I think this is a transcription of the podcast that was shared here last week.

This game came out in 2021 as an Apple Arcade exclusive, which means I have not played it, and quickly forgot it existed.

It's a mobile game, so adjust your expectations accordingly, but this review caught my eye, as this game apparently has no time gates or microtransactions (or, at least it didn't three years ago).

It apparently came out on Steam in June, and there's a free demo there that I might check out.

Details are weirdly hard to come by, but it looks like it will launch on Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox later this month.

Has anyone played this thing? Is it worth your time and money?

Not your average average Starfleet officer! I'm beaming in to the first season of @StarTrek: Starfleet Academy on @ParamountPlus.

The way The Doctor is able to change appearance so quickly, jump through glass panes and that hallway wall running, scream Matrix to me.

Biggest take away: Wang was cast in Picard season 3, promoted to admiral, and over time cut out before production.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Tholians are going to be joining the Gorn for the Final Frontier edition of the game.

There are two previews of what to expect:
https://gamefound.com/en/projects/gf9/star-trek-ascendancy/updates/5
https://gamefound.com/en/projects/gf9/star-trek-ascendancy/updates/6

• The episode title is a play on the TNG season episode, “Lower Decks”, which also served as the inspiration for the name of this series.

• Boimler’s beard has progressed to the point where his moustache and goatee have connected.

    • Rutherford appears to have shaved off his beard, perhaps indicating that after the previous episode’s michelada incident, he’s no longer trying to emulate Beardler.

• Halloween has previously been mentioned in:

    • “Catspaw” - Bones compared the situation he, Kirk, and Spock found themselves in to the holiday

    • “The Big Goodbye” - A holodeck character insulted Captain Picard by claiming his uniform made him *”ready for Halloween.”

    • “Crisis Point” - We learned that Mariner dressed up as Toby the Targ for Halloween on multiple occasions.

    • “Those Old Scientists” - We learned that Boimler dressed as Pike for Halloween on the USS Cerritos

    • Additionally the USS Discovery’s registry number, NCC-1031, is a reference to the date Halloween falls on

• Mariner claims she was ”trapped in a painting,” but describes the situation more as being trapped in a holoprogram, a more common experience on Trek.

• V’Ger appeared in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”.

• It’s Steve Stevens! From Star Trek! Stevens is voiced by Ben Rodgers, former story editor and writer on the series.

    • We haven’t seen Stevens since season four’s “Empathological Fallacies”, and he hasn’t had any dialogue since season three’s “Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus”.

    • This is the first episode where we get some insight into Stevens’ role on the ship as Cap’n Freeman’s personal assistant.

• A pathogen caused ensign Barnes devolved into a cavewoman, not unlike what happened to Riker in “Genesis”, while simultaneously developing the ability to read minds, similar to Gary Mitchell and Elizabeth Dehner in “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, or Charlie Evans in “Charlie X”.

• ”The who?” Freeman previously acquired a star chart of the neutral zone from the Clickets before upsetting them with her courtesy in “Veritas”

• ”My team refreshed all the Cordry rocks in the ceiling panels on the bridge.” We get a technobabble explanation for the debris that occasionally falls from the bridge ceiling when the ship is hit by an attack, such as in “Yesterday’s Enterprise”.

    • The Cordry rocks may have been named for Marian Cordry, the director of Paramount’s Star Trek franchise library and archive.

• ”Well, they look like cows to me.” Ransom has never seen a cow.

• The researcher/Clicket infiltrator Zurkel is played by Paul F. Thompkins, who also voices Doctor Migleemo.

• The ensigns trying to wrangle the buhgoon are from both beta and delta shift, calling into question how the shift system works entirely.

    • This is the first time we’ve seen Federov wearing more than a towel.

• The buhgoon have a natural cloaking ability. Other living beings with the ability to cloak include:

    • Beings infected by the Tarchanne parasite - “Identity Crisis”

    • The beast captains Picard and Dathon confronted - “Darmok”

    • The hunters from Yautja Prime - “Family”

    • Jem’Hadar - “The Jem’Hadar”

    • Tosk - “Captive Pursuit”

• Ransom begins his story with, ”Back a few hundred stardates ago.” A hundred stardates is roughly 36.5 days in 100 stardates, Ransom is talking about a matter of months.

• Tempassa was mentioned in “Ties of Blood and Water” as the location of a raid by the Shakaar resistance cell. Shaxs was established as having been part of that cell in “Hear All, Trust Nothing”.

• Shaxs has a Bajoran flag, as seen in “The Star Gazer” in his quarters.

• Billups mentions having had a bagel and it giving him an upset stomach in his logs. In “Starbase 80?!” it was established that Billups is branching out from only eating hot cereals.

