Things required to get Enterprise into continuity

[Nate the Great]

Here's a little challenge for everyone. What is the smallest list of changes you would have to make to get Enterprise into official Trek continuity? I realize that the rest of Trek is hardly 100% error-free amongst itself, but Enterprise is set in a universe that is so far gone that it's gotta be a parallel universe.

Number One: The shape of the ship itself. The display in ST:TMP had a picture of every Enterprise:

Sailing ship
Aircraft carrier
Space shuttle
This interesting tube-shaped affair
NCC-1701

In retrospect: make it the Daedalus, not the Enterprise! We know the Daedalus class was one of the oldest in Starfleet.

What's number two on this list?

[ijdgaf]

I think the only really necessary change would be to get rid of the damn Romulan cloaks in "Minefield".

The shape of the ship is fine. There might be a couple of minor tweaks here and there, but the only real misstep the series took was with those ridiculous cloaking devices.

[Zeke]

I don't see any problems with ENT that are so severe they require decanonization. The bashers have always made too much of minor continuity errors. Take the name of the ship. Why is a throwaway moment in TMP so important? Using the Enterprise name was a concession to reality, and a smart one -- relatively few viewers are well versed in Trek continuity, but everybody thinks Enterprise when they hear Star Trek. Against that, we have... Matt Decker being slightly inaccurate. Well geez Louise, can't let THAT happen.

[evay]

I would have been happier without the Borg ep. I would have been really happier without all of S3 and the Xindi detour. There was no way to avoid some kind of reset button at the end, because the other series haven't mentioned the Xindi, so no matter what happened all year it was going to be anti-climactic and ultimately swept under the rug.

[PointyHairedJedi]

Very simple - none of this post-First Contact alternate timeline crap. The only thing that ever said to me is that those creatively in charge just couldn't be bothered to make anything more than a cursory effort to make the show worthy of the name Star Trek.

[Nate the Great]

Minor continuity errors? Putting aside the shape of the ship, which I'm not going into whether it's minor or not...

Starfleet did NOT exist before the Federation. Total hogwash. Total hooey. What in the world were they thinking? Why must it be Starfleet? In the earliest episodes of TOS the creators hadn't figured out Starfleet/Federation yet, so they called the Enterprise a United Earth Space Probe Agency vessel. This could be a holdover of the organization that did the NX-01.

So let me get this straight. The creators were leery of using Star Trek: whatever in their show name, so they named it Enterprise as an acceptable single-word alternative. Guess what? Apparently no one recognized it as Star Trek. And why would they? It's a parallel universe from the one we know and love. Ratings were going down the tubes because the Trekkies didn't know they were supposed to be watching it with a cult-like obsession. Solution? Star Trek: Enterprise! What a solution! Now everyone knows it's Star Trek! Heaven forbid it be called Star Trek: Daedalus!

I admit that seeing Borg and Ferengi running around, even unnamed, seems a little suspect. Who are we kidding? It's a ploy! They couldn't be bothered to use Tellerites, Andorians (more), Thollians, etc. Or maybe, just MAYBE, yank a set of makeup from one of the movies that belong to an alien race we've only seen once. What about the race of the Federation President in ST:IV? Where'd they come from? Or Morn! Who says how old the guy is? Or El-Aurians! There must be a few on Earth still (in hiding of course). Guinan could show up! The possibilities are endless if you give it a little thought!

[whoiam]

Guinan's definitely one I didn't think of - since we know she'd been on Earth before the NX-01, there's no reason why she couldn't have used it to hitch a ride off the planet...

As to the Starfleet one, I have to admit I think the first few eps of TOS shouldn't be counted towards canon - after all, do you really think that the ship should have been equipped with a 'materialiser' instead of a transporter? Or that they should have used the 'old' warp scale?

(Actually, I don't remember them saying one way or another which warp scale they used - tOS or tNG...)

The borg and ferengi eps were both pointless, and its very, very hard to imagine there not being records of the two, and the Enterprise-D crew never noticing the connection. Especially Data or Wesley.

The Xindi war was, as evay said, pointless... and if they needed a war, why not use the Romulan War instead? It could easily provide a season or so of storyline, it would have given a better reason for the unification of Humans, Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites then the lone raidership did... and I think we can all agree, that if they were planning to violate continuity, then a war and species noone remembers would be far less burdonsome then merely moving the date of a war we know *did* happen.

[PG15]

Alright, let's do this.

*cracks knuckles*



Number One: The shape of the ship itself. The display in ST:TMP had a picture of every Enterprise:

Sailing ship
Aircraft carrier
Space shuttle
This interesting tube-shaped affair
NCC-1701

Nope. All Decker said was that these ships were named Enterprise. No where did he say that these were all the Enterprises. He did say, however, that all of these ships were named Enterprise, which doesn't exclude the NX01.




