Star Trek General Discussion

[The Predaking]

Alliances need to be forged during times of war. Having Picard, one of the best diplomats in Starfleet, helping during negotiations while simultaneously showing the might of Starleet's engineering prowess could be quite a convincing to potential allies.

I saw a video that talked about it from a different perspective. That Star Fleet having a Sovereign class ship just running around doing various missions meant that you had no idea where this super powerful ship would be. So the Dominion had to prepare for it being anywhere.

 

[Axaday]

it is brain-tickling to think about how Tuvok infiltrated the Maquis and that wasn't obvious to them because they thought what they were doing was logical.

 

[The Predaking]

it is brain-tickling to think about how Tuvok infiltrated the Maquis and that wasn't obvious to them because they thought what they were doing was logical.

Tuvok wasn't the first Vulcan to join the Maquis though. There was an earlier DS9 episode where this Vulcan woman was trying to buy weapons from Quark for the Maquis. It had a great speech from Quark about the price for peace.

So I guess that some Vulcans agreed with the Maquis, which isn't surprising considering how many high ranking officers either defected or sympathized with the Maquis.

 

[Fero McPigletron]

Saw Next Gen First Contact.

Casual time traveling there. Them splitting the story of biomechanical horror and low key Earth hijinks kinda lessens the impact for me.

Babe the Gallant Pig's owner discovered warp drive? I remember... he was in TOS with an gas woman who loved him or something. I don't think they pushed the comedy enough there. Also them giving him the info is like the Kelvin timeline helping out Scotty with engine info? Oh, I feel like Riker, Troi, Geordi got the short end of the adventure here.

Picard and Data and Worf vs the Borg was kinda scary. Picard was killing his crew, dang. I think I would have had that Earth lady running around with Picard so something more important. The holo dance part seemed like a scene they could have cut.

Well, I liked the scary Borg parts but the Earth side stuff kinda unbalanced it for me. They could have ramped up the threat level there to match what was happening in space, I guess? Cuz it was like Riker crew were just having a leisure ish first contact while PicarData was fighting for their lives.

Two to go!

 

[Thefakelink]

Well they had to give the B-Team something to do on earth.

Now that you mention it, they didn’t spend too much time hand wringing about interfering with the past. It’s was more “we have to ensure the warp flight happens no matter what”. Everything else was secondary.

 

[Ungnome]

Yea, no warp flight, no first contact with the Vulcans, no Federation. The Alpha and Beta quadrants would have been a very different place. Remember the Vulcans and the Andorians were quite hostile to each other until the Humans came around and were able to get them to work together against the Romulans.

 

[The Predaking]

Saw Next Gen First Contact.

Casual time traveling there. Them splitting the story of biomechanical horror and low key Earth hijinks kinda lessens the impact for me.

Well, they couldn't just give you 90 minutes of fighting the borg on the Enterprise. But I loved the EMH cameo here. There is a reason why it's in there. Robert Picardo, the EMH actor, found out that they were making this movie with a new top of the line Enterprise flagship. So he calls up the director, Jonathan Frakes, whom he has worked with before, as well as Rick Berman the main producer at the time, and says, "This new Enterprise was the flagship, it would not make sense for a lesser class of ship like Voyager to have technology that the Enterprise did not have." And that is how he got them to give him a really awesome cameo.

Babe the Gallant Pig's owner discovered warp drive? I remember... he was in TOS with an gas woman who loved him or something.

Yup. Cochran invents Warp Drive, and eventually when he is at the end of his life, takes an experimental shuttle that crash lands on that world in TOS. The Alien restores him to life and even makes him young again. Before he left Earth, he did get drunk and tell people what happened in this film. He later recanted it after he sobered up. but Archer was able to use that information when some borg were dug up in Antartica and started running amok.

Picard and Data and Worf vs the Borg was kinda scary. Picard was killing his crew, dang. I think I would have had that Earth lady running around with Picard so something more important. The holo dance part seemed like a scene they could have cut.

She does make Picard see that his obsession with the borg was clouding his judgement. The Holo-dance scene I thought was an ingenious way to get Picard a weapon that the Borg wouldn't be able to adapt to quickly. Did you notice Nelix's actor guest appearance there?

