It Puts the Antimatter Into the Injector or It Gets the Hose Again (ENT S2E24)

Here's to the finest crew in Starlink.

When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me.

This is a parody.

Paramount owns the song.

Welcome to The Greatest Generation.

It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast.

I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Pranica.

How are you doing today, Adam?

Great.

Great.

So you're rocking your Beverly Crusher t-shirt?

Yeah, great band out of Seattle.

A band that gave me a bunch of shirts when I rolled up on them at a music festival many years ago.

That's awesome.

Still active, still rocking?

Yeah.

Go see them.

Is the implication that they're crushing Beverly's?

Oh, that's a good question.

I don't know if it's

a reference to anything unseemly.

Yeah.

I'm not going to blow up their spot if that's what it means.

Yeah, but I was just going to say,

it could mean...

Fucking Benjamin R.

Harrison going like, um, yeah, is your band name in reference to something illegal or druggy?

I was picturing it being that they had a great big crush on Beverly.

Oh, okay.

Oh, I thought maybe the, maybe the Beverly was the drug and you're like using the bottom of a bottle to crush it up.

Oh, man.

I thought you were saying that it was crushing as in like crush and puss, which was not the the meaning I intended, but where I thought your head had gone.

Now only ghosts crush that puss.

Ghosts and evidently waterfall soaked Captain Picard.

Babalai!

Babalay!

Well he's so old and feebled he needed the the pressure of the water to provide the thrusting action.

You must trust me.

There is so much water flowing over my body.

There's no chance you'll get pregnant with all that water about.

It's like doing it to injacuzy.

It's a natural birth control.

Look at us stand up 69ing under this waterfall.

There is no possible way, with the pressure per square inch going into you, that any seminal fluid will remain.

So

he came inside her and then they stand up 69 after that.

Yeah, gotta flip her upside down.

Wow, that's the Picard maneuver right there.

No kidding.

That's like, I mean, to do that in your refractory period is really the stuff of legends.

I mean, he was a younger man back then,

not that much younger.

Babalet,

would you like to know how I too have the nickname Tin Man?

Tin Man.

Much like the Mark Wahlberg character in Boogie Nights.

He could just go again.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, ready to go.

In the context that it's a drug, you're saying like pill that we're snorting, and the street name of this drug is Beverly.

I want to be clear.

I don't know what I'm talking about here.

And I don't know if that's how they came to a decision about naming their band.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I'm saying if you had a drug or a method and you wanted to give it a jaunty name.

Yeah.

I mean, Beverly Crushers is fun, right?

We talk about this all the time.

The number of sci-fi franchises that have crashed against the rocks, so to speak, of trying to come up with a name for the drug in their sci-fi world.

Yeah.

It's a long list.

I think Beverly is a great name for a drug.

Hey, man.

Can I get two doses of Beverly?

I think it'd be cool if Beverly, you know, post-Federation career,

maybe became a cool doctor, you know?

Like, hey, Doc, kind of feeling a little

throat and lungs thing.

Maybe you could hook me up with something powerful and narcotic.

And Crusher's like, you know, I actually have a thing.

I was thinking about naming it

after myself.

The naming rights of a major discovery go to the discoverer, right?

It's actually an inhaled drug.

It's a green gas.

She just can't stay away from those green gases.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

But, like I was saying, the discoverer of a thing gets to name it, as we discover in this episode, Adam.

It's true.

Who discovered this episode and what did they name it?

Well, to my knowledge, it was directed by LeVar Burton.

And let's go on and get into it, Ben.

It's Star Trek Enterprise Season 2, episode 24.

First flight.

So we are detecting something.

Maybe background radiation.

That's what TePaul is suggesting.

But Archer thinks, no, this is a dark matter nebula.

This is very exciting.

Nobody's ever gotten to study one of these up close.

My understanding is that space is pretty big.

I've heard this.

You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.

The idea of a dark matter thing being in space around your starship

seems to be sort of like a proving of a negative.

And given the vastness of space,

how on earth have they rolled up on this thing?

Just dumb luck.

Like it has to be a situation where they almost ran into it and then stopped, right?

Yeah.

It doesn't seem like it would hurt to run into, right?

It's just

it's matter, but it's not like solid matter.

Like me and Beveler.

You wouldn't even feel it.

The question of what to do with it is proposed in the room.

Archer and Trip Tucker and TePaul kind of bat it around, and finally, the plan is, why don't we shoot it with torpedoes if we think it's a dark matter nebula?

That seems like a good scientific plan, right?

Yeah.

And that seems to be the plan of action that they agree on when sexual icon Admiral Forrest blows in a call to them.

Archer gets called away for this into the clarinet rental closet and he's just busting Jerry.

He's really excited to tell his boss, sexual icon Admiral Forrest, about the possibility that they're going to torpedo.

a neb.

This is good timing, Admiral.

You know, it's like, it's that thing where you like, you get a call and you like, you're not in the mood that the person on the other end of the line is in.

It takes a second to synchronize.

Like, hey, actually, this isn't a For Funsies call.

This is bad news.

I mean, I don't think Archer gets calls from Admiral Forrest that often when it's great news.

I can't think of a time when that's ever happened, actually.

I think Archer needs to be ready for this to be the vibe of the call.

How about Admiral Forrest here managing to get through the news of this without laughing?

A.G.

Robinson died by mountain.

Yeah.

Yeah.

An accident on Mount McKinley claimed A.G.

Robinson, and that is a shocking revelation to Captain Archer.

