I always assumed that the queen's consciousness spanned the collective (and was maybe formed spontaneously after the assimilation of a ant-like society). If that's true, then she can manifest into any drone as needed, anywhere or anytime, like when dealing with a society that also has a hierarchy (like Star Fleet). I would also guess that she can occupy multiple bodies simultaneously (say, if the Borg were assimilating two species simultaneously). Thinking she exists at one place at one time is the limited "3D thinking" she refers to. (At least in my mind.)

You can try but I will love this movie despite your videos 😛. Love ya, Lore.

I've actually always liked the Borg Queen's throw-away "You think in such three dimensional term..." line. It added an air of mystery, she wasn't 'just' an individual organic being, she was much more and implied that she, like the Collective itself, can't be killed through conventional means. I do get it's a retcon to make the movie fit TNG and can understand anyone who doesn't like it, but it's one that 'worked' for me. The 'Counterpart' is explored a bit more in the book "The Return" and is one I've always found fascinating - The Counterpart's 'job' is to make it easier for the Borg to assimilate a species that has high resistance to them by using a member of said species to basically broadcast propaganda and convince the species in question to allow itself, or at least a significant part of it, to be willingly assimilated, reducing the resistance level and then making it easier for the Borg to assimilate the rest without requiring excessive resource use (ie massive numbers of Cubes). It's a slower, but possibly more efficient process.

What if the queen didn't exist until after the incident with Hugh? She could be the ultimate result of the effects of his return to the collective.

Imagine if Picard replicated a firearm and just shot tube as he walked the room. Then he could dash out, shut the door, and vent the room.

The Borg could destroy humanity at any moment with simply sending more then a single cube towards Earth, and yet they don't. I've always wondered why.

Borg Queen: Watch your future's end. Picard: But I don't wanna watch that! Borg Queen: Oh, okay. WAIT, that's too bad!

You forgot the part where he snaps her neck. I'm pretty sure that happened.

The part she talks about thinking in 3D is a call out to Khan only thinking in 2D in The Wrath of Khan.

good video, i think when the queen notes picard's nobility she's admitting in some way the borg may have fallen from grace and once been a "noble" entity

I've always wondered... Three quantum torpedos to destroy a prototype warp ship?! In an episode of TNG a single standard torpedo would have blown up a massive military construction from a very technological inferior (aside from memory wipes of whole crews, including Data) society. That isn't just overkill. That's using the Deathstar laser on a mosquito level of overkill.

The nitpick early on could be explained as them monitoring his position and actions; the Borg are not omniscient, and while they can predict what Picard will do, they might want to make sure they are ready for anything he can do.

"I don't wanna be a statue."

I always thought of the queen as being more 'Borg like' prior to the first interaction with humanity. After that and assimilation of a some humans, the need for, and subsequent loss of Locutus, she lost what was needed to bridge the gap with humanity. She tried to work on the problem alone and started to go more emotionally driven vs logically driven. Though she may not realize it consciously, she is still driven to replace him because something is wrong and she can't understand fully what it is.

You kill me get over yourself. This was the best of the tng movies.

Lore Reloaded, here is my reading of the Queen. In this situation, you have a collective of former Star Fleet officers. They probably wouldn't go around assimilating people, IE they all swore an oath to Star Fleet. In this instance you would need a pre-programmed version of the hive mind to oversee them. It's like having a backup operating system if your computer system crashes. That's my reading of what the Queen is. In every instance we have seen up until this point, drones separated from the hive mind regained their individuality; having the Queen serve as a stop gap to prevent that makes some kind of sense.

As for the death of all those borg at the end, It might be bit of a stretch, but we could consider that borg ships (according to voyager at least) usually have a vinculum to organise the hivemind locally, wich could perhaps allow them to still be able to operate even with their connection to the larger collective completely broken. If the borg didn't had the time or recources to construct a vinculum on the enterprise, the queen may have needed to run the hivemind on board entirely through her, wich made the others susceptible to her destruction aswell.

I like to think Cochran would have been too drunk to finish if the enterprise crew hadn't interfered with the timeline.

To me the whole problem with the Borg could be solved by adding a couple bits to the lore to make the queen less special in some parts and yet still keep her being essential in this mission. First thing would be her dialog, she should always use We when referring to herself, to make clear that although she seems to be an individual it's all just an illusion, she is still just an interface for the Borg to have an easier conversations with other species if needed. I would also explain how in the absence of a connection to the Collective the queen acts as a central node to keep the Borg in a smaller collective, she would act as a computer server in case of emergency (like being stranded in the past), this could be used as an excuse to why defeating her wins the battle. And if Piccard knew all along she was in the ship, like you suggested, it would also give another layer to his Ahab comparison, since the white wale would be the queen, and not all Borg. This could also justify many drones dying with the queen, since when reacquiring their individuality the drones, especially the older ones, would probably go insane with many committing suicide due to the impact of the atrocities they were made to commit, while also allowing Piccard to save many of the new drones, especially the crew assimilated, since they would not have all that baggage yet. To me this small change in the lore would have the queen make a lot more sense as a part of many, she would be just another cog in the machine, like the drones, just one with a different purpose, it would make it important to protect her in the situation they were in and yet not make her an actual Queen, just a different component in the collective one that, at that moment, with all the limitations the Borg were facing, would be essential and irreplaceable but that in a normal day-to-day operation would just be another Borg. With these two small changes the movie could still be shot 99% identical to what it is, having the very same story and basically all the same scenes (except for an added scene where Piccard goes on an exposition rant about the importance of the queen in this situation) and yet keep the Borg consistant.

