• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Is Enterprise Canon?

Status
Not open for further replies.
You have to consider watching Star Trek to be like reading history books. Not completely accurate and usually influenced by the writer and the mood of the time. What's that saying? "History is written by ..."

Consider different episodes to be different views of events.
 
There's been quite a bit of debate here about whether Enterprise is Canon or not. Some people dismiss it entirely. Some people consider it as an alternate time line. others (like myself) feel that while it does contradict what some other episodes say, it does fit reasonably well into the timeline of the other series.

So what do you think? If you think it violates continuity, what specific examples are there?

I firmly believe that Enterprise and the other shows can be viewed as one timeline. I mean sure, there are some bits of Enterprise that contradict other stuff (the whole laser pistol thing, as established by The Cage), but I mean, we are dealing with little things. it's not like they were saying that picard was never assimilated by the Borg or anything. That's an example of a serious violation of continuity, and Enterprise, as far as I know, never did it.

Of course it's canon but that doesn't mean it's in agreement with the rest of canon even a little bit. We all tried to fit square pegs in a round hole but eventually you just have to give. The series wasn't meant to GEL with TOS.

They screwed up from Day One.
If you're going to do a prequel you have to do it right.
The show was created in 2001,
Memory Alpha started in 2003, A free online Trek resource.
It came to late for Enterprise, the producers were too lazy or arrogant to pay attention or hold themselves to what came before. I'm second generation Trek I never watched TOS yet it is quite obvious and clear that Enterprise Never should have been.

But we see 5 years later producers are still Lazy and Arrogant about the history created in Trek Mr. Abrams did as little as he possibly could to hold to the previous TOS even contriving half his story line to work in a poor villain and his reasoning.


Can we shove Enterprise into an Alternate past? Sure.
Paramount has changed it's canon policy multiple times. Currently because they've managed to GAFF up all Trek the new stance is...

", but that the notion of what constitutes canon in Star Trek is fluid, open to interpretation and debate.[1]"

Well of course it's open to debate, canon constantly contradicts and in big ways. It's time Trek Fans face the facts that Paramount just doesn't care about Trek as much as you do.
 
I think it was more important to TPTB to create a believable futuristic syfy show, than to do a TOS prequel, and I can't say I blame them.

From today's average viewer's POV, TOS does not depict the 23rd century. It depicts the 1960's vision of the 23rd century.

So how is one supposed to do a prequel to that? Depict a 1960's view of the 22nd century? Would that show really be taken seriously, or would it be seen as a parody instead?
 
I think I should have asked if Enterprise was in a different timeline!

If I remember correctly, it was Brannon Braga who suggested that the events of Star Trek: First Contact changed the timeline to answer questions of how the Borg appear in the second season Enterprise episode "Regeneration".

I don't believe that this explanation was ever adopted officially by anyone involved with the program or anyone who writes licensed Star Trek fiction. From the beginning, it was intended that Enterprise occur in the same universe as the previous Star Trek series. "These Are The Voyages" confirms that Enterprise, or Star Trek: Enterprise, is part of the same continuity as Star Trek: The Next Generation and does not occur in an alternate timeline or alternate universe.
 
"These Are The Voyages" confirms that Enterprise, or Star Trek: Enterprise, is part of the same continuity as Star Trek: The Next Generation and does not occur in an alternate timeline or alternate universe.
Considering how many things look completely off in that episode, it most certainly confirms nothing.
 
I think I should have asked if Enterprise was in a different timeline!

If I remember correctly, it was Brannon Braga who suggested that the events of Star Trek: First Contact changed the timeline to answer questions of how the Borg appear in the second season Enterprise episode "Regeneration".

I don't believe that this explanation was ever adopted officially by anyone involved with the program or anyone who writes licensed Star Trek fiction. From the beginning, it was intended that Enterprise occur in the same universe as the previous Star Trek series. "These Are The Voyages" confirms that Enterprise, or Star Trek: Enterprise, is part of the same continuity as Star Trek: The Next Generation and does not occur in an alternate timeline or alternate universe.

I agree.

i think the idea that Enterprise takes place in an altered timeline is ridiculous.

