Minefield (Enterprise)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (May 2008) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

"Minefield" is the 29^th episode (production #203) of the television series Star Trek: Enterprise.

[edit] Synopsis

The Enterprise begins to orbit a seemingly unclaimed planet for observation when it runs into a cloaked mine, heavily damaging the ship and flooding sickbay with injured crew members. Soon, another cloaked mine attaches itself to the hull but doesn't immediately explode. Lt. Reed performs a spacewalk in an EVA suit to try to disarm it, but accidentally activates a magnetic grappling spike that impales his leg before attaching to the ship's hull, thus pinning him to the mine with limited air. Any attempt to cut the spike would set off the mine. The NX-01 then makes first contact with the Romulan Star Empire when two Romulan Warbirds arrive and demand that they leave Romulan territory or else.

[edit] Notes

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• This episode is often cited as an example of when Enterprise broke the established Star Trek canon. Specifically, this episode shows that the Romulans have had cloaking technology since at least the 22nd Century, despite the fact that in the Original Series episode "Balance of Terror", Spock implies that the Romulans did not have cloaking technology during the Earth-Romulan war 100 years earlier and have seemingly developed one during the time since hostilities ended. Since the entire series of Enterprise, with the exception of These Are The Voyages..., takes place before the Earth-Romulan war there is no definitive explanation as to why the Romulan vessels in "Minefield" are able to cloak. However, since Spock does not specifically state that the Romulans did not have cloaking technology in the 22nd Century, and given the length of time the Earth-Romulan war was supposed to have taken, he could have actually meant that the Romulans have since developed a cloaking device that the Federation can no longer see through, although this explanation is flawed simply because the Enterprise is able to track the Romulan ship. Showrunner Manny Coto stated that had Enterprise continued for another season, he would've introduced the Earth-Romulan war. Had this occurred, an explanation of the Romulan cloaking device may have been forthcoming. (A subsequent Trek novel, The Good That Men Do (by Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin), explains that Romulan ships of the day were never able to maintain cloak for more than a few minutes at a time without violently self destructing.)
• it is also said in "balance of terror" that the war with the Romulans was fought using "old style nuclear weapons" and there was never an up close visual encounter between the two races. Which makes the very encounter in this episode an incident where they broke canon. It did keep with the canon in the way that while the ships were there, The Romulans themselves were never seen.

[edit] External links

• Minefield article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki