"I Am Alone, But I Will Adapt" - An Asexual Analysis of Seven of Nine

Image description: Seven of Nine (portrayed by Jeri Ryan), the ex-Borg who learns what it means to be an individual in Star Trek: Voyager.

“I am Seven of Nine. I am alone, but I will adapt”
– from the Star Trek: Voyager episode “One”

Space. It has always been my first and final frontier and my favorite continuing mission because of a little TV show called Star Trek. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, Star Trek – particularly Star Trek: Voyager – was my first fandom and the thing that made me the geek I am today. A few years ago, when I did my first full rewatch of Voyager since my childhood, a lot of things remained the same, such as my hero worship of Captain Kathryn Janeway (one of my favorite characters of all time) and my excitement to see so many amazing women interacting with each other. But as an adult my appreciation deepened, and I found certain plots and characters jumping out at me in exciting new ways. Among those was my newfound admiration for the character of Seven of Nine (portrayed by Jeri Ryan).

I couldn't help but notice elements of myself in Seven, and I identified with her struggle to discover who she truly is in an utterly confusing world. Much like her, I find myself constantly needing to adapt to situations, learning how to harmoniously coexist with those who don’t understand my experiences. Throughout her time on the show, I found myself relating to things like her social awkwardness, her fears, her hopes – and all of this was heightened by the fact that Seven rejects romantic and sexual relationships for most of the series.

Spoiler warning! 

Star Trek: Voyager ("Scorpion," "One," "Dark Frontier," "Someone to Watch Over Me," "Collective," "Unimatrix Zero," "Imperfection," "Human Error")

Star Trek: Picard ("Stardust City Rag," minor spoilers)

Posts referenced in this one; Spoiler warnings still apply:

"Asexuality in Star Trek"

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Seven of Nine’s origins: Becoming Borg, Becoming Human

Most good sci-fi and fantasy media share certain overlapping plot elements that become nearly essential elements of the genre. One such element is a world-defining enemy, usually a race of grotesque, hostile creatures that used to be individuals until they corrupted and united into one horrifying force. Lord of the Rings has the orcs, for instance. In the Dragon Age video game series, it’s the darkspawn. For Star Trek, this role is filled by the terrifying Borg – the infamous cybernetic collective that assimilates life across the galaxy, turning them into robotic drones connected to a vast hive mind. But behind each merciless Borg is the shell of what was once an individual, a fact which is highlighted when Voyager de-assimilates Borg drone Seven of Nine and she becomes a member of their crew in season four.

Seven of Nine, who began her life as a human named Annika Hansen, is a unique and fascinating character for many reasons. Like all individuals assimilated by the Borg, she is given no choice in the matter, but her predicament becomes even starker due to the somewhat unusual circumstances of her assimilation. We learn early on that Seven was assimilated as a child when her parents – unconventional exobiologists seeking to learn more about the Borg – took her with them to uncharted space where they were ultimately captured, meaning that for most of her life, being Borg is all Seven knows.

The circumstances under which she becomes human are no less unique. Her introduction to the Voyager crew begins when she is chosen to speak on behalf of the Borg in the two-part episode “Scorpion.” The Borg and the crew of Voyager form an alliance, but when Seven tries to renege on the deal, the crew stops her and in so doing severs her link to the Collective. Thus, Seven neither chooses to be Borg nor chooses to be human. Much like the Borg forcibly took her as a child, the crew of Voyager forcibly take her and remove her Borg implants to get to the human underneath. After spending most her life as a Borg, she is now forced to come to terms with what she sees as a horrifying new reality.

Although the crew acknowledges this fact, they still make this decision for her as a moral obligation, one we are meant to agree with since we know the Borg are horrible and that her restoration is miraculous. And while all of that is true, it feels jarring from an aspec standpoint to see the crew decide they know better, especially because this is not just limited to Seven’s de-assimilation. Throughout the series, there are moments where people insist they know what’s best for Seven or try to steer her towards their own goals of what will make her more human.

An example of this is how they try to get her to use her human name, despite her wishes to be called by her Borg designation. Even the compromised nickname of “Seven” rather than “Seven of Nine” is suggested by the other members of the crew for their own benefit because Seven’s full designation is too clunky. This is a very small thing, but it sets a precedent for further instances where Seven’s wishes are ignored or people act like they know what’s best for her, infantilize her, coldly dismiss her, or yes, lecture her about relationships. It’s frustrating to see the crew make her one of them and then treat her as “other” simply because she’s not as human as they would like. All of these things are unfortunate, but in spite of them, Seven’s resilience and adaptability are admirable, especially in the face of embracing the newness of her individuality.

