10 Moments Of Star Trek Foreshadowing You Never Noticed

The Next Generation episode The Neutral Zone brought the Romulans into the new era of Star Trek, something Gene Roddenberry was originally reluctant to do, because he thought that The Next Generation should stand apart from The Original Series by focusing on newer aliens. However, the episode was also originally intended to introduce a new enemy to the Federation, The Borg.

This plotline was eventually removed from the script due to time constraints, as well as a writers strike going on at the time, and the Borg were not revealed until Q Who, several episodes later. Still though, there is evidence of the Collective's involvement in the plot of The Neutral Zone.

Both the Romulans and the Federation were investigating their colonies near the Neutral Zone that were destroyed in an unknown fashion, and the two sides began to blame each other for the attacks, eventually reaching a compromise. When the Borg finally did appear in Q Who, the Enterprise-D investigates a destroyed alien colony. Scans reveal that the damage is "identical to what happened to the outposts along the Neutral Zone."

So, while the Borg were not actually mentioned in the episode, The Neutral Zone gave us a hint that a new threat was coming to the Alpha Quadrant.