First Contact Questions

[Six of Twelve]

Why did Picard allow Cochrane and especially Lily, who'd seen the Enterprise, the Borg, and a Klingon to retain their memories of the future? Did they actually trust them to keep their knowledge of the future confidential, with only each other to talk about it with?

Second question: what do you think the nature of Cochrane's relationship with Lily was? Just professional colleagues or something more? I ask this because just before he stepped forward to greet the Vulcans, they made a point of zooming in on him taking Lily's hand and squeezing it.

 

[CommanderTrip]

1. My guess is that they trusted Lily and Cochrane at that point because they understood the scope of what was at stake, and what was happening. However, you could look at it another way too. The Enterprise was heavily damaged and a good chunk of her was borgified. They may not have had the capabilities to mindwipe Cochrane and Lily (The borg did break down sickbay's doors and presumably assimilated the EMH.)

2. I think they were close colleagues, but nothing more. All of their interactions and conversations that were depicted on screen were work (or in Cochrane's case, booze) related. I interpreted the hand squeeze as both of them signaling to one another they were ready to take humanity to the next step. They understood the gravity of what First Contact meant to both them, and civilization as a whole.

 

[Timo]

1. Also, Beverly Crusher never could do a memory wipe that'd stick. They'd need Pulaski or Bashir there. But Earth is already a mess from the Borg attack, and there isn't much the heroes can do about that. Having a couple (hundred?) people retain knowledge of the future is unlikely to disturb any butterflies that weren't already stomped to death by Borg bombardment.

2. We don't learn what sort of colleagues they were. Cochrane was credited with inventing stuff, and eventually flew his own invention. Sloane was credited with nothing much. But the Phoenix had three seats. Should Sloane have taken one of those? Should Cochrane even have been aboard at all? Did Sloane in fact build the warp engine, or even invent it for Cochrane?

Cochrane could be a guy tagging along with the inventor of warp for romantic reasons. Sloane could be a gal doing the same. The two might be vitally mutually complementing halves in the engineering feat. The two might be test pilots or janitors who took over the warp complex after the real inventors died in WWIII, read the manuals, and saw the profit in stealing the invention. The gripping of hands could be a "this is it" moment in many a sense: wow, aliens, I hope we live through this; geez, it's over now, I flew the thing and now they won't split us for being utter frauds; boy, I'm a celebrity now and both my wives will be calling soon but it was fun while it lasted; aliens landing here means the government will be here soon, too, and then we'll die, but it was fun while it lasted; etc.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kor]

Third question: Since Earth was in shambles, most likely including the economy, who did Cochrane think he could possibly sell his invention to in order to become rich?

Kor

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Third question: Since Earth was in shambles, most likely including the economy, who did Cochrane think he could possibly sell his invention to in order to become rich?

Maybe Earth wasn't in as much of a shambles as people think.

The war took place in 2053, yet in TNG's "The Royale" a US flag with 52 stars is said to come from somewhere between 2033 and 2079. So obviously the USA was one of the (few) survivors of the war. Perhaps Cochrane was keen on selling his invention to the US government?

Cochrane did say "I don't even like to fly. I take trains." Who do you think maintains those trains? If postwar Earth retained enough of its infrastructure to even ALLOW for train travel, the thought of at least a few major governments surviving that war relatively intact, does not seem to be that much of a stretch. Especially since Earth has apparently managed to completely recover from World War III only a century after it occurred, so therefore it can't have been the global catastrophe that most people assume WW3 would be.

And in the earlier scene where Riker describes post-WW3 Earth, he said there were "very few governments left". He didn't say NONE were left.

Why did Picard allow Cochrane and especially Lily, who'd seen the Enterprise, the Borg, and a Klingon to retain their memories of the future?

Maybe he simply had no way of preventing them from doing so.

 

[Vger23]

1. Probably the same time travel reasoning that Kirk used when they left Earth allowing the FBI and US Navy to believe that a Russian Spy had been aboard the USS Enterprise...and that taking a 20th Century Marine Biologist out of the past and into the future was ok....and that selling transparent aluminum to Professor Nichols was a brilliant idea...and that de-cloaking the Bird of Prey in front of a whaling ship was a great strategy.

2. They be friends.

 

[Timo]

Time isn't fragile, except perhaps in "City on the Edge of Forever" where one woman makes a difference (but one man does not). Picard should know, being a veteran of time travel. Perhaps Kirk and Spock got it all wrong in "City", not being veterans there yet? Perhaps just getting McCoy back would have been fine in restoring their present?

That Earth has "very few governments left" is Riker's way of saying that there is still work to be done before Earth can get rid of this barbaric practice of governments for good, is all. That work won't be concluded until 2150!

But the fewer, the merrier - those left would then have all the more power and wealth to themselves, and be all the better clients for Cochrane.

OTOH, him taking trains need not be recent. He might just fondly remember his youth. It's only ten years since WWIII (supposedly both start and finish), after all, and Cochrane was in his twenties back then.

How big was WWIII? It's not the superpower confrontation feared in late 20th century, because Spock in "Omega Glory" says this was avoided. We know the US and the ECON take part as per ST:FC. We know there's nuclear winter as per "A Matter of Time". We know 37 million died against the 11 million of WWII as per "Bread and Circuses", perhaps giving us hints at how the 600 million compare to the "actual" death toll of WWII (unless theirs was different from ours, perhaps because Keeler had sent a letter that prompted FDR to nuke Berlin and Tokyo in January 1942 already, with the atomic power she was such an expert on). We know big cities were destroyed, but we know cities like San Francisco, Paris, London and Boston were not among those (just like they are unlikely to be in the major league in our 2050s).

