Eight Years’ Worth of RumChata (ENT S2E15)

Here's to the finest crew in starving.

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

This is a parody.

Paramount owns the sun.

Welcome to the Greatest Generation.

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

I'm Adam Pranica.

I'm Ben Harrison.

I, uh, I got cupped today.

You ever get cupped?

Is that like when you're in a little league team and to prove that you're all wearing appropriate protection, the coach goes down the line with a baseball bat and taps everyone in the groin?

No.

No, but I would have tried that.

You know, I'm trying to chase down this

nerve pain in my legs thing.

I've gone to get...

you know, needles put into me.

Sometimes the needles have electricity attached to them.

Sometimes I have cups put on me and moved around.

It's a whole thing.

You're like Neo from The Matrix.

Yeah.

It's been great, and it's been helping.

That's good.

But this was the first time I'd gone since I had been forgotten on the table.

You ever have this happen to you?

Yeah.

You go to a medical procedure, and then

they forget.

Here's the thing about what happened.

So this isn't my first time having the needles put in and having the jumper cables put on and the whole thing.

So, like, I'm face down, my head's in that little doughnut.

The needles are in.

Your ass is in the air.

Practitioner is like, all right, see you in an hour.

And that's how it goes, right?

I'm down for an hour and then I get up and go.

So I'm laying face down.

You got like a book down there in the hole?

Absolutely not.

It is blissful, dark,

like soft music is playing.

And I've got like electricity going into my barbee, into some areas.

And it's great.

It's like my favorite thing.

I'm trying to go like once a month now.

This is last month.

Okay.

So I'm in there and I'm just breathing and thinking and breathing and thinking.

Breathing and thinking.

And I do it for what feels like a really long time, like longer than it should be.

I start to feel weird.

Weird and bad.

And what they do at these places is they give you a little doorbell thing, like they stick it in your hand.

And the practitioner is like, hey, if you have a weird sensation or you're in any pain or anything or whatever, you want to go to the bathroom, hit the doorbell.

I'll come in and get you.

And this feeling goes on for what feels like a while.

And I don't know what time it is.

My phone's on silent.

It's across the room.

This is for thinking and breathing.

Sure, sure.

Finally, I hit the doorbell, and I hear the unmistakable sound of running outside the door, and the door bursts open.

I don't usually get a door burst when my time is up.

This time, the door bursted, and in comes the practitioner who is like, Oh my god,

oh no,

oh god,

because I had had been on the table for 90 minutes.

Whoa.

And somehow my body knew that I wasn't supposed to be there that long.

My body can tell time is one of the points of this story.

So the needles come out.

I get flipped over.

Like, like the thing is done.

And the practitioner is like, what happened to you is something

we in the industry call like, you got a little overcooked.

And what's interesting about this is that the body knows.

Wow.

Like when this happens to people, and it doesn't happen very often, this is a unique case.

They've made sure to impress that upon me.

They're like, yeah,

you're very in tune

with your body and your body knows time.

And so your body recognized that you were there longer than an hour and it started to freak out a little bit.

And that's what happened to you.

And I came away from that.

feeling like on the one hand

i don't know if i can trust this person again yeah yeah.

But on the other hand,

what a power my body has.

My body can tell time.

That is a cool power.

I wonder if you ever experienced that when you're like watching a Star Trek episode, like, this one's a little bit long.

I mean, the thing about Star Trek episodes is that they're always like reliably, they're the same time.

It would be a weird thing to watch a Star Trek episode that was like 53 minutes.

Yeah.

And I wonder if the body could feel it.

It'd be like, this is making me uncomfortable, man.

It doesn't feel right.

My legs starting to twitch.

Is it supposed to be like this?

Like it's connected to a battery.

Man, are you going back to that place?

Like, is that, are they dead to you?

Well, I went back again this morning, which is why I thought of it.

The first time since that time.

Yeah.

And

there was playful banter.

Like, you could do bits on acupuncture, I think,

and have it work.

It was fun.

Bits on egg timers.

All I do is

no matter what.

It's all forgiven.

It's all good.

I was awoken exactly an hour after my session began.

Sure.

And it was all good.

To air is human.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I like this new oops-all forbearance, Adam Prannica.

That's nice.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a high-leverage situation when you're the one face down with a bunch of needles in you, you know?

Yeah, you don't want to, that's not when you pick a fight necessarily.

Yeah, everything's great.

We're good.

Yeah.

We're real good.

Yeah.

And you turn on a dime the second the last needle comes out.

Like, what the fuck is wrong with you?

You got to kill me.

Yeah, the level of forbearance changes in proportion to the number of needles in my birdie.

Ah, man.

Well, I'm glad that we've learned your X-Men superpower can tell time.

That's it, isn't it?

I can think of another time where that would be useful, really.

But at least I have that going for me.

I do like the idea of like X-Men whose power sucks.

I mean, there's a few X-Men whose power kind of sucks.

Like, I'm not really sure what Beast can do other than, like, hang upside down while he's reading a book or whatever.

But, like...

Beast is super smart.

I guess he's super smart.

But, like, he's not shooting fucking laser beams out of his eyes, you know?

Like.

No.

That power kicks ass.

It's one of the great powers.

