Recap / Star Trek Voyager S 5 E 15 Dark Frontier

"You believe that Voyager liberated you from the Collective. Did you really think we would surrender you so easily?"

Captain Janeway plans the daring heist of a transwarp coil from a damaged Borg sphere, and to prepare has Seven peruse the diaries of her parents, who studied the Borg for years before their assimilation. Seven is secretly contacted by the Borg Queen who is aware of their plan, but promises not to assimilate Voyager if Seven gives herself up to the Collective. The Borg Queen intends to use Seven's unique understanding of humanity to assist in their assimilation. But Janeway isn't willing to let her favourite rehab project go so easily.

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This episode provides examples of:

• Action Prologue: The first attempt to steal Borg technology results in the destruction of a Borg probe vessel.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: The Borg Queen to Seven of Nine, in a creepy version of this trope. "Welcome home."
• Age Cut: Between young Annika Hansen and Seven of Nine.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Seven persuading Janeway to let her go on the away mission, and later when the Borg Queen is going to assimilate the people she freed. Both relent.
• All Just a Dream:
  • The first time we see the crew infiltrate the Borg sphere, it is shown to be a Virtual Training Simulation...several minutes into the scene and after it goes horribly wrong.
  • Inverted with Seven's nightmare about an assimilated Naomi Wildman.
    Seven: This is a dream. I'm regenerating...
    Borg Queen: It's not a dream. We've accessed your neural transceiver. Our thoughts are one.
• Always Save the Girl: Janeway goes to great lengths to snatch Seven back from the Collective. J/7 shippers had a field day.
• Assimilation Plot: Direct assault having failed on two occasions, the Borg plan to use a nano-virus that will infiltrate humanity over a period of years.
• Batman Gambit:
  • The Borg Queen says Voyager will be allowed to escape if Seven gives herself up to the Collective. Deal with the Devil is averted; the Borg Queen keeps her word until Janeway forces the issue.
  • The fact that Seven was "liberated" from the Borg in the first place was revealed to be one. The Queen reveals that Voyager was allowed to cut her off from the collective, as part of a long game to assimilate the Federation after having been beaten back twice before in direct attempts.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Janeway informs the Borg Queen that the Delta Flyer will fire on their position if the Queen tries to stop her taking Seven.
• Big Bad: The Borg Queen becomes a recurring villain for the rest of the series.
• Break the Haughty: The Hansens spent years studying the Borg up close, taking many stupid risks in the name of their research because they believed the Borg were predictable, hive-minded robots who would never see them as a threat. It's only in the last flashback, when one of those stupid risks backfired and the Borg caught on, that they finally realize the deep shit they're in. Once the Borg realize the Hansens have been screwing with them, they do what they do best and adapt. Quickly.
• Brick Joke: Played for horror. The Doctor proudly shows off a Borg surgical arm he's found. In Part Two a similar arm is seen being forcibly implanted on a prisoner.
• Call-Back:
  • The Borg Queen is introduced with her upper torso being lowered onto a prosthetic body, as per Star Trek: First Contact.
  • Janeway orders Seven to peruse the Hansen diaries recovered from "The Raven".
  • Magnus Hansen observes drones removing implants from a dead drone, as witnessed by the crew of Enterprise in the Borg's introductory episode.
  • Chakotay reminds Janeway of Seven's "I will betray you" comment in "The Gift".
  • When travelling through the transwarp conduit, Tom Paris says "We've crossed the Threshold".
  • "Always keep your shirt tucked in" could be a Mythology Gag re the "Picard Manoeuvre", the shirt-tug done by Captain Picard whenever he stands up.
  • One of the drones the Hansens tag used to be designated Three of Five.
  • The USS Raven's transporter has the old TNG-era visual effects and sound.
  • Seven's nightmare concludes with Naomi having a Borg implant pop out of her cheek, not unlike how Picard's nightmare in the opening of Star Trek: First Contact saw him having a Borg implant pop out of his cheek.
