The Greatest Generation - Dartboard Daddy (DS9 S4E16)

Episode Date: June 10, 2019

When the wormhole spits out an old ship, the survivor wants to take Sisko’s job and force Kira to play with modeling clay. And while change at home is testing the O’Brien marriage, social change is testing Sisko’s willingness to relinquish his status as a holy man. What are your secret single slob behaviors? Is Odo a cafeteria Bajoran? And speaking of cafeterias, is it gonna take a caste system for someone to want to sit with Ben and Adam in the lunch room? It’s the episode that flagrantly disregards the golden blood test. Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Prophets! Support the production of The Greatest Generation.

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 friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdisotoforlabor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the U.S.T. The head of the world. Commander of Benjamin, says great, the better isn't stop-beats. Headspace 9. Welcome to the greatest generation, a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are data and yard, the morning after, to have a Star Trek podcast.

I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranika. You see what I did there? I got one of my metaphors out of the way really quick. Oh shit. Oh no. One down. Yeah, that data in the yard the morning after for embarrassed.

That's pretty great. That's nicely done. You are really great at this show. This is a special app. Yeah. We rolled... How do we got to this via a butthole, right? Our first space butthole?

That's the way to a lot of things, Ben. Yeah. Yeah, first time through. You never forget your first, sir. We also, I don't know if we talked about this before, but our game of buttholes, the will of the prophets, at gach.biz slash game, has gotten a little spit shine. Oh, yeah.

Andrew Wang Hoyer teamed up with Felipe and Craig, who have already put a ton of work into it to give it kind of like an L-car's look and feel and you can actually track where on the board that run about has been and it also like pulses a little bit so you can you can spot it easily. It looks great. It looks like it's an HD now. Yeah. Totally. It's an HD now. Yeah, totally. Tac sharp and crystal clear.

I like it a lot. I do too. Our challenge is to have 10 Tamarian style metaphors in this episode. One down, nine to go. And yeah, I'm excited about this one.

I think it's great. They've done great work here. Important work, really, to the degree that anything we do could be considered important. Yeah, I mean, to the extent that it is not important at all, you mean? To that extent, exactly, Ben, and in that spirit, I want to propose a game.

Oh. Game we haven't played in a long time. Would you like to do some Star Trek madlibs with me? Yes! I thought you'd never ask. One, two, and you people, you're all, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm kinda Star Trek.

Madlib, madlib. There's not a lot of characters in here, stop. I'm kinda Star Trek. Madlib.ip. Mad-lip. There's not a clear start. There's not a clear start. There's not a clear start. There's not a clear start. Well, you thought I would never ask because it has been months and months since we've done this, but I'm sure Dan Davis hasn't forgotten. He's the one who gave us Star Trek Mad-lips, and I think I'm ready to play again.

So let's get started. Ben, I need from you a verb. Present tense? Yes. Poops. Verb ending in ing. Farding. Let's have a plural noun. Balls? And a number. Sixty-nine. Yeah, that's the only answer. Noun? Boob. Adjective. fleshy, type of liquid, piss. Jesus, this is like doing this with an eight-year-old. Yeah, that's kind of the strategy. I thought I would pursue. I was looking at the board game and I saw Jay Gordon's little mug looking back at me and it really inspired me.

How about verb and same verb? So we're using this verb twice. Yeah. Bunk. What's kind of funny to say twice? Noun. Grundle. Article of clothing. Merkin. Color. Red. Adjective. Greasy. Adjective. Stanky. Plural noun. Penai. Celebrity. Gauron. Plural noun is the final, final madloop. Nipples.

Ben, welcome to Starfleet Academy. Before you set your phasers to poop, you've got a lot to do before farting. Starfleet Academy, first of all, you'll have to leave your old balls behind. What? If you're gonna spend 69 years in space, you need to start with a clean boob. Second, get ready to work. It's not all exotic fleshy aliens and rimeyland piss. You'll need to boink and to boink hard.

Eventually, you will be divided into groups and given a gruddle. That determines the color-merkin you'll have to wear. Pray you don't get a red one, or you're as good as greasy. But life at Starfleet Academy is not stanky all the time, you'll meet all kinds of new pen-eye. And remember, hot shots such as James T T Kirk and Gauron have passed through these nipples. You could be next welcome to Starfleet Academy. Wow. Yeah. That's fun. That was fun to read as a speech. Yeah. As a speech to incoming freshmen. Now I want

everybody in this room to raise their hand that wants to be a captain One half of one of you That's right, that's right. You remember how long the idea of a Starfleet Academy TV show was in development hell that seemed to be whenever anyone was talking about a new Star Trek Oh, I, I think this is the Starfleet Academy one. And even like the movie was pitched as maybe a Starfleet Academy movie. Yeah, I'll drink to that. Hey, they really got rid of that idea.

Yeah, but they're doing that lower deck's cartoon now, right? That's the sort of Rick and Morty version of new Trek, right? I'm here for it. I think that's going to be fun. Yeah. I've got a lot of work ahead of us, Adam. I know.

I'm here for that, too. Are you here to review an episode, though? Let's do, Ben. Steep Space 9 season 4 episode 16, and it's called Accession. Two C's, two S's, two P's. It's like Mississippi. Yeah, not to be confused with accession, the excellent ENM banks novel that is mostly chat logs between spaceships that have personalities. Oh, it couldn't be that,. No, it's not that. It couldn't be that example you cited that I know nothing about. Oh, it's one of my favorite novels. You should check it out.

Adam, his brain oozing from his ears. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Do you realize how it is? How about this is? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Oh, no. No, of course you don't.

O'Brien's apartment is hoarded up. He has really leaned into the idea of the workshopification of his living space. It's like a sculpture, a monument to your year as a bachelor. Yeah, and Bashir have finished up a hollow sweet hang in which they were doing battle of Britain. And Bashir is like back at the pad. Do you ever have a friend whose place is not that nice to be in because it's kind of a mess? I think we all have those friends. Are you withholding because I'm that friend to you?

No, not at all. You've always, I often stay at your place when I'm in LA and I found it to be clean and comfortable. Oh good. I know you would tell me on air if that wasn't a kid. I would because it would be funnier. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ben, the show doesn't tend to do prop comedy very much, but this is an example of that, isn't it?

