Who actually fought in the Xindi War?

[XCV330]

This may have been covered before, but Krall/Edison's line about fighting in the Romulan and Xindi wars was interesting. It's almost guaranteed his character wasn't on Enterprise during the Delphic Expanse campaign.

Re-watching the show I've seen no signs of other conflicts going on during all that, and of course it's just a retcon thrown in by Beyond, but somehow I like the idea. Warp delta ships, and at least one Intrepid type were patrolling the edge of Sol space after the first Xindi attack (which being vast in 3 dimensions must should have had other ships patrolling as well.) USS Franklin was out there as well, then.

It makes sense that the Xindi might have sent other ships in to Earth territory to tackle starfleet ships in order to make it easier for the final incursion. Have any of the ENT books discussed it?

 

[Christopher]

It makes sense that the Xindi might have sent other ships in to Earth territory to tackle starfleet ships in order to make it easier for the final incursion. Have any of the ENT books discussed it?

Unfortunately, a quirk of licensing has prevented Pocket Books from overtly using content from the Kelvin Timeline films, so we haven't been able to explore Edison's remark.

But I agree it's certainly possible that there could've been other Xindi raids on human territory during the year that Enterprise was in the Expanse and out of contact with Starfleet. Edison's "We lost millions in the Xindi and Romulan wars" could've been a distorted memory, exaggerating the scope of the Xindi conflict in century-old hindsight, but there could've been some clashes that he participated in (though I think it would've been before he was given command of the Franklin, since the film said that was after the UFP was founded).

 

[XCV330]

Unfortunately, a quirk of licensing has prevented Pocket Books from overtly using content from the Kelvin Timeline films, so we haven't been able to explore Edison's remark.

But I agree it's certainly possible that there could've been other Xindi raids on human territory during the year that Enterprise was in the Expanse and out of contact with Starfleet. Edison's "We lost millions in the Xindi and Romulan wars" could've been a distorted memory, exaggerating the scope of the Xindi conflict in century-old hindsight, but there could've been some clashes that he participated in (though I think it would've been before he was given command of the Franklin, since the film said that was after the UFP was founded).

I thought the "millions" remark might have referred to the initial attack, since 7 million were said to have died in that. , but I agree, hard to know what he was thinking or how much he could remember. Hopefully one day Pocket will have access to that material as well.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Simon Pegg cowrote the thing and he says the alternate reality dates back to the Big Bang. So maybe there was no Edison or USS Franklin NX-326 in the world of Star Trek: Enterprise and maybe the Xindi conflict was a little different.

Yes, you can force it in if you wish (as ENT itself was squished into the Trek timeline), but to be honest is it worth the effort? I suspect with the Kelvin movies and Disco furthering the same era with totally seperate creative teams, incompatibilities are just going to grow exponentially. The latest edition of the Star Trek Encylopedia suggests alterations to the timeline occurred both before and after Nero's 2233 arrival.

For what it's worth, here's Edison's service record. Unfortunately it appears to be based heavily on Jim Kirk's (from the floating hologram sequence where Krall is reading his logs) with a minimum of changes - hence references to Pike and Scott, and the 2255 dates. Even the Franklin's registry is incorrect, it was fixed for the Bluray release.

 

[Timo]

We don't really have a reason to think Edison took part in those conflicts he speaks about.

We lost millions. We probably saw all of it in the teaser of "The Expanse", with no non-Enterprise ships or personnel involved. Nothing Edison says suggests otherwise as such. And his unknown role in the unseen Romulan conflict is not in contradiction of anything in any timeline.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

He could've meant "in the Xindi attack and the Romulan War" and just gotten confused. But it is more interesting to consider if there could've been other Xindi-Starfleet conflicts in the background. I'd certainly be glad if we got the license to Kelvin stuff so I could explore that.

Simon Pegg cowrote the thing and he says the alternate reality dates back to the Big Bang.

