First Contact: What was the Borg's plan?

[Caesar753]

I recently watched First Contact after not seeing it for a while. I was left wondering what the Borg's plan was regarding the assimilation of Earth. Did they hope to assimilate Earth via "conventional" means, meaning the cube, or was it their plan all along to travel back in time? Years ago, when I first saw First Contact, I understood the time travel to be plan B, if you will, but now I'm not so sure. Was the cube just a carrier for the sphere, to get it close enough to Earth without being destroyed, or was time travel truly their backup plan? Let me know what you think.

 

[Violet.Phoenix]

The movie seems to portray it as the primary plan, but I think that comes from the majority of the plot time being spent on that particular outcome. If the Borg wanted to travel back in time to assimilate Earth, why not do so in the Delta Quadrant and then just travel across space when they will face less opposition?

If the Borg intended to assimilate Earth by 'conventional means', so by sending down drones to Earth from the cube, then I ask why only one ship? Sure it's formidable, but would it not be more efficient to send more vessels to ensure a speedy assimilation?

I would also suspect that the sphere is a sort of Borg escape pod, and as it was launched during the cube's destruction, that other large Borg vessels are equiped with similar spheres.

 

[Silversmok3]

I recently watched First Contact after not seeing it for a while. I was left wondering what the Borg's plan was regarding the assimilation of Earth. Did they hope to assimilate Earth via "conventional" means, meaning the cube, or was it their plan all along to travel back in time? Years ago, when I first saw First Contact, I understood the time travel to be plan B, if you will, but now I'm not so sure. Was the cube just a carrier for the sphere, to get it close enough to Earth without being destroyed, or was time travel truly their backup plan? Let me know what you think.

This is the consequence of bad writing. The definitive answer is "who knows". In the context of the movie, the plan was to send the cube to assimilate Earth and by extension cripple the Federation from the top down. Remember the engagement at Wolf 359 was 39-0 in favor of the Borg, so the Collective had reason to believe Earth's fleet wouldn't successfully stop them. Had Picard not arrived against orders they would have been proven right.


Slightly OT, but im taking a tangent for a second to describe something which has always annoyed me about how the Borg were written in the canon series;unlike the Klingons , Romulans, and other villians the Borg didn't need to play games or resort to fancy plans. The Collective dwarfs the Federation;in a fight of attrition they could simply use the time honored military strategy of just crushing your enemy like a semi running over a beer can.

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

The whole idea of the Borg attacking with more than one ship had not yet been invented in 1996 when First Contact came out. At that time, the Borg ALWAYS attacked with just one cube, because one cube alone was always more than enough to assimilate scores of solar systems with no difficulty.

Anyway, I still see the time-travel scheme as being a Plan B. They only resorted to it when their regular plan of attack failed, probably to their great surprise. "Q Who" established that one of the primary goals of the Borg was to assimilate technology from other cultures; assimilating Earth in the past before their technology had advanced much would defeat that purpose.

 

[DonIago]

I like to think the ultimate plan was just to see how strong Earth's defenses were, and if possible, assimilate Earth. Since one cube is a pittance for the Borg, if the cube gets destroyed the Borg have still learned something in the process with minimal expense and they effectively win. If the cube assimilates Earth in the present, the Borg gain Earth and they win. If the Borg assimilate Earth in the past, they win.

In short, the Borg had nothing to lose by sending one cube to Earth.

 

[eepruls]

What about the whole 'stop first contact' thing. It seemed like that was more important than assimilating Earth. Shooting at the missile complex was the first thing they did when they came through the time portal. Also, they never once beamed drones to the planet. Based on this, time travel seemed to have been plan A. That's how I interpreted it. This of course begs the question, why not beam drones to the planet and begin assimilating Earth? Wouldn't that have made more sense?

 

[Silversmok3]

What about the whole 'stop first contact' thing. It seemed like that was more important than assimilating Earth. Shooting at the missile complex was the first thing they did when they came through the time portal. Also, they never once beamed drones to the planet. Based on this, time travel seemed to have been plan A. That's how I interpreted it. This of course begs the question, why not beam drones to the planet and begin assimilating Earth? Wouldn't that have made more sense?

