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Doctor Zefram Cochrane was a Human scientist in the 21st century and a pivotal figure in Human history. An eccentric genius, he was the inventor of warp drive on Earth and became the first recorded Human to travel faster than light, prompting official first contact with the Vulcans. (Star Trek: First Contact; ENT: "Broken Bow", "Future Tense", "Home"; TOS: "Metamorphosis"; TNG: "New Ground"; VOY: "Threshold", "Friendship One")
Biography[]
Early life[]
Cochrane was born in the 2030s. (TOS: "Metamorphosis"; ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II" library computer file) His place of birth was Montana, North America, Earth. (ENT: "Shuttlepod One")
Cochrane's circumstances were somewhat affected by World War III, gaining him at least minimal knowledge of ECON, one of the aggressors in that conflict. (Star Trek: First Contact)
Developing warp drive[]
During the 2060s, Cochrane lived in Bozeman, Montana, where he and his team of engineers began developing the warp drive. (Star Trek: First Contact) The challenge of inventing warp theory took Cochrane an extremely long time. (ENT: "Anomaly") In 2061, he was responsible for Earth's first successful demonstration of light speed propulsion, though his work was far from complete. (VOY: "Friendship One"; ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II" library computer file) His primary motivation for commencing warp technology was financial gain in the devastated, poverty-stricken America that existed in the wake of the Third World War. He finally built Earth's first warp ship, the Phoenix, in the hope its success would prove profitable and allow him to retire to a tropical island filled with naked women. A historical irony was that, contrary to the fact he went on to use the Phoenix to inaugurate an era of peace, Cochrane incorporated a weapon of mass destruction into its design; constructing the Phoenix in a missile silo, he equipped a Titan II missile as its launch vehicle.
By 4 April 2063, Doctor Cochrane had made plans to pilot the Phoenix on a test warp flight that was scheduled to launch on the morning of 5 April 2063. On the night of 4 April, he was witness to an attack from a Borg sphere that fired on his hometown of Bozeman from above; Borg photon torpedoes exploded extremely close to him, as he desperately struggled to escape. Cochrane was thereafter sought by the crew of the Federation starship USS Enterprise-E, who had recently come from the year 2373 to stop the Borg sphere (which was from the same year) preventing first contact. He was temporarily considered, by the Enterprise crew members, to have been killed in the skirmish.
By the time Dr. Cochrane was located by the Starfleet officers, he had abandoned hope for the continuation of the Phoenix, wishing that the prototype craft "rest in peace." Cochrane was convinced to half-heartedly persist with his endeavors by the Enterprise-E crew, who treated him like a historical figure, as he was to them. When they confronted him with some particulars of his future image as herald of a better world, Cochrane refused to accept this new role and initially attempted to literally flee from his destiny, misleadingly implying that his departure would be merely temporary and was required so he could urinate. He was consequently pursued by a squad of officers, and shot down with a phaser – which he thought of as a laser – set to a minimal power output and wielded by an impatient Commander Will Riker.
Cochrane then became more cooperative; by 10:00 a.m. on 5 April, he had mentally prepared himself to make history (despite a distinctly uncomfortable hangover) and had begun readying the Phoenix for liftoff, even though he still disputed the notion of being idolized. An hour later, he was aboard the Phoenix as it launched, with Commander Riker and Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge accompanying him. Cochrane was not only instrumental in the flight of the Phoenix – at one point, giving the instruction to activate warp drive with the command, "Engage" – but was also amazed to view the Earth and the Enterprise-E from space and was shocked to experience the sensation of traveling at warp. He broke the warp barrier just after 11:00 a.m., enough to draw the attention of the T'Plana-Hath, a type of Vulcan survey ship which was passing near Earth.