It's also what makes Scott Somers such a dick to be around, I guess.

People hate Scott Somers.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's a tool.

But he's a leader.

He is.

Yeah.

He used to be my favorite X-Men.

Me too.

Based on the side-scrolling video game, he was like, that was my guy.

I like distance.

power in my playable characters.

Sure.

This is why you like Delzeem so much in Street Fighter, right?

I was never a Delzim guy, but I can see the similarity between Laser Beam and Long Limb.

You can stay back at a distance out of harm's way while you beat up on the other guy.

It's great.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Well, people should write in and tell us their superpowers that are not useful.

I'm very curious to learn about X-Men superpowers that are no good.

Name your X-Men.

Yeah.

Call it

Blank X-Men.

Include that in your copy.

What are you?

Timekeeper?

Wristwatch?

Oh, like what's the name of my superhero?

Yeah,

the chronometer?

I like that because there's a kind of a straight-line Star Trek reference there.

Sure.

That's fun.

The chronometer.

All right.

Well,

who knows if the chronometer hangs with Magneto or Professor X?

Yeah.

And who knows which side the Enterprise will fall on as they get right in the middle of a conflict between the Andorians and the Vulcans on today's episode.

Oh, yeah.

Which side of the dial will the hand be pointing at the end of Star Trek Enterprise Season 2, Episode 15?

Ceasefire.

That's what you said to the person that was pumping you full of electricity via needle, right?

This has gone long enough.

Cease fire.

So we get like an aerial of this war-torn city,

and then we're inside with Susie Plaxon and Shran, and they're strategizing.

Hey, Susie Plaxon, why the long face?

That's unfair.

She's got the antennas.

It accentuates a feature.

I know.

I'm not saying Susie Plaxon has a long face.

I'm saying the way she's done up as an Andorian and the way the hairline works and all that, it kind of Frankenstein monsters her out a little bit in a way that I don't love.

Yeah, she's a lot of fun in this episode, though.

And I like that they gave her an end Susie Plaxon in the credits.

Her voice is unmistakable.

I love it so much.

It doesn't have a stun setting.

An absolute OG Star Trek legend.

And she's sassy in this episode, too, in a way that Susie Plaxon characters often are in Star Trek.

She's great.

She's talking to Shrand about how there is a proposed ceasefire on the table coming from the Vulcans, and he does not want to talk to the Vulcans about that shit.

He wants someone he can trust in the room to moderate this.

A useful pink-skinned idiot

is what Shrand wants.

His name is Archer.

Amazing.

Indeed.

I love how this moment isn't played for like the revelation of a hero.

You know, like, I feel like we see this scene in a lot of different contexts and a lot of different ways.

Like,

oh my God, that's the equalizer or whatever.

And there's like a music sting and like the whole package.

This isn't like that.

This is just someone saying Archer's name and Susie Plaxon going, huh?

Who's that?

He can tell perfect time without a watch.

He's called the chronometer.

So after the theme, Archer is as shocked as we were to find out that he is being summoned to broker a peace on this war-torn world.

He's getting the news from Admiral Forrest, who's relaying it from, I guess, the Vulcan High Command.

None of them can really wrap their minds around this.

Sexual icon Admiral Forrest.

has his orders.

That's one aspect of this conversation that I think is important.

Like, this isn't like a, hey, Shreyan asked for you.

Are you available?

Like, it's weird, but, like, whatever.

Admiral Forrest is like,

your orders are

to go see what this is about.

You're the closest thing we have to an ambassador out there.

You know how important this could be.

We learn a little bit more about the conflict.

There's a planet that the Vulcans and Andorians are both in the conversation of who owns it.

The Vulcans call it Pon Makar, Makar, which sounded like horny adjacent Vulcan language, right?

Yeah.

It seems like when you have Ponfar

and all you have is a shuttlecraft to go to to jack it or something,

you got to go do Pon Makar.

Right.

Shoot it into the cigarette tray.

Or if you're just like with a hot Vulcan lady and you drive up to like the lookout point and you get it on Pon Makar, like that, that feels like another valid use case of the term.

Absolutely.

Why fight over this piece of shit planet, though?

Like, that's one of the questions here.

It's a Class D.

We should have done clap sync with

dry heaves.

That was perfect.

Hey, hey, Wendy, don't sink on the clap.

Sink on the vomit.

How about new?

Hey, Wendy, don't sink in the vomit.

Yuck.

You have to try.

You have to care.

The Andorians call it Waitan, and it's turned back into a hot war.

So they are really cooking to get out there.

Like,

they're warping super hard.

It's a Myanmar-Burma situation, isn't it?

With the whole Pan Makar and whatever the other word was.

Sure.

It's called Waitan.

Yeah, we don't call it that anymore.

Exactly.

Oh, it's going to be that kind of episode, too.

Hey, Adam.

I don't need to tell you what time it is.

I want to change superheroes.

I'm going to let my guy die in the video game, and then I'm going to choose someone else from the choose character screen.

Corner's in a different slot.

Drip Archer and Tepal are at the captain's best.

They're talking about why fight over this uninhabitable piece of shit.

And Tepal tells them that the Andorians were actually working on terraforming it.

And then the Vulcans were like, wait, that's right on our doorstep.

