The Greatest Generation - Monogamish At Most (VOY S5E17)

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

When Voyager goes to goo and the honeymoon is off, a scientific mystery turns into an existential crisis for the remaining members of the crew. But after a too-late decision by Captain Janeway leads to a lot of Lantreeing around, the bleakest tragedy of all is a vague computer entry. Does the comm badge serve additional functions in the 24th century? What’s ok to steal from your wife? Could the back of Tuvix’s head be even more horrifying? It’s the episode that’s not great to look at during.It's Max Fun Drive! 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 on Twitch.Facebook group | Subreddit | Discord | WikiSign up for our mailing list!Get a thing at podshop.biz!

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Watch your back shot. Hello. I'm Captain Captain Bringengwe. The-S-S-4-N-D-R-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-Captain-C I'm glad. It's only happened twice to me in my life. The first time I can't even remember, but this time, I'm out walking Ripley. I've left my house, maybe a half an hour before, and nothing seemed unusual when I left,

but when I returned, there was a leather wallet on the sidewalk in front of my door. In front of your door. Right in front, like unmissable. On the sidewalk or on the step, because you've got a little step up to the on the sidewalk. There's like a gate with a little step, right? Yeah, this was on the sidewalk in the public area, not on my property. Let me guess you bent over to pick it up and it moved down the sidewalk a little bit and it was Mr. Burns dragging it on a piece of fishing line out the back of a car.

I called multiple pizza places in my neighborhood and no one had lost a wallet in any of them. And so I kept it. Now that's not what happened at all. I picked up the wallet and what was so weird is how it was arranged. It was as if it was trying to get attention. The credit cards inside were folded out of their slots, like fanned out in a, hey, check this out kind of way.

And a couple of the credit cards were kind of flashy looking, like not single color credit unions style credit cards. These union style, credit cards. These were like good credit cards. That, like one of them was kind of clear looking. I'd never seen a credit card like this before. I've always felt that A-CAM, all credit cards are bad. Right, yeah. Which is why your credit is so bad.

Yeah. So, I go rooting around in this wallet, and I'm like standing in front of my house with Ripley. She wants to go inside. I'm out there. I'm looking in this wallet. They're already getting complaints. I know.

I'm looking at the greatest gen subreddit. People are already horrified at the violation of privacy that you've committed. I did it wrong. Obviously. I'm looking through this thing and it's oops all credit cards. There's like nine credit cards in this wallet. No cash. Wow. Was it, wait, was this Kevin Smith's wallet from when he made clerks and put the entire

budget of the film on credit cards? I wish. This guy was chaotic in how he organized his wallet. I'm very much a ID on the very outside slot. That's the thing that's gonna be most necessary, most of the time. I mean, and this guy's ID was buried under all nine credit cards. I was like, all I'm gonna get is credit cards. I'm never gonna be able to find this guy.

Finally get to the ID. Look at this guy. Look at the cards. It matches up. It's a match. So I go inside, and I'm so fucking stupid. I go inside and I start googling this guy's name. I'm like, I'm never gonna find him.

Right. Until I'm like, I got this guy's ID, I should check his address. I think of that second, because I'm like, I got this guy's ID, I should check his address. I think of that second because I'm thinking there's no fucking way this guy lives anywhere near me. It's just too weird. Right. But he does. He lives two doors down.

This is a great way to meet your neighbor. You're doing him a favor. So I take Ripley inside and I walk back out with the wallet and I go down the street and I knock on this person's door and uh oh, someone who is not this person answers the door. And I'm like, Hey, are you name on credit card? And and she's like, no. And I was like, well, I'm looking for name on credit card. And she's like, well, he's not here.

And already I know I've started off on the wrong foot. I'm like, I'm like, look, I have good news. I have his wallet. And she looks at me like that is not good news because I'm a stranger that has her husband's wallet. And I walk it back. I'm like, look, I just found this wallet out in front of my house. I live across the street over there and I point.

And I'm like, hey, I just want to make sure that this gets back to him. But I clearly had reservations about giving it to her because I wanted it to give back to him. And she's like, no, no, no, it's cool. He's my husband. You can give it to me. I was like, okay. And here's where the Reddit just torches me, right? I shouldn't have given it to her. You have no idea what the status of their marriage was. Right. Exactly. They could be estranged. So I gave it to her and she thanked me effusively. She was so grateful. And she thanked you by giving you one of the credit cards and saying, like, get yourself something nice. I did stand there like a bell hop for a moment. Like,

something nice. I did stand there like a bell hop for a moment. Like, is that it? She made it clear that our interaction was over. And that it was time for me to go. And then I turned and left and walked back across the street. But I am coasting on that feeling of fixing someone else's rotten day. Like the moments where I've thought I've lost my wallet

are like the most dreadful because I don't know about you, Ben, I have no copies of my credit cards or the contents of my wallet. I haven't done that thing you're supposed to do in case you lose it, which is like, have the numbers to call in case of. Like I'm raw dog in my wallet out there. And if anything

happened to it, I would be totally fucked. If not for a good Samaritan like myself right out there to return it. It's the one that said bad motherfucker. You are hoping that somebody else, there's another Adam Pranaka out in the world, keeping, I mean, there is he's in Poland, peeled for your wallet. Yeah. So that at such time as you lose it, it makes its way back to you safely. Right. Yeah.

So it gave me a lot to think about. Man. I was getting my hair cut earlier today and I had this very like punk rock barber. Mm-hmm. I hit like a real thick like Bronx accent and was like clearly had gone to like tons of punk and hardcore shows in his heyday in New York. I don't know how we got on it, but he told me about our phones. He was telling me about different scams that people pull. And one of them is like, he's like, yeah, I know all these beautiful girls down in Hollywood

and they go into a bar and then they say, you know, they strike up a conversation with a dude and they're gonna give him their phone number and they then mo themselves like $1,000 from his phone before they put a fake number in and then leave the bar. Oh. And I was like, wow. Very brutal scam. But then he told me about one where they'll call you

and they'll have just some questions. Sometimes they'll pose as and they'll have, you know, just some questions, you know, sometimes they'll pose as law enforcement or something. They'll ask you a bunch of yes or no questions and like get you to say enough stuff that when they then call the bank, it's your voice saying the yeses and nose answering the like robot questions. Oh.

It's so, I don't know. It's awful. Yeah, so I got home having just had this conversation and a fucking scam call called claiming to be like US customs and border protections, which had intercepted a suspicious package for me at the Mexico border. Now that checks out. Are you expecting any packages from Mexico? And did you see yesterday question? And I was like, fuck, this is it? This is exactly what the guy just told me about.

