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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

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Discovery season 4 episode 7
Spoiler
Discovery's computer, Zora, has been able to calculate the origin point of the anomaly outside the galaxy (apparently a map of possible locations are all along the edge of the Milky Way, not actually outside of it, which conflicts with the whole outside the galactic barrier thing from last weeks episode). However, she refuses to reveal them, because she's afraid the crew will travel there, and put themselves in danger. It's the first time the ship's computer has refused to follow orders with its emerging sentients... Speaking of which, I would have thought by this point in the future, computer's would have advanced to the point that that'd all pretty much have or be near sentient. Well apparently Starfleet has regulations against fully sentient integrated units, I assume for this very reason. For the first time, some of the crew finally voice some concerns over their computer becoming self aware. Zora decides to create a failsafe program that would essentially kill her if the crew feels she is becoming a threat to try and ease this concern.

President Rillak holds an assembly with species from all over the galaxy to discuss the anomaly and how they intend to deal with whoever is behind it. Worth noting, representatives from Earth are present, but Earth hasn't rejoined the Federation thus far. Also noticeably absent are any Klingons. At any rate, the delegates discuss how to proceed with the species behind the anomaly, not having any clue who they are, culture, or intentions, many suggest they should proceed with peaceful first contact, while some suggest precautions in the event they turn out to be hostile. Tarka interrupts, pointing out they still need to deal with the problem at hand, the anomaly. Nothing anyone has tried has worked, but he has a plan to use the spore drive to jump to the device at the center, and set off a subspace weapon (banned by the Khitomer Accords) to collapse it. It's pointed out this could severely damage subspace, and prevent warp travel in the area, as well as harm whoever is on the other side of the anomaly's wormhole. Tarka thinks the collateral damage would be worth it to end the threat.

During a recess, Tarka tells Book that he actually wants the power source of the anomaly so he can use it to travel to a "new home" in a parallel universe, where there is no war, the Burn never happened, and he hopes a "friend" is waiting for him. Not sure why he needs something that generates more power than any of their technology is capable of generating. We've seen for example a transporter, either by accident or with some programming modifications, was capable of getting people to the Mirror Universe, seemingly without any additional power. Heck, Worf, after passing through a quantum fissure, jumped to different universes whenever he got near Geordi's visor in an episode of TNG. Book just wants the anomaly destroyed so no other worlds will suffer the same fate as his homeworld. Returning to the assembly, the vote is called and the majority want to proceed with peaceful first contact. Notably, Earth is one that votes in favor of Tarka's plan to destroy the anomaly... What happened to the evolved, optimistic humanity? This take on Earth is so cynical. And why do they get a vote when they aren't Federation members? Burnham, oddly, also gets a vote. Why would a Starfleet captain get a vote among various representatives of planets?

Zora performs a behavioral performance assessment on the crew after Stamets expresses some of his thoughts and concerns about her, and comes to the conclusion the crew consistently works in favor of others and the Federation. She still has some fears about encountering the species being the anomaly, but decides to trust the crews judgement, and gives them the coordinates. Kovich makes an analysis of Zora, and decides to recognize her as a new lifeform. Apparently this means Starfleet's regulations against fully sentient AIs integrated into the ship no longer applies... for some reason... They offer Zora a Starfleet commission as a specialist, which she accepts. This also makes her part of the chain of command, so Stamets removes the failsafe Zora created earlier.

On Book's ship, Tarka transports aboard, having just stolen the next generation Spore Drive from Voyager-J. Despite earlier in the season they said they were refitting Voyager-J for it, which was the whole reason the ship was docked at the brand new Archer drydock... The new spore drive is tiny portable device about the size of a brick that just melts into a navigation console of any ship. No need for the spinning hull sections or spore chamber, or even any indication it needs spores... It still needs an organic navigator though, which only Book or Stamets can do. They seriously haven't figured out spore drive navigation without an organic navigator? In the 23rd century, they'd established the reason they couldn't navigate jumps longer than a few hundred kilometers at first was because they lacked the processing power to make the calculations for all the variables. Why exactly an organic navigator works, they've ever adequately explained beyond magic space tardigrade DNA, or whatever Book's species is. But with advancements in technology by 32nd century, shouldn't their computers be capable of making the necessary calculations? If it still needs an organic component, for whatever reason, 32nd century technology should have that solved as well, since it's been established their ships already are integrated with organic technology. Just inject some space tardigrade DNA into a ship, like Stamets did to himself. Actually kind of surprised these writers haven't done that already with how lazy and inconsistent their writing is...