The only reason to put a colony there is for its strategic closeness to us.

We don't like that.

You got to get out of there.

And the Vulcans annexed it.

And she speaks pretty matter-of-factly about the like organized Roundup and expulsion of the Andorians that were living there.

They left the high command a little choice.

It's almost like you can't say anything against the Vulcans lest you be labeled some sort of anti-Vulkite

in this scenario, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

I kind of understand the Andorians' deal.

Like, they did all the work.

Yeah.

That's shitty.

Like, they got it all set up and then they're kicked out.

They had the, like, atmospheric processors going for all that time, and, like, they exterminated all the...

alien queens that laid their eggs in one of them.

Do you think it looks like

a spaceball planet once the Andorians set up their thing?

Like all the buildings have two antennas

on them.

That'd be fun, right?

I do like that idea.

But the planet's been deserted for a century.

Like the Vulcans have been keeping an eye on it, but not colonizing it themselves.

And

we get to orbit and Soval shows up with a guy that he introduces as Sub-Commander Mirok.

And Soval is just as shocked as we are that Archer was asked to do this.

And Archer's like, I know, right?

This is fucking weird.

We've seen Saval before on this show.

He's always ready and available to kick Archer in the nuts.

I don't consider your presence here an asset.

This Gary Graham is such a treasure in this role.

He's one of those guys that you love to hate.

Yeah, he rules.

He's great.

Before...

Gary Graham passed, I got to spend some time at the Masquerade Bar with him drinking late night at an STLV, and he was really fun to talk to.

No way.

Yeah.

Tell me more about that.

What did he drink?

What did you drink?

I don't know what he was drinking.

I was having tequila sodas at that point in the night.

And somebody introduced him to me and was like, this guy's got a real big Star Trek podcast.

And I think he may have been like kind of hazy on what a podcast was.

Man, I see it.

Really?

Please.

People don't know how that sounds.

And it does not sound the way people think it would

when you're introduced like that.

But I told him I really enjoyed him in Robot Jocks among all of the other Star Trek things he's done.

He was a gracious and delightful celebrity chat.

Where was I in some hotel room party?

Yeah.

You were probably up in the secret sex party being thrown by Mission Log or whatever.

That's what I do.

That's where I go.

The chronometer has arrived to keep time

of the sex party.

The hour hand has reached its apogee.

John Champion, you're looking very 11 p.m.

So we learned that Trin actually has some hostages, and he is only going to return those people if Archer comes in and mediates.

So, Sophal's like, so this guy, Mirok, is somebody I actually trust, unlike you.

So, he's going to be going down with you and holding your leash.

And Archer's like, no fucking way am I going with some Vulcan stooge.

Like, if I'm taking a Vulcan, I'm taking one I trust.

And that ain't Mirock.

So, it's going to be an Archer into Paul mission.

There may be a situation where we're put down onto a dirt floor and we've got to eat gruel.

Your Vulcan hench doesn't look like the gruel-eating type.

If that guy falls chest first onto me, it will be not nearly as pleasant.

God save that poor little stooge.

Hey, Sub Commander Morok, let's see what you're working with.

Dump him out, Morok.

Maybe just tie the back of your robe, like, very tight, like with one of your hands.

Let me see.

Now turn to the side.

let me see you in profile yeah now that's not gonna do it that's not gonna do it sub commander morok yeah archer goes to six bay and learns from flox that he needs a bit of bombardment before he can go down due to some kind of atmospheric situation this is something i think you were familiar with back in your college days before you go to a party you get to do some bombardments

before

heading out for the night uh-huh yeah you want to stay up don't you yeah

archer's like no i just want to go down and like catches a ball in his face.

And Flox is like, bombardment!

I mean, this is an opportunity, right?

While the bombardment happens, it gives Flox a chance to talk to Archer, lest you forget.

Dr.

Flox is a war veteran.

Yeah.

He was a battlefield medic.

And he cautions Archer about just wandering down to a war zone, swinging his arms around like...

the fucking dope that he is.

Hey, watch your back, Captain.

Like, can you please try to be your best self down there?

But Archer really sees this as an opportunity.

He's like, the legitimacy of humans as like a concerned species in the galactic conversation is

not being done any favors by the last year and a half or so of the NX01's venture out into the stars.

And this might be a chance for me to start turning things around.

The feeling is like Archer's like Ralph from The Simpsons.

Like, I'm a negotiator.

Oh, way to go, Ralph.

Like, the sense of self-importance here feels foreshadowing to me in a way that I don't think that they're intending.

Like,

this confidence that he has is kind of feels like a setup to me.

He's going to fake it till he makes it and really fake it, we learn in the next scene, because DePaul is like, so I sent you like the treaty that is under dispute and like some briefing papers about specifically what has happened and like some books on like diplomacy 101.

Did you go over any of that?

Did you get the advance email from the venue?

I'm pretty sure I did.

Yeah, didn't seem to be a problem.

Archer's excuse, if we could call it that, is that, I mean, who reads this much the night before a mission?

He was already up until the early hours of the morning.

The idea that he would read hundreds and hundreds of pages before the mission seems far-fetched.

So much that he doesn't really have to say that he's going to go with his gut.

Like, don't say that part.

Just say, you read as much as you could beforehand, and that's as much as could be done.

