Teaser
Seven of Nine is practicing smiling in a mirror, when The Doctor enters the cargo bay. Seven objects, as he walked in without announcing himself. The Doctor, who apologizes, comes to her because they are about to start a mission together with B’Elanna Torres and Tom Paris to survey a proto-nebula, which will come into existence within a short period of time. While walking to the shuttlebay they talk about the upcoming mission.
While en route to the nebula, they run into spatial turbulence and talk about the discomfort of Class 2 shuttles. Seven asks Paris why he does not design a new and larger shuttle if he is so discontent with these Class 2 types. When the proto-nebula appears, the shuttle is caught in the gravimetric shear of a plasma surge a few seconds later, which causes the shuttle to lose its propulsion.
When USS Voyager receives their distress call, Captain Janeway orders transporter room 1 to beam the shuttle crew out via an emergency beam-out. Because the shuttle is still caught proto-nebula’s shearline, Ensign Mulchaey has trouble establishing a good pattern lock, but is able to beam them out. Despite a small problem separating their patterns, he is able to re-materialize them safely. When they step off of the transporter platform, The Doctor’s holomatrix begins to flicker; it seems his mobile emitter was damaged somehow. After Torres transfers his program to sickbay, she tells him that some emitter circuits were fused during transport. To see if she can repair the damage, she needs to perform a diagnostic on the mobile emitter. She and Mulchaey go to the science lab, where they started diagnostic routine alpha-three-six. Torres tells Mulchaey to check the results the next morning.
After they leave the science lab, the mobile emitter releases assimilation tubules, attach to the LCARS computer console where it is lying, and begins assimilation.
Act One
The Doctor calls Lieutenant Torres at six o’clock the next morning. He wants to know when his mobile emitter will be repaired. When she walks into the sonic shower, he even appears on its display and an agitated Torres throws her towel over it and ignores The Doctor completely.
At about the same time, Seven’s regeneration cycle is aborted prematurely because she detects a Borg presence. She goes to the bridge and informs them of her concerns. Ensign Harry Kim tells Seven that sensor sweeps were performed the entire night and no Borg presence was detected. When she suggests that a Borg vessel might hide within the proto-nebula, Kim tells her that even a Borg cube would not survive the nebula. Chakotay tells Seven to let The Doctor check her proximity transceiver to make sure it is not malfunctioning. While The Doctor is performing his check, she tells him her proximity transceiver was activated again. This has to do with Ensign Mulchaey who, upon starting his duty shift by checking the diagnostics results of The Doctor’s mobile emitter, is probed by extraction tubules for DNA.
On the bridge, Harry Kim notices that power from the warp conduits is being re-routed to the science lab on deck eight and detects a force field – with a Borg signature. Chakotay immediately orders red alert and tells Seven that she is right: Borg have been detected on Voyager and Lieutenant Commander Tuvok is on his way to the science lab with a security team. When Seven and Tuvok’s security team enter the science lab, they find Ensign Mulchaey unconscious but alive, and notice a Borg-like maturation chamber protected by a force field that Seven surmises will allow her passage. Seven investigates and finds it contains a drone in its fetal state – unusual, because the Borg do not procreate, they assimilate.
Act Two
When Captain Janeway is briefed by Seven, she is told that the drone is the result of a transporter accident that occurred when they were beamed from the shuttle. Her nanoprobes interacted with The Doctor’s mobile emitter when their patterns were temporarily merged. Nanoprobes within the emitter assimilated the diagnostics console and used Mulchaey’s DNA as a template to create the lifeform. Captain Janeway orders a level ten force field and twenty-four hour security around the science lab, yet will not terminate the drone fetus unless forced to do so.
Seven and The Doctor, together with Tuvok and Torres, are scanning the drone from astrometrics. They find that since Mulchaey is Human, the drone is also Human, but twenty seven percent of the body is made of Borg implants. Its body armor is made of the mobile emitter’s poly-deutonic alloy, while the emitter itself is part of the drone’s central nervous system and cannot be removed without killing it. Because of the emitter’s origin, it is, in essence, a 29th century Borg drone. As a precaution, Seven dampens the proximity transceiver to prevent the drone from contacting the Borg Collective. When Seven briefs Captain Janeway about the drone’s capabilities (internal transporter nodes, among other things), Seven is asked to act as its teacher, to teach the drone how to act as an individual. Captain Janeway sees this as the only possibility to prevent the drone from joining the Borg collective. Killing the drone is her last option.
When the drone awakens from its alcove, it asks Seven of Nine its designation. Although Seven tells him it is irrelevant, it keeps asking for it. Seven is forced to initiate a direct neural interface, because the drone does not seem to understand her verbal instructions. When she tries to disengage the neural link, however, the drone tries to assimilate the entirety of her knowledge and ignores or refuses her command to terminate the link. Only when Seven tells him he was hurting her does the drone disengage the neural link.
