Locutus - sorry, wrong cliffhanger - Janeway gets all Borg'd up.
It's Do Androids Dream?, the episode! And the answer, apparently is yes, but it's really not. Specifically, Unimatrix Zero is a real subconscious state, undetected throughout the Borg Collective, into which previous identities of many drones go when they regenerate. It is a paradise, and the individuals there flourish... but at the beginning of the episode, the Queen knows about it and seeks to put an end to it, to restore order to chaos...Contains examples of:
- Aborted Arc: In the first episode the Queen makes a cryptic comment to Harry about "seeing him soon". This is never brought up again. For that matter, the rebellious drones are never seen or mentioned again, outside of a very brief reference in the series finale.
- Allergic to Love: Seven is this towards Axum, with whom she had a rather passionate affair before she was severed from the Collective, but doesn't wish to go back, just yet.
- Subverted by the end; she fully acknowledges that she was and is in love with Axum.
- All Just a Dream: What Seven mistakes Unimatrix Zero for, at first.
- Alas, Poor Yorick: The Queen addresses the severed heads of the drones she "requests" assistance from to find Unimatrix Zero, though played with, as she is very blunt and dismissive of those she callously discards in this manner.
- Big Damn Heroes: Ex-drone Korok, ever the Proud Warrior Race Guy, arrives in his Sphere to help Voyager in transmitting the signal that will close Unimatrix Zero forever but allow the freed drones to remain free.
- Blatant Lies: Seven tells Axum that she was looking for him because Korok was worried. Axum sees right through it.
- Butt-Monkey:
- Probably the crowning moment of Harry's infamous status, as he complains about not getting a promotion himself and not one single person acknowledges that he said a word, feeling very much like the line was hurriedly added after the rest of the scene was shot.
- The Borg Queen makes a point of singling Harry out for a menacing We Will Meet Again that she never bothers to follow up on, showing that even a Hive Mind of billions that spans the galaxy is taking time off to troll him.
- Catapult Nightmare: If not for the subtle magnetic influence of the alcove, Seven's first experience in a while in Unimatrix Zero might have been this.
- Caught in a Snare: Seven sets off one of Axum's traps, which he has to free her from.
- Chew-Out Fake-Out: When Tom Paris walks onto the bridge, he's immediately scolded for being less than a minute late — which hides the fact that he's about to get his lieutenant's pip back.
- Children Are Innocent: A freed child stares in wonder at the Queen as she enters Unimatrix Zero, oblivious to the absolute danger she represents, accepting the Blatant Lies that it's fun to be part of the Collective, even leading her by the hand to the forest overlook.
- Cliffhanger: Tuvok, B'elanna and Janeway are assimilated!
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Being disconnected from the Hive Mind is this to drones; after being rewired to accept and expect the Voice of the Legion, individual drones are in absolute agony without it. The Queen uses this on Four of Twelve when he is reluctant to help her weed out those drones who participate in Unimatrix Zero.
- Continuity Nod: A starship's access codes can still be used to lower the Deflector Shields.
- Contrived Coincidence: The episode's entire premise, in terms of Seven's role. In addition to just happening to be in the right place at the right time in "Scorpion" (twice—first as the Borg representative, then as the one drone to survive the airlock blast), it turns out she also just happened to be one of the one-in-a-million drones with the Unimatrix Zero mutation.
- Korok's sphere was apparently close enough to be able to assist Voyager during the final battle.
- Darkest Hour: Subverted. The end of the first episode has the Delta Flyer destroyed, and Janeway, Torres and Tuvok assimilated before they can attempt to upload the virus into the cube, which could have been one of the bleakest cliffhangers in the entire franchise. However, a brief line from Chakotay just before the episode ends reveals that all of this (with the possible exception of losing the Delta Flyer) was in fact All According to Plan.
- Deal with the Devil: Offered by the Queen in the beginning, saying she'll send Voyager and crew all the way home if they help weed out Unimatrix Zero (though not stating if this is before or after assimilating them). Naturally, Janeway refuses the offer out of hand.
- Defiant to the End: One of the freed drones is in the Queen's chamber and has a Badass Boast even as he's being taken away to be disassembled."I'm not alone! You can't stop us all!"
- The Determinator: In the face of a deadly threat from the Queen, Janeway refuses to back down from helping Unimatrix Zero.
- Disproportionate Retribution: To manipulate Janeway into giving her a cure for the individuality virus, the Queen destroys several of her vessels containing no more than five disconnected drones among almost a hundred thousand, because she can't take a chance that one of them might try to sabotage the Collective.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?:
- The Queen is apparently quite aroused when she is interfaced with her body, the clamps sealing her organic upper half to the suit. We saw it in Star Trek: First Contact as well.
