The Greatest Generation - This Charm is a Bucket (DS9 S6E25)

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

When the captain of a Federation ship crash lands on a distant planet, it’s up to the Little D to truck it out there on a rescue mission. But when there’s a long way to go and a short time to get there, no one is sure if they will make it in time to save her life. What do we do about our unchecked boxes? Why do felons have bridge privileges? Which sets are the wet sets? It’s the episode that ends MaxFunDrive 2020!

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Welcome to the greatest generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast.

I'm Adam Pranica. I'm Ben Harrison. Voice a little gravely today. Ooh. Hope that's not for shadowing anything. God, I was just at the post office. I was I was there thinking, oh, maybe all I had a thing I had to mail. Thought I may maybe pick up stuff from the mailbox, do a little mailbag, Marin, but there were, it was all like package slips and I stood in the wrong line and then by the time I was made

Away or if what the right line to stand in for my packages was The post office was full of people nobody was social distancing. I just got freaked out and I left and I was like I bet I bet I caught it in there. I bet I bet that was it But I've had that feeling like 25 times since this started, so. We've backslid majorly. We're recording this episode in early July. Yeah. Things are, so now looking great at this point, I hope future Ben and Adam remain healthy and well, as well as all the rest of our friends of DeSoto.

Yeah, we can't afford to have friends of DeSoto catch this thing. Just as you've been stuck in a post office line, I've been two days in a row now, Ben. I've been in line at the DMV bailed both times. I thought you got kicked out one of the times. I was kicked out one of the times, not for anything I did, but because... Not for cause. I was there in the early afternoon. It was like, I don't know, one or two.

The office closed at five. They got on the PA and they were like, Yeah, I think you know, the point is, that's not how to do it. And I was very grateful for the message. It saved me several hours and then the awful realization of wasting those hours for nothing. And then I went back, I woke up right

and early this morning, went back this morning. The line was double the length that it was yesterday. Everybody from yesterday came back. Nobody just got time for that. No, it's a strange and stressful time to be alive. My license has been expired now for a couple of days. My out-of-state plates, tabs are expired. Yeah. A legal and in every vehicular way.

I was talking to my wife because I related some of your DMV issues to her, and I was asking her if she thought that I would be going as nuts as you are in this, if the same situation had been falling me. Because you're such a rule follower, you don't want to live the same situation had been falling me. Because you're such a rule follower. You don't want to live the way I'm living. You're less of a rule follower, but you're more type A. You hate an unchecked box.

Fuck, no, man. More than anyone I know. That is incredibly insightful. I was in a super pissy attitude earlier today, because for some reason I chose working on a kitchen project over doing show research in my hierarchy. At the time I finished up in the kitchen I had very little time to do the tasks assigned to me for my job, my job being this show.

And I was super angsty and pissy and I was like short with my wife and stuff like I'm such an idiot. I box myself under these corners and then I lash out at the world. Yeah, and she's like, what the purest. And you're like, my boss Ben Harrison is gonna be so mad at me. I'm so stupid. I don't get mad. I get even get mad. I get even. If I got even on myself I would be dead a long time ago.

Yeah. If I had a boss I would have been dead a long time ago. Right. Luckily you've just got me. Yeah. And I am backwards hat, backwards chair, backwards pants, kind of cool. Party in the front, party in the back. You're chillin' us. You could get a work for it, Adam. Try to be. And you walk all over me for it. Okay. You know what we really work for, though,

is the friends of DeSoto who support the show. That's right. And it's right. Depending on whether or not the network pulls the plug again or whatever, this is the max fun drive. Yeah, I feel like you or I have said those words dozens of times over the last few weeks. Yeah, we maybe this is the time that it'll stick. It was supposed to be end of Q1 kind of timing, like March,

I think was the first attempted scheduling of the Max Fun Drive, and then it was rescheduled and then canceled again. This is all behind the scenes. They probably don't want us to let people know that this happened. They don't listen to this show, it's fun. But this is the third attempt,

and this is actually the first episode we've recorded since we found out so and and I think that this I'm looking at the calendar right this will be the last episode of the max fund drive for the greatest generation so Thanks to everyone that has contributed so far and if you haven't yet This is your last week to do it so do it our myriad friends of DeSoto have risen up and in support of us. Feels good. Feels great. Did I ever tell you a friend of mine

confused that word with myriam? He was like, he casually was like, you know, they're myriam examples of this. And I think it was in a workplace context. And I was like, what the fuck? How could you live your entire life calling it myrium? I'm sure there are dozens of examples of words I've fucked up on this very show that are worse offences than that.

But it's always stuck with me. Every time I've said the word myriad, I've thought myrium. I really like it. We have a dear friend named Miriam. I'm gonna tell her about that. She'll be delighted. Yeah, tell her that her name was an embarrassing moment for a coworker of mine.

They'll love that. You know, speaking of embarrassing workplace incidents, what do we have the episode for you? If you like that kind of thing. Yeah. Let's get into it, Adam. It's season 6, episode 25 of Star Trek Deep Space 9, The Sound of Her Voice.

Do you realize how incredible this is? the sound of her voice. Ben, I feel like we could do a tight 20 on what I'm going to call the core question of the entire episode. Hmm. Get's it out of the way in the cold open. Yeah. Are you a backless bar stool or an unbacked bar stool guy? I kind of disagreed with Odo on this. I think that a back on a bar stool is asking for you to lean back in a way that is actually dangerous because your center of gravity is too high. Not since. So I would go backless personally. Have you tipped over and fallen out of a bar stool before? It sounds like you speak from experience.

I have not. I had a friend do it once, but I caught him. Because he had been in this bar for a couple of hours before I got there. And when I came in, he did this thing where he, like, instead of turning around, he leaned his head all the way backward to where he was, like, instead of turning around, he leaned his head all the way backward to where he was, like, looking at me over back of his shoulders and he tipped over.

