Wow, first post.
Nice homage to Risa.
Comment: Officers not allowed to fraternize with subordinates? What about Riker and Troi? Picard and Neela Darrin?
First, a non-fraternization rule, even if it is basically unenforcible, does make the point about "office romance" being detrimental to both the work ennvironment and the relationship and does occasionally discourage some couples, or at least make them think about it.
Second, while as second in command, Riker is technically Troi's superior, and occassionally did take command of the ship in Picard's abscence, Troi was in a different department, and not under Riker's direct command. Third, Although they continued to have feelings for one another (which sometimes flared up), basically their relationship had become one of "just friends" even before being assigned to the Enterprise.
Fourth, Jean-Luc's and Neela's experience only emphasizes the wisdom of that regulation/advice.
I may have more to say tonight, after I actually get a chance to see the episode.
Comment: Officers not allowed to fraternize with subordinates? What about Riker and Troi? Picard and Neela Darrin?
Also Riker/Troi is several centuries in the future, rules change.
First, a non-fraternization rule, even if it is basically unenforcible, does make the point about "office romance" being detrimental to both the work ennvironment and the relationship and does occasionally discourage some couples, or at least make them think about it.
Even S**t jobs like Regal Cinemas have rules banning that kind of relationship between managers and employees. Manager/manger is OK so is employee/employee but not up or down the chain of command to avoide problems with favortism and the like. Even people as dumb as the people who run Reagal know not everybody is going to follow the policy but it is a safety measure because whenever one of those things turns nasty (i.e. problems with herassment after a breakup or other employees claiming the BF/GF got special treatment) they can fire the problem person for breaking policy.
Good points...although I think that it is splitting hairs to say that Troi isn't under Riker's "direct" command. Riker has a position of authority over everyone on the ship except Picard.
so much for Pon Farr being a secret
The Ambassador negotiated the Treaty of Kataan? Wonder if that's the same planet Picard got his flute from?
This was a great episode. It really created some suspense and everything just seemed so right.
Whoever played V'Lar deserves high praise. Great job from her. Great interation between her and T'Pol as well.
See ya later
TUE
The chick who played V'lar also played Juliana Tainer, Data's "mother"
"It is a thing no outworlder may know." Unless it's T'Pol, smugly telling Archer and Trip about Vulcan sexual practices. I'd say more about this mountainous nit, but it would just get me angry.
The nearest Vulcan ship is a week from Mazar, but Enterprise is scheduled to rendezvous with the Shiraan(sp?) in three days with the Ambassador. The only way I can figure that out to work is if Enterprise is substantially faster than Vulcan ships, which is plainly untrue.
V'Lar mentions someone having been in her cabin before, and T'Pol says something about the smell. V'Lar then says she wants "to meet her", meaning the previous occupant. Are we to infer that she could tell the occupant's sex by the smell? Maybe not a nit, but veeeeeeery interesting.
Why would a Vulcan ambassador know about a lower subspace band, but Hoshi, the communications officer who handles subspace transmissions every day, would not?
When the Shiraan(sp?) starts firing on the Mazarite ships, Enterprise shakes, even though it isn't being touched, and space would not transmit any shock waves(since nothing is blatantly exploding).
When the Mazarites riddle the imaging chamber, they leave a lot of small holes. When we get another look at the chamber door(when the Vulcan captain calls), the holes are larger, and have scorching around them.
The Starlog establishes the date as February 2152. I guess they are not keeping the tradition of one season being one year of real time- though this would make sense if the end of the series will deal with the founding of the Federation in 2161- they must be planning on the show only going 7 years like the others and they want to condense it.
I wish they'd shown us the New Year's Day celebrations.
"It is a thing no outworlder may know."
Spock's own feeling is, he doesn't like it when outworlders know about it. That doesn't mean they don't know; they just aren't supposed to know. The Vulcans managed to keep it a secret and discouraged those few who knew, from telling; or those who told, weren't taken seriously.
Regardless of that line, it's still a nit because Spock should have just told McCoy, "I am suffering from a serious medical condition whose cure is only found on Vulcan, and I need not tell you more." Spock didn't have to say anything about pon far, and that should have been sufficient excuse for the detour. Spock should have contacted Vulcan himself and had the Vulcans send the proper authorization. That nit is separate from anything Spock says.
Another line from Spock: "We do not discuss it among ourselves." That's obviously not entirely true or he wouldn't know about it, either. He's talking about usual, everyday conversations.
I hope I made that clear enough. Does it make sense?
I wonder how much this "Temporal Cold War" will justify the assumption that history changes in such a way to take care of any continuity problems in the series?
The Vulcans are pretty hard to figure out. I was supposed to trust V’Lar when she said the Mazarite government was oppressive, yet I thought the Vulcans were helping keep an oppressive government in place on Coridan. The story failed to make me connect with either the Vulcan diplomat or the plight of the (unseen) Mazarite civilians. The show was watchable, but it could have been much better.
More nits and notes:
-- The Mazarites aren't the brightest aliens in the quadrant. They apparently think hunting down and killing a diplomat in cold blood won't provoke a response from the Vulcans, who clearly have a superior military.
-- The writers left a limited window for when the Vulcan-Andorian treaty took effect. First contact with humans was 88 (almost 89) years prior to the episode, and V'Lar had been a diplomat for 90-some. It also means it was pretty early in her career for her to orchestrate such an important treaty.
-- Although the seasons on Enterprise won't take place over one calendar year, it appears they will cover a 12-month cycle.
-- T’Pol was right. The Enterprise crew has been in space an awful long time without shore leave. It’s really surprising they haven’t stopped off anywhere or returned to Earth for crew rotation and new supplies. But maybe this is part of the 22nd-century culture, where extended time in space is common.
-- I like it when Archer and others wear civilian clothes. It helps me to relate to the characters when I see them dress in ways like people today.
-- I really disliked the deception Archer employed. I’ve said this before, but deception was something Voyager overdid, and I’d like to see it used less often.
-- Along the same lines, I’d also like fewer references to planets and aliens that were common in the 24th-century shows. Add Risa to the list, next to the Ferengi and holograms.
