Seven of Nine

Seven of Nine is one of the main crew members of the sci-fi TV show, Star Trek: Voyager. Portrayed by Jeri Ryan, Seven was introduced into the show during the season four premiere episode, Scorpion Part Two. She was once a Borg drone, but was liberated from the Borg Collective by the Voyager crew during the Species 8472 conflict. Since joining the Voyager crew, Seven has managed to re-establish her humanity and form a new identity for herself, and at the same time has provided Voyager a wellspring of knowledge on the Borg.

History

Pre-Borg life

Seven was born as Annika Hansen in the year 2350 at the Federation Martian colony of Tendara. Her parents - Magnus and Erin Hansen - were exobiologists who were researching into the existence of the Borg, who at the time had not been encountered by the Federation or any other Alpha Quadrant power, existing only in rumours and stories told by pirates and lone spacers. When Annika was barely four, her parents took her with them aboard their research vessel, the USS Raven, as they explored areas of the Beta Quadrant where Borg ships had supposedly been sighted. Sure enough, the Raven encountered a Borg cube and they covertly followed it as it entered a transwarp conduit. The ships emerged in the Delta Quadrant and from that point on, the Hansens followed that same cubeship over the next three years, observing Borg behaviour and analyzing their technology.

On Annika's sixth birthday, the Raven was damaged by an ion storm which briefly disabled the ship's multi-adaptive shields which hid it from Borg sensors. The Borg cube detected the small ship and intercepted, chasing it down to a barren planet. The ship crashed but the Hansens survived, only to be assimilated by the Borg.

Serving the Collective

As a child, Annika did not go through the same manner of assimilation as adults do. After watching the

transformation of her parents, she was placed inside a maturation chamber - a device that would accelerate her physical development. She remained inside the maturation chamber for five years, and as her body grew, the Borg reconstructed her neural pathways and purged her of any trace of individuality. After emerging from her maturation cycle, she was no longer the human called Annika Hansen. Her new designation was Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01. Over the next thirteen years, she would contribute to the Collective's destructive pursuit of perfection by killing and assimilating countless innocent victims.

The Species 8472 Conflict

When the Borg became engrossed in a one-sided war against Species 8472, they forged an alliance with the lone Federation starship Voyager, whose crew had access to knowledge that could turn the tide in the Collective's favour. As part of the agreement, the Borg selected a representative drone to communicate and work directly with Captain Janeway and her officers. Seven of Nine was selected as the representative and aided Janeway's efforts into modifying the Borg's nanoprobes to build a bio-molecular warhead that could kill Species 8472. As they worked together, Janeway noticed that her drone liason appeared to have been human, which Seven of Nine confirmed.

Species 8472 would later attack the cube escorting Voyager through Borg space. The Collective deemed it necessary to sacrifice their ship to protect Voyager, and so rammed into the alien bioship, destroying both vessels. Seven of Nine and the rest of her ship's subjunction transported aboard Voyager just before impact, bringing with them an injured Captain Janeway and Lieutenant Tuvok. The drones assimilated one of Voyager's cargo bays and converted it into a workspace to continue working on the nano-warhead. As Voyager continued its journey, the war raged on with Species 8472 advancing towards the Borg's core worlds. The Collective decided that they must comandeer Voyager and take it into the aliens' realm to bring the fight to them. Seven of Nine accessed Voyager's deflector dish and reconfigured it to emit an inverse graviton beam that would create a quantum singularity: a gateway into Species 8472's homespace. Commander Chakotay had threatened the Borg with decompression if they attempted any kind of sabotage and so he had the entire deck depressurized and blew the drones out into space. Seven of Nine managed to survive the decompression, however, and later revealed the truth: that the Borg had started the war by invading Species 8472's fluidic realm. She then continued to assist with modifying Voyager to battle the aliens and recreated the anomaly that brought Voyager into fluidic space, allowing them to return to the Delta Quadrant. The nanoprobe warheads successfully destroyed a number of alien bioships, which deterred Species 8472 and sent them fleeing back to their own realm. Seven of Nine then regained contact with the Borg Collective, which ordered the assimilation of Voyager. She attempted to hijack the ship and fly it back into Borg territory, but was stopped by Chakotay, who used a neural tranciever connected to a Borg alcove in Cargo Bay 2 to telepathically communicate with the drone. He saw Seven's memories from her human life and maintained the psychic link long enough for B'Elanna Torres to transmit an energy surge through the alcove, overloading Chakotay's tranciever while he was connected to Seven. The backlash overloaded Seven's neural tranciever implants and forcibly severed her connection to the Collective.

