was Airiam, who had significant bodily replacement. People will become more and more accepting of an invasive technology if it's presented in an non-invasive way over time. In Discovery's future time, programmable matter is common place, how difficult would it be to add a neural interface to control it?

[@hornet370]

i think what’s more horrifying is that they’re mentioned or seen in every single post kirk star trek series/movie

[@---oq5kb]

It's also worth mentioning that one of the ideas for Enterprise season 5 was a human scientist contacting borg from the seasom 2 episode to become the borg queen (I have no idea how that would work) but in Voyager, it's mentioned that borg queen was species 125. Either between 200 years the borg queen changed, or she was one of the many borg queens in existence, counting the human borg queen from the proposed season 5 of enterprise. Or maybe they didn't know that in voyager she was established to be species 125. Also the prodigy crew visits a borg cube that is asleep, and it becomes active after their interfernce, so all it takes will be some stupid space traveler waking the borg again and allowing them to find a new queen.

[@vismortis]

We also know that the Queens can die and a new one shows up. One died on the Enterprise, Voyager killed at least one. Im assuming this queen we saw die was focused on this plan but other queens could be operating as normal just in smaller numbers. It would really only take a hand full of ships and some time for just a small group of Borg to rebuild their power base and start assimilating again. One idiot poking around on a sleeping cube would be all it takes to start them going, one cube with its programing intact starts assimilating and reactivating other ships and soon they are back to their old ways. Picard beat a queen that was insane but not all the borg.

[@RichardX1]

To quote a certain chancellor-turned-emperor, "... and we shall have peace."

[@zealotmaster1]

the borg new tag line: never give up never surrender!

[@RubyCheetahCub]

I believe that they stated in ST:P that the modification of the assimilated's DNA was to make them compatible with the hive mind, and that the queens could see through the multiverse to observe other collectives.

[@alexandercross9081]

Pretty sure that Dr. Crusher figured out a way to remove the borg biobits, which admittedly does leave thousands of species across the delta quadrent who still could hold what ammounts to a genetic kill switch in them, which could be an issue, but its not as grim as you make it sound

[@stryletz]

Only from those who received them from the transporter, there's still Jack. And his children, and their children's children. Etc. What we saw in Picard was the Borg using a shortcut with transporters, but the truth is the Jack, as well as anyone else who was liberated from The Collective and went on to have children, are an infection slowly spreading. Ingenious really, even in failure the Borg will win through passive assimilation.

[@alexandercross9081]

@@stryletz okay, that changes things, and given the federations stance on genetic engineering, it could be a problem

[@DrForrester87]

@@stryletz Then Seven should have rejoined the Collective when the signal went out.

[@stryletz]

@@DrForrester87 she was affected, but able to resist. It's been sort of implied before she was meant to become a Queen, which perhaps gives her some protection. But, whatever the reason for her resistance she was affected.

[@76TomD]

The Voyager episode 'Drone' shows that the Borg still exist in the 29th century via the Doctor's mobile emitter.

[@HontasFarmer80]

My thought is this. If the borg assimilate everyone then they become everyone. Everyone would be borg. Then Star Trek 10K AD would have a Borgified, federation ified Dominion-Fed-borg conglomeration fighting aliens from Andromeda.

[@Knuspermonster]

There is a comic called Hive that has exact that scenario....the borg won and assimilated everything....and 500 years after they won locutus is on a mission to destroy the borg and help his past selfe defeat the borg

[@NightWolfXVI]

Hey @Lore Reloaded the Borg Queen also said if a Queen dies in this dimension all of her memories can travel through Quantum dimensions to another Borg Queen like when Commander Worf was jumping through dimensions in TNG season 7: episode 11 - Parallels.

[@liamwilliams1794]

I think the borg are a bit like the daleks in doctor who. Theyre fan favourite villains but theyve been used too much and the scare factor has been worn down. If a writer wanted to bring them back they can just invent some reason for their survival but if they do they should leave it a long time till they do, and come up with a new, very threatening plot for them.