Not from the perspective of an alien culture intent on acquiring new and distinctive technologies. The then-brand new Enterprise-E makes a far more sensible target for assimilation considering its advanced technology compared to post WWIII Earth. Once the Borg seized the Enterprise , the planet would be easy pickings.

 

[Timo]

Of course, when your opponent is capable of time travel, and you are not, you can presume (s)he will be victorious no matter what.

So we might do well to assume the Borg did win this one. And it's not difficult to see the outcome as a Borg victory. After all, they essentially created the Federation, a fat target that produces interesting assimilable technologies at a steady pace.

Without the Borg taking Geordi LaForge back in time to help Cochrane build his warp test rig, there might never have been this favorable first contact with Vulcans. It might take several iterations to turn a madman's concoction into a FTL spacecraft, but time travel is a great way to have several iterations...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr Silver]

I've always got the impression that the Borg exclude certain races from total assimilation because they cannot assimilate the things that they desire the most - to do so would destroy any chance of ever discovering how they work.

In Trek, humanity has always been portrayed as being "special" and not like your average Milky Way resident, so much so that an incomprehensibly advanced and seemingly omnipotent race - the Q are fascinated by them, that non-linear beings who can alter the fabric of reality chose a human being to be their emissary and that they went from living in a post nuclear wasteland to a utopian paradise where nearly all social, economical and political issues were solved in less than a century.

My impression is that the Borg have tried and failed to assimilate the "secret behind "humanity" and instead they periodically challenge them to see if they can learn this secret. Once they do (which they won't, because then there would be no Star Trek!), they'll assimilate the entire culture, just like so many others races.

 

[Tiberius]

Actually, the primary mission for the Borg was not to assimilate Earth, nor was it to stop first contact.

What did they do to assimialte Earth? They never beamed down any drones.

What did they do to stop first contact? They fired on the missile silo at the beginning with the sphere, but once that was destroyed they pretty much ignored it. true, they did attempt to destroy the Phoenix, but that was after the deflector dish was destroyed and the Queen said, "There's been a change of plan."

So if destroying the Phoenix is a change of plan, what was the original plan? It obviously required the use of the deflector being turned into an interplexing beacon. And what were they going to do with that? Picard answers this - they will use it to communicate with the Borg native to that time period.

But why would they want to do this? To get help in assimialting earth? hardly. We have the Borg from 300 or so years in the future with advanced technology who are in the process of assimialting a starship with advanced technology that can surely be used to gain control of the entire planet. What do they need help for? No, they aren't calling for help.

I believe that the Borg in First Contact wanted to give information about the future to the Borg of the past.

The few drones that survived (which were found in "Regeneration") continued this mission, sending a subspace message to the Delta quadrant, informing the Borg of Earth's location (and presumably telling the native-to-that-timeline Borg that these Humans are pesky, they defeated you in the BoBW and at the beginning of FC!

So, yes, stopping first contact and assimilating earth in the past were secondary objectives, icing on the cake. And yes, assimilating earth in the past would deny the Borg all that technology, but the Queen has shown many times that she's little more than a spoiled brat, and I'm sure she'd see that it was worth losing a bit of technology in exchange for finally defeating the humans once and for all.

 

[los2188]

In all honesty the whole story is a big common sense plot-hole. Why go back to just stop first contact? Why not go back to 1900, assimilate all humans and get it over with. The technology part is a head scratcher to me. If the Borg can easily time-travel, what technology do we have, or better yet the Federation have that's even close to what they, presumably should have. But for me, instead of thinking about all of that, I just dig the movie. By the way, can anyone tell me if there are any deleted scenes in First Contact? Does anyone know of an actual shooting script (meaning what we all actually saw in the movie) out there to be able to read??

 

[Silversmok3]

Considering the kinds of writers who worked on the TNG movies, I'd just as soon say the Borg have no plan and move on with life. There's too many contradictions in the storyline for any theory to make sense.

