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Seven of Nine

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Seven of Nine , born Annika Hansen , was a Human female who lived during the latter half of the 24th century into the early 25th century .

Assimilated by the Borg at the age of six and redesignated Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01 . Twenty-four years later , Seven , as she was later known, was liberated from life as a Borg drone by the crew of the USS Voyager and joined the crew under Captain Janeway 's mentorship. She was critical in assisting the crew's return to the Alpha Quadrant in 2378 .

Seven was initially rejected by Starfleet for her Borg past, and chose instead to join the Fenris Rangers , helping instill justice in lawless and dangerous regions. Instrumental in the forging of a truce with a new Borg faction, she was given a field commission by Admiral Picard and joined Starfleet as a commander and first officer of the USS Titan -A . Following the destruction of the Borg, Seven was promoted to the rank of captain and given command of the USS Enterprise -G .

• 1.1 Time on the Raven
• 1.2 Life as a Borg drone
• 2.1 Torn from the Collective
• 2.2 Scientific accomplishments
• 2.3 Moral conflicts
• 2.4 Dealings with the Borg
• 2.5 Identity crises
• 3.1 Aiding La Sirena
• 3.2 Saving history
• 4.1 USS Stargazer
• 4.2 USS Titan -A
• 4.3 USS Enterprise -G
• 5.1.1 Family
• 5.1.2.1 Kathryn Janeway
• 5.1.2.2 B'Elanna Torres
• 5.1.2.3 Naomi Wildman
• 5.1.2.4 Tuvok
• 5.1.2.5 Jean-Luc Picard
• 5.1.3.1 Icheb
• 5.1.4.1 Axum
• 5.1.4.2 The Doctor
• 5.1.4.3 Chakotay
• 5.1.4.4 Raffaela Musiker
• 6 Physiology
• 7.1 Holograms
• 7.2 Alternate realities and timelines
• 8 Chronology
• 9.1 Appearances
• 9.2 Background information
• 9.3 Apocrypha
• 9.4 External links

Early life [ ]

Annika and her parents

Annika was born in 2344 , on stardate 25479, at the Tendara colony as the only daughter of eccentric Federation exobiologists Magnus and Erin Hansen . ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ")

During her childhood, she never visited Earth . ( VOY : " Hunters ") Her favorite color growing up was red . ( VOY : " The Gift ") She wanted to grow up to be a ballerina . ( VOY : " One Small Step ")

Annika once stayed with her Aunt Irene . Her favorite treats were strawberry tarts , which Irene used to coax Annika out of a guest room in which she had locked herself. She was very strong-willed and did not hesitate to point out if the strawberries used in baking the tarts were not perfectly ripe. ( VOY : " Author, Author ")

Time on the Raven [ ]

Annika Hansen aboard the Raven

Annika's parents were exobiologists investigating the existence of the Borg. After a great deal of persuasion, the Federation granted the Hansens the use of the USS Raven , a small long-range craft, to aid them in their investigation.

During the late 2340s , they took Annika, then aged four, along with them. They spent a good deal of time aboard the Raven in search of the Borg. ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ") One memorable event Annika shared aboard the vessel during their three year trek was the celebration of her sixth birthday: her birthday cake , at the time, had six candles , with one to grow on. ( VOY : " The Raven ")

At some point, the Hansens encountered a Borg cube and followed it through its transwarp conduit into the Delta Quadrant , the Borg's region of origin. They gathered a great deal of scientific data on the biology of Borg drones and the nature of the Collective by moving undetected through Borg space due to multi-adaptive shielding , invented by Magnus Hansen. They even went aboard Borg vessels, using bio-dampeners to remain undetected.

Their research came to an abrupt end in 2350 when an ion storm struck the Raven . The ship sustained damage, including, most importantly, damage to the multi-adaptive shielding, which went off-line for 13.2 seconds . This left them exposed long enough for the Borg to detect them and perceive them as a target for assimilation . The Hansens tried to evade pursuit by masking the Raven 's warp trail , but the Borg still managed to pursue and find them. ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ")

They and their daughter were promptly captured and assimilated near B'omar space . Naturally, the experience was traumatizing for the six-year old; decades later, the memory of being injected with stabilizing metals so the body could handle nanoprobes would cause her to recall the smell and taste of them, taking her back to the horror of that moment. ( VOY : " The Raven ", " Once Upon a Time "; PIC : " Mercy ")

Life as a Borg drone [ ]

Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01

Annika was placed in a maturation chamber , where the hive mind began to restructure her synaptic pathways and purge her individuality. She emerged as a Borg drone five years later in 2355 , the turmoil of her forcible assimilation replaced with order, and spent the next eighteen years in the Collective with the designation: Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01 .

As a drone, she assisted in the assimilation of millions, from individuals to entire species . She personally assimilated many individuals from a variety of species, including Humans, Klingons , Ferengi , Bajorans , Bolians , Krenim , and Cardassians . ( VOY : " Infinite Regress ", " Collective ")

In early 2368 , the Borg sphere that Seven of Nine, along with three other drones in her unimatrix , crash landed on a planet in the Delta Quadrant. The other drones, who were assimilated as adults, began to regain their identities upon being severed from the Borg Collective, but Seven was frightened as she knew nothing else but life as a drone. She forcibly linked the other drones together into a temporary collective in order to suppress their identities, and they were retrieved soon after. ( VOY : " Survival Instinct ") Seven of Nine remained a Borg drone until 2374, when she was liberated. ( VOY : " Scorpion, Part II ", " The Gift ")

USS Voyager [ ]

Torn from the collective [ ].

Disconnected from the Collective

During the brief war between the Borg and Species 8472 in late 2373, the USS Voyager was caught between the two belligerents. Seeking to protect her crew, and being made aware of the extreme threat to the galaxy posed by Species 8472, Captain Kathryn Janeway forged an alliance with the Borg, offering them the technology behind modified Borg nanoprobes which could be used as biological photon torpedo warheads against their common enemy, in exchange for safe passage through Borg space and non-assimilation. The Collective assigned Seven of Nine to work with Voyager to develop the weapon. When her cube sacrificed itself to save Voyager from an attacking 8472 bio-ship , she and a small number of drones beamed onto Voyager to continue the work. Janeway was severely injured, leaving her first officer , Commander Chakotay , in command. Seven of Nine wanted Voyager to go to another cube, but Chakotay refused. The drones attempted to commandeer Voyager 's navigation systems to take it to the nearest cube, but Chakotay decompressed the deck the drones were on, blowing them into space . Seven of Nine, however, managed to remain aboard. Instructed to do so by the Collective, she took Voyager into Species 8472's realm , forcing deployment of the modified nanoprobe torpedoes to protect the ship. A recovered Janeway resumed command and reinstated the alliance. The torpedoes proved effective. Now vulnerable, Species 8472 retreated. However, the Collective broke the alliance and Seven of Nine attempted to take Voyager to be assimilated. But this was anticipated and a contingency plan was successfully enacted which permanently severed her link to the Collective. Janeway decided to keep Seven of Nine aboard. ( VOY : " Scorpion ", " Scorpion, Part II ")

Seven confronts Janeway about being separated from the Collective

The transition back to Humanity was difficult for Seven of Nine. She appeared to accept her severance from the Collective, but tried to contact it at the first opportunity. She was stopped, however. ( VOY : " The Gift ")

The Doctor , Voyager 's holographic chief medical officer , was able to remove most of her implants and restore most of her Human appearance, but her long-term assimilation meant that some parts were vital to her survival and could not be removed. She also refused to be called by her name of Annika Hansen as Seven of Nine was the designation she had always known. But she accepted a shortened version, "Seven" at the suggestion of Captain Janeway. ( VOY : " Day of Honor ")

Shortly after Seven was freed from the collective, Voyager neared a moon in B'omar space, the location of the crashed wreck of the Raven , which had been partially assimilated by the Borg when they caught it. A Borg homing beacon aboard was still active. Seven began experiencing visions of a raven and flashbacks to the time she was assimilated. The beacon reactivated several of Seven's nanoprobes, giving her an irresistible drive to find the source of the beacon. She escaped Voyager in a shuttlecraft and flew to the moon, discovered the ship and recovered the entire memory of her assimilation. ( VOY : " The Raven ")

Seven's first real food after being severed from the Borg collective was chadre'kab . ( VOY : " The Raven ") She also developed a renewed fondness for strawberries, a food she had enjoyed in her childhood. ( VOY : " Author, Author ")

Scientific accomplishments [ ]

Seven of Nine at her station on the bridge

During her first few months on Voyager , Seven attempted to help the engineering crew modify the warp drive to generate transwarp conduits . The efforts failed, and almost cost Voyager its warp core in the process. ( VOY : " Day of Honor ")

Along with Ensign Harry Kim , Seven of Nine designed and constructed the ship's astrometrics lab, which used Borg technology to plot routes that trimmed several years off of Voyager 's journey. The lab became an important asset to Voyager and was Seven's domain for the rest of the journey. ( VOY : " Revulsion ", " Year of Hell ") Using the astrometrics lab, Seven discovered the Hirogen communications network , which allowed Voyager to temporarily receive messages from the Alpha Quadrant. ( VOY : " Hunters ") When monthly data streams and, later, real-time communication became possible, Seven helped implement enhancements to Voyager 's deflector dish . ( VOY : " Life Line ", " Author, Author ")

Seven developed a technique for using Borg nanoprobes to revive an individual who had been dead several hours. It was used on Neelix in 2374 . ( VOY : " Mortal Coil ")

A team led by Seven adapted a Borg design to contain and destroy Omega molecules found in the Delta Quadrant in 2374 . The molecules temporarily stabilized while in the chamber. Seven was the only one to see it happen; as the Borg considered the Omega Molecule to be "perfection" in its purest form (but had never been able to stabilize it), the former drone underwent what could be described as a religious experience when she saw Omega spontaneously stabilize. ( VOY : " The Omega Directive ")

Seven was part of the team which designed and built the Delta Flyer shuttlecraft in 2375 . She developed Borg-based technology and weapons for it. ( VOY : " Extreme Risk ")

Seven assisted in the construction of the quantum slipstream drive installed aboard Voyager in 2375 . In an alternate timeline, the use of the drive destroyed the ship, killing her and everyone else aboard. However, just after the drive was activated, a signal from that timeline was received by Seven via her cortical implants . This signal contained phase corrections that, when used, collapsed the slipstream, eliminating that timeline and saving the ship and crew. ( VOY : " Timeless ")

When Voyager crossed the territory of the anti-telepathic Devore in 2375 , Seven helped develop a transporter suspension technique in order to hide telepathic crewmembers and Brenari refugees. ( VOY : " Counterpoint ")

She also gave Voyager the possibility to use a transwarp coil, which was then used to save her from the Borg and then to advance twenty thousand light years towards home. ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ")

In 2376 , Seven developed enhancements to her alcove that allowed her to process information and make connections between various events while she regenerated. This allowed Seven to deduce that photonic fleas had been degrading sensor efficiency and that a catapult built by an alien named Tash employed a tetryon reactor like that of the Caretaker's array . However, the process overloaded her cortical implants, and she began drawing wild conclusions concerning Voyager 's mission and crew. She convinced Chakotay that Voyager 's presence in the Delta Quadrant was intentional and a prelude to a joint Federation/Cardassian invasion, while later telling Captain Janeway that Chakotay was organizing a Maquis rebellion, using technology of the Caretaker , to launch strikes on Federation and Cardassian targets. She then began to believe that Voyager was sent to the Delta Quadrant to retrieve her from the Borg Collective, and that she would be analyzed and dissected upon return to the Alpha Quadrant. She left the ship in the Delta Flyer , but Janeway was able to convince her that this 'conspiracy' was only a delusion caused by her alcove enhancements. She returned to Voyager and the enhancements were removed. ( VOY : " The Voyager Conspiracy ")

A hologram of Reginald Barclay was transmitted to Voyager in early 2377 . The hologram supposedly brought information to Voyager about using a geodesic fold to return the ship to the Alpha Quadrant. In reality, the hologram had been intercepted and reprogrammed by Ferengi , who wanted to harvest Seven of Nine's nanoprobes and sell them for profit. Although the holo-Barclay claimed modifications to the shields would protect Voyager while in the fold, Seven eventually discovered that the hologram was deceiving them. ( VOY : " Inside Man ")

Seven and Chakotay made first contact with the Ventu on Ledos before the start of a conference on that planet. Initially hesitant to reach out to the primitive race, Seven was so moved by her experiences with the Ventu that she convinced Janeway to restore the energy barrier protecting the Ventu's lands and customs from the Ledosians . ( VOY : " Natural Law ")

Moral conflicts [ ]

Voyager rescued a member of Species 8472 from a Hirogen hunting party in mid 2374 . Captain Janeway wanted to return the creature to its native fluidic space because it had told Tuvok of its plight telepathically; it meant no harm and just wanted to go home. The Hirogen, however, wanted to hunt and kill it. They threatened to destroy Voyager unless the 8472 was returned to them. Seven felt that it should be surrendered in order to protect Voyager , but Captain Janeway strongly disagreed, saying that it was wrong to sacrifice another lifeform to save themselves. Seven refused to help open a quantum singularity into fluidic space to allow the 8472 to return to its realm, and Janeway confined her to the cargo bay. The Doctor needed nanoprobes to help treat the injured alien, and Seven was ordered to bring them to The Doctor so he could treat it. At the same time, a Hirogen hunter who had been injured from his initial hunt of the 8472, and who The Doctor had been treating, attacked the 8472. Seven transported both the Hirogen and the Species 8472 to a Hirogen vessel, which then retreated. Janeway was not happy with Seven's conduct, and revoked most of her privileges until she proved trustworthy once again. Seven believed she was being punished for asserting her individuality and her personal beliefs, which the Voyager crew had fostered since she had been freed from the Collective. ( VOY : " Prey ")

Voyager encountered Entharan weapons broker Kovin in 2374 . Seven worked with him and viewed the weapons he offered to sell, but was very much uncomfortable around him. She later struck him in engineering. With The Doctor's help, Seven recovered memories which suggested Kovin had assaulted her and stolen nanoprobes for use as weapons. Circumstantial evidence also supported her story, and Voyager tried to apprehend Kovin. It is later determined that her memories were simply ones from her time as a Borg drone mixed with experiences of Kovin. Unfortunately, Kovin was killed when Voyager tried to contact him and tell him of his innocence. Both Seven and The Doctor experienced deep remorse over contributing to Kovin's death. ( VOY : " Retrospect ")

Working to contain the Omega particles

When the Omega particles were found in the Delta Quadrant, Seven held a certain fascination with them, since the Borg had tried, unsuccessfully, to stabilize the molecules. She believed they held the key to perfection and that she would be able to use the Borg research to stabilize the molecules. However, Captain Janeway believed it was too risky and the molecules were destroyed. They spontaneously stabilized shortly before being destroyed by Voyager . Seven witnessed this and experienced one of her first spiritual moments in the process. ( VOY : " The Omega Directive ")

A race of bounty hunters known as the Hazari began attacking Voyager in 2375 . A group of aliens called the Think Tank offered to help Voyager defeat the Hazari, but wanted Seven of Nine as payment. Kurros , a member of the Think Tank, tried to appeal to Seven's quest for perfection and have her join willingly, but she declined his offer. Further investigation revealed that Kurros had hired the Hazari to attack Voyager for the express purpose of taking Seven of Nine. The crew developed a plan with the Hazari which involved Seven willingly joining the Think Tank. Once with them, she would disable systems aboard their vessel. Kurros sensed deception, and forced Seven to link with the Think Tank's telepathic net. She overloaded the network as the link was established, disrupting the function of their entire ship. Seven was returned to Voyager as the Think Tank was overwhelmed with a Hazari attack squadron. ( VOY : " Think Tank ")

In 2376 , Voyager docked at a Markonian outpost . While there, Seven of Nine encountered the group of drones which she had linked together eight years prior . They had since been liberated from the Collective, but were permanently linked due to Seven's modifications. They attacked Seven in order to find out what she had done to them, but were stopped by Voyager security. Seven later voluntarily linked with the drones to retrieve the memories of the crash, but further damage was caused when the link was broken. Even though the drones were no longer connected to one another, all but Seven were left comatose. They needed their neural implants removed, but it would only give them a month to live. They could be saved if reassimilated into the Borg Collective, but Seven decided that a brief life as an individual was much more valuable than eternal life as a drone, and she ordered The Doctor to remove the implants. The former drones were still upset about the decision made by Seven eight years prior, but understood her reasons and were grateful for their new-found freedom, however short. ( VOY : " Survival Instinct ")

Also that year, Seven was part of an away team which discovered the Vaadwaur race, placed in stasis centuries prior. Seven was excited at the prospect of helping to rebuild a society in order to atone for the destruction she participated in while a member of the Collective, and worked with the Vaadwaur to find them a new home. It was later determined that the Vaadwaur were warlike and hostile, and their awakening placed the region of space near their homeworld in great danger. Seven was upset that her intention to help may have caused further suffering. ( VOY : " Dragon's Teeth ")

Again during the same year, Seven and an injured Tuvok were captured by Penk , a Norcadian who organized the spectator sport Tsunkatse , and Seven was forced to fight in the ring. After rescue, Tuvok thanked her for taking his place in a red match and asked if she had recovered. Seven said that her victory only came from her loss of control, and worried that the three years she had spent regaining her Humanity were lost in the ring. However, Tuvok pointed out that her feelings of guilt, shame and remorse meant that her Humanity had been reaffirmed, not lost. ( VOY : " Tsunkatse ")

Seven held hostage by Iko

In 2377 , Seven became friends with a Nygean man named Iko , who had committed murder and had been sentenced to death on his homeworld . Initially, Iko took Seven prisoner when he was beamed aboard Voyager and made threats to the crew. He later became remorseful when his body and conscience were "healed" by Seven's nanoprobes after he was severely beaten by Yediq , the prison warden, when he threatened his family. Seven tried to help him avoid his death sentence, but his crime could not be forgiven by the victim's family and he was put to death. Seven was left troubled at the idea that Iko was executed for one murder while she had never been punished for her own actions in the Borg, but Janeway assured her that her time in the Collective was punishment enough. ( VOY : " Repentance ")

Dealings with the Borg [ ]