Well, I liked the scary Borg parts but the Earth side stuff kinda unbalanced it for me. They could have ramped up the threat level there to match what was happening in space, I guess? Cuz it was like Riker crew were just having a leisure ish first contact while PicarData was fighting for their lives.

Yeah, they really should have had something to make things more tense on earth, like running out of time or something.

Two to go!

I am interested in your opinion of these next two films. While I personally enjoyed them, this film is definitely my favorite in the entire Franchise, just edging out Wrath of Khan.

 

[Donocropolis]

Yeah, First Contact is (in my opinion) the high point for the Next Generation movies. Generations was ok, Insurrection would have been a perfectly cromulent two-parter during the series, but didn't really have the oomph necessary for a movie. Nemesis was...odd.

First Contact does have one major sin, though. I never liked what it did to the Borg. The whole Borg Queen thing just never sat right with me. It always felt like the Borg hive mind was meant to make the entire "species" one giant galaxy-spanning superorganism. The Borg should have been a Lovecraftian, totally alien intelligence. They had been shown before to be perfectly capable of communicating with "lesser beings," but the idea of a Queen that basically acts exactly like a normal, human-level person but is in control of the Collective really nerfed the whole concept.

 

[Shadewing]

Yeah, First Contact is (in my opinion) the high point for the Next Generation movies. Generations was ok, Insurrection would have been a perfectly cromulent two-parter during the series, but didn't really have the oomph necessary for a movie. Nemesis was...odd.

First Contact does have one major sin, though. I never liked what it did to the Borg. The whole Borg Queen thing just never sat right with me. It always felt like the Borg hive mind was meant to make the entire "species" one giant galaxy-spanning superorganism. The Borg should have been a Lovecraftian, totally alien intelligence. They had been shown before to be perfectly capable of communicating with "lesser beings," but the idea of a Queen that basically acts exactly like a normal, human-level person but is in control of the Collective really nerfed the whole concept.

Yeah, but otoh; I kinda see why they did it. The Borg as they were lack any kind of central figure. It didn't HAVE to be "A queen" or whatever; but considering this is a movie you kinda want there to be some kind of central figure that the good guys can overcome; so the movie needed its own "Locutus" type figure. Even without the queen idea, Locutus existence gives the concept of an "elevated" Borg commander for specific purposes. And the whole "Time travel to remove our biggest obstacle" feels like it needs an elevated commander type to carry it out.

 

[Cybersnark]

Yeah, I'd argue that the Queen was used well in First Contact ("You imply a disparity where there is none. I am the Collective"), it's only in Voyager that the writers completely lose the metaphor and make her an actual queen.

Here's a blog post I wrote years ago on the subject:

The Borg as seen in TNG were a decentralized hive-mind; multiple drones all networked together to create a single mind.

The Borg in First Contact are a centralized hive-mind, with a single body serving as a sort of "main server" on which the Collective "software" is being run, while the drones are just "peripherals."

The Borg on Voyager start out depicted as a centralized synaptic hive-mind, with a self-actualized leader who must give orders, which are relayed through "synapses" (the "unimatrixes" run through the Vinculum). It's only later when Voyager introduces their own version of the queen that they degenerate into a straightforward Evil Empire with an empress and her mind-controlled servants.

 

[Donocropolis]

Yeah, but otoh; I kinda see why they did it. The Borg as they were lack any kind of central figure. It didn't HAVE to be "A queen" or whatever; but considering this is a movie you kinda want there to be some kind of central figure that the good guys can overcome; so the movie needed its own "Locutus" type figure. Even without the queen idea, Locutus existence gives the concept of an "elevated" Borg commander for specific purposes. And the whole "Time travel to remove our biggest obstacle" feels like it needs an elevated commander type to carry it out.

Yeah, I'd argue that the Queen was used well in First Contact ("You imply a disparity where there is none. I am the Collective"), it's only in Voyager that the writers completely lose the metaphor and make her an actual queen.

True, I am absolutely ok with the idea of The Collective speaking though an individual drone, and First Contact did specifically state that this was the case, it was Voyager that really ran (in the wrong direction entirely) with the idea.

Would have loved a scene to reinforce the idea where the newly introduced Queen is talking to Picard and Data (after the "imply a disparity / I am the Collective" line) where Picard or Data manages to shoot the Queen with a smuggled in phaser or something and another Drone just immediately picks up the conversation without missing a beat.