Maagic wrote:
"The Ambassador negotiated the Treaty of Kataan? Wonder if that's the same planet Picard got his flute from?"
Sorry, but that can't be the same world. The Kataan that sent out the probe that linked with Picard was destroyed when its sun went nova, 1000 years before the time of NextGen. That means 800 years before Enterprise.
Must be another name blooper, like the way Krios was used twice in NextGen. Once as a Klingon colony (The Mind's Eye), and then as a world engaged in a centuries old war (The Perfect Mate).
T'Pol was rather open talking about sex. What's next, she answers crew members questions about sex over the ship's intercom?
The fact that Risa was never mentioned until NextGen implied that it was farther away from Earth than Wrigley's Pleasure Planet & Argelius. Now we find out it's close enough that a 22nd century ship can visit it?
I thought it odd that the Mazarites were only concerned with V'Lar. For all they knew she could have put all records of their criminal affiliations in the ship's vault. I found it hard to believe they would go to all this trouble to get & kill one person then, apparently, leave Enterprise alone. If I were the Mazarite blowing up Enterprise would seem to be the best scenario. V'Lar would be killed and there would be no witnesses as to who caused it.
Fionulla Flannagan was the "chick" who also played Data's mother. At least here, she managed to hide her Irish accent.
Check out the promoes with Jolene Blalock stepping out of character. She is the hottest woman on TV today!
John Rubenstein was also in Voyager's "The 37's". He appeared in "The Boys From Brazil" and was in the TV series "Crazy Like A Fox." He is the son of the late pianist Artur Rubenstein.
The closed captioning put Kataan as "Ka'Tann", I believe.
Even Bill Clinton can not talk around the Vulcan penchant for lies.
Was it just me, or did Fionnula Flanagan come off as way too emotional for a Vulcan character? I had a very hard time watching this ep, because her performance kept distracting me. Perhaps they're trying to show that she's more malleable because of her contacts with multiple cultures, but myself, I think she should have come off as more Vulcan than Vulcans; a hardcore representation of their race, as you will.
Ah well. It may be just me.
Is V'Lar related to T'Lar, the Vulcan priestess from "Search For Spock"?
Personally, I think the name is a "shout-out" to LeVar Burton
Matt Nelson: It's not just you. As much as I'm trying to be more open minded about these "more diverse" Vulcans, I couldn't get past the feeling that she reminded me more of a grandmotherly hobbit than a formidable Vulcan ambassador.
Actually she looked more like Kes...if she was older and _fatter_.
What _is_ it about this show and gals that either look like or remind me of her? First there was Subcommander Kes-With-Hooters; then there was Odo's daughter in "Oasis"; and now the ambassador.
Is it just me, or do the Killer B's have an unconscious Kes fixation? Inquiring minds want to know.
Adam Bomb: Check out the promoes with Jolene Blalock stepping out of character. She is the hottest woman on TV today!
:: I noticed that too, at least until my wife noticed me noticing. Is the Suzie Plakson rule no longer valid?
I think the Ambassador being more, um, emotionally accommodating of those emotional humans (and what ever that race of ATOW were) was not a nit. Even her shaking hands (It showed immense control on her part) although a bit more "concern about the situation" on T'Pol's part there would be appreciated.
The ending with her leaving and saying she wished she didn't have every entrance a state occasion should have just had her accepting the proper way of doing things, IMHO.
---Notes:
---I liked the return of the Archer-Vulcan tension, Admiral Forrest, and Enterprise in battle with an enemy ship, and a starlog date! Seeing T’Pol meeting one of her heroes was an interesting plot point, and was her sincere request to Archer at the end of Act 2 not to return V’Lar to Mazar was beautifully filmed and scored. It was cool to see the ship achieve Warp 5 for the first time, and interesting to see what was a tension-filled attempt to break what in 2151 was an ominous barrier, much as in similar scenes in ST IV, Threshold(VOY), etc. I also found Archer’s order to T’Pol in the beginning of Act 4 to guess the Sha’Raan’s distance by using its last known position and doing the math to be reasonable.
---While the episode was moderately enjoyable on these terms, it lacked, unfortunately, a strongly-explored theme or character arc. The concept of having to come to terms with seeing one’s hero in an unflattering light is a legitimate idea to explore, but it is barely scratched upon by the plot, hardly explored emotionally (given not only Vulcan stoicism, but the lack of any indication on T’Pol’s part that her meeting with V’Lar in this episode has had any substantial effect on either one of them), and totally negated and reversed by the end of Act 2, when it is revealed that V’Lar is not guilty of any crime. The episode sets up a poignant expectation with a thematically provocative title, but totally cops out on it by not bothering to actually address it in any earnestness, or even make the intended character in any way a fallen hero, but an undercover investigator.
---Ambassador V’Lar acts surprisingly cordial when she first comes on board, a tribute to her diplomacy. It was refreshing, but between T’Pol, Ambassador Soval, and the Vulcans from Fusion, is there one Vulcan on this show how actually acts like one?
---Hoshi’s quarters are on E Deck, as Archer states in Act 4.
---Continuity Nods:
---T’Pol mentions Risa in the teaser, which first made its appearance in Captain’s Holiday(TNG).
---While not making any sense, as I mention below, the fact that there are no available cabins on the Enterprise for a visiting diplomat is consistent with the timeline, in light of Elaan of Troyius(TOS), in which Uhura had to give up her quarters for Elaan.
---Terms:
Nuvian masseuses registered experts on Risa that Trip says in Act 2 have twelve fingers on each hand.
V’Lar The Vulcan ambassador to Mazar, who negotiated the first territorial accords between Vulcan and Andoria, sometime before First Contact between Earth and Vulcan. She has been a diplomat for 94 years by this episode, as she tells T’Pol in Act 2.
Mazar planet whose inhabitants, the Mazarites, have expelled V’Lar for abuse of her position and criminal conduct.
Sha’Raan The Vulcan ship scheduled to rendezvous with the Enterprise three days after Admiral Forrest’s communique in the Act 1, which is capable of Warp 7, as T’Pol states in Act 4.
