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kostmayer wrote:When did the Borg assimilating people on the spot first happen in Trek? First Contact? In TNG it looked like they physically added implants to humanoid body - such that Picard was able to be restored by simply removing the implants again.

It's hard to say exactly. When they capture Picard in Best of Both Worlds, a drone puts something to his neck and he freezes and goes "ahhhh" just before he beams out. It could be some sort of stun device, or it could be a nanoprobe injection.

In First Contact we see them injecting nanoprobes, but they also do surgical stuff to implant larger parts. I've always assumed that this is standard practice, with surgery augmenting nanobots because it's faster or more efficient.

I would assume nano bots have limits to what they can build with the bodies natural material.

GrahamKennedy wrote:It's hard to say exactly. When they capture Picard in Best of Both Worlds, a drone puts something to his neck and he freezes and goes "ahhhh" just before he beams out. It could be some sort of stun device, or it could be a nanoprobe injection.

If it is a nanoprobe injection it's obviously far less effective than the FC/Voyager version, as Picard remained sufficiently unassimilated to be interviewed by, and argue with, the ship shortly after his capture, with no trace of progressing assimilation.

Captain Seafort wrote:If it is a nanoprobe injection it's obviously far less effective than the FC/Voyager version, as Picard remained sufficiently unassimilated to be interviewed by, and argue with, the ship shortly after his capture, with no trace of progressing assimilation.

Yep.

The stun idea makes more sense in that respect. Although then you have to question why they wouldn't have injected him right there on the bridge as that's their standard MO.

Either way, his assimilation was very different to any other we saw afterwards.

The Borg actually interviewing him makes no sense thoigh. There was no point in the Borg talking to him.

GrahamKennedy wrote:In First Contact we see them injecting nanoprobes, but they also do surgical stuff to implant larger parts. I've always assumed that this is standard practice, with surgery augmenting nanobots because it's faster or more efficient.

I figured the nanprobes just created the interface and anti-trauma medium between the "host" and the implants.

There's quite a passage of time between BoBW and FC/Voyager so I guess its possible the nanoprobe injection technique is improved somewhat? More experience with assimilating humans means a faster and more efficient process which renders the newly assimilated more compliant and less resistive.

There's quite a passage of time between BoBW and FC/Voyager so I guess its possible the nanoprobe injection technique is improved somewhat? More experience with assimilating humans means a faster and more efficient process which renders the newly assimilated more compliant and less resistive.

McAvoy wrote:The Borg actually interviewing him makes no sense thoigh. There was no point in the Borg talking to him.

Only thing I can say is it's probably for the audience.

If you go by ST:FC, the scene in the cube in BoBW, after his abduction, was Picard's opportunity to willingly submit to assimilation to be the Borg spokesman for their galactic version of AmWay, or whatever. So it would stand to reason that Picard's abduction and assimilation were unique. When he's brought before the cube and they speak to him, I think that's their version of reasoning with him. He declines, so they assimilate him in the usual style of the time.

Well Picard was the first person we will ever saw get assimilated and the only one until First Contact.