CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
With the news that Jeff Bezos is going to space, I started to wonder if Zefram Cochrane was just some rich asshole. Because at the moment, to get into space, you have to be some rich asshole like Bezos or Elon Musk. I can't imagine much will have changed by 2063. So was Cochrane himself some rich guy? I worried about this for a while, but concluded that he probably wasn't. He didn't act like one (I bet Bezos or Musk would look much creepier dancing to Roy Orbinson than he did) and there is that line about Lily struggling to get enough titanium together. But SOMEONE must have been financing him, right? I'm no scientist, but I bet antimatter is expensive! Surely someone paid for that. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and MIchael Collins didn't just build a rocket by themselves and fly off to the moon. Cochrane would have needed backing. There's no evidence in Trek canon that he got help from NASA or any similar organisation, so it must have been some rich asshole like Bezos or Musk.
Then I remembered Cochrane's diseased co-pilots.
In First Contact, Riker and Geordi are Cochrane's co-pilots, and it is delightful. But who were his original co-pilots going to be? I don't think Lily was going to be one; I don't remember her mentioning it to Picard (and even if she was that still leaves one empty seat.) I've always wondered who they were meant to be. Clearly they were both (okay, at least one of them) kill be the Borg. Then it hit me...
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos were going to be Cochrane's co-pilots. OF COURSE they were! Can you imagine the first warp flight going ahead without some rich asshole buying a seat onboard? It's inconceivavble. Just look at Bezos going to the moon or whatever he's fucking doing. So yeah, at least one of them was meant to be Cochrane's co-pilot. They'll both still be alive in forty years, probably with replacement organs. There's no way they'd let the first warp flight happen without being part of it.
They just don't know that the Borg are going to kill them first and Riker and Geordi will take their place.
Then I remembered Cochrane's diseased co-pilots.
In First Contact, Riker and Geordi are Cochrane's co-pilots, and it is delightful. But who were his original co-pilots going to be? I don't think Lily was going to be one; I don't remember her mentioning it to Picard (and even if she was that still leaves one empty seat.) I've always wondered who they were meant to be. Clearly they were both (okay, at least one of them) kill be the Borg. Then it hit me...
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos were going to be Cochrane's co-pilots. OF COURSE they were! Can you imagine the first warp flight going ahead without some rich asshole buying a seat onboard? It's inconceivavble. Just look at Bezos going to the moon or whatever he's fucking doing. So yeah, at least one of them was meant to be Cochrane's co-pilot. They'll both still be alive in forty years, probably with replacement organs. There's no way they'd let the first warp flight happen without being part of it.
They just don't know that the Borg are going to kill them first and Riker and Geordi will take their place.
