- The Enterprise finds a lone Borg drone, separated from the collective, and brings him aboard. The drone begins to reassert his individuality, but his presence causes differing levels of fear and sympathy from various crew members.
- Prospecting the Argolis Cluster as potential Federation colonization area, the Enterprise receives a message from a viable moon of the fourth planet- it's a crashed Borg craft emitting a homing signal with four crew corpses and a single male survivor, who is beamed aboard as Dr. Crusher's medical help was needed. Geordi repairs his cyborg technical parts and Beverly his biological organs. During further tests he proves surprisingly cooperative in order to be 'fed' energy, they rename 'Third of Five' Hugh and although even alone he still talks as 'we' he proves quite open, Hugh learns to understand human resistance to assimilation to the Borg collective. Data and Geordi have devised an unsolvable geometrical problem which should cause the Borg collective intelligence to break-down in overload, but after Picard, speaking as the Borg Locutus, finds Hugh has become a true friend of Geordi, refusing to help assimilate him, moral doubts cause asylum aboard being offered to Hugh, who however has dutiful reservations.—KGF Vissers
- After locating a small Borg ship that has crashed on an isolated planet, the sole survivor is brought on board the Enterprise for treatment. The general reaction to a Borg being on the ship is one of fear and hate and most everyone thinks it should be destroyed. The captain has a better plan however - infect it with a computer program and return him him to the collective. The Borg is young and identifies himself as Third of Five but Geordi, who takes quite a liking to him, decides to give him a name: Hugh. Gradually, Hugh becomes less of a Borg and more human-like creating a dilemma for Captain Picard who still has nightmares over his own absorption into the Borg collective.—garykmcd
- Prospecting the Argolis Cluster as potential Federation colonization area, the Enterprise receives a message from a viable moon of the fourth planet. They find that it's a crashed Borg craft emitting a homing signal with four crew corpses and a single male survivor, who is beamed aboard as Dr. Crusher's medical help was needed. Worf wanted to kill it, Picard wanted the away team to get out, but Beverly persists and says that she wants to stabilize it. Picard neutralizes the homing signal of the Borg survivor.
Geordi repairs his cyborg technical parts and Beverly his biological organs. Picard wants Geordi to study the Borg programming and determine if the root command structure of the Borg can be altered. If yes, then the Borg can be mutated into virus and re-introduced into the collective as a Trojan. Geordi and Data know that once the Borg's network computer systems are down, they would be exterminated within a few months at most. Beverly says that this is equivalent to exterminating an entire race without a formal declaration of war. Beverly argues that even war has rules that no war allows for extermination of civilians. Riker says that Borg has no civilians. Beverly says that her patient is not a collective, or a hive, he is a living breathing boy. She is not OK sending him back to his people as an instrument of destruction. Picard is adamant that Borg are a threat and need to be dealt with as such.
The Borg male is very afraid as it is away from the collective for the first time. It is imprisoned in the brig with a force field around it, so it cannot send its homing signal outside. During further tests the Borg male proves surprisingly cooperative in order to be 'fed' energy. They rename 'Third of Five' Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) and although even alone he still talks as 'we' he proves quite open.
Guinan tells Picard that Borg will come after them and that it is not a wise choice to keep Hugh on board. Feeling sorry for the Borg will only earn them another attack from the Collective. Hugh answers all questions as best as he can and also shares his hardware with Geordi to study in more detail. With every step, Geordi gets closer to how the Borg process their information. Hugh learns from Beverly that humans do not want to be assimilated.
Hugh learns to understand human resistance to assimilation to the Borg collective. Guinan is angry that Geordi is developing friendly feelings for the Borg. Meanwhile Data picks up a Borg ship on long range sensors. It will reach their location in 31 hrs and is similar in size to the one which was found crashed on the moon. Data and Geordi have devised an unsolvable geometrical problem which should cause the Borg collective intelligence to break-down in overload. Guinan tells Picard to speak to Hugh once before he uses him to destroy his entire race.
Picard, speaking as the Borg Locutus, finds Hugh has become a true friend of Geordi, refusing to help assimilate him. Picard wants to leave Hugh's memory intact and not implant the virus program. He feels that the sense of individuality that Hugh has now, will itself act as a virus inside the Borg collective. The Borg ship is 3 hrs away and the plan is to leave Hugh on the moon he was originally found on.
But Beverly points that Hugh may not want to go back. Moral doubts cause asylum aboard being offered to Hugh, who however has dutiful reservations. Hugh wants to stay with Geordi, but he knows the Borg will follow him. So, he says that he wants to be returned to the crash site. Picard agrees and Hugh is taken away by his Borg collective brothers.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content