Re-cap on the story so far with our series 1 episode guides.
Within the 22nd Century, ninety years after Zephram Cochrane's visionary first warp flight in space and one hundred years before the crusades of Capt. James T. Kirk, the Vulcan's held the Human hand and slowly guided them to developing the Warp Five engine. At last able to explore the virgin depths of space, Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and his crew seize the opportunity to do just that, by delivering an unconscious and vital Klingon messenger who's ship was shot down by unknown assailants in Broken Bow, Oklahoma, back to his home world of Kronos. Feeling that the Vulcan's have condescendingly withheld information for years from Humans, coddling mankind rather than helping them, Archer is fully backed by Starfleet Command, and the Vulcan's objections fall upon deaf ears.
High above Earth in Spacedock, Archer has only three days in which to compile his crew and oversee the completion of his revolutionary spaceship, the Enterprise NX-01. Completing the crew: the charming southern Chief Engineer, Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker (Connor Trinneer); the strong and wary Tactical Officer, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed (Dominic Keating); the eager Helmsman, Ensign Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery); the linguistically talented Communications Officer, Ensign Hoshi Sato (Linda Park); the comically unconventional alien Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley) is recruited as Chief Medical Officer; and the highly intelligent but stubborn Vulcan officer assigned by her superiors to the mission as an advisor, Sub Commander T'Pol (Jolene Blalock). Anticipation and nerves run high as the ship is fitted with the latest Starfleet technology, such as the recently approved Bio-Transport teleportation device, which no one is very eager to test. Quickly the historic launch arrives, and the starship Enterprise does indeed "boldly go where no man has gone before", warping towards planet Kronos.
As the Enterprise speeds along her way, the crew all learn more about each other and strong bonds begin to form. Suddenly all power fails in mid-test of the warp engines, and the Enterprise is boarded by unknown chameleon-like aliens, who successfully kidnap the recently conscious Klaang from sickbay. Learning from a very unwilling but divulgent T'Pol the aliens' identity as Suliban and the planet Rigel Ten as the last location of Klaang before his crash on Earth, Archer is determined to do all he can to get Klaang back, and a course is set to Rigel Ten. Simultaneously, the Suliban interrogate the recently captured Klaang, and also plot a course for Rigel Ten in order to hunt Klaang's contact there.
The Enterprise away-team discovers an amazing multitude of alien life in the Rigel Ten trading complex, and most attempts to locate any information on Klaang's history there are constantly interrupted by strange new sights and sounds. Archer eventually meets Sarin, Klaang's informant contact, who tells of a Temporal Cold War in which the Suliban are being used to stage attacks within the Klingon Empire, making it look like one faction is attacking another. Klaang was bringing proof of this back to his High Council; without the proof, the Empire could be thrown into chaos. Hidden Suliban soldiers suddenly attack, forcing Archer, Sarin and the rest of the away-team to fight their way back to the Enterprise. During the extremely intense firefight Sarin is killed, and later Archer is rendered unconscious from a deep blast to his leg while saving T'Pol's life.
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