You know what's weird? I had an odd thought this sometime past week about names for starships, and for some reason, the word "Ticonderoga" slipped into my head, and I though, "Yeah, that's the ship that transports the Federation's supply of pencils." Then in this episode, they reveal a ship with that name! Weird.

Quick. What's tonight's lottery numbers?

I've been having so many things like that happen to me lately, it's not even funny anymore. I'll be thinking of a song, turn on the radio, and it's playing. That's happened to me three (3!!!) times in the past two weeks... and I don't turn on the radio all that often. Also, a word will pop into my head (y'know, some word that's not widely used) and the person I'm talking to will say it seconds later. Seriously, it's really starting to freak me out. So Luigi, I know what you're talking about, and it's strange to say the least!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK (POSSIBLY THE SEASON):
"That explains a lot." -- Commander Shran after the Aenar woman says that Archer's mind contains many facets that are in conflict.

MISSING FLEET OF THE WEEK:
Did I miss something here? Where did that massive 128-ship fleet go? That Romulan drone ship is still out there. Shouldn't those ships be out looking for it? (Or is that where they went? Maybe I missed a piece of dialogue.)

MYSTERIOUS EVOLUTION OF THE WEEK:
How in the world did life evolve on a planet that only gets above freezing whenever a freak heat wave occurs?

WORKER APPRECIATION OF THE WEEK:
One of the primary points of "Similitude" was that Enterprise NEEDS Trip. Once again Archer claims that he NEEDS Trip on board. Is this guy really so darn special? It's not like Enterprise is an alien vessel or something. Trip's only an engineer, not a God. Granted, he is experienced and valuable to the crew, but wouldn't Trip be NEEDED on the Columbia more than the Enterprise?

PARALLEL ARCHITECTURE OF THE WEEK:
Take a look at the rooms in the Aenar city. Do those circular wall panels look familar? They should. They look almost exactly like the wall panels on Shran's ship. The Andorians have only been in VERY sporadic contact with the Aenar for 50 years. I find it unlikely that they could share the same architecture.

MIRACLES OF MODERN MEDICINE OF THE WEEK:
Shran mentions that at a young age he fell into a nest of those heat-worms and received third-degree burns over most of his body. Those Andorian plastic surgeons are pretty darn remarkable. Third degree burns on most of Shran's body should have left him SEVERELY deformed. Or perhaps he IS deformed under his uniform. (Hmmm... maybe that's why he's so agressive... compensating for something. )

PERSISTENT ROMULANS OF THE WEEK:
Why do the Romulans keep using those holoemitters? Surely they've realized how ineffective they are now.

FORGETFUL ENGINEER OF THE WEEK:
Trip acts like the experience of knowing he was going to die and having time to think about it has never happened to him. Well how about "Dawn", "Vox Sola", "Shuttlepod One", "Desert Crossing", or "Observer Effect"? In all of those examples, Trip has been near death and conscious enough to think about it. Trip has a penchant for getting into near-death experiences! How was last week's problem any different?

APATHETIC SWINE OF THE WEEK:
Why is Shran the only person that stays on Enterprise to help with the search? The Romulans are clearly a threat to the Tellarites as well. Why didn't Gral or an associate of his stay aboard?

MYSTERIOUS TUNNELS OF THE WEEK:
After travelling in a big circle in the ice caves, the holo-Aenar appears. Then after being convinced of the Aenar-girl's intentions, she disappears and the exit appears. Can anyone make sense of what happened there? If they had continued going forward, wouldn't they have ended up outside?

COOL ASTRONOMY OF THE WEEK:
Andoria is a moon of a ringed planet! That is very cool! The concept of underground cities was reminiscent of the Ocampa, but it was interesting here because the Andorians chose to live there.

ODD SPELLING OF THE WEEK:
Can anyone explain to me why a word pronounced "EE-nar" is spelled with an "A" at the beginning? Of course, I haven't figured out why Brett Favre's name is spelled the way it is either.

OVERALL OPINION OF THE WEEK:
In a lot of ways, this episode feels like it was separate from the rest of the arc. I was disappointed that the Tellarites left and the fleet was gone; however, the story told here was very good. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Shran's presence is always welcome. His chemistry with Archer and the Aenar girl was spectacular. I also appreciated a little bit of down time from the Romulans. Admiral Valdore's story was kind of interesting. It was also nice that the Romulans weren't all entirely sinister. Very nice episode.

TUE

"Romulans. They're so predictably treacherous."

Rene: Quick. What's tonight's lottery numbers?
Luigi Novi: I’m not sharing them with anyone!

---Critique:
---Not bad, but this episode seemed tacked on more than anything else. Aside for the need to resolve the plot twist set up in the closing shot of the previous episode, the arc could’ve ended with that episode, and this one doesn’t feel like it’s part of the same arc. That said, Alexandra Lydon’s performance was really good, and the episode did a good job of forming a believable rapport between her and Shran and Archer. Those shots of the Aenar’s subterranean cities were really nice.

