The Greatest Generation - Ratchet Cube (VOY S6E16)

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

When the Delta Flyer gets captured by the li’lest Borg collective, Seven beams over to find neonatal drones holding the away team hostage. But when Ensign Kim starts throwing wooden shoes into the cube’s shield generator, the standoff over Voyager’s deflector pushes Captain Janeway toward a moral dilemma. What could be worse than a botched circumcision? Is Mezoti more Newt or more Samara? Who gives the keynote at SpaceyCon each year? It’s the episode with an avoidable case of pink eye!Support the production of The Greatest Generation.Friends of DeSoto for Democracy.Friends of DeSoto for Justice. Friends of DeSoto for Labor.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 YouTube.Facebook group | Subreddit | Discord | WikiSign up for our mailing list!Get a thing at podshop.biz!

Pit, pit, guffna! To share your embarrassment tour, rolls on. Yeah, we're going to London next. Yeah. Pretty sure we'll survive it, but not 100% sure. Yeah, get yourself a ticket. It's greatestjentour.com. We are roasting Star Trek 5 this time.

Come on. Come on! What's it going to take to put you in a Star Trek 5 roast today? Ticket still available for Chicago, Minneapolis, Boston, and Brooklyn right after we get home from London. It is a touring crucible for me and Ben, and we're doing it all for the FODs out there. Get yourself a ticket at greatestjentour.com. Right now, greatestjTour.com, right now, ChrisJentTour.com.

Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Watch your bad shot, come loose. I'm Captain Captain Bringsden where the U.S. is for. And Captain Captain Captain Bringsden where the U.S. is for. And Captain Captain Captain Captain. Welcome to the greatest generation. It's a Star Trek podcast.

Back up a little guys. Just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranaka. Welcome to the show Adam. I hope you're feeling extra brainy today. I am not. Ben, have you ever been to a two-day Polish wedding? I just was. I cannot say that I have and I've got a sneaking suspicion that it's one of those things where if you remember being to a two-day Polish wedding, you may be lying about me. I have a two-day Polish wedding. It was incredible. You would have loved it so much. It was in Chicago, FODs who have

listened to the show for years and years will remember that I went to Poland five years ago to visit family. I didn't know I had. And this family has remained in close contact ever since. And one of the youngest family members got married over the weekend, one of our favorites, and had this two day wedding, the customary Polish two day wedding I'd learned. And let me tell you something, man. It is not just like a wedding and a reception and like a smaller second day reception that's like a nothing hang. This was balls to the wall, two hour Catholic mass into eight hour reception two hour Catholic mass into eight hour reception at a party hall that went until four in the morning on day one and then the very next day another reception that went from four until 10 tons of food all the lemon cello and vodka like bottles of lemon cello and vodka on every table and then there were 500 people at this wedding reception. Oh my God. It was a fucking blowout.

It was so much fun. Everyone was so nice. And also out of 500 people, I think, me and my wife for one of the 10 people who didn't speak Polish. And that did not stop the fun for us at all. Because the universal language at a Polish wedding is eat and drink. Yeah, it's shot of vodka.

Incredible time. Wow. I have so much love for my Polish family and so much appreciation for their patience for me and my wife because like, again, I can't emphasize this enough. I know four words in Polish. It's thank you, it's cheers, and it's grandma and grandpa. That's it. Which one is jinkoui? Jinkoui is thank you. Oh, okay. And I was told by the people who know some English that that is really all you need. Yeah.

You can really get by there. So we can't wait to go back now. Our interest in the Polish culture has been reawakened after a long time away from our beloved Polish family. And this may be really bad news for you personally, but so many of them live in Chicago. So many of them really wanna come to our live show. I will remind you again,

not many of them speak good English. I will remind you that we are a lot of a set number of comps per show. Oh, no, they want to pay in support. But what I'm saying is like a large number of the audience will probably not understand the stupid things that we're doing on stage. Uh-huh. Our universal language is embarrassment though, right? I'm down to win those people over. Yeah. Are they the chair throwing type? Because I've heard that that Chicago venue can get a little rowdy.

Yeah, it sure looks that way. I think by now they've bolted down the chairs. We stay home so. Yeah, and I don't know if they sell limoncello at the city winery. But we might have to put that on a rider. How's the city winery. Yeah. But we might have to put that on a rider. How's the city winery fixed for sausages? Yeah, exactly.

This is gonna be the most Polish group of FOTs we've ever had to show. Wow. It's gonna be amazing. Well, that sounds like a blast. Was it like a mixed wedding or was like the ride in the groom both from Polish families? Hence the scale of the groom both from Polish families?

Hence the scale of the affair? Absolutely. Polish on both sides. Very, very Polish. Hot Polish on Polish action. It really was. Yeah. Very beautiful Polish people on both sides and everywhere.

Just a beautiful family all around. That's really made me look like a pilot crack. Yeah, well that's just kind of the thing at weddings, right? Like we show up not being part of the wedding party and you're like, oh man, all these people like did things to prepare for this. Yeah. I'm enthusiastically into the culture,

but like I could not participate in the Highland Dancing. I did not know any of the songs and there were so many songs played by the DJ. Like, you may be surprised to learn just how much Polish dance music exists in the world. But the playlist was like non-stop Polish bangers. And I knew none of them. That's one of the great things about going to a wedding that is like not the culture that you inhabit in your day-to-day life is like, oh man, these guys have their own little thing going to.

Yeah. One of my best friends is Somali and his wedding. They had like a singer who from what I was told is like an absolutely massive deal in the Somali community. Like, he was the wedding band and it was just like an iPod with backing tracks and him singing. But apparently Somali Instagram was absolutely flipping their shit when they saw that he was like playing this wedding.

That they got this guy, holy shit. Yeah, so like the whole wedding party was like, oh my god, like you have to see, like, like post we're going like absurdly viral, like my friend, the group was suddenly like much more famous than he'd ever been in his life. They got Somali Drake to play the wedding. Yeah. And I was like, oh yeah, he seems pretty good. Like, I don't know the type of music,

but this guy seems quite talented and I'm enjoying it, you know. It felt so good to like fuck up publicly. Like, I'm not a great dancer. I'm not a great singer, but I'm like trying to hang in this thing. But there was never a point where I felt like all of the heads turned toward the, the people who didn't know what was going on with any kind of judgment at all. Like it felt so socially supportive in the best of ways. If you have a chance to go to a wedding,

that is a culture of not your own and your an FOD out there, like do it. Do it every time. That's a great away mission, like do it. Do that. Do it every time. That's a great away mission, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, speaking of away missions outside your culture at a couple of members of the Voyager crew encounter something that they are not used to in today's episode.

Do you want to get into it and educate the friends of DeSoto a little bit at the same time? That's right Ben. Eagle Eard listeners of the end of the last episode will remember that this is an nth degree Square on the game of buttholes Will of the caretaker. And so throughout the episode Ben and I will be Drop in some science. Yeah. On the viewers about what we've learned about either the production or the actors or anything having to do with this episode. This is the product of weeks of research interviews with writers, crew members, academics who have studied this episode.

