Character Insight No. 253: The Sphere Builders

Welcome back to Character Insight!  This week, we review the Sphere Builders, a recurring set of characters in Enterprise.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp253

The Sphere Builders are the villains behind the Xindi-Earth conflict that dominates over an entire season of this show.  Much like other top villains such as the Borg, the Sphere Builders try to destroy the Federation before it ever occurs because in a future timeline, the Federation foils this group's attempt to invade the Alpha Quadrant.  That means lots of time travel mumbo-jumbo is in order to explain this race.

The Sphere Builders repeatedly appear to the Xindi following the destruction of the Xindi homeworld, and the Xindi refer to them as religious figures called The Guardians.  The Xindi are guided to survive on habitable planets and then form multiple major weapons to attack Earth, all under the influence of the Sphere Builders.  This includes the prototype weapon that kills 7 million people in the initial attack of Earth, as well as a bio-weapon and the ultimate weapon that leads the Enterprise to track down the Xindi to stop the threat.

QUOTE (from Harbinger):
Sphere-Builder Test Subject: "When the Xindi destroy Earth, my people will prevail!"

The key to undermining the Sphere Builders in the time traveling schemes was time agent Daniels, who helps the Enterprise crew by transporting them through time to stop the bio-weapon threat and also helping them uncover evidence to prove the long-term manipulation of the Xindi to the leadership of the Xindi.  When this evidence causes some of the Xindi species to turn against the Sphere Builders, a final conflict emerges where the Builders try to destroy Enterprise while the Enterprise crew splits their attention between stopping the ultra weapon and disabling the Sphere Builder network, which creates the trans-dimensional space that allows these time travelers to exist in our realm.

I'll save the final conclusion of that battle to the main show, to avoid major spoilers for Mike and Darrell's trek through Season 3 of Enterprise.  But it's a satisfying end to a long story arc.

The concept of a mastermind meddling race causing the conflict between the Xindi and the future Federation is an interesting idea for building a conflict, but unfortunately, this also draws in a metric ton of time-traveling shortcuts from the 26th Century and garbage writing.  If you like the time travel stories and conundrums, you will love this.  But if you don't, it will be a long road, getting from there to here.

We see five Sphere-Builders on screen, played by Josette Di Carlo, Thomas Kopache, Alina Andrei, Ruth Williamson, and Mary Mara.  Kopache has had the most notable career of this group, with a regular role on The West Wing and appearances in movies like No Country for Old Men.  However, Andrei has been a top stuntwoman for many years and her most recent work is on The Orville, which launched this week for the sci fi parody laughs.

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