Act Three
For everyone’s safety, Seven decides to use Borg data nodes to teach the drone about its environment. When Neelix brings the first data node, Seven shows the drone how to assimilate the collected data via his assimilation tubules. Upon completion of assimilation of its data, he identifies Neelix and Seven and is aware of the existence of Voyager, which is traveling through interstellar space. Seven explains to him that Voyager is not a Borg collective, but that everyone on board is a unique individual. When the drone requests more information, Seven tells him that he first must see The Doctor for a medical evaluation. Neelix escorts the drone to sickbay, during which the drone notices a slight fear of him among the crewmembers and asks Neelix about the Borg. Neelix evades his question and tells him instead that he should get a name, because every individual has a name.
While being scanned by The Doctor, the drone asks how he came into existence. The Doctor tells him about the transporter accident. Although his existence is an accident, he is told that he is not unwelcome and after some time, he will make a fine addition to the crew. It is, after all, Voyager‘s primary mission to explore new forms of life.
After his medical check, Seven familiarizes the drone with Voyager. When they visit engineering, the drone helps Torres by predicting the rate of expansion of the proto-nebula. When they visit Captain Janeway, he tells her his designation is One, that he assimilated forty-seven billion teraquads of information, and asks her if he is sufficient. When Janeway tells him he is, One asks to be excused, as Torres had asked him to help improve the efficiency of the Bussard collectors. Seven tells Captain Janeway that One had asked about the Borg and she was worried that if he gains more knowledge about them, he might seek the Borg Collective, which would pose a grave tactical risk. They decide, for now, not to tell him about the Borg.
When One is escorted to his alcove by Seven of Nine, he again asks to be told about the Borg when he notices that the alcoves are not Starfleet technology. Seven refuses and tells him to step into his alcove. He pauses and complies, then interestingly thanks her. As he regenerates, a proximity transceiver on his neck transmits a signal to the Borg Collective. They receive it and pursue.
Act Four
The regeneration cycle is interrupted by Captain Janeway and a security team, who promptly inform Seven that One has sent the signal, despite their having deactivated it. It seems One’s cranial implant automatically created a secondary proximity transceiver which transmitted the signal. Voyager‘s long range sensors already detected a transwarp conduit. When One makes clear that he wants to meet the Borg, Captain Janeway tells Seven that it is time to show One what and who the Borg are.
In astrometrics, One watches and learns about the Borg. Seven tells him that individuals who are assimilated lose their individuality, that their minds are integrated into the hive mind, and their bodies are augmented with cybernetic implants. One tells them he desires to experience the hive mind, whereupon Captain Janeway tells him that if he does so, he will no longer be unique, his individuality will be destroyed. One wonders how the Borg can be so destructive, while Seven is not. Janeway explains to him that Seven has regained her individuality, but if the Borg had the chance, they would reintegrate her back into the hive mind. Janeway tells One that if the Borg assimilate him, they will become far more destructive. When One asks Seven if she would rejoin the Borg collective if she had the chance, she answers that Voyager is her collective. Their conversation is interrupted by Chakotay’s call to man battle stations, as a Borg vessel is approaching.
One and Seven are on their way to the bridge when he tells her about changes in his autonomic nervous system. Seven tells him that he is experiencing anxiety, an emotion, a state of apprehension caused by fear, and that the entire crew feels the same. Seven tells him that they will engage the Borg: although the Borg are powerful, they will resist them. When One tells her that resistance is futile, Seven tells him this is not always the case.
Act Five
When they enter the bridge, the Borg sphere begins scanning Voyager, as One analyses the Borg sphere in considerable detail. While Voyager hears the standard Borg warning over the communication channel they just opened, One and Seven hear the collective as billions of voices calling them in unison from inside their minds. The Borg sphere locks on a tractor beam. Seven tells him that if they do not resist that voice, Voyager and its crew will be destroyed. One interfaces directly with the tactical console. Although One’s shield enhancements break Voyager free of the Borg tractor beam, his phaser enhancements are countered by the Borg. One tells Seven that he cannot enhance Voyager‘s systems any further, but that he can thwart them from inside the sphere, directly. Seven fears that they will assimilate him, but he assures her that they will fail. One declines the Voyager crew’s offer to transport him before transporting himself inside the sphere.
The Borg inform One they they will “add your biological and technological distinctiveness” to their own. One replies that his technology is superior, and threatens to destroy their ship if they do not stop the attack on Voyager. The drones that try to get in his way are incapacitated by One’s personal shield. One manages to interface with the collective, steering the ship into the proto-nebula. He does not respond to the collective’s request to terminate his link. As the Borg sphere sinks deeper into the nebula, its hull collapses upon itself and implodes.
After Captain Janeway orders Voyager to stand down red alert and deploy damage control teams, Harry Kim detects a life sign in the debris. It is One, alive after erecting a multi-spatial force field around his body. Captain Janeway orders Kim to beam One directly to sickbay.
Upon entering sickbay, The Doctor informs Seven that he has already scanned One for injuries: his implants, though fused, will regenerate – but he requires immediate surgery to address cerebral trauma and internal bleeding. One tells Seven that he directly heard the Borg’s objectives; they now know of his existence and wish to assimilate him. So long as he is alive, Seven and the crew of Voyager are in danger. One’s force field repulses The Doctor’s assistance, despite Seven’s emotional pleas to comply with her wishes. One tells Seven that he is an accident, and that he should never have existed. After assuring her that she will adapt to his absence, One ceases to function, and dies.
In the cargo bay, Seven deactivates One’s alcove, and looks into the mirror…