“Terra Nova” is episode six of season one of Star Trek: Enterprise.
Hoshi and Travis are looking at some records from a planet when Captain Archer arrives, asking if they are there yet. In another 3 hours and 17 minutes. Travis has been digging through the archives to find a clue what happened to the colony. Archer says he will be the first if he does. Travis has been fascinated with Terra Nova since he was a kid. The lost colony. Hoshi asks Archer if he thinks anyone is still there. He will let her know. In about 3 hours and 17 minutes.
Archer is telling T’Pol about the colony; she isn’t familiar with the early years of human space exploration. Trip tells her that every schoolkid on Earth had to learn about Vulcan expeditions. T’Pol asks him to name one. Just because he had to learn doesn’t mean he remembered. Archer says it was a great experiment. Humans had colonised the Moon, Mars and the4 asteroids, but the question was if they could live in deep space. Terra Nova was an earthlike world 20 light years away. It took nine years to get there and nine to get back, but a colony was sent.
T’Pol asks what happened. No-one has heard from them in 70 years. After the colony was built, relations with Earth became strained. The space agency wanted to send more colonists. The existing colony protested. Out of stupidity frankly; 200 people is not enough to establish a viable colony, stop others from reaching a planet or take up very much of the planet itself. Angry messages were exchanged, contact was lost and no investigation was sent because it was an 18 year round trip. And they didn’t want to ask the Vulcans. T’Pol says that humans are quite resourceful; they may still be there. The closest she’s come to saying something nice about humans.
There’s no response from the colony to their hails. The buildings are there, but empty, and there are no biosigns. T’Pol reports low levels of radiation on the surface from something. A few hours of exposure shouldn’t pose a risk. Archer, T’Pol, Travis and Reed take a shuttlepod down. Travis is sent to check the communications array to see if they tried to contact Earth. T’Pol reports that the radiation would have been lethal 70 years ago. But where are the bodies? Archer tells T’Pol they couldn’t have left; the colony is made from the colony ship. It was designed for that.
Reed spots a humanoid in the forest. He contacts the captain and gives chase. The humanoid enters a cave. Reed and Archer will go in; there’s a network of caverns. Inside, they find food and tools. Then spot some humanoids. archer tries talking to them, when another appears with a gun and Reed stuns him. Archer and Reed have to flee, under fire from automatic weapons. T’Pol has to navigate them out. However, Reed is shot in the leg, then captured. Travis is attacked outside and T’Pol stuns his attacker. Archer arrives and they head back to the shuttle. Travis is concerned that the aliens may have killed the colonists and will kill Reed as well. T’Pol, who scanned the attacker, tells him they aren’t alien. They’re human.
52 biosigns are spotted below the surface, all human. Reed has been located. He isn’t responding to hails, but he’s alive. T’Pol suggests that the radiation drove the colony below. The tunnels are too deep for the transporter and Archer doesn’t want to try force. If they can’t make first contact with humans, they don’t deserve to be out here.
Archer travels back with Dr Phlox and calls out to the colonists. They are escorted under guard into the caverns. Phlox is introduced as being a Denobulan. Jamin (Erick Avari) on finding out Archer is from Earth thinks they are there to gut them like they did the rest. Phlox wants to treat Reed. The Novans do not think they are human. Humans are the ones who gutted the Novans, with the poison rain when they lived on the Overside. Archer is sure humans didn’t do that. He tells them that Novans are humans, but he doesn’t know what happened. Phlox has scanned Jamin’s mother, Nadet. She has lung cancer. It’s treatable, on the ship. Reed will stay behind.
The Novans need help but do not believe they are humans and have a massive distrust of such, which makes helping them extremely difficult. Archer and T’Pol discuss the morality of helping people live whether they like it or not. Starfleet has no Prime Directive yet, and this sort of thing is what leads to it being created.
Travis mentions some other mysteries, including the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Which would be solved by Voyager in the Star Trek: Voyager episode “The 37’s” 200 years in the future.