• Precious Cargo Part 2 November 23 - 4:59 am

Pretty good episode IMO.

About the lifepod:
Why would somebody design that thing like a trashcan, no belts or something like it to get hold on (there's not always a tucker around)
and after landing you need to jump from the top of it.

That out of warp trick with stalling the ent's engines. why didn't they try to evase it?

How in blazes did you see it before it got aired, elwood?

I hope I didn't spoil?!

I downloaded it eary in the morning.
(since about 0400 german time)

Well, you didn't really spoil anything as I managed not to actually read your post. But, you downloaded it? This seems somewhat sketchy, if you'll forgive my assonance...

Because I'm sitting in good old .de too and we don't get ENT on TV until next year (maybe) I have to use some programs not compatible with MPAA and RIAA to get the episodes. This ep is already in the P2P systems (Kazaa...) and I'm pretty sure that it was on special servers before.

Hmmm... Well, a passable episode, even though it was almost entirely predictable. Let's see what I can remember off the top of my head...

Was anyone else waiting for Trip to call Kaatiama "Your Worshipfullness"?

So Archer offers to use the Enterprise to take the aliens the rest of the way, and says they could dock in the shuttle bay. Funny, but how exactly were they supposed to fit that ship in the shuttle bay?

This was a very brief thing I noticed and I was wondering if anyone else got a clearer look. After Trip is called down to the docking port (okay, I'm spacing on what these are actually called), we briefly see the hand of whoever opens the airlock. First of all, who is that? The hand just doesn't seem to belong to any of the three people present.

I hope that at some point, they have an episode where Trip goes to repair someone's ship and finds the crew is all-male.

So Trip has a phenominal learning ability! He needs Hoshi to decode the language that everything on the alien ship is printed in. This is good. But later on he gets everything instantaneously! That's one heck of a learning curve.

The scene when Kaatima and Trip first started trying to talk actually flipped my expectations around. There's a well-known stereotype that Trek perpetuates, that when an American runs into someone that doesn't speak English, they slow down and speak more clearly in the hopes of getting the point across. While I didn't see Trip doing this, Kaatima seemed to be doing so occasionally.

The scene with Archer declaring a tribunal initially appeared to be straight out of the Tom Clancy novel Clear and Present Danger.

Oh, and about that scene? How exactly did Archer convince T'Pol to do all that? And why does the prisoner give his stats in metric measurments?

There were definite problems with the escape pod launch. First, the pod is launched with the ship at warp, yet somehow manages to spend lots of time outside of the warp field before it crosses out of warp. Then when it does so, it does so apparently without turning its passengers into one big milkshake. And then we're supposed to think they were less than a day away from this planet? Right.

That's all I can think of... for now...

When offering to get the guys we don't yet know are kidnappers where they're going faster, Archer says "You could dock in our launch bay." Only if the bay has TARDIS technology, Captain, because their ship is about as big as yours.

It takes the ship less than a minute to disappear from Mayweather's scopes. At Warp 2.2. And later Archer says the ship's scanners have a half-dozen light-year range.

I'm not entirely clear on why Tucker can speak to Goff in the pod chamber, but has to find his communicator to speak to Katiaama. Whose UT is working for Trip-Goff, and why doesn't it function for Katiaama as well? Were the kidnappers that uninterested in speaking to their victim?

Once free in the pod, Trip refers to a system "about 80 million kilometers from here." I won't go into a long discussion about distance scales in space, but suffice it to say our star system is over ten billion kilometers in diameter. If you're 80 million kilometers from a planet in our system, you are IN the system.

Warp frequency? Oh, geez, they promised the technobabble generator would been turned to 'low' for this series …

I know Trip comes across as a bit insensitive at times in this episode, but how insensitive do you have to be, in a neurological sense, not to know you're sitting on a woman's hand?

After the pod lands, we see Trip and Katiaama slogging what seems to be a substantial distance toward their dry patch. Later, though, we see the pod very close to their campsite. Were they wading in circles just so they'd have more time to snipe at each other and build up the sexual tension, such as it was?

Katiaama complains that "There's very little dry wood" in their swamp. Has she thought of checking all of those trees around her?

Krios Prime was first shown in the TNG episode "The Mind's Eye", where they were fighting rebels, and LaForge gets brainwashed in an attempt to get the Kriosians to side with the Klingons. I knew I'd heard that name somewhere before. But I don't think we know what planet the kidnappers are from.
Trip was slow on the uptake when the lady wakes up and is pounding against the stasis bed door, he asks, "Are you all right?"
From the aliens' body language I knew right away they were up to no good. Did the director *want* us to realize it right away?
The first thing we hear the lady saying is, "Who is Hoshi?" I don't remember Trip mentioning Hoshi, and how would the lady know Hoshi was a person? The translator hadn't kicked in yet.
Sure is lucky there were no hungry life forms in that pond they were fighting in.
So they couldn't make some rope-vine traps for the bad alien who comes after them?
So the bad-guy aliens have to wear ugly makeup and the good-guy aliens have to look perfectly human?
That warp frequency bit was so lame. It sounds like an obscure bit of data you wouldn't expect anybody but the chief engineer to know. Didn't they do a scan of the vessel when they had the chance?

The first thing we hear the lady saying is, "Who is Hoshi?" I don't remember Trip mentioning Hoshi, and how would the lady know Hoshi was a person? The translator hadn't kicked in yet.roger

The translator hadn't kicked in for Trip yet, but it seemed like Kattima's translator already had (and no one asked for the UT specs... oh well) Also, Trip did mention Hoshi. Right before the UT kicks in, he says, "Where's Hoshi when you need her?"

"Warp frequency? Oh, geez, they promised the technobabble generator would been turned to 'low' for this series" -- SMT

Just because they decreased the technobabble doesn't mean they eliminated it. They have to use some. If they didn't, they'd end up sounding like the Pakled. ("We look for things that make us go.") And just what is so darn complicated about the term "warp frequency"? Now if Archer wanted to use a magnetic resonance inducer in order to remodulate an anti-proton ionic pulse in order to create a subspace neutrino beam that would instantaneously beam Trip and Katiaama off the planet, then I'd be upset. They needed to have some way to find Trip. I can't think of any better idea.

"Katiaama complains that "There's very little dry wood" in their swamp. Has she thought of checking all of those trees around her? " -- SMT

Emphasis on "dry" wood. Ever been to a swamp? Not exactly the most dry of places. I'm surprised Katiaama found as much dry wood as she did. And in case you're wondering, it's VERY difficult to start a fire with wet wood.

TUE'S COMMENTS:

I liked it. Nothing too serious. Wasn't one of those deep romances that end in heartbreak. They just argued a lot and ended up attracted to each other and probably made some hot jungle love. The episode ends with her teasing Trip about what may happen if he visits. If they had gone another way and had Trip actually have a serious romance with this woman, it would have been far less successful. As it stands, it was a nice little romp for our man Trip.

I thought the tribunal ruse was a riot.

Padma Lakshmi's portrayal of Katiaama was kinda weak, IMHO.

"What's that supposed to mean' -- I think that's become Trip's catch phrase.

Overall, not stellar, but pretty good. I enjoyed it.

See ya later
TUE

I didn't dislike it too much. (Faint praise!) Um, Elaan of Troyius, anyone?

I thought the woman playing Katiaama was an atrocious actress. I didn't get a sense of regality from her at all -- more like a whiny cheerleader.

Why is it that escape pods never have much in the way of survival gear? Food, (clothing for protection if not for warmth), and for x's sake, matches (or the equivalent)! Didn't Trip say something like he'd have to take out a thruster to start a fire? Granted, the expectation is that an escape pod would probably remain in space, but then why the landing thrusters? And why have gravity in the pod? If they could "turn it off" one of them could have fit more comfortably on the ceiling.

Ah, okay, I remembered a couple of other things-

First, Trip mentions a car he had on Earth. So they still use cars, eh? And by the size he mentions, they must still be making the Beetle.

Second, Influx's point about this seeming close to "Elann of Troyius" is pretty consistent with my friends' noting that this episode seemed very much in the TOS style.

When the Enterprise chases the cargo vessel, is uses the phase cannons to disable the other ship. Reed reports that one of the vessel's nacelles was hit. That thing has nacelles?

Seems to me that it would make more sense to try to commandeer the alien's ship, rather than trying to survive in the escape pod, or landing on a planet, or hoping for THE Enterprise to find them in a hurry. There was two of them at that point - pick up a hammer or something..

There were definite problems with the escape pod launch. First, the pod is launched with the ship at warp, yet somehow manages to spend lots of time outside of the warp field before it crosses out of warp.

I thought they were still inside the warp field when the pod was still moving at warp. remember those warp field diagrams from TNG the field didn't fit skintight around the ship it was big and extended out a good way beyond the ship. When Trip said they were crossing the subspace threshhold I figured that meant they were exiting the warp field.

It was a story that, even though it wasn't that bad, just sent me cringing every now and then. No, don't tell me they're actually forcing Trip and Katiaama to make out. No, don't tell me Archer, who spent the first half-hour bumbling around, now is expertly pulling the wool over the alien's eyes. No, don't tell me T'Pol is going to come in, wearing full Vulcan garb, and take part of this sham, too. Ugh. In between those moments, we had a watchable story, but it descended into camp too much to be great.

More nits and notes:

-- Until I looked up the title of that episode, I really thought the people of Kreos Prime would have been the same species from the original series' "Elaan of Troyius." The similiarities between Elaan and Katiaama are too great (including the double-a). Well, I guess we can add this one to the list of derivative Enterprise stories.

-- Let me get this straight, the aliens have kidnapped a princess, put her in stasis and now are sending out a general distress call!?! What? Do they want Katiaama's people to come and take her back?

-- In the shuttlepod, Trip refers to his captors as "they," a nice touch because he wouldn't know that Enterprise had captured one of them. But on the surface of the planet, he doesn't think to look for a second alien after the first one is KO'd.

-- A recurring nit about sublight shuttles: When Trip escaped, he must have picked the exact moment the ship passed that solar system. There's no other way the pod could have traveled there in a day at sublight speeds. And that's unrealistic.

-- Archer suggests the alien's ship could fit into Enterprise's docking bay? Sure doesn't look like it. And when the ship is trying to break free of Enterprise, is it really smart to have three people standing next to the airlock?

But, I must admit, using the airlock for a brig was a brillant touch. "You know the way out." That was great!

-- Humans should have been familiar with the idea of suspended animation during space travel. According to Trek history, it was used on Earth since ... oh, right about now.

Thanks, Roger, I knew I had heard of Krios Prime before. In "The Mind's Eye," it was a Klingon colony. I'd hate to think what's going to happen there.

And, my memory may be off, but weren't warp frequencies part of the techno-babble from TNG's "The Wounded"? And at the time, the Cardassians didn't know how to track them. Odd, then, that the species in this story looked so much like the Cardassians.

---Cliched through and through.
---There was nothing original about this episode, or the way it was executed. It borrows heavily from everything from Elaan of Troyius(TOS) to The Perfect Mate(TNG) to The Ascent(DS9), and just about every other "Two People Hate Each Other But End Up Friends/In Love" story both in and out of Trek.
---I did like the way that the aliens were set up as transporting a passenger, and then revealed to be kidnappers after Trip did some snooping around, (and I thought Reed actually came off as competent when Goff suddenly had to leave), but I can’t say that much for Padma Lakshmi’s performance as Kaitaama, or the way Kaitaama was written. Her acting was utterly awful, and while it seemed that she may have been intended as an Elaan of Troyius-type character, she was too softspoken and wishy-washy, even when trying to act bitchy, and I didn’t think there was any chemistry between her and Trip.
---Indeed, the way the entire episode played out gave the impression of actors being led like puppets by a rote script. "Oh, look. It’s time to be forced into an escape where we end up hating one another. Oh, look, it’s time for the woman to slap the guy, and for this to turn into a passionate liplock. Oh look, the bad guy shows up. Time for a fight. Trip’s best punches don’t phase the guy? Doesn’t matter. The girl will lightly tap the bad guy on the back with a stick, and that’ll do the trick." Between ST Nemesis and this episode, it would’ve been nice to have seen an original Trek story this week.
---Ho-hum.

Reminds me of when I was a high school freshman, and the older kids invited me on the first day to the "fourth floor" to see the "pool."
Archer tells the Goff in the opening scene of Act 1 that T’Pol will show him to guest quarters. Fallen Hero established that there are no spare quarters aboard the Enterprise.
As opposed to the guy who ends up marrying her, who will be her prisoner
Does anyone else think Trip and the rest of the crew were rather trusting in simply taking Goff and Plinn at their word that Kaitaama was their passenger, rather than a prisoner?
Given how gullible the crew is in this episode, Plinn might’ve gotten away with telling Trip that she’s into S&M
If Goff and Plinn had any brains, they would’ve known better than to have Kaitaama’s stasis pod in the exact part of the ship that required repairs by Trip. Their ship looks fairly big, so it shouldn’t have been a problem to move it to another part. What’s even dumber is that Plinn continues to keep the pod uncovered, and even allows Trip to brush away some of the frost on the plexiglass covering! Had he brushed a bit more of it, he might’ve uncovered her hands, and noticed that they were bound.
Yeah. But the repairman who come by to fix it still wear pants that show their butt cracks when they crouch down
After Goff breaks away from the Enterprise, he orders Trip to fix the stasis pod, and Trip says it will take a few hours. If Trip knows how to fix stasis pods, does this mean that Earth has stasis technology at this point in the timeline?
Actually, they’re pretty good at it. It’s Jolene Blalock who’s bad at it.
So much for T’Pol’s statement in Strange New World that Vulcans are not good at playacting.
You’d think after being stranded with Kaitaama, he’d be dying to be rescued
Trip’s reaction to the homing beacon in Act 4 bears some scrutiny. First, how does he know that a blinking blue light and sound is a homing beacon? Why does he assume Retellian homing beacons have the same look and signature to them as human ones? (Luckily, he turns out to be right.) Then, he destroys the beacon! What the hell does he do this for? He admits to Kaitaama that it could be either Goff or the Enterprise, so why doesn’t he just sit by and either let Enterprise find them, or lie in wait in case it’s Goff, using the element of surprise if it turns out to be him? He ends up pretty much doing both, but for an Engineer to destroy a homing beacon when stranded on a planet sounds like an unbelievably stupid thing to do.
If I had to end up sharing a ship with her for five months, I’d take a dive too
After Goff finds the escape pod in Act 4, he gets into a fight with Trip. The second time Kaitaama hits Goff, it looks like the stick barely grazes his shoulder, but he is apparently knocked unconscious.

