The Greatest Generation - Make or Die (VOY S2E13)

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

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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

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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. Bringtine was the U.S.S. Borthead. Dr. Captain. Captain. Bringtine was the U.S.S. Borthead.

Dr. 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 Pranica. I'm Ben Harrison. Back in person once again, me and you in the same room. I'm starting to regret that decision.

Yeah, because we were just in a different room where I spilled a drink in your kitchen. Yeah, I forgot I have to send the robot mop to clean up your mess. And as soon as it happened, and as soon as you said that, I was like, well, there's our show open. In a Voyager episode all about robots and our relationships to them.

I guess. I did a bad thing. I spilled a sticky drink on your floor because you did me the solid of making me a cocktail. Yeah. And what does it say about me that I treat this robot as a servant? Yeah. A robot that I bought from a company that is primarily funded by defense department contracts. I was wondering why it was so pink and fleshy.

Joe Rogan experienced a sponsored by the Fleshlight. They don't sell them that way, but I tried to make it feel a little bit more, you know, personable. Yeah, but I mean, like that's where the dust goes. I don't like the idea of mixing lube and dust. Yeah, that's why you saw the jode family piling all of their belongings into the back of a pickup truck and driving away from my robot mop.

They don't wanna be where the dust is. No, hell no. It's the last place you want to be. If you're a jode. More and more places turning into dust bowls these days. Rosa Sharn took one look at that. No one's going to want to fuck in a dust bowl. That's like one of the effects of climate change

that no one's talking about. Yeah. Turns out Darth Vader was right. Sand is very hateable. Yeah, it gets into your lubricants, it gets into your fuck vacuums, gets all over the place. I don't like it. I don't have a fuck vacum at home. I do my fucking and my vacuuming the old fashioned way. Well, you live in a very vertically oriented home that is not well suited to a fuck vacuum or a real doll or anything.

Let me tell you something. It is a real deterrent to an aging parrot living in a home configuration like this. How many stairs do you think my place has? Oh boy. I mean, it's three different levels, right? So it's got to have dozens. I kind of want to ask my wife how many stairs are placed. She's just going to hang up her work and count the stairs while we sit here wiling away our Tuesday afternoon. Yeah, the deterrent to an aging parent thing was definitely... Two parents love ramblers. Yeah, it was on our mind when we were house hunting because you

actually thought it through didn't you? Yeah, I mean I like your home and I like I like the layout and I like stairs in a place and that's like maybe a little bit more my speed than the place we wound up moving to. And it was kind of not an option to even consider those places because we have parents with bad hips and stuff. And it just, you know. You know what? I didn't think it through because I really like both you and your wife's parents. And had I known that our steps would be a deterrent to them, I might have made a different decision. I should have told you.

I regret not telling you. But instead, I'm just gonna get myself invited over to their place as I do. A welcome guest every time. That's me. I mean, I never spilled at their homes. You've never spilled at their homes. They always appreciate that you give a warning

before you do a jackknife into the backyard pool. I do, yeah. Oh. Very, very gentle with the furniture. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you always send a nice thank you note if the occasion calls for it. And that is, boy, boy, does a parent think

that that is a great move. Oh my God, you could not impress a parent more than to send a thank you note for something. It dominates. I can't encourage this enough out there as we start seeing people, just generally. Especially the older people in your life, you don't have to be family.

But if an old does you a kindness? We do me a kindness. Put you up for a night or make a nice meal. Yeah. Yeah, you send a little handwritten there way. And then between five and eight days later, it gets there. By the time they've forgotten about the kindness,

they did to you. Yeah, and then like between five and eight days later, it gets there and then like a month after that, they find it in the huge pile of junk mail that covers the floor of their garage. Yeah. And then they really appreciate it. And they say, that Adam Pryanaka, class act.

Feels good. Wow. Well, while this robot goes ahead and mops the floor of my kitchen, do you want to get into some robotic issues on Star Trek Cohen Voyager? Have to do that, Ben. It's the format of the show. I guess you have a point there Adam. Let's get into Star Trek Voyager season two episode 13. Prototype. Rebirth course. Unless you've got something a little bigger in your torpedo toots, I'm not turning around.

And you know this is a Jonathan Freak's episode. And you could probably tell without seeing the credit at a number of points. Yeah. The shot that we open on is a POV. It's a black and white shot of the Voyager. And at this point we're thinking either dog or robot. It's got to be one of the Voyager. And at this point, we're thinking, either dog or robot, it's gotta be one of the two. Or Jordy?

Or Jordy. I mean, Jordy, a notable example of POV and Star Trek. Yeah, but he sees in like, technical error when we see his POV and they're like, this is what you see? Yeah. And he's like, no, because like, my neurons process it differently or whatever.

But. All he's looking at is tits also. I'm guilty of a terrible crime. Yeah, this is what he thinks is sex. Bullshit. The POV is engulfed in a transporter beam, which is a shot that I think we've only ever seen in that Berkeley episode where he's like meeting sand worms in the transporter pattern. And then it is all but confirmed that this is a dog because this is a low angle POV from the transporter pad

in black and white and BLT walks up to it. It's right at dog height, Adam. I want it there to be a dog on the shelf. I know, I know, especially when confronted with what this ends up being. I feel like this is an episode that is extremely self-aware about what it has to reveal at some point and is waiting as long as possible to reveal it.

