Star Trek Social Club

Spent 20 minutes trying to find a thread that fit what I wanted but everyone seems to be willing to watch all of Star Trek. I tried TOS and while it's not bad I don't want to watch every single episode of Star Trek to get into the show...

What's the best order to watch the most universally enjoyed Star Trek series' and movies? I really enjoyed Lower Decks as a fan of Final Space and Strange New World's looks incredible. I want to start with the earlier series but not have to watch all of it!

I09 sees the wheels coming off the Paramount+ strategic model with the cancelation of Prodigy.

Interesting piece with some new angles…

This time last year, the series was the bold vanguard of an attempt to bring the venerable sci-fi franchise to new audiences in a way Star Trek hadn’t attempted in years, and the latest in what was now a whole fleet of Star Trek shows on the platform. In a swift, single move—not just the takeback of a second season renewal, but the complete erasure of the series from its platform—the studio’s stratospheric ascent seems to have come crashing down all around it.

Lol the linked promos are all pretty funny robot chicken style. Scotty would make a great DJ.

"Full Impulse" is generally considered to be 0.25c.
The force of an impact of a Voyager-sized (700 kilotons) mass at that speed would be many times greater than that of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.
And I think its reasonable to assume that 0.25c isn't a hard limit, but rather an agreed-upon speed limit for starships.
If you could make an object go even faster, that energy goes up by a few orders of magnitude.
0.9c sounds doable. I don't know about any faster, but maybe?

At that speed, the force of Voyager hitting a planet would be at least hundreds of times greater than the aforementioned asteroid. This sounds like it would completely sterilize the planet.

Which begs the question, why don't we see weapons like this in star trek? I'd figure the Federation wouldn't use them, but the Federation isn't alone.

One argument I tend to see when this comes up is, that the shields would block it. Which then makes you think, if they could block that, then what couldn't they block? It makes them pretty much invincible. So I don't think that's it.

Just grabbed the first part on DVD, as everyone's sold out of Blu-Rays, and I don't even own a functional BR player... plenty of third-party sellers on Amazon seem to have it in stock, whereas Amazon's got it marked as "shipping in 1-2 months" which likely means they are out of stock and hoping to get more, which might not happen.

I'd like to have the rest of it, but I suppose there's always sailing the seas for it.

Executive Producer Aaron Waltke’s list of positive ways to Save Prodigy include:

-- Completing your watch of season one. There are still a few days and completion stats count.

-- For those on Twitter and Mastodon using the hashtags #StarTrekProdigy and #SaveStarTrekProdigy.

— Using the ‘Save Prodigy’ avatars (linked here in an earlier post).

— Buying merchandise: DVDs, BlueRays, Actions Figures, Nintendo game etc. Much of this is already selling out in North America. In the UK, the DVD is now the top seller on Amazon.uk.

Additional options from fans that I’ve seen posted around social media to communicate your desire to Save Prodigy:

— Download Prodigy episodes from whatever streamer you watch Star Trek on (Paramount+, Crave Sky-Showtime etc.) or purchase season one and purchase to download from Amazon, Google etc.

-- Buy the chapter books for 8-10 year olds. 2 of 4 have been released, with the other 2 on preorder through major sellers.

-- Send a paper snail mail letter to the head of children’s programming at Paramount. I have seen this name and address posted elsewhere

Brian Robbins
President and CEO, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon
Chief Content Officer, Movies & Kids & Family, Paramount+
1515 Broadway
New York, NY 10036

-- Sign the Save Star Trek Prodigy petition if you’re willing to deal with the (now commercialized) platform and the ensuing spam. (Completely understand why most folks here would not want to.) The petition has reached nearly 10k supporters in less than 2 days. By comparison, the one calling for Star Trek Legacy took weeks to gain this level of support.

I'm rewatching it now, it's so well written that it almost stands out from the rest of the episode. It comes off like something from David Mamet or The West Wing. It's not Far Beyond The Stars or In The Pale Moonlight, the stakes of the episode are too low. But the material it gave all the actors to work with, the incredibly realistic way it weaves together different conversations going on between a large group, that the (really really good) acting abilities of the cast just get pushed over the top. It's all in one room, no effects, no cost except for the appearance of Bareil, but it's riveting, you can't stop paying attention. It's kind of a master class in writing. And it's buried after the opening credits in the second episode of season 2.

This is a long-running (13 years!) weekly discussion of Star Trek episodes, formerly on Twitter, but now hosted by Joe Sondow on Mastodon.

The discussions are on Tuesdays at 1300 PT / 1600 ET, and each week features a different episode. Questions are sourced from the community, and answers are shared on Mastodon.

This Tuesday's episode is Discovery's "Choose to Live".

Since many of us are relatively new to the Fediverse, I wanted to draw some attention to it - check it out!

Starfleet Design Twitter has provided a wide variety of ‘Save Prodigy’ images for use as social media avatars.

It’s one among many ways to show our support for those who are asking Paramount to reconsider, or at least demonstrate the show’s value to another global streamer.

I’ve adopted the Caitian (unsurprisingly) but are many to choose from.

Hope this is within the rules of this community. Tagging @ValueSubtracted@StarTrek.website to be sure.

Personally I would probably put "Devil's Due" at number one, but I realized not everyone can have such a refined taste in Trek.

Sometimes I feel like I'm part of the minority who actually enjoyed Enterprise. Sure, there were some stinkers but the world was incredibly interesting and in Series 3 / 4 I really felt like it scratched that Trek lore itch for me.

