In fairness, I don't recall Archer threatening to the locals to urinate on their relics; that was just ranting on board his ship. Doesn't excuse his being upset about the locals' outrage over the faux pas, though. And what kind of "trained diplomat" brings his pet along on a diplomatic visit? What, Porthos needed a walk that badly?
Problem is they explicitly state in "The Cloud" that they have no way of refilling the magazine.
Which, by the way, doesn't make a lick of sense on closer examination. Lore-wise photon torpedoes are just guided missiles with matter/antimatter warheads. Most of the parts are probably replicateable; the only tricky part would be the antimatter (and they can probably get that from friendly-ish aliens such as the Sikarians and Baneans).
So in other words B&B set up a limitation that doesn't make actual sense given lore, then completely ignored it and never bothered to acknowledge that they did so. Welcome to the idiocy that is Voyager.
Making it worse, that's reportedly what drove Ron Moore away from Trek - he came up with an episode to explain all that away, only to have Berman/Braga reject it, saying, "We don't worry about that on Star Trek."
In fairness, I don't recall Archer threatening to the locals to urinate on their relics; that was just ranting on board his ship. Doesn't excuse his being upset about the locals' outrage over the faux pas, though. And what kind of "trained diplomat" brings his pet along on a diplomatic visit? What, Porthos needed a walk that badly?
Can't be THAT hard to adapt a treadmill for a dog...
Making it worse, that's reportedly what drove Ron Moore away from Trek - he came up with an episode to explain all that away, only to have Berman/Braga reject it, saying, "We don't worry about that on Star Trek."
This is why I LOATHE Berman and Braga...their freaking incompetence is what killed Trek. :mad:
He had a nice rack...no, that was T'pol and/or Hoshi, depending on what type you like.
He was an excellent (though I question that personally) engineer...no, that was Trip.
He had been in space already...no, that was Mayweather.
He was a competent, impressive tactical officer...no, that was Reed.
Damn, this is hard. Couldn't you have asked me to do something easier? Like try to convince Janeway to reduce the amount of daily floggings on her ship? Would have better luck with that.
Joking aside, I do think Archer in season 3 was his best time period for the most part. He had to deal with some bad **** going down with the Xindi. It wasn't easy, it wasn't nice, he had to do some things I'm sure he regretted, like destroying that Xindi outpost on that moon. There wasn't some 'easy way out', he chose to destroy it. In the end, he not only managed to prevent the Earth from getting Alderaan'd, but made peace with the Xindi completely.
He had his flaws, but I can see that Archer (and season 4 Archer really) being the man to help make the Federation a reality one day.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Alright, in season 4 Archer had decently competent writing, and in season 3 he...well, he had his moments.
That doesn't excuse 2 seasons of the Duchess, though.
Also...T'Pol's TRIBBLE don't move. At all. It's creepy.
I never did get why she was supposed to be the hot one, I mean there's Linda freaking Park standing 5 feet away looking like Venus and I'm supposed to be attracted to this...stick figure with grapefruits on her chest?
No, thanks, I'll take the Asian bombshell with the pretty smile, hot body, and nice eyes. And maybe the hot British guy who is eminently slashable with everyone, in a pinch.
No, thanks, I'll take the Asian bombshell with the pretty smile, hot body, and nice eyes. And maybe the hot British guy who is eminently slashable with everyone, in a pinch.
Alright, in season 4 Archer had decently competent writing, and in season 3 he...well, he had his moments.
That doesn't excuse 2 seasons of the Duchess, though.
Also...T'Pol's TRIBBLE don't move. At all. It's creepy.
I never did get why she was supposed to be the hot one, I mean there's Linda freaking Park standing 5 feet away looking like Venus and I'm supposed to be attracted to this...stick figure with grapefruits on her chest?
No, thanks, I'll take the Asian bombshell with the pretty smile, hot body, and nice eyes. And maybe the hot British guy who is eminently slashable with everyone, in a pinch.
Okay, now I'm getting confused. What sex are you attracted to?
