• Show Board 2  September 15 - 6:17 pm

Okay, so the teaser UPN ran for this last night made it out to be something about some killer virus sweeping the ship. Meanwhile, the Startrek.com blurb has it out to be more of a character piece. What gives?

The radiation causes the entire crew to develop Obssessive-Compulsive Disorder. They all begin focusing on minute activities and details, sometimes with violent results.

My God.

They entire crew becomes NITPICKERS!!!

Well, not a bad episode, in all. It kept my interest right up to the end and aside from the somewhat hokey faux-asteroid belt sequence. But were there nits? Read on!

This black hole is supposed to be a part of a trinary star system (at least that's what I heard, if they said "binary" I withdraw this nit). Funny how we only ever saw two stars.

Also, they must've really been sitting on the thing when they started on their impulse-powered flight to the actual black hole. Two days may seem like a bit of a trip, but it's at impulse!

So, what exactly caused Travis' headache? Phlox finds a chemical imbalance and T'Pol later uses it as evidence of the larger problem, but if the chemical imbalance was the cause, wouldn't everyone else be having headaches?

T'Pol went the whole time claiming she was never affected by the radiation, but if so, why did she hole herself up in her quarters?

NANJAO- I liked how both times someone was knocked out in Sickbay, they had no idea it was coming, but the audience could count down until the hypospray/neck pinch was administered.

And speaking of being unconsious, how exactly did the crew pass out? Did T'Pol just go around neck pinching everyone? Or was it another effect of the radiation? I'd buy the radiation idea, but then T'Pol wakes up Archer via a cold shower and some coffee. The guy wasn't hung over, he had radiation poisioning! I don't see how the shower and the coffee were supposed to help. Then Trip wakes up immediately after they get out of range of the radiation? That doesn't make sense at all.

Also, I'm still a little surprised that T'Pol didn't even try to wake Travis up. He's still supposed to be the pilot! C'mon! He's sedated? Well, find a stimulant!

So, why didn't Reed's alert (nice baiting by the creators, btw) go off the first few times the rocks hit the hull?

T'Pol's solution is to find a course between the stars. There's a black hole between the stars! Then, consider that the belts the ship went through werer right on the event horizion of the black hole! And yet, no mention of any problems with gravity, just some "gravometric sheering"? Hmmm...

Well, this still was a fun ep, probably the best since, "A Night in Sickbay." Next week: Hoshi disappears! Well, I guess she and Travis can then spend more time together...

When Archer asks whether T'Pol would review his preface, she answers "I'd be happy to." A figure of speech implying emotion is something I'd think Vulcans would avoid.

I found it odd that Phlox would have a mortar and pestle in Sickbay, less so because he might use them than that they would look so particularly human in design. If Denobulans developed such things for medical uses, wouldn't they look different?

Two days travel at impulse speed should cover, by information from other canonical Trek sources, no more than half a light-day. One would think a trinary star system would be visible from that range(the Sun is obviously visible as the Sun from Pluto, which is about half that distance). The system isn't visible, though, for most of Enterprise's approach. Then, in the brief time it takes for T'Pol to postpone Ensign Mayweather's surgery in Sickbay, the next external shot shows Enterprise right on top of it, stars, accretion disk, and all.

The radiation effects occur in the prefrontal lobe, the very front portion of the brain(roughly the forehead). Yet Phlox, in getting to the root of Mayweather's headache, is about to cut out a thick slab of his parietal lobe, which is roughly at the crown of the head. Even considering Phlox's obsessive state, or even because of it, wouldn't he want to study the area being most directly affected?

Okay, T'Pol needs somebody to steer the ship. Mayweather's been sedated, so she picks Archer. Aren't their relief helmsmen? Didn't we see one early on in the episode, in the first flashback scene?

Reed said earlier that a hull impact would activate the tactical alert system he's setting up. Later, Enterprise takes a few impacts from what T'Pol calls 'minor debris', but which appear to be rocks at least a few meters across. This doesn't set off the alert. If something that big hit my ship at high speed, I would want to know about it. :-)

I have a possible nit but I would have to review the episode to be sure and I didn't tape it. If someone could help me here, I would appreciate it.

From what I observed, when Mayweather first enters Sick Bay, Phlox is able to identify him without actually looking at him. How?

From what I observed, when Mayweather first enters Sick Bay, Phlox is able to identify him without actually looking at him. How?PaulG

Maybe from some reflective surface that showed Travis entering?

This black hole is supposed to be a part of a trinary star system (at least that's what I heard, if they said "binary" I withdraw this nit). Funny how we only ever saw two stars. - Sparrow

The black hole was the third element of the trinary system.

Not too bad. The TV Guide listing made me expect the worst, but it wasn't that bad. It was tense seeing the crew slowly begin to lose their minds, and I was wondering if it would come to blows. I'm glad that when it did, the creators didn't go too crazy with it, and kept it to a minimum.

I'm also impressed that when T'Pol sticks Archer in the shower, they resisted the urge to have either one of them take their clothes off. I haven't seen the trailer yet, but I wonder if the trailer focuses on the shower scene?

The first steps of the evolution of the color-coded alert statuses is a nice touch, as is hearing about Archer's first meeting with Zephram Cochrane.

I haven't seen the trailer yet, but I wonder if the trailer focuses on the shower scene?Luigi Novi

No- the trailer makes it out that the entire ep is a disaster with the crew being sick and Archer having to pilot the ship- in other words it covers the teaser and the last part of the last act, hence my first post above.

And you thought secretaries has difficult jobs
Incredible. First, Archer tells Hoshi in Silent Enemy to make finding out Reed’s favorite food a top priority over working on the subspace transceiver array diagnostic, and now, when Trip tells him he’d rather purge the impulse manifolds before fixing his chair on the bridge, Archer tells him to fix the chair first. (Keep in mind that this is before the radiation begins to affect him, and that his obssession is with his writing, not the chair.)
I think I’m being affected by the radiation now…
Reed tells Archer in the Armory in Act 1 that the Mazarites disabled them with their first shot. Actually, they disabled them with their second shot. I think he meant that they disabled them with their first hit.
She’s planning on feeding the voices in her head
Hoshi tells T’Pol at the end of Act 2 that she has 83 people to feed. It’s actually 81.
Wonder what kind the writer was exposed to?
This is the second episode in a row to feaure some really exotic type of radiation with extremely esoteric-but-non-lethal effects.
Ensign Cutler’s using it to confirm that the corners on her bedspread are evenly folded, Rostov is using it eliminate any odd numbers from his database, and Novakovich is using it to control the flow of water in his sink for when he washes his hands thirty times a day
T’Pol says in her log that the radiation field extends outward from the black hole for half a light year in every direction but one, and tells Archer in his shower that they have to pass within two million kilometers of the black hole. She says she charted a course, but needs someone else to pilot while she determines the course corrections. Why can’t the computer do that?
Well, if you obssess about Jolene Blalock or Linda Park, a cold shower might be just the thing…
Why would a cup of coffee and a shower alleviate the effects of radiation that’s giving someone Obsessive Compulsive Order?
Travis always seems sedated. At least now he has an excuse.
The shower scene at the end of Act 4 seems to conclusively prove that Travis is the only helmsman on the Enterprise. When Archer mentions him to pilot the Enterprise out of the radiation field, T’Pol says he’s been sedated, and that therefore Archer must pilot the ship.

This is the second episode in a row to feaure some really exotic type of radiation with extremely esoteric-but-non-lethal effects.Luigi Novi

Well, it would've been fatal if they hadn't gotten the ship out of there! While it's true that the radiation in "The Communicator" wasn't lethal, this certainly was (unless you're T'Pol).

One I forgot:

Zero consistency
In the beginning of Act 4, T’Pol gives Archer a heading of, "Zero-one-four mark two-seven." She gives a new heading as "Zero-zero-six mark four." If both half of the heading consist of the same number of whole number digits, why does she mention the zeroes on the first half of the heading, but not the second?

Some additional observations:

Continuity kudos for the mentioning of the repair station incident!

Hoshi makes a big deal about wanting to make the episode from scratch. Now, granted we don't really know what's in the recipe, but I believe her assistant indicated there was meat involved. So, the ship stores their own meat? I guess this isn't really a nit but it seems that they'd use the protien resequencer at all times.

"I'm not the only one."
-- Tucker to Archer after Archer says that Tucker doesn't know anything about writing.

-------------------------

"Hoshi makes a big deal about wanting to make the episode from scratch." -- Sparrow 47

It's a good thing Hoshi can make episodes from scratch, because the creators sure do recycle their episodes pretty often ;)

"The shower scene at the end of Act 4 seems to conclusively prove that Travis is the only helmsman on the Enterprise. When Archer mentions him to pilot the Enterprise out of the radiation field, T’Pol says he’s been sedated, and that therefore Archer must pilot the ship." -- Luigi Novi.

Perhaps Archer is the second best pilot on the ship. It has never been stated what Archer did before becoming a captain. Perhaps he was a top-notch pilot. He did mention in this episode that it felt like he was back in flight school. (Also noting precident: Picard takes the helm to pilot the Enterprise out of a debris field in "Booby Trap")

"T’Pol says in her log that the radiation field extends outward from the black hole for half a light year in every direction but one, and tells Archer in his shower that they have to pass within two million kilometers of the black hole. She says she charted a course, but needs someone else to pilot while she determines the course corrections. Why can’t the computer do that?" -- Luigi Novi

Has it been stated that the computer can do this in the 22nd Century? (Or could be programmed to do this in enough time?)

"I found it odd that Phlox would have a mortar and pestle in Sickbay, less so because he might use them than that they would look so particularly human in design. If Denobulans developed such things for medical uses, wouldn't they look different?" -- SMT

I don't see why. Their hands look just like human hands.

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I don't recall the exact line (and he was being affected by radiation at the time) but Archer said something about his father being the first one to create a stable warp field. Wasn't Cochrane the first one to do this? Or was the Phoenix's warp field not very stable?

I loved Reed's attempt to figure out a shipwide alert system. One of the things I noticed in the first season is that they didn't have the red alert. It's very cool that Reed invents it. I especially laughed at the "Reed Alert" idea. That was very clever.

Very nice episode. Kept me guessing until the very end. Great performances all around.

See ya later
TUE

Here's some things that haven't been mentioned yet:

1. Archer tells T'Pol to slow the ship down to impulse, yet when she meets with him a few minutes later the stars in his window aren't moving!

2. T'Pol seems to show a little emotion during the show, especially when dragging Archer away from his work.

3. So why DIDN'T Reed like the soup?!

This episode seemed like what might have happened if Sarek's disease had continued to affect the crew in "Sarek" (TNG).

But still very nice. I like how the little thing in the show carried it along to the end (things like the cooking scenes and Archer's chair!).

I liked this episode a lot. Loved the last line for some reason.

Is this the first time we've been given a date this season?

I liked the continuity with Reed mentioning the previous attacks.

T'Pol mentions that everyone is obsessing over trivial things. I wouldn't consider security protocols trivial, especially since it ended up helping them (maybe it was because of the fact that Reed couldn't think up a name)

What was with Trip's instant recovery? Resilient fellow.

Was the destruction and breakup of the asteroids realistic? Anyone know?

Loved the "Reed Alert." I thought that he'd have the name down by the end but alas, they did not. There's a first.

Sparrow47: Also, they must've really been sitting on the thing when they started on their impulse-powered flight to the actual black hole. Two days may seem like a bit of a trip, but it's at impulse!
It's half a light day. They're going .25c. They can't be that close, can they?

Sparrow47: T'Pol went the whole time claiming she was never affected by the radiation, but if so, why did she hole herself up in her quarters?
She didn't for very long. When Trip left, she went looking for Reed.

Sparrow47: I'd buy the radiation idea, but then T'Pol wakes up Archer via a cold shower and some coffee. The guy wasn't hung over, he had radiation poisioning! I don't see how the shower and the coffee were supposed to help.
T'Pol woke him up (he obviously wasn't completely out of it) I was under the impression that she used the shower and coffee to get him a little more alert, enough to pilot.

SMT: When Archer asks whether T'Pol would review his preface, she answers "I'd be happy to." A figure of speech implying emotion is something I'd think Vulcans would avoid.
I was surprised at this too. Those pesky humans must be rubbing off on her.

SMT: Okay, T'Pol needs somebody to steer the ship. Mayweather's been sedated, so she picks Archer. Aren't their relief helmsmen? Didn't we see one early on in the episode, in the first flashback scene?
Perhaps Archer is the second-best pilot (that doesn't explain why he has Charles "you scratched the paint" Tucker pilot it)
Or maybe T'Pol realized that he would be the easiest person to snap out of his OC state. She knows that he cares about his ship and crew probably more than anything else. It would be easiest to get him to pilot. If she tries to wake up the relief helmsman, he'll probably just go organize his underwear drawer.

Luigi Novi: Incredible. First, Archer tells Hoshi in Silent Enemy to make finding out Reed’s favorite food a top priority over working on the subspace transceiver array diagnostic, and now, when Trip tells him he’d rather purge the impulse manifolds before fixing his chair on the bridge, Archer tells him to fix the chair first. (Keep in mind that this is before the radiation begins to affect him, and that his obssession is with his writing, not the chair.)
Are you sure that the radiation wasn't affecting him yet? Was there any indication that it wasn't. It may have been in it's early stages with Archer just becoming a little more OC than usual rather than OC on one specific thing.

Luigi Novi: Hoshi tells T’Pol at the end of Act 2 that she has 83 people to feed. It’s actually 81.
Isn't it at 82? (either way, Hoshi is still wrong. Or Trip was in Strange New World)

Luigi Novi: Why would a cup of coffee and a shower alleviate the effects of radiation that’s giving someone Obsessive Compulsive Order?
I don't think that she was trying to rid him of his newly OC nature. Just get him to pay attention to her and alert enough to fly the ship.

Luigi Novi: In the beginning of Act 4, T’Pol gives Archer a heading of, "Zero-one-four mark two-seven." She gives a new heading as "Zero-zero-six mark four." If both half of the heading consist of the same number of whole number digits, why does she mention the zeroes on the first half of the heading, but not the second?
Does it matter? (pick, pick, pick, pick, pick...)

Sparrow47: Hoshi makes a big deal about wanting to make the episode from scratch.
As opposed to an episode from a protein resequencer?

Sparrow47: Now, granted we don't really know what's in the recipe, but I believe her assistant indicated there was meat involved. So, the ship stores their own meat?
He mentioned meat? I must have missed it.

Mike Ram: So why DIDN'T Reed like the soup?!
Must've been to salty for him.

Two more nits I don't think anyone else has mentioned:

1. The crewman tells Hoshi he can resequence some chicken, but she says she only wants to use real ingredients. just how many chickens can be held in the galley? If Hoshi used one, wouldn't it have to be noted in a deduction to Chef's inventory?

2. All of a sudden the ENT has twin phaser cannons on either side of the saucer section! When did this upgrade happen? I thought they just had one "big gun" in that little hatch on the underside of the ship. Reed himself couldn't have installed those two saucer emitters. Also, the beams look and sound too much like the NextGen-type phasers and not enough like the TOS phasers (something that rises from the early first season of ENT, actually).

One last thing, about the chair:

I was actually hoping they were going to install a big cushy chair like the one April/Pike/Kirk used on the 1701. The way Archer said he was always on the "edge of his seat" reminded me of the way Kirk used to sit sometimes, leaning forward as if to encourage his crew.

They were going to. But then UPN slashed three pages to make room for more commercials
Archer tells T’Pol in his ready room in Act 1 that the publishers of his father’s biography want him to write the preface, but only asked for a page. Why in the world would they demand that it only be one page long? Prefaces and introductions to books (today, at least) are often many pages long. Couldn’t they have given him a bit more leeway, by making it, say, two to four pages long?

Sparrow47: Also, they must've really been sitting on the thing when they started on their impulse-powered flight to the actual black hole. Two days may seem like a bit of a trip, but it's at impulse!
Luigi Novi: Full impulse is one quarter the speed of light. That’s pretty fast.

Sparrow47: So, what exactly caused Travis' headache? Phlox finds a chemical imbalance and T'Pol later uses it as evidence of the larger problem, but if the chemical imbalance was the cause, wouldn't everyone else be having headaches?
Luigi Novi: Perhaps. But not everyone may have exhibited the exact same effects. Some may have, and some may not have, and it’s possible that some who did just keep aspirin in their quarters.

Sparrow47: T'Pol went the whole time claiming she was never affected by the radiation, but if so, why did she hole herself up in her quarters?
Luigi Novi: She went to her quarters because Trip refused to cease his repair of the captain’s chair, which caused her ears discomfort.

Sparrow47: T'Pol's solution is to find a course between the stars. There's a black hole between the stars! Then, consider that the belts the ship went through werer right on the event horizion of the black hole! And yet, no mention of any problems with gravity, just some "gravometric sheering"?
Luigi Novi: If the ship is not beyond the event horizon, and maintains the right speed, what problems with gravity are there?

SMT: If Denobulans developed [the mortar and pestle] for medical uses, wouldn't they look different?
Luigi Novi: How different could a Denobulan mortar and pestle look?

SMT: The radiation effects occur in the prefrontal lobe, the very front portion of the brain (roughly the forehead). Yet Phlox, in getting to the root of Mayweather's headache, is about to cut out a thick slab of his parietal lobe, which is roughly at the crown of the head.
Luigi Novi: The parietal lobe is actually at the sides, toward the rear.

Sparrow47: So, why didn't Reed's alert (nice baiting by the creators, btw) go off the first few times the rocks hit the hull?

SMT: Reed said earlier that a hull impact would activate the tactical alert system he's setting up. Later, Enterprise takes a few impacts from what T'Pol calls 'minor debris', but which appear to be rocks at least a few meters across. This doesn't set off the alert.
Luigi Novi: But later when other debris hits it, it does go off. Perhaps the earlier "minor debris" was stuff that T’Pol knew the polarized hull could handle.

PaulG: From what I observed, when Mayweather first enters Sick Bay, Phlox is able to identify him without actually looking at him. How?

Sparrow47: Maybe from some reflective surface that showed Travis entering?
Luigi Novi: First, Phlox turns his head just enough so that he’s in profile, and might have been able to see him with the amount of vision that afforded him. Second, both Fight or Flight and Unexpected established that Denobulans have far more potent sense of smell than humans.

Sparrow47: Well, it would've been fatal if they hadn't gotten the ship out of there!
Luigi Novi: Oh yeah. Thanks.

Sparrow47: Hoshi makes a big deal about wanting to make the episode from scratch. Now, granted we don't really know what's in the recipe, but I believe her assistant indicated there was meat involved.
Luigi Novi: Actually, this is the exchange:

Cunningham: "I’ll need a translation before I can program the protein resequencer."
Hoshi: "Oh, no. You can resequence all the chicken and potatoes you want. But I am making this from scratch."

In other words, she’s telling him he can use the resequencer for the other things on the menu (of which one might be chicken), but that the odem was separate because she wanted to make that from scratch.

