posted
With the number of historical blemishes between Star Trek Enterprise and the rest of the series- could it be possible that the Suliban annihilate themselves from history with all the temporal meddling, thereby undoing a bit of Star Trek History written within Enterprise, and allowing it to follow the course established in the other series.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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I'm convinced that all of ENT, right from the beginning, exists in an alternate timeline from the other four series.
First, we know that people have been meddling with the past beginning at a point before the beginning of "Broken Bow." Therefore, some events wouldn't take place as we know it.
For instance, I'm certain that the Klingon first contact as seen in "Broken Bow" was premature. Klaang crashed on Earth as a result of Suliban interference, and the Suliban were chasing Klaang at the direction of people from the future.
Without Klaang's crash, the Humans wouldn't have encountered the Klingons for years or even decades to come.
In fact... I'm going to take the argument to a bit of an extreme here, but it's my personal belief and reasoning for excluding ENT from the established Trek history. Consider this with a grain of salt.
We know that there are "evil" people from the future passing on information and technology to the Suliban in order to achieve their aims in this time period. Who's to say that the other side, whoever that may be, isn't secretly providing information as well? For instance, the final creation and launch of the Warp 5 Engine could have been achieved thanks to little hints that were dropped from the future. (The people that Daniels was working for -- a future Starfleet?)
Anyway, my point is that since Berman and Braga are frelling with the timeline, there's not necessarily any real consistency between what we've seen and what was previously established.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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MIB
Ex-Member
posted
Your theroy is sound, Jeff. I would like note that I've been saying this on the boards for over a month now!! Whenever I bring it up, I get a small flaming from Bernd.
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Why the hell does everyone assume that, in the TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY timeline, there was no time-meddling in the 2150s? Everyone keep saying things like "Well, since FutureGuy and Daniels are changing history, it must be an alternate timeline.". But this "altered" timeline is almost certainly the one that continues on to the other series. If we saw the timeline where FutureGuy and Daniels didn't change things, it would be totally different from TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY.
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posted
I think either theory could work, but since I doubt that the writers and producers are going to try and say "This is the beginning of Star Trek, but it isn't really...", I'm going to stick with trying to make it fit with the other series.
Otherwise, I'll feel like I'm dealing with a 30-year episode of "Year of Hell"...and that episode just wasn't that good...
[ December 14, 2001: Message edited by: Aban Rune ]
quote:Originally posted by OnToMars: People are using the phraseology they are because TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY came FIRST and are actually STAR TREK. Neither statement can be made for ENT.
Poppycock.
While there isn't enough info yet to tell, I sincerely doubt that (in spite of their reputations) Berman and Braga have the intent to wipe out the established timeline. The events of ENT could easily be what always took place.
Since there's never BEEN any history established in TOS/TAS/TNG/DS9/VGR (apart from a few one-line verbal references which can be interpreted a number of different ways) about the 22nd century and its events, ENT can't really contradict anything.
That's a big reason why TPTB chose this timeframe for ENT. We know almost nothing about it. the slate is mostly blank. All they're doing is filling stuff in. And so far, despite the shouts and cries of "Continuity error!", I have seen virtually nothing that clashes in any major way with previously established shows. And certainly, NOTHING that suggests to me that there is any kind of alternate timeline involved.
As for saying ENT is not Star Trek, that is the epitome of lunacy.
-MMoM
[ December 14, 2001: Message edited by: The Mighty Monkey of Mim ]
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posted
No, I admit that there's nothing specific so far to blatantly contradict eatablished canon. (Well, aside from that Xyrillian cloaking device...)
However, I believe that the entire "feel" of the series is wrong. It's too cool, too advanced, too "fresh" for a series that's just getting into space travel within the past 100 years. All of the usual bits of technology are still there, just in slightly mutated form. The transporter, the replicators, the shuttles, the sickbay. They've only paid lip service to the technological limitations and relative primitive development of the era. It doesn't "feel" that much different from the 24th century.
But this thread is supposed to be about Jeff's theory. Sorry for setting it off track.
I think it's an interesting and somewhat ironic idea, that the Suliban get annihilated through their own temporal meddling. It'd be a little like "Year of Hell," maybe, but it might make for an interesting conclusion to the temporal arc.
But somehow I don't think that B&B would come up with anything that interesting.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
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I never said a goddamn thing about ENT violating establishing continuity.
I said that TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY came before ENT, production wise. You want to debate that?
I also said that TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY are Star Trek. As in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It is not Star Trek: Enterprise. It is just Enterprise.
That is all that I said.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
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posted
Of course, the Xyrillians didn't have a cloaking device. They had stealth technology. Which, as we've already seen several times in 24th century Star Trek, can exist in a visually similar but completely technologically different and inferior form to cloaking devices (the frickin' Kazon had it.)
quote:I think it's an interesting and somewhat ironic idea, that the Suliban get annihilated through their own temporal meddling. It'd be a little like "Year of Hell," maybe, but it might make for an interesting conclusion to the temporal arc. But somehow I don't think that B&B would come up with anything that interesting.
You might want to have a look at the writer's byline for that episode sometime.
Getting back on topic, I think punching the mother-of-all-reset-buttons and having ENT in an alternate timeline to an "actual" 22nd century that preceeded the TOS/TNG/DS9/VGR etc. narrative is certainly an option that the producers have, but I have a hunch based on their commentary in interviews that they don't want to exercise it. I'm satisfied that the powers that be have taken enough care around the issue of continuity that the only violations are likely to be incredibly obscure ones (ie Bernd's math on the Moab IV colony and the transporter) which we never in a million years could have expected any writer be they JMS or Aaron Sorkin or David E Kelley to catch. Besides, like the Moab IV example, the obscure ones can usually be easily explained-around. So, barring a universe-wrecking continuity SNAFU of a scale never before seen on Trek ever before, I think one would need to be an uber-fanboy to find the almighty timeline "polluted" enough by the end of the show's run to demand a reset and nothing less.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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posted
I'm with TSN on this one. I'm really tired of the "OMG! They used time travel in this episode! It's now set in an alternate reality!" that I've been hearing for every episode of TNG, DS9, and VOY that utilizes time travel ...
OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
Way to edit your post, MMoM.
And Enterprise has no Star Trek in its name. It is not Star Trek in the same sense as TNG/DS9/VOY by the admission of the producers. Please, this is getting ridicilous.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
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I didn't edit my post. I edited a few seconds after I posted it, after seeing that I had forgotten the 't' ant the end of 'contradict.' That's it. I didn't change anything else.
And just because "Star Trek" isn't in the title don't mean it ain't Star Trek. Is "Raiders of the Lost Ark" not an Indiana Jones movie because it's not called "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark"?
And, as I said, it really makes little difference that the other shows came first. Those other shows took place in a timeframe nowhere even close to that of ENT. And again, there's been virtually nothing established about ENT's century. So how can you say they're contradicting something that hasn't been established yet?
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
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posted
Here's a probable continuity violation: "Balance of Terror" establishes that they didn't have viewscreen technology during the Earth-Romulan War. (It was why they didn't know what the Romulans looked like.) And Spock said that their level of tech "allowed no quarter to be asked for or given." Yet the way we've seen ENT tech is hardly different from later years, even the TOS era.
Okay, so this is minor, but little details like that are the things that gave the timeline a sense of progress and advancement. But I think that ENT has very little tech difference from the others. What kind of "advancements" are they going to make between ENT and TOS?
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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