• Show Board 2  July 23 - 12:09 am

Tripp and Archer sure seemed sweaty at the end when the shuttlepod landed. That doesn't seem right, since they're in a desert.

The head terrorist had some parallels with Osama binLaden. Don't get me wrong. His terrorism is directed toward an oppressive regime. I don't think he's as evil as Osama.

But this raises an interesting issue. There is no doubt that these people in this episode are terrorists. But Archer says at the end that maybe their cause is worth fighting for. So when does terrorism become acceptable? This is an important issue and I'm not sure if it's one that the episode raised intentionally or not. The Maquis were considered terrorists as well, but were by no means evil. The founders of America were probably considered terrorists by the British, but to us they're heroes.

Any thoughts on this?

See ya later
TUE

It was also nice to see that Archer's freeing of the prisoners back in "Detained" has come back to bite him in the a**.

Well, you wanted to have consequences, folks.

See ya later
TUE

"Desert, sir?" complains Trip, a native of Florida. "The heat, the dry air?" Okay, maybe he doesn't get too much dry air back home, but heat he should be acclimated to.

Would a thin layer of slatted wood above Archer and Trip really protect them that well, when the entire building above them is demolished and left burning?

And come to think of it, is a desert really such a good place to hide from an enemy with a substantial air and space presence? One is pretty darned exposed.

Another pod left behind! This is starting to add up to Voyager numbers.

Zefram Cochrane's base was a camp surrounding a missile silo. Now, T'Pol tells us it was Bozeman, Montana? I had family living in Bozeman for a few years, and I think he would have mentioned it if there were a nuclear missile silo in the city limits. [And since Ted Turner and Jane Fonda owned substantial property there, and are well-known liberals, we REALLY would have heard it from them if their land was Ground Zero. :-) ]

While we're at it, Hoshi mentions that the Vulcans landed in the United States. I thought the Third World War caused most governments to collapse, and with dialogue in "First Contact" mentioning the Eastern Coalition, not to mention the very dilapidated conditions, I was given to believe that the U.S.'s was one of them(probably fissuring into several sub-governments).

So, when IS the Enterprise going to get to Risa? ;)

A good episode, but I wish they had spent more time on the political content than on "Archer and Trip walk foolishly into the desert" scenes.

With that in mind, are Archer and Tucker INSANE? They plan to walk 30km with only small flasks of water, completely without any sort of head-covering?

The game that Archer and Tucker watched and later participated in looks a lot like lacrosse.

Most of the desert scenes had me thinking of Dune, with the "terrorists" as the Fremen. ;)

And... this episode an interesting score by Velton Ray Bunch.

And... this episode an interesting score by Velton Ray Bunch.

I agree. The music during the alien lacrosse match was cool!

Sometimes people feel like they have no choice but to fight the way they do.
There are civilian casualties in any war; soldiers aren't supposed to kill civilians *on purpose*. Okay. How do you feel about the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima. Civilians were being killed on purpose in large numbers.
That doesn't justify it, of course. That doesn't justify what some people were doing in this episode. But Archer is expressing some sympathy for *why* they're doing it. I think he's reluctant to defend their methods.

Archer and Trip should have had transponders like a Global Positioning System, something to filter the water with, detox pills, other good 22nd century stuff to help them. But then the episode wouldn't be as dramatic.

I saw the Message as soon as Zobral started talking about who they were fighting.

Apparently the "Username" box won't let me make a smileyface. There was supposed to be a smileyface there.

I was annoyed they haven't shown us Risa yet. They could have had a shore-leave-gone-wrong episode, maybe a funny one with funny villains.
Or Risa could have been the planet with the civil war.

And whatever happened/will happen to Wrigley's Pleasure Planet?

First Detained, and now this? This screamed "MESSAGE" even more!

Okay. How do you feel about the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima. Civilians were being killed on purpose in large numbers.

Dresden was an atrocity. Hiroshima was a legitmate military target. It had shipyards.

Remember, they had only fired off Trinity in test. The brass figured, "it's just like regular ordinance, only bigger". I don't believe the civilian population was targeted deliberately.

Although once we learned that they were terrorists, the comparisons between them and contemporary desert-dwelling terrorists became inevitable, I actually believe their true parallels are two other groups, both in the late '40s The Jews in British Palestine, and the untouchables in India (and possibly to American Blacks under Jim Crow).

Of the three, only the proto-Israelis engaged in any wide-spread acts of violence that could be deemed terrorism. [That's not to say that there weren't incidents involving the other two (Can you say "Watts riots"?), but the were relatively isolated incidents.]

I am sure that Zobral does not think of his actions as kidnapping. After all, Archer and Tucker arrived on their own at his invitation, and he was sure that if he just explained the situation that they would jump at the chance to help.

Since the government forces attacked first, we only have their word that Zobral and his clan are terrorists. Granted Zobral does not deny the charge, but he has different priorities in his pleadings with Archer.

But this raises an interesting issue. There is no doubt that these people in this episode are terrorists. But Archer says at the end that maybe their cause is worth fighting for. So when does terrorism become acceptable? This is an important issue and I'm not sure if it's one that the episode raised intentionally or not. The Maquis were considered terrorists as well, but were by no means evil. The founders of America were probably considered terrorists by the British, but to us they're heroes.


