North Star (episode)

Template:Realworld

For the Earth cargo ship, please see ECS North Star.

Archer and the crew try to discover why a 19th century-era Human settlement has been placed in the middle of the Expanse.

Summary

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Trip Tpol horse — Trip and T'Pol discuss horses

A group of men on horseback take another man and hang him. They refer to that man as a "Skag". They shoot their guns in the air and ride off.

While searching for the Xindi in the Delphic Expanse in 2153, the NX-class starship Enterprise, commanded by Captain Jonathan Archer, discovers a planet inhabited by Humans in a setting that resembles the late-nineteenth-century American West. Wearing period dress, members of the Enterprise crew visit the planet surface and learn that the Humans are descended from Americans abducted from Earth in approximately the 1860s by a species called the Skagarans who, after bringing them to this planet, used them as slave labor. T'Pol, Trip and Archer scout out the town to find useful information. Reed, back on Enterprise, informs the captain that there is a smaller town filled with aliens only ten kilometers away. Archer tells T'Pol and Trip to go to the town and find out what they can, while he heads off to a local bar. Trip and T'Pol go off to find the town, but Trip thinks getting a horse first will speed up the journey. Trip finds a horse dealer and trades him his gun (a gun from the nineteenth century period) and a harmonica. T'Pol asks Trip about his experience handling the creature and Trip says he has seen every John Ford western.

While at the bar, Archer finds out that a man called Cooper Smith was the man who liberated the Humans from the Skagaran. He meets the deputy sheriff Bennings, and stops him from harassing a skag, who also was his waiter. When the sheriff comes in to see what the trouble was, the deputy informs him that Archer butted into a conversation he was having with the waiter. The sheriff asks what Archer's business is in town, and tells him it is too hot for coffee, a drink he got for free from the bar. Archer says he is passing through on his way down south, to meet his brother who was herding bluehorn. Once Archer leaves the bar, the Sheriff tells his deputy to "keep an eye" on Archer.

Archer goes to the house of a teacher, who he saw earlier in the day, standing next to a dead Skag in a coffin. After a short conversation with the teacher, asking him why he barged into her home, he says he would like to know more about the Skagarans. She replies that everyone knows about the Skagarans. Archer says in response that up north quite a ways, where he lives, there are none. He goes on to say that his actions in the bar were because he doesn't think that the Skagaran life is any less valuable than his. The teacher asks Archer if he would like to meet more of them and, when Archer nods his head in agreement, they go off in a carriage to Skag town. On the way the deputy and some men come out of an alley way and watch the pair leave.

When the teacher and Archer arrive at the place, the teacher has to inform some Skagarans that Archer is all right. While Archer walks through some metal archways he spots T'Pol, and Trip. He calls the teacher, Bethany, over and says these are the friends from up north he was telling her about. Bethany goes back over to a fire pit and lets Captain Archer talk to his friends. T'Pol shows him some data logs retrieved from the wreckage of what was apparently the spacecraft that had brought the Humans to the Delphic Expanse. Archer tells Trip and T'Pol to go back to Enterprise and find out what they can. T'Pol asks what John is going to do. He tells her that he doesn't want to miss his first day of school. Bethany starts to teach six Skagarans, among them Yral and Kret, multiplication tables. She says next week they will start long division. The deputy, Bennings, and some men, Nash and Franklin, then come out from the shadows to arrest Bethany. She tells the kids to run home.

Deputy Bennings with North Star Cowboys — Deputy Benning and his men.

From these logs and the short lessons from Bethany, they learn that shortly after the Humans' arrival, they had revolted against their Skagaran oppressors, overthrown them, and thereafter subjugated them as a means of preventing them from regaining control. As a further means of keeping the Skagarans – or "Skags," as they were disparagingly called and referred to – subjugated, the liberated Humans had made it illegal to teach successive generations of the aliens to read, write, or calculate. When Archer's involvement indirectly led to Bethany's being discovered doing so, she was given a minimum ten-year prison sentence and incarcerated. Feeling responsible, Archer helps her escape from jail, but during the effort she is shot and seriously wounded by Bennings. With Bethany incapacitated and facing the deputy's gun himself, Archer is forced to beam up to the ship in full sight of the locals, some of whom became convinced that Archer, although evidently Human, is a Skagaran sympathizer.

