Tucker: Somethin' I've been wondering, T'Pol -- have you got any stories about ancestors who looked exactly like you?
T'Pol: One, but I intended to save it for a less interesting point in the series.
Archer: Well, I'd rather hear it now. It's that or listen to Trip go on about his great-great-great-grandfather Chris again.
T'Pol: Very well. However, I warn you that the story will take 11 hours and 59 minutes to complete.
Archer: Well, I guess we can hold back the "Hoshi gets a crush on Travis" B-plot till next week.
T'Mir's Log: The Vulcan High Command has sent us to observe the first Earth spacecraft not to travel at warp. I hate the Vulcan High Command.
Stron: We're losing altitude!
T'Mir: You bungled a standard orbit? Who taught you to pilot, the rubber-tree tribe?
Mestral: It's not Stron's fault, T'Mir. I'm being pulled to Earth -- pulled by the power of the human heart.
T'Mir: Can I please go back to thinking it's his fault?
Tucker: Wait a sec. If your great-grandclone was around 115.9 years ago, how old does that make you?
T'Pol: Grrrrrr....
Tucker: Aw, shucks, honey, I didn't mean to get personal. You can just tell me how many Pon Farrs you've --
Archer: Trip, as your captain, I forbid you to kill yourself.
Mestral: We can't just keep surviving on acorns and marijuana. I say it's time to shoot Bambi's mother.
T'Mir: There's no need to be so heartless. If I decide to break with vegetarianism, I'll just eat you.
Mestral: Then it's settled: we go spy out the town.
T'Mir: What?
Mestral: Don't blame me if my logic is over your head.
Mestral: Perfect! A clothesline. Now all we need is a mechanical ricepicker.
T'Mir: Are you certain that my changing clothes behind this translucent sheet will prevent cultural contamination?
Mestral: Beyond question.
Hustler: Well, if it isn't Minnesota Ears. Let's shoot some pool.
Mestral: Sure -- if there's one thing my people endorse, it's gambling.
T'Mir: Mestral, what are you doing? You'll make us the laughing stock of the planet!
Mestral: Nonsense. It's just a game of simple physics whose rules I can't possibly know. How can I lose?
Tucker: Wait, the two Vulcans walk into a bar? I think I've heard this one.
T'Pol: Very well, Mr. Tucker: how does it end?
Tucker: Well, after all the cow-tipping, the first one wakes up in San Diego and finds out the second one mailed him there on a bet.
Archer: Ha ha ha ha ha! I love that one!
T'Pol: Humans.
Mestral: See? I told you that would work.
T'Mir: They only gave us the money out of pity.
Mestral: Don't be silly. You saw how well I played.
T'Mir: It took you fifty-nine shots to sink the 11 ball!
Mestral: Fifty-nine excellent shots.
T'Mir's Log: It has now been three months. Or seventeen... I am uncertain of Earth time units. Mestral and I have integrated ourselves seamlessly into the community and seem to be --
T'Mir: Wait a moment. How many of us were there?
Mestral: Uh oh... did we leave Stron in the forest?
Pause log recording.
Maggie: Hi, I'm Maggie the tragically widowed shopkeeper with a teenage son. Stereotype #1 to my friends.
Mestral: Charmed. Who's that?
Maggie: That's my son, Stereotype #2. He has college aspirations.
Jack: Actually, that's only my backup plan. I'm hoping to kill her and graduate to #1.
Mestral: I'm really starting to like it here.
T'Mir: Please don't make me hurt you.
Mestral: The people are so delightfully illogical....
T'Mir: You're a disgrace. Help me out here, Stron.
Stron: I'm still not talking to either of you.
Maggie: Did you enjoy the ball game?
Mestral: Certainly. A final score of 59 to 11 is most exceptional.
Maggie: That's not the kind of scoring I was thinking of.
Mestral: Your comments live up to your name, sweet Stereotype #1.
Maggie: Oh, Mestral, kiss me! Who cares if your live-in female friend is watching us?
Mestral: She's wh--? Ohhhh great.
T'Mir: Do I even need to say it?
Mestral: Yeah, yeah. Sharp ears good, round ears bad -- I know the drill. And speaking of drills, I'm going to go rescue some trapped miners.
T'Mir: You can't do that! You're breaking the No Rescuing Miners Directive!
Mestral: Big deal. I'm going to help and I'm sure Stron will back me up.
Stron: I hate you beyond all possible words.
Mestral: See?
Miner 1: Hurray! We're saved! Now we can continue our plan to engineer an army of superhuman tyrants.
Miner 2: Sure is a good thing we weren't left to die -- that would have been a really good thing for the timeline.
Mestral: Stop rubbing it in.
Jack: I want so much to go to college. There's so much to learn and discover and --
T'Mir: I know, I know. We all heard you the first 9511 times.
Jack: And you'll keep hearing it until you agree to help me kill Mom.
T'Mir: No.
Jack: I want so much to --
T'Mir: Okay, I'm leaving.
Vulcan Ship: (over the comm) Greetings. We just picked up the emergency signal you sent five years ago.
T'Mir: That's the last time I use Hotmail for a distress call.
Jack: Well, that's the end... no money for college. I'll never get to blow this stupid town now.
T'Mir: Um....
Maggie: If only some mysterious benefactor would give us the money we need! Someone with advanced technology and a good heart and --
T'Mir: All right, all right! Why do you have to nag me about this?
Maggie: We tried Stron first. See my son's black eye?
Businessman: You said you had an invention to sell?
T'Mir: Indeed. Watch this.
Velcro Closure: Shrrrrrrk
Businessman: It's brilliant! Ingenious! How soon can we market your revolutionary new "short hair on women" idea?
T'Pol: ....and thanks to T'Mir's eleventh-hour, fifty-ninth-minute donation, Jack could go to college and his mother's life was saved. The end.
Tucker: So that's why they call it Vulcro.
Archer: Wait a sec. What happened to Mestral?
T'Pol: Ah yes, him. Just before the Vulcan ship arrived, he made an announcement....
Mestral: I'm going to shoot JFK.
T'Mir: What?
Mestral: Whoops, wrong announcement. I meant to say I'm staying on Earth. To shoot JFK.
T'Mir: But, Mestral, we don't know what effect you'll have on the timeline! It's not like we can use 20th-century technology to build a machine that accurately predicts alternate futures -- how farfetched would that be?
Mestral: I don't care. I'm staying. Who knows... maybe forty years down the line I'll get to play holographic Nazis on TV.
T'Mir: Illogic makes baby Surak cry!
T'Pol: So the ship left without Mestral, and he spent his life helping the helpless and being a general Boy Scout. He was the only Vulcan ever to be cursed with a soul.
Archer: Well, thank you very much for the story, T'Pol. You've done wonders for our boredom.
Tucker: But we weren't bored before and we are n-- oh, I get it. Never mind.
T'Pol: You're welcome. But the question is... was my story fact or fiction?
Archer: Don't tell me -- you're going to leave us hanging till the end of the episode, right?
T'Pol: Right. Except for everything after "hanging."
T'Pol: And now to take out my souvenir of T'Mir's adventure and hold it contemplatively.
T'Mir's Purse: You should be contemplating giving me back, you purse-stealer.
T'Pol: Hush.
(Enterprise heads off at Ludicrous Speed)
THE END
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Colin 'Zeke' Hayman has been parodying Trek for over two years now at his website, Five-Minute Voyager, where ST episodes are reduced to "fivers" of one-twelfth their original length. Come to think of it, it's around 11:59 as he posts this.
