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• The episode title is a call back to the TNG season two finale, “Shades of Grey”, in which commander Riker is attacked by a poisonous vine, and the only way to save him is to make him watch other episodes from TNG’s first two seasons in his head. Truly, the cure is sometimes worse than the disease.

• Captain Freeman records the stardate as 59376.9 in her log.

• We’re informed that the people of Targalus IX have recently joined the Federation, acquired post scarcity technology, and are dismantling their capitalist systems. They’re literally burning their currency in the streets. However, we know that in the 24th century some Federation worlds, such as the Bolian homeworld of Bolarus IX maintain their financial institutions.

• In addition to what we can assume to be the Targalan’s language, much of the signage on Targalus IX is in Federation Standard -- i.e. English -- as are the anti-capitalist shirts they’re wearing.

• Boimler’s got a wispy bit of moustache growth happening. Apparently in addition to the PADD he took, he’s also attempting to steal Beardler’s look from the previous episode.

• Boimler is inundating the ensigns he’s been assigned with ”Bointers.” The first time he substituted his name for a real word was when he told Rutherford to ”Boim me up,” in “Cupid’s Errant Arrow”.

• We learn that the Orions have a ”pirate queen” who is the head of the Orion Syndicate. It’s unclear if this positon is the official Orion head of state, or simply the leader of the criminal organization.

    • Pirate queen Sabor is voiced by Debra Wilson, who has voiced several unnamed characters on PRO, the Orion pirate Z’oto on LDS, and even Lisa Cusak in the DS9 episode, “The Sound of Her Voice”.

• Orions used to use solar sailships. Other cultures who are confirmed to have used such technology include the Bajorans, as seen in “Explorers” and R’ongovians introduced in “Spock Amok”.

• ”Damn, now this is buffer time. Respect” The term buffer time was first used in “Temporal Edict”, and was coined to describe the policy of padding out work time estimates, first explicitly articulated by Scotty in “Star Trek: The Search for Spock”.

• The House Tendi sailship has a ship’s wheel for steering the vessel. The pirate ship, The Serene Squall in the episode “The Serene Squall” was also a starship with a wheel.

• Sarium krellide was first noted on a display screen in TNG’s “Night Terrors”, and a combadge in PRO’s “Observer Effect” was seen to have the words written on a power cell. The is the first episode where the term is spoken aloud by a character.

• Tendi attempts to give her sister a cup of pyrithian bat milk. Doctor Phlox kept a pyrithian bat in the sickbay aboard the NX-01.

• ”Snakes don’t eat snakes!” Apparently snakes on Orion are less inclined to cannibalism than Earth snakes.

• The disruptor that the Targalan cleaning robot is attempting to sweep with looks very similar to the phaser rifle first seen in “Stardust City Rag”

• ”It is possible to do everything right, and still get your away team kidnapped by the corporate elite,” Boimler quotes Picad’s line from “Peak Performance”.

• Billups’ mother sent him a dragon. Human ”ren faire types” colonized Hysperia because of its dragons, as per “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie” but we have yet to see one on screen.

• In addition to finishing repairs on the Sequoia, T’Lyn added a stick figure drawing of herself to those of Boimler, Mariner, Tendi, and Rutherford. The doodles of the Lower Deckers were first seen in “No Small Parts”

• Rutherford claims he and Tendi used to work on the Sequoia every day: ”It was our project.” Previously they worked together on a model of the USS Cerritos, and a model of Deep Space 9, as seen in “An Embarrassment of Dooplers”.

• ”I was trying to deceive you into socializing.” T’Lyn is really giving away the game on that whole, ”Vulcans are incapable of lying,” lie that they spout all the time.

• ”Come back Mackler, turn away from the mountain!” Boimler is referring to the Black Mountain where Starfleet officers go to fight three faceless representations of their father on their journey back to life, as outlined by Shaxs in “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”

• It’s Goodgey! From Star Trek! Goodgey previously appeared in “A Few Badgeys More”.

• Captain Freeman contracted out the disposal of Targalus IX’s wealth to the Tendi family, which is implied will offset the loss of their fortune due to Tendi’s insistence on trying to find a peaceful compromise. It would seem that the gold bars and jewels must have some value to the Orions. We’ve seen gemstones as having value in episodes such as “Haven” and “Move Along Home”, but in “Who Mourns for Morn”, Quark describes gold as ”worthless.” Twice.

    • The Orion ship D’Erika is using for wealth disposal is presumably the same one she sent to retrieve Tendi in “Old Friends, New Planets”.

I'm reposting this because the list is now complete.

Edit: Except Garrett? Maybe she won't get one?

