Following up to Zephram Cochraine invented Impulse Drive (not Warp Drive). See my previous post in this thread for part 1.

If Cochraine really invented impulse drive, why is he seen as the creator of warp drive and why is he so revered? Dammit Jim, impulse drive isn't even FTL!

This is a little more convoluted. The short version is -- the warp drive that the Vulcans, Andorians, Klingons, et al historically used is significantly different from the warp drive we see in Trek starting with Star Trek: Enterprise. Fundamentally we're still talking about using gobsmackingly-huge amounts of energy to bend and twist the fabric of spacetime and then ride those distortions at an effective velocity much greater than those slow-poke photons. What ZC did was unlock a process by which this could be done much, much more efficiently, reliably, and safely.

Spoiler: That novel again?
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Yup, I'm going back to Carey's 1988 novel, Final Frontier. In that book, there's a throwaway line about how the Connie's engine was capable of "sustained warp." It's been decades since I read it but I don't think the book gets into too much detail about what that meant, aside from the idea that prior to whatever innovation behind this new system was, warp travel was more like a big hyperspace jump (or set of the same). I'm not taking that idea directly for my headcanon, but I'm allowing myself to be influenced by it.


During the millennia that the Vulcans had warp travel, the process by which they created their warp fields was nearly physics-breaking. For some reason -- maybe they had access to a quantity of antimatter unlike most other spacefaring nations -- the Vulcans employed stupidly-overpowered warp engines that consumed quantities of power that would be ridiculous even by Geordi's standards. If the Vulcans had the corner on the antimatter market (what if they had an actual antimatter asteroid somehow tucked away in their planetary system?), it might make sense for them to push the idea that efficient warp drive was impossible. I mean we've seen this kind of attitude from them a lot. Once the Vulcans decide something cannot be done, they simply stop trying, and will discourage others from trying too. And we know they're not above deception, espionage, and even sabotage to keep the status quo. They're related to Romulans, after all. This kind of resource-driven superiority over their neighbors would give them a lot of leverage, at least locally within the galaxy.

So for centuries or even millennia, the Vulcans have used raw power, quite literally, to strong-arm their neighbors into only using or developing warp theories that jive with their own systems, using both carrots and sticks to make sure everyone stays in line. Now, of course, this kind of thing can't go on forever. While an entire asteroid of antimatter would provide millennia of power, it's not infinite. Sooner or later, the Vulcans would start to lose their advantage. Real life history has examples of this. And if the Vulcans could overcome millennia of their own ideology and begin experimenting with more efficient modes of warp field generation, it would tip their hand to their neighbors that such a thing is possible. To pick just one example, if the Andorian sphere of influence has been kept small by Vulcan manipulation, they might also be more nimble, and be able to leverage any new warp theories faster than their "overlords." They would be particularly motivated to shake off that yoke and perhaps exact a little revenge on top of it. So the Vulcans needed a new player to come along and present the finished product. Someone they could manage and encourage without drawing too much attention. Unfortunately, they found humans.

Okay, back to Cochraine. I'm not going to try to describe exactly what he did in Technical Manual detail. But basically, he worked out a way to generate layers of micro warp fields that stack up on top of each other. Doing it this way creates a much more efficient overall field, with the limit that you have to ramp up your speed over time. The most he could get out of the Phoenix was enough to get him up to 0.25C, but it proved the basic theory. In the years following that first flight, he and his team (eventually including a young Henry Archer) worked out how to break the "time barrier" (which has nothing to do with time travel and is more technical a term involving warp frequencies) and get to 1C. From there, warp mechanics proceeded much like canon presents, with the Vulcans overseeing humanity's progress and offering suggestions. One of the artifacts of that oversight was humanity adopting the centuries-old Vulcan speed scale, from which we get the semi-canonical "warp factor cubed times C" speed. As we'll see with my next Trek headcanon, that gets blown away by an obscure Starfleet engineer known as Montgomery Scott.

So in the end, Cochraine's actual, specific innovation is still used to this day in the form of impulse drive. We could imagine that might be like his Special Relativity. Working with others, he refined it into his General Relativity, which is modern warp travel. This form of travel is so efficient and reliable that it allowed humanity to expand into the local galaxy faster than even the Vulcans could anticipate. It also set the standard for all Starfleet warp vessels, and eventually those for the Federation as a whole. It's this rapid expansion of humanity's influence into space that Cochraine is really remembered for, and his key insights that benefitted not just Earthlings but Andorians, Tellarites, and eventually even Vulcans.