Enterprise WAS a Prequel!!!

[Dukhat]

What does the tone have to do with anything?
What is that world of difference?
The fact remains that humans and Ferengi met and interacted.

The "tone" was that of humor in that the Roswell aliens were our three favorite Ferengi from the future.

The "world of difference" I am referring to is that no human in 1940 was out exploring the galaxy and reporting back to Earth about the aliens they met.

Humans and Ferengi met and interacted in 1947. Then there were several wars, one of which almost caused the destruction of the human race, and most records were lost. Fast-forward to 2150 and "first contact" with the nameless bunch of bald, large-eared aliens (who, I might add, were not the only aliens the NX-01 crew came upon in their travels who weren't named.) So none of these hostile or potentially hostile races were reported to Starfleet Command?

 

[fireproof78]

I remember it well. But, as you say, those are speeches, or really more accurately I'd say, internal monologues. That was one of the issues the 1984 movie faced, how to externalize all this interesting stuff going on in internal life. The voiceovers that they did have were too few, too short for what they were adapting from the book, and didn't work. It wouldn't have worked well for Ent, either.

But the actual events were dictated by force. It's not like Paul was creating some sort of democracy. When the Baron attacked and defeated Leto, Rabban was killed, Paul made successful raids, or the Emperor essentially overthrown when he stuck his neck out too far, that was force deciding the day, not committees.

This is a good point and obviously a struggle that the translation to the screen has hindered the work. I think that Starship Troopers had a similar issue.

That said, while there is action and violence, it is not always the driving force of change. Paul's raids also utilize subterfuge and political maneuvering in moving pieces in to place.

To my larger point is the idea that there has to only be action or only political maneuvering. I think ENT could have explored more of the politics as a mix of the two, and that would have interested me.

You really can have both.

 

[Vandervecken]

This is a good point and obviously a struggle that the translation to the screen has hindered the work. I think that Starship Troopers had a similar issue.

That said, while there is action and violence, it is not always the driving force of change. Paul's raids also utilize subterfuge and political maneuvering in moving pieces in to place.

To my larger point is the idea that there has to only be action or only political maneuvering. I think ENT could have explored more of the politics as a mix of the two, and that would have interested me.

You really can have both.

You know, should have mentioned that I haven't read Dune in over 20 years. I thought I remembered it well and I am pretty sure of the broad strokes, but I may be forgetting some important details to particular plot points.

Apropos of nothing except Frank Herbert: Funny thing is, for years afterwards--decades really--I reread The Dosadi Experiment over aned over, but not Dune. I loved The Dosadi Experiment. I went back and read Whipping Star, but TDE was superior and I felt so to Dune as well.

 

[Vandervecken]

This is a good point and obviously a struggle that the translation to the screen has hindered the work. I think that Starship Troopers had a similar issue.

That said, while there is action and violence, it is not always the driving force of change. Paul's raids also utilize subterfuge and political maneuvering in moving pieces in to place.

To my larger point is the idea that there has to only be action or only political maneuvering. I think ENT could have explored more of the politics as a mix of the two, and that would have interested me.

You really can have both.

You know it's been 20 years since I read Dune, a long time, as you correctly guessed. I may be forgetting important details after all. I don't remember the poltical for Paul on Arrakis other than what he needed to do to be surr of the Fremen. It has been awhile. Alao I have been giving some thought to B5 and that does seem to me to be a marriage of political and military into the plot. I'm not sure how you would keep a ship of exploration at the political center of things, but maybe somehow.

Funny thing--for decades following the period when I was a teenager and was devouring Herbert and Heinlein and Asimov and others, I reread Herbert's The Dosadi Experiment more times than I can count, but Dune I think never. I loved TDE. It nearly seemed to me in that one that Herbert was on the brink of really becoming his fictional people (the people of Chu). It was like he'd obtained a distillate of political nastiness from Dune and poured it into some hotter, refining hopper. It was cruelty on a stick.

 

[LJones41]

I found it annoyingly self important.

That's what I sometimes accuse the TREK franchise of being . . . self important. Especially TNG.

As for ENT . . . Well, the other TREK shows had their flaws, but for me, ENT was an exercise in mediocrity. Except for a handful of episodes.

 

[eyeresist]

Setting aside for the moment that this episode was meant to be half-hearted, there's a world of difference between an alien encounter in the 1940's and and alien encounter in the 2150's.

Insisting there's no way they'd remember a Ferengi encounter from the 1940s, but no way they'd forget an encounter in the 2150s, is just creating facts based on your pre-determined conclusion. The Ferengi "problem" is only a problem if you want it to be.

 

[Dukhat]

Insisting there's no way they'd remember a Ferengi encounter from the 1940s, but no way they'd forget an encounter in the 2150s, is just creating facts based on your pre-determined conclusion.

Sorry, I didn't realize that both instances had to have the exact same turnout.

The Ferengi "problem" is only a problem if you want it to be.

It was never my problem.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Insisting there's no way they'd remember a Ferengi encounter from the 1940s, but no way they'd forget an encounter in the 2150s, is just creating facts based on your pre-determined conclusion. The Ferengi "problem" is only a problem if you want it to be.

