Cut Malcolm's leg off!

[F. King Daniel]

In "Minefield". It never even came up. Send Phlox out, remove Malcolm's leg, detach the hull plate and warp out. Much less risky than having Archer disarm the mine under the nose of a pair of Romulan ships.

Also, T'Pol doesn't recognize the Romulan language. At all.

 

[T'Girl]

It been years since I've seen the episode, but.

One problem with what you're suggesting is that malcolm is in a pressurized spacesuit, even with a tourniquet, exposing the stump of his leg to space would kill him quickly. However, if a surgical option was possible, a better course of act would have been to have phlox cut a "groove" in malcolm's leg down to the spike, move malcolm off of the spike, hurry him to sickbay and then see if phlox could then save the leg.

Again it been a while, was there any talk of using the transporter to beam just malcolm (and obviously not the mine) into the ship?

.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I don't think they mention the transporter. But I imagine they could have technbabbled something about transporter energies in close proximity setting the mine off.

Since Malcolm was on the hull, perhaps they could have erected some kind of pressure tent around him in order to perform the surgery (possibly saving the leg, with the 'groove' idea) Although that may have taken as much time as defusing the mine did.

 

[horatio83]

ENT isn't VOY, tech wasn't supposed to save the day. People had to do it themselves via getting their hands dirty and improvising.

 

[The Dominion]

Could they regrow legs back then? I'm assuming they had genetic research due to the whole eugenics thing, but I don't know what the medical tech was supposed to be.

 

[T'Girl]

My impression was that in the 22nd century they could not grow and attach legs.

 

[JiNX-01]

Also, T'Pol doesn't recognize the Romulan language. At all.

Um, why would she? The Vulcans who founded Romulus left Vulcan during the 4th century (Earth Common Era) [ http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/4th_century ]

 

[F. King Daniel]

I find it hard to believe that T'Pol wouldn't recognize anything, and that the computer wouldn't recognize Romulan as a derivative of Vulcan. Remember also that Vulcan/Romulan lifespans are double (if not more) that of humans, so there'd be less change than in human languages in the same timeframe.
(the last movie even had Uhura's predecessor unable to destinguish between the two languages and Spock believe their cultural similarity would aid him in accessing the Romulan computers)

My impression was that in the 22nd century they could not grow and attach legs.

Yeah, I assumed the same. Malcolm's leg vs the safety of the Enterprise. No one even considers it - and Malcolm even tried to kill himself during the episode rather than risk the ship.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I find it hard to believe that T'Pol wouldn't recognize anything, and that the computer wouldn't recognize Romulan as a derivative of Vulcan.

I don't. A lot of time has passed.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Also, T'Pol doesn't recognize the Romulan language. At all.

Um, why would she? The Vulcans who founded Romulus left Vulcan during the 4th century (Earth Common Era) [ http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/4th_century ]

But the Vulcans and Romulans fought a war against each other once. (before either race made contact with Earth)

 

[Amaris]

Also, T'Pol doesn't recognize the Romulan language. At all.

Um, why would she? The Vulcans who founded Romulus left Vulcan during the 4th century (Earth Common Era) [ http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/4th_century ]

But the Vulcans and Romulans fought a war against each other once. (before either race made contact with Earth)

Still, the Romulan and Vulcan language would be different enough. Look at human language in the 4th century compared to the 21st. Now, add in a lack of communication between the two races for millennia, a total change in culture and teaching, and a people bent on being as secretive and paranoid as possible.

That said, T'Pol may have had suspicions, but why would she share those unverified suspicions with her human shipmates? Vulcans are secretive as well, though out of what they feel is necessity instead of paranoia. There would be no reason that, if she even knew for certain it was Romulan language, that she could say anything to Archer. It would be some time before she started really pushing back against the Vulcan High Command.

As for Malcolm, he wanted to save Enterprise at the cost of his own life, but Archer wasn't going to have any part of that. There were still several options available to them, and he was going to exhaust the others before sacrificing the life of his armory officer and friend.

 

[Kadratis]

Um, why would she? The Vulcans who founded Romulus left Vulcan during the 4th century (Earth Common Era) [ http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/4th_century ]

But the Vulcans and Romulans fought a war against each other once. (before either race made contact with Earth)

Still, the Romulan and Vulcan language would be different enough. Look at human language in the 4th century compared to the 21st. Now, add in a lack of communication between the two races for millennia, a total change in culture and teaching, and a people bent on being as secretive and paranoid as possible.

