Instead of the Suliban and the Temporal Cold War...

[Joe Washington]

What if the Romulans were the Big Bad of the show from the beginning and they had a secret campaign to take over the Alpha Quadrant through espionage and manipulation and to make Vulcan the center of the region once they take over and make peace with Vulcan through elements in the government sympathetic to their cause?

 

[GalaxyClass1701]

What if the Romulans were the Big Bad of the show from the beginning and they had a secret campaign to take over the Alpha Quadrant through espionage and manipulation and to make Vulcan the center of the region once they take over and make peace with Vulcan through elements in the government sympathetic to their cause?

Would have been much better! My main beef with ENT was all the new Aliens, when they had all of the other ones to build on!

 

[DarKush]

I agree. I've often thought of something along those lines myself. I would've liked it if maybe the Romulans had been the guys behind the scenes, but the first season would start with the Andorians as the main antagonists instead of the Klingons, and the Romulans using the Orions as proxies instead of the Future Guy/Suliban thing. I've often thought of doing a fanfic to flesh out that idea but I just haven't willed myself to do it yet.

I think that would've been cooler and gave the writers a chance to flesh out exisiting Trek races that might've garnered and kept more Trek fans interested. Because really none of these guys, Andorians, Tholians, Romulans, Orions, Tellarites, have ever really been fleshed out. We know little about Romulan culture despite them being fairly prominent on TOS, TNG, DS9, and ENT. Even the new Star Trek film didn't shed much light on Romulan culture, though the Countdown comic did a little.

I didn't mind the Suliban, Sphere Builders, or the Xindi, I just thought they were largely unncessary. There were plenty of already cool aliens for them to play with.

 

[Red Ranger]

What if the Romulans were the Big Bad of the show from the beginning and they had a secret campaign to take over the Alpha Quadrant through espionage and manipulation and to make Vulcan the center of the region once they take over and make peace with Vulcan through elements in the government sympathetic to their cause?

Would have been much better! My main beef with ENT was all the new Aliens, when they had all of the other ones to build on!

The one thing ENT got right was filling in the backstory of the Andorians. Had they done more of that with the Romulans, it would've been good. But the big problem would've been that darn canon -- Romulans never seen till TOS's Balance of Terror. Perhaps making the Andorians the main adversary would've been a good way to go, showing how former enemies wind up becoming one of the cornerstones of the Federation. -- RR

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Romulans would have been great - but I'd like to have seen Archer and Co. essentially create the Romulan threat - when Enterprise first aired, there was one line of dialogue from an otherwise mediocre film that stirred my interest in seeing the Romulans -

"Warp drive turned the Romulans from a bunch of thugs into a galactic empire."

It would have been neat for them to go "Well, the Orions(/Kzinti/Insert alien threat here) are a real huge pain in our ass, but we've found these proto-Vulcan dudes with industrial capacity and if we give them warp drive, they'll help us."

Now, the visual contact thing does throw a wrench in it - but in that kind of scenario, I'd imagine it would be such a massive upf**k that Starfleet would seal the records and tell the crew of the NX-01 to keep their pie holes shut.

 

[StarshipDefiant]

Just don't have visual contact, is all, or maybe show the Remans being used as some sort of proxy, to help explain everyone's stunned reaction in TOS, the Romulans, what they thought were Romulans, were not Romulans after all. Or something along those lines.

The temporal cold war was an interesting idea, but not thought out at all, nor is it taken into consideration that with all the things he can do, Daniels needs people from the 22nd century to fight his battles for him. This to me, was what made it kind of odd, that and it was suddenly dropped. A build up to the Romulan war would have been fun, but some probably would have called it a rehash of DS9, plus B&B seemed opposed to the war part of DS9,

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

I probably wouldn't have focused on the RW stuff - I'd have it going on the background while Archer and Co are dealing with the Andorians, Tellarites, Vulcans, etc. - with the ending of the series being an allusion to the future founding of the Federation. Or showing the founding itself.

 

[Anwar]

I would've had the "Romulans never seen" thing be partially a coverup by the Vulcans, with most others who see them just getting killed off before they can report it to others.