I'm sure reports on both are archived in some top secret warehouse where top men review them from time to time.
Archer's report is probably:
Ship boarded by aliens who look like this
:

Their culture seems to be based on an extreme version of capitalism
They refused to give us their name or location of their homeworld.
I sent them packing.
Until other aliens show up who look the same, they're unknown aliens.

 

[fireproof78]

Insisting there's no way they'd remember a Ferengi encounter from the 1940s, but no way they'd forget an encounter in the 2150s, is just creating facts based on your pre-determined conclusion. The Ferengi "problem" is only a problem if you want it to be.

That's curious, given the fact that the Enterprise was sent out specifically to seek out new life and to chart new places. I would think that keeping a record of alien encounters would be a requirement, but that's just me

 

[eyeresist]

That's curious, given the fact that the Enterprise was sent out specifically to seek out new life and to chart new places. I would think that keeping a record of alien encounters would be a requirement, but that's just me

I'm guessing the aliens-who-knocked-us-out-and-tried-to-steal-our-stuff-or-sell-us-into-slavery file at Starfleet is pretty large.

 

[fireproof78]

I'm guessing the aliens-who-knocked-us-out-and-tried-to-steal-our-stuff-or-sell-us-into-slavery file at Starfleet is pretty large.

Short term memory loss. A previously unreported side effect of long term space travel

 

[eyeresist]

The Q keeps wiping their memories!

 

[Dukhat]

That's curious, given the fact that the Enterprise was sent out specifically to seek out new life and to chart new places. I would think that keeping a record of alien encounters would be a requirement, but that's just me

Exactly my point. Comparing an incident like Roswell to what Archer and co. were actively doing is like apples and oranges.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Here's a little scenario that I don't think most of us would find hugely implausible:

Law enforcement recovers some evidence from a crime scene including surveillance footage and a DNA sample of the perpetrator, but are unable to match it to anyone in their database. The perpetrator leaves the jurisdiction before they can identify him and lies low for a while until he thinks the heat is off. Some time later, another crime is committed by the same individual, but he gets away again, and this time no footage or DNA is recovered. There's no way yet of knowing that both crimes were committed by the same person, who remains unidentified, even though there is a record of the previous incident including some very specific personal information about him. Eventually, let's say a decade or two later, by which time the officers who worked the original case have since retired, they pick this guy up for some further offense unrelated to either previous crime, after his name comes up in connection with some still other cases, thus bringing him to their attention. They catch him in the act this time. Now, in theory they could potentially at this point identify him as the perpetrator of the first crime—if they take his DNA and check it against their database or reexamine the surveillance footage from the old case, which it's entirely possible would not be done since it wouldn't be necessary to the case at hand—but not the second. He'd basically have to confess his involvement for all those dots to be connected.

In this rough analogy the first crime is Archer's encounter, the second is the Battle of Maxia (to which Bok did confess Ferengi involvement in "The Battle"), and the final one is "The Last Outpost," with the intervening cases in which the perpetrator's name peripherally came up being the sources of the "rumors" known of the Ferengi prior to that in TNG. (One of these may be "Dear Doctor" but no information was conveyed there besides that they were warp-capable and had visited Valakis, so there would have to be others that would account for Picard's notion that they were in the habit of eating their business associates and the punchline of Geordi's joke at the time of "Encounter At Farpoint.") I didn't think it necessary to include "Little Green Men," as any records of that incident could easily have been lost completely in WWIII, if not before. (I suppose I could have included an earlier arrest in some foreign country whose records would not be available, or something like that.)

 

[VulcanMindBlown]

One of my points is that some of those episodes were necessary to start the Federation and Star Fleet's missions into deep space.

Don't forget the nice communicators and wall panels wink from The Original Series!!!

 

[Tenacity]

Ship boarded by aliens who look like this
:

Through the multiple series we've seen many alien species who look like Humans, one species (who watches the watchers) who are externally resemble the Vulcans, and more than a few of the "foreheads of the week" alien look like each other.

Humans and the Federation could have had multiple encounters with different species that generally resemble the Ferengi. When they finally did met the Ferengi ... meh by that point it probably didn't matter any more.

 

[mattman8907]

STAR TREK BEYOND SPOILERS

Spoiler

I'm looking forward to all of the Enterprise References in Beyond.

.

 

[VulcanMindBlown]

I do say that Season 4 was the best season of Star Trek: Enterprise, maybe even of ALL of Trek, but their were prequel elements in Season 1 + 2, like Zefram Cochrane going missing in space among the other things that I already mentioned. If Enterprise was rebooted, would they be able to incorporate those themes with a Manny Coto-style of writing???

 

[Danlav05]

STAR TREK BEYOND SPOILERS

Spoiler

I'm looking forward to all of the Enterprise References in Beyond.

.

if you don't accept Enterprise as a prequel to TOS it definitely works as one for the Kelvin Timeline!

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

I do say that Season 4 was the best season of Star Trek: Enterprise, maybe even of ALL of Trek, but their were prequel elements in Season 1 + 2, like Zefram Cochrane going missing in space among the other things that I already mentioned. If Enterprise was rebooted, would they be able to incorporate those themes with a Manny Coto-style of writing???

See, while I had as much fun geeking out with it as the next fan while it was happening, I think Season 4 went quite a fair ways overboard with the "prequel elements" at times. It really got ridiculous with the Klingon forehead thing. It was handled well at others, though, too.