Sim and Trips neural transfer

[Phenotype]

So I'm currently re-watching Enterprise and I must admit, I do enjoy this series more and more with each watch-through, despite my initial disappointment (still think the whole series was one big missed opportunity that can never be canonically retconned). However, some of the episodes are really quite good and have really complex trek-style ethical storylines, such as 3/10 'Similtude'.

In this episode, Phlox (under Archers orders) uses a Lyssarian Desert Larvae with the intent to make a clone of Trip in order to harvest the clones neural tissue. They raise it, give it a name ("Sim" - ouch!), let it join & fraternise with the crew and even fall in love. I'm really unsure if simply keeping it in an induced coma for a few days instead would have been better or worse.. All of this is assuming Phlox would've been incapable of replicating an organ & having to regrow a whole person

And when they discover the procedure would kill Sim, Archer still practically wrestles him into sickbay despite Sims outright non-consent, insistence on trying a procedure that would extend his 15 day life-span and a futile escape attempt. Sim has no other option than to die for Trip (making his SF funeral honoring his sacrifice ring a little hollow).

By Season 3, Archer goes through a transformation from friendly guy-next-door Explorer to "the mission before all else" Soldier and this is one of those many instances where he crosses a line. Usually you can tell if it's good Archer or bad Archer by his 5 o'clock shadow

Sorry for the long post, it's my first time on the board and I just kind of thought out loud. I even missed what was meant to be my original question:

How can Trip live a long(ish) life when part of his brain matter has been replaced by (supposedly) rapidly aging Lyssarian clone tissue? If the neural tissue could last this long, why couldn't Sim? Was Trip truly such an indispensable engineer that it warranted the creation of another life to be sacrificed to keep him working?

What do you guys think?

 

[Oddish]

This episode really loses me when it's revealed that Trip's memories are somehow encoded in his DNA, so when they create Sim, he's basically a Tom Riker style duplicate (that ages rapidly) rather than a tabula rasa clone.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

Welcome to the Enterprise forum, Phenotype. Glad to hear you're enjoying your rewatch.

...And when they discover the procedure would kill Sim, Archer still practically wrestles him into sickbay despite Sims outright non-consent, insistence on trying a procedure that would extend his 15 day life-span and a futile escape attempt.

Y'know, this isn't how I remember the story playing out. Sim makes a case to Archer and Phlox for trying the procedure that may (or may not) extend his life, while Trip would die for sure. Archer then makes clear to Sim that he must save Trip by any means necessary, in order to complete his mission. Sim engineers his escape by a shuttlecraft, making sure no one can stop him, but he decides on his own not to go through with it.

SIM: You want to know what really stopped me?
ARCHER: What?
SIM: My sister. And she was my sister as much as Trip's.
ARCHER: I believe that.
SIM: I don't want what happened to her to happen to anyone else.

"Similtude" is a classic Star Trek "impossible dilemma" where either choice has its good and bad consequences, and the real story is watching the characters wrestle with the choice. It's one of my favorite episodes precisely because Sim chooses to sacrifice his life to help Archer save Earth, rather than spitefully roaring off in the shuttlecraft to die, while ensuring Trip's death as well.

How can Trip live a long(ish) life when part of his brain matter has been replaced by (supposedly) rapidly aging Lyssarian clone tissue? If the neural tissue could last this long, why couldn't Sim? Was Trip truly such an indispensable engineer that it warranted the creation of another life to be sacrificed to keep him working?

1) I assume that writer Manny Coto would have provided some convincing technobabble to explain that after the tissue was implanted into Trip, the cell growth and absorption into Trip's body would blah blah blah and he'd be fine.
2) The Rule of the World about the Lyssarian tissue was, the symbiont dies in 15 days, period.
3) Trip had already established a Montgomery Scott-esque tendency to work miracles with the engines, and Archer did hand-pick him for the job. Plus Phlox and Archer didn't create Sim simply to kill him for his neural tissue; both of them believed he would survive. It was also a nice touch to show Phlox doing his best to give young Sim as full a life as possible.

I love this episode. I'm sort of hopelessly biased that way. Just my .02

 

[Phenotype]

Hi HopefulRomantic, thanks for the welcome. I'm really happy to be a member

Sim makes a case to Archer and Phlox for trying the procedure that may (or may not) extend his life, while Trip would die for sure. Archer then makes clear to Sim that he must save Trip by any means necessary, in order to complete his mission. Sim engineers his escape by a shuttlecraft, making sure no one can stop him, but he decides on his own not to go through with it.

