The Greatest Generation - Idiot Bioship (VOY S4E1)
Episode Date: May 30, 2022When Chakotay changes course on Captain Janeway’s plans, it will leave The Borgs marooned on a planet and Species 42069 off the hook. But after Janeway wakes up and the dust settles, the aftermath o...f their conflict leaves Seven of Nine feeling some separation anxiety. Do you have to shave your head before taping a Dustbuster to it? What can’t you do in a strip club AND a Borgs ship? How many snakes can fit in a can? It’s the episode that is fine with that which is not fine!Support the production of The Greatest Generation.Friends of DeSoto for Democracy.Friends of DeSoto for Justice.Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Caretaker!Music by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFollow The Greatest Generation on Twitter, and discuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen!The Greatest Generation is now regularly streaming on Twitch.Facebook group | Subreddit | Discord | WikiSign up for our mailing list!
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Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel.
Hey friends of Disodo.
Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor
actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry.
If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join
us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life.
Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production
Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,
they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't
even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take.
Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal
discussions about how best to stand with the unions
and we are continuing those conversations
in a dynamic situation.
We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines
are in these digital spaces,
and we would never intentionally cross one.
With the information we have,
we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting
the strike and continuing our show as planned.
We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically.
Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund.
This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because
the AMPTP refuses to negotiate
in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the
thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't
have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires,
company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts.
We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers
in a challenging time,
especially after they've already endured
several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic
and season two of Star Trek Picard.
We've set up a page where you can also contribute.
It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com.
That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com.
Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show.
Bringing what the U.S. is for Captain Captain Captain Bringing what the U.S. is for Captain Captain Captain
Welcome to the greatest generation
It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast
I'm Adam Prennico
I'm Ben Harrison looking at you from across a room and not from across a social network.
Yeah, you've come to West Los Angeles.
A bridge from Oda Studios West.
That's right.
And I brought a load of packages from our PO box.
I mean, I brought loads of all kinds.
Enough packages to necessitate a bag.
Oh, smaller packages.
Ben, we have so many, I think we should just get into it.
Yeah.
What do you say we open up some of the things
that friends of DeSoto have sent to us?
Let's do it.
Captain, I'm sorry to disturb you.
I'm receiving a code 47.
Verify, it is code 47, sir.
Start lead emergency frequency.
Caption size only.
This is also a Quarx Bar episode.
And the first thing I wanted to get into is a beautiful bottle of rum.
Oh, look at that.
This is a Barcello Imperial Onyx from the Dominican Republic.
Listener David brought this to, I believe it was our DC show.
And so we got a Quarx Bar it up for this episode.
I figured we'd do it with something brought to us from overseas by a friend of DeSoto.
Friends of DeSoto who bring booze among our favorite friends.
Uh, cheers buddy.
This is a very dark looking rum.
You cannot see through it.
Yeah, it's a dark daddy.
It's got kind of burned caramel notes, but in a nice way.
This is exactly the kind of rum that I like.
The rum that tastes like ashes and vegetables, not my kind of rum.
You don't like a Martinique style rum.
The vegetables rum is not quite my bag.
Our first thing here is a letter from Morning Gory Studio in Ottawa, Ontario.
How about that?
Oh, these are Valentine's Day cards.
These are great.
We've got one riker, one cue, and one low oxon.
The low oxon one says, let's get one thing straight little man.
I am not for sale, and if by some chance I were to become available, I would rather eat
a Ryan Wing slugs, the deal with a toad face troll like you so go away and find
somebody else to be your property classic low oxon that's the sort of valentine
you want in your bin of valentines as an elementary schooler yeah because
there's definitely one kid in class that needs to get that one, right? The artwork here, the depictions of these characters, is unbelievable.
Yeah.
They are so good.
Yeah.
Hey, the next one is from Bri Belky.
Bri!
We've got a note at him, says, hello from Arizona.
I picked these items up at Mission, colon, Chicago.
Thought the live pod needed a little bit extra.
Thanks for being awesome.
Bribi!
Oh boy!
So we've got the lanyards that you get at a con to hang your potential on.
And these are the ones from Mission Chicago.
So they've got the Paramount Plus logo,
but also characters from all the new shows.
It's weird that because it's made by Paramount plus logo but also characters from all the new shows. It's weird that because it's made by Paramount plus
A part of the Lanyard has been cut off and then a second Lanyard begins. Yeah
Where that one ends it's strange. Oh cool. We've got some horgons here. We've got a a big and two mini
Horgons
The bigger of the of the three is, is kind of a multi-color,
hyper-color, Horgon, I would even describe it.
I like it a lot.
We could use another Horgon.
We had to take one Horgon out of commission,
the one we were given at our very,
one of our rare first shows in Minneapolis,
broken a couple of places,
and I'm in the process of fixing her up.
That one is the size of maybe a football.
The ones that Bree sent are probably four inches for the big one
and like one inch tall for the two littles.
But I would say it's more like three inches, Ben.
Yeah, well, you know, I like to measure from slightly below the base.
You like to measure from across the room.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Thank you so much, Bree. that's very kind of you.
Bri, you're the greatest. The next one here is from Emily in Santa Rosa, California.
We're invited to a wedding, Adam. Wow. Wow, that is really lovely. What a thoughtful gesture.
Here goes a letter. We are Jason and Lane. Our upcoming nuptials were featured in a P1 on episode 406.
Cryo snitches get stitches. Cool. We were greatly sad and not to meet slash see you at
sketchfest this year. The rich tapestry of charming humor, your podcasts of woe and
as well as the genuine community of friendship, you and gender.
Speaks volumes about your sincerity, creativity and likeability.
We're glad the two of you found each other. Finding your beautiful weirdo and exploring your own strange consmos is one of life's
great purposes.
Jason is practicing wedding toasts if you can't tell.
Wow, yeah.
Thanks so much for what you do, Lane and Jason.
It feels like we were just toasted in a major way there.
Yeah, that's really sweet.
PS Lane would like to say for the record that she introduced Jason and Dan to this podcast. Thank you for spreading the good word.
Oh yeah. Adam we have another package here from a beloved friend of DeSoto
Ceruse Farivar. Wow. One of the greats, one of the reasons we're doing the show.
True it. Looks like there's a note here.
To bend an atom, I bummed the sketch fest was post-bone,
but I get it.
Here's an old brochure I was once given from 1982
that I thought you should have.
It's the proto version of Greatest Gen Con.
Hope to see you guys soon with Love From Oakland, Saroos.
So this is the program for ultimate fantasy, a con that happened in June of 1982 in Houston, Texas.
And they're advertising t-shirts and posters from the wrath of con in here.
Wow, this is amazing.
DeForest Kelly was there, Jimmy DeWood was there. Walter Cain, they got the whole gang.
Walter Cain, George Takede, Michelle Nichols, Merit Buttrick. Merit Buttrick.
Kierce Ali went to this con, Adam. Wow. What a fun time capsule of weird 1980s graphic design.
And this is kind of like what Star Trek Las Vegas materials look like today.
This is really something.
Thank you for sending that in, Sirus.
Then our next package comes from Egan, Minnesota, in a package that says photographs, do not bend.
Oh man, I'm a staunch believer in the Egan way.
Here is what the note says.
Hey guys, when I fell and broke my arm, you and the rest of the FOD stepped up big time
and helping me out emotionally and financially when I was in a pretty dark place.
Including one person who I will call Riker who donated $69.
I offered to send anyone who donated to the GoFundMe a photo print, but all declined because
they said they didn't need anything in exchange for helping out an FOD.
Wow.
So I decided I'd send you some prints as a thank you to all of the community.
I will forever be grateful.
I hope you enjoy.
This is our buddy in the Netherlands who had a really bad fall and he's a freelance
photo so it made it hard for him to work for a long time.
From what I gather he's back on his feet so that's great.
There is something so beautiful about a photograph that is just fucking tack sharp.
Yeah.
Like it's almost HD looking.