Because the idea of the sink floating in space is appealing to me. Like, I want to see this figure in space because I think bodies in space evoke a feeling. Yeah. You're prevented from that moment because of how this thing looks. Do you think that this thing is meant to evoke the robot in metropolis, the early pre-talkie motion picture about a robot lady? I think that is something you say when this choice is actually evoking the idea of a low budget. It really is evoking the idea of a little budget. The bad robot. Bad robot. One of the things that happens in the POV shots

that I really enjoyed was BLT gassing up the car by holding the hose part. Like, no one plugs in a cable from the cable. Yeah, she's holding the cable like 12 inches back from the plug and like lowering it into into frame. This is the part when the robot should be like, what are you doing? No, no, no, no, no.

You're doing it all wrong. Yeah, so it's kidmin' BLT. They've got this thing up on a slab and they're trying to fix it up. And everything we're seeing is in black and white and super glitchy. And we get a little like a zoom in shot of I guess like a security camera of what they're working on. That's our first peak of this silver robot. Which is the right kind of reveal because if you see the body on the slab that you get

after the break, you would have changed the channel at the break. You can, this is the order of operations. You show it after the break when you've already hooked the viewer. Yeah. Yeah, good call. So that's our smash to theme. And when we come back, we are out of POV for the rest of the episode. And this is Star Trek Voyager.

They've got a strange robot that there's been a lot of debate over whether they should power it back up or not. What do you wanna do with that? You wanna get it as physically close to the warp core as you can possibly get it. Every time, every time. Yeah. This is dialogue meant to teach the viewer

about what this thing is and what it is not. Yeah. And after all of this plugging and unplugging meant to teach the viewer about what this thing is and what it is not. And after all of this plugging and unplugging and dialing in of the amount of polarity, they're putting into him the robot starts twitching and flopping around. It starts making beeps and boobs, but it's not making any sense. It's sort of like your sex, driving over one of the ropes that you've left in your kitchen. Oh. I'm not dropping nuts on my kitchen floor.

Give me a break. You're just looking out your kitchen window or roping into your butcher block. Come on. Under what circumstance when I get that horny in my kitchen? You gotta refinish that booze board, Ben. You gotta do it every month. I use mineral oil, not animal protein. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. BLT is really taking a shine to this robot. She's fascinated by it. She's supposed to be an engineer though. She's going all jordy with this thing. Like when I touch this robot, I'm thinking of you vibing with it.

It's a lot. She's like, do you think a calzone would help with that bring it back to life? I think you really, if you're gonna like this episode, you need to ride with the idea that BLT is trying to ride with the idea that BLT is trying to engage with this instinct in a way that is credible. Because up until now, I never got the sense that she was interested in loving a thing like

this and caring for it, like this. But when you look into those cold silver eyes, I mean, who wouldn't fall for that face, right? It's very charming. This is an interesting moment at the end of this scene because Kim is like, hey, listen, we're exhausted. We've been at this all day. Let's break and come back in the morning. And BLT announces that it's all nighter time for her. And I love this, because she could pull rank and say we are pulling an all nighter. But she does not. And boy.

She wants the glory for herself. Having spent some time like working in ad agencies in my younger days, a boss that takes it upon themselves to pull the all nighter and doesn't drop the all nighter hammer and then head home. Yeah, that's nice. It's a solid boss. It made me really respect BLT. She looks up at Kim and she says they're going to write songs about me for reviving this robot.

Yeah, so he heads off to bed and she keeps cracking at it and does not make a ton of progress. No, no matter how many pots of coffee she drinks. Cause in the mess hall, she's trying to put this thing together in her mind and even Nelix is like, this coffee is gross as hell. You're actually, you have actually just set the record for consumption. This is the moment where I need to cut you off.

Yeah, he says, listen, we've been making an exception to the rule, but coffee is for closers only, and until you revive this robot, I cannot in good conscience let you have any more. The robot doesn't have any good leads for BLT. No, so. But Nielix does have a folksy anecdote. Mm-hmm. I was using six spices, but the omelette needed seven.

She needs rest, not coffee. Yeah, she needs to get her head out of the game. You know, you can only strain so hard on a problem. Sometimes you gotta give yourself a break and then solutions may present themselves. I learned a long time ago not to strain on the problem. Just sort of let it fall out. Yeah.

If you can, it can be a big, big problem if you start straining. Yeah, you can tear something down there. Yeah. So, it's almost comical, like how quickly the solution comes to her. She's like, literally gets to bed, lets her head touch the pillow just barely. And she's like, up and back in it. Yeah, six Bay is where she goes.

Oh, yeah, she goes to six Bay first, because she needs to consult with Doc Hollow Day. And this is kind of merging the terminology of blood transfusion and power adaptation, because what they're having trouble with is getting the kind of power sources they have available on Voyager to work with the type of power this robot seems to require. I like this story arc for Doc Holliday because when BLT walks in he's like, I've been experimenting with another Sirius medical condition. I have herpes which ordinarily would kill the unfortunate bully. And so he kind of like these walking around a little

uncomfortably, like try, clearly like a person trying not to scratch. Yeah. It's sort of like a subtext to the entire scene. Yeah, and that's, it's pretty gross. There is some fun dialogue pattern between the two because they're playing that conversational tennis where they're trying to turn over the problem

and defining a biologically sound version of a solution to a mechanical problem. And this is a thing a lot like changing partitions and apartments that you only ever see in TV and movies, but the word and less solves everything. At the end of this conversation, BLT figures it out with the word and less solves everything. Yeah. At the end of this conversation, BLT figures it out with the word and less. And she's out of there.

Is out of there, down to the warp core, we get a God shot, like the Freak Signature God shot of the robot on the slab next to the warp core. Yeah. And she's like putting little units, some kind of adaptation unit on, and these are gonna like adapt it to the new thing. Yeah, I mean, we don't see BLT changing

or waking up Kim and Captain Janeway for this moment. Yeah. But I've got to imagine the pitch is like, I'm ready to boot up this terrifying abomination who wants to join. And of course they do. Yeah, and Janeway is like just as involved as Kim. Like she's like adjusting capacitance

and regulating plasma flow right alongside everyone. The choice to turn its power source into a crazy sound, into a heartbeat sounding sound is totally intentional here. Yeah, that's great. And they get this thing working. I'm Lieutenant Belana Torres.

The Pip-Pop is feeling fine and carry wine. It's the C-3PO costume that you buy at Halloween adventure that does not have the Star Wars license. So it's called Golden Robo Friend or something like that. It's the Tin Man of Tin from Wizard of Oz that you can make at home with the paint bucket and the oil oiler. But one thing that works well is that when the hood is up and you can see the guts, like they have great like cohesion between the sound design

and the way the light is blinking and stuff. The hood has Batman 6-pack abs though. Come on. Here's the question that I'm gonna ask right now. Would this have been better, were it a exocomp style robot? Something that is not humanoid. Or if it were to be humanoid, like, here's a question I had later on.

Like, it's clearly larger than BLT. What if it were a lot larger than BLT? I thought that that would have been... If it were 10 feet tall. An interesting choice, casting like a really, really BLT. I thought that they were 10 feet tall. An interesting choice casting like a really really big actor. Yeah. When I was in college, I made my thesis film actually, featured a robot. And this guy like worked as a human statue, slash robot dancer in Times Square.

Like he painted himself orange and went down to Times Square and put a hat on the ground and had like one of those little mouth whistles where you could go like, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. And he could just like do like beautiful, perfect imitation of a robot. And you had him break character

so you could pitch him the idea for your movie. No, I got a hold of his headshot through someone, but was he your third choice after briefs underwear guitar player? Extremely shitty Spider-Man. Yeah, yeah. No, he was my first choice. Ropey Elmo. But we had, I can say this with confidence about the exact same budget for making a person look like a robot as the episode of Star Trek Voyager did.

Like the costume was on this level for my student film, but the robot was so robotty in my film because he could move it, he could move in the right way. And like this guy is doing little things with his head that are good at implying that kind of twitchy robot, but it's like, it's not more than Brent Spiner did. And Brent Spiner was supposed to be almost human, like the, like right on the cusp of panocke-yowing. And this guy I think should be much robotier. Watch what you say white bread before I come to you.

It's an episode that should be doing everything it can to make us forget Brent Spiner's performance of data. And instead drives the episode car right up to Data's house and slowly rolls by to remind us of what could have been. Yeah, the real Olivia Rodrigo to Brent Spiner. It is. Yeah.

We see how happy Janeway and BLTR in this moment, but we don't see a react from Kim. And I think that's because he's horrified that there's another being on board with a limitless stamina. Yeah, I kind of got the sense that Kim was sizing this robot up, trying to see if it would be interested. Yeah. Because they're, I mean, that is a pretty exciting proposition. But this is an automated personnel unit 39. And it explains that it was station to board a praylor vessel and it was on a mining drone and the drone got exploded and that's why it was like drifting around in space. Give me the flashback. God, give me $50,000 more to show the like dissolve

to this little minor guy working on a thing and then being blown free from an asteroid and like spinning in space. Yeah, yeah. God. So many times somebody gets abandoned in space in a sci-fi and it's very rare that you don't see the event leading up to that. I know. I know. I know. It's kind of left me wanting that.

This guy has no memory of basically anything else, which I think goes some way in suggesting ascents. Like, this isn't described as a damage to a memory processor. This is described as can't remember or forgetting. And I think that terminology is specifically important here. And there's something like, oh, maybe it'll come back, which is also. In a way that does not happen when you drop a hard drive into a bucket full of magnets. If I had a nickel for every time I've dropped a hard drive into a bucket full of magnets, that.

You know that. Why do you have that bucket under your desk? No. I love the feeling of danger. Yeah. Yeah. So the robot encourages BLT to work on making more power units that save them. The robot's like a great job with me.

Yeah. I know a whole lot of people like me who could go for this. Are you interested in a business opportunity? Because I happen to know that there's a sizeable market of power unit enthusiasts out there. Yeah. And we don't know how to make them ourselves.

To emphasize their point, the robot stands up. And the way that this is blocked again, I think is very specific. You don't ever see the robot's legs or feet, the entire episode. And it's by blocking, you get the suggestion of their difference in height between BLT and the robot. Right.

But it's not a crazy difference. I think you could play this moment for more fear than they're doing. It should be the guard in Star Trek III standing up when Sulu walks up and talks to him and he's like two and a half feet taller than him. Right, right. Yeah. I mean, also this like this like real face-on shot of automated personnel unit, 41, 54 or whatever it is, really exposes the seam in the front and back half of the helmet that they put this actor in. Yeah. Adam, I hate this seam. I hate it so much. I hated looking at it. I hated how it didn't fit. I hated how the gap was not even all the way around.

I'd be like, if you bought a car. The cabs, the actor could live, Ben. If you bought a car and the door had wider parts in the where it meets the jam and the narrower parts, you'd be like, this car was not built correctly. That's how I feel looking at this gap. You got to return this robot. Yeah. The fit and finish is unacceptable. You cannot take delivery of this robot.