But, like, this note that the conversation ends on with the, like, we're just going to have to play about here.

He's a little George W about,

I'm just going to go down there and figure it out.

Yeah.

I mean, she explains this as like she just wants him to like put his best foot forward and have the best chance of success, but he really resented the like 1,200 pages of light reading that she gave him, you know, hours before he's meant to actually

synthesize that information and do something with it.

So.

And you know, the Vulcans write their reports in single space.

Yeah, they're doing the opposite of what I'm doing with the margins.

They're like moving them toward the edge of the paper.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's barely anywhere to put your finger.

So they put down in

this bombed-out city, and there's still some fighting going on.

We see like flashes of light on the horizon.

They start kind of sneaking around

and a bunch of Andorians get the drop on them and they are very angry that TePaul is here with Archer.

They're like, we expected you to come alone, Archer.

And then they kind of look at each other and are like, all right, well, I mean, we brought extra hoods.

so it's actually going to be all right from our perspective.

Good thing we brought a couple of headbags just in case.

So they go and are put in front of Sharan, and he's like very resentful of the implication that he took hostages, as is Susie Plaxon.

Like, they are in a war.

These are captured soldiers, not innocents that they just grabbed.

And TePal weighs in pretty early here and calls this a violation of the territorial compromise.

That's what we learn the treaty is that governs this planet.

Susie Plaxon calls this not a territorial compromise but oppression.

She views like what the Vulcans did displacing all those colonists and seizing this planet as a pretty unambiguously evil act and really has an axe to grind with all Vulcans about it.

What do you make of the single blue light in the closet that's pointed directly at the middle Vulcan prisoner?

It's a blue light.

What does it do?

Turns blue.

There's something so unusual about seeing practical lighting in a scene like this, and that it's just aimed at one of the prisoners.

Well, he's getting ready to do a live stream, so he's got to have that blue light, you know.

That it's blue, I think, is also appropriate.

Andorian blue.

Yeah.

This is a big ask, right?

The whole...

You know, Tran will release the Vulcans if we're tearing up that agreement that's so shitty and also leave the planet to us.

Unconditional surrender by the Vulcans is basically what Tran is asking for.

But this is what you do in a negotiation, right?

You over-ask.

And what Tran has done is gone all the way.

Right.

And Archer's like, no, man, I'm not here to just carry a list of unrealistic expectations from you to the Vulcans and then come back and tell you they said no.

Like, that's a fucking waste of my time.

And Shran is like, well, like, I've been talking to all these Vulcans that have to go back and ask Daddy if that's okay.

But if you can get me in front of Sauval, like, he has the power to thumbs up or thumbs down whatever we agree on.

So why don't we do that?

Why don't you bring him here?

So I can disappoint him in person.

This will be great.

Archer talks him into releasing a hostage as like a you know, a show of good faith.

But we're back on the ship before we know it with Sauval saying, like, one, one hostage was too, too few.

Hey, how about you ask the hostage how he feels about whether or not it's too few?

They whip pan over to him.

He's like, what?

You're sending me back?

Soval is like, I'm not going down there and talking to that guy.

You're just trying to get me.

kidnapped like this other guy was.

I kind of felt like Archer sort of used the like Marty McFly math to get Sauval to go.

Like he basically called him chicken.

I mean, there is a lot of that kind of Vulcan manipulation.

Like Saval's such an expert at this.

Like he just nags Archer to death here.

Yeah.

There's also a,

I mean, I am the chronometer, Ben, so I have to point this out.

There is the specter of Andorian ships being on the way to this position, and they're going to be there in four hours.

So there's kind of a countdown in play here, too.

tripp is uh stressed that traditionally when vulcans and diplomacy are involved it can take a really long time and he says that it took eight years to get the territorial compromise hammered out and archer's like well we'll just we'll see if we can get it done in four hours do you want me to pack extra food for this for this mission for you i got some uh some extra rum chata from a recent mission should i throw some of that in the back of the shuttle pod?

Eight years worth of rum chata.

You might need one of those uh like tow shuttles behind the shuttle pod

just to hold all of it.

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Ben would rather die.

Rather die.

So on the surface, Shrane and Tara are not on the same page about negotiating with the Vulcans.

She sees negotiating as backing down.

But Shran seems to think that the Pinkskins can offer a form of craftiness that they don't have access to, right?

Crafty, like when you're in a kind of negotiating limbo, Crafty can really help.

He has a lot of faith in Archer.

I just I loved this scene because like you realize that like nobody agrees with anyone in this situation.

Like, the Vulcans don't really agree with each other.

They don't agree with Archer.

Archer doesn't agree with the Andorians.

The Andorians don't agree with each other.

Like, it is a very complex situation.

And I love Soval saying that to Archer.

Like, you don't appreciate how tricky this is.

And Archer kind of not giving a shit.

The ball's in your court now.

If you were worried that the Andorians might not have a third headbag when they they finally land their shuttle.

That worry is quickly replaced by, oh shit, they're going to crash because shots start coming at them from the surface and they go in hard.

So hard that there are pieces of corrugated metal on the ground that have caught fire.

I mean, there must be a totally different kind of fuel besides jet

in the shuttle, right?

Yeah.

