The Greatest Generation - Cuban Missile Crisis in Space (S3E10)

Episode Date: August 10, 2016

When a Romulan tries to pull a Hunt for Red October, Picard has to decide whether to take the Federation to the brink of war. When the guy gets on board, it really puts a cramp in Picard and Data's rehearsal schedule. How hard is it for the Enterprise crew to trust these admirals after Conspiracy? If Picard is Jack Kennedy, does that make Tomalak Khrushchev? Can Patrick Stewart maintain his status as Scenery Chewer In Residence? It’s the episode where we finally break into the 90s.

Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in a Star Trek podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Prennicka. Can I open some cards with me, Adam? Yeah, I can do that. The game is five cards stuffed. The game is exceeding. They're simple. Where are the suggested cards there? Time to look at pendulum. At some point, we're going to, because we originally were doing it where only I was opening cards,

then we moved to opening them at the same time, but at a certain point I'm gonna run out, and then you're gonna be the only one with cards left. There are a few benefits to our listeners from this segment, but for the benefit of our listeners, I should say that these cards are portfolio-print trading cards, Star Trek, the next generation, Series 1. I don't get why this is a popular segment. We hear a lot of feedback about how much people

like the trading card segment. I was ready to dump it like after the second time we did it. I didn't think it made good pot at all, but people love it. I don't think it made good pot at all, but people love it. I don't know why. All right. My first card is called Genesis. It's a pretty messed up picture of wolf screaming

and like a weird animal arm. I think this is that episode where they all like start devolving. Oh, they devolve. I remember really liking that episode. Yeah. And Troy turns into a fish, isn't that her deal? She turns into a fish Troy.

Like, yeah, and Worf turns into a spider, right? Is that Worf? Maybe Worf turns into... No, Worf turns into... Worf is like a... is like a savage beast and they're like running around the ship trying to get away from him. Yeah, he's real scary. I have the naked now. Yeah, I'm on the ship trying to get away from him. Yeah, he's real scary. I have the naked now. Whoa.

Featuring our friend of the show and show mascot, Mr. Drunk Shimoda. Was he on the card? No, I think I'm fine. Yeah, he's not on the card, which is I think a huge missed opportunity. It's instead a Troy, it's instead a data and Tasha Yare in profile. Right.

Maybe have you opened that card before? Or maybe I have. I think you must have, because I haven't seen it. And it's not in my innumerical order stack. Mm-hmm. I have, uh... The descent part two, or, I guess it's just descent part two. It's two different images of data, one of which...

Has him smiling? Mm. Um... The rest of my cards are repeats. I got a... I got, remember me... Remember me is a great episode in my recollection that Beverly is collapsing world

Where she's the only survivor In the universe basically right. Yeah, the ship keeps getting simpler. Yeah, that was a real mind-fuck of an episode I like that. I got elementary due data I got hollow pursuits and I got gamit Part 2. Those are all repeats for me. I have one for conspiracy. Just fun. I think you have that one, right? Yeah. One of my favorite episodes. I have one for an episode called Parallels and it's riker and then there's like a Thousand enterprises swimming toward his head like sperm to the egg Was that the episode where where you get to see alternate universe?

Yeah riker with the giant beard and these he's all Borgweary mm-hmm. That was a great episode. Yeah, fun times And my last one is for an episode called Powerplay, and it's a creepy hand going toward Picard's neck. And remember this episode. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, even though all my cards are repeats, I'm pretty big fan of these cards. These are artistic depictions of every episode drawn by one or teas. Yeah. Well, you really blew it big time with the naked now,

but otherwise these are great. Yeah, I don't know how you watch the naked now and not jaw a great picture of Shimoda. Maybe Shimoda and some Isolineer chips. Maybe Shemota as an Isolinear chip. What? I know, right? Like, you can go to so many places. Yeah. If you're a new listener to the show, you have a segment at the end of every episode called

Drunk Shemota, and it's based on a character in the second episode of the series. So we're back in the middle of that. It has such a profound influence on us that we talk about him for every episode. Go back and listen to that. Yeah. One cool thing when I look at our stats on our show is that people definitely when they

find out about our show go back and like listen to the whole series. Yeah. I think it's really cool, you know? Yeah, I'm glad they stick with us after, I don't know, I don't believe our earliest episodes are bad episodes at all. But it's definitely an example of us sort of finding our way and finding a format. And I think a lot of shows do that.