One of the rare RSVPs to theme that we get.

RSVP AG.

Yeah.

After the theme, we're in the shuttle bay where we're readying the mission to shoot a nebular.

And Archer has just checked out mentally.

You know how sometimes you'll, like back in the days when you do a lot of video calls and meetings and stuff, one of the boxes would have a person in it not looking at the camera.

Maybe they're just looking down.

Maybe they're just looking away.

This is what Archer is doing in real life.

Maybe they think the camera is off and they're jacking it, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, Tripp is the one who's locked in, giving him the lowdown of the armaments and stuff that he's going to have.

Archer has assumed that he would be going on this mission on his own.

And I think this is a prospect he kind of relishes.

He needs some alone time to process the idea, the very how

a mountain could kill the great A.G.

Robinson.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that he would have been happy enough to have Trip along for it prior to the news, but he wants to go on like a little solo, sad road trip.

I mean,

can you believe he died?

Mountaineering?

What are the odds?

I still can't believe it.

Yeah, I mean, like, Trip knew this guy too, so it feels a little bit unfair that Archer's like, no, I gotta go be alone with my grief and not yours.

You know whose opinion I wanted the entire episode and whose we did not get?

Mountaineering expert Travis Mayweather.

Yeah.

Where's he?

Just like being back in the wood.

Who are you?

Number Travis Mayweather.

Parents must be very proud.

When I was a kid, we called it the sweet spot.

Who are you?

I'm the helmsman.

I guess growing up a boomer has its advantages.

And your mom very proud.

That's true.

Takes practice.

Other than keeping Ninson Mayweather up at night, I'm not sure what we expect to accomplish here.

Hey, Travis, how the fuck do you die mountain climbing?

Is he like, I wouldn't know.

I'm a caver.

Like, the mountain thing is like a totally different ball of tricks.

There's no crossover at all.

Also, I haven't and will never die.

Archer has pretty much shooed Trip away, and he's like inside the pod.

There's like an archer from inside the pond waving goodbye from the window.

And then we get the reverse shot and Tapal pops into the window and she's like I'm coming too

I think there's a moment in every commercial plane flight where you're seated in your row and you have an empty in the middle and then maybe there's someone on the aisle or the window yeah this is this is what my wife and I call like winning the seat lottery right this is like uh low class first class is like just having an empty next to you and the moment you know that you have it is when the door closes.

I was shocked that the door to the shuttle pod closed here.

Yeah.

And was opened by TePaul.

There's FAA regulations against that.

I mean, there used to be FAA regulations against that.

Incredible.

She just opens it right up and gets on in there.

That's because it's regulation.

The captain can't go alone.

This is like the, you know.

encounter at Farpoint conversation between Picard and Riker, you know?

Yeah.

She's not going to let the captain put themselves in undue danger.

So they hit the road.

Archer looks down at his duffel bag that is just absolutely full of lube and fleshlights.

He's like,

okay, well, I'm going to have to actually switch bags

for a moment.

Archer is like zipping his bag up, and TePaul is like, Were you planning on visiting Diddy's house after?

You know, he already has that stuff.

Yeah.

I mean, TePaul isn't the sort of character that I think grasps how uncomfortable it might be to have already thought once the door had closed you were going to get this former first class.

Yeah.

She's up in there feeling fine about settling in for the trip.

Yeah.

They're two hours out and they start talking about Captain Robinson.

And we learned that he was on the Warp 2 team back when they were looking to break the Warp 2 barrier.

And we go into our flashback.

TePaul asks Archer, like, how did he die?

By mountain.

And Archer was like, well,

I think the story is best conveyed in song.

And it goes a little something like this.

They said you'd freeze A.G.

Robinson, but you didn't bring a coat to climb that day.

Hey, hey, hey.

And here's to you, A.G.

Robinson.

The avalanche has covered you in snow.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

I was picturing more of a cliffhanger thing where, like, he was rescuing somebody else by stretching ropes across a bottomless ravine.

And the weight rating of

the clip was wrong.

That just failed.

Well, this is an interesting distinction because very little information is given about the circumstances of A.G.

Robinson's death.

Therefore, it's left up to you and me and anyone else to figure out how it happened.

I presume that he died of exposure, and you're saying there's some sort of Piton Carabiner accident.

Yeah, I mean, it could be anything.

It could have just been an avalanche, you know, like, and that's something that Archer talks about.

He's like, you know, this guy was in a lot of risky situations in his life.

It's kind of crazy that mountain is what finally got him, given how many times he was, you know, had his ass strapped to a nuclear bomb flying through the cosmos at Warp 2.

I mean, based on his risk-taking behavior, I just always sort of assumed that the mountain of venereal disease would finally catch up to him.

You should have seen how much Beverly this guy used to crush.

I know.

I know.

So they start talking about him.

We go into our flashback.

Sorry, I'm late, Commodore.

I came straight from the test bay.

At least, Commander.

Way back when it was sexual icon Commodore Forrest who was breaking bad news to Commander Archer.

You could call him Commodore 60 Forrest.

Maybe?

Wow.

What about that?

Okay.

Yeah.

I think that's fun.

I think people will like that.

I love that this flashback is what, like less than 10 years ago?

Like, what's great about the flashback is you don't have to change the makeup.

Yeah.

You don't have to change the hair.

You don't have to change anything.

They're not doing like a weird digital filter to make it look like their skin is way smoother than it is now.

Why is Archer so sweaty?

