Daystrom Institute

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 4x10 Old Friends, New Planets.

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

I don't mean on the holodeck, shore leave, or when transported to the past and needing to fit in.

Seems like if you're on an away mission to, say, a desert planet, sunglasses might be useful. I don't recall anything wearing them.

The narrator for the “Previously on…” segment sounds like Jonathan Frakes.

Starfleet Academy was founded in 2161 and first appeared on-screen in TNG: “The First Duty”. The flashback takes place in 2368 (13 years prior to 2381), the same year that episode took place.

Josh is Joshua Albert, the member of Nova Squadron who died when rehearsing the Kolvoord Starburst maneuver which underpins “The First Duty”. He was already deceased when the episode began, so never made an appearance. With him are Nick Locarno, Sito Jaxa (voiced by Shannon Fill) and Wesley Crusher (voiced by Wil Wheaton). Jean Hajar is missing, but she could be the small figure that is walking with the group and then turns to jog away at the start of the flashback.

Since Locarno is planning the Starburst maneuver, this means that it’s nearing the end of the academic year of 2367-2368. Mariner’s presence confirms that the latest she could have joined the Academy is in 2367, and since the earliest age she could have joined is 17, she is at least 31 in the present day. Sito’s remark about Mariner sounding like her “when I was a first year” seems to confirm this is Mariner’s freshman year.

Mariner’s xeno-history class covers the Preservers, who were a precursor race that transplanted a group of Native Americans to another planet (named in the script but not on-screen as Amerind), leaving behind an obelisk to protect the planet from asteroids (TOS: “The Paradise Syndrome”). The Xindi were the multi-species race that were the principle antagonists in ENT’s third season.

Nova One and Nova Fleet are obviously named after Nova Squadron. Coupled with the Kolvoord Starburst logo on his jacket (and the Klingon Bird of Prey), it seems Nick has had trouble letting go of the past.

Admiral Vassery last appeared in LD: “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place”. Admiral Alonzo Freeman, Mariner’s father, last appeared in LD: “Grounded” (although a photo of him also appeared in LD: “Mining the Mind’s Mines”).

Of course, Locarno looks like Tom Paris because both characters are acted by Robert Duncan McNeil. Let’s not go into the whole royalty urban myth here.

The Maquis were an insurgent movement trying to drive the Cardassians out of the Demilitarized Zone set up after the Federation-Cardassian wars. They were introduced in DS9 and played a major role in that series as well as in VOY.

Crews listening to Locarno’s address include Andorians, Independent Archeologist Petra Aberdeen (last seen in LD: “The Stars at Night”) and Tamarians. The “Detrion” system could be a misspelling of the Detrian system, a planetary system visited by the Enterprise-D in TNG: “Ship in a Bottle”.

Ransom summarizes Locarno’s sins from “The First Duty”.

Locarno unveils a black market Ferengi Genesis Device seen in “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place”. The Genesis Device was first seen in ST II and is capable of terraforming planetary environments instantly, wiping out any existing ecosphere (which is why it was supposed to be tested on a currently lifeless planet). Potentially, it could create planets, and did once, albeit an unstable one, in ST III.

The Trynar Shield is so named because it has three Bynars operating it.

Goodgey, the good part of the now-ascended ex-homicidal AI Badgey, was last seen in LD: “For a Few Badgeys More”, where the other lower deckers were understandably cautious about his working on the ship.

“Cerritos strong” as a rallying cry was first used by a holographic version of Freeman in LD: “Crisis Point” and by the real Freeman in LD: “First First Contact”. T’Lyn has been reading the ship’s logs, one assumes.

The ship that Mariner commandeers is a Steamrunner-class, first seen in ST: FC. The ship itself is the USS Passaro, NCC-52670, named after Fabio Passaro, a CGI artist who has worked on Star Trek related media like the Eaglemoss models, but has since passed away. Another USS Passaro, a Gagarin-class, was seen in PIC: “The Last Generation” near Sol Station.

(According to @BradinLA on X, this Passaro is a Sabrerunner-class, with Steamrunner-class aesthetics in a Sabre-class size.)

Freeman’s command code override is 06107.2. Mariner has had a lot of practice escaping space stations and stealing ships. Her workout program on the holodeck is staging Cardassian prison breaks and stealing a starship to escape (LD: “Strange Energies”).

D’Erika and Orion last appeared in LD: “Something Borrowed, Something Green”. Sword and Scabbard is perhaps the melee weapon equivalent of Guns & Ammo magazine?

Mariner questions whether you can have three Bynars, since Bynars usually work and live in pairs (TNG: “11001001”). Her moving into the ring system of the planet is reminiscent of the Millennium Falcon hiding in an asteroid field in The Empire Strikes Back.

Rule of Acquisition 91: “Your boss is only worth what he pays you” and Rule 289: “Shoot first, count profits later” are new rules, never mentioned before on-screen or in beta canon.

Billups’ willingness to defend the Cerritos’s honor as her Chief Engineer is what Scotty did in TOS: “The Trouble with Tribbles”, where he kept his cool while the Klingons insulted Kirk, but finally lost it when they trash talked the Enterprise.

“Look at the size of that thing!” was Wedge Antilles’ reaction when first seeing the Death Star in Star Wars.

ENS Livik is Rutherford’s nemesis/rival, first introduced in LD: “I Have No Bones and I Must Flee”. Sorting things out with a stint on the Mark Twain riverboat holodeck program is from the same episode.

Ion storms are standard hazards in Star Trek, appearing in many episodes. This particular one is reminiscent of the Mutara Nebula in ST II, especially the camera angles, music, lighting, and static effects on the viewscreen when Locarno pursues Mariner into it.

Not exactly sure how 12-dimensional chess would work, but 3-dimensional chess is a regular game in Star Trek (first seen way back in TOS: “Where No Man Has Gone Before”), with the Four Dimension variant introduced in Diane Duane’s novel My Enemy, My Ally.

The James Horner ST II style music is strong in the Orion destroyer sequence. The shot of the destroyer crashing into the shield is like the Super Star Destroyer crashing into the Death Star in Return of the Jedi.

Boimler’s remark about never seeing someone actually using the captain’s yatch is true. We saw Cerritos’s captain’s yacht in several episodes but it was never taken out. Similarly, the Enterprise-D had one (the Calypso) but it was never used. The Enterprise-E’s yacht, the Cousteau, was used in ST: Insurrection.

Locarno points a pump-action phaser rifle at Mariner, the same type used by Beverley Crusher in PIC: “The Next Generation”.

“Mirab, with sails unfurled,” is Tamarian for “Let’s depart/travel,” (TNG: “Darmok”).

The Genesis Device detonates much the same way its predecessor blew up the Reliant at the end of ST II, with the same nebula rings accompanying it while the yacht zooms off like the Enterprise did. It even forms an M-class planet like the Genesis Planet, except this one seems stable. Starfleet names it Locarno, since his atoms are part of it. Start your speculations on whether this will bring him back to life.

The title is a play on the TNG episode “The Inner Light”, where Picard is hit by a beam from a Kataan probe that makes him live out a lifetime of memories in the space of less than an hour. A similar probe last appeared in LD: “In the Cradle of Vexilon”.

The scientists are studying the venomous tremble lizards of Persioff IX. Persioff IX could be a reference to veteran actor Nehemiah Persoff, who played Palor Toff in TNG: “The Most Toys”. The design of the anti-venom suits are similar to TOS-style EV suits, seen in TOS: “The Tholian Web”.

The list of ex-Starfleet Officers to be escorted include Seven of Nine, Beverly Crusher, Thomas Riker and Nick Locarno. At this point in their lives, Seven of Nine is with the Fenris Rangers (PIC: “Stardust City Rag”), Beverly Crusher has just left Starfleet after becoming pregnant with Picard’s son (PIC: “Seventeen Seconds”), Thomas Riker was last seen being sentenced to a Cardassian work camp (DS9: “Defiant”), and Nick Locarno was last seen expelled from Starfleet Academy (TNG: “The First Duty”). Space prevents me from going into beta canon sources for Riker and Lorcano, or the latter’s resemblance to Tom Paris.

The shuttle the team takes to Sherbal V is the Death Valley. As with the other Cerritos shuttles, she is named after the Californian National Park.

