Star Trek: First Contact



""I will not sacrifice the Enterprise. We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats. They invade our space, and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no farther! And I will make them PAY for what they've done!""

- Captain Jean-Luc Picard

The most popular Next Generation villain, the Borg, make another attempt to assimilate Earth. The newly-commissioned USS Enterprise-E scrambles to confront them, only to learn that the Borg have decided to use Time Travel to stop Earth's First Contact with aliens and Take Over the World, thus preventing The Federation from ever existing.

Arriving above Earth in the year 2063, the Borg aim to stop Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of warp drive, from making his historic flight. Our heroes beam down to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, discovering in the process that the man their history paints as a visionary luminary was really a cynical drunk who just wanted to get rich. Regardless, they work to restore the damage the Borg caused and make sure that first contact goes as planned.

Believing that to be all their problems, they discover the Borg have invaded the Enterprise and are slowly taking control. This causes Picard, who was assimilated back in the TNG episode "The Best of Both Worlds", to go all Ahab. Meanwhile, Data is captured and the Borg Queen offers him a Deal with the Devil to Become a Real Boy.

Considered the best movie with the Next Generation crew, and a strong contender for second best Star Trek movie behind Wrath of Khan. Among the reasons behind its popularity includes strong continuity ties with the series while remaining a reasonable Gateway Series entry (everything you need to know about the characters is well-explained and it is action-oriented), as well as introducing some Backstory elements of how the Star Trek universe came to be. It was also a box office hit, earning $146,027,888 in the worldwide market, putting it behind only The One With The Whales in absolute dollars (adjusted for inflation, it would fall in the middle of the pack, though still well ahead of the other TNG movies).

Spoilers below

"Troi: (amused) Would you three like to be alone for a while?"
 * After the End: The crew travels back in time to the mid-21st century, when civilization is in ruins after a nuclear war (the Enterprise itself comes from centuries further ahead, After-the-After the End, and Zefram Cochrane's warp-drive experiment is about to give Earth a huge push in the right direction).
 * Alien Invasion
 * A Little Something We Call "Rock and Roll": You can't lift off without it.
 * Arguably an inversion of the trope, as it's Cochrane (re)introducing it to the time travelers from the future.
 * Almost Kiss: Picard gives Lily a peck on the cheek. The way Lily reacted, she wanted something more intimate.
 * Ax Crazy: Picard, after being confronted with the decision to destroy the Enterprise or to continue fighting a near-hopeless battle against the Borg. (See his quote above.)
 * Badass: Worf recovers his reputation in this film after The Worf Effect had led to Badass Decay.
 * Badass Boast: "Brave words. I've heard them before, from thousands of species across thousands of worlds, since long before you were created. And now, they are all Borg."
 * Batman Gambit: Data's attempts at lying earlier in the movie are really really REALLY poor.
 * Or maybe Data's just a really quick learner.
 * Another possibility is that while Data is a poor liar, previous TNG episodes reveal that he is an incredibly talented actor. He was simply playing the part.
 * Become a Real Boy: The Borg Queen attempts to win Data over by giving him the gift of organic skin and the ability to experience tactile sensations as a human would, something that the movie sets up earlier on that he can't do.
 * Big Bad: The Borg Queen.
 * Big Damn Heroes / Gunship Rescue: "Sir, there's another starship coming in. It's the Enterprise!" Cue Crowning Moment of Awesome.
 * Worf returns the favor when he saves Picard from an assimilated.
 * Big No: Complete with smashing his model ship collection.
 * Body Horror: The Borg take a level in gross for their trip to the big screen. Also, assimilation in general.
 * Data, as more and more of his artificial skin is replaced with organic flesh takes on a ghoulish appearance as if sewn together from several corpses. Appropriate, since the only source of flesh the Borg would have is what their new drones don't need...
 * One scene shows one poor officer in the process of assimilation. By the time we see this, the Borg have already removed the lower half of his arm.
 * Broken Faceplate: Picard takes a blow to the head while wearing a Starfleet space suit, causing the visor to crack. Fortunately for him, it still holds.
 * Broken Pedestal: Cochrane. Unusually for this trope, the crew doesn't seem to mind. Cochrane slowly coming around is a lighter inversion of Picard falling from the "more evolved" sense of responsibility and morality he tells Lily humans have in the 24th century.
 * Bunny Ears Lawyer: Cochrane is without a doubt one of the brightest minds of his time. He's also a heavy drinker and thinks first contact is best celebrated with whiskey and dancing.
 * Bury Your Gays: Lieutenant Hawk, if the Expanded Universe is to be believed.
 * Possible ?
 * Call Back: One of the ships in the Fleet vs. the Borg was the Bozeman from "Cause and Effect."
 * And when the Borg Queen asks Data when the last time he had sexual intercourse was, his answer dates back to TNG's second episode "The Naked Now." (On a side note, this means that he never had sex with Jenna D'Sora in the episode "In Theory.")
 * Including Data's comment that's he's "fully functional" and "programmed in multiple techniques". As a side note, Dr. Soong was a dirty, dirty man.
 * The holonovel Picard runs in order to access a Tommy Gun is The Big Goodbye. This callback is especially apt as the plot of that episode is not only the first ever Holodeck malfunction, but also features a character being maimed with a hologramatic gun. In this case, the safeties were deliberately turned off to achieve the same effect.
 * Worf's "Perhaps today is a good day to die!'' is a call-back to a few Klingon episodes.
 * Riker calls the Defiant a "tough little ship"; Thomas Riker had said the exact same thing to Sisko.
 * The Cameo: Robert Picardo as the Enterprise-E EMH and Ethan Phillips along with producer Brannon Braga in the holodeck club scene, with Phillips being the one stopping the drones and being disrupted by Borg laser scanners. Dwight Shultz as recurring character Reginald Barclay also appears.
 * Michael Zaslow, who played Star Trek's first ever Red Shirt, appears as Eddie the bartender.
 * Nonhuman example: The Millennium Falcon can (just barely) be seen zipping around the battle with the Borg cube.
 * Cargo Ship: Lampooned in-universe by Troi. Picard reaches out and touches the Phoenix, because he was never allowed to do so seeing it at a museum, and Data tries to understand why touching it would mean anything, which makes for an interesting conversation for Troi to walk in on...