Like, stuff in the foreground, stuff in the background, shit all over every flat surface. I'm gonna be a prop comic. It must have been really fun to go through the, you know, storage facility of Star Trek garbage and just fill this place up, because like, there definitely didn't like, purpose build all these objects, right?

Like they're they are things from other episodes for the most part. What are the things that you leave out when your wife is away for a period of time? I would say that the grossest thing I leave out is like I'll have like one napkin that gets used across a span of like three or four meals. Wow. You know, like I'll eventually I'll be like, all right, this is gross and it's got to go in the laundry. But the idea of the conservation of napkin is something that I can get away with when I'm rolling solo. Yeah.

I think for me it's dishes. Like I am very good at the dishes when you know, just on a normal day, I'll let that shit pile up. But if it's just me alone, I will do dishes at the end of the day instead of, like, washing as I go, which is a practice that I do when I'm cooking stuff all the time also. All right, because you're not a dishwasher machine house. So that's a bigger concern, I suppose. Oh, where a dishwasher machine house?

Oh, you are? Yeah. Which is what makes it all the more insane. Yeah, that's right. That's right there. I don't know, I just stare out that kitchen window at the middle distance and just let my mind go. I feel like the dishwasher though,

when you're a single occupancy household can be as much of a liability as it is a, like a time saver. Because like if I let the dishes accumulate to the point that there's enough to justify running the dishwasher, that might be like two or three days that they're sitting in there and then stuff that's on them dries and becomes plasticized and impossible

to get off. You're not wrong about the liability of dishwashers because I was recently at my favorite bar last night and the restaurant neighboring my favorite bar has had to close for a period of days because they're in an apartment building. They're on the business level ground floor of an apartment building that's above. And their upstairs neighbor had a pipe break from their dishwasher and it drained into the restaurant area and it drained and drained. Like it happened overnight and it was just a ton of damage. So they're a danger to everyone.

If you have one, I recommend getting rid of it. Very interested to learn about how the insurance payouts went for that. Yeah, it's pretty sad shape. They're like, it's paper on the windows. Yeah, I know. I thought that it was interesting that we never come back to the, the O'Brien apartment is a mess storyline. Like, it's just not a mess after this, right?

I mean, there are a number of parts of this episode that lean fairly hard in a comedy, like harder than you would expect. Right. And if there were a cutaway of O'Brien, like with, like wheeling his shit to an incinerator or like something that blows it out of the station into space, that'd be fun, right? Yeah. See that zero gravity coat floating out there? Yeah, floating away with the rest of the garbage. I

Got to test the torpedoes We get the idea that Kiko has been gone for a year by the time O'Brien steps to the docking ring to greet her and Molly I'm O'Brien steps to the docking ring to greet her and Molly. The botany trip that she was on, I think I remember she came back at the halfway point and said like it's been extended quite a bit. Yeah. But a year it feels like about a year that she's been not a going concern on the show. We are told through perhaps retroactive continuity that that episode went very well for them. They didn't, I don't remember them showing it going in in that, in that episode,

but apparently it did. We'll just have to use our imaginations at them. You know what we could also use is a, is the Tamarion language. Yeah. And I have something for this. Uh-huh. It's sort of a couplet. That's how I wrote a number of these. So here we go. Keko and Miles on date night. Miles inside the nebula.

Keko, her boat unfound. Ha-ha-ha. But she steps off the transport and it's Keko and Miles when the bun baked. She's glowing. She's got that Molly's little brother is not a dolly glow. I love the bejorin dolly. That's great.

Why wouldn't it be a bejorin dolly? Yeah. I mean, I guess replicator. But yeah, it's pretty cool that they're raising their daughter not to expect that your dolly looks any particular type of way. Yeah, that's a nice thing to do. Yeah, they're really happy to see each other, which was nice. Yeah. You know, like there's definitely the secret single behavior of Chifo Bryan that we saw. It seems it's not only women who have secret single behavior.

This is my stuff! This is fucking spectacular! But his shit is snapped back into shape by the time Kiko ever sees the apartment. Yeah. One of the other passengers on this ship is Vedic Porta, who's sort of like the Colonel Sanders of Vedic, really. I've never brought this book out of chicken and I watch it for I don't know it, but there you do smell it, and ruin your bag.

I'm getting hungry, is it? It can cheer. He's there on whatever random religious mission he's on, and he's there with a couple of newlyweds for Cisco to bless. I liked that the male of the newlyweds was a wordless extra. They only paid the lady to have any lines. That's great. You notice that thing and you know that they were like,

all right, we can afford to have one of these be a character with a name and lines. Right. can afford to have one of these be a character with a name and lines. Right. One of the ways that we achieve character growth in an episode is by beginning with a feeling and ending with a different one and the feeling that we're given here is a reluctance or a, and I wouldn't say disinterest, but like sort of a neutral feeling that Cisco has about performing these ritual rights. His heart's just not into it.

It's something that he has to do, but he's not going to be enthusiastic about it. Yeah. It's the like going through TSA to get on an airplane of his job. It's like it's just a thing that I got to do. Yeah. Yeah, he doesn't have to be happy about it. Looking for a priest. Weddings that wouldn't flow down my son, congratulations.

So this couple, you know, holds hands and he utters some, some pejorin words and it means a lot to them. Doesn't mean anything to him and they bounce and Fedic Portas like really, really licks Cisco's ass about how good his accent is. And then bounces. Yeah, it's one of those condescending things disguised as a compliment. Right. Yeah. I feel like, I feel like you and I hear a lot.

The damning with faint praise of the most important figure in your religion. Yeah. Well, Cisco doesn't get to bask in the neutral feelings of this moment for long because a 100-year-old, Bejure and Light Ship emerges from the wormhole. It's a 300-year-old. Really? Yeah. Really? From these readings, I'd say that ships about 300 years old. Interesting.

Well, anyway, it's containing a Korumlan, who by virtue of his experience inside the wormhole and his interaction with the prophets, sort of has a feeling that he might be the emissary. I am the emissary. Sisko, his his position made awkward. Go to Kotlin. To Kotlin. Go to Kotlin. So.