TUE: "I'm not the only one." -- Tucker to Archer after Archer says that Tucker doesn't know anything about writing.
Luigi Novi: Yeah, that was a good one. You’d think he was talking to Berman and Braga.

TUE: It has never been stated what Archer did before becoming a captain.
Luigi Novi: Well, DUH, TUE! He was on Quantum Leap, for cryin’ out loud. (Sheesh, dis guy don’t know nuttin’….)

TUE: Also noting precident: Picard takes the helm to pilot the Enterprise out of a debris field in "Booby Trap"
Luigi Novi: Wouldn’t that be an antecedent, rather than a precedent?

TUE: Has it been stated that the computer can do this in the 22nd Century? Or could be programmed to do this in enough time?
Luigi Novi: IMO, the computer of a Warp 4.5 starship travelling at impulse should be able to make course corrections based the original course set, and the debris and gravity shear its sensors pick up.

TUE: I don't recall the exact line (and he was being affected by radiation at the time) but Archer said something about his father being the first one to create a stable warp field. Wasn't Cochrane the first one to do this? Or was the Phoenix's warp field not very stable?
Luigi Novi: The two scenes in which I remember Archer mentioning his father was when he first told T’Pol in his ready room that he was writing the preface, and when he read some lines of it to Trip in Act 2 when Trip was taking scans of him. In neither scene did he mention the warp field, so was there another scene in the episode when he did? And if so, you said he was being affected by the radiation, so wouldn’t that be the explanation? I mean, he was supposed to make the preface only one page long, but it was 19 pages long when he tried reading it to Trip in Act 2.

Mike Ram: So why DIDN'T Reed like the soup?!
Luigi Novi: He said it was too salty.

Mike Ram: This episode seemed like what might have happened if Sarek's disease had continued to affect the crew in "Sarek" (TNG).
Luigi Novi: The radiation eventually caused unconsciousness. The projected Bendii Syndrome merely caused out of control emotions.

JoshM: Is this the first time we've been given a date this season?
Luigi Novi: An explicit one, yes, but Carbon Creek was said to be one year to the day after the launch of the Enterprise.

Sparrow47: I'd buy the radiation idea, but then T'Pol wakes up Archer via a cold shower and some coffee. The guy wasn't hung over, he had radiation poisioning! I don't see how the shower and the coffee were supposed to help.

JoshM: T'Pol woke him up (he obviously wasn't completely out of it) I was under the impression that she used the shower and coffee to get him a little more alert, enough to pilot.
Luigi Novi: Same argument. Radiation that causes a chemical imbalance and OCD doesn’t merely make you less alert until someone gives you a shower and coffee (or at least it shouldn’t).

JoshM: Are you sure that the radiation wasn't affecting him yet? Was there any indication that it wasn't. It may have been in it's early stages with Archer just becoming a little more OC than usual rather than OC on one specific thing.
Luigi Novi: It doesn’t seem to me what was intended by the creators, but I could be wrong.

Luigi Novi: Hoshi tells T’Pol at the end of Act 2 that she has 83 people to feed. It’s actually 81.

JoshM: Isn't it at 82? (either way, Hoshi is still wrong. Or Trip was in Strange New World)
Luigi Novi: Trip said it was 82 in Strange New World. When Archer mentioned in Silent Enemy that when he launched the Enterprise, he risked the lives of "81 humans, a Vulcan and a Denobulan," I noted that that would be 83 crewmen, and 84 with Archer. Darth Sarcasm suggested that Trip may not have been counting T’Pol as a member of that crew in Strange New World, given the antipathy he felt toward her, so it would be 83 with her. He also opined that Archer was indeed including himself in the 81 count he mentioned. Since Daniels was exposed as not being a member of the crew in Cold Front, and apparently killed in that episode, that would’ve brought the roster down to 82, so if you accept Darth’s explanations, (and I have, since it’s both plausible and more consistent), you’re right, Josh.

There was one point about this episode I loved above all others. It was that the writers didn't let T'Pol become the only one not affected by the illness. She said she wasn't. But of course she was. It was just that her obsession was with the black hole itself, the source of the madness. And so her obsession was very helpful to the crew, in that it allowed her to save them. That was one of many nice touches in a story that, even though the over-the-top acting sometimes pushed at the boundaries of disbelief, was executed well-enough that it was a very entertaining hour. I liked how the episode focused on one element, the black hole, and generated such a complete story from it.

More nits and notes:

-- The title of the show was a good use of misdirection by the writers. When I heard "Singularity," I thought of the many Voyager episodes where they encountered a spatial anomoly, which were sometimes called singularities. But here it referred each crew member's obsession with one thing.

-- I liked how Malcolm's obsession of battle-readiness helped Archer and T'Pol at just the right moment.

-- This appears to be Enterprise's equivalent to "The Naked Time/Now." Until those instances, when the stories were done too early into the shows' runs for viewers to really recognize how the characters were behaving strangely, the idea comes off much better as a second-season story.

-- Besides T'Pol's helpful obsession, so was Cunningham's, in that he was obsessing with the crew being fed, unlike Hoshi.

-- "CAR-ROTS!!" might be the most remembered line of the season. It ranks up there with Voyager's "Get this cheese to sick bay."

-- T'Pol tells Archer "I'd be happy to" read the foreword he is writing. "Happy" conveys emotion, though, and really isn't a word I'd expect T'Pol to use.

-- I think I suspected something was wrong with the crew when Travis began speaking. Like two and three sentences at a time. It was weird. Seriously, it was a shame T'Pol couldn't revive him (and why couldn't she?) because he was obsessing with returning to duty, which would have made him much more useful than Archer.

-- Why didn't we see Chef in sick bay?

-- If Archer wants a nonmilitary-sounding alternative to "battle stations," why not "general quarters"?

-- I don't understand why people started passing out. Apparently, only humans did. Phlox was pinched unconscious, and T'Pol remained awake.

Trike: writers didn't let T'Pol become the only one not affected by the illness. She said she wasn't. But of course she was. It was just that her obsession was with the black hole itself, the source of the madness.
Luigi Novi: She was not obssessed with the black hole. She studied the radiation, found out it was affecting the crew, and acted to get the ship away from it. She was not preoccupied with it to the exclusion of everything else. That’s not an "obssession."

Trike: The title of the show was a good use of misdirection by the writers. When I heard "Singularity," I thought of the many Voyager episodes where they encountered a spatial anomoly, which were sometimes called singularities. But here it referred each crew member's obsession with one thing.
Luigi Novi: Or it could’ve had (no pun intended) a double meaning.

Trike: Besides T'Pol's helpful obsession, so was Cunningham's, in that he was obsessing with the crew being fed, unlike Hoshi.
Luigi Novi: No he was not. He appeared in two scenes regarding the cooking, and in both instances he easily yielded to Hohsi without a fight.

Trike: Why didn't we see Chef in sick bay?
Luigi Novi: Phlox said it was a simple virus, and that he should be fine after a few days rest. There’s no need to stay in sickbay just for rest.

LUIGI NOVI: T’Pol says in her log that the radiation field extends outward from the black hole for half a light year in every direction but one, and tells Archer in his shower that they have to pass within two million kilometers of the black hole. She says she charted a course, but needs someone else to pilot while she determines the course corrections. Why can’t the computer do that?---
We do see that in TNG it is possible but thats over 200 years in the future around the 2370's and if i remeber that particular epsiode (not shure which one exactly) there is a great deal of aprehension at letting the computer corse correct it self so if it is questionably possible 200 years form ent why should it be possible in 2152

also did anybody find it odd that T'pol was using human dates in her (a volcan's) personal log

Grungy nitpicking time. Here they call it a Black Hole, but in the Star Trek episode Tomorrow Is Yesterday, they referred to it as a Black Star.
Okay, so the term Black Hole wasn't coined until after that episode was made, that's why it's a grungy nitpick. ;-)

When T'Pol mentioned going past the black hole my first thought was, 'Oh, no. They're stealing plots from Space: 1999.

I also thought that the higher gravity was going to cause problems like in The Naked Time & The Naked Now, but here the problem was radiation.

Given the size of the crew, I thought the soup pot that Hoshi was cooking in seemed too small.

So why was the radiation extending in every direction, but one? Don't stars project radiation outward in all directions? Was their some masive object on the side that blocked the radiation?

I was pleasantly surprised that the chair Trip was planning to build didn't become a vital part in saving the day.

At the end when Archer was sitting in the chair I could see immediatly what the problem was. The armrests are too low. No wonder he feels like he's sliding out of the chair since the only way to rest his arms on those armrests would be to slouch down. A proper armrest should be high enough to reach your elbows when you are sitting properly.

Now, with the Tactical/Reed alert klaxon... Another running gag. Every time it activates from now on, there's a different noise

Luigi Novi: The parietal lobe is actually at the sides, toward the rear.

SMT: That's the temporal lobe, so named because their front edges are at the temples.

Luigi Novi: In the beginning of Act 4, T’Pol gives Archer a heading of, "Zero-one-four mark two-seven." She gives a new heading as "Zero-zero-six mark four." If both half of the heading consist of the same number of whole number digits, why does she mention the zeroes on the first half of the heading, but not the second?

JoshM: Does it matter? (pick, pick, pick, pick, pick...)

:: Only if one wants to live. The writers don’t seem to be aware that voice protocols even exist. The reason you use the digits zero (not “oh”) through niner (not “nine”) and fill all the available slots (three before the decimal, in the case of headings) is to avoid misunderstanding. Used this way, no two digits sound remotely alike. Even so, it defies comprehension how Archer could have misheard T’Pol’s “twelve point four” as “two twenty four,” even if she had properly stated it as “zero one two decimal four.” BTW, the latter confusion came to light when T’Pol asked Archer what heading he was flying. But, by convention, headings in ST are relative to the nose of the ship. Therefore, the answer would always be “three six zero.”


Luigi: They entire crew becomes NITPICKERS!!!
:: . . . which the writers depict as PATHOLOGICAL. At least they’re not ignoring us.

Luigi: [T’Pol] says she charted a course, but needs someone else to pilot while she determines the course corrections. Why can’t the computer do that?
TUE: Has it been stated that the computer can do this in the 22nd Century? Or could be programmed to do this in enough time?
Luigi: IMO, the computer of a Warp 4.5 starship travelling at impulse should be able to make course corrections based the original course set, and the debris and gravity shear its sensors pick up.
Anonymous: We do see that in TNG it is possible but thats over 200 years in the future around the 2370's and if i remeber that particular epsiode (not shure which one exactly) there is a great deal of aprehension at letting the computer corse correct it self so if it is questionably possible 200 years form ent why should it be possible in 2152

:: That (Anon.) is really a TNG nit. Of course a 2152 computer could do this. We’re not that far from it today.

Mike Ram: Archer tells T'Pol to slow the ship down to impulse, yet when she meets with him a few minutes later the stars in his window aren't moving!
:: Of course they’re not. The ship is at impulse.

KAM: The armrests are too low.
:: Which explains:
Mike Ram: . . . the way Kirk used to sit sometimes, leaning forward as if to encourage his crew.
:: And if I were captain, I would have asked for one of those DC cabdriver wooden-bead seat covers.


TUE: Also noting precident: Picard takes the helm to pilot the Enterprise out of a debris field in "Booby Trap"
Luigi: Wouldn’t that be an antecedent, rather than a precedent? [smiley omitted]
:: Nope. Both ante and pre mean before. I don’t think there is a word for following what has yet to happen. Too bad. Good joke.


Trike: writers didn't let T'Pol become the only one not affected by the illness. She said she wasn't. But of course she was. It was just that her obsession was with the black hole itself, the source of the madness.
Luigi: She was not obssessed with the black hole. She studied the radiation, found out it was affecting the crew, and acted to get the ship away from it. She was not preoccupied with it to the exclusion of everything else. That’s not an "obssession."

:: Nevertheless, it’s clear that she was affected by the illness. Otherwise, she would never have claimed to be unaffected. She would have logically concluded that either she was unaffected or that her perceptions were no longer reliable.

Anonymous: also did anybody find it odd that T'pol was using human dates in her (a volcan's) personal log
Luigi Novi: She called it a Science Officer’s Log, not a Personal Log, which would indicate she’s making it as a reference to be used primarily by the crew and/or Starfleet.

KAM: Given the size of the crew, I thought the soup pot that Hoshi was cooking in seemed too small.
Luigi Novi: She was making one batch first to test it because she was so obssessed?

Luigi Novi: The parietal lobe is actually at the sides, toward the rear.

SMT: That's the temporal lobe, so named because their front edges are at the temples.
Luigi Novi: If you like at a diagram of the brain in profile, portions of both of them meet at the sides, with the temporal going down, and the parietal going up. You can see this clearly by comparing a diagram showing the parietal here, and the temporal here. Other diagrams can be seen showing the two here, here, and here. Mind you, your nit is still dead-on, since Phlox said the imbalance was in the prefrontal cortex (although some could argue it was the radiation affecting him).

TJ Fleming: Even so, it defies comprehension how Archer could have misheard T’Pol’s "twelve point four" as "two twenty four," even if she had properly stated it as "zero one two decimal four."
Luigi Novi: Well, he was affected by the radiation. (But thanks for the info about voice protocols; at the time I pointed this out, I didn’t think it was an important issue, and just figured it was grungy nitpicking. )

TJ Fleming: BTW, the latter confusion came to light when T’Pol asked Archer what heading he was flying.
Luigi Novi: She didn’t ask him what his heading was, she told him they were too far to port, he said she said 2.4, and she corrected him.

TJ Fleming: Nevertheless, it’s clear that she was affected by the illness.
Luigi Novi: I guess I must’ve missed it, but what indications were there that she was affected?

Wow, Porthos DOES have ability to blend with background when frightened!
Watch Porthos when Archer dictates the preface. His position on bed changes constantly.

Yes, but they are miracle workers too.
Not sure is this is really nit, or my poor understanding of the dialogs, but here goes:
Archer asks T'Pol to power up the phase cannons and she responds that it will take too long. But after 'Reed Alert' activation phase cannons are suddenly fully charged and kicking... What do you think about it?

But anyway, I must say I liked that episode, contraty to the previous

TJ Fleming: Nevertheless, it’s clear that she was affected by the illness.
Luigi Novi: I guess I must’ve missed it, but what indications were there that she was affected?
:: When she says she's unaffected, she's ignoring a reasonable, alternative hypothesis-- namely, that like the rest of the crew, she's affected and doesn't recognize it. But a Vulcan would at least look into that alternative (scientific method and all that). Her failure to think it through tips us off that, even if her actions appear normal, she's not thinking like a Vulcan (to the extent T'Pol ever thinks like a Vulcan). Then again, maybe I'm just obsessing.

NANJAO: At the end, Phlox thanks T'Pol for stopping his needless attempt to operate on Mayweather, and she says, "I wasn't sure it would work on a Denobulan." We know she's referring to the Vulcan nerve pinch. However, Phlox doesn't know what "it" was and Archer definitely doesn't. And so far there's no indication that the humans, at least, definitely know the Vulcans have that ability. (Let's assume for a moment that Trip didn't see T'Pol pinch the Suliban in Shockwave Part II. His view was from a distance and didn't look that clear to boot, so it's possible he saw her take out the Suliban but not how.)

Anyway, T'Pol's line didn't sound quite right to me in this context. I was expecting Archer to ask her, "You weren't sure what wouldn't work on a Denobulan?" instead of asking Phlox, "What surgical procedure on Travis?"

Nice touch I thought they'd never do (at least they wouldn't have bothered on Voyager) -- Trip scans Archer for the chair measurements. I thought he'd end with one scan, leaving us with the question, "How can he make it fit properly if he only scans the side that never touches the chair?" But Trip tells him to turn around and scans his back side. (No jokes, please!)

Is the reason Archer insisted on not calling it "Battle Stations" to avoid being reminded constantly of that awful Diane Carey book?

When the chair's in place, Trip tells Archer to cross his legs. He does it "European style" with one knee directly over the other. Here in the U.S., only women (MOSTLY!) cross their legs that way. Guys usually make a number "4" shape, by putting the opposite ankle over the knee, or cross much lower, at the ankles.

I said something a while back that if they did the 'crew goes crazy virus' that the show was probably out of good ideas. This one proved me wrong. Very good.

Full impulse is one quarter the speed of light. That’s pretty fast.Luigi Novi

And space is pretty big! They should've been able to see the singularity from the ship's vantage point if they were only that short of a journey, but we never saw it until the ship actually got there.

If the ship is not beyond the event horizon, and maintains the right speed, what problems with gravity are there?Luigi Novi

I guess my problem is they said they could only get within X million kilometers, then this solution brought them much, much closer, and no one really mentioned any problems from that.

In other words, she’s telling him he can use the resequencer for the other things on the menu (of which one might be chicken), but that the odem was separate because she wanted to make that from scratch.Luigi Novi

Cool. That makes sense.

Okay, here's why I think T'Pol was affected by the radiation: She originally leaves the bridge because Trip can't stop tinkering with the chair, and the noise just drives her nuts. Now, I don't entirely think that her leaving is perfectly consistent, but okay... then she goes to her quarters and starts requesting equipment so she can get closer to what she has on the bridge. The only reason she leaves afterwards is to track people down and hassle them to install the equipment! Other than that, she stays away from the bridge, when she could easily return as Trip has moved the chair to Engineering. Why is this? She could be much more effective on the bridge, but she stays away. That's how she was affected.

Meanwhile, an interesting note on shipwide communications. Reed says he sent the specs on his "Tactical Alert" to T'Pol's console on the bridge. Really? Why would she have to go to her console to get that piece of information? Shouldn't she have a central account that would allow her to access that information from anywhere? And can anyone go to her console and read her mail? What if it were sensitive material?

Uh, what the •••• happened to my post? I made a post where I cracked a joke about the entire crew tunigning into Monk (it's a detetcive show on USA with Tony Shaloub as a detective with OCD, very funny), and it's GONE NOW! What the hell? Richie, my day had been messed up enough as it is, tell me you had a GOOD reason for removing it.

NANJAO: I found the way that Archer "wrote" the preface very interesting (he talks, it types).
Mike Ram: All of a sudden the ENT has twin phaser cannons on either side of the saucer section! When did this upgrade happen?
The Enterprise had two forward and one aft cannon installed in Silent Enemy. It should only have a total of three.

TUE: "I'm not the only one." -- Tucker to Archer after Archer says that Tucker doesn't know anything about writing.
Luigi Novi: Yeah, that was a good one. You’d think he was talking to Berman and Braga.
It never gets old does it?

TUE: I don't recall the exact line (and he was being affected by radiation at the time) but Archer said something about his father being the first one to create a stable warp field. Wasn't Cochrane the first one to do this? Or was the Phoenix's warp field not very stable?
Luigi Novi: The two scenes in which I remember Archer mentioning his father was when he first told T’Pol in his ready room that he was writing the preface, and when he read some lines of it to Trip in Act 2 when Trip was taking scans of him. In neither scene did he mention the warp field, so was there another scene in the episode when he did? And if so, you said he was being affected by the radiation, so wouldn’t that be the explanation? I mean, he was supposed to make the preface only one page long, but it was 19 pages long when he tried reading it to Trip in Act 2.
Archer does mention something to this effect when he is recording the preface with Porthos. I think it's the scene where he quiets his poor puppy.

