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tessatechaitea · 4 years

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Star Trek: The Next Generation, S1, E8: "The Battle"

Depending on who you ask, the United States public school system is a huge waste of time, a factory to teach kids how to live life as factory workers, free daycare, a temple to learning, or a place to socialize future citizens. But I know what it really is and it's less cynical than you might expect from me. Sure, I could have been super jaded about the public school system but I was lucky and went to a Satanic elementary school (if you're curious, just search the blog for "Haman" or "Satanic elementary school" or "AC/DC"), so I had a love of learning about the Devil from an early age. Anyway, I believe the public school system (and while I can only truly speak to the United States' version, I'm going to assume it's very much the same concept across other nations and cultures) was the easiest solution to keeping civilization advancing. That probably sounds obvious and you're already in the comment section typing up responses such as "Like, DOI!" and "What a stunning reveleation /sarcasm" and "ur trash 1v1 me". (Believe me, the only correct way to end that sentence was with the punctuation outside of the quotes.) Listen, I get it! It's a simple concept! But in our modern times when it seems like half of the country thinks education corrupts the youth (which, if you went to Haman Elementary in Santa Clara, California, it certainly fucking did. Long live my Lord and Master!), sometimes simple truths need to be beat like a living horse (that's what the phrase "No use in beating a dead horse" means, right? It means there is use in beating a living horse and we should beat them more. Right?). Or did I mean beat like a drum? You know what? Sometimes I wish I learned more than ritual summonings and secret hand gestures. What I'm trying to say and which I won't make any clearer with this next statement is that the public school system was the best version of throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. In this analogy, "shit" is "knowledge" and "wall" is "children." Because the only way to advance civilization and continue to make things better for everybody is to make sure young people are caught up on the story. Sure, a lot of them (and I should probably say "a lot of us" because look at me as an adult: writing a blog about comic books and Star Trek) won't take up the torch to help advance civilization. But that's the thing. You don't know which kid is going to make the connections to establish the next thing that helps civilization mature. At the very least, you know that if you don't throw shit at children, they're never going to have the opportunity to understand exactly where they are in civilization's timeline and how they can make it better going forward. Also, can we sometimes just throw real shit at children because now that idea is in my head and it's not going anywhere? If we break this system, we are accepting eventual stagnation and a probable decline in the overall levels of satisfaction with life. And as we can see in our modern times, a growing percentage of unimaginative dullards don't fucking care about progress. Education teaches their kids that their parents were unimaginative dullards and so those unimaginative dullards would rather destroy the educational system than maybe look inward and try not to be an unimaginative dullard. And let's not forget about the people who want to destroy the system simply because it uplifts everybody and not just the people who look like they do. Obviously the public school system doesn't present enough material to create an adult that will truly help drive humanity's balls through civilization's goalposts (help me. I think I have some kind of sickness that makes me speak in analogies, sort of like Lyme Disease but if I were bitten by a conservative talking head). The public school system is just to fire the curiosity of the children so they'll strive to become more educated on their own. And at one time, college was the perfect way to specialize and really get in-depth on the things which really held the child's interest. But, once again, a certain section of the population viewed higher education as a slippery slope to being a decent person and so they've demonized it. One way to make a higher education less possible was to make it less affordable. Although making college less accessible was probably a backlash to college students protesting the government's participation in certain wars which made the government say, "Where are we going to get all the young dead people we'll need for future wars? I mean, they'll only be dead after! We're not into necromancy. Not everybody went to Haman Elementary." Free or affordable college just gives less privileged young people more options than the ones people who don't want things to change want them to have. After all, job providers aren't really as good at providing jobs as they seem to want everybody to think they are. So they need a system which forces people into debt, or convinces them to saddle themselves with a huge mortgage, or hypnotizes them into thinking children are great things to have in their lives so that they'll always need the shitty job they have to pay for their tiny sentient wells where money is thrown. I wish I was more coherent and less digressive than I am so I could get my point across. But this sometimes happens after I've read two or three comic books by Ann Nocenti. Let me just take a moment to cleanse my aura and I'll try to be more succinct. "Master Satan, please direct my aggression and blood lust into a fine focal point as sharp as the tip of the Lance of Longinus so that I may do your bidding to corrupt His lost lambs and bring them to the beastly reality of this cum-stained world. Thank you my Father. I count the days until I will be welcomed into your embrace of unholy fornication." In summation, education can only be attained by stacking one block upon the other. You need a system which both teaches the basics of how we got to where we are and also weeds out those that don't fucking give a shit about climbing the pyramid of blocks that's already there to add more to the top. Some people are meant to simply take care of the foundational blocks. Some people will climb partway up and improve the blocks in the middle. But you need a system to find the people who will craft the blocks for the future top of the pyramid. And as an added benefit, the higher one climbs, the better a person they generally become. Sure, you still have many climbers who only see profit in the journey. But some of them do their part as well (granted, not a lot of them. Most of them just want to find a way to keep all the blocks for themselves and establish a toll gate halfway up the pyramid and then convince everybody that the toll gate has always been there and it was never a free climb at all). And you also have people who consider the education gained as a simple corruption of the soul. But fuck those people. They pretend the pyramid doesn't even exist and only want to tear it down anyway. Now imagine how big this pyramid must be in the 24th Century! It's so big that it allows people to pursue whatever they want to pursue without being shackled to a daily grind just to pay bills. Fucking imagine that, right?! A civilization so prosperous and educated about the nature of reality that nobody in the system feels compelled to force other people to throw their lives away so those people can earn somebody else another buck. What a healthy civilization! Now imagine that civilization butting heads with our 21st Century reality. Imagine how much we'd despise those 24th Century bastards! Don't they care about making another buck?! What are they thinking?! I bet it would end up in a battle just like "The Battle" in this episode! Yes, we are the Ferengi. And, yes, I'm probably not going to say much about this episode. Picard gets mind-controlled by capitalism and almost destroys socialism. But he doesn't and the Ferengi learn a lesson about greed sometimes being bad which is a really hard lesson for them to swallow due to their big ears (because when they swallow I imagine their ears pop a lot?). The main thing I learned from this episode is that every great starship captain in the Federation has a tactical maneuver named after them. If you haven't come up with a new innovation for space battles, you're a piece of shit not worthy to captain a Starfleet vessel. And that's all I have to say about that.

#Star Trek #The Next Generation #ST:TNG #The Battle

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arcticdementor · 5 years

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Here is the acceptance speech by Travis Corcoran for 2019 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for Causes of Separation. (Corcoran could not attend the Dublin Worldcon but wrote this acceptance speech to be read there at the ceremony.)

I would like to thank the LFS for this year’s award, but more generally, I’d like to thank them for existence of the Prometheus award, all forty years of it. It’s good that our subculture has a long-lived award to recognize excellent science fiction, especially pro-liberty science fiction.

But the Prometheus award is not merely recognition, it’s an incentive!

In fact, I might not have written my novels without the Prometheus to aim for. But the Prometheus is not a financial incentive. The one-ounce gold coin on the plaque is nice, but neither I nor any of the other winners over 40 years would ever trade or sell it, and thus – ironically – it has no financial value.

And yet the award – a recognition by a community – is a huge incentive. There’s an interesting argument here about anti-libertarian tropes like the not-so-veiled anti-semitic and anti-capitalist propaganda of socialist Star Trek’s Ferengi, the bourgeois virtues, and the non-market human flourishing that only human liberty unleashes, but that’s a rant for some other day. Thomas Aquinas said “Homo unius libri timeo” – “beware the man of one book.” The meaning has shifted – almost reversed – from “beware the man who has studied one topic intensely” to “beware the man who has only one simple view of a thing.” I concur with this advice (in both forms!). Libertarianism is absolutely correct in its magisteria (the morality of freedom vs coercion), but we need other theories to augment it when we move our sights from individual liberty and financial incentives to other topics, like culture formation – and culture subversion.

…

Every ideology and subculture likes to tell stories about how it will naturally and obviously win. Nineteenth century Protestant missionaries knew that European Protestantism was the way of the future. 20th century Marxists knew that Marxism was. In the early 21st century Wired magazine told us that “netizens” would use technology to create a brave new world. The fact that every one of them has been wrong so far should inform our Bayesian priors. Perhaps cryptography, bitcoin, and the internet aren’t going to create a libertarian future. Perhaps the future looks a lot more like Orwell’s boot stomping on a face, forever.

Why might this be, and – if it does – how might we respond to it?

Last year I spoke about the essay “Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution” by David Chapman, which argues that new subcultures are pioneered by geeks, appreciated by members of the public, and taken over by sociopaths. His thesis is a particular example of a more general case.

There’s also Pournelle’s – yes, that Pournelle – iron law of bureaucracy” which states “In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.”

Robert Conquest’s third law expresses something similar: “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”

Chapman’s essay and Pournelle’s and Conquest’s laws are three observations of a single underlying phenomena: the collectivists always worm their way in and take over. We know THAT this happens, but WHY does it happen? How can we model it and understand it?

…

My theory, which unites Chapman’s “Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths”, Pournelle’s Iron Law, and Conquest’s Third Law is this: organisms, whether they’re unicellular, multicellular, or purely information, like Dawkin’s memes, egregores, and ideologies, mutate, evolve, and are selected for. Those that are best at surviving and reproducing soon dominate the population…and one of the best ways to survive is secure energy resources by hunting, killing, and eating (or, more gently, parasitizing) organisms that do the hard work of harvesting energy and building structures.

David Hines has a great essay at the status451.com blog titled “Days of Rage” where he discusses the surge in left-wing organizing and terrorism in the US in the 1970s. One thing that Hines points out again and again is that collectivists plan, they train, and they invade. I note that their organizations also exchange members and ideas (mate) and fission (reproduce). We are looking not just at a parasite, but at a class of parasite, forged and refined in the Darwinian furnace.

Evolution is a harsh mistress.

…

Predation and parasitism are selected for in the biosphere because they are efficient. They’re selected for in the realm of human culture for the same reason. It’s easier to harvest energy from a parasitized host species than it is to grow leaves, and it’s easier to take over a subculture than it is to create one. Thus science fiction will always suffer wave after wave of entryists, trying to claim the subculture for themselves. And, like Orwell’s Big Brother, they will rewrite history to declare that they invented it. “Let me join your club. You have to change now that I’m here. You have to leave now. We all agree that I made this, decades ago.” We see that all entrusts do this (“The United States was always about social justice ; the Jewish faith was always about social justice ; this TV station and car line and toothpaste were always about social justice”) and we conclude that they do because it is the optimal strategy, tested and chosen by evolution.

So, is that it? Are we doomed to lose all battles, to be preyed upon and parasitized?

In the biosphere, only a minority of organisms are predators or parasites. How could it be otherwise? Someone still needs to do the hard work of capturing solar energy and building biological matter. So too in the world of human culture. Tax-thieving governments and culture-thieving brigands can’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg. The Lotka-Volterra equations, first developed in 1910 to describe chemical reactions, but echoing Pierre-François Verhulst’s logistic equation from almost a century earlier quantified the mechanism.

And, since biology is economics is sociology, I note that Mancur Lloyd Olson Jr.’s theory of roving bandits, which are willing to loot everything from a village, and stationary bandits, who learn to restrain themselves so as to keep the village alive, and capable of being pillaged (or “taxed”) again reaches the same conclusion: predators can never outpopulate the prey … at least not for long.

Based on Lotka, Volterra, and Olson, then, I suggest that the collectivists’ social entryism will never be total. Negative feedback loops will ensure that. When will the entryist wave peak? Perhaps it already has. The last decade saw the cultures of video games and comics under attack from entryists, but perhaps the high water mark has already been reached, as we’ve seen several horrific market failure, such as the female Ghostbusters fiasco, Mass Effect: Andromeda, or that time when Zoe Quinn of comicsgate / Five Guys fame was given a DC Comics title. As the Twitter meme says “get woke, go broke”.

But on the other hand, perhaps not. Strauss–Howe generations theory, which I tentatively give the nod to, suggests that we’re going to be deep in the suck for quite a while yet.

…

What strategies can we use to improve our odds, to make life somewhat more tolerable in a world where Darwinianism means that threats are ever present?

Look to biology.

We can evolve physical defenses, we can evolve camouflage, or we can adapt to new environments that are less conducive to predators.

What do these mean in social terms?

Physical defenses means organizations building mechanisms to keep entryists out – a topic on which I am not an expert…and Pournelle’s Law and Conquest’s Third Law suggest that perhaps no one is.

The social equivalent of camouflage is a mixture of esotericism (in dangerous times people speak in code) and foot-dragging Vichy coexistence. Scott Aaronson and Slate Star Codex wrote essays on “Kolmogorov complicity” (a good pun on Kolmogorov complexity), and I urge you to read them.

My favorite, is the third option: moving to where the predators aren’t. Which – surprise – boils down to my old favorite, exit.

Jame C Scott talks about exit extensively in his book “The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia” and in his later book “Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States”. He makes the core point that when you see a populace that does not have certain social technologies, that does not mean – contra the default narrative – that they never evolved them. Sometimes populations intentionally abandon technologies because those techniques make them legibile to control and subversion by the overculture. If you want to avoid computer viruses, rip the computers out of your Battlestar. If you want to avoid land taxes, burn down the land registry, or become nomadic. If you want to avoid having your subculture taken over by collectivists … what, exactly?

#travis corcoran #libertarian futurist society #prometheus award #sci fi #read the whole thing

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soyousian · 5 years

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TNG Rewatch 1.04

okay I’ve slept and am ready to watch trek again

I'm writing these all at once and queueing them out so I have a pile in case school picks up or something

preface over! time to watch the last outpost!

I hope this one better than code of honor

oh, they’re chasing ferengi!

this is the least dramatic chase i’ve ever watched

they couldn’t even get any music

there’s the music

Why aren’t you firing on the HOSTILE SHIP?

the ferengi are so built up in season 1 and then the rest of trek they’re just weird little goblins

just absolute little bastards

geordi’s not your errand boy!

kinda fun that you can’t read ferengi because they got weird brains

oh no oh god no not capitalists not in my space communism

WORF YOU GREW UP BELARUS DON’T PRETEND YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT EARTH

picard talks about being french more in these 4 eps than in the rest of the series (as I remember it)

don’t be mean to data!

I'm gonna cry, he just wants to be helpful!

this is the first time we see geordi’s engineering skill

WOO EEE

why did he do that?

Worf seems extra klingon in these early eps

star fleet isn’t a military organization but sun tzu’s teachings are mandatory

merde

your feelings on the ferengi might change soon, counselor

riker is so much taller than picard

picard is surrendering!

dun dun duh!

what’s gonna happen?

uh oh! the fernegi are being forced to surrender too

pretty much all the culture and customs we see in this ep get scrapped later on

personally, I like the weird little goblins better than the discount klingons

daimon tarr gets on facetime just to insult the “hu-mans”

rip to the ferengi’s second officer but data isn’t going anywhere until nemesis

also, I want to know about this “ferengi code” is it different than the rules of acquisition or is it nothing

according to memory alpha, it’s the ferengi’s first contact procedure

daimon tarr just lives in a white void huh

season 1 riker is good with kids

wait, how did those kids get into the conference room?

