Star Trek TNG I Borg

First Borg follow up since the season 3-4 finale. It makes the rivalry more meaningful and complex as it draws from the experiences of Guinan and Picard.

While charting an unknown system they receive what appears to be a distress signal from a nearby moon.  When they go to check it out it turns out to be a crashed Borg ship. There are dead Borg everywhere, but under the wreckage they manage to find one that's unconscious, but alive.  Worf gives the best advice right off - to kill it.  Picard is also ready to beam them back immediately, but he bends to Beverly's will that the living Borg be cared for. It's also an excellent opportunity to study the Borg that they've never had before, so they set up a force field to contain him in a holding cell. He predictably begins studying his environment for weaknesses while assuring everyone that they will be assimilated into the collective. Obviously this is a personal subject for Picard who hasn't had any Borg dealings in almost two years, so Troi goes to check on his state of mind. He's not lying when he says that he's fine, calm and rational.  In fact, he's so rational that it's not long before he's discussing options on how to use this drone to their advantage. Crusher, of course is concerned for his health.  He's still a teenager. (A teenager that originally auditioned for the part of Wesley Crusher, btw.) It's her natural instinct as a doctor and mother to fix his implants and help him recover. Geordi tells Picard that they are capable of finding a way to break into his programming and introduce a virus that would spread to the rest of the collective and take them all out. This makes sense with the continuity since in the last encounter, they implanted a command in the system of the Borg cube to put themselves to sleep so that they could save Earth. Crusher is shocked by the idea of a virus and that may seem strange nowadays, but keep in mind that we didn't even have Windows 95 at this point in time. There was a very low percentage of personally owned computers and the internet was mainly for the tech-nerd programmers and coders who also developed things like viruses as experiments. "Crashing their computer" with the sleep command and spreading a computer virus was still very mysterious to everyone who wasn't in the know about computer technology. So the public would probably think a virus spreading through a group of robots was still mostly fictional science at this point unless they were fans of Westworld which was far ahead of its time. This was smart writing for the task at hand which was how to proceed with a nemesis that was virtually unbeatable.  They have the opportunity to get one alone in a controlled environment without worrying about the rest of them showing up for a while. But Beverly is also uncomfortable with the thought of committing what amounts to genocide since these are still partly living beings and while Picard sympathizes, he takes note that they don't really have a choice given the destructive capabilities of the Borg and everyone's inefficiency at simply fighting them off in normal warfare.

Guinan addresses her concerns about having a Borg on the ship while she's fencing with Picard. We are made to remember that her entire race was assimilated except for the few that escaped and were scattered across the galaxy. Her adamant hatred, fear, and mistrust of the Borg was established in Q Who, where the Borg were introduced and her tone in this conversation is very aggressive. Picard has no love loss for the Borg either, but he really is keeping his head about things by allowing their natural inclination of aiding people in distress guide the decision to bring him aboard and study him. But Guinan is only thinking with the same logic as Worf and makes her point about taking any pity on this being in a hostile manner by tricking Picard into thinking she was injured before moving in for a kill strike. It's a different position for the wise and understanding Guinan to be in.  Her dark side, if you will. And it adds depth to the dynamic of the Borg storyline.

It also gets complicated on the other side. Geordi and Beverly are examining the Borg to find out how his systems operate so that Geordi can surreptitiously implant the invasive program within him.  They start by simple response stimuli - "feeding" him the energy he requires when he behaves as required like a laboratory animal.  Geordi has no problem with it but Beverly still does. As they talk to him they break through his persistent repetition of how all will be assimilated by agreeing to assimilation as long as he answers some questions first. This leads to introductions as the Borg wants to know what their designations are.  This is the first time the numerical designations are used for Borg, identifying each as one of a small grouping.  This Borg is "Third" of Five and later in Voyager they would change that connotation to the number proper, as in "Seven" of Nine.  That was a good improvement, I'll admit. Anyway, in teaching the Borg their names, they come to realize that disconnected from the rest of the collective, he has the curiosity of a child and decide to give him a name as his designation. Hugh, after saying "you, you" a couple of times in thought. He accepts it and they continue studying him while trying to explain individuality to him and why, even though assimilation would be a more efficient way of finding out things about other species, that they don't want to be assimilated. They also realized that separated from the collective he's lonely without the other voices in his mind and afraid of that feeling of loneliness. Geordi then talks to Guinan, trying to make sense of his new misgivings about their plan since it's starting to feel like abusing a lost child. She's infuriated at this attitude and won't hear a word about Hugh's personality. Geordi notices that she's not listening and suggests that she goes and listens to Hugh just once. She does and is stunned to realize that he's learned about loneliness and has a clear understanding of her lonely place in the galaxy with so few of her kind left. The complication on this end is that it's becoming apparent that separating a drone from the collective is possible, and once it's done they can learn individuality again. It's an important turning point in the evolution of the Borg and in the ongoing story that features them in this show. Later on, Geordi explains the concept of friendship to Hugh as the way the human race deals with loneliness. Hugh connects this concept to his relationship with Geordi and decides that they are friends.

So, obviously Geordi is now thoroughly confused about his feelings as they pitch the viral program to Picard. When he shares his uneasiness with Picard, the captain is as cold and rigid as Guinan was in Ten Forward earlier, which shows that even though he's keeping his cool after his own traumatic episode with the Borg and not consciously thinking about revenge of any kind, he is nevertheless predisposed to believe that rehabilitating a Borg is impossible and therefore the answer is to kill before they are killed first. His line of reasoning continues as Guinan visits him, now unsure of the how ethical this plan is since her own encounter with Hugh. It's a mark of their close friendship, and any close real life friendship, that even though he's convinced he's right, he still listens to her and is even willing to talk to Hugh, if only to prove himself right.  He has Hugh brought to his Ready Room. Hugh recognizes him as Locutus and Picard willfully adopts that designation again in order to draw out what he supposes are the only intentions of any Borg - assimilation and absorption. But Hugh doesn't cooperate and begins to speak of Geordi as his friend and using the pronoun "I" when addressing himself by his name and not his former numerical designation. Picard's resolve is now undone as well, so he calls a meeting to decide what to do.

They ultimately decide not to use the viral program and send him back hoping that his new found individuality would act as a virus now, which left it opened to continue the Borg development on those lines as they did later on in Decent and Decent II. Crusher points out that Hugh may not want to go back, but Hugh's innocence leads him to understand that when the others come, they would want to hurt Geordi so he opts to go back and rejoin the collective. Geordi wants to go to the surface of the moon with Hugh and since they know that the Borg typically ignore individuals that don't pose a threat. They allow it while the Enterprise hides in the chromosphere of the nearby star.  Geordi and Hugh say their goodbyes and Hugh fervently hopes that he won't forget Geordi.

Geordi stands by and watches the Borg reclaim the information modules from the dead Borg and link with Hugh as well.  Just as they are transporting away we see Hugh look over at Geordi to show that he still recognizes him and that's how it ends.

It's left open ended on purpose because they undoubtedly meant to pursue this line of development with the Borg.  It's a perfect episode with a lot of fodder for conversation and debate which is always fun. It's a good episode for all the characters involve, not just Picard or just Guinan or just Geordi, making it very well balanced and easy for the audience to relate to. And it's the beginning of the strongest finish of a season yet. I think I'll be giving this one five stars.