Image description: Seven of Nine in the episode "Scorpion, pt. 2," during which she is still a member of the Borg Collective. Image obtained from TrekCore

When Seven is first made an individual, she feels as though her identity is not her own, something which she experiences paranoia about even long after she has come to accept her new life. In an episode called “One,” for instance, the crew must go into stasis while passing through a dangerous region of space. Only Seven and the ship’s holographic doctor remain able to run the ship, but when The Doctor goes off-line, Seven is truly alone for the first time and the implications of that are fascinating. Seven being forced to endure the solitude of the ship is an interesting parallel to the loneliness she likely feels in her day to day life due to the fact she is neither completely human nor completely Borg. In another episode, “Dark Frontier,” Seven faces the Borg Queen, who preys upon Seven’s doubts about her own identity and her place in the world. We see at different times in the series how the Borg Queen weaponizes loneliness – even using it as a torture tactic on drones at times – and she wields it against Seven as well. Something that I appreciate about both this episode and “One” is that Seven’s loneliness is primarily framed as a sense that she doesn’t belong in either world, and that she doesn’t belong in her own sense of self, a feeling she had when Voyager first separated her from the Collective.

As someone who likewise feels alone in the world, I find myself relating to her struggle. Like Seven, the journey to be my true self often makes me different from everyone else around me and puts me in a position where people, although well-intentioned, have trouble relating to me. For many years, I had to unlearn the previous expectations of society while trying to determine what my own expectations for myself were. I can see this same struggle clearly whenever Seven is caught in between her previous human life and her life as a Borg drone. But as time goes on, we see Seven becoming authentically herself. She learns how to become a part of the crew and form meaningful relationships with those around her, some of which are, in my opinion, among the best in the entire show.

Seven of Nine and Relationships

As she continues to grow and develop as an individual, Seven eventually forms working relationships with everyone on the ship and even begins to foster meaningful friendships. One of the most notable of these is her dynamic with Captain Janeway, the first person on board to insist that Seven could become an individual. While sometimes this comes about in unpleasant ways, making it seem like Janeway wants Seven to be redeemed or otherwise normalized, for the most part Janeway becomes a trusted mentor to Seven.

Seven then becomes a mentor herself when the crew encounters and de-assimilates a group of four Borg children. Seven takes the children under her wing and in so doing forms a close bond with them – especially with the oldest, a teenaged boy named Icheb. Like Seven, Icheb is serious and socially awkward, sometimes to the point of being misunderstood, but in each other they find a kindred spirit. Icheb trusts and respects Seven completely, and in return she is constantly impressed with him and seeks to help him “become resilient in the face of obstacles.” This relationship is one where each of them are given the respect they so richly deserve and she instills the lesson in him that he is an individual and thus has “the right to determine his own destiny.” To see two people for whom the right to make their own decisions has been tenuous at best, it is extremely powerful and refreshing to see them affirm this right for each other, and in so doing help each other flourish. Another marvelous relationship Seven has with a young character is her friendship with Naomi Wildman, who was born on Voyager. Like Icheb, Naomi is at times the only person who seems to understand and respect Seven fully, and Seven shows her that same respect in return.

Image description: Icheb and Seven of Nine. As two fellow ex-Borg drones aboard Voyager, Seven and Icheb share an incredibly meaningful friendship, one of my favorites on the whole show. Image obtained from TrekCore

I find it interesting and wonderful that Seven relates to these young characters without it being used to infantilize her. Rather, the wisdom and understanding she shows them is unique to her, and the care and consideration they give her back comes without judgment or hostility. Seeing Seven become a mentor, a friend, even a family member to Naomi, Icheb, and the other Borg children shows a perfect example of the type of platonic relationships that make Star Trek so wonderful. It’s likewise rewarding to see the way the members of the crew come to bond with Seven, in spite of the past. A good example of this comes in the episode “Imperfection,” where a life-threatening malfunction in one of Seven’s Borg implants makes it seem likely she may die. In that episode, the character of B’Elanna Torres, who is usually somewhat hostile to Seven, promises her that she has made a valuable impact on every member of Voyager and will never be forgotten.

