Archer's decision to strand civilians in Delphic Expanse

Whithin the parameters we were given, Archer absolutely made the right call. If anything, I thought the episode made the call too easy on his part. From Richard Whettestone's review:

The Enterprise is IN the Xindi solar system. They are attacked and left for dead IN the Xindi solar system right near a planet with a Xindi outpost. The Enterprise is crippled and loses its warp capabilities IN the Xindi solar system.

Then some aliens-of-the-weeks show up IN the Xindi solar system and not only have they never heard of the Xindi before, AND the Xindi don't seem to detect them at all, but they live SO CLOSE to the Xindi solar system that their home-world is just three years away at IMPULSE!

At impulse you're just three years away and you never encountered the Xindi before? At impulse you're just three years away and you've never seen the red star before? At impulse you're just three years away and you've never encountered the spacial anomallies before? Because at warp speed that's just days and weeks away, and yet it's all news to them?

Then because the Enterprise does not have warp drive, they use impulse to reach the aliens-of-the-week IN the Xindi solar system and manage to have a space battle that STILL goes undetected by the Xindi INSIDE their own solar system. Then the ship is left stranded IN the Xindi solar system and STILL the Xindi don't see them.

Whatever.
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Also:

It'll take those aliens three years to get back to their homeworld!

Because their entire planet only has one ship and can't call for a second ship to make the one month journey to bring over a warp reactor?

Whatever.

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It reminds me of Sisko agonizing over whether or not to give the Rommies the faked recording that one time. Duh, of course you should! That's not even a question!

 

Having never watched BSG... who the heck is Cain and what did he do to make him referenced so often as evil incarnate?

 

Oh yeah a probe... "Dear randomalienoftheweek government. Sorry we hijacked parts from Damar's spaceship and left him stranded. Hope he's alive still, but here are their coordinates. Here are flowers for his family if they're not alive. Plz join the Coalition of Planets. K thx. Bai."

 

^ Somebody make this commodore Admiral Forrest's flag writer!

 

One interesting result of the mission being accomplished was that the "Expanse" no longer existed. The pink goo, anomaly filled area of space was a result of the spheres, which were destroyed, send the Sphere Builders back to their dimension. It's possible that normal space traffic resumed (pirating no longer being necessary for survival), and the aliens were rescued sooner.

 

Or someone came along, found them stranded, killed them all and took their stuff.

 

They still had weapons.

 

Which worked so well in stopping Archer from stealing their stuff.

 

They put up a pretty good fight and they would likely be much more trigger happy on the long trip home.

 

Ummmm No, Archer did NOT give them a death warrant. If you watch the episode the Enterprise crew needed the warp core of that ship and in return Archer supplied them with enough food and supplies to make the 3 year journey back to their home. Of course he made the only decision he could since in order to save humanity he had to make the meeting with Degra in 3 days. There was no other way for them to make it in time with the damaged ship. I think the struggle that Archer had to make is gut-wrenching and it was very well portrayed in the episode by making you feel his pain. Also, it shows the change in his character from what we saw at the beginning of the series when he was an explorer. He had become almost like the pirates that they had encountered when they entered the expanse. The only difference being that Archer DID leave them provisions to get back to their home thus retaining at least part of his humanity.

 

That's sort of like saying "I had to make an extremely difficult choice between choosing a chocolate or vanilla ice cream, but I'm severely allergic to chocolate. I chose vanilla, but boy did I agonize over whether or not it was the right call."

Because Archer had no choice - "only one choice" is no choice at all - the drama was necessarily stifled. It could have been rather more effective if there'd been a chance they'd make the meeting on time, but couldn't be sure, and stole fuel to better their odds.

 

Admittedly I'd probably be a lot harder in that scenario. In this one... sure he did something bad... but yeah... he kinda had to or else. It sucks. He even knew it sucked before he did it. But the Death Sta-- I mean Xindi weapon blowing up Earth would suck worse.

 

It's a shame they never got to follow up on this - like having these aliens join the Klingon Empire instead of the baby Federation of Planets, after their first encounter with humanity was such a disaster.

 

This. Unlike his real-world counterparts Archer never pretended that what he did wasn't wrong. And unlike his real-world counterparts Archer achieved peace via actually talking with the reasonable ones among his enemies.

 

Honestly, I don't see archer having any other choice. If there had been another option, I think he would have taken it, but that was the only option at that point.