So Trip broke regulations? I haven't kept up with Enterprise, but I was under the impression there is no prime directive yet. There is the policy for minimal interference, but that is hardly cause for legal consequences of a demotion or the brig.

Of course, I only watched the last 10 minutes, so what do I know.

BTW: The Borg episode might be interesting. I would like to see what it is like, again, to see the Borg for the first time, again.

Archer should make Trip watch T'pol taking a shower with his hands tied behind his back. That'll teach him.

Trip didn't break any regulations per se since the prime directive doesn't exist yet. I think there's just a general understanding to mind one's own business which clearly didn't happen in this case so demotion may not have been an option. Hopefully the writers just won't let this drop and everything will be back to normal next week. Archer was pissed and that should come through for at least the rest of the season.

Tripp's actions caused a death.

C'mon.

There has to be some regulation-breaking there someplace.

How 'bout breaking and entering for starters? How about theft of property for another - if as the alien species considered "it" to be a non-"person?"

Ain't gonna buy that line of reasoning. Did he put a phase pistol to its head?

But a discussion on that subject is way too intelligent for an Enterprise thread.

Am I the only one who sees this in a different way?

Trip saw a person being mistreated, not all that different from a slave. This person was not allowed to even learn how to read or have any kind of free life like the others of "its" kind. Trip may have not been using the best judgment from the point of view of Earth-Alien relations but, in my view, his actions on an individual rights scale were of the highest morality. (BTW, I haven't much otherwise liked his character throughout the entire run of the series.)

Perhaps Archer was wrong in not granting the cogenitor asylum. Sure he may have caused an intergalactic incident but it would have been, again on the scale of individual rights and morality, the right thing to do. While the couple were expecting to have the cogenitor help them conceive, they had no right to force "it" to do so and no "tradition" or "law" would justify that. It does not matter that the aliens considered the cogenitor to be a nonperson; "it" clearly was a person and had individual rights because of that. In pre-Civil War America, slaves were considered property, not persons too (they were counted as 3/5 of a person for census purposes of representation in the House of Representatives, a compromise between North and South in the Constitution).

My first thought on learning of the suicide were, damn you Archer, you should have given this person asylum, not Trip, you caused this by helping a person obtain the "human" rights every sapient being is entitled to.

While I understand the diplomatic and political reasons behind Archer's decision, on a scale of absolute morality I think Trip did the right thing and Archer did the wrong thing.

Edit: Thank goodness Data was judged to be a person in ST:TNG's The Measure of a Man (my all-time favorite Star Trek episode). This case, since it involved a biological being who could not have simply been programmed to act just like a person, is even stronger.

Another edit: According to:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive

The Prime Directive (which doesn't exist yet anyway in the Enterprise world) applies only to "primitive" (i.e. pre-warp drive ) societies:
Thus, even if it existed it would not apply to the people of yesterday's episode.

agreed

I'm with you also movielib.

I kept waiting for Archer to bring up slaves on Earth like he did with gazelles and such.

I think Trip had the right idea but his approach was lacking. What did he really expect to accomplish by teaching one cogenitor on an isolated ship to read? I would have brought it up to Archer and suggested that we not deal with the aliens. But Archer was way too into the technology to care.

I thought about this for awhile and I stand by my thoughts that Trip was in the wrong for the simple fact that he knew nothing about the history and culture of the alien planet (as was mentioned in the episode).

With slavery, everyone on earth knew what happened, knew the cultures, and had a vested interest in what was going on - it's our planet, what happens on it is our concern and humans have to deal with the ramifications of whatever happens. With Measure of a Man (also my fav episode) the outcome of the trial had ramifications for everyone on the ship and they'd have to deal with them from that point forward. There was no let's decide that Data is only a machine and then we can just walk away.

With Trip, he knew nothing about these people, their history - just what he saw on the ship. He could teach the cogeneter how to read and not have to deal with what would happen when it got back to its home planet. There are consequences to everything we do and that's what I think Archer was telling him. It's like the TOS episode Mirror Mirror where Kirk tried to make the alternate universe more peaceful and then he left. Fast forward to DS9 and we find out that Kirk's words of wisdom made things worse. But what did he care, he was leaving on the transporter.

Not every civilation can share human beliefs on what's right and what's wrong. Imposing a human belief system on another culture is imperialism at its finest.

I liked this episode alot. Too bad we couldn't get any 3 way sex scenes w/ those 2 blonde alien chicks.

