Hey, this is a little bit late, but it occurs to me that it's now October, and that means it's also Trektober, the annual Star Trek inspired daily drawing prompt challenge.

There are three sets of prompts which can be found at: https://www.tumblr.com/trektober-challenge. The first is a set of general Trek inspired prompts. The second is Trek specific. The third set is NSFW.

I'll be trying to participate us, and I'll be sharing the results here. I'd like to invite anyone else interested in attempting some or all of the challenge to do so as well. Maybe spoiler tag any of the NSFW entries, though.

Happy Trektober!

• The episode title calls back to the TOS season three episode, “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” which was the first appearance of a Medusan.

• We open with Zero’s personal log, where they record the stardate as 61881.4.

    • Zero also says it’s been a week since the previous episode, which was stardate 61875.9, though how precise they’re being isn’t explicitly clear.

• Zero mentions difficulty in repairing their containment suit, which was damaged in the previous episode. This does raise the question of who created their original containment suit on Tars Lamora, as it seems as though Zero is not involved in the repair process.

• Zero mentions the Paxans as one of the species of non-corporeal beings living at the colony that contacts them. When introduced in the TNG episode, “Clues”, the Paxans were so isolationist that they we going to destroy the USS Enterprise D to conceal their existence until Captain Picard was able to convince them to merely mindwipe the entire crew, except Data who helped to facilitate the deception.

• Upon arriving on Ovidia IV, the Protogies are wearing protective visors of the sort shown in “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” to shield them from the horrifying, madness inducing appearance of any Medusans they might encounter.

• ”I’ve always had this [...] yearning to experience life. To touch and feel as you do.” This yearning has been depicted as far back as the second season premiere, “Into the Breach, Part I”.

• This is the first on screen depiction of parisses squares, a sport first mentioned in “11001001”. The ion mallets the game is played with was introduced into continuity in “Real Life”.

    • The game is being played with uneven teams, with the Nova Squadron cadets only having three players, and the Protogies having five. Though not explicitly stated, in “11001001” it is implied that teams have four players.

    • The holographic Protogies should be careful playing the game. A parisses squares accident is what led to the death of the Doctor’s holographic daughter in “Real Life”.

• The episode title is a reference to the most enduring piece of historical culture in Trek. Who could forget Picard’s line in “All Good Things…” paraphrasing Dom Toretto, ”I don’t got crew, I got family.” Chills!

• Dal records the stardate as 61875.9 in his captain’s log.

    • The Protogies dispute Dal’s status as captain of the Infinity; Dal claimed the role of captain aboard the USS Protostar in “Starstruck”, though he did temporarily turn over the position to Gwyn in “Supernova, Part 1”.

• This is the first mention of a sonic toilet in the franchise.

• The first usage of a Borg transwarp conduit was in “Descent” when the USS Enterprise D was pulled into one opened by Lore’s rogue Borg ship.

    • The conduit seen here appears to be maintained by a piece of hexagonal shaped Borg technology similar to the transwarp hub the USS Voyager travelled through in “Endgame”, though this is only on aperture, whereas the hub was a much larger structure connecting many such gates.

      • In “Descent” and other appearances of the transwarp conduits, no such technology was present.

• ”Borg? Not them again.” Zero was briefly assimilated in “Let Sleeping Borgs Lie”.

• ”I love science so much.” Rok-tahk is much more outwardly enthusiastic than Spock was in “Perpetual Infinity” when he deadpanned, ”I like science.”

• Zero claims the technology that rerouted the Infinity is Kazon. As per “Alliances” most Kazon technology was actually developed by the Trabe, who used the Kazon as slave labour until they were able to stage an uprising.

• Rok mentions the Kazon who sold the Protogies to the Diviner, as seen in “Preludes”.

• Kazon uniforms vary by sect. The uniforms the two Kazon androids who arrive to take the Protogies into custody are not wearing a uniform previously shown. These uniforms also include a mask, which familiar Kazon uniforms have not had.

    • It is revealed that the facility was established by the Oglamar sect, representatives of which were seen in “Maneuvers” an “Alliances”, wearing a different uniform.

    • The Kazon androids are wielding phaser rifles similar in profile to the ones seen in VOY with some distinct differences, such as glowing panels on the conical emitter, and housing on the top of the weapons.

