This week’s episode involves time travel. For instance, I’ve traveled forward about three weeks since the show aired. It is the first time since the pilot that we get to see the Suliban or hear any mention of the Temporal Cold War. So if anything all wacky and paradoxy happens, I’ll do my best to walk you through it. Oh, also, this week it is revealed that a member of the crew is actually an agent from another time. Aren’t you just aquiver with anticipation to find out who? Oh, the dramatic possibilities! Let’s begin.
A Sulibanana is strapped down to a table with tubes sticking into his face, pumping varicolored fluids in and out of him. “This wasn’t part of our agreement,” he complains, his voice chock full of reverb. We pull back to see that Mister Lumpy and Grumpy is in the presence of a tube of laser light with a Shadowy Future Guy inside, overlooking the procedure. “You failed in your last mission. The Klingon Empire is intact.” As punishment, Suli is getting his eyes ripped out. Actually, he’s just having a previous genetic enhancement to his vision forcibly removed. If you’re gonna have minions, make sure they’re modular. Makes upgrades a snap. Future Guy promises to give him his eyes back if he succeeds at his next mission. Another Suliban steps up to the table in wobbly weird time fashion and prepares to stick a foot-long needle into the restrained one’s eye. The rest of us have to watch the opening credits. Lucky bastard.
Hoshi gets onto a turbolift aboard the Enterprise. Before she can get the door closed, Mayweather runs up and jumps in with her. They banter about a bad movie, which he saw last night and she skipped out on, called “Night of the Killer Androids.” I can tell by the title and their reactions that neither of them has properly developed their bad movie appreciation skills. As Mayweather complains, Hoshi stares longingly at his jugular vein, attempting to squeeze it shut with her mind. Or maybe that was me. As the elevator reaches the bridge, she chides him, “You could read a book.” Once on the bridge, Reed, somehow sensing that they had been talking about the bad movie, agrees with how bad it was.
The whole first part of this episode is day in the life stuff like this. I’m trying to keep it brief until the killing starts.
Archer is in his dining room, waiting to be served his breakfast. The waiter walks in, and Archer greets him. “Hello, Daniels. I thought this was Taylor’s shift.” The waiter explains that they switched shifts, then questions Archer’s recent decision to change the ship’s course. He’s kind of uppity for a guy who carries plates for a living. “There’s a stellar nursery not far from here. We detected several ships inside.” So we’re going to go see how big a mess we can make of things. Daniels approves Archer’s orders and leaves while Archer oversalts his eggs.
The Enterprise approaches the stellar nursery, which, by the way, is a large cloud of gas which has started having parts of itself collapse to form new stars. Archer bounces onto the bridge just as Mayweather locates one of the alien ships floating around inside the nebula. T’Pol identifies it as a transport vessel using her magic powers, and Hoshi hails it. The translator has no trouble with the language of the alien whose species we’ve never seen before. Archer introduces himself and his ship. The alien captain is not impressed. They get that a lot, I notice. “Nice to meet you. What do you want?” Just to say howdy, it turns out. The alien must get this a lot. “What brings you out here?” Archer asks. “A job,” the alien replies matter-of-factly. At least he isn’t shooting yet. “I’m escorting a group of spiritually-minded men on a pilgrimage to the Great Plume of Aggasoria.” He explains that one of the local shiny things shoots a flare of neutrons every eleven years, and he’s got a shipload of people who worship the event. It’s due to blow tomorrow. Archer asks to tag along. “It’s your time to waste.” Not having filled his nuisance quota for the week, Archer offers to let the captain and his pilgrims come aboard for no particular reason. “I’ll ask them if they’re interested. I prefer to stay with my ship.” The captain identifies himself as Fraddick just before he loses interest entirely and cuts communication. Feeling smug, Archer swaggers to his chair, ordering no one in particular, “Looks like we could be having guests. Tell Chef to prepare…something.”