Shattering his upper vertebrae, puncturing three or four of his lungs. I had to catch him. And part of this was that he was sourced. That'll happen. Part of it was that the stool was not bolted to the floor. There is a bar in Portland. I don't think they would be insulted by this characterization that is just a f-fucking dive. I fucking love this bar. It's called Claudius. One of the notable things about Claudius is that it has the highest bar stools

ever. Like the highest bar stools back. They're like, Dracula collars. They're like, they rise like a foot or two above your head and they swivel. It's like a private booth. Wow. It's great. And they're at the bar. Yeah. That's going to be a strong discouragement for second and third row ordering. Yeah. I would say so. God, there's also like 13 coins in Seattle. Also has like the diner style bar stool with like a nice leather back. You get cozy in and swivel in. But I think once again, I think those are bolted to the floor. I think whether or not you're bolted is a major part of what back you choose.

This is all in service of some very traditional Odo on Quark, legalistic harassment. Odo is just making a nuisance of himself in Quark's bar, applying red tape wherever he can. Jake is also present for some reason. Why he's there? The reasons are new because for some reason, Jake's a skill. It's me, Jake!

I think at this point he's just journalizing, but eventually we come to understand that he's been written in the episode as a guy who's taken an interest in Quark because he's writing about a criminal mastermind or something and is using his time in Quark's bar as research. I have a deeply uncomfortable question to pose to you Ben. Is for some reason Jake a fail son? You're asking if he's like a coup d'etre who's saying? I want to believe in a future where artists' lives are respected as being equal to any other kind of career, and that it's rewarded and good and rewarding to the artist. But I don't think we're given the sense that he's good at this or anyone else likes what he's doing.

This is just character research. And for some reason Jake is given respect and patience because he's been Cisco's son, but I would have hoped and expected by the end of season six that we would like him and respect him for his own characters reasons, and I don't know if we're there yet with him. He doesn't seem to be self-actualized in any way. The unlearned lesson of Wesley Crusher. Wesley the boy. The boy. Young Wesley Crusher.

My son. It doesn't serve a Star Trek show to write a character in that is like about to go to college because it becomes like the least interesting will they won't they? Like is this kid gonna go off to college or not? And I think that the writers are like well on the one hand We don't want to write this character off the show, because we find utility in telling stories with this character.

And on the other hand, we are setting this character up to be a fail son by having him stall out and moat around the station like a ghost, because he doesn't have any ambition in life. Failure to launch. In order to enjoy it, this episode makes you accept the idea that Quark would want for some reason Jake around. Out of courtesy to Nog, Quark is tolerating Jake's presence, and also kind of giving him some play by play on his thought process because what happens here is the midst of Odo's ball-busting. Kira comes in, gives Odo a zap, and Odo's mood changes, he makes himself scarce, and in this, Quarxes is an opportunity.

He now knows how to play Odo like a fiddle. I've got to admit, I've come around to the Odo Kira relationship. I don't like seeing how gooey Odo gets when Kira enters a room, but I like seeing her this happy. It's nice. She just lights up. Yeah, she is giving us, like, NRE vibes with how excited she is to see Odo. Pretty radiant. Yeah. Speaking of girlfriends, Adam, on the little D,

Cassidy Yates is serving as a liaison officer. They're like doing that thing that you do sometimes in World War II, or you have to escort a bunch of merchant marine vessels across the Atlantic. Little D is on escort duty, and Cassidy Yates has been given the task of liaising with those merchants. And she's complaining about how much paperwork this new job entails.

I knew there was a reason why I didn't join Starfleet. I couldn't do this paperwork. And Dr. Bashir comes in complaining about how much paperwork his job entails. Smot. Seems like Starfleet's just a bunch of pencil pushing cheese dicks. I think the thing that you don't want to have when you invite a friend or family member to a workplace thing is to have them relate to you how boring your shit is. And that's kind of the effect here, right? Like they're having a hang. This is the last thing that Ben Cisco wants to hear. And he's like sitting there with like a pile of

pads in front of him. He's like in the throes of paperwork when she comes in to complain about paperwork. You are not helping Cassidy. It introduces a tension right away between Cisco and Cassidy that pervades the rest of the episode. Looks like you did a pretty good job. And I think it is very well played. I definitely feel it.

He gets called up to the bridge by Worf because they're getting a distress call from the Rotherian sector. And he says, Worf, is that the ship that General Marta commands? What are you talking about? He said, no, no, no. Rotherian, not Rotarin. Wurf takes out his retainer and then he says it again like oh, I see. Oh, I got you.

It's a general distress signal and it's very broken up, but he gets up to the bridge and they give it a listen and it's a lady describing a very harrowing escape from a ship getting destroyed. Her escape pod is torn open. She landed on a class L planet, which is, it's not class M, but it's not class D, you know. You could live on it.

Yeah, class L is class L. Like bare bones, livability, Class L. It's not Class T, which is Class Thrive. I'm standing next to this planet, I'm slapping it on the atmosphere. It's pretty basic, but it'll get you there. It's like a used planet you buy from a rental company. You know, like they buy specifically

like the bottom end of the trim package for everything. Cloth interior, no XM radio. Like anything, everything is just like the bottom of the line. Crank windows. I didn't need to know they still made that. The complaint start right away about this planet. Captain Lisa, not happy with her circumstances, suggests that she may be in some trouble and pretty short order unless someone can rescue her on the double. Any other ships closer to that sector? No, sir. And that's when the little D throws it in the gear and heads her way.