At any rate, Book and Tarka take off to enact Tarka's plan to destroy the anomaly, despite being voted down. And with that, the show is going on a hiatus until February.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

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Prodigy returned this week with episode 6 of the series...
Spoiler
The Protostar drops out of proto-warp (they need a better name), and find themselves near the Gamma Quadrant, 4000 light years from their previous position, with the proto-engine offline. The kids are concerned The Diviner is still out there, and without the proto-star drive, they wont be able to escape. They confront Dal, telling him the all want to go to the Federation, but Dal is concerned they'll assume they stole the Protostar and arrest them. The crew feels the Federation would understand their situation, and besides, Dal is out voted. Dal however muses they don't know Murf's opinion... as if that'd change anything?

They find Murf in the holodeck, and Janeway explains what the room can do. Discovering the Kobayashi Maru scenario (set on the Enterprise D bridge) among the programs, Dal thinks if he beats it, the others will have to listen to him. The computer randomly selects the "best" holographic crew, giving him Uhura, Dr. Crusher, Odo, Spock and Scotty. Not really sure why the computer selected Odo, who wasn't a member of Starfleet, but it is pretty cool to see these characters. They use voice clips obviously taken from various episodes and movies (except for Dr. Crusher, they actually got Gates McFadden to voice some new lines). It's a little jarring, with the audio quality of these clips being vastly different and disjointed. I would have thought they could have edited it to blend them better, but it sounds like they lifted it straight from the episodes, including background sound effects with some of them...

At any rate, Dal fails over and over again but eventually figures out a way to beat it (by sort of cheating, since he already knows what'll happen). After he and Spock beam on a surprise 4th Klingon ship and take over their bridge, Dal accidently fires a torpedo and destroys the Enterprise, so he still looses in the end. Spock gives him a speech, and Dal realizes he needs to listen to his crew. Meanwhile, Gwyn and Zero have been trying to figure out why Janeway can't remember anything about the Protostar's mission or how it ended up where they found out, and discovers those files have been classified, coded in Vau N'Akat. Gwyn isn't sure how, since her and her father are the last of their species, and they've never encountered the Federation before (that she's aware of). Reflecting on this revelation, she's able to decode the files, revealing a lot of information that'll take them months to go through. We find out Chakotay had been Captain of the Protostar with a partial hologram recording revealing the ship was being boarded...

We also get a flashback to 17 years ago of the Diviner talking to Drednok. With his health failing in their search for the Protostar, he says he needs a prodigy. Drednok is against this idea. Apparently it goes against their mission, and creates an emotional liability. But the Diviner argues the mission would be irrelevant if he dies. It's an interesting flashback in that it means the Protostar must have time traveled into the past. 17 years prior to this series is about 5 years before Voyager was launched and lost in the Delta Quadrant.
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Re: Star Trek

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Prodigy season 1 episode 7
Spoiler
The kids have discovered the transporter, and are playing, I mean, testing it out by beaming a slice of pie all over the ship, and then try it out on Murf. Not sure why it took them so long to discover the transporter with how small a ship it is, or why Janeway didn't tell them about it earlier. And why don't any of them already know about this technology? We saw the Diviner transport to the "murder planet" a few episode back. Maybe the kids that worked in the mines never saw it before, but even Gwyn seems amazed by it...

Janeway calls them back to the bridge when they receive a distress call, but Dal recognizes it as a scam. The call is coming from a Ferengi named Nandi, whom he says raised him. Explains some of his character's habits. Although it begs to question how he's never seen a transporter if he grew up on a Ferengi ship... And why Nandi's alone and so far away from the Alpha Quadrant (she even apparently knows about the Vidiians) is never explained either... I'd have to assume it'd have something to do with Ferengi women being barred from leaving the homeworld and earning profit. I'm also assuming she left prior to the changes to Ferengi society at the end of DS9. It'd just be nice if the episode might give us some explanation. She's happy to see Dal again, claiming to have spent years looking for him. Beaming onto the Ferengi ship, the kids notice she has a Klingon cloaking device, which they'd like to use to hide from the Diviner. But it needs Chimerium to operate... which the kids happen to have plenty of. Dandi proposes they help her with a "First Contact" mission, which Janeway objects to, citing the Prime Directive, but she's ignored.

