ENT: Singularity

[McAvoy]

Here's the question I have. Okay, the Enterprise was not finished. Fine, it was rushed quickly...

Why didn't they RETURN to Earth, have it finished, and return to the job? Oh, I know, because Archer couldn't handle admitting the ship was in ANY WAY flawed when it completely was. God I hate Archer.

I knew this question would come up. And yeah I got nothing.

I mean you could say the phase cannons were not ready for deployment when she left and was only authorized later on after finalized testing. The phase cannons were in crates in case for that but only enough for three cannons?

I don't know. There was no reason to not send the Enterprise back to dry dock to be fully fitted out. You know that could have been interesting in itself.

We do know that Berman wanted the first year to be almost Earth bound before the Enterprise went off on her mission. But logically the Enterprise should have immediately returned to Earth for a final fitting out.

[Nobody700]

Really here's what should have happened. Season 1... is all about getting to the Klingon homeworld as the Suliban chase them down and the Enterprise, not well fit and in space unknown to them, are forced to scavenge for resources and meet with other aliens who interact with them.

Now this is Voyager close, but here's the catch. The Vulcans are judging humanity and are treating this as Humanities final test so while the Vulcans will protect Earth from attacks, they won't protect the Enterprise unless directly attacked as they are there. Archer has to work with alien forces who may not like or accept Earth's place and if he is hostile to them, they will be hostile to ANY earth ship. Plus where Voyager was a warship that was a major power to the Delta Quadrant, T'Pol tells Archer that by galactic standards, Enterprise is 20 years behind the Vulcans and the Vulcans are, while a power, not a major one so Enterprise is a RATHER weak ship in comparison. It's a long journey, roadblocks come up, and through it, Archer has to show this Klingon they are bringing home that Earth BELONGS in the stars, and returning home is not an option because they have a timeline.

[McAvoy]

Really here's what should have happened. Season 1... is all about getting to the Klingon homeworld as the Suliban chase them down and the Enterprise, not well fit and in space unknown to them, are forced to scavenge for resources and meet with other aliens who interact with them.

Now this is Voyager close, but here's the catch. The Vulcans are judging humanity and are treating this as Humanities final test so while the Vulcans will protect Earth from attacks, they won't protect the Enterprise unless directly attacked as they are there. Archer has to work with alien forces who may not like or accept Earth's place and if he is hostile to them, they will be hostile to ANY earth ship. Plus where Voyager was a warship that was a major power to the Delta Quadrant, T'Pol tells Archer that by galactic standards, Enterprise is 20 years behind the Vulcans and the Vulcans are, while a power, not a major one so Enterprise is a RATHER weak ship in comparison. It's a long journey, roadblocks come up, and through it, Archer has to show this Klingon they are bringing home that Earth BELONGS in the stars, and returning home is not an option because they have a timeline.

I like it.

But I do subscribe to the idea that maybe Earth was a rising power. A young one. Expanding out too quick. Think Babylon 5 Earth prior to the Minbari War.

Enterprise can remain the same. The most technologicallh advanced Earth ship. Warp Five and all that. But Earth is out there already.

Keep the Vulcans the same. Earth is expanding out too fast. Making mistakes. Etc. But trying to figure it all out.

The simple reason I think this is because it is called the 'Earth - Romulan war'. Not the Allied Worlds Romulan War. Or even simply the Romulan War. The way it's talked about (barely) it seems it was a strictly Earth and Romulan war. I just don't buy into Earth by itself at the beginning of the series could compete against the Romulans.

In fact the series kinda lent the idea that it was a Coalition against the Romulans. Which is fine itself.

[Nobody700]

For me from what I saw on Enterprise, I liked the idea that humans and Earth were seen as Vulcan puppets, but Earth was growing in power quickly and hard. That Enterprise, after retrofits to battle the Xindi, finally reached the power of Vulcan Warships and that Earth by season 4 (and later) would gain massive respect and power and stopped being seen by the Alpha Quadrant as Vulcan lackeys but their own force. The Vulcans themselves having a divide if Earth is a threat but cause of Archer, T'Pol, and Enterprise making peace with the Andorians, make the Vulcans realize Earth is vital to the Alpha Quadrant stability as a whole. This would cause the Romulans to fear them, want to wage war... and consider Earth the biggest target, because it's not as protected as Vulcan or Andoria and is the biggest reason both those powers are working together. Hence while Vulcans and Andorians helped, most of the war was between Romulans and Humanity, and to explain why humans never saw Romulans... it was never full scale war, but many MANY skirmishes and one on one ships against each other. That the Kirk battle with the Romulans was the STANDARD, and only by TNG would full scale war be the threat. Romulans didn't want to tip their hand too far and make two powers invade them, and humanity didn't have the power to wage an interstellar war BUT could fight.

[stryke]

I think the answer was just to do a timeskip montage. At the end of Broken Bow have Archer admit that they're not ready yet, but then insist they will be. Give him some humility while making him smart and heroic. Then montage it, showing the ship getting upgraded, show the crew training, and then finish the episode on the ship heading out of spacedock now fully ready to take on the universe, hell throw in a boldly going where no one has gone before voiceover by Archer to some rousing music. Hype people to come back and assure people that this ship and crew is worthy of the name Enterprise.