We don't know if they were really terrorists. All we know is they were called that by the government they are fighting. Some people say that any military group that operates independently of any sovereign nation's government is a terrorist organization, of course that would include the American revolutionaries, the South during the Civil War, and the heroes from Star Wars;) I make the distinction as when you deliberately target civilians you are a terrorist organization. When you target millitary/governemnt forces (but are not the military of a sovereign nation) you are Rebels.

SMT actually no pod has ever been left behind until this episode.

Zorab lives in the desert and has customs like an Arab (giving away things that are admired). If the writers had to pilfer cultural customs from an Earth culture couldn't they have picked some group that isn't associated with deserts?

For having, presumably, never played this game or anything like it, I was amazed they did such a good job of catching that glowing ball in the 'rackets'.

I can understand they would want to get out of the immediate area what with the bombing & their hosts possibly taking them hostage, but trekking 30 kms across desert to get to a possible shelter??? Wouldn't a more prudent course of action be to get out of the immediate area, wait till the bombing stops, then rush back, get in the shuttlepod and take off?

So why didn't the government detect, contact and/or intercept, the shuttlepod when it passed through the grid? Did it just happen to pass through the right section while doing the necesary fancy flying?

Anti-nits...

Richie... what about Shuttlepod One? Granted, it did make it back to the ship but not in one piece!

SMT, about the missile silos... Zefram Cochrane's missile silo housed a Titan V rocket, which as I understand currently doesn't exist. So there's obviously a military buildup leading to WW3, hence why a silo was built in Bozeman.

Nits...

We see T'Pol etc in a shuttle flying low looking for Archer and Trip... they had a shuttle too but they were afraid to fly it... too bad they didn't give it a try, it would have saved them a long walk!

I thought the comparison to Palestinians and Israelis was a little on the obvious side too, as was the line (courtesy of T'Pol) about the captain having to come up with some directives.

Overall, an enjoyable episode but not the best I've seen...

D.W. March: what about SHuttlepod One? The pod was not lost however. True it was damanged but it was returned to the Enterprise.

JoshG.: . . . are Archer and Tucker INSANE? They plan to walk 30km with only small flasks of water, completely without any sort of head-covering?

:: All part of their desert survival training-- that and the part about walking along a ridgeline in a hostile fire area. Snipers love sky silhouettes even more than cinematographers do.

Zorab lives in the desert and has customs like an Arab (giving away things that are admired). If the writers had to pilfer cultural customs from an Earth culture couldn't they have picked some group that isn't associated with deserts? KAM

The Celts had a very similar hospitality custom, and LaCrosse originated with the North Americans. Of course you could say that both groups are descended from the people of the deserts of the Middle East, but in that case, any customs they showed that had earthly parallels could be considered to be customs of people descended from desrt tribes of the Middle East.

KMorgan: For having, presumably, never played this game or anything like it, I was amazed they did such a good job of catching that glowing ball in the 'rackets'.

:: If you play one give-and-go sport, you're just one special skill away from any of the others. In this case, basketball (lacrosse, hockey, field hockey, soccer, polo, water polo, whatever) meets egg-in-a-spoon race.

First, TJ, Keith prefers to be addressed by his initials or his first name, not as KMorgan.

Second, while the mindset of water polo transfers over, there is more than a simple "one special skill" difference between it and this game.

Third, the special skill(s) of an egg-in-a-spoon race are nothing like those needed here, but since the rackets are basically LaCrosse sticks and are used the same way, it can be considered a variation on LaCrosse, something both men could have been exposed to in the Academy.

Clancy Brown appeared in the classic prison film "The Shawshank Redemption," as well as "Bad Boys" (the 1983 juvenile prison pic, not the 1995 Will Smith/Martin Lawrence cop pic), "Blue Steel" and "The Bride." I believe he also does commercial voice overs for "Mike's Hard Lemonade."

Richie Vest: actually no pod has ever been left behind until this episode.

SMT: What about the pod carrying Archer and T'Pol that was shot down in "Shadows of P'Jem"? Do you think the Coridan government let them come back for it after the commando raids? At least in "Terra Nova" they mentioned a recovery operation. I suspect there were others, but nothing pops into mind this moment.

D. W. March: about the missile silos... Zefram Cochrane's missile silo housed a Titan V rocket, which as I understand currently doesn't exist. So there's obviously a military buildup leading to WW3, hence why a silo was built in Bozeman.

SMT: Was the name Titan V mentioned in the movie? I do not recall. (And no, the novelization does not count here, as novels are not canon.) And it seems odd that the name of an obsolete missile series would be revived, when there were other names intervening(Minuteman and such). But yes, I guess a military buildup was possible, though it seems bad manners to plant a silo inside a town(not to mention being against the Geneva Conventions).

The funny thing about civil wars like this one is, if the government wins, they were fighting terrorists. If they loose, then they lost to freedom fighters and patriots. The winner's name's for the groups are what history records.

If the US hadn't won the Revolutionary War, they would have been known as terrorists and rebels, and executed as such.

Titans aren't obsolete. The Titan IV is currently one of NASA's workhorse expendables.

Clancy Brown also played Kurgan the immortal in "Highlander"

I wonder if the planet has a customs office.

