The Greatest Generation - Look at How They Massacred Our Nausicaans (ENT S1E10)

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

When the Entrepreneur gets sent to help a freighter in distress, its acting captain is a bit of a base-model Toyota Corolla enthusiast. But when a friendly check-in from a Maritime standpoint starts seeming more suspicious, Captain Archer outlaws frontier justice and Mayweather convinces his boomer twin to release the Nausicaan hostage. What’s the most painful part of adapting to life in LA? Is Captain Ryan a Captain Josh? Which story needs the Petkoff treatment? It’s the episode with a very short Death Wish.Support the production of The Greatest GenerationGet a thing at podshop.biz!Sign up for our mailing list!Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Riker - Quantum LeapThe Greatest Generation is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFriends of DeSoto for: Labor | Democracy | JusticeDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Facebook | X | Instagram | TikTok | Mastodon | Bluesky | ThreadsAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.social

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I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranica. Oh boy. Last episode of the week Adam. It's been a full week. Sure has. Unlike recent ones. Yeah, look at you. As healthy as you've been in months Congratulations, which isn't you know damning with faint praise, but you heard it the way I intended it You've managed to keep all of the hoves out of your mouth Then you can good job by you. I had like a weird thing that I just could not dislodge from my brain today because we just, right before this, recorded a bonus episode for Behind the Paywall with Dan McCoy

of the Flophouse. We recorded an episode about Quantum Leap because of a recent veto that I used on the game of Buttholes. And that episode of Quantum Leap had Terry Hatcher in it. Terry Hatcher obviously makes it canonical Star Trek, but also canonical Seinfeld, because she's in a very famous episode of Seinfeld where Elaine trips and falls and grabs her boob.

I do remember that one. Anyway, uh, they're real. Another guy in that episode of Seinfeld is in this episode of Star Trek Enterprise. The guy that plays Shaw is in that episode of Seinfeld and I was just like, what does it mean? The like rich tapestry of oh yeah it's just like late 80s early 90s TV like these were the people that were working in Hollywood there's no connection at all. These are the jobs that were available. Yeah. You can't name a character Shaw on what is ostensibly

like a naval warfare seafaring type show without there being implications, right? Nasequins in the water. That guy doesn't get enough to do like eye patch energy wise. You know what he's got though is he's got, oh, I need to gesture to the right shoulder. He's got that great seaman sweater. And now I know that phrase can mean a lot to a lot of people, but in this case, I mean the thick knit sweater with the buttons on one shoulder that you see

in old timey seafaring movies. I have a sweater like that with a nice Breton stripe across the chest. Yeah. And a bunch of dried ropes. Yeah, you could break it over your knee like a piece of board. Tough to get ropes out of a knit sweater. Yeah, yeah, 100% wool.

That just hangs on. It's a wicking fabric. Yeah. And that goes for ropes just as much as rainwater or sweat. You have one of those in your Seattle days when you lived in a cold place? A wicking sweater? No.

Are you asking me if I own sweaters, Ben? I'm asking if you nut in your sweaters specifically. No, I tried to take off all my clothes before I nut. No, I'm asking if you had this sailor man style sweater like he does. I surely did not. No, I was and am more of a jacket person than a many kinds of sweaters and tops kind of person. Yeah.

So that's what I leaned into. Stopping being a sweater man has been one of the most painful parts of adapting to life in LA. I mean, you pivoted pretty hard into a thousand different types of Hawaiian shirts. So I think it's working pretty well for you sartorially. You look great. I'm trying to scratch an itch that I just can't scratch, you know? Yeah. Well, it's pretty hard to scratch an itch through a sweater.

Yeah. You get a press down really hard. Typically the sweater's only adding to the itch situation. Sure is. Do you think it's cold on one of these freighters like they got in Star Trek Enterprise? This is a great question. They're all wearing jackets and sweaters.

Because it is very cold in space. Yeah, somebody famously said that at some point. I can't remember who. You're surrounded by metal in a very cold place in a situation where you probably want to conserve power wherever possible. You got to believe you're running the heater very little in a situation like that. Yeah. The minimum amount.

Except I read somewhere that the big thermodynamic problem with the International Space Station is getting rid of heat because there's like no, like usually you'd like, you know, blow air over a heat sink or something like that. Because they're in space, they can't do that. Right, they live in a computer. You don't just get to put big fans in there. Yeah, you can't just put big fans in there. You know, you can't like open a window

on one end of the space station and another window on the other end get a cross draft Going that would kill everyone. Yeah Yeah, but when you touch the wall to a space station or in the future as in this episode That wall is gonna be cold, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, wouldn't you think and then you move your hand across and you wipe the ice crystals away And there's a cryogenic person in there. There's a time travel man in that thing. Yeah, yeah, so I don't know. I mean, these guys dress like it's a little bit chilly

over there, not like it's cold, cold. It sure seems that way, but there are plenty of opportunities for exertion in this episode, Ben. Why don't we explore them all as we talk about Star Trek Enterprise season one episode 10, Fortunate Son. It's a LeVar Burton episode. Sure is.

And in our opening sequence, we get maybe the scene of the most fun that we get the entire episode. Yeah. We're playing long toss in one of the cargo containers of this Raider ship. And it is so much fun to play because the gravity is only really stable on either end. So once you wing a football across, that thing is floating slowly and nicely across. You don't really even need to throw a perfect spiral, which is kind of what I was hoping for in this scene. Like the wind cutter turning football, but there's no wind in this room either.