The Klingon Bird of Prey, based on an eyeballing of its relative size to the shuttle, is a B’rel-class scout, the same class as the Bounty from ST III and ST IV.

It may just be my imagination, but New Axton’s planetary force field which allows only ships in through a protected portal reminds me of the shield around Scariff in Rogue One: a Star Wars Story. The shuttle bringing Freeman, Rutherford and Shax to the surface has a profile and colors resembling a Tatooine landspeeder, and the staff handling planetary landings were in uniforms resembling Imperial ones and speak in pseudo-British accents (not to mention the control room looks like your standard Empire air traffic control). We had vague Star Wars references last episode, too.

Starfleet shuttles are equipped with a short-range transporter. We first saw one being used in TNG: “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”, when rescuing Picard from a Borg cube. The standard range for a shipboard transporter is 40,000km (TNG Technical Manual), but one presumes the smaller shuttle transporters have a shorter range.

From the pink blood, the masked figure that had his foot caught in the trap is Klingon. He later turns out to be Ma’ah, captain of the IKS Che’Ta’. We saw his rise from Lower Decker to commander in LD: “wej Duj” and his ship was “destroyed” by the mystery ship in LD: “Twovix”.

Among the aliens coming out from the moon shuttle are a Gorn female and a Caitian. In TOS: “The Corbomite Maneurver”, McCoy quips, “What am I, a doctor or a moon shuttle conductor?”

The New Axton bar named Mudds refers to notorious conman Harcourt Fenton “Harry” Mudd, chronologically last seen selling love potions in TAS: “Mudd’s Passion”. The patron that falls off the stool is a Galardonian (LD: “Second Contact”). The bouncer says “jippers are half price for tripeds today” - a jipper was one of Mudd’s preferred drinks (ST: “The Escape Artist”).

T’Lyn was indeed at the Battle of System 7743.8 (“wej Duj”), on the VCF Sh’val which came to the Cerritos’ rescue (we last saw the Sh’val in LD: “For a Few Badgeys More”). Also at that battle was the Che’Ta’. She did mention an encounter with a Klingon and Pakled ship to Mariner in LD: “Empathological Fallacies”, but Mariner may not have connected that with the Cerritos.

Boimler’s dream about Crusher refers to TNG: “Data’s Day” where she teaches Data to tap dance.

A dk’ tahg is a Klingon dagger, first seen in ST III but officially named TNG: “Birthright, Part II”.

The “perfect friend” that Mariner modeled herself after was Bajoran ENS Sito Jaxa, who was part of Nick Lorcano’s Nova Squadron (“The First Duty”). Sito was subsequently killed in 2370 during a covert operation to return a double agent to Cardassia Prime (TNG: “Lower Decks”).

Forgive an old chronologist’s ramblings: Sito’s fall from grace happened in 2368, and she had to retake her classes from the past year. Since she was on the Enterprise-D in the middle of 2370, the latest she could have graduated was in 2369. Mariner’s account that Sito graduated ahead of her means Mariner would have graduated at the earliest in 2370. A four-year course means she entered the Academy in 2367 - entering at age 17 (Wesley took the entrance exam at 16) makes her born in 2350, making her 31 as of 2381.

The Dominion War lasted from 2373 to 2375. If the above timeline is correct, Mariner would have served in it, especially since she served a stint on Deep Space 9 (LD: “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”, “Hear All, Trust Nothing”).

toDuj means courage or bravery in Klingon. It’s also the name of a Klingon fighter class in Star Trek Online. biHnuch doesn’t mean “idiot” but cowards - plural. The word nuch means coward and the biH means “they”, so Mariner’s usage of “a biHnuch”is grammatically incorrect.

I’m unable to understand what Ma’ah says before he hands the pip over to Mariner.

The alien at the table that Mariner, Shax and Rutherford approaches appears to be a Balok puppet (“The Corbormite Maneuver”), which was often seen in the series’ closing credits. The countdown that the “puppet” makes was also done in the TOS episode towards the Enterprise’s impending destruction. However… oops. In the non-canon novel The Face of the Unknown by Christopher L. Bennett, it was established the the Balok puppet was based on the features of the larger, more intimidating Dassik species, with which Balok’s species (the Linnik) were in conflict with.

The bounty hunter’s language is similar to the sounds made by the Breen from DS9.

Tendi, is of course, the Mistress of the Winter Constellations (“We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”) raised to be the Prime of her house, the Tip of the Moonlit Blade (LD: “Something Borrowed, Something Green”).

More Star Wars references, specifically Return of the Jedi. The monitoring station is practically identical to the Imperial bunker on the forest moon of Endor. Attacking the Bird of Prey armed only with primitive weapons is reminiscent of the Ewoks attacking Imperial vehicles armed with similar stone-tipped spears. Sherbal V also looks like the forest moon.

Freeman’s plan for Billups to be disguised as a bounty hunter refers to Leia’s gambit to infiltrate Jabba’s Palace. We should have known, since the bounty hunter ship has a vaguely Hysperian color scheme (LD: “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie”). The place where they search for Locarno even looks like Jabba’s Palace.

Of course, it stands to reason that if Mariner knew Sito, she’d know Locarno as well (the Kolvoord Starburst - the maneuver that got him drummed out of the Academy - is on his jacket as well as on the Bird of Prey). 



But if Mariner knew him at the Academy, that’s the clincher for her age. “The First Duty” takes place in 2368 as noted before, but Lorcano was graduating that year, which is why he was hell-bent on the Starburst stunt. If that’s so, then the latest time Mariner would have known Locarno is the 2367-2368 academic year, which means her latest entry into the Academy is 2367. Backtracking, her birthday is in 2350 at the latest. So coming at it from two angles - Sito and Locarno - comes up with the same minimum age: 31.

The title may allude to a line of dialogue from LD’s first episode, “Second Contact”, where Mariner says she was once trapped in a sentient cave for weeks: “You ever been trapped in a sentient cave? That’s a dark place that knows things.”

This episode consists mainly of flashbacks to unseen adventures in caves, but since these are new ones, it doesn’t qualify as a clip show like TNG: “Shades of Gray”.

The Cerritos is in orbit around the planet Grottonus. Mariner hates caves, probably due to her experience described above. Boimler remarks that caves kind of look the same, a sly reference to the reuse of cave sets in various TNG-era series.

Mariner sarcastically mentions how rocks successfully block centuries of technological process. In LD: “Mining the Mind’s Mines”, it’s said that it’s not a real day in Starfleet until comms get blocked.

Tendi talks about being trapped together (in a turbolift) right after the “rage virus” outbreak. We didn’t see them being trapped, but the rage virus incident happened in the first LD episode, “Second Contact”. Picard was trapped in a turbolift with some children in TNG: “Disaster”, and Una was trapped in a turbolift with Spock in ST: “Q and A”.

LT Steve Levy is a science officer best known for claiming that Wolf 359 was an inside job and that the Dominion War didn’t happen (LD: “No Small Parts”). Gammanite is a fictional element that Levy used to boost communications signals in a previously unseen adventure. He’s voiced by Fred Tatasciore, who also voices Shax.

This is Kyron IV’s first appearance in lore. Coincidentally, Kyron IV was the name of a character in the fantasy comic book Soul Saga by Steven Platt, the character being King of the Dominion and father to Princess Persephone. Also, a chyron is the term for an electronically generated superimposed caption (named after the Chyron corporation).

In the flashbacks, our Lower Deckers are wearing LT jg pips, which places these after LD: “Twovix”.

Vendorians are a shapeshifting race first seen in TAS: “The Survivor”. A Vendorian was last seen in LD: “Envoys” on Tulgana IV, disguised as an Andorian. Vendor Prime was seen on a star chart in PIC: “Maps and Legends”, which placed it within the territory of the Romulan Free State, in the Beta Quadrant (in LDs time that would place it within the Romulan Star Empire).

Boimler lists Levy’s conspiracy theories: Wolf 359 wasn’t real, Q doesn’t exist, Picard is a hologram and the Doctor isn’t (he also believes they are living in the Mirror Universe). Levy’s description of Vendorian brood pods and young bursting out of chests is reminiscent of Gorn breeding practices as mentioned in SNW.

