Posted: Fri May 07, 2021 9:53 amAlso, who remembers the first Starship Enterprise? The one before Archer's NX-01 which is so often left undiscussed that most people don't really think about it? The Enterprise XCV-330 which started out as a discarded concept for the original Enterprise? I do, and I've been thinking about it for a while now.
In Into Darkness it makes a little cameo as a model on Admiral Marcus' desk, but what surprised me is its placement in the line of models. The models appear to be lined in chronological order, but notice how the Enterprise XCV-330 comes before the Phoenix. We all know the Phoenix was Earth's first warp ship, so it's sort of surprising that the Enterprise comes before that, no? I mean, from the way the Enterprise is presented in this concept, it seems to indicate she's was intended to be warp-capable, or at least be able to reach the speed of light. Even Memory Alpha admits that the placement of the vessel in Marcus' display indicates in came "somewhere between the 2020s and 2063". Despite other people saying that this vessel is limited to sublight, that honestly makes no sense to me. Though we never get a canon scale comparison of this ship and others in the Trek universe (Marcus' display clearly is not to scale as evidenced by the Phoenix model being comparable in size to the Vengeance model), the forward section of the vessel, as seen in this render has some two small decks in its upper module, which is pretty small compared to even the NX-01. She was also clearly intended to be an interstellar craft, as evidenced by the vessel being a precursor, production-wise, to what became the original 1701 Enterprise.
So, it could be a sleeper ship, right? I mean, Star Trek has been seen to have cryo-tech as early as the 1990s, notably used on the Botany Bay, Khan's escape vessel. We see a glimpse of some stasis pods when the torpedo is opened by Bones and Marcus in Into Darkness, but since those tubes are again seen at the end of film, when Khan and his cohorts are sentenced to be in cryosleep forever, I'm assuming those tubes are native to the 23rd century. This is important because then all we have to go on in terms of cryo-tech is what was seen on Space Seed. The set for the Botany Bay, then, includes large, bulky units mounted on the interior bulkheads. Given that the Botany Bay is windowless, my judgement is that very little of the ship is actually open corridors or rooms, and that most of the ship is dedicated to those cryo-units and propulsion. Now, I imagine that the large modules which are placed on the underside of the Botany Bay's rocket ship is where the stasis units and habitable areas are. Considering the scale shown here between the 1701 Enterprise and the Botany Bay, and knowing that the Enterprise XCV-330 has at least two habitable decks, I would say that, excluding the massive rings, the XCV-330 and the Botany Bay are roughly equivalent in size. Now, of course, there is a lot of time between the Botany Bay's 90s technology and the 2050s (the start of the Third World War), but seeing how 23rd century cryotech evolves from what was seen on the Botany Bay, I'm willing to guess that the XCV-330, if she had had cryo-tech installed in her, would have had similar cryo-systems as seen on the Botany Bay (that is, large, bulky units). Going off of this assumption, the XCV-330, therefore, cannot have any cryo-tubes and is then not a sleeper ship. Her interior is never shown on screen, but again, looking back to our render of her fore module, we see that most of her upper module (the two habitable decks we at least know exist) is, well, open and habitable. I imagine these are work stations or crew bunks. The spherical module in the center is interpreted in other renders is an access and docking port, so I'm inclined to believe that that is its purpose. The lower cylindrical module, I would guess, is then an engineering hull, probably dedicated mostly to the deflector disk's particle accelerated and a small warp reactor. This module is not ideal, then, as a cryo-tech space, since you don't want to have your sleepers getting irradiated by any warp reactor emissions (probably why the lower module is separate in the first place).
