“Divergence”
Written by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Directed by David Barrett
Season 4, Episode 16
Production episode 092
Original air date: February 25, 2005
Date: unknown
Captain’s star log. After getting the highlights from “Affliction,” we learn that Columbia is going to rendezvous with going-zoom-fast Enterprise because Tucker needs to be on board to fix the engines. (Why Tucker can’t just relay instructions over comm lines is left as an exercise for the viewer.) Archer springs Reed from the brig to supervise the physical transfer of Tucker from Columbia to Enterprise on a tether while both are at warp five-plus.
They manage it, though the tether is lost, and Tucker is rather shocked when MACOs escort Reed to the brig when it’s done. Tucker does a hard reboot of the engines, which will only work if Columbia wraps its warp field around Enterprise so they can stay at ludicrous speed.
Tucker pulls it off, because he’s just that awesome. Archer asks Columbia to stick around.
On Qu’vat, Antaak visits Phlox in his cell, where he’s been beaten. Antaak has discovered a weakness in the virus that may enable them to cure it. Phlox points out that K’Vagh won’t let them work on a cure, he just wants Klingon Augments. Antaak replies that they don’t have to tell him what they’re doing…
Columbia joins Enterprise on the search for Phlox. Archer—who has gone through Reed’s correspondences—asks about this Harris guy he’s been talking to. He was with Starfleet Security up until a few years ago, but now he’s off the grid. Reed is unable to speak further on the subject beyond the fact that he worked for Harris once.
Tucker agrees to help Kelby with repairs. He and T’Pol lie to each other when they ask if the other is sleeping okay.
On Qu’vat, Antaak and Phlox discuss family, with the former revealing that he was disowned when he chose to become a physician. The Bird-of-Prey returns, with Laneth reporting that Enterprise was destroyed and that K’Vagh’s son Marab was captured by the humans and therefore died without honor. (This, boys and girls, is why you always stick around to make sure there’s a body. Or blown-up ship.)
Phlox claims to K’Vagh that he’s found the “off switch” that will deactivate the virus and make Augments. K’Vagh then reports that to General Krell, who says that the project has been shut down. Krell’s fleet will arrive in three days, and K’Vagh has until then to prove that he has valuable research that’s worth sparing the plague-ridden colony.
K’Vagh reveals that his son, Laneth, and the others who sabotaged Enterprise were volunteers on whom the Augment treatments were tried after they ran out of prisoners to experiment on. Those volunteers are now getting sicker, and Laneth complains of how she felt fear when she was on Enterprise. She worries that even with the enhanced strength and intelligence, if they survive, they’ll be outcasts because of how they look and act.
Phlox is able to narrow it down to four possible treatments. In the lab, he’d need a week to determine which was the cure. Since they don’t have that kind of time, they have to test them on Antaak, K’Vagh, and two of K’Vagh’s warriors.
Harris contacts Archer, insisting that Phlox is on an important mission, which Archer calls bullshit on, as you don’t assault and kidnap someone to send them on a mission. Harris refers to “the Charter, Article 14, Section 31,” ahem ahem, and that what Phlox is doing is necessary for the stability of the quadrant. Archer continues to call bullshit. Archer then goes to Reed, showing him the medical scans that show that Marab has been experimented on. Reed admits that he was ordered to delay Enterprise from finding Phlox because he was needed to find a cure. He doesn’t know where they might be taken, but Reed does know that Starfleet Intelligence has reports of a medical research facility on Qu’vat. Archer restores Reed to duty, and they head to Qu’vat, Columbia hanging back in reserve.
Harris then contacts Krell, with a report that the Klingon saboteurs failed to stop Enterprise. Krell tells Harris to just order them home, but he doesn’t have that authority, so Krell intends to destroy them. Harris poutily says that wasn’t the arrangement and Krell laughs in his face for being so naïve.
On Qu’vat, K’Vagh is the one who has the cure. Antaak is philosophical about dying from a plague that’s pretty much his fault, but Phlox thinks he’ll be able to synthesize a cure in time to save him (and, presumably, the two guards).
