#tamarians

[danshive]

An example of me being those aliens from Star Trek who only speak in references is when I quote Ina from Hololive saying "they don't know I'm/you're Ina" in reference to an unknown true identity.

The situation will have nothing to do with Ina, but the reference quote has that meaning for me.

[purplespacekitty]

Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel

I usually just do a few pictures from multiple episodes for these posts but the unhinged commentary between my friend @petracourtjester and I throughout this one was too good to not share. Plus, it’s “Darmok”.

For some context, this is her 1st time watching Star Trek and my 3rd time (I think?) watching "Darmok" specifically. First time I watched it I was too young to really understand what was happening.

Previous Many Days In the Life of a Trekkie posts: part 1, part 2

[cappadocius]

Y'all keep talking about Kayshon picking up his Naruto run from his human colleagues, but you're sleeping on the funniest answer - that is just how Tamarians run.

[doctorslippery]

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The Beattles went to #1 on the music charts of the Children of Tama...and stayed there...forever.

[noctumsolis]

Imagine if Data, after encountering the Tamarians in Darmok, had undertaken a diplomatic mission embedding himself in their culture. He could have spent a lifetime learning to understand them and their conceptual framework.

[sshbpodcast]

Top 3 Star Trek The Next Generation alien races

By Ames

Now that we’ve reminisced over our favorite minor characters and favorite villains from The Next Generation, A Star to Steer her By is rounding off our cruise on the Enterprise-D by thinking about our favorite alien races from the series. We did it before for The Original Series and found some deeply fascinating and outrageously campy aliens to highlight then, so what kind of aliens does one pick for The Next Generation? There are way more episodes to choose from and the aliens are more than just humans in a flashy jumpsuit, so let’s see them strut their stuff.

Sure, we see some of the staples that were introduced in the days of Kirk. The Klingons and Romulans both get significantly more development in culture in this slightly more modern show, and the occasional Vulcan still looks down their nose at you. But some of the best Trek races get their starts here in TNG and you’ll see those ones are going to fill our favorites lists. Check them all out below and listen to our discussion on this week’s podcast episode (discussion at 1:14:06) for all the extraterrestrial chatter. We sought out new lifeforms, and boy did we find ‘em!

[images © CBS/Paramount] 

Ames – More machine now than man

Borg

Exocomps

Bynars

I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for a good robot any day, whether they want to kill all humans, just develop their own agency, or just open a can. TNG introduces the Borg and it’s one of the best things they ever did, with impacts across other series galore. Plus they just look rad. We also meet the cute little Exocomps who have gained their own kind of sapience and who we’ll see more of in Lower Decks, wink wink. And finally the cybernetically enhanced Bynars are just too cool a concept to pass up, especially when they turn out to be benevolent in the end! Beep boop!

—

Jake – Allow me to introduce myself

Exocomps

Tamarians

Bajorans

Jake’s three top races just want to be respected as much as anyone else; you just need to put in a little extra effort to understand them. The Exocomps are making an appearance because of just how interesting it was discussing when a creature has rights like the rest of us. Sokath! His eyes uncovered! It was also worthwhile watching Picard learn how to communicate with Tamarians like Captain Dathon. And the whole Bajoran plight starts out so interesting when we meet Ensign Ro and ascertain what it means to wear that earring.

—

Chris – Power moves

Betazoids

Q Continuum

Satarrans

You’ve got to respect a race that rolls in and just takes charge whether they’re supposed to or not. We see it in the honest-to-a-fault Betazoids who always know what’s up because they can literally read your mind. We see it, of course, in the Q Continuum, our pick for most powerful species, for whom the whole galaxy is their table to put their feet up on. And we may only get a glimpse of it from the mysterious Satarrans in “Conundrum,” but their plan to infiltrate the Enterprise crew with an undercover MacDuff nearly gets another race destroyed!

—

Caitlin – Gimme a B!

