The Greatest Generation - The Civet of Akaali (ENT S1E9)

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

When the Entrepreneur gets within range of an inhabited planet, an away team shuttles down to learn more about its plain-ass inhabitants. But when another alien on the DL has contaminated the town with lube, Captain Archer finds a secret bunker and shuts his mining operation down. Who isn’t scared of a handheld crossbow? Does Trip have another area of expertise? What’s the 18th rule of Greatest Gen? It’s the episode that is officially discouraging the practice of Krafting.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

You know, sometimes you'll hear tickets are going fast for a live show. Well, I just checked the website for the Greatest Gen live show at the London Podcast Festival and it looks like we are 80% sold out and that show is all the way in September. September 14th, 2024 at 4.30pm that is. Don't miss out by waiting until later. The show is going to sell out, maybe even this week. So don't wait. Head over to greatest gentour.com and snag your tickets. Ask anyone who went last year. It was an absolute riot of a good time and I can't believe we

got invited back. It's something that Ben and I are really looking forward to. So head to greatest gentour.com right now for tickets. Hurry up and get them before they're gone. Here's to the finest crew in Star Trek. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me. This is a parody. Paramount owns the song. 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. What? It's so hot in my studio. Yeah, man. This is the first day of the year that I've had to turn the AC on. Yeah.

And I just did. So if you hear that hum in the background, that's why. There could be no other reason a hummer would be coming from Ben's studio. Jesus Christ. No other possible reason. Yeah. No explanations other than that. How do you beat the heap, Ben? It looks like you're taking the button all the way down to the belt line there on the button up shirt. I need to get a chain

if I'm gonna be unbuttoning my shirt this far. Yeah, viewers at home seeing some open-shirted action over there for one of the hosts. I'm going with a Star Trek appropriate deep V. Yeah, you sure are. Man, I remember buying a shirt with two deep a V back when deep Vs were the sort of shirt that everyone got. Yeah.

Couldn't wear it, didn't have the body for it. It just went too deep. Yeah. I got slurs yelled at me out windows one time walking down a street in Brooklyn wearing a two deep a V. Wow. Wow. Yeah. How about that?

What the hell? Where do you guys shop? This is the only kind of shirt they sell right now. It's this period of time. Yeah. Yeah, it really puts you in a time and a place. Tell them a story like that. Good thing that would never happen today.

Yeah, we've evolved so much. We're not the pre-industrial society we were back in those days. Jesus Christ, that is the longest can open I've ever heard in my entire life. If you didn't see it in the frame for video, you might have expected like a 70s era can of Coors, like where you just like rip open the entire lid. You use one of those church keys that's got like a really pointy thing on one side. If only. Do you think those old beers taste good?

Oh. They probably don't, right? Like they're better because they're sealed in more, more emphatically. Well, that's what I'm wondering. I don't know, man. I think everything kind of used to suck. I don't think you're far off on that observation. Food and beverage wise, I think we're eating and drinking better than ever, right?

One would hope. You know? Generally? Yeah. Yeah. Not so much processed crap. Tell you what it's been hot enough for at my place. Walk around the corner, get yourself a frozen pina colada.

Stick a straw in that and walk the streets on your way back home. That's a good way to live. That is living, man. I've had that pina colada. I know whereof you speak and it's a quality one. You know what the secret to that pina colada is? You get one and you bring it back and you have it into two cups. That's what me and my wife did over the weekend. That's the perfect amount. I don't want a pint of pina colada is my point. That is too much.

I sure do. Yeah. You want a fucking hoof full of it, like from Vegas. I do. Um, yeah, I, the, one of my favorite sweet treats is that, uh, there's a Rite Aid drugstore with thrifty ice cream in my neighborhood and it's fucking going out of business.

But you, oh, you know what's one weird thing that they're doing given the, uh, the store going out of business is that they're selling off the commercial sized tubs of ice cream for like 35 bucks. You can get the big one that they have in the freezer case that they like reached down into to scoop out your ice cream scoop. That's fun. So you just roll that thing home. I was like, I got 35 bucks.

I just don't have a freezer that big, you know? That's fun. So you just roll that thing home? I was like, I got 35 bucks. I just don't have a freezer that big, you know? That's the trouble. You know, speaking of sweet treats, Ben, I recently used the Grater's gift card we got from an FOD. Yeah. And you want to know when you don't place your order for six pints of delicious gourmet ice cream the day before your wife leaves on a work trip to Amsterdam. She was not happy with me.

Oh, man. How many of those are going to be left by the time she gets home? I don't know. Just hold off. I mean, you got enough on that gift card to order six more. So you know, surprise her with a totally stocked freezer. Well, what I was telling you was, off mic, you gotta place your order, Ben.

We gotta do our greeter's taste test. I've placed my order. I think the next time we sit down to record this show, my ice cream should also be here. You know what would be great is if you rolled the 100-sided die and it lands us on the breadstick square, and the next episode we got to do breadsticks and ice cream. That's about the worst possible outcome for this show, right?

Mm-hmm. I don't know if we have, like, cantrips or anything that we can evoke to modify the game or to, like, you know, move it into our favor at all, but Transmute Bread to Ice Cream would be a useful one at a time like that. Really would. It's just too bad we don't have that power.

Yeah. All we have is vetoes, right? That's it. That's all we got. And they're Baccala Dracula's. They make us record episodes about quantum leap. The worst kind. Ben, we have an entirely different kind of dilemma to consider on today's episode, don't

we? You might say that, Adam. You might say that. Well, I just did, because we're here to talk about Star Trek Enterprise Season One, Episode Nine. It's called Civilization. And we open at a morning McLaughlin group. Issue one.

