The Tholian War?

[ReadyAndWilling]

Hey all, I'm about half way through Enterprise and saw 'Future Tense' a little while ago and I've been wondering this for some time. Does anyone know why the Vulcans didn't declare war on the Tholians? They just came and destroyed a Combat Cruiser, or at least pretty much. Surely there would have been some serious injuries aboard the ship?

Why did the Vulcans just let it go?

 

[SFRabid]

Probably because they knew they would lose, and that would make starting a war with them illogical.

 

[Jbarney]

We never did see the implications of what happened after that episode. Sounds like the great starting point for a novel. Not sure there is evidence to support the idea a war would have started between the Vulcans and the Tholians.

 

[Timo]

For all we know, there was an ongoing war between those two species to begin with. It's not as if we ever saw peaceful interaction between them in ENT.

It just wasn't a war of noted intensity or ferocity. Both sides seem rather seclusive and capable of maintaining their cool (or, in the Tholian case, hot), so their war might have been of the sort where every encounter becomes a battle, but by mutual understanding there are very few encounters.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SFRabid]

Remember, the Tholians did not attack with intent to kill, only to disable.

 

[ChristopherPike]

There's a reference in a TNG episode to a Tholian raid and how Riker's father was involved somehow in the aftermath. Strikes me, that like the Borg... there was never much of a war as we know it. Just a series of skirmishes near their border and unease whenever they show up. By DS9, there's talk of an Ambassador but it's just lip service paid to TOS really, since we never actually saw it. Probably would've been too much like Babylon 5's Kosh, floating around with the aid of an EV suit in our environment. There's a moment in Future Tense when they're about to board the NX-01 to retrieve that timeship... I assume they're well equipped to move around in our atmosphere.

The interesting thing to me, in terms of the Tholians is their involvement in the TCW. I guess like the Suliban or the Xindi, they had their own "Deep Throat" spilling beans about the future... or not, depending how it suited some unknown agenda. Too bad it took the Mirror Universe for us to actually see one in the flesh... er, crystal? There was really nothing in canon that precluded the Tholians from being a big bad on Enterprise.