If anyone in modern society claimed to be Jesus, they would undergo some sort of psychological evaluation. There is no such. Oh, fuck you think so. There's no such. I should not have sent that email. Yeah. Like, it's funny how there's no test for what a Coramlan is saying. Like,

like the ship is old and he has proven himself to be an ancient poet. So, and that is evidently all of the identification required to prove his story. And I think Odo from Jump is reluctant to accept him as the new MSAry. He is sprinkled throughout, I think, as a great utility and a reminder of this as the episode goes on. It's so interesting that Odo really, really more closely, used to Badjorn identity than almost any other, but has never, never once espoused any element of faith in his character. He has never had an orb experience that I can think of even.

I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious. I'm just tired of people throwing their religion in my face. I can get what some people get out of a trip to church or a synagogue, out of a really good yoga class, for example. I'm not a hypocrite for celebrating Christmas. It's a cultural holiday to me. I just like to be included. Marshmallow peeps are delicious.

It does have a religious aspect. Also, I'm amazing at yoga. Cisco is psyched about this. He sees a way out. Yeah. And it is easy for him to uncouple himself from this job. Like, I am trying to remember, like the moment that, that the realization was there that he was the emissary. I don't recall there being a great ceremony about it, but there is no ceremony for the transfer

of emissaryness is there. It's just given. It just seems to have well, yeah, because there's a there's the scene in his office where he and DAX are talking about the the research he's been doing. And he like a big part of what he is leaning on is that a Corimlon went into the wormhole 200 years ago. In their timeline, a Korimlon beat Cisco to the celestial temple. And he just feels like it makes a lot more sense for a pejoran to be the emissary of the prophets. And he's trying to get off the hook. And I feel like that is the moment in the episode that it sort of shows its hand a little bit. Because I don't think off the hook

is really in the vocabulary of Deep Space Nine. Oh, interesting. You know, like, no like major plot point that happens to a character ever really goes away on this show. In the moment I heard that my ears perked up and I was curious to see basically how they would navigate a Koramlon becoming the MS area and then becoming not the MS area again. A Koramlon experiences that thing that time travelers do,

where he is shocked at his circumstances. My wife, my parents, they've gone. Maybe mostly having to do with the rejection of the cast system that had ruled Bejor during the time that he was there previously. Yeah, this kind of comes out as he's being, he's in the infirmary and everybody's talking to him about, oh yeah, like a lot has gone down since you've been gone and somebody refers to Major Kira.

Major Kira. And I guess her surname indicates what her role in society would have been in a in a cast system that Bageur abandoned amidst the occupation. But your family would be part of the artist, the jarra. So the Cardassians did good things to... ...wasn't all bad. Yeah, and I mean, like this is a pretty wild part of the episode because Kira just breaks into song. She goes, They're George moving on, yeah, yeah, but we still back your poems

Since you've been gone Beautiful get a great singing voice beautiful But yeah, so I thought I thought it was indeed fascinating that there's not a scene where the mantle is is passed on or anything. Like there is some talk of Cisco doesn't want to be the emissary if this other guy has like a credible claim to it. and then it's just like, a Koramlan is like coming out of the temple to address the masses.

If there was ever a moment to come up with the idea of talking to the prophets directly about what they wanted, this is the moment, right? Like before transferring this amount of power to a stranger, now is when you do that. I think. It's great. It's great.

You got to save it for the end, Ben. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the dramatic stakes just go up and up and up the longer you wait to do that. It takes a thousand percent more effort to transfer who the captain is of a Federation Starship from Picard to Geleco than the main religious figure of an entire world. Yeah, like they should at least do the handscan thing, right? Yeah, make sure he's not he doesn't go gold. Yeah, right? Holy shit!

Ben, I, oh my God, I never even thought of that. I can't believe I haven't. Like, how could you not at least do a golden blood test on this guy? Yeah, hey, we gotta take some blood, hard to explain why. Ha, ha, ha, ha. You would not believe what we are dealing with right now.

Turns out that celestial temple has a back door and the people that go through that are assholes. A Koramlon goes into a small room and then comes out with a vial of golden liquid. And he's like, what? I thought you were wondering whether I could produce something golden. This is a blood test, decorum. We do not need your urine. Yeah. Then you just see like Dr. Bashir looking at the urine

and licking his lips. Rose, anyway, what are you implying? Just that Dr. Bashir is a bit of a water sports enthusiast No, I don't believe that at all about him. Is that why Bashir is always buying drinks for Davo girls Work is like do you want the 12 ounce or the 24 ounce? Bashir is like, uh, do you want the 12 ounce or the 24 ounce? But she's like 24. Keep them coming. Speaking of drinks, Bashir and O'Brien catch a, uh, a quick happy hour one on O'Brien's way back to his apartment.

And, uh, the, this is like the, the deep bee storyline of Brian feels as though he must always be at home because Kaka was back now and then putting a strain on his rich social life that he developed in her absence. Is she back forever now? I guess so. I don't feel like they made it explicit, but maybe I just missed that part. I mean, I think that like one of the unfortunate things about the way their relationship is depicted is like how normalized it is that she would just have 100% of the child care duties and that when he's like bumming around the apartment, she's like, I wish you would just go so I could be with the baby

and you could be out drinking with your friend. You know? Like that kind of sucks. Yeah. I guess he does like some hangouts with her but he's really just trying to project Bashir onto her by making her learn to play darts with him. Good shot, Molly.

Did I win? Harvey! There is a thing that happens in long-term relationships where it, like, where obligation creeps in. And like, this idea that O'Brien is, is there because he feels like she wants him there out of obligation without ever interrogating that I think is too bad. Like you can have this conversation like about expectations and such. Right. But you know, left alone in his thoughts, O'Brien is airing on the side of, well, parties over. Time for no friends. And this is a thing I think a lot of people experience when their friends pair

off with people and either begin relationships or get married or whatever. Like they're, I think a lot of friends lose friends because those friends stay home because of a sense of this obligation. And I think that's too bad. I think what I'm trying to say is, I really think you can have it all. I think so too, Adam. I think that Miles and Kiko aren't communicating and the way this arrangement has worked out is no good for either of them.

Yeah. Wow. What do you say about this scene with Wharf? Everything I wanna say about this scene with Wharf, I have thoughts to share on later in the episode. If you catch my meaning. Oh, all right. Well, we'll gloss past it. If only to say that a very funny part in the episode involves Bashir and O'Brien discussing a pregnant And the reaction is not what you might expect. That's fun. Keko, the goalie pulled. O'Brien, his pucks shot once.

