Questions and suggestions about the plot are welcome at this point, as nothing has been finalized. I'm all for suggestions and input and will give credit where it's due, so don't worry on that score.
My problem with the Ferengi in "Enterprise" isn't so much the fact that they met as it is that they were even in the area to meet to begin with. It's a question of Berman/Braga's lack of sense of distance and scale. Indulge me, if you will, my reasons:
In the Writer's Guide to TNG, David Gerrold -- er, I mean, "Gene Roddenberry" -- wrote that in TOS, 5% of the galaxy had been explored by Starfleet. By the time of "Encounter at Farpoint," that number had increased to 19%. Up until that point, the Ferengi had only been mentioned in rumors and a few (disasterous) furtive encounters with their ships. This implies that Ferengi space is on the outer edge of that 19% explored space, not reached by TNG era ships until well into the second season or so. I'm not necessarily assuming Earth is in the exact center of this region, as exploration could have concentrated mostly on what could be explored of the Beta Quadrant (Romulans and Klingons notwithstanding), "southward" towards Rigel, and so on. Deneb, despite several mentions as well-colonized in TOS, being far "westward," is considered in "Encounter at Farpoint" to be the farthest in that direction explored (Picard makes mention of "the edge of explored space" and "the great unexplored mass of the Galaxy" in the pilot).
Maps shown in DS9 place Cardassian/Bajoran/Ferengi space closer, about 200 LY from Earth, which, again, was totally inconsistent from their original concept that DS9 would be on the far edge of Federation space. Oh well.
Anyway, it stands to reason that if Starfleet had explored only 5% of the Galaxy by TOS, then in "Enterprise," where the ships are much, much slower and have a much more limited range, that perhaps only 1% -- centered around and near Earth -- will be explored fully enough to be considered "in the neighborhood."
(This, by the way, is consistent with TOS -- in "Balance of Terror," they mentioned a skermish against the Romulans in the Tau Ceti system, which is only slightly more than 10 LY from Earth, which puts the Romulans right in our backyard...but there's also evidence in that episode that the Romulans didn't have high warpspeed capability until after their "alliance" with the Klingons two years later.)
Now, we're talking galactic distances here. So, for a small Ferengi vessel (it was smaller than the NX-100 in the episode) to just stumble its way into the Enterprise flightpath is so unlikely because of the distances involved that it logically renders the whole "Oh, they never actually said who they were" arguement moot -- They shouldn't have been there in the first place because it would be too far for them to travel.
Okay, that's the end of that rant.
The Qo'noS thing could have been solved by saying it would take four weeks at Warp 4 rather than four days. Again, Breman/Braga have no concept of the distances between stars. They're television producers, not science fiction writers or scientists.
So I'm trying to add what elements from "Enterprise" I agree with -- star systems, ships, etc. -- and am ignoring the rest. At this point, I think there will be more elements from the Animated series than from "Enterprise."
I'm fond of the Excelsior, too. The engine glow is really funky and cool.
As for the Shelley (or, as some call it, the Curry), it's rather deceptive. It's such an odd design. I'm satisfied with it for now. (By the way, I was unable to find a decent Excelsior mesh to use, so my Excelsior is actually a reconstruction using elements from the Shelley and Leavenworth models -- the latter is a homebrew from the same guy who made the Shelley model. So in an odd way, it's backwards from the actual filmed models...)
------------------
It is better to feed the goat than it is today.
