posted
Boy, this one was fun! I'm really getting to like the Vulcan-Andorian conflict now. It's more complex than what was originally thought, as you'll see.
-Continuing the trend of ENTERPRISE GOING NOWHERE mentioned last week, the gang heads backwards to Paan Mokar, a class-D terraformed world between Vulcan and Andor, to mediate a hostage situation between them. Ah well, this should at least justify later episodes like "Horizon" shich clearly deal with matters closer to home.
-Paan Mokar was discovered in 2097 (obstensibly on the Vulcan calendar), but the two sides have been under a certain political compromise for quite some time, having almost gone to war over it twice in the past century. Andoria calls the place Weytahn, and they were responible for the terraforming.
-My GOD, Suzie Plakson has still got it. It's also reassuring to know that the Andorian Imperial Guard still condsiders femininity in their combat outfits to allow such plunging blue necklines.
-When you see the Andorian tabletop display, am I the only one to think fooseball?
-Enterprise heads to the objective by opening up her injectors to 110%, though they're rated to 120. Trip notes that they almost burn out the warp core just getting there. Oddly, they took LESS thant six days to get there (three to be precise) - when Soval shows up in person, he establishes that Shran landed his attack force that long ago.
-We see two Vulcan ships when Enterpirse arrives - the ones that look like the Turellian plague ships. V'Lar ("Fallen Hero") gets a nod here, having written a treatise on negotiation T'Pol thinks will find effective.
-Phlox was a medic in the Denobulan infantry. Looks like he's had some genuine military experience. Anyway, he zaps Archer before he goes down to mediate the dispute, due to some pathogen that the Vulcans are immune to. There's also some severe interference to comm frequencies, which I assume also mucks up a potential transporter solution to the hostage crisis.
-Archer and T'Pol have the field jackets on again.
-Soval agrees to go down in exchange for a hostage, but the shuttle is shot down before landing, presumably by hand weapons from multiple locations. One wonders about the effectiveness of hand weapons on shuttles - I can't think of one instance in recent memory when a shuttle was shot down by anything as small.
-Soval notices that T'Pol has gotten a bit of an "Earth accent". He also notes that had she stuck around San Franciso with him, she'd be assistant consul by now, perhaps even getting her own diplomatic assignment. One wonders how important an assignment Earth really is, if she could be fast-tracked as is presumed. Or is it jsut Soval suggesting that hanging around him would have gotten her far?
-Tactical Alert is back! Reed Alert isn't.
-The Andorian ships are pretty cool looking, sporting a look which might suggest future involvment in the Federation. I don't think they are re-uses of existing designs, and they seem detailed enough to merit future appearances. They're big, too - think of taking the front end of the Rodger Young from "Starship Troopers" and mating it to the back end of the Drazi ships from "Babylon 5", with more detail all around.
Mark
[ February 11, 2003, 10:06 PM: Message edited by: Mark Nguyen ]
Amasov Prime
lensfare-induced epileptic shock
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posted
I designed 24th century andorian warships (don't ask...) some months ago. Does anyone have pics from the episode? I'd like to see how close I am...
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Why weren't Andorians more prominent in TNG and DS9? Can anyone think of any other instances where they were even seen (outside of TOS-movies) or mentioned?
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"Journey to Babel" "Gamesters of Triskelion" [Commander Thelin (?) in TAS' "Yesteryear"] Several in TMP and TVH One of Lal's possible shapes in TNG (although it looked nothing like an Andorian, it was called that) And apart from mentions of "rogue Andorians" in TNG and several freighters in DS9, that's it as far as pre-ENT Trek goes. Good thing they brought them back. Now it's time to get the Tellarites involved
posted
I don't know why Andorians weren't seen in the TNG era. My guess is that their abscence is due to Roddenberry's original dictate that they wouldn't be bringing back lots of TOS species. Plus, at the time the makeup and prosthetics for working antennae were a little out of their budget.
Andorians only "appeared" in TNG "The Offspring" as one of Lal's possible appearances. The Andorian shown had no forehead ridges, a huge wig, and long antennae.
posted
IIRC there was one Andorian on Risa in TNG Captain's Holiday.
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Glad to know I wasn't the only one who thought that the Andorian ships looked like Drazi Sunhawks (lovechild of a Sunhawk and a Victory class destroyer, anyways).
Is it me, or is Enterprise getting really good at picking up lifesigns when they're not suppose to, whether because there's jamming or onboard some other ship far away or whatever.
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I got the impression that those Andorian particle beam weapons that fired on the shuttlepod were "artillery"-type devices. Granted, we never saw anything like them firing during the establishing shots of the colony, but I think it still makes sense -- and I think the beam looked a bit stronger than the usual hand weapons we saw.
Tucker mentioned Shuttlepod Two. In the darkness on the colony, I couldn't see enough to tell if the one that Archer crashed was actually ol' Number One. But if it is, it looks like they recovered the hulk from "Dawn" and got it flying again... I'm not sure what's worse: Voyager's endless supply of shuttles, or Enterprise's indestructible shuttles!
Those Andorian cruisers were SWEET! A very different, alien design while still showing some clear elements that could later be incorporated into the usual Starfleet designs. Too bad that the producers didn't think of that from the beginning, and have the NX-01 look less like the Starfleet ships of later on. (This isn't an Akiraprise rant specifically, but more of a wish for showing a distribution of design elements that got incorporated together under the Federation.)
At the end, I'm assuming that Shran decided to shut down the jamming field -- or at least part of it -- in order to let Archer communicate with the Enterprise. However, shouldn't someone on the ship have noticed before the call came through? Just wondering.
I couldn't resist calculating the warp speeds here -- if we assume that the ship was pulling Warp 5 for a full 3 days, the Enterprise could have been no more than 1.02 light-years away from the planet. Now, looking at the maps in "Star Charts" (which certainly aren't canon but were strictly tailored to ENT so far), the Enterprise was approximately 40 light-years away (rough estimate). At that distance, it would've daken 116 days to get back to Paan Mokar, or else the Enterprise would've had to travel at Warp 17 to make it in the allotted 3 days. (I guess that extra ten percent on the deuterium injectors really helps!)
Granted, the way most sci-fi has depicted space combat has never made much sense... but was it really necessary to cram all six ships into such a small volume of space like that? It was almost as bad as the shot from "The Defector" (though not quite).
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
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the explanation given in licensed works is that the Andorian population has been declining as of the TNG era due to problems with their complicated reproductive process, requiring four-person marriages (as per a comment Data made in an episode about their marriages).. one of the plot points in the DS9 relaunch
Registered: Sep 2001
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Which of course makes very little sense. Why would the population suddenly start to decline when it has been stable so far? From what little I've seen of the relaunch, the decline is due among other things to Andorians traveling more - but as the speed discussion above shows, this shouldn't matter in the slightest. Even if you are on the wrong side of Betelgeuse, you can be back home for dinner and procreation.
I very much doubt ENT will confirm the assumption of four Andorian sexes. I'm sure the writers are aware of the reference to a four-fold marriage, since they seem to be getting into this Andorian business with great enthusiasm. But I'm also convinced they'll treat it as a cultural quirk, not a biological one. (Or then they could have Shran confess to Archer that she actually has hots for him...)
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