Bashir, his quarters, unnested. Wow, beautiful. I mean, the conversation that O'Brien and Bashir have in the bar is like, Keko was here for a day. And he was like, what's the point? I'm not sure. I mean the conversation that O'Brien and and Pissier have in the bar is like Kaka was here for a day. A couple months ago man. I thought it would take more work. Clearly not. Miles clearly not. O'Brien is a very virile man. Yeah. He is, uh, he is shooting ropes. Yeah. So a Korum line gets up on his, uh, on his soapbox and, uh and he is now the anointed

emissary of the prophets. And he does this speech like Cisco watches it from the CNN livestream on his laptop and ops, but there's a big crowd there. And Kira and Odeo are standing next to each other so that we can get the two shot as Kira's face falls in disbelief because a Kum Lone turns out to be a kind of like have the kind of like magical thinking of conservatism of if we just go back to the the old way

things will be better and and life will be great. Be sure that I've returned to has lost its way. He's totally like a the fift guy. Yeah, it's false nostalgia. Yeah. He wants Bejor to move back to their caste system. Everybody has to follow their de jarras. The thing about a caste system is that it only benefits those in powerful castes. People like a Korimlan.

Right. Like he's got nothing to worry about, but all of a sudden you're turning scientists and teachers into artists and farmers, and it's all fucked. But because this guy is the emissary, his philosophies are unquestioned. Yeah, and that's a point that Kira makes to Cisco later.

Like, Cisco's like, God, this guy seems like a real prick, right? And she's like, yeah, but he's the, he's the emissary. So we got to do what he says. And he's like, really? Because I wouldn't necessarily have asked you guys to do something this like uprooting of the social order. Maybe you never realized this, Captain.

But we would have tried to do whatever you asked of us when you were a Missouri. No matter how difficult it seemed. Kind of a crucial conversation in the greater context of this episode, I think, is that moment. It's a trip, right? Like to think about like this power that he had, that he had in his hands, but never wielded. Bashir over here is this conversation and he's like, if I were the emissary, I could make anyone on the station piss on me.

And they'd have to do it. And then he's like stealing a runabout and heading for the wormhole. Let me see if I can talk to him into it. Hey, what do you say? Me, Bashir, the emissary. I am the Bashir. I like the nasty piss. In a universe without time, the piss flows infinitely. For me, piss moves linearly. mean, specifically. And makes it clear that a cast-based system makes Bezier unfit for

Federation membership and a Corum. Is that something you really want to do? And a Corum's like, yeah, sure. Like, I don't care. This is never heard of the Federation. This is the first time hearing of this. Yeah, like, how am I missing something? I don't care. This isn't about. I've never heard of the Federation. This is the first time hearing of this. Yeah.

Like, how am I missing something? I don't know anything about. Like, we'll be fine. I mean, that's like the other thing that is really astonishing to think about is somebody with this little grip on the way reality works, suddenly having a ton of power. Right. That would be awful if something like that happened and that's the thing about a Koram is that like he projects this air of being like a populist every man poet guy, but he's really just severely mentally compromised and dumb yeah and inexperienced

but like he possesses that self-assuredness of someone who rises to power without any sort of skills or understanding. Or empathy. Yeah, man. He does that thing where he grabs Cisco's ear and declares that Cisco's got a strong paw. You know, when you're emissary, Ben, you can grab them by the ear.

You can do anything. They let you do it. And a tic-tac falls out of his ear. Ever been grabbed by the ear hard? That shit hurts. Yeah, that's not a nice thing to do. Yeah. That's a non nice thing to do. Yeah. That's a non-consensual ear grab.

I thought it was interesting that Akorum 1 observed that Kai-Win is afraid of Cisco. And I thought it was interesting both in that it says something pretty interesting about her character and also made me realize how unusual it is that she's not in this episode, but I guess if she was there, like it would, like this would be a much more complicated story to tell. Yeah, but it's interesting that she's one of the first people that he's brought to meet and it is not Shikar. It's Kai Wynne. Right. And Shikar is like, like Shikar's destiny as the political leader of Beijur is also cast into doubt by this whole Dejara move,

because like the prediction is nobody will want to vote for somebody that is defying their Dejara to be on in power politically. Right. The next scene in the Replomat involves Cisco and Kira and it's an example of what the cast system does in practice because Kira experiences a kind of deference that you only kind of get in a cast society.

A young woman there wants to give up her seat to Kira and does it not because she wants to be nice. She does it because she is of a lower cast. Right. And this makes Kira pretty uncomfortable. I would say that this is the one part of the episode that makes the case for a cast system to me because as an only child, that really appeals. I've never had anyone in a lunch room want me to sit with them.

So this was the the greatest fantasy part of the sci-fi show. Imagine that. Wait, so Kira wasn't tripped while walking by? Oh, cool. Nobody took her cupcake off her tray. Yeah. God, we were such fucking bastards in junior high. Like anytime anyone would get French fries

from the cafeteria, like the fries would not survive the transit to the seat. They would get taken off of the tray. I only ever, my high school had a cafeteria, but I never, I never got school lunch, and I've, it's the only school I ever went to that had a cafeteria. So. My high school had a taco bell in it. What? So I went to a high school that was at the time I went, I think, one or two years old, and it was like a new concept in high schools. It was like a very, it was built kind of like a mall, like it was kind of open air.

What? And two stories. There was like a promenade. It was a little deep space 90. And one of the weird attributes of it was that its lunchroom had, I think I would argue like regular lunch food like your chicken patty sandwich, your hamburger, your pizza pocket, but also the healthy foods that are helping train the young minds that will be the future leaders of tomorrow. Yeah, and then also under like,

like, under a warming lamp, Taco Bell branded burritos and tacos. Like in Taco Bell paper. And this is a thing that rival high schools would make fun of us for all the time. We were the Taco Bell high school. It was humiliating. But they tell you one thing.

It was not so humiliating that it deterred me from eating a delicious bean and cheese burrito from Taco Bell at high school. It's weird, right? We had off-campus lunch also. I don't know if that was a thing that you're familiar with, but we had fast food options around. And Taco Bell felt that that was insufficient.