Despite having the tranporter now, the kids land the ship on the planet's surface. It doesn't take long for Nandi to betray the kids, as she steals a crystal these aliens use to create their structures out of sand. Dal fights for the crystal, and Dandi tells him he wasn't kidnapped by the Diviner, she sold him. She's able to get away on her ship, having also stolen the Chimerium to fix the cloak. Dal is beamed onto the Protostar, where he reveals he put his comm badge on the crystal, and returns it to where it belongs. The kids are relieved they fixed the situation, but Janeway points out they haven't. They did not leave a good first impression with their First Contact, and in doing so may have caused irreparable damage to the alien culture.

Janeway returns to reviewing the security footage and spots Drednok was the one breaking into the bridge. Not really sure why this is played like it was a mystery, but I guess with holo-Janeway's missing memories, she technically hasn't seen him before. Meanwhile, Nandi's computer informs her of a reward for information about the Protostar, and she immediately hails the Diviner's ship.
Pretty good episode. I just wish they'd explain why so many of these Alpha Quadrant aliens keep showing up so deep into the Delta Quadrant...
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Re: Star Trek

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Prodigy season 1 episode 8
Spoiler
Hologram Janeway is trying to get the crew to work together by using a holodeck simulation with a riddle about how to get a chicken, a bag of grain and a fox across a river. Zero has almost figured it out when the chicken gets loose from Dal and the whole situation falls apart. Dal finally admits to Janeway they aren't a real Starfleet cadet crew, and that they stole the Protostar. I wouldn't exactly call finding it abandoned inside a planetoid stealing the ship, but whatever. As the kids leave the holodeck, Zero explains what really happened to Janeway. Janeway

Later, the ship passes through a tachyon storm, which Gwyn mentions to Jankom will mess with their gravity. Realizing the Protostar drive is being kept stable by their gravity systems, he immediately runs to engineering to find the core destabilizing. A pulse is sent through the ship, trapping each member of the crew in pockets of time that moves at different speeds. Jankom tells Janeway they have 10 minutes to fix it, but he's killed when the core almost immediately explodes, because time in his pocket moves much faster. Janeway then finds herself with Rok, but she's too scared to act and has the computer send Janeway away. Next, Zero has figured out the situation and has designed a warp matrix component that will stabilize the core and fix the fractures in time, but doesn't have the time to build the device. Janeway needs Dal to build it, and Gwyn to finish connecting it.

Meanwhile, The Diviner received the hail from Nandi and she gives them the coordinates to the Protostar. Realizing it would take months to catch up to them, instead they send a transmission that activates the shuttle replicator... It creates a body for Drednok. Gwyn fights him but the robot is too strong for her. He deletes Janeway (apparently he has Chakotay's command codes) and sets about repairing the ship, but Gwyn opens the protostar nacelle and he's ejected into space... along with the warp matrix.

Alone, Rok gets a message left behind by Gwyn before the ship exploded in her time. Although she doesn't think she can at first, eventually she sets about rebuilding the warp matrix and figures out how to restore Janeway's program, because the instructions didn't tell her where to plug it in at. We're not given an exact time for how long Rok was alone, it's just hinted that it was a very long time. With the warp matrix online, the core is stabilized and the time fractures repaired, brining the crew back together. Rok is now more confident in her role on the ship, having had to learn how to do so much on her own, and the crew also had to learn to work together to get out out this situation. Unknown to the crew, the shuttle replicator is building another Drednok...
Very good episode. Reminded me a little of Voyager's "Shattered" episode. Although, rather than the ship being splintered into different eras in the ship's history, the crew in this episode are occupying the same time, with time passing at different rates for each of them. The one issue I had with this episode, which really is more of a nitpick, is some of the technobabble. It doesn't really feels like the writers know Star Trek technology and just insert Star Trek terms sometimes. At one point, they need an adaptor thing for the warp matrix, which they call a dilithium something or other... But it has nothing to do with dilithium or even the warp drive. They pull a couple of them out of some random parts of the ship. It really should have been called an EPS adaptor or something along that line...
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Re: Star Trek

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We got a new Picard season 2 trailer today.

