The ever-changing Borg have had several different versions throughout Star Trek history. Sparsely used as a mindless force of nature in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the cybernetic Borg, with unison voices proclaiming, “Resistance is futile,” became breakout villains in TNG. The Borg were formidable enough to become the villains of the second Star Trek: The Next Generation movie, Star Trek: First Contact, which introduced the Borg Queen (Alice Krige). With its Delta Quadrant setting, Star Trek: Voyager made the Borg a primary enemy of Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), as Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) provided an insider’s perspective on the Borg Collective.

Even after their apparent destruction, the Borg still played a major role in Star Trek: Picard, which addressed the trauma that Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) sustained after being transformed into Locutus, the voice of the Borg. Echoes of the Battle of Wolf 359, Starfleet’s Pyrrhic victory against Locutus and the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation, rippled through the backstories of several Star Trek characters, making the battle a defining moment in the Star Trek timeline. The Borg, however, are highly adaptable, so instead of being haunted by trauma, the Borg respond by constantly evolving. Let’s take a look at the Borg evolution, starting at the beginning.

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Original Borg Collective

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Initially conceived as a purely technological species, the original Borg Collective was first introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation season 2, episode 16, “Q Who”, when Q (John de Lancie) showed Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the USS Enterprise-D crew the horrors that waited at the far reaches of space. The original Borg Collective had pallid, indifferent drones who were unified in one mind and only interested in assimilating alien technology, but as the Borg proved to be a fascinating foil for the plurality of the Federation, they did what the Borg would come to do best: the Borg adapted.

Star Trek: The Next Generation season 3, episode 26, and TNG season 4, episode 1, “The Best of Both Worlds”, was a turning point for the Borg, for Picard, and for Star Trek as a whole. Picard’s capture and transformation into Locutus of Borg haunted Jean-Luc for the rest of his life. “The Best of Both Worlds” also introduced the concept of the Borg assimilating people, not just technology, that would come to be a hallmark of the Borg.

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Lore’s Borg Collective

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 6, Episode 26 & Season 7, Episode 1, “Descent”

The roots of Lore’s (Brent Spiner) Borg Collective can be found in Star Trek: The Next Generation season 5, episode 23, “I, Borg”. A year before “Descent”, the USS Enterprise-D discovers and rescues an abandoned Borg drone who chooses the name Hugh (Jonathan del Arco) after being rehabilitated by Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton). Hugh takes the concept of individuality back to the Collective, but instead of liberating the Borg, it backfires.

An unusual faction of the Borg Collective with individual names and personalities appears in Star Trek: The Next Generation season 6, episode 26 & season 7, episode 1, “Descent”. These individual Borg still require direction, so Lore graciously steps in to fill the power vacuum. Lore uses the Borg under his banner as a personal army to capture the USS Enterprise, making them seem relatively toothless compared to the Borg’s earlier TNG appearances, but thankfully, there are far more versions of the Borg in Star Trek.

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The Borg Queen’s Collective

Star Trek: First Contact & Star Trek: Voyager

While technically the same Collective as the original Borg seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the cosmetic changes and the deeper lore in Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Voyager warrant recognition as a new version. Perhaps the most significant change to the Borg in Star Trek: First Contact is introducing the Borg Queen (Alice Krige) as the physical embodiment of the Borg Collective, but these Borg are more adaptable and more persistent, stopping at nothing short of complete assimilation of all intelligent organic life.

In Star Trek: Voyager, Seven of Nine becomes the Borg’s new voice, and after being liberated from the Collective, provides insight as to the Borg’s true motives. Seven explains that the ultimate goal of the Borg is perfection, not conquest, and assimilation is the means by which the Borg learn about other cultures. Adding the biological and technological distinctiveness of other species only refines the Borg Collective.

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The Borg Cooperative of Former Drones

Star Trek: Voyager – Season 3, Episode 15, “Unity”

Commander Chakotay (Robert Beltran) encounters the Borg Cooperative in Star Trek: Voyager season 3, episode 15, “Unity”. During a scouting mission, Chakotay crash lands on a planet and is rescued by Riley Frazier (Lori Hallier), a human woman. Frazier and members of several other Alpha Quadrant species were assimilated by the Borg at Wolf 359 and brought to the Delta Quadrant as drones, until an electro-kinetic storm severed them from the Collective.

Although separated from the Borg hive mind, members of Frazier’s Borg Cooperative are still neurally linked like drones in the Collective, and share thoughts and memories with one another. The Borg Cooperative proves that there are some benefits to the unity experienced as a Collective, like a lack of conflict, common goals, instant communication, and rapid healing. Frazier, however, exploited the neural link technology to force Chakotay to act against his will, so the Borg Cooperative still wasn’t perfect by any means.

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Unimatrix Zero

Star Trek: Voyager – Season 6, Episode 26 & Season 7, Episode 1, “Unimatrix Zero”

In Star Trek: Voyager season 6, episode 26 & season 7, episode 1, “Unimatrix Zero”, some Borg drones experience a virtual reality called Unimatrix Zero during regeneration cycles. In Unimatrix Zero, drones are able to remember their former lives prior to being assimilated, and live out entire lives with each other, creating friendships, romances, and organized resistance against the Borg Collective. Memories of Unimatrix Zero fade when the drones wake up and go about their business.

