Regarding: Enterprise: Alternate Universe?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Despite the fact that Enterprise will now apparently be "Star Trek: Enterprise" -- Should it be, for Vs. debate purposes, considered canon material, but canon material from an alternate universe, somewhat like, for instance, analyzing something that occured in the Mirror Universe? This is, realistically, about the only way to save any pretence of continuity in Star Trek.

[Dalton]

Fuck, I'm willing to consider Voyager AU because of the back in time to 1996 episode (You know, when they go back to Earth when the Eugenics wars are supposedly occurring).

[Peregrin Toker]

There is so many glaring continuity errors with the rest that the "alternate universe" makes sense to me.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Fuck, I'm willing to consider Voyager AU because of the back in time to 1996 episode (You know, when they go back to Earth when the Eugenics wars are supposedly occurring).

Well, that raises an interesting question--how many alternate-universes could we have possibly seen on Star Trek, and where does the evidence from one start and end, and the next begin?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I think it could be very valid to argue that each time travel incident divides Star Trek canon into an unrelated alternate universe, each of which tells the history of a slightly, if progressively moreso, different version of the Federation, finally growing extreme distant with the likes of the Mirror Universe and Enterprise.

[Tsyroc]

Fuck, I'm willing to consider Voyager AU because of the back in time to 1996 episode (You know, when they go back to Earth when the Eugenics wars are supposedly occurring).

Unfortunately the two novels about Kahn and the Eugenics war come up with some convaluted way of making it mostly a "secret war". The books are good but I still think it sucks and that it doesn't really jive with what was being stated in TOS. I think these books were mostly written because so many fans were interested in the Eugenics war and were bitching that Voyager basically blew them off.

[Publius]

While ordinarily, the preferred means of analysis would include the principle of credulity, there are irreconcilable contradictions between Enterprise and the earlier series. When judging between the evidence of Enterprise and the canonical facts established by Mr. Roddenberry (including the novelisation of The Motion Picture), preference must be given to the latter. To wit, yes, Enterprise must be considered as an alternate reality, until and unless a compelling argument otherwise is provided, the fact that it will be renamed Star Trek: Enterprise notwithstanding.

Publius

[Joe Momma]

Despite the fact that Enterprise will now apparently be "Star Trek: Enterprise" -- Should it be, for Vs. debate purposes, considered canon material, but canon material from an alternate universe(?)

FWIW, Brannon Braga stated in an interview in a recent issue of Star Trek Communicator Magazine (IIRC -- I already threw the fucking thing away) that B&B considered Enterprise to be taking place in a new continuity, the past having been altered by the Borg attack on Cochrane's camp in First Contact.

So their take on it is that it is an alternate universe and continuity between Enterprise and the previous Star Trek series isn't a concern. I hope the latter doesn't come as such a big surprise that someone has a heart attack.

[Solauren]

FWIW, Brannon Braga stated in an interview in a recent issue of Star Trek Communicator Magazine (IIRC -- I already threw the fucking thing away) that B&B considered Enterprise to be taking place in a new continuity, the past having been altered by the Borg attack on Cochrane's camp in First Contact.

So their take on it is that it is an alternate universe and continuity between Enterprise and the previous Star Trek series isn't a concern. I hope the latter doesn't come as such a big surprise that someone has a heart attack.

ACK!
B&B have a brain cell!
To avoid keeping track of canon 'preferred' universe history, they moved it to a new universe.

Heart... can't... take... it....

Dies

I can almost forgive B&B now.

Almost

If they'd say that somewhere that could not be denied, I'd be able to forgive them for Enterprise's continuality problems and look at this as just another Star Trek with poor writing

[Jeremy]

Everything after the Cartoon is an alternate universe.

[TheDarkling]

What exactly has Ent done that is such a huge violation of continuity such that the issue of its position in the original timeline is questioned?
That isn't to say there aren't problems that I can think of but I am curious to see what people have to back up their claims that Enterprise violates continuity far more than any previous show.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Everything after the Cartoon is an alternate universe.

Any basis for that other than being pulled out of a corner of your ass?

