“Judgement” is episode nineteen of season two of Star Trek: Enterprise.
Captain Archer is brought before a Klingon magistrate. He’s accused of conspiring against the Klingon Empire. He pleads not guilty and is told he will have a chance to prove his innocence. If he cannot, there is one punishment.
Phlox is showed to the captain’s cell; he wasn’t sure if he’d be alive. Archer says he was promised a trial before his execution. Phlox scans the captain; it seems he’s claimed that Archer had a disease in order to visit him otherwise they wouldn’t have managed to see him at all. Starfleet and the Vulcan High Command are doing anything they can to get the captain released, with no luck. and Trip and T’Pol are exploring other options. Another Klingon arrives and tells Phlox to return to his ship.
The Klingon, Kolos, is the captain’s Advocate. The tribunal is about to begin. The captain is familiar with the charges but not with the justice system. Kolos will conduct the defence and he says he already knows what happened, despite not having spoken to Archer before. And Archer himself mustn’t speak during the tribunal. That’s not going to happen.
Captain Archer enters to Klingons shouting ‘Enemy!’ and the Prosecutor, Orak, enters. Kolos says Orak has a good success rate. When Kolos is asked about his own rate, he says he did his duty. Orak calls forth Duras, son of Toral, to tell of his encounter with the accused. Duras was the captain of a battlecruiser at the time; he’s since been demoted a lot. Duras was tasked with finding some rebels who had fled the Klingon Protectorate and bringing them to justice; he found the warp trail just outside Klingon territory.
Enterprise was docked with the other ship when found and was transporting the people aboard. One of Duras’s crew says they can defeat Enterprise easily. Duras has Enterprise contacted and Archer introduced himself as the captain of the Battlecruiser Enterprise. Duras demands the rebels; Archer refuses, saying that they have formed an alliance with them and will support their revolt. In the tribunal, the captain tells Kolos he didn’t say any of those things. Kolos thinks it isn’t important and Archer speaks up saying the people they helped weren’t traitors.
The Klingon ship is lured into the ring system of the planet they were orbiting after Enterprise opened fire first and, in the process, gets its engines disabled. Orak tells Duras he’s fortunate his first officer didn’t kill him after that failure. Kolos doesn’t have any questions for Duras; Duras won’t say anything to help the captain. According to Orak, they’re already being lenient. Archer’s crew hasn’t been accused nor have warships been dispatched to his homeworld. But he must be punished as severely as the laws demand. When Kolos doesn’t say anything, Archer speaks up and gets shocked for his trouble.
Back in the cell, Kolos says the magistrate will be lenient if Archer says where he took the rebels. Archer will not, even to save his own life. Archer wants to testify and doesn’t think much of the Klingon justice system. Nort, it seems, does Kolos any longer. He became an Advocate many years ago. Different times, when courts were willing to listen. The captain suggests Kolos reminds them of those times.
In the tribunal, Kolos says the captain wants to testify in his own defence. Orak objects and Kolos recites laws that allow the captain to speak. Orak is told by the magistrate to show the same respect to Kolos that Kolos showed to him.
According to Captain archer, they encountered a drifting and damaged ship. Those onboard explain their colony was annexed several years ago by a species they’d never seen before. They were stripped of all their resources and those who did it never came back with food or fuel. They had to leave or die, and half of them died in the process.
Captain Archer’s description of events is rather different to that of Duras, and probably closer to the truth. But he did help people considered rebels by the Klingon Empire. In the process, Kolos explains how becoming a warrior is now seen to be the be all and end all of Klingon ambition; other Klingons do not get the respect that they used to do.