---Notes:
---This episode marks the first time we see Andoria, a blue planet with rings, and at least two moons or neighboring planets, and where it can get 28 degrees below in the summer, as established in Act 1. Andorian cities are built underground to take advantage of geothermal energy, and Shran didn’t see his sun until he was fifteen. Jhamel and Shran seem to indicate in the fifth scene of Act 2 that the temperature on Andoria’s surface only rises above freezing for a few weeks at at time during heat waves every few years.
---Valdore indicates to Nijil (whose name, along with Vrax’s, is spoken for the first time in dialogue) in Act 1 that he was once a senator, and a colleague of Vrax’s, but was expelled for questioning the doctrine of unlimited expansion.

---Terms:
First Consul Position in the Romulan government that Valdore assures Vrax he will attain as a result of their plans in the teaser.
telepresence Word that T’Pol uses in the opening scene of Actd 1 to refer the to the technology that allows the Romulans to remote pilot their ship over a distance of many light years.
Aenar An ice-dwelling subspecies of blind, white-skinned Andorian with formidable telepathic abilities, that were considered mythical by most other Andorians up until fifty years ago, when they were discovered in the Northern Wastes, as Shran tells Archer in the third scene of Act 1. There are only a few thousand Aenar left, and not many other Andorians have seen one. They are extremely secretive, and are pacifists, and therefore do not have the ability to construct a ship like the Romulan drone. The Aenar compound is surrounded by a dampening field, as Reed states before Archer and Shran beam to Andoria later in the Act. The Aenar are highly telepathic, though among them, they have a strict law forbidding entering another’s thoughts without that person’s permission, as Jhamel tells Shran and Archer in the beginning of Act 2. She also tells them that they assign their leaders, whom she calls “Speakers,” as the need arises. Lissan indicates later in the Act that the temperature in their habitat does not rise about freezing.
Northern Wastes Area on Andoria where the Aenar live.
duranite caps Components that Trip tells T’Pol in sickbay in Act 1 should be removed from some of the pieces of equipment they use to construct a telepresence unit in Act 1.
ice-bores Andorian worms that live in the ice and generate heat through a chemical reaction, whose holes are pointed out by Shran in the last scene of Act 1. He says he fell into a swarm of them as a boy and suffered third-degree burns over half his body. We see them in the opening scene of Act 3.
Lissan The female Aenar that speaks to Archer and Shran in the third scene of Act 2 as the Aenar’s representative. (Name from startrek.com only.)
Speaker The leader assigned by the Aenar to speak for them, as Lissan tells Archer in the third scene of Act 2.
Jhamel The female Aenar who befriends the convalescent Shran in the beginning of Act 2, and who reveals that she is Gareb’s sister. Lissan addresses her by name in Act 3.
Gareb An Aenar whom the Speaker says disappeared a year earlier while collecting ice-bores, as Jhamel tells Archer and Shran in Act 2. He is the captive pilot of the Romulan drone ship revealed in the closing shot of the previous episode.
Ticonderoga Earth cargo ship Archer mentions is missing in Act 3, no doubt named after the historic fort in New York State. Debris from its apparent destruction is found later in the Act.

Luckily, he got used to extremely cold temperatures on his face when he played Spin the Bottle with T’Pol
If it’s 28 degrees below on Andoria’s surface, then shouldn’t Archer have worn a full face mask when beaming down in Act 1? Wouldn’t he get severe frostbite on his face without it?
They were on an episode of the interstellar version of Trading Places, and Paige Davis spruced up the place
If the Aenar are blind, as Shran states in the third scene of Act 1, and as he again repeats in the fifth scene of Act 2, then why are all the buildings of their compound lit up? Why do their interiors have different colors and even differently-colored lights? Why does the medical instrument used by the male technician who tends to Shran’s wound in the opening shot of the third scene of Act 2 use a light?
Much in the same way that she can tell what fanboys are thinking at conventions when she sees them crossing their legs
In second scene of Act 3, Trip whispers to Phlox so that T’Pol supposedly can’t hear what he’s saying about her, but he should know by now that she should be able to hear him, even with him whispering.
You’d think the creators on this show would jump at the chance to have a female character take her clothes off
As Keith Alan Morgan pointed out for the previous episode, wouldn’t Jhamel be sweltering once on the Enterprise?
Balance of Contrivance
In the teaser, Vrax is chewing out Valdore because their plan to use a drone camouflaged as a potential enemy ship of its target was intended to cause dissent, and ended up causing the Tellarites and Andorians to come together. The Romulans then attack an Earth cargo ship, which, as a continuation of their original plan, sort of makes sense, since, as a civilian ship, the attack may drum up anti-Starfleet sentiment, like the kind expressed in Home. But then the drones attack the Enterprise again at the end of Act 3, disguised as a Tellarite freighter. What good will this do? How will this further their plan? By now, the drones’ secret is blown, and Starfleet, the Vulcans, the Tellarites and the Andorians now know that it’s to blame for the attacks on the all their ships. All another attack will do is give the Enterprise another opportunity to capture the drones and possibly discover their Romulan origins, and maybe even expose them as the attackers on the Tellarite and Andorian ships. Even if the drones destroy the Enterprise, this will just further spur Starfleet to step up its pursuit of the drones with more ships. It seems this sequence was merely placed in the episode to provide another space battle.

LUIGI NOVI: This episode marks the first time we see Andoria, a blue planet with rings, and at least two moons or neighboring planets

Auctualy Andoria is the moon of the gas giant which had the rings and this is more then possible since the jovian planets in our system harbor moons as at least as large as mars and we know of sevral systems with jovian planets in the habbital zone

Good set of episodes. I do find it ironic that TPTB at UPN are now advertising the new episodes as the Final Votages of Enterprise.

