• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

And now Cogenitor. Some thoughts.

Status
Not open for further replies.
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.
 
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.

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?
 
Still a great episode. Did Reed end up sleeping with that woman. He certainly liked the look of her ass, as did a lot of viewers I bet.
.
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)
 
Trip was pretty meddlesome in this episode. I don't think it was out of character as he has been meddlesome before, but he should know better than to sneak around instead of going through official channels.

This is a lot like the Tom Paris episode 30 days. They both become obsessed with some righteous cause, and circumvent the authority of friendly aliens.
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.
 
This episode puts paid to the belief that Archer doesn't have guts. His smackdown on Trip was spot-on, and ENTIRELY justified.

Cogenitors are essential to Vissian reproduction, and are very rare, so it's not Trip's place to question how they are treated.

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."
 
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.
 
You've never had a threesome?

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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
You should watch it again. Archers severe coldness and clipped dialog with his otherwise best friend stung hard. Trip's reaction showed the impact of Archer's words.
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.
 
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."


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.
 
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.

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.
 
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.
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
T'Pol and Trip contact HR Lt Toby for information on congenitors.
 
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:
Status
Not open for further replies.
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top