So much for civility
Who prefers Archer/T'Pol?
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*sigh* I see things are getting a bit snippity in here. On both sides. Time to ease down, everyone.
Of course, it is possible that I have misinterpreted your intentions. In future, for the sake of clarity, please use the traditional <snipped> when condensing a long quoted post.
This thread is about who prefers Archer/T'Pol. It is not a "my ship is better than your ship" thread, or a squabble over canon vs. official. Personal preference is not a competition, so kindly get over it. Let's see a little IDIC, okay?
BA, I'm not getting the impression that you snipped Middleman's quote for length.
Of course, it is possible that I have misinterpreted your intentions. In future, for the sake of clarity, please use the traditional <snipped> when condensing a long quoted post.
Well I guess that puts an end to it! YOU HAVE SPOKEN!
So much for civility
And I think we've had quite enough eye-rolling.I liked the Enterprise novels. People can enjoy reading them or choose not to be reading them .
This thread is about who prefers Archer/T'Pol. It is not a "my ship is better than your ship" thread, or a squabble over canon vs. official. Personal preference is not a competition, so kindly get over it. Let's see a little IDIC, okay?
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williams8899
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I think T'Pol was pretty much destined to end up engaging in a romance/sexual tryst with a human. She wanted that emotional connection.
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Post a link and sign me up for that. I'd be interested to see how you handle it.
Love triangle could have been interesting as long as it wasn't contrived. Some crappy episodes, and characters for that matter transpire because writers sometimes are so anxious to cover their plot points that they forget to ask themselves if the behaviors are true to the character's motivations. (ANiS comes to mind... sorry, but that was incredibly UN-Archer-like to me.)
Perhaps if we had gotten past season 4, and continued with the good writing, I would have been willing to see that kind of complexity transpire. But the first two seasons? Negative. And season 3 was already rich with gut-wrenching dilemmas that adding this plot device would have been overkill.
In all honesty, it is rare in a television show when a love triangle doesn't become eye-rollingly cliche. I have known very few shows to have done it somewhat successfully... heck only one comes to mind. (Lost) Even then it teetered dangerously close to the edge of "I'm just so sick of this crap!" LOL
Post a link and sign me up for that. I'd be interested to see how you handle it.
Love triangle could have been interesting as long as it wasn't contrived. Some crappy episodes, and characters for that matter transpire because writers sometimes are so anxious to cover their plot points that they forget to ask themselves if the behaviors are true to the character's motivations. (ANiS comes to mind... sorry, but that was incredibly UN-Archer-like to me.)
Perhaps if we had gotten past season 4, and continued with the good writing, I would have been willing to see that kind of complexity transpire. But the first two seasons? Negative. And season 3 was already rich with gut-wrenching dilemmas that adding this plot device would have been overkill.
In all honesty, it is rare in a television show when a love triangle doesn't become eye-rollingly cliche. I have known very few shows to have done it somewhat successfully... heck only one comes to mind. (Lost) Even then it teetered dangerously close to the edge of "I'm just so sick of this crap!" LOL
The story is NC-17 so, being unsure about the rules about posting links to adult material here, it's probably better if interested parties PM me for the link. It's already in-progress; I have the prologue and first chapter up, am working on chapter two. The current material is more PG-13.
Also, this fic isn't so much about the triangle, but it does manifest itself and affect the plot.
*giggles* Then there's always Mistress Euclid's solution; she simply lets T'Pol have both of them! "Can't we all just get along???"
You think that one just teetered close to the edge of it? It fell over the cliff halfway though the show.
I'm surprised that someone actually finds Lost an example of a love triangle done successfully, to me it is a prime example of just how horrible, tedious and annoying love triangles can be, how they can spoil an otherwise great show, and make the characters involved look silly, immature, pathetic, and (in Kate's case) downright unlikeable. Although Sawyer came out of it mostly unscathed, mostly for being the one to put the triangle out of its misery, to the relief of many viewers.
I think Archer and T'Pol had better chemistry... but I don't really see how their relationship would have worked seeing she was second in command on Enterprise.
That hardly constitutes a tragedy. All she had to do was withdraw from Starfleet and get herself assigned as a civilian scientist. There is precedent: Phlox.
Still wouldn't be appropriate, because even as a civilian, she would have had to answer to the Captain while serving on a non-civilian vessel.
Agreed. Someone was reporting to someone, ergo a "violation." I actually thought that would make it interesting and wish someone had written about that. (Like for example used the terrible plot line of Trip and T'Pol's baby as someone bringing their relationship to light and some discussion about it as a result. Oh well. To me the "forbidden-ness" of Archer/T'Pol made it more interesting -- not just the differences in races, the distrust of each other for their race (based on prior experience) but the reporting relationship.
