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Star Trek: Picard  brought Seven of Nine's Borg children from Voyager back into the picture.  Picard reintroduced Icheb, one of the Borg children who Voyager rescued from a drifting cube, for one shocking scene. Icheb had not appeared in Star Trek since Voyager returned home, and Picard 's focus on former Borg like Seven of Nine and Hugh provided the perfect opportunity to show Icheb's fate. But while Seven of Nine and Icheb are back in the picture, the other ex-Borg children are still missing from the story and with Picard 's increasing focus on former Borg in the new series, they could still play into the story.

The Borg children were introduced in Voyager when a virus infected a Borg cube, killing the adult drones and leaving it adrift with only assimilated children alive. Icheb was among several Borg children rescued by the Voyager crew: Mezoti, twins Azan and Rebi, and an unnamed baby. Somewhat inevitably, Seven of Nine served as an adoptive mother for Icheb and the other Borg children as they adjusted to life as liberated drones and she had an additional Borg child, One, created in a transporter accident. Their stories so far have remained mostly untold, apart from Icheb's, which continued in Voyager as he had no ties to the Delta Quadrant and then came to a dramatic end before the events of  Picard .

Related:  Star Trek: Picard’s Seven of Nine Relationship Came From A Comic Con

Icheb is the only Borg child to return to Star Trek since Voyager 's end, with Picard confirming that he joined Starfleet as science officer on the USS Coleman, at the same time assisting the Fenris Rangers alongside Seven. Betrayed by double agent Bjayzl, he was fatally wounded and Seven was forced to end his life to stop his suffering. That may have been his end, but there are other ex-Borg children still out there. Their fates are more open-ended and open both to interpretation and expansion. And with Seven of Nine ascending in Picard to become the new leader of the ex-Borg, her other Borg children are potential loose ends that could be explored further in season 2 of Picard and beyond.

Mezoti, Azan, and Rebi took a different path from Icheb. Not long after the children joined the ship, Voyager ran into Azan and Rebi's people, the Wysanti and the twins returned to live with their own people in the Delta Quadrant. Voyager could not reach Mezoti's people, the Norcadians, so Mezoti also chose to join Azan and Rebi and live with the Wysanti. The unnamed baby was also returned to its people off-screen, since it had probably been assimilated close to the site of the Borg cube. Though there has been no word of these children since they departed Voyager, they are likely still living in the Delta Quadrant by the time of  Picard . However, if the ex-Borg plots in Picard expand outside of the Alpha Quadrant, Mezoti, Azan, and Rebi may not be out of the picture for good.  Voyager used Borg transwarp technology to return home , and the Borg have a strong presence in the Delta Quadrant. Fundamentally, any living ex-Borg in canon could still come into play as the story progresses, no matter where they live now.

Seven of Nine's other Borg child was the product of a transporter malfunction that combined Seven's Borg nanoprobes with the Doctor's 29th-century mobile emitter. The resulting drone, called One, accidentally caught the attention of a Borg sphere in his search for information about the Collective. One destroyed the Borg sphere for Voyager, but was injured in the process. He refused medical treatment, knowing that the Borg would hunt for his futuristic technology as long as he was alive. Given that he was killed, there is no clear way for One to return, but Voyager never addressed what happened to their information about this high-tech drone or even what happened to his remains. His centuries-advanced Borg technology could absolutely be considered a loose end in  Picard's conflicts with the Borg and synthetic civilizations .

With the tragic fates of Icheb and Hugh in the first season of Picard , Seven of Nine is now the only known ex-Borg left standing. However, there are an unknown number of remaining ex-Borg left over from Hugh's work, and Seven of Nine may pursue Star Trek's unfinished business with the Borg in upcoming seasons. Former Borg will likely be a mainstay of the show moving forward, so it makes sense that the show could return to themes already explored on that front in Voyager . And though it seems like Seven of Nine's Borg children are all written out of Star Trek for now, Icheb and Hugh may not be the last ex-Borg who make their return to Star Trek: Picard .

Next:  Star Trek Theory: Data's Daughter Dahj Is Alive & Will Be Picard Season 2's Villain

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Published Jul 27, 2022

Everything You Need to Know About the Borg Queen

Long live the Queen!

StarTrek.com

“I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many. I am the Borg.”

The central locus of the Borg Collective is the amoral Borg Queen . Through her, like the queen of an insect colony, the Hive mind is granted order and common direction.

As the Villain Showdown enter its fourth week, pitting the Borg Queen against Gul Dukat , we’ve put together this handy guide on everything you need to know about the Queen.

The One Who is Many

Throughout the history of the Borg Collective, there have been a number of Queens. Only one Queen exists at any given time; when she is destroyed, a new Queen takes her place. In Star Trek: Voyager, it's revealed that the Borg Queen isn't a singular entity, but the name given to any that serves as its host, possessing all previous Queen's collective consciousness.

The Borg , a fusion of organic and synthetic matter, and their relentless pursuit of perfection brought fear to all quadrants of the galaxy. Residing primarily at Unimatrix One in the Delta Quadrant , the Borg Queen is the only one able to think independently from the Collective; possessing a unique personality and sense of individuality — traits not seen within the Borg.

The first Borg Queen (Alice Krige) made her debut with Star Trek: First Contact (1996) as the Borg sought to erase a historical moment in Starfleet history— First Contact Day —traveling back in time to prevent the creation and need of the Federation .

In her lair, the Borg Queen remains disembodied with just her head and spinal column — the epitome of perfection — with no remnants of her humanoid form. When she leaves her home base for assimilation efforts, she will reassemble herself into a predominantly artificial body.

Your Culture Will Adapt to Service Us.

The Borg doesn’t value the Federation’s belief in individuality – its mission is to add others’ biological and technological distinctiveness to their own, strengthening the Collective in its pursuit of perfection. Defeating their opponents isn’t enough; they sought to assimilate their enemies’ minds and flesh.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard still endures residual trauma decades later following his assimilation into the Borg . As Locutus of the Borg, selected to be their voice to facilitate their introduction into human society, Picard believed he never fully regained himself after they striped away his humanity and sense of self.

There is No 'Me,' Only 'Us'

It is in Star Trek: Voyager where we learn that the Borg Queen, obsessed with power, didn’t create the Borg; she was just tasked with leading the Collective. The collective consciousness, where each drone is linked through the subspace network, allows for the Borg to adapt quickly and eliminate threats as they arise.

In the episode " Dark Frontier " of Star Trek: Voyager, the Borg Queen believes Seven of Nine 's presence is vital to their path forward in their approach to assimilate Earth, seeing value in Seven's knowledge of humanity. The Borg Queen tries to lure her back to the Collective by "allowing" her to remain an individual instead of reverting to a drone. The Queen's seduction involved telling Seven she's "unique," and her experience will add to their perfection. However, she can't be selfish and only think of just her individual self.

Resistance is Futile.

When a Borg Queen is destroyed, another Queen is propped up. Susanna Thompson portrays the Borg Queen in Star Trek: Voyager ’s two-parter, “ Dark Frontier ” and “ Unimatrix Zero .”

Most recently, the Borg Queen was played by Annie Wersching in Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard .

Secrets of the Borg Queen, The

Bringing Order to Chaos

In Star Trek: Picard , the Borg Queen is cut off from the Borg Collective due the actions of Q and a divergence in time. As a result, she becomes wholly and fully obsessed with Agnes Jurati.

Seen as the last of the Borg, instead of finding the Collective, she sets her sights on Agnes in hopes of building out a new Borg collective.

Star Trek: Picard - The Borg Queen Returns

Interested in learning more about the Borg Queen and her latest machinations, stream all episodes of Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard now!

Christine Dinh (she/her) is the managing editor for StarTrek.com. She’s traded the Multiverse for helming this Federation Starship.

Star Trek: Picard streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and is distributed concurrently by Paramount Global Distribution Group on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries and territories. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.

Stay tuned to StarTrek.com for more details! And be sure to follow @StarTrek on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram .

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• Cast & crew
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• Episode aired Feb 16, 2000

Several Borg children abduct Chakotay, Kim, Neelix and Paris. Several Borg children abduct Chakotay, Kim, Neelix and Paris. Several Borg children abduct Chakotay, Kim, Neelix and Paris.

• Allison Liddi-Brown
• Gene Roddenberry
• Rick Berman
• Michael Piller
• Kate Mulgrew
• Robert Beltran
• Roxann Dawson
• 11 User reviews
• 4 Critic reviews

• Capt. Kathryn Janeway

• Cmdr. Chakotay

• Lt. B'Elanna Torres

• Ensign Tom Paris

• Seven of Nine

• Ensign Harry Kim

• (as Marley S. McClean)

• Computer Voice

• (uncredited)

• Operations Division Officer

• Deceased Borg Drone
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia This episode was to have premiered on BBC Two in the United Kingdom at 6 o'clock on September 11, 2001. However, the broadcast was cancelled due to the BBC's in-depth coverage of the September 11th attacks. It was never broadcast on BBC Two as the following episode Spirit Folk (2000) was shown on September 18, 2001 as was originally intended.
• Goofs At about 31:46, Janeway asks Tuvok how long it has been since he lost contact with Kim, and Tuvok replies "Four or five minutes." It has been long established in the series that, as a Vulcan, Tuvok speaks precisely - a comment that vague is completely out of character for him.

Tuvok : They are contemptuous of authority, convinced that they are superior. Typical adolescent behavior, for any species.

• Connections Referenced in Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame (2001)
• Soundtracks Star Trek: Voyager - Main Title (uncredited) Written by Jerry Goldsmith Performed by Jay Chattaway

User reviews 11

• rsbluedragon
• Dec 20, 2019
• February 16, 2000 (United States)
• United States
• Official site
• Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA (Studio)
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• Runtime 44 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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The Entire Seven Of Nine Timeline Explained

For a character who joined the main cast in the fourth season of Star Trek: Voyager , Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) has since become a major icon in the Star Trek franchise. The former Borg drone has been compared to a "Spock"-type character for her outsider's perspective on human events or even a former cultist struggling to regain her individuality. Her form-fitting catsuit has also drawn criticism from some fans, who feel she was over-sexualized in her initial appearances.

While all of these perspectives offer insights into Seven's character, none of them paint a whole picture of a woman who first appears in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Scorpion, Part II," regains her humanity with the Voyager crew, and later evolves into a very different character on Star Trek: Picard. Seven has been a frightening cybernetic monster, a mother-figure, and even a vigilante action hero. She has striven to rediscover her humanity while helping others discover theirs, and has become the object of affection for many people (while struggling with relationships herself).

Clearly such a complex character has a rich history full of trauma and triumph. If you'd like to learn more about the woman who became so much more than just another Borg drone, here is Seven of Nine's entire timeline explained.

The exobiologists' daughter

While most people know her as Seven of Nine, Seven was born Annika Hansen in the year 2350 to exobiologists Magnus and Erin Hansen. In the Star Trek: Voyager season 5 episode "Dark Frontier," we learn that in 2356, Annika's parents took their young daughter on a deep space mission to study the cybernetic race of creatures known as the Borg.

Using the U.S.S. Raven , a small Starfleet vessel, the Hansens illegally cross the Romulan Neutral Zone in search of the Borg. They even follow a Borg cube through a transwarp corridor that takes them into the Delta Quadrant. By modifying their ship with special multi-adaptive shielding, the Hansens manage to remain undetected by the Borg and continue their studies. Annika's parents are also able to secretly beam aboard Borg cubes and even study unconscious drones up close and personal by transporting them onto their own vessel.