• Crashed in the ice of the planet, we see:

    • A Gorn ship, as seen in the remastered release of “Arena”

    • A Tellarite cruiser, similar to the ones introduced in “Babel One”

    • The Excelsior-class USS Cairo which was the command of Captain Jellico before his temporary transfer to the Enterprise D in “Chain of Command, Part I”, and was thought to have been ambushed by the Dominion and lost in the Neutral Zone, as per “In the Pale Moonlight”. Unfortunately, we know Jellico did not go down with the ship when it was lost.

• The Kazon artificial intelligence is voiced by Debra Wilson, who’s voiced a number of characters, including Lisa Cusak in “The Sound of Her Voice”, Klingon captain Trij in “Supernova, Part 1”, and Orion pirate Z’oto in “Something Borrowed, Something Green”.

• Commander Tysess refers to Doctor Noum as a counselor. He was chief medical officer aboard the USS Dauntless, but presumably that duty has fallen to the Doctor aboard the USS Voyager A.

• Tysess claims the cloaking device aboard the Infinity violates three Federations treaties. We’re aware of the Treaty of Algeron with the Romulan Star Empire. That treaty was first mentioned in “The Defector”, and it’s established in “The Pegasus” that in explicitly prohibits the Federation from developing cloaking technology.

• Rok-Tahk creates a hologram of the bridge of the USS Protostar, which was destroyed in the finale of season one.

• After Rok fiddles with the Protogies holographic duplicates, they believe they’re the real individuals, leading to shenanigans. Other holograms that have believed themselves to be real people include:

    • Cyrus Redblock - “The Big Goodbye”

    • Leonard da Vinci - “Concerning Flight”

    • The population of Fair Haven - "Spirit Folk"

• The Protogies end up getting into physical confrontations with their holographic duplicates -- except Rok-Tahk, who just just does a bunch of science with her hologanger, like a nerd. Trek characters have been fighting their doubles since "The Enemy Within". Fortunately Spock is not around to express to Gwyn that there's a certain allure the aggressive version of Dal.

• Maj’el distracts the Doctor by asking him about his willingness to give opera vocal lessons, and he asks if she’s ever heard him sing “Questa o quella”. The Doctor sang that piece in “Renaissance Man” while returning to the USS Voyager with Janeway aboard a shuttle.

    • Maj’el uses the same tactic to distract the Doctor that Zero did in the previous episode, engaging him in one of his interests.

    • Zero asks Maj’el why she would lie on behalf of the Protogies, and she responds ”Vulcans lie all the time,” which is surprisingly honest.

• Admiral Janeway states the stardate is 61865.1 in her opening log.

• Janeway, the Protogoies, and Maj’el recount the events of the previous two episodes, from their relative perspectives.

• Despite Jankom’s reversion to his more abrasive personality traits in the previous episode, he has restyled his hair with the more clean cut side part that characterized his attempts to blend with the cadets at Starfleet Academy.

• ”If you ask Jankom, it was a g-g-ghost.” While waiting to be debriefed by the senior staff, Jankom lit a candle and read a particularly erotic chapter in his grandmother’s journal

• ”I haven’t seen a crew this dysfunctional since the Cerritos*.”* Apparently the Doctor has never been to Starbase 80.

• I believe this is the first time it’s been explicitly stated that Murf, and presumably all Mellanoid slime worms, are immune to Zero’s telepathy.

• Zero asks the Doctor about his most recent holonovel. The Doctor’s first novel, “Photons Be Free” was featured heavily in the VOY episode, “Author, Author”.

    • The Doctor’s new holonovel is entitled, “Love in the Time of Holograms”.

• One of the humpback whales in Cetacean Ops is named Gillian, presumably after Doctor Gillian Taylor, the whale biologist the crew of the HMS Bounty encountered and absconded to the future with “Star Trek: The Voyage Home”.

    • Gillian is voiced by Bonnie Gordon, who also voices the ship’s computer, and several other incidental characters.

• While going through the Federation database for spirals that match the one Murf constructed in the mess hall, Gwyn and Dal see a Rubber Tree People Symbol matching one that was on a stone Chakotay had among his belongings while serving on the USS Voyager. We first saw the CHAH-mooz-ee in “The Cloud” when he used it as part of a ritual to help Janeway connect with her spirit guide.

• This is the first time we’ve been told on screen that the planet Chakotay grew up on is called Trebus, but the name comes from the novel, “Pathways”, written by Jeri Taylor and published in 1998.