Yeah, if Matthew Ryan was, like, pretty bad at this, but the captain was like, he's a good kid and I do want somebody to toss with. When you're playing catch with an old, a zero-gravity or low-gravity environment's probably great for them. Yeah. I doubt you could throw the ball ten meters on Earth. One more reason not to go.

It seems like a really nice hang. Made me wonder, this is a football and Ben Sisko was such a weirdo for liking baseball in his era, a couple hundred years to the future of this, what we're watching. Is football still a going concern or are these also weirdos? They like an ancient sport that nobody knows anything about anymore. Professional football is the most popular sport in the world. And I presume it will be henceforth. You can speak to us normally. That's what I think.

I think you got the wrong kind of football here, my friend. Oh. Tell you what, though. Not nearly as interesting would it be to kick a soccer ball across this environment. Yeah, that would suck. Yeah. That's not looking as cool at all. Well, they get a banger and they learn that their ship is at danger of getting relegated

by Nausicaans. And, uh- God, I just barely understood that reference. I'm so glad you took just the smallest pause around that one word. It allowed me the precious moment necessary for the gears to click in my brain. Yeah, behind the joke, me too. I was like, what is one specific thing I can think of in this moment? Yeah, you talk about a red alert.

This is a red card. Yeah! Yeah! Woo! Felt good. Yeah! Woo! Woo! Felt good. Yeah. Do you think that this freighter is faking it when it goes down and starts clutching its ankle?

Yeah, yeah. Because the Nausicaans are playing dom jot with that ass? I think so. The thing about this Nausicaan attack is that everyone on board seems to have expected something like this. There's a course of action that the crew snaps into and that's how we're feeling as we go into the theme. But after the theme, a very different feeling is in Archer's compartment. He's been woken up by a call from Admiral Forrest at Starfleet Command and he's redirected Enterprise toward this freighter ship,

a ship called the Fortunate, which is pretty terrible name for a moment like this. Like they couldn't give us a little bit of pattern between them. Like, wow, how ironic, huh? But the thing is, Enterprise is the closest ship to them. And that means in a, in a mayday situation, when you're out at sea, like you, this is maritime law. Like when this comes in over the radio, you must respond. You got to go do the thing. And I thought it was interesting the way it was discussed that it's not like that they're physically the closest, it's that they're closest by the amount of time it will take to get to them.

Right. Because this is a warp 1.8 freighter and a lot of the ships in this line of work are not pushing speeds much faster than that. So the Enterprise with its warp five engine is just in a much better position to respond to the emergency. So Archer agrees to it and we pull up to the Fortunate pretty quickly after this and it's kind of a drift in space. I liked the kind of, there was like a little bit of crap floating around it, like there's some debris in the area, but it's not totally clear, you know, who came out on top of their little run in with with the Nausicaans. No response to the hail, but there are 24 life signs on board. So there is going to be someone there to greet

when Archer and Mayweather and Reed and Flux take a shuttle pod over to the ship. And once they dock with it, they make their way inside where they're met by Matthew Ryan. He's the first officer and he explains that the Nausosticans attacked them. And look, man, we're doing just fine. All right? Like, I know you want to help and stuff, but like, we got this. And Archer quite naturally asked like, okay, cool, Ryan, where's the captain? The reason I said it that way is that I think, unfortunately, that name does not fit in

with the future universe. It just feels too today. It's like when you board a commercial airliner and the captain's name Josh, like this is Captain Josh and first officer Ryan. That doesn't feel good to me. It's been like five years since the idea of Captain Josh has come up on The Greatest Generation. Yeah, you remember? That is an early cut.

It is, yeah. That's how I feel about Captain Ryan in this moment. Wow, yeah. Yeah, like if you got on a commercial airplane and it was Captain Caleb or like, if it was a Zoomer name, you'd be like what the fuck yeah if it's like Captain Ashley but there's like a bunch of superfluous letters in there that make it impossible for a an over-the-phone conversation to happen with a like care provider or whatever without spelling it over and over again. I wouldn't feel great about that either.

It's Alpha Sierra Hotel, Echo Indigo, Golf Hotel. That's Wonka wash spelled backwards. As much as temporary Captain Ryan is like, I got this, Dr. Flock's being there is good for making the case that if you've got injured, and especially if you're injured as the captain, you gotta let this guy look at him. I mean, your doctor probably fucking sucks.

Yeah, it's kind of a compounding maritime law situation, right? Like it's, oh, I'm a doctor, and so I like couldn't possibly leave without taking a look at this guy from an ethical standpoint. Right. In the same way that we had to come check on you from a maritime standpoint.

And I love that, I mean, it's not like they're playing the Metal Gear sound effects when Matt Ryan says suspicious things. The episode lets you build your suspicions pretty slowly. And I like that the kind of first thing that seems really suspicious about him is that he seems very disappointed that they're gonna let a doctor look at his captain. If you're trying to cover something up, you need to be enthusiastically accepting of medical

care for your captain in this situation, right? Oh, thank Vec. I'm sorry. That probably came across as so racist that I assumed you couldn't be a doctor. I mean, I'm so glad you're here. Our captain's like a father to me. You should have seen us.

We were just throwing the football. And Archer's like throwing a football. Wouldn't you be kicking it? This is not a water polo reference, is it, Ben? No, I'm not going to pimp you into another classic game of polo, polo, or poyo, Adam. All right, not this episode. I didn't know it was such a rough game. In the freighter Six-Bay, we see injured Captain Keen here. And just look at this guy.

