The Greatest Generation - Gagh Wednesday (ENT S4E16)

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

When the Entrepreneur is stuck at top speed and Commander Tucker is the only person who can help, Reed gets sprung from the brig to tether him over from the Columbia. But after a cold restart of the warp core leads them to Dr. Phlox, he lies to deploy a bioweapon saving the Colony from getting glassed. Which long-running podcast is making the world worse? What are Boomers uniquely susceptible to? Who is in a race to the bottom honor-wise? It’s the episode that has some physics questions.Support the production of The Greatest GenerationGet a thing at podshop.biz!Sign up for our mailing list!Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Riker - Quantum LeapThe Greatest Generation is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFriends of DeSoto for: Labor | Democracy | JusticeDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Facebook | X | Instagram | TikTok | Mastodon | Bluesky | ThreadsAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.social Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Here's to the finest crew in starving. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument for me. This is a parody. Welcome to The Greatest Generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranika. Do you hit the little button on the odometer after 10 years of shows?

Is it better for you mentally? to, like, how are you with what we just went through? Like, like, this kind of anniversary. Because we didn't get into this during the last episode. The last episode was, like, very celebratory and grateful and whatever. But now I feel like is the reality of... Right. Now we trudge forward into an uncertain future.

Yeah, I mean, do you feel good about this slow march of time? Are you looking forward to the next anniversary? I was observing to my wife the other day. Because it hadn't really crossed her mind that we had hit our 10-year anniversary. I think very little is thought of this project by either of our wives, to be honest. And that is never changed. Yeah. They are mostly trying to put it out of their minds.

But I was like, you know, Adam and I just recorded our 10-year episode. And he's like, God, just think about how much worse the world is now than when you guys started. And I mean, like, you know, correlation is not common. But I do think we need to confront the possibility that the greatest generation is what is making everything worse. I'm not stopping. Yeah, let's burn it down, Jack. I'm a little rattled by that being the React there. I mean, you guys have been going through some shit.

So I understand why there isn't a, you know, a pink vener. yet around every subject you talk about. But I guess I'm feeling a little better about this than you are. Good, good. Well, that makes one of us, you know. And when there was only one set of footprints in the sand, it was because one of us was able to be optimistic. Yeah, I mean, which one of us is the read and which one of us is the Klingon in the brig?

Damn. Makes you think, huh? Really makes you think. one of us is getting out today. Very true, Ben. Let's get in to this episode, I think, before we say anything we may regret. It's season four, episode 16 of Star Trek Enterprise.

It's called Divergents. I got to say, I started to get a little bit freaked out when on the Paramount Plus app, You know how you select the episode you're watching, and it shows you the future episodes. Like, you can see the end from here. It's wild. It feels strange, the newly uppriced Paramount Plus app. Yeah.

Because they're paying everybody a little bit more, right? Money well spent. All the people that are making shows are getting a little bump in the old pay checkeruny, right? That's what's happening? In case you forgot about what happened. on the last episode. Dr. Flux was kidnapped, and he's been made to work in this Klingon science lab

to cure a virus that has been ripping through the Klingon species. Yeah. And it involves the creation of Klingon augments, too. And Reed, during this whole incident, was tapped by Section 31 to affect the rescue of him. Like, not become involved in the rescue directly, but sort of like Sabo, the whole thing. Slow it down.

Hence the word sabotage. And in doing that, he's lost all his crit- What, like what little credibility he ever had? He lost all of that with Archer, who has put him in the brig, and Enterprise was then boarded by Klingons, and it's made the Enterprise have to floor it to keep from blowing up. It is a good thing that they have two separate brigues, you know. The one time I was in confinement in a police precinct,

there was a probably 11 or 12 gentlemen in their holding cell and then one young lady who had also been arrested in that time period and she just got chained to a like a school chair in the hallway and I was like ah like that's that sucks like much rather be in the in the cell than chained to a chair every time you bring up a story of doing time when you went to prison Ben. Yeah, that time I did my bid. I must remind you and everyone else to apply the sort of pressure. Oh, fuck, I keep forgetting.

That will produce the photo. Yeah. Of you holding up the little thing that says your name and your prisoner number where you're looking in this direction and then you're looking in that direction. Yeah. We need it, Ben. We do need it. And we're not forgetting that that's out there.

You may forget. I keep forgetting. Constantly. Yeah. Archer and a couple of Makos are like marching with purpose down a hallway while bangers drop on the entrepreneur. And I love Reed in his holding cell. Like a guy that is usually on the bridge in the center of the action knows exactly what's going on has been in this holding cell. He has no idea what they're up against.

Like what's happening? We've talked about this a bunch over the years. Like, how the experience of battle has to feel very different to anyone who isn't on the bridge. Right. Occasionally you see a scene in Star Trek where they're piping in the audio from the bridge unaccountably. Yeah. I feel like I'd be doing that all the time. Absolutely.

If you're in the lower index and, like, let's just be honest, like, if you are, you probably like watching Star Trek. And we know that they love to watch Star Trek on Star Trek. You just get a little live feed from the bridge so you can see what's a foot. Archer doesn't have a lot of time to explain all this. Instead, he pops in a 47-minute recut of the movie speed. And he tells Reed, if this bus goes below Warp 5, everybody's dead. And we need to bring the one man in the galaxy aboard who can fix this thing. And that's the guy that recently quit to go work aboard the Starship Columbia.

Fortunately, they're not far away, and they're going to meet us. But we have a delicate operation to perform, and that is merging warp fields with them at speed. It's never been done before. It is extremely dangerous. But what are their choice do they have? I'm going to answer that question. What other choice do they have been? Are there not escape pods on this ship?

