#that's Captain salamander janeway to you

[ssaalexblake]

Happy Threshold Day to the animatronic salamander versions of Kathryn Janeway and Tom Paris, exhibits in the Voyager museum!

May you one day gain sentience and have triplet animatronic salamanders in a Jefferies tube.

[thresholdbb]

Chakotay says gossip travels at warp 10 on Voyager

We all know what that means

[stra-tek]

Mad stuff that's 100% canon in the Star Trek universe:

Going past warp 10 turns you into a hyper-evolved Salamander

Special cheese can bring down the highly advanced bio-neural circuitry of an Intrepid-class ship

A software mod can make a regular transporter beam across many light years

A software mod can make a regular transporter beam across universes

The addition of old DNA in a transporter can reset you physically to whatever age the DNA is from, but with all your memories and experiences intact therefore curing all ills

There's a forcefield surrounding the galaxy and nobody really asks why it's there

Touching it sometimes gives people Q-like powers

There's a Prime Directive not to interfere with pre-warp cultures but everybody does

There's a Temporal Prime Directive not to interfere with the timeline but everybody does

Captain Picard was turned into a Borg for a few days and was never the same again

Captain Janeway, B'Elanna Torres and Tuvok were turned into Borg for a couple of days and where just fine after

Discovery's new captain is probably still waiting on Vulcan

There's a planet in the centre of the galaxy surrounded by a forcefield with a big floating head on it that pretends to be God

The Borg, most deadly dangerous things in the galaxy responsible for enslavement of trillions, could possibly be forever defeated by a single jpeg of a weird shape but they don't do it because sympathy

There's a secret cabal of Starfleet officers that attempted genocide once and it's the only thing that saved the Federation

There's a universe which, when it bleeds into ours, makes everyone uncontrollably sing and dance

[just-elena]

I'm sorry if this has already been shared to Tumblrverse previously, I scrolled through #threshold day but didn't see it.

ANYWAY

The vagina museum has a say to this sacred occurrence, so there.

Text:

A very happy #ThresholdDay to all who celebrate. If you haven't yet read our analysis of whether Janeway and Tom Paris fucked when they were lizards, today is the perfect day!

OLD THREAD REPOST

On 29th January 1996, "Threshold", the Star Trek: Voyager episode where Captain Janeway and Tom Paris turned into giant space newts and had babies first aired. Since it's #ThresholdDay we aim to answer a burning question: did Paris and Janeway fuck? If so, how did they fuck?

In attempting to answer the question as to whether Janeway and Paris fucked, and how they did it, we're going to mostly focus on salamanders, because the weird space amphibians they become are often described as "salamanders" and they look kinda like salamanders.

The first thing you need to know about amphibians is that they don't have genitals per se. As amphibians, Janeway and Paris had cloacas: a multipurpose hole for pee, poo and reproduction.

Salamanders are interesting because different species employ different strategies for fertilisation. Some use external fertilisation: Janeway plops her eggs out, Paris fertilises them. Some practice internal fertilisation, which we'll get onto later.

If Janeway and Paris engaged in external fertilisation, they would have undertaken a manoeuvre called amplexus. Tom Paris would have come up behind Captain Janeway and embraced her with his forelimbs. They would position their cloacas close together.

When Janeway released her eggs, Paris would have released sperm over them. Amplexus can last for hours.

Essentially, Janeway and Paris went tantric.

However, most salamanders don't do amplexus. Fertilisation would happen inside Janeway's body before she laid her eggs. This isn't achieved by penetration. It's much weirder.

If the fertilisation was internal, Tom Paris would have deposited a parcel of sperm called a spermatophore, and then Captain Janeway would pick the package up with the lips of her cloaca to take it into herself.

That sounds reasonably contact free, right? So why are Janeway and Paris so embarrassed about what happened at the end of the episode?

Welp, there's a lot of courtship rituals which would have happened before Janeway picked up Paris's cum parcel with her pee-poo hole lips.

Salamanders court: it's in Tom Paris's interests to make sure Janeway chooses to pick up his package of sperm. Salamander courtship typically involves seduction and dancing.

Tom Paris would have wafted pheromones at Janeway, and then the two of them would have engaged in some dance moves, first with Paris turning round to deposit his sperm package, then Janeway turning to pick it up.

In some salamanders, the pheromone exchange is as simple as Tom Paris fanning his tail at Captain Janeway so she can get a whiff and get in the mood for collecting his sperm package. Sometimes it's a bit kinkier.

If they took a lead from Desmognathus, Paris would drag his teeth down Janeway's neck and back while releasing pheromones, getting his horny chemicals straight into her bloodstream.

If they took a lead from Plethodon shermani, Paris would slap Janeway's snout.