Stealing a transwarp coil

While transporting back to Voyager in 2375 , a malfunction caused nanoprobes from Seven's bloodstream to merge with The Doctor's mobile emitter . The nanoprobes quickly assimilated the advanced 29th century technology, and used genetic material from Mulchaey to create an advanced Borg drone, with the emitter at its core. The drone lacked Borg programming, giving Seven the opportunity to communicate with him. She attempted to teach him to be an individual, and he was even given the name One by Neelix, but he wished to learn more about the Borg. Attempts to prevent the Borg from detecting One failed and his attempts to modify Voyager 's weapons to fight them proved insufficient. He transported aboard the Borg vessel, destroying it from within. His built-in shielding allowed him to survive the explosion badly injured, but he refused treatment and died in Voyager 's sickbay to keep the crew safe from constant assimilation threats. Seven mourned him as if she had lost a son. ( VOY : " Drone ")

Seven in Unimatrix Zero as Annika Hansen

Later in 2375 , Voyager 's crew prepared for a daring raid on a damaged Borg sphere in order to steal a transwarp coil and substantially shorten their journey home. Seven was contacted by the Borg Queen , who revealed that she had set a trap for Voyager and its crew would be assimilated if she did not return to the Collective. Seven reluctantly agreed, learning that she was deliberately granted her freedom as part of a larger plan to assimilate Humanity. Seven resisted the Queen's attempts to convince her to develop a nanoprobe virus and was eventually rescued by Voyager 's crew. ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ")

In 2377 she discovered that she was one of a few Borg with a certain assimilation mutation that allowed them to retain their individuality while regenerating inside of an artificial construct known as Unimatrix Zero . Freed from the Collective, she was once again contacted by the others inside. They were on the verge of being discovered and needed her help. With some assistance from Voyager 's crew, the drones were given the ability to retain their individuality outside of the construct. This allowed them to launch an open revolt against the Collective, plunging the Collective into civil war . ( VOY : " Unimatrix Zero ", " Unimatrix Zero, Part II ")

Identity crises [ ]

Seven, as Mademoiselle de Neuf

When the Hirogen overtook Voyager in 2374 and used its crew and holodecks to conduct hunts, Seven was assigned the identity of Mademoiselle de Neuf (literally, "Miss of Nine") in the French Resistance holoprogram . The Doctor was able to modify her Borg implants and restore her real identity without the Hirogen knowing. She worked with The Doctor and Ensign Kim to stage a counterstrike against the Hirogen and restore the identities of the rest of the crew. ( VOY : " The Killing Game ") Seven later modified explosives to emit a photonic burst which disabled holographic activity on part of the ship, a crucial event which allowed Captain Janeway to defeat the leader of the Hirogen and return control of the ship to the Starfleet crew. ( VOY : " The Killing Game, Part II ")

One of Seven's personalities: eating like a Klingon

Seven was stricken with something akin to a multiple-personality disorder in 2375 when Voyager neared a vinculum infected with a synthetic pathogen by Species 6339 . Several personalities, including Starfleet officers, a Klingon warrior, a Vulcan official, a Krenim scientist , a Ferengi trader, a woman trying to find her son aboard the USS Melbourne at the Battle of Wolf 359, and a frightened young child, emerged. These turned out to be personalities of individuals assimilated by the Borg, and it was soon made clear the malfunctions in her implants were precisely what Species 6339 wished to inflict on the rest of the Collective. The personalities began to take over Seven, and her own individuality was lost. Tuvok was able to use a mind meld to retrieve Seven's consciousness and the vinculum was deactivated. ( VOY : " Infinite Regress ")

In 2377 , Voyager 's crew was forced to abandon ship after hitting a subspace mine . They were rescued by rogue elements of the Quarren , and had their identities reassigned in order to supply labor and fill a shortage on the Quarren homeworld . The entire crew, except Chakotay, Kim, and Neelix, who were away on the Delta Flyer , had their memories of Voyager erased and false memories of terrible conditions on their homeworlds implanted. Seven started to use her real name, Annika Hansen, and was given a job as an efficiency monitor in a power distribution plant, working with several other Voyager crew members including Captain Janeway, Tuvok, and B'Elanna Torres. Her Borg desire for perfection made her perfectly suited for the job, and she was often overzealous in chastising workers. The identity reassignment did not completely work on Tuvok, though, and he began to remember his former life, including Seven of Nine. He mind-melded with her, causing memories of her life on Voyager and as a drone to resurface. ( VOY : " Workforce ") As the flashbacks continued, Annika investigated Tuvok's records. She believed there was a connection to the disappearance of Torres, who had been rescued by the remaining Voyager crew, and Annika later learned that Tuvok had accessed files of most of the Voyager crew, including Janeway, Torres, and herself. This led her to realize the inconsistency that many new workers from the same species began work on the same day, which was unusual during a labor shortage. Additionally, they were all brought through the neuropathology division, although none of the workers remembered this. Her suspicions were dismissed and explained as an outbreak of Dysphoria Syndrome . Annika was undaunted, and later visited the neuropathology division complaining of the flashbacks in order to access their computer system. While there, she discovered the Dysphoria Syndrome outbreak was actually a cover-up masterminded by a Quarren doctor called Kadan , to hide the fact that Voyager 's crew and many others had been abducted. This confirmed the story Chakotay had told to Captain Janeway, and Annika and a Quarren official, Yerid , went to the hospital to prevent Kadan from using the reassignment technique on Chakotay and Tuvok. They succeeded, and the entire Voyager crew was transported back to the ship. The Doctor was successful in restoring the identities of the entire crew. ( VOY : " Workforce, Part II ")

Life in the Alpha Quadrant [ ]

Seven with Icheb in 2386

Sometime after Voyager returned from the Delta Quadrant, Seven applied to join Starfleet only to have her application rejected. This was despite strong opposition from Admiral Janeway, who went so far as to threaten to resign her commission. ( PIC : " Hide and Seek ")

In 2381 , she was one of four former Starfleet officers that Starfleet sought to take into protective custody in response to Nick Locarno seeking out ex-Starfleet personnel, the others being Beverly Crusher , Thomas Riker , and – since Starfleet was unaware that he was behind the Nova One attacks – Locarno himself. ( LD : " The Inner Fight ")

Seven later joined the Fenris Rangers , a peacekeeping force that operated along the Romulan Neutral Zone , where she worked closely with a woman named Bjayzl . Unbeknownst to Seven, however, Bjayzl was a black market dealer in Borg parts taken from former drones, also known as " xBs ", and had infiltrated the Rangers to get close to Seven. It was through Seven that Bjayzl learned about Icheb, by this time a Starfleet lieutenant assigned as a science officer aboard the USS Coleman .

Seven of Nine in 2399

In 2386 , Bjayzl lured Lieutenant Icheb into an ambush while he was on a reconnaissance mission for the Rangers near Daimanta . She arranged for him to be taken to the Seven Domes facility on Vergessen , where his implants were brutally removed from him without any anesthetic, or even the small mercy of death. In anguish, Seven, who considered Icheb as a son since their time on Voyager , arrived to rescue him; but she was too late. In unbearable pain, he entreated Seven to end his life. Cradling him in her arms, she tearfully bid "her child" farewell before she complied by fatally shooting him with her phaser. ( PIC : " Stardust City Rag ")

Aiding La Sirena [ ]

Thirteen years later , Seven assisted La Sirena in battle against a Romulan Bird-of-Prey in orbit of the planet Vashti . Her ship was destroyed, but she was beamed over to La Sirena and was surprised to see Admiral Jean-Luc Picard on board. She quipped that he owed her a ship before she collapsed. ( PIC : " Absolute Candor ")

Seven vaporizing Bjayzl

Picard explained that he was on his way to Freecloud to find Dr. Bruce Maddox . Upon learning that he had been captured by Bjayzl, who intended to turn him over to the Tal Shiar , Seven helped plan his rescue by offering herself to Bjayzl in exchange for Maddox. Posing as traders, Picard and La Sirena captain Cristóbal Rios "delivered" Seven to Bjayzl, only for Seven (wearing compromised binders) to "break free", revealing her true intentions: to kill Bjayzl in revenge for Icheb's death. Picard was seemingly able to talk her out of murdering Bjayzl and returning with him and his crew to La Sirena . After Maddox was rescued, Seven declined Picard's offer of a ride, saying the Rangers were sending a corsair to Freecloud to pick her up, but did take two type 3 phasers from La Sirena 's armory. Before beaming back to Freecloud, Seven asked Picard about whether he had rediscovered his humanity after he was rescued from the Borg, and admitted she was still working to find hers "every damn day" of her life. Picard understood this, as he was wrestling with the same. The two amicably parted ways.

However, far from the impression she had given Picard, Seven still intended to kill Bjayzl. She transported into Bjayzl’s nightclub and confronted the criminal businesswoman after clearing out the lounge by shooting her bodyguards, causing all others present to flee, leaving Bjayzl alone. Bjayzl tried to stall until her security arrived, but Seven knew what she was trying to do, and sardonically told her so. Bjayzl then began trying to talk Seven out of killing her, but Seven coldly cut her off with raised rifles and a bitter retort that Icheb had been a son to her. She then vaporized Bjayzl with shots from both rifles. Seconds later, Bjayzl’s security team arrived, and Seven furiously carved a path through them with the rifles. ( PIC : " Stardust City Rag ")

Seven acting as "Queen" aboard the Artifact

After Freecloud, Seven was summoned by a communications chip she had given to fellow xB Hugh , the director of the Borg Reclamation Project aboard the " Artifact " in Romulan space. After Hugh was killed by the Romulans, Elnor – who had remained behind while Picard and Soji Asha had used the spatial trajector in the cube's queencell to escape - used the communicator to call Seven to the cube in order to take control of it. Seven accessed the queencell to begin regenerating the damage done to the cube. When the Romulans began venting the stasis-contained drones into space and killing the xBs, Seven decided to link the transceivers of the disconnected Borg on the cube into a "mini-collective", with herself acting as a sort of Borg Queen, despite her reluctance to essentially assimilate them all over again. The Romulans left the Artifact with their fleet to invade the Synthetic homeworld Coppelius , leaving the cube in the control of Seven and the xBs. When Elnor asked if Seven intended to assimilate him now, the cube's collective said only that "Annika still has work to do" before Seven was disconnected from the queencell. While connected to the Queencell, however, Seven witnessed La Sirena being pursued by Narek , prompting her to open a transwarp conduit to follow them to Coppelius . ( PIC : " Nepenthe ", " Broken Pieces ", " Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1 ")

The Artifact crashed on the surface, where she reunited with Picard and La Sirena 's crew. Here, Elnor decided to stay with Seven as part of her effort to reactivate the Artifact's defenses and aid the xBs. Seven told Picard to "keep saving the galaxy", but Picard replied that it was all on her now. ( PIC : " Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1 ")

Saving history [ ]

By 2401 , Rios returned to Starfleet after Coppelius, giving La Sirena to Seven to continue her work with the Rangers. After fighting off an attempt by pirates to steal Ranger supplies, she joined with a Starfleet task force, led by Picard and Rios from the USS Stargazer , to investigate an anomaly that proved to be a massive Borg ship. The Borg Queen beamed aboard the Stargazer and took control, and Picard ordered auto-destruct to destroy the Stargazer , seemingly killing everyone aboard, including Seven. ( PIC : " The Star Gazer ")

Seven awoke in an unfamiliar setting, remembering being on the Stargazer , and was shocked to look in the mirror to see her Borg implants missing. She figured out that she and her friends had been sent into an alternate timeline, where her counterpart served as the President of the Confederation of Earth , a xenophobic totalitarian regime. She learned from Picard, whose own counterpart was the Confederation's most feared general, that the entire scenario had been orchestrated by Q . ( PIC : " Penance ") Reuniting with the others aboard the CSS La Sirena , she travelled with them to the 21st century to correct the timeline, together with a captive Borg Queen that was scheduled for public execution by the Confederation. ( PIC : " Assimilation ")

Paired with Raffaela Musiker , Seven traveled to Los Angeles to seek out the mysterious "Watcher" mentioned by the Queen during their journey. Along the way, they are forced to rescue Rios, who was injured and later arrested by immigration authorities . ( PIC : " Watcher ", " Fly Me to the Moon ") She later joined the crew at a pre-launch gala for the Europa Mission to observe Renée Picard , Jean-Luc's distant ancestor, able to socialize more freely without her Borg implants. ( PIC : " Two of One ") Dr. Agnes Jurati , who had been involved in the Coppelius incident, had been possessed by the Borg Queen and was loose in Los Angeles. Teamed with Dr. Adam Soong , an ambitious geneticist, the Jurati-Queen intended to seize La Sirena with mercenaries Soong provided her to act as improvised Borg drones. ( PIC : " Monsters ", " Mercy ") Seven and Musiker fought to defend the ship, but Seven was impaled through the stomach by one of the Queen's tentacles. The mind of Dr. Jurati, fighting for control of her body, eventually convinced the Queen to save her life with nanoprobes, returning Seven's Borg implants. ( PIC : " Hide and Seek ")

Starfleet career [ ]

Uss stargazer [ ].

Seven commanding the Stargazer

After Q returned them to their own time, Picard used his authority to give their leading authority on the Borg, Seven, a provisional field commission of captain and command of the Stargazer to replace Rios, who had remained in the 21st century. Following the reveal that the Borg Queen attacking the ship was in fact Jurati trying to get their help to deal with a threatening galactic event, Starfleet and Jurati's Collective made common cause to stop the destructive wave. ( PIC : " Farewell ")

USS Titan -A [ ]

Commander Annika Hansen, First officer of the USS Titan -A

Seven was commissioned by Starfleet as a commander , serving as first officer on the USS Titan -A under the command of Captain Liam Shaw . Dismissive of her Borg past, Shaw insisted that Seven use her birth name, being known by her subordinates as Commander Hansen. ( PIC : " The Next Generation ")

USS Enterprise -G [ ]

Following the destruction of the Borg , Seven met with her old crewmate, Captain Tuvok , and offered to resign from Starfleet due to her rogue actions. Tuvok denied her resignation and revealed that Captain Shaw sent Command her officer review prior to his death, praising Seven for her loyalty and unorthodox approach. He recommended that she be promoted to captain upon their return to spacedock. Tuvok proudly promoted Seven and by 2402, she was given command of the rechristened USS Enterprise -G with Commander Raffi Musiker as her first officer, and Ensign Jack Crusher as her special counselor. As Seven took the Enterprise on her shakedown cruise, she was left to contemplate what to use as her command as compared to other Enterprise COs. ( PIC : " The Last Generation ")

Personal development [ ]

Seven in 2378

Although she began to accept her humanity, Seven was still not completely eager to return to the Alpha Quadrant, and became apprehensive when opportunities presented themselves. ( VOY : " Hope and Fear ") Her reluctance actually proved lifesaving for the Voyager crew in 2375 when the ship was nearly ingested by a bioplasmic organism known as the telepathic pitcher plant . She was one of only three crew members (the others being Naomi Wildman – who, like Seven, had no emotional links to Earth and the Alpha Quadrant – and The Doctor, who was unaffected due to his inorganic nature) not affected by its illusion of a wormhole back to the Alpha Quadrant. Despite the crew's attempts to place her into stasis , she was able to join forces with The Doctor and an alien named Qatai to free Voyager . ( VOY : " Bliss ") Like many Borg drones separated from the Collective, Seven suffered a degree of eremophobia (a fear of being alone), which she was forced to face when piloting Voyager through an area of space riddled with subnucleonic radiation while the crew was placed in stasis for the duration. ( VOY : " One ")

After her liberation from the collective, Seven's mannerisms and speech were decidedly drone-like, stiff and formal. She rarely used verbal contractions, showed little emotion (other than irritation or frustration), never smiled, and spoke literally with little use of idioms or slang. Her lack of expression was partly due to her cortical node , which was designed to impede strong emotional stimulation. ( VOY : " Human Error ") When The Doctor was able to compensate, Seven began to experience the full range of human emotions. ( VOY : " Endgame ") Over time, these mannerisms began to change. After being forced to euthanize Icheb , Seven cried in anguish. ( PIC : " Stardust City Rag ") By 2401, Seven had become more noticeably Human and natural in her behavior and speech, occasionally making jokes, speaking informally, and displaying her emotions. ( PIC : " The Next Generation ")

Shortly after leaving the Borg, Seven admitted to Harry Kim that she understood humor and often found herself amused by human behavior. ( VOY : " Revulsion ") She exhibited a dry wit on occasion, though rarely showed appreciation for other humor. Later in her life she was more amenable to humor, both making and appreciating jokes on occasion. ( citation needed • edit )

At first, Seven found holodecks a pointless endeavor, fulfilling a Human desire to fantasize which she did not share. ( VOY : " One ") She reluctantly took part in Janeway's Leonardo da Vinci simulation, but believed it to be a waste of time. ( VOY : " The Raven ") Later, however, she visited many of Tom Paris' programs, including The Adventures of Captain Proton in which she played Constance Goodheart to Paris' Captain Proton . She still saw the program as frivolous, and quickly disabled Satan's Robot instead of playing along with the storyline of the program. ( VOY : " Night ") In 2376 , she visited the Fair Haven program. By this time, she engaged the holographic characters in conversation and participated in the fantasy. ( VOY : " Fair Haven ") She and The Doctor attended a screening of Attack of the Lobster People in a recreation of the Palace Theater in 2377 . ( VOY : " Repression ") By 2378 , Seven created a holographic simulation of Voyager in order to improve her social abilities. In the program, her Borg implants had been permanently removed, and she was given a Starfleet science uniform and crew quarters . She also explored a romantic relationship with Chakotay while running the program. She began to use the program excessively, interfering with her duties. ( VOY : " Human Error ")

Relationships [ ]

Initially, after her release from the Collective, Seven retained much of her former drone personality. She was harsh towards the rest of the crew and often disobeyed Captain Janeway's orders when she felt they were incorrect. However, as time went on she gradually formed a close bond with the others, especially with The Doctor, Tuvok, and Janeway herself. ( VOY : " The Gift ")

During her time with the Borg, Seven became used to the billions of voices that made up the Collective. After she was separated from them, she found solitude distressing. It became more apparent when Seven was left with The Doctor to watch over Voyager as it went through a radioactive Mutara class nebula . When The Doctor's program went off-line, she was alone in command of Voyager . Her implants began malfunctioning, and she saw convincing hallucinations of an alien named Trajis Lo-Tarik and the Voyager crew, seriously injured by the effects of the nebula. She was able to ignore the illusions and eventually save the Voyager crew after the ship's systems began to malfunction as a result of the nebula's radiation . After this experience, Seven joined a group in the mess hall for the first time. ( VOY : " One ")

