JC's Trek Talk

Klingon Deprived The year 2368 “Over here K'toq, I see him!” Responding to his name the young man turned “I'm coming Bae'l.” K'toq son of Kargh grabbed his spear and as silently as possible made his way through the dense forest vegetation, staying low to the ground until he reached Bae'l. The girl turned “we can flush him out.” K'toq nodded and peered through the undergrowth at their quarry, a targ about a meter long from tail to snout. He enjoyed these times, running through the woods with Bae'l and the other children on the colony, hunting targ with Bae'l and playing Kahless and Molor with his cousin Lorgh. He knew it wouldn't last too much longer. He was already 11 earth years old, leaving only two more years before he reached the age of inclusion. Then all his time would be spent studying and training to become a warrior, in preparation for the rite of ascension. Until that day came he still had time, outside of his schooling, to be a ki...

My TOS Five Year Mission Timeline I'm going to start by saying that I know that there will be some disagreement about this. Here goes: I believe that TOS covered all 5 years of James Kirk's 5 year mission on the Enterprise (NOT just the first 3 years). Hear me out: going by the stardates given in most episodes, the stardates at the beginning of the series are in the 1xxx/x range, at the end of the series they are in the upper 5xxx.x range. Theory (mine): the first digit corresponds to which year of the 5 year mission. Therefore we have actually seen all 5 years of Kirk's famous tenure. Here I have listed all 79 episodes in stardate order, broken down by year: First Year (2265) 1312.4 Where No Man Has Gone Before 1329.1 Mudd's Women 1512.2 The Corbomite Maneuver 1513.1 The Man Trap 1533.6 Charlie X 1672.1 The Enemy Within 1704.2 The Naked Time 1709.1 Balance of Terror Second Year (2266) 2124.5 The Squire of Gothos 2534.0 Patterns of Force 2712.4 What Are Little Girls Mad...

Hirogen The Hunted Hunters 2370 Deep in the Delta Quadrant, approximately 60,000 light years from Earth The alpha Hirogen checked his status board “the prey is maintaining course. He will reach the binary system in five minutes.” Beside him the beta, a proud younger Hirogen named Lanik nodded “his ship is strong, he can probably withstand the radiation longer than we can.” Kimmek, the alpha glanced up at a display showing the scans of their prey, a reptilian creature known as a Voth “he has been a formidable adversary, but it is time to end the hunt. Full speed, move to intercept.” Several brief minutes of pursuit later the beta looked up as an indicator sounded on his console “He's come to a full stop.” The alpha nodded “he's turning to make a final stand.” He moved to a wall where several large weapons were hung “prepare to board his ship as soon as we're in-” He was cut off mid-sentence by an alert at the main console. His eyes widened as a distinctive cube shap...

Thoughts on the upcoming Strange New Worlds season 3 I've been holding off on this post for a while, but I'm finally deciding to do it.  My thoughts on the upcoming 3rd season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Following their standard modus operandi these days Paramount has released a couple of trailers, a set of pictures and the episode name for season 3.  The much delayed season 3 (thanks to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023).  I for one have been waiting for season 3 to see the conclusion of season 2's cliffhanger ending (Hegemony) with the Gorn.  I for one raise a serious eyebrow at the series whole use of the Gorn, as the TOS episode Arena as much as screamed that that incident was first contact between the Federation and the Gorn.  I'm not going to die on that hill, we all know how much TPTB don't care about canon.  Moving on. From the trailers and pictures it definitely looks like we're getting more Scotty (cool) and more Kirk-it'll be interestin...

Trek Throwback Thursday: The Kobayashi Maru by Julia Ecklar Julia Ecklar's The Kobayashi Maru (TOS #47) is a fun little self contained TOS novel which explores the backstories of some of our favorite TOS characters. Full disclosure: this review will be more than a bit biased. This is one of the first Star Trek novels I ever read, and one of my favorites. Set shortly after Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the story opens with Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu and Chekov onboard a USS Enterprise shuttlecraft disabled after hitting a gravitic mine. After Sulu likes their situation to the famous (infamous?) Starfleet Academy Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario, Kirk, Chekov, Sulu and Scotty each share the story of their respective attempts to beat the no-win scenario. From Kirk's trying three times and then cheating by reprogramming the simulation, Chekov's destroying his ship to prevent capture (his story mostly focuses on another similar training scenario), Sulu taking the test amid the...

Federation The Fate of the Lalo Stardate 43994.8 The USS Lalo. Mediterranean Class supply ship. NCC-43837 19:00 After verifying the last few containers of medical supplies for the shipment to Sentinel Minor IV Lieutenant Lindt tapped his combadge “Lindt to bridge. That’s the last of the medical supplies. Loading is complete, we’re ready to ship out.” Standing from the command chair Commander Berg responded “right on time. Good job Ray.” She then nodded at the grey-haired Efrosian at the conn “Take us out Ganoreg. Maximum warp as soon as we break orbit.” Hearing footsteps she turned to see Captain Vargas crossing the bridge from her ready room “report Commander.” Berg smiled “Captain. Cargo is loaded, we have left Zeta Alpha II on course for Sentinel Minor IV. ETA-” She glanced at the nearest console “8 hours 7 minutes. Just a routine transfer run.” Checking the nearest chronometer readout Vargas nodded “Very good. You seem to have things under control here, if you’re ...