Enterprise Revisited (Discussion)

[aadarshinah]

IDK... the only things Hoshi seemed confident about in the early episodes was her language skills. And, admittedly, while she had that one-night-stand on Risa, that was towards the end of the season, after a lot of confidence boosting on the bridge in a lot of first contacts. And look at her interaction with Reed in "Silent Enemy" - while admittedly it's not the best correllary, anyone who gets that flustered at the suggestion she's looking for a more-than-professional relationship with a superior isn't likely to break one's arm for breaking up her poker game. There's a level of rule breaking in each that Hoshi seems unwilling to cross - and even in "Terra Prime", when she's standing up to Samuels, she's doing it by the book, with Starfleet's own rules....

[panyasan]

Hoshi had an isolated upbringing and comes across as afraid, but I think later on she is more herself: a very indepedent, self consious woman, like we see on Risa.
She is silently having her fun, no wild things here, but she gets what she wants. I think when she is in a new situation, she will slowly adapt without being very rebellious.

It think the story about the poker game is a real story, an one-time-thing that she made into something more to cheer Trip up.

Now my real grip with Hoshi and Enterprise is the Universal translator and the fact that translation is based on math patterns in languages. Please change this if your revisted Enterprise. Make it a mix between cultural information and language knowlegde plus a bit of math patterns. No way you can't translate a language in a very good way without any knowlegde of it's cultural background.

[WarpGirl]

IDK... the only things Hoshi seemed confident about in the early episodes was her language skills. And, admittedly, while she had that one-night-stand on Risa, that was towards the end of the season, after a lot of confidence boosting on the bridge in a lot of first contacts. And look at her interaction with Reed in "Silent Enemy" - while admittedly it's not the best correllary, anyone who gets that flustered at the suggestion she's looking for a more-than-professional relationship with a superior isn't likely to break one's arm for breaking up her poker game. There's a level of rule breaking in each that Hoshi seems unwilling to cross - and even in "Terra Prime", when she's standing up to Samuels, she's doing it by the book, with Starfleet's own rules....

And yet she's not afraid to tell Reed to "Blow the damn torpedoes!" People react differently to different situations. If that commanding officer that broke up the poker game got rough with her or anyone else, I could see her defending herself. Also I always saw her lack of self confidence because of where she was. Her issues seemed to focus on being in space, and could she handle that. Which frankly seem to indicate she wasn't expecting to be on the Flag Ship until Archer picked her, and because it seemed that they've known each other a while, she probably only said yes because it was him asking her.

I concur with Panyasan That Hoshi had to find her way. We all do in unfamiler places.

[Alelou]

Well, WG, I think it's safe to say you have a far more sanguine view of the origins of Vegas than I do.

[WarpGirl]

Um no... But what does that matter? The origins of Las Vegas have nothing to do with the fact that NOW and possibly in the 22nd century, its perfectly legal and not malicious to help people gamble. Now obviously in SF training it wasn't legal... However like I said when you're in the settings of an institution YOU GET BORED. You do stuff to stop being bored.

ME "illegal" wheelchair races in which copious amounts of "illegal" sugars traded after bets won and lost. But no coersion was used for debtors, and no bones broken.

Just because Hoshi ran a poker game doesn't mean she was trying to be a mobster. It was probably meant to be harmless fun for a bunch of bored kids homesick, scared, and excited for the future in SF. She's certainly not Bugsy.

And I wouldn't be at all surprised that this act of teen rebellion helped mold Hoshi into her rule abiding officer.

[Alelou]

She's no Tom Paris. I just don't buy it. But your mileage may vary, and obviously does.

[WarpGirl]

No she's not Tom Paris... More's the pity... I would have watched TnT get boiled in oil if there was a Tom Paris on ENT. Oh well... Personally I think kids make mistakes, and Hoshi is entitled to have multiple layers other than a frightened misfit, good-goody, with a one-dimensional personality. Chalk one up for the misadventures of youth.

[panyasan]

Hoshi is entitled to have multiple layers other than a frightened misfit, good-goody, with a one-dimensional personality. Chalk one up for the misadventures of youth.