It's not just ours, but yeah. I think ours, ours maybe because it's about a, you know, it's sort of evergreen in that people will always want to go back and rewatch Star Trek the next generation. We have those old episodes needing to be, uh, relistened to. Well, if you go back and listen to something and feel like we're real pieces of shit for saying something, maybe lay off inditing us as we got our feet under us, like learning how to make a good joke. This ad placement is fucking bullshit. Yeah, go.

Give us a fucking break Yeah, at least until we get to circle back around and start over from the beginning again Right, which is definitely our plan after we finish the next generation We're gonna do the greatest generation series two. Yeah. The do-over. Let's talk about this episode, the defector. Yeah. Season 3 Episode 10, Ben. Cold open of this episode is a Shakespeare scene. I think it's Henry V fifth and data is playing the eponymous role if right could we're playing that role it would definitely be called Henry the V

Good one, I'm gonna yeah, I'll just find my way out And Patrick Stewart is playing one of the characters in this and the guy this is is really like confused the hell out of me because the guy that's playing the other part is, he looks so much like Jonathan Frakes shaved but he isn't Jonathan Frakes. A shaving Frakes? Yeah, he looks like a real shaving Frakes and Yeah, he looks like a real Chevy Freaks. And I guess he's like an English actor. But I was like, oh, data, Riker, and Picard are doing a Shakespeare scene. And then it cuts to Picard standing there in his uniform, watching the action.

And it turns out he's directing data. He's teaching data about the dramatic arts. Yeah, it's so plainly obvious that Patrick Stewart is one of the extra characters that I'm sure that helped inform your suspicion that the other guy was Freaks, but yeah, it was not. Can't believe Freaks shaved off the beard just for the scene.

Real commitment to the idea. Yeah, but they have to cut their, their dramatic work short because they're getting a distress signal from the neutral zone or like they're picking up a ship that's flying toward Federation space from the neutral zone which, typically that means some Romulan shit is up. So they head up to the bridge and they're picking up a, I guess it's called the scout vessel, that is kind of beat up and flying toward Federation space as fast as I can. And the guy is sending out an audio distressed signal

Like please rescue me the this war bird is about to light light my ass up and And they get to they get to the the border and it's just as this ship is is being Is being pursued by a decloaked warbird and... And this scene is fucking badass. Yeah, it's some serious shit. And so one thing that I like wanted to talk about a little bit is that Picard is always

incensed with the Romulans when they dain to enter the neutral zone. Yeah. I feel like they go into the neutral zone kind of often. Sure. Like the enterprise, like tiptoes over the line, fairly frequently, but he's always morally outraged with the Romulans to it.

Sure. But anyways, they extend the shields around this shuttlecraft or this scout ship and protect its defector inside. It's like a guy trying to captain Ramias it where he's trying to leave Romulan space with a ship and the warbird fucks off and they beam this guy forward. And he is a, what is he? A sub-lutennet.

He introduces himself as Sattal. Sub-lutinant Sattal. Yeah, and his story is that he's a lowly nuclear engineer from Sector 7b. He's just sort of an anonymous dude and the story he drops is is kind of amazing like He defects in order to prevent a war right And there is and there is right like he they beam along board and he super fucked up like he's got burns all over his head Yeah, and he wants to talk to the captain right away. I'm a see your captain immediately. We'll get you to sickbay after that. He's cannot wait!

I have information vital to your survival. He goes and sits in this at the conference table. He's like bleeding from the face and tells them about this this evil Romulan plan that where the Romulans are building a like an advanced plan where the rime ruins are building an advanced attack base on a plant called Nelvana 3 which is in the neutral zone. And so it's kind of a it's kind of sets up this this sort of Cuban missile crisis in space where the federation has this highly dangerous situation brewing just off its shores and Picard has all this shit landing on his shoulders trying to manage the situation and figure out if it's true. They don't necessarily come from a place of trust when it comes to defecting Romulans,

but this guy seems to be real worked up about this, so they want to hear him out. They want to debrief him at the very least. And Satell is doing like capital A acting. Like this character is rad throughout the entire episode. He is just chewing the wallpaper here. Chew that paper. Which I think is sort of a big deal because he has a lot of prolonged scenes with Patrick Stewart, who is the resident scene-tour of the set.