That evening, Cochrane was among many Human spectators who watched the Vulcan ship land in Bozeman, Montana, thereby making first contact with Humans and opening a new era for the whole of mankind. Finding difficulty with returning a Vulcan salute, he welcomed the arrival of the ship's Vulcan captain by engaging him in a handshake for which Cochrane was thankful. (Star Trek: First Contact)
In an alternate timeline, the Borg succeeded in stopping Cochrane from breaking the warp barrier. His failure to execute that achievement eventually resulted in Earth being inhabited by an entirely Borg population of approximately nine billion. (VOY: "Relativity"; Star Trek: First Contact)
In 2063, Cochrane acknowledged details about the first contact in Bozeman, in a commencement address at Princeton. He claimed it had involved "a group of cybernetic creatures from the future" which had been repelled by a group of Humans who had come from the same era. However, Cochrane's remarks were largely shrugged off by his audience as a result of his tendency toward imaginative stories and intoxication. (ENT: "Regeneration")
In time, Cochrane resigned himself to the role history had apparently written for him, rather than maintaining the more fantastical truth of what had happened. (Star Trek: First Contact; ENT: "Regeneration") He recanted his own statements regarding first contact and the two warring groups involved in the event, a few years after making the claims. (ENT: "Regeneration") In 2073, he was recorded as proclaiming, "Don't try to be a great man; just be a man, and let history make its own judgments." (Star Trek: First Contact)
In the early 22nd century, Cochrane designed a style of warp reactor that was fitted aboard J-class freighters. (ENT: "Horizon") He also collaborated with Henry Archer on the warp five engine around this time, working hard to develop it and help make it a reality. In 2119, Cochrane officially opened the Warp Five Complex on Earth, making a speech at the opening ceremony. (ENT: "Broken Bow") Cochrane met Henry's son, Jonathan Archer, the future captain of Template:EnterpriseNX, while the elder Archer was giving his son a tour of the facility. (ENT: "Singularity", "Daedalus") In a historic holoprogram, Cochrane was said to have given Henry Archer a bottle of whiskey in celebration, on the day they broke ground at the Warp Five Complex. (ENT: "These Are the Voyages...")
- In the final draft script of "These Are the Voyages...", Cochrane was referred to as having gifted the bottle of whiskey an indeterminate time "after" he and Henry Archer broke ground at the Warp Five Complex, rather than on the same day.
Later life[]
At the age of eighty-seven, Cochrane left his new home on Alpha Centauri colony for an interstellar expedition. (TOS: "Metamorphosis"; ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II" library computer file) In a state of tiredness and dying from old age, he chose to die in space. (TOS: "Metamorphosis") His body was never recovered and he was presumed dead. (TOS: "Metamorphosis"; ENT: "Future Tense", "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II" library computer file)
- In the final draft script of ENT: "Desert Crossing", Cochrane was mentioned as having visited nine Minshara-Class planets prior to his disappearance. However, the character isn't referred to at all in the final version of that episode.|For information on a discrepancy pertaining to Cochrane's date of disappearance, see Age and physical appearance. According to Star Trek: Star Charts (pp. 60-61), Cochrane's final voyage incorporated visits to Andoria, Vulcan, the Lorillian homeworld, Deneva, Orion, and Beta Rigel before he headed into deep space.""
Cochrane ended up on an asteroid in the Gamma Canaris region. He was brought there, while in a disabled spaceship and virtually deceased from old age, by a cloud-like entity which he called the Companion. Cochrane was rejuvenated by this entity, which went on to keep him young and alive for 150 years. At one point, he cannibalized his ship, using left-over tools and supplies to construct a building where he could live. Necessities including food and water were provided for him by the Companion, with whom he could telepathically communicate. However, Cochrane eventually wished to be released from the entity's supervision, finding immortality boring. In an attempt to attain freedom from the Companion, he related the fact he was lonely to the entity, so it decided to bring him other Humans for company.
