Name That Episode #40 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Dark Frontier

Most of the time, when we did see a Borg drone in action, the drone was either simply walking around or assimilating another humanoid with its injection tubules. However, in the two-hour event where we meet the Borg Queen for the first time (technically the second time, for "Star Trek: First Contact" viewers), there is a drone who is seen healing Seven's bloody scar with a green beam of sweeping energy (very advanced thermal regenerators the Borg have!) while Seven is serving on board the ship that is battling Species 10026, a new alien race whom the Borg Queen wants to assimilate into the Collective.

Answer: Child's Play

It's always a thrilling and suspenseful moment whenever us viewers are treated to seeing what's going on inside of a Borg ship; it's almost like walking through a haunted house at times. A 'ghost ship', in fact, is what B'Elanna calls it when she and Tuvok are traversing the derelict cube in "Unity", long before the cube is re-activated by the ex-Borg humanoids down on the planet where Chakotay and Ensign Kaplan end up. Perhaps even more haunting is when Seven and Tuvok, interlocked in a Vulcan mind-meld, are shown inside a Borg ship towards the end of "Infinite Regress", the meld signifying Tuvok's attempts to rescue Seven from the cacophony of dizzying personalities inside her head. Seeing all of the various alien humanoids screaming and moaning and writhing with the blurred and distorted visual effects--all very haunting indeed.

Not nearly as haunting is when we see 'One', the hybrid of Seven and Doc's 29th-century mobile emitter, transporting over to the Borg ship at the end of "Drone".

After several failed attempts of direct assimilation by the other drones, 'One' enters into an unoccupied alcove and accesses that ship's navigation, forcing the ship into the nearby nebula and causing its ultimate destruction. So that leaves "Child's Play" as the correct answer. In this episode, where we get to meet Icheb's family shortly after he's severed from the Collective, we do see a Borg vessel at the very end: the one that attempts to tractor the Brunali shuttle carrying Icheb and Voyager itself. However, at no time during that brief, tense moment do we get even a glimpse into the actual interior of the Borg ship; nor do we ever see any assimilated drones, for that matter.

Answer: Imperfection

'We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.' The trademark phrase of the Collective is heard loud and clear in totality and in all of its classic glory in both "Drone" and "Child's Play"--before 'One' transports over to the ship to steer it into the nearby nebula and before it captures Voyager and Icheb's shuttle into the tractor beam, respectively.

Then in the episode "One", while Seven is still hallucinating and attempting to get to the bridge to pilot Voyager the rest of the way through the radiation-filled nebula, she imagines that the doors to the Turbolift have opened into the interior of a Borg ship.

This time, we only hear the Borg stating a fraction of their glorified trademark phrase: 'Resistance is futile'.

A flustered Seven then repeats her command to the Turbolift computer to go to the bridge, making the image of the Borg ship, as well as the voices of the Collective, go away. So that leaves "Imperfection" as the correct answer. Perhaps there was some 'imperfection' of a different kind as we are robbed of the chance to see the Voyager crew engaging the Borg again; no live drones are ever encountered when the Delta Flyer enters the Borg debris field nor while Janeway and Tuvok are on board one of the debris fragments.

Besides that, we don't see Seven nor anybody else hallucinating (or hearing in some manner) the voices of the Collective back on board Voyager.

Answer: The Raven

Most of the time, the Collective spoke as one unified group, particularly when delivering their classic trademark statement, 'Resistance is futile.' However, there were a few times when a single assimilated drone spoke individually, whether out of necessity to communicate more directly or due to some other circumstance. Among Seven's hallucinations in "One" was the imagining of an assimilated Borg drone walking through the corridors on Voyager while Seven is racing to the bridge.

The 'drone' taunts and toys with her mind, stating that she's left the Collective and that she's become weak and pathetic, among other insults regarding being an individual.

In "Unimatrix Zero, Part 2", the assimilated Klingon named Korok speaks to Paris and Neelix on the bridge directly, mentioning that he is now in command of the cube as the 'Borg rebellion' gets underway.

Then in "Survival Instinct", we see Seven, as well as each of the three members of the 'triad', during the flashbacks of them in the forest on the planet speaking to each other as individuals many times while they are still assimilated drones. So that leaves "The Raven" as the correct answer.

There were flashbacks in this episode as well: Seven remembering how she and her parents were assimilated while on board their science vessel. While we do hear the voices of the Collective speaking as one unified group in a few of the flashback scenes, we never hear any single assimilated drone speaking as an individual at any time.