I know this is not canon, but in the book The Worlds of the Federation, Andor is described as a hot dry world with little surface water. But the book does mention centers of geothermal energy.

Anon, where was it established that Andoria was the moon?

1. On the surface of Andoria, a ringed planet can be seen in the sky.
2. The camera focused on the moon rather than the planet when the Enterprise was approaching.
3. Gas giants are not well known for being hospitable, and that ringed planet looked like a gas giant to me.
4. Information on the net has confirmed that Andoria is a moon.

TUE

"We're whalers on the moon.
We carry big harpoons.
But there ain't no whales,
So we spin tall tales,
And sing a whaling tune."

TUE: How in the world did life evolve on a planet that only gets above freezing whenever a freak heat wave occurs?
Luigi Novi: If ever you see programs on the future of space exploration, TUE, you’ll see that our scientists are very hopeful that they’ll find life on other planets that appear to have inhospitable habitats, like Mars, or the under the ice on the frozen moons of Jupiter. What you hear over and over is that life has been found to thrive in totally inhospitable environments, even here on our planet, like around thermal vents deep on the ocean floor, where there is no oxygen or sunlight. You should see the trailer for the upcoming James Cameron film, Aliens of the Deep. Hell, you can watch it here.

TUE: Granted, he is experienced and valuable to the crew, but wouldn't Trip be NEEDED on the Columbia more than the Enterprise?
Luigi Novi: Maybe. It’s subjective, I think. Enterprise is the flagship, and so it needs the best. Archer may also have been allowing some personal feelings to color his statement. I also think the crew’s limited resources during the Xindi arc made the statement in Similitude more apt.

TUE: Third degree burns on most of Shran's body should have left him SEVERELY deformed.
Luigi Novi: With the medicine of the 2150’s, why couldn’t third-degree burns on more than half of someone’s body be healed?

TUE: How was last week's problem any different?
Luigi Novi: Because that may have been one of the first ones he’s had since realizing that he’s in love with T’Pol.

TUE: Why didn't Gral or an associate of his stay aboard?
Luigi Novi: What difference would it make? More ships, I could understand, but more people on the same ship? It’s not like they’re searching by sticking their heads out of the portholes and looking around, and that more heads equals a better search.

TUE: If they had continued going forward, wouldn't they have ended up outside?
Luigi Novi: They weren’t going to travel forward, because Lissan put up a telepathic illusion of a wall. She was doing this to force them into circles.

TUE: Can anyone explain to me why a word pronounced "EE-nar" is spelled with an "A" at the beginning?
Luigi Novi: For the same reason the Klingon Homeworld, pronounced “kronos,” is spelled with a “q” and apostrophes:

Linguistic BILC.

I haven't read all the posts on this board (much less seen this ep), but has anyone else noticed that the title of this ep is an anagram for "The Arena"? Wonder if there's any significance in that? (Probably not.)

Live long and prosper.

Another very enjoyble three-parter!

The concept of the albino telepaths reminded me very much of the albino telepaths in "Minority Report". As for T'Pol's telepathic power. Can Vulcans be considered telepathic? Usually, they have to physically place their hand on someone to read minds. Don't telepath's read minds from a distance?

The heat worms reminded me of the Horta from classic Trek's "Devil in the Dark". I'm not sure what they would consume though. Ice? The underground city was poorly rendered in a very flat-looking effect. It looked like an ice version of Jar Jar Binks underwater city.

The saddest part of the ep was the closing announcement that this was one of the final episodes of Enterprise. Over on cable, Showtime ran a Trek themed night showing Trekkies, Trekkies 2, and ST:Nemesis. I saw Trekkies 2 for the first time ( it's shows fans from around the world; the Klingon Santa Claus was a real hoot). It was also the first time I've seen John Billingsly (Phlox) without his make-up. At the end of Trekkies 2, some fans expressed the thought that maybe Trek needed to go away for a while and come back. How can they say that? Just as Enterprise was getting better this season, UPN cancelled it.

The telepaths in Minority Report weren't albinos.

Perhaps Starfleet should have recruited an Aenar to work with Ambassador Kollos in the TOS episode "Is There in Truth No Beauty?"

A common oversight in winter stories is you dont see the person's hot breath in a cold atmosphere. The Discovery interior in 2010 had this done very well, maybe the stage can have its heat temporarily turned down to just below zero for the photography sessions. Its discomfort, but that is realism. For me it is easy to forget the characters are cold.

They actually did that in the first season's "Shuttlepod One," by lowering the temperature for the shuttlepod interior set. They probably considered it for this episode, but for such a large, un-enclosed set, it was impractical or overly expensive.

Pretty good episode. Not as strong as the previous two, but still interesting. And it had a few good character moments, especially with Shran. I also liked learning a little more about the villains, especially Valdore's former attitudes. And I will admit, I did not see that last scene coming.

Why would a blind race need light in their cities? Did they also produce heat?