Luigi Novi: you’re right, Josh.
Whoa. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to read these words in a post by Luigi Novi. It's a miracle.

Trike: This appears to be Enterprise's equivalent to "The Naked Time/Now.
And Dramatis Personae? Maybe?

Trike: The title of the show was a good use of misdirection by the writers. When I heard "Singularity," I thought of the many Voyager episodes where they encountered a spatial anomoly, which were sometimes called singularities. But here it referred each crew member's obsession with one thing.
Luigi Novi: Or it could’ve had (no pun intended) a double meaning.
Agreed.

KAM: Given the size of the crew, I thought the soup pot that Hoshi was cooking in seemed too small.
Luigi Novi: She was making one batch first to test it because she was so obssessed?
I doubt that the entire crew was eating at the time.

TJFleming: That (Anon.) is really a TNG nit. Of course a 2152 computer could do this. We’re not that far from it today.
We're not that far from computers that could chart courses and fly ships and maitain their course near the gravitational stresses of a black hole?

TJFleming: When she says she's unaffected, she's ignoring a reasonable, alternative hypothesis-- namely, that like the rest of the crew, she's affected and doesn't recognize it. But a Vulcan would at least look into that alternative (scientific method and all that). Her failure to think it through tips us off that, even if her actions appear normal, she's not thinking like a Vulcan (to the extent T'Pol ever thinks like a Vulcan). Then again, maybe I'm just obsessing.
Maybe she she did look into the alternative and concluded that she wasn't affected.

TJ Fleming: When she says she's unaffected, she's ignoring a reasonable, alternative hypothesis-- namely, that like the rest of the crew, she's affected and doesn't recognize it.
Luigi Novi: Not necessarily. It’s possible that she already did consider it, and concluded that she was in fact not affected. She examined her own behavior to see if she were focusing on one thing to the exclusion of (and out of proportion to) other things, and to the point of neglecting her duties or becoming violent. She wasn’t. She thought about whether she felt any tendency to fall unconscious. She did not. Perhaps she even took tricorder readings of herself to see if she had a chemical imabalance.

As far as the neck pinch, Dragon, it’s possible everyone already knows about it. She used it in Strange New World and Acquisition, and may have filed reports in which she mentioned it.

Influx: I said something a while back that if they did the 'crew goes crazy virus' that the show was probably out of good ideas. This one proved me wrong. Very good.
Luigi Novi: I also thought Strange New World was good.

Sparrow47: Okay, here's why I think T'Pol was affected by the radiation: She originally leaves the bridge because Trip can't stop tinkering with the chair, and the noise just drives her nuts. Now, I don't entirely think that her leaving is perfectly consistent, but okay... then she goes to her quarters and starts requesting equipment so she can get closer to what she has on the bridge. The only reason she leaves afterwards is to track people down and hassle them to install the equipment! Other than that, she stays away from the bridge, when she could easily return as Trip has moved the chair to Engineering. Why is this? She could be much more effective on the bridge, but she stays away. That's how she was affected.
Luigi Novi: Sparrow, it is clear that you are arbitrarily interpreting innocuous things in the episode—things that were not intended by the creators to be indications that she was affected—in order to artificially shoehorn T’Pol and Cunningham into the pattern.

In every exchange she has with a member of the crew, it is clear that she is the calm one, that she is observing irrational behavior on their part, which she discovers is caused by the radiation. It is clear from the exchange between her and Trip in the opening scene of Act 2 that it is he who is acting irrationally, not her. She is simply working in her quarters on a matter directly related to her primary duties, and when she asks for his help with the sensor interface, he begins putting undue emphasis on the captain’s chair. Saying that because she prefers to work in her quarters she must be suffering from the OCD radiation, is to see giants where there are only windmills.
---When she leaves, she doesn’t "hassle" Reed, she simply tells him that she needs to establish a sensor interface in her quarters because Trip became uncharacteristically agitated. She is quite calm when she tells Reed this, and asks him if he’s noticed any odd behavior from Trip. Reed, on the other hand, is the one who acts paranoid. She asks her to identify herself when she appears. He suggests she might be a shapeshifter disguised as her. He is armed. He finds her desire to interface with the sensors suspicious. He speaks of Archer with a disrespect tone. Your use of the word "hassle" is a mischaracterization used to describe her actions in a lopsided way. So is the word "people," when she only goes to one person—Reed—regarding the sensor interface. By the time she leaves the Armory, she has abandoned the issue of the sensor interface, and is just observing the crew’s odd behavior, having now noticed a tentative pattern, now that she’s observed this behavior in two different people. The next person she sees is Hoshi, whom she merely asks for plomeek broth. She witnesses Hoshi acting odd. Then the altercation between Archer, Trip and Reed in the Situation Room. At no point during these subsequent scenes does she mention the interface.
---There is a legitimate point you bring up, namely, why doesn’t she go back to the bridge once Trip tells her he left the bridge in the opening scene of Act 2. At best, this may be a nit. Or, you could say that given the Vulcan work ethic, and the privileges of being First Officer, she wanted the ability to monitor important things when off duty in her quarters. Perhaps she wanted this ability for some time, and just got around to it now. Perhaps it’s some of that cattiness we’ve seen in her at times. But either way, her behavior simply isn’t depicted in such a way that it is intended to indicate that she’s affected by the radiation.

JoshM: The Enterprise had two forward and one aft cannon installed in Silent Enemy. It should only have a total of three.
Luigi Novi: Yep. Mike may have been thinking of the Reed’s line in that episode that the Enterprise was designed to carry three, but that they only had one, the prototype. He must’ve forgotten (as did I) that the next line was from Trip, who said their job was to get it up and running, and build two from scratch.

JoshM: Archer does mention something to this effect when he is recording the preface with Porthos. I think it's the scene where he quiets his poor puppy.
Luigi Novi: If you watch this scene, you can see that the radiation is beginning to severely affect him to the point where he can’t even form a coherent sentence. This is what he says:

Archer: "In a way creating a stable… warp field mirrored the…the f-flux of emotions my… father felt when he…embarked on… Computer, pause. Delete the last paragraph. Hell, delete the whole thing."

I wouldn’t put much stock into what he says here, and besides, Henry Archer and Cochrane were trying to create a stable Warp 5 warp field. It is that what the Warp Five facility was created for.

Luigi Novi: You’re right, Josh.

JoshM: Whoa. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to read these words in a post by Luigi Novi. It's a miracle.
LOL. Aw, come on!

Just so you know, I included in my Nitpick Document your alternate viewpoints regarding my nit in Detained about other ships in the prison hangar, my nit in Vox Sola about where the crew landed on the creature’s planet (though I also included a rebuttal to that viewpoint), your point that the Enterprise first went to Warp 5 in Flight or Fight, not Fallen Hero, our little disagreement regarding Zobral’s fascination with water worlds in Desert Crossing, and your response to my nit regarding hot T’Pol reads headings in this episode (though I included TJ Fleming’s rebutall to that).

I do think that T'Pol was affected by the madness, and frankly, I'm just so excited that the writers have inserted a point like this into a story that can be debated. I love it that there was no clear-cut answer about whether T'Pol was affected, but there were clues she might have been, despite what she said to the contrary.

Ultimately, Luigi, myself nor anyone here is going to be able to offer you conclusive evidence that T'Pol was affected. It's a piece of the story that's left to interpretation, and there's no way to prove one view is right and another isn't (short of the writer revealing his intention).

But I think T'Pol was affected. One of the indicators was in the writing: She denied being affected enough times to draw suspicion to the fact. Also, Trip was right. She should have had the mental discipline to not be distracted by the noise he was making on the bridge. But she didn't, so I took that as a sign something was wrong with her. She did focus intently on one task -- studying the black hole. And once she realized the crew's odd behavior was connected to the black hole, she focused on a solution.

Unlike the others around her, her obsession wasn't so total that she lost her perspective. So, no, her obsession wasn't complete, but I think that was a sign of how the madness affected different species differently. It seemed to me that Phlox was affected more acutely than the humans, that he lost his perspective quicker.

And, as I said, T'Pol's obsession was beneficial to the crew, in that she was obsessed with the source of the madness and wasn't affected as severely. Because of that, I could see her rationalizing that she weren't affected. But when everybody else on the ship succumbed, there's no reason to think she didn't.

So, there's my argument. Decide for yourselves.

Etc. and etc. ...

-- Sometimes I really wish this board had an edit feature. On my initial post, where I wrote, "This appears to be Enterprise's equivalent to 'The Naked Time/Now.' Until those instances...", I meant "unlike," not "until."

-- Luigi, I was mostly being tongue-in-cheek about Cunningham being obsessed with feeding the crew (though that would give him something in common with his ancestor, Marian Cunningham), so I won't even attempt to defend it.

-- Josh, besides "Dramatis Personae" (which I only vaguely remember; it's been so long since I've seen it), we could also include last season's "Strange New World," maybe even the revisionist Voyager crew from "Living Witness." This wasn't exactly an original premise, but I think it was executed well.

... "This Side of Paradise" from the original series ... Voyager's "Bliss" ...

Oh boy, now I'm obsessing.

KAM: The armrests are too low.
TJFleming :: Which explains:

IIRC One of Archer's complaints was that he felt like he was slipping out of his chair.
I sit in chairs with low armrests and usually find myself unconsciously slouching down to rest my arms on the arm rests.
This also results in my butt moving toward the edge of the chair, so if I sit straight up, I'm perched on the edge of the seat, which I believe was his other complaint about the chair.

A note from Richie Vest: Brian I have not deleted any post from you or anyone on this board. I have checked there are no messages in the garabage dump. So Brian your post must not have gone through.

TJFleming: That (Anon.) is really a TNG nit. Of course a 2152 computer could do this. We’re not that far from it today.

JoshM: We're not that far from computers that could chart courses and fly ships and maitain their course near the gravitational stresses of a black hole?

:: No, we’re not that far from computers that can fly as well as a human pilot.

Keith--I understood your armrest point. My complete comment was:

KAM: The armrests are too low.
TJFleming: Which explains:
Mike Ram: . . . the way Kirk used to sit sometimes, leaning forward as if to encourage his crew.
TJFleming: [separate topic related to seat but not responding to anything].

Influx: Here in the U.S., only women (MOSTLY!) cross their legs that way.
:: So THAT'S why they used to snicker at me on the basketball team bench.

All in all, a lot of seen-it-before whoop-de-do just to make a single original point--the naive etymology of "red alert."
Besides, they're wrong. Colm Meaney invented the term while running through the streets of Dublin in "The Snapper."

Sparrow, it is clear that you are arbitrarily interpreting innocuous things in the episode—things that were not intended by the creators to be indications that she was affected—in order to artificially shoehorn T’Pol and Cunningham into the pattern.Luigi Novi

Goodness, and no one ever does that here.

First of all, I never said Cunningham was affected. Others have talked about him, I haven't.

Second of all, the point I was trying to make was that while T'Pol was affected, she was not affected to the extent that the rest of the crew was. An observation of her activities in this episode shows that she does behave differently from her normal routine, just not as radically different as the rest of the crew But she was affected.

Trike: Ultimately, Luigi, myself nor anyone here is going to be able to offer you conclusive evidence that T'Pol was affected. It's a piece of the story that's left to interpretation, and there's no way to prove one view is right and another isn't (short of the writer revealing his intention).
Luigi Novi: Of course there is. Just watch the episode. The creators didn’t "insert" anything. It is clear that they had no intention of indicating T’Pol was affected. If they wanted to, they would’ve made it far more concrete and obvious. The reason you’re insisting on this is because this theory is a whimsical one, not one based on any line of objective observation or evidence, and the things you’re coming up with are being presented in a lopsided and exaggerated way.

Trike: But I think T'Pol was affected. One of the indicators was in the writing: She denied being affected enough times to draw suspicion to the fact.
Luigi Novi: She denied being affected once.

When T’Pol gives Archer the cold shower at the end of Act 3, he tells her to tell Phlox. She says Phlox has been affected as well. He says, "But not you?" She responds, "Vulcan physiology seems to be immune." SEEMS to be. In other words, she is simply answering his question, and is using the tentative language of a scientist, not the paranoid behavior of someone in denial like Trip, Reed, Hoshi, Travis or Phlox. What would you expect her say? She tells him that she’s not being affected because she isn’t being affected. If her telling him that she isn’t affected is an indication that she is, then what answer would you expect her to give if she weren’t being affected?

If you see this as "enough times to draw attention to the fact," it’s because you’re deliberately looking for things to shoehorn into this supposed pattern. The idea that denying that she is affected is an indication that she is is the same bit of preposterous reasoning used by a character in the HBO movie Indictment, about the McMartin Trial in California, which was shown to be a witch hunt. The character, a pseudoscientific quack passing herself off as a child psychologist, insisted that the reason why one child insisted that she was not molested when interviewed by her was because she was in denial.

Trike: Also, Trip was right. She should have had the mental discipline to not be distracted by the noise he was making on the bridge.
Luigi Novi: What in the world does mental discipline have to do with the sensitivity of Vulcan hearing? You’re telling me if I blared a loudpeaker right into the ear of one of those Shaolin monks, it wouldn’t hurt their ears? C’mon, Trike.

Vulcan "mental discipline" is not some magic wellspring that allows them to do anything, or to withstand any and all things that are painful to humans.

Trike: But she didn't, so I took that as a sign something was wrong with her. She did focus intently on one task -- studying the black hole. And once she realized the crew's odd behavior was connected to the black hole, she focused on a solution.
Luigi Novi: Again, you are mischaracterizing. "Focusing intently on one task" is not obsession. People "focus intently on one task" all the time when working diligently. The engineers focused on one task when they had to build and install phase cannons. Hoshi has to focus intently when deciphering a language. I focus on my task when I work. When I copy a photograph into one of my sketchbooks, I usually do it line for line, shade for shade. That’s a normal work ethic, not obsession. You seem to have a great deal of difficulty noticing the proper distinction between these two things, and between the way T’Pol behaves, and how the rest of the crew behaves.

In each of the other crew members, they are focusing on minutiae, trivial, unimportant things that they are placing undue emphasis on, to the exclusion of other more important things, often irrationally repeating the same actions over and over, to the detriment of their health, their duties, and the safety of others, and even sometimes becoming violent. THAT is an obsession, and it does not describe how T’Pol behaves.

The fact that you and Sparrow can’t seem to make this point without such blatant exaggeration and mischaracterization—turning making a request into "hassle," turning one person into "people," turning a simple but honest answer to a question into "denying being affected enough times to draw suspicion to the fact," turning "focusing intently on one task" into "obsession," and saying that someone is obsessed because a loud noise hurts them, because people with mental discipline aren’t bothered by ear-splitting noises—is not an indicator of T’Pol’s behavior. It’s an indicator of an inability on your part to observe and describe the events in the episode objectively.

Trike: Unlike the others around her, her obsession wasn't so total that she lost her perspective.
Luigi Novi: Which is precisely why it wasn’t an obsession in the first place. To focus on something so totally that you lose perspective is exactly how an obsession could be described. Performing a task or doing something (the sensor interface) prior to realizing that something’s wrong with the crew, and properly abandoning that thing when realizing that the situation calls for reprioritizing is exactly why her behavior cannot properly be described as obsessive.

What you have to ask yourself this: Did she act irrationally? Did she act in a way that may have caused harm to herself or others? Did she neglect everything around her? Did she, bottom line, do anything unusual that we could not have seen her do in any other episode? The answer is no. Does the crew not focus on tasks, given who they are, the field they’re in, and the necessities of maintaining life on a starship? The answer is yes. It’s not a question of whether her obsession was "total," it’s whether she had one at all. If the fact that she didn’t act at all like the crew, that her activities in the beginning of the episode were normal and non-exaggerated, and that she was able to save crew mean her obsession wasn’t "complete," then what exactly establishes it to have existed at all?

You speak of "T’Pol’s obsession" in a matter of fact manner, when haven’t established first whether she had one. It doesn’t work that way. In order for the "you’re just in denial" tactic to be a sound and legitimate one, you have to first establish that there is a problem.

Trike: But when everybody else on the ship succumbed, there's no reason to think she didn't.
Luigi Novi: That fact that the creators made it CLEAR she wasn’t, when they wrote it into the script that Vulcan physiology seems to be immune, IS the reason. Just because you want to embrace, fabricate or exaggerate things that are consistent with your perception, and ignore things are not, doesn’t mean there isn’t such a reason.

Sparrow47: First of all, I never said Cunningham was affected. Others have talked about him, I haven't.
Luigi Novi: Sorry, I mistakenly attributed Trike's statement to you. Sorry about that.

Sparrow47: An observation of her activities in this episode shows that she does behave differently from her normal routine.
Luigi Novi: No, it doesn't. As I've pointed out, your description of her behavior are inaccurate. There is nothing she does in this episode that she wouldn't do in another, or which cannot be explained as normal behavioral idiosyncracies. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

No, we’re not that far from computers that can fly as well as a human pilot. - TJFleming

And when I go to the supermarket, the doors open automatically. On Enterprise, they have to push a button. Clearly, either WW3 or the Eugenics War had some affect on future technology.

Luigi Novi, my original nit about brain structure spoke about, quote, "his parietal lobe, which is roughly at the crown of the head." Your diagram links confirm that. Both the parietal and temporal lobes can be said to be at the sides of the head, granted, but the crown is the parietal lobe.

(If I'm contentious about this, it's because I've been writing science fiction stories lately involving the brain. It's professional pride. :-) )

Luigi Novi: . . . preposterous reasoning used by a character in the HBO movie Indictment, about the McMartin Trial in California . . .
:: . . . which was not about VULCANS. That’s the whole point of the perception argument.

Luigi: You’re telling me if I blared a loudpeaker right into the ear of one of those Shaolin monks, it wouldn’t hurt their ears?
Spock: “I am a Vulcan. There is no pain.”

Darth Sarcasm: Clearly, either WW3 or the Eugenics War had some affect on future technology.
:: For sure! (The mother of all nits–why can’t they do things in the distant future that are either on the technological horizon now or already here? Like hit what you’re aiming at.)

Whoops! And I meant effect, not affect.

Sorry, I mistakenly attributed Trike's statement to you. Sorry about that.Luigi Novi

S'okay!

As I've pointed out, your description of her behavior are inaccurate.Luigi Novi

Well, so's your grammar, if you wanna get picky about it. No, my descriptions are fine- I'm describing what T'Pol does, namely retreat to her quarters once Trip starts working on the chair. My interpretation of her actions is the problem, not the description.

And a question- several people seem to think that T'Pol was in some way affected by the radiation in this episode. Obviously, you do not. But will the objections of several other people be enough to get this part into your nitpicking document? This isn't intended to be confrontational; I'm just wondering.