Shouldn't the people who buy scripts be familiar with other stories that have been printed & filmed and know when a script is overly predictable? Was there anything original in this story? Did anyone even try to put anything original in this story?

When Trip said he needed a translation I wondered why he just didn't ask the guy in the cargo bay with him to translate. I did consider that maybe Trip realized that these guys were up to something, but he sure didn't act like it. Of course the real reason was so Trip & Kaitaama could communicate later. Although considering Padma's acting maybe they would have been better off with her speaking her alien tongue. Would have made the story more interesting.

Considering all the gadgets in the cargo bay & the fact that Trip could mess with the internal sensors & he is supposed to be an engineer, I'm surprised he decided to find an escape pod rather than jury rig a booby trap or weapon.

Wasn't Kreos also the name of a planet in The Perfect Mate?

The sensors can't find the ship so Archer asks for the warp frequency. Excuse me? If the ship is not on sensors how would knowing the warp frequency help? If Enterprise had detected 2, or more, warp trails, then knowing the exact warp frequency would help.

SMT - how insensitive do you have to be not to know you're sitting on a woman's hand?
Maybe it was cloaked? ;-) (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

What bugs me the most about the unoriginality of the story is that with just a couple of twists, it becomes a lot more interesting- for example, what if Kaatima and Trip really did fall in love, but Kaatima decided not to pursue same because of her status as First Monarch? Wow, it's instantly more interesting!

Or if it had been Kaatima and T'Pol. Whoops! Did I type that out loud?

I’m POSITIVE that that "Krios battlecruiser" docked with the Enterprise in the last scene of Act 4 is a ship we’ve seen before used by another race, but I can’t identify it. At first I thought it was a Nausicaan ship from Fortunate Son, but I checked that episode, and it’s not that. Anyone else have an idea?

Sparrow47: How exactly were they supposed to fit that ship in the shuttle bay?
Luigi Novi: Don’t ya just hate it when the FX guys who do the exterior shots, and the people who rewrite the scripts don’t compare notes?

Sparrow47: After Trip is called down to the docking port (okay, I'm spacing on what these are actually called), we briefly see the hand of whoever opens the airlock. First of all, who is that? The hand just doesn't seem to belong to any of the three people present.
Luigi Novi: It’s Docking Port 2. Archer is the one at the controls, so it’s supposed to be him, although when the camera pans from his hand to T’Pol, his head isn’t seen. I didn’t notice anything about particular about his hand. Why can’t it be him?

Sparrow47: So Trip has a phenominal learning ability! He needs Hoshi to decode the language that everything on the alien ship is printed in. This is good. But later on he gets everything instantaneously!
Luigi Novi: Doesn’t he get everything because he has the translation pattern on that PADD?

Sparrow47: Why does [Plinn] give his stats in metric measurements?
Luigi Novi: My understanding is that aliens speaks in their own language, and the unitran translates it. This includes units of measurement.

SMT: I'm not entirely clear on why Tucker can speak to Goff in the pod chamber, but has to find his communicator to speak to Katiaama. Whose UT is working for Trip-Goff, and why doesn't it function for Katiaama as well? Were the kidnappers that uninterested in speaking to their victim?
Luigi Novi: Goff and Plinn are Retellian, and Kaitaama is Kriosian. They speak different languages, and the unitran was only programmed for Retellian up til then. While speaking to their victim may have come in handy, the kidnapping could’ve succeeded without, especially if she’s in stasis for most of the time.

Once free in the pod, Trip refers to a system "about 80 million kilometers from here." I won't go into a long discussion about distance scales in space, but suffice it to say our star system is over ten billion kilometers in diameter. If you're 80 million kilometers from a planet in our system, you are IN the system.

SMT: Warp frequency? Oh, geez, they promised the technobabble generator would been turned to 'low' for this series …
Luigi Novi: I don’t think that’s a big technobabble phrase, but I do think that warp signature is what’s been used up til now.

SMT: Katiaama complains that "There's very little dry wood" in their swamp. Has she thought of checking all of those trees around her?
Luigi Novi: Probably not. She’s doesn’t strike me as the outdoorsy type, or the "enthusiastic about manual labor" type.

roger: I don't think we know what planet the kidnappers are from.
Luigi Novi: Their ship was said to be Retellian, so presumably they’re Retellian as well.

roger: The first thing we hear the lady saying is, "Who is Hoshi?"
Luigi Novi: Actually, we heard her talking in Kriosian for some time before the u.t. kicked in.

roger: I don't remember Trip mentioning Hoshi..
Luigi Novi: He did.

roger: and how would the lady know Hoshi was a person? The translator hadn't kicked in yet.
Luigi Novi: Yes it did. That’s the point at which it did: right before or as Trip said, "Where’s Hoshi when you need her?" From that phrasing, Hoshi is obviously a person.

roger: So the bad-guy aliens have to wear ugly makeup and the good-guy aliens have to look perfectly human?
Luigi Novi: The Kriosians’ appearance was established in The Perfect Mate(TNG).

Sparrow47: Reed reports that one of the vessel's nacelles was hit. That thing has nacelles?
Luigi Novi: It has to have nacelles in order to have warp. Their located in between those large cargo modules are either side of the ship. The only portion of them you can see are their yellow vents on the aft side of the ship.

Trike: In the shuttlepod, Trip refers to his captors as "they," a nice touch because he wouldn't know that Enterprise had captured one of them. But on the surface of the planet, he doesn't think to look for a second alien after the first one is KO'd.
Luigi Novi: There really wasn’t a lot of time to. The first thing he wanted to do was find Goff’s weapon, and then Archer, T’Pol and Reed showed up. Presumably, he might’ve thought about where Plinn was, given enough time.

