4.01: Storm Front (part I)

[Dave]

Details of the premiere episode of season four are now out.

'Trek Today' and 'TrekWeb' sources who have seen early drafts of the script say that after almost a season of taking a backseat to the Xindi arc, the Temporal Cold War will heat up again. "Storm Front" will likely air in September, 2004 and is directed by Allan Kroeker.

Spoiler

Continuing from where "Zero Hour" left off, Archer is in the custody of the Nazis, who occupy the entire East Coast of the United States. The Nazis are mostly human. The aliens are called 'Na'khul', a new faction in the temporal cold war, manipulating the Nazis and responsible for their incursion into the United States. When Archer is transferred by jeep with an ambitious S.S. officer through New York, the vehicle is ambushed. He wakes up in the apartment of a resistance sympathiser, Alicia Silvers, a thirtysomething African American woman from Brooklyn who tends to the future Starfleet captain's injuries. He discovers that he is in New York City in the year 1944.

As it turns out, the Germans have made impressive in-roads into North America, as well as Africa and Russia. Washington, D.C., has fallen and the bombed-out White House is now in the hands of the Nazis. They are being aided by an alien commander, Vosk, who is equipping the Germans with weapons based on futuristic technology to aid their war effort. Vosk meets with a high-ranking German general in the White House to discuss details of an operation.

The general population remains ignorant of the alien masterminds behind the Nazi advance. When Archer tells Alicia about the figure he saw when he woke up in the tent, an alien with piercing red eyes, she says that she has heard stories, nothing more. Through her contacts in the American resistance, Alicia promises to introduce Archer to someone who may know more concrete details.

Former mobsters have joined the fight against the Nazis, bringing Salvatore, an Italian man, into the fold after his wife is taken to a labour camp. Salvatore is skeptical of Archer, as is a Polish man from Brooklyn named Prazki who provides information to the group about the alien involvement with the Nazis.

Meanwhile, back on Enterprise, Daniels, the temporal agent, lies dying in sickbay. His body is in flux, some parts are aging, while other portions are regressing to a younger stage. Before he loses consciousness, Daniels manages to tell T'Pol that there is someone the crew needs to stop. This mysterious threat turns out to be none other than Silik, who steals an Enterprise shuttlepod and heads toward Earth...

I read that the Nazis would never have used American mustangs and jeeps. They had a great disdain of American equipment, thinking it second rate.

Secondly, I also wonder what happened to the Japanese. To be in North America, then the Nazis must have first conquered Europe, Africa and Russia. I find it hard for them to have done that before 1944 unless the USA joined the war earlier than it really did. The USA did not want to join the war, it went to some very extreme lengths to appease the Germans rather than join, and probably would never have done so if not for Pearl Harbour.

So, if the early events of the war remained the same then the Germans and Japanese would have had a race to conquer the American continent. This would lead to a divided United States with a neutral buffer zone as proposed in PK Dick's 'The Man in the High Castle'. That may in fact be the scenario here, but in 'Zero Hour' we saw the Golden Gate Bridge.

Thirdly, I wonder why Hollywood has such an obsession with Nazis. 'Star Trek' is huge in Germany and I read a very compelling essay from a German fan about this subject. Nazis have now appeared in 'Star Trek' on three occassions!

 

[ray gower]

Let us get the practical stuff out of the way:-

First there is no way Germany could invade the US by 1942, or any other year. To go via the Bering Strait would have required more naval muscle than they could build, and using the Artic route would have required major technical advances in artic clobber and both would require the total domination of Russia. The Atlantic is out for the same naval reason. It took us three years to prepare for D-Day and we didn't have to build a flock of aircraft carriers to do it.
So the only way that Germany could take control of the US would be if the pro-Nazi movement had gained an upperhand before they started. There is a theory that suggests they could have, if Japan had not bombed Pearl Harbour.

