posted
Wow... The first tech review written, knowing that there would be a finite number of these things remaining for the forseeable future. Ah well, there's still SG1 and SGA reviews, which we'll have to make a little more techy to get my fix. What are we looking for tonight?
-Mentioned in the last thread, the combined Human / Vulcan / Andorian / Tellarite fleet, including the OLD VULCAN RING SHIPS! Damn, but I've missed those guys.
-Much on Andorian culture, including this new death match thing perhaps in the vein of the Kirk-Spock thing from "Amok Time".
-The inevitable revelation of the pale guy under the motorcycle helmet on Romulus. Spoiler junkies will already know who he is... But if that's the case, what's the deal with all the subspace comm equipment on the Romulan Flea?
-Yeah, let's call it the Flea. Even though the plot seems to call it the "Marauder"...
-And on the subject of the guy under the helmet, what link does he have to TOS? Does it explain the antennae, or possibly the different look of some species between this era and the TOS/TNG era? Or are we gonna wait until the Klingon arc for that one?
-A little more on Romulan tech, given the capabilities of the Flea in the opener. Man, they're QUICK.
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Yowza! There's SO much tech here, and SO many fanwank references to other Treks, that there's not enough time to write 'em down on the fly... Damn fine episode, this! Holy tension builder!
-ARGH! The Romulans ARE quick. They can craft a convincing holo-copy of Enterprise AND her weapons and use the flea to blow up a Rigellian scout (crew 17).
-Talas' flesh wound seems a little more severe than it seemed last episode. When she dies, it's interesting that her antennae droop limply back.
-The Flea is a "modified warbird", according to the Romulans. They're scared that the Vulcans would be able to ID the technology...
-They want to put together a huge fleet (128 ships!) to create a "Redemption"-esque net to find the Flea. The Vulcans can send "only" 23 ships due to the disbanding of the High Command (many ships don't even have full complements, another something we've heard before), and even Starfleet can't send enough because their ships are too damn slow (and Columbia's stuck in dry dock with engine problems). The solution? Getting the Andorians and Tellarites on board.
-Woo! The sensor net is Travis' idea! HE'S ACTUALLY DONE SOMETHING IMPORTANT!!
-The Kumari was named for the first Andorian ice cutter to cirumnavigate their planet. This is revealed in a cute dialogue between Archer and Shran whilst looking at the Enterprise sketches in Archer's ready room.
-Hey, REMANS! They don't do or say anything, but they're there.
-The deathmatch is triggered by Talas' death, and Shran wants the blood of the Tellarite that shot her according to Anorian tradition. There's a funky story of how an Andorian's blood is what gets taken back home when they die away from it. Of course, Archer steps in to satisfy tradtition and save the alliance.
-There's an important, plot-related scene between Mayweather and Sato. Lemme repeat that: THERE'S AN IMPORTANT, PLOT-RELATED SCENE BETWEEN MAYWEATHER AND SATO. And to ice the cake, it saves the day. Th'FOOK?!
-As such, it's going to take nine months for Shran's antennae to grow back. For something that seems to be as eviscerting as a Loreena Bobbit routine, I'd think Shran would be more grateful.
-The final pull-back made me cheer.
-And the guy under the helmet is an Aenar, a blind, telepathic subspecies of Andoria. Such is the cliffhanger.
Now, I'm gonna have to re-watch the episode to catch everything else. And I won't mind! IT'S VERY GOOD.
posted
I wonder if there was supposed to be a new ship instead of "The Flea" in this arc, because there's no way that's a "modified warbird".
I also wonder if Andorian antennae help with equilibrium. After Shran woke up in sickbay following the duel with Archer, he was stumbling around like a drunken sailor.
Not much point in calling it "a duel to the death" if you can get through it with no death.
I also gasped at Mayweather and Sato having something plot-related to do this episode.
Shran's antenna will grow back; that's rather interesting for a sensory organ. I wonder if they regenerate other body parts.
I'm curious about the Vulcan fleet situation, though. Couldn't a temporary fleet operating authority have been set up to keep ship maintenance and resupply going until all matters had been settled? Also, why would suddenly fully-crewed ships suddenly be losing people?
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posted
1. The Vulcan starfleet simply imploded with the Syrannite 'coup'. The Vulcan arc was helluva-quick continuity-fixing, but it was continuity-fixing all the same. I guess they all started reading Surak and realized that they were all buttholes.
This also goes a long way toward the idea that Vulcan ships weren't for exploring (suggested here and there on the show), but were instead basically only out there to look for trouble and try to control it.
Without a Vulcan fleet and substantial presence in the region, however, I don't see how they're going to remain major players. Presumably the idea is that the Terrans step up to the plate and, thanks to better relations and relations-keeping, end up calling the shots.
2. Talas was hot. Tradition or not, I'd wanna kill a fool too.
3. This was another Reeves-Stevens duo winner. Those two really kick ass at this. They started the Vulcan arc with a winner, then Andre Bormanis phoned in a sleeper for the second part. This time they were the middle child and made it better than the first.
4. The Romulan Flea is freakin' scary.
A. I thought it was much bigger in the last episode . . . at least a hundred meters or so. This time there was a shot that made it appear to be no bigger than a runabout. Then again, the Trip-Reed Ejection Maneuver appeared to support a ~80-100m ship.
B. A ship that small should not be able to do all that it does, even without a crew. It's taken out two Kumari Class Andorian warships, fought off NX-01, and so on . . . usually while maintaining a holographic shroud. When similar holographic trickery was planned on Voyager, it was going to require beaucoup power.
