This is Enterprise version of "In the Pale Moonlight" from Deep Space 9. In both episodes, The Sisko and The Archer have to toss Ethics out the nearest Airlock in order to accomplish a more important Goal. For The Sisko it was to get The Romulans to scrag their "Non Aggression Pact" with The Dominion, for Archer, the stakes are just as high.
The Xindi are almost finished with their Planet-Obliterating weapon, And Enterprise is falling to bits.
The one difference between what happened "In the Pale Moonlight" and here is, in "Pale Moonlight", nobody else other than Elim Garak knew what had been done. But in "Damage", it had to be done with the Enterprise Senior Crew participation.
Casey Biggs shows up as yet another Alien, he was Legate Damar on DS9. Tucker Smallwood (From Space: Above and Beyond) is a Xindi council member, and for the first time we get to see one of the "Sphere Builders", played by Josette DiCarlo. Also, Scott Macdonald (Who was "Tosk" in DS9 and a Romulan Subcommander in TNG) is the main Reptilian Commander, who shows up for a few minutes at the beginning of this debacle.
The "B" Story in this episode is T'Pol's struggle with a sensitive issue, and it is driving her to take crazy life threatening chances.
All in All, many things are happening in this pivotal Ep. If I had seen this back when it was originally aired, I know I would have hated it. I despised this show for many years, on the basis of "These are the Voyages", but this was unfair to the 97 other great episodes this show produced. I am finally able to watch this show from start to finish, and it is much better than I remember. Probably because when I watched it On Air, all I had was a crummy 24" Magnavox TV, and it was broadcast in 4:3 rather than the 16:9 format I'm seeing it in now. And 7.1 Surround sound. Never knew the deck-plates of NX01 hummed like in TNG.