Right. And not only that, this is an episode that Patrick Stewart got to do some Shakespeare-ing in. Sure. So he's like, he's coming with his A-game. He knows that his Royal Shakespeare company friends are gonna be watching this episode. And they have a heavy hitter on up on his heels. I don't know if it's Sital's uniform, or just something,

I noticed about Romulan uniforms this time around. But man, you get a lot of detail shot of Sital wearing this thing. And it looks like a quilted toaster cover you'd find in a nursing home. You know what I mean? Have you ever seen one of those? You go to an old person's house

and like they've got the quilted cover on top of the toaster or like the bread box or something. Yeah, or like a tea cozy that they've got the quilted cover on top of the toaster or like the bread box or something. Yeah, or like a tea cozy that they've made by hand. Yeah, it's just, it's real ill-thidding in boxy. Yeah, well the Romulans are all about like big ass shoulder pads and then these huge baggy sleeves, and like a like wizard sleeves almost,

but they're, but they don't taper toward the, toward the armpit. Yeah. They're just like big tubes. Yeah. Kind of, there's something sort of karate uniformish about it. I could see that.

Like some, like the way it hangs a little bit is it draws on that. Yeah, they have, and then they have the like real chopped off bangs. And this guy is a lot of information that I divulged, but he, as they're like discussing this, a car bomb goes off in his shuttlecraft, which is, you know, floating right outside the window. Is it Romulan car bomb? A shot of Romulan ale dropped into a Guinness. Yeah, a guy didn't serve those up on the reg. Yeah, I said they ordered a struck sequencer before I left the ship.

Why? Who knew? This kind of fucks with his credibility in a big way, because they're like, well dude, if you're defecting to stop a war, we need to go through your ship and look at the information and its computer and stuff. And instead, you've annihilated any chance that you had any hard evidence to show us. And so we just have to take your word for it, that the Romulans are up to some shit. Yeah, it's pretty fucked. And this starts a series of questionable actions that

Sital has throughout that makes it really hard for him to be seen as a credible source of information about this. Like on its face, the idea of the Romulan spooling up on this planet and getting ready for an invasion. I mean, any mention of that is worth investigating. But everything about Satell is sort of kneecapping the strength of his information. Like on the one hand, got to chase it down,

got to play a Colombo. On the other hand, like Satell is kind of an idiot. Worsef is to him from jump. Like, Wurf doesn't trust him even a little bit. I think Picard is like, and Riker are gonna hear him out. They're willing to be persuaded. And Picard also is getting communicates from Starfleet command. And we, you know, they're on a super long time delay because they're so far out there.

The neutral zone is nowhere near command HQ. And Admiral Lowrent, Reginald Vel Johnson keeps sending messages to tell him what Starfleet thinks that Picard should do about this situation. I called him Admiral Timbaland because to me he really had those Timbaland eyes. I guess so. I just do you think it's really hard for Captain Picard specifically but generally the rest of the Enterprise crew to trust any Starfleet admiral about after conspiracy. Like if I were on FaceTime with a Starfleet admiral,

I'd want them to hold the phone up to their neck, right? Let me see if you got a weird bug and you were not. Like they were just there and they murdered like four people at Starfleet command. I think they've got to be a little more careful about giving orders if you're Starfleet knowing who they're talking to. Well, there's a lot of metadata in these phone calls. There's a lot of like the time sent, like baking the bottom of the screen.

So yeah, maybe they've got some new protocols to establish bonafides that next bonafides. Uh-huh. Yeah God that that Reginald Vell Johnson line was cutting Ben Well, he's like a heavy set guy black guy with a mustache like You think Reginald Vell Johnson wasn't gonna pick up the phone on the first ring when casting called. They could have gotten him if they wanted him. Yeah, but he's too, like, he's too cuddly to be an admiral. I think also the fact that he's...

