Summary

• The parasitic aliens from "Conspiracy" return, inflicting excruciating pain and erasing identities, and the Borg may be the only hope for salvation.
• Hugh the Borg must save B'Elanna Torres by assimilating her, as the mind-controlling aliens wreak havoc on the Defiant crew.
• Star Trek: Defiant #15 explores the terrifying consequences of assimilation, hinting at Borg technology as a possible solution for the infected.

Warning: contains potential spoilers for recent issues of Star Trek: Defiant!

A Star Trek icon is allowing the Borg to assimilate them as a means of escaping something worse. In the pages of Star Trek: Defiant, Worf and his crew are fighting an infestation of parasitic, mind-controlling aliens. In the forthcoming issue 15, one of the Defiant’s crew comes under the aliens’ sway, and it falls on Hugh the Borg to save them.

IDW shared a first look at Star Trek: Defiant #15 with League of Comic Geeks. The issue, which will be written by Christopher Cantwell and drawn by Angel Unzueta, is part four of “Hell Is Only a Word.” The parasitic aliens from “Conspiracy” (a first season Next Generation episode) have taken off over a starbase, and B’Elanna Torres is their latest victim.

However, Torres has an unlikely savior in Hugh, the renegade Borg drone who ed the Defiant’s crew, but in order to save her, Hugh must assimilate her into the Borg collective.

The Aliens From "Conspiracy" Have Returned, And They Are Scarier Than Ever

They Do Far More Than Simply Control Their Victim

The mind-controlling, insect-like aliens from “Conspiracy” are one of the Star Trek franchise’s biggest dangling plotlines, but now the Defiant creative team are bringing them back, making the creatures more terrifying than ever. The first part of “Hell is Only a Word” details the horrors that the infected undergo, such as loss of identity and pain so excruciating it can drive a person insane. The aliens were seemingly defeated at the end of the episode, but managed to get a signal out to their brethren, clearing the way for an invasion.

The Borg were originally intended to be an insectoid species, but had to be redesigned due to budgetary reasons

Roughly a year after “Conspiracy” aired, Star Trek: The Next Generation introduced the Borg, and they would go on to become one of the best enemy races in the franchise’s history. The Borg’s scariness derives from the assimilation process, in which a being is forcibly added to the Collective, which erases all identity. The few survivors of the process, such as Captain Picard and Seven of Nine, have described assimilation as a fate worse than death. Star Trek: Defiant recently revealed that in the wake of Picard’s escape from the Borg, Starfleet began researching “de-assimilation” techniques, with limited success.

For B'Elanna Torres, Assimilation May Be the Only Way Forward

Can Torres Return From Being Assimilated?

And now B’Elanna Torres has been taken over by the “Conspiracy” parasites, and only Borg technology can save her. Several Star Trek: Voyager episodes established that Borg nano-probes, when modified, can have uses beyond assimilation. These nano-probes may be Torres’ saving grace. The most recent issue of Star Trek: Defiant revealed that the “Conspiracy” aliens cannot take over Borg drones, a foreshadowing of events to come. Assimilation is the worst fate anyone can experience in the Star Trek universe, but now it is all that stands between Starfleet and annihilation.

Source: League of Comic Geeks

Star Trek: Defiant #15 is on sale May 22 from IDW Publishing!