How to Make the Borg Great Again

For the PIC episode of the same name, please meet "Assimilation".

Kathryn Janeway being assimilated

"You may encounter Enterprise coiffure members who've already been assimilated. Don't hesitate to fire... believe me, yous'll exist doing them a favor."

Assimilation was the process past which the Borg added new members and new technology to the Commonage.

Borg absorption was predatory; every species the Borg encountered was assessed to make up one's mind whether its biological and/or technological distinctiveness was considered "worthy of beingness added to the Collective'south perfection". If constitute to exist so, the species was set upon and forcibly alloyed; the Commonage considered the species' volition in the matter "irrelevant". (TNG: "Q Who", "The Best of Both Worlds"; VOY: "Mortal Coil", et al.) When a species was assimilated, their neural pathways were restructured to link them to a unmarried collective mind, the hive, and to augment their bodies with cybernetic engineering. The finish result was them becoming drones. (VOY: "Drone")

By the 2370s, the Borg had assimilated thousands of species. As of the 24th century, the only species known to accept been considered unworthy of assimilation were the Kazon, equally the Borg believed that assimilating them would detract from their goal of condign perfect. (VOY: "Drone", "Mortal Scroll")

Contents

• i Procedure
• 2 Technique
• 3 Treatment and defenses
  • 3.1 Complications
• four Memorable quotes
• 5 Appendices
  • v.1 Related topics
  • 5.2 External link

Procedure

Assimilation in progress: Borg nanoprobes digest blood cells

The Borg by and large did not assimilate individuals, and instead preferred to target larger groups such as the crews of starships and the populations of planets. When in the presence of a small number of individuals, Borg drones would ignore them altogether. This policy would remain in effect until an individual demonstrated some quality plant worthy by the Commonage, or posed a threat to Borg activities. For example, when the USS Raven was starting time detected past a Borg vessel it was overlooked. Past the fourth dimension the Raven was detected a second time, its crew had developed technologies to elude Borg sensors, making them a more than worthy target. (VOY: "Night Frontier")

The Borg fabricated exceptions and assimilated individuals when circumstances required it, equally when they chose Jean-Luc Picard to serve as an intermediary in 2366, or to allow a pocket-sized party of drones to bolster their ranks. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds"; Star Trek: Start Contact )

When engaging a starship, a Borg vessel presumed tactical superiority and locked onto information technology with a tractor beam. With the target immobilized, the Borg defeated its shields and either extracted sections of the ship with a cutting beam, transported drones to key areas, or both. (TNG: "Q Who")

A group of drones assimilating the interiors of the USS Enterprise-E

With the crew of a vessel assimilated or otherwise subdued, the Borg stripped the ship downwardly for parts to incorporate into their own technology. If possible the assimilated ship was towed into a hangar aboard the attacking Borg transport. (VOY: "Dark Borderland", "Collective") It was rare for the Borg to continue an assimilated vessel intact, except in instances where a Borg crew was forced to abandon their own transport and commandeer their victims' ship. ( Star Trek: First Contact ; VOY: "Scorpion, Role Two"; ENT: "Regeneration")

Faced with an unabridged fleet, as in the Battle of Wolf 359, the Borg were willing to destroy individual ships outright, although some might accept been spared for assimilation. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II")

Several episodes of Star Expedition: Voyager suggested that the Borg cube at Wolf 359 assimilated Starfleet personnel during the battle, and that these new drones were non aboard the cube during its eventual destruction.

The Collective typically did not seek out individuals or starships, assimilating them only as encountered. It was only known to actively target worlds and civilizations, ranging from pocket-sized colonies to the entire realm of fluidic space. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds"; VOY: "Scorpion, Part Two") The tactics of these large-scale absorption missions varied. An unabridged fleet was dispatched to digest Species 10026, merely on ii occasions, a unmarried transport was assigned to conquer the entire Federation. If the Borg did not choose to concord an assimilated planet, they removed its populace and whatever artificial structures from the surface. Alternately, they could maintain a presence on the planet, terraforming its surround to meet their needs. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds", Star Trek: Showtime Contact , VOY: "Dark Frontier")

