A Complete Analysis of the Starfleet-Xindi War

what's up lore masters while this will not be a definitive breakdown of the temporal cold war that will have to be at a later date it is a primer that will help ensure that the zindy war arc can be completely understood though don't worry as i go through the series i'll continue to discuss and expand on the temporal cold war as it relates to this arc in a nutshell the temporal cold war was the result of several bad actors not wishing to abide by the temporal accords the temporal accords were a strict set of laws and policies for time travel that had been agreed by the major powers by at least the 31st century it would seem that time travel had become commonplace effectively the cold war was a series of events with different factions attempting to manipulate the time stream via proxy wars in order to gain dominance in the future most of these groups would be opposed by temporal agents who were tasked with protecting the integrity of the timeline or so that's what one of the agents claimed who said he was a part of some form of future federation given that we only see the temporal agents attempt to stop events when those events negatively impact the federation and they don't try to stop events that positively impact the federation or starfleet it's up to the viewer to decide how truthful he was being while again this is a primer and i won't be going into all of the impacts some of the proxy wars include an attempt to destabilize the klingon empire in the 22nd century aiding nazi germany in the 20th century in a battle against the sphere builders in the 25th century by the united federation of planets it would be the sphere builders that are ultimately the driving force for what many deemed the quote-unquote zindy war thanks to the treachery of the sphere builders they are able to convince the zindy the zindy are an alliance of species who evolved on the same planet which is located in the delphic expanse to create a superweapon that could destroy earth the zindi test a prototype on earth in an attempt to determine what would be needed to blow the planet itself up archer of the nx01 enterprise is alerted by an entity that will only ever know as future guy about the zindy's plans to destroy all of earth against the wishes of the vulcans what else is new the united earth dispatches the nx01 enterprise into the delphic expanse to find and destroy the new weapon as stated before this video is really just a quick explanation of what the temporal cold war was and what is necessary to know before we get into the meat of the story stay tuned as we see the united earth attacked and events that captain fully state quote unquote fracking break continuity upload masters one of the most criticized pieces of the zindy war arc is how humanity became aware of the zindy's designs in the year of our lord 2153 march to be exact the zindi send a prototype weapon that attacks earth this device would cut a swath from florida to venezuela and kill millions many have complained that this attack gave the humans a heads up and allowed them to ultimately stop the trek death star that was being built by the zindy after a bit of research i'm not as critical of this attack first the humans had absolutely no idea where the sphere came from they couldn't identify its mode of transportation nor the occupant that was in it if it wasn't for future guy they wouldn't have known at all who it was or what their plans were the attack had very little risk from the zindy's point of view additionally the zindy had come together and had a strong defensive fleet they were also protected by the delphic expanse so had earth been able to identify who they were and where they were located it was extremely unlikely starfleet could have filtered a force that would rival the defensive fleets of the zindy also it's not unreasonable to believe that given the technology limitations even for the zindi that they would need to do tests on earth to see what it would take to completely destroy the planet as well as to test any defenses starfleet may have so again while i'm not saying it's the best idea nor am i saying it's the greatest storytelling opener ever it's not completely unreasonable after the attack on earth the nx01 enterprise is recalled on the way back the su lavon kidnapped captain archer so that he can have a discussion with quote-unquote future guy the season one villain advises archer that all of this is tied into the temporal cold war that these events should not be occurring and another faction is trying to change history a lot of people have jumped on this and claim that it's the reason that enterprise is not in the same timeline not the same universe not canon yada yada however let me put this out there future guy may actually be lying about some of it we only have his word to believe that the zindy wars never occurred that they shouldn't happen daniel the quote-unquote federation faction of some sort doesn't appear to think this he doesn't try to stop the events nor attempts to help enterprise not till the end maybe all of this was supposed to occur now true in the end he doesn't want archer to go down and talk to the zindy but that's because it was archer not because these events weren't supposed to happen just a thought future guide provides archer with the means to determine that the zindy prototype had pieces that were made in the future by utilizing a form of quantum future dating starfleet command ultimately dispatches the nx01 enterprise to the delphic expanse to find the zindy and stop their designs on building a weapon that will destroy earth it's important to note how these events do change the course of humanity in fact it's the reason i'm doing this short video after the attack the nx01 would take on makos basically marines of that century i'll do a full breakdown of the mako specifically in the future so don't worry about that additionally the enterprise is retrofitted with photonic torpedoes basically early versions of the photon torpedoes we see in the original series and ultimately the next generation and is given upgraded hull plating for defense as we see with all wars technology that is designed to kill would advance in the extreme at the expense of keeping this short i'm going to stop here the build-up to the adventures in the expanse is distinct from the expanse itself and i don't want to dilute the two what's up lore masters before we continue the zindy war series i think it's worthwhile to analyze united earth's organization named military assault command operations or mako for short the introduction of the makos basically marines in space has caused a lot of frustration within the fandom not because they were an unwanted addition to enterprise but because they were such a good idea that its ludicrous starfleet didn't continue to use them within star trek enterprise the makos are presented as the best of the best they rarely enter into a fight they don't win and are extremely well trained a lot of the cliches used with military officers are rarely ever seen in the series something i think the writers should get a lot of credit for makos were trained at multiple locations for the united earth including west point luna and jupiter station most if not all would be stationed in atlanta georgia as well as the janus loop the fate of the makos as a united earth organization is somewhat debated as we do see their dissolution in star trek beyond this is still considered in canon due to the dissolution of the makos occurring before the timeline is changed in the jj abram verse basically to be more clear if it happens before the destruction of the kelvin then we can assume that it happened in the prime timeline as well in theory at least however i have had some very convincing counter-arguments that once the events of star trek 2019 occur it impacts history both going back in time as well as forward so whether you believe this is the fate of the makos or not is up to personal interpretation however according to beyond when starfleet as an organization was reformed to represent the founding members of the federation politicians decided to remove the more militaristic aspects of the joining governments the makos were disbanded and specific officers would be offered commissions within starfleet in all honesty i feel like this is not only what actually happens but makes the most sense again quite a few people get upset or wonder why makos weren't still around i'd argue that we see their methodologies in training even into the tng era and beyond in tng's code of honor tasha yar specifically points out that starfleet security is the best of the best in the galaxy it makes sense to me that at the formation of starfleet the combining of the military and scientific aspects of the founding cultures and every culture that was to come would incorporate things like the makos to make them even better in fact when you think about it starfleet from the united earth would be dissolved into the new entity of the same name honestly without going into the zindy war episodes because we're going to be doing that soon enough there isn't a lot to add and that was disappointing the makos were some of the best security forces we see in the star trek series and i think that their practices in ethos lives on in starfleet security today even if it didn't show in the toss era last time we discussed this indie war we analyzed its quote-unquote beginning and we introduced the makos with that out of the way let's take a look at the mysteries that the next episode sets up all of which are answered in the end i'm sure when looking at star trek enterprises the zindy i honestly am not quite sure what to make of it like episodes that came before it attempts to create mystery and intrigue into this new arc the episode begins with one of the key aspects of television telling and not showing every professor that i have had at my university when it comes to filmmaking has advised me that dialogue is more important than doing anything interesting on the screen it's just the way it's done so in that vein through archer we learn that the enterprise has been attempting to gain information for roughly six weeks in the expanse and hasn't found anything we are also shown that the vessel has been modified with an upgraded sensor platform by its newly created command center a room that was transformed with the most state-of-the-art technology to help find the zindy of course the scene shows us how pissed off archer is with all of this new technology and nothing to show for it the next scene of mild significance towards the war involves sato imposing herself on the makos this will be our first introduction to the makos themselves and it's not the best outing not because of the makos but hoshi this scene honestly annoys me i can't tell if the linguist is aware of how snobbish she appears when she calls out the accents of one of the marines or if she's let's say seeing if she'll be able to test starfleet endurance training versus that of the makos either way as i stated the scene does set up the makos in their mentality that they expect for starfleet to find the zindy so they can finish the job this will be an ongoing point of contention for a while and i think it's handled much better when we get the interactions with reed later in the episode unfortunately one or all of the mako's hell i don't know her preferences won't get to hear god's name in swahili as they have to leave for a briefing leaving hoshi by yourself from here we get to take a look at phlox who is analyzing the zindy body that crash landed on earth he is able to determine that the species is reptilian though he isn't able to get more information than that we add to this that the enterprise itself is experiencing weird anomalies that is impacting different sections of the ship in different ways one of these anomalies is causing cargo to randomly fly across a cargo bay and even damage the ship again we still don't know a lot about this indy or what's happening it's a lot of open threats kind of like game of thrones in space just not as good however even with all of these different questions that have leads of their own there isn't really a clear destination or mission their luck may have changed when a freighter captain of questionable integrity advises the captain that they may find a zindy on a planet that has an ore manufacturing facility of course that area of space is dangerous so it is a flip of the coin we're told this and never see the freighter captain because that's not how it's done once arriving to the planet the captain and chief security officer make their way down because when walking into a place that is less than savory with people that can't be trusted you want to send the captain and the man who has tactical knowledge of the ship and its security compliment with no backup that way the people you're seeing will respect you and not take advantage because of your brashness captain archer discusses meeting this zindy person with the foreman who demands to have half a liter of liquefied platinum archer ultimately agrees on the condition that he can scan the person or get a blood sample to ensure that they are actually zindy the foreman advises that there is no need for that and gives the captain a severed finger from the zindy man for them to scan this