The Borg were already known to Starfleet for 100 years

[Tiberius]

Yeah, if you postulate that Starfleet covered it up and made people who knew about the Borg sign non disclosure agreements, then yeah, nobody could have known about it.

Actually, they didn't need to make it so that NOBODY knew about it. Just so that Picard and the other captains didn't know about it.

I take it to mean there was no male or females.

The existence of Seven of Nine and several other female drones indicates that your interpretation is incorrect.

I personally refuse to believe that Q in all his arrogance was attempting to spin around government titles for the sake of a technicality. Especially in how he says "YOUR FEDERATION". He doesn't have respect for what they've put together, to a god like being what is the difference between one government to the next. I know this reasoning will fall on deaf ears but really. We're talking Star Fleet records.

Again, we know for a fact that Starfleet has faced the Borg before. Either Q was unaware of this (which is darn near impossible), or he was choosing his words carefully to make the Borg sound bad-ass while still being truthful.

Todays Navy is irrelevant.
They proved they could pull records instantly whether classified or not in the 24 century going back at least 400 years.

Can you give a single example of something classified and still a threat being retrieved easily?

I don't have to speculate on this.
The example serves as the contradiction I presented it as.
No bit of speculation is equal to direct counter examples.

Then let me ask you this. How much do you think Starfleet is going to tell its captains about omega?

She's a EMPATH....hello. If she can hear all their minds that is as good as Picard's experience. Even Crusher agree with Picard's statement by saying they couldn't sever contact with Picard because it would be like severing an arm or a leg. Both are statements of their Unity...

If i recall correctly, Deanna said several times that she can only sense emotions. Very rarely could she read minds, and that was with Riker or her mother. No evidence she could HEAR the thoughts of the Borg. of course, if you have an example, I'm open to it.

Best of Both Worlds part two
Crusher says. "It's Picard himself that's made contact" Nothing they did got through to Picard. He did it himself.
Remeber with all the other Borg encountters like Hugh and Seven, the Borg had to be severed from the collective. With Picard that was not the case. They needed that connection to stop the cube. He out willed the Borg.

And he was only newly assimilated. There's every chance that the assimialtion process wasn't complete. And let's not forget that the Enterprise crew were poking around inside his head at the time. if it wasn't for that, then it's possible that Picard might not have been able to get through the Borg's control and speak.

These were 24th century borg...later than those Picard first encountered. Indeed their readings would have given Worf or Data a baseline for defeating the Borg Magnetic field...just Shelby figured out from their previous encounter.

Information recorded two centuries previously. There's no evidence to suggest that Reed's analysis had anything that would have been of use to Worf. SWorf's sensors would have been much more advanced.

It's not about the treatment it's about the data.
Nanoprobes didn't even exist for the BoBW Borg. Crusher didn't have to defeat Nanoprobes to bring Picard back.

And the idea of introducing Nanites in I Borg would be senseless if you didn't account for the Nanoprobe defense.

If Crusher didn't have to deal with nanoprobes, why did you say that Phlox's efforts could have helped crusher?

 

[Saquist]

The existence of Seven of Nine and several other female drones indicates that your interpretation is incorrect.

That's interpretation.
I just gave you the meaning of the sentence.

Again, we know for a fact that Starfleet has faced the Borg before. Either Q was unaware of this (which is darn near impossible), or he was choosing his words carefully to make the Borg sound bad-ass while still being truthful.

Q says he knows everything. So that's out of the question.
Deciding that his statement must be specific is contradictory. To say Federation would be General because it was Star Fleet that did encounter the Borg in ENT. The Enterprise D is a Star Fleet ship. And his statement carries the wait that nothing like the Borg had ever been encountered by them.

Otherwise I'm forced to believe that Q knew exactly what he was saying and was lying, which is not only out side the plot of the story but is a bit unlikely from the character in this situation.

Can you give a single example of something classified and still a threat being retrieved easily?

