Daystrom Institute

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 5x10 The New Next Generation.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

I have an odd question that will probably never be answered now unless they decide to bring this species to other Trek shows: why are members of Merp’s species called “Big Merp”, “Sleepy Merp”, or just “Merp”?

Obviously out of universe, they’re likely just a parody of the Smurfs.

My personal favorite theory that would be that Merpkind (or whatever they are called) doesn’t actually have a native concept of individual names. However, they’ve got to put something on the Federation paperwork, so they typically just do whatever and stick with it.

Alternatively, fitting more with the Smurf thing, Merp communities identify each other via adjectives or roles much like the Smurfs.

What’s your ten cents?

EDIT: Thinking on it, it could be a combination. No one has a set name - some might call their spouse “Mate Merp”, while that spouse might be referred to by a boss as “Strong Employee Merp.” When doing Federation paperwork, Merps typically choose which descriptor they’re more fond of. For instance, Sleepy Merp may have been referred to as that by a parent.

The Last Federation is an obscure game made by Arcen, the makers of AI War. I haven't played this game yet, though I intend to try it at some point but I think the premise just absolutely SCREAMS Star Trek to me and I think if the people who own the Star Trek IP were smart they would go to Arcen and offer them a reasonable development budget to make a more polished spiritual successor to The Last Federation in the Star Trek universe and have basically a guaranteed cult hit created by a studio with a known record of creating games that are interested in mechanical nuance in an oddly similar way to the way Star Trek is interested in narrative nuance to storytelling and perspectives. (I mean have you played Tidalis?, "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Variations" is the whole shtick of that game's approach to the match-three genre!!!)

Not that Star Trek doesn't fumble the ball or tell war stories, I am talking about the trek that isn't too cheesey... (note: slices of cheese are necessary though to engage the audience, I mean in terms of taste not taste), you know.... the good trek

description from GOG

From the creators of AI War: Fleet Command comes an all-new grand strategy title with turn-based tactical combat, set in a deep simulation of an entire solar system and its billions of inhabitants. You are the last of a murdered race, determined to unify or destroy the 8 others.

As the last remaining Hydral, it is up to you to create a lasting federation of planets and usher in an era of peace and prosperity to the solar system. Bring spacefaring technology to underdeveloped societies, manipulate their economies, political systems, and diplomatic relations. Do whatever it takes to end strife in your solar system. Remember, when helping civilizations evolve, sometimes they evolve faster when a large multi-headed monster is glaring menacingly at them.

I think in particular any Star Trek game is probably going to need to lean a bit on the lore and story of Star Trek to be authentic.. but that requires potentially a lot of work and custom story writing but the translation is so obvious here that I am sure Arcen studios could look at the Star Trek universe and basically just map most of their pre-existing mechanisms in The Last Federation to their Star Trek closest equivalent and be off to the races with setting up naturally evolving dynamic stories, plausible "what ifs" in the Star Trek universe, without having to do a large amount of storywriting from scratch or feel constrained by needing to get an entire plotline and details approved by an overarching IP holder....

I just thought of another amusing synergy here, the most common complaint about The Last Federation seems to be that the actual ship combat feels a bit disjointed from the rest of the strategy game and there is a tension over whether those two radically different parts of the game cohere into a satisfying wholistic experience. Well.... a HUGE part of Star Trek is nerding out about the ships.. so no Star Trek Fan is going to say "Damn it WHY would I want to manually command all my favorite Star Trek ships in battle when I have an EMPIRE TO MANAGE" who is simultaneously the kind of nerd who will purchase a Star Trek strategy pc video game so boom there goes the biggest flaw of The Last Federation with just a bit of reframing.

After all most of the most venerable captains in Federation see the place where you can make a true difference is in actually being the captain of a Starfleet ship and going out there yourself to help people, it is part of the DNA of the show to never really want to leave the "buccaneering ship captain" part behind.

What was formerly an odd quirk that could be offputting to new players is now a clever excuse for fans to get to take command of their favorite star trek ships and blast it out in battles in between playing an empire/diplomacy strategy game that is actually authentic to the heart of Star Trek.

I mean COME ON the plot for The Last Federation is straight out of a Star Trek Voyager episode, a last-of-a-species ancient being with a badass ship, immense power, and a benign interest in stopping intergalactic war (or not?) that isn't widely known in the universe is totally within the realm of reason for Star Trek lore. There are probably a dozen characters/species that could fit that description pre-existing in the Star Trek lore ready to go.

....or you know make it a freakin' Star Trek Prodigy themed game where your ship is the U.S.S. Protostar and it features all the characters from Prodigy as the crew of your ship oh my gosh yes yes yes

sorry for a billion edits I am tired

The title plays off Star Trek: The Next Generation, which succeeded TOS in 1987 - the last time that label was used being in PIC Season 3’s opener, “The Next Generation”, with its finale, “The Last Generation”, evoking that as well. Of course, by episode’s end, we see the aptness of the title as a torch is passed for a new frontier.

Relga’s lapdog is likely just a toy breed of targ. I originally thought it might be a variant of the Alfa 177 canine first seen in TOS: “The Enemy Within” as it appears to have the same unicorn horn but it's the wrong color and the Alfa 177 dog has antennae and no tusks.

As mentioned last episode, a soliton wave in Star Trek is a faster-than-light wave that was thought to have practical applications in warp propulsion or faster than light communications (TNG: “New Ground”), but was also potentially destructive.

As the wave hits the ships, a Klingon is transformed into a DIS-style Klingon, specifically the alien design and white costume of L’Rell in Season 1. An external shot also shows the ship (the Krtas) transformed into a DIS-style Bird of Prey before it collides with another K’Vort-type and is destroyed.

Honus (last seen in LD: “Caves”) is tending bar. T’Ana suggests Sexy Treasure Island to Shaxs, another in their series of erotic holoprograms (they had a black-and-white Bonnie and Clyde one in LD: “Room for Growth” and a Robin Hood one in LD: “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee”).

This unnamed cadet is a different one from the younger one we last saw in LD: “Upper Decks”. He’s also wearing glasses, which might indicate he is allergic, like Jim Kirk, to Retinax 5 (ST II).

I honestly don’t know if T’Lyn and Tendi are messing with Mariner or not, but I will dutifully file away that half of all bopples are corbed, and corbopples are foundational elements of artificial gravity. Artificial gravity systems generally rely on generated graviton fields (TNG Technical Manual) and gravity plating.

A Bramble is an actual cocktail, consisting of dry gin, lemon juice, sugar syrup, crème de mûre, crushed ice and finished off with fresh red fruits and a slice of lemon.

In the real world, Boimler and Mariner’s account would sound insane, but this is Starfleet. As Janeway said in VOY: “Deadlock”, “Weird is part of the job.”

This is Ma’ah’s cargo freighter (last seen in LD: “A Farewell to Farms”), instantly recognizable with its brush devil tusks decorating the bow.

Relga’s brothers are revealed to be Bargh and Dorg, the latter being Ma’ah’s former commander whom he killed to gain the captaincy of the IKS Che’Ta’ in LD: “wej Duj” and the former being the head of the Oversight Council who Ma’ah killed in “A Farewell to Farms”. Both deaths were justified, though, with Dorg killed in a proper captain’s challenge and Bargh in self-defense after an attempted backstab.

A Schrödinger possibility field is named after physicist Erwin Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment involving a cat in a box whose state of life or death cannot be determined until the box is opened and the quantum wave function representing the cat collapses into one of the two possible outcomes.

Starfleet says Enterprise is en route. As of LD’s current year of 2382, this would still be the Sovereign-class Enterprise-E, since it would participate in the Battle of the Living Construct in 2384 (PRO: “Supernova”).

The alien researcher is an Ariolo, a centaur-like species that first appeared in ST IV and has made multiple background appearances in LD.

We see Ensign Meredith (last seen in LD: “Upper Decks”) and Ensign Olly (last seen in LD: “Of Gods and Angles”).

“[Mariner] is my cha’DIch’s cha’Dich”, says Malor. A cha’DIch is the title for a Klingon’s “second”, which also holds implications of mentorship.

Carol Freeman’s husband is Admiral Alonzo Freeman, who was on the conference call briefing Cerritos on her mission. petaQ can be translated as “weirdo”. Hu’tegh (untranslated) is a general invective in Klingon.

Boims using the ship’s shields to nudge one BoP into another is actually a pretty cool maneuver.

The first wave turns Cerritos into a Freedom-class, a kit-bash that appeared as part of the wreckage of the Battle of Wolf 359 (TNG: “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”).

Freeman brings up an interesting point about warping with one nacelle. Traditionally, two nacelles create two balanced, interacting warp fields which can be shaped to maneuver the ship. According to the TNG Tech Manual, experiments in 2269 confirmed that two was the optimum number for power generation and vehicle control. As Tendi says, one nacelle for warp is still possible…but we don’t have time to nerd out about this now.

The Klingon BoP is turned into an ancient Klingon sailing barge, a mythical version of one ferrying dishonored Klingon souls to Gre’thor, the Klingon equivalent of the Norse Hel (VOY: “Barge of the Dead”), as opposed to Sto’vo’kor, the Klingon Valhalla.

Matt and Kimolu, the Cetacean Ops beluga whales, were last seen in LD: “Starbase 80?!”

The next wave turns Cerritos into a Terran Empire variant of the California-class. The Terran Empire is of course from the oft-encountered Mirror Universe (TOS: “Mirror Mirror”, et al.), which we last saw in PRO: “Cracked Mirror”.

Ensign Olly, being a descendant of Zeus (or the alien the Ancient Greeks called Zeus as per TOS: “Who Mourns for Adonais?”), has lightning powers which I hope she finally sees actually are useful.

The proto-Klingons Relga and her crew are turned into resemble to a large degree the same form Worf devolved into in TNG: “Genesis” when affected by Barclay’s Protomorphosis Syndrome.

The next wave turns Cerritos into a Sovereign-class, like Enterprise-E, including of course the bridge design (First Contact), then an Oberth-class (ST III), Galaxy-class (TNG), Miranda-class (ST II), and back to California-class.

