The item listed here comes from the estate of my mother-in-law after she passed away in early 2024. We’re going through the items that she collected while she worked in the entertainment industry. She started her career as a Page on the Paramount Pictures studio lot in Hollywood, California in the mid-1990s. She then moved on to other companies in the entertainment industry in positions both on and off production. Over the years, she obtained an extensive collection of rare Hollywood items, especially from her favorite franchise “Star Trek”. Scripts, crew gifts, screen used props, prototypes for collectables, rare discoveries at the Archive Building and much, much more. It is a script from the show. Dark Frontier Part I &. SEASONAL EPISODE #11 & 12. SERIES EPISODE #109 &110. From the writer’s offices of “Star Trek – Voyager” in the Hart building on the Paramount Pictures studio lot in Hollywood. The script contains pages that are printed on specific color coded paper to signify that a re-write or alteration of something from the approved final draft occurred. The color of the page is dependent on when the new information was incorporated into the script. For more detail about this, please refer to the web site for. There are also hand written notes and post-its. On some pages to indicate items like. Line changes that the performer made while recording the scene. “Historical” notes if a specific date is referred to. Scenes that were moved into a different order not originally intended by the author, but by the editor or director. It is in near pristine condition with some slight discoloration due to age as well as some MINOR creases from use and age. It has been stored in a plastic storage bag with a cardboard backing ever since the season was completed. This item is the real deal, not a copy of a copy of a copy like a lot of other auctions that you’ll run into. Always kept in a non-smokers house! NO stains or other damage! The script is 75 pages in length. 81 physical pages including title, Cast List, Sets and Pronunciation Guide. Written on November 18, 1999. First aired on February 17, 1999. 86 physical pages including title, Cast List, Sets and Pronunciation Guide. Written on December 2, 1998. NOTABLE ERRORS FROM PRODUCTION for Part II script. There are several pages that indicate a different page color than the color of the paper that they are actually printed on. There’s no clear indication as to why this occurred or what is actually correct; the indicator, or the actual paper color, but they are as follows. Pages 25, 47, 59, 62 – pages indicate a Salmon revision, but are printed on Cherry colored paper. Pages 55, 56, 57, 58 – pages indicate a Tan revision, but are printed on Cherry colored paper. Background information quoted from the Memory Alpha web site. This episode’s origin was similar to that of the third season. , in that – when the writing staff of Star Trek: Voyager. However, this idea was not an immediate one. Offered, We were heading into sweeps [.] But we had no idea what we were going to do. The episode had the working title “Untitled Borg”. The scale of the episode was influenced by the first airing of the fourth season. Two-parter The Killing Game. ” and ” The Killing Game, Part II. Joe Menosky reflected, Because of the success of airing’The Killing Game’ in a single night, the network and the studio were really interested in doing a movie. Fellow co-writer Brannon Braga. Also wanted the episode to be, in his own words, “a big event” and the motion picture. Star Trek: First Contact. Another production that featured the Borg and the Borg Queen, provided an example that the writers were interested in attempting to surpass. Braga explained, I really felt we needed something spectacular for February sweeps [.] To do a Borg movie, telefilm, or whatever you want to call it, we had to outdo First Contact. The space battles and the Queen had to be more elaborate. 32 Braga also said, When we decided,’Let’s do something different; let’s do a two-hour telefilm,’ that made us rise to the challenge, and we did’Dark Frontier’. Star Trek Monthly issue 58. It was Brannon Braga himself who crafted the episode’s plot. He recalled, We had all these different storylines laying around having to do with the Borg. I just cobbled them together late one night and we had’Dark Frontier’. ” Joe Menosky remembered, “Brannon wrote this amazingly complete story memo that had everything. The inspiration for the backstory of the courageous Hansens – Magnus and Erin Hansen – was the history of gorilla specialist Dian Fossey. In their effort to turn out an exceptional script, the writers worked for long hours on the teleplay. Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 1. Brannon Braga enjoyed scripting the scenes that include the Borg Queen and Seven of Nine. He noted, It was fun to write the banter between [Seven] and the Borg Queen. Brannon Braga also deliberately left several questions unanswered, such as the fate of Erin Hansen and the possibility that the Borg planted Seven of Nine to act as a spy on Voyager. Regarding the latter issue, Braga admitted, I wanted people [.] to ask that very question. The Queen may have done that; we’ll never know. One of those tantalizing tidbits that the fans enjoy [.] I thought it was an interesting thing for the Queen to say. It certainly caught Seven’s attention. The episode was scripted as if it were a two-parter. The final draft script for the first of these parts was submitted on 18 November. With further revisions up to and including 8 December. Of that year and the final draft of the second part’s teleplay was submitted on 2 December. 