So, was Cochrane's warp drive concept something special, or wasn't it ?
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Besides, everyone knows it's pronounced tee-oh-es, not Tos.
I'm not slogging through 15 pages. Catch me up when I repeat things.
The story of ZC's importance is the story of the changing attitudes of Star Trek. In TOS Earth was the leader of the Federation. Especially early TOS. By ENT Earth was going to struggle to the front by gumption and grit, not by actually being the first at anything.
There is little to no way to justify Kirk AND Spock's reaction to Cochrane. Spock (the really precise pedantic Vulcan?) doesn't make any qualifiers. ZC IS the discover of the space warp. Not Earth's.
First Contact tries to have it both ways. He's SUPER important. And not as a leader, or a philosopher. As an authority on warp drive. As other's have mentioned Starfleet Academy teaches him FIRST. Why would other member states stand for that?
Does anyone know if Braga and Moore's intention was for the Vulcans to have warp drive? The way that pre-FC novels handled the Vulcan problem was to say "They live for hundreds of years and they're just the sort that would attempt STL space exploration." FC never says the Vulcans have warp drive. ENT does. FTL would certainly get their attention in that case, wouldn't it? (But Borg and Federation power sources apparently don't show up as well?)
Then ENT comes along and says "Nope. Sorry! Earth was the last to the party. EVERYONE had warp drive before you!"
In TOS space was a frontier (apparently for everyone). By ENT it was a crowded neighborhood.
Long story short: ZC used to be THE discoverer of the space warp. By ENT he was A discoverer of the space warp.
And Starfleet is totally a military force. (If they're not then the Klingons either don't have a military force either or should be seriously embarrassed.)
Of course in Into Darkness Scotty says that Starfleet isn't a military but that the Federation has a military that isn't Starfleet.
The story of ZC's importance is the story of the changing attitudes of Star Trek. In TOS Earth was the leader of the Federation. Especially early TOS. By ENT Earth was going to struggle to the front by gumption and grit, not by actually being the first at anything.
There is little to no way to justify Kirk AND Spock's reaction to Cochrane. Spock (the really precise pedantic Vulcan?) doesn't make any qualifiers. ZC IS the discover of the space warp. Not Earth's.
First Contact tries to have it both ways. He's SUPER important. And not as a leader, or a philosopher. As an authority on warp drive. As other's have mentioned Starfleet Academy teaches him FIRST. Why would other member states stand for that?
Does anyone know if Braga and Moore's intention was for the Vulcans to have warp drive? The way that pre-FC novels handled the Vulcan problem was to say "They live for hundreds of years and they're just the sort that would attempt STL space exploration." FC never says the Vulcans have warp drive. ENT does. FTL would certainly get their attention in that case, wouldn't it? (But Borg and Federation power sources apparently don't show up as well?)
Then ENT comes along and says "Nope. Sorry! Earth was the last to the party. EVERYONE had warp drive before you!"
In TOS space was a frontier (apparently for everyone). By ENT it was a crowded neighborhood.
Long story short: ZC used to be THE discoverer of the space warp. By ENT he was A discoverer of the space warp.
And Starfleet is totally a military force. (If they're not then the Klingons either don't have a military force either or should be seriously embarrassed.)
Of course in Into Darkness Scotty says that Starfleet isn't a military but that the Federation has a military that isn't Starfleet.
This is a very good point. Spock is typically very precise with facts (except when it comes to casualties in WWI and II, apparently).
Don't you mean the differences between the casualties of WWIII that Spock cites in "Bread and Circuses" (TOS) and the ones Riker cites in First Contact? (Frankly, I thought that was okay, since it would make sense that later in time, historians could've uncovered more accurate information, not to mention that real-life historians don't always agree on stuff like this.)
Also, as far as Spock's comments about Cochrane in TOS being the first warp discoverer? Either early installment weirdness, or maybe Cochrane's warp engine design slowly replaced the others?
No. I mean the statistics Spock cites in "Bread and Circuses" being completely different to the actual number of casualties in WWI and WWII.