Mazarite High Council Mazarite body with which Archer communicates in Act 1 when preparing to have Ambassador V’Lar transported aboard.
Treaty of Ka’Tann treaty V’Lar negotiated during T’Pol’s early schooling, as T’Pol mentions in Act 1.
Second Ka’Tann Conference event during which T’Pol first approached V’Lar to talk about negotiation tactics.
Vulcana Regar location of the Second Ka’Tann Conference.
Maybe Bones got his knowledge of sex from the Catholic Church
In Fusion, Kov told Trip and Reed that Vulcans only mate once every seven years, despite the fact that Starfleet medicine had no knowledge of pon farr by Amok Time(TOS). Some tried to explain that just because Trip and Reed now knew this didn’t mean it became widely known to Starfleet Medical. (I guess the assumption was that neither Trip nor Reed kept journals or made reports to the captain on important cultural information, information that was passed on to Starfleet. Well, I didn’t buy that explanation then, and in the teaser of this episode, it gets worse. T’Pol tells Archer and Trip the same thing, apparently not feeling that Vulcan mating rituals are as personal as Spock indicated in Amok Time, or Tuvok in Blood Fever(VOY). So now Archer knows. So why didn’t Bones know in Amok Time again?
Not to mention that "Book of 1001 Human-Vulcan Sexual Positions" he has in his quarters
When answering children’s questions in Act 2 of Breaking the Ice, Geoff Miles asked if fraternization among the crew was allowed. Archer replied that it was allowed, but since there wasn’t a lot of privacy, since most crew members share quarters with at least one other person, there were other places they could go to on the ship to look at the stars. But in the teaser of this episode, T’Pol mentions to Archer that Starfleet forbids officers from fraternizing from subordinates, something Archer interestingly omitted from his answer to young Mr. Miles in the prior episode.
To boldly get laid where no one has gotten laid before
T’Pol tells Archer and Trip about Risa in the teaser. Interestingly, Riker had to tell Picard about this planet as if Picard didn’t know about it in Captain’s Holiday(TNG).
Sure it was. Triple-plated hull for when Reed wants to test his new devices, a bookshelf and a walkman by the navigation chair so Travis has something to do most of the time, and portable heaters for whenever T’Pol walks into a room.
Hoshi has to give up her cabin for Ambassador V’Lar. As I pointed out under my nits for Elaan of Troyius(TOS), did Starfleet have to fill up EVERY SINGLE cabin on the Enterprise with crewmen? Wasn’t it designed with a few redundancies and special contingencies?
Then again, if she were like Spock or Tuvok, she’d be a better actor
This episode’s entry in the "Why doesn’t T’Pol act like a Vulcan File": T’Pol tells Archer in Act 1 that if V’Lar were innocent, she would’ve insisted on staying to defend herself. If T’Pol were really as logical as Spock or Tuvok (a phrase I have a feeling will become recurrent in my notes and nits for this show), she would acknowledge that there is often more than one explanation for behavior that would seem to be less than the obvious choice. Perhaps V’Lar didn’t want to increase tension between Mazar and Vulcan. Perhaps she was protecting someone. Perhaps was homesick or tired of her job and wanted to go home. Perhaps she didn’t think she’d get a fair trial because she learned of the machinations against that had her framed or set up. She might be guilty of whatever she was accused of, but the notion that a person would absolutely behave in one specific manner in a given situation—a situation whose details T’Pol isn’t privy to—isn’t a logical argument.
---She later needs Archer to tell her in the beginning of Act 4 to guess the Sha’Raan’s position by using its last known location and doing the math.
He simply transported over a truckload of Firestone tires, and their ship promptly blew up
In the beginning of Act 3, Archer asks why they didn’t see the three Mazarite ships chasing them earlier, and Hoshi says the aft sensors are still out of alignment. When did they get out of alignment? Nothing in during the first space battle indicated they were misaligned, and indeed, how could Reed have successfully fired on that first Mazarite ship if the aft sensors weren’t working?
And if not, could we send her down to the Florida Elections Committee?
Given the Vulcan edict against interferring in other cultures (Hell, they don’t even bother investigating abandoned ships or uninhabited planets out of mere curiosity!), doesn’t V’Lar’s investigation into Mazarite government corruption constitute a gross interference by Vulcan standards?
A lot of concepts look better on paper than in the execution. Ask the writing staff.
When Archer orders Trip to give him Warp 5, for what is the first time, Archer comments to him that it’s called a Warp 5 engine, and Trip responds, "On paper." Huh? Didn’t they test this "Warp 5" engine? Why all the talk about achieving Warp 5 all this time if they weren’t even sure it could be achieved?
Apparently, the Mazarite Mafia uses the honor system with their enemies
Does anyone else think the Mazarites were just a tad bit incompetant when boarding the Enterprise? They believe every word Archer and his crew say about where on the ship V’Lar is, where in sickbay she is, etc., without double-checking any of it.
Actually, she’s just getting senile. She thought she was entering the Mess Hall for a snack, and then tried covering up when she saw the Mazarites.
Even though the Mazarites were slapped down by the Vulcans, shouldn’t V’Lar have continued letting them think she was dead, just to play it safer? Was there anything gained from her showing up announcing she was alive, other than acting self-satisfied and making a cute scene for the viewers?
During the pursuit, Malcom said that he could deflect the Mazarites' jamming beam to blind their sensors. So when they are all in sick bay, and the Mazarite crew calls and complains about losing sensors, why don't the Mazarites just shut off the jamming signal? They did say that Enterprise was re-directing it.
Keith, I assume that's you, and that you accidentally hit the "j" key, right? I'm only asking because that's a good nit, and I want to properly credit you in my Nitpick Document.
Maagic: The Ambassador negotiated the Treaty of Kataan? Wonder if that's the same planet Picard got his flute from?
Chief Sharky: Sorry, but that can't be the same world. The Kataan that sent out the probe that linked with Picard was destroyed when its sun went nova, 1000 years before the time of NextGen. That means 800 years before Enterprise.