Ultimately, there would have been seduction, close contact dancing, tail straddling and possibly a bit of kink. So that's presumably why Janeway, Paris and pretty much the entire Voyager crew are absolutely mortified and the entire sorry interlude is absolutely never mentioned again.

At the end of the episode, human again, Paris apologises for the salamander sex but Janeway points out that in many species, the female initiates the intercourse. Is that true?

In general, the way salamander sex is talked about, the male is doing everything he can to persuade the female to pick up his spermatophore. He's the active one and the female is passive. A 2020 literature review suggests this is not the case: the female is an active participant.

Ultimately, Janeway was probably quite right in admitting her responsibility in having salamander sex with her pilot, and that she *chose* to pick up his little parcel of jizz and have his space abomination babies.

Thank you for reading. We're sorry.

/end text

Source: the Vagina Museum official Mastodon account. Original thread here.

[lily-on-the-fence]

Just watched Star Trek Voyager S02E15 - Threshold, known as one of the worst episodes of TV ever and like, I gotta say it was doing okay for most of it! (Spoilers below)

I was kinda fine with the whole Paris turns into a mutant thing cause it just reads like bad Trek y'know? Then the whole bit where he kidnaps the captain and takes her into Warp 10 and she also turns into a mutant and they mate and have babies, that was obviously deranged and like, whoever thought of that, but the real kicker, the bit which actually delivered on the terrible writing I'd been promised was the last dialogue. I will paraphrase it for you. You can thank me later.

(Janeway and Paris are in sick bay, returned to their human form after the Doctor treats them successfully. Janeway goes over to Paris to talk.)

Janeway: Well... I've thought about having kids, but I would have never had them with you in any circumstances.

Paris: I have to apologize, I don't remember fucking you as a weird salamander.

Janeway: Who says I wasn't the one fucking you?

Paris: This whole thing has made me realize that I have a lot of self esteem issues to work through. I hope they're not as hard as going Warp 10 and becoming a Salamander and fucking you about it.

Janeway: Somehow... I don't think they will be...

(Cut to credits)

[trekkie-polls]

[funnywormz]

Almost afraid to ask because I suspect there's lizard sex elements based on the posts, but what's threshold day?

the most simple answer to this is that threshold day is an annual star trek fandom celebration of the star trek voyager episode "threshold", the 15th episode of its second season which aired on the 29th of january, 1996!

but why threshold, specifically? a general answer is that it's because the episode is absolutely nuts. it's generally regarded as one of the worst, if not THE worst star trek episode ever (i definitely disagree with this, i think it's a genuinely good episode), but it also won an emmy............

a brief plot summary is that tom paris, voyager's pilot, wants to test a new form of warp drive technology which would enable ships to go at "warp 10" a speed previously thought to be impossible, which is so fast that travelling at it means you'd theoretically be everywhere in the universe at once. he ends up testing it, and initially everything seems fine, but then a few hours after the test he collapses in the mess hall and ends up in sickbay. the doctor determines that going at warp 10 has had an odd effect on paris's dna, causing it to rapidly mutate and "evolve".

throughout the episode, paris continues to mutate physically and mentally, becoming confused and violent and increasingly non-human looking. eventually he manages to bust out of sickbay and kidnaps the captain, taking her with him on another warp 10 flight. they then set down on a random planet.

it takes voyager a while to find them. by that point, both paris and the captain's dna mutations have caused them to transform into salamander-like creatures, almost completely unrecognisable as humans.

they also, at some point, had hyper evolved salamander sex and made salamander triplets.

the voyager crew takes paris and the captain back onto the ship, but leave their babies behind on the planet. a quick bit of (hand-wavy) genetic treatment by the doctor goes on, and paris and janeway are restored back to their original human selves. paris apologises to the captain for getting her knocked up while she was a salamander, and the captain responds by being like "ok but who says it's not the female that initiates mating in this species 😏". and that's the end of the fucking episode basically

i think threshold day is a thing in general bc the episode has some genuinely really cool elements and the practical effects are AWESOME, but also the last 10 minutes of it are absolutely nuts and easy to make fun of. it's like a perfect mixture of being good enough to be watchable but bad enough that you finish it like "what the hell just happened". it's also a popular day bc people generally view commander chakotay's decision to leave paris and janeway's salamander babies behind as a mistake, which i agree with. like what happened to them?? they're just there on that planet all alone???? did they even survive......... and if janeway and paris could be turned back into humans, technically the salamander babies are hypothetically human kids too and they just left them behind? SMH......... it's so sad............

ANYWAYS anon i hope this was a serviceable explanation!

[crystal-mouse]

PARIS: It has to do with biology.

JANEWAY: What?

PARIS: Biology.

JANEWAY: What kind of biology?

