WHy there are no Denobulans/Xindi in TOS and TNG?

[Timo]

I don't see a contradiction between the Xindi being 50 ly away and living inside a volume of space 2,000 ly across. They simply don't live in the very middle, or at the far end. They are "distant" by definition if the horrid Expanse separates them from civilized space...

As for exact figures, considering it might be difficult to fit a 2,000 ly volume within the neighborhood, we might be best off assuming it is of irregular shape anyway, the shape being dictated by the weird plans of the Sphere Builders. Which might mean that Archer would need to take a detour to reach the coordinates he was given by the Suliban, spending three months on a trip that would amount to just one month or less were a beeline available.

But that's just finesse: the figures are in the ballpark already anyway. It took a month for Archer to return to Earth in "The Expanse", and a couple of months to sail out, and in both cases we're talking about distances around 100 ly. Mayweather might simply have been a bit heavier on the pedal when certain that he was heading towards home and a well-equipped repair base; the difference between warp 4.9 and 5.1 might account for those travel times already.

Innocent people cannot be discriminated against? We know the UFP practices that very thing - Julian Bashir has to pay the price of genetic engineering done on him, not by him. I could easily see Denobulans barred. Or the Borg. Or any other culture or species with ideologies contrary to the UFP ones, which in some cases means every single individual needs to be discriminated against, since certain ideologies are built into the very biology of those individuals.

As for the Xindi, we saw the feline ones in TAS. Of course, with a mouth full of fangs, it's a bit difficult to pronounce the soft dee...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Willow]

The Denobulan fell victim to a horrible medical condition, they asked others for help, but it was discovered that there was a second intelligent species on the Denobulan homeworld who would become dominate if all the Denobulans died. So everyone refused to assist the Denobulans with their medical condition ... even though a cure was discovered.

And so all the Denobulans perished.

So sad.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I figure that since Denobulans are genetically engineered, they'd be barred admittance to the Federation.

That's a rather ghastly notion. Outlawing the practice of genetic engineering is one thing, but discriminating against people who've had it done to them is just bigotry. After all, the "criminals" in that case are the doctors who did the engineering. Nobody can be held legally accountable for something done to them before their birth.

But if they're still doing it casually (as Phlox implies), it would come into conflict with the Federation's laws.

 

[Christopher]

But if they're still doing it casually (as Phlox implies), it would come into conflict with the Federation's laws.

They were doing it as of the 2150s. They could've chosen to stop as a condition for joining the UFP later on, as I suggested in the next paragraph of the post you partially quoted.

 

[Mk_Sn]

Because they weren't written yet :P

Actually both races are interesting and pretty cool to be fair to Enterprise, but they should have been in some sort of sequel series, not a prequel made to explore the history of Trek.

 

[Christopher]

Actually both races are interesting and pretty cool to be fair to Enterprise, but they should have been in some sort of sequel series, not a prequel made to explore the history of Trek.

Well, let's be fair -- prequel or not, it had to have something new in it. And as we've already established, we hardly ever saw an Andorian and never saw a Tellarite in any of the 24th-century series, nor did we ever see most of the background aliens from TMP or TVH in any later production. So it's hardly unprecedented in Trek for aliens to be around in one series and totally absent in a later one.

It's a big galaxy. We only see a little of it in any given series. So just because we don't see something, that doesn't mean it isn't there. It just means we're looking somewhere else.

By analogy, Mission: Impossible never did an episode set in India (not in its original run, anyway). Does that mean India didn't exist in that world? No, just that it wasn't a culture that the show happened to focus on. Similarly, according to this site, The X-Files never did an episode set in Indiana, Louisiana, South Carolina, North or South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, or Utah. Did that mean it took place in a world where the US had only 41 states? No, it just means it couldn't go everywhere, not even in seven seasons.

 

[Mk_Sn]

Well, you got me there, so I concede your point The Andorians and Tellarites are awesome in ENT, while cheesy as hell in TOS. I wish they were in TNG and DS9, because they're really interesting races.

