AWOL Enterprise?

[Timo]

Well, factually no firefights took place where Sisko was stationed between "Sacrifice of Angels" and "What You Leave Behind". So the contribution of the E-E would not have been needed there.

Some fighting did take place under the command of Admiral Ross who was stationed near Sisko's posting. But the only major semi-local campaign we hear of after "SoA" is the quagmire at Chin'toka. If we accept that the E-E could have been plausibly absent from the initial, televised attack there, then it's not as if our heroes would pay attention to that campaign again. It was off Sisko's shoulders after the initial success.

A quadriplegically quiet stretch of "front" should not attract the attention of the Federation Flagship, really. (Let alone the attention of some run-of-the-mill Sovereign like the E-E. )

Timo Saloniemi

 

[misskim86]

I think the Enterprise was doing hit and run attacks deep in Cardassian and Breen space

 

[Sephiroth]

didn't picard say he had like a years worth of due vacation time and he was gonna spend it on the planet from insurrection (interesting idea for a re-cast, with a 21 year old picard)

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Well it seems that during the Dominion war the Enterprise was fresh off the production line as the first (or second) of a new class of advanced starship and was on a long 'shakedown' cruise, its likely starfleet didnt feel this new class of advanced ship should be sent into battle straight away until they knew it was fully functional, in worst case scenario they would probably call the Enterprise back from its shakedown cruise to defend Earth should the Dominion get that far.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Anwar said:

Navaros said:
Thinking the Enterprise was fighting in the Dominion War is just wishful thinking though. There is no evidence that the Enterprise was doing any fighting in the Dominion War. There are ways to make up excuses to try to pretend it was. But really, if it was actually fighting then it wouldn't be something that requires excuses to justify that no one noticed or cared that it was fighting. And if it was fighting then exactly the opposite should be true: it would have been extremly hard not to be hearing of what it's doing constantly as opposed to never hearing any darn thing about it fighting and having to fabricate wild speculations as to what one wishes it might be doing in order to for there even to be an imagined possibility that it was fighting.

On the other hand, all that provides plenty of circumstantial evidence that it wasn't doing jack all during the Dominion War.

Yes Navaros, we all know how much you hate TNG. Now leave your bias at the door and think logically.

DS9 was about DS9 and the staff of DS9, not the crew of the Enterprise. It's going to focus more on the crew of DS9 and tell stories about THEM.

The Ent-E was off fighting in the other parts of the Federation during the war, and it wasn't mentioned because...well, what would the point be if they weren't going to go all the way and make it a true crossover? That's just teasing.

The ENt_E was never seen due to the "Movie Rules": The movies are to have at least one starship exclusive to the movie series and ONLY the movie series. They chose the Refit-Constitution for the TOS movies and the Sovereign for the TNG movies. That's why you never see a Refit-Constitution or a Sovereign outside the Movies.

So please, stop your nonsense over how you think the TNG crew aren't fighting to defend the Federation and just use simple logic.

Anwar, please stop the personal attacks on other posters.

You are welcome to your opinion and he is welcome to his, but referring to his opinion as nonsense and attributing motives to his posts that you have NO IDEA ABOUT since you are not in his head is not cool.

Please knock it off immediately, or you will be in line for a warning for trolling.

Thanks.

 

[Timo]

Consider this from the viewpoint of our 2370s heroes. Sisko had met Picard once; he wasn't impressed. What would the rest of our Starfleet crew think of the man? He was not trusted with defending Earth in ST:FC. He was not summoned to deal with the Dominion before the war (although admittedly he was short a ship at the time, or at least some of the time). And yes, he had lost a Galaxy class ship a short time ago.

Kirk may have been a celebrity at some point of his career (say, immediately after TMP, and certainly during ST4). We never learned that Picard would be a celebrity, though. Whatever his status when earning the command of the Federation Flagship, he probably lost it along with that ship. For all we can tell, Picard just isn't famous (or infamous) enough to warrant special mention or even a name-drop.