*sigh* William

FINGER TRAP! DATA’S FINGER TRAP!

they just don’t know about this huge and ancient space empire

oh data is baby

THE TKON EMPIRE COULD MOVE STARS!??!!

AND THEY JUST DON’T KNOW ABOUT IT?!?!?

life support is important

yo what the fuck is up with this TAS ass angle

okay that was just a shot of tarr’s teeth

the ferengi don’t know about the word swap?!

riker just takes half the bridge with him

he’s got like what, officers 2-6 in the chain of command

tasha? data?

Geeeordi?

WOOORF?

ANYBODY!?

DAta?

maybe the others past this fog machine

good thing geordi got stuck on that rock and didn’t fall on his head

the ferengi have pool noodles for weapons

oh no! LIGHTNING WHIPS

can you imagine quark, rom, or nog using one of those?

HILARIOUS

oh no! CHIPPED SILVER NAIL POLISH!

how’d they get worf?

so these ferengi like gold but in who mourns for morn quark calls gold “useless”

com badges are made of gold

WORF FLIP

ajbsakgldui the face data makes when riker gets knocked out

TASHA!

shoot this fool, tasha!

thank god the away team has a competent woman with them. the boys were getting their asses handed to them

the crystals absorb energy weapons

uh oh! it’s the wizard of oz!

this dude and his party city looking costume

portal, kill this fool!

so between now and ds9 gold loses all value

KILL THIS FOOL, TASHA!

absfaoygsn what the fuck is up with these ferengi’s wild arm movements

worf is...hungry for fighting...horny for battle...and ready to BUST A NUT UP in this challenge!

that 1.25 speed up

oh riker! you’re so interesting, mr. riker! you’re so cool! you’re so special and sexy! oh mr. riker!

yo was dr. crusher about to makeout with capt. picard?

please destroy them mr. portal sir

lotta dry ice on this planet

now riker’s got a finger trap!

aw you little shits! beaming the ferengi finger traps

Rating: 6.5/10

tldr; finally some good fucking trek

#star trek #Star Trek TNG #star trek the next generation #next gen rewatch

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neth-dugan · 6 years

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Nine Worlds - Friday

Thursday found [here]

After having had only a couple hours sleep, we got up and got ready for the day. Some of us took longer than others, and no that wasn’t me. @laalratty @knittedace and I went to get breakfast outside of costume and then went back to our rooms to get properly dressed. I also had a nap on the bed as the first session doesn’t start until 10am, which helped I think. But I did spend the rest of the day very tired.

EDUCATION AT HOGWARTS

The first panel I went to at the convention proper, and @unwoundbobbin was on it which was a bonus.

It was a fun talk in which everyone agreed that education at Hogwarts is severely lacking, completely skips some very important subjects and really needs to look at quality of teaching.

As much as we are meant to root for Hogwarts and its independence, it’s an industry checking itself and what happens when people we don’t like are in charge? Someone said that it’s a great thing to show teachers who are fed up with having a curriculum and ofsted inspections. I agree. There was also a lot of talk that as much as muggle studies needs to be better and mandatory, there needs to be an introductory course for muggle raised students so they know what they’re getting into, the world they’re dumped in and so on. And, as a panelist pointed out, to better know all the shibboleths. She also mused that this may be exactly the reason they don’t do that and honestly, probably true.

ACE REPRESENTATION

So, I did a panel on a similar theme several years back and I was curious how this one would go. It took a different tone but times have moved. A lot of the panelists are relatively new to the community but then there was Nat Titman who is one of the founding persons of the asexual community.

I didn’t learn a lot, but it was nice to be in a room with a ton of aces talking about ace things. Aros talking about aro things. People still hating on Moffat for the crap he has spewed. Being inclusive aof aros and demis. Which I know for a fact meant a lot to some, as I was talking to a demi person at that meeting later that day who brought it up. I got to espouse my theory on how Yuuri Katsuki is so so very demi even if language, culture and censorship means it’ll never be explicitly canon.

BSL FOR GEEKS

This was amazing! I know how to say thank you and ‘g’ and that is it. So this was pretty great. Aside from being able to tell you my name at the end, I was delighted to learn the sign for Star Trek is literally the Vulcan salute. I also learnt how to say ‘Space, the final frontier’ though I probably do it with a massive accent. I learnt that this is the new sign coming up for trans:

...and tumblr provides a demonstration of this. Not video from the con.

Which is related to the sign for soul. Also I learned the sign that’s becoming popular for queer which is a ‘q’ in the motion of a rainbow and it’s awesome.

There were lots of character names and phrases and there’s no way I’m going to remain most of it. And I had a weird hand thing going on that this made worse. So by the end of it, my hand hurt a fair bit. But it was fantastic. It was presented by a a group of interpreters and deaf people who bounced off of each other really well. One person even forgot how to spell their own name. But given a person who shall remain nameless forgot what their name even was at a different session? This isn’t the worst I heard of.

I really loved it, and this was one of my favourite sessions at the entire convention. I wanted to go to the after dark one for adults only, in which there’d be swearing, but alas I had to take care of my hand and so decided it was a no go.

EVERYBODY HATES MORAL PHILOSOPHERS: THE ETHICS OF THE GOOD PLACE

I’m a big fan of this show. I came across it on Netflix and then got my Mom into it and it is brilliant. It’s smart and funny and thinky all at once. This session was more of a lecture than a panel or workshop which fit, because the person giving it is a philosophy professor. Not a moral philosopher, but a philosopher.

It turns out that it isn’t so much that everyone hates moral philosophers, it’s just really hard to be one. But whilst we were waiting for the session to start I spotted a person in front of me dressed up as Janet. I asked to confirm and was told, perfectly in character that interesting fact, they were Janet. And proceeded to give me a cactus sticky note with a Janet phrase on it. I sent a photo and a test to my Mom who loved it.

...I do have a picture, but didn’t ask permission to post on the internet so here is a close approximation minus cactus.

The lecture itself was pretty interesting. Turns out the writers are using real philosophy and real books and theories and the like when making the show. I can see how Chidi would get so anxious if he follows Kant. Even the text books given to Eleanor are ones the speaker has themselves and sees as foundational texts. So yay! She went through a few schools of philosophy that pop up in the show and it was fun.

Someone pointed out that it seemed that each of the human four seemed to be missing one of the classical virtues. The speaker agreed. There was lots of debate about fair or just the system in this show is, and also how much about it we can objectively know given Michael’s aim in the first season. I pointed out that the entire thing seemed to be unfair to those with disadvantages or some mental health conditions. The last episode of the latest season, without getting into spoilers too much, entirely takes advantage of things about two characters that they’ve no way of doing away with and/or find near impossible to control. It sucks. There seemed to be agreement on this. Privilege, it seems, exists in the systems of The Good Place as we currently know them.

ASSIMILATION AND IDENTITY IN STAR TREK

This was a session hosted by Jaime who some may know and is pretty awesome. I don’t always agree with them on everything but I do appreciate them. And I didn’t agree with a good amount of what was said here. Not that I think it’s wrong, just that some of it is a matter of perspective and assigning aims and motivations to characters that aren’t, to me, clear in canon. I tend to think Worf handed his son off to his parents because he never asked for a kid, didn’t know he had one, works a dangerous job, has no experience parenting and lives on a ship that goes through a major crisis on a fairly regular basis. But people can disagree.

There are some things about Trek that.... aren’t the best. The whole area around the Ferengi is a tricky area and a bit of a mess. I love them, I love the actors, I love some of their episodes, but there are anti-semitic tropes in there made all the more there by the fact that most of the Ferengi actors are of Jewish decent. It’s problematic. It’s meant to be a critic of capitalism and modern culture. Of US. I’ve heard various Trek folk basically state that of all the species in Star Trek, the Ferengi represent modern day humans. But. They fell back on some problematic crap and there’s no way of escaping that.

There was one point when I was a bit worried it was going to get a bit anti-atheist but it didn’t thank goodness. And that’s a whole other thing.

There’s a clip that’s pretty famous amongst DS9 fans, that you fan find here, that exemplifies some of what this panel was about. Not all of it, but some. It was running through my head for sure. After the session ended a group of us had a chat after. It brought up a lot of things to talk about, new ways of looking at things and agree or not that’s usually a good thing.

...Moogie!

‘OH, BRILLIANT.’ ANTICIPATING THE THIRTEENTH DOCTOR

This one had @knittedace on the panel! She’d been talking about doing it last year and here we were . She in her hand knitted Dalek dress, me in the audience feeling a bit woozy and tired.

Mostly, it did exactly what the tin said. People being excited for Thirteen, recalling days when they’d written fic on the idea but never thought it possible, what people wanted to see or not see and the like. Mostly, it was a feel good panel with happy people glad for a new start that would bring in new and old fans alike.

Someone on the panel pointed out that for some kids, they’ll have never known a time when The Doctor couldn’t be a woman. For whom their Doctor is a woman. And that is amazing. And she gets to keep her accent too, and there is hope we will see some of the North this season. Not just more London, or Cardiff as London.

For myself, I’ve always figured some Time Lords could change genders and sexes. Some couldn’t. And doing so was some kind of Time Lord intersex thing. But I was never really rooting for a woman Doctor.... yet when they announced it was going to happen? I was excited and relieved in a way I hadn’t imagined I would be.

Bring it on.

INTERVAL

At this point I found myself in the bar with some ginger ale talking to some people I’ve never med before. One was a demi person who had been at the Ace Rep talk and was very relieved to see demis included. I explained about the history of the flag and how they’re explicitly on it. Outside of some gatekeepers, the ace community I know has always embraced those other identities under the ace umbrella.

Me, them and a friend of theirs made our way downstairs after a good chin wag to get good seats for the next panel. We figured we’d probably need them and coincidentally we were all going to the same one.

FROM A/B/O TO DUBIOUS CONSENTACLES

I’m still not sure what dubious consentacles are to be honest. My mind goes to dubcon hentai but I’m probably wrong. This panel was after 10pm, the last of the day and very much adult only. I was in my TNG uniform and there was a Trek fan vid screening in the room across the hall so a volunteer checked I was where I wanted to be whilst we were waiting for it to start. Which was sweet, people do get lost down there. Also, @unwoundbobbin was there which was a hoot.

The entire thing was a hoot to be honest. Not that formal, and mostly people sharing things they’d seen online, talk about the value of tagging, and wonder at the way fandom just comes together and decides on what dubious biology looks like. I shared the story of the early early days of Star Trek fandom how writers would come up with new weird and wonderful ways of depicting Spock’s genitals. I just think it’s something everyone should know. Fandom has been like this for a long time.

I wont go into detail of the things discussed. But it’s amazing how trends change over time, how even over multiple fandoms some of these tropes become so accepted nobody has to explain anything. We just know how it works and dive right into a kind of shared ‘verse thing.

There were some things mentioned that I hadn’t heard of and are very much not talking about on this post. But interesting.

Honestly, this was another of my favourite panels this convention. It was so much fun. So much. Some people were a bit tipsy I think.

I did warn the two mods that I was pretty tired so if my eyes looked funny or closed, I wasn’t asleep, I was just squinting. I got so enthused by the cracky fun of it all though that I needn't have worried. I also found it amusing just how many ace spectrum folk there were there.

After this I went back to my room. I got changed, went to bed hoping for a better night sleep than the one before. So very very tired. I’d had a great day but I was tired and I needed sleep urgently. Especially as the tired thing was not helping the dizzy thing. Thankfully I did get some sleep, not as good as home but I god some.

[SATURDAY IS HERE]

#nine worlds #nineworlds #doctor who #star trek #the good place #harry potter

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sshbpodcast · 4 years

Text

Tales from the Holodeck: DS9 Fanfic: Ames’s Teleplay

In celebration of A Star to Steer Her By’s fourth anniversary, we did what pretty much all theaters are doing right now and put together a little Zoom reading. This time around, our latest fanfics in our “Tales from the Holodeck” series are all Deep Space Nine teleplays that you can listen to us cold read here (this one starts at 14:30), complete with really dodgy attempts at accents! Follow along with Ames’s teleplay below or read with your friends with your own dodgy accents!

[images © Paramount/CBS]

“Jurassic Quark”

By Ames

Random pick: Quark

TEASER:

QUARK: I'm not saying there aren't pros to the argument, Rom. I'm saying it'd be too much work and not enough profit.

ROM: But brother, I'm saying I could put in that work on my own time.

QUARK: The answer is no, and that's final.

ROM: You don't even have to pay me.

QUARK: We're not getting a pet for the bar!

SFX: Someone entering.

ROM: I just think the customers would like it if we got a dog... or a wompat… or… or...

VASH: I could hook you up with a tamed sehlat if you're interested.

QUARK: I'm sorry, miss, we're closed!

VASH: Pity. I thought you said you'd always be interested in doing business with me.

ROM: Is that…?

QUARK: Vash? No! No of course we are – I mean, I am – I mean, what can I do for you?

VASH: You don't know how difficult it is finding good help in this quadrant.

QUARK: Tell me about it.

ROM: Or a targ? I think the customers would like seeing a targ in the bar.

QUARK: Rom! The bar is not a petting zoo!

ROM: Sorry.

QUARK: (Sighs.) See what I mean?

SFX: Fade to intro theme to DS9. Or maybe Jurassic Park.

COMPUTER: Deep Space Nine. Episode: "Jurassic Quark"

CHAPTER ONE:

QUARK: Now, you said you had a business venture to pursue, Vash my dear?

VASH: I'm afraid it might be a little on the high-risk end.

QUARK: Well, you know what goes hand-in-hand with high risk?

ROM: A visit from the Ferengi Commerce Authority?

QUARK: Ignore him; he's an idiot who should be taking inventory right now...

ROM: Of course! Will get right to it, brother!

SFX: Rom exiting.

QUARK: Better to talk just the two of us.

VASH: Agreed. This is an item that the fewer people know about, the better.

QUARK: My favorite kind. Can I get you something? On the house, which I assure you, you won't hear me offer very frequently.

VASH: Thanks; I'm all set.

QUARK: So.

VASH: So. (Beat.) How much do you know about the Slaver Empire?

QUARK: I know anything concerning them can be very profitable and that's enough for me.

VASH: Yes, very profitable, but also very difficult. Of course, most things are.

QUARK: Of course.

VASH: I'm looking for someone who has access to a... stasis field nullifier… You see, it's –

QUARK: Hold on. Are you telling me you have a stasis box?

VASH: Oh good, you've heard of them.

QUARK: Heard of them! They're only some of the rarest artifacts in the quadrant! But I thought they'd all been tracked down...

VASH: In the Alpha Quadrant perhaps, but they're still plentiful in the Gamma Quadrant, and Starfleet doesn't have the monopoly on them there that they do here.

QUARK: Ah. You'd like to keep Starfleet out of this, I take it.

VASH: They'd only confiscate it in case it's got a grenade in it with the pin pulled or something.

QUARK: Is that a possibility?

VASH: I told you it was high-risk.

QUARK: And your bigshot boyfriend couldn't help you with this?