People willing to break strike rules in order to talk to us about their work. Yeah. Let's get into it, Adam. It's season six, episode 16. Collective. Reaper, of course. Unless you've got something a little bigger in your torpedo toots, I'm not turning around. The episode opens on the Delta Flyer with what I think is the first depicted poker game since Star Trek the next

generation, right? Yeah, and actually there's something pretty interesting about this scene. They're playing poker on the Delta Flyer. It's the away team. And this was lifted from a script that was written for the series finale of TNG. Originally, Picard was the Nielix part in this scene. So that scene at the end of the series finale when Picard sits down to play, it just fades out and plays the music in what went to air. But originally Picard was like terrible poker face, like, you know, saying the thing about how he needed a heart,

frowning when he obviously did not get a heart, the worst kind of person to play poker with. I don't know what you're talking about. This is the first time I played. What is it called? Poker. Right, yeah. And it just really ended on, you know,

a sad trombone of Picard being terrible at poker. Yeah, and it just really ended on, you know, a sad trombone of Picard being terrible at poker. The stakes seem too damn high here, right? Because they're not just playing for chips. No. Or replicator credits or whatever. They're playing for labor. Because what is shoved into the pot toward the end of this hand is who gets a day off in the morning? Yeah. And this is Tom Parris' suggestion when he realizes that Neelix probably

has a dog-shed hand. So he's like, you know, I have better than one and four odds of winning this. So why not? I think when you're on an away mission on a shuttle or the Delta flyer or you're going to a conference or whatever. I think what we've learned over the years on Star Trek

is that you need one guy sitting in the front seat looking out the window at all times. You need someone up there going, Borg's cube, right ahead. Ha, ha, ha, ha. I was so distracted in this scene because the betting action seemed to be going right to left.

Yeah, it's insane. It's like, what is this? That's not how poker works. It's not how any of it works. Maybe hundreds of years in the future, something changes about poker, but I don't know, man. So it's, oh my God, we're about to hit this thing into theme. And after the theme, I was wondering immediately how they got so close to this thing without knowing it.

And they answered that question in like the first line of dialogue, like dispersal field, baby. Yeah. And this is like an unusual looking cube. It's very like raggedy. It's a little bit de-sheveled. It's a ratchet cube cube. It's very like raggedy. It's a little bit de-sheveled. It's a ratchet cube. Business.

And it's chasing the Delta Flyer. An uneven fight by any measure. Is it chasing the Delta Flyer? I feel like it could just sit back and lay there. While the Delta Flyer does its flying business all around, you know? Yeah, you might have a point. I mean, the Delta Flyer is licking shots and expending more photon torpedoes than we usually get to see expended in an episode of Voyager.

Yeah. Are those a different kind of ordinance that can be replenished? That would make sense, right? If you're designing a new ship for the Delta Quadrant, with the unique needs of the Delta Quadrant in mind, you would want it to be like something that could be refilled from time to time. But you're right about the size of a conventional photon torpedo warhead. I'm such a fucking nerd. You would seem as though like on a fighter jet, you've got the hard points where you hang the missiles.

It seems like on the Delta fly or a shuttle, you'd have to hang them outboard, you know? Yeah. Unless they're, they're, they've got a different ordinance on a shuttle or a Delta flyer. I think they must. I mean, the Delta flyer is a little hard to pin down

in terms of scale because like, why is there a Jeffries tube? Like, where is that relative to everything else? Harry Kim doesn't ask that when he's banished to that place in order to, quote, unquote, clear the injectors. Yeah. Harry, get down there and see what you can do. Get in there, Harry Kim.

He is attempting to get warp propulsion back so that they can get the fuck out of here. The episode does that thing where they're fighting the borgs on the bridge and then the camera pans toward Harry Kim's seat and it's empty. You know what that could mean. Someone's back there with the of gloves. Yeah, yeah. He's looking forward to hearing that ship out of danger. Yeah. Yeah, he's looking forward to hearing that ship out of danger.

How long did you last in the Spock Box? I think we know the answer. I lasted 22 minutes. So we get the POV out the window of the ship as the tractor beam of the board cube, grams them, and then we are in sort of like, I guess like a dream sequence of the assimilation, right? Because when the Borgs get you in their tractor beam, you can't break free because the Borgs tractor beam is made of an attenuated linear graviton beam and Borgs are strong.

Why do they keep making them? I just can't make them. I don't know why I can make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them.

I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them.

I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I just can't make them. I mean, I don't think enough is made of the horror of what it must be like to be having a nightmare and then wake up in that same nightmare. Yeah. How awful is that?

Yeah. I'm still in the haunted house. Fuck. Yeah. Oh, this is a bad moment for Nelix, but he gets over it pretty fast. I mean, that's how my life has felt pretty much the last several weeks. Yeah. Yeah. So, what we're going to do is wake you up somewhere else in a different city.

That'd be fucking great. I need to go into our man. What's awful about this wake up for Nelix and really for everyone isn't just that he's woken up on a board ship. It's that there is a botched assimilation scene Next to them on a table. Yeah, and it is gross. Oh my god. It's really gross. I mean it's botched circumcision gross Adam Yuck, I think that the limpness of the arm when Paris picks it up really sells this had a real problem with that. Yeah, it's like, ah. Do you think that that's like a, you know, a fake cadaver or do you think that they like put someone

in the loaf and lay them down there? I mean, the answer is what's cheaper. I don't know. You know? I don't know either. The arm looks really realistic as why I ask. Is this a fresh assimilation because of how rubbery and limp this guy is? Because Rigger has not set in, right?

I mean, the only thing Rigger is around here is the research that we did into this episode. Indeed. My trivia will come later. I have no trivia for this scene. Chico Tez' plan at this point is to bust out of this prison because to not at least attempt to do so would mean just sitting back and taking the assimilation successful or not that is headed their way. Yeah, they're in an assimilation chamber.

So let me ask you a question. Oh, yeah. Say you're in there. You're in an assimilation chamber. So let me ask you a question. Oh, yeah. Say you're in there. You're in the assimilation chamber. You're expecting assimilation. Oh, yeah, it's like you can feel a sneeze coming on. Do you think it's more scary to expect a failed assimilation or a successful one? Oh, man. Both seem bad. Yeah. We've seen people come back from successful, though. I don't think anybody's coming back from the botched assimilation.

You see that limp arm on the table across the way and you're like, God, death may be better, right? Yeah, could be. I could maybe end up like that guy if I'm lucky. Yeah. What a crazy thought. Fingers crossed. Yeah. Sometimes that is better.

Also worth pointing out that Harry is not with them. Yeah. So Harry doesn't have to contemplate being botched. Paris embodies the fear one should feel for Harry Kim being somewhere alone on the ship. So, a week's smash cut over to Voyager where they are finding the eye on trail of the Delta flyer and the signature of a board cube on long range sensors. This is pretty quick that we're like warping up to the board cube and getting a scan of it. And 7 of 9 is starting to describe the various ways in which this board cube is fucked up and weird. Yeah.