1998 being revised up to and including 15 December. Of the same year. Was instrumental in the decision to introduce the Borg Queen into the plot at the end of the first part. “I begged to get the Queen in the end [of that part], ” Bole remembered. Originally, they hadn’t planned on it, and I said,’Guys, you can’t do this. You’ve got to tease, and you’ve got to bring these folks back, and you’ve got to have the Queen in this episode. You’ve just got to have what I call the end-teaser and introduce the Queen. I don’t care if it’s one page or two shots; just do it. The photon torpedo that destroys the Borg probe in the episode’s teaser was initially deleted. From the script for budgetary reasons. It was reinserted not long before the episode’s creation came to an end. The script for this episode’s first half defines the Borg Queen that appears here as being separate from the one in Star Trek: First Contact, as the scripted version of the queen’s introduction in this episode specifies, Although this Queen has a similar design to the one seen in’First Contact’, she is a different character with her own, distinct personality. The script also describes the intricate sequence wherein the Borg Queen’s body is assembled by stating, The Borg Queen descends in a free-floating alcove that lowers from a port on the ceiling. As the Queen comes closer, we can see her body integrate piece by piece in a startling optical effect. Legs, arms, neck, head, torso – all clicking into place. Visual effects supervisor Mitch Suskin. Noted, of the same scene, that the writers wanted it to be impressive. 33 Visual effects producer Dan Curry. Concurred, [Brannon Braga] said that the Borg Queen will be reassembled, but let’s do something’new and cool’. The script for the episode’s second half refers to the Hansens, while they are examining a drone aboard the Raven, as “like biologists tagging a’wolf’ in the wild, ” which is consistent with the fact that Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky often thought that the Borg were like wolves. Similarly, Erin Hansen’s statement that she and her husband imagine the Borg Queen is “like the Queen of an insect colony” is in keeping with the fact that the Borg were initially conceived as a race of insects. The script for the installment’s second part comments that the Borg assimilation chamber where Seven of Nine sees alien victims of assimilation was to be a redress of the transwarp chamber seen in Part One. Brannon Braga felt that this episode was an important one for the character of Kathryn Janeway. “I think [it] was as important a show for Captain Janeway as it was for Seven, ” Braga mused. I think Janeway became more heroic and more Human herself [.] The scene with Naomi made [Janeway] a little warmer, a little more Human. I think her relationship with Seven changed in that show, inexorably in some ways. They will always be in conflict, that’s the nature of their mentor-pupil relationship. But I think they became a little more Picard. Than they ever had been in’Dark Frontier’. The fact that this episode’s casting process took place in November and December 1998 hampered the search for suitable actors. Cliff Bole remembered, Casting was a bit of a problem; the town of Hollywood. Was awful busy then. You know, winding down before Christmas. Everybody’s trying to get shows done, and finding the right talent was very tough. There were early rumors that Alice Krige. Would return to portray the Borg Queen in this episode. 33 However, Krige was unavailable, at the time. Even by 31 January. Was still unsure of the reasoning for Krige’s absence. Thompson, on that date, commented, I wonder why Alice [wasn’t] available! And I have no idea. There’s all sorts of many different types of stories [but] she just wasn’t available. VOY Season 5 DVD. “The Borg Queen Speaks”. Susanna Thompson, who had unsuccessfully auditioned to play the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact, was asked back to audition for the queen in this episode. She recalled, I used [Alice Krige’s performance in First Contact] as a springboard for what I brought into the audition, and they cast me. Even though Susanna Thompson had appeared in several previous Star Trek productions portraying Varel. , this was the actress’ first encounter with large scale prosthetics. Susanna Thompson was aware that she was playing a different queen from the one in Star Trek: First Contact. Shortly after appearing in this installment, the actress commented, I’m not the same Borg Queen. She’s the new Queen of the hive. There are similarities, but we are different. Even after Susanna Thompson was cast as the Borg Queen, however, she still tried to take inspiration for her role here from Alice Krige’s performance in First Contact. “I wasn’t afraid of duplicating her, ” stated Thompson. There was no time to imitate her, but there had to be similar elements because whatever Queen is clicked into the Collective, they all come from the same mind [.] I was very much encouraged to make the Queen my own [though]. Star Trek: Communicator issue 121. 17 & 81 Thompson also remarked, I took some information from [First Contact]. They did not want me to duplicate Alice’s character, but my own development of the background for this character was that there had to be elements that were the same, because ultimately they come from the same brain; they are an extension of the same central brain. There might be more knowledge at any given moment, but there is still the same background. The presence of a new Borg Queen was a notable departure from continuity for director Terry Windell. “I think you have a consistency in the characterization of the Borg, the collective mind, and how they operate, ” he stated. Our Queen was obviously a different character; although she’s still the Borg Queen, there’s a very different take on it. So that’s the part that I consider open territory to be different. The actual individual Borgs, I think, are manipulated very much in the same way, and that’s how you keep the consistency and the continuity. Susanna Thompson felt that her primary task was to help make realistic the Borg Queen’s effort to convince Seven of Nine to rejoin the Collective. “I think that my main role is to get to a point where the seduction becomes believable, ” noted the actress. Both Susanna Thompson and Terry Windell believed that, in this installment, the Borg Queen is a particularly maternal figure. “It’s as if [the Borg Queen] comes back into [Seven’s] life much like a biological mother would come back into some child’s life, after years of not being there, and try and win her back, but in a very intelligent and manipulative way, ” said Windell. Both these people are obviously incredibly intelligent and hold a lot of information. They’re going to know what the other person is thinking, so they really have to work to push the buttons. 