First Flight

*** (3 stars out of 5)
How do I never remember that Trip is short for "Triple"... as in the third Charles Tucker?

This and other astounding secrets are revealed in a flashback story from 2143. Ten years ago, Jon Archer was the second man to break the Warp 2 barrier. The first was his frenemy A.G. Robinson.
(The Reggie to his Archie, where Trip equals Jughead.)

Jon and A.G. and the rest of the NX space program are men. Manly men. Rough and tumble, hard drinking, hard farting men. Men who watch sports in bars and express their feelings with punching and are exclusively pink-skinned and did I mention they all have penises?

Anyway, they do. Commodore Forrest came along to shout "Pyle!!!" whenever his troupe of chortling man-boys screw up and send him more paperwork, speeding tickets, and disapproving Vulcan glowers.

Thief, cowboy, duelist, kung fu master, and pretty baby, A.G. blasted his red-white-and-blue behind across subspace from Earth to Jupiter and then back again (somehow just as quickly?) without the expensive prototype he rode hard until it exploded a lot. That's one amazing warp-speed capable escape pod never seen before or since! Hot diggety daffodil!

But the rocket jockey will not live to miss the Earth so much or miss his wife. It may be lonely out in space but he won't have to worry about that. Someone else will need to take NX-02 out and do some donuts on the Vulcan's lawns or smash Klingon mailboxes and junk. It all goes to show... something. The Right Stuff, I guess.

"First Flight" is linked thematically and by the time of its release with the real-world deaths of the crew of shuttle Columbia, and the death of Matt Jefferies. Mr. Jefferies was production crew on the original Star Trek, which named its maintenance shafts "Jefferies Tubes" for him. Most significantly, he designed the starships and phasers of the 2260's and of particular note: the classic starship Enterprise.

Stigma

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Vulcan society is very closed minded about telepathic "melders", a shunned minority who dare to share their feelings. A small minority of this small minority catch the gay disease... Pa'Nar Syndrome... and the doctors "logically" don't bother to save them.

T'Pol caught sick from her coerced meld last year, and Phlox tries to get her some damn medical attention without betraying her confidence.

Dr. Oratt (ancestor of DS9's Ambassador Lojal, though I can't imagine a woman of any species who would mate with such an odious person) and his puppets on the Council of Physicians are going to punish T'Pol. Punish her in the worst possible way the writers can imagine. The one they've threatened us with several times before. Brace yourself: they're threatening to remove her from the show. (Pause for terrified wails.)

Meanwhile, Feezal, the second of three Mrs. Phlox's, comes aboard to adjust the knob on Trip's microscope. So to speak. She's sniffing around... but that's how Denobulans greet each other. Sniffing each other's faces. And the females have the same wide, WIDE smiles as the males. Probably from all the Knobs they get to Adjust.

If Phlox is to be believed, even their polygamous marriages are not exclusive. Which certainly explains why Feezal took no pains whatsoever not to hit on Trip right in front of her husband. And why Phlox is eager to share if need be. Trip does NOT need be, if it's all the same.

"Stigma" has the great Captain Archer retort: "Where I come from, everything's open for debate."
Archer claims human bigotry died a century ago, which is quite a feat for the war-ravaged 2050's to have achieved, but that IS part of this utopia I accepted. Humans got better. And Vulcans will get better too, clearly. Still, for a message story about sexual hang-ups, I didn't see any gays around, but I still have high hopes that they didn't all die in World War III. Or, as sometimes seems just as likely, from people not giving a damn.