The Rejected Star Trek Pitch That Would Have Finally Solved the Borg's Greatest Mystery

Star Trek is in a weird lull right now: a few shows got the axe, Paramount is keeping future plans close to the vest, and fans are rummaging through the pile of almost-was ideas. Think Andy Weir’s infamous rejected pitch, the still-not-a-real-thing Star Trek: Legacy, and that other would-be spinoff, Star Trek: United. Add one more to the list, and this one’s a doozy if you care about Borg lore.

The Enterprise Season 5 pitch that never made it

When Star Trek: Enterprise was canceled, showrunner Manny Coto was steering the prequel toward the Romulan War and the birth of the Federation. Meanwhile, writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens had a different swing ready to go. During a panel at Trek Talks 5 — with Brannon Braga, Andre Bormanis, Michael Sussman, and Phyllis Strong also onstage — they revealed a rejected pitch that would have brought Alice Krige back to play a 22nd-century Head of Starfleet Medical who chooses assimilation and eventually becomes the Borg Queen.

'One pitch we thought would be really intriguing was to have another Borg show, but bring in the head of Starfleet Medical, which would be played by Alice Krige. And we would see someone choosing to be assimilated... She, of course, goes on to become the Borg Queen, but we would see what goes through the mind of someone choosing to join the Collective.'

Brannon Braga’s reaction in the moment was basically: great idea, should’ve done it. It didn’t happen because, as Garfield Reeves-Stevens explained, Manny Coto wanted Enterprise to stand on its own and not lean too hard on legacy elements from other series.

Why that story would have mattered

• A concrete origin for the Queen: Instead of the later hint that she’s from Species 125, this would have tied the Queen directly to early Starfleet. The Federation’s future nightmare would have started with one of its own top medical minds.
• The Picard angle hits different: Linking the Queen to Starfleet’s early days adds an extra layer to why she later zeroes in on Picard. It stops being just tactical and starts feeling personal and ideological.
• The big question: who’s driving whom? We might have finally gotten clarity on whether the Queen is just a chosen avatar the Collective uses, or if the woman who joined actually bent the hive to her will.
• The lure of the hive, not just the horror: Trek usually frames assimilation as a violation. This arc would have explored the appeal: a brilliant person voluntarily trading individuality for order and so-called perfection. The Borg’s whole pitch is that resistance is futile; this flips that by asking why someone might stop resisting on purpose.
• Yes, it risks humanizing a prime villain — but the twist is she isn’t tricked or traumatized into it. She chooses it. That’s a different kind of fall than the usual tragic backstory.

I get why Coto guarded Enterprise from becoming a greatest-hits remix, but this is one of those swings that could have deepened the lore instead of just name-checking it. An Enterprise Season 5 that shows the Borg not just as an unstoppable force, but as a conscious decision made by someone at Starfleet’s core? That’s a tantalizing missed shot.

If you want the full context, the reveal came during the Trek Talks 5 fundraiser — a nine-hour marathon of panel discussions with Trek creatives — where this little gem quietly surfaced amid all the shop talk.