V ' ger V ' ger was a massive entity and one of the most extraordinary lifeform s ever encountered by the United Federation of Planets . It generated enormous levels of power and threatened Earth with destruction until it found a way to evolve . " V ' ger " chose its own name itself . Before the name of the vessel was discovered , Starfleet personnel referred to the ship as " the intruder " . Approaching Federation space . Initial contact . First detected when passing through Klingon territory in the 2270s , " V ' ger " was unlike anything that Starfleet had ever encountered . Its initial appearance – that of a vast , luminous cloud , capable of emitting enormous amounts of energy – was described as a " twelfth - power energy field , " a scale beyond the energy - generation capacity of even " thousands of starship s . " As it traversed their space , the Klingon s dispatched a fleet of three cruiser s , led by the , to investigate . After approaching the outermost edges of the cloud , the Klingons fired photon torpedo es at it , to no effect . They continued their assault , but began a retreat as each of their torpedo es seemingly " vanished , " and during the retreat , the vessels began to be eliminated by powerful , spherically - shaped " bolts " of plasma energy emerging from within the cloud . This attack , while occurring within Klingon space , was monitored by a sensor drone from Starfleet ' s Epsilon IX communications station , which was in close proximity to the then - disputed Federation - Klingon border , and was able to intercept communications between the " Amar " fleet and the Klingon High Council . Shortly after the elimination of the Klingon vessels , the cloud passed into Federation space near the Epsilon IX station , which was able to perform limited scans on it , although most of its sensor sweeps were reflected back . The relay station ' s crew was able , however , to determine that it measured a diameter in excess of two astronomical unit s which , at almost 300 million kilometer s , would make the cloud larger than Earth ' s orbit ; and there was a null reading at the heart of the entity , indicating a solid form or vessel of some kind . Unfortunately , " V ' ger " appeared to interpret Epsilon IX ' s scans as a hostile act , and eliminated the space station in the same manner as it had the Klingon vessels . Threatening Earth . With the cloud just fifty - four hour s away from Earth , Starfleet dispatched the only starship within intercept ion range , the newly refit ted , to determine both what the intruder was and how to stop it , if possible . When the " Enterprise " arrived at the cloud ' s coordinates , it determined that the entity had an energy output surpassing that of thousands of starships . By assuming a non - threatening posture , the " Enterprise " was able to deeply penetrate the cloud surrounding " V ' ger " and begin gathering information . During this critical time , however , the starship was cut off from all communication with Starfleet . As " V ' ger " entered the Sol system , the cloud surrounding it began to rapidly dissipate , and spherical energy " bolts " similar to those that had destroyed the Klingons and the Epsilon IX station , only vastly more powerful , were launched by the entity . The energy spheres proceeded on course s that would place them into equidistant orbits around the planet , at which point it was predicted Earth ' s entire surface would be devastated . Making contact . The " Enterprise " tried to make contact with " V ' ger " , but all linguacode messages were ignored , and it became apparent that the object at the heart of the cloud was unable to comprehend the hail ing signals . It was determined that the intruder communicated on a frequency of more than one million megahertz ( over one terahertz ) and that , at such a high rate of speed , an entire message lasted only a millisecond . Aside from the plasma energy spheres , " V ' ger " had other , less destructive means of gathering data . It scanned the " Enterprise " with a plasma - energy beam that gave some of the crew an electric shock , but otherwise left people unharmed . However , the same beam removed the Deltan navigator of the " Enterprise " , Lieutenant Ilia . " V ' ger " was able to analyze Ilia in extraordinary detail , at least down to the ular level . It then constructed an extremely accurate bio - mechanical replica of her , which acted as a probe . This device was such a precise copy of the original that it even had her memory patterns . They were , however , suppressed , and the Ilia probe had only rudimentary knowledge of humanoid behavior , presumably reflecting " V ' ger " s own level of experience ; the probe required considerable education to act as liaison between " V ' ger " and the crew