Fraddick’s ship docks onto the side of the Enterprise’s main disk. Apparently they have universal docking mechanisms. Archer and Trip are waiting at the hatch. The door opens and a batch of wide-eyed men in ill-fitting robes and a variety of head bumps wanders onto the ship. Archer offers his hand to the one who turns out to be the leader of the group, then has to explain what a handshake is. “I am Prah Mantous. May Aggasori embrace you into his cycle of renewal.” Uh, thanks. Mantous gives Archer the gift of a cheap desk clock. “It charts time from the beginning of the universe.” You ask one of these guys what time it is, and he takes ten minutes to answer. Another pilgrim offers Trip a glass cylinder filled with red booze to be drunk during the plume. “You’ll find it enhances the effect.” I can smell the colors! Archer offers them a meal. “Normally we fast during the time of Aggasoria.” D’oh! “But in this case I suppose we can break with tradition.” As Archer leads the pilgrims off to violate their religious tenets, one of them hangs back and poses while ominous music plays.
In the mess hall, crew and pilgrims are mingling. Daniels, the waiter from the earlier scene, is serving. I’m sure you’re wondering why I keep mentioning him. As Doctor Phlox listens in the background, Mantous hits the highlights of his belief system, namely that this particular location is where the universe began, and the Plume is symbolic of the cycle of life. If you assume that the universe started as a single point at the Big Bang, then every point in the universe was at the place of creation at the moment of creation. Therefore, these people are being silly. But, it gets them out of the house. Phlox compares the pilgrims’ beliefs to Hinduism, to Archer’s surprise. Phlox explains he studied as many of Earth’s religions as he could squeeze into his schedule while he was there. The pilgrim who was ominous previously asks T’Pol if Vulcans are spiritual people. “Our beliefs are based on logic, and the pursuit of clarity.” He then tries to pin down Archer’s faith of choice, but he dodges. “I like to keep an open mind.”
Hoshi walks onto the bridge, where Reed and Mayweather are the only two others on duty. She tells them that the pilgrims are taking a tour of the ship. Reed mutters, “I hope he’s not planning to show them the armory.” Reed suggests tactical systems should be off limits to tour groups. I wonder why they aren’t already. A thing on Reed’s console beeps, telling him a targeting sensor is out of alignment. “I’ll take care of it. It’ll only take a moment.” He tells Mayweather, “You have the bridge, Ensign,” and leaves the room. Mayweather goes about his business until Hoshi prods him. “Aren’t you going to take the chair?” Mayweather caves in to peer pressure and sits in the captain’s chair. Then he starts pushing buttons. “Think anyone would mind if I fired a torpedo?” Reed walks back in and puts an end to Mayweather’s mad grab for power. Mayweather shamefacedly sulks back to his usual seat.
Down in Engineering, Trip is giving the visitors his “Big Book of Warp Drives” tour. Matter hits antimatter to make the swirly light, and the energy is sent out some conduits to the warp nacelles. Ominous Pilgrim breaks in, “Which contain warp coils that generate the subspace displacement field.” Trip realizes he assumed they didn’t know technical stuff on account of their being religious fanatics, and tries to recover. “Well, that about covers the basics. Any questions?” One of the other pilgrims asks a technical question. “I’ll bring up a schematic of the reactor assembly, and you can see for yourself,” Trip replies, more comfortable now that he knows he doesn’t need to dumb it down. He leads the tour group over to a display area. Ominous Pilgrim separates from the group, goes around to the other side of the warp core, and opens a panel. He reaches in and his arm gets bendy, twisting into the mechanism until he gets to some item which he yanks on, separating it from what it was attached to, accompanied by a small shower of sparks. Hey, he must be that Suliban guy. They can bend like that. He closes the panel and rejoins the tour.
Enterprise and Fraddick’s ship fly onward into the nebula. Fraddick calls to the Enterprise. “You might want to focus your sensors on that plasma lightning up ahead.” T’Pol assures him they are aware of it. “I suggest we try to go around it,” Fraddick suggests, which T’Pol has no problem with.
