The first two seasons of
Star Trek: Enterprise depict the human
exploration of
interstellar space by the crew of an
Earth ship able to go farther and faster than any humans had previously gone, due to the breaking of the
warp barrier, analogous to the
Bell X-1 breaking the
sound barrier. In the ninety years since
Star Trek: First Contact, the
Vulcans have been mentoring and guiding humans, routinely holding back scientific knowledge in an effort to keep them contained close to home, believing them to be too impulsive and emotionally dominated to function properly in an interstellar community. When
Enterprise finally sets out, the Vulcans, often represented by
T'Pol, are conspicuously close by. This generates some conflict as, in several early episodes, Archer and others often complain of the Vulcans' unsubtle methods of keeping an eye on them. The early encounters and historic culture of familiar
Star Trek franchise races, such as the
Vulcans,
Klingons,
Andorians,
Ferengi,
Nausicaans, and
Risans are also explored further. The crew faces situations that are familiar to
Star Trek fans, but are unencumbered and unjaded by the experience and rules which have built up over hundreds of years of
Trek lore and canon established in previous
Star Trek series.
Star Trek: Enterprise takes pains to show the origins of some concepts which have become taken for granted in
Star Trek canon, such as Lieutenant
Reed's development of
force fields and red alerts, and Captain
Archer's and Sub-Commander
T'Pol's questions about cultural interference eventually being resolved by later series'
Prime Directive. A recurring plot device is the
Temporal Cold War, in which a mysterious entity from the 27th century uses the Cabal, a group of genetically upgraded aliens of the Suliban species, to manipulate the timeline and change past events. Sometimes sabotaging
Enterprise's mission and sometimes saving the ship from destruction, the entity's motives are unknown. Agent
Daniels, a Temporal Agent from the 31st century responsible for policing the timeline, occasionally visits Archer to assist him in fighting the Suliban and undoing damage caused by the Temporal Cold War. ==Cast==