#ds9 and voyager switch

[isagrimorie]

I think Sisko would have a very hard time on Voyager. His mind would go to the Borg long before they even have contact and Wolf 359 trauma would make it harder for him to deal with this. The way Miles was so specifically unhappy to be on DS9, the Cardassian station of all places, with his history.

Also one of the biggest strengths - that Ransom was clearly missing - is Janeway's science background. I think we also see it a bit in Tom, who idolizes the good old days. The exploration of it all. Explore new things without a safety net. When the DS9 crew ventured in the Gamma Quadrant, there was always a way back home. There is lots to talk about right there.

The DS9 character to absolutely thrive on Voyager would be Dax, well, Jadzia Dax specifically. Wise and curious, good combo. But Dax would also feel a new kind of fear, because Trill is so far away, no new host easily reachable. Could this be the end? Fascinating.

Janeway on DS9 would climb up the walls. To be stationary. She would use every chance she gets to get into the Gamma Quadrant. If she would get the whole Emissary storyline as well, I think she would be more open in some ways (so ready to embrace how these unknown aliens perceive time) and rejecting others (dealing with Winn Adami???? oh boy).

Ooh I love this thought experiment!

His mind would go to the Borg long before they even have contact and Wolf 359 trauma would make it harder for him to deal with this.

Honestly, I agree with this, I noted in a previous post that actually, Sisko and Janeway were positioned very well because their postings don’t really interact with their traumas much. The Borg were barely anything on DS9, and Janeway only had to deal with Seska, who was laser-focused on Chakotay.

A good thing… because Seska didn’t really trigger Janeway’s Cardassian triggers ala Miles.

Also one of the biggest strengths - that Ransom was clearly missing - is Janeway’s science background.

If I remember right Ransom doesn’t like direct confrontation. His style is hide and run, from what I remember all he’s ever commanded were small science vessels.

I suspect that Sisko would react to Ransom and his crew almost exactly how Janeway reacted to Ransom.

With even less pushback, because when he did the same thing with Eddington he had little pushback. Dax was even in full support of Sisko’s actions.

The DS9 character to absolutely thrive on Voyager would be Dax, well, Jadzia Dax specifically. Wise and curious, good combo

This is true! I kind of wish there was either a Dax or Garak-like character on Voyager to mix things up as Seven did. Speaking of Seven of Nine… unfortunately, I don’t and can’t see how Seven would survive beyond the first episode on a Sisko-led Voyager.

Unless maybe Dax talks him out of it? Dax would make the case that Seven would be the ‘local knowledge’ as they traverse Borg space.

Sisko would be a lot harder on Seven because of his trauma.

But because of Jake, Sisko always has a clear motive to get back to the Alpha Quadrant. It’s not just for the crew but because of his son. He doesn’t want to miss the life of his son, this would be a more bittersweet ache for Sisko, I feel.

Unless! Jake was with him during the Maquis hunting mission? On the other hand, I don’t see Sisko wanting to put Jake in danger like that, so soon after Wolf 359.

On the other end, I would love to watch Janeway butting heads with Kira Nerys, initially, because I don’t think Janeway has the same trauma as Miles had but also I don’t think she would love interacting with Cardassians either.

And, knowing the DS9 writers, I feel they would play up Janeway’s Cardassian War Record. Garak would know Janeway’s war record and I bet he would enjoy poking at Janeway.

Janeway would indulge Quark but only to a point.

But also, it would be so interesting for Scientist!Janeway to butt up against Bajoran spirituality and religion, especially if the Wormhole aliens pick her to be their Emissary. Sisko was already (initially) uncomfortable with the role, what more Janeway?

Janeway is diplomatic but her faith is in science. I think in this way, Sisko was more open, especially once he warmed up to Bajor and its cultures. I don’t know if I can see Janeway ever comfortable in the Emissary role.

Janeway vs Kai Winn would be fascinating. They’d both tear at each other with sugar-sweet smiles.

Janeway would also be pushed to make the same decisions as Sisko did in In the Pale Moonlight because just like Sisko, she takes every death personally. And the deaths during the Dominion War were constant.

It would be fascinating to see Janeway in the Siege of AR355 though just to see Janeway in another siege war. She already mentioned on Voyager how devastating that was, in her low-key way.

Saving the Cardassian was a moment that won Janeway back her soul, if not for that moment, I honestly feel Janeway would’ve been lost.

Also, I feel Janeway and the Founder would have An Enemy Mine situation instantly. Janeway would also 100% support all of Nerys’s anti-Gul Dukat moves, she’ll hide it but she will low-key condone it.

Sisko was always contemptuous of Dukat but it was never personal, Sisko had to be driven to the moment of hating Dukat. Since, again, his hate would go towards the Borg more. But for Janeway? It’s a skip towards hating Dukat.

We could also see Janeway in a more casual setting more often, maybe even date. I have a feeling even if Janeway stayed in the Alpha Quadrant, Janeway and Mark Johnson wouldn't have stayed together.

[maluron]

crying laughing rolling myself in the recovery position my doctor prescribed me 1) literally to go on a stupid walk for my stupid mental health

2) possibly to stop watching Star Trek--what he actually said was, if i loved reading i should focus on happy, feel-good books and avoid depressing books, especially set-in-wartime books and i dared not ask if it applied to tv shows too because i'm currently midway through DS9 season 5 (yay! let's put Doctor Twink through the emotional and possibly literal meat grinder!) with the menace of the Dominion War looming closer and closer and poised to go full-blown conflict in season 6 and uh well

[technowings]

Watching 'non sequitur' and you would REALLY think that star fleet (and even civilians close to it) would be used to dimensional and temporal anomalies and take them seriously. Like, there should be some protocol taught to all cadets on what to do and how to report being in such a situation.

