Your impressions of Zephram Cochrane...the drunk?

[Anwar]

He didn't build the Phoenix, Lilly and other technicians did. He designed the engine and was supposed to fly with Lilly (the real pilot too) up there.

Remember how Riker and LaForge (an enginner) were up there with him? It was because he knew how to operate the engine and when it was ready to be used, but nothing else. LaForge and Riker di the rest of the piloting and stuff.

Kirk's line is twisted by history and such, like how they forgot he was a drunk. Like how Spock says the Romulan War was fought with "Atomic" (not nuclear) weapons, when that makes no sense.

 

[Zeppster]

Well if Cochrane was a recovering alcoholic he wouldn't exactly make that public to people who he probably knew admired him or at least respected him.

The lines from BOT about the Romulan War were very non specific for the most part except for the part where there was no visual ship to ship communication. But all of those lines could mean anything. It could just mean the Romulans didn't want ship to ship communication. And primitive atomic weapons could mean anything compared to their phasers also.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Didn't the Wright Brothers design, build and test their airplane? Didn;t Alexander Gramham Bell design, bulld and test the telephone?

Cochrane was on board the Phoenix because the reat of team had been decimated not because he wanted to be. He even mentions he hated to fly. Though he must have gotten over that dear since he was qualifed to pilot a one man ship later in life.

Of course this is a show where Scotty is an expert in all areas of enginnering and Spock is the master of all science. Sometimes Spock even knows more about engineering than Scott!!!

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Anwar said:
Why should he be passionate over any of that? The world is a smoldering nuclear ruin, the dude just cared about making as much cash as he could so he'd live the best he could in that hellhole, or maybe just use it to get away from the mudball.

Realistic, given the greater context.

So... when times are tuff, scholars and geniuses just care about money?

 

[Anwar]

"Tuff"? The freaking planet's gone through a nuclear holocaust, civilization as we know it is gone, academic institutions are gone, and you have the means to get you all the money and power you'll need to survive the rest of your life in relative comfort.

I'd go for it.

 

[AC84]

Anwar said:
Like how Spock says the Romulan War was fought with "Atomic" (not nuclear) weapons, when that makes no sense.

It made sense to me and millions of other fans. Rarely does it happen, but people still do from time to time refer to nuclear as atomic. 100% correct? I suppose not when taken 100% literally. But it is a type of nuclear power, it isn't even a century old and it is still used today.

 

[Anwar]

But Atomic weapons are different from Nuclear weapons (Atomic uses Fission, Nuclear uses fusion), meaning that the Romulan Wars in the 22nd century were fought with weapons that are obsolete today.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Anwar said:
"Tuff"? The freaking planet's gone through a nuclear holocaust, civilization as we know it is gone, academic institutions are gone, and you have the means to get you all the money and power you'll need to survive the rest of your life in relative comfort.

I'd go for it.

Okay, fine. But to the point that you seem bored by the greatest dsicovery since--well, what, exactly? Especially if that discovery sprung from your own mind? I find it hard to believe--money, booze and Tahitian TITS! notwithstanding--such a tiny soul could achieve such a breakthrough. For all their personal failings (and they are often legion), the great geniuses of human history have all but unfailingly been passionate about their fields of genius. I'd expect Cochrane to be no different. This is something I would not expect an uber-hack like Braga to grasp, however.

 

[David cgc]

Warped9 said:
Then again it's a Berman project so what else is new.

Herald said:
The rebellious non-conformist outsider is merely another stereotype and not an example of great writing on Berman's part.

Classic Fan said:
It was Berman etc's choice to make him a drunk, cos theyre the Anti-Trek as far as im concerned.

It was really Braga and Moore's baby. Berman had relatively little to do with the movie. And making Cochrane a hero with feet of clay feels like it was Ron Moore's kind of idea. So I'd think it would be better to keep Berman out of this one and save your scorn for the real "MooreRon."

Brutal Strudel said:
Okay, fine. But to the point that you seem bored by the greatest dsicovery since--well, what, exactly? Especially if that discovery sprung from your own mind?

I have to disagree. Consider the circumstances, with Cochrane likely working on the project since before the war, at which point his whole infrastructure would've been wiped out. He would've pretty much have to have had the design nailed down by that point, making the postwar period the final refinements and construction. After 10 years trying to build a prototype engine out of a disused nuclear missile and the debris of a destroyed world, stuff that should've been done in a fraction of the time by a team of engineers instead of with bare hands, I'd be pretty damned frustrated with the whole thing. My enthusiasm would be dimmed considerably by the struggle to both survive and build a functioning spaceship.

(The novelization added that Cochrane was bipolar, and what with the whole nuclear holocaust thing, he couldn't get his treatments anymore. The movie took place during a bad phase.)

 

[AC84]

Anwar said:
But Atomic weapons are different from Nuclear weapons (Atomic uses Fission, Nuclear uses fusion), meaning that the Romulan Wars in the 22nd century were fought with weapons that are obsolete today.

