Hugh/Third of Five

Appearance
Hugh is a short-statured, fit, middle aged human man with dark hair and an easy smile. His right eye is dark brown, and his left, artificial eye is light blue, framed by metal plates that mark where his Borg prosthetic was once mounted. A defunct metal port protrudes from the right side of his jaw. A long, ragged scar marks the edges of his missing prosthetic and cuts all the way down to his jaw, and his skin is quite pale even for a white human. Defunct metal ports and plates, and long-healed scars and skin grafts, mark him physically as an xB (ex-Borg), especially on his right arm and parts of his torso. Because of these physical reminders, he favors long sleeves and trousers.

Powers
Hugh's left eye is an ocular implant, a replacement for the eye removed by the Borg when he was assimilated. It feeds into the remains of the ocular receiver left in Hugh's skull when his Borg prosthetics were removed. The implant converts his view of the world into a detailed information stream about his surroundings and allows him to see Borg interfaces that would be undetectable to most technology. The implant does not provide extra-spectral vision (infrared, x-ray, etc.) or any offensive capabilities. It does supply him with targeting information, which is mostly an annoyance Hugh has learned to tune out, as he is very much a non-combatant.

Talents
Hugh is a trained a trauma counselor and is considered an authority on Borg culture, as well as recovery and integration of xBs back into society. He is a patient, compassionate, highly organized and exceedingly determined personality, the sort of man who will dig his way through a mountain with a teaspoon if that's the only path left open to him.

Interests
Hugh is well-read with a talent for recitation. He is an avid, almost compulsive, journaler and problem-finder/problem solver. He has a soft heart easily riled by callousness in others, and tends to list toward mercy projects and lost causes.

History
Hugh has no memory of any life before the Borg Collective's maturation chambers. He was fully assimilated upon his emergence from the chamber and outfitted as a Scout drone; his right arm was amputated and replaced with a cybernetic limb, his left eye removed and sections of his occipital lobe altered so that he could be fitted with an ocular prosthetic. He was designated Third of Five, one of a detachment of five Borg used for advanced scouting on worlds of potential interest to the Collective.

In late 2368, the Enterprise-D discovered a crashed Borg scout ship on a cold, barely-habitable world in the Argolis Cluster. There was one survivor, a badly injured adolescent male. Despite calls from captain and crew mates to abandon or kill the dying drone to prevent the Borg from realizing the Enterprise was in the area, Dr Beverly Crusher insisted they save his life. Ship's captain Jean-Luc Picard, who had once been assimilated by the Borg, finally relented and allowed the drone beamed aboard for treatment, though ultimately with ulterior motive - to return the drone to the Collective carrying an invasive program that would destroy the Borg Collective from within.

When Third of Five regained consciousness without the presence of the Collective in his mind, he was disoriented and frightened, alone and without guidance for the first time in his life. Expressing himself verbally was far more clumsy and lacking than the instantaneous instruction of the Borg hive mind, and he had no template for interaction with other beings that was not a prelude to assimilation. Eventually, however, loneliness and curiosity about the strange beings around him spurred him to ask questions of Dr. Crusher and Geordi LaForge, the two members of the crew who were more or less his caretakers. Gradually, he gained an understanding of individuality and friendship, and of how highly the people around him valued both. They, in turn, realized that he was a singular life away from the hive mind, an individual in his own right. They even gave him a name - Hugh - in place of the cold, impersonal designation.

As the crew came to see Hugh as a person, their reluctance to sacrifice him as an unwitting weapon increased. Picard was unable to accept the notion that one of the creatures that had captured and violated him could hold a sliver of humanity, but was eventually convinced that he should at least speak to Hugh before using him as a tool of genocide.

He agreed to meet with Hugh… but did so while assuming the persona of Locutus, voice of the Borg, the role that the Collective had forced upon him. He had Hugh brought to his Ready Room with the intention of showing that Hugh would revert to his conditioning when faced with will of the Collective.

Hugh recognized “Locutus” at once, became uncertain and deferential in the face of his authority, even reluctantly identifying as Third of Five once more when pressed. However, when Picard as Locutus began demanding that Hugh assist him in the assimilation of the Enterprise, Hugh objected to the crew being taken against their will, even begging Picard for the life of Geordi, with whom Hugh had become friends. When “Locutus” dismissed his pleas, Hugh rebelled fully, saying that he was not Borg and that he would not help Locutus assimilate the Enterprise or his friends.

Picard was shaken by the encounter and forced to acknowledge Hugh’s free will. Going through with his original plan was out of the question, though the crew hypothesized that sending Hugh back to the Borg with his sense of self intact might well “infect” them with the concept of individuality and lead to a collapse of the Collective regardless.

In the end, Picard and Geordi offered Hugh a choice, to return to the Borg Collective or stay with the Enterprise, with Picard at this point willing to risk both the Borg tracking Hugh back to the Enterprise and the anger of Starfleet if Hugh chose to remain with the ship. Hugh wished to stay on the Enterprise, but recognized that doing so presented far too great a risk to his friends, and so he chose to return to the Collective.

(TBC)