History Fridge / StarTrekFirstContact

* FridgeBrilliance: SFDebris pointed out that Picard's raving about not sacrificing the ''Enterprise''-E could be in part justified because of his anger at losing the ''Enterprise''-D in the the previous film, and lingering feelings of having lost the ''Stargazer'' before the events of TNG. Note that Picard has a look of utter horror on his face when he realizes the model he smashed in the cabinet with the gun is that of the ''Enterprise''-D which is why his "Make them pay" rant goes off the deep end.

* FridgeHorror: Combined with NothingIsScarier, there are few things in recent cinematic history as terrifying as hearing the audio pickup of thousands of terrified men and women ready to fight... and then hear the famous, horrifying litany that made the Borg truly fearsome- followed by screaming.
* FridgeHorror: So the ''Enterprise-E'' is said to have roughly 800 crew aboard, not to mention the survivors they pick up from the ''Defiant'' (including Worf) in the opening battle. By the time Picard finally gives the order to abandon ship, it has been mentioned that the Borg "just took decks 5 and 6", leaving only four decks under the crew's control out of 24 or 26 (both numbers are given in the film). Even if Geordi brought dozens or maybe hundreds of engineering crew down to Earth to help repair the ''Phoenix'' overnight, and even if we saw scores of lifeboats leave in the evacuation, [[RedshirtArmy how many hundreds of crew members]] [[InferredHolocaust died or were assimilated at the hands of the Borg]]? Worse still, [[WhatTheHellHero how many did it take]] [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone before Picard realized the futility of staying to fight]]? Granted, plenty of the Borg victims were probably able to be rescued and surgically freed of their implants afterwards much as Picard was, but by the end of the film it would appear that the majority of the crew of the ''Enterprise'' are either dead or incapacitated, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking while the ship probably needs a long stay in drydock just to clean up the mess that the Borg left behind]].

* FridgeHorror[=/=]FridgeLogic: The [[TimePolice Temporal Investigators]] who interview Picard about this had better not have heart conditions.

** Another bit of FridgeBrilliance. Picard's refusal to pull back may not have been purely out of revenge. We know he could hear the Borg in his head sometimes. Who's to say they weren't still able to influence him, especially with the Borg Queen herself there. It's not that hard to believe they were giving little mental pokes to enhance feelings that were already there.

* There's a reason Geordi finally opted for prosthetics, which he refused in the main show. Lursa and Betor both exploited his visor to nearly destroy the ship. That probably made Geordi decide it was for the better for security purposes.
* The ''Bozeman'' is mentioned as part of the fleet to engage the Borg, and even has Kelsey Grammer reprising his role as one of the voices among the radio-chatter during the battle. The ''Bozeman'' was the ship misplaced in time and thrown forward 90 years during the TNG episode "Cause and Effect", something similar to what happens to the ''Enterprise'' in this movie. Also, the ship itself is named after ''Bozeman, Montana'', the very site of First Contact.
* FridgeLogic: Why doesn't Data ever think that the Borg queen is nothing more than the Collective expressing itself through a single, specially designed drone instead of the disembodied mechanical voice we saw in previous TNG episodes? This is the most logical conclusion to draw given the first part of their conversation: "Do you control the Borg Collective?" "You imply a disparity where none exists; I ''am'' the Collective." Even if it would later turn out to be incorrect, it's the best guess with the information available. Functionally, it's no different than the aforementioned disembodied voice except the form allows it to express more personality, and it adds a very interesting layer of character to the Borg if the Collective is an exotic, ages-old FemmeFatale able to handle personal interaction when it suits its needs, as well as being capable of seduction and subtlety just as much as being capable of invading other races and maintaining the Borg as a whole.
** Just because we don't ''see'' Data ask the queen "Are you an avatar of the Collective?" or something similar, it doesn't mean the thought never occurred to him offscreen.
* Data's near-betrayal of the crew. He considered joining the Borg Queen for a fraction of a second, which, for an android, is nearly an eternity. What do you suppose ''ten years'' [[TrueCompanions serving alongside his crewmates is then?]]

** Just because we don't ''see'' Data ask the queen "Are you an avatar of the Collective?" or something similar, it doesn't mean the thought never occurred to him off screen.

* The ''Bozeman'' is mentioned as part of the fleet to engage the Borg, and even has Kelsey Grammer reprising his role as one of the voices among the radio-chatter during the battle. The ''Bozeman'' was the ship misplaced in time and thrown forward almost 70 years during the TNG episode "Cause and Effect", something similar to what happens to the ''Enterprise'' in this movie. Also, the ship itself is named after ''Bozeman, Montana'', the very site of First Contact.