I thought that this episode was okay. On to the nits:

Why did Reed pilot the shuttlepod on the search and rescue mission? Travis is a better pilot. Travis could pilot and Reed could shoot. Shouldn't T'Pol stay on the Enterprise anyway since she is the ranking officer? It can't be that hard to work the sensors.(Back to classic Trek: the four highest ranking officers, Archer, Trip, T'Pol, and Reed, all go down to the planet)

And while I'm on Reed, when he got into Zobral's face about it being Zobral's responsibility to make sure Archer and Tucker were okay, I was happy to see him take charge. Then Zobral gets into his face and he a little too quickly backs down. Not much of a chief of security if you ask me. (Then again, Zobral does tower over him.)

The pod that we lost in this episode was Shuttlepod One. It actually says Pod 1 on the shuttle. You can see it when Tucker and Archer first arrive on the planet. (and I was hoping that it would become Enterprise's Rio Grande)

not gonna: And whatever happened/will happen to Wrigley's Pleasure Planet?

I'm guessing that unless they mention it in Nemisis, we're not going to see it for a while.

DW: We see T'Pol etc in a shuttle flying low looking for Archer and Trip... they had a shuttle too but they were afraid to fly it... too bad they didn't give it a try, it would have saved them a long walk!

They probably didn't want to be blown to pieces when they lifted off. Although I agree with KAM: why not just retreat from the attack area then lift off when the shooting's over? Did the pod end up getting destroyed or something?

SMT: What about the pod carrying Archer and T'Pol that was shot down in "Shadows of P'Jem"? Do you think the Coridan government let them come back for it after the commando raids?

We didn't see it crash so we don't know how bad of shape it was in. Maybe Coridan did. After all, the Enterprise crew were against the government's enemies.

SMT: Was the name Titan V mentioned in the movie? I do not recall.

I don't think that it was mentioned in the movie but I believe there are shots where you can see "Titan V" on the side. It also says in the Encyclopedia that it was a Titan V. The real parts that they used (that I assume Stewart and Spiner touched) was actually part of a Titan II, but Titan IIs don't have enough power to get into space so they changed it to V.

Clancy Brown is ALSO the voice of Lex Luthor on the Superman animated series... and a mighty fine job he does at it, too, may I say.

I really enjoyed him in this episode.

Matt
(never realized just how BIG Clancy Brown is)

At the end of the episode, T'Pol says she's located the crew at bearing 115 (or something like that) mark 3.

Now, if they are at mark 3 then that means they are 3 degrees up from the shuttle, and seeing as how we had just seen the desert horizon and it was fairly flat, I get the feeling that this was not accurate.

Josh M.: In reference to your Reed scene with Zobral. Like you said, Zobral does tower over Reed. Also, that look Reed had, expressed desire to get back into his face, but I think Reed was knowing the common sense to back down from a losing situation. His face just showed that he didn't like the idea of backing down. I don't think it would have been responsible of Reed to let Zobral get to him.

But if at the moment, the shuttle's nose was pointed down from the horizontal by three degrees or more, it would still be possible. More proof that Mayweather should have been piloting.

Yes, but why should it have been pointing down? They were in a search pattern pretty low to the ground so I would assume that the smart thing to do would be to not go down since they could crash.

But if Mayweather's not there, maybe Reed is just having himself some fun.

Thanks, TomM.

TomM: First, TJ, Keith prefers . . .

:: No offense intended. I was just trying to identify the topic by a shorthand reference to the header. I'm slowly picking up on the cast of characters, but I don't always recognize alternate names referring to the same person. Also, my typing sux. (I think I once called him KAL).

So. About them special skills. (About them sentence fragments.) The special skill in an egg-in-a-spoon race, generically, is manipulating the object with a tool instead of directly with one's body. Teach a basketball or soccer player to do this, and he can step into a LAX match (GO TERPS) without undue embarrassment because he already has the general skills and the basic strategy. So I'm guessing (feel free to trash me on this one) that he can also pick up water polo if he can swim (special skill) well enough. What he can't pick up is baseball, not because the rules are so arcane, but because it has too many special skills and an unrelated strategy.

Bottom line--no surprise that Archer and Tucker could join in the alien game, especially if their hosts are too hospitable to call them on rules infractions.

And that's all I have to say about science fiction.

I could be wrong, but wasn't Kirk & Co. the FIRST crew to visit Wrigley's pleasure planet? They obviously didn't have the experience of reading about someone elses strange time there.

Well, here goes nothing. I won't get to see this episode again until tomorrow to confirm or disprove this nit. Crosses fingers.

In one of the desert scenes just before Trip and Captain Archer find that shelter after being in the desert for so long, the canteen Trip had was slung over his right hip, then when the shot changes it's slung over his left hip.

Good nit! (If it is real.)

If the US hadn't won the Revolutionary War, they would have been known as terrorists and rebels, and executed as such.

Rebels and terrorists are 2 very diferent things. The south in the civil war were rebels, and some still won't let go of that revolutionary spirit. I don't think anyone whould compare the South or the American Revolution to the IRA or PLO.

I do not wish to start a flame war, but would like to suggest the following definition of "terrorism": The deliberate targeting of civilians for the purpose of causing terror or impacting a civil government through civilian deaths or injuries.
Hence, blowing up a city bus is terrorism. Attacking a navy destroyer is an 'act of war.'
Of course, we don't know which definition applies to the rebels here.