VASH: I haven't actually told Jean-Luc I'm back yet...

QUARK: (Sighs audibly.) I meant that omnipotent fellow you were palling around with.

VASH: Oh Q! Goodness no. I'd really prefer not to get him involved with this. Or anything. Ever again. So where are we on that stasis field nullifier? Can you get me one?

QUARK: I believe I can. For a price.

VASH: We don't know what's inside the box yet.

QUARK: Every transaction is a gamble.

VASH: 20%?

QUARK: 30.

VASH: 25.

QUARK: 25, and then 10% of every stasis box you find using the homing device that I hear these things have built in.

VASH: Oh you're good.

QUARK: I know.

VASH: Deal.

QUARK: (Calling off.) Rom! Go into the store room and bring me the device in the box labeled "self-sealing stem bolts"!

ROM: (Off.) Should I finish taking inventory first?

QUARK: Not on your life! (Muttering.) Oh to be an only child...

SFX: Rom entering.

ROM: You wanted a… a... a stasis field nullifier?

VASH: We did, thank you.

SFX: Vash using a communicator, non-Starfleet brand.

VASH: Computer, transport the container on my ship to Quark's Bar.

SFX: Transporter sound.

VASH: May I see that?

ROM: Okay.

QUARK: You're going to open that in here?

VASH: Why not?

ROM: The bar's insured. What's the worst that could happen?

QUARK: Oh you know, something about a grenade with its pin pulled maybe?

VASH: Every transaction is a gamble.

QUARK: Mm. So I've heard.

VASH: Listen. Whatever the Slavers put in this box is practically priceless. A purely preserved relic from a race that ruled the entire galaxy over a billion years ago! It's worth the risk!

QUARK: Alright alright, what are you waiting for? Open it!

SFX: Sound of the stasis field nullifier, and the box opening.

QUARK: (Bracing himself.) Well?

ROM: (Bracing himself.) Is it a bomb?

VASH: It's some kind of data storage device. Let me scan it. (Pause.) It's – it's life signatures! Encrypted life signatures! Do you know what this means?

ROM: Yes! (Beat.) But maybe you should tell us what you think it means first.

QUARK: It means we're due for some great profit!

VASH: It means that there could be patterns of individuals from the actual Slaver Empire in this storage device. They're waiting in there like an insect trapped in amber.

ROM: Or like a pattern waiting in the transporter buffer!

VASH: Exactly!

QUARK: Can you tell how many people we're talking about here?

VASH: Their technology is pretty different from ours. There'd be no way to tell unless we found a way to let them out.

ROM: It'd be very dangerous to let them out though, wouldn't it?

VASH: Very. We don't know what these people had in mind for preserving themselves like this. To free them on the station could be catastrophe.

QUARK: But to let them out in a safe, contained environment could be incredibly lucrative...

ROM: What do you mean?

QUARK: Look at it this way: it would be the opportunity of a century to have access to specimens – actual specimens – from a long-dead, ancient super race. And who controls that access? We do.

VASH: We're talking about what may be actual people, Quark. Sentient beings. This changes everything.

QUARK: On the contrary! It changes nothing.

ROM: What are you saying?

VASH: He's saying we would own these people.

ROM: But that's slavery, brother! And Ferengi don't enslave other races!

VASH: We'd be no better than the Slaver Empire.

QUARK: Would you let me finish? I'm not talking about the people in this buffer. What if we could feed this data into a holoprogram and create an artificial image of the people in the Slaver Empire that we can ensure will be safe for everyone... and fruitful for our bank accounts?

VASH: It would be an enticing way to learn about their culture without having a negative effect on their encrypted life signatures.

ROM: Or them having a negative effect on our actual life signatures!

QUARK: I can see it now: Meet the strongest ruling society in the galaxy! Back from a billion-year respite!

VASH: A stasis box might only contain a trinket to study, but this would be like a glimpse into their real lives. The archaeological community would be beside themselves!

QUARK: The Slaver Empire: Only at Quark's Bar!

SFX: Theme up; fade to commercial.

CHAPTER TWO:

ROM: We should be able to get a good approximation of the life signatures in the buffer if the holoscanners can read this data. Do you think the computer will have enough memory?

QUARK: If we dump some less popular programs from the system, I'm sure we'll be fine. Chief O'Brien and Doctor Bashir will have to go without the Battle of Britain for a while.

VASH: And the holoprograms will be able to keep us safe if the entities are less than friendly?

QUARK: Of course. 100% guaranteed.

ROM: The holosuites have safety protocols required. May I see that storage device? (Beat.) The holoscanner seems to be reading the data. If it's big enough to hold the life signatures and neural information of a number of people, it may take some ti–

COMPUTER: Program complete.

ROM: Uh. Never mind!

VASH: We'll be the first people to lay eyes on the Slavers in eons.

QUARK: Epochs even! Lead the way.

SFX: Holosuite door opening. The three enter.

SLAVER1: Who goes there?!

QUARK: (Aside.) Well they're no lookers, that's for sure.

VASH: (Aside.) I've seen worse.

SLAVER2: Identify yourselves or we'll fire.

VASH: Sorry, we're new at this. I'm Vash; this is Quark and Rom. We'd like to perform a cultural exchange with your people.

QUARK: You're going to be the biggest things in the quadrant – the galaxy, you see!

SLAVER1: We already are the biggest things in the galaxy.

SLAVER2: Now you've brought us to this place and our people will not be pleased about it.

SLAVER1: And when our people are not pleased…

SLAVER2: No one is pleased.

VASH: We're not being clear. You're – how do I put this – you're –

ROM: You're in the future!

QUARK: Rom!

ROM: The present – Our present – Your future! Oh. This is complicated.

QUARK: You're not helping!

SLAVER1: The stasis box.

SLAVER2: Yes... I remember. So they've brought us back.

SLAVER1: So where are we?

VASH: About one billion –

SLAVER1: I wasn't talking to you!

SLAVER2: It appears to be the homeworld, but something is false.

SLAVER1: Like it's a duplication.

VASH: (Aside.) This is fascinating. They're piecing together the context of their surroundings after a billion year's sleep.

QUARK: (Aside.) Someone allowed their holoprojections to be programmed too intelligent!

ROM: (Aside.) It's just however they were mapped in their data storage! And the holo-emitters – I didn't – I don't –

VASH: (Aside.) The holo-emitters have nothing to do with it. These people are just naturally this advanced. Look at how they solve a problem.

SLAVER1: They've created this place to look just like the Capitol District. But why?

VASH: Perhaps I can explain?

SLAVER2: Shoot them!

SFX: Phaser fire.

QUARK and ROM: Aah!

SLAVER2: Our weapons. They've immobilized them.

VASH: (Aside.) Good thing your safety protocols are working.

SFX: More phaser fire.

SLAVER2: Very suspicious. The beams created are fabricated.

SLAVER1: Everything is fabricated. Everything here. It is an environment simulation, but with far inferior technology. (To Quark and the others, furious.) You! Why have you brought us here?

QUARK: Oh? Are you going to let us talk now? For such an advanced race, you'd think you'd start with maybe listening to the people who have all the answers. No wonder your race went extinct.

VASH: Everyone take a breath. What you may not realize is that over a billion years – oh... how do I quantify a year for you…

ROM: On Ferenginar, a year is equal to –

SLAVER2: Inferior scum! (Grunts, throwing a punch.) Wha – We aren't –

QUARK: (Feigning a yawn.) Ho hum. You can't touch us here. You're going to have to listen to the – what did they call us?

ROM: Inferior scum.

QUARK: Yes. That.

VASH: This isn't going as I was hoping. If I'd thought they'd be this uncooperative...

QUARK: Just something we'll have to adjust in the next version. (Sighs.) Computer, end program. (Beat.) Computer? End program? Why isn't it working?

ROM: The memory! There's too much memory for it to save, so it has to keep running!

QUARK: So delete the saved file! We don't want it anyway!

SLAVER1: I see now. Computer! Show me a control panel.

QUARK: Wait...

VASH: Can they do that?

SFX: The magicky sound effect of the control panel appearing in the holosuite.

QUARK: Rom! I told you we need locking mechanisms on the holosuite arches!

ROM: They shouldn't be able to do that!

SLAVER1: Oh this is intriguing.

SLAVER2: Let me see.

SLAVER1: It's merely a holoprojection program in a recreational area aboard a space station.

QUARK: You shouldn't be reading that!

SLAVER1: I should be able to override it.

QUARK: COMPUTER! END PROGRAM!

SFX: Typing on the console.

SLAVER1: What a sad excuse for a program. A toddler could create a better facsimile than this.

SLAVER2: And have better security measures in place.

SLAVER1: Speaking of which. Those safety protocols? They're down now.

SLAVER2: I've been waiting a billion years to hear you say that.

QUARK: Now let's all just calm down for a minute…

ROM: Brother, we may not have planned this accordingly.

SLAVER2: You will rue the day you thought to enslave the Slaver Empire.

VASH: No one's enslaving anyone here.

QUARK: Take him, it's almost certainly his fault!

ROM: But brother, you're the one who –

SFX: Phaser fire.

QUARK and ROM: Aah!

QUARK: Protect me!

VASH: Protect you?! Shouldn't you be protecting me?!

SFX: Phaser fire.

QUARK and ROM: Aah!

VASH: This isn't usually how anthropology works! We just wanted to learn about your people!

SLAVER1: You will learn to bow before the mighty Empire!

SFX: Phaser fire.

SFX: Three bodies hitting the floor.

SFX: Theme up; fade to commercial.

SCENE THREE:

QUARK: (Waking up, hazy.) Ugh. My… my head…

ODO: Don't worry, Quark, it's still intact.

QUARK: Odo? Did the – (Beat.) How much do you know already?

ODO: Just that you've let a pair of aliens from an age-old civilization loose on the ship and they've locked everyone out of Ops. Why? Was there more?

QUARK: No, that about covers it. Are Rom and Vash –

ROM: We're here.

VASH: They've locked us all here in the bar.

QUARK: Well, can't complain about having a captive audience.

ODO: "Captive" being the operative word. There's no telling what they're up to now.

ROM: At least they've left us alive!

VASH: Their governance system ran almost entirely on the institution of slavery. We're better to them alive than dead.

QUARK: So? What are we doing about it?

ODO: Doing about it? What can we do about it? We're trapped in here. Sisko and the others are locked in the brig. The rest of the station's populace is locked in their quarters, and we're down to nothing but basic life support. There's nothing to be done about it.

QUARK: That's not the stubborn old pool of goo I know. Can't you… turn into something that'll get us out of here and save the day?

ODO: Oh yes. What would you like? Would you prefer a razorcat or a giant eel-bird of Regulus V? I'm taking requests.

ROM: It all happened so fast. The two Slavers just took over the whole station!

VASH: You mean two holoimages of Slavers took over the whole station.

QUARK: How did they manage that?

ODO: They were able to rewrite their characters to bypass the controls on the holoemitters. They've reprogrammed the entire station in just a couple of hours to allow them access wherever they want.

ROM: But at least I still have the data storage device that contains their real life signatures!

QUARK: You do!

ROM: They must not have searched us for it.

ODO: I'll be confiscating that, thank you.

ROM: Sorry.

VASH: So that means that they're still holoimages contained to the station.

ODO: For now. Until they reconfigure a runabout into a mobile holosuite. Or worse…

QUARK: The Defiant… They can't possibly be that smart… can they?

VASH: They were a society that had taken over the entire galaxy and held it for eons. I'd say they're pretty smart. And powerful.

ODO: Or did you not know that?

QUARK: There's only two of them. How much damage could they do in the quadrant?

ODO: Mmmmm…

QUARK: It was such a good idea… a profitable idea...

SFX: Alarm klaxon blares.

VOICE OF DUKAT: Bajoran workers, your attention please. Your attempt to seize control of this facility is going to fail. You are valuable workers and we wish you no harm. However, if you do not return control of this unit to your Cardassian supervisors, we will be forced to take action. You have eight minutes to make your decision.

VASH: What is that?

ROM: The Slavers must've tripped one of the Terok Nor counterinsurgency programs while they were searching the station's files.

ODO: Oh good, now if we're not enslaved first, we have the option of getting killed by the Cardassians' streak of paranoia yet again. At least the company this time has improved.

VASH: I'm sure the Slavers will bypass it like they have everything else so far.

VOICE OF DUKAT: Ah ah ah, Bajoran workers, you didn't say the magic word. Your rebellion will not succeed. Surrender immediately or I will be forced to kill every Bajoran on the station.

VASH: Or not.

QUARK: (Announcing to the bar.) It was a pleasure to serve you all, and in the shadow of our demise, I'd like to announce that drinks will be half-price! Get 'em while you're breathing!

ODO: I always knew that the destruction of the station would somehow be your doing, Quark. But I wouldn't have guessed it would be in this manner.

VASH: What can I say? We got greedy. I should never have opened Pandora's box and let those horrors come out.

ROM: We did try to keep the circumstances safe!

QUARK: That's right. We couldn't have known what was going to happen.

VASH: But we could! It was in their nature to usurp power. I don't know how we didn't see that. We were blinded by the promise of forbidden knowledge and…

QUARK: And piles of latinum.

VASH: The Slavers died out ages and ages ago and we should have left them there. They had their time in the sun already, but we just had to try to exploit them for more!

QUARK: I never said it was a fool-proof idea. It could have worked, but...

VASH: But we were so preoccupied with whether or not we could that we didn't stop to think if we should.

ODO: It's too late for that now. All we can do now is wait.

VASH: And see if the station self destructs.

QUARK: My money's on O'Brien somehow foiling their plans.

ROM: I'll take that bet, brother!

QUARK: Fine. If we're all dead, I can't pay up anyway.

VOICE OF DUKAT: Attention Bajoran workers, it pains me to see you have not surrendered to your Cardassian supervisors. I am very sorry to say that everyone in the command center will be beamed into space in five seconds if you do not comply immediately. 5… 4...

VASH: Wait! The Slavers' holoimages won't remain intact off the station!

VOICE OF DUKAT: 3… 2…

QUARK: That means –

ODO: Clever gul.

VOICE OF DUKAT: 1. This rebellion is over. Bye bye.

SFX: Alarm klaxon stops.

QUARK: The doors!

VASH: They're unlocked!

ROM: And power has returned to the systems!

ODO: I need to report to the brig to let Captain Sisko out. Don't do anything that you'd usually do while I'm gone.

QUARK: Wouldn't dream of it.

SFX: Odo exiting.

VASH: The universe wasn't ready to meet the Slavers again. In any form.

ROM: I don't know about the universe, but we sure weren't.

VASH: They're better where they are. In the history books where they belong.

QUARK: (Scoffs.) And you think the bar can handle a pet.

ROM: Maybe we can start with a couple of plants?

QUARK: Oh, no. I'm not taking time out of my busy day to tend to a bunch of freeloading flowers.

VASH: I have access to a crop of Phylosian retlaw plants I could get you pretty cheap.

ROM: Aren't those things poisonous?

VASH: Not if you keep them fed.

QUARK: I'm putting an end to this conversation. No pets! No plants! No ancient races trying to conquer the galaxy! None of it!

