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Typhon Station is a very fastpaced PBeM RPG with skilled, experienced
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Typhon Station is a very fastpaced PBeM RPG with skilled, experienced
players and a warm sense of bonding and community. We play at the
turn-of-the-century, 2400, and are located in the Typhon Expanses,
bordering the Neutral Zone, proximate to the Romulan Empire, and near
the Iconian Digs, and are on the first warning route of the original
Borg Incursion.
We have three stations to post from, SB 185, USS Odyssey, and USS
Wraith. They all have general and particular storylines and all
interact. This game is not for the faint of heart! The writing is
superb and comes hot and heavy. We have some open spots and also we
will consider character suggestions. So, longtime RPGers and novices,
check us out. See if you want to make Typhon Station your home away
from home.
(0 comments | Add)
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Posted:
07:28:34 on February 07 2002
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: ENTERPRISE Reviews | www.stenterprise.com
Reviews Ex Deus
Written for TrekWeb by O. Deus, edited by Steve Krutzler
"Shadows of P`Jem"
Summary: Archer is held hostage a second time and Enterprise turns in
another competent and professional, if uninspiring episode.
The title of Shadows of P`Jem refers to a previous episode, The
Andorian Incident. Like that show, P`Jem features Archer
and T'Pol held hostage, bad Vulcans and Jeffrey Combs's Andorian character.
Unlike it, however, Shadows of P`Jem is a more
multi-dimensional episode that does a better job of showing some of the
complex political undercurrents in the situation.
The direction by long time Trek director Mike Vejar is competent and
proffesional as always and the FX department offers some gorgeous shots of
Enterprise. The exterior shot of Enterprise moving to an interior shot of
Archer brooding is not simply good FX, but reminiscent of Voyager's Good
Shepherd episode in the way that it ties in the universe outside with the
people preparing to face them inside the ship. The sets are nothing
spectacular but they are plausible. Jeffrey Combs, who was a recurring
character on DS9 as the Vorta Weyoun, shows that he can create an entirely
distinct character in the Andorian commander Shran. P'Jem also recycles
another Trek guest star, bringing back the actor who played the condemned
murderer in Repentance as the rebel faction leader. The shot of San
Francisco bay outside as seen through porthole windows in Starfleet command
is a particularly nice touch.
The episode begins with fallout from Archer's actions in Andorian
Incident, which have angered the Vulcans and rightfully so. After all, Archer
decided to intervene in a conflict between two races each more powerful than
humanity. Not a very smart move to say the least, but Archer unsurprisingly
doesn't see it that way. While the Admiral worries about humanity's role in
the greater political situation, Archer seems to have no concerns about the
real world, except for a deep and abiding grudge against the Vulcans.
The current focus of that grudge is the Vulcan High Command's recall of
T'Pol. Archer even declares that the Vulcans took something valuable away
from his father by not letting him live to see the launch of Enterprise and
that they're now doing it again by taking T'Pol away. It's a rather bizarre
turn of phrase, as is Archer's attachment to her. She's been on
board for half a year and crew transfers are not unusual in any service. How
long does he expect her to stay, anyway? But this follows a common
pattern in which Archer leads with his heart and not with his head. Now
Faith of the Heart may be the theme song for the series, but it's not a
great command style -- though in Shadows of P`Jem it does reap some benefits
for Archer when Shran feels sufficiently indebted to Archer for his
similarly impulsive action in Andorian Incident and decides to mount a rescue
attempt.
Most of this material is meant to serve as background for a T'Pol
episode in which she responds to Archer's insistence for an emotional
affirmation of his feelings with the usual Vulcan sideline answers we've
gotten to know quite well from the Kirk\Spock moments of the original
series. The producers seem unsatisfied with that dialectic and so
they're placed in another hostage situation and this time they're tied up
too. Of course this is pushed well beyond the bounds of good taste during
the mostly unnecessary rope scene to the point that it seems to border on
the edge of fanfic. The producers at some point are going to have to decide
if they want the Archer\T'Pol interaction to be based on the loyalty and
friendship of the Kirk\Spock model or if they want to capitalize on their
idea of sexual tension. But they have to understand that they can't have
both. As a result, some of the episode's strongest T'Pol scenes don't
involve Archer but her interaction with Doctor Phlox in the mess hall and
the terrorist in the camp.
Still the episode manages to produce some foreshadowing and intriguing,
if minimalistic, political content. The Andorian/Vulcan political intrigue
is clearly more than just border tensions, something Archer might have done
well to realize before he turned over P'Jem to them. The Andorian culture
also seems to have a strong sense of honor in addition to their militarism.