Wow, this thread sure took a turn for the surreal.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
He's not perfect by any means, but he's the most human to me. He doesn't have the Classic Action Hero feel from Kirk. He's not Mr. Perfect like Picard. He isn't trying to be "A Saint in the Real World" like Sisko. He doesn't have the Janeway bipolarism.
Full disclosure: I had a hard time getting through Kate Mulgrew's favorite episodes. I found Scott Bakula's better.
Oh, and to be facetious, after Sam Beckett managed to get home from impersonating Johnathan Archer, he resumed his cover identity as Stephen "Orion" Bartowski, and built the Intersect.
well, all this talk of archer, wolverine... healing and all that...
I keep thinking of mirror hoshi now... and how jealous I am of archer doing her... and how nice it would be to have wolverine's healing abilities to stay alive long enough to see that happen so I can take archer aside and show him how we do it, 21st century style!
Properly, it's duct tape, as it was first created to use in repairing air ducts; however, one of the biggest producers of the stuff uses the brand name Duck Tape, so that's appropriate too.
One of my brothers took a stab at being a race driver once; in those circles, they refer to it as "hundred-mile-an-hour tape", because when you have to tape something back on with it, you should try to stay below 100 mph for fear of the repair failing under stress.
Ah yes, ducT tape. thanks.
Say, is there anything in the whole wide world you probably dont know? :P
considering that before he even boarded the ship archer warned t'pol (in front of the vulcan ambassador) that he wanted to knock her on her TRIBBLE... i think the stage was set for the flavour of archers diplomacy. archer wasnt a great diplomat, and i think that was the intention. he was the original space cowboy. he was kirks prototype. if archer hadnt been so aggressive in the face of vulcan resistance the humans likely wouldnt have even started their space exploration for generations.
so no, he was no jimmy carter, but despite that he was able to pull the andorians from the brink of war and get them working together. he was able to bring the xindi on board as well, and saved earth and the human race in the process!
i dont think he was wrong in dear doctor at all. it was actually pretty compelling simply by virtue that we didnt get a traditional test-audience 'everybody wins' ending. it was simply another case of archer showing us that sometimes the easy decision isnt the best decision, and these were the types of decisions that archer often dealt with with. archer wasnt a picard, able to hide behind 'company policy' or thumb back through hundreds of years of experience, because archer was the one drafting policy, whether he or anyone else realised it.
Not afraid to get his hands dirty if the situation required it and a lead by the front kind of commander
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Every Captain has been the victim of crappy writing to force drama...from Kirk not raising shields in WOK after being reminded of Starfleet regulations to Picard choosing to go back to the same point in time from the nexus in Generations....seriously you could have gone back to when he was building the launcher or back to when he was found on the station and had him arrested.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Johnathan Archer was a man of his time and as a consequence a Captain of his time. In hindsight his detractors might compare him unfavorably to those who would later take the conn but it is a pale comparison made from the conveniences taken for granted in the Star Trek universe.
You can't blame Archer for the state of humanity as whole, their technology or their experiences as an interstellar culture. My answer only pertains to the spacecraft but it's meaning applies to the majority of criticisms.
The NX wasn't in the same league as an Intrepid, Ambassador, or even a Constitution. The ship in it's entirety was bleeding edge, raw technology. It's like belittling the Apollo program for not going directly to Mars. How do you evaluate the performance and maintenance requirements of a prototype against a of legacy of shipbuilding extending centuries?
The NX wasn't a collaboration between the best and brightest of Starfleet' Corps of Engineers. There was no Starfleet only Starfleet Command an organization that had the intellectual and physical resources of a single planet at it's disposal. While some might claim Vulcan provided aid in this human endeavor in actuality their intentions were stymy the NX program. There wasn't an owner's manual for this first generation of explorers or a robust book of SOPs informing them how to respond in the event of an emergency.
