#war with the klingons? child's play.

[greatprotector]

“ that was quite the hand, but not for the game we are playing. ” 

                             there's something to be said about how at ease shepard is even among the dangerous.    despite being in a place most would consider to be the lion's den, there's not an ounce of tension in her frame, green and blue eyes sweeping over the augment's figure with something almost akin of amusement. there are dozens of files on him littered about encrypted files in the alliance; unfortunately for them, she's got the best hacker in the galaxy on board, and isn't afraid to break rules if it means getting the edge.    

                          ❝    ———    khan, right?     ❞

 as if she doesn't already know; and that shit - eating grin says it all. confident, perhaps, but not ignorantly so. there's crackles of biotic energy dancing across her skin, even while she's leveling him with her pistol.        ❝      you must have had a good nap if you're complimenting me already. i just wanted to talk, but if you'd rather dance? i'm game. and if i win, you listen. yeah?         ❞

@paramounticebound sent for an inbox meme.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

hiii, i am writing my first book/novel. its highlighting d***th, romance, mystery, politics, pretty questionable characters w revenge, thriller and lots of women n power play. its my first book and im not that educated about such themes. but this rough plot i have in my mind is so beautiful that underperforming this excellent trope would be a shame....ive never written before so could you please what to do to actually write this kinda theme to my heart's satisfaction. I've never written a freaking chap before and now im really lost

Writing Ideas: Revenge Tropes

some tropes related to revenge, thriller, women, and power play

Afterlife Avenger: This trope involves the circumstance where a character explicitly still chooses to pursue conflicts against whatever's left of their hated target long after they've passed.

Best Served Cold: Named for the French (or Sicilian, or Klingon, or drow, depending on who you ask) proverb, "Revenge is a dish best served cold." At least in the case of drow, it also means one can have well-planned revenge and drive them mad with fear as a bonus.

Crusading Widow: The death or murder of their significant other motivates the character to seek revenge.

Defeat as Backstory: A protagonist (or some other character's backstory) in a story begins by having been defeated either before the story began, or early on in the story (often in a prologue).

Dying Curse: With his dying breath, a character wishes ill fortune upon his killers, or some other personal enemy.

Pay Evil unto Evil: In real life, the sort of thinking behind this trope is called "retributive justice".

Revenge Through Corruption: Instead of inflicting physical harm, the villain attacks the mind and soul.

Villain-by-Proxy Fallacy: When someone goes after not only a crime's perpetrator, but those who supplied the perpetrator or were otherwise marginally connected to it, whether or not the people involved had anything to do with the actual crime.

Woman Scorned: A woman who's been dumped, cheated on, or otherwise done wrong by her significant other (or, in some cases, merely thinks she's been).

Examples

Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo, probably the greatest revenge story of all time.

In the original version of Beauty and the Beast, the Prince's widowed mother goes off to fight a war and leaves a wicked fairy to help him rule. When the Prince comes of age, she tries to seduce him and turns him into a Beast when he refuses her advances.

In Moby-Dick, Captain Ahab makes it clear throughout the book that he'll pursue Moby Dick to, into, through, and out of Hell, and even then he still won't be satisfied until the whale suffers forever for its slight against him.

Crime and Punishment: One of the antagonists of the novel, Porfiry, works as a police officer and interrogator, which usually would qualify as a good-aligned job. As you further witness this officer's tactics in catching criminals, you see him commit to bribery, thievery, death-threats, and psychological torture to force an admission. Furthermore, he seems to actually enjoy it, toying with amateur criminals like a cat torturing a wounded mouse. The justification, of course, being that the victim of this was a murderer, and therefore deserves it.

George R. R. Martin's Fire & Blood: After the war, Lady Joanna Lannister has a beef to pick with the Greyjoys, who've taken up raiding the coast, including killing a few Lannisters. She decides the best course of action is go to the Iron Islands and kill every man, woman and child she can find. She just settles for burning a lot of things and abducting one Greyjoy, gelding him and turning him into her fool.

Feyd Rautha Harkonnen receives a Dying Curse in Dune. After killing a combat slave in the arena, his opponent's final words are "One day one of us will get you." Given that this fighter is not just a slave, but one of the soldiers from the army of the Harkonnen's blood enemies, the Atreides, this may be prophetic.

In A Song of Ice and Fire, Arya Stark's conflation of justice and personal vengeance leads her to Villain-by-Proxy Fallacy. While many of people on her death list certainly deserve to be brought to justice, such as the Tickler for torture and Weese for abuse, others were merely acting on orders, such as the Hound, doing their jobs or are just guilty by association. Cersei Lannister is on her death list for being involved in the execution of Ned Stark, but Cersei wasn't complicit in that activity, and even spoke out against it. Same with Ilyn Payne, who was just doing his job as the royal executioner. The real mastermind of Ned's death, Littlefinger, is not on the list. Meryn Trant is on the list for killing Syrio Forel, but there isn't any evidence to confirm the crime. Polliver and Dunsen are on the list for flimsy reasons, like stealing. She has Chiswyck murdered for the crime of not being as funny as he thinks he is (granted, Chiswyck was joking about a gang rape, but that isn't the reason Arya cites as his crime). The conflation of justice and vengeance, and how that conflation leads to this trope, is one of the key themes of the entire story.

Queen Dido in The Aeneid, who prophesies that her and Aeneas's people will meet again in war (the Punic Wars — her future, Virgil's past). Particularly tragic in that it's made fairly obvious that he'd have stayed with her if he'd had the choice.

Sidney Sheldon's The Best Laid Plans: Leslie Stewart plots to ruin the career of Oliver Russell when he leaves her at the altar to marry a woman whose father promises to further his political career.

The Hunger Games: The Pay Evil Unto Evil trope is discussed all the way through Mockingjay, and reaches its culmination when President Coin suggests either executing all Capitol citizens or forcing their children into the Games.

Source ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Hi, here are some tropes I found related to the themes you described. You can find more in the source linked above. Study how it is portrayed in different types of media, and in your favourite films/books, to gain inspiration for your own story. You can take the rough idea/plot you already have, and try to incorporate techniques and tropes used by other authors, but then deviate from borrowing those ideas when your story starts to flow naturally. All the best with your writing!

[chillentertainer]

inspired by @searchingforserendipity25's amazing post, here are some of my silly ideas i banged out this fine snowy winter evening (shout out climate change because snow in texas!)

The one where the Pope discovers that magic is real and that Thomas Lawrence is a wizard. Except are you really a wizard if you haven't used magic for about half your life (the answer is yes because Lawrence uses it expertly to save Benitez's life)

The one where Bellini is down on his luck and in desperate need of money so he gets a sugar daddy. And that sugar daddy is Tedesco. They don’t discover the other’s true identities until decades later when they run into each other in Rome. 

The one where there is some kind of natural disaster which traps Tedesco and Benitez in the same room for hours on end. By the end of it, at least three (3) kisses, two (2) orgasms, and one (1) blowjob has been exchanged. They’re still “enemies”. But now Tedesco is inexplicably Benitez’s #1 private supporter and nearly bit off a bishop’s head when they spoke ill of Innocent 

The one where they are exploring the final frontier on a starship and the captain suddenly dies. So now they must elect a new captain. Also this mysterious officer shows up out of nowhere and apparently he used to work with refugees from the Federation-Klingon war?

The one where Thomas Lawrence is a painter in the 1800s and struggling to find artistic inspiration when Vincent Benitez, a fellow painter, arrives in town. 

The one where Thomas Lawrence endures a string of assassination attempts that he hides with increasing difficulty from the Pope, until his car literally Blows Up, and a piece of shrapnel narrowly misses a vital organ. Benitez is Not Happy about this. Ray does a little investigating because he’s also Unhappy someone tried to blow up the only Englishman he likes and finds out that one of the Cardinals is still paranoid about the simony list… 

The one where they’re in a symphony and the conductor just died and now they need a new conductor. Lawrence plays first violin. Sometimes he wishes his hands literally fall off before he has to pick up the violin and play again. 

The one where the plane crashes a la Yellowjackets! 

During these two months, Lawrence will offer himself up as food five different times. Bellini will begin to wonder about his friend’s mental health. Tedesco is the only one who seriously does want to eat Lawrence. (He's a hungry bitch who went through food scarcity as a child, can you blame him?)

Lawrence and Benitez will stare at each other longingly over the campfire for four weeks. Ray will notice these gazes and be reminded of the time he went and saw Portrait of a Lady on Fire by himself after a close friend recommended it to him and that close friend died before Ray could ask why they told him, a Bishop of the Catholic Church, to see a period drama about lesbian French women. Now he understands. 

Bellini and Tedesco will argue and then fuck it out thrice. They will be secretive and nonchalant and everyone will know because Bellini is limping and Tedesco appears unusually happy. Also sound travels far in a quiet forest. 

Tremblay will take over certain survival tasks twice because he was a Boy Scout in his youth, only to accidentally almost poison the soup with hallucinogenic mushrooms. Benitez catches this mistake just in time, but Tedesco isn’t listening (he’s too busy scripting out the next fight between him and Bellini) and takes a bite. While he doesn’t die, he instead has a vivid dream where he and Bellini turn into slime and merge into a giant slime puddle. He wakes up with an erection. Death is preferable in his opinion. 

And finally, Lawrence’s mild fever will worsen considerably one night, to the point of fatality, and he will hold Vincent’s hands as he confesses all of his sins and love for Vincent, though he knows he shouldn’t feel this way, but he does he does he does, and please use my body to survive and continue God’s work, and Vincent tearfully agrees, only for Ray to shout aha! because he got the damn radio to work and contacted the rescuers.

[fractalcloning]

As I scream into the void seeking a Narek RPer to play against, I have finally caved and must explain why I want this Romulan loungelizard to be more popular. (It won't happen, but I can dream.)

Reasons I like Narek as a character that nobody but me gives a shit about:

Let me preface this with a fact about me: I know Romulans.