I read that the actors inside the robot costume, like they were suffocating in there. Yeah. And they could only see out of like tiny slits in their eyes so they had to navigate to their mark by feel There got to be a better design. Did they like get this script like the day before they had to go into production on it? No way. What the fuck? I wonder if Gershia Philips watches an episode like this and just feels two things like a great amount of

feels two things. Like a great amount of sympathy for a budget that is very, very beneath hers. Yeah. But also must just laugh and laugh. You know? Yeah. Is this a costume department thing? Or is it, do you think it's special effects

makeup department thing? That's another thing I always wonder is like, where does one stop and another start with a character? Like, I mean, Star Trek Voyager has characters that have like robotic components and human components like Arian. And it's like, it's really well done. But they also have like a character where there's like, that just has like an iMac for a head. A costume designer does not choose their budget. So I'm laying this entirely at the feet of the producers involved. Yeah.

Because TNG episodes, especially early TNG episodes, fucking new to make the weird bad guy of the week a speck of light or an exo comp or something else that they knew they couldn't do and I think if you're a producer and you're like well yeah we've got five thousand dollars and a bunch of this fucking silver rubber let's see what we can do with it that's your fault yeah bad-plaining so so BLT goes to the captain and is like, hey, listen, I've been asked to go into the battery manufacturing business. And I think I'm going to do it. I think that I think I can make a lot of money. I think I can make a lot of these automated personnel units very happy. And the captain puts the kibosh on that really quick. There's coffee in the kind of tampering, the prime directive prohibits.

It's one of those great prime directive moments where you can really see why the prime directive does not feel like the thing to do in a moment like this for BLT. Are you making the case that Captain Janeway is right? I think she's absolutely right. I mean, I think the episode is about Captain Janeway being right. I think it is easy to say that by the end once the big reveal happens. Yeah, but it's also like the arguments for the prime directive never change. And that's all Janeway has to go on in this moment.

But like, you also totally understand why BLT is like, fuck that, like these people need our help. Let's help them. I hated this moment for the prime directive. Because it resonated so familiarly with the, I'm just gonna let things happen. And then what will be will be that you get so fucking much today about responsibility and collective good. Like, there is something about this argument that Janeway presents that is so antithetical to like progress in general, like she actually says, letting things happen and just seeing what occurs by staying out of it is the way to go through this moment.

Instead of doing something to improve the circumstances of someone else, or everyone involved, and I just think that's fucking lazy. I think it's lazy today, and I think it's lazy in the 24th century. And I understand that it's a violation, but when it's described the way that Janeway describes it here, it's never made the prime directive sound worse to me. Well, I am on record as disagreeing with the prime directive. I know you like. But I think that like in this episode, you are meant to feel like this is arbitrary and shitty on Janeway's part.

Yeah. And it feels arbitrary and shitty. It does not feel well defended. It doesn't feel, and it, like the other layer being that BLT is a make-wease and like doesn't, like never actually swore an oath to follow the prime directive as far as we know. Like is, is an interesting

layer in this conversation. And, you know, like, I'd say the one thing that they don't say in this in this conversation that would have kind of shown the episode's hand a little bit more is if we knew more about this species, if we were in normalized diplomatic relations with them in the NMADE formal request for help, the situation would be different, because that would imply, oh, we know a lot about them, we have a context for why they are asking for this, etc., etc. And that's like, that's where like, you know, alpha quadrant prime directive is distinct from Delta Quadrant Directive. Yeah. I think perspective really matters here too, because instead of when BLT leaves,

we sit with Jane Wade to go like, sure showed her who's boss. I'm sure everything will be fine from here. We're with BLT after this. when she goes right back to tell the robot how that conversation went. Sorry, I did not get permission from the boss about how to help you. Perfect, black. Make it yourself. I'm trying to help you see this as an opportunity to grow. Make it yourself.

This is the first inkling that I felt where something might be off with this guy. Because why does the robot want to make more robots and what makes the robot have an opinion at all about this stuff? Right. What's motivating him? Yeah. And she's like, listen, that was the final word on this topic. I cannot help you.

Make more of you. And he's like, man, I'm really disappointed. I thought you were, I thought you were God-like, but it turns out you're a real asshole. So did I. On the bridge, they meet up with a robo ship who is approached. And they FaceTime with the robo captain. And they do this in order to set up the transfer. It's kind of a prisoner transfer vibe to the whole thing. Yeah, it does not feel like,

Hey, we found your guy. Just wanted to get him back to you. It feels a little cold and robotic. Robotic. Huh. So they arrange for this, BLT goes down to the transport room to a shake automated personnel unit, 242s, and... She really sends him off to robot summer camp with a thermos of soup and instructions

to shower every day. There really is that vibe here. Yeah. You can tell that he's going to be the robot that works at the summer camps, low frequency radio channel. I knew this would happen. I would meet you and fall in love with you and you would leave me. You can tell in this scene that this is one robot that's definitely going to piss the bed.

He's got one of those Joker handbusters, though. Yeah. And sure enough, it's a lightning handshake. Lightning handshake, KO BLT. And he abducts her. It's like abducting God, Adam. This is not supposed to be funny, but the shot of the robot on the transporter pad,

King Konging BLT is a real look. Yeah. And it's shot slightly like pointed up. Yeah. It just makes, it makes the robot look even more like Frankenstein's monster here. Totally, totally. And we get one of the, one of the most classic Star Trek scenes up on the bridge.