They are six days away from this planet at maximum warp. This is a real haul. And so, unfortunately, even though their mission is over, their suffering is just beginning. It gives you the idea of how thin the fleet is spread, because the idea of any ship being six days away from another at this moment in time is kind of a scary prospect, right? Totally. If the little deez away does does deep-faced nine just have its pants around its ankles until it gets back? Or is there another ship taking on that job for the time being?

The main thing about having your pants around your ankles is how slowly you move because your ankles are caught on those pants. Yeah, you can't get a full stride. No. It's a bit like having flippers on your feet, you know? It is in the same way that it's easier to walk backwards with pants around your ankles than it is forwards. Here's the thing about walking in flippers, you're not supposed to walk in them and you're not supposed to turn your back on a wave.

So how exactly are you supposed to walk around on a beach? Yeah, it's like, give me a fucking break. It's too possible, yeah. Except for contradicting yourself. If you're in a boat snorkel instructor with flippers on, you're supposed to, you're supposed to go into the, into the water by falling backwards into it. I never did that. I like the snorkel. I like snorkeling all the time. I, I always just put them on on the ladder. And then I'm, and then I just sort of push myself off the ladder. I'm not bailing out

backwards out of a boat. Are you crazy? Snorkel. The only time I do that is in Atlanta with our good buddy Chuck. Then I'm jumping out of boats all the time. Yeah, where Chuck opens up his motorboat as fast as it can go on the lake and you just bail out of the boat to scare him. I don't know why I became such a bit. I could not let that go. I was like, the one thing I'm going to do is just disappear from the boat, which is really like extremely dangerous. Yeah, yeah.

At night, in like at dusk when like it will be impossible for another boat to see that you're in the water in front of them. That's the good stuff right there. Go to Kotlin. Go to Kotlin. So they head out for this planet and the first order of business is to see if they can clean up the signal because it's real mangled. It's a lot of interference and a Brian takes on kind of a level of obsession before anyone else with this problem. Like he's he's really working hard on fixing the signal problems. And did you get

the Brahms tingles from this moment? Sometimes it feels like he's actually talking to me. It's not the way this may look. It reminds me of a cousin. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, like because the doctor comes in and he's like, you know, you can turn that off and it won't change anything about what you're doing. And I think O'Brien feels comforted like having her voice there, though.

He was weird that Cassidy walked in as O'Brien was listening to the part where Captain Lisa was digging and using a trench toilet. Yeah, and they just make weird eye contact. Yeah. But she particularly enjoyed part of that. But she was like, well, class L planet does have a lot of water to drink. I am not so much concerned about her hydration.

Yeah. As much as her respiration. I thought it was amazing like how hard the work of cleaning the signal app was. O'Brien is in Jeffree's tubes. He's honest back under computer panels. He's pulling components out and reconfiguring them. This is a major job. One thing I noticed about this episode right away

during all of the scenes of Captain Lisa's dialogue was just how to like the episode I think you need to get with how that dialogue is and it feels very performative in a way that initially I didn't mind but toward the end I was like we're just Captain Lisa get off telling Cisco what to do about his relationship. Like, there was a tone to her that felt like it starts desperate because of her circumstances, but then it pivots into this other weird feeling, which is like it assumes some things about our characters and then gets very intimate with many of our characters as we'll find out later.

But I looked into who wrote the episode and it was written by an intern. Her name was Pam Pietrofort. She wrote two episodes for Deep Space 9, was a television intern, and then, as far as I can tell, did not go on to have a career in television. That was it. Wow. What the hell? Amazing trivia.

I thought that the episode was really well written and very like sensitive and good. And I maybe disagree a little bit with you about the performance. I thought Deborah Wilson's making a character that you can't see was really well done. You know what it sounded like to me? And this may be a better way to put it than the way I put it before,

but it sounded like a video game dialogue in terms of performance and writing in a way that sounded like a modern video game versus a 90s television show. Interesting. That makes sense. It felt like an imperfect fit. Deborah Wilson does voices for video games now. I actually recently played a game that she was one of the lead voices on. This like, this Star Wars Jedi game. And I- Well, that's perfect.

I wound up kind of hating the game, but I thought that her character was really good. I mean, maybe this launched that career for her. That's great. Are you saying like maybe what this was missing more than anything else was like a kind of gross, uncanny, valley CG character giving up performance for this voice work that Jordy could fall in love with. So, you suggested.

Maybe. Yes, that's what I'm looking for every time. I'm guilty of a terrible crime. She tells the story of her ship's demise and it sounds pretty rough. There's a planet with a strange energy field and her ship goes down and they punch out a bunch of escape pods. Hers is one of them. It crash lands on this planet and it seems like she's the only survivor. And so it's a race against time.

That's what only survivor. And so it's a race against time. That's what it is. Yeah, and I thought that they did a great job of like establishing and then advancing the stakes of this. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's check back in on what's going on with Quark and Odo. This is one of the great A to B story mismatches on Deep Space Nine, I think. Yeah, in big fun.

In a way that's kind of like classic track. That is like there's the tense, like emotionally charged day story and the who gives a shit be sorry. Yeah. What Cortic has observed in setting up his long con on Odo is that the one month anniversary of Odo and Kira's first date is coming up. And Korka's like, hey, Odo, you remember that extremely cringy first date you and Kira had? Don't you want to remember that forever by connecting the memory to an object that you buy Kira?

Did you have anything so ridiculous? There's no amount of drinking that can remove that memory from my mind. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. I'm half cold, half vodka right now. Look at me. I'm barely holding my shape. I'm so drunk, and I can still only think of that.