• ”And if we get caught, we might as well have, ‘I love the brig’ signs around our necks.” We learned in “Temporal Edict”, that Mariner loves the brig. It’s her favourite place.

• Among the memorabilia in Janeway’s ready room are:

    • A silver spider which was not part of her costume as Arachnia, Queen of the Spider People in “Bride of Chaotica”

    • Her Starfleet Academy diploma, featuring the Science Department emblem developed for “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”.

    • A late 24th century phaser

    • A late 24th century combadge

    • Chakotay’s CHAH-mooz-ee stone

    • A trophy made from Tuvix’s hair

    • A photo of herself and Chakotay.

Not my original content

Not my original content

Not my original content

• The episode title refers to a textbook that several other characters have admonished Dal for not reading this season, beginning in “Into the Breach, Part I”.

• Rok-Tahk catches Murf having a discussion with a silhouetted figure in the USS Voyager A’s astrometrics lab. Previously we’ve seen Silik speaking with the silhouetted Future Guy, beginning in ENT’s premiere, “Broken Bow”.

• Janeway speculates that the temporal shielding aboard the Infinity is what’s preventing Voyager A from being affected by the changes to the timeline caused by Chakotay and Adreek escaping aboard that USS Protostar in the previous episode. Temporal shielding was used to great effect during the USS Voyager’s conflict with the Krenim temporal weapon in “Year of Hell, Part II”.

• A chyron informs us the stardate 52 years in the future where the Protogies are stuck is, 112152.1.

• ”Then we send a hundred ships.” It was established in “Preludes” that the Vau N’Akat did indeed send 100 ships into the anomaly in pursuit of the Protostar.

• Zero descends into the Va’Lu’Rah pit carrying Dal and Maj’el in a manner not dissimilar to Spock carrying Kirk and Bones up the turbolift shaft with his hover boots in “Star Trek: The Final Frontier”.

• Dal claims to be able to feel that Gwyn is in pain while displaced from time. Dal has latent telepathic abilities from this proto-Organian genetics.

• ”I’m a doctor, not an exorcist.” The Doctor has uttered variations on Bones’ famous, “I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer,” in 13 prior instances.

• ”I came across a mission log where lieutenant Worf was able to jump between quantum timelines by generating an inverse warp field, siphoned from a temporal anomaly.” Maj’el relates the events of “Parallels”.

• Characters this season have chided Dal for not reading Temporal Mechanics 101, but, to be fair, the text appears to be a short video lesson, so none of them actually read it either.

• Doctor Erin MacDonald was first mentioned in the LDS episode, “First First Contact”, and seen in “Supernova, Part II”. She is based upon, and voiced by, Doctor Erin MacDonald, the science advisor who has worked on every modern Trek series thus far.

• Temporal Mechanics 101 has three examples of how to travel through time:

    • Slingshot around the sun - “Tomorrow is Yesterday”, “Star Trek: The Voyage Home”, and “Penance”

    • Get on the wrong side of a Q - “Tapestry”, “All Good Things…”, “Deathwish”, “Farewell”

    • A wormhole - “Eye of the Needle”, “Into the Breach, Part II”

• Zero uses a chronitonic hypospray to temporarily prevent Gwyn from shifting between quantum realities. The Doctor did something similar in “Shattered” using a chroniton infused serum to bring Chakotay into temporal alignment after he was hit by a surge of temporal energy from an anomaly.

• The Doctor modified a phase discriminator to stabilize Gwyn. In “Timescape”, captain Picard, Data, Geordi, and Troi used phase discriminators to protect themselves from being trapped in a temporal fragment.

• The episode title is a callback to the TNG episode, “Who Watches The Watchers”.

• Maj’el uses a band of cloth to hide her Vulcan ears, a maneuver Spock first performed in “Star Trek: The Voyage Home”.

• A chyron informs us the stardate during the present time is 61860.1.

• Gwyn challenges Ascencia to Va’Lu’Rah, a “sovereign ritual” for the Vau N’Akat, mentioned in the previous episode. Certainly this isn’t going to be some trial by combat.

    • Cultures that have ritual combat include:

      • Vulcans

      • Ligonians

      • Klingons

      • Gelrakians

• ”Those Vau N’Akat put a weapon on our ship that threatens the entire Federation.” Adreek is referring to the living construct, which the Protogies discovered and dealth with during the previous season, by destroying the USS Protostar.

