The Long Road

04/04/2003 Archived Entry: "Enterprise 2x18: The Crossing"

This was a pretty interesting episode. The Enterprise gets swallowed into a ship run by 'non corporeal' beings. Some of the crew members go out into the ship, Tucker gets an out of body experience (that is obvious to the viewer but not to the crew) and they get back into the ship. They then learn that the aliens only want to trade bodies for their mutual experimentation in other forms of existence.

The alien ship design was really great; it looked like a manta ray from the outside and had an eerie ethereal glow inside. Why does everything non corporeal always get represented by some eerie ethereal glow?!?! Anyways, I am very impressed with the ship designs that have been used in the last few episodes; not only have they been cool but they've all looked significantly different from what we've come to expect from Star Trek. I liked the fact that every member of the cast got a good amount of screen time. Anyone who got possessed had wonderful scenes in which they got to completely out of character. My favourite possession was when Malcolm tried, very unsuccessfully, to sleep with any woman he came in contact with. It would have been great if one of the female crew members (like T'Pol) were also possessed and slept with Malcolm; they could have both woken up in a very awkward (and funny) moment ala Data and Yar in "The Naked Now".

There was one thing I didn't like about this episode, well two but one comes from the other. Don't read the next paragraph if you don't want this episode spoiled for you.

!spoiler space!
My complaint comes from the fact that Archer was right in his mistrust of the aliens. For most of Enterprise, Archer has always been condescending and untrusting of other races for no real apparent reason. And of course, he's always right. This would have been a much more satisfying episode to me if it turned out that the aliens were truly only after knowledge and Archer's suspicious ways led to the aliens being disenchanted with humanity. But the writers, again, chose to take the easy way out of the episode by turning the aliens into villains and justifying Archer's paranoia. The most aggravating thing about this episode though is the ending, the Enterprise ends up destroying the alien ship. Archer blew them all to kingdom come! Hundreds maybe even thousands of little floating lights. This just isn't right to me. There should always be a better solution than totally destroying the enemy, especially if their only motivation for being antagonistic is their own survival. Picard would have found a way to save them! In any case, I can't remember a single episode of Enterprise where they've encountered aliens with noble intentions. Apparently, humans are the noblest beings in the universe, how sad indeed.
!end spoilers!

Overall, this was a solid episode with great acting and effects but ruined by a cop-out twist and a horrible ending. 6/10

Replies: 5 comments

2x17 - Canamar: Best Enterprise episode EVER!

There's a new one next week, too eh? Archer stands trial for conspiracy against the Klingon Empire. What's up with the Klingons that they're always throwing people into the dilithium mines?

Here's another one for you (seriously, someone might be able to answer it for me): What's the deal with dilithium as an element. What are the details? I mean, Star Trek often makes up "scientific" details about fictitious things, so there ought to be information about dilithium.

In thinking about it, lithium has an atomic number of 3. Twice that (for dilithium) is 6, which is Carbon - so it can't be that simple. Lithium has an atomic mass of 6.941, twice that is 13.882. This lies between Carbon and Nitrogen (closer towards Nitrogen). So, that's not it either.

Okay, let's throw out ideas of me trying to figure out exactly where it is. Instead, let's get to what I DO know. There's no limit to the number of nucleons (protons and neutrons) and electrons you stick on an atom. The problem is that the more you stick on an atom, the less stable it becomes. As it stands, elements 61 and 93+ are all synthetically prepared and are not observed outside the lab. This higher elements all decay rapidly and exist for only short periods of time. There are so-called islands of stability that occur (if you add to an atom in fours, it seems to be more stable than the otherwise steadily increasing instability) but everything higher than what has been discovered would be highly unstable on its own (whereas I get the impression dilithium isn't unstable on its own, just when placed with antimatter (anti-dilithium ions?). One more thing, anything with an atomic number this high up is radioactive. Am I imagining it, or do I recall exposure to it having these effects? But then there are the dilithium mines, and I don't remember radioactive effects there. Hmmm...

So screw that, let's go back to lithium. Another possibility might be that it is a dimer with Lithium, but dimers for metals aren't known to exist (this doesn't mean much - it could just show we haven't found the proper exceptions to the rules yet).

Hmmm... they always talk about dilithium crystals, so it has a crystal structure. Ionic bonds = lots of ions. Perhaps it's an alloy of lithium where lithium and anti-lithium ions are present. No, that can't be it since it is mined and I cannot believe such an alloy would be naturally-forming.

However, whatever the story on dilithium is, it makes sense that it is mined. Metals do have a crystalline structure, which arises from misalignments between adjacent planes of ions. Environmental factors can change the size of these crystals. In theory, high temperature and pressure such as those found in a planetary crust or interior may be favorable for this kind of crystallization process (provided other, undetermined conditions are met). So this would make dilithium naturally occurring and explain why it is mined. So there's some science to it there. The rest... who knows?

Posted by Romer @ 04/05/2003 04:07 AM EST

DILITHIUM has extra NEUTRONS! it's like heavy hydrogen, but different

Posted by shawnathan @ 04/05/2003 04:09 AM EST

Like deuterium you suggest, eh? I don't think so. This isn't like 'Nam, there are rules here.

Atoms have preferred combinations of neutrons and protons, at which the forces holding nuclei together seem to balance best. Light elements tend to have about as many neutrons as protons; heavy elements apparently need more neutrons than protons in order to stick together. Atoms with a few too many neutrons, or not quite enough, can sometimes exist for a while, but they're unstable. Unstable atoms are radioactive: their nuclei change or decay by spitting out radiation, in the form of particles or electromagnetic waves. They'll fall apart and not be very useful to, err... use.

If dilithium were one of these preferred isomers of lithium, we would have discovered it already. It would therefore be naturally occurring and even if it wasn't naturally occurring on Earth, we would have been able to create it stabilly in a lab and it would be recognized as an isomer of lithium. For each element, the natural abundance of its isotopes is well-documented and recorded.

Posted by Romer @ 04/05/2003 04:35 AM EST

http://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/education/just_for_fun/startrek.html

Posted by sbdep @ 04/05/2003 12:46 PM EST

All they have to say about dilithium is, "Let's not bother about the dilithium crystals part... sorry, but that's just imaginary." Pft! Of course it's imaginary people, but put some effort into showing that it is - like I did!

Posted by Romer @ 04/05/2003 03:59 PM EST