Future Tense (episode)

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"Future Tense"
ENT, Episode 2x16
Production number: 40358-042
First aired: 19 February 2003
←  41st of 97 produced in ENT  →
←  41st of 97 released in ENT  →
←  670th of 911 released in all  →

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Enterprise finds a small craft – apparently from the future – adrift in space, and both the Suliban and the mysterious Tholians are intent on retrieving it.

Summary

Teaser

Enterprise finds a shipwreck adrift in deep space. Their scans indicate no lifesigns inside, but T'Pol says that its hull seems to be scattering Enterprise's sensors. Reed then says that he can't read any weapon signatures, meaning that the ship may have been disabled in an accident. Archer orders them to bring it into Launch Bay 2. After its arrival, neither Reed or Archer can see anything that makes sense about its design, but T'pol finds a hatch, which has been fused shut. Using their weapons, the officers open the small hatch, whereupon entering the captain finds a long-dead corpse. T'Pol confirms that the corpse is human.

Act One

Phlox confirms that the pilot was a human male and wonders if the Enterprise crew are not the first humans to go so far into deep space. Archer thinks about it and asks the doctor to perform a DNA test, and compare the results to the starfleet genetic database to see if there is a match. T'pol enters and says that there are no inhabited systems for several light years. Archer wonders if this human could be Zefram Cochrane, who disappeared a long time ago piloting a one-man vessel, who may have been testing some kind of experimental warp ship, since he was able to travel so far.

In the hangar, Reed, Travis and Tucker are making an analysis. The hull seems to absorb EM radiation, and without the damage it never would've shown up on sensors, meaning it could be a stealth ship. They eliminate a lot of possibilities of how it could have gotten there, so they believe it may have been taken there in a cargo ship. Trip also realizes that the ship did not have any power source, engine or propulsion system.

Archer talks with Admiral Forest wanting to know more information about the mysterious human ship, who says it cannot be a vessel from Vega Colony, but will ask the Earth Cargo Authority for more information. Enterprise's captain tells him his theory that the corpse may be Zefram Cochrane's, and the Admiral says that if it really is his, this could be the greatest missing person mystery of the century.

Continuing their analysis, Trip and Malcolm find another hatch inside the ship covered by organic circuits. When they manage to open it, they see a deep tunnel into the vessel, a physically impossible occurrence. Once down there, the officers find a chamber, in it, a wall that has a very faint energy signature. Meanwhile, a Suliban ship with minimal weapons drops out of warp, its captain hails Enterprise and claims possession of the vessel. Archer argues that it must be an earth spaceship because of its human pilot, the Suliban reply that they don't want the corpse, just the vessel. Archer continues to argue with the Suliban, asking why it is so important for them to take a damaged ship. After repeating their demands, the Suliban charge weapons and fire on Enterprise. Archer decides to return fire, and in the launch bay, Malcolm and Trip get some kind of box out of the mysterious ship's chamber, but immediately after this, they realize that Enterprise is under attack and get out the vessel. Tucker tries to contact the bridge, but two cloaked Sulibans appear and attack Trip, Reed gets a weapon and shoots one of them and starts a firefight with the other, who goes to the control room to try to open the Launch Bay 2 doors. On the bridge Hoshi can’t stop the opening, but meanwhile, Enterprise damages the Suliban cargo vessel’s weapons and it withdraws, transporting the two attackers from the Launch Bay.

Act Two

File:Time travel pod (32nd century).jpg

Archer and T’Pol looking for information in Daniels’ future database.

Looking at the box that he find at the mysterious ship, Tucker tells Archer he thinks that it must be very important, since was heavily shielded, and guess that is the black box – what could reveal essential intel about its builder or why was there – and it seems to use the same organic circuitry as the rest of the ship. Phlox requests the Archer’s presence immediately in sick bay.

Once there, doctor says that can managed to find some undamaged cells and could make a genetic analysis. The corpse’s DNA did not match anyone of Starfleet database – what denied the possibility of be Zefram Cochrane – and it is not an ordinary human. There is an unusual deviation in some nucleotide sequence, with something familiar in chromosome structure, and he made a research on the interspecies database, and found that the dead body has vulcan, terrellian, and anothers unknown species nucleotide sequences. Dr. Phlox believes that it is the result of several generations of interspecies breeding.

Archer goes with T’Pol to Crewman Daniels’ quarters, where he left a database from the future. While they are searching in the device, T’pol thinks that can be unlikely that vulcans could mate with another species, including humans because of significant biological differences, and Archer wonders if a child with vulcan and human parents would have pointed ears. Finally they find information about the mysterious ship, its commission date is almost 900 years in the future. Archer remembers that Daniels talked about historians from the future, people that traveled back in time to study the past, and that could be what that pilot was doing. The database says it’s powered by a temporal displacement drive, and probably that is the reason why sulibans want the small vessel. What could lend them a way to change the course of the Temporal Cold War. Archer receives a call from the bridge, another alien vessel is approaching at high warp.

