Star Trek Social Club

No answers like, "They're all from Earth", "They're all in some version of Starfleet or United Earth Fleet", etcetera.

Bonus if you can think of other weird ones.

I just finished "A Stitch in Time" and started looking for some other Trek books.

Ended up buying the Millennium trilogy and the Destiny Trilogy.

Was going to start reading Millennium, but when I read the preview/prologue for Destiny before I bought it, it started out with Sisko and Jadzia discovering the derelict remains of the NX-02 Columbia in the Gamma Quadrant, and I was hooked and had to buy/continue reading that one.

Which ones have you read? Any other recommendations?

Oh, also, I'm gonna slightly plug ebooks [dot] com since they have a huge selection of DRM-free books, and all of the Trek books I was looking at were available without DRM. Saves me the hassle of jailbreaking an Amazon purchase or buying it from Amazon and pirating a DRM-free version I can actually use.

Preface: This post may include spoilers for "A Stitch in Time".

I started on a DS9 re-watch a few weeks ago but paused about halfway through the first season so I could read Andrew Robinson's "A Stitch in Time".

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. I'll spare you the book report/review, but suffice it to say it puts every one of Garak's scenes in the show in a new light. While I'm aware the novel is not necessarily canon, there's nothing in it that contracts established canon, and nothing since DS9 has contradicted anything portrayed in it. So, that's good enough for me.

There's a lot to take away from the read, but the biggest are all the blanks that are filled in. For starters, Garak's entire affable demeanor is a carefully constructed mask based on training, self-control, patience, and cunning. He's definitely still a good man, honorable even (in his own way), but due to Cardassian culture and its ingrained sense of duty to the state, things get a little gray. And that's before his time with the Order.

Some other takeaways include:

• A recount of his time as a gardener on Romulus which was only mentioned in the show as an offhand remark but you knew was a good story (spoiler: it is)
• His history with Dukat and why there's so much animosity between them (and the reveal of Dukat's non-canon first name)
• A more in-depth look at the emotional toil he was going through leading up to the invasion of the Dominion-controlled Cardassia as well as the lingering hostility toward him from the Bajorans. In the show, we mostly see this as his claustrophobia flares up, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
• How he ended up in the Obsidian Order as well as some of his missions with them
• Why and how he fell from grace with the Order
• His early life and relationship with Enabran Tain and exactly how much influence Tain had over him from his early life and even after Tain's death.
• The exact circumstances and what it was like when he was first exiled to Terok Nor (he was forced to be a tailor rather than choosing that as a cover)
• How absolutely full of shit Dukat was when he described himself as benevolent toward the Bajorans. The show makes it clear he's not exactly remembering correctly, but the novel makes it clear he was "excessive" in his methods even by Cardassian standards. Marc Alaimo's extremely charismatic performance left you wondering if maybe there was some truth to the way Dukat remembered things, but the book puts that notion to bed.
• And just so much more.

The whole novel added depth to an already deep character that had hidden depths and still left you wanting more. I think my only gripe with the novel was that it wasn't 300 pages longer.

So yeah, looking forward to continuing my DS9 re-watch with Garak's full backstory in mind.

[Spoilers mainly pertaining to the framing device, not the underlying plot]

The game is published by German publisher Deadalic Entertainment and developed by fellow Hamburg based studio gameXcite. GameXcite so far only worked on Asterix games. It is developed in Unreal Engine 5 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S

The game will remain in players’ digital library if it was purchased, and will continue to be fully playable after it is delisted. At the time of this writing, Supernova is on sale on the Xbox store for just $2.49. The game is still showing as full price ($49.99) across the other digital storefronts.

In 1976, the American comedy series M*A*S*H, set in the fictional 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, during the Korean War, produced “The Interview”, an in-universe documentary about the characters. Breaking the sitcom format, it was aired in black and white as the last episode of Season 4, consisting mostly of improvised in-character interviews.

“The Interview” is a milestone in television history, copied several times by other series - notably in the SF genre by Babylon 5 with “And Now For a Word” and (partly) “The Illusion of Truth”, as well as Stargate SG-1’s “Heroes” - except those were scripted rather than improvised. M*A*S*H itself repeated the format in Season 7’s “Their Finest Hour”.

A Star Trek fan-made production, Return to Axanar, also used the documentary format. Some licensed novels like The Final Reflection, Spock’s World, The Romulan Way and Strangers From the Sky have also used in-universe texts as part of the storytelling, but this is the first time it’s been used on screen.

