Star Trek and time travel: How many Enterprises were there really?
The Enterprise is part of Starfleet. If one is taken out of service or destroyed, another takes its place. In combination with time travel, it quickly becomes confusing as to who flew which Enterprise and when. But it's easy to untangle things.
Reader maurusloeffel is a Trekkie. In a comment, he counts ten Enterprises that have flown into space in the service of Starfleet.
His list:
- NX-1701 Enterprise (Cpt. Archer's Enterprise)
- NCC-1701 Enterprise (TOS and the first 4 cinema films)
- NCC-1701-A (The remaining cinema films with the old crew)
- NCC-1701-B ( cinema film "Generations")
- NCC-1701-C (The Unknown)
- NCC-1701-D (TNG)
- NCC-1701-E (cinema films 8-10)
- NCC-1701-J (one-time appearance in the "Enterprise" series)
- NCC-1701 (cinema reboot of JJA)
- NCC-1701 (Cpt. Pike's Enterprise with the appearance in Star Trek Discovery)
Maurus, that's not true. You're forgetting two things: time travel and retcons. There are eight Enterprises. Or three. It depends. Thanks to Maurus, I'm now deep down the rabbit hole in timelines and time travel. Hence: a graphic listing of the 22nd century time and onwards, following Star Trek's internal logic.
I'm leaving the Enterprise NCC-1701-J out of this episode, as we don't really know to what extent it actually exists or will exist. The Star Trek canon is currently set in the years 2257 or around 3207 in "Star Trek: Discovery" (DIS). Or around 2900 in "Star Trek: Picard" (PIC). The gap around the year 2500 and following the internal logic of time travel, the NCC-1701-J as in "Star Trek: Enterprise" (ENT) season 3 episode 18 with the title "Azati Prime" could never have existed. Perhaps DIS season 3 will provide further information.
Therefore: the timeline spans the episodes of the Enterprise series to the end of the J.J. Abrams films.
The main timeline: Eight Enterprises, one Discovery
The history of the Starfleet starships - or their predecessors - with the name Enterprise begins in the year 2151. In ENT S01E01, the year is 2151, and Captain Jonathan Archer has been travelling through space on the NX-01 for ten years. In the year 2161, the NX-01 is put into a museum.
A small note: It is not technologically possible for us to enlarge images by clicking on them. At the end of this article you will find a list of all Enterprises in full size. I apologise for the inconvenience.
After that, according to viewers, comes the Discovery, NCC-1031, which Maurus specifically mentions in his list as a rendezvous point for a single Enterprise. The Discovery was launched in 2256 and travelled through space and time for a year. We'll leave out all the little time travel and the Red Angel thing, because in 2257 a young Spock on board the Enterprise NCC-1701 proposes that the Discovery be cancelled from the annals of Starfleet after the events of DIS S02E13 "Such Sweet Sorrow". This is because the NCC-1031 has flown plus or minus 1000 years into the future.
Discovery meets Enterprise
But the question is: Which Enterprise is this? It says "NCC-1701" on the hull and it's under the command of Christopher Pike, but the technology doesn't really match the technology we saw in The Original Series (TOS) with Kirk, Spock, Uhura and co.
The Enterprise, which first appears in DIS S01E15 "Will You Take My Hand?", is Kirk's Enterprise from TOS. The timeline provides some clues.
The Enterprise NCC-1701, as we know it from TOS, was launched in 2245 and is destroyed over the Genesis planet in 2285. Before James T. Kirk took command of the Enterprise in 2265, it had already flown for several years under Captain Robert April and then for 15 years with Christopher Pike as captain. The Discovery meets the NCC-1701 in the middle of the Pike era, but it is the same ship that sets sail for the stars a few years later with Kirk as captain.
"Star Trek: Discovery" has gone to great lengths to respect the history of TOS. Sometimes the authors have come up with clever things, sometimes a little more mundane. The reason why the hologram communicators were removed from the Enterprisse to make the on-screen communication from TOS the standard is a good example. The reason is that Pike doesn't like the holograms and that they have led to technical problems throughout the ship.
The legend of the Enterprise begins
After its destruction in 2285, Starfleet was without the Enterprise for a year. As the good old NCC-1701 had far exceeded its planned lifespan of 18 years after 40 years and had become the flagship of Starfleet on its missions, the Admiralty commissioned a second ship with the name Enterprise. The Enterprise NCC-1701-A sets off on its first flight in 2286.