---Notes:
---One more mediocre, thematically inert episode. There isn’t much here that hasn’t been done many times in Trek, or for that matter, on Enterprise. More tired speeches about non-interference, yet another instance of Archer and Trip captured or stranded on another planet or in space, and yet another hard-headed alien of the week government official. Not much going on here, except that it brought the "temperature extreme theme" full circle with Trip. In Shuttlepod One, he and Reed had to suffer extreme cold. In this episode, he suffers from extreme heat.
---Nice episode-to-episode continuity from Archer’s reference to the previous episode’s events in the teaser. The last time this actually occurred with two episodes not a part of a larger specific arc was with two TNG episodes Phil pointed out in the first volume of the NextGen Guide (I forget which two). The references to both Silent Enemy and Detained in Act 1 was also welcome, and it’s interesting to see how Archer may be becoming something of a mythical folk hero to the Suliban, in stark contrast to how his character might have been set up with regard to them in Broken Bow and Cold Front.
---We learn Archer and Trip spent two weeks on survival training in Australia once, drinking recycled sweat and snake meat, as they mention in Act 1. We see a new beige variation of the Starfleet uniform in this episode, perhaps a desert-survival version. We learn the village in Montana where Zephram Cochrane and Lily Sloane lived in ST First Contact was called Bozeman, and can guess Captain Morgan Bateson’s starship in Cause and Effect(TNG) was named after it. We learn that 2152 warp reactors have eight major components.
---Geskana is the second alien sport I’ve seen in a science fiction story to resemble Earth jai-alai, the first being the one in the beginning of the movie Alien Nation.

---Terms:
Zobral alien who invites Archer and Trip down to his planet in the episode.
Suraya Bay location on Risa with villas built into cliffs that Archer hopes to visit, which he states in the teaser.
geskana sport played on Zobral’s planet, resembling Earth jai-alai.
yalasat drink made from a cactus in the northern foothills of Zobral’s planet.
teracaq food Archer and Trip eat roasted with Zobral in Act 1.
blood soup soup containing chopped genitals from the male of some animal on Zobral’s world, which Archer and Trip eat in Act 1.
Chancellor Trellit Torothan government official who speaks to T’Pol at the end of Act 1 while Archer and Trip visit the planet.
Torothans rival clan that Zobral claims oppressed his people under a caste system.
yrott alien word that means "to stand apart," and the name of a garment Zobral’s people were forced to wear under the Torothan caste system, which he shows Archer in Act 1.

He thought he would, until he saw the African butterflies, the suit of other people’s skin, and the fat girl in the dungeon
Okay, so why didn’t Archer and Trip just get on the shuttle, take off, hug the ground to stay beneath any radar or whatever, and then make a run for it up to the Enterprise? Instead, they take off across a desert bigger than any one on Earth, heading for buildings Archer saw on his way to the encampment that he thinks looked abandoned, rather than stay in the shelter of either the encampment or the shuttlepod. Wouldn’t he have been safer in Zobral’s basement?
He was just really bummed that Bugs Bunny didn’t pop and say, "I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque…"
Why is Trip so much more debilitated by his desert experience than Archer?
They will be replaced with rear doors by the 2260’s, when Scotty begins wearing his kilt around the ship
In Act 2, When Zobral threatens to leave the Enterprise after saying Archer and Trip aren’t his responsibility, he prepares to walk down the stepway leading from the Launch Bay catwalk down to the roof of his shuttle. Good thing his shuttle has a roof door, just like Enterprise shuttlepods, so that the creators could have a nice dramatic upshot from the bottom of the stepway looking up to the catwalk!

Jason: Tripp and Archer sure seemed sweaty at the end when the shuttlepod landed. That doesn't seem right, since they're in a desert.
Luigi Novi: Why? People don’t sweat in extreme dry heat?

TUE: The head terrorist had some parallels with Osama binLaden. Don't get me wrong. His terrorism is directed toward an oppressive regime.
Luigi Novi: According to him.

TUE: But this raises an interesting issue. There is no doubt that these people in this episode are terrorists.
Luigi Novi: How so? Did they attack only Torothan civilian targets?

TUE: So when does terrorism become acceptable? This is an important issue and I'm not sure if it's one that the episode raised intentionally or not. The Maquis were considered terrorists as well, but were by no means evil. The founders of America were probably considered terrorists by the British, but to us they're heroes. Any thoughts on this?
Luigi Novi: Phil made a good point on this in his Ruminations for The High Ground(TNG), when he pointed out that attacking military or government targets is a legitimate form of warfare, because its aim is to defeat the enemy directly and militarily, and that terrorism is the use of attacks on civilian and symbolic targets for the purpose of demoralizing citizens from their government’s policies, hence the word.
---Of course, while this sounds right, most government officials or news writers don’t really think of it this way, and to them, it’s natural to refer to the attack on the U.S.S. Cole as a terrorist attack, even though it was a military target. In this manner, the use of the word is usually just propanganda—NOT that I have any sympathies for those b@$+@rd$ who attacked it, but it does raise the question: How do you define terrorism? I’d love to go up to George Bush or Bob Wright or some other head of a network news division and ask them their definition, and see if it holds up.

