So, was Cochrane's warp drive concept something special, or wasn't it ?
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Was some other show supposed to go into detail about it?
We know there were plenty of spacefaring species using FTL, many of whom had never encountered Earth before, who have had long, established civilizations in the Alpha/Beta Quadrants. We also know plenty of spacefaring species across the galaxy have had its equivalence or better for thousands upon thousands of years.
Warp drive was not knew when Cochrane inve... discovered it. It wasn't even the fastest around amongst the warp-using cultures at the time, and it certainly paled next to the speeds capable by several other species in the galaxy even by TNG's time.
Vulcans had warp 7 since before Cochranes warp flight, and better ships to use it. Humans took a century to make warp 5, and the novels imply it was still some time after the Romulan War, with Vulcan help, they had early warp 7 ships. That still weren't quite as good at first.
Cochrane did what probaby several dozen other species had managed before him.
Cochrane did what probaby several dozen other species had managed before him.
You normally don't have Interstellar empires without a means of FTL travel. And we know there were several in the distant past from TOS, TAS, and TNG just as a starting point. Most has faded away by the time the humans were tinkering with steam engines, much less warp drives.
You might get to have a STL empire if there's no FTL player to challenge you for it. It should be possible to conquer the entire galaxy in a million years or less: spend a hundred years flying to the closest star, then nine hundred there building a capacity for launching further expeditions to, say, five closest stars, and you're done. But if primitive people of limited resources, such as Cochrane (with or without WWIII), can come up with FTL, such empire-building would be disrupted big time.
Doesn't mean there couldn't have been periods in Milky Way history where STL empires were prevalent. We know very little of galactic history, except that there has been at least four billion years of it.
Timo Saloniemi
Doesn't mean there couldn't have been periods in Milky Way history where STL empires were prevalent. We know very little of galactic history, except that there has been at least four billion years of it.
Timo Saloniemi
An underlying premise of ENT is human resentment towards Vulcans precisely because they declined to assist in human warp development. They already had far greater capabilities and would not share. It would be difficult to reconcile that with their not having any FTL prior to FC. That would require that the FC Vulcan ship had returned home with full schematics of the Phoenix which were then used to develop a fleet of w7 vessels, which in turn were used to build a modest interstellar empire and pretty extensive knowledge and experience of the quadrant and it's inhabitants, all in the hundred or so years humanity needed to get one ship to wf5, despite having previously failed to develop FTL at all.
Problem with an STL empire is, how do you maintain coherence over great distances ? Wouldn't many colonies in effect develop into ultimately separate cultures, unless the 'mother' culture is exceedingly static ? At any rate, supposing that humans would spread over the galaxy using STL, I could see them eventually occupy the entire galaxy (for convenience supposing there are no alien races), just not in the form of an empire, but rather in a patchwork of increasingly different cultures.
Back on topic: perhaps Cochrane did something special indeed. Not in finding a "faster" or "superior" form of warp, but simply finding a way of achieving it a lot cheaper than before, so as to make it 'profitable'. In that case, perhaps Cochrane still contributed significantly, even though a lot of races already had warp engines with a higher raw output potential because they had been tinkering with them for a lot longer.
At least during the first part of the 22nd century, there are those warp 1.8 freighters running back and forth along some trade lines, I suppose with relatively mundane cargo. Just some speculation on my part, but perhaps before Cochrane's warp drive concept, most warp travel was rather expensive and mostly a plaything for the governments of different species, and the best that could be done was found some (isolated) colonies ? (Then again, that would probably also preclude large scale military conflicts, which seem to have taken place) .
Is there any evidence for 'mundane' interstellar trade between the usual alpha quadrant players before Cochrane's era ?
Back on topic: perhaps Cochrane did something special indeed. Not in finding a "faster" or "superior" form of warp, but simply finding a way of achieving it a lot cheaper than before, so as to make it 'profitable'. In that case, perhaps Cochrane still contributed significantly, even though a lot of races already had warp engines with a higher raw output potential because they had been tinkering with them for a lot longer.