Is a question I had in this scene.

Is this the sort of situation where Commodore 64 snaps his fingers and wants a meeting and you just better fucking run?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I think I got the sense that it was like they they were doing a lot of training and Archer was just like in the gym doing something, got called up to the Commodore's office, and he is like, this is either going to be great news or terrible.

And the Commodore is like, sorry to cut you off, but it's the worst one.

I'm going with Commander Robinson.

You know, I feel like if I didn't cut you off there, you would just kind of keep spinning and spinning.

And like, I actually have a lot of folks to break this to.

Yeah, there's a bunch of people on this team.

AG will be doing the test flight in which the warp two barrier is broken.

He just seems like a guy to me that could handle himself in a situation of great height or altitude.

Like, I don't know.

I just feel like I'm a good judge of character and ability this way.

He seems like a guy who will always be safe if he's just out there exploring on his own in like a low oxygen environment.

He's a guy where you don't feel like you need to show him the ropes because he understands the ropes just intrinsically.

Yeah.

Also, his academy nickname, The Ropes.

There you stall day long.

What do you do when you get bad news, Ben?

You got to take it to the bar where we see the 602 Club, a place that has an identical neon sign inside and outside.

What are the chances that that's the same sign?

You probably get a break on the cost

when you buy two.

Right.

This bar looked a lot inside like the bar from 2009 Star Trek, where Pike pitches Kirk on entering Starfleet.

It looks great on camera, but in real life, the idea of a bar that is in fact a light,

that is maniac shit.

No one wants to sit at a bar and like have a light source shooting up at your face.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It would hide nothing also.

Every little spill,

every peeled off piece of a Miller High Life label being backlit.

It's a great first day.

It looks great on the first day.

It looks terrible ever since.

Yeah.

So Archer is getting himself good and wasted.

He spots AG at the end of the bar with a bunch of the other candidates and goes to give him kind of a grudging congrats.

And

they get to talking.

And this is, of course, the half-brother of David Carradine playing this part.

It's Keith Carradine.

Right.

And if you're Keith Carradine's family, are you just always hoping he's not jacking it?

Like, you don't want to leave him alone in a hotel or a room or anything.

Yeah, like if you are on like a family road trip or you check into a Motel 6, you make sure you like take all the neckties and belts out of the room before you go down the hall to the vending machine.

It's like he's going to prison.

Oh, is that a shoelace?

Give me that.

So he kind of scolds Archer for being such a tryhard.

He's like, put everything in his life aside to devote himself to the NX program.

And

AG is like, dude, they're trying to get a captain,

not a fucking science fair winner here.

Like,

you can't just be a good pilot and get this job.

That's why you failed.

I love the way they are with each other.

Like, this is a fun friendship that is built on a foundation of ball kicking

and professional respect.

Like, it's a real tone setter for the winner of a competition to talk shit to the loser the way that AG does.

Totally.

And I think that's made okay because Archer throws it right back at him.

TePaul comments on this.

She's like, your relationship doesn't seem fun or friendly, but adversarial.

I don't know why you're so bent out of shape about this guy dying from mountain.

Archer's like, TePaul, you know how much you enjoy kicking me in the nuts over and over again?

Yeah.

Can you understand why anyone else would like to do that also?

That's me and AG.

Remember that time we were both in jail and you fell on me?

I almost died from two mountains that day.

Yeah.

That's how I want to go out.

This could happen to anybody.

AG was a fucking sucker.

One mountain got him.

That's it.

I survived two.

What a disappointment.

So I love how Tapal, like in this very same scene, loads up the ball kicking machine by immediately taking AG's side.

Yeah.

He did have a point.

It does take more than piloting ability to command a starship.

This is so great and so her.

It's also so Archer.

Like the idea that him being a try-hard wannabe overachiever is a thing that has held him back in his career.

It's like, yeah, I can see that.

And that's like, there's a tone woven throughout the episode that this is something that he's gotten over and they can kind of laugh about.

Like, boy, wasn't I a nerd back then?

I'm a fucking dork.

I used to be, and clearly am not now.

He does not have a lot of insight on this issue.

No.

So

we cut back to the past where we get to see the ship that they've built to go

warp to.

And I really liked how...

It looked a lot like the Phoenix from first contact, but just with like bigger, more permanent nacelles attached to it.

Yeah.

Fewer movable parts.

Yeah.

They're getting ready for the launch, and it's AG solo piloting this thing in a great big orange spacesuit.

And, you know, there's like a couple of little like, ooh, is this, is this reading okay?

But he gets the go-ahead, and Archer is running mission control.

He is like the man on the ground with the radio talking to him as he goes to warp and very quickly breaks the warp 2 barrier and then is like pushing past it and pushing to 2.1

things start to get a little shaky.

He's pushing like 2.15

and it's really getting bumpy.

And this is when Commodore 6 Forest orders that the stop the test flight.

This is too bumpy.

Maybe a bad time for a bit by AG.

He does that thing where he's like,

can't hear you guys.

Yeah.

And the two like robed Vulcans in the control room start rolling their eyes.

They're like, yes, we have this technique on our planet as well.

We are familiar with this bit.

This thing drops out of warp and explodes in a cloud of beer bottles and cowboy hats.

Unclear what has happened to AG at this point.

It's a very dramatic moment because like we cut away from the explosion back to mission control.

And this is the moment that you love in like all the Apollo program documentaries, like that, that pregnancy of the distance and the time it takes to know if something awful has happened.

Yeah.