Starfleet did NOT exist before the Federation. Total hogwash. Total hooey. What in the world were they thinking? Why must it be Starfleet? In the earliest episodes of TOS the creators hadn't figured out Starfleet/Federation yet, so they called the Enterprise a United Earth Space Probe Agency vessel. This could be a holdover of the organization that did the NX-01.

Watch "Demons", near the end of the fourth season. In the opening shot it is seen that Starfleet is part (or other way around) of UESPA. They existed at the same time.

Prove that Starfleet didn't exist at this time.


The creators were leery of using Star Trek: whatever in their show name, so they named it Enterprise as an acceptable single-word alternative.

That was UPN's idea I believe.

Guess what? Apparently no one recognized it as Star Trek.

What, "based on Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek"" Didn't make them recognize either? Wow, they must be really dumb.

I admit that seeing Borg and Ferengi running around, even unnamed, seems a little suspect. Who are we kidding? It's a ploy!

Of course it's a ploy. A TV show needs ratings to survive.

With that said, yes, it was suspect. Even if I thought the Borg episode was the best one in the second season.

They couldn't be bothered to use Tellerites, Andorians (more), Thollians, etc.

You should really watch the show before you start ranting about them.

Andorians appeared in:

The Andorian Incident
Shadows of P'Jem
Cease Fire
Proving Grounds
Zero Hour
Kir'Shara
Babel One
United
The Aenar
These Are The Voyages...

Tellerites:

Bounty
Babel One
United

Tholians:

Future Tense
In a Mirror, Darkly

Besides those, there were also a few background extras spread here and there. That's more than all the other series combind if I remember correctly.


Or maybe, just MAYBE, yank a set of makeup from one of the movies that belong to an alien race we've only seen once. What about the race of the Federation President in ST:IV? Where'd they come from? Or Morn! Who says how old the guy is? Or El-Aurians! There must be a few on Earth still (in hiding of course). Guinan could show up! The possibilities are endless if you give it a little thought!

We'll have to agree to disagree here. I for one would like to see some story about the characters itself, instead of just connecting to future times constantly.

Your turn.

[Opium]

Without getting into it too much, I'm just wondering...why couldn't this be an alternate timeline show? We know there are several main timelines, the regular one and the mirror one, and of course the pre-and-post First Contact ones, and lots of minor ones: in that TNG ep with all those other universes colliding, Janeway's timetravel adventures...why couldn't this be a timeline from just one of those, that ENT is just one version of what happened?

The only ep I really take issue with the "series finale". I think the season 4 finale was actually a nice cap to the series...I don't think it needed an actual "series finale", because that actually messed with the timeline and character development of ENT itself, and messed up the Pegusas episode of ST:TNG.

Then again, we could just give ourselves all a healthy dose of disbelief :)

[Nate the Great]

I said Andorians MORE. I remember Shran. I actually prefer Shran to Weyoun, but probably not Brunt. Making cameos in a few episodes certainly doesn't give one the impression that they are galactic powers on the level of the Vulcans, Romulans, and Klingons.

"Appeared" does not equal "the enemy."

You are probably right that any "continuity" from the first half a dozen episodes should be taken with a drop of salt. This whole UESPA/Starfleet thing is further evidence of the creator's newness at this. Apparently it never occured to them that such a thing might be important later, especially given how many of their own rules Kirk was breaking.

"Over (?) temporal violations on record."
"The man was a menace."

If the NX-01 existed in the "real" universe, wouldn't it be more important for purposes of the wall display than that tube thing, which looks more like a long-range, presubspace, generational colony ship than anything.

Maybe UESPA is a part of Starfleet, but certainly not the other way around.

Nada. A show needs ratings to survive in syndication and get renewed. A show needs QUALITY to survive in reruns and in the public eye. Enterprise's quality was good, and it was improving, but they started off on a bad foot and scared or ticked off a portion of their key demographic.

I was in college at the time, and I was often busy. I watched Enterprise when I could, but I never taped it or reshuffled stuff to watch it. That shows the shift from TNG/DS9/VOY to ENT. I know guys were shuffling their schedule or were much more diligent taping to watch those shows. I know, I was one of them. ENT was a nice show, but they never compelled me to care for it to the bitter end.

They never used the Romulan War because:

A: They just spent four years on the Dominion War, and it was too soon for another one.
B. A war in which you never look at the enemy would be boring pretty quick. If they actually had Archer face-to-face with a Romulan, it would be the last straw for those paying attention for such things.
C. Unlike DS9, the NX-01 would be doing war-stuff ALL the time. The Starfleet is just two starships plus maybe a few dozen smaller ones. If you're doing espionage and weapons testing you can't explore or have comical subplots.

