[SPOILER?] to be in the film?

You'll find out in the next issues of the comic. All we know is that April commanded the Enterprise for an indeterminate amount of time in the prime universe when it was launched, around 2245. But the timelines split in 2233, and the way Countdown to Darkness April says "a ship called Enterprise" suggests there was *another* USS Enterprise between the timeline split in 2233 and the one we saw built and launched in the last movie, in 2258.

 

Archer's Enterprise, perhaps? It could still be around when the split occurred.

 

Archer's Enterprise would be 82 years old as of 2233. I don't know offhand the design life of the NX class, but I'd be real surprised if it was over 40 years.

Maybe April's Enterprise was closer to the old Connie we all know and love (not the nuConnie).

On that note, it is ever established that the new Enterprise *is* still Constitution class? Because with the timeline divergence in 2233, that would put the start of the Constitution Class Development Project either just after the Narada attack or already in progress. Either way, it's not a stretch to imagine the Constitutions being rushed into service with more conventional tech while the new Enterprise is designed as the flagship and possibly its own class.

 

It was,but in the ship's dossier in the movie's official site.

 

I don't put much stock in those dossiers. Nero's dossier said something about him having solved Romulus' longstanding energy crisis by locating vast dilithium deposits on Delta Vega, which makes no sense since both the Delta Vega in The Original Series and the one in STXI are Federation outposts (the latter in the Vulcan system!)

 

Wouldn't the time window for a first Enterprise be extremly tight? There cannot be two ships of the same name active at the same time, and I do not believe that they would name a new ship Enterprise right after the first one was lost, destroyed or whaterever happened to it.

 

I don't think they will say there was another Enterprise before the movie one. Maybe April never actually captained any Enterprise.
Maybe he was assigned to captain the movie Enterprise while it was being built but something happened , they threw him out and replaced him with Pike.

 

Since the launch date of 2245 for the TOS Enterprise is pure conjecture from the old Encyclopedia and Chronology books (the novelization of "The Counter-Clock Incident" puts it further back, 40 years prior to TAS), there's Kirk's entire lifetime for an Enterprise to be launched and somehow lost.

The Enterprise-A came along very quickly after the destruction of the original, and the Enterprise-E was launched I think a year after the -D crashed. DS9's Defiant was replaced in even less time. On the other end of the spectrum, there was a huge gap between the retirement of the NX-01 Enterprise and launch of NCC-1701 (going by whichever launch date), and 20 years between the -C and -D.

 

Why not?

Others ships appear in Star Trek: The Motion Picture among a series of illustrations depicting ships named Enterprise.

In comic he looks like an old spaceship captain. Perhaps he was the period of Captain Robau. Nobody knows if that period had some other ship name Enterprise.

 

I don't doubt that there is enough time gap that they could fit another Enterprise for April. It's a possibility. I just don't think they would go for that.
I think the movie Enterprise was intended to be the first one after Archer's.
I may of course be wrong. I'm just throwing another theory out there.

 

If NX-01 was retired in 2161, and in the ST09 universe, Kirk's Enterprise was launched in 2258 instead of 2245 (which is not on-screen canon for TOS, anyway), that leaves a gap of just under 100 years for another starship Enterprise to have existed.

Nothing about Robert April is canon by the on-screen test, anyway. But if you take his Memory Alpha birthdate of 2195, he could've become captain of a starship in the early 2230s. After that, it's conjecture upon conjecture. But if he captained a ship in the 2230s, it could've been a ship called, Enterprise.

There were only thirteen years between the decommissioning of the WWII aircraft carrier Enterprise and the construction of the new one. So if April's Enterprise met its fate in the mid-2240s in the ST09 universe (or was at least thought to), having a new ship named Enterprise just over a decade later isn't a big deal.

Further, having April command a ship called Enterprise, but it's not NCC-1701, would fit in with the slight twists in continuity between the two universes.

It could also be that if any of this does translate to the movie, and Weller is April, then it's possible his Enterprise still exists somehow, and that could be the ship we see crashing into SF Bay. (Let's just say in 2258, having April in his mid-60s would be about right by any timeline. Weller is in his mid-60s. Not that it means anything, just pointing that out.) The flyover and memorial we see in the trailer could be for April, who if he started a villain, somehow redeemed and sacrificed himself in the movie.

 

The old Star Trek: The first adventure/academy script featured an earlier Enterprise that was stolen from a museum. I don't see a problem with their been another Enterprise under a different register since we are on new terms here.
April's Enterprise against Kirk's Enterprise would be a wet dream.

 

Granted, that would be pushing it a bit, but consider that in the Trek novels, the U.S.S. Lovell, a Daedalus-class ship, was in service for over a hundred years. It's at least feasible that the NX-01 could be the ship April is referring to.

 

Why would it wrong for Nero to discover dilithium deposits on Delta Vega? He was a civilian captain commanding a civilian ship.

If we accept what the Encyclopedia has to say on the Carolina, this starship was another example of a Daedalus-class ship in operation in the 2260s. This is more probable with the information from "Conspiracy" (where we have a starship with the registry NCC-42) and the Bozeman in operation in the 2370s.

From reading the comic, I know that Starfleet visited Phaedus in 2253. April's Enterprise could have come from this year, or in a year before this year. The jacket he was wearing was worn by Captain Pike in 2255. So, assuming that this jacket came with the uniform change, this might indicate that April served in Starfleet after 2233. So, the time span would 2233 to 2253.

 

Wasn't it already said that Weller is playing Carol Marcus' Father?

That Nolan North fella in post #27, is IMO, a far likelier candidate to play April.

 

No, that was just fan speculation.

 

Because it would be in Federation territory?

 

There could be a third Delta Vega!

 

The Enterprise was mostly completed when we see her at the dockyards originally but somehow it still takes over 3 years to finish her even from what we see. So as of 2255 she was probably being built for a few years prior to that.

April could have been slated to be her Captain and present for much of the construction as Decker was for the refit 1701. Travel off world, many years for him to get into trouble, Pike takes over as his replacement, is the acting Captain of the vessel when the Vulcan emergency arises weeks before she's due to enter service.

Problem?

 

I can't think of any…but I'm sure someone will find an objection. Just give it a little time.