Is that why fusion is not yet a practical source of energy? Nuclear fission isn't obsolete. My uncle works at a power plant and it isn't fusion. The USS Enterprise CVN-65 runs on fission. Is fusion more efficient? You bet. One day it will replace fission all together. But fission is still going to be with us for a while. Hydrogen weapons are more powerful but hard to come by. I wouldn't be surprised if 100 years from now, the few space ships, if we have any, will use cheaply manufactured nuclear fission (atomic) weapons.

Besides, the Romulan Commander confirmed in the episode that they fought the war with nuclear warheads. To say that nukes were completely absent from the Earth-Romulan War is to ignore the episode.

 

[Nebusj]

Anwar said:
"Tuff"? The freaking planet's gone through a nuclear holocaust, civilization as we know it is gone, academic institutions are gone, and you have the means to get you all the money and power you'll need to survive the rest of your life in relative comfort.

``And since all international trade, all forms of commerce and credit were turning into beloved distant memories and the need for something to sell to the people losing all vestiges of civilization became most immediate and urgent, that's why I turned to the development and testing of an experimental spacecraft engine good for travelling for one whole minute!''

 

[Nerys Myk]

I think it was Lily who kept things running during and after the war. Gave people something to do and maybe some hope.

 

[Irishman]

Writing Cochrane as a drunken, womanizng, capitalist pig in bed with the military industrial complex AT the time of First Flight takes nothing away from who he was in his unnaturally-extended life at the time of TOS. Think about how much a man would change as a result of of being the first human to develop warp drive. HUGE change to the world, both personally and collectively. Then, he up and designs a second ship (we presume) and takes off for a 4 year trip with some trusted colleagues to alpha centauri. Starting over on a truly alien world with assistance. A properly frontier experience that is bound to change a man - again.

Then, he happens across the Companion - a first contact with a non-corporeal creature (at least for him assuredly) that offers him immortality and youth. How much again would a man change?

So, nope, I have no problem with the picture of Cochrane in FC. He changed following First Flight, he changed following alpha centauri, and he changed after meeting and becoming involved with the Companion. It was just one of many changes.

Plus, there is a certain poetry to having his growth from a selfish, money-grubbing drunk to an enlightened man of the future who leads mankind to the stars mimic the growth of humanity itself.

 

[Irishman]

Aridas,

With all tremendous respect due you, you're reaching with this one. Whose blueprint did the Wright Brothers follow? They designed, built AND flew the thing. And, even thought they were competent engineers for their time, they were bicycle designers/manuafacturers.

And Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak? They designed the first Apple computer AND the operating system on 3.5" floppies, AND they marketed it, manufactured it, and grew it to where it is today.

Brilliant men - genuises even - can and DO multitask, They DO follow a dream from concept to execution, even going so far as sitting in the pilot's seat. There is a well-established precendent, so there's no insurmountable obstacle for Cochrane doing it as well.

So, just say you don't like the characterization. That's fair. But don't say it couldn't have happened, or suggest there's no precedent for it.

 

[aridas sofia]

Irishman,

It couldn't have happened. The Wrights didn't develop any fundamental understanding of the principles of flight. Those were developed in the centuries before them, from Zhuge Liang and Leonardo da Vinci to Sir George Cayley and Otto Lilienthal, among others. They were engineers that conquered the very specific engineering problems of flight control. They did not develop a fundamental understanding of the principles of gravity and drag, acceleration and lift, that underpin powered, heavier than air flight.

Now, if we had Isaac Newton develop a theory of gravity, and then build a heavier than air, powered plane, and then fly it, we'd have the FC Zephram Cochrane story. He is both the "discoverer of the space warp" and the "inventor of the warp drive". Oh, and he's also the pilot of the first manned warp flier. He's a theoretical AND experimental AND applied physicist, AND an engineer AND builder, AND an astronaut test pilot. Wow.

Don't put words in my mouth... I mean post. I don't give a flying f&#k about the characterization. It was fine, well performed within the constraints of the script, etc. I do say it could never happen, and that there has been absolutely no precedent for it since the advent of industrial specialization, and to say it could happen in a post-industrial age, that a person could bring about a fundamental reinterpretation of the understanding of the universe as well as the engineering to exploit it while having the training of a test pilot to fly not a 20 mph biplane ten feet off the ground, but the first FTL spacecraft! Is...mistaken.

And I'm being kind because you were so gracious in your post. It could be said to be much worse than mistaken, and reveal a terrible misunderstanding of history and science. But you're a nice guy, a good artist, and I like you. So I won't say that.

 

[Amaris]

aridas sofia said:
Irishman,

It couldn't have happened.

Sure it could.

-J.

 

[aridas sofia]

Damn. I'm a believer.

Wowed by the power of the rhetoric, the exegesis... Like I said.


Wow.

 

[Nerys Myk]

This is the Trek Universe. Stranger things have happend.

 

[Ronald Held]

In the Trek Universe low probablities events do occur more often then we would expect.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

David cgc said:
[(The novelization added that Cochrane was bipolar, and what with the whole nuclear holocaust thing, he couldn't get his treatments anymore. The movie took place during a bad phase.)

I'll accept that--ZC as played by Corbett had a bit of the depressive about him.