No, just as you can't prove this information was classified.
Star Trek has dealt with very little Classified information. But The Briefing in Star Trek VI was "Classified" and is now common knowledge Spock brokered peace with the Klingons a hundred years later.

Then let me ask you this. How much do you think Starfleet is going to tell its captains about omega?

Apparently full disclosure is required to deal with the threat appropriately. That doesn't mean everything would be told of course.

If i recall correctly, Deanna said several times that she can only sense emotions. Very rarely could she read minds, and that was with Riker or her mother. No evidence she could HEAR the thoughts of the Borg. of course, if you have an example, I'm open to it.

I don't need another example. The example I gave exemplified that she could detect thought. Even emotion unexpressed is a thought. SO logic tells us if the Borg are being controlled by one individual then drones could not express their own thoughts or even emotions....yet Troi detected something and detecting anything from the Cube is in contradiction to the "Hive Mind" theory presented after TNG.

And he was only newly assimilated. There's every chance that the assimialtion process wasn't complete. And let's not forget that the Enterprise crew were poking around inside his head at the time. if it wasn't for that, then it's possible that Picard might not have been able to get through the Borg's control and speak.

That's speculation and it's not based on anything tangible. What else can I say? I can't answer your speculation with more speculation. I'm just utilizing the facts at hand to determine continuity. Here there is no continuity. Not so far.

Information recorded two centuries previously. There's no evidence to suggest that Reed's analysis had anything that would have been of use to Worf. SWorf's sensors would have been much more advanced.

I've proven there was evidence, sensor records, reports made as every star fleet ship does. I don't have to prove that it would be useful or not and you can't prove that it wouldn't be useful. Just because I can't prove the information would be useful doesn't mean it's a false statement. That would be a negative proof fallacy an illogical suggestion and not reasonable deduction.

If Crusher didn't have to deal with nanoprobes, why did you say that Phlox's efforts could have helped crusher?

Because the assimilated crewman could have been saved. But neither Picard or Crusher never consider saving them.

Nah, it just mean the writers changed the backstory to tell the story they wanted to tell.

To "screw up" they'd have to unaware of the previous episodes rather than just deliberately ignore them. Which seems unlikely. They just aren't as OCD and A/R as many fans are. Story means more than continuity.

Oh I disagree.
A screw up or purposeful its still a violation of continuity and since their efforts or thinking isn't common knowledge for which to make justifications...screw up applies.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Nah, it just mean the writers changed the backstory to tell the story they wanted to tell.

To "screw up" they'd have to unaware of the previous episodes rather than just deliberately ignore them. Which seems unlikely. They just aren't as OCD and A/R as many fans are. Story means more than continuity.

Oh I disagree.
A screw up or purposeful its still a violation of continuity and since their efforts or thinking isn't common knowledge for which to make justifications...screw up applies.

So what? It's their continuity. They have/had carte blanche to treat it an any manner they wish. ( just as all writers working on the show did)The cows were out of the barn before this episode anyway. Knowingly violating continuity to tell a better story isn't a screwup. Its a creative choice.

Continuity has become far too important to fans, in my opinion. Too dogmatic and restrictive and mostly the play ground for wannabees, know it alls and monday morning quarterbacks. Sucks the fun out it.

 

[Saquist]

So what? It's their continuity. They have/had carte blanche to treat it an any manner they wish. ( just as all writers working on the show did)The cows were out of the barn before this episode anyway. Knowingly violating continuity to tell a better story isn't a screwup. Its a creative choice.

It is not my objective to challenge their "right" or authority over the continuity. I challenged it's consistency.

The subjectivity of how good First Contact is problematic.
The Queen played no particularly important role except to monologue and waste time during the film. Picard was needlessly irrational. The whole concept was absurd that the Borg didn't destroy the Montana site with the first shot. Then there is the whole contaminating the time line that you're trying to save by telling Cochrane where you're from and engaging in frivolous interactions of all kinds. Keeping your most powerful ship away from the battle instead of reassigning an officer to take over command..and that's not even dealing with the discontinuity with TNG.

