Hi! I was never comfortable with the 'first Human warp flight' as depicted in FC. So I had some thoughts about how to make it more significant ( for Humans ) and rational. 1. Borg cube detected heading for Alpha Centauri system. Great confusion in Starfleet - nothing much there except the peaceful colony and its commercial shipyards. Is it a feint for an attack on Earth? Nevertheless the fleet assembles and engages. 2. In the Neutral Zone Picard and crew are equally confused. Data notes that, with no disrespect, most of Alpha Centauri's significance lies in the past; first Human warp flight, first Human contact with another civilisation, The Accords of Dathos that reunited... .. wait, says Picard. Is it technically possible that the Borg have mastered controlled time travel? 3. Set course for Alpha Centauri! E-E arrives just as in FC, enagages cube, follows Scout through time-slipstream. 4. Emerge in mid-21st century. A small colony on M-class planet consisting of Humans. 5.We learn that a few hundred / thousand scientists, artisans and engineers fled Earth in sleeper-ships after the Eugenics War; due to backlash against science and an inexorable decline towards nuclear war. Many were murdered before they could leave, others died en route. Survivors settled in orbit of Alpha Centauri, including Cochrane. 6. Colonists are fervently angry against the 'Earthers', have had no contact since they left. So the plot not only has to persuade Cochrane to finish development of warp, but also to bridge the gap with a post-apocalyptic Earth and rebuild Humanity. 7. Proceeds as in FC with Borg etc, then first-contact with Vulcans. 'Is this your homeworld, Zephram Cochrane?' enquires one Vulcan. A pause, reflection amongst the colonists. 'No sir,' replies Cochrane, 'my homeworld is Earth. Around that star there...'
While admittedly, on paper that would have been a better story, what FC really needed was a bigger budget, and to do away with the ridiculous shoehorned in comedy, like Zefrane (the mastermind who figured out the math, AND built the technology for warp drive) be portrayed as a fucking homeless town drunk, and Troi getting drunk and acting retarded while Frakes (not Riker, Frakes) laughs at her. I would have loved to see a serious story about a massive Borg attack (think of that scene where a gazillion Vogon ships fly out of hyperspace in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Holy crip, if that had been a FC scene, I would have wet my pants. As it stands, FC was cool the first 5 mins, then we spend the rest of the time with drunkie on the surface half of the time, and the Borg Queen trying to have sex with Data the other half of the time. Yech! It's the best TNG movie only because it was just mediocre as opposed to abysmal, like the other TNG movies were.
I wish they'd gone with the original plan, and set the film in Renaissance Italy. That would have been mad.
To each their own. First Contact is my favorite movie out of all the ST movies, in that I didn't start to fall asleep through the first time watching. That and at the time it came out, the Borg were my favorite in ST and having a movie around them and my favorite crew worked quite well. I like all the TNG movies more than the TOS movies... but again, everybody is different. Though I do get the drunken homeless guy reference, but at the same time, I also understand why they did it, as even in TOS, he was meant to be much older than he appeared in TOS and everybody regarded him as a big hero of humanity.... the drunken homeless appearance was a nice kick in the butt for viewers. I can't say I'd want the movie to be any different than it was, I watched it the first day it came out in my area of Canada, and I picked it up the moment it came out on video. The only really cringe-worthy moment was Worf's Action 80's Hero one-liner moment on the deflector dish, but I can let that slide.
It is possible that the failure factor wouldn't be enough if the story wasn't set over Earth. Also some would have problems with humans being able to make it to Alpha Centauri before warp travel is made. The old idea was that Alpha Centauri was the home of a Perserver started human colony from somewhere in the bronze age that developed independantly from Earth for thousands of years. One version has a high speed sublight ship from Earth make a run out to the system and make contact with the Centarians. There they meet Cochrane who was working on Warp Theory, but the planet does not have the tech to make it work. Earth does have the tech. but no working theory. The sublight ship sends the data to Earth and heads home (possibly with Cochrane). The date arrives at just under the speed of light in five years time, while the ship takes a few years more to arrive. I gets to Earth in time to test new Warp ship. Eventually it works and the third ship from Earth is the first warp ship which arrives a few weeks after the arrival of the second ship (the official representatives of Earth to start negotiation and diplomatic ties with the two human civilizations). The process is spread out over the course of almost two decades from the launch of the first ship to the arrival of the warp ship. The Borg getting in on that could just as easily blow up one of the ships to prevent the Earth from getting to Alpha Centauri, or assimulate Alpha Centauri before Earth gets there. None of this involves the Vulcans at all. That first contact being a random encounter between warp probes and explorers after both have warp drives. What they pulled off in First Contact was to make the scenario functional and contained. Also to make Earth less of the overriding power and more the power that could. Barely surviving and yet still making it to warp drive which signals the Vulcans into checking them out.
FC is my favourite ST movie as well. However Bolak's hypothetical story treatments sounds a lot better!!
I'm not fond of "we had to rebel and flee in order to make it out of our dark ages" in your proposed treatment, plus a murderous backlash against engineers, scientists and artisans? It almost seems anti-Trek. Earth was a perfect choice in setting.
According to the above, it's only about 60 years between the people fleeing Earth in sleeper ships and the Borg and Picard arriving at Alpha Centauri in the mid-21st century. They must have had some awfully fast ships to get there so soon, and since it was a sublight ship, what about relativity? By the time they got to Alpha Centauri, how much local time would have passed on Earth? I'm afraid that the novel Federation spoiled me forever. That's the version of Zephram Cochrane I like, not the drunken buffoon in the movie.
I remember reading about it in the novelization of Star Trek: First Contact. Pretty much, Picard and co. go back in time and go to a village where they hear about this castle where all this weird shit is going on. They infiltrate the castle and its swarming with Borg and they have to use medieval weapons to fight them, instead of phasers.
If they travel at half the speed of light, the people aboard the ships would experience 2,731 days of time, while on Earth 3,141 days would pass, a difference of 410 days.
Yeah, that's what I remember too, though I'm sure there was a Da Vinci angle in there somewhere too. Sounds like a TNG holodeck episode which obviously didn't get very far (thank God). IIRC the budget would never stretch to a period setting, but Moore and Braga liked the idea of fighting the Borg with mediaeval weapons. It might be on the DVD commentary.
How about if instead of trying to derail the first warp flight, the Borg had gone after the actual first space flight? Setting the story in Russia in 1961. Picard and company trying to help Korolev and Gagarin, while staying one step ahead of the KGB and the Borg? That could have rocked. Or am I completely nuts here?
I don't know how that makes much more sense than them trying to derail First Contact, really. I mean, the whole selection of the time seems relatively arbitrary. It's not like first contact with the Vulcans or the first successful warp flight would have had any immediate impact that would make trouble for the Borg...that we know of, anyway. It's a shame we never find out why the Borg chose to go back to when they did, really.
First Contact would've made more sense had it been implicitly stated that the Borg were only attacking Earth to use as a beachhead to assimilate all the other, more worthwhile, technological advanced cultures like the Vulcans and Andorians.