As we all guessed from that worrying preview trailer, this week’s episode of Star Trek: Picard -1×08, titled “Broken Pieces,” which just debuted on CBS All Access today – forced Seven of Nine to face her darkest fear head-on. Born Annika Hansen, the ex-Borg has worked hard to reclaim her humanity across Star Trek: Voyager and in the years since, as revealed in Picard, but now she’s had to give herself back to the Borg Collective in order to save the day.
Seven left Picard an SOS beacon when they parted ways a couple of episodes back, to summon her if she was ever needed, and this is how Elnor got her to come rescue him when things turned bad on board the Artifact, the deactivated Borg Cube that’s been the base of the Borg Reclamation Project. As detailed in episode 7, “Nepenthe,” Narissa and the Zhat Vash have taken control of the Cube after murdering Hugh.
With Narissa planning on wiping out all the XBs on board, Seven is forced to take drastic action: reactive the Cube and plug herself in so that she may temporarily become the new Borg Queen. Now re-assimilated, she was in turn able to re-assimilate the other XBs. Narissa jettisoned those still in stasis, costing Seven the lives of many of her fellow ex-Borg, but she was still able to use the survivors to attack the Romulans. When their enemies fled the Cube, Seven was left as the Queen of her own mini Borg Collective.
Seeing as Seven faced off against the Borg Queen many times on Voyager, with the character serving as her own personal nemesis, it’s a tragically fitting development for Seven to become the Borg Queen herself. She hates what she’s done, but the consolation is that Seven can perhaps use her new status to use the Borg as a force for good, something they’ve never been before.
Star Trek: Picard has just two episodes left of its first season, and you can catch 1×09 “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1” next Thursday, March 19th.