So at the end of the day all I can really say about the First Contact Story is it's a contrivance. It had no boundaries, standards or rules. In other words a story absolutely anyone could tell or come up with ...(fluff)

Continuity has become far too important to fans, in my opinion. Too dogmatic and restrictive and mostly the play ground for wannabees, know it alls and monday morning quarterbacks. Sucks the fun out it.

You're talking to the wrong person.
If you can't tell a story within standard literary rules of logic or even your own rules then writings at this point isn't a discipline or skill it's nothing...it turns it into a joke.

Those rules serve serve a purpose. If you don't like it fine. But why complain about a logical purpose of consistency to those that see the need for it?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Queen only existed for dramatic storytelling purposes. Having a movie with the bad guys as just a disembodied Borg voice would not bring in the ticket $$$$. The villain always has to have a face.

 

[Skywalker]

Sauron didn't have a face.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ But he had something, didn't he? Some kind of visual image to react to? (I've never seen the LOTR films so I have no idea what Sauron looked like)

Borg drones don't count, since they don't talk and are utterly expendable.

 

[Nerys Myk]

So what? It's their continuity. They have/had carte blanche to treat it an any manner they wish. ( just as all writers working on the show did)The cows were out of the barn before this episode anyway. Knowingly violating continuity to tell a better story isn't a screwup. Its a creative choice.

It is not my objective to challenge their "right" or authority over the continuity. I challenged it's consistency.

The subjectivity of how good First Contact is problematic.
The Queen played no particularly important role except to monologue and waste time during the film. Picard was needlessly irrational. The whole concept was absurd that the Borg didn't destroy the Montana site with the first shot. Then there is the whole contaminating the time line that you're trying to save by telling Cochrane where you're from and engaging in frivolous interactions of all kinds. Keeping your most powerful ship away from the battle instead of reassigning an officer to take over command..and that's not even dealing with the discontinuity with TNG.

So at the end of the day all I can really say about the First Contact Story is it's a contrivance. It had no boundaries, standards or rules. In other words a story absolutely anyone could tell or come up with ...(fluff)

Continuity has become far too important to fans, in my opinion. Too dogmatic and restrictive and mostly the play ground for wannabees, know it alls and monday morning quarterbacks. Sucks the fun out it.

You're talking to the wrong person.
If you can't tell a story within standard literary rules of logic or even your own rules then writings at this point isn't a discipline or skill it's nothing...it turns it into a joke.

Those rules serve serve a purpose. If you don't like it fine. But why complain about a logical purpose of consistency to those that see the need for it?

The first and only rule is "does it entertain?" Ivory tower thinking about "standard literary rules of logic" will not put butts in the seat and cash in the till. ( as much as we like think they will) We have to accept that. Its an entertainment. Like it or not. If or when we get a shot at writing Star Trek we can try to use those "standard literary rules of logic " but I bet we'll get overruled by higher ups or even ourselves because we want to put butts in the seats and cash in the tills.

 

[Saquist]

Sauron didn't have a face.

That's true and it's not true that you HAVE to have a face on the enemy. That's called stupidity and alot of Hollywod movies believe that is true.

So what? It's their continuity. They have/had carte blanche to treat it an any manner they wish. ( just as all writers working on the show did)The cows were out of the barn before this episode anyway. Knowingly violating continuity to tell a better story isn't a screwup. Its a creative choice.

It is not my objective to challenge their "right" or authority over the continuity. I challenged it's consistency.

The subjectivity of how good First Contact is problematic.
The Queen played no particularly important role except to monologue and waste time during the film. Picard was needlessly irrational. The whole concept was absurd that the Borg didn't destroy the Montana site with the first shot. Then there is the whole contaminating the time line that you're trying to save by telling Cochrane where you're from and engaging in frivolous interactions of all kinds. Keeping your most powerful ship away from the battle instead of reassigning an officer to take over command..and that's not even dealing with the discontinuity with TNG.

