How Humanity Created The BORG! - Star Trek Explained

The Borg are perhaps considered the Ultimate Villains of Star Trek. Ever since there impressive and scary first appearance in the 1989 “Q Who” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the creepy cybernetic humanoids have been a constant problem and concern for the Federation and other galactic species. The Borg Collective was so intimidating due to there ultimate goal. This being the atonement of perfection through the forcible assimilation of other species.

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Video Credits:
Written by Jack Trestrail
Presented by @CaptainJack
Edited by Jack Richardson

Special thanks to:
@H0wlrunn3r - Star Trek Legacy Gameplay

@Daimo83 - Star Trek Legacy Cinematics
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All STAR TREK® footage and its various marks are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. 2022 © CBS Studios Inc./Paramount Global Pictures Corp.

[sonofawil]

Contentious opinion: the Borg queen was a mistake. The Borg was scarier when it was an anonymous collective, capable of complex thought but without a single central personality. The queen came about due to a shortsighted need for a conventional antagonist.

[KingOfMadCows]

I like the idea of the Borg coming from outside the galaxy. It would reconcile Guinan's claim that they've been developing for thousands of centuries with the Vaaduar's claim that the Collective only had a small number of planets during their time. The Borg could have developed for thousands of centuries in their home galaxy before arriving in the Milky Way during the time of the Vaaduar's empire. It would also mean that there could be an entire galaxy or even multiple galaxies assimilated by the Borg out there.

[Kirmz]

In one of 7 of 9's earlier episodes, she flat out said to Harry Kim "When the Borg first arrived at this galactic cluster."

[coyoteflightcenters]

The best origin story I have ever found for the Borg was in the Shatner books. Shatner along with Judith and Garfield Reeves Stevens tied V-ger from the movie Star Trek the Motion Picture to the Borg. Spock finds himself kidnapped and about to be assimilated by the Borg. The assimilation machine however stops after 'discovering' that Spock had already been assimilated. After Kirk and Picard rescue Spock, they share a mind meld. During the meld, Picard and Kirk find out that Spock had melded with the Borg many decades earlier when he melded with V-ger.

[gionova]

The scary thing is that the collective appears to be a type of nexus being. In Picard it was stated that the Queens were aware of time disruptions and capable of traveling through time. This would suggest that they have no real singular beginnings and that even all the possible origins might all be technically true at the same time.

[mrdonigan]

When the Borg first came onto the scene in TNG, I immediately thought that it would be cool if they were created after VGER and Decker merged. When Guinan said they'd been developing for thousands of years, I figured that the newly created VGER/Decker could have returned to the blackhole only to be sent back in time. This will always be my head canon. I don't personally like the Borg Queen idea. Only because she is something that can be reasoned with, and the Borg were far more frightening as a complete collective that didn't understand the difference between bad or good, but only understood their need to assimilate and grow.

[trazyntheinfinite]

Humanity did not create the borg. But humanity destroyed them wigh inconsistent scriptwriting.

[Immortal-Headcase]

I read a short story on their creation once years ago. Future federation archaeologists decided to investigate the genesis of the borg using a time window so they could view everything in secret. They viewed a desperate scientist father on a pre warp drive planet slightly more advanced than today, injecting his daughter with prototype nanites because she was dying. Unfortunately, the time window wasn't perfect and irradiated the nanites, which were controlled by a basic AI hive mind, deleting and scrambling some of its original programming from replicating and improving the body to peak condition into assimilate and achieve perfection, then after the daughter, being controlled by the nanites, assimilated her father the planet suffered a cyborg zombie apocalypse, later a warp capable ship landed to plunder the resources and ended up getting assimilated. The rest is history.

[Jayjay-qeum]

I still like the idea of Borg origins to be remained a mystery.

[richardajoy]

The designations the Borg use for labelling a species is numerical, literal starting at Species 1 and going up, which kinda makes sense, but one funny thing, the Ferengi are numbered 180 & even though distance-wise aren't too far from Earth, Humans are Species 5618. I would've thought if a human was the first Borg, humans would be Species 1... it would be nice to get some canon backstory.

