#uss cayuga

[laanswife]

Gif from @telumendils

When I watched the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Melanie Scrofano appeared, I was like: "Who is this beautiful woman on my screen?". Then I searched on the Internet and saw in her philology the series Wynonna Earp, which I had already heard of so I decided to stop and watch it at another time.

This month I decided to start watching and I've already watched 3 entire seasons (I watched the first one in just one day), because, what the hell, this series is incredible and it doesn't get the recognition it deserves.

Ps.: Now I live and breathe this character, because she's a bitch with a badass gun and gorgeous hair.

Gif from @dreamlonelywolf

[spockvarietyhour]

Enterprise and Cayuga charting a binary system, "Among the Lotus Eaters"

[blk-krrsantan]

So...I guess we're supposed to pretend Nurse Chapel was (conveniently) the only survivor on the USS Cayuga? Otherwise the Enterprise sent Cayuga crewmembers crashing to a fiery death. 😬

[cptnbatel]

sometimes, she thinks that things used to be simple. before. before the war. before whatever drove him to montana. and if things were simple, then sometimes she thinks it must be her fault that they no longer are.

things had never been simple, not truly.

❛ chris. ❜ his name serves as punctuation, designed to end the sentence he's started, the sentence whose ending marie already knows. ❛ you finish that sentence, I walk out that door... we've been here before, and, frankly, I'm getting tired of this song. ❜ she sounds tired, too.

she feels tied to a boomerang sometimes, pushed away yet bound to circle back.

marie draws a deep breath, searching for the words to embody the formless question growing in her mind. words to open a conversation and not drive him away from one. ❛ can we actually talk this time, instead of shutting each other out? ❜ her request carries no accusation, just a quiet, exhausted plea that she tries to inject humor into when she adds, ❛ just to see what happens. ❜ change the last verse.

// ✧ @fyrewalks.

[cptnbatel]

❛ borrowing trouble used to be a good part of my job. ❜ look for the loophole, look for what you — or the opposing counsel — are missing. anticipate and have a plan. be prepared to adapt. but that was the key word, wasn't it? preparation. marie figures that, by the time they're indulging in truisms, she might as well add, with a wry smile, ❛ old habits die hard. ❜

❛ in the interest of not borrowing trouble, I suppose I shouldn't point out that anyone with a brain would also probably have considered the inadvisability of holding two starfleet captains captive? ❜ yet her tone is too light to be mistaken as a serious argument. she will follow his lead, if not before she's made one too many sardonic jokes about their situation. not that marie's entirely sure the jokes make her feel any better.

He gets it. Marie wants the comfort of a plan B, a plan C. The thing is, though, if you're to the point of needing a back up plan, things have already gone to shit. Practical as it may be, it's not what Jim considers morale boosting.

Also, the reality is, if this little scheme of his doesn't work, they're probably dead. One way or another. No use in spelling that out, though.

"Don't go borrowing trouble," he tells her, hoping he hasn't messed up one Chris' comforting phrases. "This will work. We're two Starfleet captains, definitely worth a pretty penny to anyone with a brain."

[trekkie-polls]

Nutrek has a received a lot of criticism but you have to admit the newer shows have done a much better job of showing more female characters, a wider range of female characters, and more women in leadership. And I’d say more positive women in leadership. We saw a lot of antagonist female admirals in the 90’s. If I had made this poll in 2005, most of the options would be characters we only saw for an episode, or brief scenes.

1. Philippa Georgiou

2. Michael Burnam

3. Kathryn Janeway

4. Seven of Nine

5. Carol Freeman

6. Killy

7. Cassidy Yates

8. Marie Batel

9. Rachel Garrett

[cptnbatel]

there are no fewer than five starfleet ships now in orbit, counting the cayuga, following vague and unexplained orders from starfleet. or, at least, marie assumes they're all here under orders, though that may be merely presumptuous on her part. she wishes her security clearance ever got her answers when she wanted them, but such was not the way of the world.

the orders, the admiral she had last spoken to had insisted, were quite clear. make her way to trivelius ix, beam down to the coordinates provided in her orders, and await further instruction. she ought to have no problems completing them.

the orders, marie had thought, biting off the protest, were quite suspicious.

she wasn't sure if enterprise was a welcome sight or a sign that they were in for trouble, yet she had taken her chief of security (she was, according to her orders, allowed one accompanying member of her crew ) and beamed down to the surface. she took quick stock of her surroundings — enough to gather that they stood in a surprisingly bustling square of an unexpectedly vibrant city ( had a civilization been part of the briefing her crew had put together on trivelius ix? she couldn't remember ). she picked his familiar features — and the brilliant gold of starfleet uniform that managed to stand out even here — and wound her way over to him, leaving her chief of security to no doubt complete a more thorough scan of their environment.

❝ oh, good, you're here too, ❞ he remarks as he catches sight of her, and she laughs.