The engineer to observe Rutherford’s speed is his nemesis/rival Livik, last seen in LD: “Starbase 80?!”

Cerritos splitting into two quantum possibilities is similar to what happened to Voyager in VOY: “Deadlock”, where a subspace divergent field duplicated the ship and personnel.

Next to Ma’ah on his new bridge are Malor, together with the pet targ that Ma’ah inherited from Dorg (LD: “wej Duj”), and K’Ellara, his would be paramour from LD: “A Farewell to Farms” (voiced by Mary Chieffo in that episode).

Starbase 80’s systems, as stated in the titular episode, hadn’t been updated since the 2260s, which makes it ideal for guarding the newly created quantum portal, much like DS9 guarded the Bajoran wormhole or Jurati’s Borg fleet guards the mysterious fissure of PIC Season 2. Kassia was also last seen in that episode. We see that Anximander and her crew (LD: “Fissure Quest”) made it.

I won’t bother identifying all the personnel shown in the final montage, just point out a few notable things.

Olly is showing off her Kamehameha move in her bunk. One of the players in the poker game is wearing a Zebulon Sisters Chu Chu Dance shirt. The Sisters performed on Cerritos in LD: “Terminal Provocations” but were later banned from performing on active duty starships by Admiral Jellico (LD: “Grounded”).

In engineering, Livek and Meredith are working on what seems to be an even more improved version of the Billups Tubes from LD: “I Have No Bones and I Must Flee”. The Billups Tubes were an “improved” version of the Tucker Tubes (Modern Props 195-290-1, also known as “The Most Important Device in the Universe”, a common sci-fi prop seen in many movies and shows).

In case anyone doesn’t know, that isn’t Badgey, but Goodgey, his good twin (LD: “A Few Badgeys More”), who remained on Cerritos when Badgey ascended. Speaking of which, the person being ejected from the portal in Sickbay is O’Connor, who we last saw ascending to a higher plane in LD: “Moist Vessel”. Guess it didn’t take.

“Twaining” is a form of dispute resolution that involves dressing up like Mark Twain in a riverboat holoprogram, last seen in LD: “Old Friends, New Planets”. We see another one of Castro’s salons (LD: “Hear All, Trust Nothing”) but this time they’re lighting a plasma candle - one of which housed the infamous anaphasic “ghost” of TNG: “Sub Rosa”. Which also makes their cheering a bit suspect.

Shaxs always wants to detonate the warp core, but Freeman only allowed it in LD: “The Stars At Night”, which brought him to tears.

The idea of captains formally having their individual go-to-warp catchphrases didn’t really become a thing until SNW: “The Broken Circle” when Spock was encouraged to have one and he came up with, “I would like the ship to go now.” Prior to that, each captain just had their own go-to order. For example, Picard had a few but it was usually, “Engage.” Pike’s is, “Hit it.” Burnham’s is, “Let’s fly.” Freeman’s is, “Warp me,” and Dal’s (from PRO) is “Go fast.” Ransom’s is “Engage the core,” a very dad joke given his exercise obsession.

And so, farewell Lower Decks, for now. It’s been a gas.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 5x09 Fissure Quest.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

The title refers to the transdimensional fissures that Cerritos has been dealing with in this season.

Raktajino is “Klingon Coffee”, although in truth its history is a bit more complicated. In short, raktajino is a Federation version of ra’taj (Klingon coffee with liquor) with added nutlike flavoring (making it raktaj) and cream, creating a portmanteau of “raktaj” and “cappuccino”: raktajino. A fuller explanation can be found here. As a side note, the Klingons got coffee from raiding human ships, and both developed a taste for it and started growing it themselves on Qo’noS.

Mariner and Boimler are drinking from Highwave Hotjo 14 oz. travel mugs, which were used as props on DS9. Boimler’s full beard has finally grown in, mutton chops and all.

Boimler was transporter cloned by accident in LD: “Kayshon, His Eyes Open”, with the clone taking the name William Boimler, taking Bradward’s place on the USS Titan. William was apparently killed by a neurocine gas leak in LD: “Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus”, but that was a cover for his recruitment by Section 31.

Oddly enough, Section 31 - the rogue covert intelligence organization that does (officially) unsanctioned ops in the name of preserving the Federation, first mentioned in DS9: “Inquisition - is never mentioned in the episode. However, William is wearing a Section 31 combadge (first seen in DIS: “Point of Light”).

Shax died in LD: “No Small Parts”, but reappeared with only vague allusions to dark truths about scientific depravity and the afterlife in LD: “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”.

William’s command, the Defiant-class USS Anaximander, escapes Quantum Reality 582.76-Φ. With him are alternate universe counterparts of characters we know. Anaximander (c.610 to c.546 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Thales, who subscribed to the notion the the universe arose from a boundless ultimate reality, the apeiron.

The Anaximander name was given to a Ptolemy-class transport tug (NCC-3804) in Franz Joseph’s 1975 Star Fleet Technical Manual.

In our reality, T’Pol (voiced by original actor Jolene Blalock) was Archer’s first officer on the NX-01 Enterprise, from ENT, who had a relationship with Chief Engineer Trip Tucker . Curzon was the Trill Dax host immediately before Jadzia, from DS9.

Garak (voiced by original actor Andrew Robinson) was the tailor/spy exiled to DS9, and given his thinly veiled relationship with Dr Julian Bashir (voiced by original actor Alexander Siddig), it’s appropriate his counterpart is married to an EMH based on Bashir. In the Prime universe, the Mark II EMH was supposed to be modeled on Bashir until his secret as an Augment was revealed (DS9: “Doctor Bashir, I Presume”). The EMH Bashir uses a mobile emitter like the Prime universe’s Doctor EMH (obtained in VOY: “Future’s End”).

There is a fan fiction script by Ellie K-E/@almaasi, “Little Achivements”, a dialogue between Garak and Bashir 20 years after the events of DS9, which depicts them as being married, and notable for having been performed by Robinson and Siddig. It’s sweet. You should go see.

As a side note, a team made up of alternate reality counterparts was also the basis of the 2000s Marvel comic Exiles.

Neelix was the cook/morale officer on the USS Voyager during most of her time in the Delta Quadrant. A “really big Spock”, a giant clone, was seen in TAS: “The Infinite Vulcan” and its skeleton displayed as part of a collection in LD: “Kayshon, His Eyes Open”.

William is understandably jaded by all the variations on a theme he’s seen (he does a Picard face-cover meme gesture at one point). This is a meta commentary on not just how the multiverse has been treated in Star Trek (Mirror Universe, Kelvin Timeline, et al.) but how multiverses have been treated - especially recently in the MCU - in popular culture in general.

Harry Kim (voiced by original actor Garrett Wang) was the Operations Officer on Voyager, who famously was never promoted from Ensign in its entire seven-year run. The one just beamed on board wears lieutenant’s pips, though. Harry is treated better in the beta canon, with the IDW comic and the post-“Endgame” novels promoting him to a full Lieutenant and Star Trek Online making him a Captain.

The black and white outfit with red piping worn by one of the Kims is a Starfleet racing uniform seen in VOY: “Drive”.

Curzon was known for his close relationships with Klingons and his love of Klingon culture, explaining his skill with a bat’leth.

The uniform variations seen on the Harrys are the First Contact-era uniforms, the original Voyager uniforms and the aforementioned racing uniform. They all seem to be wearing the DS9 and VOY-era combadgea. One Harry is playing the clarinet, as does his Prime counterpart.

Julian Bashir and Miles O’Brien went from being rivals to best friends on DS9, who played various sports together, darts and racquetball being most prominent.

Alt-Mariner says her Troi (presumably Deanna Troi) was transporter cloned and stranded on a planet for years, like William Riker’s transporter clone Thomas (TNG: “Second Chances”). Her Boimler wears a leather jacket all the time, perhaps like the one Prime Boimler wore in LD: “Cupid’s Errant Arrow”.

Voyager did have more than her fair share of Borg infiltrations. The aliens trying to steal organs are a reference to the Viidians (VOY: “Phage” et al.).

Two-Pip Kim complains that everyone gets promoted before ops because no one knows what they do. To be fair, Ops is a rather vague description. According to the Star Trek TNG Technical Manual, Operations Management Officers coordinate activities and mission goals between departments, prioritizing and resolving conflicting demands on ships resources. They also allocate power during crisis situations, routes information to specific departments and the ship’s computer and monitor incoming and shipboard communications.

Alt-T’Pol says she “was” married to a human for 63 years, which suggests that Alt-Trip is now dead in her reality (he would be 261 years old if still alive, which is not likely for a human, even in the 24th Century). In the Prime reality, Trip ostensibly died in 2161 (ENT: “These Are the Voyages”), and he and T’Pol never married. However, the novels retconned this death, and it is a testament to how universally hated Trip’s death was that it’s one of the few retcons about which I have never heard anyone complain about.

petaQ is a Klingon epithet which can be translated as “weirdo”.

The ship flying out of the rift reminds me of the XCV-330 Enteprise from the 22nd Century, first seen as part of the Enterprise lineage of ships in a painting in TMP. It is based on an early Matt Jeffries design concept for Enterprise from 1964. The ring structure might be a coleopteric warp drive which the XCV-330 used, also used by Vulcan starships.

biHnuch means “coward”, first appearing in TNG: “Sins of the Father” and then in LD: “The Least Dangerous Game” as part of the name of the tabletop RPG the Lower Deckers play, Bat’leths & BiHnuchs.

The appearance of the Khwopian and the bog environment tells us that they’ve landed on a version of the planet Khwopa (LD: “Much Ado About Boimler”), on which Cerritos helped repair a water filtration system.

Alt-Curzon mentioning drinking bones is a reference to moopsies, otherwise cute looking animals who do just that (LD: “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee”).

The woman in an ENT-era jumpsuit (but with a different shoulder patch) is an alternate of Lily Sloane (voiced by original actor Alfre Woodward), an associate of Zefram Cochrane in the mid-21st Century (First Contact).

Alt-Garak is not “just” a surgeon, in the same way Prime Garak is not “just” a “simple tailor”.

