First contact AU

[Voth commando1]

Okay so maybe Q is having a little fun screwing around creating an alternate timeline. He manipulates the Enterprise crew into not shielding themselves from the Vulcans who make contact with earth in 2063?

The Vulcans notice a much more powerful ship, hail and see humans? How does that affect history from there?

Just a prompt/idea that flashed into my head in the past week?

 

[uniderth]

Not, to mention all the other earth spacecraft/space stations, whose denizens looked out the window and saw a ginormous space ship out there. They said the used the moon's gravity to hide their warp signature. That's all fine and dandy. But what hid you from the eyes of the thousands of observers on bases scattered all over the moon? Considering in the 1990's we had DY-100 class sleeper ships capable of carrying people to the far reaches of the solar system; there have to have been space stations and bases on the moon by 2063.

As to your scenario, I think the Enterprise crew would try to minimize the damage and not answer the hail. Probably warping off as fast as they could after beaming up their crew. Of they beam the Vulcanians aboard and pull a "Tomorrow is Yesterday" using the sun to slingshot themselves back in time while beaming the Vulcanian crew into themselves and somehow the Enterprise disappears from it's hiding place around the moon. I still don't get how that one was supposed to work.

 

[Kemaiku]

There were none, the impression we're given is that in 2063 everyone was on Earth, or one of the sleeper ships heading who knows where because most of the information was lost.

In Enterprise, the Terra Prime movement is strong on Luna, but all they have is one small mining colony and that was built closer to the 2150's (a few decades before by the looks of it) so no, there were no Moon bases until the early 2100's.

No one was out there or had techology good enough to see the Enterprise except the Vulcan shuttle which presumably left it's larger starship further out in the system.

 

[uniderth]

There were none, the impression we're given is that in 2063 everyone was on Earth, or one of the sleeper ships heading who knows where because most of the information was lost.

[(deleted Enterprise reference)]

No one was out there or had techology good enough to see the Enterprise except the Vulcan shuttle which presumably left it's larger starship further out in the system.

Here's what we know:
DY-100 sleeper ships were used in the 1990's to travel around the solar system. We know this becasue MacGiver' states that this technology was used becasue it took years to travel from one planet to another. This seems to say that there was indeed travel between planets in the 1990's. Additionally, considering how advanced the ship is (capable of hauling nearly 100 people). It is definitely later generation tech. Meaning that space travel in Trek's 1990's was way more advanced than ours. That means more spaceships out there.

In 2018 there was a revolution in propulsion that rendered sleeper ships obsoleted. That also means that space travel is going to be more efficient which again means more people in space.

The oddity is that is still took until the 2030's to get to Mars. You'd think one of the first places we'd go with our DY-100s would have been Mars. Maybe it was and the Ares IV was no where near an early mission.

In 2037 we have the third attempt to explore beyond solar system. To do what? I have no idea. But why would you try to explore beyond the solar system if you haven't explored IN the solar system yet? It seems pretty clear taken as a whole there was extensive space travel by the time 2040 rolled around.

Yes, I'll agree that it was implied that in 2063 everyone was on earth. But it was never stated, and taken in context it seems that implication is contradicted. Having said, that it's never explicitly stated that there were humans out in space in 2060's. For me, based on context of other episodes, and interesting story possibilities, I choose to think there were many human colonies, research stations, mining operations, etc. going on out there in the solar system at this time.

 

[Kemaiku]

The DY-100 was a choice from the 60's, everything after that ramped the level of technology down as there had been 20+ years to see that that wasn't happening as they showed. In TNG season 2 another DY series ship, a 500 is shown, Data's analysis of the information concludes that even the 500 was designed as a cryo ship, generational journeys.

Travel between planets meaning the sleeper ships travelling well below the speed of light taking decades or centuries at least to make it to orbit, and by a miracle, maybe landing alright.

Terra Prime shows that the lunar colonies are relatively new, sometime in the order of decades after first contact and being the newest series taking precedence by showing more of a time period much closer to the launch of these ships, ones like the Conestoga that settled the Nova colony.

So there was nothing manned on the Moon in 2063, or everyone on it perished because of the war leaving them no food. Even Earths own technology was minimal, and with the Western Alliance/Eastern Coalition having such terrible governments into 2079 at least, no one was going to notice or believe stories from the other.

The small Vulcan ship had the only functional sensors necessary, and they were too focused on directing their scans at the planets surface looking for signs of habitation/power/landing sites. And we know from TOS and Enterprise, Vulcan's only scan what they feel like, and can be surprisingly blind to everything else.

 

[Voth commando1]

Okay new stipulation Q strands them in 2063? Without revealing himself and playing his usual games? What happens to the Enterprise crew then?

 

[Voth commando1]

Will someone respond please.

 

[Tenacity]

With a Enterprise free of Borg, but unable to return to the 24th century, I think they would leave the solar system and travel somewhere to live without impacting history.

 

[Voth commando1]

With a Enterprise free of Borg, but unable to return to the 24th century, I think they would leave the solar system and travel somewhere to live without impacting history.

Where exactly would they go? How would they avoid detection. Remember the Enterprise D has like a thousand people on it. Where would they find a colony? Also how would they avoid detection? Indefinitely or at least till their descendants reach alt 24th century.

 

[uniderth]

Where exactly would they go? How would they avoid detection. Remember the Enterprise D has like a thousand people on it. Where would they find a colony? Also how would they avoid detection? Indefinitely or at least till their descendants reach alt 24th century.

Find a habitable planet and pull a Baku so that future generations don't know about their advanced technology.

I like your original premise that the Vulcanians detect and observe the Ent E. Would the best choice be to run, hide, and minimize the timeline damage; or would they try and somehow repair the damage by erasing the Vulcanian's memories or something. In either case first contact with Zephram Cochrane is probably not going to happen.