085: ENT: Anomaly

Welcome! Thanks for joining me today. We all face near-impossible situations as leaders. In facing those, you can either grow and emerge stronger, or you can let the situation drag you down. We’re going to explore this in the days before the Kobayashi Maru as we do a rewrite after watching the 2^nd episode of the 3^rd season of Enterprise, Anomaly.

<<Transporter>>

The Enterprise is continuing its journey through the Delphic Expanse searching for any signs of the Xindi. In the last few episodes, they’ve reminded us that space is a weird place in this Expanse and we see that right from go. “The Cochrane Equation, it’s not constant here.” 8:29 Captain Archer is hanging out with his dog, Porthos and drinking some coffee. A weird distortion rushes through his room, causing him to spill his coffee, but instead of dropping to the desk and deck, it just hangs in mid-air. Frozen.

Things aren’t much better in Engineering or Sickbay. Readings are weird, Dr. Phlox’s animals are scurrying and making weird noises. All the anomalies are making the warp field fail and “we’re losing main power.” 2:08 They drop out of warp and get to work figuring this all out.

They find another ship where they dropped out of warp. It’s adrift with no life signs or atmosphere. Archer gets a group of MACO’s and they head over to investigate. They find evidence of violence on the ship and confirm, no survivors. They limp away from the ship as quickly because “whoever attacked them could still be nearby.” 7:54

And they’re right. The attackers fly in, “3,000 meters and closing. They’re charging weapons.” 9:41 The ship has no defenses and weapons are still down. A group of pirates beam into the ship, start blasting the crew and stealing gear. They absolutely overwhelm the ship and clean them out. As the last of the pirates are beaming out, they’re able to capture one and lock him up in the brig. But they are in a bad, bad way. “How bad is it? Bad…” 14:40 They have maybe a month’s worth of fuel left, and that’s it.

Dr. Phlox is tending to the wounded. Crewman Fuller doesn’t make it but the rest will recover. He has information on the captured pirate, though, “You might be interested to know I recognize the species.” 14:27 T’Pol pulls some data on them. They aren’t a species with a history of piracy. So it appears they are an anomaly within a field of anomalies.

Archer interrogates him. He says that he’s going to find the attacker’s ship, take back what was stolen and will then allow them to leave, unharmed. He just wants what was taken. He’s not after revenge or anything petty like that. At least not yet. But dude isn’t keen on helping out. If he betrays his crew, his captain will kill him. And he isn’t too worried. He says the Enterprise crew is too civilized to do any real harm. He goes on to say his crew started here, just looking for trade routes, but they couldn’t get out of the Expanse. “After a few more encounters with the anomalies we became the predators.” 19:02 From there, they’ve slowly slid into more and more violence.

T'Pol and Mayweather have been studying the derelict ship’s records. With the info they gathered, they believe they can track the pirate’s ship and have weapons on line by the time they find them. On the way, they find something wild and unexpected. A sort of blank spot, a gap, in space. They pass through a barrier of some kind, lots of turbulence and pressure on the ship. When they emerge, though, they find a massive sphere. “It’s approximately 19km in diameter.” 24:19 That’s almost 12 miles for us in the US. It’s clearly manufactured, but who could construct something on that scale?

They approach and find an entrance. They board a shuttle and head inside. It’s huge and cavernous, but they find a spot to dock. Not surprisingly, they find their cargo there and begin recovery operations. They even get in a tiny nod to DS9 while working through the cache. “They’re not going to run out of stem bolts anytime soon.” 28:21 They get most of their stuff back, other than what they assume is being used on the pirate ship.

They touch on Trip’s sleeping problems and his neuropressure sessions with T’Pol. They’ve only had one session so far and Phlox is adamant that’s not enough.

T’Pol is amazed by the power generation and output of this sphere. “The sphere is emitting massive amounts of energy.” 32:31 And believes it has something to do with the anomalies. She is focusing on scans and research on this.

Between her and other research being done, they determine the pirates had hit a Xindi ship recently. Archer goes to the prisoner and lays into him. “Which species of Xindi were they?” 34:05 He’s still not helpful at all. So Archer grabs him and takes him into an airlock. Calling his bluff, the prisoner says nothing, so Archer starts depressurizing it! Reed comes by and tries to talk Archer down but he is all-in! At the last second, he lets him out and locks him up again. He continues the interrogation and learns the pirates had downloaded the Xindi database when they took the ship. They come up with a plan to hack into their system, once they can find them, and snag that data.

