Is Ent a parallel universe?

[Mark]

Standard Starfleet payment method

[Deepcrush]

HA! I shit on your bill!

[Sionnach Glic]

Well, that's one way of solving problems with expenses....I guess.

[Tiberius]

While 7 did say they were involved, she didn't say how. Her statement does not preclude events occurring differently from FC originally if the time-travel thingy created the separate universe.

Good point - if she was referring to the Borg's initial arrival at Earth, and the point of divergence was after that, her statement can fit with the "ENT = alt timeline" hypothesis.

I don';t think so. Any divergance would have been at the point where the Borg appeared, creating a timeline that had the Borg in it and another timeline where there were no borg at all on earth.

And while yes, if Enterprise was in a different timeline to the rest of Trek, it may have happened at some point after that, but there just no evidenmce for it.

I mean, I might ask if TNG from season 3 on was in a different timeline to Season 2 and everything before. Nothing to say it is impossible, but no reason to think it.

In short, there is no evidence to suggest that enterprise is in a different timeline to the rest of trek. everything which has been posited as a point of divergance has been eliminated.

[Mikey]

I don';t think so. Any divergance would have been at the point where the Borg appeared, creating a timeline that had the Borg in it and another timeline where there were no borg at all on earth.

Shenanigans. Every single instant in which the Borg were at Earth, a new alternate timeline would have been created. You can't say with any authority that alt-timeline "x" is the one which the film took, rather than alt-timeline "y" which diverged 32.8 seconds later.

[Sonic Glitch]

Is it possible the point of divergence was when Cochrane publicized his account of cybernetic beings from the future? Perhaps in the "real" timeline he never told anybody, hence why know one knew anything about the Borg, but in the Enterprise timeline he mentions them in his commencement address to that university (or whatever it was) and despite the fact that he's generally laughed at for it, someone somewhere in the government/starship program elects to pay attention?

[Mikey]

The divergence in question would have had to have occurred prior to that, in order to make Cochrane choose an alternate course of action.

[Mark]

Hell the divergence could have happened in any number of time travel episodes. Hell, maybe Sisko "butterfly effected" creation while pretending to be Gabriel Bell.

[Sonic Glitch]

The divergence in question would have had to have occurred prior to that, in order to make Cochrane choose an alternate course of action.

But what if the divergence was that choice? I.E. He flipped a coin and in one timeline it came up heads so he decided to tell it and in the other it came up tales so he didn't?

[Mikey]

Then the coin toss would be the divergence, or whatever caused the environmental factors which affected the toss.

[Sionnach Glic]

Or whatever first made him decide to base such a decision on a coin toss.

Really, we could keep this up for quite a while. We can generally agree that there was a point of divergence. We can probably also agree that it took place sometime after the arrival of the Borg. Whether it was one second after their arrival or one year is unknown.

[Sanehouse]

This still begs the question: how were the Borg encountered in ENT but unknown as of TNG?

For the same reason that the Enterprise-D apparently made "first contact" with the Borg in 2365 when Q sent the Enterprise into Borg space, yet Seven of Nine's family was searching for the Borg in 2357 (8 years before the Enterprise encountered the Borg). It's possible that when the Borg drones appeared in ENT, this is what created the "rumor" that Seven of Nine's family chased in 2357.

[Mikey]

The Hansens could have as easily been chasing rumors gleaned from countless contemporary non-UFP species. And it's highly likely that they never had the chance to report their findings once they encountered the Borg; ergo, the Borg would still be unknown to the UFP.

[Captain Seafort]

The Hansens could have as easily been chasing rumors gleaned from countless contemporary non-UFP species. And it's highly likely that they never had the chance to report their findings once they encountered the Borg; ergo, the Borg would still be unknown to the UFP.

It doesn't explain how they had an accurate model of a Borg ship, but the E-D had no idea who they were in "Q Who?" While I can understand the crew not knowing, the distinct lack of information in the ship's computer is a lot more difficult to explain away.

[Mikey]

Why? If the Hansens were killed or assimilated upon contacting the Borg, how would they have disseminated any findings to the UFP?