This guy tries to slap a Nausican around?
They were bodyguards for the Grand Nagus and their favorite bar game was throwing darts into each other. You lost points if you giggled.
Gimme a break.
The guy wasnt a Starfleet diplomatic let’s-all-be-nice-and-
create-interstellar-peace human. He was a pre-Federation
Fuck-with-me-and-I’ll-kick-yer-ass human.
Yeah, but if you beat a Nausican with a 2 X 4 you’re not even going to piss him off.
carnivorousplant wrote:
Hey, don’t knock it, giggling worked for Picard when he got stabbed by a Nausican.
You may notice that the beating didn’t work… The Nausican fed him bad information.
And giggled, as I recall.
mind you he wasn’t being interrogated by the brightest of humans. The boy tried to murder four people by hopelessly abandoning 1/8 of his own ship.
And perhaps if he watched a bit more Babylon 5, he’d have known that wounded ships hiding near asteroids do so for a very dangerous reason.
I kind of had some problems with this episode. It was one of those excessively moralistic, hopelessly unrealistic episodes that seem to crop up especially in the post-Next Generation series. If the Nausicaans are making a habit of pirating ships, stealing their cargo, sometimes seriously wounding or killing crewmembers in the process, maybe someone should open up a big old can of whup-ass on them. Captain Archer seemed excessively horrified at the thought that anyone might want to blow out of the sky a bunch of, well, space pirates. Shouldn’t Starfleet be trying to hunt these guys down and hang them from the yardarms (warp nacelles?), or at least send them away for a nice long spell on some prison asteroid someplace.
Now, if they wanted a morality play about revenge, have the humans massacring a peaceful Nausicaan colony someplace, not trying to take out the corsairs who’ve been attacking and robbing them.
Daniel, I’m not sure the freighter first mate was really trying to kill the Starfleet boarding party, just trying (successfully) to distract the Enterprise long enough for the Fortunate to go to warp. I agree, he wasn’t exactly a brilliant tactician or anything when it came to actual space combat.
On another note…
I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of the Trek characters–or any other TV characters, for that matter–eat as much and as often as the folks on the NX Enterprise eat.
No wonder I snack so much when the show is on. 
A few points about this episode:
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Subspace communication does exist in this time period! Archer was talking to Admiral Forrest in realtime, and they were even talking about putting up a subspace relay to improve signals.
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Even traveling 12 lightyears is a major task for Earth. From what Forrest said, standard starfleet vessels could make that stretch in no less than 3 days.
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Not everyone has fallen into the rosy “we are evolved humans” mentality that Archer and the crew share. I wonder what philosphical movement occured that has taken hold of starfleet. Maybe the Vulcans did a little missionary work of their own between 2063 and 2151. Yay! Humans are still assholes in this time period!
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The Nausicaans are not as bloodthirsty as I was first led to believe from previous examples. Can you imagine if the Klingons were the pirates instead of the Naussicaans? I don’t think they would have gone through all that just to rescue one of their own. I would actually rate the Nausicaans in temperament as on the par with Andorians(Humans are slighty lower, but still pretty high at this point.) I wonder if they become part of the Federation eventually.
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I want to meet chef already! It would be really funny if Issac Hayes guest stars for that episode(Hello there Captain!).
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T’Pol knew she was lying by ommision, but she chose to justify it by saying that she techinally spoke the truth. And why did she feel she needed to justify herself to a child?
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Did you notice that all we saw aboard the Fortunate were guys? Where did the kids come from???
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Regarding next weeks episode, ahhhhh!!! Not a time travel episode!!! I was sorta hoping that this can of worms wouldn’t reopened for a very long time. Dammit, I hate time travel episodes!!!
It was a Nausican that stabbed Picard in the heart as a youth, so at least by the time of ST:TNG they are enough a part of the federation to be able to walk around on starbases.
One thing that’s always bugged me about Trek is the human’s tolerance for species that have very different morals. If Nausicans are so violent and like to kill Cadets over a game, why in hell are they allowed to wander wherever they please? Aren’t there some species that are little more than sentient pit-bulls? I mean, I can understand not killing them, but what about just saying, “We don’t want you in our bars.”?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Sam Stone *
**
Think of Nausicans like the Bikers in those 70s Movies. They have a bad reputation and the authorities know there might be trouble if they come around but there is no law against being a biker, and some bikers aren’t trouble makers so you can’t ban them all. You just have to be careful around them and watchful. In fact just watch one of those movies and replace the bikers with Nausicans, tough bad asses looking for trouble and you won’t see much a difference.