Fuzz (The Maniac)

Fuzz can switch from hysterical laughter to filter-free anger at the drop of a dime.

He's a fun-loving guy until he isn't. Just don't suggest anger management sessions to this Section 31 operative.

Melle (The Lover)

While most Deltans take an oath of celibacy upon joining Starfleet, Melle uses her irresistible magnetism for Section 31's benefit. After all, she's in a league of her own.

Zeph (The Machine)

Mech life ain't just about brute force. The human Zeph lives, works, and everything in between, inside his mechanical exoskeleton, drawing out the right tools in his work as a Section 31 operative.

Quasi (The Enigma)

No one's ever met a Chameloid's true form before, perpetuating their myth-like status as they never show their real appearance, which suits Quasi perfectly as a member of Section 31. He's disinterested in the delusion of "utopia" and most other things, especially you.

Alok Sahar (Mastermind)

Alok Sahar is a strategic mastermind who leads a special team of Section 31 operatives. Sahar is driven to make amends for actions in his past by serving the greater good, which involves tracking down and recruiting Emperor Philippa Georgiou for a covert mission.

Philippa Georgiou (The Emperor)

Unable to return to the Terran Empire, Emperor Philippa Georgiou lives under a new alias as owner of The Baraam, a nightclub operating outside of Federation space.

That is, until Section 31 enlists her to help protect the Federation while also facing the sins of her past.

The Agenda is a current affairs program that covers issues primarily in Ontario, Canada, or at least from the perspective of Ontario, Canada. It's studio is in Toronto where, of course, Picardo has been shooting Academy.

Seems like something they could've released a couple of days before Halloween?

The title of the episode is a play on the 2011 film (and its sequel) The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, about a group of retirees who purchase a hotel in India. Nanites are of course microsopic nanotechnological robots which were first introduced into the Star Trek universe in the TNG episode "Evolution", although chronologically they have existed as far back as DIS: "Perpetual Infinity".

The Stardate is 59393.7. Cerritos is at the Cosmic Duchess, an interstellar cruise ship with multiple domed biomes which is undergoing a nanite cluster infestation. Boimler's facial hair is increasing, now with stubble on his chin and cheeks. He notes that one of the casinos has Dixon Hill slot machines, Dixon Hill being a 20th-Century hard boiled detective character Picard was a fan of (TNG: "The Big Goodbye"). Mariner's shocked reaction to Jennifer's kiss is understandable, since we were led to understand they broke up in LD: "Trusted Sources".

Jet Manhaver is a background character who was last featured in LD: "We'll Always Have Tom Paris". The way he describes Ransom's using him as fodder is reminiscent of the jokes about the fates of redshirts in TOS.

T'Lyn suggests Jennifer has a brain parasite. The last time a brain parasite caused amorous complications was in LD: "Cupid's Errant Arrow". Jennifer says she is being transferred to the USS Manitoba, which from the name might be a Parliament-class starship (the others we know of being Toronto and Vancouver).

The Risa Bar is named of course after the pleasure planet (TNG: “Captain’s Holiday”) and the biome actually reminds me of the Risa instance in Star Trek Online. This is the first time we’ve actually seen Gallamites although the species was first mentioned in DS9: “The Maquis, Part I” when Jadzia Dax mentioned she had a dinner date with the Gallamite Captain Boday, and Kira evinced some discomfort with his transparent skull. Kreetassans, an easily offended species, first appeared in ENT: “Vox Sola” and consider eating a taboo activity not to be done in front of others. The huge dangerous mountain pointed out by Ransom vaguely resembles the Paramount logo if you squint (it may just be a coincidence).

T’Lyn makes note of the poster of Krog on the Rocks, who performs on Vibe Tubes. Named in this episode, the Vibe Tubes are a futuristic musical instrument, the prop first seen being played in a holographic recreation in TNG: "We'll Always Have Paris".

Admiral Milius’s acolyte is Denobulan, the same species as Dr Phlox of ENT. Denobulan females emit powerful pheremones during mating (ENT: “Dear Doctor”). “Not everyone keeps their genitals in the same place,” is a lesson we first learned in ST VI.

Tendi makes reference to Mariner's parents, who are often separated for long periods of time since Carol Freeman is a starship Captain and Alonzo is a Starfleet Admiral.

Milius' appearance resembles that of Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz in the 1979 movie Apocalypse Now, which in turn was written by John Milius, Francis Coppola and Michael Herr inspired by Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness. In both stories the Kurtz character sets himself up as a demigod worshipped by natives.

