The Greatest Generation - Nebulesis (ENT S3E21)

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

When the Entrepreneur meets a way more fucked-up version of itself, a bunch of the crew’s offspring come aboard to explain why they can’t go through the corridor to meet Degra. But after Lorian gets desperate and Karyn has to talk him down, the T’Pols convince Captain Archer that an alternate route can get them there early. What’s the payoff for a long-term barber relationship? Who does Sarek owe a debt of gratitude to? Which character has the trembles downstairs? It’s the episode that gets confused by too many spheres.Support the production of The Greatest GenerationGet a thing at podshop.biz!Sign up for our mailing list!Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Riker - Quantum LeapThe Greatest Generation is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFriends of DeSoto for: Labor | Democracy | JusticeDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Facebook | X | Instagram | TikTok | Mastodon | Bluesky | ThreadsAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.social Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Here's to the finest crew in starving. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me. This is a parody. Paramount owns the sun. 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.

You growing in your mustache? Your mustache is looking a little more. more burly than I'm used to seeing it. I think folks on the stream are noticing as well. Yeah, seeing a lot of emotes. Is that what those are called in the stream? Is this intentional mustache growing or is this incidental? You know what I did? I looked at what's the... Bert Reynolds? What's the handsome gentleman who played Superman, not this time, but the last time? Oh, the guy who reloads his arms and bathrooms? Yeah. Love that guy. I looked at a picture of him And I was like, oh, he's got kind of the scrubby stubble thing going,

but he kind of lets it go thicker in the stash. And then, like, down around here, it's a little thicker. And you're touching the part of your face below the mustache, I see. Yeah, like, he gets the chin shorter, but then, like, beside the chin, it goes a little longer. And I was trying to do that, but then I kind of blew it, and I wound up having to do all-but mustache at the shorter length. You have observed something maybe I've known but never articulated before, which was like most people go for like the uniformity of facial hair. Yeah. Now that I'm looking at your face, there's like a greater presence to the mustache and less so for everything else and it really makes a difference.

He does it so much better than I ever could. It almost goes without saying. My barber, who I've been going to for years now, last time I was there was like, like, hey, can I just, like, deal with your facial hair a little bit? Like, I'm not going to charge you for this. I just, there's a couple of things that I've been wanting to do. Wow. We have a very trusting relationship.

And I was like, I've been, I've been begging you for years to just, like, have your way with me. I know that you know. Finally the payoff to a long-term barber-client relationship. So he showed me, like, where to get the line on the, on the neck. you know, like, where you start going for short, because you don't want to just, like, let it beard down your neck. Sure. I don't exactly know what I'm going for.

I mean, I obviously know all these things, but these are good things to know for FODs out there. Yeah. You got me looking great. This was a Wednesday. Thursday, I become extremely sick, and it just, like, is totally useless. I get to have my nicely lined up facial hair for no social functions, no time out in public. you're just pouting in a wedding dress literally I put on a wedding dress got in bed and have been there basically ever since today is another Wednesday it's a it's a week later is that

what's wrong with Ben this time what's wrong with Ben this time yeah yeah I'm on antibiotics I've been suffering you you've been off gallivanting and see Seattle, having fun with friends. I know. A mustache-free situation for me up in Seattle. Well, you know. Completely unaware of your struggles. You got friend of the show, Ty C.

Pulling off the mustache weight up there in Seattle. Oh, don't forget Phil. Phil's got a strong mustache as well. Phil does us too, yeah, but Phil. I've surrounded myself with mustaches, Ben. Why have I done this? No. I don't know why.

you do the things you do. Many of them are very mysterious to me. But yeah, so I woke up this morning. I was like fully grown in and I was like, I got to do cock your arms like a gun and a bathroom fight guy, facial hair, because I saw how nice his beard looked in that picture. I'm not, I don't know how to look, the clipper. I'm not an expert. Now I'm going to go to my barber and be like, is this even a tree I should be barking up? You know, with a mustache like that, you look like get ready for all kinds of action and bathrooms, Ben. Well, we need to be ready for action on a day like today, Adam, because we rolled something last time on the show.

I believe that I had the hundred-sided dice in my hand, and I threw that sucker, threw that some bitch, and it landed us on a Broan Zone square. Sure did. I take it you in charge here. Team leader, Brown, fourth-board defense contingent. I got to get a pop. That's it.

one of the beloved squares on the game that we play and another reminder for me that like speaking other languages not a strength of mine i don't have like my wet paper bag of a brain just does not hold the vocabulary in like it needs to i need to take so many notes to just make this make sense for me i can't come up i can't improvise vorey stuff for what we do last time we did this, I decided it would be easier for me to wing it and just have the Memory Alpha page about the Vori language open. Yeah, had that work. Not the Wikipedia page about the Vori language, because that's actually a real language somewhere. Yeah. And there's a Wikipedia entry about it, but the Memory Alpha one is about all of the backwalking and wrestling tremble

to Rages and Crady Beasts and whatnot. Right. And so that was the one I had open, and I don't think I did a great job last time. I have regerts, I would say. I mean, it sounds like this time, you're going to do great, and I'm going to be disappointing. Oh, so are you going on the fly this time? I thought I would, just because, like... Interesting.

I have no facility for this. Yeah. what all I did was I went through my notes and like tried to edit my notes a little bit with some I've never thought of a funny thing ahead of time you know and that is practically all I do Ben let's see how this combination plays out as we recap the episode of the day it's Enterprise season three episode 21 and it's called e squared In the cold open, we get an extremely gray to Paul, hearing the tellings from a much younger Vulcan dude about that Zindy weapon that he says has gone into the vortex before they could stop it. Uh-oh. Everything is happening as it did before.

Yeah. Which means once again, seven million people have died on Earth. All along the watchtower starts playing. Really alien. alienating the audience that has loved this show for a long time and expecting some sort of resolution to the story. First time in Star Trek Enterprise history that a song played on the show has alienated the audience.

