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Memory Alpha
File:Voyager6.jpg
Origin: Earth, United States of America, NASA
Era: 20th century

Voyager VI was the sixth in the Voyager series of NASA unmanned space probes launched from Earth in the latter half of the 20th century.

After having lost contact with Earth, it was believed by scientists of the day to have disappeared into a black hole. During an encounter with the V'Ger entity in 2272 it was postulated by the crew of the USS Enterprise that the probe had emerged from the black hole and encountered a race of sentient machines who occupied an unidentified machine planet. They concluded that the machines viewed Voyager VI as a primitive version of themselves, and sent it back out as the V'Ger entity, appropriately repaired and enhanced to fulfill what they interpreted as its programmed mission to collect and record all data possible throughout the universe. The original probe was preserved as the central point of the heart of V'Ger itself. (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

Background

A 1999 launch date was not referenced on screen, but it was included in the Star Trek Chronology. According to Decker's line in the movie, however, it was launched "over 300 years ago". This suggests a launch date sometime prior to the 1970s. The actual launches of the first (and only) two Voyager probes took place in 1977, something well known when the film was made. Despite Decker's statement, it is unknown what his background was in the history of NASA space exploration, suggesting that he was approximating its launch date.

Apocrypha

The William Shatner novel The Return, where Kirk and Picard join forces to lead an assault on the Borg homeworld and end the recent Borg/Romulan alliance once and for all presents the theory that a Borg transwarp conduit consumed the probe rather than a black hole, and that the planet seen by Spock was in fact, the Borg homeworld. The suggestion continues that the Borg assimilated the probe, yet the assimilation went "afoul" and changed Voyager VI into a more sentient being. That theory would not explain how a transwarp conduit was so close to Sol in the 20th century but unused in the 24th, though, nor how Borg technology of the early 21st century would have been capable of re-engineering such a vessel to explore the universe, including multiple galaxies.

On the other hand, Star Trek: Legacy presents the theory that the 20th century Borg civilization was a peaceful race. When V'Ger encountered them, they studied its programming, repaired the probe, and sent it on its task. When V'Ger returned to the Sol system it could not find its creator, but "a biological infestation." The probe returned to the Borg homeworld and joined with them, and its programming propagated throughout the Collective. Something of a civil war broke out. Massive amounts of knowledge, including the location of earth, were lost in the resulting conflict, and the Borg of the 24th century were born.

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