22nd century Humans weren't ready to explore the space of the 24th century, I agree.
But that is not what I said. I was referring to the setup in "Broken Bow," which takes place in the 22nd century. I have no comment on your view that
Enterprise was portrayed as too advanced.
A simple space exploration story about discovery of wonder and new world and civilizations seemed too basic for the producers and they're idea seemed trouble from the get go.
As I understand it, the Temporal Cold War was not part of the producers' premise, but was forced on them by the network to make the show more interesting, or Trek-like, or something.
Why would any culture choose to "mentor" another considering the problems of xenophobia?
The word "mentor" is mine, chosen to describe my own perception of the relationship (and strain) between Vulcans and humans at the outset of the series. I don't believe the term was ever used on the show.
As for why... I would assume the Vulcans considered it a logical course of action to guide a race that had newly acquired warp drive, and all the potential and risks that acquisition entailed.
Was it a method of control? With the Vulcan High Command as they portrayed them it doesn't make sense they would genuinely offer their hand to mentor humanity while suppressing their own race. That's a hypocritical plot development Rather they were supposed to be allies, mutual partners not big brother so yes I get the sense that the producer's exposition was mediocre and structureless.
Also, in "The Forge," Soval admits to Forrest that the Vulcans are actually afraid of humanity and its potential to advance at a far quicker pace than the Vulcans, perhaps even surpassing the Vulcans in the process (which the VHC doesn't seem too keen on). Such a point of view would likely not prevent the Vulcan higher-ups from finding a way to rationalize their "guidance" as perfectly logical.
Looking at the progression of Vulcans and the evolving perception of them by other characters, it seems to me that the producers had an overall "Vulcan arc" figured out from the beginning to explain their "different" Vulcans and eventually steer them onto a path that would lead to the Vulcans of TOS. I understand the producers had planned on more exploration of Vulcans in the 2nd season (perhaps something along the lines of the Season 4 Vulcan arc? just a guess), but were told by the network, "Less Vulcan shows." So it appears to me that the producers did have a structure in place for the evolution of the Vulcans (as characters), but it was derailed for a couple of seasons.
The HEADS of the High Command and presumably by force of majority many of that structure and the planets population were adherents to racist attitudes and oppression.
Not having seen every member of the Vulcan population, I cannot come to the conclusion that there was a planetwide racist attitude. The series showed us V'Lar, the diplomat who does not appear at all racist, but open-minded about many things. Also the emotionally free V'tosh Katur, who quite clearly had bucked the party line. And the Syrrannites, who followed the ancient ways of Surak, including melding. T'Pau wasn't wild about humans, but I don't think her attitude was based on racism. She was part of an oppressed band of rebels; her suspicious attitude could have been a survival tactic.
That is not what is portrayed by Memory Alpha which I source.
I use
Enterprise as my source.
Memory Alpha articles are written by volunteers, correct? So those articles, even with their empirical data, sometimes are incomplete, or contain conjecture or subjective conclusions.
Vulcan Life Spans are in the range of a couple of hundred years. Assuming two generations at the least raised by this generation how difficult it would have been to change the planet wide stray from logic in about a hundred years and then to the 24th century where the Vulcan's reputation is so solid in logic it appears to have never been any other way for at least many times those life spans old.
If Vulcans saw the Awakening as a logical course, I assume change would come very quickly to most. The holdouts would likely be the power-wielding higher-ups like Adminstrator V'Las and the VHC, who would stand to gain little and lose much by returning to their Surakian roots. There's a post-Vulcan-arc episode, maybe part of the Andorian arc, which makes passing mention of T'Pau sacking a bunch of VHC officials and ship captains.
I can't condone the Temporal Cold war in Enterprise for those reasons.
I was not attempting to get you to condone anything; I wasn't referring to the TCW. I was expressing my personal opinion about the effectiveness of the story structure of Season 3.
The Dominion Style Arc that drew so many truely should have been left for the Romulan War which was firmly placed in History.
Since
Enterprise was cancelled before they got to the Romulan War, I'm really happy they didn't wait.
I saw contrivance after contrivance after contrivance.
The characters were unconvincing to pull off what these stories required. Blalock and Bakula together couldn't act out a puppet show.
Dude, we really disagree on this.
Different strokes, I guess.
You're joking, right?
