Non-canonical Information
In the 1994 novel Federation by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, whose publication predated the release of Star Trek: First Contact by two years, Cochrane had been portrayed as a human of Earth origin. The novel suggested he retired to Alpha Centauri at some point between his first warp flight and his disappearance. This follows a suggestion made in the Star Trek Chronology, on the assumption humans could not have settled the Alpha Centauri system prior to the warp drive's invention.
In the novel, Cochrane's warp experiments are the result of a mysterious billionaire's financial and idealistic support in the period between the Eugenics Wars and World War III. His self-identification with Alpha Centauri results from it being the destination of his first warp voyage and his subsequent founding role in the first colony in the system. His life's story beyond his encounter with Kirk at Gamma Canaris in "Metamorphosis" is depicted up to his death during the events of the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
In the 1989 reference book Worlds of the Federation, author Shane Johnson writes of Zefram Cochrane being a native to the Alpha Centauri system (which is populated by humans transplanted from Earth in antiquity) who is contacted by the United Nations spaceship Icarus, a sublight ship that is the first human ship to travel to another solar system. Lacking a common language and before the invention of the Universal translator, he used mathematics alone to communicate his ideas for a faster-than-light drive system and its prototype, the WD-1.
Cochrane also appeared in issue #49 of Gold Key Comics's Star Trek series, along with Nancy Hedford and the Companion.
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