Question: Picard kills crew members who have only just been assimilated and justifies it by saying something along the lines of they will be better off dead and inferring that they will be put out of their misery. Yet Picard himself was assimilated and returned to normal and survived. Why is it different for Picard?
raywest
1st Jan 2023
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
7th May 2021
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Question: If the Borg can survive in the vacuum of space without suits (decompression liquefying their organic skin aside), Hawk also should've been able to once assimilated. They obviously had to take his suit off to assimilate him, but why did they put it back on him before sending him back out to help his new comrades?
26th Jan 2019
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Question: How did the Phoenix land on Earth after the warp display for the Vulcans? It looked like a non-reusable rocket to me.
Answer: While the main fuselage was a re-purposed intercontinental ballistic missile, and they separated from the ascent stage of the rocket, the payload section housed two deployable prototype warp nacelles capable of achieving lightspeed. Beyond that, the payload also contained the prototype warp core (which was powered by matter/antimatter annihilation), the warp core coolant, elaborate magnetic-containment systems, and probably even impulse drive and landing thrusters (It kind of goes without saying that thruster and impulse technology would have existed before warp technology). There was no space left over in the payload section for conventional rocket propellant, and Zefram Cochrane's enormously-expensive and one-of-a-kind warp components would not be expendable; so he must have devised a way to safely bring the Phoenix down for re-use. Since the Phoenix's return and landing were never addressed in the film, my assumption is that the payload section was powered entirely by the warp core, including its impulse drive and landing thrusters.
9th Apr 2018
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Question: Deanna Troi states that they will get rid of poverty, disease, and war within next 50 years. How would they get rid of things like autism, ADHD, or dyslexia? Aren't those medical conditions that cannot be cured?
Answer: Troi says that future medical research is far more advanced and humanity has learned to work together and overcome many social problems without being specific. It's unknown how these conditions will be cured, but possibly through advanced gene therapy, new drugs, new surgical techniques, etc.
Answer: The things you listed are not diseases, they are conditions. It is more plausible that she was referring to things like cancer, diabetes, stroke, and other similar disorders which, at some point in time, there might be a cure.
Troi said poverty disease war would all be gone within the next 50 years. I thought she meant things like autism ADHD and dyslexia would be gone too not just disease.
No, that's why she said disease.
Well the movie tells us that all bad things on earth would be gone within the next 50 years. I thought that would have included conditions like autism dyslexia or ADHD as well as disease.
The movie doesn't say "all bad things." She specifically says "disease." In other words things that can be cured, get cured. No doubt some things will be curable that we currently can't cure, and some things will never be curable. You're overanalysing a line used simply to explain that humanity advances itself in a short space of time.
22nd Sep 2017
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Question: Why didn't they just tell Cochrane about the Borg? Why didn't Cochrane want to be famous?
Answer: Telling him about the Borg would violate the Prime Directive by giving too much information about the future. The Borg were not supposed to be in that timeline, unlike the Vulcans who, historically, made First Contact with humans at that time. Cochrane does not say why he doesn't want to be famous. There are many reasons people shun celebrity-some are shy and prefer privacy, others don't want to deal with the pressure of having to live up to a reputation that may be inaccurate, it interferes with the work they are trying to achieve, and so on.
Actually, they did tell him about the Borg. You can tell they told him about the Borg because he said a group of cybernetic creatures from the future have traveled back through time to enslave the human race.
They told him a general story about what's going on. They don't reveal their name, where they are from or their nature.
What harm could telling Cochrane about the Borg possibly do?
That could potentially change the timeline too much. They want to preserve the timeline they came from.
I'd care more about saving humans from being killed, or enslaved, than about preserving timelines.
It might set humanity on the wrong path, that will lead to more deaths. For example, it could prevent the federation alliance. One can only imagine how the Alpha quadrant will survive Romulan, Klingon and Dominion attacks without the alliance.
"Telling him about the Borg would violate the prime directive by giving information about the future." Which is more important, obeying the prime directive, or stopping the Borg from enslaving the human race?
They are first attempting to give as little information as possible to anyone in the past in an attempt to follow the Temporal Prime Directive. Any small change could have larger changes in the future via the butterfly effect.
Answer: When Riker and Cochrane are doing the pre-flight check in the ship, Riker is talking about the historical significance of this launch. Cochrance tells him to shut up, he is tired of everyone he meets telling him what a hero he is, and what this launch means to mankind. He says, "You want why I want I'm doing this. Money and women. I want to buy an island and be served drinks by native girls. I hate space travel. I take trains." However, once the Vulcans land, he truly realises what he's done.
Answer: Cochrane wanted to be famous but in order to get money and women. Cochrane didn't want the hero title and was sick of hearing about all the good he had done.
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Answer: The Borg left Picard sentient to utilize his Starfleet knowledge, to communicate with the Borg queen, and act as the liaison with the Enterprise. Seeing and interacting with their captain as a Borg would have a debilitating effect on the crew. The less-valuable crew members were turned into fully compliant drones. Also, the Enterprise crew were not in their own time and were actively fighting the Borg for their survival and to save the future of humanity. The Borg had infiltrated the Enterprise, so there was no time, opportunity, or means to try and save any assimilated crew.
raywest ★