Luigi is absolutely right about T'Pol not being affected. I don't want to repeat what he stated so well, but I can't understand why people are having a problem with this. We see in the very first scene that the ultimate effect of this radiation is that it causes so much damage to the brain that it results in unconsciousness. The fact that T'Pol was not unconscious should prove that she wasn't affected.

NIT:
At the end of the episode, everyone gets up like nothing happened. Shouldn't they all be suffering from radiation poisoning?

See ya later
TUE

Has anyone noticed how many episodes Berman and Braga have written this year? Only three of the ten episodes have been penned by other writers. Anyone know why?

I didn't think she was affected, as she'd stated, until someone brought up the possibility that she just didn't exhibit all the signs, or as strongly as the others. I thought it an interesting take on it.

I suppose either supposition could be strengthened by a second viewing, but it doesn't matter to me all that much. I've got other stuff to do besides watching reruns.

Richie: Yeah, that's probably what happened. I was just having a REALLY bad ••••••• day yesterday man.

Only three of the ten episodes have been penned by other writers. Anyone know why?Josh M

Possibly because having gotten the series started they now feel comfortable turning the reins over to the staff?

The fact that T'Pol was not unconscious should prove that she wasn't affected.TUE

Yes, I would say that proves she wasn't affected to the same extent as the rest of the crew, but I still maintain that she was affected, only ever so slightly. To each their own.

The fact that T'Pol was not unconscious should prove that she wasn't affected. - TUE

This would prove nothing of the sort. It could simply be that she was affected, but simply not as badly as the rest of the crew.

I agree that there's nothing to say that she was definitively affected. However, there's also nothing (except her word) to indicate that she absolutely wasn't. I'm willing to entertain both possibilities.

On the whole was T'Pol affected question. I hate to bring up a third alternative, but it may be correct. The writers (or producers, or whomever) wanted it to be unclear. Being unclear un-nits any potential nits. If later Luigi points out that T'Pol should be X because she was unaffected by the radiation someone can say that she was not as unaffected as you think. It works in reverse to. If someone says T'Pol should have Y because this radiation did affect her Luigi can say, "No it didn't".

(A moving target is hard to hit, but no target is impossible to hit.) Being as ambiguous as possible provides no target. (But the Vulcan’s clearly had energy weapons then like in the flash back in Seven. No, she had a projectile weapon, so their options were limited by the tools available.)

TJ Fleming: which was not about VULCANS. That’s the whole point of the perception argument.
Luigi Novi: The fact that T’Pol is Vulcan, and not human, does not, in itself, mean that your arguments are sound. The argument rests upon whether the things you point out can objectively be interpreted to indicate the things you say they do, particularly when you look at the big picture (whether what she’s doing is really unusual, how much background information we have on her "routine" is like, whether it appears the creators, based on the quality of their work, intended this to be interpreted this way, how many really concrete things you can find that indicate this scenario, what, given Occam’s Razor is the most likely explanation, etc.), not whether T’Pol is a Vulcan. My point was that the reason you were employing was the same type of hollow sort of "this innocuous thing really means that other really bad thing" reasoning that witch hunters use, like Satie and Sabian in The Drumhead.

From Indictment
"Ray buckey was briefly into the New Age phenomena of pyramids, which is like pentagrams, so he might be involved in a child molestation cult. Ray once smoked pot. Ray had pornography featuring an adult man and adult woman, so he must be into kiddie porn. Ray has only had sex with one woman, so he must have problems having normal sexual relationships with women."

From The Drumhead
"Simon Tarses’ paternal grandfather was Romulan. Therefore, he might be a Romulan collaborator, even though the dilithium crystal chamber explosion was proven to be the result of a defect, and even though J’Dan was not indicated to be collaborating with anyone. A Romulan spy successfully infiltrated the Enterprise and was transported to a Romulan Warbird, so I question Picard’s loyalties. Worf’s father was accused of collaborating with Romulans, so having him as Chief of Security on the Enterprise is suspect."

The reasoning thus far employed to argue T’Pol was affected by the radiation is of the same quality.

Luigi: You’re telling me if I blared a loudspeaker right into the ear of one of those Shaolin monks, it wouldn’t hurt their ears?

TJ Fleming: Spock: "I am a Vulcan. There is no pain."
Luigi Novi: First, even if this is a quote from an actual episode, it does not mean Vulcans do not feel pain. Spock, Worf and T’Pol have all exaggerated about things they or other members of their races supposedly "don’t do."

Spock: "[Vulcans] do not speculate." (Court Martial(TOS))
Worf: "I do not play games." (The Way of the Warrior(TNG))
T’Pol: "Vulcans do not imagine things." (Oasis)

Vulcans most certainly sense pain. Loud enough sound can destroy the eardrum, and kill you. Mental discipline might enable one to withstand non-lethal pain, like when someone pinches you, or the torture Tuvok endured in Resistance(VOY), but it won’t keep your anatomy from being damaged from ALL types of hostile stimuli. There has never been anything to establish that Vulcans never feel pain, or that T’Pol is even as disciplined as Spock. (From all appearances, she’s not.) Vulcans do, on the other hand, have far more sensitive hearing. The noise hurt T’Pol’s ears, so she left.

Luigi Novi: As I've pointed out, your description of her behavior are inaccurate.

Sparrow47:No, my descriptions are fine- I'm describing what T'Pol does, namely retreat to her quarters once Trip starts working on the chair.
Luigi Novi: Some of your statements are characterizations, rather than objective descriptions. One of the things you said was this:

The only reason she leaves afterwards is to track people down and hassle them to install the equipment!

I can see at least three different areas in which that statement alone is inaccurate. I already pointed out two of them. I don’t know why you have not addressed those response by me.
1. The use of the word "only" implies that she is holed up in there for an unusual amount of time like some kind of hermit, without coming out at normal intervals for the normal reasons people take a break from their work. Are people who work eight hour days with only an hour lunch in the middle "obsessive"? Just what other reasons would she have to go out for? Just how long, according to you, was she in there before going out? An hour? Three hours? Nine? If all Trip had to do was remove the chair from the bridge and take it to Engineering, just how long did that take? Fifteen minutes? A half hour? It makes no sense to say, "She was in there for an hour and only left for so and such a reason."

2. She does not track "people" down, she goes to see ONE PERSON—Reed—to help her with the interface. One. Not "people." One. You exaggerated.

3. She did not "hassle" Reed. She asked him if he could help her with the sensor interface. Another characterization.

You can ignore the portions of my post above where I mentioned these things the first time all you want, Sparrow. It doesn’t change the fact that your presentation of this argument is pseudoscientific in its reasoning.

Sparrow47: And a question- several people seem to think that T'Pol was in some way affected by the radiation in this episode. Obviously, you do not. But will the objections of several other people be enough to get this part into your nitpicking document?
Luigi Novi: No. I include alternative viewpoints when the poster uses a solid bit of convincing reasoning to point out why my interpretation of the scene—or someone else’s may not be what actually happened. It’s a matter of the merit of the argument, not how many disagree with me. Just about all of the instances where I’ve included such alternate views involve just one person who pointed out a very reasonable scenario. So far, every single bit of reasoning you and Trike have offered to argue she was affected falls short of that. Sorry, dude.

JoshM: Has anyone noticed how many episodes Berman and Braga have written this year? Only three of the ten episodes have been penned by other writers. Anyone know why?
Luigi Novi: They’re envious of J. Michael Straczynski?

Anyone wanna remind Berman and Braga that November is supposed to be sweeps. I don't think they realize that, considering the last three episodes.

Note: T'Pol said "I'd be happy to." Isn't that obviously uncharacteristic for a Vulcan? She was affected.

No she wasn't. The radiation caused obsessive compulsive behavior. Not erosion of Vulcan suppression of emotion.

Again, if the creators wanted to indicate she was affected, they would've been more consistent and less vague about it, and had her acting emotional throughout the episode. They didn't.

It was an idiosyncratic turn of phrase.

Darth Sarcasm: And when I go to the supermarket, the doors open automatically. On Enterprise, they have to push a button. Clearly, either WW3 or the Eugenics War had some affect on future technology.

Just because they're not on the ship doesn't mean they lost the technology over the years. The designers may have decided that it would be more efficient and practical if doors didn't whoosh open every time someone came within two feet of them.

if the creators wanted to indicate she was affected
How is it that everyone now knows what the creators wanted to indicate. Are any of you B&B in disguise? Maybe they did want to be subtle or vague. I personally don't think that T'Pol was affected (not very much anyway) but I don't think that we should just assume how and what the creators intended.

Rene: Anyone wanna remind Berman and Braga that November is supposed to be sweeps. I don't think they realize that, considering the last three episodes.
Well, they did bring back the Klingons on October 31 (not quite there but close)
And they did have a high profile guest star on The Seventh, whom I believe did a pretty good job, BTW. Maybe there will be something sweeps-worthy next week in the Hoshi ep (if you don't consider Linda Park a viewer getter)

*Note: I'm going by memory here. I'm going to have to start taping the shows again, as my memory isn't as accurate as I'd like. For now, though, you get what you get.

After agreeeing to read over the preface, Archer asks if she'll write it for him. Did I miss the joking tone? Did T'Pol know Archer's father? If not, how could she write the preface to the biography of a man she didn't know? Or was Archer suggesting that she ghost-write it (he tells her the story, she writes it for him)?

While I liked the different attempts at a klaxon (nice mix of the klaxon we know and our modern car alarms), along with rest of Reed's paranoia, the "Reed Alert" bit seemed too contrived for words. I can recall nothing in the conversation that even sounded close to "Reed Alert." So how did Trip come up with that line? It didn't seem to fit anything going on at all.

After Phlox knocks out Mayweather, Phlox starts applying the restraints, even though Mayweather's body is hanging half-way off of the bed. Phlox apparently realises this, as when T'Pol visits later on, Travis is positioned properly on the bed.

NANJAO: Does anyone else find Jolene Blalock's yelling to be overly stilted? It's like she has to emphasize each sylabble, making it very staccato, and hard to listen to.

Don't the phase cannons stick out from the hull? Why, then, do the shots seem to come from the hull itself, similar to TNG era phasers? (Can someone confirm this for me?)

-It's getting late, so I'll comment on everyone else's posts later. 'Night.

Maybe there will be something sweeps-worthy next week in the Hoshi ep (if you don't consider Linda Park a viewer getter) -- JoshM

Yup. Her clothes vanish right before she does. (C'mon, it's sweeps.)

T'Pol saying, "I'll be happy too," is evidence of nothing. (Maybe it is evidence she's worked with humans a lot.)

I've seen Jewish people swear "Jesus". I don't think common expressions mean a whole lot. (I've never felt compelled to have a nice day. [Just to show them I'll have a lousy day!])

Was T'Pol affected but much, much less than the humans (or Denobulan)? If there were dead bodies everywhere and she started studying the black hole I'd say "yes, definitely." The episode did not cover that, however.

Was her going to her quarters and setting up to study the black hole there evidence of anything? It was reasonable as everyone else's obsession at the beginning.

It is like an old person forgetting where he put his car keys. It could be the onset of Alzheimer’s or it could be normal. To be sure Doctor Phlox must operate on her brain.

The only reason she leaves afterwards is to track people down and hassle them to install the equipment!Me

I can see at least three different areas in which that statement alone is inaccurate. I already pointed out two of them. I don’t know why you have not addressed those response by me.Luigi Novi

Well, I've got a little time, why don't I do that now?

1. The use of the word "only" implies that she is holed up in there for an unusual amount of time like some kind of hermit, without coming out at normal intervals for the normal reasons people take a break from their work. Are people who work eight hour days with only an hour lunch in the middle "obsessive"?Luigi Novi

I think you're reading far too much into the use of the word "only" here. Now, I do think the word is accurate- the only reason she left was to go find Reed, not to go eat, not to go to the gym, to find Reed. Thus, the word fits. As for your second question there, no, but those people are actually working at the places they're supposed to work, whereas T'Pol isn't. Instead, she's in her quarters, isolated from the crew, cut off from the best equipment and unable to receive messages that would be important for the first officer to receive (i.e., Reed's creation of a password to get into the armory.) This doesn't seem like a wonderful idea.

She does not track "people" down, she goes to see ONE PERSON—Reed—to help her with the interface. One. Not "people." One. You exaggerated.Luigi Novi

Okay, I exaggerated. But she did call Trip in rather than go out looking for him. That may not fall under "tracking down" but it does count as a qualifier for "people."

She did not "hassle" Reed. She asked him if he could help her with the sensor interface. Another characterization.Luigi Novi

Well, if she just wanted his help, why did she go out to see him rather than stay and call for his help like she did Trip's? Clearly she was more determined this time around.

I include alternative viewpoints when the poster uses a solid bit of convincing reasoning to point out why my interpretation of the scene—or someone else’s may not be what actually happened. It’s a matter of the merit of the argument, not how many disagree with me...So far, every single bit of reasoning you and Trike have offered to argue she was affected falls short of that.{Luigi Novi}

Hey, I was just curious. Good to know what protocols the collector of nitpicking uses in his collections. Or something like that.

Loved this episode. There were a lot of good laughs in this one.

Reed alert? I guess we should have seen that one coming. But when Reed is discussing the idea with the captain, the captain tells him not to call it battle stations. Duh! There already is an alert called battle stations; it's the only higher state of readiness (Reed-iness?) the ship has at the moment.

Did anyone else think that the destruction of that big rock was both too fast and too clean? I'm no expert on 22nd century energy weapons but I would think that the rock would sort of burn away, like when you pour boiling water on ice cubes. Instead, the big rock explodes into five nice neat little pieces.

Nice touch: T'Pol makes lousy coffee!

As for why T'Pol didn't wake Mayweather up, I can think of two reasons: first, Travis has been cooped up in Sickbay with Phlox doing God only knows what to him. That's probably why T'Pol didn't even try to wake him up. She had no idea what Phlox may have already done to our hapless ensign and she doesn't know what drug Phlox used to knock him out. I'm no doctor but I imagine the wrong stimulant could cause a lot more harm than good. Second, Travis had several lines in this episode. I think he's used up his quota for the moment!

Interesting question: since Trip established that there are no micro inertial dampeners on the captain's chair, I presume there are none on the helm either. So exact what good is that joystick going to do, considering how much the ship is bouncing around?

I'm surprised there were no real consequences to Archer having the ship about ten degrees too far to port. They are travelling at about a quarter of the speed of light. You don't have to go left for very long at that speed before you encounter trouble, especially in a field of Huge Rocks and Bad Gravity. Try it in a car sometime, when you're doing 90. Enterprise should have ended up in the ditch!

As to the arguement of whether or not T'Pol was affected by the radiation, I'll put in my two cents. She may have only been mildy affected, causing her to focus a little more than usual. So the radiation might have had a positive effect on her. On the other hand, she might have just noticed that all the humans on the ship were behaving strangely and her work would be better accomplished away from all the emotional turmoil.

Another nice touch: when Archer mentions the scientists he met, one of them is named Tasaki. It's nice to see that there are some non-Americans pioneering space travel. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Americans or anything. But Star Trek rarely ever wishes to admit that anyone else on Earth might want to get to space. Just look at the credits sequence. No Mir, no Sputnik, nothing but American explorers. Unless every other country that was part of space race was utterly destroyed in World War III, I can't see Starfleet forming solely out of America, especially if it was an American idea in the first place.

I wonder how many more times poor Mayweather is going to be nearly dissected on the show! Will this be like DS9's "torture O'Brien" episodes? One Mayweather dissection per year?

I definitely get the impression that this episode is a not so subtle commentary on nitpickers. It's nice to be so loved.

Luigi (Last Word) Novi: No she wasn't. The radiation caused obsessive compulsive behavior. Not erosion of Vulcan suppression of emotion.

Again, if the creators wanted to indicate she was affected, they would've been more consistent and less vague about it, and had her acting emotional throughout the episode. They didn't.

It was an idiosyncratic turn of phrase.

Yeah. OK. All right. Whatever. But the mere fact that it can be speculated upon (at length) means there is some vagueness about the issue.

Just a small nit in how you said something. Don't pull a Luigi and start with long posts, ok.

I agree with you that it was purposefully vague, but sorry the mere fact it can be speculated on does not mean it is vague. I can speculate they sky is green and that does not mean the color of the sky is vague.

What I think you mean (forgive me if I'm putting words in your mouth) is the mere fact that several people came up with that impression independently means it is vague. (Of course three people discussing how the sky is really green don't make the color of the sky any "vaguer" but...)

Someone help me here. I must have a point. ("Yeah, the one on your head," is old, used, and tired.)

Blue Berry, don't worry about long posts from me. I don't have the time, patience, and encyclopedic knowledge and resources that Luigi has. I didn't care for his longer posts at first, but now look forward to (most of) them. Only when it gets into nannit picking do I get irritated.

As you noted, I don't always state my message clearly enough in my own posts. I think I know what you're getting at, and what I meant. Back to Strunk & White for me.

Oh, and ! (To bring it back to lightheartness and good cheer!)

I really enjoyed this episode. I thought it was the best one yet, giving everyone acting in it at least one good scene, and they all performed splendidly. Even Scott Bakula, which really surprised me.

Since I did not know anything about the episode before it began, I thought that the little scene about the Captain's chair was nicely funny without the usual heavy-handedness of B&B's forced humor. The funny by-play of Trek actors has always been a valuable part of every great episode.

I thought T'Pol's line to Archer about focusing on one incident for his Preface was a nice line in a show entitled "Singularity."

I caught on at just the right time-- about a quarter of the way through-- that obsession was the key problem caused by proximity to this Black Hole. The writing was quite subtle to that point. So was the acting.

All in all I enjoyed this very much. I do have some questions, however.

"This is not a warship." It isn't? Then why do they carry weapons and react violently to things they see going on in the galaxy, including things that are none of their business at best and they may make worse? Or is it because Archer is as poor a Captain as he is a diplomat? Well we've already read the "Star Fleet is/is not military" argument by our Nitpicker-in-Chief.

I can see Archer being a Captain, but if the ship is non-military then he needs Mates and Seamen, not a Sub-Commander, a Commander, Lieutenants and Ensigns. (The alternative ranking system to the military one for Star Fleet to follow is NASA's-- Mission Commander, Pilot, Mission Specialist and Payload Specialist. Any military ranks held by these persons are irrelevant to Shuttle operations.)

Are the controls for Archer's shower actually located outside the shower stall, or am I misunderstanding the geography of the shower? T'Pol seems to control the spray from outside the wet area. My shower controls are in there with me where I can reach them.

Was this really radiation affecting the crew? That close to a Black Hole I would expect gravity to have the greater effect, given that the ship must be shielded against radiation already. Also, the crew's rapid recovery with no lasting physical damage does not seem consist with any radiation poisoning I can think of near a black hole. But it is consistent with a previously unexperienced exposure to hypergravity. Once they were far enough away from the gravity well they recovered. Radiation poisoning would have continued to affect them. Gravity as the cause would also explain why a native of high-gravity Vulcan was temporarily less affected than the humans.