• The Caper: Janeway plots to steal a transwarp coil that can get them home quicker.
• The Captain: Janeway tells Naomi Wildman what it's all about.
  Janeway: There are three things to remember about being a Starship Captain. Keep your shirt tucked in, go down with the ship...and never abandon a member of your crew.
• Captain's Log: Throughout the episode, we get to listen to Magnus Hansen's "Field Notes".
• Character Tics: Chakotay knows that Janeway is plotting something reckless because she's fiddling with her commbadge (never mind that we never see such a gesture before or after this episode). She does it again later, catches Chakotay noticing the gesture, and gives a wry smile.
• Chekhov's Gun: The Hansens implanting a device on a drone that works near the Borg Queen. Janeway uses the same trick to find the modulation of the Force-Field Door to Unimatrix One.
• Continuity Snarl: Even before they encounter the Borg directly, the Hansens have a lot of knowledge (witness the detailed Borg cube model) at a time when the Federation shouldn't be aware of their existence. The subject is handwaved as the Hansens being renegade scientists who broke Federation law in their obsessive pursuit of the Borg, even crossing the Romulan Neutral Zone. It was clear that by that point they were no longer in communication with Starfleet.
• Creepy Child: Naomi Wildman comes to spend time with Seven in Cargo Bay 2, saying she had a dream in which everyone was assimilated. Seven tries to reassure her, but Naomi starts asking the same questions Annika once asked her father ("What's it like to be a drone? Do the Borg have kids? Are they friendly?"). When Seven demands she cease, a Borg implant erupts from Naomi's face. "Resistance Is Futile."
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Averted at first when Species 10026 has a weapons technology that can destroy Borg ships, but invoked when some Techno Babble reduces the effectiveness of that weapon to no longer be a major threat to the Borg and the whole of Species 10026 is assimilated save four members of the species that Seven of Nine protected from assimilation.
• Cuteness Proximity: Tuvok tells the Captain a member of the crew wishes to speak to her. Janeway wants to foist the task off on her Number One, until Naomi sticks her head out from behind Tuvok. Cue Gooey Look.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Starfleet's experiences with the Borg have never been anything short of costly. Janeway decides to go out and knock them over for their technology.
• Dilating Door: To Unimatrix One.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Continuing the theme of Janeway being the parent figure to Seven's troubled adolescent, this episode plays very much like Seven being coerced into returning to an abusive parent, with Janeway fighting to regain custody. The episodes even ends with Janeway effectively tucking her into bed.
  • The way the Hansens treat the Borg drones are a whole lot like documenting the behavior of wildlife, both in method and in attitude. This includes the way they become increasingly overconfident and reckless, until their research subjects turn on them.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: The Hansens grow overconfident. After years studying the Borg without detection, their Cloaking Device fails and they are assimilated. Seven also warns Janeway against underestimating the Borg, knowing the Borg Queen is already on to her plan.
• Face–Heel Turn: Seven briefly rejoins the Borg Collective.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Averted; Voyager knocks another 20,000 light years off her journey before the transwarp coil gives out (which puts her past the halfway point).
• Family of Choice
  Seven: Voyager is my Collective now.
• Fantastic Racism: The Borg Queen considers all other races to be 'lesser' than the Borg, even humans.
• Flashback: The two episodes frequently flashback to the Hansen family's journey from Earth to the Delta Quadrant, with the last flashback happening right before their assimilation.
• Fluffy the Terrible: The Hansens' names for individual drones include Junior, Bill and Needle Fingers.
• Foreshadowing: The data node reveals that a couple of Borg cubes are traveling roughly parallel to their course. In retrospect they were clearly shadowing Voyager.
• Gaslighting: The Borg Queen indulges in this towards Seven, telling her "They've taken you apart and they've re-created you in their own image.", when the Borg had done that to her when they assimilated her as a child.