"Picard: They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!"
 * Catapult Nightmare: Averted and then played straight during Picard's Dream Within a Dream. When he falsely wakes up from his first nightmare he simply opens his eyes while sitting in his desk chair; when he wakes up for real, he jumps up from his bed (although what wakes him up is a distress call, so there's somewhat more logic to it).
 * China Takes Over the World: The Eastern Coalition or ECON, one of the factions in the Third World War (and who Cochrane originally thinks the Borg's attack comes from) is said to be a version of this in the Star Trek Expanded Universe, although it's not detailed in the film itself.
 * City Planet: Earth has become this under Borg rule in an alternate timeline. Oddly enough the population consists of only 9 billion Borg even though the planet's entire surface seems to have been completely urbanized and technified. Presumably, the rest of the space is taken up by automated factories or other automated urbanization.
 * Conqueror From the Future: The Borg's plan.
 * Continuity Nod: The is probably a nod to The Wrath of Khan, where.
 * Cool Starship: The new USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E. The television version, 1701-D, had been destroyed in the previous film for no other reason than to introduce a more cinematic version in this one. This was a practical motivation as much as stylistic, since the old ship's sets were built for TV and the level of detail shown on film meant they had to make the them Darker and Edgier just to hide the lower quality.
 * The USS Defiant was introduced on Deep Space Nine as being a prototype starship specifically designed to fight the Borg. Apparently it was a running fight from where the fleet engaged the cube to when it came in orbit around Earth. This is the only time the ship got to fulfill its purpose and despite its size, it took a hit from a Borg weapon and returned fire.
 * Several other background starships from the opening battle have gotten surprising amounts of love from the fans, most notably the Akira-class. Canonically the ships were designed and built after the devastating defeat at Wolf 359 from the episode "Best of Both Worlds," already forming a major backstory to this film, and were meant to be more battle-hardy than previous Starfleet ships.
 * One of the starships fighting the Borg was the Millennium Falcon in a sub-blink-and-you-miss-it cameo courtesy of ILM who worked on special effects for the film.
 * It could be a moment of Fridge Brilliance if one believes that the Star Wars movies exist in the Star Trek universe and someone created a starship that looks just like the Millennium Falcon as a tribute.
 * Crapsack World: By all accounts, Earth of 2063 is a pretty miserable Scavenger World in which everyone is suffering from radiation poisoning to one degree or another, and things like murder are commonplace.
 * Not surprising, considering it's the aftermath of World War III.
 * Dawn of an Era
 * Darker and Edgier: TNG was sometimes criticized for lacking in action and character drama, which admittedly was because Gene Roddenberry wanted a series that spent more time on ideas rather than violence and characters who argue all the time. This movie is a rock-em action flick with some serious interpersonal conflict (Picard and Worf especially), with a literally darker color palette in both the new uniforms and the sets even before Borg assimilation.
 * Deal with the Devil:.
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?: There are more than a few similarities between the character of Zefram Cochrane and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Both were men who were elevated to near-mythic status posthumously, seen as legends and visionaries with "a dream" -- and both were lecherous, with substance abuse problems, and primarily motivated by money (not to mention extremely tall). The filmmakers claim they didn't base Cochrane on Roddenberry, but the similarities are there.
 * And both, in different senses, created the world of Star Trek.
 * Picard's hate for the Borg in his "The line must be drawn here" speech is like a person's hate for a rapist.
 * Also, the interactions between Picard, Data, and the Borg Queen come across as a jilted girlfriend wanting to show her ex how he could never measure up to her new boyfriend, and prove that she's totally winning the break-up.
 * Dramatic Shattering: Picard with his Big No.
 * Dream Within a Dream / Mind Screw: The entire opening sequence. Picard is on the Borg cube, but it's All Just a Dream, so he rinses himself off as a Borg implant pops from his face, but that's All Just a Dream too!
 * The End of the Beginning
 * Epic Tracking Shot: The movies start almost inside Picard's eye and then pulls back to show the humongous Borg complex he was in, All Just a Dream, or rather a traumatic memory.
 * Executive Meddling: A positive one: Ira Steven Behr insisted that the "tough little ship" exchange be added to the opening battle, so it was clear that the Defiant had survived and could still be used on Deep Space 9.
 * Eye Scream: To Picard. In the freaking opening sequences, no less! Later on, assimilated Enterprise crew appear to have had one of their eyes gouged out and replaced with some kind of interface circuitry prior the the installation of the prosthetic visualizer.
 * Face Palm: After Drunk Cochrane restores power to the jukebox and starts drunkenly dancing again, Riker dances slightly too... and then Troi passes out, which Riker promptly responds to with a facepalm.
 * Fake Defector:.
 * Fate Worse Than Death: Picard expresses this conviction about being turned into a Borg drone. While the strike team is preparing after the Borg are found to have infiltrated the Enterprise, he tells his men that when they encounter assimilated crew members they shouldn't hesitate to kill them, because they'll be doing them a favor.
 * First Contact: Obviously.
 * Future Imperfect: Only applies in the crew's hero worship of Cochrane. Otherwise -- like many other Time Travel Tropes in this film -- averted. Picard simply asks the computer to make them some period costume and then they fit right in.
 * Hearing Voices: Picard can't get the Collective out of his head...
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: One half expects Zefram Cochrane to say, "That'll do, pig, that'll do."
 * Buck Compton, the Tin Man and David Williams is Lieutenant Hawk.
 * Bob Pinciotti traded his afro for a metal nose as holographic gangster Nicky the Nose.
 * You Look Familiar: Cromwell had also previously been seen in two roles on Next Generation. He was the Angosian Prime Minister in "The Hunted" and a Yridian information dealer named Jaglom Shrek in both parts of "Birthright".
 * Get Out!: Picard says this to Lily when she confronts him about his lust for revenge against the Borg.
 * Historical Hero Upgrade: In-Universe example. Cochrane in the future is seen as a great visonary. In reality though, he was a drunken jerkass who was just trying to get rich.
 * Hive Queen
 * Hold the Line. The Captain Ahab variety.

