thelesseroftwoweevils

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

That title is goofy.

After the hype, they just need some shield mods to fly in and fix it like any other rift? Okay then.

They've got an new permanent interdimensional rift that was never mentioned in any later time frame. Great continuity!

You can tell they haven't given Tendi or Rutherford enough to because they speed ran entire arcs for them in this one episode.

I did like they tried to incorporate stuff from most of the other episodes in the season though.

And their final send off was heartfelt and less glurgy than Disco or Prodigy did so there's that.

Except then it had to end of the damn 'I need an engage phrase' joke. Ugh! I hate those. At least everyone else hated it too

P.S. Oh and fuck them for throwing in never to be resolved ship teases at the last second.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

I spoiled myself on all the guest appearances and the plot and thought I was going to hate this one.

I wish they'd done Upper Decks at a different point in the season because two episodes in a row with nothing from the real main cast was not good

But... it was really good, maybe it was just the high stakes, quick moving plot? Because the main draws: Bashir/Garak, Curzon and T'Pol the Kims, I don't really like them. Or Captain William Boimler whining about the multiverse but somehow... it still worked? I don't get.

That end, yeah it sets up a big finale but logically: what you couldn't find an empty reality? or one that was all assimilated or something?

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

This concept was kind of inevitable right?

I get the joke I really do but the whole "we're the stars not the command crew" was really too on the nose. And originally wasn't the joke that the command crew always had the crazy adventures off screen and the Lower Deckers were out the loop/picking up the shit afterwards/only hearing about it seconds? There's episodes that depend on it like when Tendi turned into that Scorpion or the D'Arcy Mask situation in the spa ship episode?

Aside from that, I did enjoy the episode. Not only the senior crew but the non star Lower Decks. It was nice for the not usually seen Ensigns like Meredith and Barnes as so forth to get their chance to shine.

(I only just noticed Moxy (Delta-Tendi!) has some spotting on her temples as that always been there? Is she not )

Still five plot lines was a little too much. I want to know more about Shaxs but the ending of Freeman's plotline both with the Admiral appearing and knowing how much the personal touch with the crew matters were very nich and heart warming.

Not perfect but certainly one of the better ones this season.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

I am over a week behind so I only just I saw "Fully Dilated", so the episode is caused by Boimler and Rutherford being idiots and once again they point out at the start of the episode that the whole plot is stupid and pointless.

Hanging a lampshade doesn't fix that.

Topped off with using the most over used special guest star in the franchise. I am all Brent Spinered out. Stop bringing him back.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

I am bad at tumblring so I do not know about this site especially but elsewhere there seems to be a lot less discusion of Lower Decks now? I don't know if it's just waring out it's welcome, or if it's it bieng on paramount plus or what.

tht said I'm finding myself struggling to keep up. I had other things happening at the end of last week, i had plenty of time to watch really but it still didn't happen. will probably catch up both episodes when tomorrows drop. but then maybe not.

maybe i'm just old. i use to properly binge things.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

Whatever happened to Mariner's Ensigns? We saw a group of them she was supposedly going to be responsible for in 5x01 and then... never again.

Weird.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

Well that one was... not good. I feel like I should like the concept: Mariner having to deal with her position as an LT by leading an ensign who represents the "old" her. But it just had no spark and dealt with it all so superficially. Mariner apologies for something she'd barely done and it ties itself up so.. neatly Meanwhile Boimler's plot is awful. Tendi is constantly point outing how awful it is but its one of those situations where lampshading you're bad rather than just not being bad doesn't help. Boimler just seems to be really... Season 1 if that makes any sense?

the cube and spheres are just so cliché and uninteresting that I have nothing to say there.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

... Err? What? No.

Where in AOS is this thing about Kirk being okay with losing so long as there's a silver lining? Where does it say that? When does he express that? The films are not that deep.

AOS Kirk is an arrogant jackass who thinks he can never lose.

And if people are getting the wrong impression. It's probably because in The Wrath of Khan, Kirk was wrong about it and hadn't ever learnt the lesson of the scenario. That some times there is just no way out and nothing to do. As Picard later says:"Sometimes you commit no mistakes and still lose"

That's the whole point of what he says in the Genesis Cave and Spock's sacrifice.