I've RPed as Nero for almost two straight years in a large game. I've basically learned Rihannsu back to front for the endeavor. The person who played my Ayel and I both dumped countless hours into developing grammar and extrapolating cultural rules. We were dedicated to making them as believeable and accurate to canon as possible.

I have the whole timeline of the destruction of Hobus/Romulus down to memory. I know about all the neat little tidbits and trivia from comics and adjacent materials etc, etc.

This is to say: I have read and written quite a lot about Romulans in my time. I am very familiar with how they work and what data is available to draw from when writing them.

We do meet a few rank and file military Romulans from time to time, however. So we know how the general military operates in direct contrast to the Tal'Shiar. Caution and secrecy is sort of baked into their culture, which makes a lot of sense given that they're constantly at war with basically everyone, but they aren't (generally) unreasonable people.

In canon Trek, Romulans are often a little over the top with the sneaky-backstabbing-untrustworthy-nonsense. They're almost comical with how much scheming they do, but most of the Romulans we meet in canon are Tal'Shiar. The Tal'Shiar are known, pretty explicitly for the depth and breadth of their sneaky-backstabbing-untrustworthy-nonsense. It's kind of their whole deal, apart from mnhei'sahe (literally the ruling passion honor).

Narek, however, was a child when Hobus went supernova. He is from the very last generation that had any living memory of Romulus. (Elnor is also from this generation and they are great foils for each other, but that's another essay.) Narek is from a (presumably) respected family of--if not Tal'Shiar then Military--operatives. His aunt held high rank, his sister did as well, and both were inducted into the Zhat Vash, an organization that worked so quietly and efficiently that even the famously paranoid Tal'Shiar thought they were a myth. They orchestrated catastrophes and manipulated Galactic law to their ends, one of their members was the head of Starfleet Security and Narissa was on a personal basis with her.

Their underlying culture is present, but it isn't explored very deeply in any one canon source. Taken collectively, however, it is just as substantial as Klingon Battle-lust or Ferengi Capitalism.

Nero was a break from the norm, not because he was vengeful, but because he was the first non-military Romulan we'd ever really seen. His designs, the tattoos, the crew of his ship with their very un-Romulan loyalty, the way he talked and sought equivalent exchange of lives (mnhei'sahe), was a wealth of Romulan culture that we hadn't ever seen. He was a regular Joe, had a regular non-Military job, trusted and worked with aliens to try and save lives. His failure (not his fault) was something he absorbed and sought to rectify in the Romulan way.

Nero was super interesting both for how much detail he cast on Romulan culture, and in how he slotted into the Prime Timeline. Nero was a guy desperately clinging to hope, to the last vestiges of his civilian life, but he was cut free by the destruction of Romulus and set adrift. The only anchor he had in the AOS timeline was his honor and the driving need to balance the scales and restore it.

Narek, however privledge his family was, was a washout. He was a failure. We know he wasn't Zhat Vash, and whether he was even Tal'Shiar is up for some serious speculation. He doesn't act like military officers, and only seems to be play-acting as a Tal'Shiar, miming his sister when it suits him.

Narek may have had authority on the Artifact, but it was probably by dint of Oh granting it. We never get any clarification whatsoever about his rank or dayjob, just that he is fully devoted to helping the Zhat Vash. He is analytical, prepared, but he is not good at thinking on his feet and clearly does his planning off screen. He's meticulous but not especially skilled at hiding or regulating his emotional state. He is far less aggressive and stalwart than just about every other Romulan we've seen...except for Nero.

He was literally a placeholder sent to keep tabs on Soji. He didn't even arrive until Narissa had failed to capture Dahj. That Narek managed to get close to Soji, that he discovered her dreams and correctly surmised what they are, was more luck than skill. Before his assessments the Zhat Vash knew that Dahj (and Soji) could be activated out of their cover, but they assumed that they could capture them. They probably assumed they could torture the data out of them, if not dissect them and rip out a harddrive.

Narek found an easy way to get right to the information they needed. His attachment to Romulan culture is his puzzlebox--Before Nero we had never met a Romulan civilian and before Narek we have never met a cultural Romulan who plays with a toy, we had never seen a child's toy like that. Of course, the puzzlebox (Tan Zhekran) was a mechanism to illustrate his thought process, to make the differences between Narissa and him very apparent, but it was also something from his childhood (presumably). It's a weirdly personal affect for a Romulan and he fidgets with it almost constantly. It's a tell, something he shouldn't have, and it makes him accessible on an emotional level.

Narek is a civilian.

He's a civilian in a family of spies and operatives, raised alongside his sister on the same stories, with the same care. There's no way a Zhat Vash didn't have a family home on Romulus. While Elnor is a nice example of the new generation of Romulans, Narek is one of the last examples of what is used to mean to be a Romulan. He saw Romulus and escaped with all his surviving family when it as it was destroyed. Narek was raised on Romulan tradition (private names for family), Romulan stories about the end of the world, and he is haunted by them because he knows they're true, they're real. His sister and aunt have seen it, seen the message that drives people mad, about Ganmadan. His living relatives have dedicated their lives to preventing it and, even if he isn't actually Zhat Vash, he does the same.

Narek is a failure, by his culture's standards, by his family's standards, but he is also the only one of them who lives in the end.

He's a civilian who is trying, desperately, to avert another Romulan apocalypse. He has already lived through one and somehow this next one is even worse. Like Nero he sees the writing on the wall--but instead of doubling down on the traditional sneaky spy shit, he tries something new--unlike Nero, it works! He makes headway where nobody else could.

Unfortunately, it's kinda fucked up, but he then gives up everything in the pursuit of this goal. (Which to him, seems like a noble one.) Narek gives up who he is (by playing at being Tal Shiar), his safety (he has no idea what Soji is capable of or what might set her off, they only have records of Dahj killing a dozen agents before being blown up), and eventually resigns himself to killing the woman he's fallen in love with (the baseline requirement for giving out his real name). He does it all for the greater good, to save people and he doesn't seem to make much of a distinction between Romulan and other organic lives. He has his little plans, tracking La Sirena in a single cloaked ship, hiding his presence to tail them, firing on them despite being wholly outmatched, allying with Sutra however temporarily, trying to sway Soji again, turning to Rios, Raffi, and Elnor for help--he's willing to do anything because he's terrified that everything is about to end and it will be him who failed to prevent it.

The very last shot we see of him, after his plan to detonate the transmitter fails completely, is him on the ground being dragged away by the Coppelius androids. He doesn't posture or threaten, doesn't say ominous shit like the other Romulans we're used to--He begs. He claws at the ground, trying to stay, and he begs. He pleads with Soji, calls her his love, tries that last ditch hail mary because it's all he can do. He fails his task and she's the last person he can reach out to and, in the end, despite the very real threat to her life, Planet, and Picard, Soji smashes the transmitter. The apocalypse is averted.

Narek failed but he also succeeded. His aunt is dead, Oh has been outed as a traitor, and his sister is killed by Seven of Nine. In a cut scene, apparently, Narek was supposed to be arrested by Starfleet. So he's facing (at the very least) retribution from the androids and the ExBorg. Starfleet is very likely to arrest and interrogate him, if not imprison him indefinitely since he has ties to the Zhat Vash and, subsequently, will be on the hook to explain the Utopia Planetia disaster. Soji hates him, for good reason, and his homeworld is long gone. Narek has nothing...but the world was saved.

Narek is singular because he's all about needing and interacting with other people, he has no real authority, nobody he commands. He's a civilian (insofar as any Romulan can be) and is a soft, emotional boy who hangs on to his childhood toys. He's driven in equal parts by fear and a deep sense of failure, like everyone else in the show, and he takes the steps that seem right and necessary to him (also like everyone else on the show).

Narek was a great contrast against Elnor in every possible way--from his evasiveness to his fear of death--and he was a great foil for Soji. On Coppelius, Soji's terror clouds her judgment and she very nearly does terrible things to protect herself. Her actions, her opinions, her hesitation were all driven by fear. The ends seemed to justify the means. She reflects Narek's state for the whole show. Season 1 is about finding safety and meaning.

Narek is afraid for the whole duration of the show and his choices all reflect that same desperate need to find permanent safety, to live. Soji exists on the peripheral of that with the Ex-Borg, and as a synthetic, and then she falls headlong into it after his betrayal. Narek regrets trying to kill her and the symbolism of his losing that box, of him trying to kill her in a room that is so very culturally Romulan, right after telling her his name, makes it very clear that killing her is killing some piece of himself. But the ends justify the means. He can and will give up everything to save the world.

And his last line in the show is desperately pleading with the woman he loves as he's dragged away.

Then we never see him again or get anything resembling closure for Soji or Narek.

Which I will be big mad about forever, because they didn't even get the bare minimum acknowledgement and closure of "moving on and living life is paramount because it is finite and beautiful ". Nope. Nothing. I'm furious forever.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. I hope if Star Trek Legacy happens we get Narek as a sort of...side character creeper informant ala Garak. I also hope we get Soji on Seven's Enterprise because I love her.

[electronickingdomfox]

"The Final Reflection" review

Novel from 1984, by John M. Ford. This one stands apart from other TOS novels, and for several reasons. For starters, it's a book inside a book. The framing story has Kirk intrigued by a sudden "Klingon fad" among his crew, related to a new novel that hasn't been well-received by the Federation. Out of curiosity, Kirk decides to read the novel, titled "The Final Reflection" and written by a "JMF" (evidently John M. Ford), based on the memories of Dr. Emanuel Tagore. The rest of the book, therefore, is a reproduction of this fictional novel about Klingons, based on real events from some forty years ago. The second reason why this one is different, is a consequence of the first: for the most part, the story doesn't deal with the Enterprise characters, but with the Klingon captain Krenn, and his crew. This was the first time a TOS novel switched perspective, and told things from the point of view of the series' "bad guys".