Enterprise arrives at Qu’vat, with Archer and Marab beaming down. K’Vagh is surprised first that Enterprise is intact and his son is alive, and also that Phlox was working on a cure, not perfecting the Augment genome. Archer wants to take Phlox back, but the doctor is very close to perfecting the cure, and he just needs more time.
That time is in short supply, as Krell’s fleet has arrived. Enterprise and Columbia engage the fleet, and while the firefight is going on in orbit, Phlox uses Archer to speed up the process, as he needs human antibodies to finish the cure, and it would go faster by injecting Archer with it. Archer makes all kinds of silly faces (and also gets some minor cranial ridges) and then Phlox has a cure. He then beams a canister with the virus onto Krell’s flagship, and tells the general that, if he destroys the colony, he and his entire crew will die of the virus.
Krell reluctantly stands down. The cure for the virus has one rather major side effect: loss of cranial ridges. Antaak grumps that his own targ won’t recognize him now, and now millions of Klingons who contracted the Augment-enhanced Levodian flu will be human-looking. And it will be inherited, so they’ll pass it on to their children.
Tucker says he’ll remain on board for a bit to help Kelby with repairs. Archer thanks Hernandez for the help, with the latter wondering how Archer survived without her all these years. Archer also still has vestigial cranial ridges, and a craving for gagh, which Phlox insists will pass.
Harris contacts Reed to say that everything came out more or less okay. Reed says he quits and never to contact him again. Harris all but laughs in his face.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Tucker does a good old-fashioned hard reboot and reset to factory settings to get rid of the virus. Why he needs to come over to the ship himself and do this simple thing that tech support always tells you to do is (once again) left as an exercise for the viewer.
The gazelle speech. Archer gets to squirm in a chair and make funny face and get minor cranial ridges.
I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol is in charge during the firefight in orbit, and is a nice calm presence, teaming up with Hernandez to kick all the butt.
Florida Man. Florida Man Does Crazy-Ass Space Walk.
Optimism, Captain! Phlox absolutely owns this episode, taking charge of the entire situation once he’s on the road to a cure, manipulating K’Vagh and Krell both with verve and aplomb.
Good boy, Porthos! Porthos is down in the dumps because Phlox is missing, though Archer suspect that he more misses the fact that Phlox sometimes sneaks him cheese from a stash in sickbay.
Qapla’! General Krell collaborated with Harris and Section 31 for his own reasons. Harris was stupid enough to let him.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Neither Tucker nor T’Pol are willing to admit that they’re getting into each other’s dreams. It’s really kind of silly.
More on this later… We officially have an explanation for why the Klingons we saw on the original and animated series looked so different from the Klingons after that. And the seeds for an explanation of why we’ve seen none since then (and why the three we’ve seen in both modes, Kor, Kang, and Koloth, are like that) are sown as well, though that has not been explicated on screen. (See Trivial Matters below.)
I’ve got faith…
“I need a little more time to cure this plague!”
“Cure? You were supposed to perfect the Augment genome!”
“I lied.”
–Phlox saying “Bazinga!” to K’Vagh.
Welcome aboard. Back from “Affliction” are Ada Maris as Hernandez, James Avery as K’Vagh, John Schuck as Antaak, Terrell Tilford as Marab, and Eric Pierpoint as Harris. Pierpoint will return in the “Demons”/“Terra Prime” two-parter.
Also appearing are prior Trek guests Kristin Bauer as Laneth, having previously played one of Quark’s fantasy women in DS9’s “If Wishes Were Horses”; and Wayne Grace as Krell, having previously played a different Klingon, Torak, in TNG’s “Aquiel” and a horny Cardassian legate in DS9’s “Wrongs Darker than Death or Night.”
Trivial matters: This is the second of two parts, continuing from “Affliction.”
Following this episode, the Klingon Language Institute provided terms for the two types of Klingons: QuchHa’ (“the unhappy ones”) for those without cranial ridges and HemQuch (“the proud forehead”) for those with.
This episode establishes that millions of Klingons are QuchHa’ following this, and that they’re considered inferior to some degree or other. This is by way, not only of explaining the Klingons we saw in the original series, but why we never saw mixed crews, as it makes sense that all QuchHa’ in the Klingon Defense Force would be segregated. It also retcons the less-than-honorable behavior of some of those Klingons in the original series, if they weren’t considered “proper” Klingons.