So at the end of the day all I can really say about the First Contact Story is it's a contrivance. It had no boundaries, standards or rules. In other words a story absolutely anyone could tell or come up with ...(fluff)

Continuity has become far too important to fans, in my opinion. Too dogmatic and restrictive and mostly the play ground for wannabees, know it alls and monday morning quarterbacks. Sucks the fun out it.

You're talking to the wrong person.
If you can't tell a story within standard literary rules of logic or even your own rules then writings at this point isn't a discipline or skill it's nothing...it turns it into a joke.

Those rules serve serve a purpose. If you don't like it fine. But why complain about a logical purpose of consistency to those that see the need for it?

The first and only rule is "does it entertain?" Ivory tower thinking about "standard literary rules of logic" will not put butts in the seat and cash in the till. ( as much as we like think they will) We have to accept that. Its an entertainment. Like it or not. If or when we get a shot at writing Star Trek we can try to use those "standard literary rules of logic " but I bet we'll get overruled by higher ups or even ourselves because we want to put butts in the seats and cash in the tills.

And even though they put a face on Borg it still had crappy box office results. So obviously that little ploy didn't work.
Hanukkah Solo perceptively points out a movie that didn't need a "face" to react to. LOTR was about the Grand Scheme...it was an Epic...and when Star Trek finally treated Trek like an epic was in the last film which would have piled in people whether or not there was a face on the villain.

People didn't go there to see Nero...that's absurd and if that was true they were certainly disapointed with what they got because he was made to be beaten...no real challenge...so this was about KIRK and SPOCK....the legends of Trek....no Nero.

Nero who?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Knowingly violating continuity to tell a better story isn't a screwup. Its a creative choice.

Continuity has become far too important to fans, in my opinion. Too dogmatic and restrictive and mostly the play ground for wannabees, know it alls and monday morning quarterbacks. Sucks the fun out it.

Thank you!

 

[Captain Robert April]

There are ways to get around continuity issues without, in the end, telling the viewers that the previous story was a lie.

All it takes is a little creativity.

 

[Destructor]

There are ways to get around continuity issues without, in the end, telling the viewers that the previous story was a lie.

All it takes is a little creativity.

No no no if it's not spelled out onscreen for us the producers clearly wanted to take a dump directly into our mouths.

 

[BillJ]

There are ways to get around continuity issues without, in the end, telling the viewers that the previous story was a lie.

All it takes is a little creativity.

No no no if it's not spelled out onscreen for us the producers clearly wanted to take a dump directly into our mouths.

I'm all for 'creatively bending' continuity in the name of a good story. But I also believe that a writer should be able to tell a good story within the framework of the universe he's working in.

Otherwise, what's the point in having a shared universe to begin with?

It's a tough job for a writer sometimes.

 

[Captain Robert April]

If a writer can't tell a given story within a given set of rules and limitations, either

a) he's telling the wrong story, or

b) he's not necessarily the best writer for this occasion (I was going to say "he's not a very good writer" but that's a little too broad a brush, and some writers are better at certain stories than others; one wrong turn does not a bad writer make).

In any case, if this writer can't play according to the rules that have been set down, it's better to just move on to the next gig, rather than make an unholy mess for the rest of us to clean up.

Allow me to expand a bit on the parenthetical in point b, to wit, Harlan Ellison's version of "The City On The Edge Of Forever" vs. the version that aired.

If Harlan had been writing the story for The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits, it probably would've gone through largely uncut. The captain would've been willing to sacrifice everything for Sister Edith and it would've been the alien first officer who would've saved the day.

But he wasn't writing it for an anthology series, where we never would've seen those characters again, he was writing for Star Trek, and while Harlan would've been on to another project, we'd be left behind with a captain we could no longer hold in the same regard, because we saw him willing to chuck his ship, his crew, the whole Federation, just so he could make goo-goo eyes at some social working in 1930, and we'd be stuck with this guy! Can you imagine the letter writing campaign to drop Kirk and make Spock the captain if Harlan's version had made it to air?

So, while the whole process probably could've been handled a helluva lot better than it was, mainly by not having others attempt rewrites, and thus setting off Ellison's authorly tendencies, the episode resolved itself pretty much the way it had to. KIRK had to be the one to make the call, let Edith die, and allow history to resume its proper course, or he ceases to be the hero, not just in our eyes, but in Spock's as well. He'd just be waiting for another opportunity for Kirk to sell out the whole flamin' universe for sake of some tail (or he wouldn't, in which case the entire series would lose all integrity from that point on, because there would be no way we could take it seriously).

 

[BillJ]

Allow me to expand a bit on the parenthetical in point b, to wit, Harlan Ellison's version of "The City On The Edge Of Forever" vs. the version that aired.

If Harlan had been writing the story for The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits, it probably would've gone through largely uncut. The captain would've been willing to sacrifice everything for Sister Edith and it would've been the alien first officer who would've saved the day.

But he wasn't writing it for an anthology series, where we never would've seen those characters again, he was writing for Star Trek, and while Harlan would've been on to another project, we'd be left behind with a captain we could no longer hold in the same regard, because we saw him willing to chuck his ship, his crew, the whole Federation, just so he could make goo-goo eyes at some social working in 1930, and we'd be stuck with this guy! Can you imagine the letter writing campaign to drop Kirk and make Spock the captain if Harlan's version had made it to air?

So, while the whole process probably could've been handled a helluva lot better than it was, mainly by not having others attempt rewrites, and thus setting off Ellison's authorly tendencies, the episode resolved itself pretty much the way it had to. KIRK had to be the one to make the call, let Edith die, and allow history to resume its proper course, or he ceases to be the hero, not just in our eyes, but in Spock's as well. He'd just be waiting for another opportunity for Kirk to sell out the whole flamin' universe for sake of some tail (or he wouldn't, in which case the entire series would lose all integrity from that point on, because there would be no way we could take it seriously).

See... I whole-heartedly disagree with your interpretation here. If Spock holds back Kirk from going to Edith's side... there'd be a whole lot of ambiguity as to what Kirk's intentions were. Was he going out there to save her or die with her? Plus, in universe, only Spock would actually know what transpired in the 1930's.

In the long run, it may have added another layer to Jim Kirk the character. A layer that could've been mined by later writers'.

 

[Mel Tenorio]

I don't like it when writers put presidency over plot and ignore continuity. ENT could have done without a borg episode it was a poor decision which later leaves us guessing and hypothesizing theories.

 

[Spot261]

I don't like it when writers put presidency over plot and ignore continuity. ENT could have done without a borg episode it was a poor decision which later leaves us guessing and hypothesizing theories.

Which of course we wouldn't find an excuse to do anyway?

 

[Yanks]

I don't like it when writers put presidency over plot and ignore continuity. ENT could have done without a borg episode it was a poor decision which later leaves us guessing and hypothesizing theories.

TNG's First Contact opened the door for the Borg in Enterprise's time. ... and they did a fantastic job with the episode too. It's as clear as day how it fit in the timeline.

 

[Prax]

It's a thrilling, well done episode.

And this is 7 year dead thread.

 

[Tenacity]

ENT could have done without a borg episode it was a poor decision ...

The Borg were over done and over used, that said i though the ENT Borg episode was one of the better ones. The Borg "sleeping" in the antarctic made a degree of sense, and the fight for the ship was more compelling than the same fight in First Contact.

I have no problem with infomation being misinterperted and simply lost over the course of multiple centuries. Governments come and go. Factual records become laughed at tall tales.

"Oh that President Archer, sounds like he watched too much Doctor Who. Cybermen my ass."