Fate of the assimilated Enterprise -E crew

[Lance]

Watching the film on Friday night I also wondered what happened to the drone who assimilated Hawk. I know there's a short story in one of the Strange New Worlds anthologies which explains what happens there, but in the context of the film it does seem odd that he just disappears.

He couldn't hang around, it was 'happy hour' down in Ten Forward.

 

[Tenacity]

Let's assume the heroic.

After being injected with nanites, Hawk retain enough control to kill his attacker before the nanites took him over.

 

[TalonCard]

I know the central question of the thread is several months old at this point, but my take on this is that there's no reason the recently assimilated Enterprise crew members couldn't have been saved as Picard was. As was mentioned, even in TNG we've seen disconnected Borg reassert their individuality and in Voyager their personalities have been returned and there have been various options to remove the implants.

Lily even points this out in the movie, that saving the crew members as Picard was saved was a possibility, but by the time the Borg have taken the ship Picard is so obsessed with dealing with the threat that he's unwilling to consider the possibility. I think it's easier for him to dismiss saving the assimilated crew members because he hasn't met anyone who has fully recovered from being assimilated. The Borg in TNG who have been disconnected from the collective don't appear to remember their past lives, if they even had any and weren't just incubated as children as in "Q Who". And so, somewhat egotistically, he assumes that his recovery is a unique circumstance. And as the movie shows, his recovery was far from complete--he may in fact have wished to have died after his assimilation.

Don't get me wrong, Picard is one of my favorite characters. But First Contact brings him to a place where he's as obsessed and out of control as he'll ever get.

I do think the movie leaves open the possibility that some of the assimilated crew members, the ones who weren't in Engineering, could be revived and saved offscreen. That post-First Contact novel would have been a great idea.

TC

 

[Lance]

It definitely says something about how far Picard has sunk into obsession by that point that in those scenes on the bridge where Picard and Worf face each other down, I was actually rooting for Worf. Which is, of course, the entire point. (Picard is obsessed, it's only Lily who managed to bring him back to Earth... figuratively speaking. )

 

[φ of π]

,
While it may take some time to successfully de-assimilate, assimilation, in contrast, seem to happen awfully fast. One minute crewman Hawk was human, but the next minute, he was already full Borg, able and willing to take on Picard.

I am talking about the scene where Picard, Wolf and Hawk were outside the ship attempting to eject the deflector dish. What did that Borg do to assimilate Hawk so quickly? Are all individual Borgs capable of assimilating their victims?

And why didn't Hawk's biological flesh, that was exposed to space, disintegrate or explode or incur whatever damage flesh would be subject to by being exposed to space? Furthermore, why didn't any of the other Borg's flesh get damaged by being exposed to space?

The nanoprobes may not have assimilated just Hawk, but also may have begun assimilating the technology of his space suit as well, and immediately sealed up the breach that the tubules made as part of that process.

 

[Six of Twelve]

I know the central question of the thread is several months old at this point, but my take on this is that there's no reason the recently assimilated Enterprise crew members couldn't have been saved as Picard was. As was mentioned, even in TNG we've seen disconnected Borg reassert their individuality and in Voyager their personalities have been returned and there have been various options to remove the implants.

Lily even points this out in the movie, that saving the crew members as Picard was saved was a possibility, but by the time the Borg have taken the ship Picard is so obsessed with dealing with the threat that he's unwilling to consider the possibility. I think it's easier for him to dismiss saving the assimilated crew members because he hasn't met anyone who has fully recovered from being assimilated. The Borg in TNG who have been disconnected from the collective don't appear to remember their past lives, if they even had any and weren't just incubated as children as in "Q Who". And so, somewhat egotistically, he assumes that his recovery is a unique circumstance. And as the movie shows, his recovery was far from complete--he may in fact have wished to have died after his assimilation.

Don't get me wrong, Picard is one of my favorite characters. But First Contact brings him to a place where he's as obsessed and out of control as he'll ever get.

I do think the movie leaves open the possibility that some of the assimilated crew members, the ones who weren't in Engineering, could be revived and saved offscreen. That post-First Contact novel would have been a great idea.

TC

I'd like to have seen a novel that included Picard having to work with Seven of Nine. The possibilities for conflict between the two would have been fascinating. Who better than a human who'd been a drone for most of her life and who'd adapted to being an individual for the first time in her adult life school someone who'd been assimilated for only a few days, well into his adulthood, about what was possible when it came to reversing assimilation.

Janeway, in The Gift, told the half de-assimilated Seven of Nine that she'd met former drones before who'd resumed their individual lives, despite having faced challenges in doing so. If Janeway had heard about such ex-drones, then certainly Picard should have as well?

 

[Kinggodzillak]

There is room to believe that some of the assimilated E crew were brought back, since we see some of the same actors as Starfleet officers in later DS9 episodes. Annette Helde, who played command division Lt Larkin in The Siege of AR-558, is seen during First Contact as a partially assimilated command division lieutenant. Maybe she was posted to AR-558 to help recuperate? Obviously that didn't go so well for her...

Likewise an assimilated operations officer in Engineering appears alive and well in DS9 episodes before and after First Contact - maybe he was assimilated after being rescued from the Defiant, then returned to DS9 and brought back to humanity by The Sisko glaring his nanoprobes into submission?

