Many relevant points are raised here about the inadequacy of Earth's lack of military sense in the Trekverse. IMO, not having any writers with a real understanding of "how things work" in the world make some military situations on the show have you scratching your head. Thank goodness for the novelists; they make the Federation a whole lot more realistic in their position as the most powerful nation - politically, militarily, and technologically - in the known galaxy.

Of course, with the technological sophistication in the Trek universe, easy solutions to everything equals no drama, and how many execs would allow *that*?

Of course there is also the 'Mutual Assured Destruction' defense. You build enough hide out missiles with rudimentary warp drives and large warheads to pulverize all of the Xindi planets. Then you blow one up as a warning. Superweapons aren't the only way to blow up a planet. We could do it today.

To be perfectly honest, zippy, I completely missed the season opening "Storm Front." Purposely. To me, the season began when the crew of "Enterprise" returned in their present time in their proper timeline. Why? Because Star Trek has rehashed the "alternate timeline" plot so often I'm bored with it.

The Soong arc was kind of interesting. Since the writers didn't have to write a war story in this arc they weren't quite so far out of their element like they were throughout last season (chronic pacifists just should NOT write war stories). But enlighten me on something. Was Archer's father a victim of a genetic disease from the series' beginning, or was it a convenient plot point inserted in here for this particular story arc on genetic manipulation?

The Vulcan civil war arc is turning into a political statement against pre-emptive war (a la George W. Bush) and since I'm a proponent of pre-emptive war to protect American lives you can see where I have a problem with that particular plot point.

Hi RCS,

Just stopping by to wonder what you thought of Season 4, so far? Did you like the Augments/Soong Arc? Brent Spiner rocks, doesn't he? And this month's Vulcan Civil War Arc looks pretty cool, as does the upcoming Andorian-Tellerite Arc.

A more relevant issue - after seeing the end of "Storm Front Part 2" - yeah, Earth really DID have a fleet of ships (and lots of them). So Starfleet HAS been preparing themselves for war. The question is, where the heck were those ships in "Zero Hour"? Maybe they were out on deep patrol guarding the perimeter of Earth's system. They didn't really know about Xindi Vortex tech, and were probably expecting the Xindi to approach Earth by Warp Drive and enter the system from the outside, not appear right on top of Earth. Of course, when the Lunar Station got destroyed, the fleet was probably alerted and started high-tailing it back to Earth which would explain there appearance at the end of "Storm Front Part 2". Just my two cents.

Btw, what did you think of Captain Hernandez? Nice to see a non-Janeway woman in the captain's chair.

PS - Was Archer's new chair cool or what?

:)

“And you have to remember that Aquatic ships are way, way more powerful than Starfleet’s ships. “
This is irrelevant. The only reason I mentioned the Aquatic ships was as proof that the Death Asteroid can be harmed by delivering enough firepower against it from the outside without resorting to a boarding action. In any attack on Earth the humans have available to them what amounts to one humungous “starship

“Twilight

"the fact that you managed to pick out only six episodes where it didn't happen out of five series ranging from 3 to 7 seasons each and 10 movies is statistically meaningless."

Ah... but let's break a few things down now:
1) In your last post you said "The writers of Star Trek do attack-and-board EVERY FREAKING BATTLE." Well, I just proved that statement wrong by listing several episodes that don't have boarding parties. The writers of Trek DO NOT use a boarding party every single battle.
2) There are WAY MORE than just 6 episodes in which no boarding parties were used. I haven't watched every single Trek episode but from what I've already seen, there have got to be dozens. The 6 eps I chose were specifically from ENT Season 3. You want me to list eps from other Trek Series, fine then: Sacrifice of the Angels, The Jem'hadar, What You Leave Behind, Tears of the Prophets (Dukat beaming in doesn't count), Sons and Daughters, Balance of Terror, Treachery Faith and the Great River, Scorpion, Unimatrix Zero, The Expanse, The Void, Endgame, Drone, A Time to Stand, Soldiers of the Empire, The Changing Face of Evil, Shadows and Symbols, Once More Unto the Breach, Valiant, Starship Down, Chain of Command, Descent Part 2, Penumbra, The Die is Cast, etc, etc,etc... There are probably a lot more than that. Those are just the ones I have on the top of my mind.

3) Even when boarding parties are used, they're usually not used to kill everyone. Most of the time, the bad guys board the ship to
A. Rescue/capture someone
B. Steal something.
C. Assasinate someone.

4) Let's NOT debate this any further or someone is going to get a heart attack.

To Admiral and the rest of you guys who have a problem with boarding parties: If you really want to continue this matter and try to get other fans' attention, I suggest you post a topic like this on trekbbs.com or some other Trek bullentin board.

The writers probably don't give a ** as to what we fans think, but they'll at least have a greater chance of reading your topic on a Star Trek bulletin board. I doubt the writers read stuff that often on fanfic websites let alone take it seriously.

Whatever, I refuse to debate this topic on this website any further.
Good bye.

"I can only think of a few episodes in which Starfleet sent over a boarding party to blow something up."

Nice try, zip, but we're not just talking about Starfleet. In fact, the point of the story is that Starfleet's enemies tend to board for the express purpose of killing people and breaking things with alarming regularity, and the fact that this trend tends to spread genre-wide means that the fact that you managed to pick out only six episodes where it didn't happen out of five series ranging from 3 to 7 seasons each and 10 movies is statistically meaningless.

The writers of Stargate, however, aren't so tactically obtuse. SG-1 does it rarely, and their principle enemies, the Goa'uld, NEVER do it. That's right. Tiny little parasitic eels managed to figure out what the Xindi Reptiles in "Twilight" couldn't: Genocide is easier when you use cannons from long range!

To Admiral:

"Every other time the mission has been either a search-and-rescue or a straight escape."

Yeah, that's also the main point of Trek boarding parties too. Infact, I can only think of a few episodes in which Starfleet sends over a boarding party to blow something up. Trek boarding parties are almost always rescue missions.

"The writers of Star Trek do attack-and-board EVERY FREAKING BATTLE."

W-R-O-N-G
I could name dozens of Trek battles in which no boarding parties were used to destroy stuff/resuce people. Examples:

Proving Ground: There was a space battle, but no boarding parties were used.

Hatchery: There was a space battle, but no boarding parties were used.

Azati Prime: There also was a really big battle, but no boarding parties whatsover.

The Forgotten: There was yet another battle. No boarding parties.

E2: Ditto.

The Council: Ditto.

Look, I already said that I partially agreed with notion Trek relies too much on boarding parties. However, like you said with Stargate SG1, 80% of all Trek boarding parties are rescue missions/escape plans not kill-everything-on-board missions. "Zero Hour" is one of the few episodes in which the Human boarding party is there to destroy the whole freakin, place.

Btw, I think figured out why the Reps boarded the NX-01 in "Twilight". They were specifically after Archer and wanted to kill him personally and didn't want to risk him getting away in a shuttle. The Sphere Builders probably created the memory-destorying parasites in the first place and used them on Archer to take him out of comission. However, the SB's knew that the destruction of the transdimentional parasites would cause the reset button to be hit. So, they ordered the Xindi to assasinate Archer while the parasites remained. When the Reps first boarded the ship, one of the Reps specifically ENTERED ARCHER'S QUARTERS out of all the other misc doors that were around.
When the NX-01 came under attack 12 years later, Archer mentioned there was still a shuttlepod left in the ship. The Reps probably thought that it would take too long to finish off the NX-01 (the only real damage to the ship was the destruction of the bridge) and that Archer might reach the shuttlepod and get away. That's probably why they sent to a boarding party - to make sure that Archer was found and eliminated and that he didn't warp off in the shuttle. Just my thoughts.

"Stop drinking ST's Kool-Aid, willya?"

Fine. I'll be switching to ST's hot apple cider in that case. ;)

"I mean, how many times must O'Neill and co. sneak aboard the Goa'uld mothership/base/outpost and blow it up from the inside?"

Only THREE times, zippy, over the course of seven years-plus on TV has SG-1 boarded anything with the intent of a) destroying it or b) killing everyone aboard. Every other time the mission has been either a search-and-rescue or a straight escape. For them, boarding is always either a tactic of last resort or something they couldn't help. The writers of Star Trek do attack-and-board EVERY FREAKING BATTLE. Stop drinking ST's Kool-Aid, willya?

OH NO! YOU KILLED OFF THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE! AUGGH! IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! ! ! ! !

just kidding...

I agreed that Trek does rely a little too much on boarding parties, but so have shows like Stargate Sg1. I mean how many times must O'Neill and co. sneak aboard the Goa'uld mothership/base/outpost and blow it up from the inside?

Btw, according to the latest spoilers, the captain of the NX-02 will be a woman named Erika Hernandez. I don't know the name of the actress playing her yet, but she's going to show up in episode 4.03 entitled "Home". Just for your information.

Yes, you're absolutely right. If Earth wasn't heavily defended when the Xindi attacked, after a full year's warning, then it would be time to pull down the government and put a competent one up in its place.

And you'd think that an alien race capable of building and deploying a planet-destroying Death Asteroid would be that smart, but that's one of the fundamental problems with the writing across the genre. The only reason the good guys win is because the bad guys are often just as dense.

Nicely done!

Katie, he wrote it as an alternative ending as he thought it should have happened. There’s nothing pretentious about it. Just because you take the show and all its flaws on a silver platter doesn’t mean everyone has to. That’s the beauty of the creative mind in that you take an existing universe and alter it to how you think would make it better. Isn’t that why it’s called fanfiction? Hmm?

And the surname Hammond doesn’t necessarily have to refer to the two star general we know in Stargate SG-1. There are many people with that surname if you didn’t know and no doubt they’ll be ones that originate from Texas. =P

You don’t have to like it but please don’t go out of your way to call it tripe. How about you write something of the same nature and let’s see how your work shapes up.

It was a great alternative ending. RCS. That Columbia sure does pop up a lot. :P

Bah. It's good for a fan fic, but saying that "this is the way Zero Hour should have gone," is pretentious. Also, while the STargate reference was nice, who gives a ** about hammond? No one.

I'll take gray Nazis over this tripe any day.