Xindi in the TOS era

[Canonical Continuity]

I got the sense that Saratoga was fairly far out, not assigned to Earth defense, and perhaps even made first contact with the probe.

Yes, exactly.

if you argue that Earth was better defended at that point than it had been during the V'ger crisis

Yes, exactly.

I'd hardly say it was objectively well defended.

There was literally no defense for what they were facing, except what Kirk did. I shall argue that we should assume that for the types of enemies that they had assessed, such as the Klingons, the Federation was extremely well defended, clearly much better prepared than they were during the V'ger crisis.

It was nice that a presumably functional Excelsior was there, but why (in-universe) it was in Spacedock when the probe arrived rather than in a position to engage with the probe when they surely knew it was coming is bewildering.

No clue. Perhaps they had gone back to the drawing board regarding transwarp and the warp core had been literally pulled. Maybe they were still fixing whatever design flaws Scotty had exploited. Or both.

 

[DonIago]

No clue. Perhaps they had gone back to the drawing board regarding transwarp and the warp core had been literally pulled. Maybe they were still fixing whatever design flaws Scotty had exploited. Or both.

The problem is they obviously were intending to have Excelsior mount some kind of defense (as it was preparing to leave Spacedock), so why they waited until the last minute to launch is bewildering, unless they'd intended to launch earlier but ran into delays. It just doesn't make a lot of sense as presented.

 

[Canonical Continuity]

The problem is they obviously were intending to have Excelsior mount some kind of defense (as it was preparing to leave Spacedock), so why they waited until the last minute to launch is bewildering, unless they'd intended to launch earlier but ran into delays. It just doesn't make a lot of sense as presented.

I mean, I offered a couple of reasonable possibilities for why the ship would not have been ready in time to do anything. It's not important, since, even if it did launch, we know it would have to have done nothing for Earth's defense, or else there's no need for Kirk to save the day.

 

[Shawnster]

As a major political, cultural, financial (heh), and military center of the Federation, there should be more than just a couple of combat ready ships in Sol. There is a major shipyard in the system, maybe 2. Starfleet HQ is there. It's likely several ships of various class sizes arrive and depart daily on routine missions. This is in addition to ships being constructed or repaired.