They're going like somebody's doing a transport. Stop it before it gets... no we can't we missed it. Nobody is ever like, fuck! Oh! Like Kim is not like, God damn it! If I had hit that button half a second earlier I would have stopped the whole episode from happening. You see the angle on the pad and his finger just misses. And this is just slightly, but it's enough. The God Captain. And then she's like, Mr. Kim, why don't you take five? We'll call up your relief.

Yeah, the jump has been jumped on them. And it's over. BLT's over there. And so they have to get back on the FaceTime with Captain Robo. And now Janeway is starting to pull the sword out of the scab, she's saying like, except it's sort of a limp sword

because she's like, don't make us shoot at you. Come on, like we don't want to have to respond with violence, just return our person. And this is like the classic puncher pulling their punch when the other boxer is throwing at full strength. Yeah, they should have just opened up with everything they had in this moment. Yeah, it's the only way to be sure. It was a very hostile act. Yeah. Anyways, when you be hurt, if you were BLT and the ship where you came from

didn't see fit enough to respond fully to your kidnapping, I'd have a real problem with this. Yeah, that would be pretty hurtful. My kidnappers are asking for a ransom of half a million dollars, which I will say is low for someone of my caliber. And yet, my friends, I don't know if we can quite come up with that much money. And my friends and family are like, let's ice them out a little bit.

Best we can do is like 300. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, she wakes up on a sh-gashamed slab and this may maybe be the first slab that BLT is woken up on this season. Yeah, maybe why she isn't immediately offended is that she's a little more focused on what's going on with her. If I were BLT and I had woken up on another slab, I'd be feeling my face and my teeth to see if some separation hadn't happened again. Yeah, she is informed by Automated Personnel Unit 220 that this is gonna be the slab upon which she makes a new Automated Personnel Unit. I've got a way for you to work off that money that you owe me. Captain Jamie won't let you get away with this.

Back on the voyage, Janeway is like, look, we're gonna do that thing where we tactically shoot a little hole in our opposing ship's shields, and then we're gonna use that hole to beam out BLT. It's gonna be great because it's not gonna hurt any innocent robots over there. Yeah. Make it so. And the robot ship does not respond in kind whatsoever. It is dropping fucking bangers on the Voyager. And what's great about this moment

is the perspective again because you watch this through BLT's eyes from the robot chip and it's scary. Yeah. Voyager is like lower than the robot chip. And it doesn't seem like the robot chip is way bigger, but it looks so imposing relative to the Voyager because of the way it's shot.

And also because of how helpless it feels to see it happening from where BLT is standing. Yeah. This is sufficient to encourage BLT to get with the program here. Yeah. As it becomes clear that they have really poked the wrong bear, BLT kind of throws herself on the mercy

of the automated personnel unit and says, like, if you could please see your way to not killing all of my friends, I will help you with your thing. She's gonna become a Padevad, Adam. You've heard of Polly under duress. This is prime directive violator under duress. Wow. The ship is absolutely fucking trashed.

Like, they've, like, hull breaches, they've, like, powers out all over the ship. The ship is completely fucked up. And that's when BLT gets on the FaceTime. And it's like, I've, like, talked them off of the ledge of totally destroying the ship. I'm going to help them make their prototype. That was the only bargaining ship that would work.

I love how this scene ends because BLT makes the case to the captain. And then before the end of the scene, the robot leans his head into frame to put its own emphasis on the moment. Should be funny. Is not totally funny. I feel like it's a funny gift. There's a funny gift in that robot sticking his head into the frame. It's related to the Paris pops up and deframed like the gopher that we got in season one. Yeah, absolutely. The Robo gives BLT the lowdown on the hospitality available to her in this lab. Yeah. And I wish they emphasized how unprepared they were for a biological

person to be on the ship because the Robo makes the case that like, here are your tools, here's the lab, I'm going to be watching you stick arms onto torsos and whatever. And also here's a bucket. Like, I wish that was part of it too because it would have installed an artificial timeline on the things too. Like, yeah, we don't have food for you. Yeah, we don't have water.

Or water. Or anything. So, like, make or die is suggested in a very different context later on, when make or die should be introduced right now. Or it could be like analogous to the scene in the bank heist movie where they get like a bunch of pizza boxes delivered to the bank

for the hostages to eat. Like, if there had been a part where Voyager, like, you know, Nielix had to come over on a shuttlecraft and give her like an away team bag lunch or whatever. Right. I mean, instead, like, I think this is also very intentional, too, it's not our robo who is cruelly making these descriptions. It's Captain Robo who comes in and is like,

like anyone who builds our phones or so is our textiles, or assembles our airplanes, you gotta make rate or die. Right. Those are the terms of this agreement. It's like working in an Amazon warehouse over here on RoboShip. Yeah. I thought they did a good job of giving us a couple of visual cues to tell

these robots apart. Like as cheap as the designs are of the robot characters, like having them be broken in slightly different ways, I think was a good choice. Because we all are, right? And that's at the end of the day. That's really how I tell people apart. A Greatest Gen Live Show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment.

Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it! The Sherry Reembarishment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the share your embarrassment tour. I'm Jordan Morris, and I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer.

My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org.

Look, your podcast apps are open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Whoa, Russ. Hey, hey, hey, Hey, they're wrong. I've got 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. I've got to get on the arc. It was about terrain.

I've got to spout to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality,

claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org Totally scarred is the Voyager and the crew aboard who are

dealing with a very protracted repair process ahead. Yeah, there is a McLaughlin group where they're talking about like a week of work that the ship is gonna need after this situation. It becomes clear that the robot ship is way overmatched to the Voyager in terms of weapons, but the Voyager is way, way faster.