Because we have not talked at all about anything else that might be on the table here. if your ship's going faster and faster and is essentially out of control. Abandoning ship does seem like a pretty attractive option at this point, but maybe they don't have enough capacity. Maybe that's not something that this ship is built for. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, especially when Columbia rolls up on them, no mention is made of that being an option either. No. It could be like that Air Force One scene where the helicopter and Air Force One are trading positions. in order to have the folks use the zip line.

I love that scene. One of the worst show-stopping special effects to end a movie of all time is Air Force One hitting the ocean. I mean, if you're into it at that point, you're into it all the way, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaking of cool special effects, I love the shot where we, like, leave Enterprise in space and zoom toward Columbia, which is coming up a stern of it, through the view screen and into Captain Hernandez's face. And then we cut to Tripp, who is, like, suited and booted and ready to go. It feels like a very Star Trek first contact kind of crash zoom at the very beginning.

It does. Really flashy maneuver. First time director here, I feel like we should say. This is David Barrett. And I think we see some new spins on stuff. Yeah, absolutely. And some spins that, um, feel very Newtrek, you know, like that that zoom through the view screen is something that Newtrek is obsessed with. Yeah. And I mean, it's probably part of why they had to increase the cost, the monthly cost of Paramount Plus. It's like how many dollars does it cost to zoom through a view screen? Strong opinions are what our show is all about for the last 10 years, Ben. I think, I think you're the perfect person to ask this question. When Columbia rolls over and those nacelle,

are dangling below. I can't help but think how much better the ship looks in this configuration. It looks like a Dell Soul class a little bit. Yeah. It's got that relianty sort of profile. And I love that. That's one of my favorite ships. I love that too. I wonder if when they were designing what the ship would look like on the new Star Trek series with Scott Bacula in it, if they were worried that that would make the ship look too evil-coded, like dropping the nacelles down. I never thought about the code switch of nacelles up or nacelles down. I never thought about that, what that might project.

Because, like, the reliant is like the good guys, which is why they don't throw the shields up, even though regulations say when a starship is not replying to hails, you should put up shields. Yeah. But, like, I don't know. I wonder if they saw this in this sequence and we're like, fuck. Maybe we would have gotten a fifth season if we'd design the ship a little bit better from the beginning.

If you're trying to install like a leadership authority where Scott Bacula plays your captain, you really have room only to hang one nacelle, right? Yeah. And that's his. You're not making your hero ship do it. No. It's too many. Too many.

So what they're going to do with these ships belly to belly like this is have Malcolm Reed fire a tether out of the shuttle door of the entrepreneur through space and in through the shuttle door of Columbia so that trip can, as mentioned before, zip line across. and there are some bumps and blips as they do this. There's a lot of delicacy in merging the warp fields at warp, something that has only been done in simulation, we're told. Ben, I'm far from being a physics man. Tim Ma'am. But I had some questions about how this whole thing worked, mainly about what was affecting TripTuckers' travel,

up the line. Like, he's not getting gravity dropped or whatever. Is he, he's pulling his weight across, I guess? He does, like, flip over in the middle. This was my question. Like, like, as soon as you cross that middle part, then you're affected more by the ship you're going toward. Is that the idea?

I think the problem that we have is that we don't know how artificial gravity acts outside of the confines of a ship. But the thing is, we all know about what happens at the end of Air Force One. And what I want to propose to you is, if these ships are traveling in the same direction, if you put one ship ahead of the other, what does that do to the cable? It tilts it back. A little tilt. So that maybe like Tripp gets dragged to the top ship.

That would have been. That's a visual explanation that I can understand in a way that I cannot grasp what's happening here. I won't cease or desist to spare you. There's a lot of tension in this scene, a lot of tension on the tether. Yeah. And eventually, Tripp makes it aboard. And just as the tether is getting wrenched

and pulled out of the guts of the entrepreneur. And then it flies away in space, like it's caught in a current, you know. But space is space. Like, shouldn't it just stay in the warp bubble next to them? right anyways RSVP

the Tether Launch assembly what a moment I was shocked at just how much action we got up front in this episode I thought

I thought this might get dragged out a little bit more and it may coincide a little more with what's happening over on the lab like back and forth but no like we get this done it is pretty breathless yeah

and Tripp is like explaining on the fly as he runs down to engineering that he's going to shut down Enterprise's reactor while they're at warp so that he can reboot it clean without all of the compromised subroutines that the Klingon's installed. And like he's trying to explain this to Reed like as he's processing that Reed is being escorted by Makos. And it's like, hey, what are these guys doing here? So often you'll run into this moment in a TV show where it's like, why aren't you asking more questions about your situation? Why are you just going along with this? And I love how this episode is literally we don't have the time. Yeah.

Don't worry. I'll tell you all about it when we're not quite so busy. That is so far down the list of concerns at this point, Trip has got to peel off and go to engineering and start this process. How long has he been gone? Because he was so heartbroken about the situation with DePaul that he had to get himself physically, like, as many light years from her as possible. And now he is back in engineering working directly with her. Do you think he put the Columbia patch on top of his old patch the way when you get new tabs for your car? Like, you're just putting them on top of the old one, right?

