I've just watched Twilight where Archer is infected with some kind of four-dimensional parasites. When T'Pol and Phlox explain to Trip why they should use their resources for one last tentative to destroy the parasites in Archer's head and how it could correct the timeline and give them a new chance to save Earth. They have nothing to lose. The Xindi know they are there and they will send an overwhelming force to wipe them out. Plus the explanation may be a little out there but it's not very hard to understand. Trip of course doesn't understand a word of it and his only comment is "Earth's gone" Yeah, no shit sherlock! You thought to that yourself? Who put that idiot in charge?
Starfleet, presumably, after T'Pol recommended that he take over command from her. T'POL: Destroying these parasites is most likely the key to saving humanity, and Earth. TUCKER: Earth's gone. At the point when Trip says that line, he hasn't yet been given any of the details of what Phlox has just discovered - that killing the parasites in the present will destroy them in the past, and perhaps that could correct the timeline and prevent Earth from being destroyed. All this explaino comes after, bringing Sherlock up to speed on the Doctor's findings.
That was a rhetorical question. Anyway, it's obvious that he didn't get the explanation whether that was before or after he said the line is of little relevance. Plus I didn't say WHEN he said it. I said that that's ALL he said. He didn't make any comment on the validity of Phlox's explanation because he didn't get any of it. And his insistence on refusing their request to use these resources on an action that was meaningless is pathetic. Fortunately, Archer was a little smarter than that. I am still appalled at how inept Trip can be and still be considered a good officer.
I'm sorry, but I'm still not understanding the basis of your conclusion that Trip didn't understand Phlox's explanation. If he said the line after the explanation, I can see your point that he would have appeared to miss the whole thing about the possibility that if they could change the past by eliminating the spores, Earth might be saved, and not be "gone." But at this point, he had no details about Phlox's experiments at this point. Actually, he has several other lines in the scene after Phlox's explanation. Phlox and T'Pol have called him to Sickbay because Engineering cut off the power Phlox was using for his experiment, and Phlox and T'Pol make their case to Trip that Earth could be saved if Phlox can continue. They explain about the parasites, and the chance to change the past and save Earth. Phlox can't guarantee success - he and T'Pol use qualifiers like "may" and "could" and "it's possible," because they don't know for sure themselves. But the stakes are crystal clear. T'POL: History may be altered. Captain Archer will have remained in command of Enterprise. Our mission in the Expanse could have an entirely different outcome. PHLOX: We only have to divert power for a few hours. I am certain I can complete the procedure in that time. TUCKER: I'm sorry. We need all the power we've got for the weapons. T'POL: If the Xindi are on their way there's very little we can do to stop them.. TUCKER: Well, we can't just run up the white flag. From the looks of this dialogue, Trip may well have understood Phlox and T'Pol, but still had to weigh this "maybe" procedure against keeping the ship as fully powered for battle as possible - and in this timeline, they're in the middle of a war. Sure, you can disagree with his decision. One of the tragic consequences of Archer being disabled was that Trip's vengeful attitude toward the Xindi for killing his sister -- and we see his fury early on, in "The Xindi"-- has not been tempered by T'Pol or taken over by Archer, since they were taken out of the picture. His fury has eaten away his compassion, and he's driven by his hate for the Xindi in "Twilight." As a commander in battle, it's understandable that he would choose his weapons (being without them for "several hours" might mean certain defeat to him) rather than leave the ship vulnerable while Phlox conducts an experiment that "could" or "may" work. "Twilight" is a tragedy. Archer, Trip, T'Pol, they're all broken because of it. That's the point. They all die in this timeline, Phlox too, but they're all trying to save humanity, even Trip, the hardened, cynical war commander. A big part of why I love this episode is that the story puts our main characters under terrible pressure, and we see their truer selves - we even get to see what they didn't have a chance to become, in the original timeline, because of those parasites in Archer's head. In contrast, Trip in "The Forgotten" still has the compassion to stop hating Degra, and the support of T'Pol, which enables him to finally open up and grieve for Lizzie.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion, I am not disputing that. However, allow me not to share it. As a private citizen Trip is certainly entitled to his feelings, hatred, and failings... As someone who's part of a mission though, a mission that's supposed to save humankind, what's left of it in Twilight, he's supposed to rise above them and do whatever it takes to fulfill that mission. In the case of this episode he had two choices: 1) Waste his last resources on a fight that he was sure to lose and delay the extinction of humankind by a few minutes. 2) Listen to his advisers and try something else, which though not certain had the potential of giving humankind a second chance. IMO, only someone who's an idiot, or mentally deranged would choose the first one. Whether his incompetence was due to grief or to stupidity or a little of both, the conclusion is the same. That man should never have been put in charge of the mission!!! And of course, his erratic behavior in "The Forgotten" only confirms that.
However, everyone is a bit cuckoo in this mission, Trip is the worst but the others are not that far behind: Archer decides to keep a vial of the mutation virus even though that vial could be broken in the middle of a fight and the crew transformed into aliens (who would die quickly because they wouldn't know what to do). T'Pol deliberately poisons herself, because she likes the feelings, it procures her!!!! Reed worries more about his personal pride and goes to a fight with a colleague or changes arbitrarily the schedule of training sessions just to spite... the MACO guy... whatever his name is. When he should be more concerned about the missions. Trip or course is being Trip, enough said. IOW, the people in charge, who should be the most responsible, act like selfish assholes!!!
