Star Trek Social Club

• The episode begins where “Hegemony” ended, with Captain Pike [Anson Mount] in a state of shock as the Gorn starships attack the USS Enterprise.

• Number One [Rebecca Romijn] suggests jamming the Gorn communications so they can’t co-ordinate attacks, similar to how in the Kelvin universe, the the crew aboard the USS Franklin was able to override the drone swarm’s signal in “Star Trek Beyond”. Presumably due to budgetary constraints, Uhura uses a Beastie Boys soundalike as opposed to actually broadcasting “Sabotage” this time.

    • It was established that the Gorn use light for ship to ship messaging in “Memento Mori”

• Spock [Ethan Peck] suggests tagging the Gorn destroyer with an element called wolkite that will allow it to be tracked through subspace. In “Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country” Spock put a viridium patch on Kirk’s uniform so that he and Doctor McCoy could be tracked after being taken prisoner by the Klingons. And, in “Star Trek Beyond” Spock suggests a necklace he gave Uhura could be used to locate her thanks to its unique radiation, though he claims he did not originally intend to gift his girlfriend a tracking device.

• Season three opening credits changes:

    • There is a slightly different angle on the close up of the bussard collector

    • At approximately 42 seconds in, the season two opening featured a port side profile the saucer bathed in an orange light, whereas the season three iteration shows the ship traveling through a green gas cloud

    • At approximately 51 seconds, the season two opening showed a close-up of the secondary hull as the sEnterprise travelled away from a glowing orb at about a ¾ angle, and in season three, we have a low angle on the starboard side of the secondary hull which pulls out to reveal the ship traveling away from a fiery burst

    • Season two’s opening showed the Enterprise traveling through the atmosphere of a planet with what appears to be extremely large plant stalks at 55 seconds, and season three’s intro does the same, but this time it appears to be at night, whereas season two’s was in the morning

    • About 67 seconds into the season two opening, the Enterprise is flying towards a tower in a planetary atmosphere, and in season three, we see it traveling through planetary ring with a Klingon D7 battlecruiser in the foreground

    • At 70 seconds in, on the season two opening, the Enterprise is flying through the planetary ring, but there’s no Klingon ship and the asteroids are on fire, and in the season three sequence, the Enterprise is flying towards the aforementioned tower, but the landscape is snow and ice, as opposed to clouds or mist

    • Approximately 72 seconds in, and the Enterprise is flying through an asteroid field in the season two opening, and in season three it’s is flying in orbit of a tiny green planet

    • Season two’s opening has the same tiny green planet sequence at approximately 75 seconds, and season three’s intro features a shuttlecraft leaving the shuttlebay before the Enterprise warps away

    • At 77 seconds, in season two, the Enterprise is flying above some glowing green volcanoes or craters, and in season three we see one of Starbase One’s biome pods with some mountains surrounded by water, with the shot eventually zooming out to show more of the starbase and the attending fleet; In addition to Enterprise and other Constitution-class, or Sombra-class starships, spaceframes featured include:

      • What appears to be design inspired by the NX-01

      • A freighter with a number of cargo pods

      • A starship with underslung nacelles and a dorsal mission pod

    • Approximaety 80 seconds in to season two’s opening, we see a Starbase One biome pod with a snowcapped mountain

• When the Enterprise drops out of warp into the fleet, we see the USS Pablo Picasso, which is the same spaceframe as the USS Kelcie Mae from “Under the Cloak of War”.

    • There appears to be Nimitz-class starships with new, cylindrical nacelles, as part of the fleet.

• In Pike’s ready room we see a close up of the star map, featuring part of the Gorn Hegemony’s claimed territory, and just outside that territory is the Cestus system; a colony on Cestus III being attacked by the Gorn in “Arena” was that episode’s inciting incident; the Gorn captain claimed that the Federation colony were invaders into their space.

• Pelia [Carol Kane] and Scotty [Martin Quinn] attempt to integrate the device he created to hide his shuttle from the Gorn, as mentioned in “Hegemony”, into the Enterprise systems.

    • Martin Quinn has been added to the cast as one of the stars of the show.

• La’an has flashbacks to her time as prey on a Gorn breeding world as an adolescent, which we learned about in the series premiere, “Strange New Worlds”.

• George Samuel Kirk [Dan Jeannotte] speculates that the digestive chamber that he and the rest of the away team were placed in breaks down living bodies to create fuel for the Gorn destroyer, which would indicate that a bunch of rendered humanoids can somehow power an absolutely massive ship capable of warp, and with seemingly impenetrable shields. Guess the Federation should feel silly for relying on matter/anti-matter reactions.