So, she's an interstellar vessel, unequipped with cryo-technology to support a crew on a long journey, and she is clearly not equipped to be a generational ship (she is far too small, and by this point in Earth's history, children in spaceflights was probably still a fantasy). So, what's the alternative? She's got to be a warp ship. Not a fast one, maybe not even speed-of-light capable. Just enough to make interstellar travel not a lifelong endeavor. Remember, even though warp 1 is light speed, there are warp speeds below 1 (sublight speeds). The warping of space, to my knowledge, doesn't automatically make something travel at the speed of light. We see in Star Trek: Enterprise and The Motion Picture that ships before the late 23rd century apparently need to accelerate into warp (which goes into my idea that transwarp was apparently successful after the Search for Spock and used by Starfleet regularly but that's something else), climbing in velocity until reaching their desired warp speed. As another point, if she were an interstellar generational ship, and if it is known she launched before the Third World War, then she most certainly would not have been affected by the nuclear conflict on Earth. I mean, what are they gonna do, launch a nuke at the ship? While it is already traveling through space, maybe out of the Solar System depending on her launch date? Yeah, good luck with that.
Now, if all this was the case, she would have been mentioned during the early Starfleet years. I mean, remember the Great Experiment? No, not the Excelsior, Terra Nova! Allegedly Earth's first interstellar mission, having started just after first contact (which already rules out the possibility of XCV-330 having left the Solar System, because then she would be known as Earth's first interstellar mission), Terra Nova, more specifically the SS Conestoga, the warp ship which brought them there, had to be rediscovered by the crew of the Enterprise after the colony isolated itself from the rest of Humanity. Considering XCV-330 Enterprise is never mentioned, to my knowledge, as having founded any sort of interstellar colony, or even having broken any interstellar manned mission records, then it seems odd she would be so rarely brought up if she were such a significant figure in spaceflight history. Hell, she's only tangentially referenced by background easter eggs in Trek, and the only time she is directly mentioned would be when Decker is speaking to the Ilia-replica in The Motion Picture, and even then he doesn't mention her singularly! Only something to the effect of "all those ships were called 'Enterprise'". So, why then?
So, basically, I believe that, to be an interstellar vessel, and without the use of cryo-technology or being designed to support a multi-generational crew, Enterprise XCV-330 had to have been a warp vessel. The Vulcans have been seen in Star Trek: Enterprise using similar "warp rings", and so I would imagine the purpose of those large rings on the little Enterprise are to serve as massive warp coils, basically as crude warp engines. They are separated from the habitable module, implying that, as the intent was with separating the nacelles of the original 1701 Enterprise, they are radioactive or somehow dangerous to life at close proximity. So, they hang to the back of the ship, just as warp nacelles would on future Starfleet ships.
So, what now? Well, we've established XCV-330's possible temporal range (anywhere from the early 2000s to the 2050s, at which point nuclear war would have made space travel an impossibility until first contact), and we know she had to have been equipped with some early, crude warp drive to have been feasible, and we know she is so rarely mentioned in Trek continuing, and we know that the Phoenix was Earth's first successful warp flight (read: NOT just light-speed flight, WARP flight; this includes any sublight warp as we've speculated Enterprise XCV-330 was capable of). If the Phoenix holds the title for first successful warp flight, then something must have happened to Enterprise XCV-330. I mean, she can't even have activated her warp drive, because then the Phoenix's reactor would be mentioned as taking second fiddle to the warp engine aboard the Enterprise. Hell, for all of First Contact, she's never mentioned! Not once, as far as I know! So... what then?
Let's go back to the Third World War. Why did the war start? Initially, the issue was over "genetic manipulation", as Memory Alpha states. This is backed up by Q's confrontation of Picard in the Farpoint Encounter, where he mentions that soldiers were augmented through the use of narcotics, so drug use and general manipulation of the human body and perception was involved. The war ostensibly started in the late 2020s (can't wait to see that happen), at which point traditional combat was used ("traditional" in this case meaning anything not involving weapons of mass-destruction, like, oh, say... nuclear weapons). At some point, later in the course of the war, came a nuclear cataclysm which decimated most governments of the world and sent humanity into a second dark age. Considering Riker mentions in First Contact that 2063 and the warp flight is only "just after" most governments were destroyed, AKA nuclear obliteration, my guess would be that nukes started flying in the 2050s, and likely lasted a few years. In 2053, Star Trek: Discovery shows us a nuclear strike in Indiana which supports my case: nuclear cataclysm occurred in the 2050s.