Wow these are gorgeous and beautifully printed.
They're printed on a matte photo stock so man they really pop. They look great. Yeah. Alright Adam,
we're getting into the big packages. We only have a few left. This one is from
Kimber in Baltimore, Maryland. Alright, we have a letter at him. This was sent in
December of 2021. Ben and Adam, my husband used to recap Star Trek
episodes over dinner several times per week, which should say something about him, seeing
as I had never seen a single episode, and the only character I knew by name was John Luck
Pickard. God, you know, it says more about you, I think, than it does about your husband.
You heard a patient person. Yeah. After about a year of this, I reluctantly decided to join him for his quarantine rewatch, I've made it
through most of TNG, invoitor so far, and all of discovery, and then I found
your pod. Now, in a delightful to me twist of fate, our dinner conversations
consist of me recapping your episodes to him. Ah! Finally. Boy, the shoes on the other hand right now, isn't it?
It really is.
That dinner table.
Please accept this meager thank you for the hours of entertainment.
Your two Star Trek pods have brought me.
I decided to go back to school to study jewelry design and metal smithing.
So, unfortunately, don't have any scarves to throw at you at the moment.
But I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate the expert's
metal line of products. Additionally, there are very few cis-hit white men in media
whom I can listen to with lowered shields so I super appreciate being able to rewrite
that power to other systems when your pods are on especially with regards to your Voyager
apps and all of the greatest discovery. You don't really realize how much energy I constantly raise
shield consumes until it's freed up and suddenly your life support system can function on multiple
decks and your computer stops glitching. So thank you, seriously, thank you. LLAP, Kimber,
and I guess Brian. There is a 35 millimeter film movie trailer in here. It closes what I believe to be the complete reel
of the Star Trek 6, the undiscovered country movie trailer
in 35 millimeter with embedded analog sound on film.
Maybe one of you actually has access to a projector
that can watch the real thing and enjoy it.
I listened to a few of your podcasts with Kimber
and you have made me laugh, out loud, many times.
Keep up the amazing work, Brian.
Thank you, Brian.
I'm definitely keeping that.
That's joining my collection of trailers.
This is amazing.
Somebody sent in the Star Trek V trailer as well.
So we now have two out of the original series trailers.
I've always wanted to have a mini film festival
out of the trailers that I have.
And it would be so cool.
And a collection that's growing.
I gotta find a way to do this,
because my house has a room that like could accommodate
a 35 millimeter projector.
With the pace that theaters are getting rid of
projectors and going digital, it seems like- They've gotta be available somewhere. It seems like getting one on the cheap is possible and one of my best buds
Adam Pranaka actually knows how to work it like I would I've threaded a 16 millimeter projector
I would be a little bit
Guncha about trying to do it myself on a 35 millimeter projector
I think the muscle memory would come right back for me. We got to do this man. Yeah. Alright. That's amazing. What a great gift. That is so cool.
Alright. And thanks for saying what you did in the way that you said it. What a sweet thing.
We really try our best and I know we have our blind spots but when we get it right is
really really gratifying. So thank you for listening and I'm expressing that.
This is a box taped with gaff tape.
Yeah.
This is my kind of package sender using the expensive stuff to clearly label top.
Hey, that's just like you, Ben.
Gaff tape is not easy to knife through.
Where's this one coming from?
Maple Valley, Washington.
The letter goes like this.
Dear Ben and Adam, it was awesome seeing you guys live at the Neptune in Seattle.
Wow.
Now I finally feel like a real viewer.
I've been struggling to get enough dick and fart jokes in my
diet so I've recently started binging TGG all over again from the beginning.
Currently on TMG season 6 and now it's all DICKS and FARTS all the way down.
You've inspired me to replicate some toys and tribute items to add to your
mountain of your gifts. Then I'm gonna blow your fucking mind with this box.
Okay.
Next box is labeled Star Trek 6 Action Galley Placet.
Whoa!
Hahaha!
Inside of this box, we've got a phaser.
Oh my goodness.
And a pot of mashed potatoes.
Hahaha!
And the potatoes.
Hahaha!
Have a whisk inside.
It's so awesome.
This is all I ever wanted.
This is one of the coolest things.
We can end the show now.
We're good.
Can you believe this?
I've been wanting this since I was a kid. Can you believe this?
I've been wanting this since I was a kid
This is so great It's unbelievable
Helps solve the mystery of the missing gravity boots
There's like text all over these boxes
Oh cool, did you see the bottom has a
Shemota and an expert on it? This is so great.
Chris from Maple Valley. Really blew our minds here.
It's just incredible. I'm honored to present to you guys the complete run of extremely limited edition action galley play sets
From Star Trek 6. This is something I've wanted to do for years
But didn't want to have to explain to she who is my wife
Why what I was making was funny you guys just kept referencing the scene over and over again until I had no choice
So now there they
sit
Chris you are an amazing crafts person.
Yeah.
And I am so grateful for these gifts.
Gifts that came in a package that we can't throw away.
No, yeah, this is amazing.
I can't believe.
Oh, that's so good.
Wow.
I am blown away by the generosity and the creativity and really just the interest that anyone
would have in our show.
Yeah.
Really treasured gifts this time around.
I am also just really excited that I don't have to throw away any of the packaging this time.
That's something that normally takes me a couple of days to get around to.
Ripley is just going to eat a lot of it before I throw it away.
Indeed, indeed.
Well, Adam, we have had a very long marion.
I'm already done with my first glass of rum.
Let's refill and get into the episode.
We came to talk about today.
It's season four episode one, Scorpion Part Two. is a quark spa episode Ben so we are going to be getting into the room
Pretty heavy
This kind of picks up right where we left off with the Voyager getting
picks up right where we left off with the Voyager getting towed away from a attack by species 42069. And the captain is still over there on the other ship. BLT is at ops because
Harry Kim is down in 6 Bay. And she's trying to get Janeway off that board ship, but to no avail. I'm gonna say this right now, from jump, bad Chicoete episode.
If you like season three was all about the summer of George, like we're back on Chicoete's
side, Chicoete's fun, we like him, he's doing good things, but he comes right out of the
blocks here and just smashes BLT's nuts about not being
able to beam the captain back whenever he wants. This shit is hard dealing with the Borgs
is hard.
Do you think that this is, you know, stand up comic that wants to dig a hole at the beginning
of the set? Like every season, Chico Tay starts and he's like, I'm going to dig the hole
and then I'm going to dig myself out. Yeah. Chico Tay is really he's like, I'm gonna dig the hole and then I'm gonna dig myself out.
Yeah, Chico Tay is really Louis CK-ing this way through.
This is the first episode of season four.
You're still a huge fan, right?
But it's funny, like, as soon as they start working out this problem,
Janeway actual pops up on screen to, like, let them off the hook.
Cut the transport of beam.
This is such a different energy from Captain Picard
hailing his ship from the board game.
Yeah.
Like I think that they tried to capture some of that energy just
in the way that she's kind of short and doesn't give a lot of context for what she's
saying.
Also, like the way everything is blocked in this scene, like you're not shooting Chico
Te standing up from below the way
they shot Riker. The music is a little different. It doesn't seem as existential in this moment.
But what does happen is she says, we have a deal. The board are on our side for the time being
and it seems like they're complying with the request. So stop trying to metal and
let's go with the flow here.
Chico Tay takes great umbridge with this. He's like, Captain, they clearly don't even have
bathing facilities over there. How will you manage? And, and Janeway is like, I'm fine. Send over Tuvac to bathe me.
Bheem Tuvac and two washcloths.
I also just felt like this was a moment that Chicoote didn't absorb before the vote
of trust it was because the Canton is taking Chicoote's't absorb before the vote of trust it was because
no. The canton is taking Chicoote's babysitter off the bridge in this moment.
Exactly. And I think a lot is made because the camera stays on Tuvac for him
leaving a station and getting in the turbo lift as if like he's walking to the gallows.
Yeah. But because it's Tuvac, you don't necessarily feel that entirely.
