Star Trek’s Most Mysterious Foes Nearly Fought Picard’s Great Enemies
In Star Trek, we didn’t see much overlap between Borg and Romulan stories until the disappointing first season of Picard. However, the episode that first brought the Romulans to The Next Generation originally planned to do something that would have completely changed the franchise going forward. Specifically, the episode “The Neutral Zone” was originally going to lead directly into a Borg introduction and show the Federation and the Romulans teaming up to fight this intimidating new threat.
An Unlikely Team-Up
As you may recall, “The Neutral Zone” was the TNG Season 1 finale, and it was notable for bringing the Romulans (classic foes from The Original Series) into the newest era of Star Trek. What made this notable was that Gene Roddenberry was originally very hesitant about bringing some of the more iconic aliens from Captain Kirk’s era into the new adventures of Captain Picard. Eventually, he relaxed enough to bring the Romulans into the new show, and The Next Generation was that much better for having these cunning aliens in the mix.
Introduced The Romulans To Next Generation
In the final version of “The Neutral Zone,” there is no explicit mention of the Borg, focusing entirely on the Romulans as the antagonists. The Borg would later be introduced in the Season 2 episode “Q, Who?,” and the Season 3 finale, “The Best of Both Worlds,” would belatedly confirm that it was these foes who had attacked both Federation and Romulan outposts along the Neutral Zone. As it turns out, that’s a remnant from a planned plot that would have brought the Borg in much earlier and forced the Romulans and the Federation into an uneasy alliance.
Written As The First Of Three Parts
“The Neutral Zone” was written by controversial Star Trek: The Next Generation showrunner Maurice Hurley, and he originally wanted this to be merely the first part of a trilogy of episodes. It would have led directly into the next season, including the introduction of a Borg threat so menacing that Captain Picard teams up with the Romulans. Incidentally, this was back when the plan was to make the Borg more of an insect race rather than a cybernetic race (execs eventually realized how expensive it would be to bring an insect race to life).
A Team-Up Would Have Improved Picard
Hurley’s plans never came to fruition: the Borg were introduced later in a very different way, and “The Neutral Zone” stands as a mostly disappointing finale in which the Romulans are the only interesting part. However, we wish this early alliance between Picard and Romulan forces had happened, if only because it would have strengthened Picard’s later storylines.
The Borg Is Dangerous
If the Borg threat had forced the captain and the Romulans to team up, Admiral Satie’s allegations about a treasonous Picard working with the Romulan government would have been a bit more chilling. An early alliance would also have made Picard posing as a Romulan in “Unification” more complex and, likely, more entertaining (maybe he now has some old war buddies on the homeworld).
Most of all, Picard’s early alliance with the Romulans might explain why he is so cozy with them in Picard, which otherwise goes entirely unmotivated and unexplained.
Denied An Amazing Federation/Romulans/Borg Slugfest
Short of slingshotting around the sun, we can’t exactly turn back time to experience how cool a Borg fight against a Starfleet/Romulan alliance would have been. However, with the benefit of hindsight (the poor man’s time travel), we can definitively say such a storyline would have deepened our understanding of these classic Star Trek foes while similarly furthering our understanding of the titular character’s actions in Picard.
If nothing else, we would have liked some context for why Picard spent his golden years hanging around Romulans with exactly two skills: cleaning his house and cutting off the heads of his enemies.
