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

[Christopher]

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.

Which, again, has nothing to do with the point I'm making about the advance of production values in general between the 1960s and today. The only reason I chose Doctor Who is because it's one of the few franchises I can think of besides Star Trek that's been in production for generations and thus allows a direct comparison between '60s production values and 2000s production values. Whether you like the show or not has nothing to do with what I'm trying to get across here. I'd pick a different series if I could think of one that spanned so much time. (Maybe Man of Steel vs. the '50s Adventures of Superman TV series?)

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 of course it couldn't have, because they hadn't created it yet. The same reason TNG never mentioned the Cardassian war in its first three seasons even though it was later established that the war had actually been going on during the first two seasons. And the same reason Spock never mentioned Surak before "The Savage Curtain." Retcons happen. That's just the way it is.

As a history major, I find these really poor examples. First of all, you actually do hear of these wars

In some contexts, yes. But not in every context. Let's get a sense of perspective here. TOS spanned something like three years, but there's only about 80 x 50 minutes of actual content, which is only about 67 hours of those three years, and all focused on the command crew of a single ship. That's very, very far from a comprehensive survey of everyday life in the 23rd century. It's such a tiny sample that it's easy to rationalize something going unmentioned.

Besides, I was a history major myself, and I can't remember the last time anyone mentioned the Spanish-American or Philippine-American War in any conversation I've had in the past ten or fifteen years.

, second of all, border skirmishes, occupations and small wars I don't think compare to a Death Star coming to destroy your planet.

The Romulan War, at least as depicted in the novels, was a conflict that devastated multiple planets and lasted for years. Compared to the Romulan War, the Xindi attack was a minor skirmish.

Something tells me humans would still be talking about this, and practically everything else would pale in comparison.

Among civilians on Earth, quite possibly. But we rarely saw civilians on Earth.

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.

Come on, that's insulting. I specifically stated that they do mention the Romulans, so you know perfectly damn well that I don't need that pointed out to me. My point is that the Earth-Romulan War itself was never mentioned after "Balance of Terror." Yes, the Battle of Cheron was mentioned in "The Defector," but it was not specifically established therein whether it was part of the same war mentioned in "Balance" or a different one that happened between TOS and TNG. The actual, explicit, onscreen references to past Romulan conflicts are far, far rarer and vaguer than you allege. I searched the episode transcripts myself, so I know this to be the case.

 

[Long Syntax]

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!"

Ok, I almost shot coffee out of my nose while reading this... hilarious

 

[Ithekro]

The Xindi failed to do anything to Earth other than carve Florida. The larger ship was blown up much like V'Ger would do over a century later, and they never talk about that either in TNG. At best you'll get a reference to Earth not being attacked since a past century, and by the time anyone is doing that, the reference is the Whale probe or V'ger.

Basically the only time a reference to the Xindi attack on Earth would have been relevent would have been when V'Ger was coming, or when the Breen attacked in DS9. At which point we have to question if in fact the Romulans did do more damage to Earth during the Romulan-Earth War. They might not have sent a planet killer, but they might have done more damage over a wider area of systems in Earth Space, making them more a remembered threat. The blood was bad enough for there to still be some hatred of Romulans and for human crew to suspect traitors and spies in 2267 even though there had been no contact with Romulas for a century. The Xindi threat basically vanished as a threat by the time Enterprise got home. The Romulans stayed a threat for centuries. The Xindi were a non-issue after the Romulan War started.

Also, as a history major as well, I find those example quite good. You rarely hear about the Philipine-American War or the Border War with Mexico outside a History class, or Jeopardy. At best you'll have references to Pancho Villa and usually not in full context. The Spanish-American War barely gets a passing mention most of the time outside of a History Class. Outside of "Remember the Maine" most people don't know much about it. And that reference gets over shadowed most of the time by "Remember Pearl Harbor" or "Remember 9/11". Or the older "Remember the Alamo" reference. Meaning that the likely public historical referencing to "Remember Florida" would have likely been overshadowed by things the Romulans did during the war, or things the Klingons did later on prior to Kirk's command of USS Enterprise.

The Xindi incident became a footnote in Earth and Federation History.