In sickbay, Phlox is giving the pilgrims rides in his MRI. He declares the alien on the slab is in perfect health. Just then, the ship shakes. Archer feels the need to break away from the tour to maybe find out what’s going on around him for once. From the bridge, T’Pol explains that it’s “just turbulence from the outer edge” of the plasma storm. The ship gets struck again, harder this time, knocking out power on some decks. “The storm’s moving in our direction,” Mayweather foreshadows. “I’m having trouble getting around it.” Another strike by the lightning, and stuff starts to break.
Down in Engineering, where some of the tourists are still hanging about, Trip diagnoses, “We’ve got a power surge in the impulse relays.” He wastes time telling the pilgrims how he intends to fix it instead of going ahead and fixing it. In sickbay, Archer excuses himself from the tour and heads for the bridge. In the mess hall, Daniels is interrupted while bussing a table and gets a look of concern on his face. Another massive shock of energy hits Enterprise. Reed reports to Archer on the bridge, “We’re losing main power.” Back in Engineering is where the real trouble is. Trip reports, “We’ve got an antimatter cascade! If it reaches the warp reactor we’re gonna—“ We don’t hear what it’s gonna do because it starts doing it. Small explosions of sparks run along the wall, then turn to head down the conduit into the warp core. They’re doomed! No, wait! Just as the cascade is about to enter the core, it fizzles out, to everyone’s relief. In fact, if memory serves, the cascade stopped just about at the place where the Suliban had reached in and disconnected something. That means…he saved the ship. Isn’t he supposed to be the bad guy?
So, Enterprise was about to explode, but the Suliban, and by extension Future Guy, prevented it from happening. That means everything that Enterprise does from now on, good or bad, isn’t supposed to happen. They’re totally off-script. They are disrupting the timeline by their very existence. It’s the ol’ Edith Keeler Effect. And we know how that turned out.
Archer escorts the leader of the pilgrims back to the docking area. He offers, “If any of your group would like to watch the Great Plume from our mess hall, they’re welcome to come back tomorrow.” Phlox is standing in among the pilgrims. “Thank you for letting me spend the night with these people.” Oh, that madcap Phlox and his comparative theology. As the hatch seals on the airlock, Trip calls Archer down to Engineering.
“Take a look at this,” Trip says, leading Archer over to the Suliban-sabotaged panel. He points out a conduit. “Somebody got in here and disconnected it from the primary antimatter feed. If they hadn’t, that cascade would’ve continued right into the reactor core.” Which means Boom. None of Trip’s staff are taking the credit for the save. Archer tells Trip to find out who did it. “Whoever it was deserves a commendation.” Trip thinks it was a pilgrim.
In Archer’s ready room, Fraddick claims that none of the pilgrims admit to doing anything commendable. “If I told you I did it,” Fraddick asks, “would there be some kind of reward?” Nope, just praise.
As Archer walks down a hallway, Daniels swoops in behind him. “Sir, I need to speak to you.” Archer tries to brush him off, until he says the secret word, “Suliban.” Archer stops in his tracks. Daniels continues. “I have reason to believe one of the pilgrims who came on board today is a Suliban soldier. His name is Silik.” That’s the same bad guy who almost killed Archer in the pilot. Daniels requests a private place to talk. Specifically, Daniels’ quarters. Archer agrees reluctantly.
