Issues with Broken Bow

[Bry_Sinclair]

I was going back and watching some DVD's and realised that I have a few issues with Enterprise's Pilot.

Firstly, Earth to Qo'nos in 80 hours at less than Warp 5? These two planets seem a little too close together. Why didn't the writer make it an outlying colony/outpost. That I could accept, just.

Secondly, Trip finds Travis at the "sweet spot" (that just sounds wrong), but then in Horizon, Archer mentions about being there in the pilot. How does he know about it if the ship's Chief Engineer didn't?

Thirdly, Hoshi is apparantly unarmed (although she was cleared to use the weapons the rest of the landing party were issued), and when ambushed by the Klingons all she does is flail around and scream (despite being a martial arts expert, revealed in season four).

Now I know that details change from the pilot epsiode to the series, as different writers and directors are involved, but these are just little things that just niggle at me whenever I watch the series. This could mean that I need to get out more and stop being so picky, but I thought I'd just get it out of my system for now.

-Bry

 

[Yug]

I'll just say this about Hoshi, she is depicted early on as a very capable competent person... on Earth. Her character arc has always been that of the "space newbie". Recruited because of her linquistic talents, not her space experience. In an Earth society that is still new to the concept of deep space travel, she represents those that may be overwhelmed by the huge concept that it is. She's therefore rendered stunned by, anxious about, and even seemingly cowardly in various situations But her inadequacy is a symptom of her challenge to deal with this new world full of unknown dangers. She's out of her element, no more comfort zone, in contrast the others on the crew who have been veterans of space travel, or as in Travis' case, born into it. As the series progresses, we see her evolve into a more capable officer that has earned her "space legs". I'm the same way, to offer a personal example, I feel that I'm a competent person of some degree of intelligence, but I freeze up when confronted, or panic when taking a test, frazzled in traffic even. Doesn't mean that I can't drive, retain information I just learned, or am socially inept. It's the situation the renders me nervous, sometimes to a crippling degree. I identified with her character as it made for an interesting perspective formally unknown to the Trek universe, with the possible exception of TNG's Lt. Barcley.

As far as Trip not knowing about the sweet spot, while Archer already having checked it out, well... so what? They simply must not of talked about it. Trip wouldn't bring it up if he didn't know, Archer might just assume Trip knew about it and didn't think to mention it. And both are still learning about this new ship, even though they both had a hand in designing it.

 

[neozeks]

Firstly, Earth to Qo'nos in 80 hours at less than Warp 5? These two planets seem a little too close together. Why didn't the writer make it an outlying colony/outpost. That I could accept, just.

I generally like ENT and can live with the other issues you mention, but this has got to be one of the most stupidest thing on Trek ever, simply because it's so unneccessary - it could have been a colony, as you say, or they could simply not have mentioned the timeframe at all.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Firstly, Earth to Qo'nos in 80 hours at less than Warp 5? These two planets seem a little too close together. Why didn't the writer make it an outlying colony/outpost. That I could accept, just.

Okay, I'll allow the nerd in my to come out on this one.

If you calculate how far they've travelled in 80 hours at Warp 5, it comes to about 1.4 light-years. That places Qo'nos closer to Earth than Alpha Centauri.

I'm also more than willing to let inconsistenices slid, but this is a pretty big one. Even though I throughly enjoyed Enterprise, this really eats away at me.

 

[Aquarius]

Regarding your second issue--isn't it possible that someone else told Archer? Or that he had an independent conversation with Travis at some point about the subject? To me, that's not so much a "problem" or inconsisency with the episode as it is akin to the fallacy of "we never see anyone on Star Trek use the bathroom, therefore no one in the future ever has to pee."

 

[Timo]

Firstly, Earth to Qo'nos in 80 hours at less than Warp 5? These two planets seem a little too close together. Why didn't the writer make it an outlying colony/outpost. That I could accept, just.

In "Broken Bow" itself, this still remains a perfectly valid line of speculation. The episode never confirms that our heroes went to the capital world of the Klingon Empire.

It is only in later episodes where this issue is mentioned (such as "Bounty") that the planet gets equated with the capital world Qo'noS.

The idea that the trip would only take four days was dramatically rather unnecessary, though. The journey could just as easily have taken 40 days in each direction, and our early Earth explores would still have considered that pretty good going, and an exceptionally short-duration "milk run" mission compared with all the previous starflight efforts.

Secondly, Trip finds Travis at the "sweet spot" (that just sounds wrong), but then in Horizon, Archer mentions about being there in the pilot. How does he know about it if the ship's Chief Engineer didn't?

Well, Archer was involved in designing the ship - Tucker merely ran the ship!

Thirdly, Hoshi is apparantly unarmed (although she was cleared to use the weapons the rest of the landing party were issued), and when ambushed by the Klingons all she does is flail around and scream (despite being a martial arts expert, revealed in season four).

Well, she was consistently described as being scared out of her wits most of the time, for the first year at least. Even if she knew a few fancy moves, she'd probably be way too frightened to use them - or to pull a gun even if she packed one.

It's also possible she didn't know any martial arts as of 2151, but learned them on the course of the missions. After all, she'd have plenty of free time while being stuck in that tin can for years at an end...

