Dear Doctor: Enterprise Retrospective

Ah, here we go...the first really controversial episode of Enterprise, the one that introduces the concept of the Prime Directive. Here's the synopsis, per Wikipedia:

Doctor Phlox receives a letter from his Interspecies Medical Exchange counterpart, Doctor Jeremy Lucas, who is serving a term on Denobula. He begins to compose a letter back, describing his experiences with the crew, and the ways in which humans are different. Meanwhile, on the Bridge, the crew are discussing a pre-warp vessel they have encountered. The alien they speak with, a Valakian, begs them to assist with a medical emergency their species is facing. Sub-Commander T'Pol reveals that the Vulcans are unaware of the species, but she agrees with Captain Jonathan Archer to help them. Phlox continues his letter, describing the challenges of treating the disease – with over fifty million lives at stake.

Enterprise arrives at the Valakian homeworld, where they are met by Esaak, the Valakian director of a clinic, and Larr, a Menk orderly. T'Pol, Phlox, Archer, and Ensign Hoshi Sato make a tour of the medical facility. Sato discovers that there is a second lesser-evolved yet unaffected race, the Menk, who live alongside the Valakians. Phlox makes the startling discovery that the Valakians are slowly dying out, not from an easily curable medical condition, but because of a genetic disease which is experiencing an accelerated rate of mutation. He also believes that the answer to a cure may lie in the Menk.

Archer, meanwhile, is debating whether to provide the Valakians with Warp drive, ultimately deciding against it. Upon further investigation, Phlox learns that the Valakians suffer from the illness because their gene pool has reached a "dead end" and that the Menk are undergoing an "awakening process." He also finds that the Valakians have been stifling and underestimating the Menk. He has found a cure, but does not believe it would be ethical to administer. Archer considers how a "Prime Directive" would be helpful, and provides the Valakians with medicine that will diminish the symptoms for a decade, anticipating the Menks' natural evolution and new levels of understanding between them.

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Okay...this one is tough. The debate about this episode boils down to this: Did the Enterprise crew, particularly Dr. Phlox, do the right thing in basically leaving the Valakians to die off and be replaced by the Menk? For some, the answer is yes; for me, I would say no. Saying that the Valakians are going to die off anyway because of evolution doesn't preclude the necessity of helping them in the here and now. More to the point, there is no 'Prime Directive' at this point in the Star Trek universe; Archer even laments that there isn't one, meaning he has to make the decision on his own.

And he made the wrong one.

It's fine to theorize about future genetic evolution and such, but in the here and now of the Valakians, millions of them are dying, and Phlox found a cure. And Archer, who in the second episode, Fight or Flight, tells T'Pol that humans have developed of code of behavior, and that code included helping people in need. Suddenly, he's looking for a way out of following that code and condemning an entire species to a slow, painful, genetic death and asserting that it's not humanity's problem. I have a really hard time accepting that, and I know I'm not the only one; this episode was panned and brutally reviewed by several online reviewers when it came out.

I'm not giving this one a numeric ranking; as a stand-alone story, it is pretty good for the most part, right up until the end. And yes, the seeds of the Prime Directive are sown here, but the important thing to remember about the PD is that sometimes it needs to be broken. And if it had existed in this time frame, this was one of those times.

Detroit Rock City

I've never talked about sports on this blog, although I've been a sports fan for as long as I can remember. I fell away from pro sports for a few years due to the infusion of political activism into what was supposed to be escapist entertainment.

I follow a few teams, though. For hockey, of course it's the Montreal Canadiens, the greatest franchise in the sport's history. I grew up in Eastern Canada, and for the first decade of my life the Hockey Night in Canada feature was almost always Montreal. I moved to Ontario in the early 1980s, where suddenly I was exposed to the Maple Leafs all the time. And for those who remember, the Leafs in the 1980s absolutely SUCKED. And I couldn't see the team I wanted to watch, which made things even worse.

In baseball, I'm still a die-hard Montreal Expos fan, but they're not in the league anymore. So, it's the Blue Jays. And it's been a frustrating few years of playoff futility after sky-high expectations.

