Everyone In Star Trek Who Beat The Borg

The Borg Collective are one of the most fearsome enemies in the Star Trek franchise, but a handful of heroic Starfleet crews have managed to defeat them and defy assimilation. First introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation season 2, the Borg became the deadliest threat to Starfleet and the Federation in almost a century. The threats from the Borg Collective, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s Dominion meant that the mid 24th century was an extremely difficult time for Starfleet.

The Borg and the Dominion would later pool their resources in Star Trek: Picard season 3, in a last-ditch attempt to eradicate their mortal enemies. However, once again the Borg were defeated, thanks to the heroic efforts of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the crew of the USS Enterprise-D. While Picard’s batles with the Borg Collective are the most notable encounters in Star Trek history, he’s far from the only one to have defeated Starfleet’s most fearsome enemy.

9
USS Enterprise-D Crew In Star Trek: The Next Generation

Season 4, Episode 1, “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”

Things were looking bleak for Starfleet and the crew of the USS Enterprise-D in Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s game-changing season 3 cliffhanger “The Best of Both Worlds.” Assimilated by the Borg, Picard led a devastating assault on the Federation’s defenses in the Battle of Wolf 359, which claimed around 11,000 lives. The Borg’s next target was the assimilation of Earth, unless acting Captain William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and the crew of the starship Enterprise could find a solution.

Distracting Locutus’ Borg Cube with a surprise Enterprise saucer separation, Riker sent Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) and Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) to retrieve the assimilated Picard. Once Locutus was back aboard the Enterprise, Data and Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) set about using Picard’s connection to the Collective to locate a weakness. With the help of a clue from the struggling Picard, Data connects to the Borg’s regeneration sub routine and effectively puts them to sleep. The resulting feedback loop meant that the Borg Cube self-destructed, saving the Earth.

8
Captain Picard & Data In First Contact

Star Trek: First Contact (1996) dir. Jonathan Frakes

The Borg Collective’s next major assault on Earth occurred in Star Trek: First Contact, in which they sought to change the course of human history. Pursuing the Borg back in time to 2063, Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-E were initially unaware that the ship was being assimilated by the Borg. As Data was seduced by the Borg Queen (Alice Krige), and the Borg prepared to sabotage the first-ever human warp flight, things looked bleak for Picard and the future of humanity.

In the climax of Star Trek: First Contact it’s revealed that Data hasn’t been seduced by the Borg Queen, and has instead been deceiving her. Data programmed the missiles to miss the Phoenix, before dragging the Borg Queen into toxic gases that destroyed her organic components. This allowed Picard to deliver the killer blow to the Borg Queen, severing her connection to the Collective and deactivating the remaining Borg drones.

7
Species 8472 in Star Trek: Voyager

Season 3, Episode 26, “Scorpion, Part 1”

Stranded in the Borg’s native galaxy, it was inevitable that Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) would come into contact with the Collective. In the Star Trek: Voyager season 3 finale, “Scorpion”, the USS Voyager finally enters Borg space, only to discover that the Collective has been seriously weakened by a mysterious foe known as Species 8472. Having launched a Borg invasion of fluidic space, the home dimension of Species 8472, the Collective were unprepared for what they found there.

Species 8472 possessed superior bio-technology to the Borg Collective, and used it to swiftly destroy multiple Borg Cubes. Species 8472 launched their own invasion of Borg space, something that Janeway believed to be a major threat to the future of the Delta Quadrant. To counter the threat posed by Species 8472, Janeway allied herself with the Borg Collective, to repel this superior force from laying waste to the Delta Quadrant. However, it was a decision that Janeway would later come to regret.

6
Admiral Janeway In Star Trek: Voyager

Season 7, Episode 25/26, “Endgame”

The ending of Star Trek: Voyager centered on one final battle between Kathryn Janeway and the Borg Collective. An older Admiral Janeway, tortured by the losses incurred in getting the USS Voyager back to Earth, conceives a plan to use Borg technology to get everyone home much earlier. Admiral Janeway travels back in time to advise her younger self to a network of wormholes that had previously been avoided. The wormholes are part of a transwarp hub that, if destroyed, could seriously weaken the Borg Collective, but would also cut off Voyager’s way home.

It’s a neat callback to Star Trek: Voyager‘s pilot, “Caretaker”, which gave Janeway a similar dilemma. This time, both Janeways decide to destroy the hub and find a way home. Admiral Janeway allows herself to be captured by the Borg Queen, so that she can implant a neurological pathogen into the Collective. The pathogen cripples the Collective, destroying the Queen’s ship, and allowing the USS Voyager to ride through the Borg’s transwarp corridor back to Earth.

5
Enterprise NX-01 Crew In Star Trek: Enterprise

Season 2, Episode 23, “Regeneration”

Centuries before the first official encounter with the Collective, Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and the crew of the Enterprise NX-01 fought the Borg in Star Trek: Enterprise season 2. “Assimilation” revealed that leftover Borg drones from Star Trek: First Contact had regenerated themselves after being discovered in the Arctic Circle. The regenerated Borg assimilated the scientists that discovered them and headed into space where they encountered a Tarkaelian freighter and assimilated the crew.

The Enterprise NX-01 came to the freighter’s aid, only to find themselves under attack from the Borg. Archer and Lt. Malcolm Reed (Dominic Keating) transported to the Borg assimilated ship, hoping to deactivate the drones by destroying their manifolds. Archer and Reed fought their way to the conduit, and detonated it, causing an explosion that destroyed the ship, containing all the drones. However, as Archer grimly noted at the end of the episode, he had merely postponed a Borg invasion until the 24th century.

