posted
It might be reasonable to assume that one has to be closer to something to beam it up than one has to be to beam it down. Sensor resolution to get a lock being somewhat important.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I'm kind of wondering though if Enterprise did beam out the communicator, wouldn't that create one hell of a religious or mythological following? It's like what could have happend in Voyager's episode The Muse when B'lanna just got beamed out of that stage.
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
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posted
I just now managed to get to see the whole episode, thanks to some idiot's prank with the apartment complex's fire alarm at 7:55 PM on Wednesday...
On an entertainment level, I did enjoy the episode. The storytelling was decent, the drama was pretty good, and the humor surprisingly unannoying.
However, half the time I was just laughing out loud or screaming at Archer about some of the idiocies exhibited:
1) The transporter. There's no valid reason why they shouldn't have been able to beam the communicator up, based on what we've seen of it's capabilities aboard the NX-01 in previous episodes there should have been no problem at all. And it doesn't matter if they couldn't rematerialize the device -- just getting it away from the planet would have been sufficient.
2) The [expletive deleted]ing Suliban cell ship. That the hell were they doing fooling around with their own dingy shuttlepods if they had a Suliban ship with a cloaking device in the first place? Not to mention the multiple incidents in previous episodes where a cell ship could have been useful...
3) Earth Starfleet policy regarding contact with pre-warp planets. Obviously the whole point of "Enterprise" is that Humans are still learning how to be a part of the interstellar community. But I simply can't believe that they're so stupid as to blunder around on the planet looking for the communicator and screwing up pretty much everything. It's obvious that there is a basic comparison between the (unnamed) alien planet and Earth's past -- and so Archer and Reed should have had a firm frame of reference considering the consequences of their actions.
4) Simple military cluelessness. Reed's supposed to be a military man, but the whole scene in the bar just screamed TRAP. The three military officers drinking, the two men in the room with the communicator, the bartender who obviously remembered three unusual customers... I could tell almost immediately that the communicator had been found and the government had laid a trap. Reed and Archer should've remained completely inconspicuous as long as possible -- like, say, waiting for closing before snooping around? Archer and Reed deserved all the bruises they got there. Which brings me to...
5) Masochism. Is there any doubt about our dear Captain Archer now? Or Lieutenant "Please Sir, May I Have Some More?" Reed?
6) Orbital surveillance. It's obvious that the entire NX-01 crew new from the beginning of the episode that there was a hostile climate going on down there. And yet Archer and Reed deliberately pretended to be Alliance spies, therefore attributing advanced technology and personnel capabilities to a nation that had nothing like that. This kind of thing can only result in something akin to a world war. How's THAT for friendly contact?
Speculation about First Contact, 100 years after the episode: I pity the Federation Starfleet officers who will end up beaming down in a century or two and say something to the effect of, "Oh yeah, there were a couple of guys here a while back who accidentally started your world war. Our bad."
I think the writers are busily building their case for why Archer and the crew of the NX-01 will be stricken from the history books and never ever mentioned by any further generations...
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
As for using the transporter...I thought they couldn't pinpoint the location of the Communicator. I remember them putting it in a 3 Block range or something when scanning for it.
However, my biggest problem was this. If the entire mission was to prevent contamination, and you are willing to die to prevent it...Why the heck would to bring two Phase Energy Weapons to the planet? You know you can't use them...so whats the reason to even have it there? In my personal opinion, they should have left the Communicator down there. If its the only one, who are they going to call? And if they do figure out how to use it...Then it would be gradual through their own doing.
Bottomline, this Ep really left me disappointed.. I just hope this isn't a sign of the quality we will be seeing in the rest of this and the next 5 seasons.
Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
Just a book left on Sigma Iota managed to advance their technology and alter the entire historical course of the planet.
Registered: Mar 1999
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And the Iotians were all insane. Bela Oxmyx? Sure, whatever. And I'm Xyz Syzygixus.