Prior to this two-parter, various works of tie-in fiction proposed all manner of explanations for the discrepancy between types of Klingon, all of which were superseded by new onscreen evidence. John M. Ford’s The Final Reflection posited that Klingons created “fusions” of Klingons with other species, humans among them. The My Brother’s Keeper trilogy by Michael Jan Friedman posited that the Klingons with cranial ridges were a new species created via genetic engineering. Several works that came out pre-Enterprise, notably the graphic novel Debt of Honor by Chris Claremont & Adam Hughes, posited that there were two different species of Klingons, with the smooth-headed ones being ascendant during the original series, but became outcasts by the movie era.
This is the first Trek episode directed by David Barrett. He’ll return to the franchise to direct two episodes of Discovery, “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” and “Saints of Imperfection.” Barrett’s father, Stan, played a small role in the original series’ “All Our Yesterdays.”
While Kelby is mentioned several times, Derek Magyar doesn’t appear.
Reed’s determination to not do anything for Harris anymore will last all of four episodes, as our heroes will once again deal with him in “Demons.”
The other half of this story, to wit, how the Klingons got their grooves back, as it were, was told in the Star Trek: Excelsior novel Forged in Fire by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin, which also served as a prequel to DS9’s “Blood Oath.” The novel focused on Hikaru Sulu, Kor, Kang, Koloth, and Curzon Dax, establishing the relationship the latter four of them would develop, and part of the plot explains how the QuchHa’ were eliminated (as evidenced by those three Klingons having cranial ridges in the twenty-fourth century). The novel also connects in an interesting way to the original series’ “The Omega Glory.”
The Columbia is not seen again onscreen, but is featured in the Romulan War novel Beneath the Raptor’s Wing by Martin, the Destiny trilogy by David Mack, and Federation: The First 150 Years by David A. Goodman.
It’s been a long road… “My own targ won’t recognize me!” Parts of this episode are excellent, especially the climax where Phlox basically owns everyone. It starts with Archer and K’Vagh arguing over who gets Phlox and the doctor barging in and saying that he can speak for himself, thank you, and from that moment forward, he’s totally in charge, and it’s fabulous. Some of John Billingsley’s best work is in the back half of this episode.
So much of the rest of the episode is pointless filler, though. The lengthy sequence where Tucker gets on a tether between two ships travelling way way way faster than light and shimmies between them is visually pretty nifty, but at no point does anyone explain why Tucker can’t just explain what he’s doing and walk Kelby and/or T’Pol through it over video chat. Especially given how long the transfer takes.
The entire subplot with Harris and Reed and Section 31 is just so much sound and fury signifying nothing, especially since Harris is so unbelievably stupid in this. I mean, his original notion of having Reed sabotage Enterprise was idiotic, because all it was going to do was call attention to the conspiracy. If Harris had just told Reed to hide the fact that the sensor grid was down when Phlox was kidnapped, maybe I could see it, but all of this extra sabotage just shone a light on the conspiracy. And then Krell turned out not to be trustworthy, which any idiot could’ve seen coming, but Harris is obviously not just any idiot.
In the comments section of my “Affliction” rewatch, the reader “mr_d” pointed out that, for all of Section 31’s protestations that they’re necessary, protestations that are echoed by people who are fans of the use of 31 in Trek (a number that will never, under any circumstances, include me), they’re actually not very good at what they do. This two-parter is a classic example, as they don’t do anything particularly useful here. In fact, the first question that comes to mind when you realize that there was conversation between Earth and Kronos on the subject should’ve been the same thing Phlox said when he was kidnapped: why not just ask for help?
Ultimately, it’s more filler for a two-parter that doesn’t have enough story for two parts, and really is only in service of explaining something that didn’t really require an explanation. It certainly didn’t require taking two episodes out of a season to explain it. While the end result is still eminently watchable, thanks to the continued wonderfulness of putting Billingsley, John Schuck, and James Avery in a room together, it still feels like paperwork masquerading as a story.