Because this seems impossible.

That's more than melting steel beams.

Yeah.

Exciting crash sequence here.

The three of them pop out of the shuttle and survey their location.

And hey, Soval shares that he used to work here.

Hey, I'm kind of like the gull de cot of Pon Makar.

Hey, I used to have Plo Meek soup in that restaurant.

Right over there, see?

Yeah.

That's where I used to walk my dog.

He knows right where to go to get to the Vulcan stronghold, and Archer

is a little bit hesitant to go there.

And he's like, We don't know if the Vulcans are the ones that shot us down.

Like, we don't know what happened here.

It's fucking crazy.

And we need to consider that as a possibility.

So I think we should just continue to try and find Shran and see if we can get a ceasefire in place and then worry about getting ourselves behind a safe wall somewhere.

Yeah.

Saval is certain of the direction they need to go in order to get to safety.

And Archer's equal and opposing force to that argument is, but I gave my word.

How does that somehow work?

Is it like that is

just such crazy logic?

It just might work to Saval.

Logicking like a fox.

Yeah, I guess that's what Archer's doing here.

That gave me a chuckle.

Yeah,

I mean,

you really have to

extend this episode

a lot of suspension of disbelief to believe that that Sylval would go along with this.

But at this point, I was like, I was having so much fun.

I didn't really care.

Mirock and Trip are on FaceTime up in orbit.

And Mirok is like, Vulcan commandos.

Remember those guys?

We're getting ready to send them down there.

And Trip is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

That sounds even more dangerous than the situation that they may already be in, if you can believe it.

Vulcans are famously not emotional in just about every situation, but Murak here has permanent headache face.

I noticed.

He just looks really put upon.

And I can't tell if it's just the talking to Trip Tuckerness of the moment or that he's kind of in a pickle diplomatically.

Well, it's really hard to talk to Trip when they're keeping it as cold as they're keeping it on the Bridge of the Enterprise and his sleeves look like that.

You know?

Yeah.

You can see Murak really struggling to keep his eyes up, you know.

I know, I know.

My arm looks like I keep a large caterpillar

under my sleeve.

You're never going to let that go, are you?

Tran finds out that the shuttle got shot down and is fucking pissed.

And Susie Plaxon's character is like, well, maybe this is good.

Like we can just like do the fight instead of try to meet with Soval.

And Tran's Tran's like, no, I really want to meet with Soval.

Like, you agree with me, right?

And she's like, yeah, of course.

This is a low-key, the most important scene in the episode, I thought, because this reaction to the situation is right there for us to see that Tara is okay with it and that Tran is...

sincerely upset at the situation and how it might reflect on him and his side of the conflict.

She is under orders to agree with him in a weird way.

Like, I guess she's like his lieutenant or something.

So

it feels like a rank pull moment.

So meanwhile, Archer and Saval and Tepal are making their way through the ruins.

And Saval takes every opportunity to be as quippy as possible as they go.

And when Archer goes off to scout on his own, it gives Saval and Tepal a moment by themselves.

And he makes sure to let her know just how disappointed he is in her career choices.

You're one of the most promising members of my staff, TePaul.

If you'd stayed in San Francisco, you'd be the assistant counsel by now.

You might even have a diplomatic posting of your own.

I'm aware of that.

This really seems like it hurts.

Like, he goes pretty hard at her.

But to her credit, TePaul really defends herself here and says that, like, for as much of a dipshit as Archer is, he really has earned her respect.

And that's when Archer finds his way back.

Like, he gives them just enough time to have this moment together before before moving on.

Tara has found the shuttle that crashed, and we get the idea that she is now hunting Archer and trying to get rid of him before he can find Tran.

And on the bridge, Hoshi is

pretty sure she's found life signs of Archer.

There's some kind of like damping field in place, so there's no communications and no scanning available to them.

But Hoshi seems to have penetrated this damping field, and she lets Trip Tripp know about this.

And then Tripp finds out that the Andorian ships have dropped out of warp and are mere minutes away.

So he sets tactical alert.

It would be great if tactical alert meant, you know, the readiness of all the weapons and systems and so forth, but also like all the grapplers shoot out really wide.

And they can do like a spin and like quip other ships with them.

I mean, just to make yourself big, you know, like if a bear is trying to attack you or something, shoot the grapplers out.

Oh, yeah.

And leave them out.

Look at an alarmed cat in a driveway that didn't expect my dog to walk by.

It's a totally different look if you're looking at Enterprise, I think.

Safal catches one as they're creeping around in these ruins and they have to run for cover.

how surprised were you at this

16 layers of burlap in this robe and the and the laser cuts through it clean yeah he didn't have a bible in his breast pocket that's why no no these blue beams i noted looked exactly like the blue beams that were hitting the shuttle when it got shot down yep and

one of my favorite moments where the episode makes Archer look like the dope he is is when he's like sticking his head up from cover to like try and tell whoever is shooting at them that they shouldn't be.

We've brought the Vulcan Ambassador to me with Commander Schrann.

It's too complicated, Archer.

They're going to get them to stop shooting.

And it's too loud.

Yeah.

So they start fighting back.

Archer has TePal and Safal just lick shots, kind of generally in the direction of where shots are coming from, so that he can sneak around and flank these fools.

