The Temporal Cold War, why did it go nowhere? Here's a story that left more questions then answers despite being a driving force in season 1. We never really found out who "Future Guy" is, for example.
The Temporal Cold War, why did it go nowhere?
- Thread starter The Overlord
- Start date
Because it was a storyline forced upon the producers by the network, so they never really had their hearts in it. UPN was nervous about ENT being set in Trek's past, and they told B&B to incorporate a time travel aspect, so that they could move the show into the future in case the prequel concept bombed.
I wonder why they never tried that. ENT wasn't exactly the success they must've been hoping for.
Probably would've turned out to be another reset anyhow. Even if it's one where the crew remember everything, while history shifts to a non-TCW state around them.
Although "Storm Front" ended with everything that had happened still having done so, given the NX-01 was basically launched before she was supposed to, as a consequence of the TCW ultimately.
It could've flared up again later on maybe. If only to involve Future Guy and compared to the Sphere Builders and Na'kuhl, that person's aim seemed more subtle than universal destruction. Like he needed certain aspects of pre-Federation history to remain unaltered.
Although "Storm Front" ended with everything that had happened still having done so, given the NX-01 was basically launched before she was supposed to, as a consequence of the TCW ultimately.
It could've flared up again later on maybe. If only to involve Future Guy and compared to the Sphere Builders and Na'kuhl, that person's aim seemed more subtle than universal destruction. Like he needed certain aspects of pre-Federation history to remain unaltered.
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Future guy was "probably a Romulan" who was "instigating things" (presumably toward the earth/Romulan war) according to TPTB. I agree it sucks mightily that we never learned that, or his motivations, during the show. I actually liked the TCW, but I'd love to know why Daniels always needed Enterprise's help to do anything, when he had such power to move people and whole starships through time and space.
The recent novel Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investgations: Watching the Clock (some title, eh?) supposedly wraps up the TCW, reveals who Future Guy is and ties up lots of Trek's unexplained temporal anomalies (explaining them as byproducts of the TCW). It's set in 2382, after Nemesis but before STXI's supernova.
Face it. There hasn't been a single Star Trek series yet, where the showrunners had the slightest idea where they going to take their premise. That would be Babylon 5, barring miraculously well-panned out adjustments, dealing with cast changes and studio meddling.
They all winged it. Even after imploding Vulcan, the new custodians of the franchise likely have no strong direction to go in. Besides completely ignoring it and pretending they're making TOS all over again. I mean Vulcan might restored in a jokey time-wimey pre-title sequence or maybe, come back to haunt them in some way through a new villain that situation created.
It's clear the Temporal Cold War wasn't where the heart of Enterprise lay. That was a whole damn different series idea in itself, which is almost a logical follow-up to Voyager - the franchise having done known and unknown space - next stop, a show about a time agency going to different centuries each week.
The idea of a single individual or race, meddling with the 22nd Century, sort of appealled to me. I thought Future Guy should have been identified and connected to something important in that era. Yes, he's in the 29th Century and yes, it's going to be convoluted to do... but Archer was taken to a point even further ahead with disasterous results - so FG can still be basically anyone from any time. Take "Storm Front, Part II" and his objective had apparently extended to sending Silik to get him the ability to time-travel. You can satisifactory play with the audience and throw red herrings out there, about who the real enemy is. But not really with a widespread war, with different fractions all having shadowy deep throat guys all handing out futuristic advantages to their contemporary allies. There's no way to ever fully explore that idea and have it mean anything to Enterprise characters. They should come first, despite accusations of "SuperArcher" or too much history revolving around the one crew or characters they meet. If a prequel can't be about fuss being made over pivotal and landmark events, then it's not fulfilling the premise.
They all winged it. Even after imploding Vulcan, the new custodians of the franchise likely have no strong direction to go in. Besides completely ignoring it and pretending they're making TOS all over again. I mean Vulcan might restored in a jokey time-wimey pre-title sequence or maybe, come back to haunt them in some way through a new villain that situation created.
It's clear the Temporal Cold War wasn't where the heart of Enterprise lay. That was a whole damn different series idea in itself, which is almost a logical follow-up to Voyager - the franchise having done known and unknown space - next stop, a show about a time agency going to different centuries each week.
The idea of a single individual or race, meddling with the 22nd Century, sort of appealled to me. I thought Future Guy should have been identified and connected to something important in that era. Yes, he's in the 29th Century and yes, it's going to be convoluted to do... but Archer was taken to a point even further ahead with disasterous results - so FG can still be basically anyone from any time. Take "Storm Front, Part II" and his objective had apparently extended to sending Silik to get him the ability to time-travel. You can satisifactory play with the audience and throw red herrings out there, about who the real enemy is. But not really with a widespread war, with different fractions all having shadowy deep throat guys all handing out futuristic advantages to their contemporary allies. There's no way to ever fully explore that idea and have it mean anything to Enterprise characters. They should come first, despite accusations of "SuperArcher" or too much history revolving around the one crew or characters they meet. If a prequel can't be about fuss being made over pivotal and landmark events, then it's not fulfilling the premise.