    • Doctor M’Benga [Babs Olusanmokun posits that the digestive chamber might simply be making food for the Gorn. What both he and Sam fail to realize is that the Gorn are using the biomass to create a giant, Kaiju sized Gorn that they’ll need to assemble a team to go on a suicide mission to defeat, but if they’ve got enough Paragon or Renegade points they’ll be able to complete the mission without losing anyone.

• Chapel [Jess Bush] and Spock speculate they could use a Number One’s genetically modified Illyrian DNA to fortify Captain Batel’s [Melanie Scrofano] human system to give her a chance of surviving the Gorn parasites hatching. We learned that Number One is Illyrian and her genetic modification is able to prevent all sorts of problems, up to and including a warp core overload, in “Ghosts of Illyria”.

• The screen in Pike’s ready room shows a map of the Finibus system, the Galdonterre system, and the Kessik system.

    • Enterprise visited Finibus III in “Memento Mori” and found that the colony there had been attacked by Gorn.

    • The Albino hid on Galdonterre III and escaped before Kor, Koloth, and Kang could locate him, as per “Blood Oath”

    • We learned in “Prophecy” that B’Elanna Torres was born on Kessik IV.

• ”Uhura and I have been pouring over all available data on the Gorn.” When Kirk asked Spock about information regarding intelligent life in the region of space near Cestus III, Spock replied, ”Nothing specific, Captain. Unscientific rumours only. More like space legends.”

• Number One tells Pike that Gorn sightings correlate to coronal mass ejections, something Sam speculated in “Hegemony”.

• Chapel and Spock wear red biohazard suits, seemingly inspired by the ones worn by the away team that visited the Psi 2000 Federation outpost in “The Naked Time”

• ”If this goes sideways, it’s Valeo Beta all over again.” The *Enterprise was dispatched to Valeo Beta V in “All Those Who Wander” and found Gorn.

• ”Enterprise, against an entire armada? We wouldn’t stand a chance.” Enterprise and the USS Discovery held off an armada of automated Section 31 starships, including Enterprise covering Discovery’s escape through a time portal, in “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2”.

• La’an’s brother, Manu, was previously mentioned in “Memento Mori” and “All Those Who Wander”.

• This is the first instance of Gorn text being seen on screen. The TNG comic, “The Gorn Crisis” also featured a Gorn alphabet, but it was not the same symbols as shown here.

• Enterprise was able to beam out ”several hundred” surviving Parnassus colonists from the Gorn destroyer in a matter of less than a minute, through critical levels of radiation, and their own shields. In “Crisis Point”, Rutherford exclaimed, “It’s a movie. You can beam whatever you want. You can do all sorts of beaming stuff in a movie.”* No, wait, that doesn’t actually apply here.

• ”I can’t help wondering if we didn’t create a problem for someone else to solve later.” “Arena” takes place about seven years after this episode, and by that point the Federation will have apparently have forgotten all knowledge of the Gorn.

• ”I’m Erica Ortegas. I fly the ship,” Ortegas’ [Melissa Nevia] catchphrase originated in “Among the Lotus Eaters”.

• Pike begins to pray after saying his father won. We learned in “New Eden” that his father taught comparative religion.

• Batel objects to Number One’s genetically modified Illyrian DNA being used in her treatment. Batel was responsible for persecuting the case against Number One for lying on her Starfleet application.

My brother said that he will watch an episode of Trek with me when I visit my family in October.

I am wonder what the best single episode to show him is. He has not seen anything Trek before.

I am thinking something that is newer, but not necessarily.

Anyway, what do you think would be good?

The title is named after the eponymous 1966 Laura Nyro song which was more famously covered by The 5th Dimension in 1969. It has lent its name to various other media, including a movie, an episode of Gilmore Girls, as well as an episode of Cheers. It’s sung from the point of view of a woman wanting her boyfriend to marry her. 

The Stardate is 2251.7, three months after the events of SNW: “Hegemony, Part II”. The Federation Day Centennial being 3 days away places the Earth year as 2261. Various non-canon sources give different dates for Federation Day, ranging from an unused newspaper clipping from Generations giving the date as October 11 to May 8 in Geoffrey Mandel’s Star Charts. 

The music being played as we move through a Starbase One biodome (SNW: “Strange New Worlds”) is “Hacker De Tu Piel” by Lavanda Son, a Venezuelan tropical salsa band. 