This seems like a time for a McLaughlin group that we don't often get in Star Trek, huh? Yeah. I kind of like the energy of Archer seeming to show up a little bit late. Definitely everybody else has been there prepping for his arrival. So I don't know if he's late or on time, but they definitely have to get there earlier than he does for this kind of thing. I mean, a couple of things about this scene. It's the tardiness of a Captain Archer, and also it's that Archer has delegated the leadership of the meeting to T'Pol. So when T'Pol presents

a couple of options for exploration that everyone's not excited about, whose fault do you think that is? I would say it's not T'Pol's fault at all. It's the delegator. Yeah. The buck does not stop with T'Pol. Tripp jumps on the boring exploration landmine and tosses out a, hey, there's an M class planet that we found with 500 million inhabitants. Whole damn civilization down there, just like the title of the episode says. Incredible. So yeah, safe to say we buried the lead under a pile of, what are those, nebulas and I don't know, a supernova remnant. Let's get to those 500 million

inhabitants on that planet. Yeah. I mean, they're not going to fuck themselves. Yeah, that's really what this episode is about, isn't it? Sure it is. So they pull into orbit around this joint and they're not picking up any EM transmissions and they zoom in and it, I laughed like, I was kind of surprised that there wasn't a hexagonal grid over everything that we see down on the surface of the planet because it very much looks like planet Sid Meier's civilization.

I know, I know like the best part about the newest Civ games are all those little animations. Yeah. Because when they punch in on those boats, I've seen that scene on an iPad before. Oh. It's great. I wish that this episode had been just titled Civ. Yeah.

Yeah. T'Pol does not recommend meeting these folks and riding on their many boats. Yeah. Vulcan protocols say to wait for warp technology before initiating first contact. This seems like a concept that Archer either does not believe or was never read in on. How is that possible? Well, the thing about Starfleet in this era is that the general standing orders start at number two and nobody is really clear on why, but number one has not been written yet.

So he's like, yeah, like, I mean, that's fine for you Vulcans, but let's see what these people look like. And we zoom in through the clouds into a town square down on the surface of this planet and they're white! Yeah, we got a couple of punch-innable faces, don't we? LAUGHS That's what Hoshi's found. Yeah. They're just plain-ass people.

LAUGHS How'd you like to be cast as an extra for this shot? I mean, if the character description is... pre-warp civilization folks that Archer would like to fuck, that's really the energy here because Archer goes on and on about wanting to use his own probe instead of any other kind and going down there personally. He gets one look at these forehead ridges and he's like, we're going, we're fucking going.

Yeah. Hoshi meanwhile has been listening in on all of the different languages that are down there on the planet. And she has learned that these are the Akali. This is the name that they call themselves. And knowing that and only that. Well, actually, I guess they also by punching punching in on those faces, know that they have some particular loaf, right?

So they got to go to Dr. Flax to get the loaf reassignment surgery required to go down there. And Hoshi is the first. The first to get it. Because she wants to fit in. Simply irresistible. Hoshi is, yeah, like a loaf guinea pig. I like how she can't help but touch it. Yeah.

That seems like the most natural thing in the world. I want to touch the loaf. Yeah. And you know that early proto loaf is itchy, right? Yeah. I mean, this seemed more like it was makeup that Phlox was putting on her, unless like it was a surgical procedure of, you know, Riker going down and fucking the lobster hand

people. Are you really an alien? This is definitely spirit gum. Yeah. Under there. But I was also noticing that the kind of shape of the loaf was not dissimilar from the shape of some of Flox's loaf. Like there's less of it.

But the way those ridges looked were like not un-Flax like. You know how in cars there are the vents that are like on the belt line of the dash. And then there are the ones that are shaped like into the upper part of the dash that are like little, little cuts, little almost triangulars. Yeah. That's what this loaf looks like. They, little almost triangulars. Yeah. That's what this loaf looks like. They look like the top vents. It's top vent loaf.

And, uh, Hoshi's already spent a little time, like, learning all the languages down there. She's really excited about it. So, they are out on the bridge, having sort of gotten everything figured out that they're gonna need to go down there. And they're planning out, to need to go down there. And they're planning out like a go down and hang in a pretty rural place where, you know,

if you contaminate the timeline for these people, it's not going to do too much damage because it's just going to be a bunch of yokels that nobody will believe. And I like the acknowledgement that this must be why UFOs never come to major urban centers in our modern day. But they're getting ready to do this, and then they get something kind of interesting on their scans, which is that an antimatter reactor is going off in one of these cities that they learned about.

And that doesn't make any sense. These people shouldn't have that. These people can't even flush their shits down a toilet. Like how would they have an antimatter reactor? This is crazy. Yeah, they got way too much matter to deal with before they get the antimatter. Yeah.

So we get aboard a shuttle pod, and it's Hoshi, along with T'Pol and Archer, and they're all done up in the loaf, and they're dressed for ren fair, it looks like. And so they land at night. I like that Hoshi's handing out forged documents. I had a lot of questions about how they got a hold of documents to figure out what they should forge them to look like.