You're not scraping off the old sticker. I saw the Columbia patch actually blow away in space while he was transferring between the two ships. Whoops. So Columbia extends her warp field big so that it has both ships in it. And this is like the tether assembly shouldn't have blown away if Enterprise doesn't blow away during this, right? Because it's all inside the warp field. it proves your point. You're right. And then Tripp turns off the Enterprise's engine and it stays right alongside Columbia. Love it when the lights inside and the cells go out. That's always a

thrilling moment for me. Love seeing someone pull computer chips out of the, out of the computer in engineering. That's always a thrill for me. Incredible. Two ships, one bubble, is not a sustainable condition. Like, Trip is flying through these steps. And just barely, I feel like, keeping Topal read in on what he's doing as he's doing it. Like, he doesn't have time to explain any of it. No. It's too pressing of an emergency.

Yeah. There are sparks flying and explosions going off all around engineering. Like, he has to take moments to duck under stuff and, like, protect Topal's body and then run back to do stuff to the computer. and with like two seconds to spare, he purges the subroutines and they get the engine fire back up. Everything's okay.

There's a real co-bow at the moment Rambo pops up out of the water. DePaul's like, you did it, Trim! You made it, Rambo! The music swells. What a moment. Oh, man. I love doing it and being told that you did it after you done it, you know?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's like a reverse Dan Savage theory, isn't it? It is, yeah. I love it. You know, Dan Savage might take exception to that. Like, maybe clear it ahead of time, Dan Savage might say. No, but if I've done it, I want to be told that I did it. Yeah, yeah.

So we cut to the Kuvaat colony where flocks is. at and he's getting awakened by Antok, the Klingon science guy. Love how Antak rolls him over and is like, ooh. Woof. So I take it you didn't like do the pufferfish thing at any point. I feel like that could have stopped a lot of the bruising. Or maybe it actually caused more. I have no idea what happens to denobulent faces in these moments.

Now, if you get beat up to the point of passing out, does that count against your like occasional very small amount of sleep that you need? Or is this like extra bonus sleep? If you're a denobulin thrown in jail, thrown in prison the way you, you were been so long ago, could you use your face as a pillow? Could someone else use your face as a pillow? Like do a half puff. Yeah. Just just one cheek. Half puff is a great idea. Yeah. Because if you're a if you're a back sleeper, I don't feel like the puff is going to help you out very much, but a side sleeper, absolutely. Yeah.

The general has been quite cruel to flocks, and he does not really want to help these Klingons. He basically just wants Antok to fuck off, but then Antak is like, but I found like something really interesting in your research and shows it to Flox, and he's like, ooh, neat little science puzzle, can't resist it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there can be a cure to this thing.

minus all the unsavory aspects of augmented clingons. It seems like there's an opening here. It's going to take deceiving the general. No one wants to do that. But like after the beating you've seen Dr. Flax take and the certain death that you figure awaits them both, like it kind of seems like it doesn't matter at this point. Why not?

Might as well like enjoy the like crossword puzzliness of it all. Yeah. Like as you as you trudged towards death. Yeah. So yeah, they realize they can make the illness attenuate where it does change the way the Klingons look, but it doesn't give them any augmenty capabilities. Capabilities. And that would be an acceptable outcome.

Like non-lethal, like humiliating, sure. Yeah. But not the kind of thing that's going to turn the Klingons into a roided out rage army. An uncontrollable rage army. Yeah, yeah. At that. So Reed is taken to his quarters where Archer is waiting for him. And, oh, no.

Archers watching his leather videos. He thought he deleted those. The ball restored everything. You tried to erase. You did not want your captain seeing that. I thought I knew you, Malcolm. Reed, like, dragged everything to the trash, but forgot to hit, like, empty trash before.

This, that reminds me. me of this just happened a day. My mom and I are working with a medical professional about stuff having to do with my dad. And this medical provider is sending my mom a bunch of this information and using email to do it. And it made me forget how long you and I and people of our age have lived in a condition where there's that appendage at the bottom of every email that says, this is only meant for its recipient. Any unauthorized distribution without the express written consent of Major League Baseball, blah, blah. So I asked my mom, I'm like, okay, cool, you heard from this doctor.

Can you forward me what they said? And my mom was like, it's prohibited. I can't do that. And she sends me the screen grab from the end of the email where you just become blind to this over the years. Like I don't even see this anymore. What you do when she sends you the screen grab is go, oh, mom, no. You can't send that. worst part to send.

I think it would surprise you to know I let it go. I said nothing. I did nothing. I let that lay down like all day until finally later on she was able to figure it out and she sent me all the attachments. But I was like, oh man, you just, it takes another perspective to see that in a different way. Speaking of seeing things in a different way,

I had Klingons on the mind and I was looking at this Harris guy and I was like, this guy does look familiar to me. Yeah. He's been on Star Trek before. Do you remember the last time we saw him? Because it's a fun, it's a fun Klingon connect. I don't. Remind me. He played one of the dudes on the boat in March of the Dead.

Wow. Amazing. And now he's playing a Section 31 former, like, like, they don't know that yet. Like Archer is like, this guy was Starfleet security for a while. Then the trail goes cold five years ago. And we have no idea what he's been up to since then. And Reed is like, I can't really tell you. And also, like, I really don't know much about, like, I'm just following, like, one specific order from this guy.

And I can't tell you, like, where Flox is or any. like I know less than you man and Archer's like well I want to talk to this guy and Reed is like I'd love to connect you to but then he like shows the end of the email with Harris that says like any sharing of this with an unauthorized recipient is prohibited like oh and Archer's like what the hell does Major League Baseball

have to do with any of this we cut to the Klingon lab where there's a lot of talk between on talk and Dr. Flux, where they're just kind of trading backstories here. Before we get to the real meat of the thing, the virus is all Antak's fault. So there's a guilt component to this, too.

This guy's trying to clean up his own mess and has made it Fox's problem. I would just accept this commendation at this point if I was Antok. Like, what else do you have to lose? You've already been disowned by your warrior-cast house. I like the energy of just trying to fix what you broke, but that it involves a bunch of innocent people

who aren't involved and don't need to be. Yeah. It's a little bit of a bummer. I guess so. But like since when did Klingons care about that? He asked the exact right person to help too because Dr. Flax's code is such that he can't leave this hanging. He can't turn his back on this.

Yeah, yeah. General Kavach gets a visit from some Klingogman. the ones that did the raid on entrepreneur. And they're like, well, great news. We destroyed the Starfleet ship. And less great news, your son did die in battle. And like, I'll let you do the honor math on this. Like dying in battle good, but dying in battle against humans.

Yeah. I mean, doesn't she kind of relish breaking this news? I think she does. She seems to enjoy it, yeah. One of you is missing. Your son was slow. The humans killed him. Yeah.

I mean, what he doesn't know is that his son's alive in the brig next to Reed, a fate that is potentially even more without honor. To be taken prisoner? Who's got less honor at this point? Antok or Cavach's son? Or Reed. It's a real race to the bottom, honor-wise. Yeah.

Anyways, this makes the general feel the need to get an update very urgently. And he goes and starts threatening flocks. And flocks is like, give me an hour. I'll figure it out a path toward curing the virus in an hour. And Kavach goes back and reports this to Admiral Krell, who is the dude that's on his way with the fleet to glass the planet. And this guy's like, yeah, like, it doesn't matter whether you find a cure or not. Like, the High Council shut the project down. We're just coming to kill everybody so that we don't have to worry about this anymore.

If you're setting up this lab to do this research, I got to feel like you were feeling some regrets about which colony you chose. Because these colonies are being wiped out as they've been. you know, infected with the virus, like, don't you wish you were on a different colony as colonies upstream are getting glassed by this fleet? That would be better. What a backfire. In this future, you could be doing work from home as the general.

You know, you don't need to be there on site. No. But the consequence is, like, destroy the Kuvaat colony. all their research is going to go up with it. This fleet admiral is like, fine. It'll be three days before we get there anyway. If you're not done by then, it's ashes for you. Right.

Trip has a report about how things are going in engineering for Archer and Topal. And the report is, things are still a mess. He needs to spend quite a bit of time going through everything and making sure it's all ship-shape. and he's going to stick around to help Kelby with that project. He's like, also, what's up with Reed and the security detail perp walking him around when he stops having utility in the plot? I really can't say is what Archer says,

and that ends the conversation. Trip goes to head back to Columbia, and he's walked out by Topal. and in the corridor, she's curious about how things are going over there. And he's fine. And she's fine. And they're both fine. Why do you keep asking?

That's the energy with them. Yeah. At the Klingon Lab, time is up, that first hour, I mean. And General Kva is impatient. And also grieving over his dead son. Yeah. It's a tough spot. because his son was chosen for the Augman experiment,

so his losses in this area are very personal. Doesn't make anyone feel bad for him as the whip-cracker of the lab effort, you know? No, it does not. We are getting the test results now. We are running out of time. On the one hand, it's like, oh, man, he really went through some shit. On the other hand, it's like,

ow, stop punching me in the face. Speaking of his son, we cut to the brig, his son is complaining about the food. It's dead. I can eat that. It's jail, man. That's why they call it shit on a shingle. Like, this is the way it typically is. And, man, this guy really reads as fail son, you know? Like, he does not seem to be capable of much in the way of abstract thought.

I don't know, Ben, unlike you, I kind of feel like treating prisoners like human beings and, like, in a sort of redemption path. for them. I think maybe your time in prison hardened you to that possibility. I don't know. I mean, I've never been to prison the way you have, so... That's the thing, Adam. He

looks very much like a human being in brown face, but in fact, uh, is not... My very name is racist. I can't kid over how closely he looks like the

the stereotypical image of Jesus. very much Cajiz is here yeah the Kling augments that did this raid are going to

start to be infectious to other Klingons soon and they're down at Kuvat colony complaining about this they're like we don't like this this sucks to us and we want to go back

to the way we looked before General Kavach is trying to is trying to pep-talk them a little bit like your heart is still Klingon. Nobody asks which heart. It doesn't matter what you look like. It's what's in here that counts.

And also in here, over on the other side where the other one is. You're still hot to some people. A very narrow part of Klingon culture that would be into this. But trust. me, this is an active search germ on Kapoor and Tub. Yeah. Going loathless.

Seems like a real concern, even if you're going to survive this by everyone involved. It would be better for us to die. On Enterprise, Archer has reached the talking to his dog stage of things. And on screen is Harris, who I guess can just imagine how surprised he would be if you're just like working on your computer and suddenly blurp. Someone's there. There's Harris. A strange leather clad figure.

He's citing chapter in first. He says like, look it up, man. Article 14, section 31. You'll see that what I'm doing is totally authorized. And I, you know, like readworks for me. He's doing important stuff for the safety of the federation. Nobody asks him, like, where were you during like the whole Zindi threat? God, that would have been a great question.

Do you guys have anything to do with, like, protecting us from the temporal Cold War or anything along those lines? I mean, I guess that's what Daniel's whole storyline was, but it's unclear whether or not Daniels and Harris worked or talked together, right? Yeah. I guess they had similar, like, fashion senses. Yeah. You run into your coworker at the leather bar, like that scene out of the Sopranos? just don't know what to do there. Yeah, yeah.

