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Don't be so square: New Star Trek book dives into Borg ships of all shapes in our exclusive sneak peek
There's always something new to discover about the Star Trek universe, especially when it comes to the really geeky details behind the design decisions over the myriad of ships and various species that make up the ever-expanding canon. Take for instance the impending coffee-table book Star Trek: The Borg and the Delta Quadrant: Akritirian to Krenim (available May 4 from Hero Collector Books). The tome's general editor, Ben Robinson, tells SYFY WIRE that as part of their deep dive into the CGI files and VFX renders from the television series Star Trek: Voyager, the editorial team decided to devote extensive coverage to all of the Borg ships that are not square.
Robinson explains that in researching and curating hundreds of images of Star Trek ships for Star Trek: The Borg and the Delta Quadrant: Akritirian to Krenim — the latest in a series that already includes books about Starfleet, the Federation, and the Klingons — they were able to compile the diversity of ships that most fans aren't even aware of, including those that break the iconic Borg square ship shape.
Here is SYFY WIRE's exclusive reveal of the Borg Cube section of the book:
"Voyager introduced quite a variety from the peanut-shaped probe to the diamond-shaped Queen’s ship," Robinson says of the Borg ship varieties. "And you actually learn a fair amount about Borg ships on Voyager. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) had a bit of a thing for infiltrating them. We’ve got all of that in here and I think everyone will get a kick out of seeing some of those Borg interiors."
As part of what Hero Collector Books is calling the "definitive encyclopedia of Star Trek ships," this latest book homes in on the Borg, the terrifying foes of the Federation and every other species in space, and the other denizens of the Delta Quadrant. As Volume I of a two-volume set focusing just on Star Trek: Voyager ships, the book offers a treasure trove of high-quality images that will illuminate new details for even the most knowledgeable Trek experts.
"What we wanted to do is give people full CG renders of every ship that’s ever appeared on any of the shows," Robinson says of their ultimate goal with this book series cataloging the Trek-verse. "This particular volume covers the Delta Quadrant, which means pretty much all the ships are from Voyager. And this is a really interesting era of the show when they first made the transition to CG, which meant they could have a lot of ships. In fact, there are so many Delta Quadrant ships that we had to split it into two volumes. We’ve recorded everything we could about them along with some pretty stunning images."
For the hardcore Trek fans who love poring over the minutiae of the ships and craft featured in any given frame, they've pretty much had to live with screengrabs made by other fans from any given series. Robinson says these books provide the kind of detail you could never see from blurry screen shots, or even slow-motion frame captures.
"There are some episodes of Voyager where you can tell there are ships in the background of a scene but you never got to see them in detail," Robinson says. "For example in the episode 'Drive,' the Delta Flyer takes part in a race. Because we had the files, we were able to show you all the ships in the rally even though you weren’t really meant to get a good look at them. And in 'Alice,' there’s a really unusual ship in Mr. Abaddon’s junkyard. We also learned that the Overlookers [the potato-faced guys who spied on the EM’Hs day dreams] had two different designs of ship. The same was true of the Caatati, a race that tried to steal Voyager’s warp core in 'Day of Honor.' "
Star Trek: The Borg and the Delta Quadrant: Akritirian to Krenim (Volume I) by Marcus Riley, Ian Chaddock, and Mark Wright is available from all book retailers on May 4.
