Star Trek: The Next Generation - Hive #2 (IDW)

(via startrek.com)

writer: Brannon Braga, Terry Matals, Travis Fickett
artist: Joe Corroney

As a Star Trek fan, I'm crazy enough to appreciate the work Brannon Braga did in the franchise, including his role in developing Star Trek: Voyager and its use of the Borg, though the Collective remains most famous from the Next Generation cliffhanger "The Best of Both Worlds" and Star Trek: First Contact.  While Voyager did have a chance to incorporate the Borg Queen from First Contact into its adventures, the more famous voice of the Collective, Locutus, remained off-limits (he did appear in the Deep Space Nine premiere episode "Emissary," mostly because that show's central character Benjamin Sisko lost his wife in the famous Battle of Wolf 359).

Locutus, of course, was the assimilated version of Jean-Luc Picard, a moment of his life that he'd sooner forget, but even some of Starfleet wouldn't (such as in the episode "The Drumhead").  Even though the Borg Queen made him relive the experience in First Contact, it seemed as if there would be no lasting repercussions.  Not so for Voyager's Seven of Nine, who continued to use her Borg designation long after being severed from the Collective, even though everyone was perfectly aware of her original human name, Annika Hansen).  Several times, and sometimes with the Borg Queen around, she was tempted to rejoin the Collective, but always resisted it, even though she spent most of her life as a drone.

Because Locutus and Seven didn't share any stories directly, it's sometimes perhaps a little difficult for fans to appreciate their mutual legacy.  This is corrected in Hive, from a story developed by Braga.  In the novels that Pocket Books continues to produce, the origin of the Borg was eventually revealed, at least in that version of the franchise, as well as what eventually became of it.  At the end of Voyager, Janeway had struck a crucial blow against the Collective by destroying one of its transwarp hubs, though the greater threat remained.  After all, "resistance is futile."  The whole point of the Borg is that scientific progress and the quest for perfection stops for no one.  Setbacks are irrelevant.  First Contact was in a lot of ways very similar to the Alien franchise, for any number of reasons.  Imagine a Star Trek movie like Prometheus.

Actually, Hive is a lot like that.  The game plan continues.  Just when he thought he was out, Picard has been dragged back in.  In the distant future he's become Locutus again.  In the relative present he's undergone one of Starfleet's periodic attempts to end the threat of the Borg, and has recruited Seven.  In the continuing story, this dynamic will be crucial.  (It's also worth noting that Future Locutus has Data as an ally.  In First Contact the Borg Queen's best move against Picard was the attempt to recruit his android friend.)

This new end game may turn out to be similar to the last one.  ("End Game" was the name of Voyager's finale.)  Locutus may be attempting to reset time in order to prevent the future he's living.  I guess we'll see.  But it's a worthy adventure, if only to see Braga playing in the sandbox again, and perhaps telling that epic he never got around to.