Why did it need to be "Birth of the Federation?"

[Ray Hardgrit]

It was a bit weird for them to jump back to such an important time in Star Trek history without any intention of exploring historical events. Over on Star Wars you've got Attack of the Clones revealing how the Clone Wars started, The Bad Batch showing the transition from Republic to Empire, Andor and Rebels showing how the Rebel Alliance was formed, and so on. Almost every story answers questions that fans were wondering about.

But Enterprise just wanted to hang out in the past.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

It was a bit weird for them to jump back to such an important time in Star Trek history without any intention of exploring historical events. Over on Star Wars you've got Attack of the Clones revealing how the Clone Wars started, The Bad Batch showing the transition from Republic to Empire, Andor and Rebels showing how the Rebel Alliance was formed, and so on. Almost every story answers questions that fans were wondering about.

But Enterprise just wanted to hang out in the past.

Two very different franchises. Star Wars has always been a serial. Star Trek has always been episodic, aside from late-DS9 (as of 2001). B&B just wanted to do a prequel, because they felt the tech. of Trek was getting too magical by the end of Voyager. That was their genesis of doing a prequel, low tech. (by TNG-DS9-VOY standards) and pre-Federation to give the audience something different.

The Xindi saga was Braga's "Year of Hell" retooled to try to save Enterprise. It didn't work, but we got S4, because the studio wanted one more season to have about 100 episodes for reruns. S4 went hardcore prequel, because they all knew it was probably over, might as well cram in as much as you can before the finale.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Well, television overall had generally been episodic, but this was changing during the '90s. DS9 had the first Trek 3 parter in season 2, a 6 parter in season 6, and a 10 parter in season 7. Babylon 5 was extremely serialised and had a prequel movie about a historical event, Farscape had plenty of serialisation, it was the way TV was going. Even Voyager had given us a flashback to Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country, putting the characters in a historical event.

I'm sure B&B did just want to make a low tech Star Trek, with more contemporary dialogue and baseball caps, just as Voyager was never supposed to focus much on survival, but the trouble with an interesting premise is that you can fall way short of expectations if you don't mine it for its full potential.

 

[valkyrie013]

Yeah, Enterprise, and even Voyager had great potential in a serialized series, that went almost nowhere.

So, what do I think of a good serialized Enterprise series concept? Lets see.. (Just me throwing spaghetti at the wall for something to do.. don't read to much into it.)

So, 7 seasons, combination serialized and episodic, something like SNW but a bit more serialized.

Push back the start date from 2151 to 2154 or so.

Season 1, Somewhat the same as the first 2 seasons, the Enterprise is its first warp 5 ship, which at that speed its possible to explore in a reasonable time period, Earth still has a presence in its Earth Cargo Service, and nearby systems like Alpha Centauri with Warp 3 starfleet ships. Plans are for Enterprise to be its flagship to the stars.

With the Warp 5 break thru, other NX ships are being built as flag bearers for Earth, but they are complicated and expensive, other classes of ships like the Intrepid, Delta classes are cheaper and mass produced to build up warp 5 ship fleet to back up the Enterprise and protect ECS shipping and a general projection of power, but at first all are still being built.

So the first season is the Enterprise going out there, exploring like Seasons 1 and 2, mostly episodic, but some serial ones that push the narrative of Earth reaching out to other species in peace, and acting as mediators for old time rivalries like Vulcans and Andorians etc.

Season 2, starts the Romulan interference.
A drop here and there in the first season of someone intentionally antagonizing other species, pushing them to hate each other, keeping the quadrant fractured. But they see the humans as an upstart species, trying to bring others together. The Romulans become more aggressive in there mechanations, but go to far and are found out by the humans and other species as being the driving factor for there squabbles.

Romulans are fine with being neighbors with a bunch of weak and fractured species, easy to conqueror if they act up, but not a strong and united coalition of worlds that could threaten there Empire. Romulans try a few times to hurt the Humans as they see them as a major threat, that they could bring everyone together. ECS Ships targeted, First Starbase destroyed, all Romulans.

Finalie of season 2 is the Attack of a Romulan fleet against Earth.