Beto makes reference to “investigating the mysteries within ourselves.” In ENT: “Terra Prime”, Archer says, “[T]he most profound discoveries are not necessarily beyond that next star. They're within us, woven into the threads that bind us, all of us, to each other.” In DIS: “Brother”, Burnham describes space, the final frontier as “Above us. Around us. Within us.”

The length of Enterprise as 442.6 metres long is a recent retcon. For decades, the established figure was 289 m, or 947 ft as stated in The Making of Star Trek, but revised upward for the DIS era in production graphics, clearly seen in SNW: “Memento Mori” to the figures we see here. The crew complement of 203 is based on dialogue in TOS: “The Cage”. The dedication plaque states the dimensions as Length: 442 m (1450 ft), Beam: 201 m (659 ft) and Height: 93 m (305 ft), with Weight: 190,000 tonnes (209,439 tons). The caption also establishes the ship’s weaponry as 6 phaser banks and 2 photon torpedo tubes.

The Plain of Blood on Vulcan was first seen in ENT: “The Forge”, an arid expanse that legend holds was flowing with the green blood of battle until Surak cooled it with logic. This is the first time a Vantu blade has been mentioned. Other Vulcan weapons include the lirpa and ahn’woon. This is also the first mention of Kolaran blades.

The back of Uhura’s delta has her name and presumably her Starfleet serial number (and birthdate?). We saw similar name and serial number markings on the backs of deltas in DIS.

This is the first mention of Lutani VII and Kasar, and the stardate of the Kasar attack is 2177.9. The briefing takes place on 2191.4. PADD stands for “Personal Access Display Device” - while first named in TNG, ENT: “Terra Nova” established that the term PADD was used as far back as the 22nd Century.

Jikaru is the Lutani name for “starlight” and the species have lived on the oceanic moon Tychus-B. The transformation Uhura refers to allows it to move through space. Space-borne lifeforms have appeared several times in Star Trek, notably TOS: “The Immunity Syndrome”, TNG: “Tin Man”, TNG: “Galaxy’s Child”, VOY: “The Cloud”, DIS: “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”, LD: “Grounded”, LD: “Upper Decks”, among others I’ve probably missed. The Jikaru sound is reminiscent of whalesongs (which were a plot point in ST IV).

This is the first time where it is stated that practitioners of Surakian meditation gain increased esper sensitivity and makes mind melds more efficient. The term esper to describe psychic powers was first used in TOS: “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, where esper ratings were part of Starfleet officer records.

Quadroline was first mentioned in TNG: “First Contact” as a drug used on Malcor III. Hyronalin was first mentioned in TOS: “The Deadly Years” as the accepted treatment for radiation sickness.

M’Benga chooses his words carefully when he doesn’t answer if Starfleet has ordered him to kill and says killing people is not a function of his “current job”, given his past as a covert ops wetworks specialist called “The Ghost”. Protocol 12 is a combat drug he developed that gave its user increased strength, endurance and pain resistance, but with side effects. He was present at the Battle of ChaKana which took place on J’Gal during the Klingon War (SNW: “The Broken Circle”) as well as the final Battle of J’Gal (SNW: “Under the Cloak of War”). M’Benga is also cagey about scrubbing sickbay’s surveillance logs (SNW: “The Elysian Kingdom”).

Uhura’s story of the death of her parents and older brother in a shuttle accident was first told in SNW: “Children of the Comet”. Her grandmother, who used to be in Starfleet, steered her toward Starfleet Academy. The USS Cayuga (NCC-1557) was a Constitution-class ship commanded by CAPT Marie Batel which was destroyed by the Gorn over Parnassus Beta in SNW: “Hegemony”. The stardate as stated in that episode and here was 2344.2.

Pike’s love of horseriding was fist established in TOS: “The Cage” and we saw him on horseback in SNW: “Strange New Worlds”.

Christine’s reference to how Vulcans abandoned “these kinds of psionics” centuries ago may be a reference to psionic resonator weapons like the Stone of Gol (TNG: “Gambit, Part II”).

Ortegas yells, “¡Quítame eso de la cara!”, Spanish for “Get that out of my face!”

Spock’s mission to mind meld with the Jikaru in space echoes what he will do years later with V’Ger (TMP). Spock will also meld with alien species like the Horta (TOS: “The Devil in the Dark”) and with humpback whales (ST VI).

Galileo is the most iconic of Enterprise’s shuttles, prominently featured in TOS: “The Galileo Seven”. I think this the first time we’ve seen one (there were a few) named on screen in SNW.