• Halfway Plot Switch: Part one is the Heist Episode, with our heroes successfully stealing the transwarp coil, but when Seven rejoins the Borg, part two becomes a rescue mission.
• Hard-Work Montage: The crew preparing for The Caper and the rescue mission.
• Humans Are Special: The Borg are used to steamrolling right over any species pegged for assimilation, but the Federation has twice rebuffed their attempts, forcing them to invent a new long-game strategy. And now, one crazy captain has gone on the offensive against them, and survived.
• I Choose to Stay: Seven announces her desire to return to the Borg right in the middle of their mission on the Sphere. Subverted slightly, in that she's doing it because the Borg Queen threatened Voyager if she refused to return.
• Imported Alien Phlebotinum: The Voyager crew steals a transwarp coil from the Borg, and installs it in the Delta Flyer so they can rescue Seven from Borg space. At the end of the episode, Janeway's log mentions they later installed it on Voyager and traveled over 20,000 light years before it burned out.
• Incredibly Obvious Bomb: A photon torpedo is beamed onto the Borg probe. A drone opens the hatch to disarm it, only to see an red indicator bar counting down...
• Infinite Supplies: After they've stripped it of useful tech, Neelix asks permission to melt down the Borg wreckage before they airlock it, to extract the polytrinic compounds. Then he asks permission to dismantle Seven's alcove, as it uses a lot of power.
• Informed Attribute: Two examples noted by Jim "Reviewboy" Wright:
  • Janeway fiddling with her combadge, a character tic we never see her demonstrate before or after this episode.
    Janeway puts her hands on her hips. She tosses her hair. She rolls her eyes, then focuses them like a laser on an unsuspecting crewman, who spontaneously combusts from the level-ten skunk eye. She turns up her nose. She smiles with a purity that makes hearts melt. She strokes, pats, pounds and otherwise touches every officer and alien within reach as she speaks with them. A monstrous mug of coffee beams into her grip, and she takes a swig that measures on the Richter scale.
    Of all the well-known, catalogued, indexed and cross-referenced Janeway Gestures to point out, they picked one we've never noticed before?
    Well, in a nutshell...
  • The scene where the Borg decide to adjust their weapons and shields.
    You would think that the marriage of biology and machinery would make it possible to do those things without lifting a finger. But instead, we see a drone amble over to a pylon, and do precisely that: lift a finger. It presses a single button, then wanders off to push another button.
    So much for Borg efficiency.
• Invisibility Cloak: Voyager's crew use the biodampener armbands and multi-adaptive shielding developed by the Hansens. Unfortunately the Borg assimilated that technology along with the Hansens, so it doesn't take them long to realize it's being used against them.
• Ironic Echo:
  "Our thoughts are one."
  
  "Maybe I've been pushing you too quickly."
• Made-for-TV Movie: "Dark Frontier" was written and aired as a TV movie, though it was filmed as a Two-Part Episode.
• MacGuffin: The transwarp coil in Part One. Seven of Nine is a Living MacGuffin in Part Two.
• Manipulative Bitch: The Borg Queen. She even uses compassion.
• Match Cut: Between the Hansens studying an image in the past, to Chakotay doing the same in the present.
• Meaningful Echo: Dialogue from Seven's flashbacks to what she witnessed as a child is repeated by Captain Janeway and Naomi Wildman. In Part Two the Borg Queen calls Seven a mindless automaton in reference to her Humanity Ensues, as per Tom's Right Behind Me comment.
• Modesty Bedsheet: The hologram of Species 5618 is a well-muscled man…in jocks.
• Moral Event Horizon: Seven reaches her limit In-Universe when asked to program the nano-virus for the Assimilation Plot.
• Must Have Caffeine: Janeway tries to corrupt Seven with her addiction.
  Janeway: Coffee? You look like you could use some.
  Seven: No.
  Janeway: It's a human vice you might want to try one day. Keeps you sharp.