Luigi Novi: It’s actually Ka’Tann, not Kataan.
Maagic: The chick who played V'lar also played Juliana Tainer, Data's "mother"
Luigi Novi: And Enna Tandro in Dax(DS9). She also did a good job of playing Mrs. Mills in The Others.
SMT: V'Lar mentions someone having been in her cabin before, and T'Pol says something about the smell. V'Lar then says she wants "to meet her", meaning the previous occupant. Are we to infer that she could tell the occupant's sex by the smell? Maybe not a nit, but veeeeeeery interesting.
Since men have scents distinct from women, and the Vulcan sense of smell was established as being far greater than humans in Broken Bow and The Andorian Incident, this does make sense.
SMT: Why would a Vulcan ambassador know about a lower subspace band, but Hoshi, the communications officer who handles subspace transmissions every day, would not?
Luigi Novi: Well, Hoshi presumably does know that other bands exist, she just didn’t know that the Mazarites used that one particular one that V’Lar pointed out to her. Perhaps the Enterprise can’t scan all bands simultaneously, and has to pick and choose which ones to search through?
Aaron Dotter: The Starlog establishes the date as February 2152. I guess they are not keeping the tradition of one season being one year of real time- though this would make sense if the end of the series will deal with the founding of the Federation in 2161- they must be planning on the show only going 7 years like the others and they want to condense it.
Luigi Novi: Or perhaps they had trouble keeping this season in one year because they placed the pilot in April—something they may have done as a homage to the launch of Cochrane’s Phoenix, which took place in the same month?
oregano: "It is a thing no outworlder may know."
Spock's own feeling is, he doesn't like it when outworlders know about it. That doesn't mean they don't know; they just aren't supposed to know. The Vulcans managed to keep it a secret and discouraged those few who knew, from telling; or those who told, weren't taken seriously.
Luigi Novi: Why would they not be taken seriously? If Archer, Reed or Trip put this in their reports, why would anyone think that the Vulcan first officer of the Enterprise shouldn’t be trusted?
Trike: The writers left a limited window for when the Vulcan-Andorian treaty took effect. First contact with humans was 88 (almost 89) years prior to the episode, and V'Lar had been a diplomat for 90-some. It also means it was pretty early in her career for her to orchestrate such an important treaty.
Luigi Novi: Good point. Of course, given Vulcans, and their discipline, it seems believable for a Vulcan prodigy to excel and succeed at an early age.
I really disliked the deception Archer employed.
Luigi Novi: Which deception?
KAM: The fact that Risa was never mentioned until NextGen implied that it was farther away from Earth than Wrigley's Pleasure Planet & Argelius.
Luigi Novi: Not necessarily. Wrigley’s was simply mentioned in The Man Trap(TOS) because that’s where the woman whose form the M-113 creature assumed came from, and the fact that the Enterprise visited Argelius II in Wolf in the Fold(TOS) doesn’t necessarily mean it’s closer or farther than Risa. I did find it odd, though, that Riker mentioned it to Picard in Captain’s Holiday as if Picard had never heard of it, which would be unusual if it was as popular as vacation spot as that and latter episodes implied.
When Archer orders Trip to give him Warp 5, for what is the first time, Archer comments to him that it’s called a Warp 5 engine, and Trip responds, "On paper." Huh? Didn’t they test this "Warp 5" engine? Why all the talk about achieving Warp 5 all this time if they weren’t even sure it could be achieved? Luigi
I don't see this as a nit. At worst, it's a fudge in it's rating.
Warp 5 is what it was rated, and presumably the prototype tested out that way, but Geordi mentioned that there are minorvariations in supposedly identical warp engines. (Scotty's concerns for his "wee bairns" might also be seen to imply it.)
Today, computer chips are manufactured to one set of specs (clock speed, etc.) but when tested some of them fail to conform to those standards and are sold as conforming to whatever older standard they can exceed.
The Vulcans managed to keep it a secret and discouraged those few who knew, from telling.
Luigi Novi: Why would they not be taken seriously?
T'Pol asked Archer et al. not to mention it?
The Vulcans manipulated events and people in such a way that people thought Archer was kidding about pon far? Something like that. I don't know. I'm grasping at straws, here. I'll let somebody else figure out the details. Yeah, the producers don't care about continuity. 
This episode’s entry in the "Why doesn’t T’Pol act like a Vulcan File": T’Pol tells Archer in Act 1 that if V’Lar were innocent, she would’ve insisted on staying to defend herself.
She might be guilty of whatever she was accused of, but the notion that a person would absolutely behave in one specific manner in a given situation—a situation whose details T’Pol isn’t privy to—isn’t a logical argument.
They also ignored the issue of laws which are illogical, immoral, indefensible, inconsistent, etc. V'Lar may have done something, legal or not, and corrupt officials were going to use some obscure interpretation or technicality as an excuse to defame and execute her.
They may also have been using "ex post facto" laws; she does something, they pass a law against it an then convict her in absentia.
There are all sorts of dirty tricks the Mazarites could have done.
Maybe V'Lar really did do something the Vulcans disapproved of but which was also in the gray area between legality/illegality. It could have been a lot more complicated than they showed here.
As for Vulcan interference/non-interference, I wonder about the circumstances of first contact between the two. For example, maybe the Vulcans and Mazarites colonized the same planet, became closely involved that way.
And any further involvement by the Vulcans wouldn't be any more intrusive than what had already happened between the two groups.
Perhaps the planet we know as Mazar wasn't the Mazarites' original home planet.
Perhaps the Mazarites are a group who fled Vulcan (along with many others like the Romulans and Rigellians). The Mazarites we see have different ears, but that could be genetic engineering, cosmetic surgery, or latex masks worn by one elite caste...
I *thought* the name Mazar sounded familiar, so I did a Yahoo search...Mazar-i-Sharif is a city in Afghanistan, where a relative of the Prophet has a tomb.
And Debi Mazar was an actress on the CBS show "That's Life."