Wow. So in some ways, he, in a more abstract way, found and vouchsafed my wallet. How about that? You're surrounded by Adam Pranaka types. The Adam Pranaka's you need are all around you. I didn't realize it. Yeah.

How about that? Hey, I like a lot of good Samaritans out there. Yeah. Trying to do the right thing. We're not all pizza thieves. Shout out to those people doing the right thing out there. Yeah, agreed. Well, Adam, do you want to do the right thing

by our listeners and get into this very sad episode of Star Trek Voyager? Oh, it is tragic, isn't it? Yeah. I was in a bad mood after watching this. Oh no! Well, let's try to turn that around with laughing in the face of this tragedy.

We discuss Star Trek Voyager Season 5 episode 17. Course. Colin Oblivion. We open on some waiting cakes. They're kind of silvery in color, and there's some spray like silver blobs are dissipating in a three-dimensional volume. Uh-huh.

It's an image that we'll come back to later at them. But this is a wedding reception. And they're doing it the way only Starfleet can. Harry Kim's on clarinet, playing wedding music. Everybody's standing around. It looks like they've pushed all the chairs up against the walls of Neelix's restaurant, which I guess means they're gonna do a wedding ceremony where nobody gets to sit.

I guess there's no grandma's at this wedding, so. Nah. They don't have to worry about people needing to sit. I like a small wedding like this. I had a micro wedding, goes along with something else in mine. But a wedding so small that everyone kind of pitches in. Yeah. That's what's going on here.

Kim's on clarinet. Nielix is making the cakes, like the doctor's passing out rice. Everyone's got a little, little mini job here. It brings everyone together in the effort. It feels good. I like that the Chico Te is giving BLT away. Yeah, that's big, isn't it? It seemed appropriate in some weird way.

I was freaking out because I was like, did we miss the proposal? Like, have I just forgotten it completely? I'm so tired and so like deliriously that I was like, obviously we missed a big episode because Tom is back to having a half a pip in addition to his single pip and they're getting married. Like I'm watching the wrong episode.

And you know, I think that the reason two-parter, the mega episode that we dropped, like, led me to believe that that was more possible than it actually was because I was looking at the episode numbers and I was like, wait, I definitely skipped the head one. I'm gonna have watched the wrong thing to talk to Adam about tonight.

We had drinks and hangs last night with Aaron Walty, who's a friend of the show and a real FOD and the showrunner for Star Trek Prouddegy. And he said something during our hang that made me flinch in a way that was like, oh, I wish you didn't say that, which was you were mentioning that you'd been really tired from caring for to-round.

And he was like, oh yeah, I can totally hear that on the show. You really sounded out of it lately. And I was like, who knows how you sound on the show better than me. I think you've been fine. I can't tell the difference. Yeah, I think it was specifically that we reviewed an episode of Prodigy. Yeah. And that was when I was in the thick of it.

That was in like month one of DeRone's life. And I think I'd like not written down notes for the episode because I'd written down notes for a different episode. And yeah, that was rock bottom, wasn't it? Yeah. And when there was only one set of steps in the new Star Trek sand, it was all of the Adam

Pranikas around me that were carrying me. Another example of the Pranikas Samaritan that you have in your life. This guy's out here. He's taking care of pizzas that nobody wants, making sure that they don't rot and become a, you know, some kind of opportunity for vermin. He's given food away to his neighbors and not even going and following up when things get misdelivered to their houses.

He's helping people with their wallets, he's helping people with their podcasts. Yeah. Give this man a medal. You're right, Ben. I'm a good person. And I haven't realized that until this moment. So, so this is the big day, the the marriage of Tom and Belana that do not do a traditional Klingon ceremony, which you know, we've seen that before. We don't need that again.

which, you know, we've seen that before. We don't need that again. Yeah, but there is a lot of BLTs cultural erasure happening. Yeah. Almost throughout the episode. Yeah, the only reason her cling on this comes up is so that Harry can do like a best man bit mid ceremony. They're saving the pain sticks for the honeymoon. Yeah.

There's a lot of chatter in this wedding gallery, isn't there? Yeah. Like about the pairing. Yeah. Have you ever been to a wedding and you like heard people talk some shit? I've been to a couple and it's shocking for me to hear it. Like I've actually heard a, they'll never last at a wedding I went to. Yeah, yeah.

Harry Kim's best man bit, Virges on like, that's not actually okay to say it's somebody's way. You know, I went to a wedding once where the, the maid of honor was kicked out for making a joke, not too different from this. So yeah. It happened. The toast is fraught, isn't it?

Yeah, there'd be dragons there. Yeah. Janeways, the efficient as you might expect. And she's got a slightly different hairstyle again, doesn't she? Yeah. She's doing the happy privilege of Captain since the age of sale. Yeah. You know, they get through this. It's a pretty informal ceremony. They wrote their own vows and then like Tom wants to start smooching before Janeways completely sealed the deal. Paris and BLT's vows are good and heartfelt, but they're whispering them in a way that would aggravate me so much if I were standing just a little bit further away from them Like it is very

Discertious to the people in the back, I think Yeah, that it doesn't show them getting like mic'd up or anything now Which I have seen at weddings. I've seen people put on lav mics at their own weddings This is the 24th century. So it's possible that there are transparent aluminum Laval ear microphones, right? Oh, yeah, like they just push their Compage once and everybody in the room Is getting an Amplified.

It's the combat! It's the combat just the Lavalier microphone! Solved. Yeah. I thought this was a good on-screen kiss though. Like I don't think that we've seen them smooch that much, But like there are lots of big movie actors that I feel have failed to sell the chemistry of a kiss. This one

looked really passionate and real. Good job, I agree. I actually read that the rings that they use in this episode recently sold it auction. Oh, no, you'll never really who won the auction for these. I mean, you can get yourself caught in a wedding ring. Ben, this sounds dangerous. Yeah, yeah, that part of the wedding ring had fallen off, but could be glued back on. Well, congratulations to Garrett Wong, winning another great prop auction. Yeah, yeah. Rainy DeHimmett started trickless Vegas. And he invited us out for hangs next time we're in Vegas. We should try to make that happen. That would be so cool. I would love to see the collection. Yeah. Yeah.

We get the toss of the bouquet to sefen and then they start throwing the rice, the uncooked rice that was established earlier. And we go to slow mo. And this rice starts landing on the rug and it sort of looks like this is about to be like a Dyson commercial or something. Yeah.

