The Borg Chase of Species 8472 and the Running Flock of Gallimimus on I-10

During my drive earlier today from Orange County, CA, back to Scottsdale, AZ, from an enjoyable Christmas with friends, I reflected on how traffic was like the armada of Borg chasing Species 8472 in Star Trek: Voyager Episode 168 and the running flock of Gallimimus in the first Jurassic Park movie.

When developing scenes involving imaginary characters and objects, film makers and writers tend to take their inspiration from their experiences, so what probably inspired the writers of the two scenes were similar drives to mine.

In the Star Trek scene, Voyager is flying along their happy way when all of a sudden, a huge subspace wake washes over them. When the crew of Voyager comes to their senses, they find a huge armada of Borg ships passing them at much faster speeds, all of which ignore them with the exception of one cube, which stops and does a quick scan before proceeding to catch up with the other cubes.

In the scene in Jurassic Park, a flock of Gallimimus are running along the meadow, moving along at a much faster clip than Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Hammond’s grandchildren. After Grant and the children move out of the way, one of the Gallimimus gets caught by a Tyrannosaurus Rex hiding just out of sight waiting for her dinner to show up.

With laws now requiring semis to go at 55 mph while other traffic may go faster, such as the speed limit of 70 mph that I was driving during one stretch of I-10, the experience like Voyager isn’t as common, but occasionally a slew of Hummers and jacked-up pickups would speed around me. During one experience, I felt a slight wash of air buffeting me from their wake. Now, a 2004 Toyota Camry isn’t a small car, but when you have enough cars going much faster, any car going slower will feel some effects by such a herd of automobiles.

And, watching out for drivers pushing their vehicles faster than the speed limit, a number of stretches of highway had their share of police officers sitting along the side of the road, some in full view but many hiding behind some cover, much like the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the Jurassic Park scene.

And some people think the drive of 400 miles from LA to Phoenix is boring.