Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Borg

I don't know how you do it. All those voices talking at once

Alternate future Admiral Janeway's jibe at the Borg Queen — not long before infecting her with just enough neurolytic pathogen to give her majesty the ultimate headache — raises an interesting question. Just how did they give voice(s) to the Borg?

In Q Who, we not only saw the Borg for the first time, but we also heard them. According to Star Trek: Communicator, issue 147, the original idea for 'the millions speaking as one' goes to sound editor Bill Wistrom and co-producer Merri Howard, who then figured out the layering technique to achieve it. What we do hear from the Collective in the episode is the combined voices of director Rob Bowman, his assistant, and of writer Maurice Hurley.

A similar method was used to synthesise the voice of the Borg in Star Trek: First Contact. In that case, it was the work of actor and (opera) singer Jeff Coopwood whose second audition for the role in front of director Jonathan Frakes was also, in essence, the take that made it to film. As Coopwood tells it, he got the job and spent the rest of the day listening to playback of his audition recording, repeating it as closely as possible to create about 20 slightly different takes. Each was then layered on top of the other, and two other actors were brought in to record the same lines to add texture. Coopwood's "Resistance is futile" then memorably echoed across subspace to the bridge of the Enterprise-E.