Alt-Lily’s ethical boundaries against contacting species who can’t cross realities on their own is similar to how Starfleet’s Prime Directive uses warp drive as a guide as to whether a civilization is ready for First Contact.

Alt-Lily’s ship is called the Beagle, probably named after Charles Darwin’s HMS Beagle, an early ship of exploration. As a Star Trek related cut, the merchant ship SS Beagle was involved in the events of TOS: “Bread and Circuses”. An even deeper cut is that A.E. Van Vogt’s 1950 SF novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle is sometimes cited as a proto-Star Trek type story.

So the final villain this season is Two-Pip Kim, which in a meta way is appropriate since last season’s big bad was Nick Locarno, who totally does not look like Harry’s best friend Tom Paris.

A “micro warp jump”, a jump over much shorter distances than usual, was the basis of the Picard Maneuver (TNG: “The Battle”).

Alt-T’Pol’s transferring Alt-Dax’s memories to herself is like the reverse of what Spock did to McCoy when he transferred his katra in ST II.

A soliton wave in a Star Trek context is a faster-than-light wave that was thought to have practical applications in warp propulsion or faster than light communications (TNG: “New Ground”), but was also potentially destructive.

The first time “To Be Continued…” was used on LD was at the end of LD: “First First Contact”.

Spoilers for “Subspace Rhapsody” (Strange New Worlds season 2 episode 9)

This question is 100% hypothetical. Would the episode have the same plot if Spock at completed kolinahr at this point in his life?

The title, an inversion of the series’ name, indicates the focus in this episode on the bridge crew. It is the flip side of and a play on TNG: “Lower Decks”, an episode focused on the lower deckers when the series is mainly about the bridge crew.

Whatever Stardate it is, it’s Halloween on Cerritos. Although Picard seemed to be unfamiliar with the holiday in TNG: “The Big Goodbye”, McCoy makes reference to it in TOS: “Catspaw”. Mariner used to dress as Toby the Targ for Halloween (LD: “Crisis Point”) and Boimler dressed once as Christopher Pike (SNW: “Those Old Scientists”). As a bit of trivia, the registry number for the USS Discovery, NCC-1031, was allegedly chosen by Bryan Fuller because he loved Halloween.

V’Ger is the antagonist in TMP, and Mariner quotes the Ilia probe from the movie’s climax. This season, V’Ger joined the ever crowded starship battle in the opening credits.

Boimler’s mustache has finally joined up with his goatee, although his muttonchops have yet to. His line about how the lower deckers are the stars of the show while the commanders fade into the background is a meta comment on LD itself.

Steve Stevens makes another appearance, this time a speaking one, and he appears to be assisting Freeman now rather than following Ransom around as he used to.

Barnes is a Trill Operations Officer who used to date Rutherford (LD: “Second Contact”). The most memorable example of a pathogen causing devolution is from TNG: “Genesis”, where a mutated T-cell allowed dormant genes to be transferred from one person to another. Nurse Ogawa, in particular, devolved into an ape-like form.

The Clickets, an insectoid race that treated thanks as a hostile gesture, first appeared in LD: “Veritas”.

Shax’s hallucination reminds me of the multiple Shaxes Rutherford thinks about when he’s trying to figure out how Shax returned from the dead (LD: “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”).

Freeman says she doesn’t want the buhgoon defecating all over the hull. Coincidentally enough, the Cambodian word for “toilet” is bangkon, which is pronounced similarly.

Billups talks about Cordry Rocks in the ceiling which Ransom complains always fall on him when they take damage. This is the first time anyone in-universe has ever acknowledged the rock-like material that flies about whenever consoles explode since TNG. Billups starts to technobabble that that “their non-centrosymmetry disrupts the charge leptons in the isolinear pathways of the main deflector, which then causes…” but is cut off. The rocks may be named after Marian Cordry, who works at the Star Trek Archive & Library at Paramount Global.

The Professor is a Grazerite, the same species as Federation President Jaresh-Inyo (DS9: “Homefront”). Ransom calls the buhgoon “space cows”. They are an extremophile, much like tardigrades are known as “water bears”. Tardigrades in the Trek universe can grow to much larger sizes than their microscopic terrestrial counterparts, of course (DIS “Choose Your Pain”).

Delta Shift, formerly the nemeses of our Beta Shift, has been assigned the task of bringing a buhgoon on board. The auburn-haired ensign is Moxy, who first appeared in LD: “Terminal Provocations” (from her forehead markings she could be a Trill). The one blaming “Ensign Friendly” is Karavitus, who also first appeared in “Terminal Provocations”. The burly male is Hans Federov, better known as “Towel Guy”, who was finally given a first name in LD: “The Stars at Night”. “Friendly” is Ensign Castro (from Beta Shift), who first appeared in LD: “Envoys” and is also voiced by Gabrielle Ruiz (T’Lyn).

We see the shuttles Kings Canyon, Yosemite II, Joshua Tree II and Redwood, named after Californian National Parks. The original Yosemite shuttle crashed in LD: “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie” and Joshua Tree in LD: “Grounded”.

Tempasa was a settlement on Bajor, outside of which was located a Cardassian heavy weapons unit. Kira and her resistance cell raided and destroyed it (DS9: “Ties of Blood and Water”), although her father died while she was away on the mission. Shax’s flashback to Tempasa explains how he got his right eye scarred.

Nurse Westlake is named after Chris Westlake, composer for LD’s soundtrack. He first appeared in “Second Contact” and has been around throughout the show, although this is the first time we’ve heard him speak. Westlake talks about viruses that can make “everyone sing or whatever”. While not viral-based, a singing plague did strike in SNW: “Subspace Rhapsody”.

The PADD schedule notes Barnes’ sousaphone recital, a fertility event, and Winger Bingston Jr’s One Man Show, “The United Federation of Characters”, last seen performed in LD: “Moist Vessel”.

The buhgoon have a natural cloaking ability. Other species with biological invisibility include the Jem’hadar (DS9: “The Jem’hadar”), Tosk (DS9: “Captive Pursuit”), Xaheans (ST: “Runaway”), the itronok of Trill (DIS: “Jinaal”). Technically, the Devidians as well, since their natural state is being out of phase (TNG: “Time’s Arrow”).

Bingston’s line “Stuck out of phase, like Geordi and Ro wandering alone,” refers to the events of TNG: “The Next Phase”. The USS Manticore is a Manticore-class destroyer in Star Trek Online, but Bingston’s line implies this is an Oberth-class vessel of that name. Stevens wakes up clapping, much like Riker does in TNG: “Schisms”.

The alien ship is of Clicket design, last seen in “Veritas”.

“Dumber than Fletcher,” says one of the Delta Shifters. Fletcher was a dangerously incompetent officer who was eventually transferred off Cerritos (“Terminal Provocations”). His stint on the USS Titan lasted only six days, after which he was demoted and sent back to Earth.

Ransom has a habit of working out when trying to make decisions (LD: “No Small Parts”).

Ensign Meredith first appeared in LD: “Room for Growth” and is voiced by Charlotte Nicdao, whose Aussie accent some might recognize from Apple TV+’s Mythic Quest.

The Bynars are a race of cybernetically enhanced humanoids who are gifted in programming (TNG: “11001001”). They last appeared on LD in LD: “Old Friends, New Planets”, and made an appearance in PRO: “Ascension”.

The Grazerite Professor (whose name is Zurkel) is revealed as a Clicket, in a reveal that reminds me of when the Visitors in V were exposed as reptilian rather than humanoid. It’s also reminiscent of the Bug coming out of its human disguise in the first Men in Black movie and the Raxacoricofalapatorians from Doctor Who.

As noted above, Freeman dealt with the Clickets in “Veritas”, which makes Zurkel’s infuriation understandable.

Billups’ situation is reminiscent of Spock’s death scene in ST II, where he too was dying in a tube, except that opening it would release radiation, not coolant.

Billups’ first name, Andarithio (his friends call him “Andy”) was revealed in “Veritas”. The unnamed cadet first appeared at the end of LD: “wej Duj”.

“Zo”, or Admiral Alonzo Freeman, is Carol Freeman’s husband and Mariner’s father. We last saw him in “Old Friends, New Planets”. The holodeck is set to Paris, and is similar to the view from the Cafe Des Artistes seen in TNG: “We’ll Always Have Paris”.

Shax is drinking out of a purple Highwave Hotjo 14 oz travel mug used in DS9. The purple ones were custom colored for the show, but they are currently available from Highwave (US and Australia shipping only) if you want them, in Deep Space Purple.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 5x07 Fully Dilated.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

The title refers to the time dilation effect on Dilmer III, and is a pun on either fully dilated pupils in drug use or fully dilated cervixes in labor, or both.

The stardate is 59499.6. The dimensional fissures leading to parallel dimensions have been a recurring thing this season, starting with LD: “Dos Cerritos”.

The purple Enterprise is a Galaxy-class, meaning Enterprise-D. In the Prime Universe, by 2381 the 1701-D had already crashed on Veridian III and the Sovereign-class Enterprise-E had been in service for about a decade. Tashar Yar was the original security chief of Enterprise-D, but was killed in TNG: “Skin of Evil”. No, I’m not getting into TNG: “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and Sela now, so don’t ask. Mariner talks about the carpets on Enterprise-D, a running joke that was even echoed in PIC’s 3rd season when the reconstructed ship was reactivated (PIC: “Võx”).

T’Lyn says her home was an outcopping of jagged rocks in the Viltan Flats. That location originally comes from the Last Unicorn RPG module The Way of Kolinahr, and is in the province of Tat’Sahr on Vulcan.

Boimler’s beard has progressed further, and the goatee has almost joined with his moustache. Rutherford seems to be also getting into the game, if his stubble is any indication. Freeman’s order to retrieve the wayward tech is so as not to violate the Prime Directive, which forbids any interference with the natural technological or social development of a civiilization. Dilmer III is pre-industrial, so the Prime Directive is in full force.

Dr T’Ana does a more foul mouthed version of the classic “I’m a doctor, not a…” catchphrase first properly used by McCoy in TOS: “The Devil in the Dark”.

