“Shockwave, Part II” is episode one of season two of Star Trek: Enterprise.
In the season one finale, “Shockwave”, Daniels transported Captain Archer to the future. A future that was now ruined and had been for some time. Even though it wasn’t that morning. There was no way of sending him back.
Silik is threatening to destroy the Enterprise unless Archer is sent over as agreed. T’Pol tells him the captain isn’t there; Silik should check his own sensors. Or come take a look for himself. Silik chooses the latter. Reed wants to send security to intercept, but T’Pol points out there are 30 ships targeting them. They haven’t got much choice.
In the 31st century, Archer is asking Daniels how they are still there if things have changed. Daniels tells him that time travel is complicated and the captain wouldn’t understand. Archer wants him to try anyway. Daniels says the captain is right; they shouldn’t be there. Archer was brought forward to protect the timeline. They did quite a job. Then Daniels notices a monument is missing. Not to a who; to a what. Something called the Federation; it doesn’t exist for Archer yet. Daniels had mentioned a library and Archer suggests they look at it. Daniels says it’s no use; the data is stored electronically. Except it isn’t. It’s books. Made of paper. Daniels is surprised.
The Suliban have searched the Enterprise and found the stolen discs but not Archer. They did find a reading in the turbolift, though. Silik speaks to T’Pol and asks her about the temporal cold war. What does she know about it? That the captain reputedly spoke to Daniels, who Silik supposedly killed. Silik states there was a temporal signal in the turbolift. T’Pol tells him the last time they saw the captain, he was in that turbolift. Silik considers they may not be lying and orders the crew confined to quarters.
Ambassador Soval is meeting with Admiral Forrest. He wants to know where Captain Archer is. He was ordered to return to Earth after wiping out the colony, and meet with a Vulcan ship. Soval had avoided answering a question about whether the Vulcans had detected the Enterprise on long range sensors. He answers that they did. It was joined by a number of other vessels and is now no longer in sensor range. They don’t know what the vessels are. Soval is going to send the Vulcan ship in pursuit. Archer may not answer to him but T’Pol does, and Soval can only assume that Archer is holding her against her will, as she wouldn’t agree to this course of action.
The Enterprise is now docked to a Helix. Silik’s contact from the future isn’t responding – possibly because they don’t exist now – and Silik’s second is telling him they were ordered to destroy the Enterprise. Silik thinks the temporal signature changes everything, though, and wants T’Pol brought.
In the future, Archer has found no reference to the Federation. Daniels doubts he will, because the captain wasn’t there. Everything looks okay up to the warp 5 programme, then nothing does. Yes, there were a lot of people involved in the programme, but they didn’t bring a lot of people forward that morning. Just the captain. Daniels puts a book the captain found on the Romulan Star Empire back on a shelf. Archer wants to know what he did that was so important. Not just him; events the captain helped set in motion. The people after Archer were more interested in catching him than framing the Enterprise because they knew the role he would play.
The only chance Daniels has to restore his century is to get Archer back. Maybe they don’t need a time machine. Daniels wants Archer’s communicator and scanner. The people the Suliban are working for come from 300 years ago. They couldn’t travel through time but they could send back images of themselves to communicate through time. Daniels learnt in high school how to modify communicators to do the same.
As they work on the communicator, Silik questions T’Pol on what she knows about Daniels and time travel. The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel is impossible. Trip rigs up a means of communicating with the other crew through their doorbells. T’Pol is dumped in her quarters after questioning, and Captain Archer appears as a holographic image of his head in her quarters to talk to her from the future. This takes a bit of effort as T’Pol hasn’t recovered from questioning yet.
Somehow, in order to repair the future, Archer needs to escape back into the past. By using things from the past because the future lacks time machines now. Daniels was right; time travel is complicated.