Euh... just because you have trouble to believe in a kick-butting, arm breaking, poker playing teenanger Hoshi, doesn't mean you think she is an one-dimensional personality. But "Poker night" is a nice name for a fic and a good idea for a story.

[WarpGirl]

I didn't say that anyone did believe Hoshi had a one dimensional personality. But based on what we saw on the show her happy night in Risa, that poker night, and her MU self were the only indications that she didn't have a stale personality, despite her potential. And since we were talking about what we saw I'm grateful they gave her a little color. Even if it was teen rebellion.

[Alelou]

You know, some of my college students are technically teens, i.e. they are 18 or 19, and occasionally even 17, but I honestly don't think of them as teens, but as young adults. If teen rebellion is something they need, they really should try to get that out of their system before they bother paying for college, since they probably won't make it through the first semester.

I would have assumed the same of Starfleet training.

[aadarshinah]

Just cause they should doesn't mean they do - especially if its on their parents money. I vividly recall my freshman roommate coming back to the dorm in the middle of the night and telling me not to worry, that she'd less than a cup of beer at the frat party... and then paused and asked me if a 1/2 cup, then a 1/3 cup, then a 1/4 cup, and then just a taste added up to less than a full glass.... But she managed to make it through 2 semesters and then some....

[Lady Rainbow]

At the risk of putting myself out here again...

In my story "The Bird in the Cage" on ff.net, I portray Hoshi as someone who was forced to grow up too quickly. I can sympathize with her dilemma in wanting to make her family proud (which is traditional among Asian families, esp. the Japanese) and her desire to be her own person. Being isolated pretty much stunted her social and emotional growth, and if she grew up being the model student and Ms. Prim and Proper, then I could see the pendulum swing too far the other way at another point in time. [I grew up in a repressive Filipino family, and both my sisters went the extreme opposite once they reached college age...and got into quite a bit of trouble. Eventually, they learned from their mistakes and they're both more centered and stable now.]

As was pointed out, Hoshi was pretty assertive when Archer tried to recruit her for Enterprise, which tells me she was pretty comfortable in his presence. I can also see Starfleet needed translators of her caliber; she said they needed her skills more than they needed to set an example by kicking her out of SF permanently. In that case, she could have cut a deal with SF at the time. Maybe she even expected to work at SF Command or something like that, or being attached to the Embassy, and not go on a spaceship.

The circumstances of the floating poker game was never expanded upon, so there could be a number of scenarios that could have happened here. It might have been self-defense, it might have not been, we don't know. That's what makes the possibility of expanding that time of her life interesting. As for being kick-ass, she was pretty close to it in "Sleeping Dogs" and "Marauders", and considering she tried to jump over the rail on the Xindi weapon...

If only the writers were more consistent w/her character, though. Instead of her being alternatively kick-ass and wallflowery...

[WarpGirl]

You know, some of my college students are technically teens, i.e. they are 18 or 19, and occasionally even 17, but I honestly don't think of them as teens, but as young adults. If teen rebellion is something they need, they really should try to get that out of their system before they bother paying for college, since they probably won't make it through the first semester.

I would have assumed the same of Starfleet training.

Sorry, but that is the most funny thing I've read in a week. College kids, young adults, late teens, whatever you want to call them still sow their wild oats. Most find a way to graduate, while hung-over most of the time. I hate to say it but while your assertion of what people in college and SF training should do would be LOVELY, its definitely rare.

LadyRainbow

[Brandyjane]

It's been a while since I saw "Observer Effect." Who told the first crazy story, Trip or Hoshi? If Trip was the one who set the precedent by saying that he'd taken out all the screws on his family's Thanksgiving table at the age of 25 or so, then maybe Hoshi was just trying to one-up him with her own goofy story.

[WarpGirl]

You know its funny if it was Trip saying, "at 17 I ran an illegal Poker game in SF training, and broke some guy's arm" nobody would care. However, I believe Trip started the tell a wild story from your past game. What I don't understand is, why is it so difficult to believe a young woman would have a few wild stories?