The episode "Regneration"...

[faithhopelove]

I'm watching Enterprise for the first time and watched the episode Regeneration last night.

I couldn't help but to love it from the very beginning. Although I was thinking after the episode (and later reading in some of the reviews at IMDb) that maybe it isn't all that true to what we know about the Borg from the other series. So I thought maybe my fellow trekkies can help me understand this a little bit better...

Is there any way to explain why Picard had never heard about the Borg before? Is it just as simple as that they never introduced themselves as the Borg? But he still would have known something about the cybernetic species that the humans first had contact with about 200 years earlier, right? But he didn't! Especially since the Borg sent that message to the Delta quadrant and became a threat to humanity? But in TNG it seemed like the Borg was starting the journey towards earth after they met Picard? Right?

And also, I don't remember if we've heard anything about the Borg already assimilated humans that early? I guess it doesn't matter if we did or not since the Borg are many and the researchers might not still be around after a couple of centuries. But if we DID then that would mean that this episode actually has some grounds or something for what we've learned previously. I think.

Or am I thinking about this all wrong?
I just wanna continue to love the episode and not be so bothered by all this...

How do you see the episode and what do you think of it?

 

[Melakon]

Trying to develop an in-universe theory regarding unexplained temporal paradoxes gives you an idea of what guys like Daniels must have felt like every day while at the office.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'm watching Enterprise for the first time and watched the episode Regeneration last night.

I couldn't help but to love it from the very beginning. Although I was thinking after the episode (and later reading in some of the reviews at IMDb) that maybe it isn't all that true to what we know about the Borg from the other series. So I thought maybe my fellow trekkies can help me understand this a little bit better...

Is there any way to explain why Picard had never heard about the Borg before? Is it just as simple as that they never introduced themselves as the Borg? But he still would have known something about the cybernetic species that the humans first had contact with about 200 years earlier, right? But he didn't! Especially since the Borg sent that message to the Delta quadrant and became a threat to humanity? But in TNG it seemed like the Borg was starting the journey towards earth after they met Picard? Right?

And also, I don't remember if we've heard anything about the Borg already assimilated humans that early? I guess it doesn't matter if we did or not since the Borg are many and the researchers might not still be around after a couple of centuries. But if we DID then that would mean that this episode actually has some grounds or something for what we've learned previously. I think.

Or am I thinking about this all wrong?
I just wanna continue to love the episode and not be so bothered by all this...

How do you see the episode and what do you think of it?

I don't worry myself about continuity. I prefer to think of Trek as being one big continuity, with ENT, TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager all coexisting in harmony (and the new movies splintering off between ENT and TOS), but the truth is they don't fit together very well at all - take a look at the videos in my signature for examples. I don't think there is any way at all to reconcile Voyager's premise with the distances the old Enterprise effortlessly covered in TOS, TAS and the movies, for example. And most fans probably never noticed that one!

Perhaps the records of Archer's meeting with the Borg (and Ferengi) were lost somehow. The unmade movie Star Trek: The Beginning would have featured Earth under attack from Romulans in 2159 - had Starfleet HQ been hit, one could argue the data was destroyed.

Or maybe Enterprise is an alternate reality stemming from the events of First Contact, and "Regeneration" never happened in Picard's past - but for that to work, you have to ignore the TOS crossover in "In a Mirror, Darkly" and the TNG crossover in "These Are the Voyages" as well as the entire premise of the show, which was conceived as a prequel.

Had ENT not been cancelled, they had planned a "Regeneration" sequel where a Starfleet medic played by Alice Krige makes contact with 22nd century Borg and becomes the Borg Queen, which I think would have contradicted a line or two somewhere, but also would have neatly explained the Borg's preoccupation with Earth.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

The day I start screaming CONTINUITY CONTINUITY you will now the canon glitch was the size of a galaxy. Since I pretty much ignore and/or don't see everything else.

 

[allstar77]

What aggravated me the most was in The Naked Now, Riker remembers some oddball, obscure trivia about showering clothed from past Enterprise but cybermen escapes him? Yeah, ENT is after TNG but still...

Maybe the whole incident was classified, Section 31 maybe. Or maybe the temporal cold war screwed up the records. I blame Riker.

 

[faithhopelove]

I don't worry myself about continuity. I prefer to think of Trek as being one big continuity, with ENT, TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager all coexisting in harmony (and the new movies splintering off between ENT and TOS),

Sounds good to me, I should try thinking that way as well.

 

[Melakon]

Maybe the whole incident was classified, Section 31 maybe.

I was fine with Section 31 within the DS9 storyline. I don't remember them showing up in VOY. But then ENT mentions them 200 years earlier, and it's already inserted into Into Darkness, implying it exists in TOS and everything after as well. It's become the proverbial rug to sweep everything under in speculation now, turning the entire Star Trek franchise into a giant conspiracy theory.

Or maybe the temporal cold war screwed up the records.

This was my theory when "Broken Bow" premiered. I suspected from the very first that the entire ENT series was starting in a slightly different universe than TOS, as soon as we saw a Klingon on Earth.

 

[MacLeod]

What aggravated me the most was in The Naked Now, Riker remembers some oddball, obscure trivia about showering clothed from past Enterprise but cybermen escapes him? Yeah, ENT is after TNG but still...

Maybe the whole incident was classified, Section 31 maybe. Or maybe the temporal cold war screwed up the records. I blame Riker.

Now it's been several years since I last saw "The Naked Now" but I'm sure Riker mentions something along the lines of he had recently been reading history of the Enterprise. Now that might just have been Federation starships called Enterprise not pre-federation ships named Enterprise.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

The Borg timeline of "Regeneration" - "Q Who" - "BOBW" and "FC" fits together VERY loosely.

You can chock Picard not knowing about the Borg in the 24th Century due to the events of "Regeneration" and "FC" not happening yet from his POV.

Recall that the Borg were in Federation and Romulan space as early as TNG season 1 "The Neutral Zone". Although they did not have a name in and out of universe; since the Borg concept had yet to be fully developed. Also keep in mind that the Borg took an interest in Earth and Picard because of Q throwing the ENT-D in the path of that first cube in "Q Who". It is the same cube presumably seen in "BOBW". The the genesis of the Borg vs Federation conflict is still "Q Who", via Q's meddling.

ENT's "Regeneration" is more of a sequel to "FC". "Regeneration" ends with enough ambiguity for the audience to draw their own conclusion. However with the time travel shenanigans the Borg tried to pull in "FC"; which included a timeline where the Borg succeeded in conquering Earth in 2063. I think it's safe to assume that the events of "Regeneration" are born out of an alternative/parallel timeline created when both the ENT-E and Borg traveled back in time to change history.

 

[Nebusj]

What aggravated me the most was in The Naked Now, Riker remembers some oddball, obscure trivia about showering clothed from past Enterprise but cybermen escapes him? Yeah, ENT is after TNG but still...

Maybe the whole incident was classified, Section 31 maybe. Or maybe the temporal cold war screwed up the records. I blame Riker.

Or, you know, the incident didn't rate a general history of ships named Enterprise, what with NX-01's encounter being pretty brief, well-handled, and not apparently followed up by anything. From what we'd seen on-screen, a history of Archers' Enterprise would almost certainly be about primarily the Xindi Mission, with secondary incidents being about the ship's interactions with the Klingons and with their disruptions to the Andorian-Vulcan rivalry. Things that set precedents for operational procedures in the future would follow. ``Mysterious entities we never heard of before and never see again come over, beat on Archer a while, and leave?'' There's like 86 of those and they all blur together after a while.

Also quite possible: it was mentioned in the history and Riker just didn't think of it on meeting the Borg because human memory is neither perfect, automatic, or all that precise. For that matter, human reading isn't all that great either; he may easily have skimmed the paragraph about it without noticing, or read it without it making much of an impression. I know there's many incidents in the history of the USS Intrepid I've forgotten, and I read a lively and engaging history of the ship just a few months ago.

 

[allstar77]

^ Regardless of which Enterprise, it says something about both both Riker and Starfleet: Riker is more interested in kinky showering habits over past treats encountered by Starfleet; and Starfleet records Jeopardy trivia rather than information that they know will be useful in the future.

 

[eyeresist]

Or maybe the temporal cold war screwed up the records.

This was my theory when "Broken Bow" premiered. I suspected from the very first that the entire ENT series was starting in a slightly different universe than TOS, as soon as we saw a Klingon on Earth.