Worf is famous; everybody on and off DS9 would know about The Only Klingon In Starfleet. Picard isn't. And Picard's new ship, even though named after a famous vessel, need not be, either.

What did the E-E have going for her, save for the name? She was new, she was big - but Sisko was fighting alongside Galaxy and Nebula class vessels that are bigger and more impressive. She maimed some Borg, but only as part of a fleet of dozens if not hundreds of ships. Yes, 2370s people might remember Picard and Riker for some of their past antics, but by the time of the war they'd be likely to go "Huh? They are still aboard the Enterprise? Didn't she blow up or something?"...

It's easy for the audience to think that the TNG heroes would be big names, easier even than thinking that the DS9 heroes would be. But in Starfleet, weird is part of the job, and the TNG adventures need not be weirder than the norm.

Should a namedrop be made for the audience's sake? Perhaps, but it wouldn't be logical from the viewpoint of the heroes.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

Well, admittedly Sisko was a tad biased against Picard when he first met him...

 

[Jax]

Wasn't it still in the shakedown year ?

I bet it saw some battles.

 

[Timo]

The chronology of the E-E is a bit shaky, but we have the following:

-Has launching stardate 49827 (presumably April of calendar year 2372, between "Rules of Engagement" and "To the Death" in DS9 season four) on the dedication plaque
-One year old and still doing trials/shakedown in ST:FC on stardate 50893 (towards the end of DS9 season five, just before the start of the Dominion War, and presumably the April of calendar year 2373)
-Employed on scientific and diplomatic errands in ST:INS, at unknown stardate, presumably just after the end of the war
-Visiting Romulus and slugging it out with the recent usurper, at stardate 56844 (March of calendar year 2379, well past the end of DS9)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BrotherBenny]

Timo said:
The chronology of the E-E is a bit shaky, but we have the following:

-Has launching stardate 49827 (presumably April of calendar year 2372, between "Rules of Engagement" and "To the Death" in DS9 season four) on the dedication plaque
-One year old and still doing trials/shakedown in ST:FC on stardate 50893 (towards the end of DS9 season five, just before the start of the Dominion War, and presumably the April of calendar year 2373)
-Employed on scientific and diplomatic errands in ST:INS, at unknown stardate, presumably just after the end of the war
-Visiting Romulus and slugging it out with the recent usurper, at stardate 56844 (March of calendar year 2379, well past the end of DS9)

Timo Saloniemi

Emphasis mine.

Timo, It was stated on screen in INS that the Diplomatic Corps were busy with Dominion negotiations, hence the reason the E-E was supposed to go to whichever planet to put out another diplomatic brush fire, so it had to have taken place DURING the war, I think toward the end actually.

And it was mentioned numerous times during TNG's run that Picard is a damn good diplomat so in the absence of any Diplomatic Corps diplomats it makes sense to send someone who is well known for dealing with such issues, especially if he has the most powerful ship in the fleet to back him up if the negotiations fail.

I think it is unfair to say that the E-E was doing nothing during the war. Picard was probably responsible for making sure that a number of planets didn't secede and according to the novels the Enterprise assisted in the liberation of Betazed and the Breen attack on Earth, two major events.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Xeris said:
Timo, It was stated on screen in INS that the Diplomatic Corps were busy with Dominion negotiations, hence the reason the E-E was supposed to go to whichever planet to put out another diplomatic brush fire, so it had to have taken place DURING the war, I think toward the end actually.

Any negotiations going on between the Federation and Dominion must have taken place AFTER the signing of the treaty of surrender and thus AFTER the Dominion War, not during. The only time we see the Dominion willing to negotiate is when they want a certain planet to start producing Ketracel White but the plan is thwarted by the GM gang, they only negotiated because there K-White was dwindling.

