The Greatest Generation - Thus Shat Zarathustra (ENT S3E2)

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

When the Entrepreneur is flying Winnie the Poo style through the expanse, anomalies bring them out of warp near a vessel full of deads. But when they’re boarded and robbed by space pirates, Captain Archer turns his prisoner into a plan to retrieve their booty. Who is going inside out first? What is the Cochran equation? Which two things will get you killed in the Delphic Expanse? It’s the episode that could have used a crazy straw.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

Here's to the finest crew in Starling. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me. This is a parody. Paramount owns the sun. Welcome to the Greatest Generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranica.

And if you're wondering why you're watching this podcast on YouTube and not just listening to it on your phone, it's because it's a Code 47 episode, Adam. Whoa! Whoa! Bill Tilly, our Zindi wartime consignere has been hard at work screening DM inquiries about the PO box and... Tasting food before it comes through. That's one of his jobs. Everybody knows that he makes sure

that things aren't lethally poisonous before they get sent to us. Yeah. But we have a great big pile of stuff here, Adam, so I think we should probably get right into it. That is one big pile of shit. Oh yeah. Open it up.

Captain, I'm sorry to disturb you. I'm receiving a code 47. Verify. It is code 47, sir. Starfleet emergency frequency. Captain's eyes only. All right. First thing in the mailbag here is a postcard from Pakistan

It's the ruins of the old Marie brewery factory in Marie. I don't know if I'm pronouncing Marie correctly Oh, man, could you imagine the brews coming out of that facility when it was at Fulthrum? I know. I mean it looks like it's it's fallen into disrepair. I don't I feel like Pakistan is not one of the Islamic countries that completely forbids the consumption of alcohol. You know what? This is what's happened to our small boutique breweries around the globe. They just get gobbled up by large corporations like InBev or whatever. Clearly, that's what's happened here in Pakistan.

The thing is, like, a bunch of millennial Pakistanis were like, hey man, like these IPAs are really hot right now and we got a home brew kit off the internet, we know what to do, and this is what it looks like now. You know what? I think FODs would expect full-throated support for our Pakistani brewery folks. Not if you're making a bunch of IPAs.

You get what you get. I still enjoy them. But, you know, there's a time and a place. Yeah, like cooking a bunch of sausages. That's what I do with my IPAs. I also enjoy them as beverages. But here we go. Dear Bannon Adam, greetings from Islamabad.

This postcard is of an abandoned brewery in Pakistan that just screamed your names. Did you know that Jemodar, Ferengi, and Gull are all Urdu words, and Bajor is a region in northwest Pakistan? Anyhow, love your show. You keep me company on my weekend walks. Shout out to my pal Marcus.

Not David Marcus, just Marcus. I'd send you some Marie beer, but it's not good enough to be worth hoping it arrives in one piece. Roller and drop. ["The New York Times"] ["The New York Times"] ["The New York Times"] I love the self-censorship on the sending of beer.

Good job. The sign off here is Trek Zindabad. I think the name is Havand or Howard. But also there's a PS. My two sons' names are Ben and Harrison. Wow! What an honor. I'm sure that that happened because of this show.

I'm sure that the mother has no idea. Yeah, those are great names! How'd you think of them? Oh, I don't know. I'm sure we have relatives named both. Important relatives. Next one here is also international mail. This one came out of the UK from Ed. Ed F. out of Balls Ham. You know, after a particularly sweaty workout, I've often found what results is Balls Ham. A very salty balls situation.

A brine if you will. By the time I get in the shower, I'll find a couple of cloves stuck in there. Maybe a nice honey glaze. Uh-huh, yeah. Dear Ben and Adam, my recent trip to San Diego, I had the pleasure of accidentally stumbling across the Maritime Museum, where amongst other things, they have the tall ship that was used as the HMS Surprise and Master and Commander, the far side of the world. As an aspiring boat dad, I can

sail but I'm yet to own a boat. I had a great time geeking out on the ship and chatting with the docent who appeared to be running some kind of boat dad fantasy fulfillment service and was kind enough to take a photo of me at the wheel. It also put me down a bittersweet memory trip of your previous war film podcast when I saw the HMS Surprise pins in the gift shop. I figured you would both get a kick out of them. An HMS Congratulations or HMS Enterprise pin would have been optimal, but I guess we can't have everything in life. Thanks for everything you do. Much love, Ed! That bit just flew right back into my consciousness. The whole runner of like,