- She feels Janeway, Tuvok and B'elanna's biological distinctiveness adding to the Collective as well. One wonders if she always feels this way.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Seven drops this when in Unimatrix Zero, as it is when she and others can be individuals.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Our heroes keep their individuality while still drones thanks to a bit of medical babble cooked up by The Doctor. Though Tuvok's starts to wear off.
- Exact Words: A plot point in Part Two. When Janeway is forced to relay the Queen's final ultimatum to Voyager, her specific orders to Chakotay are "Tell [Axum and the others] Unimatrix Zero can no longer exist." The Doctor and the Borg Queen interpret this as a summation of Unimatrix Zero's final, inevitable fate. Chakotay, on the other hand, knows the Captain well enough to correctly recognize the subtext and clue she snuck in beneath the Queen's notice: Unimatrix Zero cannot exist any longer, i.e. Voyager and Seven need to destroy it and get the resistance out of there before the Queen can deploy her own nanovirus.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Seven when she has become comfortable with Unimatrix Zero, and invites Janeway in; her hair is down, her implants are gone and she smiles.
- Face–Heel Turn: Tuvok! FIGHT THE COLLECTIVE!
- Field Promotion:
- So it wouldn't be awkward for B'Elanna to be dating a subordinate, and because Janeway and Chakotay are proud of Tom's performance since the events of "Thirty Days".
- Harry doesn't get one, though, as he points out. Nobody listens.
- Foreshadowing: For "Endgame", where the future Admiral Janeway allows herself to be partially assimilated once again by the Borg Queen in order to plant an actual virusnote into the Collective and disrupt their control over the transwarp corridor network. To an extent, this might be a minor case of Book Ends for the show's seventh season.
- A Glitch in the Unimatrix: Storms kick up as Korok's Sphere and Voyager work together to shut down Unimatrix Zero.
- He is Not My Boyfriend: Seven makes this clear to Korok, about Axum.
- Hollywood Healing: After the Doctor fixes them up from their assimilation, neither Janeway or Tuvok have missing limbs, cybernetic implants, or require a skintight catsuit ... err, "dermaplastic grafts". Given a Hand Wave by the fact that they all had a counter-agent in their systems, which insulated them (less successfully, in Tuvok's case) from the control of the Collective and made removal somewhat easier as a result.note
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Tuvok tells Janeway to deactivate him as he falls victim to the Collective. She doesn't act quickly enough, though.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: The Doctor encourages Seven's relationship with Axum.
- I Will Find You: Just before Unimatrix Zero is forever destroyed, Seven discovers Axum is still in there! He stayed, to tell her this before he woke up, even as the digital storms rage around them.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Korok. He starts off as a rather cantankerous Klingon, but he joins the fight to help Voyager rescue the away team.
- Killed Off for Real: The original Delta Flyer is destroyed by the Tactical Cube.
- La Résistance: Janeway suggests freeing the minds of the drones to help them fight back.
- This works! Korok is the leader of the Resistance, and will keep Voyager up on any new developments.
- The Main Characters Do Everything: In Part II, Neelix (who, lest we forget, is the ship's cook/morale officer) is shown to be manning the secondary tactical station behind the captain's chair, seemingly standing in for Tuvok.
- Mandatory Line: Neelix doesn't even get that in Part I, merely being shown to be present at the meeting in engineering where the crew discuss the plan to infiltrate the tactical cube.
- Mind Meld: The Bridging of Minds is a super-special type that Tuvok offers to establish with Seven to allow Janeway to join her in Unimatrix Zero. Janeway, whether For Science! or because of what she said, accepts readily in order to exploit a weakness in the Collective.
- The Mole: Axum wishes Seven to be this, to insert a special virus into the Collective that will stealth Unimatrix Zero for good. Axum can't be it, because he and all assimilated drones forget about Unimatrix Zero as soon as they complete their regeneration cycles.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Originally the inhabitants of Unimatrix Zero were only individuals while regenerating; while active, they were perfectly normal, loyal drones, going about their drone lives. Then the Borg Queen discovered Unimatrix Zero existed. Her response to this — not the rational response of a logical machine, but the fearful, paranoid, all too human one of a tyrannical dictator — was that it had to be crushed at all costs, resulting in an imaginary threat being turned into a real one. By the end of the episode, a large portion of the Collective has broken away and the Borg are fighting a civil war.
- Off with His Head!: Four of Twelve, when the Queen oversees the extraction and analysis of his cortical node. The Queen orders more of these "operations".
- Oh, Crap!:
- When the Queen contacts Voyager, Harry exhibits this.
"Captain ... I think it's for you."- And the Queen exploits that fear just to play with Janeway.
"We'll see you soon, Harry."- DELTA FLYER, NOOOOOOOO!
- Happens again when the crew still on Voyager realize there is nothing they can do to avert a direct, unshielded hit from a Borg torpedo.
