Star Trek: Enterprise was going to have Jonathan Archer as a villain

Star Trek: Enterprise introduced a mysterious figure who would’ve been Jonathan Archer.

Fans of Star Trek: Enterprise will remember the anonymous figure from the future that sought to cause problems for Jonathan Archer. Dubbed by fans as “Future Guy”, he debuted in the series premiere and was working with the season one villains, the Suliban as a way to alter the future. He only appeared in five episodes but his influence over the story was felt throughout all four seasons.

Played by veteran Star Trek actor James Horan, the story about who he was going to be was kept in the dark. Brannon Braga, one of the architects of the Golden Age of Trek always told people that the identity of the character was going to be decided on later, that they didn’t have a plan for him.

That was all a lie. In 2012, Braga revealed on Twitter that Future Guy was in fact going to be the hero of Star Trek: Enterprise himself, Jonathan Archer.

Jonathan Archer would’ve had to deal with future Archer’s influence

The revelation that the present Archer would have to deal with the future Archer is certainly an interesting idea. In any confrontation between them, the idea would have had to have ended up seeing the Future-Archer defeated, killed off, or erased from history. Apparently, the idea was to have Future-Archer trying to change the events of the past to prevent the future he was currently living in. That, in theory, should erase him or at least that version of him forever.

While the Archer the fans knew would be trying to stop himself from turning out like his future self, presumably causing both Archers to work in unison to prevent that future.

Considering the nature of time travel and the fact that Archer is still alive some 500 years-plus after the events of Enterprise, we could still get a cameo from Archer in a show like Picard or Discovery. Especially if the fan theory of him having mutated his genetics to survive as long as he had is actually something the writers go with.