I mean, if Enterprise takes place in an altered timeline, then Regeneration takes place in the altered timeline. Which means that the result of that message (the Borg coming to investigate the Federation, as we saw in The neutral Zone) must also take place in that altered timeline. Which means that TNG takes place in an altered timeline.

And what of Seven? She references the fact that the Borg were present during First Contact during Harry and B'elanna's game in "Year of Hell", so Voyager must be set in the altered timeline. And Voyager had a crossover with DS9 in the first episode, so DS9 must be in the alternate timeline.

So it would seem that if the Borg being present created an alternate timeline, then all of Star Trek is set in that same timeline. (Alternate meaning the difference between a universe where the Borg were present and where they were not present during first Contact.)

So, it might be a reasonable way to say that the Star trek timeline is alternate compared with our own "real" timeline, but we always knew that, didn't we? But it would seem that all of the Star trek series (with the exception of the latest movie) take place in the same timeline.
 
Seven also speaks of "predestination" (going back in time and actually triggering the chain of events that were supposed to happen) as if it were something that actually makes sense (grandfather paradox, anyone?)...

Daniels said: "You think of time travel as if it were some Jules Verne novel. It's much more complicated than that. You couldn't possibly understand."
 
"These Are The Voyages" confirms that Enterprise, or Star Trek: Enterprise, is part of the same continuity as Star Trek: The Next Generation and does not occur in an alternate timeline or alternate universe.
Considering how many things look completely off in that episode, it most certainly confirms nothing.
Being off in a few aspects confirms its a Star Trek show.
 
To insert my opinion about this... Being a Trek Fan by title, and thus having access to the all-powerful, Trek Fan Choice Continuity And Canon Timeline, I can say without shame that I do not consider ENT canon. The why is this: PIKE was THE first Enterprise captain. That's how it was, until the 21st century when the timeline was altered to include Archer because of a Star Trek reboot.
 
^I am speaking about the intentions of the producers. Whether they got the details right in "These Are The Voyages" is another issue.
 
Exactly. Enterprise was a late 20th Century vision of the 22nd Century.

It's only a lack of imagination because TOS didn't terribly define the 22nd century.

To believe that you can't work with these rather wide constraints...is limited and that is exactly why Berman and producers added all the 23rd century tech just to make it Trek.
 
You know, if it weren't for the TOS movies, the question wouldn't be whether or not Enterprise was cannon it would be whether TOS counted as cannon since, ostensibly, you could have Enterprise as the precursor to TNG, DS9, and Voyager with TOS being the piece of the puzzle that looks and sounds more or less nothing like the other four.

Were it not for the movies, most of which were pretty lackluster with the notable exceptions being pretty obvious, this discussion would be very different. I'm not sure it shouldn't be that way simply because of the existence of two solid movies (out of six.)


-Withers-​
 
^I am speaking about the intentions of the producers. Whether they got the details right in "These Are The Voyages" is another issue.
Since when do "intentions" confirm anything? Intentions by themselves aren't canon. :D
 
To insert my opinion about this... Being a Trek Fan by title, and thus having access to the all-powerful, Trek Fan Choice Continuity And Canon Timeline, I can say without shame that I do not consider ENT canon. The why is this: PIKE was THE first Enterprise captain. That's how it was, until the 21st century when the timeline was altered to include Archer because of a Star Trek reboot.
Never hear of Captain Robert April? He's from the 1970s (TAS). And there is nothing in Canon or Continuity that establishes Pike as the first Captain of the Enterprise or that the NCC-1701 was the first ship called "Enterprise" in the history of the UFP or pre-UFP organizations. I assume all those ships seen in Enterprise display in TMP ( including a ring space ship) had captains.
 
Exactly. Enterprise was a late 20th Century vision of the 22nd Century.

It's only a lack of imagination because TOS didn't terribly define the 22nd century.

To believe that you can't work with these rather wide constraints...is limited and that is exactly why Berman and producers added all the 23rd century tech just to make it Trek.
Ah, ever see shows called Star Trek the Generation, Star Trek Deep Space Nine or Star Trek Voyager? They also featured "23rd Century tech". I guess they showed the same lack of "imagination".

Creating a Star Trek show includes certain touch stones, thats why all the Star Trek shows feature what you call "23rd Century tech" when its actually Star Trek tech.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top