They meet up, and, weapons ready, Enterprise attacks, and it is on! Mayweather holds them close enough to the ship while Hoshi starts the download. It’s intense as they navigate weird space, fight and try to hold close enough! When they get most of the database downloaded, they take out the ship’s engines and the fight is over.

Archer returns the prisoner to the pirates prompting him to taunt, “So you have let your morality get in the way after all.” 41:17 and warns that mercy won’t help them in the Expanse.

Back on their way, Archer begins poring through the Xindi database and we go to credits with him lost in all the data.

<<Red Alert>>

This episode really starts changing the direction and the feel of Enterprise. When this Xindi arc started, we talked about them wanting to move this series in this direction, and here we go. There are 22 more episodes in this arc and we’re already seeing some substantial changes in the characters and overall tone of the show.

Quarks – Ads

With Star Trek’s experience in serialized storytelling, mostly in DS9, it’s no surprise that this episode is kind of slow. In an overarching story like this, you have to introduce the setting; the world, the problems and challenges, and the key players. In a way, it’s like setting all the pieces up on the chess board. What we know right now is that the stakes are huge. We’re talking Earth and all of humanity. The setting has been described to us, but this is where we’re starting to actually experience the reality of this setting. Wild spatial anomalies, new sets of scientific rules, and danger and desperation to the point peaceful people turn to piracy and murder.

Knowing that, this is a really well done episode. Not knowing that, it’s slow and a little boring. The story is hyper-focused on Archer with all the other characters just supporting his journey, that we’ll talk about more in the command codes section. But that’s another really important thing to keep in mind with this Xindi arc. One of the main things it accomplishes is developing Archer to the point where his final form, becoming…spoiler alert…becoming the first president of the Federation, is believable. I mean, let’s be real here. The first two seasons of Archer have been pretty underwhelming. Juvenile, macho and not a very strong leader. It’s through this season long story arc that he really starts to develop into a strong leader and character.

But one thing that happened in this episode that is huge and worth noting is the death of Crewman Fuller. Now he’s not the first person on the ship to die, but he’s the first one to die in combat. Like, he’s the first person to get killed by someone. They’re really working to ramp up the danger and the stakes here, and this episode did a really, really good job with that.

<<Command Codes>>

Jonathan Archer, to this point in the Starfleet Leadership Academy, has been a terrible leader. He’s been self-serving, whiny, overly macho and generally just not a very cool or effective dude. While Enterprise is an exploration of the pre-Starfleet days in Star Trek, I’ve always held that it’s more an exploration of the development of a captain and a leader. And in this episode, we see how a near-impossible situation starts Archer on a path that gets pretty dark and disturbing, but allows him to emerge better and stronger. We’re going to talk about how he approaches this situation and I’m going to ask how he could have done it better.

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The situation the Enterprise ends up in after the pirates snag all their gear reminds me of The Oregon Trail game. It’s like they were plugging along, just fine, tried to ford a river and the wagon tipped over, losing all the food and wagon tongues you’ve been collecting. That is the worst!

But, as has been said many times, by many people in a lot of different ways, it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you respond to it that matters. I used to read and listen to a lot of Jim Rohn. Rohn was a speaker and a mentor that focused on self-development, mostly in a sales paradigm. The list of people that directly credit Rohn for his influence on their work is a literal who’s-who of self- and professional-development: Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Mark Hughes and Brian Tracy. The list goes on, but those are a bunch of names that are synonymous with the work many of us do.

I remember a thing he said that has stuck with me: it’s not the blowing of the wind, it’s the set of your sails. That is huge!! I don’t sail and even I can see that, like physically see what he means in my mind. The full quote, and I’ll link the talk in the show notes, but the full quote is, “The same wind blows on us all; the winds of disaster, opportunity and change. Therefore, it is not the blowing of the wind, but the setting of the sails that will determine our direction in life.” He goes on with specific examples, like waiting for a specific person or a political party to be in power. The lawmakers and policy setters impact all of us, they are the wind. But, regardless of the administration, some do well and others don’t. That’s the set of their sail.