The earlier referencing of King Philip's War is likely correct. That war doesn't even register on me at its mention, and I was a History Major focusing on US History. And that was in New England. I probably had family involved in it back then.

 

[F. King Daniel]

There's some willing suspension of disbelief required for this stuff. IMO, if you can buy an entire starship Enterprise before Kirk's, the idea that it too saved the galaxy from dangerous threats isn't hard to believe.

 

[Long Syntax]

There's some willing suspension of disbelief required for this stuff. IMO, if you can buy an entire starship Enterprise before Kirk's, the idea that it too saved the galaxy from dangerous threats isn't hard to believe.

Of course there is, it all depends on how much you'll accept. However I don't believe it takes much effort to believe that there could be a ship called Enterprise that traveled space prior to the 1701. The whole of ST history is littered with 1701's after Kirk's, although we haven't ran out of letters yet.

I suspend disbelief to be entertained... ST has faithfully done that for me for as long as I can remember

 

[Christopher]

The Xindi failed to do anything to Earth other than carve Florida.

Well, a path stretching from Florida to Venezuela, and thus presumably intersecting parts of Cuba, Jamaica, and Colombia as well.

Also, as a history major as well, I find those example quite good. You rarely hear about the Philipine-American War or the Border War with Mexico outside a History class, or Jeopardy. At best you'll have references to Pancho Villa and usually not in full context. The Spanish-American War barely gets a passing mention most of the time outside of a History Class. Outside of "Remember the Maine" most people don't know much about it. And that reference gets over shadowed most of the time by "Remember Pearl Harbor" or "Remember 9/11". Or the older "Remember the Alamo" reference. Meaning that the likely public historical referencing to "Remember Florida" would have likely been overshadowed by things the Romulans did during the war, or things the Klingons did later on prior to Kirk's command of USS Enterprise.

And then there's the Russo-Japanese war early in the 20th century. At the time, the United States wholeheartedly approved of Japan's imperial ambition, seeing it as a flattering reflection of the US itself. But nobody seemed to remember that in the wake of December 1941.

The earlier referencing of King Philip's War is likely correct. That war doesn't even register on me at its mention, and I was a History Major focusing on US History. And that was in New England. I probably had family involved in it back then.

I might have as well; the first Bennett in the New World settled in Scituate, Mass. in 1634, and Wikipedia says that "twelve homes and a sawmill" there were destroyed in King Philip's War. But I never heard of that war until I was assigned to do a paper on Jill Lepore's book about it in History 300.

 

[MacLeod]

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.

I can't speak for the rest of Europe, but remember DW is a British show so it would have been produced in a way to appeal to it's home market first and foremost and it must have done something right to last initally from 1963-1989 or 26 years if you prefer, and it's currently 2005- so another 10 years.

And whilst it had weathered storms it was basically screwed by the network put in competition against the number 1 show in the UK (though it ratings were often the best for any BBC show in that slot), poor budget and yes quality had begun to suffer.

And remember nostalgia can play a part, DW was part of many Brits Childhood. I suspet that if a non-American viewed some US TV shows from the 1960's they might find have a negative reaction to them, and the same with some modern TV shows. Simply put everyone has different tastes.

But you want camp try the 1980's Flash Gordon film. It was a hit in the UK but not so much of a hit in the US.

 

[eyeresist]

The Xindi failed to do anything to Earth other than carve Florida.

Well, a path stretching from Florida to Venezuela, and thus presumably intersecting parts of Cuba, Jamaica, and Colombia as well.

This suggests to me that the Xindi were actually targeting the aliens in the Bermuda triangle.

 

[Christopher]

This suggests to me that the Xindi were actually targeting the aliens in the Bermuda triangle.

Well, then they missed. Or just barely brushed the westernmost tip of it.

 

[Mk_Sn]

Which, again, has nothing to do with the point I'm making about the advance of production values in general between the 1960s and today. The only reason I chose Doctor Who is because it's one of the few franchises I can think of besides Star Trek that's been in production for generations and thus allows a direct comparison between '60s production values and 2000s production values. Whether you like the show or not has nothing to do with what I'm trying to get across here. I'd pick a different series if I could think of one that spanned so much time. (Maybe Man of Steel vs. the '50s Adventures of Superman TV series?)

