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The Borg Queen serves different roles at different times: central processing unit, de facto leader of drones, personality of the Collective, liaison to Voyager, etc. In "Endgame" there is an exchange where the Collective and the Queen are clearly operating as separate entities:

BORG [OC]: Vessel identified: USS Voyager. We will pursue and assimilate.

QUEEN: No. They haven't compromised our security. Let the vessel continue, for now. I'll keep an eye on them.

This leads me to believe that the Borg Queen is not the personification of the Collective as a whole, but a specific personality trait. Since the Collective is a massive gestalt consciousness, then it might follow that its many drives and desires would be so complex as to have minds of their own. Like an individual mind may exhibit self-doubt and other internal conflicts, the Borg think aloud about their possible decisions in extreme circumstances.

Since the Queen program has multiple bodies in multiple locations, then it stands to reason there might an entire suite of programs among the Borg that represent different aspects of its personality. These programs would all be named for positions of peerage: Locutus of Borg, Queen of Borg, Duke of Borg, Marquis of Borg, Baron of Borg, etc. (An analogy would be the anthropomorphic emotions in the Disney movie Inside Out.)

Does this make sense?

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    Interesting idea.
    – wogsland
    Commented Feb 12, 2017 at 1:53
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    @wogsland: Thank you. To be frank I was disappointed with the addition of the queen and this is my attempt at rationalizing and salvaging the Borg.
    – Anonymous
    Commented Feb 13, 2017 at 16:34

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The Borg would not have titles like Duke, Baron, or Marquis. They would see such titles as archaic and unnecessary. Here's the script from when Picard is first brought aboard a Borg cube in Best of Both Worlds.

Borg: "Captain Jean-Luc Picard, you lead the strongest ship of the Federation fleet. You speak for your people."

Picard: "I have nothing to say to you! And I will resist you with my last ounce of strength!"

Borg: "Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. We wish to improve ourselves. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours."

Picard: "Impossible! My culture is based on freedom and self-determination!"

Borg: "Freedom is irrelevant. Self-determination is irrelevant. You must comply."

Picard: "We would rather die!"

Borg: "Death is irrelevant. Your archaic cultures are authority-driven. To facilitate our introduction into your societies, it has been decided that a Human voice will speak for us in all communications. You have been chosen to be that voice."

The Borg were not intended to have a "queen". She was added for the movie First Contact. To quote the Memory-Alpha entry on the Borg, "While the writers had intended to stay true to the original concept of the Borg as a collective hive, they found it difficult to maintain the dramatic impact of villains without a central face. Thus, they created the Queen."

She thus became the authority in a non-authority driven culture.

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  • The Borg have been subject to extreme rewrites over the course of their appearances. I thought that my speculation provided a happy medium between an authoritarian and a collective culture. In this sense the Queen is more like a Zerg Cerebrate, with the Borg being the Zerg Overmind.
    – Anonymous
    Commented Feb 3, 2017 at 13:42

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