And TAS isn't even canon, you dimbulb...

[RedImperator]

What exactly has Ent done that is such a huge violation of continuity such that the issue of its position in the original timeline is questioned?
That isn't to say there aren't problems that I can think of but I am curious to see what people have to back up their claims that Enterprise violates continuity far more than any previous show.

The most glaring example of ENT continunity screwups is their treatment of the Vulcans. Apparently, according to ENT, less than a single Vulcan lifetime before TOS, the mind-melds was a little known, misunderstood, and stigmatized technique. Females go through pon farr and humans know about pon farr a century before "Amok Time".

Also:

Quo'nos is closer to Earth than Alpha Centauri. The Klingons had a ship visually identical to the D-7 100 years before TOS.

Starfleet existed before the Federation. The United Earth Space Probe Agency apparently doesn't exist. Phasers (excuse me--"phase cannons") and photon torpedoes exist when Starfleet should still be using lasers and nuclear missiles.

Regulan bloodworms are leeches with a scary name, not a deadly plague organism. Humans are aware of tribbles 100 years before "The Trouble With Tribbles".

The events of First Contact happened. This is actually the least irritating continunity breach, because it was deliberate, not a result of lazy writing.

[Trogdor]

What exactly has Ent done that is such a huge violation of continuity such that the issue of its position in the original timeline is questioned?
That isn't to say there aren't problems that I can think of but I am curious to see what people have to back up their claims that Enterprise violates continuity far more than any previous show.

As far as I can tell (and granted that's not too far since I haven't watched much of Ent), it hasn't violated continuity anymore than Voyager...yet.
Problems I can think of:
1. First Contact with Klingons wasn't disasterous as Picard once clearly said in was
2. Romulans probably should've invaded by now
3. No mention of Xindi was EVER made in any other ST show as far as I know
4. Spock was supposed to be the first Vulcan in Starfleet not T'pol
5. No mention of any Enterprise before the Kirk's first one was EVER made before
6. A Ferengi showed up in one of the episodes, even though Picard made first conact with them in TNG
7. I heard that the Borg made an appearance at some point (not sure, never saw this one). Again, Picard made first contact with them in TNG

Wow, now that I look at this, and considering that's there's probably more and they haven't started season three yet, Ent really is messed up!

[Spanky The Dolphin]

T'pol's not in Starfleet. At least as far as I know.

[Gil Hamilton]

*puts on a Ladiesman sockpuppet*

ENTERPRISE IS COMPLETELY CONSISTANT WITH BOTH TOS AND THE REST OF THE SERIES!!11 YOU PEOPLE THAT SAY OTHERWISE ARE BEING TOO LITERAL AND I THINK YOU STARTREK HATING FANATICS ARE STUPID!!!111

*ahem*

Excuse me...

[seanrobertson]

Some of the continuity fuck-ups can still be rationalized, at least with no more effort than is sometimes exercised to make sense of TNG's intra-continuity.

But then, you really nail some of these on the head

The most glaring example of ENT continunity screwups is their treatment of the Vulcans. Apparently, according to ENT, less than a single Vulcan lifetime before TOS, the mind-melds was a little known, misunderstood, and stigmatized technique. Females go through pon farr and humans know about pon farr a century before "Amok Time".

The mind-meld thing is definitely a Royal Fuck-Up (tm).

I would say that knowledge of female pon farr, if that itself is acceptable, is probably not a big problem; T'Pol only mentioned it to the doctor, who is bound by Dr.-patient confidentiality (and isn't himself a member of Starfleet anyway), and maybe Malcolm Reed.

Reed's so damn dumb he probably forgot what she said 5 seconds later. She was all over him at the time. Even through that encounter suit he was a stammering mess, ready to jump all over her skinny butt.

Also:

Quo'nos is closer to Earth than Alpha Centauri. The Klingons had a ship visually identical to the D-7 100 years before TOS.

Both of those are inexcusable IMO.

Starfleet existed before the Federation. The United Earth Space Probe Agency apparently doesn't exist. Phasers (excuse me--"phase cannons") and photon torpedoes exist when Starfleet should still be using lasers and nuclear missiles.

