so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time.

[Ziz]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

There was a nod to the E-E in DS9 - Trials & Tribble-ations...

DULMUR: Be specific, Captain. Which Enterprise? There've been five.
LUCSLY: Six.

ENT didn't exist yet, so the 6th Enterprise they're referring to would have been the E-E, (TOS, A, B, C, D, E) which had "just launched" because First Contact was hitting theaters a few weeks later relative to the episode airdate. Not much but it's something.

What I would have liked to see would be two scenes on DS9 - a scene in one episode where Sisko receives orders to send Worf with the Defiant to Earth to assist in a Borg threat and a subsequent scene in the following episode where Worf returns with the battle damaged Defiant and O'Brien begins to look it over as the two start to reminisce about Picard & co. These would have put First Contact as happening in a specific place in the timeline without having to have any TNG film characters on DS9.

 

[Cyke101]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

What's more odd is that voyager was never mentioned despite being their last port.

Hah, brilliant. You'd think it would be the primary base of operations for a search mission, at least for a few weeks!

 

[brendhanbb]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

There was a nod to the E-E in DS9 - Trials & Tribble-ations...

DULMUR: Be specific, Captain. Which Enterprise? There've been five.
LUCSLY: Six.

ENT didn't exist yet, so the 6th Enterprise they're referring to would have been the E-E, (TOS, A, B, C, D, E) which had "just launched" because First Contact was hitting theaters a few weeks later relative to the episode airdate. Not much but it's something.

What I would have liked to see would be two scenes on DS9 - a scene in one episode where Sisko receives orders to send Worf with the Defiant to Earth to assist in a Borg threat and a subsequent scene in the following episode where Worf returns with the battle damaged Defiant and O'Brien begins to look it over as the two start to reminisce about Picard & co. These would have put First Contact as happening in a specific place in the timeline without having to have any TNG film characters on DS9.

i honestly could have lived with that. the only porblem is why only send worf since when does the defiant only have worf comanding it and that other dude who i have no idea who he is.

but another issue is that not everyone would porably end up seeing that movie so people watching the show would be like huh when did this happen in the tv show. but then agian we did have the maquis destoryed off screen.

 

[brendhanbb]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

What's more odd is that voyager was never mentioned despite being their last port.

Hah, brilliant. You'd think it would be the primary base of operations for a search mission, at least for a few weeks!

you know something funny i actully thought the episode was robert picardo guest started was the dr from voyager i was a young kid and half the time barely followed and understood episodes that only had dialouge and yeah i saw the actor who played the dr and though oh look the dr is on deep space nine and then seeing messge in a bottle thought oh i guess he was sent to ds9 to talk to star fleet comand but honestly i think that would have been a really cool episode now that i think about it.

 

[Trevacious]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

A tiny little cameo just to add some weight to the war by showing that the flagship is involved wouldn't hurt anyone.

I would've settled for seeing a couple of her sister ships getting involved in the big fleet maneuvers.

 

[Tulaberry whine]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

I never understood this complaint.

The TNG characters (and ship) weren't in any way integral to the plots of DS9 so what's the point in gratuitous references and cameos when the writers were already struggling to wrap up the many arcs and stories involving DS9's actual characters.

I also don't see the point of spending X amounts of dollars on showing epic space battles if all people are going to do is squint into the background to get a look at the Enterprise. It seems to defeat the purpose of these sorts of stories IMO.

 

[brendhanbb]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

I never understood this complaint.

The TNG characters (and ship) weren't in any way integral to the plots of DS9 so what's the point in gratuitous references and cameos when the writers were already struggling to wrap up the many arcs and stories involving DS9's actual characters.

I also don't see the point of spending X amounts of dollars on showing epic space battles if all people are going to do is squint into the background to get a look at the Enterprise. It seems to defeat the purpose of these sorts of stories IMO.

well your right but like it would have made the show seem more real. for example in the pale moonlight the caustualy list is a very stubte way of showing hey there is a very serious war going on. and that people are dieing out there and this war effects everyone.