I mean, it looks really bad.

We see what they don't, which is that ship just coming apart into a million pieces.

And we cut back to the shuttle in this pregnant pause.

And they're kind of on the fringes of what they think might be a dark matter nebula.

They are packing as many torpedoes as they can bring on this mission.

And they're like, all right, ready to shoot?

Let's shoot.

And if you were expecting something dramatic and amazing after shooting a torpedo at a thing on the show Star Trek Enterprise, I'm here to tell you that that never happens.

You have not been watching the show.

Yeah.

Absolute duds.

I really like the proximity of this moment to seeing the NX Alpha blow up because we just got a pretty spectacular explosion scene.

So the dudness of this is only further underlined by that.

And it seems like these special torpedoes that Trip rigged up to light up the nebula and reveal it to sensors didn't work.

And that's a great big disappointment.

But they decide to keep going further into this area of space.

And Tepal asks him to continue his little story.

Where we learn that AG did eject from the NX ship and on the ground he is pressed on why he didn't abort when he was ordered to and AG tries to make the case that it was his call to make.

He's the pilot.

And we've got Trip Tucker on the scene to inject a little attitude.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that engine.

And then the Vulcans argue that maybe humans are moving a little fast through this technology tree.

It's fun.

It's a fun moment.

The scene ends, though, with AG on the side of taking risks.

And speaking of risks, is Ruby going to risk it all for a night with Archer or Trip Tucker in Club 601?

That's what I was wondering.

Yeah.

The barmaid has given Trip a potential cheat code, which is that she knows what she intends to name the children that she's going to have someday.

and is perfectly happy to marry the first man that can guess them.

So he's just tossing names at her all night, which feels like cute in screenwriting, but I can imagine this getting so fucking annoying if you are

actually around somebody trying to do this one night.

You know?

How unattractive is it for someone to be like, I already have the names of my kids picked out.

You don't get to be involved in that decision.

Yeah.

Oh, so you just need me to bust?

Yeah.

And that's it?

Okay.

Do I have any further responsibilities after that or nah?

What I do want to say about Ruby is that she is given just all of the standard server dialogue, but also she is a legend.

Like the Shuttle Pod 1 episode laid a foundation for Ruby as being magical.

Yeah.

A magical pixie dream bartendress.

And she doesn't really do anything like that in this episode.

Like all of that is baggage that we bring into it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, she doesn't get much screen time, so I don't know what they could have done to, like, further enhance the legend of Rosie, but.

Well, I mean, sass, I think, goes a long way in an interaction like this.

And I guess so, yeah.

I would say there's very little of that.

There's familiarity, but I think it takes a big step back from something sassy and fun.

True.

Faith of the fart.

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Every Wednesday at patreon.com slash wholesome underscore pod.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while, maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah.

You don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on My Brother, My Brother, and Me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

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All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

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Episode 64.

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Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

And you will never take the greatest chin alive.

Ben would rather die.

Forest shows up and has some news based on the little show that Archer and Tripp put on.

This is kind of like the origin story story of Archer and Trip's friendship, and it's forged in fire because Commodore 60 Forest is like, well, first of all, you fucked up, Drip, lipping off in front of the Vulcans like that.

We don't care for that type of thing around here.

Second of all, my presence here is definitely going to derail your plans of getting laid because I'm a sexual icon.

And who the fuck are you?

Third, we're shutting down the NX program for now because, you know, the safety concerns that the Vulcans are raising have been pretty persuasive to Starfleet Command and we're just gonna we're gonna probably like reimagine this this warp drive from scratch like do it over do it in a way that uh that doesn't have as many safety problems this scene totally gave me the bins because Forrest arrives a little disheveled like necktie out of place collar a little disheveled he does a bit on trip when he sits down

like the beer buying bit yeah i don't think you can do bits on subordinates in a quasi-military environment the way that he does i didn't like that i don't know i thought he was kind of fun bossing it a little bit but uh the other aspect that i thought really blew me away was how lucky he was he didn't arrive during the origin story of the trip tucker nickname because that's I mean, we finally learned the origin of it, where Trip's like, see,

my granddad loved Silence of the Lambs, and he would tuck his penis between his legs and do a great Jam Gum impression.

And then my dad has started doing it, and then I eventually did too.

So, uh, triple tuckers

is what we became known as, and uh, that's a name that stuck.

Would you hire me to wrench on your warp engine?

I'd hire me to wrench on my warp engine.

It puts the antimatter into the injector

or it gets the hose again.

So, after all of this bad news from Commodore 64,

who I guess had his beer and then left.

Yeah, was that a roadie?

I don't think he was there enough time to polish off what was clearly like a 16-ouncer.

Yeah, that was a big beer.

That was like

an Imperial pint.

Yeah.

AG comes in, and now it's last call, and he gets a couple of stiff shots,

and

he and Archer and Trip are talking.

Trip and Archer are pretty pissed at him because he has just spent a bunch of time getting debriefed about the flight and telling everybody what happened.

And Trip and Archer firmly believe that user error is part of why the alpha blew up.

And if the Vulcans are hearing from him that it's actually a problem with the warp drive itself, then that's exactly what they want to hear so that they can pressure everyone to put the program on ice.

And they're like, if you just admitted that you fucked up, dude, we might still have an NX program, but you didn't.

You let your ego get in the way of the whole program.

I think ego is a problem not just with AG, but with Archer in this scene.