However, far from being a story about bloodthirsty Klingons, battling against Federation starships, this is a thoughtful novel about politics, war, and the human (and Klingon) condition. The Klingons, though still warlike, are revealed to be much more sophisticated, civil and honorable than what's perceived by the Federation. From their unique point of view, humans seem as alien (and often as callous) as Klingons seem to them. And there's a sardonic view of human diplomacy and xenophobia, once Krenn gets to visit Earth in a diplomatic mission.

Games figure prominently in the story, in the form of chess, poker or the strategic Klingon game klin zha (similar to 3D chess). They're metaphors for the several political games that play out through the course of the novel. And ultimately, of the game of life (the Perpetual Game, as Klingons call it). There are several versions of klin zha that further stress this parallelism between games/life: a blind version where you can't see your opponents' moves, a brutal live version where real people are used as pieces... And the most difficult, the "reflective game", where there's a single set of pieces that each opponent uses in turn, thus creating both an advantage and a disadvantage with each move. "The final reflection" of the title refers precisely to the last move of this game, when the opponent paints himself into a corner. This is what happens to the (largely invisible) bad guys at the end, responsible for trying to ignite a war between the Klingon Empire and the Federation, and also Krenn's enemies for more personal reasons. But it's also a reference to Kirk's final reflections upon finishing the book, when he considers his own narrow views about his enemies.

There's indeed much of Kirk in Krenn, both in personality and career. The first third of the story follows Krenn since his childhood as an orphan, later adopted by a master strategist Admiral, and then in his early years as cadet, before taking command of his own ship. After this, he's tasked with bringing Dr. Emanuel Tagore to the Klingon Empire, as new ambassador from the Federation. The characters Krenn meets during his adventures are all colorful and fleshed out. Specially memorable is his adoptive father, Admiral Kethas, and Dr. Tagore. The latter is a frail, sweet old man, fiercely determined to achieve peace. And the relationship that forms between Krenn and him turns out to be surprisingly moving, for all its unlikelihood. There are also cameo appearances of Sarek, Amanda and a child Spock (who plays chess, and loses, against Krenn). As well as McCoy's grandfather, who storms out from a meeting saying "I'm gonna go change my grandson Leonard's diapers now, but I'll be thinkin' of you the whole time." (much to McCoy's embarrassment in the present). However, I'm not going to dissect the plot here. First, because there's not a single plot; the three sections of the book each deal with Krenn at a different point of life and with a different mission. And also, because I think the most interesting parts of this novel are in the conversations, and the glimpses of wisdom that one gets from them, and those don't translate well into a dry summary of facts. Actually, I still suspect there are further layers to this story than the ones analyzed here; things that would require a second reading (or a more skillful analyst) to bring to the surface.

As for all the lore about Klingon culture and language introduced, this novel came out at a time when almost nothing was known about this race. There were just a handful of episodes, and those portrayed Klingons as rather one-dimensional. The effort to flesh out their culture is commendable, but unfortunately, much of this lore has been ignored or contradicted by later series (though some concepts, like the Black Fleet of Klingons' afterlife, has been recently incorporated to canon). The chronology for Klingon history is no longer correct, and it seems to owe a lot to the FASA games (for which the author was also a collaborator). And some biographical details are also off. For example, the stardate of the frame story places it some time after The Wrath of Khan, while Krenn's mission was just forty years ago. It's not possible that Kirk wasn't even born, and McCoy was just a baby; even less so that Spock was a young child (McCoy is older than Spock). But if these details don't annoy you, this is a really good book, not just as a TOS novel, but as a novel in general (and I admit it brought tears to my eyes sometimes). Anyway, it's a retelling of events, so inconsistencies can be dismissed as "artistic license". As Dr. Tagore says to the fictional author in the prologue:

"Be a storyteller, an embellisher, a liar; they'll call you that and worse anyway. It hardly matters. The Tao which can be perceived is not the true Tao."

Spirk Meter: 0/10*. There can hardly be if the characters aren't even there.

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

[whirligig-girl]

Question: Describe your OCs mirror universe counterpart?

(Mirror Guz, playing an electric accordion.) Hey listen. I'm an engineer. That means I solve problems. Not problems like "what is beauty?" because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. [phaser shots] / [photon torpedoes blasting] I solve practical problems. [horrible raygun sound effects, voices of a human screaming.] For instance: "How am I gonna stop some big mean terran communist from melting me a structurally superfluous new behind?" [electric arc zapping sound, mellanoid resistance fighter gurgling their last breath.] The answer: "use a gun." [clunking sounds of gun reloading; thunder claps; disruptor blasts. A vulcan vaporizes.] And if that doesn't work? Heh. [Subspace field coils energizing. A beam of green light outshines everything else in the view. Within seconds, the planet below is completely destroyed.] Use more gun. >:)

mirror Slamtha and mirror Guz were best friends growing up in the aftermath of the Zaldan-Mellanoid war, a conflict which only ended because the Zaldans were themselves finally conquered by the KCA. Guz and Slamtha were both going to join the United Mellanus Military--Guz would join the engineering corps as a weapons designer; having played too much with leftover explosives as a child for her own good had given her a military scholarship, and Slamtha would be a soldier. When the Mellanoids had reverse-engineered captured Zaldan starships and built their own warp drives, all that did was alert the KCA to their existence. The Klingon-Cardassian Alliance came to subjugate Mellanus. Guz betrayed her people and defected--how else was she to put her talents in the art of weapon design to good use? Slamtha stayed loyal and fought in the resistance. But one day, she was going to find Guz and make her pay.

[episodicnostalgia]

Star Trek: The Next Generation, 109 (Nov. 21, 1987) - “Hide and Q”

Written by: C.J. Holland & Gene Roddenberry Directed by: Cliff Bole

The Breakdown

Q makes his first return appearance, but this time he decides he’s going to pick on Riker, since Picard is a boring rule follower. Initially Q brings Riker (along with a few select bridge crew) to another plane-of-existence to play some kind of war simulation. After making the participants suffer grisly and painful deaths, Q decides to undo it all, and instead levels Riker up with the power of unbridled omnipotence.  Initially Riker does try to resist the temptation to do literally anything he wants, but his resolve is tested when a young child dies on a rescue mission, which leads Riker to thinking “hey technically I could actually do a lot of good with these new powers.” And in fairness, he’s kind of got a point.

So what does Riker do with his new godhood?  Of course first-things-first, he proceeds to bring the little girl back to life before reuniting her with her fami- Just kidding, lol. No, instead he offers his friends a round of good old fashioned wish fulfilment.  Riker proceeds to offer Geordie his sight back, Worf a violently horny Klingon woman, and Wesley a ripped-and-slightly-older body.  To his astonishment the entire crew turn down their gifts almost without hesitation, possibly because of their strong moral centre, but also possibly because Q is clearly playing at some kind of contrived moral lesson about humanity, and playing into his hands is generally unwise.  Realizing the error of his ways, Riker surrenders his new powers, and literally no one mentions the little dead girl ever again.  Meanwhile Q is dragged away screaming by the Q-continuum, because apparently he didn’t get the proper permits to visit the humans. I’m sure that’s the last we’ll see if that guy!

The Verdict

The concept is sound enough, as far as morality plays go, but the execution culminates in a missed opportunity to delve into some more interesting questions. Do I think Riker should possess the power of a god? No. But surely the life of an innocent child should yield greater consideration than Wesley’s desire to be a grown up. All things considered, ‘Hide and Q’ is just kind of weak, if amusing in it’s own right.

John de Lancie is starting to lean more into the trickster god vibes this time around, which I do enjoy, although still a little over-the-top, but then so is everyone else.

2 stars (out of 5)

Additional Observations

Lt. Yar has a thing for a sensitive Picard, and maybe also Worf? During Q’s games she’s sidelined and made to wait on the ship (with her life potentilally on the line).  Picard offers his moral support and she’s basically like “Wow you really are the whole package.  If ONLY you weren’t also my captain”.  And maybe it’s just me, but later when Worf is offered his potential Klingon mate, Tasha seems a bit jealous. I guess she can’t deny a strong forehead.

Wesley gets impaled, but words can’t do it justice.

Worf’s acrobatic leap over the bridge railings has got to be one of the most unintentionally hilarious pieces of acrobatics in television history. I love it with all my heart.

The bridge crew are all a little TOO impressed with adult Wesley.

[thegreaterlink]

Reviewing Star Trek TNG - S4E8 "Future Imperfect"

My last review was posted like... nine months ago.

Time flies when you're lazy.

THE PREMISE

Commander Riker’s birthday celebrations are interrupted by reports of strange sensor readings from Alpha Onias 3. He beams down with Geordi and Worf to investigate but they’re quickly knocked out by toxic gases. Upon awakening in sickbay, Riker discovers that sixteen years have passed (though he can't remember any of it) and he is now the captain of the Enterprise.

MY REVIEW

Sixteen years in the future. Assuming that Riker is roughly the same age as Jonathan Frakes, that would put him in his mid-fifties. And if we compare this "middle-aged" Riker to Jonathan Frakes circa mid-2000s...

Not bad. Still, anything beats that weird adult Wesley from Hide and Q.

Then again, if we use Riker's birthday slab as an indicator, then he just turned...

...six.

I guess he was born on a leap year.

Anyway, here we are in the future, where Dr Crusher chalks up Riker's sudden amnesia to a side effect of a dormant infection which he picked up on that away mission all those years ago. An infection which Klingons just so happen to be immune to... and I guess Geordi is just built different.

Dr Crusher recommends associational therapy, with the idea being that surrounding Riker with familiar people and things will help to jog his memory, starting with a trip to the bridge. Because a man fresh out of a coma with a massive gap in his memory is clearly fit to resume command of a starship. Good call.