I'm certain we've discussed this before -- the idea came from the authors of the revised Star Trek Encyclopedia, not from Pegg. Yes, Pegg publicized it first, but shortly enough before the STE's release that the STE's mention of the idea must have been written first. No doubt he got an advance look at the STE's text and was just repeating what he'd read. And he wasn't talking about Edison or the Franklin when he brought it up -- he was talking about Sulu being gay. It was more about shutting down bigots who used continuity as an excuse than about any kind of mission statement for the films' overall approach to continuity.

Also, the STE text didn't say the timelines were completely separate; it just said that there was a chance that some details of their histories might have been different before 2233 due to some sort of retroactive temporal ripples. This was merely meant as a way to handwave a few details in the first two Kelvin movies that were hard to reconcile otherwise, and to provide wiggle room for future filmmakers to tweak details as needed. Ironically, Beyond was the film that needed that retcon the least.

Yes, you can force it in if you wish (as ENT itself was squished into the Trek timeline), but to be honest is it worth the effort?

Of course it is. As much as it's worth the effort to, say, write a novel explaining why Khan and his people were so different in TWOK than in "Space Seed," or one about a throwaway reference to an 18-year Klingon-Cardassian conflict over a nebula, or one exploring what the deal was with Balok and the First Federation. Any minor, throwaway reference can potentially spawn a worthwhile story. It's not about where an idea begins, it's about where you take it from there.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'm certain we've discussed this before -- the idea came from the authors of the revised Star Trek Encyclopedia, not from Pegg. Yes, Pegg publicized it first, but shortly enough before the STE's release that the STE's mention of the idea must have been written first. No doubt he got an advance look at the STE's text and was just repeating what he'd read. And he wasn't talking about Edison or the Franklin when he brought it up -- he was talking about Sulu being gay. It was more about shutting down bigots who used continuity as an excuse than about any kind of mission statement for the films' overall approach to continuity.

Is that an assumption that Pegg was referencing the Encylopedia? Unless you know for sure otherwise, it's fair to speculate that it's Pegg's own opinion and his intention when he wrote the movie.

 

[Christopher]

Is that an assumption that Pegg was referencing the Encylopedia? Unless you know for sure otherwise, it's fair to speculate that it's Pegg's own opinion and his intention when he wrote the movie.

Not assumption, deduction based on the facts. It typically takes about a year and a half to write and publish a book, probably even longer for a book as complex as the STE. Pegg made the statement only a couple of months before the STE revision came out. Therefore, the Okudas must've come up with it long before Pegg mentioned it in public -- and possibly even before Pegg was hired to write the film. And given his position, he would surely have had advance access to the text or spoken to the Okudas about it. It's unrealistic to imagine it was a coincidence.

And again, as I already said, Beyond is the movie that has by far the least need of that handwave. Because Pegg wrote it, because he's such a devoted fan, it has fewer clashes with Prime continuity than the prior two films. It doesn't feature implausibly huge starships in the 2230s, it doesn't show Earth cities that are far more built up and oppressive-looking than their Prime counterparts, it doesn't show warp drive being impossibly fast for the era, etc. It meshes quite well with Prime canon, aside from a couple of utterly trivial, easily reconciled differences of interpretation from Enterprise that are tiny compared to Enterprise's own retcons of canon. So it makes no sense to think it represented Pegg's philosophy on Beyond, because Beyond was the one Kelvin film that didn't need it. No doubt it was the Okudas' attempt to handwave the continuity glitches of the first two movies, and Pegg happened across it and used it to shoot down the bigots abusing continuity to protest Sulu's same-sex marriage.

 

[XCV330]

We don't really have a reason to think Edison took part in those conflicts he speaks about.

Timo Saloniemi

We do. He was a MACO officer. Unless he was in charge of the motor pool or grounded at a desk for some reason, he almost certainly would have been in the Romulan War so why wouldn't he have been deployed during the Xindi matter?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Coincidences do happen. It's even possible Pegg never saw the new Encyclopedia. It's also possible he preferred to think of the Kelvin universe as it's own seperate thing.

And as I said originally, with entirely seperate creative teams forwarding the same era in Trek, more and more contradictions are bound to arise. Having the timelines entirely seperate makes things a LOT easier for everyone involved.

