Judy and Gar Reeves-Stevens on Season 5

[gblews]

They were planning a story on the origin of the Borg Queen!!! Just the thought of it makes me shake with excitement. I followed the link from the Trek Today article to Trekmovie.com for the full interview.

http://trekmovie.com/2007/09/22/interview-gar-judy-reeves-stevens-talk-mars-and-enterprise

Garfield: Well we pitched this story to have Alice Krige back as a Starfleet medical technician who made contact with the Borg from Season 2 [ENT: "Regeneration"] and we would see the birth of the Borg Queen.

Now, I'm not a "continuity-slave", but I do have my limits. Few things in the Trek universe have been more clearly established than the the Borg's relentless determination to assimilate valuable tech and their power. So Judy and Gar would have to have done some clever writing to explain why, after assimilating Starfleet personnel, the Borg aren't immediately made fully aware of Starfleet, Earth, humanity, fried catfish, the whole nine yards.

I'm not one of those who believes that just because a story seems impossible (continuity-wise), or has a subject that appears "unimportant", the story should not be written. On the contrary, I admire writers who can come up with an interesting story from the obscure, or when (seemingly) barred by the "impenetrable" barrier of Star Trek continuity.

Any thoughts?

Click the link (if you haven't already). There is some interesting stuff about their coming on board the ENT staff as well as some REALLY interesting stuff about their new Mars mini series.

 

[Thena]

It would have taken some clever writing, but they might have been able to do it.

I hope they consider writing some Trek novels because I'd love to see more of what they could have given us.

 

[Majisto]

The collective mind to my knowledge hasn't ever been shown to extend magically across the galaxy, they would need some sort of conduit in the relative galactic region of Earth for word to spread so quickly. There IS a subspace signal sent by the Borg ship in "Regeneration" which T'Pol comments will take ~200 years(2350s-ish, not long after which the Borg make contact with Picard...stupid causality loops) to reach it's destination in the Delta Quadrant.

 

[MattJC]

Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens have proven that they are well versed in Trek lore. If they have a compelling a story to tell about the birth of the Borg Queen and it fits with what we do know about the Borg then I'd love to have seen it. Also, I love Alice Krige and I don't see how her showing up on Enterprise could be a bad thing.

 

[gblews]

Majisto said:
The collective mind to my knowledge hasn't ever been shown to extend magically across the galaxy, they would need some sort of conduit in the relative galactic region of Earth for word to spread so quickly.

Would they? I'm assuming that at some point Krige would be assimilated. We know that the Queen was eventually a part of the main collective so whenever the assimilation occurs, or her transfer to the main collective occurs, that is when all of Earth's secrets should be available to the Borg.

 

[Noname Given]

With regard to TNG/Borg continuity. In Q-Who Data specifically mentions that the pattern of destruction seen on a world they were nearby to after Q through them through space; pretty much matches the destrutive pattern observed on the Romulan Nuetral Zone planetoid bases back in the first season episode The Neutral Zone - so it's obvious the Bord new of Earth and the Federation BEFORE the 1701-D Q-Who encounter.

Plus, while I didn't watch Star Trek: Voyager past season one - wasn't 7 of 9 assimilated at a very young age; meaning the Borg did know of humanity prior to any TNG events?

Personally, it's an idea that I don't care for that much; BUT given that I wasn't in favor of Regeneration either (when it was announced); but ended up liking the completed episode quite a bit - I would have reserved judgement on this story idea UNTIL the episode aired.

Too bad we never got past the 4th season so we could debate the merits/pitfalls of that story.

 

[pookha]

we know the borg colective dosnt stretch to earth in the enrerprise time period due to first contact.

Lily and Picard join the rest of the surviving crew and discover that the Borg are outside of the ship. The retrieved memory chip reveals that they are reconfiguring the main deflector in order to contact the Borg of this century, calling them to Earth to assimilate the planet.

and the borg that took over the transport didnt have access to subspace communication so that the message they sent was going to take a long while to reach the borg.
you find out that at the end of regeneration.

so i dont know how the reeves stevens were going to do what they planned.

 

[Saul]

That would be a cool story. I hope they add it to a future book of theirs.

 

[Evil Twin]

Voyager established that the Queen comes from species 125 and that humans are species 5618. Nope, sorry, she ain't human. Unless Susanna Thompson and Alice Krige are supposed to be two different queens, since it was Thompson's Queen who said it.

 

[pookha]

^^ now that is possible. different queens came from different species as the body of the borg is destoryed.
and when ever a new queen is needed the get a new body and download what makes the queen queen.
sorta of what is hinted at in first contact when picard mentions the queen being destroyed.

 

[gblews]

Evil Twin said:
Voyager established that the Queen comes from species 125 and that humans are species 5618. Nope, sorry, she ain't human. Unless Susanna Thompson and Alice Krige are supposed to be two different queens, since it was Thompson's Queen who said it.

If what you say is true then it only means that Judy and Gar would have had to find a plausible way of writing their story around this little "continuity barrier". I'm sure they would have been up to the task.

