Maybe the attack was based on misinformation. They may have been trying to cripple the humans' space-faring capabilities. It is certainly a prime location for NASA nowadays. (And didn't Trip go off to Florida when he got into the space program, leaving his sweetheart?)
Of course, if the attack had affected the space program, we would have heard about it from someone on ENT. So maybe the Xindi info was flawed.

Speaking of flawed, one thing I don't get about the Xindi plan is...
If you are working on a planet destroying device (Death Star? Unicron?) why oh why would you get your enemy's attention by sending an inferior weapon? Was the penisula-destroying device supposed to annihiliate Earth and failed?

That's what I was getting at. I don't think there has been any information presented that would rule this out. Maybe someone else caught something we missed. Or, perhaps they were going after a NASA scientist that invents the weapon supposedly used by Earth. I hope that's not the case; it would be way too close to the First Contact storyline.

I think in the end, the Xindi will be doing all this based on false information from one of the Temporal Cold War combatants. I can't see how they will have Earth as destroying a world in any timeline, even in an all out war. And the conclusion will also most likely eliminate this timeline.

I want the series to end with Archer in charge of Section 31.

*bops off to write fanfiction*

Okay, keckler's "what happened to the Sulliban" question got me thinking, and I have this theory:

The Xindi and the Sulliban are working for the same people, the Sphere Builders. When it came time to sub-contract out the Destruction of Earth, the Sphere Builders initially called up the Sulliban, who balked. Instead, the Sphere Builders turned to the Xindi. Knowing what was up, Silik then tipped what he knew to Archer.

Thoughts? Anybody? Bueller?

I got this strange feeling last night that the lizard xindi looked simliar to the sphere builder that was on enterprise. I think we may find out the lizards aint really xindi or something like that.

Here's my stab at it:
The Sphere Builders are not part of the Temporal Cold War, but being transdimensional have figured out a way to travel through time. So, the Xindi weren't contacted as part of the TCW, rather by someone or something else entirely. (My question, what the hell were they on that they believed "her"?)

Let's assume that the Shower Guy didn't want to destroy Earth because then he might be destroying the ability to time travel for the future; rather he wanted to prevent Archer from accomplishing certain things in order to change the future in his favor. If we take that and the above as assumptions, then he would want Archer to prevent the attack and therefore sent Silik to help him.

That of course leaves open why Daniels didn't come back and inform Archer. But, since we're talking about time travel, and presumably he can go to the past whenever he needed, Daniels waited until Archer was going to blow up the weapon to tell him he needs to negotiate rather than just destroy. In order to preserve the correct timeline (ie the Federation), and thwart Shower Guy.

There are no doubt tons of holes in this theory. Please, feel free to rip theory to shreds...it needs it!

The thing that I keep coming back to is that Shower Man disappeared when Quantum went to the future in "Shockwave". I take that to mean that if the Federation never forms, Shower Guy no longer exists, or at least has no reason to be time traveling. No Federation without Quantum, no Shower Guy without Federation.

Since the Xindi are working to annhilate Earth and the Federation, Shower Guy wants them stopped. I think that much is genuine, rather than just wanting Quantum stuck in the Expanse for a year.


Maybe, but I think all you have to do to get involved in the TCW is to want to manipulate Federation history to your advantage. Since the battle Daniels showed was in the 26th century, and Daniels is from the 31st century, and Shower Guy is from about the 29th century, I wonder if maybe the Sphere Builders, manipulating the Xindi, might be the "first" battle in the TCW. They did something, so Shower Guy and Daniels had to respond.

Seems to me Quantum needs to chat with Daniels about Shower Man. It may be the best way to learn what Shower Man wants, or at least what Daniels says Shower Man wants.

That's what I meant...just didn't do a very good job explaining. Thank goodness you did, cleo

And what you said about the first battle makes sense too.

The final question is, can Daniels and Shower Guy even be trusted--they both say that they are trying to help Archer. Who to believe?