PARIS: Salamander biology.

JANEWAY: You mean the biology of Salamanders?

Amok Time 🤝 Threshold

having awkward conversations with your captain

[markscherz]

So, you mentioned that the Janeway gif wasn't the one you meant to use, but that it worked. Important question, are you a Trek fan?

Follow-up question, what do you think (as a herpetologist) of Threshold, the one where Tom Paris goes so fast he hyper-evolves into a salamander?

First of all: excellent handle. Janeway is my captain, too. Oh yes, I am definitely a trekkie, as is one of my main collaborators. There is a 100% chance that we are going to name some species after some Star Trek captains in the not-so-distant future.

I personally welcome our salamander overlords and it is hilarious that they postulate that the future evolutionary trajectory of hominin apes (in space) is convergence on amphibian ecomorphology

but Threshold is not exactly Voyager's finest hour.

[thegeminisage]

STAR TREK UPDATE TIME. we have finally watched the voyager pilot! short verdict: nothing will ever be as good as ds9 but i enjoyed it!!

longer verdict: i will go through it character by character, in order of appearance, saving the maquis crew for when they have more than .5 seconds of screentime in the little opening. this feels like a REALLY big cast, by the way?? am i counting right? 11 recurring characters and we don't even have seven yet? tos has 7 with chapel and rand appearing sometimes, tng had 8 with o'brien and guinan sometimes, ds9 has seven with...man, jake nog rom garak AND keiko as recurring extras, and we don't even have worf yet. so i guess ds9's is technically bigger! anyway.

JANEWAY: i was surprised at how janeway sounded...her voice is different than i expected even though i've heard her be flemeth in dragon age. i was also kind of surprised to see her in the bun and her head looked So Big. like dax's in season 1-2 of ds9. i'm used to seeing her with it down in gifs which looks better but personally i also think she could have rocked the kira cut. that said, i like her so SO much. she has a couple of speeches that remind me VERY strongly of kirk - when she's lamenting harry left his clarinet behind and not getting to know him, when she decided she couldn't sacrifice an entire people to get one ship home. she's got the kind of compassion kirk did - when she pulled up a stool to listen to the caretaker's troubles, when she held his horrible little corpse, she was genuinely filled with real sadness for what had happened there. (as a side note, speaking of tos, the ship voyager also reminds me of the original enterprise WAY more than the tng enterprise was - especially their little cafeteria.) i was really surprised she had a boyfriend, because i feel like i've heard she gets with chakotay! sorry to her bf, she is gonna cheat on you (and i support women's wrongs), but the worst part is the dog. if they pull some odyssey shit with the dog i'm gonna be so upset. ALSO, i love that she insists on "ma'am" instead of sir (that always bugged me) and even that will only do in a pinch. YOU WILL ADDRESS HER AS CAPTAIN. even when her hair fell down she fixed it on her way down the hallway. she's such a badass. when she says she's gonna get them home I BELIEVE HER. she's got an iron fucking nerve and balls made of titanium.

TOM PARIS: i hate this man so much it's insane. i googled to see whether he died and found out he was played by one of those cadets wesley got in trouble with...girl, he was in prison, why not just make him the same guy?? anyway, he was kind of shitty to both harry and chakotay (oh boy we are already being racist to chakotay) and i cannot believe THIS is the man janeway is gonna have salamander babies with. he's extremely obnoxious all the time (him harassing that betazoid lady...fuck off lol) and i just KNOW people are writing paris/chakotay slash because of their whole deal which makes him more annoying. the "your life is mine now" thing is racist as hell. i'm not prepared to sympathetically see this man's hidden depths bc i know that as a snarky white man he already has half of whatever voyager fandom happens to exist doing that for him already. sadly, we will have to put up with him for all seven seasons. LUCKILY, aside from the racism, half of which came from this guy anyway, he was my only real sour note.

HARRY KIM: love this dude. i like how he managed to talk sense into b'elanna when she was wigging out and despite my wishing he didn't have to be friends with tom paris him going "i can pick my own friends" was a great way to show that he's not afraid to stand up for himself. i wish i wasn't feeling so anti-quark lately bc otherwise his scene in the bar with quark (and why is it always quark doing these surprise cameos!!) would've been pretty funny. i think it was a nice touch that harry, on his first EVER mission, got to be the one to deliver the news about how far from home they were. i absolutely love his whole deal of being completely green and meeting everything head-on anyway, he is so brave. as i said before, the way he is just charging through despite being out of his depth reminds me a little of chekov, if chekov had brain cells. he's very charming. i think he and b'elanna could get it also.