I don't follow basketball or soccer; for the World Cup, obviously I cheer on Canada, and if the Raptors are doing really well I might catch a few highlights, but basketball really isn't my thing.

Then, there's football...

There are two pro leagues for me to follow: The CFL, and the NFL. In the CFL, I'm going to cheer for either the Montreal Alouettes (who just won the Grey Cup!), or the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. If they're playing each other, it's the Alouettes. The first Grey Cup I remember watching starred Montreal and Edmonton, and it was a blowout (41-6, if I recall correctly), but I spent a few years living in Hamilton and got to catch a few games at the old Ivor Wynne Stadium, so the Ticats are a soft-spot for me.

Then there's the NFL. For the longest time, I was a Steelers fan (and I absolutely loved the Steelers-Cardinals Super Bowl), but after moving to Wallaceburg to be with my Honeybunny, I got a steady dose of the Detroit Lions on the radio, and I started following them quite a bit. I was there for the 0-16 season and the playoff heartbreaks (and all the ridiculous ref calls that cost the Lions at least a dozen games over the years), and I was intrigued at the hiring of the new regime of Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell.

And now, after decades of futility and one playoff win in 65 years, the Lions are one win away from making it to their first-ever Super Bowl. We don't have cable or satellite, so I can't watch the games live (I'm not paying for streaming services either), but I do listen to them on radio broadcasts or through YouTubers streaming the game (shout-out to Mr. Tom Grossi of Packast, who is streaming all the games this year). I listened to the Lions-Bucs game yesterday, and while it wasn't quite the same as listening to a radio broadcast, it was exciting enough, and the highlights afterward were sweet to see.

The Lions are a team that has been snake-bitten for decades, and now they are finally overcoming the stigma of being the 'Same Old Lions' that has plagued them for longer than I've been alive. For perspective, Toronto Maple Leafs fans pining for their twelfth Stanley Cup after 55 years of waiting need to remember that the Lions' last championship was ten years earlier (1957). That city has been waiting a LONG time for this, and it's great to see.

Here's wishing the Lions the best in the NFC Championship game, and hopefully they can stun the San Francisco 49ers and do what Detroit's been dying to see for decades.

An Ultimate Collection

Oh, yeah...

I completed this collection today; I have all four boxed sets of the James Bond Ultimate Edition with all 20 pre-Craig movies. I might add Casino Royale to the collection, but that's the only Craig movie I'm interested in. But this...this is a sweet, sweet set. Yes, they're DVDs, not Blu-Rays, but they're still great to have in hardcopy.

The only real issue with the set is that they aren't in chronological order; each set is a mixed bag with at least three different Bonds in it. I can see the logic; get one box, get a taste of multiple actors in the role. But since it's my collection now, I'm going to sort them out in the proper viewing order, because that is how I roll.

All four sets have the full set of discs and booklets, which is nice. They're all in good shape, so now it's just a matter of putting them up on the shelf all pretty-like.

And yes, Dalton is still my favorite Bond, and if you disagree with me, you're wrong. Connery was cool, Moore was urbane, Lazenby was...well, he was there, and Brosnan was the modern, suave Bond. But Dalton's Bond was a beast, a no-nonsense guy who truly made me believe that he was as deadly as a man could be, and while all of the Bonds were badasses when they needed to be, if Dalton's Bond came up to me and informed me in a quiet voice that I had overdue library books, I would not only pay the fine on the spot and apologize profusely, I would return a couple of other books along with them just to be safe. Because I don't ever want that man to be mad at me.

These Little Piggies...

...are growing, slowly. Very slowly; it's really, really cold out, so they're using a lot of energy to stay warm rather than channel it into growth. But I noticed that they are a wee bit bigger today, so there's hope. Thankfully, they are in the barn where the wind isn't an issue, so it's just cold, not biting. Delilah is being an extra-good mama to the piglets, which is good. She's getting all the treats I can get her, whether it be produce scraps from the grocery store, leftovers from our fridge, whatever.

The problem, of course, is that we didn't separate the happy couple back in September, which is when they were old enough to recognize that there were differences between boars and sows, and began exploring those differences. Since pigs have a gestation period of 3-3-3 (3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days) that means that Samson got his freak on around mid-September. So, we get the joys of trying to raise six piglets in a cold winter in an unheated barn. Yay.