So what, then, World War III lasted for thirty years and nuclear cataclysm didn't occur sooner? Uh, okay... sure... So we've got an association here. During the course of the Third World War, Enterprise XCV-330 had to have been constructed, but before nuclear war broke out, at which point all space programs would have collapsed along with the world's states.
So, I've got a theory: the Enterprise XCV-330 was the direct cause of the nuclear war in World War Three.
Ignoring any beta canon which supports or refutes my claim, here's what I believe: the Third World War is sparked in the 2020s over the issue of genetic engineering and bodily manipulation through narcotics, issues which had likely been lingering since the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s and the "disappearance" of Khan Singh. War breaks out, but though nuclear weapons are threatened to be used, nuclear catastrophe is postponed. Fighting takes place as governments drug their soldiers and equip them with technology and genetic engineering which makes them the most formidable fighters seen in Earth's history. This takes place over the late 2020s and over much of the 2030s, until a ceasefire is called (read: a ceasefire, NOT a treaty. The war goes on, but fighting subsides). Why?
A young genius by the name of Zefram Cochrane has made a breakthrough discovery: a feasible warp drive. This is incredible. Science fiction has become reality, and governments scramble to Cochrane's new computations. This will work. This isn't theory or speculation, this is reality. The space agencies of the world form a truce, and the United Earth Space Probe Agency (or at least a predecessor of it) is born.
With the young Cochrane's plans showing promise, the UESPA sets to designing and building a prototype for an interstellar vessel; simulations show promise, and the calculations and design stand up to scrutiny. With the Enterprise already under construction, the people of Earth hope her completion to be the end of the war. Humanity could take its place among the stars as the petty squabbles of Earth territory are now made irrelevant.
For a while, the fighting stops. Tensions are alarmingly high, still, but less and less people are killed every day. The governments of Earth, seeing the Enterprise under construction, and at the urging of Zefram Cochrane, begin tentative peace talks. This is it, hopes the human race, the war may be over. Peace talks go well, for the most part, but some holdouts refuse to take part; not yet, they insist, this engine has to work first. They are willing to stop troop movements and avoid confrontation, but a treaty? Not yet.
With the weight of the world on his shoulders, Cochrane and his team spend the next decade building the Enterprise. Every millimeter, every weld point, every rivet and screw, every hull plate, every molecule of this ship is scrutinized and tested. The Enterprise has one shot to prove warp works. If she fails, Zefram fears, the world will go mad. He and the UESPA have to uphold the biggest promise made by any human beings in history. To compensate for the stress and anxiety he faces, Cochrane takes up drinking. Just a bit, at first, enough to dull his senses after work and deal with the fate of the human race in his hands, but the habit starts to build. Inconspicuously, but it builds.
It is now the turn of the 2050s. Warring parties are getting antsy; attacks and border skirmishes are starting to grow more frequent and violent, and with the peace starting to strain, Enterprise must launch now. The team of astronauts to man Enterprise has already been selected, Cochrane not among them. No, he'll be maintaining watch at Ground Control, seeing his creation succeed first-hand, he prays. Enterprise is prepped, her warp systems examined, her crew say their triumphant goodbyes and board the Enterprise. The launch is broadcast live worldwide, and billions of people watch with baited breath as the Enterprise nears the coordinates where she will activate her warp drive and, God willing, fly into the stars, and take the human race along with her. This was an international effort, and everyone can only pray that it pays off.
The Enterprise powers her warp drive. The tests have all gone well, she has already been proclaimed the saving ark of humanity. Cochrane and the world wait nervously, hopefully, as the Enterprise activates her warp drive...
...and it fails.
