True dat. True dat.
More from Memory Alpha:
Writer Tracy Tormé, adapting a story by Robert Sabaroff to The Next Generation, had hoped to make “Conspiracy” a commentary on the Iran/Contra Affair, but this potentially controversial notion was nixed. A plot by Starfleet officers out to undermine the Prime Directive (already introduced six episodes before in “Coming of Age”), turned out to be the result of an infestation of alien insects, not part of Tormé’s original approach.
The original version of the script did not feature alien parasites; the conspiracy in question was simply a military coup within Starfleet. Gene Roddenberry vehemently opposed such an idea, since he believed Starfleet would never stoop to such methods; there was just no way Tormé could get away with suggesting that the Federation was anything less than a perfect government. Thus the alien angle was introduced at his insistence. (DS9 later featured a similar plot, however, in the two-part episodes “Homefront” and “Paradise Lost”.)
On its first airing in the UK, the BBC cut several minutes of footage from the episode (most notably the death of Remmick). In addition, Space, Canada’s science fiction network, precedes this episode with a viewer discretion warning, the only The Next Generation episode to receive this.
Indeed, the whole idea of the episode, its violence, and its unresolved ending caused quite a stir, but Robert Justman, Rick Berman, and Rob Lewin backed Tormé against the objections of Maurice Hurley, and the show stood pretty much as he had intended it, with the topical references subtly shoved under the carpet. Things did not go so well for writer Tormé in the future; he was left with the feeling that, as far as creative freedom for writers, the second half of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s second season was the best part of the series as a whole.
Although the episode closed on a suspenseful note, no resolution has yet been seen. When the Borg were being created a year later, it was initially suggested that they in fact be the aliens from these episodes, a race of mechanical insectoids. (Trek: The Unauthorized Behind-The-Scenes Story of The Next Generation)
According to Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, the aliens and the homing signal the parasites began were originally supposed to lead in to what would become the Borg, who would be an insectoid race and the parasites be a first wave, but budgetary reasons made them into cyborgs instead.