It's one of the great manipulations that a person can pull on someone else, is that, remember the time where you did something awful? Just bringing it up. Yeah, crucially Saturday is the one month anniversary. So, so, Odo has a little bit of time to find a present and so he runs off to the gift shop across the promenade and Jake comes in and just like,

what are you up to, Quirk? What's this about? And this is where like a little negotiation takes place. Which I was surprised that money didn't come into. Jake kind of plays to Quirk's ego and says like, I'm going to base a character of a nefarious villain on you. Wouldn't that be great? And I thought that it would have been fun if Quirk had said, yeah, sounds good. How about a five bars? Right. But instead, he does it for zero bars and wants anything even remotely appearing to be quirk like to not be in the book. He wants to be anonymized in every way that's in any way that would be interesting. And he also wants Jake to see him through his own eyes, which is not as a villain up to a scheme, but as a businessman. The tech industry is an American success story, who is looking to do a transaction that

would be frowned upon by the authorities. And in Quark's mind, that's an important distinction to be made. The main reason I knew that the anniversary was going to go poorly for Odo was that his gift idea is clearly a Pandora necklace. See, this charm is a bucket. So you'll think of me. This charm is a rocky outcrop in a sea of yellow liquid. And I'm hoping you'll think of me and not Dr. Bashir when you look at that one.

We go around the horn with Captain Lisa. She gets a shift with everyone. That's the job, right? Yeah, well, Captain Lisa's like, look, I would... They clear it up, right? They clear up the connection. And she can suddenly hear them for the first time. That's been O'Brien's problem is that he wants to A, clear up the signal, but also have

the ability to reply because she's kind of losing hope, right? Like she's been just monologuing into her radio wishing somebody would hear her distress signal. It's fixing a problem and creating another one because as soon as O'Brien gets the radio working and they're able to talk to Captain Lisa, Captain Lisa's like, well I've been working on some standup and I'm just wondering if I could have a couple of of your crew people to just kind of bounce it off to and workshop it with. I've got a lot of bits in my notebook here and I'm just going to try stuff and you tell me what works and what doesn't. In an extinction level friendship event, O'Brien voiced her onto Bichir almost first to get

this out of the way. Pretty great and she does a bit on Bichir almost right away where she fakes that she's been eaten by some mystery monster. Yeah, I love this. It's getting closer. What? I love the extremely Star Trek type speech pattern of the mystery monster that she comes up with, too. Yeah. There is never a moment where you are falling for this.

If you're not Dr. Bichir. Yeah. I wonder, because we get a glimpse of a Nosikin in this episode. I wonder if they showed her some Nosikin to develop this character. I bet. Yeah, and that's not the first Nosikin reference we will get in this episode because it turns out a Nosikin is who Quark's doing business with it in the B story. She's a talker, man. This is like your mom's friend that doesn't know how to get off the phone. And now it's a whole thing with G.

I would have pulled a doctor, but she, I'm setting the phone down and doing some things. Yeah, give me a room. Giving her some perfunctory, yep. Uh-huh. Yeah. This is why my mom's friends are often faking like they've been attacked by wolves during our phone calls.

She's very interested in maintaining this connection. So they're taking sheaths. They got four more detectives working on the case. And Cisco, I think it's the first one. The conversation she has with Cisco are all about spilling the tea on his relationship with Cassidy, and that's a touchy subject for him right now, because when Cassidy shows up

on the bridge, he's getting chilly with her. He's feeling like she's sort of invading his professional space. This is a very different breed of Captain, right? I feel like Captain McCart would hate Captain Lisa. Totally. But Captain Gusek has like some real insight into like why it is bothering Cisco that Cassidy is there, you know?

It bothered me when Cassidy hates to ask to her a question on the radio in that scene. Like I bristled up at that. Like what are you, what are you doing? This is start-fleet business. Yeah. Also you're a felon. Like you're a criminal Cassidy ate. You shouldn't have bridge privilege.

She served her debt to society, Adam. If you think that felons shouldn't have the right to vote and shouldn't have the right to be on the bridge of a starship, then you can fucking get the hell out of here. I think they have the right to vote. I do not believe that they should get bridge privileges. You think that the second you commit a crime, it's bridge privileges revoked for the rest of your life? I mean, if I believe that, then I think I also believe

that data shouldn't have been invited back to the bridge after his many crimes. I think that all checks out. I have a less punishment-oriented philosophy when it comes to criminal justice. I think that people can be reformed. That's great. That's classic bend.

You know, it's classic band turning comedy into virtue. It's the best. I'm not be guard, not be guard, not be guard, not be guard. Exactly. The O'Brien conversations are all about his like dread, about the war, and weird feelings about having, you know, thought he put that chapter of his life behind him, because Captain Cusack was the head of a starship that left eight years ago, left the Federation eight years ago on a very deep space mission. And so she's kind of,

she's kind of checked out of like what's going on politically. I thought it would have been natural for somebody to be like, well, so what was, remind me like what kind of was going down in the Federation around when you've left? You know? This is an interesting bit of foreshadowing, right? was going down in the Federation around when you left. This is an interesting bit of foreshadowing, right? She's so out of touch with the news of the day that like it sort of points to the conclusion

of the story and what her truth is by the end. She's like one of those Japanese soldiers that was stationed on an island before the war broke out and didn't have a radio and then you know somebody shows up and they didn't even know that there was a war on. O'Brien tells Captain Q's egg, I don't hate the war, Captain Q's egg, I hate what the war made me become. And Captain Q's egg is like that is really profound. You just came up with that on the spot?

Sorry, I shouldn't be laying all this in your show, Captain. And Brian's like, that's actually material. I kind of say that to a lot of people. Captain Q's X, like interesting you brought that up. I actually have some material I've been working on myself. She's gone. She tries out her monster attack material on everyone. She's working on like a horror podcast.