Or maybe the Romulans just use the Remans and others as their envoys. Maybe they use "renegade Vulcans" as their envoys with no one realizing the truth.

I'd also set the show a lot earlier than the 2150s, maybe the 2120s or something. That way we can just not do the whole Romulan War thing and focus on other fleshing outof the pre-Federation Trekverse.

The Romulans would be a major force though, an Empire of mysterious shady conquerors who never allow others to see them face-to-face. The resident big bully of space.

 

[Trekwatcher]

Even a big fan of ENT such as myself felt that the Suliban were underdeveloped, underused, and could have easily been replaced with a different alien adversary race. The Romulans would have been a good choice. The only problem, which you can see in The Romulan War novel, is that never having face to face meetings becomes cumbersome in a hurry and you have to explain over and over again why it never happened. This is a response to one line by Spock in BoT, and I just wonder if there was a better way around it.

 

[Traveller]

Seeing how they were ignoring canon anyway, I doubt they would have had second thoughts about ignoring that one line in BoT - and in the interest of a damn good story, I'd have forgiven them in a heartbeat.

 

[Brikar99]

I'd totally have gone for Romulans over all the time-travel stuff.

 

[Praetor]

Romulans would have been great - but I'd like to have seen Archer and Co. essentially create the Romulan threat - when Enterprise first aired, there was one line of dialogue from an otherwise mediocre film that stirred my interest in seeing the Romulans -

"Warp drive turned the Romulans from a bunch of thugs into a galactic empire."

It would have been neat for them to go "Well, the Orions(/Kzinti/Insert alien threat here) are a real huge pain in our ass, but we've found these proto-Vulcan dudes with industrial capacity and if we give them warp drive, they'll help us."

Now, the visual contact thing does throw a wrench in it - but in that kind of scenario, I'd imagine it would be such a massive upf**k that Starfleet would seal the records and tell the crew of the NX-01 to keep their pie holes shut.

As usual, I'm on the same wavelength with you here, Jitty. That line from "Insurrection" has always been a compelling one for me.

Failing having humans equip the Romulans with warp (which is still a good idea IMO), have Earth butt heads with various neighbors, some of whom aren't so friendly as the Vulcans or Andorians, who end up cozying up with these Romulans instead of being chummy with the hew-mons - Orions and the like. Essentially, Earth's well-intentioned blundering ends up making enemies of the more belligerent races they find, who end up getting into bed with the resource-hungry Romulans to form an intergalactic anti-human lynch-mob.

I can see a variation of the Season Three premiere with a Romulan weapon misfiring and failing to destroy Earth, sending Starfleet on a blind chase into Romulan space to find an enemy they haven't even seen face to face yet... Similar to what actually happened with the Xindi, the crap Earth goes through here begins solidifying their alliances with the Vulcans, Andorians, and other future Federation races. Let the series end with the creation of the Coalition prior to the Romulan war.

 

[Anwar]

I still think ENT should've been earlier in the timeline and avoided the "Birth of the Federation" thing entirely.

 

[DarKush]

The issue of the Romulans identity not being known is a sticky issue, but as already been pointed out by other posters, you can not have the Romulans use visual communication, use the Remans or others as proxies, and use automated drone ships. You could also perhaps have the Romulans were suits similar to the Chigs in Space Above and Beyond that disintegrate their bodies. Also, I think they should just let some people find out, but keep the information secret. Like in the ENT relaunch novels.

As for showing the Romulan War, I don't care if some people complain if its similar to DS9, I would love to see it. Besides, its two different wars, and could be described differently. Though I think TPTB could've played around with the timeframe or something, just do a DVD movie on the war and start the next season after the DVD movie or something.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Birth of the Federation. There's no way they'd come up with a premise better than that, so why not just go for the obvious route? It's what we wanted to see, me at least!

On the very likely assumption that the Earth-Romulan war, just before the founding of the Federation, was a major impetus in that founding (the timing can't be coincidental), then the Romulans could play a major role.

And they don't ever have to be seen if canon demands they are not. There are ways around that - Romulan characters only seen by the audience but not by Starfleet characters. Some Starfleet characters learn the truth but keep their mouths shut for the good of the Earth-Vulcan alliance, or are conveniently killed before they can blab. Characters who interact with Romulans but don't recognize them for what they are (Rommie spies among Vulcans for instance).