I still think ENT would have been far better by leaps and bounds if it stayed with its prequel premise from the beginning (in fact the original concept for the first season sounds interesting to me, shame it didn't end up like that).

 

[Willow]

Well, you got me there, so I concede your point The Andorians and Tellarites are awesome in ENT, while cheesy as hell in TOS. I wish they were in TNG and DS9, because they're really interesting races.

I still think ENT would have been far better by leaps and bounds if it stayed with its prequel premise from the beginning (in fact the original concept for the first season sounds interesting to me, shame it didn't end up like that).

Actually, having watched Enterprise BEFORE the TOS episodes that had these races, I just found TOS to be cringeworthy!

But, then , Enterprise had the benefit of up-to-date special effects...and some really good (and in the case of Coombs- GREAT) character actors.

 

[Mk_Sn]

Actually, having watched Enterprise BEFORE the TOS episodes that had these races, I just found TOS to be cringeworthy!

But, then , Enterprise had the benefit of up-to-date special effects...and some really good (and in the case of Coombs- GREAT) character actors. __________________

I'm pretty mean to TOS, but if you can get past the cheese, some episodes are well-written and worth watching. But yeah, seeing the Andorians in TOS and then ENT is jarring. And ENT isn't my favorite series or anything, it's pretty flawed. But production wise, it's great.

 

[Christopher]

Try watching some of the earliest Doctor Who serials after seeing the modern Doctor Who. It'll make the difference between TOS's and ENT's production values look much less jarring by comparison.

 

[Mk_Sn]

Probably right but I don't like Doctor Who to begin with, it's all a corny shlock of nonsense to me.

Something I forgot: I'd think the Xindi attack would have been mentioned in later series. The Romulan War was referred to throughout the franchise, kind of like the Clone Wars of the Trek franchise, so if ENT needed an arc, shouldn't it have been that?

 

[Nebusj]

Something I forgot: I'd think the Xindi attack would have been mentioned in later series.

Surely it would dominate Federation thinking the way King Philip's War dominates the United States's worldview.

 

[Christopher]

Probably right but I don't like Doctor Who to begin with, it's all a corny shlock of nonsense to me.

Wow, that is just so incredibly beside the point. I was talking about production values and technological advances. The specific show is just an example.

Something I forgot: I'd think the Xindi attack would have been mentioned in later series. The Romulan War was referred to throughout the franchise, kind of like the Clone Wars of the Trek franchise, so if ENT needed an arc, shouldn't it have been that?

The timing was wrong. 2153 was too early. Presumably they had long-term plans to build toward the Earth-Romulan War, as we saw with "Minefield," but they needed to come up with something else to revamp the show in season 3.

And for what it's worth, I just looked up "Romulan War" on the Star Trek Script Search site, and it turns out that actual phrase was never spoken in any Star Trek episode or movie. The only episode that really used the war as a plot point was the one that introduced it, "Balance of Terror." The Romulan Neutral Zone was often mentioned, of course, as was the Romulans' history as a warlike people and an enemy of the Federation, but the war itself was not directly mentioned after "Balance," as far as I can tell. So I'd say the Clone Wars comparison works only in the context of the original Star Wars trilogy, which I believe only mentioned the Clone Wars in passing in the first film.

Anyway, it seems to me that if the Romulan War was as big as it's been portrayed in tie-ins, it would've kind of overshadowed the memory of the Xindi attack. So if even it was barely mentioned, then I don't see a problem with the Xindi attack not being mentioned.

 

[Mk_Sn]

Wow, that is just so incredibly beside the point. I was talking about production values and technological advances. The specific show is just an example.

The point being that there actually isn't much of a jarring difference. I've seen a few episodes of Doctor Who in the 70s, which look bad for their time. The new one, which I've seen some of, looks bad for its time. So I don't find it an apt comparison.