He's so injured, but he also looks so much like a grizzled captain of a fishing trawler, like you'd see on a box of fish sticks. I wanted to know this guy more. And by the time we do toward the end, I'm really glad we get the scene at the end with him, but this is not Crimson Tide. We do not get an argument between him and Ryan at all, in a way that I felt like a phantom limb throughout this episode. Like, neither of them even hints at what their opinion is

about what color Lipin's on or Stallion's are when they're born. I know. It makes no sense. But they are from Portugal. Pretty soon after this, we get a moment in a cargo area with the aforementioned Shaw and acting captain Ryan, and they kind of, you know, out of earshot of Starfleet, open up about how much they don't want Starfleet here. And it's pretty quickly revealed that the reason for that is that they have a Nausicaan that they are holding hostage in this cargo area. Ryan is like, tell me how the codes go. And then like,

rains punches down on this guy. Yeah, it's fucked up. Which is a weird time to do bits, right? You don't do bits on fists. So he's trying to torture codes out of this. Nasikin presumably gets them, right? Then he goes over to the Enterprise, presumably gets shuttled over to the Enterprise

and is getting a little tour, learns about the presence of a transporter, which, how did you feel about this moment? Because I was like, this is how you set up a thing. Like, my note is literally, I wonder if this will come up later. What stuck out to me was that unlike in any other Star Trek context, this transporter is just out in the open.

It's not behind a door. Yeah. It's not in a transporter room. It's in a hallway. It's in a hallway. That's a transporter. Which is why Captain Ryan is seeing this to begin with. He's on this tour with Mayweather and they're walking down a corridor and they're like,

oh yeah, that's the transporter. It's just here. And they both kind of talk about how reluctant they'd be to ever take a trip on one of those. And this is a scene that establishes that they're kind of freighter twins, aren't they? Yeah. Their experiences aboard freighters make for a good foundation to a friendship. Yeah.

This is some nice backstory filling in stuff about Mayweather and what makes him tick as a guy, but also learning more about Ryan. We both just don't have the heart to call him Captain Ryan, do we? We're both avoiding every opportunity to do that. Yeah, I guess so. But yeah, they go to the engineering area and like Ryan kind of speaks out against going fast, which is an idea that's spoken by multiple people

from his side of the episode. Like multiple people from the freighter talk about, like, they got into this life for the long-haulness of it. They got into this to leave their domestic issues behind for a long, long time. This guy reminds me of the character they cut out of, the Fast and the Furious, the guy who's just like a base model Toyota Corolla enthusiast

Who just wants reliable transportation and he pops up in all the street racing scenes just kind of like not fitting in Any faster? There'd be no time to enjoy the trip How do you do fellow street racers? How do you do, fellow street racers? Oh, yeah. They're really like two peas in a pod. But then Ryan drops an N-bomb. He talks about the North Star, a ship

that we don't really learn about what happens to it, but both he and Mayweather know that the North Star was a ship that experienced some notoriously bad outcome. And Ryan is in fact a survivor of whatever that was. His parents were notably not. Inside I'm like, cool. Eventually we're gonna cut over to Shaw. The room is gonna get dark.

He's gonna be lit by a spotlight. Yeah. And we're gonna hear, uh, crewmen in the space. Somehow sharks in the space. You ever see a space shark? It's got dark eyes like a doll's eye. Did you clock the meals that these two old freighter dudes got? Ryan gets the steak and potato and broccoli.

I keep doing that by accident at a cheesecake factory. And Mayweather gets fried chicken and mashed potatoes with a side veg. And Mayweather brings it up again, how great the ship's chef is and how this has got to be an under siege situation. How could it be anything else? We're going to meet this guy when we absolutely are at our most desperate. Right. He is going to kick all the ass. Right.

I mean, it's, it's either an under siege or a red October. There are no other potential outcomes, right? This is like the one moment, like as cool as this character that we've not seen appears to be. Ryan and Mayweather appear to be heading toward a friendship breakup because they do not see eye to eye

in the class structure of freighter ship folks and the Starfleets. Starfleets are kind of like you've sold out if folks and the Starfleets. Starfleets are kind of like you've sold out if you've joined Starfleet. It's kind of Ryan's position. Yeah, it's like brain drain. There's kind of a concern that all of the best people from the freighter world are going to be moved over to the sexy Starfleet world. And then the freighter people are going to be stuck with a bunch of bozos that don't know what they're doing.

And Ryan hates that. Like, he really makes his identity of this life that he has chosen for himself, despite how fucking horrible it sounds like it has been for his family. And yeah, he's like, fuck you. You're like the new kid on the block. You're ruining everything for us. Mayweather spits out a piece of Starfleet boot leather into a napkin, secretly and kind of like puts it under his seat. Food's not bad. So aboard the freighter Fortunate, T'Pol is over there, presumably to be a part of the team that is helping to repair shit, and is wondering why the hell that there is a power bypass

going around the internal sensors and going directly to weapons. And the dude from earlier, Shaw, who is involved in keeping this Nasukin prisoner secret, tells her to just fucking chill and leave it alone. This isn't your ship, don't touch anything. Yeah, I mean, I know you're over here to help fix it, but don't fix that.

All this does is make T'Pol suspiciouser, right? Yeah, so we've learned from Mayweather already that people like to fuck on these freighters and there's typically kids bored. Like his story is not unusual. These are long trips and there's not much else to do. The code on the ship for that is throwing the old pigskin around with the captain. Which makes that cold open scene really confusing in a number of ways.

Yeah. Yeah. But there's some kids that like like, run through, uh, this scene between T'Pol and Shah, and it's like a hide-and-seek scene. So one of the kids is looking for the other that T'Pol has just noticed is hiding in a vent that she was about to open up in service.

