Star Trek: Voyager: Unity

"Unity" is the 17th episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager, the 59th episode overall. The episode first aired on the UPN network on February 12, 1997, as part of sweeps week. It was written by producer Kenneth Biller, and is the second episode to be directed by cast member Robert Duncan McNeill. It marked the first appearance of the Borg in Voyager. Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet and Maquis crew of the starship USS Voyager after they were stranded in the Delta Quadrant far from the rest of the Federation. In this episode, while on an away mission, Chakotay is taken in by a group of former Borg who seek help from the crew of Voyager to reactivate their neural link. The ex-Borg force Chakotay to reactivate a Borg cube (a large Borg spaceship), but, in their new-found "Co-operative", the ex-Borg make the cube self-destruct, saving Voyager. Biller was influenced by the story of the Tower of Babel in writing the episode, and also considered the dissolution of the Soviet Union to be an influence. The crew re-used the make-up and costumes of the Borg designed for the film Star Trek: First Contact, but sets were not re-used. A new fully computer generated Borg cube was created for "Unity", and the storyline of the episode was intended as a hint to those in the later two-part episode "Scorpion". According to Nielsen ratings, it received a 5.4/8 percent share of the audience on first broadcast. "Unity" was received positively by critics, with praise directed at McNeill's direction as well as Biller's plot.