I thought it might be a star name, but no, the producers can't be bothered to look up real star names...
oregano,
After the dinner T'Pol mind melded with Archer and Trip to make them forget the Pon Far remark. (Yeah she wasn't familiar with it until Fusion but she is aquick study.)
Luigi - I'm an occasional poster to these boards, and an avid reader of them as well as the books. That nit just hit me on the head like a ton of bricks, and I had to post it. Usually most posters get nits, so I usually wait.
Okay. I thought you were Keith Alan Morgan, whose name is sometimes abbreviated as "KAM." Kudos again on the nit.
oregano: The Vulcans managed to keep it a secret and discouraged those few who knew, from telling.
Luigi Novi: Why would they not be taken seriously?
oregano: T'Pol asked Archer et al. not to mention it?
Luigi Novi: Why would she if she's the one who brought it up?
oregano: I thought it might be a star name, but no, the producers can't be bothered to look up real star names...
Of course, if they did that, someone would probably complain that aliens were using human names for their own star systems, kind of like when aliens use terms like meters and kelvin.
At the first dinner with the ambassador, the conversation suggests that the Ambassador has already been to her cabin (and possibly had a problem with the smell). However, afterwards, T'Pol walks with her, before announcing that they have arrived at her cabin. If she has been there before, wouldn't she know where she was?
Maybe someone can explain this to me, but how can the Mazarites be jamming Enterprise's communications yet still communicating with them? Do long-range and short-range communications use different frequencies? If so, how do the Mazarites know which frequencies Enterprise uses for each?
At one point, Archer asks Hoshi to hail the Mazarites. Almost immediately, she replies that they are not responding. Apparently, Enterprise is using an early version of Voyager's insta-communication system. (On Voyager, they would often attempt to hail someone, and give them no time to respond)
>In Fusion, Kov told Trip and Reed that Vulcans only mate once every seven years, despite the fact that Starfleet medicine had no knowledge of pon farr by Amok Time(TOS). Some tried to explain that just because Trip and Reed now knew this didn’t mean it became widely known to Starfleet Medical. (I guess the assumption was that neither Trip nor Reed kept journals or made reports to the captain on important cultural information, information that was passed on to Starfleet. Well, I didn’t buy that explanation then, and in the teaser of this episode, it gets worse. T’Pol tells Archer and Trip the same thing, apparently not feeling that Vulcan mating rituals are as personal as Spock indicated in Amok Time, or Tuvok in Blood Fever(VOY). So now Archer knows. So why didn’t Bones know in Amok Time again?
-Luigi Novi
I've been thinking about this. What do the humans actually know? All they have been told is that Vulcans mate every seven years. No one (that I can recall) has made any direct references to pon farr specifically, or references to that the males "need" to mate every seven years, let alone any information about the symptoms or consequences. Merely references to the timing. If anything, it might be an odd footnote in the database, but nothing, I would think, that would be of any assistance to Bones in Amok Time.
oregano: I *thought* the name Mazar sounded familiar, ... I thought it might be a star name, but no, the producers can't be bothered to look
up real star names...
SMT: Without consulting any reference materials, I believe there is a star called Mizar(off by one vowel). In the Ursa Major constellation, perhaps?
I haven't had a chance to look it up, but weren't the Mazzarites a race featured in ST:TMP? If so, were they not the race of huge turtle-beings?
Did anyone else notice that the Mazzarite ships were simply the top section of an AMT Romulan Bird of Prey model?
Luigi, I was referring to the deception of having the Mazarites think V'Lar was in the sick-bay test-tube chamber. Was there more than one deception? I must be starting to blur them. I respect John Billingsley for hamming it up during the sequence. That's unlike Janeway, whom you never knew whether she was feeding you a line.
I think this show would have been better after a few more rewrites. I would have liked it better if we had seen Archer going through angst, trying to decide whether to go against his life experience, trust a Vulcan dilpomat and risk his ship and crew. I also think it would have been better without the silly "let's see how fast we can go" sequence.
I would give V’Lar brownie points for having researched Earth customs before she came aboard
Enterprise. Diplomacy calls for being sensitive to other cultures and their values, especially
when the other culture is your host. If V’Lar had acted as a “hardcore representation” of Vulcan
across the board in her dealings with other species, she might have been perceived as indifferent to their ways of doing things, and trying to impose Vulcan values on them.
I loved the way Tucker hemmed and hawed and fumbled at dinner before V’Lar realized he
thought she really was insulted, and how Archer just sat there in amusement looking like, “Okay,
Trip, let’s see how you get out of this one.”
I also liked the way Admiral Forrest deferred to Archer’s field judgment in deciding to return
V’Lar to Mazar. “You’re there. I’m not.”
Haven’t seen the ep in ages. Is it possible Picard really didn’t know about Risa in TNG:
Captain’s Holiday? IIRC, Picard wasn’t known for taking vacations, which was why Riker was
pushing him to go on this trip. If a given subject doesn’t interest you, you may not know things
that would be standard knowledge to a devotee. For example, I’m such a sports non-enthusiast
that I hadn’t heard even Mark McGwire’s name until a week before he hit his record-tying home
run.
I can understand V’Lar’s wishing every entrance she made wasn’t treated like a state occasion.
I’ve known people in high-ranking positions who were very down-to-earth individuals. As much
as they knew everyone was simply following protocol, they still acted modest when others
behaved formally in their presence.
About Vulcan’s investigation into Mazarite government corruption constituting cultural
interference by Vulcan standards: The honest elements in the Mazarite government asked
Vulcan to assist them in this. Vulcan didn’t act on its own.
About the Mazarites who boarded Enterprise being rather incompetent and believing everything
Archer and crew told them: Maybe they were blinded by arrogance and overconfidence, so sure
of their own superiority and that they were in control of the situation. Who says humans have a
monopoly on stupidity?
So if these criminals were so high-up in the Mazarites' government, why wasn't V'Lar offed before Enterprise got there?
Second, I have to wonder about Archer's "let's go back to the planet" strategy. His contention is that by doing this, he'll be somehow avoiding the danger of confronting the Mazarite ships... except that I would imagine there would be more such ships on the reverse course.