Becoming Human

Shortly after being severed from the Collective, Seven of Nine's human cells began reasserting themselves. As her immune system increased in strength, her body began to reject her Borg implants, thus threatening her life. Captain Janeway had no intention of returning her to the Borg and decided that she was to remain on Voyager and assist the crew with dismantling the modifications the Borg had made to the ship during the battle against Species 8472. Seven helped, but reluctantly, making several attempts to escape custody and contact the Collective. Eventually the Borg modifications were destroyed and most of Seven's implants had been removed from her body, which appeared slender and quite attractive without any Borg exo-plating. Captain Janeway and the Doctor would continuously monitor Seven's human development from hereon in.

Even though Seven had had her implants removed, she initially still acted in a very Borg-like manner. She would come across as cold, distant and often outright hostile. She would frequently come into conflict with Captain Janeway regarding ship procedures and Starfleet protocols, as well as basic human morals and behaviour. These factors made it very difficult for her to interact with the crew, and so the Doctor would provide her lessons in social development. Over the course of her life on Voyager, Seven would learn how to properly converse with others, how to smile, even how to enjoy herself.

Even as she developed her sense of human individuality, Seven still clung to certain aspects of her life among the Borg. Some of her implants remained, including non-essential devices such as her assimilation tubules. She also never used her human name, preferring to go by "Seven". Though she had turned her back on the Collective, she continued to draw strength from the sense of order they had instilled in her. Seven possesses a highly analytical mind and always tries to put it to good use, preferring to bury herself in work rather than relax or socialize. Her main duties aboard Voyager - despite having no Starfleet rank - include running the ship's astrometrics lab, navigating the ship and offering information and insight on the Borg whenever Voyager is forced to engage them.

Physiology

As a drone

During her time in the Collective, Seven of Nine's body was outfitted with many cybernetic systems that all Borg share, such as body armour, assimilation tubules and shields. Her left eye had been replaced with an ocular implant, but she kept both her original arms and had not been equipped with any further prosthetics. Seven was also armed with a disruptor attached to her right forearm.

Post-Borg

When Seven was disconnected from the Borg, her human DNA began to regenerate and reject many of her cybernetics. Her cranial plating and body armour were removed and her eyepiece was replaced with a new biosynthetic organ that retained some Borg circuitry around the optic nerve, allowing her increased visual acuity in one eye. The iris colour matched her human eye perfectly, something the Doctor was very proud of. Many of Seven's cybernetic organelles and some of her brain implants were removed as well, though removing all of them would have killed her. Although her hair was regrown and her skin restored to its natural colour, Seven still had swarms of nanoprobes within her bloodstream, which she could control and reprogram as she chose. Her human metabolism has atrophied during her time among the Borg and her remaining implants have kept it from re-developing, resulting in her needing a Borg regeneration alcove to revitalize herself rather than eating or sleeping in a bed.

Relationships

Seven of Nine has had much difficulty adapting to a human lifestyle, but over the years she has lived aboard Voyager she has established a number of different relationships with the individuals aboard.

• Captain Kathryn Janeway - Initially, Seven harboured a great deal of anger and resentment toward Janeway for forcing her to remain on Voyager. They quickly established a heated but stable working relationship but over the years Seven has come to regard the captain as her guide toward becoming an individual and would regularly turn to her for advice. In many ways, Janeway is like a mother to Seven, nuturing the ex-drone's development as a human and teaching her valuable lessons to help her fit in.
• The Doctor - The Doctor has also played a pivotal role in Seven's growth as a human being, acting much like a father to her, though he might argue that she is more of a favourite patient. Seven's cybernetically-enhanced physiology requires special medical needs and she and the Doctor have aided each other in developing new medical techniques and treatments derived from her Borg nanites. The Doctor has also taught Seven several key social skills, such as how to smile and later on how to express romantic interest.
• Chakotay - Near the end of the television series, Seven of Nine becomes romantically involved with Chakotay. At first, their dates seem to be more like research experiments rather than actual social events, but it later becomes apparent that their attraction is very much real.
• The Borg Queen - Since leaving the Collective, Seven has come to despise the Borg as much as anyone else. She has developed a personal enmity with the Borg Queen, who is able to communicate with Seven during her regeneration periods and has used these moments to pressure her for information on Voyager, to threaten the ship or simply just to torment Seven. The Queen claims that Seven was her 'favourite' drone and has also stated that the Collective had planted Seven aboard Voyager intentionally as part of a strategy to assimilate Earth.