And I wonder how much differently this would have hit
if someone with more feelings had to go over there
knowing that they might not come back.
You're never worried for two-vac, you know?
Now, he's gonna be fine.
He's gonna be fine, he's gonna be.
And even if he's not fine, he's gonna be fine.
Yeah, he's fine with being not fine. He is fine with that, which is be fine. He's gonna be fine. And even if he's not fine, he's gonna be fine. Yeah, he's fine with being not fine.
He is fine with that, which is not fine. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha silicone bracelet I need to start wearing. Just as a reminder, like FWTWINF.
Should we get some silicone bracelets made for Podgeop.biz?
They'll be there in a couple of years. Remember this moment? Yeah. So they're testing the probes that the doctor has come up with down in 6 Bay.
And Harry Kim is going to be a guinea pig, a federal pecania, kiseyama guinea pig guidesi.
And the thing they're testing on him are the modified Borg Nano Pros that the doctor has
engineered to kill species 42069 DNA.
Mr. Kim, I'm about to inject your carotid artery.
And it works great.
I was shocked that they injected Harry Kim with this stuff, but only an amount that would get it off of his eyes.
Yeah, yeah.
It's so weird, they warn him, like, hey Harry,
you may feel a tingle.
As if we didn't know he was feeling
the maximum amount of pain that a person could feel
in the last episode.
Yeah, he doesn't give a shit.
Yeah, he's got, he loves the tingle.
Give me the tingle.
Gale for the tingle. Give me the tingle. Yeah. Gale for the tingle.
Yeah, the effects are interesting too,
because there's like the kind of green and yellow,
alien tendrils going into his nose and mouth and stuff,
and those disappear and then briefly are replaced
by sort of Borgie Gray before it goes back
to healthy skin tone for him.
Right. And I wonder if Harry can consider
himself like mildly XB after this.
I mean, the presentation we're given by the doctor suggests that these nanoprobes go
in, grab on to the offending alien virus. And then destroy it.
Right.
But do they destroy the probes in the process
of that destruction?
Do we know that?
These are like those sutures that you get
that dissolve in your body.
Are these dissolvable nanoproves?
Or does he just have them?
Maybe it's like taking too many vitamins.
Harry Kim will just piss them out.
Yeah.
I have green pee.
Hey, speaking of vitamins, let's broad up.
Yeah.
Yeah, guys, if you have not stocked up on your broad,
I am aware of an upcoming deal we might be doing
with the broad company.
So keep your ears open for that.
Keep your ears peeled.
Broad wants to make sure you have a good summer.
Good work.
Cass is having visions of species for 2069.
Kess's visions are of an actor no longer being on Star Trek, and they are a horrifying.
Yeah, it's really upsetting stuff. I think that the one thing they really nailed with the design of
this creature is the like goat eye. Yeah. The pupil on the face that she keeps seeing
is really creepy and awful.
What is it about goats that is so scary?
Like I haven't seen the vich,
but like there's a goat in the vich
that's supposed to be very scary, right?
I mean, I don't look at scary things
because I'm so scared, but.
Because you think goats will be in them?
I mean, like goats are so funny though.
Like, it's
and also goatsy.
Not something I want to look at either.
But,
but like I mean,
like nothing
might as it called goatsy.
I think it was goatsy.tx because there were some like
Christmas island top level domain
allowed them to make it sort of spill sex.
Oh.
And maybe was like more permissive than other top level domains in the early internet.
They make a documentary about everything.
And I am shocked there has been no go to duck.
I think probably because you also have to address bottle guy. And that's the far worse.
I think there's an audience out there for the Goatsy doc.
I'm going to say that right now.
I mean, if there's an audience for Goatsy, there's not the Goatsy doc.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is scary stuff for Kess, because these don't seem to be mere visions.
And the doctor suggests this in this scene as well.
Like, she's not just seeing stuff.
Like, there seems to be a two-way street
where-
They're rummaging around in her-
Yeah.
In her brains.
And she doesn't appear to have the ability
to freshen them up back.
Yeah, it seems like the freshening
is only going in one direction.
Right.
Right, it's like species 4.2069 is like an amentose commercial
and it's like sliding through the back seat
of Kess's mind car.
And like...
Yeah.
She's backstead and species 4.2069 is picking up her fiat
and moving it out because it's so strong.
Right.
And she's so plucky.
Yeah.
You need to be someone of a certain age to understand the last 30 seconds of the show.
So they also discover that the DNA from the ship of species 42069 is identical to the DNA of
the pilot.
So, it's all one thing.
These creatures are...
It's made of the same stash stuff.
Yeah.
What do you make of the dock being so emboldened to roll up to Chicoate with, like, hey, really
not on board with whatever it is you think you're trying to do here.
I like it.
I mean, I love a pushback energy doctor.
And I feel like-
Especially when nothing is gonna happen to him.
Like that, he has the knowledge stored inside of him.
Yeah.
And that Chicoate has taped a dustbuster to his temple
and given him instructions to hit the button
at the first sign of trouble,
does give him a special kind of leverage?
Yeah, it totally does.
He can say anything right now.
I think a bad script would neglect to exploit
that leverage for the thing.
A worse script would have the doctor
just going along with it saying nothing.
But the doc walking around with a dustbuster tape
to his head, which is like
cosplay that I want to see now. Maybe Algo is this. Tape's dustbuster to temple.
You'll shave male pattern baldness into your head. I'm famously brave when it comes to haircuts.
I'll definitely do that. One other thing that the doctor says that I found
So one other thing that the doctor says that I found
Incredible was that he could not figure out why the birth of a new medicine
Could be then manipulated into some sort of super weapon
I've never heard of this before says the doctor
Medicine being used for evil. Yeah, the doctor says and to the doctor, a medicine being used for evil.
Yeah. The doctor says, and to the doctor, I would say,
maybe you should look at that list of doctor names
you were not permitted to use.
And maybe look under Mengele.
Jesus Christ.
For any one of the other names on that list
who did exactly that for reasons why.
Yeah. I feel like you would find exactly that for reasons why. Yeah.
I feel like you would find some interesting information, Doc.
Yeah.
Just momentarily.
Over on the Borg cube, the captain and two-vac are getting led to a section of the ship
where laboratory space is being prepared for the captain to work on the weapon, which
is the, like, the, the the the doctor has figured out
these nanoprobes, but affixing them to warheads that can be used in a combat scenario is a
whole of their ball of wax.
And this is going to be a pretty precedent setting collaboration between the Federation
and the Borgs.
I love that the Borgs cube is set up like a government building where there's like a floor and a column number
and a room designation to things.
Like this makes a lot of sense.
The problem is Janeway is looking for tabs that aren't there.
Like there is no living that's gonna happen on the Cube, it is all work.
It's a really toxic environment.
It's a like everybody gets in early and stays late
and you know, the bosses judge you by whether you are
replying to emails on the weekends and stuff.
There are no foosball tables on a board cube.
They're affixing them for temporary
borgification implants and I'd say if your workplace
proposes something like that, you know, run, don't walk
and get that resume ready.
There's kind of a fun Borgs McLaughlin group happening here.
Where Tuva can Janeway begin to share some of the knowledge
that they've gathered, and when they sort of wait
for that moment after, like, you drop some science,
and you're like, what do you think?
They are both brought to their knees, And stickers are put on their necks because the Borgs,
I've been in so many meetings like this,
where you're like, get to the fucking point.
Why is this happening so slowly?
Why are we taking a whole afternoon to have this meeting
when you could tell me what you need to say in 20 minutes?
That's what the Borgs are trying to do
with these neuralizing devices. Right, we will work as one in 20 minutes, that's what the Borgs are trying to do with these neuralizing devices.
Right, we will work as one mind.
No, that wasn't the agreement.
Janeway is saying something about how they can start
to modify a warhead and the Borgs are going,
this could have been an email.
Like the Borgs version of Descript,
cuts out not only the Ums and the Ums, but most words that aren't verbs.
