Yes, You've Heard That Mysterious Picard Season 3 Voice Before

This post contains spoilers for the ninth episode of "Star Trek: Picard" season 3.

The Borg Queen is back, baby. According to the "Star Trek" timeline, the all-assimilating villains have spent a suspiciously quiet decade off-screen, but it turns out they weren't gone; they were just evolving. The latest episode of "Star Trek: Picard" gave us the answer to Jack Crusher's (Ed Speleers) origin with a Deanna-delivered info-dump about the Borg's return. It turns out, the aliens didn't just turn Jack into a locator beacon thanks to some Borgy remnants in his genetics, but they also figured out how to assimilate people via transporter.

This explains a lot of what's been happening this season, from the faulty transporters to Jack's visions. The young man has also been hearing a voice in his head, and that turns out to be none other than the woman in charge herself, the Borg Queen. Original Borg Queen actor Alice Krige returns to voice the alien queen bee, and if you hadn't already figured out the season's big twist by the time you heard her, the voice of the actor who first appeared in "Star Trek: First Contact" was a dead giveaway.

The Borg have been referenced so often in the Paramount+ era of "Star Trek" that it's easy to forget the concept of a Borg Queen doesn't date back to the earliest days of the franchise. Instead, we met the being who's a bit like the Borg's central nervous system for the first time in the 1996 film, "Star Trek: First Contact," with Alice Krige in the role. In her first introduction, the Borg Queen is creepy and ethereal, presented as a bifurcated humanoid form — exposed spinal cord and all — floating down toward Data (Brent Spiner) on tendril-like metal coils.

Krige gives a great performance in "Star Trek: First Contact" as the Borg Queen attaches to her body and ends up in a geeky-flirtatious conversation with Data after giving him the power of sensation for the first time. Later, when she confronts Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), that exchange has a surprisingly romantic charge, too. He discovers she wanted to craft him into Locutus to be "a counterpart" to her, and the Borg Queen comes across as surprisingly human when she grows angry with him and, later, sweetly strokes his face.

Since "Star Trek: First Contact," the Borg Queen's persona seems to have gotten less, well, seductive. She appeared on "Star Trek: Voyager" and was referenced throughout season 2 of "Star Trek: Picard," only for a bait-and-switch plot to reveal that the late actor Annie Wersching's alternate timeline version of the Borg Queen merges with Alison Pill's Agnes Jurati to become a hybrid version of the cybernetic leader. By the time Krige's voiceover appears in Jack's head, however, it's not whispering seductions but prompting him to return to the collective where it says he belongs. "Hear me. Find me," the voice whispers. "We will be together soon, Jack."

Alice Krige's return to "Star Trek" is a welcome one, but in episode 9, she's a bit underutilized. The actor has the range needed to give the Borg Queen an otherworldly allure that makes us understand how people are drawn to her collective, but here she takes on a more parental role. In fact, several Reddit users confirmed that earlier this season, a similar voice in Jack's head was closed captioned as Beverly Crusher, Jack's mother. The Borg Queen calls to him not as a lover would, but as a parent would. It's a fitting change for the long-fatherless character, but it's also barely explored in the show's rush to the next plot point.

The final episode of "Star Trek: Picard" will surely pull out all the stops, acting as both a series finale and a likely endpoint for some characters whose "Star Trek" journey began over 30 years ago. With that in mind, it's likely we haven't heard the last of Krige's Borg Queen yet, especially given that the Borg is well on its way to taking down Starfleet after a surprise takeover. So far, "Star Trek: Picard" has only scratched the surface of what Krige can bring to the table as the Borg Queen, even via voice acting alone. There's empty nostalgia bait, and then there's Krige's great performance. Hopefully, we'll get a little more Borg Queen action before Picard and his crew inevitably hold the villains at bay one more time.