So there starts to seem like there's gonna be some math to that. It's like choosing hockey players in an NES game. Like, you could choose the big bulky guy, but they're gonna be slower than the speedy guy who is gonna be weaker. Right, but you might want the big bulky guy because there might be a fight that breaks out on the ice. It's not even so much me as it's wrong, it's good.

Things are feeling urgent and out of control in a very fun start-check way. In a way that I feel like we are only semi-often feeling on Voyager. Yeah, the clock is ticking, like the Captain Robot is going to destroy Voyager if BLT can't solve this impossible engineering project that his entire society has been unable to crack. You know, it'd be like if Bashir had to hear the fage

or they were going to destroy Earth or something like that. And they're just running up against like a technical problem, which is like the power cells are unique and they're unique on purpose because each one has to work with a specific unit. They're not interchangeable. The power cells in the way that like all of the other parts are. So the solution is we need to find a way to make a power cell that is interchangeable. And that is great news to automated personnel unit 69 69. It's a scene that also allows for these two characters to get to know each other.

This robo is like how do you treat robots in your culture and BLT is like well mostly they're fuck vacuums except for data. And even data could be considered a fuck vacuum. Yeah. In his own way. There have been a lot of conversations about how sentient is or is not doc holiday on this

show. And to what extent do we treat him as a fully fledged member of the crew. And that was a debate that was focused on a lot more intentionally in a few episodes of TNG as regards data, but I thought it was interesting that Doc Hollow Day wasn't even cited as a comp in these scenes because he's like

he's not an autonomous robot, but he is a computer intelligence, right? And they probably will at some point in voyage or do some kind of deep dive comp as to why they aren't considered related ideas. Yeah, that was strange to me. And also it was interesting in the context of there having been some friction in the rest of the crew with how to treat Doc holiday that BLT is like you and data are the same to me.

Like what she is saying is that if automated personnel unit 222 came to the Federation, he could get a uniform and go to the academy and ship. Yeah, but Tashi Yara would never fuck this guy. No, no. She's got higher standards than that. She likes a dad bod. She doesn't like all those muscles on the on the abs. You know, she likes dad bod and she likes a page boy haircut. Yeah, she's like, where's the mud flap? I

can't get into this. A transporter style rescue is hatched, but with a shuttle. It's a very best-of-both-world style plan that is going to rely on a diversion. And Chicoote is already salty about this idea because Paris is going to be made to drive the shuttle because every time Chicoote drives one it crashes, which I think is great. I've taken all kinds of sides about whether or not I like to see Chicoate kicked in the balls in public on the bridge. But this is a totally fair take here. He's a bad shuttle driver and he should not be the pilot. I'd hate to lose another shuttle. Your concern for my welfare is hard warming. But BLT cracks the code. She gets the power unit working.

Did you get the sense that as soon as BLT was finished with this task that she would be made to create all the robos, or were you of the opinion that once the first one got down the robot would learn and then they cut her loose. I think that that is left unsaid and probably wisely so because it leaves it as a question that is both unassed and unanswered at this point. But you could see them being like, cool, thank you. We will now keep her forever. Or whatever. Now, do another. Yeah. Yeah. For each completed robot, you receive one bucket. They put the new power cell, the new robot. She tells her, her captor to cross his fingers.

And the way he does this, I totally thought he was going to like hold a hand up to choke her if it didn't work Yeah, but she powers it up as an initial hiccup But then she gets it going and it works prototype 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 is functional prototype unit 0 0 0 1 is ready to accept it programming I thought this prototype's designation was blinking 12 o'clock because several times throughout the rest of the episode,

this robot just verbally blinks 12 o'clock in a very fun way. Yeah, we don't get a lot of time to get a sense of this new robot because a new ship comes in and starts dropping bangers on the robot ship. And much like the sprites in a double dragon game, this looks like it's the same ship just with slightly different lighting on it.

Yeah, I really like this moment a lot. I do too. So these ships are licking shots at each other. And it's pretty clear that they don't really care about the Voyager at this point. I love this moment where Janeway hails the gold Robo ship. And she's like, hey, actually, we've got someone over there that we need back.

So could you cool it with the bangers? And the way that the gold Robo Captain puts it makes it seem as though like it's cool, it's cool. We'll do something about it. It's suggested to me that if they lay back in the cut, there is a chance of getting BLT back. But they do not lay back in the cut because Paris is in the shuttle.

Yeah. And they're like, this is actually great. This is like, this is like that time last week when we thought that there was just like a generalized riot breaking out at the prison and we could use the distraction to our advantage and send Paris in there to save the day. This time he might actually be able to do it and save the day. This is great. So he is like flying in the firefight in the middle of it.

BLT back in her lab is talking to her captain and she's like, why? Why are these guys shooting at us? This ship looks just like yours. Shouldn't you? Shouldn't you guys all be friends? And he's like, no, no, no, they were like built by the other guys and we flight them Look at them. They're gold. Look at me. I'm silver. Yeah Obviously we've got beef. Yeah, so it dawns on BLT that she should have listened to the captain all along. The prime directive was a great thing to follow here because what she is doing is helping make robo soldiers for a senseless robo war. That is, the robots killed the two societies that created them so that they could perpetuate this senseless war and in giving them a way to make new ones, she is only protracting

a terrible thing. This is the most science fictiony moment in all of Star Trek maybe concentrated here. Yeah, this is Robo War and it's also a little bit of judgment day It's a very TOS kind of moment I think because the Robo's turned on their builders and Then they continued the war themselves. Yeah, forever. I love that the credit writer of this episode is Nick Korea and he was like a Like 70s and 80s TV writer and died of pancreatic cancer when he was like in his 50s like right after this episode was made but That is so sad that he actually got to see this episode

