And, I'd say that a raid on the people of Earth could still be a raid on an early Earth colony world.
Coming July 2013: STAR TREK ENTERPRISE — RISE OF THE FEDERATION
- Thread starter Christopher
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And, I'd say that a raid on the people of Earth could still be a raid on an early Earth colony world.
IIRC, there were two "Man/M'dok wars" - one before and one after the founding of the Federation. Sadly, even the cut-down pseudo-Kzinti don't fit into ENT's version of the 22nd century.
Can you tell me where you are getting this? According to Picard in the Captain's Honor, there was one war in the past and he feared starting a second.
Christopher, by the way, why are you creating a new uniform, or even a single Starfleet, directly after the Federation's founding? Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the Mirror Universe and to a lesser extent the story 'A Less Perfect Union' actually show that the TOS-era Starfleet was a successor to/extention of the Earth Starfleet (although it could be the Chicken and the Egg scenario).
If you have already thought out an answer and will use it in the book then I will let myself be surprised.
Well, maybe it was easier for the Andorians, Tellarites and Vulcans to adopt the visual style of the Earth newcomers instead of those of their former longstanding enemies. No historical taint, so to say.
Obviously Earth Starfleet is one of its primary antecedents, but it doesn't make sense that it would be the only one. It's not like the other members' space fleets/services would've just evaporated. As I said in my initial post, they may have made greater contributions to the Federation Starfleet than is superficially apparent.
The Mirror Universe's 23rd-century ships presumably looked the way they did because they were copying the Defiant's technology. As for the ALPU timeline, we couldn't actually see the ships, so there could've been differences in the tech that weren't evident on the page.
Besides, why not make a change? This is the start of a new era in Trek history. I'm not just doing more ENT, I'm showing the beginnings of the institutions we got to know in TOS and beyond. This is called Rise of the Federation, after all. The new uniforms are symbolic of a new beginning, both in-story and metatextually.
Not to mention that changing uniforms is kind of a Starfleet tradition. Kirk's crew went through four different uniform designs in 20 years -- pilot, TOS, TMP, and TWOK. Picard's crew has been through almost as many in a comparable span of time -- TNG seasons 1-2, the slight variant design from seasons 3-7, the DS9 fatigues used in GEN, and the FC-style uniforms. Archer and crew wore the same basic uniforms for a decade -- I say they're due for a change.
As for the timing, the Starfleet Academy seal introduced in TNG specifies a founding date of 2161, so I'm kind of locked in there. But that doesn't mean there isn't a process of transition and evolution to be explored.
They were doing their job. The two big existential challenges faced by Earth in that decade came from the Xindi and the Romulans, two species that were not only unknown to the humans but were also mostly unknown to the galactic neighbourhood. (The Vulcans kept knowledge of the Romulans very limited within their own civilization.) They can't be blamed for not knowing that two unknown out-of-area civilizations had it in for Earth.
(It's also not evident that Section 31's meanderings were actually that useful. Wouldn't Trip's original mission have seen him providing support to a Romulan faction that would have been even more anti-Earth than the incumbents?)
Earth was a Vulcan protectorate during this time period. It's implausible that the Vulcans would have let the Kzin, or any aliens, go after their protectorate. Also, given the nature of the Vulcans' technological lead over the galactic neighbourhood at the time, it's implausible to me that the Kzin would have been more than a nuisance.
I think we will (more than with the other novel series) need a full visual guide. Pretty much everything is going to be different. Uniforms, hairstyles, ships, interiors, the works. Sketches of uniforms and character designs are only part of it...pretty much every other Trek period has a TV show or movie as a point of reference.
I'm all for using your imagination, but in a shared universe like this we should all be imagining something consistent !
I'm all for using your imagination, but in a shared universe like this we should all be imagining something consistent !
We have seen two glimpses of possible looks for the ENT cast in the early 2160s: "Twilight" and "These Are the Voyages." Although one was an alternate timeline and the other was an apparently very inaccurate holosimulation.
I agree that Enterprise was good fun plenty of times, and I was actually quite impressed by the ambitious season 3 arc. But I don't know, the only time I really felt those people, sat up straight and had a pang in my heart for what they faced and and what they felt for each other, that was during Twilight. A great hour of television, that one.
^ That's totally OK, and I can even see where you're coming from. It's probably also a question of mood-in-life at the time of viewing, etc. I agree that the script wasn't terribly original for example, but I guess in concert with the actors' performances it just hit me in the right way and moved me.
There's a bunch of other moments like that in Trek, some of which have the added benefit of being also intellectually pretty stimulating. Picard in Chain of Command, Garak interrogating Odo ... powerful stuff.
There's a bunch of other moments like that in Trek, some of which have the added benefit of being also intellectually pretty stimulating. Picard in Chain of Command, Garak interrogating Odo ... powerful stuff.
Uniforms are symbolic. New era, new uniform! And novels don't have to worry about a wardrobe budget!
For whatever it's worth, I've always had a fondness for FASA's idea of a post-Romulan War uniform (from 1986):
I'm probably misremembering.
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