Sneak Peek II: ENTERPRISE History from PG 1.1

[PGoodman13]

Howdy, folks. Got another sneak peek at new content from the updated Player's Guide (and no, I still don't know when it's coming out; I'll keep asking, though). This one is the additional material regarding Enterprise from the Forty Years of Star Trek chapter.

I should note that this material, like the Denobulan writeup I posted a little while back, is the version that I submitted. It hasn't been approved by Paramount yet, at least not that I'm aware of, and both might be a little long. The versions you see here might wind up getting trimmed a little bit in order to fit in the books. If that happens, errata versions will be posted.

[PGoodman13]

ENTERPRISE

Over a century before Captain Kirk and his gallant crew embarked on their legendary five-year mission aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, another vessel with that venerable name was blazing the trail that humanity would follow to the stars. Under the command of Captain Jonathan Archer, Starfleet’s first warp five-capable starship, the Enterprise NX-01, began a legacy that would extend into the 24th century and beyond.

The fifth series in the long-running franchise, Star Trek: Enterprise took us where no Star Trek series had taken us before: The 22nd century and the rough-and-tumble days of Earth’s first steps into the greater galaxy, a decade before the founding of the United Federation of Planets. Under the watchful eyes and patient (some would say repressive) guidance of the Vulcans, who had appointed themselves Earth’s guardians and advisors nearly a century earlier, humanity had slowly begun to make its way into the cosmos. They would soon learn that, while space can be beautiful, it can also be unfriendly, and even dangerous.

Earth had not remained idle since first contact with the Vulcans in 2063, but they had also not made the sort of progress that they would have liked. Freighters and other starships traveled between the stars, but most of these vessels had a maximum speed of at best warp two. The Vulcans, fearful of the Humans because they saw in the young race a reflection of their own savage past, held humanity back for decades. They couldn’t conceive of a volatile and passionate race like the Humans being able to restrain their baser instincts, so they resolved not to give them the chance to take part in galactic affairs until they considered Humans ready. With lifespans that were easily double those of Humans, the Vulcans could afford to be patient.

Humans, however, are not always patient, and they have always refused to back down from a challenge. They are a people who climb the highest mountain and dive to the deepest depths of the ocean for no other reason than, "It was there." It was this spirit that ultimately drove them, in 2151, to launch their greatest technological achievement to that point, the NX-class starship Enterprise, over the objections of their Vulcan advisors. That spirit of exploration, of taking on any challenge and emerging victorious, was also the underlying theme of the series, as it had been in The Original Series before it.

Perhaps the biggest difference between exploration in the 22nd century and the 23rd century was the fact that, in Archer’s time, the galaxy was a much smaller place. While Kirk’s Enterprise could routinely cruise at warp six, and move at warp eight in emergencies, Archer’s starship typically traveled at warp three, with a maximum velocity of only warp five. There were no established starbases or other outposts for the ship to put into for repairs or shore leave for the crew. The whole galaxy was a new and exciting place, and every strange new world that Enterprise visited truly was someplace where no man had gone before.

In Kirk’s time, the Federation could be counted upon for support. In Archer’s time, though, there was no Federation. Many of the races that would be seen as stalwart allies in the 23rd century and beyond had not even been contacted in the 22nd century. There were no Andorians, no Tellarites, no Betazoids to call allies, and the Vulcans were uneasy chaperones at best. Humans, for the most part, had to rely on themselves. In the face of unremitting hostility from the newly-encountered Klingons and the enigmatic Romulans, though, it became clear that Earth would need friends, as would many of the races they would encounter. It was this need for protection from an increasingly unfriendly galaxy that would sow the seeds for the birth of one of the greatest triumphs in galactic history: the United Federation of Planets.

EVENTS

The decade leading up to the founding of the Federation was a tumultuous one for the people of Earth, and particularly for the crew of Enterprise NX-01.

First Contacts: In Archer’s time, Earth had met only a very few alien species, such as the Denobulans. Almost all of these encounters were administered by the Vulcans through one of their numerous inter-species exchange programs.

In 2151, that all changed, thanks to the crash of a small starship in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. That ship carried Klaang, a member of a previously unknown race called the Klingons, who was returning to his homeworld with vital information. Archer convinced his superior, Admiral Maxwell Forrest, to launch Enterprise early, against the advice of the Vulcans, in order to return Klaang to his people. This, in turn, brought him and his crew into conflict with the Suliban, the aliens who had forced the Klingon’s crash on Earth in the first place. The Suliban would plague them several times over the next several years. To make matters worse, the Klingons were none too grateful to the Humans for Klaang's return, in spite of the fact that it helped avert an Empire-wide civil war. They would also become increasingly adversarial as the years went by.