You're missing my point because you seem to be taking offense to what I'm saying. I'm saying Doctor Who looks bad always. TOS looks bad compared to TNG but they both look good for their time. Doctor Who always looked bad. Yes Doctor Who now looks better than 40 years ago, but they both are terrible looking. Just saying it's not an apt comparison. Indeed, Doctor Who fans typically like the cheese factor, thinking its part of its charm. At least this one girl who has introduced me to Doctor Who tells me that :P

But of course it couldn't have, because they hadn't created it yet. The same reason TNG never mentioned the Cardassian war in its first three seasons even though it was later established that the war had actually been going on during the first two seasons. And the same reason Spock never mentioned Surak before "The Savage Curtain." Retcons happen. That's just the way it is.

Well yeah exactly my point. Why does a prequel feature such Earth-shattering moments that are never mentioned in the future? They had plenty to work with, the Romulan War, formation of the Federation, first contact with the Klingons, etc, most of which they hint at in the last season, but for most of the series, it's just wasted on stories that could have been told far better in another series.

In some contexts, yes. But not in every context. Let's get a sense of perspective here. TOS spanned something like three years, but there's only about 80 x 50 minutes of actual content, which is only about 67 hours of those three years, and all focused on the command crew of a single ship. That's very, very far from a comprehensive survey of everyday life in the 23rd century. It's such a tiny sample that it's easy to rationalize something going unmentioned.

Besides, I was a history major myself, and I can't remember the last time anyone mentioned the Spanish-American or Philippine-American War in any conversation I've had in the past ten or fifteen years.

No no, stick with "they hadn't written it yet" because that is correct, but just makes the series worse because it can't even follow its own premise (and replaces it with poorly written plotlines).

Then I don't know where you went to school because I had to write two research essays on the Spanish American War, one showing how the Fillipino War was actually a separate war and why it's lumped with the Spanish War for political purposes.

The Romulan War, at least as depicted in the novels, was a conflict that devastated multiple planets and lasted for years. Compared to the Romulan War, the Xindi attack was a minor skirmish.

I think a Death Star going to blow up your planet is pretty close, no?

Among civilians on Earth, quite possibly. But we rarely saw civilians on Earth.

Hadn't been written yet I thought?

Come on, that's insulting. I specifically stated that they do mention the Romulans, so you know perfectly damn well that I don't need that pointed out to me. My point is that the Earth-Romulan War itself was never mentioned after "Balance of Terror." Yes, the Battle of Cheron was mentioned in "The Defector," but it was not specifically established therein whether it was part of the same war mentioned in "Balance" or a different one that happened between TOS and TNG. The actual, explicit, onscreen references to past Romulan conflicts are far, far rarer and vaguer than you allege. I searched the episode transcripts myself, so I know this to be the case.

Yeah it was: http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Earth-Romulan_War

carve Florida

I think killing millions of people in preparation for blowing up the planet would be well-remembered, but that's just me. After all, this is a 9/11 reference.

 

[Christopher]

You're missing my point because you seem to be taking offense to what I'm saying.

I am neither missing your point nor taking offense. I am merely pointing out that my intent was to comment on the changes in production values between the 1960s and today. I was not talking specifically about Doctor Who. It was just an example, and obviously a poorly chosen one, because it reminded you of something you don't like. I'm simply asking you to set Doctor Who aside, to forget I ever mentioned it, because it's distracting you from the subject I was actually talking about.

Well yeah exactly my point. Why does a prequel feature such Earth-shattering moments that are never mentioned in the future?

Because it has to! "Prequel" or no, the fact is that it's still a new television series, moving the franchise forward in real-world terms regardless of the internal chronology. Any other prequel will do the same thing. How come none of the events from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles ever got mentioned in the Indiana Jones movies? How come the original Star Wars trilogy never mentioned Amidala or Dooku or Qui-Gon Jinn or Naboo or Kamino or Geonosis or the Trade Federation? How come none of the Alien films mentioned the characters and events from Prometheus? How come Battlestar Galactica never mentioned the Graystone family or the pervasive virtual reality seen in Caprica?

