Is ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Before or After ‘Enterprise’? Is Archer Alive?

Fans are excited to see another Star Trek series finally gracing television, but they’re a little confused about why we’re having another prequel series. Didn’t we already see a prequel with Enterprise, when we watched Archer, T’Pol, Trip, and the rest of the crew navigate humanity’s first mission into the stars? In fact, could Archer and company still be around when the new series is taking place?

Although both series are prequels in the Star Trek universe, Enterprise took place a long time before Discovery. 

Enterprise was set approximately 100 years before the events of Star Trek: The Original Series. The finale (which some fans prefer to forget) featured the founding of the Federation. Captain Jonathan Archer commanded the first deep space mission in Starfleet, using Warp 5 technology.

But we won’t see Archer making a cameo appearance in Discovery. The timeline for Discovery is merely about 10 years before the Original Series, so about 95 years after Enterprise. Without some kind of intense life-extending technology, there’s really no chance that we would see Archer. We will, however, see a younger Sarek in this series. He didn’t appear in Enterprise, but staff writers at the time toyed with the idea of including a younger version of Sarek in the series. The only character we could possibly see from Enterprise is T’Pol, due to the long lifespan of Vulcans. But it’s not likely to happen. Enterprise had mixed reviews and it’s likely Discovery wants to distance itself from the show and forge its own path.

See a preview for Discovery below:

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