there should be an HMS Happy Birthday or any number of other names for ships if HMS Surprise is such a formidable opponent on the high seas. Indeed. Well, here's what Ed has sent. A couple of enamel pins of the HMS surprise one for you And one for me beautiful that's gonna go right on a suit jacket lapel Actually, is that stolen docent valor if I did that that probably can do that, huh? I feel like if you're wearing gray trousers and a blue jacket, you can't do it But if you're wearing something a little bit more, you know, on trend, I think you can get away with it. Is a docent both the best and worst job ever?

Best because you get to talk about the thing that you like. Worst because you cannot escape from someone who just wants to chat you up. Oh yeah, yeah. For longer than their appropriate amount of time. I guarantee there are people who are temperamentally incapable of reading social cues that want to tell you everything they know about that type of boat. It's like a docent measuring contest. Like, oh, you're a docent? Oh, you're a docent? I mean, I could be a docent. I just don't want

to be. All right. This next package is from Jessica D out of North Chesterfield, VA. Got a great big Starfleet insignia on the back. So we got a balls ham package, and we got a Chesterfield package. Mm-hmm, yeah. Chesterfield is also like a leather sofa, right? It is.

I feel like you could make some balls ham sitting on a Chesterfield if you're not in a well ventilated room. Not a breathable fabric. Dear Adam and Ben, Discovery was my first TV trek. And all I had seen prior to that were the J.J. Abrams movies. That's like a gold star trek, isn't it? I know. I wanted to find a podcast that would let me in on any background or lore I wasn't aware

of. That is how I stumbled upon Greatest Trek. At that time, I had no intentions of watching any of the previous series, but I got hooked on listening to you guys talk about Trek, and I have now watched all of TNG, DS9, and Voyager all while listening to the pod after each episode. I saw this book at a local overstock store and I knew I had to send you guys a copy. Hopefully Ben enjoys reading it to his little ensigns as much as I do mine, who refer to Trek as Mommy's Space Show.

Thanks again for all of the amazing pod thus far and to come. Happy holidays and as always, LLAP, friend of DeSoto and a regular, Jessica D. Wow, thank you, Jessica. We need to come up with a term for this order of consumption. Like, yeah, it's kind of backing it in, isn't it? Yeah, what we've got here is Star Trek Trek the halls a holiday themed book to boldly celebrate where no gorn has celebrated before And it looks like this this really spans the the eras of Trek I see characters from All the different shows on here. Wow. What a full table, full spread of desiccated jerky.

They're also observing Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and maybe is that Tet, that candle dish there? Oh yeah, just absolute house fire waiting to happen with the amount of candles on the table. I hope it isn't offensive if that isn't for Tet. They're even putting some decongel on the on the Christmas tree in this picture. I really hope that people respond to and respect the absolute line that was by you Ben. I hope I hope so. I don't know. I do. All right, we still got a bunch of packages here. Go faster!

This one's from Stefan T. out of New York, New York. It's like a jewelry box. Season's Greetings I hope you enjoyed this year's ornament as much as I enjoyed making it or more. This year there is an accelerometer and some of the modes will react to how you hold it. You may have noticed the USB-C port this year. You can use this instead of a battery. But if you connect it to a computer, it will show up as a USB drive and you can see and modify the source code. I wanted to make it as accessible as possible. That is so presumptuous.

So if you have any interest, I encourage you to try it out. No special tools are needed, and if you've never coded before, this would be a great way to try it. Go to github.com slash terabyte three slash snowflake to find out how. Pulling that plastic tab that activates a battery in a battery powered thing is one of the low key best feelings I can feel. It's right up there with taking the sheet of protective film off the front of a new phone. Oh yeah.

This is the ornament. There's a couple over here. Stefan, your candy cane ornament is a totally great addition to my holiday season. I love it. It definitely has a place in our home. Can you see the glow? Yes. That's great. Nice one Snowflake. Really gorgeous. Really great work there.