SFX: Quark exiting.

VASH: Maybe a couple of snakeleaf plants?

ROM: Those can be pretty profitable actually.

QUARK: (Off.) None of it!

SFX: Ending theme.

—

Check out Caitlin, Jake, and Chris’s stories for more Tales from the Holodeck! Also, be sure to keep listening on SoundCloud, follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and relinquish all stasis boxes to Starfleet Command immediately.

#star trek #Star Trek Deep Space 9 #ds9 #fanfic #star trek fanfiction #teleplay #ds9 fanfiction #Quark #Ferengi #Vash #profit #jurassic park

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thehumanarkle · 6 years

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[NOTE: I had to make some changes to this post after I realized I screwed up and there were 9 episodes in the first half of the season. I goofed on account of only the first 8 being visible on the CBS Discovery page. All points made refer only to the first 8. To minimize the amount of editing I’d need to do, I’ll keep my thoughts on Episode 9 to myself for now.]

Okay, I have watched the first eight episodes of Star Trek Discovery, and I have some thoughts.

1: The pilot isn’t very good, but compared to other Trek pilots, it could’ve been worse. Overall, I’d place it about equal with “Caretaker,” but better than “Encounter At Farpoint” and “Broken Bow.” “The Emissary” and whichever one you count for TOS (”The Man Trap” for air date order, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” for production order) top the list. My biggest problem is that if the intent was to convey that Burnham’s bad choices in these two episodes (I count both as the pilot since they dropped the same day) was partly the result of her concussion and partly her years of suppressed human emotions bubbling up at the worst possible time, that should’ve been made clearer. I mean, if that was the intent. If so, I actually like the idea. Not the execution though.

Also, the title was wrong. I know some people have griped about the story Burnham tells where the title, “The Vulcan Hello,” comes from, but that itself actually does make sense. But to phrase it the way they did makes it sound, albeit unintentionally, that the Vulcans shoot first with everyone else, not just the Klingons.

2: I have mixed feelings about Rainn Wilson as Harry Mudd. Part of that has to do with the actor being somewhat problematic, but I’m not going to get into that. The other part is, while his performance was certainly enjoyable to watch, as a lifelong Trekkie I’m a bit uncomfortable with the idea of Harry friggin’ Mudd being kinda scary. I mean, even scarier than Capt. Lorca, who I am pretty sure is on the verge of a total breakdown thanks to his untreated PTSD. That said, his (Mudd’s) second episode is, so far anyway, my favorite of the season. Definitely one of the better uses of the Moebius Loop I’ve seen (though not as good as Stargate SG-1′s “Window of Opportunity”, but what can ya do?)

3: The new look of the Klingons sucks and I hate it.

4: I didn’t like it at first, but the design of the title ship has grown on me.

5: In Lt. Stamets, Anthony Rapp has somehow managed to give us a chracter that, IMO anyway, is somehow both more annoying AND more likable than his Rent character.

6: Feminist critiques of this show about WOC not named Michael getting killed off left and right? Valid. Here’s hoping they cut that shit out in Season 2.

7: I really wish the Fanboys would stop bitching about the spore drive. Yes, we know they don’t use it in TOS and beyond. But that doesn’t make it a plot hole; there’s still a whole half season to go, and I bet by the end of it we’ll get a reason why the drive was discontinued. I don’t know if it’ll be a good reason. I certainly hope it is. But it will be a reason. So calm the fuck down.

8: For those people ready to write the show off completely based on the 8 episodes we’ve had so far, let’s just take a look at where the other 5 live-action Trek shows at this point in their first seasons.

TOS: This almost isn’t fair considering it was this show’s iconic status that allowed the others to exist in the first place, but allowing for both the production technologies and social norms of the time, we’ve got 7 good episodes, and 1 episode that can’t really be judged fairly because a lot of the series rules weren’t in place yet; hell, they hadn’t even locked down Kirk’s middle name. Sulu was in a blue shirt. We had no McCoy, Scotty, or Uhura. Obviously, I’m talking about “Where No Man Has Gone Before” here. So, we’ll call that a success rate of 7/8. TNG: As a kid, I loved all of these, but with the benefit of hindsight, there are no good episodes here. The Ferengi were introduced, but it was Deep Space Nine that saved that Trek species from ending up just a regrettable footnote. “Where No One Has Gone Before” (not to be confused with the TOS pilot) has some pretty visuals going for it, but that’s pretty much it. 0/8. DS9: The only episode from DS9′s first 8 I would call bad is the Q episode, but even that is saved from garbage by virtue of Sisko punching Q in the face. The Pilot’s the only good one of the bunch though, with the rest just being okay. So, we’ll go with 7/8, but with an asterisk. VOY: 2 mediocre episodes, plus 1 episode that introduced an interesting villain that the show sadly completely failed to utilize properly (the Vidiians). Neelix suffers a fair amount in that episode though so I’ll round up to Good. The rest were just plain bad though. 3/8. ENT: One of the first episodes gave us Jeffrey Combs as Shran. Granted, the episode itself wasn’t that great, but later on they were able to do more with Shran, and eventually give us a greater glimpse at Andorian culture, so I’ll be generous and give that one a good score. The rest of the episodes were just varying degrees of bad (with “Unexpected” crossing over into full-on offensive). 1/8. And that’s me being generous mind you. So how does DSC stack up, at least in my opinion? Well, apart from “The Vulcan Hello” and “Battle at the Binary Stars,” there hasn’t been an episode I’ve truly disliked, and even then I didn’t hate them. I was more disappointed than anything else. So, when you add up the episodes that were okay with those that I liked (so far only 3), you get a First 8 Episodes score of 4/8.

So, sorting by rank you get (remember, this ONLY applies to the first 8 episodes of the first season, not the series overall); TOS: 7/8 DS9: 7/8 DSC: 4/8 VOY: 3/8 ENT: 1/8 TNG: 0/8

9: Oh, I forgot to mention this; he can have his douchey moments, but overall, I like Saru. Though I imagine him being played by Doug Jones has a fair amount to do with it.

10: This scene didn’t bother me at all.

If they were going to do the F-bomb, at least it was in the context of an exclamation of excitement, and not something sexual or insulting.

In Conclusion: It’s not a great show. But it’s not the dumpster fire much of the Internet would have you believe it is. I think it can be a good show though and hopefully, CBS will take at least some of the feedback they’re getting from critics and fans into account. Not all though, because honestly some of the criticisms are bullshit.

All that said, CBS All Acces is terrible and this show should be on NetFlix seeing as NetFlix subscribers already helped pay for the series to begin with and it is flat out gross that people who already paid for this show once (by way of their NetFlix subscriptions) can’t actually view it (in the U.S. anyway) without paying again. THAT criticism of the show is not bullshit. It is one I 100% agree with.

#star trek discovery #Thoughts #how long before some assholes decides i'm not a real trekkie because of this post?

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cinaed · 7 years

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My Deep Space Nine Thoughts

So instead of doing anything productive with my life for the past two months I have been watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I...mostly don't regret that decision since right now my ability to write anything is null and void, but also because DS9 was a very good show (though I do have several quibbles with the final season).

But anyway! My thoughts on DS9 aka SPOILERS GALORE:

When I attempted to watch the show back in.... *mumble* undergrad back in 2006ish *mumble* I bailed at around season 3, which meant my favorite characters were pretty much Garak and Bashir and that was about it. This go around I loved pretty much everyone, but Kira, Nog, Garak, and Rom were the ones I enjoyed watching develop the most. (I still love Garak, and still ship Garak/Bashir but wow do I want to shake Bashir a lot A LOT.)

All of my favorite episodes ended up being either Kira episodes, Quark/Ferengi episodes, Jadzia being awesome episodes, Garak/Cardassians episodes, or episodes where Sisko gets to shine without being bogged down with the Prophet stuff like the Gabriel Bell episodes and Far Beyond the Stars.

I enjoyed how many different friendships and relationships there were on the show! Personal favorites include Jake and Nog, Dax and Sisko, Jake and Sisko, Worf/Jadzia, Garak/Bashir, Quark/Odo, Sisko and Nog, Garak and Odo, Kasidy/Sisko, Quark and his family, Odo/Kira, Kira and her Cardassians, every single one of Quark's weird romances (why did that awesome Cardassian dissident lady come back? why did Pel never get to show up again? you failed me show!), and all of Sisko's weird nemeses shouting "HATE/LOVE ME, SISKO!"

That said, BENJAMIN LAFAYETTE SISKO! How dare you pull a Goku on your family? I don't care what the Prophets told you! This is not what Kasidy signed up for in the "for better or for worse" portion of marriage!

Also I realize I should be annoyed by LGBTQ characters only being allowed in the Mirrorverse and being mostly evil, and I am, but I also loved all the weird shenanigans of Kira and her harem, Ezri/Leeta, and Garak hitting on Worf, like...I can't help it, that was great. But also I feel like gender/sexuality should be unimportant for joined Trills after a while, and also with the Ferengi culture being so toxic towards women that there should be a lot of male partnerships.

Most of the villains were fascinating! I really loved Kai Winn and for the most part Gul Dukat, as well as the Dominion threat, and really wished that we'd focused on the Cardassian resistance in the final season instead of the Prophets/pah wraiths deal. Also...someone please help the Jem'hadar. They deserve better.

My biggest complaint was the dim lighting, because half the time I couldn't figure out what was going on. Let us see the characters in the scene guys! I would like to see people's expressions during vital conversations!

Fanworks I want:

Fix-it for Ziyal. Just imagine her staying on the station and becoming an artist collaborating with Jake for his books and news articles! Imagine them being Joseph Sisko's pride and joy as they help the abandoned Cardassian orphans on Bajor, visit Cardassia Prime post-show to tell the galaxy about its rebuilding efforts, write about the female Founder's trial, go to Ferenginar to study the social revolution, or just roam around the galaxy.

Post-show look at the Jem'hadar and the Vorta in the aftermath of the Founders' defeat and the Federation trial of the female Founder. What do they become when they have no battle to fight? When they see their gods brought low and defeated? I actually feel like the Klingons and the Jem'hadar both have a lot in common and both need fundamental changes to survive and would be really interested in seeing their races change and adapt.

After a discussion with bookelfe, an AU fic where Bashir manages to save Jadzia but Ezri still ends up with the symbiont, because it would be messy and complicated and interesting, with Ezri still having to adjust to being joined when that wasn't in her plans at all, still having some of Jadzia's memories, while Jadzia now has no memories of her joined hosts and she and Worf have to work through their relationship as Jadzia learns to live with just herself in her head.

I realize "Bashir goes to Cardassia and reunites with Garak" is a staple and the equivalent of post-seine JVJ fic but I want all the varieties! There are a bunch of ways I can see Julian ending up there and I'd like to see all the options play out.

Also Bajoran and Cardassian rebuilding stories, both of them recovering from the different occupations, with guest stars like Quark's ex and those awesome female scientists! What does Bajor do in the aftermath of the Dominion War? Do they finally join the Federation? How about Cardassia?

More about the social revolution on Ferenginar that happened off-screen (come on show, that would've been a more interesting episode than O'Brien and Bashir rummaging around that Section 31 guy's mind!) because I have decided that Pel gets to come back and become Rom's financial adviser. Also more Ferengi women getting to go out and do business and make profit.

Quark and Kira post-show, missing Odo together. Kira in general, because her as the person in charge of the station was a great character choice and I'd love to see more of her life post-finale. And Nog’s further life in Starfleet!

More of Garak and Bashir’s book club! I want more about them discussing Cardassian and human literature, maybe even try some Bajoran literature. I also keep getting side-tracked imagining potential shifts in Bajoran lit during and post-occupation. Also laughing at the thought of Garak insulting whatever human novel Bashir got him to read and Worf walking by and going “The only human literature worth reading is Russian” and then being annoyed that he was even a little bit nice to Garak.

I want Ezri to get a cute girlfriend. How about Jake’s ex-girlfriend, Mardah the Bajoran lady who was working the dabo tables before going to school to study entomology?

Mirrorverse Ezri/Leeta also intrigues me. How did Leeta, a Bajoran, decide to break away from the Alliance and work for the Resistance instead?

#DS9 #Star Trek #Deep Space Nine #DS9 spoilers #long post

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sleepymarmot · 7 years

Text

DS9 season 3 liveblog & notes

[Season index: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 PS]

The Search 1

Um... so what about that treaty about no cloaking on Federation starships, that was such a big deal in The Pegasus?

What's going on with Jadzia's hair...

"We're going to take our only warship into the territory of people who think of us as intruders to convince them we represent no threat" Logic???? What kind of plan is this?

Loaned? Ah, ok.

"When did I start thinking of this Cardassian monstrosity as home?"

If this is "one of the finest collections of ancient African art you'll ever see", what is it doing in their luggage instead of a museum? This is almost as bad as Picard and that priceless artifact in The Chase...

"Maybe it is. Maybe I'm your friend, and maybe I want you to see that you are still needed here no matter what some idiot Starfleet admiral might think." ;_;

Why dim the lights when you cloak? Just to give a visual shorthand to the viewers?

Wow Odo... I don't understand why everyone is so hard on Quark in this episode -- Sisko bullies him, Bashir insults him for no reason, now Odo is yelling at him with more aggression than he's ever shown in two seasons...

Seriously?! Cloaked ships leave a trace, and nobody in all decades of conflict ever noticed that?! I mean, even if somehow only the Romulans know, that means they can detect cloaked Klingon ships, which would mean they could as well have been uncloaked -- that'd be a massive retcon that doesn't work with anything we've seen before.

I still don't understand how replicators can produce foul tasting food... They make exact copies on a molecular level...

Poor Bashir -- it's as if Sisko picked his best friends to leave behind on purpose...

another literal redshirt dead

Class M planet with no star? What?

Why do these changelings all look like Odo -- imperfect imitations of humanoids? I thought Odo's appearance was the result of trying to fit in Bajoran society + lack of skill to make face more detailed. These changelings live by themselves so they can pick any shape they like, and I'd expect them to have more control over details, so just repeating Odo's design looks like a lazy shorthand to indicate they're the same species -- as if their liquid state weren't enough. They even have the same hairstyle -- which he copied from a Bajoran! If the writers are trying to say "they're just copying Odo" then they should all be played by the same actor.

The Search 2

Oh come on, Kira, there's absolutely nothing wrong with having a lot of questions in this situation!!!

Me: well this story is pretty bad so far, I don't have any expectations for it anymore Screen: Andrew Robinson as Garak Me: interest instantly restored

(I'm certain every person liveblogging this show made or reblogged a post in this vein...)

Alright, Sisko's plotline is definitely some kind of hallucination

Or is it? I thought it was all too good to be true, but maybe the Dominion is just tricking them

Wait, that subcommander is alive and on DS9?

Okay, I didn't like that "Starfleet security officer" and now he's more suspicious. Maybe he's a part of the Dominion. Maybe the changelings are a part of the Dominion. Maybe all these people acting strangely are changelings in disguise. Maybe everything is a conspiracy. I dunno, this entire episode feels incredibly fake.