Levy claims the Vendorians falsified data that going at warp speed damages subspace. If this is correct, that provides a canon explanation for why the Warp 5 limit imposed in TNG: “Force of Nature” was quickly forgotten after TNG ended. Previously, it was suggested by off-screen sources that either warp engine design was improved so as to prevent such ecological damage or that the variable geometry nacelle pylons seen in the Intrepid-class were also supposed to compensate for it.

The idea that the Vendorians are putting people through tests of character and morality is new, although such tests are usually from more powerful or omnipotent species, like the Metrons in TOS: “Arena”, the Melkotians in TOS: “Spectre of the Gun”, the Vians from TOS: “The Empath, the Q from TNG, and so on.

This is the first mention of Porgian swamp rash, although Porgs are the cute little penguin-like creatures seen in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Also the first appearance of Balkus IX. The Star Wars reference may not be a coincidence, since the brain-eating Grafflax sounds like “Graflex” - the Graflex 2 Flash Gun was used as the basis for Anakin/Luke’s lightsaber prop in Star Wars: A New Hope and it’s still called a Graflex lightsaber in fan circles.

Thusa transferring her “base mind by dermal contact” to Rutherford is reminiscent of Spock transferring his katra to McCoy at the climax of ST II, except that this transfers their consciousness into a protein mass that creates a cloned infant version of themselves. Rapid alien-induced pregnancies are also a trope in Star Trek, most notably in TNG: “The Child” with Troi and in ENT: “Unexpected” with Trip.

The trope of an apparent monster turning out to be defending her offspring turns up in TOS: “The Devil in the Dark”.

Delta Shift were our Beta Shift Lower Deckers’ nemeses in previous seasons (LD: “Terminal Provocations”, “Room for Growth”). The ones accompanying Mariner are ENS Karavitus, ENS Asif and ENS Amadou. ENS Moxy is not present.

The shuttle that Mariner crashes is the Kings Canyon. As with all Cerritos shuttles, named after a Californian National Park. She was last seen in LD: “In the Cradle of Vexilon”.

“Dunsel” is a term used by midshipmen at Starfleet Academy to describe a part that serves no useful purpose (TOS: “The Ultimate Computer”). Rutherford used the same term in LD: “The Stars at Night”. Pergium is an element used as fuel in nuclear reactors (TOS: “The Devil in the Dark”). Amadou and Mariner pronounce it with a hard G, i.e. “PER-gi-um”, when in the original episode it was pronounced “per-JEE-um”.

As Mariner ages, she gets a grey streak through her hair like her mother, Captain Freeman.

Mariner says they’ll get T’Ana to grow Asif a new leg. She may be referring to the biosynthetic limbs used as prosthetics (DS9: “It’s Only a Paper Moon”), which use synthetic muscles in their construction.

Tend’s flashback begins right at the end of “Second Contact”, with the same dialogue from the episode, with the ship still showing damage from the rage virus outbreak.

Synthehol is indeed supposed to affect the people like alcohol, except that its intoxicating effects could be dismissed at will (TNG: “Relics”). However, starships still carried supplies of real alcoholic drinks as the taste difference was allegedly apparent to connoisseurs.

A targ is a Klingon animal, like a cross between a boar and a dog with spikes on its back, kept as pets (TNG: “Where No One Has Gone Before”).

Tendi mentions another unseen cave story where they met themselves, but they turned out to be aliens from the future pretending to be them, harkening to story elements from episodes like TNG: “Time Squared” and TNG: “Future Imperfect”.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 4x07 A Few Badgeys More.

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

Okay, so… I want to open with the observation that all the ships that have been attacked by the mysterious ship have been CGI.

Lower Decks tends to default to 2D unless the ship either will get a lot of screen time (California Class, Shuttles), offer fan service (Titan, Voyager, DS9, Sovereign Class), or get into combat (Bird of Prey, Clump Ship, Sh'Val, Texas Class, Green vessel).

Basically, Titmouse gets their money's worth from CGI models, and will use 2D where otherwise practical.

This season, as far as I can tell, all the attacked vessels have been CGI. Their screen time has all been extremely short. With the exception of the Bird of Prey (from 3 ships) all the attacked ships have been new to the series.

That said, their on screen appearances could've easily been substituted with 2D illustrations. Most of the ships barely move, which is perfect for 2D, but they opted instead for more expensive CGI.

Whatever McMahon has planned for these ships. it isn't going to be small.

With that stated. When the mysterious ship reorients itself to attack position, I can't help but feel like it looks kinda like a face. But humans are hard coded to see faces in things, so I didn't think much of it.

Then I saw the Bynar ship.

The 'nacelles' on the ship connect to a hub in the back… and it looks to me like hinges. Like the nacelles could arbitrarily reorient themselves like a pair of thighs attached to a hip.

Face. Hips. Legs.

The mysterious ship can't be stealing all these vessels for salvage. We've already seen that done with the Pakleds. The ship also can't be interested in these ships for their intended purposes, since there's nothing of substance that connects them all—beyond all having disgruntled lower deckers.

I don't know why they would do this, but I can't shake the feeling the mysterious ship is attempting to build something akin to Voltron or the Megazord. A giant bipedal mech made of a bunch of other ships.

Maybe the vertical Warbird is the torso. Maybe the Bird of Prey and the Orion ship are shoulder pads or feet. I don't know.

But I figured I'd bounce this idea off you guys and see if you could refute or add to this.

I'm searching for inspiration for something I'm not sure, but I keep revolving my head around the TOS episode "The Balance of Terror" for it.

Arguably one of the greatest episodes of the ST franchise, something about a reenactment between a destroyer and a submarine (The Enemy Bellow). But I want to dig a little deeper about what can we learn from the episode and I can't really find a good analysis video of it. What do you guys think can be learned or digested from the episode?

The title is a play on the classic 1965 Sergio Leone spaghetti western, “For a Few Dollars More”, starring Clint Eastwood. That movie was a sequel to “A Fistful of Dollars”, which was referenced in the TNG episode title “A Fistful of Datas”.

Badgey is an instructional AI created by Rutherford that went homicidally rogue (LD: “Terminal Provocations”). Badgey was thought destroyed in LD: “No Small Parts” but last seen encoded in Rutherford’s original cybernetic implant and being salvaged from the wreckage of the Battle of Kalla in LD: “The Stars at Night”. Badgey’s code was also used in that episode as a basis for the Texas-class AI, with predictably disastrous results.

The ship that salvages Badgey is Drookmani, who scavenge the wreckage of battles, claiming “trash” as their own. They were last seen in LD: “A Mathematically Perfect Redemption”, where they raided their Areore on the instigation of rogue exocomp Peanut Hamper.

The Bynars are a cybernetically augmented species, connected to a master computer on their planet Bynaus (TNG: “11001001”). This is their first actual appearance since their introduction, despite occasional mentions in the series. The speech and lettering they use is consistent with that in the TNG episode.

Grapplers were used on starships and shuttlepods, like the NX-01, in the 22nd Century (ENT) as a precursor to tractor beams. La’An Noonien Singh and Boimler both said they liked grapplers (LD: “Those Old Scientists”). Pakleds also used gigantic grapplers to tear ships apart (LD: “No Small Parts”).

AGIMUS, another rogue AI, first appeared in LD: “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie”, where he was placed in the Daystrom Institute’s Self-Aware Megalomaniacal Computer Storage facility. In “A Mathematically Perfect Redemption”, Peanut Hamper was placed in the cell next to AGIMUS.

The shot of the Daystrom Institute is of their facility in Okinawa, last seen in “Fountains” but also present in 2399 in Season 1 of PIC, where it housed the Institute’s Division of Advanced Synthetic Research.

The drone AGIMUS produces is similar in design to the Echo Papa 607 of the arms merchants of Minos (TNG: “The Arsenal of Freedom”).

Montañita is a coast town in Ecuador known for being a party destination, at least in the 21st Century.

The movie the AIs are watching appears to be a Lassie movie, based on the appearance of the collie.

AGIMUS says the Bynar ship went missing on Stardate 58934.9, if anyone’s keeping track.

If an attacking ship knows the frequency that the target’s shields are tuned to, they can get tune their weapons accordingly to bypass them (ST: Generations).