I thought it was so strange and off-putting that, like, in the conversation with Commodore 60 Forest,

a lot is made of Archer's dad's life's work and how unjust it would be if this thing isn't given a proper chance.

And then, you know, that's kind of interrupted by this AG scene where AG is blamed for being too much of a cowboy and putting the program that has Archer's dad's life's work as a central component of it at risk.

Like, who gives a shit about that?

Are we scientists or not?

Like, the vanity of whose design it was does not work for me at all and is totally off-putting in arguments like this.

Like, yeah, I get that AG might be a little too much of a loose candid to be a pilot, but to, like, couch these two scenes in a, my dad would be rolling over in his grave if he knew.

His life's work was being treated this way.

Like, right.

Does the show assume that we care about Archer's dad?

Because we really don't.

Yeah, I mean, it becomes fight-in-words.

Like, the dogging out of Archer's dad and his lousy engine provokes Archer to throw a punch at AG.

And we get a surprisingly long bar fight.

Like, a barfight that...

goes through several phases of like rolling around on the floor and then getting up into the pugilist stance and throwing punches at each other.

Like the barmaid yelling, stop

comes like two minutes later than it should have in a sequence of things.

I think that's because Ruby kind of wants this to happen.

Yeah.

There are so many shots of a fist hitting center mass of a face in this.

Like both noses are shattered instantly.

This should be one of the bloodiest fights we've ever seen on Star Trek.

And as it is, I think Archer's the only one with a little drip of blood out of his nose.

AG has got like the beginning of a shiner.

Yeah.

But they're absolutely throwing on each other.

It's pretty brutal.

And finally,

the other patrons of the bar step in and pull these guys off of each other.

How much did you want a bar weapon to be brandished here?

Oh, like

smashing a bottle and stabbing him or

Ruby pulling the Guinen gun out from behind the bar and shooting a couple of rounds into the ceiling.

Yeah, that's what I'm after.

Yeah, that was setting number one.

Anyone want to see setting number two?

That would have been fun.

And then, like, cut to trip, like, being clearly aroused by the sight of Ruby wielding a long weapon.

Yeah.

Yeah, that would be nice.

Yeah.

Keep trying, Ducker.

But that's not what we get.

Instead, we go back to the shuttle pod where the lights are flickering.

And does that mean they're getting close to dark matter?

They still aren't in agreement on that.

So Paul's not detecting anything of that kind.

Should we just keep firing torpedoes?

Oh, willy-nilly?

Not yet.

Turns out, AG was the one that got the program back on course.

And we cut back to our story in the past where Archer comes up on AG, like packing up his locker and getting ready to ship out.

And Archer has a, like,

this thing looked like the kind of like personal organizer that you would get for starting a bank account in the mid-90s.

But I guess it's like the data pad that he's done some calculations with about,

oh, like the intermix on the, on the warp core, something, something, something.

I think we can do this again and do it right and get this project back off the ground.

I was distracted by the large rubber-made storage bin that AG is packing his shit into.

They did not even try to obscure what this was.

Yeah.

The rare opportunity Star Trek takes to have a practical-looking container for somebody's personal effects.

Is this a Section 31 locker?

Because that is a lot of container

for a locker, don't you think?

Yeah, I mean, you know, who's to say how deep those things go?

Yeah.

I love the continuity of bruising that begins here and continues throughout the episode.

Yeah.

Because there's a fair amount of episode left and

you got to do the bruise makeup for every scene with them.

Oh man, this is like one of the hardest thing makeup departments deal with because like most of the time you're not shooting in sequence.

So from setup to setup the makeup department has to like remember like how far along the healing process might be and like do the wound.

as that.

I worked on a set one time where they were doing this and it was a it was a feature and the makeup artist had eight pieces of reference on a huge card and like which scenes like that that was meant to be, what the wound was going to look like in that scene for.

Because it took place over the course of like four or five days.

So it would be healing.

It was nuts.

Like the actor had to have the makeup taken off and put back on in so many different variations throughout the shoot.

It was crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's what's going on here.

Yeah.

AG argues like, okay, like you're kind of persuading me that there's like something we could be doing, like twisting knobs in a certain way to make this warp drive work better.

But they already shut the program down.

Like this is not a time to go make a case with a, you know, trifold presentation board in front of a committee.

We need to show, not tell.

Like we need to take the other NX ship up and fire it up and actually go to warp and do this.

And this is exactly what he's been talking to Archer about the whole time.

Like, you gotta, you gotta take big swings if you want the big chair.

No risk, no reward.

I love that the choices are do the book report

or steal the ship.

And stealing the ship is where they land.

Stealing the ship is a long Starfleet tradition starting here.

I know.

Also traditional, at least in this episode, the firing of torpedoes at nothing.

On the shuttle pod, they shoot again.

And again, the effect is the same.

Two torpedoes left, though.

And so that built-in scarcity makes this B story just as intense as it's always been, I would say.

So they're going to go further in, and we cut back to the past where Archer, AG, and Trip sneak into the NX hangar at night and get ready to steal the other ship.

So I guess Trip is going to be kind of like a one-man control room from his computer in the station there.

And AG and Archer are actually going together this time.

They're going as a two-man team.

And they get this thing in orbit.

And Commodore 64 gets word pretty quickly from one of his staff that

it would seem that one of the NX ships has gone into orbit, but sensors are indicating that it's actually in the hangar.

Maybe we should go take a look for ourselves.

You can't help but think about Kirk stealing the Enterprise in the third Star Trek movie and how so much is done with so little dialogue by the hero, by Kirk.

