Carbon Creek (episode)

From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference.

"Carbon Creek"
ENT, Episode 2x02 Production number: 027 First aired: 25 September 2002
←	26th of 97 produced in ENT	→
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Teleplay By Chris Black Story By Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, and Dan O'Shannon Directed By James Contner
April 12, 2152
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T'Pol tells Archer and Trip a story about her great-grandmother and two other Vulcans, who crash landed in a small Pennsylvania town in the year 1957.

Contents 1 Summary 2 Memorable Quotes 3 Background Information 4 Links and References 4.1 Main Cast 4.2 Guest Stars 4.3 Co-Stars 4.4 Uncredited Co-Stars 4.5 References

[edit] Summary

T'Pol has now been on the Enterprise for exactly one year. Since Jonathan Archer has to send a report to Starfleet about her, he takes some time to get to know her a little better. At one point, he asks her the reason she went to visit Carbon Creek, Pennsylvania when she was still on Earth. She has qualified it as of a personal matter at first, but Trip is able to convince her to tell them "a story". So she begins the story of the first Vulcan-Human First Contact that happened in 1957 in Carbon Creek. Trip objects, citing the fact that all Earth children learn in school that the first contact between Vulcans and Humans occurred in 2063 at Bozeman, Montana, but T'Pol continues her story.

A Vulcan ship was performing a survey from orbit after the recent Sputnik I launch by the Humans. Unfortunately, they had impulse manifold problems and were forced into an emergency landing. Their captain died in the crash, leaving T'Mir (T'Pol's second foremother, who bore a striking resemblance to T'Pol) in command of the surviving Vulcans. They did not want any contact with Humans but were eventually forced into contact when they ran out of emergency rations. After five days of starvation, Mestral decided to seek some food (they encountered two deer, but since Vulcans are vegetarians, they decided they were not yet desperate enough to eat these).

The adventurous Vulcan provided his crewmates with local currencies when he convinced T'Mir to let him play a game of pool (that wouldn't even have challenged a Vulcan child with its simple geometry). Beginning to consider that their distress call had not been received, the three built a life for themselves, finding employment and an apartment. Eventually, Mestral became very interested in Human culture and made many friends. He even defended them when T'Mir said they were worthless people, only trying to destroy each other by any means they had.

Even if T'Mir was not willing to make deeper contact with the Humans, her opinion changed a bit when she had a conversation with a boy named Jack, whose mind was very open (he showed interests in meditation and astronomy, as well as other things).

Later, there was an accident in the coal mine where Mestral was working and he convinced T'Mir to let him save the miners, his friends, with the help of Vulcan technology. They were careful to keep away from the Humans.

Three months later, a Vulcan survey ship finally contacted them, saying their distress call made it to Vulcan through a Tellarite freighter. Mestral decided he didn't want to go back to Vulcan as he didn't want to let the chance slip by to study an emerging civilization (he may have been alive and and on hand when the Phoenix first went to warp). T'Mir also showed that her time on Earth had some effects on her and decided to sell Velcro (an invention that would change the world) to help Jack enter college. When the rescue shuttle arrived, T'Mir told Captain Tellus that Mestral had died in the crash together with the captain, allowing her crewmate remain on Earth.

Back in the present, Archer and Trip just don't know what to think, as this has never been told to Humans before. T'Pol says that the event is very well documented in the Vulcan archives, but maintains the ambiguity by saying that she just told "a story". It seems that they were real events however, since T'Pol returns to her quarters and takes out the purse her great-grandmother had while on Earth.

[edit] Memorable Quotes

"Do you realize you've just rewritten our history books?!"
"A footnote, at best."
"Footnote!? This is like discovering that Neil Armstrong wasn't the first man to walk on the moon!"
"Perhaps he wasn't." Trip groans.

- Trip and T'pol, regarding the importance of the story

"One of those creatures could sustain us for some time."
"Are you suggesting we eat it?"
"It's logical to take extreme measures in order to survive."
"Even resorting to savagery?"

- Mestral and Stron, upon seeing a wild deer

"Currency?"
"Yes. The paper appears to have value."
"What can I get you?"
"Do you have anything that doesn't require currency?"

- T'Mir and Mestral, upon first contact with a Human

"The game is based on simple geometry. It wouldn't challenge a Vulcan child."

- Mestral, describing a pool game

"Cryogenics... do you suppose they've experimented with protein replicators?"
"Why didn't you ask the merchant? You seemed eager to engage everbody else in conversation."