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Sounds fanwanky.
I knew before the series debuted that the time travel storyline was a baaad idea. Time travel is probably the hardest of all sci fi ideas to do well, particularly in a TV format, where planning things out in advance is difficult or impossible. If you're JMS and have total control over everything, great. But that situation is rare.
Instead, since I knew there was no way they would plan everything out in advance, that it would all founder on illogic. The only way to avoid the illogic was to remove logic from the story altogether by not telling us the rules of time travel or the Temporal Cold War. Who are the players? What do they want? What are they able to do and not able to do?
Notice how we never got clear answers to any of that? That was intentional. Clear answers would require clear story logic and that would require that the whole story be planned out in advance in enough detail that nobody could say, "why didn't character X do Y in the first episode to solve problem Z that showed up in season five?"
And that was never going to happen on a TV show. So the time travel story should never have been attempted. It works only if you are JMS and have total control and a maniacal attention to detail, or if the time travel is relegated to the episodic format.
B&B would have had to explain all this to the pinheads at UPN, who probably would have tuned out since it's all too complicated for their tiny little brains. To make the best of a bad situation, they could have developed very restrictive rules about what temporal cold warriors can and can't do. Box the players in, and then tell us the rules. That can be interesting in its own right.
The rules of time travel in Star Trek have never been consistent, so inventing new rules is perfectly kosher. Maybe the new rules are the only way to play with the timeline that doesn't cause the universe to blow up, or whatever.
Giving fictional characters total freedom is bad for drama. Boxing them in and limiting their options intensifies the conflict and makes it easy to follow - they can only do X, Y and Z, so we have a chance of understanding what the consequences of each of those might be, forming theories on which option is the best, and being interested in seeing the consequences of them picking "rightly" or "wrongly." If their options are infinite or operate under unknown rules, we can't play along and become bored and disconnected.
Instead, since I knew there was no way they would plan everything out in advance, that it would all founder on illogic. The only way to avoid the illogic was to remove logic from the story altogether by not telling us the rules of time travel or the Temporal Cold War. Who are the players? What do they want? What are they able to do and not able to do?
Notice how we never got clear answers to any of that? That was intentional. Clear answers would require clear story logic and that would require that the whole story be planned out in advance in enough detail that nobody could say, "why didn't character X do Y in the first episode to solve problem Z that showed up in season five?"
And that was never going to happen on a TV show. So the time travel story should never have been attempted. It works only if you are JMS and have total control and a maniacal attention to detail, or if the time travel is relegated to the episodic format.
B&B would have had to explain all this to the pinheads at UPN, who probably would have tuned out since it's all too complicated for their tiny little brains. To make the best of a bad situation, they could have developed very restrictive rules about what temporal cold warriors can and can't do. Box the players in, and then tell us the rules. That can be interesting in its own right.
The rules of time travel in Star Trek have never been consistent, so inventing new rules is perfectly kosher. Maybe the new rules are the only way to play with the timeline that doesn't cause the universe to blow up, or whatever.
Giving fictional characters total freedom is bad for drama. Boxing them in and limiting their options intensifies the conflict and makes it easy to follow - they can only do X, Y and Z, so we have a chance of understanding what the consequences of each of those might be, forming theories on which option is the best, and being interested in seeing the consequences of them picking "rightly" or "wrongly." If their options are infinite or operate under unknown rules, we can't play along and become bored and disconnected.
Bingo. A real prequel would have allowed the show to be more relatable to non-fans (characters who aren't perfect and evolved, a more dangerous galaxy filled with powerful aliens vs. underdog Earth) and more interesting to fans (actually depicting in a believable way how the Federation might have been formed and how the Earth-Romulan War happened).
If all UPN wanted was an escape hatch to the future, the Temporal Cold War was total overkill. Why not just have a plotline where the Romulans seem to be developing some scary ultimate weapon that lets them travel to the future? They don't have to be able to do that. Just the threat of it could set a plotline in motion where Archer et al must stop them.
Then, if the prequel premise really does flop after having been given a serious try, you could have a season ending cliffhanger where the Enterprise crew unexpectedly activates the doohickey and ends up in the 23rd C, with no way back. There's no reason that the doohickey needs to work until UPN orders the premise to be changed.
Fanwanky? Just like season four of Enterprise, then.
