Stunning Cosplay

Alicia Marie

Always good to have a VULCAN on board the starship... #logical #tpol #enterprise #STLV #StarTrekCon 🖖🏽❤️😆 pic.twitter.com/ZfvaEnzPDZ

— Alicia Marie (@AliciaMarieBODY) August 4, 2017

Spock's World by Diane Duane

Spock's World by Diane Duane
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Spock's World is easily one of my top five Star Trek novels, I own a rather battered hardback copy of the novel and read it more than I probably should. In this novel we get the main storyline which deals with the Vulcan population considering pulling out of the Federation, a global debate is imminent and people from all walks are invited to debate the proposition in front of the Vulcan people. As you would expect all our favourite characters get their time under the spotlight and we get many secondary characters playing major roles as the story unfolds. In addition to this main story we get a number of secondary elements dealing with aspects of Vulcan from the birth of their star system, their evolution into sentience, Surak, Sarek and many other aspects which add so much more to the Vulcan that we knew so little about from the tv series.
Personally I simply love reading about the birth of the first Vulcan language and the experience of wonder as the world is opened to a single vulcan who looks beyond what he can see and is determined to face the unknown. The "Forge" a huge desert where life is forever lived on the edge provides the backdrop to a chilling story of passion and anger and underlines how known Vulcan physical traits played their part in the history of it's people. The story of the political/economic and eugenic aspects of the vulcan society seen through the interaction of two of the main "houses" on the verge of a major space exploitation project is beautiful and sorrowful to read but reveals so much of what Vulcan was before Surak. As for Surak his story is wondrous and inspiring and his revelation after seeing an antimatter weapon used on Vulcan's sister planet shows how near the edge these people were before Surak brought sanity to his people. Finally Sarek a master of computer tech posted to the Vulcan embassy on Earth and his rise as an attache finally as ambassador and his meeting to one Amanda Grayson. There is a lot more in the novel, some of which has been expanded upon in other works by Diane but overall the structure of this book is perfection giving you a great core story with to coin a phrase "fascinating" looks into Vulcan society. Spock's World is a must read for any original series Star Trek fan.

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Corona by Greg Bear

Corona by Greg Bear
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A call for help from a decade past has the Enterprise venturing into a region of space where new born stars are abundant in search of a Vulcan led research facility. What they find is at first a miracle of ingenuity and perseverance but things are not quite what they seem and the Vulcans are not behaving as they should. To complicate matters the Enterprise is carrying new oversight systems designed to monitor medical and command decisions, a hindrance or a god send it has yet to be decided.
Corona was an enjoyable read, I liked the portrayal of the Vulcans and the concept behind the story as life seeks to preserve life. I'm not sure I buy into the reporter or the rather insular view of her world but the character certainly worked and interacted well with the regular characters.

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Star Trek Enterprise Marathon Part 23

Star Trek Enterprise Marathon Part 23
Season 4 Disk 3

Kir'Shara
The Enterprise warns the Andorians via Shran about the impending invasion but the
High Command through V'Las will not back down and the ship gets caught in a
shooting war. Meanwhile on Vulcan T'Pau, Archer and T'Pol find the writings of
Surak and venture forth with the goal to face down the Vulcan leadership with proof
that the Vulcans have moved off the path of logic and peace.
This was an excellent episode, I really did like the Vulcan story despite some issues
with it's timeline but T'Pau was a good call back to the original series and the clash
of Starships looked great.

Daedalus
Emory Erickson the creator of the human transporter technology visits the ship with
the aim to test a long range system which may make ships obsolete, you know like the
Stargate. However he has another reason for being there, he intends to co-opt the ship
to attempt to find his son lost in a transporter accident no matter what the consequences
for the Enterprise and her crew.
I wasn't fond of this episode even with echoes of the TOS The Ultimate Computer.
I thought Archer especially acted just plain wrong, he should haver slammed the door
on this experiment once he learnt of it and doubly so with the death of a crewman.

Observer Effect
Two alien beings possess bodies of the crew and observe them as they struggle with an
infection which threatens the lives of Tripp and Hoshi. The aliens view this as some sort
of test and how each visitor to this infected world reveals truths about them and maybe
just maybe a species may prove itself worthy of being contacted.
I really enjoyed this episode because of the call back to the original series and The Errand
of Mercy, I honestly think Enterprise was at it's best mining the lore of TOS and revealing
new things about existing aliens.

Babel One
A high level meeting between the Andorians and Tellarites is being held on Babel One and
the Enterprise is bringing the Tellarite Ambassador but they find Shran in the wreckage of his
warship and he claims it was attacked by Tellarites.
This is the background to a trilogy of episodes dealing with an external threat to the stability
of this part of the galaxy by provoking a war between species, we see once again the humans
being the convergence point and again building on the groundwork laid by TOS.
Excellent episode and a great start to this three part story.

