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"Before we get carried away with adulation for Seven, let's just admit that she's hardly the most original rabbit to be pulled out of Star Trek's hat. The battle between emotional humanity and logical efficiency has been in the series since Spock first locked horns with Bones. With Star Trek : The Next Generation, this battle was internalized in the android Data. Data's lack of understanding of the human condition was sometimes a source of poignancy (In Theory for example), but it was mostly used for a cheap laugh. Oh, Data's missed the point again! Never mind, just slap him on his plastic back and guffaw all the way to the end credits.
Where Seven wins out, where she becomes the most interesting variation on this riole, is in the fact that she challenges everything Star Trek has taught us to accept about the human condition. Because it's time we admitted something else : being human in Star Trek means being a part of the United Federation of Planets and accepting everything it has to say about truth, justice and (you know it to be true) the American Way. Politically the Borg are rather embarrassingly revealing of the Trek universe's hypocrisy. Individuality might be accepted and encouraged in the Federation, but it's a very particular brand of individuality and if your individuality is too individual then they don't want to know about it. To join the Federation, you must buy into a discrete state of mind, a definite framework of law and procedure - in short, be assimilated. So it's rather rich of Captain Janeway to complain about how terrible it is that diversity is destroyed by the Borg.
The wonderful thing about Seven is that she has rumbled this hypocrisy, and she won't stand for it. When she butts heads with Janeway, it's many times more interesting thatn Bones and Spock's bitching, or Geordie and Data's quiet mulling, because Seven dares to oppose the warm, cosy view of the humanity of the future - the very core of Star Trek itself."
~ from "Drone Alone" by David Bailey, featured in Cult Times Special#12 December 1999
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"I am Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unamatrix One. But you may call me Seven of Nine."
~Scorpion Part II
"You are erratic, conflicted, disorganized...you lack harmony, cohesion, greatness. It will be your undoing."
~Scorpion, Part II
"You can alter our physiology...but you cannot change our nature. We will betray you. We are Borg."
~The Gift
"You have imprisoned us in the name of humanity...yet you will not grant us your most cherished human right. To choose our own fate. You are hypocritical...manipulative. We do not want to be like you."
~The Gift
"For a brief time I was human, but I have come to realize that I am Borg. I will always be Borg."
~The Raven
"You made me into an individual...but when I try to assert that independence, I am punished. I believe that you are punishing me because I do not think the way you do...You claim to respect my individuality, but in fact you are frightened by it."
~Prey
Paris :
"I just don't like closed places. I never have. I don't know
why."
Seven : "Perhaps...you dislike being alone."
~One
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"I am Annika Hansen, human."
~Dark Frontier
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