Tholian Vessel locks tractor beam on Enterprise

Archer and T’pol arrives at the bridge, she recognizes that is a Tholian Vessel, a extremely xenophobic race, and the Vulcan High Command had limited contact with them, but she know that is unusual for them to travel far from their home system. Reed gets some unusual thermal readings, inside the ship the temperature is higher than 200 degrees. T’pol says that is believed to be a non-humanoid species. Archer opens a channel with them and starts to talk but is interrupted by them saying that they were send to retrieve the vessel, and it is dangerous to Enterprise’s crew because it has “temporal radiation”. Archer denies the request and the Tholian ship locked on Enterprise with a tractor beam, but the captain tells tholians that if they don’t release Enterprise he will destroy the future vessel in the launch bay. Tholian ship withdraw. Archer wonders if there are others that think to have a claim on that vessel.

Act Three

Phlox joins T'Pol in the mess hall, and tells her that he found another nucleotide sequence in the pilot's genome that appears to be Rigelian, and he is so excited working on it that even didn't realize the time passing, and thinks T'pol (who appears skeptical about Phlox discoveries) would as well. She tells him that captain asked her to perform a metallurgical analysis of the vessel's hull, and she discovered several unusual alloys. The doctor comments about Archer's theory that the vessels traveled from the future, and he thinks there is a lot of evidence to endorse it. T'Pol remains skeptical. Phlox remembers the Vulcan Science Directorate Resolution asserting that time travel is impossible, as they have always been rather reluctant to embrace unorthodox ideas, and suggests that, after Enterprise's findings, they might reconsider their opinion. She replies that is not an opinion, but simple logic. Phlox remembers a time when Denobulans believed they were the only intelligent species in the galaxy, and when B'Saari made first contact is came as a great surprise on his planet, and even then there were many people that refused to accept it, but eventually they were forced to re-evaluate their beliefs. However, T'Pol still prefers to embrace logic over "surprises".

In Engineering, Reed and Tucker try to make the mysterious device work. Realizing that it could be from the 31st century, Reed remember his childhood dream to build a time machine, but Trip doesn't like the idea to know the future and he won't accept even a hypothetical Daniels' invitation to go to the 3000s. As an example, he asks Reed to contemplate if he found a book from the future containing the name of the woman he will marry. When he eventually he married her, would do it because he loved her or because of the book? Malcolm thinks that is irrelevant. Finally, Trip manages to power up the device, and goes to the ship to get some of the organic circuits to build an interface. In the launch bay, Tucker says that he would like to travel to the past, to see the dinosaurs, while Reed would want to go 1588, to the defeat of the Spanish Armada. When they open a hatch on the vessel's hull, the whole situation starts again: Tucker says that he would like to see a stegosaur. The third time this happens, they notice it.

They visit Phlox to see what was happening with them, but the doctor says there is nothing wrong. T'pol says that the craft is emitting some type of high energy particles, which could be the temporal radiation sensed by the Tholians. However, Phlox believes that is unlikely to have any lasting effects since the radiation intensity is quite low. Archer orders Launch Bay 2 sealed to prevent more incidents, and learns from Tucker that he was unable to get data from the black box. T'Pol asks to speak with captain in private, and she shares that she thinks that is too dangerous to keep that craft with them, since they were attacked by two hostile species and the radiation could spread to other sections of the ship. The best decision should be to destroy it. Archer dislikes this option, and is tired of Temporal Cold War interfering in his 22nd century, and it is time to become more active in it, gather some intelligence by themselves. T'Pol does not fully believe that this war really exists, but even so, she thinks that they should not become involved. Archer replies that they are involved since they left spacedock. He also remembers that Daniels told him that there were other factions in this conflict, and maybe the Tholians are working with one of them. T'Pol still thinks that Archer's curiosity is placing Enterprise in an unnecessary danger, but he has already made his decision, saying that this situation is too important as an opportunity to gather information to let it slip by. She leaves the ready room but advises Archer to put the ship on tactical alert.

Captain Archer enters Engineering to see what Trip has learned about the device. Trip says that it is not a black box or some kind of data-storage matrix, but that it started to generate a subspace signature working like an emergency signal. T'Pol informs them that there are several Suliban vessels approaching.

File:TalKir adrift.jpg

The Tal'kir defeated by the Tholians

In the bridge, T'pol alerts them that the ships will be within weapons range soon. Archer orders the ship to go to maximum warp, but the Sulibans match it. Enterprise is less than 3 minutes to the rendezvous with Tal'Kir, and the captain needs to contact them to tell that they are bringing company, but Sato gets no response. Instead, Sulibans hail the ship and tell them to prepare to be boarded. Archer tells them that there is a Vulcan combat cruiser nearby and that if they do not stop bothering Enterprise, they will have one more enemy. The Suliban commanding officer doesn't believe that the Vulcans would defend an Earth vessel and starts to fire, trying to blast the launch bay doors.