I know it probably wouldn't make for such dramatic tv but STILL, from a world building point of view? There should be at least a small department whose entire job is to take reports and investigate these sorts of shenanaigans. The existence and size of such a department can itself be a benchmark for dimensional location/constancy.

[spirkbitch]

Complaints I’ve seen recently about Star Trek Enterprise that I now feel well equipped to argue with

-the side characters aren’t main characters

This was one Reddit, someone complaining that not every character got the same attention the Archer, Trip, and T’pol get (they also said they only watched like one season, so you know, definitely enough to judge the whole show based on that) and they didn’t like that they don’t all get character development (some people just don’t change much?)

So the captain and first officer are kind of always more important, that’s standard in Star Trek shows. obviously it’s a spectrum, TOS was very much a few main characters and a bunch of side characters, DS9 was less main character focused and switched out main characters more imo. Did that bother you when it was happening in TNG? Or Voyager? or only when it’s Enterprise? I’ll admit, TNG did have more main characters that got more focus, but it was still primarily the main 5 or 6. also like, there’s a very good, in universe, reason for why the main cast of TNG is a lot larger, did we forget that the Enterprise-D is over ten times the size of the NX-01? Did you not think maybe that’s why the cast is smaller?

- they copy episodes of older Star Trek shows (this person gave no examples so I can only assume they’re actually talking about 1-2 episodes and just generalizing because I really can’t guess what specifics they’re talking about)

So once again you’re kind of just complaining about a Star Trek show acting like a Star Trek show

That’s like, very standard. Did you hate The Naked Now? Did you dislike the mirror universe episodes, “Little Green Men” (DS9) is a direct reference to Tomorrow is Yesterday (TOS) and makes multiple callbacks within the episode. Did Trials and Tribble-ations annoy you? In voyager The Doctor constantly makes “I’m a doctor not a ———“ comments, calling back to Bones in TOS. TNG The Big Goodbye was based off of TOS A Piece of The Action. Measure Of A Man and Court Martial, I could keep going

Anyways that’s enough, I have no problem with people not liking the show, it just seems like some of them don’t have very good reasons

[staringdownabarrel]

You know what other ship I think doesn't get enough credit? The Nebula-class. Lemme give you some reasons.

I think the only other canonical ship that has a similar amount of variants is the Miranda-class, but it came out a century earlier. I think at one point someone went through the copy and paste fleet from PIC's Et in Arcadia Ego, Pt. II and found the Inquiry-class had a pretty large number of variants in that fleet as well, so there could be a similar number there, too.

Still, the Nebula-class has a huge number of variants, especially given it doesn't ever get a very heavy focus. You know, the initially shown variants had the slackjaw deflector dish, and the Phoenix had the sensor pod while the Sutherland had the tactical pod. Later on in DS9, when they switched from physical models to CGI ones, they all had the oval deflector dish like the Galaxy-class had, and some of the ones in the far background of shots had a third nacelle as the superstructure.

So by default, it's a class that could be pretty easy to write stories around. You could have stuff where this particular ship is meant for this particular role but it's caught out because it's forced to do something else, or there could be some rarely talked about niche benefit to having this setup that's suddenly really useful.

There's also not really that many drawbacks to it, either. It probably has a pretty similar amount of internal space to the Galaxy-class. The saucer section and the engineering section are the same size, and while it doesn't have the neck, it does have the superstructure to make up for it.

Because of that, the Nebula- and Galaxy-classes probably have a pretty similar crew compliment. Memory Alpha says the Nebula's crew compliment is only 750, but to be honest, that seems kinda low for a ship that size? I know crew compliments get smaller as time goes on (the Intrepid-class is a similar size to the Constitution, but Voyager had a crew of 140-160 vs. the Enterprise's 203-430), but these are contemporary classes, and the Nebula-class may have come out earlier than the Galaxy.

I think the actual crew compliment probably would be more like 900 or so. I know in canon the Enterprise-D has 1,014 people onboard, but it's never really clear how many are civilians. 900-ish Starfleet officers seems like a good number because it divides evenly into three and four shifts (300 on duty at a time for a three shift rotation, 225 at a time for a four shift one), and it is known that not everyone onboard had a civilian family with them, too. You could explain away the difference by saying that a Nebula-class didn't have families onboard, or at least that this particular one didn't.

So while there are some benefits to the different variants, it'd be tempered by the fact that just about everything you'd want to do with a Galaxy-class is probably also possible with the Nebula. It'd have a lot of the same recreational facilities, a lot of the same scientific capabilities (and maybe more, with the sensor pod variant), and so on.

I think there'd still be some edge cases where maybe the standard sensors' resolution just isn't enough to do this one thing, or maybe because the top speed of a Nebula-class is just a little bit lower, they can't run from something. However, I think those would probably most be the edge cases.

The one drawback I can kinda see there being is that maybe it's more difficult for the saucer to separate because the superstructure is right there. I don't think it'd be impossible because most ships are designed to be able to do that, even if the Galaxy-class is the only one that's ever shown to do it. I think the actual trouble for the Nebula-class would be that most captains would only do it under extenuating circumstances because it's so difficult to put it back together afterwards or because of the danger of operating large objects in tight spaces like that.

I can see the original slackjaw deflector being a drawback too, given it was replaced. Maybe from an in-universe perspective, the problem was that it required a certain inconvenient power drainage, or that it couldn't change frequencies fast enough to deal with someone guessing the shield frequency or something like that. You don't see this style of deflector dish on other ships, so maybe there was some niche benefit to it but it just never performed as well as people at Utopia Planitia hoped it would.