Warp factor rating: 6
Keith R.A. DeCandido’s most recent work includes several short stories: “Prezzo” in Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird, a story about Italian immigrants in 1930s New York City and monsters; “Know Thyself Deathless” in Double Trouble: An Anthology of Two-Fisted Team-Ups (which he co-edited with Jonathan Maberry), teaming H. Rider Haggard’s She with the Yoruba goddess Egungun-oya; “Another Dead Body on the Corner” in Joe Ledger: Unbreakable, featuring Ledger in his days as a Baltimore homicide cop; “What Do You Want From Me, I’m Old” in The Four ???? of the Apocalypse (which he co-edited with Wrenn Simms), about the four septuagenarians of the apocalypse; “The Legend of Long-Ears” in The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny, a Weird Western tale of Bass Reeves and Calamity Jane; and “The Kellidian Kidnapping” and “Work Worth Doing” in the two most recent issues of Star Trek Explorer, the former a Voyager story featuring Tuvok, the latter the backstory for Discovery’s President Rillak.
“A cure would save millions of innocent lives. What more honourable death could there be for a healer, Klingon or Denobulan?”
It’s exciting and it’s got a few good character moments but the plot doesn’t exactly hang together well. Most of the science flew right over my head so I’ve no idea if any of the stuff Phlox says here makes sense or not, but even if he’s being pressured by the Klingons to deviate from standard medical practice, some of the ways that drama is added feel horribly contrived. (Four strains, three of which kill the test subject and one of which will provide a cure? Infecting Archer to get antibodies?)
The involvement of Section 31 is also problematic. After ‘Affliction’, this was the episode where we needed the explanations and they never really come. Firstly, the storyline doesn’t seem to need them at all: The Klingons could have abducted Phlox without their help, so all they add is some conflict between Archer and Reed. Secondly, it’s hard to tell what they’re trying to achieve. Maybe it’s wrong to judge them by what they’ll become in 200 years’ time, but it feels like letting the virus decimate the Klingons so they aren’t a threat would be more their MO than helping a hostile race find a cure and hoping that if they say a stable Klingon Empire is better for Starfleet enough times, no-one will notice that doesn’t make much sense.
On the plus side, the relationship between Phlox and Antaak steps up a gear here, with them on the same page throughout. I’m afraid I don’t really share the admiration for K’Vagh: James Avery plays the part as written perfectly, but he’s pretty much just Generic Klingon Officer. I love Archer giving Tucker a “What the flip are you on?” look when he suggests he keep the cranial ridges to look intimidating. It’s a shame that Tucker’s tenure on Columbia is effectively over already, with him back on Enterprise and sticking around at episode’s end. No further progress on that daydream either, other than him and T’Pol talking around the issue.
I’m still not convinced Reed’s actions are in-character here. Maybe his younger self would be attracted to covert ops, but he’s always been a loyal by-the-book officer and not someone you’d expect to betray Archer because of orders from a dubious source. (I do accept though that any other candidate would be even less likely.) Anyway, at least by the end he’s decided to stop being a servant of two masters, even if all is forgiven a bit too quickly. I think he pretty much gets the upper hand on Harris as well: For all his “No-one resigns from us” bluster, from now on Harris will basically be working for him.
Talking of things being quickly forgiven, the show has either forgotten or hoped the audience have that whole silly season two storyline about Archer being a fugitive from the Klingons: He flies in and out of their space and interacts with Klingons without anyone attempting to arrest him.
Last appearance of Hernandez. Harris gets named on-screen.
It seems pretty obvious to me why Tucker doesn’t just phones to give the instructions for the reboot.
He doesn’t have a plan, he has the outline of a plan and makes the details up as he goes.
How else would you explain that he doesn’t even give a 30-second briefing of what is going to happen? “On the first mark, pull those circuit boards. On the second mark, twist that dial. Oh, and all non-essential personnel get out of here, and those who are essential into firefighting suits.” But no, it is “Everyone get away from the bulkheads. It’s gonna get a little hot in here.” Seconds before he short-circuits something and starts a verbal countdown.