" YOU'RE JUST NOT THINKING 4 DIMENSIONALLY " " I HAVE A REAL PROBLEM WITH THAT "

I always felt they should have gone further. Have the Borg Queen belt out a hearty cackle or two.

Here's a thought, something unrelated to this scene but something that's been bothering me and I haven't seen anyone tackle it in any of these types of videos. We know that Q changed things by bringing the Enterprise to the Borg, inevitably changing the Borg by causing them to set their sights on Earth far earlier than would have naturally occurred. Q's argument is that Humanity wasn't prepared to face that threat, causing them to encounter the Borg before their time. In one scene with Q he questions Picard about progressing to slowly. Here's the big question that has been bothering me. WHY does Q want Humanity to progress faster? What are Humans to Q? Most importantly, if Q hadn't intervened, would the Federation have failed to defend against the Dominion as a result? Is his meddling with Humanity, or rather the Federation, a way of pushing Humanity to progress faster? Just things that keep me up at night.

I dated a girl named "Helen Back" when I was in college.

An explanation for why the queen was formed here is, that the collective they had was small. And they assimilated a lot of Starfleet personell. And the collective is always the mind of every drone combined into one hive-mind. With so many "hostile" members in the collective, there is a danger that the will of the collective is taken over. Hence, the queen was formed as a dominating voice. At this point I'd like to draw a comparison to human society. In many countries, we live in a democracy. The will of the people is what dictates the policy of the state. However, democracies fail, when one group wants to reduce the influence of another, ultimately by usurping all the power, often installing an authoritarian leader. And that is, what happened to the collective with the queen. Assimilating entire civilizations against their will puts the collective at risk of hostile takeover. So you need the one, that is many, the one that brings "order" into the "chaos". For the illogical behavior of the queen here, I do not have an explanation. Perhaps they tried to assimilate Data into the collective and he instead infected them with a virus. Admittedly, that's a bit far fetched though.

I would imagine the torpedoes would disarm themselves, or use all their fuel up, or destroy themselves if they are not exploded within a certain amount of time. This prevents rogue torpedoes straying the galaxy. I doubt that the torpedoes would go on for infinity. It's possible that United Earth will discover the torpedoes in the future, and reverse engineer them, but since we know quantum torpedoes are in the TNG+ era, and Enterprise's torpedoes, were just spatial torpedoes, we can assume that they self destructed.

Data also makes a split second delay before he shoots the quantum torpedoes. I always liked that for some reason.

The launch of the Phoenix and the first contact depiction still give me chills. Physics and plot aside

15:00 It's not the fuel, it's the coolant.

I've always thought that the "think in 3 dimensional terms" line meant she was transported through time. That's why the Borg cube had to come to Earth at that exact time, so she'd be retrieved.

If enough of the borg consciousness despise Picard, couldn't that effect Borg on mass?

I really appreciate your opinion and perspective on Trek. When this movie was released, I was so excited and thoroughly loved it - seeing this iteration of TNG on the big screen, with new uniforms, a sexy new ship and it's marvellous interiors was such a buz. Indeed it was beyond thrilling - it was a titillating, quasi-spiritual (!) experience for the young long term Trek fan I was. However, I did have problems with the Queen who to me was revealed to be a self-realised individual in charge of what had been up until then a 'collective'. At the time (for me) this somewhat diminished the Borg and made them less horrifically terrifying. Yet I was living through Trek at it's zenith - you couldn't get much better than waiting to see a new episode of a Deep Space 9 each week - while counting down the weeks to the next TNG movie! It was a grand time to be a Trek lover (miss those days presently - alas!) Lore, your in depth exploration of First Contact - has been great. It's allowed to look at this significant point in Trek storytelling through fresh eyes providing me the opportunity to see in detail, what until now (for me) have been nebulous problems I had with the movie - yet dismissed at the time because, you know, it was Star Trek on the big screen with the TNG cast !! Really look forward to the next part of this video essay. PS. Damn you Lore! I had never noticed the stage lighting in the corridor you pointed out a couple of vids back! Once seen, cannot be unseen - and 'bam' there goes my suspension of disbelief...... unless of course Geordi needed a big light while working maintenance in the corridor prior to the events of the movie? Or ..... (I'll find a way to justify its existence somehow!)😜