And I can't see any hand waving that would make the Xindi attack never mentioned, especially when the Romulan War is, with the Neutral Zone, Battle of Cheron, etc being the basis for much of the Trek universe and the reason for the Romulans being big villains. From what I know, in Enterprise's fifth season, we were going to see it or something of it, which was clearly being built up in the fourth season.

Surely it would dominate Federation thinking the way King Philip's War dominates the United States's worldview.

I think a Death Star sent to destroy Earth being directed by mystical aliens who can time travel would have made more of an impact, but maybe not.

 

[Ithekro]

You didn't check out the ones from the 60s, when TOS was on the air.

Good stories. Cheap BBC production budget. Black and White. It took me a while, then I realized the episode of Doctor Who I was watching had come out during the second season of Star Trek, which was "in Living Color on NBC".

By comparison, modern Doctor Who has a much better budget, and isn't looked down on by the BBC. It still have a BBC budget though. The sets don't wobble any more and you can't see the strings, and the CG is only about five years behind much of the time.

 

[eyeresist]

And I can't see any hand waving that would make the Xindi attack never mentioned, especially when the Romulan War is, with the Neutral Zone, Battle of Cheron, etc being the basis for much of the Trek universe and the reason for the Romulans being big villains.

Well, there you go. Those things remain relevant in later series because the Romulans are still a threat, whereas it is clear that, with the Sphere Builders discredited, the Xindi will no longer be a threat.

 

[Ithekro]

It means that even with the carving of Florida, the Xindi did less than the Romulans.

Aside from what Enterprise experienced, the Xindi attacked Earth territory twice (that was recorded anyway). The first time was the probe that carved into Florida. The second took out a space station, but the attack was stopped with help from other Xindi. The Aquatics ship seem to have dumped Enterprise off in an alternate 1944 rather than 2154, so either there is massive temporal issues that took Enterprise back when the Expanse was dissipated, or the Xindi were actually in the past all along, and the Expanse was a Temporal shifting feature. Meaning that the Xindi had to lay low for centuries before they could make contact again without some time travelers stopping them.

But the post Expanse Xindi were not a threat now that their benefactors were proven to be using them to take over the galaxy and would dump them once they could displace their realm with Xindi (and later Federation) Space.

The real question is, will the battle in the 26th century still happen now that Enterprise took out the Sphere Builders and the Expanse in the 22nd century? Or will the sphere builders make an attempt that will fail due to the Xindi having joined the Federation? Or did Archer change time, so that none of that would happen, and thus no one in the 24th century would give much of a damn about Xindi space?

Or is it more convoluted than that? With the Sphere Builder launching an early attack on Earth in the 2150s, did they force a first contact that was not suppose to happen until the 25th century? Did Kirk and Picard's eras not know the Xindi because Starfleet had avoided the deadly Expanse for centuries? But with the Sphere Builder's failure and the dispersion of the Expanse, does that mean that the changes are reflected only in the NuTrek timeline, but not in the TOS/TNG timeline?

 

[eyeresist]

Ithekro, those are some interesting questions!

 

[Christopher]

And I can't see any hand waving that would make the Xindi attack never mentioned, especially when the Romulan War is, with the Neutral Zone, Battle of Cheron, etc being the basis for much of the Trek universe and the reason for the Romulans being big villains.

You often hear about World War I and World War II, right? Well, when was the last time you heard mention of the Spanish-American War or the Philippine-American War? Or the 1910-1919 Border War between the US and Mexico during the Mexican Revolution? Not everyone takes an exhaustive interest in history. Just because a major conflict happened, that doesn't mean people are inevitably going to discuss it hundreds of years later.

