star trek voyager dark frontier part 1

Dark Frontier (episode)

• View history
• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 1.6 Act Five
• 1.7 Act Six
• 1.8 Act Seven
• 1.9 Act Eight
• 1.10 Act Nine
• 1.11 Act Ten
• 2 Log entries
• 3 Memorable quotes
• 4.1 Story and script
• 4.2 Cast and characters
• 4.3 Props, makeup, wardrobe, and sets
• 4.4 Production
• 4.5 Visual effects
• 4.7.1 Previous episodes
• 4.7.2 Other Star Trek series
• 4.8 Reception
• 4.9 Apocrypha
• 4.10 Video and DVD releases
• 5.1 Starring
• 5.2 Also starring
• 5.3 Guest stars
• 5.4 Co-stars
• 5.5 Uncredited co-stars
• 5.6 Stand-ins
• 5.7 References
• 5.8 External links

Summary [ ]

A Borg probe attacks; Voyager defends itself…

A vessel has been detected by the Borg Collective and drones are activated aboard one of its ships. The drones are instructed to alter course to intercept the vessel. Inside a Borg ship drones immediately move from their alcoves and carry out the instructions. The Collective identifies the vessel: Federation Starfleet ; Intrepid -class ; 143 lifeforms . The drones are instructed to prepare for assimilation of the vessel.

The target vessel is the USS Voyager . The Collective states its usual hail: " We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile ". The image of Voyager is replaced by one of Voyager 's bridge . Captain Kathryn Janeway stands with Commander Chakotay at her side. Behind them, at the auxiliary tactical console is Seven of Nine whom Janeway has asked to be present for her tactical expertise. She replies with a warning to the Collective to break off pursuit or Voyager will open fire. The Collective dismisses Janeway's threat and repeats that it is intent on assimilating Voyager , they cut off communication.

…and prevails

The Borg vessel closes on Voyager but it is neither a cube nor a sphere; instead, it is a probe . The two ships exchange fire. Aboard the probe, there are explosions as the deflector shields are disabled. The Collective instructs that they be regenerated and the weapons re-modulated when, suddenly, a Starfleet photon torpedo is transported into the vessel. A drone moves to disable it but as the drone is about to begin dismantling the torpedo it detonates, destroying the probe and all drones aboard.

Janeway gets an idea to steal a transwarp coil from a damaged Borg sphere

On Voyager 's bridge, Janeway and Chakotay watch the explosion on the viewscreen . Both seem disappointed, Chakotay asks what happened as the goal was to merely disable the probe. Seven of Nine explains that the torpedo detonated near the power matrix, causing a chain reaction in the probe's systems. Janeway asks about survivors and Lt. Commander Tuvok reports that there were none.

Janeway stares at the viewscreen for a moment then orders Chakotay to begin a salvage operation. The probe could have something they could use, such as weapons or possibly a transwarp coil . This is a key component of Borg supraluminal technology, allowing them to travel at speeds far greater than the Federation's standard warp drive . If they can modify it and their warp engines to work together, thousands of light years could be put behind them in mere days, taking years off their journey.

Act One [ ]

Janeway and Chakotay enter cargo bay 2, where the debris from the destroyed probe is being studied. They walk around the debris, inspecting various components. Chakotay informs her that they have salvaged some useful components from the probe: power nodes and plasma conduits . Also, a transwarp coil was found amidst the debris field.

Seven informs Janeway and Chakotay that the salvaged transwarp coil is unusable

They go to see the coil and find Seven of Nine and Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres examining it. Their report is disappointing as the coil is unusable. Seven explains to her that when a Borg vessel is critically damaged, all of its vital technology, such as its transwarp coils, self-destructs .

" You're about to drop one of your bombshells. " " Now, what makes you say that? " " The way you fiddle with your combadge. You do it every time. "

But Seven of Nine also has hopeful news from their salvage operation. She shows Janeway and Chakotay two Borg data nodes , one of which contains long range sensor telemetry , assimilation logistics and vessel movements in a thirty light year radius . This is vital information for Voyager as they can use it to avoid any further encounters with the Borg for a time. However, the unusable transwarp coil is a great disappointment and Janeway orders Seven to translate the node's data so the ship's computer can read it.

In astrometrics, Seven shows Janeway and Tuvok the translated tactical information. She reports there are three cubes on a course parallel to their own, nine light years distant which pose no threat. But Janeway points out a Borg sphere whose position is not far from them and asks Seven about it. Seven reports that the sphere is damaged from an ion storm and traveling at low warp . Janeway orders Seven to provide her with a detailed schematic of the vessel.

Janeway calls a meeting with the senior staff in the briefing room . She describes a plan: they are going to steal a transwarp coil from the damaged sphere. The plan is labeled " Operation Fort Knox ", after the 20th century facility which, all through its existence, defeated all attempts at intrusion. Ensign Tom Paris helps by explaining the reference to the others present. Chief Engineer Torres talks about how useful even one coil would be in drastically shortening their journey time to the Alpha Quadrant .

Tuvok asks Janeway if she believes the sphere's defenses are low enough for them to do this. Janeway does believe this but she warns that the operation must be planned to the smallest detail. She reminds them that they cannot forget that they are dealing with the Borg. She proceeds to explain the plan in general terms: they will head for the sphere and use a diversion to allow an away team to beam aboard undetected. The away team will then steal the coil and return to Voyager with it. Chakotay recommends they create a holodeck simulation of the operation to practice it. Torres recommends they use a few "old Maquis tricks" she knows to mask their warp signature . Janeway agrees to both remarks and ends the meeting to begin preparations.

Act Two [ ]

After the meeting, Janeway calls Seven into her ready room . She informs her that she has a specific assignment for her relating to the operation. She wants Seven to research the data logs of her parents, Magnus and Erin Hansen , for any information which could give them a greater tactical advantage against the Borg. These logs were retrieved the year before , among the remains of the Hansens' ship, the USS Raven .

Seven of Nine begins to make excuses why the logs should not be consulted. She believes them to be irrelevant and flawed since her parents, despite all the knowledge they had gathered, were caught and assimilated. Janeway surmises, however, that Seven does not want to read them because they chronicle the events leading to her assimilation. But Janeway cannot afford to forgo the potentially invaluable tactical information contained in the logs and tells Seven that she will assign the task to Chakotay if she refuses. Seven informs the captain that, although reluctant, she will read the logs.

Seven is in her Cargo Bay 2 quarters , near her alcove, examining one of the Borg data nodes. Neelix enters with a large box full of PADDs . Seven irritably notes his tardiness and Neelix apologizes. He explains that cataloging the logs took much longer than he expected because of the amount of data including field notes, personal logs and bio-kinetic analyses. He sets the box down and quietly muses that she is fortunate to have so huge a reminder of her own parents. All he has left of his own parents is a faded holo-image. As he leaves to prepare the rest of the logs, Seven picks up one of the PADDs and activates it.

" We're off to see the Borg tomorrow. "

Annika Hansen is playing with a model of a Borg cube. Magnus Hansen enters. He leads her to a couch, sits with her and explains to her that they will be leaving the next day to study the Borg. Annika is full of questions for her father: Do the Borg have kids? What do they look like? Are they friendly? Her father answers her questions as best he can.

Aboard the Raven , Magnus and Erin Hansen debate whether or not they should refuel before continuing onward. Magnus does not want to, insisting they are too close and if they stop now, they may as well return home. Erin questions what they would return home to as they have committed numerous felony violations: unauthorized deviation from flight plan, crossing the Romulan Neutral Zone , failure to obey direct orders to return. She expresses that she is of the opinion their colleagues obviously think they have gone insane. Annika enters from her bedroom, complaining that she cannot sleep.

The Hansens encounter a Borg cube for the first time

The sensors sound an alarm, detecting massive subspace eddies . Magnus and Erin hurry to the main console and detect a ship their scans reveal that it is a Borg cube . They enter visual range and bring it up on the viewscreen. Magnus, Erin, and Annika stare at the cube as it scans them and their vessel. The cube does not alter course to intercept and instead it moves off. Magnus says that this confirms his theory how the Borg ignore anything living unless they consider it a threat, or a target for assimilation. They follow the cube, remaining well behind it.

A hail from the bridge by First Officer Chakotay brings Seven back to the present. She acknowledges Chakotay's hail and responds. Coming off the turbolift onto the bridge she sees the the damaged Borg sphere on the viewscreen. Janeway orders Paris to match its course and speed, keeping ten million kilometers away. Seven is ordered to the auxiliary tactical console to scan the sphere. She reports that its weapons array is regenerating, but its deflector shields and transwarp drive are off-line. However both systems will again be operational in 72 hours. The crew has a window of 72 hours to execute the operation. Janeway orders double shifts and 24-hour simulation drills for the crew.

Act Three [ ]

Captain Janeway, Seven of Nine, Tuvok, and Harry Kim quickly walk down a corridor on the Borg sphere, armed with phaser rifles . Chakotay, on Voyager 's bridge, counts down from two minutes, keeping them informed of their remaining time. The operation is going well, but Chakotay warns them they are behind schedule. Drones walk around the sphere ignoring them. Janeway and Seven proceed to the transwarp chamber, while Tuvok and Kim go to sphere's shield generator. They plant spatial charges around the generator while Janeway and Seven position transporter pattern enhancers on the coil. When Kim and Tuvok detonate the charges the coil is transported to Voyager . Chakotay confirms they have the transwarp coil and the away team proceeds to the pre-arranged coordinates for beam-off.

But their time runs out. Chakotay informs them the two-minute period it takes for the Borg sensor grid to regenerate after being disabled has expired. Aboard the sphere, an alarm sounds as drones immediately stop, face the away team and advance. Tuvok fires and kills two drones coming towards him and Kim. Janeway and Seven are engaged with two other drones, but the Collective quickly adapts to the phaser setting. Janeway turns to go along another route, ordering Seven to follow but she is frozen in place.

Seven is disquieted by the realism of the simulated sphere's interior

Janeway calls back to her sharply and Seven of Nine snaps out of it, following her down the corridor. They arrive at the transporter coordinates, where Tuvok and Kim are waiting, and the four of them beam out of the sphere.

On Voyager 's bridge, Paris reports to Chakotay the away team's successful return. Suddenly a contingent of drones appears on the bridge. Chakotay orders Paris to beam them off, but he cannot and the drones fan out and begin to advance on them.

" Computer, freeze program; both holodecks! "

Chakotay orders the computer to freeze both programs on both holodecks. It was all a simulation.

Chakotay demands an explanation from Paris. He replies that the drones must have piggybacked on Voyager 's transporter beam. Chakotay hails Janeway and informs her that they retrieved the coil, but also some most unwelcome guests. Because the two-minute window before the sphere's sensor grid returns online is the maximum amount of time for the away mission , they have to cut their time on the sphere to under two minutes. Beaming into the transwarp chamber directly is considered, but Seven responds that the chamber is too heavily shielded. The away mission looks impossible, but Seven informs them that her parents were able to spend several hours at a time on a cube undetected. By consulting their logs, they may be able to explain how the Hansens were able to do this. Janeway orders her to find out and ends the simulation.

As Janeway and Seven walk along the corridor outside the holodeck, Janeway asks her about her freeze-up during the simulation stating that she cannot afford such an incident during the operation. Janeway asks Seven if she is able to take part in the away mission. Seven responds that the simulation unsettled her. The last time she was on a Borg vessel, she was a drone. Janeway wonders if she is pushing her too hard and fast, making her face her past by looking at her parents research and now having her on the away team. Seven insists she will be fine. Janeway hopes so, the next time it will not be a simulation, she tells her. Seven acknowledges her statement and walks off.

Seven prepares to read another batch of her parents' logs in her quarters. The doors open and Naomi Wildman , daughter of crewmember Ensign Samantha Wildman , enters. She complains to Seven that she is having nightmares and wants to stay with her, promising not to bother her. Seven agrees but as she continues her work, Naomi begins asking some oddly familiar questions about the Borg: Does it hurt to be a drone? Do the Borg have kids? Are they friendly? Distracted and worn down, Seven tersely orders Naomi to return to her quarters.

" Resistance is futile. "

Naomi walks towards Seven and in a cold, hard voice states " Resistance is futile. " A Borg implant emerges and spreads on her cheek.

Seven panics as she looks around her quarters and sees Borg drones stepping out of the shadows. She frantically hails security , but receives no answer. Instead, she hears an ageless, disembodied, female voice state " They can't hear you. " Seven demands to know the voice's identity. " I am the Borg, " it responds. The voice calls her by her full Borg designation: Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01 , stating that she has become weak. Seven frantically tells herself that this is a dream that she is regenerating . The voice assures her that she is not in a dream. It explains how the Borg have accessed Seven's neural transceiver . The voice tells her that they know about Voyager 's plan to invade the sphere stating that it will fail. Seven demands to know why the crew hasn't been assimilated if the Borg believe the plan to fail. The voice states that they have contacted her to make an offer: " Rejoin the Collective and we'll spare Voyager . "

Seven is confused by this statement, as the only thing that set her apart from other drones was that she happened to have been chosen by the Collective to speak for the Borg during the events which had led to her de-assimilation. The Collective could easily have chosen any drone aboard that cube. ( VOY : " Scorpion ", " Scorpion, Part II ") Seven asks why any effort would be taken to retake her when the Borg has since then assimilated thousands of new drones. The voice responds that they wish her to rejoin the Collective because Seven is "unique."

The voice and drones vanish. The cargo bay is normal again and Seven is alone.

Act Four [ ]

Three months after first encountering the Borg cube, the Hansens have followed it through a transwarp corridor it created, arriving behind it in the Delta Quadrant , the region of origin of the Borg. Magnus Hansen is aboard the cube, wearing a bio-dampener to remain undetected. The Raven itself is outfitted with multi-adaptive shielding to mask it from Borg sensors. Both technologies have worked magnificently, allowing them to follow Borg vessels and beam on and off them without detection.

"Bill", "Junior" and "Needle Fingers"

Magnus reports back to Erin (who sits at the controls with Annika on her lap) that he is observing a badly-damaged drone, which the Hansens have dubbed " Junior " as it goes to an alcove to regenerate intending to repairing itself. However two other drones, which they have dubbed "" Bill " and " Needle Fingers ," arrive, deactivate the damaged drone and begin dismantling it. On the Raven , an alarm notifies Erin that Magnus' bio-dampener is almost out of power. She updates him, but he responds that he can stay on board for another minute.

Seven shows the designs for the bio-dampeners to Tuvok and The Doctor in sickbay . She found the designs in her parents' logs and explains how these devices should solve the timing problem. Tuvok instructs The Doctor to manufacture four of them, one for each away team member.

After Tuvok leaves, The Doctor compliments the Hansens on their ingenuity. Seven responds that the Hansens were efficient. Thinking that she is warming up to them, he happily cites this as an important stage in her social development, and encourages her to think of it as an exploration of how she was raised, an important part of her Humanity. Seven angrily replies that her parents underestimated the Borg. She states that because of their arrogance she was forced to be raised as a Borg drone. She storms out of sickbay and goes into a corner, struggling to regain control of herself.

The away mission will begin at 0600 the next morning. But Janeway has made a change in the away team composition. She calls Seven into her ready room, and tells her that she has decided to replace her on the away team with Torres. She explains that if the sphere attacks, she will need someone with Borg expertise at tactical. Seven insists that she must be on the away team. She gives the excuse that they may encounter unexpected problems that only she can overcome. Janeway takes offense to the comment, thinking that Seven simply considers them not up to that task.

However, Janeway realizes that Seven is not being arrogant, only fearful of the success of the mission. Seven fervently tells her that, in the time she has been on Voyager , the crew has become her Collective. Their survival is important to her. She would do anything to prevent harm from coming to them… anything. She pleads with Janeway to be put back on the away team. Janeway reconsiders and places Seven back on the away team, telling her that she is very pleased with the remarkable progress she has made as an individual and a crewmember.

Act Five [ ]

The Borg Collective detects a vessel and activates the drones manning the damaged sphere. They alter the sphere's course to intercept. The vessel is identified as a Federation Class 2 shuttlecraft with three lifeforms aboard.

The Collective does not instruct the drones to prepare for assimilation. The sphere resumes course. On Voyager 's bridge, Torres reports this to Chakotay. The shuttle is the diversion part of the plan; when the sphere drops its shields to take it in to assimilate it, the away team beams aboard. But the Borg are not taking the bait. Chakotay informs Janeway, waiting in one of the transporter rooms on the platform with the other team members, Seven included.

Ensign Kim suggests having the shuttle fire a phaser shot at the sphere, but Seven responds that that would not work; they would simply destroy the shuttle as a perceived threat. Janeway gets an idea. She orders Chakotay to have the energy output of the shuttle's warp signature increased. He does so. With the increased warp signature, the Collective instructs the drones to prepare for assimilation.

" Never forget… "

" …who you are "

On Voyager 's bridge, Ensign Paris reports that the sphere has locked a tractor beam on the shuttle and is taking it in. The sphere's shields drop and the away team beams aboard, wearing the bio-dampeners The Doctor produced. They begin their separate operations of the away mission. Seven immediately stops and has a vivid vision of herself when she was a drone. She hears the voice she heard in the cargo bay. " Never forget who you are, " it tells her.

Janeway, worried, touches her shoulder and asks if she is alright. She shakes herself out of it and follows her to the transwarp coil chamber. Tuvok and Ensign Kim place the spatial charges on the shield generator as practiced. Janeway and Seven plant the transporter pattern enhancers on the coil. Tuvok and Kim blow the generator and the coil is beamed off the sphere. Janeway and Seven quickly move toward the away team's beam-out coordinates.

Moving through the sphere towards the coordinates, Seven halts again. The disembodied female voice again beckons her to rejoin the Collective in order to spare Voyager . Janeway, realizing she is not behind her, turns and sees her standing, looking at her. Annoyed, she orders Seven to keep moving. Seven responds that she will not follow Janeway and wishes to return to the Collective.

Janeway firmly tells Seven she cannot let her do that. Seven responds that Janeway has no choice. Janeway aims her rifle at her, preparing to stun her and take her back to Voyager , to remain under guard in the sickbay or the brig until she regains her senses. She again orders her to keep moving. A force field appears between them, and two drones come up behind Seven. Seven pleads with Janeway to leave her. Chakotay hails and informs Janeway that the sphere is moving to intercept Voyager and that the away team must beam out in order that the ship is not assimilated. But Janeway does not move. She tells Seven she will not leave without her. Seven responds by telling her that if she does not leave, she will be assimilated. Janeway gazes at her for a moment then turns and runs towards the beam-out point.

The rest of the away team arrives at the coordinates, and Janeway hails Chakotay: three to beam out. Chakotay questions the number but Janeway orders him to energize. Once they are back on Voyager , Chakotay asks where Seven is and Janeway angrily replies that she had a change of heart. She orders a situation report and he responds that the sphere is altering course away from them. Torres reports that its transwarp drive is powering up. Janeway, even though she knows it is hopeless, orders Paris to follow it. In a glow of green, the sphere accelerates to transwarp and races away in the blink of an eye.

The colossal Borg Unicomplex

Seven is led by two drones through the corridors of the sphere. The sphere itself drops from transwarp into an incredible sight: an immense Borg complex . Structures interconnect with each other in a web so huge that it seems to take up an entire sector. The sphere moves toward a hatch on one of the main structures. The hatch opens and the sphere disappears inside.

As Seven and her drone "guards" enter through a spearhead-shaped door they stand in a large room with a wide, slight raised platform situated in the middle. Above the platform, a head and its upper torso descend on a lift from above. The head appears to be that of a humanoid female alien. Descending, the head smiles a little. As the head and upper torso approach the floor, a disassembled black mechanical body, composed of the rest of the torso and limbs rises from the floor. After the two parts of the Borg are attached, the body slowly walks up to Seven.

" Welcome home. "

Seven stares at the Borg as it descends from the platform. She realizes that this is the origin of the disembodied voice she had heard.

Her parents had a name for this type of Borg.

The Borg Queen .

" Welcome home, " the Queen tells her.

Act Six [ ]

The Borg Queen walks slowly around Seven, appraising her new appearance, noting how the individuals on Voyager have "remade her into their image" by removing her Borg features and giving her back hair and clothing. Seven sarcastically responds that she expected re-assimilation, not conversation. The Queen notes her sense of humor and comments that the last two years must have been remarkable for her. She repeats what she told her in Voyager 's cargo bay: she is unique.

Seven wonders aloud that her experiences on board Voyager are why the Collective wanted her back, to "add to their perfection." The Queen responds that this was Seven of Nine's mission all along. The Borg purposefully let Voyager 's crew take Seven. Surprised, Seven demands that the Queen explain herself, but she receives no answer. The Queen instead offers her a chance to regenerate in an alcove that has been adapted for her. She lets Seven know that after her regeneration they will speak further on her capture.

Aboard Voyager , in Cargo Bay 2, crewmen clear away the debris from the Borg probe. The debris was stripped of useful components and they will melt the components so that the polytrinic alloys can be extracted. As Janeway and Chakotay supervise the cleanup, she expresses her frustration at trying to understand Seven's actions. She cannot understand why she chose to rejoin the Collective now. Chakotay theorizes that Seven had been planning this all along, he reminds her that Seven threatened to betray Janeway after they had first severed her from the hive mind two years earlier. Janeway doesn't believe him and tells him that Seven had come to see Voyager as her Collective.

Janeway determined to retrieve Seven of Nine

Neelix, who is helping with the clean-up, comes up to them and asks Janeway what to do with Seven's alcove. With her gone, logically the alcove, which uses a lot of power, has no function and should be shut down. Janeway tells him no and he goes back to work.

In her ready room, Janeway sits at her desktop monitor , reviewing sensor logs from the day before their operation to steal the transwarp coil from the damaged sphere. She has a hunch that the Borg somehow influenced Seven to rejoin them and believes the logs have evidence of that. As she works, Tuvok arrives and explains that "a member of the crew" has requested an appointment with her. Janeway is about to refuse due to being so busy, but then sees Naomi Wildman peeking out from behind Tuvok and relents, allowing her in. Naomi has come to see her with a plan she has designed to find Seven. Janeway looks at it and tells her that it would not work but she commends Naomi for her initiative. Before Naomi leaves, she asks Janeway if they're going to rescue Seven, and Janeway assures her that a good captain never abandons a member of the crew; they're not giving up on Seven. The computer then beeps letting Janeway know that it has finished analyzing the sensor logs and has found an anomaly. Janeway and Naomi look at the monitor as it shows that Borg communication signals were directed towards Cargo Bay 2.

In the Borg Unicomplex, Seven awakens from regeneration to find her vision has returned to that of the Borg. The Borg Queen informs her that her brain's sight-controlling region has been re-enhanced with Borg technology with the addition of a neural processing adjunct. Seven fearfully and angrily demands its removal. The Queen responds that Seven prefers to remain small but Seven replies that she prefers to remain unique.

The Queen reassures her that this is not what the Borg want, they want her individuality intact. Seven returns to her initial question asking why the effort was made to capture her. The Queen replies that they need her for her individual, Human perspective. Seven does not understand as they have already assimilated her memories and could need nothing more. The Queen's answers that they want her to help them finally succeed in doing what they have twice tried and failed to do: assimilate Humanity.

The Borg Queen's personal vessel

Seven adamantly tells her she will resist. The Queen responds that she knows this.

The chamber shakes and Seven demands to know what is happening. The Queen informs her they are off to assimilate a species. She shows Seven a holo-projection of the targeted planet with a population of 392,000 and the inhabitants whom the Borg refer to as Species 10026 . Their presence is not required, she tells Seven, but she deems the experience necessary to remind her of what it means to be Borg. Seven looks at the projection fearfully. The Queen notices her fear, remarking that she is experiencing compassion, a Human emotion.

A hatch opens in a structure in the Unicomplex, and a diamond-shaped vessel emerges, carrying Seven, the Queen, and attendant drones. It moves out of the Unicomplex to rendezvous with two Borg cubes. The three vessels head off for Species 10026's planet. Aboard the diamond, Seven continues gazing at the projection in sympathetic terror.

Act Seven [ ]

A new drone is examined by the Hansens

Aboard the Raven , Magnus and Erin Hansen examine a regenerating new drone that they have beamed over from a cube they have been shadowing. They ascertain the species it was a Ktarian ( Species 6961 ). The drone's infrastructure was made of titanium , meaning it was a tactical drone. To their surprise they check its previous designation (Three of Five, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 1) and realize it used to work close to the Borg Queen.

As Annika watches with interest, they decide to put a tracking device on the drone. If it should ever return to Unimatrix 1, they could get the opportunity to study the Queen herself. An alarm alerts them that its regeneration cycle is almost complete and they quickly beam it back to its alcove aboard the cube. While Erin and Annika eat, Magnus inspects the drone's downloaded cranial transceiver logs, looking for communication signals from the Queen.

In Janeway's ready room, Chakotay reports that a comparison between the signals Magnus Hansen recorded in 2350 on the Hansens' logs and those that Janeway discovered being sent to Seven in Cargo Bay 2 matched. Seven was indeed getting communication from what he calls " this… 'Borg queen' " (the existence of such a thing is unknown to Starfleet at the time Voyager was pulled into the Delta Quadrant, since the Hansens never returned home with their data and the Battle of Sector 001 had just recently occurred).

Janeway notes that, whatever the nature of this "queen", she obviously is very influential, having made Seven turn herself over to the Collective the day after contacting her. Chakotay wonders if Seven was instructed to return to the Collective, but Janeway recalls her conversation with Seven before the mission when Seven insisted that she had to be on the away team and go aboard the sphere or the mission would fail. Janeway tells Chakotay that Seven had seemed very afraid, as if there was something she knew that she could not tell. In hindsight, Janeway intuits that the Queen didn't instruct Seven per se ; she threatened her with the assimilation Voyager 's crew if she did not turn herself over to the Collective. Janeway orders Chakotay to compile a list of every available technology the Hansens developed to track the Borg. Seven saved them from the Collective by turning herself over, now it's time to return the favor.

Janeway addresses the entire crew from the bridge outlining the mission: a long-range tactical rescue. During her speech various preparations around the vessel are taking place. Torres is equipping the Delta Flyer with the recovered transwarp coil. An away team consisting of Paris, Tuvok, The Doctor, and Janeway will go after the sphere that took Seven through transwarp space using tracking technology Chakotay found in the Hansens' logs. The Hansens' multi-adaptive shielding will mask the Delta Flyer from Borg sensors, and narrow beam transporters will allow the away team to board the sphere. Chakotay will keep Voyager at the threshold of the Delta Flyer 's transwarp conduit to offer tactical support against any pursuing Borg ships on the Delta Flyer 's return. She ends her address with the following exhortation: they will be looking for one individual among thousands of drones. " But she is one of us, " she finishes, " and I am not about to let her go. " She looks at the expectant bridge officers. " Let's get started. "

The Delta Flyer takes off and on Janeway's order, Paris brings the transwarp coil online and, in a flash of green, the shuttle goes to transwarp , heading in the direction the sphere was traveling. Tuvok detects the sphere's residual transwarp signature, and Janeway orders Paris to follow it.

" How do you propose we adapt? "

The Borg Queen's vessel and the two escort Borg cubes arrive at the Species 10026 planet to begin assimilation. The Borg Queen manipulates Seven into suggesting a way to adapt to Species 10026 weapons fire, a modulating phaser pulse that can penetrate Borg deflector shields. Initially Seven refuses to provide a strategy stating, " You are the Borg, you tell me. " The Queen does not respond; instead, she lets the aliens bombard the Borg diamond until Seven becomes alarmed. She then calmly looks at Seven and repeats her question: How does she propose they adapt? Not wanting to die, Seven instinctively suggests a strategy. The Queen smiles, agrees with Seven's assessment and communicates it to the drones for implementation. Immediately the weapons' fire is rendered completely ineffective.

Pleased, the Borg queen instructs Seven to assist in the primary assimilation chamber . However, seeing Seven's terrified reaction, she changes her mind, thinking aloud that perhaps she is pushing her too hard. She instructs her to assist in repairing their shield generators instead.

Seven walks unsteadily through the corridors, going to her assigned task. Around her, captured members of the humanoid species are escorted by drones to assimilation chambers. Bloodcurdling screams ring out from the direction of the assimilation chambers. Fearfully, she reaches a panel and, trying her best to shut out the screams, starts repairing the generators. An explosion knocks her down, and as she attempts to stand up, two drones come behind her and pick her up roughly. She struggles as one brings a Borg prosthetic to her face. But it simply passes it over a cut she sustained, healing it. They release her and continue on their way.

A species 10026 male is assimilated

A small group of aliens pass by, on their way to a chamber, escorted by drones. Suddenly a male among them tries to run away past her. Instinctively, she grabs his arm, stopping him. She immediately realizes what she is doing and releases him. Her realization comes too late, as one of the drones returns for the male. It seizes him and mercilessly plunges its assimilation tubules into his neck. He freezes, trembling in agony. Black lines radiate over his head and neck, as millions of Borg nanoprobes flood his system, beginning his assimilation. Seven watches, horrified. She stumbles back, shuddering and hyperventilating.

She then notices that she is just outside an assimilation chamber and enters. Inside, a few of the aliens watch helplessly as a drone works on assimilating one of them with exact precision. Another drone stands by watching. The victim is lying on a platform and his right arm has been severed while an attachment for the prosthetic replacement the drone is about to install is on the stump.

The second drone leaves the chamber to go and carry out a repair. As soon as it has gone, Seven immediately comes up behind the drone working on the victim and deactivates it. She lifts the victim up off the platform and orders the others to assist her. They stare at her in confusion and alarm. She tells them sharply that she is not Borg; she will help them escape. " Assist me! " she orders. They take their comrade as Seven instructs them what to do. One of their ships is nearby. It is heavily damaged and the crew is dead, but the propulsion system still works. She will transport them aboard; they must remain there until the Borg leave, and then they must flee on a heading she gives them. They nod understanding, and Seven goes to a console and beams them out.

Seven re-enters the Borg Queen's chamber. The queen is pleased: assimilation is complete. Seven angrily asks if the three hundred thousand individuals who have just been destroyed should be congratulated as well. They should be indeed, the Borg queen responds; they have been delivered from chaos into order. Seven sarcastically comments that she should use those words next time instead of "Resistance is futile", they may actually get some of the victims to volunteer. The Queen responds that Seven is simply hiding behind sarcasm in order to not acknowledge the pleasure of a new species being added to the Collective, a pleasure which she fully remembers. Stop resisting, the Queen urges her, revel in it.

Seven pauses. She can indeed feel it. But the sickening horror of what she has seen makes her reject it. Instead, she remembers how she used to be part of such atrocities herself. Full of guilt, she tells the Queen that she will not take pleasure in the destruction of a race. The Borg Queen is again disappointed and angered by Seven's reaction. Impatiently, she insists that her feelings of guilt, compassion, and empathy are irrelevant. Seven strongly disagrees, arguing that they are relevant to her . This further angers the Queen as there is no 'me' , she insists; there is only 'us' .

" Let them go! Please!"

Then the Queen's head tilts to one side as she detects the ship containing the unassimilated aliens. It appears on her chamber's viewscreen and she asks Seven what should be done with it. Seven calmly and coolly tries to brush off the interrogation with subterfuge, saying that the ship contains only four aliens and would be a waste of Collective resources to capture and assimilate them, but the Queen will not have any of it, seeing through Seven's deception. She proclaims harshly that if one of Species 10026 escapes, then the species itself remains unassimilated. As they watch, a cube intercepts the ship and seizes it in a tractor beam. Seven watches, close to tears. She begs with the Queen to release them.

" I'm sorry this lesson has to be so painful for you, " the Borg Queen tells her with false sympathy, " but you are a difficult pupil. " She again urges Seven to abandon her Human emotions. " They are the cause of your pain, " she insists. Seven continues to plead with the Queen for the survivors' release. The Queen looks at her impatiently and releases them. The cube releases the ship from its tractor beam and the alien ship speeds off to safety. Seven is dumbfounded by this unexpected action and remarks, " I thought compassion is irrelevant. " The Queen acknowledges Seven with an intent gaze but gives no explanation.

Act Eight [ ]

The Raven flees at maximum warp. As Magnus explains in his log entry, a subspace particle storm knocked their multi-adaptive shielding off-line, leaving them exposed to Borg sensors. It was only off-line for 13.2 seconds, but that was enough; the Borg detected them and perceived them as a threat. Now they flee desperately from a Borg cube closely pursuing them. Although the Hansens have masked the Raven 's warp drive signature, the cube still pursues them. Annika lies in bed, frightened, listening as her parents loudly discuss what to do. Erin points out a Mutara class nebula three light years away as a hiding place, but Magnus rejects it, saying its particle density is too high and their hull would rupture. Erin argues that they have no time to look for anything else. Annika calls for Magnus and he goes and comforts her. A transwarp conduit appears 2.3 light years away; a cube is preparing to assimilate.

On the Delta Flyer , The Doctor pitches an idea to Captain Janeway to send a message to Seven through her interplexing beacon . Janeway approves and asks The Doctor to try once they reach their destination. Ensign Paris reports he has found the sphere, located two hundred light years from their position. Janeway orders him to head for it and orders Tuvok to raise the multi-adaptive shielding.

They drop out of transwarp and find themselves in the Unicomplex. The Humans and The Doctor are awestruck at the incredible size of the structure. Tuvok scans trillions of Borg lifeforms on it. A cube comes toward them but passes harmlessly, an indication that their multi-adaptive cloak is working. Janeway orders Paris to head into the Unicomplex and Tuvok begins scanning for Seven.

Species 5618: Human

In her chamber, the Borg Queen makes a decision, it is time for Seven to serve her purpose. She informs Seven about a new mode of assimilation they have developed, for "highly-resistant species", surreptitious as opposed to direct assault: an assimilation virus. Seven is confused as she has no knowledge of this technology, having left the Collective before it was developed. The Queen tells her that her knowledge of the species they had in mind when designing it is invaluable. She brings up a holo-image of that species: Species 5618 – Human.

As Seven listens in shock, the Queen explains how the virus works. The virus is designed to infect every lifeform on a target planet, assimilating the planet's life slowly. By the time the population realizes what is happening, half of their population will be drones. Seven comes to the realization that the Borg are planning to release this virus into Earth 's atmosphere. She tries to raise the objection that such a method would be inefficient, as it would take many years to yield results. The Queen merely responds that they have waited this long and the Collective can wait the required period. She gives Seven the job of programming the nanoprobes.

Seven flatly refuses to be part of Humanity's destruction. The Queen responds by reminding her of the thousands of assimilations she had been part of as a drone and how this is no different. After Seven still voices her refusal, the Queen again loses patience. They all came from "lesser species"; she herself came from Species 125 . But that is irrelevant, she asserts, as they are Borg. " I am an individual! " Seven responds. The Queen's patience begins to wear thin. She explains that this is the purpose they require Seven for and she will fulfill it. She threatens Seven to either comply or be re-assimilated. To emphasize the threat, she has drones converge on her. But Seven stands her ground and defiantly tells the Queen to proceed if she wishes.

The Queen sees that threats will not work. Instead, she tries even more intense psychological manipulation. The Queen and the drones continue to close in on Seven as she backs away. The Queen tells Seven that she is torn between her desire to return to the Collective and her loyalty to the Voyager crew. She tries to comfort Seven with the expectation that all of her grief, all of her guilt, remorse and compassion will become irrelevant once Humanity is assimilated. Seven looks around at them fearfully. The Queen demands her to forget Voyager as they " were never your Collective. " Seven stands her ground and rebelliously states that she is Annika Hansen – Human.

Magnus Hansen, now a Borg drone

The Queen smiles and tells Seven that she remembers Annika but wonders if Annika remembers someone else. A drone steps forward and a horrified Seven recognizes who it was immediately – her father, Magnus Hansen. The Queen, sensing that Seven's resistance is weak, soothingly tells her, " Your family's here. You're here . Be one with us again. " It works and Seven begins to give in to the Queen.

But then Seven hears the voice of Captain Janeway, urging her to hold on, they are coming. " Captain… " Seven whispers loudly enough for the Queen to hear her. " What did you say? " she asks sharply. Seven realizes her blunder and tries to say it was nothing, but the Queen does not believe her. She seizes her face and through the hive mind probes her thoughts finding the com link set up by The Doctor.

Act Nine [ ]

On board the Flyer , Janeway and The Doctor discover that their com link to Seven is suddenly being blocked, indicating that the Queen knows they are coming. Tuvok reports he has found Seven's location just 600 kilometers away. Janeway orders Paris to head for the location. In her chamber, the Queen comments that although Janeway's com signal originated close by, they cannot detect her vessel. But she understands why this is so as they must be using the Hansens' multi-adaptive shielding. However, she notes, they assimilated that technology, therefore they can adapt to it quickly and easily.

Paris tensely reports a cube has altered course to intercept them, meaning that they have been detected. Janeway immediately orders re-modulation of the shielding. This works, but she knows they cannot fool the Borg sensors forever. They have to hurry. Tuvok reports that Seven is in a large chamber but he cannot get a transporter lock at their current distance. Janeway orders Paris to take them in closer. In her chamber, the Borg Queen attempts to use deception to dash any hope of rescue, telling Seven that the ship has been captured. However, Seven immediately knows she is lying as she is connected to the hive mind. As Seven once told Janeway , Borg make lousy liars; they cannot practice deception, as the hive mind makes it impossible. Seven tells this to the Queen who is greatly angered by being reminded of this.

The Flyer approaches the superstructure containing the Queen's Chamber and Paris reports it is too heavily shielded for the transporter to lock onto Seven. Janeway orders Tuvok to equip the newly-made bio-dampeners and accompany her into the structure. She orders Paris to target the chamber with the Flyer 's weapons he asks for clarification, very concerned. " Won't you be down there? " " Do it " she insists and he acknowledges. Janeway and Tuvok beam onto the superstructure, armed with phaser rifles. Their bio-dampeners work as they are undetected by the various drones while they move down a corridor.

A subdermal bioprobe

But security is heightened and force fields go up along the corridor. These fields do not block drones, only non-Borg. They watch as a drone walks through one and Janeway gets an idea ordering Tuvok to give her a subdermal bioprobe .

On the Flyer , alarms alert Paris that the vessel's shielding is again being adapted by the Borg. Three cubes start converging on the shuttle. He quickly re-modulates their frequency and waits. In her chamber, the Borg Queen watches the viewscreen with great annoyance as the Flyer vanishes once again. Seven watches as well. " You underestimate them, " she tells the Queen with satisfaction. The Queen bitterly remarks that it is time for a more aggressive approach. The Flyer is suddenly rocked by Borg weapons fire as the approaching cubes blindly fire in the vicinity of its last known position. Aboard, Paris tensely bobs and weaves the shuttle to avoid the blasts.

