Very related to this question, we know why there are so few/almost no non-humanoid Borg out there. That's all well and good.

But in nearly every iteration of Borg that we've seen, every last member of the collective looks incredibly... human. Even the initial borg who teleports onto Enterprise-D looks like a human with all the color drained from their skin.

Why do we never see any humanoids with head-ridges to indicate Klingon assimilation? Why do we never see any Vulcan borg? (Edit: We clearly have, and they're clearly no more numerous than humans, so that at least is answered)

In short, why do so many Borg look like pale-skinned humans, and not pale-skinned version of the various species they've been assimilating for eons? There are a few that aren't, but since the Borg have only had a few years contact with humans, shouldn't the difference be far greater?

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    We do and they don't. Wait a bit and people will post a bunch of screenshots, no doubt. – ThePopMachine Apr 16 '14 at 15:59
  • @ThePopMachine If nothing else, I will be satisfied by cool screenshots of non-human borg. – Zibbobz Apr 16 '14 at 16:01
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    Can we generally see Borg drone ears? If not, we probably couldn’t tell if they were Vulcan or not. – Paul D. Waite Apr 16 '14 at 16:49
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    As picky as it might sound, you might rephrase the question as "Why are there so few non-human borgs depicted?". Why there are many humans is self-evident, since we mostly see humans in the show and movies. – joshbirk Apr 16 '14 at 17:13
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    Borg cubes are notoriously lax when it comes to meeting their diversity quotas. – Theik Jun 8 '18 at 6:49

In-universe, it's just a perspective of rarity, I think, as the majority of characters we see on Trek are humans, and the Borg are usually fighting humans on screen. What we see depicted is not the "deep well" of aliens that the Borg has assimilated over a long period of time - but usually the newer recruits being assimilated as the Borg invade.

Out-universe, my guess is that it makes production easier to only apply Borg makeup to random extras and not double up with alien and Borg makeup.

It's not that non-human borg don't exist, as we see in the show and movies they can retain their native features:

When B'Elanna was assimilated, she retained her Klingon head ridges

B'Lenna Torez as a Borg

Granted, she's half-Klingon.

Tuvok also maintains his Vulcan appearance:

Captain Janeway and Tuvok as Borg

First Contact had at least three non-human drones. A Cardassian, a Bolian and a Klingon (with mustache).

  • Okay, that's two...but that's two we specifically know, out of billions. Still more than zero though... – Zibbobz Apr 16 '14 at 16:23
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    I added two more examples from First Contact – Xantec Apr 16 '14 at 16:33
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    And then there was Axum, Seven's lover from Unimatrix Zero. And everyone other non-human we saw in Unimatrix Zero had to have been a drone as well, even if we didn't see them all as such. – Xantec Apr 16 '14 at 16:45
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    And then we have these three from VOY:"Survival Instinct" (corrected the link). – Xantec Apr 16 '14 at 16:56
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    @Zibbobz Think of it this way. The show tends to be from the viewpoint of humans. When the Borg come in, their sample to choose from is human. If the show changed to be seen from Klingon, maybe you would see a majority of Klingon variations. – David Starkey Apr 16 '14 at 19:39

The Borg Queen in "Dark Frontier" is explicitly a member of Species 125, and not human. However, she looks like an ordinary human with Borg implants:

the Borg Queen

Presumably at least some of the other human-looking Borg are actually members of similar "extremely humanoid" species (or just species which differ from humans in ways that are obscured by becoming Borg).

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    Let’s also not forget that there is a vast amount of “extremely humanoid” but non-human species in the Star Trek universe – at least if you take into account all series. – Wrzlprmft Apr 16 '14 at 18:51

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