Unfortunately, the Hansens' recklessness finally catches up with them. A subspace particle storm disables their multi-adaptive shielding, allowing the Borg to detect them. In the season 4 episode "The Raven" we see the Borg eventually capture Annika and her parents, assimilating them into the Borg Collective. The U.S.S. Raven itself is damaged and left on a moon for eighteen years.

Growing up in Unimatrix Zero

While being assimilated by the Borg seemingly robs Annika of her childhood, we later learn that she receives a form of reprieve. In the Star Trek: Voyager season 6 episode "Unimatrix Zero," it's revealed that Annika is one of the rare people with a recessive genetic mutation that allows her to access the virtual Borg construct known as Unimatrix Zero. In contrast to the grim, mechanical world of the Borg, Unimatrix Zero is a very pleasant environment that resembles an idyllic garden.

Drones with the one-in-a-million mutation can enter this virtual reality whenever they regenerate or are kept in maturation chambers. Even better, the drones regain their lost memories and stolen individuality, allowing them to continue with some form of their lives. Annika gets to grow up in Unimatrix Zero over the next eighteen years during her regeneration cycles. She forms many friendships and even falls in love with a man named Axum.

Mercifully, the Borg drones forget everything they do in the real world whenever they come to Unimatrix Zero. This allows Annika to have a somewhat normal childhood and young adulthood without the emotional scars of her Borg activities.

Life as a Borg drone

In the real world, Annika's life as a Borg drone is anything but pleasant. After spending time in a Borg maturation chamber, Annika emerges rebuilt as a half-organic, half-mechanical being meant to assimilate other life forms into the Borg Collective. She is given the designation Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One and obeys the orders of the Borg Queen without question.

Over the next several years, Seven of Nine assists in the capture and assimilation of many alien species. As a member of the Borg Collective, she gains access to the knowledge of thousands of civilizations, making her smarter and more efficient. Unfortunately, she only uses this knowledge to continue assimilating other species.

In the Star Trek: Voyager season 6 episode "Survival Instinct," we learn that Seven of Nine had a chance to escape the Borg in the year 2368 when she and three other drones crash landed on a planet. This caused their link to the Collective to be severed and the drones to begin recovering their individuality.

However, this also caused Seven of Nine to revert back to the frightened child she was when she was first assimilated. Unwilling to become an individual after spending so much time in the Collective (and unable to access the personality she developed in Unimatrix Zero), Seven fused the drones into a miniature hive mind and let them be recaptured by the Borg.

Seven of Nine assists Voyager

In 2374, the Starfleet vessel U.S.S. Voyager attempts to make it through a section of Borg space in their efforts to return to the Alpha Quadrant after being stranded in the Delta Quadrant. Remarkably, they discover the Borg are battling an alien race known as Species 8472 which poses both a threat to the Borg Collective and the rest of the galaxy. Seeing an opportunity to protect her crew, Voyager's captain Kathryn Janeway ( Kate Mulgrew ) forges an alliance with the Borg by offering them the technology to create weapons against Species 8472. In exchange, the Borg seemingly give Voyager safe passage through their space.

The Borg attempt to temporarily link Janeway and her second officer Tuvok (Tim Russ) to their hive mind, but Janeway refuses to allow the procedure. Instead, she suggests the Borg provide Voyager with a representative to speak for the Collective. The Borg agree and assign the role to Seven of Nine. Seven assists in the creation of some new photon torpedoes modified with Borg nanoprobes. However, once the Borg win their battle, Seven attempts to assimilate the Voyager crew into the Collective.

In response, Janeway's first officer Chakotay (Robert Beltran) uses a neuro-transmitter to link with Seven, unlocking some of her human memories. This distracts Seven long enough for the crew to knock her unconscious. In the aftermath, Seven of Nine's link to the Collective is permanently severed and her human biology begins reasserting itself.

Seven of Nine joins Voyager

No longer a Borg drone but now a traumatized woman unable to reassert her individuality, Seven of Nine demands that Voyager return her to the Borg to be reassimilated. In the season 4 episode "The Gift," Janeway refuses and points out that Seven's reawakening human organics are rejecting many of her Borg implants. While Voyager 's holographic Doctor (Robert Picardo) is able to save her by removing most of her cybernetic components, Seven feels violated. She misses the voice of the Collective and attempts, unsuccessfully, to contact the Borg.

Although Seven of Nine considers Voyager 's crew hypocritical for claiming they want to give Seven back her freedom but denying her the choice to return to the Borg, she realizes she can't exist as an individual without help. Deciding that interacting with Captain Janeway and the Voyager crew may be the only way she can adapt to her new status, she agrees to work with Voyager .

Unknown to the Voyager crew, severing Seven of Nine's link to the Collective also eliminates her ability to return to Unimatrix Zero. As a result, the Annika Hansen who got to grow up in the virtual construct is essentially erased, although aspects of her memory and personality still exist in Seven of Nine.

Regaining her humanity

To help Seven of Nine adjust to her new individuality, the Doctor further modifies her appearance. Although he cannot remove all of her cybernetic components, he reveals in "The Gift” that he has extracted 82% of the implants, granting her an almost complete human appearance. He also stimulates her hair follicles and designs a silver catsuit to help her skin regenerate. As a result, Seven of Nine is now a very beautiful woman, although her personality remains cold and robotic.

Seven also retains vast knowledge from her time in the Borg Collective, making her an invaluable resource. However, her interpersonal skills are poor and after a short stint in Engineering in the season 4 episode "Day of Honor," she asks to be assigned to Astrometrics, a lab for stellar cartography where she maps and catalogues interstellar bodies. This means Seven works largely in solitude. She also needs to regenerate in an alcove located in one of Voyager 's cargo bays, further emphasizing her isolation.

However, Seven also makes attempts to look out for her crewmates and grow as an individual. When Voyager 's guide Neelix (Ethan Phillips) is fatally injured in the season 4 episode "Mortal Coil," Seven shows the Doctor how to use nanoprobes from her blood to revive him. And where she once considered the Borg a superior form of life, she begins realizing how traumatizing their actions are to others — including herself — as she experiences flashbacks of her own assimilation in "The Raven."

Seven of Nine and Captain Janeway

As the person who chose to have Seven of Nine remain on Voyager , Janeway feels responsible for encouraging Seven to embrace her individuality. As Seven's captain, however, Janeway often has to set limits when Seven's willful choices go against Starfleet regulations. This causes Seven to frequently call out Janeway on her contradictory stance, setting up a unique dynamic between the two women .

In the season 4 episode "Prey," Captain Janeway orders Seven to help a wounded member of Species 8472 escape a deadly Hirogen hunter. Instead, Seven beams both the hunter and his prey — an enemy of the Borg — onto the Hirogen ship. While Seven claims her actions helped save Voyager, Janeway revokes many of Seven's privileges on the starship for the ex-Borg's insubordination. In response, Seven points out that although Janeway claims she wants Seven to be an individual, she also punishes her when Seven doesn't comply with Janeway's point of view.

Despite this tension, Seven develops a great deal of respect for Captain Janeway, who in turn learns to place more trust in Seven. She even gives Seven command of Voyager in the season 4 episode "One" when the rest of the crew must go into stasis. They may not always see eye-to-eye, but both are willing to see the other's point of view and support each other.

Seven of Nine and the Doctor

From the beginning, Voyager 's holographic Doctor functions as a Pygmalion to Seven's Galatea . Just as the mythical sculptor Pygmalion crafted Galatea, his ideal woman, from clay, the Doctor is responsible for physically restructuring Seven from a Borg drone into a functioning human woman. He also assists in Seven's emotional development, even encouraging her to date people in the season 5 episode "Someone to Watch Over Me." And like Pygmalion, the Doctor develops romantic feelings for Seven of Nine but is crushed when she doesn't reciprocate.

Seven remains the Doctor's greatest flame and appears in many of his daydreams in the season 6 episode "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy." He also bases a character after her for his holo novel in "Author, Author." And while Seven never falls in love with the Doctor, she does consider him a close friend and regularly accepts his guidance and support.

Despite their lack of a romantic relationship, the Doctor and Seven technically become closer than most couples when the Doctor temporarily takes over Seven's body in the season 7 episode "Body and Soul." Being able to eat and feel like an organic being proves intoxicating for the Doctor, although Seven isn't thrilled when he becomes sexually aroused while in her form. Nevertheless, she understands his longing for physical sensation and later describes a meal for him so he can enjoy it vicariously.

Seven of Nine and Tuvok

While Seven develops relationships with almost all of the bridge crew, her friendship with Lieutenant Commander Tuvok is particularly striking. As one of the few Vulcans aboard Voyager, Tuvok possesses an outsider's perspective similar to Seven's. Seven also respects Tuvok's logic and honesty, leading the two to have many conversations about human customs and interpersonal relationships.

Although Vulcans are known to suppress their emotions, Tuvok and Seven become friends after Tuvok helps Seven deal with her emotional trauma when she experiences flashbacks to her assimilation in "The Raven." Later episodes show them exchanging views on attitudes toward death and participating in research missions together.

In the two-part season 4 storyline "Year of Hell," Tuvok is blinded while attempting to protect Seven from a torpedo explosion. In response, Seven devotes herself to helping Tuvok with his daily tasks, even offering to help him shave. While these events are erased when Voyager resets the timeline, they show how Seven can form very powerful connections with people she respects.

Seven the den mother

Despite her aloof reputation, Seven forms several attachments with children aboard Voyager and finds herself falling into the role of surrogate mother more than once. Naomi Wildman (Scarlett Pomers), the first child born on Voyager , is initially scared of Seven but later bonds with her in the season 5 episode "Infinite Regress" when Seven manifests personalities from past Borg victims, including a girl Naomi's age. Seven ends up mentoring Naomi and lets her know she thinks of Naomi as family.

Seven actually has a "son" with the Doctor in the season 5 episode "Drone," when her nanoprobes interact with the Doctor's mobile emitter and a hapless ensign's DNA. The combination results in a benevolent drone who calls himself "One" and sees Seven as a mother figure. Seven develops an attachment to One and is greatly distressed when he chooses to sacrifice himself to save Voyager .

However, Seven's closest relationship is with Icheb (Manu Intiraymi), a young man genetically engineered by his parents to possess a virus capable of killing the Borg. Intentionally given to the Borg to be assimilated, Icheb and five other young drones are found and adopted by Voyager . Seven assists all of them with readjusting to life as individuals and develops a particularly strong bond with Icheb, who donates his cortical node to save her life in the season 7 episode "Imperfection." By the Star Trek: Picard episode "Stardust City Rag," Seven openly states she sees Icheb as her son .

Return to the Borg

If any episode truly emphasizes how far Seven has come from her time as a Borg drone, it's the season 5 two-part story "Dark Frontier." Taking place in 2375, a year after being separated from the Borg Collective, the story has Seven come face-to-face with the Borg Queen herself. In a chilling revelation, Seven learns she was deliberately granted freedom by the Collective to develop a perspective that would help the Borg create a virus for assimilating humanity. The Queen actually tries to force Seven to help build the weapon along with other drones.

In contrast to how she was presented originally, Seven refuses to re-assimilate into the Borg, preferring to retain her individuality. She also shows compassion for the species the Borg attempts to assimilate and begs for their freedom. She even identifies herself by her human name — Annika Hansen — and is horrified when she sees her father, still alive, as a Borg drone.