US (and British) equipment was generally inferior to the German equivalent. It is not for nothing that the Sherman tank was nicknamed the Ronson. What our weapons had were numbers. We could manufacture a Sten gun in 12 minutes (they cost 2s 6d each by the end of the war), a German schmeisser took more than an hour. The P51 Mustang, however, was a great fighter when it came out in early 1944, unfortunately by June it was becoming obsolete because both the UK and Germany were starting to roll out our own jet fighters (Meteor and Me262). Of course there is also the question, would the Americans have been able to develop the Mustang?
It was afterall a refinement of the Mk18 Spitfire (1943)?

Even if aliens supply a means of airlifting 10 million troops and their equipment to the other side of the globe, where would the Germans get the men?

History and logistics lesson over!
Sorry, it irks when Hollywood re-invent history in a way that is totally impossible.

Now my question. Just how many times does Daniels die?
I think we are upto three already.

I hate these time-hopping stories, they cause too many paradoxes. This sort of history meddling is the worst of the lot!

Somebody tell me when it is over?

 

[Dave]

1/ What if the timeline was altered before the war even began?

What if Britain had not declared War, but joined Germany as Hitler had proposed? He wanted to respect England's sea power and England to respect the Reich's land power, and have a parity in the air. Germany would even be ready to defend the British Empire with military means if it were necessary. Communism would have been confined to Russia, and being able to concentrate on one front, defeated by a stronger Germany. The USA would have been unable to prevent the Nazis taking South America as their own Emprire, and an invasion of North America could have taken place through Mexico, as was the plan during the First World War with Mexico reclaiming it's lost land.

2/ Daniels -- maybe they are all clones. In the same way that Weyoun was replaced again and again.

Another thought -- maybe everyone in the future is actually a clone of Daniels -- they decided that this was the perfect genome and just replicated the same model ad infinitum.

 

[ray gower]

1/ What if the timeline was altered before the war even began?

That might work. We (Britain) still had the largest merchant and navel fleets in the world at the time, while German U boats could easily have kept the American fleet bottled up in harbour.
But when would they (the aliens) have started meddling?
It would have to be in the early/mid Twenties (latest) as the depression started to bite, or Hitler would not have come to power in time to invade in the thirties. Mustangs are even further from US skies and doubts must be raised about whether WWI happened too!

This is the problem with taking such a major foray into changing major historical events.
Glibly deciding Germany won the war means changing historical events tens of decades before.
If they can't work within the limitations of documented history, then the rest of the show is going to make no sense either!

Which brings us on to point 2/ and Mr Daniels

At least the TOS run in with Germans was a minor little interuption and everything was put back in order before they left.

 

[Dave]

2/ Daniels

A few other people have had my idea that Daniels was a clone

But I also read something else that made me think:

We only saw Daniels vapourized the once. The other times he was left behind, badly injured, etc and now he is in a state of Temporal Flux.

We know he is a time traveller. Just because the first time we met him he died doesn't mean that chronologically that event came first!

His appearances aboard Enterprise could have come in any order and with 31st Century medicine there could even be several years in between those appearances!

 

[ray gower]

Well as we are disecting Daniels and his time-hopping activities.

In whatever episode it was where they sent Seven of Nine bouncing around, they claimed that there was a strict limit to the number of time incursions one could do before disappearing up ones own orifice.

Perhaps he should also have done that too?

 

[Dave]

Originally posted by ray gower
...there was a strict limit to the number of time incursions one could do before disappearing up ones own orifice.

Perhaps he should also have done that too?

Well, here's hoping!

Look, we all know the real reason for Daniels multiple deaths is poor writing, but science fiction is usually quite forgiving in allowing people to be brought back from the dead (especially Trek) and for them to do an impossible thing every day.

I'd forgotten about the limit to incursions, so I'm quite sure that the writers have too (considering their record so far.) If they can't stick to continuity on stories they wrote themselves, what chance have we got for them to keep TOS canon?

edit: 'Relativity' VOY is the episode where the incursion limit is given. Captain Braxton suffers from Temporal Psychosis because of it. Seven of Nine reaches her limit at four. Janeway is given a ticking off because of the number of temporal infractions she causes. What makes Archer so different?

 

[Dave]

What If?

I've had an idea how they can keep continuity with TOS, and have the Nazi's occupy the USA (though probably not as early as 1944 -- but the 1944 is still an Internet rumour!)

