And now Cogenitor. Some thoughts.

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Enterprise' started by Gingerbread Demon, Aug 10, 2017.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. ewoodcourt

    ewoodcourt Ensign Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2017
    Honestly, I have a lot of issues with this episode. I don't care if it's 'interfering with other cultures' slavery is wrong, pure and simple. I don't know if I agree with how Trip went about it but I side with him in this episode much more than Archer.
     
    Brennyren likes this.
  2. Gingerbread Demon

    Gingerbread Demon I love Star Trek Discovery Premium Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2015
    Location:
    The Other Realms
    And that's what you are expected to do I think. I like that this episode gets people talking. I'm thinking there were better ways to have resolved this. They could have left them and become great friends with these people and then dealt with those issues through diplomacy.

    I do wonder if relations with the Vissians have been irreparably damaged for the future?
     
    cooleddie74 likes this.
  3. Willow

    Willow Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Mar 17, 2015
    Location:
    Alpha Centauri
    Haha! I've always wondered the same thing, if for no other reason than I believe it would have been the only action Reed got in four years!

    Part of me would have assumed he DID. The issue was never revisited. And come to think on it, if he DIDN'T , that would make him the only main crew member to not have a liaison in the series run. (Except for Phlox..but he was married- and his wIfe DID visit)
     
  4. Anna Yolei

    Anna Yolei Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 15, 2003
    See, the big different between Trip and Paris is that Archer has gone in with all guns blazing at every opportunity up to that point to deliver freedom moral lessons to every culture has disagreed with up to that point--releasing the Suliban out the internment camp, the run ins with the Klingons...the original script for "Dear Doctor" had him ordering Phlox give the dying species cure he developed. The only difference between this and everything else to that point is this species didn't pull weapons at their first meeting.

    So when Trip days he was doing what he thought he, Archer--a guy he's been friend a with going back well before he was his captain--would do, I don't think he was talking out his ass.

    I watched this episode after I had joined the Navy and while I once held it as the best season two outing, it did piss me off on a second viewing for exactly that reason of having to deal with leadership that tells their people one thing and do something entirely different: like all the times my LPO (or supervisor for the civilians) took the piss outta our garbage cunt of a divisional officer but somehow it's bad when I did it because I thought he was pissing on her. :rolleyes:

    It's still one of the bright spots of season two, but damn. Even The Orville did better.
     
  5. Charles Phipps

    Charles Phipps Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 17, 2011
    Eh, that basically means they're a sex slave. I don't think Star Trek should ever veer on the side of, "It's okay to oppress people if you think it's okay."
     
    Anna Yolei and Brennyren like this.
  6. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2000
    Location:
    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    Is it sex? Or at least is it the sort of sex that anyone is supposed to enjoy?
     
  7. Prax

    Prax Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 1, 2017
    Location:
    Prax
    Trip was forcing human values onto an alien culture that didn't understand them. If he did the right thing, then he went about it in the wrong way.

    Now, the incident could have been a catalyst for change for the adoption of more human values, or more likely, would cause the aliens to be weary of humans in the future, and avoid their "contamination."

    I still think it fits with Trips character, though. Remember that little kid on the bus in Broken Bow that was coughing? Trip was read to pay the smackdown on that mother.
     
    Nyotarules likes this.
  8. Gingerbread Demon

    Gingerbread Demon I love Star Trek Discovery Premium Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2015
    Location:
    The Other Realms
    Yeah I'd love to know myself LOL.

    How exactly do the Vissians have sex and have kids if 3 people are involved?
     
  9. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2000
    Location:
    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    You've never had a threesome?
     
  10. Gingerbread Demon

    Gingerbread Demon I love Star Trek Discovery Premium Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2015
    Location:
    The Other Realms
    Yes but that's usually with two other women and usually shenanigans haha.

    I'm just trying to work out the mechanics of this.

    Ah.......... I've got it.