We needed a little more prep for this scene, right? Yeah. Was somebody standing outside on a clear day going through their passport so that the telescope on Enterprise could see it? You really got to be sure when you choose a landing spot for your shuttle pod, that you're doing it in an area of agribusiness that does not involve threshing machines or combines or something, because there are several scenes in this episode that occur on board the shuttle pod

in this field, and I'm like looking out the window, when's the combine going to get him? I would have liked to hear some acknowledgement of like, well, when we, when we pick a landing site, we should find somewhere where there's a lot of downed branches so that we can like drape them over the shuttle pod to disguise it. Yeah. Anyways, they put down at night and we get to go right into the city. And it is a typical Star Trek street scene where you can't see particularly far in any direction.

Lots of corners and alleys. It's the sort of place where data gets stabbed through and through in a town square. Yeah, very much so. And, yeah, some of the people that live there seem to be covered in burger meat. They kind of split up Hoshi and T'Pol on one team and Trip and the captain on another team that decides to do a B&E when they find the antique dealership that the

signal for this reactor is coming from. And they're being watched when they do this. Yeah, it starts off as being like, well, God, Hoshi and T'Pol have already been made. You think, what are the chances that Trip and Archer have been too? They have been too. They're clocked immediately. A lot of suspicion going around here. And their observer also enters the shop and she's armed. She's got this great little like handheld brass crossbow thing, which we didn't actually get to see fired in this episode, which was a great source of disappointment for me. Yeah, that would have been fun. But yeah, she asked them like what they're up to, like who they are, what they're doing, and they claim to be antique collectors,

and everybody knows that people in the antique world never do anything shady, so leave us alone. Blam! She gets shot in the back by T'Pol here. This is great. Archer is not grateful in the least. Was that necessary? She was armed.

Let's try not to shoot anyone else while we're here, OK? And T'Pol's like, well, maybe we should leave. Yeah. Given the locals are holding us up at gunpoint. ["BOW AND ARROW"] Where are you, Salting Long? We've talked about this a lot in TNG.

Like, Bow and Arrow isn't that scary to you when you're from the Enterprise D because like almost any bow and arrow injury is a wave of light over it situation to you. Well, I wonder if it's also like fight a gun, run away from a knife as a strategy, you know? Oh, interesting. Yeah. Because they're more scared of the little crossbow than I think a TNGman would be.

This moment is so charged because DePaul's like, we got to get out of here. Especially while this stranger's on the ground. And Tripp Tucker's like, I don't want to leave her behind. Not without drawing a dick and balls on her forehead. He pulls out a Sharpie and she was like, you were told not to bring anything modern down here.

Yeah. This lady is Rian and she works at the apothecary. The name for a store I am still not clear on the reason for. I don't know what they do. I don't know what they make. It's just a bunch of beakers and Bunsen burners. Yeah. It's a very mortar and pestle forward career. Yeah. Yeah.

Like, isn't that kind of their symbol? Don't you, like, when you picture the sign for an apothecary, don't you kind of picture a scripty font and an image of a mortar and pestle? I do. That's what I see exactly. Yeah. That's like a magic trick, Ben. How did you do that? That's what I see exactly. That's like a magic trick, Ben. How did you do that? Don't think about an elephant. So she wakes up at home and Archer is there with her in her apothecary

laboratory and she has a lot of questions for him because she has been observing this burger meat illness that has been afflicting a lot of her neighbors and has sort of come to the conclusion that it's something to do with that shop. And so, you know, she thinks that Archer must have something to do with it. And she's like, so you probably work for Garros. And he's like, never heard of him, but he's the shop owner. Garros damn near killed him. I love and hate this moment for Archer because this scene will have you believe that Archer has been in this lady's house waiting to be talked to the whole time. When you know he's snooping, he's snooping all up in there. He's been in there for hours.

And the case the scene makes is that he's just standing in the room next to her bedroom, waiting for her to wake up. I don't think so. Well, and also like when she asked him to explain himself and he's like, I'm an investigator. It's like you didn't spend any of the hours that you had coming up with a good cover story. It's just investigator from far away. You know, like my girlfriend goes to another school, you wouldn't know her. The last question and answer is the funniest part because she's like, who are you?

What is your name? And the camera pushes in on him and he's like, my name is John. She's like, I've heard of you. You're like the Federation's Wolverine. I could not get over how Rhyan threw Cecily Strong vibes. She really had those qualities about her. I mean that in a very complimentary way. Yeah, good call. I didn't make the connection, but that's a strong connection.

Bend over, Pat! They want to get that ass! So we get a little information from Malcolm up on the ship who has scanned the energy field that they discovered blocking the doorway into the cellar of the antique store. And he's like, yeah, beefy as hell. Like, we could bombard it from orbit and not knock it out. Do you love how that really doesn't mean anything in this context?

We've seen torpedo after torpedo flail impotently against the hulls of enemy ships doing nothing. And he's like, yeah, we could shoot dozens of these things at that house and wouldn't even do any damage. Like, that doesn't mean anything to me. You're not doing damage anyway. Yeah, they're definitely not carrying anything heavier, right? Like, they don't have, like, an atom bomb on board

or anything like that. What's weird is, like, they talk about their inability to fire torpedoes at this house. No one brings up the collateral and civilian damage of an orbital bombardment. It's like, oh, it wouldn't work on the field? Well, let's discard that great otherwise idea. Right, exactly.

The other mystery of this scene is like, it's not just the door, it's what this house is built on. They can't see into the foundation. For all they know, this house is built over a void that they can't see through. Yeah. They're also talking about this disease and what could be causing it.

And they're like, well, let's like, let's get one of them and bring them back up to the ship and have flocks look them over. And T'Pol's like, maybe don't abduct people. Just a thought, you know? If I'm not mistaken, the fear of alien abduction caused a great deal of apprehension on your planet for centuries. So the idea is instead to talk to the shopkeeper during business hours.

