I heard this idea from a fan commentary for the film, that it was an idea the filmmakers considered but didn't do. It might have been an interesting idea: When Porter gets taken by the Borg, a female engineer follows him into the tubes and she is taken as well. I heard that this woman was originally going to be played by Alice Krige. That way, it would explain the Borg Queen herself might have been some dowloadable program that fit into this woman's body once assimilation took place, so that way the Queen can exist in many cubes at once. What do you think? You think they should have gone with that?
It's a fantastic idea, and very fitting (not to mention damned horrifying, suiting the Borg). They probably felt it would have required too much explaining to the general audiences, though.
I don't see how it's substantively different from what we got. Besides I thought it was made fairly obvious that the Queen can already exist in many places at once.
Yes-- I think it would have been a very interesting way to present the nature of the Queen. I wonder, though, if they could have still somehow integrated that concept with the process/sequence where the Queen's head & spine are dropped into her body, which is one of the more memorable images from the movie.
That is a most memorable image. They could preserve it by having the woman put up a good fight and they'd have to seriously damage her body before the Queen takes it
It's a cool idea, but Picard would probably have been too distracted/pissed at talking to one of his crewmembers, no matter how corrupted, the whole time, for their dynamic to work the way the writers intended. And they wouldn't have been able to claim Picard suddenly recognized her from the BOBW days, not superficially at least.
In 'The Return', which is I believe the second 'shatnerverse' novel, it's revealed that V'Ger was modified by the Borg and Ilia from TMP is hinted to be the Borg Queen. I think that's quite a cool concept.
I wonder how they would have explained why Ilia was unfamiliar with "carbon units" given that the average drone is built from one...