Trike: Humans should have been familiar with the idea of suspended animation during space travel. According to Trek history, it was used on Earth since ... oh, right about now.
Luigi Novi: Oh yeah. Since at least 1996, to be exact. Forgot about Space Seed(TOS). Thanks, Trike.

Trike: Thanks, Roger, I knew I had heard of Krios Prime before. In "The Mind's Eye," it was a Klingon colony. I'd hate to think what's going to happen there.
Luigi Novi: It was called Krios in that episode and The Perfect Mate(TNG). I’m pretty sure this episode is the first time it’s referred to as Krios Prime.

Trike: And, my memory may be off, but weren't warp frequencies part of the techno-babble from TNG's "The Wounded"?
Luigi Novi: No, that was transponder codes.

Trike: And at the time, the Cardassians didn't know how to track them.
Luigi Novi: No, Gul Macet was surprised that Starfleet knew how to read Cardassian ones.

KAM: Wasn't Kreos also the name of a planet in The Perfect Mate?
Luigi Novi: Same planet, according to The Star Trek Encylopedia.

And btw, the system Trip saw was 90 million kilometers from their position, not 80. (Still a nit, though; just pointing out the details. )

SMT: Katiaama complains that "There's very little dry wood" in their swamp. Has she thought of checking all of those trees around her?
Luigi Novi: Probably not. She’s doesn’t strike me as the outdoorsy type, or the "enthusiastic about manual labor" type.

She should have known that being asked to "gather wood" is just an excuse to fool around (re: The 10th Kingdom). Though having her and Trip play hide-and-seek would have been interesting!

Uh, one more thing:

From the plot summary up above:

The Plot: Trip is kidnapping when he is making repairs to an alien life pod.

I realize the writer meant to say "kidnapped," but until I did, I was a bit confused ...

SMT: "Warp frequency? Oh, geez, they promised the technobabble generator would been turned to 'low' for this series?"

TUE: And just what is so darn complicated about the term "warp frequency"? Now if Archer wanted to use a magnetic resonance inducer in order to remodulate an anti-proton ionic pulse in order to create a subspace neutrino beam that would instantaneously beam Trip and Katiaama off the planet, then I'd be upset.

SMT: It sounds like technobabble, which many learned to dislike during "Voyager". It serves the same purpose as it did on "Voyager", that being to provide our heroes with a synthetic problem, or a synthetic solution to their problem. "Warp frequency" isn't a term we've heard much, if at all, on previous Trek, making it seem all the more contrived.

TUE: They needed to have some way to find Trip. I can't think of any better idea.

SMT: Okay, how's this? The cloud didn't foul their warp drive, but their sensor grid. (Makes it a lot more reasonable for the ship to disappear as fast as it did.) The crew still needs to purge that system, but it would go a whole lot faster if they knew the precise chemical make-up of the substance that fouled them. (They can't tell now because the sensors are down. [wink]) Plot can now proceed as before, without the need for excessive technobabble.

Katiaama in "Precious Cargo" looks very much like Kamala in "The Perfect Mate"; they have similar spots running down their sides and both come from a planet called Krios (or Krios Prime). I believe that this episode is easily a prequel to "The Perfect Mate".

It’s Docking Port 2. Archer is the one at the controls, so it’s supposed to be him, although when the camera pans from his hand to T’Pol, his head isn’t seen. I didn’t notice anything about particular about his hand. Why can’t it be him?Luigi Novi

I'm not saying this is a nit, but when I saw it, it just didn't look like his hand. It looked somewhat gnarled and greenish. Now, it's probably just me but I thought I'd mention it.

Doesn’t he get everything because he has the translation pattern on that PADD?Luigi Novi

Sure, and as long as he has the PADD he's in good shape, but it didn't look like he had it for most of the time, and he certainly didn't have it in the pod.

My understanding is that aliens speaks in their own language, and the unitran translates it. This includes units of measurement.Luigi Novi

How convenient then that the conversion between the two measures is such that everything comes out in happy little "I love you" numbers!

It has to have nacelles in order to have warp.Luigi Novi

Hmmm, I dunno, the Borg cubes we saw in TNG didn't seem to have any problem with warp speed.

Okay, something else I came up with. So, Trip and Kaatima are stuck in this hot, steamy jungle, and wouldn't you know it, but they eventually end up having hot steamy jungle sex. After this, however, they end up putting their clothes back on to go to sleep! There are a couple of ways around this- either they just felt more comfortable with them on (which is possible yet it seems kinda weird), or the scene with the homing beacon wasn't supposed to be on the same night as their, er, encnounter. Actually I find this second idea more plausible simply because their clothes have dried by this time, and as humid as that jungle is, it seems like it would take a while for things to dry.

Trip in his skivvies!!! Trip in his WET skivvies!!!! Umm...was there anything else going on in the story?

Usually, I am an ardent supporter of Enterprise and Voyager and other things that a lot of other die-hard fans dislike. I even liked this episode. But I'm a little concerned about the way Enterprise is deciding create episodes. There's nothing wrong with the approach they're taking per se. I'd guess that they're going for an approach that allows us to get a feel for the characters before shoving them into highly complex plots. The last 4 episodes have been stand alone episodes that had no recurring aliens in them. The Suliban have been ignored since Shockwave 2, The Romulans had a forgettable role in Minefield, and the Klingons (who were suffering from a massive case of Wile E. Coyote Syndrome in their episode) showed up in Marauders. Other than that, it's been standard stuff similar to the vast majority of TOS episodes. I know TPTB are going for exactly that kind of feel, but I'm getting a little impatient for something to happen.

MINOR SPOILERS:

And it's coming too. In February, we meet Phlox's wife, T'Pol is stigmatized by other Vulcans, the Suliban return, and the Andorians start a war with Vulcan. (All according to various rumors I've heard of course.) Darn good stuff.

END SPOILERS

But I think TPTB may be alienating (forgive the pun) the casual viewers with this run of the mill stuff so early in the season. I can't say that these episodes have been bad. They haven't been too bad at all. And there haven't been any real stinkers (some may argue for "A Night in Sickbay" but I disagree). But there haven't been any stellar episodes this season that have made me sit up and take notice.

Don't get me wrong. I have no life so I'll be watching Enterprise even if it becomes as bad as Andromeda. (Can anyone else believe how horrible that show got from the beginning of season 2 to the end? I stopped watching that show though.)

Enterprise has a lot of strong points. TPTB need to explore more of these points and soon before the audience dwindles too far.

This concludes rant #474747 from The Undesirable Element.

See ya later
TUE

Actually, TUE, I might nominate "Carbon Creek" as a really bad episode. And, I liked "A Night in Sickbay."

Maybe, Sparrow47, but I think Carbon Creek has one of Trek's best lines. Mestral's logical reason for getting something from the crashed ship, "I Love Lucy is on tonight", has to be one of the all-time great lines of Trek, especially delivered with the Vulcan deadpan.