There's one for you and one for me Adam so uh... Love it. I will set those aside for ya. Alright this next one is from Curtis G from Santa Cruz, California. I know Curtis. And it's attention, Benjar Pranic. Curtis has been very generous with the drinkables over the years. Yes. Dear Ben and Adam slash Adam and Ben, if you don't have enough poop already in your lives,

please accept this traditional Catalonian good luck symbol that I picked up on a recent trip to Barcelona. I was a little worried that it would be too much until I listened to your episode on Prodigy where you were talking about Murph jacking it to a hologram. So this is a very recently sent gift here. He definitely spent on the fast delivery. The Caganor or pooper is apparently some kind of metaphor for fertility or something?

It's apparently a great honor to be represented as a Cagoner as they have hundreds of different ones available. You can see more of them at Cagoner.com Cagoner sounds like a name for a red shirt Klingon that goes on the dangerous away mission, you know? Yeah I hope we all come back from battle red shirt Klingon that goes on the dangerous away mission you know yeah I hope we all come back from battle but one could not make it home one has gone straight to Stovacore Cogadar his name sounds like something that you would yell at the heavens to let them know a warrior is coming The possibilities for Podshop.biz are endless Although it might be kind of a specialized market believe it or not in Catalonia for Christmas

they always have a Cagatio or the poop log which is an Actual log that you dress up with odo eyes, a hat and a kilt and then beat it with a stick while singing a song to get it to poop out candy. I swear I am not making this up. It's just all that holiday food that's how you make the big holiday log. I hope this gift brings you peace, prosperity and health and inspires you to ever greater heights of poop jokes. Your pal, Curtis G. Here's the the Cogatio here. Kind of a Fozzie the Bear face to that log. Despite the recency of this one being sent in, kind of also got some holiday theming to it, doesn't it? This is great. Feels very festive on the code 47 today. Okay. And what we have here is Mr. Spock also

in a hover dropping a big fat one on the floor behind him. That is really tremendous stuff, Curtis. Thank you. I would have thought that the pile would be a little more symmetrical. Oh yeah. Yeah. It seems like a sort of low logic pile there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How did Van Sitters sign off on this when we can't get him to respond to an email about a goddamn window screen? Yeah, it's really baffling how the Star Trek industrial complex chooses its merch. All right, last package today, last package today Adam is a heavy one

This is from Cory out of Manana, Gila Pennsylvania that is a mouthful You know when you're writing your return address on the envelope you're just going all the way across with something like that Mananja Gila All right, I'm gonna read the letter before I reveal what's in here. Okay. Hi Ben and Adam. I was inspired by the wholesome episode on the greatest Trek feed where Ben shared about his tabletop group and Adam his history of playing D&D and thought you folks might like some legally distinct Trek minis.

I jumped into a site that lets you build custom minis and got to work kit bashing some parts together to make some for you too. into a site that lets you build custom minis and got to work kit bashing some parts together to make some for you too. Unfortunately some of the kit bash parts were too small for print so I had to settle for their acrylic standee tokens instead. I have included the Star Trek Adventures 2e rulebook and the Lower Decks campaign guide in case Ben wants to run it at his table or you guys are inspired to do a Max Fun Drive bonus app for the pod. No pressure, hope to see you back in Pittsburgh again. Maybe you'll run into another muscle builder convention at

your hotel. LLAP Lockley. So what we've got here is the cellophane wrapped Star Trek Adventures manual, the tabletop role-playing game based on Star Trek and the expansion pack of campaigns for lower decks, which is really exciting. That looks like big fun. We should at least make some characters as a bonus app or something, right? I always like making characters the best. We've got some characters here printed out. Here's the Adam Pranica printout.

Let's see. Ben's held up a little game piece that looks like it's got my face on a red shirt's body. And here is my character. Are you wearing sunglasses? I think they're just tinted regular glasses upon close inspection. In a Star Trek future, I think that that works. You would be wearing Transitions glasses.

I mean that's the wave of the future, right? Yeah. Last, but definitely not least, is the Bill Tilly one. Wow. Probably the closest likeness of the three of us. Bill's looking great. I think it's closest likeness of the three of us. Bill's looking great I think it's appropriate that none of us is a science officer Really really great stuff if you want to see pictures of the game pieces or anything else that's been open on the code 47

We're gonna be posting the video to YouTube but also photographs on Instagram and the rest of the socials so check that out. Yeah Thank you to Lockly and everyone who sent something in today. Really appreciated. What do you say we tarry no longer, Adam, and get into the episode we came to talk about today? Can't wait, Ben. It is Star Trek Enterprise Season 3 Episode 2 Anomaly. Got free speech and guitars. Which stars a really cute protagonist in just like a pixie haircut. Yeah, big sparkly eyes.