"Prequel" is just shorthand for "preceding sequel." Regardless of when it's set, it's still technically a sequel, a followup, in real-world terms. And that means that its purpose is to add something new, just as with any other sequel.

And sure, the stuff introduced in a prequel was never mentioned before, but so what? Picard's brother, sister-in-law, and nephew were never mentioned before we met them. O'Brien's old captain was never mentioned before we met him. Kirk's various old girlfriends were never mentioned before we met them. Andoria and Tellar were never mentioned as Federation members until "Journey to Babel." This is just the nature of fiction. New ideas, including elements of the series' past, get added on gradually.

They had plenty to work with, the Romulan War, formation of the Federation, first contact with the Klingons, etc, most of which they hint at in the last season, but for most of the series, it's just wasted on stories that could have been told far better in another series.

Err, we got first contact with the Klingons in the pilot episode. Anyway, it would've been pretty dull if it had just used the stuff we already knew about. I'll never understand people who only want fiction that reinforces their existing ideas and offers them nothing new. What's the point?

No no, stick with "they hadn't written it yet" because that is correct, but just makes the series worse because it can't even follow its own premise (and replaces it with poorly written plotlines).

Except the same goes for pretty much every prequel ever, as I said. And for every story that reveals something hitherto unknown about a character's past. It doesn't make sense as a criticism, because it's such a universal aspect of series fiction.

Yeah it was: http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Earth-Romulan_War

If you're really a history student, you should know better than to think a secondary source like Memory Alpha trumps a primary source like the actual episode dialogue. The only actual spoken reference to the Battle of Cheron is in "The Defector," which makes no mention of what war it was part of. The only onscreen source linking that battle to the Earth-Romulan War is the production art from "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II" that was only briefly and illegibly glimpsed on a viewscreen, and that's really just cribbed text from the Star Trek Chronology. There was no mention of the Romulan War or Cheron in the actual dialogue of the episode.

I think killing millions of people in preparation for blowing up the planet would be well-remembered, but that's just me. After all, this is a 9/11 reference.

9/11 is big to you because it happened only 14 years ago and nothing even huger has happened since to overshadow it. By 50 or 100 years from now, it might've become just a footnote overshadowed by some far more massive event.

 

[Ithekro]

"Remember Florida"

"Why? After what the Romulans did? Remember Starbase One"

Millions killed years ago by a different enemy can get overshadowed by the new enemy also killing tens of thousands repeatedly. Especially if the Enterprise era Romulans still use cloaking devices, false projections, and other tactics that overwhelm Earth and allied ships repeatedly. No quarter given. No face of the enemy. Just the Romulans and their ships carrying the image of a bird of prey. Killing people for years in a war.

After that the Xindi are kind of a footnote in history. Brought up sometimes, but usually not.

(For actual history, you are talking research papers. What about casual conversation? How often does any of the turn of the century non-World Wars come up? The Boxer Rebellion? The Boer Wars? The Spanish-American War? The First Sino-Japanese War? The War of the Pacific? The Russo-Japanese War? Of those I hear about the Russo-Japanese War the most, but that is only because I'm around people that like to game with pre-dreadnaught battleships. The land actions? Almost never come up.)

 

[Christopher]

(For actual history, you are talking research papers. What about casual conversation? How often does any of the turn of the century non-World Wars come up?

Exactly the point. We're not watching a show about historians. Some of the characters have an interest in certain aspects of history, but it's not comprehensive, and it usually only comes up when it's relevant to whatever crises the characters are dealing with in the present. Or when they want to re-enact it on the holodeck, but Trek characters are inordinately fascinated with pre-2000s historical eras. Why don't they mention the Xindi attack? For the same reason they roleplay the Blitz or the Alamo or the "Ancient West" rather than the settlement of the Martian Colonies or the Vulcan Reformation -- because it's a TV show and the writers chose subjects meaningful to a 20th-century American audience.

