The Ring-Ship Enterprise

[Nate the Great]

http://trekplace.com/article13.html

The above link describes the Enterprise from the STTMP display that was between the Shuttle and the NCC-1701. I'm not claiming to be canon, but it's an interesting story. According to their theory, the ring-ship Enterprise XCV 330 was an Earth Starfleet starship predating the NX-01 by some thirty years, limited to Warp Two only. All well and good, but if they are trying to reconcile a picture and one line of dialogue from the worst Star Trek movie ever, then they're in a losing battle to begin with. If they try to establish the XCV 330 as canon, then how can they EVER justify the NX-01 not being in the display. Think about it. The shuttle was only in (I think) three sub-orbital flights before being shipped off to the Smithsonian. The aircraft carrier was (I think) hardly unique or special among others of its type. If they're included and the XCV 300 was included, WHY WASN'T the NX-01? There are only a few ways I can think of to reconcile Enterprise with this ring-ship:

1. Just set the show on the XCV 300! Easy as pie.
2. Set the prequel show on the Daedalus! I was rooting for this, the Daedalus looks cooler and more consistent than the NX-01. Come on, Star Trek: Daedalus, it has a cool ring to it, doesn't it?
3. Just state outright that the XCV 300 isn't canon. It was ten seconds in an awful movie, and it wouldn't be the first time an aspect of broadcast Trek was rendered noncanon. I recall an interview that says that the creators would just as soon forget that Threshold ever happened, and remember that Roddenberry hated Star Trek V and VI.
4. Set Enterprise in a parallel universe, the way it certainly appears to be. Appearances of the Ferengi and the Borg certainly seem to put it there.

[PointyHairedJedi]

Every time you call TMP an "awful" movie my fingernails dig just that bit deeper into the desk's surface. There's quite an impressive gouge by now.

The sensible of me says that the whole thing really is moot whichever way you turn it, like Khan recognising Chekov. You either spend silly amounts of time coming up with contorted explanations as how this could be so, or you get on with it and accept that there's something there that just cannot be reconciled. On the other hand, the not-sensible part of me (about 90% by volume) says that had Enterprise gone on to a fifth season, it would have been shown in the finale that as a matter of fact Archer was the captain of the ringship Enterprise and had been in a coma for the past five seasons. For some strange reason those in charge decided to change that idea into that very strange thing we had at the end of season four instead.

[Nate the Great]

How would you describe it?

There is NOTHING in the show to say that Chekov was NOT on the ship during the first season. We just didn't see him. It's entirely reasonable and only a one-step rationalization. To reconcile the NX-01 into canon requires way more than one-step rationalization.

[Scooter]

I think the lack of placement of the NX-01 in the rec room in TMP can be easily explained by the fact that the movie was made several years before the NX-01 was developed for Enterprise.

No really, that's the explanation.

(We Whovians have learned that continuity must be approached flexibly. Of course, that doesn't stop the high-flying but fascinating conjectures, like Season 6(b), an entire series of unknown adventures that are requiured to explain how the Second Doctor turns up in later stories able to fly the TARDIS and with knowledge of events that occurred minutes before his apparent death.)

IMO, the only other possible explanation that can be inserted within canonicity is that some "Yesterday's Enterprise" style event changed history such that for a period of time in the 23rd century the NX-01 never existed. Time was healed, however, at some later point such that Riker and Troi were able to participate in the worst Trek series finale ever postulated by observing NX-01 related events. Now, go out there and write the fanfic novel that tells the story of the Time Wound that Killed the NX-01! (Knowing Archer and his bumbling around with time, he probably did it himself.)

OR... apply Occam's Razor and assume the hapless ensign who set up the displays in the rec room was asleep during the Starfleet History 101 class where they taked about Archer. (Decker doesn't explain this to V'ger/Ilia because, why complicate things?)

OR... maybe he was a descendant of the Xindi and this was his own little joke or a pointless act of petty revenge. I'll show that Archer, who's been dead for a century! I'll avoid putting up a placque to commemorate his ship!

OR... OR... OR... (it never ends, alas)

[Derek]

...OR "All these ships were named Enterprise" is not the same things as "These were all the ships named Enterprise."

[Nate the Great]

I did read that on the ring-ship page, but I return to my original contention. Will anyone admit to the arguement that there were only five slots for Enterprises, of which there are dozens or even hundreds in history (mostly privately owned, check Wikipedia), and that the XCV 330 made the cut and the NX-01 didn't? We're not arguing that there were only ever five ships, we're arguing that the right for the NX-01 to be up there if it existed in the same timeline as ST:TMP is greater that that of the XCV 330 if the statements made by the creators is to be believed as gospel.