And

he gets the first guy who's like up on an elevated platform and knocks him out with a pretty good right hook.

I read that the,

I don't know if it was the writer or the director of this episode, but someone with creative control over what happens here was briefly detained and arrested because this hench up on the scaffold didn't go end over end

into the bag with the Wilhelm scream.

Like, as you are legally obligated to do.

Friend of the show, Chris Black, wrote this episode, and I

couldn't tell you how he is walking around a free man today.

You both could compare and contrast your time briefly imprisoned.

I should ask him about it.

You have so much to talk about.

How did you get out?

He did get out, and they sent him, and he was like working a as a bag boy at a grocery store for a while, but it just wasn't for him, you know?

Yeah.

He was kind of institutionalized at that point.

Then he went back to hang himself?

Were you suggesting?

Your friend is alive, isn't he?

Yeah.

I mean, last I checked.

I don't know.

So meanwhile, Trip is in orbit trying to like maneuver their ship in between the Andorians and the Vulcans to try and prevent a firefight up there,

Archer sneaks up on Tara, who's the other shooter, and he's got one of these Andorian webs pointed at her and does the super cool, I don't know if this thing's on stun or not speech.

There is a non-zero chance he's holding that backwards and aimed at himself, though, right?

Yeah, yeah.

It's like it's in shadow, and so she throws her gun away, and then like he steps closer and she's like, fuck, god damn it.

but she reveals that she is she's a total zealot she does not believe in diplomacy when it comes to vulcans

and archer is going to i guess take her prisoner and take her back to shran but uh he steps on an unstable part of the floor and his foot goes through

And suddenly we're in the section 31 movie and

a motorcycle bad guy comes through.

It's wild how the floor floor gives way a couple of different times during this fight.

Yeah, yeah.

Great big Star Trek fight between Archer and Terra.

Good tussle.

And Archer finally wins when Shran and some other buddies of his run in.

And like initially,

it's Shran catching Archer beating up his lieutenant.

And he's like pissed at Archer about this.

Yeah, that's a fun moment.

But

Trip on the Enterprise gets a call from both the Vulcans and the Andorians, and they do like a three-way FaceTime call.

Trip basically gives them an ultimatum that if anybody approaches the planet and attempts landing, that's their ass.

They're going to shoot all of their incredibly feeble missiles at them.

I need something to do on this ship, come on.

Fair enough.

This is great.

Like, have you ever diffused an argument by like making the other person laugh?

I feel like that's what Trip Tucker is doing here.

He's like, how long has it been since you've had a real good laugh?

because once i shoot these phase cannons at you after threatening to destroy you with those very same phase cannons oh you're gonna laugh so hard

you're gonna love it and you know sharing that laugh together is gonna be the first plank in a platform that you can build a piece upon there's no way you're gonna fall through that platform and then fist fight each other like what's going on on the surface

so on the surface shran realizes that he's totally being admiral cartwrighted here yeah tara is a like doesn't want to live in a in a peaceful future person and she's forcing this conflict you can read it on her face and you have the time if you paused it

read the whole thing yeah all up and down that thing as long as the documents that archer was supposed to read uh before it's 1200 pages long have you noticed how long my face is i can say this i'm also a long face.

You'd never understand.

You can't say it.

I can.

Yeah, I mean, I don't even want to come.

I don't want to get anywhere near that, man.

That's for you and your kind to discuss.

I'll take it.

The chronometer will take it.

Also, great big face on watches and clocks, huh?

Hmm.

Usually round, but in the chronometer's case, niched.

I love when

Trip finally gets on the radio with Archer when the scattering field is dropped and Trip is like, y'all right?

I do like that.

Yeah, everything's going good.

No problems up here, no problems down there.

Archer reports that their shuttle pod is fucked up, so they're going to need a ride.

And I was like, didn't they leave a shuttle pod crashed on another planet?

not that long ago?

Yeah, they're really going through them.

Yeah.

This is starting to be a real Star Trek Voyager situation.

Remember that idea we had a while ago about them using the doors for shuttle pods as ways to repair their ship when chunks of it are blown off?

I think we're getting an answer as to why they didn't think to do that.

They really are going through these shuttle pods fast.

Yeah.

So we even get a little scene of the diplomacy.

Like it's going.

It's not going easy, but it's going.

And a toast is proposed to everyone's mutual dissatisfaction.

Syval's doing dry January, but ah, what the hell?

I love that the camera lingers on Saval while he takes his shot.

As if to suggest that this is like two-fisted liquor here.

Like

this is for hoary nights.

Yeah.

You know?

Also, like, you know, like, I'm not going to believe that Saval actually did it after he put up such a big fuss unless I actually see him do it.

We're not trusting Sauval to take the shot.

Do you think Andorian teenagers experiment with doing antenna shots like to get super drunk?

Like they'll stick a tampon in the booze and then they'll cram it into the antenna.

You know, because you can use the string to pull it out, baby.

There's holes in the tops of the antenna.

Aren't there?

I don't know.

They look like holes to me.

It looks like the snake that's swallowed an elephant in the petite prince.

I thought they were

tubes.

Do they not look like tubes to you?

I don't know.

I never considered it.

They're on TV.

They were in this episode.

