The Xindi and former Delphic Expanse
- Thread starter Herbert1
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Well, the feline Xindi will of course return with a vengeance in the late 2260s... While the others will migrate to the Sabu region and establish starbases there.
I guess it's only to be expected that once the Delphic Expanse goes away, other galactic powers will move in, and will get the lion's share of that region because of having a technological head start. I'd guess Klingons would be among the first to exploit the disappearance of the inside-out-turning zone. Which might be why they become formidable UFP enemies later on, despite having presented little threat to Earth in the preceding centuries. Shared fences breed contempt even better than familiarity...
Timo Saloniemi
I guess it's only to be expected that once the Delphic Expanse goes away, other galactic powers will move in, and will get the lion's share of that region because of having a technological head start. I'd guess Klingons would be among the first to exploit the disappearance of the inside-out-turning zone. Which might be why they become formidable UFP enemies later on, despite having presented little threat to Earth in the preceding centuries. Shared fences breed contempt even better than familiarity...
Timo Saloniemi
Feline Xindi? Are you referring to the Kzinti?
Yup, forgot the smiley. 
But it makes sense. If Sulu in TAS thinks the "Kzinti" staged four attacks against Earth "two centuries" before the late 2260s, it's something that must have happened a bit before ENT (or preferably even earlier, but then Earth would have been rather helpless to resist). If we count the 2153 (Reptilian) Xindi attack as part of the "Kzinti" campaign, and decide that "Kzinti" is how you pronounce Xindi when you have a mouth full of fangs, our pseudohistory falls rather neatly in place...
Timo Saloniemi
But it makes sense. If Sulu in TAS thinks the "Kzinti" staged four attacks against Earth "two centuries" before the late 2260s, it's something that must have happened a bit before ENT (or preferably even earlier, but then Earth would have been rather helpless to resist). If we count the 2153 (Reptilian) Xindi attack as part of the "Kzinti" campaign, and decide that "Kzinti" is how you pronounce Xindi when you have a mouth full of fangs, our pseudohistory falls rather neatly in place...
Timo Saloniemi
Actually they were going to do a Kzinti episode in Season 5, but once the show was canceled they never got to do it. I can't see how you could try to make the Xindi the Kzinti, I thought they made it pretty clear that what we saw on the show were all of the Xindi races that were still around, and IMO I don't think you could try to suddenly throw another race in there without it seeming cheesy.
It was something of a plot point that there once was a sixth Xindi race the other races knew little about - the avians. Plenty of room in the Expanse for the felines (and their eternal rivals, the canines) to lurk in. Until our ENT heroes dissipate the Expanse, that is.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
I think it's silly to want to associate the Kzinti with the Xindi just because they have similar-sounding names. That's like wanting the Talarians to turn out to be a lost race of Tellarites. Or like assuming that since my name is Bennett, I must be related to Carol Burnett or Mack Sennett or Stephen Vincent Benet. Names resemble each other sometimes. That isn't evidence of an actual relationship.
Xindi and Kzinti are different. No room to squeeze in a cat-like race really. They said there were six species. Mammal branch of intelligence became Primate, Arboreals and possibly Aquatics. Leaving Reptillians and Insectoids.
I did read someplace that plans to show Kzinti were rumoured for Season 5. Unlikely to be connected to the Xindi at all, given the bridges being built toward TOS. Xindi would probably be given a wide berth, not seen altogether again... aside from being maybe the continuing motivation for building xenophobia on Earth after their attack.
If you want to prequelise the Xindi in some way, I would suggest that the Council disbanded and various species relocated to different homeworlds. Becoming better known in some way through that. The Reptillian branch becoming Saurians maybe? They, along with the Insectoids were the coolest standout aspects of Xindi culture.
I did read someplace that plans to show Kzinti were rumoured for Season 5. Unlikely to be connected to the Xindi at all, given the bridges being built toward TOS. Xindi would probably be given a wide berth, not seen altogether again... aside from being maybe the continuing motivation for building xenophobia on Earth after their attack.
If you want to prequelise the Xindi in some way, I would suggest that the Council disbanded and various species relocated to different homeworlds. Becoming better known in some way through that. The Reptillian branch becoming Saurians maybe? They, along with the Insectoids were the coolest standout aspects of Xindi culture.
^No, we already know what Saurians look like, and it's nothing like Xindi Reptilians.
The frame story of the TNG anthology The Sky's the Limit establishes that the Federation has a Xindi-Reptilian Secretary of Science and Space Exploration as of 2363, and that she hails from New Xindus.
The frame story of the TNG anthology The Sky's the Limit establishes that the Federation has a Xindi-Reptilian Secretary of Science and Space Exploration as of 2363, and that she hails from New Xindus.
Oh cool. Right. Never realised that. All those times I've seen TMP and never knew we'd actually seen one.
Was there ever an Aldebaran shell mouth onscreen?
I suppose the Xindi must have remained together in some way then. Given that in "Azati Prime", Daniels still refers to them as a whole, when pointing out one serves among the crew of the Enterprise-J. Unless he's simplifying the explanation so that Archer doesn't have to listen to anything long-winded. Like having to explain Yugoslavia to somebody who slept through the 1990's.
Was there ever an Aldebaran shell mouth onscreen?