I agree to a fairly large extent - as I mentioned, I was kind of 'typing out loud' while thinking about the episode and probably vamped/exaggerated more than I should have. I still maintain that Sim really has little option other than to give his life for Trip after it's discovered that human DNA is less resilient to the cloning process and Archer makes sure of it. I'd even argue he enforces it somewhat.

When everything's dandy and the operation would be safe for Sim, Archers' relationship with Sim is totally different; Archer takes upon himself the hard task of explaining the situation to an infant Sim, even taking him to Sickbay to see the comatose adult Trip. He bonds with the kid by taking him to his quarters, flying model spaceships with him and even telling him that he's more than just a clone as he has his own memories aswell as Trips. And I imagine it was his call to integrate him in to the crew. He treats him as an individual.


By the time Sim is an adult and the DNA issue is a fact, their relationship is totally different. Sim comes up with the plan to free Enterprise from the Polaric Field, a move that could have come right out of Trips playbook (off-topic, but before crashing into the field, Trips engine modifications for smooth and reliable warp 5 travel worked. Given the urgency of the Xindi mission, why didn't they keep the mods?) but Archer insists he stays safely on the Bridge to coordinate his dangerous plan, lest he gets himself - or his neural tissue - killed.

And, most alarmingly, Archer catches Sim in Trips quarters following the row in Sickbay regarding Sims consent, and totally explodes! Archer really shows his teeth in a really tense exchange. Sim continues to plead his case and Archer, to Paraphrase, outright tells Sim that, as he has Trips memories, then he would know the lengths he would go to for the mission. The conversation ends with the chilling exchange with Sim hesitantly stating "you're not a murderer" and Archer resolutely replying "don't make me one" which precedes Sims escape attempt.

SIM: You want to know what really stopped me?
ARCHER: What?
SIM: My sister. And she was my sister as much as Trip's.
ARCHER: I believe that.
SIM: I don't want what happened to her to happen to anyone else.

If I remember correctly, Sim starts that conversation by accurately stating "Where would I go? There are no habitable planets in range. I'd just die of old age in the pod" where he seems to grasp that Archer isn't going to budge on his position or meet him halfway and there's really only one option, to which he finally, selflessly and emotionally commits to the... trying to think of a word that isn't "Order"

--------------------------

I'm not sure if Trips life was in immediate danger or if he was in a deep coma that he wouldn't have recovered from (at least until another possible solution presented itself) but Sims neural tissue was only compatible for a 24 hour period and I really don't believe that, barring suicide - which he would'nt have done, he grasped the situation - he wasn't realistically given the option of declining or attempting something else.

I am glad that Trip recovered and found Sims sacrifice and the episode in general moving but I can't help but wonder about Archers actions in this episode. I know that during the Xindi arc he was a very different captain; militarised and over-stressed with the fate of humanity solely on his shoulders and crossed lines when he had to. But was this one of those instances?

I got the impression at times that he was more trying to save his friend than his chief engineer (such as catching Sim in Trips quarters) and Enterprise did the old ST thing of only really following the half dozen or so bridge officers while leaving the other 60 or 70-something crewman a mystery, so we don't know if Tucker was truly indispensable. The NX-01 had the pick of the fleet for a crew and many of the engineers would've worked under him for the whole mission and possibly before.

Sorry if I waffled, but if you did, thanks for reading

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

Hi HopefulRomantic, thanks for the welcome. I'm really happy to be a member

And I'm glad to discuss this episode with you!

I am always fascinated by how we view something through our own particular window of beliefs, perceptions, preferences, biases, etc. We both watched "Similitude," and we take the very same elements and interpret them differently. And since this episode is one of those classic Trek scenarios where there is an impossible choice to make but someone has to make the choice, it's even more interesting to me to hear all the reactions to it, pro and con and everything in between.

I've dissected this episode pretty closely because it was the basis of some stories I wrote, and I filled in a lot of missing scenes. It had a profound effect on me, because it made me think a lot about the issues. Since I'm a fan of Archer, and we've seen the sunny idealism and strong moral compass he began with, being slowly torn to pieces as he takes on the difficult role of a commander in wartime, I think his decisions regarding Sim weighed heavily on him. I agree with you, that shouting match between him and Sim in Trip's quarters was awful to watch, because of the impossible situation they were both in-- Sim fighting for his life, wanting to survive, and believing he could take Trip's place-- and we saw that maybe he could, with his solution to freeing Enterprise--, and Archer convinced that without Trip, Enterprise would fail her mission and Earth would be destroyed-- and he was force to cross yet another moral line (it wouldn't be the last) to complete his mission.