In 2267, Captain James T. Kirk, Commander Spock, and Dr. Leonard McCoy of the USS Enterprise were ferrying Federation Commissioner Nancy Hedford, who was terminally ill, aboard the shuttlecraft Galileo when they were mysteriously brought to the asteroid by the Companion. Cochrane was delighted to meet the newcomers there, exchanging handshakes with each of the other men, and was impressed by the configuration of their shuttlecraft. Contrastingly, he originally kept the truth from the visitors, saying he had crashed on the asteroid an indeterminate time ago and feigning ignorance of the Companion. Under duress from Kirk, he conceded the facts, such as confessing the actual specifics of his arrival. Cochrane repeatedly talked with the Starfleet officers about the differences in the galaxy since his disappearance, remaining tempted to leave the asteroid. The Federation and universal translator were both new concepts to Cochrane. His knowledge of modern propulsion was also updated, thanks to Spock and Kirk, the latter of whom observed that Cochrane didn't "look a day over thirty-five."
Faced with the quandary of either escaping the Companion and helping Commissioner Hedford to a hospital or risking the death of the Companion, Cochrane reluctantly opted to endanger the entity, despite being exceedingly grateful for its guardianship; this choice led to him being struck down, momentarily rendered unconscious. In a conversation that Kirk had with the entity, the Companion recurrently called Cochrane "the man". Once it was discovered that the Companion was actually feminine with romantic feelings toward Cochrane and the female entity entered the body of Hedford, Cochrane was finally allowed to leave with his guests, though the merged entity was unable to accompany him. Feeling greatly indebted to the Companion for having rescued and cared for him, Cochrane began a new life on the asteroid with the newly integrated being, both of them now with a typical Human life span. Cochrane had Kirk swear never to reveal his fate to the authorities. (TOS: "Metamorphosis")
Legacy[]
Though Zefram Cochrane (at the time of First Contact) did not have a grand vision of ushering in a new era for mankind or of endowing Earth with the gift of warp technology, these qualities came to be commonly ascribed to him by later generations; as with many of history's icons, the man's legend was generally less multifaceted than he himself had been. (Star Trek: First Contact)
Abundant hearsay circulated in the aftermath of Cochrane's disappearance. One supposition reported he had been testing a form of experimental warp ship. He was also reputed to have been flying a one-man craft, at the time he was lost. (ENT: "Future Tense") Another rumor regarding Cochrane was that he had personally signed the inside of each reactor casing aboard the series of J-class freighters. (ENT: "Horizon")
Numerous phrases that Cochrane had used in the speech he gave at the dedication ceremony for the Warp Five Complex were repeated by Starfleet for generations to come, such as talk of exploring "strange new worlds," seeking out "new life and new civilizations," and going boldly "where no man has gone before." (ENT: "Broken Bow", et al.) The latter line in particular later adorned the dedication plaques of various starships named Enterprise (albeit somewhat paraphrased, as "...to boldly go where no man has gone before" or "...to boldly go where no one has gone before"), for centuries to come. (6; 1; 3; Template:Star Trek films set artwork) In 2151, a recording of the speech was displayed at the launch ceremony for Enterprise, Jonathan Archer's command. At the same ceremony, the showing of the recording was prefaced by Admiral Forrest giving a speech of his own in which he repeatedly alluded to Cochrane, describing his warp flight as "legendary." (ENT: "Broken Bow")
A statuette of Cochrane was kept by Captain Archer in his quarters aboard Enterprise during that vessel's time in service. (ENT: "Broken Bow", et al.)
