Were Bezos and Musk killed by The Borg?

[CaptainWacky]

With the news that Jeff Bezos is going to space, I started to wonder if Zefram Cochrane was just some rich asshole. Because at the moment, to get into space, you have to be some rich asshole like Bezos or Elon Musk. I can't imagine much will have changed by 2063. So was Cochrane himself some rich guy? I worried about this for a while, but concluded that he probably wasn't. He didn't act like one (I bet Bezos or Musk would look much creepier dancing to Roy Orbinson than he did) and there is that line about Lily struggling to get enough titanium together. But SOMEONE must have been financing him, right? I'm no scientist, but I bet antimatter is expensive! Surely someone paid for that. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and MIchael Collins didn't just build a rocket by themselves and fly off to the moon. Cochrane would have needed backing. There's no evidence in Trek canon that he got help from NASA or any similar organisation, so it must have been some rich asshole like Bezos or Musk.

Then I remembered Cochrane's diseased co-pilots.

In First Contact, Riker and Geordi are Cochrane's co-pilots, and it is delightful. But who were his original co-pilots going to be? I don't think Lily was going to be one; I don't remember her mentioning it to Picard (and even if she was that still leaves one empty seat.) I've always wondered who they were meant to be. Clearly they were both (okay, at least one of them) kill be the Borg. Then it hit me...

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos were going to be Cochrane's co-pilots. OF COURSE they were! Can you imagine the first warp flight going ahead without some rich asshole buying a seat onboard? It's inconceivavble. Just look at Bezos going to the moon or whatever he's fucking doing. So yeah, at least one of them was meant to be Cochrane's co-pilot. They'll both still be alive in forty years, probably with replacement organs. There's no way they'd let the first warp flight happen without being part of it.

They just don't know that the Borg are going to kill them first and Riker and Geordi will take their place.

 

[Dukhat]

Jeff Bezos would be 99 years old in 2063, and Elon Musk would be 92. And I don't see 'replacement organs' being a thing in post-apocalyptic Earth. So, no, they would not have been Cochrane's copilots.

 

[The Wormhole]

I don't think Lily was going to be one;

She was. At the start of the movie, while attempting to cut Cochrane off from further drinking, she says "I'm not going up in that thing with a drunk pilot."

 

[susannah]

Good question, CaptainWacky, which I shall answer with another question. How do we know Bezos and Musk aren’t alien plants to begin with? They’re both a little funny-looking if you ask me.

 

[1001001]

Well, well, well...what have we here?

Somebody launched the Way Back Machine I see.

So yeah, at least one of them was meant to be Cochrane's co-pilot. They'll both still be alive in forty years, probably with replacement organs...

One question: Where does Richard Branson fit in to the whole scheme?

 

[Timo]

With the news that Jeff Bezos is going to space, I started to wonder if Zefram Cochrane was just some rich asshole. Because at the moment, to get into space, you have to be some rich asshole like Bezos or Elon Musk. I can't imagine much will have changed by 2063.

Why not? It has to change at some point. And in Trek, these space fliers are doing much better than we are back in the 1990s already. Ascent to orbit might well be dirt cheap as of 2050, right before the bombs start to fall. Indeed, it's pretty darn difficult to think how Trek could come to be if spaceflight remained expensive.

So was Cochrane himself some rich guy?

He wanted to be. Which probably means he wasn't Bezos/Musk rich, because at that stage, the want seems to go away.

But SOMEONE must have been financing him, right?

...Perhaps the USAF, just as it says on his tin can?

Of course, the world going kaboom would create complications, so selling to the highest bidder would become his next option. But most of the work would have been completed by then.

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos were going to be Cochrane's co-pilots. OF COURSE they were!

Makes perfect sense that he'd offer seats to his buyers. How else would they believe him? "I went FTL and then came back! In space! Out there! I did!"...?

However, I sorta doubt the ride itself would offer major thrills in a world where interplanetary flight has been mundane since the 1990s at the very latest. Indeed, the fact that no zillionaire was tagging along in his or her own space yacht suggests that WWIII saw quite a bit of anti-spacecraft action, and stupid back seats were the only realistic option long before the Borg came along.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Oddish]

What I find odd is that somehow, despite the loss of most of Cochrane's crew, history was unchanged. None of them were, say, ancestors of Riker or Geordi or Troi. Or were important pioneers in the development of the Warp 5 engine. Or aided in early negotiations with the Vulcans.

 

[Orphalesion]

My impression was that Cochrane scavenged a lot of what he used in his ship. A post-apocalyptic Earth would lend itself to scavenging.

What I find odd is that somehow, despite the loss of most of Cochrane's crew, history was unchanged. None of them were, say, ancestors of Riker or Geordi or Troi. Or were important pioneers in the development of the Warp 5 engine. Or aided in early negotiations with the Vulcans.