Season 3, Start of the Romulan/Earth War.
Season Opener of Earth fighting of a fleet of Romulan ships, and they just do it, at the cost of alot of ships and people, millions dead on Earth ( No Xindi probe, so this is the Attack on on Earth)
Earth gears up for War, NX, Intrepid, and Delta classes are discontinued for the Comet and Daedalus classes. ( I do love the Starfleet Muesum site ) Daedalus becoming the most neumerous work horse ships, witht he comet class more of heavy assault ship. These ships are pushed out as fast as possible
Enterprise goes around the quadrant looking for support, and initially not getting any help as they see it as another "Squabble" and it is Earths problem. Not even Vulcan intervenes except for humanitarian support. So threw out this season is Enterprise going around the quadrant looking for help, and evading romulan ships, introduce Romulan Admiral Valdoore as an antaganist to Archer, with him trying to hunt down and destroy Enterprise. not much of a "WAR" season as in battles, but just the Enterprise and its travels.
S3 ends in the Kobiashi Maru Incident, with the Enterprise trying to rescue the cargo vessel from the romulans.

Season 4, Romulan/Earth War starts to get heated.
Romulans start to compel other species to fight against Earth and any other planets that join them, something like the Xindi season but with Romulans being the backers, Archer goes and finds and talks to everyone he can that is a potential ally or foe. Much to Valdoore's shagrin, it works, the more the Romulans push, the more planets that join with Earth as those planets have had Decades of abuse by the Romulans.
End of season 4, a large Romulan fleet Destroys Coridan as it is a suplyier of Dilithium, and they also attack Andoria, pushing them and more species to support Earth.

Season 5, Romulan/Earth War peaks.
Romulans decide to enter the war In Force to take out the Humans, with multipule fleets and battles, however, the past years have given time for Earth to crank out Hundreds of ships, Earth is ready as it can be, This season shows like DS9, Battles between Earth and Romulans, Introduce new ships and there crews, sometimes a whole episode with them instead of just Enterprise, and sometimes they don't make it, so some episodes are like Rogue One, no one lives at the end. Reed and Mayweather get there own ship, and have episodes with them.
Humans keep on getting pushed back, but at the end of the season a "Midway" moment happens with the help of other species and crush the Romulan fleet.

Season 6, War Ends
Romulans had a great loss, hundreds of ships were destroyed, and the Humans are pushing there advantage and heading towards Romulas. This season, they don't exactly know the location of Romulas, Archer goes and finds it, while the Terran fleet pushes through Romulan territory.
Many different crews and ships shown through the season, even through Romulan eyes.
At the end of the season Commadore Archer finds the location of Romulas and they have a war ending battle at Cheron. Romulans Sue for peace, however Archer has to reign in Earth and all the other species that want to take the fight all the way to Romulas, punishing them. Archer wins the arguement, and creates the Neutral zone. War ends.

Season 7, the Federation.
Licking the wounds of the war, Earth finds itself in a superpower role ( similar to the US after WW2) Earth has the biggest fleet in the quadrant, some more militant admirals are angry that they didn't follow through and hit Romulas, and they want to break the neutral zone, and attack the romulans, Klingons, or whomever gets in there way, Archer pacifiy's them and goes around on a good will tour of all the species to form a new coalition, to go out into space together, no one species in charge. in peace. He succeeds, and the Federation is created.

So this has Archer become a VERY big Linch pIn in History, without him the Earth might have been destroyed, lost the war, Earth becoming an Empire, Etc.

Take some episodes and introduce new characters, like a class at the Academy right before the war and show there journey from cadets to war hardened officers. Kill a few off, show some go down the bad admiral route while others go the Archer route.

so.. yeah.. long winded.. just had an idea and wanted to word dump

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Well, television overall had generally been episodic, but this was changing during the '90s. DS9 had the first Trek 3 parter in season 2, a 6 parter in season 6, and a 10 parter in season 7. Babylon 5 was extremely serialised and had a prequel movie about a historical event, Farscape had plenty of serialisation, it was the way TV was going. Even Voyager had given us a flashback to Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country, putting the characters in a historical event.

I'm sure B&B did just want to make a low tech Star Trek, with more contemporary dialogue and baseball caps, just as Voyager was never supposed to focus much on survival, but the trouble with an interesting premise is that you can fall way short of expectations if you don't mine it for its full potential.

DS9 was syndicated. B5 and Farscape were cable shows. Voyager was on UPN who wanted the show to be episodic like TNG (which was syndicated). Rick Berman had to fight for two-parters, and we got 12. It sounds like your main objection was the shows (Voyager and ENT S1-2) being episodic. After Voyager ended, UPN as doing another Trek with or without Berman, and it was going to be episodic either way.

Yeah, Enterprise, and even Voyager had great potential in a serialized series, that went almost nowhere.

Due to being on UPN, can't have story arcs, nope nope, nau uh. UPN was very anti-arc.

So, what do I think of a good serialized Enterprise series concept? Lets see.. (Just me throwing spaghetti at the wall for something to do.. don't read to much into it.)