Lately, I found myself believing more and more than shower man and the sphere builders are the good guys and this whole thing is just Daniel's desperate attempt to prevent Quantum to realize that.

Ugh. Just realized why the Sphere Builders and Shower Guy's homies can't be one and the same- the homies supposedly don't have time-travel capability, and they would need that to send the Xindi back in time for "Carpenter Street."



Either the penny hadn't dropped on that for me, or I completley forgot about it. That's pretty important. Hmmmm...

This TWC arc is getting completely out of hand. Like any time travel ep, there are gaping plotholes - except here the ep is dragged on and on and on until nothing makes sense anymore. Time travel is to ENT what the Borg were to Voyager.

Bump for the off-topicality in the Media thread.

I have two theories on that. By the way, I personally doubt the NASA theory, as remember- they did test the warp 5 engine out of San Fransisco.

A) The ICBINADS jumped out of warp with orders to just fire randomly at Earth (warning shot across out bow), and it just happened to slice through Florida. I, being a Floridian... plan to move to another state before it happens.

B) It is possible, if a bit outlandish, that the Xindi, being a society of multiple species, incuding an aquatic one, might have presumed that Earthers were a society of multiple species, including an aquatic one. Now, I think that the reason the big ICBINADS was being built underwater was due to my idea that each Xindi species has a niche (the Reptilians as military leaders and spec ops, the Insectoids as redshirts, Primate as scientists and engineers, etc) and that the aquatic niche is building. A system not unlike the Minbari Caste system. Under theory B (this one), the Xindi, working on Bush-Level Intelligence, assumed that the Earthers were like them and thus, they sought to attack the Carribean in the hopes that that would be a major site of construction of warships.

Just a hunch.

It didn't just attack Florida - it started in Florida and carved its way south through the Caribbean and South America.

I think they simply blasted away at the first thing they saw. After all, a planet is a rather large thing to go around looking for the right spot.

The thing that I do not understand is: Why attack with the mini bar version of the weapon at all? If it was because of a need for testing there must be other M class planets to blow to high heaven without the added complication tipping off your mortal enemies (to be).

Good point.


From the Press thread:

I really like the idea of McCoy actively seeking a second career. I'm curious why he choose to continue being a doctor, albeit a starship's doctor, when he must have left the medical profession for a reason to seek his place at the Academy.

He might have felt the need to try something new. That happens to most people at some point in their lives. As to why he continued to practice medicine: For one thing becoming a doctor takes a long time and simply throwing away an education like that is not something most people would like to do. Secondly, the desire to help and heal others is often a fundamental part of the mentality of good doctors and cannot simply be unlearned. This definitely seemed to be the case for McCoy.

Maybe it was something to do with the euthenasia of his father thing. Like, he felt so guilty (I forget when that happened) that he decided to get off-world.

I'm confused. Why would he have to leave the medical profession to join Starfleet? Hawkeye & B.J. didn't have to leave the medical profession to join the army. They had to leave their practices, sure.

Especially since they tested a prototype of the weapon on a moon in "Proving Ground." The first attack on Earth just seems to be a really stupid idea since Earth had no idea that the Xindi even existed before the attack.

Well, it's not like Earth then got itself into gear and made a concerted effort to stop the next attack. I mean, one ship. Oooh, the Xindi are quaking in their pooboots.

All Earth really has at this point is the one ship, though. There's nothing that has told us that they aren't back there trying as hard as they can to build more. I mean, what else can they do?

Earth HAS to have more than one ship. First, there is the cargo ship the May-I'm-not-feeling-creatives crew. NX-01 is the only ship capable of warp 5, however, and is most likely the closest thing Earth had to a battle-starship.

That's pretty much what I meant: one warship capable of going great distances quickly.

In "The Expanse", we saw them building what I assume to be NX-02. I don't recall how long they said it would take, but I'm sort of hoping the NX-02 will come swooping in heroically at some point.

