MovieChat Forums > Star Trek: First Contact (1996) Discussion > Possible plot hole

Possible plot hole

posted 13 years ago by barney736
19 replies | jump to latest

I'm a big star trek fan but i hate the episodes/movies that have time travel because they get confusing. OK... maybe someone can help me out with this - i know that the key to destroying the Borg once and for all is to destroy the Borg queen... which they did. However they did that back in the 21st century so does that mean the Borg (as in all of them) were destroyed in the 21st or 24th century? If it was the first one then that means that all the events that involved the Borg leading up to the 24th century now would have never happened therefore causing alot of key moments in the star trek history to have changed - including the confrontation with them that lead to them traveling back in time in the first place. Like i said i hate the time travel episodes because they're so confusing... anyone understand what i'm getting at?

[–] Ulex 13 years ago

I don't think they killed the Borg in the 21st century. Depending on how old the queen is, there may have actually been two of her in the 21st century after she traveled back in time--Picard & Data only killed one of them. No matter how time travel affects things, the Borg will still develop the way they would have from the 21st century to the 24th century.

And for that matter, killing the queen may not have killed the Borg in the 24th century. The movie's a little vague on that and I believe the Borg still show up later in the shows, etc.

[–] barney736 13 years ago

I think you misinterpreted what i was getting at. If she was old enough that she existed in the 21st century then ofcourse there would have been 2 of her after they traveled back in time but that is irrelevant. The Borg exist as a single consciousness with the Borg queen being the heart and soul of the entire thing so to speak. She had a connection to every member of the Borg and if she was killed the rest would have died too BUT after they traveled back in time... was the link she had to the Borg in the 24th century still active somehow or was she now connected to the Borg in the 21st century or simply to the Borg that were on board the ship that came with her back to the 21st century? The only way the Borg would have been destroyed once and for all is if her connection to the collective in the 24th century was still active somehow or if somehow when she entered the 21st century she joined that century's collective consciousness... in which case (as i stated) would have caused the history of the Borg from that moment on to be changed and a paradox would have been created... understand what i'm getting at? This is why i hate the time travel episodes.

[–] Ulex 13 years ago

She didn't have a connection to the 21st century Borg, she tried to contact them with that radio array or whatever but Worf stopped them before it was too late. Maybe she didn't have that instant uplink with them because of the time travel business....as far as the other Borg know she was never there.

[–] Porpoise01 12 years ago

Assuming this is the only queen -- something Voyager managed to *beep* up...

If the borg can't survive without their queen, then they were pretty much finished in the 24th century when the queen traveled back in time.

Of course, the queen would have known thaty and... named a successor for the 24th century, I guess.

How did they account for her presence in voyager?

I now have two dead people in my jaw and I think they're trying to get out!

[–] bjlevine 12 years ago

Giving them a queen *beep*ed up the Borg.

Some poor mastadon is caught in the tar pits."

[–] Ulex 12 years ago

Giving them a queen *beep*ed up the Borg.

The writers couldn't make it work without a voice for the Borg....the Borg as a voiceless mass might work in an hour-long show but in a 2-hour movie (with audience members who aren't familiar with them) just wouldn't work.

I know that some Star Trek fans would like to sacrifice entertainment for consistency, but fortunately that's not how it works.

[–] TheSolarSailor 12 years ago

The Borg worked just fine without a queen in previous stories, so there is no reason that a movie couldn't have followed suit rather than being lazy and creating a queen which contradicts the very nature of a collective.

- - - - - - -
Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?

[–] Ulex 12 years ago

In almost every version of the Borg someone ends up speaking for them. Whether it's Lore or the assimilated Picard. Only example I can think of where the Borg don't have a voice is "Q Who," and in that case Q is the real antagonist of the episode.

And I admit I'm not a hard-core Trekkie but I don't see how the queen contradicts the nature of the Borg. It's made clear she's not a "leader" exactly but some sort of focal point in the hive mind.

[–] Tolyngee 12 years ago

Then why not have the Borg just assimilate someone, anyone from the Enterprise then?

It worked for V-ger in TMP. Lt. Ilia was pretty much just a pretty face "redshirt" and nothing more.

Heck, even Alice Krige herself could have just been written as a "redshirt" that gets taken by the Borg for some goofy reason at whatever point in the film just happens to be convenient, and people wouldn't have really ever given it a second thought?

Since Locutus was made part-machine in no time, what's to say this "redshirt" Krige from the Enterprise couldn't have been made a half/most-machine "queen" of sorts now and still been just as plausible?