Yeah. One of the ways that they kind of step up the pressure is that she's got a drug with her called triax that she needs to be taking in order to survive the thin atmosphere on the planet that she's crashed on. And, and Bashir has asked her to ration the triax to a much lower dosage than is recommended in the eye crashed on a planet guidebook that she brought with her. This introduces the idea of a timeline been into this whole thing. We have a diminishing amount of a life-saving drug, an amount of time that the ship is taking to get there. These numbers do not match up in a way that equals

a living Captain Qzek at the end. Right, they've got three days to get there and she's got two more days of drug. And that means they're gonna have to do something to speed up, they're gonna have to find a way to go from nine to 9.5. And that means using reserve power for the structural integrity field, which against war's objections, they decide to borrow from the phaser reserves.

If Sulu were on the ship, he'd say fly a repart. Yeah, why was Sulu to advise on this? Someone should have suggested the Sulu were on the ship, he'd say fly a repart. And yeah, why was Sulu to advise on this? Someone should have suggested the Sulu maneuver. That would have been great. Yeah. But this is like deep, deep trivia on the little D though, right?

This was always the story of the little D. Yeah. Is that it will fly itself apart if it has to. It's over engineered. It's got too much engine for the chassis that they gave it. Three! And so yeah, they make the decision to step on it, add that last little bit of NOS to the fuel mixture.

This is an awkward moment for Cassidy to enter the scene, because she's like, hey guys, what's going on? How's it going? And then gets totally shut down by Ben Sisko here. I don't think so. I guess I'll see you later. Right. Again, how does this reminds me of the Wesley Crusher problem?

Again. Like, who's allowed on the bridge and who isn't? Yeah. Especially if you are a relation to a bridge officer in the way that she sort of is. It also feels like she's not coming on with business to conduct. It's just a she's not coming on with like business to conduct. It's just a, it's just a, I'm on a cruise and there are no locked doors to me

because I'm the captain's girlfriend. It's the podcast problem of if the door to your office is open. People are gonna enter. Yeah, like a Starship captain is gonna have fucking tough times at work, some challenging moments on the bridge. This is a moment that Ben Cisco shares with Captain Q'sac because Captain Q'sac is someone that believes strongly that mixing the personal and the professional is no bueno. Yeah. Well, at the times, when you come home at the end of the day, and you're just like, if I see one more cup of coffee,

she's a firm believer in setting boundaries. Which is funny coming from her, who is so probing in every conversation. Yeah. She's very intense. In many ways, she's a lot like my wife. She's not going to let an issue drop if it comes up. Back on the station quark and for some reason Jake are inspecting the goods in the cargo bay.

And quark is lamenting the idea of not being able to sell them. It's a scheduling conflict, right? If Odo isn't going to be distracted by his date on the same day that he has made arrangements with this Nasekin, the deal's not gonna happen. And that at this point is the status of things. Odo is kind of unilaterally decided, I'm not gonna celebrate the one month anniversary of our first date.

That sucked. I'm gonna celebrate the one month anniversary of our first kiss. That ruled. And this is to celebrate the one month anniversary of our first kiss. That ruled. And this is completely fucked quirk shit up because the dock again is expecting a Saturday delivery of the crystals and you can't get back in touch with the guy until he reaches the station. But if Odo is on duty when this dude gets to the station. Well, both me and a holding cell, faster than you can say, criminal conspiracy.

And I think Jake's bummed too because he wanted to see the steel go down. And he wanted to surprising late in career successful rap duo with Quark called, Sell the Jewels. For some reason his book was depending on the smoke. We get one of the classic Odo reveals at the end of this scene, and almost season one Odo reveal of where you are reminded once again, like, why don't they search the room? If you're a criminal on the station, searching the room is the first thing you do. Search for Odo.

Well, and it's a mechanic that we've got in a lot of development over the seasons, right? Like, what about, if they'd come into the cargo bay and like swept with a wide beam phaser at a very low intensity to see if any of the barrels turn into odos. But this is an unlike season one, odo turns from barrel to man and is quite touched by something that Corcus said,

because Corcus is like, yeah, it's a shame we can't sell these fucking crystals. Like I really wanted to, it was gonna be a great come up for me technically, it's illegal. And you would think after all I've done for Odo, all of the wonderful things I've done for that man that it would cut me some fucking slack once, but no. Right. There's like two prongs to this, to this lamentation by Quark though. It's the,

it's, he's sad about his missed opportunity, but it's also the knowledge that he will be arrested. Because once the plan has been put into motion, there's no stopping it. Like the Nosecans coming to the station, expecting to do a deal that can't be done. And then Quark and the Nossikans will be arrested for for the deal that doesn't happen. I was really looking forward to that happening, but instead Odo is quite touched by what Quark said. I don't really know what we can point to as things Quark has done for Odo. Odo believes it, and that's what's important. Odo is in fog of love, though.

Yeah. Fog of new love, especially, and that can make you act a little bit erashenly, as we'll find out later. True indeed. Morning, Lauren. Morning, Steve. Sweet. Lauren. Morning. Steve, you need everybody.

Lauren, stop. Hammer time. We get Odo in a tux and Kira in a very fetching, flapper dress haircut combo. Yeah, are they going back to some kind of 1920s hang, or are they heading to the Vic Fontaine era? Because she's not really... It's... Vic Fontaine appropriate in that costume, is she? It's gotta be uncomfortable every time they do this

and Ben Sisko's like, of all the time periods, you're choosing, Ben? What are you trying to say about me? Yeah. Very hurtful. I wouldn't like that at all if I were been Cisco. Might make a station wide regulation about it. It's the kind of club I feel the most comfortable in.

