What would have happened to Earth and the Human race if Vulcans never made first contact with Humani

Vulcans might be relatively powerful players, capable of keeping all competitors out of their space, and willing to do that aggressively and effectively. They could have been at it for centuries for all we know.

But then we have "Carbon Creek" where a Tellarite ship is close enough to pick up the Vulcans' distress call. And ENT paints the Tellarites of the day as opportunists and mercenaries, and as folks in contact with Andorians, making it risky for Vulcans to allow them to travel through space that is important to Vulcan interests... Or are Tellarites trusted allies or clients, as they are seen to be at odds with Andorians later on?

Timo Saloniemi

 

I mean scifi is famous for under-estimating population numbers, distances etc. Also I'm kinda wondering whether the "hundreds of thousands" of radiation damaged people Colonel Green murdered after the war are included in that 600 million figure, or any other causalities that died due to radiation, sickness or starvation in the years after the war. Because if those are included, then the number of causalities from bombardment or battle itself would be even lower... and now that I mentioned it, do those 600 million include combatants?

 

I'll second the nod to "Star Trek: Federation" by Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens. Much more engaging story than we were given in First Contact. "Strangers from the Sky" by Margaret Wander-Bonnano is another great read about first contact with the Vulcans. The first has no Vulcan influence in events that led to warp drive, the second is about first contact with the Vulcans.

 

I much preferred Strangers from the Sky to ST:FC

 

The two don't exactly exclude each other. We already know Vulcans were messing with Earth since the 1950s at the very least, and humans had varying levels of contact with them, without the fact ever becoming public. So the bit in ST:FC about the Vulcans there just "passing by" was a filthy lie all along: they were there to spy on us, to varying degrees of interest. And would have been throughout Strangers, too - but the left hand would never be told what the right was doing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Their would be no earth at all. With no first contact then the Federation doesn't get created. Voyager doesn't exist to be sent back to the Big Bang by Q2 and thus the entire universe is changed at it's very core. Or lets say that was always suppose to have happened. It's likely that people would have used warp drive to leave earth and settle elsewhere as opposed to rebuilding because they wouldn't have the tech and resources of the Vulcans to relay on. Maybe they colonize Mars or one of those planets in season 1 of Enterprise. One with the people living underground or the one where they camp out and Trip and T'Pol and others go kind of crazy because of something in the air kicked down on them from the storms.

Some people would of course stay behind on Earth and I think they would do fine for the most part with a smaller population not being a drain on resources and eventually the Vulcans would make first contact anyways or the Andorians or maybe even the Klingons but if it was the Klingons humans would basically be enslaved. Same case also if they run into Orion Slavers.


Jason

 

Or in very tight onesies #ricksvision

 

Just a stray thought here, without any conclusion.

The Borg seemed to have placed significant emphasis on this particular "first contact" event, as they targeted this event very specifically by time traveling back to the very day before. The idea of preventing the Federation from forming in the first place is clear, but why pick this specific event? If they had traveled back to, say, 2062, they could have assimilated earth at their leisure, too, with the same result. Or even if they traveled back to 2100 ... it's not as if Earth then could have put up any significant resistance.... or the Vulcans, for that matter. (Their defeat in Regeneration was only possible as the collective was still in the very early stages of re-establishing itself, limited in both numbers and resources -their sphere ship might have been significantly stronger than their converted shuttle).

So, what is it the Borg know about the importance of First Contact that we still don't even though we understand the 'Federation never forms'- part ? Or did they just need to pick any date in a certain time interval and they just happened to pick that precise day?

 

Maybe they wanted to assimilate an earth with a sufficient level of technology.
These are still Borg, they'd still ignore civilisations they consider too primitive.

At least, that's my flimsy justification for why the Borg don't assimilate the earth in, say, 1455.
In truth, it's probably just an obvious plot hole. Everything has plot holes.

 

If the bad guys say "We want to stop the UFP from being created", our first assumption probably ought to be "Oh, they're out to make sure the UFP gets created!".

And for that purpose, 2063 is ideal. Vulcans at that point seem to have given up hope of making Earth a valuable client. But suddenly a team of engineers arrives from the future, with the blueprints for the first warp testbed loaded into their tricorders, and make this testbed fly, resulting in renewed Vulcan interest and, ultimately, the Federation. Those engineers were invited in by the Borg. Would the warpship ever have flown if not for LaForge and Barclay?

Timo Saloniemi

 

I would expect the Earth would get rebuilt slower than if the Vulcans helped. Humans would travel and colonize nearby ecoplanets. Whichever race ran into humans would determine the level of contact.

 

It would seem likely, though, that everybody has already run into humans, and simply turned away, perhaps in disgust, perhaps out of fear of our guardian angels or the big boys who have the superior claim even if they aren't making anything of it yet.

We have Vulcans galore at Earth before our space age. We have the Xindi. We have Tellarites nearby. Previously, we got Platonians, Apollo's folks, Kukulkan's, probably also Sargon's. Earth appears robust in face of such contacts: actual gods voluntarily leave us to our own devices!

It would be a bit odd for anything truly bad to happen to Earth in such a setup. Except perhaps by sheer chance, with a conqueror entering just after one guardian angel leaves and the next is yet to arrive.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Around the tune of FC, more likely that humanity would do itself in versus a different spacefaring race.

 

There's a fun irony: Alien species fiddles with humanity, just to meet later on to see what's up, then said humanity creates "prime directive" that says "don't fiddle with less developed planets". The Vulcans promptly proved how illogical the humans are... again. (Though I may have missed an episode or chapter in the whole franchise...)

 

^ That does suggest that Humans (and others?) came up with the prime directive without the advocacy of the Vulcans.

I prefer the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology version of first contact. It's the Humans helping the Vulcans, and the two are quickly on a even footing.

 

Current thoughts, terrans wouldn’t have been as important in the federation.

 

Deep Space Nine gives us a hint in the episode "Past Tense," when the timeline changed in 2024:

Then later:

So since there's literally zero space activity in orbit of Earth or other places in the Solar System by the alternate 24th century, it can be surmised that based on this dialogue, at the least Cochrane never made his warp flight, and at most the human race is effectively dead.

 

The ironic thing about this, based on the Destiny novels at least, is that if we assume all of the events shown occur in the same timeline, then if First Contact and the ensuing events don't happen then ultimately the Borg never exist. Perhaps that strengthens the case that the events of the film are a predestination paradox.