Guinan is in it. Looks like Picard and company slingshot around the sun in order to time travel to the past. I think there's a couple Nova class ships chasing after them (little hard to tell).

It looks... good. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no confidence in these creators at this point to deliver something good...
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Re: Star Trek

Post by andersonh1 »

Despite my problems with Picard's first season, I generally enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to the second season, not that I'm likely to agree with some of the creative and storytelling decisions any more than I did before, but I hope to find enough that I like to enjoy the show overall. It is nice to see Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan again, and Brent Spiner is present in the trailer too I see. I wish they'd got Alice Krige back as the Borg queen though, to really make that connection with Picard more personal.
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Re: Star Trek

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andersonh1 wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 10:35 am and Brent Spiner is present in the trailer too I see.
Considering it looks like he'll probably be an ancestor of Soong's in the year 2024... I'm wondering if they'll explain why all the Soong men look exactly the same. Because those are some extraordinary genes for Arik, Noonian, Altan and whoever this character is to all look the same over the span of ~300 years...
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Re: Star Trek

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Prodigy season 1 episode 9
Spoiler
The kids are catching up after their recent ordeal, when Dal accidentally knocks over Drednok's head (I guess it was actually the remains Gwyn ejected into space rather than a new one being built at the end of the last episode, although I don't know why Rok would recover it, or why she had to build a new warp matrix if she went to the trouble to recover the robot). The head plays a message from the Diviner, telling them to return the Protostar to him, or else the miners they left behind at Tars Lamora will suffer the consequences.

Knowing they can't just hand over the ship, the kids debate whether to go to the Federation for help, although they don't know if they have any other ships that can make the journey quickly enough, or if they should attempt a rescue themselves. They ultimately decide to do it themselves, although Dal hesitates, unsure of himself and his half-baked plans. But Gwyn assures him he has the crew's help now, and the crew begin to work on a rescue plan.

Using the protostar drive to travel to Tars Lamora, the kids don Starfleet uniforms (a brand new design, I assume they came up with themselves). The kids negotiate with the Diviner, knowing he'll probably leave them for dead the moment he gets the ship. They propose they get the Diviner's ship, the Rev-12 in exchange. Diviner agrees, but demands that Gwyn goes with him. They leave in the Protostar (and reprogram Janeway), but destroys the power generators on the way out. Gravity fails, and it's only a matter of time until the shields holding the atmosphere around the asteroid fails as well.

Gwyn wants to know the real reason her father wants this ship so badly, but he senses she's hiding something from him, and orders the protostar drive activated... only to find it is missing. Turns out the kids dismantled it and fed the core to Murf which they desguised as Zero with a replica of the robot suit.... A while back they established Murf was "indestructible", but how a tiny slug creature could eat something the size of a room? Dal says with the gravity off it'll make their job harder (even though they had the forethought to bring jetpacks with them), but apparently things are still going according to plan... To Be Continued.
Not a bad episode, although
Spoiler
Murf being able to eat the protostar core is... kinda dumb.
.

In other Star Trek news, apparently Patrick Stewart said in a recent interview Picard will only run for 3 seasons.
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Re: Star Trek

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Prodigy season 1 episode 10
Spoiler
Jankom and Rok (and Murf) head to Rev-12's engineering to repair the damaged reactor while Dal and Zero attempts to get the miners on board to safety before the atmosphere shields fail. Dal figures out how to turn all the miner's control ankle devices into universal translators, while Rok is the one to figure out how to fix the reactor. The Protostar returns, and Drednok beams down, but is quickly destroyed by the miners. He was able to locate the protostar core however, and sent it's coordinates to The Diviner, who beams it out of Murf.