• My God, What Have I Done?: A member of Species 10026 flees only to bump into Seven, who instinctively grabs hold of him. Then another drone steps up from behind and jams his assimilation tubules into his neck, watched by a horrified Seven.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Seven knows the vulnerable point of the Borg Queen because "our thoughts are one".
• Nightmare Sequence: Turns out it's not All Just a Dream, it's the Borg Queen making contact with her.
• No One Could Survive That!: The crew has a Mass "Oh, Crap!" moment after they've collapsed the transwarp conduit, only to detect Borg signatures. Instead the conduit opens to spew the remains of the pursuing Borg Diamond. However, the Queen turns up in later episodes (it's already been established in canon that the destruction of a vessel the Borg Queen is physically on does not destroy her).
• Not so Dire: Seven is knocked to the deck by Explosive Instrumentation. Two drones walk up from behind and seize her... only to heal a cut on her face.
• Noodle Incident: Some Ferengi once attempted to break into Fort Knox.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Everyone notices that Seven is edgy, distracted, and making mistakes during training runs. It's never shown what mistakes she made; the mere fact of perfection-obsessed Seven making an error is enough for concern.
  • Seven displays overt fear and horror during the assimilation of Species 10026, in contrast to her usual Borg pride and Ice Queen demeanor.
• Out-of-Character Alert: In-Universe; Janeway senses that Seven is hiding something, and later reprimands herself for not following up on this.
• Operation: [Blank]: The plan to steal the transwarp coil is called "Operation Fort Knox," after the American gold depository that not even the Ferengi could break into.
• Parental Neglect: The irresponsibility of the Hansens bringing their child on a risky mission is lampshaded by the Doctor and Seven.
• Pet the Dog: Seven helps four members of Species 10026 escape assimilation, but the Borg Queen detects their vessel. When Seven begs her however, she allows it to escape.
  Seven: I thought compassion was irrelevant.
• Pink Means Feminine: Little Annika wears a pink nightgown.
• Plot Parallel: Events from the Hansens' experiments decades ago are directly paralleled by Voyager for two thirds of the episode.
• Plug 'n' Play Technology:
  B'Elanna: We were having trouble modulating the coil to our warp field. But I had an inspiration this morning. Instead of trying to adapt the coil to our technology, we should be adapting our systems to theirs. With any luck, we should have transwarp capability by 0600.
• P.O.V. Cam: The Action Prologue opens on a Borg drone being activated from his alcove.
• Portal Slam: Chakotay detonates the transwarp conduit while the Borg Diamond is still inside it, tearing it apart.
• Proscenium Reveal: When the heist on the Borg Sphere goes south:
  Chakotay: Computer, freeze program, both holodecks!
• Puny Earthlings: The Borg Queen describes Species 5618 as "Physiology inefficient, below average cranial capacity, minimal redundant systems, limited regenerative abilities." Yet somehow they keep resisting.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  Queen: (to Seven) We believed you would be an asset to us. We were wrong. You are weak.
  Janeway: Don't listen to her, Seven. She's irrelevant.
• Refuge in Audacity: Taking on the Borg is a desperate gamble under the best of times, even with a full fleet of starships at your back. Voyager locates a small scout or courier vessel not much larger than the Defiant, all alone in the Delta Quadrant. Janeway decides to mug them.
• Resistance Is Futile: When Seven says she will resist the Borg Queen, she replies calmly, "I know." The Borg's favorite Catchphrase is not uttered, but is certainly implied.
• Reveal Shot: In the Action Prologue to show the Borg vessel threatening to assimilate Voyager is actually a small scout vessel.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Holograms, in this case. As the Delta Flyer runs into turbulence inside the transwarp conduit, the Doctor becomes spacesick. He comments that he'll have to adjust his matrix to compensate for the velocity.