Enterprise drops out of warp near the rendezvous point, where they see the Tal'Kir almost destroyed by Tholians vessels, which see Enterprise as it approaches.

Act Four

Enterprise tries to escape from the Tholian ships, but they all fire together and disable the warp engines, weapons, and hull plating. The cell ships drop out of warp and start a firefight with the other aliens. Archer watches the intense space battle and ask Trip about the warp engines, but learns that it will need a few hours to fix them all, and the weapons are the same, since the Tholian weapons scrambled all systems. Archer orders Tucker to put the mysterious device online, because its subspace signature could bring the future vessel's builders to help Enterprise. T'Pol thinks that even if the captain is right, it is unlikely that aid will arrive in time. He asks Reed to get a torpedo and send it to the launch bay where he is going.

Tholians and Sulibans fighting for the mysterious future vessel

Once there, Archer and Reed try to remove a warhead from one torpedo to destroy the future craft. T'Pol informs the captain that the Suliban are losing the battle, with more than half of their ships already destroyed, and that there is not much time left. When he finally removes the warhead, time repeats itself just as it did with Trip and Reed earlier, and he tries to remove it once again. Although time repeats itself in the launch bay, it does not outside, where all Suliban ships are defeated, and the Tholians hail T'Pol asking for the vessel. She tries to delay them, but their ships dock with Enterprise. Security teams go there as the Tholians try to blast the doors. Meanwhile, Trip manages to get the future device online. Despite the time loops, Archer puts the warhead onto the ship and opens the launch bay doors, dropping it into open space. A Tholian ship gets it with a tractor beam, Reed tries to detonate the warhead, but it does not work.

In Engineering, the future device disappears in front of Trip, along with the corpse in sickbay, and with the vessel itself. The Tholian ships withdraw and Archer wonders why they did not continue the fight. With the battle ended, Archer asks about the Tal'Kir's status. Their warp engine is damaged, but the life support is stable, and he prepares a shuttle pod to help the Vulcans. The captain still doesn't believe what happened.

Trip, T'Pol, and Archer are dining, and Tucker says that he wishes had more time to explore the future ship, wondering how many rooms could be down in the ship. It looks like that everything was sent back to the 31st century, but T'Pol says there is no evidence to support that view, and he replies that there is no evidence to contradict it either. He still does not understand how quickly everything disappeared, since the device was online for less than a minute. Archer says that time is irrelevant to these people as, if it was from the future, whoever sent it had plenty of time to locate the signal and then travel back to any point in time to retrieve it. Trip leaves and, alone with T'Pol, the captain says that he will make contact with the Vulcan High Command to apologize the trouble to Tal'Kir and thank them for the help. T'Pol thinks that the gesture will be appreciated and, before leaving, she says that the High Command asked her to prepare a report about this incident with his permission. Archer gives it, and wonders if some day Vulcans and Humans will change chromosomes, but T'pol says that time travel is more likely.

Log Entries

• Captain’s starlog, supplemental. We’ve contacted the Vulcan Ship, Tal’Kir. They’ve agreed to meet us in three days to take the craft back to Earth. Hopefully, we won’t have another visit from the Suliban before we reach the rendezvous point.

• Captain’s starlog, supplemental. A Vulcan transport is en route to tow the Tal’Kir. Fortunately, there were no casualties Our long-range scanners show no sign of Tholians or Sulibans in our vicinity.

Memorable Quotes

"It's unlikely we could reproduce... Humans and Vulcans."

- T'Pol, making herself clear after she got a strange look from Archer

"If a Human and a Vulcan did have a child, I wonder if he'd have pointed ears?"

- Archer, teasing T'Pol

"What did he say?"
"I don't know, but I don't think he was paying you a compliment."

- Archer and Hoshi, discussing the Tholian's parting comments

"When I was young, I always wanted to build a time machine... see the future."
"You're probably the kind of person who jumps to the end of a book before you read it."

- Reed and Tucker

"I wonder if they'll believe that Humans and Vulcans will be... swapping chromosomes one day?"
"They're more likely to believe in time travel."

- Archer and T'Pol

"If I have a chance to see the past, I'd jump at it."

- Tucker

"I found another nucleotide sequence in the pilot's genome! It appears to be Rigelian. That corpse is FULL of surprises!"

