Star Trek Picard: Everything You Need To Know About The Borg
8. The Borg Find A New Messiah
Cybernetic creatures have a varied history in Star Trek. All synthetic life has been banned by the start of Star Trek Picard and it is stories like Descent that pave the road as to why. Dr. Noonian Soong was the greatest mind that the franchise has yet known in the field of positronics and cybernetics, inspiring such scientists as Bruce Maddox and Agnes Jurati.
He first created the android B-4, a prototype to develop his positronic brain. From this jumping off point, he moved to create a being that would be more human, feeling as humans do and expressing those feelings at will. After B-4, Soong created Lore.
Identical to Data in appearance, Lore was as different as it was possible for two of the same type of android to be. Lore was consumed by his feelings and fed the anger and hatred in his heart. He orchestrated the destruction of his home colony. He attempted to destroy the Enterprise when he was reactivated. He murdered his father on his return home. From there, he vanished for several years until resurfacing in an entirely new role.
When Hugh returned to the collective, the assimilation process began to work in reverse and he in effect assimilated those drones nearest him with individuality. They passed it on to others and this infection of individuality spread. They would separate from the collective and drift, fearful and lost until they were discovered by Lore. He fed them with his passionate hate of organics, building them from a rabble of lost souls to a devastating army.
The familiar fear of destroyed colonies returned as the unknown assailants attacked. Discovered once again by the Enterprise crew, Lore manages to briefly control Data and together they stand as the Gods of this new Borg religion.
This would be the last time that TNG would use the Borg as it moved into its final season. Lore was overcome and dismantled. Hugh regained leadership of the small family he had liberated. These Borg at the very least seemed to be in a position of newfound strength, free of the collective and free from false Gods.