Seven's parents, Erin and Magnus Hansen

Seven began to read her parents' journals from their mission aboard the Raven , as these were her only link to her parents. She encountered the drone which was originally her father while held captive by the Borg in 2375 . He most likely was destroyed along with the Borg Queen's ship . ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ")

She had an ancestor, Sven "Buttercup" Hansen , who was a 22nd century prize boxer. ( VOY : " 11:59 ")

Seven's aunt, Irene Hansen

Seven was present for some of the conversations the Voyager crew had with families after two-way communication was established in 2378 . She was reluctant to contact her aunt, Irene Hansen , but the experiences of the crew convinced her it would be worthwhile. Irene was overjoyed to speak with her, but Seven was slightly uncomfortable when Irene used her real name, Annika. ( VOY : " Author, Author ")

Seven also had a "son". A transporter accident involving The Doctor's mobile emitter and Seven's nanoprobes resulted in the creation of a Borg drone, One . At first she was reluctant to teach the drone about individuality and life on Voyager , but she eventually became attached to him, almost maternally. When One decided to allow himself to die for the benefit of the crew, Seven was deeply upset. ( VOY : " Drone ")

Friendships [ ]

While under the influence of synthehol , Seven told The Doctor and several other Voyager crew that she considered them all "very good friends." ( VOY : " Timeless ")

Kathryn Janeway [ ]

Janeway tries to help Seven remember her life before being assimilated

Captain Janeway made the decision to sever Seven of Nine from the Collective. She helped her through the difficult transition to Humanity in 2374 , trying to force memories of her life as Annika Hansen to surface. ( VOY : " The Gift ") Janeway also tried to tutor Seven in the arts and further cultivate her Humanity. ( VOY : " The Raven ") Seven was not hesitant to question Captain Janeway's decisions, sometimes publicly. She thought Janeway placed the crew in unnecessary danger by exploring the Delta Quadrant and contacting civilizations such as the Mari , rather than setting a course for home. ( VOY : " Random Thoughts ")

When Voyager believed that Starfleet had sent the USS Dauntless to bring the crew home in late 2374, Seven did not want to return with the crew. She requested to remain in the Delta Quadrant, possibly returning to the Borg Collective. Janeway was dismayed that Seven had not found an appreciation for her new life in the year she spent aboard Voyager . Later, the ship was found to be a fake created by Arturis in order to deliver the Voyager crew to the Borg. While trapped aboard the ship, Seven confessed to Captain Janeway that she was thankful for her individuality and was not eager to return to the Collective. She also confessed that it was fear of the unknown, that is, what will happen after she returns to Earth, that discouraged her from going back. ( VOY : " Hope and Fear ")

In 2375 , Seven inadvertently helped The Doctor recover memories of Ensign Ahni Jetal , erased from his database when they caused problems with his ethical subroutines. Captain Janeway intended to erase the memories once again, but Seven voiced concern. She felt that erasing The Doctor's memories would essentially mean turning a blind eye to his development as an individual. Seven admitted that she saw Janeway as a role model, but began to question that image after her treatment of The Doctor. This gave Janeway more to think about, and she decided to restore the memories to The Doctor. ( VOY : " Latent Image ")

Seven of Nine often had the ear of the captain, coming to her whenever she needed moral guidance, or wanted to express something she had learned about Humanity. One such occasion occurred in 2378 , when Seven dropped a barrier protecting the Ventu from cultural contamination. Before making any command decisions, Janeway asked Seven what she thought of the Ventu; Seven found them antiquated, but resourceful. She believed that if the Ledosians were allowed to contaminate them more, "something unique would be lost." ( VOY : " Natural Law ")

In an alternate timeline , Seven of Nine was fatally wounded on an away mission and died upon her return to Voyager . Her death deeply affected the Janeway of that time. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

After their return to Earth, Janeway strongly supported Seven's application to become a member of Starfleet . However, when Seven realized that Starfleet was hesistant to let her join due to her assimilation by the Borg, Seven decided to not pursue a Starfleet career and ultimately joined the Fenris Rangers instead. ( PIC : " Hide and Seek ")

B'Elanna Torres [ ]

Voyager engineer B'Elanna Torres was distrustful of Seven, and the two almost came to blows several times during Seven's early days on Voyager . Torres was stunned that Seven experienced no remorse over the fate of civilizations such as the Caatati , devastated by the Borg. ( VOY : " Day of Honor ") Torres believed Seven was cold, rude, and acted like the crew of Voyager were Borg drones. She told Chakotay that she did not want to be held responsible if she and Seven got into a physical altercation. Chakotay, in turn, put Torres' own attitude in check when he made it clear that she needed to find a way to work with Seven and that she would be held responsible if a fight occurred. Seven earned some of Torres' respect when she used a feedback pulse to disable a Hirogen who threatened the ship's use of the communications network in 2374 (although she made sure the disapproving Janeway was out of earshot first). ( VOY : " Message in a Bottle ") Seven studied Torres and future husband Tom Paris during their courtship, even noting the times when the two had sexual relations. Upon discovering this in 2375 , Torres was quite incensed. ( VOY : " Someone to Watch Over Me ")

While the two women would never become close friends, they did develop a good working relationship as time passed. By 2377 , the two had grown more comfortable with each other. Torres comforted Seven when she was faced with death after her cortical node malfunctioned, telling her that she made valuable contributions to the crew of Voyager . ( VOY : " Imperfection ") Torres talked to Seven about Paris shortly before their marriage in 2377. Seven suggested that Torres try to participate in some of Paris' interests in order to improve their relationship, which led to Torres' participation in the Antarian Trans-stellar Rally . ( VOY : " Drive ") To Torres' shock, Seven presented her with a baby shower present and complimented her on her hair the following year. ( VOY : " Human Error ")

Naomi Wildman [ ]

Naomi Wildman

Naomi Wildman was the first child born aboard Voyager . She was initially scared of Seven and afraid that she could assimilate her. Soon, she became fascinated with Seven, and began following her in early 2375 . Seven was initially annoyed with her, and disapproved of Naomi's study of Borg species designations. While Seven was experiencing problems due to contact with the infected vinculum, one of the personalities to emerge was that of a small child. She played kadis-kot with Naomi, to Naomi's delight. After the crisis was resolved, Seven decided to instruct Naomi in astrometrics, giving her several star charts and species information to study. Seven also requested a game of kadis-kot with Naomi. ( VOY : " Infinite Regress ") They became friends, going to lunch or playing games of kadis-kot. They had in common that they often couldn't understand the crew's determination to return to Earth. This fact proved helpful when Voyager was confronted by the telepathic pitcher plant , which made the rest of the crew see it as a wormhole to Earth. Seven and Naomi were unaffected due to their indifference about returning home and, aided by Qatai , who had hunted the creature for years, and The Doctor, they were able to trick the creature into expelling Voyager . ( VOY : " Bliss ") When Seven was kidnapped by the Borg, Naomi demonstrated her determination to save Seven, and presented to Captain Janeway a plan to rescue Seven. ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ") Seven once stated that she thought of Naomi as her family on board Voyager . ( VOY : " Survival Instinct ", " The Voyager Conspiracy ")

Tuvok became friends with Seven of Nine, when he witnessed her ordeal as she gradually had to remember her assimilation by the Borg. He helped her manage it and Seven opened up to him. ( VOY : " The Raven ") After that, she began having conversations with Tuvok and it became apparent she enjoyed talking with him because of his logic and distant way of seeing things, which was similar to her own. Tuvok also had a similar attitude towards Seven. ( VOY : " Mortal Coil ")

Tuvok was quick to compliment Seven when she quickly learned and won a game of Kal-toh . ( VOY : " The Omega Directive ")

Both Tuvok and Seven of Nine often preferred completing away missions in silence. After working together and Seven saving Tuvok's life, he was able to help her cope with the difficult mission they shared. ( VOY : " Tsunkatse ") In time they also started appreciating each other, because of them being outsiders on the ship.( VOY : " Human Error ")

Jean-Luc Picard [ ]

Acting in her capacity as a Fenris Ranger, Seven intervened and assisted the crew of the SS La Sirena as the ship was attacked while in orbit of Vashti . During the battle Seven’s ship was destroyed and she beamed aboard the La Sirena and was immediately recognized by Jean-Luc Picard . ( PIC : " Absolute Candor ") Seven and Picard shared a drink and spoke candidly regarding his motives, discussing if he was "saving the galaxy." After encountering Bjayzl in Stardust City ; Picard recognized Sevens need for revenge and attempted to dissuade her from taking the matter into her own hands by invoking her restored humanity. Seven then questioned Picard's own journey after being separated from the Borg Collective and their similar attempts to overcome the trauma. ( PIC : " Stardust City Rag ") Seven was visibly affected with Picard's death. ( PIC : " Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 ")

Picard encouraged and assisted Seven in joining Starfleet. When Picard boards the Titan under false pretenses; Seven recognizes the ruse and berates him. Captain Riker angrily questions if this is how she speaks to an Admiral ; Seven states this is how she speaks to a friend. Knowing the risks Seven assists Picard in his deception and risks her Starfleet commission. ( PIC : " The Next Generation ")

Surrogate motherhood [ ]

Seven interacts with the Borg children

In 2376 , Seven became a temporary mother figure to a group of children whom Voyager had discovered aboard a derelict Borg vessel. She cared for the children, named Icheb , Mezoti , Rebi , and Azan , until the latter three were returned to their own people in 2377 . ( VOY : " Collective ", " Child's Play ", " Imperfection ") Seven was frustrated with her initial attempts to tutor the children. She designed a rigid schedule for their activities, enacting serious punishment when they failed to adhere to the schedule. They rebelled against the restrictions, and an exasperated Seven told Chakotay she no longer wished to supervise them. He made her realize that while consistency is important, children also need spontaneity. Her efforts were much more successful once she made allowances for that. ( VOY : " Ashes to Ashes ")

After discovering that he had been genetically engineered as a weapon against the Borg, the eldest of the children, Icheb, remained with Voyager and he and Seven formed a close relationship. ( VOY : " Child's Play ") Icheb expressed a desire to apply for Starfleet Academy admission, and hoped Seven would speak to the captain about having Commander Tuvok teach him preliminary courses. Around this time, Icheb donated his own cortical node when the failure of Seven's jeopardized her life. She initially refused to accept his help, placing his safety above her own despite his research showing that he was far more likely to survive the loss of the node than she was. ( VOY : " Imperfection ")

Eight years after Voyager returned to Earth, Lieutenant Icheb was captured by Bjayzl , who had hired surgeons to brutally and painfully extract his Borg implants for her to sell on the black market . Seven attempted to rescue Icheb, whom she considered to be like a son to her, but arrived too late to save his life. Mortally wounded and in excruciating pain, Icheb begged Seven to quickly kill him, which she did by shooting him with a phaser at point-blank range.

Thirteen years later , Seven caught up with Bjayzl and executed her in retribution for Icheb's death. ( PIC : " Stardust City Rag ")

Romance [ ]

Harry Kim became physically attracted to Seven shortly after she joined Voyager . Noticing this, she addressed the situation with him, asking him if he desired to "copulate", thereby embarrassing him. However, she did tell Kim late at night in the mess hall that she was willing to explore her sexuality and told him to take his clothes off. ( VOY : " Revulsion ") The attraction was also painfully obvious to the rest of the Voyager crew. ( VOY : " Revulsion ", " Hunters ") She seduced him in a dream caused by aliens encountered in 2374 . ( VOY : " Waking Moments ")

Under The Doctor's tutelage, Seven first explored true romance in 2375 . She chose engineering crew member William Chapman after determining that their interests were compatible. However, Seven's directness was too overbearing for Chapman, and the date ended up in disaster when Seven accidentally tore a ligament in his shoulder while dancing. ( VOY : " Someone to Watch Over Me ")

In 2378 , Seven was distressed to discover that the Borg had deliberately programmed the cortical implant of their drones to shut down in the event that the drone began to experience strong emotion, thus killing the drone. The Doctor believed he could reprogram the affected implant, but Seven refused treatment. Later that year, she changed her mind, and she underwent the surgery. ( VOY : " Human Error ", " Endgame ")

While Seven was assisting the drones of Unimatrix Zero, she mainly dealt with a man named Axum , with whom she had had a romantic relationship within Unimatrix Zero while she was still a drone that lasted over a duration of six years. The relationship sparked again, strengthening her resolve to help those within the Unimatrix. However, Axum was physically aboard a scout vessel at the border of fluidic space in a remote sector of the Beta Quadrant , making it impossible to contact him again once Unimatrix Zero was destroyed. ( VOY : " Unimatrix Zero ", " Unimatrix Zero, Part II ")

The Doctor [ ]

Seven gives The Doctor a friendly kiss

The Doctor was responsible for the removal of Seven's implants, and also conducted her weekly maintenance sessions. He also took it upon himself to teach Seven social behavior, using the same interpersonal relationship exercises Kes once practiced with him. ( VOY : " Prey ") Later, he created a holodeck simulation of Voyager for her to become more comfortable with large social gatherings. ( VOY : " One ")

The Doctor encouraged Seven to explore romantic relationships in 2375 , coaching her in the basics of dating and grooming. He also discovered her singing voice, and the two sang a duet of " You Are My Sunshine ". He was partially motivated by a wager made with Ensign Paris, who believed that Seven would not be able to bring a date to a reception planned aboard Voyager without making a scene. Although Seven's date with Lieutenant Chapman ended up in disaster, she attended the reception with The Doctor, and charmed the guests with a toast to individuality. However, she was hurt to discover that The Doctor's help was due to the bet. At this point, The Doctor found that he himself was falling in love with Seven, but refused to admit it to her. He tried to apologize to her, but she came to him first and said she no longer needed the lessons in romance because there were no suitable mates aboard. The Doctor was very disappointed that Seven did not reciprocate his feelings. ( VOY : " Someone to Watch Over Me ")

In 2376 , The Doctor was stranded aboard the USS Equinox along with Seven, and the crew disengaged his morality subroutines to extract activation codes for their warp drive from Seven's cranial implants, which would leave her mentally disabled. The Doctor almost went through with the procedure, but Captain Rudolph Ransom stopped him. He apologized to Seven for the incident, and she held no ill will towards him. ( VOY : " Equinox, Part II ")

The Doctor created a subroutine for daydreaming in early 2376 . Seven featured prominently in several fantasies, either serving as a damsel in distress or competing with other female Voyager crew members for The Doctor's affections. He even fantasized about painting her in the nude. When the fantasies began to overrun his program, his mental activity was tied into the holodeck, allowing Seven to see what he had been daydreaming. She did not take offense, but after she kissed him following Captain Janeway's announcement that the Emergency Command Hologram subroutines would be developed, she made it clear that it was simply a platonic gesture. ( VOY : " Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy ")

The Doctor as Seven of Nine

While Ensign Kim, Seven, and The Doctor conducted a routine survey on board the second Delta Flyer in 2377 , they were captured by a race known as the Lokirrim . The Lokirrim had waged war against holographic lifeforms who rebelled against Lokirrim rule, and as a result, banned all holographic activity within their borders. Seven transferred The Doctor's program to her cortical implant in order to hide him from the Lokirrim and prevent him from being decompiled. In the process, The Doctor took control of Seven's motor abilities, and was essentially trapped in her body. The Doctor tried to engineer an escape by cultivating a relationship with a Lokirrim official, Ranek , but the new sensations of taste and emotion were too tempting for The Doctor. He ended up overindulging in several foods and causing pain to Seven. Ranek later called Seven to the ship's bridge with the intention of setting up a romantic liaison. Although The Doctor was able to see his command codes, Ranek attempted to kiss him in Seven's body, which was not reciprocated. Shortly afterward, he went to complain about the incident to Jaryn , a crewmember The Doctor had been working with to treat injured Lokirrim crew. The Doctor became sexually aroused when Jaryn gave Seven a neck massage. Both incidents greatly irritated Seven, and once The Doctor had been returned to the mobile emitter they got into an argument about the values of indulgence. The Doctor felt Seven showed excessive restraint and did not allow for superfluous pleasure, which The Doctor believed was an important part of life. Kim managed to return the subject to escape, and The Doctor and Seven worked together once again to transmit a distress signal to Voyager . The Doctor was downloaded back into Seven's implants, and was able to convince Ranek to join her on a "second date." They knocked him out at the first available opportunity, and transmitted a message to Voyager including the ship's command codes. Their plan was discovered by Jaryn, and Seven was taken captive. After Voyager arrived, Seven returned The Doctor's program to the mobile emitter and they escaped. Upon their return to the ship, Seven decided that The Doctor had a point about her restraint concerning pleasures such as food. She brought a meal to sickbay and described the sensations of eating it to The Doctor, allowing him to experience it vicariously. ( VOY : " Body and Soul ")

When The Doctor's rights as an individual came into question, Seven testified at the hearing conducted with Starfleet Command. She spoke highly of The Doctor, appreciative of his efforts to develop her individuality. ( VOY : " Author, Author ")

In 2378 when The Doctor believed he was about to die, he finally admitted his feelings for her, and was embarrassed when he survived. ( VOY : " Renaissance Man ") The Doctor was also crestfallen when he learned Seven had begun to date Chakotay. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

Chakotay [ ]

Seven of Nine and Chakotay share a private moment in 2378

Like many of the crew, Chakotay was distrustful of Seven during her first year on board. He questioned Captain Janeway when she chose to leave Seven in control while the ship traversed a Mutara-class nebula. ( VOY : " One ")

Chakotay was interested in the early history of space exploration, and jumped at the chance to retrieve the Ares IV command module from a graviton ellipse encountered by Voyager in 2376 . Seven saw this fascination as dangerous, and she was proven right when the Delta Flyer , sent to retrieve the module, was trapped in the ellipse. She was upset with Chakotay, but her attitude changed when she beamed over to the command module to retrieve a component to repair the damaged Flyer . Chakotay told her to savor the moment and recover as much history as possible. She replayed Lieutenant John Kelly 's logs, and was touched by his devotion to duty. She had his body beamed back to the Flyer and spoke in admiration of Kelly at his funeral aboard Voyager . ( VOY : " One Small Step ")

