What if the WW3 didn't happen... Zefram Cochrane invents warp anyway..

[Deimos Anomaly]

What if WW3 didn't happen.

Imagine that Zefram Cochrane, working for the United States government, oversees construction of the first warp testbed ship. Without the setback of WW3, it flies 10 or 15 years earlier than the Phoenix did in the canon timeline. The Vulcans don't see it. They don't encounter mankind until several ships have flown and the nearby solar systems have been explored and mapped, a few years down the line. And without the mind numbing devastation of WW3 weighing on their recent memory, mankind is less amenable to the Vulcan koolaid that created the UFP and its whole ethos, and thus doesn't drink it.

Earth is still not united, but the USA is beginning to expand out into space. NASA and the USN are merged into the fledgeling USSN (space navy).

They aren't going to be as fucked up and depraved as the Terran Empire.

Neither are they going to be the UFP hippies.

Science and war ships are kept as seperate classes. If need be a warship will escort a science ship in dangerous areas.

The USMC are likely to become literal space marines...

I guess once Russia, China etc get in the game human space exploration is likely to be carried out under a UN umbrella (not the same thing as United Earth)

How would that kinda future look in the Trekverse do you think?

 

[kythe]

Re: What if the WW3 didn't happen... Zefram Cochrane invents warp anyw

Without WW3, I doubt the Earth would have had reason to unite. Wars have been around since the beginning of humanity, and Star Trek is extremely optimistic to propose that the end of war and permanent unity between nations will be achieved within a couple of hundred years. But Star Trek's WW3 was presented as a mechanism for this happening.

When Zephram Cochran achieved warp speed, it wasn't as a part of a "contest" between two countries, it wasn't to show off or prove anything. He was making a personal accomplishment in the midst of a war-torn, impoverished country. This, and the timing of First Contact with a peaceful species, became a symbol of human potential in a time where people had little hope. I think without this, the Star Trek universe as we know it would not have been achieved.

Your idea of a potential future is probably more realistic.

 

[T'Girl]

Re: What if the WW3 didn't happen... Zefram Cochrane invents warp anyw

I guess once Russia, China etc get in the game human space exploration is likely to be carried out under a UN umbrella

Probably you could add both India and Japan to that list. America, Russia, China and India aren't alway the most "UN friendly" of nations, and so might be inclined to strike out into the cosmos on their own, without the benefit of UN participation and interference . In addition to interstellar travel, a warp drive would really open up the solar system, in terms of resources and access to them.

One of the possibilities that I've concidered, is that Cochrane was working with theories that had been around for decades in the aerospace and scientific comunity, and that other nations and private concerns might have also been in competition to see who could produce first. Without the 3rd WW and the Vulcan, Earth expansion outwardcould have been much faster.

An earlier interstellar Earth might have been both larger and stronger when the Romulan were finally encountered, perhaps preventing a war.

The Vulcan themselves would have been closer to the time they had recovered from their own nuclear war, and not therefor in the power position we saw during Enterprise a century plus later.

The Andorian's postion might also have been "less," hard to say there.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Re: What if the WW3 didn't happen... Zefram Cochrane invents warp anyw

What if WW3 didn't happen.

Imagine that Zefram Cochrane, working for the United States government, oversees construction of the first warp testbed ship. Without the setback of WW3, it flies 10 or 15 years earlier than the Phoenix did in the canon timeline. The Vulcans don't see it. They don't encounter mankind until several ships have flown and the nearby solar systems have been explored and mapped, a few years down the line. And without the mind numbing devastation of WW3 weighing on their recent memory, mankind is less amenable to the Vulcan koolaid that created the UFP and its whole ethos, and thus doesn't drink it.

Earth is still not united, but the USA is beginning to expand out into space. NASA and the USN are merged into the fledgeling USSN (space navy).

They aren't going to be as fucked up and depraved as the Terran Empire.

Neither are they going to be the UFP hippies.

Science and war ships are kept as seperate classes. If need be a warship will escort a science ship in dangerous areas.

The USMC are likely to become literal space marines...

I guess once Russia, China etc get in the game human space exploration is likely to be carried out under a UN umbrella (not the same thing as United Earth)

How would that kinda future look in the Trekverse do you think?

that kind of sounds like the UNSC from Halo.

I guess once Russia, China etc get in the game human space exploration is likely to be carried out under a UN umbrella

Probably you could add both India and Japan to that list. America, Russia, China and India aren't alway the most "UN friendly" of nations, and so might be inclined to strike out into the cosmos on their own, without the benefit of UN participation and interference . In addition to interstellar travel, a warp drive would really open up the solar system, in terms of resources and access to them.

Well they could have some kind of unified organization if space colonization is expensive and pooling resources together would be more practical for it, plus they may want to have more of a united front if they found out they might run into aliens kind of like the Systems Alliance from Mass Effect.

The Vulcan themselves would have been closer to the time they had recovered from their own nuclear war, and not therefor in the power position we saw during Enterprise a century plus later.

No they wouldn't remeber world war 3 was a decade or two before first contact, Vulcan's war was 1000 or 2000 of years in the past.

 

[T'Girl]

Re: What if the WW3 didn't happen... Zefram Cochrane invents warp anyw

Well they could have some kind of unified organization if space colonization is expensive and pooling resources together would be more practical for it, plus they may want to have more of a united front if they found out they might run into aliens kind of like the Systems Alliance from Mass Effect.

The fact that you have "boomers" out amongst the stars (prior to starfleet by the way) might suggest that it isn't all that expensive. And prior to the never to be WW3, you still might have had rivalry between nations, for resources and prestige. Combining forces easily could have been to opposite of what they wanted.

Having a ripe colony world be deemed "the Common Heritage of Mankind," after you put considerable effort into finding it ... forget it.

The Vulcan themselves would have been closer to the time they had recovered from their own nuclear war, and not therefor in the power position we saw during Enterprise a century plus later.

No they wouldn't remeber world war 3 was a decade or two before first contact, Vulcan's war was 1000 or 2000 of years in the past.

But did not the Vulcan ambassador to Earth, in conversation with Admiral Forrest, say that it took the Vulcans something like 1,500 years to recover from their version of "world war three." He admitted that the Human's fast recovery from an equal event, was one of the reasons that Vulcans were afraid of Humans.

Quark suggested that Vulcans only re-established warp drive in the mid twentieth century (Little Green Men).

 

[brian577]

Re: What if the WW3 didn't happen... Zefram Cochrane invents warp anyw

Quark suggested that Vulcans only re-established warp drive in the mid twentieth century (Little Green Men).

Keyword being Quark

 

[Crewman47]

Re: What if the WW3 didn't happen... Zefram Cochrane invents warp anyw

I'm trying to remember where I saw this but isn't there a timeline, possibly non-canon or fanon, that does have Cochrane working for the US government on the Warp project? It may have been that at the onset of WW3 most of the original materials were destroyed or unusable and that's how Cochrane used the Trident missile as the tesbed for warp speed. If WW3 hadn't had happened then the Warp ship would've looked completly different and may have not been named Phoenix, as that name would be used for the new ship, just an assumption based on the definition of it's name.

 

[T'Girl]

Re: What if the WW3 didn't happen... Zefram Cochrane invents warp anyw

I don't believe that's in any of the novels, perhaps a piece of fan fiction?

I thought the name Phoenix came not from repurposing a existing missile, but from the "rising from the ashes" of a post war earth.



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