They aren't on solids yet, so they're just feeding off of Delilah for now. We'll work them up to drinking water and eating mash, but for now we're going to let Delilah do the Mama thing. Like I said, she's good at it. Thankfully.

Not much else to say today; the chickens are still laying lots of eggs, which is a nice bonus in the winter. The trick is figuring out where the heck they're laying, and finding them before they freeze and crack. Winter farming in PEI is no joke.

Hopefully, there will be more to talk about tomorrow, but it's late.

Episode 2: Jzadirune (continued)

After the piggie detour, we're back to the game recap from the weekend.

The party entered the abandoned kitchen, where after some brief exploring they were once again ambushed by a couple of camouflaged beasties. These were the 'short ones' described by Keygan, and they were very elusive and difficult to hit. Alexandria again did the lion's share, getting through the shadowy defenses and crushing the first of the short, hooved monsters. Yaervan was able to finish off the second one, his sword just finding its way into the monster's gullet.

After the fight, the party explored the room. Erf got curious about the cabinet in the corner, and discovered that curiosity not only killed the cat, it also almost killed the gnome. The cabinet, decrepit and barely standing, didn't survive having the door opened, and the contents crashed down. Erf was able to avoid the worst of the accident, but it was close. As a reward, he found a small device with a gnomish rune on it, and quickly determined that it was a key to the gear doors. This one had a 'Z' on it, and he hung onto it for later.

The room had a single gear door, marked with an 'E' rune, and Erf was able to pick the lock and slide the door open. He walked out into the main dining hall, now abandoned and mostly destroyed by the new tenants. Jax followed him, and was nearly burned to death by the jets of fire that suddenly filled the doorway as he passed by. Realizing that Erf, being a gnome, was likely to be the only one unaffected, the rest of the party rushed through the door, one at a time, as fast as they could. Only Arthur was too slow to avoid the jets, though it was only a minor burn compared to what Jax had suffered.

The dining hall had four doors, two on either side, and a pair of archways, one at each end of the long hall. The other three doors were a 'J', a 'U', and a 'Z'. Eagerly, Erf tried the small key, and it worked as the 'Z' door slid open with no issues, and no traps. Unfortunately, all they found was an abandoned pantry with some old, molding bread and some dried, worthless herbs. Still, the key worked, so Erf kept it close.

Unwilling to risk the other gear doors yet, they searched the archway to the south, where they found more gear doors ('A' and 'R', and a couple of 'D's at the ends. Unable to unlock any of them, the party returned to the dining hall, where Erf tried the 'U' door, and finally the 'J' door, which he was able to unlock. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to disarm the trap, which shot some corrosive acid at them. If you've ever seen the Mummy (Brendan Fraser, not Tom Cruise), you'll remember the salt acid trap in the sarcophagus. Same thing, and this took down both Erf and Jax, wounding some of the other party members as well. The gnome and the paladin were pulled to safety, and the party retreated to the abandoned pantry, closing the door behind them.

Having expended his healing on the party earlier, Ruphus was able to do very little for the dying party members, until Arthur remembered the healing potions that Jenya had given them before they embarked on the mission. Jax was able to drink his on his own, while Yaervan and Alexandria forced the gnome's potion down his throat. It was enough for them to both recover, and the party resolved to rest and recuperate their spells and resources in the safety of the pantry.

After the magic-users recovered their spells, the party once again went back to the dining hall, where they saw the 'J' door had closed on its own. Unwilling to risk it, they tried the archway to the north. Here they found something very unexpected in an underground gnomish enclave: A room that looked like an outdoor forest, complete with filtered sunlight from the ceiling and the sound of birds. Yaervan suffered flashbacks to a past life and had a bit of a panic attack.* Erf reminded the party that this was a gnomish enclave, and gnomes are good at illusions, and they moved through the forest. They found another gear door (another 'D'), and after a failed attempt to open this one, they found the descending staircase at the north end of the room and continued on.