❛ seems a bit like overkill. ❜ despite her wry remark, she flashes him a smile by way of greeting. ❛ I don't suppose you actually know what's going on. I went through five admirals trying to get answers on the way here, and no one's wanted to tell me anything. I'm feeling a little put out. ❜ still, for all the honesty of the sentiment, her tone remains light; better to find humor in their shared predicament than truly indulge her annoyance towards their superiors at having been kept in the dark.

⤷ ✧ @cptnpike.

[followersoframbaldi]

Strange New Worlds: Among the Lotus Eaters

Disclaimer: I'm a Pike/Una shipper, and I admit that, however... this episode was such a leap in the Pike/Batel romance that I'm honestly gobsmacked.

So, I guess SPOILERS for both seasons under the cut: 

PILOT

she wakes up naked in his bed

has two pancakes

is the ship captain of the USS Cayuga

says she has a higher security clearance than he does

IN THE MIDDLE:

he bangs an alien

FINALE:

is in his quarters in the morning, so... you know, sex.

complains about his cooking

says she has a date, while Pike responds with, "anyone I know?"

comes back later and arrests Una

SEASON 2 OPENER:

suddenly JAG officer, lawyer, and prosecution for Una's trial

EP 2:

talking serious, giving gifts, bemoaning lack of time together, etc.

STILL captain of the USS Cayuga

she lost a promotion because of her ties to Pike

(insert here: Pike did a huge dick move... like: “Sorry you lost the trial, and like, sorry you didn't get the promotion, but uh. Maybe we should take a break.”)

implied his loss of memories can't get rid of love. LOVE. Since when?!

MY QUESTIONS:

were they captains with benefits or were they more serious with an open relationship or...?

why was she permitted to prosecute Una's trial if it was Not A Secret that they were together?

same question if she served with Una and Pike under April?

None of this makes sense. Honestly, I think they're gonna kill her as an excuse to give Pike some man angst, which... I’m not a fan of the romance, but I’m against fridging, too. 

[cptnbatel]

❛ especially scooby-do. imagine learning the laws of physics — or human anatomy — from any cartoon and thinking we can be bonked on the head with great force and survive. they'd start killing us by accident. ❜ truth told, it's always unsettled her, the great liberties cartoons take with violence, with distorting the way the body moves, with allowing that which would break someone. agonizingly.

she does not repress the shudder which courses the length of her spine at the thought.

with a snort, marie remarks, ❛ I was about to say I think I might rather be dealing with greek mythology, but... I don't think I want anyone taking inspiration from the gods. ❜ the heroes might be tolerable, though they definitely don't need a trojan war 2.0, especially not conducted on a galactic scale. ❛ but suggesting they're not smart enough and convincing them we are bored... those seem like two sides of the same coin to me. bored because they're not smart enough to pull it off? how about disinterested? will disinterested induce monologuing, or only spur them on to taking actions we'd rather they not? ❜

disinterest comes close to the mark of their current behavior already, considering that their conversation to all appearances ignores their unwanted antagonists and, frankly, exhibits an ongoing lack of true concern that must be visible in their body language if indeed their "hosts" had learned from the backlog of human cinema.

❛⠀⠀⠀even scooby-doo? ⠀ ⠀ ❜ ⠀ ⠀ this situation could be a hell of a lot worse, when you think about it. the hero defeating the villain by the end of the story is a trademark of the genre; scarecrow can plot a seemingly perfect plan, mastermind the hero's downfall to the last detail. it will never work.

their victory might be guaranteed by their choice of inspiration.

that is — if in this situation, marie is batman.

❛⠀⠀⠀always. that’s the trick, wait for them to talk themselves out of a victory. if we are going by comic book tropes, ⠀ ⠀ ❜ ⠀ ⠀ a phrase christine never thought she’d hear herself say, ⠀❛⠀⠀⠀we either have to goad them into revealing their masterful plan, by insinuating we don’t think they are smart enough to do this. or create a situation in which they think we are bored. either way, we gotta make them feel stupid, that’s their — and forgive the mixed metaphors, — achilles heel. ⠀ ⠀ ❜ ⠀

[borgcast]

USS Cayuga cross-section. Feel free to play Where's Chapel, as she's bound to have miraculously survived.

[alexwlchan]

How to really twist the knife into Pike…

(Spoilers for S2E9)

I watched S2E9 "Subspace Rhapsody" this morning, where the ending very heavily implies that Captain Batel is gonna be Gorn goulash in the next episode. Which I really hope doesn’t happen, because (1) I like Batel and (2) that feels uncomfortably close to fridging.

So I asked myself: if it was me, how would I pay off the portents of doom without doing The Most Obvious Thing? And it struck me: if you want to hurt Pike, don't kill Batel. Put her in the chain of events that leads to his accident.

