Why did the Xindi test the weapon on Earth????
Thus alerting them to the impending danger??
Thus alerting them to the impending danger??
The Expanse
- Thread starter PhoenixIreland
- Start date
A couple of possibilities, none really explicated in the show:
1) They didn't "test" anything. They had Plan A for destroying Earth, starting with melting down Florida. That plan was proceeding splendidly until the superweapon malfunctioned; Earth would have been dust in a matter of hours otherwise. They then decided they needed an even more super superweapon that would do the job in one shot, now that Earth had been alerted against the slower-acting Plan A.
2) They were promised by their overlords that the Real Deal would be launched retroactively before the Test. The Guardians were masters of time travel, at least by their own account, and surely could be expected to provide such a service.
3) Degra and his masters were at political odds: the former wanted to deliver in a certain schedule, the latter wanted quicker results. The test run was a compromise, deemed harmless because it would be completely impossible for Earth to track down the perpetrators of the test, and completely impossible for Earth to defend against the final weapon even if alerted.
Take your pick or invent further reasons. It's not that big a logical hole, really.
Timo Saloniemi
1) They didn't "test" anything. They had Plan A for destroying Earth, starting with melting down Florida. That plan was proceeding splendidly until the superweapon malfunctioned; Earth would have been dust in a matter of hours otherwise. They then decided they needed an even more super superweapon that would do the job in one shot, now that Earth had been alerted against the slower-acting Plan A.
2) They were promised by their overlords that the Real Deal would be launched retroactively before the Test. The Guardians were masters of time travel, at least by their own account, and surely could be expected to provide such a service.
3) Degra and his masters were at political odds: the former wanted to deliver in a certain schedule, the latter wanted quicker results. The test run was a compromise, deemed harmless because it would be completely impossible for Earth to track down the perpetrators of the test, and completely impossible for Earth to defend against the final weapon even if alerted.
Take your pick or invent further reasons. It's not that big a logical hole, really.
Timo Saloniemi
From The Expanse:
From Stratagem:
From Stratagem:
I imagine the point of the probe was to make sure they are getting it right. Imagine if they created a weapon and it didn't work! They would have had to start at step 1 again... and given that we see that it took 1 year to refine and launch the probe, starting over from scratch would ahve been disasterous
It would have been more logical for the Xindi to test the weapon on an asteroid or uninhabited planet.
In the spirit of TOS - "Warning, this is a plot complication..."
There's no good reason or explaination for why they tipped their 'hand' early.
Well, they'd probably only get one chance to use the final weapon, so it was critical that they could be absolutely sure it'd work exactly as expected on Earth. By testing a prototype on Earth itself, they were able to see if there were any earth-specific natural phenomena that might effect the weapon.
The Xindi live in the Expanse after all, where the laws of physics are constantly in flux.
The Xindi tested the weapon to gather important data. They weren't concerned about the humans tracking the attack back to them. Neither the humans nor the Vulcans were aware of the Xindi and didn't recognize the technology or the pilot. Who in their right mind would think in a million years the attackers were a species Earth had never come in contact with and this species would come from a region of space humanity never ventured to and were attacking Earth because of something humanity does in 400 years. The most likely conclusion would be that the attackers were one of the races Archer might have pissed off in his two years of mucking about. For all they knew it could have been the Romulans who Archer had a run-in with in "Minefield" and who they never saw what they looked like. In fact, they'd still be trying to figure out the reason for the attack if it had not been for FG.
The Sphere Builders weren't aware of the TCW or Daniels or FG so didn't know FG would intervene and lead Archer to them. I really don't see the problem.
The Sphere Builders weren't aware of the TCW or Daniels or FG so didn't know FG would intervene and lead Archer to them. I really don't see the problem.
Yes, but the whole season was built around the threat to earth. They had to do something to drive home to the viewers how perilous the situation was, and this was it. Testing it on earth really makes no practical sense, just dramatic sense.
It seems to me that most Star Trek plots in all the series wouldn't stand for long if we try to examine theirs logic too closely. 
The test weapon was necessary to create dramatic tensione and put the whole season 3 into motion. I don't think it would have been particularly thrilling if Daniels simply had come for another visit, warning Archer "you have got to find some Xindi because they are constructing a weapon to destroy your world!"
The test weapon was necessary to create dramatic tensione and put the whole season 3 into motion. I don't think it would have been particularly thrilling if Daniels simply had come for another visit, warning Archer "you have got to find some Xindi because they are constructing a weapon to destroy your world!"
I agree with both of you. But, wouldn't it be better -- dramatically -- to have the Xindi perplexed on why their weapon didn't finish off Earth. Maybe they found some problems with the kemosite and have to go back to the Arboreal planet to discern what happened (in Shipment).
In other words, maybe the Xindi just messed up and it adds to their suspicion about each other. Would've been accurate (as in made sense in the storyline) and dramatic.
that last sentence makes so much sense.
you live in an area of space with crazy physics and are wanting to destroy something were things are different.
you have the means to get a prototyple that can also send back data about the target with very little chance of your being discovered.
oh yeah..
plus the project was being run by a scientist not by someone from the xindi military.
remember the apollo missions that went to the moon before apollo 11 actually landed.
then there were some of the ranger series that were built to go to the moon and take photos until they crashed into the moon.
...But the Moon wasn't expected to strike back with nukes if a Ranger missed, or failed to transmit.
Agreed that the bit about Expanse physics makes a lot of sense. And despite Degra's choice of words, the prototype weapon might have been intended to finish Earth once and for all, even though there was no big sweat if it failed.
As for what the Future Guy said, he'd be economical with truth no matter what.
Timo Saloniemi
Agreed that the bit about Expanse physics makes a lot of sense. And despite Degra's choice of words, the prototype weapon might have been intended to finish Earth once and for all, even though there was no big sweat if it failed.
As for what the Future Guy said, he'd be economical with truth no matter what.
Timo Saloniemi
And the humans weren't supposed to either. More than likely the female sphere builders, using their time manipulation, saw that the attack would be a victory and told the Xindi to proceed
Remember how aggressive the Reptilian Xindi were to the point of stupidity at the end of the season? I think they launched the first attack thinking they could get away with it since Earth was totally unaware of their existence. They were always too over eager.
Why? The HQ would be mostly symbolic anyway, with offices full of paper-pushers. It may be that central Florida, Cuba and the Panama corner of future Venezuela held key operational facilities. Not a bad location for them, really, as "space navies" would really like to have lots of open ocean around their launch sites...
Timo Saloniemi
Hitting Command and Control first ALWAYS makes sense in a war. As it turned out, the Xindi didn't have any intelligence people on Earth to help "paint the target".
Not really, not in this kind of war. C&C is essentially unarmed, and the primitive Earth would be unlikely to have too many guns of significance. Take out the guns, and the vast number of other targets such as HQ, communications, sensors and logistics become irrelevant. As Earth cannot fight back, the death ray can then finish its work unimpeded.
Anyway, is there any command functionality to the San Francisco base that would really matter? The air defenses of mainland US aren't controlled from the Pentagon, and wouldn't be much affected in the short term if that building were nuked out.
Timo Saloniemi
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