But the NCC-1701-A doesn't last long. Just seven years later, in 2293, it is decommissioned. But it is immediately replaced by the Enterprise NCC-1701-B. However, the NCC-1701-B is not under Kirk's command, but sets off for the stars with John Harriman as captain. Kirk, now an admiral, is on board when the NCC-1701-B encounters a time nexus. There Kirk sacrifices himself. The ship is recovered, Kirk is declared dead.
The mysterious middle Enterprise
After Kirk's sacrifice, the Enterprise name goes quiet. In "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (TNG) S03E15 "Yesterday's Enterprise", the Enterprise NCC-1701-C appears in the year 2366. It has fallen into a time rift in 2344 during the battle for Narendra III.
TNG had no major plots, however, which is why the story of the Enterprise NCC-1701-C is short and incomplete. It must have been built and commissioned sometime before 2344. The NCC-1701-C is the first Enterprise under the command of a woman. And the only one to date. The captain was Rachel Garrett.
In the year 2366, the NCC-1701-C meets the Enterprise NCC-1701-D under the command of Jean-Luc Picard. The NCC-1701-D is launched in 2363 and is destroyed by the Duras sisters over Veridian III in 2371.
But Starfleet now realises the importance of a ship with the name Enterprise. Therefore, the NCC-1701-D is immediately replaced by the Enterprise NCC-1701-E. This flies through space for the first time in 2372.
In the year 2381, Jean-Luc Picard relinquishes his command to devote himself to the rescue operation in the Romulan system. The sun there is threatening to go supernova and wipe out millions of lives.
But the NCC-1701-E continues to fly. It's just not known under whose command and until when. It is possible that the second season of "Picard" will provide information about this.
The importance of the Narada
That brings us to eight ships with the name Enterprise. But it's not the Enterprise that's causing complete confusion in the universe. It's a Romulan mining ship in the year 2387 called the Narada. Under the command of Nero, it is trying to stop Spock from preventing the Romulan sun from going supernova with an artificial black hole.
Nero is successful. But he is thrown back in time. On his arrival in 2233, he destroys the USS Kelvin NCC-0514 under the command of Richard Robau and James T. Kirk's father George.
What Nero didn't expect was that his attack on the Kelvin would undo his entire timeline. He creates a splinter timeline, which fans call the "Kelvin Timeline" or "Alternate Reality".
In the Kelvin Timeline, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 sets sail for the stars in the year 2258. Its captain is Christopher Pike, but he is replaced by a young James T. Kirk. Kirk and his crew steer the ship for five years until it is destroyed in 2263 during Krall's attack on the Yorktown starbase.
The Enterprise NCC-1701 is immediately replaced by the NCC-1701-A. But nothing is known about her adventures. Nothing yet?
Star Trek has no plan for time travel
Finally, we can count Enterprises. In the main timeline, there were eight of them, nine if we count the NCC-1701-J. They flew between 2151 and 2381. In total, the ships flew for 67 years in the 116 documented years of Enterprise. No doubt there were more years flown, but we Trekkies have 67 documented years.
The Narada, however, creates a second timeline. There are three Enterprises in the Kelvin Timeline. Until the year 2233, the Kelvin Timeline is identical to the main timeline. This means that the Enterprise NX-01 under Archer took place as seen in ENT. The split in the timeline only occurs in 2233, whereupon two Enterprises follow. There are therefore three Enterprises in the Kelvin Timeline.
That makes a total of eleven Enterprises. The Pike Enterprise mentioned by Maurus, which meets the Discovery, is the same Enterprise commanded by Kirk. But the Enterprise NCC-1701-J is not confirmed.
Finally, this: Star Trek has no idea how in-universe time travel works. Nero quickly creates a new timeline with the Narada, but the time travel of the NCC-1701-C changes the present in TNG S03E15. Only Guinan, bartender of the Enterprise NCC-1701-D, senses that time has been altered.
Thus, two theories of time travel collide. The one that says that the present from which a time traveller starts into the past will never take place, as the time traveller switches to another timeline. And the one that says that the current timeline can be changed retroactively. In order for the current present to continue to exist as known, the flow of time must be regulated again so that the historical state can be restored.
This whole argument, by the way, does not take into account all the time travel episodes or films in the series, in which Kirk, Picard, Sisko and Janeway travel back in time and usually end up in the present at the time of the production of the episode or film.
So. done. Speaking of Sisko and Janeway: For the sake of completeness, I've added Deep Space 9 and Voyager to the timeline so that all Star Trek series are represented.
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