Seven considered a romantic relationship with Chakotay in 2378 . In her holodeck simulation of Voyager , Chakotay became her love interest, and she went on several dates with him. To her embarrassment, The Doctor learned of the simulation when she collapsed on the holodeck due to her Borg programming, designed to shut down the implants of a drone should he/she experience strong emotion. These implants would require dangerous, repeated surgeries to remove, and Seven chose not to proceed. ( VOY : " Human Error ") The Doctor strove to develop a safer method of removing this obstacle to her development and several months later he was able to remove the implants with a single surgical procedure. After the affected implants were removed, Seven was free to become involved with the real Chakotay, and the two began dating in 2378 . Neelix gave Seven ideas for dates. In an alternate timeline, when Admiral Janeway was forced to convince Captain Janeway to return to the nebula, she revealed that Seven of Nine and Chakotay later married. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

Raffaela Musiker [ ]

Seven of Nine and Raffaela Musiker kiss while stranded in 2024

In 2399 , Seven first met Raffaela Musiker when she crossed paths with Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the La Sirena . ( PIC : " Stardust City Rag ") Following the battle of Coppelius and the defeat of Commodore Oh 's forces, Musiker and Seven began exploring a romantic relationship. ( PIC : " Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 ")

Over a year and a half later, in 2401 , Seven and Musiker were on uncertain terms regarding their relationship. While Seven wanted to retain her personal freedom, Musiker wished to be closer to and more involved with Seven. ( PIC : " The Star Gazer ") When they were injected by Q into an alternate timeline, Musiker was noticeably startled when she learned about the husband of that universe's Annika Hansen. ( PIC : " Penance ")

After they traveled to the year 2024 , Seven and Musiker spent much time together in Los Angeles , often discussing their relationship. ( PIC : " Watcher ", " Mercy ", " Hide and Seek ") At one point, they even used their romance as a ruse and referred to each other as girlfriends, to gain access to a restricted area atop Markridge Industrial Tower . ( PIC : " Assimilation ")

After the defeat of the Borg Queen and Adam Soong as well as the saving of Renée Picard , Seven and Musiker once again talked about their relationship. As Musiker was about to inform Seven that she is fine with them going their seperate ways, Seven leaned in and kissed Musiker. When Musiker nervously questioned what this might mean, Seven laughingly quipped that Musiker should simply "let it breathe". Upon their return to the year 2401, Musiker, Seven, Elnor and Picard spent time reminiscing about their journey together at 10 Forward Avenue . ( PIC : " Farewell ")

Physiology [ ]

The Doctor was able to remove most of Seven's implants and restore most of her Human appearance, but she still had some Borg technology left; these were tied into her vital functions, and removing them would have killed her. Initially, she also still needed to regenerate , like a Borg drone, using a Borg alcove , because her natural metabolism wasn't yet functional enough to support her on its own; with time, the frequency with which she had to do so diminished. ( VOY : " Human Error ", " Natural Law ") She was given a special suit and also issued a combadge . ( VOY : " The Gift ")

As a former drone, Seven had considerable superior physical characteristics over most Humans. Her visual acuity was vastly superior, due to her ocular implant , along with an eidetic memory and superior physical strength for a healthy Human woman her age. ( VOY : " The Gift ", " Vis à Vis ", " Tsunkatse ", " Scientific Method ", " Relativity ") As for her regular Human senses, they were more acute than the average Human as well. ( VOY : " Body and Soul ") Her heart and respiratory system were completely reinforced. ( VOY : " The Haunting of Deck Twelve ") She was also much more resistant to injury and many forms of radiation , including chroniton and subnucleonic radiation that would quickly kill an ordinary Human. ( VOY : " Year of Hell ", " One ") In addition, she became an extremely proficient martial artist, mastering the Norcadian martial art of Tsunkatse . ( VOY : " Tsunkatse ") With her Borg implants, she was also able to serve as a physical host to any holographic character, who then had full access to her biological senses. ( VOY : " Body and Soul ")

Her enhanced Borg physiology also had its downsides, such as being prone to malfunctions or failures or receiving unwanted transmissions from the Borg Queen or other Borg devices. ( VOY : " The Raven ", " Dark Frontier ", " Imperfection ", PIC : " Vox ") In 2377 , her cortical node developed a malfunction and had to be replaced. The replacement came from Icheb , who, due to his younger age and less time spent in a Borg maturation chamber , was able to adapt to function without the implant after undergoing some genetic re-sequencing. ( VOY : " Imperfection ") Her powerful nanoprobes were highly sought after and in the Ferengi market each sold for six bars of latinum . In fact, in 2377 Ferengi marauders attempted to obtain Seven of Nine's nanoprobes by perpetrating an elaborate scheme. Seven's nanoprobes had multiple applications which made them so valuable, including slowing the aging process and even reanimating dead tissue. ( VOY : " Inside Man ") As the result of an infected Borg vinculum that had identified her as an errant drone and was trying to reintegrate her into the collective, Seven once developed multiple personality disorder exhibiting the behavior and personalities of the individuals assimilated by the Borg during her eighteen years as a drone. ( VOY : " Infinite Regress ") When she was once experimenting with the nature of individuality and intimate relationships, experiencing a host of strong emotions unfamiliar to her, her cortical node shut down as a fail-safe mechanism to deactivate drones who started to regain their emotions. ( VOY : " Human Error ") In 2401 , she was thrown in severe pain when another transmission from the Borg Queen was intended to trigger dormant Borg components in most of Starfleet personnel.

She also secretly wished to be completely human again. She made that wish come true when given the opportunity in the virtual reality of Unimatrix Zero. VOY : " Unimatrix Zero, Part II " Also, in 2401, she had been transferred by Q to an alternate timeline in which she had never been assimilated, and retained an unaltered fully human body. Upon her journey to the year 2024 , she felt thrilled that the people of that time period reacted to her without fear or hesitation. ( PIC : " Penance ", " Assimilation ", " Monsters ") However, when Seven and Raffaela Musiker tried to prevent La Sirena from falling into the hands of the newly emerging Borg Queen , she was fatally wounded. With the last resorts of Agnes Jurati , the Queen was halted from killing Seven and instead saved her life by assimilating her, thus reinstating her Borg implants to a state that, at least visually, was identical to her original implants. ( PIC : " Hide and Seek ") Although she was initially devastated, she quickly accepted the loss. ( PIC : " Farewell ") She was later reverted to her original self when Q returned the group to the prime timeline.

Alternate Seven of Nine [ ]

Holograms [ ].

Seven of Nine, projected from The Doctor's daydreams

Seven of Nine was holographically duplicated on a number of occasions: Seven of Nine was created by The Doctor so he could practice expressing his romantic feelings to the real Seven. ( VOY : " Someone to Watch Over Me ")

A holographic representation of Seven in the nude was being painted by The Doctor when his daydreams were projected into the holodeck . ( VOY : " Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy ")

A hologram of Seven was used in order to evaluate the chances of a successful replacement of Seven's cortical node. ( VOY : " Imperfection ")

A hologram of Seven as a Borg Drone was used by the Kyrian Museum of Heritage set in 2374 , to detail their encounter with the warship Voyager , as an aid to a history lesson. ( VOY : " Living Witness ")

In The Doctor's USS Vortex holonovel , entitled Photons Be Free , Seven's alter ego was a former drone named " Three of Eight ". She was the only person aboard the Vortex who spoke in defense of The Doctor, and helped him escape after he was arrested for expanding his program. She pleaded with Captain " Jenkins " to prevent The Doctor's program from being decompiled, calling it a crime that individuals like The Doctor were not appreciated. When Tom Paris temporarily rewrote the program, the character became " Two of Three ". Paris made light of The Doctor's obvious crush on Seven by making the holographic doctor in his program chauvinistic. The EMH character used a Klingon aphrodisiac on "Two of Three," causing her to react positively to his affections. ( VOY : " Author, Author ")

Alternate realities and timelines [ ]

In 2374 , most of Voyager 's crew was duplicated by a biomimetic lifeform known as the " Silver Blood ." ( VOY : " Demon ") The crew eventually agreed to allow the silver blood to replicate every individual on board, and the real crew left the class Y world. They began to forget their origins and ultimately started to believe that they were the real Voyager crew and set a course for the Alpha Quadrant. By mid 2375 , they had developed an enhanced warp drive and were closer to the Alpha Quadrant than the real Voyager . At the wedding of that ship's Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres, Seven caught the bouquet.

Shortly following this event, the enhanced warp drive began to degrade the structure of the ship and the crew, as it was harmful to the "Silver Blood." Captain Janeway decided to continue to the Alpha Quadrant in spite of this discovery, and did not attempt to locate a Class Y planet until many of the crew had succumbed to the degradation and the ship was severely damaged. Seven was one of the last crew members to degrade, and she attempted to build a message beacon out of non-affected materials to launch and hopefully be recovered. The beacon was later destroyed after the launch mechanism failed, and the Voyager disintegrated just as the real Voyager caught up to it. ( VOY : " Course: Oblivion ")

Sometime in the 29th century, Captain Braxton , of the Federation timeship USS Relativity , went back to 2371 and planted a temporal disruptor on Voyager in order to destroy it. The crew of the Relativity recruited Seven of Nine from late 2375 to help find the device because her ocular implant was capable of detecting it. Seven was altered in order to look Human, given a sciences division Starfleet uniform , the alias " Anna Jameson ", and sent to several time periods to pursue Braxton. Unfortunately, the side effects of the time travel were detrimental, and Seven died twice before discovering that Braxton was responsible. Further complicating matters, the timeline was contaminated by Seven's presence twice in the year 2371 and once in 2375, shortly before Seven was taken. Eventually, Braxton was apprehended and Captain Janeway helped repair the timeline by stopping Braxton before he ever had the chance to plant the disruptor. Slightly confused, Seven and Janeway were returned and reintegrated to the year 2375 and instructed not to tell of their experiences under order of the Temporal Prime Directive . ( VOY : " Relativity ")

When Voyager was fractured into several different time periods upon encountering a spatial rift in 2377 , the cargo bay was reverted to 2374 when the Borg first transported onto Voyager . Chakotay was the only crew member not affected, and contacted the Seven of Nine of this time period. She designed a plan to use a chroniton field to bring the ship back into temporal sync. She later helped the Voyager crew retake engineering from Seska in 2373 . ( VOY : " Shattered ")

In an alternate timeline occurring shortly after Voyager 's first encounter with the Krenim in 2374 , Seven developed a temporal shielding technology which protected the ship from the Krenim chroniton torpedoes as well as alterations in the timeline caused by Annorax 's weapon ship . The shield was perfected when she determined the exact phase variance of an intact torpedo lodged in Voyager 's hull, found while making repairs to Voyager 's badly-damaged systems. The torpedo detonated while Seven and Tuvok were nearby. Although Seven was unharmed, Tuvok was blinded. She assisted him in daily tasks aboard Voyager , as surgery to correct the blindness was impossible in Voyager 's state. When Voyager 's crew was forced to share quarters due to power failures, she shared quarters with Ensign Brooks . Seven found living with her difficult, as her personal habits were "chaotic." Seven remained aboard Voyager when most of the crew abandoned ship. ( VOY : " Year of Hell ") Seven later helped fit temporal shielding to the Mawasi fleet. The timeline was eradicated when Voyager collided with the temporal weapon ship, erasing it from history, along with any events caused due to the existence of the weapon ship. Thanks to Seven's temporal shielding, Voyager was able to erase the weapon ship from existence, thereby saving the entire galaxy from Annorax' catastrophic changes. ( VOY : " Year of Hell, Part II ")

In another alternate timeline created when Voyager used a quantum slipstream drive in 2375 but rode it all the way to the Alpha Quadrant , the ship crash-landed on an arctic planet, killing its entire crew. Harry Kim and Chakotay, who had survived the trip in the Delta Flyer , spent fifteen years trying to locate Voyager . They developed a plan to use a Borg temporal transmitter that they stole from the Federation to transmit the correct variance to Seven of Nine's cranial interplexing beacon in the past and therefore alter history. They stole the Delta Flyer and took it to Voyager , needing Seven's cranial implant and The Doctor's expertise to find her translink frequency allowing them to send the course corrections to USS Voyager and prevent the crash. Seven was located on the bridge and the reactivated Doctor removed her cranial implant. Once he was able to find her translink frequency – 108.44236000 – he attached it to the beacon. The first attempt to send the correction directly to her cranial implant failed, and Voyager was still lost. Kim then sent another correction, designed to collapse the slipstream, just before the Flyer , the alternate Harry Kim , Doctor , Chakotay and his girlfriend (Chakotay's) Tessa Omond were destroyed by the USS Challenger . The new plan worked, thus negating their deaths, and Voyager was saved. ( VOY : " Timeless ")

In yet another alternate timeline erased due to the actions of Admiral Kathryn Janeway, Chakotay and Seven were married aboard Voyager in the 2380s . However, Seven was killed on an away mission before Voyager returned home, and Janeway blamed herself for her death. This was a major motivation for her to travel back to 2378 and alter the past to bring Voyager home in that year. ( VOY : " Endgame ")

In the 31st century simulation of Voyager at the Kyrian Museum of Heritage , the incomplete records from Voyager 's visit in 2374 painted the crew as murderers and savages. Seven, still with full Borg implants, was the leader of a group of Borg aboard Voyager who were sent to assault several Kyrians . This simulation was corrected after the reactivation of a backup copy of Voyager 's EMH from the EMH backup module stolen during the ship's visit. ( VOY : " Living Witness ")

President Annika Hansen

In an alternate timeline created by Q where the Confederation of Earth existed, Annika Hansen was a politician who, by 2401 , had risen to become President of the Confederation of Earth . That year, she was to preside over Eradication Day alongside General Jean-Luc Picard .

She was married to the Confederation Magistrate who, although subordinate to her both as husband and in the government, had authority to order a telepathic incursion investigation if she acted too erratic or out of the ordinary. ( PIC : " Penance ")

Chronology [ ]

• Stardate 25479 ( 2344 ): Born to Magnus Hansen and Erin Hansen . ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ")
• 2347 : Embarks on a scientific journey to study the Borg together with her parents aboard the USS Raven . ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ")
• 2350 : Is assimilated by the Borg along with her parents. ( PIC : " Penance ")
• 2355 : Emerges from her maturation chamber as a Borg drone. ( VOY : " Collective ")
• 2368 : The Borg sphere she was assigned to crashed on Planet 1865-Alpha . ( VOY : " Survival Instinct ")
• 2373 : Serves as an intermediary between the Borg Collective and the USS Voyager . ( VOY : " Scorpion, Part II ")
• 2374 : Is separated from the Collective by Kathryn Janeway and Chakotay and begins new life on Voyager as a crewman in Astrometrics . ( VOY : " The Gift ", " Endgame ")
• 2375 : Returns to the Borg Collective and comes face to face with the Borg Queen and her assimilated father. ( VOY : " Dark Frontier ")
• 2376 : Becomes guardian to four former Borg children, Rebi , Azan , Mezoti , and Icheb . ( VOY : " Collective ")
• 2377 : Helps to free members of the rogue Unimatrix Zero , thereby igniting an internal Borg resistance movement. ( VOY : " Unimatrix Zero, Part II ")
• 2378 : Returns to the Alpha Quadrant with Voyager . ( VOY : " Endgame ")
• 2386 : Joins the Fenris Rangers . Forced to mercy kill a mortally-wounded Icheb after he is brutalized by Bjayzl . ( PIC : " Stardust City Rag ")
• 2399 : Helps Jean-Luc Picard rescue Bruce Maddox from the planet Freecloud . Kills Bjayzl in retribution for Icheb's torture and death. ( PIC : " Stardust City Rag ")
• Appointed acting captain of the USS Stargazer ( PIC : " Farewell ")
• Officially joins Starfleet and is assigned to the USS Titan -A as first officer ( PIC : " The Next Generation ")
• Relived of duty by Captain Liam Shaw for insubordination. ( PIC : " Disengage ")
• Reinstated by Captain Shaw on Stardate 78186.03. ( PIC : " Imposters ")
• Given command of the Titan as Captain Shaw's final order. ( PIC : " Võx ")
• Given command of the USS Enterprise -G . ( PIC : " The Last Generation ")

Appendices [ ]

Appearances [ ].

Seven of Nine appears in a little under two-thirds (60 percent) of Voyager 's 172 episodes.

• " Scorpion, Part II " (Season 4)
• " The Gift "
• " Day of Honor "
• " Revulsion "
• " The Raven "
• " Scientific Method "
• " Year of Hell "
• " Year of Hell, Part II "
• " Random Thoughts "
• " Concerning Flight "
• " Mortal Coil "
• " Waking Moments "
• " Message in a Bottle "
• " Hunters "
• " Retrospect "
• " The Killing Game "
• " The Killing Game, Part II "
• " Vis à Vis "
• " The Omega Directive "
• " Unforgettable "
• " Living Witness "
• " Hope and Fear "
• " Night " (Season 5)
• " Extreme Risk "
• " In the Flesh "
• " Once Upon a Time "
• " Timeless "
• " Infinite Regress "
• " Nothing Human "
• " Thirty Days "
• " Counterpoint "
• " Latent Image "
• " Bride of Chaotica! "
• " Gravity "
• " Dark Frontier "
• " The Disease "
• " Course: Oblivion "
• " The Fight "
• " Think Tank "
• " Juggernaut "
• " Someone to Watch Over Me "
• " Relativity "
• " Warhead "
• " Equinox "
• " Equinox, Part II " (Season 6)
• " Survival Instinct "
• " Barge of the Dead "
• " Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy "
• " Riddles "
• " Dragon's Teeth "
• " One Small Step "
• " The Voyager Conspiracy "
• " Pathfinder "
• " Fair Haven "
• " Blink of an Eye "
• " Virtuoso "
• " Memorial "
• " Tsunkatse "
• " Collective "
• " Spirit Folk "
• " Ashes to Ashes "
• " Child's Play "
• " Good Shepherd "
• " Live Fast and Prosper "
• " Life Line "
• " The Haunting of Deck Twelve "
• " Unimatrix Zero "
• " Unimatrix Zero, Part II " (Season 7)
• " Imperfection "
• " Repression "
• " Critical Care "
• " Inside Man "
• " Body and Soul "
• " Flesh and Blood "
• " Nightingale "
• " Shattered "
• " Lineage "
• " Repentance "
• " Prophecy "
• " The Void "
• " Workforce "
• " Workforce, Part II "
• " Human Error "
• " Author, Author "
• " Friendship One "
• " Natural Law "
• " Homestead "
• " Renaissance Man "
• " Endgame "
• " Remembrance "
• " Maps and Legends "
• " The End is the Beginning "
• " The Impossible Box "
• " Nepenthe "

Background information [ ]

Seven of Nine was played by actress Jeri Ryan . She first appeared in the fourth season opener, " Scorpion, Part II ". Young Annika Hansen was played by Erica Lynne Bryan in "Scorpion, Part II" and " The Raven ", and Katelin Petersen in " Dark Frontier ".