Agreed.

In fairness, Spock did say that the Earth-Rommie War was fought with "primitive atomic weapons," something that's still possible if phase cannons and photorps are ultimately employed on very few ships.

I'm also not sure if phase cannons are actually proto-phasers. A few times we've seen them in action, the reported power output was roughly in line with the beams' effects (if that energetic).

However, I have to take a step back and say that the mere mention of these things is very fishy. It might not be a flat-out, irreconciliable inconsistency but it's pretty damn dumb.

Regulan bloodworms are leeches with a scary name, not a deadly plague organism. Humans are aware of tribbles 100 years before "The Trouble With Tribbles".

The events of First Contact happened. This is actually the least irritating continunity breach, because it was deliberate, not a result of lazy writing.

Agreed on the last count, and [Johnny Carson voice] I...did not know that [/Johnny Carson voice] about the tribbles. I must've missed that one

Trogdor, you have a pretty good list too.

Problems I can think of:
1. First Contact with Klingons wasn't disasterous as Picard once clearly said in was

My thinking exactly.

The worst thing that happened was the Klingon Chancellor grunted and spoke Klingon to Archer. Whooooo!

2. Romulans probably should've invaded by now
3. No mention of Xindi was EVER made in any other ST show as far as I know

2? It's still too early. I think the Romulan war happens about 8 years down the line.

3 isn't a total disaster inasmuch as we haven't heard the name in conversation, but it IS stupid because this "Expanse" would be DEEP inside Federation territory circa TNG. Maybe that's not impossible to make work, either, but I know I don't like it.

4. Spock was supposed to be the first Vulcan in Starfleet not T'pol
5. No mention of any Enterprise before the Kirk's first one was EVER made before
6. A Ferengi showed up in one of the episodes, even though Picard made first conact with them in TNG

Like Spanky said, T'Pol isn't in Starfleet...yet. If she does join sometime down the line, you'll be right.

I agree with 5. No ifs, ands or buts. I'm pretty much in line with 6...unless those Ferengi got a hold of some super-fast ship, they are WAY too far into the Federation interior.

The Ferengi might've been space-faring for some time, and Quark even mentioned something along those lines once ("Little Green Men" maybe?). But that begs the question, why didn't they make contact with the Federation for almost 200 more years? Space is big, and the Ferengi might've changed a lot by the time we see them in TNG, but how likely is all that crap?

7. I heard that the Borg made an appearance at some point (not sure, never saw this one). Again, Picard made first contact with them in TNG

Official first contact, yes. To nitpick, Seven's parents were actually the first Federation citizens to encounter them.

I think the Borg thing could've been covered up, but they were only in ENT because they'd already screwed around with time travel. Unless the events of "First Contact" are representative of the "true" Federation's history as we know it, the ENT Borg appearance is absolute proof that we're looking at an alternate timeline. (That those Borg did some semi-intelligent things might be, too Continuity notwithstanding that was a pretty good episode. It's too bad B&B don't care more about making good standalone eps., let alone that the few they can make wind up dumping all over the big picture.)

A few other apparent inconsistencies:

Romulans can cloak! Unless Spock's an outright retard, they shouldn't be able to do that. As I recall, he was very surprised that they could render their ships invisible in "BoT."

Suliba...who? We've never heard of them, either. That's not impossible either, but if you put enough straw on a camel's back...

We see more Starfleet officers who don't know the difference between power and energy.

Oh, no, wait...that IS consistent with TNG onward

[Macross]

The most glaring example of ENT continunity screwups is their treatment of the Vulcans. Apparently, according to ENT, less than a single Vulcan lifetime before TOS, the mind-melds was a little known, misunderstood, and stigmatized technique. Females go through pon farr and humans know about pon farr a century before "Amok Time".

This was when i realized that their was and would be no redeeming value tto this show. I stopped watching right then and there and havent looked back.

[TheDarkling]

Well I was going to go point by point but seanrobertson covered a lot of them, I will just pick the ones where I disagree with him.