Assimiliate Earth in the past? Well, then they should have completely assimilated the Enterprise E so as to guarantee domination over primitive humanity.Stopping at the deflector dish makes no sense. Why call for backup waaaay out in the Delta Quadrant when the Borg on the Enterprise were very capable of taking care of humanity -both the Enterprise and Earth-on their own? By the time the Borg stopped advancing, Picard's security forces were down to hand-to-hand combat. Assimilating the Enterprise then using it to Assimilate Earth makes more sense than calling for help when they didn't need it. If for some reason the Borg felt the need to call their comrades anyway, they could do so after having either killed or assimilated all opposition.


Stop First Contact? Then why didn't they assimilate the Enterprise completely and take over the Vulcan ship when it showed up? They knew it was coming and understood the general events regarding First Contact. Assimilating Enterprise and incorporating the Vulcan crew into the Collective not only torpedos First Contact but opens the Vulcans up to assimilation. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

Assimilating Data? WTF was that tangent about?Clearly the Borg don't need lessons from Data about AI. Picard heard Data's voice in the Collective,so clearly at one point Data was 'jacked in', but for what purpose? As much as Data knows about ,well, data, he'd make the best drone ever added to the Collective.But making him flesh and blood!?

First Contact is like that girl at the bar who looks hot from across the room, but you get close and realize its actually Jabba the Hutt.At first the movie seems to make sense, then you think about its plot for a minute and the entire movie collapses on itself.

 

[Silvercrest]

So we might do well to assume the Borg did win this one. And it's not difficult to see the outcome as a Borg victory. After all, they essentially created the Federation, a fat target that produces interesting assimilable technologies at a steady pace.

But why would they want to do this? To get help in assimialting earth? hardly. We have the Borg from 300 or so years in the future with advanced technology who are in the process of assimialting a starship with advanced technology that can surely be used to gain control of the entire planet. What do they need help for? No, they aren't calling for help.

I believe that the Borg in First Contact wanted to give information about the future to the Borg of the past.

The few drones that survived (which were found in "Regeneration") continued this mission, sending a subspace message to the Delta quadrant, informing the Borg of Earth's location (and presumably telling the native-to-that-timeline Borg that these Humans are pesky, they defeated you in the BoBW and at the beginning of FC!

The message in "Regeneration" took 200 years to arrive, so in the end the time-traveling Borg only sent a message back to their starting point. Not to the Borg of the past.

How about a combination of your ideas? In the 24th century (well after contact with the Hansens and Q), the Borg received a message from the drones in "Regeneration" explaining what had happened. The queen recognized that this was from an incursion that hadn't happened yet, and promptly sent a cube to Earth with time-travel equipment ready to go.

The attack was just for show. As Timo said, she'd recognize this as the pivotal event that created the Federation, so she'd want to make sure the timeline stayed on course. That way the Federation would still exist to be harvested later.

(And the Prophets' heads are still spinning from that one. "Not linear! Not linear!")

 

[EKeelerWasRight]

"Does anyone know of an actual shooting script (meaning what we all actually saw in the movie) out there to be able to read?? "

No but Chakoteya supplies transcripts of all Trek and Who episodes and films, if that is any help:

http://www.chakoteya.net/movies/index.htm

 

[los2188]

My lovely wife Jennifer pointed out something to me about First Contact that hadn't crossed my mind. Remember, technically the Borg was successful in assimilating earth if not only for what seemed like 10 seconds. When the Enterprise followed the Borg sphere in the time travel wake, for a brief period, as Data stated "population approximately 9 billion...all Borg." So I would presume that their plan by going back in time was to stop first contact AND assimilate earth. Yes? No?

 

[Silvercrest]

Their apparent plan. If you go by my explanation, it was a feint in order to make sure first contact went off normally.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

Is it still ok to post links to Redlettermedia videos, declare the review to be an answer to all questions the movie raises and then move on?

Cos I'm going to do that.

 

[Tiberius]

The message in "Regeneration" took 200 years to arrive, so in the end the time-traveling Borg only sent a message back to their starting point. Not to the Borg of the past.

Right. because if they had done that, then all of history would have been changed and Star trek never would have happened.

How about a combination of your ideas? In the 24th century (well after contact with the Hansens and Q), the Borg received a message from the drones in "Regeneration" explaining what had happened. The queen recognized that this was from an incursion that hadn't happened yet, and promptly sent a cube to Earth with time-travel equipment ready to go.