Well, the movie isn't entirely clear whether there's a predestination paradox involved.

 

[Oddish]

My impression was that Cochrane scavenged a lot of what he used in his ship. A post-apocalyptic Earth would lend itself to scavenging.

Also, remember his motivation, freely admitted by him. He built the warp ship to get rich. That implies that he was not already rich.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Well, the movie isn't entirely clear whether there's a predestination paradox involved

The Voyager episode "Relativity" calls First Contact a "pogo paradox", there the events of an attempt to alter history are what lead to the correct history being made. Or something like that, anyway.

 

[Oddish]

The Voyager episode "Relativity" calls First Contact a "pogo paradox", there the events of an attempt to alter history are what lead to the correct history being made. Or something like that, anyway.

It would have to be something like that, when you consider that in reality, history is incredibly fragile. The movie "Sliding Doors" does a wonderful job of showing how a person's life could go in two very different directions because of a simple tiny change.

At least until it gets stuck for an ending and decides that no, it's really all about fate rather than free will.

 

[valkyrie013]

So the borg was "Always" there in the history stream. and whatever co pilot, other than Lily died or got hurt according to history.

Cochrane could have been a scientist before the war, developing this FTL engine, made a breakthru but the war happened, so he found what he could to mash up a warp ship prototype which took years, and flew it when he could. I'm sure he had plenty of cameras and sensors on the ship to prove his journey, then he would sell it to the highest bidder and bobs your uncle. he didn't factor in Aliens coming down to say Hi and change things. He was probably ended up rich though!

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Bezos and Musk were killed in WWIII along with the lawyers.

 

[Tuskin38]

There's a 'Musk Junior High School' mentioned in an episode of Discovery.

But since no first name is mentioned in the school name, and Star Trek is an alternate history from real life anyways, there's no reason to assume it's the same Elon Musk, or if he did the exact same things in the Star Trek Timeline.

Writer's intent was probably for it to be named after Elon. But just saying.

 

[Timo]

Then again, DSC makes explicit mention of Elon Musk specifically, in "Butcher's Knife", suggesting he fits right between the Wrights and Cochrane.

We don't know which sort of aeronautical leap he facilitated or performed in the Trek universe. He'd be in his mid-twenties when ships with the ability to travel to other planets (and, with a bit of daring, to other stars) would be so numerous that one could be lost falling through the cracks, and 31 when the first canon-confirmed truly interstellar probe would be launched (assuming that's what the 2002 thing on the NOMAD graphic means). Would he be a contributor there?

He probably wouldn't have much to do with Cochrane's feat directly, else he wouldn't be compared to the man. And colonization of Mars apparently wouldn't happen in his lifetime: possibly the ability to go interstellar and to pitch a tent on Class M planets would delay it to 2103. If it was thanks to him, just posthumously, would he be listed before Cochrane rather than after?

But Musk is a man of many talents (that is, funding plenty of talents), and it seems that e.g. Einstein was a name in quantum physics in the Trek universe, unlike in ours ("Nth Degree"). Perhaps Musk abandoned spaceflight and instead helped create the first antigravity automobiles?

Or then he furthered the art of bicycling in a way only ever surpassed by Zephram Cochrane once he cashed in on his warp engine and was able to pursue his actual lifelong dream.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Orphalesion]

The Voyager episode "Relativity" calls First Contact a "pogo paradox", there the events of an attempt to alter history are what lead to the correct history being made. Or something like that, anyway.

But that's what a Predestination Paradox is; time-travel where the actions of the time travellers lead to history as it has always happened.

 

[Timo]

Basically, so much time travel happens in Trek already that we might just as well approximate time tampering as happening infinitely much. Time would be awfully robust, then: every possible outcome save for the one that best satisfies the average urge of the average time traveler would be annulled by conflicting tampering efforts, and time would end up looking like people. No wonder Gabrielle Burnham called it cruel!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[M'Sharak]

One question: Where does Richard Branson fit in to the whole scheme?

Has anyone ever seen a photograph of Branson and Cochrane in the same room at the same time?

 

[Orphalesion]

Honestly I'd be fine with them just quietly ret-conning the exact dates for Kahn, World War III and Cochrane's first flight. Just put Trek ona floating timeline like the Marvel and DC universes.

 

[Timo]

This would work better if Trek actually took place in our time, like Marvel stuff does. Yet the few times our heroes make trips to contemporary events, they only manage to hammer five-AU nails into the structure of the chronology, rather than facilitate floating. There's no relatable character from the eighties to make us care that it is or isn't "our" eighties for TNG or DS9; no naughties character to connect ENT to our universe; no DSC or PIC folks from the 2020s to tell us what they think of our version of that decade.

And no "contemporary Trek" spinoff in the planning AFAIK. Although it might be great fun!

Timo Saloniemi