Answer: The Raven

When a drone was discovered to be dead, it usually meant safety for the Voyager crew and the end to the current Borg threat...at least for that moment. In "Collective", the teenage male drone, who was in charge and commanding the other children, ultimately dies after he is hit by the blast of an exploding console while engaged in combat with Voyager. Seven kneels down to take one last scan of his lifesigns with a tricorder while Mezoti and the other children look on to hear the drone utter his final words.

In "Unity", a dead Borg corpse is discovered while B'Elanna and Tuvok are traversing the derelict ship, long before the ship itself is re-activated. The corpse falls slightly through a mess of tangled-up debris, where B'Elanna's tricorder scans confirm that the lifeless drone is no longer a threat.

Then in the episode "Drone", the only dead drone we are certain to see is that of 'One' himself. After transporting himself over onto the Borg ship and forcing it into the nebula, 'One' is transported from the resulting wreckage and back onto Voyager.

However, the offspring of Seven and Doc's mobile emitter refuses medical treatment despite Seven's tearful protests, the 29th-century drone passing away on the bio-bed in sickbay. So that leaves "The Raven", once again, as the correct answer. At no time during Seven's flashbacks of her and her parents being captured by the Borg do we see a dead drone lying somewhere. Likewise, when Seven returns with Tuvok to the Federation science vessel, there are no dead drones to be found anywhere; only remnants of the wreckage on the inside and the steep, mountainous cliff on the outside.

Answer: Survival Instinct

Borg drones were primarily seen walking about the corridors from inside of a Borg vessel, but they were occasionally seen stepping foot on Voyager and, on rare occasion, on the surface of a planet. The latter would not occur in any episode airing from their brief debut in "Blood Fever" up until "Equinox, Part 2".

As this encompasses all of the Borg-themed episodes in-between that period, we can discount "Unity", where we only see the FORMER drones already stripped of their full Borg armor and acting as individuals, as a correct answer. We can further discount "The Raven", as no drones are seen walking on a planet in Seven's flashbacks nor while Seven and Tuvok are running away from the wreckage of the ship as the B'Omar are attacking from orbit.

As for "Child's Play", no Borg drones are seen at all: not on Voyager, not on the surface of the Brunali homeworld, not on the Burnali ship carrying Icheb and not even on the Borg ship tractoring Voyager near the end. So this leaves "Survival Instinct" as the correct answer.

In the flashback scenes throughout in this episode, we see Seven and the other three members of the 'triad' walking through the forest on the surface where their ship crashed, all of them still fully assimilated drones. In fact, with the exception of the "Unimatrix Zero" two-parter and "Flesh And Blood" (where we see drones invading the artificial paradise during Borg regeneration cycles and a holographic Borg in the opening Hirogen hunting simulation, respectively), this was the only other episode where we do see Borg drones walking in an outdoor environment.

Answer: Imperfection

Direct physical hand-to-hand combat with a Borg drone was often avoided by the Voyager crew, but there were some instances where the captain succumbed to a bit of rough handling at the hands of one. In "Q2", thanks to Q Junior summoning the armada of Borg ships, the Collective seizes Voyager and transports a few drones onto the bridge. One of the drones grabs Janeway and is just about to inject his assimilation tubules into her neck when, just in the nick of time, Q Senior, the one we know and love played by John De Lancie, intervenes to magically whisk all of the Borg away.

In "Collective", after Janeway transports over to the Borg ship to speak with the children and negotiate for the safe return of her crewmembers, the teenage male drone in command becomes angry, slamming her against a wall and threatening to kill her crew unless the Borg obtain Voyager's deflector.

Then in "Scorpion, Part 2", shortly after Tuvok joins Janeway on the Borg ship that had tractored Voyager in the third-season cliffhanger, a couple of the drones slam the captain and her Vulcan security chief onto the floor while equipping them with devices that the Collective believes will allow them to work more efficiently.

But Janeway has other ideas; she references Captain Picard's encounter with the Borg Queen (from "Star Trek: First Contact", to movie fans!) to negotiate an agreement to speak directly with an individual drone. That's when we meet Seven-Of-Nine, tertiary adjunct of Unimatrix 01, who will 'speak for the Borg' for the remainder of the war against Species 8472. So that leaves "Imperfection" as the correct answer. Janeway does get knocked onto the floor of one of the Borg debris fragments after she and Tuvok transport over there from the Delta Flyer, but it is by one of the unnamed, Kazon-looking alien men (and I really did think they were Kazon at first!) who have claimed ownership of the entire debris field. However, there were no Borg drones present inside the debris fragment nor anywhere else in this episode at all, so Janeway being physically roughed up by a drone does not happen at any time either.

Answer: Scorpion, Part 1

Perhaps the giveaway on this question is the phrase 'by another alien', because most of the time, Borg drones involved in any kind of physical combat are often shown as the aggressors and injecting their assimilation tubules into their victims. But the tables are turned for once in the third-season cliffhanger, where we are introduced to the more powerful and equally mysterious Species 8472.