Is T'Pol's 'obsession' Captain Archer? Already my friends and I have placed bets on when the wedding is going to occur. Clearly her logic is uncertain where the Captain is concerned. The ship's pilot, not her Captain, was the best choice to pilot the ship in an emergency.
I must have missed the explanation of why the only logical course to escape was to get closer to the black hole, not turn around and get out. Was this in fact the only solution to the problem?

Oh by the way. I also want to express my delight that the computer can be spoken to but doesn't talk back! The Enterprise-D computer could get quite sassy :-)

One of the things I like to do with stories is look for things that are implied but not explicitly stated. Themes, subtext and whatnot. I haven't seen much of this on Enterprise, but I thought I had found a good example when I pointed out that T'Pol had been obsessed, despite her denials. I didn't think everybody would agree with me, because what the story had said leaned in the opposite direction, and because it was only an interpretation, my interpretation. But still, it's my opinion, and nothing I've read here has changed it.

Luigi, I know you think what I have written is bunk, and I respect that. I just have a couple of rebuttals:

-- T'Pol twice said she thought she was not affected by the radiation. The first time, you mentioned, was the shower scene. The second time was in sick bay, to Phlox after the ship was out of danger. As you said, she hedged her statements by saying she presumed she had not been affected, and her doing so was reasonable. But to me, that leaves things open to interpretation.

Now, I have to admit, I had thought there had been three denies, not two, the first being in her opening log entry. When I watched the episode a second time -- just the second time this season I've done so -- I realized this wasn't the case, but she did say that "the crew" was infected, not excluding herself, and she indicated she would not live the 9-10 days it would take for a rescue ship to arrive. And notice her tone became increasingly stressed toward the end of the entry, as though she was having difficulty remembering the events of two days ago. It seemed clear something was wrong with her.

-- I disagree that the difference between T'Pol and the rest was that they were focused on trivial tasks. In fact, everybody became focused on what they were doing when the ship was exposed to the radiation. And many were doing things they had been ordered to do. Just as Trip had been ordered to look at the captain's chair, so had T'Pol been to study the black hole. It was only her interpretation that the others' tasks had become trivial.

-- One final item. Influx, I have to trump you for tying T'Pol's "I'd be happy to" line with the affects of the radiation. She said that before the ship had gotten too close to the star and before anybody else had exhibited symptons. It just seems to be a regular-old nit.

(FYI: My computer crashed the first time as I was writing this post, a thrill when you have a cold and can't get to sleep, so this is my second attempt. I hope all my points still came across clearly. Apologies if I were vague.)

Oino Sakai,

Are the controls for Archer's shower actually located outside the shower stall, or am I misunderstanding the geography of the shower? T'Pol seems to control the spray from outside the wet area. My shower controls are in there with me where I can reach them. -Oino Sakai

Good catch. I missed that completely.

The possibility that the effect was caused by gravity and they at first think it is "some kinda radiation" un-nits the Trip rapid recovery. The nit comes back if three months from now they mention the radiation that made them obsessive.

T'Pol "possibly" being obsessed with Archer would also un-nit the not using the other helmsman nit. (On T'Pol being obsessed, this is not conclusive proof. It would explain why she didn't get the other helmsman and thought "Archer".)

Apologies if I were vague. - Trike
Why apologize, vagueness fits this discussion.

Whoops! Sorry, TJ. I thought your "Which explains" was meant as a question. I guess I'm so used to either defending or explaining my posts I didn't expect someone to use one as an example.

Dustin Westfall: While I liked the different attempts at a klaxon (nice mix of the klaxon we know and our modern car alarms), along with rest of Reed's paranoia, the "Reed Alert" bit seemed too contrived for words. I can recall nothing in the conversation that even sounded close to "Reed Alert." So how did Trip come up with that line? It didn't seem to fit anything going on at all.
Well, Reed was making the protocols. Why not name it after the creator? Besides, I believe that Trip may have been at least partially joking.

Dustin Westfall: NANJAO: Does anyone else find Jolene Blalock's yelling to be overly stilted? It's like she has to emphasize each sylabble, making it very staccato, and hard to listen to.
Yeah it may be her. Then again, as a Vulcan, she may not be completely used to it. They usually try to keep their voice levels under control. Then again, this is like the third time she's yelled on the series. Maybe the radiation was affecting her.

D.W. March: But Star Trek rarely ever wishes to admit that anyone else on Earth might want to get to space. Just look at the credits sequence. No Mir, no Sputnik, nothing but American explorers.
It does have the International Space Station in the credits. That's it I think though.
And Sputnik appeared in Carbon Creek.

oino sakai: The ship's pilot, not her Captain, was the best choice to pilot the ship in an emergency
She tried Travis but apparently she couldn't wake him.

oino sakai: I must have missed the explanation of why the only logical course to escape was to get closer to the black hole, not turn around and get out. Was this in fact the only solution to the problem?
If they had gone any other way that past the Black Hole, the ship and crew would have been exposed to the radiation for too long and they would have died. On the other side of the hole, there wasn't any radiation so the ship had to get to the unradiated area as fast as possible.

. I especially laughed at the "Reed Alert" idea. That was very clever.

I wondef if "Reed Alert" is a double pun -- on both Red Alert and on the well-known (at least in L.A.) SigAlert. For those who don't know, the SigAlert is used to indicate an unscheduled highway lane closure lasting at least a half hour. It was named after its create Lloyd C. Sigmon.

3. So why DIDN'T Reed like the soup?!

Some people just don't like Japanese food. I suspect that Reed, being so properly British, is one of them.

If the ship is not beyond the event horizon, and maintains the right speed, what problems with gravity are there?Luigi Novi

I guess my problem is they said they could only get within X million kilometers, then this solution brought them much, much closer, and no one really mentioned any problems from that.

If you get beyond the Event Horizon you are INSIDE the black hole (though, in theory, you could get out using warp}. But outside the event horizon there are massive tidal forces. It depends on how close to the event horizon you are.

OT, but what the hey. J&GRS's book Federation lets them go inside a black hole, and get out using warp. In theory, the event horizon is the point where you cannot escape the gravity field, even if you are travelling at the speed of light. If you're at warp, you should be able to get out.

TJ Fleming: Spock: "I am a Vulcan. There is no pain."
Luigi Novi: First, even if this is a quote from an actual episode, it does not mean Vulcans do not feel pain. Spock, Worf and T’Pol have all exaggerated about things they or other members of their races supposedly "don’t do."

I believe it's a quote from Operation: Annihilate!. IIRC (from Blish, not the aired ep, alas), Spock is trying to control the pain from the flying plastic barf. I believe him saying this is kind of a mantra, to help him maintain his control.

>After agreeeing to read over the preface, Archer asks if she'll write it for him. Did I miss the joking tone? Did T'Pol know Archer's father? If not, how could she write the preface to the biography of a man she didn't know?< Dustin Westfall

He was most likely joking. I did almost the same thing last week, asking my dance teacher if she'd write my biology paper for me. I jus really didn't want to do it, but I was joking with her.

One thing about whether T'Pol was affected. To me, Vulcans seemed to be a little singleminded to start with when faced with a problem. This can be interpreted as wither OCD or as just the natural way of Vulcans.

Luigi Novi: …if the creators wanted to indicate she was affected…

JoshM: How is it that everyone now knows what the creators wanted to indicate. Are any of you B&B in disguise?
Luigi Novi: Just out of curiosity, Josh, is this directed towards me only, or to the others as well? (Just curious.)

To answer, I would say that at the most basic level, understanding and enjoying any type of story in any medium requires the viewer to understand the writer’s intent. My understanding of what happened when everyone on the Enterprise starting choking toward the end of Transfigurations(TNG) was that the Zalkonians did something to cause them to do so. My understanding of the end of The Sixth Sense was that Bruce Willis had died in the beginning of the movie. After all, it’s not like anyone came out and explicitly SAID that this was the case in those stories, right?

Of course, perhaps you’re asking this only because in this particular case, the details being offered to suggest that T’Pol was affected are a less fundamental part of the plot in this episode, and less obvious.

In a story, especially in the short story of a 41 minute television episode, everything that is specifically chose to be put in the script should be in there to help move the plot forward. If the Chris Black wanted the viewer to understand that T’Pol was affected, he would make sure to make that CLEAR. He wouldn’t have T’Pol telling Archer that Vulcan physiology seems to be immune, and he’s not going to include that line to suggest the opposite, unless there is a specific dramatic reason to do so, unless that reason itself is made clear. If Chris Black wanted to indicate that T’Pol was affected, he would have made that point evident in some way or another, either by having T’Pol admit to herself, by having Archer or someone else point it out, or by having her act in such a way that it was obvious that she was.

Ultimately though, I don’t have to prove the negative. It is the one arguing the positive who has to prove their case, and so far, every single thing offered has been presented in a less-than accurate and objective way.

JoshM: Maybe they did want to be subtle or vague.
Luigi Novi: Sure. In between coaching Linda Park on how to scream "CARROTS!!" at the top of her lungs just right, and inspecting Jolene Blalock’s form-fitting catsuit to ensure that it’s riding up her ass just enough, someone decided to be subtle. Absolutely.

JoshM: …but I don't think that we should just assume how and what the creators intended.
Luigi Novi: I don’t have to assume. I just have to understand what their intent is by what they did put in the episode. They did not put anything in it to indicate she was affected. It is the others who are arguing that she was affected that are assuming a less than obvious explanation for things that all things are not equal.

I would also point out that this site is kinda dedicated to discussion of things like arguing what the creators intend by certain plots and episodes. Don’t we discuss what the creators intend when we talk about "message" episodes?

JoshM: And they did have a high profile guest star on The Seventh, whom I believe did a pretty good job, BTW.
Luigi Novi: Bruce Davison is a high profile guest star?

Dustin Westfall: After agreeing to read over the preface, Archer asks if she'll write it for him. Did T'Pol know Archer's father? If not, how could she write the preface to the biography of a man she didn't know? Or was Archer suggesting that she ghost-write it (he tells her the story, she writes it for him)?
Luigi Novi: She was on Earth for at least a year according to Breaking the Ice (or two, if you believe Fusion), is a science officer, and as a Vulcan monitoring Earth’s progress towards a Warp 5 engine, might be familiar with the histories of people like Cochrane and Henry Archer, so yeah, she might be familiar with him. Second, she wouldn’t have had to have a detailed knowledge of his life to write a one-page preface, esp. if she does some research. Writing a preface or introduction is sometimes a matter of focusing on a specific anecdote or angle, and its relationship to the content of the book within.

Dustin Westfall: Don't the phase cannons stick out from the hull? Why, then, do the shots seem to come from the hull itself, similar to TNG era phasers? (Can someone confirm this for me?)
Luigi Novi: The cannons stick out from the underside of the hull, so when we see the beams from the camera angle that’s above the saucer, it looks that way.

Sparrow47: I think you're reading far too much into the use of the word "only" here.
Luigi Novi: Uh, I’m reading too much into things? I am? You think denial of something is in itself proof of that something, but I’m reading too much into it? LOL. Okay. Sure.

Sparrow47: Now, I do think the word is accurate- the only reason she left was to go find Reed… Thus, the word fits.
Luigi Novi: Grammatically, it’s accurate. Contextually, it’s a characterization meant to pad your argument.

If you didn’t have a specific idea you wanted to promote, and wanted to describe T’Pol’s actions objectively, without any bias, you simply would’ve said, "The reason she left her quarters was to find Reed." You used the word "only" because you’re trying to make it sound as if she was so obsessed with the black hole that she somehow ignored every "other" reason to leave her quarters except the one that ties in with her supposed "obsession," without showing that there were any such reasons.

Sparrow47: …not to go eat, not to go to the gym…
Luigi Novi: Sparrow, in order to establish that she was somehow holed up in her quarters and not leaving for the reasons that she would otherwise normally do, you have to first establish that it was time to do those things, or that she had not already done so, that she was putting off for an inordinate amount of time to study the black hole, and that this is not normal for HER.

You’ve established none of these things. You’ve simply substituted fiat for fact. A Night in Sickbay showed her going to the gym at 12:09am. Do we know what time it is when we see her in her quarters? No. Do we know if she already went to the gym that day? No. As for "no to go eat," well, she does go the Mess Hall for plomeek broth, so I don’t know why you said that. I suppose if you want to extend this rationalization by way of supposition, you could assume she that she only realized she was hungry/it was time to eat after she left the Armory, but we don’t know that either. For all we know, she ultimately left her quarters for both of those reasons.

If someone came into her quarters and said, "T’Pol, you’ve been in here for eight hours. Chef said you hadn’t been by the Mess Hall, and I noticed you weren’t in the gym at your usual time. This isn’t like you. Is something wrong?", then THAT would’ve provided us with evidence that she was affected, not only because it would’ve provided us the amount of time she was there, and whether she had done these other things, but most importantly, whether these things were unusual for HER.

The attitude here seems to be "Well, okay, we don’t know these things, but I don’t care, because it’s my interpretation/opinion, so I’ll just pretend that knowing those things isn’t necessary, because when it’s an interpretation or opinion, you don’t have to think about those things."

Sparrow47: As for your second question there, no, but those people are actually working at the places they're supposed to work, whereas T'Pol isn't.
Luigi Novi: Excuse me, Sparrow, but how exactly is it that you decide where she is and isn’t "supposed" to work? Where has it been established that the first officer can’t opt to work in her quarters? Again, this is an assumption you simply made up, and are casually referring to as if it’s fact.

Sparrow47: Instead, she's in her quarters, isolated from the crew, cut off from the best equipment and unable to receive messages that would be important for the first officer to receive
Luigi Novi: Oh really? The comm system doesn’t work now? Again, this is a portrayal of the scene, not an objective description. If something was that important, the person sending it would make sure that she got it. Reed, on the other hand, isn’t acting very rational in this scene.

Sparrow47: (i.e., Reed's creation of a password to get into the armory.) This doesn't seem like a wonderful idea.
Luigi Novi: Good God, now you’re saying that Reed was acting rational when he sent a voice-encrypted command package to her bridge console WITHOUT first clearing his new protocols with Archer and her?

Sparrow47: Okay, I exaggerated. But she did call Trip in rather than go out looking for him. That may not fall under "tracking down" but it does count as a qualifier for "people."
Luigi Novi: You weren’t talking about Trip. You mentioned the amount of people she left her quarters to go see AFTER she spoke with Trip. Stop backpedaling.

Luigi Novi: She did not "hassle" Reed. She asked him if he could help her with the sensor interface. Another characterization.

Sparrow47: Well, if she just wanted his help, why did she go out to see him rather than stay and call for his help like she did Trip's?
Luigi Novi: Maybe she didn’t feel like it. Maybe she wanted some fresh air. Why do you assume that Vulcans don’t have tastes, moods, preferences and behavioral idiosyncrasies like humans do? Maybe she realized she was getting hungry, or that it was time to eat, so she decided to see Reed in person before going to the Mess Hall. What difference does it make? None of this has anything to do with whether the way in which she spoke to Reed could be described as "hassling." She calls one but goes to see another, and that constitutes "hassling?" She calls one but goes to see another, and that’s evidence of obsession? No. I don’t think so.

Sparrow47: Clearly she was more determined this time around.
Luigi Novi: Determination has nothing to do with "hassling," or with obsession. To hassle means to pester or bother, which in itself implies either that the matter she went to see him with was unimportant, or that she spoke to him in a bothersome or repetitious manner. She didn’t.

Sparrow47: Hey, I was just curious. Good to know what protocols the collector of nitpicking uses in his collections. Or something like that.
Luigi Novi: Glad to be of help.

D.W. March: She may have only been mildy affected, causing her to focus a little more than usual.
Luigi Novi: Again, what exactly has been established to be "usual" for her? Can someone answer that? What’s her schedule? How many work hours does she put in each day? When does she normally eat, sleep and work out? How exactly can you establish that she focuses more than usual without knowing what "usual" is for her?

Influx: Yeah. OK. All right. Whatever. But the mere fact that it can be speculated upon (at length) means there is some vagueness about the issue.
Luigi Novi: No it does not. Saying that merely suggesting or arguing a theory is in itself even a small measure of its certainty or ambiguity is not a valid argument.

Luigi Novi: Kirk and Spock were gay lovers.
Influx: No, they weren’t.
Luigi Novi: Were too. The mere fact that we’re arguing means there’s some vagueness about it. And there’s all that slash fiction about them.

oino sakai: "This is not a warship." It isn't? Then why do they carry weapons and react violently to things they see going on in the galaxy, including things that are none of their business at best and they may make worse?
Luigi Novi: Carrying weapons is not evidence that the Enterprise was designated as a warship. It wasn’t. It was designated for exploration. Cops carry weapons. That doesn’t mean they are designated as soldiers.

And when have they ever reacted violently to things that are none of their business?

oino sakai: Are the controls for Archer's shower actually located outside the shower stall, or am I misunderstanding the geography of the shower?
Luigi Novi: Even though she does use a set of controls outside the stall, we saw in the teaser for Unexpected that there’s a set inside as well, just underneath that vent under the shower head. For her to use the one she did makes sense, since given a choice, she’d rather operate the ones that wouldn’t cause her to immediately get wet, but I’d wonder why the ship’s designers put that outside set in the first place.

Trike: I didn't think everybody would agree with me, because what the story had said leaned in the opposite direction, and because it was only an interpretation, my interpretation.
Luigi Novi: But that doesn’t mean the arguments used to explain it can be composed entirely of non sequiturs, exaggerations, and presumptions not established as fact. "Interpretation" isn’t a magic wand that turns automatically gives de facto legitimacy to something. Any type of conclusion should be argued with coherent reasoning, not simply by pointing to things that are conventional and concluding that they really mean something unconventional.

In order to show that T’Pol was affected—even if only as a preliminary theory or "interpretation"—you have to establish that the things she does in this episode would CLEARLY not be seen in any other episode, and then explain WHY the simpler, more conventional explanation is not as good an explanation as the more exotic idea that the radiation is affecting her. That’s the scientific method. Citing "opinion" or "interpretation" doesn’t allow you to make an end run around this. So far, every single argument offered for the latter scenario violates this principle.

Trike: T'Pol twice said she thought she was not affected by the radiation. The first time, you mentioned, was the shower scene. The second time was in sick bay, to Phlox after the ship was out of danger.
Luigi Novi: By that time, the ship had passed out of danger. Interesting how you omit that fact.

Trike: As you said, she hedged her statements by saying she presumed she had not been affected, and her doing so was reasonable. But to me, that leaves things open to interpretation.
Luigi Novi: Denying that you are suffering from some malady is not evidence that you are suffering from that malady, nor does it become so just because you phrase the suggestion to that effect as an "interpretation."

Trike: Now, I have to admit, I had thought there had been three denies, not two, the first being in her opening log entry. When I watched the episode a second time -- just the second time this season I've done so -- I realized this wasn't the case, but she did say that "the crew" was infected, not excluding herself, and she indicated she would not live the 9-10 days it would take for a rescue ship to arrive. And notice her tone became increasingly stressed toward the end of the entry, as though she was having difficulty remembering the events of two days ago. It seemed clear something was wrong with her.
Luigi Novi: This is entirely your own invention. Her voice does not become more stressed toward the end, it remains calm and stable throughout. This stuff about her having difficulty remembering the events of the past two days is just made up.