"It seems our leaders have simply gone insane" Garak stop reinforcing my impression that you and Sisko are somehow the only real people in this story... Well Dax and Bashir also seem to be alright, but they're a bit too passive.

Oh, Garak didn't look behind himself and got shot, guess he's not real either

FUCKING FINALLY

This is so unsurprising that I can't tell if the writing is to obvious or if I've seen this spoiler before and half-forgot. Probably both.

And they just let them all go. Sure. I wonder how they managed to gain so much power, if they're prone to dumb decisions like this..

What a shitty story. Jfc. The only amusing part was that according to the main characters, the Starfleet admirals are stupid and untrustworthy (what a surprise...), and Garak is smart enough to not only take action when needed, but seem to almost realize the world around him is wrong (but he still somehow fails a spot check in a firefight...). Bashir clearly wants him to join the team and run around having adventures (not a surprise either...). It's funny that the character who comes closest to becoming self-aware is actually one of the simulated ones.

The fakeness of the plot is obvious enough to make me unable to take it seriously, but not clear or fun enough to just relax and enjoy the ride. I don't hate simulations on principle, but I need them to be good simulations. The Federation is too stupid -- it might have worked with some new admiral, since they're often assholes, but we know Nechayev and she was obviously OOC. The editing is pretty telling: there are weird timeskips (worst offender: Sisko gets into a fight and then without a change of pace others come to break him out from the brig), plus I don't think there were establishing outside shots of DS9. And anyway, the very first scene with Sisko where he's in a shuttle even though at the end of the previous episode he was about to be captured, and then Dax and O'Brien show up and we've never seen them escape is a dead giveaway that everything about this group of characters from here on is somehow wrong. And that's 8 minutes into the episode. I thought "Well, maybe it's an editing experiment, and it'll be a how-we-got-here flashback episode" but nope. What a waste of time.

Lmao I just read this in a comment to a review of this episode: "When I first saw the The Search, Pt II I found it unusual that Bashir is in a shuttlecraft with someone and for the first time manages not to annoy his travelling companion. And then the ending reveals why – it was all a dream!" That's right! I actually thought that too! :D

I can say one good thing about this episode: Odo's love of order has always had dark undertones, and I like that it's explored and discussed here as a racial trait which made his brethren into a galactic evil force.

But otherwise I'm not very impressed with his storyline? In the first part his anger and compulsive homing instinct look offputting instead of sympathetic. At one point he makes an expression that is probably supposed to be soft and makes the viewers go "aww", but ends up just looking forced and creepy. And the tender moment with Kira at the end just didn't work for me.

The House of Quark

OUCH

I was pretty scared for Quark, since he's not a big fan of violence, nice to see he's taking this so well

A new pretty outfit for Quark! A beautiful Klingon woman!

Another beautiful Klingon with a great grey mane. Yes, my commentary is very deep today.

I just continue to be amazed by Quark's luck with the ladies. Cultural exchange with a Vulcan in the previous season, now with a Klingon.

Aw, O'Brien actually wants Bashir's opinion now. And Bashir gives good relationship advice to a married man -- compare to their conversation in Armageddon Game!

Doesn't this solve their problem? If Kozak died dishonorably, that means D'Ghor gets nothing. Which is what should have happened in the first place. So now that D'Ghor challenged Quark, Quark's inability to fight will be shown to everybody (as if it weren't obvious enough...), so D'Ghor's lie will be exposed. And then he'd not only have no right of ineritance, but presumably also become a criminal for lying to the coucil.

Quark is awesome

What a good episode. Quark acts cool and noble! Klingon vs Ferengi value clash & working together! A-story and B-story work together well because despite no direct connection, they're both uplifting and thematically linked!

Equilibrium

Oh, of course when Jadzia gets screentime, it's for her to act OOC

Aw, a J&J friendship scene

Time for the annual comment on how much Bashir grew up! I've already talked about his scene in the previous episode, and now there's this lovely, purely platonic scene with Jadzia

How can these Federation weirdos sleep without blankets?

This was okay. But can we have a Jadzia episode not about her almost dying? So far this season is disappointing -- only one good episode out of four.

Second Skin

O k a y. You got me, I really didn't expect this

This is the kind of episode I watch this show for

How do you disguise someone as a member of species for years? I can understand cosmetic surgery like in Face of the Enemy, but to change their entire body so it would show as target species during any medical examination... This concerns the episode Tribunal, too. How are agents so deep undercover supposed to work? She spent all these years helping the Resistance. How does that benefit Cardassia? 10 years ago they wouldn't have known the Federation would become involved and their sleeper agent would work with them

Niiiiice

"Just something I overheard while I was hemming someone's trousers" lmao his excuses are getting more and more ridiculous

Cardassian!Kira *is* more attractive than the real Kira

the real Garak demonstrates how much his reflexes are quicker than his simulation's :D

Honestly, by this point I'm just curious for how many seasons can the writers stretch the mystery surrounding Garak. :D They're having too much fun giving out pieces of the puzzle one by one.

The Abandoned

This beautiful woman with a really impressive chest is Jake's gf? Wow!

Why are they just taking away the wreckage instead of buying it from Quark?

Sisko holding the baby and Jadzia and Julian watching him with smiles on their faces :'))

oh my god Odo used his old bucked as a cache-pot for Kira's plant... :O

wait, weren't the Jem'Hadar much more reptilian?

"It's amazing how some people would judge you based on nothing more than your job" haha

If this boy has so much aggression, why is it only expressed as need for physical combat, and not angry verbal outbursts etc? Another genetically engineered quality -- he needs to be a brutal soldier that doesn't talk back?

I find it curious that this episode answers the question "Is it okay for a 20 year old to date a 16 year old?" with such a definite yes. That's pretty questionable territory, and it's unclear why exactly Sisko changed his mind: his opinion about the girl's job or Jake's interests doesn't negate the age difference.

I like that the show takes Odo's backstory as a lab specimen so seriously. I used to expect exploration of this theme with Data, since he must have spent a lot of time in some Federation research centers before entering the Academy.

Civil Defense

Garak AND Dukat? I like this episode already.

Why are they not asking Garak for help? I know they'd prefer other options, but is kind of an emergency! I know they'll have to, eventually, since he's in the opening titles.

"I never knew how much this man's voice annoyed me" :D I'd actually be curious to hear the announcement in full, personally!

This is such a good excuse for a Disaster-like episode?? Perfect synergy between the setting and the needs of the plot

haha of course Odo and Quark are trapped together

"The only place in the galaxy that still recognizes my access code is a Bajoran space station" So what about that code in Second Skin?

bwahaha it just gets worse and worse

I think this is a good episode to show new viewers who want a taste of the show before starting to watch it properly from the beginning: it gives a good idea of the setting and involves all major characters to some degree, but so far it has very few continuity references

"What? That you'd spend your final hours in jail?"

"Tell me, Doctor, what is it exactly about this situation that's making you smile?" "You, Garak." oh my god...

holy shit this station is something else...

Dukat shows up in person! It's strange they didn't even discuss the possibility of calling him earlier. Of course, he immediately turned this into a hostage situation, so...

Oh my god he's making himself tea in the middle of this... amazing

"If you had been on the station when I designed this programme, I would have made an exception in your case."

HAHAHAHAHA

When Odo and Quark walk out, why are so many people just chilling on the Promenade?! They were about to die seconds ago!

What a beautiful episode :D Probably not as suited for beginners as I initially thought, thanks to Garak&Dukat. But I really appreciate the dark comedy side of it

Meridian

I think I've seen this episode in TNG... maybe multiple times... Jadzia is even worse suited for this role than Deanna.

welp this was really bad on literally every possible level. i could complain for a long time but i'd rather save my breath

the only good thing about this episode: it's so irrelevant you can easily skip it.

Defiant

I think she needs sleep, not a night out in the bar

THAT VOICE

I think I'm spoiled about this one...

Second Chances did such a good job not villainizing Tom and then this episode comes and ruins it

ah yes tell all your military secrets to the Cardassians, including cloaked ship detection...

why the random kiss

aaand Riker spends possibly the rest of his life in a Cardassian camp? great. just great. why did someone hate him so much they deemed this necessary? they managed to make me so salty about this I didn't even care about the Cardassian stuff, that's an achievement. Will gets to continue his career and marry his imzadi while Tom, who already spent 8 years marooned alone and didn't even get a promotion afterwards, now rots in prison forever. "You always had the better hand," indeed.

it's hilarious how quickly Dukat can make Sisko sympathise with him just by mentioning fatherhood. worked even better than the last time. if he got half a brain he's doing it on purpose.

I hope Riker at least got to spend some time with Ro while they were both in the Maquis. now that's something I'd like to see

Fascination

"I'm a poor substitute for your wife" "I could have told you that 60 games ago"

do we really need the Odo/Kira/Bareil love triangle?

"I usually make it a point to drop by Quark's three or four times a day at random intervals, just to let him know that I'm thinking about him"

"Jadzia, of course. I've never understood how the two of you could be such good friends. [...] It's just that she gets to spend so much more time with you than I do." "Jadzia and I have been doing this for the past two years." ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

oh O'Briens, pls don't fight over nothing :(

so where is Bashir during all this? because I'm pretty sure he and Garak are not immune to this romance confusion nonsense, and that sounds like a much more intriguing story than what I'm watching

ah, he's with Kira, well at least this one's mutual and not sexual harassment

I understand Odo, but why is Sisko unaffected too?

A question that concerns not only to this episode: why is Kira always the object of everyone's attraction? She's dating Bareil (which I completely forgot about; when she mentioned having a boyfriend in the previous episode I was very confused), Odo has a crush on her, in this episode Jake and Bashir do too, an episode before Riker kisses her, an episode before some creep wants a blow-up doll of her, an episode before Dukat leers at her...

Well... I guess this was less gross than The Naked Now.

Past Tense

I like how Dax adjusts to this time period instantly. was she already born by then?

"Some of these people are mentally ill." *braces myself for some horrible comment* "...They need proper medical treatment." oh thank god

Jadzia looks absolutely gorgeous

surely it's not a coincidence that the only white character among the time-travellers ends up with a millionaire, while the others are locked up in the sanctuary

Sisko and Bashir's discussions are very heavy handed, it's like watching some old moralizing play

I like how Jadzia retrieved her combadge by telling the truth

there was nothing particularly wrong with this story, and it was well-made, but for some reason it didn’t really impress me

Life Support

so. Winn was behind the sabotage, right?

this is like "Ethics" in reverse

haha they want Terok Nor back

"She talks a lot for a female" Nog you used to be better than that...

"Listen to me. I don't care about your negotiations, and I don't care about your treaty. All I care about is my patient, and at the moment he needs more medical care and less politics. Now, you can either leave here willingly or I'll call security and have you thrown out."

now it's more like "The Host". (I can't stop comparing everything to TNG haha)

don't try to make this into a "grey morality" situation. Nog is objectively in the wrong here, the human culture is objectively better than the Ferengi culture in this respect. TNG intentionally wrote Ferengi values to be abhorrent, and DS9 didn't change them but somehow tries to justify them and it just. doesn't. work. Just admit you wrote yourself into a corner, and either retcon the Ferengi to be more tolerable, or set aside your "all cultures are valid" agenda for a minute and admit some things are just bad. this glorification of moral relativism is DS9's version of TNG's worst misapplications of the Prime Directive

wow, are they actually going to kill him off?

"Positronic implants"?! Um. UM. They have working positronic brain now? Since when? Last time I heard, nobody managed to make stable ones since Dr. Soong... Or are implants easier to make than a full brain? Anyway, the possibility of a mixed organic-positronic brain has never even been discussed before, this is kind of a big deal. Dammit, just putting some human skin on Data was something only the Borg managed to do! This sounds 1000 times more complex!

"Major" ah, so that's how they break up, he’s incapable of romance now

ahh, his voice, head movemens and facial expressions are just like Data's

uggh the Jake-Nog storyline went as I expected

wow I didn't expect the treaty to actually get signed!

"I won't remove the last shred of humanity Bareil has left" rude... and that's from the man who befriended Data... I'm disappointed

oh btw if he just casually talks about the possibility of fully replacing Bareil's brain, that means it is possible to create stable positronic brains at will now! this is enormous! Data doesn’t have to be the only one of his kind anymore! Lal can be rebuilt! oh wait, let me guess, this will never be addressed again ever.

Welp. You know, right before I started this episode, I was mentally complaining about Bareil, like "kill him off already". Whoops! I feel bad now. This episode didn't go as I expected, and was more important than I expected too, which is good.

Jake and Nog's storyline and the positronic stuff -- less good. Honestly, the more I think about these two points, the angrier I become and the less I like this episode.

I thought that A and B plots were annoyingly unrelated, but actually... I think they share the theme of "peace above all", on a very different scale. Because the Bajoran-Cardassian treaty doesn't sound very fair to me either. "There's even the possibility that the Cardassians will issue a formal apology"?! Is that really enough? "Even the possibility"? Meanwhile, people like Dukat not only walk free but remain at their high posts. Cardassia|Nog was the offending side, Bajor|Jake did nothing wrong, and yet rather than declare that and demand justice and apologies, the latter can only hope to achive mutual tolerance -- even that is hard enough. Well, let's just hope the show isn't going to try and justify the occupation, like it did with Nog's misogyny...

btw, since we're talking about international politics and status quo: what about the Dominion threat? everyone was really scared for a couple of episodes, and then things went back to normal. we went to the Gamma Quadrant once for no reason (nothing about the plot required that!). the Defiant, a unique warship sent here for defend DS9 and the wormhole against Dominion attacks, is regularly used as a shuttle/runabout for random trips. way to disperse all sense of danger, change and excitement.

I certainly like Bashir in this episode more than I liked Crusher in Ethics (or in The Host, lol). He can get pretty intense when it comes to saving his patient's life. Not "fly to Cardassia to face a former head of secret service" intense, but still.

It's nice to see Winn humanized a bit. The writers have spent a lot of time making Dukat likeable, she deserves the same treatment. I'm so used to mistrusting her, I spent the entire episode being confused whether she actually wants the treaty to succeed or is plotting to make it fail for some reason, whether she wants Bareil alive or dead. But I guess I was supposed to take everything she was saying at face value for once?

I don't know what the hell is this season doing with these Ferengi B-plots that, I guess, are supposed to be humorous (???) but are wildly offensive instead. Are we supposed to just calmly accept Quark and Nog's extreme misogyny? It was played for drama pretty well in Rules of Acquisition; this is a noticeable step back.

Heart of Stone

I love Sisko and Bashir's casual conversation about a male ensign's pregnancy! Sure, he's an alien, but it's still progress for this show.

Odo and Kira's storyline is so cliched... I don't even make an effort to listen to their technobabble

As viewers we all know Kira will be saved somehow at the last minute, but in her and Odo's place I'd already start discussing a mercy kill. Phaser blast from a friend >>> asphyxiation

"I'm in love with you too" ???????????????????? YOUR BOYFRIEND LITERALLY DIED IN THE PREVIOUS EPISODE

Sisko, he's just a kid. I know you're testing him, but there's no need to go that far.