Still, two ships isn't a lot better than one.

As for why the Xindi attacked already, here's the theory I'm going with: it was a test of the means and Earth's defenses. Could they do their little tunnel trick, drop a weapon right in Earth orbit before anyone could detect it, and fire all before anything could be done to stop it? "Azati Prime" made me believe the weapon could be destroyed fairly easily, so they'd need to be sure that their little warp-tunnel trick would catch everyone by surprise.

I like that theory, Cleo, but it still doesn't explain why the Xindi wouldn't get this information in a more traditional way. In "Twilight", for example, they hired an alien (Uridian? - the information gatherers) to follow Phlox as he went to Ceti Alpha V. I think using this approach would be better than an outright act of aggression.

Yeah. I'm hoping it's a question that will get answered. But I'm not holding my breath.

Before "Stratagem", I had this theory that the initial attack was related to the TCW, like someone wanted to warn humanity about the Xindi, and had no way to do it other than by sending that attack from the future, or something. But then Degra confirmed that he was very much aware of that attack, so that shot that theory to hell.

Maybe the Xindi really want to hunt down the humans, chasing them across the galaxy, a la "Twilight". The warning was a way to get humans prepared to evacuate so there would be more to chase down after Earth is destroyed.

They want to hunt them, like the Hirogen? That doesn't really make sense. They want to kill them all, I'd think. If they fear them so much, it's better they not evacuate. Besides, the one attack didn't give Earth warning that a bigger weapon was on the way- it was Shower Guy who told them that.

That's a really good point, nelamm. I think one thing I keep forgetting in all the parallels to modern times is that this was not a terrorist attack. The Xindi aren't trying to make humans afraid they might attack. They're just planning to attack, and they were relying on their anonymity and location inside the Expanse to prevent the humans from doing anything about it. It was only because of Shower Guy (who the Xindi probably don't know about) that the humans were made aware of who it was that attacked them, and where they could be found.

My fanwankery regarding the test--the Xindi would want to make sure that they could get the weapon to Earth and fire it before going too far in creating the final one, so they could correct any bugs. And, as cleo and nelamm mentioned, the Xindi most likely considered it unlikely that the humans would link the probe to them, it was a risk worth taking.

That would be great, but considering the distance between Earth and the Delphic Expanse and the relatively short time Enterprise has been in the Expanse it's not likely. NX-the-Sequel didn't seem anywhere near ready for launch in that episode.

Well, I guess Earth could have got its allies to send in a fleet, for all the Xindi know. I still think they were taking a big risk. However, the point about it supposedly being a secret which only came out through Shower Guy is a good one.

Not necessarily. Enterprise has had to stop alot. And, they've learned a lot about the expanse while they've been there, so as long as there are no Vulcans on the NX-02, they can line the hull with Trellium-D and avoid the anomalies, and they know where to go now. Most of the time Enterprise has spent in the expanse was spent figuring out where to go. Plus, with Trip's improvement to the Warp Engines in Similitude, the NX-02 could use that and get there faster.

Did the rather disasterous experiment in Similitude yield any results (other than a few bloody big holes in the warp engine)? I didn't think so, but then again, my memory tends to impersonate a black hole some times.

IIRC, the experiment was going fine until they hit the Orange Crush and some intake got clogged. To me, that means that the (?)plasma (?) stream compression would still work. Perhaps they couldn't use it that much depending on anomaly fields and other problems similar to Orange Crush.

As for lining with Trellium-D, is that available to Starfleet that they could line NX-02? Not to mention, even if there are no Vulcans serving on NX-02, surely there would be some Vulcan observers that would be affected. Also, whatever Earth government exists most likely wants to retain the other Warp 5 ship close to Earth in order to provide a final line of defense.

I'm still hoping that the Mr. Men and Monkeyboys come to the rescue. Though the theory about the Avians not actually being extinct would be neat too.