Early installment weirdness? In the ninth episode of season two? They were almost halfway through the series at that point.
Ninth episode of year two is still early days of a franchise that has lasted fifty years and counting.
By percentage you can apply that to anything pre-TNG. So why bother looking to TOS at all?
If First Contact had really run with "We got the idea and the name from TOS and that's it" then we wouldn't be having this conversation. But they doubled down and said that Chapter One is Zephram Cochrane.
Which, IMO is satisfactorily rationalized in my first post in this thread:
That's where the issue lies. FC kind of tries to go that way. He's a great man. He's a philosopher, a leader. He takes mankind from the mud and puts them in the stars.
But that doesn't get you in the first chapter of an engineering textbook in THE multicultural learning institution. He'd be in the history courses and the philosophy courses. But not engineering. (Unless the Federation really IS a homo sapiens only club.)
It also doesn't get Spock calling you THE discoverer of the space warp.
Oh, okay.
It was their first introduction of Cochrane, so I think that counts as "early installment" for this specific character.
The man figured out FTL travel on his own in a post-apocalyptic situation. He clearly had gifted engineering skills uncommon among the rest of the galaxy.
Definitely a possibility too.
Riker say basically that in Nemesis, destroy Earth and you destroy the Federation (not a exact quote).
Spock said "died" not casualties (not the same thing), aren't the figures Spock used fairly close to the military battlefield numbers?
Didn't Spock say the discoverer? He never used the word "first."
No but he said "the" not "a".
Here is the exact exchange:
KIRK: Mister Cochrane, do you have a first name?
COCHRANE: Zefram.
KIRK: Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centuri, the discoverer of the space warp?
COCHRANE: That's right, Captain.
MCCOY: But that's impossible. Zefram Cochrane died a hundred and fifty years ago.
SPOCK: The name of Zefram Cochrane is revered throughout the known galaxy. Planets were named after him. Great universities, cities.
KIRK: Isn't your story a little improbable, Mister Cochrane?
COCHRANE: No, it's true. I was eighty seven years old when I came here.
KIRK: You say this Companion found you and rejuvenated you? What were you doing in space at the age of eighty seven?
COCHRANE: I was tired, Captain. I was going to die, and I wanted to die in space. That's all.
KIRK: Mister Cochrane, do you have a first name?
COCHRANE: Zefram.
KIRK: Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centuri, the discoverer of the space warp?
COCHRANE: That's right, Captain.
MCCOY: But that's impossible. Zefram Cochrane died a hundred and fifty years ago.
SPOCK: The name of Zefram Cochrane is revered throughout the known galaxy. Planets were named after him. Great universities, cities.
KIRK: Isn't your story a little improbable, Mister Cochrane?
COCHRANE: No, it's true. I was eighty seven years old when I came here.
KIRK: You say this Companion found you and rejuvenated you? What were you doing in space at the age of eighty seven?
COCHRANE: I was tired, Captain. I was going to die, and I wanted to die in space. That's all.
Like Howard Hughes, the aviator? Or William Shatner, the actor? Neither were the first. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the intention at the time was probably that Cochrane was the first (just as it was probably that he was born on Alpha Centauri) but it isn't made explicit.
Starfleet kind of is. Not literally, but it leans that way, being originally an Earth organization, and one which owes its role in galactic history to Cochrane.
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An institution on Earth, lots of countries send their young officer cadets to American military academies (West Point, Colorado Springs), but these academies are still American military schools.
But doesn't it make sense that those would be Human planets, Human universities and cities? Cochrane is revered by Humans.
George Washington is known to the majority of Americans, but (I would imagine) all but unknown in other countries.
Good point.
Not sure that was supposed to be the intent, more Cochrane was the first Human to discover the space warp. Prior to this episode, the Enterprise had encountered species with warp drive, the Gorn for example.
To quote Spock:
The Vulcans had to get to those colonies somehow. To forget about Romulas it was no doubt far in the past. So they've been in space for a while.
Not all of space, just the part beyond the Federation. It was "crowded" in TOS too. How may older races who had evolved beyond physical forms did they meet? How many society controlling AIs?
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