One of the weirdest things about vacuum commercials is how staged the dirt looks You know, it's like it's always like fruit loops or like a perfect little pile of potting soil. Yeah, or a perfect little pile of checks mix. When I'm spilling potting soil in my home It's a fucking mess. It is It's a dispersion rate of like 15 feet. Yeah. When what you're really getting with your vacuum, mostly is your wife's hair from what I can tell. Like, like, what comes out of the,

the bag when I have to replace the, the bag at the end is like, it's just like balls of hair, you know? Yeah. Your wife's hair is everywhere. I see she's been over to your house too. Well, I don't hear her that way and I want it back. I'm not saying she loses an unusual amount of hair. I'm just saying that she has a lot of hair. Oh, God. God, the people in the reddit are already flaming me for this. One thing that happens when we spill soil in our homes and for your wife's hair also

is it doesn't often fall through the floor into the basement, the way this rice is done in falling through the floor into the jeffries too below. Is this rice made out of alien xenomorph blood? Yeah. It goes right through the floor. It's got wonderful defense mechanisms. Seems like dangerous rice.

Is this rice soon going to go through the people? They're throwing. Is that? That's what I was thinking. I was thinking they should have cooked it, you know? The show throws right to theme is what happens. There's a lot of throwing happening in this moment. Yeah.

Of course, it's locked in. What? You're going to have to listen to me. Don't be careful, because I'm gonna end up saying this once. Do it. When we come back, we're in a captain's log. We're two years from home. They're really close.

I was going mad at this point about what I'd missed. I thought I was watching the wrong episode. I had to be sure. I had to check the memory alpha to be sure I was on the right path here very confusing Yeah, especially because things are going so good Janeway's log here is like oh This is one of the best days of my life like I get to wed some people kids are getting born or two years from home I've taken a good bath ahead of my meeting with time Mervins

I had my meeting with Tom Mervins. She's got misgivings about getting home as quickly as they're going to because there's so many neat stellar phenomena that they could be exploring out there. This was madness to me because in the Red Room Chico Tay, Chats are up and he's like, yeah, you know we're passing by a couple of cool nebulars or whatever. And Janeway's like, I don't think anyone on my end if we add a couple of extra months to their trip. There's a coffee in that binary system we'll reach about six months from now.

This is like going on a road trip and you're a couple hours from home and you for some reason like want to hit a shopping mall or something. Right. Like for an afternoon. No way. Yeah. No. Down in the restaurant, Nielix is a sort of like playing travel agent to Tom Paris. He's helping him decide on all his options of honeymoon venues that they have to simulate in the heartbreak. One of them seems like it's loaded with insects in a way that's a little bit of a deal breaker for Tom.

Another one is the Flotter program, except Flotter is shooting a loop out of his finger. Yeah, it's like a much horneer version of flotter. Yeah. Tom really has his heart set on like roaring 20s Chicago, which is the second point of BLT's cultural erasure. Like no one has thought to ask BLT what sort of honeymoon she might like. Yeah. And I kind of wanted to know just really feels like an of the era kind of TV plot point, though, like there were so many shows in the 90s

where the dude is 100% expected to think of all of the recreations that they'll do. Uh-huh. Yeah, it is really weird that like, I tried to imagine telling my wife what our honeymoon would be. Ooh. Could you imagine?

That is not a conversation that would have gone well. Yeah. I mean, 1920s Chicago would not seem sexy to me until the episode of Lower Decks where we saw Chacks and Dr. Cat. Name is Dr. Tallinnah. Use it as foreplay, right? Yeah, that didn't seem pretty horny.

What the hell was about to blast them? So now I understand. Yeah. But back then, when this episode came out, I wouldn't have. Yeah. BLT is getting seven ready for the task of serving as chief engineer for the week that BLT is going to be away. That was kind of a surprise. I would have guessed that VORIC or one of the other people that actually works in engineering would get that job.

The strange thing about VORIC is that he also took time off while BLT is on her honeymoon to do holodeck observation. Yeah. Vorek is a total perv. Vorek's got his own flotter doll that also shoots loose out the fingertips and he's going to be bringing that with him. Hey, Vorek has the peepen. We do not discuss it. This sounds a lot like a parent giving babysitter instructions, right?

Now you want to put the warp core down, no later than APM. Make sure the warp core finishes all their dinner also. The discussion of the warp core having its own personality felt like I love that idea that it really has a way of being babyed and like BLT is with it often enough that she really has a like a nearly personified relationship

with it. It is really cool and fun to think about. Yeah, like that. They're in the middle of talking about this when they get like an error message on one of their screens and they've got to go check out a situation and a Jeffrey's tube and while they're crawling through their seven makes a pretty compelling case for polyamory to a woman who just got married.

I feel safe benefit of monogamous relationships. Sounds great. You're right, Ben. I mean, she makes a lot of sense. The catching of the bouquet doesn't seem to have knocked her off stride at all. No. She is riding for not being a monogamous, more of monogamous, maybe her style in the end. Yeah, monogamous at most. Yeah. She wants to keep her options open. Once you've been part of the collective, it is a real downgrade to go down to one person I bet. Oh, yeah. I mean, that, the great link, like leaving any of these things sounds like a real boner killer.

Yeah. So it comes down to which implies extreme and not me. Yeah. So they open a door in this Jeffery's tube and they look down and see that the floor and walls are like going around. Everything's losing my like killer cohesion here. This is bad. Bad news. You can see it on BLT's face. This is the wavy floor of a canceled honeymoon. It really is. We smash cut to a McLaughlin group. If you walk where she's explaining that there's something that is causing all of the infrastructure of the ship to break down.

And they're just seeing like the beginning of this, but something coming out of the warp core is stopping this. And Harry is like, are you fucking kidding me? We simulated this before we installed this new warp core. And I was like, what new warp car? I love all these details at this moment in time that add up to the Swiss watch that this episode becomes. Like the mystery about taking the core offline, not solving any of their problems is such a headscratcher.

Yeah. And Janeway's like, well, I mean, do it anyway. And I guess while it's off, try to find a solution to the problem. And that's what they do. So after a long day at the office, BLT goes home and finds that the apartment is just not comfortable for her. She's freezing. Yeah. is just not comfortable for her. She's freezing. Yeah. She's not looking great. She goes into the, I mean, it's not really a bathroom, right?

It's just the sonic shower area. Because there's not a toilet in there. A vanity? You call it that? Yeah. She looks at the vanity and she's got some, some kind of like weird acne on her face. I hate this moment.

Just the like, you feel something a little strange on your face and you look in moment, just the like, you feel something a little strange on your face and you look in the mirror and you can just tell like, there's something brewing underneath. You can't really see it yet, but like you poke around and you can feel it like, uh, gnarly. This is going to suck. Yeah. This is going to be my next week.