On board the ship, Dr. Phlox treats Bethany's injuries. Archer asks him if she is going to make it. Phlox says he believes so, there are a few things about her physiology he does not understand. Archer wonders what Phlox means. Phlox says he thought Archer was familiar with Bethany's ancestry, he says that Bethany is one-quarter Skagaran. Archer goes off to talk with his senior staff. Meanwhile on the planet, Bennings has a debate with the sheriff about his handling of the Skags. Bennings hands in his badge and walks out the door. On Enterprise the Skagaran logs have been translated, which confirm Bethany's story, and the crew finds out the Humans were abducted from America's rocky desert regions because they were best adapted to the new planet's identical environment. Archer decides that the planet's inhabitants deserve to know that Earth has not abandoned them and decides to make themselves known. After the meeting with the senior staff Archer leads T'Pol, and a security team to the planet in a shuttlepod, wearing their twenty-second century uniforms. Archer explains to the sheriff, MacReady, that he is from Earth, which MacReady had come to believe was a mythical place, and that Humans have evolved past bigotry and the subjugation of other sentient species. Archer informs the sheriff that unfortunately the Enterprise isn't equipped to take the entire colony of 6,000 Humans to Earth and promises to send help once their Xindi mission is completed. Archer also informs the sheriff that Humans have grown to be more tolerant of other cultures and says their band of Humans will have to grow before they can live normal lives on Earth.

Archer and the sheriff leave the building and go to the shuttlepod. Once there Archer introduces MacReady to his first officer T'Pol. As Archer says that they were going to take MacReady up to Enterprise the former deputy Bennings shoots MacReady. Archer, T'Pol, Malcolm, and a security force engage Bennings and his men in a shoot out. Close to the end of the shoot out, T'Pol is captured by one of Bennings' men. Bennings man tells Malcolm that he will kill her if Malcolm does not put his gun down. Malcolm procedes to shoot T'Pol with his phase pistol and then turns to T'Pol's captor and shoots him. While this is going on Archer engages in a hand to hand fight with Bennings. The shuttlepod departs the planet and returns to Enterprise. Once on Enterprise, Archer talks to Bethany reassuring her that the Humans on the planet will be able to change before ships come to rescue them. Once Bethany returns to the surface Enterprise leaves orbit, leaving behind a more enlightened community and apparently some historical materials, as Bethany (openly) teaches a classroom of students, Skagarans, humans, and Sheriff MacReady about the Wright brothers' first powered flight, which had taken place forty years after her Human ancestors had left Earth.

Memorable Quotes

"Do you have any experience riding these animals?"
"I've seen every John Ford western."
"Who?"
"Look, how hard can it be?"

- T'Pol and Trip, just before T'Pol climbed up on Trip's horse

"Excuse me. Do you think I could get some more coffee before you shoot him?"

- Archer, to Draysik after Bennings asks him to shoot him with a gun

"You must think we're barbaric. All the things humanity's accomplished – building ships like this, traveling to other worlds – and we're still down there shooting each other."
"The progress on Earth, it didn't happen overnight."
"But it was progress all the same. You've managed to change. We haven't. Even if you could take us back, I don't think we're ready."
"It may be a while before we're able to start sending ships here. My guess is, by the time they arrive they'll find things have changed."

- Bethany and Archer, staring out a window of Enterprise

Background Information

Like the Voyager episode "The 37's", the premise of this episode involves the discovery of a colony inhabited by Humans that were abducted by aliens. Also, like "Spectre of the Gun" from Star Trek: The Original Series and the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "A Fistful of Datas" before it, this episode also takes place in a Western-themed setting.
Exteriors of the town were shot primarily at Universal Studios in Universal City, California.
This is the second time that Emily Bergl has played a one-quarter alien woman. She previously played Lisa Clarke, whose paternal grandfather was an alien, in the Steven Spielberg mini-series Taken.
Chronologically, this is the first time that a Starfleet officer asks for transport while specifying how many to beam up.

Links and References

Main Cast

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

Guest Stars

Co-Stars

References

airplane; alien abduction; Ancient West; arithmetic; barber; bartender; bluehorn; buffalo; butcher; cemetery; checkers; coffee; cowboy; crime; data module; dentistry; deputy; DNA; Earth; feather; Ford, John; interspecific reproduction; harmonica; heat exhaustion; horse; Human; Human history; MACO; mathematics; New York; Ohio; Pacific Ocean; parlor trick; particle rifle; projectile weapon; Recessive gene; revolver; rotgut; San Francisco; sheriff; shuttlepod (22nd century); Skagaran; Skagaran colony; Skagaran language; Skagaran starship; Skagaran whiskey; Skagtown; slavery; smoking; spittoon; Smith, Cooper; stablehand; Stanton, Clay; sun viper; teacher; United States dollar; unnamed Alpha and Beta Quadrant planets; Vulcan (planet); western; Wright brothers; Xindi incident

Timeline

1860s: A group of Humans are kidnapped from Earth by Skagarans who intend to use them as slaves.
1903: The Wright brothers accomplish their first flight.
2153: Enterprise finds the failed Skagaran colony.

Previous episode:
"Twilight"

Star Trek: Enterprise
Season 3

Next episode:
"Similitude"