 

[Axaday]

First Contact does have one major sin, though. I never liked what it did to the Borg. The whole Borg Queen thing just never sat right with me. It always felt like the Borg hive mind was meant to make the entire "species" one giant galaxy-spanning superorganism. The Borg should have been a Lovecraftian, totally alien intelligence. They had been shown before to be perfectly capable of communicating with "lesser beings," but the idea of a Queen that basically acts exactly like a normal, human-level person but is in control of the Collective really nerfed the whole concept.

Agreed. At the time I saw a save. That she isn't really in charge, but is just a way for the Borg to communicate in situations where called for. But they wound up deciding against that later.

 

[The Predaking]

They never really explain what the Borg Queen is in First Contact. Other than she was on the Cube with Locutus and that she was seeking an equal in him, that is as far is it goes. She even deflects Data's questioning about her role in the collective, so it's meant to be ambiguous.

In Voyager she says she has parents, but that might not be literal parents and might be the collective itself. I think Picard does more to limit her to an evil Empress than anything else, but I won't discuss that until Fero gets there.

 

[Ungnome]

She's the least biological of all the Borg. Really, it seems that the only biological parts to her are some skin and musculature on her upper torso and head and maybe a little bit of neural tissue(not even sure on that). It could be that she's more of a control node in the network that coordinates data traffic between the rest of the nodes.

 

[Donocropolis]

Or could be that "speaking for the Collective" requires more hardware to have enough bandwidth. Locutus didn't have as much Borg hardware, but he also spoke in the more stilted speech pattern of other Borg compared to the Queen's more natural conversational style. Locutus could have been sharing the communications load with a number of nearby drones, more similar to other times that the Borg seemed to speak by having a large group of drones all speaking in unison, just with Locutus being the "face" of the Borg for those interactions.

 

[Fero McPigletron]

I went to Tokyo Comic Con 2024 and an officer from the Enterprise saw me and told me some Star Trek folks and Doctor Who fans are meeting up to hang out.

I met up with them. Nice to meet some Japanese Trek fans, woo!

I dunno why that SNW guy wore that Mandalorian (?) mask, urgh

Also the Moopsy ate my bones. I'm ded.

 

[Donocropolis]

Also the Moopsy ate my bones. I'm ded.

Glad to see you recovered! Usually some chicken soup and a day off will fix that right up.

 

[PrimalxConvoy]

I went to Tokyo Comic Con 2024 and an officer from the Enterprise saw me and told me some Star Trek folks and Doctor Who fans are meeting up to hang out.

I met up with them. Nice to meet some Japanese Trek fans, woo!
View attachment 24801

View attachment 24802
I dunno why that SNW guy wore that Mandalorian (?) mask, urgh

View attachment 24803
Also the Moopsy ate my bones. I'm ded.

Oh, you're just down the road from me. I like near Makuhari Messe. BTW, Tokyo Dome have the Bump of Chicken Convoy and t-shirts too, I think, but I also think you need to go online for tickets or the chance to buy them?

And as you've had a Japanese Startrek experience...

 

[Fero McPigletron]

No kidding!? We could have hung out? Gosh dang. I'm leaving in two days so tomorrow is my last day at Tokyo (day after is cramming stuff in luggage). Shucks.

Edit - oh, I only know Bump of Chicken from their incredible sounding intro to Delicious in Dungeon. Loved it a lot! Hated that they switched songs for the latter half of the season. Was so disappointed that I kept skipping the new intro.

 

[PrimalxConvoy]

No kidding!? We could have hung out? Gosh dang. I'm leaving in two days so tomorrow is my last day at Tokyo (day after is cramming stuff in luggage). Shucks.

Edit - oh, I only know Bump of Chicken from their incredible sounding intro to Delicious in Dungeon. Loved it a lot! Hated that they switched songs for the latter half of the season. Was so disappointed that I kept skipping the new intro.

They did the music for this and they've had a light blue bumblebee and now a multicoloured Optimus toy made for them. Their tour t-shirt also features the same multicoloured Optimus.

Also, you didn't know that I live in Japan? That's partly why I made this thread.