It doesn't seem to be making up its mind about what to target. It's being erratic and easy to fight. Uncharacteristically easy to fight. There are five drones on board is what they pick up in the scan. That's an unusual crew compliment. That's my bit of trivia. Yeah, mathematically, that is 0.1% of the typical compliment.

I mean, famously, we learned that a Borg's ship can remain functional when 80% of it has been destroyed. And again, I've never felt like more of a nerd than my ability to just generate that trivia without having done research. I just know that. But this seems to be below 80% of the crew complement here, eh? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the ship is not 80% fucked up. Now, it's maybe visually speaking, it's maybe 20% fucked up. What do you think about other ship looks? I like how it's not a smooth cube.

It's got some craggy bits. It's got some pointy stuff. It's fuzzy, you know? It looks like the part of a, like if you're cutting a piece of wood with a circular saw, the unfinished like chipped upside. Yeah, oh yeah.'re cutting a piece of wood with a circular saw, the unfinished, like, chipped upside.

Yeah, oh yeah. There are a couple of corners that look like that. Yeah. Do you remember when, like, Odo would get sick sometimes and he'd get all flaky? Yeah. It's like if you took the vibes of that and put it on a Borg's cube. It is. Yeah.

Unusual. Of course, it's locked in. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're, it's long day. Do it. You're just going to need to be careful, because I'm going to see this once. So Janeway just straight up hails this ship. She's like, five borgs.

I'm hoping one of them is next to the fan. So Janeway attempts to negotiate a ceasefire in exchange for getting their crew people home. And the borgs up the ante on this negotiation, they appear to have assimilated people who've played poker before. They're like, no, we want the navigational deflector. We just don't want a ceasefire in exchange for these folks.

We want your deflector and everyone knows from Star Trek First Contact what a deflector is good for for the Borgs. Yeah, I actually did a little research about this in particular and the idea in the writer's room was that when the Borgs in First Contact were told to assimilate this, that became a nearly religious aspiration among drones to die while adapting a deflector dish into a communication device with the collective. Yeah. Much the way Klingons would like to die in battle, you know?

Yeah. The Borgs watch replays of this all the time to pump themselves out. So the late this, yeah. I'm gonna light this up. I'm still late. So Janeway's like, okay, we'll think about giving you our deflector dish, but we want a proof of life. We want to co-tate a hold up a copy of today's newspaper into a video or something. And it is agreed that Voyager can send one crew member over. I don't know why it may be laughed that this is just like,

seven, get over. I wish there were a bigger react on Seven of Nine to this moment. Or like, two-vacco, like, you sure about that? Who's the security person on the ship? I'm pretty sure it's two-vac. You sure about that's not why? Who's the security person on the ship? I'm pretty sure it's Tuvac. You sure about that's not why? I don't remember good things happening

the last time Seven had an interaction with the Borgs. Yeah, it seems weird, but over she beams and she's in a hallway full of board corpses. Yeah, this cube has got a stink full of board corpses. Yeah. This cube has got a stink, right? It absolutely does. And also, I know we're constrained by the budgets of a syndicated television show. But couldn't you have used like 10 more bodies in the scene?

Just like heaped up like cordwood. Seven's like, oh, this is unusual. And she starts try-cordering. One of the birdies, she steps over. And we don't get to learn what she learns because there's a Borg's voice on the intercom kind of urging her on. Yeah.

Well, actually, I think part of the reason for that production decision, Adam, is in the next scene. She walks into a maturation chamber where there's a Bords Baby, and this animatronic Borgs Baby took up 85% of the entire production budget for this episode. Oh, I wish they spent more. Oh, I wish they spent more. Then you've had a baby in your home recently. How realistic did you find this beatus? Actually, that's diabetes.

That doesn't work. The Borg's fetus in the jar. It's a hominem, you know. It's just two words that mean different things that sound the same. Yeah. It was terrifying to me. Yeah. But maybe not for the reasons that they intended.

A group of the littlest borgs appear from the corner as seven is checking this thing out, this baby in the jar. And she negs the shit out of them. You are neonatal drones. You're incomplete. You'll continue to malfunction. She tells them to get back in their chambers because they're looking a little undercooked.

And the kids are like, we can't! Those chambers don't work anymore. This is the best we could do. I'm looking at this scene. There's five kids standing in front of her, but there's also a betis behind her. And now, the the scans were wrong. There are six drones aboard this ship.

Sure are. Sure are. Seven would love to help if they would just let the hostages go. Maybe they're counting the twins as one drone. Is that why? Oh, yeah, maybe. I mean, it, okay. So it's three and the beat is and twins.

I know, what a act of you, you do. Yeah. Everybody cracks a bud light and starts partying. It's weird how seven like counts them up with her finger and then looks into the camera and does that. It's the only time in the series breaks that fourth wall. Yeah, but worth it, you know, especially at the time, you know, late 90s. People love tearing about twins.

Then all of the research I did about this episode has to do with the actor who plays each of. So now would be a good time to share the first bit of trivia I found out about them. Okay, I'm curious. The actor who plays each e-chip was actually an accomplished home chef. His specialty is creeps the thin French pancakes.

Yeah. That's how that's pronounced. Each of them is not really in charge. There's a shorter guy and it seems just outrageous that the tallest white dude isn't the one running things. Were you feeling some heavy red dawn vibes here and like these kids were the Wolverines. Wolverines! The way these kids mouth off at seven really seems like a like our parents aren't home kind of attitude.

Right. And when seven like announces that the agreement is being modified on the fly, they haven't really like prepared their birdies for the idea that they're not going to get everything they want. No. No. This is like sort of something we're used to. You know, Seven of Nine was a lot more like this when she first showed up on Voyager. And so she's sort of guiding them through this. And she tells them that she's not gonna go any further until she checks on the hostages, make sure everyone's okay. So off they march and Seven gets a little bit of backstory from second, as she comes to know him initially.

He was first out of the maturation chambers when this cube got fucked up, but could not establish order and therefore was subsumed by first. I know. This is an episode that really doesn't want you to like first. Yeah, it's so that you don't feel bad when first dies later. Yes, so.

Is the little girl third, or is she like fifth or fourth? When your Borg's twins, are you a fraction? Like a fraction of a fraction? Yeah, two and a half and three. It's very confusing. As confusing as it is for us, it has to be more so for them.

Yeah, and I guess you could come out of your maturation chambers at the exact same moment. So these twins presumably don't have that thing that other twins have, or one of them's like, I'm two hours older. You know what, that's a great call. It seems like these are four borgs

that arrived at an intersection at the same time, and they're trying to figure out who's going first. Uh-huh, uh-huh. And first is just the one that hit the gas quickest. Yeah, even though second knew the rules about what breaks the tie in that situation, it didn't seem to matter. Second was just being polite.