Right.

What I wanted so badly was for there to be Archer's moment in that very same way way.

Because Commodore 64

essentially does the, if you do this, Archer, you're never going to be captain again.

Yeah.

And instead of Kirk's response in Star Trek III, there's just nothing.

Right.

And I think that's a missed opportunity, especially for a character that really needs a win, I think.

in Riz.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, because he's telling to Paul about how he's changed and he's not bookish anymore.

We're supposed to be going into these flashbacks and understanding what a dope he used to be.

But the reality is he's exactly the same back then.

Yeah.

And Big Starfleet Nerd is an accurate description.

If he did seem cooler in this moment, like if he, if he had a Kirk-like Riz in this moment, like I feel like it would undercut his point even more, right?

I mean, what made that moment so great in Star Trek 3 wasn't that it was like some sort of Asta La Vista baby.

It was just a command to go to warp,

but it was done with such style

that like that was the moment.

Warp speed.

I see.

Yeah, and the writing crop dipshit of the Excelsior being totally humiliated by his ship not going to warp after they make the big show of everybody like strapping themselves in.

Yeah.

What we get here instead, just before they go to warp, Archer is freaking out.

He's like, Ah,

where is it?

It's got to be somewhere.

Yeah.

AG, we got to go back.

Nope, nope, nope.

Here it is.

And then he pushes the tape into the player, and it's Alex Terror Rock and Bowder Burton.

Gotta say to the PORT.

Hopper,

Minutes and minutes this scene goes.

Yeah, it's amazing that you actually obtained the lyrics to that song because that's exactly what he says.

Yeah.

I mean, that's how you get out of copyright infringement.

I didn't copy it.

We're going to be be able to play the whole thing.

So again, the ride is a little bit bumpy as they push past 2.1.

And this is

something, something intermix, something, something warp field destabilizing.

And AG is kind of like on the wheels of steel, like

turning giant knobs to try and get it dialed in.

And Trip is like in the midst of getting arrested by some toughs in the hangar bay when Archer radios up to say that they've made it to 2.5.

I love the idea that Trip Tucker is hiding in a giant hangar in the corner of it as his one-man mission control.

Like, he doesn't even use a janitorial closet or something.

Anyone who opens the door on the far side of the hangar is going to see what's happening.

There he is.

Go get him.

So everybody gets hauled in front of Commodore 64.

By the time Starfleet Command gets through with you, you're going to wish that you had never come back.

And like crucially, the Vulcans are here.

Like they also showed up in the control room for the breaking of the 2.5 barrier.

I feel like you and I know how it feels, but like...

How does it feel if you're a Vulcan and you enter a room and everyone's just disappointed?

Like,

because this happens constantly on this show.

Like, these humans are just trying to do something.

Oh, God.

These fucking guys.

Great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How'd you like to bum out every room you go into?

That's these Vulcans.

It's them.

That's their whole thing.

Yeah.

And they dress so fancy, you know?

It's like, it's so festive and pleasant.

You would think that people would be excited.

No.

Opposite.

Nope.

So called out on the carpet are Trip, AG, and Archer.

And this is not where the consequences stop, but where they start.

Like, there's going to be inquiries.

Like, you'll be lucky if you ever fly again.

When he says what they did is maybe even criminal,

I laughed and laughed.

Yeah, maybe.

Huh.

Not for me to determine.

I'm just a Commodore.

Can't be sure.

Stealing like highly classified materiel from the military is technically illegal.

Somebody will have to look into that.

Maybe it's one of those black box programs where like if it doesn't exist on paper or programmatically, like maybe there is no crime.

Right.

It's just like nobody ever thought someone might try to steal a starship.

So they've never actually written it down.

Or like the program is so secret that.

to prosecute criminally would mean to unveil its existence in a way that they wouldn't want to do.

Wow.

Well, Archer stands up for them in this scene.

He makes what might be his first recorded captain speech in defense of what they did to validate the program.

And we cut back to the shuttle where Archer explains that this was, in fact, persuasive.

They only got grounded for three months, but the program was reinstated.

When I was a kid, I've been grounded for three months, and I didn't do anything close to stealing a starship.

Three months.

I mean, it's kind of his dad's starship, right?

It's like not that bad.

I was outraged by this.

Yeah.

But

yeah, they, I mean, this was just a few years before they started building the NX01 Enterprise.

And the rest is history, Adam.

Also history is this nebular.

Because when they rocket two torpedoes into it from the shuttle pod.

Oh no, it's another two duds, isn't it?

Or is it?

Oh, a big, beautiful nebular is revealed.

A BBN?

Yeah, what a thing.

Yeah, it's breathtaking.

And this is why they worked so hard to get out here, Adam.

This is why A.G.

and Archer took the risks that they took and did the things that they did.

This is a moment that would fit so perfectly into contemporary society.

Hey, TePaul, why don't you look up from your screen

and appreciate the world out there and all of its beauty?

Try to be present in the moment instead of beep boop beep boop beep boop on your device.

Yeah, the black mirror that we all stare into.

Hey,

hey, these colors

way more vivid and beautiful than Candy Crush is capable of making.

You know what I'm addicted to?

Looking out this window.

Archer also got named captain of the NX-01, kind of leapfrogging over AG,

and we get the sort of reverse of the earlier scene where it is now AG toasting Archer for being named skipper.

There's some ball busting crossing the streams here.

Yeah.