If Enterprise was to be rebooted for a series 5, perhaps on Paramount+ or another streaming service, what would it look like? I don't think Jolene Blalock would come back but I'm sure Scott Bakula could be convinced as well as most of the other actors.

I would really hope they keep the early 2000s aesthetic of the NX-01 and all of the retro low-tech gear, perhaps show a gradual transition into the aesthetic of Strange New Worlds. You could mix in some time shenanigans to explain why things look different than they did in TOS and make some fun callbacks, like In A Mirror Darkly.

There's a lot of room to move before the series finale happens - or you could just retcon it and present it as a deep cover-up. So many opportunities! I want to hear this community's opinions!

As a noob this is likely me, but I tried to start a community on another server and I can't see the post (my other account used to make said community) made and set as english. Unless it's just me being a noob, that can't be good. A cursory look seems to confirm that I can't see anything aside from "Undetermined".

In the scene between Q and Jean-Luc Picard, Q delivers an amazingly stirring monologue about the importance of one person, saying "Must it always have galactic import? Universal stakes? Celestial upheaval? Isn't one life enough?" This line is an impressive reminder that sometimes, saving a single individual can be just as important as saving a galaxy.

In this moment, we see a different side of Q - one that is vulnerable and sincere. Or was that his true side all along? The scene impresses the deep friendship between Q and Jean-Luc, as Q reveals his true motivation - to heal Jean-Luc's heart.

Overall, this scene is such a beautiful and touching moment that adds even more depth to these two already well-developed characters. It reminds me of the power of friendship and the importance of valuing individual lives.

"Humans. Your griefs, your pains, fix you to moments in the past long gone. You’re like butterflies with your wings pinned”. There is so much food for thought in this piece of wisdom alone. Every sentence in this scene has its place, has meaning beyond the words expressing it. Note also the stunning, subtle yet powerful soundtrack.

This scene and the one to follow is so well paced and delivered by John de Lancie and Patrick Stewart, it will stick with me for many years to come. I have rewatched it over and over. It alone makes the entire 3rd season worthwhile.

May we all remember to say this to someome from our heart. Almost nothing means more than that:

"You matter to me."

Spoilers for both episodes:

In the alternate future depicted in "A Quality of Mercy", Una has been in prison for the past seven years. In the main timeline, we now know that Una wins her trial and doesn't serve any prison time. How do we account for the fact that the same events led to two different outcomes?

This bugged me for hours yesterday. But after some thought and time, I think a solution exists!

We know, in the Prime timeline, that Pike literally risked his life to visit Neera (the Illyrian attorney). Her skills, and devotion to Illyrian rights, ultimately win the case. Therefore, in the alternate future, we must conclude that Pike did not take this same action.

The only difference between the two version of Pike, with regard to Una's trial anyway, is that the prime Pike had already seen the alternate future. He knew that if something drastic didn't happen, Una would lose and be imprisoned. This is why he sought an outspoken attorney from outside Starfleet.

It's interesting, then, to consider the fact that Una's victory was indirectly caused by Pike seeing the future - which was in turn caused by his first glimpse of the canon future back in Discovery. And if Una was fated to lose the trial without the interference of future knowledge, will this change have ramifications too? Is SNW now branched off of the original canon into its own timeline?

(Personally, I hope so! My wish is that SNW diverges from the Prime timeline, and finds a way for Pike to escape his fate without causing disaster. And that Spock & Chapel end up together.)

That article speculates that elements of Paramount (including CBS Studios, which produces Trek these days) could be sold off to other companies, perhaps even Netflix. This, however, doesn't get into the hairy discussion surrounding rights to the franchise.

I've been watching through ds9 for the first time and the show has always been good, even the first season I thought started fairly strong. And season 6 (as I've said in another post) has started really strong, with an actual deviation from the show's status quo that lasts longer than one episode.

But holy shit, this might be one of my favorite episodes. Not just of ds9, or star trek in general, but maybe of any show I've seen. And as far as I'm aware people barely talk about it.

The whole episode is essentially Dukat's facade of composure slowly breaking down. He's always been an interesting villain, and at times his insistence that he's doing his best can almost convince you that he might not entirely be the bad guy; that maybe he is, in some way, trying to do good.

And a lesser show might try to redeem him. But not ds9. Millions died under his command, people were sent to the deaths, and as long as he tries defend his actions in any way there's no room for redemption.

This episode finally breaks down all of his fake pretenses of helping Bajor, or trying his best to "rule with a softer hand." Finally his deception is broken down and reveals what he has always been. And it's done in the best way possible.

The scene where he finally breaks down is fantastic. No music, just Marc Alaimo acting his ass off. The panning back and forth between him talking to sisko and talking to the various voices in his head...

"And that is why you're not an evil man?"

From Wikipedia, "A practical effect is a special effect produced physically, without computer-generated imagery or other post-production techniques."

Some of my favorite practical effect species are from TOS. There's the Horta from TOS "The Devil in the Dark" s1e25. I was about 9 years old when I first saw the Horta episode. Old enough to know it wasn't real, but young enough to be utterly fascinated by something that looked like an angry chunk of hot lava making its way around on the ground.

TOS's the Salt Vampire's look scared little kid me. Truth be told, the way it looks still gives me the creeps.

The Gorn (TOS "Arena" s1e18) didn't scare me, but I thought it was intimidating. Sure, it looks like somebody in a lizard man suit. But, that Gorn had a knife! And, was trying to kill Kirk! Bonus points for the Gorn's sparkly, stylish armor.

I think tribbles are just adorable.

Spoiler Warning (of course)