However the producers should be careful when fleshing out this relatively
sketchy original series race to give them characteristics that contrast with
the Klingons, or risk having the Andorians become Klingons with blue skin and antennas.
They might also learn from their mistakes on Voyager and Janeway's lack
of credibility. Now anyone who's seen a Voyager episode knows the pattern in
which Janeway does something foolish but everything turns out alright in the
end. This pattern is repeated again in Shadows of P'Jem. It's almost
shocking to realize that Voyager's response to a hostage situation in
Friendship One was actually competent and professional compared to the
ineffectual bumbling of the Enterprise crew in Shadows of P`Jem. Trip
unquestionably comes off worst of all when he spends his encounters with the
Chancellor and the Vulcan Captain yelling aimlessly at them instead of
coming to the meeting with a strategy and attempting to elicit some sort of
cooperation and keep the lines of communications open. It's a natural
reaction for a worried family member or friend but it's also borderline
idiocy in a starship officer who's in the direct chain of command.
Trip then tops it off when he inexplicably goes down to
the planet in full Starfleet garb, sending the remaining two ranking members of the bridge
crew to search for the shuttle pod instead of bringing down an entire armed
security team into hostile territory. Some of this bizarre behavior might be
explained if Trip never received any tactical training or if Earth has been
so devastated that it didn't have an operating military organization in half
a century.
The behavior of the Vulcans only adds to the impression of an alternate
universe since their actions and attitudes have no correlation with anything
we have seen in Star Trek up to now, even clashing with their behavior
in Andorian Incident. They seemed completely unwilling to defend P'Jem and
the monks, even after it was exposed as a listening post and there was no
further need for secrecy, yet they're prepared to launch a raid and get in
the middle of a civil war on an alien planet? Between fleet movements,
propping up alien governments, hard line militaristic attitudes and commando
units complete with explosive launchers, the Vulcans seem more like an
Empire than anything else. It's as if all the strategic and tactical
know-how humans once had and regained in the post-Enterprise era was
transferred over to the Vulcans. Shadows attempts to compensate for this by
once again painting the Vulcans negatively but this does little to change
the fact that the Vulcans knew what they were doing in a situation that
didn't require technological acumen so much as a basic grasp of strategy and
intelligent decision making.
But this only sums up an episode where everyone but the humans know what
they're doing. Both the Vulcans and Andorians have an efficient rescue plan
set to go. Even the hostage takers know what they're doing. Only the humans
proceed to bumble around, bluster and finally walk away without a single
success. In point of fact, everything that is achieved in this episode from
T'Pol's second chance to the Captain's rescue is accomplished through the
aliens. There are necessary plot reasons for this, but it just isn't
particularly smart storytelling because it's hard to respect the abilities
of incompetent people. The premise of Enterprise must be based on more
than just the enthusiasm of the Enterprise crew but also a certain degree of
ability. Enterprise has recycled the idealism of Pulp SF heroes, but has
forgotten that one of their hallmarks was competence, without which, your characters are reduced to buffoons bumbling around in a
world they're not prepared to handle, yet surviving anyway. That's not drama. It's comedy.
Next Week: Two men. One shuttlepod. Let the slash fanfic begin.
About the Authors
O. Deus has been a TrekWeb visitor since the site's 1996 inception. Along with being an ardent poster, he is a freelance journalist based in New York City. Deus has written reviews and columns for TrekWeb for over two years.
Steve Perry is not the former lead singer of Journey. He is, however, a long time fan of all Trek, yes, even Voyager. He is currently in law school and contributes reviews when his busy schedule permits.
TrekWeb Reviews
"The Catwalk"
"Precious Cargo"
"Vanishing Point"
"Singularity"
"The Communicator"
"The Seventh"
"Marauders"
"A Night In Sickbay"
"Dead Stop"
"Minefield"
"Carbon Creek"
"Shockwave, Part II"
Season One Re-cap (Deus)
"Shockwave" (Deus)
"Two Days and Two Nights"
"Fallen Hero" & "Desert Crossing" (Deus)
"Vox Sola" (Deus)
"Detained" (Deus)
"Oasis" (Krutzler)
"Acquisition" (Williams)
"Rogue Planet" (Deus)
"Fusion" (Deus)
"Shuttlepod One" (Deus)
"Shadows of P'Jem" (Deus)
"Sleeping Dogs" (Deus)
"Dear Doctor" (Deus)
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