Next week is the Borg. That should be interesting. Apparently it's part of the arc that carries into next year and causes the Enterprise

Oi. That should be exciting.

No doubt they won't get any help from the Vulcans...

I don't know, but the concept sounded kind of cool. I think they were going to have the story arc the entire season.

You have GOT to be kidding. I’m looking for smilies, and not finding. Of course, not everybody uses them, and I’m a sucker for sarcasm.

B&B couldn’t sustain a piss-stream-arc for more than 5 seconds, much less a retread of several TNG/Voyager seasons.

This is not something that I would even consider the possibility of coming close to resembling anything original.

Hey, I'll tell you what, I'm easy to please. I usually watch TV and Movies and check my brain at the door. Very rarely will I make the effort to think about what I watch and contemplate it. So, I am probably the type of ST fan you don't like. The one that watches it when it's on and doesn't complain about the craptitude that it is.

Wasn't the intent of my post at all. I don't know you, and therefore have no opinion as to whether or not I like you.

I didn't mean it like that. I just mean, I read all the posts you and das Monkey have to say about ST. I love reading your insightful stuff. However, like I said above, I just watch it to be entertained. I don't complain even if it does suck. I figure something is better than nothing, but I know that opinion is far from the majority.

You seem to have missed the parts where I have, on many occasions, mentioned my belief that “bad SciFi is better than no SciFi at all.” With that in mind, it looks like our opinions are closer than you think.

So does that mean that in some cases the enslavement of some sapient beings by other sapient beings is OK if that is their culture?

I hope you didn't mean to say this.

Who is to judge what is enslavement? In this case, the cogenitor appeared to be unaware of its situation, that it was “enslaved.” The magic of the printed word made it aware. ()

How ‘bout my doggie? He loves us and wouldn’t think of living somewhere else. Does it matter that, by your definition, he’s “enslaved” because he’s not allowed to live anywhere else? If he became self-aware, would you fight for his freedom?

If your doggie asked me for asylum, I guess I would think about it because it found it liked it better at my house.

That's a mighty smart doggie you've got there. Does it make toast?





GACK! B&B did their work this week because we're still debating this episode!

As the doctor said, the cogenitor had all the same capacities as the rest of "its" race. It didn't matter if "it" weren't aware of "its" enslavement, "it" still had those rights. ("It" wouldn't necessarily even have to be fully equal to the others; if "it"'s sapient "it" has rights.)

If your dog could petition for his rights (showing he's sapient) I'd be inclined to say he should have them. Yes, under those circumstances I'd fight for him to have rights.

Going with the hypothetical dog... If the dog walked up to me and petitioned for his rights then that's all well and good. If I go up to the dog and tell him you have rights, the dog says go away, but I persist then we have a problem. Remember, the cogeniter didn't ask Trip for help in fact, it told him to go away.

Is enslavement of sapient beings okay? What I was saying was I wouldn't answer that question until I had all the facts which Trip did not have.

That's what I'm talking about.

Hypothetical, my dog biscuit.

So if one is told no once that's it, now and forever? Trip persuaded a little bit more and they were off. Furthermore, the cogenitor may (and was) under a certain amount of coercion (even if only mentally and emotionally based on the way "it" had been treated "its" whole life) and being forced to remain ignorant to begin with from "its" co-species members. Trip did not kidnap "it" and force "it" to learn to read. Once the deed had been done, I think "it" should not have been forced to go back with "its" "owners." As I said before, while granting asylum would have been absolutely the correct moral decision on the individual level, I am not unaware of the other issues up to and including causing a war over this. Also, I did not say Trip showed the best judgment under the circumstances, just that he did the right thing on the the individual level. As far as blame for the death, I blame the aliens and their culture, Archer and the cogenitor "itself" (the suicide was, after all, ultimately "its" decision) more than Trip.

I personally can't conceive of how it could be OK (with the exception, of course, of imprisonment [which is perhaps roughly equivalent to slavery in some sense] for those who had forfeited their rights because they had violated the rights of others). Perhaps you can.

The main lesson was that Tripp was guilty of imposing his personal value system on another species of life with very little regard for the impact on that species' overall reproductive cycle on a macro-level, which could have a domino effect in making conception a much harder ordeal than the present conditions. Tripp failed to see the bigger picture and the tale becomes something akin to "No good deed goes unpunished." Tripp's intentions were honorable from a human standpoint, but not everything in the galaxy will conform to human terms.

I would have busted Tripp to chef for a month (if it were possible to get by without him at his position).