• ”It would not be the first instance of a causal time loop in Starfleet history.” Maj’el confirms that the events of “Past Tense, Part I”, “Past Tense, Part II” and “Star Trek: First Contact” were the results of bootstrap paradoxes.

• ”Vulcans do not lie.” Maj’el lies right in Dal’s face.

    • In “The Menagerie, Part I”, Spock tells Pike, “I have never disobeyed your orders before, Captain,” which contradicts “The Red Angel” where he refuses an order to stand down.

    • In “The Menagerie, Part I”, Spock made a false entry in the Enterprise’s log.

    • In “The Menagerie, Part 2”, it is revealed that Spock has been aware the entire time that the trial was a Talosian projection and thus has been making false statements in service of that deception.

    • In “A Taste of Armageddon”, Spock lies as a distraction, claiming there’s a bug on someone’s shoulder before nerve pinching them.

    • In “Errand of Mercy”, Spock tells Kor he’s a merchant.

    • In “Amok Time”, Spock lies about his excitement seeing that Kirk survived kal-if-fee, claiming it was simply logical relief that Starfleet did not lose a capable captain.

    • In “The Enterprise Incident”, the Romluan commander asks if it is merely a myth that Vulcans cannot lie, to which he responds, “It is no myth.”

    • In “The Enterprise incident”, Spock claims he was unprepared for Kirk’s attack, and used the *”Vulcan death grip” instinctually. Clearly the attack had been planned, and there is no such thing as a Vulcan death grip.

    • In “Yesteryear”, Spock lies about his identity after travelling to the past and visiting his family.

    • In “More Tribbles, More Troubles” Spock claims that Vulcans don’t have a sense of humour, which they obviously do.

    • In “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”, Spock lies about how long it will take to repair the Enterprise in case the transmission is being monitored. When Saavik calls him on this, he claims he merely exaggerated.

    • In “Spock Amok”, Spock told Chapel that he had a dream where he had to fight his human side, whereas it was obvious that in his dream Spock was the human half fighting his Vulcan side.

• The timeline changes with Chakotay and Adreek escape aboard the Protostar instead of launching it under autopilot, causing Gwyn to start disappearing from existence. In “Children of Time” the descendants of the crew of the USS Defiant and their colony disappear when the alternate future version of Odo chooses to let 200 years worth of people never be born so he can save Kira from dying.

Trekkies were a mistake.

With tonight’s victory, Winnipeg has officially knocked the Saskatchewan Rattlers out of contention, and now have a spot in the Western Conference play-in game.

With tonight's victory, Winnipeg has officially knocked the Saskatchewan Rattlers out of contention, and now have a spot in the Western Conference play-in game.

Not my OC

• ”I swear, you’ve read those first contact protocols more than Picard.” Gwyn is too polite to reply that she, an alien child who grew up in a Delta Quadrant labour camp, has has no context for who Admiral Jean-Luc Picard is, even if he was captain of Starfleet’s flagship.

• Asencia [Jameela Jamil] escaped capture in the previous season’s “Supernova, Part 1” after murdering the Diviner.

• Janeway’s admiral’s log records the stardate as 61859.6.

    • The most recent stardate prior this episode was 61302.7, given in the fourteenth episode of season one, “Crossroads”.

• This is the first time we’re learning that the Diviner’s [John Noble] name was…is? Ilthuran. In season one, he was only ever referred to by his title.

• ”We were just a bunch of nobodies on a rock. No hope, no future, until we found that ship.” Dal is referring to the events of the season one premiere episodes “Lost and Found”.

• The crew of the USS Voyager and their allies used temporal shielding during conflicts with the Krenim during “Year of Hell” and “Year of Hell, Part II”.

• ”Refuse to help my own daughter? Surely I don’t make that bad of a father, do I?” The Diviner choose to abandon Gwyn on a sentient planet that manifested the nightmares of its inhabitants and then consumed them in “Terror Firma”.

• The Vulcan Nova Squadron cadet is named Maj’el, for the late Majel Barrett, who portrayed:

    • Number One

    • Christine Chapel

    • Lwaxana Troi

    • The Computer in TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, “Star Trek Generations”, “Star Trek First Contact”, “Star Trek Insurrection”, “Star Trek Nemesis”, and 2009’s “Star Trek”

    • Several other characters in TAS, including Amanda Greyson and M’Ress

• This is the first on screen mention of a sonic toilet.