The concept of Seven of Nine began while Brannon Braga was sitting at home, late one night, and saw a televised promotion for the Borg-centric third season installment " Unity ". ( Braving the Unknown: Season Four , VOY Season 4 DVD ; Cinefantastique , Vol. 30, No. 9/10, p. 75) The idea of having a Borg crewman aboard the starship Voyager – a notion that instantly appealed to Braga – occurred to him as he was watching the advertisement. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 30, No. 9/10, p. 75) He then brought the character concept to the attention of fellow writer Joe Menosky . Braga later remembered, " I called Joe Menosky, and pitched this idea, and he thought it was a great idea. And then we talked about it and all the things… 'What would that mean, to have a Borg character?' It would be really cool. " ( Braving the Unknown: Season Four , VOY Season 4 DVD ) Braga also related, " I called Joe Menosky and we brainstormed. I wanted to make sure it wasn't a stupid idea. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 30, No. 9/10, p. 75) After Menosky approved of the concept, Braga called Executive Producer Rick Berman . " It was late, but I was so excited […] He really liked the idea but he had the stroke of genius, 'Make it a Borg babe,' " said Braga. " And we just talked about it, for a couple hours, and we just thought, 'This is a really cool idea. This could be really... just the thing we need.' " ( Braving the Unknown: Season Four , VOY Season 4 DVD ) This marathon conversation between Berman and Braga took place in the spring of 1997 . ( A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager , p. 348) Berman was not the only executive producer to whom Braga suggested the idea of a Borg crew member, however. " I […] took it in to Rick Berman and Jeri Taylor , " Braga said, " and they liked the idea. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 30, No. 9/10, p. 75) Taylor herself commented, " The idea of having a female Borg was one of those that came largely through spontaneous combustion. It started with Brannon, and quickly gained a great deal of support. " ( A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager , p. 348)

Seven of Nine was originally called "Perra" and had witnessed friends of hers being brutally killed around her at an outpost on Kelta Prime , a long time before she encountered Voyager and its crew. During that early incident, her Humanity, according to Perra herself, had "died." There was a time thereafter when she wished she had died along with her friends but, when she joined the Borg Collective, that emotional pain disappeared and she found the voices of the Collective to be comforting. This backstory was even written into casting sides that, in 1997, were used to audition the part. [3] The call sheets for the episodes "Scorpion, Part II" and "The Gift" also featured Ryan in the role of "Perra".

The character's final name was inspired by "Rhoda", codename EF709 ("seven-oh-nine"), a volumptous female android portrayed by Julie Newmar in the short-lived 1960s sitcom My Living Doll . [4]

Brannon Braga opined that Seven of Nine was the Spock or Data the show needed. " The Doctor came close ," he said. " I liked The Doctor character. But Seven of Nine to me was like The Wild Child – I was inspired by that Truffaut movie about trying to tame someone who was raised by wolves or in this case someone raised by Borg. " [5]

Brannon Braga envisioned, upon devising the Seven of Nine character, that she would ultimately be portrayed as meeting an unfortunate end. " Seven of Nine was, for me, designed to be a character that was gonna die tragically, " Braga admitted. " I planned that. " [6] He elaborated, " I thought she should have somehow sacrificed herself to get the closest thing she had to a family home. I think it would have been amazing but I was shot down. I was not running the show at the time; it was Ken Biller and Rick. " [7]

An actress who auditioned for the role of Seven was Hudson Leick (Callisto from Xena: Warrior Princess ). ( Beyond the Final Frontier , p. 308; [8] ) Another actress who read for the part was Claudia Christian (Ivanova from Babylon 5 ). ( Beyond the Final Frontier , p. 308) Brannon Braga was involved in the casting process from the start. He commented, " We read a lot of different kinds of actresses of different ages. We narrowed it down to three, and Jeri Ryan was the best. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 30, No. 9/10, p. 75) Ryan tried out for the role in mid-May 1997. She recalled, " I, of course, auditioned like everyone else. As a matter of fact, I read a couple of times and then I got the job. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 33 , p. 17)

Jeri Ryan's first day on Star Trek: Voyager was Tuesday 27 May 1997 on which she had a medical appointment like all the other main cast members. On this day, there were also the interviews with Ryan's possible stand-ins for which recurring Star Trek: The Next Generation background actress Cameron was cast. Cameron later left the production during the episode " Hunters " and the stand-in position was re-cast with Brita Nowak . On Wednesday 28 May 1997 , Ryan had her makeup and wardrobe tests followed by fittings on Thursday 29 May 1997 . Her first day filming "Scorpion, Part II" was on Friday 30 May 1997 with a makeup call at 6:30 am and a set call at 10:00 am. On this day, Ryan filmed some bridge and ready room scenes on Paramount Stage 8 .

The silver outfit

Seven's infamous costume began as a silver version in " The Gift ", which was also used in " Day of Honor " and " Revulsion ". It was retired because the material was too restrictive for actress Jeri Ryan's movement and it was difficult for her to breathe in, especially when she sat down. A new brown uniform, featuring a lower neckline, debuted in " The Raven ", and a variant with a small collar is visible in " Scientific Method ". A cobalt blue costume with grey shoulders and arms first appeared in " In the Flesh " but was replaced by an all-cobalt version in " The Disease ". A plum-colored outfit first appeared in " Dark Frontier ". Seven can be seen wearing a Starfleet uniform on only two occasions, the first being " Relativity ", when she is undercover in Voyager 's past, and the second being in " Human Error ", in a holographic simulation . Her Borg costume was also revived in several episodes, mostly in flashback scenes.

Some fans jokingly call Seven "Barbie of Borg" and 36D of 9, due to a common belief that she was brought on board Voyager mainly to boost ratings among male viewers. Jeri Ryan freely admitted this to be true, saying, " I knew exactly what I was in for when I had my first costume fitting. Clearly my character was added to the show for sex appeal, which remains the one way to get attention very quickly. I don't think it's the only way to get viewers to watch strong women, but it worked. ". (TV Week magazine (Canada) of May 8-14, 1999 pages 6-7, 9 from "Super Moms", an interview by Michael Logan)

Kate Mulgrew admitted that she and Jeri Ryan did not see eye-to-eye while filming Voyager because " I had thought 'damn, we were going to forgo all of this with a female captain.' But the demographics proved the audience wanted more sex. " However, she reflected that Ryan " did a marvelous job in a very difficult role. It was very clear to anyone with eyes in their head that Jeri Ryan’s beauty and sexual appeal were an important part of the numbers. " [9]

Ryan portrayed the character in any and all incarnations of Seven of Nine in one hundred episodes of Star Trek: Voyager .

Keyla Detmer 's party outfit seen in the Star Trek: Discovery episode " Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad " was inspired by Seven of Nine. ( AT : " Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad ")

Apocrypha [ ]

In the PC videogames Star Trek: Elite Force and Star Trek: Elite Force II , Seven was responsible for creating a device called "I-Mod" (Infinity Modulator). The I-Mod was specifically made to be used against the Borg. The I-Mod device was made into a weapon of its own (a rifle), capable of firing unique infinitely modulated shots that made adapting impossible.

According to the video game Star Trek: Starship Creator , Seven of Nine was born on Gemaura III to parents Seka and Han.

In an alternate future seen in the Pocket DS9 book trilogy Millennium , Seven, along with Voyager and her crew, returned to the Alpha Quadrant at an unspecified time. By 2399 , Seven had been promoted to admiral . Seven, along with Hugh , helped to negotiate a treaty between the Federation and the Borg Collective , in the name of fighting the Bajorans , with whom the Federation was at war. In this future, she was apparently romantically involved with The Doctor. The entire timeline was reset thanks to Benjamin Sisko and the crew of Deep Space 9 .

In the Voyager relaunch book series, Seven broke up with Chakotay, moved in with her aunt, and attained much undesired celebrity. She eventually joined a Federation "think tank" with The Doctor.

In the Next Generation relaunch novel Before Dishonor , Seven of Nine had become a civilian instructor at Starfleet Academy specializing in cybernetic technology. When Janeway was assimilated to become a new Borg Queen, Seven joined the crew of the USS Enterprise -E to reactivate the planet killer weapon with the assistance of Geordi La Forge and Spock in an effort to attack and destroy the Borg ship attacking Earth .

Following the events of Star Trek: Destiny , Seven of Nine's remaining Borg implants were seemingly destroyed. She underwent a severe emotional shift, yet to be explained, and began asserting her true name as Annika Hansen once again. In the subsequent Voyager relaunch novel Full Circle , it was revealed that this was a response to the Caeliar, the race who absorbed many of the Borg into their group mind, implanting the thought that she was Annika Hansen in her mind when severing her last link to the Borg Collective. Seven quickly rejected the instruction and continued to think of herself as Seven of Nine.

In the timeline for Star Trek Online , Seven of Nine joined Starfleet after Voyager 's return to the Alpha Quadrant, and was assigned to a special Borg Task Force. When the task force was dissolved in 2385 – Starfleet believing the Borg were no longer a threat – Seven angrily disagreed with the decision and resigned from Starfleet, accepting a position at the Daystrom Institute instead. " startrekonline.com/timeline/2385.1 "

Seven appears in Delta Rising , the second expansion to STO, voiced once again by Jeri Ryan. In the wake of "Operation Delta Rising", a campaign to return to the Delta Quadrant to fight the Undine , Tuvok – now an admiral and commanding Voyager – asked Seven to leave the Daystrom Institute to work for the new Delta Alliance. Seven and her research team are rescued from a small outpost after the ship carrying them, the USS Callisto , is destroyed. Following a Voth fleet that mysteriously disengaged from combat, Seven and her rescuers arrive at the homeworld of the Turei , where they learn that the Vaadwaur have managed to gain advanced technology and have begun a campaign to reconquer the Delta Quadrant. Seven again expresses her guilt at awakening the Vaadwaur, but accepts Tuvok's offer to serve with him again on Voyager to combat the new threat. She also works alongside the Cooperative , a group of free Borg drones, in their efforts to avoid being reassimilated by the Collective or destroyed by their opponents.

For STO's tenth anniversary, Seven returns in the two-part episode "The Measure of Morality", now looking and sounding like her more "relaxed" appearance in Star Trek: Picard . While investigating possible Borg activity, the player character's ship is abducted by the Excalbians and forced to undergo further "trials" to determine the differences between good and evil. The player character and one of their officers are teamed with Seven and an Excalbian simulacrum of Michael Burnham to represent "good", as they battle "evil" forces in the Excalbians' simulations. During the Excalbian simulation on Essof IV , Seven inadvertently creates a Borg Queen in her image, using her genetic material fused with Control 's nanites. The Borg Queen Seven then takes control of the Excalbians' "simulation", even manifesting a massive fleet in orbit of Excalbia , which is ultimately defeated by another Excalbian-manifested fleet, consisting of several starships Enterprise , as well as Voyager , the USS Discovery , and the USS Defiant . In the patrol mission "One Night in Bozeman", part of the game's First Contact Day event, Seven is recruited by temporal agent Daniels to travel with the player character to April 4, 2063, just as the Borg Queen's sphere is bombarding Zefram Cochrane 's missile complex near Bozeman , Montana (as depicted in Star Trek: First Contact ). The Borg are attempting another change in the timeline, this time by focusing their attention on the civilians on the surface, as well as building a transporter from scraps to summon reinforcements from the partly-assimilated Enterprise -E. Seven and the player must rescue the civilians and destroy the transporter to ensure that the established events (including the involvement of the Enterprise crew) is not disrupted.

External links [ ]

• Seven of Nine at StarTrek.com
• Seven of Nine at Wikipedia
• Seven of Nine at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Seven of Nine at the Star Trek Online Wiki
• 2 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-G)
• 3 Star Trek: The Next Generation

Seven Of Nine's Arrival On Star Trek: Voyager Came With Some Growing Pains

Sometimes, the greatest and most famous characters on a television show are the ones who were added part-way through the series. That's absolutely the case with "Star Trek: Voyager" and its breakout character, liberated Borg drone Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan). Joining the show in season 4 , Seven's sex appeal was obvious, but she rose beyond the expectations for a fan-service character. Her journey back to something resembling normalcy after being assimilated made her one of the few characters on the show with concrete character development, and Ryan played the part excellently. Instantly popular, she practically became the show's star, especially in advertising. 

Of course, not all of Ryan's castmates took kindly to having the spotlight diverted from them, and this led to some friction behind the scenes.

Reintroducing the Borg

In "Voyager," the titular ship is stranded in the Delta Quadrant of the Milky Way galaxy. Two crews, Voyager's own and members of the rebel movement the Maquis, must join forces to get back home to the Alpha Quadrant. The Delta Quadrant had been established as home to the Borg , but the writers held off on giving their heroes such a challenge during the first two seasons. "Star Trek: The Next Generation" established a single Borg Cube could wipe out a Federation fleet; showing a single, lone Starfleet vessel besting them week after week would've strained credibility. Plus, villains as scary as the Borg are best served in small doses.

The Borg first appeared on "Voyager" during season 3 episode "Unity," which features a group of drones disconnected from the larger collective. This premise wasn't exactly a novel idea; "TNG" episodes "I, Borg," and "Descent" had previously used "drones cut off from the larger Borg" as a way to tell a Borg story minus apocalyptic stakes. However, the episode had a significant, albeit indirect, impact on the larger direction that "Voyager" charted.

According to "Star Trek Voyager: A Celebration" (by Ben Robinson and Mark Wright), when writer and producer Brannon Braga was watching a promo for "Unity," an idea for a disconnected Borg drone joining Voyager's crew came to him. His producing partner Rick Berman was also for the idea, but steered the concept away from a "cybernetic looking creature" like Braga initially envisioned. Instead, the character would give "Voyager" new sex appeal.

The two-part season 3 finale and season 4 premiere "Scorpion" introduced Seven of Nine. In these episodes, USS Voyager forms an alliance with the Borg against extra-dimensional invaders known as Species 8472. The collective chooses Seven as a representative to communicate with Voyager. When the alliance is over, she turns on the crew, who respond by severing her link to the collective. Now an individual for the first time since childhood, Seven is slowly assimilated by Voyager.

Ryan speaks up

"Scorpion" marks a sea change for "Voyager." From there on out, the Borg became the main villains of the series. Plus, as Seven came onto the show, Kes (Jennifer Lien) departed . For many years, rumors swirled that the price of Jeri Ryan joining the show was another cast member getting the boot; however, based on interviews with the cast and crew conducted for "A Celebration" by Robinson and Wright, Lien's personal problems, including substance abuse, were affecting her performance and this was the real reason for her leaving.

Still, that left Ryan in the always awkward position of the new guy, not helped by her being the effective replacement for someone the rest of the cast had acted alongside for three years. During an appearance on the "girl on guy" podcast in 2013, Ryan recounted the ups and downs of her "Voyager" experience; the transition was far from easy:

"That's hard when the new kid comes in and suddenly it's all about them. That was tough, and it was particularly tough for some more than others, which was not real fun ... basically, until I started dating [Brannon Braga]. Once I was dating the boss, funny how things suddenly cleaned up. But it was really, really tough the first couple of years. and there were many days when I was nauseous before going into work because it was that miserable. Just unnecessarily, intentionally unpleasant."

While Ryan doesn't single anyone out in her comments, behind-the-scenes gossip indicates there was one main party responsible for this unpleasantness: Captain Janeway herself, Kate Mulgrew.

Ryan vs. Mulgrew

One of Seven's most important relationships is with Captain Janeway, who becomes a mentor to her. One of the best "Voyager" episodes, "Dark Frontier," is essentially about Seven being torn between two mother figures: Janeway and the Borg Queen (Susanna Thompson). However, according to the cast and crew, Mulgrew and Ryan's relationship was a different story. Rather than taking Ryan under her wing as Janeway did Seven, Mulgrew alienated her.  

"The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams: The Complete, Uncensored, and Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek" (by Edward Goss and Mark Altman) contains interviews with numerous "Voyager" cast and crew who shed light on the situation. In a nutshell, Mulgrew's treatment of Ryan was motivated by her frustrations that her character — a strong, empowered woman — was being upstaged by a role designed for maximum sex appeal. 

Speaking to Goss and Altman, Berman described the situation between the two actresses as such: 

"Kate was sort of the Queen of 'Star Trek'... She hung out with astronauts, she hung out with Hillary Clinton, and she was the spokesman for women in leadership roles, and for a lot of things. All of a sudden, this busty, gorgeous, blond babe appears who took away everybody's breath. I literally once remember some press being on the stage and just sort of pushing by Kate to get to Jeri."

In a separate interview for "The Fifty-Year Mission," Garret Wang (Harry Kim) added:

"Kate's anger was not directed toward Jeri Ryan, it was directed toward the character of Seven of Nine. She was the female captain, and now you bring in this borderline T-and-A character. When the writers/producers said no [to getting rid of Seven]... her anger was turned toward the actress playing the character, Jeri Ryan."

Mulgrew's attitude toward Ryan was steeped in her own frustrations, rather than being based on anything Ryan had done. Since the show concluded, Mulgrew has since cleared the air. In her own interview with Goss and Altman for "The Fifty-Year Mission," Mulgrew gave a more direct mea culpa:

"Let's be very straight about something. This is on me, not Jeri. She came in and did what she was asked to do. No question about that, and she did it very well. It's on me because I'd hoped against hope that Janeway would be sufficient. That we didn't have to bring a beautiful, sexy girl in. That somehow the power of my command, the vicissitudes of my talent would be sufficient unto the day, because this would really change television, right? That's what dug me the hardest, that to pick up the numbers they did that... that hurt me."