So it's big, more than twice as big as WWII and with a bigger overall footprint of death, including global aftereffects. But is it global in itself? We only ever hear of the two players. The US survives, ECON is not indicated to. Perhaps it was fairly lopsided, and Cochrane at the apparent Bozeman AFB is more "playing it under radar" than "thriving because all radars were slagged"?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tosk]

allowing the FBI and US Navy to believe that a Russian Spy had been aboard the USS Enterprise

Not to mention leaving behind some future tech for them to study.

 

[Six of Twelve]

I looked up when Cochrane was supposed to have been born and I'm coming up with 2030. But they're going with the actor who played him on TOS. In First Contact, James Cromwell, was well into his fifties when he played the role, so in my personal canon using Cromwell as Cochrane, I'm going to say he was born in 2015, which makes better sense. In First Contact, there's NO way that Cochrane was 33.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The age difference between James Cromwell and Glenn Corbett can easily be attributed to any of these things:

1) The post-WW3 environment. Radiation poisoning and the like.
2) Cochrane's rampant use of alcohol.
3) The Companion restoring Cochrane to a sort of idealized youthful appearance, what we saw in TOS.

 

[Six of Twelve]

I guess the Companion shrunk him, too, as James Cromwell is six feet seven. Even six feet four inch Frakes had to look up to him.

 

[Timo]

It's perfectly possible that either of the two is an impostor, really. I mean, there's a statue of the Cromwell version for future generations to compare against, but while the E-D folks (at least the engineers - Riker doesn't display signs of recognition, and Troi could have been persuaded into believing just about anything in her drunken state) recognize the Cromwell man, Kirk for his part does not recognize the Corbett man! If the looks of Cochrane were actually known for certain, Kirk shouldn't be able to be confused about whether somebody looking like Corbett could be Cochrane or not.

If we assume that Cromwell is the real deal, and derive Cochrane's birthdate from that, what are the problems and consequences? Cromwell was about 55 in the movie, giving a birthdate of 2008. We can ignore this contradicting a barely glimpsed graphic in "In a Mirror, Darkly" and concentrate on what was stated in "Metamorphosis".

- McCoy says Cochrane "died", that is, disappeared, "150 years ago".
- Cochrane says he was "87 when I came here".
- The encounter takes place on SD Unknown, without in-universe clues as to where it stands relative to other TOS adventures.
- Yet TOS can start in 2266 at the earliest.

Would 2008 work? Add 87 and you get 2095. Add 150 and you get 2245. That's twenty years short of the mark at the very least.

Where to add the twenty years? 87 is exact. 150 could be 170 easily enough, though, by the usual rules of exclamations involving a figure falling on a multiple of 50. Or even 174, for that matter. (In addition, we can add some time between the disappearance and Cochrane's actual arrival, but that would act against our interests here.)

So using Cromwell's age isn't a continuity problem at all. If anything, it turns Cochrane from a Wunderkind into a more mature genius, or conversely allows him to have early ideas on space warp at an earlier date and thus affect the technology available to mankind. (Not artificial gravity, alas - that we must have at least two decades before Cochrane's birth...)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tenacity]

Would 2008 work? Add 87 and you get 2095. Add 150 and you get 2245. That's twenty years short of the mark at the very least.

How long between when Cochrane disappeared and his encountering the Companion?

Days or decades?

 

[Timo]

That's just it - any time interval we insert there will just make Cochrane younger, that is, it moves his birthday to the future, as he was 87 not at disappearance but at arrival to the asteroid.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vger23]

Or, you know....it was just that a different actor was playing a role that had been portrayed 30 years earlier.

It could just be that.

Call me crazy.

 

[Tosk]

You're crazy.

 

[Charles Phipps]

"Sometimes a show is just a show."

 

[My Name Was Taken Twice]

1. Also, Beverly Crusher never could do a memory wipe that'd stick. They'd need Pulaski or Bashir there.

What's this based on?

Third question: Since Earth was in shambles, most likely including the economy, who did Cochrane think he could possibly sell his invention to in order to become rich?

It's not as if it was a 2 week project. Though not well explained it might have been the reason behind his theoretic work however after excrement hit the fan he did a 'to hell with it' and having access to abandoned military hardware wanted to see if it would work.

 

[Timo]

What's this based on?

Well, Star Trek the Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Pulaski did one memory wipe that stuck ("Pen Pals"). Bashir did one ("Sons of Mogh") and deemed another undoable ("Hard Time"). Crusher did two , and both of them failed ("Who Watches the Watchers", "Homeward").

As for Earth being in shambles, this doesn't appear to be the case. We see that most cities remained intact - Riker only says the big ones were destroyed, and even today anything New York -sized or smaller is definitely not in the major league. Earth had starships at the edges of the galaxy not five years after Cochrane's flight, suggesting that while a lot was lost in the war, "a lot" does not come close to "everything".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Samuel]

Third question: Since Earth was in shambles, most likely including the economy, who did Cochrane think he could possibly sell his invention to in order to become rich?

Kor

I remember reading somewhere that in one draft of the script there was a reference to the Indonesian Space Agency.