Return to Unimatrix Zero

Seven experiences another powerful reunion in the season 6 episode "Unimatrix Zero." In 2377, three years after her liberation from the Borg Collective, Annika Hansen's lover Axum manages to reconnect with her and allow her to re-enter Unimatrix Zero. However, Seven can't access her old memories at first and doesn't remember she once had an entire life in the virtual construct.

Over the course of the two-episode storyline, Seven's original Annika Hansen personality appears to resurface. She remembers the names of old friends, appears as a fully human woman, and becomes noticeably more relaxed than her Seven of Nine persona. Although Axum doesn't disclose their former relationship, Seven eventually pieces together her lost memories and realizes she's still in love with him.

Voyager manages to liberate the Borg inhabitants of Unimatrix Zero although the crew's efforts end up destroying the virtual sanctuary. Tragically, Axum reveals his drone form is stationed in a remote sector of the Beta Quadrant, making a real-life reunion impossible. In the end, Seven manages to salvage more of her Annika Hansen persona, but loses the people she grew up with.

Possible future and romance

Seven's newfound interest in exploring human emotion leads her to pursue a serious romance with Voyager 's first officer, Commander Chakotay. Initially, Seven only interacts with a holographic simulation of Chakotay in the season 7 episode "Human Error." When her attempts to experience strong emotion cause a Borg implant in her brain to hurt her, she chooses to have surgery to remove the implant in the series finale, "Endgame," and begin dating the real Chakotay.

At one point in "Endgame," an older Admiral Janeway from an alternate future travels to the present and informs Captain Janeway that the Chakotay and Seven of Nine of her reality married while serving on Voyager. However, Seven dies on an away mission and when Voyager returns to Earth in 2394, Chakotay dies shortly after. By traveling to her past, Admiral Janeway is able to bring Voyager home by the year 2377, erasing her own timeline.

On his Instagram ,  Star Trek: Picard  showrunner Michael Chabon stated that the Seven and Chakotay relationship likely ended by 2399. Regardless, Seven's choice to have her emotion-limiting Borg implant removed may have allowed her to explore a fuller range of emotions, explaining how her personality dramatically changed by the events of Star Trek: Picard.

Return to the Alpha Quadrant

Returning home to Earth may have been Voyager' s main mission, but the homecoming comes with some major downsides for Seven of Nine. Although the Voyager crew accept Seven as one of the family, other worlds are less welcoming. People hold many prejudices against the Borg for the planets and people they destroyed. This extends to "xBs" or people like Seven who were liberated from the Borg Collective and are struggling to regain their lost individuality.

Fortunately, the xBs gain an ally in Hugh (Jonathan del Arco) a former Borg drone who regained his individuality in the season 5  Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "I Borg." By 2399, Hugh becomes a Federation citizen and the executive director of a Romulan Borg Reclamation Project. In the Star Trek: Picard episode "The End is the Beginning," Hugh reveals that the xBs are now the most despised people in the galaxy. By working with the  Romulans , who seek to profit off the xBs by removing their implants and learning from the technology, Hugh hopes the xBs can be treated with more humanity during their recovery. While Seven knows of Hugh, she does not work with him.

Joining the Fenris Rangers

Seven of Nine joins a vigilante organization in the Romulan Neutral Zone known as the Fenris Rangers. Operating in the largely lawless Quris sector in the Beta Quadrant, the Fenris Rangers soon find themselves overrun when a power vacuum attracts many smugglers and warlords to their territory. Her experiences (and her newfound ability to process more emotion) radically alter Seven's personality. No longer the uptight professional she was aboard Voyager , Seven now adopts a more sarcastic and edgy persona. She also abandons her famous catsuits and starts dressing in leather jackets and sweaters.

Seven receives an additional traumatic experience when she loses her "son" Icheb  (Casey King). After successfully enrolling in and graduating from Starfleet Academy, Icheb becomes a lieutenant assigned to the science vessel U.S.S. Coleman by 2386 . He also assists Seven and the Fenris Rangers by participating in reconnaissance missions for them. Unfortunately, one of the Rangers –- a friend of Seven's named Bjayzl –- is secretly a black-market dealer in Borg parts who sees an opportunity to profit off Icheb.

After learning of Icheb through Seven, Bjayzl lures Icheb into an ambush and transports him to a facility where his implants are forcibly removed, leaving him in agonizing pain. Seven tracks down Icheb and kills the doctor torturing him, but she's forced to fatally shoot Icheb to end his suffering. The experience scars Seven who feels less hopeful about the universe from that point on.

Meeting Jean-Luc Picard

By 2399, Seven is still working with the Fenris Rangers. In the Star Trek: Picard episode "Absolute Candor," she helps the ship La Sirena in a battle with a Romulan Bird-of-Prey and is beamed aboard the La Sirena when her ship is destroyed. Seven ends up meeting retired Admiral Jean-Luc Picard ( Patrick Stewart ), who was once assimilated into the Borg Collective himself. Now seeking to rescue Soji (Isa Briones), a synthetic woman from the Borg Reclamation Project, Picard asks for Seven's help in rescuing one of Soji's creators, Dr. Bruce Maddox (John Ales), who had been captured by Bjayzl (Necar Zadegan).

Seeing an opportunity to take her revenge on Bjayzl, Seven agrees to help Picard's crew. In the episode "Stardust City Rag," Seven lets herself be used as bait to draw out Bjayzl and helps Picard save Maddox. Shortly after, however, she beams down to Bjayzl's nightclub and vaporizes her former friend before shooting her way out through Bjayzl's security team.

Seven displays strong differences from her earlier persona. Where she once got drunk on a single glass of champagne in the Star Trek: Voyager season 5 episode "Timeless," by the time of Star Trek: Picard she downs an entire glass of bourbon in a single gulp. Despite her cavalier attitude, she admits she's still working on regaining her humanity "every damn day of my life."

The new Borg Queen

At the end of "Stardust City Rag," Seven leaves a communication chip with Picard, offering her help in case he ever needs a vigilante. In the episode "Broken Pieces," Picard's Romulan friend Elnor (Evan Evagora) uses the chip to contact Seven, who makes her way onto the Romulans' damaged Borg vessel — known as the Artifact — just in time to save his life. When the Romulans begin jettisoning the Borg drones into space and killing the xBs, Seven decides to save them by connecting herself to the drones in a mini-Collective, effectively transforming herself into a new Borg Queen.

The experience unnerves Seven, who fears she won't want to let the drones go once she re-experiences Borg life. However, she's able to resist temptation and disconnect everyone (including herself) from the new Collective once they take control of the Borg cube. Still realizing she has work to do, she directs the Artifact to follow Picard's crew to the planet Coppelius. She reunites with Picard and helps him contact Starfleet, but stays behind to help the xBs.

Joining a new crew

In the final scene of the Star Trek: Picard episode "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2," Seven of Nine apparently joins Picard's new crew aboard the La Sirena to wander the galaxy. She's also seen holding hands affectionately with Picard's former first officer, Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd). This, along with some hints about Seven's past relationship with Bjayzl, indicates that Seven of Nine may now identify herself as gay or bisexual.

Jeri Ryan has announced that she will return as Seven of Nine in season 2 of Star Trek: Picard. She also admited in her Twitter feed that she enjoys playing Seven more on Picard than she did on Voyager.  Seven's dramatic evolution from her original incarnation on Star Trek: Voyager to her present form on Star Trek: Picard indicates that this former Borg drone will continue to change in surprising ways as her story continues.

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Recap / Star Trek: Voyager S6 E19: "Child's Play"

Edit locked.

Contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents : The Brunali! See Tyke Bomb .
• A Day in the Limelight : For Icheb.
• Subverted. Janeway attempts this on Seven, accusing her of letting her own unresolved feelings for her parents cloud her judgement. Instead of being rattled, Seven just rolls with it, freely acknowledges the similarity, and but shoots back that by all outward appearances, the Brunali are just as unfit to raise children as the Hansens. Janeway, tellingly, doesn't really have a retort for this, and passes the burden of decision onto Icheb.
• Played straight when Icheb comes to the Doctor with extreme anxiety at the idea of leaving Voyager to live with a biological family he has no memory of. The Doctor pontificates about how much he can learn from a family and how much they can give to him that he couldn't get from the Voyager crew and that it's nothing to feel nervous about. Icheb: How would your programming respond if you were asked to live with strangers?
• Big Brother Instinct : Icheb makes it clear that he feels this for the other Borglings.
• Bioluminescence Is Cool : Janeway seems to like Mezoti's glowing ant colony.
• Call to Agriculture : Thanks to the attack by the Borg on the Brunali homeworld, this is what Icheb has to look forward to, a prospect he doesn't exactly find appealing.
• Dull Surprise : Icheb's parents greet their long-lost son with less emotion than a Vulcan. Compared to how animated they are at other times throughout the episode (such as their argument about whether or not to feed him back to the Borg), it's the first sign that something's up.
• Exact Words : Seven of Nine expresses her emotional reaction to the situation by telling his father that Icheb is "a unique individual." Leucon replies "He is. Getting him back is a miracle." Icheb really is one of a kind, being genetically engineered to poison Borg cubes, and having him returned means they can stave off Borg invasions for another several years.
• Foregone Conclusion : When Icheb beams off the ship at around 15 minutes remaining, you know something will happen to bring him back to Voyager .
• With a Borg transwarp conduit less than a light-year away from the Brunali, guess who shows up near the end.
• Leucon shows Icheb a genetic resequencing gizmo that they use to help grow crops. It turns out that they don't just use it on plants.
• Leucon also tells Icheb that he may have an aptitude for genetics. It doesn't take him long to start showing it.
• Seven is worried that Icheb might get re-assimilated by the Borg, which very nearly happens in the climax.
• Freudian Excuse : A justified example. Seven has perhaps the best reason possible for wanting Icheb away from a planet so close to a Borg transwarp conduit. While her past makes her overly judgemental, it also means she can recognize just how neglectful the Brunali are. Seven: Anyone who values their own goals over the safety of their children is irresponsible. Janeway: Are we talking about Icheb's parents, or yours ? Seven: Both. Janeway: It's not like you to admit to something like that. Seven: It would be naive for me to claim objectivity in this case. But I'm not prepared to return Icheb to parents who may be as careless as my own.
• From a Certain Point of View Seven: I'd like the data you've collected on Icheb's species so I can prepare him for re-assimilation. Janeway: Maybe we could refer to it as getting reacquainted with his family.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality : On the Voyager crew's side, consigning one's own child to a Fate Worse than Death is crossing a serious line, which is how Janeway and Seven react when Icheb's parents are revealed to have turned him into a Tyke Bomb against the Borg. On the Brunali's side, their tech level is borderline archaic except for their genetic sequencing and their planet is very close to a Borg transwarp conduit, and the Borg prioritize young and able lifeforms for assimilation, so applying a pathogen to children like Icheb and feeding them to the Borg is their only realistic means of survival. While the show naturally sides with Voyager 's point of view, the Brunali's dire situation is understandable. Leucon: We don't have particle weapons or powerful starships at our disposal. We're forced to use the only resource we have. Seven: Your children? Yifay: No. Our genetic expertise. Janeway: ( with dawning realization ) Icheb's not bait. He's a weapon. The first Cube that captured him was infected by a pathogen. Icheb was the carrier, wasn't he? Leucon: Every time we try to rebuild, begin to make progress, the Borg come and take it away from us.
• Hyperspeed Escape : Voyager warps away after blowing up part of the Borg sphere.
• When she finds that Leucon lied about how and when Icheb was assimilated, she wants to go down and ream the truth out of him. Janeway throttles her back a bit, but when she finds out about the Tyke Bombs , she goes ballistic as is justified (though channels it into fuel for the upcoming battle ).
• Despite Janeway's doubts about Seven's suspicions, the minute they learn Icheb is being used as a carrier for the virus, Janeway orders him rescued no matter the odds, even if it risks getting Voyager assimilated in the process. No one raises an objection .
• My Species, Right or Wrong : Icheb is not indignant about his being used as a Tyke Bomb , because the Brunali need to do all they can to fight the Borg.
• Properly Paranoid : Seven is horrified when she sees the flippant attitude Icheb's family has toward staying near Borg territory, which seemingly places them in unjustifiable danger instead of settling elsewhere. At first it looks like Seven is just projecting her frustration at her own criminally-neglectful parents, but it turns out that Icheb's parents are risking his health through more than sheer neglect.
• The Reveal : Icheb was the source of the pathogen that disabled his Borg Cube back in "Collective".
• Stating the Simple Solution : The Brunali point out that due to their limited resources the only strategy they have to combat the Borg is to genetically engineer Icheb into a Tyke Bomb to keep Borg Cubes from repeatedly harvesting their population for drones. Early in the episode, Seven points out the fact that they can simply move to another planet. When presented with this option, Icheb's father angrily insists that the Brunali love their home and will defend it no matter what, even though potentially settling on a planet not right outside of a Borg conduit would spare them the inhumanity of turning their children into living weapons.
• Through His Stomach : Icheb starts to warm up to his parents after a bite of Mom's home cooking.
• Tyke Bomb : It's not made clear if it's all of them, but the Brunali genetically engineer their children to infect and destroy Borg cubes, sending them out alone on baited transports. Icheb was one such child.
• Wham Line : "[Icheb] was on a ship last time." Since Leucon explicitly said that Icheb was assimilated on the planet, this is the first clue that his story is a lie.
• What the Hell, Hero? : Janeway chews Seven out for being excessively blunt and accusatory with Icheb's parents.
• You Can't Fight Fate : Icheb wonders if it's his destiny to only be a weapon. Mama Seven explains that he may choose to fight the Borg, but it will be his choice.
• Star Trek: Voyager S6 E18: "Ashes to Ashes"
• Recap/Star Trek: Voyager
• Star Trek Voyager S 6 E 20 Good Shepherd