Trike: I disagree that the difference between T'Pol and the rest was that they were focused on trivial tasks. It was only her interpretation that the others' tasks had become trivial.
Luigi Novi: Again, you’re over-emphasizing only partial aspects of the situation, and ignoring the larger context.

Obsessive compulsive behavior doesn’t mean merely focusing on trivial tasks. It also means when tasks are repeated, when anxiety sets in due to the irrational fear that that the task wasn’t done correctly because of some arcane detail, and when this is done to the exclusion of other more important things. I could’ve sworn I already said this above once or twice.

Is cooking for the crew trivial? Well, no. But when a small portion of the same dish is repeatedly cooked over and over because of the irrational fear that it is too salty, taking more time than should be allotted to that task, and to the point where one is unable to attend to their regular ship’s duties, even when a crisis situation arises that would require one to suspend that task to return to those duties, then that task DOES become trivial in terms of PRIORITY. The crew most certainly WAS doing this, and it is for that reason that T’Pol was absolutely RIGHT.

Simply focusing on whether the tasks themselves were called "trivial," and ignoring these other qualifying points, is yet another indicator of how dishonestly this idea is being argued.

There is nothing suspicious in T’Pol’s behavior in this episode that you would not see in any other episode.

Ultimately though, I don’t have to prove the negative. It is the one arguing the positive who has to prove their case... - Luigi

People have used this argument before, and it never makes sense to me. All you have to do is change the semantics...

You believe T'Pol is immune. Prove it.

Again this issue has popped up...

Sometimes things are told via SUBTEXT. Believe it or not, sometimes subtext isn't intentional. If T'Pol were being affected but just not as badly as the rest of the crew, it may not have been necessary to convey that to the audience through the dialogue. And it was instead conveyed via the performance and a couple of her actions.

At the risk of positing an analogy you'll just dismiss, imagine this scenario:

You go out drinking with friends. Your friends become noticeably intoxicated, but because you feel fine you offer to drive them home. Does this mean that you weren't buzzed (maybe even legally intoxicated) yourself?

I agree that you might be right, and it wasn't intended. But the intention of Chris Black (the Chris Black is a little pretentious, doncha think?) isn't known. Unless Chris Black or some other person responsible for the show comes forward and tells us their intention, it's all speculation and open to interpretation.

Your Kirk/Spock analogy is false because we know that wasn't the intention of the writers.

Well said, Darth. And pleasantly succinctly, I might add.

JoshM: And they did have a high profile guest star on The Seventh, whom I believe did a pretty good job, BTW.
Luigi Novi: Bruce Davison is a high profile guest star?

He meant Tom Hanks as the tall alien. (You mean all that make up made him unrecognizable to you?)

Darth Sarcasm: People have used this argument before, and it never makes sense to me.
Luigi Novi: That’s unfortunate, given that it’s an integral part of the scientific method. When someone comes up with a new idea, a theory, or an unconventional explanation for something, it is up to THEM to provide argumentation/evidence for it, not the person listening to them to prove the negative.

Darth Sarcasm: All you have to do is change the semantics... You believe T'Pol is immune. Prove it.
Luigi Novi: It doesn’t work that way. If someone wants to prove that she was affected, the burden is on them. Every bit of reasoning offered to explain this idea thus far is pathetically flimsy, and doesn’t hold up under the scrutiny of logic and rational thinking.

Darth Sarcasm: Sometimes things are told via SUBTEXT. Believe it or not, sometimes subtext isn't intentional. If T'Pol were being affected but just not as badly as the rest of the crew, it may not have been necessary to convey that to the audience through the dialogue. And it was instead conveyed via the performance and a couple of her actions.
Luigi Novi: Again, the word "subtext" is not an argument, any more than "opinion" or "interpretation." A given theory or assertion has to be ARGUED on its MERITS, not on whether subtexts merely exist. Of course there is subtext in storytelling. That doesn’t mean that any ol' thing one points to necessary is one, just because they declare it so. No action by T'Pol has been offered that could not be the result of more prosaic explanations, which is what is REQUIRED if one is to consider a NON-PROSAIC one.

Darth Sarcasm: You go out drinking with friends. Your friends become noticeably intoxicated, but because you feel fine you offer to drive them home. Does this mean that you weren't buzzed (maybe even legally intoxicated) yourself?
Luigi Novi: In that scenario, you offered the fact that you were drinking as a given. In the one at hand, T’Pol’s being affected is not. The question of whether she was affected is the entire point.

Because this disagreement concerns arguing whether she was affected, then in order to make the analogy accurate, the person trying to determine whether I’m drunk, has to be someone who doesn’t already know ahead of time if I am or not, and is trying to conclude based on indirect evidence. The accurate analogy would be a cop witnessing me and my friends going into the bar, and later witnessing us walking out, and seeing me trip and stumble. Am I drunk? Well, I could be, but let’s say he is called away to some other place on his radio, and is unable to confirm this (Just as we don’t have Chris Black or Jolene Blalock to ask to prove this point). Can he conclude that I am drunk? Can he just say, "Well, it’s my interpretation/opinion that he was drunk, simply because he fell, and for no other reason I could see, even though there are conventional reasons to explain tripping"? Well, he can say it, but it doesn’t mean there’s any merit to that statement when my tripping could simply have been a case of conventional tripping.

Darth Sarcasm: I agree that you might be right, and it wasn't intended. But the intention of Chris Black isn't known.
Luigi Novi: Don’t those two statements contradict one another? Or did you just mean "Yeah, he probably didn’t intend it but we don’t know for sure."? (Just making sure I understand it.)

Darth Sarcasm: Unless Chris Black or some other person responsible for the show comes forward and tells us their intention, it's all speculation and open to interpretation.
Luigi Novi: The fact that things are open to interpretation does not mean each interpretation has equal merit. The simplest, more conventional, obvious explanation for something should be assumed as the correct one UNLESS the evidence for a less conventional one is GREATER. None has been offered here for Sparrow and Trike’s less conventional explanation for T’Pol’s behavior that is stronger than conventional ones.

Darth Sarcasm: Your Kirk/Spock analogy is false because we know that wasn't the intention of the writers.
Luigi Novi: How do we know that? It’s my interpretation/opinion/subtext. If Chris Black’s interpretation is open to interpretation, why not the TOS writers?

I didn't share my ideas about T'Pol being affected by the radiation so I could enter a formal debate and get into a back-and-forth where there's an effort to disprove everything I write. I did it to share something I noticed in the show I thought others might not have. So, Luigi, I really don't have rebuttals to your challenges of my lines of reasoning or to my interpretations of the story. I've made my case to my satisfaction so that others here could decide for themselves.

There are a couple points to clear up, though.

-- I disagree with your comparison of what happened to the crew to a "malady." The crew wasn't stricken by an illness; it was under the effects of an unknown form of radiation. Everybody was exposed to similar levels of the radiation, including T'Pol -- the only one to claim it had no effect on her.

-- I think everybody can figure out who was the first one to point out that T'Pol's denial to Phlox came after the ship was out of danger.

Every time I look at a Web review about this episode, there is a mention about how derivative the plot was -- especially of other "Star Trek" stories. I mentioned some earlier, and later thought that Voyager's "Workforce" fit the general mold, too. Others I have seen mentioned are DS9's "Fascination" and Voyager's "Memorial."

I'm having a problem with the reasoning for approaching the black hole at impulse for two days. According to T'Pol, the gravimetric shear between the stars will require them to "drop to impulse." Somehow, Archer understands that to mean they have to approach the system at impulse. However, it the gravimetric shear is between the stars, there's no reason to approach the system at impulse. Nor is there any reason whatsoever to not warp out once the radiation is discovered.

If we use the impulse = 1/4 light speed (it may be less, given that the scale is based on future technology), they start out 1/2 light day from the system. According to T'Pol, though, the radiation expands for half a light year around. Wouldn't that mean they have been in the middle of the radiation for a while now? Did someone screw up the line?

Even though it wasn't an actual emergency, why did T'Pol simply stand there in the galley when the Tactical Alert was called? Shouldn't she have immediately headed for the bridge, with Captain in tow?

As far as the "Was T'Pol affected by the radiation?" question, I was thinking she was the first time I saw it. However, when I caught the rerun, it seemed pretty clear that she wasn't, at least in anywhere near the same way as everyone else. Given that she is the only Vulcan on the ship, it wouldn't be unreasonable for her to exhibit different symptoms than the rest of the crew. However, aside from the cattyness that T'Pol has shown before, there is no evidence of any unusual symptoms.

Also, since she was in Sickbay after knocking out Phlox, and later seen using a medical scanner to scan the crew, it makes sense that she would have scanned herself at some point to ensure that she was alright as well.

>In the beginning of Act 4, T'Pol gives Archer a heading of, "Zero-one-four mark two-seven." She gives a new heading as "Zero-zero-six mark four." If both half of the heading consist of the same number of whole number digits, why does she mention the zeroes on the first half of the heading, but not the second?
-Luigi Novi

Well, she could (still shouldn't, but could) skip the zero IF the number after the mark maxed out at 39 or less (since there is no number with 4 in the tens position, it must be in the units postition). However, I believe the second number represents the inclination/declination, which should range from -90 to +90 (or 0 - 90 and 270 - 360), so she still should have used the zero before the four.

>She called it a Science Officer's Log, not a Personal Log, which would indicate she's making it as a reference to be used primarily by the crew and/or Starfleet.
-Luigi Novi

Plus, since it's an official log, like the Captain's Log, it makes sense to use the same dating system, so that they came be oganized more easily.

>NANJAO: At the end, Phlox thanks T'Pol for stopping his needless attempt to operate on Mayweather, and she says, "I wasn't sure it would work on a Denobulan." We know she's referring to the Vulcan nerve pinch. However, Phlox doesn't know what "it" was and Archer definitely doesn't. And so far there's no indication that the humans, at least, definitely know the Vulcans have that ability.
>Anyway, T'Pol's line didn't sound quite right to me in this context. I was expecting Archer to ask her, "You weren't sure what wouldn't work on a Denobulan?" instead of asking Phlox, "What surgical procedure on Travis?"
-Dragon

Actually, if you look again, when Phlox thanks T'Pol, he makes a gesture near his neck, to signify what he means. Archer gives Phlox, and then T'Pol, an odd look like he doesn't quite know what they are talking about. I'm not sure if that means Archer doesn't know about the neck pinch, or he was just confused. As for the question, I would think he wouldn't have gotten sidetracked on a minor issue like how Phlox was incapacitated, and instead focused on the more important issue of what nearly happened to his helmsman.

>If you watch this scene, you can see that the radiation is beginning to severely affect him to the point where he can't even form a coherent sentence.
-Luigi Novi

I wouldn't say that his writing dificulties were radiation related. I'd say it was simply a matter of an amateur writer trying, and failing to compose, especially for something as personal as the preface to the biography of his father. At most, the radiation was only adding to the self-imposed pressure.

>What in the world does mental discipline have to do with the sensitivity of Vulcan hearing? You’re telling me if I blared a loudpeaker right into the ear of one of those Shaolin monks, it wouldn’t hurt their ears? C’mon, Trike.
-Luigi Novi

We really have no basis to judge how painful the sound was to T'Pol. I would think, though, that if it were truly dangerous to her health, she would state that as the reason for Trip to stop, not simply reference the Captain's need of scans of the black hole.

>Just look at the credits sequence. No Mir, no Sputnik, nothing but American explorers.
-D.W. March

That probably is simply a factor of expense. My understanding is that NASA footage is public domain, i.e. free to use. I doubt the Russian government is so accommodating. In fact, I'd think they would charge quite a lot to use their footage on a weekly basis on national television.

>She was on Earth for at least a year according to Breaking the Ice (or two, if you believe Fusion), is a science officer, and as a Vulcan monitoring Earth’s progress towards a Warp 5 engine, might be familiar with the histories of people like Cochrane and Henry Archer, so yeah, she might be familiar with him. Second, she wouldn’t have had to have a detailed knowledge of his life to write a one-page preface, esp. if she does some research. Writing a preface or introduction is sometimes a matter of focusing on a specific anecdote or angle, and its relationship to the content of the book within.
-Luigi Novi

I see you interpreted that scene differently than I did. I took him to mean that she should write it as if she were him, i.e. as a son describing his father. The publisher almost surely contacted Archer for the preface in order to get a personal touch for the intro. Unless T'Pol personally knew his father, or talked to Archer for a while about him, she couldn't really give the proper feeling to the writing.

>The cannons stick out from the underside of the hull, so when we see the beams from the camera angle that’s above the saucer, it looks that way.
-Luigi Novi

The second shot is seen from the front of the ship. This shot shows the beam coming from the front top of the saucer, not from a cannon sticking out from below the saucer.

>Excuse me, Sparrow, but how exactly is it that you decide where she is and isn’t "supposed" to work? Where has it been established that the first officer can’t opt to work in her quarters?
-Luigi Novi

I can't speak to whether or not she is allowed to work in her quarters, but in general, she shouldn't. She is, after all, the second in command. If something were to happen, she could be needed on the bridge. If she is working in her quarters, then it will take time to get there. Even if there is no emergency, there is no reason not to work on the bridge once the noise that drove her away was gone. That is, after all, her assigned post.

>Good God, now you’re saying that Reed was acting rational when he sent a voice-encrypted command package to her bridge console WITHOUT first clearing his new protocols with Archer and her?
-Luigi Novi

While Reed wasn't wholy rational, what does his implementing protocols without authorization have to do with his sending the packet to her post? It's quite likely that the bridge console is more (possibly much more) secure than the console in her quarters. Given that some data may be too sensitive to risk leaking, it makes sense to send such information to a more secure location. Plus, anyone attempting to access the science station on the bridge would be seen by any number of people. There would be much less risk of detection if someone attempted the same from the console in her quarters.

>By that time, the ship had passed out of danger. Interesting how you omit that fact.
-Luigi Novi

You mean aside from the last seven words of the quoted text, namely "after the ship was out of danger", right?

>I agree that you might be right, and it wasn't intended. But the intention of Chris Black isn't known.
-Darth Sarcasm
>Don’t those two statements contradict one another?
-Luigi Novi

I don't see how. He's allowing that you may be right, but stating that it isn't perfectly clear.

Trike: I disagree with your comparison of what happened to the crew to a "malady." The crew wasn't stricken by an illness; it was under the effects of an unknown form of radiation.
Luigi Novi: Yeah. That effect was an illness. An illness refers to any detrimental disruption of the body’s normal operation due to either stimuli that is either external (chemicals, radiation), or genetic (cancer). The radiation caused Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which is neurological disorder, which is as much an illness as cancer, nausea, or any other type of radiation sickness. What does the origin of the illness have to do with whether it is called an illness?

Trike: Everybody was exposed to similar levels of the radiation, including T'Pol -- the only one to claim it had no effect on her.
Luigi Novi: What exactly does that have to do with whether it’s accurate to call it an illness?

Dustin Westfall: Even though it wasn't an actual emergency, why did T'Pol simply stand there in the galley when the Tactical Alert was called? Shouldn't she have immediately headed for the bridge, with Captain in tow?
Luigi Novi: Externally, they wanted a dramatic shot. Internally, I think perhaps she was trying to get a mental handle on the situation, trying to figure out what she should do, now that she had witnessed the entire command staff affected.

Dustin Westfall: I wouldn't say that his writing dificulties were radiation related. I'd say it was simply a matter of an amateur writer trying, and failing to compose, especially for something as personal as the preface to the biography of his father. At most, the radiation was only adding to the self-imposed pressure.
Luigi Novi: It certainly seemed in the closing scene of Act 1 that the radiation was affecting him. He was engaging in the repetitious, "scrap what I just did" activity that Trip and Hoshi were, and was getting irritated with Porthos, putting off feeding him, just as Trip and Hoshi were putting off important things. I mean, when you end Act 1, the main conflict of the episode should be in full gear. It would seem odd to me that his anxiety was not directly related to the main plot point of the ep.

Dustin Westfall: We really have no basis to judge how painful the sound was to T'Pol.
Luigi Novi: It was painful enough to cause her to leave the bridge. Why exactly is her telling Trip that it’s too painful, and her decision to leave when he refuses to let up, not sufficient basis?

Dustin Westfall: I would think, though, that if it were truly dangerous to her health, she would state that as the reason for Trip to stop, not simply reference the Captain's need of scans of the black hole.
Luigi Novi: I think perhaps mentioning danger to her health was a bit too much of a digression on my part from the central point; I should’ve focused solely on the pain. My point was that Trike does not know the extent of the applications of Vulcan "mental discipline" in general, nor T’Pol’s in particular to conclude that she should be able to withstand the noise. Like most of the other things he and Sparrow have offered to promote the idea that she was affected, this was simply something he made up that he asserted as if it was fact.

Dustin Westfall: I doubt the Russian government is so accommodating. In fact, I'd think they would charge quite a lot to use their footage on a weekly basis on national television.
Luigi Novi: Is there actually footage of the satellite detaching from its rocket? If not, and there is only the rocket launch, it would probably look like just any other rocket launch.

Dustin Westfall: I see you interpreted that scene differently than I did. I took him to mean that she should write it as if she were him, i.e. as a son describing his father. The publisher almost surely contacted Archer for the preface in order to get a personal touch for the intro. Unless T'Pol personally knew his father, or talked to Archer for a while about him, she couldn't really give the proper feeling to the writing.
Luigi Novi: Mmm. Good point.

Dustin Westfall: The second shot is seen from the front of the ship. This shot shows the beam coming from the front top of the saucer, not from a cannon sticking out from below the saucer.
Luigi Novi: Ahhhh. Yeah, you’re right. I hadn’t noticed that. Thanks.

Dustin Westfall: I can't speak to whether or not she is allowed to work in her quarters, but in general, she shouldn't. There is no reason not to work on the bridge once the noise that drove her away.
Luigi Novi: Agreed.

Dustin Westfall: While Reed wasn't wholy rational, what does his implementing protocols without authorization have to do with his sending the packet to her post?
Luigi Novi: It seemed that Sparrow was acting as if T’Pol was wrong to leave the bridge because she missed something important that Reed sent her, when Reed was the one acting all paranoid and cloak and dagger. If whatever he sent her was so important that it had to be encrypted on the Enterprise, why not just go to her in person? If the need to stay on the bridge because of encrypted messages sent from other parts of the ship was a standard protocol, then T’Pol would probably be familiar with it, and obey it. But such a protocol is probably not an expected part of ship’s etiquette. I don’t think T’Pol should be criticized for not making herself available to paranoid messages by Reed. If there is some new protcol, Reed has to have Archer approve it, and only then would T’Pol abide by it.