Anti-grav stretchers or gurneys were used several times in TNG, DS9 and LD to ferry wounded personnel to sickbay. Spock was also in a Vulcan healing coma in TOS: “A Private Little War”.

The birthday party is for a Bolian officer. Pike’s cooking for his crew was first seen in “Children of the Comet”, and we get a glimpse of Batel among the party as well.

Like SNW: “A Space Adventure Hour”, this episode does not have the standard opening titles but serves its credits at the end of the episode.

The above photos are for reference. These are the image and recipe from The Star Trek Cookbook by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel. My soup was pretty messy. The immersion blender I meant to use was missing, so I resorted to a regular blender. 😅 Not going to do this again without one. The bread isn’t as green as I expected because I didn’t twist it enough. It seemed to me the filling of pesto was too much, making the dough too fragile. At least I tried.

If you are unable to read the text, I’m sure you are wondering who the Norellian are. They come from the DS9 novel “The Big Game”.

I don’t know if all their songs are parodies, but a majority of these songs are. They are fun to watch. When they are on stage, they sometimes play other covers including “I’m Ready”.

Here's your look at the Star Trek: Infection VR release window trailer for this upcoming narrative survival game set in the Star Trek universe. Step into the unsettling world in this Star Trek: Infection VR trailer and get a peek at what you can expect ahead of the game's launch on Meta Quest and Steam VR in 2025.

Annotations for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x06: “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail”:

A sehlat is a Vulcan animal akin to a large furry bear with pronounced saber-tooth tiger-like fangs. Spock’s childhood pet sehlat, I-Chaya, was first mentioned in TOS: “Journey to Babel” and subsequently seen and named in TAS: “Yesteryear”. A non-cartoon version of a wild sehlat was seen in ENT: “The Forge”.

We see the Bellerophon-class USS Farragut (NCC-1647). At this point in his career (2261), Kirk is her first officer, having served on it since he last left Startfleet Academy in 2255. 4 years prior, in 2257, Farragut lost her captain to a dikironium vampire (TOS: “Obsession”) at Tycho IV. Also see my post on making sense of Kirk’s early career history.

Farragut is doing a survey of Helicon Gamma, an unihabited M-class planet. M-class, or Minshara-class planets (as per ENT: “Strange New World”) are capable of sustaining humanoid life.

Farragut is currently under the command of Captain V’Rel, a female Vulcan officer. Kirk’s frustration at her risk-averse nature and his stating that “risk is why we’re here,” echoes his speech in TOS: “Return to Tomorrow” when he insists that “risk is our business.” Kirk’s desire to rewrite the book is also consistent with his character, who has always tended to change the rules (ST II).

Kirk says, "Starfleet could have sent a probe, but instead they sent us because some things you need to see for yourself to truly understand," which is a paraphrase of Archer's remark to T'Pol in ENT: "Civilization", "Starfleet could've sent a probe out here to make maps and take pictures, but they didn't. They sent us so we could explore with our own senses."

John Logie Baird (1888-1946) was a Scottish inventor, best known for demonstrating the first television system in 1926 and going on to invent colour television. Doctor Who fans will remember him being portrayed in the 2023 special “The Giggle”.

Speaking of, at approximately 11:33, to our right and along the same plane as the top of the bridge dome, the TARDIS can be seen among the scavenger’s tentacles.

This is the first time we’ve heard of Asaasllich, Destroyer of Worlds, or the Astrovore, but a lot of this - centuries old scavenger ship, comms interference, unable to get through the hull, gravitational beams destroying planets, consuming resources, large enough to swallow starships whole - reminds me very much of TOS: “The Doomsday Machine”.

Ortegas claims the Klingons call it Chach-Ka, “The Annihilator”. The Klingon word chach means emergency or auxiliary and qa’ means spirit, so I’m not sure if those are the right words or what the Klingon name should be.

We see a toppled 3-D chess set, similar to those on which Kirk and Spock would have regular games in future. This is the first time in SNW where Kirk has been addressed as “Captain Kirk” (excepting alternate timeline versions). As Spock enters the wrecked room, we see a picture of Starbase One on the wall.

Scotty refers to the scavenger as “Nessie”, the popular nickname for the Scottish cryptid known as the Loch Ness Monster. Kirk tells him to come up with some “miracles”, foreshadowing Scotty’s future reputation as a “miracle worker”.

The scene where Scotty is struggling in a wrecked Jeffries tube also reminds me of a similar scene in “Doomsday Machine”. Scotty’s time estimate looks ahead to a time when he always multiples his repair estimates by a factor of 4 to maintain his miracle worker rep (ST III, TNG: “Relics”).