I know.

I did not every.

I don't.

I'm not looking to sound every antenna I see on television, Adam.

I'm not like you.

Did you like this episode, Ben?

This episode wasn't overly meddlesome, which is also how my Olympic prospects have been described.

Slow burn on that one.

Are we just going to the pre-prepared material at this point?

Let's just do a quick scan of the checklist.

All right, I think I got all the

everything I had.

Yeah, I like that a lot.

That was good.

I like the episode.

I think that the show has done so much to make Archer look like such a buffoon.

And I don't think he looks un-buffoonish in this, but we were talking about it in terms of Archer is succeeding in an Archer way when he succeeds lately.

And I like that they're finding ways for the rubber to meet the road for him finally, without it feeling like they're just like, okay, let's start writing him good at this.

You know,

like, I think he's like learning bit by bit, but also

some of the time, like his methods actually, are actually effective.

It's a situation where like his success is

incidental to his relationship to it, you know?

Right.

Like that this thing worked out wasn't because he had a plan and the plan was successful.

I feel like he was just kind of himself when the shit went down and that's what ended up working.

Yeah.

And earning, I guess, some respect from some of these other people.

Does Shran get to sleep at the end of this?

Like, because a big part of this episode and dialogue and then past episodes has been like, you know, when an Andorian owes you a favor, they stop sleeping.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is that over with now?

Yeah, I feel like everything.

Well, no, because like Archer Cumming was another favor to Shran, wasn't it?

This is where I was going with this.

Like, at what point is that debt repaid?

Oh, man.

Poor Shran.

I like the episode too.

I love a like paintball course playset that you get outside.

Like that it was so built the way it was was fun.

That its breakaway platforms were built, like pre-scored and ready to be stepped in.

Like all that detail work is really fun to me.

Like that kind of thought put into a fight sequence is great.

I'm also really happy the show avoided the straight line between

it and

like you know whenever a story starts talking about settlements and repopulation and you know agreements being torn up and so forth I'm like oh God

like is this going to be another very special episode of Star Trek and it wasn't it was about its own thing and I was relieved about that right yeah like all of that terminology feels i mean i feel like that terminology didn't seem as charged in the days when these episodes were coming out but like anything like Seddler, colonist, hostage, you know, bombardment, all of these things now,

your spidey senses are up that like, oh fuck, is this episode going to have a horrible take on some current event?

And it's like, it's one of the nice things about watching an old show.

It's like they're not

necessarily writing about the same shit.

Absolutely.

Well, let's see what our FODs are writing about in the Priority One Message Inbox, Ben.

Great idea.

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secured channel.

Need a supplemental income.

Supplemental income.

Supplemental.

Supplemental income.

Yeah, it's extra.

But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship.

Ben, we've got a promotional priority one message here.

Oh.

And here's how that goes.

In a world where Chris Brenner is the only non-shitty example of a rich billionaire, I've needed a lot of distraction lately.

TGG and its community have provided it.

I haven't even made it to Enterprise, but my latest reviewing of the pod has helped with my mental health more, much more, than Troy helped Barkley with his hollow addiction.

Thanks, Adam and Ben, and the Miriam FODs on the Drunk Shimoto Discord for your support, even if you didn't know you were providing it.

Brynner job, please.

I'm Chris Brynner.

Brynner Information Systems.

You know, interface, operations, net access, channel 90.

Chris Brenner.

This message comes in from Josius.

And you know where the greatest gen Discord is, right?

It's drunkshimoda.com.com.

We've got a flourishing is probably the word we can still use, right?

That is a community that grows and grows.

It's a beacon of fun times on the internet.

It's great.

Really well-run community.

Like it's it's always super positive and

fun over there.

And Adam and I will occasionally drop in and say what's up to folks.

There's a URL attached to this message.

It is

allatrelado.org.

Allotrolado.

Allotrelado.org slash let's do something.

That's spelled A-L-O-T-R-O-L-A-D-O.org.

And that's a place where you can donate.

Yeah.

Donate to what, Ben?

Alotrelado is a great charity and this fundraising push is something that our buddy Jesse Thorne set up in response to things going on in our world right now.

El Otrolado is a group that works on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border to help migrants understand their rights and get representation and stuff.

They are really close to the ground and like really interact on a one-to-one basis with people who really, really need help right now.

And Jesse told me that they raised something like a hundred and fifty thousand bucks for Alo Gelato doing some fundraising on uh his podcast so uh really awesome stuff and I hope people support looks like they've raised a hundred and twenty nine thousand dollars on oh man a site on looking at so great very cool yeah I think um over the years you and I have set up funds for all sorts of things and I think one of the things that a site like this does is it gives folks a place to go to to do something like when the problems are this merriam and large i think it's easy to just be like ah what do i do i don't know what to do so i'm doing nothing and i don't want to do nothing but i don't know where to put my energies aloe trelado is is an example of this like it's a place where you can put your energy and your donation to do some good so thanks to josius for getting the word out indeed thanks to everyone who gets a p1 message on the show.

Head to maximumfun.org/slash jumbotron if you'd like to get one on.

We'd sure appreciate it.

Hey, Ben.

Ooh, what's that, Adam?

Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda skulking around on the planet's surface?