And this was such, like, apex directing by LeVar Burton, because the action of that feels just kind of incidental, but there's like a really nice edit where T'Pol is like closing the door and we see it from the inside as she's hiding the girl that's hiding from the seeker in the game of hide and seek. And that is juxtaposed in this scene against this whole situation where, like, Shaw is lying by omission to her, and she lies by omission to the boy that's looking for the little girl. Yeah, that's neat. I was just like, fuck, like, LeVar Burton is a fucking genius.

Like, this is such a cool little moment that, I mean, it goes by without much fanfare, and I don't think these kids ever, like, really factor into the plot again, but I felt like it was just such a strong little moment in this episode. It was wild how to Paul neck pinch the girl hiding in the compartment, and then little boy keeps calling her name. He's never going to find her. No, she's gone. Not for several hours at least. Hey, do you think there's a non-zero chance that kids playing hide and seek would ever

do so in the cargo bay area where a Nausicaa is getting the shit kicked out of him? I might maybe put a rule against playing any hide and seek until this whole situation ends. Yeah, they're just like traumatized and carrying that image with them for the rest of their lives like this guy that was like tied up and beaten to a bloody pulp. Yeah, yeah. Later in a meeting between Archer and Ryan and T'Pol, Archer and T'Pol kind of slow roll the knowledge that they know all about this captured, tortured Nausicaa. And boy, does Ryan play it off for a long time.

He really does. A long time. Yeah, he tries to claim that this is a stowaway initially, which was not persuasive to them. But I mean, a fair think on your feet situation by him. Like I kind of admired it. Archer wants to talk to this Nausicaa and Ryan claims that Archer doesn't have jurisdiction. This is a freighter ship.

You're a Starfleet captain. What the fuck? Like whatever. And Archer's like, okay, that's cool. I guess we'll take back all of the replacement parts that we've put on your ship and undo all the repairs that we've also done. And also T'Pol is going to un-neck pinch that little girl in the compartment.

Bring her back to life. Everything is going back to the way it was when we first showed up. You wouldn't do that. Watch me. And this is enough to presumably make Ryan capitulate. We cut over to the fortunateortunate and archers being shown to the Nasukin prisoner, but uh-oh,

that's not a Nasukin prisoner. It's Shaw, that hench from before, right? Yeah, and he's got the big phaser. Yeah, and this turns into a firefight where Ryan and the hench are able to lay down enough fire to escape from the cargo area, but not before shooting the wall and creating a little leak. I like that part where Shaw turns to the acting captain and is like, careful, Ryan, not everything in here reacts well to phasor fire.

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and this thing starts floating away from the ship. It seems scary as hell. I love that the first indication we have of that is that you just see the porthole on the other side of the door start to get smaller. Loved it. It's like the escape pods from Spaceballs. It's that kind of effect.

Absolutely. LeVar Burton directed the shit out of this episode. And he directed the shit out of Spaceballs. Yeah. He's so good at that. So when Ryan undoes the cargo container, what does it do, Ben? It floats away. And when do we start training for that? I've had Armageddon on my mind lately. You really have.

I really thought that this was going to be a moment where the freighter crew just come up right against their own hubris because I was like, they will just beam them out of there because they established the transporter earlier and they will get, they will be on top of them before they know it. But no, like they punch Enterprise in the nose, Enterprise fires a torpedo at them, but they go to warp before it hits them. And then they're like, wow, we can't chase them

because we have to send a fucking shuttle pod over to this drifting cargo container to get our crew off of it. What do you make of the senselessness of Captain Ryan jettisoning the shuttle pod that was already attached to their ship? Like, that didn't seem necessary, that almost seemed nice. I mean, I guess it's like one more thing for them to deal with before they they get up to warp, right? I don't know. I think they could go to warp with it attached. Who knows though. No, I'm saying one more thing for enterprise to go-

Oh, great call. Yeah. To go grab, you know? It's like throwing your wallet up on the roof of a place if you're getting held up. You just throw your wallet and you start running. Yeah, it's a great plan. I love provoking a guy that's just pulled a gun on me. Those guys are never super fucking desperate, right? Me and a buddy were just talking about,

I don't know if you read about this, there are restaurants that you and I have been to in Brooklyn that have been held up by folks going in there and like taking wristwatches and purses off of people. Yeah. I bet you could cut down on the hero factor in a place like this. And me and my buddy who lived out there were talking about this and I was like, that would ruin my life, but not in the way that you think. Because the moment that a piece of jewelry is ripped off of my wife's

finger or her purse is taken, I'm a vigilante from then on. Like, I don't stop looking for this person and I'm killed in the process. You go full Bronson? I mean, I go full bad Bronson. Like, I just get killed. Bronson if he lost the first fight and then kept losing. A very short death wish is what that is. It's the death wish script you could print on a pamphlet. 15 minute short film debuting at the South by the Southwest this year.

Listen to me, punk. Blam, he's dead. Fair enough. When I worked at a restaurant in Manhattan, a guy came in and took a bunch of purses off of hooks under the bar and tried to walk out. And an off-duty cop who was like a plainclothes security guard in this restaurant beat the shit out of this guy in the street right in front of the restaurant. Wow.

