EPISODE: "Singularity"
   PROD#: ENT035
   TRAN#: 2.09
  RATING: PG-L
 AIRDATE: wed-20-nov-2002-20:00
  EPDATE: [approx. 12-15 aug-2152]
OFFICIAL: startrek.com/library/episodes_ENT_detail.asp?ID=126400

    FROM: Phillip Thorne, thorne@underbase.org
 POST-TO: rec.arts.startrek.tech, rec.arts.sf.tv
 REVIEW#: 27.0
 FORMAT#: 3.8
     URL: underbase.org/dept/trek/ent209_singularity.txt

This technical overview is intended to support more detailed discussion of this episode and others, by specifically indicating who did what, and by indicating the spelling of proper nouns and technobabble, as attained through closed-captioning (CC).  The NOTES are listed in approximate seen-on-screen order, and ANALYSIS summarizes topics.  THESE MAY CONSTITUTE PLOT SPOILERS; continue at your own risk.  

Abbreviations used: (m/f/?) name belongs to mel/fem/unclear, (os) on viewer screen, (?) quote is uncertain, (sp?) spelling is unclear, (vo) voiceover, VHC Vulcan High Command, Vdb Vulcan database.  Captions use the spellings "Launch Bay", "Sick Bay", and "shuttle pod", but I sometimes abbreviate to one word.

"Star Trek" and all related indicia are copyrights of Paramount Pictures.  This overview is (c)2002 Phillip Thorne, thorne@underbase.org.  Please notify me-the-author if you wish to re-print large hunks of text.  And if you liked this, consider subscribing to my similarly-detailed e-newsletter, the _Non-Sequitur Express_.

I. TERMS
TRICKY
[none]

TECHNICAL: SHIPBOARD
Science Officer's Log; purge the impulse manifolds,  protein resequencer, Armory, target discriminator, shipwide emergency alert, battle stations; sensor interface, main computer, warp reactor, Tactical Alert, hyperspanner, laser micrometer, voice-encrypted command packet; inertial micro-dampers, radiometric analysis, longitudinal vector, lateral vector, phase cannons

TECHNICAL: OTHER
Warp Five facility, neural implants, repair station; Neptune-class survey ships

MEDICAL
Terrellian plague, full biomolecular scan; protocystian spore, Andronesian encephalitis; surgical gown, subcellular analysis, prefrontal cortex

ASTRONOMICAL
trinary system, black hole; class-4 black hole, Vulcan star charts, gravitational shear

CULTURAL
Minaran spinach, Risa, oden, Mazarites, Suliban; Kreetassan spice, plomeek broth

GEOGRAPHIC
[none]

CHARACTERS 
Cpt.Jonathan Archer
Travis Mayweather
Dr.Phlox
Porthos
Malcolm Reed
Ens.Hoshi Sato
Sub-Cdr.T'Pol
Cdr.Charles "Trip" Tucker

Steward
Matthew Kaminsky as Cunningham

MENTIONS
[Ze(f|ph)ram] Cochrane
[NFN] Tasaki -- one of Cochrane's colleagues
Dr.Henry Archer -- another
Chef

III. NOTES
TEASER
* "Science Officer's Log: August 14th, 2152."
* Ent approaches an orange swirly thing in space [apologies 
  to "Red Dwarf"].
* "trinary system"
* "black hole"
* Except for T'Pol, the entire crew is passed out.
* The CO's seat is missing from the bridge.
* The nearest Vulcan ship is more than 9-days away.

ACT 1
* A "class-4 black hole" in "trinary system"
* The "Vulcan star charts" indicate the Vulcans have charted over 
  2000 black holes, but never one in a trinary.
* "Gravitational shear" necessitates an approach on impulse; will 
  take 2-days to reach safe minimum of 5-million-km.
* Archer complains to Tucker about his seat.
* Tucker had been planning to "purge the impulse manifolds".