61 Thompson offered, In an odd way, the Queen is a kind of maternal figure and of course, so is Janeway. 81 The actress clarified, There really are two maternal figures. Janeway and the Borg Queen, in whatever twisted maternal way she is, are these two sides that are pulling at Seven and they represent her identity. She used to be here, she went away, and now she’s come back to the Borg, and there is a sense of deprogramming and re-brainwashing. That’s what the Queen does to her, and that’s where the seduction lies. Susanna Thompson loved the effect of lights in the Borg Queen’s lair following the queen as she moved, believing that the effect lent a greater sense of ambiance and power to her character. Thompson also felt that her Borg Queen’s costume, particularly the restrictiveness of the outfit, aided her performance by making it hard to make any “extravagant” gestures. Susanna Thompson gained some useful advice from Brannon Braga. “Brannon told me to remember that every movement the Queen makes has a purpose, ” said the actress. 81 She elaborated, Brannon was very helpful in that he wanted that kind of fluid movement that Alice had. When I got on set I pretty much got it, but he came down, watched me, and just said one thing – that there’s no extraneous movement. I just realized that I might have been twitching a little bit and, because everything is perfect, any little twitch can stand out like a big one. That was real helpful. He also encouraged the quality of being. It’s really not conversational. But there is not that drone quality about the Queen’s speech. Susanna Thompson was additionally advised by Seven of Nine actress Jeri Ryan. “We talked about character, absolutely, ” recalled Thompson. 58 She also stated, Jeri said for her, playing a Borg is constantly reinventing yourself in the moment. Jeri Ryan also helped Susanna Thompson bear the Borg Queen makeup. Some of the most important information Jeri wanted to give me was about how to lie down! I had to lie vertical, but Jeri knew that, and she had a neck pillow. What I did was, I had a mound of robes on the floor on my trailer, neck pillows on top of them, and then I was able to lie somewhat comfortably. The collaboration between Susanna Thompson and Jeri Ryan was enjoyable for the latter actress. “Susanna Thompson, who is a friend of mine, was fun to work with, ” Ryan said. As the Borg Queen, she did a beautiful job. Jeri Ryan was extremely enthusiastic about “Dark Frontier” in general. “That could have been a feature, ” she opined. I was very impressed with the way that whole show came together, not just the script, but the production values all around were outstanding [.] I loved seeing exactly what made [Seven of Nine’s] parents tick and what made them end up the way they did, and exactly how they had gotten there in the first place. It very much had the flavor of Dian Fossey, the woman who studied and lived with gorillas, to it; following the Borg in the wild. I thought it was very well done and very well thought out. Although the Hansen family had been shown twice before, they had to be recast for this installment. I think the original actress who played Seven’s mother was unavailable and working in New York. ” remarked Cliff Bole, “and we just had to go searching [.] Seven’s parents were cast late. Both Terry Windell and executive producer Rick Berman. Were fond of Susanna Thompson’s work on this episode. 61; Star Trek: Communicator issue 121. 12 Windell opined, She was very good. 61 Cliff Bole was likewise pleased with the results of the casting process, such as with finding Katelin Petersen. To play the young Annika Hansen. “We lucked out, ” he said, but, by God. We looked; it got really tight. Props, makeup, wardrobe, and sets. Susanna Thompson found the makeup and clothing involved in this episode’s production to be highly elaborate. “It was all that Star Trek can be, ” she observed, this great, big, theater side of it, with costumes and makeup. According to the unauthorized reference book. 291, the clothing used for Species 10026 consisted of stock costumes, including Romulan. Civilian clothing from TNG. Susanna Thompson wore the same costume as Alice Krige had worn for Star Trek: First Contact, but with some subtle alterations. Thompson noted, They adjusted it for me. Our body types were similar, but it wasn’t quite made to fit my body. 32 Similarly, the Borg Queen makeup for both productions was handled by the same person, Scott Wheeler. Of whom Jeri Ryan enthused, [He] did a phenomenal job on her makeup. 28 There were a few changes to the makeup, however; for example, the mechanical structure that this episode’s Borg Queen wears on the back of her head was slightly different from that which Krige wore, with some new lights, and the contact lenses which were specially silverized at a space center in Texas. Were the exact same kind of lens, although custom-made for Thompson. Some alterations were made on the set of this installment. “There were adjustments to the makeup in the center of the face and the eyes, the lips of course, and the forehead, ” remembered Thompson. They didn’t want me to look as wet as Alice, so they had to make sure that looked okay. It was due to lengthy durations that Susanna Thompson had to wear the Borg Queen costume for, coupled with the fact that the costume wasn’t completely fitted to match Thompson’s physical proportions, that the actress found the costume uncomfortable. Firstly, it took five and a half hours for her Borg Queen makeup and costume to be put on. Shortly after working on the episode, Thompson described the costume as “like a very, very tight wetsuit” of which the long days had made her tired. 32 She also complained, I found the costume, probably because it fit Alice better than it fit me, slightly constricting, particularly around the shoulders [.] It was not an easy experience, physically. Conversely, makeup supervisor Michael Westmore. Took note of the fact that Thompson “was able to tolerate the contact lenses a little easier” than Alice Krige had. Susanna Thompson found her physical transformation into the Borg Queen to be a memorable experience. She declared, It’s so bizarre to have makeup spray painted on you; it’s a very bizarre feeling. I felt like I was in the shop! Terry Windell was sensitive to Susanna Thompson’s predicament. “It was incredibly taxing for Susanna, but she was a real trouper, ” Windell remarked. She’s into six hours of makeup before I even see her on the set and then there’s also the costume. She’s wearing metallic contacts which, once you get fatigued – and we’re using smoke on the set – can really be an irritant. So she really had to work hard, and it’s hard work to look effortless [.] It was very gruelling for her. Other production staffers were on hand to help Susanna Thompson with the costume. “I had to have two costume people work with me, ” the actress remembered, just to get the costume in place and ready to shoot. 33 She also stated, There was always a costume maker with me to help me get out of the costume right away if I needed to go to the bathroom, and, being someone who doesn’t really like to have a person constantly around me, that was a hardship. 58 Thompson additionally stated that “always having to count on somebody else to help you through things” added to her tiredness. Susanna Thompson theorized that an element of her costume had a practical application; I have an electrical unit on the back of my head, and I guess you’re left with the notion that that’s what controls the light [in the Borg Queen’s lair] really. Due to the fact that the writers were working on the episode’s teleplay throughout the pre-production stage, some of the sets had to be designed without full knowledge of the script. Cliff Bole stated, Our set designer, Richard James. Had to pretty much put a set together without knowing the ending, and he had to build the Queen’s set without knowing how the second part was going. Richard James tried to give the set for the Borg Queen’s lair an unusual design. “I wanted something different from what we’ve seen before, so I made the Queen’s lair look as if it was a sphere, ” commented James. The whole set was about two stories tall and was made with all new drawings. The inside of her lair is curved to give it a spherical feel. I wasn’t necessarily trying to follow the shapes used in First Contact; it just kind of came out that way, and I really like the look. The normal Borg walls are so square and flat that I wanted to add some depth and something real interesting. I also cut out the cylinders and made wafers instead, kind of like a large watch battery. ” Terry Windell opined that, although similar Borg corridors to the ones here had been shown in Star Trek before, the newness of the set for the Borg Queen’s lair gave the production crew “some freedom. The lighting in the set for the Borg Queen’s lair impressed both Cliff Bole and Terry Windell, Bole noting that it was a lot more extravagant than normal. I know that [on’Dark Frontier’] we went for an incredible lighting package. Theatrical lighting, almost a rock-and-roll package for a lot of the work. The idea of having some of the set’s lighting concentrate on the Borg Queen was thought up by Terry Windell. “I requested that we have a very different look than we had seen before, and we had these computerized lights installed in the set that they could program to move, ” Windell explained. Since the Borg Queen deals with controlling the whole collective by her mind, we thought it would be interesting that, as she moved around, some of the lights actually followed her. Jeri Ryan was impressed with the sets of this outing, remarking, The sets were amazing. The sphere that Kim saw crawling around (and thinks it’s an auto-generation unit, of some kind) is the same prop used in Thirty Days. As’measuring instruments’ as he is boarding the Delta Flyer. Similar to how this episode was scripted in two parts, the installment was also filmed as two separate segments, with Cliff Bole directing the first half and Terry Windell helming the second part. Due to the pressures regarding the amount of alloted time provided for the episode’s production, Bole was gratified that there were two directors. Whereas Bole was a Star Trek veteran who was well acquainted with working on productions that involved the Borg he having directed the Star Trek: The Next Generation. Two-parter The Best of Both Worlds. ” and ” The Best of Both Worlds, Part II. , relative newcomer Terry Windell had to do some research. I researched about four or five episodes that were strong in Borg. The feature and The Gift. Were probably the strongest in terms of how to handle the material. Brannon Braga was of the opinion that this episode was very difficult to produce. In common with the writing of the script and the casting process, the episode’s production took place in November and December 1998. In fact, when Cliff Bole started filming his part of the episode, neither the script nor the guest cast were ready yet. “A lot of times when they were looking [for actors], I was shooting, so that added to it, ” Bole stated. Cliff Bole was attracted to the possibility of utilizing a steadicam for this outing. “I used the steadicam quite a bit and the town was so damned busy, it was tough to line up the guys I like and the cameramen I like, ” Bole reflected. [The steadicam] became my main tool by the nature of the design of the set. It became more of a tool than a creative piece, because it just handled all the problems that came out of the design. The reason that the Hansens were cast late was, as Cliff Bole explained, because that part of the show we did towards the end [of the production schedule], because we weren’t sure how much we were going to do on it. The casting of the Borg Queen also had a correlation on the production process. Cliff Bole recounted, They hadn’t quite got the Queen yet, she wasn’t available; so I had to come back to shoot. I had to come back after I’d finished filming, about a week later, to shoot my part with the Queen, which was just the ending [of the first part of the show]. Cliff Bole and Terry Windell worked together in an attempt to ensure that the transition between their scenes was seamless. Windell remembered, I actually went on the set and watched what Cliff was doing so that we would have continuity. The biggest aspect was he didn’t introduce the Queen’s lair until the last act of his show and the majority of my show takes place there, so that was the big sequence we had to collaborate on, and we actually were there on the same day when he was filming his sequence. This is the final Star Trek episode that Cliff Bole worked on as a director. As Borg corridors had repeatedly been shown on Star Trek, Terry Windell intended to make the ones here seem a little atypical by giving them a cramped look, such as in the shots where an appalled Seven passes victims destined for assimilation, and various Borg drones. “I tried to lens it a bit differently than I’ve seen before: I tried to use longer lenses and compress a lot of the space, just to get a sense of claustrophobia, ” Windell related. What I’ve seen before a lot in the Borg corridors is wide lenses to give that kind of distorted perspective and, you know, get a little disjointed, and it tends to make the set look really open and big. Once the Borg Queen orders Seven to go back in and actually participate in assimilating another race, we felt that it should be in Seven’s mind’s eye, what the corridor was all about. I felt it should be very claustrophobic. Working the lighting effect that was characteristic of the Borg Queen into the production caused Terry Windell some scheduling problems. What we would do is rehearse and when we had the blocking down with Susanna, then we would program the lights accordingly and she was fantastic about hitting her marks [.] In terms of difficulty, what that did, the actual time to program the lights is something you don’t really see when you’re blocking out a week’s worth of work. 61 Nevertheless, Windell was still proud of the work of those responsible, including himself, for creating the dramatic atmospheres in the Borg sets. I think that what we did in the Borg corridors and the Queen’s lair was [.] featuresque, the drama and the lighting, so that it’s not always about seeing everything in total clarity; it’s about using light and smoke. Susanna Thompson’s long days of enduring her makeup and costume generally consisted of around 21 hours. 32 She reflected, My days were very long. I had no idea; they were 20, 21 hour days. One day I think I did 22 hours. ” Terry Windell offered, “By the time I’m at the end of a normal day, she’s almost into 20 hours. Terry Windell remarked on the usefulness of the episode’s visual effects; I think that the visual effects give it the production value. When they describe the multitude of Borg vessels you have to see that. For both parts of the episode was done by Foundation Imaging. Involving the input of Foundation’s visual effects supervisors Robert Bonchune. And Adam “Mojo” Lebowitz. As well as director of animation John Teska. 32 Bonchune handled the visual effects of the episode’s first half, whereas Mojo dealt with the VFX of the second part. 44 The episode also incorporated contributions from Foundation Imaging staffers Koji Kuramura. (who was responsible for most of the Borg Unicomplex’s construction, based on a maquette created by Dan Curry, and for the revamping of the damaged Borg sphere), Dave Morton. (who created numerous Astrometrics graphics), Dan Ritchie (who both built and blew up the Borg probe), and Brandon MacDougall. “We had the feature, to some degree, to refer back to, to make sure that this appears to be in the same universe, ” noted Mitch Suskin, who acted as the visual effects supervisor for the first half of the episode. A visual effect whose creation was particularly hurried was the interior view of the Borg probe’s destruction. Mitch Suskin remembered, As they cut the show, they looked at it and said,’We really want more action, more drama. We found out about that as they were finishing second unit photography. With the visual effects team having had little notice that the effect would be wanted, Art Codron. (the visual effects coordinator for the episode’s first half) subsequently ran across to the set and obtained the necessary background plates. Suskin described the effect’s creation as “a true team effort” that involved a Borg drone CGI model from Foundation Imaging. He continued, John Teska gave us a couple of variations of [the single] Borg flying backwards, with interactive light passes. Then we took it into the bay, dug through our vast library of explosions, and pieced it together in an afternoon, between his animation, the elements we had, and a little bit of Harry [animation] work here and there to stitch it all together. It’s the one shot in the film when you see an explosion ripping through and the Borg getting blown backwards. 