He's like an air marshal in a restaurant. Yeah. It was fucking crazy. It's like one of the most violent things I've ever seen, like up close. It sucked. I hated everything about it. Yeah. Yeah. It sucked. I hated everything about it. Yeah. Yeah. Good times. Anyways, uh, yeah. So Mayweather is like, Hey, I've kind of gotten to know this, this dude, Ryan, like he is not motivated

by the things he's been telling you guys. He, this is about Omerta for him. This is about Rewenge. What does it mean? Big Mayweather episode, huh? It really is. But I think the problem is that you know more about Captain Ryan through Mayweather than you know about Mayweather through Mayweather. And that's unfortunate. Yeah, yeah. So we cut over to Ryan,

who is back to beating the pulp out of this Nausicaa. Which has gotta be hard work, right? You look at this Nausicaan's face, you look at Ryan's fists, like, it's gotta hurt to hit horn, right? Yeah, those are spikes all over the fucking place. Yeah. I think, look, here's a little note for Captain Ryan. Use an implement, like use the butt of a weapon or like drop a barrel on his back or something. Right, right. They're like debating what to do with their prisoner now.

Shaw wants to put the prisoner in an escape pod. Well, this is after the prisoner gives up the information that Ryan beat out of him. Right. So then now they're like, well, he's, what do we do with him? We got what we wanted. We want another extra toothy mouth to feed,

our Nutri Packs. They can't return this guy to the Nausicaa's just like Ryan can't return to being an innocent person. He's not an innocent man. He's not a normal man. He's rock and roll and he wants to go all the way, right? Yeah, yeah. There really is a dot, dot, dot to the end of this scene.

Like they do not say they're going to kill him. They do not say they're gonna let him out of an airlock to get eaten by space sharks. Right. Like it's really a question, what's gonna happen here? He is trying to beat up the school bully. Like he's trying to earn the respect of the Nausicaa so they don't fuck with him anymore.

But he'd have to change his name for that to happen, right? Captain Ryan does not evoke fear among the Nausicaa. It's not out of work. Captain Ryan of the fortunate. Change the ship name. Change his name. Gotta make everything sound a little bit tougher if you're gonna stress some Nausicaans out. This is Captain Deathwish of the USS Punch in the Face.

That sounds way scarier than for example, I don't know, I'm just tossing this out there. His name was Ryan and the ship was the Fortunate. So random that you thought of that Nausicaa captain. Yeah. So the entrepreneur is thinking that maybe they're tracking the Fortunate now, like they had to fix their sensors and they're on their way. I love that there's a moment where we're like, well, where do we find them? Like, like if our sensors don't really work, how do we find the fortunate?

And they're like, well, I mean, you search for the nearest Domjot tournament, find the Nausicaans, and then you assume that that's where the fortunate's heading. Right. Like moths to a flame. Nausicaans and the fortunate will be drawn to Domjot. Yeah. So, yeah, we get a little moment where Mayweather kind of talks about like, Moth to a flame. Nausicaans and the fortunate will be drawn to Domjot. Yeah.

So, yeah, we get a little moment where Mayweather kind of talks about, like, what freighter life is like and how he kind of feels for these people. Like, they feel like their way of life is sort of under threat by technological advances and by pirates. And, like, these guys are used to being unprotected and therefore unpoliced. Like, they've never had anybody looking over their shoulder like this. And so, like, this Warped Five era that humanity is starting to enter

is a direct threat to them in a whole bunch of ways that they really don't like. And Mayweather's, like, trying to get everybody else to understand this. But... And Archer... Archer's like, sure, but like also, like we're all going to be out here pretty soon. We can't be acting like this. Like if we let guys like Ryan just go do what they want to the Nossikans,

everybody's going to be like, the humans are assholes. Kill them whenever you see them. Tough spot. Hard to know who to get behind, really. Yeah. Really hard. This scene in Archer's ready room is about Mayweather being emboldened to speak his mind. And I think the goal of this scene was to make both of them seem like next level thinkers and strategists about this moment. But to have Mayweather suggest that Ryan has a right

to revenge and Archer to be like, murder is wrong. This is not the dinner scene from Crimson Tide. Like, this is not von Clauschwitz being discussed openly. Like, I think this is unfortunately simplistic. And I wish this moment got a little more polished. To make both of them look better. I feel like a lot of it is in the subtext, And I wish this moment got a little more polished. To make both of them look better.

I feel like a lot of it is in the subtext, but maybe it should have been more textual, that, like, vibe shift that everybody is stressing about here. I mean, like, it feels really real. It feels really well, like, established in the reality of the episode, but maybe... God, Archer's just so fucking condescending though. Ugh. Any other orders of mine you'd like to question?

Not today, sir. And the way Mayweather just eats it up? Ah, it sucks. ["SCOFFS"] So we cut over to the Fortunate, which has set upon some Nausicaans, and they're hanging out by a meteoroid or something and the Fortunate starts licking shots in the atmosphere, in the extremely thin atmosphere of the meteoroid and chases this Nausicaan ship around the backside of it. And it turns out that

this is like a whole like supply base for Nausicaa. That's no asteroid. Yeah. I expected this hole inside the asteroid to just start vomiting Nausicaa ships out at any moment. The max count we get of Nausicaa ships is three, which is like, that's it? Like what was the hole for? Hey Nausicaa, that's sort of the point of alert fighters. Like, get those babies launched.

I wanted this to be like a, oh shit, we hit the hornet's nest moment, you know? I did too. Yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't quite get up over into that. And these frequencies that they beat out at the Nausicaan prisoner, those don't work.

Weird. The way that they expected. Yeah. I never considered that somebody that was subjected to torture might tell you what you want to hear to get out of the torture. They are co-wickly overmatched by both the Nausicaa ships that are set upon them, but also like the incoming ones that are on their way. Yeah, it's no good. There's a Nausicaa that appears on screen to like make demands to get the prisoner back.

The more we talk to Nausicaa this episode, both this one and the prisoner make me wonder what happened to the Nausicaa. These guys are at a shocking Garamba deficit. Yeah. That's what I thought. These guys, I don't even think these guys play DomJet. What's like the accent in TNG is like what's part of what's so fun about them, you know? Like the way they talk, he's not like, give hostage human.