"Cochrane: Is that it? It's...so small... Riker: It's about to get a whole lot bigger."
 * Humans Are Morons: Humans of the mid-21st Century live in a post-apocalyptic society with just barely enough infrastructure to continue research on a warp drive, while the other races have already begun exploring the galaxy and view humanity as being "too primitive". The main goal in the movie is to ensure that humanity overcomes that notion and gains recognition from the alien community (or at least the Vulcans) at large. Naturally, as the large majority of the rest of Star Trek canon shows, humanity generally overcomes this view among alien races to become the dominant space-faring race.
 * Humans Are Special: Why are the Borg going to such extreme lengths to assimilate Earth? Because once Earth rolls over, the rest of the Federation will be a piece of cake and assimilating Earth in the past saves them even more trouble by preventing the Federation from even existing.
 * I Am the Trope: The Borg Queen is the Borg. Data himself isn't quite sure what this means.
 * Immune to Bullets: Data, being made of metal and all.
 * Rule of Funny also plays a small part, as well.
 * I Need a Freaking Drink: When Lily protests that Cochrane can't fly the Phoenix drunk, he insists that he sure as hell isn't going to do it sober.
 * Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Discussed Trope after Cochrane's first brief warp flight and he turns the ship around to look at the Earth behind them.

"Cochrane: "I don't want to be a statue!""
 * Instant Expert: Data learns deception. He goes from unconvincingly lying about "mimicking the behavior of humans" when his arm flesh gets slashed, to
 * Ironic Echo:
 * Keystone Army
 * Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: After the Borg adapt to their phasers, Picard lures a couple of drones into the Holodeck and shoots them with a tommy gun. This has led to fan speculation that Borg shields suck against kinetic attacks, which is semi-verified in noncanonical novels.
 * That said, notice how the second drone Picard dropped with his holo-tommy took a LOT more direct hits before going down than the first. If there had been a third drone...
 * Melee attacks weave in and out. On one hand, Worf and Data do well beating up drones in melee. On the other hand, Worf is inhumanly strong and Data is superhumanly strong, and both still ended up taking hits. The one human Red Shirt that attempts to Phaser-butt a drone gets his ass handed to him in short order. Later on, one officer practically balks at the idea of hand-to-hand combat with Borg, clearly aware that such an attempt would fail horribly.
 * Large Ham: Picard, when letting his desire for revenge get the better of him, descends to a state where "chewing the scenery" is only putting it mildly, telling Lily that "The line must be drawn heeyah!" and: "IIIIII, will make them pay, for what they've done!"
 * An example of Tropes Are Not Bad. That monologue is freaking epic, and it's mainly Patrick Stewart's skill as an actor that keeps from turning it into Narm.
 * Last-Note Nightmare: The opening titles. Beautiful, uplifting music that fades into silence...and then... WHAM!
 * Let Me Get This Straight...: Invoked by Cochrane.
 * Mauve Shirt: Lt. Hawk.
 * Meaningful Name: The Phoenix, the first warp-drive ship, can be seen as having risen from the ashes of World War III.
 * Mercy Kill: Picard shoots a crewmember as he is being assimilated by the Borg.
 * Mundanisation: Averted. This is one of the few time-travel stories that involves people from the far future going back to the near future, rather than the present day or past. Another Star Trek example is the Deep Space Nine episode "Past Tense".