Quo'nos is closer to Earth than Alpha Centauri. The Klingons had a ship visually identical to the D-7 100 years before TOS.

These two whilst bad are hardly unique, distances were often messed up in the other shows and the D-7 is a problem and evidence of bad production values but I'm not entirely sure its a continuity breech.

Humans are aware of tribbles 100 years before "The Trouble With Tribbles".

No the Denobulan doctor is aware of them, Hoshi reacted as if she didn't have a clue about them until he explained so I don't think the crew of the Ent-Nil not being familiar with them is that big a deal.

Problems I can think of:
1. First Contact with Klingons wasn't disasterous as Picard once clearly said in was

I agree with this but it did set teh tone for further events which have caused a great deal of problems (including Klingons being fired upon inside the SOL systems and multiple battles), while I was disappointed that it wasn't bad on the scale others have mentioned I don't find it to be that terrible a breech.

3. No mention of Xindi was EVER made in any other ST show as far as I know

I mainly agree with what sean said in that it isn't a big problem but the expanse is an irritation (especially consider its proximity to federation space and its huge size).

6. A Ferengi showed up in one of the episodes, even though Picard made first conact with them in TNG

Inexcusable, totally and completely bad, while at a stretch it can be explained that these Ferengi were far of course yadda yadda and so on it is just so stupid that the episode was made in the first place.

7. I heard that the Borg made an appearance at some point (not sure, never saw this one). Again, Picard made first contact with them in TNG

Not really a problem, very little info was gathered and what little was known actually helps explain events in Voyager (the Hansens expedition).

Romulans can cloak! Unless Spock's an outright retard, they shouldn't be able to do that. As I recall, he was very surprised that they could render their ships invisible in "BoT."

This ticked me off as well but there is an explanation (something I thought about and that Ladiesman over on SB has also picked up on) these cloaks don't bend light around the ship like Spock explained (which he thought was an astounding leap forward) but they have some sort of particle on them that absorbs sensor readings and already Ent has a way to combat this, it is very possible that the proto Federation overcomes this type of cloak soon after its creation and thus the reintroduction of the cloak (operating on an entirely new concept) does come as something of a shock.

They have pushed continuity when they just had zero reason to do so (for which I dispise B&B) but it isn't that damaged compared to the other shows.

As for T'Pol being in starfleet, "I have a bad feeling about this" .

[Jeremy]

you dimbulb...

Thank you, really--from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

And TAS isn't even canon,

As I recall it was decanonized after it completed it's run, thus it was originally canon material. Though I could be wrong.

Any basis for that other than being pulled out of a corner of your ass?

Were you in a bad mood? I base that on TNG showing a different Cochraine.

[Peregrin Toker]

I would say that knowledge of female pon farr, if that itself is acceptable, is probably not a big problem; T'Pol only mentioned it to the doctor, who is bound by Dr.-patient confidentiality (and isn't himself a member of Starfleet anyway), and maybe Malcolm Reed.

I thought somebody glossed over the female pon farr by suggesting that T'Pol was born male but went through a sex-change operation later??

[Oberleutnant]

The D-7 in Enterprise won't be making another appearance. Here's what Ex Astris Scientia has to say about the vessel:

Star Trek: The Magazine clears up the issue: "As Rob (Bonchune) explains, John Eaves had designed a new Klingon ship specifically for this scene. 'It was kind of the same shape as the original Klingon battle cruiser; just a little more primitive. [...] They decided it could only be used with major changes, but after their work on Broken Bow the team was simply too exhausted to work through the night in a desperate attempt to get the shots ready. Instead, the producers made the decision to use an old model. 'We wound up going back to a version of the Klingon ship that had been built for DEEP SPACE NINE,' Mitch (Suskin) says. 'But that particular type of Klingon ship will not be used again, because they decided that it just didn't fit into their vision for this universe.' Rob admits that, he for one, is sorry the old ship was used, but acknowledges there was no alternative. 'As a fan I really regret that that ship is in there, but people were just working too much. After Broken Bow, everyone had already worked so much overtime'."