Trip's Mistakes

[WarpGirl]

I wouldn't call it stupidity, misguided might be a better word. For the record... Yes, I believe the way the Vissians (?) treated the Cogenitor was wrong, it was slavery and I don't condone slavery. HOWEVER since the cogenitor wasn't in any physical danger, as an officer he should have stayed out of it. First Contacts are dangerous tricky situations. If the Vissans had been a aggressive culture, or their laws had been different, Trip's actions could have constituted an act of war. I mean what better way of dealing a critical blow to a people than to attack the way they procreate? We know Trip wasn't doing that, but as T'Pol reminded him these people weren't human. He put every man woman and animal (because there are a lot on Enterprise) at serious risk. Not only the crew of Enterprise but the Vissians themselves were at risk. The casualties on both sides if a fire fight had broken out would have been enormous. So yeah Trip did a HUGE no no.

BUT, I still say he isn't responsible for the Cogenitor's death. If anything Archer is because he didn't grant he/she/it assylum. Also Archer showed his complete and utter hypocricy, inability to be an effective leader, and a jackass of a friend. Heck I loved the Vissian Captain. He wassympathetic to Trip and encouraged him to learn from the whole mess.

[Alelou]

That episode was an interesting concept miserably executed. There's no way Trip would have been behaving that irresponsibly at that stage in the series. (As Dinah has pointed out, it might have worked better in an early Season One show.)

I won't even get into Archer. I don't think that episode served any of the characters well ... well, other than Malcolm, who got to have some fun flirting over stinky cheese.

[WarpGirl]

Well I don't want to get into Archer in here either, but it was part of the dynamic. The thing that really got on my nerves is that Trip ignored Phlox, T'Pol I can understand because of their relationship at this point. But honestly I thought he should have had more respect for them both, because the both have far more experience with alien cultures than he does.

[Alelou]

Trip's actions just don't make sense to me. I find myself tempted to ascribe it to some vague sense of Southern guilt over slavery, but that just doesn't make sense this at this point in history, or with the family he appears to come from. He doesn't talk about growing up on a grand old plantation anywhere.

I think they just screwed up badly with his character in this episode. They needed someone to do this to serve their plot and decided Trip was the best candidate. I think Travis would have been the better choice, or even Hoshi. But really, nobody in that crew had any business behaving that way at that point in their voyage.

[Asso]

Trip's actions just don't make sense to me. I find myself tempted to ascribe it to some vague sense of Southern guilt over slavery, but that just doesn't make sense this at this point in history, or with the family he appears to come from. He doesn't talk about growing up on a grand old plantation anywhere.

I think they just screwed up badly with his character in this episode. They needed someone to do this to serve their plot and decided Trip was the best candidate. I think Travis would have been the better choice, or even Hoshi. But really, nobody in that crew had any business behaving that way at that point in their voyage.

Sure.

[WarpGirl]

Well if I remember right Alelou didn't you say you were origionally from Florida? So I believe you're familiar with living south of the mason dixion line. What amazed this transplanted Yankee (origionally born and raised in Long Island NY) was that in the area where I live now, where there is a HUGE amount of "Southern Pride" it isn't the "old wealth" or people decended from plantation owners that either cling to the past or over compansate with misplaced guilt. It's the "rednecks" (hate that term but its a source of pride) that are either really racist or really guilty about their family's being racist in the past.

As for Trip not growing up on a grand plantation, well... I think he was raised in a cool beach house, he's a self admitted water baby and diving freak. But I always had it in my head that his great-grandparents had a big place in Mississippi. But I didn't peg the family as former slave owners. Trip seems to be the type who automatically HATES any form of injustice at all.

[Alelou]

Yes, I grew up south of the Mason-Dixon line, although if you ask me, Florida only feels Southern if you live in North Florida, or happen to be from a cracker family, which I am on my mother's side. So sure, I've heard plenty of redneck relatives using the N-word, and I've also felt the occasional flare of white liberal guilt (which I ought to have if anybody does -- we weren't slave owners that I know of, but the Confederate general who started the Klan is one of the paragons of our family tree, supposedly). Even so, I can't imagine feeling enough to make me do what Trip did, which is why I seriously doubt he would either, especially after another century or two has passed.