HOLOGRAM DOCTOR: he is so funny, i love him. like, i don't really know how he works? is all of medbay a holodeck? but it's kind of hilarious that he's sentient enough to get annoyed when people are randomly beamed away and when people forget to shut him off (he needs a nap!)

CHAKOTAY: oh i am already feeling how rough this is going to be. that "can't you use some magic to turn into a bird and fly away" and also the "your life is mine now" were rrrracist. (that said, "you're too heavy" was a really good comeback.) can we please be normal. that aside: i really like him. i like how quickly he came to grips with the situation and i like how much he hates tom paris (NOT SEXUAL!!! NO!!!!!! i just agree with him) and i especially like that he has a set of titanium balls to match janeway's like did we SEE that doomsday machine-esque suicide run he almost went on? he cut it even closer than kirk did and kirk cut it that close ON ACCIDENT chakotay was yelling at them not to beam his ass back until his ship was already on fucking fire. also, he's very handsome. ALSO, when tom paris asked him "you'd rather die than let me rescue you?" i had to laugh because quite literally 10 seconds prior out of mine own mouth was "if it was death or tom paris i might let go." i really hope there's more to chakotay than "tom paris's antagonistic buddy" because 1. a fate worse than death 2. this is not humans and vulcans this is real life racism you cannot spock and bones this. STOP THAT.

TUVOK: ALSO VERY HANDSOME. very like. he reminds me of spock so much because he's extremely bitchy but also very dialed down about it. i like that leonard nimoy was like yeah im gonna go stupid crazy and all vulcan will be like this from now on, including my funny little eyebrow thing, in which girlies will still see spock long after i'm dead. like what misha collins tried to do with cas but it actually worked. tuvok strikes that perfect balance of dignified and kind of above everyone else without feeling stuck up or prissy (though his scene where he tries so hard not to look at neelix's junk was great, he was justifiably a little prissy there), and with that undercurrent of wryness that nevertheless doesn't truly betray any emotion - you don't get the same sense of repression/unease with the self from him (at least in the pilot, who knows what will happen later) that you do from spock so it doesn't feel like voyager is copying tos's homework, and it feels nice to get to know another vulcan who's gonna be a main character instead of a one-off. i hope they are more normal about a black vulcan than they have been about chakotay so far bc we have got to get out from under all of that. i am a little worried janeway might kill him. i feel like i see people on reddit criticizing her all the time for killing some dude who i am pretty sure is tuvok and like. can someone tell me if he dies if he dies i will be SO mad

B'ELANNA TORRES: she is stupid hot. i'm a little "lol" when she's like yeah my klingon half is HARD TO CONTROL!!! (super saiyan scream of rage) bc like worf does fine (most of the time...) but i will never turn down a chance to watch a beautiful woman be insane with rage. i like how she calls harry kim "starfleet" derisively and then goes out of her way to give him breaks when he needs them and help him up the stairs when he can't make it. big tsundere energy. also like that she was questioning janeway's decisions. not that i disagree with janeway's decisions necessarily i just like that janeway will have to earn her respect from some people the way any male captain would. equality. also, potentially, girlfights.

NEELIX: i forgot to add him to "the things i know about voyager" post because i had only heard him mentioned a couple of times and got the idea he was just a horrible little gremlin there for comic relief. a rygel, if you will. a quark, if you won't. was pleasantly surprised to like him better than rygel and quark combined, though that's a pretty low bar. not only is he clever enough to outsmart the slavers, he was brave and caring enough to go back and rescue his girl. HE RESPECTS WOMEN. also, his water indulgence was pretty hilarious, as was, again, his scene with tuvok. i feel like those two could do straight man funny guy all day long. a dynamic duo. i hope they wind up having screentime together. i don't mind horrible little gremlins so much when they're charming and when they aren't trying to take holosuite videos of kira.

KES: i feel like kes hasn't done much yet except lecture her people on the dangers of having a cult-like mentality. but i like her! she's sweet and compassionate and pretty brave. she does a lot to humanize neelix, at least! maybe it's just me but i feel like she was barely in this. for now i am trusting that they do more with her later. or, idk, maybe they don't. we DO have janeway AND b'elanna AND seven eventually so i can't be too mad about it as long as they're not turning her into a holodeck sex toy like poor deanna

other things of note:

BANJOS? i counted three different southern accents in this section. it would have been offensive if it wasn't so funny. the people holding hands and jumping around in a circle like animated robin hood characters was a great touch. so was the corn on the cob. the emotional whiplash from an otherwise very serious episode was. certainly something.

the empty barn reminded me of this side of paradise <3 i love, in general, how voyager just FEELS a little bit like tos. certainly more than tng did, even more than ds9 does. like this FEELS like it's set in the same universe, it kind of bridges a mental gap between ds9/tng and tos for me, worldbuilding wise.

