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

[Anwar]

Nah, VOY was compared to Gilligan's Island which predated LoS.

When sci-fi fans think of the story of how an interstellar union is formed, they'll think of B5. Even if Trek's backstory existed first, B5 was the first one to actually show it on screen and explore it. Thus it's the standard ENT would be compared to, meaning the show would always be in B5's shadow (no pun) and constantly assailed due to it.

The Romulans and Vulcans existed first, but the roles they played in the Fed Formation are close enough (shadowy evil bad guys, haughty advanced elder race) that there'd just be complaints over B5 comparisons because B5 showed it to us first.

And we already know how the War ends anyways (humiliating defeat for the Romulans, treaty negotiated over radio, etc) so there's no drama or surprise there. And having the whole cast die by the end is just a cheap generic "twist" you'd expect from today's media.

Plus, the fact that no one like Captain Archer was ever mentioned before in the other shows is another strike against it. If there WERE any important explorers before Kirk they'd have been mentioned in some passing but they never were.

As for DS9 and B5, it's the DS9 double standard at work again.

 

[DarKush]

Anwar I think you're making a lot of assumptions here. You're assuming that all or most sci-fi fans know about B5, or know enough about it to make a comparison. I can't make that assumption. I wouldn't automatically think it was B5 since I knew that TOS predated B5, and the events leading to the TOS universe predated B5. I also don't think a comparison between the two equates to a death sentence. So what if ENT straight up copied B5? I don't think that would've spelled the end of the show.

As for knowing the outcome, there are plenty movies about past wars. How many movies have there been about WW2? It's not about the outcome all the time, its about the individual stories of the characters, etc. Plus, we don't know how the war started, about the individual battles of the war, and exactly how the war ended. There's a lot of material there to explore. Personally I would to see this part of Trek history and it would be great to have the Romulans finally be the big bad for once.

 

[Anwar]

Well, seeing how the fandom was already out to boycott the show before it ever began and had given up hope to begin with I don't think it's a mere assumption to think the B5 comparisons would hurt the show and open it up to constant criticisms.

I've said it before, WWII movies are different as they are about a real life event people still care about deeply or have personal connections to, as compared to a sci-fi show.

Characters, I've already said it but the mere existence of important people in the pre-Fed era would be seen as a continuity error/canon violation since TOS+ never mentioned any important people beforehand. If they're important, then they'd be mentioned before in other shows. If they aren't important, then they aren't worth writing about since no one would want to watch a show about a bunch of nobodies who played no real role in any events.

The actual battles wouldn't be worth it either, since what we DO know about the War is that it would be crappy to watch if we stayed true to what Spock said ("atomic" weapons, the two sides never met, just a bunch of bricks shooting torpedoes at each other).

The war ended in a humiliating Romulan defeat, that's what is said. There, the big war surprise is over.

The Romulans wouldn't even be interesting as the Big Bag since they would never be seen and hardly communicated with the whole time.

It's just not worth it, unless we de-canonize Balance of Terror which in turn bring the Hatedom down upon us.

 

[F. King Daniel]

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?

I think that was the plan - maybe Future Guy was a Romulan, who gave them and the Suliban (who would have been the 'face' we say of the faceless Romulans, and their henchmen) cloaking devices. Thus a Romulan war, but rewritten with interference from the future.

I don't think that story arc ever fulfilled it's potential

 

[RegFan]

I like that idea better than the Temporal Cold War. They didn't need to create any new aliens. There were just already so many underutilized ones. And the Romulans are really interesting.

 

[RandyS]

The Temporal Cold War was not a bad idea, just badly executed. It should have been future Romulans attempting to destroy the Federation by manipulating events in the generation that created the Federation, but their interference ended up being what caused the Romulan War, and by extension the creation of the Federation.

The whole thing could have been one big predestination paradox. I would have liked that better than those moronic Xindi.