of the " Enterprise " . Physical aspects and organization . Structure and layout . Surrounded by layer upon layer of cloud formations , the vessel aspect of " V ' ger " was enormous , with even the largest starship seeming microscopic in comparison . Roughly cylindrical in shape , the construction of the exterior and interior of the vessel was mostly of a " hexad " , or six - sided axially symmetric nature , with the axis generally running from " " to " stern " , but with few indications as to its nature or purposes . Portions of the outer hull seem to have been composed of energy rather than matter . Organic in appearance , despite harboring no biological lifeform s , the interior was multi - chambered , and contained circular apertures that could be closed or opened to prevent or allow passage from one section of the vessel to the next . The most prominent of these apertures , at the forward end of the interior chamber where the " Enterprise " was located before accessing the " intruder ' s " core " , " possessed a " hexad " of six symmetrical " petals " constantly oscillating in unison , appearing much like the mechanical " iris " of a camera shutter ; but of enormous proportions , with the entire aperture ' s outer diameter measuring in excess of one kilometer wide . In one area of the vessel , there was a three - dimension al data storage facility . This stored representations of all data collected by " V ' ger " . The plasma energy weapon which the vessel used to defend itself not only had extreme destructive force , but also functioned as an unusual data - gathering system ; as " V ' ger " destroyed a vessel , it gathered an enormous amount of information , and created what appeared to be a holographic record of it , later referred to by the Ilia probe as a " data pattern " . In essence , " V ' ger " didn ' t so much destroy a target as " remember " it to death . When the science officer of the " Enterprise " , Commander Spock , entered the area , he could see images of everything that the powerful entity had encountered on its long journey , including planets , star systems , and entire galaxies , though the images remained indeterminable , as to whether they had been destroyed or simply explored . When Spock came to an image of a gigantic Lieutenant Ilia , he noticed a glowing " node " , at the base of the image ' s throat . He was being guided telepathically by " V ' ger " , and attempted to access the data through a Vulcan mind meld . He quickly suffered a sensory overload , losing consciousness , and was flung back through the spiral " orifice " toward the " Enterprise " . " V ' ger " was able to control atmospheric conditions within its chambers . In the area near where Spock encountered the image of Ilia , there was an " inner sanctum , " a central nexus where " V ' ger " could create an M - class environment . In this nexus was a large circular area , resembling an amphitheater , with data conduit s running into the center . Lightning constantly lit the background , possibly the visible " nerve " transmissions of " V ' ger " itself . The heart of " V ' ger " . Beyond the oscillating " hexad " of " iris - like " petals that Spock had to pass through during his EVA spacewalk to meld with the " intruder " , the center of the enormous vessel contained the oldest part of " V ' ger " – " Voyager 6 " , an unmanned deep space probe launched by NASA in the late 20th century . The entire vessel surrounding the " Voyager " probe had been built by an unknown race of machine entities in order to help it complete what the latter interpreted to be its primary programming : " learn all that is learnable , " and return that knowledge to its creator . During its journey , the probe had come to think of itself as " V ' ger " after the only remaining legible letters from its original name ( the " O " , " Y " , " A " , and " 6 " on the nameplate being obscured from encounters with previous spatial hazards ) , and amassed knowledge to such a degree as to become self - aware . Evolution of " V ' ger " . 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 an anomaly once called a black hole , shortly after leaving Earth ' s solar system . " Voyager 6 " emerged from the anomaly in what was believed to have been the far side of the galaxy , and fell into the gravitational field of a planet populated by living machines . These beings found " Voyager 6 " 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 called the probe " " V ' ger " " . These entities found " V ' ger " to be primitive , but of a kindred spirit . They discovered the probe ' s simple , 20th century programming , " learn all that is learnable and return that knowledge to the creator " , and interpreted these instructions literally . Reprogramming . Reconstructed through highly advanced technologies as a vast space - faring artificial organism , " V ' ger " was augmented with a three - dimensional data collection and storing apparatus , magnitudes beyond anything previously known to Federation science . " V ' ger " was likewise provided , by the inhabitants of the machine planet , with effectively immeasurable defensive and sensory capabilities . These gave " V ' ger " the ability to fulfill its programming in a far more complete fashion than the scientist s who had originally built and launched the vessel at its core had ever imagined . Sentience . 