will of course ensure the person is legit this presents a few problems first ignoring their disgust at the situation because if they aren't going to worry about red flags why should i how does the crew of the enterprise know that the man is still alive secondly the formant seemed like he was willing to send them off but had the finger ready for scanning i know he says it was an unfortunate accident but it's obviously a lie and it just seems coincidental that he would have it ready if it was an accident wouldn't they have thrown it away or tried to put it back on or have it somewhere else in storage i mean i get it there is an explanation for this archer is desperate and he's not thinking right but still either way phlox confirms that the finger is indeed zindy though a different type the analogy provided that the two cindy are both the same yet different as to that of a human and a neanderthal it presents another mystery we aren't dealing with one species of zindy but at least two the captain returns to the ore facility but this time with the chief engineer because having the man who knows the ship's engines in and out and is the best capable of repairing it in case of an attack as well as the captain by themselves with no support is just the starfleet way in any form that starfleet takes they provide the rare element to the foreman and make their way down to meet this indie man while on their way the foreman starts asking questions about the crew compliment and their mission archer finds this odd even suspicious but drops it quickly the two meet the zindy who is understandably concerned about what they want from him he tells them that he is a prisoner and when they try to leave they find that they have fallen into a trap and are now unable to contact enterprise enterprise losing contact with the captain would also detect three warships that were on the way and will arrive in two hours let's discuss that a moment i think this was a really stupid way to try to capture the crew of the enterprise from what i can see here it appears that there's no way to attack the enterprise while it's in space even if we accept the towers on the planet have local defenses the enterprise is quite clearly safe where it is tupal could have and probably should have threatened to bomb the manufacturing site to hell and back if they didn't get their crew members the nearest help for the ore processing center is hours away you would think they might not want to pick a fight when they can't defend themselves now you could argue that the slaver ships were off trying to find new workers but one would think they'd keep at least one vessel there for protection but that's just me back to archer the zindi does offer to help the captain and chief engineer as long as they would also promise to take him with them with the zindy guiding them they begin to try to escape looking back at the plans for the ship major haze and reed would agree upon a plan where the makos are dispatched with reed in command in an attempt to save the captain and chief engineer though there are some arguments between hayes and the chief security officer greed wanting to take ship security and haze thinking that the makos should go while reed takes it personally saying that hayes is just doing it because he believes the makos are better than starfleet i honestly have to say i agree with hayes i think the makos are more suited for non-ship combat and even if they aren't it's about the best resource allocation for the situation starfleet security should be on the ship makos should be on the ground this entire scene is about reed's ego not hayes while enterprise's plan is being put into place archer and co are attempting to escape the guards ultimately realized there's an escape and process and the foreman would have them stationed at the shuttlecraft he does this versus moving the shuttlecraft into a secured bay because why have only the good guys make idiotic moves after nearly getting killed by plasma archer trip and the zindy are unfortunately caught the foreman would order them to be taken to the surface and shot but before this could be done makos under the command of reed would drop down via lines and take out a substantial amount of the guards this battle is honestly pretty awesome and i do need to do a battle breakdown of it at some point though there is some idiocy when they decide to use their hands versus the weapons that they have but we may take a look at that at a different point for now we do know the makos are successful in saving the crew as well as the zindy who is saved but unfortunately is shot and would ultimately die he is able to give the coordinates of this indie homeworld before he does though the enterprise arrives to find that the planet has been completely destroyed they determined that it was indeed the planet of the zindy but we have another mystery the planet is supposed to be destroyed in over 400 years but from what they can tell it was destroyed decades ago with no new leads archer would order that the enterprise go deeper into the expanse of course the vessel would be on the sensors of the zindy who decide not to destroy them fearing it may be the front for an invasion and they don't want to tip their hands on the next episode we'll break down this ongoing mystery and i'm sure all of it will be 100 explained what's up lore masters in the last episode of the series of which the playlist is in the description we discussed how the nx01 enterprise had just recently entered into the delphic expanse after the attack by an unknown enemy that had declared war on humanity today we'll be taking a look at the enterprise episode anomaly just as a brief recap we do know that the nx01 enterprise crew had discovered that the attackers were known as the zindy and that the zindy had multiple species they were still no closer to finding the zindy home world however and stopping them from attacking earth and as things went on the situation would just continue to get worse and worse the further the nx01 went into the delphic expanse the more they would encounter weird anomalies that would randomly hit the ship and cause massive damage it would be one of these instabilities that forced the ship to take its reactor offline after a nasty hit unfortunately at the same time weapons and hole plating would be disabled as well while attempting repairs they do discover another ship that had been disabled as well but find that it had been attacked by another vessel when they got closer to the derelict ship they would find that everyone on it had been killed and the vessel ransacked ultimately archer would order that they go further into the delphic expanse and keep on the move in hopes of not being attacked themselves though i do wonder why he didn't take any of the components that were on the derelict ship i get that it may have not been palpable but they're not going to be using it and the enterprise still needed to survive the luck of the enterprise would continue to give out however as pirates do attack the effectively defenseless united earth vessel then board it and begin stealing cargo weapons and other equipment though i will say we do get to see starship security and makos absolutely rock it out in the defense of the enterprise unlike what we would see with security in the future with a galaxy class starship these men actually know what they're doing unfortunately even with an excellent defense of the vessel the pirates would be able to steal a large portion of the ship's supplies and escape save for one lone pirate who is captured all of this would be a heavy burden on the crew and especially the captain with the fate of the united earth and the balance and being under constant attack or threat from the anomalies everyone would begin to lose touch with their morality making more questionable decisions this would include but not be limited to torture but we'll get to that very shortly hey guys this video is sponsored by the author of providence ends the expanded edition five people five stories one inescapable foe not only does the book providence ends give you a great story that includes two super powers that are embroiled in a cold war that could ignite at any point but the expanded edition gives you a complete breakdown of the world its technologies the people and world building overall and let's face it if you're watching this channel you're definitely the kind of person that would be into an in-depth and thought out universe also as of the upload date of this video the book is only 99 cents on kindle less than a dollar come on i put this up for everyone to see without a paywall and it's not exactly a cheap process on my side so if you do me a solid click the link below and check out the book i'd really appreciate it supporting my sponsors helps the channel so please consider getting this really great book for an unreasonably good price while it lasts now let's just get back into it ultimately the crew of the nx01 would be able to track the pirates and find that they were using a large spherical star base that had a cloaking field now i'm going to be honest i was initially critical of archer who apparently doesn't question something so advanced being in the middle of the expanse and not looking into it not to mention that it's a cloaking field you know that thing that spock had no idea what it was on the more advanced enterprise that aside the more i thought about this specific circumstance the more i can see how he might be razor focused on getting back the delithium his ship needs and cargo that was stolen as well as finding the zindy i don't think it's reasonable to expect him to be thinking logically here after discovering the star base the nx01 would be able to find and bring its cargo back on board the ship again not opting to take more cause why would they want that kind of advantage might as well leave the stolen goods there am i right they would also find a manifest that apparently comes from the zindy showing the pirates had attacked his indie vessel this would be where the morals begin to be sacrificed as archer almost kills the captured pirate to obtain codes to the pirate's ship so they could download the entirety of the zindy database that was on the enemy vessel's computer the enterprise would lay a trap for the vessel and when it arrived past the cloaking field attack the pirate ship and begin downloading the database here's a question though they had access to the computer of the pirates ship so why not just shut down its engines and weapons and begin the download you run the chance of them realizing and trying to counter what you're doing but if their weapons and engines are offline you can further disable the ship and get what you want hell just lock them out of their own computers however archer wouldn't do this and the two vessels would fight until ninety percent of the database was gathered and then the enterprise decides to disable the engines they hadn't disabled them beforehand because they were worried about damaging the computers and of course with the ship effectively disabled we don't see archer ask for the remaining 10 of the database that they needed he simply returns the captured pirate and goes about his way cause that makes sense to not do everything you can when you're facing the genocide of your species while this episode only gives us bits and pieces about the war and what's to come with intrigue the tidbits are vital we learn that the anomalies can be countered with something called trillium d we know other species have come from the alpha quadrant and been caught within the expanse and leaving is impossible and we've learned of these spheres that have cloaking devices all small pieces to a much larger puzzle and it wouldn't stop there we would see other alpha quadrant species having to survive in the expanse stay tuned as we see how this all impacts the vulcans what's up lore masters as discussed before the crew of the nx01 enterprise had been traversing the expanse in an attempt to identify the zindy and stop the creation of a weapon that would destroy earth once entering into the expanse though the pattern was always the same the crew would find a lead that gives little if any information and then continue further into the expanse not knowing more in fact they would have added questions but got very few answers it was a never-ending cycle that seemed to never end it only would get worse as they continued though there would be anomalies that continued to ravage the ship at intermittent times and there'd be only one compound that would be able to stop these anomalies specifically trillium d so it's no surprise that they would opt to go off course to find a chemist who claimed to be able to synthesize the chemical again the substance could protect the outer layer of the ship from being impacted by these anomalies though unfortunately it would have a devastating impact on vulcan physiology however like most other things they wouldn't be able to get much of the trillium d before moving on and without even knowing it things would continue to get worse the crew would come upon a slave trader who owned a slave that begged the captain specifically archer for help to get her off of the planet itself of course being the kind man and possible idiot that he is he did a sister and lo and behold it would turn out that