Amazing that the solution to a terrifying problem is finding Jonathan Archer. And that is exactly what great to Paul suggests here. We are into and out of our cold open as fast as that. Really, really short cold open. It's a classic kind of open to a lot of things, though, right? Like, here's the problem.

Find the guy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know what it is? Is the cold open to a movie trailer from the 90s? Yes, you know? It absolutely is. Like, what Van Damme character is this Jonathan Archer you're talking about? You're going to have to bust Jonathan Archer out of prison

and then break him back into The Rock. so it's a new light or is it we're in to Paul's quarters again glimpsing candles again but this time she's not gray she's regular which I'm sure is a vori terminology that just didn't make so glad you said it because that's where my brain snapped I was like regular that's got to mean something right and I flick through the notes I was like regular's not here Regular's not anywhere. Everyone, Ben, is still so dirty. No one has time to go to a bathroom.

Here's the thing. Everyone's going to the bathroom. You know they are because people have to go to the bathroom. No one's washing their hands and no one's washing their face. That's what I learned from this scene. Do you think what happened is like, you know, like I have a friend who's like got a kid a little bit older than mine and she went through a nursery school year where there was a full-blown fashion among one class of like 30 kids that all the girls wanted to wear the longest skirt possible. And that was like all, like all any of the girls wanted to do was wear a

very long skirt. Was there a skirt measuring contest where they're like one person wanted to have the longest? Yeah. Like I think that's kind of how how it was. And like your whole social capital was, oh, did you not show up in a very long skirt today? Hmm. So I'm wondering if Archer's little experience with getting Zindy Bug Juice squirted on his face. We have to help these children. Has started a little bit of a trend among the Enterprise crew. Yeah, a real Billy Madison, faking like he pissed his pants situation.

Now everyone's looking like they got bug juice on him. Having a dirty face is cool. Consider me as Miles Davis. Oh, that was the grossest thing I've ever heard in my life. Hey, don't make it too dirty. That'll get you canceled. Tripp wants her to tend him, but she is, I mean, like, you know, coming from a place of, you know, a little bit of a glass house thrown stone's place, Tepal is concerned that he's a little bit

hooked on the Vulcan rub down situation. And it could be one of two things, right? Like, there seems to be a clear amount of Tepal avoiding Trip Tucker, but is it like the business of Vulcan Euro pressure, or is it the weird social vibes they're feeling after they fucked? Right. And he explains that, in fact, what it is, is that he's got trembles about her, being all reclusive like. To Paul, I've been thinking about your spheres ever since that night we spent together. You, uh, upturned me and downturned me in all kinds of ways. I didn't know what direction I was facing. I like them shrouded. I like them unshrouded. It's just, it's just

a delay. You've been acting all messed up towards me in the soon after. She's been very reclusive and it just wants to see if there's anything he can do to help. This isn't about anything else. This isn't, you know, this isn't a sex thing. I'm just here in good faith to see if I can help you out of whatever funk you're in. And she's like, I don't want to date you. you, Tripp, I was just doing experiments on what it's like to nail a human. Wow, it's real romantic when you put it that way. And now that I have my experimental results, I don't need you anymore. I think it's important to know that Tripp does not know that she's been dealing with her drug

withdrawal problem. Right. And if you're looking at this from some position of omniscience, like, that's a big, big part of this. He doesn't know the fullness of what's going on with her. She's being sly, isn't she? She is being a little bit sly. She's been on the sly side of things. Yeah.

And yet he is perceptive enough to notice how sly she's being. And he's toiling to try to make an offer of friendly help. And she tells him to let go. There is no resolution really at the end of this scene. Instead, we cut over to the command center where the gray staff. See, I'm going to call it. the senior staff, the gray staff. Oh, I like that.

Yeah. That's kind of tortured, right? Yeah. I mean, a little confusing because there's also great to Paul in another place. But I think we should go with it because, you know, like every language has its strength and its weaknesses. And this is one of the areas where the Vori language just struggles a little bit. They're checking out the ships they were warned about before heading into the nebular. Degra, as you might remember, has directed them to go here, but also gave them a warning.

about what they'd find inside. It's nebula nemesis, Adam, and there are more of them than Degris maybe implied initially in these trunks. Nebulus? That's too confusing. We're going to try it, though. Hey, you know what? If next week I don't refresh the Vori language section on memory alpha

and see nebuluses, I'm very disappointed in the Friends of DeSoto. I think we can get this added to the list. My disappointment in the Friends of DeSoto will have to do with me booting up Reddit or something on the day this episode drops and not finding a movie poster for Star Trek nebuluses where instead of our primary actors from Star Trek nemesis,

it is instead that guy from the Vori episode and maybe a really old gray to Paul. Is it team leader Brone with Tom Hardy's face? face like photoshopped on. Not quite the face you remember. Not quite. Speaking of the Zindi, we get a little hang with some of them, the arboreals and the primates, and they're pretty pissed that Degra told Archer where to find the council.

And DeGra is pretty passionately arguing for letting Archer come before the council to argue his case. maybe he's not the beast maybe he's not the nemesis that we've been led to believe this isn't a scene where trembles are being turned to rages this is a scene where degra is like kind of anti-rage

trying to suppress the rages if possible but it's also being pointed out to him that like you don't control what all of the other species do and they're going to fucking kill him before he even gets here and he's he's like all right well why don't we fast walk to the cluster

mark where the entrepreneur is coming out of the nebula corridor, and we'll defend them, we'll greet them brightly. We'll bring them right here. It's another in a long line of like very passive moves that Degris and company has made because he can't unilaterally make these decisions for the council, right? Right. He wasn't elected with a mandate, as it were. He's got a sort of built coalition. So the entrepreneur comes up. up on this nebular. And I was really surprised at how gray it was after the pink graphics that we saw on screen.