Riker arrives on the bridge and finds it looking… exactly the same, since new sets ain’t cheap, but there are at least changes among the crew. My boi Data is now First officer, Geordi now has ocular implants so LeVar Burton gets to act without a hunk of plastic on his face, and more species like Klingons and Ferengi are among the crew.

But what concerns Riker is the most is Admiral Picard and Troi arriving on a Romulan Warbird.

That last one is explained by ongoing peace treaty negotiations with the Romulans, which Riker has apparently been leading ever since he rescued the crew of a damaged Warbird which wound up in Federation space. Evidently random acts of kindness go a long way towards stopping wars in this universe. The Enterprise is currently escorting the Romulan ambassador to Outpost 23 to wrap things up and get the treaty signed.

Yep. Here we are in the future, and it's bright. Nothing to fear, no one to fight... I can't believe we've come so far.

Then Tomalak beams aboard.

Future Picard and Troi try to reassure Riker – yeah, he did threaten to take the Enterprise's hull as a trophy last season, but that was one time – but he's still concerned, both by the massive gap in his memory and that he might have to reveal sensitive Starfleet intel to someone he probably can't trust.

With the briefing over and Riker’s memories still thoroughly gone, Troi takes him back to his quarters, where a mysterious child is playing his trombone.

"Hi, Dad!"

Ah. He has his father's... hair?

This is Riker's son, Jean-Luc (Chris Demetral). I remember being surprised that Troi wasn't the mother... but their romance is barely more than subtext at this point, so it's not that shocking. Jean-Luc's mother was actually a woman only known as Min, who Troi explains died two years prior. Even though they have zero evidence of her existing – aside from the child she supposedly birthed, I mean – and Riker can't find any trace of her in the ship's records. They don't even have any photos of her. I guess they had to make room for their... modern art?

I think I saw the Threads logo in there.

Christ, the last time I posted a review Threads didn't even exist it's been so fucking long

The computer's been acting up for a while now, come to think of it. I'm sure Geordi will be done with that diagnostic soon.

Still, I can at least appreciate the script's efforts to make us care about this kid. Riker adjusts pretty well to being a father, though that probably has more to do with Jonathan Frakes' natural daddy– I mean dad energy.

"I guess there's only one thing we can do. We've got to build some new memories!"

But Riker is still bothered that he can't find any trace of his late wife, though Jean-Luc says he's just not being precise enough, and pulls up some old home movies. It's here that we discover that "Min" is actually Minuet (again played by Carolyn McCormick for a single shot – that's dedication for you), that hologram lady he tried to bone way back in his babyface era.

Suddenly everything starts falling into place. And speaking of hologram romantics (or holosexuals, as I like to call them), Geordi calls Riker back up to the bridge.

It's here that the attempts to keep Riker gaslit, gatekept and girlbossed completely fall apart, as he calls out all sorts of holes in the facade, like Geordi taking more than a day to run a simple diagnostic, nobody being able to properly recall past events and even Data using a contraction.

Ha! I knew Lore was going to come back eventually! AND THEY CALLED ME A MADMAN!

...No? It's not Lore? Aight. Maybe next season.

"Would anyone else like to speak up? Or shall we end this charade?"

With the wool thoroughly pulled back from Riker's eyes, Tomalak reveals that the whole thing has actually been a hologram simulation designed to trick him into revealing Federation intel like, say, the location of Outpost 23.

You win this time, Lore.

Turns out that after the away team was hit with the gas, the Romulans intercepted Riker while he was being beamed up. They used their neural scanners to create a perfect replica of the Enterprise and its crew. Add a bit of ageing makeup and some bullshit about amnesia and badda bing badda bang, you’ve got yourself a pretty convincing future AU.

As for Tomalak’s OC, Jean-Luc, he was actually some random kid named Ethan who they had taken prisoner after raiding a research outpost on the edge of the Neutral Zone.

They throw Riker in a cell with him for a lil bit — just long enough for Ethan to tell him about a secret hiding spot elsewhere on the ship — so when the Romulans come back with the intention of taking the intel by force, Riker seizes the opportunity. One distraction and a few punches in the face later, and they’re on the run.

Ethan leads Riker through a convenient crawl space to a convenient forgotten room where some convenient blueprints conveniently tell them the location of the ship’s communication centre where they could send a message to the Enterprise. But there's a catch.

Ethan: The transmitter's on a voice-activated security system only.

Riker: Do you know whose voice activates it?

Ethan: Only Ambassador Tomalak.

...The fuck you say?

Yeah, the plot be thickening. Turns out the original simulation was just crammed inside of another one. So the Romulan ship fades away... as do the Romulans... and Tomalak... until Riker is left standing back in the cave on Alpha Onias 3... with only the boy remaining.

Credit where it's due, decent plot twist.

The boy, whose real name is Barash, reveals that his mother left him in the cave — which essentially functions as Holodeck+ by manifesting anything he wants — to keep him safe. But with his mother long dead and the Enterprise being the planet's first visitors in ages, he baited the away team down to the surface and intercepted Riker mid-transport while Geordi and Worf were safely beamed back up.

But with the game up, Barash drops the facade, allowing the Enterprise to finally get a proper lock on him. Fortunately Riker realises that the kid meant nothing by it and even offers him asylum on the Enterprise, prompting Barash to finally reveal his true form.

Ah... I think you've got the wrong set, my dude. This is Star Trek. Doctor Who is on Stage 4B.

Riker: To me, you'll always be Jean-Luc.

And so Riker has himself and the kid beamed up. Da end.

We're going to see a lot of these "waking up in a different reality" plots going forward, and while I'm usually not really a fan — you're mostly just waiting for the character in question to realise something ain't right and expose whatever tomfuckery is causing it — this one ain't half bad, since it was a bit more subtle about it and had some third act twists to spice things up. So yeah.

7/10 - The first of many.

We are so fucking back.

Previous Episode | TNG Masterpost | Next Episode

[thelandswemadeofpaper]

Authority

Alliance

Evil Power Vacuum

In Its Hour of Need

Playing/Running Both Sides

The Man Behind the Man

Voluntary Vassal

The Missing Faction

Lonely at the Top

Civil War

Enemy Civil War

Brain Drain

Sorcerer's Apprentice Plot

Ambitious Lesser Noble

War and Battle Trophy

Isolationism

A City Sacked

Peace Treaty

Ban on Magic

Royal Decree

Envoy

Trade

Garrison

Siege/Besiege

Restoration

Servitude

Slavery (Race? Mooks?)

Submission

Tame

Dowry

Honor and Reputation

Rumors

Good Princess, Evil Queen

Demilitarising

Monopoly of Resource (can be a more abstract thing, like the Sun?)

Devasted Land After War

Inheritance

Fallen Princess

Finders Rulers

Rightful King Returns

Orphan Heir

Inadequate Inheritor

Superior Successor

Disinherited Child

Lost Orphaned Royalty

Denied/Stolen Heritage

Denied Position/Candidate

Passed-Over Inheritance

Mother Makes you King

Hidden Backup Heir

Spare to the Throne

Rejecting the Inheritance

Only Surviving Candidate

Royalty Superpower

Former Rulling Dynasty

Nepotism

Royal Blood

Long Lost Heir

Second Son

Position

Conqueror

Tyrant

Rulling Couple

Puppet King

Alleged Boss

Fake King

New Master

Shared Position

Unaware Position

Questioned Position

Unwanted Position

Klingon Promotion

Demoted to Dragon

Stripped of Titles

Dragon Ascendant

Offered the Crown

Abdicate the Throne

Abdication in Shame

Regent for a Life

Weak Leader

Naive New Ruler

Reluctant Ruler

We Can Rule Together

Rash Grey Ruler/Bait-and-Switch Tyrant

Throne Battle (cousins? siblings? uncle?)

Heir-in-Law

Usurper/Usurped (what happened to the usurped? Run Away? Locked Up? Killed?)

Successor/Predecessor (how the they got the position? Their relationship?)

Disgraced

Stolen Lands

Second Place

Vacant Position

Rebellious Rebel

Society and Nobility

Social Hierarchy

Colony

Capital

Split Folk

Foreign

Fantastic Caste System

Ethnicity Monarch

Foreign Ruling Class

Interclass Friendship or Romance

Class Segregation

Nobility Marries Money

Nouveau Riche

Rags to Riches/Royalty

Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor

Crapsaccharine World

Adopted into Royality

Royal Bastard

Minor House

Branch House

The Outsider Befriends the Best

Impoverished Patrician

[lenievi]

snw season 2 #1 

I didn’t dislike this episode. Pretty average among SNW imho

Me: going into this with open mind

M’Benga gives Spock a lute

Me: wtf (:D)

just to make it clear, because of a deleted TOS scene where Spock was like, I won a second place in a competition, and them being like who won the first, my father, I’ve always assumed Sarek taught Spock how to play and I don’t like it being taken away from me

yeah, anyway, I see that Spock unleashing his anger in ep 9 does have consequences

“We must steal the Enterprise.” kadhajkfhjasghfjkagjaghfjgajegh Spock vs Kirk: 2:1 (Spock’s winning when it comes to stealing the Enterprise lol)

- why is there a character that’s once again connected to Spock, but now via his mother T_T  (but... can I expect Amanda to appear in SNW?)

- Spock: “Miss Ortegas” okay then, going back to TOS terminology, I see

- I really hope they won’t give Kirk his “thing” (”Take her out of orbit.” is way classier than anything else.)

- I wonder if s2 is going to bring up more about the Federation-Klingon war (and if Spock and Pike and maybe Una will feel something about not being there). I wonder if they will canonize it for Kirk too. Actually... since they’re going into the war with the Gorn (maybe), they probably will

- the M’Benga/Chapel fight scene was probably my least favourite past of this episode (plus, Spock’s catch phrase, since the timing of it was really weird)

- if Spock cheats on T’Pring, she let him off easy. If Spock cheats, period, it’s kind of like hmmmm Anyway, I expected this, now it just depends on how it’s going to be handled - in order for me not to lose the respect I have for the character (I mean he did want to sleep with Chapel in Amok Time) - because at the end of the day, Spock makes a sacrifice and chooses T’Pring. Wonder if at that time Chapel is gonna meet her future fiancé... (I just feel like I honestly have to stay from other people because I can imagine what others are saying lol)

but yeah, looking forward how Spock/Chapel will proceed because it makes a few TOS episodes have more depth

but pleaseeee let this season have less Spock.

