Nothing about Cochrane's first warp flight makes sense.

True, but it still needed the technology to circumvent the lightspeed barrier; no mean feat at the best of times, even more so on a war-torn planet!

 

My take as well, perhaps a use once and then it's worthless spacecraft.

The war was a decade in the past, with no clear indication that the United States was even involved.

 

Most of the records of what really happened with Cochrane's team were either lost in the Borg attack or rectoned after the fact when Cochrane and/or the remnants of the U.S. Government decided to sanitize the official record.

Cochrane was none of those things. He was just a washed-up former astronaut with a couple of spaceflights under his belt. Lily, who in all probability is ex-military and probably worked for NASA with Cochrane, was the engineer and project lead who actually designed and built the Phoenix and its engine. She knew it would work because someone (probably her unit in the USAF before the war) already tested it on an unmanned probe and observed it traveling slightly faster than light.

The goal of the Phoenix was to prove that humans could travel faster than light without dying; more importantly, it was to revitalize a space program and a propulsion development schedule that had shown enormous potential before World War III started (which is why they named it "The Phoenix").

Lily paid him a ridiculous amount of money to help with the test flight. He spent most of this on booze and a vintage 1960s style jukebox, but he never let go of his dream of tropical islands and naked women.

On the Enterprise-E being chased around by the Borg.

Cheap access to space resources without all that time-consuming cryosleep and its inherent medical risks. Meaning that whoever was still running things after World War III probably still had the means to launch space ships and relatively modest interplanetary missions. Warp drive just made it a lot easier and cheaper to do that.

Because nobody knew the Vulcans were coming except for the Enterprise crew. For that matter, the Vulcans only came by to introduce themselves and give humans the talk:

"So you've discovered FTL travel. Congratulations. You are probably going to notice when you leave your solar system that the galaxy is actually a pretty crowded place, so we want to remind you to observe some ground rules. Here is the number to space traffic control... always file a flight plan. Here are some basic safety regulations; you will be fined and/or eaten, depending on the species, if you attempt to enter a major port without obeying them. Here are a list of planets that allow outside traffic, and here are a list of planets that shoot first and ask questions later. Also, this is a photograph of my wife. If you happen see her, with or without her philosopher friend, tell her she is an illogical little tramp and she'll get what's coming to her eventually. Live long and prosper."

 

Semi-apocalyptic wasteland; there were probably a few cities left, and as mentioned by Riker, a few governments that negotiated a ceasefire.

 

Also it has been about a decade since the war ended.

 

There are all kinds of things to bear in mind as what TOS (and perhaps TAS) establishes as the preface to Cochrane and warp drive.

In 2001 a probe employing magnetohydrodynamic propulsion is launched on an interstellar mission.

In 1996 a manned spacecraft employing some form of suspended animation technology is launched on what proves to be an interstellar mission.

In 2018, some form of propulsion is developed that is an advance on even these two spacecraft.

If we include TAS, we know some form of fundamental human gravity manipulation technology results from 21st century contact with the Kznti (and their contact with the Slavers).

We know that from Enterprise's missions alone there have been multiple points of contact between the 20th century and future/alien technology and intelligence. AND that in Earth's distant past there were also multiple points of contact with advanced (Preservers, Sargon, Apollo) aliens.

Plus we know that there is AT LEAST one human being on Earth that has lived and accumulated knowledge for multiple MILLENNIA.

And we know that Earth attempted (at least once) to create a transhuman species resulting in widespread war that culminated in something catastrophic enough to be categorized a "world war".

So the TOS world is a much more advanced place even in the 20th century. I hate to say it because I hate the portrayal of Cochrane in First Contact, but I'm not so sure in such a different world something like a guy working pretty much alone in an apocalyptic landscape developing a functional warp drive couldn't happen. What is problematic is Earth being portrayed as in 2061 not really having much space infrastructure. You have to assume that whole culture that experienced all the things listed above AND was able to produce that one lonely guy developing a warp drive being on a planet that no longer possessed a space infrastructure. Maybe it all got destroyed in WW3. But if so, could Cochrane really build the Phoenix?

