Elements of Season 3 unresolved

[Dave]

It was called 'Damage' and came late-on after they got attacked in 'Azati Prime'.

[Dave]

After the first three part story arc beginning with the episode 'Borderland' with the genetic supermen, ancestor of Dr Noonian Soong and the Klingons, later in the season there will be a second three part story arc featuring a Vulcan civil war.

Manny Coto: "If you've watched Enterprise and you watched the old series and Next Gen, you know that there's a difference between the Vulcans of our era and the Vulcans of later eras. Our Vulcans lie, our Vulcans are monolithic, our Vulcans are not pacifistic. What we've done is develop an idea: What if an individual appears on Vulcan who is saying to the populace that we have strayed from the teachings of Surak? This individual is like a Martin Luther. And he spawns a Vulcan civil war."

He nicknamed it "Vulcan of Arabia" because it's an epic story taking place almost entirely on the hot, desert planet. "It involves a Vulcan Reformation," he continued. "I'm equating the Vulcan High Command with the Catholic Church, which in medieval times strayed from the teachings of Christianity; similarly, the Vulcan High Command has strayed from the teachings of Surak. This individual wants to bring us back to those teachings, but it causes instability on Vulcan because he's preaching pacifism, he's preaching pure logic, he's preaching a return to the old ways. But, he not only believes in the teachings of Surak, he believes he is Surak. He claims that he possesses Surak's katra. Is that true or isn't it? We'll find out. But what happens is, with the instability on Vulcan, you have the Andorians trying to take advantage, and it threatens to destabilize the entire region. And of course, Enterprise will be stuck in the midst of this turmoil, and by the end of this three-episode arc, we will begin to see Vulcans approaching what they were in the later eras. We'll see the beginnings of a new Vulcan."

"It's gonna be a blast. I'm picturing the scene where two Vulcan armies are poised on the desert — what's gonna happen, will they or will they not fight?"

In this epic story arc, he also promised a subplot which will unravel into a very intriguing plot twist.

[ray gower]

Originally posted by Dave
Manny Coto: "If you've watched Enterprise and you watched the old series and Next Gen, you know that there's a difference between the Vulcans of our era and the Vulcans of later eras. Our Vulcans lie, our Vulcans are monolithic, our Vulcans are not pacifistic.

Actually, I can't say I have noticed a great deal of difference.
Vulcans in all Treks have been quite capable of falsifying the truth. Nor does it seem the Ent lot are particularly war-like, just an overdose of superiority which is eroded over time.

Still it leaves the Nazi's alone, even in name only

[McHorde-Trooper]

I haven't noticed much of a difference either ray gower.

With the exception of the mind meld thing. In one episode
the give the impression that the mind meld is an unacceptable
practice to the High Command and the bulk of Vulcan society.

- - -
I'm not really sure Vulcan culture and society has really been
fleshed out in any Trek show. Certain looks into Vulcan
culture has been made, but never a day-in-the-life-of view. Vulcan history is pretty vague too.

[Dave]

We've really only seen planet Vulcan in the original series episode 'Amok Time' and in the films I,III & IV.

Even those were inconsistent in their portrayal of Vulcan and Vulcans. (In 'The Man Trap' Spock says Vulcan has no Moon, but in 'The Motion Picture' there is a Moon, or maybe even two! And if I was picky the colour of the sky seems to change from red to orange to yellow between films, but I guess that's possible.)

But I do also think that the Vulcans were seen to be more mystical, and driven more by mysticism as well as by pure Logic. I'm thinking not only of mind-melds, but also of Kolinahr, and that whole Koon-ut-kal-if-fee 'marriage of challenge' ceremony. Enterprise Vulcans just seem too staid and boring in comparison.

[gr8scott]

From Dave's descriptions earlier in this thread, Season 4 doesn't look too exciting. I was pleased with many aspects of Season 3 though. I did like the battles - much more realistic when a starship limps away in pieces. I also liked the moral conflicts and the not so cut and dry solutions to problems. The overall arc was good too. There were, however, eps that just seemed to be thrown in to waste time - possibly a failure in character dev.

I hope that Season 4 deals with the formation of UFP. I've read spoilers to this end. I think we should see Starfleet actually become a "fleet". Wouldn't that be nice to see? It would be interesting to explore these Eugenic War super people. It would be interesting to see the "Romulan War".

It would also be interesting to have a Human/Vulcan conflict as Nick 0208 Ldn stated. One question... in TOS, weren't the Andorrans the "bad guys"? I remember a few TOS eps where those blue guys with antennae were bad guys. If they were, then how can they be founding members of UFP?

[Dave]

Originally posted by gr8scott
One question... in TOS, weren't the Andorrans the "bad guys"? I remember a few TOS eps where those blue guys with antennae were bad guys. If they were, then how can they be founding members of UFP?

