posted
Ahh, been itching to use that one for a while... With this Vulcan trilogy, we're going to see more of Vulcan than any previous visit. What should we look for?
-An Earth installation on Vulcan. Is it just a building, or is there more to it?
-Destruction of said installation, and a familiar and well-liked character with it. Th' hell?!
-Return of the tan field uniforms for the Enterprise crew, with an additional overcoat. T'Pol dons her even-tighter-than-usual version of the same once more - but wasn't that the standard-use uniform? Shouldn't she have a pink or sky blue edition of it?
-How or when Enterprise arrived at the scene of the crime. They returned to Earth at the end of the Augment Trilogy; do they have another mission, or were they sent directly from home to investigate?
-Linkups with established Vulcan history - expect a bunch of name dropping.
Speaking of which, we should keep a namedropping tally from now on, and the episode(s) they were referenced from. Coto seems intent on giving us a healthy sprinkle with each episode; we should keep track of what he's plopping in.
posted
Holy crap, it's the teddy bear with six inch fangs.
Kind of a cheesy lightning storm effect, though.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
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-The Earth building on Vulcan is the United Earth Embassy - says so right on it.
-12 Vulcans and 31 Humans were killed in the bombing of the Embassy, including Admiral Forrest!
-They were playing basketball on top of the #3 and 4 drop bays. So I guess they don't have an open cargo bay or an open gym for this sort of thing. It would ruin their day if someone leaned on the "open doors" button!
-Mayweather actually has a couple of lines, but he nearly gets blown up for his trouble.
-The Vulcan High Command used to be only in charge of space exploration.
-T'Pol used to have a sehlat as a pet. The domesticated ones are smaller than the wild ones. Slightly.
-Not only does the desert uniform return, but Archer's baseball cap is back, too.
-Soval used a mind meld to discover that the Vulcan in charge of the investigation was the one who planted the bomb. They had tried to pin it on a woman named T'Pau(!), who I think they said was 32 years old. But of course the High Command won't accept telepathic evidence, and Soval is in trouble because of the distateful abberant behavior of mind melding.
-There's a couple of Vulcan atmospheric craft looking for the other Vulcans (can't remember their name). They're at a fairly high altitude and all we can see of them is their contrails.
-It seems the Vulcans as a society have a bit of evolving to do before we get to TOS era standards of Vulcan society. Quite a bit of the "Vulcan mysticism" seems to have been repressed over the years. Of course, who's to say that what we saw Spock do was considered mainstream Vulcan, except for the IDIC thing.
-Soval's description of humans to Forrest in the beginning was very funny to me. Can anyone get a transcript of his lines there?
-- It took the Vulcans 1500 years after their period of devastating wars to rebuild their world and achieve starflight capability, whereas humans did it in less than a century.
-- Embassy go boom!
-- Basketball game on the hanger deck! Phlox got game! According to him, the sport is reminiscent of Octran fertility contests. (Except that the participants are fully clothed.)
-- The Vulcans initially want to blame the Andorians for the embassy bombing, but evidence implicates the Syrrannites, an extremist group of which T'Pau (of "Amok Time" fame) is a member. In fact, according to DNA evidence, she planted the bomb.
-- Surak's time was 1800 years ago.
-- Koss brings T'Pol an IDIC medallion, similar to the one Spock wore on TOS. They also do the little finger-kiss thing.
-- The medallion is actually a holographic projection device designed to show T'Pol where the Syrrannites are hiding out, a desert area known as the Forge. (Where Spock's kahs-wan was in "Yesteryear" and where Worf and Dax considered going backpacking on their honeymoon.)
-- The Forge's geomagnetic properties create a kind of natural dampening field that prevents scanners, communicators and other technology from working. Electrical sandstorms and sehlats are other indigenous dangers.
-- Soval gives Trip a look at the gaps in the High Command's satellite surveilance net. Naughty, naughty...
-- The "entrance" to the Forge is called Gateway, where Surak began his journey to enlightenment during the Time of Awakening. Supposedly. None of Surak's original writings still exist.
-- The Forge's dampening field only extens a few hundred meters above the ground, so patrol craft can still fly over it even though their sensors can't detect anything.
-- Telomeres tell Phlox that 32-year-old T'Pau is being framed for the bombing. (Are these real?)
-- The guard at the embassy wore a Starfleet uniform, but he was identified as Corporal Askwith. What gives? Perhaps he was supposed to wear a MACO uniform and the wardrobe people flubbed.
-- I'm going to tactfully refrain from mentioning the oddity of Arev (which is Vulcan for "desert wind") speaking English to T'Pol and Archer. (We know that universal translators can't be at work here.)
-- Archer wears cool shades to protect his eyes from the glare as they cross the Plain of Blood. T'Pol and Arev have their inner eyelids. And they only need water every several days.
-- OK, kids, I'm sure we all know the answer to the quiz questions: (1) Who said "Logic is the cement of our civilization, with which we ascend from chaos, using reason as our guide..."?; (2) What is Kiri-kin-tha's First Law of Metaphysics?
-- Soval is a melder! SCANDAL! SCANDAL!
-- Those electrical sandstorms are called "sandfires," and typically last a day or two.
-- The delta on the IDIC represents Mt. Seleya, where Surak died after the last battle with "those who marched under the Raptor's Wings...who wanted to return to savage ways."
-- Turns out the Chief Investigator from the High Command placed the bomb himself, as part of a conspiracy to cast blame on the Syrrannites.
-- With his dying breath, Arev melds with Archer and rasps the words "tuluk tu vokau...." "Vokau" means "remember." Archer is apparently now carrying the katra of Surak, which would make Arev...Syrran.
-- I wonder how the Syrrannites managed to conceal the T'Karath Sanctuary without the use of technology. Surely they don't expect us to believe it was magic?
posted
Ooooh yeah! Great episode! Intruige abounds. This season started off a little slow - but it's really hotted up now (excuse the pun)
I read 'Vulcan's Forge' - that's actually a good book. I'm not too fond of the trek novels. Maybe that one, Pathways, The Q one with Trelane and "The Seige" by Peter David - the first stand-alone DS9 novel after Emissary.
Funny I thought I posted a post about Telomeres - yes they are real, they are the ends of chromosomes. As mentioned - they can depict the age of the chromosome/person. This was a problem with the cloning of Dolly. Dolly ended up being essentially the same age as the original sheep from which the genetic material was taken from (they used hair follicles I believe) thus the sheep was an older sheep in a lamb's body. This might be the idea behind the problem with cloning Pulaski mentions in TNG season 2 - with replicative fading?
P'Jem mentioned again - that episode seems to have had far-reaching consequences!
I can't believe they killed off Admiral Forrest - I mean WHY!?! He has probably been the best Admiral depicted in Trek so far. I mean Admiral Ross in DS9 was a bit of a drongo.
Andrew
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
Yup. It was a bit of a shame to see the Embassy being run by Starfleet. Considering that a) Starfleet didn't seem to be capable of much before NX-01 and b) Starfleet was really small in the first seasons, I wonder what exactly Starfleet's mission is. It certainly wasn't a military fleet before the Warp Five engine. IIRC, it had only existed about 20 years prior to "Broken Bow". So why are they actually running the Embassy of Earth? And why is the Vulcan Administrator in direct contact with a mere Starfleet captain, and not some sort of UE government official?
(Of course I know the dramatic answer to that, but I have some problems with the ever-present, over-powerful depiction of Starfleet in Star Trek)
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