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Could the Borg Queen to be freed from the Collective? She’s the same as every other drone: abducted and assimilated against her will when she was a child.

Can assume that it would be a similar case like 7 of 9? Would she would be reluctant at first, then finally regain individuality, then brief Starfleet on the hierarchy of the Borg hive mind?

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    With the might of the entire Collective at her beck and call, abducting her in order to sever her connection might prove problematic.
    – Xantec
    Commented Jan 20, 2016 at 22:12
  • They could have transported her over to the delta flyer with captain janeway and 7 of 9, dark frontier part 2
    – Darren
    Commented Jan 20, 2016 at 22:14
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    I don't believe that there is enough source material in canon or extended canon to answer this. Whether The Queen could be abducted is one open question; whether her biology could be restored to its unassimilated state is another. Bear in mind that she is depicted as a more technological entity than the average drone, her body a modular and possibly fully technological platform for her head and spine.
    – Politank-Z
    Commented Jan 20, 2016 at 22:34
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    The Borg queen seems to have been extensively modified by the Collective. It's probable (but not certain) that "rescuing" her would be very very difficult.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 20, 2016 at 22:38
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    You might enjoy this non-canon story; "Iridium-7-Tetrahydroxate Crystals Are a Girl's Best Friend"
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 20, 2016 at 22:38

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I feel that there are two aspects to this question:

Physically

We don't have any evidence in canon of what it would be like for the Borg Queen to be physically removed from the Collective (i.e. remove/disable her 'link' with the Collective). She is predominately made from technology with very limited biological structures left intact.

This is quite different from the case of Seven of Nine who was still primarily an organic being, with cybernetic implants. Conversely, the Borg Queen is more like a robot/android with biological implants! I expect that from a purely physical sense, the Borg Queen would probably be able to survive disconnected from the Borg; her technological body would probably survive. This doesn't take into consideration her link with the Collective though. When this link was severed for Seven of Nine, she suffered extreme pain and just about died of it. For the Borg Queen, who in a sense is the Borg (see the 'Mentally' section below), this connection may be more central to her functioning.

We can't really say whether it would be physically possible to free her from the Collective; theoretically it would be possible, but we can't overlook the possibility that severing her link to the Collective could be fatal.

Mentally

(For the purposes of this section, I'm assuming that it is physically possible to liberate the Borg Queen from the Collective).

We know that the death of the Borg Queen doesn't mean the end for the Borg. In First Contact (set in 2373), the Borg Queen is destroyed, but we see the Borg Queen again in Voyager, beginning in 2375. This 'rebirth' of the (or a) Borg Queen shows that they can be replaced. Consequently, we can conclude that the Borg Queen could be replaced.

The Memory Alpha page on the Borg Queen provides us with some relevant information which I'll summarise here:

  • She was assimilated aged 7-8, just like any other drone. So we know that she does have experience with individuality
  • She expresses 'un-Borgish' traits such as emotions, manipulation and self-protection, rather like an individual would

  • This quote:

    The Queen defined herself as: "I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many. I am the Borg." Although this suggested she was an individual within the Collective, while addressing Borg drones as "my drones", she was not an individual. The purpose of the Queen was to bring order to chaos.

    So she clearly speaks with personal pronouns, again an individual trait that regular Borg drones don't use.

From this evidence, I think it's reasonable to conclude that, although she does exhibit traits of an individual unlike other Borg drones, this is rather deceptive. Her 'individuality' which she is showing is rather that she has taken on the identity of the Borg. She refers to herself as 'the Borg'; in her mind, she is the Borg, so when she refers to herself, she is referring to the Borg.

So, based on all of this, I conclude that the Borg Queen probably could be freed from the Collective. We know that the Borg can work without her and form their own collective (as seen in 'Unity') and even replace her (as seen in Voyager), meaning that she could be possibly removed from the Borg Collective.

However, I expect that a freed Borg Queen would have a rather different process of regaining her individuality than Seven did. The Borg Queen would already be familiar with certain traits of the individual, like emotions, which Seven had difficulty mastering. However, in Seven's case, one of the biggest difficulties was not having the Borg's thoughts in the background, having to listen just to her own thoughts. The Borg Queen would already be used to this; her thoughts command the collective. The difficulty for the Borg Queen here would be not having instant leadership; she would simply think of something and it would be done - when she became an individual she would have to learn to accept that others held power and she had to conform to certain customs and policies.

Another difference would be that the Borg Queen would need to redefine her identity, rather than develop a new one. Seven had no identity, whereas the Borg Queen already had one - that of the Borg Collective. The Borg Queen would need to create a new identity, but this would need to replace that which she already had (that of the Borg Collective).

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    I get how a movie without a personified antagonist could be tricky to write, but I thought the Borg Queen was the worst thing they ever did to the Borg. The horror of the Borg is that they’re an unfeeling, autonomous collective.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Jan 21, 2016 at 0:05
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    I feel like you've focused on her metal state but ignored her physical state. She is, for all intents and purposes, no longer human. She has a robotic skeletal structure and it appears that much of her nervous system probably is as well. How do you even begin to revert that?
    – Ellesedil
    Commented Jan 21, 2016 at 0:54
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    @Ellesedil yes I feel that way as well and I was just about to edit it accordingly ;)
    – Often Right
    Commented Jan 21, 2016 at 0:55
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    @Ellesedil modified it now ;)
    – Often Right
    Commented Jan 21, 2016 at 1:01
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    @PaulD.Waite this is actually discussed here: "Though the Borg provided for a threatening and intriguing alien enemy, their lack of a single villain presented a challenge for the writers. To counter this, and to expand some on the original notion of the Borg as an insect-hive type of race, they created the Borg Queen as a focal point for their story."
    – Often Right
    Commented Jan 21, 2016 at 1:01

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