Etc & etc:

-- I guess this is a TNG nit that has resurfaced. The Klingon colony from "The Mind's Eye" was on Krios and the people from "The Perfect Mate" were Kriosians. But it's hard to believe they share the same planet. Maybe there are two inhabitable planets in the Krios system.

-- In "The Mind's Eye," Krios was near the Klingon-Romulan border, and Enterprise has encountered both the Romulans and Klingons, so it would make sense they would be in the general area of Krios Prime.

-- Boy, some of the cliches of this story were so poorly executed I didn't even recognize them. The fight between Trip and Katiaama. The instant attraction. I just didn't go for the whole they hate each other, now they love each other bit.

-- Geez, sorry, Luigi, I couldn't get any of the details from the "The Wounded" correct. I might not remember as much from that story as I thought, but I still remember it was better than this story.

But I do think Trip had enough time to wonder about the second alien. Especially with that hokey scene where Archer and the rest surprise Trip while he is bent over in the water.

As far as the technobabble issue, my feeling is this: Is the wording is so arcane, convoluted, esoteric and/or excessive that it is used to deliberately obscure what it refers to, that’s a copout.

To me, being able to track or identify a ship from its warp signature, transponder code or shield harmonics makes sense. They’re telling us that shields and warp fields have a ship-specific fingerprint, which I find an interesting premise. This idea is not without a real-word reference: Mike Okuda tells us in the Encyclopedia that shield harmonic identification is similar to how today’s naval sonar operators can identify different ships and submarines purely on the basis of the propeller rotation frequency and other audible characteristics.

With technobabble, the creators have to be able explain to us that the characters are using technology to help to move the plot along, BUT—this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. When they use a form of technobabble that makes a reference to a 21st century metaphor of some kind, that makes it go down easier. For example:

Since the creature in Galaxy’s Child(TNG) was essentially a newborn suckling from the Enterprise, what Geordi and Brahams did —altering the ship’s energy frequency—was likened to souring the milk. This made what they were doing easier to understand, and even entertaining.

Another example: "Coaxial warp drive" is just technobabble. But Paris compared a component that Steth’s ship needed in Vis a Vis(VOY) to a 20th century carburetor, giving a better idea of what this component did.

An example of technobabble that was just technobabble, was how Janeway broke away from the ships at the end of The Swarm(VOY). She simply mumbled something about "modifying the pulse to the inverse of the frequency," or some such nonsense like that. There was no metaphor, or explanation as to why this would work, or why Janeway didn’t think of it before, or why the discovery that the pattern holding the ships together was a lattice of some sort somehow led to this solution. What I would’ve done was use a "mirror" metaphor. Everything Voyager threw at the aliens was reflected back at them. Just a mirror will reflect a laser from a remote control, it won’t reflect a beam that is too powerful, it’ll simply warp and crack, like that mirror in the bar in Superman III. The solution, therefore, would be overloading one of the ships, and the problem would be how to do this with Voyager’s depleted energy. Torres could’ve suggested shutting down the warp core, life support, everything, and throwing everything they had at those ships, and this would’ve been more understandable. Just my suggestion.

Lee Jamilkowski: Katiaama in "Precious Cargo" looks very much like Kamala in "The Perfect Mate"; they have similar spots running down their sides and both come from a planet called Krios (or Krios Prime). I believe that this episode is easily a prequel to "The Perfect Mate".
Luigi Novi: This is just my opinion, but I don’t see it as a prequel just because it features the same species. Is Fortunate Son a prequel to Tapestry(TNG)?

Sparrow47: How convenient then that the conversion between the two measures is such that everything comes out in happy little "I love you" numbers!
Luigi Novi: Are those the types of numbers Bob Ross used to paint?

If you mean that they were whole numbers, Plinn said he was 1.8 meters tall. Is that a "happy" number?

Sparrow47: Hmmm, I dunno, the Borg cubes we saw in TNG didn't seem to have any problem with warp speed.
Luigi Novi: I assumed their nacelles were inside the ship. They also have transwarp coils, though I don’t know if they take the place of traditional warp.

Sparrow47: Okay, something else I came up with. So, Trip and Kaatima are stuck in this hot, steamy jungle, and wouldn't you know it, but they eventually end up having hot steamy jungle sex.
Luigi Novi: This was not my understanding of the scene. Nothing conclusively shows that they had sex. They could’ve made out and stopped at that.

TUE: I can't say that these episodes have been bad. They haven't been too bad at all.

Sparrow47: Actually, TUE, I might nominate "Carbon Creek" as a really bad episode. And, I liked "A Night in Sickbay."
Luigi Novi: Except for referring to the Vulcan’s encoutner with humans as "First Contact," and the hypocrisy that T’Mir displays regarding interference, I liked Carbon Creek. Marauders, The Communicator and this episode, on the other hand, were pretty bad, IMO.

Trike: But I do think Trip had enough time to wonder about the second alien. Especially with that hokey scene where Archer and the rest surprise Trip while he is bent over in the water.
Luigi Novi: But isn’t that one reason why he was looking for Goff’s weapon? Since Plinn wasn’t around, Trip might have assumed that he and Goff split up in different directions, or that one stayed on the ship while the other went down to the planet.

And yeah, The Wounded is a good episode. Don’t sweat it, even I made sure to review that scene to confirm what I recalled about the transponders.

Cliches. As soon as they argued I knew Trip was gonna score.

I must've missed it. Exactly when did Archer & co. know the bad guys had kidnapped that princess? (Or did they even refer to that and only focus on damage to the Enterprise during the "tribunal")

Luigi,

Is "Kriosian cruiser" or whatever at the end the bad guys ship in the episode where Hoshi freaked out after seeeing dead bodies. (You know, the aliens who were trying to drill into the Enterprise hull.) (Gee, episode titles are nice things to remember.)

Fight or Flight. No, Berry, it's not that one. Without even looking at that episode, I remember what both the Axanar ship and the enemy ship looked like. But thanks for the suggestion.

Luigi--
"Given how gullible the crew is in this episode, Plinn might’ve gotten away with telling Trip that she’s into S&M"

You might be right.

Trike--
"The Klingon colony from "The Mind's Eye" was on Krios and the people from "The Perfect Mate" were Kriosians."

The Klingon colony might have been established just a few years before, or 10 or twenty years before. It might have been just a starbase, but called a colony for whatever reason.

Oh, and another thing--the title of the episode suggests some emotional bond or attachment, which doesn't exist at all in this episode. It's just lust between Trip and Katiaama. The title suggests the kidnappers might have had some emotional attachment beyond the mercenary--they might have kidnapped her for her own good, as part of a larger conspiracy--they might have been working with a larger group who were plotting to overthrow the government. Something like that. And it might have been more interesting if the kidnappers had been Kriosians as well.
They might not have cared about her at first, but then grow fond of her later. I don't know if that would be implausible or cliched, but they might seem less one-dimensional.
Katiaama could also have been a kid, (not a cute one!) an older woman, or a totally androgynous individual, and Trip doesn't want to risk offense by asking the person's sex. I know TNG had androgynous aliens, but the episode wasn't done very well. And, if Katiaama is androgynous, that doesn't mean all the Kriosians are.