I'm a little confused by this. Are you saying that it's old? Well, I don't know if it's old because it's gray. So does that mean it's old? Or does that just mean it's gray? In a deep space context, isn't everything gray, Ben? You know what?

I think we've fathomed something pretty deep at this point. it is the weirdest thing for Enterprise to hold short on the doorstep of this thing and have another NX class starship head right for them they're talking about maybe this is the NXO2 like did they send that and they're just getting to us to help I'm thinking because we've watched so much new Star Trek in the last few years is this a mirror universe NX Enterprise

I don't know what's happening here. It is not. It is an even more fucked up version of their very own ship. It's like all of the battle damage that they have plus 117 years more battle damage. And the captain of this ship wants them to backwalk away from the nebula and says that there's no time to explain. And this is that older Vulcan gentleman

that Gray DePaul was talking to earlier. If you're the crew of the enterprise and you're getting this warning to get the hell away from here by your own ship, are you more scared of what they're warning you about, or are you more scared of this enterprise? Like, it's hard in this moment to tell what the real thread is, because I don't trust these guys in the beginning. Yeah, they're not even wearing fleet colors, you know? Like, this guy's just in, like, TNG away mission peasant costume. When they first meet, most of the conversation is about what, happened to the colors and, like, eventually you stopped doing laundry long enough where the

garment just kind of disintegrates over a period of time. There was a bit of a fashion early on where, like, we just weren't bathing or cleaning ourselves, and the clothing just kind of rotted away eventually. And so that's kind of how that trend came to its natural conclusion. That's why when that enterprise docs with this one and the door rolls open, it is like, oh, God. Oh, no. No. Oh! You've never seen somebody step onto your own ship and say this place is a tomb? Yeah. If we change the words, then it's fair use all day long.

This guy, Lorian, comes aboard and greets them brightly. He also introduces his first officer, Karen Archer. And she's got some unusual loaf that we haven't seen. before. If Benjamin R. Harrison were introduced to some strangers who told you they had vital information, and in this group of people, a person was introduced to you using first and last names and say maybe this lady's last name was R. Harrison, would your first move be to ask a follow-up question or take the group to a conference room? I wanted

fucking Archer to stop right there and ask what Karen Archer that's my last name what's that about what a funny coincidence where you from

so they're warned if you go through that corridor in the nebular you will be thrown back from the now 117 years into the way before which I'm guessing

would be 404. The thing is, these tellings are not sufficiently convincing. We must get a flashback so that we can see. Where are we? Captain, the stars. They're not where they're supposed to be. Maybe there's a way we can use this to our advantage. How? Unclear whether or Archer and everyone else in the conference room can see this flashback or if it's just for our benefit? You think that's bad? This is like that time I tried to go through the nebula corridor and the nebuluses attacked me and chased me into a time hole. There is nothing understandable about the impression you did or the references of it that anyone that's not an FOD would understand.

Let's use, hey, Rob, let's use this as the clip for this week's episode. Just fucking challenge people on social media to see what the fuck this podcast even is. I was struck in the flashback

about just how saving private Ryan-y it was, like the stroby frame rate effect of it. Yeah. I thought was like right over the plate

for a saving Private Ryan war movie scene. Right. Like war movie flashback is what they're going for and what they're hitting. They explain, like, the theory is that there was something about the impulse wake of the entrepreneur that caused the corridor to turn into a time hole instead of just a fast forward hole. And they couldn't go back through, it's like one-way trip.

Once you go through this thing, you cannot go back to the present. The description of the corridor that Lorian gives to the group is like, the ship went into this thing and it just thrashed it going through it. And it made the corridor not really usable for a period of time. And to Paul shoots Tripp Tucker a look, like kind of a knowing look. Like he's supposed to get it, but I don't think Tripp Tucker's getting it, is he? I don't think I'll be taking home the Nobel Prize anytime soon. No, he doesn't really, he doesn't really glimpse the fullness of what is being described here. It seems to have like maybe a bit a bit of a shortcoming in terms of empathizing with that as a situation but yeah so they're like

talking about it uh 117 years in the past and they're like well we can't go back to earth because that would fuck up the timeline there but maybe we can figure out a way to prevent the attack in the now and if not for us for our descendants so like they they talk about how they sort of reimagined the NXO1 as a generation ship that would kind of bite its time and look for an opportunity to cut off the Zindy attack like 110 years later. My dad spent the rest of his life getting thrown into and then breaking out of jails just for years and years, just waiting. What a weird passive plan to go back in time and decide.

I said, nope, I'm just going to wait, and then I will warn. I know, because it's like, couldn't you just kill Space Hitler? Like, Degra's, like, going to be a baby at some point in that period. It's what makes the failure that we see in the cold open to actually send the warning about the test weapon, so much more galling. Like, you had hundreds of years to prepare for this moment. You knew exactly where and when things were going to happen, and you blew it. You blew it.

That may be why Archer and Topal are not completely convinced by their tellings. Yeah, yeah. So we cut back to the present and Lorian is like, we're going to help you stop the attack by souping up your engines. We can get you guys going like a couple of warp factors faster with all of the technology we've been able to trade for over these last several decades. So you don't need to even go through. through this nebula and meet the nebuluses, you can go around and still get to your rendezvous on time.

Yeah, I mean, you don't even need a corridor to do what you want to do. You can just like mess around with the spheres, maybe go in between those for a while. But Archer and Topal want a little bit more verification. So we go to Six Bay and Flox opens up a big manila envelope and tells Archer, you are the father's father. It's interesting how up until this point, wasn't Archer kind of made to feel like Degrah and company? Like in the whole, I don't believe what those people are telling me

until I'm given proof sufficient to prove it? Big claims require big proof. And Degras little buddies are going through a similar... credulity challenge. Mm-hmm. We learned that Lorian's daddy is Tripp Tucker. The corridor was fixed. Wait, I got a question.