 * My God, What Have I Done?: Picard's reaction after Lily's quoting of Moby Dick and his Unstoppable Rage smashing his model ships (Enterprise-D and -C for extra pathos, if you're an astute observer) makes him realize he's throwing the crew's lives away because of his own vendetta against the Borg.
 * Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer depicts Picard's "The line must be drawn HERE!" speech as a Badass Boast, instead of the Roaring Rampage of Revenge / Sanity Slippage on Picard's part. Additionally, the trailer also features Data's And more importantly, the trailers made it look like the Borg were mounting a full-scale invasion against the Federation, instead of only attacking Earth.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Well done Starfleet, take the one Captain with the most experience dealing with the Borg out of the fleet assembled to fight them. Nor consider at least relieving him temporarily of command if you're that worried he'll be a risk, as he only has the most powerful and advanced ship in your entire armarda at his disposal. Because when the fate of Earth is at stake, you want this man and the crowning achievement of shipbuilding he commands to be studying... comets. Its not like if Picard showed up, he'd managed to Curb Stomp Battle the Borg cube in less than 2 minutes... oh wait... he does. Well, I'm sure the families of all those good men and women lost before the Enterprise-E got there don't blame you for that very intelligent decision, Admiral Hayes.
 * Picard himself is stopped just short of doing this when Lily chucks a What the Hell, Hero? at him.
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Klingon Borg!
 * No One Gets Left Behind: Picard refuses to leave the self-destructing Enterprise without Data.
 * Not Using the Z Word: Averted, the Borg are described as bionic zombies on a couple of occasions.
 * Oh Crap: Riker and Geordi share a look that just screams this when, after being told that a system has malfunctioned, Cochrane proceeds to hit the controls, shrug, and say, "Don't worry!"
 * The Other Darrin: James Cromwell replaces Glenn Corbett as Zefram Cochrane, who first appeared in the original series episode "Metamorphosis".
 * Our Founder: When informed that he's standing in the exact same spot as his future statue, Cochrane goes a little bit nuts.
 * Out-of-Character Moment: Troi getting drunk trying to reason with Cochrane. Rule of Funny at play. Justified because she's, well, drunk.
 * Percussive Maintenance: Averted. Cochrane attempts to fix a warning light on the Phoenix by hitting the console. It doesn't work, and he ultimately tells Riker and Geordi to ignore it.
 * Popcultural Osmosis: Lily never read Moby Dick, but it's so well known, the basic point was still clear to her.
 * Precision F-Strike: "BULLSHIT!"
 * Don't forget Lily started her What the Hell, Hero? speech to Picard by saying "You son of a bitch!".
 * Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
 * "Assimilate THIS."
 * "Resistance Is Futile."
 * Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "Resistance. Is. Futile."
 * Ramming Always Works: Worf was going to do this before the Enteprise-E decided to have a Big Damn Heroes moment.
 * Rapid-Fire Typing: Data shutting down the main computer. Justified Trope: Data's an android and can type at super speed (he did it all the time during the show). That's why he was asked to do it.
 * Refusal of the Call: Cochrane, when he got overwhelmed with his role in history.