He's so trustworthy. The late motif of the show right now is like, sort of a wary ambivalence of the command structure in Starfleet. Yeah. Be real fun if it was him though. And just like, just to get him out of that police uniform and into a different uniform would be a fun twist.

Yeah. Get him out of the family matters uniform. Yeah. And or the die hard uniform. Yeah. So many uniforms. He was a cop on family matters, wasn't he? Yeah. Was it canonical die hard? a cop on family matters, wasn't he? Yeah.

Was it canonical diehard? Is that what family matters was? No, because they're in Chicago and diehards in LA. You don't think after the events of diehard, you wouldn't want to go settle down somewhere else. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, start a family. Yeah. Maybe.

You could see that. I don't, yeah, maybe you're right. Um We'll save that for our family matters podcast That's after after we do start track the next generation the second time we switch over to family matters We'll take a we'll take a break before doing it a third time And we'll do we'll do all 14 seasons of family matters Look all it Steve Stefan

I Guess that makes me Steve Ladies I'm not going to type a ramble on about something everyone knows. Picard is pretty stressed out. This is a war waiting to happen and he calls data in at one point and goes, It's very possible that we are about to go to war. The repercussions of what we do during the next 24 hours may be felt for years to come. I want you to keep a record of these events so that history

will have the benefit of a dispassionate view. I will begin immediately, sir. I know this was an interesting scene, because it doesn't lead anywhere, and it sort of doesn't even, I mean, it sort of makes you question, like, isn't data recording everything all the time anyways? But I thought it was such an interesting idea

that Picard wanted to kind of make sure that a document of what was happening was preserved for history's sake. Yeah, this was interesting on a number of levels. This is writing for the sake of an audience. This is an almost turned to camera and going, hey you guys, this is more serious than it's ever been. Yeah.

Also, wouldn't data be just as destroyed if the enterprise gets destroyed? Has anything else? The idea of him rolling tape on this specifically is like, okay, well good, but also he's just as fucked as the enterprise computer is. And finally, like. I don't think Picard sweats the details.

Maybe data has a black box inside of him or something. I could see that. Something that's harder and stronger than any other part of his body. Yeah. I think Tasha, you are seeing that part. Yeah. She got in there. This is the part when Picard really realizes himself as the JFK figure though in this,

in this Cuban Missile Crisis. Data. You must record these moments. So that does others may learn. My JFK is awful. Edit that out, please. Can't do it. Can't do it out of them.

We must record these moments. You must record these moments so that school children for the rest of history can understand why we went to war We will go to the neutral zone Not because it is easy, but because it is had God my JFK's brutal and I'm so sorry Publicly apologized to all of our viewers right now We why are you apologizing? We never apologize for any of our other terrible impressions. Yeah, fuck that. Leave my impression in, edit out the apology.

Done. I guess that makes Tomalak cruise ship, right? Because it isn't long before Tomalak's on the scene. Yeah, Tomalak shows up and he's like, because we do not, yeah. He gets on the red phone. The other funny scene in here is like, data basically leaves his meeting with Picard and goes down to talk to Jordy about the situation. And Jordy has to kind of explain the concept of listening to your gut in times like this where you don't have all the facts. So you have to like use personal

heuristics to know what to do in the situation. Yeah, Jordi is giving great plane-spoken real life, plane-spoken real life examples of like how you how you combine truth and your gut in order to, to elicit an outcome that you can live with and make decisions. And, Jordi, at the end, is like, I do this all the time except with women. Well, he cannot trust his gut when it comes to women. Now, put it that way.

Now. So, data starts spending a lot of time with Satal at this point. And they're hanging around in 10 forward. And Satal is like really bumming out about the fact that he's never going to be able to go back to Romulus and he's really talking some shit about how great Romulus is. It's like the best planet he's ever visited and he's visited over a hundred. You wouldn't believe the fire fountains on Romulus. They really make these these fountains in the Federation look like garbage. Believe me.