An iscosahedron is a 20-sided polyhedron, best known to tabletop roleplayers as a d20 die. Gormaganders (DIS: "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad") and the "Galaxy's Child" thing (TNG: "Galaxy's Child"), are examples of cosmozoans, giant organisms that live in space.

Captain Tersal says that her parallel universe Endeavor has been through a "month of hell", an allusion to VOY: "Year of Hell". Although Endeavor's scale is due to her being from a universe that is tiny, in the Prime universe the runabout Rubicon was once shrunk by a subspace anomaly (DS9: "One Little Ship") and Voyager was turned into a Christmas tree ornament by Q (VOY: "Death Wish").

Written by: Stephanie Amante-Ritter

Directed by: Brandon Williams

"Sure, The Borg have been a bit of a problem. Their tendency toward mass assimilation and the stripping of individuality and personal freedom doesn’t exactly jibe with our idea of what makes a great leader. But let’s be honest. Kathryn Janeway hasn’t been perfect."

TLDR; Is PRO TNG or PIC era? Do Trek eras as we know them even matter anymore?

Edit: Fixed TOK to be TWOK era. My 2 brain cells had failed me there.

Before I give my problem, here's what I find the conventional Star Trek eras to be (including some common sub-eras that some might consider distinct):

• ENT era: 2150s-2160s
• TOS era: 2250s-early 2290s
  • TWOK era: 2270s-early 2290s
• Lost era: 2290s-roughly 2330s
• TNG era: 2340s-early 2380s (I count Enterprise C as roughly the start of the TNG era. At the very least, the shuttle for the Hansen's ill-fated trip in the 2350s has the trappings of the TNG era).
  • DS9/VOY/TNG film era: 2370s, maybe early 2380s
• PIC era: mid 2380s-early 25th century (I think the Utopia Planetia in 2385 is my cutoff)
• DIS era: 32nd century

I think most newer series have obvious placements, e.g:

• DIS starts in the TOS era, then starts its own era.
• SNW is in the TOS era (I'd argue it's straight up canon, based on LD).
• LD is TNG era, based on LCARS designs and the story conventions it parodies/pastiches.

However, the main thing that is ruffling my feathers is that PRO's placement in my framework is very confusing. It exists on an awkward border between TNG and PIC.

On one hand, some of its storytelling conventions fit better with PIC, not to mention the fact that the Utopia Planetia attack occurs at the end of PRO.

On the other hand, PRO continues some TNG era characters that aren't yet elderly versions of themselves.

This goes back to the initial question: Do we place the vast majority of PRO in the TNG era (and have like the last five minutes of season 2 [hopefully not the show] in PIC era), or do we extend the Picard era backwards to 2383 to include PRO in its entirety?

The 2383 solution might work, as that leaves 2382 in the TNG era for the 5th season of Lower Decks.

• The episode opens on a freighter ”Somewhere in the Beta Quadrant”; the ship is modelled off Kivas Fajo’s ship, the Jovis, from the TNG episode “The Most Toys”. The Jovis was itself a kit bash of the studio model for the Husnok warship from “The Survivors”.

• Tendi [Noël Wells] is seen using a holographic disguise to infiltrate this collector’s ship. Mirror Georgiou used a similar holographic disguise while infiltrating Klingon high society as an agent of Section 31 in “Point of Light”.

• The collector, Yorif, is voiced by Eric Bauza, who has portrayed a number of characters in LDS, PRO, and the non-canon Very Short Treks.

    • Yorif is of the same species as fellow collector, Palor Toff, who was seen in “The Most Toys”. They even wear a similar golden ribbon piece of headgear, which is established this episode to be prescription.

• Among Yorif’s collection is:

    • A Risian horga’hn

    • What appears to be the Bajoran tablet that Captain Sisko broke in “The Reckoning”

    • A Veltan lust idol - Palor Toff and Kivas Fajo both claimed to own Veltan sex idols in “The Most Toys”

    • A gold Ferengi mask that may have been modelled off similar masks made in Ancient China.

    • A type-2 phaser of the sort used in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”

• Unlike the Orion interceptor previously seen in “Something Borrowed, Something Green” the one that arrives to pirate Yorif’s vessel does not have a number of spikes on it, or a grapple claw; it does appear to have some extra cannons.

• Yorif’s ship is crewed by Hupyrians. This is the first time we hear a Hupyrian speak, as the ones we’ve seen previously have taken vows of silence as part of their service to the various Ferengi Grand Nagi.

• L’Kar was previously seen in “Something Borrowed, Something Green” and is voiced by Kari Wahlgreen, who has voiced a number of characters in LDS and PRO.

• The opening title now has a warp effect to it. In it’s fifth season, TNG’s title screen also gained a warp effect.

