What would you change in Star Trek: Enterprise to make it better?

[DarKush]

Count me among the many who have also toyed with this idea for a long time now. Changes I would've made:

-Name the hero ship Phoenix, as a nod to Zefram Cochrane (and the very popular Star Trek: First Contact movie). Star Trek: Phoenix could symbolize a rebirth of Trek.
-Phoenix would be under UESPA. I would go for a retrofuturistic vibe when it came to the design. I did like the NX-01 interior so I would keep that.
-There would be Daedalus-class ships in this series in all their glory.
-I would use laser pistols, no shielding, just shuttlepods.
-Keep the ENT uniforms. I liked those.
-Cast a Latino actor as the captain. I think this diversifying fit the trends established by DS9 and VOY. I would've been looking at Esai Morales, Jimmy Smits, or Benjamin Bratt. I was thinking male but not opposed to a Latina lead. I did like Captain Hernandez. My captain is more of a military man.
-Before we get there though, Phoenix would've had a different captain, a Stiles (who I see as Dennis Quaid). The Forrest-mentor kind of role here would've been played by the late Louis Gossett Jr. (a nod to Enemy Mine). Stiles doesn't make it out the pilot and that's how we get a new captain.
-First officer would be a Black woman. I was inspired when I heard that Grey's Anatomy's Chandra Wilson was a Trek fan and she is who I envision as the first officer. Not certain if Wilson was a fan or her Grey's Anatomy character was, but once I heard it, she stuck in my head for first officer. The first officer is more of an explorer/scientist. That way we can get two sides of how to solve problems.
-I'm not sure I would have any aliens onboard. I am inclined to really take to heart the saying "the human adventure is just beginning" in a prequel series about Earth's baby steps into the Alpha Quadrant.
-If I did have a Vulcan onboard, they would be a first contact officer, or maybe in the Hoshi role. The Vulcan character would not wear a catsuit, but if they had to, the ones like T'Pol wore in the last seasons. Generally, though I would have the character in Vulcan robes or looser Vulcan tunics and pants.
-I would have John Billingsley play basically the same role, sans makeup, and just have him married to an alien (s).
-Trip stays the same. Though I would do more to develop his romance with T'Pol or my stand-in character for her.
-Reed is a MACO, who is also Section 31 (and we learn that early on), and is also openly gay. Not sure if he would be married right off, but there would be opportunities to depict him in relationships.
-Hoshi is the science officer and we get more of her assured depiction in the last two seasons over the first two.
-Mayweather is the grandson of Gossett's character. He has a kind of mentor/mentee relationship with the captain that mirrors the captain's and Gossett's character. I would keep a lot of Mayweather's Boomer backstory and he weighs in a lot more about various planets and species he's encountered. I would develop a Hoshi-Mayweather romance.
-I would make the pilot about first contact with the Andorians instead of the Klingons. A similar story but it would be the Romulans instigating behind the scenes and not the Suliban. The Vulcans will have the same fraught history with the Andorians and this is why they are against Earth taking the injured Andorian back.
-Terra Prime would've been a thorn in the side of our heroes from the beginning.

When it comes to other aliens:
-No Klingons until maybe the final season or episode and there is a disastrous first contact.
-Vulcans might be paternalistic, but they are not all jerks, and they are sometimes right and humans are sometimes wrong, and we see the humans get in over their heads and have to eat some humble pie occasionally.
-I would've used the Nausicaans more as a kind of recurring antagonist. Same with the Syndicate. I would establish that there had been a war with the Nausicaans in the past, and our captain had been one of the veterans of that war.
-I was fine with the Xindi and Suliban as antagonists. I would've brought back the "Silent Enemy" aliens. I liked the idea of the series having villains that were specific to it.

 

[YouAreDooomed]

• Screw live action. I would change the filmmaking format into animation. The entire franchise (+ others) should transition; it offers lot more possibilities.
  
  
• Exploratory fleet. central hero ship.
  
  
• Concerning the show's production: replace the showrunners, keep B&B out of it entirely, and hire someone like Manny Coto only as consultant/ writer.
  
  
• The far more primitive technology shall be a lot more distinguishable from the previous shows with significant ramifications: Humanity has no access to FTL sensors; if a starship enters a system and detects another vessel at a distance of 9 light hours, it only sees where that vessel had been 9 hours before and you are also completely blind during warp flight.
  There are no technobabble devices to deal with heat accumulation and time dilation, so sublight speeds are more limited, and crews may need to surrender in a battle in order to avoid getting cooked,
  
  Planetary surveys require way more effort, tons of gear and armies of scientists.
  
  Space combat would work very similar to The Expanse. Replace their missiles with antimatter-fueled kinetic ones with the option of explosive warheads (non-antimatter unless maybe very rare planetary bombardment), plasma weapons instead of railguns and defence lasers instead of PDCs. Opposing ships or fleets exchange salvos which can take minutes to reach their targets.
  Pseudo energy shields are not available; they rely on thick armour.
  Artificial gravity and intertial dampeners can "only" fully handle 50 gees or so. Being unbelted or running around in high-acceleration situations is considered suicidal.
  
  Transporters are limited to inanimate objects; any living beings would not survive the process. Their range is several hundred kilometres.
  FTL real-time communication is usually not a thing unless you are only a couple of ly away.
  
  Space stealth and ECM are important
  
  Warp drives have cool-down periods lasting hours after dropping out.
  
  
• Ship's interior design and uniforms are spot-on in ENT, but nothing resembling any TOS+ starfleet designs except visible nacelles.
  
  
• More clarity of human expansion and the overall state of Earth's galactic neighbourhood at the beginning.
  
  
• No TCW, no time travel. Other time shenanigans (dilation, loops...) allowed.
  
  
• No catsuits/ oversexed crap.
  
  
• No sexual innuendo, no stupid frigging decon-chamber petting. Even for early 2000s, what dafuq...
  
  
• No creeps (esp. Malcolm).
  
  
• The crew(s) shall act more professionally. The ENT characters do have a sense of wonder and eagerness to explore though which should remain.
  
  
• No implications of nepotism.
  
  
• Archer would not be a douchebag; not cry about Vulcans "sabotaging" daddy's engine.
  
  
• Expand on Mayweather's space-freighter background and do more with it; after all he is a space veteran compared to most people on board.
  
  
• Aliens few and far between with each one getting more attention.
  
  
• Kzinti? Yeah, why not.
  
  
• Keep the Xindi but not as a (major) threat.
  
  
• No space wizards at all (ENT has Organians).
  
  
• Standalone and multi-part episodes like in season 4 from the start.
  
  
• MACOs from the start.

 

[Oddish]

MACOs from the start.

That would be awesome, especially their special weapons. In "Fortunate Son", those attacking Naussicans were standing in a cluster. I remember thinking that a single WW1 frag grenade would have turned them into bulkhead stains. The MACOs addressed this.

 

[DarKush]

Just thought about it. The Andorians would be recurring antagonists in the first few seasons but by the end, they would become friends with Earth, not unlike what we did see on Enterprise, but in my take the Andorians would be considered even more of a problem, akin to ENT's Klingons. The series would delve a lot into Andorian history and culture, and I would incorporate things from Trek lit and games whenever I could. When it came to the Romulans, I would also incorporate Diane Duane's take on them when I could, and I would explain the Reman relationship and create other subject species for them.

The series could also explore first contact with other species we see on the Original Series, Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine.