Spoilers Will Hugh still go by "Hugh"?

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

Looks like our friend Third-of-Five, otherwise known as Hugh, will be back in episode 3. He received his nickname while under the tender loving care of Geordi and Beverly, but if his memories have returned and he's able to remember his pre-Borg name, we might have to get reacquainted with him under a new name. Or if he simply decided to change it because he thought "Hugh" was a dumb name.

It's unclear why the designations Seven and Third-of-Five weren't consistent with using cardinal and ordinal numbers (not "Seventh of Nine"), and clearly this is a plot hole that PIC will have to spend a ton of time addressing. And that is meant to be pure sarcasm, if you hadn't guessed.

In any case, since we've learned that Geordi is still alive, hopefully he & Hugh are roomies.

 

[The Wormhole]

Yes

 

[Christopher]

Hugh had no memories. At the time "I, Borg" was written, and throughout TNG, the assumption was that most Borg drones were incubated as drones from infancy, that assimilation was only done in special cases -- they assimilated Picard to serve as a spokesperson, and in FC they assimilated the Enterprise crew because only a few drones made it to the ship and they had to replenish their numbers. It wasn't until Voyager that the writers started assuming that all drones were assimilated.

The reason Hugh was swayed so easily by Geordi's example, and that the other drones of his cube were swayed by Lore a while later, is that they were total blank slates. They had no identities or personalities of their own, no prior existence except as drones, so they readily absorbed whatever example was offered to them. So Hugh had no resistance to embracing the individuality of the Enterprise crew, and the other drones had no resistance to being manipulated by Lore and turned into his cult.

I've always felt that's why Seven of Nine was so much more resistant to embracing humanity than Hugh was; ironically, it was because she did have a prior human identity. Hugh had nothing but the Borg instinct to conform to the group, so when he was placed among individualist Starfleet officers, he adopted their worldview without question. But Annika Hansen was forced to become a drone and had that memory, however subliminal, of fighting to resist an imposed change, and thus she resisted the efforts of Voyager's crew to bring her back to humanity.

 

[Terok Nor]

First name Hugh. Last name Janus.

 

[Cyrus]

I hope they use Hugh and Annika instead of Borg designations.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

I hope they use Hugh and Annika instead of Borg designations.

Since the Federation still has its grudges against old enemies like the Romulans, it's unlikely that former Borg would be welcomed with open arms, so introducing oneself as "Seven of Nine" might not go over well. In the trailers, it seems like Seven/Annika has experienced disillusionment with Federation ideals.

 

[JesterFace]

As far as we know Hugh didn't have any memories of being an individual after he was taken away from the collective?
Picard did remember who he was after he was saved.
That might mean that Hugh wasn't someone assimilated by the collective but was created by the Borg.
Hugh didn't have an earlier life, he was just a drone created to do what the Borg wanted.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

His name will be Ƭ̵̬̊, and he will ask to be called the Borg Formerly Known as Hugh.

 

[Crewman6]

Hugh had no memories. At the time "I, Borg" was written, and throughout TNG, the assumption was that most Borg drones were incubated as drones from infancy, that assimilation was only done in special cases -- they assimilated Picard to serve as a spokesperson, and in FC they assimilated the Enterprise crew because only a few drones made it to the ship and they had to replenish their numbers. It wasn't until Voyager that the writers started assuming that all drones were assimilated.

Well, no. All throughout BOBW, Locutus and the Borg talk about how everyone will be assimilated...Earth, Klingons, etc. Everyone. Assimilation was their goal. Yes, not every Borg was assimilated (like the babies in Q Who), but they sure as hell did a lot of assimilating.

 

[Nerys Myk]

He wants to be called "Hubert"

 

[Christopher]

Well, no. All throughout BOBW, Locutus and the Borg talk about how everyone will be assimilated...Earth, Klingons, etc. Everyone. Assimilation was their goal. Yes, not every Borg was assimilated (like the babies in Q Who), but they sure as hell did a lot of assimilating.

That was said, but it wasn't shown. The actual drones in TNG were never shown to have any prior memories or lives. Like I said, the plots of both "I, Borg" and "Descent" rely on Hugh and his fellow liberated drones having zero identity of their own and needing to build ones from scratch. If they had memories and personalities that came back to them on their liberation, like most of the drones in Voyager did, then they wouldn't have been so impressionable as we saw.

Perhaps the difference is one of the passage of time. Once a new civilization was assimilated, then naturally the next generation of drones to come along would be their offspring, and those drones would be raised from birth as Borg. Once the original generation of assimilatees died out, the following generations would be pure Borg like Hugh. So Hugh's cube must have come from a part of the galaxy that was assimilated well in the past, so no first-generation drones were left. The Federation, Empire, etc. were new territory to be freshly assimilated.

Meanwhile, once Voyager encountered the Borg in the Delta Quadrant, they'd been getting slaughtered by Species 8472 for some time, so their drone population was way down and they needed to replenish from scratch, hence the ubiquity of assimilated drones in the Delta Quadrant. That's how I explained the difference in my novels (I guess it was Greater than the Sum). I also posited that the Borg relied more on incubated drones to populate cubes that ranged far out from Borg territory, as did the ones encountered by the Enterprise -- since drones with no intrinsic identity or memories would be less likely to defect if contact to the Collective were lost.