When they reach Daniels’ quarters, he first tidies up a bit for his slob roommate, then pulls a metal briefcase out of his locker. “That doesn’t look like Starfleet issue,” Archer notices, ever the sharp one. Daniels deflects Archer’s questions and asks, “Did Silik mention the temporal cold war?” Archer is taken aback. There’s a lot of information here, so let me sum up. Daniels isn’t Starfleet; he’s Timefleet, although he doesn’t call it that. He’s a time traveler from the 31st century. He has a device he calls a “temporal observatory,” which projects into the air around the user a 3-D display of history. The people Silik works for are from some earlier time still in Archer’s future, and cannot physically move into the past. They can only project data. Most of the people who have the secret of time travel are decent folks who don’t try to change things. They are “at war” with the other type, trying to keep them from screwing things up. Like, by saving starships that were supposed to be blown up by an antimatter cascade, for instance. Daniels is on Enterprise to capture Silik. “And I need you to help me capture him.” He wants to hook his futuristic sensors up to the Enterprise so as to overcome the Suliban’s ability to avoid detection. “I’ll need access to Main Engineering and your command codes.” Whoa there, Hoss. I smell a rat. A big, Commie rat. Daniels hard-sells Archer. “I need to inform some of my crew,” Archer insists. He then asks why he should trust Daniels over the guy who just saved his ship. Daniels’ answer is too stupid to repeat.
Archer decided to tell Trip and T’Pol. By the time we see them again, he’s pouring them glasses of the pilgrims’ Plume-watching concoction. T’Pol relays the Vulcan position on the idea of time travel, “They found no evidence that it exists, or that it can exist.” Archer tries several arguments. Daniels used the phrase “temporal cold war” just like the Suliban woman in the pilot episode. The Suliban genetic engineering is beyond their technical capacity to perform at this time. Daniels’ device had a holodeck-like effect. Between them, T’Pol and Trip counter-argue that none of those facts requires time travel to be true. There’s a ring on the intercom. Hoshi informs Archer that the pilgrim ship wants to dock again so that some of them can watch the Plume from Enterprise. Archer allows it. As usual, Archer ignores all the points made by his advisors, and orders them, “I want you to help Daniels.”
In the turbolift, Trip and T’Pol chat. “I always knew I’d be meeting people from other planets, but other centuries?” Trip leads off. Seeing the look of skepticism on T’Pol’s face, he continues, “You’re not buying any of this, are you?” She isn’t. “He could be trying to conceal his true intentions” with that cockamamie story, she theorizes. She also thinks Archer believes Daniels more because he wants to than because he has reason to.
Archer enters the mess hall where some of the pilgrims have gathered, as has Phlox, who greets him with a traditional Plume-worshipper saying. Phlox had a great time hanging with the zealots. Archer is too preoccupied looking over the pilgrims for a familiar face to be properly happy for him. Archer grills Phlox. “Did any of them seem out of place?” Phlox has no idea. Finally satisfied that none of the pilgrims present are the sneaky Suliban Silik, he stomps off to greener pastures.
In Engineering, Daniels is cracking the whip while Trip and T’Pol dance to his music, if I may be allowed that two-car pileup of a metaphor. He needs more power, but “one of the power relays is offline,” according to T’Pol. Daniels asks which relay, which turns out to be three meters behind the nearest bulkhead. “I’ll take care of it,” Daniels says, putting a device on his hand. He points his hand at the wall and walks right through it. A few seconds later, he walks out again. “Try it now.” It works. I wonder if they don’t have some sort of access path to the circuitry for those times when men from the future with their magic passwall devices aren’t around.
v
In Archer’s quarters, Porthos the wonder dog is barking as Archer enters. He continues to bark while facing away from the door and at a right angle to Archer as Archer pours the puppy chow. Porthos even refuses to eat when Archer sets the kibble in front of him, and starts growling. Despite his genetic inability to catch a clue, Archer starts looking at the area toward which Porthos was barking. That’s when he notices the discarded robes on the side table. He moves to the intercom, but a voice stops him. “If you’re thinking of calling for help, I’d advise against it,” says the voice, as the body behind it de-cloaks and steps forward. It’s Silik the Suliban, back in his lumpy green skin and purple Danskin. “I’m not the one you should be worried about, John.” Silik fishes for a “Thank you” for saving the Enterprise, then settles for trying to use it to coerce a favor from Archer. “There’s someone here trying to find me. I need to know who it is.” Archer plays dumb. Easy role. Silik tries to confuse Archer’s morality. “Did they tell you about their noble efforts to protect history? The great temporal accord? They’re lying to you, John.” He tries to convince Archer that any other time traveler Archer might have met is just trying to change history like everyone else. Archer asks why Silik saved the ship when he tried to destroy it previously. “I saved your ship because I was instructed to.” He seems proud of his ignorant order-following. Silik pulls out the trump card that works on any captain. “Whoever is looking for me is a danger to your crew.” Via intercom, T’Pol interrupts the “Join me on the Dark Side” conversation. “We’ve finished the modifications. Mr. Daniels is eager to get started.” And thus did the jig become up. “You’ve been very helpful, John,” Silik says just before shooting Archer. At least he’s polite. Silik leaves, and Porthos starts licking Archer’s face to try to wake him up.