And one of the best lines of the episode was from Marab: “It’s dead. I can’t eat that. No wonder you are so weak.” Vintage Klingon sentiments …
The opening sequence of “Divergence” is probably my favorite action sequence in the entire Trek franchise. For one thing, I love action sequences that are not about violence — that are about saving people or preventing disasters rather than trying to punch or shoot people or blow up ships. This is a classic example of a sequence that manages to be fast-paced and tense and exciting while being solely about preventing harm rather than causing it. For another thing, it’s really clever. My favorite action sequences are problem-solving sequences, and there’s a lot of creative problem-solving here. The Reeves-Stevenses were always great with the creative merger of real and Trek science in their books, and they brought their A game to the show here.
Granted, maybe the reason for needing Trip to come across could’ve been made less arbitrary, and the whole thing was kind of a knockoff of Speed, but the sequence itself is fantastic.
Keith, I’m surprised you neglected to mention my inclusion of Antaak in Rise of the Federation: Live by the Code, given that I was expanding on material that you established in The Klingon Art of War, with your permission and consultation. Admiral Krell is also a recurring figure in the post-finale ENT novels by Andy Mangels & Mike Martin.
@krad, given that it’s repeatedly mentioned that the Klingon Empire is not having one of it’s more harmonious eras – one assumes that the Great Houses are at each other’s throats again – my guess would be that the reason Kronos doesn’t just ask for help is because nobody wants to lose face being seen to ask “Lesser beings” for help when a loss of face might cost them their position during an ongoing Mexican Standoff (Especially when the lesser beings in question – specifically in the person of Jonathan Archer – have a record of leaving Klingons sore embarrassed).
I do tend to agree that the second half of this serial doesn’t quite live up to the first, but it does inherit the strengths of that episode and is still quite entertaining in it’s own right (Honourable mention to General Krell for being the very model of a Klingon Major General and absolutely delightful with it, as well as to the actress playing Laneth – proof positive that are no small roles, only small actors).
After all, it has Porthos and Doctor Phlox being pals – albeit at one remove – so it can’t be ALL Bad (Not least since Mr Tucker being so keen to hop ship once again can be mischievously explained by Captain Hernandez sharing exactly the wrong Captain Archer story in a bid to dig up that goldmine of Human/Vulcan action Ol’ Trip is brooding over).
This episode embodies both what I love most and least about season 4. On the one hand, I agree that it’s overly padded, that it exists only as a sort of “nerd wank” (pardon the expression), and that Section 31 is only there for continuity points (and I think I recall an interview with the Reeves-Stevenses on the DVD set where the admit that they only stuck them in this story to explain where they got their name). But on the other hand, there’s just such an energy to it, an evident joy in the writing that had (to me) felt all-but-absent in canonical Star Trek since at least the end of Deep Space Nine.
Take the opening action sequence. There is no doubt in my mind that if they’d had a crisis like this on any of the previous seasons, or on Voyager, it would have been resolved through the usual combination of technobabble exposition and button-pushing. But here, we get the stupendous visual of two starships flying opposite one another at high warp while a man in spacesuit makes a perilously journey from the one to the other. It’s exciting! And more to the point, it’s the kind of an action sequence that takes a fresh pair of eyes to cone up with in a franchise where spaceships are almost always depicted as being oriented in the same plane for no good reason, and where EVAs are generally uncommon.
You can tell that the Reeves-Stevenses are having an absolute blast getting to play with all of these long-established aspects of Star Trek canon in new ways, and the sense of fun is infectious.
@5/jaime: Well said about what the R-Ses brought to the show. A lot of people think that writing hard science fiction is limiting because you have to conform to real facts, but I find that it’s soft SF that’s limited, because the writers too often just perpetuate the same unquestioned assumptions as everyone before them, e.g. writing spaceships like cars or boats that are always the same way up. Knowing the science can open you up to new possibilities, new angles that never would’ve occurred to you otherwise. The Reeves-Stevenses are among the hardest hard-SF writers ever to write onscreen Trek, so they brought fresh, clever ideas like what we saw here.
I’ve said it before that the whole Tucker/T’Pol separation arc was poorly handled. We have him in the Columbia, and then they need him on the Enterprise so he can reset the engines. It’s obvious why he has to be the one to do it: he’s the main character, and television is built on the premise that you watch the main characters perform the big actions.