Some of the planets that I've been to are trash, the fat, the disgusting, the fucking disgusting. Romulus is the classiest planet. Everybody loves Romulus. Believe me. It's one of the nicest planets in the entire quadruing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and he's talking shit about the drink. I think Gynan's gonna put up with that shit.

It's been a long time since he's seen Gynan, but you talk shit about a drink. I got a belief she's coming up over the bar. Yeah, I guess she's back in the bean flicking room. Sitting this one out. Yeah. I guess she's back in the bean flicking room, sitting this one out. But, hey, it's like my drink sucks, this view sucks, this is bullshit, I can't see my family. Like, he's got a lot of complaints right now. And Data's like trying to,

to this extent that he can empathize with, with him. And so he's like, hey, why don't we go, get a load of the holodex version of Romulus? And so they go program something up and they step out on to the Romulan equivalent of anybody Canyon. And Sital is like, is like shaken to his core because it looks just like some place that he's been a bunch of times. I no longer live here. Turn it off. And the simulation fanishes and they're standing in the black and yellow grid.

And this is my home, my future. And I have sacrificed everything. It must not be in vain. Arrange a meeting between myself and Captain Picard. Tell him, Admiral Cherock wants to see him. He's a real like dun dun dun. You mean this guy isn't who he said he was the whole time? I think it's weird that they basically do a cut from the interrogation room with Riker Troy and he wasn't Jerog back then.

He was sital back then. And they cut to him just buy himself and tend forward. Like he was a prisoner for a while being interrogated. And then he him just buy himself and 10 forward like he was a prisoner for a while being interrogated and it was just having drinks and 10 forward what's up with that? I don't know I mean he wasn't like I mean he wasn't like a prisoner prisoner he wasn't in the brig like there's a shot of him and you know they put him up in a state room and he takes the cyanide capsule out of his boot and takes a look at it.

And uh... This is two episodes in a row where Riker showed someone where they could get the food out of, out of the replicateer. Like this is a Riker showing people how to get food is a late motif of this show. Yeah, I don't think they did much with the replicators in season one and two. So maybe they're like really excited about the fact that they have them in season three. Yeah. The big reveal is that this guy was the admiral that he claims to work both under and he has been monitoring all this communication about this buildup of troops on Nelvana 3 and he's he's kind of Peace Nick like he he rose to the rank of Admiral

But then was like hey like let's try not to go to war with the Federation because that would be really bad and so he was kind of like the he was kind of given a given the the Romulan equivalent of being stationed in Alaska, where they kind of, they kind of got him out of the way. Like he, he got to a certain rank, but he was not powerful enough to stay in play, politically speaking. Yeah, I mean, and one of the one of the things that what is his name

now? He's not to tell anymore. He's Jeroch. One of the things that Jeroch says is like, yeah, I mean my feelings about war changed when I when I had a daughter and looked into her eyes and suddenly now I don't want to kill anyone anymore. Like that's that's the case he's making. He's like the card. You wouldn't know about this. You're a You're a lifetime bachelor. You're married to this ship, but me, I got a family and I don't want to see your die and some stupid war between our people.

Yeah, and so they're like, okay, like you definitely are powerful enough to know what the fuck you're talking about with this planet. So let's go check it out. And they warp over to this planet, which is like in the neutral zone, and they get there and ain't nothing there. It's an uninhabited planet, and they're picking up some signal, but it's in orbit over the planet, so that it's not something that's on the surface. And there's definitely not a cloaked base because it would be visually distorted.

And they're like, well, fuck this. And they turn heel to try and get out of there. And what didn't you know it? But a couple of Romulan Warbirds decloak. And there is Tom Olock with his cavalry and he has set a perfect trap for Picard. Yeah, pretty brutal because as soon as they discovered that there's nothing on the planet,

Picard's like, oh shit, like we better get the fuck out of here. And we get a great exterior shot of the enterprise backing out of the driveway and attempting to head down the street. Right. When two Romulan cop cars do those like the e-brake slide in front of them. Totally. To sort of stop their progress. There's a lot of cool shots of ships in this episode.