I agree with you that the plot left Sim very few options. But I believed Sim when he said what really stopped him from getting on that shuttlecraft was his memory of his sister-- and no doubt horrifying memories of her death, the same memories Trip suffered, and wanting to keep others on Earth from dying too. I think if he was as similar to Trip as we saw, the decision to sacrifice his life to save others would have been natural for him, just as it would have been for Trip. He could have left on the shuttle, to foil Archer's plan. Maybe he would have run into another ship, as Archer does later in "Damage." He had a week left; as long as he was alive, he could hope. But the cost of escaping would have been the whole of Earth. I don't think Sim was that kind of mean-spirited guy, any more than Trip would have been.

I agree, Phlox didn't say, "Trip will 100% die without this surgery!!" He stopped short of that. But Phlox resorted to that incredibly long-shot Lyssarrian thing, saying it might be his only shot at survival. So I really don't think Trip's prognosis was good at all.

The ending was indescribably sad, even though Sim thanked an obviously distraught Phlox for being a damn good father, and then told Archer, the commander whose job it was to make the most difficult decisions imaginable, that he believed this sacrifice was what he was meant to do. Which showed me Sim was an amazing person, trying to help the two men who were responsible for his death. It felt even worse that such a fine man died, but it was some comfort to me that Sim chose to give his life to help Enterprise and Archer save the world. Sim didn't go down kicking and screaming being strapped to the table with Phlox and Archer not caring. I am reminded of Voyager's "Tuvix," which I hated and can never watch again, because it was, to my viewing, far different from the end of this episode. Your mileage may vary, of course.

So that's my admittedly biased take on the episode! No doubt you can read how much I filled in between the lines, lol. But I think the show did its job perfectly, because we're sharing our views, and now I'm thinking about your take on the story, and you've broadened my horizons.

 

[Phenotype]

I've taken a lot of what you had to say about the episode on board and largely agree with parts of it I certainly recant my "wrestled to sick bay" exaggeration in my original post, lol.

The fact there's so much room for debate is testament to how much of a good Star Trek (not just Enterprise) episode it is, aswell as a bunch of other gems that often get overlooked by a lot of Trekkies who seem to write the whole series off.

I didn't originally like Archer but have found his character development in this watchthrough fascinating.

I'd like to make a larger post (in fact, I did but couldn't finish it ) but I have work soon. For now, I'll end with this: despite the preceeding events, I do believe that Sims eventual decision to sacrifice himself was sincere, for the reasons he stated and it was very touching. Although, I do wonder what would have happened if he refused - how far would Archer have gone?

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

The fact there's so much room for debate is testament to how much of a good Star Trek (not just Enterprise) episode it is, aswell as a bunch of other gems that often get overlooked by a lot of Trekkies who seem to write the whole series off.

Same.

I'd like to make a larger post (in fact, I did but couldn't finish it ) but I have work soon. For now, I'll end with this: despite the preceeding events, I do believe that Sims eventual decision to sacrifice himself was sincere, for the reasons he stated and it was very touching. Although, I do wonder what would have happened if he refused - how far would Archer have gone?

Television episodes never have enough time to explore the nooks and crannies of a plotline. I love speculating about missing scenes, different character choices, and what might have happened after the last act fadeout.

Great question. Remember our first look at "Airlock!Archer" from "Anomaly"? The same question could be asked. I think Archer would have spaced that guy, to show anyone else in the Expanse that he was a force to be reckoned with. Here though, it's tougher, since Sim is, basically, Trip, Archer's best friend. I think he would have gone through with it, because he believed it was his only shot at completing his mission, and Sim's refusal would have made him (in Archer's eyes, as a commander in war) selfish, even spiteful-- which made Sim different from Trip, who would have made the sacrifice. But I think Archer would have had far worse PTSD when the war ended. He might even resign. Because Archer has very strong morals-- witness his compassion, and his reluctance to make a subordinate do a dangerous, or fatal, job he could do himself (witness "Azati Prime" and "Observer Effect"), and the war forced him to cross too many moral lines to recover from that.

 

[dupersuper]

I love the SFDebris review of the episode: when Archer's yelling about how the ship needs Trip, he reminds us that Trip really seems to be in a coma because of incompetence during an unnecessary experiment.

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

Ouch.

 

[F. King Daniel]

This episode really loses me when it's revealed that Trip's memories are somehow encoded in his DNA, so when they create Sim, he's basically a Tom Riker style duplicate (that ages rapidly) rather than a tabula rasa clone.

Isn't that a sci-fi staple, though? Real life clones don't carry their host's memories but 99% of TV/movie ones do.

 

[Oddish]

Really. And of course, clones are adult. I don't think that Riker's actions in "Up the Long Ladder" would have been similarly accepted if he had used his phaser to incinerate two babies.