[@tba113]

I suspect Locutus was unique, though not because the Borg found the process difficult. No, I think Locutus was unique because as far as the Borg are concerned, he _failed._ After all, Locutus was not only unsuccessful in convincing the Federation to agree to assimilation, but his failure gave the Federation a ton of intel on the Borg and plenty of motivation to rearm and mobilize - and that was just the hasty scrapings Starfleet managed to glean from the battles. If they'd managed to board the Cube and study it in depth, the Feds would have unlocked far more secrets. Even assuming a best-case scenario for the Borg, this means the Locutus project's failure cost them a Cube for no real gain, and pushed back their timetable for assimilating the Feds by _years._ With that sort of result, the Borg might well consider the Locutus approach to have been initially promising, but ultimately a dead end, and abandon the idea. Honestly, Locutus was worse than useless to the Borg: without detouring to grab Picard and turn him into Locutus, the Cube could have just beelined straight for Earth. Starfleet would have had even less time to prepare, and the Enterprise-D's crew would never get the backdoor connection from Locutus into the Borg's maintenance systems that they used to disable the Cube.

[@slysi81]

So I take it you have just confirmed the Borg will defeat the Dominion? I've always thought the Borg would beat the Dominion in all our war simply because the Dominion are not as resourceful as the Federation. Even though there were only a few Founders (Changelings) in Picard they were used as pawns by barely functioning Borg Queen

[@RyanTaylor03]

When you see a wasp you don’t think what hive did you come from, you just think “oh shit a wasp” I like this multiple hives-multiple queens theory, it allows the Borg to live on, not as a single enemy but as a classification of enemies that could have different tactics, capabilities and objectives. From a story writing perspective it could work really well

[@mathgasm8484]

I have bee hives and resistance is futile from each hive.

[@vnep5743]

Interesting ideas. I've never been comfortable with the Borg being destroyed by Janeway's virus. In fact it's not something that I ever think about in post Voyager storylines. It makes more sense to me that the virus would have been contained in some way, ie the Collective cut off the affected "units" as if it were a LAN connection. Borg operations could have still been dramatically hindered. A new Queen would be made/built? and sent off to analyze the virus. Once the Borg were satisfied that the virus was no longer an active threat they could go back to doing what they do best. But to say that the virus spread across thousands of lightyears to infect billions of drones kind of comes across as an insult to the Borg's capabilities. Sure, the Queen brought a level of personality that kept the Borg from becoming stale even more quickly than what we got. But remove her and we go back to the cold, efficient, nigh unstoppable monstrosity that was originally portrayed. "Your virus is irrelevant. We have adapted. Your technological and biological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile."

[@nGinnEer]

Great point. To add to it, if they can eventually overcome Janeway's virus, they will have essentially been given a surmountable challenge, emanating from technology from the future, and in overcoming it, understand that technology and even develop their technology beyond it. So the borg's technology level would have been greatly enhanced compared to the other species in the current galaxy's time.

[@catjudo1]

I know it would never happen, but I always wanted to see, in the background of those rows and rows of Borg, a Dalek sitting in a charging station.

[@chriss-nf1bd]

Seeing that their space is right up next to the Voth. Voth are so much technically advanced. The Voth would be the greatest future threat. The vortex at the end of season 1 and 2 of Picard was that the Voth? A story arch that ended with a Borg Faction joining the federation. As they saw an even greater threat? Will that Story arc ever be finished?

[@Corbomite_Meatballs]

That's a dropped plot thread in STO. Sorta wish they would go back to it and create a good story out of it.

[@thesinfultictac5704]

Nah the Dominion has lasted longer than human civilization just because they didn't want to play with The Alpha Quadrant doesn't mean they wouldn't ruthlessly protect their borders from Borg woth success.

[@rohanthomas4134]

Nah, the original Borger are gone, we have had more than enough Borg stories at this point, and this is a good and ending that we can expect. I hope they never don’t them back further down the timeline, or at least wait a good long while until doing so.

[@amaris27]

I suspect you are right. Picard Season 2 was pushing the theory that the Borg always lose in all multiverses. Now, I know myself and many people always believed that the borg would basicly be unstoppable over time as they adapt to everything. I actually like the idea that their hubris dooms them in all universes. Maybe its because they believe in their own superiority so much that it blinds them to their weaknesses. And yes, I know about Tapestry TNG where the borg were everywhere and such but whos to say that in that universe, the borg didnt later open the rift to fluid space and get ganked completely by the Species 8472 since there would be no a Voyager to help them adapt their tech to fight them.

[@willjohnson846]

L:ook at the Wraith Hives in Stargate: Atlantis each Hive had their own Queen and they would cut each other off...

[@ATEC101]

Until some script writer decides you are wrong.