When they reached the bottom, they saw an empty room with a passage and a couple of the dug-out tunnels. As they entered, they heard a voice that shouted 'Attack the intruders!' in Gnomish. Suddenly, a monstrous contraption emerged out of nowhere that looked like a blacksmith's nightmare. Made of metal and with two deadly-looking pincers on the end of stubby arms, it advanced on the party.

Thinking quickly, Erf shouted out an order of his own, which caused the apparition to halt before it could attack them. After some experimenting, Erf recognized it as an automaton, a gnomish device that, while it wasn't technically alive, could still move and accomplish tasks if ordered by someone who could speak Gnomish. It was limited in what it could do and had no ability to communicate with them, so they settled for ordering it to return to wherever it came from, and it turned around and walked away, only to vanish as suddenly as it had appeared. Erf followed, and also disappeared from view even as he saw the automaton stop and assume a guarding position. The automaton was inside an invisibility sphere of some sort, as was anyone who entered it.

At the end of the passage, they found another 'J' door, which they avoided. Instead, they went down one of the tunnels leading out of the automaton room, and found themselves in another room behind the 'J' door. This was a glass workshop of some sort, with shards everywhere and tables rearranged haphazardly around the room with no discernible pattern. Seeing nothing else in the room, they moved in to explore it more carefully, unaware of the danger that was hiding from them almost in plain sight...

To be continued next weekend...

* To find out why, check out my book on Amazon, The Devil's Playground, which my son read and enjoyed (but also made him really scared of underground forest rooms).

So Far, So Good...

After our unexpected additions to our animal farm yesterday, we kept a pretty close eye on the piglets today. We tried to build a crush rail to prevent the risk of Delilah squashing any of her babies, but the logistics of it didn't work. If we'd had some warning and time to build it earlier, it would have been fine. But as it is, we're pretty much stuck with things as they are, and we're going to have to hope and pray that she is extra-careful. So far, she has been. So, it's going to be more monitoring for the next little while, to see if the piggies can survive. We've got an extra heat lamp over them now, but it's not doing much more than cutting the edge off the cold.

Unfortunately, we found two more dead piglets this morning. Not from the six; all of them are still okay. But she gave birth to ten, not eight, so we lost four before we even knew they were there. These two are in a tough place to reach, but we'll have to get them out tomorrow to avoid any risk of disease. With the cold, the bodies are definitely frozen, and I'd rather not spend any more words or thoughts on that topic tonight.

We also had a fun little time when the Kitchen Goddess went to to the vet to pick up some iron supplements for them. We had to inject the piglets, and Delilah was not happy with us as the piglets squealed and screamed at the unfamiliar touch. Two of them had a rough reaction, and were struggling; we thought one of them was paralyzed because it couldn't stand up. When it looked like Delilah was going to write them off because they wouldn't follow her to the warm spot, my wife and I brought the two piglets into the house to see if they could calm down, get warm, and stop squealing. Eventually, they did, and we debated whether or not they would be welcomed back into Mama's loving embrace. Since these are pigs and not birds, we gave it a try. And it worked; the piglets are behaving normally, and Delilah is caring for them again. Crisis averted; we thought we might have to separate them permanently, which would have meant they would be pets, because my wife is constitutionally incapable of holding a small animal without instantly falling in love with it and wanting to keep it. We've gotten two dogs and countless chickens that way.

So, here's hoping and praying that they make it through the night, and tomorrow is a fresh start with more opportunities to help them get through the cold. It sucks, and the timing couldn't have been much worse, but it is what it is. God's got this, and we'll trust in Him.

Unexpected II: Not an Enterprise Retrospective

So, I was planning to post the rest of the Shackled City recap from yesterday's session, but we have some breaking news from the Sprigg farm. This morning, I went to feed the animals like I do every day. There were 53 chickens, 3 rabbits, and 2 pigs. This afternoon, I went out to feed the animals like I do every day. There were 53 chickens, 3 rabbits, and 8 pigs.

Say what?!

This was Samson and Delilah back in June after we put them outside in their pen. Below we see Samson and Delilah's current situation this afternoon in the barn pen:

Yeah, that's six little piggies cuddling up to Mama. She was expecting, but we weren't. That was a bit of a panic moment, because it's the middle of January. Thankfully, today was a relatively warm day (above zero, at least), which is a relief considering there's a polar vortex going on in the rest of the continent. PEI is always behind the times.

