Officially, Jean-Luc Picard was assimilated by the Borg for only six days in Star Trek, constituting one single two-part episode bridging seasons 3 and 4 of The Next Generation. And yet, it may be the defining moment of the character, with the fallout extending through numerous episodes of The Next Generation, Star Trek: First Contact and Season 1 of Picard.
The Borg were first encountered in The Next Generation, Season 2, Episode 16, “Q Who?,” and presented as so unstoppable that Picard had to swallow his pride and beg Q for help to escape them. The episode ended with the Borg presumably on their way to the Federation and a ticking clock on finding a way to stop them. This came to a head a little over a year later in Season 3, Episode 26, “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1,” when they returned, seemingly as powerful as ever, and abducted and assimilated Picard.
The assimilation itself takes place largely offscreen, and the details were only hinted at. The Borg selected Picard to act as their spokesperson in the subjugation of the Federation, allowing the show to demonstrate the effects of assimilation and how it can be used against a targeted species. As captain of Starfleet’s flagship, Picard was privy to every strategy, tactic and technical specification in the fleet. Once the Borg knew that, there was little the Federation could do to stop them. However, the same connection allowed the crew of the Enterprise-D to access the Borg’s network in the next episode — Season 4, Episode 1, “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2” — and put them to sleep before they could finish their conquest. At that point, Picard was left to recover and the Borg were temporarily vanquished.
The choice of Picard let the show illustrate how implacable they are as foes and how little anyone — even the captain of the Enterprise — could do to stop them. However, the act runs counter to the established understanding of the Borg, which views no one individual higher than any other. Ostensibly, they conducted it to more smoothly facilitate humanity’s assimilation, but that never seemed a priority before, and it goes against the whole notion of their unstoppable nature.
First Contact took steps to remedy that with the introduction of the Borg Queen. As Locutus, Picard served as her “consort,” which permitted him certain privileges of rank. The Queen fully intended to use Data as a replacement, suggesting that the position was far more important than just heralding the conquest of a new species. As it turns out, the Queen wanted Picard to choose assimilation willingly, as she believed Data had done. It was the one thing the Borg couldn’t take by force, and if her most tenacious foes could, it would finally render their defiance of her irrelevant.
Whatever the reason, Picard’s assimilation was so momentous that The Next Generation returned to it time and again. In fact, the next episode in Season 4, “Family,” concerned itself primarily with his struggle to put the trauma behind him. In the end, Borg’s assimilation, and Picard’s reaction to it, heralded more complex villains than fans had ever seen before.
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