The Borg had a standard fix of hails which were sent to those targeted for absorption. The bodily diction varied, merely the hails nearly always included the post-obit data:

• Cocky identification ("Nosotros are the Borg.")
• Intention to assimilate the target ("You lot volition be assimilated", "Existence as you know it is over")
• The futility of attempted resistance by the target ("Resistance is futile")

The following were known Borg hails:

• "You will be alloyed. Resistance is futile." (ENT: "Regeneration")
• "I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile. Your life as information technology has been is over. From this time forward, y'all will service the states." (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds")
• "We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. Nosotros will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our ain. Your culture will adapt to service united states. Resistance is futile." ( Star Trek: First Contact )
• "We are the Borg. Existence, as you know it, is over. Nosotros volition add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our ain. Resistance is futile." (VOY: "Scorpion")
• "We are the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our ain. Resistance is futile." (VOY: "Collective")
• "We are the Borg. You will exist assimilated. Resistance is futile." (VOY: "Night Frontier", "Scorpion")

Technique

Stage 1: The victim is injected with nanoprobes.

Stage ii: The victim's skin begins mottling.

Stage three: The nanoprobes course rudimentary implants in the victim'due south body. The victim becomes linked to the hive listen and falls under the Collective's command. At this stage, the victim'due south life signs appear erratic.

Stage 4: One of the victim'due south limbs, or other body parts, is amputated and replaced with a cybernetic implant while other technology is added as needed.

Stage 5: I of the victim'south eyes is augmented with an eyepiece, which tin either grow due to the nanoprobes or exist surgically added.

Stage 6: Most of the victim's hair falls out, although this was not always the example.

Stage seven: Exo-plating is added, ordinarily directly over-top of the victim'due south habiliment.

Stage eight: The new drone is given a designation according to its function in the Commonage. Past now the victim's life signs no longer read as their original species.

Fiddling was known near the Borg assimilation technique prior to 2368. Observations since that fourth dimension demonstrated that the Borg alloyed an individual by projecting a pair of absorption tubules into the victim's neck, injecting nanoprobes into the bloodstream that began connecting the new drone to the hive listen. This was accomplished the moment a Borg drone was within arm's reach of the target. ( Star Trek: First Contact ; VOY: "Survival Instinct"; ENT: "Regeneration") Only humanoids have been seen as members of the Borg Commonage.

The flashbacks in "Survival Instinct" correspond the primeval chronological appearance of assimilation tubules, notwithstanding the temporally-displaced Borg in Star Trek: Kickoff Contact and "Regeneration". They were not seen being used in the assimilation of Helm Picard or the Hansen family, and it is possible the Borg did not develop this technology (or assimilate it from someone else) until after 2366. The Borg seen in "I Borg" and "Descent" evidence picayune interest in absorption, so there is no mode to know if they were equipped with tubules. In fact, Picard appeared to undergo a type of surgery to be transformed into a Borg, with implants existence added to his body, while some of his crew were beginning injected with nanoprobes too as undergoing surgery. However, in their appearance in "Star Trek: Borg", many of their arm prosthetics had syringe-similar ends to inject a victim with nanoprobes and begin transforming them into Borg, though while the nanotechnology grew some of the implants, some were usually seen being added later on.

During initial stages of assimilation, Borg nanoprobes began attaching themselves to the victim's ruby blood cells, allowing them to circulate throughout the body. (VOY: "Scorpion") Inside minutes, the nanoprobes spread visibly through the capillaries of the victim's skin. The victim, at this signal, however retained his or her individuality and had most none of the Borg's standard array of defenses. Left unchecked, the nanoprobes soon begin cocky-replicating and producing larger constructs that form the necessary Borg implants. The body was also injected with stabilizing metals such as lithium and then the body can handle nanoprobes. 7 of 9 could remember the odour and taste of the metals. (PIC: "Mercy") Among the first major structures assembled was the neural transceiver, allowing the Collective to tap into the victim's mind and usurp control of his or her torso. A vocal subprocessor was also installed. Past this fourth dimension, the new drone'southward skin coloration had changed to a pale greyness and mottled every bit some modest implants began to emerge inside and exterior the trunk. In some cases, the pare and confront became at least slightly deformed due to the implants growing in and on the body. ( Star Trek: First Contact ; ENT: "Regeneration"; VOY: "Unimatrix Zero, Role II") The drone was then taken to a Borg facility to take larger implants surgically installed, including tools, weapons and exoplating. (VOY: "Unimatrix Zip")