And I don't know how they cast this guy as Garros, but he is every shopkeeper you've ever met in an open world video game. Like he has got the perfect energy for that. If I don't have what you're looking for, I'm certain I can find someone who does. I was hitting triangle the entire scene trying to get out of it. Like, I don't want to talk to you,

I just want to go pick up your trinkets. Right, right. I think part of it is that he has his, like, knee-jerk phrase that he says to anybody that walks through the door, and like, when other people walk through the door, you get to hear it again. Yeah. And you're like, oh, he wasn't just saying that to me.

But yeah, he welcomes them in and is trying to persuade them to purchase some of his wares and he has something glowing under his cloak. You can see like an LED under there and they get a like surreptitious scan of his biology and it is not as he claims native to this planet. This is very confrontational because Archer does like what is an extremely fast DNA test. And then when the results come back, he's like, Hey, Garros, did you know you're 5% Sub-Saharan African? And Garros is like, what?

My parents told me I was a hundred percent Irish. But I'm a dyed in the wool races. How can this be? And like Garros turns the table on Archer and he's like, ha! Yeah. It's a real like quick draw, tricorder situation where he's like, well, I'm not from here, but neither are you motherfucker. It's great.

It's great. It puts them on, on even footing in a fun way. And like both of their jigs are up in the same moment. Yeah. Turns out he's Malurian and he's like, yeah, we just came here to check things out, much like, for example, you. And I just, I fell in love with the place. I just, you know, I felt like I wanted to settle down.

Do you ever see the Equalizer 3? It's like Denzel in that Italian village. You just felt at home for the first time ever. All I do is take my espresso out on a tiny table and chairs and break people's thumbs who threaten me or my friends or my family. This is what I like to do here. Would you like to buy a mask? Yeah. They're like, well, what gives with the, like,

antimatter reactor down there? And he's like, you know, got to have a replicator. Like, I may be roughing it here with these past people, but I refuse to not have the finer things in life available to me, such as food and trinkets. I guess, like, is he selling he selling like phony antiques? Did you kind of get that sense? I am so curious that when Garos says that like, yeah,

this is what I power my replicator with. It's how I make my clothes and make my food and stuff. I would have been like, cool, make sense to me. Best of luck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, wouldn't you want the biggest replicator and power system possible to make an unlimited

amount of shit that you might want on a foreign planet? I would. Yeah. I mean, it was a great cover story, but Archer is too naive to believe a great cover story like that. Yeah. The other thing about Garros is that he doesn't care for Rian and all of her prying eyes. He doesn't like being blamed for this disease that she's accused him of. I mean, all he's got is this wet market full of birds and pigs and this giant antimatter chamber. He claims innocence and I believe him. Yeah, yeah.

Rhian's going kind of with a lab leak theory, and... And he feels like that, you know, like that's something he could discredit as just like the ravings of a conspiratorial lunatic. The people of Akali both really appreciate my masks and my butchered pigs and fowl. It has made me very popular here. And some exotic animals that you've never heard

of anyone eating. Do you like a Kali bat? Yeah, how about the civet of a Kali? You gotta try my special blend. It's shat through the eye holes of this mask. The most sought after coffee on the Akali home world. It'll really blow your hair back. Faith of the fart.

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Ben would rather die. So they head over to Rian's science lab to talk to her about her theory of the disease. And you know, she's got some good like epidemiology done where she's like put little dots on the map around the neighborhood and shown that there's a big concentration of cases happening the closer in proximity you get to Garros' shop. Don't you wish when you worked a real job that you had a reason to like do plot points and a chart and a map? Nothing makes you look like a harder worker than one of these, right?

Oh yeah, I mean, this or just like, you know, Charlie from Always Sunny chalkboard full of photos and red strings. I really wish I had that. I wish I thought enough to do that. Yeah, man, like what could we even do at this point to connect a bunch of ideas into a web and crack a case? Like there's, like it's never gonna happen for us. For the rest of our lives,

we'll never discover anything. Greatest gen cases go unsolved. They're always written in red. The thing about Rian is that she is smart in one way, the way that involves pieces of red thread, drawing lines between places and things, but she's also very trusting. And I didn't like how she just sort of let T'Pol walk around her laboratory scanning things without showing any kind of curiosity about this at all.

Yeah, like, but she sort of reveals herself later to be naive like a fox. Like I kind of felt like she was onto T'Pol a little bit in retrospect. Cause yeah, T'Pol is like gathering samples and stuff and preparing to take those back to Dr. Flax. But meantime, Archer let slip about this machine that they are concerned is in Garros' basement.

And she reveals that she's really got a dog in this fight. Her brother was one of the first people to die of this disease. And T'Pol's like, OK, well, I've got everything I need from creepily wandering around over here. And Archer's like, OK, why don't you head back to far away from here, where we came from, to Paul.

Because I took a sip of this strange tea and it moved. I'm going to see where that leads in a minute. Enjoy your tea. She heads back to the ship and Phlox is very impressed with Rhian's methods of a researcher and also tests the water sample from the planet and it is contaminated with lube. I'm not familiar with it.

Didn't the scene make you sad a little bit? Flax is like, you know, Rian's really smart. It's too bad she's surrounded by idiots in this pre-warp society. She had a chance of really being something somewhere else. All your dreams just hops down the fucking drain. To me, that stung. Ugh.

Yeah. All her potential drowned in a sea of poisoned water. She's a Dr. Jillian that does not get taken to the future, you know? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. And in this moment in time, she could have been without any sort of consequences.

