Star Trek: First Contact is not only one of the most popular and beloved big screen entries in the franchise, its overarching plot also features prominently in Star Trek: Picard season 3. First Contact is the second Star Trek film to feature the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the first one to feature no members of the Star Trek: The Original Series cast.
The previous film, Star Trek Generations, united two franchise legends in Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), but the film itself was met with a decidedly mixed response.
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In all the ways Star Trek Generations stumbled, Star Trek: First Contact excelled. A lean, mean action-heavy affair directed by Jonathan Frakes, First Contact sees Captain Picard and the USS Enterprise-E travel back in time to post-World War III mid-21st century Earth to prevent the Borg from fundamentally altering human history. While Commander William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) assists the legendary scientist Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) prepare for humanity's first warp flight on Earth, Captain Picard fights a pitched battle against the Borg on the Enterprise-E, joined by a 21st-century native named Lily Sloane (Alfre Woodard). The crowd-pleasing story would have long-lasting effects for Picard and the overall franchise.
Alice Krige as Borg Queen and Patrick Stewart as Picard in Star Trek First Contact
While fighting off the Borg in the first half of Star Trek: First Contact, Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner) is captured by the cybernetic zombies and presented to their newly revealed leader, the Borg Queen (Alice Krige). The Borg Queen's primary objective is to break into Data's neural net to retrieve codes that would give her full control of the USS Enterprise-E, but she's also intrigued by Data and offers him a chance to join her and explore the possibilities of a partially organic existence with the Borg.
As Star Trek: First Contact progresses, Picard becomes increasingly violent and unhinged. Still haunted by his assimilation in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Best Of Both Worlds," Picard begins to lose perspective, perceiving the Borg's destruction as a personal vendetta. After a heated exchange with Lily, Picard ultimately decides to abandon the USS Enterprise-E and activate the auto-destruct sequence to preserve the timeline and wipe out the Borg threat. While the Enterprise-E is being evacuated, Picard ventures to the ship's engineering section, where the Borg Queen is holding Data.
To Picard's shock, Data has now seemingly seen the error of his ways and joined up with the Borg, who have grafted hunks of horrific-looking flesh onto the android's body. However, just before the Borg are able to destroy Cochrane's warp ship, Data reveals it was all a ruse, bursting the warp core's plasma coolant tank and killing all the Borg, including the Borg Queen. With the Borg threat neutralized, Picard and his crew prepare to return home after one final glimpse of history on Earth.
Star Trek Cochrane
The Borg's ultimate plan in Star Trek: First Contact was to travel back in time and attack humanity at a vulnerable, historically significant moment. Earth was essentially decimated by the time of 2063, still reeling from the fallout of the calamitous World War III. Despite this, Dr. Zephram Cochrane was on the verge of two huge achievements in human history - conducting the first human warp speed flight aboard his makeshift starship, the Phoenix, and making First Contact with alien life.
After successfully completing his warp flight, Cochrane was ready to meet his first extraterrestrials, a moment Picard couldn't help but peek in on. Those pivotal aliens would turn out to be the Vulcans, arguably the most benevolent, altruistic species one could possibly make First Contact with. The gruff, socially loose Cochrane greets the Vulcans with a warm handshake, cheap whiskey, and a Roy Orbison tune, perfectly setting the tone for the long, complicated relationship between humans and Vulcans that Star Trek has always chronicled.
Alice Krige as the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: First Contact was a success by almost every metric, but it's not without its controversies, the biggest being the introduction of the Borg Queen. The Borg were previously said to have no individuals or leaders, as they were one united hive mind. Producers were adamant that the Borg, easily the most popular adversaries from Star Trek: The Next Generation, feature in the next film installment, but writers Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga initially had difficulty figuring out a way to make a big screen villain compelling with essentially no face or voice.
Moore and Braga eventually came up with the idea of a Borg Queen, in the same sort of way insect hives have queens. There's no denying Alice Krige's performance is fantastically creepy and one of the best things about Star Trek: First Contact, and yet her very existence dilutes one of the foundational ideas of the Borg. This wasn't a huge issue with First Contact itself, but further appearances by the Borg Queen - often played by a different actress - in Star Trek: Voyager arguably robbed the character and the Borg overall of their menace.
Jack Crusher as Vox of Borg in Star Trek: Picard
The plot of Star Trek: Picard season 3 was initially framed as a follow-up to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Dominion War, focusing on a splinter cell of Changelings led by Captain Vadic (Amanda Plummer) who sought vengeance against the Federation for the atrocities they committed during the war. That turned to be a bit of a red herring, as Vadic and her Changeling followers were eventually revealed to be working for the Borg Queen, who remained seriously incapacitated along with the rest of the mainline Borg Collective after her encounter with a future version of Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) in the Star Trek: Voyager finale "Endgame."
It's ultimately revealed that the reason Vadic was hunting Picard's son, Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers), was due to Picard's time as the Borg's 'spokesman', Locutus. While under their control, the Borg covertly altered Picard's DNA so that any offspring he produced would house the genetic material to create a new, biological evolution of the Borg. That physical alteration led to the death of Picard's organic body in Star Trek: Picard season 1, as well as the nightmares and strange abilities Jack dealt with for most of his life.
Borg Queen Picard Season 3 Finale
In the riveting Star Trek: Picard series finale "The Last Generation," Jean-Luc Picard goes on one last mission as the Captain of the USS Enterprise-D - lovingly restored by Commodore Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) - to save Jack and stop the Borg virus that ravaged Starfleet on Frontier Day. Picard is ultimately able to free Jack from the Borg Queen's influence, and the crew of the Enterprise-D managed to destroy the Borg Queen's vessel, seemingly killing her for good this time and reversing the effects of the virus.
This is definitely not the end of the Borg. The benevolent, alternate timeline Borg, led by the assimilated Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill), are still out there, awaiting a galactic threat and standing ready to assist Starfleet when it happens. But Picard season 3 may be the final chapter for the vicious, almost cartoonishly evil version of the Borg introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation that really took hold with Star Trek: First Contact. That version of the Borg served their purpose, but it's time for them to play a new role in the Star Trek universe.
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