I don't see how the title suggests any of this. Sure, the word "precious" can mean "dear" or "beloved," but the primary definition is simply "important" or "high in value."

Well, the Gorn and Federation now have a treaty and share Cestus III, so maybe Krios is the same way but between the Federation and the Klingons.

TUE - it's been standard stuff similar to the vast majority of TOS episodes
Except that the majority of classic Trek episodes were so good people watched them over & over again for several decades. Not one episode of Enterprise has made me want to watch it a second time.

Blue Berry - As soon as they argued I knew Trip was gonna score.
I knew it when I saw they had cast a drop dead gorgeous woman to play the part.

I knew it when I saw they had cast a drop dead gorgeous woman to play the part. -- KAM

Of course! They should only cast ugly women on Enterprise because attractive women are only used for their outer beauty.

See ya later
TUE

I was wondering if they cast her only because she was a Halle Berry type.

I also speculated on whether this would have been better with Travis in Trip's role. The guys had a cargo ship, and he grew up on one -- he could have been the one to fix a broken cargo loader or something, and take the story from there. Trip's had enough stories focused on him already anyway.

I thought at least when they said it was a cargo ship that he might get involved swapping "boomer" stories.

First Monarch? On its face, a contradiction in terms. So I’m trying to imagine the political system on Krios Prime. Soviet? Planetary feudalism?

Sparrow47: Why does [Plinn] give his stats in metric measurements?
Luigi Novi: My understanding is that aliens speaks in their own language, and the unitran translates it. This includes units of measurement.

:: That ain’t the half of it. T’Pol asks Plinn for his WEIGHT, and he gives her 72 kilograms. That means the UT knows the gravitational acceleration on Retellia(?) and has recalibrated for g. Alternatively, Plinn’s thought process went: “Weight? Why is this numbnuts asking for a measure that’s meaningless without a frame of reference? Oh, well, she’s obviously not a scientist, she doesn’t know what a fundamental dimension is, and she’s asking, in her cute inarticulate way, for my MASS.” “(Aloud) 72 kilograms.”

BTW, that would put Plinn’s body mass index in the 19th to 40th percentile (of the target demographic). Goff is presumably similar. So how does a skinny •••• like that take Trip’s best shot with a grin?

Luigi: Nothing conclusively shows that they had sex. They could’ve made out and stopped at that.

:: Uh, OK.

TJ, Plinn looked to have a very bony face.

With no lavatory in the pod, Trip and Katiaama would have had a rather difficult time relieving themselves, and a long one at that.

ScottN: Plinn looked to have a very bony face.
Scottie: Aye, a VERY bonnie face.
:: Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Hans, it's possible that one of the benches had a top that flipped open to reveal a toilet, or that they had tubes, like our astronauts sometimes use.

And Trike, in what way did the Retellians look like Cardassians? I personally so no resemblance.

According to some people, ALL aliens look like Cardassians so I would pay little attention to that.

Trip seems to be pretty friendly with the ladyfolk. I imagine that by the time Leonard McCoy writes "Comparitive Alien Physiology" most of his source material comes from Trip's personal logs?

Luigi: "If Goff and Plinn had any brains, they would’ve known better than to have Kaitaama’s stasis pod in the exact part of the ship that required repairs by Trip. Their ship looks fairly big, so it shouldn’t have been a problem to move it to another part. "

That would have been rather difficult, considering that they needed Trip to repair the statis pod itself.

Oh, and Luigi, the Kiros Battlecruiser is a reuse of the Lokirrim ship from the Voyager episode "Body and Soul" with the little wedges removed from the wings and painted grey instead of a yellowish color.

http://members.fortunecity.de/neutralzone/LokirrimWarship.htm

Disregard that website, as that is a misleading recreation of the ship. Instead goto http://www.ditl.org and "other ships" and then "additional." This looks EXACTLY like the Kiros Battlecruiser except it is yellow.

TUE, I didn't say anything about not hiring beautiful women. My comment simply dealt with the obviousness of it.

She's beautiful so there will be a love scene. If she was ugly they would have played it for laughs by having her be attracted to Trip & he wanted to get away.

As Sparrow pointed out if they had added a few twists it would have been much better.

Merat, thanks on BOTH counts!

I think the reason I misremembered the issue of the stasis pod was that when the Archer, T'Pol and Trip first meet Plinn and Goff, Trip asks if he heard that it was something about "life support," and the Retellians tell him it's the stasis pod. I remembered Trip's comment, but not the Retellians' comment. Thanks.

This raises another nit--tells them that if Kaitaama wakes up, there will not be enough food or breathable air for all three of them. A ship the same general size as the Enterprise doesn't have enough for ONE additional person? That's hogwash. Sure, having to feed her and guard her is more difficult than if she's in stasis, but it makes no sense that a ship that size can't support three people.

Yet another idicator that the fx people screwed up when sizing the ship.

Enterprise episodes in my area get shown on Tuesdays for some reason with only one channel while satellite mainly shows them on Wednesdays.

Anyway, not a bad episode, pretty formulaic though but fun.

I don't see how the title suggests any of this. Sure, the word "precious" can mean "dear" or "beloved," but the primary definition is simply "important" or "high in value."

I think you answered your own question. It would have been more intereting and imaginative and creative, and...

You know about the "Stockholm Syndrome?" (In case anybody doesn't, it's where the kidnap victim sympathizes with the kidnappers.) I wonder if that would be considered a cliche? I don't remember it being used all that often.

A variant would be where the kidnappers are on her side and want her to see "how the other half lives." "We're doing this for your own good."
So they don't want her harmed, but they want to take her to their colony planet, or something. This would probably require that the kidnappers be Kriosians as well.

But it does have the special Warp Established Premises drive
In Act 2, Archer tells Plinn in the ready room that Goff could be within half a dozen light years. It takes the Enterprise 4.53 days to travel a light year, according to Broken Bow. To travel “half a dozen” would take 27.18 days, and the cargo ship doesn’t even have Warp 4.5, but Warp 2, as Travis indicates in when chasing after it in the beginning of Act 2.
I’d prefer it if they designed them to read lousy scripts and improve them
In escaping in the escape pod, Trip uses his tricorder’s universal translator to read the Retellian controls. This is a refreshing break from all the instances of our guys knowing how to instantly read alien controls, but Archer told Riann in Civilization that the universal translators in their communicators weren’t designed to read control panels.