I can't put my finger on why. She's... That's some dark shit. If I was older, the kind of club I would want to go to would be the club in Blade, where the where the sprinklers open up and Spray liquid all over the all over the party people. Oh, yeah. Club Bissier. That's what you're talking about. Where the water is always warm. On the little D, they finally get to this planet and it's it in a shell of metrian metrian radiation. I feel like it gets pronounced a couple of different ways. Metrian or metrian depending on who's saying it, but it seems

to be sort of maybe a similar in a lot of ways to cronoton radiation. Oh, and we know what that means. Yes. It's time travel. They can't beam through this, so they're going to have to go down in a shuttle craft. I don't think they say it in the episode, but in the Wikipedia article about this episode, it says that the name of the shuttle craft is the Chafee. Really?

Named after failed Democratic presidential candidate, Lincoln Chafee? Really? Named after a failed Democratic presidential candidate, Lincoln Chafee? He is not. No, I don't think it probably is, but I'd like to imagine this. This felt like a new comp and a new launch. Yeah. And a new kind of shuttle pod. I didn't know Little D had this orifice.

Yeah. It opens up out of the bottom. It's in between the Naclles and the deflector dish. It's a grundle pod. And Sisko goes himself, takes the doctor and Chief O'Brien with him. The doctor, because they may need to provide medical interventions for this lady and Chief O'Brien because he is hopelessly in love with her, I guess. Yeah, he's a little overly excited

about being a part of this mission. Yeah, so they punched through this weird energy barrier around the planet, they get down. And I really liked the establishing shots of the planet itself. This was great. It looked like maybe they made a real model of the planet and then comped a digital shuttlecraft into it.

It was foreshadowed a little bit by Captain Q's X own comments. When she crashed landed on the planet, she mentioned that it looked like a real piece of shit planet like Ferengenar, like a place that you'd never be comfortable in. Yeah. It also brought up another question Ben, like where is the Federation poncho? Oh, yeah.

Like isn't a Starfleet poncho the perfect thing to wear on an away mission like this? That would have been nice. It would have been nice to have. Because these guys are getting soaked. Yeah, and even underground, like she's been hiding out in caves, and they go into the Star Trek caves, where she's been transmitting from. They're like having trouble.

They're not picking up on life signs. And even somehow underground, the rain is getting in there and raining all over the... It made me wonder about that Star Trek cavesaves playset if you bring in the rain machine in there. Yeah. How long is it before those caves are usable again after it dries? Are there floor drains in the Star Trek Caves? I don't know, yeah. Like that. Like I had no idea that that was a wet set capable standing set. When we're constructing the Scotswreck cave, you're going to want to put down some crushed rock before you layer a sand over the tap.

This is what's called a French drain and any wet-set environment, it's crucial for proper drainage. We're also using an array of synthetic materials to make these rocks and outcroppings so that they don't observe water at all. We get a classic high-voice concern, Cisco, here. This has to be the only direction she could have been headed in. This is a quality of Cisco that we've been getting more and more when he's worried about someone. He goes up another octave when he yells out for Captain Qzek. And unfortunately they find her quite dead.

Somehow she found a dry enough part of the cave to be very dried out. So Cisco rolls her body over and he's like, good, it's like one of those foreranging body pucks. It's totally desiccated. O'Brien's like sick. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Look, a dead cat you find in somebody's garage. Yeah, dead for three years is Captain Q's egg. It's tragic. She's way deader than they thought she was gonna be. They thought she might be somewhat dead. They thought like maybe we've got like 20, 30 minutes to get her back to the shuttle and then back to Six Bay

because she's been suffering from hypoxia for so long, but she's super duper dead. Yeah. And that is to do with the metrian radiation. They figure out what's been happening is that she's been transmitting through that energy field and it's been jumping forward in time three years and then they've been transmitting back and it's been jumping back in time three years.

Which accounts for her questions about the state of Starfleet. Right. If she was three years in the past, it sort of makes the nature of her questions more reasonable. It seemed like she was pretty out of touch at the time, but now you know why. Right. It's eight plus three is what she is how out of sync she was with the latest news.

And like I think that that's also like a short enough span. Like if it was like, if she was in like a TOS movie uniform with the flap with the blood on it Like I think it would have made a lot less sense because they would have been like yeah Like we're a war with the Kardashians and the gem had our and she'd be like what's a Kardashian? You know This goes like well, they're like craggy looking people with sort of a spoon head look about them

She'd be like wow that you know squirly looking guys sound like pretty xenoph look about them. Should be like, wow that, real squirrely looking guys. You sound like pretty xenophobic, describing them to be honest. Like different aliens have different lofcisco. What's your problem? I'm xenophobic. I've got my own crew people vacationing in the 1920s. They're our problems all around me, Captain Cusack.

The federation is really falling apart. Far worse than it's generally known. They bring Captain Q.S. X remains back with them and throw what is called an Irish wake for her back on the station in the ward room. Dax describes what the basics are of an Irish wake to Wharf who's never encountered this concept before. It's a way to memorialize the death and celebrate life at the same time. And he's very impressed. He says it sounds almost clinging on.

Lot less screaming though. Probably unclear whether or not Captain Q's Act is going to Stovacore. She's probably not if they didn't scream for her. Yeah. How would Stovacore. She's probably not if they didn't scream for her. How would Stovacore know to expect a warrior was coming? Well, I don't know if she was a warrior. I think she was more of an explorer.

Yeah. Crucially, this is not an open torpedo, Irish wake. Yeah, I mean, I could not take my eyes off of the base for the torpedo either. Very top heavy was this whole situation and at many times during the scene people were laying hands on it. Great big wobble on the torpedo stand here. I was expecting one of those fun funeral comedy scenes where the torpedo falls open and the body spills out. Yeah, yeah.