I'm not saying that the NX-02 coming to the rescue should happen; only that it could and it wouldn't be impossible. I kind of think it's going to be the Xindi primates and arboreals too. And kind of hoping that they find the avians aren't extinct, and end up playing a big part.

Oh, pennyq, didn't mean to come off all, you know, crabby. Got a little too serious there, I guess. It's all this waiting, it's killing me!

I've been thinking waaaaay too much about this because now it seems to me that the Primates and Arboreals wouldn't risk a fight with the Reptilians and Insectoids. If the Insectoids and Reptilians were in charge of defense, perhaps the Arboreals and Primates don't have similarly equipped ships that could take on the Reptilians etc. Degra's ship was pretty wimpy. Also, they would be loath to help the humans--only Degra barely on board.

So now, where does that leave us? With Shran!! Well, maybe not...they were limping back to Andoria. Gah, I hate cliffhangers, and yet, I love them.

I don't see how the story can be resolved without the help of one or more of the Xindi fractions. One of the more eloquent points of Azati Prime was that even if the current weapon was to be destroyed, nothing is preventing the Xindi from building another. In this light a permanent truce between mankind and all the Xindi fractions is the only viable solution. I’m hoping that this type of resolution will also lead mankind (and not least of all Archer) towards establishing the Federation. A part of this hope is that Archer is shown to actually learn from the ruthlessness he has personified this season, and come to understand that most problems cannot be solved with the use of a well-charged phaser/airlock.

They have the stream compression working already, don't they? That was the point of the Shran/Trip scene in Proving Ground. (Though we Trip-lovers seem to only remember it for those lovely tear-moistened blue eyes. :)

Was that point made by the episode? I didn't think it was. I know the point came up here, but I don't recall it in the episode itself.


Well said, Silja. I hope that, too. I have to believe that's what will happen, as well.

I am in complete agreement, Silja that humans and Xindi are going to have to negotiate a solution. I argued with Mr. Toast that point before the ep Azati Prime started and refrained from punching Mr. Toast when Daniels repeated, nearly verbatim, what I had just said: that the Xindi would just build another weapon.

The story is definitely going to require the humans and the Xindi putting aside what they've been told and learn to trust each other. But, how Enterprise is going to survive the beating it is taking right now, that's something a little different. It would be a step in the direction of partnership if the Primates and Arboreals came in and saved the day. It seems a bit unlikely though, since the armed ships seem to be Reptilian and Insectiod. IIRC, the Reptilian mentioned that they are called to do the dirty work. Have we seen any armed Primate or Arboreal ship? Or Aquatic?

It would be a great asset to the show if Archer's character underwent a significant change due to the events of the mission. Moreover, it would make sense if he began to re-think some of his positions and views. Here's hoping that Arhcer decides to take an intense course in diplomacy. Or at least communications.

Frenchtoast, it might run like this (and this is purely speculation):

It’s obvious that Enterprise cannot fight back so that’s out. Alternatively, they could try to hide, but that’s unlikely without any manoeuvrability. They could try waiving the white flag and hope to be spared but that won’t happen with a frozen T’Pol in the central seat, so that’s also unlikely (unless Trip or Malcolm takes over).

That leaves one logical option: For some reason the Xindi stops short of vaporising Enterprise. The question then becomes why. I think that Archer will gain the ear of the Xindi council (or at the least the Primate, Arboreal, and Aquatic majority) and in the process cause the council to halt the destruction of the Enterprise. I assume the next question is why the Reptilians and Insectoids follow the order to stop when they seem so intent on obliterating all things human. Well, it’s a bit of a reach but there is a long way from clandestinely trying to circumvent decisions to disobeying a direct order. To do so would constitute a coup d'état and while some Xindi (from all fractions) might be willing to go so far, most will probably balk at the thought.

Silja, that makes the most sense. If not, that's the episode I want to see come the 21st. Of April.