So there's a lot of room where a ship of this class could be used to tell stories that just aren't possible with other ships, due to it having a unique configuration and possibly some unique capabilities, depending on the variant.

My other defense of the Nebula-class is that I just think it looks cool. I don't have a well reasoned defense of this except that when I first saw The Wounded, my initial response to seeing it was, "Yeah, that's a good starship right there." So I guess it got the little staringdownabarrel stamp of approval back then, and it still does now.

[lostyesterday]

I finally finished Enterprise season 1!

Things I liked:

The cast is fun! My favorite characters are still Hoshi and T’Pol, but I really like Travis and Phlox too (although the lack of focus on Travis is tragic). I generally like Trip and Malcolm except when they’re written as being really sexist, ugh.

I’m enjoying the development of Vulcan and Andorian culture so far, although I’m really hoping for more focus on the Andorians in the rest of the show. I think I like the mixed/partially negative depiction of Vulcans from the perspective of humans. It’s interesting.

I think Enterprise is doing a surprisingly good job of being a prequel. It feels like the creators of the show put genuine effort into thinking about how the world of Star Trek would have been a century before TOS. I like the way Enterprise retroactively shows how much human and Vulcan society have changed over time. It’s not as if I love every single retroactive bit of world-building, but even the aspects I don’t like I can generally appreciate and see how there was some thought put into them (unlike some of the other Star Trek prequels tbh, I won’t name names).

The crew movie nights and the other little moments of regular life interspersed throughout episodes are great. Phlox teaching Hoshi his language, Hoshi convincing Travis to sit in the captain’s chair – all these moments go a long way toward making the crew feel like a cohesive group even when there’s not much individual development of anyone except Archer, T’Pol, and Trip.

The way the characters feel less prepared and more uncertain than the crew of any other Trek show because they’re the first and they’re making things up as they go is great too. I think Enterprise nailed that vibe for the first season of the show at least – similarly to how I think Voyager really managed to capture the vibe of being stranded far away from home, giving it a different feeling from any other Star Trek show.

My favorite episodes were The Andorian Incident and Fallen Hero.

Things I didn’t like (under the cut because I don’t want to put negativity straight into the tag):

The sexism. I was prepared for it, but it’s annoying how much (arguably) worse it is compared to the 90’s shows.

It wouldn’t exactly be accurate to say that I dislike Archer because I liked him fine in some episodes, but the fact that he’s definitely my least favorite of the main cast is irritating given that he’s the main character. Whenever T’Pol takes command of Enterprise, I find her so much more fun to watch as the captain than I do Archer.

I wouldn’t say that Enterprise season 1 has a higher proportion of bad episodes compared to the first seasons of Voyager, DS9, and especially TNG, but it does have a higher proportion of boring episodes – episodes that aren’t actively bad but that I just found myself having almost no interest in. This is 90% of the reason I took so long getting through the first season.

I’d also like to specifically complain about all the episodes that made it seem like Travis or Hoshi was going to be a major part before switching them out for Trip or T’Pol or even Malcolm at the last second. I thought the sidelining of the characters of color in Voyager was bad, but it’s even worse in Enterprise so far.

And I’d also like to complain about the episode Shadows of P’Jem which tricked me into thinking Shran would be a major part of it only for him to be in like three scenes. I can’t believe how few episodes he’s in, everyone made it sound like he was a much more major character. :(

I already complained about the Trip pregnancy episode, but I’d also like to complain about the Risa episode which was both bad in the normal ways for a Risa episode and also incredibly transphobic.

Idk what I think about Trip/T’Pol yet (I could go either way depending on how things progress), but at least it isn’t Archer/T’Pol. Every single time the writers tried to force a Moment between them was painful.

Overall opinion: I didn’t hate it! I half expected to hate it, so that’s good. So far, nothing has particularly grabbed me, but it’s significantly better than I expected, I think! I’m hoping season 2 has fewer boring episodes.

[tigereyes45]

WIP Title Game

I wasn't tagged by anyone I just wanted to play the game. XD

rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs

It's a long list but I'm hoping that answering asks and sharing snippets will help me switch into writing mode today:

Reclaiming Life Once More - A Mass Effect Grunt & Shepard focused fic

Meeting Up - A Transformers MegOptiRatch fic

Breaking Apart - A Transformers MegOptiRatch fic

Mcspirk Month 2025 Plans - Exactly what it says on the tin. XD

I'm Sorry Chekov - A Chulu, & Mcspirk fic

Between Scattered Rays of Twilight - Archer x Trip x T'Pol fic

Come Home to Us - Dragon Age Davrin/Rook/Emmrich

Our Life - Mckirk

Interim Stay - A DS9 AU featuring Odo

Voyager ideas - Various ships & characters (So many Tuvok, Janeway, and Harry-centric ideas.)

Alrighty I shall be tagging @illegalpaladin, @fruitsboots, @calliecat93, @strangenewwords, @bj-cuntycunt, @trek-tracks, @affixjoy, @twinkboimler, @yellowmagicalgirl, @kcscribbler

I'm so proud of having restricted it to just 10 WIPs on that list. (I have so very many more. XD )

[gaykarstaagforever]

The only two things that are bothering me about DS9 are

This was the start of that era of American television when everything visually started getting soft-focus and muted and poorly lit, I guess because they were switching from film to tape and the levels were different. And it looks like shit. Star Trek did it for the next ALL OF THE SERIESES. I suppose it could also be a result of trying to avoid bright stage lights that make the cast constantly sweat through the complex makeup, and to cut down on the notorious reflections on all the screen panels (which were still actual props at this point). I don't know. It still looks like shit.