1. “Really a great way to write horror.” 2. The Borg in the alcoves are just in their alcoves...prove to me that the collective consciousness has a rule not to use the eyes of their drones to help keep track of an enemy, especially when the Borg are in a unusually vulnerable (low numbers of drones, a non-hive ship, etc.) strategic position. 3. The Borg Queen describes organic minds as “...fragile...” because that’s what they are, at least in her experience, when compared to the Borg collective consciousness. Moreover, she doesn’t say, as you claim, that she “...hate...”s anything. She never even uses the word nor does the movie suggest or even imply that she hates organic beings or any part of them. Seeing something as weak does not mean you hate it, period. 4. Your complaint about her “...three dimensional...” statement is either a time-filling straw man or missing the forest past the trees. She’s not saying anything literal. She’s saying, again, that humans can’t see past their own experiences, not that she, I don’t know, teleported through the fourth dimension, or whatever. Jeez. 5. You say “...it’s incredibly bad writing.” Okay. But then you say “...even the dialog is really, really good.” So I guess what you meant was that how the plot is written is “incredibly bad” but that how the dialog is written is “really really good?” Maybe I’m just not up on film jargon and the term “writing” always means the plot, not the dialog? 6.Excellent point about how the Borg first experienced a Starfleet vessel (if not “humanity”). I’d never thought of it. 7. The “nobility” question. Well, apparently, nobility is on the Borg’s perfection checklist. Historically, nobility is often depicted a. As virtuous b. Something that can only be “afforded” when one’s enemies have been defeated and one’s rule is secure. So...hmmmm. 8.

The Borg were terrifying when we first see them because there was seemingly no way to kill them. Then, in BofBW, they can be beaten, but just barely. They get weaker every time until they are just standard villains with the inclusion of the queen.

The Borg Queen is like Batman - it's a concept, a persona. Before Locutus, it was an abstract. Its physical manifestation, as a member of species 125 according to Dark Frontier, is an adaptation. This is how the Borg operate, they're constantly evolving, constantly redefining themselves, always orbiting the moving target that is their unachievable ideal of "perfection". The fact that it's trying to *persuade* Picard by appealing to his emotions is likewise an adaptation. They assimilated him once and he broke free. To get him back, he has to want it.

I thought most of this made sense outside of the fact that Picard was not aware of the Borg Queen’s presence earlier than her being revealed hiding around a corner. The borg were looking at him in their alcoves because the Queen knew he was coming to main engineering.

I watched this in the theater when it was released (I was 17 so I could watch since it wasn't rated R). I always assumed that the Borg Queen 'body' was basically an avatar, thus the line "you think in such 3 dimensional terms". Especially since in the line prior, Picard says, "You were always there". As in, always present but not necessarily physically. She was part of some larger network. Edit: Oh, and it should be noted that in 1996-1997 when this was released, the idea of an "Avatar" wasn't particularly wide-spread in the mainstream. Many people didn't even have the internet yet and the Matrix wouldn't come out for a couple more years. There were no MMORPG (aside from MUDs, anyone play those? I did.) so the line does kinda fit the time.

This was a great episode of Cinema Sins.

The queen as a processing unit for all the Borg of an area fits in with The TOS I mudd’s episode androids with Norman. But that episode had a very comedic vibe soooo

11:20 I thought he was waiting for the moment he could disarm the self destruct without suspicion. The borg had already demonstrated the could manipulate his technology.

Given how well this movie does at horror at certain points, it _is_ disappointing how much they've changed the nature of the Borg just to have them act like a beehive with a central queen. Part of the horror was the decentralization: No centralized systems to hit and disable, no centralized leadership to remove. The first Cube the _D_ encounters even has the ability to regenerate quickly after being hit by a volley of photon torpedoes, the strongest weapon available to the ship that was the golden jewel of all of Starfleet back then. Not to mention carving the Galaxy-class starship up like a turkey, and easily outrunning them. Sure, occasionally the Borg might choose someone to speak on the Collective's behalf because that's what other species are more comfortable with, but in the end they are legion, and speak with the voice and will of the many-as-one. And with each encounter, the Borg change a little, adapting to be more effective against Starfleet, not less. So I really like what _STO_ did with the return of the Borg -- called back to the Alpha Quadrant by the Tal Shiar messing with derelict Spheres and Cubes, the Borg transwarp in force to gain a foothold on Vega III, assimilating the entire colony in under an hour. They have adopted a more aggressive series of tactics, assimilating where they can and eradicating where resistance is too high. And they speak with the voice of the legion again. Occasionally you will encounter Borg headed by a queen, especially if a TFO calls for her defeat, but even at the end, she promises the players she will return, that she is eternal. And you also continue to encounter Borg as not represented by a queen, and they are a threat that only becomes greater when they discover a way to assimilate even the Undine. They _are_ a massive threat in the game, or at least in the early parts. And yes, you can lose control of your character temporarily as they assimilate them.

I think Voyager hints that the Queen is sort of like the CPU of the hive, everything goes through her at the end of the day. I think (but no confirmation, maybe Voyager was supposed to give us this) she probably was still connected to the hive when the cube over Earth was destroyed, and probably just transferred herself back to the Unicomplex. However, she is now 300+ years in the past and that connection is lost, so when she dies, the other Borg in this case self destruct, which is something we've seen the Borg, just this time in Best of Both Worlds. Where as the Borg in that one episode of Voyager with seven, they are just disconnected from the hive, the hive mind itself isn't destroyed. Its a technicality, but I work with computers all day, you'd be surprised how often a technicality makes or breaks code. Also, I don't think she has control of the ship just yet, and getting Picard down there is Data's idea. In fact, I think the entire thing is Data's idea, a way to distract her long enough to get to the Core. Its drawn out because Data wants it to be. As far as her (and the Borg's anger) its probably from him rejecting the Borg, confusion derived from her inability to comprehend why someone doesn't want to be Borg, but they are what they eat, and right now her entire collective is made up of former Starfleet officers who were assimilated because of Picard's orders. There must be a lot of anger, and maybe some will to stop the queen all flowing through that room.

The 3d terms thing is a call back to twok where they say khan thinks in 2 dimensions during the battle of the mutara nebula. Some writer thought it was witty without thinking about the consequences.

8:00 Nice point there, but you can string it one further. At Wolf 359 the Borg assimilated a reasonable number of humans (and apparently sent some back to the delta quadrant, as we find out in TNG, probably for study, though how is a mystery as they didnt assimilate the subspace transporter we see in Star Trek Picard). As they now had a number of humans in the collective it was a sufficient sample to generally understand human nature, and the idea of having Locutus work as a conduit simply became obsolete.

It's obvious that the Borg Queen sees everything in D20

One thing that bugged me is that if the Vulcan sensors could detect the measly warp signature of the Phoenix, it should have been able to detect the Enterprise and the quantum torpedos being launched.

Do you know whatever happened to axanar fan film?

The Queen should have been a face that Picard had been having flashes of; something from his Borg unconscious that remained with him. Then the big surprise would have been there for the hero without taking away her backstory with Data.

....thought the queen had chosen Picard to be a father of her seed so that they can be the next generation of the Borg with a different understanding of Humanity that she was just starting to comprehend

I wonder why Q never went to Picard when he became Borg and turned him back considering how much he loves Picard

Jesus Christ halfway through and 3 commercials. WTF

I've always had a thought that the queen is trying to act more human because is what has broken the borg. Then once the borg had a better understanding of it then it would be easier to take care of any problems from it. Just my own thought.

I have to agree with some of the other commenters on here that the Queen is ultimately THE consciousness of the collective itself. So, at any time she can choose an avatar i.e. drone to physically occupy a space if needed. I also agree that she was further expanded upon after Picard's, Hugh's and other human assimilations to help resolve the idea of individuality. As far as her "emotions' goes in this scene, I believe it's a facade. It shows the level of her intelligence, knowledge of human behavior(having already assimilated humans), and manipulation in mirroring Picard's emotions. Specifically, anger and rage. We see this also with the Queen in Voyager, who is manipulating Seven. Mirroring and acting in a cold, emotionless manner since she knows this appeals to Seven who has difficulty in expressing emotion. Ultimately valuing logic in her mind.

Could the borg be reference their ability to travel through time as their 4th dimensional thought?

isit that over kill 3 quantum topiedos for one litte ship they could distory with there basic weopens on low power

I don't mean to nitpick. Proceeds to nitpick everything

"I've got a TOMMY GUN!'

You're right, having the Queen demean organics is silly.

Well there are a few situations that are different here. first we know that data has that emotion chip that is stuck on, so that is going to affect how he behaves. I think also why Data wanted to stall is multi-pronged here. first off would he really been that much safer doing it another way? like you said the queen can always jump to a new host. now I am speculating a bit here, but I'm thinking that since they are in the past and their main ship has been destroyed they likely have no way of contacting the main fleet. since I think that was what that whole deflector dish adventure was about. So that normally the queens are held in check by all being connected together. This model does play out in computer science you will have some servers that have more authority on the network then others, I think while they are tied together they stay as just another part of the whole system, and when they get cut off from the higher level connections. that's when they are the root server as it where and now there's only the drones that are below her in the schema. this also means they are more or less on their own as they now have the root controls for the borg that are still in rage. And just like with other drones who aren't being swept up in the hive mind they start thinking for themselves. Which is why she gained the will to want to play with him, and to some degree wanted to try to call him back like he said not just as another drone but as Locuts. which she wouldn't be able to force him to do, she could force him to become another drone but not Locuts it wouldn't work any better the 2nd time around to do a frontal attack so she's trying to be more sly. And she has enough of her own will as the primary node for the borg in this sector to do that. I also think that it's her role as the sole primary node that makes it harder for her to just jump to another drone. see she can't just exit and deauth her old shell and jump into a new one and log back into the network and get granted her admin access, she'd have to transfer herself and the node to another drone, and I think the surprise attack of data pulling her into that sudden death cloud didn't give her enough time to complete the transfer before her shell died, taking her with it. and with no controlling node anymore the system went haywire. since likely all the drones that where keeping order in the hive where in the most protected part of the ship, engineering when that event happened. so all the remaining drones where able to start coming out of it, and they either decided to sacrifice themselves to save anyone who might still be left and to prevent being re-subjugated to the hive. or got killed off by those who where trying to break the system and now had the means. Then you have Data, who is much more distractable due to that chip being stuck on and may of missed better opportunity's because of it, or maybe wasn't able to think clearly enough to think of another option that would of worked. Also they can't just run off and keep up indirect attacks as that could give the borg to much opportunity to do something to the phoenix and they wanted to avoid that. so those are my thoughts on why things could of played out differently here then on other episodes.

