Enterprise: The Expanse (Star Trek)

The Delphic Expanse was an area of space approximately fifty light years away from Earth. It was nearly two thousand light years across, according to the Vulcan Ambassador Soval. The Expanse was riddled with a web of dangerous spatial anomalies and was surrounded by a dense layer of thermobaric clouds , which made navigation extremely hazardous for starships.

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In some regions of the Expanse, the laws of physics did not function. Artificially created by transdimensional beings using a vast number of massive spheres , the Delphic Expanse ceased to exist in , when the Earth starship Enterprise NX destroyed them. In , a Klingon starship attempted to enter the Delphic Expanse. When it reemerged, the entire crew was anatomically inverted but still alive. After this incident the Klingons would not enter the Expanse. Vulcan ships had also entered the Expanse, but only a few had ever returned.

In December of , the Vulcan ship Seleya embarked on a mission to chart the thermobaric clouds surrounding the Expanse. After several days the ship's crew reported that the Seleya was caught in a subspace eddy and being pulled into the Expanse and contact was lost. The crew of the Vulcan ship Vaankara , sent to search for the lost Seleya , went insane, killing each other and self-destructing the ship after only two days inside the Expanse.

After this the Vulcans considered any expedition into the Expanse to be a foolishly risky action. The Enterprise later found the Seleya adrift, with its crew gone insane due to trellium-D exposure. When Earth suffered a devastating attack which resulted in the deaths of seven million people in March of , Captain Jonathan Archer received intelligence from the Suliban Cabal 's mysterious benefactor that the attack had been launched by the Xindi , a race native to the Expanse.

With this information, the Enterprise embarked on a mission into the Expanse to find the Xindi, in an attempt to prevent another attack which would destroy Earth. While in the Expanse, Enterprise encountered the Triannons , a native species which regarded the Expanse as the "Chosen Realm," an area that had been created by supernatural beings they referred to as "the Makers," in preparation for their eventual return. The Expanse intentionally and repeatedly calls back to Broken Bow in a number of ways. Most obviously, the Suliban and the Temporal Cold War reappear, but there are a number of other nods.

Enterprise gets to leave spacedock again — a literal relaunch. There is even a deleted scene about Archer worrying that Hoshi might leave; reflecting his recruitment of her in the pilot. However, The Expanse extends back even further than Broken Bow. Forrest gives Archer a tour of the refitted Enterprise in a shuttlepod, harking back not only to Broken Bow but beyond. The shuttle tour has been a feature of Star Trek introductions — from the introduction of the refitted Enterprise in Star Trek: The Voyage Home or the introduction of Voyager itself in Caretaker.

In fact, the shuttle tour is such a vital part of the whole ship-christening experience that All Good Things… retroactively gave Picard one. Archer quite pointedly inverts that sentiment. It reflects a very clear change in mood and tone.

While Picard was taking the Enterprise on a journey of limitless possibilities and infinite wonder, Archer is embarking on a much more confined and claustrophobic adventure. The universe to be explored by Picard was vast and spacious; the Expanse itself is firmly delineated and defined.

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More than that, though, there is a sense that Enterprise is consciously trying to look inward — to become perhaps a bit more introspective and reflective. There are points of comparison, of course — the Xindi see themselves and humanity locked in a struggle for survival; the Sphere Builders add some pretty strong religious undertones to the conflict. They are not interested in inspiring terror or spreading their beliefs, and they are not interested in small-scale attacks.

They are not portrayed as militarily inferior to Starfleet — in fact, they are much stronger and more numerous than the Enterprise. Instead, The Expanse is much more interested in what the experiences of Archer and his crew say about the War on Terror as an American experience at the start of the twenty-first century. The Expanse — and the resulting arc — is more interested in seeing how Archer and his crew respond to a War on Terror type situation than constructing a meticulous and careful approximation of the War on Terror itself.

Can hope and optimism endure under such conditions? Just what is Archer capable of doing in moments of desperation and rage? While there are undoubtedly troubling aspects of the third season that could be said to embrace this philosophy — particularly early in the season — but this is an overly simplistic interpretation of the season. The third season of Enterprise is generally no more morally compromised than the sixth season of Star Trek: However, The Expanse goes out of its way to stress that this is simply Star Trek with a new paint job; that this has not suddenly transformed into the grim and imperialism mirror universe when nobody was looking.