she was a spy for the zindy and was specifically there to get in-depth information on human anatomy and biology once they realized what she was doing she would be thrown in the brig however reptilian zindy ships would come out of nowhere and suddenly start attacking the vessel the reptilians would not only be successful in taking out half of enterprise's security crew but also recovering the prisoner herself however this would come at a cost to them they would lose one of their members a reptilian that would be captured albeit he was dead as well as the technology on him including their blaster weapons while this would give some foresight into the anatomy and technology of the enemy they were fighting it was small consolation to the starfleet crew again humanity seemed to be on the losing end of this war the nx01 continued to struggle with disappointment after disappointment and yet they still persevered finally they would catch a break as they discovered the anomalies were actually being generated by a sphere kind of like the one they had found before not only that after extrapolating information they were able to determine that it wasn't just one sphere but 50 that surrounded the expanse itself this would allow them to generally predict where anomalies existed and how to avoid them however there would be another major question why would someone create all of these structures that appeared to specifically be designed to rip apart the space between them and to be honest i have to wonder why are they the only ones that discovered this you're telling me all of the species that exist within the expanse were just sitting around things were fine nothing seemed to be going wrong all of a sudden these anomalies start appearing and no one noticed it'll be explained in the future that there are some aliens that are in another dimension that are kind of impacting the events but still seems kind of weird that only starfleet would discover what's going on and look more into it it doesn't make a ton of sense but then again as i mentioned even for starfleet this only opened up more questions they had no idea what was going on why would someone do this as i've noted this would be the beginning of a good luck streak if you can call it that after a alien who was attempting to capture and effectively sexually assault sato decided to turn over a new leaf and give them coordinates of a zindy colony that was assisting in constructing the weapon that was going to be used to destroy earth the crew would sneak onto the planet and capture the head technician of the facility though interestingly after investigation and some research they would realize that this zindy colony had no idea that they were producing technology and weaponry that would be used to attack or exterminate humanity in fact the lead technician they had captured seemed devastated by the news ultimately the zindy would offer to assist them in sabotaging the last shipment from the colony which would stall the weapon that was nearing completion during this time the zindy who wanted to destroy earth would arrive and the humans would additionally sneak an isotope onto their ship that could track them unfortunately the ship would utilize a subspace gateway that prevented them from finding them after they entered into it i know this is a short if not a little confusing video but it really is just a string of minor plot points between four or five episodes that shows where the ark is going we're going to be getting into some very deep breakdowns and even the escalation of the war in the near future however everything that's happened up to now may have been for nothing what's up lore masters it's been a while since we broke down the zindy war to recap the nx01 enterprise had been consistently attempting to determine who and what this indie were as well as to stop them from creating a mega weapon which they'd used to attack earth they had discovered that the distortions and gravity wells within the expanse were being artificially constructed and ultimately every time they would find a new clue there would be more questions raised rarely any answers these aberrations caused by the distortions would be devastating they would wreak havoc on the ship this would include one of them which would strike archer while he was attempting to save to paul the captain would be infected with parasites from the hit and they would ultimately inhibit his ability to remember long term anything from after he got hit at least it's never really explored but i wonder if these parasites weren't sent on purpose we ultimately know that all of this is being put together by the sphere builders and perhaps they did this to ensure the nx01 would not be able to accomplish its mission this also brings me to another interesting conclusion for the universe of star trek to be at any point positive things can only happen in a certain way if they don't if they deviate even just a little then it's effectively the end of everything good to that point with captain archer out of the fight it would leave to paul in command unfortunately the female vulcan would not be up to the task with every mission and attempt to stop the weapon failing earth ultimately was destroyed and the zindy ensured that humans became an extinct race the survivors of all remaining earth colonies less than 6 000 eat your heart out battlestar galactica found refuge in a system far far from the expanse all of this happening without the captain being able to remember it these 6 000 people only one convoy would finally make it to their home and that convoy would have been escorted by the enterprise this is where the last vestiges of humanity would exist trying to stay quiet and out of the way it would be ironic that the vulcan high command would reach out to tapal while she was helping the convoy for her safety of course saying it's the human's fault for trying to expand so quickly when they weren't ready of course it was the vulcans that held the humans back for over a hundred years ensuring their building of faster ships defenses and scanning technology would be stunted as well and then when earth was about to be destroyed the vulcans did nothing they stayed back and watched as everyone was murdered and then again they blamed it on humanity for it happening while i'll admit it's not 100 the fault of the vulcans they did play a part in this and not defending humanity when humanity needed them after what the vulcans required the united earth to go through was definitely one of the most cowardly things i've ever seen the vulcans do time would do its thing and events would still occur the crew of the enterprise continued with their lives some becoming captains and others just staying on the ship drowning themselves in their duties and all while the zindy ravaged the alpha quadrant the destroyers of humanity set up bases and would have ships that would roam the universe looking for the last remnants of the united earth during all this time phlox failing to cure archer returned home and continued to work on treatment but he would largely be unsuccessful it would take a long long time but the doctor would be able to invent a machine that could cure archer and with this cure he discovered something amazing the regions where the machines had destroyed the parasites wouldn't only destroy them in the present but in the past as well this does raise an interesting question though if all of the parasites were destroyed in the past why didn't that impact the present we're watching t'paul states that this could alter history if they got rid of all the parasites which is possible but they did destroy this one cluster that now isn't showing up anywhere in theory if the cluster had been destroyed in the past then he would have never known about its existence it's possible i guess that they all loved archer so much that they held on to the memories and didn't lose them but it's kind of weird unfortunately the doctor's affiliation and affinity for humans would be known by the zindy and they hired a eurydian to follow him if he ever left his home planet and once he had the zindy would be able to identify the last colony of the humans they would dispatch six of their own ships to handle the situation with the zindy on the way flox and to paul would attempt to talk captain tucker into letting them use the warp cord to destroy the rest of the parasites but the former engineer declined as power was at a premium and was needed for weapons and with tepal and phlox shut down the nx01 enterprise would move to engage the zindy this indie fired on the nx01 its shields holding after the initial volley while the vulcans had removed themselves from the fight the andorians weren't afraid to assist having given advanced technology to the nx01 including shields the enterprise and its allies engaged the zindy but they were outmatched two to one three zindy ships would be disabled or destroyed but it would be all for naught as the uss intrepid which was disabled forcing it to disengage and the nx01 would lose its shields and the bridge be destroyed the zindy began beaming aboard and slaughtering what was left of the crew to paul convinces the captain and flocks to finish the procedure however but the equipment would be damaged archer would ultimately decide to cause an implosion on the nx01 enterprise in theory this would eradicate the parasites but it's also going to destroy the ship the captain tells flox and to paul to leave the ship as they wouldn't be harmed the zindy were only after humans after all however because they are big damn heroes both tapal and phlox would stay and assist archer to buy him time the three of them would die but not before activating the implosion and erasing the parasites completely this would reset everything with a very pushy archer making depaul his sexy nurse ultimately i was on the fence in breaking down this part of this indie war it technically does fit but has a reset button i do think it shows a possible attempt by the sphere builders to stop the crew though and portrays what could have happened if archer was taken out of the fight which is something worthy of breaking down what's up lore masters one of the aspects of the zindy war that was done exceptionally well was showing how absolutely desperate the situation could get often archer and his crew were either in a no-win situation or there were some instances where the captain would make what may have been the right choice but wasn't the moral one as we continue with this indie war arc the next significant event is found in the episode similitude where the chief engineer tripp is hurt and goes into a coma the nxo1 enterprise is of course stuck in a place of doom where it will be destroyed soon if they can't get the engines online nothing new there however there is hope dr phlox has a lisarian desert larvae when implanted with another species dna it clones the person effectively makes a perfect copy the idea would be to clone trip and then use the neural tissue from the clone to fix the original so that he will live the clone's life cycle is normally 15 days so it won't be around forever and there won't be any pain from the procedure and again the symbiote will live its full lifespan this is an interesting situation as always i try to be self-aware when i take a look at things like this and do self-checks in order to be a better person on spec i don't hate this plan i'm uncomfortable with it they are growing a life to harvest organs and then let it die however right now that person will grow have a normal life and not be impacted well normal life for a symbiote it does make me question why if in the 21st century we have the ability to use stem cells to help create or repair pieces of tissue at the moment they can't just do that on enterprise but it's whatever the situation they are doing with this clone also known as sim is something that i think is morally grey but may not be in the wrong again they believe they are growing a person who will experience their full life and have an operation that won't hurt them if the crew doesn't do this that life won't exist at all so it comes down to personal preference if you'd want to be born and allowed to live your life ultimately to save someone else and then die really quickly i don't know that i would choose the life that sim went through even if everything had gone to plan versus non-existence but that is a subjective choice i think many people would prefer to exist versus just not exist at all so i don't judge it too harshly i also don't think this is currently on the scale of decisions made by other captains like when picard set up a buoyant identity crisis effectively ending that species when janeway killed two vics or when cisco bombed an entire planet of defenseless people in for the uniform the fate of the earth is in the balance and the natural life cycle of a creature is barely inconvenienced so again to reiterate the create clone trip and let them grow arguably they are making him work on the enterprise but as he begins to get older he gets the memories from tucker's life yeah and so i would guess this is something he'd want to be doing technically he's not forced to do it if it's what he loves however that gets us to where the complications begin and why this is included in the zindy war arc dr phlox discovers that the operation