- Mestral's thoughts on frozen dinners receive an acid response from T'Mir

"It's a shame you'll be leaving this world without experiencing some of the things it has to offer."
"Such as? Alcohol? Frozen fishsticks? The constant threat of nuclear annihilation?"

- Mestral and Stron

"They revel in violence. They devote what little technology they have to finding new ways of killing each other."

- T'Mir, and her pessimistic opinion of the Human race

"This is the third time this week I've had to fix Mrs Garrett's sink."
"Perhaps she enjoys your company."
"It might be tolerable if her son didn't insist on calling me "Moe"."
"Why does he do that?"
"There is a comic actor known as a 'Stooge' who shares that name. The boy believes we have similar hair."
"There is a resemblance."

- Stron complaining to Mestral

[edit] Background Information

• Although credited, Lt. Malcolm Reed (Dominic Keating), Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley), Ensign Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery), and Ensign Hoshi Sato (Linda Park) do not appear in this episode.
• This episode takes place on the first anniversary of T'Pol's assignment to Enterprise. It is also revealed that the previous record for a Vulcan serving on an Earth starship was ten days.
• J. Paul Boehmer previously played Vornar in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Tacking Into the Wind", An Unnamed Kapitän in Star Trek: Voyager: "The Killing Game", "One" in Star Trek: Voyager: "Drone", and a Nazi SS officer Star Trek Enterprise: "Storm Front, Part I".
• This episode is one of the few on-screen depictions of a Vulcan drinking alcohol.
• In reality, Velcro was invented by George de Mestral. This is where Mestral got his name.
• New, lighter blue-colored Starfleet jumpsuits were produced for the second season, but not seen until this episode. At first worn by only the regular cast members, the new uniform color eventually became more widely used as the season continued.
• This episode was shot before "Shockwave, Part II", though aired after.
• This episode's opening scenes and premise are very similar to an earlier novel, Strangers from the Sky, which described a pre-first contact crash of a Vulcan scout ship on Earth.
• Mestral mentions that he is an avid fan of the television show I Love Lucy. This is possibly an homage to the fact that Star Trek was first produced by Desilu Productions.
• In the scene where T'Mir leaves the patent office, a shot of an older design of a US$50.00 bill is shown in her purse. However, in the next scene, there is a clear shot of the back of a modern US$50.00 bill in the change jar.
• The center lines in the streets of Carbon Creek were made with yellow paint, which is historically incorrect -- white center lane markings were used until at least 1963.
• This episode was nominated for a Hugo Award for "Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form."

[edit] Links and References

[edit] Main Cast

• Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer
• John Billingsley as Phlox
• Jolene Blalock as T'Pol
• Dominic Keating as Malcolm Reed
• Anthony Montgomery as Travis Mayweather
• Linda Park as Hoshi Sato
• Connor Trinneer as Charles Tucker III

[edit] Guest Stars

• Ann Cusack as Maggie
• J. Paul Boehmer as Mestral
• Hank Harris as Jack
• Michael Krawic as Stron
• David Selburg as Vulcan Captain

[edit] Co-Stars

• Clay Wilcox as Billy
• Ron Marasco as Vulcan Captain Tellus
• Paul Hayes as R. Ascher (credited as Businessman)

[edit] Uncredited Co-Stars

• Jolene Blalock as T'Mir
• Unknown actor as Vulcan Officer

[edit] References

alcohol; aliens; Armstrong, Neil; annual crew evaluation; astronomy; atomic bomb; baseball; Bozeman; Buddhist monks; Carbon Creek; Carlsbad Caverns; Cochrane, Zefram; cryogenics; deer; distress call; Doylestown; D'Vahl; D'Vahl type; emergency rations; fakirs; First Contact; frozen fish sticks; Garrett, Mrs.; Gavin; geology; geometry; India; I Love Lucy; Mars; Mechanical engineering; Moe; Montana; movie; nuclear device; particle weapon; Pennsylvania; Phoenix; Pine Tree; Pittsburgh; pool; President of the United States; protein replicator; pretzel; quartz; satellite; Sausalito; Sputnik I; subspace transceiver; Tellarite freighter; Tellarite; Tellus; television; Three Stooges, The; Tibet; Tim; TV dinner; Twilight Zone, The; warp field engineer; waveform discriminator; White Sands; Velcro; Vulcan; Vulcan High Command; Vulcan Science Directorate; Vulcan Space Council; Vulcan survey vessel; Vulcans; Warp field engineer; Yellowstone Park;

Previous episode: "Shockwave, Part II"

Star Trek: Enterprise Season 2

Next episode: "Minefield"