Although the Borg played a big part in the tragic backstory of Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine resisted the temptation to pit Sisko against the Borg, a decision that made the show better. The DS9 pilot, "Emissary" opened with a flashback to the Battle of Wolf 359, in which Starfleet first faced off against the Borg Collective, led by Locutus, the assimilated form of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart).
Serving aboard the USS Saratoga, Sisko led the evacuation of the ship after it was swiftly neutralized by the Borg. Tragically, Sisko's wife Jennifer (Felecia M. Bell) was killed in the attack, leaving the widowed Benjamin to raise his young son Jake (Cirroc Lofton). Sisko and Picard never resolved these issues, nor did Sisko ever get a chance to avenge the deaths of Jennifer and his Saratoga crew mates. However, rather than being a missed opportunity, a lack of Borg in DS9 helped to define it as a unique Star Trek show.
Sisko's Borg Backstory Showed DS9's Main Difference From TNG
Sisko's tragic backstory wasn't the set-up for recurring appearances by the Borg on Star Trek: Deep Space Nibe, but it served a greater purpose. Firstly, it established Benjamin Sisko as a very different type of Star Trek protagonist. Unlike the many Starfleet Officers that Picard encountered post-Locutus, Sisko wasn't willing to forget the part Jean-Luc played in the death of his wife Jennifer. Sisko's feelings toward Picard established that, in DS9, actions would have consequences. DS9's Dominion War is the perfect example of this, as it turned DS9 from a TNG-style alien-of-the-week show into something that predicted the long-form storytelling of prestige television.
Sisko's enmity toward Picard also provided a parallel with the Bajoran people for whom he would become a religious figure. Emerging from decades of oppression by the Cardassian Union, there were many Bajorans who were unwilling to forget the violence and cruelty of the regime. The specter of Wolf 359 set up the division between the DS9 and TNG lead characters on the question of Bajor's entry into the Federation. Sisko didn't believe they were ready, while Picard believed that the Commander should do everything in his power to prepare their entry. Sisko's Borg trauma was a means to divide him and Picard from the very beginning, establishing Sisko's dual life as Bajoran Emissary and Starfleet Officer.
How Would A DS9 Borg Story Have Worked?
As a space station, rather than a Galaxy-class starship, DS9 would require the assistance of Federation, and possibly Cardassian vessels to fight off a potential Borg incursion. Therefore, more creative approaches would need to be taken to tell a Borg story in DS9. The book Voyages of Imagination revealed that Robert Simpson and Marco Palmieri pitched a DS9 storyline that would reveal that Jennifer Sisko had been assimilated into the Collective. This smaller-scale, more emotional approach feels like a better fit for DS9 than the epic Borg battles that would come to define Star Trek: Voyager.
A 30th-anniversary comic will tell a new DS9 story about Quark that finds him come into possession of a dog augmented with Borg technology. It will finally confront Sisko with his Borg backstory, but the comic plotline of Quark having a dog called Latinum also fits with the tone of DS9. These feel like the most appropriate ways to tell a Borg story within Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, focusing on the emotional trauma of dealing with the Borg Collective, rather than a high-stakes battle for the future of humanity.