We set up a heat lamp tonight since the temperature is dropping, which is the reason for the odd lighting in this picture and the next one. Assuming the babies all survive the night, we'll be building a mini-wall to keep Mama from crushing them while they can still get the heat.

Sadly, Delilah actually had eight babies, but two of the boys were already dead when I found the new family. I'm told that's pretty normal for a first litter, especially since Delilah is still pretty young; she's not even a year old now. Still, it sucks to lose them.

The toughest part of the day was getting Samson to move outside and then blocking the doorway so he can't put the babies at risk. We'll be doing some more work to separate them more thoroughly going forward, although for now just keeping him outside will have to do until we can get something done in the spring for a more permanent solution.

It's ironic, because we were talking about getting six piglets to raise for meat while we waited for Samson and Delilah to do their business. Well, God has a sense of humor, because there are six piggies sitting in our barn now. It takes about a year for them to grow up to butchering size. We're debating whether to sell some of them young and raise the rest for meat. We'll have to consider it carefully, although we do have some time.

And yes, these are the only pigs we have now; the other three (including Bob) are freezer-bait and have been there since November. It's the circle of life, farm-style.

The Shackled City, Episode 2: Into Jzadirune

Okay, so we had our second session today. I printed out copies of the 'spellbooks' for the magic-users and illusionist, so they know exactly what spells they have available to them. I also printed out a list of suggested names for the region, and asked everyone to pick a name (or make one up) and put it on their sheet. As a result, we have the following PCs (still all 1st level, of course):

Alexandria Taskerhill, human fighter
Jax Deveron, human paladin
Arthur Morgan, elf fighter/magic-user (spells are charm person, find familiar, read magic, and spider climb)
Yaervan Amazanth, half-elf fighter (bard-to-be)
Erf Lund, gnome illusionist/thief (spells are audible glamer, color spray, and detect invisibility)
Gandolf, human magic-user (spells are detect magic, jump, magic missile, and read magic)

They are also accompanied by Ruphus Laro, 2nd-level cleric of the Church of Diulanna. Gandolf's player wasn't present, so he became a DM-run NPC for the adventure.

And now, the story continues...

Yaervan cried out in surprise and pain as a heavy weight struck him from above, and he felt the sharp pain of a sword in his side. Struggling with the nearly-invisible assailant, he shoved hard and threw his attacker into a wall. Arthur, the only other party member in the room, stabbed out with the butt of his spear and felt the satisfying weight of battered flesh and bones as he pinned the attacker against the wall.

Outside in the shop entrance, Keygan began sobbing and gibbering in terror as the sounds of combat came through the heavy black curtain. Jax and Erf immediately ran to help their companions, while Alexandria, Ruphus and Gandolf stayed to watch over the hysterical gnome. They saw Yaervan swordfighting with a nearly-unseen opponent, while Arthur tried to position himself to stab the enemy properly with his spear. Before Erf could bring a spell to mind, Yaeravn and Jax had dispatched the creature as the paladin's bardiche swiped its head off.

Stunned, the party examined the creature's body. Hairless, genderless, and with skin that seemed to change to blend in with its surroundings, it remained a mystery to their untrained eyes. Keygan identified it only as a 'tall one', and after some prodding, finally spilled the beans to his new friend, Arthur (who had cast a charm person on him in the previous session) and Jax, who is just that friendly and easy to talk to (paladin with an 18 Charisma, everybody). The party soon learned the following information:

The 'tall ones' had surprised him and his nephew Kerren late at night about three months ago, taking Kerren prisoner and somehow turning him into a rat. They forced the locksmith to make skeleton keys for them, and have used his shop as an entry point into the city from the abandoned gnomish enclave of Jzadirune. The only remaining entrance to the surface is here in Keygan's shop, although he has not been down there since the place was abandoned 175 years ago. Now, he has been down only to the very first room below, where the 'short ones' bring his nephew in rat-form in a small cage to ensure Keygan's continued co-operation.