Was nice to see La’an again (after like not seeing her for one episode lol). Can’t wait for the 3rd episode!

BUT THE LUTE T_T That I will ignore. Sarek gave him his lute. He taught him how to play T_T (even though I think Spock already had the lute in his quarters before, but it’s just weird that it would be now lying in sickbay... he did own it in Discovery, in any case - I’m not sure if SNW was careful about not including it in s1, I haven’t checked, but I... don’t appreciate Spock’s lute, something that is Vulcan, being given to him by a human. Spock was a creative child - he drew, he played music... not everything has to be connected to a trauma...)

oh, wait, loved that Uhura came by and heard Spock playing, so maybe, maybe finally we’ll see Spock playing and Uhura singing, or Spock teaching her

[taboo-delusion]

This is the BEST real story I've ever read.

But I have to add-

*I had to look most of these up, cuz I've never heard of them. The others is just a summary of what I assume, so they all get included*

Sheriff - Between cop and lifeguard in terms of authority, usually for more rural areas, or region/zip code edges.

Quilt guild - Basically a club (get-together) for a specific activity together.

Denver Art League - Community-focused education courses in pretty much every art form.

Denver Leather League - BDSM Club.

The Vikings - As in the Denver Vikings, the football team, or just Culture Larpers, (Live-Action-Role-Play(-ers), I am unsure.

The Klingons - Culture or religion, either way, it follows canon.

Colorado Wild Game Share - I couldn't find a straight answer, so I'm assuming it's a nickname for all groups of people who's job description *is* the defense of wildlife and natural resources.

Scientific Illustrators - When I think of an adventurer's journal, 'hand-drawn scribbles and diagrams of what they stumble upon' pops into my head.

Assorted Scientists - Please tell me there's at least one rocket-scientist. XD

Sheep Lesbians - Sheep farmers (produce wool for making things.)

Horse Lesbians - Said "I want a pony!" as a child, And their guardian *actually* said yes.

Three Competent Finnish people - I feel like I should clarify; OP does **not** assume that Finnish people are competent, mearly that these three were excellent help, especially wjen 'help' was unexpected. When the Bitch of the adventure rears her ugly manicure, she gets her ass planted in said manicure.

Corgis - Corgulio. I was gonna just say 'indeed', but my hands slipped so that's what Corgi minions are called now, apparently.

60’s protest front - Protesting war, and the concept thereof- for the sake of love, peace, and equality, regardless of anything and everything.

Mercedes - It's like the real-world equivalent of the batmobile in terms of "*Expensive*".

Nebbish - "Noun. One who is fearful and timid, especially in making decisions and plans, in discussions, debates, arguments, and confrontations, and in taking responsibility." - Wordhippo.

CO Branch of the KKK - I'm assuming a faction of the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) cult. I Scrolled through an hour of wikipedia trying to find who they are and what they did, but all I returned with is naseua and a migraine.

Pillar Men Theme - "The theme song of Kars, Waamu and Esidisi from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part Two, Battle Tendency." - Genius.com (Lyric-search website).

Ugly laugh - that face someone makes when they're having such a good day, they don't care how the laugh sounds or if they snort (Compliment).

Thank you, and have an amazing sleep.

Today's Adventure is that I, after an unintentional 13-hour power nap,

Got woken up at 6AM by a phone call from a friend stranded in Montana because of the heat wave and almost no cell service because of their crap provider.

OhSoThat'sHowIt'sGonnaBe.jpg

Ok.

I somehow summon a week's worth of spoons and in less than 30 minutes and 5 phone calls, get them

A hotel

An appointment with a mechanic from 2 states away

A perscription refilled from 2 states away

and A Pizza

Go me.

But then it's 8AM and there are unscheduled live humans at the door and while EVERGENCY MODE is still on, I have already blown through a ton of spoons, and also probably shouldn't meet whoever it is wearing just a pair of bootyshorts that say "CRYPTID" in Gothic Font on my ass.

So I greet them in those shorts and a T-shirt that I manage to put on both inside out and backwards

#nailedit

It is, Fortunately, not the mormons.

it is, Unfortunately, two UPS guys trying to deliver my other in-house friend's new phone except the new guy doesn't know how to operate the "sign for package" device, and the old guy that's supposed to be mentoring him is like, 92, deaf as a post, and doesn't actually know how to operate the device either.

by the way

it is already

over 100 out

it takes almost 30 minutes to sign for the phone

when i get back inside, i discover that apparently the Corgi has learned how to open his kennel from the inside because he is now out of the kennel and waiting for me to come in.

he also has cat litter all over his face because while he was waiting for me he also learned how to open the baby gate to the cat's room and help himself to a cat shit breakfast.

He'll be fine

He's a cattle dog, they're legally required to have at least 1 really disgusting snack they love.

but

more to the point

i have no idea at what point he learned to open his kennel from the inside

has he been staying there out of politeness this whole time??

And

I got other shit to do today.

namely.

I'm seeing a realator

The Devils most pathetic yet effective demons

I get a reminder text that I have an appointment with her

at least

I think that's what it is because what she sends me is: "🏡⏰12:00 ❔"

With the time typed in the middle like that.

She is, according to her profile, at least 80.

so I reply "😎👍"

and then she sends me a string of GODDAMN POST-MODERN EMOJI HEIROGLYPHICS THAT TAKE UP MY ENTIRE SCREEN.

She's on an iPhone so half of them don't even translate across platforms

It takes me half an hour and three different software programs and goddamn wingdings to translate, but she has sent me the address and rules about masking and not wearing shoes inside.

in emoji

instead of like

literally any other format

I am

FASCINATED

and simply must meet the woman so if I don't come back to update I got stolen by the fairies but I'm taking the Corgi with me as protection so I'll see y'all later.

[sshbpodcast]

Discovery Season 1: Our best first season since TOS?

By Ames

Now that we’ve caught up to streaming Trek here on A Star to Steer Her By, we’ve got a lot to say about Star Trek: Discovery. And perhaps controversially (and yet not surprisingly), we’ve got to admit that its first season is one of the strongest first seasons of the franchise. Now to be fair, that’s not actually saying much. You’ll remember that the first season of TNG was boring at best and cringey at worst; DS9’s first season, while fine on its own, doesn’t hold a candle to the rest of that series; Voyager was still getting its legs under itself; and Enterprise… well the less said about Enterprise, the better.

But just on its own, early Discovery sashayed onto the scene with a lot of noteworthy elements, some good and some more subject to debate and personal tastes. In lieu of our normal top and bottom episodes of a given season, the SSHB hosts are going to go through individual highlights and lowlights of our Klingon War season. So read on below and listen to this week’s commentary on the podcast (jump to 1:17:26) to see if committing mutiny is a good thing or a bad thing, or somehow simultaneously both!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Highlights

New designs are drool-worthy The very first impression that we get of Discovery—even before the show’s premiere if you’d been watching trailers and behind-the-scenes news—is that it’s super pretty. While there are definitely cinematic elements that may not have been fully necessary (more on those below), having the show look like a movie sure does come with some benefits. We’ve discussed some of them before. The uniforms are swish. The ships are very nifty. The mirror universe uniforms are stunning, even if they don’t reflect the prime universe at all. We even didn’t hate the Klingon redesign like so many neckbeards out there wouldn’t shut up about.

Look at this cast! There isn’t a weak link in this bunch, which isn’t something we’ve said about any of the other casts to date. The acting chops of all our main cast members are off the scale with this show, and they all suit their characters so well. And how are they all so hot? That’s not even fair. Call us, Ash Tyler.

Michael Burnham fulfills her character arc At the show’s forefront (perhaps too much in the forefront?) is our lead, Michael Burnham, who starts off the show as someone who done fucked up. Mutinying against captain Georgiou in “The Vulcan Hello” was a heckin’ choice for our protagonist, but watching the serious acting chops of Sonequa Martin-Green bringing her character full circle by the end is a very Trekky move. She avenges Georgiou’s death by killing Kol in “Into the Forest I Go” and redeems herself for the most part by standing up to Cornwell and refusing to genocide the Klingons in “Will You Take My Hand?” Badass.

Saru comes out of the gate swinging Perhaps the biggest standout character on the show is also the tallest. Doug Jones’s portrayal of Saru made him an instant fan favorite, and the new race of Kelpiens was intriguing from the start. While we didn’t care for “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” terribly much as its own episode, we did appreciate seeing the depths of Saru’s character and the constant unease he lives with that he hides behind compassion, professionalism, and sass. Mostly sass. When he takes command of the ship after Lorca’s identity has been revealed in “What’s Past Is Prologue,” it feels like a true victory for the Trek ethos.

Tilly grew on us quickly Sylvia Tilly started out OBNOXIOUS, as if the writers wanted a quirky character but didn’t want to do the actual character work. I can’t tell if they thought they were being funny or what. But once they calmed the hell down with the Tilly-mania, her character seemed to settle on first being a good person. Watching this sweet summer child flip the script and play Captain Killy in “Despite Yourself” is that much more impactful once we’ve started to understand her. And Tilly sitting with Tyler in “The War Without, the War Within” is pure goodness (though they rather over-egg it by having everyone else join in).

Lorca is a different breed of captain Before we learn Gabriel Lorca’s true identity, he is already a fascinating character. Like Sisko during the Dominion War seasons of Deep Space Nine, he’s an officer in the impossible position of leading during a time of war, pushed to the brink and putting Starfleet morals on the line. And yet he’s still somehow more likeable than Jonathan Archer. While the reveal that he’s actually from the mirror universe kinda sacrifices any further character development for mirror-universe levels of mustache-twirling evil, it still feels like the culmination this captain was heading toward.

