Romulan War

In the first episodes of season five we will see the beginnings of the Romulan War. We will be able to see (as we did in United) the Romulans making their plans and their interactions among themselves, but they will remain unseen to the humans and Vulcans.

There will an episode on Vulcan dealing with the Romulans covertly trying to infiltrate the Vulcan government. T’Pol, and the Vulcans in general, will not know that the infiltrators are actually Romulans, but will think they are a part of a radical Vulcan group, and that T'pol's father may have been part of this group years ago when he died, or did he actually die? (Or is he living elsewhere?).

The Romulans are also angry at humans for attempting to create a coalition (federation). Their anger will finally boil over when the Romulans learn that humans have begun building Starbases, one of which is in what Romulan’s consider to be their space.

At one point, the Enterprise will lead a fleet of aging Starfleet ships (since the new ships are not ready yet), to confront the more advanced Romulans ships, and must find clever ways to defeat them (some atomic weapons may be used as surprise to the Romulans). Starfleet will learn that the Romulans like to play dirty and may make suicide runs, and also will set off antimatter explosions to destroy their own damaged ships in hopes of taking the enemy with them. So can Archer and Starfleet find a way to alleviate this threat?

Cloaking Device

The Romulan cloaking device seen in 'Minefield' will effectively be neutralized. The 22nd century cloaking device is nothing more than a bending holo-image as seen in 'United', it is not the complete cloaking device as seen in TOS and beyond. Archer in the second episode figures out a way to use what they learned about holo-image in 'United' to see through Romulans cloaks. I guess the Romulans will have to re-think there cloak and maybe in 100 years they will have one that will work (see Balance of Terror, TOS season 1).

Recurring Characters

Nurse Angela Vanson:
Nurse Vanson will be the first registered nurse and a non-commissioned officer of Starfleet to have a permanent post on the Enterprise, after someone at Starfleet thought it might be a good idea to have more medical staff.

Angela is young (27 or so) and very beautiful, and when she comes aboard she will quickly come to the attention of the men on Enterprise, who will always be talking about her and feigning illness just so they can go to sickbay. Despite all this, Angela is a very smart and headstrong (and somewhat of an overly emotional person too).

When she first sees Trip she knows she wants him but can see that his attentions lay elsewhere (T'pol). Angela will try some subtle things to gets Trip's attention, which does get noticed buy T'pol, and will cause some awkward situations.

We will also see Angela arguing with Phlox over matters in sickbay, and she will try to confide in Hoshi. The two women will be seen talking in the mess hall discussing relationships, Angela about Trip and Hoshi about Fenton Mudd, but they will also discuss men in general.

Fenton Mudd:
As you might have guessed from the name, Fenton (or 'Fen' as Hoshi calls him) Mudd is the grandfather of Harcourt Fenton Mudd (See TOS). Fenton is a bold, handsome, young (about 35 or so) and brash freelance trader and sometimes con man. He has a weakness for the ladies; he has been married twice and already has three children (that he knows about anyway). Fenton has been infatuated with Hoshi since they met on Risa year and half or so ago.

The two went out for a brief time, but Hoshi was a bit put of be some of Fentons amoral ways and broke it off. Needless to say Hoshi is still very attracted to him (and talks to Angela about how passionate he is), even though there ethics do not quite match. Fenton will be in two scheduled episodes this season and may meet a tragic fate (or will he?) at the end of one of them.


Leroy:
Leroy is a new steward who joins the crew this season. He will work for chef (who will remain unseen), and is very charismatic, friendly and talkative. Leroy will be somewhat of a nuisance to Malcolm, as he is always coming up to Malcolm and is quite a bit 'friendly' with him throughout this season. Malcolm will finds ways to brush Leroy off, but finds that he cannot be mad at Leroy and may even learn to actually get along with him.

Leroy is an 'implied' gay character, which means we will really never know if he is even though his mannerisms may 'imply' that he is. So this will be a mystery that surrounds him and you will have to draw your own conclusions.

Admiral Gardner:
Admiral Gardner is a rough no nonsense type of guy that will not have as good of a relationship with Archer as Admiral Forrest did. Gardner will during the season eventually sympathize with Archer’s plight. Gardner has an ulcer that he will always complain about and will constantly tell Archer that he does not want to make it any bigger. Gardner’s character is very similar to Admiral Hanson from TNG's 'best of both world's'.

Ensign Travis Mayweather

Travis Mayweather has not had a good year at all. 18 months ago his family's ship the Horizon was attacked by unknown aliens. The ship was pillaged and then destroyed killing all 23 crewmembers including Travis's mother and brother! Travis took 2 months off on Earth after that event and on the outside appears to be ok now. The war this season and the death of many Starfleet personal has added to Travis's inner frustration coupled with his family's death.

Indeed Phlox is a bit worried because Travis seems to be too friendly, given the circumstances this is good indication that he is burying a lot of his real feelings. When Phlox tries to approach him on this Travis's becomes rather agitated with him. Near the end of this season Fenton comes on board and it is discovered that there may be a link between Fenton and the Horizons destruction. Mayweather finally reaches a point where he does something that will have tragic consequences and damage his relationship with another crewmember.

Ensign Hoshi Sato

Hoshi had a relationship with Fenton Mudd last year. When the crew meets up with him Hoshi will need to deal with Fenton trying to woo her back. She is quite attracted to him but is turned off by some of his amoral ethics. Later in the season something bad happens to Fenton that will affect her more than she thought it would and will have a big impact on her working relationship with Travis.

Hoshi will also be forced to deal with some bottled up emotions from when she was a prisoner of the Xindi Reptilians from Zero Hour.

Dr Phlox

Phlox will be Phlox mostly this year; however it is not just him in sick bay, he now has to contend with Nurse Vanson, Enterprises first fulltime nurse. Phlox will sometimes feel that he is living with his wives again when he argues with Vanson. If that were not enough, he will have to deal with his own squabbling 'family' members later in the season that will drive him nuts. There will also be quite a few situations that will keep Phlox busy this season.