In this episode the pirates take out a number of ships. The derelict that we see early on, the Xindi ship we learn about later, and eventually the Enterprise. The pirates are the wind. The previous victims lost all of their stuff and died while Enterprise came out relatively whole. That was because of the set of their sails. So, we’re not going to talk about the pirates at all. They’re just the wind, and the same wind blows on everyone in this region. We’re going to focus on how Captain Archer sets the sails. How he chooses to respond and react to the situation.

In an effort to offer some grace to our dear captain, I want to acknowledge that stuff is weird. Porthos is barking at stuff and he’s got coffee floating in the air. That said, at like 9 minutes into the episode, the cracks in his demeanor really start to show. In his ready room he’s getting huffy, pacing around, eventually grabs his coffee cup, that is floating in mid-air, and slams it into his desk! He is not holding on well at all. But, if I’m being honest, and extending grace, this wasn’t at all unreasonable. This is starting to become an impossible situation. It’s natural, and ok, to get frustrated with that. Heck, it’s even ok to slam your floating coffee cup down. As long as you do it like Archer. In private. Find a safe space where your release isn’t going to influence your team and let it go. But, where Archer continues down this path, losing his cool, you would need to let that time in your office or wherever you went privately bring you back to cool.

Archer does not do that at all. In fact, when he’s interrogating the prisoner the first time, we get a glimpse into his thinking. And it is not good. The situation is getting worse and worse, seemingly by the minute. If this prisoner would play ball and answer Archer’s questions, they could go after their gear, send dude back and all it good. I mean, Archer started out awesome here. He didn’t want revenge or anything like that. He just wanted his stuff back. Told the prisoner to tell him how to find the pirates, get his stuff back and they could all go along their merry way. A pretty sweet and generous offer. So far, so good with Archer.

But the prisoner isn’t going to play ball. He knows that if he gives any info up, the pirate captain will kill him. So he’s faced with certain death, or something that he thinks will be better than that. He doesn’t believe Archer and the Enterprise crew have gotten ruthless yet. He doesn’t believe they’d actually kill him. And, we, the viewers don’t believe they’d do that either. I mean, this is Star Trek, right? Or is it? Fun bit of trivia, this is the last episode of Enterprise that was just called Enterprise. After this it’s called Star Trek: Enterprise. And Archer kind of leans into this not being Star Trek. “I need what was stolen from me. I can’t let my morality get in the way.” 17:40

I mean, to be fair, these are just words at this point, but they just don’t feel right. And this is Archer crossing into a place of pure desperation. This is a good spot for a reality check. The stakes for Archer are extreme. They’re going to run out of fuel and food within a month and the ship has no defenses. Without a solution, his crew is sentenced to a slow and lonely death. With the exception of about 3 of you out there, your stakes will never be this high. And never stop thanking whomever you need to thank for that!

So, with that in mind, we find ourselves in seemingly impossible situations in our work life. These are the situations where leadership is really needed and we start earning our salary. Here shortly, I’m going to present a different approach that Archer could have taken; the approach I recommend for you, but I want to check in right here and, first, acknowledge that your world is not the same as Archer’s and, second, what he’s doing here is not ok. Not ok at all!

Back into it. The story continues and the situation gets more dire. Now, on top of the survival of his crew, Archer believes these guys have critical information to get them closer to accomplishing their mission with the Xindi. And this is where we see an entirely new, and dark side of Captain Jonathan Archer. He tosses the pirate into an airlock and starts depressurizing it. That means he’s sucking the air out of the chamber. Like, all of it. This isn’t just losing oxygen, this is losing the air; creating a vacuum. This is more than the pressure stuff you feel on an airplane. If you’re flying and somehow the cabin loses pressure, you might pop some blood vessels and hurt your ears, but you have a convenient, little oxygen mask that pops down in front of you. You’ll be uncomfortable, maybe even have to recover afterwards, but you’ll be ok. When you’re in an airlock, you’re gonna pop a lot more than blood vessels and there isn’t a plastic oxygen mask with a baggie that won’t necessarily inflate. Bottom line, this is cruel, unusual and an extreme form of torture. FROM THE CAPTAIN OF THE ENTERPRISE!