Yeah. So when the Borgs Brigg, seven arrives with, I mean, the kids are the prison guards, right? Right. And she's allowed in and then watches Paris get shocked by the littlest Borgs as a punishment. Ah! Ah!

That was unnecessary. He learned his lesson. This little girl is gonna be a punishment. That was unnecessary. He learned his lesson. This little girl is going to be a handful, isn't she? She really is. I thought it was interesting that this was the first Chicote and Paris and Nielix have even seen of their captors. Like, this ship is so empty, they haven't even seen these guys yet. And Tom is really getting tossed around.

Harry's still unaccounted for. Yeah. But everybody's alive, so. This is the scene where there's a little bit of code between Chicoete and Seven. Very difficult to decipher what it means when he says that thing about Harry Kim, as she leaves, right? Right.

It's easy to make a code up that dumbass kids that our borgs won't understand. She makes one request before leaving and that is, I see you have a lot of dead bodies around here. We were trying to perfect our assimilation techniques. You failed. Mind if I take one of those back to study it? It seems like you got a problem here. Yeah.

Maybe we can help you with. And they agreed to let her do that. Seven isn't authorized to just hand over the deflector dish right now. So she's got to go back and run it up the flag pole. Before they do the second part of the agreement and off she goes. That flagpole is on Voyager walking down a corridor with Tuvac, where we learn that they haven't found Kim yet. There's an escape pod on the Delta Fire again. Where?

I don't know. Is this the sort of thing where you'd have to buy the model of it to know exactly where it is? Because it's a little piece of plastic you cut out of the tree and glue to the exterior. I think we might have to do that just to understand this a little bit better. So they're like, okay, well, he didn't eject, so maybe he's still aboard the flyer, maybe the flyer's, you know, aboard

the ship. And crucially, if we don't know, he's alive, maybe the Borgs don't know either. So that's good. There are three instruments about being a spaceship cat. Get through, get through, get through, get through, get through it, get through it. They catch up with the EMH who explains that these borgs, this entire cube was taken down by a space-born pathogen that specifically prays on cybernetic beings. Were you wondering why 7 was not in danger of catching this thing?

Does she not qualify anymore as a cybernetic being? The doctor says that it's no longer active because it consumed the cube and the maturation chambers protected the kids. So I was assuming that for whatever reason, it wasn't affecting the kids when they came out of the maturation chambers. Yeah.

Also why it's not affecting seven, but you know, best guess. It's logical to consider the implications of weaponizing this pathogen according to Tuvac. And boy, does the doctor take great umbrage with this? Yeah. The like knee jerk biological warfare reaction that TooFocke, I feel like, is often expressing, really rubs the doc the wrong way.

But unlike almost any other episode where the doctor will be like, I refuse to take part in this horror of science shit that you're getting into, the doctor complies this time. He's like, all right, I'll get to work on the like horrible pathogen and weaponizing it. The doctor's permitted to object, but he still gets down to business. Yeah, he makes a face while he's doing it, you know.

Can you reprogram him or something? Janeway has to ask seven if the hostages are in any real danger from these fucking kids. And I think it's good to have that question asked because you look at these adolescent borgs. You just don't get much of a threatening read from them. I don't think. And it takes a conversation like this to make that apparent, right? Yeah, these are some skinny little freaks

that don't have an imposing presence when they walk into a room and stand in a tablo. It takes seven to say it for me to believe it, like, yeah, the hostages could be killed by these kids. And with that as the answer, Janeway has compelled to authorize work on this bioweapon. There's coffee in that pathogen. She asks seven, one more question. On the Delta Flyer, it's a pretty small ship, so where is their room for a Jeffries tube? If you had to guess.

And we cut over to that Jeffries tube where Harry Kim is lying unconscious. Right where we left him. Yeah. Yeah, he slept through the whole thing. Yeah. He's late for the test. His combat just beeping and that's what wakes him up. Yeah, he's just asleep the whole time. We get low key. One of the coolest shots I remember ever seeing in Star Trek Voyager,

which is like the the interior of the Borg, where the Delta flyer has been captured, but it's been captured next to other alien ships. Yeah. Who have had the same fate. I want to see more of these captured ships. I know. I never knew that the Borgs were like keeping the material that they're grabbing. Yeah, that rules.

Yeah. So cool. I mean, they're horrible and I don't support what they're doing, but it's compelling visual, that's for sure. Yeah, it's like, you know, there's nothing wrong with watching like Russian propaganda videos of Ukraine, if you know that it's wrong. Yeah, that's where I was going.

That is a good comparison. So Harry Kim gets to work on modifying Combs on the Delta flyer because that's what he's going to need to do too. I guess he has to like send a message back on the same carrier wave as the As the signal he's receiving so that it's not detected by the Borgs. That's important. And so he gets to work on that and we cut back over to the kind of command area of the cube where Janeway has shown up to talk to these kiddos.

This may be another opportunity for me to drop some more trivia, Ben. Oh, yeah, I would love to learn a little bit. The actor who plays each of has shared opinions on Twitter. So stupid and self-imulating, we almost lost half of our income ending our very successful podcast about it. Yeah, it doesn't seem like a star you want to hit yourself to.

I know. Yeah. So, yeah, Janeway tries to rework the negotiations. You know, her pitch goes over a bit like a lead balloon. Instead of us giving you the valuable piece of technology you asked for, what if instead you come with us and leave everything you know behind and leave the collective? Yeah, this is not the moment for that pitch. No, they're not ready for it.

And first is like a violent asshole. Like the little is drone also violent. But like first is really like set in the pace here. And he like slams Jane way up against a wall. Seeing her roughed up really upset me, but it upset me to the extent that I was like, hey, how about we board this fucking cube with a security detail and shoot some fucking Borg's kids and get the hostages out of there and then blow up the damn ship. No! and get the hostages out of there, and then blow up the damn ship.

No! No! The only way to be sure. Fucking hey. Why isn't that a proposal at least on the table? I don't know. The thing that's interesting about first is that first is negotiating basically in good faith, I think.

Like I don't think that first like has any designs on anything to like with the hostages. You think he's just single-minded like that? Yeah, he's single-minded and like from his perspective, Janeway does just keep changing the fucking negotiation. Like, she can't be relied on to do the thing she says she's gonna do in the previous conversation. It just doesn't feel like the threateningness

of both sides of this negotiation is equivalent. Yeah. At this point, like, Janeway articulates that they could turn this into a hot war immediately. I could replace the amniotic fluid of that burg's fetus with vegetable broth. And there's nothing you could do about it. She could fuck some shit up, but that's not on the table anymore. It seems like first has the upper hand now. And I want a new car!

And I want the city to pay for it all! Yeah, it really does. She walks back onto the bridge, though, like full of confidence. Like I bought us two hours. Like everything went exactly the way I wanted it to over there. This is like me coming back from a shopping trip, not able to find the thing my wife wanted exactly.

