No mention of Enterprise in the history of first contact?

[James89901]

If Cochrane and Lily and all of the others down there, who worked on the starship for warp speed, were all well aware of the enterprise and the crew, then wouldn't they of mentioned them in their accounts of the events?

In TNG "time's arrow", Data's head is left in the past and it is still found again by the federation all of that time later and no time travel had yet been done by data back to the 19th century. So if we go off that episode, then wouldn't the crew know what they had already done in FC before they did it?

 

[NCC-73515]

Archer mentioned the Borg.

I don't understand the second part...

 

[AresB]

The Temporal Investigations dept has marked those historical accounts classified to make sure the predestination paradoxes proceed as they're supposed to. That's why they hate them, the paperwork is hell.

 

[thribs]

Cochrane knew not to mention it but he did give some of it away in a drunken speech as mentioned in ENT, Regeneration.

 

[thribs]

The Temporal Investigations dept has marked those historical accounts classified to make sure the predestination paradoxes proceed as they're supposed to. That's why they hate them, the paperwork is hell.

That’s true but they weren’t a thing until after Kirk’s first 5 year mission.

 

[David cgc]

If Cochrane and Lily and all of the others down there, who worked on the starship for warp speed, were all well aware of the enterprise and the crew, then wouldn't they of mentioned them in their accounts of the events?

There's an Enterprise episode where Archer notes that Cochrane gave a university commencement address where he told "the real story" of first contact, complete with the time-traveling cyborg zombies from the future, which he later disclaimed. T'Pol indicated that the prevailing historical view was that Cochrane had a brief relapse with his alcoholism before the speech, and was completely drunk at the time, leading him to spin a tall tale to amuse the students.

In TNG "time's arrow", Data's head is left in the past and it is still found again by the federation all of that time later and no time travel had yet been done by data back to the 19th century. So if we go off that episode, then wouldn't the crew know what they had already done in FC before they did it?

Aside from Cochrane's little indiscretion described above, I'm sure most of the people involved kept their mouths shut about time-travelers from the future, either out of fear of the consequences of insisting such an outlandish story was true (wouldn't the Vulcans have seen another ship in orbit, or detected a space battle? And haven't the Vulcans conclusively proven that time travel is impossible?), or out of civic-minded interest in ensuring that the future that saved their bacon will actually come to pass.

And Data's head is actually a bit of an outlier in being an artifact from a future timeline that actually comes to pass. Most of the time someone travels back to the present in Star Trek, they ensure their own future doesn't come to pass, but whatever they leave behind doesn't just disappear, back-to-the-future style. There's future-Alexander trying to turn his childhood self into a Big Man so he can save Worf's life years later, Future-O'brien who replaced his earlier self, Admiral Janeway who got Voyager to Earth decades ahead of schedule. Characters being aware that they're going to go to the past in the future, and then actually doing so, is actually pretty rare on both sides of that equation.

Interestingly, one of the Shatnerverse novels postulated that the point where the Prime Universe diverged from the Mirror Universe was that, in the Prime Universe, Cochrane didn't warn anyone about the Borg, but in the Mirror Universe, he did, leading to decades of militarization and fascism to prepare for the inevitable Borg invasion. That was always a bit of a stretch to me, though, and was ruled out by later canon.

 

[NCC-73515]

It must have been quite a job to cover up Riker and Geordi flying on the Phoenix instead of whoever was injured or killed in the attack. It's like replacing Buzz and Mike on Apollo 11. Did they give 2 random people the job of pretending to have flown for the rest of their lives? Or did he pretend to have flown alone?

 

[UssGlenn]

Did they give 2 random people the job of pretending to have flown for the rest of their lives?

Other way around, I think the people who were supposed to be there died in the Borg attack. They still got credit but the Historical record now shows them tragically dying not long after the flight, or maybe they just "retired" and were lost to history.

 

[Roboturner913]

It must have been quite a job to cover up Riker and Geordi flying on the Phoenix instead of whoever was injured or killed in the attack. It's like replacing Buzz and Mike on Apollo 11. Did they give 2 random people the job of pretending to have flown for the rest of their lives? Or did he pretend to have flown alone?

In a post-apocalyptic world, I would imagine record keeping was probably not top priority and Cochrane didn't seem like a type for pomp and circumstance and documenting things anyway.

 

[thribs]

There's an Enterprise episode where Archer notes that Cochrane gave a university commencement address where he told "the real story" of first contact, complete with the time-traveling cyborg zombies from the future, which he later disclaimed. T'Pol indicated that the prevailing historical view was that Cochrane had a brief relapse with his alcoholism before the speech, and was completely drunk at the time, leading him to spin a tall tale to amuse the students.