It doesn't feature implausibly huge starships in the 2230s, it doesn't show Earth cities that are far more built up and oppressive-looking than their Prime counterparts

No that's what Discovery is doing - and that's supposed to be the TOS timeline!
I wonder what the next Encylopdia will make of that?

 

[Christopher]

Coincidences do happen. It's even possible Pegg never saw the new Encyclopedia.

That's a huge reach. It makes no sense to cling to the least likely hypothesis just to avoid changing your mind. Especially over something this trivial.

And as I said originally, with entirely seperate creative teams forwarding the same era in Trek, more and more contradictions are bound to arise.

There have always been contradictions in Trek, ever since James R. Kirk became James T. and lithium became dilithium. There's no such thing as a large fictional canon that's perfectly consistent.

Having the timelines entirely seperate makes things a LOT easier for everyone involved.

I don't disagree in theory, but what we want and what actually is are two different things. I'd be glad if the timelines were totally separate, but that's not what the Okudas and Pegg intended to assert. Their statement was simply that there was room for some details of continuity to be different pre-2233.

 

[Leviathan]

Some Xindi probably did...

 

[XCV330]

Some Xindi probably did...

I like that you wrote it out. Probably re-read, maybe even read it out loud, but then hit the enter button.

 

[yenny]

Only one episode it was mention, but I can't remember which one. It was one of early episodes of season 3 and early in the episode. Something about Earth Fleet is on the move and they keeping a eye on them.

 

[Timo]

We do. He was a MACO officer. Unless he was in charge of the motor pool or grounded at a desk for some reason, he almost certainly would have been in the Romulan War so why wouldn't he have been deployed during the Xindi matter?

I'm not following. Surely MACO isn't just thirty people strong? Yet a unit of that size dealt with the Xindi matter, there being zero evidence that any other MACO were in any way involved.

The Xindi conflict claimed millions of lives, but why would that mean that more than 30 MACOs were deployed? Most of the USAF was not deployed to deal with Katrina, say.

Edison is full of hate. Much of it stems from him being unable to kill alien scum in his new job. It's pretty natural to extend that to him being denied the joys of killing alien scum in his previous career, too.

That Edison conflates Romulans with Xindi need not mean much - he comes from a time when alien scum was in shorter supply than in later Trek, so he hates all the scum he can. It's a separate matter whether the Romulan War was any bigger a deal than the Xindi one. Perhaps the Romulans were defeated by 80 people in a single ship, too? But even if the Romulan War were a massive conflagration involving dozens of big battles and tens of thousands of units across decades, this need not estalish anything at all about the Xindi conflict, which is a separate matter.

Personally, I feel the Romulan War was a minuscule affair, hardly involving anybody from Earth and barely registering in interstellar history. Perhaps a brief sideshow in the ongoing centuries-long Vulcan-Romulan war? In any case, it's forgotten by the time of "Balance of Terror", to the extent that heroes trained in the Starfleet Academy know next to nothing about it and need prompting from an alien and a man who uniquely knows folks who were involved. Less likely to happen to WWI than to the great Finnish expedition into Karelia in 1919...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[XCV330]

I'm not following. Surely MACO isn't just thirty people strong? Yet a unit of that size dealt with the Xindi matter, there being zero evidence that any other MACO were in any way involved.

The Xindi conflict claimed millions of lives, but why would that mean that more than 30 MACOs were deployed? Most of the USAF was not deployed to deal with Katrina, say.

In this case the September 11 attacks are are more close analogy than a Hurricane, and the day after that, and in the ensuing months, many national guard units were called to active duty, as were reservists, some of whom got the TMP McCoy treatment.

It's understood that there are more starfleet ships than NX-01, though only a few are shown, and there's a command structure including an admiral. Enterprise has MACO's placed aboard (per captain's request) but it makes sense that there were others placed aboard other ships, as well as placed on duty on other remote duty stations (space stations, Verteron Array, merchant ships, any asset that needed protection). There may have been non-Starfleet military ships as well. If the U.E. didn't arm every single ship it could legally impress into service guarding against the next attack, it wasn't doing its job.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Only one episode it was mention, but I can't remember which one. It was one of early episodes of season 3 and early in the episode. Something about Earth Fleet is on the move and they keeping a eye on them.

