"Babel One" is the twelfth episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Enterprise, and originally aired on January 28, 2005.
Pursuing the mysterious attacking vessel, they begin to uncover a plot to derail cooperative relations between the Tellarites, Andorians and humans.
Reviewers were positive about the episode, calling it an improvement on the previous week's "Observer Effect", and praised the ending.
It is November 2154, and Captain Archer and Ensign Sato spend time preparing for the arrival of Ambassador Gral and the Tellarite delegation, by practicing being blunt, complaining, and arguing.
En route to the trade summit on "Babel One", they detect a distress call from the Andorian warship, Kumari, now under attack.
Archer goes to meet him in Sickbay, and an angry Shran claims that both the Andorian Ambassador's and his ship were attacked and destroyed by a powerful Tellarite vessel.
However, when Archer convinces Shran to examine the evidence, a member of the Tellarite delegation is able to wrest a weapon from Talas, and shoots her.
Meanwhile, Commander Tucker, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed and two MACOs beam aboard the ship, only to find it deserted and without life support.
On Romulus, it is revealed that the ship is actually a drone, controlled by a pilot under the command of Romulan Admiral Valdore, supported by a scientist called Nijil, in an attempt to prevent a regional détente.
"Babel One" was directed by David Straiton, his third in season four after the second part of "Storm Front" as well as the stand-alone episode "Daedalus".
Joining him as a returning Andorian was Molly Brink, who had previously appeared as Talas in the episode "Proving Ground".
[5] Michelle Erica Green in her review for TrekNation enjoyed the interaction between Shran and Graal, and thought it was an improvement over the previous week's "Observer Effect".
[7] However, he criticised the promotional campaign by UPN, as he felt that the trailer for the episode had the "unfortunate effect of making the first 30 minutes of the plot extremely obvious to us, forcing us to watch in frustration while the characters put the pieces together".