• Right Behind You: Harry is unhappy that the Borg probe vessel was destroyed in the explosion as he only meant to disable it. Tom says not to worry as the drones were just mindless automatons...then realises Seven has just entered the messhall.
• Rogue Drone: Seven of Nine
• Sarcasm Mode: Seven's mood after the assimilation of Species 10026, as the Borg Queen notes.
  Queen: They've left behind their trivial, selfish lives and they've been reborn with a greater purpose. We've delivered them from chaos into order.
  Seven: Comforting words. Use them next time instead of "Resistance Is Futile". You may elicit a few volunteers.
  Queen: You cling to sarcasm because you are afraid to see the truth.
• See the Invisible: Tuvok realises the drones on the sphere can see them despite the Hansen's technology. As the Queen later points out, they assimilated that technology along with the Hansens.
• Series Continuity Error: The Queen proclaims that Seven is "the only Borg who has returned to a state of individuality" in spite of prominent examples of this having already happen several times, such as Picard/Locutus, Hugh, and the plot of a previous Voyager episode, "Unity", which was centered around an entire colony of former Borg drones. It's possible she was lying, but Seven, a former drone, would know that. Star Trek: Picard would even imply that Seven and Picard know each other from when they were linked in the Hive Mind.
• Sinister Geometry: Aside from the previously seen Borg Cubes and Borg Spheres, the ship in the Action Prologue is a rectangular prism and the Borg Queen's personal ship is shaped like a diamond.
• The Snark Knight: Seven, as the Borg Queen lampshades.
• The Sociopath: The Borg Queen. She believes that every species should be assimilated in order to achieve perfection, she attempts to use various forms of manipulation to gain Seven's trust and, like other Borg, she feels no remorse for what she's doing.
• Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb: In the Action Prologue, Voyager destroys a Borg ship by attacking their shields and beaming a photon torpedo inside. The destruction was an accident, by the way. The goal was to disable the ship and steal its transwarp coil, as those coils have a failsafe feature that fry them in the event of the ship's destruction. The torpedo happened to have been beamed in next to a power conduit.
• So Much for Stealth: During the assault on the primary Unicomplex, Janeway's message to Seven is noticed by the Queen thanks to Seven being linked to the Collective. It takes her mere moments to bypass the cloaking tech the Delta Flyer is using. Team Janeway, however, proves adaptive.
• Space Station: The Unicomplex, an open structure so vast it dwarfs Borg cubes.
• Space "X": Spatial charges are used to blow up the Borg shield generator, as opposed to ordinary explosive charges.
• Subterfuge Judo: During an assimilation of an entire species in-progress, Seven is tasked with Borg duties, and she finds three frightened aliens watching one of their own being assimilated. She disables the drone performing the assimilation, and beams them to a damaged, but still-operable ship somewhere in the debris field from the fight against the Borg. The Queen later congratulates Seven for her help, but detects the aliens in their escape and asks for her advice. Seven tries to coolly sweep the issue under the rug by claiming that it would be a waste of the Collective's resources to capture just four individuals. However, the Borg Queen will not have it and turns up the heat. To her, if four individuals escape, then the species as it is is not completely assimilated and subjugated; she coldly orders the ship tractored. Seven tries to plead with the Queen, but she comes back with false sympathy that this is a harsh lesson that she needs to learn. However, she relents, surprisingly, a few seconds later.
• Take a Third Option: Again, rather than agree that four survivors should be killed or assimilated, Seven attempts to offer them freedom. The Borg Queen almost brings them back, but she lets them go at Seven's request.
• Talking in Your Dreams: The Naomi Nightmare Sequence turns out to be the Borg Collective bleeding into Seven's dreams while she's regenerating, as the Borg Queen makes direct contact with her.
• Tempting Fate:
  • The Hansens took a lot of risks during their years studying the Borg Cube, and were almost discovered several times but kept right on going. They even beamed sleeping drones aboard the Raven for examination.