*** Yeah, probably by this point, after the events of Generations and First Contact, [[VestigialEmpire there aren't that many of the old ''Enterprise''-D crew left at all]].

* FridgeLogic / PlotHoles: How did they go about recreating the time-vortex after having gotten rid of their only deflector dish?
** They didn't get rid of the deflector. They got rid of the thing the Borg were building ON the deflector. Look at the scene again: The deflector dish itself is still there.
*** They certainly got rid of some critical component that the Borg couldn't recreate, because the Borg didn't bother going back out onto the hull to try again and instead resumed [[CurbStompBattle curbstomping]] the crew inside the ship. The ''dish'', obviously, is still there, but whatever component the Borg were converting to their use is gone. I would think that makes it somewhat harder to have the deflector be functional -- unless, of course, said component was not used in recreating the vortex and/or they had a backup deflector dish somewhere on the ship (on the saucer section if I recall).
** They got rid of the "particle emitter" portion of the deflector dish, a part that doesn't even have an article on the Memory Alpha wiki because it only gets mentioned in this movie. The primary purpose of the deflector dish (as Roddenberry conceived it) is deflecting space dust and such away so that [[KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter they can't blow a ship going at ungodly speed to smithereens]]. At any rate, the dish was never given the blame for creating the vortex; that was accomplished by modifying the warp field (a different bit of {{Phlebotinum}} entirely).
* FridgeLogic: Why didn't the Borg go back in time, send the message, and ''then'' fly to earth? The Federation would be unmade without ever knowing what hit them ...
** FridgeBrilliance: ... unless it was all a XanatosGambit by the queen to get into Data's pants. Though frankly, this would be XanatosRoulette territory.
*** Or else they weren't even sure it would work, and the sphere was a one-of-a-kind thing. Besides, if the time-travel idea really ''was'' Plan A, why didn't the Borg just outfit the cube from the beginning with the required technology? The cube took a [[MoreDakka a metric crapton of firepower]] to destroy, while the ''Enterprise'' offed the undamaged sphere with 4-5 torpedoes. It probably would have been a hell of a lot less risky.
* FridgeLogic: Presumably they beamed back all the evacuated crew before they left, but what about all the future tech in the form of the escape pods? For history's sake, leaving them behind would be a bad idea, since technology the world shouldn't have yet could eventually be reverse-engineered from them.
** There's nothing stopping the crew from beaming all their technology, escape pods, etc. back aboard before they departed. That being said, unless they were ''really'' careful, they might leave plenty of impoverished humans behind disappointed at getting no technological help.
** They picked a fictional uninhabited island ("Gravett") in the South Pacific as a destination in order to minimize contaminating 21st-century Earth with 24th-century technology; presumably, they would have cleaned up after themselves for the same reason.

* FridgeLogic: Why didn't the Borg go back in time, send the message, and ''then'' fly to earth? The Federation would be unmade without ever knowing what hit them...
** FridgeBrilliance: ...unless it was all a XanatosGambit by the queen to get into Data's pants. Though frankly, this would be XanatosRoulette territory.

** FridgeBrilliance: ...unless it was all a XanatosGambit by the queen to get into Data's pants.

* FridgeHorror: So the ''Enterprise-E'' is said to have roughly 800 crew aboard, not to mention the survivors they pick up from the ''Defiant'' (including Worf) in the opening battle. By the time Picard finally gives the order to abandon ship, it has been mentioned that the Borg control up to Deck 4, leaving only three decks under the crew's control out of 24 or 26 (both numbers are given in the film). Even if Geordi brought dozens or maybe hundreds of engineering crew down to Earth to help repair the ''Phoenix'' overnight, and even if we saw scores of lifeboats leave in the evacuation, [[RedshirtArmy how many hundreds of crew members]] [[InferredHolocaust died or were assimilated at the hands of the Borg]]? Worse still, [[WhatTheHellHero how many did it take]] [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone before Picard realized the futility of staying to fight]]? Granted, plenty of the Borg victims were probably able to be rescued and surgically freed of their implants afterwards, but by the end of the film it would appear that the majority of the crew of the ''Enterprise'' are either dead or incapacitated, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking while the ship probably needs a long stay in drydock just to clean up the mess that the Borg left behind]].