 

[tgifriday]

1) To allow Picard to destroy the Cube and thus be lured into the past, where he was needed to kickstart Cochrane's stalled warp program and found the Federation? An antagonist who can travel in time at will when you cannot will inevitably triumph over you, so what we witnessed must have been a Borg victory, down to every detail.

2) Maybe she didn't, and Picard got that out of the complex feed whose actual purpose was different.



Since Crusher originally insisted she got everything out, the equipment might well have been recently assembled by the nanites Crusher didn't get out because she didn't even know they were there.

That, or then the macroscopic equipment was stealthy enough to confuse Crusher. But nanites being stealthy is a bit easier to accept...

maybe they hid in his replacement heart

Timo Saloniemi

 

[TalonCard]

I remember reading somewhere that the novels, at least, suggest that telepathy in the Star Trek universe is thanks to some kind of quantum entanglement. I know every little about quantum physics, but it does suggest that the Borg could have fundamentally changed Picard's brain, entangling some part of his mind to some part of the collective in such a way that even without having any Borg tech in his system, he would still be able to listen into the voices of the collective.

I'd like to have seen a novel that included Picard having to work with Seven of Nine.

I think the comic book "Hive" has Picard and Seven working together...don't remember too much more about it.

There is room to believe that some of the assimilated E crew were brought back, since we see some of the same actors as Starfleet officers in later DS9 episodes.

Oooh, good catch!

Janeway, in The Gift, told the half de-assimilated Seven of Nine that she'd met former drones before who'd resumed their individual lives, despite having faced challenges in doing so. If Janeway had heard about such ex-drones, then certainly Picard should have as well?

I think Janeway was probably referring to meeting Picard himself, as well as the former Borg survivors in "Unity". (Conveniently leaving out the fact that the latter group ultimately decided to form their own Borg Cooperative in the end, but it still fits.)

TC

 

[Six of Twelve]

I think, like Seven of Nine, Picard probably retained dormant nanoprobes in his system as well.

You're right about the Borg Cooperative from Unity probably being the ones Janeway was speaking of. Though they linked back together for the purpose of safety and security, I'm thinking they also retained the ability to function as individuals and didn't lose their personalities, too. I like to think that the Voyager crew told Korok and the other U0 Borg about the planet from Unity, so they could have joined up with them and founded an alliance of good Borg, and maybe at some point, Hugh's group could have joined them.

 

[locutus101]

I think, like Seven of Nine, Picard probably retained dormant nanoprobes in his system as well.

You're right about the Borg Cooperative from Unity probably being the ones Janeway was speaking of. Though they linked back together for the purpose of safety and security, I'm thinking they also retained the ability to function as individuals and didn't lose their personalities, too. I like to think that the Voyager crew told Korok and the other U0 Borg about the planet from Unity, so they could have joined up with them and founded an alliance of good Borg, and maybe at some point, Hugh's group could have joined them.

Maybe they could have reprogrammed Picard's nanoprobes to cure him of his degenerative disease.

 

[φ of π]

I think the nanoprobes were more likely to have just replaced his parietal lobe with a synaptic sub-processor.

 

[locutus101]

I think the nanoprobes were more likely to have just replaced his parietal lobe with a synaptic sub-processor.

Aren't you thinking of the Bynars?

 

[Saul]

At the time I was under the impression that the entire collective was connected to her and were severely damaged if not destroyed due to her lack of presence. I thought what happened to those Borg on the enterprise was happening to all Borg.

^ If that were true, then the entire collective would have been destroyed in 2063, and that is clearly not the case...

We don't know what the collective were in 2063, they may have had their Queen in that time period already. Or they may not have needed one yet.
There was a deleted scene from VOY: Scorpion that made mention of the collective been weakened due to the death of the Queen in FC.

 

[Six of Twelve]

I've always been under the impression that there's more than one Queen - the position of queen is a redundant one, like all other Borg systems, so that if one is destroyed, there are others to fill in the gaps.

 

[φ of π]

Aren't you thinking of the Bynars?

Hey, if it works...

According to Memory Alpha, Irumodic Syndrome is a condition affecting the parietal lobe, and as shown by the Bynars, it can be replaced with cybernetics quite efficiently - ideal for the Borg's purposes.

 

[locutus101]

Hey, if it works...

According to Memory Alpha, Irumodic Syndrome is a condition affecting the parietal lobe, and as shown by the Bynars, it can be replaced with cybernetics quite efficiently - ideal for the Borg's purposes.

That's not what the borg do. Except for some kind of oversized suppository that Seven almost died because hers was malfunctioning; Other than that, they pretty much leave the brains of their drones alone.

 

[Six of Twelve]

That's not what the borg do. Except for some kind of oversized suppository that Seven almost died because hers was malfunctioning; Other than that, they pretty much leave the brains of their drones alone.

Cortical node

 

[locutus101]

Cortical node

Thank you.

That's the thing.

 

[φ of π]

Sure, in a perfectly healthy drone they'd have no need to add cybernetic corrections to the brain, but if a drone is produced from an assimilated individual with structural damage or a neurological malfunction, who knows?

(I'm reminded of Phlox & Reed's discussion from Regeneration about replacing damaged body parts...)