Like it's only verb noun. Yeah, right.
That's all they need. Yeah, the parts of speech aside from those are totally extraneous to the Borg's and
Man, like there have been so many depictions of like cultural misunderstanding
in Star Trek. This is such a great new spin on that because, of course, the Borg would
just assume that in a collaboration context with a species not the Borg, everybody would
just Borg up. Everybody would come all the way over to the borg side of the line. And that is not what the captain and two vachuan and they pulled the entire alliance hostage
in order to get these things taken off of them. It's funny how much this is like viewed as a gift
by the borg's. Like the borg see someone using wired headphones and they're like, no, we will give you PooTooth earbuds.
We will do that right now.
And Janeway and Tuvac on their knees are like, fuck this.
Deal is off.
If you want to do it like this, we would like our slow meeting.
I like seeing a pretty close-up view of the thing being taken off,
Janeway's net, because you can really see the adhesive,
like pull her skin when they take it back off. close-up view of the thing being taken off Janeway's neck because you can really see the adhesive like
pull her skin when they take it back off.
Janeway in this moment is like,
look, if you want to expedite this situation between us,
why don't you choose a laquitas on your side?
Yeah.
Choose a representative to work with us
and then we can get to work.
But enough with the neck things you guys. Yeah.
Yeah. One of the most iconic character unveils in Star Trek history I would say is what 7 of 9
gets here. She's the tertiary adjunct to Unimetric 01 and she gets like a full camera push in
lights come up on the Smokey door situation.
Yeah.
The way that they blow the tubes off of her is big fun.
It's really cool.
And the work environment is quite a bit more hostile
than it probably would have been if they were just brought
into the collective temporarily, because they have the board
just by the shortened curlies,
like the...
I don't think there's any of those.
You think the borgs are shaved?
I think they're absolutely shaved.
Do you think they're 420 friendly?
I mean, it's pretty smoky over there on that cube.
I think there's infinite borgs and infinite combinations out there, but the plunging V
borg that is just like super hairy-. It would be big fun to me.
But these Borgs and really all Borgs seem to subscribe
to a sexual projection that's forced onto them
and I don't think seven of nine is any different.
Like she is queenie in the way that she struts.
She does not walk around the way a normal drone does.
She does not speak the way he did in a sort of robotic patch-wow.
How do you feel about that?
Because it's so noticeable, like the performance
does not start in hue territory at all.
Yeah, it'd be very funny if she were buried
in another part of the ship and they're like,
Sam Vyte and Wage for the Rampside. But she's right there. She's in the next room. I mean,
she just have to be close by. That's why they picked her. I think that's an interesting choice
in the performance and I wonder how much of that is on the actors part and how much is on the productions part, because, you know,
like they know that they're aiming for a long goal with what Jerry Ryan is going to be
performing.
Well, that's my point is that if you're Rick Burman, he had the Stroke of Genius make
it a Bork babe.
And you have an idea about women and how they should look on this show.
Casting the beautiful woman in a show is always a bitch.
Why not borg's the shit out of her right now knowing that you're gonna put her in a cat suit to episodes from now?
Like, like, why edge this the way they do?
I thought that was an interesting choice that they made.
Like, why not go way bored with her?
Right.
Instead she starts more relatable.
It's almost like the Borgs have learned how to make it.
Because also, Likudis was not as Huey as Hue was.
True.
So, maybe there's like a subtle improvement
in Borg presentation.
Right.
Maybe they've adapted. presentation. Right. To maybe they've adapted.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Anyways, she's going to be their collaborator in the project.
They at this point are in agreement about the weapons plan in general.
Right.
Like the idea of releasing a bunch of nanoprobes, agreed.
Sounds awesome.
But they're not specifically interested in what Janeway is saying.
The torpedo idea, not gonna work.
Probably because Voyager only has a couple dozen of these left.
That's another thing that's so interesting about this episode, like that the collective
conscience of a species like the Borg would think about strategy and tactics in a totally different way from the way humans do.
And it's like build a huge mind, like do everything all at once, or don't do it,
is kind of the way of thinking about it. And that is super different from the, like,
hey, we need to get them off our backs. Let's show them that we have something that that hurts early.
Yeah, like the tension between weapon of deterrence and seven of nine going, we need to fat
man and little boy this problem, all in one.
Yeah.
Is an interesting tension here.
The other thing that I noticed in the scene was that when they're talking about the
board version of the strategy, they show the mine on screen.
It's a large ship from that
Lors breakaway Borg's episode. I have doubts. Of course you do. It's only natural.
Does it make it more interesting that lore might be driving around a mine ship?
That's fun. A more exciting conclusion for him than data dismantling him. One of
the things I really think is fun about this episode are all of the subtle ways
that Seven of Nine is not socially aware.
Yeah.
Like, walking away from them to go to the screen to show them a thing later and just
expecting them to follow.
Yeah.
Is a fun, neurodivergence depiction here that I am really with.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's fun.
Like, she shouldn't understand social cues in this way.
She's there to do a job.
Back on Voyager, the doctor is working on casts
and it's almost like she's freshening herself up.
The situation is that every time she receives
one of these broadcasts,
the different parts of her brain light up.
It's really uncomfortable for her and awful.
This information gets back to Janeway and she's like, oh, fuck, the bad guys know what
we're up to because they seem to be able to just waltz into Kess's mind whenever they
want.
You and me and everyone else knows that Jennifer Lee and is not long for this show and her
character is being written off.
What do you make of how little empathy is given to her in this episode?
I feel like she is just a conduit for Species 42069, but no one is like, how can I make
you more comfortable?
How can we shut off this weird thing?
Can we put a Faraday helmet on you that keeps them away?
I thought it was very clear how little people were starting to care about her in sort of
an unfortunate way. Yeah.
Starting now.
That's kind of an ugly moment. And I think that maybe some weird energy from production
is working its way into the script almost.
Yeah.
Back in the Borgship, it looks like they've come a long way in the construction of this
mine, right?
Like they have a box, and that's good.
But the one thing that you can't do in both a strip club and a Borgship is ask the
person what their name is.
Their real name.
And this is a mistake that Janeway makes with 7 of 9.
Like you can't get that familiar Janeway,
you gotta let the person present as they want.
I know that her Borg costume may lead you to believe
that she has one job, but she has a different job.
She has a totally separate life from this.
And you need to respect the boundaries.
Seven kind of baps back at the,
like, making small talk while you work.
Idea with a, hey, like, let's complete the weapon now,
even though the deal, like the deal has always been,
get us across your space so that we are out
of Borg's danger and at that time we will give you the nano probes and the technology
to shoot them at species 4.26.9.
We'll go our separate ways.
Isn't it weird that the tension is like they've gotten too far on the project, too fast?
Yeah.
They were almost expecting it to be a slower process.
And the war is going, far worse for the board
than it's generally known.
So, you know, seven of nine is like,
hey, like we've got to get this stuff into production
pretty quickly here.
Right.
It's funny how they check in with that timeline
multiple times this episode.
And they're like, is this an idea that works?
And seven and nine will be like, no,
like we will have lost the war by then,
we need to choose a different plan.
And this is when like the tension starts to build
even more like Jane will be like,
like we'll kill the doctor who knows the the lynchpin thing.
And seven and nine is like, well,
we'll just assimilate your ship.
If you do that, like we do the thing that the Federation should do,
where you just beam 500 guys into a room.
Yeah.
Like, we do that.
On a ship that we know has not more than 200 crew people,
like, the Borgs are willing to beam 500 over there,
and then be like, now what?
Yeah, we'll flood the zone.
And that's a funny kind of negotiation, right?
So asymmetrical.
Instead of negotiation being like both parties being disappointed,
like she's willing to negotiate in such a way
where like one of the parties dies.
Yeah, one party loses a war and the other party is squished
like a fucking cockroach.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Hey, welcome back Harry Kim to the bridge.
He's all better.
I don't know, Harry, maybe go on light duty for a while,
help out in the mess hall or something.