Luigi, you said Trip used his tricorder, not communicator to read the controls. Also, it's been about a year since Civilization. Maybe they were upgraded?

Trip didn't use his communicator. He used what looked like a tricorder. But I did err in that Archer was referring to his tricorder in Civilization, not his communictor, as I said above, since he was holding the same device Trip is in this ep, and not his communicator.

Yeah, it's possible they were upgraded, but I would wonder why they didn't simply design them with that feature in the first place.

SMT: Once free in the pod, Trip refers to a system "about 80 million kilometers from here." I won't go into a long discussion about distance scales in space, but suffice it to say our star system is over ten billion kilometers in diameter. If you're 80 million kilometers from a planet in our system, you are IN the system.
Luigi Novi: Except that he didn’t say they were 90 million km from a planet in the system, he said the system itself was 90 million km away. In other words, the outer planet of that system, which represents its outer edge, was that distance away. Kinda like if someone 90 billion km from Pluto (or Neptune, depending on when this happens) sees our system and says the same thing, even if the breathable planet they're interested in is Earth.

The point was the scale. 80 million km is well within the system already.

What Luigi is saying is that the 80 million kilometers refers to the outer edge of the system.

Draw a circle 10 centimeters in diameter. The center represents a system's star. And the circle represents the orbit of the outermost planet in that system. Now draw a point outside the circle that is 3 centimeters away from the edge of the circle.

Now, is that point within the system because it's at a distance less than the width of the circle? No, of course not. It's a point outside the circle. Similarly (based on the dialogue) the escape pod was outside the edge of the system.

Thank you. (And although SMT said "80 million," Trip actually said "90 million.")

Gotta go with SMT here. Luigi says distance to the outermost planet, but that could be on the opposite side of the sun. Darth clarifies as the distance to that planet’s ORBIT, but that requires plotting the orbit and possibly others (Neptune/Pluto as Luigi points out, or a moon orbiting that planet). And then all you get is a point in space. Another possibility is the nearest planet. But that’s a moving (Newtonian) reference point, as is the planet you’re interested in. No, the only logical way to express distance to a system is distance to the STAR (the same way road signs work today–distance to city center). But, of course, if you’re that close, why would you note the distance to the SYSTEM in the first place?

Bottom line: somebody made up a number, and nobody thought it through. A nit.

Darth clarifies as the distance to that planet’s ORBIT, but that requires plotting the orbit and possibly others (Neptune/Pluto as Luigi points out, or a moon orbiting that planet). - TJFleming

Why would he need to plot the orbit? Wasn't he looking at a map or star chart of the star system (which is how he knew it was there in the first place)? I would expect a star chart would contain the information with no need for plotting anything.

Well now, you're assuming first that the approach is on a radial of the ecliptic. But if one approaches axially, then the star is closer than any of the planets. You're also assuming that the planet always tracks the same orbit and disregarding that approaching during a lunar eclipse would bring the system boundary closer than during a solar eclipse. Finally, distance to the system boundary is a pretty useless piece of information.

"Are we at Disneyworld yet?"
"We're two miles from the Orlando city limits."
"Are we at Disneyworld yet?"

And you're assuming that the planet has a moon that would affect its orbit. Finally, it's probably more useful than the distance to the system's star.

"We're two miles from Disney, kids."
"Is that two miles from the parking lot or from Mickey's castle?"

Since the distance to the star doesn't make sense, then obviously Trip meant something else.

Indeed, Trip was looking at both his tricorder and the computer on the Retellian escape pod, using the former to translate the latter. He said, "If I'm translating this right, there's a system about 90 million kilometers from here." I presume that the computer graphic itself showed a diagram of the system and the escape pod, and indicated the distance between the two, using the nearest point of the system as reference.

I don't see any reason why it would have trouble plotting the orbits of the planets in the system, especially if this were a known system already in its files, nor do I see why it would use a point on the opposite side of the sun to do this rather than the point closest to the pod.

TJ Fleming: Well now, you're assuming first that the approach is on a radial of the ecliptic.
Luigi Novi: Perhaps it is.

TJ Fleming: But if one approaches axially, then the star is closer than any of the planets.
Luigi Novi: What if it’s approaching axially to the outer planet?

TJ Fleming: You're also assuming that the planet always tracks the same orbit…
Luigi Novi: What’s wrong with this?

TJ Fleming: Finally, distance to the system boundary is a pretty useless piece of information.
Luigi Novi: What if the planet in question is on the system boundary?

Disclaimer: I’m making this •••• up. But I think 22 years as a military aviator gives me some insight on how these things ought to work.

So, I extrapolate: One navigates by SOP. An interstellar navigational computer would logically be programmed to plot a initial course toward the star of the destination system because (1) one can see it, (2) traffic control would demand system entry by published pattern, and (3) plotting one’s final destination within the system is simpler because the star is a natural, fixed (Newtonian) center for the spherical coordinates. Once the traveler is in the pattern (or close to the system if it’s undeveloped), a course correction would be requested to the planet/star base/what-have-you. Now, even though Trip could make an ad hoc decision to proceed directly to a point in the system (although he never said so--he said “a system”), the computer (and Luigi points out that he’s getting his directions from the computer) would follow the SOP and use the star as the point of reference. And if the computer depicts the entire system so that Trip could select his own point of reference, why would he select the system boundary and not a likely-to-be-habitable planet? Conversely, if he is talking about distance to a planet, why does he say “a system?”

Other stuff:
Darth: And you're assuming that the planet has a moon . . .
:: No, I’m hypothesising.
Darth: . . . that would affect its orbit.
:: I don’t think I said that. (But I did point out that the boundary is bigger if the hypothetical moon is on the “outside.”)
Darth: . . . obviously Trip meant something else.
:: QED.

TJ Fleming: You're also assuming that the planet always tracks the same orbit…
Luigi Novi: What’s wrong with this?
:: As you pointed out, sometimes Neptune is outside Pluto.
Luigi: . . . nor do I see why it would use a point on the opposite side of the sun to do this rather than the point closest to the pod.
:: YOU said “outermost planet.” I was just acknowledging Darth’s clarification.
Luigi: (radial approaches, axial approaches, destination on the system boundary)
:: All dealt with in my paradigm.

I think that we're losing sight of Trip's agenda... trapped in an escape pod with (presumably) limited resources, he had three choices:

1. Sit and wait and hope some passing ship detects them (including the people he's escaping from).
2. Plot a course into deep space and hope some passing ship detects them (including the people he's just escaped from).
3. Plot a course to the nearest planetary system and hope it's inhabited (increasing the odds that a ship will detect them) or hope there's a planet or moon they can land on.

The problem I see here, is that an assumption was made by SMT that Trip was referring to the planet itself rather than the system. You're excluding any other possible scenarios simply because it doesn't fit with your pre-conceived conclusion that they were wrong and it's a nit.