Dustin Westfall: You mean aside from the last seven words of the quoted text, namely "after the ship was out of danger", right?
Luigi Novi: I missed that. (Sorry, Trike.) But if Trike acknowledged that the ship was by then out of danger, then why bring that up as an example of how her denials indicated she was affected? When he referred to the "times" she denied being affected as being an indication that she in fact was, then aren’t the only pertinent examples ones made when the Enterprise was exposed to the radiation?

Moreover, she didn’t "hedge" her statements, nor did she say that she "presumed" she wasn’t affected. She answered Archer’s statement by saying Vulcan physiology seemed to be immune. That’s an observation, not a presumption, and it was phrased honestly in terms of scientific tentativeness, not "hedged." To hedge is to make a deliberately vague statement.

TJFleming (long ago): When (T’Pol) says she's unaffected, she's ignoring a reasonable, alternative hypothesis--namely, that like the rest of the crew, she's affected and doesn't recognize it. But a Vulcan would at least look into that alternative (scientific method and all that). Her failure to think it through tips us off that, even if her actions appear normal, she's not thinking like a Vulcan (to the extent T'Pol ever thinks like a Vulcan). Then again, maybe I'm just obsessing.

Luigi Novi (much later and responding to something else): Moreover, she didn’t "hedge" her statements, nor did she say that she "presumed" she wasn’t affected. She answered Archer’s statement by saying Vulcan physiology seemed to be immune. That’s an observation, not a presumption, and it was phrased honestly in terms of scientific tentativeness, not "hedged."

:: Hallelujah! After all the straw-man arguments (“Indictment,” “The Drumhead), you inadvertently hit upon the true defect in my theory: “unaffected” was not a conclusion, but a hypothesis. I heard it wrong.
Accordingly, I now conclude that there is no compelling evidence one way or the other as to whether T'Pol was affected. Indeed, the writers (conciously or not) left the question open when, contrary to Star Trek tradition, they gave us no basis for the purported immunity. (Compare, for example, copper-based blood, vestigial inner eyelid, and "I am a Vulcan; there is no pain.") Perhaps they'll resolve it in a future episode--for example, by depicting T'Pol with a residual effect--and thereby give this episode some MEANING. Then again, I've waited in vain for some reprise to the equally pointless "A" story in "Silent Enemy."

One possible explanation for immunity: the rest of the crew is carbon-based; T'Pol is a carbon-silicon hybrid.

One possible answer to the question nobody has asked: Was Porthos affected? No. Dogs are already OCD.

"Dogs are already affected by OCD" would be the more grammatically correct thing to write.

How come nobody's mentioned that most people have two parents and apparently Archer only has one?

There's no mention of Archer's mom; why not?

Actually this goes to an answer to another nit.
Archer was asked to write a one-page preface. Why only one page?

Because he had other relatives who were being asked to write the foreword, induction, introduction, lead-in, overture, preamble, prelude, prolegomenon, prologue, preliminary remarks, commencement, start, initiation, launch, leadoff, origination, kickoff, and the opening.

So that would lead to quite a few pages before the reader gets to chapter one. That's why they only wanted one page from each person.

Technobabble alert: "Gravimetric Shear". When "Tidal Forces" would work just as well (and is the currently accepted jargon for that).

Just look at the credits sequence. No Mir, no Sputnik, nothing but American explorers.

And Phoenicians (I'm assuming that's who's on the raft) and Brits (HMS "Enterprize").

It doesn’t work that way. If someone wants to prove that she was affected, the burden is on them. Every bit of reasoning offered to explain this idea thus far is pathetically flimsy, and doesn’t hold up under the scrutiny of logic and rational thinking. - Luigi

Similarly, you are arguing that T'Pol was immune. You cannot prove that, based on the evidence as presented in the episode. The nearest thing that can be proven is that T'Pol claims to be unaffected.


Again, the word "subtext" is not an argument, any more than "opinion" or "interpretation." - Luigi

Exactly. In several people's opinions, T'Pol was affected by the radiation, but its effects were not immediately apparent. In your opinion, she was completely unaffected. Neither scenario can be proven to be true, based on the evidence presented. So why are you asking anyone to prove anything?


In that scenario, you offered the fact that you were drinking as a given. In the one at hand, T’Pol’s being affected is not. The question of whether she was affected is the entire point. - Luigi

Similarly, in the episode the fact that T'Pol was exposed to the radiation is a given... and the fact that you were affected by the alcohol in my analogy is not.

In both scenarios, an outside force (radiation/alcohol) impairs the judgement and affects the behavior of individuals. In both scenarios, one person (T'Pol/Luigi) recognizes the impairment in the others, but doesn't seem to be affected. In both scenarios, the individual takes action to protect the others (flies the ship/drives home). In both scenarios, the fact of whether the person (T'Pol/Luigi) was affected is unknown.

My point has never been to prove that T'Pol was affected. My point is to prove that the suggestion that she was affected is equally valid, based on the evidence presented. You don't even have to go into prosaic or non-prosaic explanations: T'Pol was simply exposed to the same radiation as everyone else. It stands to reason that she could be affected as well. Even T'Pol admits that "Vulcan physiology seems to be immune" (emphasis mine), indicating that she hasn't had time to really study it.


Don’t those two statements contradict one another? Or did you just mean "Yeah, he probably didn’t intend it but we don’t know for sure."? (Just making sure I understand it.) - Luigi

No, they don't contradict each other... You might be right, but that's not provable with the evidence before us.


None has been offered here for Sparrow and Trike’s less conventional explanation for T’Pol’s behavior that is stronger than conventional ones. - Luigi

Have you conducted a survey we're unaware of? Because I don't understand why you get to decide what is "conventional" or not.


How do we know that? It’s my interpretation/opinion/subtext. If Chris Black’s interpretation is open to interpretation, why not the TOS writers? - Luigi

You don't think that in the 35-year history of Trek any of the writers or producers or actors addressed the Kirk/Spock dynamic and whether an implied homosexual relationship was intended?

Fine. I have just sent an email to D.C. Fontana (at least the last known addy I have for her), who will hopefully resolve the matter for you. I do not have Chris Black's address, however, so I can't help there.

roger: "Dogs are already affected by OCD" would be the more grammatically correct thing to write.
:: Touche'. But, "correct" being an absolute, don't you mean "the grammatically correct" or "the more nearly grammatically correct?"

Even though it wasn't an actual emergency, why did T'Pol simply stand there in the galley when the Tactical Alert was called? Shouldn't she have immediately headed for the bridge, with Captain in tow? - Dustin

She may not have been aware of the Tactical Alert implementation... probably a part of the packet Reed sent to her station while she was locked away in her quarters.


Also, since she was in Sickbay after knocking out Phlox, and later seen using a medical scanner to scan the crew, it makes sense that she would have scanned herself at some point to ensure that she was alright as well. - Dustin

Perhaps. But if she was under the effects of the radiation, thinking only the rest of the crew was affected, would she have necessarily thought to scan herself? Again, using the drinking analogy I presented to Luigi... one of the dangers of drunk drivers is that they don't think they're drunk.

We didn't see T'Pol scan herself, which means it may or may not have actually happened.

Darth Sarcasm: Similarly, you are arguing that T'Pol was immune. You cannot prove that, based on the evidence as presented in the episode.
Luigi Novi: I don’t have to. There is no evidence that she is affected, and the behavior she does exhibit indicates she is not.

Darth Sarcasm: In several people's opinions, T'Pol was affected by the radiation, but its effects were not immediately apparent. In your opinion, she was completely unaffected. Neither scenario can be proven to be true, based on the evidence presented. So why are you asking anyone to prove anything?
Luigi Novi: It is others who decided to present what they thought was "evidence" that she was affected. I merely pointed out that the manner in which they described this information was lopsided and inaccurate.

Darth Sarcasm: Similarly, in the episode the fact that T'Pol was exposed to the radiation is a given.
Luigi Novi: No it’s not. It’s an assumption. The things Sparrow and Trike pointed to, like going to her quarters, or her denials, are the givens, which they attempted to argue indicated she was affected.

Darth Sarcasm: My point has never been to prove that T'Pol was affected. My point is to prove that the suggestion that she was affected is equally valid, based on the evidence presented.
Luigi Novi: No, it isn’t. Saying that "denial of something is evidence of something" is an anemic argument. Saying that her speaking to Reed could be construed as "hassling" was a mischaracterization. Saying that "the only reason she left her quarters" or "she didn’t go to the gym," and "this was unusual for her" was to assume things about T’Pol’s routine that were not established. Saying "she didn’t leave her quarters to eat" was blatantly untrue. Pointing to her statement to Phlox after the Enterprise passed out of danger as evidence that she was affected is false. Thus it went with just about all the arguments offered.

Darth Sarcasm: You don't even have to go into prosaic or non-prosaic explanations: T'Pol was simply exposed to the same radiation as everyone else. It stands to reason that she could be affected as well.
Luigi Novi: Except she didn’t exhibit any signs of being affected.

Darth Sarcasm: Have you conducted a survey we're unaware of? Because I don't understand why you get to decide what is "conventional" or not.
Luigi Novi: I don’t get to decide it, and it has nothing to do with a survey. "Conventional" in this context merely means the status quo, and whether something observed is a natural part of that status quo, or something less usual. Again, you seem to be having difficulty with how the scientific method and Occam’s Razor work. All things being equal, people on the ship are not affected by radiation, do not develop OCD, do not repetitively focus on comparatively unimportant tasks, etc. That’s the conventional status quo. That’s normal. That’s usual. All things being equal, something observed, like someone’s behavior, should be explained by normal, non-exotic means, unless it clearly does not conform to normal conditions, or there is evidence of a non-conventional force at work.

T’Pol decided to go to her quarters. Do we KNOW that her doing so is NOT something she might’ve done in any other episode, especially given Vulcans in general and her in particular? No. We don’t. To assume, therefore, that her going to her quarters must be a result of OCD, and to say "well, that’s unusual for her," as some have said on this board, when it can just as easily be a part of her normal behavior, without any evidence that this is abnormal for her, is a flawed argument.

Darth Sarcasm: You don't think that in the 35-year history of Trek any of the writers or producers or actors addressed the Kirk/Spock dynamic and whether an implied homosexual relationship was intended?
Luigi Novi: I don’t know. Did they? Even if they denied it, just look at how Sprarrow and Trike refused to let up on some of their house-of-cards arguments, or refused to address when I pointed out how some of them didn’t add up, sometimes going further and further into more foolish reasoning, just to make their premise a viable-sounding one.

I pointed out that T’Pol talking to Reed wasn’t "hassling." Sparrow never addressed this point.

I pointed out that denial of something, even repeatedly, isn’t evidence of that something. If the cops accuse of you breaking into someone’s house, and you are innocent, you’re going to repeatedly deny it. Arguing that this means "Well, it’s open to interpretation because he denied it enough times to call it into question" is an foolish argument. Trike never addressed this, and has flat-out said he doesn’t have rebuttals and doesn’t want to address these points.

If I wanted to do the same thing, Darth, and not admit that I’m wrong about the Kirk/Spock thing, I could just as easily say, "Well, maybe they did intend Kirk and Spock to be attracted to one another, but couldn’t say this because such things are still not accepted in today’s society." If I want to grab onto a failing argument for dear life and not let go, as others have done with this "T’Pol was affected" nonsense, then I could do just that.

Uh, we're at 240K and rising... Board II, moderator?

Similarly, in the episode the fact that T'Pol was exposed to the radiation is a given. - Darth Sarcasm
No it’s not. It’s an assumption. - Luigi

WHAT?!?!?!?

So you're not only saying that T'Pol wasn't affected by the radiation, you're also saying she wasn't exposed to it? How? Was she wearing an invisible EV suit or something?


If I want to grab onto a failing argument for dear life and not let go, as others have done with this "T’Pol was affected" nonsense, then I could do just that. - Luigi

And you just did.

Whatever. Not important. I give up. Trike, Sparrow, and whoever else agrees with them... I see what you're saying. I understand and agree with you. This is simply not important enough for me to continue. Luigi wants to be right. Fine. He can be right.

Til the next debate...

Was she wearing an invisible EV suit or something?

What do you think is her catsuit? J

Dustin Westfall If we use the impulse = 1/4 light speed (it may be less, given that the scale is based on future technology), they start out 1/2 light day from the system. According to T'Pol, though, the radiation expands for half a light year around. Wouldn't that mean they have been in the middle of the radiation for a while now? Did someone screw up the line?
Luigi Novi: They were in the middle of the radiation for some time. About two days, I take it. It took a while, perhaps, for the radiation to affect them?

Darth Sarcasm: So you're not only saying that T'Pol wasn't affected by the radiation, you're also saying she wasn't exposed to it?
Luigi Novi: Sorry, I misread the prior statement. When I read the statement: Similarly, in the episode the fact that T'Pol was exposed to the radiation is a given... and the fact that you were affected by the alcohol in my analogy is not., I should’ve read it more carefully, but I thought you were comparing whether I was drunk to whether T’Pol was affected by the radiation, which are the two things that are in question in the two situations, not whether she was exposed. Of course she was exposed. That is a given. Whether she was affected is not, it is

Darth Sarcasm: And you just did.
Luigi Novi: LOL. No, I misread something, that’s all. Sheesh. I’m not perfect, ya know.

Darth Sarcasm: Luigi wants to be right. Fine. He can be right.
Luigi Novi: What a load of b.s, Darth. I do not "want" to be right, I simply recognize the importance of rational, scientific reasoning, and the need to recognize which scenario is more likely, given what we see. If someone points out something that clearly indicates that T’Pol was affected, that might convince me, and I’ll say so. I have no problem doing that. But if someone says something like, "Denial of something is an indication of that something," and I point out that that’ a false argument, why is it that I’m the one who wants to be right? Why didn’t you tell that to Trike when he said that? He uses a fallacious bit of reasoning, but I’m the one who "wants to be right" when I point it out? You’re telling me that the most threadbare arguments offered in this disagreement have all been mine?

What have I said that has been so unreasonable? That denial of something is not evidence of that something? It isn’t. That we don’t know what’s T’Pol’s normal routine or work habits are? We don’t. That we didn’t know what time it was when she was in her quarters vis a vis the time of day she works out? We didn’t. That when listing how many "times" T’Pol denied being affected as evidence that she was, that including the time she did so to Phlox was wrong because the ship was already out of the radiation’s range? It was. That neither Trike nor Sparrow directly addressed these points when I made them? I didn’t. Yet you NEVER said that it was they who wanted to be right. Oh, no, we can’t have that. If you were really were so consistently irritated by the "need" to be right, you’d lob that criticism at the people whose arguments showed that, or at the very least (if you didn’t feel comfortable giving the appearance of taking sides, and were irritated at the continuation of the argument more than the quality of them), lobbing it at both of us. You didn’t.

Spare me the double standard.

D.W. March: Since Trip established that there are no micro inertial dampeners on the captain's chair, I presume there are none on the helm either. So exact what good is that joystick going to do, considering how much the ship is bouncing around?
Luigi Novi: Actually, isn't it possible that such dampeners are at the helm, for exactly that reason?

oino sakai: Are the controls for Archer's shower actually located outside the shower stall, or am I misunderstanding the geography of the shower? T'Pol seems to control the spray from outside the wet area. My shower controls are in there with me where I can reach them.
Luigi Novi: Something just occurred to me. The dial in my shower is positioned so I can just slip my hand in and pull it out without getting my entire body wet, so I can wait for the water to warm up before taking off my clothes and getting in. But the controls inside the stall aren't. One would have a harder time turning it one without getting their clothes wet. Putting a set of controls outside solves this problem, and the set that's inside is intended to be used to turn it off, so the user can grab a robe or towel hanging near the stall without stepping out the stall dripping water all over the floor.

I should’ve read it more carefully, but I thought you were comparing whether I was drunk to whether T’Pol was affected by the radiation, which are the two things that are in question in the two situations, not whether she was exposed. - Luigi

I was responding to your comparison in which you try to dismiss my analogy by saying "In that scenario, you offered the fact that you were drinking as a given. In the one at hand, T’Pol’s being affected is not." You made the comparison of two different things, not me.

I was trying to explain that in my scenario, your drinking is a given and your drunken state was not... just as in the episode, T'Pol's exposure to the radiation is a given and her being affected by it is not.

Any verbal games you play won't change that.

As for double standards... please. I have never stated that Trike was right. I have said repeatedly that both scenarios are possible. Trike has never argued with me about that. YOU, on the other hand, have... and repeatedly so. So, yes, I will focus my arguments about that at you. Seems only fair.

I even stated that I said you might be right, but it just can't be proven by the evidence presented in the show. And that wasn't enough for you.

Repeatedly in this thread, you have made sarcastic rmearks about people's posts... you accuse Trike of omitting reference to the fact that the ship was out of danger, despite the fact that it was stated in the quoted text... you accuse me of making two contradictory statements when it was simply one statement clarifying the other... you misread exposed for affected. It starts to appear more and more that you are not actually reading what people are writing and are simply assuming the person is arguing with you and you respond based on that assumption.

You cannot prove that T'pol was immune to the effects of the radiation any more than the others can prove she was affected by it. Any attempt to do so is equally "hollow," "unreasonable," and "foolish."

So spare us your self-righteousness.

And what are you continuing for? I said you were right.

Ditto that, Darth. This "arguement" simply isn't worth getting worked up about. I happen to think that T'Pol was affected. Fine. Now, also note that I am going to respond to some things that you've said here; these are not meant to be a part of the debate over "was T'Pol affected or not?"


Excuse me, Sparrow, but how exactly is it that you decide where she is and isn’t "supposed" to work? Where has it been established that the first officer can’t opt to work in her quarters? Again, this is an assumption you simply made up, and are casually referring to as if it’s fact.Luigi Novi

Well, gee, for at least part of the time she wasn't on the bridge, she was on duty. Aren't you supposed to man your post when on duty? Where is T'Pol's post? The bridge. Where was she choosing to work? Her quarters. She's supposed to work there! I can support this idea using Reed's "I sent the package to your station" statment- Reed wouldn't want to send the package just anywhere, he'd send it where he'd know T'Pol would see it. That'd be... her post on the bridge! While I think it's fine if T'Pol works in her quarters when not on duty, while on duty, she should be on the bridge. It's where she works.

Good God, now you’re saying that Reed was acting rational when he sent a voice-encrypted command package to her bridge console WITHOUT first clearing his new protocols with Archer and her?Luigi Novi

No, not at all. But had Reed sent something important that wasn't part of an obsessive compulsive delirium, T'Pol wouldn't have gotten it. Generally speaking, that's not a good plan.

Okay, ready for next week's episode? I sure am!
And maybe another board for this one...

Darth Sarcasm: I was responding to your comparison in which you try to dismiss my analogy by saying "In that scenario, you offered the fact that you were drinking as a given. In the one at hand, T’Pol’s being affected is not." You made the comparison of two different things, not me.
Luigi Novi: This is what you offered: You go out drinking with friends. Your friends become noticeably intoxicated, but because you feel fine you offer to drive them home. Does this mean that you weren't buzzed (maybe even legally intoxicated) yourself?