Rona: The concept of the albino telepaths reminded me very much of the albino telepaths in "Minority Report". As for T'Pol's telepathic power. Can Vulcans be considered telepathic? Usually, they have to physically place their hand on someone to read minds. Don't telepath's read minds from a distance?
I believe we see Tuvok telepathically communicating without contact in Random Thoughts (VOY).

Spock also did it in two episodes of TOS.

Three. Specifically, A Taste of Armageddon, Devil in the Dark and The Omega Glory

"Why would a blind race need light in their cities?"
Good question. Here's another: Why would they need holographic technology, either?

"Did I miss something here? Where did that massive 128-ship fleet go? That Romulan drone ship is still out there. Shouldn't those ships be out looking for it?"
And shouldn't they have shown up to help the Enterprise when the drones attacked her?

"The underground city was poorly rendered in a very flat-looking effect."
_I_ was expecting something like the ice caves of Hoth in Empire Strikes Back.

And I agree with TUE; this ep did seem separate from the others - possibly because a different team wrote it.

Aside from this - again, great show.

And that's all I got to say about that.

Why would they need holographic technology, either? - Stone Cold

Was that holographic technology? My impression was that they were using their telepathic skills on them and we were "seeing" what Archer and Shran were seeing.

Star Fleet Captain Qualifying Exam:
1. You have neutralized a hostile vessel of unknown origin and technology. What is your next step?
a. Send a boarding party to analyze it.
b. Request that a technical party be sent to your location to analyze it.
c. Tow it to your home base and have the experts there analyze it.
d. Blow it up real good.

TUE: I haven't figured out why Brett Favre's name is spelled the way it is either.

:: Spelled right, pronounced wrong. How's this (speculating):

1. French great grandfather Favre (pronounced "fahv") moves to Mississippi.
2. Locals hear "fahv" and think he's saying "Farve" with a foreign accent (Boston or some such).
3. "Down here, boy, we pronounce it 'farv'."
4. Gramps accedes to the pronunciation but keeps the spelling.

And that's all I have to say about Star Trek for today.

It was more important to prevent the ships from continuing their attacks in the region than attempting to capture or study one. In any event the Romulans were preparing to self-destruct their ships before the Aenar turned them against each other.

Enterprise is also the only warp-5 ship(until next week) and thus sending technical experts to the ship would take too long and give the Romulans the chance to get the ships back.

Also, they did send a boarding party to analyze the ship(Trip and Reed) and the party was promptly captured.

Aenar: the Ae is pronounced similarly to the ae in the word "aegis".

When the drone pretended to be a Tellarite ship, Archer had to take a chance firing on it in case it was a real Tellarite ship, as T'Pol mentioned. Later, the other drone pretends to be Andorian and T'Pol immediately says that its power signature is not Andorian. How come she didn't say a word about even checking the signature on the other one? And considering the Tellarites' recent spirit of cooperation, you would think they would have given Enterprise that kind of data. Didn't they detect in one of the earlier episodes in the arc that a Tellarite ship was really the drone?

As Keith Alan Morgan pointed out for the previous episode, wouldn’t Jhamel be sweltering once on the Enterprise? - Luigi Novi

I don't know if this makes any sense but Shran mentioned that the Andorians tapped into geothermal energy for warmth (I think). Also, when someone (Archer or Shran) mentioned the Enterprise was warm, Jhamel seemed to be excited about that. Is it possible the Andorians never adapted to the cold and feel more comfortable in a warmer environment? And related to that: Is it possible Andoria could have been warmer until a relatively recent time?

but has anyone else noticed that the title of this ep is an anagram for "The Arena"? - Benn

If you're referring to the TOS episode, the title was simply "Arena."

Three. Specifically, A Taste of Armageddon, Devil in the Dark and The Omega Glory - ScottN (referring to Spock telepathically communicating without contact)

Also, By Any Other Name.

I gues also Is There In Truth No Beauty?, since Kollos was incorporeal. At least I think he was.

If you're referring to the TOS episode, the title was simply "Arena." - Nove Rockhoomer

Yeah, I know it was called "Arena", but I wasn't necessarily wondering if it was a reference to that Original TREK ep (though that might have been a possibility). You've gotta realize that I was looking over the New Messages and happened to see the title of this ep. For some reason my mind unscrambled the letters and saw that it was an anagram for "The Arena". What I was really wondering was if the anagram ("the arena") had any significance for "The Aenar"? I'm guessing it doesn't. But it would be cool if someone put that much thought into it.

Live long and prosper.

I reviewed the shot in Act 1 when the Enterprise approaches the planets in the Andorian system, and I detected only the barest incline of the ship toward the smaller planetoid in the final frames, but then I checked here for info on the subject, and they revealed that the smaller planet is indeed Andoria! (Geez, how the hell did you guys see that tiny inclination? Sheesh. And I thought I was observant…) Interestingly, in the original script, Andoria had a bluish sun, but the only other celestial body in that shot was another planet in the distance.

Nove Rockhoomer: I don't know if this makes any sense but Shran mentioned that the Andorians tapped into geothermal energy for warmth.
Luigi Novi: Yes, but wouldn’t they at least be used to much lower temperatures anyway, given the temperature of their planet’s surface?

Nove Rockhoomer: Also, when someone (Archer or Shran) mentioned the Enterprise was warm, Jhamel seemed to be excited about that.
Luigi Novi: She seemed to me to be simply amused at the way he answered her question (“What’s it like on your ship?” “Warm.”)

