#zephram cochrane

[trek-tracks]

Happy First Boop Contact Day (April 5, 2063)

[m0rbs]

Ok i said I’d draw it but unfortunately I currently lack the strength to draw it Well. There’s always next year. And also every other day of my life.

[renthebarbarian]

What generation is Zephram Cochrane?

There’s conflicting reports as to when Cochrane was born. In the movie he says he was born in 2030, which would make him part of the generation that comes after Generation Alpha (beta male Zephram Cochrane confirmed).

However the novelization of First Contact says his birthyear is actually 2013, which makes him Generation Alpha (he’d be currently 10 years old).

BUT, if we take actor James Cromwell’s age while filming First Contact, 56, as Zephram Cochrane’s age in 2063, that means Zephram Cochrane was born in 2007, making him a Gen Z. Zephram Cochrane could be watching TikTok right now.

[space-dorks]

[theshadowrealmitself]

Me, a genius: au where Zephram and Solkar are not the two who meet during first contact, but they still somehow run into each other later, and still end up shaking hands

[ringofkafrene]

Happy First Contact!!!!

[best-star-trek-character]

Round Two

[spockvarietyhour]

This guy with the Eric Braeden cut was looking real familiar but couldn't place him. It's Zephram Cochrane (TOS version)!

[kcsplace]

Ahhh First Contact Day

Aka "Sarek and Spock's Sluttiness With Humans Is Genetic" Day

[thembonesthembones]

HAPPY FIRST CONTACT DAY GANG! THREE CHEERS FOR THE MOMENT SOLKAR LOOKED AT ONE ZEPHRAM COCHRANE AND SAID AN EMPHATIC "SMASH"

[paddysnuffles]

The first gay kiss on Star Trek was technically during the first contact scene in that TNG movie.

[los-ninos-tortugas]

Maybe the distrust in First Contact would completely nullify things, "prevent" Star Trek? Or maybe a completely different Federation (or UFP), or one with different views?

Or maybe it'd just be a direct cause or make things so much more dangerous? Humans trying to engineer themselves to an even larger extent to best the Yokai in some twisted hate. Stricter Federation?

Could we see whatever organization forms put Draxum on trial for all those crazy forcing mutation shenanigans? (That is if Draxum lives that long I forgot LOL)

We could end up with a timeline a lot like the alternate timeline we see in season 2 of Star Trek: Picard (*cough* diet mirror-verse *cough*) where Earth decided to be conquerors rather than explorers. But admittedly, I'm a little opposed to that route, what can I say, I like Star Trek's inherent optimism.

There's a lot of steps leading up to first contact in Trek lore (and man do I need to watch the First Contact movie again, I'm just being reminded of how good it is) so let's explore this hypothetical for a bit.

I don't think it would be too far fetched to think that someone like Bishop would probably have a direct role in the creation of the Augments and sowing mistrust in yokai, mutants and aliens. I think he'd see it as a fighting fire with fire situation, if he got ahold of and poached Draxum's work (while also condemning him for it like the hypocritical bastard he is) to "level the playing field" between humans and mutants/yokai. He would probably insist on the name "augments" just to differentiate between them and the mutants. And thus he's directly responsible for the creation of Khan. Now Trek has been kinda wishy-washy lately about the timeline and now places the Eugenics wars & WWIII in the 21st century so I'm gonna go with that too. Which unfortunately for the boys means they'll be around to see the rise of the tyrants and watch society unravel, it's a very different kind of apocalypse than the one they prevented. This one is slow and creeping and driven by malice and greed long before it comes to overwhelming martial force. Logically though I think the boys (and maybe some old mutant enemies turned friends, and a good amount of Yokai) would side against Khan and Bishop in defense of humanity, so there'd be another resistance in this timeline as well. According to memory alpha, in the new timeline the wars last about 34 years, so there is at least some chance that the boys live all the way through the wars and come out on the other side into a world that after nearly tearing itself apart is taking its first tentative and terrified steps into world peace. Which has some interesting implications towards what will eventually become the Federation's ban on genetic engineering because, yes the belligerents in the war you just fought were genetically engineered humans but also they were defeated and the world lead into peace by genetically engineered mutants so.... what now? But that's getting a little ahead of myself. For now we're still 7 years out from Zephram Cochrane's first warp flight and First Contact. Earth has been so wrapped up in its own problems who's even thinking of space anymore? Well...