Who technically gave birth to Lorian? Because, you know, pregnancy is that I have a complicated relationship with it as a thing. Maybe I should be more empathetic to holes being wrecked in that. way because of that. Is there any way there could be a sort of armpit-based pregnancy and delivery

between a human and a Vulcan? Has anybody gotten a good whiff of Lurian? What does he smell like? Does he smell like these pits? Doctor? I think it's very funny how much credit Dr. Flax takes for

the great medical discovery of Vulcans and humans procreating. But the detail he leaves out is whether or not he invented a medical intervention sufficient to like allow this to happen or if he failed to invent a sort of plan V necessary to stop the pregnancy. We don't know that. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't seem like he nullied a pregnancy. No. But like, I mean, I guess Seric owes him a huge debt of gratitude. or does he? I mean, Seric never really seemed to like completely love,

love his son that much. Maybe his other son he liked. Yeah, weird. Because Seric is always bagging earth batty's, but it doesn't seem to like the kids they shit out. Maybe if I sent Cerick a bottle of these pills. His family planning would be, far easier

It's sort of funny They're diamond shaped But they're green Not blue So Archer's log tells us That he's approved the plan To do the modifications of the engines And in engineering

Trip Tucker and Sun Are collaborating on doing these mods And they're getting along great Yeah And the cats in the cradle In the Silver Spoon Little boy blue And the man on the move

It's so weird because like Trip is not a Vulcan And a little country sounding And like his curiosity about His son Seems so loaded with The emotion you'd expect from a father Who wants to know his son

But also knows the danger of knowing your son Too well because of paradoxes and so forth Yeah Yeah. It's a heartwarming scene where you sort of wonder who is drilling whom, you know, the older son or the younger father who we learned passed away when Lorian was 14, but did a really nice job before that. He was a good dad before that. Was he like old dad? Because like, because, you know, to Paul at this point and, you know, gray to Paul, presumably like three, four hundred years old, right? Like we. Yeah, yeah. We know that to Paul. Paul is super old. We don't exactly know how old, but I'm wondering if Tripp was like, you know, 75 years old or something when they finally got around to conceiving. I got a young man's arm nipples and a billionaire's dick. Hey, Lorian, you want to play some catch with your old man?

the ball comes back and his arm just falls off Archer gets a tour of the other ship the even more fucked up entrepreneur from Karen Archer his great granddaughter and she tells him about how much flocks used to fuck many of our crew are descendants of flocks

he and Amanda had nine children. Yeah, he attempted to single-handedly repopulate the ship with all the children that he made. Yeah, and also about how Archer married an Icaran woman, and I was like, Ecaron, Karen, Karen, is that why her name is Karen? Yeah, yep, I think so. I, Karen? Yeah.

One of my favorite Asimov novels. What a scene over there. Kids and olds. Playing. Totally oblivious to the stink? Mm-hmm. Yeah. They haven't been by the airlock.

They haven't smelt what the other ship has dealt. Legally, it's just a fur joke. You will never take the greatest shit alive. Ben would rather die. The whole double enterprise thing explains why when Archer was interrogated, how he was asked over and over again how many Federation starships were stuck in the expanse, right? Didn't you start to puzzle that together? Right.

There have been unverified censor indications that the Zindy have picked up that indicate to them that perhaps there are other Federation ships and the Xindy's. expanse, and this is why. Degra's warning, though, to Archer, was that there's a denobulant in there that will fuck all of your women. Like, that's the true danger. I mean, the ship mildly threatening. It is very damaged, but there's a denobulant on board. Holy moly.

Our scientists refer to him as the denobulant fuck machine. And, you know, we're just asking you to be careful about that. He's a denobulant fuck machine, and he keeps his giant shoes on during. Surprise, Archer. You're meeting Gray to Paul. Yeah. Who you didn't even know was over here. She wants to know about Tripp.

And she also wants Archer to take this iPad from her to pass off to his science officer. That's just regular to Paul, right? Yeah. Yep. Archer takes the pad and it's just like canasta. I was trying to think of an old person game, but I kind of stalled out there. Yeah, I thought you were going to say it was horse playing saxophone. How great is Julian Blaylock at playing old here?

I was really impressed by this because it feels like it would be so easy to go too far with the shakes and the groans getting up and sitting down. and so forth. Sure, sure. She was really not cartoonish about it in a way that gave this role some serious weight. I liked it. Did you feel like there was a very different loaf on her in these scenes versus in the cold open? Because in the cold open, I was like, whoa, that is really rough, like, TNG Dr. McCoy-level old age. And then in these scenes, I was like, oh, no, it's actually.

like pretty good and I was wondering if it was like a lighting change or if they'd like redone the loaf but didn't have time to reshoot everything or what I wonder if you got more used to it too the more time it's on screen the more you kind of settle for it maybe so yeah you become loaf accustomed we cut to the mess hall where hoshi and mayweather talk about who their future selves dick down and when reed rolls up and and they ask him about who his future self-fucked? The answer is very sad. You'd think on a ship quite this size

I would have been able to find someone, but... Yeah. Reed does not exactly have a gloried future. Presumably he died upturned on the version of the entrepreneur that went through the time hole. He was made 50 years a cuck, and then he died. Like, everyone is desperate to procreate,

and no one will fuck Reed. It's incredible. You know, finding your ship explains a few things. It appears as though I missed the target in just so many ways. I loved the Steve McQueen film, 50 years a cuck, by the way. Maybe the best movie I've ever seen. How great is it that Hoshi and Mayweather just do not want to be around that energy? Like, as soon as they recognize what's happened here, they are like,

there is no fixing this social situation? No. I would rather take a shower right now than do this conversation in this moment. The least cool thing you can do in our social situation right now is take a shower, and that's what I'm going to go do rather than hang around wet blanket Reed. See you later, sir. How about Reed once they go, though, like... Immediately catching eyes with a babe.