By all means! I'm not here to change your mind or dismiss your opinion, but to examine the issue. I've learned a lot from you during this discussion, since I took Phlox's lack of certainty as justification for Trip, the battle commander, to credibly refuse to divert the power from his weapons. There's more going on than what I took away from my initial viewing. I haven't had time to pull out the episode and watch it again, but it's been interesting to look at the dialogue and see how careful the writers were to keep Phlox from saying "This procedure will 100% save the world!" or anyone else from saying "Captain Tucker, if you engage the Xindi you're 100% sure to lose!" So, with all the "might," "maybe", " "if" and other wiggle room on each side of the choice to be made, each person can argue for their own opinion as to the best course of action, without having enough proof to shut the other side's argument down. I woke up this morning with the thought - how much time passes between Phlox's request and the arrival of the Xindi? You would know, since you just watched the episode. If it's less than the "several hours" Phlox asked for, and Trip did divert power from the weapons, Phlox wouldn't have finished in time and the Xindi would have cut Enterprise to ribbons without a fight. Trip obviously didn't want to give up any chance of fighting, if Phlox could not guarantee that he would succeed before the Xindi did. Another element to add to this Trek "impossible choice" - or at least that's what the writers intended. As you point out, everyone is under tremendous pressure, and people are making mistakes. But these aren't seasoned soldiers - they're explorers who have been pressed into emergency service as warriors. They all have their own very sound reasons (or rationalizations) for taking "cuckoo" actions, because they're letting their emotions (even T'Pol!) get in the way of dispassionate decision-making. But they're not robots, they have flaws like all of us. As things get worse, and moral lines are crossed, they dig down and do what they have to do to win the war, but they go to hell and back first. War destroys people, even the survivors to an extent. Plus, this is drama, and if everything ran like clockwork it would have been a snore of a war.
Trip was the second officer, after Archer and T’Pol. With Archer out of commission, and T’Pol leaving to take care of Archer, Trip was left in command of Enterprise by default. Its understandable that Trip is skeptical of T’Pol’s plan, since her actions left Enterprise with one warp nacelle, which slowed them down when looking for the Xindi weapon, and subsequently doomed Earth. Now there must be some sort of Starfleet in existence if Reed can be promoted to commander of the Intrepid, and Sato is promoted to Lt. And therefore, means that Trip could have been replaced with Reed or a different captain. But it does not seem like Starfleet, and what remains of United Earth, is in a great place either. They clearly were still on good terms with the Andorians, with the reference to shields from General Shran. But we don’t see any Andorians fight alongside Starfleet against the Xindi in this timeline. And the Vulcans have long abandoned Earth, and aren’t concerned with what Starfleet does internally anymore. They just wanted T’Pol to return to Vulcan. And who knows what became of the species that Earth traded with on their freighter routes. Starfleet is incredibly isolated in this timeline. So, in such a timeline, what remains of Starfleet might have preferred someone like Trip as captain – someone hardened over time to lead them in a wartime situation. Since they are trying to survive, instead of explore and build bridges. Such an approach is questionable in and of itself though, since there’s something to be said about strength in numbers.
Phlox did find the cure for Archer's disease but no one could guarantee that Archer will indeed save Earth and humanity. It was all bunch of speculations and wishful thinking from T'pol and Phlox's side. In "reality" things could be exactly the same or even worse in the new timeline. I'm genuinely asking, if you don't know that Archer is the main protagonist of the TV show and therefore destined to save the day, would you really spend all of your resources to save him (with no way of knowing if he is the key to their salvation) while few thousands of people are left completely defenceless? This sounds more like a gamble than an actual strategic plan to me. Especially if we consider that at this point in the show (in the prime timeline) Archer didn't have the slightest idea what he was doing. They were just flying around the Expanse, looking for more information about Xindi. Maybe if this episode was later in the season, after his deal with Xindi was made and if they showed us that his disease screved up everything...well, then I would agree with you.
Yes, because of scientific evidence that shows that the parasites no longer exist in the past either. Which means that Archer will recover and the timeline will be erased. Archer’s decision to track the shipment of kemocite before this episode – despite not knowing what he was doing - did work. T’Pol decision to ram the docked Xindi ship with another Xindi ship in the immediacy of Mayweather’s death did not; it forced Enterprise to go at warp 1.7 as opposed to warp 5, and resulted in the destruction of Earth, Mars, Alpha Centauri and Vega colony, as well as being abandoned by the Vulcans and the loss of any remaining convoys and civilian authorities. And it does not sound like they ever rationalized being pirates and stealing the Illryians warp coil in this timeline with T’Pol as captain. This is no small screwup here. T’Pol is clearly a terrible captain, and Trip is an improvement. Why Admiral Forrest did not just promote Trip to captain in the first place is beyond me.
Classic addiction, they are progressively destroying their internal organs and nervous system, but they're drawn to the effect the "drug" has upon them.
Remember, we're Trekkies. We're used to thinking four-dimensionally. Trip might not have been. Ironically, the character we see make the fewest mistakes is Ens. Mayweather. I've often thought that he should have been a lieutenant... maybe he should have been captain instead.