Back near the Queen's Chamber, Janeway and Tuvok walk up to a regenerating drone and Janeway implants it with the subdermal probe and has Tuvok wake it. Once activated, the drone walks up to a force field, pauses and then walks through. Janeway reads the force field's modulation and adjusts her bio-dampener to be compatible in order to walk through the fields herself. As she does so however, the field overloads her bio-dampener making her detectable by the Borg sensor grid. She quickly orders Tuvok to disable the shields around the chamber and hurries forward.

Seven tries to stop the Borg Queen but fails

Aboard the Flyer , Paris realizes that his time is up; the Borg are now adapting to the shielding and sensing the ship no matter how fast he changes the frequency. The familiar, monotonous hail comes through: " We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile ". In her chamber, the Borg Queen speaks the words, AS the Collective.

Anguished, Seven charges at the Queen, her arm raised to strike her down, but the Queen turns and seizes her arm with hardly an effort. Seven struggles, futilely. The Queen tells Seven that retrieving her was a waste of time. " We believed you would be an asset to us. We were wrong, " she tells her, scornfully adding that she has become weak.

" Don't listen to her, Seven, " a voice says from the doorway. They turn to see Captain Janeway standing at the door. She walks in slowly, rifle pointed at the Queen, looking directly at her. Drones converge around Janeway and she warns the Queen to call them off or be destroyed. The drones stop. The Queen matter-of-factly tells her that her weapons are useless. Janeway disputes that, replying that her tactical officer is disabling the room's shields and her ship's weapons are targeted on the chamber. The Queen observes that she and Seven will be killed along with her.

Janeway responds that death is better than being one of them. The Queen tests her resolve by ordering the drones to resume their convergence on Janeway. Janeway calmly orders Paris to fire on her command; upon seeing that Janeway is not bluffing, the Queen again halts the drones. Paris reports that the attacking cubes have withdrawn. She orders him to beam her, Tuvok, and Seven out of the chamber. Suddenly, the lighting and shadows shift within the chamber. Paris reports that a dispersal field has gone up around them and he cannot beam them out.

Janeway turns to Seven and orders her to shut the field down. The Queen, though, attempts one last appeal to the Borg Seven used to be. She tells her not to listen to Janeway. " She's poisoned your thoughts long enough, " she says sharply. Janeway simply makes her instruction to Seven a direct order. The Queen tries to counter by telling Seven that one order and one voice is "insignificant".

Seven looks at the Queen and then at Janeway. Attempting to reconcile who she was and who she is now, her inner battle is finally quelled. She moves to a console and plunges in her assimilation tubules.

The Borg Queen looks angrily at where Seven was, before she transported out

The field drops as the Queen furiously glares at Seven. Janeway smiles and orders Paris to energize, but then the Queen tilts her head and the lights and shadows suddenly shift again. Paris reports the field is back up. She looks at Seven and Janeway with contempt. Drones begin converging on them both. The Queen orders them assimilated. The drones close on them mercilessly.

Seven, however, informs Janeway that there is a power node directly above the Queen. If it is destroyed, the Queen's interface with the dispersal field will be broken. The Queen's head whips around to face her with a shocked, accusing glare.

" Our thoughts are one, " Seven reminds her with a satisfied sneer.

Janeway wastes no time and immediately destroys the node with a blast from her rifle. She and Seven disappear from the chamber in the Flyer 's transporter beam. The Queen watches, her eyes full of fury.

Act Ten [ ]

Upon beaming back onto the Flyer , Janeway welcomes Seven back to the crew. The Doctor runs a quick scan and finds Seven has not been in any way re-assimilated. She joins Tuvok at tactical and the Delta Flyer speeds away from the Unicomplex. Two cubes quickly follow the ship and are joined by the Borg Queen's vessel. On Janeway's order, the Flyer jumps to transwarp. Only the Borg Queen's vessel does the same – the cubes stay at the Unicomplex.

The Borg Queen's vessel fires torpedoes at the Delta Flyer

In transwarp space, the diamond fires on the Flyer , damaging its port warp nacelle . The shuttle begins to rapidly lose energy and Paris reports that they will drop out of transwarp in under a minute. Janeway orders rerouting of power from life support to the engines: better to suffocate than vaporize.

On Voyager 's bridge, Torres, at tactical, reports to Chakotay that a transwarp conduit is opening 30,000 kilometers off the port bow – the Flyer is returning. Chakotay orders battle stations. In the conduit, the diamond tries to catch the Flyer in a tractor beam, but Seven deflects it. Paris counts down the time until they return to normal space where Voyager is positioned.

The Borg diamond is destroyed

As the Flyer drops back into normal space, Janeway hails Voyager and informs Chakotay of the Borg vessel closely pursuing them. Chakotay gets an idea and he orders Torres to fire a full spread of photon torpedoes at the conduit's threshold. The resulting explosion would conversely implode the conduit for distance of at least a light year , destroying anything inside it for that distance. Torres does so and as the torpedoes detonate, massive space-transwarp space explosions cause the effect that Chakotay desired. Janeway hails Voyager and Chakotay informs her of the action taken. They seem to be home free, and she orders him to clear the Flyer for docking.

But then a shocked Torres reports the appearance of a large number of Borg signatures coming from the conduit. Neither she nor Chakotay can understand, as they were certain the conduit was collapsed. Chakotay tensely informs Janeway and orders battlestations and weapons ready. He and the bridge officers watch as the conduit opens, but that comes out is debris from the destroyed Borg Queen's vessel. They breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Janeway records in her log that the stolen transwarp coil gave them twenty thousand light years of service before giving out; they are now a good fifteen years closer to home. She enters Cargo Bay 2 and finds Seven at a console working, despite orders from The Doctor to regenerate for at least 48 hours. She is downloading Borg tactical data into the computer's database. She explains that she acquired a vast amount of data during her time at Unimatrix 01, connected once again to the hive mind. This data may prove useful in any future encounters with the Borg. Janeway approves.

" Sweet dreams… "

But there is something on Seven's mind. She tells Janeway that she betrayed them and threatened them with assimilation and still they came back for her. She had not expected that course of action at all. Why did they do it? Janeway smiles at her and responds that she apparently still has much to learn about Humanity. She tells her it is time to regenerate; she has to follow The Doctor's orders.

" When I am finished, " Seven replies.

" No, " Janeway responds, her smile widening, " now. "

Seven smiles back as she goes to her alcove and installs herself. As the regeneration cycle begins, she closes her eyes serenely. Janeway looks at her fondly and wishes her sweet dreams.

Log entries [ ]

• Field notes, USS Raven
• " Captain's Log , supplemental. Operation Fort Knox is ready to proceed. All departments are standing by and I've given the order to begin at 06:00 hours. "
• " Captain's Log, Stardate 52619.2. We got another twenty thousand light years out of the transwarp coil before it gave out. I figure we're a good fifteen years closer to home. "

Memorable quotes [ ]

" Vessel identified: Federation Starfleet , Intrepid -class , 143 lifeforms. Prepare for assimilation . "

" We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. " " Break off your pursuit or we'll open fire. " " Irrelevant. " " Is it? You've scanned our vessel. You know we can match your firepower. " " You will be assimilated. "

" I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel lucky today. "

" Now this is how I prefer the Borg: in pieces. "

" Captain! Don't touch that! " " What is it? " " I don't know, but a few minutes ago it was crawling around on the floor. "

" Better safe than assimilated. "

" Maybe I should go to red alert and get it over with. " " Commander? " " You're about to drop one of your bombshells. " " Now what makes your say that? " " The way you fiddle with your combadge. You do it every time. " " Well, I'll have to keep an eye on that. "

" It's impossible to offend a mindless drone. "

" I don't know about you, but I'm glad to be back on Voyager . Borg vessels make my skin crawl. " " It was a holodeck recreation " " Close enough. "

" When the New World Economy took shape in the late 22nd century, and money went the way of the dinosaur, Fort Knox was turned into a museum. A couple of Ferengi tried [to break into it] about 10 years ago , but other than that it is impenetrable. "

" I am the Borg. Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One, you've become weak. " " This is a dream. I'm regenerating. " " I assure you, it's not a dream. We've accessed your neural transceiver. Our thoughts are one. We know about Voyager 's plan to invade the Sphere. It will fail. " " If that's true, then why haven't you assimilated them? " " We've come to make you an offer. Rejoin the Collective and we'll spare Voyager . " " Why me? " " Because you are unique. "

" I'm not leaving without you! " " Then you will be assimilated! "

" How do you propose we adapt? " "You are the Borg; you tell me."

" They left behind their trivial, selfish lives, and they've been reborn with a greater purpose. We've delivered them from chaos into order. " " Comforting words. Use them next time instead of 'Resistance is futile.' You may elicit a few volunteers. "

" There are three things to remember about being a starship captain: keep your shirt tucked in, go down with the ship, and never abandon a member of your crew. "

" You believe that Voyager liberated you from the Collective. Did you really think we would surrender you so easily? " " Explain. " " You must be tired. It's time to regenerate. We've adapted an alcove just for you. Go. It will help order your thoughts. When your cycle is complete, we will continue our conversation. Comply. "

" My visual cortex… it's been altered. " " That's because we've enhanced it with Borg technology. You've seen through Human eyes long enough. It's a neuro-processing adjunct designed to increase your synaptic efficiency. "

" You're much too valuable to us with your individuality intact. But you've left Humanity behind. Try to abandon their petty emotions as well. Fear, anger, vanity. They've corrupted you, but the damage can be repaired. " " You've expended significant resources to capture me. Why? " " Isn't it obvious? You're going to help us assimilate Humanity. We failed in our two previous attempts to assimilate Earth, and we won't succeed the third time unless we understand the nature of their resistance. We want you to be our eyes. Let us see Humanity. "

" While I was regenerating, you assimilated my memories. " " Our thoughts are one. " " Then you already possess all of my knowledge. What more do you want? " " You are the only Borg that has ever returned to a state of individuality. We want to keep you exactly the way you are. Otherwise, you would lose your Human perspective. We don't want another drone. We want you. "

" Re-route power from life support. " " Captain? " " I'd rather suffocate than vaporize, do it! "

Background information [ ]

Story and script [ ].

• This episode's origin was similar to that of the third season outing " Unity ", in that – when the writing staff of Star Trek: Voyager were faced with the challenge of devising a show for the February rating sweeps period – the writers thought of the Borg. However, this idea was not an immediate one. Co-writer Joe Menosky offered, " We were heading into sweeps […] But we had no idea what we were going to do. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 32)
• The episode had the working title "Untitled Borg".
• The scale of the episode was influenced by the first airing of the fourth season two-parter " The Killing Game " and " The Killing Game, Part II ". Joe Menosky reflected, " Because of the success of airing 'The Killing Game' in a single night, the network and the studio were really interested in doing a movie. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 32)
• Fellow co-writer Brannon Braga also wanted the episode to be, in his own words, "a big event" and the motion picture Star Trek: First Contact , another production that featured the Borg and a Borg Queen, provided an example that the writers were interested in attempting to surpass. Braga explained, " I really felt we needed something spectacular for February sweeps […] To do a Borg movie, telefilm, or whatever you want to call it, we had to outdo First Contact . The space battles and the Queen had to be more elaborate. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 32) Braga also said, " When we decided, 'Let's do something different; let's do a two-hour telefilm,' that made us rise to the challenge, and we did 'Dark Frontier'. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 58 , p. 16)
• It was Brannon Braga himself who crafted the episode's plot. He recalled, " We had all these different storylines laying around having to do with the Borg. I just cobbled them together late one night and we had 'Dark Frontier'. " Joe Menosky remembered, " Brannon wrote this amazingly complete story memo that had everything. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 32)
• The inspiration for the backstory of the courageous Hansens – Magnus and Erin Hansen – was the history of gorilla specialist Dian Fossey . ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 34)
• In their effort to turn out an exceptional script, the writers worked for long hours on the teleplay. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , pp. 56-57)
• Brannon Braga enjoyed scripting the scenes that include the Borg Queen and Seven of Nine. He noted, " It was fun to write the banter between [Seven] and the Borg Queen. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 34)
• Brannon Braga also deliberately left several questions unanswered, such as the fate of Erin Hansen and the possibility that the Borg planted Seven of Nine to act as a spy on Voyager . Regarding the latter issue, Braga admitted, " I wanted people […] to ask that very question. The Queen may have done that; we'll never know. One of those tantalizing tidbits that the fans enjoy […] I thought it was an interesting thing for the Queen to say. It certainly caught Seven's attention. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , pp. 66 & 65)
• The episode was scripted as if it were a two-parter. The final draft script for the first of these parts was submitted on 18 November 1998 (with further revisions up to and including 8 December of that year) and the final draft of the second part's teleplay was submitted on 2 December 1998 (being revised up to and including 15 December of the same year).
• Director Cliff Bole was instrumental in the decision to introduce the Borg Queen into the plot at the end of the first part. " I begged to get the Queen in the end [of that part], " Bole remembered. " Originally, they hadn't planned on it, and I said, 'Guys, you can't do this. You've got to tease, and you've got to bring these folks back, and you've got to have the Queen in this episode. You've just got to have what I call the end-teaser and introduce the Queen. I don't care if it's one page or two shots; just do it.' " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 87)
• The photon torpedo that destroys the Borg probe in the episode's teaser was initially deleted from the script for budgetary reasons. It was reinserted not long before the episode's creation came to an end. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33)
• The script for this episode's first half defines the Borg Queen that appears here as being separate from the one in Star Trek: First Contact , as the scripted version of the queen's introduction in this episode specifies, " Although this Queen has a similar design to the one seen in 'First Contact', she is a different character with her own, distinct personality. "
• The script also describes the intricate sequence wherein the Borg Queen's body is assembled by stating, " The Borg Queen descends in a free-floating alcove that lowers from a port on the ceiling. As the Queen comes closer, we can see her body integrate piece by piece in a startling optical effect. Legs, arms, neck, head, torso – all clicking into place. " Visual effects supervisor Mitch Suskin noted, of the same scene, that the writers "wanted it to be impressive." ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33) Visual effects producer Dan Curry concurred, " [Brannon Braga] said that the Borg Queen will be reassembled, but let's do something 'new and cool'. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 62)
• The script for the episode's second half refers to the Hansens, while they are examining a drone aboard the Raven , as "like biologists tagging a 'wolf' in the wild," which is consistent with the fact that Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky often thought that the Borg were like wolves.
• Similarly, Erin Hansen's statement that she and her husband imagine the Borg Queen is "like the Queen of an insect colony" is in keeping with the fact that the Borg were initially conceived as a race of insects.
• The script for the installment's second part comments that the Borg assimilation chamber where Seven of Nine sees alien victims of assimilation was to be "a redress of the transwarp chamber seen in Part One."

Cast and characters [ ]

• Brannon Braga felt that this episode was an important one for the character of Kathryn Janeway. " I think [it] was as important a show for Captain Janeway as it was for Seven, " Braga mused. " I think Janeway became more heroic and more Human herself […] The scene with Naomi made [Janeway] a little warmer, a little more human. I think her relationship with Seven changed in that show, inexorably in some ways. They will always be in conflict, that's the nature of their mentor-pupil relationship. But I think they became a little more Picard and Data than they ever had been in 'Dark Frontier'. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 34)
• The fact that this episode's casting process took place in November and December 1998 hampered the search for suitable actors. Cliff Bole remembered, " Casting was a bit of a problem; the town [of Hollywood ] was awful busy then. You know, winding down before Christmas everybody's trying to get shows done, and finding the right talent was very tough. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 56)
• There were early rumors that Alice Krige would return to portray the Borg Queen in this episode. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33) However, Krige was unavailable, at the time. Even by 31 January 2001 , actress Susanna Thompson was still unsure of the reasoning for Krige's absence. Thompson, on that date, commented, " I wonder why Alice [wasn't] available! And I have no idea. There's all sorts of many different types of stories [but] she just wasn't available. " ( VOY Season 5 DVD , "The Borg Queen Speaks")
• Susanna Thompson, who had unsuccessfully auditioned to play the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact , was asked back to audition for the queen in this episode. She recalled, " I used [Alice Krige's performance in First Contact ] as a springboard for what I brought into the audition, and they cast me. " ( VOY Season 5 DVD , "The Borg Queen Speaks")
• Even though Susanna Thompson had appeared in several previous Star Trek productions (portraying Varel in TNG : " The Next Phase ", Jaya in TNG : " Frame of Mind " and Lenara Kahn in DS9 : " Rejoined "), this was the actress' first encounter with large scale prosthetics. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 58)
• Susanna Thompson was aware that she was playing a different queen from the one in Star Trek: First Contact . Shortly after appearing in this installment, the actress commented, " I'm not the same Borg Queen. She's the new Queen of the hive. There are similarities, but we are different. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 32)
• Even after Susanna Thompson was cast as the Borg Queen, however, she still tried to take inspiration for her role here from Alice Krige's performance in First Contact . " I wasn't afraid of duplicating her, " stated Thompson. " There was no time to imitate her, but there had to be similar elements because whatever Queen is clicked into the Collective, they all come from the same mind […] I was very much encouraged to make the Queen my own [though]. " ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 121 , pp. 17 & 81) Thompson also remarked, " I took some information from [ First Contact ]. They did not want me to duplicate Alice's character, but my own development of the background for this character was that there had to be elements that were the same, because ultimately they come from the same brain; they are an extension of the same central brain. There might be more knowledge at any given moment, but there is still the same background. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 60)
• The presence of a new Borg Queen was a notable departure from continuity for director Terry Windell . " I think you have a consistency in the characterization of the Borg, the collective mind, and how they operate, " he stated. " Our Queen was obviously a different character; although she's still the Borg Queen, there's a very different take on it. So that's the part that I consider open territory to be different. The actual individual Borgs, I think, are manipulated very much in the same way, and that's how you keep the consistency and the continuity. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 58)
• Susanna Thompson felt that her primary task was to help make realistic the Borg Queen's effort to convince Seven of Nine to rejoin the Collective. " I think that my main role is to get to a point where the seduction becomes believable, " noted the actress. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 61)
• Both Susanna Thompson and Terry Windell believed that, in this installment, the Borg Queen is a particularly maternal figure. " It's as if [the Borg Queen] comes back into [Seven's] life much like a biological mother would come back into some child's life, after years of not being there, and try and win her back, but in a very intelligent and manipulative way, " said Windell. " Both these people are obviously incredibly intelligent and hold a lot of information. They're going to know what the other person is thinking, so they really have to work to push the buttons. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 61) Thompson offered, " In an odd way, the Queen is a kind of maternal figure and of course, so is Janeway. " ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 121 , p. 81) The actress clarified, " There really are two maternal figures. Janeway and the Borg Queen, in whatever twisted maternal way she is, are these two sides that are pulling at Seven and they represent her identity. She used to be here, she went away, and now she's come back to the Borg, and there is a sense of deprogramming and re-brainwashing. That's what the Queen does to her, and that's where the seduction lies. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 61)
• Susanna Thompson loved the effect of lights in the Borg Queen's lair following the queen as she moved, believing that the effect lent a greater sense of ambiance and power to her character. Thompson also felt that her Borg Queen's costume, particularly the restrictiveness of the outfit, aided her performance by making it hard to make any "extravagant" gestures. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , pp. 61 & 59)
• Susanna Thompson gained some useful advice from Brannon Braga. " Brannon told me to remember that every movement the Queen makes has a purpose, " said the actress. ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 121 , p. 81) She elaborated, " Brannon was very helpful in that he wanted that kind of fluid movement that Alice had. When I got on set I pretty much got it, but he came down, watched me, and just said one thing – that there's no extraneous movement. I just realized that I might have been twitching a little bit and, because everything is perfect, any little twitch can stand out like a big one. That was real helpful. He also encouraged the quality of being… it's really not conversational… but there is not that drone quality about the Queen's speech. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 60)
• Susanna Thompson was additionally advised by Seven of Nine actress Jeri Ryan . " We talked about character, absolutely, " recalled Thompson. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 58) She also stated, " Jeri said for her, playing a Borg is constantly reinventing yourself in the moment. " ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 121 , p. 81)
• Jeri Ryan also helped Susanna Thompson bear the Borg Queen makeup. " Some of the most important information Jeri wanted to give me was about how to lie down! " exclaimed Thompson. " I had to lie vertical, but Jeri knew that, and she had a neck pillow. What I did was, I had a mound of robes on the floor on my trailer, neck pillows on top of them, and then I was able to lie somewhat comfortably. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , pp. 58-59)
• The collaboration between Susanna Thompson and Jeri Ryan was enjoyable for the latter actress. " Susanna Thompson, who is a friend of mine, was fun to work with, " Ryan said. " As the Borg Queen, she did a beautiful job. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 28)
• Jeri Ryan was extremely enthusiastic about "Dark Frontier" in general. " That could have been a feature, " she opined. " I was very impressed with the way that whole show came together, not just the script, but the production values all around were outstanding […] I loved seeing exactly what made [Seven of Nine's] parents tick and what made them end up the way they did, and exactly how they had gotten there in the first place. It very much had the flavor of Dian Fossey, the woman who studied and lived with gorillas, to it; following the Borg in the wild. I thought it was very well done and very well thought out. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 28)
• Although the Hansen family had been shown twice before, they had to be recast for this installment. " I think the original actress who played Seven's mother was unavailable and working in New York , " remarked Cliff Bole, " and we just had to go searching […] Seven's parents were cast late. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 56)
• Both Terry Windell and executive producer Rick Berman were fond of Susanna Thompson's work on this episode. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 61; Star Trek: Communicator  issue 121 , p. 12) Windell opined, " She was very good. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 61) Cliff Bole was likewise pleased with the results of the casting process, such as with finding Katelin Petersen to play the young Annika Hansen. " We lucked out, " he said, " but, by God , we looked; it got really tight. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 56)