Unimatrix Zero is a weakness that exists within the Collective, so, of course, the Borg’s greatest adversary, Captain Kathryn Janeway, wants to use it as a means to destroy the Borg, but the dream-world is important to nearly every drone who is able to access it, because Unimatrix Zero makes the drones’ lives bearable to some extent. Unimatrix Zero is destroyed, but the drones who experienced it become severed from the Collective, and form their own resistance movement.

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The Borg In The Confederation Of Earth Alternate Reality

Star Trek: Picard Season 2

In Star Trek: Picard season 2, Q takes Admiral Jean-Luc Picard to an alternate reality where the Confederation of Earth arises in place of Earth’s position in the United Federation of Planets, and the Borg are all but wiped out. Only the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching) remains, a seemingly impotent remnant of the Collective’s former power and glory, and the people of Confederate Earth look to General Picard, the Borg Slayer, to deal the final blow against the Borg Collective by killing the imprisoned Borg Queen.

Instead of giving in to xenophobic demands, however, Admiral Picard recognizes that the La Sirena crew needs the Borg Queen’s computational power and multidimensional awareness in order to go back in time and undo the damage to the timeline that created the unrecognizable, hostile present. The Borg Queen cooperates, perhaps as a means of self-preservation.

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The Borg Soldiers Serving Adam Soong

Star Trek: Picard Season 2

Adam Soong’s (Brent Spiner) Borg Soldiers in 2024 Los Angeles are the work of the Borg Queen, in the body of Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill), seeking to recreate the sweet bliss of the Borg Collective’s connection. The Borg Queen convinces Adam Soong that Soong’s work will be rendered obsolete by Renée Picard’s (Penelope Mitchell) Europa Mission, but the Queen will help Soong prevent that, if Soong agrees to help the Queen in return by providing the bodies of mercenaries from Spearhead Operations.

The Borg Queen uses Soong’s 2024 Mercenary Borg to lead an assault on the crew of La Sirena in Star Trek: Picard season 2, episode 9, “Hide and Seek”, keeping Admiral Jean-Luc Picard from protecting Picard’s own future by surrounding Château Picard. Many die in the ensuing battle, with the remainder accompanying the Borg Queen and Agnes Jurati in La Sirena, as they escape to the Delta Quadrant.

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Agnes Jurati’s Borg Collective

Star Trek: Picard Season 2

In Star Trek: Picard season 2, Dr. Agnes Jurati merges with the Borg Queen from the Confederation of Earth reality, and together Jurati and the Borg Queen create a new Borg Collective that seeks entry into the United Federation of Planets. With a specialty in synthetic life forms that was curtailed by Earth’s ban on synth production, Jurati is fascinated by the concept of the Borg as a species that combines the best traits of organic and synthetic life, so it’s not hard for the Borg Queen to quite literally get under Agnes’ skin.

As someone who longs for personal connection and rarely finds it, Agnes Jurati considers assimilation more of a promise than a threat, and willingly accepts being merged with the Queen. The nature of the Borg Collective changes under the auspices of Borg Queen Jurati, and it operates much more like the Borg Cooperative in Star Trek: Voyager. Jurati’s Borg Cooperative only assimilates those who consent to being part of the community, and uses its combined power to protect others, rather than destroy them.

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Assimilated Starfleet Borg

Star Trek: Picard Season 3

The Borg Queen is again reduced to a dying echo of what she once was at the end of Star Trek: Picard season 3, as the Queen supposedly killed by Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager is revealed to survive by leeching off of the trickles of power in the husks of dead drones. The Queen has just enough power to make promises to the last surviving dregs of another powerful Star Trek enemy: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s Changelings. Working with the Changelings, the Borg Queen orchestrates a plot to create more Borg drones.

At the behest of the Borg Queen, the Changelings create the new Starfleet Borg drones in Star Trek: Picard by contaminating Starfleet’s transporters with Borg DNA extracted from Admiral Jean-Luc Picard’s corpse. The Assimilated Starfleet Borg are sleeper drones under the age of 25 who are completely unaware of their assimilation until Frontier Day, when the Borg Queen activates the Borg DNA throughout Starfleet with a signal from the Queen’s Borg Cube, creating a new Collective.

Star Trek: Picard season 3 seems to be the end of the Borg, for real this time, but the same could have been said of Star Trek: First Contact, when Picard and Data killed the Borg Queen in 2063, or Star Trek: Voyager season 7, episode 26, “Endgame”, when Admiral Janeway killed the Borg Queen again. As long as some remnant of the Borg remains active in Star Trek, there’s no guarantee that the Borg will ever actually be permanently defeated. A new Borg Queen always rises to take the place of the previous one, so another new version of the Borg can always potentially return to Star Trek, deadlier — or at least more interesting — than before.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Picard are streaming on Paramount+.

Star Trek: First Contact is streaming on Max.