[@pfksr64]

I tend to view the Borg as separate hives that are cooperative but, each might have its own distinct characteristics. The Borg encountered by the Enterprise, representing the first contact for instance are not necessarily the Borg that engaged in the wolf battle. Additionally, the Borg encountered by Voyager again could be a separate sect. while each sect is a hive unto itself they might be interconnected in a hub and spoke so they will share information with one another and based on focus and location one might perform a take over another. Now if you can imagine that kind of structure, it should be easy to envision that some are more dangerous than others. I think this works with the multi Galaxy concept as well. One cool point here is that when they opened the portal to fluidic space and invited a species capable of wiping them out, they could have out of necessity separated that hive out of the whole, forcing them to exist on their own and making them vulnerable to the Alpha quadrant powers like the federation. So we might have only seen the demise of this smaller and stupider hive portion while the whole and far more dangerous whole is still out there. I think the fact that the Q had a real fear of the Borg supports this point of view. After all, the Borg could easily have destroyed the borg that seemingly died in Picard.

[@MD2389]

Almost makes you wonder how much the "friendly" queen was treated by the collective, post Season 2 of Picard.

[@JaimeBabb-s3k]

I always figured that the friendly Borg were just a more insidious version of the regular Borg. They bide their time, make your civilization dependent on them; eventually you come to them willingly.

[@SuperPuzzler]

As much as people seem to not care for the 2nd season of Picard- and I'm really not sure why- I think the existence of the Alternative Hive, as I call them, gives the universe a fighting chance against the Borg. They don't assimilate anyone against their will if it's not a life-or-death situation for that individual, and so the Alternative Hive gets its strength through trust rather than deception. Further, this hive was established when Agnes Jurati convinced the Alternate Queen to give this idea a try, AND IT WORKED! Now the Alternative Hive has provisional membership in the Federation. If Queen Jurati can save one Borg queen, she can save others too. And if they refuse to be saved, then I still don't think they can win against the Federation backed by a Borg collective built on trust.

[@baskkev7459]

think the borg can never be trully destroyed. as shown in star trek enterprise. Even frozen after a ship crash on the artic on earth.after many years. they still waked up and started the prosses of a borg cube again. ( at least my head canon that is what they where building ). So all it takes is a species with less tact/knowlegde to beam 1 up, take 1 home and the borg can be at it again. they are a never ending plague.

[@athrunzala6919]

The Borg can not NOT exist

[@pmc_]

@@athrunzala6919 They're a sort of Pandora's Box - once they exist, they can't be put back in the box

[@MichaelSuperbacker]

Then the Borg won’t need weapons in the future if every other civilization is gone and only the Borg remain…….

[@littleredpony6868]

Once this galaxy is assimilated, move on to the next galaxy. Adromada is the most logical choice for the second galaxy to start exploring

[@mysticalmonotreme]

There are also the Large and Small Megellanic clouds as well as smaller satellite galaxies too.

[@TheWarSword]

What what about that galactic wide radiation surge that drove the Kelvans to find new galaxies to call home? And from what we understand is that they were suppose to have been a literal galactic powerhouse in Andromeda. How we not know that the radiation left Andromeda lifeless in biological terms or some other third party used that radiation to topple the mighty Kelvans?

[@Knuspermonster]

Who says milky way is the first one? Maybe the came from outside and just keep it a very good hidden secret

[@littleredpony6868]

@@TheWarSword good point. What’s the next closest full sized galaxy to our Milky Way?

[@TheWarSword]

@@Knuspermonster *Eldritch horror music intensifies*

[@Martok86]

This and the comments actually made me feel better. It may sound silly but I need the Borg... Thank you!

[@dragonmaster613]

I may not be a staunch Individualist, but I despise the Borg (and Cybermen) even more!

[@borgranta61103]

Considering the fact that Voyager encountered a different borg queen earlier in the series would lend credence that at least one borg queen exists closer to fluidic space.

[@krel3358]

I think it was the same queen they just brought back the original actress for fun as she was in the same unicomplex. I thought they both did a good job with the Voyager queen being a ruthless psychopath and the First Contact/ Finale queen being a flirty seductress and overall more emotional. The way she interacts with admiral Janeway is like two wolves trying to size each other up. While the other actress talking to 7 is more like an abusive parent trying to teach their golden child.