After all, think about it -- the Romulan War, the Neutral Zone, and the like were only mentioned in stories where the Romulans came into play. Naturally, when characters interacted with the Romulans, that part of Earth history became relevant, so they discussed it, whereas they wouldn't have discussed it in the context of a story about Klingons or Argelians or Yonadans. And the Xindi are very far away and probably busy rebuilding their civilization, which could easily be the work of centuries. So the Enterprise crew never interacted with the Xindi, so that part of Earth history was never relevant to the particular stories we saw. If you could go into the Trek universe in 2267 and look up the curriculum of the University of Alpha Centauri, I'm sure you could find plenty of courses on the Xindi attack and its aftermath. But it's not something that was ever directly relevant to any of the Enterprise missions we saw, so it just didn't come up in conversation. "Scotty, if you don't hear from me in two hours, carry out General Order 24 and destroy this planet! Just like the Xindi threatened to do to Earth over 100 years ago! That's not actually important now, and Anan 7 has already closed the comm channel, but I thought I'd mention it anyway just to show off my interest in history!"

You didn't check out the ones from the 60s, when TOS was on the air.

More to the point, the ones from 1963, before TOS. Recorded on videotape basically as live stage productions, since videotape editing was very hard to do and they were basically allowed only three recording breaks per episode. Shot on the BBC's tiniest soundstages in Lime Grove Studios, cramming sets into cramped corners of the stage, and using cameras so massive and cumbersome that they often bumped into the scenery. Sound effects and music were played back live during recording since they didn't have the means to dub them in afterward. Any complicated effects or fight scenes were usually filmed at Ealing Studios a few weeks beforehand, with the edited film then played into the video feed at the appropriate points during the live recording session, the same way Monty Python's Flying Circus handled filmed inserts a few years later.

 

[Mk_Sn]

I don't know, I've seen a bit of Doctor Who from all eras, it all comes off as campy crap to me. Not sure why Europeans love it so much, but whatever.

Well, there you go. Those things remain relevant in later series because the Romulans are still a threat, whereas it is clear that, with the Sphere Builders discredited, the Xindi will no longer be a threat.

You'd think they'd at least mention it when mentioning "this is the greatest threat to Earth since ___" or talking about the various conflicts Earth has had, or whatever. You'd think it'd get a passing mention. But whatever.

You often hear about World War I and World War II, right? Well, when was the last time you heard mention of the Spanish-American War or the Philippine-American War? Or the 1910-1919 Border War between the US and Mexico during the Mexican Revolution? Not everyone takes an exhaustive interest in history. Just because a major conflict happened, that doesn't mean people are inevitably going to discuss it hundreds of years later.

As a history major, I find these really poor examples. First of all, you actually do hear of these wars, second of all, border skirmishes, occupations and small wars I don't think compare to a Death Star coming to destroy your planet. That's just me. Something tells me humans would still be talking about this, and practically everything else would pale in comparison.

After all, think about it -- the Romulan War, the Neutral Zone, and the like were only mentioned in stories where the Romulans came into play. Naturally, when characters interacted with the Romulans, that part of Earth history became relevant, so they discussed it, whereas they wouldn't have discussed it in the context of a story about Klingons or Argelians or Yonadans. And the Xindi are very far away and probably busy rebuilding their civilization, which could easily be the work of centuries. So the Enterprise crew never interacted with the Xindi, so that part of Earth history was never relevant to the particular stories we saw. If you could go into the Trek universe in 2267 and look up the curriculum of the University of Alpha Centauri, I'm sure you could find plenty of courses on the Xindi attack and its aftermath. But it's not something that was ever directly relevant to any of the Enterprise missions we saw, so it just didn't come up in conversation. "Scotty, if you don't hear from me in two hours, carry out General Order 24 and destroy this planet! Just like the Xindi threatened to do to Earth over 100 years ago! That's not actually important now, and Anan 7 has already closed the comm channel, but I thought I'd mention it anyway just to show off my interest in history!"

Um..they mention the Romulans and the Neutral Zone, etc in practically every incarnation of Trek and are one of the most used alien races in the franchise. So no.

It means that even with the carving of Florida, the Xindi did less than the Romulans.

Did the Romulans send a Death Star to destroy Earth? If so, maybe Star Wars was ripping this off?