There's no rule against this. No. Yet. No. Yet. Yet. So Archer and Rhian do like a stakeout outside this shop. And it's at night that she says like they're coming and they're taking crates out and then like they never return with the crates.

So I'm sure that there's something going on with those crates to do with this disease. And he's like talking to Rian about, you know, their theory of the case, I guess. And they start to kind of, uh, misunderstand each other and, uh, as two men in long-term committed relationships, I'm sure that we both wish that a good way to get out of a situation where you're

miscommunicating with your special lady is give her a big, fat kiss and look at your phone over her shoulder during. I was shocked that the Akali culture does not have a, what are you doing? Kind of react that's understandable in any language. She is receptive to language. Yeah. She is a receptive to this. Yeah. So Archer explains like, oh yeah, somebody was coming. So I had to make them think that we were just kissing, uh, but I didn't

really feel anything about it. And that's when a man starts loading crates out of the antique shop and distracts him, you know, saved by the crates, I guess. In a pre-warp society, two wheels on an axle that can carry a bunch of crates serves as the greatest technological achievement in their society. This thing is great. Yeah, it really is. And with it, he can wheel all of these boxes out into a clearing and he unloads them and

then he fucks off. And that makes an opportunity for Archer and Rion to go investigate. And when they pop one of them open, they don't get to see inside one. The moment here is synchronized. They pop open one of the boxes and the light shoots down from above of the ship that comes to do pickup. It's surprising because for a moment you think the light's coming out of the box. Yeah, you think it's the briefcase and pulp fiction situation.

You're like, oh my God, they're going to find out what all that trouble was about with Marcellus Wallace and everyone. This ship sufficiently advanced, probably advanced enough to have a transporter, instead decides to use a tractor beam to pull these boxes up into it. And then boom, the tree next to Archer explodes from being shot at, and Archer leaves Rion to go dustbuster out against the wagon driver from before. Yeah. This was a perfect crossbow bolt opportunity missed.

Yeah. Yeah. It's just a like the guns got knocked out of their hands fist fight, but Archer lands a blow that like knocks some of the Mission Impossible mask off of a very scaly alien. This is a lizard man. Tin Man. And Rion sees everything. Like at this point, the cat's out of the bag. W slash R slash T

aliens. Hey Rian, could you at least try to act surprised at seeing a literal alien? Why is she so cool? Yeah. Yeah. She like a lifelong conspiracy theorist. Like I knew there were lizard people. I don't think you're far off with that thinking. I kind of wish there was a little bit more in this episode that went in that direction. Like what makes Rihann so cool in a situation like this? We don't get any kind of reason why. Yeah. Like if she was kind of an outsider in her community, because she was, you

know, kind of persuaded of big outlandish ideas. Cause no one in town knows what an apothecary is or what they do. Yeah. Like make her not Justin Lung in Galaxy Quest, but a tick toward that. And I think that this is a slightly more delightful character and especially like an interesting character for Archer to be smooching with. Rion sees an alien.

She sees Archer shoot that alien. Archer tells her, I promise I didn't kill the alien. And she's just like passively smoking a cigarette watching. Like nothing could be less stressful about this scene. Back at Rhyan's place is where they decide to talk a little bit more and Archer spills all the beans in this moment. He's a space man.

You know who I just want her to be is the B.B. Neuwirth character from that one D&G episode. You know? So extremely horny is how you'd prefer her? Yeah, that's where I'm headed. I've always wanted to make love with an alien. I don't know, Ben. I'd kind of prefer her be a competent professional who's cool under fire.

Who says that that B.B. Neuwirth character wasn't competent? Yeah. All right. That's fair. She was cool as hell. Archer has dropped the mask, the metaphorical mask about his identity and where he's from. He has spilled the tea in the way of a crab pot being opened on the deck of a ship in the North Atlantic. He has figured out how to get past that force field and through the door they go into the Star Trek caves or Raticombs, if that is the place where they keep all their antiquities. You can speak to us normally.

Okay. No, thank you, sir. And there's a lower door down there, Ben, and they open that to reveal a power supply. And behind the window, there is a claw game machine on a massive scale with alien employees in there and everything. It is a lot like the reveal of a couple of episodes ago, wouldn't you say? Are there aliens in Star Trek, colon enterprise that aren't building vast underground complexes that are being kept secret from most of the people on the surface. Yeah. Most aliens like to build facilities. That's just what they like to do.

And they call it a mine. Trip wants to come down there and throw Sabo into the mine. Hence the word Sabotage. Archer is like, I mean, I could shoot this power generator, but it will probably blow up several city blocks. And I know that we haven't made a great case for this before, but the civilian casualties might be the thing that persuaded us not to do that. So he is advocating for beaming this thing up.

BT dubs. What are they mining for? Veridium. And there's evidence of Veridium yellowcake all around too, Ben. Yeah. You only ever mine this stuff if you want to make explosives. Right. I mean, but there's also like all these aluminum tubes where in retrospect, like they're exactly the wrong kind of aluminum tubes for the explosives. So, you know,

let's be careful, you know, casting stones about who was, who's setting the prelude for war over here, guys. I love how TripTucker volunteers to go down there and help shut it down. Cap, let me come down there and shut it down! He's like, you know, I have enough recreational drugs in my go-bag to make this work. As a TripTucker mission, you know what I'm saying? Let me at her, Cap! Shutting down an antimatter reactor is not just a business. It's also a science. TripTucker has over 30 years of experience

shutting down antimatter reactors. TripTucker is one bartender of the year. 2018, 2020, and 2021. An expert in prohibition-era cocktails and engineering makes him the perfect choice for this strip club's slash bar on the outskirts of Reno. That is so far been uncontacted by the rest of civilization. There is the topic of a button in this room that creates an argument. I mean, you hate to see this. This is a new relationship. You don't want to argue too soon.