And it’s not just Kelby and/or T’Pol who could have solved the problem. This would have been the perfect opportunity to make use of the ever underused Travis Mayweather, who’s a pretty qualified engineer himself, more than acquainted with ship engines.
That aside, it is a thrilling sequence. If you’re doing a high concept take on Speed, this is the way to do it.
Some excellent juicy Phlox scenes at the tail end of the episode. It goes to show how much mileage Trek has gotten out of the medical officer characters across the decades. I find it fascinating how medical stories and space exploration go hand in hand. Two distinct genres that mesh beautifully.
Of course, only now I’ve realized that the solution to the Klingon ridge problem also creates a major continuity issue with DS9’s Tribble episode. Archer and Phlox know about the ridgeless Klingons becoming a semi-permanent thing. That means Archer had to write a report about the incident. Unless Section 31 goons like Harris somehow made that report disappear, there is no way people like genetically engineered Bashir would be stupidly asking Worf about the issue 200+ years later. It would be public knowledge, just like Kirk meeting the likes of ridgeless Kor, Koloth and Kang in one period, and then meeting a fully ridged Kruge 20 years later and not batting an eye over the visible difference.
(and given how long Klingons live, I think there would still be a few ridgeless ones even in the later 24th century, unless they ALL sought plastic surgery, which I find to be implausible. We know there are some who simply wouldn’t be able to afford one – there were deep social and economic disparities in Klingon society, as we know from Martok’s origins and his hatred of Kor)
It’s too bad, because nothing tops the hilarity of Worf’s “We do not discuss it with outsiders” non-excuse.
Still, a mostly satisfying two-parter, even if drags at times.
@7/Eduardo: It could be that Starfleet classified the incident because they didn’t want to antagonize the Klingons by calling attention to something they found humiliating — particularly something they already blamed humans for.
Or it could be that Bashir had simply never studied that part of Klingon medical history in any depth. It’s a big galaxy after all.
The only seem inept because section 31 is a cover for the real clandestine power, Section 32.
Eduardo: Just because something is written down doesn’t mean that everyone has read it.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@11/Krad: I can see O’Brien missing it, and maybe possibly Odo, but not the one character who’s genetically engineered himself and who practices medicine for a living (and I imagine he aced xenobiology class in order for him to be offered the DS9 gig – he specifically said he was offered any job in the fleet). Then again, as @Christopher pointed out, Starfleet classifying the events makes sense on a diplomatic level.
I actually get Trip’s decision here. He needs to do one of the most complicated things you can do to an engine, and while it might be a great learning experience for someone if the ship was in drydock and there were no time pressures, in this case, it has to be done while the engine is running at full power, the ship is at warp and can’t slow down. Oh, and if you cock it up, everyone on board dies.
He just doesn’t have the personality to be able to delegate that to someone else unless he knows they’re better than him. And he doesn’t believe anyone is better than him, at least with this engine he’s been working on since before Enterprise was commissioned.
@12/Eduardo: Sometimes characters’ lack of knowledge of something established in retrospect just has to be excused because the writers didn’t know about it yet. Why didn’t Kirk know who Surak was in “The Savage Curtain,” given that ENT established that an English translation of Surak’s writings was available 80 years before Kirk was born? Why didn’t Picard know about the Tkon Empire in “The Last Outpost” when he was later established as an archaeology expert? Why didn’t anyone know prior to “Datalore” that Data was built by Noonien Soong when it was later established that he looked exactly like Soong? Why didn’t Kirk know what a Gorn was in “Arena” if his good friend La’an was a former captive of them? Sometimes you just have to shrug it off and remember they’re making this up as they go.
This episode has the odious Section 31, an improbable-acting virus, and opens with a visually stunning but rather implausible space walk at warp speed. Not to mention the old “I love you but we will continue to have problems in our relationship because I won’t talk it out” romantic difficulty trope. But it was a fun ride, all the same.
It was cool to see the transfer between the two ships as EVA stuff is always interesting. Didn’t like the way they seemed to go out of their way to make out Tucker’s replacement was completely incompetent though. And as for Section 31- completely unnecessary in this storyline.