"Data: Captain, I believe I speak for the crew when I say... (Beat) to hell with our orders."
 * He gets over it.
 * Retcon: This movie shows Zefram Cochrane as the man who not only created warp drive, but also conducted the first warp flight and made first contact with an extraterrestrial species shortly afterward. In the TOS episode "Metamorphosis", where the character originated, he was simply said to be the inventor of warp drive. No more, no less.
 * Cochrane was also called "Cochrane of Alpha Centauri" in "Metamorphosis". However, fanon had long since decided he was a human who just moved to Alpha Centauri after inventing warp drive, presumably because Earth Is the Centre of The Universe.
 * Cochrane also looks much older than he should, according to dates given in "Metamorphosis." The semi-official explanation for this is that he is younger than he looks because of radiation poisoning.
 * Retool: Due to a higher budget than the show, the Borg underwent a dramatic change in appearance, instead of pale guys in armored suits it looked like they were almost rotting out from the inside. Great change too, as befits the Rule of Scary.
 * This actually fits in with the original concept of The Borg as a race that simply replaces biological parts with mechanical ones as they wear out.
 * Revenge Before Reason: Picard's motivation for fighting the Borg at any cost. Lily points this out with "Captain Ahab has to go hunt his whale!"
 * Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: The Enterprise can see the Borg!Earth timeline, but since they're in the wake of the time disturbance caused by the Borg Sphere, they're unaffected. It's strongly implied that they'd vanish from existence had they not went through the time aperture themselves.
 * Robots Enslaving Robots: The Borg trying to make Data join them.
 * They wanted him to choose to join them of his own free will, though. With a very tempting benefits package, too.
 * Sacrificial Lamb:
 * Scale-Model Destruction: Picard takes some of his anger out on the model ships in the stateroom.
 * Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right: Captain Jean-Luc Picard disobeys the orders of Star Fleet and goes to the front line to engage the Borg. And the crew are behind him.

""We've made too many compromises already. Too many retreats. They invade our space, and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far and no further!""
 * Set Right What Once Went Wrong: An interesting use of the trope because, unusually, the historical event in question lies in our (the viewers') future, and we don't know exactly what it is until the end of the film.
 * Songs of Solace: After being told he will not be part of the fleet to defend Earth Picard spends his time in his office listening to opera so loud that it vibrates objects on his desk.
 * Sophisticated As Hell: (drunkenly) "In my professional opinion as ship's counselor... he's nuts."
 * Shouting Shooter: Picard when taking down the Borg with a Tommy gun.
 * Shout-Out: To the Original Series. "I'm a doctor, not a doorstop."
 * The Maglock system has a subsystem designation of AE35.
 * Sleeves Are for Wimps: Picard is in a sleeveless uniform for the climactic showdown, and damn.
 * Spheroid Dropship: The Borg Sphere.
 * Team Rocket Wins: The crew spend most of the movie getting their collective asses repeatedly handed to them by the Borg.
 * Theme Music Power-Up: During the Enterprise's Gunship Rescue moment.
 * Time Travel
 * Tired of Running: Subverted because it showcases Picard's obsession to destroy the Borg.