- Dr. Phlox, to T'Pol

Background Information

• A working title for this episode was "Crash Landing". Its also the episode title used by Sky in the UK [1].
• This episode is the first appearance of the Tholians in almost 34 years, since their debut in TOS: "The Tholian Web".
• Behind the captain while Reed is cutting into the timeship on a counter sits the Exocomp prop device from TNG that was modifed in Dead Stop to repair Reed's leg.
• An early pitch for the story that became "Future Tense" had the USS Defiant appearing instead of a timeship from the 31st century. This was deemed impractical at the time for story (by seeing the Defiant, Archer would know too much about the future) and production reasons. The Defiant later appeared in "In a Mirror, Darkly", dragged into the mirror universe, where Archer's counterpart had no such scruples.
• This episode alludes to the TOS episode "Metamorphosis", in which Zefram Cochrane is discovered alive and well living with a non-corporeal lifeform.
• The time-ship is run by organic circuitry, a 31st century descendant of Bio-neural circuitry, first used by the Template:ShipClass starship.
• The ending of the episode was not exactly what co-writer Mike Sussman had hoped for. In an earlier version, a time traveling character from the 31st century (similar to Crewman Daniels) appeared on the bridge at the end of the episode. He claimed the time ship and the body inside, revealing to the crew that the corpse was actually his. This unnamed character also gave Archer some additional clues about the Temporal Cold War and the Tholians' role in it before departing.
• Among the images in the "temporal database" are schematics for a Klingon Template:ShipClass ship, an Template:ShipClass starship (possibly USS Voyager), an Intrepid-class aeroshuttle, the Mir space station, the US space shuttle, a Nygean ship, a Romulan Template:ShipClass warbird, a Template:ShipClass ship, the unnamed ship that attacked Enterprise in "Fight or Flight", and an upside-down Template:ShipClass starship.
• Also in the database is a news article on President George W. Bush's State of the Union Address for 2003.
• This is also the last time Daniel's "Temporal database" is seen. Note: The Temporal Database shouldn't be mistaken for the Temporal Observatory.
• The timeship in this episode was partly inspired by the TARDIS from Doctor Who. Both timeships are considerably bigger on the inside than the outside. Mike Sussman noted: "my idea of the ship morphing into a police call box was immediately nixed by the producers!" (Star Trek Monthly issue 108)

Links and references

Main Cast

• Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer
• John Billingsley as Phlox
• Jolene Blalock as T'Pol
• Dominic Keating as Malcolm Reed
• Anthony Montgomery as Travis Mayweather
• Linda Park as Hoshi Sato
• Connor Trinneer as Charles "Trip" Tucker III

Guest Stars

• Vaughn Armstrong as Admiral Maxwell Forrest
• Cullen Douglas as Suliban Soldier

Uncredited Co-Stars

• Jef Ayres as Crewman Haynem
• Mark Correy as Alex
• Daphney Dameraux as an operations division ensign
• Scott Hill as Ensign Hutchison
• Aldric Horton as an operations division crewman
• Roy Joaquin as a science division crewman
• Todd Wieland as an operations division crewman
• Unknown actor as
  • Engineer
  • Time-pod Pilot

Stunt double

• Shawn Crowder as stunt double for Connor Trinneer

Additional characters

• Computer generated voice as Tholian Officer

References

1588; 2003; 31st century; AeroWing; antimatter injector; B'Saari; biomatter; black box; Bush, George W.; cargo hauler; cloaking device; chromosome; Cochrane, Zefram; Cochrane family; Cochrane's ship; combat ship; Template:ShipClass; Template:ShipType; Daniels; data storage matrix; Denobulans; Jane Doe; Earth Cargo Authority; EM radiation; emergency beacon; engineer; England; escape pod; exhaust port; First Contact; future database; Template:ShipClass; genetic profile; herbivore; hologram; hyperspanner; interspecies database; Template:ShipClass; Klingon Bird-of-Prey; Krenim warship; metallurgical analysis; micro-caliper; microcellular scan; micro-transmitter; nonhumanoid species; Template:ShipClass; nucleotide sequence; Template:ShipClass; organic circuitry; plasma exhaust port; power grid; power module; power relay; propulsion system; Template:ShipClass; Template:ShipType; Rigelian; Silik; Spacedock; Spanish Armada; spanner; spatial geometry; stealth ship; Stegosaurus; subspace signature; Suliban; Suliban Cabal; Suliban cell ship (cylindrical); Suliban cell ship (spherical); Suliban salvage ship; Template:ShipClass; Tal'Kir; Tapper, Jake; Temporal Cold War; temporal database; temporal displacement drive; temporal radiation; Terrellian; Tholians; Tholian Assembly; Tholian language; Tholian vessel; thruster quad; time machine; time travel; Time-travel pod; tractor beam; Vega colony; Vulcan; Vulcan combat cruiser; Vulcan cruiser; Vulcan High Command; Vulcan Science Directorate; Vulcan transport; warp reactor; xenophobic;

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