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Star Trek: Voyager – Child’s Play (Review)

Interesting, isn’t it? What? With all their technology, their opportunity to explore the galaxy, the thing they want most is to get home.

A Trek away from the Stars .

Child’s Play is a fascinating episode of Star Trek: Voyager , in that it might be seen as a firm rejection of some of the show’s core conservatism.

Voyager has always been the most conservative of the Star Trek franchise, the series most likely to panic about gang violence for two whole seasons starting in Caretaker or to rail against immigration in Displaced or to voice its anxieties about refugees in Day of Honour . More than that, what are episodes like Remember or Distant Origin or Living Witness or Memorial but expressions of literal anxieties about the erosion of the certainty of history to postmodernism and moral relativism? At its core, Voyager is a series about nostalgia, about the yearning to recapture what once was, how the only journey is the journey home.

“Everything the light touches is your kingdom…”

Child’s Play is interesting as a firm rejection of the idea of the traditional family unit in favour of a more modern (and less rigidly defined) idea of a “found family.” It is a story about how a child’s best interests do not always lie with their biological parents, and about how some of the strongest and most loving bonds in a young person’s life can be forged by chance rather than biology. Child’s Play is essentially an ode to the kind of complicated family dynamics that were entering the mainstream at the turn of the millennium, a staunch defense of a liberal and inclusive definition of family.

More than that, the episode also seems to be making several very pointed jabs at Voyager ‘s traditionally conservative outlook.

“I want to be out there…”

To be fair to Child’s Play , the episode was produced in a very specific context. Many Star Trek episodes are directly inspired by contemporaneous political events, with the writers both seizing on the opportunity to be culturally relevant and simply drawing on the world around them as part of the weekly grind of producing a television series. The Enterprise Incident was famously inspired by the capture of the USS Pueblo by North Korean forces. Past Tense, Part I and Past Tense, Part II were inspired by proposed laws that would have criminalised the homeless in Los Angeles.

Even within Voyager , there is a strong sense that the writers were trying to engage with contemporary culture. Concerns about gang violence in Los Angeles informed the creation of the Kazon, and their development in episodes like State of Flux and Initiations . So it is no surprise that Child’s Play should be informed by one particular contemporaneous event. In November 1999, Elián González was brought to the United States by his mother . Elizabeth Brotons Rodríguez smuggled her son into the country on a raft from Cuba, dying in the attempt . The boy’s father sought his repatriation to Cuba .

There’s no place like drone.

Child’s Play was broadcast in March 2000, in the middle of this huge cultural controversy about whether Elián González should be allowed to remain in Florida or whether he should be returned to his biological father in Cuba. At the time that the episode aired, González was recounting stories about how dolphins had saved his life on the dangerous crossing by protecting him from sharks . He was also insisting that his mother had survived the crossing, but had simply lost her memory .

The case would develop on long after Child’s Play aired. The following month, González would be seized by armed agents of the Immigration and Naturalisation Service . In June, the courts would uphold the decision to return González to his father, to send him back to Cuba . He would be flown home at the end of the month . The controversy held the attention of the American public. In fact, it has been argued that Al Gore’s hedging position on the controversy may have cost him the presidential election, as the contest ultimately came down to a handful of votes in Florida .

Game theory.

The Elián González case was an interesting political moment. It was in some circles seen as an extension of the Pedro Pan initiative, whereby the United States had traditionally welcomed infant refugees from Cuba . The peculiarities of the United States’ relationship to Cuba, and the demographic base of the Republican Party meant that (generally speaking) conservatives wanted Gonzlez to be allowed to stay, while liberals wanted him to be repatriated . There is no small irony in how different this position is from the current status quo, with the Republican Party adopting a staunch anti-immigrant platform .

Surveys at the time suggested that Americans generally favoured González’s repatriation back to Cuba, and his reunion with his father . The incident has had a lasting political impact. It has been suggested that it helped to normalise relations between the United States and Cuba during the Obama administration . It has been suggested that the Cuban American community still holds the Clinton family to blame for the raid that took González away from his extended family in Miami . For his part, González has become one of the most outspoken proponents of the Cuban Revolution since his return home .

“Oh, don’t worry. We bought all of this wholesale off the Ba’ku.”

Discussing the episode with Cinefantastique , producer Kenneth Biller conceded that Child’s Play was undeniably informed by the basic details of the Elián González case:

That was maybe my favorite episode of the year. It turned out to be an episode about the Elian Gonzalez case, this Cuban kid who is in America. Does he go back to Cuba where he doesn’t have all of the creature comforts and all of the opportunities that America affords him? Once we got these Borg kids on the ship, we started developing this relationship that Seven has with these kids. The idea that she had bonded maternally with them created an opportunity to explore another aspect of her character and her humanity, her sense of protectiveness over these kids, and her attitude that this kid was much better off staying with her than going back with his parents. It allowed us to dig into and explore some of those issues about what’s really important for a kid’s development. Is it just parental love, or is it more than that?

This makes a great deal of sense. In some respects, Child’s Play is an inevitable extension of the basic premise of Collective , the logical extension of the episode’s central story beat. If Collective was about the crew rescuing these abandoned drones, then Child’s Play is about taking one of them home.

The third season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud looks to be a corker. (FX/Fox.)

In some ways, this might be seen as a quintessentially American story. The Star Trek franchise has always been rooted in American iconography and mythology, right down to the emphasis on the “final frontier” as the logical (and infinite) extension of the same frontier that was foundational to American cultural identity. More specifically, the original Star Trek might be seen as an extrapolation of the limitless perceived potential of John F. Kennedy’s “Camelot” , extended into the distant future. Even Voyager could be seen as a prism through which the audience might examine America during the nineties.

This is true of most of the Star Trek series. Star Trek: The Next Generation captures a lot of the mood and tone of the later Reagan years and the Bush era. Star Trek: Enterprise is very much about exploring what it means to be a Star Trek series during the War on Terror. Even JJ Abrams’ Star Trek speaks to the uncertainties of the Obama era, just as much much as Star Trek: Discovery is informed by the realities of the Trump era. Star Trek can be seen as something akin to an American fairy tale, a science-fiction mirror which reflects American self-image.

Bad Sheppard.

In Drones, Clones, and Alpha Babes , Diana M. A. Relke argues that the story told in Collective and Child’s Play is a story firmly rooted in American cultural identity:

Star Trek’s writers – like most writers of popular television series – are skilled at producing narratives that appeal to viewers across the spectrum of public opinion, and are thus quite fearless in taking on themes from current affairs. Perhaps the most melodramatic detail in the media construction of the Elian Gonzales saga was the representation of Elian as a motherless child – a boy whose mother had sacrificed her life to deliver her son from the evil of communist oppression to the land of liberty, where his individuality could flourish. This is a variation on a popular theme in American cultural mythology, and the theme upon which the liberation of the Borg children plays.

Although undoubtedly inspired by the headlines generated by the Elián González case, the story of Icheb in Collective and Child’s Play seems to hint at something much more primal.

Collective concerns.

The story of the Borg children in Collective and Child’s Play is perhaps an example of a particularly broad cultural myth, the very American idea that a person’s fate or destiny is not predetermined by their family history or their point of origin . The American Dream suggests that the United States is a country where anybody can accomplish anything, if they have enough intelligence and commitment . This is especially true of people who come to America as children, as many immigrants arrived on Ellis Island . Perhaps the most iconic invocation of this myth remains Vito’s arrival in The Godfather, Part II .

Child’s Play even makes a point to stress how exceptional Icheb is. The opening scene has Icheb dazzle the senior staff with his submission to the ship’s first annual science fair, “a high-resolution gravimetric sensor array” that will “augment [Voyager’s] ability to scan for the neutrino flux associated with wormholes. It could help Voyager find a faster way home.” Later on, Icheb idly increases “the resolution of the long range scanners” to get a better look at a passing nebula. Seven is quite clearly correct when she tells Janeway that “the boy has a unique talent.”

“Well, the inhabitants of Fair Haven will be impressed.”

However, the relationship between Icheb and Voyager is very much a two-way street. Not only does Icheb enrich Voyager with his big ideas and his radical concepts, but Voyager affords Icheb opportunities that he might never otherwise have had. “When I was on the Cube, I never thought about what was outside,” he confesses to Seven of Nine early in the episode. “Pulsars, quasars, nebulas. But here in this lab, I feel I can see the entire galaxy.” The relationship between Icheb and Voyager is similar to the romanticised relationship between immigrants and America; those who bring innovation to a society that offers opportunity.

There is something genuinely moving in all of this, something very much in the spirit of Star Trek . One of the fundamental underlying assumptions of the Star Trek franchise is that people are fundamentally decent and capable of incredible things; when adversity is removed, when hunger is eliminated, when materialism is transcended, people will simply work for the betterment of themselves and of others. It is a powerful aspiration, but one which resonates with American self-image.