Chapel has returned from her three month fellowship and brings along with her Dr Roger Korby (her future fiancé as per TOS: “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”). Korby was played in the TOS episode by Michael Strong. In that episode, Spock referred to Korby as the Pasteur of archeological medicine, whose translation of old Orion records revolutionised immunization techniques. Of course, in the original, there is no hint that Korby and Spock had met before. In any case, if the timeline in the original still holds, Korby will disappear on Exo III within the year. Cillian O’Sullivan, who plays him in SNW, has an Irish accent which Strong did not display.

As Spock digests the information that Korby is Chapel’s date, the background music echoes the “fight music” from TOS: “Amok Time”, indicating his jealousy.

Ortegas’s personnel file seen in SNW: “Among the Lotus Eaters” seemed to mention only one sibling, Fabiola (a feminine name). Here her brother is named “Beto”, which a nickname for Spanish names that end in “-berto”.

Pike does have an impressive array of medals (Memory Alpha lists 17), and in 2256 was ranked among the most decorated captains in Starfleet (DIS: “Choose Your Pain”). Batel makes a crack about Pike’s hair products, a rather meta joke considering the Internet memes about his hair.

The closed captioning says “Tilarian Star Gems”, but it could be “Talarian”, a race first seen in TNG: “Suddenly Human”. The Talarian Republic encompasses at least two Alpha Quadrant star systems in the 24th Century.

The second act resets to the same opening narration of the first act (similar to TNG: “Cause and Effect”), but then takes it into different events - the celebration of Spock and Chapel’s wedding instead of the Federation Day Centennial. 

One of the items on the wedding checklist is for a wedding licence and Pike’s approval, giving us a clue as to the legal requirements for a wedding for Starfleet personnel. 

Kal-if-fee refers to part of the traditional Vulcan wedding ceremony (the kun-ut-kal-if-fee), specifically where the bride opts for a ritual challenge where two males fight for the right to mate with her (“Amok Time”).

Korby says he’s checked himself for phase variances to see if he’s in an alternate dimension. As we learned from TNG: “Parallels”, each parallel universe (and its inhabitants) has its own quantum signature. Spock refers to an improbability field that once made the crew sing (SNW: “Subspace Rhapsody”). 

The entity says, “Greetings and many felicitations”. In TOS: “The Squire of Gothos”, Trelane’s first message to Enterprise is “Greetings and Felicitations”. His snapping of fingers is also reminiscent of Trelane and Q. The possible relationship between Trelane and the Q has been the result of much fan speculation and made explicit in some licensed fiction (the late and much lamented Peter David’s Q-Square being the best example). 

Scotty’s claim that he’s not much of a drinker is belied by his conduct during TOS, especially when he literally drinks the alien Tomar under the table in TOS: “By Any Other Name”. 

Korby’s remark about “wishing us all into a cornfield” is a reference to the classic Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life”, where Bill Mumy (who would later star in DS9: “The Siege of AR-558”) plays a malevolent child with immense reality-altering powers who banishes people who defy him to “the cornfield”, where they are never seen again. 

Spock quotes from Pablo Naruda’s Love Sonnet XI as part of his vows (and I believe it was also quoted earlier when he was speaking with Korby). 

While no names are mentioned, I think it’s pretty clear it is Trelane (he even lets loose with a “Tally Ho!”), and his father, appropriately enough is voiced by John de Lancie, namely Q. Why Spock doesn’t remember this when “The Squire of Gothos” comes around is now an open question. Trelane also mentions an unnamed “old home world” Korby was digging around in and that he is 8,020 years old.  

The song that closes out the celebrations is, of course, “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” by 80s pop duo Wham!. And it appears that Ortegas was more affected by her encounter with the Gorn than we thought although whether it’s PTSD (like Keyla Detmer in DIS) or something more sinister remains to be seen.

We discovered that the Gorn used light for ship-to-ship communications in SNW: “Memento Mori”, and in that episode they used it to fool one Gorn ship into firing on another. 

The first mention of wolkite, a rare mineral which apparently contains “subspace gauge bosons”. Gauge bosons are an elementary subatomic particle that acts as a messenger particle that carries forces for fermions (don’t ask me to explain further - I’m a lawyer, dammit, not a particle physicist), which apparently can be tracked with sensors. Let’s roll with it.