There's a pretty early in the episode, there's a shot of the shuttle, like outside the Enterprise, that's kind of over top of the shuttle looking down on it and the enterprise. Yeah, yeah. Really sweet. Yeah, this remastered footage is great. And so Tomalock has Picard dead to rights and it's the, it sort of feels like Tomalock

may have engineered this entire situation just to get Picard back for what went down at Galorndon Core get Picard back for what went down at Galornden Corps, where Picard sort of cut Tomalock red handed up to some shit in Federation territory. Right. Now, they're both red handed. Right. And what comes out is that Jeroc was essentially being tested for his loyalty. They were feeding him disinformation

about this base at Nelvana 3. They ginned up all of these military records and orders and things that were going across the trancem that he was monitoring and made him believe that the Romulans were preparing for a war with the Federation. And the Romulans were doing that to see what Jeraq would do if he believed that. And they, in fact, discovered that he was willing to betray the Empire to prevent war. So I thought this was the one moment where Jeraq's character, like, he is bigger than life in the entire episode, and he totally shrinks at the truth of this moment.

Like, I expected something a little more explosive out of him when he realizes that it's all been a lie, and he has been upon in some weird game, but he just sort of shrinks. Yeah, but it's great. It really sells what his journey is. He realizes that he made a sacrifice to prevent war and he realizes that that sacrifice was just a part of a crazy trap that was laid for him. To make war. To make war to make war and and also you know and the consequences that he's never going to see his family again. He's going to be exiled forever. You know, he might

die here. Yeah. Like that. Like that's that's the situation that's come to a head to Tom Locks like check it out. You're going to surrender. We We're gonna take apart your ship. And we're gonna like display it in the middle of Romulus as a trophy about how bad as we are. It's a great shit talk. Yeah, it's like that US Navy ship that they have docked in Pyongyang. Right.

You can take a tour of. Like they're like, we're going to turn your ship into a trophy and there's nothing you can do about it because you're totally outguned right now. And it's a great big dogging. Yeah, yeah. Picard is getting big dogged real bad by Tom Locke. And you think that it's gonna go one way,

but then Picard signals Mr. Wurf and a whole bunch of Klingon birds of prey, decloak, surrounding all of the Ramyun warbirds and Picard basically says, you know, not today, my friend. Yeah, it turns into like a reservoir dog style Mexican standoff, right? You got the Federation pointing a gun at the Romulans, you got the Klingons pointing guns at Romulans, everyone's pointing guns at each other. It's great. Right.

Yeah, and we never see these Klingons, but we did get, this was planted a little bit earlier when they started to realize that the people on this side of the neutral zone may have to deal with a Romulan incursion, the high command of the Klingons got in touch and Picard had Mr. Worf deal with it. So it was kind of a nice little subtle plant and payoff in this episode. Yeah, it was in the Federation is the enemy of their enemy. And so they showed up. They had their backs, it was pretty cool. That's like having the neighborhood bully have your back being down with the Klingons, you know?

Yeah, pretty cool. My love is a piece of love and silver back which long enough has the place to be. So the Romulan ships piece out, Picard sort of gives a thumbs up back to War Flake. Yeah, that worked out just how we hoped. Give those Klingons a high five for me, bro. Yeah, uh, Riker gives the word to get the fuck out of the neutral zone. And then, uh, and then a little while later, we cut back to, uh, to Jeric's quarters. Jeric's iced himself with that astronaut suicide pill. Yeah.

And he left like a suicide note on an iPad and they talk about how there's no way that they can deliver this note to his family. But maybe if more people like him are willing to stand up to the warlike leadership of the Romulan Empire, they can hope to one day be able to do that. Hey Ben, you know a lot about NASA. Way more than I do, certainly. I don't know, I wouldn't say I know a lot, but I know a little.

Is there any truth to the whole astronaut suicide pill thing that I had read about that no one seems to confirm? I've never heard that. Yeah, I heard that they ate like the first, the first people to do spacewalks. Like basically since NASA started spacewalking, they started giving astronaut suicide pills. Wow. In case they became untethered,

Wow. side pills. In case they became untethered, rather than face a remaining lifespan that would be a tremendous amount of suffering, like what I read is that they would be the fillings of a tooth or something, like you would just pop it with your tongue and that would dissolve the suicide pill so that it would ensure a painless death instead of burning up in the atmosphere. You even read this? I have not read it. It sounds like bullshit.