I don't know if I'd wanna go back to work day of.
I mean, they're in a crisis situation.
We don't really get a lot of Harry Kim storyline in this.
And you know what's interesting is the storyline we don't get is?
What if Harry Kim is still connected to species 4.2069?
Because so much is made about the psionic power of the species with cast.
Like why isn't Kim seen as a threat?
And in the Star Trek universe where having been a Borg means in some ways you are always a Borg.
And we'll never be Captain.
Oh boy, Adam is refilling his beverage.
Re-ice me while you're down there at the ice bucket.
I think we may be going clean on this bottle.
We did! We did!
Cheers to you, man.
Cheers to you as well.
We've dumped out the last
of the Dumbacan River.
Was that a regulation-sized bottle we just cleared?
Let's see. I think that's a 750 milliliter.
We just made podcast history
on videotape right now.
700 milliliters, slightly shy of regulation.
I see how they do it over there.
And it's also 76 proofs, so it's not full proof booze.
Oh, it's a chill hang, which I like.
Yeah.
It's delicious.
It is absolutely delicious. I'm feeling the sadness of a of a done bottle like
The sadness and the happiness of like enjoying a great bottle, but also probably never gonna have it again
I've been enjoying nightcapping off of this and I'm sad to see it go. You shouldn't have been nightcapping off of it
I shouldn't if you're right. I did a bad thing. I did a selfish thing. You did.
I hope you all find it in your heart to forgive me. Look, it's clear that you did a bad thing
and you feel bad about it, which is all I ever want. Adam, you don't need to worry about that. I walk
around with that as my baseline, like mental outlook. My entire last two years of therapy have been about unpacking my personal feeling of guilt
as baseline.
I love how you go to therapy and then like the can of snakes is open there and then you
come over and do an episode with me and I'm fucking cram and snakes back into that can.
Like more snakes than we're even in there before.
You got like the number 10 can.
The kind, the size of can that Nacho cheese comes in
in a commercial kitchen.
Right.
And those are the snakes you've got.
You've put an amount of snakes into that can
that are a nightmare for Indiana Jones,
it's like myself.
We're being hailed by your vessel.
So Chicote blows in a face time to the Borgship.
And this is fun, right?
Because you see it from the Borgship perspective.
Yeah.
And he looks green on the screen.
Hey, Borgship, why don't you color correct the screen
so that you get some accurate skin tones
of the people trying to talk to you?
That's the thing that fucking blows ass
about these zoom programs is like,
you cannot drop a lot on the fucking outbound video channel.
Yeah, it's bad.
Fucking sucks, fuck that shit.
A video professional did not design that.
No, a bunch of fucking asshole engineers designed it.
Here's the takeaway from this moment though.
It's a very familiar problem to a federation that is dealt with the borgs before
and specifically a lacutus problem, which is like this alien species, species 4.2069,
having been inside Kess's brains brains probably knows what our plans are.
Yeah.
Does that mean that we need to choose a different plan?
And Janeway is like, yeah, you fucking said it, man.
Like, let's fucking, let's fucking change direction.
Just like, that's like, I love that the idea is, okay, then let's change course.
That's all they do. They don't change the master plan of great big bomb.
They change the direction they're going in space.
One thing I thought was, if I was Kevin, one thing I would also say is change course and also
isolate Kess. Do not give her any information about what's going on.
But I wonder if that in the context of the way Kess has written felt too mean in the writers room.
Yeah, I mean, maybe the only thing more cruel than that is to stick Kess in the mess hall with
Nelix and like subject species 4.2069 to that whole situation and the awkwardness of a fresh breakup.
You have polluted our space.
You just broke up and yet you continue to work together.
This cannot continue.
We must purify your space. Ha ha ha ha. Coffee, black, make it yourself.
And find out you see this as an opportunity to grow.
Make it yourself.
So pretty quickly after they make this decision,
they are set upon by one of these bioships
and the cube self-sacrifices
to get them out of this scrape.
I just want to say this,
not enough exterior shots
of the Borux Cube doing fun shit,
or of the voyage you're doing fun shit in this episode.
I could have used a hundred percent
more action shots in space.
Because they're so many and they're so fucking wild.
This cube is like, as if we're on a road
and is like blocking the lane from the passing car.
I got a friend who when he goes on road trips,
his game is I wanna configure the like five or six cars
around me in my own design.
So he'll like speed up and slow down and change lanes
to get everybody into a formation.
A formation.
Yeah.
And that's just like how he entertains himself
on a long road trip.
And I wanted to see Borg Cube playing the field in that way.
That's an interesting version of what I know I do,
which is like, if like you should never be driving
in formation with other cars,
traffic should be moving all around.
Because formation driving is dangerous. Formation driving is how people lane change into other cars, traffic should be moving all around because formation driving is dangerous.
Formation driving is how people lane change
into other cars.
But this whole lane change that the Borg takes
into this bioship is awesome.
And it shouldn't be possible in three dimensional space.
Like, this is an idiot bioship here.
They did not send their best through the space but all.
I mean, this bioship got a couple of good licks in.
It tags Janeway in one of its assaults.
And I think it's interesting also that the bioship takes a lot of torpedoes from the
Borgs Cube that it absorbs like they're nothing.
I really love how the cube rotates as it fires.
That's fun.
Yeah, but crucially, like the bioship can be destroyed
by enough kinetic damage.
And that is a Borgs Cube quantity of damage.
So what has happened, they learn pretty quickly
is that the Borgs Cube has self-sacrified
to save a handful
of drones, including the Seven of Nine and the Captain and Tuvac and like a few pieces
of Borges equipment so that the project can continue.
Right.
It's like Tuvac like radially up to the bridge, gasping for air that they need help down
there in the cargo bay.
And it's cargo borgs too. In that area it's funny like when Chicoete and a couple of
meats walk in to see what's what like they've made themselves at home. They really have
wondered who the medical guy was that came in with them. Like there's suddenly a nurse on board the ship that we've never seen before.
Yeah, I love the, like, we've got a new well of extra.
That's big fun.
We took the summer off, some people came back, some did not.
Yeah.
Chicoote is there to, like, kind of figure out what's what with these meat.
And seven of nine is there to greet and reminds
Chico Tay of the deal that they had. We have an alliance, do we not? And Chico Tay from here and henceforth
is not someone who is interested in this deal. The captain is K-Od, so he has to
talk to seven of nine and take her word for it And he just is not capable of.
I wish we saw the other Borgs more here, you know?
Yeah.
Like the suggestion is that there are more,
and then later on we see what happened to them,
but like there's something so scary about more than one.
Yeah, just like walking around and doing there,
like drone, you know, busy work.
Seeing a Brat style shuttle assimilated for some reason, like they got in there and like they made something.
It's been expensive and built to stay that way.
That had been fun.
Yeah.
The captain is fucked up on like a neurological level and the doctor is able to repair the bodily damage,
but the mental damage is going to take a
clip show device and some time.
No amount of tub time can fix what's wrong with Janeway here.
Yeah.
It's not just a boob massage that will get her back right.
You ever had a massage with heated stones, Prona?
Like nothing you'd believe.
She was over there on the Borax Cube when the panel exploded in front of her
and that is a life-threatening moment
in any Starfleet officers career.
So she's like on the slab and she like,
does the thing where she like reaches up
and grabs Chico Tez collar and is like,
we have to like see this through.
This is almost too good of a speech
for an officer that doesn't die.
Because when I was watching this, I was like, if she dies here, this is an amazing moment.
Yeah.
It is a great scene for Janeway.
Exquisitely acted by Kate Mulgrue.
This is my favorite part of the episode was this moment.
There's coffee in this alliance.
So, 7 of 9 reminds Chicoete of the deal they have.
And Chicoete is like, no dice.
And then he turns around and tells the crew
in a McLaughlin group that instead of turning around
and getting creamed by species 4.2069,
like in order to drop these borgs off at the nearest cube,
yeah, instead they're going to drop them off at the nearest planet that they can survive on.