Rutherford snapped Badgey’s neck to “kill” him in“Terminal Provocations”. Installing holo-emitters so that a hologram can appear off the holodeck first turned up in VOY: “Message in a Bottle” and VOY: “The Killing Game”. Voyager was also installed with holo-emitters when converted into a museum ship in LD: “Twovix”.

Tendi first encountered sand (and a beach) on the holodeck in LD: “Second Contact”. Boimler’s plan to play along and get intel is similar to how Kayshon and Ransom dealt with the Pakled spy in LD: “The Spy Humongous”. AGIMUS says Plymeria is a planet that is ripe for domination.

Goodgey and Badgey splitting into good and evil parts is what happens with Kirk in TOS: “The Enemy Within”, although that was the result of a transporter accident.

Root beer was used as a metaphor for the Federation in DS9: “The Way of the Warrior”. Alexander Rozhenko preferred root beer floats to bloodwine in DS9: “Sons and Daughters”.

Neurazine gas is used to incapacitate humanoids (VOY: “Message in a Bottle”), not to be confused with neurocine gas, which is lethal to Bajorans and Humans (DS9: “Civil Defense”), and was used to fake WIlliam Boimler’s death so he could be recruited by Section 31 (LD: “Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus”).

Badgey’s plan to upload himself into subspace relays and then take over bears some similarities to Control’s commandeering the Section 31 fleet in DIS, the Construct’s taking over of ships in PRO, or the Borg taking control of the fleet in PIC. Seriously, guys, find a newer plan.

Boimler sarcastically remarking that Starfleet couldn’t reverse the invasion in an hour refers to where catastrophic events are pretty much solved and reset within the hour runtime of an episode.

The Tyrus VIIA research station was where the exocomps first displayed signs of sentience (TNG: “The Quality of Life”). The station is the site of a particle fountain used in mining the moon below. The interior of the station’s main control matches the set from the original episode.

Warp 9.9 is approximately 3029.26c, per the TNG warp scale. As Badgey uploads himself into subspace, we see shots of the Cerritos, the Vancouver (LD: “Cupid’s Errant Arrow”), with Boimler’s ex Barbara Brinson, the VCF Sh’val with Captain Sokel (LD: “wej Duj”), Starbase 25 (LD: “An Embarrassment of Dooplers”), Deep Space 9 (LD: “Hear All, Trust Nothing”), Douglas Station (LD: “Second Contact”).

Badgey’s ascension, including the blue hue he takes on and the bird-like shape surrounding him, is identical (but less painful) than LT O’Connor’s in LD: “Moist Vessel”. He also sees the Cosmic Koala and mentions the Q Continuum and the Black Mountain (LD: “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”, and actually seen in LD: “In the Cradle of Vexilon”).

As theorized by many fans, the mystery ship isn’t destroying the ships, but stealing them.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 4x06 Parth Ferengi's Heart Place.

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

Just a forward that I wasn’t sure if this belonged on Startrel or Daystrom… but the fact that this deals with minor spoilers for the latest episode and an analysis made me lean to here.

Anyways, it was brought to my attention by u/tunkfurmer on Reddit that every scene about the attacks started with some lower deckers complaining about their captains before the attack.

So I went back and reviewed those scenes and… IMO it tracks.

Starting with the most recent episode, the Ferengi Keith admits that he was in communication with the vessel in return for profit. He was earlier complaining about Rom’s policy changes.

Next most recent, the Orion vessel made an unplanned encounter with the vessel. The Orion plagiarist/buttmonkey was the only one focused on his console during the encounter. The Captain demands to know how it got past their systems before the ship is destroyed.

With the vertical Romulan warbird, we learn both the male and female Romulans intended to betray the captain. The captain accuses the male officer, but he claims innocence. The female remains off frame for that exchange, but otherwise doesn’t trigger my suspicions outside of ‘By omission’.

And finally the Bird of Prey. Somewhat similar to the Orion Plagerist, the Spear Wielding Klingon seems more detached from his female counterpart to the vessel’s presence. But otherwise, like the Female Romulan, doesn’t act especially suspicious.

So…All four crews include at least one Lower Decker who was:

• Dissatisfied with the chain of command
• Operating a bridge console at the time of the attack
• Could be interpreted as not being surprised by the ship’s presence (the death beam,though, is another story.

Couple this with Keith’s betrayal and the Orion Captain’s bewilderment at the downed systems… I think we have saboteurs amongst the Lower Decks across the quadrant. Saboteurs that seem not to expect the sudden death beam.

All that said… I’m not sure what the vessel is after. The ships are destroyed, with no discernible corpses amongst the wreckage. It’s unlikely to be salvage considering how thoroughly the ships are vaporized. And none of the ships seem to fit a profile. You’ve got the small and nimble Orion Vessel to the large Warbird. None of the vessels seem to be in the midst of any especially important task.

With that established… I think we can possibly project what the vessel will strike next.

T’Lyn’s arc this season is about coming to terms with her exile from the Vulcan vessel. It seems likely to me that we’ll revisit the ship this season. And… given what we know of the profiles of the purported saboteurs… I suspect T’Lyn, as a misfit amongst Vulcans, is likely to be put in contact with the vessel.

As for the Cerritos herself, this season we’ve been introduced to two new ensigns. A command one who’s aware of the favoritism Ransom gives to Mariner and an engineer who out performs Rutherford, but gets snubbed out of a promotion. If the Cerritos gets put out of commission, I’d have my eyes on those two.

I was originally disinterested in the ongoing attacks… but in this light things have gotten quite fascinating to me.

The title is a pun on the 2004 British horror parody television series Garth Merenghi’s Darkplace.

The Ferengi starship appears to be a variant of that owned by the Ferengi merchant Ulis in 2151 (ENT: “Acquisition”).

Rom became the Grand Nagus in DS9: “The Dogs of War”, Zek appointing Rom as his successor to carry on his reforms to create a kinder, gentler Ferenginar.

The Genesis Device is of course the central McGuffin of ST II. The one that blew up and created the Genesis Planet was thought to be the only one, but we’ve seen another model stored in Daystrom Station (PIC: “The Bounty”).

“He thinks Rom is the next Lonz.” A deep cut, Lonz was the most famous nose flute player in Ferengi history, also known as “Old Golden Nostril” (DS9 book: Legends of the Ferengi).

Rule of Acquisition No. 62: “The riskier the road, the greater the profit”, was first mentioned in DS9: “Rules of Acquisition”, among other episodes.

The Stardate is 58901.5. The Ferengi Alliance wanting to join the Federation is a huge deal. Although Nog was the first Ferengi in Starfleet (DS9: “Heart of Stone”), by 2400, there will be more Ferengi cadets in Starfleet Academy (PIC: “The Star Gazer”, a Ferengi flag is being flown during commencement among other flags showing the composition of the graduating class), and by the 32nd Century, Ferengi officers are seen frequently, even a Captain (DIS: “Anomaly”).

The foods being served on board the Parliament-class (LD: “Cupid’s Errant Arrow”) USS Toronto (NCC-70494) include a bowl of Ferengi tube grubs (DS9: “Homefront”), cheese cut out in Starfleet delta shapes and a wooden serving board in the shape of a Galaxy-class cruiser.

The bald Admiral is Vassery, who commanded Douglas Station and was the one Mariner mocked for his pronunciation of “sen-soar” (LD: “Moist Vessel”). He also appeared in Mariner’s holoprogram (LD: “Crisis Point”).

Moab IV is the location of the Genome Colony, a self-contained domed enclosing a genetically and socially-engineered society (TNG: “The Masterpiece Society”). The environment outside the dome was uninhabitable at the time the Enterprise-D visited, so Vassery’s joke might mean that has changed. Or is just a bad joke.

The 10th Rule of Acquisition is “Greed is eternal” (DS9: “Prophet Motive”); Freeman trying to quote this expresses her skepticism about Ferenginar’s application.

Leeta’s title as “First Clerk” is the title of the Nagus’ personal financial assistant (DS9: “Ferengi Love Songs”). Rom and her are accompanied by what seems to be a female Hupyrian. The species is known to be favorites of the Grand Naguses as servants, bodyguards and food tasters due to their devotion to their masters and their vows of silence to anyone other than their master. Zek’s male servant was Maihar’du (DS9: “The Nagus”).

