Magnus Hansen was a Human exobiologist and the father of the Human female who became Seven of Nine. He and his wife Erin were the first Humans to closely study the Borg. Prior to the USS Enterprise-D's first encounter with the Borg, the Federation had knowledge of their existence, based on encounters with surviving members of species that had been destroyed by them such as the El-Aurians. However, empirical data on the Borg was very scarce: for example, there were descriptions of cube-shaped vessels, but no information on what Borg individuals looked like, other than rumors that they were cybernetically enhanced.