Also, after the enemy ships peg the Enterprise's nacelle, the ship drops out of warp. There is a significant difference in time between that point and the point where the Mazerite ships drop out of warp. Since they're traveling at higher than warp five, they should have overshot Enterprise by a significant margain, not wound up behind.
So when exactly in the time flow did Archer explain his great plan to V'Lar and company? He tells the Ambassador to go to sickbay, but given his plan, sickbay seems like someplace she might want to avoid. Just how long did the Mazerites take to board?
I liked the sequence with pushing the ship's engines, though I wasn't quite sure what was suppoesed to be catching fire in Engineering. Great line: "Please tell me you're going to be slowing down." -Trip
TJ Fleming: I myself am partial to Susan Diol. She was radiant in "Silicon Avatar" and "Lifesigns."
I have to say that I found this episode to be pretty good, definitely better than the episode that followed (IMHO) So...
I was surprised that the torpedoes they had could be fired while at warp. Being the most primitive starship weapon we have seen on a Starfleet ship so far I would have thought they were only sublight projectiles. I guess you have to fire something at warp.
I noticed that V'Lar said that humans "fascinated" her. I believe that this is the first time we have heard a Vulcan say "fascinate" in any form on Enterprise.
I also believe this is the first time we've heard "Live long and prosper" on this show although I could be wrong.
I was surprised how ready the Vulcan captain at the end of the episode was to put the Mazarites out of their misery. Especially as a member as a non-violent race, a trait greatly emphasized in The Andorian Incident. Guess he still has some Romulan blood boiling in him.
Did anyone else think that the Enterprise took a few too many hits from the bombardment of the three Mazarite ships to survive? Especially considering how they mentioned that they were almost taken out by one Mazarite ship in a fairly short battle?
Luigi: [T'Pol] later needs Archer to tell her in the beginning of Act 4 to guess the Sha’Raan’s position by using its last known location and doing the math.
It's not like this is something new to Trek. I believe that it was established in Star Trek: IV that Vulcans aren't too happy with guessing. Spock was very reluctant and didn't try until McCoy encouraged him. When he told Kirk that he had to guess Kirk had that classic line: "Guess, you Spock, that's extraordinairy." Then again, that was a slightly different situation (namely, if he guessed wrong, they'd never get home).
tjoe: I haven't had a chance to look it up, but weren't the Mazzarites a race featured in ST:TMP? If so, were they not the race of huge turtle-beings?
The turtle-beings were the Rigellians (I guess the Rigel system has a native species)
The Megarites were a race of underwater beings and the Aaamazzarites are yellowish beings that generate their clothing from their mouths.
Luigi: This episode’s entry in the "Why doesn’t T’Pol act like a Vulcan File": T’Pol tells Archer in Act 1 that if V’Lar were innocent, she would’ve insisted on staying to defend herself. If T’Pol were really as logical as Spock or Tuvok (a phrase I have a feeling will become recurrent in my notes and nits for this show), she would acknowledge that there is often more than one explanation for behavior that would seem to be less than the obvious choice.
The reason the Enterprise Vulcans do not act like Vulcans is because we are seeing them 110 years before we saw the ones that we have come to know and love, unless you count the cameo in ST:FC or the very un-Vulcan Spock of "The Cage". That's what Berman says anyway. A species can evolve a lot in 110 years. Look at humans, or at least those in the United States. 110 years ago racism kept blacks and other minorities from going to school with whites. Women were pretty much second-class citizens. Working conditions were bad, along with low wages, long hours, few benefits, and next to no help for injury and death in the workplace. Even children were able to work in horrid conditions. We have evolved greatly in the last century and we have changed. Why can't the Vulcans be a little less perfect as well?
Maybe that topic should be moved to the sink.
Might have been "Desert Crossing," but I think it was this episode: Porthos had a speaking part and wasn't in the credits. UNFAIR.
Dustin Westfall: What do the humans actually know? All they have been told is that Vulcans mate every seven years. No one (that I can recall) has made any direct references to pon farr specifically, or references to that the males "need" to mate every seven years, let alone any information about the symptoms or consequences. Merely references to the timing. If anything, it might be an odd footnote in the database, but nothing, I would think, that would be of any assistance to Bones in Amok Time.
I missed the very beginning of the teaser both times, so I don't know exactly what T'Pol did say. Still, I'm inclined to agree with Dustin. Would the cool, controlled, emotionless Vulcans want the humans--of all people--to know how they're totally controlled by the mating urge during pon farr?
I pointed out before how odd that the Enterprise isn’t designed with a few extra cabins for instances like the one in this episode, in which they have a guest on board. Having recently rewatched Oasis, I also noticed that in Act 1 of that episode, Archer told the Kantarians that Enterprise was big enough to take them all to their home planet. So now in this episode, Hoshi has to give her quarters to V’Lar?
Luigi Novi: This episode’s entry in the "Why doesn’t T’Pol act like a Vulcan File": T’Pol tells Archer in Act 1 that if V’Lar were innocent, she would’ve insisted on staying to defend herself. If T’Pol were really as logical as Spock or Tuvok (a phrase I have a feeling will become recurrent in my notes and nits for this show), she would acknowledge that there is often more than one explanation for behavior that would seem to be less than the obvious choice.
JoshM: The reason the Enterprise Vulcans do not act like Vulcans is because we are seeing them 110 years before we saw the ones that we have come to know and love, unless you count the cameo in ST:FC or the very un-Vulcan Spock of "The Cage". That's what Berman says anyway. A species can evolve a lot in 110 years. Look at humans, or at least those in the United States. 110 years ago racism kept blacks and other minorities from going to school with whites. Women were pretty much second-class citizens. Working conditions were bad, along with low wages, long hours, few benefits, and next to no help for injury and death in the workplace. Even children were able to work in horrid conditions. We have evolved greatly in the last century and we have changed. Why can't the Vulcans be a little less perfect as well?
Luigi Novi: The reason this "Well, they were different back then" excuse doesn’t hold up is because the indications we were given in the first four Trek series were not specific to the TOS timeline and beyond.