At least that’s how I look at it.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by MEBuckner *
**
I don’t think it was just Archer being Moralistic, I believe he was being practical. The Enterprise is Starfleet’s best Vessel and according to the episode it will be years until there are more of that class available.
From what I can see the Nausicans are operating in an area they have the superior numbers. Starfleet cannot protect every Cargo vessel and if Starfleet destroys these pirates there is a possibility that the Nausican’s as a whole may retaliate.
Lastly I’m sure Earth really does not want to get into a another War. This is supposed to be a time when Humans are trying to shed their warlike past and prove themselves as peaceful explorers. I think their last war left enough scars on humanity psychologically (That war was supposed to have been the one that nearly made mankind extinct)that they actually fear another large scale conflict. Later generations will pretend it is their morality, but in reality it is their fear.
But thankfully I will get to see it in it’s entirety Saturday night, woo hoo! 
I did see a bit of it, and caught the Nausicaan. LOL I’m not sure if they become members of the Federation or not; I’ll have to look that up. 
And might I just add … Woo hoo, time travel!!! Although I don’t know yet what it’s about–is this a revisit of the premier episode, with those Suliban (LOL that’s probably the wrong name for them … forgive me!)?
And I still love T’Pol, though personally think she need to wear more Vulcan-like garb. LOL
tarragon
Ahhhhhhhhh!!! Somewhere, the Great Bird of the Galaxy is molting…
JustPlainBryan:
Re: #7 of your questions, about where all those kids came from: I believe I did see one blonde woman on the bridge of the freighter.
Just one. One very busy lady.
See, that might have been a more interesting episode as well. They could have shown Starfleet’s policy as being realistic but also arguably somewhat cynical. Instead of little lectures about how humans have risen above such wicked, backwards concepts as hunting down space pirates and blowing them out of the sky, Archer could have made it clear that Earth’s just not ready to do anything about the Nausicaan space pirate problem, and in the current galactico-political climate the “boomers” will just have to continue taking their lumps. (Maybe they could show Earth trying to buy off the Nausicaans, the way the United States initially paid tribute to the Barbary Corsairs.) Conversely, they could have shown the idealistic Archer wanting to uphold justice and protect the innocent freighter crews, but being held back by a more realistic Starfleet Command (and T’Pol, of course), who realize that Earth is not yet in any position to put a stop to that sort of thing.
As it was, though, the episode seemed to be saying that of course Archer’s position was just the natural position of any highly evolved being, and the “let’s go blow the dirty space pirates to atoms” response is something which, even if it’s maybe an understandable response, is ultimately something only a barbarian would say. But it’s not like Star Trek has ever really portrayed Starfleet or the Federation as consistently pacificistic (as opposed to peace-loving). In later periods Starfleet and the Federation pretty consistently accept principles like deterrence, armed defense against aggression, etc.
Uh, maybe I’m just being stupid here, but just how the heck did that Nausican end up on the freighter in the first place, if all they and the freighter did was exchange fire from ship to ship? Did I miss an attempted boarding?
Also, just gotta say that Archer and Co. were remarkably charitable and understanding about the fact that they were shot at repeatedly by the crew of the freighter, then ejected into space in a decompressing cargo hold.
Obviously, we’re all much more restrained and forgiving in the future, and I heard the line about there being “no Starfleet authority out here”, but it would take a regular Gandhi not to have pulled some sort of extralegal smackdown on the boomers involved. Jeez, I bet Kirk would not only have chased down the freighter, he would have personally kicked the ass of that little XO who caused all the trouble.
They didn’t show a boarding, but I think it was fairly apparent that one happened.
I didn’t like the holier-than-thou preachiness either, but overall, I have to say what I’ve said before – the characters need to burst out of their shells. They’re so mellow they’re boring. Even Archer seems emotionless most of the time. I guess that’s the way the writers and director want them, but they could do so much more with these characters. I just can’t dredge up any kind of emotion about these people, except for Trip. He seems like the only “real” person on the ship. (Still hate T’Pol.)
I liked how the trailer made you think the ensign was being insubordinate to Capt. Archer (“any more orders of mine you’d like to question?”) but in the episode, it became apparent how a little editing made the trailer totally misleading.