There are also 'short ones' that look like deformed gnomes with soft black hooves and who go about in the city on their own. Both the 'tall ones' and 'short ones' carry out the kidnappings, bringing them through the shop late at night. Keygan has never seen them bringing the victims, but he has heard them, and he has felt helpless to do anything for fear they would kill Kerren.

Jzadirune was abandoned long ago when a strange disease called the Vanishing swept through the enclave, causing its victims to slowly turn translucent and eventually disappear. Jzadirune is protected by a number of trapped doors that only the gnomes could safely open, though Keygan doesn't know how to do so himself. He did provide them with an old, worn map of the enclave, which they looked over before descending through the secret door. Before leaving, Ruphus told Keygan to go to the Church of Diulanna and speak with Jenya before turning himself in to the town guard.

The seven adventurers slowly descended into the abandoned enclave. There they found an empty entrance hall, and saw the first of the strange doors that looked like gears. If you've ever seen Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, that's pretty much what these doors look like. One of the doors was jammed open, and had large teeth surrounding the central wheel. Both doors had a rune inscribed on them: The closed door had the gnomish rune for 'J', the jammed door an 'A'. Being the only gnome in the party, Erf took the lead and went through the jammed door into a old barracks room. There was a glowing rod on the floor, and two tunnels that didn't appear on the map. Rubble was piled up before both tunnel entrances, suggesting that they were a recent addition to the complex.

The others followed, although Jax and Yaervan stayed behind. Erf, Arthur, Gandolf, and Alexandria squeezed through, and after Alexandria had followed the others, she was suddenly attacked by two more of the near-invisible 'tall ones'. Fortunately, some sixth sense warned her (I literally rolled a 6 on the surprise die) in time, and she was able to interpose her shield to stop the first blow. The second did get through, though without the devastating effect of the intended backstab. Alexandria, being an expert in the art of the battleaxe, immediately struck back, although the enemy's camouflage made it very difficult to see well enough to fight them effectively.

Erf, unable to cast his color spray without risking catching his ally in the spell, tried to come to her aid with a dagger. Unfortunately, he tripped on the glowing rod and dropped his dagger, which skittered along the floor under a bed. Meanwhile, Arthur struck out at one of the attackers, nicking it with his spear-tip. Gandolf simply spoke a few words of power, and a glowing bolt of energy struck the second creature, knocking it back.

The two creatures attempted to run, but by this time Jax had entered and recognized the situation well enough to strike back, killing the already-damaged 'tall one' with a swipe of his bardiche. Alexandria, meanwhile, adjusted her attack and killed the second creature with a single blow, thus preventing them from escaping and warning the complex of their presence.

There were two exit tunnels, about five feet in diameter. They chose the eastern one to explore. It led them quite a distance before branching off to the north and south. After a quick consultation, they went south. Erf was the only one able to walk upright as the rest were forced to slightly duck to get through the short tunnels. They followed the southern tunnel until it opened up into an abandoned kitchen.

To be continued...

Feeding the Critters

It turns out that feeding a bunch of farm animals gets expensive when you buy bags of feed. At almost $30/bag, it adds up in a big hurry, particularly when you have a lot of animals. Right now we have over fifty chickens, and they eat a lot. Particularly in the winter, when there isn't much for them to forage.

Fortunately, there are bulk options, and that's what we'll be doing next year. Bulk feed is a lot cheaper, averaging out to the equivalent of about $4 per bag, a significant savings. And since we plan to do a much larger meat chicken flock this summer, that is going to be a very important shift in costs. Because meat birds eat one hell of a lot of food, especially the kind we get (Cornish Cross). They grow to about six  to seven pounds in about three months, and they don't do it by exercising and taking steroids.

The nice thing about buying someone else's old farm is that it comes with a silo to store all this grain. We can expect to fit about ten tons in the silo, which is roughly $1,000 or so. It's hefty, but considering the amount we'd have to pay for the equivalent bags? Yeah, that's not a hard call to make.

Maybe we can even afford to get some turkeys this year as well. That would be fun.