And then the plan is to like, hit the pedal to the metal and try to make it out of
Borg's space before getting attacked.
Before the angry Borg set upon them.
Does this plan make any sense to you?
I wish it made more sense to me because I want there to be a realistic tension
between what Chico Tei wants
and what Janeway wanted before being in a coma or whatever.
I think the information we don't have is how close they are
to we could just get out of here
and this problem is not our problem.
It could be if not literally depicted,
suggested in this McLaughlin group by some of the crew people,
which sort of suggest an discomfort with this new plan,
but no one has the doctor's confidence
of a phaser taped to their temple to actually say it.
I think that the one problem in the script is that
Chico de is dead wrong in the end like like the plan that species 429
Fuck that's fine. Let's just go with that. No
Chico day is wrong the plan that species 420 69 has
Ultimately is revealed to be we're going to
purge your galaxy.
It is an entire season of Star Trek Discovery level threat
that they pose, but he doesn't see it as that until later.
He sees them as only a threat to the Borgs.
But if in these conversations with the rest of the crew,
people suggested like, hey, like
do we know like where they plan to stop their invasion of our galaxy?
Yeah.
Because that would be like a tactically important piece of information.
So Chico Te after briefing the crew of this new plan has moved into the ready room complete
with Jeleco style pictures from kids.
Tacked to the wall.
Having a meeting with Seven of Nine,
where he lays down this new plan.
And she takes great umbrage with this.
She's fucking pissed.
It's exactly the opposite of what the captain wanted.
It will be your undoing.
It's the opposite of what the captain wanted,
but also like the board tried to change the fucking
deal so many times that it seems a little bit like the lady doth protest too much when she's
pissed about this. I also really do like sevens way of arguing, which is less about the actual argument
and more about, you know what your problem is? Yeah, she gets to the ad hominem really quickly. Yeah,
she does. She goes right after what's wrong with humans. Yeah, and what to the ad hominem really quickly. Yeah, she does.
She goes right after what's wrong with humans.
Yeah, and what's wrong with humans is that disagreement is a part of how humans interact
with each other.
And Borg's just do not have problems like this.
Yeah, it's such a dream.
But also like Borg didn't come up with these nano probes, dude.
So that's true.
How good can they be?
Anyways, Chico Te has a little dark night
of the soul moment where he goes down to Six Bay
and speaks to the unconscious captain,
worried that she'll be just as mad at him as seven is
when she wakes up.
I wanna say fuck you to Cote
because yeah, have this moment.
While she can't hear you or talk back,
this is for us as the viewer.
Yeah.
And it sucks because he's doing a bad thing
and he's trying to get himself off the hook.
Now, if you want to crown him, then crown your ass.
But it's time for the Borgs to scorpion
and Seven of Nine having had this bad news broken
to her goes back down to the cargo bay
and initiates an attempted assimilation of Voyager.
I love this moment.
Yeah.
Fuck you.
I won't do what you tell me.
Let's open up some panels.
You're gonna run shoot us with your deflector dish.
Fuck you.
We're taking over the deflector dish. Yeah. The boards love the deflector dish. Fuck you, we're taking over the deflector dish.
Yeah.
The Borgs love the deflector dish.
I love seeing green shit come out of the deflector dish
in this moment.
In best of both worlds, in first contact, in scorpion.
The Borgs are always going for the deflector.
I don't understand why the cube comes without a dish.
You gotta get a dish on that cube.
You know what?
What I'm looking at when I see a Borg cube, six sides that could get a dish on that cube. You know what? What I'm looking at when I see a board cube,
six sides that could have a dish.
That's probably why they want the Federation so bad.
These guys have all the dishes.
They're all cube and no dish.
It's a real disappointment over there.
I love that it's not so much seven working as a rogue agent.
The collective is like,
hey, you know what to do. Yeah. So they're getting at the dish and Harry is like,
a deflector is making a singularity, probably just like the one that the species
forced 2069 guys are coming through. Yeah. So this seems bad and they alien queen all the borges but one yeah and this is a great cut to the exterior like
Showing them getting blown out the airlock. I mean this is classic Rick Burman having seven of nine spread her legs in order to
Save her own life here
They have her own life here. Indeed.
Commander, a single board has survived.
After that, they go through the hole and then they're in goo.
They're in fluidic space.
They're surrounded by goo on all sides.
Garrett Wong said something very interesting about this in my little bit of research I did, which was like,
we're just gonna do fluid space and no one's gonna talk about it. These aliens went from fluid space
to space space and they didn't need any sort of like apparatus to exist in space space. Having lived and thrived in fluid,
you can't go from fluid to non-fluid without a breather.
We need it to go to fluid or to space.
So presumably to go from fluid to space, you would really need it.
But evidently, species 4269 is so of all...
Their DNA is perfect.
It can breathe in any environment.
Even underwater.
When they get there, one of the big reveals is that the board, in fact, picked this fight.
The species 42069 is the fucking golden apple for the board.
Its DNA is perfect.
The board's in shirts off,
wanting to fuck around,
and they found out.
They fucking found out.
On the one hand,
I don't like the Borg being weakened by anyone or anything.
On the other hand, I like the idea of Borg hubris.
Yeah.
Like, we've assimilated everyone.
It's never failed,
but they go over into fluidic space
and all of a sudden, it's a bad, but they go over into fluidic space and all of a sudden,
it's a bad time.
Genetically perfect is not something that the Borgs are going to be able to overcome.
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
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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 Thorn. 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.
Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you.
And Kumail Nanjiani.
I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use.
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Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead.
Oh, rats, 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 nacks.
But I'm hearing we need to get on this.
We've got to get on the art.
It was about terrain, got us about 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 Kerry?
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 Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org.
I've got to get that luck with not resetting on it.
Go.
Seven of nine in this moment is like,
hey, by the way, we're in fluid space.
And also, they know we're here.
Yeah.
You get three hours to prepare for what is going to be
a swarm of these alien ships coming.
Yeah, we like sent ripples out when we came through this
hurl and they're on their way.
Janeway is back.
She's been put right by the doctor and predictably is fucking pissed.
She is a ripshed.
Doctor brought me up to speed.
Do you have any idea what you've done here?
I think some of my favorite parts of Kate Mulgrue as an actor is how physical she is
as an actor is how physical she is as an actor. And I think in Star Trek, the opportunities to be a physical actor are often in the form
of a double-handed axe handle being dropped on someone.
Or a banger, or whatever.
But the way Kate Mulgrue uses her posture and her body and her face to transmit, not just disappointment, not just that she's upset,
but her anger at her first officer here.
It's a feeling of betrayal,
and it feels incredibly powerful
because of the performance.
And I almost wish Chicoete
withered a little bit more,
but Chicoete like stiffens his back
and is like,
look, Cap, you were down for the count
and I saw the scoreboard and I was like,
I did the thing that I thought was best.
But Janeway cannot get with this.
I think there's a little bit of Janeway thinking
like this is what you wanted the whole time.
You keep talking about making bathtubs on planets. I know this is what you've wanted to do forever. You were gonna make
a situation where bathtubs on planets was real. The last time on real did not include enough
of how much conflict there was between Jicote and Janeway. Yeah, especially if that was
gonna be the B story of this entire episode, which it is.
It really is.
And I think that it would have been hard to remember
how much of that there was in the last episode
after a summer of no new Voyager to come back from.
But that conflict, it runs really strongly
through both of these scorpion episodes and it really informs
Choices that Janeway and Shikote make in this episode, but it's not really like
Back justified in that last time on I really love how to co-tae wanders into this conversation thinking
Well the borax having started the war is sufficient reason like this is gonna be
My gotcha moment.
It's a skullpatory for every decision I've made because we found out this new thing about how bad the Borgs are.
Janeway does not give any shit about this.
It she blows right past it. It's also interesting from a Chico de characters standpoint because he has been in a collective, not the collective.