“Well, ‘Captain Janeway Day’ seemed a little narcissistic.”

The basic premise of Child’s Play is a great example of Voyager doing archetypal and quintessential Star Trek , offering a humanist and optimistic vision of the future through allegory and metaphor. Child’s Play is the story of a child who is allowed to do more than simply look up at the stars and wonder, but instead afforded the opportunity to wander amongst them and to develop to his full potential. (It is telling, for example, that Seven’s parting gift to Icheb includes a telescope, acknowledging his connection to and curiousity about the limitless potential suggested by the sky above.)

At the same time, there is something more interesting happening within Child’s Play . At its core, the episode is a meditation on family, and tells a story about the conflict between found family and biological family. It reflects the fact that contemporary family units were not always as neat and tidy as they might seem, essentially positioning Seven of Nine as a single adoptive mother in a custody battle with Icheb’s abusive biological parents. It is an interesting example of Voyager grappling with a contemporary anxiety, in large part because it is consciously framed as a criticism of Voyager ‘s conservatism.

Family misfortunes.

Over the past few decades, ideas about the nature of family have changed dramatically. Popular culture has increasingly come to terms with the idea that the traditional heterosexual nuclear family cemented in the parents’ first marriage is not the only possible family unit. As Bruce Horovitz has argued :

Whatever a traditional family used to be, it is no longer. One in 12 married couples in the U.S. are interracial. American women now make up 40% of primary family breadwinners. And only 62% of children live with their two biological parents.

There are other statistical indicators of how much the archetypal family has changed in recent decades. Cohabitation has doubled in the two decades since 1990 . In the United States, more than forty percent of births are to unmarried mothers . Britain has seen a significant increase in mixed race couples and parents .

Feels like… going home.

To be fair, earlier Star Trek shows had touched on these unconventional family units. Spock was the product of a marriage between a Vulcan and a human. Worf had been raised by humans, with a human foster brother. Worf had a child outside of marriage, who was subsequently raised by his own foster parents. This is to say nothing of episodes like Suddenly Human , in which Picard was asked to legislate on the fate of a human who had been discovered and raised by an alien culture, and whose human relatives sought his return.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine also demonstrated relatively liberal and progressive ideas of what a family could be. Benjamin Sisko was a widower and a single father for most of the run, finally marrying for a second time in ‘Til Death Do Us Part . Nog was raised by his father and by his uncle, his mother only mentioned in passing and his father remarrying in Call to Arms . Worf married Dax in You Are Cordially Invited… , with his son by K’Ehleyr serving as part of the marriage party. Kira Nerys became an impromptu surrogate for Miles and Keiko O’Brien in Body Parts , creating a strong bond with the child Kirayoshi.

Going by the book.

In fact, by the late nineties, the notion of “family” had evolved to such a degree that more traditional frameworks increasingly seemed outdated and outmoded for articulating and expressing familial bonds. In 1997, author Carol Hurst warned about the delicacy of constructing family trees with young children in the classroom :

While constructing them does make for a good exploration of the subject for kids who are living with or have connections to blood relatives, it’s a very different thing indeed for some adopted children, for those in foster care or for many others whose sensitivity on the subject may be less apparent. Modern family trees can include nonblood relatives and be a map of all kinds of important people in children’s lives. In fact, this whole theme should be explored with utmost sensitivity for we travel on hazardous ground. You may want to start by having students discuss, with an aim toward defining, family. Just what it is that makes a family? Are there necessary basic components? Do you need parents and children for family? Is a home a requirement? Can you be a homeless family? Is blood relation necessary? Do you have to live together to be a family? Do you need to live together all the time? Has the concept of family changed over the years? Is the concept of family different in different cultures? Since the answers to those questions are more or less self evident, you can start listing various family components encountered by students in real life or in books.

It is an interesting demonstration of the seismic shifts taking place in American and European culture during the last decade of the twentieth century, a reflection on how long-standing social institutions were changing and evolving to reflect the times. These discussion about something as simple as a family tree illustrate how profound these changes were.

Luring in their quarry.

Indeed, these changes has permeated American society to such a degree that it was possible to actually talk about them with children, to normalise these unconventional bonds and to encourage children to define family in their own terms. As Lynette Holloway noted in 1999 :

With many families of the 1990’s no longer fitting the nuclear family model of the 1950’s, teachers like Ms. Chu are rearranging lesson plans and redrawing assignments long regarded as staples of the classroom. The revisions reflect the growing diversity of their schools, which include children from families created through international adoptions, children of gay parents and those born through advanced reproductive technology, those in families broken apart by divorce and rebuilt with stepparents and stepsiblings, and children raised by relatives or foster parents.

The most entrenched and problematic of these assignments, teachers, school administrators and psychologists said, is the classic family tree, which requires pupils to trace maternal and paternal ancestral lines. How the family tree became such a mainstay in schools is unclear. Some educators said it had its roots in the 1950’s, when two-parent households embodied the ideal postwar American family. And the television miniseries Roots in the 1970’s raised the consciousness of Americans, especially black Americans, about tracing one’s family history. Some educators have reacted to the evolving family constellations by scrapping the family tree altogether, while others, like Ms. Chu, have modified it. Teachers now assign family time lines, family orchards and essays that give children more freedom in telling their personal histories.

All of this suggests a more open and inclusive society, one less rooted in archetypal depictions of so-described “normal” American families and more willing to accept individuals from domestic situations that do not conform to expectations.

Injecting the dejected.

Popular culture has always been about families, to a certain extent. The Star Wars saga may have resonated so skillfully with a generation of young men because it spoke to the reconciliation between a father and his son at a time of real-world generational turbulence in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam . Steven Spielberg’s films tended to focus on the dissolution of the traditional family, perhaps speaking to a generation defined by the legalisation of divorce . The family sitcom is an American cultural institution for a reason .

However, during the early years of the twenty-first century, there were clear changes in how popular culture approached the idea of family. The idea of unconventional and found families was reflected in mainstream hits on both the big and small screens; Modern Family is perhaps the most obvious example, it also one of the latest. Films like Guardians of the Galaxy , Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 and Deadpool 2 are very much anchored in the idea of family as a bond created rather than predetermined.

Naomi was so concerned with weather she could, she never stopped to think about weather she should.

Producer Troy Craig Poon argued that the Fast & Furious spoke to that same yearning for family within the popular psyche, contending, “I think what people resonate with in The Fast and the Furious is these characters become a family, an unconventional family. People from around the world can’t wait to see this non-traditional family come together.” It is telling that one of the big (and controversial) revelations in Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi was that its central character’s fate was not determined by a dramatic reveal of her parents’ identity.

Child’s Play arrived at a point where popular culture was still wrestling with these questions of what it meant to be a family, and when those matters had not yet been resolved. As a result, there is an interesting tension within the episode when Voyager manages to establish contact with Icheb’s biological parents, Yicef and Leucon. Naturally, Yicef and Leucon want to reconnect with their child and welcome him home. Both Seven and Icheb are initially skeptical of Yicef and Leucon, wary about whether returning home to be with his biological parents is the best thing for the young drone.

One of three.

A traditional and conservative approach would assert that Icheb should be reunited with his parents, that he deserves a traditional nuclear family and that Seven cannot possibly offer the same stability and support that Yicef and Leucon might. Indeed, there was even a subplot within Ashes to Ashes involving the children, in which Seven conceded that she was struggling to deal with the obligations and responsibilities of serving as a guardian to four young recently-liberated drones. Voyager is nothing if not conservative, so there is a sense that the scales are weighted in that direction.

Indeed, even the relatively episodic nature of Voyager would seem to support the argument that Icheb should be returned to his people. After all, Voyager has never been particularly good at hanging on to supporting or recurring cast members for the long haul. Sending Icheb back to his home planet would allow the series to forget about the character, as it had forgotten about Vorik or Carey or Baxter. In fact, Ashes to Ashes had already demonstrated the appeal of such an ending, with a one-shot guest character leaving the ship to live with a bunch of vaguely creepy death aliens.

That warm glow.

Child’s Play very cleverly and very cannily plays with this expectation, understanding that Voyager is the sort of television show that leans into traditional and conservative values. After all, the series was decidedly reactionary in its attitudes towards immigration in Displaced and refugees in Day of Honour . From the outset, it is made very clear that overwhelming majority of the primary cast think that Icheb should be repatriated. It is not even a debate. It is not a matter of discussion. It is not an issue on which Icheb is consulted. From the opening scenes of Child’s Play , it is made clear that Icheb is going home .

When Janeway calls Seven out for criticising Yicef and Leucon, Seven responds, “That doesn’t alter the fact that those individuals may not be suitable guardians.” Seven’s point is entirely valid. Even before the crew become aware of the details of what exactly happened to Icheb, it is very clear that Yicef and Leucon allowed him to be abducted and assimilated by the Borg. However, Janeway will not hear the argument. For her, the morality of the situation is clear. “Those individuals are his mother and father.” Their biological bond trumps everything.

“What a totally non-ominous line on which to close an act.”

It isn’t just Janeway, to be clear. On of the act breaks finds Neelix looking on the family reunion with a smile, declaring, “Nice to see the family back together again, isn’t it?” The music sting and the fade to black put an ironic twist on the beat, even allowing for Seven’s mixed feelings. The EMH is similarly effusive about Icheb’s opportunity to reunited with his biological parents. “Your parents can nurture you in ways this crew can’t,” he promises Icheb. “They can explain the Brunali culture, share their experiences with you.”

Of course, both Seven of Nine and Icheb are skeptical of the crew’s eagerness to reunite him with his biological parents, with Icheb even pointing out the absurdity of the EMH towing the party line on this matter. “You didn’t have parents,” Icheb states. The EMH doesn’t have a response, awkwardly flubbing, “No, but–“ Icheb presses the point, “You adapted to serve a vital function about this vessel, forged relationships with its crew, all without the benefit of parents.” Icheb is entirely correct in this matter.

All the best holograms have daddy issues.

Similarly, Seven questions Yicef and Leucon’s ability to care for Icheb, both in a literal sense and in a broader spiritual sense. “Will he be able to continue his studies in astrometrics and spatial harmonics?” Seven asks. Leucon responds, “If Icheb has an aptitude for science, I’m sure he’ll find that we have a great deal to teach him.” He elaborates, “We’ve developed sophisticated techniques in agricultural genetics which allow us to grow crops in an inhospitable environment.” Seven bluntly replies, “Icheb has expressed no interest in agriculture.”

More than that, Seven points out the dangers of trying to raise a child in the shadow of a Borg transwarp hub. “There’s still the issue of his safety,” she presses. “We’re perfectly capable of protecting our son,” Yifay insists. Seven continues, “Your proximity to a Borg conduit makes you extremely vulnerable. I’m curious if you’ve ever considered relocating.” Leucon answers, “No, it’s all right, Captain. This planet is our home. We will never leave it. We will defend it against the Borg or anyone else who threatens us.” Seven quite rightly responds, “Your courage is admirable but unrealistic.”

Look up to the sky and see…

It is inevitably revealed that Yifay and Leucon are more than just incompetent parents. They are bad parents, who weaponised their son and used him to attack the Borg. They abandoned Icheb to the Borg Collective in an effort to protect their colony, in a move that they considered to be for the greater good. Yifay and Leucon might be Icheb’s biological parents, but they are also monstrous. They are both incapable and unwilling to provide the emotional support and physical protection that the teenager needs.