[Killeriguana]

I must say, I think it's interesting, in the discussion about aliens using black holes, that we encounter the same potential paradox as with the idea of aliens creating a dyson shell - any civilisation capable of doing such a thing would have to have advanced to the level where there'd be no point in doing it. Obviously, I am just as, if not more, ignorant than Chuck, so there is probably a solution to that issue, but it's still an interesting thing to run into.

In fact, in general, inspired by the discussion of dyson shells from the Relics review, I've taken to calling this kind of thing "The D-shell Paradox", for any situation where having the ability to do something would negate the need to. There may be another term for that kind of paradox, but I haven't found it and I think that one works.

[McAvoy]

For me from what I saw on Enterprise, I liked the idea that humans and Earth were seen as Vulcan puppets, but Earth was growing in power quickly and hard. That Enterprise, after retrofits to battle the Xindi, finally reached the power of Vulcan Warships and that Earth by season 4 (and later) would gain massive respect and power and stopped being seen by the Alpha Quadrant as Vulcan lackeys but their own force. The Vulcans themselves having a divide if Earth is a threat but cause of Archer, T'Pol, and Enterprise making peace with the Andorians, make the Vulcans realize Earth is vital to the Alpha Quadrant stability as a whole. This would cause the Romulans to fear them, want to wage war... and consider Earth the biggest target, because it's not as protected as Vulcan or Andoria and is the biggest reason both those powers are working together. Hence while Vulcans and Andorians helped, most of the war was between Romulans and Humanity, and to explain why humans never saw Romulans... it was never full scale war, but many MANY skirmishes and one on one ships against each other. That the Kirk battle with the Romulans was the STANDARD, and only by TNG would full scale war be the threat. Romulans didn't want to tip their hand too far and make two powers invade them, and humanity didn't have the power to wage an interstellar war BUT could fight.

There was always an assumption pre-ENT and during the show that the humand were an up and coming power that the Romulans worried or feared about. 90 or so years since First Contact without a large spacefaring industrial complex and coming out of a devastating World War? Makes sense for Earth by 2151 not having alot of ships out there or only able to finally put out a competitive design like the NX class.

I also felt ENT was laying good groundwork to make the Coalition and eventually the Federation into a NATO power of sorts. Like my head cannon that it originally started out like that, the major powers within the Federation helped to contribute to the defense of the Federation. That is until Earth itself started to match and eventually pass by ships of Vulcan or Andor in power and technology. Where by Kirk's time a power shift was definitely happening where Earth Starfleet was becoming the front line defense force for the Federation. By TNG, it was standard.

[Nobody700]

For me I see the Federation as

Enterprise: Non existent, just Earth and Vulcans but eventually Andorians and Tellarites form the basis of an alliance, and than a joint Federation where the four are equals and any who join after are treated as allies and Earth is the home of the Federation cause it united the three powers by becoming one

TOS: A rising power, explorers, such as 1820's America. A power that has basis to it but not a major one and one that is still heavily exploring and more focused on discovery than politics. A single ship alone with no expected backup for weeks.

TNG: One of the three major powers of the Alpha Quadrant, where large fleets can form in a week and set up defense work and plenty of stations and even deep space stations and have alliances with dozens of powers and are accepting more and more species and cultures into the Federation.

[clearspira]

I must say, I think it's interesting, in the discussion about aliens using black holes, that we encounter the same potential paradox as with the idea of aliens creating a dyson shell - any civilisation capable of doing such a thing would have to have advanced to the level where there'd be no point in doing it. Obviously, I am just as, if not more, ignorant than Chuck, so there is probably a solution to that issue, but it's still an interesting thing to run into.

In fact, in general, inspired by the discussion of dyson shells from the Relics review, I've taken to calling this kind of thing "The D-shell Paradox", for any situation where having the ability to do something would negate the need to. There may be another term for that kind of paradox, but I haven't found it and I think that one works.

A Dyson Swarm where you collect the sun's energy using thousands of satellites is far more realistic.

As for why someone would build a Dyson Sphere I actually have a good answer to that: because they can. How many things have humans built using that mantra?

In my opinion though there is a second fundamental problem with the concept of a Dyson Sphere and that is the Fermi Paradox. If such a race existed in the Milky Way or even the local group - we would know about it. It would require a command of physics that would be lighting up our instruments like a Christmas tree. A race that can build a structure around a star but does not have some form of FTL also seems very doubtful to me.

The only explanation to this is that either such races are nowhere near us, or they are so new in terms of their impact on the galactic scene that nothing they have done has had time to reach us yet.

[hammerofglass]

An explanation I like is that the races that make a full shell or similar megastructure build it specifically to hide their entire civilization in for geologic periods of time, so they go well out of their way not to have any emissions leak out. The star goes dark, everything goes quiet, and they endure long after any other race that would have noticed or encountered them before they built it has gone to dust.

The Schlock Mercenary webcomic really liked this one, their were a ton of variations on the theme.