TATV: Thoughts as the final theme music played

I jotted down these ideas just after watching TATV for the first time last night. Probably as a result of reading forums I was preoccupied with working out how Trip could manage to not be dead.

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How Trip is Not.Dead

Shran disguised his own death and he is now ready to disguise the death of Trip. He needs Trip for.. something as yet unrevealed and he needs him DEAD in the eyes of the pinkskins to achieve this. The kidnapping is a fake and the kidnappers either his compatriots in his scheme or his hired hands. Their mission: seize Trip after making him appear killed. Heck, perhaps they even allow him to die knowing they can revive him once they get their hands on his body. Perhaps they substitute a fake body and take Trip’s real body away, revive him and use him for their plans.

“He’d never make it back”: Riker. Sure never make it back in time for the ceremony but perhaps he does make it back from the dead a decade in the future. (Good thing Vulcans have long lives.)

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Since then I've been thinking about how un-sad the rest of the crew seemed to be in the days following Trip's death. I will be rewatching those scenes but I don't recall Archer or Reed making any definitive statements about him being dead and how tragic this was on the eve of their retiring the NX-01. So I'm starting to think this could actually be a ruse on the part of the crew, with or without Shran being a factor. Section 31? Starfleet intelligence? Both recently had their fingers in the warp coils.

And perhaps that might explain T'Pol's rather lame talk with Trip in the shuttle "do you miss me?" "I will miss you".. I don't buy that this all came about after a little chat with Chef. Maybe T'Pol knew Trip would be away for a long time, perhaps forever, on this mission that required him dead.


Chef serving Pyrithian bat droppings to galley visitors: