That's just semantics and your interpretation of things within canon. I could do the same thing and it would be just as valid.
What's so special about Cochrane and his engine?
- Thread starter C.E. Evans
- Start date
I get what you're saying here, and can even agree with it - but Worf probably isn't the best example. He was partially raised by humans on Gault, after all, so I'd wager he speaks English, or Standard, or whatever. Plus probably Klingon and Russian.
The first part is a fallacy, and you can't know the second part. In canon, the lineage that leads from Cochrane's engines to the engines on the NCC-1701 indicates that while he may not have invented the wheel, he may have invented the best wheel, or Scotty's engines would have been more closely descended from the design of So-and-So of Andor, or Tellar, or whereever.
Sure. But you couldn't do the opposite thing.
How can we assume a closer relation between Cochrane's and Kirk's engines than there is between Shran's and Kirk's, or Bu'kaH's and Kirk's, or the Romulan Commander's and Kirk's? They all are of a generic external appearance: a tube with glowing bits on one end and one or two sides, accompanied by another on the opposite side of the ship, with minor aesthetic variations.
That generic design is present almost universally within and outside Starfleet, on Earth and off-Earth designs, before, during and after Cochrane. It may be the best possible design, but nothing would suggest Cochrane got it right first. Indeed, many of the supposedly more refined 24th century Starfleet nacelles bear a closer resemblance to 22nd century Klingon designs than to 21st century Earthling ones. And the old and advanced Dominion seems to have taken its designs from 22nd century Romulan books...
Admittedly, until the mid-23rd century, Federation shipbuilding may have been hindered by an adherence to the original substandard Cochrane model. It might only be in ST:TMP that Earthling shipbuilding moves past its historical hobbles and manages to aim for that which really promises increased performance (and no longer looks much like Cochrane's stuff, but does look quite a bit like Klingon engines).
Timo Saloniemi
Sure. But you couldn't do the opposite thing.
No offense, Timo, but I really don't think you understand much about warp drive technologies - you seem to be judging them based entirely on the external appearance of nacelles, and really, that's a little like deciding that a man and a woman must be the same under their clothes because they have the same pants and shirt on.
It is true that we have seen two basic designs for warp coil configuration that are easily distinguishable from outside appearances - the circular configuration used by the Vulcans and (possibly) by some Romulan ships, and the in-line configuration that seems to be used by just about everyone else. (The Borg are apparently an exception to both, maybe). But that says nothing about the particulars of power source (matter/antimatter, artificial singularity, etc), the matter/antimatter reaction assembly (if antimatter is used), energy carriers (plasma, for example), materials used in warp coil construction, coil alignment (some Klingon ships use variable alignment, and so does the Intrepid class, but in a different way), extra-dimensional focus (dilithium, triyttrium, holo-matrix, etc), or any of hundreds of other design aspects.
It is heavily implied that Cochrane hit on something special with the design of his original engines, and further speculated on that he had a hand in the design of Excelsior's transwarp engines. (Which it is further speculated are the basis of TNG engines.) If you want to believe or fan-fic something else, that's fine - but don't act like there's no support for any view opposed to yours. IDIC, man, IDIC. Maybe I'm right in one parallel universe, and you're right in another.
It is true that we have seen two basic designs for warp coil configuration that are easily distinguishable from outside appearances - the circular configuration used by the Vulcans and (possibly) by some Romulan ships, and the in-line configuration that seems to be used by just about everyone else. (The Borg are apparently an exception to both, maybe). But that says nothing about the particulars of power source (matter/antimatter, artificial singularity, etc), the matter/antimatter reaction assembly (if antimatter is used), energy carriers (plasma, for example), materials used in warp coil construction, coil alignment (some Klingon ships use variable alignment, and so does the Intrepid class, but in a different way), extra-dimensional focus (dilithium, triyttrium, holo-matrix, etc), or any of hundreds of other design aspects.
It is heavily implied that Cochrane hit on something special with the design of his original engines, and further speculated on that he had a hand in the design of Excelsior's transwarp engines. (Which it is further speculated are the basis of TNG engines.) If you want to believe or fan-fic something else, that's fine - but don't act like there's no support for any view opposed to yours. IDIC, man, IDIC. Maybe I'm right in one parallel universe, and you're right in another.
Oh, I'm sure it's possible to interpret the material so that what Cochrane invented in 2063 subsequently replaced all the preexisting technologies and became UFP standard. But I don't see why one would choose to interpret the evidence this way. After all, it leads to all sorts of problems:
1) How come an upstart human invented something better than millions of others in billions of preceding years?
2) What is so much better there, and how can we prove it, when nothing is in evidence except nacelle shapes (which in Starfleet don't really follow Cochrane's lead any more than anybody else's)?
3) Why doesn't anybody actually hail Cochrane for his achievements if he's such an important person - anybody who isn't an Earthling, that is?
If, OTOH, Cochrane was just the human entrant to the club of warp inventors, the one who stumbled onto this universal invention for Earth, then everything falls in place pretty automatically. Almost everybody has nacelles, because almost everybody invents those - they are the easiest way to get warp. They may be better than the Vulcan rings (except perhaps for beginners who don't want to go fast, or something), but not specifically thanks to Cochrane - merely thanks to the fictional laws of warp physics, which many inventors have figured out.
Humans thank Cochrane for his minor achievement, inventing of warp, as well as for his major achievement, inventing of warp when the invention would lead to the birth of the Federation in a manner advantageous to humans. Nonhumans may nod in his direction as well, for his major achievement, since the UFP is a good thing for many species. But they don't raise a fuss about it. And their own inventors of warp may never have been quite as historically significant for their respective species, only pocketing the minor achievement but not anything comparable to the major one...
Timo Saloniemi
1) How come an upstart human invented something better than millions of others in billions of preceding years?
2) What is so much better there, and how can we prove it, when nothing is in evidence except nacelle shapes (which in Starfleet don't really follow Cochrane's lead any more than anybody else's)?
3) Why doesn't anybody actually hail Cochrane for his achievements if he's such an important person - anybody who isn't an Earthling, that is?
If, OTOH, Cochrane was just the human entrant to the club of warp inventors, the one who stumbled onto this universal invention for Earth, then everything falls in place pretty automatically. Almost everybody has nacelles, because almost everybody invents those - they are the easiest way to get warp. They may be better than the Vulcan rings (except perhaps for beginners who don't want to go fast, or something), but not specifically thanks to Cochrane - merely thanks to the fictional laws of warp physics, which many inventors have figured out.
Humans thank Cochrane for his minor achievement, inventing of warp, as well as for his major achievement, inventing of warp when the invention would lead to the birth of the Federation in a manner advantageous to humans. Nonhumans may nod in his direction as well, for his major achievement, since the UFP is a good thing for many species. But they don't raise a fuss about it. And their own inventors of warp may never have been quite as historically significant for their respective species, only pocketing the minor achievement but not anything comparable to the major one...
Timo Saloniemi
TOS often took an extremely human-centric view of the universe. Much more so than any of the later series. It is my opinion that the writers of TOS actually intended Cochrane to be the inventor of -the- one and only warp drive. As in prior to his invention, nobody in the galaxy had it. TOS seems to strongly suggest that a good deal of early interstellar space travel was done in sublight sleeper ships and the like. The events of TOS episodes can even be interpreted as suggesting that the Romulans didn't even posess warp drive until their brief alliance with the Klingons circa the third season of TOS.
When later series came along, they took the approach that each society in the Federation, and by extension the galaxy as a whole, developed warp drive independently, and then when they joined the vast interstellar community, began to work together on improving it. Thus we have the need to go through complicated semantic discussions to reconcile what came before with what came later.
Personally, I think that a combination of the two approaches would be more realistic. Certainly, no one society would develop a technology like warp drive and no other society ever come up with anything close on their own. OTOH, I can't envision every single species out there developing warp drive independently. I'd say some develop it on their own, some share it through alliances, some purchase it, some steal it, and some never get it at all.
When later series came along, they took the approach that each society in the Federation, and by extension the galaxy as a whole, developed warp drive independently, and then when they joined the vast interstellar community, began to work together on improving it. Thus we have the need to go through complicated semantic discussions to reconcile what came before with what came later.
