star trek - How was Seven of Nine the seventh of nine people to be assimilated?

Borg drone designations in the form n of m were established in the Next Generation episode Season 5 Episode 23 "I Borg".

In that episode, the crew found a crashed Borg scout ship. On board of that ship were 5 borg drones of which only one was alive. The surviving drone identified itself as "three of five". The crew inferred that it meant that the drone was the 3rd member of a group of five drones.

Later Star Trek works kept using this naming system for Borg drones. "Seven of Nine" means that she was the 7th member of a group of nine drones.

An alternative explanation could be that the second number is the number of the unit the drone belongs to (7th drone of the 9th group of drones), but there is no canon example of a Borg drone where the first number is larger than the 2nd, so there is no reason to believe that the hypothesis from "I Borg" was incorrect.

There are, however, three examples of Borg which are not named with the n of m naming system:

• "Locutus of Borg", the name assigned to Captain Picard after being assimilated


• The "Borg Queen" (although she might not technically count as a drone)


• "One", the 29th century technology Borg drone from the Voyager episode Season 5 Episode 2 "Drone" (But this designation was given to it by itself after inspiration from Neelix, not by the Borg collective to which it never had any contact)

So there is precedent for the Borg collective giving special names to drones which have a very unique purpose.