 

[Jono]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

These would have put First Contact as happening in a specific place in the timeline without having to have any TNG film characters on DS9.

They did try to do that in "In Purgatory's Shadow". Sisko mentions a recent Borg attack that is meant to be a reference to the movie. However, it ended up creating a continuity error as the next DS9 episode had a lower Stardate than that used in First Contact.

 

[Too Much Fun]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

All this talk about how 'space is big, so the Enterprise could have been somewhere else' compels me to ask - how many fleets did Starfleet have? When Sisko was ordered to bring the Defiant to meet with the fleet after being forced to leave DS9 under Dominion command, the big reveal at the end of the episode is a MASSIVE fleet.

The fleet is so huge, it's like they crammed as many starships as they could on screen. So they have that fleet AND others elsewhere? That's the moment when I really think the Enterprise E should be in there (every time I watch the episode), unless of course they have other fleets.

So what's the deal? Was it established that they had more than one fleet that the Enterprise E could be in? And was the Enterprise E the only ship of its class? I know someone said that class of ship wasn't allowed to be shown on screen (again, another pointless embargo), so we saw a bunch of ships that looked exactly like the Enterprise D, but no later models.

 

[Cyke101]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

All this talk about how 'space is big, so the Enterprise could have been somewhere else' compels me to ask - how many fleets did Starfleet have? When Sisko was ordered to bring the Defiant to meet with the fleet after being forced to leave DS9 under Dominion command, the big reveal at the end of the episode is a MASSIVE fleet.

The fleet is so huge, it's like they crammed as many starships as they could on screen. So they have that fleet AND others elsewhere? That's the moment when I really think the Enterprise E should be in there (every time I watch the episode), unless of course they have other fleets.

So what's the deal? Was it established that they had more than one fleet that the Enterprise E could be in? And was the Enterprise E the only ship of its class? I know someone said that class of ship wasn't allowed to be shown on screen (again, another pointless embargo), so we saw a bunch of ships that looked exactly like the Enterprise D, but no later models.

Well, the dialogue in Favor The Bold clearly states that elements of three separate fleets were going to be combined for the big battle -- one of those fleets actually didn't make it in time to join the others, and a fourth, separate fleet was assigned to defend Earth while everyone else was away. So that's four fleets accounted for.

As well, the dialogue states the attacking fleets were the Second, Fifth, and Ninth fleets, so that implies there are at least nine large fleets out there. There could be more, and that also doesn't say if other fleets were, well, wiped out.

Even then, when the two fleets join together for the 600-strong attack, it seems odd that the writers would use the term "elements," which itself implies that the two fleets weren't totally there, and only a portion (albeit perhaps a majority) of a fleet would be allocated to Sisko.

Simply put, Enterprise could have been assigned to those other fleets. She could have been assigned on solo duty, she could have been part a fleet that was left behind, she could have been defending Earth, or she very well could have been at the battle itself (we most definitely did not see all 600 ships in action). But none of that was really the writers' concern either, since it's their show.

 

[Nero's Shadow]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

The enterprise was probably doing covert missions and as we can remember in first contact sent to the romulan border for patrol duty.?

 

[heavylids]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

There are 2/4 novels in the Dominion War series that are based on the TNG crew and their adventures. I haven't read them, but maybe that could shed some light on what the Enterprise crew was doing. Unless if you're one of those people that don't consider the events in novels, comics, etc. to be genuine parts of the Star Trek universe, then I'd suggest reading those.

 

[Cyke101]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

"Let's just say that Starfleet has every confidence in the Enterprise and her crew, they're just not sure about her Captain. They believe that a bourgeois faux-Frenchman who lost two ships and nearly blew up this one a year later should not be put in a situation where he would face explosions again. To do so would introduce an unstable element of midlife crisis and unnecessary swashbuckling into a critical situation where he could beam off-ship and get into a needless fist-fight with some bad guys to make up for lost time."