Not all collectives, Chico Te.
Not all collectives, but also like he is carrying the, we cannot fucking abide a collective
energy from that.
And so like, I think that it is colored the way he thinks about this and has like skewed
his reactions in a way that make it really hard for him and Janeway to see eye to eye.
There are two wars going on, the one out there
and the one in here, and we're losing both of them.
And that's what they come to at the end.
Like she talks about that thing that seven of nine
accused them of of being unable to reach consensus.
Like the conflict is their downfall, and this forms kind of an elliptical
edit. It clearly turns into a scene where Janeway and Jucote realign on a new plan, I wish
we'd gotten that scene. I think it would have been so cool to see the conflict in this changed direction.
I like the surprise that it sets up, but I wish in some ways we'd gotten the moment
of them agreeing after such a massive disagreement.
But it's so realistic to conceive of a world where Chicoote does get sent to the brig.
Yeah.
I was utterly faked out by this because of course this is what you would do if
you're Jane way.
Yeah.
Chicoote sucks in this scene and he deserves to be in the brig.
She announces this to the bridge including everyone and seven.
It's Chicoote in the brig seven on the bridge. Yeah. And they have
two hours to get ready for a war with species four 2069. And it's a real like the bark started it.
We're going to finish it. Kind of energy. Yeah. And it's nailing the two by sixes to the window ahead of the hurricane.
Like they're like putting stuff on the ship to uparm her. The ship looks like a person with
Borg implants. Yeah. It's got implants all over the hull. Give me more of that. I was wondering why
Cass wasn't going nuts in fluid space. Yeah, it really seemed like that was a part of the story that was really diminished.
Instead, she kind of becomes the hailing frequency.
I mean, she becomes Deanna Troy in a little bit like she's in the seat.
She's going, I feel something threatening.
Yeah.
She gets put in the pot in a way that is unfortunate.
She is just speaking for Species 4.2069
and they announce their evil bond villain plan
of purging the whole galaxy.
And so it's on, we're gonna fight them.
And they tell them like,
hey, we have a weapon that will hurt you.
Now Species 4.2069 calls bluff, and they shoot the torpedoes,
doesn't seem like they work initially.
They work dramatically.
They work in a very dramatic way. It's a delayed
borgification into destruction, kind of drama.
The borg makes sure that you get off first.
And then like a whole bunch more of their bioships come and this is when they use the high
yield warhead and that works way quicker.
This is great.
This is a huge banger.
And they go back into normal space and seven of nine starts to reconnect with the collective
and it's like great, great news all around the other biotails are
kind of tucking their biotails and high-tailing it out of here.
But since we've now won that important war, I will now commence with the assimilation
of your ship and she goes and sticks her tubules right in the panel. Resistance is fuel. After Parris shoots her and gets thrown across the room for it,
that's fun.
Yeah.
Parris shoots first.
This is when Janeway issues her surprise directive.
She radiose Chicoatay.
She's got a code word for him.
They're scorpion, got scorpion.
So what Chico Te is doing is rejoining the collective with a temporary collective
joining neck device.
With a burner, a burner collective phone is what he's got.
Really does.
And he's being supervised by the doc, but he is working through
seven of nine's brain, finds her cherished childhood memories of being a
young girl running an address through a grassy field.
These are documents, they are not tax documents, they're just regular documents.
Other documents.
Do not attempt to send these to the IRS.
You fucking freaks.
Yeah, this is not anything anyone would confuse
as tax documents unless you're a real sicko.
Yeah, they get worth lightning from all of the collective
contacting devices that everybody on Voyager
is wearing.
Kills the connection, and 7 of 9
has had her connection to the collective severed.
It looks painful, it looks like her collarbone
was kind of exploded.
And like, you never see a board like scream in pain.
This is all intentional, this is all made
to make us feel empathy for her.
Yeah.
Back in Da Vinci's workshop, Janeway is captain's logging the end of the episode.
I wish we'd seen her handwriting because like I can tell you, how poor my handwriting has become,
just in how little I use it.
Yeah.
And just the idea of a Janeway having done verbal logs, she's not even typing.
She's usually like, dick-tool. Yeah. She's dictating normally, but now she's handwriting with a quill. It
has got to be chicken scratch, right? It's going to be the worst. Looks like a fucking prescription.
Yeah. Like totally unintelligible. And here comes Chico Tei walking into her hollow.
She's, he's fucking lucky that it's not the bodice ripper hollow.
I mean, this is a jack-off machine hollow, but not in this moment.
Yeah, like this is a hollow full of machines made to jack him off.
The clockwork arm isn't currently thrusting when he walks in.
Yeah. And he's got a pad and he's like, hey, like we're, uh, we're going to get all those
board, uh, all the things that we souped the ship up with.
We're taking them off.
Why?
Yeah.
You got to keep that.
Those, those are upgrades.
That was helping the shields.
That was helping propulsion.
That was helping webs.
Got to have webs.
Yeah.
Dom is hell.
Bad idea.
They're leaving some things in though. Yeah power
Relay stuff in she says like that that stuff's helping leave it. Hey, do we not have enough money for
John Reese Davies in the scene? Can we get some of him back here? It would have been fun
See him punched to Kote out for his insulin. In charge of my office
One. See him punch Chico Teo for his insolence.
In charge of my office.
We're keeping seven on board.
There's a little bit of reconciliation between Chico Teo and the captain, but it is kind
of an agreed to disagree moment.
Dude, I was just going to say, like, is this reconciliation?
This is like, as soon as two arguing people get to the point where it's like what's important is that we got through it
That's not reconciliation. That is we got through it
Siliation
And it sets up what I believe will be a conflict henceforth like I don't know if they can ever trust each other again
That is a season if not series level rift
between these two characters.
Absolutely.
Chico te fucked it up.
Yeah.
There is not enough bath tubs you can carve
to apologize sufficiently for what he's done here.
There's not a bath tub big enough.
I wish he had addressed like the Species 42069 planned on killing everything
Element of this, like the whole galaxy was online. The whole universe was on the line
Yeah, that's a pretty big whiff if you're like it's a lot of chips a couple of decisions. I made
Put the entire fate of the universe at risk
to species for 2069 would have been a nice like,
hey, I was wrong.
I think in his mind, he thought the Borgs would have
eventually figured it out.
Wow.
Like I'm going to set him down on a planet.
I'm going to give him the tech.
Like it's a race at that point.
Chicocha is betting that he can make it outside of Borg's
space before the moment that the Borg's e-maroon on a planet have figured out the nano weapon.
I would have taken him further than Borg's space. It's a terrible bet that he's made. It's
awful. I would never want to gamble with Chikote. He sucks. No, no good. And he probably is a number of tribal casinos that he has status in.
Did you like this episode Adam?
This is a hard question to answer because I feel like it is a satisfying conclusion to
a two-part story.
But I really wonder in the next episode
if this is really more of a three or a four
or an entire season story arc, I really don't know.
And I'm being, I'm not deceiving our viewership here.
I don't know what happens after this.
I think this episode is made better
if it is extruded into a season long arc.
I think it is lessened if this is just the conclusion.
And Chico Te and Janeway truly do get past this and they're back to business as usual.
I don't think that's fair for either character if that's how it goes.
So I think it's kind of TBD.
Wow.
That's how I'm going to put it.
Like, ask me next episode if this episode was good.
Because then I think I might be able to give you an answer.
Wow.
What about you?
I agree with that sentiment in principle, but overall I really enjoy the episode.
Like, didn't you want more exteriors?
Like give me more borgs and space stuff.
I agree, but I'm also like,
I'm so like drunk off of the like new availability
of showing borgs tumbling out of the airlock
and Borg cube pure wedding while fucking licking shots
at bioship.
That's fun.
I think it, I mean, maybe I leave us wanting
more decision at this point,
because I think they may have crossed the Rubicon of
We can render this in time to
release the episode with CG effects. Yeah, it's a very noticeable Rubicon and I feel like we're going to go ahead and make a
quadrupedal, armed species that is like not
humanoid in Star Trek. It's not just a person in love, it's fully not you.