Bajorans

Betazoids

Benzites

Any ABC book about Star Trek (and I’ve bought one before) is highly unfair to all of our favorite alien species who begin with B because there are just too many good ones! At least Caitlin has three opportunities to namedrop some great B species, from the Bajorans who get started off so well developed already in The Next Gen, to the Betazoids whose empathic powers help us all to remember to look inward once in a while, to the Benzites who had some of the best makeup and breathing apparatuses we get to see in Trek!

—

That’s it for our visit to The Next Generation for now! Back to full time assignment on the Voyager, where we’re still boldly going through the Delta Quadrant over on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also read our minds over on Facebook and Twitter, and if you meet a species beginning with a B, consider befriending them immediately! Odds are good that they’ll be cool.

[thresholdbb]

Flip this switch to make the walls fall

[dougielombax]

So…that’s a Naruto run.

Kayshon has been picking up on things from his human colleagues, evidently.

Look at him go!

That is amazingly stupid. I love it.

Feel free to reblog if you wish.

[take-a-dip-in-the-deadpool]

I swear to God! I've watched this episode maybe 10 times and I never noticed this stupid joke before. A+.

[geekysteven]

[frostymj]

Tamarian language was based on memes.

When you're looking for a specific meme format without knowing what it's called, it's like speaking Tamarian with Google:

"Picard, his arm extended"

"Mother swimming with child, other child drowning". Etc.

Which brings me to the next thought - there must be Tamarian picture memes, that actually display phrases in their language. They may not be a standard for written language, as they're not efficient in print or long text, but they're there. And they send them to each other like emojis.

[originalleftist]

Seeing the world in Tamarian.

One of the gifts, or curses, of being a Star Trek fan, and especially a Lower Decks fan, is that I now frequently see, hear, and read things as though they were phrases in Tamarian (the aliens who's language his composed of communicating through stories/metaphors, for example "Shaka, when the walls fell" refers to a disaster, while "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" refers to enemies working together against a common threat).

Originally introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Darmok", though Lower Decks has really leaned into the idea since. They've sometimes been referred to as the aliens who speak in memes.

So now, I often think of how things would sound or how you might say something or use an event to mean something in Tamarian.

For example, a while back I posted this painting, by 19th/early 20th century gay Jewish painter Simeon Solomon:

(Image from Wikipedia)

The title, Sappho and Erinna in a Garden at Mytilene, immediately struck me as sounding exactly like how one might say "Lesbians" in Tamarian.

Or a post I saw today on Spoutible, which referred to "Putin, bare chested, on his horse" - which I immediately thought sounds like how you'd say "fascist dictator" (or alternately "small dick energy") in Tamarian.

I don't know, I just think its cool, and I'm curious what other phrases folks might have heard that sound like they would work as part of Tamarian metaphor language.

[purplespacekitty]

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

Gilgamesh and Enkidu at Uruk

Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel

[doolallymagpie]

rip hoshi you would’ve loved the children of tama

[duhragonball]

Do you have any further opinions on Gendo and Shinji having some potentially not healthy views on women?

I'll see what I can come up with.

Gendo uses multiple women throughout the story, but I'm not sure that indicates an unhealthy attitude toward women in particular. He exploits men, including his own son, just as readily.

I find his affairs with the Akagis hard to explain, because he seemed so laser-focused on his objectives, and so averse to forming any close relationships with anyone. Even if his relationships with the Akagis were purely physical for him, it still seems like the sort of thing he wouldn't indulge in... unless he thought it would bring him closer to what he actually wants.

I guess my personal theory is that he didn't seduce the Akagis, but they threw themselves at him, and he played along because he needed their talents too badly to risk pushing them away. Naoko was practically rooting for Yui to die in that accident, so it seems likely that she fell in love with Gendo while they worked together and made her move after Yui was out of the picture. Gendo might have rejected her, but he needed the Magi supercomputer that she was building.

