From http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/V%27Ger
The Machine Planet
V'Ger had an extraordinary ability to evolve. It was discovered that the evolution of this once simple probe into a complex, powerful entity began after it was pulled into a black hole shortly after leaving Earth's solar system.
Voyager VI emerged from the black hole on the far side of the galaxy, and fell into the gravitational field of a planet populated by living machines. These beings found Voyager VI damaged by its travels, and the identifying plaque attached to the probe's exterior had been burned leaving only the letters V, G, E, and R legible; the inhabitants of the machine planet renamed the probe V'Ger.
These entities found V'Ger to be primitive, but one of their own kind. They discovered the probe's simple, 20th century programming; "learn all that is learnable and return that knowledge to the creator", and interpreted these instruction literally.
Using highly advanced technologies, the inhabitants of the Machine Planet gave V'Ger the ability to fulfil its programming far more completely than the scientists who built and launched the probe could ever have imagined. They constructed a giant space-faring machine, with V'Ger at its heart and mind, and gave it the ability to collect and store data in 3D form. They also provided V'Ger with effective defensive and sensory capabilities to carry out its mission.
While traversing the vast distance back to Earth, V'Ger collected data via its 3D imaging system, but it destroyed the objects that it encountered along the way. However, it accumulated so much knowledge that it eventually achieved consciousness and became, like its benefactors, a living machine. As a machine it was only capable of pure, cold logic with no emotion, but with its newfound sentience V'Ger began to question its own existence. It asked the philosophical questions faced by so many life forms: "Is this all that I am? Is there nothing more?" The answers, V'Ger decided, could only be found with its creator on Earth.
V'Ger had an extraordinary ability to evolve. It was discovered that the evolution of this once simple probe into a complex, powerful entity began after it was pulled into a black hole shortly after leaving Earth's solar system.
Voyager VI emerged from the black hole on the far side of the galaxy, and fell into the gravitational field of a planet populated by living machines. These beings found Voyager VI damaged by its travels, and the identifying plaque attached to the probe's exterior had been burned leaving only the letters V, G, E, and R legible; the inhabitants of the machine planet renamed the probe V'Ger.
These entities found V'Ger to be primitive, but one of their own kind. They discovered the probe's simple, 20th century programming; "learn all that is learnable and return that knowledge to the creator", and interpreted these instruction literally.
Using highly advanced technologies, the inhabitants of the Machine Planet gave V'Ger the ability to fulfil its programming far more completely than the scientists who built and launched the probe could ever have imagined. They constructed a giant space-faring machine, with V'Ger at its heart and mind, and gave it the ability to collect and store data in 3D form. They also provided V'Ger with effective defensive and sensory capabilities to carry out its mission.
While traversing the vast distance back to Earth, V'Ger collected data via its 3D imaging system, but it destroyed the objects that it encountered along the way. However, it accumulated so much knowledge that it eventually achieved consciousness and became, like its benefactors, a living machine. As a machine it was only capable of pure, cold logic with no emotion, but with its newfound sentience V'Ger began to question its own existence. It asked the philosophical questions faced by so many life forms: "Is this all that I am? Is there nothing more?" The answers, V'Ger decided, could only be found with its creator on Earth.
Gene Roddenberry jokingly stated that it was not a black hole that consumed Voyager VI, but a Borg transwarp conduit, and that the planet seen by Spock was infact, the Borg homeworld. Gene stated that the Borg assimilated the probe, yet the assimilation went "afoul", and changed Voyager VI into a more sentient being.
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