One of the more subtle and interesting choices in Child’s Play is the reveal that Yicef is the driving force behind the plan to weaponise Icheb. Leucon has a much larger role early in the story, negotiating more often with Janeway and Seven before offering Icheb a tour of the make-shift settlement. However, once Icheb has decided to remain with his parents, it quickly becomes clear that Yicef is the character making the most important decisions regarding the use of her son to attack the Borg Collective.

The mother of all messed-up parents.

“The longer we wait the harder it’ll be for everyone,” Yicef tells her husband, who seems to be wavering. “You know that.” Leucon responds, “Why do it at all? There’s nothing compelling us to go through with it.” Yicef has no such compunctions. “It’s what he was born for,” she simply states. “Leucon, his return was a gift. We can’t waste it.” Leucon emotionally replies, “I don’t want to lose him a second time.” Yifay is cold and pragmatic. “To survive, we all have to make sacrifices,” she assures her partner.

This emphasis on Yicef is interesting in a number of ways. Most broadly, it subverts the gendered assumption of women (and mothers in particular) as excessively emotional and maternal, with Leucon portrayed as both more nurturing and more sensitive towards Icheb. That said, there is the possibility that Yicef could be read as a sexist stereotype as manipulative and deceitful woman, the broad “Lady Macbeth” archetype. However, Child’s Play narrowly avoids embracing that crude caricature by contextualising Yicef within Voyager ‘s recurring fascination with motherhood.

The primary relationships within Voyager are maternal rather than paternal. There are important paternal relationships within the cast, but they tend to be secondary; Tom Paris’ difficult relationship with his father is somewhat marginalised outside of episodes like Persistence of Vision or Message in a Bottle , while the EMH’s relationship with Lewis Zimmerman only comes into focus in Life Line . However, the female-centric relationships are stronger; Janeway and Seven, Naomi and Seven, Seven and Icheb. Even Torres’ potential motherhood is given more focus than Paris’ relationship to potential fatherhood.

This is in contrast to The Next Generation , which places a much heavier emphasis on male relationships. The primary familial relationships with the major characters on The Next Generation tend to be male-driven: Picard with his brother and nephew, not to mention his potential son in Bloodlines ; Riker with his father in The Icarus Factor and with his transporter twin in Second Chances ; Data with his human creator and his android brother; Worf with his deceased Klingon father, his Klingon brother and even his human foster brother in Homeward . Even Wesley’s strongest relationship is with Picard more than Beverly.

Mommy knows best.

In Drones, Clones, and Alpha Babes , Diana M. A. Relke suggests that this is a fundamental difference between Voyager and The Next Generation :

A psychoanalytic critic would probably make a pretty good case for Voyager as the pre-oedipal Star Trek. And if Voyager is the pre-oedipal Trek, then The Next Generation is definitely the post-oedipal. Unlike TNG, which favours relationships among fathers, sons, and brothers – biological, spiritual, or technological, and almost always oedipal in their dynamics – Voyager prefers explorations of relationships based on the mother-daughter model.

It is an interesting distinction, and the characterisation of Yicef can be best understood in this context.

Parent and accounted for.

Indeed, the characterisation of Yicef reinforces the parallels between Child’s Play and Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II . Although Voyager is rarely interested in continuity, Child’s Play is interesting because it is both a sequel to Collective earlier in the sixth season and a story that exists in pointed conversation with Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II from the fifth season. This is particularly impressive, given an obvious continuity misstep when Seven asserts that she never saw her parents after they were assimilated, despite being confronted with her father in Dark Frontier, Part II .

Nevertheless, Child’s Play may be understood as an echo or repetition of Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II . This is true even in terms of big set pieces. Dark Frontier, Part I opened with Voyager under attack by a Borg ship, with the crew cleverly beaming a torpedo on board the ship in order to catch the Borg off-guard. The climax of Child’s Play consciously evokes that sequence, with Voyager employing a similar gambit to outwit a more powerful Borg opponent; this time, they borrow a trick from the Brunali, beaming the torpedo on board a ship that is being taken into the Borg ship.

Appreciating the gravity of the situation.

However, the strongest parallels are thematic. Michelle Erica Green has described the conflict between the Janeway and the Borg Queen over Seven of Nine in Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II as a tale of “warring matriarchies” , competing visions of motherhood. Child’s Play suggests the next generation of this particular conflict, with Seven and Yicef engaged in a tug of war over Icheb. This explains why Yicef is revealed as the driving force behind the monstrous Brunali plan, and also creates a nice sense of progress to Seven’s character arc. Seven has become a mother, in her own way.

However, Child’s Play also engages with Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II in ways that feel like gentle criticism of Voyager ‘s outlook. In Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II , Janeway effectively ordered Seven of Nine to read the recovered logs from her parents’ anthropological study of the Borg. Seven correctly pointed out that Erika and Magnus Hansen both recklessly endangered their daughter in pursuit of scientific glory, but Janeway refused to accept the argument. Janeway contended that this exercise was a necessary part of Seven’s journey towards humanity.

How messed up is this? It’s off the star charts.

Janeway argued that Seven needed to reconnect with her biological parents in Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II , just as she argues that Icheb needs to return home to his biological parents in Child’s Play . However, Child’s Play is willing to challenge Janeway on this point. While Seven’s efforts to reconnect with her parents in Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II lead to a deeper understanding of them, with Janeway even employing some of their techniques during both the heist in the first part and the rescue in the second. However, returning Icheb home in Child’s Play almost leads to tragedy.

Child’s Play feels like a firm rejection of the conservatism at the heart of Voyager . It is an episode that allows Seven to reject Janeway’s perspective, and to make her own decision. To be fair, this isn’t the only time that this has happened, but it does mark something of a departure. While Prey treated Seven’s decision to surrender the wounded member of Species 8472 to the Hirogen as ambiguous, and treated her decision to surrender herself to the Borg in  Dark Frontier, Part I as unnecessary, Child’s Play suggests Seven’s criticisms of Janeway’s decision is entirely justified.

The Borg’s Queen.

More than that, Child’s Play allows both Seven and Icheb to realise that it is entirely reasonable (and entirely fair) for children to hate their parents. It is a candid acknowledgement that familial love is not unconditional and unequivocal. One of the smarter character beats within Child’s Play ties back to Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II , acknowledging that Seven’s difficulty coming to terms with Icheb’s departure is a relegislation of her troubled relationship with her own parents.

“Anyone who values their own goals over the safety of their children is irresponsible,” Seven states, simply. Janeway responds, “Are we talking about Icheb’s parents, or yours?” Seven admits, “Both.” This is fantastic psychological storytelling, the kind of character-driven narrative beat that is relatively rare on  Voyager . Indeed, it suggests a level of nuance and complexity more common on  Deep Space Nine ; think about the lies that Garak weaves in  The Wire , the manner in which Garak projects on to Bashir in  Our Man Bashir , the way Kira is forced to confront her father’s death through a similar situation in  Ties of Blood and Water .

It’s hip to be square.

To be fair to Voyager , the series has told these kinds of stories before. Part of what made Gravity and Counterpoint such fantastic episodes of television, and among the very best that Voyager ever produced, was a willingness to internalise the struggle of the focal characters. Child’s Play is nominally a story about Icheb, who is a recurring guest character. However, it is also a story about Seven of Nine and her troubled relationship with her own parents. There is an elegance in this storytelling, and a strange beauty in approaching Seven’s character in a relatively oblique manner.

Child’s Play allows Seven and Icheb to reject the oft-cited argument that love must be the cornerstone of every nuclear family, and that every parent wants (and can provide) what is best for their child. This is an outdated and traditionalist approach to the idea of family, one that discounts those families that are found and created, the more resilient bonds that can be formed from the elements of other dissolved and broken family units. Of course, some (and indeed most) biological parents want (and can provide) what is best for their child, but there is no shame in admitting that this is not always the case.

A lesson learned better assimi-late than never.

In the final scene between Seven and Icheb, Seven effectively assures the young man that it is perfectly acceptable for him to hate his parents for what they did to him. “My parents made microgenetic alterations so I would produce the pathogen,” he muses, examining his DNA. “Quite ingenious.” Seven responds, “It’s also barbaric.” Icheb tries to justify their abuse. “They were trying to defend themselves, their way of life,” he argues. “Preserve their species.” Seven explains, “I know how difficult it is to acknowledge your parents’ faults, but what they did was wrong. You don’t have to forgive them.”

This is a grim note, but a candid one. It avoids trite sentimentality for brutal honest. Many people are lucky enough to grown up with biological parents who love them and provide for them, who want what is best and who make sacrifices to protect them. However, there are also children who do not experience that love from their biological parents, who might be lucky enough to find it in an unconventional family unit. To argue the notion of family is directly intertwined with biology is to invalidate and undercut those experiences.

Looks like somebody needs some spiritual healing.

There is something quietly reassuring in how Child’s Play accepts and embraces this fact, and also how the episode plays as a critique of the more conservative impulses nestled within the heart of Voyager . Janeway, Neelix and the EMH are all subscribing to an outdated notion of family that preferences genealogy over love, that suggests that DNA is the gel that holds a family unit together. Not only does Child’s Play argue that they are wrong, it also allows Icheb and Seven to call them out on this. It is a genuinely provocative episode of Voyager .

In this context, there might also be something just a little bit acidic in one of the smaller scenes between Leucon and Icheb. Staring up at the stars together, Leucon reflects on the most “interesting” aspect of the crew’s journey, how despite the “opportunity to explore the galaxy, the thing they want most is to get home.” In the context of the scene, it seems like Leucon is making an argument for Icheb to come home and to reconnect with his own biological family, suggesting that the urge to return to the familiar is universal and overwhelming. It is earnest and sickly sweet, like Janeway’s commitment to repatriating Icheb.

It’s not (settle)ment to be.

However, given the subsequent revelations about what Yicef and Leucon plan to do with Icheb, that short scene becomes a lot more pointed. Leucon was effectively able to weaponise the crew’s conservatism for his own ends, to exploit their prioritisation of the journey home by asserting his right to Icheb. Child’s Play makes a point that the urge to return home is inherently dangerous, that nostalgia can be weaponised, and that these sorts of vague heartwarming sentiments can conceal something truly horrific.

It is worth considering Child’s Play from Icheb’s perspective. Icheb wants to stay of Voyager and wants to continue venturing into the unknown. Icheb wants to experience new things, and wants to explore parts of the galaxy that are unknown to him. While Janeway is going home to Earth, Icheb is instead going somewhere new and exciting. However, when Icheb is sent home, he is immediately trapped within familiar cycles. His opportunities are restricted. His past repeats itself. In some ways,  Child’s Play seems to subtly critique the nostalgia and yearning at the heart of  Voyager .

“This is my goth cardigan.”

After all, the nostalgia baked into the premise of Voyager paved the way for an entire generation of Star Trek prequels; Enterprise , the Abrams reboot, Discovery . In many ways, it was Voyager that marked the boundaries at the edge of the final frontier, that imposed the outward limits on Star Trek as a television franchise. Voyager was obsessed with the notion of the end of history, so it is somehow appropriate that it would come to represent the end of the future. There is a tangible sense in which Voyager ‘s prioritising of the journey home set in motion the long and sad decline of the larger Star Trek franchise.

Icheb is a character with an appetite to explore the vast and infinite cosmos. Janeway is a character who simple desires to return to the comforts of the familiar. It is clear on which side of that divide Child’s Play falls, and the episode makes a compelling argument that the familiar is not always safe.