And like celebrating that just before my wife stomps the shit out of my dick over getting the wrong thing. Yeah, but she does put on some lubatons before she does it. So the way you like it. Uh huh. Oh yeah, love it. So they get a message from Harry. Harry has succeeded in modifying his comms to work on this carrier wave and you know communicates with them that he's okay and they're like, hey cool.

You're actually less than a kilometer from the shield generator, the thing that we've been trying to knock out, but can't because it's buried too deep in the ship. You're convenient for story purposes, Harry. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Understood. Ha ha ha ha. So they're like, hey man, take a walk. Yeah, yeah.

Get to those shield generators with your bag of grenades. He's got a great mission. Yeah, it's pretty fun. Yeah. If you destroy it, you won't have to make the trip back. It's not like they're just asking them to take pictures or anything. I know. We cut back to where Seven is working with the help of the second.

Probably another good time to share one of the pieces of trivia I found about this character. I have some trivia for found about this character. I have some trivia for this scene as well. We learned later that the character of each step is a Brunali, but many people might not be aware that early on, his species was called the Battali. Pfft. Pfft.

Really dodged one there, huh? Yeah, that's interesting, because my trivia is food related. Okay. This is the kind of first scene where his head is well lit. And you can really see how they did this. They made the top of this character's headloaf with Kiwis. Oh. Like the fuzz is made out of Kiwi skins. I mean, keep in mind we're on a borg ship where myriad metracities have taken place.

Yeah. Nothing is more atrocious visually than what's going on on the top of his head. Yeah, I'd say that a botched haircut might be the worst thing that's happened. a botched haircut might be the worst thing that's happened. We've seen a botched assimilation, a borg fetus, dunked in vegetable broth, and this character's hair. Hard to choose, which is more nauseating. Same teamwork done his head as worked on the back of two vices head. This is the second in the bad hairline trilogy.

I have to keep a lookout for the third. I've got to get that. Lucknow put your luck in your mouth. I've got to get that. Lucknow not exist just from going. You wanna start taking vitamins but you don't know where to start. Well if you get your advice from Star Trek Podcasters this ad is for you. Be like me and take ritual vitamins to fill nutrient gaps and symbiotic plus for gut health

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What the hell was the third? Oh! Well, to find out, you'll have to go to PodShop.biz to see all the amazing shirts that we have available for sale there. Well, what I want to do is start taking bootwar pictures of myself, wearing all of our merchandise, you know? Oh, that sounds good. Maybe you jose up some action of PodShop.biz, what do you think?

Sounds great. PodShop.biz is one of the greatest things we've ever done. We're always cycling new products in there. I got a Spacos mug. Amazing. It's that of Sikos looking in from a window. It's Spacos looking in from the Spacbox in the Warp Core. One of the great references we've ever made.

Miriam references over the years. Available in textile and mug and candle form at PodChap.biz. I love your fair haven t-shirt. That's an original Adam Prennicka design. One of the rare Adam Prennicka designs in the store. I think it's great. I ordered one for myself. You know, you're not wrong, Ben.

You carry a lot of the design labor on that site and you always have. Every week, new stuff is added so check it out. Podge up the bus. Pod shop dep is. Somewhere in an alternate universe where Hollywood is smarter. And the Emmy nominees for Outstanding Comedy Series are Jet Packula, Airport Marriott, Cruffle, Dear America, We've seen you naked, and Aula in the family. In our stupid rumors, you can't see any of these shows, but you can listen to them on

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Open up that podcast app. Type in Bullseye and hit subscribe. You're not gonna want to miss any of this. So they start talking about their pre-assimulation childhoods and parents and it sort of, ironically, sort of seems like each step has been cyber-stocking, Sevin, like he like went and looked up her, her Borg's Facebook profile. I thought it might be relevant. Why? Yeah, you don't like that,

and you don't like the touching of the hair, either. I guess you could call that cyber-stocking. You absolutely could. God, that was good. Yeah. That was fucking good. So, you know, they're chit-chatting about this when first comes around the corner

and really blows his stack. You know, the small talk is like one of the big rules. First is like, why'd you fake sex as fucking stutter? It was one of the things that made him second. We all thought it was charming and helped establish fucking stutter. It was one of the things that made him second. We all thought it was charming and helped establish his place in the hierarchy and he fucking ruined it. Yeah.

Did you know this, the first has the same eye hologram as you? Yes. That's got to be the same prop, right? Maybe. I don't know. I wouldn't want to wear the same eye appliances in another actor without a lot of sanitizing wipes involved. That's how you get pink eye as an actor, right?

Yeah, it's how you transmit a space-borne pathogen from one board to another. Maybe that's how it happened. They just passed appliances all over the place. That washington first. Gross. Yikes. Well, seven has decoded the situation with the Borg's computer and reports back to Janeway that when this pathogen infected the cube, a distress signal was sent, and the collective just decided to cut its losses with this cube. So the rescue that these board teens are hoping for is not coming.

It's like being so rich, you could just buy whatever company you want and it just doesn't matter if you run it into the ground and destroy it because you're an idiot. That's what the borks are. The borks are just that rich. The amazing thing is that you can invest in something as massive as a cube and be obviously running it into the ground and there's still drones that will be like, yeah, this is fucking awesome.

And it's all part of a brilliant plan that you just don't understand yet. Yeah. The thing about the Bricks turning their backs on the Lilis borricks here, is that makes these kids need for the communication parts irrelevant, right? So with the deal falling apart, what can they do?

Can they invite the Lilis borricks to Voyager? Seven's like, hold on there. I'm not so sure these kids can be saved. Do you see that one guy's hairline? It's gross as hell. You were just over there, right? And the lighting over there is not flattering. And they also don't know if they want to be saved either.

Like that's a part of it. You can't like forcibly save these borks children, but Janeway in the scene is optimistic for some reason either like that's a part of it. You can't like forcibly save these Borg's children, but a chainway in the scene is optimistic for some reason because of the seven of nine circumstances. Like seven is kind of inspiring in this way. She is, but she corrects Janeway and she's like, this is not going to be the same deal as me because like all of the stuff that happens in the maturation chamber is partly to do with undoing the psychological harm of having been assimilated as a child. All of the Borg order that is supposed to overwrite all of the harmed parts of their psychology isn't in place yet. So, you know, individuating them

may be opening a Borg's cube Pandora's box. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I'll say. I wish I'd said that. Like, setting aside those questions, like that little girl has really got some like gauge from pet cemetery vibes.

Like she really seemed to enjoy shocking Paris the way she did. He learned his lesson. I'm surprised that that little girl didn't have wetter hair given how creepy she is for most of this episode. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Anyways, Janeway is pretty determined to get these kids and make some slick backs of them So she's like, you know gonna power through and We catch up with Kim going on his hike through the ship. I really like this scene for Harry Kim You do what you have to do to suppress how horrified you are in the situation Mm-hmm keeping it light with the playing cards. Yeah, and it's as trail of bread crumbs that he's leaving. There are only so many parts to declare a net to leave behind.