The only thing I hate about the Borg Queen is that she died in this film and a year later she reappears again in Voyager *Dark Frontier* like the Borg have multiple Borg Queens in the storage cabinet. Let me tell you what the final episode of Voyager should have done. Instead of the Borg Queen dying in the exploding Borg Central, she manage to escape in a Borg Cube, along with some Borg drones. And the explosion of the Borg Central cause a rip in the space-time continuum, where the Queen's cube went through and ends couple of months before the events of the *Star Trek: First Contact* During that period knowing that Borg in her timeline has been completely destroyed or crippled beyond repair, the Queen heads to Earth to assimilate it to create her new Borg Central. And when that failed, she goes to plan B and goes back in time to pull *The Terminator* scenario. That would made more sense and more timey whimey.

when their about the go warp 1.. how dose the Vulcan not detect the Borg or the enterprise ... Even if their not going into Warp speed, they did fire off weapons... alot of weird energy readings had to still be their around earth at a first contact stage , unless Q with hiding them somehow.

I think this film and the Queen takes sometimes away from the Borg making them more “grey". I feel they were more frigthening as binary, asimilate or wipe civilizations, not trying to "understand" them.

Virtually any human would be able to bridge the gap between humans and the borg so why pick Picard? I found the following description interesting from the borg’s prospective the Enterprise appears out of no where and then disappeared right in front of the the borg cube. What if the borg were not trying to bridge the gap between borg and human but borg and the Q?

My take on why Picard wasn't assimilated? We see that the Queen, who is Borg but behaves like her own person for reasons which would likely be interesting if they were properly explained, does have a range of darker emotions. In Voyager, we see her use Seven's knowledge of the Borg, and how freakin' scary they are, to coerce Seven on at least two occasions. It stands to reason she, having a sadistic side, would want Picard to suffer, to see his anguish, and that she'd think he'd feel it fully while still his own person. The same might hold true for having Data pull the not-so-metaphorical trigger with Picard watching. So, she's a Borg who can be sadistic and overconfident. Again, it'd be interesting after it made more sense. Well, that's just my right brain gyrating madly on the subject. The rest of my brain is wondering why Star Trek can't get its story straight the first time.

That is the problem with using an enemy like the Borg. If you kill the "Queen", they shouldn't all just turn off, they should either a) continue about their tasks, still active but perhaps unfocused; an idle PC repeating programmed tasks or b) awakened, their free will returning to those who might still be fighting. The first assumes the Queen is actually a hive leader; the Borg act as drones, doing tasks they have been instructed in, and deviating from those tasks only at the Queen's direction. The queen can focus on individual drones when she needs to, but her vision would be much more zoomed out, just accumulating data and fixing inconsistencies in programming. The second assumes the Queen is a caretaker, or censor. Without her influence, suppressing free will, those who still desire freedom could begin to think that way again, without the queen getting in their head, but still dealing with the collective as a whole. Now, MAYBE the warp core damage caused the Borg in their bays to overload, and without working bays the rest starve to death offscreen. Data could have waited to smash the Warp Core because we don't see him type in some program to reroute power through the link he's about to smash, or something. It's still a very cheap way to give the team a cinematic win at the end, with a nice tidy bow. Imagine, instead, if the second option occured (because I admit the first option isn't cinematically clean or snappy, even if it's the more technically likely). As the room vents the plasma, Data and Picard have a bro moment interrupted by the door opening. The angry-eyed borg who followed Picard around (foreshadowing) is back, and he's headed right for our heroes. Data intercepts, and they struggle, before angry-eye gets shot in the back. It's some recognizable Ensign! (Or even Crusher, if we let her get assimilated). In the Hugh-style voice, she tells Picard Enterprise crew on all decks are trying to take the ship back from the central collective. Data gives him ship control, and he and Borg friend hold off Collective-loyal borg while Enterprise-loyal borg across the ship get help from Picard (venting decks, sealing bulkheads to aid in retreat, overloading conduits to take out nearby Borg). We can even montage it for expedience (if you absolutely don't trust your audience to follow the action, make their lights blue or yellow or something). By the end, you have all the Borg who either resisted the collective's voice or were convinced to think for themselves in control of the Enterprise, and the Borg who embraced the collective destroyed or captured (once the number of voices left in their heads overwhelmed decent, the loyalist Borg could order the to stand down). Crusher/Ensign even says "that's it. We took the majority, and the rest have been ordered back to Alcoves. The Enterprise is ours... is yours." And Picard and Data share a knowing grin. From their, Picard explains in a Captains log that the Borg additions have been analyzed and dismantled, with the intelligence gained certain to give a huge boost to both the Borg and Dominion war efforts, and first contact has been achieved, with the Cochran/Vulcan scene playing underneath. He then explains the crew's implants have been mostly removed, though some have elected to stay a collective, with the long-range transmission implants removed. This study of the Collective could result in ways to convince others to break free of the Queen's hold, back in our time. Perhaps, eventually, the end of the Queen herself. We then get Crusher/Enisgn, Picard, Lily, and Data discussing the fact the Queen is no doubt already active on a new ship in their time, as soon as her active frame went back and didn't instantly return. Crusher/Ensign worries about the Cooperative Borg that are staying linked together, but Picard gives a speech about how we're stronger together, and even weak voices in unison can sound overwhelming (meant to be uplifting, even if it has some real world bad examples). As long they they support them, the Collective would rather they not return, and poison them with free will once more. He also confides that he can still hear the Borg, but admits that, at least around the Cooperative, he hears peace.