You know what? Basically, I bet my wife has like something that you put on and leave on for a situation like this. Yeah, you go digging through the wife's shelves of what would you even call them? Unguins. Yeah. Tinctures, appointments.

Yeah, the whole thing, the tubes, the tube section of what she's got in the bathroom. Yeah. You know what I've taken occasionally from my wife from her bathroom collection? Is she's got these stickers that suck zit juice out. Whoa, not poor strips, not like, no, no, no, you put one on, you put one on the whole, and then overnight overnight it's like made out of this weird soft silicone

Whoa, it's like a little circle you put it on your on your her And then you wake up in the morning and it's all white because it sucked all the zit juice out whoa It is great Wow, and I've been like I'm trying not to steal too many of them. Right. Like, I want the supply to keep coming. You know? Oh, no. The red it's blowin' up. Oh, yeah. I'm bad.

I'm a bad person again. Just as bad as the pizza incident. Yeah. Yeah. Adam's vanity stops him from being honest with his wife. He steals from her. She could do so much better. I know.

Yeah. We both know that our wives could do much better. Yeah. I'll shoot you a link for these Zit stickers, man. They're great. You don't get acting like I do, though. You get a good face. Are you kidding me?

I'm pimps magu over here. All right, well, I'm gonna slide these stickers across the table and get you set up. Before I stopped going to a pediatrician and started going to a normal doctor. In your 30s? Like, one of the last thing my pediatrician said to me was you're kind of a sissy guy.

So that's gonna be a thing that you deal with in your life. Oh, that sucks. I would have stopped seeing that doctor at that moment if you hadn't already made that decision. Yeah, it was a long look in the mirror after that. Well, gee, doctor, as the only one in this room who has the know how to figure that out, why don't you get on that problem? Yeah, well, you smell. Well, your stethoscope is fucking cold.

Yeah. If barbershops can figure out putting towels in a warming device, why can't you do that with the stethoscope? I like that idea. Yeah. And it has like a little like minty freshness to it. That'd be nice.

Yes and fair. Bill and I, the U.S.S. Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I, Bill and I,. And when Paris walks in, it's dark and it's hot in there, and here's your crying on the floor of the bathroom. It's a very affecting scene. They just got married. Yeah. You don't wanna upset wife? Upset wife?

Upset life. So that heard. Yeah, there's a god shot of the washroom in this that really does confirm that there is no toilet in there. Yeah. Paris comes in and finds her like huddling on the floor freezing cold. And they get a right to 6 Bay where the EMH is like,

kind of stumped initially. Yeah. I mean, because the beds are filling up. Yeah, there's a bunch of people with with this type of acne. Yeah. The guy in the like foreground of the shot when they first stumble into six bay, just like the first glimpse of him, I was like, is that two vicks? And I was like, oh no, it's a different guy. But the combination of the of the forehead acne and the the gold shirt made it sort of look a little too vixie. You know, two vix were he to be there,

would be afflicted with like the scalp acne on the back of his head, which would just make that thing look even more horrifying. I didn't think that was possible, but you're right. If two vix had had like a little bit more cystic shit going on on the back of his head. Yeah, really gross. This is an epidemic, and even Janeway has been diagnosed.

Yeah. The people working and engineering are the ones with the most exposures. So this whole theory of something having to do with the warp core, the new warp engine technology, that still holds at this point. Yeah. But Janeway's kind of incredulous.

She's like, I shut down the engines. Why are people still getting sick? That should have forced all of whatever this is. Right. And so the mystery begins here. And we head down to the restaurant where Tuvac, Chicoeté, and Nielix are looking at a sample of items that Nielix has put out

that are not decaying. And it's like a crate full of kale and like a bathy sphere and a bunch of rocks and other equipment. And he's like, this stuff was all brought on board the ship pretty recently and it's not decaying. So it's not like the atmosphere of the ship, there's something else at foot here. I thought that this was a great, like,

little cul-de-sac in the mystery, because I was like, oh, what is it? What's going on? That's what we're trying to figure out. Neelix is so self-serving here with his whole, like, well, the replicator food is bad, so I guess everyone needs to start eating the fresh food that I make. Nothing wrong with these leola roots, for example. Yeah.

Pretty ugly scene by Nelix in this moment. Yeah, it's too bad. In the As lab, Tuvac and Tukote do the work of going through all of their old missions up to this point. They're like, well, did we run into an alien that had some sort of cystic acne disease that's been transmitted to us. And they're just kind of checking off this list. I really like this scene, the idea of these are other adventures

that you didn't even get to see. Like these didn't even make it into episodes, but we experienced them. This is a version of that thing that happens in new Star Trek too, which is like Leonardo de Caprio pointing at the television going like, I recognize that reference to a previous mission, except the meme for this moment is Leonardo de Caprio sitting in his recline or not pointing at the chair.

He's just watching TV because no one's ever heard of these missions before. And then the camera pans over and there's Leonardo da Vinci sitting in another chair getting serviced by a clockwork jack-off machine. Like, pan back over to Leonardo da Caprio as he turns up the volume so we can hear better over the clacking and pounding of the jack up machine. In Zix Bay, Tom is trying to do the bedside vigil for BLT. He's brought the isolinear chip that has their Chicago vacation on it. And, you know, it's a very sweet little moment of relationship intimacy where he's describing what they would have been doing if she hadn't become sick.

You look down at BLT and she's clearly touched hers. It's like she's fiddled around with them and made them all red. Now they're spreading out. Yeah, she's in a tough spot. She's looking like warp 10 bad at this point. Like her they're spreading out. Yeah, she's in a tough spot. She's looking like warp 10 bad at this point. Like her tongue could fall out. 1928 Chicago hotel Paris makes the case for how awesome this is on their planned honeymoon. And they're doing that thing where, you know, these are the lies

you tell yourself when the situation is dire. This is as if they were, you know, stuck in spacesuits without air. Right. This reminded me of that kind of moment. Like, you're lying to yourself if you think you're going to pull out of this nose dive. Right. And this is the tone of the thing. The end of this scene is it's turning into a clip show device level emergency because she is, you know, she's listening to describe all this shit about Chicago

and she's being nice about it, but it's obviously a vacation that's for him, not her. And she kind of slips into some kind of distress and they're, you know, trying to shock life back into her and it's just not working. And she fucking dies at him. We've lost her. RSVPBLT. Yeah, and Paris, like, he's in the denial phase for a moment, but jumps right into the anger

phase. Return to your quarters. No! The duck is like, hey, you need to take that anger somewhere else because I need to dig into this body for the autopsy like now. Ha ha ha ha. Not the best bedside banner in this exact moment. Yeah. Tom, why are you still here when I'm trying to cut a Y in your wife?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Why? No, that's the shape of the incision I'm going to cut into your wife's dead chest. It's the worst surgical vodville scene ever devised. This is tough because Roxanne Dawson is clearly breathing under the medical blanket. And I wanted to ask you, is there a thing? There's got to be a thing in Hollywood that is sort of like a blanket

with a imperceptible exoskeleton underneath it that would allow you to breathe underneath. Oh, like a rigid blanket. I mean, you have a lot of blankets that have gotten hard in your house, but I'm talking about something else. I mean, the Star Trek solution is when the bio bed gets the little tunnel that comes up over.

