Star Trek: 10 Secrets Of The Borg Cube You Need To Know

The regeneration alcove remains one of the Borg's most distinctive technologies, first introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Q Who", then referred to simply as "slots". These slots filled the Borg cube's interior and were distinguished by unique graphics produced by Michael and Denise Okuda, dubbed "Borg noodles".

Borg noodles appeared unchanged in "The Best of Both Worlds, Parts 1 and 2", but were redesigned when the Borg and their vessel received a big budget makeover for Star Trek: First Contact. While the updated Borg noodles still appeared in the film on several computer terminals (most notably seen in engineering "assimilating" Starfleet's LCARS displays), the art department opted to decorate the movie Borg cube with something slightly more dynamic.

First seen in Star Trek: First Contact and then incorporated into Star Trek: Voyager's cargo bay set where Seven of Nine resided, the updated Borg alcoves now featured bright green displays containing crackling arcs of (some kind of) lightning-like Borg energy.

However, these pieces of set dressing were actually far from futuristic and were available in malls across America. Trademarked as "Luminglass", these elements of the Borg ship were called crackle tubes: Glass plates which created bright "lightning effects" when powered.

Luminglass was a hot seller at Spencer Gifts, a staple of American and Canadian malls in the 1990s, known for their novelty products such as black lights, amusing t-shirts, fake vomit, sex toys, and apparently Borg cube accoutrements.