After Chakotay, Tuvok and Harry have transported onto the Borg ship where one of Species 8472's bio-ships has attached itself like a parasite, B'Elanna's readings indicate that something is headed towards the three men. Moments later, a Species 8472 creature emerges.

It first knocks a pair of Borg drones with one swing of its mighty clawed hand to the side before, in one of the most memorable and agonizing moments of the episode, knocking a frightened Harry off his feet and sending him shrieking in pain.

There were no aliens in "Unity" physically attacking any of the Borg drones on board the re-activated ship at the end, none of the B'Omar physically attacked any drones in "The Raven" and the drones led by the fully-assimilated Seven in the 'Warship Voyager' simulation in "Living Witness" did all of the physical hand-to-hand fighting when the Kyrian intruders took over engineering.

Answer: Endgame

A fairly easy one, if you recall what a transwarp hub is. Voyager's ultimate gateway from the Delta Quadrant and back to Earth's doorstep is featured in the very last episode of the series. After Voyager emerges from the Borg-infested nebula, thanks to being equipped with new hull armor and transphasic torpedoes that came courtesy of Admiral Janeway, we see the massive spider-like structure at the base of a luminous planetoid with several Borg ships going in or coming out. One of the apertures leads directly home, but before Voyager's entry comes Captain Janeway's controversial proposition of wanting to destroy the hub in order to cripple the Borg, eerily the same idea she had when she gave the order to destroy the Caretaker's array to prevent the Kazon from conquering the Ocampa. Transwarp hubs are not seen in any of the other three episodes.

Besides, if there had been any hubs in those episodes, then there would not have been a need for the crew to attempt a heist of the transwarp coil in "Dark Frontier", to focus their energies on destroying the artificial paradise in the "Unimatrix Zero" two-parter nor ally itself with the Borg to battle Species 8427 and make it out of Borg space alive, would it?

Answer: Dragon's Teeth

Tricky questions often conclude my quizzes, and this one closing out the 40th quiz in this series is very tricky as well! Keeping in mind that there were a lot of alien species Voyager encountered that had been devastated by the Borg helps to eliminate two of the episodes right off the bat: "Hope And Fear" and "Child's Play". In the case of the former, the vengeful Arturis tells Janeway and Seven that they are headed back to his 'home inside Borg space' after trapping them on board the U.S.S. Dauntless. This must be assumed that the Borg had previously been successful in assimilating many of his people and worlds, with confirmation of that being at the very end of the episode when the Dauntless disengages from the quantum slipstream velocity and is greeted by a trio of Borg cubes. In the case of the latter, we know from the previously-aired "Collective" that Icheb was a drone and that Janeway recognized his species as Brunali. We then see the crew meeting Icheb's parents and several other Brunali on the Brunali homeworld near the transwarp conduit three episodes later, when we discover that Icheb was intentionally genetically bred with a deadly pathogen in order to infect the Borg. Although Icheb's father did lie about how Icheb himself was taken, it's unknown exactly if other Brunali citizens were actually assimilated or simply killed off in Borg attacks before or after that time, but we do know for sure that at least one Brunali, Icheb, was in fact assimilated nevertheless. In "Think Tank", Seven is at her post on the bridge behind the captain's chair when she recognizes the alien ship that emerges after the planetoid's explosion: the Hazari. In her dialogue, she names them by a Borg designation number, commenting how they made for good tactical drones. That alone suggests that many members of the Hazari had to have been previously assimilated by the Borg.

So that leaves "Dragon's Teeth" as the correct answer. Through dialogue exchanged between Seven and the Vaadwaur she befriends named Gedrin, whose wife died in past attacks with the Turei, we did discover that the Vaadwaur encountered the Borg on several occasions. However, Seven offers that the memory of the Collective is fragmented from the time period before the surviving Vaadwaur went into their long-term stasis; she never states with certainty that the Vaadwaur were actually assimilated. Further, although it's revealed that the Borg controlled a larger area of space in the present than they did during that fragmentary time period, it's never said for certainty if any of the former Vaadwaur worlds were assimilated either; we only do find out at least one Vaadwaur colony was presently under control of the Devore, which Voyager encountered back in the fifth-season episode, "Counterpoint". And as for the Turei, it's possible they too had encountered the Borg, given that the controllers of the subspace corridors were in conflict with the Vaadwaur centuries before Voyager's arrival. However, just as with the Vaadwaur, it's never revealed nor stated with certainty if any of the Turei did in fact get assimilated; therefore, the Collective's relationship to the Turei stands as a complete and total mystery.