Undergoing temporary surgical or genetic modification for Starfleet away teams is standard protocol. Examples can be found in TNG: “Who Watches the Watchers?”, TNG: “First Contact” and in SNW: “Strange New Worlds”.

Vulcans are known to have sensitive olfactory senses. females especially. In ENT: “The Andorian Incident”, T’Pol used a regularly injected nasal numbing agent to suppress the smell of humans.

Rutherford jokes about churning your own butter, a reference to stereotypes of primitive, pioneer peoples (seen today in renactments or in communities like the Amish) who still manufacture butter with manual methods.

A michelada is an Mexican drink, often called a “Mexican Bloody Mary”, made from beer, lime juice, hot sauces and chili slices. There are several variations throughout Mexico, but Boimler and Rutherford’s version is a bit excessive, as is usual for them.

Dimler III has a time differential of a week on the surface for every second aboard ship. As Tendi remembers, in VOY: “Blink of an Eye”, Voyager came across a planet surrounded by a tachyon field that experienced 58 days for each minute of shipboard time. Mariner’s explanation of time dilation alludes to an old joke attributed to Einstein: “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.”

The architecture of Dimler III reminds me of Beta III in TOS: “The Return of the Archons”, but earlier - I’d peg it around an 1870s American frontier town, like Walnut Grove, MI in Little House on the Prairie.

The head they find is of course that of an alternate, purple Data, who also lost his head in TNG: “Time’s Arrow”. In the Prime Universe, at this point Prime Data is dead, having sacrificed himself in Nemesis (2379) - although as we see in PIC, he kind of gets better later.

T’Lyn poses as a traveling performer, much like what Picard & Co. did in “Time’s Arrow” when they claimed to be a troupe of actors. Snell is voiced by Eric Bauza, who does a great imitation of the immortal Wallace Shawn, who was Grand Nagus Zek in DS9 and is probably best known to geeks as Visini from The Princess Bride.

As Tendi notes, TNG-era Romulan uniforms had hilariously overpadded shoulders. Mariner refers to TNG: “The Inner Light” when Picard was hit by a beam from a Kataan probe which made him experience an entire lifetime as a Kataan farmer while only a matter of minutes passed for his crew (and learned the flute). The last time we saw a Kataan probe (or something very similar) was in LD: “In the Cradle of Vexilon”.

Mariner refers to ENT: “Carbon Creek”, when a trio of Vulcans - one of them T’Pol’s great-grandmother - were stranded temporarily in Carbon Creek, PA in 1957. While it is true that in most stories like this there is a suspicious neighbor that gets the protagonists in trouble, I don’t recall there one being in “Carbon Creek”. T’Lyn uses a quill to write.

Purple Data’s voice is provided by Brent Spiner. He says he has been just a head before, which means that the events of “Time’s Arrow” also occured in his reality (as he confirms later when he says he built a magnetic field core in 19th Century San Francisco).

Tendi says that Orions aren’t usually science officers (part of it may be due to the stereotypes surrounding Orions). Her great-grandmother Astrea did serve on the Orion science vessel D’Var (SNW: “Those Old Scientists”).

Purple Data alludes to his positronic matrix, which is also the basis for Soong-type androids in the Prime Universe. Positronic brains for artificial beings in Star Trek is a homage to the works of Isaac Asimov, who used such brains for his robots in his Robot Stories.

The alien writing on the front of the saloon I’m pretty sure is a substitution alphabet (like Orionese as seen in LD: “Something Borrowed, Something Green”) which just reads “SALOON”.

I’m also pretty sure Tendi saying that she can’t compete with T’Lyn’s giant melons is an intentional double entendre. Others include Ransom’s “Purple D” and Mariner’s “carpet matches the hull” lines.

Mariner refers to the Edo (TNG: “Justice”), who doled out what we might consider overly harsh punishments, like capital punishment for damaging plants.

Purple Data says Tendi requires her full strength to function at “peak performance”, which is the name of a TNG episode that focuses on Prime Data and his self-doubt when he experiences defeat.

The “guy in a silver jumpsuit” was the unnamed scientist that led Picard and Prime Data to his time-displaced buried head under San Francisco (“Time’s Arrow”).

Tendi says Purple Data really is “fully functional”. In the infamous TNG: “The Naked Now”, Prime Data claims, when an intoxicated Tasha Yar is trying to seduce him, that he is “fully functional” and “programmed in multiple techniques”.

Mariner’s cell neighbor calls her “Big Mare”. In LD: “Starbase 80?!” Boimler calls her “Mare Bear”. I am not comfortable with either of these nicknames.

Having her alien family “be here all along” is a common trope (The Wizard of Oz comes to mind) where protagonists realize that what they were seeking was actually around them all the time (“The true treasure was the friends we made along the way!”).

Purple Data misunderstanding the use of metaphor is a trait the Prime version often exhibted, especially in early TNG seasons. And of course he had a close relationship with Geordi La Forge, the Chief Engineer of Enterprise.

Rutherford blames the snafu on LCARS issues, LCARS (Library Computer Access and Retrieval System) being the operating system used on TNG-era starships, as opposed to S/COMS for ENT and TOS-era ships and TCARS for 29th Century timeships.

Purple Data says he spent a year in the field with the away team. 12 months or so on Dimler III translates to about 52 seconds in shipboard time. However, considering that Tendi didn’t reactivate the head until about 4 months in, the time could have been as long as 16 months (64 seconds).

Freeman sends Purple Data back through the fissure in a photon torpedo tube, much like how Spock’s body was shot towards the Genesis Planet at the end of ST II.This guy

I have a weird question. Some numbers of pips can have the black pip. However, the 4 captain pips have never been depicted with this.

In some ways, this makes sense; a "lower" captain wouldn't make sense, and we've seen that the highest first officers hold commander pips. It's most likely that have 4 pips with one black is totally invalid.

However, I wonder if there's ever a circumstance where the black pip would be there. For instance, let's say someone gets field promoted to acting captain, but Starfleet either takes their time making it official or it's going to take a while (a few weeks) for the ship to get back to starbase to pick up a new captain (meaning the acting captain will be a bit long-term)? Could it be used then?

I imagine most of this is speculation, but I'm wondering if there's any example in canon of a long-term acting captain that could disprove the use of this pip configuration.

The title alludes to the Robert Burns’ 1785 poem To A Mouse (“The best laid schemes of o’mice and men / Gang aft agley”), which was used as the title to John Steinbeck’s 1937 Novella Of Mice and Men. It also plays on the association of angels, messengers of God, with the “typo that is not a typo” angles, referring to the geometric shapes of the Orbs and Cubes. Additionally, “Of Gods and Men” is an entry in the fan film series Star Trek Continues and VOY: “Heroes and Demons” dealt with photonic life forms.

The stardate is 59482.3. The Veraflex Nebula is new, as are its inhabitants the Orbs and the Cubes.

The Orbs and Cubes are photonic species, of which as noted VOY encountered one in Heroes and Demons” and another in VOY: “Bride of Chaotica”. VOY also suffered from an infestation of photonic fleas in VOY: “The Voyager Conspiracy”. Artificial photonic lifeforms might include sentient holograms like the Doctor (VOY), Moriarty (TNG: “Elementary, Dear Data” and “Ship in a Bottle”), Vic Fontaine (DS9: “His Way”, et al.), Lewis Zimmerman’s assistant Haley (VOY: “Life Line”) and a colony of Yaderans (DS9: “Shadowplay”).

The war that began when the Orbs and Cubes’ nebulae collided reminds me of the sentence that begins the Golden Age science fiction Lensman saga in E.E. “Doc” Smith’s novel Triplanetary, of the perpetual war that begins between the Arisians and Eddorians when their galaxies collide (or rather pass through) each other.

The stack of circular furniture on the antigravity sled includes Worf’s chair from his quarters from TNG, a Romulan cloaking device (TOS: “The Enterprise Incident”, last seen on Cerritos in the Anomaly Storage Room in LD: “In the Cradle of Vexilon”) and a dabo table (DS9).

Ensign Olly is newly transferred from the USS Reseda. Reseda is a neighborhood of Los Angeles, so the ship is presumably a California-class ship, one that is crewed by reformed Maquis. Olly is a descendant of Zeus who as per Greek legend was prone to procreating with mortals. Her name could be a short form of “Olympia”, a site sacred to Zeus where the ancient Olympic Games were conducted.

Mariner alludes to Kirk’s encounter with one of these beings, who posed as gods in Ancient Greece, but was actually with Apollo (TOS: “Who Mourns for Adonais?”) who had set his sights on Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas. “One with the wind” refers to how Apollo said Hera “spread herself upon the wind” when she decided to die.

In the New Frontier novels, Mark McHenry is the con officer for the USS Excalibur and is also a descendant of Palamas, who had been impregnated by Apollo. Unlike Olly, McHenry’s powers initially manifested themselves as a preternatural knack for stellar navigation.

Olly’s lineage explains why she’s wearing a laurel wreath similar to Apollo’s. We find out later that it’s a bioluminescent construct that does not come off.

Vassery is the “sen-SORs” Admiral who is in command of Douglas Station, last seen in LD: “Old Friends, New Planets”.

Boimler’s mustache and goatee are growing, as are his side burns. Behind him as he scrolls through the PADD he stole from the parallel universe (LD: “Dos Cerritos”) are his action figures of Mirror Archer, Monster Maroon Spock and First Contact Data (LD: “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee”). On the other shelf is Rutherford’s model of DS9 (LD: “Hear All, Trust Nothing”) and a replica of Wesley Crusher’s repulsor beam from TNG: “The Naked Now” (also seen in “I Have No Bones…”).

Photonic beings feed on power, like the photonic fleas attracted to plasma particles in Voyager’s sensor grid (“The Voyager Conspiracy”).

In TNG: “The Outrageous Okona”, Data tries to learn about humor from a holographic simulation of a 20th Century stand-up comedian called “Mr Comic” in the episode. However, on the program list Mr Comic was identified as Ronald B. Moore (as opposed to Ronald D. Moore), named after the special effects supervisor on TNG, VOY and ENT.