They wanted to be in the building. And they were. That is astonishing. Yeah. You go into that fourth period class after lunch. Pretty beat after two in between two and three being burritos, Ben. Yeah. That's the new app.

That's the new app time. You have to excuse yourself from class. And then that's a real Adam, his cheeks wide type situation. Yeah, I would grab the Taco Bell brand at Hall Pass and then retire to the restroom for between 30 and 45 minutes. That's just a little bonus to Mary and metaphor for the kids at home. That's great! I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford, Ford, I'm a Ford, I'm a Ford, I'm a Ford, bad dream. Much in the way one might after eating a shitload of Taco Bell. Cisco, his sheets wet. But, sheer stealing Cisco's sheets. He walks down the promenade and there's a great like light change moment where the camera

is briefly occluded by the mall directory on the promenade and then when it like Dolly's passed on the other side, the lights have gone down to almost nothing. And Kayopaka is there. Great to see Kayopaka again. Yeah. just thought he was that happy to see sysco though she's like you never come talk to me i'm on this fucking planet where i'm gonna live forever and nothing nothing i'll i do every day is just watch these people try to kill each other over and over again never happens it's. She is asking him who he is. And it turns out that that she's asking that on like a slightly deeper level,

than like, what's your name? Don't you know me? As far as technique goes, I really like how this is shot. Like I thought a lot about those dream sequences on TNG where data was involved. And how they'd go to sort of a fisheye lens. And like things just looked dream like, but the dreams in DS9 and the interactions with the profits are in such a way that it's the light that changes. And I think that's so much more effective in making a viewer feel uncomfortable or feel like a scene is haunted. Like, I really like how they shot this stuff.

Well, and the idea that she is kind of jumping around the space every time he turns his head there she is. That's also a great technique that they use very effectively. Yeah. Cisco gets diagnosed with what's called an orb shadow, which is kind of like an acid flashback of people who have had profit hangs.

And Bashir is able to give Cisco something that will prevent this from ever happening again, which I thought was an interesting thing to just breeze past like at no point as consideration given that, like, oh, maybe this is actually like an important way of communicating with the wormhole aliens, and I shouldn't foreclose on future opportunities

to do that. Be sure has this mind on something else, though. He's like, before I administer this orb shadow inoculation, I'm gonna need a urine sample. And I'm gonna to need a shadow inoculation. I'm going to need a urine sample. And I'm going to need a lot. Yeah, probably fill up three, four cups. As much as you can. I'll put it on my shelf full of thermoses

that was seen but not commented on a couple episodes ago. Yeah. Kira's job in this new digiara verse is artist, but she finds that it's a it's really a type of situation where the dolphin, it's would unpolished. Kira, her ash trays unsolved. She is a shitty sculptor. She is not good. Yeah. I'm very fun, like almost wordless scene of her just struggling to do some clay and then later complaining to Vedic Porta that this is this whole digiara thing might not be working out for everybody.

Working out for everybody. Art and craft style does not go well enterprise. Porta is a true believer, right? A bird is a difficult thing to scope. I wish we'd gotten more vetics involved here. Yeah. The... There definitely seemed to be like different schools of thought among them. And... Porta is,

it kind of seems like he's pulling the strings from behind the scenes, kind of like giving giving a Koramlan like nudges in the direction that Vedic Porta wants things to go. I mean, this is the beginning of an understanding of Vedic Bortas evangelism, right? Like, it's nothing could be more natural than the idea of a stranger giving up everything she's known for her entire life and embracing the Dajjara. Like, it's, like, he just doesn't understand at all,

like, here, it wouldn't do that. And that's like the, that's, like, he just doesn't understand at all, like, here I wouldn't do that. And that's like the, that's the danger of like, religious and insulation. Like, you just have no basis for understanding anyone else in a constructive way. Even if your goal is to like achieve that understanding in order to evangelize or like,

conscript or whatever, like it's such a weird position to take. There's a case to be made for, like that puts you far enough outside of it to be a dispassionate third party observer, but I think in practice, just means you're ignorant of the considerations of it. Right.

And like Vedic Porta is not being asked to completely rethink his life, but a lot of other people are. Right. And he has zero understanding that that's going on. Yeah. And no empathy for it either. Maybe you should have started with something simple. Yeah.

He's a real piece of shit. We cut to the quarters of the O'Brien's and Molly makes a terrible darts opponent for miles. It's not, the dart game does not go great. Because they're playing with one of those plastic dartboards and it's so unsatisfying. When like there's like playing with real darts, feels and sounds good.

Like there's the weight of the dart when it's got the metal tip. There's that the satisfying feeling of like pulling a dart out of the cork. Like there's a lot of like tactile sensations that are very enjoyable to a dart game that a child is unable to achieve with a plastic dart board. Right. And you definitely don't want a kid as young as Molly getting her hands on something as sharp as a real pub dart.

You're going to get yourself mourned if you gave Molly a bunch of real darts. That's what I think. Yeah, or worse yet, no second. Right. Kiko finds it. Daddy, play Blood Sports with me. Daddy, play Dartboard. Dartboard, Daddy.

Then she just plunges a knife through his heart. Yeah. Kiko kind of co-chains miles in the scene because I guess that was the one thing he didn't blow out the airlock. Yeah. I don't know, man. I mean, I'll say this. This is just my situation. I'm not speaking for anyone else, but like I don't feel like my wife goes into my closet

to police what's in there. Just as I don't go into hers to do the same, I think Kiko is kind of snooping. Yeah. What she doing this for? As Dan Savage says, you know, if you snoop, you might find something you don't want to find. Yeah. Like this embarrassing cosplay that her husband is into.

Yeah. This is the scene pivots from one of embarrassment to one of romance. I believe the word for embarrassment is data and yard the morning after. Right. All right. That's been established. So there is a scene of data in yard the morning after that then pivotentism smutin. Yeah, data in Yarth the night up.