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: abuse , borg , conservatism , family , found family , Guilt , home , icheb , love , nostalgia , parents , seven of nine , Shame , star trek , star trek: voyager |

12 Responses

I watched this episode last night and was actually impressed that the twist in this episode paud off an earlier mystery in “Collective”! A rare bit of forward planning for this show

Yep. Child’s Play is massively underrated and undervalued. Which I could (maybe) understand if the series were packed full of all-time greats, but the sixth season of Voyager is really a bit of a slog outside of stories like Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy or Blink of an Eye.

Wasn’t the original pathogen (in Icheb) supposed to destroy more than 1 cube? If so, it failed. If not, isn’t the life of Icheb worth more than 1 cube’s destruction? And the destruction of only 1 cube surely wouldn’t stop the Borg from returning to the planet.

The point is that it’s up to Icheb to decide whether his life is worth that. Nobody can make the decision the for him. That’s why we don’t harvest organs from healthy people without their consent, even if it accomplishes “the greater good.”

When Seven tells Icheb he were fortunate to see his parents as she never had a chance to see them, this is only partially correct. Did she not encounter her father as a drone in “Dark Frontier”?

Aside from this minor issue there is a lot I liked about this episode which I had almost forgotten. In fact, I found it very moving, well written and well paced. The acting especially by Jeri Ryan is superb in my opinion. At times without speaking words her face speaks volume. I liked the interwovenness of her trauma with her new role as a foster mother, as well as the implication that the Brunali’s clinging to their home is comparable to the desperate attempt by Voyager to get home (of course not quite as desperate as the Equinox’ attempt). It was nice to see a legitimate questioning of “home” and parentship just because of biological relationship.

Yep. It feels like the kind of storytelling that Voyager should have employed more often. You’re right to single out Ryan. She’s phenomenal here, and it’s easy to see why she’s one of the members of the ensemble who has worked most consistently since the show ended.

Quite easy, yes. Though I must confess that there are other pretty good actors on Star Trek shows who simply appear to be stained with their Trek time?

Ryan’s stellar perfomance in Voyager was one of the reasons why I was all the more disappointed by her Picard appearance. She had so many nuances here and it pains me to see that she was (even if it was due to the plot) reduced to a femme fatale in the Picard show. A huge waste of her skill, I think.

Finally, a decent episode after a long string of pretty bad ones.

I agree with your point about the critique of the veneration of the family in this episode, although knowing it was due to the crisis with that Cuban kid rather corrupts the point. The American treatment of Cuba has always been highly problematic.

I also have some issues with Seven being consistantly portrayed as a superior mother, when she is severely emotionally stunted herself. She is Naomi’s surrogate mother (despite Naomi having a mother on-board who is removed in an almost Disney way), and she is of course proven right in all her instinctive suspicions about an alien race here. It’s like an adoptive parent trying to block their kid from seeking out their biological parents. In this case she happened to be right, but there was no guarantee of that, and it’s particularly troubling since Icheb (for all they know) abducted and forcibly enslaved and abused. While it’s true his parents are monsters, this is only conveniently revealed toward the end. I agree with all your points in the review, but I just see some serious flaws in the way Seven intuits the problem far in advance.

I note that Janeway is reading classic hardcover tomes in low light wearing her purple undershirt. It’s a highly Jean Luc moment. I am surprised she wasn’t listening quietly to Mozart or Beethoven as well. We can see the allusions to TNG here.

Icheb is informed that the Brunali’s culture is very different than Voyagers. I don’t really see that. They seem to be mid-western Americans in space. They even play a game that seems to resemble baseball.

I think if I was in the position of the Brunali, I would tear apart all of my technology and live as a hunter gatherer society. It seems like a better option than demanding a highly advanced technological society, always looking over one’s shoulder. The Borg would completely ignore a planet with a hunter-gatherer society. In fact, I can see many worlds in the vicinity of the Borg having strict religious rules about how far tech can advance, akin to Dune. “If you build a warp drive, the demon machine zombies will come, speaking in their many-voiced choir of hell.”

I’d rather live as a hunter gatherer on a post-apocalyptic earth than try zany genetic suicide child-bomber missions to keep my iPhone.

Jed wrote: “an adoptive parent trying to block their kid from seeking out their biological parents”

That is my reading of the episode, or what I felt were the themes on watching.

I don’t see how the Elian Gonzalez case maps onto “Child’s Play.” The comments from Kenneth Biller suggest it was just a coincidence.

For it to be a space version of Elian Gonzalez, the crew of Voyager would have to be split 50-50, heated debate, accusations fly, Seven hides the boy in a closet, and finally Tuvok and a heavily armed security team find and raid the closet, something like that. Since (as the review points out), it was really Seven vs. the Biological Parents, it seems to fit more as a one-to-one adoptive vs. biological parent clash.

What’s interesting to me is the banner proclaiming The 1st Annual Voyager Science Fair, suggesting this would be continued into the future, when in fact it was the first and last such fair owing to the show’s aversion to long-term storytelling.

Regarding the morality of sending a genetically engineered person on a biological-weapons suicide-mission:

There is no suggestion that this species is sending suicide-biological-weapons attacks against any random neighbors, just the Borg.

The idea does sound bad, but: Aren’t the Borg much worse?

The final scene really plays gentle with the whole thing. Icheb himself leans towards thinking the whole thing morally justified (I think he uses the phrase “my destiny”). Even Seven in the final scene concedes that it could be the proper thing that he give his life to fight the Borg and protect his people and homeworld, only stressing that it must be his own decision. (They could well have made the final scene with Icheb raging against his parents and the main Voyager crew lining up to condemn the evil aliens, but they don’t, almost doing the opposite.)

There is a parallel somewhere in the mist here with (the idea of) War itself, of sending soldiers to war knowing full well that some will die. This seems parallel to the mission they are sending their son on. Families throughout history have okay’ed sending sons off to war, knowing well enough that they (a certain %) will die; but if they die as their side wins the battle far away, the many are spared here at home.

Is a sneak-attack and a biological-weapon a violation of the norms of war? Yes, but, again, the Borg. The latter violate the norms of war flagrantly, fighting not for negotiable objectives but for extermination (assimilation) of cultures.

One more thing: Seven’s “It’s okay to fight for your people, but it must be your choice.” If he stays with Voyager much longer, how exactly is he going to get back to his homeworld? Isn’t keeping him on Voyager also unethical because it may well prevent him from ever returning home if he wants to (given how fast Voyager is traveling)?

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Resisting the Borg: A Celebration of Neurodivergence

Unmasking in the spirit of star trek, resistance is not futile..

Posted May 3, 2024 | Reviewed by Tyler Woods

• In Star Trek, The Borg is a collective machine that assimilates all else.
• Neurodivergent people are often pressured to conform to neurotypical social norms and mask.
• Sometimes neurotypical social norms don't match neurodivergent brains.
• Unmasking and celebrating neurodiversity are acts of resistance.

If you aren't familiar with Star Trek, The Borg is a collection of creatures living within a giant machine that, when introduced, does nothing but take over other starships and 'assimilate' any passengers into itself. The Borg will say resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. That is until one creature tells a single injured Borg that resistance is not always futile, that because of resistance her species was scattered all over the universe and not assimilated into the Borg. He brings that message to the rest of The Borg.

I think The Borg can be a metaphor for many things. There are infinite situations where people have been pressured to conform and change themselves. To some extent, we all do. Yet, for neurodivergent people, the pull to blend in when one feels different can be immense, leading a person to mask or hide aspects of the self.

Masking is not always bad. Many choose to camouflage their neurodivergent traits in particular situations for a variety of reasons. For example, someone who is most comfortable while stimming by twirling their hair but chooses not to in a job interview.

Yet, when it is done often or in a forced way, it can damage a person to make them ask where the division is between themselves and the mask. A study of 342 autistic adults found that masking was associated with higher levels of depression and anxiety as well as lower levels of self-esteem and sense of authenticity (Evans, 2023).

But in a world where difference is not always readily embraced, freely exhibiting what might feel most comfortable for some neurodivergent people, such as not making eye contact, discussing a special interest in depth, fidgeting , or being very direct, can be misunderstood. Tragically, this misunderstanding can lead to isolation and discrimination .

At times, a neurodivergent person may face the choice of joining the collective through adaptation of neurotypical social norms, or risking social rejection.

The conundrum of The Borg.

At times, as a neurodivergent person, I've moved toward the current of The Borg, reading books about social etiquette, and mimicking how I saw others behave. Yet, the cost was clear. My efforts to connect led only to more disconnect. I wasn't myself. I felt merely a shadow.

Resisting The Borg has meant radical acceptance of myself. At times, this has meant educating others about my differences. Yet, resistance has allowed me to blossom.

As a psychotherapist, I respect my clients' choices regarding masking. Yet, for those who choose to unmask, the mental health benefits are clear. Unmasking does not have to equate to loneliness . Celebrating diversity, including neurodiversity , not only benefits the divergent but everyone. Possibilities for new relationships and innovation are revealed.

Everyone deserves a chance at authenticity.

Resistance is not futile.

Behr, I. (Writer). Landau, L. (Director) (1992, December 21st). Star Trek: Next Generation, I, Borg. (Season 6, Episode 11) Berman and Piller (Executive Producers). Star Trek. Paramount Domestic Television.

Evans, J. A., Krumrei-Mancuso, E. J., & Rouse, S. V. (2023). What You Are Hiding Could Be Hurting You: Autistic Masking in Relation to Mental Health, Interpersonal Trauma, Authenticity, and Self-Esteem. Autism in Adulthood .

Jennifer Gerlach, LCSW, is a psychotherapist based in Southern Illinois who specializes in psychosis, mood disorders, and young adult mental health.

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6 Most Powerful Weapons In Star Trek History, Ranked

Star Trek's rich lore has introduced fans to countless pieces of technology—including extremely powerful weapons capable of great destruction.

The official stance of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets is one of peace and universal understanding, but that doesn't mean that they don't also carry some big sticks. Exploring the universe can be dangerous, and the Head of Security or the Armory Officer are often the most important jobs on a starship.

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Some of the most powerful and devastating weapons in the Star Trek universe were built or developed by the Federation to defend starships and their crew. Others have appeared courtesy of less idealistic races for the intention of conquest and destruction.

6 Varon-T Disruptor

So brutal the federation made them illegal.

• Appeared In: Star Trek: The Next Generation , S3E22, "The Most Toys."

The Varon-T Disruptor is a rare type of phaser weapon possessed by obsessed collector, Kivas Fajo. Kivas threatens innocents with his deadly weapon to coerce Data into helping with a nefarious plan to lure Enterprise to the colony.

Only five of these weapons were ever manufactured, which is why they're valuable collector's items. Even the worst type of hand-held ranged weapon will often, at worst, put a hole in the target or disintegrate it. The Varon-T Disruptor, however, rends the target's body in an agonizing implosion and rips it apart from the inside.

5 Tricobalt Warhead

A real weapon on a planet of fake ones.

• Appeared In: Star Trek: The Original Series , S1E23, "A Taste of Armageddon."

The Enterprise came to the planet of Eminiar VII on a routine mission to establish diplomatic relations but got mixed up in a unique war when they arrived. The ship had been "hit" by the "virtual" warheads of the opposing planet, Vendikar.

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This was the first time that these weapons were mentioned. Even though these were not real and only part of the war "role-play" actual warheads like this do exist and they're powerful enough to vaporize a large starship.