Okay, I'm going to sound like a broken record, but: what about misogyny? The previous episode made a point of showing that Nog upholds Ferengi values regarding women. And that's completely incompatible with Starfleet. Isn't anyone going to mention that?

heh... there was a thought at the back of my mind that a changeling might be involved

aww, good, stand up to Quark, you two! :)

Well, most of this episode is very boring, contrived and derivative, but it does give Odo some character development (even if it includes the dreaded romance, ugh) and has a good excuse for this plot device at the end.

Destiny

"I also had Chief O'Brien reprogram the replicators to provide Cardassian food" Um, why wouldn't it already be on the menu? I assumed the replicators weren't replaced by Federation ones, and in season 2 Keiko gave a Cardassian dish to Rugal. I went back to check, and she literally said "I found some Cardassian recipes in the memory bank of our food replicator"!

It makes sense that the Bajorans don't want the Cardassians in their Temple

let me guess, there'll be an unexpected third Cardassian and suddenly the prophecy will sound much more believable

"Now those are about the two friendliest vipers I've ever met" Hey, maybe don't make jokes like this immediately after someone walks out of the door...

Told you so

Damn, the third "viper" seems to actually deserve that name! Will she be the "bad" one, or, in subversion, the only trustworthy one?

"Men just don't seem to have a head for this sort of thing. That's why women dominate the sciences." ah yes hello reverse sexism trope

Cardassians flirt by bickering? Never heard that before... I thought this was more like Klingons.

Okay, they played it straight with Dejar

That's lovely! But "vipers will return to their nest in the sky" doesn't make sense -- how did the comet fragments return to their nest?

The Prophets don't "want" anything! They just can tell you the future because they don't exist in linear time!

Well, this was a lovely episode, if not the most engaging. But the subplot with O'Brien and the scientist was completely unnecessary.

Prophet Motive

Was! This! Necessary?! I don't need to see sex on screen! And yes that includes oo-mox!

Aw Bashir

I can't believe we're getting a story where Bashir is the one who suffers because his friends won't shut up. Karma is real...

nice job breaking it, Quark

The story is pretty shallow by itself, but makes me ask some interesting questions. Would it be ok to nonconsensually transform a bad person into a good one? Especially a person in a position of power? I know I'd be tempted to do this to some politicians... But even if we assume the ends justify the means, who would define good or bad? Sadly, this episode doesn't take these issues seriously.

After 2.5 season of Bajoran religion, it's actually nice to meet the "Prophets" in person again in all their creepy, clueless glory.

Visionary

Time to torture poor Miles with more unreality!

why are both sides being so dumb? just say "Odo was separated from the rest of his people as a baby, grew up with no knowledge of them, and only met them 1.5 times"?

"I'm always diplomatic" *cut* "THAT WAS THE MOST RIDICULOUS THING I'VE EVER HEARD AND I RESENT THE IMPLICATION!"

my first thought: the transporter genuis who beamed in the device was O'Brien

this one doesn't make sense... the sleeping Miles should know about the disaster and the radiation device too...

As usual with time travel episodes, it's very fun to watch, but the mechanics break down at the end and spoil the impression. I like that, as in Civil Defense, every time you solve a problem it gets worse.

It's only season 3, and "O'Brien suffers" as a type of episode is already getting old.

Distant Voices

There's a Cardassian writer named Shoggoth? :D

"Still the man of mystery?" "Oh, you wouldn't have me any other way"

Melting Odo is a genuinely disturbing sight...

"There's hope for you yet, Doctor"

Very predictable story, but it has some character development and lovely scenes with Garak.

Through the Looking Glass

when Mirror!Garak looks in indignation at Sisko kissing Kira: honestly same

Mirror universe Terok Nor is less riot-proof than our universe's was...

Episode: boring and pointless as I feared

Mirror Kira: somehow even worse than the last time, at least watching her hit on herself was mildly entertaining

Mirror Garak: still a giant waste of Andrew Robinson -- seriously, he appears rarely enough, and for the third time in this season he's not playing his real character

Sleeping with alternate versions of friends/subordinates: incredibly gross

Well at least Bashir and Dax looked really hot with these haircuts lol

Improbable Cause / The Die is Cast

Ahh, so many of my favourite things. Odo investigates! Garak confronts his past and justifies his reputation for once! International conflict! Dominion is dangerous again!

The cliffhanger where Garak joins Tain is the most thrilling thing that happened on the show recently! But I'd be severely disappointed if he didn't do that.

The torture scene is very impressive, but there are some things I don't understand about it:

What, "They're still my people and I want to go home" is the big secret that's worth all that torture? Seriously? Anyone could have told you that. How is this information new or relevant?!

Nevertheless, "he never broke" is a lie, right? Odo did break and confess, even if I think his revelation was completely useless. Don't the intelligence agencies of the two biggest police states in the galaxy have security cameras in their interrogation chambers?!

I could understand if Odo forgave Garak eventually, but not so soon and easily! He tortures you horribly, then you never even mention it and invite him to hang out only several hours after! Sorry, what?!

It's becoming a trend to start Garak-centric episodes with something bad happening to him. :D Oh shit, Garak's hand got bitten! Oh shit, Garak has a migraine! Oh shit, Garak's shop blew up!

Explorers

Come on, O'Brien, is this really more ridiculous than building ships in bottles? :D You of all people should understand!

"For a moment there I thought that you had been put in charge of the Cardassian Ministry for the Refutation of Bajoran Fairy Tales"

Miles, just say the word! :D

Fireworks in space! :D I don't know what I love more -- the beautiful and uplifting moment itself, or Cardassians going "Shit :))) We gotta be really nice today :))))) Congratulations :)))))))"

After the epic intense two-parter -- 45 minutes of pure fluff :D It has so many things that are specific to DS9: Sisko and Jake's family bond, Bajoran culture and Cardassians being jerks about it, Sisko and Dukat's passive-aggressive skyping, Bashir and O'Brien's slowly developing friendship -- all leading to the celebration of the “boldly go where no one has gone before” spirit, and everything, for once, ends well.

Family Business

"If I were Curzon, I'd have stolen her from you by now" *facepalm* let's just pretend this stupid heteronormative line doesn't exist

this house looks like a Hobbit hole

Quark and Rom's mom is awesome. get rekt you misogynists!

omg Miles & Julian, how old are you? :D

Rom is so nice in this episode

I like Kasidy

Ishka is 10 times more awesome than it seemed

Rom really rocks in this episode

aaaand the ship sails :D

I wish Ishka could make a public statement, and Quark would

Good episode: interesting family dynamics, amazing Ferengi feminist, cute new ship

Quark and women is a fascinating topic. He's a traditionalist when it comes to Ferengi women, but in daily life among other species usually manages to come off no worse than any 20th century misogynist, and finds strong and outspoken women attractive rather than repulsive. Apparently it boils can be traced back to mommy issues: Quark isn't just a "good Ferengi", he's being reactionary towards Ishka, but at the same time she clearly is a positive influence on him, even if he won’t admit it. Too bad in this episode he refused to take even one step forward as he did in "Rules of Acquisition"...

Shakaar

Shit, things are really going downhill on Bajor... separation of church and state, what's that?

"We spent so many years fighting the Cardassians. We spent so much time hoping and praying for a Bajor that was free. Now that we won, how can people just hand their freedom over to someone like Winn?" "It has been my observation that one of the prices of giving people freedom of choice is that sometimes they make the wrong choice."

Why can't those reclamators be replicated?

"I wasn't aware that our relationship needed solidifying"

Great episode! (If I set aside the question of replication... Seriously, what's the law here? The Bajorans on DS9 can use the replimat, but Bajor can't ask the Federation to replicate some farm equipment? I don't think it would be physically impossible, surely it's not made of something like dilithium or latinum.) Winn hasn't reminded me of our sad reality so much since her first appearance. The B-plot was completely irrelevant, but I always enjoy seeing this sort of thing.

Facets

Quark... are you trying to convince the station commander's 16 year old son to write porn for you? seriously?

Ah yes, people closest to Jadzia, aka all of the main characters... and a dabo girl who appeared once for 45 seconds

don't do this... especially in front of all of ur friends...

Dax has a multi-Doctor episode! :D

CurzOdo and Quark's reaction to him are beautiful :D But how can he drink?

Poor Jadzia :(

Go Rom! Quark is too much of an asshole this season...

This is messed up...

Typical man: he's attracted to a woman, so he takes out his frustration and her and nearly ruins her life

How do Trill memories work? Why is this ritual needed when all memories are already in Dax's head? Are some of them in a .zip and need to be decompressed to be appreciated fully? How did Jadzia not know of Curzon's crush? Is it possible to hide some of your memories from the next host(s) on purpose? You know what, nevermind. Rene Auberjonois (whose name I had to copy-paste, I must admit...) clearly had fun with this episode, and so did I.

The Adversary

yes finally! :)

When they introduced the word "changeling" I was like "that's dumb, that's not what the word means" but now I understand. tbh I love them as enemy -- this story is so beautifully paranoid

why are they all assuming there's only one changeling on board

Well, they certainly know how to end the season on a dramatic line...

This season, my honeymoon phase of "oh my god, serialized Trek" finally ended, and I started thinking about whether or not I like these serialized stories. So I felt compelled to write longer notes after each episode, and don’t have any general remarks this time.

#star trek #ds9 #blah blah blah

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phantom-le6 · 3 years

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Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 6 (3 of 6)

Continuing our look into season 6 of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, here’s a third round of episode reviews, beginning with the first of three mid-season two-part episodes that during the last two seasons of the show.

Episode 10: Chain of Command (Part 1)

Plot (as given by me):

The Enterprise rendezvous with another Starfleet vessel, the Cairo, where Picard learns from Vice-Admiral Nechayev that he is being relieved of command of the Enterprise. Nechayev later briefs Commander Riker, Counsellor Troi and Lt. Commander Data that following a Cardassian withdrawal from Bajor, the Cardassians have mobilised some of their forces along the border with the Federation and their communications traffic has increased 50%. Suspecting this may be prelude to a new offensive by the Cardassians, Nechayev has assigned the Cairo s commanding officer Captain Edward Jellico to command the Enterprise as it heads to the border to engage in talks with the Cardassians. Jellico was apparently crucial in negotiating the peace treaty between the Federation and the Cardassians, which is why he is to lead the mission in Picard’s absence.

However, Picard is not the only member of the Enterprise crew being reassigned; Dr Crusher and Lt. Worf are also reassigned as part of a clandestine mission, which the three officers begin to train for as Jellico comes aboard and takes command in a formal ceremony. Jellico is much more strict and less personable in his command style, expecting immediate implementation of his orders regardless of whether they’ll take time to implement or not, and he orders Troi to wear a standard issue uniform while she is on duty. He also uses a lot of strange tactics with the Cardassians when they arrive rather than being more diplomatic as Picard might be, and Troi senses Jellico is not as sure of himself as he acts.

Picard, Dr Crusher and Worf eventually leave the Enterprise via shuttlecraft to begin their mission, which Picard reveals en route is to infiltrate a Cardassian base on Celtris III. Apparently the Cardassians have been experimenting with a new means by which to safely utilise metagenic weapons; viruses programmed to consume any DNA they encounter, effectively wiping out all forms of life on a planet while leaving its population centres and infrastructure intact. Picard was chosen because he is the only officer in Starfleet with any expertise relevant to the delivery system, Worf for his combat expertise and Dr Crusher for the medical knowledge necessary to identify and destroy any bio-weapons found.

The trio manage to convince a Ferengi smuggler to provide them with transport, and the infiltration is initially successful. However, it soon turns out that the whole thing is a trap, and the group is ambushed by Cardassian soldiers. Dr Crusher and Worf manage to escape, but Picard is captured. He is then brought before a Cardassian officer later revealed to call Gul Madred, who reveals the trap was designed so the Cardassians could capture Picard. Madred also notes that Picard is there to answer questions rather than ask them, and any answers the Cardassians find unsatisfactory could mean his death.

Review:

For a long time, Next Generation had shied away from multi-part episodes outside of season finale cliff-hangers, presumably because mid-season episodes of the multi-part persuasion were part-and-parcel of any show having an over-riding continuity, whereas Next Gen was very much supposed to be episodic television that could be dipped in and out of. However, with more and more single episode referring to TNG’s own continuity and to the wider franchise of Trek, not to mention the season 5 two-part episode ‘Unification’, it seems the way was opened to really start this kind of longer episode on a regular basis.

That all being said, it appears that if the Memory Alpha wiki site is to be believed, budgetary reasons were what led to this episode becoming a two-parter. As a one-part episode where Picard was rescued by the end, it was too expensive, so expanding it over two parts was apparently governed by financial concerns. Regardless of the reasoning, the episode is quite an interesting re-jug of the show’s normal status quo. All of a sudden, we have a new captain in command and the old one going off on a stealth mission with two other key officers, and we finally see Counsellor Troi compelled to wear a standard uniform, something she then largely sticks with for the whole rest of the show and on into the films.

The problem with part 1, however, is that while it’s got enough other things going on to keep it from being pure set-up, I also feel like the change of command wasn’t very well-handled. From what we come to learn is standard dismissive bitchiness from Nechayev and Jellico’s out-of-place harsh command style, we’re being set up to loathe and despise the change of commander, so you know from that and the fact this is all coming mid-season that the change is highly unlikely to be permanent. However, the episode tries to make us buy into the idea that it might be with a formal transfer of command ceremony. A valiant try, but for me it’s a waste of time.

To make the change of command seem more likely to be permanent, they should have brought on board a commanding officer who wasn’t acting like a militaristic hard-ass more suited to a 20th century military than 24th century Starfleet. The new CO should have had a different command style but still have gotten on well with the crew instead of rubbing them all the wrong way. Next, there should have been interim replacements for Crusher and Worf as well. Surely there’d need to be a new chief medical officer and new Chief of Security/main Tactical Officer in a situation where combat and casualties would be likely if talks with the Cardassians went sideways. As it is, every time Jellico was on screen, I was hoping for him to get blasted away by a Cardassian. For me, this episode gets 7 out of 10.

Episode 11: Chain of Command (Part 2):

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Gul Madred uses a number of torture methods on the captured Captain Picard, including sensory deprivation, sensory bombardment, forced nakedness, stress positions, dehydration, starvation, physical pain, and cultural humiliation to try to gain knowledge of the Federation's plans for Minos Korva. Picard refuses to acknowledge Madred's demand for information. Madred attempts another tactic to break Picard's will: he shows his captive four bright lights, and demands that Picard answer that there are five, inflicting intense pain on Picard if he does not agree.