The over-the-top theater kid acting is reaching levels of parody, here. Granted, Trek (and scifi in general) has always had this, primarily because you hire theater actors to do these things, because only they are willing to endure the crazy costumes and makeup at a salary that makes it all possible. And the main cast here isn't doing that. But these extras - my god. I've always trolled Babylon 5 for being Shakespeare On the Moon, but here in the show that show was ripping off, it's also too much. This makes actual soap operas look mild by comparison. I get going broad to make things seem less ridiculous than they might otherwise look. But every single angry alien extra on this station feels like a desperate highschooler trying out for Macbeth. I feel like Voyager didn't have this so much, but I don't know that show well enough at this point to be sure. Maybe it was just the style at the time. A lot of 90s movies are unbearable now because of this stilted delivery. Go try and watch Jerry Maguire. It's like a YouTube sketch.

[quinn-of-aebradore]

Get to Know Me Better tag game

Over the past few weeks I've been tagged by a couple folks for this (thank you @chronurgy @valakiir @soedblackchaos and @luddlestons !) and I am finally actually sitting down to do it XD

Last Song: Leather for Hell by Bitter Ruin

Favorite Color: I finally admitted to myself a little while ago now that it is no longer purple, but green XD so many green-themed OCs, not enough green dice to go around. Purple is still a close second, though.

Last Book: not counting The Complete Language of Herbs or The Complete Language of Trees, since those are reference guides, so it was Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands! @rainbowcaleb recommended my the first book in the series a while back and once I finally sat down and started them, I devoured them both. They're such fun reads, I love the worldbuilding and the dynamic between the leads. It got some AU ideas rattling around in my head, though they'll probably never come to fruition. Also, Shadow and Poe are the best boys ever :3

Last Movie: I really am not sure. It might've been Boy Kills World, which I watched with my dad? That was a little bit ago now though, there might've been something more recently. Very excited for Star Trek: Section 31 to come out in a few weeks though! Michelle Yeoh my beloved. That's next on the list.

Last TV Show: Been watching DS9 with my dad recently! We were watching through Voyager for a while, but switched to do a full rewatch of Lower Decks when it ended, and that's led into a DS9 watch XD just finished the S2 opening three-parter last night.

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: I will take either sweet or savory, my spice tolerance is prettyyyyy bad. It's gotten better recently (the last year or two), I've been trying to eat more spicy things, but it's still pretty low level. Would definitely reach for something sweet or savory before I went for something spicy.

Relationship Status: single and very happy about it. I do not have the time or energy for Any Of That XD

Last Thing I Googled: "what time zone is denver in" because I got a Switch Lite yesterday and couldn't remember which time zone option to pick XD (it was the Chicago one, which I had a scroll just a little bit to find) (Denver is mountain time) (I am not)

Current Obsession: Critical Role, as always, though I've also been back on the floral dragons nonsense lately, which has been fun!

Looking Forward To: I'm going to CR's Chicago liveshow in April! And then C2E2! I don't really travel, but I've said for ages that if they ever went back to Chicago for a show, I would go, and now they are, so XD it feels a little unreal that it's only three months away now but also I cannot wait.

No Pressure Tags for: @spottedenchants @flashhwing @saintspringsteen @rainbowcaleb @glossolali @marymauk @wanderingbasilisk @wizardpostingworld :3

[fast-moon]

DS9 Season 5 Thoughts

So, last season ended on... pretty much the same note season 3 ended on, which was that the Changelings had infiltrated positions of power across the galaxy. Let's see if this season they actually do anything about that.

1. Apocalypse Rising: Sisko, O'Brien, and Odo get to cosplay Klingons as they infiltrate the Empire in order to expose Gowron as a Changeling. But it turns out they had the right place, wrong guy.

2. The Ship: Sisko finds a downed Jem'Hadar ship and says "finders keepers", but a Vorta shows up and asks for it back. It takes half the crews of both sides dying before they realize that the Vorta just wanted to retrieve a sick Changeling from the ship, making the entire stand-off pointless.

3. Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places: WTF is this title and WTF did I just watch? Worf wants to make the moves on Quark's Klingon ex-wife, so Dax sexually assaults him to take his mind off it. Meanwhile, O'Brien has to keep removing himself from situations where he could cheat on Keiko with Kira because he totally would if he could.

4. Nor the Battle to the Strong: Good lord, this series was even prescient about putting yourself in dangerous situations for social media clout and then quickly getting in way over your head. At least Jake was able to admit he was a dumbass.

5. The Assignment: Keiko trolls the shit out of O'Brien by pretending to be possessed by a wraith in order to finally get some goddamn respect. That's my interpretation of this episode and I'm sticking with it.

6. Trials and Tribble-ations: lol. To be fair, I did see this specific episode back in the 90's because a friend of mine taped it and insisted I see it, but at least now I have context for who all the DS9 characters are, and it made it even funnier.

7. Let He Who is Without Sin: Dax drags Worf to Pornworld against his will, then calls him "controlling" when she does her own thing without any regard for his feelings. Then she acts all surprised when he sides with the people protesting irresponsible self-indulgence.

8. Things Past: Odo, Sisko, Dax, and Garak get Quantum Leaped into some Bajoran slaves in the past, but it turns out Odo was just having an anxiety attack over a mistake he'd made and dragged everyone else into it.

9. The Ascent: Odo and Quark get jealous of Kira and Dukat having gotten two "mortal enemies go road-tripping" episodes, decide to go on one themselves. Meanwhile, Jake and Nog become roommates, but now ironically it's Jake who's the undisciplined one while Nog is more responsible.