"Worf: Assimilate this!"
 * Title Drop: The only one in the whole series: "You're all... astronauts, on... some kind of star trek." Naturally, the phrase "first contact" is also used a few times.
 * Too Dumb to Live: LaForge heads down to Earth and leaves someone else in charge of engineering. That character crawls into the Jefferies tubes in order to try to solve a seemingly minor problem. He hears sounds of the Borg and asks a female ensign still in Engineering if she's the one making the noise. He asks if someone else is there and then is seized by the Borg and screams. The female ensign, hearing this, decides to enter the Jefferies tubes herself to see if she can find out what is going on. She is promptly seized by the Borg.
 * Fridge Logic: If it sounded as if a fellow engineer has his hand crushed by heavy machinery or a similar accident, most people would rush in to help too.
 * Tuckerization: One of the Borg drones Picard guns down during the Dixon Hill program, Ensign Lynch, was widely believed to be named after TNG reviewer Tim Lynch. In fact, he was named after a friend of Brannon Braga.
 * Two Lines, No Waiting: For most of the film, there are three storylines going; Riker convincing Cochrane to make his flight, Picard fighting the Borg and Data's interrogation by the Borg Queen. Since Picard didn't voice his suspicion that the Borg are aboard the Enterprise before returning to the ship with Data (upon which they lost all communications), Riker, Troi, LaForge and the rest of the engineers on the surface never actually realize what's happening aboard the Enterprise.
 * Unfazed Everyman: Lily. Overlaps with The Watson.
 * Verb This: Occurs before destroying the Borg's interplexing beacon.

"Worf: If you were any other man, I would kill you where you stand!"
 * Villainesses Want Heroes: the Borg Queen wanted Picard to willingly submit to the Borg and be her..."consort".
 * Wham! Line: "Population: 9 billion. "
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: When seizes control of the main computer and fires a trio of quantum torpedoes at the Phoenix,.
 * Presumably, if they're anything like real-life torpedoes, they would explode after reaching a certain distance or time limit.
 * This is likely the case. There are numerous incidents of torpedoes missing their targets and sailing off in the series, and the only time anyone goes to retrieve one is a special, experimental torpedo that had clearly suffered a major malfunction during testing.
 * Lt. Porter, the first Enterprise crewmember to be assimilated, is one of the drones who pulls Picard to the assimilation table.
 * What Measure Is a Mook?: Lily bashes Picard for his callous treatment of the crew and for killing Ensign Lynch (who got turned into a Borg) during the "The line must be drawn here!" scene.
 * What the Hell, Hero?: Most of Picard's crew is hesitant to follow his increasingly judgment-impaired orders and Worf has a particularly venomous response when Picard calls him a coward for refusing to obey suicidal orders. Lily gives Picard a big one for his willingness to sacrifice his crew to get revenge on the Borg instead of doing the necessary thing. Picard finally wises up and orders the evacuation and destruction of his ship, like he should have earlier.
 * What Year Is This?: Averted, as the ship's sensors identify the approximate time period from orbit from the level of pollution in the atmosphere and then narrow it down to a specific date. Data also mentions taking astrometric readings, presumably comparing the stars where they are to where they should be in their present.
 * Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Averted by Lt. Hawk regarding simply . Picard responds with Made of Explodium Techno Babble. It's also consistent; when they finally detach the dish, Worf then hits it once and it ignites into a giant fireball.
 * The World Is Just Awesome: After their short warp flight, an awed Cochrane comments how small Earth looks, finally starting to realize what he had just accomplished.
 * Also when Picard shows Lily the Earth below her through a force field window.
 * Worthy Opponent: Worf tells Picard as much when Picard insults him;


 * You Will Be Assimilated: Yeah.