#1170

Often times when reading AOS fics I'll get hit in the face by the fact that so many in the fandom don't understand what Kirk means by no-win scenarios. Too many times I'll see someone write Kirk as a person who will not accept any failure whatsoever because they've equated no-win with all-win or no-lose. That's not what Kirk's on about. He doesn't believe in no-win as in there will always be a silver lining or some type of win to a scenario no matter how bad the odds or failure. Even if the only thing you can say at the end is that you're alive - that's a win. The fact that the Kobayashi Maru kills everyone no matter what they do is what pisses him off so much, a character trait he does in fact share with TOS Kirk who also screwed with the test. So no, Jim doesn't consider Vulcan a no-win. He doesn't consider Khan and Marcus a no-win. He doesn't consider even saving Spock's life by breaking the prime directive and getting demoted a no-win. Because they were wins - some vulcans and Earth were saved, Khan was defeated, Starfleet saved, a Klingon war adverted and Spock is alive. So whenever a fic takes the "I sure hope Jim learned his lesson about no-win scenarios" route I want to bang my head against the wall because he didn't learn anything because there was nothing to learn. At most Kirk's just an arrogant ass who plays too much. He's 22-27 in the first two movies. He has zero experience. He'll grow out of that but not believing in no-win scenarios was something Spock needed to learn from Kirk - that you win some and lose some but at least you won some, not the other way around. Kirk can accept failure so long as it comes with even a minor success. Spock just immediately jumped to the conclusion that they had no hope against Nero alone and failed by never trying.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

Every time I watch 'Those Old Scientists', every time I just want a follow up episode where S4/S5 Boimler and Mariner encounter Pike's Enterprise once again and Pike and co except them to be zany fuck ups but they get to save the day through their later series competence.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

Another one I just thought was fine, maybe a little bit better than fine?

I've mixed feelings about them reimagining Starbase 80 as more of a quirky place for second chances rather than the fuckup station that's doomed. That's not how S3 presented it.

Then again it's presumably the new commander that's turning it around. (Though if she's new why is wearing a pre-startfleet ENT era uniform?) It's cool seeing a bunch of really old tech on the station though.

Now they're LTs there's a little too much of the main characters doing everything, there's no need for them to rush to the bridge for the set up of each episode. It's red alert but there are loads of LTJGs, there should already be crew handling the positions they go to.

And there seems no obvious reason Freeman needs to send Mariner ontoSB 80when it's clearly triggering her.

We're having another mid-season T'Lyn absence but I noticed a lot of familiar faces in the crowd scenes which is cool.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

Now, that's what I'm talking about! Strongest episode so far this season I think.

Maybe I just love Ma'ah and LD's take on the Klingons? I don't know all the Klingons being so down on the Federation is kind of silly but it works and it's not universal as K'orin being back but not over the top proves and it was a nice continuity nod.

Boimler and Mariner getting a great win on klingon terms via Boimler's love of klingon bureaucracy was just fun.

Migleemo's one of my less favourite characters and his b-plot was fine if a little predicatable.

Holy hannah, the klingon woman that was into Ma'ah though! Pity she didn't reappear at the end.

Anyway, very much enjoyed.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

Well fine, I guess.

I wanted a Mariner/Jennifer coda for ages but kinda underwhelmed when it arrived. It felt like they were kinda crapping on the concept? oh this was clearly worked out why do you want it. And just them actually having to officially break up and become civil exes rather than Mariner having to face the command isues and so on that came with that situation.

Really appreciated t'lyn's part of the A plot simple but fun.

Boimler's better as a subordinate than trying to a cool commanding officer.

The ongoing plot is involving the fissures is pretty cool, interesting to see where that can go.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

New Lower Decks season! Just finished the second episode.

Both episodes are fine. But only fine. I appreciated the first episode a little more after seeing the second because I thought the alternates was an underused premise. But seeing the next episode, they do set up Boimler and Mariner's apparent character arcs. Boimler's alternate is someone he wants to be and Mariner's is who she wants to avoid. She wants to gain command but still be true to herself.

Still their plot in the second episode wasn't great.

Tendi's is good but doesn't entirely gel with s4 finale. (The deal wasn't "serve until you've paid for the ship") Then again s4 finale didn't really gel with D'Erica's first episode and it's nice to see her supportive of Tendi so a bit of a wash there.

The Rutherford/T'Lyn C-plot was super nice and cute combination we've not seen a lot of and that I very much approve of despite the simplicity of it.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

So I most use this star trek reactions but i also write extremely bad smut HP fic on Ao3.

On a whim, I google what's a good kudos to hits ratio and saw old discussion from about 2014 that 10% was usual.