Did VOY establish that the "original" Queen came from species 125? Or are you assuming that the Queen seen in VOY was the original? If it wasn't stated on screen that she was the original, then even I could write a plausible work around, if one is even required.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

I seem to recall in Voyager's DRAGON'S TEETH, wasn't it, the Vaadwaur saying the Borg had been around when they were big shots in the Delta Quadrant? And that was during Earth's 15th century or earlier!

So the Borg queen developed very long after the Borg came to be? Or probably more likely, they are talking about Krige's particular Queen.

Either way, sounds like the worst idea I've heard in awhile. That's the kind of thing ENTERPRISE should've avoided. I've accepted REGENERATION (Phlox's radiation cure's a bit dubious), but Enterprise didn't need any more TNG valentines. Except my idea to use the Vorgons...heh.

 

[Jimmy_C]

In the 24th century it was trivial for Crusher to reverse a regeneration. I can accept that Phlox can develop a cure in the 22nd. I never understood why it was dubious especially when Phlox's cure seemed specific to his situation and not a general cure. It isn't like they can just zap a drone with the radiation using a phaser or something and cure him.

 

[DRADIS]

I would have loved to see this story unfold if they could have worked out the continuity. Even though there are both good and bad Borg episodes, they are always "Big Event" episodes.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Evil Twin said:
Voyager established that the Queen comes from species 125 and that humans are species 5618.

That Queen was formerly a member of Species 125 before her assimilation. And when she was destroyed at the end of Dark Frontier she was replaced by one in UZ that was yet a different drone who could have been from any species. Just as the FC Queen was a different species than the DF or UZ one.

Brannon even in an interview said they were meant to be different with different personalities. Susanna Thompson asked B&B when she was cast in DF if she was playing the same Queen as in FC in order to know whether to copy Krige they said no they were different--the FC Queen was destroyed.

And the impression I got from VOY was Seven was being groomed to be a future Queen. Afterall she had all the qualifications--raised by the Borg, a strong independent will, a true believer of the Borg philosophy.

So I see no problem with a Queen being created from any assimilated victim. This story might have worked. The Reeves-Stevenses have shown they can come up with some clever ideas and use pre-existing Trek pieces to good effect i.e. "The Forge" or the early MU TIberius story.

We'd finally might have gotten an idea of how the Queen was created and how it fit with the Collective. All it would have done is meant that the Collective hadn't always had a Queen--Alice Krige would have been the first.

 

[pookha]

the problem i see is that supposedly all of the borg were destroyed when the adapted transport was destroyed.
maybe if a life boat had been launched with one in a hibernation mode.
if the borg had recieved the signal that was sent and it gave a position for the life boat this could play into why the scout borg was nosing around in the neutral zone.

but yeah this may be pusing the borg too much.
i like regeneration but this is seriously jumping through some firey hopes.

if the reeves stevens were going to do something i would have liked to seen a visit to organia.
we know previous missions had been to the planet.
we could find out why the surveys were wrong about the planet.

 

[ChristopherPike]

The Borg had been developing for more than a millennia and I also got the impression the Borg Queen replicants were around since their origin in the Delta Quadrant. So that's much further back (not to mention further away) than ENT could ever show.

If you're talking about prequel elements to put in Season 5, I prefer TOS references with TNG/DS9/VOY influences kept to a minimum. The Borg should be left well alone, since they've been demistifyed too much...

A race that should have been explored are the El Aurians. They make the most sense. Cheaper because they require no prosthetics (the first for ENT, I believe) and by extension both Guinan and Q might be encountered. A line of dialogue in 'Q Who' hinted at her dealings with him two centuries ago. Another idea would be to have a younger Tolian Soran cause trouble for the NX-01, making his backstory more personal and maybe casting Generations in a new light.

 

[Anna Yolei]

gblews said:
They were planning a story on the origin of the Borg Queen!!!

Jesus fucking CHRIST! I'm glad we never got to see that. The Borg had been run down to death and the one Borg episode we got was one too many. I would have much rather see more about what happened with the Xindi-earth relations or, you know, the Vulcan-Romulan war that fans THOUGHT they'd get at least a peek of in this seres eventually.

I would have had to skip watching this episode first-run on principle.

 

[3D Master]

pookha said:
and the borg that took over the transport didnt have access to subspace communication so that the message they sent was going to take a long while to reach the borg.

Oh, the Borg DID have subspace communications, that's why it would take 200 years for the signal to reach the Delta Quadrant... instead of 70,000 years.

Anna Yolei said:

gblews said:
They were planning a story on the origin of the Borg Queen!!!

Jesus fucking CHRIST! I'm glad we never got to see that. The Borg had been run down to death and the one Borg episode we got was one too many. I would have much rather see more about what happened with the Xindi-earth relations or, you know, the Vulcan-Romulan war that fans THOUGHT they'd get at least a peek of in this seres eventually.

I would have had to skip watching this episode first-run on principle.

Yep.^

Of course, I wasn't watching Enterprise since the end of S2 anyway, but seriously.

The Borg Queen?

 

[commodore64]

I'm glad we didn't see the Borg queen. Although it sounds like an interesting topic, I'm afraid they'd further defang the Borg -- the coolest of all bad guys (even more than the Dalek) until Voyager.