[whoiam]

A: They just spent four years on the Dominion War, and it was too soon for another one.
B. A war in which you never look at the enemy would be boring pretty quick. If they actually had Archer face-to-face with a Romulan, it would be the last straw for those paying attention for such things.
C. Unlike DS9, the NX-01 would be doing war-stuff ALL the time. The Starfleet is just two starships plus maybe a few dozen smaller ones. If you're doing espionage and weapons testing you can't explore or have comical subplots.
A: I was suggesting using it in the place of the Xindi arc... if timing's the issue, then putting it in season 3 is no worse then using the Xindi, which was a 'war' arc in all but name.
B:True, although you can get around that to an extent by having the only face-to-face contact being by T'Pol and Phlox, say - remember that there has already been contact between Romulans and Vulcans in the series, so why it wouldn't be possible for T'Pol to find out the link between the species and then keep quiet about it, as administrator thingymagummy did...? Plus, it gives you a chance for T'Pol to have some character development as a Vulcan, rather then as 'token science babe'.
C: Again, I was suggesting replacing season 3, in which they had much the same trouble inserting any actual exploration or comedy. Surely having an enemy we actually know wouldn't have made this any harder then the Xindi did? After all, we know very little about the Romulan side of what will eventually be the Neutral Zone...

Nada. A show needs ratings to survive in syndication and get renewed. A show needs QUALITY to survive in reruns and in the public eye. Enterprise's quality was good, and it was improving, but they started off on a bad foot and scared or ticked off a portion of their key demographic.
I'll agree there - Enterprise season 4 was better then Enterprise season 1 or 2... and season 3 was more like DS9 then anything like the other seasons. It even had some decent cameos (especially Brent Spiner), and fewer rubbish/pointless episodes (like the one with the Orion Slave Girls, which proves that people in the future have lost the fine art of using air filters), when compared to the earlier seasons.

Of course, I am not counting the first two episodes of the season. Part of my mind still refuses to accept I even watched those.

Slightly off-topic, I cannot wait to see what Zeke does with the Evil Alien Nazi arc, and the Orion slave girls...;)

[Nate the Great]

I'm still not sure if I consider the Xindi a "war." Wars are battles all the time. Besides, one ship can't wage war against five species at once. It seemed much more like espionage, sabotage, that kind of thing. I grant you, DS9 was more filler than war, but they always spoke as if there were hundreds of ships duking it out somewhere out there.

I'll grant you T'Pol could probably see a Romulan and not tell the humans, but she'd have to tell the Vulcans. How could she not?

Rubbish/pointless episodes are part of the cost of having great episodes. Is there ANY redeeming value to "Shades of Grey?" At all? Really, I'm asking. If Paramount sent out a poll where the viewers could say "I never want this thing sold on VHS or DVD and I never want to see it in syndication again," I'd sign it in a heartbeat. Wouldn't you? Probably the same for "Spock's Brain."

[Gatac]

I dunno, Spock's Brain was atleast funny in its badness...

Gatac

[whoiam]

One ship wouldn't have to - Since the war was meant to be fought by the early federation (if memory serves) then Enterprise would only be alone for the first couple of skirmishes, and then would have the Vulcan, Andorian and Tellarite fleets at its side.

She could easily not tell the Vulcans - if she believed it would be detrimental to Vulcan's future if the truth about their opponents were known, then the good, logical T'Pol that would never have been killed by Trellium-D would keep quiet. Especially if the link was discovered by her whilst investigating the erratic behaviour of the administrator, for instance... and she and whoever was with her cover up the identities of the Romulans to keep the Vulcans from getting ostracised by their new allies, say...

[Derek]

Is there ANY redeeming value to "Shades of Grey?" At all? Really, I'm asking. If Paramount sent out a poll where the viewers could say "I never want this thing sold on VHS or DVD and I never want to see it in syndication again," I'd sign it in a heartbeat.
I wouldn't. I actually like "Shades of Grey". I think it's a good character episode for Riker. We see how he handles a life-threatening injury is very englightening. He jokes with the crew, tries to be strong with Deanna, etc. He faces death boldly and I think that's a good thing to know. I also liked the bit where O'Brien kidded Pulaski about using the transporter too.

Really, Shades of Grey is a good episode all the way up until the clips start (which isn't until 20-25 minutes into the episode). Then of course it's not as exciting, but I certainly wouldn't want to lose the first half just because the second half is recycled. So I would definitely tell Paramount to keep the episode.

[Zeke]

Is there ANY redeeming value to "Shades of Grey?" At all?

Riker's joke about the snake. And maybe that Admiral bit at the end.