And grandma clutches her pearls. Yeah, because Brian is looking in there and he's like, is that my putter? That clubs he replaceable. It's 10 years old, they don't make it anymore. I'm so sorry. Then he makes, he makes, he makes Bashir go to his car and get one of his golf clubs to swap in for it.

And, right. At the, at the wake, Cisco goes up to Cassidy and says, hey, like later on, there's actually something I really want to talk to you about, but not here, not now. And she says, is this about me? And he says, no, it's actually about me. And it's one of those like, I won't, like, see me after class that's like more,

a greater amount of emotional violence than is actually meant by it. Oh yeah, I was absolutely nauseated by this scene just because of how many times I've been on both ends of this. Totally. Don't do this, that's a go. If you wanna have a conversation later, I have the conversation later,

but don't say we need to talk. I want to have you stew about this for three or four hours before we actually hash it out. To Cassidy ate his credit, she takes it with great aplomb, like she is. Seriously. Cooler than anyone could possibly be

about this rhetorical bomb dropped into her lab. I was scared for her. Yeah. And then the eulogies are kicked off possibly be about this rhetorical bomb dropped into her lab. I was scared for her. Yeah. And then the eulogies are kicked off by Dr. Bashir and a classic throwback to season one Dr. Bashir because he makes his eulogy all about himself. I am not the arrogant, self-absorbed god-like doctor

that I appear to be on occasion. I love this. Yeah, where he's like, I would appear to be on occasion. I love this. Yeah, he's like, I would like to propose a toast. There's a bottle going around, one of my private collection. Cut to wharf, and he's just like power pounding it. A gorgeous beverage. I thought that this was sweet though. Like, they all formed a relationship with her.

O'Brien's comments about I never even like better in person, but she meant a lot to me. I thought a lot about the fact that these characters are all at war right now. This is a funeral, which has got to be like a fairly commonplace thing that they are dealing with like semi-weekly probably, but this is a kind of funeral that feels separate from that and might be kind of a way for them to access a simpler time in an interesting way. Which is why they're all drinking simple times.

The tone of this felt very much like all good things. They're all looking at each other, imagining a future where one of them isn't there. And Qzac is the one that has made them confront that idea. Even though none of them knew her really, she inspired this sort of appreciation none of them knew her really, she inspired this sort of appreciation among them in a way that felt very like that last episode of TNG. I was not expecting the gravity of this moment the way that we got it. Yeah, that was well done. Indeed. Did you like the episode, though? I don't like that we don't go to dinner with Cassidy and Pensisco later. How is he gonna fix this? Yeah.

That's a bigger cliffhanger than Best of Both Worlds part one, I think. When this is over, I would talk to you about something, something that's been on my mind. Okay. Um. I'm really just been on my mind. Okay. Okay. I have a rich history of teachers telling me to see them after class. You know what the best thing was was when a teacher asked you to stay after class and then they forgot that they asked you to stay after class and then you just sort of go on to the next period

and you really get away with one in that moment. They were happening. No, my teacher's always remembered. Oh shit. My teachers were like peppered farm, man. To answer your question, I did not love this episode aside from its ending. It felt very derivative of that data

and Sarjinka pen pals episode from TNG, the voice in the distance that you're trying to go save. It felt a little bit like a retread in that way, in a way that's unfortunate. What about you Ben? I can certainly see the parallels there, but I like that she was a Federation starship captain of a ship that Was on an mission of exploration like her uniform when they find her body is like old time pre-first contacts TNG uniform and I loved Just remembering that I think it was like a really like shrewd episode to put toward the end of season 6 of remember before this all happened, like what Starfleet was about.

And like I don't think it's like one of the strongest episodes of the season by any extent, but I kind of liked it for that reason. I kind of liked the song order decision that they made with putting an episode like this where it is. I like being reminded that this is a mission that Starfleet have got to be doing all the time. Totally. The rescue mission and the race against time feels like that's what Kobayashi Marui is. That's like a foundational mission if you're an officer and it's good to be reminded of such a thing. Yeah I do want to be reminded of how great our listeners are by checking our priority one

inbox. Oh I'm already there. I beat you there Bill. Shit. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secured channel. We've got two priority one messages this week, both of them personal, the first one been, is from Dan. And it is two you and me. I'm going to assume it's you and me because it says Ben and Adam. Could be a different Ben and Adam. Message goes like this, hey Adam.

Hey Ben. Thanks for making TGG. Have some scarves. Nice. That's it. A requested date is any Devespace 9 app other than Time's Orphan. Wow. Which is an interesting request like, Dan.

What do you have against Time's Orphan out of curiosity? Or is like Time's Orphan too sacred to Dan to use as a jockey message. I am filled with both gratitude and more questions. For Dan, thanks for the scarves, Dan. Yeah. We also have a message here from Charles. First paragraph of message is this old enterprise, of course. That's Charles's name.

And it is also to Ben and Adam, and it goes like this. When constructing the galaxy's finest pot, start with two hosts of pure moose knuckle. They aid in a waifu crazed genocidal deity, and the finest raps in the biz. Top off with a clear coat of this, fun nose ridges, and this pod will last for generations. Thanks for helping keep me smiling and sane, now and always. Hey, that's great.

Thanks Charles! Now and always. Hey, that's great. Thanks, Charles. I like hearing our friends at this old house describe our show, Dusly. Well, if you'd like to send us a P1, we'd sure appreciate it. It's a hundred bucks for a personal message and 200 for a commercial message and they're a great way to support the production of our show. Hey, Adam. What's up, Ben? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda?

Drunk Shimoda! Yeah, I got a time code Shimoda for you. Time code Shimoda. At about 754, we get an establishing shot of Quark's bar. And everyone knows that when you're shooting a thing like you call action, and that's when the scene begins. But before that, you call background action essentially. Because you don't want people to start their move after the scene begins, right?