that he actually got to see this episode. You really hope that maybe it would have come out like a week or two later. Yeah, but then you don't want the widow to live with this episode. Oh yeah. It's very cruel to the family. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you hate to think about that, but it's like BLT has a real bridge on the river quiet moment where she's like, oh my god, I have to, I have to like not let the train go over the bridge and she picks up a screw driver and plunges it into

the power unit of the prototype. It did, Adam. I wish you broke its neck. I like seeing robots with broken necks Much like you got it at the end of Star Trek first contact, you know, yeah But this neck is so girthy. Yeah, it's a girthy Yeah, on these robos that I it's gonna be like hug and a barrel. Yeah, can't do that so Automated unit 420 comes up and is like I'm sorry, I have to kill you now. It turns out you're my enemy and she's like getting beamed out as she says to him.

She wishes that wasn't the case. Great success. Good job Tom Paris. Good job Tom Paris. You really made up for last episode. Yeah. And he gets back into the shuttle bay with her, and the Voyager bugs out while the two robot ships continue to rock them, sock them, robots each other.

I wish that were the last shot before the credits roll. Like Voyager cruises past the camera, leaving the ships to just fight your fight behind and then three credits. Yeah, that would be nice. Instead we get a button in the mess hall where BLT asks Janeway once again, did I really fuck Chico Tay? I hope you went up a so to go?

Because I can't get it out of my mind. It was no small achievement, Belana. You gave that unit life. It's like I saw things that are Haunting me at this point. Yeah, not this episode Aput two two three episodes ago. Yeah, remember with the mind control guy was over here Very troubling and once again Janeway and it's like L the hook. Like, it felt like as much as anything and excuse to give Jennifer Leighne a moment in the episode.

Yeah, which, because she like hasn't been in it that much. I don't understand. And really hasn't been in much for the past several episodes. Yeah. It's funny that her scene is freshening up the altes that bridge the like I like that that's a call back. It's funny that her scene is freshening up VLT's beverage, though.

I like that that's a callback. It's fun. She spills a little on VLT's hand and she's like, ow, ow, they're burned. What the fuck, Kess? I know this is a double wall tumbler, which means I can't necessarily feel the temperature of what's inside, but God damn.

Yeah. Well, did you like this episode, Adam? You know, probably didn't even get along with post-opestive science. But I don't like bullets, I don't like threats, and I don't like you. I'm just joking. This is the puppet problem all over again, isn't it? I guess so. I don't know if I would call the puppet problem a problem personally.

If you for some reason are a puppet person, the way I know you are. But these are puppets. You probably love this is exactly a puppet. This is the same thing. No. The puppet was good. These are bad. That's the only difference, but they're both puppets.

Ben, I'm not trying to say that cake is pie or something. Like, I don't have an insane opinion like that, but I think robot is puppet. I'm not trying to say that a cake is pie or something. Like I don't have an insane opinion like that, but I think robot is puppet in this context. And I think if you can't get with the puppet here, you can't get with this episode. Even though it says some extremely interesting science fictiony things and proposes some interesting ideas

and gives us robot war, which I love. interesting science fictiony things and proposes some interesting ideas. Yeah. And gives us robot war, which I love. I love robot war, but robot war isn't strong enough to supersede bad puppet. Bad puppet, one of the strongest forces in the universe. Bad puppet is like, is like over-sulting your dish. You can't take it back. There's no amount of potatoes

that you could stick in this episode stew to suck out the salinity of bad puppet. And for that reason, I can't get with this episode. I think it's bad. Wow. It's a bad episode. And it breaks my heart because it's a frax episode. It's a frax episode.

It never happens. I mean, you know, even even the greatest pictures in the in the MLB occasionally have a bad game. Yeah. You know, you can't have you can't throw no hitters every single time you get up on that mound. I feel like this is exactly the thing you want to talk about that no one ever asks Jonathan Freaks if they sit next to him on an airplane like hey what happened out there with prototype man? I wear the the Freaks jersey. I'm a big fan for life. But what happened there man? Yeah. You just have a bad game? Yeah. You and I both know that one of our favorite things is when people want to want to know about some of our darkest chapters

Can't wait to go back head on tour whatever happened with friendly fire. Why did that end? What was that like? You know what that's a point well taken But here's maybe a way to present that idea a little differently which is brakes has the sort of cache to either hold on to a script or drop it into the waste bin. And I think he's got to recognize the financial constraints of a show like this and know that you can't fuck with a robot. Yeah. You got to be willing to walk out on directing a show if you feel the robot coming around the corner. You got to be willing to leave it in 30 seconds flat.

Yeah. Do you think that the robots had something over the show runners? Like the show runners were really worried about their medicine that week. The only reason that this happens is if they made the robots before the show and they were like, well, we got these robots. And they wrote for robot. I don't think Nick Curio is in the writers' room. I think this was a submitted script that they picked up and did not rewrite.

I think if the robots worked like the script works, though. And you could make a decision that worked within the constraints of the budget and still had a robot. If you were HD remastering Voyager, I could see making this episode work by digitally replacing these men in robot suits with CG robots that looked robot-y. Like, I think that would take it up past the level of bad episode. Like it would get it out from under the water. Yeah. Like I think that that is like the main thing that's fucking it up. Like I don't think the script is that bad. It's not. It's not at all. On the page, this episode totally works. It's just a bad execution. Well, the only thing that's ever reliably a perfect execution

is our reading of the priority one messages in the inbox. Do you want to go check on those, Adam? Yeah, let's see if there are any painted on ab muscles. Ha, ha, ha. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement, okay? A supplement? A supplement. A supplement. Yeah, it's extra. star fleet coming in on secured channel. I need a supplement on top of the month.