Moments like these prove that Seven does not need to change in order to form meaningful relationships; she already has them. Unfortunately, this is a fact that the writers of Voyager routinely ignored and, especially as the series reached its final season, we see instances where Seven is pushed into romantic relationships as part of her “embracing humanity”. This is extremely disappointing (and something that I will cover more in future essays), because Seven proves that she does not need romance or sex in order to have grown and become human. But after four seasons of growth and development, it seems as though the writers found it too strange that Seven would not yet have attained a relationship, and so once again I am robbed of the ability to fully see myself in a character. Watching Seven’s personality change seemingly out of the blue in order to accommodate becoming more “normal” was bad enough at the end of Voyager; it becomes even worse when it happens again nearly twenty years later thanks to Seven’s role in the 2020 series, Star Trek: Picard.

Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Picard

When Star Trek: Picard was announced, I was intrigued; when it was revealed that Seven of Nine would be in it, I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, that was a short-lived feeling and I soon found myself disappointed by her appearance on this new series. Star Trek: Picard relies very heavily on its ties to previous characters and situations, even while presenting storylines that do not, to me, feel entirely authentic to the things they’re relying on. In Seven’s case, although it is completely logical for her to have evolved and changed over the years, in this series I find her to be someone completely unrecognizable.

While I admit I did enjoy watching Seven literally slay like the goddess she is, I found myself unable to relate to this bourbon-drinking, shoot-first-ask-questions-later version of my beloved character. I missed the old Seven of Nine, who spoke in clipped sentences and whose difficulty navigating social settings felt familiar. I missed the woman who was neither human nor Borg, whose life aboard Voyager was about striking a balance between both. Instead, it felt to me like Seven’s character development and personality from Voyager had been erased. That legacy Seven and B’Elanna discussed years earlier seemed to be gone, and that depresses me on a number of levels.

I suppose I had hoped that, if Seven of Nine was brought back to Star Trek, the writers would have learned something over the years about who she is and what makes her special. I had hoped they would realize she didn’t need romance to make her whole and correct that error, or that they would present a version of the character who had been able to find a fulfilling life for herself on her own while still maintaining the friendships she had made on Voyager. I wish that Seven was allowed to stay the Seven we knew, not have to evolve into a character more recognizable to the audience - a character who is essentially entirely human, just with a fancy bit of tech over her eye.

If Seven was going to grow, as surely she would over the years, what I would have liked to see is growth on her own terms, leading to a deeper understanding of her duel nature, because that to me is the most meaningful part of her journey and my own. I don’t want to believe that reality is simply waiting for time to change me into a more identifiable person. Like Seven, I want to believe that my legacy is a meaningful one because I can impact people, even when they don’t fully understand me, and that my uniqueness is what makes me special, not my conformity.

Image description: Seven of Nine as she appears in Star Trek: Picard. Although I have considerable problems with how Seven is portrayed on the show, various scenes involving her (this one included) may have nevertheless prompted me to yell "YES QUEEN!!!" more than once. Image obtained from TrekCore

In the Voyager episode “Someone to Watch Over Me,” Seven gives the following toast during a diplomatic event: “May cultural differences build bridges of understanding to all that makes us unique.” One could say that uniqueness is the theme of Seven’s life – and indeed, my own. Watching Seven embrace the aspects that make her a unique and authentic individual feels very similar to the journey I myself am on. Although I don’t find myself in uncharted space like the crew of Voyager, I do often find myself in unfamiliar territory, and like Seven, I need to learn how I can best adapt and survive. Like her, mine has been a journey to discover who I am, how I fit into the world, and how to be comfortable in my own version of myself, not the version that other people have made for me.

Although I find myself disallowed from fully claiming her as my kindred spirit, Seven of Nine is nevertheless a valuable and important character, not just to the shows she’s in and the people she meets, but to me. Regardless of the circumstances, she still remains one of the characters I feel I can most relate to in media and so I still cling to her and her story, and continue to analyze the parallels I find between her experience as an individual and my own experiences as an asexual geek. She is a character who transcends those frustrating moments where her development is ignored, a character who is more than the sum of the forced romantic plots or the tropes sometimes thrown at her. Whenever I find myself adrift, I try to follow her example and remember not to comply to the wishes of those who want me to conform. In spite of everything, Seven of Nine gives me hope that, even alone, I can learn how to be resilient, become stronger, and embrace all that makes me unique too.