Star Trek Social Club

Based on my rudimentary Latin, the title can be loosely translated as “Back/Return to Life”, I think. In the episode, it’s a fungus, although it’s unclear if that is its scientific or colloquial name. There is no “vitus” genus as far as I can tell, although grapes belong to the vitis family.

The stardate is 868858.7, which places it in late 3191. It is 3 weeks into the Fall semester, so mid-to-late September, although theoretically, if 1000 stardate units equal 1 year, it should be November 9.

Lura mentions signing up for Calica, which appeared on a sign in SFA: “Kids These Days”. The series is its first appearance in lore. As we see later, it’s a pretty brutal organised sport that is supposed to prepare cadets for combat.

Darem is either bi- or pansexual (and Caleb implies polyamorous as well).

Lura was a War College graduate, which makes sense since the Academy had yet to reopen until a year or so prior to the start of the series. While we’re at it, the etymology of the word “shenanigan” is uncertain, but I’m fond of the theory that it derives from the Irish word sionnachuighim (shun-NEH-huay-em), or “to play the fox.”

We met Kelrec, the Commander of the War College and Nahla’s counterpart, in SFA: “Beta Test”. He is apparently really into tea. We find out that the “transport first year cadets against their will” prank was first done years ago by Academy cadets who teleported their victims to the top of Alcatraz prison.

Nahla calls the Vitus Relux the “empathy flower” and notes it’s actually a fungus. It only blooms at night and has the ability to parrot the voices around it. The Art of War, attributed to Sun Tzu, is the classic Chinese treatise on warfare which has been studied and quoted for over a thousand years. My favourite aphorism from it is, “All warfare is deception.”

Krebs’ Talaxian furfly was mentioned last episode as well. Jay-Den is apparently a pacifist, objecting to participating in violence of any kind.

I’m not sure how Lura’s metaphor about the “force of a thousand tachyons” works, because theoretically in some equations, tachyons - hypothetical particles that travel faster than light - have negative or imaginary mass, and in any case wouldn’t exist in Newtonian space.

Reno describes a lapling as “fuzzy, mean like a koala, cute like a targ…” Believed to be extinct by the 24th century, we saw what was allegedly the last surviving specimen in Kivas Fajo’s collection in TNG: “The Most Toys”. The mascot isn’t exactly the same, more like a stylised version.

Klingons do have fondness for blood in their cuisine. There’s rokeg blood pie (TNG: “A Matter of Honor”, bloodwine (TNG: “Gambit, Part II”), gagh is kept in barrels of blood (LD: “wej Duj”). Bregit lung was mentioned in DS9: “Sons and Daughters”, as was grapok sauce to go with it, although they didn’t say it also had a blood component then. Heart of targ was also mentioned in “A Matter of Honor”.

Nahla says she’s got 352 years on Kelrec. She said she was 422 in “Kids These Days”, which makes him 70 years old.

The mugato mascot costume is, however, more accurate to what was seen in TOS: “A Private Little War” and LD: “Mugato, Gumato”.

Tardigrades, or water bears, are microscopic extremophiles. In the Star Trek universe, however, macroscopic alien multi-dimensional versions of them existed and were used as navigators through mycelial space for the Displacement-activated Spore Hub Drive (or spore drive) in DIS Season 1, until they figured out how to infuse tardigrade DNA into a human who then served as a navigator.

I really want those warp-core polka-dot jammies.

Reno and Lura are a couple, and she talks about how she left a “starship on the edge of creation” (Discovery) for her, so placing this after DIS Season 5. Reno mentions Ni’Vari cuisine, Ni’Var (“two-form”) being the current name for Vulcan, renamed after the reunification of the Vulcan and Romulan peoples. Krada leg is another Klingon dish.

The belaklavion (or just klavion), a Bajoran instrument, was first mentioned in TNG: “Premptive Strike”. Ro Laren claimed that her father played the klavion to drive away the monsters under her bed as a child.

The turbolift shaft at least looks normal and not like the vast eldritch space we’ve seen in DIS and ST: “Q & A”.

While obtaining Kelrec’s DNA will fulfil the trace DNA requirement of the biometric scan, simply growing an eyeball from it won’t work to replicate the retinal pattern. That’s because our retinal patterns are not determined by DNA but are formed as the blood vessels grow in utero (similar to fingerprints), and are unique even among identical twins. Either way, they would still have to have a snapshot of Kelrec’s retina.

As explained in “Beta Test”, Tamira uses a neuroinhibitor because her emphathic abilities are more intense than other Betazoids.

The Vitus Reflux is a protected species under Starfleet Regulation 268.4, which makes harming them before they reach the adult stage a crime. Separately, there is also an Endangered Species Act (DIS: “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”), which requires Starfleet captains encountering species on the list to escort them to a sanctuary.

We find out later that Nahla was one of those responsible for the original transporter prank. There are a bunch of starship models on her shelf, including what looks like an Excelsior II-class, a Galaxy-class, an Intrepid-class, an Oberth-class and even an NX-01-class.