Giving it some thought, while I still think the queen does not fit as a controller, I could see her as the Collective's hatred for Picard. Think of it this way, the first human they see ( on screen anyway) is Picard. The collective goes out of it's way to assimilate Picard due to the points in the video. Ultimately the Borg are defeated by, Picard. And not just because Starfleet blew up the cube, but because they used Picard's connection to the collective to do it. The next Time they encounter Picard, it is the incident with Hugh, were just interacting with Humans led to yet another cube. I would say that the collective definitely has it out for Picard, and the queen could be the manifestation of this. As to why Picard doesn't remember her? Simple, she didn't exist at Wolf 359, but the idea of her was planted by the collective through the link they still share, and so Picard no mis-remembers. ( note, this also explains the organic minds comment, as the collective does think of singular organic minds as week) TBH this theory still has enough holes to drive the Enterprise through, but I do think it has some interesting connotations.

a theory I have is that the queen was the result of the borg trying to create that bridge between them and individuals and she somehow took control of the borg or something

Easy her essence is uploaded to what ever connects the borg. So redownloading it into a new cloned body would be simple.

00:36 DOLPH LUNDGREN of BORG

Picard explained how with that transporter in the queens chambers

It is said ignorance is bliss and I don’t envy your knowledge of film it ruins the movie. Great video I enjoyed it a lot

I really wish we had a properly written Borg Queen here, a new element added to the Borg that has not always existed assimilated from another species. Significantly improve The Borg's ability to manage two things, emotion and diplomacy using this new element. Essentially, those really awkward lewd scenes, if rewritten in this light, could become an excellent adaptation of the "sexuality and the vampire" writing asset. I would also have a point toward the end of the film in which the Queen begs for mercy and expresses major suffering, hearkening back to I-Borg. I would invoke Picard's empathy at this point, and lead this into a negotiation of a temporary peace and possible lasting peace between Borg and Humanity. I believe this makes sense from the perspective of The Collective and clearly so for Starfleet. The Borg are in a bad state with 8472, they take decisions best suited to their singular core goal, and would have a reasonable understanding of Humanity by this point. A large scale metaplan for The Collective is to gain the trust of The Federation, eventually allowing drones to enter Federation territory. This makes for the perfect stage-setter for a huge, quadrant wide outbreak of assimilation by airborne nanoprobes. This approach could prove far more effective than anything The Collective has tried thusfar and would exploit the Federation's Achilles Heel.

first contact was the beginning of the end for star trek. it was stupidity from start to finish. but at the time fans were so excited to see borg on the big screen that nobody cared.

I think the Borg Queen exists as a Quantum existence. You see the body and think that's her but that "body is nothing but a constructed shell for an existence that exists everywhere within the collective. Even disconnected Borg make have an existing connection to the Queen. This would explain why the queen has a completely cybernetic skull as her body is created to have nodal control capability. over local Borg but she is the sum total of the Borg consciousness. Go a thousand years or back that much and the Borg queen you encounter could be considerably different from the one we see in First Contact. To be honest the queens body is likely more like Data's, a Cyborg shell with a collective consciousness. Appearance could change on a whim or dependent on who or what she encounters. The Queen is a gestalt consciousness of the Borg as a whole and one will always surface at some point and in some way, the Borg however direct that consciousness into a controlling directive form. In the Matrix movies the existence of "The One" is a forgiven eventuality and as such the Matrix uses this and integrates it into the running of the Matrix system as a whole. The Queen is the same, all organic components the Borg assimilate will eventually create a gestalt consciousness and instead of fighting this or eliminating it constantly whenever it appears within the Borg they integrate it. As to why the Queen did not therefore become a part of the collective consciousness of the queen when they time travelled, well I have 2 theories. The first obvious is that the tech required to integrate the queen into the collective was destroyed with the deflector. The second is that without being synced with the queen of that time the collective would reject the new conscious element as an intruding virus or reject it like an organ transplant. As I said before the Queens consciousness is an amalgamation of the collective as a whole and change with the addition of new assimilated species and individuals so a short time can have a drastic change in the structure of the Queens existence!

Her using the term "not thinking 4th Dimensionally" I believe is referencing how the Borg exist... Like a a 4D cube the tesseract (however you spell that) the Borg is less than the vertex and lines culminating in a single shape. The tesseract being a cube within a cube is tangential to the 3D perspective where the 4D perspective has a factor beyond visible coordinates of X,Y or Z. Which without the 4th variable in place it's dimensions can't really be visualized... I believe the Within Space aspect is that the Queen isn't a biological entity like our Monarchy but as the passing leadership of a Hive. The Queen just a concept... A tangible individual aspect to the Game. Essentially designed to rectify the flaw in combat scenarios of non statistical analysis and response. Set to try counter the individuality Trump card that has creativity and illogical options. So thinking in 4D sees the Queen as just a unique piece of the collective. When she does they just make a new one. Likely via cloning seeing as it's her except that one time in Voyager... While I typed this I also figure the Queen isn't exactly Bug titled... More Chess Titled... The Collective itself would essentially be an active Torrent shared King. That as long as a Pawn is present it can find a way to play for the win... The Queen being a somewhat powerful piece in its versatility. However I think an irony of the collective itself is it depends how you play... As long as you can use logic illogically you can beat an AI at chess easily.