You go. Yeah. And I think this is a great two-parter, and I think episode two is not perfect, but it really
rises to most of the challenges presented by episode one.
And it's not perfect the way the Borgs would prefer.
Yeah.
Well, Adam, do you want to see if we have any preferred priority one messages in the inbox?
Oh, yeah, I'm going to check their status right now.
Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel.
Need a supplement on it.
A supplement?
A supplement.
A supplement.
Yeah, it's extra.
The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship.
Then our first priority 1 message is of a promotional nature.
Woo! The person who sent it is of a promotional nature.
The person who sent it is Sean Schumacher. The message goes like this, you're a graphic designer, right?
Of course you are.
You're listening to a podcast.
Even if you're not, why not listen to...
Did I do that?
It's a different, domer kind of design podcast about how messy making things really is
Our guests are funny successful creative people working in graphic design who make stuff and mistakes
Because you can't do one without the other is it a bad idea to make an audio?
I only show about an inherently visual medium. There's only one way to find out
So check out did I do that design on your podcast platform of choice or visit
Did I do that dot design to listen and subscribe?
I love a podcast with a Steve Erkel reference in the in. Thanks to Sean Schumacher,
that promotional message.
That sounds really fun.
We're getting dinner tonight with a friend of ours
who works on 99% invisible,
which is also a design podcast,
and proof that it's okay to make a podcast
that is about an inherently visual medium.
All kinds of bad ideas have turned into great podcasts, I think.
Yeah, it happens from time to time.
Adam, our next priority one message is from Lane
and it's to Jason Lane kind and it goes like this.
Happy wedding day to my number one,
the man who put my Horgon and Picard bust
with his family heirlooms in the Chachki cabinet.
I'm so excited to marry you and eat that sweet sweet mac and cheese bar.
I wouldn't want that next 50 to 70 years with anyone else, not even my cat.
You're truly the best thing that ever happened to me.
Truffles?
Truffles.
Go.
We might need to go to this wet again.
A mac and cheese bar?
Damn.
Sounds really good.
Yeah.
Those miles aren't going to spend themselves.
Not at all.
Ben, our final priority when message is from Zach Breger.
Again.
And it's to Birmingham and Adam.
The message goes like this. Alright, so when I dropped many hundreds of scarves back in
21, I knew it was going to be a few months before my P1s made their way into the feed.
I thought I had given my questions enough head time.
I've heard too, and I am now terrified I did not do that. If my poor timing has
spoiled the show for anyone and made me look like an ass, please accept my
apology.
Zach Breger, really a great practitioner of the apology because it's an
apology with with recompense.
I mean, I feel like in many ways our show is in itself an apology, Ben.
We've learned how to apologize through this in many ways.
If you were a friend of DeSoto with something to apologize for,
I suggest you go to maximumfund.org slash jumbo,
Tron and repent. It is a great way to both make a
public apology for all of the bad things that you've done and to support the
production of our show. You know you did some bad shit. Yeah you know everyone has.
Hey Adam. Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? I'm a drunk Shimoda.
I mean, this is sort of a negative Shimoda.
I just can't get with Chico Te.
Wow.
Can't get with him.
He was kind of the chaos agent, like a chaos agent,
and then like a created chaos agent.
Yeah.
And then a real chaos agent at the end.
I am very curious about what happens to his character henceforth.
And I think this is maybe a written in pencil, Shimoda here, like he may be revealed to be,
maybe he's the fox and not the scorpion, maybe he's the scorpion, not the fox, maybe he's
the scorpion on top of the other scorpion. I don't know. I just can't figure him out right now. And I think anything is possible
in season four for Chico Te, so that's why I'm making him my drunk Shimoto. What about you?
I'm going to give it to an Ensign who is barely on screen in this episode, but she's like
standing at a station that Seven of Nine goes up to
and just kind of shoves out of the way.
At one point, on the bridge.
So look, I think that the two things I like about her
as a drunk Shimoda is,
she gets shoved out of the way really unceremoniously
by Seven of Nine,
but she also, like like spares a look to like the
Command staff on in her workplace
that is
80% out of frame you can see that she turns her head and does the like what the fuck? Yeah, but
Because of the 4-3 aspect ratio. She is not really on screen when she does that exactly and
I just loved that moment and I love the 4-3 aspect ratio for that moment because I don't think that in a wider format you would ever let a character fall off that hard, but
it's so fucking funny.
She is both shoved aside by a main cast character and also by the camera.
It's a crazy choice. Yeah, I loved it. I thought it was so great. I think it was I think it was
honestly a choice by the extra and not by production or by the director like I like it when the
extras make a decision. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, no small actors, only small parts.
And that was a big choice.
Yeah.
So I really dug it.
Objection noted, we'll do this without you.
Let it do it.
Let it do it.
We'll end it.
Well, Adam, we got to get into the next episode in a way.
Why don't you head to goch.biz slash game
and fire up the game of buttholes to the will of the caretaker.
Well, I tell you about season 4, episode 2, The Gift.
7 of 9. The Borg drone that Voyager severed from the collective tries to resist as her natural
human physiology attempts to regenerate. You're required to learn as you play, Role.
Alright Ben, our runabout is currently throbbing on the face of Quark on square 54.
A couple squares ahead, we get the caretaker episode, which takes us to a random square on the board.
Kind of a chaos agent square.
Anything could happen right now, Ben. That's the roll the hundred-sided die and see where we land
square. Whoa, I have rolled a six. Chewla! Did I win? Which is carried us far past that square.
period is far past that square, on to square 60, it's a regular episode for us, Ben.
An episode for us to recover from this quark-spired
drunk assote, Ep.
We're gonna need it, man.
We are gonna need it.
Yeah, I'm feeling pretty rumbed up.
Good.
I'm glad.
Yeah, feeling good. Hey, we got to thank our buddy
Adam and Gusea who made the original Janeway song. Hey, man, for whom I aspire to in the Jim
Shimoto kind of way. Yeah. Kind of jacked in a way that I want to be. Yeah. Look at that guy.
Adam and Gusea got the arms. Yeah. Got the that guy. Adam and Gusey, got the arms, got the shoulders.
God damn. I came back for my visit with the goose and I started working out a lot.
And I am viewer right now, very sore. We got to thank dark materia for giving us permish to use the Picard song all those years ago.
We gotta thank the Card Daddy Bill Tilly for running the social media accounts at Greatest Trek on Instagram and Twitter.
Especially during the Max Fun drive, God, like what a what a much bigger effort that is during the drive that Bill Tilly's got and what a wonderful job he did keeping it fun and chill.
Indeed. Hey, let's thank Nick Dittmore for making the art for this show and working with us on all
graphic design things that we do and Wendy Pretty, the producer of all of the
Expredge Motor products that you enjoy. Thanks to everyone who sent us a fun package to open in the Marin of today's episode
if you want to know where you can send your package.
Get a hold of Bill Tilly on the socials.
He's the fine mesh screen that stops a box of poop from being opened in my office.
And if you send something gross, just know that Bill Tilly is the nicest man in the world
and we will forward it to him.
Yeah, what sucks is your box of poop
will be opened on Bill Tilly's wedding day.
Like, don't do that.
Don't do that.
No, you couldn't be a sweeter man.
He's one of the greats.
He's really great.
With that, we will be back at you next week.
It was another great episode of Star Trek Voyager and an episode of the greatest generation Voyager that is like
kind of showing a lot of eyeball
Like gross amount of eyeball is being revealed like a star Trek by car to mount of eyeball trauma. Yeah, it's gross. Oh, fun. It's fucking nasty. Make it sound. Make it sound.
Make it sound.
Make it sound.
Make it sound.
Make it sound.
Make it sound.
Make it sound.
Make it sound.
Make it sound.
Make it sound.
Make it sound.
Make it sound.
Make it sound.
Make it sound.
Make it sound.
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