So, 7 seasons, combination serialized and episodic, something like SNW but a bit more serialized.

Push back the start date from 2151 to 2154 or so.

Season 1, Somewhat the same as the first 2 seasons, the Enterprise is its first warp 5 ship, which at that speed its possible to explore in a reasonable time period, Earth still has a presence in its Earth Cargo Service, and nearby systems like Alpha Centauri with Warp 3 starfleet ships. Plans are for Enterprise to be its flagship to the stars.

With the Warp 5 break thru, other NX ships are being built as flag bearers for Earth, but they are complicated and expensive, other classes of ships like the Intrepid, Delta classes are cheaper and mass produced to build up warp 5 ship fleet to back up the Enterprise and protect ECS shipping and a general projection of power, but at first all are still being built.

So the first season is the Enterprise going out there, exploring like Seasons 1 and 2, mostly episodic, but some serial ones that push the narrative of Earth reaching out to other species in peace, and acting as mediators for old time rivalries like Vulcans and Andorians etc.

Season 2, starts the Romulan interference.
A drop here and there in the first season of someone intentionally antagonizing other species, pushing them to hate each other, keeping the quadrant fractured. But they see the humans as an upstart species, trying to bring others together. The Romulans become more aggressive in there mechanations, but go to far and are found out by the humans and other species as being the driving factor for there squabbles.

Romulans are fine with being neighbors with a bunch of weak and fractured species, easy to conqueror if they act up, but not a strong and united coalition of worlds that could threaten there Empire. Romulans try a few times to hurt the Humans as they see them as a major threat, that they could bring everyone together. ECS Ships targeted, First Starbase destroyed, all Romulans.

Finalie of season 2 is the Attack of a Romulan fleet against Earth.

Season 3, Start of the Romulan/Earth War.
Season Opener of Earth fighting of a fleet of Romulan ships, and they just do it, at the cost of alot of ships and people, millions dead on Earth ( No Xindi probe, so this is the Attack on on Earth)
Earth gears up for War, NX, Intrepid, and Delta classes are discontinued for the Comet and Daedalus classes. ( I do love the Starfleet Muesum site ) Daedalus becoming the most neumerous work horse ships, witht he comet class more of heavy assault ship. These ships are pushed out as fast as possible
Enterprise goes around the quadrant looking for support, and initially not getting any help as they see it as another "Squabble" and it is Earths problem. Not even Vulcan intervenes except for humanitarian support. So threw out this season is Enterprise going around the quadrant looking for help, and evading romulan ships, introduce Romulan Admiral Valdoore as an antaganist to Archer, with him trying to hunt down and destroy Enterprise. not much of a "WAR" season as in battles, but just the Enterprise and its travels.
S3 ends in the Kobiashi Maru Incident, with the Enterprise trying to rescue the cargo vessel from the romulans.

Season 4, Romulan/Earth War starts to get heated.
Romulans start to compel other species to fight against Earth and any other planets that join them, something like the Xindi season but with Romulans being the backers, Archer goes and finds and talks to everyone he can that is a potential ally or foe. Much to Valdoore's shagrin, it works, the more the Romulans push, the more planets that join with Earth as those planets have had Decades of abuse by the Romulans.
End of season 4, a large Romulan fleet Destroys Coridan as it is a suplyier of Dilithium, and they also attack Andoria, pushing them and more species to support Earth.

Season 5, Romulan/Earth War peaks.
Romulans decide to enter the war In Force to take out the Humans, with multipule fleets and battles, however, the past years have given time for Earth to crank out Hundreds of ships, Earth is ready as it can be, This season shows like DS9, Battles between Earth and Romulans, Introduce new ships and there crews, sometimes a whole episode with them instead of just Enterprise, and sometimes they don't make it, so some episodes are like Rogue One, no one lives at the end. Reed and Mayweather get there own ship, and have episodes with them.
Humans keep on getting pushed back, but at the end of the season a "Midway" moment happens with the help of other species and crush the Romulan fleet.

Season 6, War Ends
Romulans had a great loss, hundreds of ships were destroyed, and the Humans are pushing there advantage and heading towards Romulas. This season, they don't exactly know the location of Romulas, Archer goes and finds it, while the Terran fleet pushes through Romulan territory.
Many different crews and ships shown through the season, even through Romulan eyes.
At the end of the season Commadore Archer finds the location of Romulas and they have a war ending battle at Cheron. Romulans Sue for peace, however Archer has to reign in Earth and all the other species that want to take the fight all the way to Romulas, punishing them. Archer wins the arguement, and creates the Neutral zone. War ends.