The "future" as in post Star Trek: Voyager?
Yup. The network wasn't 100% sold on the idea of a TOS prequel, IMO.
Yes, they were. Daniels briefly showed Archer the 26th Century, and the Battle of Procyon 5 from a window aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise-J. The Federation drove them back into their transdimensional realm, and so they eventually retaliated with a plan to transform the Delphic Expanse to suit them and then expand it, wiping out future Federation races around in the 22nd Century. While also manipulating one of the native group of species - the Xindi, to strike at Earth as an opening salvo.
Actually, not just future Federation races but any of those nearby in the Alpha/Beta Quadrants. Given that in "Home", Soval admits he was mistaken in opposing Enterprise's mission in the Expanse, because it would someday have reached Vulcan.
It also explains Future Guy's sudden change of tactic - going from meddling in Suliban, Klingon and Earth affairs - to motivated self interest. Wherever and whoever he is, he could wake up the next day, look out his 29th Century window and find his homeworld in ruins, the Expanse lighting up the night sky.
It also explains Future Guy's sudden change of tactic - going from meddling in Suliban, Klingon and Earth affairs - to motivated self interest. Wherever and whoever he is, he could wake up the next day, look out his 29th Century window and find his homeworld in ruins, the Expanse lighting up the night sky.
As it has been said, the whole thing was forced upon the writers by the network and from the lackluster way of dealing with it, you could see that they didn't like it one bit.
As soon as Coto got the ok to nix it, he 'concluded' it with the god awful Nazi Two-parter.
As soon as Coto got the ok to nix it, he 'concluded' it with the god awful Nazi Two-parter.
It's needlessly over complicated really. The Temporal Cold War. As much I like certain aspects of it. Which kinda goes against the common view that Enterprise was "dumbed down" Star Trek.
Writing a conflict between Starfleet and the Romulans, including all the interstellar politics and personal conflicts on each side (much like Season 3 did with Archer/Degra, Reed/Hayes, Trip/T'Pol, Degra/Dollum), AND even a reasonable explanation why history rather improbably leaves out any mention of face-to-face encounters - all that would've been child's play by comparision.
The trick would simply be making the audience care enough about all the players (as they did during Season 3 anyway), that it needn't matter that Archer never got to fist-fight with Admiral Valdore. Kirk was never in the same room as Khan and certain left his mark in "The Wrath of Khan". They just needed footsoldiers like the Remans and other mercenary races for hand-to-hand fighting and chilling Romulan voices over subspace, playing cat & mouse, issuing terror warnings and threats. And if they really want to show the Romulans going unnoticed among Starfleet types on Earth, they have the perfect cover. Humans not wanting to risk pointing the finger at a people who helped us out during our greatest need, despite what they have held back during Archer's lifetime.
I sort of go through this, everytime I step back and look at the big picture of Enterprise. What it should mean to the franchise. It had such a fantastic cast (for my money, every SINGLE actor in it did some good stuff) and there are some great episodes all-over. Not just Season 4. But it just lacked an edge to make it better than Deep Space Nine and that's really what I wanted. Damn Temporal Cold War. What I wouldn't give to tell UPN where they can stick their preconception a prequel wasn't futuristic enough! Do the whole thing again, almost completely without it.
Writing a conflict between Starfleet and the Romulans, including all the interstellar politics and personal conflicts on each side (much like Season 3 did with Archer/Degra, Reed/Hayes, Trip/T'Pol, Degra/Dollum), AND even a reasonable explanation why history rather improbably leaves out any mention of face-to-face encounters - all that would've been child's play by comparision.
The trick would simply be making the audience care enough about all the players (as they did during Season 3 anyway), that it needn't matter that Archer never got to fist-fight with Admiral Valdore. Kirk was never in the same room as Khan and certain left his mark in "The Wrath of Khan". They just needed footsoldiers like the Remans and other mercenary races for hand-to-hand fighting and chilling Romulan voices over subspace, playing cat & mouse, issuing terror warnings and threats. And if they really want to show the Romulans going unnoticed among Starfleet types on Earth, they have the perfect cover. Humans not wanting to risk pointing the finger at a people who helped us out during our greatest need, despite what they have held back during Archer's lifetime.
I sort of go through this, everytime I step back and look at the big picture of Enterprise. What it should mean to the franchise. It had such a fantastic cast (for my money, every SINGLE actor in it did some good stuff) and there are some great episodes all-over. Not just Season 4. But it just lacked an edge to make it better than Deep Space Nine and that's really what I wanted. Damn Temporal Cold War. What I wouldn't give to tell UPN where they can stick their preconception a prequel wasn't futuristic enough! Do the whole thing again, almost completely without it.
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