More successful, in the long run, was Earth's first contact with the Andorians, a martial race in a long-simmering conflict with the Vulcans. The initial contact with the Andorians took place at the Vulcan temple of P'Jem, which the Andorian Imperial Guard was convinced hid a Vulcan surveillance system used to spy on Andoria and her interests in the area. The meeting was all but disastrous, as Andorian suspicion turned out to be well-founded. The conflict would continue to simmer for several more months, but Archer and his crew were ultimately able to bring the two races to the negotiating table and end their decades-old dispute.

The Andorians were also in dispute with another race called the Tellarites. Human relations with the Tellarites also got off on poor footing, when a Tellarite bounty hunter kidnapped Captain Archer with hopes of collecting the sizable reward offered for his capture by the Klingon Empire. As they had done with the Andorians, the crew of Enterprise eventually managed to convince the Tellarites of their honorable intentions, and helped broker their peace with the Andorians as well.

Perhaps the most fateful first contact made by Enterprise and her crew was with an enigmatic race called the Romulans. First encountered when the NX-01 accidentally strayed into a cloaked Romulan minefield, relations started out dismally and proceeded to get worse from there. Over the course of the next several years, the Romulans would continue to test humanity’s resolve, and that of many other races, until war broke out between Earth and the Romulan Star Empire in 2156.

Temporal Cold War: On the NX-01’s very first mission, Captain Archer learned that he and his crew had been thrust into a conflict considerably more daunting than the Suliban meddling in the affairs of the Klingons. They had become involved in a battle that spanned centuries, with factions fighting to change the past in order to control the future. The Suliban had allied themselves with a mysterious benefactor from the distant future, who provided them with advanced technology in exchange for their service in meeting his goals. Archer and Enterprise had their own ally in Daniels, a temporal agent from the Federation of the 31st century. Ultimately, Archer and his crew helped end the Temporal Cold War when they were sent back to the Earth year 1944. There, an alien called Vosk had given Nazi Germany assistance in the form of advanced technology as he sought to gain control of the future for himself. The NX-01 was instrumental in destroying his temporal conduit, killing Vosk and setting the future right again in the process.

The Xindi Attack: In 2153, Earth was attacked without warning or provocation. A weapon of then-unprecedented destructive power cut a swath from Florida to Venezuela, killing over seven million people. The weapon was merely a test vehicle sent by a race called the Xindi, a precursor to a much larger and more potent weapon that would be able to annihilate the planet itself.

The Xindi, misled by an extra-dimensional species to believe that Humans were going to destroy them first, were constructing the weapon deep inside a region called the Delphic Expanse. The Expanse, a growing region of chaotic space, was being changed by these aliens to support life from their dimension, at the expense of those who already lived there. They were using the Xindi as pawns to destroy Earth, home of the only real threat to their plan. The crew of Enterprise was able to destroy the network of enormous spheres the aliens were using to warp space in the Expanse, restoring that region to normal space, and also to destroy the Xindi weapon before it could be used on Earth.

Birth of the Federation: One of the defining characteristics of Humans as a species is their ability to bring disparate groups together in common cause. During the course of their early missions, Archer and the crew of the NX-01 helped to broker peace between the Andorians and the Vulcans, and then with the Tellarites as well. Ultimately, they were able to bring ambassadors from all three of these governments together, and convince them that the four of them -- Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites -- were stronger together than they were separately. This union of four governments into a single body was the foundation of one of the most enduring entities ever known: the United Federation of Planets. This alliance would quickly grow, from its four founding members in 2161 to over 150 members spread over 8,000 light years of space in the 2370s.

ADVENTURES

Games played in the style of Enterprise are similar to those played in the style of the original Star Trek. Both are built around the themes of exploration, both of space and of the human condition, and of overcoming challenges both internal and external.

Where No Man Has Gone Before: The galaxy was a new and exciting place to Archer and his crew, with every world they encountered being new and interesting. Whether serving aboard Enterprise herself, or one of her NX-class sister ships like Columbia, Challenger, or Venture, characters are going to be finding new worlds and meeting new species at every turn. Even the most mundane details of these new encounters should not be overlooked, as a new culture shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand as uninteresting -- humans are getting the chance to see these new civilizations firsthand for the very first time. The characters are literally doing and seeing what no humans have done or seen before. These types of grand discoveries are part of what makes adventuring in the 22nd century so exciting.

Don't forget, either, that exploration is not just something that Humans do. Klingons seek out new worlds to expand their empire. The Vulcans, while not the explorers that Humans are, still take their logical approach to the stars in order to expand their body of knowledge. Andorians and Tellarites are also making first contact with new worlds and new civilizations during this period.