Meanwhile, the Cardassians inform the Enterprise crew that Picard has been captured. Captain Jellico refuses to acknowledge that Picard was on a Starfleet mission, an admission necessary for Picard to be given the rights of a prisoner of war (along with better treatment) rather than being subjected to torture as a terrorist. This leads to a heated argument between Jellico and Commander Riker, which ends with Jellico relieving Riker of duty and promoting Lt. Commander Data to acting first officer. Lt. Commander La Forge detects residue from a nearby nebula on the hull of the Cardassian delegation's ship, and Jellico suspects a Cardassian fleet may attempt to use the cover of the nebula to launch an attack on Minos Korva. Jellico determines that their best course of action is to place mines across the nebula using a shuttlecraft. However, Riker is the most qualified pilot for the mission. Jellico visits Riker in his quarters, where he candidly criticizes Riker's performance as a First Officer and Riker does the same for Jellico’s command style. Jellico asks, rather than orders, Riker to pilot the shuttle. Riker agrees, and he and La Forge successfully lay the minefield. Jellico uses the threat of the minefield to force the Cardassians to disarm and retreat, as well as agree to the release of Picard.

With word of the failure of the Cardassians to secure Minos Korva, Madred attempts one last ploy to break Picard, by falsely claiming that the Cardassians have taken the planet and that the Enterprise was destroyed in the battle. He offers Picard a choice: to remain in captivity for the rest of his life or live in comfort by admitting that he sees five lights. As Picard momentarily considers the offer, the Cardassian head delegate enters the room and informs Madred that "a ship is waiting to take him back to the Enterprise." Picard realizes he has been duped. As Picard is freed from his bonds and about to be taken away, he turns to Madred and defiantly shouts, "There are four lights!" Picard is returned to Federation custody and reinstated as Captain of the Enterprise. Picard admits privately to Counsellor Troi that he was saved just in the nick of time, as by that point he was broken enough to be willing to say or do anything to make the torture stop. In addition, by the end he actually believed he could see five lights.

Review:

It’s in the second part of ‘Chain of Command’ that we finally see something of what Trek should be in that it tackles an on-going issue from real-life society. However, because of how part 1 was presented, it’s not so easy to see. Basically, this is an anti-torture episode, but that fact is kind of hidden by the fact that Picard is being held captive by a highly militaristic race like the Cardassians who are fundamentally villain characters for the Trek set in the 24th century. Because of that, it’s hard to see that this episode is trying to make an allegorical case against torture because torture is something to be very much expected of the Cardassians based on how TNG has portrayed them up until now. This episode was the last before Deep Space Nine’s pilot aired, so the complexity that show added has yet to materialise, and so if not for reading Memory Alpha’s page on this episode, I wouldn’t have got the message of the episode.

To my mind, an effective anti-torture episode should really show it being used by some rogue human or other and involve some genuine debate around its use. It’s more the kind of show that would have been better on Deep Space Nine after the characters of Sloan and Section 31 were introduced. Alternatively, it could have fit into the season 4 episode ‘The Drumhead’ or involved an over-zealous Starfleet security officer in another episode of this series. Because this episode was part 2 of a multi-part episode and combined such villainous behaviour with what was a villain race at the time, the message is lost and ends up appearing as just so much status quo.

We also get more of Jellico being profoundly unlikeable back on the Enterprise and the somewhat convenient return of Crusher and Worf before yet another command shake-up as Riker gets relieved of duty and Data not only becomes acting first officer, but also has to shift from the gold shirt of an engineering officer to the red shirt of the command branch. It just goes to show what a total tight-arse the character is, and much as I’d rather have seen him get a right cross to the jaw or a phaser hit before leaving, at least Riker put the idiot in his place towards the end. Ok, yes, Jellico did a good job working in getting the Cardassians to agree to return Picard at the end, but to me it was very much too little too late. When Jellico leaves the bridge for the last time, I want him ejected through a photon torpedo tube or the waste disposal rather than by transporter or shuttlecraft.

Luckily, the episode does far better with British actor David Warner guest-starring opposite Patrick Stewart in the role of Gul Madred. Apparently, Warner appeared in a couple of the original series films, but I know him more from roles like Captain James Sawyer in series 2 of Hornblower and Professor Jordan Perry in the second of the original live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films. Both Warner and Stewart are classically trained theatre actors, so seeing the two perform together is similar to the high quality you get out of performances between Stewart and Sir Ian McKellan when they played Professor X and Magneto in the X-Men films. In other words, there’s some great acting going on with a lot of gravitas, and it makes for great viewing regardless of the roles being played or the franchise at hand. Overall, I give part 2 8 out of 10; with a more likeable interim captain, a more blatant exposure of the issue part 2 was exploring or the unlikeable interim captain getting a bit more karma for his bastard attitude, this episode might have snatched top marks, but sadly it misses out and largely relies on Stewart and Warner to save its proverbial bacon.

Episode 12: Ship in a Bottle

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Lt. Commanders Data and La Forge are enjoying a Sherlock Holmes holodeck program when the pair notice that a character programmed to be left-handed was actually right-handed. They call Lt. Barclay to repair the holodeck, but as he checks the status of the Sherlock Holmes programs, he encounters an area of protected memory. He activates it to find the sentient Professor Moriarty character projected into the Holodeck, who appears to have memory since his creation ("Elementary, Dear Data"), including during the period while he was inactive (a feat Barclay and the others claim to be impossible). Moriarty again wishes to escape the artificial world of the holodeck and was assured by the crew of the Enterprise that they would endeavour to find a way to do so, and is irritated at the lack of results on the part of the crew and their seeming lack of effort. Captain Picard, along with Data and Barclay, attempts to assure Moriarty they are still working towards this goal but their technology does not yet permit it. Moriarty is dismissive.

Moriarty confuses the crew by seemingly willing himself to existence by walking out of the holodeck door. He explains this to the stunned Picard and Data by saying, "I think, therefore I am." Moriarty creates a companion for himself, the Countess Regina Bartholomew, by commanding the computer of the Enterprise to place another sentient mind within the female character of the Sherlock Holmes novels that he is programmed to love. Moriarty then demands that a solution to get Regina off the holodeck be devised. He takes control of the Enterprise through the computer, insisting that a way be found for her to experience life beyond the confines of the holodeck.

Barclay and Data suggest trying to beam an inanimate object off the holodeck using pattern enhancers in hopes that the transporter could re-form the object as conventional matter. However, when the experiment fails and Data finds no information in the transporter log, he becomes suspicious. Data then observes that La Forge's handedness is incorrect, just as they had experienced earlier. Through this, Data deduces that he, Picard, and Barclay are still inside the holodeck with Moriarty, and everyone else and everything that appears to be the Enterprise is part of a program Moriarty created. Picard then realizes that he has unwittingly provided Moriarty with the command codes for the Enterprise. With this information, Moriarty takes control of the real Enterprise from within the simulation.

Captain Picard finds a way to program the holodeck within Moriarty’s simulation to convince Moriarty that he and Regina can be beamed into the real world, though in fact they are only "beamed" onto another simulation on that holodeck. Moriarty, believing he has entered the real world, releases control of the ship back to Picard. He and the Countess use a shuttlecraft given to them by Commander Riker to leave the Enterprise and explore the galaxy. Picard ends the simulation and the trio return to the real Enterprise. Barclay extracts the memory cube from the holodeck and sets it in an extended memory device in order to provide Moriarty and the Countess a lifetime of exploration and adventure.

Picard comments that the crew's reality may actually be a fabrication generated by "a little device sitting on someone's table." This unnerves Barclay enough for him to test the nature of his own reality one more time: he gives an audible command to "end program" to test whether he is still in a simulation. There is no response, indicating he is indeed back in the real world.

Review:

“Elementary, Dear Data” was one of the few highlights of TNG’s second season, and apparently hadn’t been revisited before now because the show’s writers believed there was an on-going legal dispute between paramount and the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the end, it turns out to be a misunderstanding; the estate had been irritated at Paramount over the film Young Sherlock Holmes. Fortunately, the estate allowed Next Generation to use the Holmes characters again for a reasonable license fee, and thus the sentient Moriarty holodeck character came back. However, this time we see Picard, Data and the ever-amusing recurring guest character of Lt. Barclay get trapped within a simulation of the Enterprise that is created by Moriarty, which is quite a clever way of mixing things up.

However, the one thing that spoils the episode slightly is the final scene where Picard suggests the reality of Trek itself may not be real and Barclay then feels compelled to test that idea. I get that it’s meant to be a bit of an in-joke given that this is a TV show, but not only does it seem unnecessarily cruel to a well-known paranoid multi-phobic introvert like Barclay to make that suggestion, but it’s also annoying when any TV show tries to suggest the reality of its own world isn’t that at all. Once any world of fiction establishes what its reality is, to my mind that reality must be its reality at all times. You don’t wait until you are mid-way through your penultimate season and then suggest it might be a fantasy. Either it’s a fantasy from day 1, and you either also show the real world now and then or make that what you’re trying to get back to, or it’s real and any fantasies are conclusively revealed, over and done with inside of a single episode or multi-part story. Having it both ways is just indecisive and moronic. Because of this, the episode only nets 8 out of 10 where it could otherwise have claimed full marks.

Episode 13: Aquiel

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The starship Enterprise arrives at a subspace communications relay station near the Klingon border on a resupply mission. However, when an away team boards the relay there is no sign of the two officers assigned there. Lieutenant Aquiel Uhnari, Lieutenant Rocha, and the station's shuttlecraft are missing. While searching the station, the away team finds a dog that belongs to Lieutenant Uhnari. The away team also finds a substance on the floor, which Dr Crusher determines is a type of cellular residue.

The crew uncover evidence that a Klingon had been on the station leading Dr Crusher and Commander Riker to suspect that Uhnari and Rocha may have been the victims of a Klingon attack. Lt. Commander La Forge backs up this theory when he examines Uhnari's personal logs. He finds an entry in which Aquiel relays her fears to her sister Shianna about a Klingon named Morag. Captain Picard contacts the local Klingon governor, Torak, and learns that Morag is commander of one of the Klingon ships that patrols that section of the Klingon Empire's border. At this point, Torak refuses to cooperate further. Picard threatens to take his case to Chancellor Gowron, a threat scoffed at by Torak until Picard casually mentions that he served as Gowron's Arbiter of Succession. Knowing Gowron would be in Picard's debt and how the former might frown upon the disrespect shown to the latter, a nervous Torak agrees to cooperate fully.

The senior staff meets with Torak, and he produces Aquiel alive. She explains that Rocha attacked her and that her last memory was escaping from him. She doesn't remember precisely what happened. To help clarify what really occurred, Picard requests to speak with Commander Morag, the Klingon who was allegedly harassing the station. Attracted to her, La Forge befriends Aquiel, and takes her to the Ten-Forward lounge. He reveals to her that he surveyed her logs and personal correspondence as part of their investigation. Aquiel says she didn't like Rocha but did not wish to hurt him. She realizes she is a suspect in his death.

Meanwhile, Dr Crusher continues to examine the cellular residue found on the deck plate. Riker and Lt. Worf, who are examining the shuttlecraft, come across a phaser set to kill. La Forge gives moral support to Aquiel as she is questioned again.

Commander Morag then arrives aboard the Enterprise and meets with the senior staff. He admits that he was present on the station, and that he took priority Starfleet messages from its computer. La Forge returns to the station and discovers that Rocha's personal log has been tampered with. He confronts Aquiel who admits deleting messages from Rocha's log, because Rocha, as the senior officer, was going to declare her insubordinate and belligerent to Starfleet. Scared that this new evidence will condemn her as Rocha's killer, she agrees to stay aboard the Enterprise because La Forge has faith in her. He and Aquiel use an ancient method of her people to bond and share their thoughts.

While Dr Crusher examines the DNA found on the deck plate yet again, the material moves and touches her hand. It then withdraws and forms a perfect replica of her hand. Due to this, she suspects that the real Rocha may have been killed by this strange coalescent organism, and a replica of him may have attacked Aquiel in search of a new body. Believing that the organism may now have Aquiel's body, Riker and Worf race to Aquiel's quarters and stop the ritual she is conducting with La Forge. Morag is also arrested, as it is just as likely he is the organism.

With Aquiel and Morag in the brig, the Enterprise proceeds to the nearest starbase as the crew keep a close watch on them both, since the organism may need a new body soon. La Forge is in his quarters along with Aquiel's dog Maura reminiscing about her. The dog transforms and attacks him, but he is able to kill it. Later, he explains to Aquiel, who has been released, that Rocha was replaced by the organism. When it attacked her, it began the takeover process (hence her lapse in memory); however, she managed to get away in time. The creature then turned to the only other life form on the station, her dog.

The episode ends with Aquiel and La Forge in Ten-Forward, where she turns down his offer to help her join the Enterprise crew. She tells him she wants to earn her way there on her own merits.

Review:

This episode is rather ‘meh’, as it was supposed to be a La Forge character episode that gave a main cast member a long-term romance and compensated for the transfer of the O’Briens to Deep Space Nine, which meant TNG had lost the only married couple on the show and was once again basically a Trek singles’ cruise in terms of its main cast and recurring guest characters. However, it ends up being taken over by the murder mystery plot, and not in the fun way of Data pretending to be Sherlock Holmes or Picard acting as Dixon Hill. It’s a decent episode, but it’s too plot-driven with no character focus or issue exploration, which means it’s not proper Trek.

The only thing I truly hate regarding this episode is that according to the Wikipedia page about it, in 2019 the website ScreenRant claimed this episode made Geordi look like a sexual predator. Presumably this is in relation to Geordi reviewing Aquiel’s logs and personal correspondence when she was through to be dead, so all I can say is clearly ScreenRant knows fuck all about proper murder investigation. If someone is believed to have been murdered, everything about the victim and any suspects has to be looked into, and it’s not like a corpse has to worry about privacy anymore. The idea that this would lead any reviewer to categorise Geordi as some kind of pervert only shows what naïve, romanticised and childish views some people hold regarding murder investigation. Far too many people out there seem bound and determined to act like Hastings in Agatha Christie’s Poirot stories, blanching at any detection methods he considers as ‘ungentlemanly’.

In the BBC audio drama for ‘Peril at End House’, Poirot unearths love letters from Michael Seaton to Mademoiselle Nick Buckley, and when Hastings objects, saying “Poirot, you really can’t do that; it isn’t playing the game.” Poirot then instantly responds, and quite rightly, “I am not playing a game, my friend; I am hunting down a murderer.” This is the perfect example of the ScreenRant idiot’s point of view versus my own; even in the world of Trek, hunting down a murderer is a serious business and you can’t avoid potentially vital information just because it might invade the privacy of a victim or, as in the case of ‘Peril at End House’, an intended victim. If you have reason to believe the information is relevant to finding the killer, you pursue it, end of debate. Geordi just mis-handled telling Aquiel about it afterwards, but he nicely recovered and was otherwise a perfect gentleman. End score for this episode is 5 out of 10, end score for ScreenRant’s ability to comprehend proper murder investigation procedure, zero out of infinity.

Episode 14: Face of the Enemy

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Deanna Troi is kidnapped and brought aboard the Romulan Warbird Khazara. After waking up, Troi looks in a mirror and is horrified to find that she's undergone cosmetic surgery to make her look like a Romulan. Subcommander N'Vek, the Khazara first officer, privately explains that he has no intention of harming her, but needs her to pose as Major Rakal of the Tal Shiar, the Romulan intelligence service and secret police. N'Vek has secret cargo meant for the Federation, and needs Troi to act her role to convince the Khazara commander, Toreth (who is not aware of N'Vek's plan) into complying. Troi, as Rakal, is able to sway Toreth to head for a planned rendezvous in the Kaleb sector under threat of intense interrogation techniques.