Inertial dampeners create subspace fields which protect crewmembers from the worst effects of acceleration and deceleration, especially when moving at faster than light speeds (VOY: “Tattoo”). This tells us that ships at warp speeds experience intertial effects, and that subspace fields affect inertial mass, both which run counter to claims that *Star Trek* warp drives run on the same principles as Alcubierre drives.

There is a slight blurring effect on the bridge as *Enterprise* moves to warp, reminiscent of the “wormhole effect” in *TMP* and when *Bounty* goes into time warp in *ST IV*. 

Chapel says that without certain shots, Batel’s tissues might turn necrotic in the statsis field. Why exactly this would be the case, if a stasis field is designed to suspend all cellular growth, is not explained - unless it only prevents growth and not decay. Epinephrine is another name for adrenaline, and can be used to prevent cardiac arrest and anaphylactic shock, among others. Batel is allergic to cryoserum and hence can’t be put into stasis. So stasis isn’t just some kind of force field but also involves cryogenic suspension as well? I have so many questions…

Joseph (M’Benga) isn’t around because he was part of the landing party kidnapped by the Gorn at the end of SNW: “Hegemony”.

April says the Federation is still recovering from the Klingon War (2256-2257), which occured in DIS Season 1, some 2-3 years prior. Chapel and M’Benga served in that war (SNW: “Under the Cloak of War”). 

As we learned in“Hegemony”, Pelia was one of Scotty’s engineering instructors at the Academy. Scotty better get used to working under time pressures, considering what he’s going to face in the years to come (at least, until he starts padding estimates).

La’an was the sole survivor, as a child, of her colony ship SS *Puget Sound* which was captured by the Gorn. The person she sees in her dream is Manu, her brother, who sacrificed himself for her during that time. He discovered the Gorn’s use of light as communication, and passed that knowledge on to La’an (“Memento Mori”). 

Scotty says “bawheid!” which is a Scottish invective meaning a stupid person (originally a person with a round face/head). *Stardiver* was Scotty’s previous assigment which was attacked by the Gorn (“Hegemony”). 

I will not, for the moment, debate the plausibility of the Gorn relying entirely on instrumentation and not visuals for their ships.

Una says that the radiation in the binary star system is so intense that they can only use impulse and shields won’t protect them. This reminds me of the conditions in the Mutara Nebula in *ST II*, where the static discharge and gas rendered visual and shields useless (*Enterprise*’s warp drive was out, anyway). 

Debulking surgery is a type of surgery used to reduce the size of cancerous tumours, commonly used in cases of ovarian cancer. 

Some Illyrians still use genetic engineering among their community, which is against Federation laws (SNW: “Ghosts of Illyria”, “Ad Astra Per Aspera”), hence the use of Una’s blood being against regulations. 

The screen at Una and Uhura’s briefing first shows the Finibus system which featured in “Memento Mori”, and then the Galdonterre system which was mentioned in DS9: “Blood Oath” as a place where the Albino hid from Kang, Kor and Koloth. Both  are in the Beta Quadrant. The larger scale map also shows systems where CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) events have occured, stellar events which trigger Gorn attacks.

X-class flares are the largest category of solar flares, which can cause radio blackouts and trigger radiation storms in the upper atmosphere. Supra-arcade downflows are sunward-traveling plasma voids seen during solar flares, which appear as voids because they are less dense than surrounding plasma. 

“A couple of litres” of Una’s blood seems like a lot - a human body typically holds about 5 litres of blood, so 2 litres is like 40% of your volume, which would send you into severe hypovolemic shock. Maybe they meant pints.

Valeo Beta V was where SNW: “Not All Those Who Wander” took place, where the USS *Peregrine* crashed after a Gorn hatchling outbreak on board. 

Pike’s strategy is similar to how Picard defeated the Borg in TNG: “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”, by sending a command to put them to sleep. While it works for now, Pike’s concern about whether they’ve just kicked the can down the road foreshadows Kirk’s future encounter with the Gorn about six years later in TOS: “Arena” (which has to be quite extensively retconned given the events in SNW). 

“I’m Erica Ortegas, I fly the ship,” was the mantra that kept Ortegas focused while a memory sapping field was affecting everyone during the events of SNW: “Among the Lotus Eaters”.

Pike reluctantly starts to recites the Lord’s Prayer, saying to his father, “You win.” Pike’s father was a science teacher who also taught comparative religion, who died some time previous (SNW: “Those Old Scientists”) and with whom he had a contentious relationship.