Sarek is a bad dad in every universe While one could argue (and many many have!) that this show had no good reason to be set in prequel territory instead of somewhere in Trek’s future, its placement in the timeline does one satisfying thing: it explores the nature of Sarek. We learn in “Lethe” that those racist Vulcans gave this daddy an impossible choice by only permitting one of his abominable children to the Vulcan Science Academy. Sarek chose Spock, breaking Burnham’s heart even more than it was already. And it was all in vain anyway when Spock ran away to Starfleet like a rebellious teen! 

Starfleet stands on moral grounds Can we also just say that it’s nice to have a show whose morals feel like Star Trek again? Unlike Enterprise, which preached that the ends justify the means (even war crimes and genocide and some really immoral shit in season three), Discovery makes it clear to the audience that we should find Cornwell’s decision from “The War Without, the War Within” to try to genocide the Klingons to be reprehensible. Even during wartime, our main characters are hell bent on doing the right thing, whether that be in decisions like freeing Ripper in “Choose Your Pain” or trying to help the Terran Resistance in “The Wolf Inside.”

Trauma is given the weight it deserves Who in this season isn’t a broken husk by the end? Michael not only had a traumatizing childhood, but certainly didn’t deal with it well during her upbringing on Vulcan where, according to “Battle at the Binary Stars,” it looks like she mostly repressed everything. The whole crew is shouldering major losses from the Klingon War, notably Detmer whom we see has visible injuries from an attack. But the embodiment of pain this season comes in the tormented package that is Tyler/Voq, whom Cornwell uses her psychology background to help through a PTSD attack on the Sarcophagus ship in “Into the Forest I Go.”

Pow! Kick! Blam! Obviously, having Michelle Yeoh kicking ass at every opportunity is a straight-up gift, but even beyond that, the violence sequences are all excellently choreographed (as long as you aren’t watching the background too closely in that throne room battle in “What’s Past Is Prologue”). A personal favorite is the close-quarters turbolift fight between Michael Burnham and Captain Connor in “Despite Yourself,” which is so dynamic and unique that you can’t tear your eyes away. We even get some agonizing new deaths in “Vaulting Ambition,” like the severe use of defibrillator paddles on Captain Maddox’s head!

Our first [canonical] gay relationship It took you long enough, Star Trek! Finally, the franchise features an LGBT relationship that you can’t write away as being a weird Trill thing like in “Reunion” or some mirror-universe shenanigans like in “The Emperor’s New Cloak.” Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber’s relationship is treated like any other relationship, but its inclusion perfectly aligns with the values of Trek, which push for representation whenever it can. So seeing two men totally normally brushing their teeth together in “Choose Your Pain” says more than what is presented on screen.

Starfleet officers are clever Let’s round things out with just a couple specific moments of when the show was smart. We’ve got to give Burnham credit for figuring out that the tardigrade reacts to spores in “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry,” even if that doesn’t go well for Ripper. Stamets working diligently through the time loops to defeat Mudd in “Magic to Make the Sanest Mad Go Mad” is a lot of fun too. Michael also very cleverly gets the info about the Defiant over to the Discovery on Tyler’s body in “The Wolf Inside,” so full marks for her. The whole crew pulling together to make the 133 jumps in “Into the Forest I Go” is new and fresh as well. And finally, terraforming that planet with spores in “The War Without, the War Within” is a nice moment... even if it feels way too fast.

 —

Lowlights

Learn to pace yourselves! Probably the biggest issue we have with this series so far is its pacing. Whole episodes go by when nothing seems to happen (we’re looking at you, “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum”) and then others where the audience is struggling to keep up. Furthermore, starting the show with the two prologue episodes “A Vulcan Hello” and “Battle at the Binary Stars” makes for weird structuring which kept us that much further from getting into what would be the actual plot, the actual characters, even the actual ship! Spending less time in Mirror World and concatenating some episodes might have helped, since we ended up with a sort of rush job by the time we get to “Will You Take My Hand?” in the same way we did in the finale of Deep Space Nine.

Too much Klingon being spoken On a much smaller scale, you know what else didn’t help the pacing? Whenever the Klingons talked! Who knew that creating a language that would intentionally be very difficult to speak fluidly would come back to bite the show in the ass? And we get it: it’s a window into the culture of an alien race who’s been here pretty much since the beginning and having them speak in their own tongue carries power. But goddamn does it get old fast. Just pull a The Hunt for Red October like everyone else does and be done with it.

Too many twists When plot elements happen just so we can get to the next twist, it’s a recipe for bad writing, which we get in both big character revelation scenes this season. When Tyler’s hidden Voq memories activate in “The Wolf Inside,” it’s because of the incredibly forced dialogue between Burnham and Mirror Voq, which they absolutely would not be having if the writers didn’t need someone to say “Kahless” a bunch of times. And then again when Burnham figures out Lorca is from the mirror universe in “Vaulting Ambition,” it’s such clunky writing that Burnham only pieces it together because they need her to for the plot.

Who even are these supporting characters? The whole bridge crew is a blip. I certainly didn’t learn any of their names on my first watch when Discovery was first released. Rhys and Bryce are interchangeable as far as I’m concerned. Owosekun is present but we don’t know a thing about her. Airiam seems to taunt us because we want to know what this robot-person’s deal is but we have no idea. Detmer might be the biggest wasted opportunity, as she is someone who also served under Captain Georgiou, but all she seems to ever do is sneer at Burnham from time to time and that’s it. Hell, by the denouement of the season, even Stamets and Saru have been shoved into the background again!

The Discovery bridge is too big and dark Perhaps this actually contributes to how we don’t get to know the bridge crew at all: they feel like they’re miles apart in this cavernous bridge set! The bridge is also so dark that I have no idea how they’re able to see their own consoles to get any work done. Why all this wasted space? Is it because the aspect ratio this season is 2:1 and they just wanted to stretch everything out? They practically have to shout across the void to each other when they get orders. Echo echo echo…

Dizzying camera tricks The hugeness of the sets and the dimness of the lighting lends directly to some unnecessarily fancy filming techniques. When you start to notice that the camera is rarely still, then you start to tire of all the unnecessary movement. Grabbing screenshots of this series is more of a pain because everyone’s always blurry or out of frame due to the constant movement. The worst offender definitely comes in “Despite Yourself” during that one technobabble scene. It’s a full minute of the camera spinning around the actors like you’re on a gravitron in an amusement park, really hoping you don’t hurl.

The idiot ball goes round and round Similar to the problem above of the plot twists needing a lot of counter-intuitive actions and leaps in logic to make work, there are even more cases of the characters having to do things that are out of character, out of place, or just plain stupid to advance the plot. Having breath scans in “Context Is for Kings” comes to mind because they’re a really bad form of security that only exists for Burnham to bypass it. Tilly not reporting Stamets’s OBVIOUS side effects from using the spore drive in “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” is another. And the same goes for Ash Tyler, who was clearly exhibiting PTSD all over the place in “Despite Yourself” and yet they keep sending him on missions.

Oh and literally everyone’s plans in the mirror universe in “What’s Past Is Prologue” are driveling nonsense. Lorca, what was your actual plan ever? Michael, are you really banking on beating up a roomful of enemies instead of coming up with something more clever? Heckin’ yikes.

Ellen Landry just sucks as a character Speaking of people holding the idiot ball. Ellen Landry gets her own entry because she was just terrible, especially in “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry.” Wowsers, what an awful character. When we meet her in “Context Is for Kings,” she’s just cruel and unlikeable, referring to prisoners as garbage and animals. And when she utterly disregards Burnham’s warnings about the dangers of poking the water bear, she unsurprisingly gets her ass killed out of sheer obstinance. Good riddance, bitch.

Well, that was convenient Similar to people holding the idiot ball to advance the plot are instances of overly convenient resolutions also to advance the plot. I’m thinking specifically of the goofy ending of “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” in which Stella shows up for two reasons: a) for the reference of it all, and b) because they ran out of runway to resolve the plot. When you think about it, there are way better ways to wrap this thing up. I also find it cop-outy that the mirrorfolk’s light sensitivity is how Lorca gets outed in “Vaulting Ambition,” considering that was never something we’ve seen before. And what a shame that the ISS Discovery got immediately destroyed, ya know, lest they do anything cool.

I understood that reference! While there was less fanwank—like the afore-mentioned Stella dealy—than you’d expect from a prequel series, that’s not to say there was none. Which makes overt references stand out all the more, like Saru asking the computer for a list of captains the audience has all heard of before in “Choose Your Pain.” Obviously the whole fucking mirror universe four-episode sidequest is purely for the fans to jizz about, like every time it was featured in Deep Space Nine, but here it’s jarring because Discovery tries to take Backwards Land seriously when that’s just impossible. And showing the USS Enterprise at the end of “Will You Take My Hand?”: WANK WANK WANK!

You did it because you could, not because you should Because this is the streaming era, you can get away with a helluva lot more in your series, what with their seemingly limitless budgets and content ratings that go up to eleven. But that doesn’t mean you have to include gratuitous content just for the sake of it, because that’s how it feels. When Tilly and Stamets say “fuck” in “Choose Your Pain,” it’s forced as… well, forced as fuck! It’s not something that seems natural in Star Trek. Same goes for the gratuitous titties in the rape scene in “Into the Forest I Go.” Not only does it just feel upsetting tonally, but nothing would change if either scene were omitted.

Well, that aged poorly Finally, we just need to complain about how the Elon Musk reference in “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry” didn’t age well. Maybe this nazi-saluting billionaire seemed like more of a visionary and less of a lunatic despot at the time this came out in 2017, but that just goes to show that you should never meet your heroes because they will disappoint you, and then cut funding to a lot of necessary government agencies. Except for Stephen Hawking in “Descent” because he was a treasure.