For example, on the Shadows of P’Jem board, Oino Sakai posted the quote: "The Captain will remember that I have fought at his side before. But I am a Vulcan, bred to peace. Let us attempt it.", and pointed out that Sarek disapproved of Spock’s joining Starfleet because Starfleet sometimes settles disputes violently. This is a STRONG INDICATION that Vulcans, as a race, are against violence. But how can Sarek hold this view of Starfleet, if his people themselves engaged in this type of behavior only thirteen years before Sarek himself was born?
---Then there’s the mindmeld. Supposedly, most Vulcans are not familiar with it, since T’Pol never heard of it in Fusion, but the only ones who do know of it are a group of passionate outcasts, which makes no sense, because Sarek was well-versed in it, and he was born only 13 years after Enterprise’s first season. How could the mindmeld have become such a basic part of Vulcan society that in only 13 years, young people were schooled in it, when Vulcan society is so opposed to the guys from Fusion. It took at least 1,000 years for Surak’s teachings to gain dominance over Vulcan society as a whole, according to Flashback(VOY). Just how long would it take Vulcan society to accept and fully integrate a custom practiced by Vulcans who embrace emotion.
---Then there’s the issue of whether Vulcans lie. On TOS or VOY, there were some scattered examples of Spock and Tuvok lying during the three-year and seven-year run of those shows respectively. But on Enterprise, we’ve seen T’Pol lying or playacting (which she also says Vulcans don’t do in Strange New World) in at least SIX episodes in the first season alone! The reason this cannot be a simple matter of "Well, they lied more often then, but not later in the TOS era" is because the Vulcans aren’t merely honest in TOS, but have a widespread reputation for it among the other races as well, which would be impossible to achieve if Vulcans were so pervasively dishonest, especially in instances like the one in The Andorian Incident, where a GIGANTIC lie with huge diplomatic ramifications became an INTERSTELLAR incident. That incident alone makes their TOS-and-beyond reputation impossible. Even the Coridan terrorist leader mentioned to T’Pol in Act 2 of Shadows of P’Jem that her people have a reputation for truthfullness. So it’s not like the creators are even saying that there was some change; they’re acting like nothing’s different!
The examples you gave, Josh, are not analogous. It’s a given that society changed in the manner you described. The things you described, while important by our current standards of historicism and civil rights, are still individual laws; they are minor tweaks in the greater picture of our laws, and against the backdrop of our entire history, do not represent huge philosophical paradigm shifts as these differences in the Vulcans do. Sopek’s actions in Shadows of P’Jem are in direct conflict ideologically with everything we’ve come to know about Vulcans. IMO, these disparity between Enterprise Vulcans and Vulcans prior to Enterprise aren’t comparable to civil rights laws or labor laws. They’re more the equivalent of converting every non-Christian on Earth to Christianity in 110 years, or perhaps more accurately, converting all Christians on Earth to the exact same denomination.
Who knows? Maybe Sopek is a Romulan spy? 
Sarek disapproved of Spock’s joining Starfleet because Starfleet sometimes settles disputes violently. This is a STRONG INDICATION that Vulcans, as a race, are against violence. - Luigi
Actually, it's an indication that SAREK is opposed to violence. While as an ambassador he certainly is expected to represent his people (and I doubt that his beliefs are that much of a departure from the Vulcan norm), you sometimes have to separate the man from the title. It's like people overseas judging all Americans because of George Bush's foreign policy.
But how can Sarek hold this view of Starfleet, if his people themselves engaged in this type of behavior only thirteen years before Sarek himself was born? - Luigi
How can we demonize those countries who deny people their civil rights when we suffered the same problems not so long ago... some within our own lifetimes?
How could the mindmeld have become such a basic part of Vulcan society that in only 13 years, young people were schooled in it, when Vulcan society is so opposed to the guys from Fusion. - Luigi
First, there is (to my knowledge) no evidence that Sarek was schooled in the mind-meld from birth. For all we know, he learned these skills much later in his life. He could have even been one of the pioneers that helped integrate it in their emotionless lives.
Second, it was only forty years ago that the Catholic Church implemented a number of changes to the Mass, to Catechism, and to Catholic life in general. Many of those changes were opposed when they were first implemented. Partly because of familiarity (people simply hate change), but partly because it was such a departure that it seemed to contradict the notions people grew up believing in. Yet now those controversial changes are accepted, endorsed, and lived by Catholics everywhere. Is it so hard to believe that a society comprised of individuals who mostly think the same way would be able to change in 110 years?
It took at least 1,000 years for Surak’s teachings to gain dominance over Vulcan society as a whole, according to Flashback(VOY). Just how long would it take Vulcan society to accept and fully integrate a custom practiced by Vulcans who embrace emotion. - Luigi
It would take much longer to convince a group of people who each think differently to chnage than it is to convince a group of like-minded people. That is logical.
Then there’s the issue of whether Vulcans lie. - Luigi
The simple response to this issue is: Any Vulcan who claimed Vulcans don't lie was, well, lying.
It was not a lie. It was an exaggeration, an omission, a choice, an error, an interpretation of the truth, a different perspective, an oversight!
I don't think it's true (or was ever true) that Vulcans never lie. I think the reputation that they have gained for never lying is similar to the real world misconception that there is a Vulcan Death Grip. (Only mentioned once in "The Enterprise Incident" but people think Spock can really do it.)
When some alien guy bumped into the Vulcans, they were probably very honest and nice to them. Other aliens probably had similar encounters and so people started making grand generalizations about Vulcans never lying and that they don't have emotions (they do, they just control them).
Compare it to today with how we generalize other countries. Some people think all British people have bad teeth. Some people think all Polish people are dumb. Some people think all Arabs are evil. The list goes on and on.
And as Darth Sarcasm pointed out, if a Vulcan says that Vulcans never lie, he or she could be lying about that.
My mind to your mind. Your thoughts to my thoughts. You will go find me a big bucket of fried chicken because I'm hungry. And now you're hungry too since we're mind melding so get something for yourself.
I don't really know what to say about the meld meld introduction featured in "Fusion". It surprised me that TPTB would make such a claim.