Season 7, the Federation.
Licking the wounds of the war, Earth finds itself in a superpower role ( similar to the US after WW2) Earth has the biggest fleet in the quadrant, some more militant admirals are angry that they didn't follow through and hit Romulas, and they want to break the neutral zone, and attack the romulans, Klingons, or whomever gets in there way, Archer pacifiy's them and goes around on a good will tour of all the species to form a new coalition, to go out into space together, no one species in charge. in peace. He succeeds, and the Federation is created.

So this has Archer become a VERY big Linch pIn in History, without him the Earth might have been destroyed, lost the war, Earth becoming an Empire, Etc.

Take some episodes and introduce new characters, like a class at the Academy right before the war and show there journey from cadets to war hardened officers. Kill a few off, show some go down the bad admiral route while others go the Archer route.

so.. yeah.. long winded.. just had an idea and wanted to word dump

For this to happen, the show would have had to be made for cable, say Showtime or The SciFi Channel. Never was going to happen on UPN. What cable channel would you have pitched this version of Enterprise to back in 2001?

 

[Riley]

This series didn't "have" to be about the birth of the Federation. It was billed as "The beginning of Star Trek," which could have been set in at least two other time periods. The first, which might be the most interesting and contain the less potential for stepping on canon, would be seeing the first true Earth starship. No energy weapons, no transporters, a ship that doesn't look more advanced than its era. First contact with the Andorians and Tellarites could still happen, maybe set in the early 2100s. Maybe this could be the ringship Enterprise, which would make more sense than the NX-01 using that name.

The second fertile idea would be a series set aboard the very first Federation starship designed and built by the combined efforts of the founding worlds. Andorians, Tellarites, and maybe a few Vulcan advisors/engineers would be aboard, including non-UFP species.

I think both of these eras would have been far more interesting than "birth of the Federation."

 

[C.E. Evans]

As a Star Trek prequel, ENT pretty much had to be "Birth of the Federation" for the studio/network to sign off on it. It really couldn't stray too far from the familiar Star Trek trappings for it to still be recognized as a Star Trek series. The show wasn't meant just for diehard Trekkers who pore endlessly over every bit of lore, but also for those casual or even first-time viewers with only a passing familiarity with Trek. A ship that looks Star Trekish? Check. Does it have a name associated with Star Trek? Check. Are there Vulcans and Klingons? Check. Phasers? We got "phase pistols"--close enough, check. Transporters? You bet, check. Now, could the show have been done without all those familiar Star Trek elements? Absolutely, but that would have required the studio/network to be bold and take a chance on a Trek series that had little or nothing in common with previous Trek shows. And when there are millions and millions of dollars on the line, it's hard for a studio/network to be too bold, IMO.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I didn't care about the Romulan War, the Birth of the Federation, or any real "explanations" to things that were already as fleshed out as I needed them to be. I just wanted a show that was more exciting, had great stories and compelling characters than we had gotten with Voyager. Instead, we got Voyager Lite for the first half until the series found its voice in latter half.

A 3 year Romulan War arc? Eh, DS9 had just done with that the Dominion. Unless they have something to say about war (which DS9 often did), there's no point in Star Trek tackling it other than to fill in backstory.

There was a war, it ended in a treaty which established the Neutral Zone, the Romulans became isolationists for over a century and then they came out of hiding. There. That's the story. Thank you "Balance of Terror" for explaining it in 1966.

 

[Dukhat]

The show wasn't meant just for diehard Trekkers who pore endlessly over every bit of lore, but also for those casual or even first-time viewers with only a passing familiarity with Trek.

That was how UPN advertised the show. But that was not how the show actually turned out. It was just the same show that had just ended, only with a different crew on a different ship in a different time period, none of which was all that different from the previous show.

 

[Frontis]

For me the best thing about Enterprise was that it had some historical value. We learned about revolutionary technical developments, first contacts with some popular species and the foundation of the federation.

 

[Saul]

In some ways it was prequel in name only. You could have easily set it in the 23rd, 24th or 25th century with a few changes. It was a concept they didn't do much with. The founding of the federation? 2 seasons in and they were still treading water with no clear direction to the show. Just episodes of the week that rehashed plots from previous Star Trek shows. Enterprise had so much wasted potential.

 

[HotRod]

In some ways it was prequel in name only. You could have easily set it in the 23rd, 24th or 25th century with a few changes. It was a concept they didn't do much with. The founding of the federation? 2 seasons in and they were still treading water with no clear direction to the show. Just episodes of the week that rehashed plots from previous Star Trek shows. Enterprise had so much wasted potential.