And so there's nothing unusual, production-wise, about this moment. But the guy that we see with the first move in this scene looks like a normal guy, like a 1998 guy wearing a flannel shirt and just like drinking a beer. Yeah, they got that shirt at like the gap. Yeah, it looks contextually of the time that the show was made. It looks like he's trying to sneak off the set before the show was made. It looks like he's trying to sneak off the set before the scene actually begins. Yeah, everything about him does look like he's

from the 90s, except for the green space drink he's drinking. He looks like he's a time traveler. And he caught my eye so utterly that I'm gonna make him my Shimoda, regular guy alert, Ben. Wow. What about you? I also have a regular guy alert and so if you look at one minute and 16 seconds into this episode, this is like right after Odo's been distracted from busting Qu Chaps by his new girlfriend, Kira. And he, you know, puts his arm around her shoulder

and walks down the promenade with her. A new patron enters Quarx Bar. This patron appears to be a gem hadar in civilian clothing. What? What are you doing here, gem hadar? How are you walking around? Ha, ha, ha, ha. One catch or sell white, please.

Sorry, sir, we're fresh out. I can look in the basement, but I'm pretty sure we're totally spoken for on Gemma Dhar white. Another notable thing about this scene is we've got a, we've got a snuffle, lovagus, trunk, alien, play and dabo. Oh, yeah, I saw that. The trunk head.

Yeah, the trunk head shows up a couple of times in different scenes, but that gem had R, like, and I don't think that's weird. I was looking for the gem had R every time we come back to Quirk's Bar, which was a number of times in this episode, and I didn't see them again, but I'm almost positive that that's gem had R loaf. I mean, you're not gonna kick out a paying customer, are you?

I guess not. It's like... I mean, his Latinum is as good as anyone's. It's true, yeah. That's my drug smoto. What's that guy doing there? We may never know. Gotta get that, get that gold press. Gotta get that, get that gold press.

Come on right, huh? Oh, yeah! Come on, right, right, huh? Oh! A greatest-gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post-show hangs,

to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it. The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to greatestgentour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour.

I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries?

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Be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line and boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this off. We've got to get on the art.

It is about terrain, it's about historic humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie?

We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boat. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. One thing we know for sure is that there is an episode after this one. Yeah, if you want to head to the Game of Buttholes, the will of the prophets had got that biz-slash game.

I'm there right now, Ben. I'm here to tell you that we are currently on square 40. And the deep, deep distance is a cocoa-no-no-ep. Ooh, shit. You would have to roll a six to get us there. Well, it's your role, my friend. And that's a rare role for you to roll a six. It'll never happen, right? But the episode in question is season six, episode 26, tears of the prophets, ignoring the warnings of the prophets. Cisco leads an invasion into dominion territory. He's just driving people crazy with what he chooses to accept and deny about his role as the Cisco. It's complicated.

Well, how are we going to be watching that particular episode, Adam? You're required to learn as you play, role. I'm going to role. Everyone back off. I'm gonna roll. Everyone back off, I'm gonna roll. Ha ha. I have rolled a four. Tula! Did I win? Which puts us on square 44.

Just two away from a cocoa no no, which means you're gonna watch the season finale of season six, Stone Cold Silver. 44 is the channel number of KPHK that the channel I watched Star Trek on when I was a boy. About that. Yeah. God in Seattle, I believe it was a KSTW 11, channel 11, it was on.

So, 44, a multiple of 11. Of interest to everyone. Are those pieces of trivia? Yeah. You know that people from the Bay Area in Seattle are just going like, yeah! Anyways. Haring out their earbuds in Triumph.

Yeah. That's a little loud out. I mean, we give people a lot of reasons to tear out their earbuds on this show, Adam, but that's actually a positive one. It's nice, right? You know what else is nice? All of the kind folks that support us at maximumfund.org slash join. If you're listening to this, the week it comes out.

Last week to get in on that sweet sweet max fund drive get those cool pledge gifts But if you're not just support us, you know supporting us any time of year is a good time of year Thanks, Fund Drive just happens to be the best time of year it helps keep the show going couldn't do without you We sure couldn't We got to thank our buddy Bill Tilly who has gone from being our card daddy to being our social media daddy. He runs the greatest Trek Instagram and Twitter accounts. And we really appreciate all of the hard and thoughtful work he does doing that. Give him slash us a follow over on the Twitter and the Instagram.

Why don't you give and while you're following social media things, how about following Adam Ragusia's YouTube channel? He's the musical genius that made all of the custom interstitial and background music for this show. He of course worked off of the prior art of dark material, but now Adam Ragusia is on to bigger and better things as a great

big YouTube cooking celebrity. And his channel is great. It's going to teach you all kinds of good recipes. I am looking outside of my window and seeing two thriving tomato plants thanks to a couple of the things I learned from Adam Ragusia's YouTube page. So it's about food, but also how grown tomatoes. Hell yeah. Listen to our other shows on Maximum Fun. We do the greatest discovery. I think as of the release of this episode, we'll be pretty close to the launch of our

episodes, covering Star Trek, Column, Lower Decks, the animated series. That's right. This episode is coming out the week of episode one of lower decks. So get into that, watch lower decks, and then get into all of our fun programming over at the greatest discovery. And also listen to Friendly Fire, a war movie podcast that isn't as bad as that makes it sound. With that, we'll be back next time with another great episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9,

and in an episode of the greatest generation, it may come back without one of its hosts. Oh shit. Recast the time after that, huh? Yeah. Wow. Who's gonna play me? Oh, you have ideas, don't you? Yeah.

Don't even pretend that you don't. Somebody younger, but no less appealing I did like trying to find anyone as type A is me No such thing is Type A+. Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture Artist Oat? Audience supported.