Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Zephram Cochrane

3. Slight Variances

Cochrane First Contact
Paramount Pictures

Across alpha and beta canon there are a whole lot of inconsistencies when it comes to the legendary Zephram Cochrane. Many are down to the novel Star Trek: Federation penned by William Shatner and the Reeves-Stevens. A part of his book series born from Kirk's rebirth in The Return, the concept of Cochrane was effectively overwritten by First Contact in one fell swoop.

But one thing that has remained a slight bone of contention is the spelling of his name. In Metamorphosis, Corbett's version is ZeFram Cochrane but in the subsequent two Cromwell appearances, he's become ZePHram Cochrane.

Now in a clever twist this could be to indicate a (wink, wink) change in actors not dissimilar to Lexx's Xev and Zev incarnations. In the novels too, he often comes up as Zefram and/or Zephram but to make matters even more confusing the Original Series novel Memory Prime goes another step to place Cochrane as a native of Alpha Centauri with his name being Zeyafram Co'akran.

The truth of the matter is that it's down to a spelling error which lasted through First Contact and Broken Bow without anyone really paying any attention and therefore it's pretty interchangeable.

Contributor
Contributor

A Star Trek fan from birth, I love to dive into every aspect of the franchise in front and behind the screen. There's something here that's kept me interested for the best part of four decades! Now I'm getting back into writing and using Star Trek as my first line of literary attack. If I'm not here on WhatCulture then you're more than welcome to come and take a look at my blog, Some Kind of Star Trek at http://SKoST.co.uk or maybe follow me on Twitter as @TheWarpCore. Sometimes I force myself not to talk about Star Trek.