Regeneration - What the hell were they thinking?

[PointyHairedJedi]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I watched this episode of [iost_uid0]Enterprise[/iost_uid0] with no small amount of trepidation. Entirely justified, as it turns out, as "Regeneration" has to be the single worst epsiode of ENT made to date. I actually started sweraing at the telly at the end, something I normally reserve for the likes of reality TV and those crukking perfume adverts. B&B really are burning their bridges behind them - it's alternative timeline or be damned as far as I can see.[/colorost_uid0]

[Gatac]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I've long given up on trying to reconcile Enterprise with "normal" continuity. I can buy the "First Contact spawned an alternate timeline" explanation easily enough. I still agree that Regeneration is a total dog, but the thought makes it bearable.

You may I ask why I forgive Regeneration when I argue a continuity issue in Azati Prime. The answer is simple: Karma. And pity. But mostly Karma.

Gatac[/colorost_uid0]

[Derek]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I seem to recall thinking that it was a fine episode by itself, it's just when you tried to integrate it with continuity that it fell apart.

But the music, the pacing, the suspensefullness were great. If it were introducing a new villain, I probably would've been stoked. But again, it's not a new villain, and I know there's very little they're probably going to do with the Borg, so it was simply a wink at the Trek universe fans, which [iost_uid0]really[/iost_uid0] makes you wonder why they did it since the Trek universe fans are the only ones who care about the continuity, which is where the episode falls apart.

To try to make that previous paragraph make sense let me give an example.
[bost_uid0]New Enterprise Fan:[/bost_uid0] WOW! That was a great episode! It was really suspenseful, and these aliens looked really unstoppable. I can't wait to see them come back. (Which, presumably, they won't.)
[bost_uid0]Old Trek fan:[/bost_uid0] Wait, that doesn't make sense. This contradicts most of TNG and VOY. This episode sucks, I'm going to go read Shatner's novels about the Borg. At least I don't have to accept them as canon. :madder: :swear: :eyeroll: :eyeroll: :eyeroll: :suspicious: [/colorost_uid0]

[Gatac]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Ah yes...the infamous Borg/Romulan conspiracy to revive Captain Kirk...

Meh, what am I yapping about - I *like* these books.

Gatac[/colorost_uid0]

[PointyHairedJedi]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]And this is why I plan to never ever read any of Shatner's books as long as I live.

Taking the episode as just an episode, Derek, I [iost_uid0]still[/iost_uid0] feel that "Regeneration" sucked majorly. The writing in most places was sinmply just bad and the directing painfully predictable. I have to say though, that on the whole ENT does seem to be getting a bit better - "Cogenitor" felt like it could have come from TNG or VOY, and "Cease Fire" was just enjoyable all round (thanks in no small part to Jeffrey Combs I'm sure). Hopefully they'll be a few more good episodes in the next season and a few less plain sucky ones.[/colorost_uid0]

[Zeke]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]While I didn't like the [iost_uid0]idea[/iost_uid0] of bringing Borg onto [iost_uid0]Enterprise[/iost_uid0], I don't think they could possibly have done it better. The story was exciting, the stakes were high (higher than the characters knew), and -- this is the important part -- they didn't introduce any continuity errors, they just used one that was already there.

The fact is, the Borg timeline has never been consistent, especially since [iost_uid0]First Contact[/iost_uid0]. On the one hand, "Q Who?" was supposedly man's first encounter with Borg. On the other, the Borg were behind the attacks on Neutral Zone outposts the previous season -- both Romulan and Federation. (That was the writers' intent, though it ended up not being stated onscreen.) So right from the start we have an inconsistency.

In fact, the whole history of Borg in Trek is marked by the writers' apparently not even [iost_uid0]trying[/iost_uid0] to be consistent. In "Descent" we see what Hugh's individuality has done to the Borg -- and then never again. The question of whether (a) Hugh affected only one Borg cube or (b) the Collective just adapted is left as an exercise for the viewer. [iost_uid0]First Contact[/iost_uid0] introduced a queen, reconfiguring the whole structure of the Collective without comment. And so on through [iost_uid0]Voyager[/iost_uid0], which is where the notorious case of "Dark Frontier" comes up.