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 new - found sentience , " V ' ger " began to question its own existence . It asked the philosophical questions faced by so many lifeforms : " " Is this all that I am ? Is there nothing more ? " " The answers , " V ' ger " decided , could only be found with its creator on Earth . Resolution . Realizing it lacked the intuitive , irrational elements which allow Human s to deal with some complex , non - scientific concepts , it came to believe that only its Creator could help it to leap beyond logic . In order to obtain the answers it needed , " V ' ger " wished to meet and become one with its Creator . To this end , it sought not only to receive the acknowledged signal from the Creator , but to merge with the Creator . But " V ' ger " had been reprogrammed to such an extent that it had come to think of biological lifeforms as an " infestation " , and destroyed any that it encountered . When " V ' ger " encountered the crew of the " Enterprise " , its confusion over its true nature was so great that it could not comprehend what it was told – that it had been created by the organic lifeforms it saw only as imperfections that must be cleansed . In an effort to meet its Creator , " V ' ger " refused to accept the pre - programmed transmission that would signal it to transmit its accumulated data . The probe burned out a relay connection , hoping to force the Creator to come to its heart , so that they could merge . Realizing that the only way " V ' ger " would understand was to add Humanity to its experiences , Captain Will Decker , who was deeply affected by the loss of Ilia , his former lover , sacrificed himself to become one with the machine lifeform . Decker rewired the relay connection and keyed in the final sequence of the transmission manually . This prompted " V ' ger " to begin transmitting its data , effectively merging with Decker and the Ilia probe , thus taking " V ' ger " to a new level of existence . At last satisfied with its answers , " V ' ger " disappeared in a blinding flash of white light , leaving Admiral James T . Kirk , Commander Spock , and Doctor Leonard McCoy of the " Enterprise " to discuss the possibility that they had just created a new lifeform made of " V ' ger " s logic and of Humanity ' s ability to feel and to believe . ( ) What V ' ger evolved into remains a mystery to this day . Appendices . Background information . The concept of " V ' ger " , an Earth - launched space probe that becomes a powerful , sentient being in its own right , is in many ways a revisiting of the " Nomad " probe featured in the original series episode . Gene Roddenberry , in an interview shortly after , said that the machine planet seen by Spock might have been the Borg homeworld . ( ) When Spock attempts a mind meld with " V ' ger " and is quickly overwhelmed , among the images visible on the screen multiple times , when in slow motion , amid the background of his face , can be seen the dedication plaque carried not by " Voyager 1 " and " 2 " , but by " Pioneer 10 " and " 11 " . Other images include a Klingon cruiser seen earlier , the bridge and two crewmembers of ( presumably ) the IKS " Amar " , Epsilon IX , the Epsilon IX lieutenant , and Ilia . Concept and effects development . ' s first visual effects house , Robert Abel & Associates , developed concepts for " V ' ger " that were radically different from anything that had ever appeared on screen . Robert Abel ' s art director , Richard Taylor , and his team worked on a design that was totally different from the version that was ultimately created for the film . Taylor brought in artist Tony Smith to help with the conceptual design , and it was Smith who did the original drawings of the exterior of " V ' ger " . Taylor designed " V ' ger " with the idea that the entire object would never be seen . " " It was to be a dark object , not some light covered mother ship from " Close Encounters " . It ' s always more mysterious to show less and leave it to the imagination , " " explained Taylor . " " There ' s a part of " V ' ger " toward the tail section where there is a huge sphere that rotates and in the center of that sphere is the