Yeah, this guy's like explaining the different types of insurance you need. Like when you rent a car in a foreign country. Like, what? Like, I don't want trustworthy and credible from my Nasikin captain. I want spittle flying out of his mouth. I want him waving that crazy thing that is somewhere between knife and sword around over his head. What are they doing? Sucks. Hey, Ben, not my Nausicaaans. No, no.

I mean, like the loaf even seemed a little bit more like, you know, play school. It was like softened and less wet. I mean, it seems like the Nausicaans as a species really went through some shit over the next 100 years. They went from being somewhat fun space pirates into being the actual alien trash of the galaxy. Someone really humbled them, and I really want to know who that was.

There should be novels written about this. Yeah. And I want to listen to the book on tape of those. I want petcough treatment for this issue. God, I bet petcough does agree. Oh, shit. Pipes of gold. That guy.

So the enterprise detects the situation, W slash R slash T, Nausicaans and the Fortunate from long distance. And they still have some space to make up before they are there to try to resolve this conflict. And meanwhile, onboard the Fortunate, they get ready for a firefight with a boarding party. Captain Ryan's like, all right, go to the weapons locker. Let's start handing out guns to the crew. And I'm in my head, like, you can just hand guns out to the 23 folks, many of

them children, to have them fight against a boarding party of undetermined numbers. Yeah. I don't like their chances here. No. Aboard the Fortunate, Archer's voice rings out on the 1MC after Enterprise rolls up on them. Nothing is made of this ability.

Can a starship just do this to another starship? It seems like- And he's like a hundred percent confident that it's working also. He says, I know you can hear me. Like how, how do you know? How can you be sure that the thing you're broadcasting over to that ship is actually going out?

I think maybe Enterprise is using the main deflector dish to actually as a speaker. Like, wah, wah, wah, wah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's a pretty tricky diplomatic situation because he's trying to get Ryan and crew to stand down and release this hostage

while also negotiating with the like boring Nausicaa that's friends with your dad on the FaceTime. And like Mayweather's getting a little lippy with the Nausicaa kids. It's a very three-dimensional dynamic situation Yeah but the thing that is most important that Archer stresses to this Nausicaa captain is like My ship is way better than all three of your ships put together like I can kick all of your asses I really like how from this moment to the end of the episode

I really like how from this moment to the end of the episode, these scenes are constructed and the rapidity of how we're dodging around to all these different places because Archer presents the terms on the table, like peace in the galaxy in exchange for this one prisoner. That's not so bad, right? But there are an undetermined amount of hard Domjot Q hitting Nausicaans aboard That are like racing toward the prisoner. So Captain Ryan is listening to this and Considering it all the while these Nausicaans are like going to work trying to get this guy out And it's not like by the end of this Ryan has made the right choice And it's not like by the end of this, Ryan has made the right choice.

Ryan has made no choice. He has just stood there and allowed the Nausicaans to take their prisoner back and leave the way they came. What'd you think of that? Yeah, well, I mean, like he's also like negotiating while in a firefight. That's a bad time to negotiate. Yeah, it's like he doesn't have the bandwidth

to like really make a decision almost. I mean, a captain would be able to multitask like this. First Officer Ryan is going to have a difficult review period when his promotional time comes up. I did like Mayweather getting involved here and saying like, this is going to make things way worse, not just for you, but also for other freighters, like people you've never met are going to get blowback from whatever you think you're doing here. And that does seem like it's starting

to click into place for Ryan. I wish they could do a little bit less of the Mayweather pipes up and surprises himself with the pipe up moment that seems to happen in most episodes. Like I want his character to be a little more sturdy and sure of himself. Like he belongs there, act like you belong there. I mean, like they talk about this. Like we have more like logged hours in space

than most Starfleet captains. Yeah, I agree. I think that that's something that they need to put away. But the prisoner gets given to the Nausicaans and everybody stands down and we get a little moment in Six Bay where the freighter captain has woken up after all of the excitement is over. And it's like a game recognized game between him and Captain Archer. And a little update on what happened to Ryan

after all of this. This guy, this Captain Keen, kind of steals the show for me. He's so interesting. And he's such a past person too, right? Like this is one of those moments, it's fucking Denzel and Gene Hackman, like two different takes on the same situation

and neither of them are gonna change their perspective on the world. And they just sort of agree to go their separate ways. I wanted more of this. I wanted several scenes of this. Yeah, I mean, it's another scene that kind of reinforces this idea of like, this is the life I chose and you're now coming with all of this technology that's going to destroy my way of life.

Yeah. The freeway is soon going to be clogged with not just truckers, but like folks trying to get to and fro. Right. You know, this is going to gum up their works. Yeah. So they better get used to it. He tells Archer that Ryan has been demoted to some extremely low sounding rank,

and he's like reevaluating everything after trusting Ryan with his ship. Archer's like, probably no more throwing the football around, right? And Captain Keen's like, well, I mean, I'm not gonna stop him from having sex. I mean, I'm not going to stop him from having sex. I mean, we're going to be out here a long time. A person's got needs, you know? Many times this, this leads to children being

born because we apparently don't have an adequate supply of rubbers on these freighters. Look, even if he's confined to quarters, he can throw a football to himself. And that happens all the time. You've heard of punching the football, right? Yeah. You like this episode, Ben? I did like this episode. I think that there's some like major critiques I have of it.