At least during the first part of the 22nd century, there are those warp 1.8 freighters running back and forth along some trade lines, I suppose with relatively mundane cargo. Just some speculation on my part, but perhaps before Cochrane's warp drive concept, most warp travel was rather expensive and mostly a plaything for the governments of different species, and the best that could be done was found some (isolated) colonies ? (Then again, that would probably also preclude large scale military conflicts, which seem to have taken place) .
Is there any evidence for 'mundane' interstellar trade between the usual alpha quadrant players before Cochrane's era ?
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It's just a less common term for Vulcans, one that might have gone out of fashion with changing times. Humans are also known as Terrans--maybe one day the latter term will go out of fashion too. But given the alternate names for Humans, it really shouldn't be that unusual that other races might have alternate names too. Maybe even the Romulans have an alternate name, but "Romulan" is the closest approximation that comes through a universal translator.
<Searches for every instance of the word "Vulcan" in Star Trek to post as a counterpoint...>
<Computer explodes>
The fact that the Vulcans in First Contact are light years away from their home system on a simple survey mission is a wee bit of a hint that they're already capable of faster-than-light travel. So is the fact that they can detect and recognize a warp signature for what it is.
Wut ? Because of only 1555 hits ? 
(at least, according to http://scriptsearch.dxdy.name/ . Although that site refuses to list those 1555 instances in full. )
(at least, according to http://scriptsearch.dxdy.name/ . Although that site refuses to list those 1555 instances in full. )
It seems unlikely the Vulcan Andorian conflicts mention in ENT were done with sublight ships.
Well, 1555 is a bit more than 8, you know.Wut ? Because of only 1555 hits ?
(at least, according to http://scriptsearch.dxdy.name/ . Although that site refuses to list those 1555 instances in full. )
But 1555 still sounds a bit on the low side, IMO.
The colony Tuvok spoke of wouldn't have to have been on a moon of Vulcan itself, just a moon somewhere colonised by Vulcans. The orginal verison of TMP showed the (presumibly) Vulcan sky with other nearby bodies, and ST '09 had Nimoy/Spock on a body close enough to personally witness Vulcan's destruction. Of the various theories I like the one where Vulcan is a moon of a gas giant, which has multiple other moons.
Vulcanian, I recall "Terran" being popular in the sixties and seventies in written science fiction to refer to a Human, but today the term has fallen into disuse. There are probably a dozen different perfectly accurate ways of referring to Vulcans, Vulcanian being one of them.
No worse than "Earthling."
If such an empire came to being "virally", with each colonized planet launching further colonization missions, then pretty soon the already colonized planets would be receiving waves of colonists from other branches of the empire. The whole setup would be dynamic, but probably to the effect of averaging over the cultures, with constant waves of new influences lapping across the galaxy this way and that.
This is quite possible. But the issue remains that it is not required - Cochrane is not special in the aired material. Really, only two mentions of him are made in all of Star Trek, both times when the all-human heroes meet him in person. Tellingly, the not-so-human heroes in both cases remain indifferent: Spock just quotes dry facts rather than swooning over the space pioneer, and neither Worf nor Troi acknowledge Cochrane much.
The same goes for the latter part of the 23rd century, as per "Friday's Child". OTOH, small private/corporate freighters in DS9 may travel at speeds of warp 9+ (direct quote for Xepolites) and make rounds across several star systems in less than a day (direct description of Kasidy Yates' weekly routine). Supposedly there are markets for both delivery methods. And perhaps there were those in the early 22nd century, too, but humans could not partake in the more lucrative high speed business yet.
In ENT already, we do get all these lone Tellarite traders and bounty hunters in their private warpships, the hippie Vulcans who fly around in their explicitly elderly warpship for the sheer counterculture fun of it, etc.
There's the mention of the Tellarite freighter from 1957, but apart from that, we don't know anything concrete about the pre-Cochrane history of most Trek species...
Timo Saloniemi
As for Vulcan vs. Vulcania, and perhaps Andor vs. Andoria, it could just be that the latter refers to the realm ruled by the former. There used to be a Vulcania, but now there's just Vulcan - yet some humans can't resist rubbing that in!
Vulcanis lunar colony could literally be a Lunar colony - that is, a colony on Luna, right next door to New Berlin. All the good parties are to be found there, if one bothers first wading through the Tellarite suburbs in between.