Exactly. Which is usually just something for jacking off under. Right, they should have extended the tunnel. Give rocks on Dowson a break here. I think Rick Berman had other ideas. Yeah, yeah, he did. A lot of them. So down in the ass lab, Jakote and two vicar still working on going back over old adventures.

And they hit upon this time that they had to set down on a demon planet and they like they really go. Pretty far into just re describing the plot of that episode. who just re-describing the plot of that episode to each other. One of our more interesting missions. Especially in comparison to every other theory they've had in the Aslab. Like everything else is like a couple of words and checking it off. And this one they really dig into the story.

Yeah, it's like if I was like, Adam, you remember earlier today when you and I were texting about whether we were going to open mail bags on this episode or save that for a different episode, and then you texted me, I think it's too stressful to try and do that this week. So let's save it for next week. And then I said, yeah, that seems cool.

And then you texted me back some stuff about like, yeah, it's just way too stressful. And I was like, yeah, no, I get it. We already decided just a little too much, like a little too, uh, protest too much. Yeah. Yeah. This is kind of like that. Anyways, this is an interesting result. And they head down to Six Bay, where the doctor is like getting ready to plunge his scalpel into BLT's chest and they're like, you got to scan her for demon planet materials. And he's like, why the fuck would I do that? They're like, no, seriously. We have a disturbing theory.

You got to do it for this big reveal. Yeah. And it's like, what are you talking about? And then he does it. And then the big reveal happens. They're all duplicates. and the guy goes like, what are you talking about? And then he does it, and then the big reveal happens. They're all duplicates. I got a ticket there. Not now put your laptop number your mouth. I got a ticket there.

Not now it's just a gold. 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

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just pull it out, give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard, be dumb instead. Whoa, 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 off.

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 boat. We came to by two. What do you think? OwnerRoss and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. Do it! Do it!

Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! These are the silvers.

The silver blood. It sampled our DNA and created duplicates of the entire crew. I'm often wondered what happened to them. Do they still resemble us? It was a duplicate. Duplicate. She was a duplicate. The biomanic.

Copy. Copy. Copy. We are all duplicates. I am real boy. What's going on here? She was a duplicate, the biomanic copy, copy, copy. We are all duplicates. I'll be a boy. What's going on here? Are you me? At this moment in time, the only thing I could think about

is how they got this ship. And it took me an unfortunate amount of time to figure out how that was possible. Because I'm thinking about the goo, and I'm thinking about how the goo turned itself into people. And I'm looking at the ship, and I'm seeing how the ship is gooey too. I'm not putting it together for a long-ass time. I'm like, so did they build the ship? And they did a bad job? No, you idiot. The ship is goo.

The entire ship is composed of the same material. It's a biomimetic compound. The goo can choose whether or not it's going to be a person or a ship, and it took me so long to figure that out. Because I thought everything on the demon planet, like that was goo, was alive, or wanted to be alive, I couldn't understand that the goo would ever want to be a ship. The problem you have at him is that too much of your brain cells are devoted to doing good deeds, and not enough of them are for figuring out star trek plot points.

You know what, that's the problem, and I need to rededicate myself to this project device. Yeah, it's like when we were interviewing to hire you on at Uxbridge, Sermota, when we asked you, like, what would you say one of your biggest weaknesses is, you said it's that you do too many good deeds and it can distract you from understanding things that are happening in Star Trek episodes. And you sub-hast that, which is great. You and Rob Schulte when you hired me.

Very forgiving. Yeah, no, I mean, like, I don't believe in a flawless candidate. I don't. It's like finding the candidate whose flaws you can work with. Indeed. That is so great. That should be an inspirational workplace poster. And the image should just be...

On Podge.com. That visits a picture of you. Yeah. We're pretty imperfect podge.gov.vis. It's a picture of you. Yeah. We're pretty imperfect underneath it. Yeah. And then some clarifying text. I'm ready to sell that poster. That could really help out the home office.

I have a bunch of friends at the soda. I think I really agree. I think that'll be a popular. I do. So they were the silvers and now they're going to disintegrate back into silvers because the Warp Corps wouldn't be harmful to people and real ships, but it is harmful to silver people and silver ships. Yeah. I was just thinking about like ashes to ashes dust to dust and how maybe it's just silver to silver Silver to silver

These guys skip that part of the you would you yeah, it's just too redundant This is wild like the copies are so good that all of these copies contain all of the memories of the real versions of themselves. And again, at this moment, I'm like, why is no one asking how they got this ship? I mean, this scene, like, that is the most interesting question to me. Why isn't anyone asking it? The entire ship is composed of the same material. It's a biomimetic compound.

They, I guess, forgot that they were the silvers and thought that they were the real people. So they just took off and set a course for Earth and eventually like invented a way better warp core and installed it and like have had their own different adventures in different parts of space. Didn't you like how that puzzle piece clicked in, though? The idea that they created something

that wasn't harmful to humanoids, but was harmful to silvers because they thought they were humanoids the whole time? Big accident, big whoops. And now there's this kind of ticking clock. And so the pitch from like Jakota and the doctor is like, well, we gotta turn back and go back to the demon class planet.

That's where we came from. That's the only place we're gonna be environmentally safe. And Janeway is like, fuck that. Like we are pot committed here. Like silver Janeway does not believe in the sunk cost fallacy. Silver Janeway is committed to getting the crew home. This is such a great existential question that points to like who you are. Yeah. Even if you're a copy, if your copy is so good that you are indistinguishable from the original, then aren't you on this mission? Is that not your goal?

And this is the part that Janeway rides for that is in conflict with some other people in the crew. It's a great mind-bender. Yeah. And like, I mean, she has a good point, like if they turn around and go back to the class-wise planet and then Starfleet makes it out into the Delta Quadrant, they're all gonna get fucking court-martialed

for not falling orders. And I'm such an idiot. I'm like, well, they take the ship back to the demon planet. What do they do with the ship? They're just gonna have a ship down there? The entire ship is composed of the same material. Do they like break it apart, like a with the ship? They're just gonna have a ship down there? The entire ship is composed of the same material. Did they like break it apart like a giant cargo ship? No, they just put it up on blocks, you know?

