Very different I imagine, with different types of characters. The ring ship wouldn't be military, but it would have defences, because you never know when you might need a missile or two. Boaty McBoatface, in space. The mission might be tightly planned and intimately choreographed, much like the probes of today. A meticulous flight plan to visit carefully selected points of interest and rendezvous with homeward bound sister ships and deliver supplies to young colonies and outposts along the way. I haven't quite formulated what a typical episode might look like, beyond the setting, but I know what it isn't. Its not gung ho captain Hornblower stuff. Its not super beings testing humanity. I always remember Roddenberry saying 'Aliens didn't build the pyramids, human beings built the pyramids, because they're clever and they work hard' Or words to that effect. There is a gap in Trek lore, when humans were alone in the bigness of the universe, and they made enough of a mark to stamp their identity on a 150 worlds that became the federation. I'm working out the details on this one, but I think I could pull together a viable detailed series outline that fits existing continuity, offers something unique, and is genuinely compelling. I might even pitch it, if that's even possible these days, do they do that any more? Its fun either way.
Not to be that guy, but your idea is not only at odds with Enterprise then, but with "First Contact" and how those events were described later on Voyager as well - so with the TNG universe, too. But you're right that there has always been this interesting conondrum about why we always saw so many Earth colonies, but rarely every any of any other species. But, even on Enterprise, it was made clear that humans were ones that developed extremely fast warp technologies and powerfull weapons, and depsite being the "greenhorns" were actually one of the more powerfull species, right after Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans and Andorians. My personal explanation was always the fall-out of the Earth-Romulus war, where humanity took over to be the technological apex-creature, like the USA went from a state the size and might of Spain to the world's biggest superpower during and after two world wars. Combined with the humans being the ones that brought most of the major powers together to form the Federation, and as such had probably the most political influence, and were the ones to benefit most from the technological exchange with Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites and co.
Not really. Here's all the relevant dialogue: No body ever says that the Vulcanians had warp technology at this time. All it ever is, is an alien ship detecting the Phoenix's warp signature and changing course to make contact with earth. Certainly, it was probably intended by the writers that the Vulcanians had warp technology, but I was never stated as such. Potentially the biggest issue would be Quark's line in "Little Green Men": But considering how problematic this line is anyway. Unless 1947 really is centuries before Vulcanians develop warp drive. So at least two centuries before Vulcanians have warp that means 200 + 1947 = 2147. They can't have had warp before 2147. Unless he's talking about Ferengi centuries. In which case Vulcanians can't have warp prior to at least two Ferengi centuries after 1947. In any case this line is completely inconsistent rubbish spoken in a strange situation, by aliens, so..... Well, war is a huge motivator for technological development.
I think the relevant part was this one: It establishes Vulcans are crossing our solar system in less than 15 minutes. That means they DO have Faster-Than-Light travel, period. That they are also able to identify warp signatures (from the Phoenix and the Enterprise) makes it clear they know what it is. So whatever it is, it might not be the traditional "Warp" technology but some type of slipstream, ring-warp technology, whatever... the fact remains: Vulcans have had FTL travel. Before humans. There is really no going around that. I thought the intent of that line was that Quark was basically suggesting travelling even further back in time using the Ferengi shuttle, maybe a few hundred years, to give Ferengis an unassailable advante in the competition with other species. Might be wrong though. Haven't seen that episode in a while, so my memories are a bit blurry. However, it clearly establishes that Humans were the last of the major species to develop warp. Also: We know Bajorans already had warp travel centuries earlier (via sailship...*sigh), so it's clear not all species were like humanity and extending to other planets - some simply stayed at their home turf. Indeed! That's why I think that was the main motivator for humanity to become such a strong intergalactic player. I see it this way (though this is clearly just my personal theory): Humans were at war with Romulans, but the other species (Vulcans/Andorians/Tellarites) weren't going all in to protect humans. Instead, we exchanged technology and knowledge with them, and humanity basically built a giant spaceship fleet, using the best technology of all worlds (human Warp and beaming, Andorian weapons, Tellarite...whatever, sensors maybe?), and basically churned ships out on an assembly line to push back the Romulans. After the war - with a treaty in hands - humanity suddenly had one of the largest armada of the galaxy, and not much to do for them. So they sent them out on exploring missions, and discovered new planets and helped colonize other worlds faster than any of the "old" powers could do. Anyway, this is just my headcanon I built up to explain humanities sudden rise to superpower status, and I think it fits well with established canon (but might need adjustment if we ever learn more definite history). Always nice to exchange different theories!