The boys would all be middle aged men at this point, and what they all do post war is a bit uncertain (mostly because I'm just supremely spitballing here) but I can't imagine Donnie not being apart of the Phoenix project along with Cochrane. And also given his everything I don't think the Borg sphere and the Enterprise in orbit would escape his notice even a little bit.

The Borg are an unpleasant surprise to say the least, especially given their similarity to the Kraang. Now of course during it all you have Picard and the rest of the Enterprise crew trying to keep a second impending invasion on the DL -and as I'm typing this I've realized that I've fucked up this causality loop a little bit but I'm gonna blame that on Trek being Like This and time travel bullshit being confusing- because now in this scenario we have the Kraang invasion as being an almost direct cause of the eugenics wars, and the Enterprise crew would definitely know that and they have just come back from a timeline where Earth is assimilated and they're trying to set things to rights, soooooo... okay okay we have Donatello, an old veteran with old wounds opening up again, Zephram, who's completely lost his way and doesn't even know why he's doing this anymore, and you have Geordi, Riker, and Troi coming from the future to say, "stay the course, it's worth it." And they're both terribly skeptical and on the verge of losing hope but damn, it can't all have been for nothing, right? And when that Vulcan ship comes down, and Zephram and Solkar shake hands and yeah, maybe things will be alright after all.

I kinda doubt that any of the boys would live long enough to actually see the founding of the federation (unless they have multicentury lifespans) but they would definitely go down in federation history as playing a role in the very beginnings of what would eventually become starfleet and the golden age of space exploration.

At least that's my take if Rise and Star Trek were on the same timeline, and I definitely could go way more into detail on it if I really wanted to, like I said I'm kinda flying by the seat of my pants for this one. For now though when it comes to Set a Course for Home I'll keep the two universes separate, if only for my own sanity lol. And above I have Donnie working alongside Cochrane and truthfully, I think my ideal ending for him (way way after the events of Set a Course for Home, in another hypothetical future) would be that he becomes the Zephram Cochrane figure if his own dimension and discovers faster than light travel. Listen Janeway can try as she might for the sake of the Prime Directive but he's gonna be spending a lot of time on that ship it's gonna be a little hard for him not to at least figure out some of the basics of warp field mechanics, he'll just have to figure out how to create it with the materials he'll have in his dimension's 21st century. He's a scientist through and through and I like the idea of him leading the way to the stars.

[the-forge]

remember when they turned zephram cochran from a jock alien fucker to a dastardly post apocalyptic flyboy?

it’s the evolution of man

[ichayalovesyou]

Admiral Pike & The Monks of Boreth: Is Spock Really The Only Hope?

This is effectively co-written by my good friend @seismologically-silly

Is Spock Really A Continuation of The Great Men of History trope?

“The best hope for any lasting peace between Romulans and The Federation? Whelp, turns out he’s lying in a bio bed.” -Admiral Pike, A Quality of Mercy

This line implies that the only person who can reunite Romulans and Vulcans and create peace between them and the federation is Spock. Which implies that A Quality of Mercy ascribes to the “great men of history” trope/theory which is, outdated, by our standards of historical analysis today.

Maybe that’s what the writers intended, after all, Spock is notoriously Star Trek’s ✨special boy✨. But, I wanna explain the other major theories of historical analysis that could be applied to Spock’s life before I get into why Pike and even (if not especially) the Klingon monks of Boreth would see it in the “Great Man” way and not from any sort of alternative perspective.