Like, then live in the driveway, you know? The ship is goo! It took me too long to know that. The ship is goo. It's all goo. Yeah. It's all goo. So they find like a nearby class Y planet though that they're going to set course

for. And in the meantime, Janeway has to kind of break it to the crew. What's going on. And this looks like it happens in Neelix's restaurant, but they've like wheeled a lot of gurneys in with the people that are too fucked up to stand and hear this speech. The doughboys are always saying that penera is the perfect restaurant to break bad news in. I feel like that's Nielix's restaurant here. If you're going to do it, do it at Nielix's. There's still a great deal.

We don't know about this phenomenon. They all have this silver acne at this point in various amounts. And the gurney people have it worse than the rest. But Janeway is saying like the mission stands we're gonna keep doing this. Tom Paris is really being pretty lippy about this. He's real broken up over the death of his new bride. So, you know, the lippiness is being tolerated. She's not grabbing that half a pip off of his collar in this moment.

Paris is like the expression of the conflict of who you are, existentially. He's like, well, if I'm just a copy, I have no self-worth the way that I thought I did before that knowledge. So like, why even do anything anymore? Like real me is out there doing the real me shit. I gotta find something else to do or nothing to do. And Kim has a good point. As they talk, he's like, well, until you come up with whatever that is, why don't we just continue on as the people we thought we were?

Yeah. There is no better plan. No. I tell you one thing, I'm going to stop playing that fucking clarinet. Take up a cool instrument like saxophone. Yeah. This is the new me. And like, Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, starts playing. Uh-huh. Kim goes over to the replicator.

He can't actually go over to the replicator because one of the things Janeway says is we got to like kind of institute some austerity measures so that we can, this is like the Greek economy in 2009, guys. We got to, everything is getting cut. This is bad. Yeah. You know, we're all tightening our belts. Like don't move around and do stuff

unless it's actively helping us. Asterity measures only punish the poor instead of asking the wealthy to pay their fair share. It's a bunch of fucking bullshit. Seriously, because like smash cut to Janeway and her quarters and she's replicated herself a beautiful pot of tulips. Yeah, pretty ugly scene of the wealth disparity on the ship.

Yeah, must be nice, Janeway, not having to worry about how you're gonna decorate your apartment. Yeah, everyone's gotta be cutting back, but those weekly dinners that she has with Chicote, those continue. I'm not about to quit now. Chicote is not hungry in this scene,

not hungry enough to eat the flowers or whatever, and especially not after three more crew people have died. Yeah. The kind of, for all we know of this scene, I thought we're really interesting. They talk a lot about like how little they can know about whether the real Voyager is still out there or if it got destroyed or it's already home. And maybe on that Voyager, Janeway was more responsive to Chicoete's romantic overtures and they're like

more of an item. And on this one, it's still just like bathtub after bathtub being gifted, but nothing coming back the other way. Yeah. Chicoete is like, maybe real Chico day would have put up with this ship. But I'm tired of being jerked around. Maybe I should have noticed we were all made out of the silver blood when every time I snapped a pencil it turned to mercury. Here's a mind bender. Could the goo people have made any type of ship to escape in? Like, if they had a little bit more self-knowledge, because in the arc of this story, there's this moment where everyone becomes their copy in such a way that they forget they were ever goo. If they had decided to make a ship faster than Voyager or different from Voyager,

or the bounty from Star Trek III. Right. Could they have made any type of ship with any type of drive? Could they have made a board ship with a slipstream drive or whatever? These are great questions. I mean, it seems like maybe it's like an emergent property.

Like, remember in that episode, I think it was BLT touched the mercury and it just made a thumb. Yeah. So, yeah. Maybe the ship just kind of showed up, you know? Damn. Yeah, the moment of self-awareness and ship construction is like, you don't get that

detail here, but what a fascinating genesis for this thing. Genesis? Yeah. Demon Planet is planet for Ben. I thought a lot about have there been any episodes in between the demon planet episode and this one where we were watching an episode about this crew and not the real crew. I love that theory. I love that that is there and has always been there.

Just maybe undiscovered. Yeah. That's some writer's room secret that like actually that episode was the other crew. And there's just, it's indistinguishable. You just don't know. Yeah, you're never gonna know. Maybe there's one scene of Paris's pip.

Right. That's it. Yeah. But it's it. Yeah, yeah. But it's actually just a piece of corn in that one. Right. Mm-hmm. And you don't want to do it. Coffee, black, make it yourself.

I'm trying to help you see this as an opportunity to grow. Make it yourself. So Chico Te is arguing for turning around. Janeway wants to act as if she is real Janeway and her every instinct is to press on. And in the mess hall, the field hospital has really taken form. It is almost completely full. And the doc has an interesting theory at this point that absent any other better idea,

maybe we should try to find the real Voyager because two Jane waves could perhaps solve this problem, or at least that ship not having been made out of goo. Yeah. Could have the computing power to help us out here. Yeah. I mean, two Jane waves are better than one is one of the adages that the Borgs live by. And it's not a bad point. It's one of the unspoken things that Chicoete thinks

from time to time. Awesome. That's the name of Chicoete's Holodec program. Yeah, it's just labeled Bud Light. And you're like, Chicoete, why is that called Bud Light? And he's like, he's I'm into twins. Chicoete, thank you for making this giant stone bathtub. That fits all 14 Katherine Janeways. Now get to soping down these boobs.

Terrible fung shway in the infirmary of the mess hall. Terrible funsway in the infirmary of the mess hall. Cause they put the heads of the beds into the room. They're not against the window. I mean, I like the idea of looking at the window, but I don't want my head just exposed when people are walking by. Yeah, you need some headboards on the cot, don't you? At the minimum, you need headboards on the cot.

Yeah, anyways, they get to an alternate demon planet, and they pull in to the space over it. And before they can even set down, you know, try this out, see if they can get safe harbor here. These fucking Ordmarite mining treaty people come off the planet's service and start looking shots at them. And it's like, God, get the fucking Ordmarite mining treaty people come off the planet servers and start looking shots at them. And it's like, God, can the fucking Ornbury mining treaty people leave us to fuck alone? Like every time we try and do anything there of our asses, fuck the Ornbury!

They come in weapons hot. Like, this ship is shooting at the Voyager, and Janeway can't reason with them. Like, her words aren't gonna stop their shooting. In Voyager shoots back, but that doesn't do anything. And two bucks like, look, we could destroy them. Do the torpedoes just turn into like goo, the second they hit the hull of the ordinary ship? That's a great question.