old " Voyager 6 " probe . Our " V ' ger " design is much more complex and much more mysterious . For one thing , it would have been a lot more interactive with the " Enterprise " . " " Taylor ' s philosophy was to make " V ' ger " a living machine . " " It would have ' morphed ' and on the inside the walls would have been iridescent and changed as the " Enterprise " moved past them . You would have seen images of the " Enterprise " along the walls because it was being analyzed by " V ' ger " and there would have been parts of walls that would break apart like a flock of birds or a swarm of insects , " " explained Taylor . " " The swarms would go from one place to another and reassemble . You could think of the particles as digital energy or digital information . I wanted it to be a very metamorphical and very mysterious place . For the exterior of the thing one of the design concepts I had was to photo - etch thin metal plates so that the outside surface would have multiple levels which would continually move creating different patterns . We found a material that you could apply like paint that when heated with warm air from a blower would change color . It had an iridescent color quality that I was looking for like a beetle ' s back or butterflies wings . I wanted " V ' ger " s skin or surface to change color near the " Enterprise " as it moved over the surface . I wanted the image of the " Enterprise " to be left like glowing phosphor images along the walls of " V ' ger " . " " The director ' s edition of " Star Trek : The Motion Picture " , released in , features a somewhat different transformation scene at the end of the film than what was released in . Richard Taylor explained what the original plans were for the evolution of " V ' ger " into a higher lifeform : " " What we had storyboarded was that the whole " V ' ger " craft unfolds and turns into this incredible object in space . That effect would have started where Kirk , Spock , McCoy and the " Voyager 6 " was and would have radiated outward from there through the ship . There would have been this change that goes through " V ' ger " s interior and then to the outside , unfolding into a big flower kind of thing with all these radiating colors and such . " " Brick Price – whose company , Brick Price Movie Miniatures , was brought in by Robert Abel on " The Motion Picture " – worked on the " V ' ger " model ( at least some of the early stages of it , when Richard Taylor was designer ) . The model they started , in August of , looked like a cigar with a maw that opened up . They disliked that design because it was too much like the planet killer from and there was already enough trouble with the script being so similar to that episode and . " " But we did a lot of tests working with the textures like paint , color and light , things of that sort , " " explained Price , " " and it wound up with a very organic art - deco look to it . Taylor was an avid deco fan . That one might have been interesting had they gone with it . It would have had a bubble on it and the " Voyager " craft would have been on an island underneath one of those . The whole skin surface was sort of iridescent . But then Paramount Pictures decided to have miles and miles of white and not let people know what it looked like exactly . Ours was really bizarre and all convoluted with things hanging off it . So every time it changed hands it changed completely . Taylor ' s original interior concept of " V ' ger " was extremely complex . You can see all sorts of actual light functions and all sorts of spheres representing the " V ' ger " concept of life . " " " " I think " V ' ger " more than anything was incredibly compromised because the effects had changed hands and they had to come up with their own solutions in a very short period of time , " " said Richard Taylor . " " Doug [ las Trumbull < nowiki > ] < / nowiki > was not going to use my solution because that model had not been built . We had built test pieces and had done extensive tests of processes we were going to use when we finally began construction . I was told Douglas Trumbull described the exterior as a ' weird fish ' ( Cinefex , " 1980 , issue 1 " ) . That ' s a pretty subjective description . I don ' t think many would agree [ . . . ] My point was that one would never really see the entire shape of " V ' ger " because the ship was so big – it really wasn ' t that important . Just show glimpses of the exterior and let the audience ' s imagination do the rest . " " Robert Abel & Associates , however , had overstretched themselves , and Paramount lost confidence in their ability to deliver the movie ' s visual effects in time for its release . The studio thus handed control to Douglas Trumbull , who divided work on " V ' ger " between two