The fate of Phlox

Disclaimer: All characters and their names property of CBS Paramount, but here I'd like to offer what else I had in mind for Phlox, because someone objected to my ideas of having Phlox killed off. Everything is fictitious and non-canon.

This was in reply to this post in an IMDb thread.

Oh yes, Trip I would have kept for certain, and Mayweather and a couple for Maco-s, too :> — to at first exercise the art of neuropressue ^_^
And I know Archer didn't look all that bad either... compared to an average American his age.

Then an IMDb user's objection to my wishes about killing Phlox off...

Okay, then Phlox should have lost some of his syrupy positiveness, become gradually and irreparably crazy because of the Delphic Expanse (T'Pol was spared) and then placed in a psychiatric institution as a response...

In the absence of such an institution casually floating in space just in Enterprise's merry way, he'd despondently stay stuck in the brig, rarely smile, and crazy-tell interesting medical things in the fashion of Pythia (the Oracle of Delphi) for Silik to desipher (because Silik alone perhaps doesn't know everything about medicine, but has to improvise and maybe work together with T'Pol).

Silik's attempts in interpreting Phlox would at the beginning be like subtly goading Phlox into a worse state, perhaps until Silik realizes that this conduct of his really was not a good thing, but then it's far too late and the exchange would devolve into something resembling an Andorian inquisition (see Shran interrogating Soval). I am sure Silik would otherwise enjoy Phlox's condition, if not for the nasty exercise of trying to extract knowledge impossibly trapped somehere in Phox's degenerate brain. I wouldn't want in Archer's place to risk T'Pol doing a mind-meld.

The smiles of a Phlox like this would be reserved for something really devious in order to thwart Silik (despite his somehow good intentions towards Enterprise crew) and lead Silik astray, much to the chagrin of Silik and eventually the people at ENT, who would then be forced to make the 'hard' decision of completely ignoring Phlox and finally returning him to his three wives on Denobula to work something out of the impossible condition he has so inevitably succumbed to; Well, as much as each of them wives cares enough to please. — After all, each of Phlox's wives has up to three other husbands anyway, and each husband of those vies for their attention, too.

For Phlox to have endless terror instead of a terrible end is something I'd much enjoy watching. Of course, John Billingsley would have a field day with a scenario like that, but then there'd have to be equally great material for John Fleck, too.