 

[Reyman]

He'll be going by Hugh Mann

 

[Crewman6]

That was said, but it wasn't shown. The actual drones in TNG were never shown to have any prior memories or lives. Like I said, the plots of both "I, Borg" and "Descent" rely on Hugh and his fellow liberated drones having zero identity of their own and needing to build ones from scratch. If they had memories and personalities that came back to them on their liberation, like most of the drones in Voyager did, then they wouldn't have been so impressionable as we saw.

There's nothing whatsoever "wrong" about the concept of assimilated drones not getting their memories back. I didn't watch much of VOYAGER, but that concept is neither consistent nor inconsistent with anything that came before.

TNG only had six Borg episodes, so even in I, Borg and Descent 2, it was hardly something they had the room to explore in detail.

However, when the Borg's official mouthpiece tells you that "you're going to be assimilated", I think you can pretty much take that at face value.

Your theory about the "generation gap" in the Borg also makes plenty of sense. There are obviously going to be plenty of Borg that were not assimilated. You can count Hugh among them if you want to explain why his pre-assimilation identity was never an issue. Maybe he had none. Nothing wrong with that. And, of course, we saw Borg babies in their very first appearance before the writers even settled on the idea of assimilation as a thing.

I don't think anything across the TNG canon of Borg episodes (plus First Contact) truly contradicts any other part of it (aside from the initial dialogue about how the Borg were only interested in technology.) But you can wave that away with "we want to add your biological AND technological distinctiveness" etc.

 

[Blue Squadron]

At the end of the day, it’s a TV show and therefore these details will be whatever the writers and producers decide they want them to be or, indeed, need them to be in order to facilitate whatever they require for the story arc. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Christopher]

There's nothing whatsoever "wrong" about the concept of assimilated drones not getting their memories back. I didn't watch much of VOYAGER, but that concept is neither consistent nor inconsistent with anything that came before.

First off, it's not about whether it's "wrong" in-universe, just that it's misunderstanding the creative intent behind "I, Borg" and "Descent" to think that Hugh and his fellow drones were written as assimilated people. Even if it can be rationalized, I think it dilutes the concept and themes of the episodes.

Second, one should not make assumptions without evidence. In Voyager, did we ever see an assimilated and liberated drone not recover their original memory and personality? The only ones that recalled very little or nothing at all were the ones like Seven and Mezoti who'd been assimilated as children and had relatively few memories to recover. Which is little different from the original idea of Hugh having been a drone his entire life.

At the end of the day, it’s a TV show and therefore these details will be whatever the writers and producers decide they want them to be or, indeed, need them to be in order to facilitate whatever they require for the story arc. Nothing more, nothing less.

Yes, obviously, but I still hope they don't retcon "I, Borg" by giving Hugh some past life and memories. Of course writers have the prerogative to contradict past continuity, but we can still hope that they choose not to.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

His name will be Hugh Ge'balls

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

He'll be going by Hugh Mann

Ferengi everywhere would LOVE that.

 

[Blue Squadron]

I still hope they don't retcon "I, Borg" by giving Hugh some past life and memories. Of course writers have the prerogative to contradict past continuity, but we can still hope that they choose not to.

Yes, I agree. Hugh is a good character and there is plenty of potential development and arc without resorting to a lot of retconn.

 

[Jayson1]

I think he will go by Hugh still but he will have access to his pre-Borg life. I actually think we might find out he is gay. I have noticed we haven't had any LGBTQ characters on the show yet. I know the actor is gay so we might be seeing an new, even more human side to the character that we haven't seen so far.


Jason

 

[Danja]

It's unclear why the designations Seven and Third-of-Five weren't consistent with using cardinal and ordinal numbers (not "Seventh of Nine"), and clearly this is a plot hole that PIC will have to spend a ton of time addressing. And that is meant to be pure sarcasm, if you hadn't guessed.

I thought I heard them mention that his designation was now Three of Five?

Second, one should not make assumptions without evidence. In Voyager, did we ever see an assimilated and liberated drone not recover their original memory and personality? The only ones that recalled very little or nothing at all were the ones like Seven and Mezoti who'd been assimilated as children and had relatively few memories to recover. Which is little different from the original idea of Hugh having been a drone his entire life.

How old was Hugh when he was assimilated? That's the $64,000 question.

 

[Christopher]

How old was Hugh when he was assimilated? That's the $64,000 question.

Again, there is zero reason to assume he ever was assimilated. That was not the intention when his episodes were written. It isn't logical to assume, as VGR did, that every single drone was assimilated, given that we saw infant drones being incubated in "Q Who."

In "I, Borg," Hugh talks a lot about how the crew will be assimilated, but nobody ever says he was. Hugh even says "The Borg assimilate civilizations, not individuals" -- which was something VGR ignored. (It makes sense, though -- a collective consciousness might not easily recognize distinct individuals, seeing them merely as cells in a larger organism. Their interest would be in absorbing the whole civilization en masse.)