I have nothing against an episode featuring a "stereotypically" frightened petite woman - most petite women are rightfully scared in situations of physical threat! It might have been fun to see some petite male lose his wits as well, though. Or a burly example of manhood, for that matter. Just because you're in the military (and Hoshi barely qualifies for that definition, being more like a civilian expert!) doesn't mean you would be a heroic fighter who never flinches.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hatchet2k4]

To compound the warp problem, they really only were able to go at about warp 4.5 at the time, 5 wasn't reached until much later.. The only way I can justify it is either with the "warp highway" idea where certain areas travel faster than others, or warp speeds are faster than are commonly accepted. If you think about it they almost have to be for most travel times to make sense. Of course, make them too fast and Voyager becomes a problem.. Hard to find a good middle ground. :/

 

[Timo]

Let's remember that warp two was a perfectly plausible interstellar speed in TOS already, and TNG kept mentioning interstellar yachts capable of no more than warp three. Warp four or five should allow for rather effortless interstellar travel, then - exactly like we observe. It's not all that often that Kirk would have hiked his ship up to higher speeds than that, really...

Now, there are all sorts of theories about how fast warp X really is for different values of X. There are also some datapoints: "Broken Bow" itself gives us one for warp 4.4, with casual dialogue suggesting it adds up to 30 million km/s - which is indeed a bit on the low side. But the balance of evidence is on warp being much faster, and that holds true for warp 2, warp 3 and warp 4, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

when ambushed by the Klingons all she does is flail around and scream (despite being a martial arts expert, revealed in season four.

How would you have reacted? Would you be calm? No offense, all I mean is it would be very strange and frightening. Hoshi can be calm and composed when she's in her element, but if she doesn't know what she's doing she's a bundle of nerves.

As for the Warp thing...I gave up being frustrated by the inconsistencies of warp velocities. It doesn't work in any series, but the mistake in this one is quite ridiculous.

I do agree with 'the sweet spot' issue...I don't see how chief engineer of a ship doesn't know about something that specific to space travel.

Sinclair, do yourself a favor: Don't bother trying to understand the Temporal Cold War. It makes these issues seem minor. I did actually enjoy the TCW plot but I still don't quite get it...

 

[SFRabid]

Writers in Trek have always taken creative liberties with warp speed, distance and time to arrive. Travel frequently takes hours instead of days. It wasn't until Voyager that that they forced a ship to take a long time to travel long distances.

 

[Nerys Myk]

In TMP V'ger traveled from Klingon space and would have reached Earth in less than three days traveling at what I estimate to be Warp 7. How close does that make Klingon space?

As for the "Sweet Spot" it may be a Boomer thing. Something that only longtime space travellers know about. Or like Scotty, Trip knows the ship like the back of his hand.

I agree that with Hoshi, the whole idea of being in space may have overrid her Martial Arts training at first. Once she got her space legs she was ready to kick ass.

 

[BlackestPanther]

What they should have done was have Enterprise traveling there for the entire season, encountering new life, new civilizations and the occasional interference from the Suliban and other species along the way.

 

[Yug]

What they should have done was have Enterprise traveling there for the entire season, encountering new life, new civilizations and the occasional interference from the Suliban and other species along the way.

That would've been cool, maybe for the first 3 or 4 episodes. Depicting an era where warp drive isn't magic, we'd get a good concept of space travel in that early era. Meeting new aliens and having some other adventures along the way. Plus we could have time for nice scenes with the giant Klingon on board. Little scenes with Hoshi's studies of his language while trying to overcome her fears and facing new aliens head on. The Klingon probally not making it easy for her, but perhaps they start to understand each other and the Klingon gains respect for little Hoshi, and other interactions with the crew show this Klingon what humanity is really like. Perhaps even teaming up with the crew, in some nice action scenes, to finally shake the Suliban before arriving home after a looong warp 4.4 journey. What a great start that could've been.

 

[Alrik]

Interesting concept Yug.

As for Warp speeds, Warp Factor (fill in the blanc) = the speed of plot. It's pretty much always been that way.

If I'm even going to give the '80 hour' thing a second thought, I just figure its a colony close to the boarder named for the Klingon Capital.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Interesting concept Yug.

As for Warp speeds, Warp Factor (fill in the blanc) = the speed of plot. It's pretty much always been that way.

If I'm even going to give the '80 hour' thing a second thought, I just figure its a colony close to the boarder named for the Klingon Capital.

Maybe the planet's name is spelled Kronos then

 

[ClayHefner]

Wasn't the problem that they wanted the Vulcans to be more advanced (and faster) than humans. And they had the idea of this being a vital mission to stop a civil war-like situation that would cost more lives every day
So maybe they thought a longer voyage would have put blood on Archer's hands as he wouldn't let the Vulcans do it much faster. Going to a colony or a Klingon ship would indeed have solved that one.

Of course that could also have been cool. To show that the human arrogance can cost lives and all that.

Giving a definite speed in kph, and not checking how it would fit with the 4 days thing AND common sense is pretty uncool.
They wanted to please the nerds, but every nerd with a calculator could easily see it doesn't make sense.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Firstly, Earth to Qo'nos in 80 hours at less than Warp 5? These two planets seem a little too close together. Why didn't the writer make it an outlying colony/outpost. That I could accept, just.

I always felt the production team originally intended to make more of a point about Archer getting ahold of the very important "Vulcan star charts". In that, space is filled with shortcuts, warp currents, eddies, etc and many of these have been recorded by early Vulcan explorers. Using the Vulcan star charts puts the distance between Earth and the Klingon homeworld closer for Archer but still a long way for the Klingons.