Desert Archer Traits
SvenLundgren
✭✭✭✭
in The Bridge
Desert Archer is a telepath?
Starfleet Commission: August 12, 2017
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Oh, and he should also have the Survivalist trait.
All of that.
Such a name change would free up “Desert Archer” for the shirtless athlete many people are hoping for from that episode with Clancy Brown. One thing I do find irksome is that the art looks like it’s from just before transporting to Vulcan...I would rather have “Katra Archer” paired with artwork from after the mind meld with Syrann, as there are plenty of good options to choose from.
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🤫
Point of Order - "elite pilot" might be stretching it, given they crashed...
👆Pretty much that. 👆
Interesting point. I hadn't remembered all that.
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While those things are true, I would argue that possessing the living spirit of the most famous Vulcan of all time, the founder of their entire modern society and person that most Vulcans try to emulate in their own lives, trumps those arguments.
It really comes down to affiliation on a political or racial basis. Were it to be political you would be right - it would be like trying to claim Harry Mudd is in Starfleet because he’s wearing a stolen command uniform. But this seems to be, for both Desert/Katra Archer and Katra McCoy, a racial trait instead - a peculiar function of Vulcan biology rather than association with a government or even a society in general.
For the reasons you described, that is why it makes sense to give him the telepath trait, because that transcends politics or whatever you want to call the internal struggle on Vulcan. It was this very episode that caused the changes to Vulcan that produced the Vulcan culture we know from all the other series. Before Archer saved the day in this episode, Vulcan was MUCH different, both the planet and the people.
Archer did not behave Vulcan when he had the katra, nor did other Vulcans treat him as a Vulcan, so it makes sense to me that he is not granted the Vulcan trait.
The reason one pilot died was because that pilot was not ready for the maneuver he was being pushed to do it. The rest handled the maneuver, I would say the four survivors qualify as elite. But, if you want to question the choice to perform the maneuver than you have a point.
So since the blue angels had crashes and also died, they were all lousy pilots
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I totally overlooked that one. So yes, you’re right, Katra (aka Desert) Archer should also have the Vulcan traits as well as Survivalist.
Also, @Dirk Gunderson , I’d say the artwork is fine, but I’m with you in that I would have much preferred a pose from further in the episode, like after the lightning strikes and katra transference. The current one makes it look like it’s Archer BEFORE the katra, though I guess we could say he got cleaned up and put his jacket and all back on after he got Surak, lol.
Vulcan is more than a racial trait, it's also cultural, as there's one and one only culture on the planet. With the katra, Archer acts like a vulcan. I would say it's fair to call him a vulcan if he's acting as such.
Look, your point is well taken, and if he had the Vulcan trait, it would make sense. But you're not hearing me when I say that it also makes sense that he doesn't have it. I don't care either way, I'm just pointing out that him not having it can be justified just as easily as it could be if he had the trait.
Yes he had the katra of Surak inside him, and if that is all the proof you require, wonderful, like I said, I don't care either way. BUT, he does not have the trait and it makes sense, because in the episode he acts like a Starfleet Captain, and with regard to the idea that he somehow was imbued with intangible "Vulcanicity", that doesn't entirely make sense. He has the spirit of a centuries-old Vulcan inside him from a Vulcan culture long sense gone, from a time when even his ideals were at odds with the emotionally motivated Vulcans of the time. Which of those cultures was Vulcan exactly?
And then there are the Vulcans Archer was actually dealing with, their culture was very different from both Surak's and of the Vulcans from Surak's time? Was their culture more Vulcan than the first two? And THEN you factor in the ramifications of Archer's actions and the profound changes to Vulcan culture that takes place in the years immediately afterward, as seen in the series' TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager and THAT Vulcan culture is different from the other three, so which one is actually the Vulcan culture exactly?
I'm an American living in 2019. If I somehow went back in time to even the 1950s I would be so out of place you couldn't realistically call me an American anymore because I would be totally lost and a stranger to the culture. I bring that up because the argument that Archer is somehow imbued with magical Vulcan powers or cultural knowledge because he has Surak's katra would be like saying someone today is Roman because they have the spirit of Julius Caesar inside them, but that Rome and the Rome of today are completely different places with completely different cultures.
A case could be made and justified for that conclusion, but an equally compelling argument could be made to the contrary, and that is what I am saying. I am not saying Archer definitely should not have the Vulcan trait, I am just pointing out that it if the decision was made that he shouldn't have the Vulcan trait, it makes equal sense.