Props, makeup, wardrobe, and sets [ ]

• Susanna Thompson found the makeup and clothing involved in this episode's production to be highly elaborate. " It was all that Star Trek can be, " she observed, " this great, big, theater side of it, with costumes and makeup. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33)
• According to the unauthorized reference book Delta Quadrant (p. 291), the clothing used for Species 10026 consisted of stock costumes, including Romulan civilian clothing from TNG : " Unification I " and " Unification II ".
• Susanna Thompson wore the same costume as Alice Krige had worn for Star Trek: First Contact , but with some subtle alterations. Thompson noted, " They adjusted it for me. Our body types were similar, but it wasn't quite made to fit my body. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 32) Similarly, the Borg Queen makeup for both productions was handled by the same person, Scott Wheeler , of whom Jeri Ryan enthused, " [He] did a phenomenal job on her makeup. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 28) There were a few changes to the makeup, however; for example, the mechanical structure that this episode's Borg Queen wears on the back of her head was slightly different from that which Krige wore, with some new lights, and the contact lenses (which were specially silverized at a space center in Texas ) were the exact same kind of lens, although custom-made for Thompson. Some alterations were made on the set of this installment. " There were adjustments to the makeup in the center of the face and the eyes, the lips of course, and the forehead, " remembered Thompson. " They didn't want me to look as wet as Alice, so they had to make sure that looked okay. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , pp. 58-60)
• It was due to lengthy durations that Susanna Thompson had to wear the Borg Queen costume for, coupled with the fact that the costume wasn't completely fitted to match Thompson's physical proportions, that the actress found the costume uncomfortable. Firstly, it took five and a half hours for her Borg Queen makeup and costume to be put on. Shortly after working on the episode, Thompson described the costume as "like a very, very tight wetsuit" of which the long days had made her tired. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 32) She also complained, " I found the costume, probably because it fit Alice better than it fit me, slightly constricting, particularly around the shoulders […] It was not an easy experience, physically. " Conversely, makeup supervisor Michael Westmore took note of the fact that Thompson "was able to tolerate the contact lenses a little easier" than Alice Krige had. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 59)
• Susanna Thompson found her physical transformation into the Borg Queen to be a memorable experience. She declared, " It's so bizarre to have makeup spray painted on you; it's a very bizarre feeling. I felt like I was in the shop! " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 58)
• Terry Windell was sensitive to Susanna Thompson's predicament. " It was incredibly taxing for Susanna, but she was a real trouper, " Windell remarked. " She's into six hours of makeup before I even see her on the set and then there's also the costume. She's wearing metallic contacts which, once you get fatigued – and we're using smoke on the set – can really be an irritant. So she really had to work hard, and it's hard work to look effortless […] It was very gruelling for her. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 59)
• Other production staffers were on hand to help Susanna Thompson with the costume. " I had to have two costume people work with me, " the actress remembered, " just to get the costume in place and ready to shoot. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33) She also stated, " There was always a costume maker with me to help me get out of the costume right away if I needed to go to the bathroom, and, being someone who doesn't really like to have a person constantly around me, that was a hardship. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 58) Thompson additionally stated that " always having to count on somebody else to help you through things " added to her tiredness. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33)
• Susanna Thompson theorized that an element of her costume had a practical application; " I have an electrical unit on the back of my head, and I guess you're left with the notion that that's what controls the light [in the Borg Queen's lair] really. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 61)
• Due to the fact that the writers were working on the episode's teleplay throughout the pre-production stage, some of the sets had to be designed without full knowledge of the script. Cliff Bole stated, " Our set designer, Richard James , had to pretty much put a set together without knowing the ending, and he had to build the Queen's set without knowing how the second part was going. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 56)
• Richard James tried to give the set for the Borg Queen's lair an unusual design. " I wanted something different from what we've seen before, so I made the Queen's lair look as if it was a sphere, " commented James. " The whole set was about two stories tall and was made with all new drawings. The inside of her lair is curved to give it a spherical feel. I wasn't necessarily trying to follow the shapes used in First Contact ; it just kind of came out that way, and I really like the look. The normal Borg walls are so square and flat that I wanted to add some depth and something real interesting. I also cut out the cylinders and made wafers instead, kind of like a large watch battery. " Terry Windell opined that, although similar Borg corridors to the ones here had been shown in Star Trek before, the newness of the set for the Borg Queen's lair gave the production crew " some freedom. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , pp. 57-58)
• The lighting in the set for the Borg Queen's lair impressed both Cliff Bole and Terry Windell, Bole noting that it was a lot more extravagant than normal. " I know that [on 'Dark Frontier'] we went for an incredible lighting package. Theatrical lighting, almost a rock-and-roll package for a lot of the work. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 61)
• The idea of having some of the set's lighting concentrate on the Borg Queen was thought up by Terry Windell. " I requested that we have a very different look than we had seen before, and we had these computerized lights installed in the set that they could program to move, " Windell explained. " Since the Borg Queen deals with controlling the whole collective by her mind, we thought it would be interesting that, as she moved around, some of the lights actually followed her. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 61)
• Jeri Ryan was impressed with the sets of this outing, remarking, " The sets were amazing. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 28)
• The sphere that Kim saw crawling around (and thinks it's an auto-generation unit, of some kind) is the same prop used in " Thirty Days " by Riga as 'measuring instruments' as he is boarding the Delta Flyer .

Production [ ]

• Similar to how this episode was scripted in two parts, the installment was also filmed as two separate segments, with Cliff Bole directing the first half and Terry Windell helming the second part. Due to the pressures regarding the amount of alloted time provided for the episode's production, Bole was gratified that there were two directors. Whereas Bole was a Star Trek veteran who was well acquainted with working on productions that involved the Borg (he having directed the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-parter " The Best of Both Worlds " and " The Best of Both Worlds, Part II "), relative newcomer Terry Windell had to do some research. The latter director admitted, " Obviously, I referred to First Contact and the episode where they pick up Seven. I researched about four or five episodes that were strong in Borg. The feature and ' The Gift ' were probably the strongest in terms of how to handle the material. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 58)
• Brannon Braga was of the opinion that this episode was " very difficult to produce. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 34)
• In common with the writing of the script and the casting process, the episode's production took place in November and December 1998. In fact, when Cliff Bole started filming his part of the episode, neither the script nor the guest cast were ready yet. " A lot of times when they were looking [for actors], I was shooting, so that added to it, " Bole stated. " We were putting [the guest cast] together pretty much at the fifth hour, and I had to depend on the boys upstairs to do some casting without me, because my plate was full […] We started shooting before we had actually had a completed script […] The phone was ringing all the time; that's how Brannon and I had to work, because he was working so hard on the second part and finishing the first one. I mean he answered the phone immediately and we hammered our way through it. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , pp. 56-57)
• Cliff Bole was attracted to the possibility of utilizing a steadicam for this outing. " I used the steadicam quite a bit and the town was so damned busy, it was tough to line up the guys I like and the cameramen I like, " Bole reflected. " [The steadicam] became my main tool by the nature of the design of the set. It became more of a tool than a creative piece, because it just handled all the problems that came out of the design. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 60)
• The reason that the Hansens were cast late was, as Cliff Bole explained, " because that part of the show we did towards the end [of the production schedule], because we weren't sure how much we were going to do on it. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 56)
• The casting of the Borg Queen also had a correlation on the production process. Cliff Bole recounted, " They hadn't quite got the Queen yet, she wasn't available; so I had to come back to shoot. I had to come back after I'd finished filming, about a week later, to shoot my part with the Queen, which was just the ending [of the first part of the show]. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 57)
• Cliff Bole and Terry Windell worked together in an attempt to ensure that the transition between their scenes was seamless. Windell remembered, " I actually went on the set and watched what Cliff was doing so that we would have continuity. The biggest aspect was he didn't introduce the Queen's lair until the last act of his show and the majority of my show takes place there, so that was the big sequence we had to collaborate on, and we actually were there on the same day when he was filming his sequence. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 57)
• This is the final Star Trek episode that Cliff Bole worked on as a director.
• As Borg corridors had repeatedly been shown on Star Trek , Terry Windell intended to make the ones here seem a little atypical by giving them a cramped look, such as in the shots where an appalled Seven passes victims destined for assimilation, and various Borg drones. " I tried to lens it a bit differently than I've seen before: I tried to use longer lenses and compress a lot of the space, just to get a sense of claustrophobia, " Windell related. " What I've seen before a lot in the Borg corridors is wide lenses to give that kind of distorted perspective and, you know, get a little disjointed, and it tends to make the set look really open and big. Once the Borg Queen orders Seven to go back in and actually participate in assimilating another race, we felt that it should be in Seven's mind's eye, what the corridor was all about. I felt it should be very claustrophobic. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 58)
• Working the lighting effect that was characteristic of the Borg Queen into the production caused Terry Windell some scheduling problems. " What we would do is rehearse and when we had the blocking down with Susanna, then we would program the lights accordingly and she was fantastic about hitting her marks […] In terms of difficulty, what that did, the actual time to program the lights is something you don't really see when you're blocking out a week's worth of work. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 61) Nevertheless, Windell was still proud of the work of those responsible, including himself, for creating the dramatic atmospheres in the Borg sets. " I think that what we did in the Borg corridors and the Queen's lair was […] featuresque, the drama and the lighting, so that it's not always about seeing everything in total clarity; it's about using light and smoke. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 58)
• Susanna Thompson's long days of enduring her makeup and costume generally consisted of around 21 hours. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 32) She reflected, " My days were very long. I had no idea; they were 20, 21 hour days. One day I think I did 22 hours. " Terry Windell offered, " By the time I'm at the end of a normal day, she's almost into 20 hours. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 59)

Visual effects [ ]

• Terry Windell remarked on the usefulness of the episode's visual effects; " I think that the visual effects give it the production value. When they describe the multitude of Borg vessels you have to see that. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 58)
• The CGI for both parts of the episode was done by Foundation Imaging , involving the input of Foundation's visual effects supervisors Robert Bonchune and Adam "Mojo" Lebowitz as well as director of animation John Teska . ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 32) Bonchune handled the visual effects of the episode's first half, whereas Mojo dealt with the VFX of the second part. ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 58 , p. 44) The episode also incorporated contributions from Foundation Imaging staffers Koji Kuramura (who was responsible for most of the Borg Unicomplex's construction, based on a maquette created by Dan Curry, and for the revamping of the damaged Borg sphere), Dave Morton (who created numerous Astrometrics graphics), Dan Ritchie (who both built and blew up the Borg probe), and Brandon MacDougall (who built and designed the Borg Queen's ship ). ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 58 , pp. 44 & 46) Dan Curry was also involved in modeling the queen's ship. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33)
• Star Trek: First Contact provided a precedent on which the visual effects artists based the episode's variety of new Borg ship designs, as well as the look of the Unicomplex. " We had the feature, to some degree, to refer back to, to make sure that this appears to be in the same universe, " noted Mitch Suskin, who acted as the visual effects supervisor for the first half of the episode. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33)
• A visual effect whose creation was particularly hurried was the interior view of the Borg probe's destruction. Mitch Suskin remembered, " As they cut the show, they looked at it and said, 'We really want more action, more drama.' We found out about that as they were finishing second unit photography. " With the visual effects team having had little notice that the effect would be wanted, Art Codron (the visual effects coordinator for the episode's first half) subsequently ran across to the set and obtained the necessary background plates. Suskin described the effect's creation as "a true team effort" that involved a Borg drone CGI model from Foundation Imaging. He continued, " John Teska gave us a couple of variations of [the single] Borg flying backwards, with interactive light passes. Then we took it into the bay, dug through our vast library of explosions, and pieced it together in an afternoon, between his animation, the elements we had, and a little bit of Harry [animation] work here and there to stitch it all together. It's the one shot in the film when you see an explosion ripping through and the Borg getting blown backwards. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33)
• Mitch Suskin noted that some of the effects for the episode's first half were harder to create than others; " The big challenges in that show, as far as I am concerned, were the Borg city, the Unicomplex, and the scene where [the Borg Queen's body is assembled]. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 32) Suskin also believed that the writers were not alone in wanting the queen's construction to look impressive, a similar sequence having been created for Star Trek: First Contact . " We all secretly wanted it to be at least as good as what was done on the feature, " recalled Suskin. " We wanted to be a little bit different. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 32)
• By examining the set for the Borg Queen's lair, Dan Curry came up with the idea of having the queen's lower body enter from below, via floor panels, and then robotically assemble. Curry then mapped out the sequence with storyboards that, despite being quite detailed, also left ample room for the other team members to be creative. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 62) Live action footage of Susanna Thompson's head, made-up to match that of the Borg Queen, was shot for the sequence. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 63) Mitch Suskin reflected, " We shot a plate of the actress, […] a closeup that they tracked in. She's just standing on the stage in front of a bluescreen , but we actually had the camera tilting, and coming down, so we'd have a little bit of a perspective change. It was tracked in and composited at Foundation Imaging. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33) Indeed, most of the sequence was done with CGI by John Teska. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 32; Star Trek Monthly  issue 58 , p. 45, et al. ) This was because the queen's unique alcove did not actually work as an elevator. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 32)
• Not only was the bluescreen footage of Susanna Thompson used for close-ups of the Borg Queen's head, but the sequence also involved CG models of the queen's head and body as well as the apparatus that physically assembles her. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 63) Rob Bonchune recalled of John Teska's work on the sequence, " He built all the piping. I mean, basically, there was nothing in there. There was a thing in the background where she came down live, but he meshed the live actress to CG stuff […] and he built all the piping when it comes up through the floor. All we had was this plate, and he actually put the images on CG stuff and blended it in, and you see holes on the floor. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 58 , p. 45) Teska also lit the apparatus. A shot wherein the combination of CG and live action elements was used to represent different parts of the Borg Queen is the one where the upper and lower portions of her body are fastened together by small hooks that latch into her. " [That] was just a production shot of her, " said Suskin. " Everything that latches in was done at Foundation. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33) Following this shot, the episode concludes solely with live action footage. The effect itself incorporated only six cuts and hardly any work for Susanna Thompson. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , pp. 63 & 62)
• When Rob Bonchune saw the first test of the assembly machinery rising out of the floor, he was pleasantly surprised by how real John Teska had managed to make the effect seem. ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 58 , p. 45; Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33) The sequence was so effective that it fooled people into thinking it had been done entirely on set. " Mitch [Suskin] told me, " recounted Bonchune, " that when they were viewing the tape over at Paramount, people would walk in to look at it and say, 'Oh, you guys shot that practical?' That's good […] It's pretty impressive. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 58 , p. 45)
• As transwarp travel had previously been shown (visualized with the same effect) in both " Threshold " and " Distant Origin ", the visual effects artists initially intended to make another reuse of the same effect in this installment. " We pulled out that reference, " Mitch Suskin stated, " because we assumed since it was the same term, that we would use that again. Peter Lauritson and the other producers looked at it and wanted something flashier. The thing that they actually liked was from [the fourth season finale] " Hope and Fear ", the slipstream . What we did was basically take the slipstream effect and change the color a little bit. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33)
• The Raven was also revived for this episode, a previous version of the starship having been featured in a fourth season episode of the same name as the craft. " It was really a matter of almost starting over from scratch, " explained John Teska. A basic framework of the craft was in Foundation Imaging's possession, of which they did a render that they sent to Star Trek: Voyager Senior Illustrator Rick Sternbach . ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33) He remembered, " I got a printout of the ship from Foundation, so I would have a three-quarter perspective […] We cut it down from eight or nine decks to four decks tops. This changed the scale of the windows and the entry hatches, and that sort of thing. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 59) Foundation Imaging then built the craft from Sternbach's refinements. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33)
• The transporter effect used in the flashback scenes corresponds with the effect used in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .
• The wide shot of the Delta Flyer being retrofitted with the transwarp coil was a re-use of the matte shot from " Extreme Risk ". The shot of the Delta Flyer exiting Voyager 's shuttlebay was another example of reused footage, having been used in both "Extreme Risk" and " Thirty Days ". Both shots were scripted to be stock optical shots.
• All the visual effects were transfered between the first and second halves of the episode, as Ronald B. Moore took over the supervising of the VFX. He commented, " We did all of the Queen interiors, and a lot of the ships, exploding the Queen's ship and going through the Borg city, the unicomplex. Foundation did some great work. I think the quality of the images we got was really terrific. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 33)
• Much of the visual effects footage of the climactic battle involving the Delta Flyer and Borg Queen's vessel inside a transwarp conduit was added late by Rick Berman. Ron Moore remarked, " At the end when Berman was making the final cut, he put some of those [shots] back, the interior of the warp conduit, the firing, and the chasing, which I thought was fabulous. Just before finalizing the cut, he felt that we needed the shots, so we put them back in, in a rush, because at that point we are usually talking about having another two weeks to work. " Moore also expressed gratitude that the visual effects team were able to pull together the effect, despite the rush. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, pp. 33 & 34)
• Jeri Ryan was thrilled with this episode's optical shots, stating, " The effects were amazing. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 28)
• When the Hansens first detect a Borg cube, the music is reminiscent of the V'ger -themed music from Star Trek: The Motion Picture . ( Delta Quadrant , p. 289)