Archer is often disparaged for being a, "trained diplomat". In a classical sense he probably was. Conventions we understand as being good principles of negotiation which he probably learned don't apply when dealing with alien cultures. As his training was facilitated on Earth by humans with minimal support from Vulcans it likely didn't include much in the way of xeno-diplomatic allowances and a curriculum informing participants of cultural conventions unique to other species.
The repatriation of K'lang ("Broken Arrow") is the first example of this training falling short. From a human perspective the return of the alien courier to his home world seemed the right thing to do but was an insult that biased relations between Earth and the Klingon Empire from the onset. At the time the ramifications were unclear and only in hindsight would the error be recognized as one.
Archer's own recognition of the error later in life caused him regret. He was the strongest proponent for what would become the Prime Directive which cautioned future captains in their first dealings with alien cultures. Metre sticking captains is often accompanied by ,"How many times did this guy violate the Prime Directive". This guy wrote it.
Archer began his career in the NX program as a test pilot. No other captain has those credentials. This puts him in a class of pioneers like Chuck Yeagher. Benjamin Sisko might have overseen the development of the Defiant but all the others are completely overshadowed in this capacity. A jaunt to a planet's surface in the runabout doesn't grant you the instinctive twitch reflexes, the critical thinking /snap decision making qualities typified by one of these gifted individual's. Janeway needed Paris. Kirk required Sulu. Archer simply had Mayweather on his helm.
There are times we see Archer do a good job as a diplomat... but I think he needed a little time with Troi. He had a lot of rage, a lot of anger built up. He did well toward certain races, especially the Andorians and the Terriates. He could do okay with the Klingons. They could had rewritten him a little to be more of a soldier, because that was the kind of captain he was. He was a warrior diplomat.
Because if he was a scientist diplomat, he wouldn't had made that idiotic mistake with the tree-loving aliens.
Comments
Making it worse, that's reportedly what drove Ron Moore away from Trek - he came up with an episode to explain all that away, only to have Berman/Braga reject it, saying, "We don't worry about that on Star Trek."
This is why I LOATHE Berman and Braga...their freaking incompetence is what killed Trek. :mad:
He had a nice rack...no, that was T'pol and/or Hoshi, depending on what type you like.
He was an excellent (though I question that personally) engineer...no, that was Trip.
He had been in space already...no, that was Mayweather.
He was a competent, impressive tactical officer...no, that was Reed.
Damn, this is hard. Couldn't you have asked me to do something easier? Like try to convince Janeway to reduce the amount of daily floggings on her ship? Would have better luck with that.
Joking aside, I do think Archer in season 3 was his best time period for the most part. He had to deal with some bad **** going down with the Xindi. It wasn't easy, it wasn't nice, he had to do some things I'm sure he regretted, like destroying that Xindi outpost on that moon. There wasn't some 'easy way out', he chose to destroy it. In the end, he not only managed to prevent the Earth from getting Alderaan'd, but made peace with the Xindi completely.
He had his flaws, but I can see that Archer (and season 4 Archer really) being the man to help make the Federation a reality one day.
That doesn't excuse 2 seasons of the Duchess, though.
Also...T'Pol's TRIBBLE don't move. At all. It's creepy.
I never did get why she was supposed to be the hot one, I mean there's Linda freaking Park standing 5 feet away looking like Venus and I'm supposed to be attracted to this...stick figure with grapefruits on her chest?
No, thanks, I'll take the Asian bombshell with the pretty smile, hot body, and nice eyes. And maybe the hot British guy who is eminently slashable with everyone, in a pinch.
:eek::eek::eek:
Okay, now I'm getting confused. What sex are you attracted to?
I also don't remember Seven's moving either... *thinking pose*
Three: I think the better question is: Why are you still dressed? *winks*
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
who says I'm still dressed?
what are you doing naked in front of the pc?
He's not perfect by any means, but he's the most human to me. He doesn't have the Classic Action Hero feel from Kirk. He's not Mr. Perfect like Picard. He isn't trying to be "A Saint in the Real World" like Sisko. He doesn't have the Janeway bipolarism.