MY THEORY ON THE MATTER: I've noticed that the Vulcans of Enterprise's time period are very anti-exploration. They like to maintain the status quo. I suspect that as the Federation begins to develop, the Vulcans realize that other species have important things to offer and their acceptance of new and different things begins to improve.
MY ALTERNATE THEORY: After First Contact with the Romulan Empire, Earth still doesn't know what Romulans look like, but the Vulcans do. It's their dirty little secret that they don't want humans to know. Since Romulans look exactly like Vulcans in this time period, the mind meld is introduced to the general population as a way to see if someone is Romulan or Vulcan.
I just made these theories up on the fly just now so don't put too much importance in them.
That's all for now.
See ya later
TUE
Maybe it’s someone’s birthday again and he’s trying to find out their favorite food again?
Tim Lynch, in his first season review of the show at http://enterprise.psiphi.org/frames/episodes/s1/123/, noticing that Reed tells Archer during the first Mazarite attack in Act 2 that the phase cannons can’t be used at warp, which Archer is apparently learning for the first time, argued that Archer should have known all along about this, especially after the events of Silent Enemy. He should know all about the phase cannons, and for that matter, all the weapons on the ship.
Personally, I think the original script was pushing it when it had her mention cancer too
When the Mazarite Captain boards the Enterprise in Act 4, Archer tells her V’Lar’s been injured, and T’Pol adds that her injuries are extensive, and include both plasma burns and neurological trauma. Another lie?
Better! He stuck Brannon Braga in there!
After the Mazarites fire repeatedly at the imaging chamber in sickbay that they believe holds V’Lar, the computer readout of the scanner reads "System Failure." This is supposed to fool the Mazarites into thinking that V’Lar is dead, when she’s really not even in sickbay. But how did Phlox program the readout to display this only after the Mazarites fired at the chamber? For that matter, how did he even know that Mazarites would fire on the chamber, and not simply open it up and drag V’Lar out and then shoot her? Did Phlox stick a plant, or maybe his Pyrithian bat in there, and let it get killed so that the readout would do this?
I think "system failure" simply means the chamber is out of order (having been shot full of holes), not that the imaginary patient has coded. As such, it would require no additional programming.
I thought of that, and had a feeling someone would say that, but the way the scene was filmed, that's not how it looks like it was intended. It appears, from the sound of the EKG flatlining, that it was intended to refer to the patient. After all, why else would the Mazarite Captain feel his work was done? His work would be done when V'Lar was dead, not when the machine was destroyed.
Then again, can he read English? Between these and all the other problems pointed out for this scene, I think we can safely say that it was a very poorly written scene.
I couldent read the english, but I could still hear the sound of the EKG flatlining. So thats why I thought V'Lar was dead.
Luigi, do you mean "intended by the writers" or "intended by the characters?" As I see it, the crew needs only to buy a few minutes, so they improvise: they hide V'Lar and put a system diagnostic tape in the chamber to transmit vital signs. And that's it.
As it happens, the Mazarites open fire, destroying the chamber (system failure light, as you would expect when any essential system fails) and, coincidentally, the transmitter (flatline sounds). But it would have played out (bought time) if the Mazarites had simply forced the door open and found the chamber empty.
Subsequent plan B (and I'm sure they had one) is pretermitted by the arrival of the Vulcans.
BTW, seeing the life support system destroyed is the same as seeing the patient dead. Every Batman villain knows that.
It seemed what the creators might've intended was that the "system failure" referred to the patient. Sure, I'd expect "system failure" to pop up when the machine is destroyed, but why assume that V'Lar is dead when the machine is destroyed? T'Pol told them V'Lar suffered plasma burns and neurological trauma. Why would a machine repairing these things cause her heart to stop when destroyed?
And do ALL alien EKG's use the same sound to indicate when a heart stops?
"Life Support Failure" might have been a better idea.
There was a flatline. Maybe it wasn't "sytem failure" that convinced them. Perhaps it was the flatline.
Right. And as I said, do ALL aliens use the same sound to denote a stopped heart in their EKG's?
Who knows? Maybe the Mazarites do. Maybe they put two and two together and they were smart in their stupidity.
Maybe it wasn't the EKG. Something tipped them off. We just don't know what.
Bottom line for me: It's a nit.
Richie, this up to 104k.
Why would a machine repairing these things cause her heart to stop when destroyed. - Luigi
It wouldn't. However, the Mazarites did much more than destroy the machine (in fact, did they even say the machine was destroyed?). They fired into the Imaging Chamber itself!!! The destruction of an MRI machine wouldn't kill the patient being scanned, but firing bullets into the tunnel the patient was lying in might do the trick.
The way I read the scene, our crew were just very convincing actors. The mazarites were told V'Lar was inside the machine. Judging by Archer's (and Phlox's) reactions to them firing into the Chamber, they were convinced they completed their task.
Were they too trusting? Obviously so. Is it a nit? Not necessarily. There could be any number of reasons why the Mazarites were so quick to leave. Perhaps knowing a Vulcan ship was on its way played a part in their rush to judgement about V'Lar's death. We simply don't know.
So chalk this up to another instance of not a nit, but insufficient information on which to base a conclusion. I know that you (Luigi) define them as the same thing, but I don't.
The destruction of an MRI machine wouldn't kill the patient being scanned, but firing bullets into the tunnel the patient was lying in might do the trick.
Luigi Novi: Wouldn't the bullets simply get stuck to the inside cylinder?
There could be any number of reasons why the Mazarites were so quick to leave.
Luigi Novi: Yeah. They're stupid.
Richie, this up to 104k.
Luigi Novi: Richie, with the stock market doing bad I lost everything in my 401k.
Yeah. They're ••••••. - Luigi
Arguably, that's true. That doesn't make it a nit, however.
If you tell your girlfriend you're going out for a burger, but you come back with Taco Bell instead, does that make it a nit? Should your girlfriend now become suspicious because you lied to her?
Well, obviously, since that means I'm sleeping with her sister on the side.
And I'm surprised you knew about that!