• Maj’el claims that Vulcan psychic abilities are enhanced in the presence of other telepaths. I believe this is the first time this has been explicitly stated, or even implied on screen.

• One of the crew who gets on the turbolift with Maj’el calls for deck 32. In the previous episode, Zero said that the USS Voyager A has 29 decks.

• ”Warp cores are so beautiful up close. It’s the delta radiation.” Delta radiation? You mean the thing that melted captain Christopher Pike and consigned him to a tortured existence in a beep chair? Too soon, Zero, too soon.

    • Mirror Charles Tucker III was also deformed by long term exposure to delta rays.

Not my OC

• It’s perhaps interesting that the opening sequence for the show (or at least this episode) has not changed from the first season. Because of that, we still see elements such as the USS Protostar which was destroyed in in season one’s “Supernova, Part 2”, and a representation of the Emergency Janeway Hologram, which sacrificed herself in that same episode.

    • In the episode, when asked if the Protogies would be taking a Protostar-class starship for their mission, the Doctor [Robert Picardo] says, ”The Protostar is still under construction.”

• The episode opens with Murf [Dee Bradley Baker] engaged in a tactical training exercise at Starfleet Academy. The cadets, other than Murf, are wearing a uniform we haven’t seen before.

• An officer hands Murf a PADD with a message from Admiral Janeway [Kate Mulgrew], and the other Protogies each receive one as well. In the message they’re referred to as ”Starfleet Academy hopefuls.” It was established in “Supernova, Part 2” that the Protogies wouldn’t be accepted into the Academy ahead of more qualified entrants, but would become warrant officers training under Janeway’s command.

• When Rok-Tahk [Rylee Alazraqui] receives the message, she is in the middle of a presentation on lieutenant Edward Larkin, and citing the events of the “The Trouble With Edward” short.

• ”She’s probably Queen of Solum by now.” The Protogies lament the absence of Gwyn [Ella Purnell], who separated from them in “Supernova, Part 2” on her own mission to her species homeworld.

• A shuttlecraft arrives, bearing the registry number NCC-74656-A. Hey, NCC-74656 was the USS Voyager’s registry!

    • Shuttles with the same registry were seen in “Supernova, Part 2”, fishing the Protogies out of San Francisco Bay.

• The shuttle contains Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram, the Doctor, who apparently still has not chosen a name for himself, though he is willing to claim the title ”Hero of the Delta Quadrant.”

• ”I’m a doctor, not a butler.” The Doctor echo’s Doctor McCoy’s phrase, first uttered in “The Devil in the Dark”, where he stated, “I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer.”

    • Though Bones was the originator of the phrase, the Doctor is easily the character who has uttered it the most.

    • Doctor Bashir, the EMH Mark II, Doctor Phlox, and Doctor Culber, have all had variations of the line as well. Doctor T’Ana has not used the phrase on screen, but Boimler has imitated her saying it, albeit with a lot more curses than most Starfleet doctors.

• The Doctor explains that he’s able to move about thanks to his mobile emitter, and bit of 29th century technology he acquired in “Future’s End, Part II”.

• The Doctor refers to having written a holonovel he wrote that ”was very well received.” Presumably he is not recalling “Photons Be Free” the holonovel he wrote features in the episode “Author, Author” as that was not about a bond between a hologram and its crew.

• The mission Janeway is taking the Protogies on is to observe the wormhole created by the destruction of the Protostar in “Supernova, Part 2”.

    • The Doctor explains that a distress call from Captain Chakotay [Robert Beltran] came through the wormhole, reiterating what we saw in “Supernova, Part 2”.

• We get to see the USS Voyager A in spacedock. It is a Lamarr-class starship.

    • The Lamarr-class was named for scientist and actor, Hedy Lamarr, according to the Hageman brothers.

    • According to Zero [Angus Imrie], the Voyager-A has 29 decks, a crew of more than 800, and two schools.

    • In engineering, we’re also shown a quantum slipstream drive, a Delta Quadrant technology first encountered in “Hope and Fear”.

    • “Twovix” is set in 2381, and this episode is set in 2384.

    • The Doctor says that ”There are over 16 holodecks.” Not really clear why he choose not to give a specific number.