[@cb-gz1vl]

I think the Borg are inevitable. Like in Battlestar Galactica, Cylon was a generic term for artificial life. Same with Dr. Who where Cyberman is merely a generic term for cybernetic organism. I think Borg are a Fermi barrier. As a species grows it starts melding with technology and sooner or later becomes a hive of interconnected souls. Borg is merely the generic term for that.

[@LilianneBlaze]

Mostly agree, but I don't think the melding with technology is enough. I think it also requires either an extreme freak accident or taking "the needs of the many" to it's logical conclusion.

[@cb-gz1vl]

@@LilianneBlaze True. Or tyrant seizing power.

[@luisostasuc8135]

I don't remember if "the mad titan" was the band if the episode it not, but I love the idea that that's a title Janeway had earned in the Delta Quadrant

[@KuDastardly]

Funny thing is, that's how viruses sometimes work IRL and have changed the course of evolution throughout the ages.

[@Sunny85b]

The Borg are mentioned in Discovery over 600 years after the events of Picard. Other fact is that there are factions of borg in existence. The XB the volunteers, remnants of unimatrix zero and other abandoned borg vessels

[@puirYorick]

Thanks for pointing this out. It was akin to Vikings eventually switching from regular conquests and raids on Britain to settling in and *going native* to express their cultural and biological influence from within.

[@aperson22222]

When I'm asked what I think of S3 the first thing I always say is "I hate that it was the Borg." And I especially hate that they retconned "Best of Both Worlds" again. It's such a cheat that the tool that allowed the Borg to mount a comeback is something from way back then that we never had the slightest inkling they'd done. (And no, the opening scene of _First Contact_ doesn't count as setup for this.)

[@aironwhite6533]

Actually I think there was a third group in addition to the borg and changlings. The borg were just a instrument.

[@aperson22222]

@@aironwhite6533 No, the Queen was the final boss.

[@aironwhite6533]

@@aperson22222 Then who was the floating head. I believe there was a seen where if talked to Vadic as if it and her and her people were separate groups. Talked about her peoples revenge.

[@aperson22222]

@@aironwhite6533 The purpose of that scene was to show that Vadic wasn't the big bad but a mere henchman. Presumably the big bad was using an avatar so we wouldn't learn its identity too early. Possibly even Vadic wasn't aware of the true nature of whom she was working for. But if there was a threat behind the Borg they would have had to reveal it before the show ended, or else leave us off on a cliffhanger--which, since it was the series finale, they couldn't do.

[@captainnutzlos3816]

The borg wouldnt have a chance against the replicators ! They dont need any biomass to replicate, just stuff 😄

[@pacificchitter9808]

Jurati-Queen is probably one of the separate hives, probably one which has done very well after Janeway nearly destroyed the First Contact Queen. I suspect hives do share and cooperate, but also compete, with Jurati's hive possibly taking full advantage of the fall of the main hive.

[@awdfan2259]

Is the queen in Picard Season 2 the same in season 3? I feel like there was an uneasy alliance with the Borg in Season2. I was confused when the twist in season 3 happened and it was revealed that the Borg were invading

[@johncorvo5520]

In Picard, Star Fleet used the transporter use to remove the Borg influences on its personnel.

[@ValentinaAcciardi]

I don't think the Borg could defeat the Dominion.

[@mikehenrys]

Even if the Jem Hadar and Vorta, both had this Borg gene, unbeknownst to the Founders?

[@willwinters3910]

I've always thought not using the LaForge/Data algorithm was the biggest mistake Picard ever made.

[@rawrou]

Hmm well at least they will take their time i guess , discovery showed that people are still around in the 3100s although they have those trashed up tanswarp conduits so there is a good chance that the borg tried to make another play in between picard and discovery.

[@freeaccess12345]

Very interesting theoretical premise. We know that the Borg always plan the long-game, but if we remember Captain Archer was visited by Daniels (from the Enterprise-J), no mention of the Borg (in that timeline), also, in ST: Discovery, no mention of the Borg either, and that is in the 32nd Century. None of this proves that the Borg don't exist in the future, it simply points out that they are not mentioned which could mean they don't pose a threat, if they exist at all.

[@JasonFoxTheGreat]

There was not only the Borg Sphere that assimilated the virus and ablative armor (it was later destroyed by Voyager) but rember that dormant Delta Quadrant Borg Cube in Star Trek: Prodigy? The drones reactivated just fine and it start going about its business again.