It seems a little less petty and bitchy, though, than when Archer did it, you know.

They could have done a lot worse.

Anyway, I'd rather wait for the NXO2.

Glad you make all the mistakes.

As they part ways, there's clearly a mutual respect there, and a recognition that they will always be very different, up to and including how they eventually die.

Hmm.

Archer and TePaul head back.

They have also now done another world's first

mapping a dark matter nebula.

And when they get back aboard the entrepreneur, Tepal suggests that, hey, since you kind of discovered it, you get to name it.

And he's like, what do you think I should name it?

The Tepal Archer Nebula?

She's like, no, you fucking idiot.

I was thinking the Robinson Nebula would be more appropriate.

They cut out the original ending of this episode.

Did you see this?

Oh, like.

So I read something about this, too.

What did you read?

The very last moment was like the argument of, like, yeah, TePaul Archer Nebula sounds cool, right?

No, it should be A.G.

Robinson Nebula.

But when they look at the like post-mission briefing that came from command, it's actually been named the Admiral Forest Nebula.

Fucking bureaucracy.

Yeah.

I'm glad they cut that out.

So the thing I read was that an earlier version of the script,

they just talked about A.G.

by first initials the entire time and never said his last name.

And then in this scene, when she says you should name it, you know, after him, and he goes, I like the sound of that.

The Mutara Nebula.

I thought that too.

I thought they were going to tie this into a familiar nebula.

Yeah.

The Paulson Nebula.

Yeah.

Like, give us a famous nebula.

There are a couple.

There's a couple to choose from.

Anyways.

What are we going to name this area of space with the stars arranged in kind of a grouping of wolves?

Feels like a great intersection of the galaxy where a great battle could be fought.

But this is the moment in the episode where the intersection of our opinions takes place.

Ben, did you like this episode?

I just say,

I didn't love this one.

I think that there were a couple of areas where it kind of dragged.

Like, Like, I felt like that bar fight was like way too crazy of a bar fight for the scene that it was.

Like, it should have been like one or two punches and then them getting pulled off of each other.

Not like a compound, like

we're fighting for our lives with Nausicans

level bar fight.

Because when you fight this long in real life, someone dies or is like disfigured terribly or hospitalized for an amount of time.

Like fights are short for a reason because because people get really hurt during fights.

Yeah.

Like getting punched once is something that like takes a couple of weeks to recover from usually.

Can you imagine getting punched at this age?

Just a bunch of times.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Or like if you're A.G.

Robinson's age.

Yeah.

That was the other thing.

Like I like this actor.

He's like.

a pretty successful actor.

He's been a lot of things.

I just didn't like him for this part.

Like we talked about like the lack of Riz that Archer is bringing to this show.

Like, he just didn't seem like the right stuff kind of a guy, you know?

Because what do we know about those guys?

Kind of boring.

Yeah, like boring, but brave and cool.

Yeah.

And brave and cool didn't really feel like things that this character had in

great amounts.

I kind of wish he was a better pilot also.

Like, I wish he was better in every way.

Yeah, yeah.

So, I don't know.

Yeah, he didn't quite do it for me.

I think it was just a casting thing.

And, yeah, so, I don't know.

This one was a bit of a miss for me.

How about you?

I like going back to this moment.

I don't know if the way this story is told realizes the potential of it, though.

In the way that you've described, I think.

Like, it needed...

double the tension.

Cut this fight scene down to two punches and instead give me three more lines of dialogue about

A.G.

Robinson stealing Archer's girlfriend.

Right.

Right.

Or something.

Like there wasn't enough conflict between them.

Yeah.

And the yin and the yangness of them, you know, in terms of like pilotness and risk-takingness wasn't sufficient.

Did not feel like Maverick and Iceman in any way.

I mean, you could transpose those elements onto these characters, and I think it would have worked a lot better than what we got.

Yeah.

But I do like going back in time and, like,

living through this moment.

Like, totally.

Let's hang out with Trip and Ruby more.

That's what I want.

Yeah.

Sounds fun.

Yeah.

I think there's potential here.

Well, I think there's potential in the Priority One inbox.

What do you say we get into that?

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secured channel.

Need a supplemental income.

Supplemental income.

supplemental supplemental yeah it's extra but the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship

adam we got a promotional p1 right here goes like this are you into indie games are you into classic games would you like a relaxing video game stream to listen to or watch while you're drinking your morning tea or pretending to work you should totally come check out my stream twitch.tv slash Pohunter Mew.

Am I saying that correctly?

Po Hunter Mew?

That's spelled P-O-E-H-U-N-T-E-R-M-Y-U.

With everything going on in the world, I wanted to see if I could make people smile with my terrible video game skills and bad dad jokes.

I hope I can make you smile and make your day just a little better.

Come check it out.

9.30 a.m.

Pacific, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Geez.

Wow.

What a schedule.

We got to check this out.

Poe's Good Morning Gaming

is what this channel is called.

And the call to action is come out and support a burgeoning Twitch streamer.

I want to check this out.

I've been doing some streams on the Greatest Trek channel lately, nowhere near as frequently as Poe Hunter Mew.

Yeah, that's crazy.

That's a lot.

But yeah, maybe I'll start my mornings that way going forward.

You know what I like about Poe's plan here?

I don't associate video games with mornings

at all.

Like, video games to me are an evening activity, after work activity, at least.

Yeah.

Imagine waking up like Poe and playing video games.

Well, I guess you could get in on that if you want to watch Poe play.

Yeah.