Catastrophically. The Enterprise is consumed in a flash, her onboard cameras immediately cut out, voice transmissions are blank, and... she's gone. The Enterprise has been destroyed. The failure had to have been her warp drive. A warp reactor breach, maybe. All other systems had been confirmed as functional and had worked fine during the initial flight. Earth is immediately chaos. Warring factions pin blame on each other, suggesting sabotage as having been the cause for the death of the Enterprise. Tensions already hot, now flaring, a nuclear weapon is fired. Just one, but one is enough to bring another into the sky, and another, and others and soon the planet Earth is blanketed by nuclear mushroom clouds as the nuclear war begins.
Cochrane, by some miracle, escapes the carnage, and hides out in the forests just outside the irradiated ruins of Bozeman, Montana. He is in ruins, himself. Now he not only has to contend with the death of the Enterprise, the failure of his engine which he could not explain, and the loss of her valiant crew, but also, potentially, the dooming of the entire human civilization. He knows that the war is not the end; even with all of the charring and scarring as a direct result, those who survive will have no infrastructure, no internet, nothing but the clothes on their backs and a healthy dose of cancer. With all of these issues weighing on him, the young Cochrane drowns his sorrows and becomes a severe alcoholic, just as we see in First Contact.
That's, of course, not the end. He is paying for his mistakes, and by some misguided martyr complex, Cochrane vows to try again. There are others alive, like Lily, who, in the back of their minds, still believe in the cause, and know the failure wasn't his. If he wants to try again, in this wrecked, ruined Earth, why should they not lend a hand? Better than "surviving", rotting away in a remote camp away from the millions of dead, scorched corpses lining the once-great cities of Earth. With this in mind, someone suggests a name for this new project: "Phoenix". It's a small gesture, but enough to inspire hope. With this new project, they will bring mankind out of the ashes of the old world and take them to the stars.
Of course, Cochrane redesigns the warp engine. Rings will not work, he mutters quietly, we should try symmetrical nacelles. Besides, there isn't enough material left in their reach to build a ring coil, anyways. And so, the Phoenix is built, from the hollowed out corpse of a Titan missile, the very same as those which delivered nuclear catastrophe across the rest of the world. So, Enterprise led to the death of millions, but Cochrane will clear his name, and her name, too, and with Phoenix, he will make amends.
In short, I believe that the Enterprise XCV-330 directly led to the nuclear war of the 2050s.
In Into Darkness it makes a little cameo as a model on Admiral Marcus' desk, but what surprised me is its placement in the line of models. The models appear to be lined in chronological order, but notice how the Enterprise XCV-330 comes before the Phoenix. We all know the Phoenix was Earth's first warp ship, so it's sort of surprising that the Enterprise comes before that, no? I mean, from the way the Enterprise is presented in this concept, it seems to indicate she's was intended to be warp-capable, or at least be able to reach the speed of light. Even Memory Alpha admits that the placement of the vessel in Marcus' display indicates in came "somewhere between the 2020s and 2063". Despite other people saying that this vessel is limited to sublight, that honestly makes no sense to me. Though we never get a canon scale comparison of this ship and others in the Trek universe (Marcus' display clearly is not to scale as evidenced by the Phoenix model being comparable in size to the Vengeance model), the forward section of the vessel, as seen in this render has some two small decks in its upper module, which is pretty small compared to even the NX-01. She was also clearly intended to be an interstellar craft, as evidenced by the vessel being a precursor, production-wise, to what became the original 1701 Enterprise.