Aside from Cochrane's little indiscretion described above, I'm sure most of the people involved kept their mouths shut about time-travelers from the future, either out of fear of the consequences of insisting such an outlandish story was true (wouldn't the Vulcans have seen another ship in orbit, or detected a space battle? And haven't the Vulcans conclusively proven that time travel is impossible?), or out of civic-minded interest in ensuring that the future that saved their bacon will actually come to pass.

And Data's head is actually a bit of an outlier in being an artifact from a future timeline that actually comes to pass. Most of the time someone travels back to the present in Star Trek, they ensure their own future doesn't come to pass, but whatever they leave behind doesn't just disappear, back-to-the-future style. There's future-Alexander trying to turn his childhood self into a Big Man so he can save Worf's life years later, Future-O'brien who replaced his earlier self, Admiral Janeway who got Voyager to Earth decades ahead of schedule. Characters being aware that they're going to go to the past in the future, and then actually doing so, is actually pretty rare on both sides of that equation.

Interestingly, one of the Shatnerverse novels postulated that the point where the Prime Universe diverged from the Mirror Universe was that, in the Prime Universe, Cochrane didn't warn anyone about the Borg, but in the Mirror Universe, he did, leading to decades of militarization and fascism to prepare for the inevitable Borg invasion. That was always a bit of a stretch to me, though, and was ruled out by later canon.

I thought the Mirror universe came to be from a timeline where the Borg didn’t exist, and so when Cochrane did his test and the Vulcans arrived, he thought they were invaders and killed them. That’s what the beginning of Into the Mirror Darkly implies to me.

 

[NCC-73515]

But after the world had recovered and he was a celebrity, historians and journalists must have tried to figure out who else was part of his historic flight...

 

[FederationHistorian]

Perhaps that where the design of the NX-01 and its name comes from…

Lily could be listed as one of the Phoenix crew, since she already was in space. It would just require finding another person. Unless they used dead from the Borg attack to claim that the two died shortly after the flight.

 

[Dukhat]

I thought the Mirror universe came to be from a timeline where the Borg didn’t exist, and so when Cochrane did his test and the Vulcans arrived, he thought they were invaders and killed them. That’s what the beginning of Into the Mirror Darkly implies to me.

It's not that the Borg didn't exist in the Mirror universe, it's that they didn't originally travel back in time to try to stop his flight, which meant that Picard and company also weren't there to tell him that the aliens with the pointy ears that will be coming later meant no harm. However, seeing as this is the Mirror universe, Cochrane would have probably shot them anyway.

 

[David cgc]

I thought the Mirror universe came to be from a timeline where the Borg didn’t exist, and so when Cochrane did his test and the Vulcans arrived, he thought they were invaders and killed them. That’s what the beginning of Into the Mirror Darkly implies to me.

The book was written long before IaMD. That episode went with the interpretation that there was no "divergence," and that the Mirror and Prime universes just developed in parallel.

 

[Kor]

Yes, the IAMD intro shows footage starting with the Age of Sail and continuing with the World Wars, with the Terran Empire insignia superimposed over that. So the Mirror version of Earth always existed separately from "our" universe.

By the way, it's First Contact Day!

Kor

 

[DonIago]

There probably is an original divergence point (after all, humans still evolved in the MU...), but I don't think we've seen or had it alluded to yet because it's probably ancient history. Perhaps it's even likely that it's not one divergence point but rather multiple near-simultaneous divergence points. People turning left when they might have turned right.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

The book was written long before IaMD. That episode went with the interpretation that there was no "divergence," and that the Mirror and Prime universes just developed in parallel.

Which is what "Mirror, Mirror" says to begin with.

Yes, the IAMD intro shows footage starting with the Age of Sail and continuing with the World Wars, with the Terran Empire insignia superimposed over that. So the Mirror version of Earth always existed separately from "our" universe.

As it should be. People who insist that the MU had a single point of divergence are missing the point, IMO.

 

[Timo]

Or the lack thereof...

Other way around, I think the people who were supposed to be there died in the Borg attack. They still got credit but the Historical record now shows them tragically dying not long after the flight, or maybe they just "retired" and were lost to history.

Or then the passenger seats were installed because the original buyer insisted on flying his own observers - but both the observers and the buyer died in WWIII or its aftermath already, and Cochrane was going to fly with Lily instead, not seeing the point of unbolting the chair that Riker eventually used.

The issue of X observing the flight, or failing to observe it, never arises; I think Cochrane had long since given up hope of achieving a sale as originally intended, and was now simply flying because he wanted to know whether the damn thing worked or not, before he himself died of premature old age and booze.

If the Borg attack indeed killed the buyer's representatives, I'd think Cochrane would immediately call off the flight and quote the reason for this when Deanna and Will tried to suggest otherwise.

Timo Saloniemi