Radiant Orb
is a fan fiction of Star Trek: Enterprise that is a spoof of the light bulb joke. It begins with the question "How many members of the First Enterprise does it take to change a lightbulb?" and then follows with Hoshi Sato's lightbulb blowing and the Enterprise crew (who are all spoofs of themselves) searching for the lightbulb.
Radiant Orb contains examples of
- Adaptational Dumbass: Played for laughs when Archer puts Porthos in charge despite the latter being a dog.
- Adaptational Wimp: In the series, Hoshi says that Spanish was an easy language to learn. In this, she can't speak it to save her life. She also can't speak Japanese, even though in the series she is Japanese.
- Animal Lover: Phlox, just like in the series, has many pets he cares about deeply.
- Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: Septik, rather unusually for a Vulcan, calls Archer a "stupid, stinky little crybaby".
- Bilingual Bonus: When the aliens speak in foreign languages. note
- The "feather of my aunt" translations are actually correct.
- "Ou est la Bibliotheque" actually means "where is the library?" in French.
- "La bibliotheque est a droit" means "the library is entitled"
- "Hola mi nombre is Juan. Como te llamas?" is Spanish and actually means "Hello, my name is Juan. What is your name?", but Hoshi thought it meant, "My number is one. How are your llamas?"
- "Jefe, puede usted decir cual es que lugar donde estamos siendo?" actually means "Boss, can you say where we are being?"
- "Hajime mashite. Watashi wa Takahashi desu." means "Nice to meet you. I am Takahashi.".
- Call-Forward: Malcolm Reed wishes he had a replicator.
- The Captain: Archer may be exaggerated and out-of-character, but he's still the captain of the ship. If only he could make proper log entries...
- Character Exaggeration: Hoshi was a little bit shy at the beginning of the series, but in this fanfic, she's very cowardly.
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: T'Pol is in her underwear for no good reason.
- Comically Missing the Point: When Archer asks T'Pol to explain herself, she explains her role in the storyline. Then, when Trip says that if Vulcans had their way, humans would still be wearing bearskins, she says that it isn't true since Vulcans don't wear fur.
- Communications Officer: Hoshi keeps her canon job, as shown when she hails the Vulcans.
- Cunning Linguist: Hoshi is meant to be the ship's linguist/interpreter but is portrayed as being incompetent.
- The Engineer: Trip's job is the engineer, but Archer thinks that means he needs to drive a plane.
- Foil: T'Pol thinks of herself as this, with her being an alien contrasting with everyone else being a human.
- Funetik Aksent: Trip's accent is written phonetically.
- Language Barrier: Two of the aliens they encounter didn't speak English, but they spoke Spanish instead.
- Lightbulb Joke: The premise of this story is "How many members of the first Enterprise does it take to change a light bulb?".
- Literal-Minded: T'Pol and Archer are portrayed as this, with T'Pol explaining her plot role when asked to explain herself and Archer thinking a subcommander commands a sub and Trip should drive a train.
- Lovable Coward: Hoshi is portrayed as this; a well-meaning but very skittish ensign who screams the moment she is startled and startles insanely easily.
- Medium Awareness: T'Pol has this, which shows when she's asked to explain herself and explains her role in the plot.
- Ms. Fanservice: T'Pol thinks of herself as this, with part of her role being to provide "sexual tension".
- Not So Stoic: T'Pol, a Vulcan, is described as looking uncomfortable at one point.
- Only Sane Man: Archer thinks leaving a dog in charge is a good idea, T'Pol runs around in underwear and talks in a meta way, Trip admits he isn't very book-smart, Phlox is flippant about the safety of his patients, Hoshi screams the moment Archer pats her on the back... and Malcolm Reed sensibly tells Archer not to let Porthos run the ship.
- Out of Character: Captain Archer. Unlike the real Captain Archer he wants to put his dog Porthos at the helm, doesn't know the meaning of "subcommander" and doesn't believe that a planet could have more than one language. Also, T'Pol randomly showing up in her underwear, and has Medium Awareness, believing herself to be Ms. Fanservice, a Foil, and Plucky Comic Relief, unlike the real T'Pol, who takes herself very seriously.
- Parody Fic: It's based on a joke setup, and everyone's an exaggerated version of themselves.
- Plucky Comic Relief: T'Pol thinks of herself as this, with her appearance and demeanour "adding humour".
- Script Fic: It's written in script style.
- Shout-Out: Archer tells the Andorian he is too big to be a Smurf. Smurfs are small, blue creatures from The Smurfs.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Hoshi claims she reads fluent animal.
- Tropey, Come Home: Phlox's alien pet is missing.