When that episode came out, I was among the most frustrated at the apparent conflict with "Q Who." Picard and crew knew [iost_uid0]nothing[/iost_uid0] about the Borg then, but somehow the Hansens were experts 20 years earlier. It was Jim's review at Delta Blues that pointed out what I was missing. Both [iost_uid0]Generations[/iost_uid0] and [iost_uid0]First Contact[/iost_uid0] had created situations where mankind might have heard about the Borg early. The El Aurian refugees surely wouldn't all have kept completely silent about the threat they were fleeing -- why would they? They didn't know they'd be creating a temporal inconsistency. Similarly, Zephram Cochrane undoubtedly got a detailed account from Lily, and while intelligent, he wasn't the type to keep a secret well. (ENT took advantage of that.)

I'm not saying the writers knew they were messing up their timeline. I'm sure it never occurred to them that through the El Aurians they were giving the Federation knowledge it wasn't supposed to have yet. But the hole [iost_uid0]is[/iost_uid0] there, and it's just barely wide enough to fit "Dark Frontier" into. (The Hansens probably had more knowledge at first than they should have had, but having [iost_uid0]some[/iost_uid0] isn't a problem now.)

So years later, along comes "Regeneration," pulling the same trick -- taking advantage of an accidentally-created hole and filling it with a story. Granted, it stretched some small stuff. You'd think Picard would have had any substantial debris from the sphere destroyed, and the Borg's final subspace message to the hive was unusually slow. But the episode made up for those small glitches by explaining others. We now know where the Hansens got most of their data, and how the Borg found out about the Federation in time to destroy those Neutral Zone outposts. What did it conflict with? "Q Who?" -- which was already in violation of continuity both before and after it.

"Q Who?" was a great episode. It introduced one of Trek's greatest villains and did it with awesome drama and suspense. But almost every major Borg arc episode since has contradicted the premise that Starfleet and the Borg had no knowledge of each other prior to TNG Season 2. If we insist on upholding "Q Who?", we have to throw out some of Trek's best stories. In my opinion, it's better for any further Borg stories to accept that continuity gap and be consistent with the new timeline -- and that's exactly what "Regeneration" did.[/colorost_uid0]

[Scooter]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I've always believed that "Q Who" marking the Federation's first exposure to the Borg is an [iost_uid0]incorrect assumption[/iost_uid0] made by Picard and the others during that episode, later corrected after they regained contact with Starfleet.

The destruction of the outposts along the Neutral Zone and of the El-Aurian homeworld indicate that the Borg certainly entered the Alpha Quadrant prior to "Q Who." The Federation intelligence-gathering apparatus would have absolutely debriefed the El-Aurians after the events depicted in "Generations," regardless of their world's relationship with the Federation. In the final episode of "Voyager" Janeway discovered that the Borg had built a network of conduits leading directly into the Alpha Quadrant (and elsewhere in the galaxy). Since the Borg destroyed the outposts along the Neutral Zone prior to the events in "Q Who", and it is unreasonable to suppose that they traveled the collosal distance from the Delta Quadrant into Romulan/Federation space using standard warp drive (an issue not clearly addressed in TNG discussion of the outposts), we must assume that the Borg had at least some of these conduits in place at this time. It is also reasonable to suppose that the activity along the outposts were not the only actions of the Borg in the Alpha Quadrant at this time, though other actions seem not to have involved the Federation but rather other powers in the Quadrant (given the location of the outposts along the Neutral Zone, the secretive Romulans are an obvious candidate, though--who knows?--the Borg may have plated a role in destabilizing the Klingon Empire). The Borg, in any event, were clearly active in the Alpha Quadrant before "Q Who."

The conclusion I draw is that [iost_uid0]Federation intelligence[/iost_uid0] knew of the Borg to some extent--perhaps only as a vague menace, with bits and pieces of knowledge gathered from Cochrane's records, the El-Aurians, and so on--but that this information was kept confidential to avoid panic until a clear picture of the Borg, and contingency plans for fighting them, could be developed (and/or they showed up in Federation space, which is what happened in "Best of Both Worlds").

Keep in mind that during the events in "Q Who" the Enterprise was on the other side of the galaxy, so Picard was in no position to phone up the admiralty and ask them what was in the need-to-know Federation intelligence database. We've seen enough top-secret ops in Star Trek (e.g., "Chain of Command") to know that Starship captains were not always briefed on every operation undertaken by Starfleet, much less other arms of the Federation government. It follows from this notion that Picard was debriefed on the Borg after "Q Who", and that conversely his report would have blown the Borg project wide open.