[Nate the Great]

Okay, I was using Shades of Grey as an example. What is the worst "I wouldn't watch this again even if there was a gun to my head" episode for you guys?

[mudshark]

Here's a little challenge for everyone. What is the smallest list of changes you would have to make to get Enterprise into official Trek continuity? My list:












:P

[Zeke]

If somebody asked me, "Zeke, why do you like mudshark?", that post would be all the answer I'd need.

[whoiam]

It definitely earns him a nomination for the 'Zen post of the year' award...

[Chancellor Valium]

It definitely earns him a nomination for the 'Zen post of the year' award...
And of course, the slightly less well-known Monoid Award :P

[Nate the Great]

Okay, was there an actual list or wasn't there? Is this some in joke that I don't understand?

[whoiam]

There was no list.

[PointyHairedJedi]

Hey! I'll do the Jedi mind-tricks around here, thank-you very much! :roll:

[Chancellor Valium]

Hey! I'll do the Jedi mind-tricks around here, thank-you very much! :roll:
This isn't the irritation you're looking for...
:P
Oh, and there was no spoon, either :mrgreen:

[whoiam]

Um, there actually was no list. Seriously.

[PointyHairedJedi]

Oh, you just don't know when to stop, do you.... :P

[Nate the Great]

Why don't we return to topic? Okay, I want someone to either (figuratively) look me in the eye and say "I don't think there is anything wrong, and I think that Enterprise fits perfectly within established continuity, as stated in all canon materials including The Star Trek Encyclopedia and The Star Trek Chronology" or "I think that the following need to be changed in order for Enterprise to fit into continuity.

[Zeke]

Uh, Nate? Those books aren't canon under any definition I've seen -- aside from one's personal canon, which can include or exclude anything.

But it's a moot point, because the dichotomy you're creating isn't one I'm interested in. To me, continuity is important, but not all-important. The thing to remember is that every continuity error can be explained -- and will be, but only if the material is worth the effort. I doubt anyone felt inclined to make excuses for "Threshold," but "Dark Frontier" was rationalized in any number of ways.

If the question is "Did ENT hold perfectly to continuity?", the answer is no. Neither did TNG, DS9, or VOY. Neither did TOS from one episode to another. But the question that matters to me is "Did ENT hold well enough to continuity?" That is, were its mistakes small enough -- and the show good enough -- to be worth making the necessary excuses for? And my answer to that question is an unqualified yes.

[Chancellor Valium]

Why don't we return to topic? Okay, I want someone to either (figuratively) look me in the eye and say "I don't think there is anything wrong, and I think that Enterprise fits perfectly within established continuity, as stated in all canon materials including The Star Trek Encyclopedia and The Star Trek Chronology" or "I think that the following need to be changed in order for Enterprise to fit into continuity.

And just when has any thread you care to name here remained on-topic?
What is the advantage of it?
I say, only remain on-topic after five specific economic tests for viability have been passed!
:P :mrgreen:

[Nate the Great]

I consider the books canon because Phil Farrand of Nitpicker's Guide fame says so. If you don't accept any books as canon, then I grant you, there's no possible way ANY of this stuff can be in the same universe from one episode to the next. It is a cardinal rule of nitpicking that all official reference materials from Paramount are considered just as canonical as the episodes themselves.

Yes, none of the other series fit perfectly. When one chucks the first dozen episodes of TOS, which was still the "getting our feet wet" phase, all of the other series have maybe one unavoidable nit per episode on average. The mere existence of Enterprise in a world post first contact with the Klingons without immediately going to war is the one acceptable unavoidable nit. There are tons more, which instantaneously make all other unavoidable nits unacceptable to me. THAT'S why I didn't care about Enterprise. All they had to do was set it in a universe OTHER than the one we've loved for thirty years, and I could love it for being what it is, as long as you call it something other than Star Trek. I like Andromeda because they know how to update continuity with new ideas and still not create entire episodes that spit in the face of the history of the fantasy world.

[Opium]

Let's all have a:

Willing suspension of disbelief

[Burt]

I think people get to caught up in continuity and sometimes miss the point. Yeah, it's nice to have, but doesn't mean it's always the most important thing.
Some fans always seem to want the history of TV show to be one easy simple story laid out in a nice straight line. But real history isn't really like that. It gets twisted, confused, copied, buried, and lost. So what the Xindi have never been talked about in other Trek episodes? Listen to people talking around your town. How many of them talk about the Napoleonic War's? I'm guessing very few.
And so what that new starships and different starship classes pop up? Can you name all the different ships in your countries Navy? I know a fair bit about the Royal Navy as I've studied it and even then, I mess up on some ships histories.
Personally I like that Trek's history is a bit more complicated. Makes it much more interesting!