32 Suskin also believed that the writers were not alone in wanting the queen’s construction to look impressive, a similar sequence having been created for Star Trek: First Contact. “We all secretly wanted it to be at least as good as what was done on the feature, ” recalled Suskin. We wanted to be a little bit different. By examining the set for the Borg Queen’s lair, Dan Curry came up with the idea of having the queen’s lower body enter from below, via floor panels, and then robotically assemble. Curry then mapped out the sequence with storyboards that, despite being quite detailed, also left ample room for the other team members to be creative. 62 Live action footage of Susanna Thompson’s head, made-up to match that of the Borg Queen, was shot for the sequence. 63 Mitch Suskin reflected, We shot a plate of the actress, [.] a closeup that they tracked in. She’s just standing on the stage in front of a bluescreen. But we actually had the camera tilting, and coming down, so we’d have a little bit of a perspective change. It was tracked in and composited at Foundation Imaging. 33 Indeed, most of the sequence was done with CGI by John Teska. 32; Star Trek Monthly issue 58. This was because the queen’s unique alcove did not actually work as an elevator. Not only was the bluescreen footage of Susanna Thompson used for close-ups of the Borg Queen’s head, but the sequence also involved CG models of the queen’s head and body as well as the apparatus that physically assembles her. 63 Rob Bonchune recalled of John Teska’s work on the sequence, He built all the piping. I mean, basically, there was nothing in there. There was a thing in the background where she came down live, but he meshed the live actress to CG stuff [.] and he built all the piping when it comes up through the floor. All we had was this plate, and he actually put the images on CG stuff and blended it in, and you see holes on the floor. 45 Teska also lit the apparatus. A shot wherein the combination of CG and live action elements was used to represent different parts of the Borg Queen is the one where the upper and lower portions of her body are fastened together by small hooks that latch into her. “[That] was just a production shot of her, ” said Suskin. Everything that latches in was done at Foundation. 33 Following this shot, the episode concludes solely with live action footage. The effect itself incorporated only six cuts and hardly any work for Susanna Thompson. When Rob Bonchune saw the first test of the assembly machinery rising out of the floor, he was pleasantly surprised by how real John Teska had managed to make the effect seem. 33 The sequence was so effective that it fooled people into thinking it had been done entirely on set. “Mitch [Suskin] told me, ” recounted Bonchune, that when they were viewing the tape over at Paramount, people would walk in to look at it and say,’Oh, you guys shot that practical? That’s good [.] It’s pretty impressive. As transwarp travel had previously been shown (visualized with the same effect) in both Threshold. , the visual effects artists initially intended to make another reuse of the same effect in this installment. “We pulled out that reference, ” Mitch Suskin stated, because we assumed since it was the same term, that we would use that again. And the other producers looked at it and wanted something flashier. The thing that they actually liked was from [the fourth season finale] Hope and Fear. What we did was basically take the slipstream effect and change the color a little bit. The Raven was also revived for this episode, a previous version of the starship having been featured in a fourth season episode of the same name. “It was really a matter of almost starting over from scratch, ” explained John Teska. A basic framework of the craft was in Foundation Imaging’s possession, of which they did a render that they sent to Star Trek: Voyager Senior Illustrator Rick Sternbach. This changed the scale of the windows and the entry hatches, and that sort of thing. 59 Foundation Imaging then built the craft from Sternbach’s refinements. Effect used in the flashback scenes corresponds with the effect used in Star Trek: The Next Generation. And Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The wide shot of the Delta Flyer being retrofitted with the transwarp coil was a re-use of the matte shot from Extreme Risk. The shot of the Delta Flyer exiting Voyager’s shuttlebay was another example of reused footage, having been used in both “Extreme Risk” and Thirty Days. Both shots were scripted to be stock optical shots. All the visual effects were transfered between the first and second halves of the episode, as Ronald B. Took over the supervising of the VFX. Foundation did some great work. I think the quality of the images we got was really terrific. Much of the visual effects footage of the climactic battle involving the Delta Flyer and Borg Queen’s vessel inside a transwarp conduit was added late by Rick Berman. Ron Moore remarked, At the end when Berman was making the final cut, he put some of those [shots] back, the interior of the warp conduit, the firing, and the chasing, which I thought was fabulous. Just before finalizing the cut, he felt that we needed the shots, so we put them back in, in a rush, because at that point we are usually talking about having another two weeks to work. Moore also expressed gratitude that the visual effects team were able to pull together the effect, despite the rush. Jeri Ryan was