2.16: Future Tense

[Dave]

2.16: Crash Landing

From Trek Today
Reportedly features the return of the Suliban, who are anxious to get their hands on a futuristic vessel Enterprise has retrieved.

I don't like the sound of 'futuristic vessel'. I think we've had enough time-travel episodes already.

 

[Mariel]

This was a pretty good episode.
The crew finds a small ship adrift. They are unable to scan it so they bring it aboard. Turns out there is a very dead human aboard. Trip and Malcom go onboard and find a secret passage way that leads down. Turns out the ship is bigger then it looks, alot bigger. They figure that the ship must be from the future so Archer and T'Pol go into Daniels room and get that little computer and look up the ship's design and find out it's from 900 years in their future. The Suliban and the Tholians(I think that's right) chase Enterprise down because they both want the ship. The Tholians destroy all the Suliban ships and demand Enterprise give them the ship. Trip activates a homing beacon that was found on the ship and the ship, the dead man and the homing beacon disappear.
I think T'Pol is starting to believe in time travel.
:blpaw:

 

[Plethora]

I liked this one too.. but my main argument with all that gos on in Enterprise are these species that pop up.. how come we never see a suliban in other Start Trek's.. or the tholian for that point...

Or have we seen them and im just being a dumbass..?

Anyhow.. good episode.. liked the whole Tardis thing.. lots of fighting.. Enterprise really **** people off dont they..

Now then.. the dead guy on the ship.. could he have been the dude that took the ship back.. when Trip activated the homing beacon and it went through time, couldnt the dead guy recieve the transmition and stop the mission.. therefore it wouldnt have happened.. ermm.. ok, now my head hurts..

 

[imported_polymath]

The Tholians appear in TOS, and are similarly xenophobic (and more advanced), so that all matches up. Presumably by the time of TNG they have either declined or an accomodation has been reached. Because they live in v. high temperatures there is not going to be any direct competition for planets, so it should be possible for them to exist in the same areas of space with normal humanoids with little or no contact.

The suliban are another matter, they seem powerful and common here but have entirely gone by TOS. However if you look carefully it is apparent that they are not actually that advanced, everything significant they have seems to be from "future guy", and it is quite possible that when he is dealt with (as will surely happen sometime during Enterprise) they will quietly slide into obscurity.

My big question is why, when the "beacon" is activated, the future people don't go all the way back to before the ship was found, and recover it then, rather than leave it sitting around for a few days to contaminate the timeline. Also, why has Daniel's equipment never been recovered. I guess this mean that this is part of the manipulation of Archer and his crew, and they were allowed the ship for a time deliberately so that they could learn something (but not too much) from it.

Finally, what has happenned to the "cloaked ship detectors" that Enterprise had - built and then used again in a later episode, these seem to have now been removed - why?

 

[Plethora]

Ok, this is where i have to complain a bit.. i like the whole time-travelling aspect of Enterprise.. Voyager only played on it a few times, and i dont think any of the others did.. except the movie with the whales (hehe, i come from a country named wales..)

BUT, its too damn confusing, and gives too many oppertunities to spot inconsistencies... plus, if they try to drag Enterprise out for the normal 7 series.. its gonna get really old...

 

[Dave]

Originally posted by polymath
My big question is why, when the "beacon" is activated, the future people don't go all the way back to before the ship was found, and recover it then, rather than leave it sitting around for a few days to contaminate the timeline. Also, why has Daniel's equipment never been recovered. I guess this mean that this is part of the manipulation of Archer and his crew, and they were allowed the ship for a time deliberately so that they could learn something (but not too much) from it.

Finally, what has happenned to the "cloaked ship detectors" that Enterprise had - built and then used again in a later episode, these seem to have now been removed - why?

I agree with both those points, but I liked the story. If it can be like this every week I'll stop complaining.

This episode was called 'Crash Landing' during it's development. But in the final version there is no crash involved at all.

The dead humanoid having multi-species DNA including Vulcan was interesting. I liked the way T'Pol found it hard to believe.

Daniels database said the ship was from 900 years in the future. This would establish a more exact date for when 'future guy' originates from.

Why are the Tholians involved?

 

[imported_polymath]

Originally posted by Plethora
Ok, this is where i have to complain a bit.. i like the whole time-travelling aspect of Enterprise.. Voyager only played on it a few times, and i dont think any of the others did.. except the movie with the whales (hehe, i come from a country named wales..)

Time travel stuff has been extensively in from the beginning:
"Tomorrow is Yesterday", "The City on the edge of forever", "Assignment:Earth" and "All our yesterdays" from TOS

" Yesterdays Enterprise", "Captain's Holiday", "A matter of time", "Cause and effect", "Time's arrow", and "All good things" from TNG

"Past Tense", "The Visitor", "Little Green Men", "Trials and Tribble-ations", "Children of time", "Time's Orphan" from DS9

and of course in the movies not only "The Voyage Home" but also "First Contact".

Also Q seems to muck about with time often, but it's never clear if these are real time travel or just elaborate facsimilies, and anything to do with the prophets/wormhole aliens in DS9 is temporally wierd.

 

[skoon]

ok...did anyone understand how the ship could be bigger inside than it looked on the outside? I'm still a bit stuck on that.

 

[Dave]

The 4th Dr Who once gave an explanation of how the TARDIS could be bigger on the inside than the outside. He used perspective to show how a large object could look small when viewed in a different way. As explanations go it was a little cheesy.

The interior of the TARDIS supposedly occupies a separate set of space-time dimensions to the exterior. This ship was also a time-ship, and anyone who can manipulate time should be able to manipulate space-time dimensions, so I can accept the bigger on the inside thing too.

 

[skoon]

hmmm...this stuff gets confusing...so when they are in the ship are they still in the present or in the future or in a different demension?

 

[Dave]

Didn't you cover temporal engineering at school then?

 

[skoon]

hmmmm, I think not