But as Luigi and I are trying to explain (perhaps ineffectively), there are other possibilities. And in fact, if you take the facts, rather than extrapolations, assumptions, and hypotheses, our scenario is more likely.

FACT: Trip stated the distance to the "system" was 90 million kilometers.
ASSUMPTION: The distance to the habitable planet was 90 million kilometers.

We don't even know if Trip knew there's was a habitable world there. He could have simply been playing the odds, choosing the option that is most likely to help them.

Maybe the figure he provides isn't wrong, isn't a nit, but your assumptions are what's wrong.


I don’t think I said that. (But I did point out that the boundary is bigger if the hypothetical moon is on the “outside.”) - TJFleming

I misunderstood. You were speaking of planetary orbits and in the same sentence talked about eclipses, so I assumed the two were tied to the same idea. Didn't realize you had speaking of boundaries.


As you pointed out, sometimes Neptune is outside Pluto. - TJFleming

But maybe in this system, that doesn't happen.


All dealt with in my paradigm. - TJFleming

A paradigm that assumes that all alien computers follow your line of reasoning as to how things "ought to work."

I have no quibble with Trip's agenda: get to a planet.

I have no quibble with the notion that 90 million kilometers is meant to be the distance to the orbit of the outermost planet (which may be elsewhere at the moment).

The nit is simply, if he's approaching "edgewise," why would the computer spit out, or Trip take notice of, that useless number (the absolute minimum distance where he could find refuge) instead of the distance to the star, which, for planning purposes, is somewhere near the statistical average distance he would have to travel?

(Of course, antinitting myself, he could be that distance "above" the star and still be outside the system.)

Slow day at work.

I don't see why it would give him distance to the star and not the planet. What does statistical average distance have to do with it? If he's gonna touch down on a planet, that's what he wants. Hell, for all we know, TJ, maybe the graphic gave many differnet figures, including both distance to the star and distance to the planet. But the one he mentioned was the one important one he was interested in.

What planet? He said "a system." If it showed him a planet, he would have said so. So he sets out for the system hoping to find a planet. How far can he expect to travel? Maybe the near boundary; maybe the far boundary; on average, halfway, which is the computer's best guess--IOW, where the star is.

TJ Fleming: What planet? He said "a system."
Luigi Novi: And? What do you think a "system" is? A star with planets orbiting it. He was looking for one on which he could land the escape pod. He found one. Perhaps the graphic he was looking at gave more than one distance, like the distance to the star, the distance to the closest planet, etc.

TJ Fleming: on average, halfway, which is the computer's best guess--
Luigi Novi: Why would the computer have to make a "guess"? It knows where the system is, and can illustrate where the planets are. There's no reason why the computer would not indicate where both the star and the individual planets are, or why it would not give the distance between the escape pod and the nearest point in the system, which could be the outermost planet.

So he says “system” even though he’s identified a planet because--what?--it’s more important to preserve the surprise than to reassure his passenger?

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I’m persuaded that he hasn’t identified anything. “If I’m translating this right, there’s a system . . .” could be the speculative part, not the distance. For example, the alien computer could be displaying isogravs (or whatever “contour lines” of gravitational forces might be called), which would be open to various interpretations.

“If I’m reading this map correctly men, were at the base of a cliff.”
“Uh, sir, that’s a weather map. You’re looking at a cold front.”

It could also be like trying to get to a city and knowing how far you are from the state.

"We need to get to Atlanta"

"Well this map says we're 65 miles from the Georgia state line"

of course that doesn't mean Atlanta is 65 miles away.

So he says “system” even though he’s identified a planet because-- - TJFleming

The assumption that he identified a planet is what Luigi and I have been arguing against all along. You're absolutely right, we don't know what he identified or calculated from that graphic. We have merely postulated that there are likely interpretations where what he said was accurate and not a nit. It is only a nit if you discount all other possibilities, and only accept the one scenario in which it would be a nit... which is very limiting... and a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy.

So he says “system” even though he’s identified a planet because--what?--it’s more important to preserve the surprise than to reassure his passenger?
Luigi Novi: I'm not sure I'm following here. He says it's a system because it is one. The graphic showed a large yellow sphere with about five small blue objects revolving around it in their own orbits. Saying, therefore, that he thinks it's a system, seems like a fairly reasonable conclusion.

TJFleming, back in December, wondered about the term First Monarch. Well, in European history,
many rulers have had many complicated relationships with other rulers, and the hierarchy hasn't always been simple. People could be the king of one place, prince of someplace else, duke of another place, and subject to the Grand Kingly Overlord of the Confederation of Something Else. Maybe on Krios, the First Monarch is subject to the Supreme Monarch on weekdays and subject to the Ultimate Monarch on weekends.
And remember, the Bishop of Rome called himself "First among Equals."

From the Greek:
mono=sole
arkhos=ruler.

Darth: The assumption that he identified a planet is what Luigi and I have been arguing against all along.
:: Well, you anyway. (Luigi: In other words, the outer planet of that system, which represents its outer edge, was that distance away.) (Luigi again: I don't see why it would give him distance to the star and not the planet.)

Moving on,

Luigi: The graphic showed a large yellow sphere . . .
:: OK, didn't remember seeing that. (Move to strike the introduction of new evidence on rebuttal.)

Darth: . . . there are likely interpretations where what he said was accurate and not a nit. It is only a nit if you discount all other possibilities . . .
:: I disagree. Even a completely accurate statement is a nit if it is inappropriate under the circumstances. Trip's Andy-of-Mayberry style is fine among his peers; when he's responsible for the safety of an outsider, he needs to go "Star Fleet Guy." He's trained for it.

So, Trip's ambiguity has kept us going for over a week. About nothing. This is too much like work.

Even a completely accurate statement is a nit if it is inappropriate under the circumstances. - TJFleming

True. But can't people have differing views of what is "appropriate"?

Absolutely. In fact, controversy is inevitable in my two favorite topics (out-of-character dialog and bad science/anomalous technology). And what a fascinating board it would be if the nits were indisputable: Rewind Rangers pointing out that "when the camera pans back, the coffee cup is gone!"

TJFleming:

From the Greek:
mono=sole
arkhos=ruler.

Aw, don't be so literal. Monarchs routinely have subordinates, cabinet members, and parliament members who have their own spheres of influence. So they aren't really the sole rulers.

Why did the translator translate the term with that particular phrase? Maybe it's a literal translation of whatever the original term was.

Maybe he's called the First Monarch because his current wealth/land holdings are the largest on his planet. Other monarchs on the planet have less.

Maybe Krios had its governmental system changed recently. It's now a monarchy, and the current ruler is a monarch with no predecessors--the first one. The next monarch will be referred to as The Second Monarch, and so on.

I hope this isn't getting too dull and pedantic. I was just trying to come up with some interesting possibilities.

Hey, I'm a gum'mint regulatory lawyer. Dull and pedantic is my LIFE!