• In “Twovix” Westlake had commander pips after being restored to his original form, yet here he’s back to being a lieutenant. Perhaps it was just a piece of sweet corn?

• ”We’re good to go the next time some virus makes everyone sing or whatever.” Sadly we haven’t seen any singing viruses on Star Trek. Nurse Westlake’s hyposprays would not do much in the case of a quantum probability field, like the one in “Subspace Rhapsody”.

• Feeman tells the pregnant crewperson she wasn’t aware they weren’t human. There are a number of species outwardly indistinguishable from humans. The non-extinct, non-shapeshifting ones include:

    • Earth Two natives - “Miri”

    • Betans - “The Return of the Archons”

    • Eminian - “A Taste of Armageddon”

    • Capallans - “Friday’s Child” - While human in appearance, all Capallans were notably tall and large

    • Argelians - “Wolf in the Fold”

    • 829-IV natives - “Bread and Circuses”

    • Neural natives - “A Private Little War”

    • Iotians - “A Piece of the Action”

    • Ekosians - “Patterns of Force”

    • Zeons - “Patterns of Force”

    • Kohms and Yangs - “The Omega Glory”

    • Elasian - “Elaan of Troyius”

    • Morg and Eyemorg - “Spock’s Brain”

    • Minarans - “The Empath”

    • Fabrini - “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky”

    • Platonians - “Plato’s Stepchildren”

    • Scalosians - “Wink of an Eye” - While outwardly indistinguishable from humans, they do move too fast to be seen by humans

    • Gideons - “The Mark of Gideon”

    • Ardanans - “The Cloud Minders”

    • Sarpedion natives - “All Our Yesterdays”

    • Deltan - “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” - All Deltans are bald and are considered to be conventionally attractive by human standards

    • Bandi - “Encounter at Farpoint”

    • Betazoids - “Encounter at Farpoint” - Betazoids have all black eyes

    • Ligonian - “Code of Honor”

    • Edo - “Justice”

    • Tarellians - “Haven”

    • Angel One natives - “Angel One”

    • Mordanites - “Too Short a Season”

    • Aldeans - “When the Bough Breaks”

    • El-Aurian - “The Child”

    • Omega Sagitta system natives - “The Outrageous Okona”

    • Ramatasian - “As Loud As A Whisper”

    • Angosians - “The Hunted”

    • Rutians - “The High Ground” - Two-tone hair seems to be a species trait, and colours appear to depend on gender

    • Ventaxians - “Devil’s Due”

    • Yedera Prime natives - “Shadowplay”

    • Sikarians - “Prime Factors”

    • Teplans - “The Quickening”

    • Takarians - “False Profits”

    • Vori - “Nemesis”

    • Mari - “Random Thoughts”

    • Dinali - “Critical Care”

    • Ba’ku - “Star Trek: Insurrection”

    • Toroth system natives - “Desert Crossing”

    • Illyrian - “Damage” - Illyrian appearances vary depending on their genetic modifications, but most of the ones we see on SNW appear indistinguishable from humans

    • Kwejian - “That Hope is You, Part 1” - Their foreheads do light up when using their psychic abilities

• The pregnant alien is voiced by Phil LaMarr, who also portrays Admiral Freeman, Dirk, and handful of other characters.

• ”I felt stuck out of phase, like Geordi and Ro…” Winger Bingston Jr. references the events of “The Next Phase” in his one man show.

• We previously saw this model of Clicket ship in “Veritas”.

• ”Ransom role!” Ransom has previously called out names while engaging in physical activity, specifically during the combat with Vindoor in “Temporal Edict”, he alternatingly yelled ”Kirk!” and ”Spock!” while hitting the Galrakian with double fist strikes.

• The tear in Zurkel’s disguise looks very reminiscent of torn mask worn by a Malurian disguised as an Akaali in “Civilization”. Both are on the left side of the face, and show a very alien visage beneath false, human(esque) flesh.

• ”You are the worst commander I’ve ever had in my life.” It was established in “Envoys” that Castro served on the Enterprise, though which one wasn’t specified. Still, barring time travel, that narrows it down to Riker, Data, or whomever had the position after Data.

• Billups is briefly stuck in a tube, apparently dying, in a scene inspired by Spock’s death in “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan”.

• The cadet who approaches Billups about a burned out indicator light previously asked Boimler for advice in “wej Duj”. He is voiced by Nolan North.

• It’s the Freemans’ anniversary, which raises the question of whether or not they got married on Halloween.

    • It appears that the holodeck location Admiral Freeman selected for their anniversary dinner is Café des Artistes, as seen in “We’ll Always Have Paris”. The chairs are different, but the balcony and the view are the same.

• ”No. I have made a joke at your expense. Boom.” The real joke here is the perpetuated myth that Vulcans never lie.