There's like five parts. That's not enough. Do you like doesn't like this? Cause he's like, no, Harry, I'm literally staring at a very detailed map of the deck that you're on. You don't need to leave the playing cards. And Harry's like, no, no, this is going to pay off later.

Trust me. Yeah. You know what a reveal is, too, Buck? You're gonna. Seven of nine reports to first and first gets real cranky that all of these delays are in fact intentional that the Voyager crew are kind of stringing the teens along to you know by time. Yeah. This is not a great scene for first. You know, the baby starts to do bad in some way that I didn't quite catch but they have to beam it into a Borg Basinette.

How sure were you that we were gonna watch this Borg's fetus die in this vegetable broth? I came really close to believing we were gonna get there. I really thought we were. If it was Star Trek Picard, we would have absolutely seen that. Yeah, they would have pulled bloody pieces of cybernetic equipment out of the baby

if it was Star Trek for Carr. I mean, part of the power of this scene is seven going to work in this leadership vacuum, right? First can't do shit, and seven just gets into it with the life-saving plan. She transports it into an incubator, but the incubator doesn't work, and then she picks it up and carries it out.

Yeah. And wants to take it over to Voyager because it's gonna die without medical attention. Yeah, it's got some kind of respiratory issue. I think I'm getting the black lung pop. And she has to fight for it, and all of the board teams are kind of against this, but she persuades them.

And basically through force of personality has just big-douged first into being last. Yeah. They rely on you. Yet you left the skills necessary to ensure their survival. We catch up with Harry Kim. He's setting, he is the one setting them up the bomb in the shield generator area and gets surprised. You know, here's a creepy noise off in a corner. And then the Lilis Borg is there looking at him. This is like very much a,

Lank wet hair crawling out of a well girl moment for this kid. Harry looks down and she's got a little scalpel and slices as a kille's tendon. Oh, she's so creepy. Great casting for her anyway. She holds up the cards. She says, Royal Flash Bitch. And he's like, I was putting those very high on the walls in the scene where I was leaving those as a trail

Like those were all much higher than you would be able to reach it doesn't make any sense that you got all those cards You aren't even human. How do you know who Freddy Krueger is? She likes the queen. She likes the queen of hearts. Oh, she does like the queen doesn't she? Interesting Hearts. Oh, she does like the Queen, doesn't she? Huh. Interesting. Affinity there. I like Kim wanting to draw the dustbuster, but she shit-talks him into not even trying. It's great.

She should be, why don't you put her in charge? Hahaha. She's kind of born new, huh? She's a little badass. We had researchers prepare notes for us. I didn't even notice this when I was trying to cram before you're recorded, but the actor that was originally cast in this part was the same actor that played new. Amazing. Yeah.

It would have been a good get. She just had scheduling conflicts. Oh, I mean, she's like 30 years old at the time of this filming. It would have been unusual. Yeah. I mean, they were they were going to have to like do some digital de-aging stuff, but the technology really wasn't there at the time. You know, speaking of digital technology that does bring to mind another piece of trivia, I saw. Oh yeah. The producers of Star Trek briefly considered replacing the actor who plays each

e-chip with Christopher Plummer. But the studios did not have the money to do it. I guess you could say they decided not to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war in this particular instance. Indeed. I only 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.

Janeway shows up in Six Bay to meet the Borg's baby, the betis. I guess it's a baby now, because it's no longer in a maturation chamber, right? No, yeah, you're right. So I guess we can't use that really fun name anymore, because it's inaccurate. If you have type 2 diabetes, like I have, you're confronted with choices. Is this why the doctor goes on and on about baby Borg's biobed bonkers? Yeah. The show he wants to tape in his department. Roll that around you, Matt, let's find it. Well, and then get this whole long debate about when Borg's life starts. Does it start in the maturation chamber or later? What did you make of what is clearly,

like when this, when Beatis is handed over to Janeway for her to hold, she totally softens into this moment. And like, it looks like there's real motherly love happening here. I mean, how could you not fall in love with a little baby that's head is made out of metal? I love the smell of this baby head.

It smells like vegetable broth. I'm speaking of vegetable broth. It is in this moment that the doctor chooses to hold up the weaponized pathogen. I love this composition. It's so great. Which looks like nothing more than a tube of vegetable stock

and holding this baby makes it impossible for Janeway to use the pathogen. It's like holding up a cross to Dracula, like her entire, everything about her changes when she sees that vile. Yeah. Captain, you don't seriously plan to use it if I have to. We cut back over to the board ship where that little girl fucked Harry Kim's shit up

off camera. Yeah. Yeah. He's got the cystic acne of what could possibly be a new drone lifestyle for him. Yeah. The nanoprobes are in him. And first is asking seven about why there have been bombs set up around the shield generators and You kind of feel like the deal is falling apart like the boards are not gonna play nice anymore once they find that they've been set up the bomb

If you thought first was irritating up until this point the irritation Needle is pegged here because the face time between Janeway and the leader goes very poorly. She cannot get through to this kid that she just can't give them the deflector without the work that it takes to remove it. And once he hears this, the kids like, cool, I'm just going to take it with the tractor beam and rip it off your ship like it's a rearview mirror or something. Yeah. So they're tractoring the Voyager and just attempting to disassemble the ship and

it's starting to look bad. And seven realizes that the only way to stop this is to, like, cause kind of a record-scratch moment. And this is when she explains to all of these board teens that their board parents are not on their way in a minivan to pick them up. Your mom and dad are never coming home after going out for that pack of cigarettes. They consider you irrelevant. A relevant?

They're in Borg's Cabo drinking blended margaritas and blowing each other's backs out like the old days. The conflict between second and first really comes to a head when second goes into the computer to verify this emergency action message that Seven is telling them about and determines its authentic. I concur, sir.

That's just authentic. Not great news for any of them. Like, they really were setting all of their hopes on this. And so first is like, fine, well, we'll fucking make our own collective and assimilate blackjack and hookers. Yeah. It's a bad scene.

It's just sad. It appears as though first is edging towards cancellation, which it's actually a thing that the actor who plays each eb knows all about, brings me to my final piece of trivia. Oh, that's able to find. The actor who plays each eb is banned from Star Trek conventions, though he is still a regular keynote speaker at SpaceyCon, the convention that celebrates the work of Kevin Spacey. Yeah, so instead of introducing the pathogen to the Borgs, they come up with this idea of sending a feedback pulse along the beam, which is the first time in Star Trek history I learned firing the deflector dish at a Borg's cube actually works.

Somewhere in another quadrant, Will Rikers like, God damn it! What do you mean? Give me a fucking break. And as this is happening, lawyer 7 continues to get it over on these kids while the bangers get dropped. Yeah. And first is trying to like hold it together, leadership wise, but it's not really working, and this causes the shields to drop on the other ship, and it winds up with second and first,

getting in a physical altercation after first goes after seven. Yeah. Does it look like he's gonna drop a fucking fire extinguisher under head? It does. Yikes. Yeah, some kind of like oblong object. I couldn't quite make it out.

