Fuck you, Brannon Braga

So, last night I watched Enterprise Season 2 Episode 22 "Cogenitor" and I'm pretty furious. Spoilers below.

Enterprise makes first contact with a new species called the Vissians. They are more technologically advanced than humans, although they're not as interested in exploring very far from home. They have 3 sexes: male, female, and "cogenitor". The latter makes up only 3% of the population, but they are necessary in the reproductive process. However, that's the only thing they are allowed to do. They are not allowed to be educated or even to leave their room unsupervised by the couple they're assigned to. They don't even have names. They are slaves.

Trip meets a Vissian couple and their cogenitor and is rightfully weirded out by how dehumanized (or devissianized) the cogenitor is. The couple refers to the cogenitor with the pronoun "it", and Trip uses "she". The cogenitor never expresses a preference for pronouns. (I will use "they".) Trip decides to teach them how to read, and it turns out they are a very fast learner, being able to read a geography book after only a day. The cogenitor decides to name themself Charles, after Trip. Trip gives Charles a tour of the Enterprise and shows them a movie. At some point the Vissian couple realize that Trip isn't where he said he would be, and Charles isn't in their quarters. They both get in big trouble.

Archer comes back from exploring a huge star and yells at Trip about how he shouldn't have "interfered in another culture". I guess if slavery is a cultural practice, we just have to respect that and do nothing. But wait: Charles has snuck onto Enterprise and requested asylum! Surely we can justify doing something now! Archer has a talk with the Vissians in which he seems sympathetic to Charles, but apparently they were a lot more convincing to him than they were to me, because he denies Charles' claim, with T'Pol assuring him that it's "the right thing to do". 

Archer gets a message from the Vissians later informing him that Charles has committed suicide. Archer relays this information to Trip and tells him it's all his fault. Not the Vissians' for enslaving Charles, not Archer's for denying a perfectly valid asylum claim. It's all Trip's fault for having compassion for a fellow sentient being.

Earlier, when Archer first finds out about the situation, Trip tells Archer he did it because he thought it was something Archer would've done. Archer replies: "If that's true, then I've done a pretty lousy job setting an example around here." Oh, really? Let's recap: Archer gave the Andorians intel on a Vulcan spying post, leading to destruction of it and one of the Vulcans' most sacred sites, and the exacerbation of tensions between the two species.  He interfered with a group of hunters hunting a sentient species. He liberated Suliban prisoners from an internment camp. He protected a trading post from Klingon marauders. He gave refuge to and refused to hand over fugitives wanted by the Klingon Empire. He's been perfectly willing to interfere in other cultures before. In other shows, Starfleet captains have granted asylum to almost everybody who has asked for it. Although the Prime Directive has been used to justify Starfleet looking the other way when it comes to injustice, it's never gone this far before. It's been pretty clear that in these situations, the safety of the individual requesting asylum takes priority over Prime Directive considerations. Also: the Prime Directive doesn't even fucking exist yet in this show! 

So. Whatever Brannon Braga was trying to do with this episode, all he did was make Archer look like a huge asshole. I can't wait for Democrats to start justifying the curtailing of asylum by saying that it "interferes" with claimants' home countries.