Seven overshadows the supporting cast

Mulgrew wasn't the only one who felt usurped by Ryan's role on the show. Speaking to StarTrek.com , Robert Beltran (Commander Chakotay) said:

"When the Seven of Nine character made her entrance, the focus changed... That was fine with me, but I think writers have an obligation to fill out all the characters if they're regular characters on a series. I think several of the characters were diminished — Chakotay and Tuvok and Kim and Neelix."

Beltran isn't wrong, but the mishandling of those characters predates Seven's introduction. Characterization was never the show's strong suit on "Voyager." Mulgrew at least had strong acting chops to compensate for the inconsistent writing of Janeway, but many of her co-stars couldn't compare, leaving their characters to fall into broad archetypes.

By the time Ryan came onto the show, "Voyager" had totally failed to use the most exciting part of its premise — the Starfleet and Maquis schism. When interviewed for "The Fifty-Year Mission," writer Ron Moore (of "TNG," "Deep Space Nine", and briefly "Voyager") opined, "When the Maquis put on those Starfleet uniforms at the end of the pilot, the show was dead." Season 3 episode "Worst Case Scenario" (a pre-Seven episode, I might add) features a holodeck simulation of a Maquis mutiny on USS Voyager. The episode reeks of the writing staff trying to have it both ways: introduce exciting new character conflict  and preserve the status quo. Yet, the mutinous holographic Chakotay comes alive more than his real self ever does. With Chakotay reduced to a yes man, Seven wound up a better foil to Janeway than he ever was.

Not coincidentally, the one character who adapted best to the presence of Seven on "Voyager" who had been working well before her introduction: the Doctor (Robert Picardo).

My Fair Seven

"Star Trek" has a long tradition of characters learning what it meant to be human: Spock, Data, and Odo. At first, it seemed the Doctor would fill this role on "Voyager." An Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH) modeled on Dr. Lewis Zimmerman (also played by Picardo), the Doctor has to become Voyager's full-time medical officer after his human counterpart is killed in the pilot. His character avoided being a rehash of Data (an artificial intelligence seeking to become more) thanks to his cranky bedside manner (which had more in common with Doctor McCoy) and Picardo's charming performance. 

However, once Seven was introduced and Kes was written out, Picardo became concerned. As he explained to StarTrek.com , 

"Kes had really been The Doctor's mentor. Officially, he's mentoring her as a medical assistant, but she has been mentoring him and developing his humanity. My concern was that she's been his emotional sounding board, his confessor. The moment she's gone, The Doctor is just going to go back to being a buffoon and a windbag."

When Picardo brought his concerns to Brannon Braga, the writer suggested the actor find a way for the Doctor and Seven to connect. Picardo elaborated,

"I ... suggested that we take the relationship that the Doctor had with Kes and we turn it around. So the Doctor thinks that the best person to teach Seven of Nine how to become human again is him ... Eventually, that culminated in 'Someone to Watch Over Me,' akin to Professor Higgins falling in love with his pupil in 'My Fair Lady.' That suggestion afforded me four seasons of great scenes with Jeri Ryan."

Instead of usurping the Doctor's role as she had some of the other cast, Seven brought his character full circle. Therein lies the benefit of having three-dimensional characters: it's easier to make their relationships with each other compelling.

Settling old wounds

Since "Voyager" concluded, it seems that Mulgrew has come to regret how she treated Ryan and has gained a new appreciation for what Seven brought to the show. At a Las Vegas "Star Trek" convention in 2018, Mulgrew praised Seven's character and Braga's writing of her relationship with Janeway, "Seven of Nine is what [brought] Janeway to life, as a deeply human woman, I believe. And I am deeply grateful for that."

While it's hard to excuse Mulgrew's behavior, one can empathize with the root of her frustrations. Despite the bullying she endured from Mulgrew, Ryan doesn't seem to regret her time on "Voyager" and is proud of Seven. In an interview with the Huffington Post,  she said:

"I don't have a problem with Seven's overtly sexual physical appearance, if only because of the way she was written and developed. If it was a crappy character, then OK. But she was so nuanced and beautifully written."

Indeed,  Ryan returned as Seven in "Star Trek" Picard." One only hopes her transition back into the role was easier than when she first jumped into it.

Jeri Ryan, Voyager’s Seven Of Nine & Star Trek Future Explained

• Seven of Nine, portrayed by Jeri Ryan, became one of Star Trek's most beloved characters due to her compelling portrayal and character development.
• Despite being added to appeal to male viewers, Seven became a fully realized character who was not defined by her appearance or outfits.
• In Star Trek: Picard, Seven's character continues to evolve, ultimately becoming a Starfleet Commander and potentially the lead in a spinoff series.

Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Picard 's Seven of Nine has become one of Star Trek's most beloved and enduring characters, largely due to Jeri Ryan's compelling portrayal. Introduced in Voyager season 4, Seven of Nine was part of the Borg Collective before Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and the Voyager crew severed her connection to the other drones. At first, Seven found her transition back to humanity difficult, but with the help of Janeway and her crew, Seven eventually made her home on Voyager. Since Seven had lost her entire childhood to the Borg Collective, Captain Janeway served as a mentor for her, helping her relearn how to be human.

With her skin-tight unitards and obvious attractiveness, part of the reason Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine was added to the Voyager cast was to appeal to male viewers. Despite this, Seven became a fully realized three-dimensional character who was not defined by her appearance or the outfits she wore. She proved to be an inspired addition to the cast after the departure of Jennifer Lien's Kes, and she appeared in one hundred episodes across four seasons of Voyager . Seven of Nine made her triumphant return to the Star Trek franchise in Star Trek: Picard season 1, where she provided help to Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart).

Jeri Ryan & Seven Of Nine’s History On Star Trek: Voyager

Seven of Nine was born with the name Annika Hansen on a Federation colony known as Tendara. Her parents were exobiologists who followed the Borg into the Delta Quadrant to study them. Although Seven's father had developed a shield to hide their ship from the Borg, an ion storm caused it to malfunction and the Borg found them. The Borg then assimilated Annika and her parents when Seven was only six years old. Designated Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One, she lived the next twenty-four years as a Borg drone before being liberated by Captain Janeway and the crew of the USS Voyager.

Seven struggled to adapt to her new life away from the Borg, but she soon became an essential member of the Voyager crew. With her knowledge of Borg technology, Seven developed the astrometrics lab and helped Voyager shave years off of its journey back to the Alpha Quadrant. Star Trek: Voyager showrunner Brannon Braga had the idea to add a Borg to Voyage r's crew, and other members of the behind-the-scenes team loved the idea, including Executive Producer Rick Berman. They eventually decided they wanted a female Borg crew member, and Jeri Ryan became one of three actresses being seriously considered for the role. Ryan, of course, secured the role, and the rest is history.

What Jeri Ryan Has Done Outside Of Star Trek

Although Jeri Ryan is best known for portraying Seven of Nine, she has had a prolific career outside of Star Trek . Jeri Ryan began her entertainment career on the runway, finishing as third runner-up in the Miss America Pageant in 1990. She made her acting debut on an episode of Who's the Boss in 1991 and appeared in several episodes of television throughout the 1990s before landing the role of Seven of Nine in 1997. She continued to appear in other television shows and films while on Voyager , including portraying Valerie Sharpe in Wes Craven's Dracula 2000 . After Star Trek: Voyager ended in 2001, Ryan became a regular on David E. Kelley's Boston Public as Veronica "Ronnie" Cooke, a role written specifically for her.

Jeri Ryan appeared in seven episodes of The O.C. as Charlotte Morgan and in two episodes of Boston Legal , alongside Star Trek icon William Shatner. Ryan costarred on the legal drama Shark as District Attorney Jessica Devlin and appeared in three episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and eight episodes of Leverage . Ryan also costarred in Body of Proof and appeared in five episodes of Helix and twelve episodes of Bosch , before returning to the role of Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Picard in 2020. She currently has a recurring role on AMC drama Dark Winds as Rosemary Vines.

Seven of Nine In Picard & Jeri Ryan’s Star Trek Future

When Seven of Nine swoops in to help Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in Star Trek: Picard season 1, she is part of the peacekeeping group known as the Fenris Rangers. Although she initially wanted to join Starfleet after Voyager's return from the Delta Quadrant, her application was rejected, despite the protests of Admiral Janeway. In Picard season 1, Seven aids former Borg Drones on the now derelict Borg Cube known as the Artifact. When Seven reconnects with Picard in season 2, she travels with him and his team back to the 21st century to restore the future that Q (John de Lancie) had altered. At the end of Star Trek: Picard season 2 , Jean-Luc grants Seven a Starfleet field commission, allowing her to become Acting Captain of the USS Stargazer.

Related: Jeri Ryan On Star Trek Picard Season 3 & Seven of Nine's Future

In Star Trek: Picard season 3, Seven has risen to the rank of Starfleet Commander and serves as the First Officer on the USS Titan-A under the command of Captain Liam Shaw (Todd Stashwick). Seven helps Admiral Picard and Captain William Riker (Johnathan Frakes) commandeer the Titan to rescue Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) and her son Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers). Despite disobeying orders, Seven eventually earns the respect of Captain Shaw, and he recommends she be promoted to Captain.

Seven of Nine becomes Captain of the newly rechristened USS Enterprise-G at the end of Star Trek: Picard season 3 , setting her up as the lead for the potential spinoff, Star Trek: Legacy . As her Number One, Seven selects Commander Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd), and the two may continue the romantic relationship they shared in Picard season 2. Although Star Trek: Legacy has yet to be greenlit (likely in part because of the ongoing SAG-AFTRA/WGA strikes), fans have shown a clear interest in the show. Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine has been an incredibly compelling character since her introduction in Star Trek: Voyager , and many would love to see her adventures continue as Captain of the Enterprise.

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Published Feb 7, 2023

Star Trek 101: Seven of Nine

Rediscover the ex-Borg before her return for the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard!

StarTrek.com

Seven of Nine returns for the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard , premiering on February 16.

Portrayed by Jeri Ryan , the series regular joins LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, and Michelle Hurd star alongside Patrick Stewart in the highly anticipated Star Trek original series. Ahead of the series' return, we'll be revisiting the iconic role Ryan portrayed over the years.

Who is Seven of Nine?

"I am no longer Borg, but the prospect of becoming human is... unsettling. I don't know where I belong." — Seven of Nine, Star Trek: Voyager , " Hope and Fear "

Seven of Nine first appeared in the fourth season premiere of Star Trek: Voyager , " Scorpion, Part II ."

The daughter of human Federation exobiologists Magnus and Erin Hansen, the ex-Borg drone was born Annika Hansen on the Tendara Colony. At a very young age, she was captured and assimilated by the cybernetic species known as the Borg, who renamed her Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One.

Seven was liberated by the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager in 2374. She joined the crew and returned to the Alpha Quadrant with the starship in 2378. After her time on Voyager , she joined the Fenris Rangers, helping instill justice in lawless and dangerous regions of the galaxy.

Seven was assigned as the Borg liaison to Voyager when the Collective formed a temporary alliance with Janeway to defeat their mutual enemy, Species 8472. But you can't just trust a Borg; after they got rid of Species 8472, Seven tried to hand Voyager over to the Collective. Janeway responded by destroying Seven's link to the Borg and removing most of her high-tech hardware.

Seven initially resisted Janeway's attempts to restore her humanity, but eventually she came to accept her new life.

Key Episodes

" Scorpion " - The Borg drone designated as Seven of Nine

" Drone " - Seven of Nine's nanoprobes fuse with The Doctor's mobile emitter.

" Dark Frontier " - The Borg Queen attempts to lure Seven of Nine back to the hive.

This article was originally published on February 14, 2017.

Star Trek 101, co-authored by Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann, serves two functions — succinctly introduce Star Trek newcomers to the basic foundations and elements of the franchise and refresh the memories of longtime Trek fans.

Star Trek: Picard streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and is distributed concurrently by Paramount Global Content Distribution on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries and territories, and in Canada, it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.

Stay tuned to StarTrek.com for more details! And be sure to follow @StarTrek on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram .

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How Seven of Nine Was Rescued From the Borg on Star Trek: Voyager

Seven of Nine is now a prestigious Starfleet captain, but how did she get rescued from the Borg in the first place during Star Trek: Voyager?

The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Picard Season 3, now streaming on Paramount+.

When Captain Seven of Nine stood on the bridge of the USS Enterprise-G as its captain, it felt like the natural culmination of the character's journey. After all, ex-Borg make for great Enterprise captains. While fans are aware of how Jean-Luc Picard was freed from the collective, how did Seven of Nine get rescued from the Borg in Star Trek: Voyager ?

For actor Jeri Ryan, this journey is hopefully satisfying. Even though Seven of Nine is Gene Roddenberry's dream personified , playing her was never easy. To the press or critical fans, Seven of Nine was just a gimmick to boost sliding ratings. Still, fans of Voyager were immediately smitten with the character, and it had nothing to do about the tight uniform the producers forced her to wear. She was partly an emotionless heir to Spock, but with the added dramatic arc of searching to reclaim a humanity she never knew. Once she showed up in Star Trek: Picard , Seven was still an outlier. Rejected from Starfleet, she still sought out a life of helping others, specifically looking out for her fellow ex-Borg.

RELATED: Picard Season 3 Reunites Star Trek Discovery's Fractured Fandom

How Seven of Nine Was Separated from the Borg Collective

One of the reasons Janeway is Starfleet's most important Captain is she often had to make unilateral decisions with no help from superiors or mentors. Rescuing Seven of Nine was one of those. While fighting an equally terrifying enemy, Janeway was able to convince the Borg to enter into an alliance. Thus, Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01 was assigned to be Janeway's "interface" with the Collective. After Seven's Borg cube was destroyed, to protect the Voyager, she took residence with other Borg in the cargo bay. After an attempt to take over the ship was thwarted, Janeway and her crew figured out how to "unplug" Seven from the Collective. Instead of killing her or imprisoning her, Janeway recognized she was a survivor, and made her a part of the crew.

The removal of her Borg implants happened against her will, however. There was a considerable number of times Seven expressed a desire to rejoin the collective. She even stole a shuttle once trying to find the Borg, only returning because she couldn't find them. Yet, her humanity shined through. She used her super-fancy Borg skills to resuscitate Neelix, the ship's cook, after he died. She also befriended Naomi Wildman (a child born on the ship) and had an ill-advised romance with Commander Chakotay. Perhaps most importantly, she rescued a group of assimilated children, adopting them as her own.

Janeway's decision and the Voyager's Emergency Medical Hologram are what separated Seven from the Borg. Yet, it was everyone on Voyager and the experiences she had that helped her shed her Borg identity. Still, as she reclaimed her humanity, she didn't forget the part of her shaped by the Borg. It's why Seven of Nine's name-change in Picard was so meaningful. Annika Hansen was who she was, while Seven of Nine is the person she chose to be.

RELATED: The Last Scene of Star Trek: Picard Pays Off The Next Generation Finale

Seven of Nine Suffered Even More In Star Trek: Picard Than Voyager

The journey Jean-Luc Picard took from The Next Generation's "The Best of Both Worlds" through Picard Season 3 is connected to the Borg. About a year before the premiere of Voyager , in Star Trek: First Contact , Picard says killing assimilated crew members is a mercy. Seven of Nine proved just how wrong he was about that. His de-assimilation wasn't some kind of fluke. Still, Seven of Nine spent most of her life as a Borg, and that's how people saw her. Icheb -- one of her adopted ex-Borg children -- was a Starfleet officer in Picard Season 1, but he didn't spend nearly as long as a drone. Being a Fenris Ranger allowed her to still do the heroic stuff she finds fun, but also allowed her to indulge in rage and violence.

While real-world budgets and scheduling kept others from the Voyager crew from seeing her, it helped underscore the loneliness she felt. One of the most subtly powerful moments of Picard was when Seven asked the Changeling wearing his face if he'd killed Tuvok. Not being around her Voyager family made Seven feel isolated and alone, which is a terrible feeling for an ex-Borg. This is why it was fitting that the first time we saw her with one of them, Tuvok promoted her to captain. She has found the family she sought for so long. Starfleet -- represented by Captain Shaw's lingering Wolf 359 anger -- can't see past the implants to the person underneath. At least, not until now.

The crew of the Voyager rescued Seven of Nine from the Borg out of necessity. If they hadn't, she would've assimilated them all. What happened after that is what was so inspired; the producers' need for a new character gave the franchise its best redemption arc. While it would've been nice for fans to see her Voyager family help her along the way, this was something Seven needed to do alone. As the Captain of the Enterprise, Seven will never be alone again.

The complete Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Picard series are streaming on Paramount+ .

Jeri Ryan's 25-Year 'Star Trek' Legacy: Seven of Nine's Best Moments on 'Voyager' & 'Picard' (Flashback)

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Jeri Ryan kicked off a new chapter of Star Trek: Voyager when Seven of Nine, an ex-Borg drone on the long road back to her humanity, was transported onto the wayward Intrepid class ship 25 years ago.

To celebrate this milestone and the indelible mark the character left on Gene Roddenberry’s universe, ET is looking back at Ryan’s groundbreaking introduction and Seven’s journey to becoming one of the franchise’s most important stories. 

In VOY ’s season three finale ("Scorpion" Part I"), a game-changing cliffhanger teased a brand new era for Captain Janeway ( Kate Mulgrew ) and crew. As part of a peace agreement, the Borg offered a liaison to Voyager as the ship continued traversing the Delta quadrant. While expanding a core  Star Trek ensemble had been done before -- Worf (Michael Dorn) hopped off the Enterprise to join the cast of Deep Space Nine just a couple years earlier -- introducing an original character mid-run was a brand new move.

“I think after our first three years, the feeling was we wanted to add a bit of pizzazz to the show,” Star Trek executive producer Rick Berman explained to ET in 1997. “We all agreed that we needed something to bring something fresh to the fourth season.”

As Berman told it, VOY was lacking one of Star Trek ’s most successful archetypes. The Next Generation had Data (Brent Spiner), an android embedded with the pursuit of what it means to be mortal. The original series had Mr. Spock ( Leonard Nimoy ), whose inherent half-Vulcan, half-human dichotomy highlighted both the grace, as well as the faults, of the former and latter. 