4
Romulans In Star Trek: Picard

Season 1, Episode 3, “The End if the Beginning” and Episode 8, “Broken Pieces”

In the years before the events of Star Trek: Picard season 1, a Borg Cube encountered two Romulan Tal Shiar vessels. When it attempted to assimilate the crew of the scout ship Shaenor, the Borg Cube encountered a substantial mental force that overwhelmed the ship and disconnected it from the Collective. The mental energy that caused the Borg Cube’s submatrix collapse was the distress of the noted Romulan scientist, Professor Ramdha (Rebecca Wisocky).

As a scholar of ancient Romulan myths, Ramdha was aware of the Admonition, a message designed for synthetic life forms. The Admonition was misread as a prophecy for the destruction of all organic life, and it drove many who experienced it to madness and murder in Star Trek: Picard season 1. The knowledge of this message was so overwhelming for the Borg that it caused a submatrix collapse, deactivating the Cube and leaving it drifting in Romulan space. This Cube became known as The Artifact, which was the home to the rehabilitation project for former Borg drones including Hugh (Jonathan del Arco).

3
Confederation of Earth in Star Trek: Picard

Season 2, Episode 2, “Penance”

In Star Trek: Picard season 2, Q (John de Lancie) created a dark alternative timeline in which Jean-Luc Picard was a brutal military leader that had vanquished many foes. Picard even kept grisly trophies of the victories he clocked up while in command of the CSS World Razer, the Confederation’s version of the starship Enterprise. In this reality, the Confederation eradicated the Borg Collective, and kept the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching) as a political prisoner.

It’s unclear exactly how Picard and the crew of the CSS World Razer eradicated the Borg in Star Trek: Picard season 2. However, the magistrate does concede that the Borg were the most dangerous foes to bring “under heel“. On the day that Picard and his crew arrive in the Confederation reality, citizens are congregating for the annual Eradication Ceremony, where the Borg Queen will be publicly executed. Instead, Picard and the crew of La Sirena rescue the Borg Queen so they can travel back in time to 2024 and fix what Q’s done to time.

2
Ensign Brad Boimler In Star Trek: Lower Decks

Season 2, Episode 8, “I, Excretus”

Ensign Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) defeated the Borg multiple times in Star Trek: Lower Decks, season 2, episode 8, “I, Excretus”. Ever the over-achiever, Boimler had read everything that was available about the Borg, making him prepared for an encounter with the Collective. Boimler got to put his knowledge to the test in a holo-simulation in “I, Excretus”, but was unhappy with his initial score of 79%.

Boimler became obsessed with bettering his score, repeating the simulation again and again, seeking new ways to beat the Borg. Notable ways that Boimler defeated the Collective in Star Trek: Lower Decks included beating the Borg Queen at chess, saving Borg babies, and hijacking a Borg sphere. Unfortunately for Boimler, events elsewhere on the USS Cerritos force him to remain in the simulation, reducing his 100% score with each passing minute.

1
USS Enterprise-D Crew In Star Trek: Picard

Season 3, Episode 10, “The Last Generation”

Star Trek: Picard season 3 featured the most elaborate Borg plot in the Collective’s long history. Siding with the Changelings from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, they used the shapeshifters to infiltrate Starfleet and install Borg DNA in the transporter code. This meant that each Starfleet officer who used the transporters was covertly assimilated by the Borg Collective. Full assimilation was triggered by Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers), who had inherited Borg DNA from his father, Jean-Luc Picard, and became a beacon for the Borg Queen’s signal.

The Borg also took control of Starfleet’s Fleet Formation mode, giving them complete use of the Federation armada. The only starship unaffected was the USS Enterprise-D, restored by Commodore Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton). The Enterprise-D crew headed into one last battle with the Borg, firing on the Queen’s Cube while Picard tried to get through to his son. The combination of a father’s love, and some fancy flying from Data, led to the destruction of Star Trek‘s Borg once and for all, severing the connection to the signal, and returning everyone back to normal.

Every Borg episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Voyager, Enterprise, and Lower Decks is available to stream on Paramount+

Star Trek: First Contact is available to stream on Max

• 

  Star Trek: The Next Generation

  Star Trek: The Next Generation is the third installment in the sci-fi franchise and follows the adventures of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew members of the USS Enterprise. Set around one hundred years after the original series, Picard and his crew travel through the galaxy in largely self-contained episodes exploring the crew dynamics and their own political discourse. The series also had several overarching plots that would develop over the course of the isolated episodes, with four films released in tandem with the series to further some of these story elements.

• 

  Star Trek: Voyager

  The fifth entry in the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek: Voyager, is a sci-fi series that sees the crew of the USS Voyager on a long journey back to their home after finding themselves stranded at the far ends of the Milky Way Galaxy. Led by Captain Kathryn Janeway, the series follows the crew as they embark through truly uncharted areas of space, with new species, friends, foes, and mysteries to solve as they wrestle with the politics of a crew in a situation they’ve never faced before. 

• 

  Star Trek: Enterprise

  Star Trek: Enterprise acts as a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, detailing the voyages of the original crew of the Starship Enterprise in the 22nd century, a hundred years before Captain Kirk commanded the ship. Enterprise was the sixth series in the Star Trek franchise overall, and the final series before a twelve-year hiatus until the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery in 2017. The series stars Scott Bakula as Captain Jonathan Archer, with an ensemble cast that includes John Billingsley, Jolene Blalock, Dominic Keating, Anthony Montgomery, Linda Park, and Connor Trinneer.

• 

  Star Trek Lower Decks

  The animated comedy series Star Trek: Lower Decks follows the support crew on one of Starfleet’s least significant ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos, in 2380. Ensigns Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Boimler (Jack Quaid), Rutherford (Eugene Cordero), and Tendi (Noël Wells) have to keep up with their duties and their social lives often. At the same time, the ship is being rocked by a multitude of sci-fi anomalies.