- Subverted when a Borg Sphere pops up in front of Voyager — and instead of the expected Resistance Is Futile spiel, we get:"Starship Voyager, I am General Korok. This vessel is now under my command. We've come to join you in battle."
- Planar Shockwave: When the cube explodes.
- Plot Armor:
- Voyager takes a direct, unshielded hit from a Borg weapon, which generally has been shown to One-Hit Kill any other starship on the receiving end.
- Justified in-universe, as Janeway, Torres and Tuvok are all specifically given a counter-agent to keep their minds free of the Collective's influence — not that it's entirely successful in Tuvok's case.
- Rogue Drone: At first, it only applies within Unimatrix Zero. This changes when Janeway unleashes the virus that allows the drones to be individuals in the real world. Korok even takes control of a Sphere and actively fights back against a Cube.
- Sadistic Choice: Janeway is given one by the Queen: encourage the individual drones to rejoin the Collective, or allow the Queen to distribute the modified nanovirus in Unimatrix Zero, painfully killing them all.
- Serial Escalation: Apparently the Borg now consider armor plating to be relevant; their adaptive shielding can only take them so far. The cube Voyager assaults at the end of Part 1 looks more like a cubical Death Star.
- Series Continuity Error: Despite what the Doctor says, Seven has dreamt before.
- Shout-Out: Possibly, to the recently released The Matrix; many of the same roles are still present, too.
- Status Quo Is God:
- Tom gets his lieutenant rank back, ahead of Ensign Harry Kim.
- Countless casualties that would result notwithstanding, the Queen's offer to send Voyager back to Federation space would be a pretty abrupt ending to the series if Janeway accepted it.
- Voyager takes a powerful direct hit from a Borg torpedo, yet the damage doesn't show up afterwards.
- The main characters allow themselves to be conveniently assimilated, yet the Borg don't amputate any limbs so they can be easily put right at the end.
- The Delta Flyer is blown up, and is rebuilt by the very next episode (admittedly, they DO make an explicit reference to rebuilding it, but considering the building of the original was the subject of an entire episode, AND the episodes following this were flipped in airing order...)
- Take a Third Option: Janeway will not advocate the return of the drones to the Collective nor will she allow the virus to destroy them, so she subtly orders that Unimatrix Zero be shut down with all the drones waking up and retaining their individuality, though this fact will be hidden from the Collective.
- That's an Order!:
- Tom arrives at his work station to find a gift on his chair. Chakotay says "Open it. That's an order."
- Janeway also says this to Tuvok when he begins give in to the Collective, telling him to "Stay Tuvok!", as if resisting the Borg is a simple matter of willpower.
- She also says this to Chakotay when telling him that "Unimatrix Zero can no longer exist." At first, it seems like she's ordering a surrender, but her Number Two can read between the lines.
- That Woman is Dead: When Seven discovers Axum and that they used to be a couple, perhaps out of fear, she very quickly retreats and re-asserts her Borg name.
- Tranquil Fury: When the Queen sees Janeway pick up a bat'leth and personally disrupt the Collective's raid on Unimatrix Zero, her eyes become transfixed on the Captain, and she whispers her name like a curse. Her displeasure is palpable.
- Villain Ball: The Queen blows up entire cubes with only a handful of freed drones, playing into Janeway's hand of causing harm to the collective.
- Villainous Breakdown: The Queen temporarily forgets her Janeway projection isn't really there, and grasps at a throat that does not exist as its owner gloats.
- The Virus:
- One theory as to the creation and spread of Unimatrix Zero. The Queen treats it as this, anyway.
- Janeway wants to insert one into the Collective that will cause those inhabiting Unimatrix Zero to retain their memories when they wake up.
- We Have Reserves: Played straight, but ultimately subverted. The Queen tries to force Janeway's hand by remotely destroying entire ships with thousands of Borg simply to kill the one or two on each ship that aren't under her control. Janeway calmly points out that the Queen would have to destroy the entire Collective to get them all, and she's right. The Queen gives up and tries more subtle methods when it's made clear she can't break Janeway.
- Wham Line: After hearing that the away team has been assimilated, Chakotay's response is an unconcerned "so far, so good."
- Wham Shot: At the end of Part 1: Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres, all assimilated into the Borg.
- The Worf Effect:
- After being the only shuttle to survive for more than a year, the Delta Flyer finally goes down.
- In a villainous example, the Borg Tactical Cube; despite being built up as the most powerful Borg ship seen thus far in the franchise, it puts up probably the weakest fight of any Borg ship in the series, outside of the scout ship that Voyager accidentally destroyed at the start of "Dark Frontier."
- You Have Failed Me: When Four of Twelve does not tell the Queen what she wants to know.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Apparently not in Unimatrix Zero, if Axum's words to Korok are true.