Is it head cannon to me? It's the kind of bullshit that I like, so I'm curious. Maybe I know that we have a few NASA people that listen to the show, so maybe somebody can write in and let us know. I personally think the idea of that is great. I'm not putting it out on the street as someone who thinks that's a crazy idea. I think that's sensible and reasonable when you're doing work like that. I don't know, man. Would you rather burn up? I don't think that's the way I want to go out. I don't think that you would though I think you're you're just gonna stay in orbit until your oxygen goes away

And that means you'll just like die by falling asleep That sounds pretty nice actually. Yeah, good way to go. Yeah Hey, Ben. What's that at him? You find a drug Shimoda in this episode I'd be curious to hear you say i haven't settled on one well uh... the guy picked out was satole back when he was uh... jaren right to have that right

uh... was is was the first is what he becomes satole is what he okay okay so back when the defector is Sital, they bring him into sick bay, and he does some really championship level big dogging of warf. Like he's talking a riker and he's like, I don't know why you have, and then he drops like some pretty hardcore Klingon profanity. I don't know why you have this guy around here. He's clearly a, and he makes a throat clearing sound that clearly means something terrible in Klingon.

But head. Yeah, exactly. And Rikers, well, I wouldn't expect a Romulan word for piece of garbage to say something like that in public. I feel like we learned the Klingon word for butthead and the Romulan word for butt wad. Yeah. You stood butt wad.

So Tallah's on an enemy ship. He's totally injured for him to be the guy like talking shit in that moment. I thought was I thought was totally Shimoda like like he had no fucks to give at that moment. Great scene, funny scene, really. Yeah. And so, Satelli's my Shimoda, this episode.

Theramulans do have a way of noticing that wharf is near them and hating him reflexively. Yeah, and Satelli doesn't even look at him when he drops that science. He's just looking at Riker and rolling his eyes. Yeah, pretty great. Good. Good one. I think my Shimoda is going to go to Commander Data because I feel like he gets asked by the captain to do his research and like make a super objective record of this prelude to war. And then almost immediately heads down to engineering and engages Jordy in a very trivial conversation like, what is going with your gut? It's like- What mean expandable?

Yeah. And it is just a real silly, a real silly scene that I guess provide some levity and what's otherwise like a fairly well done tense episode. And I guess you need, you need to let the pressure out from time to time to make a work, but not right then data. Pick your moment, dude. Yeah, yeah, good pick.

And it helps that all of that takes place in and around the Jim Shimoda Memorial Corner. That's a good place to do some exposition. What do we have coming up on the next episode? The next episode is season 3 episode 11, The Hunted. The Enterprise is bombarded by a soldier who is the victim of government mind control which turns him into a violent killer. Sounds great. It sounds fun. I don't have any, that description does not jog my memory at all. Yeah, it's just like a universal soldier story line. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I can remember a deep space nine episode about a similar situation.

But I don't remember this one. Yeah, this is one of those that's just lost in the ether that that feels like a lot of episodes are subject to in season three. Like season three's big episodes are coming and and everything that that comes before I think is not forgettable for it's in its own fault. Really, it's just that things that are coming are cast such a large shadow. Yeah, I think we should call out something kind of cool, just that this episode we just watched is the first episode released in the 90s. It's literally released on the 1st of January 1990. Wow. Yeah. Everything that has come before now has been in the 80s.

That's so... I can't imagine watching Star Trek on New Year's Day. Can you believe that that was a thing? Nursing a hangover. Your parents are watching college football and you got to go find a little TV somewhere to watch your Star Trek. I really think of this as a 90s television show. I guess the majority of it is and also the majority of me watching it took place in the 90s. Yeah. But yeah, I need to think about everything before now being 80s. Yeah, for sure. I mean, the hair is going to get way better from here on out, right? Yeah, that's what the 90s are known for. Great haircuts. Ha ha ha ha ha. Oh man, can't wait!

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