Captain's Log - Jonathan Archer Quiz

Answer: He was the lead developer of the warp five engine.

Henry Archer worked with Zefram Cochrane on the development of the first warp five engine. Zefram Cochrane was the first person to travel at speeds faster than light due to his creation of the first warp engine. ["Memory Alpha" articles "Henry Archer" and "Zefram Cochrane."]

The excellent movie, "Star Trek: First Contact," is about how the crew of the Enterprise-E, under command of Jean-Luc Picard, goes back in time to make sure the Borg do not stop this from happening and in doing so prevent humanity's first contact with Vulcans.

The Enterprise NX-01 under the command of Jonathan Archer was the first starship built that could reach warp five. Sadly, Henry Archer did not live to see it built.

It was Captain James T. Kirk and his bridge officers on Enterprise NCC-1701 who were the first to see the face of a Romulan while he was investigating the destruction of Earth Outpost Stations along the Romulan Neutral Zone ("TOS: Balance of Terror").

Question by christi_dove

Answer: New York

Born in Upstate New York in the year 2112, Jonathan soon moved with his parents to San Francisco where his father Henry was employed with Zefram Cochrane developing greater warp capability.

Question by reedy

Answer: A.G. Robinson

Robinson continued to accelerate in the NX-Alpha even after he was ordered to reduce speed. As a result, the NX-Alpha was destroyed, although Robinson was able to escape.

The Vulcan High Command recommended that NX programme be suspended and Starfleet agreed. Robinson, Archer and Tucker worked together to prove the engine design by launching the NX-Beta. Robinson and Archer were aboard, however Robinson allowed Archer to pilot the ship, which successfully reached warp 2.5.

Question by Daddy19

Answer: False

The final selection actually came down to Archer and Robinson. Robinson, Tucker and Armstrong had all flown together in the successful NX-Beta flight, but Tucker was never truly in the running for the job. Admiral Forrest made the final decision.

Question by reedy

Answer: Klingon

Hopefully most of you remembered it was a Klingon, Klaang, who had been shot by a farmer in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Eager for a mission, Archer, proposed the Enterprise NX-01 take Klaang back to his home planet, Qo'noS. This became difficult when they were on their way to Qo'noS because Klaang was kidnapped by the Suliban. So the next step was a rescue mission to retrieve Klaang.

Question by christi_dove

Answer: cheese

Alexandre Dumas wrote "The Three Musketeers," with Athos, Porthos, and Aramis being the three. We learn in the episode "A Night in Sickbay," Porthos was one of a litter of four male dogs, each one named after one of the four musketeers if you included d'Artagnan. The mother of one of Archer's former girlfriends owned the beagle who gave birth to the four puppies. Archer tells Dr. Phlox he always had a dog even as a child.

Sadly this is the episode where Porthos visited an alien planet and got infected by a pathogen which almost killed him. Only an experimental treatment by the good doctor saved his life.

Question by christi_dove

Answer: False

This is false because we learn in the pilot episode, "Broken Bow," Archer resented Vulcans and believed they had actually impeded Earth's progress. He felt they were responsible for his father never seeing the culmination of his hard work and dream-the NX-class starship. His father died before the Enterprise NX-01 was built. The NX-class starships use the warp five engine Henry Archer was instrumental in developing.

Question by christi_dove

Answer: Water polo

Archer: "Think of it as, uh, one part basketball, one part swimming... and one part wrestling."
Tucker: "And I thought it was just a bunch of guys screwin' around in a pool."

Just as Sisko kept a baseball on DS9, Archer kept a water polo ball aboard Enterprise and was a supporter of Stanford. In 2134, he participated in the 2134 North American Water Polo Regionals.

Quote reproduced from memory-alpha.org. Question by Daddy19

Answer: Not overly meddlesome

100 years after the Vulcan High Command removed the Andorian settlement on Weytahn and placed a surveillance satellite in orbit, Shran had landed on the planetoid with a contingent of the Andorian Imperial Guard. He took the unusual step of requesting that Archer mediate as he wanted to discuss matters with Ambassador Soval.

Soval was initially unhappy about Archer's involvement, however as time passed, he realised the benefit of his presence.

Question by Daddy19

Answer: Detained

The Tandarans were at war with the Suliban Cabal. However, the prison camp was holding normal Suliban citizens with no connection to the Cabal. Malcolm was surgically altered to look like a Suliban so Enterprise was able to rescue Archer, Travis and the rest of the prison inmates.

Colonel Grat was played by Dean Stockwell, who had acted alongside Scott Bakula in the television series "Quantum Leap".

Question by Daddy19

Answer: First Officer

After taking control of the USS Defiant, a ship from the 'other' universe and from the future, Archer named himself captain. He also found a record detailing the exploits of his alternate self. Jealous of his counterpart's success, Archer dubbed himself Emperor of the Terran Empire - a short-lived title, as Hoshi quickly deposed him in favor of herself as Empress.

Question by reedy

Answer: Archer and his crew called the transdimensional lifeforms the Sphere Builders not Orb Builders.

This third season story arc actually started with the season two finale of "Star Trek: Enterprise." In "The Expanse" an alien probe caused great devastation to Earth, killing several million people. This probe was a test weapon of the Xindi who were creating a much more powerful superweapon to completely destroy Earth.

The Sphere Builders were so called because they created massive spheres in the Delphic Expanse region of space. These spheres caused dangerous spatial anomalies, gases, and energy. The Sphere Builders were transdimensional meaning outside normal space and time. The reason they wanted the Xindi to destroy Earth and thus humans was because they saw a future when their invasion of our galaxy and timeline was stopped by the United Federation of Planets which did not yet exist. Earth had been instrumental in the development of the Federation.

The spheres they built were altering the Delphic Expanse first to make it habitable for their type of lifeform. Eventually these alterations, if not stopped, would encompass most of our galaxy.

This story arc is complicated but interesting. I could easily write a paper telling you about it, but instead I will just say watch the episodes again if you do not remember much about these events in "Star Trek: Enterprise."

Question by christi_dove

Answer: Karyn

Esilia was the name of the woman that Archer married in the past - Karyn Archer's great-grandmother. Margaret and Erika are names of women Archer had relationships with prior to becoming captain of the Enterprise NX-01. He had actually asked Margaret to marry him, but she had turned him down, not wanting to become a "Starfleet widow" (from episode entitled "Twilight").

Question by reedy

Answer: The Archer Presidential Library

Jonathan Archer actually had two planets named for him - the already mentioned "Archer's Planet" (in the Gamma Trianguli sector) as well as "Archer IV", the first planet explored by the Enterprise NX-01. Note that the entire star system actually carried his name.

"Archer's Comet" was also discovered by the crew of the Enterprise NX-01 (during the episode "Breaking the Ice").

The "USS Archer" was seen in "Star Trek: Nemesis".

Question by reedy

Answer: True

In the "TOS" episode "The Tholian Web", USS Defiant (not to be confused with the ship commanded by Captain Sisko) was taken by the Tholians. In "Enterprise", we learn that the ship was taken back into the past by the Tholians from the mirror universe.

Having retrieved the Defiant from the Tholians the mirror version of Jonathan Archer and Hoshi Sato reviewed the personnel records from their counterparts. Whilst Archer's election as President of the Federation was not mentioned in dialogue, we see a brief close up of the computer screen that was displaying the personnel file. This shows "President, UFP 2184-2192".
The mirror Archer was unimpressed with this, stating that great men were conquerors, not peacemakers.

Question by Daddy19.