LOL

I thought it went:

Question: "Do I need to mention the Enterprise's capabilities?"

Answer: "When they get full of eels?! LOL"

That was the cause of my confusion and Police Academy Joke.

In the film it goes like this...

KIRK
This is damned perculiar. Yellow Alert.

SAAVIK
Energize defense fields.

UHURA
Captain. I'm getting a voice message. They say their chambers coil is overloading their comm system.

KIRK
Spock?

SPOCK
Scanning.
Their coil emissions are normal.

JOACHIM
They still haven't raised their shields.

KHAN
Raise ours.

SPOCK
Their shields are going up.

KHAN
Lock phasers on target.

JOACHIM
Locking phasers.

SPOCK
They're locking phasers.

KIRK
Raise shields!

KHAN
Fire!

***KABOOM!***

Interestingly, Kirk's slowness on the shields here might be partly an editorial paux fax. I was thumbing through a copy of the revised final draft screenplay for the film, and it reads like this...

KIRK
This is damned perculiar. Yellow, alert.

SAAVIK
Energize defense fields.

UHURA
I'm getting a voice message... wait... short range band. They say their Chambers coil is shorting their COMM system.

KIRK
Spock?

SPOCK
Scanning...

JOACHIM
They still haven't raised their shields.

KHAN
Careful: Not all at once. The engine room. Lock on target and prepare to fire.

JOACHIM
Locking phasers on target.

SPOCK
Their coil emissions are normal...
Wait: their shields are going up.
They're locking phasers--!

KIRK
Raise shields! Energize phasers, stand by to--

***KABOOM***

So in the script spock reports the shields and phasers together and Kirk instantly responds. They way it's cut in the film it's like Kirk hear about the shields and does nothing until the phasers are locked. What a difference an edit makes.

[ July 22, 2001: Message edited by: mrneutron ]

As for the general topic of this thread... I *can* buy the idea that the technology encountered by Archer will be the same used by Archer, while that encountered by Kirk is that used by Kirk. This just requires the assumption that something swept the local space clear of advanced races a while ago, leaving the field empty for the humans and others to play. Then there would be a situation where one race leads, and others struggle to catch up, right until the players moved out of local space and ran into an area of space that was *not* swept clean.

What would do the sweeping? War, probably - a former superpower would subjugate the area of space and homogenize it under its rule, so when the superpower would fall, the whole bunch of sectors would fall with it and descend to anarchy or worse. The winner of the war might perish as well, or then be weakened so that it would only take possession of the core worlds of the loser, while leaving his fringe areas (including Earth/Qo'noS/Romulus) in ruins and unclaimed.

Another possibility would be a Borg raid, after which the planets would be left to fallow for a few hundred millennia and develop technology to be reaped in the next raid.

So Archer would face only ships that would match his, *roughly*. The differences would soon be removed by a round of escalation with the most advanced enemy. By Kirk's time, no real differences would remain - but the newer, faster ships would take Kirk to regions of space where more advanced enemies dwell. However, this time the speed of expansion would control the rate at which new enemies would crop up, so if there ever was an excessively powerful opponent, Starfleet could simply slow down or retreat, and gradually adjust to the required level of technology.