 | THE PRIME DIRECTIVEwith emphasis on [Star Trek: Voyager] |  |
| THE PRIME DIRECTIVEwith emphasis on [Star Trek: Voyager] | |
STORIES INVOLVING THE PRIME DIRECTIVE
[Enterprise: Season 2: Carbon Creek]
SUMMARY: In the late 1950s, a Vulcan survey ship secretly studying Earth crashlands near Carbon Creek in Pennsylvania in the USA. The Vulcan species has already formulated the equivalent of the later Starfleet Prime Directive, and it applies here — society is pre-warp and has not yet made First Contact with extraterrestrials. Forced to associate with humans in order to find food and shelter, the three Vulcans find it hard to maintain their original principles.
The following text is TOSTW's synopsis, with amendments.
Celebrating T'Pol's first full year with the Enterprise crew with dinner in the captain's dining room, Archer asks why her record states that she once took a five-day leave to visit an old Pennsylvania mining town called Carbon Creek. She claims Carbon Creek was the site of actual first contact between humans and Vulcans, long before the official First Contact in 2063 (depicted in [Star Trek VIII: First Contact]), and her second foremother (great-grandmother) was there. Trip Tucker, the other guest at the dinner, scoffs at this, but then T'Pol offers to tell "the story", as follows:
T'Pol's ancestor, T'Mir, is on a survey ship with three other Vulcans investigating the launch of Sputnik, Earth's first artificial satellite, launched in October 1957, when their impulse manifold malfunctions and forces them into an emergency crashlanding in a North American forest.
the Vulcan captain, with the survey team aboard the Vulcan starship
The captain is killed, leaving T'Mir in command of the surviving crew, Mestral and Stron. Not knowing whether their distress call to the High Command was transmitted in time, they use up their food rations in five days, then are forced to confront the question of how they will survive.
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Despite the risk of cultural contamination, Mestral insists on visiting the nearby settlement. Stealing clothes and hiding their ears to blend in with the locals, T'Mir and Mestral walk into Carbon Creek (population 611) and enter a local tavern called The Pine Tree Bar & Grill.
T'Mir and Mestral steal native clothing; Mestral tells T'Mir she is wearing the garment backwards and she retires behind the sheet to correct it
Realising that "currency" is required if they are to obtain food, Mestral gets himself involved in a pool game for a bet. Quickly mastering the game's simple geometry, Mestral wins enough money for him and T'Mir to buy several bags of groceries. Trip interrupts T'Pol's story, sceptically comparing it to an old episode of the science-fiction series 'The Twilight Zone', but he and Archer are intrigued, so she continues.
T'Mir and Mestral in The Pine Tree Bar & Grill, realising that they need "currency"
after Mestral wins at pool, they buy food ("cryogenics") and take it away
Hoping that a rescue vessel will eventually arrive, the three Vulcans take up residence in Carbon Creek and secure jobs — Stron as a plumber/handyman, Mestral as a coalminer, and T'Mir as hired help at the tavern. Despite their aim to keep to themselves as much as possible, Mestral becomes increasingly captivated by human culture, such as television and baseball, and by the townspeople themselves, particularly Maggie, the single mother who tends the bar at the Pine Tree. After observing news reports of atomic bomb tests, T'Mir becomes convinced Earth is on the brink of self-annihilation, making their efforts to construct a subspace transceiver more urgent. But Mestral disputes that pessimistic view, seeing this species as empathetic and compassionate, and having great potential.
quiet evenings in their apartment for the three Vulcans: Mestral watching television, T'Mir reading, and Stron (not seen) who has a job as a handyman (he says people's nickname for him of Moe is intolerable: "I'm a warp field engineer.")
In fact, Mestral makes excuses to leave the apartment so he can spend time with Maggie. T'Mir catches him and forbids him to make further contact with that woman, but Mestral counters that they must accept the fact they may never leave this world.
Mestral with Maggie in her car
In spite of herself, even T'Mir takes an interest in the locals, as she learns that Maggie's son Jack is a very bright kid (they share an interest in astronomy) who desires a higher education but may not be able to afford it, even after his mother has been collecting donations in the bar's tip jar. The Vulcans are further drawn into community affairs when a coalmine accident traps at least 20 men underground. Mestral convinces T'Mir and Strom that they should use their technology to help, so by retrieving a particle weapon from the crashed ship, and with an assist from T'Mir's scanner, Mestral succeeds in rescuing the workers.
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Three months pass, and just as they've resigned themselves to living out their lives on Earth, they hear from a Vulcan vessel that will arrive in three days to rescue them.
they receive the message that they will be rescued by a Vulcan ship
They inform their respective employers that they'll be returning home "up north". When Jack hears about it, he tells T'Mir he will miss her, and reveals that he and his mother could not raise the money he needs for tuition, so he will not be going to college this year. His mother, having secretly overheard, reveals to T'Mir privately that her son achieved top grades (hence it is merely the shortage of money which is holding him back.) Despite the Vulcan rules against getting involved, T'Mir retrieves something from the wrecked ship, travels to the big city, and sells it to a businessman — an "invention" that would later be called Velcro. She takes the money and anonymously stashes it in the tip jar devoted to Jack's college fund, which leaves Maggie astonished when she finds it.
Mestral astonishes with her "invention" and receives a large amount of money
As the Vulcans prepare to depart, Mestral announces he plans to stay — there is a unique opportunity to study an emerging species, one he has developed quite a fondness for, better than taking scans from high orbit on occasional visits in survey ships. Stron argues that the Vulcan High Command would never allow it.
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But when the time comes to rendezvous with the rescue team, T'Mir covers for Mestral by telling the other Vulcans he was killed in the crash and his body cremated.
Mestral stayed on Earth presumably for the rest of his life, which would have been longer than a human lifespan if he had the average Vulcan lifespan and did not die prematurely. Archer and Trip question the veracity of her story, and ultimately dismiss it as a dinnertime entertainment. But when she returns to her quarters, T'Pol gets out an ancestral family memento — the handbag that T'Mir used during her time in Carbon Creek.
| DISCUSSION:
This story, which discusses Prime Directive issues at a time before the Prime Directive is formally drafted, raises more than one dilemma. |
NOTES:
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