In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Decker shows the Ilia-probe a memorial with pictures of earlier ships named Enterprise--the wooden frigate, the aircraft carrier, the space shuttle, and a weird-looking mystery ship. Why wasn't the NX-01 there?
The Lowdown:
Well, to keep it short and simple,
the writers didn't even come up with this stuff until the fifth season
of Voyager at the earliest...what are they going to do now, re-edit all
the old episodes of Trek and insert references to this crew back in?
The decision to make a prequel is obviously a risky venture by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga in the eyes of us diehard fans, and the biggest apparent blow to the continuity is that for such a groundbreaking crew, ship, and mission, it has never gotten any lip service from existing Trek lore. It's not like existing lore isn't a fertile ground for a prequel: Obviously, when TNG debuted, the mere introduction of the 1701-D itself is acknowledgment of the existence of a B and C and other captains at their helm; a discarded script, fan fervor, and eventually a non-canonical animated episode brought about the existence of Captain Robert April, the first captain of the NCC-1701; we come to hope that anything the writers pull from the "past" has to at least have been hinted at in the "future."
But Captain Jonathan Archer and the
NX-01 seem to be have been pulled out of a hat...even though it's not a
Federation starship, why don't the memorials in the Enterprise-D (and E)
ready rooms acknowledge it (and its apparently huge contribution to history)?
In Star Trek: The Motion Picture,
Decker shows the Ilia-probe a memorial with pictures of earlier ships named
Enterprise--the wooden frigate, the aircraft carrier, the space shuttle,
and a weird-looking mystery ship. Why wasn't the NX-01 there?
Actually, the proper question would be: Why wasn't the NX-01 design based on the mystery Enterprise we saw on the rec deck?
John Eaves, the designer of the Enterprise-E and the NX-01, did suggest using Matt Jeffries' funky hoop-and-lollipop design from TMP as the basis for the NX-01, but was overruled by Berman and Braga. (Goes to show that there ARE people on the Trek lot who are concerned with continuity and accuracy...they just get overruled).
I guess we have to resort to Holmes' seven percent solution: Unless Tempus Futuricus has something do do with it, the reason we haven't seen or heard anything about this Enterprise and its crew in previous onscreen Treks is that we the audience just weren't there when the references were being made. Morn the DS9 bar regular is a loquacious dude--we just haven't heard him. Archer and Company probably get their due in conversations between Starfleet personnel--we're just not with them at the time. Archer probably has a 10-foot statue of him smack dab in the middle of Starfleet Headquarters-- Trek's previous narratives just never brought us to a setting in which we can glimpse it.
As for the rec deck? Well, let's say that since the refit NCC-1701 was still getting its final touches before its relaunch, it could be completely plausible that the picture of the NX-01 was a little bit overdue from the Starfleet Decoration Department, and someone slipped in a picture of a garbage scow in the empty spot just so it wouldn't look incomplete. It's not like the Ilia-probe was going to know the difference...