It's confusing. Legally, it's just a fart joke. You will never take the greatest chin alive. Rather die. What? you to slow it down to give Dr. Flachs the time he needs to come up with the solution to this illness. So fucking chill, okay? Because if you don't, the consequences are going to be greater than you could possibly imagine. Like the shadowy figure wrapped in leather that you've never

heard of before urging you to trust the process. Keep talking. Keep describing who this is. It's just hard to trust the process in that context. I know. I know. I know. You're going to have to do better than that. Speaking of processes that are hard to trust, we code over to Dr. Flax, where he presents the four strains he believes, has the best chance of stopping the virus. And so we're having a vaccine draft. I thought it would have been fun if there were four vaccines, but one of them was a little shorter than the other three. And he had to, like, hold them up like this. Like, we're drawing vaccine straws.

This whole timetable, Ben, is incompatible. with what we know of the three-day amount of time it'll take for the fleet to arrive there. A week is what they're saying it'll take to determine which one of these is going to work. And they're like, well, we don't have that. If we don't have that, we've got to go faster. And that means Klingon testing on live subjects. We got four Klingons right here in the room, four possible vaccines, four Klingons. What do you think?

Ethically, it's unthinkable. The ethics, doctor, are simple. free lives to save millions. General Kavar's argument here would be a lot less compelling if he wasn't one of the four Klingons. Like, dude is there getting the injection just like the rest of them. So, like, I feel like that makes me respect him a little bit more as a general. Absolutely, especially, like, this is that Star Trek red meat of needs of the many.

Like, this is that for Klingons. When you put it that way on a Star Trek show, I'm in. Every single time. So Reed and Archer have a heart to heart about this shadowy figure Harris. And Reed confesses that he has had an alignment with Section 31 in the past. But it hasn't come up here tofore. Like he has not been working with them the entire time. This is the first time they've asked him to do anything since he was on.

Enterprise. And I was like, no, no, don't say that. I want to believe every weird choice you've made wasn't really your choice, but something that potentially you got ordered to do. It's sort of a great catch-all excuse for everything. You're right. Why not take the W here if you read and just go like, yeah, I'll be better from now on. I'm starting all over. It's the perfect, like, my mother died, like, I can't show up to your party kind of excuse. Like, Reed can, read can explain any mistake he's made in the last four years away via his association with Harris. And like, the whole point of Section 31 is that, like, they're not keeping records or anything. So there's going to be a lot of vagueness about, like, the contours of what

Reed has and has not been ordered to do. I think that the interesting thing about this is that they make Reed seem like he really does not know what the fuck is going on with 31 ever. Like, so, so he doesn't even know if he can or cannot claim to have been compromised by 31. It's a great point by you, but I think it has the unintended consequence of, like, on the one hand, it gets Reed a little bit off the hook. But on the other hand, it makes him a patsy, and that is just a different kind of bad look for him. If he's, used as a tool. Yeah. The idea that Harris is pursuing that they like figure out here is that curing the plague

is considered a security priority because if the Klingon Empire destabilizes, it becomes a giant threat to Starfleet. And that's intolerable. So like we sort of agree with some of like the ends that Harris is pursuing, maybe not his means. Yeah. But at the end of this conversation, it is a, like, Reed, you need to pick a side. Like, who are you loyal to? Harris or Archer? But nothing gets done as long as we have establishment Starfleet involved as the opposition

party to the Klingons, you know? This is the best you can hope for. Right. Yeah. We're seeing them push Klingons into unmarked vans and establishes. and establishment Starfleet is saying, Mark the Vans. On the bridge,

Reid is brought back by Archer, and I love how there is zero explanation for this. Yeah. We get a look around the bridge going like, the fuck is this. This guy's back. Oh, shit, what? Reed gets right to work.

Like, he breaks the silence by suggesting things. Like, splitting off from Columbia so that they're harder to kill. That makes sense. Welcome back, Reed. He doesn't even read. really have anything solid?

He's just like, I know that something was mentioned about a research facility on Kovat colony. Yeah. And so that's where they're headed, right? He's like, maybe Columbia shouldn't be, like, also getting destroyed by the Klingons on this one. Yeah. We might need them to cover our asses at some point.

Yeah. So in the Klingon science lab, Kava is the last to get the vaccine. And, like, slow motion Russian roulette, they're going to know in an hour, which, one of them is going to be the winner. He really liked the idea of Klingon augments and Flax's like, you fool, like they tried this on earth. It didn't work.

They were totally like they had no impulse control. They were like hyperaggressive. They turned into like an uncontrollable force that took over. I mean, if I were going to describe them, I'd say they became kind of Klingon-y. Like, I don't know, man.

Like, I know that's an imperfect comparison. but that's what it felt like to us. And Kavaz's like, no, you remain Klingon. You do not become Klingon. He's very excited to have gotten his injection. He's like, do you think if we get superfated, it will affect the vaccine in either direction? Flax says no, so.

What a relief that is to hear. You can drink as much as you want. Tankards up. It's not going to matter. Then we shall drink to the bravery of these warriors. Doctor! never on the job in six bay

archer and reed go to work interrogating cling on jesus about what they're going up against and uh the coordinates of the lab where they know dr flocks to be why isn't this guy helping why wouldn't he help

like if you won't help them maybe you'll help your people why don't you say you're doing that jesus you're helping your people that seems good right yeah we don't see him say yes. Instead, we cut to the bunk bed area of the Klingon Science Lab where, oh, my God, is this bedside? It is bedside, isn't it? Dr. Flux is in there ministering to the sick, and Antak rolls

in, and he tells them, you know that slow motion version of Russian roulette we've been playing? We're down to two players. It's Antak or Kavak? And after a quick scan, he gets the bad news that he did not win this game Fox is like oh like maybe we can get it out of you if we like act really quickly so let's go let's go back to the lab and see what we can do and we got to the office of Admiral Krell who is also

FaceTiming with Harris What is this guy's deal? This is the thing about meeting anonymous people in parks at night wearing a bunch of leather. You just don't know how many other partners they've got on the side. Like whether they've just come from eating a worm or yours is going to be their first of the evening.