Aldentium (first mention) is used by a few species in propulsion systems. This is also the first mention of Sullivan’s Planet and its pre-warp (and thus Prime Directive-protected) population of 100 million.

Scotty better get used to Kirk just ignoring his protestations and getting on with it, or else it’s going to be a really long 32 years. This is Kirk’s command style - which is less consultative than Picard and Pike’s process.

Another “Doomsday Machine” reference. The procedure to replace a CO that Chapel refers to is covered by Starfleet Regulation 104, Section C.

The scavengers use ion particles in their weapons, which rip through flesh and bone like bullets.

The clock Pelia tosses is the iconic and once ubiquitous Kit-Cat Clock, first made in 1932. She hands M’Benga what is supposed to be an Atari Video Computer System (also known as an Atari 2600), one of the first video game consoles made, released in 1977.

The use of wired (as opposed to wireless) communications to insulate them from jamming is similar to the reboot Battlestar Galactica universe, where intership communications were hard wired to prevent them from being hacked by the Cylons.

Kirk’s mother is named Winona (first named in ST 2009). The story about the dog with the car crops up in Bruce Feirstein’s book Nice Guys Sleep Alone, where it’s used as a metaphor for someone who keeps pursuing a paramour but once they’ve “got” them, they don’t know what to do with them.

As Kirk’s crew come together, the first of the core group of people he will grow to rely on for the rest of his career, the music echoes James Horner’s rousingly nautical soundtrack from ST II.

Pike suggests baryon particles to give the scavenger indigestion (shades of souring the milk ala TNG: “Galaxy’s Child”), and La’An says they have to access the waste system of the warp drive. In TNG: “Starship Mine” it was established that operating warp drives led to a build up of baryons that needed to be occasionally purged from starships by means of a “baryon sweep”.

Pelia used to be a roadie for The Grateful Dead, who stand among the greatest rock groups in history.

While Uhura is usually pictured at her communications station, she has taken the navigation and helm stations on a few occasions, notably in TOS: “The Man Trap” and TOS: “Balance of Terror”. She temporarily took over Spock’s station in TOS: “The Galileo Seven”.

Kirk once told Scotty to “discard the warp nacelles if you have to” in TOS: “The Apple”, but this is the first time we’ve seen a starship do this on-screen.

Una’s trick of using a depressurising section of the ship as a makeshift reaction thruster was also used in TNG: “Cause and Effect” - Riker ordered the shuttle bay to depressurise so as to avoid Enterprise-D colliding with Bozeman. That being said, Una only uses a single airlock rather than an entire shuttlebay, which seems implausibly small when shifting something of Enterprise’s mass.

As we zoom in on the hull markings, we see a United States flag, a delta with what appears to be an United Nations logo inside, and the registry number XCV-100. One of the first spaceships named Enterprise, also prior to Earth Starfleet’s formation, had the registry number XCV-330 (TMP, ENT: “First Flight”).

Prior to First Contact with the Vulcans means prior to 2063 (STFC). Pelia narrows it down to just after World War III ended in 2053. Other ships launched around that time included Cochrane’s Phoenix in 2063 and the UESPA probe Friendship 1 (VOY: “Friendship One”) in 2067. Friendship 1 had the same delta with the UN logo.

Aldebaran whiskey is the “it’s green” liquor that Scotty imbibes with Picard in TNG: “Relics” (and possibly the same one he drinks in TOS: “By Any Other Name”).

Pike’s optimism is laudable - in the end, what Star Trek teaches us is whether we turn into monsters or not can’t be blamed on circumstance, it’s a choice (TOS: "A Taste of Armageddon"). The same choice faced Captains Janeway and Ransom in the Delta Quadrant (VOY: “Equinox”), and both chose differently. Kirk’s lesson that we’re not that different from the enemy would serve him well in situations where he can anticipate the enemy’s moves (TOS: “Balance of Terror”), reactions (“A Taste of Armageddon”) or when he reaches out with empathy instead of destruction (TOS: “Arena”).

Written by: David Reed & Bill Wolkoff

Directed by: Valerie Weiss

Star Trek, which has not been in theaters since 2016, has largely been overseen by Alex Kurtzman with a lengthy list of Paramount+ series. Execs said that Trek would be looked at holistically rather than siloed off between different parts of the company, such as film and TV.

• Ensign Gamble records the stardate as 2184.4 in his junior medical officer’s log. Which, of course, would predate the previous log entries this season, if stardates progressed through increasingly larger numbers, as they do in every series in this franchise other than TOS, and TAS.