In search of what next iteration of this tradition could be, VOY producers flipped the script. “When we looked at what was possible, we realized the Borg were a group who had never failed to excite both the fans and the non-fans alike,” Berman said.

In June 1997, Ryan’s casting as Seven of Nine was officially announced.

“I don't think there's anybody in my generation who is not at least familiar with Star Trek and Gene Roddenberry and his vision,” Ryan told ET that summer. While Star Trek auditions are legendary for being quite the ordeal, she said her consideration was “not that arduous of a process,” which involved just a few readings for producers and the network (UPN, which later combined with The WB to become The CW) before landing the role. 

For Ryan, a lot of the TV landscape at the time was “dark” and “really pessimistic,” which made her excited to expand the franchise’s sincere, optimistic view of the future. “It should open up some interesting possibilities with the storylines, because [Seven] was raised, basically, as a machine… It should be really interesting,” Ryan said. 

IT GETS INTERESTING

Shortly after filming began on the season 4 premiere, “Scorpion Part II,” Ryan ended up in the hospital. 

While Seven’s mainstay wardrobe throughout the series had its own brand of infamy, Ryan’s full-body Borg costume and makeup prosthetics for her character’s introduction proved to be the most dangerous.

“The costume is very snug. And it's rubber and it's very thick,” Ryan explained to ET weeks later. As she recalled, the Borg costume was especially constrictive around the neck and the on-set emergency stemmed from moving her head in one direction just a little too long. “It apparently cut off my carotid artery and brought on a blackout,” she said.

There were other issues with Seven’s costume in that first week, but, thankfully, they were simply the result of Ryan having fun with her new castmates.

”It's their fourth year together, so it could have been very awkward,” Ryan said. “[But] they couldn't be any nicer. Any more welcoming. And every single one of them is a comedian, so it's a lot of fun. A lot of laughing. They kept making my eye piece pop off when I was in the Borg costume, because I kept laughing.” 

As for Seven’s captain, her integration was a welcome change of pace on-screen and behind the scenes. 

“It's impossible not to be nice to her. She's a kick. She's my kind of gal, frankly,” Mulgrew told ET in 1997. “I think the idea behind it was that Janeway would finally have somebody, as Picard had Data, to relate to in terms of developing relationship. And Seven of Nine is half-Borg, half-human. It's wonderful. It's filled with conflict and tension to begin with."

Mulgrew also revealed her words of wisdom to Ryan upon joining the ensemble. “I think what I said to her originally was, first of all, laughter is the only balm. It's the only way to get through this,” she recalled. “And I said take a deep breath, because this will end soon. And then you can relax and fly with it.” 

THE DELTA CHRONICLES

When it came to Seven fostering a relationship with Janeway, as well as her attempts to be more human, VOY opted for a slow and steady approach. As Ryan’s finished out her first season, she said the character is picking up where her six-year-old, pre-Borg self left off. 

“This is Seven experiencing a lot of growing pains, because emotionally she's a child,” Ryan told to ET in 1998. “This is her sort of hitting her preteen years and not really knowing where she belongs. She's not really a Borg. She's not really a human. How does she feel about potentially going back to Earth? And she lashes out at the authority figure -- Janeway. “

She added, “It has been a wild ride. That's for sure. It's been a lot of fun. I've enjoyed myself, but it has been crazy.”

The next few years wouldn’t get any less intense for Ryan or her on-screen counterpart. In the seasons that followed, Seven found herself wrestling with one existential crisis after another. Whether it was fending off the Borg Queen’s temptations to rejoin the collective or preparing to go on her first date, she always came out the other end a little less broken or, at least, a little less Borg.

There was also that time she wrestled The Rock . 

“[I’ve] beaten Stone Cold Steve Austin on numerous occasions. The Undertaker. Mankind. The list goes on and on and on,” Dwayne Johnson told ET on the set of "Tsunkatse" in 1999. “But [Ryan,] she's probably one of the toughest, if not, dare I say, the toughest The Rock has ever faced.”

Alongside the character’s many breakthroughs, Ryan noted that what made Seven’s journey unique was her passive attitude toward recapturing her humanity.

“I don't think it's so much that Seven really, really wants to be human. It's the fact that she is and she doesn't really have a choice now that she's not a Borg anymore,” she told ET in 1999. “She realizes that the Borg wasn't such a great thing in hindsight. She's just sort of taking what she sees as an inevitable course.”

THAT’S A WRAP

In 2001, the Voyager crew was set to finally return to the Alpha Quadrant. And like TNG and DS9 before them, VOY prepared to say goodbye to fans after seven seasons on the air.

“We've had a couple days that were a little bittersweet,” Ryan told ET on the set of “Endgame,” VOY ’s series finale. “I've been with these people for four years and they've been together for seven. And you really do become like a family, because you see them more than your family.”

Ryan added with a laugh, “I won't miss the corset.”

At VOY ’s wrap party, Ryan reflected on the end of her four-year journey, which also corresponded with the beginning of the end for Star Trek ’s television renaissance at the time.  

“This has been a wonderful, wonderful ride and I will miss these people so much, because I've made such dear friends,” Ryan said. “But I think it's time to move on. “

HELLO, CHATEAU

Nearly 20 years after VOY ended, Ryan was called back into service. Following the debut of Star Trek: Discovery in 2017, Sir Patrick Stewart returned to help shepherd another pivotal moment for the franchise. To everyone’s complete surprise, the first trailer for Star Trek: Picard in 2019 revealed Seven of Nine was part of the new series. But as Ryan tells it, no one was more shocked than her to see the character on TV again.

"I did four years on Voyager and I really thought that was it," Ryan explained to ET  in March . "And when I said goodbye to the character, then I really thought that was it. I was saying goodbye to that character."

Bringing the two characters together made sense to fans on many levels, but no more so than their shared history as victims of the Borg. As one moment in season 1 of STP conveyed (“Stardust City Rag”), both characters live with PTSD from their experiences.

Seven: After they brought you back from your time in the Collective, do you honestly feel that you've regained your humanity?

Picard: Yes.

Seven: All of it?

Picard: No. But we're both working on it, aren't we?

Seven: Every damn day of my life.

"[Stewart]'s a legend, obviously, and these two characters, it was exciting to get these two characters, especially, together in this world," she shared. 

On STP , Ryan’s been able to perform several full-circle moments for the ex-Borg-formerly-known-as-Annika, as well as portraying some of her most evolutionary and unbeknownst insights. Some of these are tragic, such as the death of her ex-Borg protege, Ichab, while others are well-deserved new horizons. Even amid the chaotic events of season 2, which saw Q (John de Lancie) throwing nearly every trademark Star Trek crisis at the La Sirena crew, Seven cultivated her romance with Raffi (Michelle Hurd) and re-upped her commitment to Picard’s latest band of interstellar explorers. 

"It's crazy. That's a really rare gift as an actor," Ryan said. "It was a rare gift to begin with to have a character that was so beautifully written and had so much growth, since she didn't even start out human. But then to be able to revisit her this many years later and continue her journey, It's been pretty astonishing."

Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Picard both stream on Paramount+. 

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Star Trek: What Was Seven Of Nine Doing Between Voyager & Picard?

What happened to the fan favorite ex-Borg, and why did she take such a different route?

Since the Star Trek first hit the small screen in the 1960s, there have been a multitude of TV shows and movies set in the popular sci-fi universe. With each addition comes new characters, fantastic mind-bending technology , and exciting new alien races and cultures. While each made their own mark on the franchise, they were never afraid to call back to what came before, honoring events and characters as they are either referenced or re-appear .

The recent series Picard is no exception to this trend, for example with its inclusion of the beloved character Seven of Nine. The ex-Borg first appeared in Voyager, and now returns to win fans over again. A lot of time has passed between the events of The Next Generation and Voyager, however, time taking its toll on the characters. So what exactly has fan favorite ex-borg Seven been doing all this time?

RELATED: How Star Trek: Voyager’s Seven of Nine Explores The Narrative Of Learned Humanity

The Seven whom audiences see during the third season of Picard is likely the one that many expected when she reappeared in the show's first season, wearing the Starfleet uniform in a prestigious position in in the Federation's quasi-military . She returns as a fully fledged Starfleet officer, second-in-command on the new USS Titan, the newest iteration of the heavily armed ship once captained by William Riker. Up until that point, however, her career had been somewhat turbulent. In the first season Picard , she was acting as a free agent for the good of the galaxy in a rather Lara Croft/Indiana Jones-style protector of the peace.

This came to a surprise to some longtime Star Trek fans At the end of the mixed reviewed Voyager series , things seemed fairly set in stone as to what she would do next. She planned to enlist in Starfleet with the full endorsement of the morally ambiguous Captain Janeway (later Admiral Janeway), this being something she said she wanted. Instead, however, she joined organization called the Fenris Rangers, a group of chaotic good freedom fighters who were desperately trying to keep the good people of the galaxy safe. This suited her character a lot, a lone wolf of sorts who struggled with social interactions and following rules and regulations. However, it did seem odd that her career desires would have changed so much.

The reason for this was revealed in the second season of Picard , specifically the episode “Hide and Seek.” Seven confides in Raffi the reason, something that seems to go against the false facade of tolerance and acceptance Starfleet maintains. There is a running theme of this throughout the shows: the idea that Starfleet is a lot more scared of the unknown than they first appear to be, pushing the notion of the Federation's conditional love . This can be seen in multiple episodes, through the fear of ex-borg specifically, but also of those perceived as enemy races. The Romulans have been blanketed in distrust for as long as Star Trek has been running, the classic “Balance of Terror” episode from TOS being a prime example, and even in the era of Picard where a turbulent peace had been found, the distrust and prejudice runs deep.

Seven reveals that she did try to enlist shortly after Voyager returned to the Alpha quadrant, but her application was rejected because she had spent considerable time assimilated into the Borg collective . It's not clear how open they were about the reasoning, but it turns out that their rejection of her application was due to their overall impression of ex-Borg. It seems they were still ignorant of the whole process and scared of her purposely or accidentally compromising Starfleet. It’s worth noting that this is just what Seven says, and while there is no reason to not trust her telling of events, Starfleet has employed another ex-Borg with no shown problem: Icheb, the Brunali former Borg drone whom Janeway freed alongside Seven on their long journey home.

Regardless, however, Seven's rejection was firm. Although Janeway threatened to resign over Starfleet's decision, Seven instead chose to stand down and join the rangers, feeling defeated by the prejudice and constant judgment for being who she is. She stayed with them, kicking ass across the galaxy, until the events of Picard. At that time, in light of her instrumental involvement with forging a truce between the Federation and the new Borg, she was given a field commission by Jean-Luc.

The rest of her career has been shown in snippets in the first episode of season 3. Already there seems to be trouble brewing between her and her current captain, much of this rooted in his apparent disdain towards the borg and ex-borg victims. He insists she go by her human name Annika Hansen, something she is shown to visibly uncomfortable with, still considering herself as a free Borg rather than human, but puts up with it. No matter where the season goes, it’ll be exciting to see what happens to the impressive ex-Borg.

MORE: Star Trek: What Are The Limitations Of Replicator Technology?

Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001)

Jeri ryan: seven of nine, three of eight, two of three.

• Photos (192)
• Quotes (20)

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Quotes 

Seven of Nine : Fun will now commence.

B'Elanna Torres : How the hell do you know when we're having intimate relations?

Seven of Nine : There is no one on deck 9 section 12 who does not know when you're having intimate relations.

Seven of Nine : You will be assimilated.

Neelix : No time for that now. Maybe later.

Seven of Nine : You would deny us the choice as you deny us now. You have imprisoned us in the name of humanity yet you will not grant us your most cherished human right - to choose our own fate. You are hypocritical, manipulative. We do not want to be what you are. Return us to the Collective!

Captain Janeway : You lost the capacity to make a rational choice the moment you were assimilated. They took that from you. And until I am convinced you've gotten it back, I'm making the choice for you. You're staying here.

Seven of Nine : Then you are no different from the Borg.

The Doctor : Seven. Please state the nature of the medical emergency.

Seven of Nine : I have a date.

Borg Queen : They've left behind their trivial selfish lives and been reborn with a greater purpose. We've delivered them from chaos into order.

Seven of Nine : Comforting words. Use them next time instead of "resistance is futile". You may elicit a few volunteers.

The Doctor : You're a woman, Seven.

Seven of Nine : Is that an observation or a diagnosis?

Seven of Nine : Two hours, thirty seven minutes, thirteen seconds.

Tuvok : [puzzled look] 

Seven of Nine : That's how long we've gone without verbal communication.

Tuvok : Why is that remarkable?

Seven of Nine : The doctor encourages me to engage in conversation during awkward silences.

Tuvok : Did you find the silence awkward?

Seven of Nine : No.

Tuvok : Nor did I.

The Doctor : Small talk is a vital dating skill. It helps to establish a rapport with your companion.

Seven of Nine : Perhaps there's something to be said for assimilation after all.

Seven of Nine : "Impossible" is a word that humans use far too often.

[a dying Borg drone speaks to Seven, who is visibly distressed] 

Seven of Nine : You are hurting me.

One : You will adapt.

Seven of Nine : Your appeal to my humanity is pointless.

The Doctor : Seven of Nine, how's my favorite Borg today?

Seven of Nine : Annoyed.

Seven of Nine : You are individuals. You are small and you think in small terms.

Seven of Nine : Take me back to my own kind!

Captain Janeway : You ARE with your own kind - humans.

Seven of Nine : I don't remember being human. I don't know what it is to be human!

Seven of Nine : [examining the clothing the Doctor chose for her]  I am unfamilliar with how to wear such a garment.

[goes to un-do her zipper] 

Seven of Nine : Assist me.

The Doctor : [backing away slowly]  I think you'll manage...

Seven of Nine : I understand the concept of humor. It may not be apparent but I am often amused by human behavior.

Icheb : [looking at his tricorder readings after B'lanna becomes disoriented]  I'm detecting another lifesign.

Seven of Nine : [looking around engineering]  Where?

Icheb : Inside Lieutenant Torres, it might be a parasite.

Seven of Nine : [tapping her comm badge to contact the doctor]  Seven of Nine to the doctor, I will be accompanying Lieutenant Torres to sickbay.

The Doctor : What's wrong?

Seven of Nine : I believe she's pregnant.

Seven of Nine : [to Janeway]  Your attempts to assimilate this drone will fail. You can alter our physiology but you cannot change our nature. We will betray you. We are Borg.

Seven of Nine : [Janeway and Seven are behind a forcefield on the bridge of the Dauntless, an alien ship disguised as a Starfleet vessel with Arturis, their deceiver at the helm]  Where are you taking us?

Arturis : [without turning around]  Home.

Captain Janeway : How'd you create the Starfleet Bridge? Holograms?

Arturis : Particle synthesis. Beyond your understanding.

Captain Janeway : Is this what your people do? Prey on innocent ships?

Arturis : Innocent? Typical of Captain Janeway... self-righteous.

Captain Janeway : [that gives Janeway pause for thought]  If I've offended you or your people in some way... please tell me.

Arturis : [wheeling around]  Diplomacy, Captain? Your diplomacy destroyed my world!

Captain Janeway : [aghast]  What? What are you saying?

Arturis : [slowly approaches them both]  You negotiated an agreement with the Borg Collective - safe passage through they're space... and in return, you helped them defeat one of they're enemies.

Seven of Nine : Species 8472.

Arturis : In your colourful language, yes... Species 8472.

[back to Janeway] 

Arturis : Did it ever occur to you that there were those of us in the Delta Quadrant with a vested interest in that war?

[months of suppressed anger now comes pouring out of him] 

Arturis : Victory would have meant annihilation of the Borg... but you couldn't see beyond the bow of your own ship!

Captain Janeway : In my estimation, Species 8472 posed a greater threat than the Borg.

Arturis : Who were you to make that decision? A stranger to this quadrant!

Captain Janeway : There wasn't exactly time to take a poll - I had to act quickly.

Arturis : My people managed to elude the Borg for centuries. Outwitting them... always one step ahead. But in recent years, the Borg began to weaken our defences... they were closing in... and Species 8472 was our last hope to defeat them. You took that away from us! The outer colonies were the first to fall. 23 in a matter of hours. Our sentry vessels tossed aside... no defence against the storm... and by the time they had surrounded our star system... hundreds of Cubes... we had already surrendered to our own terror. A few of us managed to survive. 10... 20,000. I was fortunate. I escaped with a vessel. Alone... but alive.

[pointing at Seven but still talking to Janeway] 

Arturis : I don't blame them. They were just drones... acting with they're collective instinct. You... you had a choice!

Captain Janeway : [more sympathetic now]  I'm sorry for what happened to your people but try to understand... I couldn't have known.

Arturis : It took me months to find you. I watched... and waited for my opportunity to make you pay for what you'd done. Then, the Starfleet message... and I knew that you're selfish desire to get home would surface again. That I could lure you to this vessel... that I could see to it that you'd all be assimilated and spend the rest of eternity as Borg. I was hoping to get your entire crew... but I'll settle for the two of you.

[he returns to the helm] 

Arturis : In a matter of hours, this ship will return to my homeworld... inside Borg space.

Seven of Nine : When that happens, you will be assimilated as well.

Arturis : That's irrelevant.

[to Seven] 

Arturis : This is what you wanted all along, isn't it... to go back to your Collective? You should thank me.

[focuses all his attention on piloting the Dauntless now, oblivious to a worried Janeway and a pensive Seven] 

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Season 7 – Star Trek: Voyager

Where to watch, star trek: voyager — season 7.

Watch Star Trek: Voyager — Season 7 with a subscription on Paramount+, or buy it on Vudu, Prime Video, Apple TV.

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Voyager 's final season dishes some tense quandaries for Captain Kathryn Janeway to mull over, but it also rides off into the stars with a lingering suspicion that the series never satisfactorily explored the ripe possibilities of its unique take on the Star Trek mythos.

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Kate Mulgrew

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Star Trek's Seven Of Nine Wasn't The Only One Who Almost Died In The Voyager Finale

The "Star Trek" universe is never a completely safe one. While characters don't die in enormous swathes, when they do, it's always done in an impactful way. For an example, look no further than the final episode of "Star Trek: Voyager," "Endgame."