That's assuming they were "passing through" (note the didn't say "crossing") parallel to the orbital plane of the planets. But it's not specirficed that the direction they came. They could have been passing through perpendicular to the orbital plane in which case "passing through" would take significantly less time. Unless you are counting the oort cloud which is spherical in which case they would have to be traveling 100 times greater than warp 9.975. So I think it's safe to say including the Oort cloud it out. Truth be told they probably were "passing through" at some oblique angle. We have the ability to detect gravity waves, but we can't generate them. So for the Vulcanians, perhaps they had some mathematical models of what a "warp drive" would look like. Then when they detected signatures that matched what their theoretical models predicted, they decided earth was of some interest after all. Just went around that. Hmm. To me the line seems to indicate that they were planning on contacting the contemporary 1947 Ferengi. I don't see any indications of further time travel. Well, all it proves is that Quark had a perception that Vulcanians had warp drive first. Which in my narrative is technically true since they did have warp drive, but then lost it centuries ago. So the reputation of Vulcanians having warp drive first is not undeserved. Though Quark clearly got his facts messed up. Sounds like a reasonable explanation to me.
This explanation would be a passable workaround for the "15 minutes through the solar system"-line. But my major grief with it still is: They Vulcans (which are on all other accounts more developed than us "primitive" humans) have only a time window of 15 minutes(!) in which they are in scanning range of the Phoenix' warp jump. Whether the Vulcans scanned the gravity waves, or the EM-emissions from the warp jump, all those travel with lightspeed omnidirectional from Earth orbit. The Vulcan starship has to be faster than lightspeed to be able to escape that expanding event horizon in the first place. Here is what I can give you: It doesn't have to be much faster than lightspeed. Thoroughly possible that Vulcans were only capable of Warp 1 at the time, and on a huuge longterm mission (longer Vulcan lifespan makes longer space missions feasable). It actually really might be, that the huge "warp speed explosion" - more and more species being able for faster and faster travel - actually only came into effect after humans joined the rank of warp-capable species. But the writers' intent seems to be clear: Vulcans (and others) were already warp capable before humans. Before that, they probably had their own little versions of the "prime directive", and thus not only ignored us, but also took further measures that we (and other species!) didn't know about alien life being out there, and were able to develop at our own speed, without being influenced by fear of other aliens or anything (thus also giving a neat explanation for the Fermi paradox - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox). Only Chochranes first warp jump proved we are "ready" for first contact - like the Federation later will also use as a barrier for when to start diplomatic relationships with alien species. Again, fuzzy memory, but: The time jump in that episode was induced by the Ferengi shuttle itself, not some outside disturbence, right? And they used that shuttle itself again to travel back to their time? For me, the line was pretty clear: "We have a shuttle that's a time machine. Let's get back to the time machine, and mess with history to our advantage". Otherwise the "centuries" remark would make no sense. Also, while I always am a big fan of "canon inconsistencies being explained by characters just being plain wrong about stuff" (like Chekhov's various "Russians invented that"-blurts), I think the general order in which species arrived in te interstellar community might be basic enoug that even Quark is right there. Also: Enterprise. In fact, your personal theory about humans being the first FTL-capable species is actually somewhat plausible (although I think it fits better in the Star Wars universe - where it serves as a nice explanation for the total human dominance in that universe). But I think one has to view the entire body of work of a franchise, and ENT pretty explicitly proved the generally accepted narrative of First Contact, with humans as being later than the other major players. But the one thing where you actually made me change my mind is the speeds early Vulcans (and klingons, and Andorians) were capable off. They might have had warp speed already since a very long time (enough at least to develop century long histories of conflicts with each other), but the level of technology - aka the speed they were capable off - those species might actually always not have been that much ahead of us. And that only in the 22nd century all major species suddenly had wide ranging break-throughs in speeds - humans always being only a small step behind the Vulcans, and soon the frontrunners, building their massive Federation. Thank you Final note: I love how you consistently use "Vulcanians". They were called that sometimes during TOS if I remember correctly, right?^^
I can see that. The Enterprise has to conceal their warp signature and they weren't even at warp. So they used the moon's gravity to hide it. But maybe that's the key. Maybe gravity swamps out warp signatures. Maybe there is a small range where the Phoenix's warp signature is strong enough to be obvious as something other than the ambient gravitational fields. This is also interesting becasue I have a theory that warp is slower in stronger gravity environments. In "Tomorrow is Yesterday" When they do their breakaway maneuver they're traveling at warp "off the dial" yet it still takes several minutes for them to get to earth and beam everybody back that needs to be beamed down. It could be that subspace near gravitational fields is like cornstarch and water. That would make sense if viewing all of the franchise as a whole. Yes, I'm pretty sure that was the writers' intentions as well. Which I think was pretty standard fare when First Contact came out, considering they Romulans were able to leave around the time of Surak and then establish their own Empire. Also the Vulcanians had their own atomic war long before humanity. So if I remember right it was just generally assumed that they were ahead of us. Then First Contact came out and carried that assumption into it as well as Enterprise. This seems to be the way they ended up in the past: ROM: The kemacite! If we vent plasma from the warp core into the cargo hold, we may be able to start a cascade reaction in the kemacite. Then we can modulate the reaction to create an inversion wave in the warp field and force the ship back into normal space! If I time it just right, I should be able to get us close enough to Earth to make an emergency landing. Sooooo..... Yes, I agree that my narrative cannot work when viewed in light of all material produced by official sources within the Star Trek Franchise. But I don't accept all of that as canon either. So for me I only have to thread the needle through the four Trek TV series and the ten movies. I think this could be a good workaround to enable both narratives to coexists. Though I haven't verified any of the history as presented in Enterprise, for obvious reasons. Yes it was an early reference. I like using it just to avoid the status quo. But, as I talked about in my previous post, I also think it was humans that gave them the name Vulcans. So humans travel to their planet and say, "Wow, it's hot a Vulcan." Then at some point everyone is calling the planet Vulcanis and the people Vulcanians. Then about Kirk's Era it is just simplified to Vulcan.
You know, this concept could work without being Star Trek. Then canon can be ignored to the heart's content.
Which would IMO be the way to go. Because otherwise, why make it "Star Trek", and not it's completely own, unique thing? BTW looked at your threads, your design work on that stuff is pretty amazing! But how about setting it pre-Enterprise - maybe the 2100's - and use the Kzinti-wars instead of the Romulan war? I think what you came up with is good enough that with just a little bit of tweaking, it can either be a part of all canon Trek (being a prequel to Enterprise), or be able to completely stand on it's own feet without even needing the franchise brand!
In Court Martial, it was mentioned that one of Spock's decorations was the Vulcanian medal of honor (or something like that). Climbing to super power status was helped by those two world wars reducing some of the competition to minor powers.
Yep. I count eight instances of "Vulcanian" in the Star Trek TV Franchise. Three by Spock. One by Kirk. One instance of the name "Vulcanis" in Voyager. Thank you. I appreciate the compliments. For most of my life time the "anything seen on screen" rules was repeated, though technically not true because TAS was not considered canon. Also we have novels, comic books, etc. which carry the name Star Trek but are not considered canon. So for me I don't consider it at all strange to have a block of canon that does not include every work ever made that carries the name. I just don't have to have to deal withe mess that is Enterprise. I just have nerd rage against it. I don't care if other people want to consider my work an alternate universe or whatever, but for me it's the events that occurred in the same universe as ST, TNG, DSN, VOY, and the ten movies. The grouping of which I am dubbing A Canon. With the larger collection of works, including ENT, STD, and the JJ films; being dubbed C (as in CBS/Paramout) Canon. So I'm probably not going to change it. Though, I do have another project that used be a Star Trek prequel, but I changed it to it's own thing.