The aliens go back to 1930, to the Twenty-First Street Mission. They make sure that Edith Keeler never gets run over by that car, by preventing Kirk and Spock from preventing McCoy from saving her life.

She goes on to lead a peace movement that eventually stalls the United States from entering WWII, allowing the Nazis to win.

It would need to be done in CGI like 'Trials and Tribulations'. I doubt that Harlan Ellison would agree to his script being used.

 

[McHorde-Trooper]

I hope they discover they are in a parallel universe.
It would make the whole thing a little easier to stomach.

I like you're Edith Keeler theory Dave, but I'm hoping
it's not the case. Because then they would either have to
explain how the aliens knew about that or just pretend the
audience isn't going to ask that question.

- - -

I've developed a general theory of time. I was inspired by
my questions about the three time travel episodes of Babylon 5
combined with some mathematics stuff.

It can't explain Trek inconsistencies, but I thought it might be
on topic because it's one theory of how time should work.

Time is like a number line. On one side you have Anti-time
and on the other you have time.

At the origin point (or Zero) a pulse gets sent through time
that keeps the time line continuous. The pulse connects the events . .
makes them play out. This explains why there is a time to be able to go back to.

It explains why changing events in the past would change
the future, but it also explains why the future isn't changed.
The next pulse from the origin would eliminate any changes,
unless loops in time could be established.

Okay sounds kind of complicated, so I'll give an example . .
Frank goes back in time and changes the future.
A fork is created in the time line producing two alternate universe.
And the original universe is destroyed from the point where the fork happens.
But when the next pulse comes from the origin everything gets
reset.
That is unless Frank change time in a way that both alternate universes creates a time loop. So someone in both time lines have to go back to change the future
so that the fork happens again. One time loop supports the other.

Hmm . . I'm sure that's as clear as mud, but maybe you can get
a picture of what I'm talking about.

 

[ray gower]

Sounds like the number 2 theory of time 2/ Time is Driving and Knows Where it is Going http://www.ascifi.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20534

But it does not work very well with Enterprise which has to rely upon the Time is Linear theory for Daniels to exist?

 

[McHorde-Trooper]

Originally posted by ray gower
Sounds like the number 2 theory of time 2/ Time is Driving and Knows Where it is Going http://www.ascifi.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20534

But it does not work very well with Enterprise which has to rely upon the Time is Linear theory for Daniels to exist?

I've already admitted it really wouldn't work to explain Trek timelines.*

"Time is Driving" That sort of sounds like it, but time is also
reasserting it's self with my theory, so in a way the future
already exists.

Daniels would exist, but he wouldn't be able to travel back
in time and make any lasting changes to the time line except
under very special circumstances. Once such a change was
made the original Daniels that first made the change would
cease to exist.

To maintain the change the new alternate dimensions
would have to some how realize that the change needed
to be made then go back in time and almost duplicate or
closely duplicate the original change.

I forgot to mention time travel would require harnessing
"anti-time" to sling shot a traveler in a vehicle back in time.

- - -
I like my theory, but the theory I like the most is the Time Traxx
one. Where instead of traveling to there past they travel to a
parallel universe that is almost exactly like their own yet they
arrive at a different point in time. Sure it breaks down under
scrutiny, but the basic concept avoids the constant fracturing
of an original time line that could produce paradoxes.

- - -
* At this point I don't think anything could explain the various
Star Trek timelines other than a huge plot whole, though as I
mentioned the Temporal War seems to be a good excuse for
Enterprise to escape some external continuity scrutiny.

 

[McHorde-Trooper]

When does Enterprise premer on TV?
I did a Yahoo TV guild search and no Enterprise show is airing
between today - and 14 days from today.

 

[Status]

According to startrek.com, the season premiere is Oct 8.

 

[McHorde-Trooper]

Thank you Status

I was a little wierded out because I seen one source that
said part 1 was rerun a like two weels ago, or something.

 

[Dave]

This episode was well paced; it had mystery and intrigue; plenty of action, I just can’t get over the alien Nazis thing complete with the boot-clicks, swastikas and smart uniforms. The aliens just want to get back home, so why are they interested in looking good and flying flags over their time machine?