According to Jean-Luc Picard, when it comes to the absorption of an individual's heed, the process can have hours for a newcomer, every bit the Borg have to learn the victim'due south listen. However, if an ex-Borg were to be assimilated over again, their mind would exist taken in seconds, equally the Borg already know the ex-Borg's mind. (PIC: "Assimilation")

In a daydream of The Medico'due south, the Borg were able to conduct assimilation past penetrating the defenses of a vessel with an "assimilation virus," the furnishings of which were well-nigh instantaneous. (VOY: "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy")

Treatment and defenses

Methods for preventing or overcoming Borg absorption are of paramount importance to cultures that pass up to abandon members of their society captured past the Collective.

In 2153, Phlox determined that exposing himself to omicron particles could disable the nanoprobes injected into his body past drones using technology originating in 2373. This method was uniquely applicative to Phlox due to his Denobulan physiology and his immune system, which made him unusually resistant to assimilation. (ENT: "Regeneration")

The nearly basic, and arguably most practical remedy was to euthanize the intended victim either prior to or in the early minutes of assimilation, before the nanoprobes could install standard Borg defenses. During the Borg's raid of the USS Enterprise-E, Captain Picard saw this approach to exist the bottom of two evils, believing his assimilated crewmen were irrecoverable under the circumstances and amend off dying as individuals than living as drones. ( Star Trek: First Contact )

When rescuing Picard himself in 2367, the coiffure of the USS Enterprise-D were non under direct attack by the Borg and therefore had the luxury of because other options. Upon connecting his neural net to Picard's Borg implants, Lt. Commander Data was able to isolate Picard's individual heed from the Commonage. Disconnecting Picard from his implants was considered a risky procedure, just upon the destruction of the cube that alloyed him the Collective lost its concur on him. Physical recovery was swift, although the psychological trauma was more severe. (TNG: "The All-time of Both Worlds, Part Two", "Family unit") While the implants were removed, sufficient physical alterations lingered such that Picard could still perceive the Commonage many years after. ( Star Trek: Showtime Contact )

In 2368 a Borg cube was disabled in an electrokinetic storm in the Nekrit Expanse, causing approximately 80,000 drones to exist asunder from the hive mind. These sometime drones settled on a nearby planet, where their limited medical resources immune them to remove most, but non all, of their cybernetic implants. After the population descended into war, they elected to form a new hive mind as the Cooperative. (VOY: "Unity")

The crew of the USS Voyager was forced to sever Seven of Nine's link to the Collective when, through her, the Borg reneged on its brotherhood with the starship. Using a neural transceiver installed in him past the Borg Cooperative and a Borg alcove installed aboard Voyager by the Collective, Chakotay tapped into Seven'south consciousness in society to distract her while B'Elanna Torres shorted out the console she was attempting to assimilate. (VOY: "Scorpion, Part Two")

The Brunali genetically engineered Icheb with a pathogen that would infect the Collective after they sent him to be assimilated. Subsequently this pathogen killed all of the developed Borg aboard the cube which assimilated Icheb, the transport's maturation chambers prematurely released the juvenile drones who were not yet fully continued to the Collective, giving Voyager an opportunity to liberate them in 2376. (VOY: "Commonage")

A neural suppressant adult by Voyager'southward EMH in 2377 made information technology possible for Kathryn Janeway, Tuvok, and B'Elanna Torres to be physically assimilated without being connected to the hive mind and losing their individuality. This allowed them to surreptitiously operate within a Borg cube and sabotage its central plexus. Post-obit their mission the 3 officers were returned to Voyager where their implants were safely removed without medical complications. Use of the neural suppressant plainly correlated to the lack of psychological trauma suffered in comparing to Picard'due south experience. (VOY: "Unimatrix Zero", "Unimatrix Zero, Part Two")