that they thought would not harm the newly created clone now known as sim as i've discussed is going to kill him and this is where things get real the show presents it like they need trip in order for the overall mission to succeed and this entire situation is honestly more complex it's not just one person must die in order for the other to live but the fate of all humanity is in the balance but that brings up an interesting question one i think archer and phlox would ask themselves how many lives are worth sacrificing for the entire species one person for an entire civilization seems easy but how many lives before it becomes not worth it if the entire civilization is going to be destroyed unless they get rid of a certain percentage of the population what's the stopping point for that percentage is it okay for 90 of a species lifetime be cut short to save the other 10 should 95 be slaughtered what if it takes millions of lives to die early so that only five people can live their full lifetime if that's too many people dying why are the five people's lives suddenly worth less than if it was 10 of the population what makes hundreds of thousands of people any more important than the five if you argue that it is to preserve the species then is a civilization that is willing to sacrifice anywhere from one person to 90 of their own people to stay alive worth saving i would also expect everyone who thinks allowing mass genocide to save the entire species is okay to be rooting for the bad guys when they create bunkers in other shows and let everyone else suffer also for humans it only takes 160 people to carry on a civilization as normal to ensure that things continue without genetic issue so are we willing to cut it down to that small of a number and again what if we could only save 150 people then does everyone die i know this feels like a tangent and not related to star trek but it is no small matter that phlox and archer are having to deal with and i love that they take it very seriously to their credit they even talk it through with sim so he's informed and can give his thoughts and hell when sim states that he only has a few days left anyway so who cares archer says that's not how we see it at this point i truly believe that archer is being one of the best captains we've ever seen he is better than both janeway and cisco in the comparable situations he's talking with the person and walking through the choices and the consequences however the situation gets more complicated sim brings up a possibility where an enzyme that was created by an extremist group could extend his life and so trip surviving isn't necessary one of the problems with this is that the enzyme is untested there is some evidence that it works but there's no guarantee it's not a sure thing and they won't know if the enzyme works until it's too late and both sim and trip may die one of the very human aspects of archer is his response to all of this he orders sim to go through with the operation he's going to force him to do it or at least he states he will he says this because he wants to save trip he wants his friend back he needs to have him back now archer previously did state that if they weren't in the expanse under the situation that they are he might not do any of this but that's not where they are that's not the situation however even if the mission is absolutely critical part of archer is choosing trip over sim because he likes tripp more now to be clear and just to be honest i don't think that was the only reason i do believe archer was ultimately doing it because of the mission we even see it at the end of the episode where archer says that part of why he is forcing sim to do this is for sim's sister looking at the episode proper the only real issue i have with the writing is that archer is given an out sim ultimately decides to do it and so archers let off the hook he should have been forced to ultimately make the decision the writers could have went cliche and written it in where sem is forced to or some makes the decision ultimately but we know what archer's choice would have been i think it would have added to his character and would have allowed us to judge him against janeway cisco and picard when they were in similar circumstances another fun thing that i came up with is perhaps to not let the audience know have a scene where sim walks into the sickbay with flocks and archer and have him say i want us to discuss this one last time i don't know that i need to die and then cut to the scene where we see one of the trips being sent out into space because he died i think that could have added a lot of mystery we don't know which way they went or which trip it is and at the end of the day would it matter this trip had all of the memories of the other trip he had all the wants all of the desires so is it really the same person or not at the end of the day i decided to conclude this episode even though it is on the edges of the zindy war because it had shown how desperate they were and what they were willing to go through the enterprise was one ship a lone ship with no allies and no help well no allies yet they had to do everything to survive to save earth and they were willing to do what had to be done in the last analysis of the zindy war we broke down the sacrifice and morally grey decisions that arises during this conflict today we're going to be analyzing a few things that don't necessarily make a ton of sense let's get into it in enterprises carpenter street daniels appears and tasks both jonathan archer and depaul with traveling back in time to stop three zindy who are trying to create a toxin that will kill all of humanity these reptilians are creating a disease that is specifically designed to target the individual blood types of various humans this does bring up a few questions which they try to answer kind of like for instance why isn't daniel's taking care of the issue himself it took him a long while to get permission to interact with me there are clearances he said it would take too much time and why is there a rush for a time traveler i would think he would have all the time in the world he said the three zindy traveled to earth from our century that's not an answer it's just bringing up the fact that there's a problem however if i had to guess i do think that this only reinforces my theory that the time agents are more morally ambiguous than they let on at the end of the episode not only does the nx01 crew get to keep the virus and analyze it but they also keep the zindy and the zindi technology this is quite a win for archer it's also something that an organization like the temporal police that are just trying to quote unquote restore the timeline might be against so either this was done off the books by daniels who let them keep everything or the organization is just playing the nx01 crew to get what they want i guess it could be a form of 4d chess where they are doing it to even the odds but this is extremely messy also you can't really tell me that getting archer and depaul to go back in time to stop the zindy has less paperwork than sending an agent to do the same thing since it's a temporal incursion you would think that they'd have a pretty quick turnaround time on addressing these facts or again and i can't stress this enough they are agents of time they can actually do this at their leisure regardless sent back in time jonathan and topal would be and after some wacky fish out of water hijinks hey which includes not seeing a dog in a car even when they had scanners that would clearly detect it putting a car in the wrong gear and driving it likely destroying the engine and robbing an atm the two finally find out that the zindy are paying a man to collect all of the different blood samples from individual humans why this indie didn't just go to a blood bank and get what they needed versus having a man become a body snatcher i'll never know but anyway this guy would bring the zindy knocked out humans and the aliens would test the different blood types to create the virus archer and paul find out about it and they capture the would-be villain jonathan goes in undercover and ultimately discovers the lab of badness there isn't a lot to talk about when it comes to jonathan and to paul stopping these guys except for one small piece at the end when jonathan has the zindy dead to rights the zindy states that the humans will not destroy their people why jonathan doesn't try to reason with him or why the crew never goes out of their way to send messages that humanity has no want or need to fight is beyond me i know there are little points here and there where they try to convince people but they don't really make a go of it they simply just try to find and stop the weapon versus also diplomatic routes honestly i feel like the nx01 enterprise and even the united earth did a pretty poor job of trying to convey that they don't want to fight anyone and they won't even in the future but anyway as stated the nx01 gets all of the attack including the zindy and everybody moves forward i know there's not a lot here but there's not a lot to the episode it's a part of the zindy war but effectively it's filler so there's not a ton to add alert the crew it's gonna get rough if there is one thing about the zindy war arc in enterprise that is dissimilar to most all of the rest of trek it's the slow burn the build-up of the story is probably on par with that of deep space nine's dominion war and even then the actual build-up of the dominion war may not be as nuanced as the build-up to the finale of enterprise's zindy war it's really interesting to see how well the writers did in legacy trek when they took their time and let the story tell itself however getting into the breakdown proper for the past few episodes we've really been seeing that slow burn starting to get a lot hotter we can see it getting closer to the boiling point in the enterprise episode proving grounds the humans were starting to piece everything together and now with the ability to chart many of the distortions that had been destroying the ship the nx01 enterprise was able to get through the expanse much faster however they were still only one ship no backup no resources no real allies this meant that sometimes they'd have to take risks that were generally unadvisable among them included going through some of the phenomena you know the stuff they were trying to avoid because they couldn't take the few days that it would require to get around it it would ultimately be a bad idea as the vessel would be crippled and losing power within one of the distortions however the humans would find that they weren't without allies any longer as the nx01 enterprise is saved by an indorian ship commanded by one man and that man would be known as shran the andorian captain advises his human counterpart that he has come to help the humans that while the vulcans didn't have the united earth's back the andorians would rise to the occasion this all while taking some pot shots at depaul and the vulcan high command but we've come to your aid we've come into the expand when they refused at the end of the day we know this is not the complete truth however charan's not wrong the vulcan's decision to not help and to disagree with the humans was a pretty large slight at least in my opinion it is surprising if not a little frustrating that this did not cause some significant damage to the relations between the two peoples on the human side but that's a conversation for another time due to the distortion the nxo enterprise was pretty badly damaged and shran offers to help archer fix his ship here's an interesting question we know that trans vessel has advanced sensors and can observe the zindy without them knowing what are the chances he knew enterprise was about to be in trouble and let their ship get tore up so he could come in and save the day remember the andorians were almost immediately there when the nx01 is about to lose power so you're telling me they weren't in communications range before that i mean it's possible all this happened as presented but given what we know seems kind of suspect on that score it takes but a simple throwaway line as to why the andorians don't have to worry about the distortions within the expanse and we're off to the races at least they address it i guess many of the moons show evidence of extensive weapons bombardment anyway with the help of the andorians the new alliance is able to identify a system where there has been a lot of weapons testing they also identify four zindy ships that are escorting the weapon itself on another note we have been seeing as a side arc the distrust and issues within the zindy council this is starting to become more and more an issue where we observe how the different races and the council members interact it's also worth noting that the reptilians appear to be the main aggressors of all the species it's a nice touch that we'll see in the finale allow me to introduce myself my name is shran of the andorian mining consortium given the advanced nature of the andorian technology shiran takes his ship into the system and lies to the zindy stating that they are a simple mining consortium looking for archerite the andorians begin scanning claiming that the sensors are omnidirectional and because of this they're able to get a few