I'm pretty sure that was a set-up for "E2"

 

[Timo]

In this case the September 11 attacks are are more close analogy than a Hurricane, and the day after that, and in the ensuing months, many national guard units were called to active duty, as were reservists, some of whom got the TMP McCoy treatment.

They had nobody to shoot at, though. And neither would Edison, which is his lament later on.

The Xindi attack we saw simply left no role for the Earth military, which is sort of the whole point. Nobody but NX-01 could do anything, and Hayes' small posse was the lucky bunch who got to hold the Military flag there.

Edison, furthermore, is MACO - a special unit of some sort within the Military, with no combat veterans to offer for the mission but with special abilities that apparently count for more. If Edison misses the NX-01 flight, there might not be much for the MACO to do even in a conventional conflict, which the Xindi one was not.

It's understood that there are more starfleet ships than NX-01, though only a few are shown, and there's a command structure including an admiral.

Likewise, there is more to the Military than the MACO, as the acronym already establishes (we are only seeing the Assault Command folks, and further just the Operations branch therein). But most of the machine would have nothing beneficial to do. At the very least, we can plausibly argue Edison would see zero action even if deployed in the most aggressive non-NX-01 fashion available. The Xindi just wouldn't be there to be shot at. Which, again, is the whole point. Their plan of action does not involve exposing themselves to any sort of enemy counteraction.

If the U.E. didn't arm every single ship it could legally impress into service guarding against the next attack, it wasn't doing its job.

Seems silly. If the enemy has invented the aeroplane and is bombing you from the air exclusively, it would be idiotic to send your men to the trenches with their rifles and cannon when they are much better used fighting the fires and distributing the gas masks and instruction leaflets to the populance.

An analogy closer to today might involve a nameless cyberattack, which cannot be fought with assault rifles or strategic bombers. But even there we would know the attackers are somewhere on this planet. The Xindi were not.

In any case, we saw no response to the ultimate Xindi attack from conventional defenses, which annoyed us in the audience to no end - but it was also evident that such a response would have been futile. So perhaps the UESF/UEM was smarter than us?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[pst]

Coincidences do happen. It's even possible Pegg never saw the new Encyclopedia. It's also possible he preferred to think of the Kelvin universe as it's own seperate thing.

And as I said originally, with entirely seperate creative teams forwarding the same era in Trek, more and more contradictions are bound to arise. Having the timelines entirely seperate makes things a LOT easier for everyone involved.

No that's what Discovery is doing - and that's supposed to be the TOS timeline!
I wonder what the next Encylopdia will make of that?

i had the same thought about it being a separate timeline well before pegg or the okudas wrote anything about it. i'm not a genius and it's not a coincidence per se, just a pretty logical conclusion that neatly takes care of those pesky inconsistencies we all hate.

 

[Christopher]

i had the same thought about it being a separate timeline well before pegg or the okudas wrote anything about it. i'm not a genius and it's not a coincidence per se, just a pretty logical conclusion that neatly takes care of those pesky inconsistencies we all hate.

If we cried "alternate timeline" every time there was a minor inconsistency, we'd have Trek balkanized into a few hundred timelines by this point. It's important not to confuse differences in the presentation of the fiction for differences that are supposed to exist in-universe. Saavik didn't get plastic surgery after Spock's funeral, they just recast the actress.

Like I said, I'd be happier if the Bad Robot films had been a complete continuity reboot -- in part because it would then have the freedom to make more drastic changes, e.g. gender- or race-swapping some characters or moving the time frame further into the future or the like. But they aren't intended to be. Like every prior sequel and revival of Trek, they've pretended to be part of the same reality as what came before despite the reinterpretations and inconsistencies it introduced. And it's a double standard to treat the newest iteration differently than we treat the others.