The Protostar again leaves, and prepares for protowarp, but Gwyn is busy trying to break the security protocols Drednok put in place, and The Diviner fights with hologram Janeway (who was only pretending to be reprogrammed thanks to some security the kids put in place). The Diviner finally offers to tell Gwyn the truth... He explains he was sent back in time to save their people. After their people made first contact with the Federation, a civil war broke out, between those that wanted to join the Federation, and those that wanted to stick to their traditional ways. The war devastated their world. He plans to use a weapon already on the Protostar that will turn Federation ships against each other, leaving them devastated instead. The miners catch up to the Protostar on the Rev-12. With the shields still up, they use the phasers to weaken them but can only beam one person at a time. Dal beams over but is quickly incapacitated. Zero then beams over, and for revenge using him to hurt so many people, takes off the robot suit. Dal tells Gwyn not to look, but she sees a refection of Zero's true form in his comm badge. Gwyn goes catatonic, repeating "We can't go", while The Diviner gets the full effect and goes insane.

Hologram Janeway makes a log reporting Gwyn will be fine thanks to having only seen the reflection, but she lost her memories of the event. The Diviner has been left the only unwanted left on Tars Lamora, having gone insane from seeing Zero's true form. The miners are now free, using the Rev-12 to explore space. The kids, back in their civilian clothes, plan on taking the Protostar back to the Federation...

Meanwhile, a Starfleet ship detects the protostar drive jump, the 3rd jump that they've detected recently. Proclaiming "I'm coming Chakotay!", Admiral Janeway sets course to intercept the Protostar.
Unfortunately, Prodigy is going on another hiatus while Discovery returns this month. Real shame because I'm much more excited for this show.
Spoiler
Little confused by the Diviner's evil plot here. Why does he need the Protostar specifically? The weapon is implied to be some sort of a computer virus that will cause Federation ships to turn against each other. We've seen probes capable of taking over a Starship computer. And why does he personally have to carry it out? Gwyn realizes (just before seeing Zero inadvertently wipes her memories) if they go to the Federation, her father's plan will be set in motion anyway even without him. So if he'd just left the kids alone, they would have done the work for him. They still might. I dunno, I feel like there is more to the story here because it just doesn't add up to me.

Really cool seeing the real Janeway! The ship she's on is very clearly modeled after the "USS Dauntless" from the episode "Hope and Fear", and is also named the USS Dauntless. The bridge looks almost exactly like it did with Arturis' ship, but the outside is somewhat different. The saucer looks like it's based on the Dauntless, but the secondary hull looks more like one of the prototype models for Voyager. I guess it didn't take long for the Federation to figure out Quantum Slipstream. I have to wonder if this Janeway has also time traveled. Her crew appears to be wearing uniforms like Lower Decks uniforms but the comm badges look more like "All Good Things..." era, and Janeway as a touch of gray in her hair.
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Re: Star Trek

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Discovery season 4 episode 8

This episode doesn't amount to much from the reviews... Burnham isn't allowed to go after Book because of their relationship. Instead, Discovery is tasked with locating Unknown Species 10-C. Needing some rare stellar survey charts of that area of the galaxy from the black market leads them to encountering Book and Tarka anyway, since they need some black market Isolynium to build a Subspace weapon (one of these things is not like the other). This episode features a Changling... Who for some reason is counting cards, which Book apprehends because of a price on his own head. Not sure why a Changling would be concerned with money. Or why this Changling still takes an appearance similar to Odo's after 900 years. They also changed the special effects for when it morphs... Kinda looks like sand rather than a liquid. Burnham says Starfleet isn't welcome on this planet, but yet, they go down in Starfleet uniforms. Upon encountering Book and Tarka, Burnham attempts to take from them... in a poker game. Because when the stakes are to save the galaxy, that's something you can totally risk in a game of chance... She places a tracker on the isolynium at least.

The stellar charts don't reveal much. The star system is obscured by a "Faraday cage" energy field, with a 228 million km diameter radius. Large enough to encompass the host star as well as two or three orbiting bodies... The dark matter anomaly is also determined to be mining Boronite. They've been observing this thing for how long and never thought to look for any missing elements before now? I'd also point out it feels a little cheap they establish this star system is just outside the galactic barrier, but is still on the edge of the Milky Way... So it's not really extra-galactic. Boronite was a substance established in Voyager is used to create omega molecules.
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