Borg Queen
Prior to the movie Star Trek: First Contact, the Borg exhibit no hierarchical command structure, instead using a structure similar in principle to the internet with no control center and distributed processing. First Contact introduced the Borg Queen, who is not named as such in the film but is referred to by that name during the credits. The Queen is played by Alice Krige in this film and in the finale of Star Trek: Voyager, "Endgame". The character also appeared in Voyager's two-part episodes "Dark Frontier" and "Unimatrix Zero", but Susanna Thompson was the actor. It is never confirmed whether or not all of these appearances represent exactly the same Queen.
The Borg Queen is the focal point within the Borg collective consciousness and a unique drone within the collective, who originates from Species 125, that brings "order to chaos", referring to herself as "we" and "I" interchangeably. In First Contact the Queen's dialogue suggests she is an expression of the Borg Collective's overall intelligence; not a controller but the avatar of the entire Collective as an individual. The introduction of the Queen radically changed the canon understanding of the Borg function; some fans consider the Borg queen "nothing more than an illogical plot device" designed to make for "good theater."
In First Contact, the Borg Queen is seen as apparently present during Picard's former assimilation at the start as flashbacks in Picard's mind, and was believed destroyed along with that Borg cube years earlier. Here, she instead directs her attentions to Data. After he is captured by her drones, she tries to tempt him to join her by playing on his desire to be more human. She claims that she desires a semi-independent non-Borg being as an intellectual companion. This Queen is partially destroyed when her organic components are liquefied as a result of Data rupturing one of the Enterprise's warp core plasma coolant conduits. Picard finishes her off by breaking her spinal column with his own hands. The Queen is also destroyed in the Voyager episode "Endgame".
In the Star Trek: The Experience attraction The Borg Invasion 4-D, the Borg Queen re-appears after Voyager returns to the Alpha Quadrant, but as Admiral Janeway attempts to kill her, she activates a transporter, allowing herself to survive.
In the Star Trek: Voyager relaunch novels, the Borg Queen is not a single, irreplaceable entity, but the product of a program called "The Royal Protocol" that shares its name with a Starfleet document outlining requirements when dealing with foreign royalty. This program is used to create a Borg Queen from any female Borg, commanding the technology within her to alter and adapt to the Protocol's specifications. In the relaunch novels, one of the leaders of Starfleet Intelligence gets her hands on The Royal Protocol and, with the use of an Emergency Medical Hologram, turns herself into a new kind of Borg Queen who cares about and loves her drones.
Alternatively, in the game Star Trek: Legacy, bonus content unlockable throughout the course of the game offers further information on the role of the queen. It is suggested that the females of a particular species have a natural ability to filter and control the immense 'traffic' of thought present in the collective consciousness of the Borg. These females, in a sense, serve as regulators or signal boosters even assisting in maintaining the complete consciousness over the thousands of lightyears of Borg space. This also presents the possibility of multiple queens, which would be a suitable explanation for why, on more than one occasion, a Starfleet officer has 'killed the queen.' In the illustration accompanying the explanation, all the females distinctly resemble the queen portrayed on screen.
In the Mirror Universe story "The Worst of Both Worlds" by Greg Cox, the Borg are led by a King.
Read more about this topic: Resistance Is Futile
Famous quotes containing the word queen:
“...he sent letters to all the royal provinces, to every province in its own script and to every people in its own language, declaring that every man should be master in his own house.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Esther 1:22.
King Ahasuerus, after his Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command.