ENT - Terra Prime

[Antiboyscout]

Thought the accompanying video was as chilling as it was brilliant. As someone in the UK, I can't help but see a near perfect replication of the techniques Chuck talked about, in being used to dupe so many people here to vote for Brexit, and so many of those same people still double-down on it over 3 years on. Even when facts state so many of their prime arguments to Brexit have been found to be factually incorrect.

And when I present facts that the EU is going to collapse in on itself within 10 years I am not repudiated, I am accused of wanting, or somehow, trying to cause the EU to collapse.

The people bankrolling Brexit have been thirsty for years for the EU to collapse, Bojo the Bozo got his start writing anti-EU articles like the EU was banning bent cucumbers or planning an invasion of Dover, and other such inanity. I don't know you, but if you are part of the Brexit bunch, then I am quite comfortable saying that you flat out want the EU to collapse and are cheerfully a tool of those deliberately trying to make it happen.

10 years is also a good rough estimate for that.

10 years is a nebulous figure that is far enough in the future to not have to be provable, but close enough to the now to seem scary.

First, thank you for proving me right.

Second. No, 10 years is when the vast majority of baby boomers will retire. That is one of the most powerful and inevitable forces that will cause the collapse.

[CrypticMirror]

First, thank you for proving me right.

Why do I have this feeling that no matter what I said you would have declared victory anyway?

[Antiboyscout]

First, thank you for proving me right.

Why do I have this feeling that no matter what I said you would have declared victory anyway?

Because the person with a preformed idea of the other is you not me.

If you had said nothing I would have said nothing. You could have addressed the 10 year estimate without adding the first part, but you couldn't help yourself.

[Sir Will]

It also could have set up Trip being sympathetic to Terra Prime given what the Xindi did to his sister and his breakdown in season 3. As things stand, he has no reason to be tempted by TP because they are clearly Bond villains from the off. But a Nightwatch model that subtlety puts those thoughts into his head? It could have made for great drama.

That would run counter to the romance subplot that had been building for 2 seasons.

Incidentally, as a big fan and dare I say it follower of George Orwell, I liked the implication that certain words ''are not in the Universal Translator''. Are they just talking about swear words or does it censor anything that does not fit with the liberal/progressive views of the burgeoning Federation?

I'm sure it's just that swear words/obscure slang wouldn't be in there.

[Freebird83]

I really appreciated the accompanying video to this. This is the kind of conversation we need to have to help get us out of the entrenched hole we are in.
I'd just like to thank Chuck for taking the time to make such a video.

[CrypticMirror]

I'm sure it's just that swear words/obscure slang wouldn't be in there.

Yeah, English can generate and add words to itself on a daily basis in the right circumstances; perhaps the godmode UTs of the TNG era could keep up with that, but the more primitive one of the ENT era would probably have significant difficulty in keeping up.

[SpacePaladin]

Part of the Considering Terra Prime side piece reminds me of the Clone Wars numbers debate.

The irony of that shit show is that going by how the canon worked at the time, Karen Traviss was actually correct, as the numbers were established in the Attack of the Clones novelization (which at the time were second only to the movies). She didn't come up with the figures, she merely inherited them. That said, if she had been more familiar with the books, she might have been able to shut down her critics with a 'here's where I/my superiors who gave me the numbers got the figures. If you have a problem, take it up with my bosses, not with me'.

Lama Su: And now to business. You will be delighted to hear we are on schedule. Two hundred thousand units are ready, with another million well on the way.
-AOTC

The callousness of it all struck Obi-Wan profoundly. Units. Final product. These were living beings they were talking about. Living, breathing, and thinking. To create clones for such a singular purpose, under such control, even stealing half their childhood for efficiency, assaulted his sense of right and wrong, and the fact that a Jedi Master had begun all of this was almost too much to digest.

-AOTC chapter 16

“Yes, Master,” Obi-Wan said. “Prime Minister Lama Su has informed me that the first battalion of clone troopers are ready for delivery. He also wanted me to remind you that if we require more—and they’ve another million well on the way to completion—it will take more time to grow them.”

“A million clone warriors?” Mace Windu asked in disbelief.

-AOTC chapter 18

I also remember conversations with Gary Sarli, a writer/game designer for the Star Wars RPG by Wizards of the Coast at the time, that when contradictory information was made, the authors were required to come up with creative explanations that reconciled them instead of throwing stuff out, often leading to... really weird stuff.

[Darth Wedgius]

The idea of humans thinking Vulcans knowingly let World War III happen and devastate humanity for Vulcan advantage is quite believable because it's exactly the kind of thing humans have done.

Just one example: during the American Civil War, some British and French wanted the Confederacy to win, not because they were pro-slavery or otherwise cared about any ideals/goals the Confederates were supposedly fighting for but because an American divided in two would be weaker than a united America. For example, the US opposed French meddling in Mexico, but would not really be in a position to do anything about it if they lost the war. (Ultimately, the French wouldn't act without British support and the British were too divided on the issue, and couldn't openly support the Confederacy after slavery officially became a war issue. The British and French armed both sides though.)

To be fair, we've also more recently left uncontacted people alone for high-minded reasons (probably not hurt by their not being much commercial gain in contacting them). For example, the Sentinelese people are apparently lethally xenophobic and almost certainly lack immunity to many common diseases we just shrug off.

We could bring them modern medicine, better shelter from storms, even little things like telling them what those mysterious light in the sky really are, etc., and we could probably do so without exposing them to a lot of diseases by using cleaned drones and remotely piloted rafts, but we have nothing to gain from it, and, from every indication, they don't want to have anything to do with the rest of their species.

[9ansean]

It also could have set up Trip being sympathetic to Terra Prime given what the Xindi did to his sister and his breakdown in season 3. As things stand, he has no reason to be tempted by TP because they are clearly Bond villains from the off. But a Nightwatch model that subtlety puts those thoughts into his head? It could have made for great drama.

That would run counter to the romance subplot that had been building for 2 seasons.

Incidentally, as a big fan and dare I say it follower of George Orwell, I liked the implication that certain words ''are not in the Universal Translator''. Are they just talking about swear words or does it censor anything that does not fit with the liberal/progressive views of the burgeoning Federation?

I'm sure it's just that swear words/obscure slang wouldn't be in there.

Terra Prime wasn't looking for compensations or non-aggression treaties from the Xindi. They were looking to get all non-terrains off the planet. If successful they would probably follow that up with trying to stop Starfleet and any other authorized interplanetary explores from giving aliens in further means to infiltrate the planet.

Tucker wouldn't have wanted anything to do with that. He knew there victory over the Xindi Weapon came not only from the service of his two aliens crew mates (and in T'Pol's case while going through some major mental and physical issues), but also on the contribution of some dissident members of the Xindi Council (the aquatic ones in particular). Even Tucker admitted that Degra being killed didn't give make him feel better about his sisters death and no wonder since by that time he'd become a valuable asset to their mission.

Plus given the way Greaves branded the engineer "a traitor to humanity" while kicking him, it pretty clear that Terra Prime (or least many of them) didn't care one lick how the Enterprise crew had saved the whole freakin planet. Probably because they blamed them for introducing Xindi to the planet in the fist place and probably didn't believe anything in the official Starflet success report.

[tvindy]

It's difficult to prove that the Vulcans didn't know of humanity's existence until it was too late, but there is also essentially no evidence that they are lying.

Well, there is the Carbon Creek episode. Vulcans did know about humanity's existence since the 1950s.