bits of information about the weapon when the zindy demand the ship leaves shran ultimately does to keep their cover but the vessel leaves slowly no one threatens the andorian mining consortium after all they bow to no one why this indie don't question a mining consortium vessel that has military-grade weapons is beyond me but we'll just keep it moving shran archer and to paul review the data and confirm that the sphere is indeed the weapon they're looking for however based on what they can see it appears that the object of mass destruction had been compromised and wasn't working properly this enlarged thanks to a previous ally archer had made along the way the plan would be pretty simple the nx01 enterprise would cause a distraction while the andorians would swoop in and grab the object archer of course would be on trans vessel calling all of the shots the zindy killed seven million humans not endorians i won't put the fate of my people in the hands of the imperial guard once they had the weapon they would scan it and then get it back to starfleet command as soon as possible easy peasy interestingly while this entire affair is built up over the episode the operation itself is actually super easy it's barely an inconvenience the dialogue consistently points out that it's four on one or four on 2 and yet the nx01 enterprise pretty neatly takes on two zindy ships disabling the engines of either one or both the andorians arrive and take the weapon without ever being challenged and no one is pursued by any of the remaining vessels it's almost too easy and something that's never questioned however surprise surprise the andorians were not all they said to be they wished to steal the technology of the zindy to assist in conflicts against the vulcans this was never seen archer is put into an escape pod and advised the nx01 enterprise won't be able to find trans ship because while they were helping fix the nx01 they had actually sabotaged the sensors of course this would be one of the few times archer isn't an idiot and they were prepared for the sabotage they identified and fixed the sensors pretty easily when confronted trans stated that they had no issues with humans but the andorians were taking the weapon back to indoria they had to ensure they could fight against the vulcans instead of allowing the weapon to fall into the hands of the andorians archer activates it and nearly destroys the andorian vessel shrin and his ship would limp back home while the enterprise would return to its search to take on the zindy though it is interesting how it took so long for the enterprise to get to where it was to almost instantly return to the barrier and then back again now i did say that they could move a lot faster however that was a large part of space that they had went across but whatever movies make it seem like you can go halfway across the galaxy anyway so why am i complaining here i also guess those fuel issues they were having wasn't a big problem at this point right before the nx01 goes to warp they do receive an encoded message from the underway and ship while those in power at the andorian imperial guard may not have been completely forthcoming and had no intention of helping the humans at least one indorian on the vessel did the nxo1 would receive detailed scans of this indie weapon and be able to pass the information to starfleet command at least in this instance the andorians ultimately gained the friendship of one pink skin i watched the incoming telemetry with the other members of the council seven million lives what's up lore masters it is my opinion that even with all of its flaws there are stories and writing aspects of star trek enterprise that far exceed most any other track at least as a conglomeration an example of this would be what we're going to be talking about today the zindy war in today's episode aptly named stratagem we get to see yet another one of the many sacrifices the crew of the nixo 1 have to make this time it would be another chipping away of their morals their integrity and their very soul the show starts with both archer and degra you know the zindy who is the architect of star trek's death star and in this episode apparently they were successful in annihilating earth and the nxo1 enterprise has been destroyed a few weeks later the weapon was launched it destroyed my planet wow i've uh never seen that one before using the same plot points aside it is an interesting look not because we see degree and archer having to survive but because it's all a lie the crew of the enterprise found degra and his cohorts in a smaller ship than what the nx01 was they were able to easily disable it and took them prisoner the doctor then realized he could wipe the memories of dagra and so did it in an attempt to get information out of the zindy after his mind was wiped archer would pretend that everything was successful but he was thrown into a prison and at that point he would try to gain a relationship with degra there are two really great points to this arc that are subtle subplots that are never spoken but again done very well first we see the regret that degra has both when he thinks that everything was successful but his life went to hell and when he knows that it was all a trick but he still has to do what he has to do seven million lives were extinguished in front of my eyes he doesn't necessarily want to kill people but he does believe it's the only way to save lives zindy lives archer conversely hates the man he realizes that this is the person that created the machine that killed 70 million people and would ultimately destroy all of earth i asked myself how many of those were children degree wanted to remove all of humanity every moment that archer isn't with him you can see how much he hates having to act like he actually likes degra and it would seem that his pain would pay off degree would ultimately give the coordinates of the planet where the weapon was being built because his family was located there it's a long story i would encourage you to watch the episode if you don't remember but for the most part again degra believes that some of the zindy turned against other zindy and they were looking for his family to see if they survived the attack however before archer can confirm that these coordinates really are where his family would be degra figures out that it was all a ruse and tries to play it off that he had always known and these weren't the coordinates where the weapon was when archer says he thinks he's lying that degree was being honest at that point it's just so wonderfully played i'd be willing to bet those coordinates are real then i suggest you proceed there at maximum warp the zindy then tells him to go there at maximum warp trying to use reverse psychology on them it is a really good episode and one of the reasons i am being very vague on the plot points because i believe this is an episode that should really be watched just for being a good episode as stated at first degra claims that he knew it was a lie the whole time and that's why he told them where to go archer truly believes the weapon is here however the problem is is that if he's wrong they'll have wasted three weeks and the nxo1 enterprise might not recover from that they had to be sure so archer did what humans are really good at deception land of course for those chemical signatures full impulse get him out of here you'll never get close to the weapon our defense perimeter will destroy you through a minor ruse he is able to convince degra that the nx01 had used zindy technology to get to the planet very quickly he then orders an attack and degra gives it away accidentally that the weapon is there stating that the defenses will destroy the nx01 enterprise i just absolutely love this entire episode after confirming that this is where the weapon is they do wipe all of the zindy's mines and leave them back on their ship though they couldn't completely cover their tracks which may come in later as usual this is one of those episodes where i have to address it but there's not a lot there to address it's a bridge what's up lore masters i've said it in the past and i'll say it again one of the greatest things that's ironically a detriment when people originally watch it about star trek enterprise is its slow build up during the zindy war honestly sitting down and re-watching it makes me love this arc more and more of the many episodes that we have reviewed enterprise's harbinger is a good example of what i'm talking about while there are technically three different arcs here a plot a plot b and plot c i'm only going to be focusing on two for the purposes of this breakdown that is specifically the issues between the leadership of the makos and starfleet as well as the dying alien spy that's found for the moment let's focus on the issues with lieutenant reid and major hayes so that i am not unclear here this is all completely on lieutenant reed's side he thinks that the makos are out to replace his security team and turn starfleet into some form of military outfit additionally he thinks that major haze wants his job because the mako leader doesn't feel that lieutenant reid is up to doing it to be succinct here lieutenant reed is an idiot while major hayes does think his makos are better than starfleet security for various reasons and should be utilized in a more military style i don't think there's any real direct attempt to take over starfleet security operations not by haze and not by mako hq i have no problems taking orders from you however i could see this as being a precursor to the makos moving in on starfleet security eventually and usurping them one day as stated that wouldn't be the goal of haze but would be a natural consequence if the major is successful in this operation so while reed is an idiot there is some basis for his concern what i do like about the conflict between the two is how organic and natural it is they are both concerned about saving humanity both sides want to ensure that earth isn't destroyed and they are both on the same side they just believe that they're going to be better suited for the task however archer lacking the managerial leadership god gave a milk cow doesn't see the issues that are brewing between the two to that end he doesn't address anything that's happening but in fact orders malcolm to begin having his own security team and the senior leadership begin training with the makos the mako's tactics and technology are two three years beyond star fleets why not let them pass on some of that expertise i suppose by senior leadership that doesn't include the captain though since we never see him again just wonderful leadership there 10 out of 10 would subscribe interestingly even though reed and hayes are at each other's throats the training is going really well oh you were looking at his hands when you should have been watching his eyes good match we see that the makos are fit for combat and are there to do exactly what they say they are going to do and that starfleet security aren't any slouches either i would kind of question why there's only four makos and four security staff to defend the ship but we can assume maybe they're doing this in shifts but again this speaks to how great the organizations are even with their leaders at each other's throats these people are professionals they are working to become better and they are succeeding i honestly don't think the writers get enough credit for how they bring all these little details together it's unfortunate this kind of writing is much rarer than you think with most writers especially those in trek generally they make the non-main character groups a lot weaker a lot easier to defeat i love that every one of these people whether they're a primary or secondary character gets their hits in and they're both a part of starfleet security or one of the makos all of them are a real threat when they suit up ultimately all of the conflict culminates in a fight between both breed and haze and they just beat the living hell out of each other and again i really believe that lieutenant reid is a legit security risk here this issue he has will get everyone killed if it continues on and while archer does come in the end and try to act like he's doing something ultimately it's between the two to make it work i do like the arc but it does show how just utterly stupid archer is here but on the topic of archer let's discuss the other piece the nx01 encounters some odd spatial anomaly that they have no idea what's going on and this ship and the people can't survive in its location is exactly equidistant to five of the spheres do you think the spheres have something to do with creating this thing it's possible they are able to recover an alien who appears to be about to die they try to revive him and realize that he may be connected with what's going on with the zindy the alien claims to be a part of some test and is there against his will but he tries to kill them all in the end this is again another good introduction of the sphere builders it adds an aspect to who they are i also want to say that i don't think he was entirely lying to them when he says he was there for tests he states that they were doing some kind of scientific evaluation on him and i do think that his purpose there was dual they were truly seeing how much he could