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Re: ENT S1: Fortunate Son

I think that one thing that everyone is missing is that in the episode torturing the captive DIDN'T WORK. He gave them false shield frequencies hoping his captors would do exactly what they did, attack a superior force with bad intel, leading to his rescue. That's the problem with torture, it's really easy to lie to your torturers if the info isn't independently confirmable. The episode gets major brownie points from me for that alone.

Also, the Enterprise did fire back launching four torpedoes by my count, presumably doing enough damage to deter the Nausicaans until a diplomatic solution could be reached. Archer was aggressive with the Nausicaans hardly being a straight pacifist in the moment, then telling them that Starfleet was building a fleet of fast, well armed ships that would begin to protect all human trade vessels very soon, and maybe piracy isn't going to be the best line of work in the near future. However, Archer's job isn't to be a one ship anti-piracy task force, his job is to find the fastest, most expedient solution to the immediate problem at hand, *maybe* setting up some groundwork for further enforcement action in the future and then get on with his mission.

Maybe it's true that Kirk would have kept the firefight going even after the Nausicaans broke off their attack, having achieved their aims (rescuing their man), but I've always thought Kirk was too heavy handed in using force.