 

[DarKush]

Anwar,

I don't think WW2 is different in the context of our discussion, despite it being a real war. You've expressed concern about fandom boycotting the show. If these fans didn't care about the show, didn't care about Trek history, whether it was fictional or not, then why would they bother?

I disagree with your reasoning about important pre-Federation people. Just because some event or person wasn't named on TOS doesn't mean there were no important people or events that happened pre-Fed. Obviously the birth of the Federation was an important event. Remember, TOS was only on for three seasons, so how could they mention all the important people or events that occurred pre-Federation? Why would they even want or need to? I can only think of TOS referring to President Lincoln. Does that mean the other US Presidents didn't exist or weren't important?

For example, did the SW OT mention all the important people and events in the PT? Of course not, but does it make the events that happened any less 'real' or consequential in the SW universe? Or does every cop show mention all the great strides in policing or great cops while they are solving various cases? Does that invalidate that history? Of course not.

I also think you're overrating the power of fandom. Fandom couldn't keep ENT on the air, and to my knowledge their was no widespread pre-ENT movement to get the show cancelled. Now, there was quite a bit of grumbling once the show premiered, and I had my own issues with the show's take on canon and continuity. But I'm of the opinion that if its good, I can deal with a little tweaking of canon. But if its not good, then don't screw with canon.

It's not always about the destination. The journey would've been compelling to see. I do think Balance of Terror would provide a lot of challenges to presenting the Romulan War, but that's where creativity and imagination can come in. I wouldn't mind some tweaking of the depiction of the war if it served the interest of the show. There are a lot of people who might've watched ENT who were not familiar with Balance of Terror anyway. Plus, I think the writers were already on to something with introducing the Remans and the drone ships. They could've been used to fight the war without the Romulans having to really show their faces. On BSG, they used nuclear weapons and even bullets and that didn't cause too many ripples. Why couldn't ENT stick with atomics?

Liked RandyS's idea about Romulan FG. I was thinking of something similar, if you had to go the TWC route. I would've preferred that they just played it straight. Give me interesting characters, cool ships and battles, and that would interest me enough despite knowing the overall final outcome. We still wouldn't know what would happen to the crew or their families, so there's potential for a lot of good drama and storytelling there.

 

[Praetor]

The Temporal Cold War was not a bad idea, just badly executed. It should have been future Romulans attempting to destroy the Federation by manipulating events in the generation that created the Federation, but their interference ended up being what caused the Romulan War, and by extension the creation of the Federation.

The whole thing could have been one big predestination paradox. I would have liked that better than those moronic Xindi.

If there was to be a TCW, then this is how it needed to be done.

I can understand that TPTB thought that adding a temporal element might undermine the feeling that we are sure how this is all going to turn out, but, really, there's no reason to just pull it all out of a new hat.

I'd also like to reiterate that time and again TPTB have admitted they had no plan for the TCW. It was just fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants.

 

[Anwar]

You've expressed concern about fandom boycotting the show. If these fans didn't care about the show, didn't care about Trek history, whether it was fictional or not, then why would they bother?

I'm saying that they never had any faith in anyone to do a proper prequel to Trek in the first place, they cared to the point that they'd never accept what was given to them in ENT regardless of quality.

For example, did the SW OT mention all the important people and events in the PT? Of course not, but does it make the events that happened any less 'real' or consequential in the SW universe?

With SW, they mentioned the Clone Wars in one sentence, and had the built-in excuse of the Empire's rise and the Jedi's fall. That's the perfect excuse for all the important events and peoples to be dead or glossed over either due to the Empire winning and probably alteration of historical records and public knowledge. Trek had the good guys win, so there's no excuse for not mentioning historical figures, especially one as important as Archer turned out to be.

I also think you're overrating the power of fandom. Fandom couldn't keep ENT on the air, and to my knowledge their was no widespread pre-ENT movement to get the show cancelled.

There were talks of boycotting the show as soon as they heard about it, that it was on UPN, and the B&B would be involved.

Now, there was quite a bit of grumbling once the show premiered

Because it existed.

It's not always about the destination. The journey would've been compelling to see.

Not when there are only two ways for it to go:

1) The characters survive, and thus the fans are angry they introduced these important people no one heard about before.

2) Everyone dies, which is a stock cliche for "darker and grittier" works these days.

I do think Balance of Terror would provide a lot of challenges to presenting the Romulan War, but that's where creativity and imagination can come in. Plus, I think the writers were already on to something with introducing the Remans and the drone ships. They could've been used to fight the war without the Romulans having to really show their faces

It wouldn't explain why no one ever saw any romulans during land battles on planets, how they couldn't have visual communications when we have them TODAY, why they used "atomic" weapons (not nuclear weapons) when we have more advanced stuff today, why it's called the "Earth-Romulan War" when it was supposed to involved all the other Fed founders as well, or if it DID just involve the humans and Romulans where were the other aliens?

And no, they can't use the Remans as soldiers for the Romulans in land battles because then they'd just say "TOS never said the Remans were in the war!"

On BSG, they used nuclear weapons and even bullets and that didn't cause too many ripples. Why couldn't ENT stick with atomics?

Atomics are not nuclear weapons, atomic weapons are less advanced than nuclear weapons. Plus BSG isn't Trek and doesn't have Trek's history so its' free to do what it wants. Also BSG has fighters for the high velocity battles to keep people interested and stuff while Trek never had fighters.

 

[Broccoli]

Enterprise was fine as is. Any perceived canon violations were no bigger than violations made in any of the other series (TOS included). Most of the stuff people seem to complain about violates fan-assumed theories more than anything else.

 

[DarKush]

Anwar,

Just because it was never said in TOS doesn't mean it didn't exist. How many TOS episodes dealt with the founding of the Federation? I can't recall any that really did. Most of the stuff that did was conjectural until later shows. So if TOS never had an episode (s) dealing with the founding, why would they need to talk about the important figures pre-Federation? It seemed like the TOS writers kept a lot of that stuff vague which allowed them more creative flexibility.

I don't think you have to refer to every great person or event that came before. How many people discuss who the important figures were for the War of 1812, Seminole War(s), various Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I, when discussing the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan? Does it make those historical characters and their actions any less real? Or important? How many TV shows do that? Even B5 didn't do that. There were mentions here or there, just like with Trek, but not every event or figure was mentioned. I'm sure there were probably heroes during B5's Dilgar War for example, but the storyline didn't need to mention them. Just like TOS's BoT didn't need to go into the weeds about the Earth-Romulan War. All they needed to do was set up the basic parameters of what happened. They didn't even give a start date, so does that mean the war didn't happen?

I do fault the ENT writers for making Archer such a linchpin, but only because his character was often the victim of telling rather than showing. I don't think Archer often lived up to B & B's hype.

With the atomic weapons, I'm sure there is some technobabble way they can get around that. I don't think its that big a deal. Also, the Remans or other proxy soldiers could fight the ground engagements. Just like the Founder (s) had the Jem'Hadar be the main foot soldiers during the Dominion War. Just because the Romulans had visual communication technology doesn't mean they had to use it. It could've been a case of using something like the virtual head displays like the Dominion had, or just using audio communication. It could be a way to keep the Romulans even more mysterious.

About the outcome of the characters, you're assuming fans would be mad that they survived. Some might, but others might not, if they had come to bond with the characters over the years. Also, not all the characters had to die either. I don't think it has to be so stark a choice.

Fans decried ENT, but many of them stuck around, and some of these same people rallied ot keep the show on the air. If its good stuff, canon can be tweaked.

 

[Broccoli]

^ TOS had shoddy continuity at best, especially during the early episodes which many fans claim to be the series's best. The show was never designed to have a tightly woven backstory. It was an "adventure of the week" type show with few references to past tales. That does not mean they didn't try to keep things straight, but it wasn't as big a deal if the writers changed some background detail for the sake of the story. The concept of Trek Canon didn't come until much later.