thrilled with this episode’s optical shots, stating, The effects were amazing. When the Hansens first detect a Borg cube, the music is reminiscent of the V’ger. Themed music from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This is the final Star Trek episode directed by Cliff Bole. Terry Windell noted a comparison between this episode and “The Gift”, saying the reason he found that reviewing that installment helped with the production of this one was especially since [‘The Gift’] dealt with Seven’s transition from Borg to being more Human, and this whole story is about the possibility of her becoming Borg again. Susanna Thompson believed that the Borg Queen’s attempt to persuade Seven of Nine to rejoin the Borg Collective here is similar to the relationship between Data and the queen in Star Trek: First Contact, describing both relationships as a “seduction” but also referring to each as a different form of that. 81; Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 1. The episode’s teleplays date the flashback. Sequences in the first part of the installment as “twenty years” before the rest of the events in that part and the flashbacks in the second half as “a full year” later. This episode marks the first and only appearance of the Borg probe. In a Star Trek series. However, the probe’s rectangular design was resurrected for this episode; a Borg tetragon. (imagined as being much larger than the one shown here) was temporarily considered to appear in Star Trek: First Contact, as a possible replacement for the Borg cube. Janeway claims that use of the transwarp coil has brought Voyager fifteen years closer to home, over a distance of 20,000 light years. This implies an average speed of around 250 million miles per second. Voyager’s speed capabilities have previously been noted in The 37’s. ” (“4 billion miles per second” at Warp 9.9), ” Maneuvers. ” (“2 billion kilometres per second”), as well as implied in ” Waking Moments. ” (222 million miles per second) and ” The Gift. (170 million miles per second). Seven of Voyager’s photon torpedoes are seen to be used in this episode (one of which was transported before detonation), two having previously been used in Counterpoint. This brings the total number of torpedoes confirmed to have been used by Voyager over the course of the series to 49, a total which exceeds the irreplaceable complement of 38 that had been established by Chakotay in the first-season episode The Cloud. Voyager loses a shuttlecraft in this episode, for a total of ten, after having previously lost nine shuttles in Initiations. In this episode, the shuttle is sacrificed as part of a strategic distraction. At the opening of this episode, the Borg voiceover announces the detection of 143 life forms aboard Voyager, yet the crew complement had previously been established as 152 just two episodes earlier in Gravity. This apparent discrepancy is not accounted for. Paper makes a rare appearance in this episode, in the form of several drawings stuck to the walls of USS Raven. Paper previously made an appearance in Once Upon a Time. It is revealed in this episode that a single Borg regeneration alcove requires 30 megawatts of power. Seven is seen in her purple-tone jumpsuit for the first time. This outfit was introduced because the previous blue one had been difficult to film against bluescreen backdrops. Star Trek: Voyager Companion. This Borg Queen reveals herself to be from Species 125. In this episode, it is revealed that the Borg designation for Humans. The transwarp conduit represents the eleventh time besides the series premiere after Eye of the Needle. “, ” Future’s End, Part II. “, ” The Q and the Grey. That the Voyager crew is presented with the possibility of returning home much faster than by conventional warp travel. In this case, the technology works, if only for a short while, and provides a significant shortcut. This episode makes several references to the events of The Raven. No dates are given for The Raven. “, but this episode establishes that the events of that episode happened “over a year earlier. Janeway states that the crew of Voyager have “proven ourselves against the Borg once before, twice before”, in a reference to the events of the duology Scorpion. ” and ” Scorpion, Part II. “, and the episode ” Drone. Janeway also points out to Seven that it’s been “over two years since you came face to face with the Collective”, in another reference to Scorpion, Part II. Chakotay misquotes Seven as saying, two years previously, “I will betray you”. She actually says “we will betray you” (using the Borg penchant for the first-person plural tense) in The Gift. While discussing the records of Seven’s parents, Neelix claims that the only thing he has of his family is a picture of his sister. This picture made an appearance in the earlier fifth-season episode Once Upon a Time. Other Star Trek series. The Hansen logs indicate that Federation. Knowledge of the Borg. Existed prior to the events of TNG. “, citing the limited information as “rumor and sensor. No doubt the El-Aurians. Must have been a source of at least some of the knowledge, since the USS Enterprise-B. Witnessed their escape in Star Trek Generations. It is somewhat puzzling, however, that the Starfleet crew of the USS Enterprise-D. Are unaware of the Borg and the Hansens in the earlier TNG episode. As Joe Menosky remembered, the writers of this episode were well aware of the discontinuity when they devised this installment. There was no way in the world we were going to get rid of the Hansen arc, just because it didn’t match exactly what had happened when Q. First threw the Enterprise near that Borg cube [.] There should be some mention in a database somewhere, and Picard should have known. There was a little bit of that knowledge [.] In our minds, the Borg were a very slender