Timo Saloniemi
Vulcanis lunar colony could literally be a Lunar colony - that is, a colony on Luna, right next door to New Berlin. All the good parties are to be found there, if one bothers first wading through the Tellarite suburbs in between.
Timo Saloniemi
I can't really see how there can be much room for doubt here.
Yes, it is possible to spread theoretically via STL - although whether such a set up would really constitute an empire is debatable. Lack of interaction, communication, shared infrastructure, central government or possibly even memory of each other's existence would make it less an empire so much as a scattering of disconnected colony worlds.
Other than that possibility however it really is clear that warp drive (including versions far more advanced than ZCs) have been commonplace in the ST universe long before the events of FC. The FC contact Vulcans were on a survey mission light years from home and detected a warp signature. Without warp drives how did they get there and how would they know what a warp signature was? Why then did Vulcans suddenly have wf7ships by the time the NX01 got out there?
How did all those warp capable species the NX01 made contact with week after week get it? You know, the Suliban, the Romulans, the Tellarites, the Andorians, the Xindi, the Orions, the Klingons. One might stretch to some ridiculous scenario where word about this new human technology had spread faster than the humans themselves.
That would not only require each species in the chain to carry out their own D+D and manufacturing in the time frame required to have entire fleets with superior tech in place before the NX01 got there, but for them all to do it sequentially as there would be no way of passing that message to the next species along the line without first developing and using said FTL capability. Rather than being treated as upstarts on the galactic scene by much more experienced species possessing (again) mysteriously better warp tech humans would have a messianic reputation preceding them.
Yes, it is possible to spread theoretically via STL - although whether such a set up would really constitute an empire is debatable. Lack of interaction, communication, shared infrastructure, central government or possibly even memory of each other's existence would make it less an empire so much as a scattering of disconnected colony worlds.
Other than that possibility however it really is clear that warp drive (including versions far more advanced than ZCs) have been commonplace in the ST universe long before the events of FC. The FC contact Vulcans were on a survey mission light years from home and detected a warp signature. Without warp drives how did they get there and how would they know what a warp signature was? Why then did Vulcans suddenly have wf7ships by the time the NX01 got out there?
How did all those warp capable species the NX01 made contact with week after week get it? You know, the Suliban, the Romulans, the Tellarites, the Andorians, the Xindi, the Orions, the Klingons. One might stretch to some ridiculous scenario where word about this new human technology had spread faster than the humans themselves.
That would not only require each species in the chain to carry out their own D+D and manufacturing in the time frame required to have entire fleets with superior tech in place before the NX01 got there, but for them all to do it sequentially as there would be no way of passing that message to the next species along the line without first developing and using said FTL capability. Rather than being treated as upstarts on the galactic scene by much more experienced species possessing (again) mysteriously better warp tech humans would have a messianic reputation preceding them.
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Cochrane discovered FTL travel, on earth, the same way that Franklin discovered electricity and Newton discovered gravity. I'm sure the Vulcans and every other Federation world had their own Cochrane and Franklin and Newton. I think we hear about Cochrane all the time because Trek was written and produced by people from earth, with a human-centric point of view.
A quick glance at the episode and movie transcripts reveals seven times Cochrane is mentioned, directly or indirectly. He makes an appearance in "Metamorphosis" and ST:FC, of course, and his role in warp engine development is mentioned in "Broken Bow" and "Daedalus"; "Regeneration" quotes his famous speech.
The other two don't deal with his person directly: there's a Cochrane Medal of Honor mentioned in "Timeless" in a context that suggests it's "our" Cochrane all right. Then there's the Cochrane Deceleration Maneuver, a naval tactic from "Whom Gods Destroy" (but that could be the other Cochrane of naval fame - in the Trek universe, ol' Thomas might have pulled off a famous deceleration in the 19th century Pacific theater).
No dialogue mention of cochranes as units of warp field strength. There are several Okudagrams that feature the unit, though, some quite readable in HD. A Vulcan or an Andorian accessing the same data would probably see native units there instead of cochranes, though.
Timo Saloniemi
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