There is an internal inconsistency there. UNLESS the Borg destroyed Earth's 21st century space infrastructure. But really, given the few moments they had in the movie... did they have the time?

 

Could the space infrastructure have been considered redundant in the wake of the war? with no faster than light travel, maybe a generation gave up on space. It seems like a trend we have. Got to space for a while, then get bored, or find a technological problem that is not to be fixed, but just accepted and give up. At least that is what it looks like on the outside of NASA when it cames to manned missions.

 

Yes, but in the Star Trek reality they already have traveled towards the stars. They have met aliens. They know they'd better not ignore space lest they might end up extinct.

 

I don't really think you can reconcile what TOS gave us versus what latter end TNG and Enterprise gave us in terms of the "future history." They're very different.

 

The thing is, we don't see "Earth". We see a missile base in Montana. And a missile base in Montana wouldn't have much infrastructure, space or otherwise, in evidence even in the best of days. Indeed, the very point of such bases is to appear either inconspicuous or at least confusingly featureless and hostile...

Space infrastructure has never been much of a concern for our heroes in any era. We first learned of the orbital tricobalt weapons of Eminiar when they fired on the hero ship; before this, they were not a feature of interest. Most of the semi-advanced places Kirk or Picard visited must have had satellites in orbit; they just never featured.

What part of Earth space infrastructure would have been relevant here? Spysats looking down? Our heroes weren't a conspicuous target. Spysats or combat sats zealously guarding the orbit? Our heroes have routinely shrugged off such concerns before, sometimes simply by raising their shields in some trivial manner that makes them radar-invisible. Crewed spacecraft? Even less of a threat or concern, given the above countermeasures. Communications systems? It's not as if Earth in 2063 would have presented much worth eavesdropping on: if Kirk had done a survey of 1968 out of idle historical curiosity, no doubt other teams had already covered the WWIII era in detail. Etc.

Timo Saloniemi

 

This isn't about infrastructure but rather picks up on the point you raise about Phoenix launching from a silo in Montana. Not built in orbit. Not launched from the Moon or an asteroid. Not from some advanced launch facility designed to handle the descendants of DY-100s and Nomad. Not from facilities reflective of a militarized, highly technogical Earth that had been fighting war after war with increasingly sophisticated weapons for nearly 75 years. Rather from an Earth reflective of having shelled itself back into the 1950s.

The same culture that launches Nomad on an interstellar voyage over half a century earlier is depicted in this movie as still using Titan family missiles fired from ancient silos. This even though Titan family missiles were discontinued and the cancelled Titan V was a cargo rocket launched from a pad, not an ICBM.

But all this is besides the point. Let's say this latter day Goddard is given a grant to research his hairbrained schemes in an ancient abandoned silo housing an obsolete missile despite the fact that there are DY launch and orbital maintenance facilities. Then how can the huge Enterprise battle a huge Borg ship in orbit? Wouldn't somebody up there in this Earth's advanced space infrastructure take note? A satellite even? Not even enough to create another "Enterprise Incident"?

No, there doesn't seem to be anybody at home up there. Nobody to retrieve poor Cochrane, Riker and Geordi. Nobody to see the Big E fight the Big Bad B. Nobody to see the Vulcans come streaking into orbit.

This Earth has bombed itself back to 1950s. Or, judging from Cochrane's musical tastes, the 1960s. Literally to a point that a mid-20th century missile could be used as part of its most advanced spacecraft. They are back to a point that nothing produced by man seems to be functioning in the neighborhood of Earth.

And yet a lone man leading a rag tag team on the outskirts of civilization can build a spacecraft capable of bending spacetime.

Okay.

 

During WW III no one even thinks of a Titan missle as worth targeting?