rumor, and the Hansens followed up on the rumor and just disappeared. Whether that completely holds water or not, that’s all the justification we needed to go with the Hansen arc. Even if we couldn’t have come up with that justification, we would have done it anyway. I think you are denying new audiences the chance to see this arc that couldn’t be told if you were going to be faithful to something that was established a decade ago. We are not willing to be that rigid with continuity. Paris claims that Ferengi. Attempted to break into Fort Knox “about ten years ago”. This would have been just a year after Humanity made official first contact with the Ferengi in 2364, in TNG. When Seven first encounters the Borg Queen face to face the Queen says: “Welcome Home” followed by a scene cut. This echoes the end of DS9. The Search, Part I. When the female changeling says the same thing to Odo and there is also a scene cut. The Borg in the flashbacks appear as they did in Star Trek: First Contact instead of the dry pasty look of the Borg during Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Queen tells Seven she is the first drone that has regained its individuality, apparently denying the existence of Hugh. And the rest of Lore. S rogue Borg faction, as well as disregarding Captain. S temporary assimilation into Locutus. Brannon Braga was ultimately thrilled with this episode, saying, It turned out to be really, really amazing. 61 Braga selected some of his favorite moments from the episode. The best scene of the picture, I thought, was when the Queen was finally pushing [Seven] to the edge, pulling out all the stops, and finally just about to get her to crack, and Janeway’s voice comes in. That was the best moment in the show, definitely. The scenes between Seven and the Queen I really liked [.] Seeing Janeway in the little scene with Naomi, that was another one of my favorite scenes. Seeing people come to the Captain somehow felt right in that show. ” Braga also remarked that he thought the transition of Janeway and Seven becoming more like Picard and Data was “a step in the right direction. He was proud, too, of the episode’s production and was of the opinion that the installment succeeded in measuring up to Star Trek: First Contact. “The team really rose to the occasion, and it turned out great, ” Braga enthused. It had more action than First Contact. On a television budget, the fact that we in some ways imagistically took First Contact a step further is an impressive achievement, and I’m just really proud of that. We all enjoyed it very much. Joe Menosky especially liked the scenes showing Seven of Nine’s temporary reintegration into the Borg Collective. “The thing I liked the most about the episode, ” Menosky critiqued, shows how cool a character Seven of Nine is. I love the scenes where she’s in her Seven of Nine catsuit, and there she is walking around Borg corridors as if she is at home. I think there is great power to that image, and it perfectly captures her character as being this Human child raised by wolves [.] I love the image when Janeway takes off, because she has no choice, from that Borg sphere and Seven is there amongst the Borg. I think it’s a really powerful image, and goes to the heart of her character. Rick Berman was also happy with the installment, saying he was “extremely proud” of it. Berman additionally enthused, Having the Borg Queen in [the] mix fits beautifully in the story [.] [The episode] brings a very sensual and spooky element to the relationship between Seven of Nine and the Borg. All of our expectations were exceeded in bringing it to the screen. This episode originally aired as a feature-length episode but it was later broken up into two parts for reruns in syndication. According to the unofficial book Delta Quadrant p. 290, this episode – when shown on UPN. Was the first of many Voyager episodes that the network edited by two minutes so as to include an extra commercial in each advertising break, thereby increasing revenue. As of 2020, this edited version of the episode, missing the scene in which Janeway chastises Torres’ dismissive attitude towards Seven, is still shown by several streaming outlets. It was the most watched installment of Star Trek: Voyager (on first airing) since Year of Hell, Part II. First showed the episode as two separate parts that aired on the same night as each other. After the first part was shown, the continuity announcer joked that the second part would be postponed because the tape had broken. Unusually for the BBC. (which frequently aired Star Trek two-parters as feature-length editions), this episode was broadcast as the two-part version on 11. This episode won an Emmy Award. For Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series. Star Trek nearly swept the category that year; also nominated for it were VOY. What You Leave Behind. The book Star Trek 101. 175, by Terry J. Lists this episode as one of the “Ten Essential Episodes” from Star Trek: Voyager. Cited “Dark Frontier” among his favorite Star Trek productions. The episode inspired him to feature several multi-episode-arcs in the fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Both the Borg probe and the Borg Queen’s vessel, introduced here, are featured in the non-canon PC games Star Trek: Armada. And Star Trek: Armada II. Wherein the probe is known as a Borg “Interceptor”. In Star Trek Online. The probe is a frigate. If the GROUND ADVANTAGE is selected: Domestic U. Please be aware of the differences and choose accordingly. We will combine multiple wins into a single package when we are able to. The initial invoice(s) will list them as separate packages. We will advise at that time if we are unable to combine the packages. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. Apologies for any inconvenience that this may cause.