"Terra Nova?" T'Pinhead Parker asks. "I'm surprised you've never heard of it," Quantum says. T'Pol tells him she's not "familiar" with Human Space Travel, The Early Years. "Really?" Trip says. "Every schoolkid on Earth had to learn about the famous Vulcan expeditions." "Name one," T'Pol tells him. Trip looks uncomfortable and says, "History was never my best subject." Neither was Table Manners, especially on NOT TALKING WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL DAY! "It was called 'The Great Experiment.' Could humans colonize deep space?" Quantum says, picking up The Water Pitcher Of Exposition and filling up Trip and T'Pol's glasses. Apparently, after establishing close-knit colonies in various space-burbs, Earth decided to try out a Class-M planet just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Earth -- twenty light years, to be exact. Trip supplies that the uh, trip, took the colonists nine years, and that his grandfather remembers seeing one of Terra Nova Colony's first transmissions home. T'Pol asks what happened to them. "People have been trying to answer that question for a long time. No one's heard from Terra Nova in over seventy years," Quantum tells her. "After the colony was built, relations with Earth became strained." Trip picks up The Exposition Pitcher and pours, "The Space Agency figured nothing succeeds like success, so they decided to send another vessel." Quantum explains that that idea stuck in the Colonists' collective craw, and they protested new arrivals. Eventually, after a few nasty emails flew back and forth across the light years, all communications ceased. T'Pol asks, logically, why Earth didn't send a ship to find out what the deal was. "Nine years there, nine years back," Quantum explains, "it would have been a pretty long trip." T'Pol points out that the voyage would have been pie to a Vulcan vessel. "Why didn't you ask them?" "Asking favors of the Vulcans usually ends up carrying too high a price," Trip tells her. T'Pol ignores this barb and tells Quantum, "My experience with humans is limited but I've come to learn that they're quite resourceful. Terra Nova may still be there, Captain." Quantum takes a bite of Pondering Pudding. Does it strike anyone as oddly cold-blooded that the eighteen-year round trip was the only thing that stopped Earth from finding out if the colonists had been eaten by Rock People, impregnated against their will by Eczema Aliens, or been drugged with Magic Spores? And the explanation for why they wouldn't have asked the Vulcans for help is lamer than a lame duck from the planet Lamea. "Too high a price"? The Vulcans may be annoying, but they aren't malicious or violent or prone to making offers humans can't refuse. It's not like the Vulcan ambassador would have charged a pound of flesh for every leg of the journey. Am I getting too riled up when the credits haven't even ended? I guess the caffeine finally kicked in.