I have to agree with WHY Tripp had to do the Cold Boot on the engine. This engine design is almost his baby. He’s been with the program from Day 1. Kelby is essentially a wet behind the ears Chief Engineer. Sure he knows the day in day out routine (much like the Chief Engineers in TNG Season 1), but this situation is anything but routine. T’Pol could probably handle a similar situation on a Vulcan ship (Vulcan Warp Drives are configured differently than Human designs). Mayweather has a similar issue. He understands the drives on Freighters. In a simulator he could probably a cold boot, but this is a one and done situation. Screw things up and Starfleet’s only Warp 5 vessels make a nice Earth Shattering Kaboom.
Section 31 wants to keep the various houses of the Klingon Empire at odds with each other. A unified Klingon Empire is a threat that Earth, Starfleet and their allies can’t afford to deal with given the activities of the Romulans. Unfortunately their competence at this point is the MACO version of Typewriter Men aka Army Intelligence.
As far as other inconsistencies in Trek over the decades, my pet theory is that Arena takes place in a different quantum reality then the balance of TOS. Kirk acts more aggressively than usual in the first half of the episode (especially when chasing the Gorn ship).
@17/Charles Rosenberg: “Kirk acts more aggressively than usual in the first half of the episode (especially when chasing the Gorn ship).”
No, that’s entirely in character. Look at “The Devil in the Dark,” where Kirk and Spock go through the exact same sequence of beats — Kirk wants to go in shooting to avenge the deaths, he rejects Spock’s urgings to find a more peaceful solution, but then when he has the chance to kill the “monster,” Kirk instead pulls himself back and tries to talk. I mean, they’re both classics, but let’s face it, Gene Coon wrote the same story twice.
Kirk always saw himself as a military man, ready to fight when he had to, but he had the decency and judgment to hold himself back and say “I will not kill today.”
It’s not a matter of Archer/Phlox’s report(s) being classified or not read by certain people. The Federation had multiple conflicts with the Klingon Empire, including the near war in Errand of Mercy. Surely these conflicts would be a standard part of Federation/Starfleet history courses? And that would seem to imply that–in the TNG era at least–every single history course has been falsified to place HemQuch faces in place of QuchHa’ faces in image and video files.
@19/rickarddavid: Yeah, but in the Klingon War seen in Discovery, we only saw ridged Klingons. The only times we saw QuchHa’ in canon were the eight encounters the Enterprise had with them in TOS & TAS, all taking place between 2267-70. (I don’t count “The Savage Curtain,” because that was just an illusion of Kahless, and as we learned in retrospect, an inaccurate one.) Maybe those were just about the only QuchHa’ left by that point, and so they didn’t leave a big footprint on history.
And yeah, sure, it’s implausible that O’Brien and Bashir didn’t know about the TOS-type Klingons. But that exchange had to be in there because the difference needed to be addressed for the benefit of the audience. Sometimes you have to put words in characters’ mouths for the sake of exposition.
The problem with all these excuses for why Tucker has to be the one to come over to Enterprise to fix it, is that they all show that Tucker is an absolutely terrible Chief Engineer.
He’s been the CE of the NX-01 for three-and-a-half years, and the people under him aren’t capable of doing anything he can? That means he is absolutely dreadful at his job as chief. Kelby’s incompetence is an indictment of Tucker’s job as chief.
And yes, it was a visually spectacular sequence, and I agree, Christopher, that it was nice to see a bit of excitement based on science rather than violence. But it was such obvious padding, and — again — unnecessary if Tucker is actually any good at his job. Besides, they were under a certain amount of time constraints — the ship could’ve gone boom at any moment — and that space-walk took for-fucking-ever.
Once again we’re given more evidence that Archer and Tucker are spectacularly bad at their jobs. I have the same question Hernandez did at the end……….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Mr Krad, would you be saying these mean things about Trip if he was a lady of colour?
“why not just ask for help?”
That question is the driver for the plot of the ToS novel “Pawns and Symbols” which is (another) look at a possible Klingon culture.
@21. krad: Well at least Mr Tucker is a great engineer, even if he isn’t a great chief!
@22. Snotrocket: This being @krad of whom we speak I believe the correct answer is “If she were a Chief Engineer? D*** Right he would”.