Right. But here they are. Yeah. Rhian and Archer arguing about which button is going to drop the cloak to this area of the town. Because Hoshi's not here to interpret the symbols and signs on all this machinery. And in order to do the transport, they need to drop the shield. And yeah, they're arguing. And then Archer's like, you know, that's actually kind of cool though, right because like we come from two different cultures but we're like arguing over what color something is and it's like do we even see color the same way like isn't

that wild man it's getting cuter by the moment for them anyways he pushes the wrong button obviously and uh much like a moment earlier in my recording studio, this very episode where I was trying to shut down my air conditioner, he pushes a whole bunch of buttons and isn't really sure which one does the right thing, but eventually he gets it. The door's all open and the field is down and the antimatter reactor gets beamed up, but a heavily armed ship has showed

up in orbit with the entrepreneur. And so there's a bit of a showdown going on in orbit. It's tough when you're the enterprise and you have those feeble weapons and you come up against literally any other ship. This sucks for them. They should be terrified. It's Garros on this ship and he gets on the viewer and he's like, Hey, get ready to die. Just like Archer who is also dead on the planet.

And he starts dropping bangers on the Enterprise. And it's crazy to see a ship shoot bangers and they actually work. Yeah. And it's crazy to see a ship shoot bangers and they actually work. Yeah. T'Pol is kind of making the case for we're about to bug out and Tripp really loses it at this and an interesting moment in an episode that otherwise has zero whiffs of this, this like Tripp does not trust T'Pol at all situation. How quickly is Tripp's finger on the mutiny button?

Like it's a moment of unnecessary mutiny for him and it's wild because once it's revealed that to Paul's like, hey buddy you don't have to mutiny I'm not breaking orbit. We agree about what color lipons on our stallions are when they're born man. You ever watch Star Trek? The mutiny suddenly cool? It's cool. It's fine, Trip. Stick around. They beam up the reactor, and the great idea that T'Pol comes up with, since they realize

their weapons are ineffective against this ship, is beam the reactor right under the Malorian ship's bow and shoot that. And that thing really blows big. And they actually disable this marauding ship. Maybe they should get a few more of these power plants aboard to use as weapons. Yeah.

It's better than the actual weapons they have. So meanwhile, Rhian and Archer are being shot at by guys that appear to be locals, but are clearly lizard men in disguise. And there's kind of an interesting symmetry here because like Rion kind of has the same idea for dealing with them, which is shoot the oil lantern in the street and blow that up and you'll take them out. I mean, it was flashing red in an unusual way,

so as to draw your attention. Here's my problem with this scene, Ben. Our two lizard men were wearing what looked to me like highly flammable robes. How much were you expecting the oil lamp to explode and then these robes going up in flames? That would have been great. I mean, there's fire all over this set.

Like they've lit plants and stuff on fire around this exploded oil lamp. The robes, unaffected. Yeah. Zero impact. They selected a flame retardant garment, apparently. But yeah, great news for everyone involved. These guys are cooked and it seems like they're going to be out of business. The lube, I guess, was like oil drilling lube that was getting into the water supply. It was like frack stuff. Yeah, yeah. Archer leaves Rhian with, oh, and then Garros

and his little henchmen get beamed up to their ship and it's like beam up the crates then, guys. Yeah. If you got a beam that you're comfortable using with people, you should be comfortable using it with crates. Yeah. That part didn't make sense at all.

No. What about the sick villagers, Ben? I mean, they've neutralized the threat. What's going to happen to all those folks? Well, enterprise has a cure for that, which they give to Rihann and all people have to do is drink an entire 16 ounce bottle of Kraft Italian dressing to cure their illness.

That is a lot of medicine to drink. Yeah. Yeah. And I know that people have been calling that the greatest gen challenge and posting videos of themselves to, you know, social media, drinking an entire bottle of craft Italian dressing. And this is just me and Adam saying emphatically, don't do that. Okay.

Don't get a bottle of craft Italian dressing and drink it and post a video of what happens on social media. I've seen one too many videos of an FOD encountering another FOD with a challenge question. And the FOD without having an answer is made to get on their knees and pound an entire bottle of Kraft Italian dressing. They're calling it crafting, Ben. Crafting with a K. Yeah, FODs crafting FODs. Yeah. It's not nice. I don't like seeing that. No.

It's just not sexy. I mean, it's not sexy like it should be, Jack. Gotta tell you though, Ben, you better believe an entire 16-ounce bottle of Kraft Italian dressing comes out pretty smooth. Mm. That's a smooth release. Oh, yeah. Speaking of smooth releases,

there's a little smooch at the end, and I loved the little detail of Rhian dropping that she was a thousand percent onto Archer the entire time. And Archer's like, well, that's cool. If you're pregnant, I'm not going to be reachable. Did you like this episode, Adam? Just a silly Star Trek episode, like holes are all through it, but fun. Yeah. I like an episode like this.

It's chill as hell. It's very intentionally trying to elevate Archer into sex symbol captain guy. In a way that I found awkward. Right. You wanted Garros to be the sex symbol of the episode. Perhaps some other time, Captain. Nothing more fuckable than NPC that runs a shop in Skyrim or whatever. Hey, Garros, why the big face? I really thought Rian was awesome and she did really have Dr.