Surely this is BS right? 10%? Mines more like 1%. Of course, again, extremely bad fic. lol.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

(Not trying to contradict or argue with the above post, just using it for a springboard for my own thoughts)

I don't want to speculate on other people's reasons but for me La'an is more dodgy than Erica and Hemmer, conceptually. Because she's a Noonian Singh. It's a 'violates the spirit of canon rather than the letter' thing.

No-one ever explicitly said Khan didn't have descendants but as I recall Space Seed (and it's been a long time I could easily be wrong) Khan was a rather obscure that Kirk didn't know and Spock had to fill him in. Him having descendants that struggle with his rep because everyone remembers him as a later day hitler or whatever doesn't quite fit.

I feel this way about a lot of the SNW to be honest. When I first saw the cast of characters, I just wondered why they'd gone out of their way to make so many of them TOS references. M'Benga, Uhura as a Cadet, Chapel. But the Noonian Singh was an additional step to make this a TOS connection it didn't need to have. It was in s2 it really became relevant at all.

(M'Benga, Uhura and Chapel make the Mengarie where iirc only spock has a Pike connection weird. And M'Benga going from CMO to back up Doctor. Again by the letter of the canon it doesn't break anything but it does feel weird)

I like all of the cast (the actors and the characters) really (aside from the sheer focus and time Spock/Chapel takes up) but conceptually they're a little off.

Apologies for this random essay that's only tangentially connected to what it's reblogged from.

#1133

I think instead of creating La'an Noonien Singh, whose character messes up the TOS canon, the SNW writers should have expanded more on the characters of Phillip Boyce, Janice Rand, and J.M. Colt.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

Sorry, does that last sentence mean you revised this response to be less confrontational? lol. If you think this one isn't confrontation...oh boy. No, worries I'm not offended. I don't think 'rose coloured glasses' means what you think it does though. I'm not nostalgic for last year's episode of Strange New Worlds.

No, not all genetic modification is inherently eugenics. You've not even come close to proving that point.

However you want to describe the eugenics war. The fact that 20th/21st centuries humans misused something (shortly before nuking themselves to death) doesn't mean that everyone, everywhere, forever can't ethically use it. It's weird that the other three races of the Federation didn't tell them to knock that shit off.

You've come up with a laundry list of flaws. None of them mean that there are no ways to ethically do genetic engineering. None of them have been shown to apply to Illyrians.

It's funny but if an alien naturally had a glowy immune system and could breath where human's couldn't. No-one would have any issue with it would they? What's the difference there?

Would have the episode been better with more Grey? Maybe. Does it mean it's pro-eugenics? No.

Transhumanism actually does include genetic engineering. It's still technology it's just one step removed. Geordi is a great example, if they fixed his eyes genetically, he wouldn't have to use a device that causes him constant pain to see.

I don't see any advantage of Miral having to undergo surgery rather than have a quick genome edit that stops that (though that episode is a great study on designer babies that would bolster your point I admit)

But hey as you won't change you mind, this will be my last response. Get the final word or not as you please.

#924

I don’t get how people think that the episode Ad Astra Per Aspera was pro-eugenics when the message was meant to be that Una shouldn’t be barred from being in Starfleet because of something that was out of her control. Her parents chose to have her genetically modified when she was a child, and she didn’t understand that it was wrong then because she was raised in an environment where it was normalized. Her story is actually pretty similar to Julian Bashir’s and he doesn’t seem to receive the same scrutiny by fans.

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

You're right about the point of the episode. What you haven't done is explain where the eugenics comes in

Because the Federation's ban on genetic engineering is bigotry. Nothing more nothing less. They decided that a branch of science was forbidden to everybody else because humans had a bad experience from it. That's awful and that's what the episode is showing.

Julian Bashir is a perfect example of the problem with their attitude. Superior abilities, no superior ambition, one does not inherently come from the other.

Luckily by Ds9/Vgr time they are allowed to use it strictly for medical purposes like Miral's spine.

But there's nothing really to suggest that that Illyrians praticse eugenics. Do they purge people who aren't genetically up to snuff? To the engineer everyone to be all the same? Not that we've seen that I recall, they're a perfectly normal decent species who... gave themselves a very cool, capable immune system. (the horror!)

They're not eugenists. They're transhumanists. (for lack of a better term)

#924

I don’t get how people think that the episode Ad Astra Per Aspera was pro-eugenics when the message was meant to be that Una shouldn’t be barred from being in Starfleet because of something that was out of her control. Her parents chose to have her genetically modified when she was a child, and she didn’t understand that it was wrong then because she was raised in an environment where it was normalized. Her story is actually pretty similar to Julian Bashir’s and he doesn’t seem to receive the same scrutiny by fans.