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102 C I N E M O N T A G E T A I L P O P Alice Krige and Patrick Stewart in "Star Trek: First Contact" P H O T O : P H O T O F E S T Geek Love T he autumn of 1996 was a unique time for pop culture. As the 1990s ticked away, society was speculat- ing on what the future would hold and what we could expect when we crossed that rapidly approaching threshold of the 21st Century. The future seemed, if not bright, at least exciting and worth exploring. A senior in high school, I was getting ready for major changes on the horizon: leaving home and going to college as part of the class of 2001, a symbolic year for the future to come. In the middle of all of that, "Star Trek: First Contact" beamed into my life. I saw "First Contact" on Friday night of opening weekend with a group of friends, all of us into science, sci-fi, Star Trek and a lot of other things that weren't supposed to interest girls in the late '90s. Among our group, we'd often joked that all of us had been "grade school rejects" until we'd found each other within the close-knit community of our Catholic all girls high school. As much as I wanted to follow the example of one of my fa- vorite franchises and boldly go, doing so seemed much easier said than done. I'd been interested in film my entire life and this wasn't the first time I'd wait- ed in line for a big blockbuster but I had never encountered anything like what I saw that night. One of my friends painted her face with the distinctive spots of a Trill, like science officer Jadzia Dax on "Deep Space Nine," and she wasn't alone. Waiting in line we met Starfleet officers a n d K l i n go n s a l i ke. O n ce t h e m o v i e started, the entire theater cheered for every cast and crew member name as it came up during the opening credits. That excitement and audience engagement HOW 'STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT' CHANGED A STORY ANALYST'S LIFE By Meghan Heritage lasted the entire film, and throughout the whole thing, all I could think was that I belonged there. "First Contact," like some of the most famous Star Trek adventures before it, is a time travel story. When the Borg, a hive mind of cybernetic creatures that forcefully assimilate other species and technology, attack Earth and manage to assimilate the planet by altering history, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stew- art) and the crew of the USS Enterprise must travel three hundred years back in time in order to save humanity. They do it by making sure a key event in hu- man history takes place — humanity's first contact with an alien species. The impetus for that event is the first ever warp drive test undertaken by Zefram C o c h ra n e (Ja m e s C ro mwe l l ), a m a n whom three hundred years of history has painted as a noble hero and brilliant scientist. Upon arrival in the year 2063, however, the Enterprise crew discovers that this lauded historical figure is a drunkard who can't be bothered with the fate of humanity and just wants to sell his invention for some quick cash. It's a great Star Trek story infused with quintessential Roddenberry opti- mism asserting that humanity, like the fallible Zefram Cochrane, will eventually figure things out and do the right thing. It would be nearly a decade before t h e M a r v e l C i n e m a t i c U n i v e r s e h i t movie theaters and even longer before things like Comic Con, cosplay and fan fiction would work their way into the mainstream consciousness. The idea of "geek culture" was nowhere on the radar, and even when it did get discussed, the stereotype was of teenage boys reading comics in their parents' basements. That image was definitely not me or any of my friends, and I was often afraid to talk about the films, books and televi- sion shows I loved because they would somehow put me in a category that most people didn't understand. Eventually, though, I would realize that "Star Trek: First Contact" taught me a lot of lessons about life: You can't ignore your past, but you can use it — both the good and the bad — to move forward and make the imperfect future a little brighter. Resistance is NOT futile. Going boldly where no one has gone before is not often easy, but it is usually worth it. Most importantly though, the movie and its fans taught me not to hide the things I love, the things that make me who I am, no matter what the world thinks of me because of them. O h y e s , a n d a l s o t o L i v e L o n g and Prosper. ■ Meghan Heritage is a story analyst and writer working in the video game and e-learning industries and the author of the novel Stealing Ever After.