SMT: "Desert, sir?" complains Trip, a native of Florida. "The heat, the dry air?" Okay, maybe he doesn't get too much dry air back home, but heat he should be acclimated to.
Luigi Novi: Yeah, but to beat an old adage to death the humidity does make all the difference. Dry heat is okay, especially if it’s up to the 70’s. But humid weather makes me drowsy as all hell.
---Also, as I pointed out in response to one letter writer to The Star Trek Communicator, who said that Quark’s complaints about the humidity on the planet in The Jem’Hadar(DS9) conflict with what we later learn about the constant rain on Ferenginar, this isn’t the case. Being accustomed to your native weather doesn’t mean you like it. The NJ/NY area can get bitterly cold in the winter, and some years, it can get SUPER HOT in the July and August, which, with humidity, can be debilitating, yet I dislike both extremes.

SMT: Would a thin layer of slatted wood above Archer and Trip really protect them that well, when the entire building above them is demolished and left burning?
Luigi Novi: Perhaps, but if the rubble seals the entrance, and the basement is stocked with sufficient supplies, isn’t it better than (as you pointed out) venturing out in the open desert and being picked off by pulse cannon fire?

SMT: While we're at it, Hoshi mentions that the Vulcans landed in the United States. I thought the Third World War caused most governments to collapse, and with dialogue in "First Contact" mentioning the Eastern Coalition, not to mention the very dilapidated conditions, I was given to believe that the U.S.'s was one of them (probably fissuring into several sub-governments).
Luigi Novi: Perhaps, but maybe people continued using those border names out of habit and/or tradition?

JoshG: The game that Archer and Tucker watched and later participated in looks a lot like lacrosse.
Luigi Novi: What’s the difference between lacrosse and jai-alai, and which did geskana resemble more?

KAM: Zorab lives in the desert and has customs like an Arab (giving away things that are admired). If the writers had to pilfer cultural customs from an Earth culture couldn't they have picked some group that isn't associated with deserts?
Luigi Novi: Yeah, God forbid they actually use some of that creativity they’re supposed to have, and maybe create a COMPOSITE culture, with some traits taken from Earth culture, and maybe even—GASP! Some made up out of their heads?!

Instead we get the usual alien "metaphors" and "symbols" delivered with all the subtlety of a lead pipe.

Adam Bomb: Clancy Brown appeared in the classic prison film "The Shawshank Redemption," as well as "Bad Boys" (the 1983 juvenile prison pic, not the 1995 Will Smith/Martin Lawrence cop pic), "Blue Steel" and "The Bride." I believe he also does commercial voice overs for "Mike's Hard Lemonade."

Maagic: Clancy Brown also played Kurgan the immortal in "Highlander"

Matt Nelson: Clancy Brown is ALSO the voice of Lex Luthor on the Superman animated series
Luigi Novi: And Victor in The Bride, that Bride of Frankenstein movie with Sting and Jennifer Beals. He also played the voice of Queequeg in Voltron: The Third Dimension, and Undertow in The Little Mermaid II.

Matt Nelson: (never realized just how BIG Clancy Brown is)
Luigi Novi: Careful, Matt. Otherwise you might end up on Mikey’s "list."

TJFleming: Also, my typing sux. (I think I once called [Keith Alan Morgan] KAL).
Luigi Novi: You thought he was from Krypton?

Richie Vest: Dr. Phlox does not appear in this episode. This is the first time an Enterprise regular does not appear in an episode.
Luigi Novi: Actually, Travis didn't appear in Shuttlepod One, though he had some dialogue over the comm.

Luigi
But Dr. Phlox is neither seen nor heard. That means John Billingsley had the week off. This is still the first time that an Enterprise character is neither seen nor heard.

Luigi Novi: What’s the difference between lacrosse and jai-alai, and which did geskana resemble more?

:: Jai-alai is a serve-and-return sport like tennis, volleyball, handball, and the like. It resembles geskana (a give-and-go, goal sport like LAX, b-ball, soccer, hockey, etc.) only in the tools employed.

BTW, if Bozeman (pop. 27,000 with a university) is a "village," then, to quote "Terms of Endearment," "you must be from New York." J

Luigi-- An jai-alai "racket" is basically an elongated scoop attached to/worn on the hand. It is desiigned to give the ball great velocity as it is thrown. A lacrosse "racket"looks at first glance, like a small snowshoe on a stick. The baskest part is concave enough to catch and run with the ball. Although the basket was made of forcefields rather than catgut, geskana "rackets" are virtually identical to lecrosse "rackets"(the word "racket is in quotes, because I don't know the proper name in the sports involved.

TJ- Luigi does not live in New York, but where he does live is only a few hundred yards away--just across the river, in Hoboken,NJ; birthplace of Frank Sinatra.

Tom--I'm not alone. The Jets and Giants think they're in NY.

Union City, actually, Tom. I was merely born in Hoboken. (Because Union City doesn't have a hospital, U.C.'ers have to go either to St. Mary's in Hoboken, or Christ Hospital in Jersey City.)

As for my use of the word "village," that's pretty much what it looked like in 2063; I wasn't referring to how it looks today.

Thanks for the info on jai-alai and lacrosse. So does geskana resemble lacrosse more?

I would say geskana resembles lacrosse more, given that the basic object of the games look similar (i.e., tossing the ball or whatever it is into nets/goals).