Speaking of engineering, one of the more subtle bits of technical excellence in this episode was the way designers made sure that NX-01 and NX-02 looked like ships of the same class, rather than exactly the same ship (I believe this to be the case even when both are the right way up, even!).
@21. krad: It struck me yesterday that, if an older Jonathan Archer showed up in any of the post-ENTERPRISE series, it would be perfectly in character for him to give a variation on Captain Pike’s “I dare you to do better” speech from STAR TREK 2009 (For all his faults, Captain Archer strikes me as a man honest enough to recognise himself as Starfleet Captain 1.0, destined to be improved upon with future development).
In fact it’s just possible that Christopher Pike himself might have heard such a speech from a much, much older Jonathan Archer – presumably while the former was a cadet at the Academy or a very junior officer.
Given how much I love ENTERPRISE, while also recognising it’s faults, it would be nice to see a scene which acknowledges that while there’s more and better to come, watching the series is still a fairly good way to introduce yourself to STAR TREK.
Yay, for the first time, I’ve managed to catch up with the rewatches on a ST series. :D
This episode was quite OK, the story was not terribly dumb except the unnecessary climbing in the era of videocalls, the pacing was OK, but unfortunately it is true, that the crew of this ship is terribly incompetent, except for Phlox and Sato (and T’Pol as a science officer at least).
And thus ends the two-parter that explained a make-up change that required no such explanation. I agree Worf’s comment in “Trials and Tribble-ations” was all the on-screen explanation that was needed, although I should note I did recently see a comment that it would have even been better had Michael Dorn just shown up in that episode smooth-headed like all the other TOS Klingons and nobody makes any comment about it all and just treats him like nothing has changed.
And while there may have been less story than could really fill out two full episodes, rewatching it now I have to look at the bright side and figure that at least they didn’t try and stretch it out to ten.
@27/northman: “I did recently see a comment that it would have even been better had Michael Dorn just shown up in that episode smooth-headed like all the other TOS Klingons and nobody makes any comment about it all and just treats him like nothing has changed.”
It really wouldn’t. That might’ve been okay as an in-joke for TOS fans who understood the reference, but a lot of the DS9 audience wasn’t familiar with TOS. There was a whole generation of viewers that discovered Trek with TNG or DS9, and many of them never went back and watched the original show. They would’ve been confused seeing Klingons who looked human, so it was necessary to acknowledge for their benefit that, yes, those are Klingons too. Needless to say, they would’ve been even more confused if Worf had inexplicably changed appearance. They wouldn’t have gotten the joke, so it would’ve been a mean-spirited joke, the kind of in-joke designed to penalize people for not being on the inside. Which is the most obnoxious way possible to use continuity.
There’s nothing wrong with winks and nods to those in the know, but they should never compromise the basic comprehensibility of the story for people who don’t get the references. Easter eggs are supposed to be a bonus, not a barrier to entry.
I was quoted in the review, I’m so honored.
@18, ChristopherLBennett,
Truth be told, it could be a situation like with Spock and Chapel where the prequel improves the depth of what came before. Kirk being more aggressive with the Gorn because of something he heard from La’an would’ve been quite something, as she’s incredibly aggressive with the Gorn by necessity.
I don’t know if the smooth head incident would really be anything anyone remarked on a century after it was fixed. Most of us Americans knew very little about the Spanish Flu until the Quarantine hit. For instance I never imagined that people in 1920 were walking around with masks on to prevent spread. And that’s something in my own country let alone someone else’s. A disfiguring viral outbreak that occurred two centuries ago in a foreign occasionally hostile power that doesn’t like discussing things like illness, that was then fully resolved and not discussed by then a century ago? And add on top that said outbreak was caused by a military intelligence operation? I’m not sure that would be something that would get out. Hell most doctors in Starfleet don’t know much about Pon Farr.
@29/mr_d: No, that wouldn’t work, because Kirk didn’t know the identity of the attackers while he was pursuing them so aggressively. All he knew was that they were the beings who’d ruthlessly destroyed Cestus III and lured his ship into a trap. He didn’t learn they were Gorn until the Metron told him. And he acted as if he’d never heard the name before.
The franchise’s history would have been so much more interesting if Starfleet had a Rule 34 instead of a Section 31.