Call me crazy, but I've often thought that Picard began to wonder, or possibly knew for sure, the torpedoes were going to miss. He's seen enough flight paths in his time, so he may well begin to question the one he's looking at. Also, 3 quantum torps? I mean, talk about over kill. And how are Riker and Geordi taking this? Did they not see it? (For their sakes, I kind of hope they didn't.) As for the weapons themselves... bah, we'll just do some more ret-con and say the Enterprise went and got them while they were waiting for the Vulcans to land or just between this moment and the last time we see them on Earth. Otherwise, the Mass Effect Gunnery Sergent gets quoted again. "Once you fire a husk of (quantum explosive?), it keeps going until it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years. If you pull the trigger on this, you're ruining someone's day somewhere and sometime. That is why you check your **** targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a **** firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not 'eyeball it!' This is a weapon of mass destruction. You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip."

1.I think Data waited till the moment the queen/collective attention was focused away from him. 2. All the borg dieing when she died is probably because this is not a full blown borg collective it's a micro collective with her acting as the central Processor rather than just the guiding intelligence. Which also explains Why The drones react to Picard the way they do their is no filter between her and the drones. Unlike the normal collective which has layers of unimatrixes Sub processors And central plexuses.

Hey Lore, is it possible Picard passed on his Irumodic Syndrome to the collective?

The birg queen is a spurned lover?? It makes sense lol

Data loves Drama.

You really do think in a 3D aspect... The Borg Queen doesn't have to be anywhere and can be everywhere all at the same time she is considered the central governing final decision CPU of the Borg if there's a problem with consensus in any ship generally speaking anywhere where there's transwarp communication capable she can break the argument and make a final decision anywhere and everywhere... She can easily with the technology that the Borg have project her image either in 3D space or mentally through the collective consciousness of the Borg Grand hive mine... This means she could be at bored stronghold Delta quadrant dating interpersonal Alcove not connected to her body and project an image into Jean-Luc Picard or better known as lacutest of Borg right in his head... Small minded individuals just couldn't come up with this logical

I would argue that the Borg Queen is... unintentional. The Borg did not intend for her to exist. Not originally. I think that somewhere along the line, they assimilated a race that brought along something they did not anticipate. Perhaps a virus or mutation, and the Queen arose as either a result or reaction to this. Or perhaps the Queen represents the Borg's attempt to understand Humanity. The reason she plays with Picard here and pretends to accept his deal, when she believes Data is on her side, is simple: It's revenge. She want's revenge upon Picard for resisting her attempts to make him into her counterpart. But revenge is not something the Borg do. But it might be something the Borg Queen does. I think you've hinted at it repeatedly, but I think the Borg Queen is somehow separate, yet a part, of the Borg Collective. She isn't representative of the Collective, but seems apart from it. She seems to control the Collective, at least in part, and yet does not work counter to it. If I had to pick, I'd say the Borg Queen was the result of the Borg trying to push their evolution further. They recognized an aspect of their race was weak. They lacked innovation and while they adapted easily, they rarely understood other races. The Borg Queen was an attempt to bridge this gulf. Anyways, a bunch of my random head canon thrown at ya. I could pick out a few pieces that might have justification in Star Trek Alpha Canon, but in reality, it's just theories. Take from it what you will.

Only reason I can think that card is not automatically being converted to a drone via Nanobots it's because the queen is thinking of more exotic needs and purposes for Picard more in the lines of what she was wanting in the first place an equal in Form and Function date is all good but he's still talking walking computer what she wants... And as for the queen thinking in the 3D at this current time she is 3D it's not like she's projecting her mind from the Delta quadrant she is physically there... And ask for the queen dying this could be strictly a local system phenomenon he is outside of our own time and space aka the past currently is herself the current Delta quadrant controlling standard Borg update timeline so if anything the Borg could potentially and if they don't that puts a real wrench in Telecommunications cuz she's in charge of future board not the current board of that timeline and ask for being a queen I do believe there is information out there that states the Queens are made and born and that she's not the only one but she's just the active one play the last x amount of millennium and it takes a specific individual organism strong enough the Borg Queen otherwise minute she left her timeline the rest of the board would have just went into hibernation and the Borg don't work that way it's been proven that the board can and do have colonies that can be disconnected as a group or as individuals so in the long run I don't think the Borg died as a whole just that the current subset of Borg that are outside of time and space are dead because they relied specifically on the queen for some sort of reason I'm assuming as a central Beacon to not be confused with and time Borg and when she died with such painful mentally and physically got it would just overload the pathways of all remaining board on the ship plus the gas... So for future borg eventually would realize Delta Queen is not coming back based on some kind of protocol would probably hunt out or have their next Queen installed

I guess the thing I hated most about this movie is that, while his crew risked their lives to save him when he was Locutus, he tells his crew they'll be doing their friends a favor if they kill them if they get assimilated. Way to lift up morale, Captain. It also makes me question why the Federation has seemingly not planned for the Borg to board any of their ships. Imagine if the Borg had beamed drones aboard all of the ships during the battle and taken them over. They could get all of that technology and more easily conquer Earth. I say all of this to point out that, despite their boasts of being superior and how humans are so "3-d," the Borg do a lot of stupid human things that basically guarantee they'll lose.

