Enterprise "Zero Hour" - Where was Starfleet?

[Snowman37]

We have been through this before. It takes time to moblize.

Yes, but it takes time to mobilize is an insufficient answer. If at least five starships were orbitting the Earth, constantly searching for spatial vortexes or whatever the Xindi Death Star would have exited. Once it arrived, a fleet of ships should have been on the weapon within minutes!

If you want the real answer it was to save budget money

Fair enough, but you'd think there'd be at least one Starfleet ship joining in the fight.

[jelgate]

Yes, but it takes time to mobilize is an insufficient answer. If at least five starships were orbitting the Earth, constantly searching for spatial vortexes or whatever the Xindi Death Star would have exited. Once it arrived, a fleet of ships should have been on the weapon within minutes!


Fair enough, but you'd think there'd be at least one Starfleet ship joining in the fight.

Yes it is. A lot of damage can be done in minutes.

[gateraid]

Why would they crew five starships when they could just have an unmanned weapons array? Heck, we have unmanned drones now, in our reality. It's just a plot hole, there because of budget restrictions within the show and to add to the tension/illustrate that Enterprise was Earth's only hope (God help us all )

Why were the Xindi so dumb to send a 'probe' a year in advance, giving Earth/Starfleet fair warning that they were coming and time enough to come up with a response?

[4thDoctor]

It's the same in all fiction, take comic books for example, why is it everytime Galactus showed up the Avengers, the Defenders and the X-Men didn't show up to help the Fantastic Four repulse him? Or..Why didn't the entire Justice League of America show up everytime some world menace was shown attacking in the Superman comics?

[Snowman37]

Why would they crew five starships when they could just have an unmanned weapons array? Heck, we have unmanned drones now, in our reality. It's just a plot hole, there because of budget restrictions within the show and to add to the tension/illustrate that Enterprise was Earth's only hope (God help us all )

What happens if the unmanned weapons array is attacked and damaged? Who's going to fix it if it's unmanned? What if the Xindi Death Star shows up on the other side of the planet? There's plenty of reasons to have a fleet of ships circling the Earth until Enterprise returns. As for budget restrictions, fair enough... I just wish this would have been given some thought when the episode was made.

Why were the Xindi so dumb to send a 'probe' a year in advance, giving Earth/Starfleet fair warning that they were coming and time enough to come up with a response?

Simple answer: Berman and Braga hadn't thought out the third season when they produced "Zero Hour."

[gateraid]

What happens if the unmanned weapons array is attacked and damaged? Who's going to fix it if it's unmanned? What if the Xindi Death Star shows up on the other side of the planet? There's plenty of reasons to have a fleet of ships circling the Earth until Enterprise returns. As for budget restrictions, fair enough... I just wish this would have been given some thought when the episode was made.

What idiot would only protect one side of a planet? They'd only need drones with weapons on them, or a security grid. As for 'what happens if the array is attacked or damaged', pretty much the same thing as if a ship was. Putting a thousand drones around the earth would be easier than crewing five ships, especially given how long it takes to build ships. At least drones (or the equivalent) can be mass produced.

But yeah, budget restrictions Also, it tends to be that whatever the current series is (TOS, Ent, TNG) that ship is the only one to save the day. Great for the show, but somewhat unrealistic.

Simple answer: Berman and Braga hadn't thought out the third season when they produced "Zero Hour."

I suppose it was better than the s3 cliffhanger - space nazis.

[Snowman37]

I read that Berman and Braga threw in the space nazis to force UPN to renew the show. If the show was cancelled, imagine the kind of hate mail the network would get. haha

[gateraid]

I read that Berman and Braga threw in the space nazis to force UPN to renew the show. If the show was cancelled, imagine the kind of hate mail the network would get. haha

I've heard that too. It's a pity though - I thought that was the weakest two parter of series four, even if it did finally wrap up that awful Lt Daniels/temporal cold war storyline.

[Snowman37]

Weakest two-parter or overall story? I loved both episodes, they resolve the "Zero Hour's" cliffhanger and the Temporal Cold War. My only real issue with the episodes were the lack of Future Guy and poor visual effects (mostly the White House and the NYC battle at the end). The ending was good, but when the NX-01 torpedoed the building with the time machine, well... that was just a really bad visual effect.

I liked "Storm Front" more than "Home," "Daedalus," "Observer Effect," "Affliction," "Divergence," "In a Mirror, Darkly" (Parts 1&2), and "These Are the Voyages..."

[gateraid]

Weakest two-parter or overall story? I loved both episodes, they resolve the "Zero Hour's" cliffhanger and the Temporal Cold War. My only real issue with the episodes were the lack of Future Guy and poor visual effects (mostly the White House and the NYC battle at the end). The ending was good, but when the NX-01 torpedoed the building with the time machine, well... that was just a really bad visual effect.

I liked "Storm Front" more than "Home," "Daedalus," "Observer Effect," "Affliction," "Divergence," "In a Mirror, Darkly" (Parts 1&2), and "These Are the Voyages..."

Home was poor all round. I found Daedalus to be boring (perhaps if they'd used characters we actually knew it might've made a difference??). If they'd gotten rid of the Trip/T'Pol stuff (I'm not opposed to the 'ship', but they over focused on it in s4) out of Affliction and Divergence (as well as the recycled Speed/Warp 5 problem) it wouldn't have been too bad. I wasn't a fan of Bound, and so-so on In a Mirror, Darkly I & II (I've never been a huge fan of Mike Sussman's eps - they're always a bit indulgent, kinda fanfic-ish) although as far as a crossover goes, it was well done. Surprisingly for me, the thing that sold it to me about how powerful the Defiant was was Trip's amazed "look at the size of the nacelles on that thing - it must be able to do warp seven!". I also thought Observer Effect was well done for a bottle show, although the ending (Phlox's "miracle cure" that he didn't remember) was weak and contrived.