While teasing American Starfleet officer Charles Tucker III about his nationality in November 2151, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed posited that, if Cochrane had been European rather than from Montana, the Vulcans would have been far less reticent to help the Humans progress with space travel than they ultimately had been. Reed also reckoned that, as an American, Cochrane likely spent his boyhood nights reading about cowboys and Native American Indians. (ENT: "Shuttlepod One")
After Tucker and Captain Archer became inadvertently entangled in a symbiotic lifeform, Tucker rhetorically asked Archer whether, by speaking about new life and new civilizations, Cochrane had meant aliens such as the one that was currently trapping them. (ENT: "Vox Sola")
By 2152, Cochrane's involvement in First Contact was well known among school children and a statue of him had been built in Bozeman. (ENT: "Carbon Creek") In 2152, Cochrane still had surviving family and Admiral Forrest characterized his disappearance as "the greatest missing person case of the century." When Enterprise came across a mysterious craft adrift in space in October 2152 manned by one dead occupant, Captain Archer wondered if it could be the long-lost Cochrane. In the interest of determining the deceased pilot's identity, Dr. Phlox submitted a request to the Cochrane family in order for them to release Cochrane's genetic profile. However, it was soon learned that the pilot was a Human from the 31st century whose time-travel pod had suffered a critical disaster, in which he had been killed, while visiting the 22nd century. (ENT: "Future Tense")
By 2153, the Cochrane Equation had been named in Zefram Cochrane's honor; it described a fundamental mathematical expression in warp theory. (ENT: "Anomaly") Cochrane distortion, a fluctuation in the subspace field that all warp engines generate, also took its name from him. (TNG: "Ménage à Troi") A unit of measure of subspace distortion known as the cochrane was named in his honor too. (TNG: "Journey's End", et al.) The Cochrane deceleration, a well-known battle maneuver in the 23rd century, was also named in his honor. (TOS: "Whom Gods Destroy") The first chapter of Basic Warp Design, a required course in Starfleet Academy's curriculum, was titled "Zefram Cochrane". (Star Trek: First Contact)
Numerous schools had been named after Cochrane by 2154. (ENT: "Home") One academic institution was called Zefram Cochrane High School. (Star Trek: First Contact) In 2154, Erika Hernandez guessed that these schools were fewer than those named after Jonathan Archer following the Xindi incident, which Hernandez estimated were two or three dozen in North America alone. (ENT: "Home") In 2267, Spock remarked that Zefram Cochrane's name was "revered throughout the known galaxy," but Cochrane himself considered spending the remainder of his life with the feminine combination of the Companion and Nancy Hedford to be "honors enough." By that point, planets, great universities, and cities had been named after him. (TOS: "Metamorphosis") A starship bearing his name, the USS Cochrane, was launched in or by 2367. (TNG: "The Drumhead"; DS9: "Emissary", et al.)
In a holodeck program set in 2161, Hoshi Sato noted that Archer's avoiding credit for the Coalition of Planets would be similar to Cochrane's taking no credit for warp drive. It was also this holoprogram that cited Cochrane as having gifted a whiskey bottle to Henry Archer, a recollection mentioned by the holographic Jonathan Archer. (ENT: "These Are the Voyages...")
In 2368, an excited Geordi La Forge voiced an expectation that participating in one of the first tests in soliton wave propulsion would be akin to witnessing Cochrane engage the first warp drive. (TNG: "New Ground") This is ironic, considering that La Forge went on to do precisely that. (Star Trek: First Contact)
When the command staff of the USS Voyager was contemplating whether to allow Tom Paris to venture on a test flight of transwarp drive in 2372, Captain Janeway remarked that, if the flight was successful, Paris would join an elite group of historic pilots whose names already included Cochrane's. (VOY: "Threshold") Two of Voyager's complement of shuttlecraft were eventually named Cochrane: the original shuttle, and its replacement. (DS9: "Emissary"; VOY: "Threshold", "Day of Honor", "The Raven")
Zefram Cochrane was so memorable that – when quizzed by Harry Kim, during the Year of Hell version of 2374, about the name of the famous ship that had been involved in making Earth's first contact with Vulcans in Montana – B'Elanna Torres could remember only that it had been Cochrane's vessel. (VOY: "Year of Hell")
By 2375, a Starfleet award called the Cochrane Medal of Honor was named to commemorate Cochrane. (VOY: "Timeless") In an alternate timeline, a similar award with the same namesake was the Cochrane Medal of Excellence. (VOY: "Non Sequitur")
In 2378, the crew of Voyager paid respects to Cochrane, celebrating the 315th anniversary of First Contact by throwing a party on the traditional holiday of First Contact Day; in the ship's mess hall, rock and roll music was played from a jukebox and cheese pierogi were served, since they had been Cochrane's favorite music and food respectively. (VOY: "Homestead")
Romance and friendships[]
One of Cochrane's good friends was Lily Sloane, whom he knew since the Third World War. She nicknamed him "Z". He was also on first-name terms with several residents of Bozeman, including a bartender called Eddy.