Jillian vibes in a fun way, but like dial up those Dr. Jillian vibes. Don't just give us a surprise at the end that she was smart the whole time and onto the whole jig. Like make her cool and into it throughout as like a proper wing person for the mission, you know? That felt like too little too late to me. Fair.

What did you think? Well, I liked the episode tremendously. It was, you know, it's kind of like a shake and bake Star Trek episode. Like a thing that shouldn't be in a pre-warp society is there. What do we do about that? But with the like added element of, we don't have a general order number one yet.

So I think it's an interesting example of they kind of like mostly observed the prime directive as it is presented to us in subsequent Star Trek, you know, chronologically, but also didn't have it governing any of their actions. So like they, like every choice they made, it felt like their options were wide open in a really fun way.

Yeah, very true. And you know, there wasn't a lot of T'Pol going, you shouldn't do this, don't do this. Like, she wasn't in every scene telling them no. She had a no up top, and that was it. And I think that helped out T'Pol's character too, from like being the fucking nag of Star Trek Enterprise, which is kind of how she's been framed for many episodes, you know?

Yeah. Fuck that. Fuck that entire premise on this show. Yeah. You know, like I, I reject the idea that if DePaul had been a male character, they would have made her like that, you know? Right. So I'm glad that it seems like they're maybe starting to move in the other direction a little bit.

Let's hope the trend continues. I mean, the moment they gave her to command Enterprise was great. Like, she was totally in control of that scene. Totally. In a fun way. Well, let's see if we are totally in control of our Priority One inbox in a fun way. What do you think? Let's check. Priority One message from Starfleet coming in on Secure Channel. One message from Starfleet coming in on Secure Channel. You need a supplemental income. Supplemental income? Supplemental.

Supplemental. Yeah, it's extra. By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship. And our first priority one message, Ben, is of a promotional nature. That message goes like this. Do you like romance novels? Do you like Dungeons and Dragons? Do you like neither of these? But you want to support an FOD making a go of it as an independent author? If you do then Taking Initiative by L.M. Stewart is for you. Check out this steamy nerdy rom-com about Roland Dice

taking chances and overcoming the monsters of the past. It's got role-playing games, libraries, TGG references, maybe even a drunk Shimoda or two. A perfect summer read for D&D veterans and happily ever after seekers alike. So go to lmsteward.com, and I'm gonna spell that out for you, E-L-L-E-M-S-T-E-W-A-R-T dot com to buy directly from me, the author, or order

taking initiative from your local indie bookstore or any book or ebook retailer. Damn, I love this. L.M. Stewart is a great name. Whether or not this is a pen name or not made me think of a story that a buddy of mine told me just last night. He's a teacher. And he was laughing about a moment where it's easy to get names wrong when you're a teacher. Like when you first have that first class orientation and you're like doing roll and he called roll. And one of the names was that he read was Abby C last name. the and the girl was like now that's not it and he's like okay well how do I say it and she said ABC

last name and that and LMN and LM Stewart made me think of how that worked as a name. Yeah I I recognize Elle from social medias. And I wish her the best with this steamy romance. I know our buddy Stuart Wellington is a big romance novel reader and he's also a big role playing game guy. So you know what I'm going to do right now? I'm going to order a copy of this, send it over to the Stu man. Amazing. Because you know, I've never really read a romance novel but if

Stu says this is where I need to jump on board then I'm gonna order a copy for myself. I mean you should ask your wife for permission to order a romance novel. I don't need her permission dude! Don't tell people that. I'm sure it'll work out fine. Our next priority one message is of a personal nature from Patrick Funston and to Windy Pretty goes like this. On behalf of all FODs, thank you, Windy. Specifically, I snort laughed ined in Draped Nuck, Voyager Season 7, Episode 22, at your insert of William Morgan Shepard's Klingon Commander. So this was when I

said something about transporting with no tricorder, no phaser, no pelican case, andy dropped in the guard from Rura Pente saying, no guard tower, no electronic frontier, and me saying no nothing. And then Patrick concludes, perfectly absurd. Play Windy's favorite drop. Wow, Windy gets to pick this time. Love it. Play-O-E-L-E. Play-O-E-L-E. Play-O-E-L-E. Thanks, Patrick.

Yeah, Wendy rules. And it has been such a delight for me and Adam to get to work with her because when you hire somebody to edit something that is as precious to you as our show is to us, it's like there is a little bit of a leap of faith and it is in such good hands with Wendy. She gets the comedy and adds to it in the best way possible and that is a great example. So Patrick, I join you in congratulating Wendy on being awesome. Wendy not only gets the comedy, she is funny in her own right and she brings a lot to the show. It's great. Ben, we got our last priority one message here. It's from Jordan. It's to Don and Casey. The message goes like this.

Well, I thank you for the personalized birthday greeting by Jonathan Frakes. You got me a couple years ago. I should have killed him for that little suggestion. I'd be happy. I may have forgotten my life as a brother to Worf, but being a brother to you is good enough. Kapla! Oh man, so so Kern wound up thinking that Don and Casey were his siblings. Yeah.

As a matter of fact. Yeah. I mean, they got plenty of honor, so that's good for Kern. That's all he wanted in the end, right? Who's gonna tell him now? That's why they scrambled his frontal lobe was it was an honor preservation operation. God, I miss Kern. That poor bastard.