Nove Rockhoomer: Is it possible Andoria could have been warmer until a relatively recent time?
Luigi Novi: It would have to be long enough ago that the first circumnavigation around the planet by an ice-cutting ship was a considered a significant enough achievement for a warp ship in the Imperial Guard to later be named after it during the Andorians’ warp age.

TUE - Can anyone explain to me why a word pronounced "EE-nar" is spelled with an "A" at the beginning?
I believe it comes from the Greek symbol Æ (where the A & E are joined together.)
Of course why an alien race would use a Greek symbol & pronunciation makes no sense. I think the writers should have just spelled it the way it sounded.

In the previous episode Shran mentioned the first ice cutter to circumnavigate the planet. In this episode we learn that the temperature rarely rises above freezing in some parts of Andoria. Soooooooo why build an ice cutter instead of an ice schooner that will ride over the ice instead of cutting through it?

Shran mentions to Archer that it's summer where they land. Would the word summer have the same meaning on a moon orbiting a planet orbiting a sun as it does to a planet orbiting a sun? I should think that orbiting the planet would create a variety of seasons & sub-seasons, what with the position in relation to the sun & the planet.

BILC! Like 'Encyclopaedia' and 'Haemoglobin'.

If Travis gets paid by the word, he's probably the highest-paid actor on the show. "100 kilometers." The entire text of his lines in this episode...

I liked that Shran made mention of the air quality after beaming down. There is definitely an "icy" smell in the air under those conditions (as I was reminded of this morning). I love the smell of freshly-fallen snow.

It's interesting that the writer also used an idea that dates back all the way to original Trek's "The Cage"; that an underground cave society would develop telepathic powers. Unlike the Telosians, the Andorians here still firmly held on to their ethical beliefs.

Can anyone explain to me why a word pronounced "EE-nar" is spelled with an "A" at the beginning? - TUE

Did Aesop have a fable for this?

BILC! Like 'Encyclopaedia' and 'Haemoglobin'.

Those doesn't look cool, the looks weird compared with 'Encyclopedia' and 'Hemoglobin'.

Darn you americans with the unneccessary removal of letters! This is very rude behaviour! You have no honour! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off for a sail out of the local harbour. I have to make it to the Dutch East Indies in time for Labour Day. I hope I'm not wearing the wrong colour clothes...

"the looks weird"... I need to proofread...

It should read "they look weird". Lousy no-edit function... mumble mumble...

KAM: Soooooooo why build an ice cutter instead of an ice schooner that will ride over the ice instead of cutting through it?
Luigi Novi: Why did that guy recently try to circumnavigate the Earth in a balloon instead of simply taking a plane or a boat?

Thande - BILC! Like 'Encyclopaedia' and 'Haemoglobin'.
Dæmon looks cooler, though.

Luigi Novi: Why did that guy recently try to circumnavigate the Earth in a balloon instead of simply taking a plane or a boat?
Not really a good example.
A balloon can cross areas that a boat cannot & the speed of a balloon is slower than a plane so someone can see more going on below that a plane might miss.
A better example would be someone building a boat that can dig through land so they don't have to go around those pesky continents.
It's possible there may be parts of Andoria where there is thin ice over the ocean so an ice breaker might work better, but we don't really get enough information. Since it's apparently the first vessel to go around the world the builders may not have known if it was possible to sail a ship around the world, so an ice schooner that could also float would seem to be the better course of action.

Have they done a conference around a table before on Enterprise? I know they do some discussions around a display behind the bridge, but is the first time several key members of the crew with the guest alien sat and had a conference?

This may have been the 'first' conference.

Maybe it was an ice-cutter in that it skimmed along the surface, but bored through the jagged ice shards rising out of the surface ahead, like cutting through the Fortress of Solitude (as a visual reference) instead of going over it.

KAM, you're right, the letter ash (æ) does look better than just doing it as 'ae', but obviously you need access to special characters...

I wish we'd kept it, and other useful old English letters, as it makes the language look funkier. Wouldn't you rather write 'þæt' rather than 'that'?

This is cheap (chaep?), and all-too-common, but Hoshi should've come with Archer and Shran, since they didn't know the Aenar (evidently) speak English.

How, exactly, was the Aenar pilot conned by the Romulans? They mention he was rescued and then told he was the last of his kind, but jeez. That story is thinner than something else really thin.

Also, the Romulans seem to be misusing the word "drone." Usually, a drone operates itself. Their vessel is more of a remote. (Unless it has AI programming they never mentioned.)

Hoshi should've come with Archer and Shran, since they didn't know the Aenar (evidently) speak English.


They probably figured that if they Aenar didn't speak English, that they would speak Andorian, and Shran could translate.

I've heard the term "drone" used to refer to UAVs and RPVs as well.

Don't they simply use the universal translator? If the Aenar have been known to blue Andorians for fifty years, their language could be known too, and programmed into the UT.

Wouldn't you rather write 'þæt' rather than 'that'?

Not on this kæyboærd.

As for thæ Aenar, why would thæy need a trænslætor to speak to a tælæpath? Thæy could just lærn English or Andorian from your bræin.

Because they have a strict law against reading someone's mind without their permission.

