Picard Finally Shows The Borg's Potential Star Trek Has Always Ignored

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This article contains spoilers for Star Trek: Picard season 2, episode 1.

Star Trek: Picard is finally demonstrating the full potential of the Borg. There is a sense in which the Borg can be considered Star Trek's ultimate villain. They are like a dark, twisted mirror of the Federation, boldly exploring the galaxy seeking new life forms and civilizations — but with a very different agenda. Convinced of their own superiority, they famously appear on the scene with a warning; "We are the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile."

And yet, for all that's the case, the Borg have rarely lived up to their full potential. In theory, because the Borg are continually exploring and assimilating other races and technologies, they should be ever-changing. Their technology should change, sometimes dramatically, between any two encounters; new races should be added into the mix of drones all the time. But Star Trek has tended to stick with the same Borg technology, as well as with human drones. There's a good reason for this from an out-of-universe perspective, of course; the Borg were incredibly popular, and writers and even directors wanted to build on past success, not move away from it. But it's nevertheless meant the fluidity threatened by the Borg's warning — the idea of an ever-changing, ever-advancing hive-mind who can never be beaten the same way twice — hasn't really been capitalized upon.

Related: Star Trek: Picard Confirms Q & Guinan Age Theories

Until Star Trek: Picard season 2, episode 1. The opening episode sees the USS Stargazer come up against a Borg ship — and it's immediately clear this is something new. Although it's neither a cube nor a sphere, the