It also follows that [iost_uid0]if[/iost_uid0] the information on the Borg was kept top secret, the Federation intelligence agency would necessarily have had covert operatives whose portfolio was to gather as much information about the Borg as possible. It is reasonable to assume that the Hansens were among these operatives. Naturally the information they gathered would have stayed within the intelligence community as long as the program remained top secret, so their knowledge would not become known to Picard or anyone else until the Borg materialized as an imminent threat.

After Starfleet encountered the Borg and the evidence of the Neutral Zone outposts was correllated with Picard's report, some sort of Borg office was created at Starfleet with a liaison to, or combined with, the confidential ops already in place. Shelby inherits the lead on this and (hopefully) everything the Federation knows. (How much the Federation knows is not made clear in "Best of Both Worlds.")

The only remaining problem is the dialog at the end of "Q Who": The Borg now know about the Federation and will be coming for them. But there is not a serious problem with this, because "Q Who" may well have been the first time that the Borg have the opportunity to download the Starfleet/Federation [iost_uid0]database[/iost_uid0] (part of their activities in Engineering). (For this to be true, though, the would have had to have disregarded or ignored any information they gleaned from the Hansens upon their assimilation.) According to this assumption, from the Enterprise database they learned a great deal they did not previously know about the details of Federation technology and exactly where it could be located--specifically, sector 001.

Take all of this in the spirit in which it is intended: a mental exercise to answer the question, How do the disparate pieces we have about the Federation's relationship with the Borg fit together in a way that offers the fewest contradictions? Given the discrepancy between "Q Who" and "The Neutral Zone," one obvious answer to Why Didn't the Federation Know About the Borg in "Q Who"? is, "They did."[/colorost_uid0]

[Gatac]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Hm, very interesting points, Scooter. I'm not sure I agree with the "Magnus Hansen, Secret Agent Man" theory, but it sure solves a few problems.

Gatac[/colorost_uid0]

[Michiel]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0]When that episode came out, I was among the most frustrated at the apparent conflict with "Q Who." Picard and crew knew nothing about the Borg then, but somehow the Hansens were experts 20 years earlier.[/quoteost_uid0]

Why 20 years? Because 7of9 is an adult in Voyager and a child when the Hansons were researching the borg? That problem would be solved by the borg maturation-chamber.[/colorost_uid0]

[Gatac]

[quoteost_uid0="Michiel"][color=#000000ost_uid0]Why 20 years? Because 7of9 is an adult in Voyager and a child when the Hansons were researching the borg? That problem would be solved by the borg maturation-chamber.[/colorost_uid0][/quoteost_uid0]
[color=#000000ost_uid0]A good question. I personally suspect that it's the old "Barely Legal" issue - gotta make clear that she's a consenting adult.

Gatac[/colorost_uid0]

[PointyHairedJedi]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Zeke, you make some good points. Doesn't change my opinion of the episode though. Scooter's (very convincing) attempt to explain does bring one interesting thought to mind - perhaps B&B, with this new FC-altered timeline, are simply trying trying to make a clean break with the continuity mess that [iost_uid0]Trek[/iost_uid0] arguably already is. I'm not sure I entirely buy that myself if it is true, but its certainly one explanation.[/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I don't know about the 20 years, but keep in mind that they use stardates. Now I know these stardates, in general, don't make much sense, but I'm fairly certain the stardate on wich Seven of Nine was assimilated was lower than the one in "Q Who?"

About the conduits, why can't the Borg have traveled to the Alpha Quadrant at normal warp speed? Voyager would have taken 75 years at maximum warp, and as far as I understand it, the Borg probably exist longer than 75 years before "Q Who?"
And then there is the concept of time travel, which the Borg are apparantly capable of, according to "First Contact"

I had the impression they had to be on both sides of a conduit to build it.[/colorost_uid0]

[Gatac]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Hm, actually, somebody (Maybe Shatner? Don't remember it too clearly) started the theory that this FC-corrected timeline is actually the beginning of the Mirror Universe. That is, now that the humans have seen that there's forces in the universe bent on their destruction, they become more paranoid, and begin to wage war in a frantic attempt to become powerful enough to crush any perceived threat.