So, it could be a sleeper ship, right? I mean, Star Trek has been seen to have cryo-tech as early as the 1990s, notably used on the Botany Bay, Khan's escape vessel. We see a glimpse of some stasis pods when the torpedo is opened by Bones and Marcus in Into Darkness, but since those tubes are again seen at the end of film, when Khan and his cohorts are sentenced to be in cryosleep forever, I'm assuming those tubes are native to the 23rd century. This is important because then all we have to go on in terms of cryo-tech is what was seen on Space Seed. The set for the Botany Bay, then, includes large, bulky units mounted on the interior bulkheads. Given that the Botany Bay is windowless, my judgement is that very little of the ship is actually open corridors or rooms, and that most of the ship is dedicated to those cryo-units and propulsion. Now, I imagine that the large modules which are placed on the underside of the Botany Bay's rocket ship is where the stasis units and habitable areas are. Considering the scale shown here between the 1701 Enterprise and the Botany Bay, and knowing that the Enterprise XCV-330 has at least two habitable decks, I would say that, excluding the massive rings, the XCV-330 and the Botany Bay are roughly equivalent in size. Now, of course, there is a lot of time between the Botany Bay's 90s technology and the 2050s (the start of the Third World War), but seeing how 23rd century cryotech evolves from what was seen on the Botany Bay, I'm willing to guess that the XCV-330, if she had had cryo-tech installed in her, would have had similar cryo-systems as seen on the Botany Bay (that is, large, bulky units). Going off of this assumption, the XCV-330, therefore, cannot have any cryo-tubes and is then not a sleeper ship. Her interior is never shown on screen, but again, looking back to our render of her fore module, we see that most of her upper module (the two habitable decks we at least know exist) is, well, open and habitable. I imagine these are work stations or crew bunks. The spherical module in the center is interpreted in other renders is an access and docking port, so I'm inclined to believe that that is its purpose. The lower cylindrical module, I would guess, is then an engineering hull, probably dedicated mostly to the deflector disk's particle accelerated and a small warp reactor. This module is not ideal, then, as a cryo-tech space, since you don't want to have your sleepers getting irradiated by any warp reactor emissions (probably why the lower module is separate in the first place).
So, she's an interstellar vessel, unequipped with cryo-technology to support a crew on a long journey, and she is clearly not equipped to be a generational ship (she is far too small, and by this point in Earth's history, children in spaceflights was probably still a fantasy). So, what's the alternative? She's got to be a warp ship. Not a fast one, maybe not even speed-of-light capable. Just enough to make interstellar travel not a lifelong endeavor. Remember, even though warp 1 is light speed, there are warp speeds below 1 (sublight speeds). The warping of space, to my knowledge, doesn't automatically make something travel at the speed of light. We see in Star Trek: Enterprise and The Motion Picture that ships before the late 23rd century apparently need to accelerate into warp (which goes into my idea that transwarp was apparently successful after the Search for Spock and used by Starfleet regularly but that's something else), climbing in velocity until reaching their desired warp speed. As another point, if she were an interstellar generational ship, and if it is known she launched before the Third World War, then she most certainly would not have been affected by the nuclear conflict on Earth. I mean, what are they gonna do, launch a nuke at the ship? While it is already traveling through space, maybe out of the Solar System depending on her launch date? Yeah, good luck with that.
Now, if all this was the case, she would have been mentioned during the early Starfleet years. I mean, remember the Great Experiment? No, not the Excelsior, Terra Nova! Allegedly Earth's first interstellar mission, having started just after first contact (which already rules out the possibility of XCV-330 having left the Solar System, because then she would be known as Earth's first interstellar mission), Terra Nova, more specifically the SS Conestoga, the warp ship which brought them there, had to be rediscovered by the crew of the Enterprise after the colony isolated itself from the rest of Humanity. Considering XCV-330 Enterprise is never mentioned, to my knowledge, as having founded any sort of interstellar colony, or even having broken any interstellar manned mission records, then it seems odd she would be so rarely brought up if she were such a significant figure in spaceflight history. Hell, she's only tangentially referenced by background easter eggs in Trek, and the only time she is directly mentioned would be when Decker is speaking to the Ilia-replica in The Motion Picture, and even then he doesn't mention her singularly! Only something to the effect of "all those ships were called 'Enterprise'". So, why then?
So, basically, I believe that, to be an interstellar vessel, and without the use of cryo-technology or being designed to support a multi-generational crew, Enterprise XCV-330 had to have been a warp vessel. The Vulcans have been seen in Star Trek: Enterprise using similar "warp rings", and so I would imagine the purpose of those large rings on the little Enterprise are to serve as massive warp coils, basically as crude warp engines. They are separated from the habitable module, implying that, as the intent was with separating the nacelles of the original 1701 Enterprise, they are radioactive or somehow dangerous to life at close proximity. So, they hang to the back of the ship, just as warp nacelles would on future Starfleet ships.