I know. I know. What a revelation here. This conspiracy is falling apart between them. They've been working together up until now. But now that it feels like they've gotten what they wanted, they're going to go their separate ways. Harris is like, hey, man, Enterprise is heading to Kouva. Watt Colony, you're going to have a problem with nipping this plague in the bud if you're not

careful. And he's like, don't worry, I'll just kill them too. And Harris is like, no, that's like one of the only Federation starships. I can't possibly let you. That was in our agreement. I just told you I couldn't do anything. My hands were tied. And you blew it.

Now you're telling me that, oh, shit, I still can't do anything about this. This is terrible. You blew it. Krell played Harris for a fool. Yeah. If we change the words, then it's fair use all day long. We cut to the lab where Archer shows up. Like, I was expecting a little bit more fucking around before this happened.

But yeah, here he is. Dustbuster out. And this is an interruption of the work Dr. Flax is doing. And what the fuck? What's Klingon Jesus doing here? He lives again! His dad is shocked. Yeah.

Thought Archer was dead, thought his son was dead. Yeah. Does that make this Gach Wednesday? He also really thought that Flax was making this Klingon augmentation thing work. And instead, Flax was trying to cure it. Yeah. So he just feels betrayed on all sides. Yeah.

What a scene. What a moment for this guy. It's like it's so much new information all at once that I feel like his kid being alive is like very little of his response here. Yeah. Yeah. The battle fleet shows up and, you know, they're they're feeling bangers on the planet's surface because the fleet is there to take out the colony. and they're using a jamming signal to prevent Archer from speaking to the entrepreneur. But Flox is able to speak directly to Krell.

And he's like, we are on the verge of curing this thing. Like, you do not need to do this. Like, knock it off, man. Krell doesn't want to stop. No. Once Krell starts bombarding the surface, I mean, you can't stop peeing once you start. It hurts to stop. You can't just not keep nuking the entire site from orbit once you get going.

Yeah, I get it. I get it. He also wants to seize the Starfleet vessels. DePaul's trying to stop them, but, yeah, like, Archer can't get through. Pretty fun to see two NX ships in battle against Klingon ships in low planet orbit. It's really fun. Good space combat in this episode. They're like scrambling on the surface because they're like, we got to replicate enough antibodies to make this thing work.

But we would have to use a human host to do that. And Archer volunteers himself. Is it volunteering when you're the only human in the room? And they're like, we're desperate. All we need is one human to pull off this miracle shot here. Who's it going to be? It has to be, Archer. I don't see any other humans around.

He'd be an asshole not to volunteer. Kavach is like, I got injected with something too, man. Like, you got to do it. A lot of peer pressure in the room. Like, as soon as he takes the injection to the neck, I'm like, is he going to grow some loaf? I'm going to really enjoy it. If so, please pay this off. So, yeah, he is going through the.

the feels of this transformation. And the timing of this couldn't be worse, because on Enterprise they figured out how to communicate with Archer. But Dr. Flach was like, Archer can't come to the phone right now. He's restrained to a trair and he's doing that flopping around you do

when you're trying to keep yourself from barfing. It's working. DePaul winds up having to use the entrepreneur as like a shield to protect the colony. from the bombardment. Columbia can't help because their webs are down. And Archer starts to gain some Clingon strength.

He breaks through some of his restraints as his body starts changing in all kinds of ways. My experience with effects work is pretty limited. But I wanted to ask you if all the flopping around, do you think that helps an FX professional obscure what's happening because like his head is shaking in the frame a bunch and you don't see a super clear moment where like water gets thrown on the gremlin and they start popping out like the pop out is obscured by the move and i wonder if that's if that's good if you're trying to design it versus if he were like in a coma and they had to pop out yeah i mean i've never done

this kind of effects, but like watching behind the scenes videos about it and stuff, like, they love like they're being a shadow. Yeah. Or movement or, you know, like ways to hide some of the visual magic. I mean, in many ways, this is like the Wonder Woman transformation. Like, like, Archer's spinning and spinning. And then like, he, he stops spinning and he's got the Wonder Woman uniform on. Like, this is what's happening with his forehead loaf. Like, he's shaking and shaking and then it appears. Perfect comparison. They get the stuff out of his neck and they also have like a bunch of weaponized virus in a canister and they beam that aboard Krell's ship. This is such a pattern for everyone in the

room. It's like, we need this thing. There's this thing in the room. We got to use it. They're like, we got to put this virus in a thermos. Who's got to a Stanley thermos full of soup we can use. Dr. Flox is like, I said nothing when they asked for

for subjects to test the vaccine on. Finally, they've come for my soup thermos. I know that Donobulin medical ethics are like a little bit different from like the Hippocratic model that we use here on Earth. Yeah.

But beaming live virus aboard a ship of, people was a surprising move. He's attacked them with chemical weapons. And this is like fully flocks like on the radio like going toe to toe with Krelli's like and I'll give you the fucking vaccine but you have to back off. Do you think that the pace of what's happening here is so fast that there was any chance of this not being what he says it is and instead it is, it's.

soup and it's a placebo effect. Because the more flocks talks on the radio about what they're starting to feel, like, you feel these effects if you're nervous about a thing. Like, you may start to feel sweaty or a little bit nervous. Like, these are things that a cling on feels in battle or something, right? Like, I wonder if that gets him off the hook in a way that we're maybe not considering. Like, was this actually the virus after all? We don't get resolution to this.

