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Captain Kathryn Janeway had suggested Seven of Nine use her birth name Annika Hansen. Without being conscious of the reason, Seven had formed an aversion to that name and refused to consider it; but she was willing to truncate her full Borg name to simply, "Seven." While the captain may have been someone disappointed by this choice, she accepted it from someone who wasn't used to making any sort of decision for herself at all. The captain encouraged Seven to regain her humanity through art and play, when it was Seven's natural inclination to work at tasks, regenerate, and repeat, or as she put it, to use her time efficiently. She clung to her Borg persona, but within the parameters of life with individuals from many genetic backgrounds.
Relations with Commander Chakotay, Janeway's first officer, were difficult from the beginning. He'd executed the other eight of Unimatrix 01 assigned with her to Voyager by shooting them out of an airlock. He fought Captain Janeway when she'd been open to cooperating with the Borg. Once Janeway learned of the Queen's duplicity, she was livid, but she didn't hold it against Seven of Nine. She blamed the Queen, kindling an enmity which would inflame both of them throughout Voyager's flight through the Delta Quadrant.
The photonic Doctor treated her injuries and removed the implants she no longer needed now that she was no longer completely Borg. He restored her appearance to that of an attractive human woman, although Seven of Nine had little appreciation for beauty in herself, or anyone else, for that matter. Breathing was difficult while she was forced to wear the tight corsets and constrictive clothing the Doctor said she needed while her body healed after surgery. It was a relief when she was able to don other clothing that was less restrictive, although Seven continued to require a corset for years. Luckily, it wasn't as tight as the initial one. It never occurred to her that the Doctor might have made certain choices about her appearance because he was personally attracted to her. It was years before she learned he'd fallen in love with his personal Galatea.
She did recognize how her new appearance invited unwanted attention from others even though her priority was to perform tasks efficiently, without interference. Ensign Kim made his attraction all too obvious. On one level, she was aware that she should be flattered by his interest, but she simply wasn't attracted to him in the same way he was to her. When they worked together on assignments, however, Seven was able to appreciate the ensign's ability to work with her, even after she physically attacked him. Harry Kim was one who did accept her as she was.
Other crew members made their resentment about her presence very clear. While Chief Engineer B'Elanna Torres was particularly hostile, the man with whom the Klingon/human hybrid enjoyed a romantic relationship, Thomas Paris, offered to help Seven adjust to her life on Voyager. Eventually she learned that Lieutenant Paris had been hated by virtually everyone on the ship when Voyager first arrived in the Delta Quadrant. While the fact that he was the lover of the very irascible Lieutenant Torres prevented Seven from taking him up on his offer at first, as she might otherwise have done, she did appreciate the fact that he'd tendered it to her at all.
The easiest one to deal with, surprisingly, was the Vulcan Tactical and Security Officer, Tuvok, who was a Lieutenant when she arrived on Voyager but was promoted to Lieutenant Commander shortly afterwards. He was older, worked efficiently at his tasks, and, because of his species, was able to control his emotions and concentrate on helping her to correct any errors she made instead of berating her for them, as Chakotay or Torres were wont to do. His lack of an emotional reaction to her presence was gratifying. Gradually, over time, he became her mentor. He taught her as much about Starfleet protocols and procedures as she was willing to absorb.
The representative of Species 218, a native of the Delta Quadrant, was a curious person who served many functions on Voyager. His exuberance could be trying, and his love of exotic spices, which found their way into the food Neelix cooked for the crew, made his meal offerings difficult for many of them to appreciate - or to digest. When Seven's body returned to one that was primarily biological, rather than mechanical, in nature, requiring she ingest food in addition to spending time regenerating, she had so much difficulty with his menu, she often resorted to consuming replicated nutritional supplements prescribed by the Doctor, rather than risk eating anything the genial chef had prepared.
Neelix's friend Kes was Ocampan, a race without a species designation, as far as Seven could tell from her Collective memories. The Ocampa lived under the surface of their homeworld, and apart from a very a small group residing on a space station some light years away, nowhere else. The Borg must never have encountered them. Seven had little chance to interact with this person, however. Shortly after Seven arrived on Voyager, Kes evolved into a creature of light and energy. During the process, she bestowed a gift. Kes exerted sufficient power to thrust Voyager far out of Borg space, which was being hotly contested by the Borg and Species 8472 at the time. When she observed this unique ability, which suggested the Ocampa might have the potential to provide the Borg a weapon against Species 8472, Seven was pleased the Collective had apparently overlooked the species. She wasn't sure why.
When Seven had been on the ship for approximately one standard Federation year, she encountered a child who'd been born on Voyager long after it was lost in the Delta Quadrant. At first Naomi Wildman was terrified of the "Borg Lady," but eventually, she accepted the presence of this strange human, who had metal parts emerging from the skin on her face and other places hidden by clothing, too. Naomi's mother Samantha told her daughter that Seven reminded her of a human child of six or seven. Naomi, a Ktarian/Human hybrid, was barely half that age, but she related to the crew far more easily than Seven did for a very long time.
Apart from the crew, Seven had to endure encounters with alien races, such as the Cataati, who wished to blame her for all their ills. Since she was the only representative of the Borg available, they wanted to punish her for what the Collective as a whole had done to them. Other aliens were more accepting, perhaps because they had never encountered any of the Borg.
Over time she adapted, although life on Voyager was often more upsetting than comfortable for her or for the rest of the crew, for that matter. Once they encountered a space station made in the image of Starfleet Headquarters, but which was actually an outpost of Species 8472. A "Think Tank" abducted her and tried to keep her prisoner, until the captain rescued her. She uncovered evidence of conspiracies and memories of being abused, both of which turned out to be false. A visit to a spatial anomaly introduced her to the corpse of a human who had died while on one of mankind's earliest missions to another planet in Earth's solar system. She suffered the pain of loss when an unprecedented chain of events resulted in the birth of a futuristic drone "son," who sacrificed his life to prevent a Borg ship from capturing him and assimilating his 29th century technology. The Hirogen; deadly nebulas; starship-eating pitcher plants in space; regions of space so fouled with radiation, even a Borg vessel would not have attempted to cross it; Captain Rudy Ransom and his first officer Maxwell Burke of the Equinox: she faced them all, sometimes when she was basically on her own.
And the Borg. Was the Queen following Voyager through the Delta Quadrant, waiting for the opportunity to strike? If so, what was she waiting for? As Seven of Nine became more accustomed and comfortable with being referred to only as Seven, she began to wonder about this, because time after time, Voyager and its crew ran into the Borg in some manner, yet the Collective was unable - or unwilling - to assimilate the ship.
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