One returning character fans were most excited to see in Star Trek: Picard was Seven of Nine. The former Borg drone was the breakout star of Voyager but had never crossed over to another corner of the franchise before this show. Jeri Ryan returned as the heroine in episode 4, “Absolute Candor,” but it wasn’t until episode 5, “Stardust City Rag,” that we learned exactly what Seven had been up to since the end of Voyager. Unfortunately, though, it’s been mostly tragic.
In the period since the destruction of Romulus, Seven – now going by her human name, Annika – left Earth to join the Fenris Rangers, a vigilante group patrolling Romulan space and rescuing folks in trouble. This isn’t something the by-the-book Picard agrees with, but Seven explains that after Starfleet abandoned the region it fell into chaos so she was doing her bit to fix that. And while her intentions were noble, Seven’s new career path led her in a dark direction.
One of her fellow Rangers, Bjazyl, had turned to a life of crime and sought to harvest her valuable Borg implants and sell them on the black market. Instead, she kidnapped Annika’s surrogate son Icheb – another former Borg, introduced back in Voyager – and violently removed his tech. Seven was forced to kill Icheb out of mercy, which left her with a burning desire for revenge.
In the present, she keeps her true motives a secret from Picard, so he unwittingly helps her find the person she’s desperate to kill. The former admiral appears to convince her to let go of her anger, but at the last minute she beams back to his location on Freecloud and executes Bjayzl and her thugs. It’s clear, then, that Seven has fully embraced her humanity in Star Trek: Picard, including the darkness and thirst for violence that comes with it.
