First introduced in Star Trek: First Contact, the Borg Queen’s multiple incarnations have been played by several different actors across the Star Trek franchise. The Borg Queen is the name assigned to the Borg Collective’s central nexus, and while they have had different faces across the Star Trek timeline, they appear to share the same memories and personality. The existence of a Queen draws a comparison between the Borg and bees, with the Borg Queen coordinating her drones via a hive mind.
Of all the Star Trek shows that feature the Borg, it was Star Trek: Voyager that revealed most about the Borg Queen. For example, Voyager revealed that the Borg Collective’s central nexus was dubbed the Queen by Magnus and Erika Hansen, eminent experts on the Borg and parents to young Annika. The Hansens were eventually captured and assimilated by the Borg, with Annika becoming Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan). Like Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) before her, Seven retained a complicated link back to the Borg Collective, and the many faces of the Borg Queen.
The first Borg Queen was played by Alice Krige in the 1996 Star Trek: The Next Generation movie Star Trek: First Contact. Surprisingly, for the Queen of a race of emotionless drones, she had a distinct personality and even attempted to seduce Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner) with promises of the humanity he craved. The Borg Queen’s use of manipulation and even sexuality has defined the character from her first appearance in First Contact to Star Trek: Picard season 2, which speaks to Alice Krige’s lasting impact on the character.
It’s heavily implied in Star Trek:First Contact that Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s assimilation into the Borg Collective as Locutus was an attempt to provide the Queen with a mate – something that was foiled by Picard’s resistance to his Borg conditioning during the Battle of Wolf 359. Krige played the role of the Borg Queen as a cold and calculating manipulator, who could seamlessly shift from seduction to ordering the destruction of mankind. As such, despite being destroyed by Data (Brent Spiner) in the movie’s climax, Krige’s Borg Queen is still the most recognizable incarnation.
Susanna Thompson had originally auditioned to play the role of the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact, but lost out to Alice Krige. However, she got her wish to play the role when the USS Voyager finally entered Borg space during their adventures in the Delta Quadrant. As Alice Krige was unavailable to reprise her role for Star Trek:Voyager season 5, episodes 15 and 16, “Dark Frontier”, Thompson was cast instead. In “Dark Frontier”, Captain Janeway launches a daring plan to acquire Borg technology that risks Seven of Nine’s freedom.
Susanna Thompson’s Borg Queen expressed a preference for Seven, stating she was her favorite Borg drone and threatened to assimilate the entire Voyager crew if Seven did not rejoin the Collective. Thompson took Krige’s portrayal as the basis for her own performance, and brought new depths to it, adding a twisted maternal fascination with Seven into the mix. This was a perfect counterpoint to Captain Janeway’s own maternal relationship with Seven. Thompson reprised the role once more for Star Trek: Voyager “Unimatrix Zero”, in which the Voyager crew inspire a group of Borg drones to revolt against their Queen.
Alice Krige reprised her role as the Borg Queen in Star Trek: Voyager‘s finale “Endgame”, in which she faced off against Starfleet’s Admiral Janeway. The plot of “Endgame” centered on an older Admiral Janeway traveling back in time to get the USS Voyager home decades earlier than it had in her timeline. This plan required her to hijack the Borg Collective’s transwarp corridors, and face down the Borg Queen one last time. Alice Krige told Star Trek Magazine that she was advised by a Voyager producer to bring the same sexually charged energy from Star Trek: First Contact, noting that the Borg Queen was omnisexual.
Physically, this is a different Borg Queen from Star Trek:First Contact and the previous Star Trek:Voyager episodes. However, the Borg Queen always retains the same characteristics, so the final confrontation between the older Janeway and the Borg Queen is electric. The return of Alice Krige gave “Endgame” blockbuster energy, which must have fed into Garrett Wang’s desire to release an extended version of Star Trek: Voyager’s finale in movie theaters.
Alice Krige played the Borg Queen again in Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2, episode 8, “I, Excretus”. The episode revolves around the crew of the USS Cerritos enduring a series of impossibly difficult hologram simulations as part of a rigorous officer assessment program. Ever the over-achiever, Ensign Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) became obsessed with getting a perfect score on the Borg Cube simulation, which pitted him against the Borg Queen.
As Star Trek: Lower Decks is predominantly a comedy, and as the Borg Queen in “I, Excretus” is a holographic reconstruction, Krige gets to send up the character. Krige plays Lower Decks‘ Borg Queen in a more heightened fashion, making her even more vampish. The scene in which the sexually confident Borg Queen has an incredibly awkward-looking Boimler strapped to a Borg conversion bed provides a great deal of laughs.
Not content with just having Q (John de Lancie) and Dr. Adam Soong (Brent Spiner) as antagonists, Star Trek:Picard season 2 also brought back the Borg Queen. Hailing from the alternate Confederacy of Earth reality, the parallel universe’s Borg Queen was played by 24‘s Annie Wersching. This alternate Borg Queen had different powers but retained the unifying trait of both Alice Krige and Susanna Thompson’s incarnations – an inherent loneliness. It was that loneliness that drew Star Trek:First Contact‘s Borg Queen to Locutus and Data, and it was a similar loneliness that drew Star Trek: Voyager‘s Borg Queen to Seven.
In Star Trek:Picard season 2, the Borg Queen is rescued from public execution by Jean-Luc Picard’s motley crew because she has the processing power to make the precise calculations that will allow them to travel back to 2024 and fix the timeline. As Picard confronted his childhood trauma and Seven was finally allowed to embrace her humanity, the Borg Queen sought companionship elsewhere. Using her famously manipulative techniques, the Borg Queen seduced Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill). Annie Wersching was terrific at playing this version of the Borg Queen who was desperate to connect, providing a more haunting and melancholic take on the character.
Alison Pill gave a nuanced performance of not one by two Borg Queens in Star Trek:Picard season 2. The first was the infamously cold and ruthless version but housed in the body of cyberneticist Agnes Jurati. Pill’s second Borg Queen performance was her more evolved form, combining Agnes’ humanity and Borg technology to become something unique. Alison Pill performed both these versions well, and kept viewers guessing whether Agnes had fully gone over to the Collective. Instead, Agnes’ new Borg Collective combined the technology of the Borg with the more utopian outlook of the Federation.
Agnes’ changes to the Borg could lead to some fascinating developments in future Star Trek shows. Jurati has spent centuries creating a new Collective, while the Borg have waged war elsewhere in the galaxy. Now that they’ve arrived to stand guard over the anomaly, offering the hand of friendship to the Federation. It creates a new dynamic that could completely change the fan-favorite Star Trek aliens, especially as the original Borg Collective were wiped out shortly after.
Alice Krige returned to give the Borg Queen her send-off in Star Trek: Picard season 3. However, this time Krige only voiced her lines. The woman in the Borg Queen make-up was Jane Edwina Seymour, credited as “Borg Queen Body Double” in Star Trek: Picard season 3’s finale. With Picard’s son Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers) under her influence as Võx of Borg, the Queen launched a devastating attack on Starfleet and the Federation by simultaneously assimilating every officer under the age of 25.
While viewers may be disappointed that it’s not Patrick Stewart and Alice Krige face to face in the Star Trek: Picard finale, the combination of Krige’s voice work, and Jane Edwina Seymour’s horrifying movements make for a memorably disfigured Borg Queen. Now that the crew of the USS Enterprise-D have destroyed the Borg Collective once and for all, there will likely be no more Borg Queens besides the benevolent Agnes Jurati Queen. This means that Star Trek‘s lineage of Borg Queens both starts and ends with Alice Krige.
Star Trek: First Contact is currently available to stream on Max.