Star Trek did the Borg dirty in so many ways, but by far the most egregious sin against them was the Borg Queen. The whole point of the Borg is they're a unified collective that doesn't need a queen. The Borg Queen ruined the Borg.

There's a whole host of problems with having a "Queen" as you've mentioned. You are right that it creates so many plot problems and subsequent poor writing. And I know I've mentioned this before, but this is my problem with having the borg as the "bad guys" for the TNG crew. It makes no sense for logical beings and a hive collective to act so illogically and be dependent on one person (which goes against everything we saw from the first and other interactions with the borg during the series run). The only reason it was done was for dramatic purposes. And I'm okay with that, it did make for good drama, and I remember liking the double cross at the end when I first saw this. But it's best not to think too much about it. As I've mentioned before, DS9 solved this problem with faceless badguys by having the Vorta be the face of the Dominion. So you can have true antagonists. This is the problem with the borg, if you want to accurately portray them, you can't have a single antagonist.

How come Vulcans never detected the Ent E or the energy signatures of the quantum torpedoes?

So was the queen present in the battle of Wolf 359?

In the first 10!

Lore - do you really believe that the Borg are unaware of Q's existence after assimilating so many different worlds? The Borg decimated the El Aurians... and Guinan seemed to be very familiar with him... I see no reason El Aurians wouldn't also be aware of the Q either... or the other species who tried to attack Q when he became mortal

Three quantum torpedoes? The Pheonix must have some really hardcore defenses if itll take three torpedoes to do the job. I mean, couldn't ya just fire the phaser for like .02 seconds and the ship would be gone.

Marty! You're not thinking 4th dimensionally!

What doesn’t make sense is why they don’t keep trying the time travel thing until it works. I hate time travel as a plot device.

I think you see the borg in the wrong light, I think the vast majority of them are on autopilot most of the time, so they wouldn't see someone when they're in their alcoves, and they wouldn't follow someone, however, when the Queen wants to she can directly act and see through any borg, and considering the limited number of them on the Enterprise, and her proximity and the situation, it makes sense that they would act different, because she acts different, when they're watching him when they're following him it's really her watching and following. From what we know of the borg from various sources, the Queen/s are from a single race, (some sources say there's more than one) and can control thousands of minds, thousands, not millions or billions, thousands, if that's the limit of their ability to "bring order to chaos" then most borg would have to be on autopilot most of the time, so it makes sense that those near her are more likely to most of the time be under her direct control, and therefore act differently, having the appearance of acting less like drones, and taking on the Queen's behaviour even if in a small way. Also the Queen talking about organic minds being inferior isn't wrong either, the borg have minds that are composed of biology and technology, which would be superior to a purely biological one. The talk about 3D terms makes loads of sense, she doesn't physically travel, but she could quite easily exist in a virtual sense anywhere the borg control, I always took it to mean she was saying she wasn't ever there, but the nature of the borg means she can effectively be there, think of it like a multiplayer game, your avatar appears on someone else's screen, and yours, so you could say that if that avatar was a consious thing, it is existing in more than one place at a time. She would have a physical body, somewhere, but that doesn't mean that she couldn't exist elsewhere in a pure data form.

That version of the Queen would die. She doesn't have a presence in the collective, she isn't backed-up yet. Otherwise the collective would have been there a very long time ago.

For the borg to obtain nobility would be a definitely interesting fact on the entire Borg race and Collective nature currently sits the Borg have no sense of Honor decency spect for any sentient life-form that they may come across it's just technology organic minds and knowledge no matter what race you are. You throwing nobility can you get a sense of purposes why an individual would fight for his freedom which is totally foreign to the Borg at this point in time they understand the core reason but they don't understand the purpose or vice versa but it has a core tangent it totally lose them. Now if they had this they could potentially encourage in many different ways instead of Simply threatening and taking over he might actually have willing participants and from there the collective consciousness a fellow races would see their fellows volunteering to become Borg and have more of a willingness to potentially follow suit.. Potentially making it a more diplomatic in some scenarios these are just my thoughts on why nobility would actually be a benefit to the Borg

Doesn't the Queen download herself into drones whenever she's under threat of destruction?

You imply that the Borg are still "fascinated" by Humans cause of the "Q Who incident".... But why should the Borg not know that the Q exist? They know MUCH more about the Universe than The Federation. At least Q almost kinda fears them in one TNG Episode where He lectures the Young Q at His Side so there must have been some Kind of contact.. I Always thought that the overemphasize of Humans by the Borg was Strange. But that's Star Trek for you... Humans= super flawd but still unbelievable Special due to their "ingenuity" for many powerful species... OK.. And the Borg at the beginning might Look at Picard the way they do cause the Queen wants to Look at him through their eyes.... To make Sure that Picard is on His way.

awkward. I think the Picard series actually provided an answer to how she could have gotten off the cube.

The Borg knew of humans well before "Q-Who?". (The addition of the Queen was a very bad idea, IMO)

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