[erikawanner]

Fun fact. Roddenberry created them because of the criticism over the utopia that TNG season 1 was showing.

[tarotreadingsbysteven]

I like the theory that the Borg don't really have a origin as they are an amalgamation of various civilizations and parts of civilizations that let their technology run out of control giving them many origin points as the smaller collectives interact with and become absorbed by the main collective.

[DanaBerg-nh]

I like the idea that the TOS doomsday machine was intended for the borg.

[mysterymayhem]

The Destiny series of books are some of my favorites to read.

[BlokeOnAMotorbike]

given a constant rate of assimilation, it has been variously estimated that the Borg spawned from their homeworld somewhere in the Delta quadrant sometime between the ninth and 14th centuries.

[Rodimusbill]

Destiny was a great trilogy of books that used all Star Trek shows during that time.

[jgraygaming]

I've got a theory that kinda just adds to the mystery if im being honest. In Star Trek Enterprise, we see a group of humans find the Borg sphere in the Arctic. The Borg were destroyed in the episode, but not before transmitting a signal towards the delta quadrant. Most people already theorize that this is what sent the Borg on a warpath against humanity to begin with. My theory is that the Borg in the 22nd didn't exist as we know them. Instead, the signal was received by a single race version of the Borg, who used cyberneticly enhanced beings to do labor, almost as slaves. When they received the transmission from the 24th century Borg, the enhanced turned on the rest of their species and assimilated them. They then set out to assimilate others, knowing that they will eventually face humanity and could face extinction.


This theory is based on the Bootstrap Paradox in which something has no observable beginning or end in time. It is merely a theory and has little proof to back it up. Any further insite, ideas, or contradictions are welcome

[angelrivera]

I remember a very old Fanfiction story that future Starfleet had traveled in time to the original Borg homeworld and renegade Starfleet members of the crew decided it was a good time to destroy the Borg. They decided to introduce some nanites before the collective was formed. the thing was that the original nanites were meant to gather medical data to better treat diseases. so the renegade's nanites alter the original nanite and it made it assimilate the first person. that person started assimilating others. The other Starfleet officers tried to stop the renegades, but they were too late. The last line was one of the officers guarding the renegades was glad the was not the JAG officers that would have to clean this mess. It has been years that I have seen the story and I could not find it again.

[jawanzamarsh]

It's so funny that I come across this video this afternoon when I actually just got done rereading the Star Trek Destiny trilogy and its version of the Borg's origins just a couple of days ago. Despite it not quite squaring with Guinan's explanation to Captain Picard in TNG season 2 that the meshing of organic and cybernetic elements had been developing for thousands of centuries, I still found it the most compelling Borg origin story because of the irony of humanity's involvement in unintentionally creating one of its most deadly enemies. It felt less forced than the paradox suggested at the end of the Enterprise Borg episode that it was unknown, unintended consequences of the crew of the Enterprise-E thwarting the Borg's attempt to stop First Contact and not Q flinging the Enterprise-D into the path of a Borg Cube at system J-25 that made the Borg fully aware of humans and the Federation. Voyager's stories of the assimilation of Seven and her parents had already provided loose explanations for how the Borg knew enough about humans to pull off the attacks on the remote outposts along both sides of the Federation-Romulan border near the Neutral Zone. At any rate, the very first time I read that part of the Destiny story that the Borg derived crazed member of the Caeliar forcibly enslaving surviving members of the Columbia NX-02, I couldn't help but wondering at the reactions of both Jonathan Archer and Vulcan Ambassador Soval had both those characters survived into the 24th century to hear Erika Hernandez's discovery of the Borg's connection to the Caeliar and humanity. especially Soval's reaction to the human connection.

[vin]

An excellent opportunity for a Borg origin story was in Voyager. The Borg and Videans should have had a shared ancestry. The phage that was destroying the Videans could have separated their species into 2 factions. One chose to pursue harvesting other species and integrating their organic parts. The other also chose to integrate cybernetic tech as well.