Yeah. So second stops him from doing that. And during this confrontation, it's clear that the sense of independence that first has the privilege of is not granted to the rest of the kids and their little collective. And those other kids are rebelling against that idea big time.

First keeps saying, you know, assist me and I'm in charge and stuff. And they're like, ugh, it's kind of a bad look, dog. Yeah. And so first is like over trying to shore up some system and get hit with a ton of war-flightening. And seven, does the, there's nothing I can do for him moment after scanning him with the tricorder. And then seven, like many borgs we've seen before on the show, like starts ripping out implants in order to use for other projects. Yeah. This is still

good stuff, she says. Yeah. You're going to eat the rest of that? It is basically the attitude here. So with seven in charge, the Q blowers its shields and we get an elliptical edit to Janeway's log, which tells us you're not going to see what happened to the borg ship. You're not going to see what happened to the borg's ship, you're not going to see what happened to that infant. Many, many things happened off screen. You'll never know about. Kim is fine. The littlest borgs are fine. And because Rick Berman is still the producer, form fitting cat suits and giant breasts will be given to the girl. Yeah, that was in the first draft of the script,

but they had to take it out for what went to air. Yeah. The order is given that Seven is going to sort of become a surrogate parent to these littleist borgs. And Seven is initially sort of not enthusiastic about this, but comes around to the idea that some of the things that were hard for her, she can perhaps try and make a little bit easier for these kids. And we cut over to the cargo bay where she has prepared little iPads with,

like, biographical information for each of them to get to know who they used to be and like what their species are and stuff. That girl just has a like file photo of the character from the ring. She's like, I can't see my face in this picture. What's up with this well? It's just my alien type is well. That's weird. Yeah, we learn each echebs name, we learn misadis name. We learn the twins. Yeah. A's Ann and Rebi. Yeah, they don't get a single line in this. They really don't. I mean, they get fewer lines than than the baby

did when it was taken out of the vegetable amniotic fluid. Yeah. Their costumes really remind me of the kid that grew the rannishes and weird dirt. You said it. Yeah. You don't just get rid of those costumes. No.

As long as the show's in production. I've always wondered why so many charging pads had been installed and left installed on the Voyager. It's like having a guest bedroom set up ready to go in one of the rooms of your house. You're like, why do we have one of these? No one stays over. Seems like a waste. This is the reason. Yeah, yeah, there it is. Why did we get two bunk beds? Why did we do that? Time for bed kiddos.

They hop up into the charging pads and this is going to be something Naomi Wildman is going to hate, right? More kids on the show. Yeah, I mean, going to be a little bit tricky getting to learn how to play with these type of kids. I don't love this, but did you like this episode, Ben? You know? I made it easy to get along with most of the time, but I don't like bullets, I don't like friends, and I don't like you. I love this too.

I did like this episode. I think that it does't interesting thing which is Make the Borg's Less scary in a way that doesn't make the Borg's less scary Like this is basically a ship full of deads and Ship of the dead Like like kids left with the awesome power of a Borg's cube are still a huge fucking problem for the Voyager.

And I feel like it's been a long time since the safety of the Voyager and its crew has felt as threatened by the Borg's as this episode made them feel. So I think for that reason, and just for the reason that I'm a huge fan of the actor that plays each hub, um, how dare you. I really like this. I'm gonna be on the other side of this. This is not my favorite episode and it's maybe my least favorite Borg's episode because you came close to describing my feelings about it with like five kids in charge of a Borg ship would seem to be just as lethal as an entire crew complement on that same ship. But the lethality of the moment is about the kids being unpredictable adolescents rather than being a fucking teenager with a machine gun.

Like, I wanted to feel like we were in more conventional danger here than like emotional danger. And I will tend to dislike an episode that takes tooth after tooth out of the Borg's mouth. Like, leave the fangs in and insert more fangs. mouth like leave the fangs in insert more fangs. I don't like this slow creep towards a gummy borg's. That's not fun to me. And maybe the jerky is knee I had at the very end of the episode was that resolution happening off screen about a borg ship is the biggest weapons platform in Star Trek. What happened to that ship? They biggest weapons platform in Star Trek. What happened to that ship? They just turned around and left it.

It's just lying derelict in space. We've reused exploded ships on the show before. Go to the file footage. Show me that ship exploding. You have to resolve what happened to the ship. So I think what I'm saying is like, this was just a little too rascalsy for me.

I think if the kids were more in control of the ship that would have been better, I think more hairy Kim would have bulked up this episode. There wasn't enough anarchy for me. Like I feel like there should have been. And I think finally I want to say this. This could be a part that we could edit out. How about new? But when the character of each of was recast for Picard, the actor

who played him had a huge Twitter meltdown. And Bribelky was attacked on Twitter by this guy over the things that he was saying. And this being a pro Bribelky podcast, I just want to say that that was fucked up. You don't attack Bribelky on Twitter or anywhere else in my mind. No. So there you go. Not if you don't want the greatest generation coming for that ass. Yeah. Yeah.

So there it is. Well, Adam, do you want to see if there are any priority one messages in the priority one message inbox? Oh, hopefully they're not a bunch of unpredictable adolescent kid messages. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on top. supplement on top? supplement. supplement.

Yes, extra. But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Adam, our first priority on message is of a promotional nature goes like this. Looking for a pod that's all about the fun of watching movies? Well, Bill and Rob's are making it. On Bill and Rob's colon, an excellent adventure, we take turns picking

a variety of films, often ones we think the other would never see, then we share our thoughts about whether they should be on your must watch list. From the movies of less famous siblings like Frank Stallone and Don Swazie, to Predator Knockoffs, to Blockbuster franchises, each shows like a trip to the video store for your years. So search for Bill and Rob's on your pod catcher to check out our first two series, then join our Patreon at billenrobs.com for new apps and lots of great extras. How about that?

Editor Emeritus, Rob Shelty and current social media manager for us bridge Shimoda Bill Tilly collaborating on a really fun sounding show here. Yeah couple of real peaches Bill and Rob's go listen to their show Yeah, yeah, go check it out. Go see what Frank Swayze has been up to Go see He's another sibling Don Don, uh, Swazie. Gerald Stallone. Are there any Baldwin brothers that we haven't heard of yet? How about that martial arts movie starring John Claude, Fantame? Mm-hmm. Clarence Baldwin. Oh,. What do you want to say? Yeah, check it out.

Bill and Rob's excellent adventure, wherever you can find a podcast. Yeah. Put that into your ears. Then our second priority one message is of a personal nature. It's from Connor. It's DeShawn. That message goes like this. Shawn, fuck you and your eggs.

Shhh. Hope your birthday sucked. Damn. Thank you, Bill and Adam for the pod. But just a question for you, do you think the when is but you had when the last were not, but maybe actually had is? Oh, what is it? Is Connor like a mean drunk and got this P1 during a sash? Hey drunk money spends all the same. So we appreciate Connor's support. Hopefully not too much at the expense of

Sean and their feelings, but there's like my half of the money have to go to Bill since I'm not one of the people Thanks for the pod. Yeah, I love that Conner's outfit to thank me and Bill. Yeah, weird. Bill being one half of the Bill and Rob's an excellent adventure podcast of the previous Friday one message. Check it out. Yeah, hey, fuck you and your eggs, Connor. Yeah, whoa!