 

[MacLeod]

Which, again, has nothing to do with the point I'm making about the advance of production values in general between the 1960s and today. The only reason I chose Doctor Who is because it's one of the few franchises I can think of besides Star Trek that's been in production for generations and thus allows a direct comparison between '60s production values and 2000s production values. Whether you like the show or not has nothing to do with what I'm trying to get across here. I'd pick a different series if I could think of one that spanned so much time. (Maybe Man of Steel vs. the '50s Adventures of Superman TV series?)

You're missing my point because you seem to be taking offense to what I'm saying. I'm saying Doctor Who looks bad always. TOS looks bad compared to TNG but they both look good for their time. Doctor Who always looked bad. Yes Doctor Who now looks better than 40 years ago, but they both are terrible looking. Just saying it's not an apt comparison. Indeed, Doctor Who fans typically like the cheese factor, thinking its part of its charm. At least this one girl who has introduced me to Doctor Who tells me that :P

But how does DW look compared against other British genre shows? I think the answer would be quite well, and whilst it has a decent budget for a UK show, rumour has it's about £1m per episode or around US$1.6m. ENT had what a budget of US$2.5m per episode? And perhaps comparing a UK TV productions to US productions isn't a good example.

But even you admit that it looks better today than it did in the 1960's, which was Christopher's point.

To expand somewhat on ather of Christophers points, The September 11th attacks were coming up on 11 years ago, Let me see we had the July 7th bombings that occured in London coming up 10 years ago. But how often do we bring these events up in casual conversation? I suspect not that often. We only tend to refer to specific events when we have to and as more time passes we tend to mark events less and less. For example in 2 days the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo will be marked, I suspect that the 201st Anniversary will pass with very little notice being paid to it. We just marked the 800th Anniversary of Magna Carta, I suspect that just as the 799th passed with little notice so will the 801st. Naturally these events mean more to certain parts of the world than others, but the same could become true of the Xindi attack on Earth as it passed from living memory to just another page in a history book.

 

[Leviathan]

They do not discuss it with outsiders.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Spoiler: Most recent Star Trek Continues

It has a throwaway line that mentions the Xindi. Not canon, of course, but pretty good, anyway.

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.

This is why I prefer to read the novelizations of the old episodes: the production values are SO much better.

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?

YES. This.

There's some willing suspension of disbelief required for this stuff. IMO, if you can buy an entire starship Enterprise before Kirk's, the idea that it too saved the galaxy from dangerous threats isn't hard to believe.

I have no problem with them having a ship with 01 on it, it's just that it should have been painted like the General Lee, too. Painted like that, it could have jumped the shark (and pretty much anything else) no problem.

 

[Christopher]

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?

YES. This.

No. Not this. The intention of Enterprise's producers was that the events of the show would lead into the Star Trek timeline we knew. That was the whole point, to show the history behind the Trek universe we knew already. The time-travel interventions (which were put in over the producers' objections due to network pressure) are presumably just part of the pre-existing history, like how Spock described the Enterprise's presence in 1968 in "Assignment: Earth."

Like I said -- the show clearly established that the Expanse was very far away from Earth (disregarding that nonsensical and clearly erroneous "50 light years" line in "The Xindi"), and that the Xindi were in search of a new homeworld, the rebuilding of which could easily occupy a civilization for centuries. Not every society would be equally engaged with spaceflight at every point in its history. It's perfectly reasonable that the Xindi might've just decided to devote a couple of centuries to developing their new homeworld, building new cities and infrastructure and monuments, growing their population, and so forth. That would've logically taken up so much of their attention and resources that they just wouldn't have had much left for space travel. So it's not remotely difficult to explain why we don't see them in the 23rd or 24th century.

 

[eyeresist]

I have no problem with them having a ship with 01 on it, it's just that it should have been painted like the General Lee, too. Painted like that, it could have jumped the shark (and pretty much anything else) no problem.

Captain Bo and Science Officer Luke, assisted by Doctor Daisy and Engineer Uncle Jesse, thwarting the interstellar conspiracies of B'Hoss K'Hogg...
That is just wrong.

 

[IronMaiden]

There was no Denobulans/Xindi in TOS and TNG because enterprise came after the other shows.

 

[GregroxMun]

Xindi happens to have been referred to in a TNG captain's log. Nothing specific, it was just flavor text really.