    Husband impregnates wife.
    Wife passes fertilized egg onto Congenitor who then carries it to term.
    To do this wife gets funky with Congenitor. Vag to Vag fluid transmission.
     
  11. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2000
    Location:
    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    Just because the cogenitor looked female it doesn't mean that she superficially had similar genitals to the female of it's own female gender, or a human female.

    Maybe the cogenitor unlocks the penis, or turns it on, before it'll start firing live rounds into his wife.
     
  12. Charles Phipps

    Charles Phipps Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 17, 2011
    It's a psychic thing because it's always a psychic thing.
     
    Gingerbread Demon likes this.
  13. It'sMe

    It'sMe Ensign Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Apr 12, 2018
    I enjoyed the episode. It was what I expected out of a prequel to the original. Humans react to meeting others in a humane fashion. Archer and his new pals cared more about a child that wasn't even yet conceived than someone already in existence.
    He/She lived more in the short time she knew Tripp than she ever had. He didn't help to kill her but helped to giver life to her.
    I was hoping he'she had contacted others and began a revolt.
     
  14. Anna Yolei

    Anna Yolei Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 15, 2003
    I initially liked this episode, but even the first time I watched it....damn. I've seen Janeway be accused of being bipolar in her ethics, but this was an entirely jarring change from everything we'd seen from Archer to this point.

    Literally the only difference between this culture and every other time he played Quadrant Police is that he and this Captain became BFFs. I'm just not seeing how Tucker wouldn't think he was okay to do this.

    I think this episode should have been a two-parter. It's an interesting concept, but the execution is lacking.
     
    Brennyren likes this.
  15. Gingerbread Demon

    Gingerbread Demon I love Star Trek Discovery Premium Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2015
    Location:
    The Other Realms

    And there is another problem I see with not just this episode, but later versions of Star Trek sometimes. To quote Azetbur "The Federation is a homo sapiens only club" and despite alien races being part of the Federation human values seem to roll over everything sometimes.

    We shouldn't be assigning human values to alien cultures that have existed long before humans had the wheel.
     
    Mr. Laser Beam and Nyotarules like this.
  16. Brennyren

    Brennyren Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2003
    Location:
    Pittsburgh, PA, USA
    You might enjoy this story:
    The Cogenitor's Tale
     
  17. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2000
    Location:
    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    By institutionalizing Cogenitors, the species had expanded beyond its ability to perpetuate "naturally" unless there was an easy technological alternative (maybe even a pill?) and congenitors were now only used by wealthy douche bag hipsters.

    Human values?

    Don't treat people like they are veal.

    Invent a pill, or halve the size of your global population.

    Pretty easy.
     
  18. cooleddie74

    cooleddie74 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2001
    Location:
    The Warped Sector of the Demented Quadrant
    They're Vissians, not Amish.
     
  19. XCV330

    XCV330 Premium Member

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2017
    Location:
    XCV330

    T'Pol and Trip contact HR Lt Toby for information on congenitors.
     
    Gingerbread Demon likes this.
  20. at Quark's

    at Quark's Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 15, 2012
    It is an interesting question though. When does ethics allow us to interfere and when not?

    Are we allowed to interfere when we discover an alien species that condones slavery, and has done so for thousands of years? Are we allowed to interfere if we discover a primitive human tribe (that up until now lived in complete isolation and autonomy) that does so? I can't really think of a valid reason why the answer would be 'no' in the first circumstance, and 'yes' in the second …. (save perhaps for reasoning like 'the aliens form a sovereign political power and territory whereas the humans were discovered in country x and hence fall under their jurisdiction and their laws', which still feels a bit hollow to me).

    As for that stratopod…. I'd like to think that metaphasic shielding, as invented by that Ferengi Reyga, and also advances in construction, further augmented by Borg technology as used in the Delta Flyer would be some steps along the way towards eventually creating an equivalent Starfleed pod. But even those steps are 200 years after Archer's time.
     
    Last edited: Jun 10, 2018
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.