Star Trek Guide

Star Trek: Picard & Seven of Nine Teamed Up YEARS Before The TV Show

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard Episode 5

Star Trek: PicardEpisode 5 “Stardust City Rag” features some fabulous scenes between Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) as they exchange views on being ex-Borg drones. Many consider the episode monumental for being the first time these two pop culture icons have shared screen time. But long-time Star Trek fans know this is not the first time Picard and Seven have met.

In the 2012 IDW comic Star Trek: The Next Generation: HIVE, an out-of-continuity story relates the first time Picard encountered Seven of Nine – and recruited her for a top secret mission to take down the Borg. While this story has been relegated as non-canon due to the events of Star Trek: Picard, now is a great time to review this alternate tale and see the kind of formidable team Picard and the former Borg drone once made.

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Star Trek: The Next Generation - Hive

Conceived by television producer and screenwriter Brannon Braga, a long-time producer of Star Trek: The Next Generationand Star Trek: Voyager, IDW’s Star Trek: The Next Generation HIVE represents Braga’s conception of how the Star Trek universe could have continued to evolve under his direction. In the comic, it’s revealed that on the night Voyager celebrated its return (in “Endgame”), Seven of Nine was approached by Captain Jean-Luc Picard. The two bond over their shared experiences with the Borg and Picard asks for Seven’s help in spearheading a covert mission to take down the Borg from the inside.

Picard’s plan is to outfit a Borg drone with a filter that connects the drone to the collective mind but also allows one to retain its individuality. Using this device, Picard hopes to have an “inside man” within the collective that can help eradicate the Borg. Seven of Nine volunteers for this mission and allows herself to be re-assimilated into the Borg Collective, secretly feeding the Federation information for the next three years.

Following the events of Star Trek: Nemesis, however, the Borg apparently encounter a superior alien lifeform, the Voldranii, during their attempts to assimilate beings from different dimensions. Realizing the Borg cannot defeat this new enemy on their own, the Borg Queen seeks out Starfleet and proposes an alliance. She sends Seven of Nine over to Picard’s ship as a representative who confirms that the threat to the Borg is real. The new enemy even destroys Andoria Prime, motivating the Federation to ally themselves with the Borg.

However, the Voldranii threat turns out to be a hoax manufactured by the Borg who discovered Seven of Nine’s duplicity and used her to feed Starfleet false information. The Borg Queen then takes control of Seven and forces her to provide them with tactical knowledge of Starfleet’s starships. While the Enterprise crew is able to free Seven from the Queen’s influence, the Borg begin their campaign to systematically take over the Federation’s worlds. Just as all hope seems lost, however, help arrives in a very strange form.

The Return of Locutus… and Data?

Five hundred years in the future, the Borg have accomplished their goal and assimilated the entire universe. Jean-Luc Picard has been reclaimed by the Borg and transformed into Locutus – the Borg Queen’s king – once more. After several centuries, however, Locutus has grown disillusioned with the Borg, believing that their ways of eliminating imperfection by assimilating all life into the Collective is flawed. An aspect of his original personality breaks through, causing Picard/Locutus to launch a plan of his own to end the Borg.

RELATED: Star Trek: Picard Explains How The Borg Queen Always Survives

Using information on Lieutenant Commander Data assimilated from The Daystrom Institute, Locutus resurrects his old android friend using Borg technology. Data and Locutus then raid the Borg Queen’s stronghold together and even take down a reconfigured spider-like Seven of Nine. While Locutus is destroyed by the Borg Queen, he manages to get Data to a temporal displacement hub that sends the android back in time to the moment where the Borg began to take over the universe.

Beaming aboard Picard’s ship just as it’s passing through the Typhon Expanse, an area full of temporal anomalies (a reference to the TNG episode “Cause and Effect”), Data reveals Locutus entrusted him with a device to destroy the Borg. The new weapon – a nano-virus – is designed to infect the entire hive and fracture the collective, destroying the Borg. While the crew debate over the morality of destroying trillions of drones, the desperateness of their situation convinces them to go through the plan.

Since the nano-virus must be injected into the Borg Queen, Picard realizes he must allow the Queen to assimilate him and transform him into Locutus again. However, Picard comes up with the idea to use Seven’s filter to protect him from becoming part of the Collective – shielding his mind while the nano-virus infects the Queen and the entire Borg hive mind. The plan works and Data fades away as the future changes.

As the Borg begin to die out, Seven of Nine interfaces with the Collective and attempts to sever as many drones as she can from the hive mind. As she does, however, a Borg-hating lieutenant on the Enterprise fires photon torpedoes at the Borg cube Seven is on and fatally injures her. Seven does manage to save over five thousand drones, however, who establish their own peaceful colony in gratitude to her. In the aftermath, Picard orders the Enterprise to set a course for the Daystrom Institute, presumably to resurrect Data.  

The Star Trek Movie That Never Was?

A strange mix of Star Trek and Schindler’s List (Seven even weeps as she dies, claiming “I didn’t do enough… I could’ve gotten more”) Star Trek: The Next Generation HIVE offers a fascinating alternate glimpse into how the franchise could have continued if new movies had been made. While Star Trek: Picard has opted to take Seven’s story in a different direction (having Seven join the Rangers and become a vigilante warrior), the chemistry she shares with Picard in the comic is very similar to the excellent interplay between Ryan and Stewart in the TV series.

While fans will have to wait and see how Picard and Seven’s relationship evolves in Star Trek: Picard, their unique shared perspective on the Borg grants them a powerful connection. For those who’d like to see this bond explored to its fullest, HIVE offers a thrilling, albeit non-canon, story.

Source: screenrant.com