endure and how the change of the entirety of the expanse would impact him as well as the nx01 enterprise he was also tasked with trying to destroy the nx01 if he could get away with it it's interesting because i feel like you could miss that subtle piece if you weren't watching ultimately he would fail when surprise surprise hayes and reed work together to ensure that he'll never get off a biobat again but the tests that the severe builders were doing on him were probably successful ultimately that's really all we're left with and it's pretty realistic you ever rarely get all of the evidence at once it's just you get a piece at a time as you travel forward harder and harder to surprise you captain what's up lore masters i really have to say that throughout this in the arc this episode is probably the best for me up to this point it questions the morals of the characters the crew is pushed to the brink and everyone is stressed the stakes are high they're palpable the cliffhanger leaves you on the edge of your seat and makes you want to go into the very next episode to see how it ends hell while watching this for my review i wanted to do just that and i've seen this series a dozen times there appears to be considerable activity around two of the inner planets numerous ships all zindy and picking up a large array of satellites they're generating a detection grid looking at the episode proper it begins with the nx01 enterprise arriving at the red star finally the culmination of the previous events have arrived all of the decisions made to this point all of the sacrifices the deaths the killing leaving people stranded it had all come down to this they were close and were ready to take the fight back to the zindy but the question became how a large detection net surrounded the planet they needed to get to and there was no way to bypass it without causing substantial damage that would be noticed while figuring this out the nx01 enterprise would place itself behind a planetoid in order to hide they didn't want to be detected until they figured out what had to be done look sir we can't risk it fire while attempting to conceive of this plan however unfortunately they had missed a small listening outpost that was on that planet the outpost had identified them before they realized their mistake the installation however had no weapons nor any way of defending itself additionally it would not be able to send any information while it was facing the one so basically the enemy of humanity created a defenseless station and placed it on a planet where it ultimately could be destroyed before sending out the information no wonder the sphere builders successfully outwitted the zindy anyway archer orders the destruction of the listening outpost and the zindy there are killed this largely due to the fact that the starfleet crew couldn't take the risk of being discovered even if it meant killing defenseless people the tension and sadness of what they were doing can really be felt here it's extremely well done with the nx01 undetected as far as they knew at least they would decide to use an ace up their sleeve in a previous episode that barely had anything to do with this arc and that's why i didn't cover it the crew recovered an insectoid shuttlecraft the really only important piece of that episode so you're welcome the plan would be to utilize this ship to get past the screen and identify where the big bad weapon of badness was tripp and mayweather are dispatched and ultimately do find it after some digging realizing that they had to go underwater to identify where it was they report back and a plan to destroy the vessel is hatched ultimately the crew would plant explosives on the captured zindy ship and send it back to destroy the weapon it would need a pilot and thus this would be a suicide mission an hour ago i gave the command to kill threes indian cold blood a month ago i had phlox create a living being in order to use some of its tissue then i watched him put it to death sounds like you're saying this is some sort of penance i'm saying i won't order anyone else to die after everything that had occurred everything that had been done archer orders that he specifically will deliver it i do say a lot of things about archer i do not respect a lot of his choices hell even his ideas but right here in this moment this specific point in time i do believe we see the captain that the dialogue and the show tells us exists we see a man who has taken stock of who and what he is what he has done and what he has become and he takes responsibility for it it is crucial to history that you do not sacrifice yourself my concern is with preventing the deaths of billions of people if that's a problem for history then history will have to suffer while preparing for the mission he would be contacted by the agent from the 31st century who tells him that he can't go that he must not die on this mission archer demands that the agent return him to finish what he started he couldn't worry about the federation whatever that was he had to worry about the united earth it wasn't the future that concerned him it was the present again i think this is a great scene and character arc for archer he doesn't know what's going to happen he doesn't know about the federation starfleet hell he doesn't know about the federation but we do however the captain can't really worry about that his mission is to defend and take care of his people and save earth and that's what he intends to do fortunately for the future the captain would be caught unfortunately it would be by the reptilians they torture him for a bit and says he'll tell them what's going on but only if he's able to talk to daegra while talking with the other zindy he's able to convince the man to discuss all of this with the council and we do begin to see a fracturing of the zindy themselves archer claims that the reptilians are in league with the sphere builders and of course the reptilians aren't helping their case as all they want to do is kill the humans on top of that the zindy had actually identified where the nx01 enterprise was and the reptilians begin to attack it they demand that archers stay with them to be tortured and here we are the enterprise is about to be destroyed and archer is destined to a life-long event of being tortured end of episode recently i've talked about build up how to do it right and how it's done wrong in some trick series i truly believe that the zindy arc for any of its faults gets built upright and it shows real emotion another piece of deck he decks depressurizing we can't take much more of this what's up lure masters if there was an episode that ever really epitomized 2020 it'd be the star trek enterprise episode damage this story confronts our heroes with loss addiction hopelessness faint hopefulness and betrayal to be fair it ultimately is a bridge episode one that requires the crew to get from here to there but it's still powerful in my last analysis the nx01 enterprise was under attack and getting absolutely tore up there was no way for them to win that fight and i think depaul knew it though i do wonder is she frozen at the end due to her addiction problems or does she understand that they have lost the fight and so ultimately accepted her fate i honestly think it's the latter she knew the nx01 wouldn't win and thus logically was simply accepting it part of why i believe this is because as soon as the attack stops she jumps right back into action looking at the sensors and trying to get the ship to safety unfortunately the enterprise wasn't going anywhere it was completely disabled you had no right to recall my ships and you had no authorization to launch an attack the reason the enterprise is no longer in jeopardy the fact that it's not going to be destroyed was because the council had voted to stop the attack we don't know the actual votes of that decision but i'm guessing it was three to two the aquatics arboreals and primates voting to stop the assault with the reptilian and insectoids voting to continue it and of course because of this we see the division i discussed before the cracks growing ever more additionally the council orders that archer be released from the reptilians and given to the aquatics who then send him back to his ship well what remains of his ship where are the other members of the council we didn't want them here why we've learned something about the reptilians that concerns us there's distrust amongst you the zindy trio then reach out to a sphere builder who admits that the sphere builders did help the reptilians go back in time to try and kill humans this was in large part due to the insectoids and reptilians threatening to leave the council if they didn't the sphere builder advises the nerd duels not to contact her again unless they have the full council there which does nothing to help the increasing division it only further pushes the cracks we see as bad as things may seem for the zindy though they are worse for the nx01 enterprise the primary work coil scribe that has to be rebuilt from scratch how long a couple of weeks if we had the parts we don't as it stands now warp drives out of the question engineering is the safest place to be right now indeed the vessel was dead in the water some of it inaccessible most of the ship wasn't even safe to traverse as exploding consoles and power surges were rampant they were literally having the ceiling falling from above even in their current state though the enterprise would assist to call for help by another ship that had taken substantial damage of their own though archer does admit that part of the reason why is because that other ship could help them too the other vessel features a group of explorers that had not encountered the spatial anomalies and thus had been disabled captain archer advises them of the spheres that are causing the issue and even assist them in protecting against the anomalies while the alien captain and archer discuss possible trade options archer requests a warp coil the enterprise's warp core had been disabled and so warp drive was impossible for them unfortunately for archer the other ship only had one and they needed it to get home without warp that alien crew wouldn't have enough food to make it back archer of course hates to hear this but the two trade what they can and the enterprise begins limping towards nebula so that it won't be detected things go from bad to worse not only for the situation with the ship but morally it's not a star system there was another embedded number i started three days from now how far away are the coordinates four light years we'll need at least warp three to make it in time archer learns that dagra and some of the council are willing to discuss the situation the human vessel may have a chance to stop the attack however the coordinates they are given shows that the rendezvous is three days away at warp three they'll never make it if they don't have a warp core archer is now faced with the trolley dilemma well kind of at least did you ever do anything you thought was unethical twice why i'm about to step over a line line i thought i would never cross and given the nature of our mission it probably won't be the last pragmatically i don't think this situation is the worst of all options what archer is about to do isn't moral by any means but it is the right decision the enterprise will disable the other ship temporarily still their warp coil and then leave enough food and provisions to avoid the anomalies so that the alien ship can get home it's a gamble for sure with no warp war that ship will be a sitting duck for any marauders or other species in this dangerous part of the galaxy however they still have a decent chance of survival and remember if the nx01 enterprise fails humanity has no chance so again while it's not moral it doesn't feel good it's not the worst option if they fight back 10 minutes could be a very long time perhaps we should reconsider negotiation we can't risk tipping them off we have to take them by surprise that'll reduce the losses on both sides we'll disable their ship as quickly as we can beam over extract the warp coil and get out hopefully without any casualties honestly i don't know that it's exactly like the trolley dilemma we aren't seeing instant death though it is worth noting we never observe archer tell anyone nor return for the ship so it's possible that the enterprise left them to their fate i like to think that the captain did talk to the zindy and they went back to help but we honestly don't know the final piece i'll discuss and just discuss it briefly is the addiction issue of depaul i only bring it up because i think it does highlight change tepal never would have become a junkie if not for this indie attack she wouldn't have become who she is now this somewhat mirrors archer who is becoming a military commander not an explorer it's subtle but it shows how wars and conflict aren't just changing of geography or land mass it's a changing of the people hell we see that in tucker who says that archer made the right choice in his attacks i guess ultimately we will see if he did make the right choice though we're in bad shape i can't deny that but we're still in one piece enterprise is a tough ship she took more than anyone could ask her to and then some and so of all of you i wanted to say thank