Enterprise at least started to finally live up to its potential in the 3rd and 4th seasons, before it was cut down in its prime.

The award for most wasted potential in a Trek series still belongs to Voyager, and it ain't even close.

 

[Tenacity]

Is three months since the last entry too old to add to this?

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

Is three months since the last entry too old to add to this?

We’ll let you slip by.

 

[Tenacity]

Back in 2001, people hated the show, because it wasn't Birth of the Federation.

I don't see that, why would more than a handful of fans what to see the creation of the Federation? The Federation was at it's best when it was this vague thing somewhere in the background. Star Trek is about a small group of our heroes (usually on a ship) having adventures.

the story of Kirk's childhood hero

A "hero" who Kirk never mentioned? Alot of the time Archer came off as a inexperienced, stumbling fool, who was largely uneducated in what he was doing. Why would Kirk, a professional officer think of Archer as a hero?

I figured if Earth was dumping out ships like S.S. Valiant like 5 years after First Contact that all the contact with alien races occurred before end of the 21st century and by the middle of the 22nd century Earth was going to be a bigger player on the board

This would have been what I would have preferred, set the series a few decades after Cochrane's first warp flight. Humanity with warp drive shooting away from Earth in every direction, exploring, colonizing, meeting dozens/hundreds of new species. Aliens coming to Earth. New ideas coming to Earth.

Completely dump this silliness of the Vulcans held Humanity back for a century. Tell the Vulcans they can go f**k themselves, we're moving forward.

were they going to get to the Romulan War

Thing is, Earth as depicted in the series would have been incapable of fighting a major interstellar war, with only a handful of Earth ships.

B&B wanted to just do a pre-Federation Starfleet Enterprise, "the first exploration ship."

Limited, but better than a show about creating a political organization. The incessant references to "The Coalition of Planets" really dragged down the last season. Go out and explore already.

The Xindi saga was Braga's "Year of Hell" retooled to try to save Enterprise. It didn't work

The Xindi story was much too long, five or so episodes would have been plenty.

 

[HotRod]

Thing is, Earth as depicted in the series would have been incapable of fighting a major interstellar war, with only a handful of Earth ships.

We have no idea how many ships Earth had during that period, only that the NX Class was their fastest and most advanced. For all we know, Starfleet had dozens of Intrepid, Freedom, and Delta type Starships. Plus, I would imagine the war would bring about a massive shipbuilding effort, similar to the Liberty and Victory ships of WWII. I like to think this is how the Daedalus class came to be. A mass produced, simple to construct ship that Earth started to pump out in large numbers.

The Xindi story was much too long, five or so episodes would have been plenty.

Disagree. I think season 3 was their very best season and it's the single example in the entire Trek franchise of a season long story arc actually working.

 

[somebuddyX]

That's why I like the idea that the Romulan War was a fight between the four Federation founders against the Romulans, and that it wasn't 4 years of continuous fighting but a buildup, a fight, and then a period of postwar before the Federation was founded. I'm sure the 4 years came from the chronology and that it wasn't meant to be set in stone. It was just a placeholder like 2061 and C1-21

 

[Oddish]

My problem (regarding the Federation specifically) wasn't that it was the birth of the Federation... it was that the temporal cold war and Daniels were basically bootstrapping the Federation into existence.

 

[Phoenix219]

My problem (regarding the Federation specifically) wasn't that it was the birth of the Federation... it was that the temporal cold war and Daniels were basically bootstrapping the Federation into existence.

But that totally works as a sequel to First Contact, as a way of restoring the timeline. The entire TCW takes place during the events of the movie, before they return to the future.

 

[Tenacity]

C1-21

I must have missed this, what is it?

I like to think this is how the Daedalus class came to be. A mass produced, simple to construct ship that Earth started to pump out in large numbers.

I see the Daedalus as the next generation successor to the NX class, building on the experiences (and failures) of that ship to build a superior starship. Examining the multi-year, slow, construction of the predecessor, and then designing a vessel that could be built in multiple months, not years.

We have no idea how many ships Earth had during that period, only that the NX Class was their fastest and most advanced.

We do know that the NX class was the single ship type that could venture forth into interstellar space, Earth had other ships, but the Enterprise was the first to able to go anywhere at a reasonable rate of speed. During the Xindi incident, Earth didn't have a fleet to send.

I think season 3 was their very best season and it's the single example in the entire Trek franchise of a season long story arc actually working.

Problem with a single subject season is if that single subject doesn't interest the viewers the show loses audience numbers. Season three after half a dozen episodes desperately needed to move on.