I wanted a very 90s web-feeling GIF of a TOS science division badge(technically animated WEBP, but whatever), so I threw together the badge in Inkscape, then imported it into Blender to do animation and rendering.

I decided to make the border gold instead of the canon black, as it just looks every so slightly cooler during the spin animation in a very dumb way. I also went for metallic rather than trying to mimic embroidery because I was lazy.

• This is the 40th, and ostensibly final episode of “Star Trek: Prodigy”.

    • During the episode, Wesley Crusher tells Dal that the reason the Protogies have to stick together ”hasn’t happened yet.” Maybe we’ll get some more PRO stores in comics or novels.

• The swarms of Loom flowing out of the wormhole above Solum is reminiscent of the extragalactic synths reaching through the portal in the PIC season one finale, “Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 2”.

• ”Once more into the breach,” Janeway misquotes “Henry V”. General Chang got the quote right in “Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country”, and a season seven DS9 episode also used the correct quote as its title.

    • In “Equinox, Part II”, Janeway described a message meant to communicate with nucleogenic lifeforms as ”Not exactly Shakespeare,” and apparently she’s an expert on that topic.

• The EMH back-up module was first mentioned in “Living Witness”.

• Dal places his combadge on the floor of the USS Protostar’s bridge for the younger Rok-Tahk to find, as she did in “Lost and Found”.

• We get a mini-clipshow, featuring scenes from: “Lost and Found”, “Starstruck”, “Dreamcatcher”, “Terror Firma”, “Time Amok”, “Supernova, Part II”, “Asylum”, “All the World’s a Stage”, “Crossroads”, “Masquerade”, “Preludes”, “Last Flight of the Protostar, Part I”, “Observer’s Paradox”, “Is There in Beauty No Truth”, “The Devourer of All Things, Part I”, “Last Flight of the Protostar, Part II”, “Cracked Mirror”,

• We see Tars Lamora again as the Protostar sets down. The series began here with the Protogies as slaves in “Lost and Found”.

• Janeway records the stardate as 62134.8 in her personal log.

• The crate two Vau N’Akat load on to a shuttle has the Daystrom Institute logo on it.

• Doctor Crusher’s desk features a plaque commemorating her away team being declared honourary citizens of Cor Caroli V, as mentioned in Allegiance. The plague was previously seen in “The Next Generation”.

• Doctor Crusher introduces Wesley to his brother, who we learned about in “Disengage”. The scene cuts before we see Doctor Crusher asking Wesley if he can use his Traveler powers to alter time so she wouldn’t be 60 year old woman raising a toddler whom she conceived with a 79 year old man who doesn’t even know he’s a father.

• Zero and Maj’el do Vulcan finger touching in a disgusting public display of affection. The practice was first seen in “Journey to Babel”.

• ”Jankom is practically royalty. Again!” Jankom first decided he was Tellarite royalty in “Asylum” after learning Tellarites were founding members of the Federation.

• ”I heard Admiral Janeway first wanted to be a science officer.” Janeway did serve as science officer on the USS Al-Batani.

• A display shows news coverage of the synthetic attack on the Utopia Planitia shipyards, as seen in “Maps and Legends” and “Children of Mars”.

• The Starfleet admirals we see have switched to new uniforms, first seen in the flashback in “The End is the Beginning”. Both Picard and Raffi were wearing the uniform there, despite her not being an admiral.

• Jellico states that due to the synth attack on Mars, Starfleet has lost personnel and materiel such to the point that they have so few resources they don't have enough combadges to upgrade half the fleet. In "Maps and Legends" Admiral Clancy stated that they didn't have enough ships left to maintain the Federation and continue to assist in the Romulan evacuation.

    • They apparently do have enough resources for new uniforms, though.

• Jellico claims Picard did not take the news of Starfleet halting their aid of the Romulan evacuation well. We learned in “The End is the Beginning” that he resigned his commission in protest.

• Janeway assigns the Protogies to crew a new Protostar-class starship, the USS Prodigy NCC-81084.

    • The Protogies are also given field commissions to ensign.

    • The Emergency Janeway Hologram refers to the Prodigy as the “Protostar”.

• The EJH has been upgraded from training hologram to emergency training hologram, an idea the Doctor first suggested in “Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy”, which he alludes to.

• The Protogies get an entirely new, entirely hideous uniform of their own to end the series.

I just had an amazing idea, that I need in my life.

William Shatner needs to perform a spoken word rendition of "Pants on the ground", in the spirit of "Rocketman".

Let's crowdfund this, and make it happen.