The alt PADD’s bevel is 3.7% deeper, and it’s red. The variance between the two universes was 0.327% (“Dos Cerritos”). In the corridor, we see the hijab-wearing Operations crewman, last seen in LD: “The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel”.

Kayshon says, “Rajik, when he fell in the chasm”, in context probably meaning “disappeared”.

Tendi says if they get Ferengi blood, they’ll have a rainbow. Ferengi blood is yellow (LD: “Mugato, Gumato”, PIC: “Disengage”).

While examining the crime scene we get a mention of pulp detective Dixon Hill (TNG: “The Big Goodbye” et al.). Up against the wall of the gym we see some anbo-jyutsu gear (TNG: “The Icarus Factor”), last seen in LD: “wej Duj”.

The Orbs use round PADDs, although how they hold them without any limbs is a question. Wait, one of them was doing bench presses in the gym. Never mind.

“The whole Hawai’i thing” refers to when Boimler pretended to be Hawaiian in LD: “wej Duj” so he could ingratiate himself with Ransom.

In the hangar bay, we see Cerritos’s shuttles named after Californian State Parks: Yosemite, Redwood, Joshua Tree II (the original was damaged in LD: “Grounded”) and Pinnacles.

We also get a glimpse of Steve Stevens, formerly Ransom’s sycophant, whom we haven’t seen since LD: “Twovix”.

Olly says that she and Mariner are nothing alike, but then she says “I love the brig. This is my favorite place,” which is more or less what Mariner told Ransom in LD: “Temporal Edict”.

When the LD SB80 episode mentioned Matt and Kimolu were infected on an away mission, it reignited some thoughts/questions about how the lives of Cetacean officers in an era of Trek where whales are beginning to become more common as crew members.

Here's the discussion that I think can be had within current canon: I can't help but notice what seems to be a difference in the quality of life between Gillian on Voyager-A and Matt and Kimolu on the Cerritos.

Sure, Matt and Kimolu don't have as flashy or futuristic-looking of an aquarium, but in addition to having each other, the pool-like design of their accommodations allows them easy interaction (a.k.a parties) with the crew. I feel like there's much more opportunity for them to have a fulfilling social life on the Cerritos.

In comparison, Gillian feels very enclosed and isolated from the rest of Voyager; there's always glass between here and the crew (as humpbacks sometimes need to surface, I image there's probably an area with some air in the aquarium), and people are shown having to wear full suits to be in the same space as her. In addition, there's no other whale with her. In fact, we don't really see a staff of officers in Cetacean ops - just Rok. It seems like a very lonely existence.

Of course, a lot of these seeming inequalities can be attributed to circumstance rather than neglect on Starfleet's part. For one, Gillian, canonically a humpback, is more than triple the size of Matt or Kimolu, belugas, so it's much harder to design any space at all for her on a starship, let alone one that gives her the freedom to safely interact with crew.

As for being the only humpback on Voyager, this is probably because there just aren't that many - her species was only repopulated less than a century ago during the whale probe incident.

Now, here's some more difficult-to-answer questions:

• How often do whales go on away missions?
• What precautions do they have to take on away missions?
• Do these missions come up organically, or is there some sort of quota?
• How does their shore leave work?
• What is the Academy like for whales? Is there an aquatic division? Do they sometimes have co-ed events with land-based cadets?
• Honestly, what is the life of a civilian Federation whale like? Do they have mobility accommodations should they e.g want to go see Vulcan or something? Do they live like 21st century whales, or are there LCARS panels in the ocean?

These questions definitely can't be answered with current lore, but I guess we can imagine and/or extrapolate from how Starfleet has accommodated other non-humanoid officers.

The title is the same as the famous two-part TNG episode that brought Leonard Nimoy as Spock back to our screens and possibly an allusion to bringing several parts of Star Trek together. It is being released on the 30th Anniversary of Star Trek: Generations.

The opening epigraph, “How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life,” is from ST II, when Kirk is flippantly answering Saavik’s queries about the unfairness of the Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario.

The figure floating in space is Gary Mitchell, the former navigator of the USS Enterprise and Kirk’s former student and best friend, who gained god-like powers after the ship went through the barrier at the edge of the Galaxy in TOS: “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, developed megalomania and was eventually killed. Commander Jack Ransom, XO of the USS Cerritos went through something similar but survived in LD: “Strange Energies”. Gary Lockwood, Mitchell’s original actor, is credited, as he came back to do motion capture for the footage.

There follow a series of quick scenes, some of them taken from the previous Roddenberry Archive short films/teasers “765874: Memory Wall” and “765874: Regeneration”. “Memory Wall” refers to an unproduced scene from TMP where Kirk and Spock explore an information storage chamber inside V’Ger.

TNG-era Spock is standing on Veridian III, where Kirk and Picard fought Soran in Generations. The scaffolding and bridge is from where Soran planned to launch a missile to destroy Veridian’s sun and alter the course of the temporal Nexus. Kirk and Picard stopped him at the cost of Kirk’s life. The real-life location of this is the Silica Dome, Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. Spock is played by actor Lawrence Selleck with a combination of prosthetics and CGI to make him resemble the late Leonard Nimoy.

A futuristic city that is probably 23rd Century San Francisco, seen in “765874” and with TMP-era Spock looking over it in “Regeneration”.

A blurry shot of someone performing a mind-meld on a Vulcan child, seen more clearly in “Memory Wall”.

A group of people on a mesa from “Memory Wall”. I am unable to identify the significance of the Eye of Sauron-like relief on the ground, but I am told it resembles an image of V’Ger, another allusion to the “Memory Wall” scene and a quick flash of V’Ger’s Voyager 6 name plate in that film.

The woman dressed in a uniform from TOS: “The Cage” is Yeoman J.M. Colt, who was Pike’s yeoman in that original pilot. Originally played by Laurel Goodwin in 1964, she is played by Mahé Thaissa, who previously played her in “765874”, “765874: Memory Wall” and “765874: Regeneration”.

765874 is Colt’s Starfleet service number, taken from Star Trek: Early Voyages Vol. 1 #13 (Feb 1998) (she was given the name Mia in the comic).

A shot of the USS Enterprise-D saucer after it crashed on Veridian III during the events of Generations, from “Regeneration”.

Mia Colt touching her finger to a mysterious wall of floating particles, from “Memory Wall”.

A new scene of TMP Spock melding with a Vulcan child. Given what happens later in the short, I’m confident this is Saavik, from when Spock found her as a child on the planet Hellguard in 2274 (between TMP and ST II) and took her in (TOS novel The Pandora Principle). While not on screen canon, Saavik’s backstory has been well established in novels and comics.

A new scene of Colt, now dressed in a Kelvin Timeline short-sleeved skant, in a chamber showing scans of Kirk. I can’t make out most of the words on the displays, but one relates Kirk’s service record and another ends with the words “… by the Director of Starfleet Intelligence”. This reminds me of where Kirk’s body was stored on Daystrom Station and its reference to a mysterious “Project Phoenix” (PIC: “The Bounty”).

Kirk, in his uniform from Generations and looking like his age there, walks through a peaceful garden. William Shatner is credited, seemingly returning to the role at the age of 93, but Kirk is in fact played by Sam Witwer, notable for his roles voicing Darth Maul in Star Wars: Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels, among many other genre credits. Witwer is playing the Kirk with CGI prostheses, and Shatner just so credited for his participation and providing his likeness. We also see Robin Curtis as an aged Saavik. First played by Kirstie Alley in ST II, Curtis replaced Alley as Saavik in ST III and ST IV.

and is presumably made to resemble his younger self in the same way Selleck did Spock. We also see Robin Curtis as an aged Saavik. First played by Kirstie Alley in ST II, Curtis replaced Alley as Saavik in ST III and ST IV.

One of the crowd is a man with white hair is dressed in a 2375-era Starfleet captain’s dress uniform, but with white trousers instead of black. This character is credited as “Crusher”, played by John Daltorio, but otherwise his presence is not explained. The most likely Crusher would be Wesley, who as an interdimensional Traveler (TNG: “Journey’s End”, PIC: “Farewell”, PRO: “Into the Breach”) would be the obvious choice. His being in the dress uniform could be a reference to Wil Wheaton’s mostly deleted cameo in Nemesis at the Riker-Troi wedding.

The Vulcan that Saavik introduces Kirk to is Sorak (played by Mark Cinnery). He is Spock and Saavik’s son, according to the accompanying featurette “Robin Curtis: Becoming Saavik”. Fandom has discussed for decades about whether Spock did indeed impregnate Saavik on Genesis during his pon farr in ST III and whether or not she stayed behind on Vulcan in ST IV because she was pregnant. Given that Sorak seems relatively old, this is likely where this comes from.

We know that Spock did marry (TNG: “Sarek”), but the wife’s name was never mentioned on screen. The novels have him marrying Saavik (Vulcan’s Heart, which apparently inspired this scene) after a very long courtship. Given how long Vulcans live, it’s not as icky as it sounds.

The alien Kirk meets is Yor (played by Gorden Tarpley), a Betelgeusian Lieutenant Commander who was a Time Soldier from the year 2379 of the Kelvin Timeline who fought in the Temporal Wars (DIS: “Terra Firma, Part 1”). We previously saw him as a hologram and cautionary tale as he died in agony in the Prime timeline sometime around the 31st Century, a side effect of having been transported across both universes and time periods. Yor hands Kirk a Starfleet badge - the same one Kirk wore in Generations and that Picard placed on Kirk’s grave.

When Generations-Kirk switches with TOS-Kirk, we hear a bridge chirp sound effect very briefly in the mix. The three Kirks are from different eras: TOS, ST II and Generations.

“There are always possibilities…” is taken from the last Captain’s log from ST II. On the wall is hung a set of Vulcan chimes (TOS: “Amok Time”) and a Vulcan lyre (TOS: “Charlie X”). On the table is an IDIC pendant (TOS: “Is There in Truth No Beauty?”) and a piece of jewellery shaped like Vulcan script and, although covered, the photograph of Kirk & Co. (taken on the bridge of the NCC-1701-A during ST V) that Prime Spock bequeathed to Kelvin Spock in Star Trek Beyond. In a teaser to this film, Colt is shown placing the photograph on the table in this scene.