In this scenario, you were asking if feeling fine meant that I wasn’t buzzed. If I was drinking, especially if it was more than one drink, my BAC was probably near or over the legal limit. We can conclude that because you made it clear that I had been drinking. In other words, the question of whether I had been drinking was something you offered as a given at the outset. Whether I denied being affected by the alcohol is pretty much a moot point; it wouldn’t be a solid argument to say that my denial of it was one consideration, because you already told me I had been drinking. In the episode, her being affected wasn’t a given, it was the entire point of disagreement between myself and the others.

If I misunderstood the analogy, I’m sorry. It’s not like it would be the first time and you and I were not on the same wavelength.

Darth Sarcasm: Any verbal games you play won't change that.
Luigi Novi: I didn’t play any verbal games. I simply admitted to not having read your words carefully enough. If my admitting that I misunderstood you means I’m playing verbal games, so be it.

Darth Sarcasm: As for double standards... please. I have never stated that Trike was right.
Luigi Novi: I didn’t say you did. The double standard is saying that what I said was evidence that "I wanted to be right," but not saying the same thing about what Trike or Sparrow said.

Darth Sarcasm: Repeatedly in this thread, you have made sarcastic rmearks about people's posts... you accuse Trike of omitting reference to the fact that the ship was out of danger, despite the fact that it was stated in the quoted text
Luigi Novi: 1. I later admitted that I missed that and apologized for it. 2. The point remains that mentioning it as one of the numerous "times" she denied it—as part of his assertion that denying it often enough meant that she might’ve been affected—was a moot point, because NONE of the crew was being affected by it any longer at that point. Pointing it out made the assertion that she denied it more than once true, but not pertinent to the original premise that doing so was a sign of being affected.

Darth Sarcasm:... you accuse me of making two contradictory statements when it was simply one statement clarifying the other.
Luigi Novi: No, I did not, and anyone who reads that reaction of mine to it will see that it was not an "accusation," Darth. It seemed to me at first glance that those two things contradicted each other, but I wasn’t sure, and in considering it, I came up with a possible meaning, and asked you if this was right:

Don’t those two statements contradict one another? Or did you just mean "Yeah, he probably didn’t intend it but we don’t know for sure."? (Just making sure I understand it.)

That is not an accusation. I was trying to understand what you were saying.

Darth Sarcasm: you misread exposed for affected. It starts to appear more and more that you are not actually reading what people are writing and are simply assuming the person is arguing with you and you respond based on that assumption.
Luigi Novi: No, it just means that I’m human, and sometimes miss things when I am reading them. It happens to everyone. If I admit that I made a mistake, then why do you keep attacking me? I miss something twice out of all the posts I’ve read on this board, and you again being to see ulterior motives in me? Do we really want to go down that road again?

Darth Sarcasm: You cannot prove that T'pol was immune to the effects of the radiation any more than the others can prove she was affected by it.
Luigi Novi: There is no evidence that she was affected, and the indications in the episode were that she wasn’t. She told Archer that her physiology seemed to be immune. Why did the writer put that line in? Also, Dustin pointed out that she used a tricorder on one crewman, and knew what to look for after Phlox told her about Travis’ chemical imbalance. Can’t we surmise that she scanned herself from all this?

Darth Sarcasm: Any attempt to do so is equally "hollow," "unreasonable," and "foolish."
Luigi Novi: No it isn’t. It’s what these boards are for.

Darth Sarcasm: So spare us your self-righteousness.
Luigi Novi: Happy Thanksgiving to you too.

Darth Sarcasm: And what are you continuing for? I said you were right.
Luigi Novi: I am continuing for the same reason you did after you said this is "not important enough to continue." You saw something you wanted to respond to. Where do you get the idea that saying "I’m right" means I’m not allowed to continue posting?

Besides, you didn’t simply say "You’re right." You pointed out that it seemed I was saying that T’Pol wasn’t exposed. It was necessary to admit that I misread that. You also said that I "wanted to be right," but not that Trike "wanted to be right" or that Sparrow "wanted to be right." I wanted to respond to that.

This is what you offered: You go out drinking with friends. Your friends become noticeably intoxicated, but because you feel fine you offer to drive them home. Does this mean that you weren't buzzed (maybe even legally intoxicated) yourself? - Luigi

sigh

This is what the episode offered:

Enterprise goes near a black hole. The crew begins to act noticeably different, obsessing over miniscule things to the point that it endangers the ship. Because T'Pol feels fine, she takes actiuon to save the ship. Does this mean she wasn't affected by the radiation?

I know you're not dumb. So the fact that you continually misinterpret what I illustrated through this analogy (coupled with the fact that I have explained myself repeatedly and you still go to the same misinterpretation) leads me to suspect you're doing it on purpose.


...my BAC was probably near or over the legal limit. We can conclude that because you made it clear that I had been drinking. - Luigi

So can we conclude that T'Pol was, in fact, affected because the episode made it clear that she was exposed to the radiation? No.

Similarly, we can't conclude that you were legally drunk or not. Metabolisms vary from person to person. Some people can hold their liquor better than others.


In the episode, her being affected wasn’t a given, it was the entire point of disagreement between myself and the others. - Luigi

Correct, it isn't a given. Neither is T'Pol's immunity to it.

I'll explain yet again... in both the episode and my analogy, people were exposed to an outside force with the potential to impair judgement (radiation/aclohol). In both scenarios, one person claimed to be unaffected (T'Pol's Vulcan physiology/your ability to hold your liquor).


I didn’t play any verbal games. I simply admitted to not having read your words carefully enough. If my admitting that I misunderstood you means I’m playing verbal games, so be it. - Luigi

And there go the verbal games again.

My reference to verbal games didn't have to do with your admitting your error. It had to do with my repeatedly explaining the point of my analogy, only for you to refer back to your original misinterpretation... repeatedly.


I didn’t say you did. The double standard is saying that what I said was evidence that "I wanted to be right," but not saying the same thing about what Trike or Sparrow said. - Luigi

And (again), I explained that when I came forward and proposed that both sides are arguably correct, neither Trike nor Sparrow disputed that with me. YOU, however, did. So why would I argue with them about it?


She told Archer that her physiology seemed to be immune. - Luigi

Ah, yes... because a person with possibly impaired judgement is exactly the unbiased source you want to prove your case. Going back to the analogy... how many drunk driving accidents do think occur because the driver thought they were not drunk?


She told Archer that her physiology seemed to be immune. Why did the writer put that line in? - Luigi

Because she believed she was immune (which does not mean she was or wasn't)? Because the writer wanted to convey that she hasn't had the time to really study the radiation (Vulcan physiology seems to be immune)? I don't know. You'll have to ask the writer. My point is that you can't conclude it definitively based on the evidence in the show.


Can’t we surmise that she scanned herself from all this? - Luigi

Perhaps. Perhaps not. To paraphrase you... why didn't the writer put that action in?


No it isn’t. It’s what these boards are for. - Luigi

So it's okay for you to use disparaging comments about other people's opinions, but it's not okay when it's about your opinions? (NOTE: I said they were equal.) Why is that?


You also said that I "wanted to be right," but not that Trike "wanted to be right" or that Sparrow "wanted to be right." I wanted to respond to that. - Luigi

And I also said that the reason I don't say that about Trike and Sparrow is because neither one of them disputed the fact that both answers are equally valid. YOU did!

Key words: "Vulcan physiology seems to be immune." Note: not "is immune." Argue away...........

Sparrow47: Well, gee, for at least part of the time she wasn't on the bridge, she was on duty. Aren't you supposed to man your post when on duty?
Luigi Novi: Sure. But do people like the Captain or First officer have only one set post? Their duties seem a bit more varied and fluid, and require them to interact with different people in different parts of the ship, because their duties include dealing with matters from the other departments.

Sparrow47: Where was she choosing to work? Her quarters.
Luigi Novi: Yes, because the noise on the bridge was hurting her ears. Perhaps she sent the data she already had collected at her bridge station to the terminal in her quarters, and when she wanted to do more sensor sweeps, she realized the interface there wasn’t good enough.

Sparrow47: She's supposed to work there! I can support this idea using Reed's "I sent the package to your station" statement- Reed wouldn't want to send the package just anywhere, he'd send it where he'd know T'Pol would see it.
Luigi Novi: What someone says when they’re rendered irrational and paranoid due to radiation-induced OCD it doesn’t necessarily mean the first officer doesn’t have the privilege to work in her quarters. Riker and Troi had bridge stations, but they did crew evaluations in her quarters, and even in Ten Forward, IIRC. The various captain’s have done work in their ready rooms. I’m sure we can find many other examples of other officers that ranked lower than the first officer who did work in their quarters, sometimes even when they were off-duty, which has suggested to me that in Starfleet, "when" you’re on duty is somewhat fluid, kinda like firefighters.

Sparrow47: No, not at all. But had Reed sent something important that wasn't part of an obsessive compulsive delirium
Luigi Novi: He sent something that he considered important while he was suffering from that delirium, so we don’t know how important it would be considered all things being equal, just as we know Hoshi’s cooking and the brain surgery Phlox wanted to do on Travis weren’t necessary. Would new protocols be important? Yes, absolutely, but if he wasn’t suffering from OCD, he wouldn’t send them encrypted to her terminal, he wouldn’t discussed them with the captain, gotten his approval, and had he done so, it would’ve likely been Archer who would’ve sent out the announcement himself to the entire crew. This cloak and dagger way of sending it encrypted to another part of the ship so no one else could see it sounds more like something you’d do during an "aliens-take-over-the-ship" scenario like in Shockwave partII when they were confined to their quarters and had to communicate with other.

Darth Sarcasm: This is what the episode offered: Enterprise goes near a black hole. The crew begins to act noticeably different, obsessing over miniscule things to the point that it endangers the ship. Because T'Pol feels fine, she takes action to save the ship. Does this mean she wasn't affected by the radiation?
Luigi Novi: In part. The fact that the scene in which she said this was neither acted nor filmed to indicate the opposite is another. The fact that there were no other signs is another. Dustin pointing out that she scanned someone with a tricorder after Phlox told her about the chemical imbalance is another indication.

Darth Sarcasm: Similarly, we can't conclude that you were legally drunk or not. Metabolisms vary from person to person. Some people can hold their liquor better than others.
Luigi Novi: True. Of course, I said above that a third party witness to this, like a cop who saw me going in and out of the bar, wouldn’t be able to conclude this because he didn’t know if I had been drinking. As for whether or not I would be legally drunk if I drank at least two drinks, are you sure? Different people may not be physically impaired, but wouldn’t they be legally drunk because two drinks will raise their BAC above that limit?

Darth Sarcasm: Correct, it isn't a given. Neither is T'Pol's immunity to it.
Luigi Novi: It’s not a given at the outset, but there are indications that she is immune.

Luigi Novi: I didn’t play any verbal games. I simply admitted to not having read your words carefully enough. If my admitting that I misunderstood you means I’m playing verbal games, so be it.

Darth Sarcasm: And there go the verbal games again.
Luigi Novi: No.

There go you and I not seeing eye to eye again, something I thought we had previously agreed upon. You’re simply lobbing viscious attacks upon me again, even though I’m trying to understand you, and admitting that I’m not doing a very good job it.

Darth Sarcasm: My reference to verbal games didn't have to do with your admitting your error.
Luigi Novi: You made this accusation in response to my post where I admitted that I misread "exposed" for "affected." I said I was sorry, and explained what my mistake was. You quoted that passage (most of it, that is), and responded with a passage that ended with the accusation that I was playing verbal games.

Darth Sarcasm: It had to do with my repeatedly explaining the point of my analogy, only for you to refer back to your original misinterpretation... repeatedly.
Luigi Novi: I don’t agree with your analogy. What exactly is the "repeated misinterpretation"? Maybe I’m just not getting this analogy. Or maybe, just maybe, you haven’t made a very clear one.

Darth Sarcasm: And (again), I explained that when I came forward and proposed that both sides are arguably correct, neither Trike nor Sparrow disputed that with me. YOU, however, did. So why would I argue with them about it?
Luigi Novi: ONE MORE TIME—I didn’t say anything ABOUT whether you said they were correct. I said you were using the accusation, "Luigi WANTS to be right", which is NOT the same thing. When you say "Luigi WANTS to be right," you are not saying anything about my position, you’re making an accusation about my behavior.

That phrase refers to someone holding onto a position and not letting go of it because they have trouble admitting they’re wrong. You did NOT make this same accusation Sparrow or Trike, despite the fact that their arguments were FAR more indicative of this, and despite the fact that both of them refused to address the specific points about their more anemic statements.

Darth Sarcasm: Ah, yes... because a person with possibly impaired judgement is exactly the unbiased source you want to prove your case. Going back to the analogy... how many drunk driving accidents do think occur because the driver thought they were not drunk?
Luigi Novi: Again, the phrase "drunk driving accidents" can only be used if it’s established FIRST that someone was drunk. Here, we haven’t established T’Pol was affected. You have not shown that she had impaired judgement, and looking at her behavior in the episode, she appears quite the opposite. Again, when she told Archer she seemed to be immune, after having scanned at least one person with a tricorder, is there some reason to conclude she didn’t scan herself?

Darth Sarcasm: Because she believed she was immune (which does not mean she was or wasn't)? Because the writer wanted to convey that she hasn't had the time to really study the radiation (Vulcan physiology seems to be immune)? I don't know. You'll have to ask the writer. My point is that you can't conclude it definitively based on the evidence in the show.
Luigi Novi: But there is enough information to determine which scenario is the more likely one.

Darth Sarcasm: Perhaps. Perhaps not. To paraphrase you... why didn't the writer put that action in?
Luigi Novi: Because things sometimes occur off-camera that the viewer is required to put together? Because the writer didn’t think there’d be a need to keep anyone from turning windmills into giants? Writers convey information to the audience. To do so, they have to write it, the actors have to play it, and directors have to film it so that that information can be reasonably understood by the audience.

Darth Sarcasm: So it's okay for you to use disparaging comments about other people's opinions, but it's not okay when it's about your opinions? (NOTE: I said they were equal.) Why is that?
Luigi Novi: I didn’t make any disparaging comments about other people’s opinions.

I said it was "hollow" to say that denial of something is evidence of that something. It is. It’s a fallacious bit of reasoning.

I said some of the reasoning employed was "foolish" when someone wants to go further and further on a bit of reasoning that I already pointed out was false. Sparrow talked about the only reason T’Pol she left her quarters after Trip spoke with her was to hassle people about equipment. I pointed out the use of the word "only" implied a context that was assumed rather than established, that she saw one person, she did not "hassle" him, and that the uses of these wordings were clearly biased and lopsided. Sparrow responded not by admitting that, but by continuing to focus on technicalities rather than overall context. On the matter of "only," he decided to focus only on the technical meaning but not he context implied by its use. He decided to backtrack by pushing the time parameters back to when Trip spoke to T’Pol so that he could include Trip in the number. He evaded the point that she didn’t not "hassle" Reed entirely by merely saying, "well, she was more determined," and in so doing so, descended further into irrational thinking by assuming ANOTHER something that wasn’t in evidence, and which had nothing to do with the question of "hassling." This WAS foolish. That’s not a disparaging remark about an opinion, or about the person supposedly making it. It was a reasonable statement about a totally obvious bit of specious, biased reasoning and mischaracterization.

When you hear a bit of reasoning that violates any standard of common sense, objectivity, what are you supposed to say? What words should I not use? Fallacious? False? Unreasonable? Untenable? In a debate, you’re going to comment on the reasoning used by those you disagree with. It’s what you’re supposed to do. The problem with "disparaging" is that yes, sometimes being shown to be wrong can have a disparaging effect. But that doesn’t mean that that was the intent when the counter-argument was made, or that it was pejorative in spirit.

What you’re not supposed to is attack ad hominem, and I never did attack Sparrow or Trike. I confined my comments to their reasoning. THEY, as people, are most certainly NOT "foolish" or "hollow" or "unreasonable." I think they’re both intelligent. I look forward to reading their posts. They, like Keith and SMT, often finds lots of nits that I never do, and I’m often in awe of how unobservant I am in missing all these things they find. Twenty-four nits and notes by Sparrow are in my Nitpick Document, and Twenty-seven nits of Trike’s.

I was you who said it was "hollow," "foolish" and "unreasonable to even ATTEMPT to argue she was unaffected. I never said that for Sparrow or Trike to merely ATTEMPT to argue that she was affected were "hollow" or "foolish" or "unreasonable," because we ALL begin discussions on individual nits by attempting to establish them. I said that the REASONING they employed THUS FAR was unreasonable, and it has been. I have also said that if someone finds something else to argue this point that is more reasonable, that they should present it, and that if it’s convincing to me, I’ll say so.

Luigi Novi: You also said that I "wanted to be right," but not that Trike "wanted to be right" or that Sparrow "wanted to be right." I wanted to respond to that. - Luigi

Darth Sarcasm: And I also said that the reason I don't say that about Trike and Sparrow is because neither one of them disputed the fact that both answers are equally valid. YOU did!
Luigi Novi: One has NOTHING to do with the other. We’re not talking about whether both scenarios are equally valid, because they’re NOT. The information in the episode that Sparrow and Trike offered to argue T’Pol was affected for the most part, did not. This argument that if I assert that the arguments for one scenario are weaker than the other means I "want" to be right, sounds like relativism. Not all two arguments necessarily are equally valid.

What indicates that someone "wants to be right" is using specious reasoning, and an unwillingness to let go of it when someone points out that that reasoning doesn’t hold up because people don’t like reversing themselves. Again, to use an example, Sparrow’s statement that "The only reason she leaves afterwards is to track people down and hassle them to install the equipment!" is false. I pointed this out, and he refused to admit it. Trike asserted that repeatedly denial of something enough times calls that very denial into question. I pointed out that that’s witch-hunter reasoning. He refused to address that point, and even furthered this flaw by pointing to one of the denials that could justify the use of the phrase "enough times" even though HE HIMSELF admitted that this denial was supposedly made when the ship was out of danger, which was totally moot from the original point.*

YOU used an analogy that I disagreed with, and said that my disagreement was based on an misinterpretation. I don’t see how I misinterpreted it, but I’m willing to admit that I did so, since I have to admit things sometimes escape me. You and I (I thought) came to this understanding some time ago. But you attack me, saying that my repeatedly doing so means I’m doing this "on purpose," and that I’m playing "verbal games" because "I know you’re not dumb." Isn’t it just possible that your analogy isn’t well-argued? If I can admit that maybe I just don’t understand the analogy, why can’t you admit the possibility that my doing so isn’t on purpose? If you can’t, then who really "WANTS" to be right?

*Btw, while I sometimes review scenes to confirm certain nits mentioned by others that I didn’t see myself. However, when I first read the reference to T’Pol mention that she wasn’t affected in sickbay at the end of the episode, I didn’t; I simply took it at face value. But while reviewing the scene earlier today, I couldn’t find any mention by her of this at all in that scene. Where was it? Or was it a different scene?