The attack was just for show. As Timo said, she'd recognize this as the pivotal event that created the Federation, so she'd want to make sure the timeline stayed on course. That way the Federation would still exist to be harvested later.

(And the Prophets' heads are still spinning from that one. "Not linear! Not linear!")

Plausible, but I don't think the Queen would be so serious about keeping the timeline the right way. I'd see her messing things up if it meant she benefitted from it.

Anyway, if they were trying to make first contact happen, then they could have just not gone at all and everything would have been fine.

 

[Timo]

Anyway, if they were trying to make first contact happen, then they could have just not gone at all and everything would have been fine.

Naah. That would mean trusting that a post-apocalyptic hillbilly would invent and build a FTL spacecraft.

I'm quite willing to believe that Earth would never have made amicable first contact with Vulcans if not for the Borg help of bringing 24th century starship engineers back in time to get Cochrane's warpship built and launched. It would just be an iterative process: the first shanghaied engineers would meet a pile of junk that could never fly, but would do their best to improve on matters, and each would contribute to the legend of Cochrane having built a working warpship, so that each successive shanghaiee would have a better idea of what that working warpship looked like. Essentially, when LaForge went back to the past, he was expecting to find a ship designed by LaForge, only he thought Cochrane had done the work. He found exactly that, since the previous iteration of the ship had indeed been done by a past version of him, so he came perfectly equipped to turn a piece of unworkable junk into a LaForge style starship; history books told him what adjustments he needed to make! The Borg bombardment of the silo would be there just to help camouflage the fact that the original warp rig was always just random junk thrown together by a madman, by making it look like this was a ship historically known to be workable, and merely damaged by an attack.

The last hijacking of LaForge (the one we saw) would just put the finishing touches to the iterative process which was nearly complete already and had almost produced the kind of UFP the Borg wanted...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tiberius]

Anyway, if they were trying to make first contact happen, then they could have just not gone at all and everything would have been fine.

Naah. That would mean trusting that a post-apocalyptic hillbilly would invent and build a FTL spacecraft.

Trust me, you don't make sure something as huge as that project gets completed by turning up the day before it's due. Cochrane had already finished building it.

I'm quite willing to believe that Earth would never have made amicable first contact with Vulcans if not for the Borg help of bringing 24th century starship engineers back in time to get Cochrane's warpship built and launched. It would just be an iterative process: the first shanghaied engineers would meet a pile of junk that could never fly, but would do their best to improve on matters, and each would contribute to the legend of Cochrane having built a working warpship, so that each successive shanghaiee would have a better idea of what that working warpship looked like. Essentially, when LaForge went back to the past, he was expecting to find a ship designed by LaForge, only he thought Cochrane had done the work. He found exactly that, since the previous iteration of the ship had indeed been done by a past version of him, so he came perfectly equipped to turn a piece of unworkable junk into a LaForge style starship; history books told him what adjustments he needed to make! The Borg bombardment of the silo would be there just to help camouflage the fact that the original warp rig was always just random junk thrown together by a madman, by making it look like this was a ship historically known to be workable, and merely damaged by an attack.

The last hijacking of LaForge (the one we saw) would just put the finishing touches to the iterative process which was nearly complete already and had almost produced the kind of UFP the Borg wanted...

Timo Saloniemi

That's quite a stretch. La Forge's team wasn't assembling parts, they were looking at what Zeef had done, and repairing or replacing the damaged components.

Besides, I think that "post apocalyptic hillbilly" knew quite well what he was doing, since he later went on to become head of Earth's warp drive development program without La Forge there to whisper over his shoulder. If he really had no knowledge about how warp drive worked, he never would have lasted.

And wouldn't this require many engineers to come back to Zef's workshop immediately after the Borg attack, each doing a little bit of the work? So until the time that they actually complete a working ship, first contact never happens, and Earth gets assimilated? And also, if we had many different teams of engineers working on Zef's ship, why didn't we see the first team? After all, they were meant to be there at the same exact time as Geordi's team, weren't they?

Sorry, but I don't buy your idea. It shows imagination though.