10. Rapture: Everyone gets new uniforms, causing Sisko to see obelisks, make maps out of his mashed potatoes, and go on crazy rants that are enough to deny Bajor entry into the Federation, eventually forcing Bashir to lobotomize him.

11. The Darkness and the Light: Someone who wasn't even part of the Cardassian military manages to covertly murder most of Kira's former resistance members, putting the competence of the actual Cardassian military to shame.

12. The Begotten: Odo's a dad... again, and has to lose the child... again. But at least he got his shapeshifting back from it.

13. For the Uniform: The Maquis start using chemical warfare against Cardassian settlements, so Sisko uses chemical warfare right back at them. And everyone's just... okay with this?

14. In Purgatory's Shadow: The episode opens teasing a Garak/Bashir road-trip, only to bait-and-switch it to a Garak/Worf road trip, only to Uno-reverse-card it back to Garak/Bashir. Also, if Bashir's been replaced by a Changeling since before the uniform switch in episode 10, then which one got frisky on Risa?

15. By Inferno's Light: Dukat gets tired of being the butt-monkey for the past couple seasons and joins the Dominion. Meanwhile, Worf spends the entire episode getting beaten up, as Worf does.

16. Doctor Bashir, I Presume?: One episode after getting the real Bashir back, the Doctor from Voyager shows up to offer to make a new fake Bashir, but then Bashir's parents show up to reveal the real Bashir has been a fake Bashir all along, so they're already all good.

17. A Simple Investigation: Odo gets his cherry popped by a woman who turns out to be a bit of a Changeling herself: in that she's actually a completely different person living under an assumed identity, and also already married.

18. Business as Usual: Quark gets roped in with some weapons dealers and sabotages the deal after learning the weapons would be used for genocide, deciding that financial bankruptcy was better than moral bankruptcy.

19. Ties of Blood and Water: Kira decides to copy Garak from a couple episodes ago and has her Cardassian father figure show up just so he can die in front of her of medical complications.

20. Ferengi Love Songs: Quark goes back to his mother's house to help other Ferengi come out of the closet.

21. Soldiers of the Empire: Worf takes an assignment on a ship with the worst Klingons in the galaxy, and Dax invites herself along because she can't imagine Worf being able to function without her telling him what to do all the time.

22. Children of Time: The crew find a planet inhabited by their descendants, who inform them they they're going to get sent back in time and then have nothing better to do but breed like rabbits. But Future Odo realizes they've already hit their time-travel quota for the season and stops it from happening.

23. Blaze of Glory: Sisko and Eddington go road-tripping to stop some missiles that don't exist, because it was all a ruse to allow Eddington to go down fighting for... basically no reason.

24. Empok Nor: O'Brien and Garak take some gold-shirts with them to go exploring a seemingly abandoned Cardassian station, with predictable results for the gold-shirts. Garak also realizes there hasn't been an outbreak of crazypox for a few seasons and wants to have his go at it.

25. In the Cards: Jake really, really wants a Pokemon card.

26. Call to Arms: The Federation is forced to abandon the station after the Dominion and Cardassians attack, but Sisko swears he'll be back because they're not about to change the title of the series to "Terok Nor".

So, now that we've left on a cliffhanger of the station being abandoned to the Dominion, I'm curious how long into the next season that status is going to remain. Even Picard getting kidnapped by the Borg only lasted until the first episode of the next season. Plus things are going to get pretty cramped if they have too many episodes with only the Defiant set to work with.

Bashir is finally growing on me now that he's abandoned his bravado and womanizing and focusing on being a doctor. He was single-handedly ruining the series for me in the first season due to being such an insufferable creep. But it's also been revealed that he's genetically enhanced, so he's still kind of annoyingly The Special in some way, but at least he doesn't rub it in people's faces.

Dax is also starting to finally develop a personality of her own, which is conceptually a plus, it's just that her newly-developed personality is really annoying. She's basically just a troll and a gossip and doesn't seem to care about how she makes other people feel. She forced herself on Worf, then he entered into a relationship with her out of what seemed like obligation, at which point she's just been incredibly controlling and manipulative of him. Which, maybe that's a Klingon thing and they go for that, but from a human perspective, it's uncomfortable.

Also, I recently learned that Nog's actor was nearly 30 while playing him here. All this time I thought he was, like, 12, but no, he is just the ultimate short king.

Also impressed at Kira's actress being able to fit back into that jumpsuit so soon after having a baby. Hopefully she'll get more episodes next season, since her pregnancy this season limited what the story could do with her.

So with that, onto the next season of Terok Nor Deep Space Nine.

[atopfourthwall]

Hasn't nearly every Star Trek production (except maybe Voyager for obvious reasons) had a uniform consistency issue? I vaguely recall one DS9 episode where everyone was wearing the grey uniforms except for one guy who looked he just stepped out of TNG.

That's mainly because Star Trek has never said ON SCREEN what its uniform policy is. The best guess we had when DS9 premiered was that space stations had a different uniform to those on starships (especially in light of Sisko going to earth and switching to a TNG uniform), but then Voyager threw that idea out, same as Generations continually switching between the two uniforms without explanation. And in the case of the episode you're referring to, they probably didn't have it in the budget yet to make admirals' uniforms for the First Contact uniforms (they would later), especially since they JUST spent all that money on the new uniforms for the entire main cast, which required fittings and backups and etc. The policy seems to be one of two things: -Uniform policy is set by whoever is in charge of the ship/outpost and most adhere to whatever is the adopted default uniform of Starfleet. They can decide what uniform design to use for their command. -New uniforms are given a test run in certain areas of Starfleet before mass adoption - there's going to be a new uniform standard but we're testing to make sure they work for interstellar relations/comfort/unforeseen problems with them.