Smaller devices have been used as controlled explosives, like the one from the DS9 episode, "Trials and Tribble-lations" and in the Enterprise episode "In a Mirror, Darkly" the Tholians used a tricobalt warhead to create an explosion so massive it created an interphasic rift.

4 Multikinetic Neutronic Mines

A lethal weapon of borg design.

• Appeared In: Star Trek: Voyager , S4E1, "Scorpion."

Captain Janeway broke protocol a few times while guiding Voyager through the vast and unknown Delta Quadrant, making deals and stealing tech from some hostile and dangerous races. At the end of season three, she even struck a deal with the Borg to fight a mutual enemy, but the plan wasn't as clear-cut as she led her partners to believe.

Part of the plan involved the possible use of multikinetic neutronic mines, which Janeway described as a weapon of mass destruction. These mines had the power to destroy entire star systems and their inhabitants, which goes to show how desperate the Borg was to combat Species 8472.

3 The Stone Of Gol

An ancient weapon with a twist.

• Appeared In: Star Trek: The Next Generation , S7E4, "Gambit."

This would be a weapon that Captain Picard would understand, which is one of the reasons he's the one who figures out its true power and how it works. It was a type of psionic resonator that was so powerful the Vulcans that built it split it into two pieces and hid both in separate places.

8 Coolest Starships From Star Trek: The Next Generation

It resurfaced again in the TNG episode "Gambit" when a mercenary was charged with recovering it for the Vulcan Isolationist Movement. Captain Picard was the one who figured out that it was only useful against people with aggressive or malevolent thoughts. In a time of peace, or with those who could control their emotions, it was useless.

2 The Genesis Probe

The power to create and destroy.

• Appeared In: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

It wasn't built to be a weapon, and when it was first used, it seemed to have benevolent, maybe even miraculous powers to generate life from nothing more than bare rock and dead air. The Genesis Project was the creation of Carol Marcus and her son, David, and it was designed to bring life to dead planets.

It seemed to work at first, with the probe detonating on Khan's ship over a lifeless moon, but the natural cycle of the planet was accelerated, and it started to destroy itself . This was due to David's use of protomatter with Genesis, a dangerous and volatile substance that's banned throughout most of the universe.

The Klingons, who stole some of the secret files that described Genesis, were intent on stealing the probe and using it as a weapon to destroy planets instead of making them lush and inhabitable.

1 The Doomsday Machine

The final resting place of the uss constellation.

• Appeared In: Star Trek: The Original Series , S1E6, "The Doomsday Machine."

Where it came from, who built it, and its exact nature always remained a mystery. The best that Kirk and Spock could determine was that it was some ancient "doomsday" device, and it likely destroyed whoever built it.

The USS Enterprise followed a trail of destroyed ships and galaxies to find it and finally caught up to not only the Doomsday Machine but also Captain Decker and the shattered hull of the USS Constitution. From what Decker could describe, the machine used antiprotons to destroy planets and ships, and the exterior was made of solid neutronium, which is virtually impenetrable.

Captain Decker, who was suffering from survivor's guilt and serious trauma, took it upon himself to fly a shuttlecraft into the weapon and blow it up. This revealed that an attack from the inside might disable or destroy the machine, and the unfortunate Constellation was the obvious choice.

• View history

One was the designation of a technologically advanced Borg drone who was created as a result of a transporter mishap and cloning aboard the USS Voyager in 2375 .

• 1.2 Early life
• 1.3 Individuality
• 2 Memorable quotes
• 3.1 Background information
• 3.2 Apocrypha
• 3.3 External link

Life on Voyager [ ]

During the survey of a proto-nebula in the Delta Quadrant , the away team's shuttlecraft became ensnared in the gravimetric shear of a plasma surge, disabling the craft's propulsion systems . After receiving the shuttle's distress signal , Voyager carried out an emergency beam out to retrieve the crew comprising Tom Paris , B'Elanna Torres , Seven of Nine , and The Doctor .

Because of the effects of the proto-nebula , transporter operator Ensign Mulchaey initially experienced trouble establishing a good pattern lock . However, despite having to manually separate the individual patterns, he was able to re-materialize the team safely.

Unfortunately, The Doctor's mobile emitter , a piece of 29th century inspired technology , was heavily damaged during transport and some of Seven's nanoprobes were unknowingly incorporated into its circuitry. The emitter was taken to Voyager 's science lab for tests where it was subsequently assimilated by the nanoprobes and, in turn, began assimilating the lab.

When Mulchaey was sent to check up on the status of the emitter, he was assaulted with extraction tubules from the emitter. However, contrary to standard Borg assimilation procedures, Mulchaey himself was not assimilated into a drone . Instead, the tubules extracted a sample of DNA from the officer. Within the assimilated lab the Borg technology constructed a maturation chamber , where a Borg fetus grew out of the DNA sample. Within hours the fetus had matured into a fully grown Borg drone, a rate of development far out-pacing standard Borg maturation cycles, with the mobile emitter running his neocortex .

Early life [ ]

As a combined product of Borg and 29th century Federation technology, the new drone possessed several unique features and abilities. These included internal transporter nodes , multi-dimensional adaptability , reactive armor composed of the same poly-deutonic alloy as used in the mobile emitter, and a multi-spatial force field . In essence, it was a 29th century drone, immensely more powerful than a 24th century Borg.

Despite the risks of a drone assimilating her crew and the Borg Collective assimilating 29th century technology, Captain Kathryn Janeway decided to keep this particular drone alive in an attempt to have more help against the Borg, or at least learn more about them. She ordered Seven of Nine to take charge of the drone when it emerged from the maturation chamber and requested its designation and assignment. Seven sets about instructing it on various topics through a neural link. As this almost resulted in all of her knowledge taken by the drone, she used Borg data nodes. In short order One was able to assimilate 47 billion teraquads of information. Unsure what to call the drone, Seven refused to assign it a designation, stating that it was "irrelevant"; but Neelix disagreed, encouraging it to choose its own name. The drone became known as "One". As he learned more, the drone began to inquire about the Borg, and at one point even asked about joining the Collective.

Individuality [ ]

Under Captain Janeway's directions, Seven attempted to dissuade One from seeking further information about the Collective and warned him that joining the Collective would mean losing his individuality. However, One inadvertently alerted a Borg sphere with a second subspace transmitter shortly after his first was deactivated, and it was soon detected approaching Voyager 's position.

Faced with a confrontation, Janeway ordered Seven to show One the true nature of the Borg. Seven examined the data with One who, despite his desire to experience the hive mind , felt threatened by the Borg's destructive nature and their desire to destroy Voyager and assimilate its crew of individuals.

As the Borg sphere approached and began to tractor in Voyager , One made a decision to help the crew resist the attack. His advanced 29th century technology gave One an advantage and he modified the shields within moments to disengage the tractor. A modification of the phasers was not as successful, and One was forced to board the sphere directly, knowing he was superior and they would fail to capture him. Once he has beamed himself aboard the sphere, One was successful in warding off attacking drones and interfaced himself with the ship to control the its navigation . From there, he propelled the sphere into the same stellar phenomenon that led to his birth, destroying the vessel. One was fortunate to escape, using his personal shield around himself as he floated in space.

One on his deathbed.

While his technological components were fine, his biological components were badly injured. The Doctor tried to treat One's injuries, but One refused to allow this, activating his personal force field; he knew the Borg would hunt Voyager to assimilate him for his technology, and One was a grave risk to the ship as long as he was alive. Seven displayed a closeness with One, much like a mother; when One died on the operating table, Seven was greatly saddened by his passing. Afterwards, the mobile emitter was retrieved for The Doctor. ( VOY : " Drone ")

Memorable quotes [ ]

" Terminate interface! You must comply... you are hurting me. " " ...I will comply "

" Seven of Nine tells me designation is irrelevant. " " I disagree. You should choose a name for yourself. Something that defines who you are. After all, there's only one of you. " " One "

" On the contrary. Our primary mission is to explore new forms of life. You may have been unexpected but, given time, I am sure you'll make a fine addition to the crew. After all, you've got my mobile emitter driving your neocortex, so you're bound to make a dazzling impression. That's called a joke. " " Joke. A verbal comment or gesture designed to provoke laughter. " " I see you've got your mother's sense of humor. "

" To date I've assimilated forty seven billion teraquads of information on a vast variety of subjects, including particle physics, comparative humanoid anatomy, warp field theory, and the culinary delights of the Delta Quadrant. "

" You must comply. " " I will not. " " You must comply. Please... you are hurting me. " " You will adapt. "

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ].

One was played by recurring Star Trek guest actor J. Paul Boehmer , who later recalled that One was his favorite role on par with Mestral in " Carbon Creek ". " The most fun I've had working on Star Trek has been playing One and Mestral both, " he said in a StarTrek.com interview. " One because the Borg are such an interesting character-villain and also because he was a different Borg. He was not typical average mean guy Borg villain. He had to be matured and nurtured by the crew and really kind of claim who he was throughout the episode. So it left it open to a lot of possibility. It wasn't just this set way of being a Borg. It lent itself to some more humanity. And that was really exciting because Star Trek historically has expanded the envelope of so many things. And to see them expand the envelope of their own villain and what the possibilities there with this mean mean villain and have it be open to being something else was really exciting to be a part of that. " [1]

The creation of One's physical appearance involved multiple processes. " I had to go through the whole prosthetic routine [....] It was a four hour make-up session, " Boehmer remembered. " I had to get a body cast made [....] I was in the body cast for two hours. It was also a really long process of getting in and out of the suit I was wearing [....] The artists had four days to design and put together this costume. " Boehmer didn't find these processes arduous, instead referring to the prosthetic routine as "totally cool." He continued, " The guys were great [....] I was warned that [the costume] was going to be very claustrophobic and unbearable, but I loved it all. If I had to do it every week, I'm sure that it would lose its charm, but for the week that I did it, it was terrific fun [....] What [the artists who designed and built the costume] came up with is nothing short of amazing. I was totally blown away by that. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 46 , p. 71)

The costume also comprised a special neon eyepiece instead of blinking LEDs, a reduced number of tubes to reflect the advanced Borg technology, a different lighting system for his suit and a special Borg-type appliance that covered the right ear. A small two-inch neon light was used for the eye that had to be constructed large enough for the neon fixture and to accommodate the wires running from the appliance to the battery pack on Boehmer's back. ( Star Trek: Aliens and Artifacts , p. 163)

Seven of Nine actress Jeri Ryan said of Boehmer's performance, " The actor who we got to play the drone was a wonderful actor. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 28)

Authors Mark Jones and Lance Parkin wrote, " Boehmer is very good in what could be an unrewarding role. " ( Beyond the Final Frontier , p.321)

David A. McIntee wrote, " One is simply wonderful. [...] If only they could have kept him for a little longer. [...] The real revelation is J Paul Boehmer as the drone – he's stunning. [...] The expressions that cross his face when he assimilates the data node are almost worth the admission price alone. Though another 'innocent' regular would be a bad move, it's a shame they couldn't hang on to him for an arc of three or four episodes. " ( Delta Quadrant , p.256)

Apocrypha [ ]

In "Brief Candle", a short story in the Distant Shores anthology, it is revealed that One's remains were used to create the multi-spatial probe , explaining why the crew always went to great lengths to recover it as it was literally irreplaceable.

External link [ ]

• One at StarTrek.com
• One at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• 3 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)