JC's Trek Talk

The Prime Directive Case Studies The following is pulled from the Starfleet Academy command school curriculum for Command 101: The Prime Directive General Order 1.  The Prime Directive.  The Federations most sacred regulation.  It prohibits Federation citizens from knowingly or willfully interfering in the natural evolution, development and internal affairs of other cultures, especially those less advanced than the Federation (for planets or cultures who have not yet developed warp travel, all contact is prohibited).  The consequences short term and long term of interference to a civilizations cultural development and evolution are unimaginable, and often irreversible.   Consider these two incidents: Omega IV On stardate 4732.4 Captain Ronald Tracey of the USS Exeter NCC-1672 beamed down to the surface of Omega IV after his crew contracted and succumbed to a viral infection brought aboard by an away team.  Captain Tracey exposed himself and his advance...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 4: Momento Mori Momento Mori Starfleet Remembrance Day is a cool idea for a Starfleet day of celebration.  Also the memorial pins worn by the crew are kinda neat.  The massacre aftermath on the planet is quite bloody, but no more graphic than other modern trek.  The Enterprise connects to the colony ship with a docking tube.  A similar one was seen in Discovery season 2.  This episode introduces the Gorn as the "big baddie" of this series, which is interesting but also questionable as far as keeping with established canon.  We get to see a lot of the Enterprise in combat in this episode, essentially for the entire episode.  Uhura and Hemmer trapped in engineering gives the opportunity for plenty of character growth for both characters.  The strategizing by the crew, the "hide and seek" submarine warfare in the gas giant and later the black hole between the Enterprise and the Gorn is reminiscent of TO...

Scale and Size: a Discussion There is quite a lot of debate and vitriol online of late regarding size and scale of starships in Star Trek.   In an attempt to quell the fan debate SNW season 3s "What Is Starfleet?" documentary establishes a length of 442.6 meters for the constitution class USS Enterprise.  This numbers fails for several reasons.  As pointed out by VenomGeekMedia on a recent video discussion about starship scale and perspective, this size fails for several reasons.  1: with a crew compliment of 203 (during Pikes time) or even 430 (in Kirk's time) the accepted 289m length (TOS era) or 305m (Movies refit) is plenty big enough for the crew.  Despite what J.J. Abrams and Alex Kurtzman may think, 289m is actually quite large.  To  be frank J.J. Abrams blatant upscaling of the Kelvin Enterprise to around 750 meters long simply doesn't work.  For one, the bridge, with a window viewscreen through which we can see from the outside peopl...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 3: Ghosts of Illyria Ghosts of Illyria This is something we haven't seen in Trek in a looonnnggg time: a "ship is infected, the crew is incapacitated, only the medical department can save us" episode.  I am reminded of episodes like TNG "Genesis", DS9 "Babel" and Voyager "Microcosm" among others.  Also I love the building Una's background and establishing her as an Illyrian not human (beta canon sources had already gone this direction).  The Illyrians were established in an episode of Enterprise, their being genetically engineered is a nice addition and the whole being genetically engineered and genetic engineering being illegal in the Federation is call back to Khan, the Eugenics wars and also Bashir in DS9.  It's fun to see Hemmer in action for the first time.  For the first time we get to see engineering, which is part set and part AR wall.  The planetside scenes give us some good Pik...

From the Federation historical database The following speech "The Path to Peace" was delivered by Admiral Nyota Uhura, director, Starfleet Intelligence at the second Khitomer Conference in 2344.   Stardate 21789.4 Earth date 22 July 2344   Madam president, Chancellor, Ambassadors, honored guests. 90 years ago the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire fought a bitter, bloody war that resulted in unimaginable death and destruction, a loss of life on both sides totaling perhaps as much as 100 million souls.   From that conflict the Federation emerged battered, bloody, embittered, but resolute.   From that conflict the Empire emerged battered, bloody, but unified.   From two dozen great houses splintered, infought and in conflict came a single strong unified force under one leader.   80 years ago the Federation and the Empire found themselves on the brink of a second war, fueled by mutual distrust as weapons fire lit the sky over O...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 2: Children of the Comet Children of the Comet Interesting to start out with an Uhura log entry.  Also this episode establishes the kitchen inside Pike's enormous quarters.  Pike cooking for the crew is a fun something different for trek, although I'm not sure how exactly that fits in with what we know of him from The Cage and Discovery season 2.  Also this episode buids on characters like Ortegas and establishes the character of chief engineer Commander Hemmer, an Aenar.  The Aenar were established in the eponymous season 4 episode of Enterprise as a blind, albino subspecies of Andorians.  The actor who plays Hemmer, Bruce Horak is in fact legally blind.  Uhura being young and unsure is a cool angle to take for the episode and the character.  More references to Pike's vision of his fate (the accident).  Personally I think it is best that the series does not continue to dwell on this (especially as d...