teams : his would deal with the interior , while John Dykstra ' s people would work on " V ' ger " s exterior . In this area , all the work that the Abel studios had done was abandoned , and the two teams set about developing entirely new concepts . The highly respected artist Syd Mead was brought in and worked with Dykstra to design an entirely new version of the giant craft . The model of " V ' ger " that they built was never seen in its entirety , but it was extraordinarily large , at sixty feet in length . Dykstra remembered that even constructing it in time posed logistical problems : " " We were building the model on one end of the stage and photographing it on the other with a black curtain between the two – that was the unique approach to doing the work . We had three crews working eight - hour shifts in order to get that work done . " " The situation was complicated because the camera had to record several passes over the model at very slow speeds . Some of the passes took as long as eighteen hours , and if the motors failed ( which they often did ) they had to be recorded again from scratch . Trumbull ' s team , handling the interior of " V ' ger " , considered several different approaches – possibly using matte painting s or some kind of laser scanning effect – before settling on a conventional model . Most of the design work was done by Syd Mead , who by now had finished his work on the " V ' ger " exterior . His designs followed Trumbull ' s brief , which called for six - sided symmetry . When it was filmed , the model was filled with smoke , to give it the right sense of scale . The walls were originally illuminated with miniature light bulbs , which were built into the model . However , when it came to the filming , they were too big to be convincing . Greg Jein , who had built the model , suggested the solution to this problem : drill hundreds of holes in the model and run fiber optic lights behind them . The major reason why Trumbull took on the shots inside " V ' ger " was that he was also filming a new sequence in which Spock explored the inside of the vast machine . His Spock spacewalk replaced the ' memory wall ' sequence that the Abel studios had originally planned , and had been filmed during first - unit photography . Trumbull did not feel he could make the sequence work with what had been shot without spending an insane amount of money . The wire work that had been filmed on the stage was awkward and unwieldy ; there were even problems with reflections in the spacesuit faceplates . Instead , Trumbull pursued Director Robert Wise to let him shoot a new sequence , which he designed himself . The storyboards were worked up by Tom Cranham , with several artists , including David Negrón , Sr . and Robert T . McCall , developing concepts for the sights that Spock would see . The spacesuits were completely redesigned , and then built at Apogee . The final effect – when " V ' ger " disappears , leaving the " Enterprise " in orbit around Earth – was especially designed so as to expand only horizontally , ensuring that it could not be mistaken for a conventional explosion . Remarkably , all these shots were completed in time for the movie ' s premiere , and the film ' s audiences were so impressed with what they saw that the Trumbull / Dykstra team was jointly nominated for an Academy Award . Spelling of the name . The spelling " " V ' ger " " was used in the shooting script of " Star Trek : The Motion Picture " . The alternative spelling " " V ' Ger " " , with a capital " G " , was used in most other reference sources , including such works as and " Star Trek Star Charts " ( p . 39 ) and at StarTrek . com . The label of the LP record , and more significantly the text of , itself written by Gene Roddenberry as the only " Star Trek " novel ever written by the series ' creator , both use the alternative spelling " " Vejur " " , which in the novel exists from its first mention on page 179 onwards in the novel ' s first paperback edition . The size controversy . The physical size of " V ' ger " has been the subject of speculation from the time " Star Trek : The Motion Picture " was first released , at the end of 1979 . In the original theatrical release of " Star Trek : The Motion Picture " , the " V ' ger " energy cloud is given a size measuring eighty - two au in diameter , in dialogue from the Epsilon IX commander , Branch . That measurement is equivalent to over 1 . 2271 kilometers or 0 . 