So, what now? Well, we've established XCV-330's possible temporal range (anywhere from the early 2000s to the 2050s, at which point nuclear war would have made space travel an impossibility until first contact), and we know she had to have been equipped with some early, crude warp drive to have been feasible, and we know she is so rarely mentioned in Trek continuing, and we know that the Phoenix was Earth's first successful warp flight (read: NOT just light-speed flight, WARP flight; this includes any sublight warp as we've speculated Enterprise XCV-330 was capable of). If the Phoenix holds the title for first successful warp flight, then something must have happened to Enterprise XCV-330. I mean, she can't even have activated her warp drive, because then the Phoenix's reactor would be mentioned as taking second fiddle to the warp engine aboard the Enterprise. Hell, for all of First Contact, she's never mentioned! Not once, as far as I know! So... what then?
Let's go back to the Third World War. Why did the war start? Initially, the issue was over "genetic manipulation", as Memory Alpha states. This is backed up by Q's confrontation of Picard in the Farpoint Encounter, where he mentions that soldiers were augmented through the use of narcotics, so drug use and general manipulation of the human body and perception was involved. The war ostensibly started in the late 2020s (can't wait to see that happen), at which point traditional combat was used ("traditional" in this case meaning anything not involving weapons of mass-destruction, like, oh, say... nuclear weapons). At some point, later in the course of the war, came a nuclear cataclysm which decimated most governments of the world and sent humanity into a second dark age. Considering Riker mentions in First Contact that 2063 and the warp flight is only "just after" most governments were destroyed, AKA nuclear obliteration, my guess would be that nukes started flying in the 2050s, and likely lasted a few years. In 2053, Star Trek: Discovery shows us a nuclear strike in Indiana which supports my case: nuclear cataclysm occurred in the 2050s.
So what, then, World War III lasted for thirty years and nuclear cataclysm didn't occur sooner? Uh, okay... sure... So we've got an association here. During the course of the Third World War, Enterprise XCV-330 had to have been constructed, but before nuclear war broke out, at which point all space programs would have collapsed along with the world's states.
So, I've got a theory: the Enterprise XCV-330 was the direct cause of the nuclear war in World War Three.
Ignoring any beta canon which supports or refutes my claim, here's what I believe: the Third World War is sparked in the 2020s over the issue of genetic engineering and bodily manipulation through narcotics, issues which had likely been lingering since the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s and the "disappearance" of Khan Singh. War breaks out, but though nuclear weapons are threatened to be used, nuclear catastrophe is postponed. Fighting takes place as governments drug their soldiers and equip them with technology and genetic engineering which makes them the most formidable fighters seen in Earth's history. This takes place over the late 2020s and over much of the 2030s, until a ceasefire is called (read: a ceasefire, NOT a treaty. The war goes on, but fighting subsides). Why?
A young genius by the name of Zefram Cochrane has made a breakthrough discovery: a feasible warp drive. This is incredible. Science fiction has become reality, and governments scramble to Cochrane's new computations. This will work. This isn't theory or speculation, this is reality. The space agencies of the world form a truce, and the United Earth Space Probe Agency (or at least a predecessor of it) is born.
With the young Cochrane's plans showing promise, the UESPA sets to designing and building a prototype for an interstellar vessel; simulations show promise, and the calculations and design stand up to scrutiny. With the Enterprise already under construction, the people of Earth hope her completion to be the end of the war. Humanity could take its place among the stars as the petty squabbles of Earth territory are now made irrelevant.
For a while, the fighting stops. Tensions are alarmingly high, still, but less and less people are killed every day. The governments of Earth, seeing the Enterprise under construction, and at the urging of Zefram Cochrane, begin tentative peace talks. This is it, hopes the human race, the war may be over. Peace talks go well, for the most part, but some holdouts refuse to take part; not yet, they insist, this engine has to work first. They are willing to stop troop movements and avoid confrontation, but a treaty? Not yet.