Is the goo ship made up of many, many people in quotes, like, GOO people, and the way that the great link is made up of people? Yeah. I wanted to know this too. Maybe, maybe not. Anyways, they have to turn tail and run, and Chico Te is like, all right, Catherine, like this is, we've gone too far here, like we've got to get back to the demon class plan.

There's no other way. I mean, Paris is super lippy about this too. Yeah. He's gonna be a problem. I mean, Chico Tay and Paris are in agreement and they talk about that, like the, like, the lippiness is coming from all directions at this point and Janeway is really getting melty.

She's like, come on, Chico Tay, like we all feel like shit. Look at us. Yeah. This is coming from all directions at this point. And Janeway is really getting melty. She's like, come on, Chick-O-Tay. We all feel like shit. Look at us. Yeah. I don't need to come in from you and Paris. This is what happens when you think, like, aspirating, assistic acne is going to help you out here.

Like, it actually can result in some droopy face. Like their faces are so droopy that Kamele Gruz performance is starting to slow down. Did you notice this? Like her dialogue slows a bit. Yeah. I promised the crew I'd get them home. That's fun.

Chicoeté dies during this scene. Yeah. Wait for the last command at Chicoeté. Yeah. It's rough. RSVP Chico Tay And on the bridge Janeway Eulagizes him and in that Eulogy Makes the case for going back to the original demon planet. Did you hear any

Pan-Flood in the background of Chico Tay's death? I thought I heard just a very little bit of it in the ready room, but none of it by the time Jane weighs on the bridge again. Yeah. What happened to that being his theme? Wonder if they had rethought it by this one in the series. Maybe that's weird.

I wonder if we're gonna get any more references to that going forward. I don't know. It's too bad, even though his background was born from something wrong and bad, removing it means he gets nothing, and I think that kind of sucks, too. Yeah, yeah. I don't really get the sense that they've like totally removed it though at this point. I wonder if they're just kind of like pulling off of some of the like

grosser aspects of it and then like just not sure what to replace that with. But anyways, Vamanos for the demon planet, Janeway Whispers and throws her busted leather flint cloth over the loose weave of the saddlecock. And they ride off in the friskly eating dusk light. Wildcat. But how kind of way to act is that open the door? His own drugs. The next day we see the ship, it's like flying through space and it's like, it looks like melty Jello. Doesn't it seem like they shouldn't be able to warp

in this condition? Really, doesn't. Is the warp drive like new materials that they picked up and made into a new warp drive? This is an audio medium, so no one can see me just raise my hands by my head. I have no idea. They have another McLaughlin group.

Is your two. Just going over all of the things that are busted. The lights are super low. Everybody's got tons of loaf on their face. The EMH has gone offline. We've lost the doctor. RSVP EMH. Yeah.

Yeah. No one eulogizes him. Can you reprgram him or something? So many people have gone offline at this point that the eulogies are like, you know, we don't have time. Yeah. The scene is so hard to watch. It's just so nasty looking.

I thought it was unintentionally funny. Like maybe the part that was the most funny to me was Nelix looking like he was a sleep at this meeting like we've all been to those a meeting that was like so fucking boring and pointless that like you wish you could just lay back and take a nap in your office chair. A lot of people have said that that's kind of how they felt listening to this episode of the greatest generation. Oh, yeah. Not the compliment you think it is telling us that you fall asleep to our show. Everyone looks like they're slathered in aloe vera. There's like that glossy sheen to everyone.

Yeah, yeah. Like this is not a sunburn, guys. That's not going to help. Right. Right, right. So the idea comes up in this meeting to make a memorial boi to like put all of their logs and the database from the ship into a boi and leave it so that if they don't make it back to the demon class planet, at least they can be remembered.

So that history doesn't forget the name. Wet Voyager. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Time caps. So we're in the end game now. They're like, you know, the ship is gonna be bested by interstellar dust unless they do, you know, re-riding of power to deflect your stuff.

And Janeway eventually passes, and it seems like it's just like basically seven of nine and Harry keeping the ship running at this point. Like we see a couple of extras walking around, but they ain't doing anything. This feels like a version of the ship that Riker was the captain of and the universe where the Borg take over.

Right. Like, I imagine there's a universe where it's just Riker and Wharf of and the universe where the Borg take over. Right. I imagine there's a universe where it's just Riker and Wurf as the only people on the D just sort of keeping the shit together. Yeah. And that's what I thought of when I saw that it was basically seven and Kim do

in the same thing here. Yeah, Kim's beard has gotten really big and shaggy. I gotta say, Kim is captain and not seven. I don't know if I agree with that. What? What? Put her in charge. You better just start dealing with it Hudson.

Because seven seems to be doing all the work. Yeah. And unfortunately, she's unable to fix all of the Miriam problems that they have on the ship. Yeah. There's just too many holes in the levy to stop up at this point, but they pick up a ship on long range sensors and they try and resolve it. And it's pretty, it's one of those like the blurry view screen image of the ship is like, we know what the ship is. But for some reason, they don't.

It's scrambled porn Voyager and stiff Voyager is what they're after for help. Man, I love the fly by shot of stiff Voyager when we cut over to that reality because it just looks like it looks so rock hard. It is fucking terrassing. A big relief to cut to the bridge of this ship and not have everybody's face covered in goo. Yeah. The gooey Voyager in one last desperate act dumps its core in order to stop in space so that it can get the stiff Voyager's attention. Yeah. And stiff Voyager does notice and changes course And stiff Voyager does notice and changes course and tries to get close and figure it out. Like they picked up the distress call. They think they're going to be in a position to help. They get ready to help even. Yeah.

There's like this ticking clock though. They're like, oh, like we're melting and there are five minutes and 30 seconds outside of communications range. And then we cut back over to stiff Voyager and they're approaching where they got like some unknown distress signal from, and it's so garbled because it wasn't going out clean. And the memorial boy gets destroyed in the in the launcher because everything's so fucked up.

That is in an episode full of crew deaths. That might be the saddest loss of all, right? Yeah, because like when the real Voyager arrives on the scene, it's just a similar image to the way the episode opened, dissipating silver blobs in space. And no record of the lives that those people have lived. Where's the ship? No sign of it. That debris that couldn't be all that's left. So fucking sad. God, that's crusty.