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

To reconcile the NX-01 into canon requires way more than one-step rationalization.

It requires no rationalization, whatsoever.

Originally Posted by Scooter

I think the lack of placement of the NX-01 in the rec room in TMP can be easily explained by the fact that the movie was made several years before the NX-01 was developed for Enterprise.

No really, that's the explanation.

Bingo.

Originally Posted by Derek

...OR "All these ships were named Enterprise" is not the same things as "These were all the ships named Enterprise."

Also bingo.

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

2. Set the prequel show on the Daedalus!
[...]
Come on, Star Trek: Daedalus, it has a cool ring to it, doesn't it?

Nope. No, thanks.

Please, no Daedalus. The only way I can see that ship working is as one of a large class of workhorse vessels constructed quickly and cheaply for the Earth-Romulan war, much as the Liberty and Victory ships were during WWII: strictly non-glamo[u]r, non-starring-role, "get the grunt-work done in an unobtrusive way" sort of ships. You'd see them in passing or in the background, but that's about all.

...the Daedalus looks cooler and more consistent than the NX-01.

Nope. Not even close.

[Scooter]

I sure wouldn't want to serve on the Daedalus. It doesn't look very practical. Everything arranged along a long thin shaft like that? Archer would have a five-hour hike every time he had to go from the bridge to Engineering to yell at Trip. I'll bet all the bathrooms are all the way aft too.

[Nate the Great]

Ever heard of a mystical device called a turbolift? They do go horizontally as well, you know. Come on, the E-D was over a kilometer long, as I recall.

So what's wrong with a grunt ship? Don't grunts have interesting lives, too? Isn't that the point of "Lower Decks" and "Good Shepard?"

No rationalization? Are you going to explain away UESPA as well?

You're just going to handwave away:

Spock not being the first human/Vulcan hybrid?
Warp nacelles getting more primitive from the NX-01 to the NCC-1701
Deflector dishes getting more primitive from the NX-01 to the NCC-1701
Uniforms getting more primitive from the NX-01 to the NCC-1701
Communicators getting more primitive from the NX-01 to the NCC-1701
And on and on and on...

[Scooter]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

Ever heard of a mystical device called a turbolift?

Hmm, isn't your point that the Daedalus comes from a more primitive time? I was assuming no turbolifts. My guess would be something more along the lines of an airport moving walkway. I'm picturing it easing slowly along with Trip standing to the right while Archer stomps past, and Trip calling merrily after him, "In a hurry, Cap'n?"

[Derek]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

You're just going to handwave away:

Warp nacelles getting more primitive from the NX-01 to the NCC-1701
Deflector dishes getting more primitive from the NX-01 to the NCC-1701
Uniforms getting more primitive from the NX-01 to the NCC-1701
Communicators getting more primitive from the NX-01 to the NCC-1701
And on and on and on...

I sure am. The producers were upfront about how the technology would be somewhere in between the technology we saw in TOS and the direction our current technology is taking us.

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

No rationalization? Are you going to explain away UESPA as well?

No. Why bother?

You're just going to handwave away:

Spock not being the first human/Vulcan hybrid?
Warp nacelles getting more primitive from the NX-01 to the NCC-1701
Deflector dishes getting more primitive from the NX-01 to the NCC-1701
Uniforms getting more primitive from the NX-01 to the NCC-1701
Communicators getting more primitive from the NX-01 to the NCC-1701
And on and on and on...

Sure. Why not?

[Zeke]

Rationalizing is what Trekkies do. We've been doing it since the earliest days of TOS. Trying to stop us now is just counterproductive.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

What I think happen is that the poor schmoe who had to decorate the Rec Room hated Enterprise, so he substituted some random picture of a bit of space junk. Decker didn't actually recognise what it was, but he didn't want to look like an idiot in front of the hot bald probe-droid.

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by Zeke

Rationalizing is what Trekkies do. We've been doing it since the earliest days of TOS. Trying to stop us now is just counterproductive.

Of course it is. Of course we have. I have no intention of trying to stop anyone; I just don't want to get into an endless and unproductive argument with someone about it.

Originally Posted by Sa'ar Chasm

... but he didn't want to look like an idiot in front of the hot bald probe-droid.

Of course not. Who does?

[Zeke]

Relax, shark, I was talking to Nate.

[PointyHairedJedi]

OR WAS HE?

(We don't do that enough nowadays.)

[Gatac]

OR DO WE?

Gatac

[PointyHairedJedi]

Well, in that case...

NINJA!

[mudshark]

GAH!


(But relaxed...)