Continuity and trivia [ ]

• This is the final Star Trek episode directed by Cliff Bole .
• Terry Windell noted a comparison between this episode and "The Gift", saying the reason he found that reviewing that installment helped with the production of this one was "especially since ['The Gift'] dealt with Seven's transition from Borg to being more human, and this whole story is about the possibility of her becoming Borg again." ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 58)
• Susanna Thompson believed that the Borg Queen's attempt to persuade Seven of Nine to rejoin the Borg Collective here is similar to the relationship between Data and the queen in Star Trek: First Contact , describing both relationships as a "seduction" but also referring to each as a different form of that. ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 121 , p. 81; Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 61)
• The episode's teleplays date the flashback sequences in the first part of the installment as "twenty years" before the rest of the events in that part and the flashbacks in the second half as "a full year" later.
• This episode marks the first and only appearance of the Borg probe in a Star Trek series. However, the probe's rectangular design was resurrected for this episode; a Borg " tetragon " (imagined as being much larger than the one shown here) was temporarily considered to appear in Star Trek: First Contact , as a possible replacement for the Borg cube in that film. ( Delta Quadrant , p. 289, et al. ) This episode also marks the first and only appearance of the diamond-shaped Borg Queen's ship .
• Janeway claims that use of the transwarp coil has brought Voyager fifteen years closer to home, over a distance of 20,000 light years. This implies an average speed of around 250 million miles per second. Voyager 's speed capabilities have previously been noted in " The 37's " ("4 billion miles per second" at Warp 9.9), " Maneuvers " ("2 billion kilometres per second"), as well as implied in " Waking Moments " (222 million miles per second) and " The Gift " (170 million miles per second).
• Seven of Voyager 's photon torpedoes are seen to be used in this episode (one of which was transported before detonation), two having previously been used in " Counterpoint ". This brings the total number of torpedoes confirmed to have been used by Voyager over the course of the series to 49, a total which exceeds the irreplaceable complement of 38 that had been established by Chakotay in the first-season episode " The Cloud ".
• Voyager loses a shuttlecraft in this episode, for a total of ten, after having previously lost nine shuttles in " Initiations ", " Non Sequitur ", " Parturition ", " Unity ", " The Gift ", " Day of Honor ", " Nemesis ", and " Counterpoint ". In this episode, the shuttle is sacrificed as part of a strategic distraction.
• At the opening of this episode, the Borg voiceover announces the detection of 143 life forms aboard Voyager , yet the crew complement had previously been established as 152 just two episodes earlier in " Gravity ". This apparent discrepancy is not accounted for.
• Paper makes a rare appearance in this episode, in the form of several drawings stuck to the walls of USS Raven. Paper previously made an appearance in " Once Upon a Time ".
• It is revealed in this episode that a single Borg regeneration alcove requires 30 megawatts of power.
• Seven is seen in her purple-tone jumpsuit for the first time. This outfit was introduced because the previous blue one had been difficult to film against bluescreen backdrops. ( Star Trek: Voyager Companion  (p. 294))
• This Borg Queen reveals herself to be from Species 125 .
• In this episode, it is revealed that the Borg designation for Humans is Species 5618.
• The transwarp conduit represents the eleventh time besides the series premiere (after " Eye of the Needle ", " Prime Factors ", " The 37's ", " Cold Fire ", " Threshold ", " Death Wish ", " False Profits ", " Future's End, Part II ", " The Q and the Grey ", and " Timeless ") that the Voyager crew is presented with the possibility of returning home much faster than by conventional warp travel. In this case, the technology works, if only for a short while, and provides a significant shortcut.

Previous episodes [ ]

• This episode makes several references to the events of " The Raven ", and the eponymous ship of that episode also makes several appearances, in flashbacks that serve as a prequel to that episode. No dates are given for " The Raven ", but this episode establishes that the events of that episode happened "over a year" earlier.
• Janeway states that the crew of Voyager have "proven ourselves against the Borg once before, twice before", in a reference to the events of the duology " Scorpion " and " Scorpion, Part II ", and the episode " Drone ". Janeway also points out to Seven that it's been "over two years since you came face to face with the Collective", in another reference to " Scorpion, Part II ".
• Chakotay misquotes Seven as saying, two years previously, "I will betray you". She actually says "we will betray you" (using the Borg penchant for the first-person plural tense) in " The Gift ".
• While discussing the records of Seven's parents, Neelix claims that the only thing he has of his family is a picture of his sister. This picture made an appearance in the earlier fifth-season episode " Once Upon a Time ".

Other Star Trek series [ ]

• The Hansen logs indicate that Federation knowledge of the Borg existed prior to the events of TNG : " Q Who ", citing the limited information as "rumor and sensor echoes." No doubt the El-Aurians must have been a source of at least some of the knowledge, since the USS Enterprise -B witnessed their escape in Star Trek Generations . It is somewhat puzzling, however, that the Starfleet crew of the USS Enterprise -D are unaware of the Borg and the Hansens in the earlier TNG episode. As Joe Menosky remembered, the writers of this episode were well aware of the discontinuity when they devised this installment. " There was no way in the world we were going to get rid of the Hansen arc, just because it didn't match exactly what had happened when Q first threw the Enterprise near that Borg cube […] There should be some mention in a database somewhere, and Picard should have known. There was a little bit of that knowledge […] In our minds, the Borg were a very slender rumor, and the Hansens followed up on the rumor and just disappeared. Whether that completely holds water or not, that's all the justification we needed to go with the Hansen arc. Even if we couldn't have come up with that justification, we would have done it anyway. I think you are denying new audiences the chance to see this arc that couldn't be told if you were going to be faithful to something that was established a decade ago. We are not willing to be that rigid with continuity. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 34)
• Paris claims that Ferengi attempted to break into Fort Knox "about ten years ago". This would have been just a year after humanity made official first contact with the Ferengi in 2364, in TNG : " The Last Outpost ".
• When Seven first encounters the Borg Queen face to face the Queen says: "Welcome Home" followed by a scene cut. This echoes the end of DS9 : " The Search, Part I " when the female changeling says the same thing to Odo and there is also a scene cut.
• The Borg in the flashbacks appear as they did in Star Trek: First Contact instead of the dry pasty look of the Borg during Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• The Queen tells Seven she is the first drone that has regained its individuality, apparently denying the existence of Hugh and the rest of Lore 's rogue Borg faction, as well as disregarding Captain Jean-Luc Picard 's temporary assimilation into Locutus .

Reception [ ]

• Brannon Braga was ultimately thrilled with this episode, saying, " It turned out to be really, really amazing. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 1 , p. 61) Braga selected some of his favorite moments from the episode. " The best scene of the picture, I thought, was when the Queen was finally pushing [Seven] to the edge, pulling out all the stops, and finally just about to get her to crack, and Janeway's voice comes in. That was the best moment in the show, definitely. The scenes between Seven and the Queen I really liked […] Seeing Janeway in the little scene with Naomi, that was another one of my favorite scenes. Seeing people come to the Captain somehow felt right in that show. " Braga also remarked that he thought the transition of Janeway and Seven becoming more like Picard and Data was "a step in the right direction." He was proud, too, of the episode's production and was of the opinion that the installment succeeded in measuring up to Star Trek: First Contact . " The team really rose to the occasion, and it turned out great, " Braga enthused. " It had more action than First Contact . On a television budget, the fact that we in some ways imagistically took First Contact a step further is an impressive achievement, and I'm just really proud of that. We all enjoyed it very much. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 34)
• Joe Menosky especially liked the scenes showing Seven of Nine's temporary reintegration into the Borg Collective. " The thing I liked the most about the episode, " Menosky critiqued, " shows how cool a character Seven of Nine is. I love the scenes where she's in her Seven of Nine catsuit, and there she is walking around Borg corridors as if she is at home. I think there is great power to that image, and it perfectly captures her character as being this Human child raised by wolves […] I love the image when Janeway takes off, because she has no choice, from that Borg sphere and Seven is there amongst the Borg. I think it's a really powerful image, and goes to the heart of her character. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 34)
• Rick Berman was also happy with the installment, saying he was "extremely proud" of it. Berman additionally enthused, " Having the Borg Queen in [the] mix fits beautifully in the story […] [The episode] brings a very sensual and spooky element to the relationship between Seven of Nine and the Borg. All of our expectations were exceeded in bringing it to the screen. " ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 121 , p. 12)
• This episode originally aired as a feature-length episode but it was later broken up into two parts for reruns in syndication. According to the unofficial book Delta Quadrant (p. 290), this episode – when shown on UPN – was the first of many Voyager episodes that the network edited by two minutes so as to include an extra commercial in each advertising break, thereby increasing revenue. As of 2020, this edited version of the episode, missing the scene in which Janeway chastises Torres’ dismissive attitude towards Seven, is still shown by several streaming outlets.
• The episode achieved a Nielsen rating of 4.73 million homes, with a 7% share. It was the most watched installment of Star Trek: Voyager (on first airing) since " Year of Hell, Part II ". ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 34; [1] (X) )
• In Great Britain , Sky first showed the episode as two separate parts that aired on the same night as each other. After the first part was shown, the continuity announcer joked that the second part would be postponed because the tape had broken. ( Delta Quadrant , p. 290)
• Unusually for the BBC (which frequently aired Star Trek two-parters as feature-length editions), this episode was broadcast as the two-part version on 11 and 18 June 2000 .
• This episode won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series. Star Trek nearly swept the category that year; also nominated for it were VOY : " Thirty Days ", " Timeless " and DS9 : " What You Leave Behind ".
• The book Star Trek 101 (p. 175), by Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block , lists this episode as one of the "Ten Essential Episodes" from Star Trek: Voyager .
• Manny Coto cited "Dark Frontier" among his favorite Star Trek productions. The episode inspired him to feature several multi-episode-arcs in the fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise . [2]

Apocrypha [ ]

• Both the Borg probe and the Borg Queen's vessel, introduced here, are featured in the non-canon PC games Star Trek: Armada and Star Trek: Armada II , wherein the probe is known as a Borg "Interceptor". In Star Trek Online , the probe is a frigate -level ship.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 5.8, catalog number VHR 4798, 2 August 1999
• In feature-length form, as part of the UK VHS collection Star Trek: Voyager - Movies : Volume 4 (with "Unimatrix Zero"), release date unknown
• As part of the VOY Season 5 DVD collection
• As part of the Star Trek: Fan Collective - Borg collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway

Also starring [ ]

• Robert Beltran as Chakotay
• Roxann Dawson as B'Elanna Torres
• Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris
• Ethan Phillips as Neelix
• Robert Picardo as The Doctor
• Tim Russ as Tuvok
• Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine
• Garrett Wang as Harry Kim

Guest stars [ ]

• Susanna Thompson as Borg Queen
• Kirk Baily as Magnus Hansen
• Laura Stepp as Erin Hansen
• Scarlett Pomers as Naomi Wildman

Co-stars [ ]

• Katelin Petersen as Annika
• Eric Cadora as Alien
• Majel Barrett as Computer Voice

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• Holographic Borg drone
• Trish Baylord as Species 10026 member
• Debbie David as Russell
• Lin Chong as Voyager sciences ensign
• Carl D'Amico as Species 10026 member
• Tarik Ergin as Ayala
• Chiara Harris as Species 10026 member
• Kerry Hoyt as Borg drone
• Guy Korte as Species 10026 member
• Joyce Lasley as Lydia Anderson
• Mark Major as Borg drone
• Sam Mountain as Species 10026 member
• Borg Queen's drone
• Erin Price as Renlay Sharr
• Dominic Rambaran as Species 10026 member
• Craig Reed as Species 10026 member
• Lynn Speier as Species 10026 member
• Jean Vera-Montes as Species 10026 member
• Catherine Yurkovich as Species 10026 member
• " Needle Fingers "
• Three of Five
• Four holographic Borg drones
• Human hologram
• Two Borg drones

Stand-ins [ ]

• Brita Nowak – stand-in for Jeri Ryan and Laura Stepp
• Stuart Wong – stand-in for Garrett Wang

References [ ]

22nd century ; 2350 ; Alixia ; anger ; assault ; assimilation ; assimilation chamber ; asteroid field ; automaton ; auto-regeneration unit ; away team ; bad habit ; beer ; bio-dampener ; bioelectric interference ; biogenic charge ; biokinetic analysis ; biomolecular scanner ; boarding party ; Borg ; Borg Collective ; Borg cube ( unnamed ); Borg Queen's ship ; Borg drone ; Borg probe ; Borg scout ship / Borg sphere ( unnamed ); camouflage ; career ; Class 2 shuttlecraft ; class 5 probe ; coffee ; collective mind ; combadge ; command interface ; compression phaser rifle ; course ; cranial capacity ; critical velocity ; cubic kilometer ; cybernetic ; damage ; data node ; database ; debris ; Delta Flyer ; Delta Quadrant ; density ; department ; dilithium ; dinosaur ; dispersal field ; dozen ; drone manifest ; duty shift ; Earth ; emergency power ; emotion ; encryption code ; environmental systems ; evasive maneuvers ; exobiologist ; exo-plating ; exploration vessel ; fear ; Federation ; Federation Council on Exobiology ; Ferengi ; Ferengi burglars ; field magnitude ; field notes, USS Raven ; field regulator ; force field ; Fort Knox ; fuel ; gold ; Grid 325 ; Grid 532 ; heading ; heart ; heist ; hive mind ; holodeck ; holo-image ; hull ; Human ; individuality ; interplexing beacon ; Intrepid -class ; ion storm ; insect colony ; interplexing beacon ; intruder alert ; isogrid ; kiloton ; knowledge ; Ktarian ; Ktarian beer ; laser scalpel ; light year ; log entry ; logistics ; Maquis ; medical repair drone ; megawatt ; meter ; metric ton ; micro-suture ; money ; motion sickness ; muffin ; multi-adaptive shielding ; museum ; nanoprobe ; nanoprobe virus ; narrow beam transporter ; neural transceiver ; New World Economy ; newcomer ; nightmare ; ocular implant ; offline ; Operation Fort Knox ; orbit ; Papa ; pattern enhancer ; personal log ; phaser pulse ; photon torpedo ; physiology ; physiometric conditions ; pint ; plasma conduit ; polytrinic alloy ; power matrix ; power distribution node ; power node ; power utilization curve ; propulsion system ; pupil ; Raven , USS ; red alert ; regeneration cycle ; regenerative ability ; replicator ; rescue mission (aka rescue operation ); resource ; Romulan Neutral Zone ; sarcasm ; scout ship ; second ; sector ; sense of humor ; sensor range ; servo-armature ; shield generator ; shield matrix ; shield modulator ; shield generator ; shower ; sickbay ; spatial charge ; Species 125 ; Species 5618 ; Species 6961 ; Species 10026 ; Species 10026 homeworld ; Species 10026 vessel ; Starfleet ; " steady as she goes "; strategy ; subdermal probe ; subspace energy fluctuation ; subspace particle storm ; suffocation ; surgery ; tactical drone ; tactical simulation ; teracochrane ; teradyne ; teraquad ; threat ; throne ; time index ; toast ; toy ; tractor pulse ; transpectral analysis ; transport coordinates ; transporter beam ; transporter frequency ; transporter range ; Transporter Room 1 and 2 ; transwarp ; transwarp chamber ; transwarp coil ; transwarp conduit ; transwarp signature ; trial run ; triaxilation ; triquantum wave ; tritanium ; unicomplex ; Unimatrix 01 ; Unimatrix 424 ; United States dollar ; vanity ; vessel ; viral sequencer ; warp profile ; warp signature ; Wildman, Samantha

External links [ ]

• "Dark Frontier, Part I" at StarTrek.com
• "Dark Frontier, Part II" at StarTrek.com
• " Dark Frontier " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " Dark Frontier " at Wikipedia

• The Original Series
• The Next Generation
• Deep Space Nine
• Strange New Worlds

The War Without, The War Within

Such sweet sorrow (part 2).

Dark Frontier (Parts 1 & 2)

Voyager is heading for an area of space known as the Void, a mysterious region of empty space – a place where no probes or ships have ever returned from. Captain Janeway and her crew, however, are determined to explore this uncharted territory, hoping to gain knowledge and resources that could benefit the Federation.

Just as Voyager enters the Void, they come across a Borg cube that is much larger than any other they’ve seen before. At the same time, Seven of Nine discovers a new kind of Borg cube, one specified for assimilating entire planets. The crew soon realize that the Borg are planning something big, something that could alter the balance of power in the Quadrant.

Janeway and her crew must race against time to find out what the Borg are up to. They soon discover that the Borg are planning to assimilate an entire race of creatures called the Hansens, who have evolved a new kind of defense against the Borg – a defense that could be used to protect other races from the Borg.

Voyager attempts to contact the Hansens and warn them of the impending Borg attack, but they soon discover that a powerful alien race has taken control of the Hansens’ communications and is using them to block any messages from outside sources.

Desperate to reach the Hansens and warn them of the imminent attack, Janeway orders an away team to find a way to the planet. However, they soon find themselves in the middle of a battle between the Borg and the alien race. In the midst of the battle, Janeway attempts to find an alternate way to warn the Hansens of the imminent attack.

Janeway and her crew soon find out that the alien race is actually called the Voth and they were the original inhabitants of the Void. The Voth have been monitoring the Hansens for centuries, waiting to reclaim their land and resources.

The Borg, now aware of Janeway’s plan, launch a full-scale invasion of the Hansens’ planet. The crew of Voyager must fight a desperate battle to save the Hansens from assimilation. As the battle progresses, Janeway discovers a way to destroy the Borg cube, allowing the Hansens to escape.

In the aftermath of the battle, Janeway and the crew of Voyager are hailed as heroes, and the Hansens are saved. However, the victory comes at a cost – a cost that will affect the lives of all the crew. But, thanks to Janeway’s brave actions, the Hansens are now safe from the Borg.

Related Posts

Equinox (part 2), persistence of vision.

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Star Trek: Voyager – Dark Frontier, Part I (Review)

The fifth season of Star Trek: Voyager arrives at a point when the Rick Berman era of the Star Trek franchise has hit its midlife crisis.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is coming to an end, bring down the curtain on a seven-year period where there were always two franchise series boldly going simultaneously. Star Trek: Insurrection had been released into cinemas as a snapshot of that midlife crisis, where Michael Piller’s last script for the franchise found the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation desperately chasing their own youth and vitality on a planet with a fountain of youth.

Seven gets back in touch with her roots.

On the fifth season of Voyager , it seemed like the show turned inwards. The scripts for the fifth season are surprisingly retro and nostalgic in tone; Janeway’s reflections on the events of Caretaker in Night , the return of the Maquis and the Cardassians in Nothing Human , the indulgence of retro thirties sci-fi in Bride of Chaotica! , Tuvok’s childhood flashbacks in Gravity , the “telepathic pitcher plant” in Bliss , Seven’s trip back to the launch of Voyager in Relativity , Janeway’s investigation of her ancestor in 11:59 .

However, there was a fundamental problem with all of this introspection. Voyager was a television series that had long struggled to define a unique identity, too often feeling like a half-hearted reheat of the leftovers from The Next Generation . It was very hard to turn the focus inwards when there wasn’t a lot unique or distinctive about Voyager . This is a show that was much closer to its end than to its beginning, and it still lacked any true sense of identity or self.

There’s coffee… I mean transwarp coils in that there Borg Sphere.

Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II serve as an example of this nostalgic indulgence, both in form and plot. It is a two-parter consciously designed to recapture the success of broadcasting The Killing Game, Part I and The Killing Game, Part II on the same night in the late fourth season. It is also a television movie that is very clearly patterned off the story for Star Trek: First Contact , borrowing key story beats and clear characters from that memorable Next Generation film.

However, Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II also demonstrate the shallowness of Voyager ‘s own internal memory. This is a story built around an act of narrative archeology within the larger Star Trek universe, touching on the secret history of humanity’s true first encounter of the Borg. However, that history is ultimately illusory, built around what feels like a misremembrance of one of the franchise’s most iconic alien species. As Voyager turns its gaze backwards, it discovers that it has no real history.

Drone warfare.

Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II make a great deal of sense from a production standpoint. Under producer Brannon Braga, Voyager had consciously pitched itself as a television series that was capable of telling bold and epic stories on a television budget. Whatever narrative shortcomings and storytelling weaknesses that Voyager might have had, the show was undoubtedly ambitious in terms of sheer scale and production.

The computer-generated imagery on nineties television might not have aged especially well, but it still opened up new possibilities for spectacle. Brannon Braga seized upon those possibilities, with Voyager often aiming for a broad blockbuster sensibility, for better and for worse. The floating viral agents in Macrocosm , Species 8472 in Scorpion, Part I and Scorpion, Part II , the high-stakes scale of Timeless , none of these would have been possible using the special effects limitations that defined The Next Generation .

Janeway’s Seven.

Of course, Deep Space Nine also pushed the boat out in terms of scale and spectacle. The space combat sequences in The Die is Cast and The Way of the Warrior really demonstrated what could be done on a television budget and a television schedule. However, it was Voyager that really embraced these technical advances as a narrative opportunity. Deep Space Nine used spectacle in service of a long-form story unfolding over years, an epic seasons-long war story. Voyager used spectacle to tell the kind of stories that audiences associated with spectacle.

Voyager embraced a very broad and sweeping blockbuster style, one that in many ways prefigures the approach of the JJ Abrams’ Star Trek films. From its third season, Voyager seemed to pitch itself as a television show telling miniature blockbusters on a weekly basis. It is telling that many of the most memorable episodes in this period are the sweeping two-parters, many of which feel like Star Trek television movies: Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II ; Year of Hell, Part I and Year of Hell, Part II ; The Killing Game, Part I and The Killing Game, Part II .

Keeping it in the family.

In fact, the production team explicitly approached Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II as an opportunity to really embrace that storytelling sensibility. According to interviews with Cinefantastique , the production team hoped to blend this television movie style with a cinematic movie sensibility:

“We were heading into sweeps,” said Menosky. “Because of the success of airing The Killing Game in a single night [fourth season] the network and the studio were really interested in doing a Voyager movie, a two-part episode that was aired on a single evening. But we had no idea what we were going to do. Brannon wrote this amazingly complete story memo that had everything.” Braga recall, “I really felt we needed something spectacular for February sweeps. One thing that I think has defined Voyager in the past couple of years are our big events, the two-parters. We had all these different storylines laying around having to do with the Borg. I just cobbled them together late one night and we had Dark Frontier. To do a Borg movie, telefilm, or whatever you want to call it, we had to outdo First Contact. The space battles and the Queen had to be more elaborate.”

Action and adventure were the order of the day. Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II are consciously designed to foreground spectacle and dynamism ahead of character and theme, structured very much as a rollercoaster piece of blockbuster television.

A no-contact sport.

This is obvious from the structuring of the two individual episodes. Both Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II are consciously built around plot rather than character. More than that, both Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II are quite pointedly built around the exact same plot. Taken individually, Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II are both heist stories, in which Janeway mounts a dangerous mission to steal something from the Borg Collective. In Dark Frontier, Part I , it is a transwarp coil. In Dark Frontier, Part II , it is Seven of Nine.

There is something very disconcerting in this structure. Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II were broadcast (and released on home media) as a single feature-length episode of Voyager , like The Way of the Warrior was broadcast on Deep Space Nine . However, the story feels like two very distinct episodes. It is easier to cleave Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II into two separate stories than Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II , Year of Hell, Part I and Year of Hell, Part II , or The Killing Game, Part I and The Killing Game, Part II .

The great Borg robbery.

More than that, there is something slightly distracting in the fact that Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II are essentially the same story on repeat. The idea of Janeway organising a heist on the Borg Collective is very clever and very compelling. In fact, it is arguably one of the few truly interesting stories that Voyager could tell using the Borg Collective, because it is predicated on the idea that Janeway is significantly out-classed by the Borg. So it is certainly a compelling hook, setting up a nice underdog dynamic.

However, it feels like Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II would work better as a more in-depth and intricate exploration of one single heist. After all, the “heist movie” is a firmly established film genre. Ocean’s Eleven , Reservoir Dogs , The Town , Dog Day Afternoon and The Italian Job demonstrate that a heist thriller can sustain at least ninety minutes of screentime. These stories allow room for character development, escalation, procedure. Doing all of that within a science-fiction framework should make for compelling television.

A hive of activity.

Instead, Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II blaze through two separate heists . Janeway steals a transwarp coil from the Borg Collective in Dark Frontier, Part I and then rescues Seven of Nine from the Borg Collective in Dark Frontier, Part II . This is a very frustrating and somewhat redundant structure, as if Future’s End, Part I had sent the crew back to the mid-nineties while Future’s End, Part II sent them back to the mid-eighties.

It might work if the two heists were better integrated, if they were treated as logical escalations in scale. After all, Janeway is targeting a single damaged Borg Sphere in Dark Frontier, Part I , but is infiltrating the very heart of the Borg Collective in Dark Frontier, Part II . It would make sense if the two-parter suggested that heist in Dark Frontier, Part I was difficult, but that the heist in Dark Frontier, Part II was impossible. However, it does not work that way. If anything, the crew spend more time worrying about the seemingly easier heist in Dark Frontier, Part I .

Seven was never Wild(man) about the idea to begin with.

This sense of repetition is very much rooted in the fact that Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II are clearly positioned as action-driven episodes rather than character-driven episodes. There is no reason for Dark Frontier, Part II to focus on Janeway’s mission to rescue Seven of Nine. In theory, the episode feels like it should focus on the character-heavy scenes between the Borg Queen and Seven of Nine. That is where the drama lies.

However, Dark Frontier, Part II keeps returning to Janeway on Voyager to focus on the rescue mission. After a brief teaser reintroducing the Borg Queen to Seven of Nine, Dark Frontier, Part II cuts back to Voyager. There is some technobabble about the new transwarp coil, and some hand-wringing about a possible mission to rescue Seven of Nine involving a plan from Naomi Wildman. All of this feels pointless, given that the audience knows that Janeway must rescue Seven of Nine because Jeri Ryan is quite simply not leaving Voyager .

Drink it all in.

It would be more interesting to focus on the relationship between the Borg Queen and Seven of Nine, to explore their interactions and their debates. In some ways, this confrontation was inevitable.  Voyager teased the idea of Seven of Nine returning to the Borg in episodes like  The Gift and  Hope and Fear . This is the culmination of that idea. However, Dark Frontier, Part II tends only to return to the scenes between the Borg Queen and Seven of Nine for big dramatic action scenes; the assimilation of “Species 10026” at the midpoint, Janeway’s rescue mission at the climax.

Most of the interesting character beats involving the Borg Queen and Seven of Nine seem to unfold within the episode’s ellipses. When does Seven decide to help the Borg Queen? How does Seven accept that blood on her hands? After all, Dark Frontier, Part II makes Seven of Nine complicit in the assimilation of an entire species. Seven is party to what amounts to the genocide of “three hundred ninety two thousand” people. That is a compelling character beat and something that needs to be explored. However, that complicity is not explored until Survival Instinct .

Collective concerns.

Similarly, the climax of Dark Frontier, Part I hinges on Seven of Nine effectively betraying Janeway to the Borg Collective. Seven had been in communication with the Borg Queen without telling anybody, and manipulated her way on to the away team in order to surrender herself to the Borg Collective. Even allowing for the attempt to bargain for Voyager’s safety, that is a pretty severe betrayal of trust. In theory, it is on par with Prey , another episode in which Seven of Nine unilaterally decides to act in what she perceives to be the best interests of the crew.

There should be consequences for Seven of Nine’s betrayal at the climax of Dark Frontier, Part I , just as there were consequences for her actions at the climax of Prey . In fact, Seven seems to acknowledge as much when Janeway comes to rescue her at the climax of Dark Frontier, Part II . “I betrayed the crew of Voyager, threatened you with assimilation,” she admits to Janeway. “I did not expect you to return for me.” Of course, Janeway had to return for Seven; she would never abandon here. However, the episode still glosses over Seven’s betrayal.

“Never leave a crew member behind. Except, of course, if you have to wipe any record of that crew member from the ship’s records to preserve the EMH. Then you can probably leave them behind.”

Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II are much more interested in action set pieces than in character development, which is really frustrating. The idea of returning Seven of Nine to the Borg Collective is a fascinating plot hook, but Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II are much more interested in explosions and spectacle than in the inner workings of the character’s psychology. It is a very frustrating narrative choice, with Voyager ‘s narrative strengths playing to the weakest aspects of Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II .

Of course, Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II don’t repeat just one other. The episode is very clearly modeled on the plot and structure of First Contact . This makes a great deal sense. First Contact was the most successful Star Trek feature film of the Berman era, in terms of box office and in terms of reception. It was also co-written by Brannon Braga, and centred around the Borg. It makes sense that Voyager would be influenced by the success of First Contact . However, it is disconcerting just how heavy an influence First Contact exerts on Voyager .

Torpedoing any hint of character development.

In some ways, this is another expression of the nostalgia that runs through Voyager , but which has built to critical mass in the fifth season. Voyager is a show that is consciously about retreating to the familiar, about repeating what worked before and hoping to placate an audience. It is quite literally a show about characters whose sole objective is not exploration or discovery, but a return to the world that they know and understand.

So many Voyager episodes are just retreads of old ideas. Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II is really just an update of Star Trek IV: The Voyager Home . Threshold is a repeat of Genesis . Bliss is a contemporary take on the Star Trek version of Moby Dick , a story familiar as Obsession or The Doomsday Machine or Star Trek II: The Wraith of Khan . Author, Author is a holographic take on The Measure of a Man .

Yeah, this might take a little while.

There are other obvious parallels to be made, with even the structure of Voyager inviting comparisons to The Next Generation . Having teased the Borg as a major opponent, Voyager finally throws the crew into conflict with them for the epic two-parter bridging the third and fourth seasons; exactly like The Next Generation . Then, in the two-parter bridging the sixth and seventh season, Voyager explores a breakdown of the hive mind within the Borg Collective that seems to fracture the collective consciousness; just like The Next Generation .

Even the final episode of Voyager is designed to consciously mirror the final episode of The Next Generation . In fact, Endgame is a time travel episode that involves an extended section set in a fairly depressing future where time has taken its toll on the cast and their relationships to one another. This obviously parallels All Good Things… , the finale of The Next Generation , which is a time travel story where one third of the narrative unfolds in a future where the crew have drifted apart from one another. This attempt at imitation is barely disguised.

Disarming observations.

This is to say nothing of how awkwardly Voyager tries to slot in familiar Star Trek signifiers into its storytelling. Q from The Next Generation is a recurring supporting character in episodes like Death Wish , The Q and the Grey and Q2 . The Ferengi from The Price reappear in False Profits . Voyager would encounter a Cardassian missile in Dreadnought and a Klingon ship in Prophecy . The Borg had been the most iconic new alien species of the Berman era, so they were introduced in Blood Fever and Unity , and promptly became a recurring feature of Voyager .

Even separated by half the galaxy, Voyager was never too far removed from familiar Star Trek faces. Reginald Barclay appeared in Projections . William Riker appeared in Death Wish . LeVar Burton appeared in Timeless . Deanna Troi will appear in Pathfinder and Lifeline . In some ways, Voyager felt like a cost-effective Next Generation cover-band. Seven was even introduced to fill the gap in the ensemble for a character like Data .

“Honey, could you pump some Ron Jones music in the soundtrack, just to really recapture the mood?”

This is to say nothing of the general, hard-to-put-a-finger-on sense of familiarity that pervades a lot of Voyager episodes. Most Deep Space Nine episodes have a tone or outlook that serve to distinguish them from The Next Generation , to the point that even episodes that were originally pitched during the run of The Next Generation (like One Little Ship or Time’s Orphan ) feel very much like Deep Space Nine stories. In contrast, a lot of Voyager episodes often feel like they could have been repurposed from The Next Generation .

It would be fairly easy to rewrite Voyager episodes like Parallax , Time and Again , Ex Post Facto , Emanations , Heroes and Demons , Cathexis , Twisted , Resistance , Prototype , Deadlock , Innocence , The Thaw , Tuvix , The Chute , Remember , Sacred Ground , Warlord , Macrocosm , Alter Ego , Coda , Rise , Real Life , Displaced , Nemesis , Scientific Method , Random Thoughts , Mortal Coil , Waking Moments , Retrospect , Vis à Vis or Unforgettable to work as Next Generation episodes.

Looking for scraps.

It is hard to quantify that measure of similarity, even allowing for the use of stock Star Trek plot elements like transport duplicates or strange anomalies or body possession. It feels more like the subtle way that familiar samples and melodies have been appropriated and woven into the background of modern songs so that they feel familiar and unplaceable at once. As Jia Tolentino relates :

Melodies recur often on the radio: pop songs borrow from other pop songs, frequently without permission, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes not. Occasionally, when the similarity becomes too obvious, or when the song doing the borrowing hits the charts, the earlier song’s writers are cut in after the fact, preventing a formal dispute. Intent doesn’t have to be proved in a copyright challenge over music: these cases hinge on the questions of access (whether the artist might have heard the song he’s accused of using) and substantial similarity (whether an average listener would hear an echo in the two songs)

In many ways, it feels like an expression of same nostalgic and reflexive impulses that have infiltrated popular culture. Author Simon Reynolds has suggested that contemporary popular culture is dominated by “an absence of future, the repetition of the already-heard.” This is reflected in the use of samples in pop songs, and of remakes, prequels and sequels in other modes of pop culture.

Pop culture is coiled around itself.

Again, it feels very much like Voyager is paving the way for the JJ Abrams reboot of the Star Trek franchise, effectively a “greatest hits” repackaging of elements that the production team consider to be quintessential Star Trek . More than any other Star Trek show, Voyager seems to consider itself displaced in time, where both the future and the past seem eerily similar. There is something savage and cannibalistic in all of this, the Star Trek franchise eagerly transforming itself into a ravenous ouroboros.

That tail is getting shorter, with Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II devouring a feature film adaptation that was only two years old at this point. The cycle of nostalgia had kicked into overdrive, to the point that Voyager was no longer even borrowing characters and concepts from a television show that existed before it premiered. Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II eagerly recycle character dynamics and plot beats from First Contact , the well-received Next Generation feature film.

“Yes, Seven. You have to watch every episode of The Next Generation . Even the first two seasons.”

To be fair, First Contact had already had a significant influence on Voyager . The use of the Borg in the third and fourth season, in episodes like Blood Fever , Unity , Scorpion, Part I and Scorpion, Part II , had been largely inspired by the release of First Contact during that time. The production design of the Borg in Voyager closely resembled the look and feel of the Borg from First Contact , as opposed to the Borg that appeared in The Next Generation . It seems highly unlikely that the character of Seven of Nine would even exist without First Contact .

In some ways, First Contact would become the most influential piece of Berman era Star Trek . As much as the lighter tone and lower stakes of Insurrection might have been a reaction against First Contact , the second Next Generation movie cast a very long shadow over the rest of the Berman era. Star Trek: Enterprise is as much a sequel to First Contact as a prequel to the original Star Trek . Indeed, the Borg would even make an appearance in Regeneration , an episode that was very consciously a sequel to loose ends from First Contact .

A (cyber)net(ic) gain.

First Contact exerts considerable pull over Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II . Most obviously, Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II introduce the character of the Borg Queen into the continuity of Voyager , with Susanna Thompson taking over the role from Alice Krige. The Borg Queen would become a recurring fixture of Voyager , with Thompson reprising the role in Unimatrix Zero, Part I and Unimatrix Zero, Part II before Krige reclaimed the mantle in Endgame . The Borg Queen was a huge deal in First Contact , but she is embraced readily by Voyager .

However, Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II don’t just borrow the Borg Queen herself. The two-parter makes a point to use the Borg Queen in a way that consciously evokes her role in First Contact . Once again, the Borg Queen is cast as temptress trying to seduce a member of the lead cast. In First Contact , the Borg Queen offered Data a taste of humanity. In Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II , the Borg Queen tries to lure Seven of Nine back into the Borg Collective. In both cases, the Borg Queen squares off with the ship’s captain for that crew member.

Queen of minds.

This use of the Borg Queen in Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II is particularly glaring because it makes no logical sense from a plotting perspective. There is simply no reason why the Borg Queen wouldn’t simply assimilate Seven of Nine, despite some hand-wave-y dialogue explaining that Seven is “much too valuable to [the Borg] with [her] individuality intact.” However, her individuality is exactly what would prevent her from being useful to the Borg, because it would allow her to refuse to cooperate with the Queen’s objectives.

Indeed, at the climax of Dark Frontier, Part II , the Borg Queen seems to come to that realisation and decides to just assimilate her anyway. This feels like very clumsy plotting, a reminder of how much of Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II is predicated on plot-driven storytelling rather than more organic character development. It feels like the plot is structured so that the Borg Queen only finally decides to just assimilate Seven of Nine at the exact same moment that Janeway arrives to rescue her, a decision designed to raise the stakes rather than serve the characters.

Turn on, tune in, and Borg out.

Still, the big surprise is not that the Queen decides to assimilate Seven at the climax of Dark Frontier, Part II . The big surprise is that the Queen decides not to assimilate Seven at the earliest possible opportunity at the end of Dark Frontier, Part I . More to the point, with an entire Borg Collective at her disposal, the big surprise is that the Borg Queen has never made a sincere and tangible effort to assimilate Voyager. There is no reason for the Borg Queen to act the way that she does in Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II , beyond the fact that she acted that way in First Contact .

However, First Contact made a point to explain why the Borg Queen was trying to seduce Data. There was something concrete that the Borg Queen needed from Data that could not be provided by assimilation, which would grant her control of the ship. In contrast, Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II never makes it clear what exactly the Borg Queen wants from Seven of Nine. The episode suggests that it is something vague to do with her time with humanity, but it is never made clear why just assimilating her (even in the style of Locutus) would not work.

It might work Nine times out of ten.

(To be fair, it makes sense in thematic terms. First Contact presented the Borg Queen as a Luciferian figure, a temptress. On top of her practical motivations for seducing Data, the Borg Queen reveled in the act of corruption itself. Picard explained at the climax of First Contact that the Borg Queen wanted him to surrender himself willingly to her, to surrender his soul as well as his body to her. Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II certainly hints at this idea, that the Borg Queen wants Seven’s soul. However, it is never developed in concrete terms.)

Even beyond the focus on the Borg Queen’s attempted corruption of Seven of Nine, there is a sense that Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II owe a stylistic debt to First Contact . As with Drone earlier in the fifth season, Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II makes use of the spherical ship design from First Contact . In fact, Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II moves somewhat away from the classic cube design, with the teaser featuring an attack by what might be best described as a Borg Cuboid.

The hole in things.

