How Q Accidentally Saved the Federation From the Borg
Even though they are arguably a bit played out these days, the Borg still serve as the scariest Big Bads in all of Star Trek. Part of what makes them so frightening is that they are so much more powerful than Starfleet, and in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Q Who,” the titular godlike being proves this by flinging Captain Picard and the Enterprise-D deep into Borg territory. This created the narrative (both in-universe and within the fandom) that Q is responsible for the Borg’s interest in Starfleet, but the surprising truth is that Q’s actions accidentally saved the Federation.
Back in Season 1 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Ferengi were (as hard as it is to believe) intended to be the Big Bads…
At this point, we wouldn’t blame you if you had the skepticism of Spock regarding this claim. The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode clearly showed Starfleet encountering the Borg for the first time, and Q’s capricious action ended up getting several crew members killed. How, then, could Q causing murder and mayhem end up saving any lives, much less the entirety of Starfleet?
Believe it or not, it all goes back to the ending of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s first season. In the episode fittingly titled “The Neutral Zone,” Captain Picard and crew discover that both the Romulans and the Federation have had starbases seemingly scooped right from the surfaces of their respective planets. This is exactly what the Borg do to the outpost that the Enterprise encounters in “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1,” and that wasn’t a coincidence.
Back in Season 1 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Ferengi were (as hard as it is to believe) intended to be the Big Bads that would menace this new ship and crew just as the Klingons had menaced Captain Kirk and his crew back in The Original Series. However, the Ferengi came across as nothing more than a bad joke, which is why they were so dramatically reimagined by the time Deep Space Nine first premiered.
Our Star Trek protagonists never discovered the Borg were behind those season 1 shenanigans, and they didn’t even know about the existence of these fearsome aliens until Q flung the Enterprise into the Borg’s path.
Well before that, Star Trek’s writers and producers had to introduce a new villain to replace the Ferengi.
You guessed it: that new villain was the Borg, and the Star Trek Paramount powers that be wanted to do more to lay the groundwork for the Borg’s frightening return at the end of The Next Generation’s third season.
The Writer’s Guild strike of 1988 kept that from happening, which is also why the second season is so short and ends in a clip episode. That brings us back to the big question, though: just how did Q end up saving the Federation from the Borg?
Q’s mischievous actions in “Q Who” inadvertently saved the Federation from the Borg by making it possible for Starfleet to prepare for the Collective’s inevitable invasion.
Our Star Trek protagonists never discovered the Borg were behind those season 1 shenanigans, and they didn’t even know about the existence of these fearsome aliens until Q flung the Enterprise into the Borg’s path.
Both Picard and the fandom generally assume that this was one of Q’s villainous moments and that he effectively gave the Borg the Federation’s scent. In reality, the Borg were already just outside of Federation territory and were poised to strike at any time.
That’s exactly what happened in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1.” When a Borg cube starts making a beeline straight for Earth, Starfleet assembles a fleet to intercept the cube at Wolf 359.
The Borg ended up destroying that fleet, but those ships wouldn’t have lasted as long as they did without officers like Commander Shelby and others developing specialized countermeasures against the Borg.
After Captain Picard is assimilated and transformed into Locutus of Borg, temporarily-promoted Captain Riker is able to use some of Shelby’s strategies to delay the Borg, rescue Picard, and ultimately destroy the cube before it can assimilate Earth.
However, none of that would have been possible without the anti-Borg countermeasures Shelby helped the Federation develop, countermeasures that wouldn’t exist if Q hadn’t flung the Enterprise into the path of the Borg. In this way, whether Star Trek’s impish god meant to or not, he ended up saving the Federation from otherwise certain doom.