Only after the Magi were completed did he turn against her, calling her a "useless old hag". I think he was counting on Rei to hear him saying it, and used her to provoke Naoko into doing something drastic. Although, considering how important Rei was to his plans, it seems odd that he'd put Rei in such a risky position.

In any event, Ritsuko watched the tail end of Naoko's relationship with Gendo and immediately decided she wanted next. This seems really foolish, considering Naoko's fate, but I get the impression that Gendo is this charismatic enigma, the sort who attracts people to his cause, in spite of his cold and repulsive personality. Maybe Ritsuko thought she could fix him, or she just found him fascinating and wanted a closer look. And so Gendo found himself in the same position all over again, playing along with a new lover to ensure her cooperation with his plans.

That doesn't make him blameless, of course. He saw these women offering themselves to him, and he used their infatuation to his advantage. I guess what I'm saying is that he didn't get entangled in those relationships because he was lonely or horny, or desperate to feel powerful. He just played along with them for as long as they were useful, and then discarded them when they ceased to be useful.

I'd say that probably explains his apparent closeness to Rei as well. They only get along well because he needs her for his plans, and she's willing to go along with literally anything he wants her to do.

But, again, I don't know that this has anything to do with their gender. If Rei were a boy, I don't think it would change much for him. If the Akagis were men, he'd probably still use their attraction to him to his advantage.

Regarding Shinji... man, I don't know.

Yesterday I watched a couple of old Folding Ideas videos about End of Evangelion. Dan Olson was talking about how the movie served as Hideaki Anno's "revenge" against obsessive fans who hated the original ending in Episodes 25 and 26. I think the "revenge" theory of EoE is still open to debate, but I still need to do more research into that. Anyway, Olson was pretty confident about it, since it explains how different Shinji is portrayed in each ending.

In EoTV, Anno used Shinji as a medium to explore his own psychological problems, and the ending is more positive. But in EoE, Anno uses Shinji to represent the emotionally stunted otaku he was so mad at. So in the movie, Shinji never "does anything" or "learns anything". He wallows in self-pity, demands Asuka's sympathy, and strangles her when he doesn't get it. He's a petulant child throughout the whole film, and the misogyny is on full display.

Olson explains that Shinji is useful for this sort of thing because he started out as the standard anime protagonist: a blank slate that the audience could project their own identities upon. By the end of the TV series, Anno could easily turn Shinji into his alter ego, and use him to express his own anxieties and fears. And when the otaku rejected this, it was like they wanted Shinji back the way he was so he could be their avatar instead, Anno granted their wish, making EoE-Shinji a representation of all of their worst qualities.

And that's an interesting interpretation, but what frustrates me is that it basically leaves no room for Shinji to be a character in his own right. He's just a vessel for whatever Hideaki Anno wants him to represent. If Anno is feeling introspective, he'll make Shinji in his own image. If he's mad at the otaku, he'll turn Shinji into a straw man.

And that makes it hard for me to really talk about Shinji's attitude towards women. Early in NGE, he basically behaved himself and seemed to prefer keeping his distance from girls, if only to avoid any awkwardness. Misato and Asuka kind of brought him out of his shell a bit, and then in EoTV he seems to rely on them to help him figure out his damage. In EoE he seems desperate for a woman-- any woman-- to make him feel happy, forever. If he can't have that, he'll either go limp or throw a fit.

I don't know what the throughline is with Shinji. If I understand commentators like Dan Olson correctly, there is no throughline with Shinji. He's just a placeholder for one psyche or another. Still, I suppose he's defined by the loss of his mother, and there's always this lingering temptation for him to think he can just retreat from his problems and take refuge in a woman's embrace. Early on, he's reluctant to accept Misato's hospitality and compassion, maybe because he can't believe it's genuine. Later, he starts to appreciate her more, and then he begins to take the women in his life for granted a bit. In EoTV, he pulls back from that mentality, but in EoE he sinks deeper into that false hope that a woman can make him safe and whole.

Am I making any sense here? I'm not sure.