    • Gamble says he has been stationed on the USS Enterprise for six months. In “Wedding Bell Blues”, when Gamble is introduced, it was established that he was a temporary replacement for nurse Chapel, and that she had been off the ship for three months, indicating that at least three months has passed between that episode and this one.

• Gamble comments that Korby is working on ”corporeal transference.” In “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” Korby will have transferred his own consciousness and that of his associate, Brown, into android bodies.

• ”She is an excellent dance instructor.” La’An was teaching Spock how to dance in preparation for his reunion with Chapel in “Wedding Bell Blues”, but it seems as though as of the end of “A Space Adventure Hour”, the lessons have progressed from tango to horizontal mambo.

• The Vadia IX magnetic anomaly is located at the Lafarge Quarry. On the other side of the ridge you’ll find:

    • The camp of rebels against the Terran Empire - “The Wolf Inside”

    • Talosians - “Light and Shadows”, “If Memory Serves”

    • Some Trill itronok - “Jinaal”

• Berto Ortegas is aboard the Enterprise as a documentarian. The LDS episode, “Trusted Sources”, featured an FNN reporter documenting the missions of the USS Cerritos.

• Chapel and Korby speculate that the M’Kroon are descendants of an ancient civilization that achieved immortality. Star Trek is lousy with powerful ancient civilizations that, for whatever reason, are no longer present to exert their direct influence on the galaxy, including:

    • The T’Kon Empire - “The Last Outpost”

    • The Iconian Empire - “Contagion”

    • The Progenitors - “The Chase”, DIS season 5

    • The D’Arsay - “Masks”, “Room for Growth”

• Doctor M’Benga declares that his scans find Gamble to be brain dead. Other people who’ve been brain dead include Chakotay in “Cathexis” and Rick Berman for most of his career.

• ”This thing…is older than anything I’ve ever seen.” Pelia is of a long lived species, Lanthanites, and has been alive since at least the 6th century BCE.

• Spock uses a set of alien goggles to view the well of Vezda orbs. One of the orbs floats up, and a toothy monster inside the sparkling light snarls at him, not unlike the crew of the USS Yosemite who’d been transformed into transporter snakes and assaulted Barclay in “Realm of Fear”.

• Gamble has been possessed by one of the Vezda entities. Other characters who’ve been possessed by malevolent entities include:

    • In “Wolf In the Fold” Scotty was briefly possessed by Jack the Ripper

    • In “Clues” Troi was possessed by a Paxan

    • In “Power Play”, Data, Troi, and O’Brien were possessed by non-corporeal prisoners

    • In “Masks” Data was possessed by several figures from D’Arsay myth

    • In “Cathexis” Tuvok was possessed by a Komar

    • In “The Reckoning” Jake Sisko was possessed by the Kosst Amojan Pah-wraith.

• Vezda Gambel references Rukiya Doctor M’Benga’s terminally ill daughter whom he kept in a transporter buffer for the first half of season one, let go of so she could join with a sentient nebula in “The Elysian Kingdom”, and promptly forgot about until now.

• Captain Batel, who is presumably now a Gorn hybrid after her treatment following “Shuttle to Kenfori”, recognizes the entity in Gamble, and the pair fight in sickbay. It is unclear where Batel got the large boulder she throws at Vezda Gamble like the Gorn in “Arena”, but we did learn in “Strange Energies” that Starfleet does have medical boulders.

• La’An voices suspicion that the ancient site might be a prison to house the Vezdas. In “Power Play” the entities that possessed Data, Ro, and O’Brien were prisoners whose consciousness was separated from their bodies and trapped in a magnetic storm.

• ”Curiouser and curiouser” Spock quotes “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, a book Amanda Greyson would read to him and Michael Burnham when they were children, as per “Once Upon a Planet” and “Context is for Kings”.

• Scotty traps the Vezda after it escapes Gamble’s corpse, and stores it in the transporter buffer. In “Wolf In the Fold” Spock scattered the Jack the Ripper entity across deep space with the transporter.

So if you aren’t aware from my previous post, I was at STLV last week. Among the various things to do, there were artist doing free face painting and airbrush temporary tattoos. I decided on a temp tat and among them was this image of Tendi from “Strange Energies”.

I liked this so much that I am seriously considering getting a real permanent tattoo of this. On top of that I am thinking about getting it colored.

I see the trailer, I don't think is the best serie in the world, but I think can be something fun to watch, to nowdays standards that is enough to me really.

I need to watch it to have an opinion, I have the feeling people need to give a chance at least, I did with Voyager despite all the negative critics I saw.

What you think about this?