That said, T'Pol may have had suspicions, but why would she share those unverified suspicions with her human shipmates? Vulcans are secretive as well, though out of what they feel is necessity instead of paranoia. There would be no reason that, if she even knew for certain it was Romulan language, that she could say anything to Archer. It would be some time before she started really pushing back against the Vulcan High Command.

HOSHI: (listening to the alien recording) They're ordering us to leave their system immediately or they'll destroy us.
TUCKER: Charming. Could you figure out a way to compose a message back, explaining we're going as fast as we can?
HOSHI: I can try.
T'POL: And their next message?
HOSHI: They say they've annexed this planet in the name of something called The Romalin Star Empire.
T'POL: Romulan. It's pronounced Romulan.

Meh. I dunno.

 

[Amaris]

But the Vulcans and Romulans fought a war against each other once. (before either race made contact with Earth)

Still, the Romulan and Vulcan language would be different enough. Look at human language in the 4th century compared to the 21st. Now, add in a lack of communication between the two races for millennia, a total change in culture and teaching, and a people bent on being as secretive and paranoid as possible.

That said, T'Pol may have had suspicions, but why would she share those unverified suspicions with her human shipmates? Vulcans are secretive as well, though out of what they feel is necessity instead of paranoia. There would be no reason that, if she even knew for certain it was Romulan language, that she could say anything to Archer. It would be some time before she started really pushing back against the Vulcan High Command.

HOSHI: (listening to the alien recording) They're ordering us to leave their system immediately or they'll destroy us.
TUCKER: Charming. Could you figure out a way to compose a message back, explaining we're going as fast as we can?
HOSHI: I can try.
T'POL: And their next message?
HOSHI: They say they've annexed this planet in the name of something called The Romalin Star Empire.
T'POL: Romulan. It's pronounced Romulan.

Meh. I dunno.

Eh. I stand by it. There's enough to go either way.

 

[horatio83]

I know that its Chinese and not Chinuse but I cannot speak Mandarin. Same with T'Pol.

 

[Amaris]

I know that its Chinese and not Chinuse but I cannot speak Mandarin. Same with T'Pol.

Good point. It would be like asking me to speak Spanish. Sure, there are many Spanish speakers in the U.S., as well as speakers of dozens of other languages. Expecting me to know them because I'm from the same planet isn't exactly reasonable.

 

[Bob Karo]

It been years since I've seen the episode, but.

One problem with what you're suggesting is that malcolm is in a pressurized spacesuit, even with a tourniquet, exposing the stump of his leg to space would kill him quickly. However, if a surgical option was possible, a better course of act would have been to have phlox cut a "groove" in malcolm's leg down to the spike, move malcolm off of the spike, hurry him to sickbay and then see if phlox could then save the leg.

Again it been a while, was there any talk of using the transporter to beam just malcolm (and obviously not the mine) into the ship?

.

I've got to disagree here. An tourniquet applied over the space suit could easily maintain his suits pressure and control bleeding. We aren't talking extreme pressures here. A modern space suit is only pressurized to about 4.7 psi. A tourniquet should seal everything off well enough for a quick and dirty amputation. Especially if Phlox were to sign off on the use of more powerful cutting tools or Archer used that magic cutting beam the phase pistols only have when the writers forget established details.

 

[ChristopherPike]

And how often did Kirk risk the safety of his Enterprise for the sake of various friends or members of the crew?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I don't think they mention the transporter. But I imagine they could have technbabbled something about transporter energies in close proximity setting the mine off.

AFAIK, they DID say something about that. Either the mines were intentionally made to go off if a transporter beam tried to lock on (which would make sense, actually), or they didn't want to risk that happening.

 

[Amaris]

^ Yep. They weren't certain whether the transporter would set it off. They also couldn't cut through the strut because it had circuitry to set off the mine if that happened.

 

[horatio83]

The term 'Romulan mine' is antithetical to easy technobabble solution. I loved that even Malcolm couldn't defuse this multi-cross-whatever-circuited baby, it set up the right mood for things to come.