Is Enterprise Canon?

There's been quite a bit of debate here about whether Enterprise is Canon or not. Some people dismiss it entirely. Some people consider it as an atlernate timeline. others (like myself) feel that while it does contradict what some other episodes say, it does fit reasonably well into the timeline of the other series.

So what do you think? If you think it violates continuity, what specific examples are there?

I firmly believe that Enterprise and the other shows can be viewed as one timeline. I mean sure, there are some bits of Enterprise that contradict other stuff (the whole laser pistol thing, as established by The Cage), but I mean, we are dealing with little things. it's not like they were saying that picard was never assimilated by the Borg or anything. That's an example of a serious violation of continuity, and Enterprise, as far as I know, never did it.

 

yes i believe it is canon.
especially with some of things being done in the fourth season.
is it perfect in continuity, nope but neither was tos.

 

Yes.

/thread

 

By Trek guidelines all series and movies are canon. The Xindi attack threw some people but that was no worse than the movie that sent the Borg back in time.

 

I'm actually interested in hearing from people who disagree. I firmly believe that anything which people interpret as meaning Enterprise doesn't fit into the core Star trek timeline doesn't neccessarily have to lead to that conclusion. i don't there is anything that prevents Enterprise from fiting into the Core timeline.

 

Yes.
Some fans insist that the inconsistencies with TOS (mainly) are evidence that Enterprise is somehow not a legitimate part of the Trekverse. They insist that Enterprise should reflect the "reality" of TOS (set in the 23rd century) despite the fact that our 21st century technology has already surpassed Gene Roddenberry's 1960s perspective of possible technological advancements 200 years hence.

If the creators of ENT had stuck to that perspective, the show would have been ridiculed for being preposterously backward compared to our own era.

 

Is it canon? Yes, by definition.

Continuity is a different question, and the terms shouldn't be intermingled.

 

Of course it's canon.

 

It's a live-action Trek series produced by Paramount, so yes, it's canon.

 

I don't see a problem with that. So they use a variety of hand held weapons - no big deal. Nowhere in "The Cage" was it said that 'hand lasers' were the most powerful weapons, or the only ones, they had...

 

They're bits of TOS that contradict TOS too.

 

Of course it's canon. It seems to me that the people who insist that it's not do so mostly because they don't like the series.

 

Maybe we should no longer consider TOS canon... it's been nothing but trouble.

(That'll rile 'em )

 

I think it's because they don't know what the word 'canon' actually means.

 

It's canon. When I watch TOS or TNG I'm not thinking about how the events of Enterprise preceded all this, but it's canon.

 

How could it possibly have been? GR died ten years before Enterprise S1...

 

Then I'll help them. Canon is a big gun.

Nothing else.

 

Not everything in canon agrees with everything else. Without using retconning (which I think is cheating) it get complicated. Multiple universes, with none of them being the "prime" universe is one way of looking at it.

The mirror universe is obviously separate.
The whole Archer/Nazi universe is separate.
Edith Keeler delaying the US entry into the second world war.
Spock's pet selat living a longer life.
All but a few minutes of Star Trek Eleven.
Others too.

Some items can be easily explained, Chekov met Khan off screen, in The Cage the weapons were never call lasers (I think), Odo was present in the bar during the original The Trouble with Tribbles we just didn't see him. The technology in TOS might seem primitive, but during In A Mirror, Darkly it was shown to be much superior to the technology in Enterprise.

From the beginning of Broken Bow through to the last scene in Nemesis it may not be a perfectly straight line, but it can be viewed as a unbroken one.

 

Well in light of events in STXI, I'd say that's fair.