SMT: While we're at it, Hoshi mentions that the Luigi Novi: Perhaps, but maybe people continued using those border names out of habit and/or tradition?

Star Trek has always seemed somewhat ambivalent on what the status of nation-states is in the future. Eddington's dialogue from "Blaze of Glory" indicates Canada still exists in some form or another, and we know from Picard that France does as well (albeit one with citizens who speak English with British accents... ). And we mustn't forget Chekov's Russia.

So I'm unsure as to what status nations have on 24th (or 22nd) Century Earth. My guess is that issues of national sovereignty are rendered irrelevant when a society makes contact with alien civilizations. I've always found that this was the biggest gap in Trek's depiction of the future: What about nationalism?

Luigi: Okay, so why didn’t Archer and Trip just get on the shuttle, take off, hug the ground to stay beneath any radar or whatever, and then make a run for it up to the Enterprise?
They had no way of knowing the sensor capabilities of their attackers. For all they knew, as soon as they powered up their engines, they could've been blown to pieces.

Luigi:Wouldn’t he have been safer in Zobral’s basement?
They already established that the basement wasn't a very safe place when the roof of it collapsed onto them. I don't know about you but if I was in a small space like that in the middle of a bombardment and I found out that the roof might collapse on me, I would find a safer place (That is, if I wasn't cowering in a corner wetting myself.)

Jason: Tripp and Archer sure seemed sweaty at the end when the shuttlepod landed. That doesn't seem right, since they're in a desert.
Luigi Novi: Why? People don’t sweat in extreme dry heat?
I assume that like most deserts, it cools down greatly at night. This is probably one of the reasons Archer made the fire. (BTW, I believe this would be the first time in Star Trek's "history," as in the fictional history, not the real world, that someone uses a phaser to start a fire.)

SMT: Would a thin layer of slatted wood above Archer and Trip really protect them that well, when the entire building above them is demolished and left burning?
Luigi Novi: Perhaps, but if the rubble seals the entrance, and the basement is stocked with sufficient supplies, isn’t it better than (as you pointed out) venturing out in the open desert and being picked off by pulse cannon fire?

One, it didn't appear that there was much rubble left to seal the entrance when Archer and Trip came out of the basement, there didn't seem to be enough rubble to seal the entrance.
Two, the basement did not appear to be stocked with many supplies (that I saw anyway. it's been a few days...)
Three, if rubble seals the entrance, that means that your air supply might (very big might though) get cut off.

As some of us have stated before, they should have retreated from the battle a short distance, hid until it was over, then take the shuttle pod and high tail it out of there.

Four, what would keep the rubble from crashing through and taking our intrepid heroes out? The ceiling didn't seem that sturdy.

Well, when I said "supplies," I meant alternate venting routes or something, but now, I'm thinking you're right, Josh, and maybe it wouldn't have been a good idea to go down there. I guess it was a lose-lose situation no matter what Archer did.

I half expected Commander Jack@$$ to whine, "Are we _there_ yet?" during the walk through the desert.
And _this_ is who the marks want to see get next to Subcommander Kes-With-Hooters?
As the WWE's Michael Cole would say: Stop the pain.

Luigi: Dare I ask what "list" this is? Or do I really want to know?

Matt

Go to this link: http://64.33.77.146/discus/messages/16070/18769.html?1018661075

and read Mikey's third post for March 7th. I also recommend my last one for that date.

Zobral and Watto have the same accent. Perhaps they went to finishing school together?

Doug B: Now, if they are at mark 3 then that means they are 3 degrees up from the shuttle . . .

:: OK, somebody educate me here. Is it established that “mark n” means “n degrees positive pitch?” If so, how does one indicate negative pitch? (I don’t recall ever hearing “mark minus n” or “mark negative n.”) Does this mean the vertical circle runs 0-360? What fun that would be with an FNG helmsman: order “bearing 115 mark 357,” and watch him/her do an inside loop.

Yeah, kinda what I figured. Well, if he's thinking of adding me, he can bloody well just NOT.

Matt
(straighter than straight, not that it's anyone's slagging business)

Luigi Novi: One more mediocre, thematically inert episode. There isn’t much here that hasn’t been done many times in Trek, or for that matter, on Enterprise. More tired speeches about non-interference . . .

:: I think if you look at it as process, there’s something here: If the prime directive is no longer an a priori assumption, where did it come from? The Vulcans presumably arrived at their noninterference policy through logic; but that’s not the human way. If it were, planned economies would dominate the world and venture capital would be dead.

Archer’s experiences, which we know will result in the development of the prime directive, also parallel the development of the English common law. “The life of the law has not been logic, but experience.” (Oliver Wendell Holmes) (Maybe we’ll get to see an “Eisenhower and Lutz” crossover.) Helping the captive Suliban bit him on the ass, not because it affected that culture, but because it set a precedent. If he hadn’t cut it off here, he stood to become a galactic Wonder Warthog (“wheelhorse for the downtrodden”).

Ironically, in the very next episode, experience forces the Vulcans to consider deviating from their noninterference policy. So, in the long run, it is Vulcans who are brash, and humans who are contemplative. And that’s why Spock serves under Kirk. Just like Roddenberry envisioned.

Actually, I think these episodes are just getting worse each week... visions of Voyager galore... Sheesh!