I got to admit, the Ceremonial Invoice and the “Friends and Family Discount” made me spit out my soda. God, I’ve missed the Ferengi - the DS9 development of them, specifically. Yes, Quark made an appearance in DS9: “Hear All, Trust Nothing”, but still.

Self-sealing stem bolts are a component that nobody is quite sure what they do or what they’re for, except that they’re self-sealing. And are stem bolts (DS9: “Progress”).

For the record, “Lieutenants junior grade” is the grammatically correct usage. Much like it’s “Attorneys-General” and not “Attorney-Generals”.

There have been two travel guides published in the real world for Star Trek under the Hidden Universe Travel Guides banner: one for the Klingon Empire and the other for Vulcan. I also love the fact that the Cerritos is statistically the horniest and least committed crew in Starfleet because that tracks so much.

Finishing each other’s diophantine equations (polynomial equations where only integer solutions are allowed) could be a reference to a classic gag from Arrested Development where Michael says about Nellie, that they finish each other’s… and Lindsay chimes in with “Sandwiches?” to Michael’s bewilderment. The same joke coincidentally shows up in That 70s Show and as part of the song “Love is an Open Door” in Frozen.

Honus is the ship’s bartender (LD: “Mugato, Gumato”) and Nurse Westlake (LD: “Second Contact”) is named for Chris Westlake, the composer for LD.

We see a Ferengi shuttle (DS9: “Little Green Men”) flying by as we approach Ferenginar, on which it is always raining (DS9: “Family Business”). The Ferengi language has 178 words for rain (and none for “crisp”), rather like the hundreds of words Inuits use to describe various types of snow (DS9: “Let He Who is Without Sin”). The tall building dominating the skyline is the Ferengi Tower of Commerce, the capital building of the government (“Prophet Motive”).

Signs advertise All You Can @#S%!, Slug-O-Cola (DS9: “Profit and Lace”), Uncle Quark’s Youth Casino, Maxium Oo-Mox Rub Dungeon, Acquire Pour Homme, Lobe’s Lodge, Slug-Nasium. A marquee says “Now Playing: Latinum Lost!!!” which may be a reference to the Litverse novella Lust’s Latinum Lost (and Found), which centers around the erotic holonovel of the same title.

The things on Boimler’s to-do list are:

• Drop off capital buildingm Inspection: Mini Bar, Toilet, Pay Wall
• View Screen Inspected
• Museum of Bribery
• Ferengi Center for Forged Arts
• Ferengi Hall of Fame Gift Shop (Hall of Fame Coming Soon)

The size of Ferengi lobes isLatinum Lost (and Found)*, which centers around the erotic holonovelCola commercial plays on.

Quimp appeared in LD: “Envoys”, meeting Mariner on Tulgana IV, staging a fake attack to boost Boimler’s confidence.

Oberth-classes (like the USS Grissom from ST III) take a lot of flak. T’Ana once screamed that she didn’t spend 7 years on one just to get reassigned to a station (LD: “The Stars at Night”).

The “dagger of the mind” drink probably refers to TOS: “Dagger of the Mind” where a neural neutralizer empties a mind and makes it susceptible to suggestion.

Rom was on Sisko’s baseball team, the Niners, in DS9: “Take Me Out to the Holosuite” and scored the only run for the team in that game.

The unicorn dog in the Ferengi landlord cop show is of the species from Alfa 177 (TOS: “The Enemy Within”). We last saw one of them in the menagerie in LD: “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee”.

As Boimler laughs about product placement he is sitting in front of the Paramount logo. The screen also resembles the CBS eye logo.

Parth is using a holographic imager, but oddly enough closer to the Starfleet design (last seen in SNW: “Those Old Scientists”) rather than a Ferengi one (DS9: “Meridian”).

Mariner and Quimp play dabo (DS9: “Babel”) at the Ferenginar Historical Library.

Quark’s Federation Experience Bar & Grill (referring to the late lamented Las Vegas Star Trek: The Experience), has models of the Voyager and Enterprise-D hanging from the ceiling as the TNG theme tune plays. Among the decor are signs that say Engineering, Ten Forward, Where No Gift Has Gone Before, Jeffries Tube Entrance, Red Shirts and Holodeck Arcade.

Patrons enter the place between two TOS-style nacelles and are greeted by a Ferengi with a Vulcan hairstyle and eyebrows in a blue science division uniform. In a blink and you’ll miss it moment, there is a naked female Ferengi (head and shoulders visible) at one of the tables as we initially pan towards Tendi and Rutherford. Ferengi females were traditionally not allowed to wear clothes, but this began to change with Zak’s reforms, helped along by Quark and Rom’s mother Ishka.

On display are a Mugato (TOS: “A Private Little War”), the Guardian of Forever (TOS: “The City on the Edge of Forever”), a Vulcan gong in the arena from TOS: “Amok Time” and a Taurean ape-man with a spear from TOS: “The Galileo Seven”.

Tendi and Rutherford are seated at a table whose wall panels have a TOS-style red trim and chairs from that era. The Red Alert sound has of course been standard since TOS. The Ferengi bouncers are dressed in TNG-era security uniforms.

Tendi’s comment about the velour uniforms catching fire is similar to Boimler talking about exploding tricorders in LD: “Those Old Scientists”.

Sitting weird in chairs is a stereotype for bisexuals, of which Mariner is one. Naturally, the Ferengi Dominion War Memorial remembers the profits lost during that conflict.

The blind box is modeled on a TOS-era shuttle. We see a rocky backdrop for one of the tables that might be Sarpeidon from TOS: “All Our Yesterdays”.

The 8th Rule of Acquisition, “Small print leads to large risk” is from the beta canon book The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.

The Ferengi dragging Boimler out of his room is using a Ferengi energy whip (TNG: “The Last Outpost).

This one is well done, and seems worthy of capturing as documentation in the Daystrom Institute.

Those charming two forward-facing eyes were instant indicators that Moopsy is a predator…but how dangerous?

It’s a tubby jumping spider without all those extra eyes and legs.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 4x05 Empathalogical Fallacies.

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

Hey there,

I have always been of the opinion that so-called Treknobabble actually (with only few exceptions) is internally consistent and makes sense if you accept some of its premises. It's not just random words strung together, it makes sense if you simply listen to the characters and accept that their scientific understanding differs from ours.

Therefore, this is actually a piece of head-canon that I assume is largely intentional, and it's about the concept of a soul, and where consciousness comes from in the Trek universe. So far, I have not been disappointed with this explanation; and it actually explains some of the more illogical parts of how consciousness and "a soul" supposedly exist in Star Trek.

Sentient beings in the Star Trek universe have a "soul"; some kind of energy field that is created by their neural system naturally. We call it a neural energy field or a bio-neural energy field; and we don't yet know how to create or replicate ones ourselves, only how to move them.

This is the reason why we cannot clone-transport or replicate conscious beings: we have a way to move the neuro-electric field from A to B via the transporter beam, but we cannot create any new ones; any living being we would replicate would be just cells, out of a consciousness, practically a zombie.

That's how we can transport someone from here to there, but not clone them; this is how we can replicate meat, but not a living animal.

This is also how telepathy works: if consciousness is merely some kind of energy field, we can manipulate it however we want by simply applying physical methods.

Let's look at a few of the appearances in canon:

• In VOY 1x13 (Cathexis), Chakotay's "bio-neural energy" is displaced, practically his consciousness, and can even 'enter' other beings. This implies that his consciousness is separate from his body, and can be moved around, and even "possess" others: the mind is totally separate from the body.
• In DIS 2x11/2x12, they store someone's "bio-neural energy", a representation of their consciousness, and it is said that it can uniquely identify a person.
• According to DS9 4x10 (Our Man Bashir), during transport, someone's "neural energy" pattern is stored within the transporter buffer. The energy pattern occupies a huge amount of memory and so cannot be stored for a long period of time. In the same episode, they also establish "neural energy" to be separate from the physical form. They use the word "store" instead of "save"; I think that's because it's literally something like a battery, not a photocopier. You can only move around the consciousness.
• In VOY 4x13 (Waking Moments), they encounter a species which seems to be unconscious, but actually has a consciousness independent of its physical form; that even is able to pull others in with it. This is, once again, called a "neurogenic field". This implies that the consciousness (the neural energy field) of people can be physically manipulated like any other energy, to induce hallucinations or dreams.
• In VOY 6x05 (Alice), there is a "neurogenic interface", which seems to enable the user to connect their own neuro-electric field with the computer in order to transfer data from one source to the other, to connect the consciousness to another body, so to speak. This mirrors the ability to possess others from Cathexis.
• In ENT 4x10 (Daedalus) we find a disembodied transporter signal that contains a human's consciousness and that can once again haunt things and people. This could very well be the person's neuro-electric field from the pattern buffer, somehow broken free, in a very similar way to the independent-soul possession mechanics from Cathexis and Alice.
• In TOS and Enterprise, we also see many references to the Vulcan concept of "katra"; a person's consciousness, independent from a body, that can be stored in a device, transferred to others, and communicated with for example via a mind meld. Sound familiar?
• In DS9 1x09 (The Passenger), Julian Bashir is possessed by a Vulcan's consciousness, and Dax ends up removing the consciousness by using an "electromagnetic pulse" to "displace the pattern". This once again strengthens the idea of consciousness being nothing but an electromagnetic field.

There are tons more (literally, dozens) examples of people's consciousnesses being represented by some kind of electromagnetic field independent of their bodies; often called "neural pattern", "neural energy", or a variation thereof. It is surprisingly consistent.

So, what about Data, and the Doctor, and all the other artificial life forms? It seems to be simple to say now that the "measure of a man" is simply whether they are able to create a neuro-electric field or not. However, if this was the case, the entire philosophical debate on whether Data is a being or not would not make much sense: they could simply scan him to find out whether there is, in fact, one, or not. I therefore assume that he does not have one (there is also no canon reference to any neuro-anything when it comes to Data), and that positronic brains "merely" simulate consciousness.

I propose a more radical approach: it does not matter whether an artificial lifeform is actually conscious or only simulates consciousness perfectly; for all intents and purposes, they should be treated equal to all other beings.

The title is a play on the term “pathological fallacy”, where traits seen in one person or group are extrapolated to be part of the entire population that person belongs to.

Captain Sokel of the VCS (“Vulcan Command Ship”?) Sh’val was last seen in LD: “wej Duj” as T’Lyn’s commanding officer, who recommended that she be reassigned to Starfleet.

Angel I is the titular planet in TNG: “Angel One”, which is ruled by women. It was visited by the Enterprise-D in 2364. Risa, of course, is a resort planet that has featured or been mentioned in almost every post-TNG series.

Katrot says she loves the Starfleet carpeting. In PIC: “Võx”, Picard says he misses the Enterprise-D’s carpeting. The other Betazoid diplomats are Cathiw (who makes a pass at Ransom and Freeman) and Dolorex.

“Anything glowing and green” might refer to Aldebaran Whiskey, which matches the description (TNG: “Relics”).

Romulan ale was illegal in Kirk’s time (ST II, ST VI), became legal during the Dominion War when the Romulans allied with the Federation (DS9: “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges”), but then apparently became illegal again after (Nemesis). Then again, Romulan Ale was part of a consignment of Alpha Quadrant gifts to be handed to the Karemma (LD: “Hear All, Trust Nothing”), and in PIC: “Disengage” it’s implied to be contraband, so who knows?

The names Boimler are trying to memorize include Jet Manhaver (LD: “Cupid’s Errant Arrow”), the second coolest person on the Cerritos, Hans Federov (named in LD: “Room for Growth” and “The Stars at Night”) a.k.a. Towel Guy and the ship gossip, Honus (LD: “Mugato, Gumato”) the bartender, Kayshon (LD: “Kayshon, His Eyes Open”) the Tamarian security chief, Taylor (named in LD: “In the Cradle of Vexilon”) the Kzinti ensign, Merp (named in LD: “I, Excretus”), Big Merp (“In the Cradle of Vexilon”) and Sleepy Merp.

Tsunkatse is a mixed martial art arena fight (VOY: “Tsunkatse”). Boims thinks he’s being initiated into a fight club - well, there’s slamming of a sort anyway.

Worf, son of Mogh, grew up on the farm colony of Gault (TNG: “Heart of Glory”), raised by his human adoptive parents, the Rozhenkos. The security officer reciting the poem is named Haubold.

Lwaxana Troi, while suffering from Zanthi Fever, empathically broadcast her feelings of affection for Odo, making a number of the crew act amorously (DS9: “Fascination”). Betazoids are telepathic among themselves, but can teach others to hear their thoughts, too, as Troi apparently did to Riker (TNG: “Encounter at Farpoint”), although this was kind of dropped after the pilot.

Alterian flaking may come from the same planet as the Alterian chowder that Sisko attempted to order in Quark’s (DS9: “Armageddon Game”).

The jigsaw puzzle (Starfleet Security Series, 1000 pieces) has a picture of the NX-01 Enterprise and Malcolm Reed on its cover.

The map of the Romulan Neutral Zone, like most maps in the post-DIS era, is based heavily on Geoffrey Mandel’s Star Charts. The Cerritos is in the vicinity of the planet Syrma, or Iota Virginis (in a starchart in PIC: “Disengage”). The planets marked on the map are Romulus and Romii (TOS: “Balance of Terror”) and Cheron.

It’s unclear whether this is the same Cheron as that in TOS: “Let There Be Your Last Battlefield”, and beta canon sources are contradictory on this point. Cheron is stated to be the site of a humiliating defeat for the Romulans (TNG: “The Defector”) and in ENT: “In a Mirror Darkly”, the USS Defiant database identifies the Battle of Cheron as the one that ended the Earth-Romulan War.

Sarek suffered from Bendii Syndrome, which caused him to lose control of his emotions and also affect people around him (TNG: “Sarek”) and he eventually died from it (TNG: “Unification”).

T’Lyn is 62 years old. In comparison, T’Pol was 63 when she joined the NX-01 in 2151.

The (apparently Bajoran) Tarot cards show the Emissary, Derna (the fourth moon of Bajor, DS9: “Image in the Sand”), the Borhya (a Bajoran word for ghost, TNG: “The Next Phase”), Invasion, the Celestial Temple and the Ten of Orbs (Nine orbs were said to have appeared over the centuries in DS9: “Emissary”, with a tenth orb recovered in DS9: “Shadows and Symbols”).

Shax says the Invasion card is more of a rebirth, rather like the traditional Earth tarot card Death, which is associated with transformation and also rebirth. Then again Boimler says all the cards are about rebirth.

Tendi’s admittedly heightened desire to make T’Lyn be her friend harkens back to LD: “Moist Vessel”, where she admits that it kills her if someone doesn’t like her. As Tendi hugs T’Lyn, we see Big Merp at the back using the Game headset (from TNG: “The Game”).

When Mariner says that Sarek was “Vulcan as a motherfucker”, both her hands are in the Vulcan salute. She showed a similar two-handed salute to Freeman, described as a “sarcastic Vulcan salute” in “Moist Vessel”. Interestingly enough, the Vulcan salute was invented by Leonard Nimoy based on the Jewish Priestly Blessing, which also uses both hands.

It’s always struck me as strange that while technically nobody on either side is supposed to enter the Neutral Zone, the Romulans routinely seem to lurk inside the Zone just outside of the Federation border of it. While startrek.com claims the Zone is only one light-year wide, that’s still a lot of room compared to what is usually depicted.

There were endless moments in season 3 that would have been solved by reaching out to the progressive Borg collective from the season 2 finale. Not to mention that a few character arcs and character development moments that just seem suspiciously absent in season 3. So, is the entirety of season 2 not cannon or am I missing something?

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 4x04 Something Borrowed, Something Green.

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

This ScienceOf.org interview with Professor of Genetics/Evolution (& Star Trek biological science advisor) Mohammed Noor on the biology, especially the r-selection reproduction, of the Gorn in SNW is marvellous.

Just the kind of uncomfortable but great biological thinking I was hoping we’d get into here at Daystrom Institute.

e.g. Can we think of the Gorn in viral terms?