Drunk Shimoda!

How could I give it to anyone but the female Q herself, Susie Plaxon?

I think this is her last Star Trek thing, so

sad to see her go.

But

I hope she gets in some of this new Star Trek stuff that they're doing.

I hope she's not dead like Gary Graham.

Is she, do we need the RSVP, Susie Blackson?

She does not have any credits that I can find after 2008.

So

you know, one of the things that happens is you look up a favorite actor on IMDb and you see a birth date and a death date.

I don't see a death date on her IMDb page, so hopefully she's still going strong.

Yeah, she's great.

Absolute Star Trek legend.

Yeah.

Hopefully you get to have drinks with her at STLV.

That would be great.

On an upcoming year.

I'm sure you will have already absconded to something way cooler, but you know.

Yeah.

I'm going to use a stopwatch at an orgy.

That's where I'm going to be while you're having drinks with Susie Plaxon.

Yeah.

How about you?

I love when Archer gives Saval a phaser and he looks at him like with the incredulity during his retort, which is like, I haven't shot one of these in 50 years.

There's something about that amount of time that just, that was a laugh line for me.

That was so fucking funny.

Yeah.

I was like, what am I supposed to do with this?

It's like riding a bike, Syval.

Yeah,

amazing.

And wouldn't you know it?

He came right back to him.

Yeah.

Good job, Syval.

Faith of the fart.

Wow, that was a ton of fun.

Let me tell you, Adam, about our next episode, season two, episode 16 of Enterprise Future Tense.

The Enterprise crew find a small craft drifting in space and are surprised to find it contains a human corpse.

More questions arise when both the Suleban and Tholians make claims to the craft.

The Tholians?

These are the web people?

Of the web.

Meow.

Wow.

Wouldn't it be great if this was the ship with the $5 carnival guitar guy and the banker?

And what Enterprise did is like they thawed them out and they were like, nope, these guys suck.

We're freezing them again.

Freezing them back.

Someone else could deal with this shit.

That would be tremendous.

I'm curious, though, Adam, how we will be doing this episode.

For that, we go to goch.biz slash game and consult the game of buttholes,

the Wheel of of the Riker quantum leap.

Ben, we are smack dab in the middle of this game board.

Square 50 is where our runabout is.

And once I roll this die, we could go anywhere.

You're required to learn as you play.

Roll.

Roll it.

Ben,

I have rolled a two,

which means we're on square 52,

which means it's a Neelix's galley episode.

Wow.

Where the hosts drink champagne.

Talaxian champagne or similar, I guess.

How about that?

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

Got to go get some bubble wine.

You do?

Fuck.

How exciting is that?

It's tremendous.

It's been a long time since we've done a little drinking on an episode.

It's time, isn't it?

Yeah.

I love the Lord, but I do a little drinking.

And

I'm ready for it.

Yeah.

Like the scorpion says in Predator 2, my body is ready.

Wow.

Well, thanks for getting us back on track, Adam.

And thank you to Windy Pretty, our producer, who edits this show and keeps the plate spinning around here.

Listen, thanks to everyone who financially supports the thing that they consume.

It's not easy for everyone, but it's the reason you're hearing our voices right now.

Your support means a lot to us and it keeps the show going.

MaximumFund.org slash join is how you get yourself set up.

Hey, $5 a month.

Yeah.

That's all.

That's all.

You won't even feel it.

You're never going to notice that coming out of your checking account.

Sign an elderly relative up for a credit card and have it recur on that, you know?

We'll make sure you never feel it because it'll be called something else in your credit statement.

Not Star Trek podcast.

Delicious vegetables.

We got to thank Rob Adler, our social media director, running the greatest trek social media accounts, and the great Bill Tilley, our temporal Cold Wartime consigliary, who is who you will encounter in the DMs if you slide in to propose sending something to us for a future Code 47 episode.

He's also making those hilarious trading cards that go out on our Instagram.

Those cards just get better and better.

I love them.

And with all the phaser fire in this episode, you know we're going to see

some phaser fire touching in the middle of the picture.

I love when he does that.

Tripticks and dip ticks of

the beam going all the way across.

Yeah.

Real artful stuff.

He rolls.

We've got to thank Adam Ragusia, who made our original theme music.

Give a listen to Wholesome, the show we make with Adam Ragusia.

It's a patrons-only show.

Kind of freewheeling conversations about stuff we like.

Goes in a lot of unexpected directions.

Three smart, funny people.

You could do a lot worse, podcast-wise.

You don't even have to like all of us.

Like one of us will do.

It works.

Yeah.

Thanks to Dark Materia for the original Picard Tongue.

And with that, we will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise and episode of The Greatest Generation Enterprise that might like start a new bank account now that we're in like a post-money future.

And so then like you get refrozen and it's still like a couple hundred years for that to appreciate, right?

Right.

Yeah.

And besides, like if you're a guitar player, you do not want a pre-replicated guitar

era guitar.

Like you're just going to be playing a piece of shit if you play whatever they got on Enterprise.

When you taste how good the martini is on

The Entrepreneur,

and then you realize the implications for how good a $5 carnival guitar is going to sound when you replicate that.

Yeah,

drink four martinis and go back into the ice box.

Well, I might just get to like this place.

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