Star Trek: Picard’s Jeri Ryan, Jonathan Del Arco Explain How the Borg Have Changed

Patrick Stewart is back as Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: Picard and so are his old enemies, the Borg. But these aren’t the Borg as they were 20 years ago when last we saw Picard in action. The new CBS All Access series brings back two rescued Borg characters, Jonathan Del Arco as Hugh from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “I, Borg” and Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager. ComicBook.com spoke to both actors about how the Borg and the Borg’s role in the Star Trek universe has changed in the era of Star Trek: Picard.

“Let’s just say that since we got our hands on the Borg… you could say that 20 years ago we changed the Borg, in a way, because we became individuals,” Del Arco says. “That sense of individuality that was introduced has had an effect throughout Borg-dom, the Borg kingdom as it were. There are elements of the Borg that I assume remain intact, as we knew them, as a threat. Our own version of that, where we’re at, is a very different social, economic even, standing in the universe.”

Ryan adds, “You’re going to see a very different facet of the Borg, I think, in Picard. You’re going to feel a lot more empathy, I think, for the Borg in Picard than you may have before.

“We’ve been through a lot,” Del Arco concludes. “We have.”

Finding a new take on the Borg was necessary since Patrick Stewart wasn’t interested in repeating what he did in Star Trek: The Next Generation. “His constant refrain was: I don’t want to do what I’ve already done,” co-creator Alex Kurtzman said in a previous interview. “Obviously it’s not a secret that the Borg were involved, and his first instinct was not to do the Borg. He was like, ‘I did that story. I don’t want to do that story.’ And we couldn’t just say, ‘Yeah, but we loved you in it so much, we just want to do that again.’ And what ended up emerging was actually as a result of that back and forth, a very unique and very different Borg story. Definitely not one that you could have told in Next Generation. And certainly not what I think anyone’s expecting.”

Are you excited to see this new take on the Borg? Let us know in the comments. Star Trek: Picard debuts on CBS All Access on January 23rd.