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The engine has been remodeled and reworked, but the heart is still the same. After all, the episode explains that The Expanse has a detrimental effect on Vulcans, another wonderful symbolic touch that suggests how careful Star Trek needs to be in there. Not because she wants to, but because the crew needs her.

Archer talks a good game in The Expanse. After all, The Expanse goes out of its way to have Archer treat Duras mercifully. We just want to get them off our backs. Otherwise we just created a pretty big continuity issue. Of course, the presence of Duras is more than just a nice nod back to Judgment early in the season. The Expanse is very much about bidding farewell to the trappings of traditional Star Trek and of the early years of Enterprise. The Suliban and the Klingons are both entirely absent from the third season — the third season is the only season of Star Trek without a Klingon, and the only season of Enterprise without a Suliban.

There is a sense that Enterprise is bidding goodbye to all of that. At least for the moment. The Delphic Expanse is suggested as a place where the normal rules of Star Trek are up in the air. Indeed, it is actively hostile to the Vulcans and the Klingons, two of the most iconic classic Star Trek aliens.

Archer figures as much when Duras demands that Enterprise turn around. It is worth mentioning that even the tempo and speed of Enterprise has changed. There is a very kinetic style to his work on The Expanse. Star Trek has traditionally been quite conservative in its cinematography and direction, favouring static shots to dynamism.

In contrast, even the low-stakes climactic confrontation with Duras bristles with a fresh energy. Television is a very demanding medium in terms of time, one where there is not always time for complexity and experimentation. This is particularly true when dealing with special effects, which become even more difficult to integrate with dynamic action sequences. The Expanse has a sense of vibrancy and energy that has been sorely missing from Star Trek since the end of Deep Space Nine — a desire to really take Star Trek and do something new and different with it.

In Uncharted Territory , Braga has talked about how The Expanse engendered a new enthusiasm and excitement in his work:. Great things happened at the end of season two. I was excited to go into season three, for the first time in a while. Or, at least, the first time since my last showrunning tenure on Voyager, which I loved.

This was the first time I felt excited — truly and genuinely excited — to be working on Star Trek. That excitement carries over to the third season, where — even outside the Xindi arc — Braga gave writers like David A. Goodman and Manny Coto more freedom than they would have enjoyed during the first and second seasons. The Expanse is a big episode.

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It is almost cinematic in scope. In fact, the episode features the most sets and the largest guest cast on the show since Broken Bow. It seemed like even the network itself got into the spirit of the occasion, with UPN actually publicising the series on its evening news broadcast. Given the hostility that Enterprise was facing — and would continue to face into the third season and beyond — from the network, this gives a sense of the scale of The Expanse. There are lots of other nice touches as well. The inclusion of Duras and the carrying over of continuity from Judgment feels more interesting and satisfying in The Expanse than similar efforts in Bounty.

It is nice to have a dry run for that sort of storytelling here. You even painted over that scrape that Trip left last time! More than that, it seems like the script is fairly candidly acknowledges some of the more unsatisfying recurring issues with the first and second season. The subplots involving the Klingons and the Suliban are treated as somewhat tired and uninspired, events that feel overly familiar and formulaic.

Similarly, the Suliban attack upon the Enterprise is treated as business as usual. However, that does not seem to bother Archer. Eight of them, approaching at high warp. Instead, there is mild frustration. The Expanse acknowledges this dull repetitive plotting in a script that roundly rejects these beats. The Suliban and Duras are familiar threats that never steal the narrative focus. The Suliban are gone by the end of the first act; Duras is just a mild irritation as the ship deals with bigger issues.

It does a lot to provide the show with a sense of scale while heralding the arrival of something more novel and exciting. The Expanse concedes the problem with these stories by demonstrating just how rote they are. The Expanse changes the rules for Enterprise , radically altering the mood and dynamic of the show. Whether the results were entirely desirable is open to debate; that the course alteration was necessary is simply a statement of fact.

This is a very brave and daring piece of Star Trek , a very clear attempt to take the franchise where it has never gone before. You might be interested in our other reviews of the second season of Star Trek: It re-introduces the key crew members and the major issues at stake and reframes the story in a new direction.

Delphic Expanse

And arguably more effective, even if the show quickly moves past the weirdness in the first few episodes. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam.

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