The season 3 finale of Enterprise featured a cliffhanger ending in which the ship finds itself apparently back on 1940s Earth. Whilst Enterprise sends a shuttlepod down to San Francisco and is fired upon by US aircraft, Archer finds himself in a Nazi field hospital. The very last scene shows an alien dressed in a Nazi uniform staring grimly down at Archer.
There has been much speculation that this mystery alien is a Reman, a species first seen in Nemesis and apparently cousins of the Romulans. This article is going to have a look at the two side by side and try to get at the truth.
| For | Against |
| Remans are only comfortable in the dark. The scene the mystery alien appears in is dark. | The mystery alien has red eyes. Remans do not. |
| The mystery alien's skin colouring is, as far as lighting allows us to judge, almost identical to a Reman's. | The mystery alien has two small ridges on his bottom lip. Remans do not. |
| Remans would be expected to be enemies of Earth at this point; the mystery alien is, presumably, hostile/evil. | Reman ears curve outwards. The mystery alien's do not. |
| Remans have a built up ridge around their eyes, which has a break in the middle. The mystery alien does not. |
| The mystery alien has a prominent V-shaped ridge beginning at his nose. Remans do not. |
| The mystery alien has jowls to the sides of his mouth. Remans do not. |
Although the mystery alien is very similar to a Reman in overall look, there are numerous detail differences between the two - the most notable being that the mystery alien has red eyes, something Remans do not. There are various differences in facial structure which also argue that the mystery alien is not a Reman, but these are a little less convincing. It might be that there is a fair bit of variability in Reman facial features beyond that seen in Nemesis, and that the mystery alien is just a little further from the norm than the Nemesis Remans.
Overall, it's just about possible to believe that the mystery alien is a Reman. However, all the evidence we have at the moment argues against it. Whoever the mystery alien is, he seems to be a new species.
Well, that was then and this is now. Turns out that , as predicted, the mystery alien was nothing to do with the Remans. They are a new species, one of the nastier temporal cold war factions. Problem solved, nothing to see here, move along.
I'm going to leave this here as a bit of a historical curiosity. Twenty years from now we can all look back and smile fondly at how we speculated over this...
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