[wikipediette]

I was so scared to get into startrek bc a mix of the fandom and the sheer size of the series makes it really hard getting into the show. And now that I've basically become obsessed with it I still feel like a shitty fan. I haven't watched every episode of the original shows. Hell I haven't even seen 1 episode of the original or ds9, I've watched a smidge of Voyager, a good chunk of next gen, the last season of picard, and all of snw and disco. And there's a lot of ppl who feel you can only really be a fan if you watch the original but like, idk the older ones are more boring to me??? Not saying that they're bad exactly just that they don't really capture my attention the way the newer ones do. But I LOVE strange new worlds and disco (I also really love next gen but I'll talk about that another day lol) and when that damn musical episode came out me and my mom were SO EXCITED (we still sing the songs) and then you go online and i saw literally everyone hating on it?? And I was so confused bc it was such a fun episode! I hate the idea that startrek has to be a super serious show that all about the science, why can't it be fun?? And I've talked about this in depth with my mother but if people WANT startrek to stay alive they need to switch it up. Want younger gens to watch??? MAKE IT MORE FUN!! I feel like snw is such a cool show and if marketed better could be a bigger thing with younger people lol, anyways this is a big ramble but I really love startrek so 🥲

[isagrimorie]

I love this scene from Deep Space Nine on ‘From the Uniform’. Inspired from ‘Run Silent Run Deep’, I love how the crew had to manually operate the Defiant to leave DS9. (Although, every time I see Kira and Sisko onboard the Defiant I always go— but who is commanding DS9 without both the CO and second in command??? There’s a reason why Ivanova stays behind while Sheridan goes around gallivanting in his Ranger ship! Who is in command when both commanding officers are gone??).

Since rewatching this moment I’ve always thought we should have seen Janeway and the Voyager crew do the same thing — maybe during Year of Hell when all their systems were shot. I love the way they kind of talk over each other a little bit and verbally convey and call out each order. And then switching between Bridge and a battered Engine room with B’Elanna conducting the chaos like she was born to it, in tandem with Janeway issuing out orders.

But I don’t think Janeway would be able to stay still at that moment, especially if it was during Year of Hell, I image she’d be like in ‘Dragon’s Teeth’ where she goes around the Bridge issuing orders as they’re attacked by the Vaadwaur and their fighters ships? Jets? Anyway, the Dragon’s Teeth ship fight once again shows how quick she is on her feet, tactically.

Janeway does her best work when she’s out manned and out gunned.

[vivianvixen]

Preface: I'll only be covering the TV shows I've seen at least partically, plus one other thing.

What's With Starfleet's Uniforms and Color?

There seems to be this odd trend in the uniforms on Star Trek to gradually reduce the amount of department-identifying coloring. Exhibit A:

Here's the one from the original and animated series. Good classic look, somehow just the most spaceman-looking getup they ever had in my eyes. Like I look at this and just go "yeah that's a guy who goes around in space." It might be because it reminds me of the Space Lego guys I had as a kid, because I'm entirely too young to have watched the original show as a youngin'. Notice how the shirt is entirely in command gold (actually chartreuse!).

Exhibit B:

Here's the original one they had on The Next Generation. I kinda like this one better than the one they switched to later, dig the piping on the shoulders, and it feels more spacemanny. But I get why they changed to the other one because this one was causing back problems because it was so tight. Same basic design, though. Never quite figured out why they swapped the colors between command and ops, maybe because the movies with Kirk & Co. made red such an iconic uniform color? But most importantly, notice how the shoulders are black, as are the sides and a bit of the tummy? It's still clearly an update on the TOS style, though.

Exhibit C:

This one originally appeared on early seasons of Deep Space Nine, apparently meant to be what they wore on starbases as opposed to starships, though they then also used it on Voyager and graudally phased it in in Generations. I like that it's a more seamless jumpsuit as opposed to the shirt and pants they had in late TNG, again making it somehow more spacemanny (yes that's an important quality). But what's with the almost reversal in the color? Now it's just the shoulders that are in department color!

Exhibit D:

This one was used in the post-Generations TNG movies as well as later seasons of DS9 and you have got to be kidding me! They swapped the colors of the shoulders and the undershirt, so now you can only see the department color around the collar!

Exhibit E:

Continuing in linear time, this is the standard uniform style from Star Trek Online, seen here worn by one Captain Nog. The department color is barely noticable. This is a travesty.

And finally, Exhibit F:

I have nothing bad to say about the uniform from Enterprise. Where the TOS one screams "spaceman," this one says "astronaut." And that's awesome, it's a really nice midpoint between, like, NASA and Starfleet. And look at all those pockets! So handy! I love this one, and while the department color is minimal, at least it's back to the original ones!

[fourthreee]

Saw a post a while back about favourite and least favourite bits of star trek and I wanted to join in. So here's my two cents :

Original Star Trek

Favourite: Spock. Bones. Scotty. Uhura. Kirk. Chapel. Sulu. Chekov. EVERYONE. The sets. The lighting. The camp. The blatant homoeroticism. The do or die for each other crew. That time they found an alien that was just a pomeranian wearing fancy headgear. The fact that every episode is self contained and ends with a little bit where everyone stands around the conn and chats. Leonard Nimoy. Sulu with a sword. Sulu the rest of the time.EVERYONE. This is my favourite trek, and the one I return to over and over again. First trek is best trek.The bell bottom trousers and cuban heel knee high boots. More kinky boots, modern trek, d'ya hear me? More kinky boots.