Kirk approaches old Spock and they grasp hands in the same way that Spock did to him during TMP (“This simple feeling is beyond V’Ger’s comprehension.”) and of course he does his famous eyebrow raise at Kirk’s presence. Spock died in the Kelvin Timeline on January 2, 2263 on New Vulcan at the age of 161, having also been transported back in time and across universes.

The sky and landscape outside the window is reminiscent of Vulcan, so the Kelvin Timeline Vulcans must have found a similar planet to settle on after its destruction in ST 2009. It is portrayed that way in the 2013 Star Trek video game, when it is invaded by the Gorn.

There is a special thanks to Kevin Feige, who apparently made some things possible for the production and is a huge Trek fan.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 5x05 Starbase 80?!.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

The title refers to the titular starbase which is considered the worst posting in Starfleet (LD: “Terminal Provocations”). Mariner herself was posted there after the events of LD: “Trusted Sources”, although she resigned her commission soon after. It was recently mentioned in the season opener LD: “Dos Cerritos”, when it was said that the parallel universe Carol Freeman had been posted there, allowing parallel Mariner to take over Cerritos’s captaincy.

The water planet they just went to is named Piskes IX, continuing the tradition of science fiction planetary names which are just too on the nose, Piscis being Latin for "fish".

Boimler’s beard now has a goatee, although it hasn’t joined with his mustache yet. Boimler talks about “tenth contact”. As we saw back in LD: “Second Contact”, there are follow up missions after First Contact which are dealt with by support ships like Cerritos to formally establish relations, set up infrastructure, etc. for newly contacted civilizations which are called Second Contact missions. “Tenth contact” is likely just Boimler wisecracking rather than a formal mission numbering.

We see the Sequoia shuttlecraft in the background. The shuttle, initially totaled in LD: “No Small Parts” was restored, then taken apart again by T’Lyn in LD: “Shades of Green” so Tendi could work on it together with the others when she returned from Orion. It seems to be coming along nicely.

Cetacean Ops was a throwaway piece of background dialogue in TNG: “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and then elaborated on in the 1992 TNG Technical Manual as well as included on the 1996 Galaxy-class blueprints. The Tech Manual mentioned that Enterprise-D had two whales who helped in navigation. Cerritos’s own Cetacean Ops was mentioned in “Second Contact” and finally seen - the first time Cetacean Ops had been shown on-screen in any Star Trek series - in LD: “First First Contact”. A Cetecean Ops has also appeared in PRO, on the Lamarr-class Voyager-A.

Casperia Prime, a ringed planet, has been mentioned several times in lore as a holiday destination, first in DS9: “Change of Heart” as where Jadzia Dax wanted to honeymoon. In PIC, it was mentioned that Jack Crusher was conceived while Picard and Beverly Crusher were having shore leave on the planet (PIC: “Seventeen Seconds”).

Deep Space 6 is from beta canon, being mentioned in the Last Unicorn RPG and in two VOY novels as well as in Star Trek Online.

The music cues when Starbase 80 appears are reminiscent of horror movie music and are taken from ST II. We can now add Denobulan lice to the blood worms, lemurs and tartan voles native to the planet.

Boimler’s mention of T’Pol is referring to the infamous decon chamber scenes from ENT, where the use of the gel to “decontaminate” after exposure to potentially hostile environments was just a gratuitous excuse to show the crew rubbing each other down while dressed in their underwear (ENT: “Broken Bow”). I’ve never heard Boims call Mariner “Mare-Bear” before, but… ew.

While Tendi scoffs at Mariner’s “curse”, we do have actual examples of people losing their mental acuity after prolonged exposure to an environment. In SNW: “Among the Lotus Eaters”, Pike & Co. lost their memory due to radiation from asteroidal material on Rigel VII. In TOS: “The Cloud Minders”, unprocessed zenite ore emitted a gas which reduced intelligence and heightened emotion, leading to a caste division in Ardanan society.

The dilapidated Starbase 80 corridor, complete with various wall fittings, a ladder and a Jeffries tube (even the font from the “Ward 5” sign), takes cues from the TOS Enterprise corridors for their design. Kassia Nox is dressed in a 22nd Century-era jumpsuit (from ENT), wearing Commander pips. Flux spectrometers were supposed to be used for luminosity studies in TNG: “Cause and Effect”.

Mariner was given the disgusting job of emptying the Cerritos holodeck biofilters in LD: “Moist Vessel” in a bid to get her to transfer off the ship. Tendi geeks out over the TOS wall comms which do indeed date to the 2260s, although then why command staff are dressed in ENT-era jumpsuits instead of TOS-era uniforms is an open question. Also in the fusion reactor room is the dilithium crystal access console seen from TOS Season 2 onwards in Enterprise Engineering (TOS: “Elaan of Troyius”, “Day of the Dove”).

SB80's Operations Center is basically a TOS Constitution-class bridge. The Southern-accented engineer Gene Jakobowski in the ENT-era jumpsuit may be a reference to NX-01 Chief Engineer Trip Tucker, especially when they think he’s initially dead. Tucker died on-screen (albeit in a holographic historical simulation) in VOY: “These are the Voyages”, a move that is heavily criticized in fandom, but was brought back in the novels. Gene is voiced by Stephen Root, who played K'Vada in TNG: "Unification".

The Acamarians first appeared on screen in TNG: “The Vengeance Factor”. Acamar is a real binary star system, also known as Theta Eridani, situated about 165 ly from Sol. One of the shops on SB80’s Promenade is called “Lornak’s”, after an Acamarian clan and another sells "Parthas", an Acamarian vegetable.

The “vintage” dress shop Tendi is at has a number of old Trek costumes and props. Hanging above, we have a red female Operations skant and male Sciences top from TOS, a Command top from DIS Season 2, and a female Command skant from SNW. We also see Pulaski's medical skant from TNG, a TMP-era uniform, a Rubicun III costume (TNG: “Justice”), a TOS Klingon uniform with honor sash, a torn Monster Maroon from the movie era, a field jacket from the same period and Ruk’s top from TOS: “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” We also see a First Contact phaser rifle, a movie-era Security helmet, various TOS tricorders and TNG/VOY PADDs, a TOS communicator, a Mirror Universe dagger, what might be a VISOR display stand, Khan’s necklace pendant from ST II, one of those TNG cylindrical bags, and, significantly, since the vendor claims the uniforms are of dead people, a pile of TOS redshirts. Others have pointed out NX-01 baseball caps, a cap from the Kelvin Timeline dress uniform, Kirk and Spock's mobster hats from TOS: "A Piece of the Action", a TNG-era medical kit, and Admiral Mark Jameson's chair from TNG: "Too Short a Season".

The turbolifts have the twist controls from the TOS era, which made a return in SNW, set in that same period.

This is actually the first time I’ve ever seen these kind of stairs in a Starfleet facility. Mackler and Gorm were in Boimler’s landing party on Targalus IX in LD: “Shades of Green”. Harrison Horseberry’s facial transformation is like that of Geordi in TNG: “Identity Crisis” which was due to exposure to parasites on Tarchennan III. The sickbay is also of TOS vintage right down to the design of the biomonitors.

Kassia reveals she’s El-Aurian, a member of Guinan’s long-lived species, although she’s just 30. She also claims that SB80 doesn’t use combadges, although we saw TNG-era combadges on SB80 personnel in “Trusted Sources” (although in this episode the badges are absent). It is possible, I suppose, that they were non-functional or the system ceased to function between that episode and now.

The Arcade has a machine that uses the large circular light that was part of the Atavachron prop in TOS: “All Our Yesterdays”. The screen of the Ferengi’s Fortune game reminds me of the 80s game Joust, and tucked in back is a game with the Cosmic Koala ("Moist Vessel"). Gene is playing a Galaga/Space Invaders-type game where a Romulan Valdore-class is shooting at Constitution refit-class targets (on the side of the cabinet is a Vastam-class from Star Trek Online). Gene is also wearing Scotty's vest from TNG: "Relics".

A zombie Jet Manhaver is on a Klingon targ kid’s ride.

The officer tearing the door wiring apart is Rutherford’s nemesis/rival Ensign Livik (LD: “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee”). Horseberry detects an anaphasic consciousness (Clem) possessing the Cetacean Ops whales (TNG: “Sub Rosa”).

“Scrappy underdogs” is also how Mariner described the Lower Deckers in the very first LD episode “Second Contact”.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 5x04 A Farewell to Farms.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

Annotations for Star Trek: Lower Decks 5x04: “A Farewell to Farms”

The episode title is a play on Ernest Hemingway's 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms, a romance between an American ambulance driver in the Italian Army and an English nurse, set against the backdrop of World War I, and has as one of its themes the idea of an end to, or retirement from war.

Qo'noS is the Klingon Homeworld, last seen in DIS: "Point of Light" or, chronologically in-universe in DS9: "The House of Quark".

Ma'ah first appeared in LD: "wej Duj", and was last seen in LD: "The Inner Fight". The targ may be the pet he inherited from his previous captain, Dorg, whom he killed and then attained his own rank and the IKS Che’Ta’. The farming outfit Ma'ah wears echoes the one the older Picard wore in TNG: "All Good Things..." and he is sipping from a Klingon bloodwine mug. We also see how bloodwine is made - apparently harvested from worms grown in the soil.

The usual title sequence is replaced by cinematic-style titles complete with rousing music. Mariner and Ma'ah befriended (sort of) each other in "The Inner Fight" on Sherbal V, which is why she's calling.

Malor mounts brush devil jaws on the transport. The brush devil is a creature native to Qo’noS with a particularly loud hunting scream, mentioned in the DS9 novel Heart of the Warrior, in which Worf tells of when he and his brother Kurn participated in a brush devil hunt.

A petaQ is a Klingon epithet, which can be loosely translated as "weirdo" (from taQ, to be weird, and pe, an imperative you). The Klingon axe-throwers are using various blades, but the one flying across the screen is a mek'leth, a two-pronged dagger generally used for throat slashing and disemboweling (ENT: "Marauders"). bahgol is a warm tea-like beverage (DS9: "Blood Oath").