—

So while some of the structuring and storytelling could have been better, we’ll always find nits to pick—we’re Star Trek fans after all. Overall though, the first season of Discovery is hella intriguing. We’re excited to see where it brings us next (even though we might already know where it’s bringing us next). So make sure you’re following along with us to see what we think of the next jaunts of our spore-hopping ship over on the podcast at SoundCloud (or whichever app you like). You can also open your Lorca-brand fortune cookies with us over on Facebook and Bluesky. And please: stop spinning the camera for just a second so we can get off this ride and – BLEARGH!

[moorheadthanyoucanhandle]

DOVE TALE

Again and again I find myself sheepishly admitting that Star Trek, as in the original series, is my all-time favorite TV show. It's a little embarrassing to acknowledge that, north of sixty years old, I keep going back for comfort and refreshment to the corny sci-fi show that I loved as a kid.

Worse yet, for all the show's sophomoric heavy-handedness and cultural chauvinism and ludicrous science and inconsistently applied social values, I keep finding relevance, even prescience in it.

For instance, this past weekend I watched the third-season episode, scripted by the redoubtable Jerome Bixby (also author of the story that became the Twilight Zone favorite "It's a Good Life"), called "Day of the Dove..."

You may remember it: Both the Enterprise and a crew of Klingons arrive at a planet, lured there under false pretenses by a powerful incorporeal alien Entity. Through a variety of mind tricks and matter transmutation, the Entity gets the Federation crew and the Klingons trapped together aboard the Enterprise, which is hurtling out of control on course to leave the galaxy.

Onboard, the factions are allowed their own turf, armed with swords--Scotty admires "a Claymore..."

...and psychically aroused to furious hatred toward their adversaries and even toward each other. They soon discover that the conflict between them is self-renewing; their wounds heal miraculously and the Entity allows neither side complete victory.

As a kid, I always thought it was a pretty cool episode. It had plenty of action, including swordfights, and the coolest and most badass of all the original series Klingons, Kang, played by the rumbly-voiced Michael Ansara...

...towering over Shatner...

It was also the only glimpse we ever got, in the original series, of Klingon women, notably Susan Howard as Kang's wife and science officer Mara...

In the course of the show Chekov, under the Entity's evil influence, attempts to violate Mara, although it looks like she could smack his little ass across the corridor with one hand.

Along with Chekov, Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Uhura all get to work themselves up into highly entertaining angry lathers in this one. Shatner's in particularly hilarious, wound-up form here: "Look at me...Look. At. Me." And there's the great moment when the hysterical Scotty, responding to Spock's attempt to calm him, says "Keep your Vulcan hands off me," but it sounds like he said "Keep your f**kin' hands off me."

But watching it the other night, it occurred to me that this episode seems unusually relevant these days. I noticed this a few years ago about the second-season episode "The Omega Glory" as well. The theme, about the dangers of fetishizing and theocratizing America's foundational documents and other objects of patriotic regard like the flag, seems like a pedestrian, basic civics lesson. But it turns out that our society needs to be reminded of it regularly.

Similarly, with "Day of the Dove," the message might seem, at a glance, like the usual honorable but ineffectual Star Trek platitudes about the horrors of war and the bondage of bigotry and the liberating virtue of tolerance. But now, in light of the revelations from the Dominion lawsuit, it has a strikingly specific subtext. Because, of course, the reason the invading Entity is attempting to create this hellish eternal conflict on the Enterprise is that it feeds on violent hatreds, turning from yellowish-white to a happy shade of red...

...when it sucks up some delicious fury.

It creates false narratives in people's minds to stir up their bloodlust--Chekov claims his brother was killed by the Klingons; Sulu later explains that the brother is imaginary, as Chekov is an only child--and feeds both sides with propaganda to gin up enmity. Essentially, the Entity is a farmer, planting outrage so that it can harvest rage.

In other words, the Entity is Fox News, and the "news" media machine of which Fox News is the most successful and egregious example. I mean, isn't it, kind of?

In this context, some of Bixby's lines take on an extra resonance, as when Kirk speculates "Has a war been staged for us, complete with weapons and ideology and patriotic drum beating? Even...Spock...even race hatred?"

Or, when Kirk says "It exists on the hate of others," and Spock replies "To put it simply. And it has acted as a catalyst, creating this situation in order to satisfy that need."

Or, again, Kirk's desperate appeal to Kang, in the climactic minutes: "...and it goes on, the good old game of war, pawn against pawn! Stopping the bad guys. While somewhere, something sits back, and laughs, and starts it all over again."

In the end, Kang is persuaded, a truce is ordered, and the weakened Entity is chased off the Enterprise to hearty laughter from both sides...

Kang slaps Kirk on the back and for a second it looks like Kirk is going to pass out. A lovely moment; I would highly recommend it for our nation right now. But as the Entity goes flittering off the ship into space, it's all too easy to imagine it scurrying down to some TV "News" Network on some unsuspecting planet.

[the-last-dillpickle]

DS9 prompts under the cut from DS9agogo’s 2010 Station Log Ficathon on LJ

>>

GEN

- Ezri Dax, prompt: sliding across a bridge of sighs

- Kira Nerys and Mora Pol: After Odo has returned to the Great Link

- Jadzia Dax, where the sky is the limit

- Quark and or Odo: not as adversarial as it may at first appear

- Kira Nerys, Julian Bashir, in the line of fire

- Nog and Jake Sisko, friends will be friends

- Three generations of Siskos. If you can work in Benjamin's sister and her family, as well as Benjamin and Kasidy's child, so much the better :D

- The reconstruction of Bajor after the Occupation and/or the reconstruction of Cardassia after the Dominion War.

- After curing a plague on Bajor, Julian is proclaimed by most Bajorans to be 'sent by the Prophets'. Then Julian has visions much like Sisko and he starts to question his sanity. Kira and Sisko play a big part, anyone else is up to you. You can pair him with whoever or no pairing at all.

- "Where's Garak?" : Insert Garak into an episode or a scene where he doesn't appear, but should have

- Dear diary, Judy Blume style.

- Kai Winn's brush with atheism.

- Keiko's experiences adjusting to the station. Make her likeable!

- Remember the "puppy" from episode 1x17: The forsaken? Considering that the whole computer system was fried at least once, whatever happened to the puppy?

- Miles O'Brien, Keiko O'Brien, and Kira Nerys. (Slashes optional.) Experiments in marriage, partnership, and parenting: sometimes painful, sometimes joyful, always difficult.

- Kai Opaka and Vedek Winn. "One must never look into the eyes of one's own gods."

- Five things Tora Ziyal didn't live to do, and one she managed just in time.

- Sisko, Jake and a cooking lesson. I'd love to see fic that highlights that awesome father-son dynamic they have, whether it turns out comical or poignant or serious or whatever. HET - Sisko/Jadzia Dax. Things happen between them. Sisko is freaked. Dax is... not so much.

- Odo/Kira, if we'd had a moment to ourselves/We'd be unstoppable

- Odo/Kira Reuniting after Odo fulfills his obligations to the Great Link/heals the founders. Bittersweet or happily ever after, whatever feels right.

- Odo/Kira. Quark POV that gives away how genuinely fond he is of both of them, and of course how happy for them if it's after they get their shit together.

- Jake/Ziyal - Will you marry me?

- O'Brien/Station Computer - "Computer... you and I need to have a little talk." (Mod put this in het because the computer has a female voice.)

- Worf/Jadzia, lighten up and you might just learn a thing or two

- Worf/Jadzia a new skill, preferably something Dax has never encountered before but has to do with Klingons. This is in exchange for Jadzia teaching him something particularly Klingon. SLASH - Weyoun/Dukat either non-con or semi-con. I rather like the idea or Dukat or Damar getting punished by Weyoun.

- Garak/Dukat Anything absolutely smutty would be amazing. No fluff or cute stuff.

- Odo/Quark I can't help myself

- Julian Bashir/Miles O'Brien; prompt: boys and their toys (can be either gen or slash)

- Garak/Bashir. An AU where Bashir is kicked out of Starfleet because of his genetic enhancements, but he is able to find a way to stay on Bajor/on the station, and this sets Garak and Bashir's relationship on a different course than in canon.

- Garak/Bashir. An AU where Bashir is kicked out of the Federation because of his genetic enhancements, and becomes an exile too.

- Garak/Bashir. An AU where they’re all on a starship and Cardassia is a new-ish member of the Federation. Garak is one of the first Cardassians to serve in Starfleet.

- Garak/Bashir. An AU where Bashir and Garak meet when they’re younger, that has a happy ending, please!

- Garak/Bashir, ensemble cast, any other pairings. A complete fantasy/magic/medieval AU. Instead of planets, Cardassia/Earth/Bajor/etc are countries, etc.

- Garak/Bashir, ensemble cast, any other pairings. An AU in which Cardassia didn’t just take over Bajor, but the entire Federation. The characters are all part of ~the resistance~, and Garak has trouble figuring out where his loyalties are. Happy (or at least bittersweet!) ending, please- no Garak betraying them all, etc.

- Garak/Bashir. Post series. Garak and Bashir are somehow reunited, but not using the trope of Bashir going to Cardassia to help with the recovery.

- Garak/Bashir. Post series. Garak and Bashir keep in contact throughout the years, while Garak helps rebuild Cardassia and Bashir is still working in Starfleet. Of course, eventually they meet again, though!

- Garak/Bashir, ensemble cast, any other pairings. Post-series. All the main "characters" are having a "reunion", but no one actually thought that Garak would show up- including Julian Bashir, who hasn't seen Garak in years.

- Garak/Bashir, ensemble cast, any other pairings. A disaster occures in the Federation and the characters are all drawn back together.