water thing reminded me of mad max. really good.

slaver aliens.......are these guys really our antagonists?? i thought our antagonists were the borg but maybe we don't do that until seven gets here. i feel like possibly a bunch of semi-primitive people in the desert who enslaved and beat (potentially raped, depending on how you want to interpret that dialogue) a pretty blonde girl is maybe um. not the best idea. maybe they'll get written down into side villains and eventually just guys. like the ferengi. siiigh, the ferengi.

that said, i kind of loved the story of the caretaker and the ocampa, enough that i almost forgot the caretaker was choosing to appear as a banjo-playing hillbilly. i like to think him and his wife were from andromeda like those guys from tos...and it's very nuanced that even after he fucked their planet forever he still didn't really learn to value life because he's kidnapping people and letting them die or stay stranded in order to attempt to procreate. NONETHELESS he is filled with remorse, and janeway's scene with him, comforting him that children could learn to grow on their own, was really sweet. i also like that when he died his little horrible goop body shrank down until it looked like a hunk of dried snot. do not take that to the ocampa.

i just like the PREMISE of voyager. a 75-year journey that they have to cut down by any means possible...it's like the odyssey, but it space. in tos and tng they wandered from place to place but always over the same stomping grounds in general. we have the same old players, like klingons and romulans and vulcans and andorians etc etc. in ds9 we stay in one single place and it's to our benefit because we get deep character work. but voyager is going in a straight line back to earth, and we've never been out here before, so whether or not it lives up to the potential right now it feels like anything truly could happen. we don't be running into the neutral zone and we can't call the klingons for help or stop by quark's for another cameo. we are just out here. it's VERY neat.

major concerns so far include of course tom paris and potentially him being handcuffed to chakotay as banter buddies. racism in general but also with chakotay in particular. and perhaps a lack of interesting points re: kes. rip girl.

stuff i'm looking forward to is janeway getting to be a person instead of A Woman, seven eventually, getting to know chakotay and tuvok better, and the salamander episode, someday.

okay. this concludes my voyager pilot write-up. TONIGHT: "parallax" and "time and again."

[serinmatheson1]

Twin Stars of My Heart Pt. 4

Hello my darlings! We're back! This one is going to focus on Kathryn and Chakotay. And a little bit about the other adults in the twins' lives.

Kathryn and Chakotay have a game they play called "USS Calliope". That's the name of the Galaxy class ship that Kathryn is going to command when they get home. Crew members are added or removed based on the day they've had. Tom gets kicked out a lot. But they always bring him back.

They've decided that Mark and his wife can join them on the ship so that they co parent the twins together. It's mostly a coping mechanism when the delta quadrant gets too be too much. They have fun with it

@penguinpower1101 reblogged the original post with a great addition that I can't believe I didn't think of. Tuvok is definitely the "emergency contact". He thinks it's illogical at first because there's protocols about the captain and the first officer being off the ship together. But then they both get stranded on New Earth and when they come back she's like "You said it wouldn't happen, huh?"

He's so Uncle Tuvok. he will never escape being Uncle Tuvok and he pretends to not get it but loves it so much

@batleth-brigade came up with a funny addition of their half siblings being salamanders but Threshold fucked me up so in this universe Tom actually picked someone else. HIs super senses told him Janeway would not make a good mate because she had just given birth My P/T shipping heart says it's B'Elanna but pick your own favorite pairing for Tom

Castor loves Tom by the way. Tom is his second favorite person on the ship after his mom. He always wants to fly the ship with Tom.

Kathryn at a certain point just doesn't want to go home. She's got her home on Voyager and her twins are doing well and honestly, she doesn't want to share custody with Mark. Not that she doesn't like Mark but she doesn't want to give up any precious time with her twins.

That's how the Calliope game came about. Chakotay brings up that if they had a Galaxy Class ship, everyone could live on the same ship and she wouldn't have to worry about it.

Kathryn gives Castor her captain's pips when he's promoted. He wears them on his dress uniform for special occasions.

Kathryn is not one of those people that are natural mothers. Like yes she's a mother to her crew but they are full grown adults who can use full sentences. The twins are not. And she feels like a terrible mother and gets pretty bad post partum at the beginning.

Chakotay tries to make her feel better but it's one of the few things he can't really connect with her on.

Samantha eventually sits down next to Kathryn in the mess hall and is just like "They never tell you about the worst parts of motherhood. I am so sick of changing diapers, I might just let Naomi be naked." Kathryn laughs and they spend the rest of the day just bonding as mothers.

After that they try their best to meet up once a week and just complain about being moms. It really helps Kathryn's depression and over all mood.

Speaking of, The Void goes really differently as well. Like Kathryn wants to hide from everything but she has children. And it's still very hard and she hates everything but there's two innocent children looking at her like she can fix it all so goddamn it she's going to.