The star that gives off the Plume of Aggesoria starts to writhe. In the mess hall, Phlox is anxious for the show the start. “How long before we see the plume?” “That’s hard to predict,” the leader explains. “Every cycle is unique.” Phlox is given the honor of leading the group chant for the sun-worshippers. The rhythm is roughly, “The people, united, can never be defeated,” but the words are all alien. I just wanted to be clear on that. They aren’t picketing the star. Phlox derives great personal satisfaction from a mantra well done.
In Engineering, the supercharged sensors are activated. Daniels’ handheld device immediately picks up something. “Suliban biosigns. He’s somewhere on this deck.” Daniels orders T’Pol to seal off C-Deck, and she hops to it. Trip spots a blur up on the walkway and points it out to the others. “What’s that?” “You two should go,” Daniels decides. “Go. Bring help.” As Engineering is evacuated, Silik un-invisibles himself and gets the drop on Daniels. “Did they tell you that the 22nd century was gong to be your final resting place?” Silik evils at Daniels. Then he shoots him. The beam was the same yellow that Silik shot Archer with, which I assume was a stun. What it does here is make Daniels’ outline go fuzzy, as if he were in the Suliban’s weird time room. With the second shot, something uniform-colored explodes outward while a vague humanoid energy form fades away to nothing. Is Daniels dead? Did he get pulled back to his own time at the last instant? Will we ever find out? Will we care?
Trip and T’Pol watch the whole thing through a window, and call Archer to report what happened. Archer doesn’t answer. The computer places Archer in his quarters, so they naturally and correctly assume the worst and call for the doctor.
Pudgy fingers jab a hypospray against Archer’s neck, and he groggily regains awareness amidst Trip, T’Pol, and Phlox. “It was Silik. I guess he decided not to try and kill me this time.” Trip tells Archer about Daniels’ explosive discorporation. Archer runs from saddened to determined in about a second and a half. “Have our guests left yet?” They haven’t because the light show’s still in its first act. Archer stumbles over to the videocom and calls Capt. Fraddick. “I’m looking for one of your passengers. Have any of the ones who were here returned in the last hour?” None have. Next, Archer calls Reed and tells him to seal every possible way to exit the ship and to post guards on every deck. He asks Trip, “Do you think you can find him using Daniels’ sensors?” Trip isn’t sure, but he’ll give it a shot. Archer and T’Pol head off to Daniels’ room.
Archer opens Daniels’ locker and takes out the case where he kept the temporal observatory. It’s missing, of course. Hoshi calls with more bad news. “Someone just used our comm system to transmit a message.” Encrypted, of course. Archer storms out, T’Pol trailing behind.
In Engineering, Trip is having more trouble reading the sensors than he thought. “I’m sorry, Captain. I can’t make heads or tails out of most of this.” Meanwhile and elsewhere, Silik opens up a wall panel, and squeezes between the foremost components into the inner workings of the ship, using his unnatural malleability to go where no vertebrate could follow. Whatever he’s doing gets noticed back in Engineering. “B-Deck, service junction 59. Someone’s trying to bypass the lockout codes for launch bay 2.” Archer starts heading that way, telling Trip to have Reed meet him there. Trip stops him. “Captain, I’ve got something that might give you a leg up.”
Reed and his security team are already there when Archer arrives. “It looks like he slipped through here,” Reed points out. “We could remove these conduits, but it would take time.” Archer looks thoughtfully at the gadget he is wearing on his right hand. It’s the walk-through-walls device Daniels used earlier. Archer activates it and tries it out by sticking his hand through the wall. “Stay here,” Archer tells Reed unnecessarily. He takes a deep breath, and with heroic resolve walks into the wall and freaks out the redshirts.
Silik has found himself a gap in the machinery where he can stand up straight, and is fiddling with something he probably ought not be fiddling with. He hears Archer come out of the wall behind him. “Very clever,” Silik comments, but doesn’t stop what he’s doing. “Put the device on the floor,” Archer orders, referring to the stolen observatory. “It would be in your best interest to let me take it,” Silik replies. Archer: “I can’t help wondering what kind of genetic enhancement you’ll get for bringing back that prize.” Silik: “That’s a cynical attitude, John.” A snappy comeback; this guy’s bucking for supervillain status. The ship is buffeted by something that glows really brightly, knocking Archer and Silik over and triggering the fight sequence. Silik wins the fisticuffs portion of the bout, but managed to drop his gun in the process. So, instead of killing Archer, he runs away through the hatch that really had to be there, making the whole squishy guy/immaterializer sequence extraneous.
Mayweather announces to the bridge, “There’s a ship approaching. No bigger than a shuttle pod. It’s Suliban.”
Silik pops out of a wall one airlock away from the shuttle bay. He fumbles with the door-opening buttons, giving Archer time to catch up. Pointing a phase pistol, Archer says, “I’m not going to ask you again. Put it down.” Silik doesn’t put it down. “You’re going to kill me after I saved your life?” In response, Archer retargets and shoots the stolen futuretech out of Silik’s hand, frying it in the process. Silik snarls, “You may have endangered your future, John,” and continues out into the shuttle bay. Archer follows, with a “Hey, I’m pointing a gun at you, you can’t just walk away!” look on his face. Silik is nowhere to be seen by the time Archer starts looking. He walks out onto a catwalk, looking every direction he can. That’s when the klaxons sound and a pair of shuttle bay launch doors start to swing open. Archer stupidly leans over the rails in shock, and almost gets bowled over by the rush of escaping air all around him. He falls over the railing, hanging on with both hands, and tries to climb back up. The hand holding the passwall device slips off the railing, and the device slips off his hand and gets blown out into space. In a few million years, when planets form here, some civilization will find that thing and probably start worshipping it. The wind dies down as the last of the air escapes, leaving Archer breathing hard vacuum. He’s got about 30 seconds to live, and they won’t be fun. Silik becomes visible over by the launch bay door control panel, looks up at Archer, and falls out of the open doors. There’s artificial gravity, so we’ll give him that one. Archer, remembering he’s about to die, runs for the airlock and opens it. He fights the air rushing out of that space and gets inside. A few button pushes later, and he’s desperately gasping for air, safe and far more sound than he really ought to be. At the very least, he should be a giant bruise, is what I mean. But that’s not good TV.
Meanwhile, Silik plummets through the vacuum toward his strategically-located waiting escape pod and freedom.
T’Pol calls Archer and tells him the Suliban ship just warped away. “Let him go,” Archer orders. She doesn’t question why he’s breathing like an obscene phone caller who just ran a marathon in Colorado.
Later, Archer sits at his desk, contemplating the clock the pilgrims gave him. T’Pol enters, giving Archer a springboard to express his befuddlement. “Starfleet’s in store for one hell of a report. Not quite sure where to begin.” T’Pol offers to help. They agree to wait until tomorrow.
On the bridge, Archer wearily gives Reed new orders. “Assign new quarters to Daniels’ roommate, and seal off cabin E-14. It’s off limits until further notice. God knows what else is in there.” Uncertainly, Archer orders the ship off to its next thrilling adventure. Elsewhere, a security team puts a huge magnetic lock on the door to cabin E-14.