During a flash-forward, Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) goes back in time to change her life and ameliorate some of the regret looming over her during a reunion with her fellow crewmembers. Her wish to change the past only results in more tumult for her friends; while trying to get a younger version of herself and her team out of the Delta Quadrant 16 years earlier than they did in the older Janeway's timeline, her younger self comes to realize that if she follows the admiral's plans to the letter, Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and several other crewmembers will perish. 

Interestingly, Seven of Nine wasn't the only character who was threatened with a permanent end in this episode. Per an interview with series co-creator Rick Berman conducted for the "Star Trek" franchise history tome "The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years," other characters might have died as well. "When ending the show, we considered everything. We considered having Janeway die, we considered having Seven of Nine give up her life, we considered so many things," he admitted. 

The crew does indeed make it home safely by the end of "Endgame." And it turns out that a version of Janeway does die in the episode — but not the version that fans have become so familiar with.

Kathryn Janeway survived to live another day -- in the past

The prospect of permanent death looms large over "Endgame," yet ultimately, the only character who dies is the older version of Janeway. She chooses to use the transwarp technology to take down the Borg instead of using it as a method to bring the entire crew home early.

Janeway arrives at a Borg hive, pretending to offer up a technological trade in exchange for becoming a part of the cluster. The queen accepts this offer. However, allowing Kathryn to be assimilated into the collective results in their downfall. A virus the admiral carries in her bloodstream kills off the entire assemblage instead, and the admiral goes with it.

It's no surprise that she chooses to go out in a blaze of glory, but it's a controlled fate for a very in-control woman. Though Janeway's story has been continued within the "Star Trek" universe thanks to her appearance in "Star Trek: Prodigy," it's still an incredibly heartfelt way for the older version to meet her fate — and it's one that betters both the galaxy and the universe that she leaves behind.

'Star Trek: Picard' Season 3 Proves Seven of Nine Doesn't Belong in Starfleet

Maybe freelancing isn't that bad!

Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Episode 1. When Seven of Nine ( Jeri Ryan ) first appeared in Season 1 of Star Trek: Picard , it was a surprise to see that she wasn’t part of Starfleet, but instead belonged to a rogue group of vigilantes called the Fenris Rangers. One would have expected her to join the institution after spending years aboard the Starfleet ship, Voyager. She was still doing good in the universe, just sans a uniform.

We later learned that Seven had tried to get her commission when Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant but was denied by Starfleet because she was Borg. Well, in the premiere of Star Trek: Picard Season 3, things have changed… for the worse.

RELATED: 'Star Trek: Picard' Season 3: Jeri Ryan & Todd Stashwick Talk New Characters & Favorite Episodes

The Titan Is Not a Great Workplace

In the Season 2 finale of the show, Jean-Luc Picard ( Sir Patrick Stewart ) used his authority as a Starfleet admiral to grant Seven a commission. And Starfleet appears to have taken it seriously since, in "The Next Generation," Seven is the first officer aboard the Titan. Or rather, we should say, Annika Hansen, is the commander — since the ship’s captain Liam Shaw ( Todd Stashwick ) prefers she uses her human name.

This is, perhaps, all the information we need to figure out how Seven’s new life as a Starfleet officer is going—in simple terms, it’s going badly. Seven was assimilated by the Borg when she was just six years old . She has been Seven of Nine for most of her life, especially the parts that she remembers. When she was liberated by Voyager, Captain Kathryn Janeway ( Kate Mulgrew ) even asked Seven if she’d like to change her name, but she didn’t. The only time Seven used her human name was when she was in the virtual world Unimatrix Zero. Shaw making Seven change her name is a little like how some people ask folks with ethnic names to use a nickname because they “can’t pronounce it.”

And let’s be honest, Shaw’s reluctance to use Seven’s name definitely comes from a racist place, given the spiteful way he reminds Seven that her loyalties lie with the Titan and not with old friends and "ex-Borg" (referring to Picard’s brief tenure as Locutus of Borg ). What’s worse is, you can feel the tension among the ranks when Seven walks among them, and this is the trouble with having a bigot at the top. Those sensibilities invariably trickle down.

Seven is so clearly uncomfortable being at her new workplace because it is blatantly toxic. She’s tense, she’s cowed, she’s a shadow of herself. When Picard requests Seven take the Titan out of docking, she is so stunned, almost grateful, making it obvious her standing as commander of the ship isn’t taken seriously by Shaw. It’s tragic to see this character who has always been the personification of confidence (sometimes too much confidence) seem so insecure about her place in the world. Noticeably, once Seven is given control, she handles it well. But she also has the propensity to act impulsively, which doesn’t bode well for someone who’s supposed to be working within the rigid structures of Starfleet and Shaw’s command.

Voyager Wasn’t Ideal Starfleet Training

Seven’s first act in Star Trek: Picard Season 3 is insubordination, and it’s because the rigid structures of Starfleet don’t suit her. She cut her teeth on a Starfleet ship in the Delta Quadrant, so Seven’s field experience is vastly different from Starfleet standards in the Alpha Quadrant. Picard and William Riker ( Jonathan Frakes ) come aboard the Titan under the guise of running a routine inspection. It’s actually a ruse to get them closer to the location of an injured Dr. Beverly Crusher ( Gates McFadden ). Shaw denies their request, but Seven, of course, decides to go behind Shaw’s back and take her friends to their desired location, outside Federation space — because it’s the right thing to do to save a life.

Seven’s not one for blindly following orders. As she states to Picard, when she was a Fenris Ranger she could “trust [her] instincts, bring justice to an unjust universe.” This attitude of hers was cultivated aboard Voyager. Seven had far more freedom aboard Voyager because Captain Janeway gave her a lot of leeway, and this might explain why she chafes against Starfleet culture, especially the work environment aboard the Titan. Seven was often belligerent, impudent, and reckless on Voyager, but she also got results—she set up the Astrometrics lab, got Voyager through almost every scrape with the Borg, and added efficiencies to the ship that got them home earlier than the expected 70 years. That didn’t mean Seven didn’t also butt heads with her crewmates; even Captain Janeway was at the end of her tether at times. What Seven lacked in professionalism and social skills, she made up for by being efficient. She is Borg, after all. Captain Janeway ran a tight ship, but she was her own boss with no Starfleet supervision. Plus, the crew of Voyager was more like family since they were alone in the Delta Quadrant. They let matters slide which may have otherwise caused grievances on other ships.

Voyager was Seven’s collective, so she acted to protect them. But that also meant Seven made rash decisions, such as the time she beamed a member of Species 8472 off Voyager, ostensibly to its death, to stave off an attack by the Hirogen. Despite being reprimanded for her actions, she was too vital a member of the crew to be thrown in the brig, and Seven constantly proved herself invaluable, so the crew just worked with her eccentric personality, instead of against it. What other choice did they have? It’s not like Captain Janeway could have confined Seven to the cargo bay for 75 years every time she disobeyed commands. Four years aboard Voyager didn’t prepare Seven for the realities of working on a Starfleet vessel. And all the years with the Rangers only exacerbated it.

It’s interesting to note that Captain James Kirk ( William Shatner ) broke a lot of rules and is heralded as a hero. Picard, an avant-garde himself, is a living legend. But he played by the rules, though one could argue, by being captain of the Federation’s flagship, Picard could make his own rules. Seven doesn’t have that luxury, and she’s saddled with feeling like an outcast aboard the Titan. Seven was convinced to join Starfleet by Picard and Janeway, and she’s sticking around because she wishes to inspire others like Picard has. One of Seven’s great regrets after being liberated from the Borg was that her legacy would be lost, so it’s not surprising that she dreams of her name being emblazoned across the stars as Picard’s has. And in a way, Seven being part of Starfleet normalizes ex-Borgs being considered crew members and provides them much-needed representation.

Picard is certain Seven is in the right place—he means Starfleet, not necessarily the Titan. But he believed that of another friend betrayed by Starfleet, Cristóbal Rios ( Santiago Cabrera ), who decided to remain in hellish 2024 instead of returning as Captain of the Stargazer , so Picard may not be the best judge of people’s careers. Can Seven, someone who has always defined her own meaning of free will, conform to such a restrictive institution as Starfleet? For Seven’s sake, we hope there’s a happy ending for her career.

New episodes of Star Trek: Picard Season 3 premiere every Thursday on Paramount+.

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NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is talking nonsense. Its friends on Earth are worried

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This artist's impression shows one of the Voyager spacecraft moving through the darkness of space. NASA/JPL-Caltech hide caption

This artist's impression shows one of the Voyager spacecraft moving through the darkness of space.

The last time Stamatios "Tom" Krimigis saw the Voyager 1 space probe in person, it was the summer of 1977, just before it launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Now Voyager 1 is over 15 billion miles away, beyond what many consider to be the edge of the solar system. Yet the on-board instrument Krimigis is in charge of is still going strong.

"I am the most surprised person in the world," says Krimigis — after all, the spacecraft's original mission to Jupiter and Saturn was only supposed to last about four years.

These days, though, he's also feeling another emotion when he thinks of Voyager 1.

"Frankly, I'm very worried," he says.

Ever since mid-November, the Voyager 1 spacecraft has been sending messages back to Earth that don't make any sense. It's as if the aging spacecraft has suffered some kind of stroke that's interfering with its ability to speak.

"It basically stopped talking to us in a coherent manner," says Suzanne Dodd of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who has been the project manager for the Voyager interstellar mission since 2010. "It's a serious problem."

Instead of sending messages home in binary code, Voyager 1 is now just sending back alternating 1s and 0s. Dodd's team has tried the usual tricks to reset things — with no luck.

It looks like there's a problem with the onboard computer that takes data and packages it up to send back home. All of this computer technology is primitive compared to, say, the key fob that unlocks your car, says Dodd.

"The button you press to open the door of your car, that has more compute power than the Voyager spacecrafts do," she says. "It's remarkable that they keep flying, and that they've flown for 46-plus years."

Each of the Voyager probes carries an American flag and a copy of a golden record that can play greetings in many languages. NASA/JPL-Caltech hide caption

Each of the Voyager probes carries an American flag and a copy of a golden record that can play greetings in many languages.

Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, have outlasted many of those who designed and built them. So to try to fix Voyager 1's current woes, the dozen or so people on Dodd's team have had to pore over yellowed documents and old mimeographs.

"They're doing a lot of work to try and get into the heads of the original developers and figure out why they designed something the way they did and what we could possibly try that might give us some answers to what's going wrong with the spacecraft," says Dodd.

She says that they do have a list of possible fixes. As time goes on, they'll likely start sending commands to Voyager 1 that are more bold and risky.

"The things that we will do going forward are probably more challenging in the sense that you can't tell exactly if it's going to execute correctly — or if you're going to maybe do something you didn't want to do, inadvertently," says Dodd.

Linda Spilker , who serves as the Voyager mission's project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says that when she comes to work she sees "all of these circuit diagrams up on the wall with sticky notes attached. And these people are just having a great time trying to troubleshoot, you know, the 60's and 70's technology."

"I'm cautiously optimistic," she says. "There's a lot of creativity there."

Still, this is a painstaking process that could take weeks, or even months. Voyager 1 is so distant, it takes almost a whole day for a signal to travel out there, and then a whole day for its response to return.

"We'll keep trying," says Dodd, "and it won't be quick."

In the meantime, Voyager's 1 discombobulation is a bummer for researchers like Stella Ocker , an astronomer with Caltech and the Carnegie Observatories

"We haven't been getting science data since this anomaly started," says Ocker, "and what that means is that we don't know what the environment that the spacecraft is traveling through looks like."

After 35 Years, Voyager Nears Edge Of Solar System

That interstellar environment isn't just empty darkness, she says. It contains stuff like gas, dust, and cosmic rays. Only the twin Voyager probes are far out enough to sample this cosmic stew.

"The science that I'm really interested in doing is actually only possible with Voyager 1," says Ocker, because Voyager 2 — despite being generally healthy for its advanced age — can't take the particular measurements she needs for her research.

Even if NASA's experts and consultants somehow come up with a miraculous plan that can get Voyager 1 back to normal, its time is running out.

The two Voyager probes are powered by plutonium, but that power system will eventually run out of juice. Mission managers have turned off heaters and taken other measures to conserve power and extend the Voyager probes' lifespan.

"My motto for a long time was 50 years or bust," says Krimigis with a laugh, "but we're sort of approaching that."

In a couple of years, the ebbing power supply will force managers to start turning off science instruments, one by one. The very last instrument might keep going until around 2030 or so.

When the power runs out and the probes are lifeless, Krimigis says both of these legendary space probes will basically become "space junk."

"It pains me to say that," he says. While Krimigis has participated in space missions to every planet, he says the Voyager program has a special place in his heart.

Spilker points out that each spacecraft will keep moving outward, carrying its copy of a golden record that has recorded greetings in many languages, along with the sounds of Earth.

"The science mission will end. But a part of Voyager and a part of us will continue on in the space between the stars," says Spilker, noting that the golden records "may even outlast humanity as we know it."

Krimigis, though, doubts that any alien will ever stumble across a Voyager probe and have a listen.

"Space is empty," he says, "and the probability of Voyager ever running into a planet is probably slim to none."

It will take about 40,000 years for Voyager 1 to approach another star; it will come within 1.7 light years of what NASA calls "an obscure star in the constellation Ursa Minor" — also known as the Little Dipper.

If NASA greenlights this interstellar mission, it could last 100 years

Knowing that the Voyager probes are running out of time, scientists have been drawing up plans for a new mission that, if funded and launched by NASA, would send another probe even farther out into the space between stars.

"If it happens, it would launch in the 2030s," says Ocker, "and it would reach twice as far as Voyager 1 in just 50 years."

• space science
• space exploration

Screen Rant

Uhura’s abandoned star trek: voyager cameo explained by george takei.

Nichelle Nichols was meant to play Uhura in a season 3 episode of Star Trek: Voyager, but George Takei explained why Nichols declined the cameo.

• Nichelle Nichols refused to cameo as Uhura in Star Trek: Voyager due to role size concerns, despite urging from George Takei.
• Although disappointing, Nichols' refusal is justified given her status as a Star Trek icon.
• Despite missing Uhura, Voyager successfully incorporated classic TOS characters like Sulu and Janice Rand in the season 3 episode "Flashback."

Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) almost appeared in Star Trek: Voyager , but fellow Star Trek: The Original Series actor George Takei explained why Uhura's cameo was abandoned. Nichols' portrayal of Lt. Uhura on TOS was a landmark representation of Black women on television at a time when Black female characters had very few positive portrayals , especially in science fiction. Although Uhura has gone on to be depicted by other actors in the franchise, Nichols never returned to play her in other projects after her tenure in TOS and the TOS portion of Star Trek 's movie series .

One chance Nichols did have to portray Uhura later on was in Star Trek: Voyager 's season 3 episode "Flashback," a tribute to TOS for Star Trek 's 30th anniversary. "Flashback" featured Lt. Commander Tuvok (Tim Russ) and Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) experiencing Tuvok's time serving on the USS Excelsior under Captain Hikaru Sulu (George Takei) after Tuvok mind-melded with Janeway in an attempt to heal a repressed memory. The Excelsior scenes took place during the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , with Takei reprising Sulu as a special guest star.

How To Watch All Star Trek TV Shows In Timeline Order

George takei explains nichelle nichols’ refusal to play uhura on star trek: voyager, nichols wouldn't do voyager despite takei's urging.

In an interview with The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine , issue 9, around the time of "Flashback's" release, George Takei revealed that he had begged Nichelle Nichols to accept a cameo on Voyager, to no avail. Voyager 's creative team was set on having Nichols appear as Uhura in Tuvok's memories during the episode, but Nichols had objections to the size of the role that ultimately led to her turning it down . Takei clearly wanted to work with Nichols again, but his persuasion wasn't enough to convince her to join "Flashback's" cast. Read Takei's full quote below:

"She would have communicated with me, as Uhura to Tuvok, over the viewscreen. I pleaded with her on the phone to do it because it would have been wonderful to have her back as well. She felt the part did not do her justice, so she passed on doing it."

Despite the disappointment of not seeing Uhura during Voyager 's run, Nichols' refusal of the part shows how much she cared about the character. As the originator of such a legendary role as Uhura, Nichols certainly had the right to choose when and how she returned to Star Trek . Additionally, Takei's role as Sulu in "Flashback" was much more expansive than Nichols' would have been, which hardly seems fair given how important both of them are to Star Trek history . Ultimately, Nichols turning Voyager down shows the strength of character she was known for as a performer and a person.

Voyager’s “Flashback” Still Brought Back Another Important Star Trek: TOS Character

"flashback" still managed to get another tos cast member as a guest star.

Although Uhura didn't appear in "Flashback," Voyager still managed to snag another iconic TOS actor for the episode: Grace Lee Whitney as Janice Rand. Whitney played Captain Kirk's Yeoman during the first season of TOS. Although Janice Rand was tragically fired after TOS season 1 , the character has become just as important as other classic Star Trek characters thanks in part to Whitney's popularity with the fanbase. This resulted in Rand being brought back for several cameos throughout the TOS film series and again, much later, "Flashback."

Rand was in Star Trek VI during the events that "Flashback" covered, so bringing Whitney back to reprise her role only made sense. However, "Flashback" offered the pleasure of seeing Rand in her role as Commander onboard the Excelsior, and her interactions with Tuvok were highly enjoyable. Given the controversy around Whitney's firing from TOS , giving her the chance to portray more of Rand's Starfleet career was certainly deserved . Although Rand and Uhura could have easily been in Star Trek: Voyager together, having at least one other TOS character besides Sulu was still an achievement.

Source: The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine , issue 9

Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: The Original Series are available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Voyager

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The fifth entry in the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek: Voyager, is a sci-fi series that sees the crew of the USS Voyager on a long journey back to their home after finding themselves stranded at the far ends of the Milky Way Galaxy. Led by Captain Kathryn Janeway, the series follows the crew as they embark through truly uncharted areas of space, with new species, friends, foes, and mysteries to solve as they wrestle with the politics of a crew in a situation they've never faced before. 

Star Trek: The Original Series

Star Trek: The Original Series follows the exploits of the crew of the USS Enterprise. On a five-year mission to explore uncharted space, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) must trust his crew - Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Forest DeKelley), Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (James Doohan), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Sulu (George Takei) - with his life. Facing previously undiscovered life forms and civilizations and representing humanity among the stars on behalf of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets, the Enterprise regularly comes up against impossible odds and diplomatic dilemmas.