Well, like, I better get all of these turndown started now. It's so fucking aspirational to be like, no. Like, I refuse to take, like, a defeat as an answer. I'm going to fucking find my way out of this. My dick will not go into this good night. I will dump into a willing partner. To Paul reports back to Archer on what's on this iPad. And the bad news is Lorien's plan of souping up the

entrepreneurs' engines won't work and could blow up the damn ship. But maybe we can do the original plan of going through the space butthole with modified impulse manifolds, and we won't go into the hereafter or whatever. Topal kind of uncomfortably shifts her weight, like she's still feeling some pain from the whole trip situation. Yeah, she's got the trembles Downstairs I mean the mods to do that

Are only going to take 12 hours And given the decision Between exploding the ship And doing this It seems pretty obvious Which direction they need to go They've been toiling on Laurean's plan

And pretty soon they are Toiling on Gray-to-Paul's plan And Lorian catches wind of this And does not think that this is very sharp. I think it's because he wanted his idea to be gloried, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's Vulcan, but he's also human and he's got a little bit of a fucking ego on him. The confrontation here is great because Archer's like, you know, if there was a chance that Enterprise would explode, you know, by going too fast, it's good to know a percentage. Chance of that, if you're

the captain and when that percentage is greater than one percent i would like to know which is why when 22 percent is the truth of the risk yeah that's pretty big it feels uh like too high a risk how about lorian though being like the reason i didn't tell you about the percentage was both because uh i wanted to be gloried for the plan but also being destroyed is better than the lives we've Yikes. Yeah. He would like, you know, engineering help from Lurian's people. But Lurian kind of focuses all his energy on how mad he is at Gray to Paul. This was exactly the moment in the episode once we started getting these conflicts where I was like, why is no one talking about the idea that if this or any of the plans work, that Lorean's timeline ceases to exist?

the paradoxiness does not seem to be on anybody's mind in a way that felt strange yes i think in other time travel episodes people take a moment to talk about what will happen to yeah you know one or the other of the time travelers that have met in a timeline there's a sharing of a polarite picture with a couple of people in it in various stages of disappearing you might go to a diner with your counterpart who recently, you know, decided not to execute you and have a conversation about how annoying that is. I don't want to talk about time travel shit. Because if we start talking about it, then we're going to be here all day talking about

and making diagrams with straws. Tripp Tucker might accidentally fuck Gray to Paul. Your corridor, I can barely feel it. There's no way. I could damage this corridor. Tepal, are you awake? So Lorian has decided that he's going to fast walk his own ship to the cluster mark with DeGra and take matters into his own hands with DeGra, but they're going to have to steal

warp plasma injectors from the less fucked up entrepreneur in order to do that. and he really feels that like if they don't do this the earth will be nullied so uh you know as much as it breaks his heart to do this to his own ship and his own ancestors that's what he feels he must for the viewer i wonder if this betrayal feels a little more okay given that jonathan archer himself did this very thing not that long ago did you think about that here Like, absent that, I think this is such a huge offense. It's dirty and awful to even suggest it. But Archer just did it.

Yeah, Archer just did this. This is established practice in the expanse. Like stealing from a thief suddenly feels okay. Right. I loved the staging of this scene because they're having this kind of close, hushed conversation, Lurion and his co-conspirators aboard his ship. And they've got all these, like, vertical things in front of the camera that are kind of in soft focus, but they have blinky lights on them. Yeah.

It just, I don't know. It, like, it was a nice little element that lent to the closeness and secretiveness of the scene. This is a Roxanne Dawson episode. So not a surprise that there's something else going on with these compositions. Yeah. Soon after, Trip Tucker and Tepal talk about the sun they'll have together in the future. and the beachy details of the wedding that they'll have.

Who would have thought? You and me, huh? And Tepal is not trying to play this game because future events aren't certain. She's like pretty new to the idea of time travel being possible in the first place and is also just like not down with the you've developed an emotional attachment to me,

Tripp Tuckerness of the conversation. she would never because she's Vulcan. Just because he's busted in her cluster mark, doesn't mean there's anything long term that has to happen here. Yeah, that doesn't make him sharp forever. No. Meanwhile, in engineering a heist is afoot, and Tripp kind of just stumbles into this

because their defenders don't slide themselves when they're doing their warp injector heist. What a bad time Tripp chooses to enter the scene, right? I love that Tripp goes into like fatherly advice mode with Lauren. Now, let me tell you, son. Lorraine, you can't just take my car. You got to ask to borrow it first, and you got to tell me where you're going. I got to check if you're even on my insurance.

I mean, it's probably right, because you're like in my household, but I don't know. This is all new to me. Tripp gets shot for his trouble here. Lurian not trying to hear him in this exact moment. He's like, you're not even my real dad because you haven't been through a time vortex and shot 117 years into the past.

I mean, like, technically speaking, you are the person that will become my real dad, but not yet. I'm older than you even. You know, fucked up that makes me feel? it's like if de paul married someone else after you died and that person was younger than me and i still have to call him dad would you like that it's fucked up man fuck you so he shoots him yeah i won't cease or desist because you really think it's fair use archer is on the bridge

when the heisters are trying to escape and the the gray entrepreneur is trying to get out of there. And Archer wants to null leave their warped nacelles so that they can't go. And this is a very even fight, you know, like two perfectly evenly matched ships. It's like when you play Street Fighter Championship Edition and both of you choose Chun Li. Right. It just comes down to strategy. Sure. Yeah. And, you know, who can mash those buttons the best. Yeah.

