What if the Enterprise wasn't alone in First Contact?

[Baffalo]

The question I have is simply this:

What if the Enterprise hadn't been the only ship to fly through the temporal vortex back to 2063? What if they'd been joined by say, an Akira or Galaxy Class.

[TOSDOC]

Assuming they arrived at the same time or later than the Enterprise, the second ship wouldn't have helped any sooner in protecting the Phoenix and its surrounding installations by destroying the Borg sphere. Riker's away team proved competent in repairing the Phoenix and insuring that its mission was carried out, so additional away teams from a second ship would be unnecessary. Picard could sense the Borg on the Enterprise in orbit while on Earth's surface, so it's not impossible he could sense them on another Starfleet vessel as well. This leaves us with several scenarios:

1) The Borg invade only the Enterprise as in the movie while their sphere is destroyed. The second ship takes up a position to save the rest of the E's crew and destroy the Enterprise should the E's crew prove unable to rid the ship of the Borg, in order to allow the Phoenix to continue unimpeded. Lifeboats are taken directly aboard the second ship in order not to be found on Earth's surface in the past, or the crew are simply beamed aboard. The other captain has the option of risking his/her crew to assist Enterprise or keep them aboard his/her ship to avoid further bloodshed and contamination by the Borg, and keep the ship fully manned to protect the Phoenix when it flies.

2) The Borg invade both ships while their sphere is destroyed. The Borg are further outnumbered in this scenario as both Starfleet crews are forced to battle. While experiencing possibly heavy losses, the Starfleet crews prevent the Borg from gaining much of a foothold on either ship as the Borg's resources are spread too thin.

3) The Borg invade only the second ship while their sphere is destroyed. The Enterprise takes up a reciprocal position to destroy the other ship while protecting the Phoenix, IF it finds out about the Borg incursion. Either the Borg assimilate the second vessel much faster without Picard to head them off and take on the Phoenix and the Enterprise, or the crew is still up to the task with help from the Enterprise and the Phoenix still flies. It would be an interesting story if Picard beamed over to head off the incursion and was set at odds with the other captain due to his Borg connections.

4) The Borg take one look at two ships, say "Holy S&%^", and beam down to the planet to wipe out Cochrane and as many others as they can before they are set upon by Starfleet. With Cochrane dead, history is irrevocably altered even if the Phoenix flies and the Vulcans make contact, as history has lost Earth's representative to First Contact. Even if Cochrane lives, how is Starfleet going to explain its presence to the survivors, after they had to beam down with ray guns blazing to wipe out the scary cybernetic Frankensteins?

[Kythnos]

3) The Borg invade only the second ship while their sphere is destroyed. The Enterprise takes up a reciprocal position to destroy the other ship while protecting the Phoenix, IF it finds out about the Borg incursion. Either the Borg assimilate the second vessel much faster without Picard to head them off and take on the Phoenix and the Enterprise, or the crew is still up to the task with help from the Enterprise and the Phoenix still flies. It would be an interesting story if Picard beamed over to head off the incursion and was set at odds with the other captain due to his Borg connections.

This was my opinion as well. Considering the other ship would not have had any "main characters" and therefore would have been crewed with redshirts it would have fallen instantly, or there about. Add in that with complete access to the ship they send their message off to the collective at that time, and Earth gets Borged no matter what and possibly Vulcan as well.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Option number 5:

The second ship, let's say the USS Thunderchild (Akira-class, and I like the name), arrives later than the E-E. Everyone on the enterprise is wondering wher Thunderchild went, but are then occupied with being boarded

Things proceed as they do in the film, until Data fires on the Phoenix. In true deus-ex-machina Star Trek style, just before the torpedoes come close , the vortex opens, Thunderchild flies out, straight into the torpedoes, which cripple her weapon systems and damage her impulse drives. She takes the hits in the fashion of her HG Wells namesake.

Everyone on Enterprise is totally shocked by what's happenned, and Thunderchild's captain takes the chance to

beam the Borg out into space
OR
Send over heavily-armed away teams to secure the apparently empty E-E

Revert to films events, with Thunderchild miraculously repaired, retuning to future-Earth with everything fine and dandy

Option 6: As with option 5, but USS Thunderchild is destroyed by the torpedoes, thereafter following normal STFC events

[OmegaChief]

Option 6: As with option 5, but USS Thunderchild is destroyed by the torpedoes, thereafter following normal STFC events

Wouldn't that be a little pointless and random? Unless you wanted Data to have really gone over to the Borg side I guess.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah I geuss, but if the ship survived it would violate Trek's golden rule that Enterprise/Defiant does all the real work

If Data was still fighting for the good guys, you could have a section showing how guilty he feels, killing an entire starship crew to save the future. Probably a good opportunity for Picard to drone on about how important sacrifice can be

[Molyneux]

4) The Borg take one look at two ships, say "Holy S&%^", and beam down to the planet to wipe out Cochrane and as many others as they can before they are set upon by Starfleet. With Cochrane dead, history is irrevocably altered even if the Phoenix flies and the Vulcans make contact, as history has lost Earth's representative to First Contact. Even if Cochrane lives, how is Starfleet going to explain its presence to the survivors, after they had to beam down with ray guns blazing to wipe out the scary cybernetic Frankensteins?

I think that this is the least likely scenario; the Borg were already ludicrously outgunned by the Enterprise, and we saw that their idea of "stop First Contact" boiled down to "bombard the surface". They were already giving it everything they had.

As for why? I think they probably had a limited supply of drones, and didn't want to risk it on the surface. Remember, Borg appear to be more vulnerable to physical assault than they are to energy attacks.

[JasonB]

Few Borg get on to USS Enterprise E would have been pick other starship sensors and beam into brig.

[Enigma]

Few Borg get on to USS Enterprise E would have been pick other starship sensors and beam into brig.

Like they did to their own right? durrrr.....

[StarSword]

Necroed thread is necroed.

[Alyeska]

Jason, are you stupid or something? Wait, scratch that. You necroed two threads today. Knock this shit off.