Did they go back and help the aliens they stole from?

[Guy Gardener]

Archer was wrong to steal from and strand the Illyrians. I do not believe the ends justify the means. However, with Earth and humanity in the balance, and Archer needing to fix his ship's warp drive, he made committed piracy to continue his mission. When the Illyrians Captain was explaining that Archer is standing them far from home, Archer could have given some optimism, we'll come looking for you when this is over, take you home ourselves if we have to.

As it is, sometimes our Star Trek characters do horrible things in the name of survival, giving us the occasional dark episode. I just wanted a follow up episode given UPN was allowing the show to be serialized now.

I'm going to go the other way.

Archer was an embarrassingly shitty Pirate.

The Captain (or the MACOs) should have had the tactical experience to take that coil without loss of life, fucking around, or even a conversation.

Suggestions.

1. Beam in Stun grenades or sleeping gas.
2. Beam out the engine parts .
3. Wait until the night shift, when most of the ship is asleep.
4. Beam the enemy crew out of their ship, until its a ghost ship, and they are all held securely on Enterprise.
5. Take hostages.
6. Take the Captain Hostage.
7. Force a surrender by pummeling their ship with torpedoes.
8. trick the entire crew into going down to a secret moon for shore leave, then take the ship for "Captain Tucker".
9. Brainwash the Captain with drugs or a mind meld, into handing over the coils without a fight.
10. Kill them all, and take what you need, over their corpses.

 

[at Quark's]

1. Beam in Stun grenades or sleeping gas.
2. Beam out the engine parts .
3. Wait until the night shift, when most of the ship is asleep.
4. Beam the enemy crew out of their ship, until its a ghost ship, and they are all held securely on Enterprise.
5. Take hostages.
6. Take the Captain Hostage.
7. Force a surrender by pummeling their ship with torpedoes.
8. trick the entire crew into going down to a secret moon for shore leave, then take the ship for "Captain Tucker".
9. Brainwash the Captain with drugs or a mind meld, into handing over the coils without a fight.
10. Kill them all, and take what you need, over their corpses.

Sounds like an awful lot of work, and overkill, too.

Couldn't we just execute step 10 and be done with it?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Archer was wrong to steal from and strand the Illyrians.

When the only alternative is to stand by and do nothing, and let Earth be destroyed, I'm having difficulty making Archer the bad guy here.

Stranded Illyrians can be rescued later. A destroyed Earth....not so much.

 

[lkmi]

2. Beam out the engine parts .

Trip specifically says he's got to get in there and see what it takes to get the warp coil (he was asked about how long it would take, as I recall)

 

[Guy Gardener]

Trip specifically says he's got to get in there and see what it takes to get the warp coil (he was asked about how long it would take, as I recall)

Asshole aliens took Voyagers whole warp core once, straight through Voyagers shields.

My assessment of the technology, is that Trip needed to get in there and feel around, if he didn't want the other ship to blow up, once he started ripping guts out by the pipes with the ship's Transporter.

The Orions in season 4, took crew and engine parts and munitions from Enterprise, and Enterprise was fine.

Over time, once a culture realizes that space is inhabited by the worst jerks, they must start building their ships to survive being transporter harvested.

Or you know, they turn their %%%%ing navigation shields on when it seems like an unknown bastard might start acting bastardly, and begin filching.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

When the only alternative is to stand by and do nothing, and let Earth be destroyed, I'm having difficulty making Archer the bad guy here.

Stranded Illyrians can be rescued later. A destroyed Earth....not so much.

Read the rest of my post, and you have your answer.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

This really should've gotten a follow up, even if it was just a line like "There's a Vulcan ship out there searching for them, no luck yet." They didn't have to take all the sting out of Archer's choice by saying everything worked out off-screen and everyone's happy now, but Earth had a responsibility to at least try to save those people and I wanted to hear about that.

 

[at Quark's]

hey didn't have to take all the sting out of Archer's choice by saying everything worked out off-screen and everyone's happy now

Yeah, that'd be a lot like one of the final episodes of DS9 mentioning that 'the majority of Romulan politicians secretly wanted to go to war with the Dominion all along because they saw the danger, but they were obstructed by an egotistical power faction in the Senate, and they were grateful that Vreenak finally was out of the way, who had done a lot of extremely nasty things, murdered many people in his time, and really only got what was coming to him'. It would have robbed In the Pale Moonlight of all its power, retrospectively.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Yeah, that'd be a lot like one of the final episodes of DS9 mentioning that 'the majority of Romulan politicians secretly wanted to go to war with the Dominion all along because they saw the danger, but they were obstructed by an egotistical power faction in the Senate, and they were grateful that Vreenak finally was out of the way, who had done a lot of extremely nasty things, murdered many people in his time, and really only got what was coming to him'. It would have robbed In the Pale Moonlight of all its power, retrospectively.

I'm not arguing for a happy ending nor for the DS9 episode to be weirdly scrubbed happy or whatever.
I'm just asking for bad actions to have consequences - like on DS9.

 

[at Quark's]

I wasn't thinking you were specifically arguing for that and I agree being confronted with those consequences would have been better. (Like, for example, Janeway did in Hope and Fear). (That being said, even if I'd know(n) such consequences in advance, it wouldn't have convinced me not to do it had I been Archer, as I pointed out in a previous post.)

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I wasn't thinking you were specifically arguing for that and I agree being confronted with those consequences would have been better. (Like, for example, Janeway did in Hope and Fear). (That being said, even if I'd know(n) such consequences in advance, it wouldn't have convinced me not to do it had I been Archer, as I pointed out in a previous post.)

I agree that in the moment Archer did not know what else to do. It doesn't make it right, but it does make it realistic.

 

[at Quark's]

I agree that in the moment Archer did not know what else to do. It doesn't make it right, but it does make it realistic.

No, it wasn't right, but in my eyes this is one of those situations where there is no morally right course of action, only courses of action that cause more or less damage and loss of lives, but none that avert such loss altogether.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

No, it wasn't right, but in my eyes this is one of those situations where there is no morally right course of action, only courses of action that cause more or less damage and loss of lives, but none that avert such loss altogether.

Ethically, it was wrong to steal, but it is forgivable. Legally, you can't just go blowing through stop signs and red lights. If you're driving someone to the ER who's bleeding to death, and if you can do that safely, probably forgivable. Same idea.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Is that the same race as Number One?

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Is that the same race as Number One?

Number One is human.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Number One is human.

No not the one in SNW? I thought she was Illyrian?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Number One is human.

No she is not.

She is Illyrian.

(Google)

Is Number One an alien?

The series confirms that Number One is an Illyrian, which Original Series writer D.C. Fontana had established in the novel Vulcan's Glory (1989), and reveals that Illyrians genetically modify themselves.

SNW is fairly vague about whether Illyrians are a faction of humans who love Genetic modification, or Aliens who look remarkably human, but there are subtle clues sprinkled about #1 is the same species that Archer stole a Warp coil off, a century earlier, who have since completely redesigned their appearance lockstep with the human race.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

No not the one in SNW? I thought she was Illyrian?

I haven't seen SNW. I've only seen her in TOS "The Cage" and the "Menagerie" two-parter plus Disco 2-4 "An Obol for Charon." I've having a 2nd viewing of Disco (S1-2) and Short Treks, so that's all I know her for, for now.