At the end of Dark Frontier, Part I , there are several shots that consciously lift their concepts from First Contact . Reversing a memorable moment from the battle at the start of First Contact , the end of Dark Frontier, Part I features a sphere flying into a larger welcoming structure. The assembly of the Borg Queen is at once both more complex and less convincing than the equivalent shot in First Contact , a reminder of the differences in production time and resources between a weekly television show and a big-budget feature film.

The strong sense of nostalgia for First Contact is interesting, because it is imperfect in several ways. There is something uncanny in the way that Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II attempt to reproduce the look and feel First Contact , a reminder of just how difficult it can be to capture the texture of that earlier film. There are certain imperfections in this attempted recreation, from the way that the episodes contorts to emulate the plot beats and dynamics of the feature film through to the obviously lower television special effects budget.

Piecing it all together.

However, there is also a sense that a lot of this recreation is just a little “off” , like a fuzzy memory of First Contact rather than a faithful recreation. The Borg Queen is quite obviously the same character that she was in First Contact . The costume and make-up design are consistent, as is the character motivation and the way in which she operates. At the same time, Susanna Thompson is quite obviously not Alice Krige. There is something weird in this, as if the episode is assuring the audience that it is the same while emphasising these little differences.

Notably, Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II is directed by Cliff Bole rather than Jonathan Frakes. Frakes was in the process of transitioning to film direction with movies like Clockstoppers and Thunderbirds . Frakes had not directed an episode of Star Trek since Prototype in the second season of Voyager . Continuing the theme of “almost, but not quite” emulating First Contact , Cliff Bole had directed The Best of Both Worlds, Part I and The Best of Both Worlds, Part II , the episodes that inspired First Contact .

Picking up the pieces.

Interestingly enough, Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II would be the last episodes of Star Trek to be directed by Bole. While this was never intended, Bole was quite happy to leave on that particular note :

I didn’t know when I did that episode that it would be my last Star Trek, but I had moved on a little in the business and I guess I felt that it was coming to an end. I didn’t expect to do Enterprise because I was working elsewhere. So it just came to an end. But I was very happy with Dark Frontier.

Bole’s direction of the two-parter is solid, even if the production arguably feels more like a television episode than some of the other blockbuster episodes like  Scorpion, Part I and  Scorpion, Part II or The Killing Game, Part I and The Killing Game, Part II .

That healthy green glow.

In particular, Bole somewhat overdoes it with the green lighting on the Borg sets. When the Borg invaded the Enterprise in First Contact , everything became darker and more ominous; the Borg were defined in terms of their black cybernetic implants and their pale grey skin. There was something moody and uncomfortable about the way that those scenes were framed and lit. In contrast, the Borg scenes on Voyager tend towards camp with bright neon green saturating the shot so that there is seldom any darkness lurking at the edge of the frame.

In some ways, this is a reminder of how far television has come since the broadcast of Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II . Modern television has higher production value, but also much more ambitious lighting and sound design . During the nineties, television was still being produced for (relatively) small home entertainment systems receiving (possibly poor) signal in standard definition. As such, twentieth-century television was frequently lit in such a way as to ensure that even audiences receiving the grainiest picture would have some idea what was going on .

Mind and body.

As much as Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II are trying to evoke First Contact , they also feel like a hazy recollection of it. One of the big recurring themes of Voyager is the idea of history, whether the future that lies ahead or the past that falls behind. One of the big recurring anxieties of Voyager is the fear that the characters exist in something resembling a perpetual “now” , a single moment stretched across the seven-year run without any history or any future. There is no true forward momentum, and no past to provide a firm foundation.

After all, when Voyager imagines its future, it tends to be an extension of the present stretching indefinitely. Shattered imagines a future version of Voyager that looks pretty much the same as the ship has always looked, manned by familiar characters. Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II suggests that Starfleet will continue to exist into the twenty-ninth century, at which points they explore (and protect) the time-line as much as the frontier. Voyager cannot conceive of a future in which anything truly unpredictable or unforeseen might happen.

That healthy off-green glow.

While the future is presented as relatively stable by virtue of serving as an extension of the present, Voyager is far more anxious about the past. Repeatedly over the course of  Voyager , the characters encounter alien species that have lost touch with their history and become disconnected from their roots.  Remember ,  Distant Origin and  Living Witness all focus on societies where the historical record has been undermined or distorted.  Latent Image plays out this idea as a psychological thriller focusing on the EMH.

One of the great ironies of Voyager is the recurring sense that the show’s own worries about the distortion and manipulation of the historical record reflect the series’ own deepset flaws. Voyager is a television show that frequently lacks any true sense of continuity or history, populated by characters who are very rarely impacted or shaped by the events that have occurred to them. Most episodes of Voyager seem to exist in a weird stasis, without any tether to earlier adventures; they could unfold in almost any order.

A ticking time bomb…

Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II reinforce this idea of Voyager as a show without any concrete sense of history, both in terms of the hazy reconstructions of First Contact and in terms of a muddled engagement with the very basics of the franchise’s own internal continuity. To be fair, the characters in Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II explicitly reference fourth season episodes like The Gift or The Raven or Hope and Fear , but the episode’s memory struggles to reach beyond that point.

There are several details that reinforce this recurring sense of warped and distorted continuity. “You are the only Borg that has ever returned to a state of individuality,” the Borg Queen tells Seven of Nine at one point. This is very clearly untrue. Picard recovered his humanity in The Best of Both Worlds, Part II . Hugh became an individual in I, Borg . A large swathe of the Borg Collective broke away in Descent, Part I and Descent, Part II . Even within Voyager itself, the survivors of the Borg Cube in Unity struck out on their own.

Father of the freakin’ year.

To be clear, it makes sense that a long-running franchise would lose track of continuity at some stage. At the time when Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II were broadcast, there were almost six hundred episodes of Star Trek . In any complex piece of fiction spanning decades, there are bound to be occasionally mistakes and contradictions, particularly when that fiction is written by different people working on different branches. It is churlish to obsess about the minutia of continuity, particularly given how much of it there is.

However, the continuity errors in Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II are not simple mistakes. They do not conflict with kernels of information buried in the background of some forgotten exposition scene from a middling episode that aired decades earlier. This is not an example of fudging dates, or changing make-up, or reworking some set design. Instead, the continuity errors in Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II are rooted in deliberate misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the entire plots of several of the franchise’s biggest episodes.

Too little too (assimi)late…

This is perhaps most obvious with the subplot running through the two-parter focusing on the Hansen family. The Federation’s first contact with the Borg came in Q Who? , during the second season of The Next Generation , following on from a mystery in The Neutral Zone . Although the time-travel in First Contact provides a little leeway, it is hard to reconcile the first contact with the Borg in Q Who? with what is presented in Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II . The two-parter provides a contradictory snapshot of potential first contact.

Of course, The Gift and The Raven already established that Erin and Magnus Hansen were assimilated by the Borg Collective long before Picard came into contact with those robot zombies. However, those earlier episodes were just vague enough that the details might be smudged. Maybe the Hansens did not know what they were looking for; maybe they encountered the Borg Collective by accident. “They fancied themselves explorers,” Chakotay explained in The Gift , “but wanted nothing to do with Starfleet or the Federation.” That could work.

“We know nothing about them. Except for their name, their rough location, the fact that they have a Borg Queen and their defining characteristics. But, aside from that, nothing.”

Instead of skirting that very carefully threaded piece of continuity, Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II throw everything to the wind. The Hansens are revealed to have been explicitly hunting for the Borg rather than working as “explorers.” More than that, the two-parter suggests that Erin and Magnus Hansen did not stumble upon the Borg Collective by accident. The couple began their adventure with a very firm idea of what they were looking for, even going so far as to seek support from Starfleet and the Federation for the mission.

“Are we going to see the Borg?” Annika asks her father, confirming that Erin and Magnus already know the name of the alien species that they are chasing. “We’ll be the first humans to study them up close,” Magnus assures his daughter. When she asks what the Borg look like, Magnus responds, “We’re not sure exactly, but we think they might look a lot like us, but with technology inside their bodies.” Providing all of this exposition so early in the mission is a strange narrative choice, because it suggests that Picard should not have been so surprised by the Borg in Q Who?

First first contact.

This continuity snafu was not an accident or an oversight. In fact, Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II are very aware of the continuity they are violating. In a nice touch, the Hansens follow the Borg through the Neutral Zone, acknowledging the introduction of the Borg as a concept in The Neutral Zone . Discussing the episode with Cinefantastique , writer Joe Menosky insisted that it was a conscious choice to eschew continuity:

I think you are denying new audiences the chance to see this arc that couldn’t be told if you were going to be faithful to something that was established a decade ago. We’re not willing to be that rigid about continuity. It’s not that we don’t know these things. It’s just that we choose to ignore them when it suits our purposes. We know what we are doing when we dismiss continuity. You can’t accuse us of ignorance. We can be accused of arrogance, but that’s about as far as it goes.

There is something hypocritical in all of this. For all that Voyager is concerned about a world in which history has no meaning and in which memory can be warped and distorted, the series is an eager participant in a culture of forgetting and rewriting. Voyager becomes an expression of that crisis of history against which it repeatedly rails. Voyager is a show anxious about the loss of a concrete and agreed sense of past, but which refuses to accept its own past.

Heist stakes.

This feeling of disconnect permeates Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II , much like it soaks through the rest of Voyager . Even the smaller character beats and decisions in Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II seem to operate with no sense of context or history. It often feels like the characters featured in a given episode of Voyager might be copies or imitations of these individuals, something that the show toys with in episodes like Deadlock , Course: Oblivion and Live Fast and Prosper . They look and sound familiar, but there is no continuity of character.

Dark Frontier, Part I reinforces this sense of discontinuity early in the episode during a small scene with Janeway and Chakotay inspecting the wreckage of a destroyed Borg ship. “By my count, we’ve added at least two years to our journey by avoiding the Borg,” Janeway reflects at on point. “I’m tired of turning tail every time we detect a Cube.” It is certainly an interesting detail, one that might serve as character motivation for Janeway’s reckless decision to steal a transwarp coil from a damaged Borg ship. There is just one problem. It never happened.

Balls of steel.

The audience has never seen Janeway reverse course at the first sign of a Borg ship. When the crew found a deceased Borg corpse in  Blood Fever , Janeway decided to push ahead. When Chakotay was almost assimilated in  Unity , Janeway decided to push ahead. When the ship reached the boundaries of Borg space in  Scorpion, Part I , Janeway decided to forge an alliance with the Borg Collective rather than back away or make any attempt to circumnavigate their territory. While Janeway encountered the Borg in episodes like  Hope and Fear or  Drone , she never avoided them.

Of course, it is entirely possible that these encounters happened off-screen, but that feels unearned. Although Voyager has begun eroding their power and prestige, the Borg Collective is still a pretty big deal. They are still an enemy with incredible resources and a considerable technological advantage. Every encounter with the Borg should be terrifying and unnerving, should put the crew on edge, should have the main characters worried about their continued existence.

Holo promises.

As such, to relegate such confrontations to unseen and unreferenced off-screen encounters feels cheap and disingenuous. It feels like cheap and lazy writing when Janeway broaches that idea in Dark Frontier, Part I . It is a transparent attempt to justify a reckless decision on the part of Janeway, in a manner that has not been earned. It is very clearly an example of Braga and Menosky attempting to rewrite continuity and history in order to serve the demands of this particular scene in this particular episode .

This sense of discontinuity is compounded by the dialogue that follows. “Maybe I should go to red alert and get it over with,” Chakotay muses. “You’re about to drop one of your bombshells.” Janeway is curious. “Now what makes you say that?” she inquires. Chakotay smiles. “The way you fiddle with your comm badge. You do it every time.” It is, in theory, a nice bit of characterisation between Janeway and Chakotay, a reminder that these two characters have been working together for the better part of five years. It is nice that Chakotay picks up on such things.

“Your body’s going to be going through some changes soon, but cybernetic implants are nothing to be afraid of.”

However, it is also incredibly disingenuous. The audience has never seen Janeway fidgeting with her comm badge before making a tough decision. Unlike almost any other physical or verbal tic that might have caught Chakotay’s attention, the audience would have noticed if Janeway had that physical habit. It is a really awkward physical gesture. Given where the comm badge is positioned on a Starfleet uniform, it is very hard for a character to “fiddle” with it in a way that is inconspicuous or under the radar.

Once again, this is an attempt to casually shoehorn in a detail that sounds like a character beat, but without any of the care or attention to detail that would make such a character beat work. It is almost easier to believe that Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II unfold on a weird and parallel version of Voyager featuring duplicates of the characters that they audience has never encountered before. Maybe this version of Janeway fidgets with her comm badge, maybe this version of Janeway has lost two years to running from the Borg.

Commanding attention.

This sense of disconnect is reinforced by how different this version of Janeway feels, compared to the version suggested in earlier fifth season episodes. Brannon Braga had made a strong push for Janeway as a character defined by situational ethics, a character who would make whatever pragmatic decision was necessary to get her crew home. Obviously, this version of Janeway was radically different from the version who appeared in early episodes like Prime Factors , State of Flux or Alliances . Nevertheless, the fifth season made a solid push for its own vision of Janeway.

In episodes like Night , Nothing Human and Latent Image , the fifth season repeatedly suggested that Janeway was perfectly willing to put the safety of the crew ahead of the security of one person. In Night , Janeway plotted a suicide mission to stay behind while the crew got closer to home. In Nothing Human , Janeway authorised a surgical procedure on Torres without the latter’s consent, because the ship needed its senior engineer. In Latent Image , Janeways decided the EMH was too valuable to risk losing, and so wiped his memories to keep him functional.

All the best drones have mommy issues.

These are all very tough decisions, and they serve as an effective way to delineate Janeway from other Star Trek leads like Kirk or Picard. However, this more cynical and pragmatic version of Janeway is impossible to reconcile with the version of the character in Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II . In this two-parter, Janeway decides to risk most of the senior staff (and, tangentially, Voyager itself) to mount a rescue mission for a crew member who has effectively defected to an enemy power. In many ways, this feels like a very sharp reversal of recent characterisation.

With the fifth season of Voyager , there is a sense that the Rick Berman era has become unmoored from its own past. The fifth season often seems to be trying to create its own history, whether by putting Seven on the ship before launch in Relativity or focusing on Tuvok’s training on Vulcan in Gravity or Janeway’s memory of Shannon O’Donnel in 11:59 . There is a sense that Voyager is frantically trying to create a history, because its memory of its own history is fading. Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II are very much part of that.

Everything comes apart.

Voyager has always believed that the only way forward was backwards, but it now feels like even the most distinctive landmarks on that journey have become faded and blurred. Voyager has long been a show about chasing a memory, of trying to recapture a quintessential Star Trek feeling. In a cruel irony, that connection to history has been lost. Voyager has been humming a familiar tune so long that it has forgotten the lyrics. In some ways, Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II feel like a half way point between First Contact and Enterprise .

If the past cannot be remembered, it might have to be invented.

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: borg queen , continuity , dark frontier , history , memory , seven of nine , star trek , star trek: first contact , star trek: voyager , voyager |

12 Responses

Even more than Far Beyond the Stars, Voyager liked to flirt with 90’s meta humor. Right away the writers let us know what we’re in for when Chakotay says, “Maybe I’ll go to red alert and get over with.” Which is more or less code for, ‘I’ve seen the Worf Gets Denied clip on youtube. ‘

(It’s actually uncommon for the captain to seek counsel from his number one. Kirk did it in “Operation: Annihilate!” and I think Picard met with Data in “Justice”. But it’s mostly a one-way street. The likely explanation is that the captan needs to be reckless for their to be some kind of action or drama.

Chakotay was never going to be a cherished character, by the writers or the fans, but Trek tradition says there HAS to be a number one to bounce ideas off their forehead, so this is them shrugging their shoulders.)

I like that Picard went to Data in Justice and just bypassed Riker. “Dammit, Number One, your libido got us into this mess…”

“Voyager has always believed that the only way forward was backwards”

I’ve noticed that, too, during the H&I marathon.

My mind immediately goes back to Plinkett imploring LucasFilm to “come up with something new!” [clip of Dexter Jettser] “Wait, no…” [two-headed podracing announcer] “Aah! Stop coming up with things that are new!” [Jar-Jar zapped with electricity] “Stop!” [racist caricatures] “Please, no!”

Yeah, in many ways, Voyager is clearly paving the way thematically for Enterprise. A literal journey in search of the franchise’s roots is followed by a temporal journey back to the franchise’s roots. Space and time. Neither quite manages to find those roots, though. But I think the final two seasons of Enterprise come closer than most would give them credit for.

Funny, no matter how many times I hear it, no matter who I hear it from, “It’s my continuity and I’ll break it if I want to” always sounds petty and spiteful to me. What is it about working in sci-fi that makes writers feel this way? We would rightly criticize a show set in “the real world” for fudging details like who was president, or when a war started.

Being honest, I am a lot more forgiving. I don’t mind fudging details to serve the needs of a story. Particularly given that the Star Trek universe was built brick-by-brick rather than all-at-once, so there are bound to be some inconsistencies and retroactive continuity is certain to be in the show’s DNA. At the same time, there is a threshold for me there, and Dark Frontier hits that threshold for me. I suspect it’s as much rooted in the quality of the story as anything else; if Dark Frontier were actually good, I’d probably forgive it.

(I forgive Enterprise for Regeneration, which is one of the best episodes of the first two seasons; I don’t forgive it for Acquisition, which is not one of the worst episodes… but is just bad.)

I agree that the threshold is strongly tied to, if not entirely dependent on, the episode’s quality. If I may mangle a metaphor: when someone says “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs” and then serves you a mediocre, or even bad, omelet, you do tend to wonder what sort of chickens those eggs might’ve grown up to be.

It is funny given the theme of your review, that Janeway in part II explains to the Doctor that she read the last parts of the Hansen diaries to make sure that history would not repeat itself 😉

And while I still find good things in the episode (I do remember it was quite a spectacle back then and it has some nice moments and small twists) I totally agree that Voyager kept lighting the Borg with way too much green…

I’m a big fan of several of the show’s Borg episodes – especially Scorpion , The Raven , Drone and Child’s Play . But Dark Frontier just doesn’t do it for me, personally.

I feel the quote from the writer on breaking continuity, but making sure to show he knew they were doing so, is a sign of how lazy the writing was. What ‘suits our purposes’ is plot progression and appealing to the low-brow viewer. It’s like Fox News’ approach to news.

I’m not sure they knew how to write their way out of continuity reality. And you can see the confrontation with Ronald D. Moore coming like a freight train in arrogant quotes like this.They feel they have a right to the fabric of the Trek universe and that fans should just shut up about it when they rip that fabric.

They could easily have written in a beat with Anika’s father buying a tip from an alien in some bar, or finding a ruined borg scout ship somewhere.

The beats with Janeway and her comm badge were deeply cringy. She is the most malleable lead character ever. From tea pots to an obsession with coffee; no crew left behind to killing anyone who stands in her way.

Voyager is The Outer Limits of Trek series. “Stay tuned next week to find out what our whacky heroes are up to next!”

Ron Moore, in fact, was a moderate supporter of “breaking continuity”, and had little patience for the moribund concept of “canon” when it stood in the way of writing quality Star Trek scripts.

Moore proved his anti-“canon” approach was the right one with his Klingon stories stretching across Next Generation and DS9, an aggressive reinvention of the Klingons that drew from some aspects of previous episodes and movies while discarding what wasn’t useful or helpful.

And Moore’s issue with Voyager was rather that it left interesting concepts on the table, the best story ideas contained within its premise, rather than advancing them in ways that required serialized storytelling contained entirely within the series itself.