With the weight of the world on his shoulders, Cochrane and his team spend the next decade building the Enterprise. Every millimeter, every weld point, every rivet and screw, every hull plate, every molecule of this ship is scrutinized and tested. The Enterprise has one shot to prove warp works. If she fails, Zefram fears, the world will go mad. He and the UESPA have to uphold the biggest promise made by any human beings in history. To compensate for the stress and anxiety he faces, Cochrane takes up drinking. Just a bit, at first, enough to dull his senses after work and deal with the fate of the human race in his hands, but the habit starts to build. Inconspicuously, but it builds.
It is now the turn of the 2050s. Warring parties are getting antsy; attacks and border skirmishes are starting to grow more frequent and violent, and with the peace starting to strain, Enterprise must launch now. The team of astronauts to man Enterprise has already been selected, Cochrane not among them. No, he'll be maintaining watch at Ground Control, seeing his creation succeed first-hand, he prays. Enterprise is prepped, her warp systems examined, her crew say their triumphant goodbyes and board the Enterprise. The launch is broadcast live worldwide, and billions of people watch with baited breath as the Enterprise nears the coordinates where she will activate her warp drive and, God willing, fly into the stars, and take the human race along with her. This was an international effort, and everyone can only pray that it pays off.
The Enterprise powers her warp drive. The tests have all gone well, she has already been proclaimed the saving ark of humanity. Cochrane and the world wait nervously, hopefully, as the Enterprise activates her warp drive...
...and it fails.
Catastrophically. The Enterprise is consumed in a flash, her onboard cameras immediately cut out, voice transmissions are blank, and... she's gone. The Enterprise has been destroyed. The failure had to have been her warp drive. A warp reactor breach, maybe. All other systems had been confirmed as functional and had worked fine during the initial flight. Earth is immediately chaos. Warring factions pin blame on each other, suggesting sabotage as having been the cause for the death of the Enterprise. Tensions already hot, now flaring, a nuclear weapon is fired. Just one, but one is enough to bring another into the sky, and another, and others and soon the planet Earth is blanketed by nuclear mushroom clouds as the nuclear war begins.
Cochrane, by some miracle, escapes the carnage, and hides out in the forests just outside the irradiated ruins of Bozeman, Montana. He is in ruins, himself. Now he not only has to contend with the death of the Enterprise, the failure of his engine which he could not explain, and the loss of her valiant crew, but also, potentially, the dooming of the entire human civilization. He knows that the war is not the end; even with all of the charring and scarring as a direct result, those who survive will have no infrastructure, no internet, nothing but the clothes on their backs and a healthy dose of cancer. With all of these issues weighing on him, the young Cochrane drowns his sorrows and becomes a severe alcoholic, just as we see in First Contact.
That's, of course, not the end. He is paying for his mistakes, and by some misguided martyr complex, Cochrane vows to try again. There are others alive, like Lily, who, in the back of their minds, still believe in the cause, and know the failure wasn't his. If he wants to try again, in this wrecked, ruined Earth, why should they not lend a hand? Better than "surviving", rotting away in a remote camp away from the millions of dead, scorched corpses lining the once-great cities of Earth. With this in mind, someone suggests a name for this new project: "Phoenix". It's a small gesture, but enough to inspire hope. With this new project, they will bring mankind out of the ashes of the old world and take them to the stars.
Of course, Cochrane redesigns the warp engine. Rings will not work, he mutters quietly, we should try symmetrical nacelles. Besides, there isn't enough material left in their reach to build a ring coil, anyways. And so, the Phoenix is built, from the hollowed out corpse of a Titan missile, the very same as those which delivered nuclear catastrophe across the rest of the world. So, Enterprise led to the death of millions, but Cochrane will clear his name, and her name, too, and with Phoenix, he will make amends.
In short, I believe that the Enterprise XCV-330 directly led to the nuclear war of the 2050s.