Krell unscrews the top and he's like, Egg drop, I want it hot and sour. A warrior soup! Krell backs off and we meet Ridgeless Antok. He's been saved and like anyone that is exposed to this virus is going to become ridgeless but they won't become sick and they won't become augmented. and it will affect millions, but at least they won't die.

And Tuck is like trying to see the positive of this. Maybe he'll change his practice to be more of a like a Klingon plastic surgery operation so that he can help people get their ridges back. I have a feeling that's about to become very popular. He's like a long tradition of professionals who leave their field in order to open restaurants. He will become a meatloaf chef henceforth. And his first client might be Jonathan Archer, who is craving Gach. And he's got some little baby ridges on his forehead.

The ridges are on the other forehead. They've faded a little bit from before. Yeah, yeah. Captainer Hernandez is in the room here. does not betray at all how she feels about Archer in this moment. Like, I was expecting

in the way that many Star Trek episodes end with a little like slide whistly sort of jesge. Right. Like for her to be like, I'd like those ridges to stick around a little longer. Ritched for her pleasure.

Yeah, exactly. One of us needs to get some exploring done. Not even a whiff of that. Yeah. Instead, she's all business. She's going to take off. And you got to be thinking that Tripp's not going to be far behind, right? Trip reassures everyone.

He's not in a hurry to leave just yet. Sticking around temporarily. In his room, Reed is reading. When he gets a phone call, it's Harris. He wants to thank Reed for helping to stabilize the empire. And Harris is basically like toasting himself. He's like, this all worked out exactly the way we had to hope. Harris is basically cutting a wrestling promo

that says Section 31 is For Life Reed doesn't seem to give a shit He just straight up hangs up on him Don't ever contact me again Is that clear? Lieutenant, why don't we... That's not going to go well for Reed, right?

Is this the advent of dark Reed? I think what you don't see here because the episode ends is that Harris can pop up on your screen at any point. You can't hang up on Harris. Blurp, he's back. What you got to do is close the laptop, Reed. Yeah.

This is what you don't realize is it's chapter 14, subsection 31, subsection B is like, you can just blow in a call to anyone, and their computer just answers it automatically. There's no call screening in section 31. Yeah. Well, did you like this episode of Star Trek Enterprise, Adam? I can't pay. Couldn't for late. Got no case.

Tempting fate. I thought it might be too late to get a different look to this show. But I got to say, first time director, David Barrett, really did some things here that I enjoy. Different perspectives, different camera positions. Yeah. Especially for this being the second of a two-parter. Right. You know, I think so, I think if you're being given the job to do the second part, you may feel obligated to match stylistically with what happened in the first. But that didn't really seem to be the case here. And I think that was actually really good. Because what the differences did to me was made me feel off balance and stressed out by what's happening. Because we're getting a lot of anxious moments here with a lot on the line. And if you're seeing things differently and feeling things differently,

I think that's creating effective tension in the episode. So, yeah, I really liked it a lot. I like what they did. Wish they kept Reed in the brig. A little longer, maybe throw away the key on read. Also, just want to shout out, like, John Chuck playing On Talk is such a comfy pair of loafers for a Klingon. Like, as an admiral that we knew and met in a couple of Star Trek movies,

just seeing that guy on screen and that voice specifically. Yeah. We are a warrior cast. One of the great Klingon voices. One of the, like, you can close your eyes and you can picture him. And I don't know if you can say that about like two too many alien characters in Star Trek, but he's one of them. Yeah.

What about you, Ben? You know, I think that this episode felt very much like it was building toward something specific that I really wanted to see, which was Uncle Phil dressed as a Klingon. not Uncle Phil with ridges, but Uncle Phil without ridges, but Klingon hair and facial hair. Yeah. And the fact that we didn't get it pissed me off so much. I was like irrationally mad at the end of this episode. I was like, what the hell?

Like he was such a main character. Get the loaf off him. I want to look at Uncle Phil. I mean, I wonder if one of your reasons if you take that role is like, I don't want to be revealed to be the face. that is familiar to a generation of youths, you know? Like, like, keep me in the loaf. Yeah. Yeah.

That would have just changed everything for me. So, I mean, the episode was fine, but I think that that was the promise that it just completely failed to pay off. All right. Well, let's see if we can pay off the promise of someone's purchase of a Priority One Message, Ben. Priority One message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel.

Need a supplemental income. Supplement. Supplement. Supplement. Yeah, it's extra. By the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Ben, we've got a promotional priority-win message here. Okay.

It's from Defested. All right. Love Defested. Here's their message. Do you like board games featuring spaceships made by an FOD with hidden in jokes from your favorite Star Trek? then you will love Salvagers, a fast-paced competitive shipbuilding game where you search through a scrapyard

to build your ship while fending off other players and random events. The Kickstarter is being prepped now. Sign up for the email list to get the latest updates about the game and the upcoming launch. Wow. Here's what you want to do.

Go to salvagersgame.com where you can get on that list get out ahead of the pre-Kickstarter. You know, even pre-Kickstarters can get you funded, Ben. Get locked into what I would expect to be a great game. I trust Defested here and their abilities. I hope you do too. Absolutely.

I love the visual style of salvagers. I'm so excited to see this come to fruition. I sure hope the FODs will support. I like a game that's about building stuff and getting other people to leave you alone, like as it's... As the whole thing. Yeah.