* Archer has been asked to write a 1-page preface to a biography of 
  his late father, and has been putting it off for weeks, unable 
  to sufficiently condense his thoughts.
* "Warp Five facility" located outside Bozeman, Montana.
* Archer taken there at age eight by his father.
* Met scientists "like Tasaki and Cochrane".
* Porthos

* Chef is ill, so Sato has eagerly taken charge of the galley.
* Male redstripe steward.
* She passes on the orange "Minaran spinach" picked up on Risa, which 
  the crew considers inedible.
* Selects one of her grandmother's specialties [later specified as: oden].
* Photo and recipe on monitor (appears to be hiragana).
* "protein resequencer"
* Later at "lunch", most of the crew seems pleased with Sato's "oden", 
  but Reed thinks it's a bit salty.

* In Sickbay, Phlox works with mortar and pestle, amid racks of 
  glass tubes and bottles.
* Mayweather enters, complaining of headache.
* Phlox alludes to the "neural implants" from the "repair station".
* The "Terrellian plague" starts out as a simple headache.
* When initial tests are negative, he insists on running a 
  "full biomolecular scan".

* Removing the command seat with a noisy tool, Tucker drives T'Pol 
  from the bridge.
* Whines like a power driver, but attached by a coiled hose to a tank.

* "Armory"
* The "target discriminators" prevent torpedoes from mistaking Ent's
  own nacelles for enemy ships.
* Reed has been reviewing Ent's encounters with "alien species", and 
  has decided a new protocol is needed, a "shipwide emergency alert"
  that's more urgent than "battle stations".  
* "This isn't a battleship," --Archer
* "That's obvious, sir," --Reed
* "Mazarites"
* "Suliban"

ACT 2
* Working from her quarters, T'Pol detects "unusual radiation" emitted 
  by the system.
* T'Pol calls Tucker to install a "sensor interface".
* "main computer"
* "warp reactor"

* Phlox prepares to take a "cerebral micro-section".
* Mayweather grows frantic about missing duty.
* Punishment: scrubbing "plasma conduits" on "D-deck".
* "protocystian spore"
* "Andronesian encephalitis"

* Reed comes to Engineering to get Tucker's opinion of his alert sirens.
* "Tactical Alert"
* "hyperspanner"
* "laser micrometer"
* Later Archer arrives to get Tucker's opinion of his preface.
* Tucker notes that "Neptune-class survey ships" use the same model 
  seat; he's indignant that a personage like Archer should sit in
  something found "in warp two ships for over a decade".
* Takes "parametric scans" of Archer with a tool used to 
  "align phase coils".
* "Dr.Henry Archer"

* T'Pol arrives in the Armory
* Reed tells her it's a restricted area, and asks for her clearance
* Sent it as a "voice-encrypted command packet" to her bridge station.
* Cites aliens who could disguise themselves as officers.

* Sato is fixated on perfecting the oden.
* "Kreetassan spice"
* Carrots 
* T'Pol arrives, looking for "plomeek broth".
* Archer arrives, famished.
* 83 people to feed

ACT 3
* Tucker's plans for the seat include a beverage holder, 
  tactical displays, and "inertial micro-dampers" to smooth the
  captain's ride, even if ship is shaking apart.

* Concerned about the crew's behavior, T'Pol visits Phlox, 
  and neck-pinches him when he proves reluctant to abort his 
  imminent invasive surgery on Mayweather.
* neck pinch
* "surgical gown"
* "vascular dilation"
* "subcellular analysis"

* Crew passed out
* "bio-signs"
* T'Pol's "radiometric analysis" indicates the radiation extends 
  outward for at least 0.5-Ly, in all but one direction.
* She'll need help to pilot the ship out.

* She interrupts Archer.
* Shoves him (fully clothed) into his shower.
* Turns it on from a button-panel on the far wall.
* Pours him "lousy coffee" from a thermos.
* Radiation affects "prefrontal cortex".
* Exit course will take only 17-min, but leads within 2-million-km of 
  the black hold, through gravitational shear and debris.
* Needs someone else to pilot while she plots continual 
  course corrections.

