I never mentioned Memory Alpha. As I said before, I just finished watching season 3. If you get time, watch it again yourself and see if you still feel the same way.
First Xindi attack made no sense
- Thread starter MarsWeeps
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I never mentioned Memory Alpha. As I said before, I just finished watching season 3. If you get time, watch it again yourself and see if you still feel the same way.
From the last time I saw it, I did get the feeling that our heroes did believe in the "test" theory, not that it made much difference in their actions - but that the Xindi never did. They had tried and failed, and wanted to try again. And they now knew Plan A didn't work, so they launched several others, including the "Carpenter Street" Plan B and the megaweapon Plan C.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
More than agree. Not just "could" be, but must be. This aspect could not be tested in home territory. The device was probing the path to Earth.
Also, the Xindi needed to test Eath defenses. The device was probing possible resistance. Obviously this couldn't be tested in the Expanse.
The only question is why the Xindi wouldn't expend titanic resources on a final solution weapon when they didn't know how to successfully negotiate a journey out of the Expanse, then attack against an unknown defense capabilty? I think the ansswer is obvious.
Despite the popularity of the idea that the test firing was a plotting error, it is entirely mistaken.
Transcripts from: "The Expanse"
[Temporal communications room]
(a humanoid silhouette is in a cone of light)
SILIK: He can see you more clearly if you move closer.
ARCHER: Who is he?
SILIK: He wants to talk to you. It would be foolish to ignore him.
ARCHER: What do you want?
FUTURE MAN: Your planet was attacked.
ARCHER: I'm aware of that.
FUTURE MAN: What you're not aware of is why. The probe was sent by the Xindi. They learned that their world would be destroyed by humans in four hundred years.
ARCHER: How would they know what's going to happen in four hundred years?
FUTURE MAN: They were told by people from the future. People who can communicate through time.
ARCHER: Are they the ones the Suliban are working for?
FUTURE MAN: The Suliban work for me.
ARCHER: So you're the one who tried to start a civil war in the Klingon Empire, the one who's manipulated my mission from day one.
FUTURE MAN: The people who have contacted the Xindi belong to another faction. The probe was only a test. The Xindi are building a far more powerful weapon. When it is completed, they will use it to destroy Earth.
ARCHER: Annihilate us before we can annihilate them. Why are you telling me this? FUTURE MAN: The Xindi were not supposed to learn of their future. If they deploy this weapon, it will contaminate the timeline. You must not let that happen.
ARCHER: Why should I believe you?
FUTURE MAN: You have no choice but to believe me.
Transcripts from: "The Shipment"
GRALIK: How long are you going to keep me here?
HAYES: That's up to Captain Archer.
GRALIK: Well, you can tell him that I'll be in my study.
HAYES: I'm afraid you're going to have to stay right here.
GRALIK: I have work to do.
HAYES: And I'm under orders. Please sit down.
GRALIK: I've already told you everything I know. (door opens) Ah, Captain Archer. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me. (Hayes leaves)
ARCHER: You said you weren't involved in building weapons.
GRALIK: That's correct.
ARCHER: Explain this.
GRALIK: I don't know what this is.
ARCHER: It's a fragment of a probe that murdered seven million people. The dead pilot was Xindi, the alloy is Xindi, and it's imprinted with the quantum signature of the compound you produce here. We know you're constructing a larger version of the weapon, big enough to destroy a planet. I want to know where it's being built!
Yup, sounds like Archer swallowed Future Guy's lies hook, line and sinker... While the Xindi had no idea what the hell he was talking about.
Sounds like a good idea. But this should and could have been done covertly, without firing a superweapon at Earth!
The above goes doubly for this. If there is resistance, surely it shouldn't be allowed to witness the Xindi death ray in action! Probing should be conducted so that only the Xindi benefit from it, not the enemy.
What we see of the first weapon is devastating power much in excess of what Kirk's old starship had - and Kirk considered himself capable of sterilizing a planet without having to call in reinforcements. Sure, it's less power than what was demonstrated by the second Xindi death ray, but these were two different tactical approaches, and both had good odds of working. The first would have removed all life from Earth in a matter of hours; the second would have done it in a matter of seconds. Both struck against an Earth undefended by armadas of starships, so we never learned what their comparative strengths or weaknesses vs. defenses would have been...
Timo Saloniemi
Sounds like a good idea. But this should and could have been done covertly, without firing a superweapon at Earth!
The above goes doubly for this. If there is resistance, surely it shouldn't be allowed to witness the Xindi death ray in action! Probing should be conducted so that only the Xindi benefit from it, not the enemy.
What we see of the first weapon is devastating power much in excess of what Kirk's old starship had - and Kirk considered himself capable of sterilizing a planet without having to call in reinforcements. Sure, it's less power than what was demonstrated by the second Xindi death ray, but these were two different tactical approaches, and both had good odds of working. The first would have removed all life from Earth in a matter of hours; the second would have done it in a matter of seconds. Both struck against an Earth undefended by armadas of starships, so we never learned what their comparative strengths or weaknesses vs. defenses would have been...
Timo Saloniemi
And Ferengi is from the Turkish and Arabic (or maybe Persian?) words for a European (derived from "Frank," i.e. a French person).
Didn't we just have this thread three or so weeks ago? 
Didn't we just have this thread three or so weeks ago?
Sorry....didn't see it. I scanned the first page of posts and didn't see anything about it. Since I just finished season 3, I thought I would post about it.
So Future Guy must be lying because it doesn't fit your opinion of what happened?
Well, Future Guy must be lying because he always is.
Although what he said or did never made any sense anyway. He never stayed consistently on anybody's side, and his helping or hindering Archer balanced out rather exactly... But perhaps he was simply a pathological liar?
Timo Saloniemi
Well, the only new ENT content we've got is in the novels. My novel Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures will be coming out in just under 5 months, so there will be new stuff to talk about then.
What's funny about that is according to Brannon Braga, if there had been a season 5 of Enterprise, Future Guy was going to be revealed as Archer himself.
Of course, he may have been joking but it would have been interesting to see how that played out.
Archer being Future Guy would make about as much sense as a WWE wrestling story line.
What's funny about that is according to Brannon Braga, if there had been a season 5 of Enterprise, Future Guy was going to be revealed as Archer himself.
Of course, he may have been joking but it would have been interesting to see how that played out.
Who knows how aliens think?
Archer being Future Guy would make about as much sense as a WWE wrestling story line.
What's funny about that is according to Brannon Braga, if there had been a season 5 of Enterprise, Future Guy was going to be revealed as Archer himself.
Of course, he may have been joking but it would have been interesting to see how that played out.
My reasoning was:
1) Saved The Enterprise a couple of times. (And yes seemed to get pissed off a couple of times enough to not care if Archer died)
2) And at some point, I thought Archer got trapped in the future and that maybe it was a version of Archer that made it back.
Umm... they do?
While I understand your point about applying human motives and thought processes to an alien race, the fact is that it's a fictional alien race, and in Star Trek, nine times out of ten an alien is going to think and act the exact same way as a human would.
As for the OP, no, there was no good reason whatsoever for testing the prototype on Earth, unless that place in Florida happened to be the only place on Earth where weapons/ships/other tech, etc. was produced that would have a chance of stopping the main probe later. Obviously that wasn't the case.