001 light year s . Placing " V ' ger " at the same central position as the sun would mean that the energy cloud would extend beyond the , extending into the orbit of , and essentially swallowing our entire solar system . For the later - released of the film , the cloud size was drastically scaled down to two au , which is the distance between Sol and a point between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter . This revision was achieved by editing the spoken dialogue to clip out the " eighty " and leaving just the " two " . As one au is precisely the average distance between Sol and Earth , this more reasonable measurement reduces the size of the cloud to " merely " the diameter of Earth ' s orbit . , however , retain the original dimension and it is unclear which should be considered canon ical . Additional dialogue established that the cloud dissipated rapidly as it slowed to enter the solar system , allowing " V ' ger " ultimately to enter Earth ' s orbit without disrupting the entire system and destroying Earth . In the Director ' s Edition , the dramatically decreasing cloud had disappeared entirely when " V ' ger " entered Earth orbit . The size of " V ' ger " s vessel has also been a subject of debate . In dialogue cut from the theatrical version of the movie , Decker says the spacecraft was seventy - eight kilometers ( forty - eight miles ) in length . The of the film gives the same dimension for the ship and states it as displacing six million times the amount of space as " Enterprise " . One popular non - canon site for " Star Trek " technical details , the Daystrom Institute Technical Library , listed " V ' ger " s overall length at a staggering ninety - seven kilometers , stated as being determined from apparently careful measurement of the image of the refitted NCC - 1701 from the movie ' s scenes , as the " Enterprise " traveled closely ( at only five hundred meters distance , from the movie ' s dialogue ) over the various parts of " V ' ger " s exterior structures , during the Federation starship ' s initial close examination of the " intruder " vessel . Another estimate places " V ' ger " s colossal length at a much more conservative twenty kilometers instead , possibly based on the statement of replacement navigator DiFalco ' s " distance inside the intruder as seventeen kilometers , " spoken just after Chekov reports that " V ' ger " s " orbiting devices " were eighteen minutes from reaching their equidistant deployment points in Earth orbit , during the approach to " Voyager 6 " s " island , " in the most extreme part of " V ' ger " s interior that the " Enterprise " was allowed access to . The latter estimate , however , would make " V ' ger " impossibly smaller than the roughly seventy kilometer - long Whale Probe featured in , given that the latter was passed by a Federation starship within minutes , rather than the near - hour it took to traverse even half of " V ' ger " at a faster pace , much of which was carried out at only a half - kilometer distance from the " intruder ' s " hull . Apocrypha . The idea that the Borg homeworld was the machine planet which " V ' ger " had encountered was further developed in the William Shatner novel " The Return " , where Spock ' s mind meld with " V ' ger " not only protected Spock from being assimilated ( since the Borg Collective was already present in Spock ' s mind , the Borg assumed he was already one of them ) , but provided the Federation with the coordinates of the Borg homeworld for a final attack . It may also be significant that Spock , when referring to " V ' ger " , says , " " Resistance would be futile . " " In the game " " , it is said that " V ' ger " itself created the Borg to gain the knowledge by assimilation . The episode seems to contradict the game ' s storyline , as the character of Gedrin states to Seven of Nine that his species , the Vaadwaur , had encountered the Borg over nine centuries prior to his revival , placing the Borg ' s genesis at least as far back as around the year 1400 AD . The story writers for " Star Trek : Legacy " , however , claimed on the official game forum that " Voyager 6 " was meant to have been thrown back in time as well as across the galaxy , an aspect mentioned in the " extras " cut - scenes of the game itself . " Star Trek Online " also hints at a connection to the Borg , as vessels closely resembling " V ' ger " are featured as Borg mini - bosses , even including the disintegrating plasma weapons and the " V ' ger " - style low - pitched sound effects . " V ' ger " appears in the third issue of the comic book " " , set during ' s . In the alternate reality caused by Nero ' s incursion , " V ' ger " reactivates the " Narada " , itself an artificial intelligence due to having Borg - based modifications . After escaping twenty - five years of imprisonment on Rura Penthe in the alternate reality , Nero is taken to " V ' ger " by the " Narada " and then uses the unmanned probe ' s intelligence to calculate where and when Spock will arrive . While Nero is able to do this , " V ' ger " finds his hatred incompatible with itself .