Personally, I think that a combination of the two approaches would be more realistic. Certainly, no one society would develop a technology like warp drive and no other society ever come up with anything close on their own. OTOH, I can't envision every single species out there developing warp drive independently. I'd say some develop it on their own, some share it through alliances, some purchase it, some steal it, and some never get it at all.
It may be that humans were the driving force in Starfleet in the 22d and 23d centuries, so human technical designs 'won" out and were used, with maybe modifications from Vulcans and other over time?
Who knows, maybe "The Preservers" or those folks from "The Chase" implanted their knowledge of warp drive into the various humanoid races they sprinkled throughout the galaxy which is why they almost all hit on the same design themes.
And as for language, I would expect that there would be a "common" Star Fleet language (ala "Standard") and that it's not a cacophony of various tongues being spoken on the bridge. After all, we've seen the computers and the comm systems go down before, which one would think would preclude UT support, and yet everyone can still speak with each other.
And as for language, I would expect that there would be a "common" Star Fleet language (ala "Standard") and that it's not a cacophony of various tongues being spoken on the bridge. After all, we've seen the computers and the comm systems go down before, which one would think would preclude UT support, and yet everyone can still speak with each other.
I assumed, and it is an assumption, that Zephram Cochrane was unique in that he developed warp drive, theory and practice, pretty much single handed. Maybe all other races had vast teams of researchers working on it over years, perhaps decades. And then along comes this one man in the middle of nowhere and does everything they did but on his own.
Unless, like me, you assume that Starfleet is either one of or composed of different starships designed by every Federation member. Earth vessels use cochrane's design because, well, they're Earth vessels, and that's just the way humans design their engines. There's undoubtedly a bit of competition between Earth, Andorian, Vulcan, Tellairte etc designs, but since they're all Federation members this turns out to be FRIENDLY competition, with alot of open sharing of technology, some semi-friendly gloating and economic competition in the civilian market on top of it.
Well, we know Cochrane had an entire engineering team working on it, and we know that Lily did most of the actual gruntwork in building the ship.
And while I know this is just the cynical part of me, it's just as likely that Lily actually invented the warp engine--and probably designed the Phoenix too--and that Cochrane and his friends simply lynched her and took the credit. In which case his "Dollar signs! Money!" had a subtext of a confession to Riker, that Cochrane didn't actually invent warp drive, he was simply the asshole physicist who had planned to steal it from Lily so he could get rich.
Far stranger things have happened in Montana...
Maybe Cochrane had the Big idea but Lily made it work?
Plecostomus
Commodore
Or the other way around.
Happens quite often on Big Ideas. Someone says "hey I can do X in the lab but I don't know how to apply it. Someone comes along and says "I know how to scale that up but I want Y% so I can retire to a island full of naked chicks."
I'm the scale-up dude where I work. I interface with Engineering above me they can make one or two parts but they give it to me and tell me to figure out how to mass produce 'em.
'Course, could be neither of them had any ideas. It just so happened that the PR Chief to High Energy Physics Lab and the Assistant Vehicle Manager were the only ones to survive the nuking of Caltech and abscond with key blueprints and prototypes to Montana...
The fictional truth is probably somewhere in between. Cochrane might have been a relatively important person in a relatively important team that almost made warp work before WWIII killed most of them and, more importantly, put a stop to government funding. Ten years of garage-level work then put part of the team back on track. And nobody would bellow down from his or her (mushroom) cloud that Cochrane was in breach of their patents...
Timo Saloniemi
The fictional truth is probably somewhere in between. Cochrane might have been a relatively important person in a relatively important team that almost made warp work before WWIII killed most of them and, more importantly, put a stop to government funding. Ten years of garage-level work then put part of the team back on track. And nobody would bellow down from his or her (mushroom) cloud that Cochrane was in breach of their patents...
Timo Saloniemi
Maybe, but not with Worf, who was raised by humans and indoctrinated with Federation measurement units at the Academy.
Timo, you are claiming that post 23d Century Academy students do not learn Federation Standard(if they di not already) and use implanted UTs all of the time?
Right, and I'm sure this omnipresent universal translator also somehow translates written text... Or recognises when Picard actually wants to insert untranslated French words in his speech...
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