Right. Usually it doesn't go that direction. I don't think it works that way. But this isn't something that Miles and Keko can complete. So, Miles, his sales half unfurled. Miles stuffing the sales back in. Miles, his sale color blue. So, Starfleet is pretty cranky about this whole new Emissary situation because it has basically taken Bejor out of the running to be a new member of the federation and that was the whole job that Ben Ziska was sent there to do. Yeah, and

job that Ben Ziske was sent there to do. And like he discusses the irony of that a little bit with Major Kira, because you know, like they weren't psyched about him, you know, moving into his new office and then immediately becoming a religious figure to the people who was trying to like have a diplomatic relationship with. But this is even worse than that. I think the choice to make Kira and Sisko the embodiment of this conflict is a great one. They are on opposite sides of the religious question. They are friends and very close co-workers to give them the torch for their opposing conflicts I thought was great and this scene is so emotional So much more emotional than then one might expect it was it was great These are the two actors on the show that you turned to to put a ton of emotional subtext into a pretty

perfunctory business conversation. Yeah. And I think that they do a great job with that. I love how Cisco can't even finish his thought before she leaves, like he says something like about replacing her and being unable to do that, but he can't even finish that moment. Yeah, because she's headed back to Beijing or to learn how to make tapestries or something. Yeah.

We get a scene in Quarks where Brian and Bashir are kind of bemoaning how little time they've been able to spend with each other, trying to brush past it like they're not both super sad about the situation. This is my favorite scene of the episode because this is a two-minute oneer, Ben. Yeah, they do a great job with this. The thing that sticks out to me about the scene more than any element and Setting aside like there's a lot of dialogue here and there's a lot to do and there's a lot of an actor needs to think about with relation to All that's going on the only thing I could think about was man Kalamini drink drinks like three quarters of a beer or

Whatever is in the mug and you know he had to do this scene many times. How much did he drink on this shooting day just of liquid? Do you think he was just going like instead of a spit bucket, he had like a barf bucket and he just like stuck his finger down his throat between takes? I mean, wonders are so hard to do and you know they're having to retake this a bunch. Like I, I love Kalamini, but this seems like a huge mistake. Yeah. To concentrate on so much drinking. Did you listen to that recent doe boys or Kevin Pollock described like the first scene he was ever in in a movie where he had to like eat

something. Yeah. And he ate like an entire plate of food in the first take only then to realize that they were going to be shooting coverage on that scene for two days and he was going to have to eat that amount for every single take. Oh my god. For two fucking days. So funny. So funny. Callumini is not an amateur. Like, like, he is a fucking grizzled veteran at this point. He is making a choice. It's so much fun. Yeah. It's a great scene.

Turns out Vedic Porta is not the squeaky clean religious figure he presents himself as Adam. He's a slightly murderous person also. This is the this is the dark side of the coin of what we were talking about earlier with respect to a person's evangelism. Vetic Porta does a terrible thing and does not know what he did was terrible because he prescribes to a completely different set of values to everyone else. He pushes a guy off of the upper floor of the promenade and he's like, yeah, that guy

was from a shit cast and he deserved to die. Like, that's how we roll now. Like, no regret, no nothing. You killed him because of his de jara. I had to. Vedic Porta came to this way of thinking very quickly. He was ready.

He's like the guy who like stocks a bug out bunker like for the end of the world. And like as soon as his power goes out, he like starts loading his automatic weapons and like and like putting cow catchers on the front of his car. Right. He's a type of vigilance that's a little creepy. Yeah. He's like bring on the race war guy.

Yeah. You never see what happens to him. It seems like he should be tried and convicted of murder, right? Right. Like, Odo drags him off and says it's murder, but like, you don't see him again. I sure hope. That's the case that they gave him. Yeah. Well, I think Vedic Porta is playing a game where he's expecting that

the political paradigm is going to shift so fast that he's going to be out this time next Tuesday. Do you get to declare religious asylum if you're Vedic Porta? Like, do you think that it's fine? I wonder if that's what happens here. I don't know. Yeah. You know that this conflict has to come to a head directly between a Koram and Cisco, right? You got to put them in a room together and they've got to argue it out. And that's what we get towards the end of the episode. Right. And what's proposed is basically an emissary fight.

They're gonna go, they're gonna go, they break the wormhole in half, stick it in the middle of the room. Whoever leaves the room wins. Tryouts. They're going to go appeal directly to the wormhole alien slash profits to get a definitive word on this. I wish that we knew why they were reluctant to do this from the start.

Like, is it dangerous? Is there punishment if you ask a question that they don't like? I think it's just that Cisco was pretty excited about being able to leave that part of his life behind. You know what, that's the right answer, isn't it? Like there was no interest on his part to have this adjudicated by the prophets because at this point, it didn't matter to him. Right. Like when when a Koramlon wakes up in the infirmary and says, I'm the I'm the

emissary. There's lots of keen and reacts in the room, but it's not Cisco guy and like, no, wait a second. I'm pretty sure that I'm the, you know, it's it's never that. It's like, it's like heavy, but it's not he's not his position, because he doesn't want that position. A Koram is so confident in his position that he agrees to meet the prophets, and so they take a runabout into the wormhole. And once inside, we're treated with another moment with the prophets, which have, like these scenes have really grown to be my favorites in Deep Space Nine. I really like how these are done. I thought it was interesting that they were all familiar

Deep Space 9 characters. And I thought it would have been cool to bring in some Akorum-Lan friends. You know, because in his recounting of how he became the emissary, he's like, yeah, I was like my brother and my father-in- He's like, yeah, I was like my brother and my father and lot, like, you know, it was like people from his life. And I thought it would have been interesting to just like blend

in a couple of people that we've never met before, but are obviously familiar to him. What the abs of those. Maybe that's subjective. Maybe we're just seeing it from Cisco's point of view. Oh, that's interesting. Like, if you were to go inside a Korum's head, maybe he's seeing different people from his POV.

Yeah. You know, hearing you describe the familiar to Cisco, sort of taught me why a Korum was doing all the talking. Like, he's talking like a nervous man. And I guess if you're greeted by a bunch of profits that are unfamiliar with you, you might feel compelled to make your case the way that he does.

Right. I think it is fascinating that the character willingly accepts that he is not, in fact, the emissary, even though it's not really said explicitly, it is all said in kind of cryptic, yeah, profitee terms. It's like, I'm not the Cisco, Cisco is the Cisco, but that doesn't mean anything about whether or not I'm the emissary or not. Right.