By my understanding of time travel theory, each incident of time travel creates a new timeline. So there would be at least as many Trek timelines as there are Trek time travel episodes.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

^ That and parallel universes in the Trekverse. The TNG episode Parallels is the best example.
Where he had our ENT-D with Picard as captain

An alternate version where Riker was captain since BOBW. Riker having failed to save Picard in his own timeline.

and the ENT-D where Riker had failed and the Borg had conquered the Federation.

With all the incursions in to the past by Kirk's crew (Tomorrow is Yesterday, Voyage Home), Picard and the Borg (FC), DS9 (Little Green Men and the Gabrielle Bell episodes), VOY and the Temporal Starfleet officer Captain Braxton(Future's End) . Include incursions by Daniels from the 29th century, the Sphere Builders from the 26th Century and Future guy and the Suliban from the 30th century; who knows what timeline ENT is supposed to be a past to.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Well, that's how the new movie writers see it, but certainly not the TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT writers. They seemed to have the idea that you could make some changes but everything will always work out okay in the end.

I think the best way to make sense of ENT is to say the repeated time travels DID change history, but that they changed it to the TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY timeline we know, not away from it.

Spoiler: ENT time stuff

-There was no mention of the thousands-of-years-in-the-making Delphic Expanse prior to Enterprise, yet in "Azati Prime" we know it grows to fill the entire quadrant by the 26th century. Why wasn't it mentioned or seen? Cos the NX-01 destroyed it in "Zero Hour" and undid that future.

-The NX-01 crew records are part of the USS Defiant's memory banks, tying "In a Mirror, Darkly" directly into TOS: "The Tholian Web"

-Riker plays Enterprise on the holodeck before and between scenes of TNG: "The Pegasus" in ENT: "These Are the Voyages"

-Arik Soong names the Briar Patch, which features in Insurrection, and begins work on artificial life as a result of what happens with the Augments.

-Klingons wouldn't have smooth heads in TOS if not for the ENT Augment trilogy.

I don't buy that they are "close enough" alternate universes, simply because of how radical the changes Enterprise made were. An entire colony in "Shockwave", 7 million humans in "The Expanse", a key battle in the future undone in "Zero Hour", the Borg in "Regeneration" etc. Look at "Yesterday's Enterprise" or the movie Star Trek, both instances of the destruction or not of one ship having massive repercussions just decades later.

 

[Oso Blanco]

Or maybe Enterprise is an alternate reality stemming from the events of First Contact, and "Regeneration" never happened in Picard's past - but for that to work, you have to ignore the TOS crossover in "In a Mirror, Darkly" and the TNG crossover in "These Are the Voyages" as well as the entire premise of the show, which was conceived as a prequel.

The TNG parts we saw in TATV were so different from "The Pegasus" that it could easily qualify as an alternate timeline.

As for the mirror episode ... I'm sure that can be explained away somehow, but it's still too early in the morning for me to come up with one.

Anyway, Enterprise being an alternate timeline which does not lead to TOS makes a lot more sense to me. In my personal canon, it's leading to the nuVerse instead.

 

[wulfio]

2 words. Plot Hole.

Berman/Braga wanted to do fan service. No need to consider continuity.

 

[Start Wreck]

Is there any way to explain why Picard had never heard about the Borg before? Is it just as simple as that they never introduced themselves as the Borg? But he still would have known something about the cybernetic species that the humans first had contact with about 200 years earlier, right? But he didn't! Especially since the Borg sent that message to the Delta quadrant and became a threat to humanity? But in TNG it seemed like the Borg was starting the journey towards earth after they met Picard? Right?

Well, it's basically a retcon, but it's not the first. Q Who? says the Borg met a Federation ship for the first time, but subsequent (and even prior!) episodes suggest this isn't the case. Regeneration just puts a slight spin on the idea, creating a neat causality loop in the process.

The "cyborgs" never identify themselves by name and, although there would doubtless be audio/visual and medical records of their encounter on file, they would be filed amongst thousands and thousands of other encounters from this period of history. Who's to say these are the ONLY cyborgs Starfleet ever encounters in 200 years?

There might be some distinctive energy signatures from those drones that could be matched up to the Borg cube encountered at J-25, but somebody would have to "join the dots" to identify them as such (which, for all we know, somebody did - eventually!). There's no reason for Picard to immediately know who they are, however. If the Borg had successfully transmitted their name 200 years ago, it would be a different story, but that transmission was conveniently garbled...