And Alexander, a actual poor bastard. Is that honor, affirm, and care? Is that what you call that? You could put it that way. Well, if you'd like to put it some way on our show, you can get a priority one message anytime you want by going to maximumfund.org slash jumbotron, where a personal message is 100 bucks and a commercial message is 200 bucks.

And those have been going since the start of the show and have not kept up with inflation. So consider that a bargain. Hey, Adam. What's up, man? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda. Yeah, mine's gonna be Archer.

There's a scene when he and Rian are taking cover in an alley at night. And this is the scene right before the universal translator goes out, where Archer mentions something about his dog and Rhian looks at him, like is this the moment the translator fails for them both? Because that seems to be a moment where Rhian would go,

what the fuck is a dog? What are you talking about? What mean dog? Yeah. Why would you say that, Archer? Why would you just, Archer's the worst kind of dog owner. He just assumes everyone knows what a dog is. Don't do that. Okay? God.

This is like the 18th rule of greatest gen, but it's no less important than don't tilt your seat back on an airplane. Yeah. Don't assume people know what a dog is, all right? Yeah. So for that moment, he's my drunk Shimoda. What about you, Ben? I'm giving it to Paul this week because when they get the call from Garros and he's like, your captain is dead. You will will, you will like heave to and be shot out of the sky by my marauding vessel. T'Pol later gets in touch with Archer and she's like, how are you?

Like we were told you were dead. Is that true? Yeah, wrong question to Paul. Silly question to Paul. So for asking a guy she had already exchanged a few words with, how dead he was or wasn't to Paul is my drunk Shimoda. Faith of the fart. Ben, one last thing to do on the show.

We got to figure out what episode we're watching next and how we're going to watch it. For the first part, that's going to be your job. The second part is going to be mine. The next episode is season one, episode 10, Fortunate Son. Enterprise must intervene when the leader of a human freighter crew sets out for Rwengi against alien pirates.

Some aliens aboard, made to wave the flag. Ooh, the U.F.B. Ben, I'm over at the Game of Buttholes, the Will of the Riker quantum leap, where it will be decided in what way we're gonna be watching this episode. Our runabout is on square 90. We're in the clear for the moment.

You're required to learn as you play. Roll. See if it stays that way as I roll this 100-sided die. Ben, I have tossed our runabout back to square 27. Chula! Did I win? Hardly. It is so close to the Zindi arc episode.

That would have required us to take shots of five different alcohols during the episode. Whew, dodged a bullet there. No shit, man. As it stands, it's going to be a regular old episode for us. Just a tease. Just a tease that roll is. God, thank you for being a friend, Adam, and not rolling that.

Yeah, that one would have stung. I think I got bottles of both peanut butter and blackberry whiskey I would have used for that. Yeah, yeah. Oh man. After that bonus episode of Let's Drink About It that we recorded, I can't do the peanut butter whiskey anymore. It's a...

Well, you made an awful cocktail with it. Yeah. You turned it into a graveyard. It was so bad. It was like angry for the rest of the day at how bad that cocktail was. And then you went and watched Challengers that night? Yeah.

Yeah, you called it, dude. Well, anyways, this has been a ton of fun. Looking forward to that episode next week. I feel like a fortunate son, Adam, because the friends of DeSoto support the work we do here. As trivial and silly as it may seem on the surface, it really means a ton to us. Uh, how many people go to MaximumFun.org slash join and support the show. Thank you to those of you who do.

Another great way to support the show is to leave a nice five star review in your podcast app of choice. That really helps us a ton and doesn't cost you a nickel. If you don't know what to write in a review, just write down what your favorite episode is. Yeah. That's an easy thing to do. Tell someone like a getting on point. If you don't know what to write in a review, just write down what your favorite episode is. Yeah.

That's an easy thing to do. Tell someone like a getting on point, because I think that one of the downsides of having as deep a back catalog as our show does is it can be intimidating to the new viewer. It's literally the only intimidating thing about us and what we do. Yeah. So, yeah, that's a great suggestion Adam. We got to thank Windy Pretty our producer who edits the show and Keeps all the plates spinning over here at Uxbridge-Shamoda HQ We got to thank Rob Adler who runs our social media accounts at greatest trek on all of the big

platforms and a couple of the really marginal platforms. He does a great job and is making those even more fun to follow by the day, coming up with hilarious videos and posts about all kinds of things and also writing our newsletter which you can sign up for at gach.biz slash mail. You're gonna want to do that for a discount code to podshop.biz. Indeed. We gotta thank Bill Tilley, our Zindi wartime consigliere, who is back in the baseball card game and is also the person who will screen your inquiry if you slide into the DMs wanting our address to send us something for a code 47. Coming up, join one of the many communities out there.

There's Discord, DrunkTromoto.com, Facebook group, Reddit group. Any place you go on the internet that isn't full of dick bags is probably got a community of friends of DeSoto. And even some social media places where there are dick bags, there will also be friends of De Soto.

Yeah. There to make it a little brighter. Building a little community that can defend against the dick bags. Yeah. Flour and concrete style. Mm-hmm. With that we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise, an episode of The Greatest Generation where we do our darnedest not to accidentally talk about a Vietnam movie instead of a Star Trek episode. It's gonna happen. Can't help it.

Yeah. Why'd you even name it that way if you didn't want us to do that? It's your fault, Brannon. I can show it. Brandon! Make it show. Captain John Lupicata, the U.S. 10th Stanford Prize. Captain John Lupicata, the U.S. 10th Stanford Prize. Make it show. Make it show. John Lupicata,

Carter, Carter, Carter. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.