And God knows B & B used holodecks enough anytime they had trouble with a plot point.
That does neatly explain almost all of ST:ENT. And its just deserts. Hmmmmm.....
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Praetor,
I'd argue that the only thing that gets anywhere near a direct contradiction is this:
And cloaking devices, and photon torpedoes
There's a line in BoT something like 'primitive atomic powered ships and weapons', if I remember correctly. At best we can twist this into a handful of M/AM powered ships for the Terrans, somewhat like Starfleet Museum has proposed (where a limited number of classes during the warp have M/AM power, not all). Dilithium/Lithium I've discussed in another current thread.
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John O.,
Have no fear, Enterprise, the defender of your canonicity is here!
They called them
photonic torpedos! So NEUH!
Actually, for the ST:ENT Klingons they are just called Photon Torpedoes (I believe). And since the Klingons never used them until TMP, relying on their disruptors,
I do consider it a contradiction. So, no, I don't really buy that the Federation had to steal the superior Klingon Photon Torpedo technology, though I suppose they could have called that episode "The Enterprise Incident, Once More With Feeling".
...cloaking devices I can't do much for, because the Romulan Warbirds were cloaking in that show. The real hardcore people who care enough about canon but love ST:E enough to insist it's consistent, basically argue one of two things: that as the Romulan ship designs got larger, they discontinued use of the cloaks because it started to require too much power (drew from weapons, engines, etc); or two, that it was a very early and flawed cloak design that Starfleet & Allies soon developed a way to track and so the Romulans abandoned it for some time until the TOS/TNG era or w/e that canon says it came along.
Star Fleet Battles (the tactical combat starship game) came up with the idea of earlier, less effective devices that perform a function similar to cloaking devices (i.e., electronic warfare countermeasures). They did this because the non-warp powered Romulan ships were essentially sitting ducks (literally) without some form of cloak, even with the devastating (but difficult to use Plasma Torpedo). However, in canon terms, Spock never seems to have heard of a
functioning cloaking device (its theoretical to him), which is what both the Suliban and Romulans seem to have in ST:ENT. 'Light rays' definitely are being selectively bent a hundred plus years too early. Even if it was 100 year old information, are we really to believe Spock would never have heard of it? That it wouldn't have been mentioned in the annals of the 1st Romulan War???
This is before I was aware of the TOS canon mention of Spock being the first - but like I said, I side with common sense over canon -sometimes-, since there -ARE- existing contradictions even within the same canon. Especially in TOS. *gasp*
I'm unaware of
this Spock issue being canon (though I have heard it for a long time). Could somebody please point me to the source material?
I will admit, in some aspects, ST:E crapped all over the TOS universe. Then again... nuBSG crapped all over the BSG-78 universe, didn't it? *runs for dear life*
Well, all the people who watched
those old show (TOS, BSG78) are already dead, right?
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Falconfire,
And yes CANON places Spock as the first Starfleet grad, but certainly not the first starfleet vulcan as there is a WHOLE ship of them with a Earth name ala the Intrepid.
Again, any info on this piece of Spock Canon would be appreciated.
The Vulcan ships names seem to have been carefully selected: both "Intrepid" and "Valiant" are plausible names applicable to both Terran and Vulcan (
translated) historical ships, just as our modern and historical navies have overlap in their naming conventions. These words represent ideas, and as such are universal. "Hood" or "Merrimac", for example, are clearly part of Terran history and would have been less appropriate.
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Timo,
All of those are mere myths, albeit rather common ones.
However, TOS does establish rather blatantly that our 2260s heroes think of invisibility as a "theoretical" possibility only, not a practical historical fact. So ENT does create a bit of a contradiction there, or then it requires us to think that Kirk and Spock were ignorant.
Basically, I don't see why we should insist that the 23rd century was different from the 22nd one in technological terms. The real 13th century wasn't all that different from the 12th, after all. It's perfectly possible that TOS-style technology was an absolute prerequisite for having Archer-style adventures, and that no noticeable progress then happened between Archer and Kirk's adventures.
There are some clear contradictions, as outlined above. While I am not insistent that the Romulans are without warp drive (quite the contrary) I do have problems with them being able to use it in a superior manner to a "Warp 5" Terran ship (i.e., the flea, for example). There seems little reason the flea can't be given a control cabin for a single pilot, a standard cloak, and knock the stuffings out of almost any ST:ENT era ship. Frankly, with superior propulsion, a cloak, and capable weapons, how did Terra win the war? With only a few "starships" (as they would later be typically referred to), and seemingly little capability to make more?
And then there are just choices that were bad to the point of insulting our intelligence. Is there anything in canon to prove that the Ferengi really didn't contact the Terrans in the 2150s? No, but its an incredibly bad idea, and the implication is that the fans wouldn't "get" that this was Star Trek unless they front-loaded the series with an endless amount of 24th century paraphenalia and icons. Would there really have been anything wrong with paying attention to what was said in TOS and backwards engineering a world from that. Instead we get a TNG/DS9 retread, which then latches on to the war on terror as its guiding ethos. So, yes, I think many of us have a right to feel intentionally insulted.
If we need TOS technology to do TOS adventures, here is an idea: bring back TOS. ST:ENT should have been about pre-TOS 'style' adventures, something new and different. So, I would have prefered to see how things started out, and developed into what we saw in TOS, not start with a TOS-TNG hybrid and work backward from there. I don't believe that every species should have the same technology, or that is should be largely stagnant for a century.
So, no,
I don't particularly "believe" that dilithium, Klingon Phot Torps, cloaking devices, Ferengi, etc., etc. should be taken with the same seriousness as most of the rest of the Trek franchise. They are
canon in ENT, but out of
continuity with the rest of the series, and for me continuity trumps mere canonicity. Its an either/or choice, either TOS is right (on balance) or ST:ENT is, I personally don't feel responsible for reconciling both. But that's just me!
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Sojourner,
Wait, I don't get all this hub-bub over Enterprise. It was revealed in the last episode that the entire show was holo-fiction. We weren't seeing true historical records. We were watching a
dramatization, and we all know how badly inaccurate Hollywood historicals are.....
Problem solved.
Thank the gods, a voice of reason. Yes, we woke up and there Trip was in the shower, and the Romulans didn't have cloaks. Whew, what a relief!
But, that is one way to look at it, and not just confined to the one episode. Franz Joesph's Tech Manual is based on the conceit that when 1701 traveled back in time part of its database got transmitted into an Airforce mainframe, and that's the basis for Star Trek as we know it, and the Tech Manual and BoGP. Unfortunately the data was scrambled, corrupted, and incomplete, and the interpretation is ongoing, hence the inconsistencies from time to time in the reconstruction. The game Star Fleet Battles uses this as an ongoing model to explain changes and additions to the game, as more data is 'recovered'.
There are days when I'm merciful and want to keep ST:ENT in continuity, somehow -- and consequently play havoc with the rest of the franchise -- but
this position makes a lot more sense with my TOS blinders on. As time goes on I become more of a believer in the anti-'George Lucas model' of canonicity: inconsistencies of more recent offerings by a franchise with what they have done in the past probably should (in most cases) be rejected
on the grounds of arrogance and stupidity. Or, to put it another way: you can fool some of the fans some of the time, but never all of the fans all of the time.
) But, I'm afraid there's just to much of the canon-ite in me to be able to take that route.