Full disclosure: I had a hard time getting through Kate Mulgrew's favorite episodes. I found Scott Bakula's better.
Oh, and to be facetious, after Sam Beckett managed to get home from impersonating Johnathan Archer, he resumed his cover identity as Stephen "Orion" Bartowski, and built the Intersect.
well, all this talk of archer, wolverine... healing and all that...
I keep thinking of mirror hoshi now... and how jealous I am of archer doing her... and how nice it would be to have wolverine's healing abilities to stay alive long enough to see that happen so I can take archer aside and show him how we do it, 21st century style!
although now I have to wonder... what's with Quark's holostory 'the vulcan love slave'
You mean T'Pol's autobiography?
oh...
dang...
mirror hoshi or T'pol in "a vulcan love slave"...
that's a toughie...
Think Archer can figure it out?
Ah yes, ducT tape. thanks.
Say, is there anything in the whole wide world you probably dont know? :P
so no, he was no jimmy carter, but despite that he was able to pull the andorians from the brink of war and get them working together. he was able to bring the xindi on board as well, and saved earth and the human race in the process!
i dont think he was wrong in dear doctor at all. it was actually pretty compelling simply by virtue that we didnt get a traditional test-audience 'everybody wins' ending. it was simply another case of archer showing us that sometimes the easy decision isnt the best decision, and these were the types of decisions that archer often dealt with with. archer wasnt a picard, able to hide behind 'company policy' or thumb back through hundreds of years of experience, because archer was the one drafting policy, whether he or anyone else realised it.
free jkname
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
He got to rub gel over T'pol several times.
You can't blame Archer for the state of humanity as whole, their technology or their experiences as an interstellar culture. My answer only pertains to the spacecraft but it's meaning applies to the majority of criticisms.
The NX wasn't in the same league as an Intrepid, Ambassador, or even a Constitution. The ship in it's entirety was bleeding edge, raw technology. It's like belittling the Apollo program for not going directly to Mars. How do you evaluate the performance and maintenance requirements of a prototype against a of legacy of shipbuilding extending centuries?
The NX wasn't a collaboration between the best and brightest of Starfleet' Corps of Engineers. There was no Starfleet only Starfleet Command an organization that had the intellectual and physical resources of a single planet at it's disposal. While some might claim Vulcan provided aid in this human endeavor in actuality their intentions were stymy the NX program. There wasn't an owner's manual for this first generation of explorers or a robust book of SOPs informing them how to respond in the event of an emergency.
Archer is often disparaged for being a, "trained diplomat". In a classical sense he probably was. Conventions we understand as being good principles of negotiation which he probably learned don't apply when dealing with alien cultures. As his training was facilitated on Earth by humans with minimal support from Vulcans it likely didn't include much in the way of xeno-diplomatic allowances and a curriculum informing participants of cultural conventions unique to other species.
The repatriation of K'lang ("Broken Arrow") is the first example of this training falling short. From a human perspective the return of the alien courier to his home world seemed the right thing to do but was an insult that biased relations between Earth and the Klingon Empire from the onset. At the time the ramifications were unclear and only in hindsight would the error be recognized as one.
Archer's own recognition of the error later in life caused him regret. He was the strongest proponent for what would become the Prime Directive which cautioned future captains in their first dealings with alien cultures. Metre sticking captains is often accompanied by ,"How many times did this guy violate the Prime Directive". This guy wrote it.
Archer began his career in the NX program as a test pilot. No other captain has those credentials. This puts him in a class of pioneers like Chuck Yeagher. Benjamin Sisko might have overseen the development of the Defiant but all the others are completely overshadowed in this capacity. A jaunt to a planet's surface in the runabout doesn't grant you the instinctive twitch reflexes, the critical thinking /snap decision making qualities typified by one of these gifted individual's. Janeway needed Paris. Kirk required Sulu. Archer simply had Mayweather on his helm.
Because if he was a scientist diplomat, he wouldn't had made that idiotic mistake with the tree-loving aliens.