 

[Anwar]

As for the Romulans, the core characteristic was that no one knew anything about them, like with the Chigs in Space: Above and Beyond. But we already know their big secret, meaning using them is now pointless in ENT as anything other than a generic antagonist.

Contrast Star Wars, which told us NOTHING about the Clone Wars, who they were fought against, how they were fought, anything. Gave the audience just enough to think about it, but NOTHING else.

Also, Spock said how the ships were less advanced as well. Seeing how un-maneuverable the TOS ENT was, this would mean that ENT era ships would be even LESS maneuverable meaning crappy space battles. You can say "BSG" as much as you want, but even THOSE ships were more maneuverable than what we saw in TOS.

Special Effects tech has advanced so much since the 60s, that there's be no way to make them look less advanced than what we saw meaning every second of FX moment we saw would be a "canon violation". Wars had the excuse of their prequels being only 30 years in the past so similarities in FX or superiority of FX aren't such a problem.

The whole thing is just a mess.

 

[DarKush]

There are obviously going to be challenges when you do a prequel of a 40-year-old show, so I don't mind if the ENT producers took what Spock said with a grain of salt. There was grumbling throughout ENT that the NX-01 and other stuff was too advanced, but I didn't care about that because the show had to appeal to modern aesthetics. True, Spock did supply more information about the Romulan War than Obi-Wan, etc. did about the Clone War, but Spock didn't a ton of information. Once again, I think there are ways they be true to spirit of Spock's descriptions while making a visually interesting war.

I do disagree that they couldn't make the ship's look less advanced though. It's all a matter of design.

As for the Romulans, the audience knows who they are, but the characters don't. Like some movies where the audience knows the killer, but the audience doesn't. If its done right, the audience is invested enough in the characters so they will care when or if the murderer is revealed to the characters. And just like how ENT did with the Babel and Vulcan Reformation, they can show the audience Romulan characters but just don't have the Starfleet characters see them. There are ways to get around it.

 

[Anwar]

But the mystery serves no purpose when it's not a real mystery to everyone involved, including the audience. What's the point of playing up the mystery of the Romulans, when for the audience there is none? It's not like the Dominion and the Founders where we got surprised at the same time the characters did.

 

[Praetor]

I don't think playing up the identity mystery is exactly the way it could work - moreso, drawing the audience into the protagonists' desire to solve the mystery. If that could be done then it could work. I mean, if the audience likes the hero, they're going to want him to win. The trick is just making the situation interesting enough for that hero-affection to be all you need.

 

[Anwar]

Which is why I think the show should be set before the war, or right after the war, but not DURING the war. The Romulan War isn't interesting enough to base a series on, since most of its punch was taken away by the other series.

 

[The Castellan]

I don't think playing up the identity mystery is exactly the way it could work - moreso, drawing the audience into the protagonists' desire to solve the mystery. If that could be done then it could work. I mean, if the audience likes the hero, they're going to want him to win. The trick is just making the situation interesting enough for that hero-affection to be all you need.

Worked for Genesis of the Daleks. We all knew the Daleks would survive at the end, since no way would the top monsters be scragged.

Though the Daleks suffered throughout the remainder of the classic Doctor Who years.

 

[caisson2delta]

I hate to disrupt the debate, but there were certain ideas that i think the producers and writers missed out on. I didn't care much for the temporal cold war story. Frankly, I thought it was a waste of a season. I liked the season long premise of an ongoing story arc, but it should've been something else. I think certain aspects of the Romulan War might have been cool but just a handful of episodes.

I think it would've been very interesting to see how the various technologies came to be and how they were developed. Were all these wonders human inventions or items that they acquired and re engineered? More backstory and episodes about the space boomers would've been quite novel as well. I also think more development and stories based on the fleet could've proved equally as good.

I really like a lot of the ideas I've read so far and totally agree that there were plenty of aliens, already in place, that should've been delved into much more. It's a shame that the series was cut short and didn't get a chance to really show what it may have been.