As no stickler for Star Trek “canon” (a position I’m glad to share with Star Trek luminaries such as David Gerrold and Ron Moore), I nevertheless agree with you on the questions of continuity raised here. I think it comes down to the effective use of past elements.

In this case, “Dark Frontier” uses elements of First Contact, most especially the Borg Queen, in direct continuity with that movie’s story, because that’s really the only way those elements have significance to the audience or to the show as a production… but “Dark Frontier” also states that this is the first time the events repeated from that movie have ever happened. The Queen asserts that Seven’s story is unique, when the entire exercise here is to repeat the story from First Contact, and in a way that acknowledges that previous story as the foundation for this one. This is a trap the episode sets for itself in what it chooses to use and what it chooses to repeat.

An apt comparison might be DS9’s use of the ‘60s Klingon characters in “Blood Oath”. It’s not a problem at all that they update the characters’ looks or tweak their personalities, compared to the ‘60s episodes, to tell a quality story. But “Blood Oath” doesn’t try to assert, say, that these Klingons have never interacted with Starfleet or the Federation before. Because if DS9 were going to do that, why use those characters at all? Those past events are the only reason to bring them back.

“Dark Frontier” tries exactly that trick, and predictably, it fails. The episode depends entirely on an element of First Contact’s story, the Borg Queen, that was built (for better or for worse) entirely around a past story where a particular character, Picard, reasserted his individuality after being absorbed by the Borg collective mind. When the Queen asserts that no one’s ever done that exact thing before Seven did, the unavoidable question looms: “Then why are you even using a character from First Contact here…?”

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Star Trek: Voyager: Dark Frontier (Part 1)

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"Dark Frontier (Part 1)" is the fifteenth episode of the fifth season of the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager .

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• 2 Bones: The Widow's Son in the Windshield
• 3 Denise Cloyd

Star Trek: Voyager

Dark Frontier Part 1

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A Look Back: Star Trek – Voyager “Dark Frontier”

By elliot thorpe | mar 22, 2019.

When Star Trek – Voyager was first aired in 1996 on the new United Paramount Network, I managed to miss everything beyond the first half of the first year.

CIC Video released the series on VHS in the UK not long after, two episodes per tape per month, which became a long, laborious and quite expensive process – so I wasn’t able to maintain the pace and had other priorities, such as buying food and shoes for my kids. I never bought the DVD boxset and so my knowledge of Janeway and her crew languished for many years solely in ‘making-of’ books and the occasional article…until in 2018 Netflix clearly saw what I was missing all these years and kindly told me that I might like to watch it. (They did the same for Enterprise , for which I have a similar backstory.)

What I knew of the series prior to last year, I wasn’t actually keen on. I wasn’t a great fan of the Maquis storyline that Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation had set up and so wasn’t drawn in by the notion of a mixed bag of crew members thrust together. When Seven of Nine arrived, I could only hear in excerpts that I caught Jeri Ryan ’s voice an octave or two lower than what I assumed she normally spoke at, considering it felt uncomfortable for her as well as adding a notion of pointless melodrama to her character: “I was a Borg so I will speak dramatically all the time!”

So I’m catching up, going through about 8 episodes a week. At the time of writing, I’m watching ‘ Course: Oblivion ’, and so well over mid-way through Season 5.

I was pleasantly surprised by what I’ve found. Yes, Starfleet vs the Maquis was, as I expected, very clumsy for the first year or so (B’elanna Torres just needed to chill!) but the revelation that these characters were developing over time was quite surprising. I’ve read elsewhere that Chakotay was as wooden as Riker’s shoulders and that Robert Beltran felt his role never changed in the seven-year run but I kind of disagree. The frustration I have with regard to Chakotay is simply that he absolutely adored his captain to the point of love and it was never truly fulfilled. Why didn’t the writers take that relationship anywhere? Now, I’ve not seen any more than up to Season 5, remember, but I am pretty sure they didn’t end up together. So please… NO SPOILERS for me! And Seven of Nine’s voice? I’ve just got used to it, even though it is still a little annoying: “But I was a Borg, so I will continue to speak dramatically! All the time!”

Star Trek Voyager The Dark Frontier

Anyway, ‘ Dark Frontier ’ suddenly appeared on my Netflix feed, the mid-season double-length episode. With Seven at the center. And I’m here to tell you why I rather liked it.

I’d always thought the Borg had been over-used (something I feel the BBC have done with both the Daleks and the Cybermen in Doctor Who since 2005) after ‘The Best of Both Worlds’ and I was aware that Voyager featured them quite prominently in later seasons. Of course, with Seven of Nine a regular character (on her first appearance in her alcove, as a full Borg, I thought she was actually the Borg Queen) it would be clear that Borg-themed episodes would be prevalent.

Janeway’s audacious mission to steal a transwarp macguffin from a damaged Borg sphere is exactly the kind of thing I’d expect her to suggest.

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She’s by-the-book-Starfleet but puts Kirk to shame when looking at ways to get her crew home. I love this about her: she is a risk taker and has softened over the seasons to be more accepting that the Starfleet way isn’t always the best way. And so her plan is put into place. She’s a wonderful character and I really hope she has some form of presence in Patrick Stewart’s new series. She’s head and shoulders above Archer and Sisko and is a lovely cross between a passionate Kirk and a thoughtful Picard : she wrestles with her demons and the guilt of throwing her entire crew to the other side of the galaxy.

It makes sense that Seven wouldn’t be assigned to the Away Team for this mission and her conflict when she receives the internal communication from (yes) the Borg Queen is perfectly handled. Janeway initially won’t budge when Seven demands to be part of the mission to the sphere but soon relents when Seven argues her case. And so we know there’s a set up to a fall here.

Seven’s role is a nice counterpoint to the Queen’s use of Locutus and Data – she sees the benefit of a new voice in the Collective and in Seven’s case its what she has learnt as a human and what she can bring back to the Collective. That said, it does throw Borg logic up in the air: if they need a humanesque leader in the form of the Queen who in turn needs people like Locutus, Data and Seven to enhance her race’s power, then surely the Borg as they are must be flawed. That was something we were made aware of from only their second appearance (‘ The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1 ’), yet countering my own argument in the same paragraph, that surely shows that they are a race of cyborgs looking for perfection wherever they can? And I like that notion that ‘ Dark Frontier ’ presented. They are not out to assimilate, to survive, they are looking for utopia. It makes them more dangerous, because they are desperate, no matter how smoothly clinical the Borg Queen appears to be.

Star Trek First Contact Locutus and the Queen

The resolution was a little flat, however. A good solid 90-minutes of tense countdown action only to be concluded by the Borg Queen just standing there as Janeway and Seven do their worst (and Susanna Thompson makes a great villain, albeit not as charming and snake-like as Alice Krige…who I’m led to believe reprises the role later on [again, no spoilers, please!!!]). I have to ask though…is this the same Borg Queen? Or a clone? Does she have the memories of the one Picard destroyed?

And after this episode, I’m quite fond of Seven. Her history was reinforced here and it makes her a poignant and painfully sad character. She simply cannot move on from what the Borg turned her into. Her relationship with Janeway is not unlike a guardian and a ward, rather than her captain being a mother figure. That’s been there almost since the moment Seven stepped onboard Voyager and here we see the trust both women have in each other, and when that trust is tested, more kudos to Janeway for going back to launch a rescue anyway.

I have to say there are a handful of bizarre episodes I’ve experienced so far in my voyage with Voyager  (‘ The Thaw ‘ from Season 2 felt like it had been written and the sets designed for The Original Series ) but ‘ Dark Frontier ‘ really pushes the envelope in displaying the Borg and their effects on the societies they assimilate. Chilling stuff.

Related Story. The Sound of Star Trek Part 9: The Star Trek Voyager Soundtrack. light

So I’ve got just over two years worth of episodes left to go and I have a feeling I’m really going to miss Kathryn.

Dark Frontier Stardate: 52619.2 Original Airdate: 17 February 1999

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8 Alpha Quadrant Things Star Trek: Voyager Found In Delta Quadrant

• Star Trek: Voyager finds familiar things from the Alpha Quadrant in the Delta Quadrant, sparking important questions and connections.
• Encounter with Ferengi negotiators leads Voyager crew to stop their interference in a pre-warp civilization for profits.
• Janeway and crew discover humans abducted by aliens in the 1930s living in the Delta Quadrant, including Amelia Earhart.

For a show with the conceit of being so far from home, Star Trek: Voyager found a surprising number of things in the Delta Quadrant that originated in the Alpha Quadrant, including several from Earth itself. The USS Voyager, commanded by Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), and Commander Chakotay's (Robert Beltran) Maquis raider Val Jean were both brought to the Delta Quadrant in 2371 by the Caretaker (Basil Langton). After Janeway destroyed the Caretaker's array to save the Ocampa , Voyager and the Val Jean were left without a ticket back to the Alpha Quadrant, and banded together to make the long journey.

Finding something familiar in an otherwise totally alien corner of the galaxy brought a sense of familiarity to the USS Voyager crew and viewers at home alike, but the presence of something from the Alpha Quadrant in the Delta Quadrant inevitably raised important questions , like how familiar people and objects traveled 70,000 light years from home in the first place, and whether the find could lead Captain Kathryn Janeway towards a quicker path home to Earth.

Star Trek: Voyagers 20 Best Episodes Ranked

A pair of ferengi negotiators, arridor and kol, star trek: voyager season 3, episode 5 "false profits".

The USS Voyager encounters a pair of Ferengi negotiators, Arridor (Dan Shor) and Kol (Leslie Jordan), who claim to be the prophesied Great Sages of the Takarians, a society with Bronze Age level technology. The Ferengi have no Prime Directive to deter them from interfering with the Takarians' development , so they're performing "miracles" with a standard replicator to reap the monetary benefits of the Takarians' worship. Voyager's crew know the Ferengi reputation well enough to know they're no Sages, so they must figure out how to put a stop to Arridor and Kol's grift.

"False Profits" serves as a Star Trek sequel episode to Star Trek: The Next Generation season 3, episode 8 "The Price", as Voyager catches up with Arridor and Kol (formerly played by J. R. Quinonez) seven years after their Delta Quadrant arrival. The Ferengi took a test flight through the supposedly stable wormhole near Barzan II, which was supposed to emerge in the Gamma Quadrant, but instead stranded the Ferengi in the Delta Quadrant, where they made the best of their situation as only Ferengi can.

Star Trek: Voyager Season 3, Episode 23 "Distant Origin"

"Distant Origin" opens on Forra Gegen (Henry Woronicz), a scientist who discovers that his people, the Voth, share certain genetic similarities with the humans aboard the USS Voyager. While this confirms Gegen's theory that the Voth are the descendants of a species brought to their homeworld millions of years ago , religious leader Minister Odala (Concetta Tomei) refuses to accept the truth. Even with Commander Chakotay present as a living specimen of humanity, Odala pushes Gegen to recant, because Gegen's theory goes against the Voth Doctrine that keeps Odala in power.

After meeting Gegen's assistant, Tova Veer (Christopher Liam Moore), Janeway and the Doctor use the holodeck as a research guide to extrapolate how hadrosaurs might look in the 24th century if they'd been able to evolve into a humanoid form with comparable intelligence. The result resembles Veer, so Janeway and the Doctor conclude, like Gegen, that the Voth evolved from hadrosaurs into a highly advanced species on Earth , then fled to the Delta Quadrant in spacefaring vessels instead of being wiped out with the other dinosaurs.

The Friendship One Probe

Star trek: voyager season 7, episode 21 "friendship one".

By Star Trek: Voyager season 7 , the USS Voyager is in regular contact with Starfleet Command, and Starfleet gives Voyager a mission to retrieve a 21st-century Earth probe, Friendship One . The probe proves difficult to find, but once discovered on an alien planet suffering devastating climate collapse, the implications of Friendship One's launch become clear. Besides the irreversible damage to the planet's climate, the inhabitants are all suffering from radiation sickness, and bear understandable hostility towards Earth, because the aliens believe humans orchestrated their destruction with the Friendship One probe.

The United Earth Space Probe Agency was one of the early names for the organization the USS Enterprise belongs to in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode, "Charlie X".

Friendship One was launched in 2067 by the United Earth Space Probe Agency with the intention of making friends with whomever found it, as the name implies. Although Friendship One, the 400-year-old Earth probe, traveled for centuries carrying messages of peace, musical recordings, and ways to translate languages, the people who discovered Friendship One in the Delta Quadrant took a greater interest in the antimatter it used to travel across space. Without the proper knowledge of its use, antimatter proved devastating to the planet and its people, resulting in death and disease for generations.

Dreadnought, a Cardassian Missile

Star trek: voyager season 2, episode 17 "dreadnought".

The USS Voyager discovers a dangerously powerful, self-guided Cardassian missile in the Delta Quadrant, which Lt. B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) recognizes as one nicknamed "Dreadnought" . When B'Elanna was with the Maquis, Torres had actually reprogrammed the missile herself, with the intention of turning the Cardassians' own weapon against them. Without a Cardassian target in sight, the artificially intelligent Cardassian Dreadnought targets a heavily-populated Class-M planet , Rakosa V. B'Elanna determines she must be the one to keep Dreadnought from hurting anyone else, and boards the missile to convince it to stand down.

While no concrete reason is given for exactly how the Dreadnought wound up in the Delta Quadrant, its last known location in the Alpha Quadrant was the Badlands, the same rough patch of space where Voyager and the Val Jean, Chakotay's Maquis raider, fatefully met. Because of this, Torres theorizes that Dreadnought arrived in the Delta Quadrant the same way that Voyager and the Val Jean did , courtesy of the Caretaker.

Star Trek: Voyagers BElanna Is More Klingon Than TNGs Worf Ever Was

A klingon d-7 class cruiser, complete with klingons, star trek: voyager, season 7, episode 14 "prophecy".

The USS Voyager certainly never expected to find a Klingon ship in the Delta Quadrant, but more surprising is the fact that the crew of the Klingon D-7 Class Cruiser believes their savior, the prophesied kuvah'magh, is aboard Voyager . Janeway assures the Klingon captain, Kohlar (Wren T. Brown), that the Federation and Klingon Empire have been allies for the past 80 years, and offers Voyager's own half-Klingon, Lt. B'Elanna Torres, as proof their societies are working together now. The kuvah'magh is Torres' unborn daughter, who does save the Klingons, but not the way they expected.

Centuries ago, Kohlar's great-grandfather set off on a quest to find the kuvah'magh, and the Klingon D-7 Cruiser became a generation ship that is now crewed by the descendants of its original crew . The quest begun by Kohlar's great-grandfather brought Kohlar and his crew to the Delta Quadrant after four generations of searching. Whether B'Elanna's child is actually the kuvah'magh or not, Kohlar desperately wants the baby to be their savior, so that his people may finally rest.

Amelia Earhart

Star trek: voyager season 2, episode 1 "the 37s".

The discovery of a 1936 Ford truck, seemingly disconnected from any parent vehicle, leads the USS Voyager to a nearby Class-L planet, where they find eight humans who have been in cryo-stasis since they were abducted by aliens in the 1930s. Among them are one of Janeway's personal heroes, legendary American aviator Amelia Earhart (Sharon Lawrence) , who disappeared without a trace while attempting to fly around the world, and Earhart's navigator, Fred Noonan (David Graf). Earhart and the other preserved humans are known by the planet's inhabitants as "The 37s", and revered as sacred.

Originally thought to be aliens, the natives of the unnamed planet are the descendants of humans. A species called the Briori abducted the natives' ancestors, along with Earhart and the other 37s, from Earth centuries earlier , and took them to the Delta Quadrant. Once held as slaves, the humans who weren't in stasis revolted to free themselves from the Briori, and developed a thriving, Earth-like civilization in the Delta Quadrant. Voyager's crew consider staying with the humans in their little slice of home, while Janeway also offers a ride back to Earth to anyone who wants it, including Amelia Earhart.

The USS Equinox

Star trek: voyager season 5, episode 26 & season 6, episode 1 "equinox".

The crew of the USS Voyager believe they're the only Starfleet vessel in the Delta Quadrant until they find the USS Equinox, five years into their journey home. Captain Rudolph Ransom (John Savage) and the Equinox crew have had a harder time in the Delta Quadrant than Voyager, with more damage, fewer starting resources, and fewer opportunities to make friends along the way. Ransom's survival tactics include sacrificing innocent nucleogenic life forms for a more efficient form of fuel, which Janeway finds hard to stomach, and decides that Ransom needs to be held accountable for defying Federation ideals, regardless of how badly the Equinox is damaged.

Although Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) suggests that the Equinox might be in the Delta Quadrant on a rescue mission to find Voyager, the USS Equinox's specs don't fit the profile of a starship that would be assigned to a long-range mission. The explanation of how the Equinox arrived in the Delta Quadrant in the first place seems fairly simple, because Captain Ransom tells Janeway that the Equinox was also abducted by the Caretaker , just like Voyager, but the Equinox has only been in the Delta Quadrant for 2 years, and Janeway destroyed the Caretaker's array 5 years earlier.

Seven of Nine

Debuts in star trek: voyager season 4, episode 1 "scorpion, part 2".

When Captain Kathryn Janeway allies with the Borg in order to secure safe passage across Borg space, Janeway refuses the cursory assimilation that the Borg want to use to communicate with Janeway and Voyager's crew, and instead requests a speaker for the Borg, citing the existence of Locutus (Patrick Stewart) as precedent. Seven of Nine , Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01, is selected as the Borg drone to act as liaison between the Collective and Voyager, likely because Seven of Nine had once been a member of Species 5168, like most of Voyager's crew -- in other words, human.

Voyager season 5, episodes 15 & 16, "Dark Frontier" provides even more detail of the Hansens' fateful journey.

After Seven's link with the Collective is severed, more information about Seven's human origin comes to light. In Voyager season 4, episode 6 "The Raven", when Voyager nears the Hansens' ship, the USS Raven, memories of Seven's early life surface, revealing that Seven had been six-year-old human Annika Hansen , the daughter of Magnus Hansen (Kirk Baily) and Erin Hansen (Laura Stepp), Federation scientists who were studying the Borg when they were assimilated. Voyager season 5, episodes 15 & 16, "Dark Frontier" provides even more detail of the Hansens' fateful journey, showing the Raven arriving in the Delta Quadrant by following a Borg Cube through a transwarp conduit.

10 Ways USS Voyager Changed In Star Treks Delta Quadrant

Star Trek: Voyager links back to the greater Star Trek universe with people and starships from the Alpha Quadrant. Connections to the familiar were especially important early on, because Voyager 's place in the Star Trek franchise was established and aided by the legitimacy these finds offered. Later, when the USS Voyager used the Hirogen communications array to communicate with Starfleet Command, links back to the Alpha Quadrant were plentiful again, not only to prove that the USS Voyager was closer to home, but to help Star Trek: Voyager maintain connections to Star Trek and carry the franchise in its final years.

Star Trek: Voyager is available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Voyager

Cast Jennifer Lien, Garrett Wang, Tim Russ, Robert Duncan McNeill, Roxann Dawson, Robert Beltran, Kate Mulgrew, Jeri Ryan, Ethan Phillips, Robert Picardo

Release Date May 23, 1995

Genres Sci-Fi, Adventure

Network UPN

Streaming Service(s) Paramount+

Franchise(s) Star Trek

Writers Michael Piller, Rick Berman

Showrunner Kenneth Biller, Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, Brannon Braga

Rating TV-PG