It feels definitive because they both agree to agree on what they heard, you know. As soon as it's put on the table that a Koram can go back to his time and see his family again, that seems like what he's wanted from the start. You know, you're going to get the sense that he shattered from his time travel. But as soon as he's presented with this chance, he jumps at it. Yeah, that's a nice point. If there had been like one scene of him grieving the loss of contact with his family, yeah, that would have been cool. Yeah. So what the prophet says is really up to interpretation and that goes for Cisco and a Corom and you and me. Like by saying Cisco is the Cisco and we are of Bezure and you are of Bezure,

like those aren't explicitly saying anything. You're projecting a little bit of the significance of that. Yeah. I mean, I guess the case is that Cisco kind of needed to have his faith tested, and this was a, they saw an opportunity to use a Korum to do it. The jar was belong in the past. Why did you send me into the future for the Cisco? Time is a flat circle to them.

So, yeah, the resolution is that a Korumalana agrees to not be the emissary. And then Cisco goes back and he's like, Hey, guys, actually turns out I'm the emissary after all. And everybody's like, Okay, what's great about the emissary process is that there's next to nothing to do to transfer this power. I have said it. And so what is done. Forget about all that Dijara garbage. Just a little confusion. Go back to life as you were living it before. You really want to do this. And they discover that his poems are all finished, all the ones that he left unfinished when he went on his

wormhole adventure are finished now that he was able to return to the past. Yeah, it turns out that a Koram Lahn ended up being the richest man in the history of Beijor by virtue of all his winning sports bets. God, I've never heard anyone like him being compared to Biff Tannen before, but that's pretty smart. Yeah. In the little resolution with the O'Brien's, Kako is going to let the chief go have hangs with his buddy. I mean, it's, I mean, it may be different than even lead. It looks like Keko is, is instrumental in a manipulation of the two. He, she wants miles out of her apartment.

Yeah, she kind of like parent traps them back together. Yeah. You know what? We cut down the miles and Keko relationship fairly early on. Keko is not doing much to inspire our faith in them because there's a lot of going behind each other's backs at play here. Yeah. You know, if your husband's allowed mouth breather, maybe tell him to go read in the other room or something. You don't have to resort to these games. Yeah, just be frank with your needs.

Yeah, you like this episode, Ben? I kind of did. Yeah. It's a low key important feeling episode. The idea that Cisco would kind of, you know, his emissariness is a really important aspect of his character, but also not always the primary focus of the show, even when a bunch of badger and religious or political shit is pop it off. And an episode that challenges that and gets and and resolves with him recommitting to that role is pretty interesting because, you know, like I feel like he really does change by the end of this

episode. Like he starts really rolling his eyes at the blessing of a marriage and then like a girl is going to have her kids in the end and he's quite a bit more enthused about playing that role in her life. And I think that's pretty fascinating. Yeah, it's one of those stories that shows like character growth being of the kind that you know, Cisco grows by appreciating what he's always had instead of changing like fundamentally, like his perspective changes, but he doesn't. Right. And I think that's a nuanced story to tell and a difficult one.

Like it feels like this show has been, you know, at times broad and at times all about action. And this feels like the first episode in a long while that we've gotten something where the conflict was so internal. Right. And I appreciated that about this episode. Me too.

You know what I appreciate Adam as a priority one messages. Do you wanna see if we have any in the inbox? Let's get to it. Priority one message. Do you want to see if we have any in the inbox? Let's get to it. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on top. A supplement on top? A supplement. A supplement.

Yeah, it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Adam, we have a couple of priority one messages here. First one is very late. I think it was supposed to come come out in February. Here we are June doing it. It's from Pat Claire and Katie and it is to Murray Ross, McCullough.

It's practically Murray Ross McCullough's Half-Burth Day at this point. I know. Sorry, Murray. Happy birthday, brother. Thank you for being a benevolent dictator to the remote control when we were kids, so I got to watch Star Trek and Law and Order at an inappropriately young age. That's awesome. Do you ever think it's weird that Dr. Sume didn't bother to give data the ability to use contractions, but he

did make sure he could really fuck. Think about that a lot. And now, so do I. Yeah. Happy birthday, Marie. Sorry about the extreme tardiness of the message, but it is tough to line these up according to specific date so it's not it's not Pat Claire and Katie's fault. Certainly not not as much as it is your fault Marie Ross McColloch for growing them up fast. Yeah. As is the

right thing to do. I agree with all of your decisions That's a that's a big brother move that you did also I didn't watch TV much with my brother. I don't think Ben our second priority one message is from Abram it is for Amanda and the message goes like this Amanda I love you with the passion stirred and Picard by young Wesley Crusher. With the helplessness War feels trying to open a door with the abandoned that overtakes Adam when he torpedoes Ben's veto. And in parentheses it says, sorry the references are old, I'm a TNG season 4.

Message continues, thank you for being with me for all of life's drunk Chamotas. I couldn't ask for a better crewmate. Good job, Amanda. Yeah, and Abro has a lot of catching up to do. Put the show. Yeah, wow. Long runways.

It's a good different podcast that he's talking about there Yeah, but those are those are the greatest hits. Yeah How about knows what's up? Well if you would like to send a very belated birthday message or commercial message or whatever You had to max women fun dot org slash jumbo tr, where it's a hundred bucks for a personal message and 200 for a commercial message.

And those monies help us cover the cost of making this show. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it! The Sherry Reembarishment Tour is coming in August

2023 and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Sherry Reembarishment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris and I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Can I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries?

Thank you. And Kumail Non-Giani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard.

Be dumb instead. Well, rats, hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this.

So, gotta get on the art. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie?

We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun or dot org. Got it got it got that got that gold press like that got that gold press like that

Got it got it got that gold press like that Gold press like that Hey Adam! What's up, Ben? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? A drunk Shimoda! I did. I like...

I don't think it comes as any surprise to you that I like watching extras on this show. I like looking at their reactions to things. Uh-huh. And there is a lady at the bar in the scene where Bashir and O'Brien are commiserating about the news of his second child and that end of Kiko's pregnancy. We're like, it's said sort of loudly in the room so everyone can hear. This isn't, this is a public place at Quarks so they're having a conversation and there's a there's a uniformed person sitting at the bar and she turns into profile on camera and makes like surprise congratulations smile face. She quietly turns there and does, what? Like that? It's unclear whether or

not she knows them, but I think they're familiar enough to have made that sort of generous facial expression in that moment. Is she a bejurene or a starfleet? I think she's a starfleet. She's a blonde starfleet and she's wearing the gold uniform. Oh wow. I'm almost positive. And that face was great. Like, you know, so we know this, like extras are coached into not standing out. And one of the ways you do that is by not making wild facial expressions in background.