This is a great K-Mulgru moment at the end because we're in on her for some time. And she does the thing a captain needs to do in this moment. Like, well, we came upon a ship that's destroyed, we need to file it, etc. But there's something else going on on her face. And it seems like a twin feeling another twins pain. It feels like subliminally she might know something heavy happened out there. She can't quite figure it out. But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, That here's a version of that question. Do you think it's sadder if she does or sadder if she doesn't? I think it's sadder if she doesn't and that was sort of I feel like the only reason there's a little

ambiguity to it is to maybe blunt the sadness a tiny bit and yeah man it is it's crushing yeah did you like this episode Adam? You know, I really love the Twilight Zone aspect of thinking about what would happen if you don't just have a twin, but like an exact duplicate of you. Yeah. And what that means for both you and that exact duplicate, there's something so complex there about, you know, who may be real or who is valid? Yeah. Or whatever.

And I thought about that almost as much as I thought about whether or not the ship was goo or whatever. And I thought about that almost as much as I thought about whether or not the ship was goo or not. I like any episode where you feel something. Yeah. And the sadness of the conclusion of this episode was maybe the most I felt in a Star Trek episode in a long time. Like I enjoyed the sadness of this. And that just might be me being an emo kid. But like, but I relished in the sadness of this. And that just might be me being an emo kid, but like, but I relished

in the sadness of it in a way that I appreciated. And yeah, like one of my favorite episodes this season, but on the flip side, I did not like these makeup effects. I thought they were like TNG or Polesky ages. Like I thought they were almost burlap sack quality. Yeah. In a way that was unfortunate. They really had a lanternness about them. They did. Yeah, they were lanternying around in a way

that I was like, oh, that's too bad. They're like that. But the story is so strong that I think you can get past it if you're me. What about you? Yeah, I mean, I think that this is a really brilliant and well-executed episode, but did not like looking at it for. I didn't like looking at it during.

And some parts. Yeah, and it made me sad. I mean, I was really like affected by the tragic bleakness of the story in a way that really surprised me. Like it's such an interesting journey for an episode to take you on from like fascinating mystery where you think you're catching the show in its own mistakes and then you're like, oh these aren't mistakes. This is part of these are clues in the mystery that I didn't realize was a mystery before.

And then just into like the pits of despair. It's just strange comment about the human condition too in that like every death is tragic. But as human beings, we can't possibly think about the totality on that scale. You know, like, you'd just be overwhelmed if you constantly thought about how many people are dying on this planet all the time. And so the idea of Janeway not knowing and thus not suffering, like that's almost

the core of the human condition, right? She's okay, she doesn't know. Only the people who stop to think about that would suffer in those moments. So I don't know, a lot to think about. Or not. So. Sure.

Sure. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Stoppolo. Stoppolo. Stoppolo. Yeah, it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship! Well Ben, no priority 1 messages today, that's because it's the max fund drive.

If you're listening to this, when it isn't the pledge drive, it's always a good time to support the show at Maximumumfund.org slash join. Hey, Ben. What's that Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? I think I'm going to give it to Nelix. Like, Nelix stays quippy all through this episode. Neelix, Neelix stays quippy all through this episode. Like at one point after the image goes, the way of everybody else, Neelix has made the chief medical officer and is even doing bits after that,

like trying to do morale officer shit as things get like more and more dire all around him. Yeah. You know, very silly character doing Yomans work trying to keep everyone's spirits up in this episode. And pretty clever. Like you found all those things that didn't degrade.

Like good job, Neelix. Yeah, he's really trying. I bet they thought a lot this episode about who's death to show on screen and whose not, you know, because like a lot of main bridge group people die that we don't see, like we don't see two-vac dying, we don't see Paris dying, right? We do not. And we don't see Naomi Wildman die, which is a bridge too far this episode, right?

Like we don't see a child die, which I think would have been especially hard. Instead, we see my drug, Shemota, who is also going to be Nielix Ben, but for a totally different reason. The idea that the structure, the order of things on the ship has degraded such that he could get a little shed eye during a MugLaughlin group. I love it. I love that he's kicked back in a meeting of just four people or whatever. That is real chaos energy at a at a desperate time. So he's gonna be my drug charmoder for that. Yeah, I like that during that meeting he also was clearly eating a hot dog out of the sleeve of his shirt. You can't skip lunch. You just can't, guys.

Never miss a chance to say that. I love it. Well, it's time for a new episode, right, Ben? It is the next episode of Star Trek Voyager is season five episode 18, The Fight. Voyager becomes trapped in an area of, quote, chaotic space, unquote. The laws of physics are in constant flux. Constant. I mean, it seems kind of related to the episode we just watched. Yeah, in some ways it does. The laws of physics are fluidic.

Yeah, if some ways it does. The laws of physics are fluidic. Mm-hmm. If you will. Ben, I'm gonna go over to goch.bizslashgame. Really? And figure out where we are in the game of buttholes. The Will of the Caretaker. I like this idea. I run about, looks like it's on square 47, an important number in Star Trek.

Mm. Two squares ahead. Got a space butthole which would Ooh, slide us right down into a cocoa no-no episode. That's fun. Mm-hmm. Nothing beyond that. You're required to learn as you play Roll I'm gonna give it a roll roll that bone Oh, man, I've rolled a three. Shula! Did I win? Harvey. It hops us right over that space boat hole.

We're on square 50. It's a regular old episode for us. Okay. Well, those are fine, too. Especially during a max fund drive. They're just fine. Wow. Yeah., faint praise there. Hahaha. Boy, we got a lot of people to thank everybody

that is supporting us as this episode comes out during the Max Fun drive. You are hugely appreciated as our producer, Wendy Pretty, Bill Tilly, our social media director, Adam Ragusia, who makes the music for this show. I did more, we made our show art, and it's made a bunch of this stuff for podchap.biz.

All of these people getting paid, including a whole bunch of other people that we pay for running the podchap, helping us, keep our books as a business and operate within compliance of all the different laws and everything. The people that help us book our tours and all the people that work those shows. All of this is made possible by the Friends of Disoto. You and me, I think we're on that list. We are, as we are also employees of the Expression Shibota Corporation Yeah, you in spite of your sort of mixed interview, you know, yeah a lot of people felt like that wasn't the strongest candidate

We had not a great interview not a good track record of yearly reviews on my part I seem to be getting worse at this. Yeah, but it's okay, man Yeah, you're out there giving pizzas back to people and trying to do good work. If not on the show, just out on the world. Yeah. We feel like that itself is enough to pay you for. Thank you. Thank you, Ben.

And thank you to all the friends of DeSoto who see fit to support the show at MaximumFund.org SlashJoin. We will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Voyager and an episode of the greatest generation Voyager that is in the corner in the in the blue trunks, the gold stripe. That's me in the corner! That's me in the blue trunks! That's me in the blue! Trunks! Being an important part of a Star Trek voyage episode! Yeah!

That's you buddy! Alright! Bye! Maximumfun.org. Comedy and Culture. Artist-owned, audience supported. comedy and culture. Artists-owned, audience supported.