And that's an interesting question, right? Like, I mean, these guys have had their hands on this ship for a lot longer. Weren't you disappointed in Gray Enterprise's ability to fight here, given that? No wonder they let the Zindy weapon get past him. They kind of suck at this. They don't have Starfleet training, you know? Like, the fight is really rough, and the entrepreneur regular loses weps. But Topal has gone down to the transporter controls and just started beaming critical ship

systems out of the gray entrepreneur. I love this. So they stopped being able to do anything. They just never thought of that. And so Archer signals the other ship and is like, hey, we could trade back. You can give us our plasma injectors again. And we can give you your manifolds and whatnot. Lorien's got one last torpedo.

And that's his leverage. He's got to think about it. He is made to think differently by Karen Archer, though. and Archer does not want to keep fighting and threatens to stop Lorian by force. Yeah, she actually does ask to speak to Lorian's manager. And he's like, I guess that's great to pull. I mean, I'm not really sure how that works. Lorian stands down and arranges a meeting with Archer, which takes place in the brig.

I love how he's like, so is your brig booked? Maybe we could do this over there. Was Lorean acting logically? Is the question in this scene? Attacking your ancestors doesn't sound very logical to me. You wouldn't understand. I think the answer is no. He's like, I feel responsible for what happened to Florida.

And he explains, like, we could have, like, kamikazied our ship into the test probe and stopped the destruction. Florida, but I didn't because of my weak-ass human emotions. My fucking trembles got in the way of everything. Lorian is revealed to be a full Lenny

here. You had a hundred years to prepare for this moment and your big idea was collision course. And then when the moment comes, you you flinch? Lorian sucks at this. Maybe he should shroud himself in the brig, but

Archer is too much of an attaboy type captain and he's like man like brush yourself off i need your help man you're not in jail anymore i know if you get the chance you'll ram your ship into that planet killing weapon but in the meantime why don't you help me get my enterprise through the corridor in exchange for your freedom that seems like a pretty good deal delorean right It's a new light for Lorian, indeed. So regular to Paul goes and pays a visit to Gray to Paul. And interesting moment.

I thought the eyelines were a little messed up in the scene, but the fact that the camera is like moving around and Jolian Blaylock is like handing stuff back and forth to herself was really impressively done. Like overall, one of the better two characters in a scene being played by one actor that we've ever gotten in Star Trek. Agreed.

They're kind of talking through the last details of how to fix up the impulse drive so that it doesn't cause this go back into the past accident this time. And it's just like some techno babble shit. It's icebreaker stuff, right? Because what Gray-Tal Paul really wants to talk about is the younger to Paul's trillium addiction. Yeah, you still got those trillium trembles. and it looks like those are trembles that you can't ever totally wrestle to rages. But there is a way to channel those

trembles and rages into something positive. Take your emotional frustrations out on Tripp's pelvis. Trim can be an outlet for these feelings. You've got to nully that D to Paul. Yeah. I know this is a lot to fathom right now. You got to have your trembles dick down. Here's a question for you, Ben.

Yeah. Would you accept or reject advice given to you by your future self? Hmm. Because in the Topal context, there is the whole squishy feelings about time travel, but also when confronted with undeniable truth, like your future gray self. Like, you got to believe that part of it. But, like, if you truly do believe. leave in free will, the advice you're given by you could be very manipulative, right?

Your future self has all sorts of reasons to try to tell you to do something that you wouldn't ordinarily do. I don't know if I trust me from the future. I think that if I imagine my present self talking to my past self, my past self was too much of an arrogant dickhead to hear any of the, like, good advice that present me would be able to give that guy? It seems like past Ben needs a little bit of an ass kicking by present Ben. Yeah. So I wonder if present me would be any better at hearing what future me has to say. Oh, interesting.

Or if as the years go by, you're just less and less open to the advice given to you by future self. Yeah, yeah. Like time traveling future Ben Harrison, like comes back. in time, and he's like, I didn't go back far enough. Nope, I didn't go back far enough still. God, these guys are so stubborn. I was looking for putty, and I got fucking granite.

This sucks. Also, like, it seems strange statistically that they're all sick. Like, everyone I visit? I'm just picking these dates and times out of a hat, and it's like, fucking get yourself together, man. I'm going to start. taking vitamins with me on these visits. So they're they head into the cloud for real this time and we start to get like

Mutara nebula style flickers on the screen. It's really messing with sensors and like we learned in an earlier scene that part of the idea was that they can shroud themselves somewhat by going through a certain part of the nebula and make the nebuluses less able to track them because of sensor echoes and shit like that. But pretty quickly the nebulousists catch them and surprise, it was actually both entrepreneurs going in. They were flying in tight formation. A cluster maybe?

Yeah, I guess so. So we get, you know, like I think there's three nebulouses and two entrepreneurs fighting this time. And that surprise is enough to scare them away initially. But the primary drive coil gets knocked out on the regular entrepreneur. And the gray entrepreneur goes and tractor beams them while they get attacked by four nebuluses. And I was like, nobody's talking about tractor beam? Like, this is fucking huge.

Like, Reed should be like going absolutely crazy. Like, they figured that's a way to do this with energy and not metal. There's some sort of laser grappler that has got us in its energy claw. I know this makes me sound like a novice, but what a sharp invention. They're all surprisingly chill about this tractor beam. Yeah. Thanks for the lift. We'll see you on the other side.

I think it's because they got their hands so full. The nebuluses are just dropping all sorts of bangers on. to him. And once they realize that maybe a strategic victory isn't going to work, Lorian changes his plan. Yeah. He tells Archer's enterprise, look, I'm going to just like do that thing that you do on an inner tube when you're dragged behind a boat. I'm just going to kind of crack the whip. And your enterprise is going to coast into this corridor. Yeah. He turns and kind of fights a rear guard action of a defender while the regular entrepreneur coasts through that hole. And they come out the other side, having traveled 11.6 light years, and not backwalked in time.