  • Right after their plan to capture the Borg scout goes south, Janeway says, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel lucky today!" Paris and Chakotay promptly exchange a look that shows the rest of them clearly don't agree.
• That's an Order!:
  • Janeway does it for a Rule of Threes.
    • When Seven says she's staying behind on the Borg sphere. Followed by an aimed compression phaser rifle.
    • When Seven is wavering between obeying the Borg Queen or Captain Janeway.
    • In a joking manner at the end of the episode, when Mama Janeway tells Seven to go to bed.
  • When Seven hesitates when told to regenerate, the Borg Queen just gives a quiet, "Comply." Seven does of course; it's not like anyone's coming to save her, right?
• "They Still Belong to Us" Lecture: The Borg Queen to Seven.
  "You've changed. Your exo-plating, your ocular implant. They've taken you apart and they've re-created you in their own image. Hair, garments, but at the core, you are still mine."
• Thousand-Yard Stare: Most of the aliens from Species 10026 have a dull-eyed stare even before they're assimilated, traumatized by the complete destruction of their race and culture. One of those rescued by Seven doesn't even look at her; he just stares off into the bulkhead.
• Tragic Keepsake: Seven isn't eager to study the Hansen diaries, but it's Neelix of all people that makes her reconsider.
  Neelix: A faded holo-image. That's all I've got left of my family. A picture of my sister. (holds his chest) Except, of course, what I keep in here. What I wouldn't give for a treasure trove like this.
• Trojan Horse: Harry beams a photon torpedo through the Borg shield while they're remodulating. Later the warp signature of a shuttle is changed so the Borg will beam it on board the sphere to investigate; the crew of the shuttle then do a site-to-site transport to a corridor near the transwarp coil.
• Uniqueness Value: Specifically cited by the Borg Queen as to why she'd going to such trouble to retrieve Seven.
• Villain Decay: Compared to The Dreaded of ST:TNG, or ST:VOY "Scorpion", from now on the Borg will seem less and less threatening every time Janeway deliberately tweaks their collective nose. To cite a specific example, in "The Best of Both Worlds" a single Borg cube managed to wipe the floor with an armada of nearly forty Starfleet ships, many of them ships of the line — Excelsior class, Nebula class, Ambassador class, Miranda class... In this episode, a small scout ship flies up to the heart of the Unicomplex (implicitly the very heart of Borg territory), eludes detection long enough for Janeway to recover Seven (from the Queen's chambers, no less) and make their escape relatively unscathed.
• Wham Episode: The Borg Queen returns, setting in motion the main metaplot for the remainder of the series.
• Wham Shot: Seven has been recaptured by the Borg, and is brought to a cell deep in Unimatrix One. Cue the Borg Queen's head being lowered into her body.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The Borg Queen shows Seven her assimilated father, and then he is never mentioned in the episode again. Seven doesn't even consider him when it's time to beam out.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Seven calls out Janeway on her overconfidence in tackling the Borg.
  • The Doctor calls out the Hansens for bringing their 4-year old daughter on a dangerous expedition into Borg space.
• Xanatos Gambit: The Borg Queen claims that she deliberately allowed Voyager to escape with Seven in "The Gift", so when Seven was reassimilated they could gain better knowledge of Humanity to assist in their assimilation. It's not clear if this is true or just the Queen trying to make Seven think she's not in control of her own fate.
• You Are Number 6: The Borg's designation for humanity is Species 5618. The name of Species 10026 is never even mentioned.
• You Killed My Father: Averted for Nightmare Fuel.
  Queen: I remember Annika. Does she remember us? She wasn't afraid; why are you?
  Seven: You attacked us. You murdered my family!
  Queen: We did no such thing. We gave them perfection.
  (A drone steps forward; it used to be Magnus Hansen)
  Seven: (faintly) Papa?
• You Said You Would Let Them Go: Averted; the Borg Queen keeps her word and lets Voyager escape once she has Seven.

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