Star Trek Enterprise Marathon Part 22

Star Trek Enterprise Marathon Part 22
Season 4 Disk 2

Cold Station 12
The Augments and Soong raid Cold Station 12 for the remaining unborn children
of the Eugenic wars but delays mean a stand off with the Enterprise and they resort
to cold blooded murder even of their own.
We see the true colours of the "superior" human when they turn on each other and
their "father", ultimately they moral of the story is underlined, twice.

The Augments
Fleeing to an area of space called the Briar Patch with the intent of providing a secure
location to raise the next generation of Augments causes conflict between Soong and
Malik. To give them time they decide to attack a Klingon colony and provoke a war
between Earth and the Klingons using biogenic weapons.
A fitting conclusion to the Augment arc, it built on what we knew about the Eugenic
Wars and added in some Soong who paved the way for advanced artificial life, some
very nice writing.

The Forge
The Earth embassy on Vulcan is bombed and the finger is pointed at a sect who claim
to follow the path of Surak. Seeking justice T'Pol and Archer enter the Forge to seek
out this sect and discover that the High Command have blood on their hands and maybe
the answer for Vulcan is to be found in the deep desert.
An excellent Vulcan story despite my own reservations that they could be so different to
the Vulcans of the TOS era.

Awakening
Archer and T'Pol discover the Syrranites thanks to the information gleamed from Arev.
What they find confirms the High Command have been less than honest with Starfleet
and that they intended to strike at Andoria despite a peace treaty and they are even
willing to use tactical weapons against Vulcans on Vulcan.
Questionable Vulcan actions aside this was a good story and of course T'Pau
( Kara Zediker )  was a very nice addition linking the two eras. It's a shame stories
like this and others from the fourth seasons were not the core of the series from day 1,
so much lore/cannon to be exploited and built upon without affecting TNG etc.

Star Trek Enterprise Marathon Part 11

Star Trek Enterprise Marathon Part 11

Season 2 Disk 4

Dawn
A blatant lift from the movie Enemy Mine which itself had been used as a basis
for other Trek episodes, there is no getting away from limited originality in
any genre of story telling.
That said the episode was ok, decent performances from Conner and Gregg
Henry ( Zho'Kaan ) and directed by Roxann Dawson.

Stigma
T'Pol is suffering from a disease which can only be contracted via a mind meld and
it carries a stigma amongst the mainstream Vulcan culture. Phlox attempts to find new
information from his Vulcan colleagues but the secret is revealed. Meanwhile Phlox's
wife ( Feezal played by Melinda Page Hamilton ) is onboard overseeing the installation
of new equipment and she takes a shine to Trip.
The T'Pol story line is a little dull but again helps to paint a picture of current Vulcan
society but Phlox and his missus are just great fun, Melinda really hits the spot with her
portrayal of a Denobulan.

Cease Fire
An ongoing conflict between the Andorians and Vulcans requires mediation and Shran
calls for Archer to be the go-between which the Vulcans do not prevent although they
are not too keen. Complications as always arise with various factions in play but
eventually the pink skins role as a focal point for compromise and collaboration has it's
first really positive step laid down.
You can't really go wrong with a screen full of Vulcans and Andorians.

Future Tense
An advanced ship is salvaged by the Enterprise with a dead "human" pilot but the
Suliban come a calling and chased off, then the Tholians pay the Enterprise a visit
and it seems a lot of worlds are interested in this ship. It turns out that is has a temporal
core and may indeed be far from the future with all the bells and whistles that implies
and a feeding frenzy is only moments away.
A top notch action episode, lots of space combat and a good use of the temporal
aspect of the shows main arc.

Star Trek Enterprise Marathon Part 2

Star Trek Enterprise Marathon Part 2

Season 1 Disk 2

Unexpected
A ship is discovered trailing the Enterprise and feeding of it's plasma wake.
Tripp goes aboard to help fix their engines and is exposed to their holographic
technology and well gets a little careless and hey presto the guys pregnant then
Klingons get involved.
Ok I know it sounds silly but this episode actually works pretty well, if for
nothing else the Klingons reaction pretty much sum up the whole story.

Terra Nova
An old colony which was lost under mysterious circumstances is visited by the
Enterprise and high levels of radiation are discovered. There are however survivors
living underground, child of the disaster who see the crew as being enemies and
responsible for the deaths of their parents and grandparents.
This episode had some good ideas, I don't think it worked that well.
Erick Avari (Stargate) guest stars.

The Andorian Incident
Now we are talking, the best episode so far thanks to the introduction of
the Andorians and specifically Jeffrey Combs once again appearing on Trek
and well knocking the ball out the park.
A visit to a Vulcan temple reveals an occupying group of Andorians searching
for surveillance equipment and the landing party are taken in the belief they are
working with the Vulcans to spy on the Andorians.
There are some nice twists and actions taken by T'Pol, Shran and Archer.

Breaking The Ice
The crew get all excited about discovering a comet which has a high
percentage of an element that could be of some use. A shuttle pod is taken
down by Travis and Mayweather and well of course it all goes wrong and to
make it worse the Vulcans are "observing".
This episode had some funny moments and we got some development with
T'Pol but overall not that great.