I suppose the Xindi must have remained together in some way then. Given that in "Azati Prime", Daniels still refers to them as a whole, when pointing out one serves among the crew of the Enterprise-J. Unless he's simplifying the explanation so that Archer doesn't have to listen to anything long-winded. Like having to explain Yugoslavia to somebody who slept through the 1990's.
I'd really like to know what the long term effects of Archer's first contact pirate attack on those aliens from "Damage" were. I bet they're not in the Federation.
I presume that this appointment of a Xindi-Reptilian means that New Xindus is a member of the United Federation of Planets.
Not necessarily. The incident involved just one Ilyrrian starship. Diplomats could explain that this was a desperate act of a single starship captain whose actions were not approved or endorsed by the United Earth government. Or they could explain that the fate of an entire world was at stake to justify Archer's actions.
That's just the convenient excuse, not the driving force. That one is the TAS claim that Earth was fighting aliens to submission several decades before ENT already. And the only big fights we learn about in ENT are the Xindi conflict and the piracy against Earthling traders.
Would there be other convenient tidbits in ENT that the novels could expand into this early Earth ability to kick alien ass? Something akin to the Dilgar Wars where the Babylon Five Earthforce earned its reputation as a Grade A sharpened-avocado-wielding-native eliminator?
Nausicaans are a known quantity in ENT already, and a plausible early enemy. Anything written about them?
Timo Saloniemi
^Recall that, going by (canon) Enterprise alone, there was no Earth/Romulan war, either. And that the Xindi conflict was never mentioned again in the subsequent 200 years. And that the Cardassian conflict never got a mention despite it supposedly going on during TNG's early seasons.
According to Gold Key, the first Man/Kzin War (Star Trek edition) was fought in the Sol system and won with the creation of the S.S. Bonaventure, alongside several upgraded DY-100's.
According to Gold Key, the first Man/Kzin War (Star Trek edition) was fought in the Sol system and won with the creation of the S.S. Bonaventure, alongside several upgraded DY-100's.
...Which is a bit small-universe'ish, I guess. Certainly ENT would nicely set the stage for a militarily ambitious United Earth Starfleet, as we witness several warship types in service that appear to precede the first UESF explorer yet rival it in combat prowess. Did they once fight the Nausicaans? The Orions? The Kzinti? Or were they built "just in case"?
The TOS introduction of this war more or less directly calls for such a treatment. In that episode, the war takes place a century before the mid-2260s, after all - literally taken, well after the final episode of ENT.
Few conflicts warrant attention centuries afterward... Indeed, the Romulan War only got a single mention in TOS, and that mention emphasized how even our supposedly well-versed heroes had mostly forgotten it. TNG never returned to the concept; the next time we heard of it was an oblique reference in the third TNG movie.
I wouldn't see the lack of mention of conflicts as a problem. Rather, I'd concentrate on utilizing the single mentions we do get and placing them in the correct pseudohistorical slots. And it just happens that the Kzinti and Romulan slots both lie relatively close to ENT (plus there's the "later is better" extra limitation there because Earth isn't ready for interstellar war yet in the far pre-ENT days, a limitation not applying to TOS or TNG or DS9), thus perhaps warranting more attention than the Romulans did in TOS or the Talarians did in TNG or the Tzenkethi did in DS9.
Timo Saloniemi
The TOS introduction of this war more or less directly calls for such a treatment. In that episode, the war takes place a century before the mid-2260s, after all - literally taken, well after the final episode of ENT.
Few conflicts warrant attention centuries afterward... Indeed, the Romulan War only got a single mention in TOS, and that mention emphasized how even our supposedly well-versed heroes had mostly forgotten it. TNG never returned to the concept; the next time we heard of it was an oblique reference in the third TNG movie.
I wouldn't see the lack of mention of conflicts as a problem. Rather, I'd concentrate on utilizing the single mentions we do get and placing them in the correct pseudohistorical slots. And it just happens that the Kzinti and Romulan slots both lie relatively close to ENT (plus there's the "later is better" extra limitation there because Earth isn't ready for interstellar war yet in the far pre-ENT days, a limitation not applying to TOS or TNG or DS9), thus perhaps warranting more attention than the Romulans did in TOS or the Talarians did in TNG or the Tzenkethi did in DS9.
Timo Saloniemi
The Tzenkethi have been associated with the Kzinti as well, although I think a short story might have depicted them as a feline species.
And that's just as arbitrary a conclusion to jump to, especially since the names have even less similarity. Luckily Rough Beasts of Empire established a rather more original appearance for the Tzenkethi.
Not necessarily. Steve and I deliberately left the issue unexplained, since it wasn't really important for the story. There's enough room for many different interpretations ...
Had the Xindi already established a new homeworld by 2153 ( Star Trek: Enterprise Season Three) which you named New Xindus? Or was the Xindi Council still attempting to locate a suitable planet to establish a new homeworld?
Where I am confused is that it seems that the Xindi launch an attack against Earth because the Sphere Builders (Guardians) tell them that their future homeworld will be destroyed by Earth in the 26th century. Is that correct?
Originally, our story mentioned a planet called Xend, which would have been a (perhaps not so sly) reference to the Xendi Sabu system from "The Battle", but we soon decided against it and came up with New Xindus instead. I don't remember there being any new homeworld established in ENT, but then I haven't seen many episodes of the Xindi arc, and my memory in general is what I'd call unreliable.
According to Memory Alpha, that is indeed correct.
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