Yeah, it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. In our first message, which is from Puppy and it is to Ricky Rocco, the message goes like this. Happy 40th birthday to my favorite old. Wow. Since I last contacted you via PraioRity1, we've learned to cohabitate peacefully. While confined to quarters, the baby Sisko

Kitten has joined the fleet. And a little human is on the way. Wow. I wouldn't want to embark on this new voyage with anyone, but you just don't leave me for the celestial temple. Hey, poopy and Ricky Rocco, making a human. Yeah, pretty wild. Oh, this is a, this is one of those late P1s. Uh, we missed Ricky Rocco's 40th by several months, but, uh, but happy belated Ricky Rocco. Yeah.

Adam, this one is from Cadet Ramon LP4. Hey, we know Ramon LP4. Sure do. Working on the punch card. It's a commander, April Nicole Bram, that goes like this. Happy April Birthday, April. From your H Town Peeps. This will surely be late, but I wanted to send my thanks

for being an awesome FOD and hooking me into the pod. Can't imagine surviving 2020 without it. Eternally grateful you let me tag along for free to greatest GenCon last year when you're then boyfriend bailed. Unlike Tyler, he was without honor. That's right. Sounds like April Nicole Brem, Kamma Commander, really upgraded to Tyler. Yeah, Tyler sounds great. Tyler sounds good. Previous boyfriend,

week as hell. Yeah. Sounds like a real upgrade in the honor department. Yeah, thank you, Ramon LP4. Yeah, thanks a lot for your support of the greatest generation and your patients with us. That's a message just for Ramon LP4. People can head to maximumfun.org slash Gembo trying to get a priority one message at them. That's right.

It's a hundred bucks for a personal message and 200 for a promotional message. And we appreciate them because they help support the production of this program. Yeah, thanks Pupi and Cadet Ramone LP for. Yeah. Hey Adam. Is that Ben?

Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Random. Drunk Shimoda! I mean, this is going to be a little abstract. Anyone involved in the robot decision gets my drunk Shimoda. A truly insane decision to make here knowing what your abilities are. in the robot decision. Yeah. Gets my drunk Shimoda. Yeah. A truly insane decision to make here, knowing what your abilities are.

Yeah. That's it, simply robot decision makers. Yeah, I think mine is very close to yours. I already kind of talked about it. The place where the front part of the helmet meets the, that gap at them is my drunk Shremota. Oh shit. That gap.

It's not those abs. It's that gap. It's a fucking trash can with abs. Yeah. Trash can with a gap. You know how Star Trek occasionally does the, like the auction of the costumes and whatever. Oh.

They just threw this one out, right? This is, this was not a, was not a popular item at the 38 dollars the winning bid. Yeah Not it's like more expensive to ship it than it was this guy this guy Brian's is Thanksgiving Turkey and the torso That's it the winner does with this robot. Yeah, sure hope this paint is food safe. Yeah. Objection noted will do this without you.

Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Well Adam, it's time to decide how we will be watching the next episode. Why don't you head over to goch.bizslash game where we keep the game of buttholes with the will of the caretaker and I will tell you about season two episode 14 alliances

Hoping to strengthen Voyager's strategic position in the quadrant Janeway reluctantly seeks an alliance with the Kazan What? say what an alliance with the Kazan. What? Say what? An alliance with who? You haven't seen what? You're required to learn as you play. Roll.

All right, Ben. Our runabout is slowly pulsing on top of square 17. It's on the doorstep of a Quark Spar episode. Just a few squares past that. His eyes uncovered episode. So much danger ahead. I can barely stand it. It's a really tremendous amount of danger at him.

Ben, I've rolled a six. Wow. Tula! Did I win? Harvey. Big roll from me. It put us on square 23 on the doorstep of a banger but safely in our rearview mirror are the his eyes uncovered squares and the quark's bar squared. I was sort of looking forward to a quark's bar square. We didn't get it. Yeah. It's another regular old episode forSquared. I was sort of looking forward to a QuarkSbarSquared. We didn't get it. Yeah. It's another regular old episode for us.

Wow. I'm looking forward to a regular old episode. And I'm also looking forward to seeing what the friends of the Soto have to say about this episode on the internet. Oh yeah, always read the comments. That's what I do. People like to talk about the show using the hashtag GreatestGen on Twitter. There are great groups on Facebook redditch

drunksremota.com discord And of course we've got our social media accounts at greatest track on Twitter and Instagram Those are run by the card daddy bill tilly The music practically a character on our show The track you're listening to right now, made by the Estimable Dark Materia, and our theme and interstitial music is made by the more Estimableer Adam Ragusia. Adam Ragusia, you might recognize as the famous YouTube celebrity cook sensation. He's one of the best friends to do soda. He's a great one.

Yeah, thanks to everyone that supports the show by going to maximumfun.org slash join or buying something at podshop.biz. Yeah, podshop.biz. Get a t-shirt or a mug. Yeah. Enjoy it. Support the show. Relish your body.

Ha, ha, ha, ha. And with with that we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Voyager, an episode of the greatest generation Voyager where we have to reluctantly seek an alliance with Big Rod. Oh no. I'm guessing it'll fall through. Yeah, yeah, that usually does. Make it sound. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned. You'll be got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get to get