Cochrane toasting with Deanna Troi, watched by Will Riker
Cochrane was physically attracted to Deanna Troi, for a brief time after first meeting her, though had difficulty remembering her first name. He made several sexual advances on her, though these were spurned, Troi drunkenly concluding he was "nuts." Even with these rejections, he was not disheartened to the extent that he stopped socializing with her – at one point voicing satisfaction to learn Riker was not her husband – and Troi was later among Cochrane's collaborators during the test flight of the Phoenix, as she announced the final countdown before liftoff from outside the craft. (Star Trek: First Contact)
Similarly, Cochrane immediately found Nancy Hedford attractive, referring to her as "beautiful." Thinking of the Companion as a lover initially disgusted Cochrane, however, and he at first found the binding of Hedford and the Companion to be frightening. Realizing that his intolerance of the alien's feelings for him was motivated by prejudice, he ultimately fell in love with the female combination, even sacrificing the opportunity to explore the galaxy so he could instead stay with her. One final confession that he offered to Kirk was that his love for her – convinced they would have many happy years together – was the motivating factor for him staying on the asteroid, rather than his utter gratitude to the entity. (TOS: "Metamorphosis")
Personality[]
Often wearing civilian clothing that incorporated a thin neck-scarf and a backwards cap on his head, Cochrane had a cynical streak. For example, he skeptically questioned Lily Sloane's theorizing that the attacking Borg sphere was an ECON craft, and he took considerable persuading before he finally came to realize the reality about the Borg and the officers from the Enterprise-E. (Star Trek: First Contact)
Cochrane also had an alcohol abuse problem. He commonly drank whiskey but was also known to imbibe shots of tequila. (Star Trek: First Contact) The inventor of the transporter, Emory Erickson, adopted Cochrane's practice of celebrating scientific breakthroughs by consuming large amounts of alcohol and once reviewed of Cochrane, "Now there was a man who knew the benefits of a little liquid courage." (ENT: "Daedalus")
Cochrane was well acquainted with the stars in Earth proximity, owning a telescope and being able to identify the constellation Leo on sight. (Star Trek: First Contact) His favorite food was cheese pierogi. (VOY: "Homestead") He had an intense dislike for air- and space-travel and preferred taking trains.
Cochrane was a fan of late-20th century rock and roll music. His favorite songs included "Ooby Dooby" by Roy Orbison and "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf. He often became stressed if he couldn't listen to recordings of such music when he wanted to, and introducing the Vulcans to rock and roll was one of his first priorities during their encounter. (Star Trek: First Contact)
Cochrane was also somewhat interested in agriculture. While behaving dishonestly to the Starfleet officers who visited him on the asteroid where he eventually resided, he alleged that he grew vegetables in fields near his house. Cochrane later admitted that the Companion provided gardens for him, and, moments before his visitors from Starfleet departed, he supported his determination to remain on the asteroid by saying its surface conditions were optimal for growing things and by suggesting that he might try planting a fig tree. (TOS: "Metamorphosis")
After Lily Sloane advised him that he would regret drinking alcohol to the point of having a hangover while piloting the Phoenix on its maiden voyage into space, Cochrane claimed to her that he never had regrets. This was not entirely true of his personality, however. (Star Trek: First Contact) For instance, he regretted his early prejudice regarding the Companion's love for him. (TOS: "Metamorphosis")