[@scotts918]

We already know there's more than one queen, as we had the "friendly" Jurati, and now a different one in another episode.

[@danielperoverde1998]

The situation with the borg is quite complex. It might be that Locutus is the first genetically altered drone. The borg tried to adapt to situations where they could not best the Federation. I even believe the Queen to be the result of such an adaptation. In my opinion the queens came into existance because the borg needed the capability for individual thinking to understand how some species managed to outmaneuver them. I believe the Borg Queens come into play whenever standard tactics prove ineffective. The question is whether or not the borg have conceived failesafe methods. If they have they are unstoppable. Similar to the Daleks in Doctor Who, where individual units can have an emergency temporal shift. If they expect to be destroyed they can initiate a time jump to rebuild. Kind of similar to a round of age of empires 2 where you send a single settler away from a base that is about to be destroyed. Rebuild in a different corner. If just one scout ship were to be severed from the collective at any point in time they could rebuild. Maybe even a new collective. There are many in-universe explanations as to why the borg would survive nearly anything. I believe the borg to be severely weakened but not destroyed.

[@LordDarthHarry]

Well at the very least the possibility of there being isolated pockets of Borg trying to recover means Star Trek Online can plausibly retcon itself to not completely contradict the current canon without completely rewriting a massive chunk of it's content.

[@micahweeks9459]

This is a bit convoluted to me. An approach to bring the threat of the Borg back in future Star Trek shows would be to simply bring them in from the mirror universe we see in DS9. Have the Borg assimilate the entire Alpha quadrant in the mirror universe and learn of our dimension when they assimilate DS9. Then have them emerge in the area around Bajor to become a threat once again.

[@sylvain_tst]

The Borg, more specifically the Queen herself, knew what to do after the Janeway's virus infected the whole Collective: she decided to remain on a single Borg Cube and hide herself in the Jupiter's Great Red Spot. She left the main Hive Mind to focus mainly on keeping a few drones to her side. Though her plans was nearly ending when she suddenly decided to focus on biology instead of cybernetic enhancements and assimilation. With the help of rogue Changelings, she managed to activate Jack Crusher's Locutus DNA and finally assimilate the whole Fleet just by manipulating Picard's DNA 30 years prior. She's the original Queen last seen in Voyager's episode Endgame. Though, the Borg has been severely damaged back then, they may still exist with another Queen stuck in the Delta Quadrant. It is possible that the Borg is still reconstructing and repairing their Transwarp Hubs and Conduits to gain back their whole Imperium. It's even possible that some assimilated worlds have been cut off of the Collective too long they regain their individuality. Maybe some have been permanently destroyed. We've seen one Cube called "artifact" in Season 1, then the Queen's cube this last season, no doubt many other cubes in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants have been stuck after the collapse of the Borg transwarp conduits. It means, probably, that the Borg itself would never end, but the 30 years of the Borg we knew is over. A new Borg would emerge with new threats of assimilations and astonishing plans to prevent the existence of humanity and still conquest the whole galaxy. That's what the Borg is made for, to exist, to find its religious "God" (see Voyager) and keeping assimilating as much knowledge by species as possible. That's how I see the Borg and its threat myself.

[@krimzonstarr]

I really love this, except how long are we going to wait? Because nearly 1,000 years in the future, we've had no mention of the Borg in Discovery.

[@Jon7763]

but wouldn't the teleporters or medical scanners pickup on the modifications, I'm sure something like that would like an evidence trail that Star Fleet tech could pick up

[@roryhoven6900]

Remember when 7 says something about how the collective memory is highly fragmented from this time. They could be coming back for round 3

[@dixievfd55]

To quote the Borg Queen from STO, "I am eternal. This is not the end."

[@Kaiju-Driver]

In my personal fiction the Borg have merged with Reapers from Mass Effect. They are a constant threat in any area of space. When they arrive no one escapes.

[@WhittyPics]

Is it really the ending of the Borg or just the cube that Janeway poisoned? Are all the Borg cubes inter connected?

[@mikej9470]

Why wouldn't the Borg keep going back in time to assimilate Earth?

[@williamyoung9401]

I've seen a lot of Star Trek, but I missed this one. Was this an episode of Voyager or a movie?

[@stevenserna910]

In one of the movies, the Borg Queen stated, "There are forms of existence we are prepared to assume." Corporial, digital, micro, etherial?