The Augments arc, as well as the Vulcan arc, rank right up there (IMO) with some of the best of Trek, as did Demons/Terra Prime for a series ender (TATV didn't happen - it frakked with both shows too much). While I wasn't a massive fan of Storm Front, I didn't hate it either. Like you say, they wrapped up the temporal arc without addressing its architect - Future Guy. That was a mistake, although frankly I was just glad they weren't going to have any more of those stories.

[knowles2]

I agree they should have had ships near Earth ready to defend it.

But for all we know they could have been out on patrol near the perimeter of Earth solar system or on the other side earth or on war games exercises near by and were racing back to join the fight as soon as the ship was detected.

You have to keep a crew occupied and doing more than just circling Earth or they would get sloppy and slow.

I guest another explanation is that someone sent Earth a message to hide earth defensive fleet and let Archer and his team deal with the superweapon and only attack after there attack plan fail.


An no Snowman37 Earth exploration did not stay on hold, according to a star trek novels vast number of vessels were built to take groups of humans as far away from Earth as possible as part of Starfleet plan that if earth should fall to the Xindi assault some fragment of humanity would survive and prosper somewhere in the galaxy. Everything that could be turned into a warp capable vessels was turned into a warp capable vessel. civilian vessels and privately held cargo vessels were either seize by Starfleet equip with faster engines and sent on there way with volunteers or ordered vessels to far from earth to make it back to fly off into remote parts of the galaxy and find a place to settle down and hide or settle down with alien allies of there. It how humans became so wide spread compare to other races.

According to this story vessels made it as far as Cardassia space.

[nx01a]

Hmm. Very nice how the books manage to undo so much of the damage that the shows can put out.

[Snowman37]

I agree they should have had ships near Earth ready to defend it.

Thank you!

But for all we know they could have been out on patrol near the perimeter of Earth solar system or on the other side earth or on war games exercises near by and were racing back to join the fight as soon as the ship was detected. You have to keep a crew occupied and doing more than just circling Earth or they would get sloppy and slow.

Fair enough, but given how fast these ships are, they should have been on the scene in minutes.

I guest another explanation is that someone sent Earth a message to hide earth defensive fleet and let Archer and his team deal with the superweapon and only attack after there attack plan fail.

Why would Starfleet hide? This makes absolutely no sense. A giant Xindi death star is about to destroy the Earth. It's like expecting Starfleet to hide from the Borg cube so the Enterprise can deal with it. You send every single assault-capable starship at that weapon! Everyone and every ship is expendable until that weapon is destroyed! The alternative is Earth's destruction.

An no Snowman37 Earth exploration did not stay on hold, according to a star trek novels vast number of vessels were built to take groups of humans as far away from Earth as possible as part of Starfleet plan that if earth should fall to the Xindi assault some fragment of humanity would survive and prosper somewhere in the galaxy. Everything that could be turned into a warp capable vessels was turned into a warp capable vessel. civilian vessels and privately held cargo vessels were either seize by Starfleet equip with faster engines and sent on there way with volunteers or ordered vessels to far from earth to make it back to fly off into remote parts of the galaxy and find a place to settle down and hide or settle down with alien allies of there. It how humans became so wide spread compare to other races. According to this story vessels made it as far as Cardassia space.

Though it helps answer some questions, I don't read Star Trek novels. If it's not in an episode of the show, it doesn't count. I'm all for literature, but I just don't care for TV-based literature. I'd rather read original fiction.

[Rayzer]

I specifically signed up to this forum to answer something on this issue because it has been seriously bugging me.

I am of the same opinion that it doesn't make sense that in "Storm front" there were dozens of ships there to greet the Enterprise where as when th Xindi weapon was over earth only a single Andorian vessel came to help.

The argument that the Xindi attack was out of nowhere is null and void. After the initial Xindi attack Starfleet soon became aware that another attack was imminent, an attack that would destroy the planet. The idea that earth would be unguarded during that time is silly. I am not aware of the types of all the ships that were there. I know there were some intrepid and warp delta types as well as some Vulcan ships. The others I did not recognise.

Out of universe it is likely that during the events of the Xindi attack the writers likely wanted the events to focus on Enterprise and her crew so the presence of a fleet would divert from that. Then during storm front the writers did not want to have Enterprise come home to nothing so they gave them a "Heroes welcome"

I don't understand it myself.

On a side note I always hated the way that the Vulcans treated humans during their time period. We know the are superior in many ways but they were literally rubbing it in at every opportunity. They would insult humans, question their decisions, look down on their actions, antagonise the humans on purpose to cause an emotional response and then criticise that human if they responded with emotion. They were literally racist and it always bugged me how no one ever really called them on it.

Like for example during one of Archer's debrief after the expanse mission his actions during the attempted Solea rescue were questioned over and over and then he was basically called a liar and a murderer. Like me as a human I'm sat there like WTH? Then when Archer UNDERSTANDABLY gets annoyed at this accusation he is belittled for having an emotional response. This coming from a Vulcan who's people have spent hundreds of years learning how to suppress emotions and follow logic. In perspective that is like a Cardiothoracic surgeon having a go at a cleaning assistant for not knowing how to perform open heart surgery. I wish I had written the script as I would have brought up the obvious evidence!!!

1. The Health of the affected Vulcan's would be on record.
2. How many Vulcan ships came to the rescue of the Solea?
3. The events of the rescue would be recorded so there is no question of whether it is true or not.

Ok rant over.