1.8 "Breaking the Ice" Trivia Quiz

Answer: 82.6 km

Captain Archer and the other bridge officers are extremely excited about the opportunity to examine the comet up close (which Ensign Mayweather calls 'Archer's Comet'). Sub-Commander T'Pol, however, is less than enthused. She explains that Vulcans have catalogued enough comets over the years that they no longer hold any interest.

Scott Bakula played Captain Jonathan Archer, Jolene Blalock played Sub-Commander T'Pol, and Ensign Travis Mayweather was played by Anthony Montgomery.

Answer: Eisilium

According to T'Pol, Eisilium is rare enough that Vulcan chemists have not yet studied it in detail. Unfortunately, the mineral is too far beneath the surface of the comet to be simply beamed out with the transporter, so Archer authorizes an away mission to physically drill the Eisilium out.

Answer: Vanik

Upon establishing contact, Captain Vanik asks if Captain Archer would mind if they stayed to observe the Enterprise and their efforts to survey the comet.

Shortly afterwards, however, a power surge in the transceiver array reveals that an encrypted message had been sent from the Vulcan ship for T'Pol, revealing the real reason for the presence of the Vulcans.

Captain Vanik was played by William Utay.

Answer: Two

Only Lieutenant Reed and Ensign Mayweather make up the away team for this task.

As a boomer (a human who has lived all their life in space), Ensign Travis Mayweather has had different experiences than many other humans. Upon landing on the snow-covered comet, he comments that he has only seen snow twice before in his life. Considering that he also saw snow in episode one ("Broken Bow: Part 1"), that means that he only ever saw snow once prior to his time on Enterprise.

Mayweather takes the time to have some fun, building a snowman. Later, Reed adds a pair of Vulcan ears to the snowman.

Lieutenant Malcolm Reed was played by Dominic Keating.

Answer: How many planets have you visited?

Earlier in the episode we see a number of pictures coloured by the same fourth-graders for whom Captain Archer must record this message. They answer a number of questions in the message:

1. What do you eat? (answered by Archer)
2. Is dating allowed on Enterprise? (answered by Archer)
3. How do you talk to aliens? (answered by Ensign Sato)
4. When you flush the toilet, where does it go? (answered by Tucker)
5. Can germs live in space? (answered by Dr. Phlox)

When Captain Archer passes the toilet question on to Trip, he pauses the video to complain about being given a 'poop question'.

Ensign Hoshi Sato was played by Linda Park, while John Billingsley acted the part of Dr. Phlox.

Answer: She must return to Vulcan to marry.

Because her message did not come through the regular channels and was encrypted, Captain Archer and Commander Tucker were concerned that the Vulcans were doing something underhanded. When it turned out to be a VERY personal letter, Tucker (the only one who read it), insisted on telling T'Pol that he had read her mail, explaining the reason why he had done so.

Eventually, T'Pol spoke with Tucker about her problem - an arranged marriage to Kos, a man she'd only met four times - but did not like his suggestions. Her dilemma, of course, rested on her expectation to do her duty, conflicting with her desire to continue living her own life and pursuing her own destiny.

Answer: Yes

Captain Vanik joins Archer, Tucker and T'Pol for dinner, but doesn't eat anything, rebuffs any 'small talk', and is generally (perceived as) rude. When Archer tells of his experience doing a spacewalk in a Vulcan space suit, Vanik responds with, "You're easily impressed." When asked if he had any questions for them, he replies, "Humans have never held much interest for me."

Answer: Two hours

Mayweather and Reed chose a location on the comet that would give them lots of time before it would face the sun (which would cause the ice to break up). Unfortunately, they did not take into account the possibility that the blasting could alter the comet's rotation. Suddenly, they find themselves with a much shorter time window to complete their task.

Answer: Ensign Mayweather

The sun is beginning to peek over the horizon as Reed and Mayweather complete their task and start to gather up their equipment. While trying to climb out of the crater that they created, Mayweather slips and hurts his knee. With little time left, they grab only the core sample and hobble for the shuttle.

They make it back to the shuttle just in time, but are unable to take off before the ground breaks up beneath them, and the shuttle drops into a chasm.

Answer: The Vulcans pull them out with a tractor beam.

Captain Archer takes the controls for the grappler and attempts to snag the shuttle, but only one of the two grappling claws makes contact. He attempts to pull it out anyway, but ends up dropping it even further. Archer is determined to try something, anything else other than ask the Vulcans for help, but T'Pol convinces him that asking for help would not be seen as a weakness, but rather would be seen as atypical of human pride and recklessness.