Also I just did a google search for this episode and the number one hit was a white nationalist community forum who really liked this episode of Enterprise and rate the best SF by the number of white actors in the show. This cannot be really happening to the Star Trek I once loved so much!

I still think that ‘The Man in the High Castle’ scenario of a United States divided between the Japanese and the Nazis with a neutral buffer zone dividing the rival superpowers would be a much more likely scenario for a reality in which the USA got invaded. The fact that we hear Winston Churchill making a radio broadcast means that the British could not have allied themselves with the Germans early in the War, but could only have been conquered, otherwise it would be Neville Chamberlain. Unfortunately, Americans think the war didn’t begin until 1942, during the 1930 they were too preoccupied with their own internal politics. B&B should take some history courses before they next write anything historical. A few Trek history seminars would help too.

I didn’t understand the point of the scene when Silik launched the shuttlepod from the shuttlebay after shooting Trip with a phaser. He must have had a real soft spot for Trip being kind enough to move him before he opened the shuttlebay doors. Otherwise it would have been bye-bye Trip. I thought they had made a big plot mistake, then Trip mentioned it himself in character, and Reed said it was inexplicable. Yes, it is completely inexplicable, so are they going to explain it? Was it a mistake they tried to cover up afterwards? Or does it get explained later? Is it even important? Because I can't see how it could be but it took up about 10 minutes of the show.

Wasn’t Archer taking Alicia onto Enterprise very reminiscent of Picard taking Lily onto Enterprise in ‘First Contact’? Do you think that was a deliberate homage, or a lack of imagination? You know what I'm thinking by now!

And having Travis go on an Away Team to a planet ruled by a regime with a doctrine of racial intolerance and white superiority was just plain stupid! That’s the last time T’Pol should make those decisions. If Archer doesn’t put Mr. Reed Alert in charge next time he should resign too!

I’ve no hope at all for part II, but at least I can look forward to the Manny Coto written episodes very soon.

 

[ray gower]

Given that the episode starts off badly with irritations we already know about: Nazi's, Suliban, Daniels, and time hopping it could have been a whole lot worse.

The Germans are still fighting the Americans, while the Americans are still bombing the Japanese and Churchill is making radio broadcasts calling for the end of anarchy and tyranny (suggesting that Britain is still in the fight). Which in historical terms is even more unlikely than Germany invading in the first place.

Rambo style weapon problems. Good guy blazes away with automatic pistol, Germans fall down by the dozen at 100 yards. German gunnery with a long arm is so poor they cannot hit anything at point blank range, which also questions how they manage to invade!

Then we have a lot of people who don't seem to notice that the enemy officers look like particularly badly dried prunes, until Archer points it out to them. But perhaps that is fair when they can't tell the difference between a polyester boilersuit uniform and USN issue denim dungarees?

Comes to that what happened to racial segregation. This is America of 194x! and Archer is rescued by a coloured woman!

The prune faced officers are supposed to be aiding the Germans with promises of new and wonderful super weapons, which is fair enough for a bunch of anarchial xenophobes.

It seems that Daniel's brought Enterprise back, but I don't see how Archer got there too. And still can't see why he (Daniels) can't fight his own battles!

I honestly thought that Daniels might have bought it for the last time. But no there he is behind the transporter console bringing Archer up from Earth.

Then there is our old friend the Suliban, pinching a shuttle. Hopefully his purpose will become clearer in the next episode.

Nice little comment from T'Pot about wanting to go home. She seems less than convinced that the home she wants to go home to is Vulcan.

Niggles aside, it managed to be average by modern Trek standards with lots of little events to keep one amused.


EDIT....
And there was I hoping to get in before Dave

 

[McHorde-Trooper]

Silik didn't kill Trip because he knew that he was necessary to figure out this time mess.

Silik was just following his own enlightened self interest.

Silik has nothing to return to with the whole "screaming temporal doom" going on in the future.

P.S. Bonus points if you can guess where that phrase came from.

P.S.S. I haven't seen part 2 . . er 3? Oh, yea it's 2.
Why it's 2 when it should be 3 I don't know.