That was my source. Of course it was established in ENT that the Aenar population was small and a fringe element.
I understand that there was a script provisionally titled "Kilkenny Cats" for ENT season 5 that would have introduced Larry Niven's Kzinti. Might be fun to include the Kzinti in this lost era. Mike Sussman revealed that he had the idea of making T'Pol half-Vulcan and half-Romulan in which she meets her father who was a Romulan agent who had posed as a Vulcan officer before faking his own death.
On the other hand, our TNG heroes insisted that the Vulcan ship was not interested in Earth and was doing something else altogether in the Sol system. A captain with orders to stay away from the natives would probably feel forced to react if the natives unexpectedly demonstrated the ability (if not yet the willingness) not to stay away from whatever the Vulcans were doing here. This even if he weren't a qualified diplomat and in fact was particularly unsuited for the task. Of course, Riker and Troi could well have flat out lied to Cochrane, realizing he wouldn't take kindly to the truth of the matter - that the Vulcans were actively spying on Earth. So the half-truth of the Vulcans considering us too primitive would better serve our heroes. In that case, the spyship skipper no doubt would have contingency plans for contacting the natives - something that was rather unrealistically missing from the "Carbon Creek" crew's proficiency list. Or perhaps that crew's captain, too, was appropriately trained but nobody else was, and the skills died with him? In general, I'd still think even a contingency-trained spyship captain would make for a poor diplomat, especially considering that Vulcan in the era seemed to be running an extensive racket of colonial or imperialistic relationships, with much demand for a well-trained separate diplomatic service. Plus, it's the small universe syndrome again, depriving us of one potential 21st century Vulcan personality by merging him with another. We've seen Vulcan diplomats already; following the adventures of one of their spies or explorers would be quite a bit more interesting! Timo Saloniemi
I would love to read some stuff set immediately after the founding of the Federation in 2161. I've read the first two ENT relaunch books (haven't read The Romulan War yet) and am loving it. Hopefully they'll continue the story after the war.
Apart from the Kzinti, was it ever established when the Federation first made contact with the Caitians? or when the first hostile border disputes occured with the Tholians? Either of those could make a good story. Or of course the Cardassian first contact, the fall out between the Federation and Klingons leading to the 70 years of warfare up until TUC in 2293.
The first contact with the Cardassians wasn't until the 2320s, unless you count the exiled Cardassian poet who spent some time on Vulcan during Tobin Dax's lifetime.
I know there is a comic that focuses on that, but where in "canon" does that little gem crop up? First Contact between Cardassia and the Federation in the JJverse was a lot earlier than the 2320s as Uhura asked for a Cardassian something-or-other while at the bar in Star Trek 09 so who's to say it didn't occur earlier than the 2320s in the Prime-verse.
To my knowledge Cardassian first contact hasn't been established on screen yet...I think there was a thread a couple years ago that discussed this. I would love to read an immediate post-founding of the Federation book as well. I believe it was a Cardassian "Sunshine" that Uhura asked for at the bar.
That's the one, been a while since I watched it. And yes it did, so by that, either The Federation and Cardassian Union made First Contact at somepoint in those 22 years in the JJVerse meaning that it occured at a later date in the Prime-verse or it happened before the split and the belief that it occured at somepoint in the 2320s is way off.
So you are basing First contact with the cardasians upon the name of a drink that Uhura had? By that logic, in reality we must have had first contact with the inhabitants of Vega and Altair, based upon the naming of a car and an early microcomputer.
I don't think having contact in the prime universe happening in or by the 2320's is "way off" there is just no on screen canonical reference to when it happened.
I'm pretty sure having a large chunk of your population converted into humans would be the thing that did it, in "Affliction"/"Divergence". Although I think that was about 40 years early, I can't imagine anything coming close in terms of insult done to the Klingons.
Yes for the simple fact that this is a fictional thing we are talking about and the writers decided to insert the Cardassian reference to name drop one of the most influential alien species in DS9 and imply that with that name drop Cardassia and the Federation are aware of each other, had some trade and the like and meaning they must have had First Contact at somepoint.
The obvious difference is that those are our names for those stars, while "Cardassia" is presumably what the Cardassians call their own world (or at least is an Anglicization of their name for it). But hey, Iloja of Prim was on Vulcan during Tobin's lifetime, so that's sometime in the late 22nd or early 23rd century. So the existence of a species named Cardassians would've been known, and maybe Iloja introduced the Federation to that beverage. Or maybe a few other Cardassian exiles made their way to Federation space. But that's not inconsistent with the first formal contact between the Federation and the Cardassian government being as late as the 2320s.
Or you know, what I said And which episode was this in then or better yet, which story did this occur in?