Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Finale – "The Last Generation"The final two episodes of Star Trek: Picard revealed a terrifying new form of Borg that no longer required the use of cybernetic assimilation into their Collective. It was revealed in the previous episode that the Borg Queen (Alice Krige) had enlisted Captain Vadic (Amanda Plummer) and her Changeling followers to aid the resurrection of the Borg Collective. The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine villains have a lot in common with the Borg, as the Changelings also wanted to impose order on the "Solids" and their shared goals led to an audacious plot to assimilate the whole of Starfleet.
When Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) confronts the Borg Queen in the Star Trek: Picard finale, she told him that the future of the Borg no longer lay in assimilation, but in evolution. The Borg Queen has found a far more efficient means of assimilation, and it removes the need for invasive Borg conversion procedures like the ones inflicted on Jean-Luc to turn him into Locutus of Borg. The new assimilation technique requires Locutus' Borg DNA, handed down by Jean-Luc to his son Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers), allowing the Borg Queen to instantly assimilate every Starfleet vessel. Here's how the short-lived new Borg Collective worked, prior to their destruction.