It doesn't need to be more than that. I don't need to... I don't need Settlers of Catan-style fucking strategy. I'm trying to build my thing. Leave me alone. Yeah, this is... You've got your Trevi Fountain Lego set and you're trying to keep the wife and dog

off your back while you build it. Absolutely. We have another promotional message. here, Adam. Hey. Goes like this. In St. Paul, we look out for each other and we don't let each other get evicted.

Many of our neighbors are sheltering in place, finding it too dangerous to go to work. Educators and parents in SPPS are working together to collect money primarily for rent so we can get it to families who have lost their incomes. FODs, you've helped my students

out with a Washington DC trip before. Help us again now that we're under violent federal occupation, you'll be making a huge difference for my students. This is from Allie, who would like you to go to bit.ly slash four SPPS kids and donate. That's bit.ly slash four SPS kids to donate. Great message, timely message, this one. And yeah, the situation in the Twin Cities.

I mean, this will be maybe a little. little bit, who knows where it will be in the new cycle by the time this episode comes out, but a pretty dire situation and something that will be affecting people long after they are in the new cycle. So I think it is really important to support causes like this, direct community funding. So I will be making a contribution and I hope a lot of Friends of Minnesota will too. Absolutely. Well, priority when messages are a great way to support not only us in the production of

our shows, but the causes that are important to FODs. You can get the word out about just so many things, like on a maximum fund.org slash JumboTron. Do it. Where we have schedule availability today. Yeah. Hey, Ben? What's that, Adam?

Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Incredible. Shemota. Gotta give it to Trip for pulling computer chips out of the warp core, the most Shemota thing that a person can do. I'm going to match you, but I'm going to go a little bit further. I love chip pulling, but what I love even more is the switch that is the handle that you pull out, twist, and then push back in.

We've seen this, Star Trek First Contact is a place where you see this famously. But like, I love that locking mechanism that's just a problem. pull a twist and a push. Yeah. Give me that all day. Like, we've observed several times that this show is uniquely good among Star Trek series at designing, like, mechanical props that work in really satisfying and interesting ways.

Yeah. That was, like, it was a blink and you miss it moment, but they, like, the fact that they took the time and spent the money to have that thing there is, like, it's fucking great. Yeah. Yeah, really good stuff. Faith of the fart. All right, Adam, let's start talking about next week. It's going to be season four, episode 17, of Star Trek Enterprise.

It's called Bound. As a gift for negotiating with the Orion Syndicate, Captain Archer receives three Orion slave girls. That sounds great. Archer's single, right? Yeah, so it's cool. Wow, big fun. Sounds like it could be an exciting.

episode, but will the way we summarize and review it be exciting, Ben? Only one place to find out. Gach that biz slash game. Yeah. Where we keep the game of buttholes, the will of the Riker quantum leap. Our runabout is currently on square 48, and I'm going to roll the 100-sided die right now. You're required to learn as you play. Roll.

Out of my roll day. Six, seven. Chula! Did I win? Hardly. And we landed on square 15. I'm really glad that this isn't like the underwear episode. It feels safe. I mean, that would be a riot appropriate, right? Like, we would probably have to get some green body paint for it.

Ugh. Glad that's not the situation for us. I love a regular old episode. Yeah. Those are good. Those are good, too. Also, who's to say I'm not wearing body paint, even as we speak? All right.

Well, with that mental image in mind, we got some people to thank. Yeah. Got to thank the friends of DeSoto for sticking with us all these years, especially those who go to maximum fun.org slash join and support on a monthly basis. I've got to thank Wendy Pritty, our producer and editor, who keeps this thing coming out on time and under budget every week. Got to thank Bill Tilly, the Card Danny, and Rob Adler, the editor-in-chief of the Greatest Newsletter.

They help run the At Greatest Trek social media accounts, which make it even more fun to be a friend of DeSoto. If you follow them, you'll get to see the hilarious trading cards that Bill makes and the hilarious videos that Rob Adler makes and, you know, updates about the show and stuff. Give it a follow. Yeah, get on that newsletter is what you should do. Yeah, it's greatesttreck.com.

Find out stuff that we're doing ahead of anyone else. Stuff like the 10th anniversary mug that we have for sale right now. Those that subscribe to the newsletter find out first. Hey, here's a little tidbit that you might not know. This is the only way that we can communicate with our audience. If you support the show through the network, we don't have that information. So join the newsletter list so we can talk to you directly. Please do. Also, I got to thank Adam Roussa, who makes all of the original music for the program, and is also our co-host on Wholesome, a patrons-only podcast at patreon.com slash wholesome underscore pod, a program that I'm really proud of. We pick a new topic each week. Each one of us, it kind of rotates, and we surprise the other two with the topic.

What's a couple of topics that have been your favorite, Ben? Let's see. We recently talked about dogs. The goose is really obsessed with an old, like, employee training video about cutting roast beef at a buffet. We spent an entire episode, like, breaking down a video about that. And I wouldn't have thought that that would have been, like, as deep a topic as it wound up being. But a real delay. And we've heard really nice things from people who subscribe to the show about how much they enjoy it.

Yeah, get in there. It's good. All right. With that, we will be back at you next week with another great episode, Star Trek Enterprise, an episode of the greatest generation enterprise, where even though you see a video clip of us talking about the episode on the Internet, and it doesn't look like we're covered in body paint, trust us. We are. Always. We're more covered in body paint.

than not day to day, I think. Yeah, it's like a guy at your office that you didn't realize had like full sleeve tats because he's always in a suit, you know? Yeah, it doesn't feel right without him. Yeah, yeah. Mewed. Make it show. Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.