The Xindi Attack on Earth

In April 2153 an unknown probe appeared in Earth orbit and fired a powerful beam that carved a trench some 4,000 kilometres long from Florida to Venezuela. About seven million people were killed, among them Trip Tucker's younger sister, Elizabeth. The attack was entirely unexpected, and no one on Earth knew who was behind it.

The answer came from a mysterious figure from the future linked to the Suliban Cabal. He told Jonathan Archer that the attackers were the Xindi, a species from a dangerous region known as the Delphic Expanse. They had been told that humans would destroy their civilisation centuries later, and the probe was only a test for a far more powerful weapon designed to destroy Earth.

The tragedy changed humanity's outlook. Starfleet refitted Enterprise with better weapons and shields, placed a detachment of military MACOs on board and sent it into the Expanse against the advice of the Vulcans. Enterprise thus moved, for a time, from exploration to a mission of survival.