That's all for this one. Come back next time for whatever I cna think up

@nightingalewritings @baylardo @cecilyacat

[miloscat]

[Review] Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova (PS5)

I love to see budget licenced games still being made.

Prodigy is one of my favourites of the (many) new Star Trek shows. It’s got some Star Wars vibes, not just from the The Clone Wars-esque art style, but also the story of a band of misfits coming together to survive in a crapsack galaxy. Now that I’ve caught up with part 2 of season 1 (which was split in half for some reason) I thought I’d check out this companion game.

Like the show, the game could be classified as “for kids”. It’s not dissimilar to the Lego games which I always enjoy: a semi-isometric perspective, puzzles and simple combat, objects to bash and collectibles to find. The two main gameplay modes of puzzle-solving (via block-pushing and logic gates) and robot-battling (via bashing and pew-pewing variations on the show’s Watcher drone) are fairly well-developed if lacking in variety, while the rest of the experience is rough around the edges. These two modes are also very discrete, with rooms basically alternating between the two.

The game is wired for co-op but is technically playable solo by swapping between the two characters. Dal has more ranged options with different kinds of phasers, and for puzzles can lift heavy boxes and “camouflage” past security cameras. Gwyn is more melee with her “fretwork” heirloom morphing between sword, fists, and spear, and can also use it as a bridge or shield against certain lasers. Rescuing the rest of the crew is the main initial objective and once found, they can open certain themed doors and periodically activate a combat effect.

While the game is set in the mid-season gap, there’s a few plot details that are more impactful coming from the show’s second part as opposed to their insertion here. For example, the antagonist is a third Drednok from the Vau N’Akat Order who has enslaved the three-world system that is Supernova’s setting. It works well as an interquel adventure, and the show’s actors all reprise their roles nicely (although the two leads only having two oft-repeated attack and dash grunts gets grating).

The lead game designer and co-creative director Pere Suau Massanet of the upstart Spanish dev studio Tessera is credited with the original story, while actual writing fell to freelance Brit Martin Korda, many of whose most recent credits centre around the Fifa games’ story modes. Some questionable tendencies seem to have snuck their way into the game script, such as Janeway at one point cloaking the ship (something the Protostar is not supposed to be able to do!) using “Bajoran magic” (???), or out of nowhere giving Dal the character trait “constantly making shallow and nonsensical references to Star Trek stuff”, along the lines of “it’s hotter than a Cardassian fire pit” or “it’s colder than a Betazoid freezer”. On the other hand, there is some fun to be had such as with the collectibles, one being a toy version of Voyager’s Salamander Janeway, and I enjoyed the running gag of the crew picking up the expression “check it” from Dal as a part of their official communications.

After rolling credits, I considered replaying levels to find more relics for the captain’s quarters or to unlock more concept art, but having to redo the busywork of puzzles I’d solved before and undertake yet more repetitive combat was a prospect that lacked appeal. But I had a decent time playing through it once. I just wish there were more than two of those attractive, stylised motion comic-style cutscenes that bookend the game. Not that the in-game graphics don’t look good and match the show (except for Dal who looks a bit weird).

Two final notes. I called this a “budget” game because it has a budget feel on the development side, but on the consumer side it’s actually quite expensive at the A$70 mark. Try to get it on sale. And I loved seeing some casual nonbinary rep in this game from Lorn’ess, one of the two oppressed natives you meet. This is in addition to the main cast’s Zero of course, who joined the ranks in new Trek alongside Discovery’s Adira and Strange New Worlds’ Captain Angel. Pride!

[spacefinch]

A Summary of Star Trek Voyager (by someone who has only seen a few episodes)

Their ship gets stranded in the Delta Quadrant and they’re 70 thousand light years away from home

Road trip! In space!

The crew:

Captain Janeway (our first female captain to be the lead of a Star Trek show): Mom friend. Badass. Coffee drinker. Dog person.

Chakotay (ex-Maquis first officer— lots of fans ship him with Janeway)

Tom Paris and Harry Kim: Best bros for life. Do not separate. Also: why must they suffer

B’Elanna Torres: Half Klingon, half human, all amazing. The greatest Starfleet engineer since Scotty himself.

Tuvok: Vulcan security officer. Family man. One of Janeway’s old friends. He’s cool.

The Doctor: that is his literal name. That’s it. He’s The Doctor. Also, he’s a sentient hologram. Very snarky.

Kes: Deserves the world. That is all.

Neelix: Morale Officer, cook, Delta Quadrant expert, you name it. Also has the most atrocious fashion sense since Quark from Deep Space 9.

Seven of Nine: former Borg Drone. But now she’s in the Voyager family!