The stars are in the right place. The other guys just don't show up. They never show up to the cluster mark. They're waiting for the gray entrepreneur to come through. And then Archer and to Paul have a little conversation like, did those guys even exist because we went, like, did we, did we nully their entire existence by going through the hole and not traveling back in time? Hard to say. Hard to say if the paradox is resolved or if they went into the hereafter, like, fighting off the nebulous is to defend us and let us complete our mission. They don't get too long to consider this, the possibilities of this, before Degra rolls up and greets because they are at the time and place that they plan to meet each other. And that's the end of the episode.

What a weird tone to end with. Yeah. You're early? Like, it's funny because it's like the entire time, it's like, oh, are we going to make this? Are we going to make this in time? Like we got to decide whether we're going around the nebula or we're going through it. We're going back in time. Oh, we, after all that, we got here early?

Yeah, and like given the time traveling nature of this thing, like, does being later early even matter in any sort of context? Did we time travel a little bit? And that's why we're here early? Yeah. Just a little tiny bit of time travel. Not so much that you would notice, but enough to like make a difference in punctuality. I don't mind doing a little bit of time travel If it's the weekend

Did you like this episode Ben I can't pay Could for late Got no case Tempting bait Yeah I think it's an interesting one Interesting challenge to our characters I guess I don't understand

The decision that they make when they first go back in time Like let's just hang out for a hundred and seven Yeah. I'm going to save my comments for my term, but holy shit. Really bad. You got to swallow a lot to swallow that. Because like, you know, this is in the post-voyager era where like accepting a generation ship life sentence was like a no fucking way to Starfleet officers. And it's just hard to imagine them going like, well, I guess we'll hang out. Like, you know, find some some trading to do never fix the ship up much like all of that is tough to swallow but if you're able to set it aside i like the challenge that it presents to the entrepreneur and to the

gray entrepreneur when we get that so yeah i guess i guess mixed feelings but overall i i enjoyed the episode how about you i think you're right that the problem is every other experience we've had seeing time travel stories told in science fiction that makes a decision that goes something like on the one hand the extermination of the human race and the destruction of our home planet

versus an unknowable pollution to the timeline right right if I know the one thing to be a certainty and the other thing to not be a certainty I'm polluting the timeline. I'm saving the planet. How is that even a question?

And that this episode doesn't even have the curiosity to give us a scene where like, give us the flashback to that. Help me understand Lurion better. Because absent that, not only do we not understand Lurian just generally because we don't spend a lot of time with him or his decisions, we don't experience the foundational moment of his life. Does the episode confuse what that is? Is the foundational moment of his life the regret he feels about waiting all that time and then failing in his mission? I guess that's it. Like, Laurean's big regret guy instead of I made a bad decision guy.

And that's his deal. I kept thinking about how hard it is for people a lot of the time to, like, empathize with people that they haven't met, you know? like people that they don't know or haven't met like it's it's like maybe one of the biggest problems in the entire world is like the failures of empathy at large and small scales that just happen when there's like an in-group and an out-group or a like a kind of person that is like unknown to another kind of person who happens to have power and it's so interesting to think of this small group of people who are like are on this ship and kind of take it as an article of faith because their parents told them so that what they have to do with their life

is stay on this ship so that they can be in the right place at the right time in 117 years to stop a single event in history from taking place. And like what a fucking trip that is. And for those kids and grandkids not to feel a little bit like burdened and like I have no freedom because a guy named Archer made a decision like decades. ago? Like, that sucks. I really like your version of this episode, Ben, because if all of these scenes where Karen Archer and Laurian are interacting with these past people, if those scenes are injected with that kind of subtext, where there's some resentment there? Yeah. Yeah. How much more

interesting does this episode become? I think a lot more interesting. Yeah. As it is, you have to like judge this episode up with a lot of vorty tellings. You do. Look, I love Gray to Paul. I think she's great. I wish Lorien was more interesting. I just don't think he was enough to be the

tortured central character of this thing, given the decisions that he made didn't make a lot of sense. You've got to have his motivations totally set in stone and understandable for this to work, I think, and they just don't.

Well, want to see if there's anything that works in the Priority One inbox? I'm going to go over there and glimpse them, Ben. Let's fast walk over there. I crave it. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. You need a supplemental income. Supplement. Supplement.

Yeah, it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Ben, we've got a promotional Priority One message. here. Here's how that goes. Trek fans know the Elanulan attack on Twittermer drove

Warth to the Fediverse. Wow. That means that my new book Move Slowly and Build Bridges is canonical Trek. Move Slowly is a book about Mastodon. The Federated Twitter

Alternative. It's an academic book, so it has plenty of footnotes for Lawyer Picard, but it's written for a broad audience, so it's perfect for all Friends of DeSoto everywhere, including members of Friends of DeSoto.com. Wow. So here's the call to action.

Order move slowly and build bridges. Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the struggle for democratic social media, wherever you buy books. And this one is written by Robert W. Gale. Wow. And that's spelled G.E.H.L. in case you're looking up this book by its author. Oh, yeah, that's a good call.

I have to say, I do enjoy reading a nonfiction academic book every so often. This one sounds right up my alley. I might order myself a copy of Move Slowly and Build Bridges, which is a great title. Good stuff. Good stuff by Robert W. Gale. Pick it up. And thanks for the shout out to our Friends of DeSoto page over there.

Oh, yeah. Friends of DeSoto.Soto, dot social, a thriving community over there on Macedon. And if you're in a trying to get out of the toxic soup of social media, but still wanting to engage with people on the internet, headspace, that might be a great place to look. This next P1 is from Matt, from Denver. It's to Ben, Adam, Wendy, Rob, and Bill. It goes like this. Spotify keeps sending me to other podcasts.

Last time to TGT. time to Polly Amateur Hour, which I think is canonical TG now. I just finished season six of TNG with you all, and it's been great. The veto of vetoes has to end, though. Keep up the great work. Can you play the worst drop you have? Wow. That from Denver, having just finished season six of TNG, has a lot of episodes to get to find out what the worst drop we have is.