Oops. Make that "previous" episode, not "very next."

BTB, Luigi, apologies if my last post came off rude. Events have so transpired in my life so as to utterly make me lose my sense of humor and perspective on that particular topic as applied to my person.

Matt

Does anyone else watch ENTERPRISE on a non-UPN station? There's no UPN affiliate in my area, but a local WB affiliate and CBS affiliate run ENTERPRISE And BUFFY. Neither one ran "Desert Crossing" last week. I only got "Fallen Heroes", and next week "Two Days and Two Nights" is on their schedule only. I don't get previews of next weeks episodes either. Does anyone else experience this?

I think Clancy Brown was in "Starship Troopers."

Yes he was in Starship Troopers as well as Earth 2.
I may be stating the blinkin' obvious here but what the hey. Zobral's name is clearly a tip of the hat to Zorba the Greek as is Clancy Brown's accent.

Locutus, we have a similar situation here in Knoxville, Tn. There's one UPN affiliate that shows the full schedule on Wednesday. Thing is their signal is poor and the show isn't always watchable. The 2nd affiliate shows only some UPN shows and like you we only got Fallen Heroes this week and will only get Two Days and Two Nights next week as well.

TJFleming, the "mark n" indicates degrees...

Um...let me try to explain it well. Imagine your ship is at the middle of a sphere. The first number indicates movement along a plane in a circular fashion, such that 90 would be a turn to the left, 180 would be a rotaion backwards, 270 would be a turn to the right, and 360 would be the same as 0 or straight ahead.

The second number, "mark n", indicates degree of going up and down, such that 90 would be straight up, 180 would be behind you, 270 would be straight down, and 360 or 0 would be straight ahead.

So if you wanted to go down 3 degrees, you would say "Come about to 213 mark 357" or something like that.

Hope that helps! If not, find the TNG Tech Manual. They have diagrams in there which are happy helpful things.

The TOS tech manual (circa 1975?) had the same system, but in Gradians (400 per circle instead of 360).

Near the beginning (I forget where, and I didn't tape this one), T'Pol mentions that Archer will have to create his own directives, similar to what the Vulcan have. Would a simple captain really be issuing Fleet-wide directives? Wouldn't that be a job for the Admirality? He would almost surely be advising, but I doubt he would have the ability to define them himself.

When the encampment is attacked, Zobral refers to the use of Torathan cruisers. Reed also mentions that the camp appears to be being "strafed." I don't have this on tape to confirm, but did anyone else miss seeing any sort of aerial assault? It appeared from what I saw that the encampment was being shelled from the ground from a fair distance.

I'll chime in on the stupidity of Archer's run into the desert. I personally wouldn't have left the basement. Once the house above them was taken out, which is what almost surely caused the minor cave-in, there would be no reason for the Torothans to hit that spot again. The previous shots had done little more than drop some sand on them. Based on that, I think it would have held until morning, when the Torothans would likely have stopped, based on Zobrals statements beforehand. By leaving the basement, they exposed themselves to any potential a) ground troops infilitrating the camp, b) snipers targeting the camp, c) close-range aerial assault, and d) friendly-fire accidents.

What an odd design they have for those water pouches. One side is silver, probably in order to reflect heat away. However, the other side is black, which would tend to absorb heat. And it's elongated, providing maximum surface area, which accelerates temperature changes.

Given that the Torothans are afraid of letting Enterprise help Zobral, who has a ship capable of inter-planetary travel, and the Torothans have a network of satelites to shield sensors and detect approaching ships, why do we never see a single Torothan ship attempt to escort Enterprise out of the area? The Torathans simply ignore this large ship in orbit. If you think they are going to help your enemy, do you really want to let them hang around?

I'm not sure whether it reflects more on the Torothan or Vulcan justice systems, but when T'Pol is convincing Zobral to help them, she says that, if caught, Archer and Tucker would be "oppressed" like others of Zobral's clan. Oppressed? The Torathans believe that Archer and Tucker were supporting terrorists. Wouldn't you prosecute, and possibly execute, someone like that, rather than simply oppress them? What's worse, Zobral doesn't immediately laugh at the absurdity of the suggestion. Does that mean it is actually a reasonable statement?

According to Zobral, it would take forever to train Reed to fly through the sensor grid. T'Pol convinces him to help by flying them through it. However, our first interior shot of the shuttle shows Reed at the helm!? So, was it really not that hard, or did they insist on trading places after they were through?

*Reed, in whiny voice*
"It's my turn to fly. You promised. T'Pol, Zobral won't let me fly the shuttle."
*T'Pol, sternly*
"Zobral, let him fly."
*Zobral*
"Oh, alright, crybaby."
;-)

RE: Bozeman: I doubt that the camp was *in* Bozeman, but that was probably the nearest city. Many major events happen outside of an actual city, but are frequently attributed to that city. The silo and camp in First Contact could easily be in the hills just outside Bozeman, or quite a few miles further out, and still be called Bozeman.

>Nice episode-to-episode continuity from Archer’s reference to the previous episode’s events in the teaser.
-Luigi Novi

Not bad, though a bit generic. It's almost like they knew they were doing something beforehand, but not what. Also, it would have made sense for Trip to mention the strain on the engines from going Warp 5 last ep, but all he talks about is general maintance/repairs (to my untrained ear, at least).

