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Post by andrewlee on Feb 10, 2009 16:33:42 GMT -6
In this episode, Enterprise finds an Insectoid Xindi ship with the crew all dead except for Insectoid eggs in a hatchery with lots of back up systems to protect it. They find out a great deal about the Insectoids! When They were in the hatchery, Captain Archer is sprayed by one of the eggs. The result of this is he becomes obsessed with saving the eggs and disregarding the mission. This causes a great deal of disagreement with the rest of the crew, except for Major Hayes. I thought this was a very interesting episode!! What do you think?
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Post by andrewlee on Feb 10, 2009 17:03:12 GMT -6
When Captain Archer was sprayed in the hatchery by one of the Xindi Insectoid eggs, it was the cause of his obsessive behavior. Dr Phlox found out at the end of the episode that a chemical in the egg spray made Captain Archer reverse imprint, which means he became their caretaker. The crew had to mutiny to retake the ship from Major Hayes and the Makos who were left in charge by Captain Archer. Captain Archer had relieved his senior officers for dissobeying him.
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Post by Atoz 77 on Feb 13, 2009 8:42:46 GMT -6
I missed it this time around, but I remember the episode from a while back. My thought was that it was a good thing that he was willing to go out of his way to help babies (even though they were alien babies). The others balked from the very start, but he basically said, What if it was a ship full of cute little fur-covered babies? Wouldn't we help them? Are we going to abandon them because their insectoids?
I was a little disappointed, actually, to see him becoming obsessive and to learn it was all just because of those hormones.
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Post by andrewlee on Feb 13, 2009 9:47:48 GMT -6
Atoz. I understand your disappointment about Archer's obsession with protecting the Insectoid eggs due to the pheromones. Archer did have a very valid point before he became more obsessed. He made a remark to the others about protecting the eggs to show the Xindi that Humans are not a ruthless enemy trying to destroy them.
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Post by Atoz 77 on Feb 16, 2009 8:37:19 GMT -6
On Darwin Day, I was thinking about the evolutionary effects of this "reverse imprinting" hormone, and I came to some interesting conclusions. Its existance implies that the insectoids must routinely abandon their eggs, for some reason. If they didn't, what need would the hormone have had to evolve in the first place? They rely on other species to take care of their young, at least until they hatch and can take care of themselves. This implies that adult insectoids don't even have a parenting instinct, because a hormone can't create an instinct where one doesn't exist -- it merely exploits what already exists.
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Post by andrewlee on Feb 16, 2009 12:55:40 GMT -6
Atoz. You have some valid points about the evolution of the Insectoids and their reverse imprinting pheromones to protect their eggs! I got the impression from this episode that this pheromone was used in case the parents died before the eggs hatched and so the young insectoids could mature to a point to where they could survive on their own. I'm not sure they would be abandoned on purpose since the insectoid hatchery was in the most protected part of the ship with back up systems to maintain life support and protection from the hazards of space.
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Post by Atoz 77 on Feb 20, 2009 8:45:14 GMT -6
You're saying the pheromone was something artificial that the insectoids put on their eggs, whereas I was thinking it was a part of their natural evolution. I'm not sure how to resolve this question.
I'm saying if it's natural, the only way it would evolve in the first place is if the parents made a habit of abandoning their eggs. The young looked like they could run almost from the moment they hatched, and they would probably need to, because sooner or later, the same thing that happened with Archer's crew would happen to any other false "parent" -- that is, other members of his species would realize that he was being victimized and step in. I don't see another intelligent species "raising" the insectoids for their whole lives. So I expect the pheromone lasts just long enough for the eggs to hatch, then they make a break for it.
This implies that the insectoids really couldn't have a culture the way we think of it, because they aren't "raised" the way we understand the term. They'd have to rely purely on instinctual behavior. I really find it hard to imagine how they could become an intelligent species at all.
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Post by andrewlee on Feb 20, 2009 16:29:37 GMT -6
Atoz. I didn't word my last post the way I should have. I did not mean to mis-leed you about the pheromone issue. I also think that it was natural. You have raised a lot of valid questions about the Xindi Insectoids, I would like to know about, but we simply don't have much information about them to make very many accurate conclusions about them! This doesn't mean we can't speculate about them though!
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Post by Atoz 77 on Feb 23, 2009 8:43:40 GMT -6
I'm just trying to look at it methodically. Natural selection wouldn't have had the chance to work on this pheromone unless the eggs were often left unattended. It could be because of some environmental factor -- say a predator that takes the parents. But presumably in many cases that same predator would also eat the eggs, before the pheromone had the chance to work on it -- I think it took a few hours to start to affect Archer. I'm just saying I can't think of any other scenario except the parents must be in the habit of leaving the eggs unguarded, for whatever reason.
Or here's another possibility I just thought of. Maybe the Insectoids evolved in tandem with another of the intelligent Xindi species -- the Avians for example. It could be they deliberately laid their eggs inside the Avians' nests, or the Avians themselves had some reason of their own for keeping Insectoids in their nests. Some sort of symbiotic arrangement. The Avians are long extinct, but the pheromone is still there.
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Post by andrewlee on Feb 23, 2009 12:53:31 GMT -6
Atoz I think your explanation of insectoid eggs being hatched by the now extinct Xindi Avians is very realistic! One thing about the Xindi having 6 and then 5 sentient species evolve in tandem is interesting and rare. Archer did mention in another episode where they encountered a planet with 2 sentient species. that usually only one sentient species survives.
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Post by Atoz 77 on Feb 27, 2009 8:57:44 GMT -6
The current thinking in exobiology is that intelligence doesn't appear as inevitably as we used to think. It's an extraordinary chain of events to just allow one intelligent species to evolve -- having six on the same planet is like winning the lottery six times in a row. Frankly, it looks pretty suspicious to me. Maybe that's why those interdimensional aliens were so interested in them -- maybe Xindus represents some kind of dimensional nexus point.
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Post by andrewlee on Feb 27, 2009 15:58:07 GMT -6
Atoz the inter-dimensional aliens were manipulating and deceiving the Xindi to make them think that Humanity was their enemy to destroy them. It was the Federation in the 26th century who would defeat the trans-dimensional aliens then to prevent them from invading and altering space to be like their trans-dimensional realm. The Humans were not the true enemy of the Xindi and with out Humanity, The trans-dimensional aliens would have conquered the galaxy including the Xindi and everyone else!!
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