Silent Enemy: Enterprise Retrospective

Here we go with another episode of Enterprise, this one the premiere episode to the second half of Season One. We begin, as usual, with the plot recap from Wikipedia:

In September 2151, while deploying subspace amplifiers to improve their ability to communicate with Starfleet, Enterprise is approached by an alien vessel. Captain Archer hails them, but the vessel returns to warp. He wonders why: Ensign Sato points out that the Universal Translator is far from perfect; and Sub-Commander T'Pol says that some species have motives that cannot be understood in human terms. Soon, the mysterious ship returns and scans Enterprise, sending a high pitched screech through the com systems, and firing on them before again jumping to warp.

Archer notes that Enterprise is now encountering more aggressive species than anticipated, and sets course for Earth so that Jupiter Station can finish the weapons refit. Commander Tucker and Reed ask to be allowed to complete the work themselves, but Archer disagrees, though he gives them permission to begin the procedure. While doing so, the alien ship returns and disables Enterprise's warp drive and main power. Strange alien bipeds then board the ship, and assault two crew-members. They return to their ship, damaging a warp nacelle before departing again. Mayweather suggests contacting the Vulcan High Command for help, but both subspace amplifiers have been destroyed.

Two days later, Enterprise locates an uninhabited planet for a weapons test, which produces a blast yield 10 times the expected output, due to an unexpected surge. T'Pol traces the anomalous reading to Launch Bay 2, to a device tapped into internal sensors and comm channels. Archer then sends the aliens a message: he does not want a fight but will protect his ship by any means necessary. With that, he destroys the device. T'Pol detects the alien vessel again, which uses a re-edited version of Archer's earlier message to demand surrender. After the new cannons are ineffective against their attacker, Archer asks if Reed can intentionally repeat the previous overload of the cannons. Reed complies and damages the alien vessel, knocking out their shields. Reed follows up with two torpedoes before the aliens depart.

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There's a subplot in here about Hoshi trying to find a way to surprise Reed for his birthday, but it seems a bit out of place considering the nature of the ship's crisis. Surely the comm officer and Best Linguist in the Galaxy should be focusing her time more on figuring out how to communicate with these strange aliens and find out what the heck they're up to. Still, it does provide a bit of character development for Reed, although it's more like a 'negative' character development, in that we find out that he really doesn't have much of a character. No friends, no special somebody in his life, even his own family doesn't know what he particularly likes. He is a cipher, outside of his duties on board. She eventually finds out through Phlox and some clandestine medical records research, and in the end Reed gets his favorite cake: Pineapple.

As for the main plot, I really liked it. Enterprise is traipsing around in some very dangerous territory, totally on their own with no chance of calling for timely help from anyone. That premise is starkly portrayed here, as the aliens clearly outmatch the Enterprise. This isn't the first time this has happened, either; the second episode, Fight or Flight, had a similar premise, although at least then they had the Axanar to help them out of a jam. This time, the Enterprise crew are on their own.

The aliens are suitably mysterious, never revealing anything about themselves, and they are never seen again after this episode. The tension mounts as Enterprise tries to find a way out of this mess, their communications buoys are destroyed, their weapons are ineffective, and the aliens finally use their own message against them to order Archer to surrender.

Malcolm might suck at interpersonal relationships, but he's an expert at figuring out new ways to blow things up. He and the engineering team manage to assemble the first of the shipboard phase cannons rather than leave it for drydock workers to install, and it works even better than they had planned. In the end, Enterprise gets to drive off the aliens and resume its mission of exploration. And Reed gets cake.

Overall, I like the episode. Chronologically, it actually happens before the previous episode, Cold Front, dated September 1st, 2051 (Cold Front was dated September 12th), and I think this one would have made a better mid-season finale than the prior one. But this one doesn't talk about the Temporal Cold War, which made it unfeasible for what they were trying to do with the series. Anyway, I'll give this one an 8 out of 10 for the creep factor, the genuine alien-ness of the antagonists, and I even like the loose ends: We never find out why these aliens were doing this, which is fine. We aren't always going to understand the rest of the galaxy, and now is as good a time as any to learn that lesson.

If outer space action gets your juices flowing, you might want to check out my own foray into space opera science fiction, Bard Conley and his Adventures Across the Solar System. It's pulpy, it's fun, and there are lots of explosions. Available now in ebook or paperback at an Amazon website near you.