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Monroe wrote:Sounds more like a mistake of TNG than ENT to make such a great trading Empire but never have met the federation.

Yeah, TNG deserves full culpability for this. Go back and have a look at the first appearance of the Ferengi on TNG - it is obvious that the writers originally intended them to be devious and bloodthirsty, before deciding that none-too-bright arch-capitalists worked better.

I favour the theory that the Ferengi the Enterprise encountered were rogues who had decided or been compelled to explore well outside the Ferengi's standard trade area. Perhaps they were particularly ambitious traders looking for new frontiers - or maybe they discovered one of the dozens of ways Voyager used to suddenly jump tens of thousands of light years into Federation space.

TNG may be at afault for failing to write the Ferengi as the new "big bad" which they were originally supposed to be, but Enterprise was written later - if TNG showed "first contact," then it was up to the ENT writers to respect established canon.

Mikey wrote:TNG may be at afault for failing to write the Ferengi as the new "big bad" which they were originally supposed to be, but Enterprise was written later - if TNG showed "first contact," then it was up to the ENT writers to respect established canon.

This became a debate at lunch the other day: It was Enterprise's screw up, but it was a logical screw up. The idea of no contact with a group of traders makes no sense whatsoever. Even in the early days of TNG w hen canon was just being established, why didn't anyone think of this? And we don't have Berman/Braga to blame for this farkup.

It's kind of like the enterprise screw up with the NX class, looking sleeker than the Constutition or other ships.

However when TOS came out, The special effects department was lacking, and the uniforms were based on that 60's hippy style, and such.

Bryan Moore wrote:It was Enterprise's screw up, but it was a logical screw up. The idea of no contact with a group of traders makes no sense whatsoever. Even in the early days of TNG w hen canon was just being established, why didn't anyone think of this? And we don't have Berman/Braga to blame for this farkup.

Doesn't matter. Extant canon clearly stated that there had been no contact with the Ferengi prior to TNG. Period. End of story.

Instead, we have yet ANOTHER instance of Enterprise forcing us to invent some minor bit of a stretch of fanfic in our heads just to explain what happened on the show. You know we all had some little story or theory as to why nobody knew about the Ferengi. The show shouldn't REQUIRE us to do that in order to watch it.

I just pretend that many of the ENT ep. never happened. That allows me to sleep better at night. When i'm not up RPing or playing Halo.

Deepcrush wrote:I just pretend that many of the ENT ep. never happened. That allows me to sleep better at night. When i'm not up RPing or playing Halo.

That sounds like the most prudent course of action...

I've learned this by working for the government. Its not a mistake if you pretend it never happened.

sadly i laughed at that and nearly broke a swivel chair in the process

Mikey wrote:

Bryan Moore wrote:It was Enterprise's screw up, but it was a logical screw up. The idea of no contact with a group of traders makes no sense whatsoever. Even in the early days of TNG w hen canon was just being established, why didn't anyone think of this? And we don't have Berman/Braga to blame for this farkup.

Doesn't matter. Extant canon clearly stated that there had been no contact with the Ferengi prior to TNG. Period. End of story.

Instead, we have yet ANOTHER instance of Enterprise forcing us to invent some minor bit of a stretch of fanfic in our heads just to explain what happened on the show. You know we all had some little story or theory as to why nobody knew about the Ferengi. The show shouldn't REQUIRE us to do that in order to watch it.

Star Trek is famous for retconning though. In my opinion, what comes first doesn't always mean it has to be right, at that time in 1988 or whenever TNG started people really didn't give a huge care about the "canon".

Enterprise made alot more sense, I know i'll probably be flamed to hell and back, but it's my third favorite of the 5. Voyager makes me sick, and TOS was just so cheese in some parts that you're like e.e(rolling eyes!)

Retcon or not, the fact is that there was an established fact in the 'Trek universe which the Enterprise writers took it upon themseles to ignore in a wholesale fashion - like too many other times to count.

All that is doing is slapping the faces of 'Trek fans.

the enterprise writers also have worked on TNG, and DS9 and all of it, there are inconsistances across all of trek, i don't think enterprise should take all the blame. it's the problem of having like 100 different writers for all the series.

there are many ways to explain it in enterprise, maybe somehow when the federation was formed, all the information on that single incident with the ferangi, got misplaced, and not added to the federation database.

It makes sense though that they would know about them, I mean they're a huge trading empire(this is going over what is said) and the Vulcans at the LEAST should of known about them.

i'm in agreement with whomever saidi t.. this is TNG's fault; the ferangi were ment to be far different, and they scrapped that idea. and put something quick and poorly thought out in place.

No one's saying that Enterprise is solely to blame. And yes, nearly every series violated canon in some ways.
But Enterprise simply acted as if there had been no previous series at all. Nearly every episode screwed something up.

Well, it had the privledge, of being the "first" series, timeline wise, maybe the retconning was unintentional, maybe it was.

Maybe we ought to pin down one of the producers or something, and go WTF?!

Timeline wise? Yes. But the canon had already been lain down by every other series. Just becuase Enterprise is set before the others, it doesn't have the right to contradict everything at will.

Maybe we ought to pin down one of the producers or something, and go WTF?!

Just blame Berman and Braga. They're responsible for the worst of it.