This would handwave a lot of technical inconsistencies - phase cannons and photon(ic) torpedoes could be the result of the profound realisation amongst mankind in the Mirror Universe that they need to up their firepower, pronto, and have thus spent more time researching weaponry. If, on the other hand, in the "normal" universe, exploration remained as main goal, the overall lower tech level could explain why the Earth-Romulan War was fought with nuclear weaponry - Earth Starfleet simply wasn't equipped with anything more advanced because research had been funneled into other areas - better sensors, for example, would make sense. (Come to think of it, Enterprise's sensors and computers aren't so hot in comparison to Vulcan tech, if we can believe T'Pol.)

It also makes the future battle in Azati Prime a bit more sensible. Why would the Federation use outdated vessels like the Nova or the Prometheus? Because it's relatively new, and has received technical help from the 'normal' universe! Remember the Mirror Defiant? The Mirror Universe Human Rebellion could have received further technical info, but you require a lot of support logistics to build big ships. My idea is thus that the Mirror Federation is relatively young, and was still struggling to catch up development-wise to the 'normal' universe when the great stand at Proxion happened. They needed warships, fast, and due to the decrepit state of their industry (plus lacking experience with the more advanced technologies - maintaining them requires a deeper understanding, and know-how doesn't grow on trees) chose to build ships with technology they had themselves understood and could support - and the best bet was a resource-light, but high-tech, high-firepower ship like the Prometheus. The Nova was there for electronic warfare - to have a chance against the sphere builders, the fleet required a fast anti-cloak, anti-shield ECM ship, again light on materials - presto, Nova. Also, as already said, Mirror Universe sensors don't seem so hot, and perhaps the operation of 'normal' sensors was so ill-understood that it was easier to build one ship with original, good sensors rather than try to reverse-engineer them to install them on a warship. (Insert your favourite Dauntless rationalisation here.)

In that sense, we can think of the battle at Proxion as the Earth-Romulan War of the Mirror Universe - a desperate struggle against superior odds that unites many species into an eventually succeeding Federation. After all, we are not told how old the Federation is there - it sounds like a war alliance, and could be *very* new - which again explains the rag-tag fleet syndrome. Heck, if you want to be pedantic, you could say the Enterprise-J itself is, due to it's heavy Cardassian influence, not a Federation ship per se (as in, not built on a specifically Federation shipyard) - it could be Cardassia's contribution to the war effort, built in the image of human ships, but with Cardassian technology. (Which jibes with how powerful the Cardassians are in the Mirror Universe.)

On the other hand, if we think that the 'normal' universe is the one unaffected by FC, we can simply ignore Regeneration and FC there and have Starfleet open a "Borg File" after hearing about them from the El-Aurians - this doesn't affect Scooter's theory in the slightest, since it only leans on Starfleet gaining knowledge of the Borg before "Q Who?", which was accomplished in Generations.

*phew* So, that's my little crackpot theory. Feel free to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

Gatac[/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0]After all, we are not told how old the Federation is there - it sounds like a war alliance, and could be *very* new[/quoteost_uid0]
Changes in the timeline apart, Archer played a major role in the foundation of the Federation. Therefor, it would be logical to assume it was founded at least withing his life span. However, it might have been put to a hold when they were driven into slavery by the Cardassians (and whoever was involved).

I've always thought this an interesting theory, and I will resume to think so until proven otherwise.
On the other hand, I still think it's plausible that it all plays in the same universe, as well, mostly because of the Temporal Cold War. Those flashes Daniels shows Archer about the future are likely to change as the series continues, if only [iost_uid0]because[/iost_uid0] he shows him.[/colorost_uid0]

[Zeke]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][iost_uid0]Very[/iost_uid0] interesting theory, Scooter.

Michiel, as Cat guessed, I'm basing the 20-year figure on stardates. The dates given in "Dark Frontier"'s flashback segments were in the 30000s, placing them about that long before the rest of the episode, which takes place in the 55000s. Granted, stardates are silly and often inconsistent, but this feels like it was deliberate.

The problem with a debate like this is that it ultimately hinges not on the continuity issue but on how you feel about the episode in question. If you enjoyed it, there's always a way to justify it; if not, you won't think it's worth justifying. "Regeneration" and "Dark Frontier" can fit with Trek canon, and as Scooter and I have argued, it's not as hard as it looks. But that doesn't matter if you don't think it's worth the effort.[/colorost_uid0]

[Michiel]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]How about these theories?

Picard never left the Nexus. He only thinks he did, because saving 230 million lives is exactly what he wanted.