But, well, here it is. Hey, nerds, I'm Will Wheaton. Yeah, also, Matt, don't tell me what to do. Vito whatever I want. And I'll counter veto it. God damn it. You're going to find out. If you'd like to get a P1 on the show, we surely encourage you to do so.

It is maximum fun.org slash jumbotron. I'm seeing P1 start to fill up toward the end of the year here. So if you'd like to get one in before the end of 20. I would jump on it right away and if you'd like to get one for early 2026 uh you know no time like the present claim those dates hey ben what's that adam did you find yourself a drunk schmota oh come on it's got to be read the episode is making fun of read read is almost too sad But you're right It has to be Reed

It's got to be read Reed gets basically one scene And it is to cut his nuts off Yeah have we ever seen a character Get His Nullied this badly For as little screen time as they get Here's a follow-up question to that Is it made worse

That it's Hoshi and Mayweather Like celebrating their sexual victories Because like both of these characters attractive, social, well-liked by other crew people, but not like, they're not trip-tuckering around. Right, right. They're not, like, captain of the football squad guys. And I think part of what hurts is that Hoshi and Mayweather

are just like normal crew people, and they had kids in a family. And from the sound of it, like, kind of easily. Yeah, yeah, no big deal for us. How about you? Oh. You don't have one of these, do you? And just the react to stepping in that social piece of shit next to their table in the lunchroom.

That's rough. It's rough for everyone involved. I think the thing that really seals the deal as the Shimoda, though, is the, like, turning to see a babe and being like, well, perhaps an opportunity has presented itself, in fact. I wonder if that moment wasn't shot for safety or something that happened to many drafts down the line in this script. Because try to imagine this episode without that moment. And instead, the scene ends with Reed going, oh, my God, like, no one loves me.

No one will ever love me enough to want to have a kid with me. And then, like, he, like, Bill Murray's a spoon of food up to his mouth and then, like, set it down because. he's so sad he can't even eat it's too sad you have to give him that hope kind of a lot is done by those couple seconds at the end of that scene is what i'm saying faith of the fart you want to see what's done by the next episode adam and how we will do the next episode i'm dying to find out it's season three episode 22 of star trek enterprise it is called the council And Hoshi stand before the Zindy Council as to Paul and Reed lead a team into the heart of a sphere. Wow.

I mean, we've been inside a sphere before, right? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. This is the big climax? Is it like a sphere of sphere builder, or is it a sphere of the weapon, though? Right. Maybe it's that sphere. The confusing thing is that so many things are spherical on this show. It's hard to keep them straight.

Yeah. Like DePaul going into a sphere. It's like spheres inside spheres inside spheres. Really is. Yeah. And then when I blow on my forearm, spheres on spheres next to spheres going into spheres. That's a good point.

Never really thought of it that way. Game of Buttholes. Will the Reiki Quantum Leap is where we find out how we will engage with the next episode, Ben. Gox.biz slash game. That's where you can find it if you're following along. All right. Currently, I runabout is on Square 96,

the Brone Zone episode that everyone has enjoyed. Mm-hmm. Up until now. If you roll 100, we could just do this again. We could just keep doing this. Please, God, don't let that happen. You're required to learn as you play. Roll.

Ben, I have rolled a 30. what does that mean it means we have another special episode again no way you ready we have landed on square 26 the zindi art

oh shit olivery it's the antidote it's hard to imagine five sentient species evolving on the same planet five I suppose there are now

For the very first time, we will be taking shots of five different alcohols during the episode. Oh, man. It's the premiere of a new square. I'm glad that we got this, like, within the context of the actual Zindi arc. Yeah, right? Because it would feel weird to have had this on the board the whole time and never hit it. Yeah. But I'm also dreading this.

I hope I'm done with my course of antibiotics by then. I mean, we have to obey the game. If you're on the antibiotics, you still need to take your five shots. I'm sure my doctor will understand that when I have to, like, go back for, like, last-line antibiotics because... Looked at your blood work, Benjamin, and it's all gin. Wow. What a thing. Yeah.

Interesting role, Adam. Also interesting is the fact that thousands of friends of DeSoto choose to support. whatever this is on a monthly basis by going to maximum fund.org slash join. And boy, do we appreciate them for doing so. Keeps the lights on around here, keeps this thing going, keeps us in amazing teammates. Like, for example, Wendy Pritty, our producer and editor, who edited this into something coherent. Also got to thank Rob Adler, our social media guy.

And as of this recording, newly a dad. Congratulations to Rob. Rob did what Reed could never do. With all the time in his life. Indeed. We got to thank our Zindy Wartime Consigliary, Bill Tilley, helping out on the social medias and screening our inbox. If you'd like to send something in for a future Code 47,

slide into the DMs on the At Greatest Trek social media accounts. Talk to Bill. Just remember if you send something gross, we're going to make Bill eat it. he loves it too Bill you sick fuck so don't do it gotta thank Adam Ragusea

our buddy with whom we make Holsom a show that I'm very proud of it's over there on patreon.com slash wholesome underscore pod

it is a weekly patrons only show about things we'd really like it's a good way to get to know me and Adam and Adam

a little bit better and we work really hard on it. I hope we'll give it a try. He also does, of course, the music for this show. We should also mention Dark Materia who made the original card song for you're hearing under our voices now. So with that, we'll be back at you.

Next time with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise, an episode of the Greatest Generation Enterprise where Adam and I really do our darned us to think of what aquatic zindi booze would be. Salty. Brainy. Yeah, maybe so.

Dirty martini. Make it so. Captain Jean-Lupaccaro of the U.S. Captain, Jean-Lu Picard of the U.S. and surprise. Make it so. You know, what Reed shoots may be in a field. Effective, but it is delicious. Cannons are ready.

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