At this point, especially, there is very little that Malcolm or Trip could do. And the Reptilians are probably not all that interested in the white flag.

Let's hope that Archer learned some better diplomacy then what he displayed during his interrogation. Actually, come to think of it, the Reptilian grudgingly admired his audacity. And we've already seen the groundwork for the Primate's and the Arboreals to side with them. He'll have to be pretty convincing, pretty quick, with the Council, but it's the best option all around.

I'm rewatching that now. (Evil) Admiral Forrest says that the NX-02 is fourteen months from being completed - and the Expanse is three months away from Earth.

That means the NX-02 should be ready and waiting for Enterprise if it were to return to Earth at the end of season three.

From the Spoiler thead:


I've had a pet theory for a while now that the entire series is setting up the mirror universe. So maybe Daniels is from the Federation timeline, trying to tweak Archer away from the Mirror timeline? Maybe? Possibly? Perhaps?

zooropa, from the spoiler thread, a continuation of above quote


What, zooropa, you propose that Archer et al. might found the Terran Empire? But then, if certain physi... physisc... scientists who study physics and multi-dimensional Bat... Bat'h... Klingon sword champions (cuiusquemodi can't spell today)are to be believed, there would be provided for an infinite number of universes...

How would they do it? Would the "real" Captain Archer be beamed over in a transporter accident? My brain.

The more I think about the mirror universe, the more I like it. It would free the writers up from having the fanboys screaming about canon all the time. Maybe the events that are happening are the trigger that caused this universe to veer away from the Starfleet and Federation ideologies.


Maybe, or maybe he inadvertently wandered into an alternate reality during his time-travels and he doesn't realize it yet. I know that makes no sense but that's the fun of alternate universes. They don't have to make sense or follow canon!

Thanks Gytha Ogg for moving this discussion over from the spoiler thread. It really is more appropriate here. You'd think that the word 'speculation' in my original post would have told me that it should go in the 'speculation' thread!

Ooh, I love this Mirror speculation! But would it make sense to anyone that's not a TOS and/or DS9 fan? I mean like the casual viewer that knows that the bald French guy is the captain on the other show? It would be so great for the writers to just say "Fuck it" and do it anyway. Gonna have to dwell on this one overnight....

Hmmm. Mirror Universe. Interesting...

My own little dream: A sadder, but wiser, Archer (tm Meredith Wilson because I've got that song stuck in my head now) begins to see the the benefits of a Federation and so start discussions with other worlds, say the Andorians.

As for the Xindi that we have never heard of, well, I assume there are a lot of species in the Federation that we have never heard of. And for an attack on Earth, not to be too callous about it, but there have been natural disasters and man-made ones that sort of fade after they've happened. Does anyone remember the tidal wave that killed thousands in Lisbon over two hundred years ago? Yes, seven million people were killed, but I don't think it's something that absolutely needs to be mentioned previously in order for it to be included now.

Oh, and Starfleet. Well, one could argue with the development of the Federation that Starfleet evolved. Not to mention that they are acting differently now because of the impending destruction of their world and perhaps Starfleet behavior is being, shall we say, put on hold?

OK, fanwanking over.

For me, I would rather see how the crew deals with the consequences of what's happened and have that be the impetus for the creation of the Federation. But that's because a mirror universe, IMO, smacks of Reset Button. That being said, I am so looking forward to what they do, mirror universe, reset button or whatever.

Like you, I don't see many canon problems. And those that might be there are very easily explained through time travel- that is, in the TOS and TNG eras, the TCW hadn't started yet, but here we're seeing the effects of it. Ditto 1701-E's trip back in time in FC, leading, perhaps, to NX-01 being named "Enterprise," among other things.

I'm not sure I want a huge neat tie up after seven seasons, either a reset or an explicit point that things have changed, however slightly, from what we've known before. Leave it hanging, I say, and we'll figure it out (or argue and wank) all we want.