One of the members of the Klingon band is playing a concertina like DS9’s Klingon Chef in DS9: “Playing God”. Ma'ah tells K'Elarra he did not expect to see her in this pugh gegh (as per the closed captioning) but I suspect this to be an error and it should be pugh qegh, which translates to "barrel/vat of dregs", which makes the bartender's insulted reaction more logical. par'Mach means "love" (but with more aggressive overtones). K’Elarra’s manhandling of Ma’ah and her sniffing him are typical of Klingon mating practices (TNG: “The Emissary”) and her “boob window” commented on by Mariner appeared first on Klingon females with the Duras sisters in TNG: “Redemption”. K’Elarra is voiced by Mary Chieffo, who played L’Rell in DIS.

Boimler's beard has progressed to an actual moustache now although his goatee is still a work in progress, charitably speaking. cha'DIch can be loosely translated as "second", in the sense of someone who speaks or acts on behalf of the principal in a duel, or in other contexts a confidant or mentee.

Cerritos is in orbit around Praxon IV. Tendi refers to when Migleemo fought the Orion warrior B'eth in LD: "Old Friends, New Planets". We are told Migleemo's species (Klowahkans) for the first time, and are told they invented warp travel to discover "strange new meals" as opposed to strange new worlds. This also explains Migleemo's penchant for food metaphors. Whether the planet name is a pun on "cloaca" l leave for speculation.

'urwI'pu' means "traitors". Martok’s legendary killing of them took place in the Ketha Lowlands, a poor area of Qo’noS, where he said his family was from (DS9: “Once More Unto the Breach”). A d'k tagh (misspelt diktagh) is a traditional Klingon warrior's dagger first seen in ST III. Boimler's fear of skiing cropped up last episode in LD: "The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel". He mentions the Ritual of J'ethurgh and the Ritual of Forced Conscription, both first mentions.

bIj means punishment, which is usually used as a verb, not a noun. But the term “Experience bIj!” is a particularly deep cut from the Star Trek: The Next Generation - Interactive VCR Board Game - A Klingon Challenge, where during the game Captain Kavok (played by Robert O’Reilly who was Gowron on TNG and DS9) occasionally says this to one of the players who must then draw a Bij card and do what it says.

K'orin is a Klingon General and friend of Mariner's, who was last seen in LD: "Envoys". quv beq means "crew of honor". lujwI'pu' means "losers". Councilor Enaj is “Jane” spelled backwards.

Mordanian may refer to the inhabitants of Mordan IV (TNG: "Too Short a Season").

Kahless refers to Kahless the Unforgetable, a semi-mythical figure who was the greatest warrior in Klingon history as well as the first Emperor (TOS: “The Savage Curtain”).

Fekh’lr is the guardian of Grethor, the Klingon underworld (TNG: “Devil’s Due”). While we’ve known that part of Kahless’ legend is that he conquered a group called the Fekh’lri, we’ve never actually connected them to the mythical Fekh’lr on screen. In Star Trek Online, however, they do resemble Fekh’lr and were foot soldiers of Kahless’s enemy Molor (created by the Dominion), and were banished to Gre’thor with him. Boimler’s remark suggests that the Fekh’lri were minions of Fekh’lr as this story has Kahless killing Fekh’lr.

Painstiks (or pain sticks) were first seen being used in the Klingon Rite of Ascension, marking the occasion of a Klingon child reaching the Age of Inclusion and becoming a Klingon warrior (TNG: “The Icarus Factor”). darseks are the main currency used in the Klingon Empire (TNG: “Firstborn”). tagh-jaj qaD can be translated as “begin the challenge day”.

Boimler notes that the maximum painstik voltage is 30,000 volts. Whether or not an electrical shock is lethal really depends on both voltage and amperage, where voltage is the force of electrical power passing through but current (amps) is the rate of flow.

A hogfish (on Earth at least) is a type of wrasse living in the Western Atlantic, so called because of its elongated snout. It doesn’t have more than two eyes, though. Enara Prime is a planet in the Delta Quadrant, home to the Enarans, a telepathic species (VOY: “Remember”).

HIq’aD comes from HIq (ale, wine) and ’aD (blood vessel), so I’d imagine it’s an epithet saying that Malor’s a drunk.

qoH means “fool”. Boimler references his brief transfer to the *Titan* at the end of Season 2 and the first few episodes of season 3. Klingons can’t transfer ships except with a two-thirds vote of the Oversight Council.

chatlh means “thick soup”, but it’s also slang for “nonsense”. Sto-vo-kor is the Klingon equivalent of Valhalla. Ma’ah uses a bat’leth while Bragh fights with a gin’tak battle spear. The armor Bragh crashes into before he grabs the spear is a Klingon Honor Guard set from STO. The Klingon blood spilled is pink, as per ST VI, although this has been inconsistent through Star Trek, which generally shows Klingon blood as red.

Mariner discovers that the dimensional rifts are not natural, but someone is causing them. toDuj means “courage”.

Malor claims he sees Kahless, the “original one”. A clone of Kahless was created by the monks of Boreth in TNG: “Rightful Heir”, who eventually became the ceremonial Emperor/Head of State of the Empire. He also says the original was “good at imitating voices”, which indeed the Excalbian recreation was when he imitated Surak’s voice in TOS: “The Savage Curtain”.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 5x03 The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

After rewatching DS9: “Defiant”, I had a thought; to prevent transporter clones from impersonating each other, could Starfleet require, as a part of duty, that transporter clones receive slight genomic resequencing that changes no major traits but allows DNA scanners to distinguish them?

I can think of a few issues. One, would it break genetic experimentation laws even though there would be negligible changes to each transporter clone? Two, is this too sever a violation of personal liberties for the Federation to be allowed? Three, is the technology there to do this effectively in a starship’s sickbay?

The title of the episode is a play on the 2011 film (and its sequel) The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, about a group of retirees who purchase a hotel in India. Nanites are of course microsopic nanotechnological robots which were first introduced into the Star Trek universe in the TNG episode "Evolution", although chronologically they have existed as far back as DIS: "Perpetual Infinity".

The Stardate is 59393.7. Cerritos is at the Cosmic Duchess, an interstellar cruise ship with multiple domed biomes which is undergoing a nanite cluster infestation. Boimler's facial hair is increasing, now with stubble on his chin and cheeks. He notes that one of the casinos has Dixon Hill slot machines, Dixon Hill being a 20th-Century hard boiled detective character Picard was a fan of (TNG: "The Big Goodbye"). Mariner's shocked reaction to Jennifer's kiss is understandable, since we were led to understand they broke up in LD: "Trusted Sources".

Jet Manhaver is a background character who was last featured in LD: "We'll Always Have Tom Paris". The way he describes Ransom's using him as fodder is reminiscent of the jokes about the fates of redshirts in TOS.

T'Lyn suggests Jennifer has a brain parasite. The last time a brain parasite caused amorous complications was in LD: "Cupid's Errant Arrow". Jennifer says she is being transferred to the USS Manitoba, which from the name might be a Parliament-class starship (the others we know of being Toronto and Vancouver).

The Risa Bar is named of course after the pleasure planet (TNG: “Captain’s Holiday”) and the biome actually reminds me of the Risa instance in Star Trek Online. This is the first time we’ve actually seen Gallamites although the species was first mentioned in DS9: “The Maquis, Part I” when Jadzia Dax mentioned she had a dinner date with the Gallamite Captain Boday, and Kira evinced some discomfort with his transparent skull. Kreetassans, an easily offended species, first appeared in ENT: “Vox Sola” and consider eating a taboo activity not to be done in front of others. The huge dangerous mountain pointed out by Ransom vaguely resembles the Paramount logo if you squint (it may just be a coincidence).

T’Lyn makes note of the poster of Krog on the Rocks, who performs on Vibe Tubes. Named in this episode, the Vibe Tubes are a futuristic musical instrument, the prop first seen being played in a holographic recreation in TNG: "We'll Always Have Paris".

Admiral Milius’s acolyte is Denobulan, the same species as Dr Phlox of ENT. Denobulan females emit powerful pheremones during mating (ENT: “Dear Doctor”). “Not everyone keeps their genitals in the same place,” is a lesson we first learned in ST VI.

Tendi makes reference to Mariner's parents, who are often separated for long periods of time since Carol Freeman is a starship Captain and Alonzo is a Starfleet Admiral.

Milius' appearance resembles that of Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz in the 1979 movie Apocalypse Now, which in turn was written by John Milius, Francis Coppola and Michael Herr inspired by Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness. In both stories the Kurtz character sets himself up as a demigod worshipped by natives.

An iscosahedron is a 20-sided polyhedron, best known to tabletop roleplayers as a d20 die. Gormaganders (DIS: "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad") and the "Galaxy's Child" thing (TNG: "Galaxy's Child"), are examples of cosmozoans, giant organisms that live in space.

Captain Tersal says that her parallel universe Endeavor has been through a "month of hell", an allusion to VOY: "Year of Hell". Although Endeavor's scale is due to her being from a universe that is tiny, in the Prime universe the runabout Rubicon was once shrunk by a subspace anomaly (DS9: "One Little Ship") and Voyager was turned into a Christmas tree ornament by Q (VOY: "Death Wish").

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 5x01 Dos Cerritos and 5x02 Shades of Green.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

The title is similar to the infamous Season 2 clip show TNG: “Shades of Grey”, written due to a writer’s strike at the time.

D’Erika is eating wing-slug rolls. Orion wing-slugs were mentioned by Lwaxana Troi in TNG: “Ménage à TroiBoimler has seen when he died briefly (LD: “In the Cradle of Vexilonn beta canon they are said to be native to the Rigel system.

The Stardate is 59376.9 - by TNG reckoning that makes it 2382 (as also reckoned using Naomi Wildman’s age last episode), and Cerritos is at Targalus IX. One of the banners being displayed says “No Money No Problems”, an allusion to the song “Mo Money Mo Problems” by the Notorious B.I.G.