you i only wish i could thank the 18 crewmen who were lost what's up lore masters it is really interesting to watch enterprises the forgotten technically there isn't a lot that happens in this episode and yet it feels so compelling that the story is just it's filled to the brim or at least that's the sense i get the two real themes that play here is trust and coping on one hand we have captain archer who is attempting to convince the zindy arboreals and primates that humanity is not their enemy in fact he's saying it's the sphere builders that are trying to destroy all life and the other arc is the nx01 crew who are endeavoring to accept that they've lost so many that people so young with so much promise could just be gone before we get too deep into this analysis there is one plot hole that i originally believed existed and was going to talk about until a re-watch the more i think about it though the more it may actually be accounted for scanning all frequencies nothing so far maybe they're running late tactical alert it's a spatial anomaly at the beginning of the episode we see the enterprise encounter spatial anomalies the nx01 enterprise is caught off guard and nearly takes damage from it they compensate and immediately after we have dagra's ship and it's never really brought up again why this is significant is because at the end of this episode we see reptilians finding the nx01 and dagra's ship and then dagra has to destroy them this will play a somewhat significant role in future episodes what ties all of it together would be well maybe the sphere builders were watching the nx01 and perhaps after seeing what degra was doing hinted for the reptilians to go looking for them this would explain how the reptilian zindy knew to go into the cloak of a sphere to find them i know there's future dialogue that makes it a little messy that it doesn't quite match up but it would really be nice continuity on the other hand it could also be the way the zindy travel but i more like to think that this was an elaborate ploy that's just me however i am getting a bit ahead of myself recapping the nxo1 enterprise has endured an amazing amount of damage that it still has and the crew is just beginning to get everything put back into place to fix it and they're barely able to do that during this time explosions are still randomly happening and people are getting hurt the ship isn't even under attack and they're still having casualties and with the bulkheads falling around them tripp is told he has to write a letter to a crewman's parents that had died the crewmen died not not the parents that'd be kinda weird i have to confess i've been putting off rightness for a while i convinced myself that my duties on enterprise to precedence but the truth is i didn't want to face the fact that someone's so young with so much promise could just be gone this specific arc with trip is really telling remember in the last episode he told archer that the right move was made to strand those people he had to know they were going to go meet dagra now when the zindy arrive he can barely contain himself he goes off on the former enemies quite a few times this could just be script writing a bad story and them having him do what they need for this episode but it does kind of fit when tripp isn't close to the zindy and especially when he doesn't have to face them it's really easy to say that they need to do whatever it takes to save the world including being their friend now that he's forced to face these these murderers and look them in the eyes having to work with them his point of view may change calculating the blast yields boy you must have been pretty damn excited i mean that beam cut one hell of a swath through florida that's the name of one of the places you destroyed florida why don't you join me in my ready room until they're finished let's stick to the job at hand looking at it from a different perspective when we analyze captain archer and the zindy it's very nuanced archer is attempting to convince them that humanity doesn't want to destroy their homeworld the differences in opinion between the arboreal and primate zimdi are pretty staunch here these tests only confirm the equipment belong to the reptilians also evidence of chronometric distortion time travel the readings could have been fabricated not to trust him no more than you seem to be determined to believe whatever he says if i'm being honest i do think that degra is wanting the humans to be innocent he wants absolution for what he has done he feels like all the deaths are his fault and while he did play a major role in it he is wrong his work is nothing without all of those who helped him from the technicians to the council but i can understand why he would feel like nonetheless it's all on him i think the arboreal is probably the more unbiased though he is exceptionally unreasonable archer answers every one of their questions and provides circumstantial evidence while the arboreal has a right to be skeptical what the hell does he exactly want he does he need a signed confession from the sphere builders and reptilians i mean will we need to get it notarized as well for him to be fair the fate of this planet and people are in the balance so i do get it however he really will just have to accept that at some point it's always going to be circumstantial report we've detected a ship they've just passed through the cloaking barrier on screen reptilians did you invite anyone else we masked a warp trail i don't know how they found us none of that will matter though as a reptilian vessel appears out of nowhere as i had earlier noted and ultimately degrade decides to help archer disable it once disabled the primate zindy kills all of the reptilians on board as you do degra states that the reptilians would have alerted the council ultimately but the thing is right after this he tells archer they have to go to that council so why did all of them have to die exactly he could have admitted that he disabled the zindy ship and it probably would be a bit more sticky true but it beats the hell out of killing them and then someone finding out let's hope that doesn't happen in the future at the end of the day the episode really just gets to the final stages of the season but it is really great if you haven't watched it in a while you should it's better than i can put into words you've brought humans into this chamber degra explain yourself if you expect them to leave here alive i have to admit that as i watch these back to back i am beginning to be enthralled with the zindy war story arc in the latest star trek enterprise episode the council archer and hoshi appear before the zindy to plead their case and why the zindy weapon should not be launched to destroy humanity it's actually pretty interesting this episode barely has any combat and it's basically humanity put on trial archer and hoshi being the defendants pleading their case before the races of the zindi the arboreals and primates are on the side of humanity with the insectoids and reptilians firmly wanting to kill every human alive the aquatics would appear to be the x factor still undecided which is interesting because apparently it takes an act of god for the aquatics to do anything while there are technically two plots here one involving going into a sphere and getting its computer core there's really not a ton there in that respect the computer core will help them in the next few episodes but the more interesting piece of it is the dialogue given to us by the security officer i'm fine maybe that's the problem maybe we're getting a bit too comfortable with losing people 23 men and women on any given mission the limit of acceptable casualties is 20 so is this traditional military doctrine but we've crossed that much a common thread in the last few episodes and continuity of the entire arc really is its exploration on how all of this takes a toll on the people of the nx01 there's a vulcan axiom the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few corporal hawkins understood that that doesn't make his death any more acceptable no but it makes it honorable additionally while i really don't agree with depaul's counter and the use of the tired vulcan maxim i like how she uses it to comfort reed it's a good moment but with that little piece out of the way we'll get back to the a plot the courtroom drama with dagra convinced the zindy primates along with help from the aquatics and the arboreals escort the nx01 enterprise to the council chambers degra detonates a warhead next to a reptilian ship that stands in the way advising them that he will destroy the ship if they don't allow the nx01 to proceed ultimately they relent and we don't yet have our zindy civil war as stated before archer and hoshi go before the various races to argue their points they provide evidence after evidence with counter after counter in the end the humans are basically called liars during this time we learned that the sphere builders had been deified that they helped zindy so much that entire prayers were dedicated to them it's actually an ingenious plan become deities for a people and help them come together so you can use them though ingenius as it is it does bring up two questions first why didn't we see this deification beforehand the zindy ships things they had on them pieces of clothing why all of a sudden are we learning about this nothing pointed to a deification it's a pretty quiet religion but beyond that why are the spill builders attempting to take over this universe anyway why are they trying to move into a new one is there any real purpose to it they've never stated why we know they are part of the temporal cold war but what exactly is the end game here it's weird is their own timeline failing are they just conquerors why do they want to move into the area helm the more i think about it why do they deify themselves before a race to have that race genocide another to win a war why not just go to earth and help the terrans destroy themselves or they become deities before the terrans and use them to take over the galaxy if the terrans are the main goal why use another species it just it if humanity is the ultimate real threat why you know it's just anyway quantum who cares moving on while archer continues to make his arguments the sphere builders move to manipulate the zindy they first approach degra telling him he's going to be a great man unless he does this this doesn't work of course and when he denies them the sphere builders go to the reptilians and promise them dominance during all of this we also have a really good conclusion to tucker's arc your captain thinks there's no one better to make these modifications i agree do me a favor don't try to get on my good side i understand you and i will always be enemies you got that right i can't change what happened to your sister or any of the seven men but i'm risking my life i'm risking the lives of my family i've killed members of my own species all because i'm trying to save both our worlds this way while his hatred of zindy does feel a bit out of nowhere it has progressed through a few episodes and we get to see him come to terms with the fact that they're going to be allying with the very people who killed his sister and who he initially wanted to destroy it's well written and acted ultimately the sphere builders are able to convince the reptilians who trick the council by saying they're open to believing humanity to take the good guys off guard the crew of that ship are the last cindy you'll ever betray they use the piece to ultimately assassinate degra and take over the weapon the reptilians demand that the council fall in line and move to kill all humans or a reptilian insectoid alliance will use the sphere to kill the humans for them the council doesn't relent in the enterprise arboreals and primates move to engage the reptilian and insectoid fleets the reptilians are able to not only defend themselves but they successfully capture hoshi and escape with the weapon and that's where it ends stay tuned because we're going to be getting into it hot and heavy have you assembled your boarding party ready to deploy on your command i wish i was leading it myself your place is on the bridge sir when the makos had joined the nx01 enterprise both sides were quite clearly from two different worlds starfleet security felt that they were being questioned in their ability to defend the ship and felt the makos were just impeding that they needed to stay out of their way throughout this indie war arc and really the series the makos would become a staple of the vessel and would be more than that they would be a part of the crew they were now family and the one thing that cindy were continuing to do was hurt their family on that topic hoshi was finding being captured was not as glamorous as one might think cooperate and this won't be necessary wait after the injection the parasites will invade your neocortex once they begin reconfiguring your synaptic pathways you'll be much more compliant before your primate brain is too badly damaged to understand i want to thank you for helping us destroy your world star trek enterprise also does present us with one of the most evil scenes that i've ever observed and honestly does well in just ticking the reptilian commander into that mustache twirling bad guy