Oh, yeah. The majorest of them being that they made Nausicaa seem really limp dick compared to the ones that I grew up with. And, you know, we just don't have that many depictions of Nausicaa in the canon so far. And for them to just be like, what if they were just any other kind of guy? And it's like, we're just using the character design without taking any of the like fun bombastic violence of the characters. I haven't been this disappointed in the introduction of a species and the revelation about that species since the Geradi Borg Queen. Like, you say Nausicaa right up top,

I'm like, holy shit, yes, I'm so excited. No one takes a knife to the chest in this. No. Nobody like laughs or threatens. Like the Nausicaa seems so weak and sad. Try to imagine the Nausicaa seem so weak and sad. Try to imagine the Nausicaa being next generation style Nausicaa in this episode. Does that make this episode better or worse

or change any of the storytelling architecture that's necessary to break this? I don't think it breaks the story. No, I think it only makes it better. So what are they doing? I don't know what they're doing. Look at how they massacred our Nasekans. I don't know whose choice it was.

Like I talked about that scene earlier with the kids playing hide and seek and to Paul and the guy hiding things from her. And I just loved that scene so much. I thought that scene scene so much. I thought that scene was so great. But if LeVar Burton also made the choice of like, what if the Nasekans, but guys that pay their taxes on January 1st.

Aren't we supposed to fear the Nasekans? Yeah, we are. Sure doesn't seem like we're meant to from this episode. What I'm saying is like, I am assuming that that wasn't a Levar choice given how strong All of the other choices in the episode Levar Burton's cool as hell. Yeah, we've talked to that guy There's no way this was his choice total bullshit, man. It's just bullshit I think on balance I like it and it's just that one glaring thing that kind of bothers me. But like all of the stuff about like the freighters

and their way of life and everything, like there's something like so sad and tragic about them that I really liked this like establishment of a kind of character in Star Trek that I've never really considered before. Yeah, I like the idea of these spacefaring cultures within the dominant exploration paradigm in this era of Star Trek.

And then really like every era that follows, you know? Totally. Pretty cool. How about you? Did you like this episode? I don't like that Ryan's indecision is the decision. Like Ryan is a huge part of this episode and understanding his motivations and his values

and what makes him different from someone like Mayweather to not allow for a choice that he's made at the end just does not feel satisfying. Like what was this all about? It seems like Ryan didn't even know. And maybe that's the lesson that we're supposed to get. Like, this is a guy who got excited about his torture for adventure plan

and his ideas for revenge. You know, he turned into a five minute long Death Wish movie, didn't he? Like as a vigilante, he kind of adamed himself out there, huh? Yeah. Yeah, he really did. Yeah, that's where I'm at with it, Ben. Wow. Interesting take. Do you want to see if there's anything interesting for us in the Priority One inbox? Yeah. Let's see if these ones can finish the job.

Priority One message from Starfleet coming in on Secure Channel. Need a supplement link. Supplement. Supplement. Supplement. Yeah, it's extra. By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship. Adam, we've got a promotional Priority One message here. It goes like this.

Yeah, I have a question. Archer is obviously proving to be the worst captain, but Flox is awesome. So my question is, who's the worst doctor? Or the worst chief engineer or science officers for that matter. I'll take my answer on the other side of this convenient pane of glass with the dream team. Get a life. Hey that's too many drops there Joey Joey. You know, you did throw in for the promotional Priority One message, but like, come on, be reasonable.

Yeah. The call to action here is since it's Pride Month, when I'm sending this, I'm asking people to toss some scarves to the Trevor Project to help save young LGBTQ lives. Thanks, Joey. So we have a question in the form of a P1 here. Who's the worst doctor?

Uh, the Jekyll and Hyde doctor from Voyager. That's who I think the worst doctor is. Yeah, that's pretty persuasive. I mean, the only other ant... Like, Bashir is like objectively a great doctor, but he's also like a little creepy, I guess. So maybe him. I don't think he makes my list. He's competent and smart and a genetic mutation in a fun way. I'm grasping at straws. Worst chief engineer. I mean, I'm just going to say Barclay.

He's not a chief engineer, but like he's he's pretty terrible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah poor broccoli I'm probably gonna get canceled for saying this but a Biff Jaeger Wow Absolutely savage what about science officer Aside from Spock and DePaul who are the science officers? I guess Data is the science officer on the D. I'm gonna say the Vape Lord from early season Star Trek The Next Generation.

Malden. Oh yeah. Mordock. Mordock, yeah. Mordock and Malden, right? Those are the brothers. Yeah, something like that. They got my vote. What were they good for? Standing around vaping. That's what. Yeah. Ben,

we have a personal priority one message here from Matt to Jason. Their message goes like this. Hi, Ben and Adam. I'm writing to thank you for coming to Salt Lake City. The last tour, I had a great time talking to you at the VIP and seeing the show with my twin brother Jason. I want to tell him I love him and I'm so glad we've always been not only brothers but the best of friends. I'm stoked for Enterprise. It'll be my first watch through. How about that? I like the idea of a bunch of Star Trek fans who have never seen Enterprise going on this mission with us. Yeah, and I like the idea of there being somebody that's like in a server room in the basement

of some building at Paramount, looking at some statistics going like, what the hell, this can't be right. A bunch of people are watching Enterprise. Ben, as someone who has interacted with the Paramount Plus application and with the Paramount Industrial Complex at all, do you think anyone is paying attention to anything having to do with technology over there?

