Star Trek: Enterprise did some profoundly stupid, messed up, ridiculous and shitty things throughout much of it's run. From causing interstellar wars, to killing thousands of colonists by mere virtue of being there, to committing genocide based on the writer's ignorance of how evolution actually works (and the twisted Prime Directive of the TNG-era), the Enterprise NX-01 has certainly racked up quite the fuck up count.
How they managed to create a Federation after accumulating that much ill will is astonishing. Or perhaps, it's all due to the work of a single vessel trailing Enterprise and cleaning up after it.
Enter the Starship Challenger, the only other Warp Five capable starship built to date. Due to politics, nepotism, public interest and other things outside the bounds of normal science but perfect reasonable within the realm of Star Trek, Captain Jonathan Archer got command of the Enterprise and filled his ship with unqualified idiots. Why they would be allowed to proceed at all has been the source of mystery, and the answer is quite simple: Earth had another ship of competent people willing to let Enterprise take the flack and attention off the Challenger doing the real work and laying the foundations for the Federation.
Why? Because some guy from the future told them that Archer had to be Captain of the Enterprise otherwise the future would be screwed. And Starfleet, while outwardly idiotic and PC, did possess a core of officers and friends in high places who thought that having someone competent to keep Enterprise out of trouble was a good idea.
Obviously, they haven't done everything just right, but after every disaster Challenger has been right behind Enterprise, fixing everything up with the assistance of the three competent and undervalued officers aboard Enterprise: Hoshi Sato, Travis Mayweather, and Malcolm Reed.
Discuss, and if you want to take this idea up, by all means, it's yours.
How they managed to create a Federation after accumulating that much ill will is astonishing. Or perhaps, it's all due to the work of a single vessel trailing Enterprise and cleaning up after it.
Enter the Starship Challenger, the only other Warp Five capable starship built to date. Due to politics, nepotism, public interest and other things outside the bounds of normal science but perfect reasonable within the realm of Star Trek, Captain Jonathan Archer got command of the Enterprise and filled his ship with unqualified idiots. Why they would be allowed to proceed at all has been the source of mystery, and the answer is quite simple: Earth had another ship of competent people willing to let Enterprise take the flack and attention off the Challenger doing the real work and laying the foundations for the Federation.
Why? Because some guy from the future told them that Archer had to be Captain of the Enterprise otherwise the future would be screwed. And Starfleet, while outwardly idiotic and PC, did possess a core of officers and friends in high places who thought that having someone competent to keep Enterprise out of trouble was a good idea.
Obviously, they haven't done everything just right, but after every disaster Challenger has been right behind Enterprise, fixing everything up with the assistance of the three competent and undervalued officers aboard Enterprise: Hoshi Sato, Travis Mayweather, and Malcolm Reed.
Discuss, and if you want to take this idea up, by all means, it's yours.