Home Away From Home: With the influence of Earth, and later the Federation, spreading, it's only a matter of time before permanent colonies and space stations are established. While some in Starfleet would go to the stars to find new life, some characters might choose to let new life come to them by serving aboard one of Earth's new starbases. These support facilities would allow Starfleet to extend its exploration even further by providing a place for starships to put into for repair and crew recreation. They would also attract other species interested in learning more about these Humans and their Federation.

Of course, some species might see this as an act of aggression. The Klingons certainly would take umbrage at a permanent Human base too close to their border, and might see fit to establish a base of their own nearby to monitor the Humans, and more easily harass them.

The Human Adventure: Like its predecessor, Star Trek: Enterprise was as much about diplomacy as it was about action and adventure. The birth of the Federation didn't happen without the efforts of scores of diplomats from many worlds, gathering together and hammering out the details of what would become the Federation charter. Even after the founding of the Federation, it's going to take a lot of talking to make sure that all the members work and play well together, as well as approaching potential new members and trying to keep her enemies at bay.

There is, likewise, a call for other governments to deal with this new upstart alliance. Perhaps they wish to join it, or perhaps they wish to dissuade one of their own allies from joining it. Player characters might also be called upon to spy upon the new alliance.

The Battle for History: The possibility exists that while a series might be set in the 22nd century, the crew might not be native to that period. Starting sometime before the launch of the NX-01, the Temporal Cold War had many important fronts, at least one of which was the 22nd century. While Archer and his crew were instrumental in ending the conflict, they were certainly not the only "locals" involved in the fighting. The crew might be from that century, caught up in events beyond their understanding, or they might be from the future, directly manipulating events to maintain (or alter) the timeline. By the 29th century, a number of species have the capacity to time travel, and might be participating in the war.

[BouncyCaitian]

interesting. When's it out?

[Sho-sa Kurita]

interesting. When's it out?

I can't decide whether BC left the smiley out or not...

[PGoodman13]

interesting. When's it out?

As soon as I know an answer to that question, Bouncy, I'll let the world know. I'm starting to get frustrated again, and this is so seldom a good thing....

[Jonesy]

Have you thought about writing up a Mirror history of Enterprise for the Mirror Darkly pdf. Until they put on Kirk's uniforms I thought it was one of the best of season 4 shows.

[PGoodman13]

Have you thought about writing up a Mirror history of Enterprise for the Mirror Darkly pdf. Until they put on Kirk's uniforms I thought it was one of the best of season 4 shows.

And there I was, thinking that was one of the best parts of that episode....

I'd have to rewrite some of the history in Mirror Universe pretty extensively to take that episode into account, and while it's doable, it's not high on the priority list at the moment.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Have you thought about writing up a Mirror history of Enterprise for the Mirror Darkly pdf. Until they put on Kirk's uniforms I thought it was one of the best of season 4 shows.

They didn't seem to be mirror-versions of the characters, just really pissed off. I'm not sure what was up with that.

[Tricky]

I disagree: they seemed very 'mirrored':

The normally loyal and honorable Archer was a back stabing glory hound;, the sweet and shy Hoshi was a power hungry slut; the compassionate Dr. Phlox was a torturer.

The only ones who weren't very 'mirror-esqe' were the Vulcans!

But I liked what I've read so far PGoodman13, but I won't frustrate you more by asking for an estimated release date. (OH wait, i just did it anyway...my bad!)

[The Tatterdemalion King]

I disagree: they seemed very 'mirrored':

The normally loyal and honorable Archer was a back stabing glory hound;, the sweet and shy Hoshi was a power hungry slut; the compassionate Dr. Phlox was a torturer.

I'm sure it worked on paper, but on screen everybody acted like they were just suffering from a really bad case of 'roids. It didn't feel mirror... and it wasn't as funny : /

[Tricky]

Still, it was one of the better episodes of the show. Or maybe it's because it had a Gorn in it!

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Still, it was one of the better episodes of the show. Or maybe it's because it had a Gorn in it!

Don't get me started on that damn Gorn...

[PGoodman13]

Don't get me started on that damn Gorn...

*gets him started on the damn Gorn, thinking it might be entertaining....*

[The Tatterdemalion King]

*gets him started on the damn Gorn, thinking it might be entertaining....*

Haha.

Actually, my only problem with the Gorn was the eyes. I mean, shiny bug eyes! How could you leave that out?

[Tricky]

Ok, that WAS my major gorn issue. Apperently, the boyz over at Paramount got ahold of the same software that Sci-fi channel uses to make dinosaur movies and couldn't wait to use it. lol

Oh, and it would have been neat to see it in anything other than the 'gorn tunic' that the orignal gorn wore.