Maybe I missed it in this series, but do they even have a Universal Translator? OK, I'm sure the Federation doesn't (hence the need for Hoshi), but I'd think some of the other races do.

Influx, yep they have a UT, but it's more primitive (or so we're told).

When Spock was in Henoch's sphere he was able to summon Chapel to Sickbay.

Uhm... so he was, John D, so he was...

Influx, the universal translator was present in the pilot, was referred to as such in Fight or Flight, and was first referred to as the "u.t." in Dear Doctor.

"By LUIGI NOVI on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 07:36 am:


Because they have a strict law against reading someone's mind without their permission."

Ah, but Archer didn't know that until AFTER meeting them.

But Dough-Boy's original point was that Hoshi should've come with them. So aside from Aenar telepathy, they still wouldn't need Hoshi if they had the ut.

And even if they didn't have the UT, they wouldn't need Hoshi, because since the Aenar and the Andorians are aware, Shran would have some way of communicating with them, and he could translate for Archer as needed.

John D: I think it was probably Sargon that called Chapel to sickbay in Return to Tomorrow, since it was his plan to use her body to house Spock's consciousness and there's no indication that Spock could communicate from the receptacle.

Uhm, John D, Nove, not that I don't agree with you, but why are nits for "Return to Tomorrow" (TOS) being posted on the "The Aenar" (ENT) board???

By Dan Gunther on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 03:20 pm:


Uhm, John D, Nove, not that I don't agree with you, but why are nits for "Return to Tomorrow" (TOS) being posted on the "The Aenar" (ENT) board???

They're debating Vulcan telepathy, I assume.

Oh!!! Oh, God, I am such a dunce. It's all coming together now! Sorry, sorry, carry on. My bad.

RE: Telepathy...
Spock was able to sense VGer. Course, VGer was BIG.

Also, the Reman Viceroy was able to violate Troy. Course, they both had abilities.

Market them as Ford’s new line of antimatter-guzzling SUV’s
Jamahl Epsicokhan, in his review of the episode at http://www.st-hypertext.com/ent-4/aenar.html, questioned the logic of the Romulan drone’s design, asking why the Romulans would even design remote-controlled war drones that require a telepathic pilot, of all things—and one that they needed to kidnap from another world—rather than ones that used keys or a mouse or a joystick or something. Jamahl also asked why they were so shortsighted as to kidnap only one Aenar to fly them, and what they would do with the drones once Gareb died, seeing as how Valdore saw his health to be “of no consequence.” Would they just mothball them?

I thought they had to be controlled by a telepath because telepathy is faster than other communication methods. Maybe if the tests had been successful, they'd have used Reman telepaths (and we know they exist from Nemesis) for future missions.

I don't know of any indication where it's ever been established that telepathy is faster than subspace communication, but if it is, I think it's something they should've stated explicitly.

I thought there were some nits in previous shows about telepaths talking (telepathing?) instantaneously over distances that made it seem unlikely. Perhaps I was mistaken. Or read it somewhere else. I dunno.

Luigi Novi: I don't know of any indication where it's ever been established that telepathy is faster than subspace communication, but if it is, I think it's something they should've stated explicitly.
Hmm. It's something I always assumed.

TUE: How in the world did life evolve on a planet that only gets above freezing whenever a freak heat wave occurs?
In addition to Luigi's earlier answer, it's surprisingly simple for life to appear in below-freezing environments: just have natural antifreeze in the blood and cell plasm.

NANJAO: Given that the Aenar's skin colour is apparently distinct from the rest of the Andorian race (Jhamel calls Shran 'blueskin' as a label), does this have anything to do with the very dark-skinned Andorian seen in TNG "The Offspring"? I know that was only a holographic simulation, but presumably there are real Andorians who look like that too.

I thought the exterior effects in this episode were really awesome...both the concept of Andoria as a Europa-like moon orbiting a Saturn-like gas giant, and the image of the Romulan drones being launched from Remus (at least I think that barren world was supposed to be Remus) with green and lovely Romulus in the background.

I agree with whoever mentioned it above that it was mad for Archer to deliberately destroy the second drone rather than try to capture and analyse it. It would have been better if either Gareb had (either overzealously or accidentally) destroyed it, or Valdore had managed to set the self-destruct to prevent it falling into human hands.

I particularly liked the Valdore backstory and the doubting scientist.

Regarding the comment on why they only kidnapped one Aenarian, well one was convincing, two would have looked suspicious.

Has anyone found the similiarities of this story arc with some old guy named "Aeneas?"

Why does the telepathic control chair created by Enterprise not have hand controls where as the Romulan one does? I'd think the Romulan's one would be more sophisticated than Enterprise's.

This could have been asked in any of the eps, but do the Romulan uniforms look closer to TOS or TNG and beyond?

Regarding the Aeneid/Aeneas similarities, note that the Aenars were thought to be myth...

Can you find the others?

(and yes, I realized I messed up the name of the Aenars name in the previous post)

"drones that require a telepathic pilot"

It looks like just about anybody can use subspace, and so theoretically interfere with/jam/takeover drone controls. The crew had to go pretty far out of their way to find even one person who could interfere with the telepath-controlled drone.

"Was that holographic technology? My impression was that they were using their telepathic skills on them and we were 'seeing' what Archer and Shran were seeing." Darth

A good point, but when her image appeared it had some visual and audible static. That doesn't mean it wasn't telepathy, but makes holography more likely IMO.