It only makes sense that they'd have a cell-ship on hand, not having returned to Earth. (Sure, delivering it to Earth makes sense, but they didn't, and there we are.) And I can also accept that for the last year they've been trying to figure the thing out, and so it hasn't been available. Would have been nice to have heard about it before, though. I was also under the impresion that only the "stealth cruiser" had nifty cloaking technology, but to be fair no one ever said this, I just assumed it.
When, specifically, would the ship have come in handy, though? Keep in mind that they may have no idea how to operate its warp drive or weapons, and that the cloak wasn't working until now. By contrast, the shuttles are armed, with at least one of them carrying a phase cannon, and some large percentage of the crew are presumably trained in their operation.
I found myself curiously put off by this episode for reasons that are kind of hard to articulate it. Unlike some, I did not find myself shouting at the television. I try never to do this, and am largely aided by the fact that I do not own one. But, I mean, of course they're going to get captured. Rather hard to have a show about them being captured otherwise. (Incidently, it is somewhat ironic to note that Enterprise has also featured one of the few moments of tactical complexity in Star Trek, namely the raid on the aforementioned stealth cruiser in "Shockwave." Updated intelligence! Fire support! And so on.)
What kind of threw me was that everyone was speaking English. Yes, I have just made the least unique observation ever, but stay with me for a moment. These issues are nearly always taken for granted, or else we have ubiquitous translation devices around. But one of the principles of Enterprise, and something that they have so far gotten good use out of, is that translation isn't always so easy. Subtitles! I love these, and Enterprise has delivered, at least more so than her...ancestors. Anyway, we've got communicators that do the translating. I can buy that. (I can't really buy that no one notices that a person's voice is coming from their jacket pocket, but life is hard.) But Archer and Reed spend most of the episode bereft of communicators. Surely the fact that they speak an incredibly bizarre language unrelated to any on the planet is going to clue you in that whatever they might be, they aren't your average spies.
I am somewhat skeptical about claims that the planet is now doomed to war. The general has very little evidence to back up his claims. Just photographs, really. (Counting the x-rays as photographs, and assuming they took pictures of some of the hardware. I would, anyway.) In the wake of reports that incredibly bizarre beings claiming to be Soviet spies wandered around Edwards AFB for a few days and then disappeared, I would not expect the U.S. to launch a preemptive nuclear strike, say.
Also, is that Suliban ship the right size? It seemed awfully small as a full-size setpiece.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Sol System: In the wake of reports that incredibly bizarre beings claiming to be Soviet spies wandered around Edwards AFB for a few days and then disappeared, I would not expect the U.S. to launch a preemptive nuclear strike, say.
I dunno. If the US managed to capture a pair of genetically enhanced Russian spies infiltrating the "good old American society" in the cold war, I imagine they'd have quite a heated reaction. Especially if they had "lasers" and invisible spacecraft....and if said spies were then rescued in a firefight, I imagine the US government would be in quite an uproar.
A premptive strike in retaliation for a raid on a US military installation isn't too far fetched.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well, how about General Eyewitness Accounts? Or Corporal Stun Me and Private Energy Burns? How about the three pilots who intercepted the cell ship, or the one that photographed the shuttlepod?
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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Having said that, there's obviously cultural contamination. The point was to minimize it. Did they do so? I surely don't know.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
well to my reccolection it is that in T'pol's and hoshi's conversation, hoshi said somthing to the fact that the communicator was responding, to assume that they did not use the transporter because they did not have a siganl lock infers that they are really freakin retarded...That they did not use the signal that the communicator was sending back... maybe its just me or does everyone agree that a transporter was a vary bad idea?
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted
I don't have a list of episodes in front of me, but I honestly can't remember the last time they used a transporter in ENT, after "Strange New World" and the pilot episode, anyway. And given that they have it and it works reasonably well, there's no excuse why it can't be used in many of these situations -- aside from the fact that the writers have realized that it makes for poor drama. And maybe even that it's not a piece of technology that really fits into the era, either!
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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