Sounds like a great way to start your day.

Yeah.

All right, Ben, we've got a second priority one message here.

It's from Poe.

What?

What are the chances?

It's to you and me.

Here's that message.

Thank you both for this show, especially in these less than stellar times.

TGG and GT

has really helped keep me, and I'm sure a lot of us sane.

I've been listening since nearly the beginning, and it's been amazing listening to the show mature and watching you both grow as entertainers.

You've even inspired me to try to do the same in my own way.

I wonder what Poe's talking about here.

Hmm.

Yeah, kind of a mystery.

Yeah.

I can't think of, I mean, I wish Poe had specified.

Poe clearly talking about the twitch.tv slash Poe Hunter MYU

account.

And yeah, thanks for sharing that message, Poe.

Yeah.

I would take umbrage with the whole idea that we've grown as entertainers.

I think our technology has gotten better.

As a business, we've grown more efficient.

We've hired excellent people, but grown as entertainers.

If anything, Adam and I are getting worse at this.

Yeah.

Hey, we got another P1 here.

This one's from Eric, and it's also to Ben and Adam.

It goes like this.

Hey, guys.

Yesterday, we had to put our nine-year-old Frenchie hooch down as he was ill, but such a good boy.

This morning, your marin was about your dog's stomach problems.

And despite my sadness, you guys made me laugh, as you always do, and totally lifted my spirits on a day that I really needed it.

Thank you so much, RSVP, and all ordnance drop.

Hey, RSVP, Hooch.

You are missed.

Eric, I know Hooch was lucky to have you in their life.

Yeah, that's a tough day for any animal person.

Yeah.

And

sorry you're going through it.

Yeah.

Well, if you'd like to commemorate a beloved pet or promote a Twitch stream, head to maximumfund.org slash jumbotron and get yourself a p1 today

hey adam zapen uh did you find yourself a drunk shimoda incredible drunk shimoda yeah mine's gonna be ruby for letting that fight go on yeah

it's gotta be right there's a moment in rocky 4

where

balboa has the towel to throw

while creed is getting killed in the ring by ivan drago and he waits.

He waits to throw the towel, and it's what gets Apollo Creed killed.

And I thought this might happen in this scene.

You got to throw the towel, Ruby.

You are surrounded by bar towels.

Throw any one of them and stop this fight.

An embarrassment of bar towels here.

What does she do?

Nothing.

She'll be my drunk Shimoda for this one.

How about you?

Yeah, I must join you on that same square.

I was

gobsmacked at how long she let this play out before she even spoke up and said anything.

Yeah.

Like, it's not even, like, she doesn't even throw a test.

She doesn't do anything.

She just says stop eventually.

Yeah.

How often does that work in a street or bar fight?

Almost never.

Yeah.

Faith of the fart.

Well, Adam, we got to get to our next episode and talk a little bit about how we will be doing it.

The next episode is season two, episode 25.

It's called Bounty.

Archer learns the Klingons have put a price on his head when he's captured by a Tellerite bounty hunter.

As Enterprise pursues, a virus causes DePaul to go into premature ponfar.

Oh man, when it rains, it pours, am I right?

Sure does.

Tellerite.

Yeah.

That'll be fun.

Yeah.

To find out how we will be reviewing this game, I've gone to goch.biz slash game, where we keep the game of buttholes,

Will of the Riker, Quantum Leap, and Quantum Leap, the operative term, because last time

we rolled, you landed on a Starship Mine episode and vetoed it

because it sounded bad to you.

Yeah.

So our runabout is currently on that square 23.

Well, what that means by doing the veto is that either right now or very soon, there will be a quantum leap episode in the bonus feed.

Yeah, that's coming right out.

Maximumfun.org/slash join is how you get that bonus action if you aren't already.

Yeah, but I'm gonna roll this bone and see if the dice gods frown upon us again.

You're required to learn as you play.

Roll.

Ooh, came so close to a breadstick power hour.

We are on square 46.

Regular episode next week.

Tula!

Did I win?

Hardly.

Wow.

Looking forward to a regular episode.

Really makes me think, would I veto a breadstick power hour or not?

You don't have another veto this season.

That's the rule?

It's gonna you have everybody gets one veto per season.

That's right.

That is how it goes.

Ben, that was like eight years ago.

We were fucking around with vetos.

I don't remember that.

I don't remember that shit.

Yeah, but I'm looking forward to a regular up next week.

What about you?

Absolutely.

Let's leave the people with some thank yous.

Got to thank all the folks that support at maximumfund.org slash join.

Got to thank Wendy Pretty, our producer and editor.

Got to thank the social media team, Bill and Rob, who keep the greatest trek social media channels alive and and thriving?

Speaking of social media, a special shout out to drunkshimoda.com in the Discord.

Yeah, doing great work over there.

We were just over there during the drive, and what a nice reminder it was of all of the great things that they do over there.

Yeah.

Great group of people.

Got to thank Adam Ragusia, our co-host from the Wholesome podcast, which is at patreon.com/slash wholesome underscore pod.

He made the original parody of Dion Warren's Enterprise theme with us and also thanks to Dark Materia for the original Picard song.

With that we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise, an episode of The Greatest Generation Enterprise that causes Adam and me to consider.

Wouldn't it have been better if we'd done the breadstick power hour because we could have made Tellerite tusks out of the breadsticks?

I'd like, you know, done like some visual bits, it would have been perfect for next week.

What the fuck?

Yeah.

What the fuck indeed?

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