- Garak/Bashir. Garak knew about Bashir’s genetic enhancements before everyone else… but not because he “figured it out”. For some reason Bashir told him, or when they were in trouble/danger it came out.

- Garak/Bashir. Something with Bashir actually using his genetic enhancements and saving the day/etc.

- Garak/Bashir. Bashir rescues Garak. Featuring Bashir being generally awesome.

- Garak/Bashir. Somehow Bashir unexpectedly ends up with a baby/kid, courtesy of an old girlfriend, and of course he has absolutely no clue what to do. But to the surprise of everyone, Garak is surprisingly useful and enthusiastic- children are very important to Cardassians, after all. Even more surprising is the route their relationship takes as taking care of the he kid brings them closer.

- Garak/Bashir. As a reverse of the norm, Bashir muses on Garak's beauty/attractiveness.

- Garak/Bashir. Bashir knows that Garak likes to get off the station, but rarely gets to, so he invites Garak along on his vacation, not knowing that this vacation will change everything between them.

- Sisko/Bashir, something that deals with how impossibly young Julian seems at the beginning of the series and how much he changes over time.

- Sisko/Bashir - they shared an unpleasant time during the days leading up to the Bell Riots. Maybe it brings them closer once they're finally back to their own time?

- Sisko/Bashir. Kasidy ends things with Benjamin, because she's figured out that he's in love with someone else. Ironically, Benjamin hasn't worked this out for himself yet.

- Jake/Bashir during "Fascination" (Season 3). When Lwaxana's aboard the station, inadvertently messing with people's heads, it's not Kira that Jake fixates on.

- Jake/Bashir - Jake Sisko's got his heart set on Julian. Julian doesn't quite know what to do with that.

- Jake/Bashir, Sisko finds out (on purpose or otherwise).

- Dukat/Garak. They get into a fight after Garak catches Dukat in his quarters. When fighting, they begin to have rough, passionate anal and oral sex while spewing insults at each other. Dukat walks out grinning with the taste of Garak still in his mouth.

- Dukat/Sisko. Alternate scenario in which some hot-lovin' happens in the cave they're stranded in during "Waltz." THREESOMES/MULTIPLE PAIRINGS - Something canon compliant Bashir/Ezri/Garak as an actual threesome.

- Garak/Bashir, Kira/Odo. Garak, Bashir, Odo, and Kira all have to work together to Save The Day. I will have your babies if both couples get together during the story- developing relationships ftw.

- Garak/Bashir/O’Brien. Post series. Bashir and O’Brien are in a relationship, but Bashir has kept in contact/comes back into contact with Garak, and something happens to cause him to realize that he loves Garak too.

- Garak/OFC, Garak/Bashir. To rebuild & repopulate Cardassia, Garak gets married. Bashir realizes that he's lost his chance. Bashir visits Cardassia over the years, and is like, "Uncle Julian" to the kids. But Garak and Bashir do get together in the end!

- Garak/Bashir/Mirror!Garak. Garak is on Cardassia (for any reason). Feeling horny, Bashir decides to travel to the AU to try to seduce AU!Garak. When Garak returns from Cardassia early to find Bashir gone without explanation, he knows exactly where he's gone. Garak goes to the AU in a fit of jealously but ends up joining in on the fun.

[botslayer]

Dumb Star Trek show concept: Worf in reverse but on steroids. IE: A bunch of Klingons end up with babies from federation species. (Xindi, human, Vulcan, etc) the show is about these like ten adopted children growing up together on Kronos and dealing with honor and whatever BS.

 Klingon father: "What troubles you, Sijeel?"

Romulan daughter: "... Dok said Romulans have no honor."

KF: "... I will have words with his mothers. In the meantime, remember that Dok is a Ferengi. He has less honor than that."

Immediately smash cut to an argument between this Klingon man's man and a moments ago happily sparring lesbian couple about what they're teaching their child.

----

Xindi child: “YOU NEVER UNDERSTOOD ME, DAD!”

Klingon father: “Son, I have tried every conceivable way to relate to you, I have given you a hundred things from Xindi culture... But the fact is that you’re a lizard and it’s difficult for a mammalian species to--”

XC: *Runs off to his room in a huff*

KF, swallowing angry-sad rage bellows as he looks at his wife: “What would you suggest?”

Klingon wife: “That he needs space to think.”

-----

And then some of them actually have regular Klingon Children which they had after or before adopting the lost kids which often plays out something like this:

Bully: "Your brother is a lazy, honorless coward!"

Brother: "He is every bit the Klingon you are not!" And then his brother, an arboreal Xindi, is just off some place painting a war mural.

[icarusthelunarguard]

This Week’s Horrible-Scopes

It’s time for this week’s Horrible-Scopes! So for those of you that know your Astrological Signs, cool! If not, just pick one, roll a D12, or just make it up as you go along. It really doesn’t matter.

Aries 

No matter what you think, we’re not here to judge you. Others might, but we won’t. To that end… You didn’t want to take down your… “Year-End Holiday Lights”, and that’s OK! But may we suggest you trade them out for those new-fangled color-programmable ones? Slave them to your Home Automation system and they’ll change with each new holiday’s theme with no direct input from you. Sadly we’ve already passed May 9th, which was Lost Sock Memorial Day. So add that to your holiday list for next year. 

Taurus 

Let’s face facts - you are never going to beat that Super Mario Brothers Arcade Game High Score anytime soon. Oh, you were good in your youth, and you could afford to buy an original 1983 coin-op cabinet to play on… but do you really think you can score over Five and-a-half Million Points to take the world record away? We don’t think so either. Save that $1,500 and take a vacation next month. 

Gemini  

Remember the cartoon series ReBoot? It was produced between 1994 and 2002. One of the opening lines was, “They say the User lives outside the Net and inputs games for pleasure.” Well guess what was released to the public in 2001 by Nintendo. That’s right… a Blue… Game… Cube! If Mainframe Entertainment had TradeMarked that term, they could’ve gotten some kind of marketing deal with Nintendo and had Money To Spare! (*Sigh*) This week, try to think way ahead.

Cancer Moon-Child 

There’s a specific set of dice that are used in table-top gaming: D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, and D20. They’re all some typical geometric shapes, but. There have been some weird ones that’ve come down the pike ever since. So yes, you can buy a D1, which is a form that ALWAYS lands on a specific side, and the D7 which is a Klingon Battleship. This week, remember that The Fourth will be with you, Always. 

Leo 

You remember hearing how “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees is one of the best songs to use to time your CPR Compressions? It’s not the only one. You could use ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”, “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor, “One Week” by the Barenaked Ladies, or, ironically enough, “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen. But if you really want to screw with the person’s head as they come to, have everyone around you hum “The Imperial March” from Star Wars. That’ll scare them enough to wake them up without resorting to smelling salts. This week, listen to some old music again.

Virgo 

Speaking of Smelling Salts… Don’t use them! Sure, it’s kinda funny to use them as a prank to wake up your friends when they’ve fallen asleep first at a party, but don’t use them when playing sports. Yes, you can get a hit of oxygen into your blood due to more respiration, but you don’t need it. You’re an umpire… at a Pee-Wee T-Ball league. Just relax this week.

Libra 

It’s five o’clock somewhere, so you might as well have a drink!  Come to think of it, have a lot of drinks, but make it a challenge; Run something through your Soda Stream that isn’t supposed to be. Something alcoholic. Better yet, you’re smart and innovative. The patent for the original “SodaStream”.. OH, sorry… the “aerating liquid machine” expired a long time ago. Go ahead and redesign it to work with liquors and make a killing in the Novelty Bar Drink market!  

Scorpio 

Speaking of drinks, Scorpio; This week you’re going to visit an old house. Make sure you have an extra-bright flashlight with you because you’re going to find a bomb. Not a munition, but an old Hawaiian Punch tin can from the early 1980’s. It’ll look like a blue and red mis-shapen rugby ball. DO NOT TOUCH THIS UNHAPPY ABOMINATION! Just take a picture and walk away. Leave disarming that to the professionals.

Sagittarius 

You need to clean up your Whatnot Drawer in the kitchen, like it or not. First off, that bag of rubber bands? They’ve dried up and crumbled into chunks. The super glue hasn’t dried out yet, but it’s almost ready to spill all over the battery cases. And as for those, you have three locations where you’ve been storing batteries. Just condense it into one place. This week just… get your act together.

Capricorn 

Sexy asked for, sexy delivered. We’re challenging you to buy the thinnest, tightest bikini possible for the summer. And before you ask, no! You’re not going to buy it from Wicked Weasle, the Barely There Bikini Shop, or Bitsy’s Bikinis. Head out to your local hardware store and get yourself a gallon of Benjamin Moore Latex, a 3-Inch natural-hair brush, and an understanding get-away driver for the beach. Good luck!

Aquarius 

You get a sexy one too! You’ve been worried about your weight, and we’re going to tell you not to. A couple kilos isn’t gonna kill you, and it might even be fun. Some of your clothing’s gonna fit a little tighter, look a little smoother, and need you to reconsider sporting underwear to keep the lines unblemished. Now, remember, we said “a couple” kilos, meaning two; not three or four. You start making excuses and rationalizations and you might as well buy an emergency sewing repair kit. Actually, do that anyway.  

Pisces  

When everyone said, “May the Fourth be with you”, and you answered back, “- and also with you”... We get it. It’s OK. It’s like muscle memory now. You can stop being embarrassed about it now. Just take a breath and have a drink of wine to calm your nerves. But, you know… not that watered down stuff. Drink the GOOD stuff. Riunite… on ice. It’s So Nice! (Yes, it’s a hold over from last week’s commercial theme. It was tough coming up with one for you, alright?)

And THOSE are your Horrible-Scopes for this week! Remember if you liked what you got, we’re obviously not working hard enough at these. BUT! If you want a better or nastier one for your own sign or someone else’s, all you need to do to bribe me is just Let Me Know! These will be posted online at the end of each week via Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and Discord.