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Were they meant to be the same entity?

If they weren't, does this imply that Borg have distinct "hives"?

Out-of-Universe, the actresses playing the roles were all mixed up, but sounds like Paramount originally wanted the same actress implying it was the same Queen (or merely that all Queens are 'clones'?):

From http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0860749/ (Susanna Thompson):

Trivia: Got the role of the "Borg Queen" on Star Trek: Voyager only because Alice Krige (who played the role in the movie Star Trek: First Contact) refused to reprise her role.

For the final episode, Susanna Thompson was not available (because of shooting Once and Again) so Alice Krige played the Borg Queen in the final episode.

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  • I'm not a Voyager person, but according to IMDB, Alice Krige played the Borg Queen in the Voyager episode "Endgame" as well as in Star Trek: First Contact.
    – Katey HW
    Commented Sep 20, 2011 at 23:33
  • @Katey - you are only 1/2 right. I will edit the Q with clarification
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Sep 20, 2011 at 23:45
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    @Katey - AND, for some totally useless trivia, Susanna Thompson also played Dr. Lenara Kahn on ST:DS9 episode.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Sep 20, 2011 at 23:52
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    It wasnt that Alice Kriger "refused" to play the borg queen on Voyager it was just she was allready busy with other roles when the Trek producers asked her to come back, until the final episode when she was free to come back
    – user13258
    Commented Mar 20, 2013 at 22:27

6 Answers 6

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I don't think this was really fully addressed in the movies or TV series, but the memory alpha page seems to indicate that they are not the same physical bodies, but they might be the same personalities - the Collective simply upgraded a drone to be a new queen when the old one was killed - much like how hive insects behave.

The death of a Borg Queen did not seem to affect the Collective or its hive mind. When a Borg drone died, its memories would still be within the hive mind.

...

The Borg Queen that was present in 2377 was assimilated when she was a child, together with her parents.

As Katey points out in her comment, Krige played the Queen in both the movie and the Voyager finale. However, a different actress was used for the other appearances throughout the Voyager series.

This could also mean that they were two different Queens, and that there may be two separate Collectives (one in the Delta quadrant, and one nearer to the Federation).

Unfortunately, it does raise a problem in that the Borg Queen seen in 2378 (Voyager - Endgame) was the same physical body that had gone back in time from 2373 and been killed in 2063 (First Contact).

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    I think the Borg Queen is merely the body which encompasses that personality as you mentioned. This is not without its irony since it would seem the only 'individual' capable of making her own decisions in the Borg is not an individual but some sort of artificial intelligence which passes its personality from drone to drone.
    – Neil
    Commented Sep 21, 2011 at 9:19
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    On the subject of the Borg Queen "dying" the one played by Thompson in Dark Frontier was presumably "killed" when the ship she was on was destroyed and she came back for other appearances just fine
    – IG_42
    Commented Nov 3, 2016 at 23:26
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I might point out that in the movie, Picard is surprised that she was still alive. While she never appeared in the episode where he was assimilated, he mentions that her voice was always there and points out that ship and all the borg on it had been destroyed, to which she replies: "You think in such three-dimensional terms."

One could theorize that perhaps the body that speaks is not the queen, but rather that the queen itself is a pervasive "personality" that exists throughout the entire collective and that she merely employs a body, whether it be a clone or a series of similar forms on each borg ship, to be her voice and to speak and act through when she has need to.

No canon to back that up, but that's always been my theory of her.

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    Similar to my theory; I'd just add that she appears when the borg need her (e.g. when there aren't enough brains to form an functional collective, so they need a leader), rather than when she decides to make an appearance. (Oh, and that maybe she was the one who started the borg, before it subsumed her.) If only the script had been that well thought out...
    – Beta
    Commented Jul 10, 2012 at 22:19
  • I've had endless discussions about this with a friend. Every time we watch either ST:FC or a Borg ep of VOY he says that the queens are different, and I say they are just different actors playing the same character, and I mention that exact quote. He reluctantly gives in, and the next time we watch together, it starts over. Perhaps I'm in a time loop, or he's thinking in three-dimensional terms.
    – user68965
    Commented Nov 3, 2016 at 23:25
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My wiew on Borg Queen is that she is not a real person but actually an avatar of Borg collective itself. An living embodiment of the whole Borg collective, put in one body. And that would explain how can there be so many Borg queens. The fact is there isn't really a Borg queen as a leader who governs all, but a living representation of the collective itself.

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    It’s plausible. Do you have any evidence from the show to support this point, though?
    – Adamant
    Commented Oct 15, 2016 at 10:27
  • What about when the queen claimed to be a member of species 125? That would sèem to imply that she had a living body.
    – Kevin
    Commented Dec 1, 2016 at 0:29
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The Borg hive mind stores everything that is entered into it. Seven of Nine mentioned that even though she is no longer connected to the Borg, she will, in a way, live forever. The Borg collective is so large, even if one Borg queen body is destroyed, as long as the collective is around, she can always be downloaded into a new body later.

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IMO it seems that the Borg Queen would have a mechanical "backup" say she does die she can just replace herself through the hive drones. There's no background to confirm this just my opinion on what just seems logical. Since nothing ever really dies in the hive.

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She said in First Contact that, the Borg before her it was just havoc and chaos, where the Borg where (running around like a chicken with its head cut off) when she was assimilated she took over and brought unity and formality to the collective.

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