>Instead, they take off across a desert bigger than any one on Earth, ...
-Luigi Novi

Was that mentioned in the ep? It seemed large, but I don't recall any references to being anything near the size of the Sahara.

>Why? People don’t sweat in extreme dry heat?
-Luigi Novi

Well, by the end, they both appeared to be very dehydrated. They wouldn't have enough fluids in their bodies to sweat very much, and the sweat they produced would evaporate pretty fast.

>I assume that like most deserts, it cools down greatly at night. This is probably one of the reasons Archer made the fire. (BTW, I believe this would be the first time in Star Trek's "history," as in the fictional history, not the real world, that someone uses a phaser to start a fire.)
-Josh M

It might be. I know a few times in TOS, people would use phasers to heat rocks for warmth, but never to start a fire itself.

>The ceiling didn't seem that sturdy.
-Josh M

Really. It seemed almost too sturdy to be real from my POV. The ceiling didn't collapse until the house above was directly hit, and then only a portion of the ceiling by the door, almost surely the weakest part, collapsed.

Dustin: It might be. I know a few times in TOS, people would use phasers to heat rocks for warmth, but never to start a fire itself.

Yes, but since Enterprise comes chronologically before TOS, this would be the first time.

I had this show taped and finally watched it. I liked it more than "Fallen Hero" because I thought the story was better thought out, more coherent. Like "Dear Doctor," the moral dilemma is left undecided for viewers to debate.

More nits and notes:

-- Poor Trip. First "Shuttlepod One," now this show. He's going to swear off away missions before long. The funny thing was, if Trip had said no, Archer would have asked Malcolm, the other "Shuttlepod One" victim.

-- I have to wonder whether any shuttlepods have been lost. I mean, it is conceivable that they were retrieved off-camera. And Enterprise doesn't look like it could hold any spare shuttlepods. The writers are being too flippant about this issue (another throwback to Voyager).

-- The show had a 47. Zobral says the opening in the detection happens every 46 minutes and is open for one minute. (Also, Malcolm had a "somekinda.")

-- I'm glad that for once, our heores met a supposedly friendly alien who in the end turned out to be ... a friendly alien. Yes, Zobral did have alterior motives, but at least he never turned against the crew.

-- I loved the continuity touches. Not only the ones that tied into "Fallen Hero" and the Suliban, but the water polo emblem on Archer's bag. The alien's sport was similar to water polo, too, so no wonder Archer picked it up so well.

Matt Nelson: BTB, Luigi, apologies if my last post came off rude. Events have so transpired in my life so as to utterly make me lose my sense of humor and perspective on that particular topic as applied to my person.
Luigi Novi: I'm very sorry to hear that, Matt. I hope things will be looking up for you soon. I can sympathize. And no, I didn't think you came off as particularly rude.

Dustin Westfall: T'Pol mentions that Archer will have to create his own directives, similar to what the Vulcan have. Would a simple captain really be issuing Fleet-wide directives? Wouldn't that be a job for the Admirality? He would almost surely be advising, but I doubt he would have the ability to define them himself.
Luigi Novi: Dustin, I think she simply meant that because he's the only Earth ship out there, and is most informed about what it's like out here, that he would have to establish some of his own protocols through trial, error and experience, not that he would be creating Starfleet-wide rules.

Luigi Novi: Instead, they take off across a desert bigger than any one on Earth, ...

Dustin Westfall: Was that mentioned in the ep? It seemed large, but I don't recall any references to being anything near the size of the Sahara.
Luigi Novi: Archer tells Zobral that none of the deserts on Earth are as big as the one Zobral lives in in the very beginning of their meal in Act 1.

When Archer and Trip land on the planet, Zobral approaches the shuttle and introduces them to two of his friends. He tells Archer and Trip to come along, because he's prepared quite a feast. In the next scene, the three of them dine, but the two friends of Zobral aren't at the feast. You'd think he would've invited his other two friends, and maybe made sure they hadn't eaten anything yet, so they could get to know these two new friends of his. Instead, something like this must've taken place:

Zobral: "Kobral, Meshral, these are my two new friends, Captain Jonathan Archer, and Lieutenant Charles Tucker."

Now go home. I'm hungry."

That's Commander Charles Tucker

DougB: TJFleming, the "mark n" . . .

:: So, my prank on the FNG (getting him to "chase the needle") would work. Love it!

ScottN: . . . same system, but in Gradians (400 per circle instead of 360).

:: Some surveying systems (European, I think) use "grads" for 1/400 of a circle. Never heard that it was short for gradians, but never saw it in writing either. Maybe it got short-formed to avoid confusion with radians. Cf. "Moby Dick" (starboard/larboard).

Maybe it is just "Grads". I was making the leap from "rads = radians" on my calculator to "grads = gradians".

By the way, if you ever need an X (and can only use Earth locations) for a game of geography: Xenia, Ohio. I had thought that might bave been Archer's response.

Trike: I loved the continuity touches. Not only the ones that tied into "Fallen Hero" and the Suliban, but the water polo emblem on Archer's bag. The alien's sport was similar to water polo, too, so no wonder Archer picked it up so well

Yeah, and did you notice the water polo ball on Archer's shelf as he talked to Forrest?

Although, I think that that was in the previous episode.

Richie, this is up to 107k.