See Also: 'Silent Enemy' Episode Guide

Enterprise will feature a number of concepts and long-running plot threads to help it stand out from the other Trek series, staff writer Andre Bormanis said yesterday.

"I think the temporal cold war will be a continuing saga for the series, and the relationship between humans and Vulcans will probably evolve - that will be an interesting arc, I think," Bormanis told fans during a live chat held at TrekWeb.

Confirming that 'Cold Front' would feature the return of the Suliban (story), Bormanis talked about the use of time travel on the series. "Something else that distinguished Enterprise from other Treks is that a concept like time travel is a real 'mind blower' for Archer and company," he said. "They think of it as science fiction, whereas it was established fact in all the other series."

The writer mentioned another theme present in 'Cold Front' - religion. "[It] features a group of alien pilgrims on a spiritual quest. I don't know that spiritual themes will be developed on Enterprise to the extent they were on DS9, but they will crop up from time to time."

According to Bormanis, the Vulcans and the Suliban won't be the only races seen often. "The Andorians were such great characters, you can count on seeing them again," he said. "As far as how our relationship with them will change in the future, that's something that we'll discover as we continue writing new episodes for these characters."

But the possibility of the Romulans showing up on Enterprise is just that - a possibility. "It really depends on where we can find good stories. If we can find a good story that involves some aspect of the Earth/Romulan war, we'll go with it. If not, I think there's enough flexibility in the timeline to suggest that it happened just after Enterprise's mission."

As well as being a staff writer on the series, Bormanis also fills the role of science advisor, a responsibility he takes very seriously. "In a nutshell, the science has to serve the story," he said. "We went out of our way to get the science right in this week's episode ['Breaking The Ice'], and it really helped the story. Since this show takes place in an earlier era, we want to keep the science closer to today's science and so you won't see as much in the way of 'spatial anomalies' and so forth. On the other hand, Enterprise is science fiction, so we do feel free to invent new phenomena and theories once in a while."

Finally, the writer left a small tidbit about the episode 'Sleeping Dogs', which will air next year. "It starts shooting next week, but I probably shouldn't share any details. But it's going to be a very fun episode!"

The full transcript of the chat, in which Bormanis also talked about continuity, T'Pol and nods to the Original Series, can be found here at TrekWeb.

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