 

That would need to be near Malmstrom AFB, which currently uses Minuteman III ICBMs. However, it is still some 40 years from now until their version of World War III. That is plenty of time to decide to refit those silos with a new Titan series rocket (mind you that the Titan series was still being used in some form when First Contact was made). The Titan IV was still relatively new when that film was made. The Titan IVB hadn't even been flown yet. While the Titan II ICBMs had been retired by the time the film came out, I don't know if the writers had any clue about that. But Titan missiles and space flight sound better than Minuteman and Peacekeeper. Also a Titan is big enough.

 

Some people have commented that building a warp drive would be a project at least as complex as building the first atomic bomb (and nuclear reactors). That may well be true. However....

We don't know if the Manhattan project would have been the only way to achieve it. I mean, it probably was the only way to achieve it in time (before the enemy could have such weapons or even before the war was over).

But supposing WW2 never happened, and there was less pressure to get to fission technology ASAP (whether for bombs or for reactors), couldn't scientists and engineers, steadily working and gradually refining their theories and methods in nothing more than average research facilities, have arrived at the same end result perhaps some decades later than it happened in the 'real world', but without the extraordinary investments the Manhattan project required? If that is so, couldn't the same be true for a warp engine project ?

I'd agree though that 2063 still seems very early for such a piece of advanced technology.

 

When I think about the contradictions in the setting (why does transparent aluminum exist? ) and the different tech levels and I wonder: Was it a Snow Crash type deal where some places are New Hong Kongs with super high tech and other places are still guttering in the aughts of the millenium?

 

I figured he either had worked or was currently working at some place like Space X when the war broke out. I imagined Cochrane as this real mean spirited piece of shit always looking out for himself bloke who'd had the idea for warp drive whilst working for this company but kept it for himself. He may have had his own unmanned test vehicle he built in his basement or something which was code-named Bonaventure and resembled the ship from the cover of the original Star Trek Chronology, and was the namesake for the vehicle that Cochrane disappeared in, the Bonaventure II. Even before the war Earth was exploring the solar system and there was probably a moonbase or Mars base so warp drive would be valuable in that regards. When he talks about using his idea to make money, he's really talking about this part of his life around 2053, not 2063, and deluding himself that this plan would still work in the present.
I figured he met Lily at some point after WW3 and Lily was a former test pilot or maybe even ex-military. He tells her about his ideas and she persuades him to try and do it. They scavenge their equipment and through her connections she hears about the abandoned missile silo in Montana so they both head there and set up base. I would love it if they had some help from Micah Brack and John Burke and his daughter Monica, characters from the novel Federation.
A lot of my ideas are set up so that even if WW3 didn't happen Cochrane would still develop warp drive and now an Earth that is not unified would be out in space causing trouble.

 

Wouldn't that bit work out just as well if Cochrane was on USAF payroll? Perhaps as the grand leader of a project (right below the uniforms, that is), perhaps as the idea man of the outfit, perhaps as a typist's assistant. As long as he was the surviving team member, the project would go on, with whatever resources remained. After all, what else would Cochrane have to look forward to?

Timo Saloniemi

 

When it comes to Star Trek in the late 20th-Century/early 21st-Century, I do view its history as being different from ours with the Space Race not really ending after the Apollo-11 flight and many aspects of manned space travel being more advanced than what we currently have. I do think there were impulse-powered sleeper ships by 1992 in the Star Trek Universe and it wasn't that far-fetched that the first plausible theories into what would ultimately be known as warp drive were possibly being floated around by the 2040s/2050s.

Under that scenario, I think Cochrane's warp engine was really the culmination of decades of earlier work into subspace field generation and manipulation by countless others and that he was simply the first to put it into an actual working vehicle. He actually may have benefited from the post World War III-era by not having any government or corporate oversight meddling in his work and acquiring the raw materials for the Phoenix by whatever means he could, including scavenging and even outright theft if necessary.

 

Zombie thread alert!