Whoa! Our final P1 today is from Mom, Dad, Mosha, and Sarah, and it's to Mike Katz, and it goes like this. When the Melcodians beamed Kirk, Spock, Chekhov, and McCoy down to the recreation of the OK Corral, none of the officers knew how to use the old-style six guns.

You see, they came from when no men had guns before. That's great. Happy Birthday, Mike. Love, mom, dad, mocha, and Sarah. It's a very dad joke, but it sounds like it's from an entire family. It's also a very belated happy birthday message. The requested date was late June. Oh Jesus. Well, sorry, Mike, that we're so late, but sounds like you got a family that loves you a ton. Yeah. Happy birthday, Mike Katz. If you're looking for a podcast to listen to, you might want to try out Bill and Rob's an excellent adventure. Yeah. Mike. Or as Connor calls it, Ben and Rob's an excellent adventure. I Mean Connor might think it's Adam and Ben an excellent adventure

Yeah, who knows what's going on Over there anyways if you'd like to get a priority on message to wish somebody a happy birthday or Slag somebody's eggs off or promote your show. It's MaximumFun.org slash jumbo, Tron. Hey Ben. What's that Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? I'm gonna give it to Janeway for the knee jerk of sending seven over to that ship.

Yeah. Right at the beginning. I think that was my only like, laugh line of the episode. Like I laughed out loud when she decided that that was the obvious thing to do with the single person away missed into a Borgs cube. Just seemed like a real Shimoda move.

How about you? Voyager has really made me a admirer of Janeway as a captain. One of my favorite captains is Captain Janeway, but I really think season six of Star Trek Voyager is a bad Janeway season. Letting a lot of personal feelings get in the way of some pretty cut and dry command decisions in my mind. Come on, Captain, get it together.

That moment toward the end where BLT is like, are we ready to fuck them up yet, Captain? And she's like tapping into her personal computer device into her chair and saying nothing during. Yeah, yeah. That's a scary moment. Really is. Didn't like that.

So yeah, Janeway's gonna be my drunk promoter also. Well Adam, I'm gonna head over to gach.biz slash game where we keep the game of buttholes, the will of the caretaker, and our runabout, of course, is on square 78th, the nth degree episode. And I hope people enjoyed learning all of these previously unrevealed facts about this episode of Star Trek Voyager. I love being able to do that. Yeah. It really feels like a service. Yeah, some really interesting tidbits that we uncovered. Yeah. Of course, the next episode of Voyager is season six, episode 17, Spirit Folk. The Voyager crew makes first contact with a holodeck program.

The Voyager crew makes first contact with a holodeck program. Duck! You build an alien species out of a holodeck program. When we fill this hollow Irish bar full of 88 drinking Irishmen, you can see some serious shit. I think the only square that could modify us that we can hit is a cot in the nebula square, which is of course, when we record an episode with no notes in front of us.

Oh, that could be fun. Let's get rid of the notes. You're required to learn as you play, roll. We'll see if we crash out of a highly researched episode into an episode where we are flying blind. But I rolled a one at him. Tula! Did I win? Harvey. We don't square 79 and that's just a regular ass episode for next week. That makes it still possible though, huh?

It is, yeah. On the road, no notes are still on the table for the future. So exciting, exciting to see what the future holds in the meantime. Let's thank some people who are crucial to the production of this show. Of course, the most crucial people to the production of this show, Adam, are you and me. Without us, this show wouldn't exist. That's right, Ben. At any point, either one of us could bring this flimsy house of cards to the ground. Fortunately, we are compelled to keep making the show based largely on the

support we receive from friends of DeSoto everywhere. Financial support is what keeps the show going. Yeah. And that comes in many forms. You can go to MaximumFund.org slash join to support the show on a monthly basis. You can come see us on tour. You want to talk about direct support? Buy a ticket to a show.

Come see us live. Have a great night. Out with us. Great time for everyone involved. We got a merch store. PodShop.biz. We've got P1s available. Support from so many directions helps make this thing go. It's amazing.

Come on and see us live. We'll make you laugh your butt off. Yeah. You'll leave without a butt. Yeah. Like, you talk about butts and seats. When we leave a theater, we're looking out at an empty auditorium full of seats that just have butts left in them yeah you buy a seat but you'll leave your butt on the edge

Gonna need the edge for your butt which will be there when you go Are you cheating on me? You said you were going to a live Star Trek podcast and you come home without a butt. I don't believe you. Pack up your shit. Where's your fucking butt? Your butt's like 30% of the relationship for me.

Go back and get it! We got to thank Wendy Pretty, without whom. We would just be flailing at this point. She is the producer and editor of these shows and does a great job. Watching the shop while we're out on tour, we got to thank Bill Tilly, Card Daddy, BillandRobs.com. BillandRobs, excellent adventure. Their podcast show. That's a great friend of the show right there. Great Bill Tilly. Hey, let's thank Adam Ragusia who made the music for this show.

Another great friend of the show. Dark Materia, who made the original Picard song. Thank all the folks that administer the various communities online. We don't think those folks enough. The folks that are moderating the Reddit and the Discord and the Facebook groups. Yeah.

That's a ton of work. And by all accounts, those communities are super duper well-run. And the toxic shit gets nipped in the bud real quick. And generally speaking, it is a super duper well run and you know the toxic shit gets nipped in the bud real quick and generally speaking it is a super duper fun time for everyone involved largely through the efforts of those moderators I think. And just the good vibes of the friends of DeSoto. I was reminded of that on my flight out to the two day Polish wedding.

I did a couple hours in the discord at drunkshmoda.com while I was on the plane. Had a great time, made the time pass so fast. It was great. That's awesome. With all that said, we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Voyager and an episode with the greatest generation Voyager that made it time travel machine.

How the hologram? Time travel machine, what is that? What the fuck is happening to me? Time travel machine, who says that? Biff, that's two coats of wax on the doors of the holodeck. Not just one. Maximum fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you. This week on Greatest Trek, we are lowering ourselves back into the hot tub that is lower

decks. See what I did there with the lowering? The nice warm burbles are articulating everything under the water right now. And there's going to be some horny whales, my friend. Oh yeah. Love those horny whales. Adam, what is the name of the episode of Lower Decks that we're reviewing this week? It's Lower Decks season 4 episode 1, 12X.

Description the Cerritos Entsons must assist a caretaker on the voyage of a historically significant starship. This one's written by Mike McMahon himself. The Mike McMahon? Yeah. Wow, a very fun episode. We're so excited to be back, reviewing lower decks. We hope you get subscribed to Greatest Trek today.

Lower yourself into the hot tub of Greatest Trek. Let those burbles tickle your funny bones.