"I don't know of any indication where it's ever been established that telepathy is faster than subspace communication..." LN

In theory, telepathy has no limits, aside from its user, and cannot be blocked, except by other telepaths. So in essence, telepathic communication should be practically instantaneous no matter the distance; but that doesn't explain why the drone had so many subspace antennae.

"This could have been asked in any of the eps, but do the Romulan uniforms look closer to TOS or TNG and beyond?" Torque

I think they looked like how they would change between TOS and TNG, not prior to. Plus, I don't recall seeing any of those helmets from TOS.

Setting up that tele-presence thingy in sickbay isn't a bad idea, but what if Enterprise had several casualties, which it should have considering the damage they were taking? That whole arrangement took up more than half the room.

>>PARALLEL ARCHITECTURE OF THE WEEK:
Take a look at the rooms in the Aenar city. Do those circular wall panels look familiar? They should. They look almost exactly like the wall panels on Shran's ship. The Andorians have only been in VERY sporadic contact with the Aenar for 50 years. I find it unlikely that they could share the same architecture.

Why shouldn't it? Aenar and Andorians are basically the same species, its not beyond possibility that they have the same artistic tastes so design equipment/displays that look similar.

>>APATHETIC SWINE OF THE WEEK:
Why is Shran the only person that stays on Enterprise to help with the search? The Romulans are clearly a threat to the Tellarites as well. Why didn't Gral or an associate of his stay aboard?

Gral and his part are diplomats, Shran is a trained and experienced military officer. Which do you think would be more helpful in a fight?

>>They were on an episode of the interstellar version of Trading Places, and Paige Davis spruced up the place
If the Aenar are blind, as Shran states in the third scene of Act 1, and as he again repeats in the fifth scene of Act 2, then why are all the buildings of their compound lit up? Why do their interiors have different colours and even differently-coloured lights? Why does the medical instrument used by the male technician who tends to Shran’s wound in the opening shot of the third scene of Act 2 use a light?

What makes you think they can't 'see' light or don't need to? Jhamel is well aware that Shran is blue, rather than her own white, which is why he mentions the Aenar are blind the second time around - Jhamels answer was 'You wouldn't understand'.
You also assume that the Aenar built this city, but we don't know that for sure. All we do know is that they live here. For all we know the Andorians built this city for the Aenar as a gift, in which case they'd naturally include lighting while they were building it. And, of course, the Aerar seem to have had some contract with Andorians before so would know that turning the lights on so the guests don't keep walking into the walls is the polite thing to do.

Anti-Nit; One of TOS episodes has a blind woman who can 'see' using a special garment. If I remember correctly this device was an Andorian sensor net. I think that the Aenar are meant to be using these devices to 'see' in this episode, although its not mentioned I *think* that the shawls the Aenar are meant to be the same devices. (Had there been a season five with Jhamel appearing at least once no doubt this would have been explained.) If these devices pick up electromagnetic energy to allow 'sight' then it is logical to assume the Aenar city would have lighting for them to see by.

>> It was more important to prevent the ships from continuing their attacks in the region than attempting to capture or study one. In any event the Romulans were preparing to self-destruct their ships before the Aenar turned them against each other.

There is also the small fact that Enterprise knows that the ships are able to repair themselves at this point. Archer wouldn't want to hang around and risk the Romulan drone repairing itself and continuing the fight or flying off.

Besides, even if Archer captures the ship and is sure its not going to be recaptured or come back to life he's then faced with the difficult question of where exactly does he take it? You have four different races that have all a vested interest in the technology and which helped fight the drone off - all of whom will be arguing that the ship should be taken back to one of their bases for dissection. No matter where he takes it the other three governments are going to complain, either that they are more advanced and therefore better suited to study it or that whoever is keeping the ship is hiding information about it for their own use.

>>Nove Rockhoomer: Is it possible Andoria could have been warmer until a relatively recent time?
Luigi Novi: It would have to be long enough ago that the first circumnavigation around the planet by an ice-cutting ship was a considered a significant enough achievement for a warp ship in the Imperial Guard to later be named after it during the Andorians’ warp age.

(and related nits about the temperature on Andoria)

I think it would be fairly safe to assume that not all of Andoria is under ice, since the Andorians had ships it is reasonable to assume that they have Oceans. As salt water freezes at around -1.8 °C (28.8 °F) on Earth the average temperature of Andoria has to be higher than this. (Assuming that Andoria's oceans are similar to Earth's Oceans in Salinity).
It should also be remembered that Shran only says that the temperature sometimes gets above freezing where he lives. If he is talking about the freezing point of freshwater this would by the above logic imply that the average temperature of Andoria is between -1.7 and 0 degrees centigrade.
I'm not 100% sure here, but I don't think Shran ever says exactly where on Andor his home is in relation to the equator, so while his home city may not get above freezing it might be warmer closer to the equator.
One thing I can recall is that the Aenar live in the far north, which would tend to imply that its colder there than it is elsewhere on Andor.