Aboard the Enterprise, the crew brings aboard Stefan DeSeve, a human who had served as an ensign in Starfleet before defecting to the Romulans. Now he has returned with a message from Ambassador Spock. Captain Picard, wary of his prisoner's motives, considers Spock's message regarding a meeting in the Kaleb sector that would be prudent for the Federation's interest, and directs the ship there.

As the Khazara is en route, N'Vek shows Troi the secret cargo - Vice Proconsul M'Ret and two of his aides, held in stasis. They wish to defect to the Federation, and his presence there would aid further Romulan dissidents to flee the Empire. The plan is to transport the stasis chambers to a Corvallen cargo ship at the rendezvous point, who will subsequently deliver them into Federation space. When the Khazara meets up with the cargo ship, Troi senses its captain is not trustworthy, and N'Vek fires upon it, destroying it. He claims he was ordered by Major Rakal. Troi later explains to Toreth that she recognized the captain of the cargo ship as a known Federation spy. N'Vek, in private, explains to Troi that their only other option is to travel to Draken IV, an entry point for the Federation, where Troi can use her Starfleet codes to allow the ship to enter undetected. Troi gives this order to Toreth, who reluctantly agrees to it. However, their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the Enterprise.

The Enterprise arrives at the designated time and coordinates, but finds no trace of the cargo ship. They start a search, soon finding the wreckage of the vessel. As the Enterprise moves in, Toreth takes this as a sign of Troi's truthfulness. Troi wants to hold position, but the commander points out that with the wreckage nearby, they will be detected, and has the ship travel some distance away while the Enterprise continues to search. Troi is worried that the Enterprise will not be able to follow them, and has N'Vek create a trail of the cloaked ship.

Toreth learns of the Enterprise trailing them, and suspects that they've been detected. She orders a collision course for the vessel in order to test their reaction. When the Enterprise moves to avoid collision, Toreth orders the ship to decloak and attack. Troi steps in as Rakal and takes command from Toreth, then orders the ship to decloak and hails the Enterprise, offering to discuss the matter. The Enterprise crew, though they recognize Troi, feign ignorance and take down their shields. N'Vek fires on the Enterprise with low-powered weapons, appearing to damage the vessel. In reality, the low-power disruptor shot masks the transport of the stasis chambers to the Enterprise. Toreth, realizing that she is being deceived, executes N'Vek and retakes control of the Khazara. Before the Romulans can leave with Troi as their prisoner, Troi is safely transported to the Enterprise. In sickbay, Troi's cosmetic surgery is reversed, and she contemplates the value of N'Vek's efforts to aid the Federation.

Review:

This is the first and only call back in TNG history to Spock’s dissident movement that was showcased in the two-part episode “Unification” the previous season. It’s an interesting episode, and for a Troi episode very good, as it nicely takes us away from seeing her having to deal with her mother or whine over something strange sensed via her empathic abilities. Personally, I’d have preferred to see Troi go into this set-up fully briefed and prepped to play the role of spy rather than being landed in it at the deep end, as some of her initial scenes do verge on being highly cringe-worthy a la the Troi episodes of old. Moreover, it would have helped distinguish it more from the later Deep Space Nine episode “Second Skin” which revolved around a very similar premise.

The episode gives us a good of character development for Deanna in hindsight as well; between her recent uniform shift and having to play a commanding role on the fly, Deanna is beginning to develop skills she will later need when she takes the Bridge Officer’s Test to try and become a full commander the following season. As such, the episode is a case the show trying to get back to what it should be. I give it a score of 8 out of 10.

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talldarknsexy · 5 years

Text

Enduring Ethiopia

First impressions of Ethiopia weren't bad. The Borana tribe/region that I'd been riding through for the past few days spills over the colonially imposed border, so I interacted with the same wonderful people. They mostly lived in mud and straw huts and tended to agriculture and livestock. The men mostly wore jeans and T-shirts but the woman had ornate dresses of deep purples and turquoises, sometimes a vibrant orange or red. All of which juxtaposed with beautiful black skin and shiny white smile. I had wonderful interactions as well. Almost everyone on a motorbike would pull over to practice their English: mostly "where are you goes?" One time I gave a "good morning," to be replied with "MORE GOOD MORNING TO YOU SIR!" One fella even pulled over to ask "how can I help you?" We chatted for a bit, but it was him I ended up helping later. The heavens opened up and it started to downpour. I spotted him trying to cover a (surely already roasted) speaker on his motorbike and offered him a plastic bag. As it started to get hilly one day I grabbed onto the back of a double trailer semi truck. At the next hill I did the same with a truck that seemed almost identical. At the following hill, there he was, pulled over waiting for me. Bored, and buzzed out of his mind chewing khat (stimulating leaves)... but a friendly guy for sure! Another time it was about to rain one morning and a man shouted out to come take shelter with him. Slash offered me tea and food and introduced me to his family, including his father who'd had 25 children with 5 wives. Slash had pretty good English from working road construction with the Chinese or Egyptian contractors. We talked for a good half hour. It never did rain. These are the memories I cherish from Southern Ethiopia. Lush beautiful landscapes and friendly people. But somewhere, suddenly, that changed. Ethiopia is a country of about 100 million and so it is vastly overpopulated. I believe I also passed into a different tribal region, the Oromo, with their own language and culture. But regardless, the attention, shouts, begging, and chasing all began with great vigor. It's hard for me to convey the situation exactly, but I can best describe my days as stressful. There were endless crowds of people. Shouts of "YOU YOU YOU!!" "WHERE ARE YOU GO??" "CHINA!" "ALI BABA" "MONEY MONEY MONEY" and some "FUCK YOU's" thrown in for good measure. I didn't stop for anything except maybe the occasional bottle of water. I wasn't even able to pee on the road for about three days as I would be swarmed by children. I'd been cooking and packing a leftover lunch and made the mistake of stopping to eat where I thought I was out of view. Someone had seen me and sent the village idiot/teacher to come talk to me as he spoke some English. He asked if I would be giving him some of the plain pasta I was eating. Then he moved on to money. I pointed out that he had nicer clothes than I and I was the one eating plain pasta on the side of the road. He then asked me for a pen (typical in Africa.) I told him to use the one sticking out of his pocket and made this clear to the some dozen people that had now crowded round. Relentless, despite my pleas for him to leave me alone, he continued until I finally left. From then on, I only stopped to eat lunch if there was a police checkpoint. Two days from Addis Ababa I stopped in the city of Shashamane. It's somewhat well known for its Rasta community. Bob Marley has sung about returning to the Motherland and the emperor at the time, Haile Selassie, had offered Carribeans of African descent to return. Unfortunately, he was overthrown shortly after several thousand had arrived and they were never granted citizenship... Or acceptance from the locals for that matter. I camped at Zion Train Lodge but was a little dismayed as there there wasn't so much smoking as there was just Khat chewing. I had a dream that night that I was hanging out in present day with a childhood friend. There was a man that interrupted us with some awful singing. I told him to stop and pleaded with my friend to make him shut up, but his singing just grew louder and louder... Until I woke up. It was a Mineret blasting at full bore very close nearby. It was Saturday night at midnight, and I thought this was someone's idea of a cruel joke. But, alas it went on until 6am. Earplugs didn't help- I was up all night. The owner told me the next day that this is normal. Hearing minerets in Eastern Africa at early hours is indeed normal. But, Ethiopia takes it to the next level. Their religion is unique and their clock and calendar is something else entirely. Their day starts at 0am or 6am our time. Christian and Muslim holidays are all over the place. And it's still 2012 in Ethiopia, which also explains a bit. I rode that day exhausted and on edge. I'd had some rocks thrown at me earlier in the day and in the afternoon I saw some kids by the side of the road pick up some cow shit to throw at me. I approached them and ensured they dropped it. The kid afterwards wanted a high five... Maybe next time. With all the "YOU YOU YOU FERENGI FERENGI MONEY MONEY MONEY!" I tried to rationalize it by applying cultural context to it. But this didn't work. I imagined what it would be like to see a black man on the street in the US and yell "YOU YOU YOU BLACK MAN, SELL ME DRUGS!" (Or worse words) and throw at rock at him if he didn't oblige. The day ended looking for a guesthouse in a town with a herd of children on bicycles around me. Usually I love this, but Ethiopian children just have to be a pain in my ass. They would weave around me and stop short and there was the ~7 year old kid that rode beside me the whole way saying "Fahk you! Fahk you!" And me trying to jam my stick into his spokes at every opportunity when someone wasn't looking. I did find a guesthouse and luckily they served beer which is all too popular. It should go without saying that the food in Ethiopia is also quite unique. Most is served with a pancake-like Enjeera and either meat or sauces. The meat is by the kilo and fairly cheap, but they will ask you whether you'd like it cooked or raw. Judging by the amount of farmers and shepherds I spot shitting in their own fields, I've always opted for cooked meat... The next day I was entering Addis and being near the metropolis, the people seemed to calm down. I'd been getting wheels rolling everyday by 6am to get most of the km done before people were too fucked up on beer and Khat. So, this day I made it to the hostel there by early afternoon. I spent most of my time relaxing and running errands. I got my Sudanese visa there which in very proud of. It did take some work, but realistically a few years ago, this would have been next to impossible with perhaps a several week process. Thus, why I'd estimate 90% of cyclists still go North to South. After a few days fucking about in Addis, I set off now with a Sudanese Visa. It was a hilly 4 day ride to Bahir Dar. It was less populated here which was good and bad. I could stop to pee sometimes, maybe even eat a sandwich. But, also the rural and sometimes pastoral people meant more rock throwing. The vast majority of Ethiopians are kind and friendly. But it's tough to trust anyone or enjoy the region when even a small faction want to stone you. It is cultural, I see them throw rocks at their cattle, at each other, and sometimes passing vehicles. I'm just another slow moving target with little recourse. A slingshot would have been a great investment but was only able to arm myself with a stick and a few rocks of my own. Indeed, elders all have bamboo canes and wield them all day as a display of status. The rocks were pretty futile and I'd only scored one direct hit in the country. This probably wasn't the best idea anyways as a French cyclist had been stabbed years ago for retaliating. Often I'd try and grab an elder and point out the youngster. Sometimes they'd ensure a beating, but often they'd be apathetic. Accordingly, my Amharic vocabulary became quite colorful. I caught up with Luc and Colin in Bahir Dar. They are two Canadian cyclists coming down from Cairo. I made it in time to spend Halloween with them. We shared candy, dressed as dirty cyclists, and had some drinks. We swapped stories on the aggressive kids and drunkenly discussed our violent fantasies of what we would do if we ever caught one. The best strategy though was to just treat everyone with a smile and greeting. One afternoon there were four young adults spread across and blocking the road. Each of them wielding a cane and sickle. Not really sure what would have occurred had I not greeted them respectfully. And another time, riding by a group of armed men near a conflict zone, they shouted/asked "ITALIA?!" I'm obviously not Italian, but God help whoever is, as they had violently (and unsuccessfully) tried to colonize these people (twice.) But still, aggression aside, Ethiopians were generally quite hospitable. I rarely had to worry about being up charged for things like meals. And the guesthouses were usually pretty accommodating. One of the proprietors even inquired if I'd be interested in some "CHOOGA CHOOGA" with the housekeeper lady. The days blended together. I got run off the road by a tuk-tuk. I saw a funeral procession which is normal. But as I rode past, a slight wind lifted the sheet covering the body. It was a guy, in normal clothes, just about my age. Our only differences may have been the family and place we were born into. One day, as I was getting to the far North Western region, I was climbing up a pass and thought I heard something hit the ground to my left. I ignored it as there didn't seem to be anyone on the two hillsides on either side of me. This happened again. Just then, a large, fist-sized rock exploded on the pavement only about two meters away. I got the message! Shaken for a moment, but sped up and luckily there was a passing dump truck that I was able to latch onto up the rest of the pass. Before, Ethiopia had been manageable, but this was outright dangerous. I wanted out of Ethiopia. And indeed, this came quicker than even I expected. Only about ~100km from the border I was stopped at a police checkpoint and told I couldn't continue. I was there for about an hour and ascertained that there had been riots in the area starting three days ago and the local tribe had blockaded the road, killed some truckers, and then burnt the trucks to block the road further. They recommended I get on the only bus headed through that day with a military escort. I was pretty dismayed as I'd come this far without bus and would be taking it down the largest descent in my Africa trip. A winding 5000ft descent through the gorgeous Simien mountain range down to the Sahara. I didn't really have much choice though and my bike was hoisted onto the top of the bus. It tilted upside down and my frame bag rained down a small shower of peanuts. A few gathered round to sample the droppings. I was annoyed at descending down an incredible valley on a hot, overcrowded bus. They made a seat for me and were nice. But we stopped in the first town and didn't leave for what seemed to be hours. Now it the lowlands, sitting on the bus was sweltering. I got out and sat behind the bus in the shade. Now, I'd subconsciously noticed it, but it didn't really click with me until now. Africans, at least East Africans don't sit on the ground. Stumps, mats, chairs, yes. Ground no. I'll even see shepherds squatting indefinitely. Anyways, this gained some attention and someone brought over a chair for me. I politely declined not wanting to be the only white dude in town sitting on his chair. Eventually I lost the fight and if you'd looked down from google maps that day, you'd see a little white spec surrounded by a blob of at least 30 standing Ethiopians facing and interacting with me. I can't really complain about excessive hospitality, but if anything I travel by bike to live more like a local. And this was too much attention and a bit too uncomfortable for me. I got back on and sweated in the bus. I made friends with a student, though can't remember his name. He was a big fan of American rap. And Turkish stuff. And some other stuff. Well, I didn't understand much, but his English was worthwhile. Probably about three hours later, the passengers started protesting with police. They'd just been laying around and didn't want to continue. The passengers started yelling and I even watched my student friend plead with a cop in Amharic that I was a foreigner on the bus and couldn't stay here. I'm not sure if this was the cause... But soon we were underway again. Not long after leaving the safety of the police controlled town, there was a huge BANG out the stern side of the bus. Half the bus was in panic, but I'd noticed the noise came from the wheel well, so I wasn't too concerned. Although... I was worried that this would take another 3 hours. Our military escort had also sped ahead, unaware we had stopped. To my surprise, a nervously but determined nascar pit crew hopped out the bus, slammed some steel tools around, and in less than ten impressive minutes later, we were rolling again. We got into our destination city around 7pm... Later than I would've taken to ride there. There was a primitive guesthouse right next to the bus. And as I'd only had about $2 on me it was my only option. The bus attendant though, tried to see to it though that I paid more. It was a mud walled room and my student friend shared the room with his mom next door as they were also stranded. I got rolling the next morning around 5:30am to get past any police checkpoint before they'd risen. I didn't see any, and rode the last 30km undisturbed, with the rising sun and plenty of smiling/waving tribesman starting their day, once or twice just meters away from the remains of a burnt truck. A perfect depiction of the dichotomy between friendliness and fucked up nature of this crazy place.

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