OK, the mission officially begins with my observations on the first Star Trek if we go in Star Trek chronological order (but there is the flashback scene in one of the movies when Dr. Cochran makes the first Warp speed flight I think, but we'll ignore that issue for now and let my navigator worry about that). So anyway, I think the date is like 2150 maybe and it is several years since the first warp flight attracted the attention of the Vulcans and it looks like they invaded us and took over sort of, logically and benignly, sometimes they help us, but they often tell us what to do. The show starts with a good 'ol boy in Oklahoma shooting a Klingon with a Plasma Rifle. Captain Archer then takes the first Star Trek Enterprise (our first Warp 5 capable starship) with his crew to return the wounded Klingon to his people. The Vulcans allow all of this to happen as long as Archer lets T'Pol, an attractive, sarcastic, told you so, logical, science officer, subcommander go on the trip. They have a bunch of adventures out there and at one point Archer threatens to "knock T'Pol on her ass"...hmm this Star Trek series seems to have a sharper edge than the other series, but OK, I'm not watching it from my playpen as I did with the original series in the early 70's. Archer calmed himself down by spending time with this beagle which he brought along. They have some other crew members along as well of course. The doctor is some kind of alien, but he seems competent and friendly enough. As a German teacher I was especially interested in the language/cultural officer Hoshi...she speaks fluent Vulcan (if there is such a language) & Klingon (which makes German look easy). Then there is Trip, the engineer...seems to come from my part of the country (Southwest Missouri/SE Kansas). I will describe the others in future entries. Luckily, their mission, with T'Pol's help is successful and even though she acts like she hates the humans she signs on to be a permanent member of the crew. My favorite part of the show was the young Archer flying his model spaceship with his Dad who gives him the advice "don't be afraid of the wind" which Archer repeats at the end of the show to the Boomer before they foolishly fly directly into an Ion storm instead of going around it, but it was a nice threading of the theme from the beginning to tie things all together at the end and I loved the reference to flying and fearing the wind, especially crosswinds is something with which we pilots often struggle. This series will never match up to the original with Kirk, but it looks entertaining enough.
Glad to hear you're enjoying Enterprise. I believe the flashback about Zefrem Cochrane and the first warp drive you mentioned is in the eighth film: First Contact. That movie shouldn't be done until after the 2part episode in TNG S3/S4 titled 'The Best of Both Worlds' Another thing I noticed is that our stardates don't match up; I honestly don't know enough about it to know whose is correct though. My desktop gadget says 6856.6 (TOS) and 89442.8 (TNG) I may have to ask Alyssa about it...
ReplyDeleteNow that I think about it and read on wikipedia for a while it makes more sense for the stardate to be negative before everything. Where mine seems to be after the all the shows' stardates which is wrong. I ought to find a working stardate application.
ReplyDeleteI have an app on the iPad, but I have no idea as to it's accuracy. If you consult with your fellow crewmembers and you all can agree on a certain stardate system or app, I will defer to your collective judgement.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, no one knows how the writers created their stardate formula, so we have to guess. I suggest using your iPad app to find the stardate for Enterprise, since the captain's log uses actual dates instead of stardates. However, to impress many trekkies, try using the actual stardates that the later shows use in their episodes. Each episode's stardate can be taken from their websites on Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteI will "make it so"!
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