And he doesn’t just put dude through this and wait for him to talk. No, he leans in. “You better start talking now, because soon you won’t be able to.” 35:03 Captain Archer lost his cool and went against what we’ve been made to believe are his personal values as well as the values of United Earth. And the worst part of this, spoiler alert here, is this isn’t his worst moment in the series. Yeah. Buckle up. This is a downhill ride for a little while.

Now, we have a level of relief at the end of the episode. They get their stuff back and the prisoner is returned. They even offer us a shred of hope, “So you have let your morality get in the way after all.” 41:17 But, honestly, that almost makes this all worse!

So, failing grade for Archer here, unless you’re an ends justify the means kind of person. And if you are, I invite you to check out the 19^th, 38^th, 49^th and 63^rd episodes of the Starfleet Leadership Academy.

Ok, so that’s what happened and we can agree it was not ok. So, let’s do the thing we do with Enterprise, and do a rewrite!!

Let’s start back when Archer grabbed his coffee cup and slammed it down on the desk. Like I said, nothing wrong with that if that’s what you need to do. Sometimes, we need a big, physical release. The caveat here is that you don’t want to hurt yourself or others, or destroy anything. Contained violence, I guess. For me, this often involves pillows or couch cushions, either screaming into them or punching them. Other physical releases for me, that are more helpful and productive, if not as immediate, are going for a walk or getting behind by drum kit and banging out some System of a Down and Rush. Figure out what your big, physical releases are. Plan ahead. When you aren’t prepared, you do things you’ll regret. I’ve been in meetings before that are not going well and I’ll look ahead at my schedule and try to work in 10 to 15 minutes to get behind the drums or head outside.

So, we’ll pretend that’s what Archer did. He bangs the coffee cup down, takes a breath, and he’s back to zero, or at least close to it. Now when he goes to interrogate the prisoner, he doesn’t get sucked in, he doesn’t respond to the baiting from him. Instead of responding to cruelty with threatened cruelty, he engages in a for real conversation with him. And, yes, for real conversation is a technical term. That’s where the prisoner dude talks and Archer listens. When he does talk, he’s asking questions or validating things the prisoner says. I mean, the prisoner handed him the perfect in! They have a common enemy! It’s not like this guy likes who he and his crew have become, and he’s afraid to go back! Archer has an opportunity to appeal to his sense of morality, but instead he comes back with aggression.

Now, here’s the wild thing. Had Archer done this, we’d basically be done. I mean, he might have to go back a few times. I don’t want to fool you or paint an unrealistic picture. This isn’t something Archer could likely solve in one conversation. He has to connect, establish trust, and show the guy that what they have in common is stronger than the things that are pulling them apart. But, they’d be good. Prisoner would help them get to the Sphere, they’d get their stuff back and, if I’m being ridiculously optimistic, end up with some allies here in the Delphic Expanse.

How we show up in situations matters. That’s becoming a real buzz word kind of thing to say, how we show up, right? But it’s such a perfect way of describing it. In the episode, Archer showed up to the brig ramped up, angry and not ready to listen to anything than exactly what he wanted to hear. Had he shown up calm, relaxed, because he did the big, physical release that he needed to, there would have been a dramatically different outcome.

Think about how you are showing up. How do you show up for your team? For a client? For your boss? What practice or exercise can you put in place before showing up that sets you up for a for real conversation? Figure that out, do it, and, I can all but guarantee that you’ll start getting different results right away.

<<Hailing Frequencies>>

I want to know what practices or exercise you’re preparing for these frustrating, often nearly impossible situations. Are you going for a walk, screaming into a pillow, playing an instrument? What other cool ideas have you come up with? Share those with me on Twitter or Mastodon: @ SFLA podcast or on instagram, @jefftakin Jeff, t as in Trade Routes, a k i n.

Computer, what are we going to watch next time….

We’re headed into the 2^nd season of The Next Generation! The 14^th episode, The Icarus Factor. This is an epic episode!! Not only do we meet Commander Riker’s dad, and get to see them in their American Gladiators outfits when they do their anbo-jytsu thing. But this is the one where Worf walks down a line of Klingons hitting him with lightning sticks! Lots of memorable moments in this one that I am excited to dive into with you.

Until then, Ex Astris Scientia!