At least, that's my theory

 

[Thestral]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

Memory Alpha says the Seventh Fleet had 112 ships when it tried to stop the Jem'Hadar in the Tyra System (only 14 survived). Twenty episodes later (less than a year) it was back at half-strength - after taking heavy losses again.

The Tenth Fleet was identified in "In the Pale Moonlight," so it's safe to assume there were at least 10 major fleets of at least 100 ships each.

However, "elements" of the Second, Fifth, and Ninth Fleets were pulled from the front lines to form Sisko's counteroffensive for retaking Deep Space Nine, and that fleet numbered 600 ships (give or take). However, the fleet for Operation Return didn't include the elements of the Ninth Fleet, as they were a day late. Assuming Sisko got 50% of each fleet, that's still 600 ships per fleet for the Second, Fifth, and Ninth (600 for Operation Return with equal contributions from 2nd and 5th = 300 from each, so 600 per Fleet in full). So the Seventh may have been very small in the first place, or perhaps had already taken massive casualties before being nearly wiped out.

The Third Fleet was apparently tasked with protecting Earth in mid-Season 6, and the Sixth was on the "Bolian front" during the Final Chapter. So Enterprise could've been any of those places or someplace else entirely. I don't recall what TrekLit says, but I tend to use it in my personal understanding of the Verse.

 

[Navaros]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

ok i know it destoryed in generations but really what was the enterprise and her crew doing druing the whole season well after it got destoryed. i mean how come the flagship of star fleet was never part of the dominan war.

The Enterprise was doing absolutely nothing useful during the Dominion War, which is why it was never seen or mentioned.

IMO this is because Picard is a bad and unfit war-time Captain, as evidenced for example by the episode in TNG where he complains about using the ship for war training exercises. They wouldn't wanna waste an expensive piece of hardware like that on someone who couldn't handle it in war.

But it still doesn't make sense why they didn't take the Enterprise away from Picard and give it to a war-ready Captain like Sisko instead of letting it collect rust and be useless when it was most needed.

There are 2/4 novels in the Dominion War series that are based on the TNG crew and their adventures.

The novel aren't canon, therefore it is impossible for them to shed any light on this.

 

[Anwar]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

Disregarding the above post in favor of something sane, the Enterprise-E was fighting in the war. We just didn't see it because Paramount didn't want the Sovereign class to be used in the TV shows.

Picard is a fully-trained combat captain who has fought numerous battles in his career, it's just that in TNG he was competent enough not to let things devolve into combat all the time.

 

[Thestral]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

^

 

[Can]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

Read Star Trek Dominion War novels written by John Vornholt and "Battle of Betazed" written by Susan Kearney.

Spoiler: TNG crew during Dominion War

-In 2nd (Behind the Enemy Lines) and 4th (Tunnel Through the Stars) novels written by Vornholdt it is explained Picard and his crew were involved in a mission about stopping a Dominion project to build an artifical wormhole to bring reinforcements from Gamma Quadrant.

-Star Trek TNG novel "Battle of Betazed" (written by Susan Kearney) is about USS Enterprise -E leading a task force to liberate Betazed from Dominion occupation at the end of DS9 Season 6

-In Star Trek Insurrection novelization ( written by J.M. Dillard) there is further mention of USS Enterprise-E and its role in Dominion War.

-Last of all in "Tales of Dominion War" edited by Keith DeCandido . one of the stories is about Picard and USS Enterprise's struggle to stop Breen assault on Earth towards end of Dominion War.

 

[Cyke101]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

Read Star Trek Dominion War novels written by John Vornholt and "Battle of Betazed" written by Susan Kearney.

I don't think you'd have to put spoiler tags if we all know how the Dominion War turned out and that the Enterprise-E lives on through Nemesis.

 

[dannyboylee]

Re: so i have to ask but what was the enterprise doing this whole time

They were hanging out with the Ba'ku, man.