Corrected entry: The whole premise for this film is blown if you consider that the Borg are after technology. Why would they want to go back in time to assimilate a race that has almost no 'technological distinctiveness' to add to their own. Earth has a tremendous amount to offer during Picard's time and very little during Cochran's time. The hassle of time traveling to assimilate a pre-warp capable world seems like a waste of effort. Sending a few more cubes to finish the job in Picard's time seems much more advantageous.
lionhead
7th Dec 2002
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
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.
15th Jun 2018
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Factual error: When Zephram Cochrane, Riker and LaForge activate the warp drive of the prototype starship Phoenix, the prismatic starscape is seen streaking past (same effect as in the Star Trek: TNG series). However, the Phoenix never leaves the solar system or even the vicinity of Earth, achieving only Warp One (the max velocity of the Phoenix) for a few seconds. Even at lightspeed, the Phoenix did not enter interstellar space nor pass any other stars; therefore, the starscape should have remained almost motionless.
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Suggested correction: What happens when a ship goes to warp it essentially creates a subspace distortion. This causes the starscape to change and move, as they exit regular space and enter subspace.
At Warp One, there should be zero prismatic distortions. It takes a full 24-hour DAY for light to cross the solar system. In a few seconds, a vessel traveling at Warp One, within a solar system, would see no distortions.
A ship slips out of regular space when going to warp, it creates a bubble around the ship, that bubble causes the starscape for the people inside it to appear moving or at least distort. That's what you see. That's what you always see when a ship goes to warp.
The prismatic effect was created for the TNG series to depict the ship passing stars at hundreds of times the speed of light. The Phoenix only achieved Warp One, one time the speed of light (lightspeed). As fast as that sounds, it wouldn't be fast enough to create any visual distortion.
Even at hundreds of times the speed of light you would only pass a star every few seconds, they didn't make that effect for TNG as in TOS they were going that fast too (as high as warp 9) and the same distortion is seen. You also keep saying its the speed that causes the visual distortion whilst I specifically mention its the fact the ship exiting regular space and into subspace is whats causing the distortion.
1st Jan 2018
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Question: Why do Borg always attack earth with only one single ship? We already know from ST: Voyager that Borg have so many ships in the delta-quadrant that they sometimes attack with 10 or more ships at the same time. Why don't they just send 2 or 3 of their cubes next time? Borg knows that the Federation needed their very last resources and a lot of luck to defeat the Borg Cube last time (Battle of Wolf359). So 2 ships at least should do the job this time. Instead they again send one cube and risk defeat.
Answer: The Borg think like machines. They have calculated that one cube is enough to conquer Earth so they send one cube. Both times they were defeated because of incalculable events. Both times they didn't have a reason to send more than one cube.
This is wrong. Borg do have a big reason to send more than one cube the second time. They know that Locutus (Picard) is there somewhere and can log-in into the Borg hive when Borg are near him. He received visions from the Borg shortly before battle and calculated with this information "unimportant" weak-spots which destroyed the second Borg cube. If someone knows your weak spots and this someone is nearby, then Borgs should be more precautious than last time.
The Enterprise was not at the battle, the Borg knew that, Picard went in against orders and intervened. This time the Borg took more than just a cube anyway, they took time travel with them. They probably had it as a contingency plan.
The contingency plan is even more brainless, explaining one plot hole with another one. There is absolutely no need to fly into the earths atmosphere to start their time machine. They could've done it even more safely before entering federation territory.
That doesn't make any sense. They didn't have to enter the atmosphere, I don't even think they did. The sphere escaped the exploding cube and almost immediately opened a vortex. Also, saying that they "could have done it even more safely before entering federation space" is nonsense since they needed to be in federation space for the contingency plan anyway. Nothing safer about it doing it outside of federation space, just takes more time.
Answer: The Borg don't care that much about Earth, or losing a single cube. They are mostly testing the water before fully expanding towards the Alpha Quadrant. Their space is in the Delta Quadrant and still a long way from expanding into the Alpha Quadrant.
Not entirely true because the Borg queen was on board the cube, and they had a contingency plan to go back in time, making their efforts quite elaborate. They have attacked Earth twice now, because they know about it from the Enterprise (and Q) and plan on conquering it and expand into the Alpha Quadrant. A cube is equivalent to an entire fleet of ships and Picard accurately calls this action by the Borg an invasion (the second one).
Correction: Not really, since Starfleet has proven to be a direct threat to the Borg (and they were right to think so, since the Voyager crew destroyed one of the six trans-warp hubs a few years later), they went back in time with the intent of preventing the Federation from existing.
Okay, there needs to be a consensus here. One person has asked why the Borg didn't travel to an earlier time in order to stop First Contact more easily. The answer given was "they want technology." Another person asked: "why choose the 21st Century? There's no tech to incorporate" And the answer was: "because they want an easy way to stop First Contact." Honestly some of the answers on this page sound like they're bending over backwards to accommodate simple continuity errors but these two are literally the inverted opposites of each other and form a total contradiction. Which is it?
They went back in time to assimilate Earth and cripple the Federation. That is all.
Speaking of stopping first contact, wouldn't the Borg risk erasing their knowledge of earth if they did stop first contact, since they didn't know about earth until the first earthlings were assimilated sometime after first contact?
An entire Borg Sphere went back, including a queen. They were planning to stay, use their advanced technology in the past to conquer the future. Starting with Earth.
lionhead