Cold Front

The Enterprise happens upon a ship carrying religious pilgrims en route to view an astronomical event in a stellar nursery – something they view as holy. During a tour of the ship, one of the pilgrims slips away in engineering and breaks an antimatter conduit – a bit of sabotage that becomes fortuitous when a plasma discharge from the nearby nebula ignites an antimatter cascade which would have destroyed the Enterprise had the conduit been in place. Shortly afterward, Captain Archer is approached by Crewman Daniels, one of the ship’s waiters, who tells the captain that he’s actually from the 31st century and is here to prevent Suliban interference in the timeline. Daniels also informs Archer that the visitor who broke the conduit was, in fact, none other than Silik – the Suliban with whom Archer barely survived a life-and-death struggle during the Klingon rescue incident. Daniels asks Archer to give him access to modify the Enterprise’s sensors so he can find and neutralize Silik, but when Silik later appears to Archer, the treacherous Suliban says that Daniels is the interloper out to derail Earth’s history.

written by Steve Beck & Tim Finch
directed by Robert Duncan McNeill
music by Jay Chattaway

Cast: Scott Bakula (Captain Jonathan Archer), Jolene Blalock (Subcommander T’Pol), John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox), Dominic Keating (Lt. Malcolm Reed), Anthony Montgomery (Ensign Travis Mayweather), Linda Park (Ensign Hoshi Sato), Connor Trinneer (Commander Charles “Trip” Tucker III), John Fleck (Silik), Matt Winston (Daniels), Michael O’Hagan (Captain Fraddock), Joseph Hindy (Prah Mantoos), Leonard Kelly-Young (Sonsorra), and Porthos

Note: Talk about man’s best friend – it’s strongly implied in one scene that an Earth dog can detect the presence of a cloaked individual (including a Suliban). And stellar nurseries aren’t just science fiction – the Hubble Space Telescope has observed several, including the spectacular Eagle Nebula (also known as M-16), whose triple-pillared stellar nursery clouds have been used as background in movies (Contact) and other science fiction shows (Babylon 5’s Into The Fire episode).