Following Voyager's demolition of the central plexus, the Borg drones who had been connected to Unimatrix Zero were able to regain their individuality and mount a resistance against the Collective. They were not, at least initially, able to remove their Borg implants due to the urgency of the conflict. (VOY: "Unimatrix Naught, Function II")

Upon arriving in 2378 from an alternate future, Admiral Kathryn Janeway possessed several defenses confronting the Borg, including a neurolytic pathogen that prevented Borg nanoprobes from linking her to the hive mind while infecting the Commonage. (VOY: "Endgame")

Complications

Successful liberation of an assimilated drone depended largely on the relation between the menstruation of time spent as a drone versus time spent as an individual. Adults and children who were assimilated for merely a curt time were ofttimes hands reintegrated back into their erstwhile lives post-obit disconnection from the hive mind. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds"; VOY: "Unimatrix Zero, Office II") However, drones who had spent the majority of their lives within the Commonage resisted the very notion that they were better off as individuals, and could retain an admiration for aspects of Borg philosophy. Such drones could feel small or alone without the "voices" of the entire Collective in their thoughts. (TNG: "I Borg"; VOY: "Scorpion, Function II")

In either case, the psychological touch on of recovering ane's individuality – and thus, the ability to feel the trauma of assimilation and the guilt of 1's association with the Borg's atrocities – could exist monumental. (TNG: "Family unit"; VOY: "Survival Instinct") Old victims would often feel discomfort within simulations of working Borg vessels or real, disabled ones. (VOY: "Nighttime Borderland"; PIC: "The Impossible Box")

From a medical standpoint, there were many risks in leaving the Borg Collective, primarily when the implants ceased to suppress the immune system and the torso's organs began rejecting implants that have been given sole rule over vital functions. The extraction of these implants could exist challenging fifty-fifty for a skilled surgeon. I known type of complexity occurred when deactivated microscopic implants get lodged confronting i of the cranial nerves. (VOY: "The Souvenir") Even after the successful removal of the cybernetics, the liberated drone might not have had access to medical technology that was sufficiently advanced to supercede whatever body parts were amputated during absorption. (VOY: "Unity", "Survival Instinct") Certain implants, such as the cortical node, ocular implant, and assimilation tubules, could not be safely removed by Federation medicine as of 2378. (VOY: "The Gift", "Imperfection")

Borg implant progression

Sub-dermal distortion begins

Dermal quantum occurs

Implant expansion begins

Implant cosmos complete

Memorable quotes

"By assimilating other races into our collective, nosotros are bringing them closer to perfection."

"You lot may encounter Enterprise crew members who've already been assimilated. Don't hesitate to burn down... believe me, you lot'll exist doing them a favor."

"Re-grouping on deck fifteen. Don't let them touch you!"

"This was one of the researchers."
"Was?"
"Look at these bio-signs. They aren't human anymore."

"You lot don't know, Robert, you don't know. They took everything I was. They used me to kill and to destroy, and I couldn't end them! I should have been able to cease them! I tried. I tried so hard. But I wasn't potent enough! I wasn't good enough! I should have been able to stop them."

–Helm Jean-Luc Picard, 2367 ("Family")

"Think about information technology this way. Every fourth dimension you talk about yourself, you use the word "we." Nosotros do this, we do that... you don't know how to think of yourself as a single private. You lot don't say, "I desire this," or "I am Hugh." Nosotros are all separate individuals. I am Geordi. I choose what I want to do with my life. I make decisions for myself. For people like me, losing that individuality is most worse than dying."

"When we were linked, we had no ethnic disharmonize. There was no law-breaking, no hunger, no wellness problems. We lived as 1 harmonious family."
"With all due respect, Dr. Frazier, you were one "harmonious family unit" aptitude on the violent assimilation of innocent cultures!"

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

"But Jean-Luc, you took me far also literally. I was but referring to the bug involved in assimilating new races into the Federation. It's an ongoing, tumultuous procedure which tin can cause stress and strain on every aspect of our alliance."

Appendices

• Borg species

External link

• Assimilation at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works

hubbardthencass.blogspot.com

Source: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Assimilation

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