• In addition to Klingon, Romulan, Pakled, Borg ships, whale probe, and crystalline entity seen previous season’s opening sequence’s large battle, there is now:

    • A giant green space hand, as previously seen in “Who Mourns for Adonis”

    • Tholian ships forming a web, as seen in “The Tholian Web”

    • V’ger, from TMP

• Mariner [Tawny Newsome], and T’Lyn [Gabrielle Ruiz] are playing kal-toh, a Vulcan game introduced in “Alter Ego”.

• Boimler [Jack Quaid] believes he’s going to be featured in Starfleet’s “Fleet” periodical, but he’s not. However, Naomi Wildman, does get an honourable mention in their 30 under 30 list.

    • “She’s like ten years old.” Naomi was born in 2372 in “Deadlock”, and this episode takes place in 2382.

    • The cover of the magazine claims to feature the Top 10 Riker moments

    • The cover also teases an article on the Continuum, titled *”Q Who?” mirroring the title of the TNG season two episode.

• The USS Cerritos is pulled through a quantum fissure, and encounters an alternate universe version of themselves, which, in honour of the episode title, I will be calling the Cerridos. In addition to their uniforms being slightly darker, the Cerridos crew appear to exhibit only minor differences from the familiar crew of the Cerritos which resulted in their lives turning out different, such as:

    • Mariner’s counterpart goes by Becky Freeman, and is the captain of the Cerridos

    • T’Lyn’s counterpart says ”Remarkable” while she prefers ”Fascinating”. Fasmarkable.

    • Boimler’s counterpart grew a beard

    • Billups’ counterpart became King of Hysperia, which would imply that he is also not a virgin

    • Rutherford’s counterpart wiped Tendi from his memory banks after she left to become a full time pirate, and then cyborged himself up.

• D’Erika was introduced in “Something Borrowed, Something Green” and is voiced by Ariel Winter”

• Tendi has a model of the Cerritos in her ready room aboard the Orion Interceptor.

• ”You miss debating the ethics of goop with your Starfleet nerds.” Most spineless goop in Trek has questionable ethics, at best:

    • Armus is a Skin of Evil

    • Odo is willing to engage in illegal surveillance techniques, and hold suspects under false pretenses

    • Rick Berman treated several members of the cast very poorly, hired a known fraud as the consultant on Native American culture for VOY, and prevented TNG from having an episode depicting an openly gay couple back when that would still have been uncommon

• The Billups propose a plan where the Cerritos and Cerridos are linked together so they can create a pulse which will open the rift again, and allow the Cerritos to return to the prime universe. Spock devised a similar plan in “The Time Trap” to allow the USS Enterprise and a Klingon vessel to the Delta Triangle.

• We learn that Mariner is Mariner’s middle name.

• The crashed Orion vessel has orbs on rotating spokes, similar to we’ve seen on previous Orion vessels, beginning with the ship seen in the remastered TOS episode, “Journey to Babylon”.

• A group of blue skinned Orions appear, wearing the same uniforms as the Orions from “The Pirates of Orion”.

    • The blues pronounce the name of their species as ”Or-ee-ahn”, which is how it was pronounced in “The Pirates of Orion” and no where else in the franchise until now.

• Becky recounts the events of “Second Contact” when Boimler gets gummed on by a Galardon spider-cow, implying that she experienced that episode very similarly.

• ”There’s no interpersonal conflict allowed on my ship.” Becky has the same views on human interactions that Gene Roddenberry held.

• Becky’s ready room captain’s trinkets include:

    • A California flag - Captain Freeman [Dawnn Lewis] has the same one in her ready room

    • A jewelled dagger - This looks like one of the ones Mariner was stabbed in the shoulder with in “Something Borrowed, Something Green”

    • A bat’leth - Mariner accidentally cut Boimler with one she brought aboard the Cerritos while drunk in “Second Contact”

• *”Don't you give me that sarcastic Vulcan salute!” Captain Freeman yelled those same words to Mariner in “Moist Vessel”

• We learn that the alternate Captain Freeman was reassigned to Starbase 80, which was first mentioned in “Terminal Provocations” as the place where Starfleet ships off its screw-ups.

• In the Cerritos’ bar, there’s a bottle of Kanar with a tag featuring the mural from Quark’s.

• ”I have fooled you.” T’Lyn deceived the Lower Deckers into believing she was her Minor Universe counterpart. Because Vulcans lie all the damn time.

Creation’s Trek to New Jersey begins next Friday, November 8 at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, NJ and has over 30 Star Trek guests scheduled to attend — including Anson Mount, Celia Rose Gooding, Christina Chong, Ethan Peck, and Jess Bush from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Tawny Newsome, Eugene Cordero, Dawnn Lewis, and Gabrielle Ruiz from Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: The Next Generation favorites like Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden, and more.

