Q Who
| "Q Who" |
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"Q Who" is a second-season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It introduces the Borg.
Plot
Captain Picard, while checking up on the Enterprise crew, suddenly finds himself on a shuttlecraft with Q manning the controls. Picard refuses to converse with Q and demands return to the Enterprise; Q transports them both to Ten-Forward, surprising the rest of the crew. Guinan confronts Q, leaving Q agitated, and forcing him to reveal the reason why he is on the Enterprise—to join its crew to explore the galaxy. Picard rejects Q's offer, even when Q asserts there are beings far more powerful than the Federation's enemies. Irritated by Picard's arrogance, Q sends the Enterprise light years across the galaxy to an unexplored region of space, and then disappears. Lt. Commander Data reports that the nearest starbase is over 2 years away at maximum warp. An agitated Guinan warns Picard to set course for home immediately, but Picard is curious to explore the new area.
They discover a nearby planet stripped of all industrial and machine elements, similar to several outposts they had previously seen near the Romulan Neutral Zone ("The Neutral Zone"). They are soon met by a cube-shaped ship several times larger than the Enterprise, but cannot make contact with its crew. Guinan warns Picard that the ship belongs to a cybernetic race called the Borg that her people had encountered a year earlier leaving few survivors scattered about the galaxy, and again urges Picard to leave immediately. Though Picard orders shields raised, a single Borg is able to teleport into Engineering and attempts to interface with the Enterprise computers. Lt. Worf and his security quickly destroy the Borg, but a second one arrives and now possesses a phaser-resistant shield. The second Borg completes it task and returns to its ship.
The Borg soon contact the Enterprise and demand their surrender. When Picard refuses, the Borg use an energy weapon to slice into the Enterprise saucer section, killing eighteen crewmembers. Picard orders return fire, and they appear to disable the Borg ship on the initial volley. Command Riker takes an away team to the Borg cube to learn more about this new enemy. They find the Borg, an amalgamation of numerous species and races, operate through a hive mind with no sense of individuality and are fitted with cybernetics at birth. When the crew finds that the Borg are still active but focusing their attention on the damage caused by the Enterprise, Picard orders the away team to return and set maximum warp home. The Borg ship soon reactivates and pursues the Enterprise, outmatching its speed. Q appears on the bridge and warns Picard that the Borg will never stop pursuing the Enterprise. Picard admits his error in judgement and requests Q's help. Q obliges, returning the Enterprise back to its last position in Federation space. Picard, though thankful for Q's lesson, scathes Q for allowing members of his crew to die. Q disappears, but not before warning that the Federation should be prepared to handle threats like the Borg. As the Enterprise returns to starbase to affect repairs, Guinan warns Picard that the Borg will now be aware of the Federation's presence, giving the Federation only two years to prepare for the Borg's arrival.
Production
The scene of the Borg ship's self-repair in this episode were created by the Visual Effects Department when they constructed a scale mock-up of one face of the Borg cube, and then exposed the plastic to a blowtorch just off-camera while filming. The resultant footage was then played in reverse to simulate the 'repair'.
References
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