On the love triangle - yeah, I didn't really care for the Lost love triangle either. Then again, I really hate romances when they are the focus of an episode, rather than the biproduct. For example, I'd much rather see people caring about each other than discussing sexual interest or lamenting about a night of passion that didn't mean anything to someone. I do think, that said, the love triangle could've been good, but maybe not with these writers who couldn't manager - in my opinion - a two-person relationship. (Maybe Reeves-Stevens could've - they shows promise!) For example, Trip and T'Pol caring for each other after the terrible baby plot was probably the most romantic thing I'd seen between the two.
Those two things are pretty much what my aforementioned fic is about--it's the aftermath of the Terra Prime thing, and I address the fact that somebody is reporting to somebody. And, while the story is not about the love triangle per se, I intend to validate that T'Pol and Archer may have felt something once--which you almost never see in TnT fic. For me, though, I see love as a complicated thing, so I don't feel it has to be as simplistic as "it was always gonna be Trip."
In fact, I find it alternately amusing and disturbing that a few TnTers I've encountered actually seem to feel threatened by the suggestion of other people being in one or the other's lives prior to any "happily ever after." Yeah, I know it happens in all 'ships, but since this is the one I'm actively playing with, I notice it more.
Yeah. Because everybody knows that we all only have feelings for one person in our entire lives. Ever. Nobody's ever dated/been interested in/been serious about anyone other than their last/current significant other.
Realistic. [/sarcasm]
Very mature viewpoint, Aquarius. I dare say, I might actually agree with you despite being an avid A/T'Per. It never bothered me that T'Pol could've had a relationship with Trip or that she would. (I don't like the way they introduced it though.) I just simply thought my pairing was more ... logical. 
Link to your fanfic?
Link to your fanfic?
Here's to not acting like we're gonna get cooties from each other's 'ships! 
I don't prefer Archer/T'Pol because their relationship to me always seemed like one between father and a daughter, I couldn't imagine them romantically involved. Maybe because Archer always seemed like a father figure to anyone on Enterprise, and beside I just couldn't imagine them together. I like him though with that Columbia capt.
I didn't like how writers treated Trip/T'Pol relationship either. But how they made that friendship between Archer and T'Pol, to me that was one of the best relationships in ST. Anything romantic would just spoil it. Although I hated the fact that T'Pol cried when thought Archer died and when really poor Trip really died no one actually mentioned it as something so disturbing as sad as it was, not even her.
I didn't like how writers treated Trip/T'Pol relationship either. But how they made that friendship between Archer and T'Pol, to me that was one of the best relationships in ST. Anything romantic would just spoil it. Although I hated the fact that T'Pol cried when thought Archer died and when really poor Trip really died no one actually mentioned it as something so disturbing as sad as it was, not even her.
I don't think so. Prior to T'Pol joining the crew, the impression I got was that Trip was second in command and the Engineering Officer. There's no indication that Trip was the both the Engineering Officer and the Executive Officer initially. T'Pol would obviously have been a Science Officer and the Vulcan adviser aboard ship, however despite being second in command she didn't seem to perform the tradition duties of a XO.
Give the size of the crew, Archer himself likely combined the duties of XO with his Captain's activities. Trip as Engineering Officer would have reported directly to Archer, not T'Pol. She did outrank him, but they were in totally different departments.
Except during those time periods when she was "Captain," (and I don't mean when she had the watch).
I don't see how the ship's engineer can also be the XO (is something like that even heard of in today's navies?)
Just because Trip had the second highest rank on the ship, it doesn't automatically make him second in command.
For example, both Crusher and Troi outranked Data (he was Lieutenant Commander, while they both carried the rank of full Commander), yet he was the second officer (third in command).
Yet she was seen in The Chair many times, and was, on occasion, referred to as the first officer.
I never saw anything remotely father-daughter-like about Archer and T'Pol. Unless you mean that T'Pol was sometimes like a father to Archer in season 1, giving her reckless child some wise advice...
Which would make sense in a way, since she was both older than him, and more level-headed, until he matured somewhat in later seasons... (But then the same goes for T'Pol/Trip...)
Well, there was the vibe, if you ask me. And he did seem somewhat patronizing to her in season 4.
True, she seemed to have been babysitting him back then.Unless you mean that T'Pol was sometimes like a father to Archer in season 1, giving her reckless child some wise advice...
She was in her mid sixties, which was the Vulcan equivalent of a 30 year old, but she undoubtedly was a more experienced officer.
T'Pol never babysitted Trip. Sure, she patronized him, but that's what all Vulcans do to members of other species. And he never really treated her as his superior officer, while T'Pol always respected Archer's authority.
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