Least favourite: When the show reveals how terribly it can abandon everything that makes it good. Of all the episodes, there's about a third I just cannot watch. Times where they fill it full of weird christian metaphor.

TNG

Favourite: Geordie and Data. And Spot. I keep trying to watch this but I've only ever seen A Fistful of Datas. IT was great. And horribly horribly slow. (oh. And one where Picard chases bandits through the ship armed only with a saddle and while dodging a laser car wash. That one was great. Except for when I rewatched this as an adult. When it was horrifying.)

Least favourite: Invented the holodeck which gets used too much later and which always confuses me. Can't watch holodeck episodes without obsessing over how it works. Everything is carpeted and it panics me. Why are there wall to wall carpets in the future. In high traffic areas. Also it was genrerally too slow and difficult to watch. And whil I love Hornblower I have neither a headmaster nor a Naval Captain fetish, so Picard never does it for me.

DS9

Favourites: Everyone. Everyone together. I want Sisko to be my dad. Or my friend. Or my Captain. All of the above. Julian Bashir trans icon. Jadzia Dax trans icon. Everyone is poly and queer. Ferengi episodes. Kira Nerys lesbian energy. Every 36 hours I turn into a liquid. I can swim. The whole Odo marrying Lwxwna episode. Our Man Bashir. He was more than a hero. He was a Union Man. It's written all over his back.

Least favourite : When they switched to serialised I do struggle to keep watching. Taking away Kira's butch haircut and stompy boots. Show never recovered from that. Any time they give Kira a beard. I've never finished the series bc I couldnt face the Julian/parents arc or the Jadzia death/Julian and Ezri thing. When they stopped Andrew Robinson from being on screen with Siddig El Fadil. Any time Dukat got more than a minute airtime. Any executive decision Rick Berman made.

Voyager:

Favourites: Seven of 9. Harry Kim. Janeway. B'elanna. The time they all opereated the French Resistance out of a bar. Stand alone episodes. The time Janeway definitely slept with Amerlia Earhart. The time Janeway ran around in a dirty singlet with a big gun. That episode where they hide the telepaths in the buffers of the transporters to sneak past a moustache twirling villain while Janeway flirts with him like they're both opponent pirate captains with insane homoerotic tension. Ther's coffee in that nebula.

Least favourites: The Doctor. Seven not getting a uniform. Tom Paris any time he's not just Harry Kim's boyfriend. Janeway's inconsistent characterisation. The fact that phages might be a real world last line defence against antibiotic resistance but thanks to voyager it will always terrify me. I've never made it to the end because Tom/B'elanna was too hard to watch and I didn't know how to deal with them actually getting home. Ithink they never should have. Any executiev decision Rick Berman made.

Enterprise:

Favourites: I have seen two episodes and Hoshi Sato has my heart forever. Phlox is great. Tight-wound angry queer british guy can stay too. Travis is great. Theme song is terrible and I love it. It's so incongruent. Sounds like the sort of country song you listen to while committing suicide in the bathtub. Can't stop singing it. The fact that it killed Rick Berman's career.

Least favourite: Everything else. The dog in particular. Why is it there. Why is it soulless. Poor Jolene Blalock. Why are their uniforms so bad. I love a jumpsuit but they didn't colour code them properly! Every executive decision Rick Berman made.

JJ Abrams:

Favourites: Nothing. This is terrible.. If you can't make up you own characters why are you butchering my boys. Go away.

Least Favorites: Trying to remake wrath of Khan (the worst movie with the original cast imo) without even bothering to buiild the relationship that makes us care. Why is he still white? Why are they in a brewery? Why is Pike a hot dad now? He's a wreck of the american masculine heroic ideal who exists as a counterpoint to Kirk. If tumblr wants to make his doomed ass a poor little meow meow fine. JJ Abrams shouldnt put him in his movie. Every exectuive decision they made about women in this movie. Making Sulu gay in massive disrespect to Takei's depiction of him and Takei's own acting skills. Making everyone else straight in the worst possible way. Pretending miniskirts in 2009 meant the same thing as in 1969. Also I stoppped after the first couple because it was starting to feel like i was just doing to make myself mad. Blue orbs. The fact their chracterisation feels like if you'd never seen star trek but a cabbie had explained it you once badly, and the fact that literally WAS WHAT HAPPENED

Oh wait. Leonard Nimoy cameo. only good thing. Oh and Karl Urban letting DeForest Kelly ride him the whole film

Discovery.

Favourites: Wanted to love it. Couldn't see what was going on because it was too dark. Everytime I tried in spite of that I fell in love with many parts of it, then they immediately fucked it over. Michael Burnham? In jail for unfair reasons. Cap. Georgiou? Dead. Burnham should be Captain, and I think she still isn't. I don't know I couldnt see. Etc etc. Apparently it gets better but It's too serialised to start in the middle.

Least Favourites: Too dark. Bad uniforms (Why would you bring back the ENTERPRISE uniforms of all things?) The fact that klingons are now middle eastern coded so that they still align with the zeitgeist of who we're being xenophobic again right now. (OOHscary FIGHTYculture is Russian. No WAIT black. NO middle eastern. yeah) Jason Isaacs. I liike my villains NOT on the crew. Personal preference but it's just not my kind of star trek when it's this dark. Thematically and visually. Why does EVERYONE have to be related to Spock (ok this one dates back to tos and it's annoying if funny there too)

Lower Decks: I don't do this format of cartoons.