Basic plot:

“We found a space anomaly, maybe it’ll help us get home faster”

Narrator: it did not help them get home at all

If you go past warp ten you turn into a salamander (and the entire fandom celebrates this day)

Back at it again at Krispy Kreme the holodeck

“There’s coffee in that nebula”

Everyone on this ship is a science nerd

Poor Harry never gets promoted

Oh no it’s the Borg

The Doctor’s journey of self discovery

Naomi Wildman’s friendship with Seven (I have not seen them together but they have my heart)

Q is at it again

“We must uphold the Prime Directive” *they break the Prime Directive multiple times*

Time travel

Technobabble

And did I mention:

ROAD TRIP IN SPACE

[marienomad]

Whumptober 2023 Day 8

The Tribble Trials of Commander Paris

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Paramount.

This is written for day 8 of Whumptober 2023.

The Tribble Trials of Commander Paris

By Marie Nomad

Commander Tom Paris had been in many situations. He had traveled through different eras, been captured, and cloned, and even started a salamander species with Admiral Janeway. Now he found himself in the strangest situation he had ever faced. Dressed in his Starfleet uniform and wielding a Bat’leth, he stood beside his wife, B’Elanna, and his little girl, Miral. Ever since returning to Earth, he had vowed to support his daughter in her Klingon celebrations. Not only was Miral the "Chosen One" among the Klingon people, known as the Kuvah'magh, but Tom also wanted to show that he accepted her Klingon heritage.

He still remembered the trio of Klingons who had appeared bearing gifts: gold-pressed latinum, a Qapla’ Medallion, and a Memory Crystal filled with Klingon Operas. He had safely stored the latinum for when Miral was older.

Now he was among other Klingon parents and their children in the middle of the plains. Although these children had not yet hit Klingon puberty, there was no doubt they could beat him up if they wanted to.

“Commander Paris, Commander B’Elanna, Miral,” Commander Worf greeted them, dressed in ceremonial garb. “Thank you for coming to the Tribblemey QotmoH.”

"Yeah, I've never done this before," B'Elanna pointed out.

"Neither have I," Worf reassured her. "This ritual was common in the 23rd Century during the Great Tribble Purge. It used to be a rite of passage until the Great Klingon Empire annihilated the tribbles." His lips parted, and he growled. "That is, until a foolish changeling smuggled one back to the present after we prevented a... timeline disruption. Quark even sold tribbles to the Federation, granting them their own homeworld again. We can't bomb it, but we are allowed to cull the tribbles using only blades." He glanced at Tom. "Can you even harm a tribble?"

Tom couldn’t lie, the piles of purring Tribbles at a distance look really inviting.  He just wanted to dive in and reenact the one picture of Captain Kirk being buried by Tribbles.  Those tribbles look so adorable and he wanted to cuddle them.  But he is here to support Miral and B’Elanna with the whole kill tribble tradition.  His stomach turned. He really didn’t like the idea of watching the poor innocent tribbles get killed.  “I volunteered for this.  I don’t know if I could actually kill them but I won’t get in anyone’s way.”

“I’m here to bond with my son, Alexander.  I thought that if we do the Tribblemey QotmoH together, we could get closer.” Worf pointed to Alexander who was warming up.  The young man looked fully grown with a beard and he was practicing his form. 

"That's... nice," Tom replied, looking down at Miral, who had her own child-sized Bat'leth. "I'm not sure if Miral will be able to kill any tribbles. She's three-fourths human, and the tribbles might actually like her."

M'Rek, the head Klingon, clad in a multi-colored fur coat, approached them. In his hand was a glommer, a creature known to eat tribbles. "Welcome to the Tribblemey QotmoH! Slaughter the tribbles and bring honor to your house! Skin them, eat them, and turn them into a coat as a trophy. Make sure you bring great honor to your house," he said, gesturing to his own coat. He then looked at Tom, the only full human among the Klingons. "Oh! A human! Can you even raise your blade against a tribble?"

Tom stood taller as the other Klingons stared at him. "I AM TOM, SON OF OWEN OF THE HOUSE OF PARIS! I GO WHERE MY WIFE AND DAUGHTER GO! I KILL WHAT MY WIFE AND DAUGHTER KILL!"

"Ah, not even Captain James T. Kirk could kill a single tribble when they infested his ship," M'Rek chuckled. "This should be most interesting."

Tom tightened his grip on his Bat’leth as the drums began to sound. His wife and daughter were visibly excited. Even sweet little Miral seemed almost savage, her Klingon blood apparently giving her an appetite for the battle ahead.