There are various ways this could happen; but here’s one version:

It's pretty clear that her next mission is going to take her into peril, so have her be injured in the line of duty – something serious, enough that it's not immediately obvious whether she'd survive. (If you want a nice S2 cliffhanger, end with Pike standing over her biobed, unclear if she'll ever wake up.)

When she recovers, she decides she doesn't want to be a starship captain any more. Whether it's injuries or trauma or tiredness, whatever, she's done her time on the USS Cayuga.

She was already up for a promotion earlier in the series, it's time to move on… and she moves on to a more stable, safer desk job. Say, something at the Academy. Say, something where one might be working closely with cadets. Say, something where you might be inspecting cadet vessels.

And she suggests that Pike join her.

Because now the thing getting in the way of their relationship isn't “we're both on different starships flying around the galaxy”, it becomes “Pike is on a starship flying around the galaxy”. And if he was ever thinking of hanging up his captain's hat and settling down with her… well, now's as good a time as any.

For Batel, this is the chance for them to settle down and build a life together that they’ve always dreamed of.

For Pike, this is the first domino in a chain of events that leads to his reactor accident.

However that plays out, I think it puts a strain on their relationship. If he stays away, I think he makes excuses that hide the real reason and she's upset he won't tell her what's really going on. If he goes to live with her, he'll be jumpy and looking over his shoulder for his fate, and she's upset for similar reasons. Maybe that tension is what eventually ends the relationship. (Or the fact that long-distance relationships don't always work close-up.)

I don't know how likely this is, but I hope we get a more complex payoff than "Batel dead, Pike sad". Keeping my fingers crossed as I wait for next week!

[thesearchforbluejello]

This franchise is really fond of naming ships after places (especially new Trek with the Cayuga, the Puget Sound, the California class, etc) and getting ships lost in space so I propose they name one the USS Katahdin and call the show "Star Trek: Can't Get There From Here"

[cptnbatel]

marie could feel guilty, could take his scandalized expression at face value and repent. she's known him long enough, she thinks, to read the difference between the huff of exasperated annoyance and the churning of actual irritation. so, instead, she protests, words more teasing than complaining, ❛ it's delicious with chocolate, and maybe if you got down off your high horse and gave it a try, you'd change your tune. ❜ yet, finally she rises, retrieving a few lingering dishes upon the counter, and joins him at the sink.

❛ though, really, if you thought that was an insult to your cooking, I think you can afford to be insulted more often. ❜ after all, someone apparently needs to set straight his definitions of insult and compliment. a prod to his side tells him to budge over, to make space for her. the least she can do is help, even if he is the one being stubborn about the dishwasher which would make his life — and her own — so much simpler.

she affords the dishwasher a remorseful glance as she reaches for soap, but lets his silence in response to her earlier remark about it stand uncontested. ❛ 'complicated matter,' ❜ she repeats after a moment. ❛ well, I suppose we should just be glad they agreed on one thing. ❜ setting expectations low...

// @mirrcr

❛    let me get this straight: you skip dinner, dip my handmade churro into chocolate, which has to be a crime on some planet, mind you, and now you've decided that the right way to apologize is to insult my cooking?     ❜     with dear friends like marie, who needs enemies? under the cover of darkness, the romulans have been scheming for centuries to destroy the federation in their quest for domination. they've destroyed stations and created strife across the galaxy, but none of their plans so effectively harmed the flagship of the federation as she just did. at least that is what it seems, going by the scandalized look on pike's face.     ❛    any other sins you care to confess? did you steal my favorite coffee mug five years ago?     ❜

there were a lot of things beyond his power. some, he'd forced himself to accept long ago, as part of growing up. it was either that, or going mad and believing he was god, and he choose to go with the former. some were still beyond his reach, like controlling a bunch of admirals, or accepting that a dishwasher actually did something.

❛    well, they all agreed this was a complicated matter. so that was something,     ❜     he says, continuing to organize the items on the sink.

[freitasdc]

CVFN SP - Baixa do Navio de Desembarque de Carros de Combate (NDCC) ‘Mattoso Maia’ – G28

 12 de junho de 2023  Redação Forças de Defesa  52 O canal Navios e Histórias do YouTube noticiou em primeira mão que o Navio de Desembarque de Carros de Combate (NDCC) Mattoso Maia – G28 (ex-USS Cayuga – LST 1186) dará baixa ainda em 2023, depois de um longo período de paralização para reparos que visavam sua recondução ao setor operativo. O NDCC Mattoso Maia é o primeiro navio da Marinha do…

[spockvarietyhour]

Cayuga and Enterprise at Neutral Zone Outpost 4, circa 2259.

[notforemmetophobes]

Behind the Scenes of the movie Airport ‘77: Taken on board the USS Cayuga LST-1186 filmed off the coast of San Diego in Sept. 1976.