Treating Gorn like this, each infected person could infect four more people, so the R0 for Gorn would be 4. Not wildly big, but large enough to do the job. Of course, the hatchlings would also be going after one another, so the analogy’s not perfect.

But if you want to think of the Gorn as intelligent, viral space dinosaurs, that does get the idea across.

The title is a play on the wedding rhyme/tradition, dating back to 19th Century England, of the bride wearing “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue (and a sixpence in her shoe),” for good luck. The green, of course, refers to the pigmentation of Orions.

The ship seems to be a new class of Orion Interceptor with some extra added bits, the original design of which dates back to the 22nd Century (ENT: “Borderland”). The female Orion plays with a TOS style phaser pistol and then tosses it in the trash. They talk about body modification, specifically “bolts in the head”, which we saw on the Orion privateer Harrad-Sar (ENT: “Bound”).

Mariner calls Tendi “D”, which is a reminder that her full name is D’vana Tendi. Tendi refers to Orion “belly dancer outfits” (TOS: “The Cage”, “Whom Gods Destroy”, ENT: “Bound”). Mariner says she has put her foot in her mouth about Orion culture enough times (LD: “Crisis Point”, and Boimler did the same in SNW: “Those Old Scientists”, when both assumed all Orions were pirates).

This is the first time we’ve heard of Andorian linen, but Andorian silk was also prized as a fabric (DS9: “Q-Less”). On the shelves we see Boimler’s plate of the Cerritos, his figures of Mirror Archer, Spock in his monster maroons and Data holding a phaser rifle (LD: “I Have No Bones and I Must Flee”) and his “Boimler Effect” plaque (LD: “Temporal Edict”). On Rutherford’s side we see his DS9 model (and box) from LD: “Hear All, Trust Nothing” and a replica of Wesley Crusher’s tractor beam emitter model from TNG: “The Naked Now” (also seen in “I Have No Bones…”)

Grandmama Boimler said, “A cool duvet keeps the raisin rats away.” The Boimler family owns a raisin vineyard on Earth (LD: “Grounded”). “Lil Boney” the bonsai belongs to Boimler, who acquired it reluctantly in LD: “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”.

As the Yosemite II shuttle approaches Orion, we see a space station in orbit and also an Orion barge, resembling that piloted by Harrad-Sar in “Bound”. In Star Trek Online the 25th Century version is known as a Blackguard-class Flight Deck Assault Cruiser. We see an Orion riding a purple rhino with two horns and two tusks.

Mariner references Chief Engineer Billups’ background as a prince of Hysperia when she remarks that Tendi also grew up in a castle (LD: “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie”).

One of Tendi’s titles is “Mistress of the Winter Constellations” (“We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”). We learn that Tendi’s parents are the Warrior Queen Shona and B’Rt. Harrad-Sar alleged in “Bound” that while most of the galaxy harbors the misconception that Orion women are slaves, it is actually the females who dominate the males via their pheromones.

Symbolic bridal kidnappings (as opposed to actual ones, which are considered sex crimes) are still part of some cultures on Earth. In the case of Orions, the kidnapping is done by a rival family between the save the date and the issuing of the invitations. Tendi is Prime Daughter.

The real Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) appeared in TNG: “Time’s Arrow”.

Comparing the lettering with the name of the bar (“Slit Throat”), the Orion alphabet is a straight one-for-one substitution with English (like Gorn script in SNW).

New Seattle is located on Penthara IV (TNG: “A Matter of Time”).

T’Lyn observes the Orion males in the “scentuary” are under the influence of chemicals, possibly pheromones. Mariner claims that Starfleet made that up to explain why a starship captain could be taken down by “show girls”, referring to the events of “Bound”, but is proven wrong. Tendi clarifies that only some Orions control others through pheromones, but not her. Ingreeta later claims Tendi doesn’t have the pheromones (but didn’t need it).

Coqqor is a Chalnoth (TNG: “Allegiance”) and claims to be from South Chalnoth, although the name of the planet is Chalna. Coqqor could be referring to a region or a city on Chalna.

The ship that Tendi says was one her and D’Erika’s favorites appears to be of the same class as the SS Raven owned by Seven of Nine’s family (VOY: “The Raven”). Tendi was raised as a Syndicate assassin, a “prime”, to be the Tip of the Moonlit Blade.

If we’re keeping score, I think Mariner gets stabbed four times in the shoulder (at the Slit Throat, the scentuary, by D’Erika and at the daughter-daddy dagger dance).

While Mozart has never appeared on Star Trek, many of his works have been heard over the course of the series in episodes.

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 4x03 In the Cradle of Vexilon.

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

How exactly do the Klingons justify using cloaking ships, a strategy which necessarily involves sneaking up on an enemy and catching them unaware? Wouldn't sneak attacks conflict with their notion of honour?

The Stardate is 58795.1.

A megastructure is a large artificial object, in science fiction terms a massive construct in space, like a Dyson Sphere or a Ringworld, encircling a star. Corazonia, a Federation world, is of the latter variety, also known as a Dyson Ring. In DIS: “Rosetta”, Species 10-C had created a set of Dyson Rings around an extragalactic star. The word corazón means “heart” in Spanish.

Freeman’s concerns about Vexilon are well-founded. Star Trek doesn’t have a good track record with seemingly benevolent AIs that are designed to care for a population. Notable examples include TOS: “The Return of the Archons”, “The Apple”, “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky”, “The Ultimate Computer”, DIS’s Control, and recently in LD we had AGIMUS and arguably Peanut Hamper.

The mountain that was flooded is named Inspiration Peak. The real world Inspiration Peak is a glacial feature in Minnesota.

One of Boimler’s away team is ENS Taylor, a Kzinti (TAS: “The Slaver Weapon”). Kzinti were originally created by Larry Niven for his Man-Kzin War stories, and were featured as antagonists in the TAS episode he penned. However, they were not used again (presumably because of copyright reasons) except in Task Force Games’ Starfleet Battles starship combat game until they were mentioned by Riker in PIC: “Nepenthe”. Kzinti crew have shown up in LD starting in LD: “Mugato, Gumato”.

The other two are a human Asian female, Meredith and a male member of the unnamed species LT Merp belongs to (LD: “Second Contact”, although this officer appeared in LD: “First First Contact”, and Boims in this episode calls him “Big Merp”).

While this is the first time we’ve seen the anomaly storage room, our heroes were assigned Anomaly Consolidation Duty in Season 2’s LD: “The Spy Humongous”, which went about as well as you’d expect.

What I can identify in the room is a lirpa (TOS: “Amok Time”), the Nomad probe (TOS: “The Changeling”), a Wadi chula board (DS9: “Move Along Home”), a Klingon bat’leth with a box that contains a ferret, and a Betazoid gift box (TNG: “Haven”). Rutherford points to a hat that apparently turned Billups into a church tower, and Tendi warns him away from a spider that would make his head fall off and skitter away (a reference to a scene from the John Carpenter movie The Thing where that exact thing happens?). There’s a device that looks like a Kataan probe (TNG: “The Inner Light”) but it had two prongs on each side instead of the usual one, so that threw me off.

Mariner misquotes the chula chant as “allamalay, lemon meringue”. The actual annoying phrasing is “Allamaraine, count to four. Allamaraine, then three more. Allamaraine, if you can see. Allamaraine, you'll come with me.”

On a shelf behind her is the Romulan Cloaking Device from TOS: “The Enterprise Incident”, which is Nomad’s head stuck on one of the Arretan energy globes from TOS: “Return to Tomorrow”.

Isolinear optical chips are the successor to the solid data cartridges seen in TOS and the transparent carts seen in SNW. The primary software and data storage medium of Starfleet in the 24th Century, they were first seen in TNG: “The Naked Now”. The lieutenant giving orders to Tendi, Mariner and Rutherford is named Dirk.

The breathers are similar in design to that initially used by the landing party in TOS: “The Squire of Gothos” being a mask connected to a box-like air supply. The handheld scanners look like T88 diagnostic tools, a bunch of which were stolen by Rutherford and Tendi from the USS Vancouver (LD: “Cupid’s Errant Arrow”). The ferret in the anomaly room is apparently Billups’ pet Lancelot.

