Daniels said that in the original timeline the Xindi never attacked Earth. So what does the original timeline look like for the Enterprise crew? Archer's ethics were never stretched to the breaking point. T'Pol got Pa'nar syndrome but never struggled with Trellium-D addiction and Trip never needed Vulcan Neuropressure so they most likely never had a reason to get to know each other better. T'Pol probably stayed much more like she is in seasons 1 & 2. Presumably even Storm Front didn't happen. What else is different in the original timeline?
Well, there's two schools of thought about this. 1. Daniels is not from the same timeline as Archer, so the Xindi attack doesn't affect Daniels, and everything you mentioned above was what was "supposed to happen" in the prime timeline. 2. Daniels is from the same timeline as Archer, so the timeline was changed after the Xindi attack, and everything hence is now a new universe.
Like with Nero in Star Trek '09, just the fact that Daniels has traveled to the past at all constitutes a change in the timeline. The fact that he's giving Archer all kinds of information about the future only changes Daniels's original future more. Now with that said, ENT pretty much implied that Daniels was from the same timeline as Archer, but that changes had been made due to the TCW. Honestly, it's all very confusing. A pox on UPN for ever coming up with that stupid TCW nonsense.
QFT! The only way I can justify it for myself is to say that Daniels and the Temporal Agents were able to integrat the Xindi arc into the prime timeline so that nothing from TOS-TNG-DS9-VOY was overly affected.
Well, to be fair, all UPN wanted was something that connected ENT with a future Trek element (an implication they weren't entirely sold on a TOS-prequel perhaps?). The TCW was what Berman and company came up with, but it wasn't something they really ever thought out. They kind of made stuff up as they went along and then washed their hands of it at the earliest opportunity. But connecting the "Xindi season" to the TCW was a clever idea, IMO. But as far as the new and old timelines are concerned, the only major difference would appear to be the attack on 22nd-Century Earth and the NX-01's mission to the Delphic Expanse. But in both timelines, however, the Delphic Expanse apparently no longer existed by the 24th-Century (or perhaps not even by the 23rd-Century). Presumably, the rest of Trek unfolded with the Xindi attack relegated to being a dark page in history like Pearl Harbor and 9/11. It would be a continuous subject of discussion for historians and those who had a personal connection to it, but not so much for the majority of Starfleet crews a century or two later...
I say Daniels' is a ghost from a future that (from our perspective) won't happen, like Spock Prime is to the STXI crew, and Old Janeway from "Endgame" is to the Voyager crew. IMO his mission was to make sure things went as closely to his view of history as possible. The problem is that the ENT writers envisioned one timeline, that can be altered a little and with just a little fixing goes merrily on it's way. The STXI writers suggest that every change to the timeline (and, by extension, every decision ever made by anyone everywhere ever) creates a new parallel branch in the multiverse(also seen in TNG's "Parallels"). They're incompatible. You either say Daniels' is from an alternate future, or that Nero and Old Spock erased all of TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY from existance. Daniels' future incuded the colony from "Shockwave", no Xindi attack, and a big war with the Sphere Builders in the Expanse of the 26th century. Prime had a ruined colony, a Xindi attack on Earth and the NX-01 crew destroyed the Expanse and defeated the Sphere Builders much earlier, in 2513. Similarly, in Spock Prime's timeline there was no Romulan attack on the Kelvin in 2233, Jim Kirk knew his father and the USS Enterprise looked like something from the 1960's
No, the TCW made sense if they had had the foresight to tie it into the Romulan War. A pox on whoever though of the damned Xindi. Worst. Aliens. Ever.
I liked them, mainly for the sake of Degra. The reptilian aliens were quite cliche, no doubt, but serviceable. Same with the insectoids. What made them really interesting to me was the diversity. It could have been handled better, but the 'coalition of unenthusiastically-allied races all from the same original world' concept was rather striking.
To be fair the reptilians were just cut price Cardassians with none of the elan or style. I guess that's what you get for using reptiles to do a therapsid's work.
I agree. I was thinking about the Cardassians while typing up that post. But I was focusing on how the reptilians (Reptilians?) lacked the... elan and style, as you say. Cardassian statement: "Well, some people should never be promoted." Reptilian statement: "RRRRGHGHGHGH ARCHER YOU DIEEEEE"
Indeed. Although both ended up allied with a deceitful, genocidal mysterious race of empire builders who fully intended to destroy their erstwhile allies. Still, I liked the Xindi, if only for commander Dolim's extra helpings of large ham.
I got a way better insight into the Xindi at the 2010 Las Vegas convention Xindi Council panel. The actors had a lot of leeway to develop their characters. The funniest moment was when Tucker Smallwood said, "Oh, we all had names. Maybe the humans didn't know our names. Maybe the WRITERS didn't know our names. But we had names." Dolim and Degra are both foils for Archer. Dolim is basically mirror image Archer, a guy who will do whatever it takes to accomplish his mission. He believes that anything, in the end, is justifiable to save his homeworld. Dolim, unfortunately, is wrong. He took the Founders (was that what they were called?) at face value. But otherwise, he's a study in uncompromising determination. Scott MacDonald said that he played him "like a battering ram." Dolim, on the other hand, has a journey that's opposite Archer's. He starts out by doing something reprehensible for what he believes is a good cause, and by the end of his arc, thanks to his willingness to question his preconceptions and, fundamentally, himself, ends up being a voice of reason.
^ Wasn't Degra the main brain behind the planet killer? Also the aliens were called the Sphere Builders by the humans and the Guardians by the Xindi. Another alien race called them the Makers I believe. Spookytage's explanation of Degra and Dolim is pretty interesting. I never thought of that before but it does make a lot of sense. Was this something the actors came up with to better inhabit their characters or the writers? Because I felt character development overall was a weak point for the writers, but that explanation shows me someone knew something about it.