Chakotay is still dreaming.

Damn, I had a lot more of these theories, but I can't think of them right now.

Anyway, do you think one of these "Ship in a bottle" thingies could explain all this? [/colorost_uid0]

[Gatac]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Do not summon the Dallas demon! It will quickly sap any meaning or reason from your series, leaving you with an unsatisfying "It was all a dream!" ending.

And while we're at it, ALL of Trek could be an illusion of Captain Pike, still stuck on Talos...Wouldn't [bost_uid0]that[/bost_uid0] be evil?

Gatac, overreacting because one too many Hyper-Matrix arguments have been shoved down his throat[/colorost_uid0]

[PointyHairedJedi]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]"Are you all right, Captain Picard?"
"Yeah, I guess, though I just had the wierdest dream about some dweeb called Archer fighting the Borg over two hundred years ago."
"Ah ha....Riker to sickbay..."

:lol:[/colorost_uid0]

[Scooter]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0="Michiel"]How about these theories?

Picard never left the Nexus. He only thinks he did, because saving 230 million lives is exactly what he wanted.

Chakotay is still dreaming.

Damn, I had a lot more of these theories, but I can't think of them right now.

Anyway, do you think one of these "Ship in a bottle" thingies could explain all this? [/quoteost_uid0]
This reminds me of the theory that since the Sixth Doctor "never regenerated" into the Seventh Doctor (i.e., Colin Baker, the Sixth Doctor, did not return for regeneration after being fired, and Sylvester McCoy played both the Sixth and Seventh Doctiors for his regeneration sequence, wearing a Colin Baker wig for the first half), everything after the Sixth Doctor is "noncanonical."

Likewise with stardates. Stardates are garbage. They are so inconsistently applied that they might as well have been sprayed out by a random number generator. You can use stardates to prove anything -- Tasha Yar was alive and serving at her post after her death, etc., etc. And the duration of stardate units during NextGen bears no relation at all to the span of time between TOS and TNG. And so on.

I admit I have reservations about Secret Agent Hansen. But it would explain a great deal. And I can't believe that no one in the Federation knew anything about the Borg prior to "Q Who"--especially since the Hansens are proof that they did.

As for the babies in a drawer, I always thought that was merely a creche, but it certainly makes sense for the Borg to accelerate the process of maturation in order to capable drones. It seems to me, though, that the Borg increased their reliance on assimilating [iost_uid0]people[/iost_uid0] to increase their numbers in addition to assimilating technology, to the detriment of their cloning program. In FC and also especially the Borg battle with Species 10-10-220 on Voyager, we see that the Borg have a specially adapted stingers the specific purpose of which was to assimilate a person and turn him into a drone. I think that this represents Borg reliance on drone assimilation rather than cloning and growing (which might take more resources). I think the baby-in-a-drawer thing represents an attempt to use cloning after a drought in their ability to assimilate, or alternately a policy which later changed to favor drone assimilation over cloning. (We know that the Borg don't mate because of the comment in "Q Who" that the drones are neither male nor female--though if the hive analogy is followed through there should be specialized mating drones whose function is the do it with the Queen! )

One side note--I was fascinated by the Borg's attempt to assimilate Species 10-10-220 because [iost_uid0]all[/iost_uid0] other Borg are strictly humanoid. Supposedly the Borg are assimilating everything in sight, but where are the non-humanoid drones? Is the Borg hive an apartheid society? Are there Borg cubes entirely devoted to Gorn and Mon Calamari, like the all-Vulcan [iost_uid0]Intrepid[/iost_uid0]? Also, is assimilation a Borg drone's fallback defense response? If a Borg drone is attacked by, say, a tiger, does the drone use his stinger to assimilate it--and do we then have a [iost_uid0]Borg tiger[/iost_uid0] running around? Now that I want to see![/colorost_uid0]

[NAHTMMM]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0="Gatac"]Do not summon the Dallas demon! It will quickly sap any meaning or reason from your series, leaving you with an unsatisfying "It was all a dream!" ending.

And while we're at it, ALL of Trek could be an illusion of Captain Pike, still stuck on Talos...Wouldn't [bost_uid0]that[/bost_uid0] be evil?[/quoteost_uid0]
I wrote a story like that last year


Personally, I don't see this as a Mirror Universe. That would just be weird. Although there are some good arguments in favor of that scenario in this thread.[/colorost_uid0]