Spock isn’t special, he’s easy to track historically, he’s a product of his cultural environment and of “History From Below”.

If you wanted to get dramatic, Spock could never have happened if Humans and Vulcans hadn’t looked up to the sky and wondered what else was out there. You can blame Zephram Cochrane and Solkar for Humans and Vulcans meeting on good terms.

You can blame Tucker and T’Pol for falling in love and heartbreakingly failing to have a child due to the limitations of their time’s technology. You can blame Amanda and Sarek for daring to try again, and this time succeeding. You can blame their parenting failures and successes, and the virtues and flaws of the cultures from which they came, for making Spock who he is.

You can blame everyone who has ever loved Spock who ensured his continued survival. He is not independently not inherently special, he is unique in the universe and the chain of events in his timeline are what made him possible. He is possible because two alien worlds were curious, and found that they could love each other.

It may well be there will be more Spocks in the future that will do as he would have done had he survived in the Balance of Timeline. The point being Spock is most likely the shortest distance between two points when it comes to Romulan peace. Even time travelers will have limits on their perspective. Which brings me to the second point.

Why Pike and the Boreth Monks think Spock is the only one who can do it because he’s Their Very Special Boy.

The simple answer is this: Pike loves Spock and wants him to be alive again, and Klingons believe in the “One Great Man” theory, one look at how they regard Kahless is proof of that.

Of all the political entities uninvolved with the Federation, the Klingons have the most to lose and the most to gain. We know that the two Empires turn on each other at some point between TOS and TNG. If Qo’nos and/or Boreth get destroyed by the Romulan war before another individual like Spock arises, they would have every reason to think Spock is the only one. Especially if Time Crystals cannot cause an individual to experience temporal displacement past the event of its own destruction.

Another very real possibility is that Romulus could destroy/conquer Vulcan (or already has!) in the Balance of Timeline. By wiping Vulcans as a culture out and assimilating the rest into Romulan culture, it would be much, much harder for an individual like Spock to emerge. Spock was the bridge between humanity and vulcankind. Spock’s Vulcan cultural upbringing and paired with Vulcan’s shared cultural roots with Romulus and his human compassion are what made peace possible. He is Human and Vulcan, and Vulcans and Romulans are each other. Both Spock’s logic and compassion are what allows them to recognize that.

An entirely different chain of events would have to occur to produce a person uniquely suited like that again. It took over 200 years of Human-Vulcan alliance to produce Spock, it may take even longer under the grip of a totalitarian Empire like the Romulan one for others like him to emerge again. A Vulcan/Romulan who did not remove all Vulcan tradition. A Human/Vulcan who was able to overcome their war born hatred of the opposition. An unusual Romulan with a dream. It may take longer than Pike will live, longer than Qo’nos, Vulcan, even Earth has left in the galaxy, longer than it would be considered worth waiting. Even if Spock’s not special, he is the quickest and easiest solution.

Which would effectively still made Admiral Pike’s statement true regardless of the historical theory you favor most. Spock is the culmination of a briefly opened window in the course of galactic history. You remove any part of that chain of events: Cochrane, Solkar, Tucker, T’Pol, Amanda, Sarek, Burnham, Pike, or Kirk, you do not get the Ambassador you need for the job. It doesn’t matter if he is or is not a “Great Man of History” the end product is the same. A much, much longer war than what would otherwise be had. Which is something Pike would (and does) find totally unacceptable.

Spock may not be a “Great Man of History” but he sure as hell is an unprecedented biproduct of it.

[ensign-spider]

james cromwell thank you for playing zephram cochrane, but on a serious note, thanks for also playing a ballsack alien in that one episode of tng

[usstrekart]

First Contact is the TNG movie I wish we got first. Frakes' direction is on-point, the story gives us deep connections to Trek's past, and we get some real-world debate topics and moral discussion of the human condition along the way. A virtually perfect Trek experience.

For my poster I featured the new Enterprise-E assimilated by the Borg. Enjoy!