Vexilon’s original designers evolved into fifth-dimensional energy beings 6 million and 7 years ago. In our universe we are considered to have four dimensions: three observable spatial ones - length, width, height - and one temporal one, time, although we can only move freely in the first three.

As a deeper cut, Superman’s enemy Mr Mxyzptlk is said to be from the 5th Dimension, and Rod Serling stated that the Twilight Zone was a fifth dimension - the dimension of imagination.

We last saw ascension in LD: “Moist Vessel”, but there are a number of species in Star Trek that make the transition from corporeal to incorporeal, like the Thasians (TOS: “Charlie X”), Organians (TOS: “Errand of Mercy”), the Q (TNG: “Hide and Q”), the Zalkonians (TNG: “Transfigurations”), Kes (VOY: “The Gift”), Benjamin Sisko (DS9: “What You Leave Behind”). In “Moist Vessel”, it is said the Tamarians (TNG: “Darmok”) use florkas to aid ascension.

Billups makes an engineering joke about “unotronic” systems. In the 23rd Century, Richard Daystrom made the duotronic - as opposed to electronic - breakthrough that powered starship computers. Although his attempt at multitronics proved initially disastrous (TOS: “The Ultimate Computer”), multitronic systems eventually were used in technologies requiring the use and manipulation of memory or personality engrams in the 24th Century (DS9: “Extreme Measures”, VOY: “The Swarm”).

Freeman accidentally reboots Vexilon to factory settings, which basically sends him into a planetary re-genesis, similar to but less rapid than the effect created by the Genesis Device (ST II). Freeman wants Boims to reverse the retrofit so they can force a restart, before the anaerobic bacteria are released. Anaerobic bacteria (so called because they don’t require oxygen to survive) were the first known living organisms on Earth from which all life evolved. The urgency may be due to a concern that Vexilon might start removing oxygen from the atmosphere since that might harm the bacteria.

I wonder if T’Lyn’s use of the word “fascinating” is the same as Spock’s, who said he reserved its use for the unexpected. In other contexts, he claimed“interesting” would suffice (“The Squire of Gothos”).

The prank Mariner, Rutherford and Tendi rig up involves the chula game, a phaser, the Betazoid gift box and the Kataan probe. Dirk claims he got trapped in a chula game for a month as a kid, traumatizing him (this is a lie, as we find out later).

Tellarite slop jazz is the latest reference to Tellarite culture. In SNW: “Among the Lotus Eaters”, Ortegas jokes that Uhura stays up late translating Tellarite sonnets.

Dirk says Fats B’Zirtak overdosed on ketracel-white. “Fats” is a common jazz nickname, probably most famously applied to “Fats” Waller. Ketracel-white is the substance that Jem’Hadar are dependent on to survive (DS9: “The Abandoned”, et al.). There is a brand of hot sauce called “Ketracel White Hot” with a 17 million SHU rating (LD: “Grounded”).

Levels in chula are called shaps, as per “Move Along Home”. Rutherford exits the game the same way the DS9 crew did in the episode, by falling into a chasm.

It turns out the probe is a Kataan probe after all, or at least acts like one, since it downloads a whole life experience into the gift box. The gift box sobs, “I miss my wife.” In the simulated life in “The Inner Light”, Picard lived an entire life with a wife and son. The gift box’s line is also said by the Michael Sullivan hologram in LD: “Twovix”.

When Boimler dies, he sees the Black Mountain, which Shax described as a spiritual battleground the soul goes after death to battle three faceless apparitions of their father after which the surviving father makes them eat their own heart (LD: “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”). Boims also sees the Cosmic Koala (“Moist Vessel”), which Steve Stevens also reported seeing sitting on the mountain when he was brain dead for ten minutes (LD: “Mining the Mind’s Mines”).

The Koala apparently says, “It’s not your time, Bradward Boimler,” in reverse. This scene is a riff on the extradimensional space called the Red Room from Twin Peaks, down to the design of the lamps and the pattern of the floors. The backwards dialogue references how the Red Room actors’ lines were spoken backwards then played forwards to produce an otherworldly intonation.

Ransom says “You never forget your first death.” As was said in “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”, bridge officers are always coming back from the dead. Technically, this is Boimler’s third death, the first two being in LD: “First First Contact” (where he first saw the Koala) and LD: “Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus”.

Time travel in Star Trek is a tricky business. As much as we try to make sense of it, and to be fair the way it works and the way historical changes affect the timeline is for the most part consistent, it still is “only for the most part”. For every instantaneous change to history shown in TOS: “The City on the Edge of Forever”, there’s a kind of delayed effect as exhibited in DS9: “Past Tense”. For every reset of the timeline in VOY: “Year of Hell”, there’s the lasting effects implied in SNW: “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”.

One conundrum is TAS: “Yesteryear”, probably the most memorable episode of TAS. The set up is that Kirk and Spock are returning from a trip to Orion’s past via the Guardian of Forever. When they emerge from the temporal donut, they are startled to discover that the McCoy and the party of welcoming scientists do not recognize Spock.

(As a side note, why don’t they remember Spock? As we saw in “The City on the Edge of Forever”, being in close proximity to the Guardian protects you from the changes in time - when McCoy goes through and changes history, the Enterprise vanishes from orbit but Kirk and the landing party still retain their existence and memories. One possibility is that McCoy took the scientists up to the Enterprise briefly while Kirk and Spock were in the past, whereupon they were subsumed into the changed timeline, but then we also know from “City” that the trip into the past and back takes only an instant, no matter how long you stay in the past. It’s a problem, and I’m not sure I’ve got a good solution for it. But see below.)

Returning to the Enterprise, Spock discovers that he has never been First Officer (replaced by an Andorian) and in fact died as a child on Vulcan during the kahs-wan ritual. But yet, Spock recalls that during the ritual he was saved by a distant cousin named Selek. Realizing that Selek was Spock himself, Kirk surmises that history was changed because Spock followed Kirk to Orion and so didn’t go back in time to Vulcan. Spock realizes that he must go back in time and save his past self.

But this raises a slight problem - what was the original timeline to start with? If Spock originally died, then how did he grow up to go back to save himself? Is this a bootstrap paradox at work? But then it’s not a perfect loop because the events of “Yesteryear” only occur because the loop breaks, creating a new timeline in the middle of it.

(Also, given the very nature of time travel, Kirk’s theory that history changed because Spock went back to Orion’s past and he couldn’t be in two places at once makes no sense because it’s time travel. Spock’s journey into the past doesn’t have to occur at a specific time for it to work.)

So what gives here? The only way this makes sense is if, in the original timeline, the change in history and the paradox were meant to happen.

In the original timeline, Young Spock nearly dies in the Vulcan desert, but is saved by Future Spock. But this leaves the question unanswered as to why Future Spock is there to begin with - the impetus for him to go back in the first place. The only reason Spock goes back is because he discovers that if he doesn’t, Young Spock dies. And the only way he discovers this is because of the existence of the paradox of the new timeline.

So it wasn’t because Spock went back to Orion that caused the paradox, as if it was a choice that started the dominoes falling. Spock had to go back to Orion so that he would find out that history had changed when he returned, which would then lead him to go back in time to change history “back”. The alteration in the timeline and the subsequent repair job was always part of the original history.

And perhaps that provides a solution to why McCoy and the scientists were affected by the timeline changes. Perhaps to impress upon Spock the necessity for him to go back in time, it had to be clear from the get-go that history had changed rather than for him to find out when he returned to the Enterprise.

And the entity that would be aware of this, and presumably have the capability to withdraw its protection from others, would be the Guardian itself. Well aware of how events are supposed to unfold and to protect the integrity of the timeline and Spock’s place in it, the Guardian allows the timeline to be changed. It then makes sure that Spock figures out what he must do to revert the changes, the Guardian’s own temporal directives preventing him from telling Spock outright. The best the Guardian could do was protect Kirk and Spock’s memories, so that Spock would recall what was supposed to happen and Kirk to give him the support he needed to go back in time.

But then the question becomes why the timeline had this snarl in it to begin with? Was there a previous timeline before that where Young Spock did survive without intervention but temporal shenanigans took place to alter that original, leaving this as a patch job? Therein lies another discussion, perhaps, or a fanfic.