Star Trek Starfleet Academy Trailer A new trailer for Star Trek Starfleet Academy dropped over the weekend at NYCC. My thoughts: We get a few good views of the USS Athena NCC-392023, the ship that apparently houses Starfleet Academy.  There's a flashback with Nahla Ake in a Discovery season 3 style uniform.  The dialogue establishes that she has some kind of connection with Caleb Mir.  More of Paul Giamatti as the bad guy (though I'm not too sure why this series needs one). We see Tig Notoro (Jett Reno), Mary Wiseman (Sylvia Tilly) and Robert Picardo om various scenes with with cadets, ok cool.   We get a shot of the Athena's bridge, which I still think looks a bit too much like he SNW esthetic for 900 years hence. Lots of shots of character moments, cadet camaraderie, training, but mostly just eye candy.  Like Discovery this series looks to put a lot of focus on character drama, relationships, connections.  I'm worried that it could overpower the seri...

Star Trek Most Memorable Movie Quotes The Next Generation Movies Star Trek: Generations Soran: "Time is the fire in which we burn" Data: "Lifeforms doo da doo doo doo.  You tiny little lifeforms doo da doo doo doo.  You precious little lifeforms.  Where are you? doo da doo doo doo doo doo. Doo doo doo." Data: "Ohhhhh shit!" Star Trek: First Contact Data: "I believe I speak for everyone here sir when I say: to hell with our orders." Troi: "Timeline!?  This is no time to argue about time!  We don't have the time!  What was I saying?" Borg Queen: "I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many.  I am The Borg." Zephram Cochrane: "And you people, you're all...astronauts...on some kind of star trek? Lily Sloane: "Borg? Sounds Swedish." Zephram Cochrane: "I gotta take a leak." Geordi: "Leak? I'm not detecting any leak." Zephram Cochrane: "Don't you people from the 24th centur...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 1: Strange New Worlds Strange New Worlds Cool intro with Number One's voiceover.  The episode also introduced Captain Batel, Pike's love interest.  Pike riding on the horse is a great callback to The Cage (Pike said to Dr. Boyce that he had two horses).  Understandable to see Pike struggling with the events of Discovery season 2 (the vision of his future, the accident 7 years from now, bein radiation burned, paralyzed in the wheelchair that can only beep once for yes and two for no), and the fact that he can't talk about it with anyone except Spock because it's all classified.  The title sequence is cool.  Prior to the series coming out Paramount released a preview of the intro sequence and theme music (with out the text or voiceover).  When the pilot released and I saw it for the first time, I was blown away by Anson Mount as Pike doing the "Space the Final Frontier" speech.  Not expecting to but glad to...

Star Trek Most Memorable Movie Quotes The Classic Movies Star Trek: The Motion Picture Ilia: "Kirk unit!  Disclose the information.  Why has the creator not responded?" Ilia: "The creator must join with V'ger." Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Spock: "Were I to invoke logic, logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Kirk: "KHAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNN!!!" Spock: "I have been...and always shall be...your friend" Kirk: "Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most...human." Star Trek III: The Search For Spock Sulu: "Don't call me tiny" Kirk: "You Klingon bastard...you've killed my son!" Kirk: "My God, Bones, what have I done?" McCoy: "What you had to do.  What you always do.  Turn death into a fighting chance to live." Spock: "My father says you have been my friend.  That you came back for me.  Why did you do this?"...