slot it's very classic villain trek as they begin to operate on her brain we see a returning of reed and depaul reed has to advise hayes about the loss of his officer this creates some tension between the two and emphasizes how there has been a lot of loss on the enterprise both from starfleet and the makos these recent losses would lead to a conversation between reed and hayes i did everything i could things happened very fast i understand i'm not finished hawkins may well have been a maker but it was my responsibility out there we're all part of the same crew no matter which uniform we wear don't worry about ensensato we'll bring her home it's interesting not a couple of episodes or more ago they were at each other's throat and now we have them discussing how they're both a part of the crew both of them respected each other and they both wanted what was best for everyone mako starfleet didn't matter they were the nxo1 enterprise they wouldn't allow anyone to hurt their people and they were going to get hoshi back it's an extremely touching scene what is more frustrating is how the aquatics are dealing with all this to be clear the reptilians took control of the weapon probably killing multiple arboreals and primates to get it they stole it fired on other zindy ships withdrew from the council and are moving to destroy what could be a completely innocent species even if we remove the piece about how humanity is necessary to save their future they are pausing at what would be blood on their hands humans might be innocent even if they aren't going to save anyone they didn't do anything wrong aquatic reactions are honestly just ridiculous to me the arboreals and primates are ready to attack but the aquatics are needed to give them the edge ultimately archer has to promise to destroy the spheres to save his own people we continue to hear about how slow the aquatics are i just i just find them to be idiots but that's me finally after a lot of cajoling as well as back and forth the aquatics do agree to join the battle and they plan an assault upon the weapon they are largely successful and it forces the reptilians and insectoids to go on the defensive the insectoids and reptilians are taking a large beating and the sphere builders have to step in to prevent the forces from overrunning the weapon with the help of a lobotomized hoshi the reptilians break the encryption preventing them from activating it and once again escape beginning to make their way for earth well they escape but not before the makos do their thing he's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast and he's gotta be fresh they go in and save hoshi but unfortunately have to stand by while the nx01 repairs systems for them to beam back over they do this but not without casualties at the end of the day the makos got their family home and now i'm going to have to admit frustration with the zindy for a second time even though the weapon got away and earth is about to be destroyed they expect archer to destroy the spears that's not exactly what the agreement was the agreement was to help them stop the weapon they still haven't done that once they do then maybe they can take care of those pesky spheres though to be fair i think depaul's counter argument is far far more convincing so here we are basically a bridge episode the enterprise will move to stop the spheres and a strike team will move to stop the weapon thank god that's it time's up it sure is what's up lore masters it has been a long road getting from there to here but now we're at the end of our analysis of this indie war everything has been leading up to this the nx01 enterprise was given the mission to stop the zindy weapon and prevent it from being used to destroy earth and the nxo1 enterprise failed its mission the zindy weapon had been deployed and was now on its way to terra the only thing archer had was a small strike team to stop the apocalypse the captain wouldn't even have the nx01 as that vessel was set to destroy the spheres let's take a deeper look at enterprises zero hour there are effectively four different pieces to break down in this specific episode including the attack on the spheres the impact of the future the attempt to stop the zindy weapon and earth's lack of defenses let's just get into it the first piece to discuss is probably one of the two that we won't have a lot to expand on you wanted to see me sir i think i found a way to boost the deflector pulse without tearing the ship apart but it's gonna mean transferring all impulse power to the array the attack on the sphere by the nx01 enterprise is pretty simple at least to explain it's great to watch they're going to use tek-tek to cause the spheres to explode they hit one specific sphere which will cause the rest to go nova and take them all out because nothing can really be easy the sphere builders realize what's happening and try to stop them by activating that sphere early it will expand the anomalies around it making the space uninhabitable well at least for those in the alpha and beta quadrants sphere builders will be fine this is a problem because the ship will obviously have to power down most all of its systems and get close enough to use energy that will destroy the colonizer's weapon they are given a ticking time bomb as well by flox who states that if they stay too long in this area everyone will start dying due to exposure so it's going to be a great day while attempting the operation they are of course attacked by the sphere builders when they enter who can now survive in this part of space with no negative consequences the makos and starfleet security jump into action and are successful in holding them back ultimately successful at first they don't do too well but even when they begin to fight back successfully it's only a stopgap measure the sphere builders are still able to move throughout the ship and cause issues what's going on ignore it commander you've got less than two minutes things look dicey but the crew is ultimately able to destroy the spheres let's talk about that a moment in the last episode i was very critical of the zindy's expectations to ultimately take out the spheres first and i still am you see the zindy they didn't keep up with their part of the deal but that aside i have to admit the destruction of the spherical colonizing parts of doom to save the rest of the alpha and beta quadrants is logical even with counting earth's necessity for the future that future really won't mean a lot if the present isn't protected as i kind of stated before like many other pieces the summation and breakdown of this action is pretty quick but you have to watch it to really fully understand and get the full impact i have a team preparing to board the weapon i've got other things to think about right now let reed or one of the others go to the control platform what are you talking about it's too great a risk if you're killed none of this will happen likewise something that is lacking a lot of depth is that of temporal agent daniels and the temporal cold war he will seemingly randomly pull archer out to warn the captain and tell him to have someone else do a mission this adds very little either it is section 31 trying to manipulate archer and use reverse psychology on him or it's an ineffectual department of the federation or some ally of the federation thereof that doesn't know what they're doing the temporal agent has always been someone who warns of growing threats but seems to never really help arguably future guy helps more than the temporal agent daniels does think about it daniels and his group have the ability to subtly shift the tides of time to help people and if someone else is already doing that i mean i know the time wars were tough but honestly you have to fight by the same rules or you're going to lose just ask cisco anyway agents says that archer has to live yada yada moving on dolum's changing course they're heading for a space station are we in visual range yosemite iii a military installation a research post usually 30 to 40 civilian support the next thing to analyze is that of the defenses of the united earth generally people are very critical of starfleet here there are a few reasons that i can see why earth wouldn't be completely prepared for this attack first you have to remember that it had been roughly under a year since the initial test attack the zindy had had a lot of time years upon years before their attack to develop and construct this weapon humans had less than 12 months to defend against it the humans nor even the vulcans had any understanding the capabilities of the zindy and it appears that they didn't understand how the vortex technology worked remember we know things that the united earth likely doesn't we see the original test weapon come out of a vortex but given how archaic starfleet technology was compared to most other races they may not have detected the use of it even if they had there is still no way to know when or where or how the zindy would come at them again vortex technology is something unique something even the vulcans and andorians don't even know about so smart money would be to have a lot of your fleet running defense on the edges of the terran system in the early 22nd century practical starship warfare doctrine meant that zindy would most likely warp in from afar or vortex from afar not right on top of earth tacticians would probably expect to have an attack on the edges and dear god i just realized i'm an authority when it comes to starship warfare in the trek universe shatner was right about my life and again we know that all of this is untrue that the vortex can appear anywhere but starfleet probably thinks it's more limited than that so having the uss franklin and other defensive ships on the edges of the system ready to stop the vessel before it gets there makes sense and they would be in this defensive formation when they realized their mistake the vessels may be too far away to do any good for earth they wouldn't arrive in time hell i wouldn't be surprised if a large part of their tactics didn't rely on the vulcans the vulcan high command probably did dispatch a vulcan fleet to the terran system it would help alleviate growing fears from the humans who might become erratic might become emotional and the vulcans would definitely not have their fleets sitting right on top of earth expecting an attack to happen like we discussed i will say that i think the defenses of earth would still be lacking it would seem the ultimate weakness of the united earth's starfleet and ultimately the united federation of planets is human apathy and naive goodness the battle of this indie weapon is one that would go down in history daegra's ship appears out of the vortex and is able to catch up the zindy weapon isn't able to fire as quickly as usual because they don't have all of the codes that's an interesting fail safe you can fire with three codes but it will still be slower i don't hate it it actually would help prevent against exactly what happened within the zindy however even though it catches up dagra's ship is still woefully outmatched even with the sparse ships defending the zindy weapon it's not until the greatest non-human of trek history steps up to the plate and ensures they finish their mission there's another vessel approaching at high warp they're asking for you you're not using your head pigskin the assault on the zindy weapon is tenuous they will need hoshi who was still recovering from being tortured to the nines she decrypts and helps them figure out how to overload the weapon starfleet security and the makos alike transport a board and begin to take over the vessel the fight here is great and again i really love how they treat the makos when the makos are on the screen they will not win or lose based on the episode not really if the makos are defeated it's because their enemy is actually that good if they win it's because the makos are the best of the best they feel like a real unit it really brings it together i'm not going to go into depth on it again it's something you should watch they are able to defeat the big bad and destroy the weapon hoshi being able to hold it together so that they are successful unfortunately it would come at the cost of captain archer's life but he did save the united earth fortunately we would never see a stupid continuation where he lives based on a stupid premise this indie war ends here it's a bittersweet moment and unknown future a great ending for great writers that didn't do something incredibly stupid in the end and was likely an attempt to get back for being fired this is truly how the zindy war ends and we're not going to look at anything past it hashtag don't at me let's make sure he has nowhere to go back to they have no shielding on their starboard engines target all weapons

Channel: Lore Reloaded

Views: 214,044

Keywords: Lore, Lore Reloaded, Lore Master, star trek xindi war, star trek xindi attack, star trek xindi reptilian, star trek xindi insectoid, star trek xindi races, star trek xindi avian, star trek xindi weapon, star trek xindi ships, star trek xindi actors, star trek xindi primate, star trek xindi vortex, star trek xindi-aquatic cruiser, star trek xindi explained

Id: dC8Y6jMGhmM

Length: 109min 32sec (6572 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 20 2020