Maybe Starfleet would have all sorts of crazy rumors about what the Rommies really look like - gigantic slithering heaps of protoplasm with gaping jaws and a thousand tenatcles growing out of their heads. That would be hysterical.

If we assume a seven season run, you could have 2-3 years building up to the outbreak of war; 2-3 years of war; and a couple seasons on the aftermath. Wouldn't that have been fun.

 

[Anwar]

Birth of the Federation. There's no way they'd come up with a premise better than that, so why not just go for the obvious route? It's what we wanted to see, me at least!

It would just be slammed as a B5 knock-off.

Better to just set the show earlier in the timeline and explore the pre-Fed universe, or set the show right AFTER the Federation founded and what the universe was like after it. But not the actual founding.

 

[DarKush]

Even though I don't have a problem with basing a show right after the founding of the Federation, there is a lot of material there. However, I don't see how a birth of the Federation show will be a rip-off of Babylon 5. I don't think the Interstellar Alliance was necessarily the end goal for that show. Plus, how many people even know about the IA compared to the Federation? It could be two totally different journeys.

 

[GalaxyClass1701]

Romulans would have been great - but I'd like to have seen Archer and Co. essentially create the Romulan threat - when Enterprise first aired, there was one line of dialogue from an otherwise mediocre film that stirred my interest in seeing the Romulans -

"Warp drive turned the Romulans from a bunch of thugs into a galactic empire."

It would have been neat for them to go "Well, the Orions(/Kzinti/Insert alien threat here) are a real huge pain in our ass, but we've found these proto-Vulcan dudes with industrial capacity and if we give them warp drive, they'll help us."

Now, the visual contact thing does throw a wrench in it - but in that kind of scenario, I'd imagine it would be such a massive upf**k that Starfleet would seal the records and tell the crew of the NX-01 to keep their pie holes shut.

This would have been great!

 

[Anwar]

Even though I don't have a problem with basing a show right after the founding of the Federation, there is a lot of material there. However, I don't see how a birth of the Federation show will be a rip-off of Babylon 5. I don't think the Interstellar Alliance was necessarily the end goal for that show. Plus, how many people even know about the IA compared to the Federation? It could be two totally different journeys.

A bunch of alien races who don't get along or trust one another, some actively hostile or formerly at war (or even actively at war).

Humans as the newcomers to the galactic scene.

Of the existing races, one of them is older, less emotional, and has ties to humanity and the main antagonists of the series.

The main enemy is a shady race that specializes in background manipulations, and then outright warfare when that fails, and has connections to the elder race of the protagonists.

In the end of this war, the formerly distrustful races put aside their differences to form a new Galactic Union to enforce peace and cooperation.

Tell me, how is that NOT Babylon 5?

Best to avoid that whole mess and just focus on the time before, or the time after.

And it doesn't help matters that whatever TOS said about the Pre-Fed period no longer makes any sense (Atomic weapons?).

 

[DarKush]

It's not B5 because its Trek.

The Romulans are not some god-like race of ancients, and they were established long before B5, not only on TOS but their more manipulative versions on TNG. Just like the Vulcans, etc. were more established. And the idea of the Federation being founded from alien species, and the conjecture of an Earth-Romulan War that preceded the founding of the Federation all came out before B5. And the idea of an interstellar government, composed of diverse elements/planets/species is one of the oldest in sci-fi. I don't see how anyone can necessarily see or think B5 when watching the run up to the Earth-Romulan War, or necessarily care enough to turn off the TV. As much as I love B5, I think you are exaggerating its importance. Its a faded franchise that stalled out. As much as I would like a revival, I don't think there is this intense following that would be mortified if the Earth-Romulan war preceded as you described.

And there are ways you can further differentiate in terms of characters, the various engagements of the war itself, and the conclusion of the war. I don't think Archer shouting at the Romulans would stop their war aims, like Sheridan and the Shadows.

VOY was similar, on the surface at least, with Lost in Space, but I didn't see any vocal LoS contigent shouting down the show or conspiring to cancel it. Nor did the B5/DS9 comparisons stop DS9's run.