[Distracted]

Both racism and open-mindedness are environmental traits, not hereditary. Once the last family bigot is dead you're home free. I grew up in the deep south. My father's grandfather, the sheriff of Morehouse parish in north Louisiana in the 30's, raised a young black boy he took into his home after the boy's parents died. He wasn't treated as a son exactly, and lived in a small room off the kitchen, but he was given food and a roof over his head, and graduated from high school, a relatively rare thing for a black man in the 30's in that area of the country. He joined the military and became a career enlisted man, survived WWII, married and had a large extended family, and was still sending my great grandparents Christmas cards and gifts until the year they died. My Dad jokes about his "Uncle" Wash sometimes (the man's name was Washington), but when Wash died he left some money to my Dad and a letter of thanks to our family.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though my family is by no means free of racial predjudice (my dad would've exploded had I even considered dating a black boy when I was young), it only takes one understanding person of either race to close the gap. Wash wasn't adopted, nor did he expect to be, but he truly loved my great grandparents. In return, despite cultural influences that were nearly impossible to overcome back then, I'm sure that my great grandparents loved him right back, and they grew up with parents who'd LIVED through the civil war reformation period!

So what if Trip grew up in the deep south? By the 22nd century I don't think slavery guilt or racism would enter his thought processes at all.

[Aquarius]

Yes, I grew up south of the Mason-Dixon line, although if you ask me, Florida only feels Southern if you live in North Florida, or happen to be from a cracker family, which I am on my mother's side. So sure, I've heard plenty of redneck relatives using the N-word, and I've also felt the occasional flare of white liberal guilt (which I ought to have if anybody does -- we weren't slave owners that I know of, but the Confederate general who started the Klan is one of the paragons of our family tree, supposedly). Even so, I can't imagine feeling enough to make me do what Trip did, which is why I seriously doubt he would either, especially after another century or two has passed.

I guess I never considered "Southern guilt" a factor, because I've never believed in feeling guilty about something you, personally, had nothing to do with. I see a lot of "white guilt" in liberal communities like Ann Arbor, and I refuse to buy into it because *I'm* not prejudiced and *I* never owned any slaves. Aside from the dignity and respect you're supposed to treat everybody with, I don't owe anybody anything, because I didn't do anything to anybody. It makes no sense. So I can't imagine Trip feeling that kind of guilt, being yet another hundred years removed from the slave era, but I suppose it's possible.

[WarpGirl]

Oh I agree Distracted trust me my NY Sicilian and Black Irish family makes me crazy sometimes. Sometimes I want NOTHING more than to rip their voices out. And yet these are people who grew up in Brooklyn and Queens. So I don't think Trip's thing was latent guilt over a terrible time 300 years ago his time.

[Alelou]

Well, as I said, I don't think he would to any degree that matters, especially by then. But that's how inexplicable his behavior is in that episode to me, that I found myself wondering something like that.

There's also a difference between 'feeling white guilt' and accepting that our history has tended to have certain effects on certain groups over time, but that's certainly not a discussion for this forum.

[WarpGirl]

He certainly seemed to regress a lot, whoever had the idea for that particular story either had a bad week, or wasn't paying attention.

[Aikiweezie]

I also think his behavior was inexplicable and think that the writers were making a point and just happened to use Trip to do so. A poorly thought out idea.

[WarpGirl]

Especially because it's been done in EVERY ST. They should have been good at this. Then again we also got Precious Cargo. The thing I can't understand why Trip ignored people he respected so much.

[Silverbullet]

Good evening.

I believe that some of you are missing a point.

The Coginator was very intelligent. He learned to read very fast. Learned to play go and beat Trip at it when no one on the ship could and the Cog did it in a few minutes. He/she was very intersted in learning and in trying out new experiences. Everythng Trip intorduced he/she to was absorbeed extremenly fast, the cogniator had an incredible I.Q. it was
terribly wasted asset to the others. they simply ignored its potential and treated the Cogniator like a thing rather than a being.

In the series He/she was searchiing for an identity so it wanted a name. Having a name meant that it was more than a thing it was a person. Trip saw that. He could see that he was dealing with an intelligent being and treated the Cognitator as one. Trip was light years ahead of the rest but they didn't undersand. they accepted the other two Sex's version that the third sex was a useful thing but it had no right to be trated otherwise.

doubt if there would have been a fight. the two Sex's were peaceful and would have avoided a fight simply because they outclased Entrprise and did not worry about it. they may have demanded Trip's being turned ove to them but that wold be it.

Not only trip's Heart but his head was inthe right place.

go back and watch the episode and see what the third sex was capable of and what it wanted. then you can understand why it killed itself when denied the chance to be an accepted part of the Vissians society. All it wanted was to be equal and it had a right to that.