The subsequent Trek to Dallas convention kicks off Friday, November 15 in the Lone Star state. Hosted at the Marriott Dallas Allen hotel in Allen, TX, thirty Trek celebrities are expected to attend — including Anson Mount, Celia Rose Gooding, Christina Chong, Ethan Peck, and Melissa Navia from Strange New Worlds, Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, and Elias Toufexis from Star Trek: Discovery, Tawny Newsome, Eugene Cordero and Dawnn Lewis from Lower Decks, plus many more.

I have a random guess about the problem with the alternate, bearded Boimler: he’s actually William Boimler, who killed (or imprisoned) Bradward and took his place on that Cerritos for mysterious Section 31 reasons.

That Boimler even says, “nobody deserves to be replaced by their own double.”

I am new to Trek and want to watch it with the best graphics as possible.

This past week I received my pre-order copy of the new LDecks themed card game, so I made my friends play it as part of our regular game night, then I made a housemate play it, and here are my thoughts.

Gameplay
The game is a fairly straight forward push your luck style game.

You have four different decks of cards: Assignments, Side Projects, Shift, and Alpha Abilities. The Assignment cards have a target number and, frequently but not always, a leisure value on them. In turn, players can flip Shift cards, most of which have an effort value that needs to meet or exceed the target on the assignment, so the leisure points can be scored.

The Side Project cards also have the target number and a leisure value, and can be added to the in play Assignment, making the amount of effort required to score that much higher, but increasing the reward. There is a goal number of leisure points you need to score depending on the number of players, and it would not be possible to meet those goals without adding multiple Side Projects.

The group only has five assignments, and once you're out and the group hasn't met the leisure point goal, you lose. Further complicating things is that there are six officer cards in the Shift stack, each of whom has a rank 1-3, and if officers with a total rank of 4 are in your play area during the Assignment, the Assignment fails, as do any attached Side Projects, and you lose the highest value leisure from your already scored area.

Alpha Shift cards are a pretty rare resource that allow you to do a wide variety of special things, including removing officer cards from the play area, or even adding another Assignment to the available cards. Each player begins with two, and you only gain new ones by being the player to score an Assignment.

Learning the game is simple enough, though everyone whom I played with are fans of games. Even my buddy who hates learning new games got into it after a couple rounds. Games are relatively fast, and it can accommodate two to six players, which is nice. The games I've played have had four, five, and two players.

My biggest complaint would be that the difficulty does feel a bit punishing. Failing an Assignment is already bad enough, but having to lose the highest value card you've already scored does not feel great from a player perspective. Of the five games I've played, my game night group one once, and my housemate and I won the game we played.  

Production
The only components for the game are the cards, so there isn't much to talk about.

The cardstock is nice, and they don't feel flimsy, which is good, because there is going to be a lot of shuffling. That said, the individual decks are small enough that I'm probably going to sleeve my copy, just to make shuffling easier.

Most of the art is simply stills from the show which is a little disappointing, but understandable. The effort icons are Badgey pushing a boulder up a slope, like Sisyphus, so that's fun.

The card backs, which are all really good looking and easily distinguishable, even the Assignment and Side Project cards, which are made to look similar.

The game box is nice and sturdy, looks great, and has a magnetic closure, so that right there is an A++ in my opinion.  

Theme
Let's be honest, the only reason I bought this game is because of the 'Lower Decks' theme, so how does that fit?

Fine. I guess.

The "buffer time" concept comes from the first season episode, "Temporal Edict", which was itself inspired by Scotty's claims in TOS and TNG that he always pads out his estimates of how long it will take him to complete any given assignment. So, the push your luck aspect fits the theme: you're padding out your assignments, and trying not to get caught by the senior staff.

All the cards have titles that relate to things that have actually happened on the show, and the first time I played, I did get some chuckles remember scenes, but the game itself doesn't have any humour aspect beyond stills of Mariner kicking Ransom in the junk or whatever. Which is fine; writing humour is hard, and I do usually hate it when a game tries to cram a humour in.  

Conclusion
Even though I wouldn't have bought the game without the LDecks theme, I'm glad I did because it ended up being a relatively light, quick game, that the people whom I forced to play it with me all said they enjoyed and would be happy to play again.

It's probably not going to hit the table too often during our regular game nights, but sometimes someone's going to be late or you finish the big game of the evening a bit early, so you need some filler, which I do not mean pejoratively despite how it sounds, and I think that is going to be Buffer Time's sweet spot for myself and my group.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/45628392