Boimler appears to trying to grow facial hair, probably inspired by his parallel counterpart from last episode. He’s calling his tips “Bointers”. He is addressed as Commander even though his rank remains LT-jg, presumably because he’s in command of this away team.

The shuttle Sequoia, named after the California National Park like all Cerritos shuttles, was damaged in LD: “No Small Parts” and has been under repair since LD: “Strange Energies”.

The Blue Orions are House Azure now, and a blazzard is a kind of domesticated Orion bird with reptilian features. Tendi says Orions haven’t used sailships in hundreds of years. Bajoran lightships used solar sails as far back as the 16th Century (DS9: “Explorers”), and R’ongovian ships also used solar sails for ceremonial purposes (SNW: “Spock Amok”).

The Orion sailship doesn’t have inertial dampeners, and neither did the Bajoran lightship. Inertial dampeners are only critical at FTL speeds, and solar sails are not meant for that. However, like Sisko’s Bajoran lightship, the Orion sailship does appear to have gravity plating.

Sarium krellide is a material used in power cells or in explosives (TNG: “In Theory”), and also powered Starfleet combadges (PRO: “Observer’s Paradox”).

Phlox kept a Pyrithian Bat as part of his menagerie on the NX-01 (ENT: “Flight or Fight”, et al.).

“It is possible to do everything right and still get your away team kidnapped by the corporate elite,” is a paraphrase of Picard’s “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose,” from TNG: “Peak Performance”.

On Hysperia, they keep dragons for pets and call their warp drives “dragonsbreath engines” (LD: “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie”).

T’Lyn appears to have added herself to the cartoon squiggles of the others on the Sequoia’s hatch.

Boimler tells Mackler to “turn away from the mountain”. The Black Mountain is a spiritual battleground in the afterlife (LD: “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”) which Boimler has seen when he died briefly (LD: “In the Cradle of Vexilon”).

Assisting T'Lyn in demolishing Sequoia is Goodgey, Badgey's good twin from LD: "A Few Badgeys More".

The title is Spanish for “Two Little Hills”, and aside from a literal description of the episode’s plot, reminded me of the song “Dos Oruguitas” (Two Butterflies) from the movie Encanto. A similar title was LD: "wej Duj", Klingon for "Three Ships".

The collector’s (Yorif by the closed captioning) ship is a Zibalian freighter (TNG: “The Most Toys”), and the collector himself is of the same unnamed species as Palor Toff from that episode, which also appeared in LD: “Reflections”. He has Hupyrian guards (TNG: “The Nagus”, et al.). Tendi’s holographic disguise is that of a Heliian woman, the species to which Aquiel belonged (TNG: “Aquiel”). 

Seen in the collection is a Risian horgh’an (TNG: “Captain’s Holiday”), a Veltan lust idol (called a sex idol in “The Most Toys”), next to a broken Bajoran Reckoning Tablet (DS9: “The Reckoning”). Apparently, Orions lived in childhood slime dungeons. Yorif uses a ST II design phaser and claims his ornate facial piercing is “prescription”. 

The LD title has the 3D effect that was applied to TNG’s title which appeared only in Season 5. The ever-crowded battle in the title sequence is joined by Apollo’s hand (TOS: “Who Mourns for Adonais?”), which grabs the Borg cube, a Tholian ship drawing its web (TOS: “The Tholian Web”) and V’Ger (TMP), complete with its sound effects.

Mariner is playing a game of Vulcan kal-toh with T’Lyn. Boimler’s Fleet magazine, aside from the “30 Under 30” feature, also highlights “Klingon Kouture: Blood is the New Black” (an allusion to Orange is the New Black, which also starred Kate Mulgrew), as well as “Q Who? The Continuum Awaits”(alluding to TNG: “Q Who?”). It also mentions “Treknomics”, which is an out-of-universe term used to refer to Star Trek economics. The cover also somewhat resembles the official Star Trek Explorer magazine published by Titan Comics. It is issue No. 47, a recurring number and in-joke in Star Trek. 

Naomi Wildman was born on Voyager in 2372 during its sojourn in the Delta Quadrant, the half-Ktarian half-human daughter of Ensign Samantha Wildman who was pregnant when she came on board. This dates this season around 2382. Tendi mentions it’s been “months” since the end of Season 4. 

Worf encountered a quantum fissure in TNG: “Parallels”, which sent him on a journey through several parallel realities, including parallel Enterprises. D’Erika says that the Orion warship (later we find out it’s a medical frigate) dates from the time of the Great Plague over 300 years prior. Roger Korby’s claim to fame was his translation of medical records from Orion ruins that revolutionized immunization techniques (TOS: “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”), but I always imagined the ruins to be older than a few centuries. 

It was established in “Parallels” that quantum signatures differ from universe to universe. In this case, the parallel that Cerritos is in exhibits only a .327% variance. Among the differences in hair (and in Otherford’s case, cybernetic augmentations), the parallel Billups is King (where our Billups rejected the throne) and has Hysperian accessories over his uniform, like Worf used to wear his sash over his. 

We finally find out that Mariner is her middle name, so she was born Beckett Mariner Freeman. She went by "Becky" when living on Starbase 25 (LD: "An Embarassment of Dopplers") and her father still uses that name (LD: "Grounded").

The globes at the rear of the Orion frigate are like those spinning at the rear of a D’Var type Orion scout ship (TOS: “Journey to Babel”, SNW: “Those Old Scientists”). Blue-skinned Orions (actually light green) appeared only in TAS and were the result of coloring problems in the animation (Hal Sutherland, the director, was colorblind, also explaining why TAS tribbles are pink). Also, the odd pronunciation of “Orion” by the blue-skinned Orions here (“OR-ee-on”) comes from TAS: “The Pirates of Orion”, the mistake being due to an absence of a pronunciation guide.

Captain Becky says “there’s no interpersonal conflict allowed on my ship!” which was Roddenberry’s edict for TNG. Mariner also mentioned that people weren’t supposed to have conflict in LD: “Strange Energies”. Becky also uses a riding crop - in LD: “First First Contact” Mariner said she didn’t want a new captain because potentially they could be “some weirdo with a riding crop”. That was likely an allusion to Captain Styles (ST III) using a swagger stick. 

As she goes to replace Mariner, Becky uses the sarcastic Vulcan salute first seen in LD: “Moist Vessel”. We find out that the parallel Captain Freeman ended up at the infamous Starbase 80 (first mentioned in LD: “Terminal Provocations”). 

The Blue Orions say they are laughed at for their “ridiculous uniforms”, which were a product of TAS design. As Parallel Boimler goes to take his seat as Acting Captain, he does a reverse Riker Maneuver out of the conn chair. 

At the bar next to Ransom is a bottle of Cardassian kanar (DS9: “The Marquis, Part II”). In front of Boimler is a raktajino mug seen in DS9, in reality a Highwave Hotjo 16 oz. Travel Mug.

It's easy for us to understand that The Doctor is a sapient being.

After all, he acts like one! He's got a slew of odd personality quirks, balances irritating behavior with kindness and sympathy, behaves in a similarly slightly erratic manner as most of us flesh and blood creatures, and responds to difficulties with every appearance of genuine emotion. It's extremely easy for human audiences to look at the early seasons Voyager crew as bigoted for their slow acceptance of him as a "real" member of the crew, and react very harshly to later challenges to his personhood from people outside of the crew. It's not uncommon to see that behavior referenced as proof that 24th century people are no more "enlightened" than the obviously flawed people of today. And maybe they aren't; that's not my topic for today.

But the element I think that argument is missing is something these 24th century people have been exposed to all their lives, and we in 2024 have only begun to encounter: soulless, unconscious entities capable of impressive imitations of a real person.

24th century holograms appear as perfect copies of physical humans, with perfectly recognizable voices, normal human mannerisms, and convincingly human speech that responds naturally and automatically to nearly any expected or unexpected input. Any of us unknowingly tossed onto a 24th century holodeck would be totally convinced that these people projected around us and interacting with us are as real as anybody we meet today: nothing they do will clue us in to the fact that we're interacting with philosophical zombies.

Most of us first encountered something like this when ChatGPT and it's ilk suddenly got really good and easily accessible just a couple years ago. Suddenly a computer could create text that read like a human had written it, responding to context and occasionally interjecting very human behaviors (like making up answers to stuff it didn't know, and attempting to gaslight anyone who called it out for being wrong). A shocking number of modern people seem to genuinely believe that these bots show real consciousness (even some who really ought to know better). And it's not hard to understand why, when these bots can spoof every text-based indication of humanity that most of us look for.

People of the 24th century have spent their entire lives interacting with bots that smash the Turing Test even more thoroughly, and on every level imaginable. They can walk onto a holodeck and spin up a person from scratch who looks, smells, feels, and sounds completely real, who talks coherently and shows perfectly ordinary physical mannerisms. And they also know, with ironclad certainty, that these creations are no more human and no more alive than a tricorder or a hyperspanner. Just about all they have to definitively prove if someone is real or not lies in if they can exist outside the holodeck.

Enter The Doctor. He's very definitively a hologram. When first activated he's no more real than any other holographic creation, and only slowly grows in unanticipated ways which slowly convince his crew that he's become something more than that. This process is slow, but it's actually a bit of a surprise that it happens at all. Excepting Kes and Neelix, everyone on Voyager is quite accustomed to holographically generated people who act human but are purely a facade. That this very reasonable prejudice could be overcome at all should be seen as a triumph of empathy. It's not at all surprising that the people back home on Earth aren't buying it, and can't even be persuaded beyond a bare minimum threshold of plausible uncertainty.

I theorize that people who are growing up right now in an environment of very convincing AI chatbots will find it easier than we did to recognize holographic beings in Star Trek shows as sophisticated extensions of those internet bots, and will mirror the slow acceptance by Voyager's crew that The Doctor is something more than that.

So what does that mean for us? What do we do as more of our instinctive indicators of another person's humanity are effortlessly aped by machines? This is a difficulty which Star Trek shows had only begun to grapple with, but it's fertile ground for future episodes and undeniably a relevant question for our day.