 

[Timo]

Indeed. The other factor about ST:INS is that the Federation is buddy-buddy with a gang that manufactures K-White. That wouldn't happen during the war. Or if it did happen, everybody who knew that the Son'a made K-White would be shot, and all data of that erased from Starfleet files, not delivered to the shipboard libraries of random starships.

Then there's the fact that nobody in the movie mentions the war. Or that Worf is free to take this little joyride with his former captain. If the writers wanted the movie to happen during the war (but couldn't explicitly mention it lest they confuse the DS9-illiterate audiences), they failed...

As for the UFP desperately needing allies, I'd expect that to be a greater issue after the war than during it. After all, many a player chose to play neutral (Tholians, Miradorn, originally Romulans) in hopes of protecting their own hides. The Federation should act immediately to grab those undecideds during the brief while when they'd see the wisdom of allying with the victors. NATO and the Warsaw Pact were created only after WWII, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BrotherBenny]

What kind of fallacy are you two operating under?

During a war there are always negotiations to bring an early end to hostilities, that is the whole point of diplomacy.

Besides, the official timeline in Voyages of Imagination places INS toward the end of the war and not afterward. If INS took place after the war, Ambassador Worf would be on Qo'nos with Chancellor Martok.

 

[Anwar]

So INS probably took place between the Battle for Cardassia and when the final treaty was signed, because that's the most logical time for negotiations. And Worf wasn't an Ambassador until after the treaty.

 

[Nebusj]

Xeris said:
During a war there are always negotiations to bring an early end to hostilities, that is the whole point of diplomacy.

Your definition of ``always'' is more generous than mine. For example, I'd note the robust British-German negotiations between 1914 and 1918, or between 1939 and 1945.

Besides, the official timeline in Voyages of Imagination places INS toward the end of the war and not afterward. If INS took place after the war, Ambassador Worf would be on Qo'nos with Chancellor Martok.

Official timelines ain't canon. Insurrection still makes much more sense on all counts if it takes place when the war is done and the postwar is just barely dawning.

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

Picard and company should have showed up in a really rockin' Season Finale/Season Opening two parter.

 

[Anwar]

The DS9 staff wanted to have them on DS9 for a guest spot, but it was expensive to get them all together at that point.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Nebusj said:

Xeris said:
During a war there are always negotiations to bring an early end to hostilities, that is the whole point of diplomacy.

Your definition of ``always'' is more generous than mine. For example, I'd note the robust British-German negotiations between 1914 and 1918, or between 1939 and 1945.

I didn't say the negotiations were successful, and it's possible that whatever negotiations were going on between the Federation Diplomatic Corps and the Dominion were merely to give each side stalling time. Negotiation is fickle.

Besides, the official timeline in Voyages of Imagination places INS toward the end of the war and not afterward. If INS took place after the war, Ambassador Worf would be on Qo'nos with Chancellor Martok.

Official timelines ain't canon. Insurrection still makes much more sense on all counts if it takes place when the war is done and the postwar is just barely dawning.

It may make more sense. Thinking about it, in fact, the Treaty of Bajor was signed at the end of "What You Leave Behind" - so I guess that it's possible that Insurrection actually took place after the war but before the signing. We don't actually know how much time passed.

 

[misskim86]

If they couldn't bring in the whole crew they could have brought in Picard atleast, maybe we would just seen him on a monitor saying he can't help since Enterprise is under heavy fire or something

 

[Timo]

But again, Picard is just one captain in a Starfleet of thousands of ships. He isn't Sisko's friend or anything. He isn't intimately involved in Dominion affairs. He isn't trusted by Starfleet Command, either in ST:FC or presumably after his mutiny in ST:INS.

OTOH, Picard has close ties with the Klingons and a close involvement in Romulan affairs. Perhaps he was mainly operating on those fronts? His Klingon ties might have brought him to DS9 eventually, say, to chat with Gowron on high politics. Now that would have been more interesting than getting a generic combat name-drop...

Timo Saloniemi