I like the idea of this fictional guy. Let me have my fictional guy, Adam. Have your fictional guy, Ben. I'm sorry. We have a priority one message here from Chris and it's to windy pretty and it goes like this Nice work, Wendy really nice your contribution to the podcast is noticed appreciated noticed and appreciated Cheers Huh

Hell yeah Hey, Wendy, can you edit that to make it sound like I said noticed and appreciated noticed and appreciated twice in a row? Just like I just think it would be kind of like a weird little thing. That would be fun That's how good Wendy is Do people out there listen to this show and not think that we tell Wendy this all the time, I would be horrified if anyone thought that we didn't give her her flowers the way that she deserves them for almost single-handedly getting this show over the finish line. That's true, yeah. I mean, I think we do it a lot but it's never

too much. Yeah, sure isn't. Yeah. So whether or not your message is about deciding who the worst of the worst are in Star Trek, or a nice thing to say to a family member, or a nice thing to say to our producer, you can go over to maximumfun.org slash Jumbotron, write a couple of words. You're gonna hear them come out of our mouths. Great way to support the show, huh Ben? Sure is. Hey Adam. What's up Ben? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda?

Incredible. Drunk Shimoda. I didn't think this would be them, but I think we've talked our way here. It's Captain Ryan. Captain Ryan, I mean, not only for his name, but just, you can't give the guy motivation the entire episode and then remove that motivation and he's just like staring at his prisoner getting taken away.

Yeah. Bizarre. Ryan's my drunk Shimoda. What about you? Sounds like he winds up not dissimilar from Ichab's brother, you know? Like, hey, guys. Sure glad that I'm still on this freighter with all of you, and I get to look you in the eye every day, knowing what I did. Yikes.

My drunk Shimoda is... I'm going to give it to Paul. Like, I love that moment. I'm just like obsessed with that moment in this episode with the hide and seek game. And the other thing that I didn't even talk about is like the natural Vulcan instinct not to participate in any way,

but like to Paul understands kids are kids. And she lets the game play out and like she never tells a lie to anyone. She like doesn't know which child is named what, you know? Yeah, I think T'Pol gets it for me this episode. Weird that she didn't walk out of any rooms in a noticeable way on episode 10. Yeah, so it's not- Maybe they were trying to make time.

It's only 90% of episodes that she does that. Yeah. Faith of the fart. Well, 100% of the greatest gen episodes, we've got to figure out what we're going to watch next time. That is true, Adam. Next episode is season one, episode 11, Cold Front. While Enterprise joins an alien pilgrimage to witness a religious stellar occurrence, Archer

finds himself again faced against the Suleybon warrior, Sillik. I am shocked to hear the name Suleybon. I had forgotten them. Yeah, they're going to be a thing. And a thing as well is the game of buttholes, The Will of the Riker Quantum Leap, where our runabout is pulsating on square 27 right now. We're gonna roll the 100-sided die and figure out what, if anything, we will be doing during the next episode, Adam. You're required to learn as you play. Roll. I hit something, Adam, and I hit something big. Oh, no.

I jumped us onto square 57, the Mournhammered Square. What the fuck? Alla Maria! Drink! It's the antidote! Out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. It could just happen at any time. Wow. Next episode, we will be revisiting the Sola Bond

and revisiting the power hour wherein Adam and I take a shot of beer every minute for 60 minutes while attempting to talk about Star Trek. It's been a long time since we've done one of those. Sure has. I'm not without some nervous anticipation of that. Oh yeah? Why is that?

Because it's really intense to get shit house drunk in the middle of the day on a Tuesday or whatever. Yeah, but that's what the game tells us to do. Hey, you could always veto it, Ben. You done it before, when there's been something that you just didn't want to do. Yeah, that's true. You've never done that. Just not done a thing because you didn't want to do it on the show.

I know. That's something only I've ever done. It's true. The only time I can remember, anyway. Yeah. Unless you have other plans, next episode will be a power hour. All right.

Let's clear our schedules for that. Oof. All right. Well, that's coming up. We've got a lot of people to thank, Adam. Got to thank the friends of DeSoto who support us at MaximumFun.org slash join. Your monthly support makes this all possible and earns you bonus episodes every month. Yeah, look out for a recent bonus episode with our buddy from the Plop House.

Yeah, Dan McCoy sat in and recorded a quantum leap episode with us. It's a ton of fun. And he loved it. We gotta thank Windy Pretty, editing and producing all of this crap. We gotta thank Rob Adler, who runs all of our social media, at Greatest Trek Trek and has been editing great video for our YouTube channel. Follow us on YouTube if you're not already doing so. Next week's episode is, in addition to being a Mournhammered episode, is going to be one where we open stuff that has been sent in by friends of DeSoto. So we'll be posting a YouTube video of that, and you want to be subscribed so you don't miss those.

Overwhelming response to our question to FODs about whether or not to keep that segment. We're keeping it. We're keeping it the same. It's being kept. And if you haven't watched those, Rob does an amazing job editing them, adds all kinds of funny visual jokes and stuff that really make them delightful. So go check them out on our YouTube channel. Also a big part of that process is our Cold War time consigniary, Bill Tilly, who is the

person you will reach in the DMs of our socials if you want to send something in for Code 47. Bill Tilly also back in the business of making trading cards for every episode and just every bit as good as he ever was. So check those out on the socials as well. Couldn't end an episode without thanking Adam Ragusea. He's been a friend of ours for a long time and not just because he's a fun hang, he's a talented dude, he's made a ton of music for us,

theme and interstitial music for this show specifically based upon the great work in parody form of Diane Morin. And with that, we will be back at ya next week with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise and an episode of the greatest generation enterprise that has Kovach fever. Oooo spoiler alert! What? I'm gonna get drunk. It floats away. Do you want me to say that? Sure.

It floats away.