ACT 4
* Ent veers through orange cloud full of rocky debris.
* Small boulders (a few meters) bounce off hull.
* "longitudinal vector"
* "lateral vector"
* Ahead, a rock bigger than the ship spontaneously fragments.
* "Phase cannons" would take too long to charge -- but Reed's 
  Tactical Alert spontaneously triggers, and activates them.
* Two forward beams shatter one rock, then another.
* Cloud abrubtly ends.

* Ent enters warp (about 3-sec between engine-flash and exit-flare).

* In Sickbay, 3 crew on biobeds, 4 others stand waiting, 2 more enter.
* T'Pol wasn't certain neck pinch would work on a Denobulan.
* Archer makes Reed's Tactical Alert standard procedure -- but insists 
  he work on the siren.
* Tucker didn't attach the new features, but solves Archer's posture
  problem by lowering the command seat by 1-cm.

V. CONNECTIONS
1. On psychological space hazards... 

In TOS-"Where No Man Has Gone Before", the ship's encounter with the Galactic Barrier caused two psi-rated crewmembers to develop telekinetic powers and delusions of grandeur.  (In _The Wounded Sky_, Diane Duane explains away the barrier as the edge of an expanding intergalactic megabubble.  In _Q Squared_, Peter David explains the psi-phenomenon as Q getting stuck, injured, in the barrier.  Rick Sternbach speculates (c.1993) that the Galactic Barrier at the periphery and the Great Barrier at the center are edge effects of the galactic subspace field.)  

In TOS-"The Naked Time" and TNG-"The Naked Now", gravitational effects (of a collapsing planet and star, respectively) alter ordinary water into a form with psychoactive properties, inducing in each crew (human and otherwise) symptoms similar to alcohol inebriation: impaired judgement and reduced inhibitions.

In TOS-"This Side of Paradise" the crew develops cheery moods when exposed to the spores of an alien plant.  In ENT-"Strange New World" pollen from a mountain plant induces anxiety and hallucinations.

In DS9-"Dramatis Personae", the command staff are infected by remnant alien mentalities that compel them to re-enact fatal psychodramas.  In this episode (ENT-"Singularity"), the radiation induces a similar reckless fixation.

2. When Phlox is obsessing about the many ailments that might be encroaching upon Mayweather, he mentions the "Terrellian plague".  This might be a CC-mispelling of the "Tarellians" from TNG-"Haven", or of "Telurian plague" (TNG-"A Matter of Time") it might be yet another case of actors spoonerism-mispronouncing the entire T-L-uh spectrum: Talarian, Tarkalian, Teldarian, Tellarite, Tellurian spices, Telurian plague, Terellian, and Cpt.Terrell.  Phil Farrand addresses the issue in _The Nitpicker's Guide for Next Generation Trekkers_:"The Creator is Always Right:" (pp.353-4).

VI. ANALYSIS
1. The trinary system consists of two white stars orbiting a black hole, and trailing streamers of gas onto it.  The spiral is salmon-pink, and the accretion disk(?) surrounding the entire system is orange.  The disk is full of large rocks, origin unknown.  (Protoplanetary system?  Ex-system remnants?)
 
VII. NITS
It took Ent two days at impulse to approach the black hole, but T'Pol's course exits the half-light-year-deep radiation field in 17-minutes?  Or... was that merely the interval to reach the radiation-free avenue?

VIII. NEXT WEEK
ENT036/2.10-"Vanishing Point": Hoshi in a transparent purple top (sorry, commutivity error) transparent Hoshi in a purple top: a transporter accident causes her molecules to slowly disperse -- or is she just going mad?  Smart, attractive, she can cook -- but that final caveat could really hamstring a relationship.  Special delayed showtime in Philadelphia: wed-27-nov-22:00.  Official site: http://startrek.com/library/ent_episodes/episodes_ent_detail_126460.asp