    • The Voyager A also has a cetacean ops, large enough to accommodate a humpback whale.

      • Rok-Tahk mentions that it’s her turn to feed the dolphins at one point in the episode. Apparently the navigators in Cetacean Ops don’t get access to their own replicators.

    • There are two shuttlebays, not three.

• ”Her predecessor is a floating museum.” We saw the decommissioned Voyager’s journey to be installed as an orbiting museum in “Twovix”.

• The Doctor claims that the rest of Starfleet is busy with the Romulan evacuation. As we learned in “The End is the Beginning”, Starfleet and the Federation abandon that effort in 2385, following the synth attack on Mars. Perhaps something to look forward to for season three?

• Nova Squadron is an elite group of cadets, introduced in “The First Duty”.

• ”I already promised Admiral Picard I wouldn’t lose this one in the Delta Quadrant.” Admiral Picard was previously mentioned in the LDS episode, “The Stars at Night”. Apparently he’s some sort of mummy aficionado.

• ”And we need all these people to…observe a hole.” Traditionally all the important tasks aboard a Starfleet vessel are carried out by the three to seven most important members of the crew, while the other sometimes hundreds of officers aboard the ship are there to do routine maintenance, keep the seats warm on the bridge when the senior staff is off engaging space adventure, and occasionally serve as human shields. For more information, please see Star Trek. All of it.

    • All of it.

• In Dal’s [Brett Gray] quarters we see a model of the Protostar as well as the goggles he wore in the mines of Tars Lamora in the series premiere, “Lost and Found”.

• ”Borg is short for cyborg!” While perhaps Dal is correct metatextually, that’s never been previously stated in Trek. In the Borg’s first appearance, “Q Who”, Guinan simply states, ”They’re called the Borg.” The Borg refer to themselves as such, there would be little reason for them to have named themselves after a term that originated in 1960s Earth science fiction.

• ”Well, cloaked ships are illegal in Starfleet.” Jankom Pog [Jason Mantazokus] is referring to a provision in the Treaty of Algeron, explicitly stated in “The Pegasus”.

    • The titular USS Pegasus in “The Pegasus” did have prototype cloak, which would also allow the ship to phase through matter.

    • The USS Defiant did have a Romulan cloaking device on it, and was originally only able to be operated by a Romulan officer billeted aboard the ship, as seen in “The Search, Part I”.

    •In “Star Trek: Insurrection” Starfleet also had a cloaked holoship intended to be used to forcibly relocate the Ba’ku.

• Janeway reveals to her senior staff that Admiral Jellico is concerned that the classified mission to use the Infinity to enter the wormhole and rescue Chakotay would put the timeline at risk. Jellico was introduced in “Chain of Command, Part I” where he wanted to negotiate with Cardassians first by appearing to be a loose canon, and then by threatening them with mines attached to their ships. In “Masquerade” ordered Janeway to avoid entering the Neutral Zone to prevent provoking the Romulans, and instead commanded that they fire a torpedo into the Zone to destroy the Protostar. No doubt he also has a good plan regarding the Vau N’Akat.

> Trip: A poop question, sir? Can't I talk about the warp reactor or the transporter? Archer: It's a perfectly valid question.

In season one of ENT's "Breaking the Ice", the crew of the NX-01 records a video for Ms. Malvin's class of fourth graders back on Earth, and one of the questions is what happens when someone aboard the ship flushes the toilet, which Archer throws to Trip, and Trip is concerned the kids are going to think he's the ship's sanitation engineer.

Now, because Archer is an awkward goober in this episode, it seems like he's reading the questions off the cuff, with no one other than the possible exception of Ms. Malvin herself, having first vetted them. However, at the start of the recording, Archer announces that he's the one who selected the questions so he knew going in that the, as Trip puts it, "poop question," would be in there. Also before the recording Archer told Trip that he needed to there to participate as opposed to dealing with the large amount of work that was on his plate. What's more, we know from the start of the episode that Trip's nephew is one of the fourth grade students in Ms. Malvin's class.

So, my theory is that Archer made the intentional choice to have Trip answer a question he knew the engineer would find to be embarrassing, specifically to diminish him in the eyes of his nephew. Why would he do this extremely petty thing to someone who is ostensibly his friend and most loyal officer? Probably because he sucks and wanted to put Trip in his place for some imagined slight, just like he later has an outburst with the Vulcan captain whom he invited to dinner.