Sorry, Borg never had a queen before, and any talking head for them before that was always someone they captured. So it was a deviation. Lt. Ilia worked in TMP, so anyone captured at all could have been used for this talking head...

Sorry, never liked First Contact. Thought Generations was awful as well.

Watched Nemesis last week. Great film. How on Earth did the TNG/Trek itself die due to poor ticket sales on such a great film is beyond me.

Then again, First Contact I believe had the best ticket sales. Guess that explains it: Trekkies don't know a good film when they see it.

(Still can't believe I used to work with a guy who thought First Contact and Star Trek V: Final Frontier were the two best Trek films...)

[–] timmy9313 10 years ago

Actually it's more like you don't know a good film when you see it. First Contact was far and away the best of the TNG films.

Nemesis was just a rehash of Wrath of Khan.

[–] barney736 12 years ago

I agree mate... they never should have had the Borg queen on Voyager because First Contact came out in 1996 but the first Voyager episode to have the queen (Dark Frontier) came out in 1999 which *beep* up the only possible explanation that would make sense - which is yours. The only possible explanation was that the reason that Borg sphere left the cube and traveled back in time is because she was aboard it and after the Enterprise intervened they knew they were doomed and that she would be destroyed so they traveled back in time to assimilate the entire human race before star fleet even existed.

HOWEVER... and i know any real trekker fan reading this will be sharpening their knives now to go for my jugular vein... that also is a plot hole too because if you look at the star trek timeline the events of First Contact happened in the year 2373 however Voyager didn't return home until 2378 but yet they were fighting the Borg right up until they reached home. There's actually several episodes in all the different star treks that contradict events that have happened in other episodes.

[–] Porpoise01 12 years ago

Locutus served as a "voice" for the borg.

But really, they only needed this to do the scenes with data -- which i didn't like. I'd rather thy had just abandoned that subplot.

I now have two dead people in my jaw and I think they're trying to get out!

[–] Lunchbox-3 12 years ago

There is obviously more than one Queen body. In this movie Picard and the Queen even recall her trying to seduce him in the TNG series. Picard says "but the ship you were on was destroyed" and she says "you think so small" or something. Her body was destroyed in TNG and she manufactured a new one for this movie. The Queen does not command the Borg. The Borg consciousness exists in the bodies of all the Borg. The Queen was apparently an embodiment of the entire hive mind, a puppet that it controls. If you destroy the puppet you do not destroy the hive mind. They can create more puppets which is what they did on Voyager.

The real question is, were the Borg on the sphere still connected to the Borg consciousness in the 24th century? Probably not unless their "subspace signal" could travel through time. They were probably a small group sent with specific orders which may have made them "drones" moreso than regular Borg would be. Did killing the Queen kill them? Or did they die simply because the gas that liquified tissue was hurting them all? If killing the Queen is what killed them perhaps it's because this particular group of Borg, cut off from the 24th century collective, were all just puppet drones acting on a specific program residing in this Queen, but I wouldn't think anything that happened to them would affect the 24th century collective.

[–] nursewratchet_romanorn 12 years ago

Since the captain was able to kill several Borgs' during the holodeck scene, using a machine gun. Why not have the replicator create as many as needed to kill all the borg, instead of trying to adapt weapons they know will only kill a couple of them. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me. As far as time travel goes, you can pretty much do anything you want, and come up w endless reasons to fit whatever story you are trying to tell..

[–] Jakezen 12 years ago

The reason they came up with the queen is because the real Borg, aka the producers of the movie, wanted to make a profit so they needed as strong of a script as possible. Looking over the box office numbers compared to other TNG Star Trek movies, I would say they were right to have the queen.

[–] bjlevine 12 years ago

Yeah, with the real Borg, you don't really have an antagonist. Just a big mindless threat.

"Oh no...they sent the wrong Spock!"

[–] Tolyngee 9 years ago

So... the real Borg are Republican?

[–] tomkaren1994 11 years ago

Re the original topic... there's ALWAYS a plot hole in a time travel story. The original refutation of time travel goes like this: A man travels back in time and kills his grandfather before he has any children. Therefore, the time traveler would never have existed to go back and kill the grandfather, therefore the time traveler did exist to go back, therefore he didn't, therefore he did... etc, etc, etc.

Re the previous post about the replicators: the Borg already had control of the ship's systems. There's no reason to believe they did not control the replicators.

[–] GreatWhiteApeofBarsoom 8 years ago

The way to get around that is the multiverse theory that changing an event in the past creates an alternate future where events proceed differently from in the original timeline.

Requiescat in pace, Krystle Papile. I'll always miss you. Justice was finally served.