I think you are thinking of 'Journey to Babel' TOS. This first introduced Sarek as the Vulcan ambassador, Andorians and Tellarites. The UFP did appear to be more like the Italian parliament than the United Nations, but the Andorian who stabbed Kirk and tried to wreck the conference was not really an Andorian at all. He was found to be an Orion spy.

Manny Coto seems to know his Trek history, so some political intrigue stories, weaving threads of Andorian-Vulcan-Tellarite hostillity and Orion spies seems possible.

[gr8scott]

Originally posted by Dave
Manny Coto seems to know his Trek history, so some political intrigue stories, weaving threads of Andorian-Vulcan-Tellarite hostillity and Orion spies seems possible.

Now that would be fun to watch. Might even be able to do some natural character dev in this context - and pull it off. Still needs a good overall arc though... Am I the only one who wants the temporal war thing gone? I love big picture space operas, but this stuff is boring! Let's leave time travel to Dr. Who. They're the only ones who made it fun.

Edit: We need a GOOD explanation why the temporal war wasn't seen during any of the other time periods - TOS, SNG, DS9, Voy. Enemies of UFP should be just as eager to destroy say, the Klingon/Federation alliance, etc (since that could also destroy the Federation). OR tamper with the Borg wars... but we see nothing. Since time travel is naturally non-linear, we need a non-linear explanation: Why only pre-UFP time frame?

[Dave]

How about if Orion pirates attack Enterprise and kidnap Hoshi and force her to become a slave girl?

Or is that just my fantasy!

[gr8scott]

Dave, I swear... you have no sense of humor.

Just kidding!

How about if Shran kidnaps Hoshi, paints her blue, and forces her to be a slave girl?:alienooh:

[Dave]

Brannon Braga on what to expect this season:

from Star Trek Magazine
After the success of last season [season 3], creatively anyway, we won’t go back to what we did it Seasons 1 & 2, which was subject to such debate. We tried something different there and I think it was with mixed success, really, in terms of doing lighter, character-orientated stories of exploration. Those days are definitely over. We’ve got to do something different this season, and what we’ve decided to do is have an overarching theme to the season, which will probably culminate in the formation of the Federation. I don’t know exactly how. We have some preliminary ideas. But it’s really time to usher in the birth of modern-day Star Trek and see how Archer and the gang were involved in that. We’re going to tell mini-arcs, two-episode arcs, five-episode arcs, three-episode arcs. We’re not going to shy away from continuity. There’s going to be a lot of continuity again this season. There will be some standalone episodes, but story arcs will be more condensed.

[ray gower]

My tuppence worth:-

Braga doesn't know what they are going to do yet?
Okay, publishing deadlines mean that the interview was probably 2/3 months ago. But Enterprise starts running next week in the US!
Would I be the only one that is worried?

I fail to see why character based stories cannot be part of the over-arching mini-arcs?
Are we going to fall back on TNG and Voyager annonymousness?

No complaints on short three or four part episodes. Suggested them before.

Season 3 story continuity was actually quite good. Think they just need to more effort in the continuity of the characters

[Dave]

To be fair he went on in that interview to mention the Dr. Soong/ Eugenics three-part arc, the marriage of a major character ep. (I know who it is), and the Vulcan reformation arc.

I didn't repeat that part of the interview as we've already covered it in more detail from other sources. It is just the end of the season that he doesn't know about yet. He also mentions the William Shatner appearance which (at the time of the interview) now seems premature.

[Dave]

Originally posted by gr8scott
From Dave's descriptions earlier in this thread, Season 4 doesn't look too exciting.

I've changed my mind , that it does look exciting, and everything I hear only adds to my looking forward to it.

from Trek Today
New Enterprise showrunner Manny Coto recently told SFX Magazine (via the Great Link)... ...telling stories such as the founding of the Federation relates to Coto's desire to "fulfill the legacy of what the show was originally conceived as -- a prequel series". "The Star Trek universe is so grand and so deep that rather than go out and explore different worlds that we haven't seen in this series, I would rather use the prequel series to really explore the worlds that we know and would love to know more about."

He also says that it will deal with the formation of the Federation before the end of the Season.

The Romulans on Vulcan idea I dismissed earlier could work if Enterprise never meet them, and Arik Soong is working with Eugenic Supermen not Androids. That is the problem when you hear spoilers that are not the whole story. It is easy to jump to wrong conclusions.

[McHorde-Trooper]

> Arik Soong is working with Eugenic Supermen

So it sounds like Soong was a bit of an mad scientist, maybe?
It might be more interesting then I thought, though
I hope they are not super soldiers.