Funny thought; Maybe the reason the Vulcans and Andorians never got on that well has to do with the different temperatures of their homeworlds, and hence the temperatures they are used to.
Imagine, a Vulcan ship slowly lands in from of the Andorians. The Andorians slowly approach the ship...The hatch opens...The closest Andorian screams as the Vulcan temperature air inside hits him in the face like a bucket of boiling water and shrivels his antenna...

>>How, exactly, was the Aenar pilot conned by the Romulans? They mention he was rescued and then told he was the last of his kind, but jeez. That story is thinner than something else really thin.

It was fairly clear that the Romulans had been drugging the guy, so he's probably not thinking to clearly - no doubt why they drugged him in the first place.


Nit; How did the Romulans capture one of the Aenar in the first place? They live on Andor, do the Andorians seem the kind of people who don't patrol their own home system or have plantary defences to anyone else?

How did the Romulans even discover the Aenar existed and where they were? From the sound of things Andorians don't go around telling people about them.

Anti-Nit; One of TOS episodes has a blind woman who can 'see' using a special garment.

The episode is Is There In Truth No Beauty?(TOS)

Thank you Scott, its been a long time since I caught any of TOS.

Cybermortis: Why shouldn't it? Aenar and Andorians are basically the same species, its not beyond possibility that they have the same artistic tastes so design equipment/displays that look similar.
Luigi Novi: I don't see what speciation has to do with artistic taste. People in the same family often have wildly divergent tastes, so I don't see why people would have similar ones simply because they're in the same species. Moreover, TUE wasn't talking about similar taste; he was talking about the wall panels looking identical. Identical specificity of design in a wall panel among groups so separated cannot be accounted for by taste.

"Gral and his part are diplomats, Shran is a trained and experienced military officer. Which do you think would be more helpful in a fight?"

But its not really an either/or situation. He should be on there as well as Shran, or at least some Tellarite should have been. To act as some sort of liaison officer.

>>>By Merat on Monday, May 05, 2008 - 6:19 am:

"Gral and his part are diplomats, Shran is a trained and experienced military officer. Which do you think would be more helpful in a fight?"

But its not really an either/or situation. He should be on there as well as Shran, or at least some Tellarite should have been. To act as some sort of liaison officer.<<<

Anti-Nits; Enterprise was escorting Gral through Andorian space at the start of Babel one, and we were told in the last episode that Enterprise was only four days from Andor. Here Enterprise travels to Andor, and there is nothing in the episode to indicate that Enterprise has made a long trip to get there.
From all of the above it would be logical to assume that the drone has been working in or near Andorian space. Of the four species who have been working together to stop the drone ship Andorians have been on poor terms with two of them - Vulcans and Tellerites. Even if relations are improving the Andorians may be very wary about letting officers from these two races into their space.
Its also possible that the Tellerites and Vulcans don't have anyone they can send over. Shran is the only experienced captain around who doesn't have a ship to command.

The mission as it stands is to seek out and destroy an alien ship, a military mission. Gral is a diplomat not a solder. He has no experience or training for this type of mission, and no direct authority over any Tellerite ships that may be in the area. Meaning that he can't give the Captains orders. Because of this he is useless in the current situation and there is no reason for him to remain on Enterprise.
Shran however is a solder who has commanded his own ship for 11 years and knows this area of space, as well as having considerable experience in fighting. Of the two of them Shran is a valuable asset to have, Gral is deadweight.

>>>Cybermortis: Why shouldn't it? Aenar and Andorians are basically the same species, its not beyond possibility that they have the same artistic tastes so design equipment/displays that look similar.
Luigi Novi: I don't see what speciation has to do with artistic taste. People in the same family often have wildly divergent tastes, so I don't see why people would have similar ones simply because they're in the same species. Moreover, TUE wasn't talking about similar taste; he was talking about the wall panels looking identical. Identical specificity of design in a wall panel among groups so separated cannot be accounted for by taste.<<<

In the Startrek universe all members of one species seem to have almost identical artistic tastes ;)

Potential Anti-nits; More realistically we have no evidence that the Aenar city was built by them. We just know they live there. The city could have been built by the Andorians for them.

We might also consider that the Aenar may be trading with the rest of Andor at least to limited degree. The wall panels may have been traded for.

We only see one room in the city, and the room we do see may have been fitted for guests. The Aenar may have decorated this room so any Andorians who visit will feel at home.

Nit; If you know you are dealing with a ship that is a match for anything you have in the area one on one, wouldn't you try and insist that all ships travelling through the area do so in pairs at least? That being the case why is Enterprise flying around on her own? Even if she's going into Andorian space where Vulcan and Tellerite ships wouldn't be wanted shouldn't she have at least one Andorian escorting her?


Missed opportunity; The ending might have been more interesting had Enterprise encountered the probes with a couple of other ships in tow. Instead of just telling us that, say, an Andorian ship helped a Tellerite ship (Which is what they did last episode) they could have shown this happening. Or showed a Vulcan cruiser deliberately putting itself between one of the probe ships and an Andorian cruiser in trouble. Given the hostility between Vulcans and Andorians over the last three years this would have had a great impact, lead to a greater explanation for future co-operation between the two of them and showed us that Vulcans really have started to change.
And of course it would also have given us a greater sense that these Drone ships were a very real threat. As things were we don't get the impression that these ships were really all that powerful - they hammer Enterprise for several minutes without any sign of doing any real damage to the ship.

And the seed of the Federation was planted.