"Begin!" M'Rek roared, and the Klingons—including Tom—charged toward the piles of tribbles. Screeches filled the air, making Tom want to cover his ears. Miral let out a gleeful scream as she began her attack. At least she was fitting in with the other Klingon children. Now all Tom had to do was avoid embarrassing her.

He paused before a tribble, captivated by its tranquilizing coos and purrs. "It's not sentient, it's not sentient," he muttered, closing his eyes and thrusting his weapon downward. The tribble screeched. Tom felt his stomach churn and fought back the urge to vomit.

"Hey, are you okay?" B'Elanna called, pausing in her own bloody work.

"Just stay with Miral. I'm just a weak human, remember?" Tom said, dismissing her concern. He moved to another tribble, steeled himself, and thrust down again. Another screech. He clenched his stomach, fighting nausea. Looking up, he saw Worf and Alexander, jubilant in their slaughter, and felt a wave of vertigo wash over him. What was it about killing these creatures that was affecting him so deeply?

Sweat pouring down his face, he approached another tribble, Bat’leth in hand. Each kill seemed to add an intangible weight to him. He recalled reports about tribbles affecting humans neurologically—was that why this was so difficult? Were the tribbles defending themselves through some sort of psychic manipulation?

"That's enough. You've killed two; that's a record for a human," M'Rek declared, placing a hand—covered in tribble blood—on Tom's shoulder. "I'm impressed you even managed one. You shall henceforth be known as 'Tom the Killer of Tribbles.'"

Tom looked into M'Rek's eyes, his own a mixture of relief and shame—relief that he could finally stop, and shame that he had felt so conflicted in the first place.

"Thank you, M'Rek. This was not an easy task for me."

"It's easy for a Klingon to kill a tribble. It's in our blood. But for a human? The struggle is intense. I've killed many tribbles in front of humans; they even protect the tribbles from me, even when the creatures are infesting their ships. Not even the oh-so-logical Vulcans can resist the tribbles."

"The Vulcans?" Tom repeated. He couldn't imagine that Vulcans would lose control over the tribbles.

"Yes, they hide the tribbles, claiming logic. No humanoid species, except for Klingons, can resist the tribble's spell. Take pride in your kills. Here, have a drink. Don't worry, it's safe for humans," M'Rek offered Tom a flask.

"Thanks, I appreciate the words of encouragement." Tom drank from the flask. It wasn't bloodwine or anything alcoholic, but more like a juice. "Wait, is this prune juice?"

"Warrior's drink."

"Of course."

He looked over to see B'Elanna and Miral gathering their 'trophies.' "Daddy! Look at all the tribbles I killed!" Miral gushed.

"I see! You'll make a nice coat!" Tom congratulated her. "I... killed two." He glanced at the two tribble corpses, small compared to the massive amounts that the Klingons had gathered.

"I'm impressed," B'Elanna said, smiling at him. "I've realized I hate them. They're adorable, but I just... hate them."

"Commander, you killed two tribbles!" Worf congratulated him, carrying his own kills. "Impressive. A human can't kill tribbles."

"I... I'm sure there are other humans who have killed tribbles," Tom said, confused. "Tribbles have been causing trouble for years. There must be humans who have killed a tribble or two."

"Not in the records. Humans usually gather them, contain them, or even use transporters to beam them to Klingon ships, but they don't kill them," Worf stated. "Even when the tribbles infested Deep Space Nine, Captain Sisko wouldn't let me hunt them, and he's... intimidating. No doubt there will be a song about 'Tom, the Killer of Tribbles.'"

"Two tribbles. Just two," Tom said, starting to feel embarrassed. "Please, no songs about me being the 'Killer of Tribbles.' I can picture Harry hearing about this and having everyone sing that song wherever I go."

"Why not? Killer of Tribbles," B'Elanna laughed. "You should be honored. It's not every day that a human gets a song from the Klingons."

"Daddy! Can we make a coat out of my kills?" Miral asked.

"Sure thing," Tom said, helping his family gather their kills.

M'Rek stood on a platform. "The culling is over, and many tribbles have been defeated! They'll respawn, but we've made a dent! Today, there's hope! We've witnessed a human killing TWO tribbles! This is a day of great honor! I'll commission an opera in 'Tom, the Killer of Tribbles' honor!"

The Klingons roared as they faced Tom.

"I'm... never going to live this down," he muttered, waving awkwardly at the cheering Klingons. He was pleased to earn a song in his honor, but most importantly, he had made his little girl proud. That was all the honor he needed.

The End

[exxos-von-steamboldt]

"Attention crew, Captain Janeway and Lieutenant Paris turned into giant salamanders, had sex, and had kids they abandoned to create the most complicated panspermia issue ever for scientists millions of years from now. This has nothing to do with us, I just wanted you all to know that things could be a lot worse."

It’s like every week something weird happens.