But I'm so glad. You're not supposed to be reacting to what the people talking are doing most of the time. I'm so glad that this one does. I think she really adds to the context of like this public place, like this scene. I think it was appropriate and good. So she's my Shimoda.

That's really fun. My Shimoda is not gonna come as a huge surprise. It's, it's gonna be under war huge surprise. It's it's it's commander Worf. Yeah, because when it is mentioned to him that that Kiko is going to have a baby his response is no Very funny very excellent use of cannon, you know That whole scene is so funny Ben like and the the logical extension of Star Trek is a place is that the characters are people. And there is, like, this is a perfect opportunity to use them as such.

We talk all the time about how vociferously we disagree with people listening to the show at anything other than regular speed. And this scene in Deep Space 9 is an example of that. I rarely see a scene shot and cut for comedy in the show that sits in the quiet for another half a second longer than you would expect. And this is that scene. Like your on-warf's face expressionless for way longer than I think a lot of people would expect. I think like as far as like the visual comedy goes, this is expertly done. Yeah, I really love it. Seriously. Super well done.

Yeah. What do we have coming up on the next episode, Ben? The next episode is season four episode 17, Rules of Engagement. The Klingon Empire accuses Wharf of wantonly destroying a Klingon civilian ship during a battle. They put the ship in soup. Is that how you wantonly kill something? No, you put it in a battle. They put the ship in soup. Is that how you want to leave, kill something? No, you put it in a dumpling.

Oh, right, yeah. But then that dumpling goes into a soup, a delicious soup. Yeah, that's one of the top soups. Yeah. So clean, that clear broth. Yeah. It's one of the great broths. That's an underrated restaurant soup, I think.

Yeah, I kind of agree. A lot of people go for a hot and sour or the rice soup. Right. Give me that cup with two dumplings in it, that amused-boosh serving of soup. Yeah. It's great.

That's about all the soup I ever want. You know what? A cup of soup is plenty. Do you not like having like big bowls of ramen and stuff? And for? Yeah, I'm not crazy about, I like ramen a lot, but I don't know. I feel like I'll almost always be happier

with a food than a soup. Good to know. But I would like a soup as like an element of a balanced breakfast or whatever. You know you and I like to have people over for dinner a bunch. You know what I almost never do is suit appetizer. You should do that. No one does that. One thing we've talked a lot about lately in our friendship, not making show life is when entertaining, like making that job easy for yourself and that, and that, like, you know, declaring that you're going to make sushi or something, and

then find yourself, like like hunched over two dozen Little sushi rolls that aren't gonna be that good because you can't get them out in the same way that a restaurant can You and I have a great relationship because we will often send each other panicked texts like As we're descending into kitchen hell like yeah, the dinner party does not go well. Thanks, giveings are great because we stand in solidarity as people who insist on taking over that meal, but also find ourselves in over our heads inevitably. Back to your point, though, what could be easier than soup? A pre-prepared soup that you've toiled over and is just warming, ready to be dished out?

Right. I'm going to consider that next time. It's going to really surprise some people. That's a real dog paw to the temple. All right. So head over to gach.bizslashgamefairlistener if you would like to follow on with our Game of Buttholes. The will of the prophets. We are presently on square two because we went through that wormhole and that means that there's basically no chance of us hitting anything with any impact ahead. You're required to learn as you play. Roll. I'm gonna go ahead and roll the bone

and see what we hit. Tula! Did I win? Harvey! And I have rolled a four. So we are on Squarespace now. All right. We could next time hit a cocoa no no. That's not in range for me, Ben. I only roll ones. Oh, yeah. Or a fuck it. We'll

do it live if you if you roll a six, I guess. Oh, yeah. That's there too. Yeah. so neither are really a concern because Adam rolls ones, but yeah. Looking forward to. We're gonna bring a great normal episode to the people next time. How do you think today's square worked out pretty good? I really liked it. I'm sure we'll get a lot of complaints. Sure.

But that's because there's always like a vocal minority of people that would rather a show be exactly what they imagined ahead of time or something. I don't know. Like I don't know what that is. Yeah, I like a chance to pre-write some stuff. So yeah. So I was into it too. I really liked your metaphors. Hey, thanks, man, you too. All right, well, we'll see you next time. But before we go, we got some thanks to give out. First of all, the friends of DeSoto who go to maximumfund.org slash donate and support the show. And also all the folks who recommend the show, whether that be via their podcasting apps, rating or recommendation engine, or by recommending it in real life to a friend or family member that they think would enjoy it.

Yeah, getting the word out. So crucial in these times. Gotta thank our buddy Adam Ragusia, who has made so much custom-themed music for the show and is now a YouTube superstar with hundreds of thousands of views on all his cooking videos. I search for Adam Ragusia on YouTube and he will find his other work and his don't create. Yeah. Big fan. Yeah. And also Dark Materia, who created the original theme music

for the greatest generation, the Picard song. It was kind enough to let us use it. Ben, we got a message into the Drunk Shimotovox about Dark Materia. Did you read that? No. Someone mentioned that theyoto box about Dark Materia. Did you read that? No. Someone mentioned that they knew the real Dark Materia, and it turns out the real Dark Materia, super cool dude.

I believe it. Cool and nice. Dark Materia was really nice to us when we had like four or five episodes of our show out. And we're like, God, we are real monsters for not asking permission to use this piece of music. We should do that, and we're like, God, we are real monsters for not asking permission to use this piece of music. We should do that and we sent an email and Jack Materia replied and was like, yeah, go for it. Yeah, pretty great. Yeah. About as great as Bill Tilly and J.J. Lendel, who create artwork for each

and every episode that we produce, artwork that is of the highest quality in both beauty and comedy. That is indeed true. With that, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9, an episode of the greatest generation Deep Space 9 that features the return of an old friend. Maximumfund.org Comedy and culture, artist-owned Audience supported.

Artist-owned? Audience-supported.