Dear Johnny Fanboy,

In Part One of the Star Trek: The Next Generation story The Best of Both Worlds, the away team fail to rescue Captain Picard from the Borg cube. They encounter resistance from the Borg and when Worf tries to approach Picard, there is a force field in his way.

In Part Two, Data and Worf mount another rescue mission. Again, they encounter resistance from the Borg, but this time Worf is able to grab hold of Picard. There is no force field this time. Why not? The Borg know that hostile beings are aboard their ship, and that they are likely to attempt to rescue Picard. It's not as though their collective consciousness could forget to switch on the force field. Even if the drone whose job it was to activate the field were killed, another would immediately take his place.

Roger Lohman

Johnny Fanboy replies:

It may be that the force field was intended not so much to keep others out as to keep the Captain in. Picard had only recently been assimilated, and it is strongly suggested that the process was not yet complete, as the Borg later do further work on him. It may be that the Borg didn't want to take the risk of Picard willingly joining his would-be rescuers. As further evidence of this theory, Locutus physically resists Worf in Part Two, which he doesn't do in Part One.

It is also possible that the force field works on a similar principle to the Borg drones' personal shields and their cube's shields. The latter types of shield defend against fast-moving objects such as projectiles and energy beams, but do not repel slower objects, such as people in hand-to-hand combat or Worf and Data's shuttle. Note how the drones' personal shields never activate when they are engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Perhaps Worf was approaching just fast enough to trigger the force field in Part One, but not in Part Two.

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