Prodigy: Favourite: its a kids show and has those priorities but I had a surprising amount of fun. Usually I don't do animation but this is relatively watchable.Despite feeling like it's also star wars and Indiana Jones and a ton of other types of story all at once, they also captured Star Trek better than any of the other modern ones. Janeway. Og murph. Wesley Crusher cameo. REFERENCE TO OPERATION ANNIHILATE MY BELOVED!

Least Favourites: Janeway being given physiology of a Barbie doll. Murph being turned from a intelligent adult slug with dog energy into a pointless toddler. It would have been kinder to kill him. Desynchronization of voice and face in a way that makes it tiring to watch (I'm just fussy about animation). Janeway in a singlet revival ruined by aforementioned Barbie physique. Give me older fatter buffer Janeway!

SNW:

Too dark to see. Also stop just redoing the original characters. Make your own. For years now I get excited about new Star Trek and it ALWAYS either too dark to see or too animated to see or just about tos characters done badly. At which point I'll just go watch tos. Also remember when Star Trek uniforms actually looked futuristic? Yeah, me too. I know everyone likes this one there's probably a lot of good in it but I can't get into it.

Turn the lights back on and maybe we can talk. And at least Rick Berman isn't involved.

[mr-geargrinder]

Star Trek Rewatch Thoughts

Finished my rewatch of DS9, Voyager, and TNG. I've lost count of how many times I've rewatched TNG and DS9, but this was only my second time going through Voyager, because it just didn't click with me the first time through. Anyways, here's some thoughts.

TNG is fascinating to me because you can see them assembling the show as they go. They change plans pretty drastically, remove and bring back characters, and try to salvage others with a few last minute episodes. That left a permanent mark on the way I think about storytelling.

TNG is a pretty goofy show, but it takes itself seriously and there's a lot to be said about how dedication to the bit and some really charming actors doing their best can totally overshadow cheap sets and silly technobabble... and even when it doesn't, those goofy moments are still very charming too.

I only skipped a handful of episodes and most of them were Troi or Wesley episodes, for obvious reasons. Troi got a lot of bad episodes and Wesley is... Wesley. Someone who kind of embodied all the worst parts of Gene Roddenberry's silly utopian wish fulfillment fantasies. One of the things that I never noticed before was how the last season was filled with so many bad episodes, followed by one of the best series finales ever made.

Voyager was less bad than I remember. I found myself liking certain characters a lot more and hating others much more intensely. Janeway, Tuvok, and Neelix really clicked with me this time. I recall Neelix being hated for being the silly comic relief character, but he's got some depth! He's a sincerely, genuinely good person who is trying his hardest for the people around him and that really resonated with me this time around. Especially his interactions with Tuvok (minus the Tuvix episode).

Tom Paris ended up being the guy I liked the least because his three traits are "pilot", being a general shithead, and reminding Harry about every single time he messed up romantically in a list, over and over, and none of that really helped them sell him as a roguish hotshot with a heart of gold, or whatever. He's just a shithead.

Skipping episodes helped me to enjoy Voyage a lot more. Almost anything to do with Chakotay was skipped immediately. His bullshit tribal mysticism, literally made up by a con-artist who convinced Hollywood he was a Native American and an expert cultural consultant, did not endear him to me in any way. Robert Beltran did his best to portray the character with dignity and wisdom, but Chakotay just suuuuucks. The inclusion of the Maquis subplot was also a pretty big waste of effort, but the fact that it gets ignored for most of the series makes it easy for me to ignore.

Anything to do with the Kazon got skipped too. They're just lamer, dumber, more irrational Klingons and they have nothing of value to add to any story they're featured in. That also meant skipping a lot of the Seska plot, which was Chakotay heavy anyways, and I don't regret that. Seska was not compelling at all.

Likewise, the Vidiians got skipped without hesitation. Not only do I hate the body horror aspect, but they were an attempt to create a sympathetic monster faction in Trek, but they're just.... irredeemably bad. There's no reason for anyone to allow the Vidiians to keep living. Not because of their disease, but because they are organ stealing monsters who hack random people to bits to extend their lifespans a tiny bit, so they can keep stealing more organs. No thank you. Fuck off. Go away. There's a reason no one talks about you.

DS9 remains my favorite Star Trek. It's got some rough episodes, and it struggles at time between being a planet/anomaly/random-space-threat of the week and a smaller scale, single-location focused kind of story, but the entire cast does a fantastic job of switching between the two without skipping a beat.

I don't think there's a single character on DS9 that I can say I dislike and the few I could complain about are mostly ones who were there for a single episode or just didn't have the benefit of a few more seasons to develop them as much as we got with characters like Jake and Nog. Speaking of which, Jake and Nog are such a perfect example of how you can have kid characters in a trek show and have them work and develop naturally and feel like a natural part of the story.

One of the things that struck me that never occurred to me before is that DS9 is a show that is very, very much about the concept of "home" and all the complex ways the character interpret and grapple with that concept. Quark and Garak have a fantastic scene towards the end of the series where they both commiserate about how their home planets are changing rapidly and how they'll never be able to return to the planets they once knew. It's kinda there in nearly every character and plot and it's really fascinating.

I think the only episodes I skipped were a few of the "It's time to make O'Brien suffer!" episodes, and that one specific episode where they meet that insane lady who forces her anti-technology beliefs on everyone by lying to them and abusing them, and the moral of the story is "actual this is good and she's right!" -- Fuck that episode. I'd rather watch the board game episode.

The last stretch of the Dominion War is a little uneven, but it's still a strong arc overall. Could've maybe done without the Pah-Wraith stuff, and the Ezri and Bashir subplot is a little weak, but those are nitpicks.

Anyways, go watch Star Trek.