C. Could similar holographic trickery explain the early Romulan cloak? After all, NCC-1701 was able to track the ship. Sure, we're still screwed in regards to Spock crapping his pants at the notion of invisibility, but perhaps we're somewhat less screwed that way. Just a brain fart.
D. That ship's level of maneuverability is frightening. I don't think we've ever seen anything maneuver like that. The closest example that comes to mind is Worf's shuttle from "Darmok" that gets nailed in the nacelle and goes for a spin.
5. "I have my sources, Admiral." Hint of Tal Shiar?
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
- I seemed to remember reading somewhere that we were actually going to see the Rigelians. But we only saw their ship (which was probably a re-use of something).
- Uhlaan and the notion of ice on Andor were both ideas taken from a LUG sourcebook, IIRC. Probably the first time that fan lore was so explicitly made into canon.
- On a related note, Sato was reading a page called "The Code of Uhlaan". Was that perhaps real text taken from LUG?
- So instead of bringing Talas' precious blood to Andoria, Shran splashes it over a 'Tellarite pig'? What was up with that?
quote:Originally posted by Harry: - Uhlaan and the notion of ice on Andor were both ideas taken from a LUG sourcebook, IIRC. Probably the first time that fan lore was so explicitly made into canon.
- So instead of bringing Talas' precious blood to Andoria, Shran splashes it over a 'Tellarite pig'? What was up with that?
FJdesigns was the first fan-work that made it into cannon. The Enterprise Blueprints also made it onto several bridge scans.
I'm sure that Talas has more blood, that particular shot flask of blood was for declairing a duel.
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quote:Originally posted by Harry: - Uhlaan and the notion of ice on Andor were both ideas taken from a LUG sourcebook, IIRC. Probably the first time that fan lore was so explicitly made into canon.
- On a related note, Sato was reading a page called "The Code of Uhlaan". Was that perhaps real text taken from LUG?
Again, taking my copy of "Among the Clans" out of the shelf.
Let's see: there's something similar to the situation described. The ushaan is the Andorian ritual duel, that doesn't end until enemy blood strikes the floor, usually, ice. It's harshly regulated by an ancient code.
That syllabic combination doesn't appear in the whole book. And I checked that easily thanks to the Andorian dictionary included.
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posted
This was, in my mind, THE best episode of Enterprise I have ever watched. Intelligent, emotional performances by every single actor (with the exception of the cardboard Romulans, but that's for another post). Shran's anguish over Talas's death was perhaps the most poignant scene in Trek since DS9's "The Visitor."
But since this is the S&T forum, lets talk about ships...
1. The Rigelian vessel destroyed by the Flea was another reuse of the Hazari vessel from Voyager, last used to represent an (gasp!) Earth ship, possibly even a Starfleet ship. So obviously whoever is in charge of sorting through the CGI archives for a ship-of-the-week didn't seriously consider this vessel as an honest-to-goodness Earth ship.
2. As stated above, the Romulan senator makes a comment that the drone was a modified warbird. So it looks like the ship from "Minefield" may not be used again. Too bad. Even though I thought the design was way too advanced for a 22nd century Rommie ship, it at least looks like a "bird" and not a "bug."
3. The alliance ship shots, both through the window and during the pullback, was just spectacular. Some observations: We see the D'Kyr-type, the "former" combat cruiser Sh'ran-type, The Kumari-class Andorian ships, and the Tellarite Xindi/Arkonian reuse ship. I really wish Eaves or someone would have made an original design for the Tellarite ship, but I confess to actually liking the design of the reuse ship. Also, the Andorian ships looked a lot longer & slimmer from their side view than I remember.
4. The aforementioned scaling problem with the Flea. When it strafes Enterprise, it looks no bigger than a shuttle. No wonder the Romulans lost the war.
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quote:Originally posted by Dukhat: Even though I thought the design was way too advanced for a 22nd century Rommie ship, it at least looks like a "bird" and not a "bug."
"Romulan Warflea" just doesn't have the same gravitas.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
quote:We see the D'Kyr-type, the "former" combat cruiser Sh'ran-type
Which IMO is a far superior design to the ugly dual-ring ship, I much prefer the Surak/Sh'ran (why'd they name it after an Andorian captain? ) to the D'kyr from an aesthetic and practical viewpoint.
quote:I really wish Eaves or someone would have made an original design for the Tellarite ship, but I confess to actually liking the design of the reuse ship.
My justification is that the Akronians bought the things off of the Tellarites, and the Xindi-Arboreals...umm...captured the design from a ship that ventured into the expanse and really liked it!
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posted
I also like to say that I really like the use of MACOs in this arc. They seem to be the first effective security guards ever on Star Trek. Too bad they got axed when the Federation was formed, because those redshirts could have learned something from the MACOs.
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Something I meant to mention after the previous episode: It's not really a technical issue, but I thought it was interesting that the Romulan second-in-command was noticeably older than the admiral, harkening back to "Balance of Terror". I kept waiting for someone to call him "Centurion".
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posted
And of course we get to see a phase pistol on overload, another property that links them to phasers. More interestingly, though, the prop they used was a modified Art Asylum toy phase pistol, a subject on which there's been much debate in the prop-building community (one studio source says they're never used onscreen, another says they've been used as background props for extras and the like).
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The phase pistol manual calls it an 'inadvertent overload'. Which makes it sound like these things can overload at any given moment and explode in your face.
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