She's always looking to camera in every scene. Ugh, you just fall in love with her. Yeah, you have to. You can't resist her. Also, not to be resisted, the opportunity to bring a dog on a dangerous mission. This is what we're reminded of in the cold open here. Woof! What's the problem?

Well, come on, Archer called around and all of his friends were like, sorry, man, no, we're actually going out of town at the same time, can't feed and water porthos. So in addition to like facing life and death and the potential for turning inside out on this mission, a crew person must also endure a barking dog on their deck. Don't you know Tripp is having a hard time sleeping? I don't feel like we've heard much noise out of Porthos, but like Beagle's a notably noisy

breed of dog. Like their howls are really something. So noisy. And Porthos is catawalling a little bit. He can sense the anomalies coming before anyone else can. Ben, you know how we were talking about how terrifying it has to be to be in the expanse because every little tingle might be the beginning of being turned inside out?

When I look down at Porthos starting to yell, I'm like, oh God, is this the beginning for Porthos? Are we gonna see this happen to Porthos first? Oh my God. Is he gonna transform into an exploded bean and cheese burrito? I don't know. We cut away from this scene to engineering where Trip Tucker is given a report on an iPad. That just don't make sense to me. What? Yeah. Some weird readings on the engine.

Yeah. So he's got to go to work to confirm what he's seeing. And in Six Bay, Dr. Flax is feeding his menagerie of death. But the natives in the brush are a little restless, aren't they? Yeah, the velociraptors are playing with their cow and not just eating it. In the mess hall, it's food fight! And the enemy is the ceiling? Yeah. Look at them just fucking nail the ceiling. Oh! How do you think they did this? Is this like a little bit of fishing line on each plate and they just yanked it up into the ceiling? It looked great to me. Great job. It looked awesome like really fun practical effect. They did something similar in the cargo bay

with the boxes moving to and fro, but this looks much less effectsy. Yeah, yeah, it looked awesome. There's like ripples going around the ship, like the shape of space seems to be changing and it knocks a couple of crewmen off their feet. And then it knocks a coffee cup off of Archer's desk and it's just floating there with a

splute of coffee coming out of it in midair in the middle of his office. And he's like in the middle of taking a look at this when he gets called to the bridge because something is wrong. Can I tell you something you already know about a great difference between me and Captain Archer? There is no fucking way I go to the bridge after being called if this coffee is floating in my room. I've got to figure out the coffee thing. What are you doing in this scene?

Are you wrapping it with a jacket? Cause I'm going to presume there's no like plastic bag in your waste bin, which seems like it would be probably the best way to do it. You grab a bathroom towel to absorb it. How do you clean this up if it's a floater? How about you just take the roll of paper towels and let it interact with the coffee? Because then it'll just absorb in, right? Ben, we've for some reason forgotten the most fun version,

is if he just puts his face up to it and he's like. Oh yeah. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uh, . How much would Captain Archer's stock have gone up in this episode if he'd pulled out a crazy straw? He left this in with his dog also, right? have gone up in this episode if he'd pulled out a crazy straw. He left this in with his dog also, right? Isn't that weird?

Yeah. Presumably it's not hot anymore, right? Like the amount of surface area exposed to the air when it's floating has got to release the heat quickly. Oh, that is such a great call. It cools immediately once it's exploded like that. Because that was an insulated mug. Yeah. Yeah. He gets to the bridge and he's like, can you make this fast? I got kind of an emergent situation

in the clarinet rental closet. It's going to be a big mess if I don't get back there pretty quickly. He wants all stop, but shutting down the reactor is not as easy as it normally is. And finally, Trip is able to get them to drop out of warp and the ship looks pretty sick when it appears in normal space. It's like flickering nacelles and just looking a little worse for wear. Yeah, we drop out a warp into the theme and our second run at this newly updated theme song.

Does it hit any differently hearing it again? It really feels stomp and clappy to me in that early 2000s kind of way. All we need is a couple of woes to sing along to. Sure, a little millennial yell. Yeah, yeah. That would have helped, maybe. I got another question for you about anomalies.

Okay. Like, meeting aliens that you've never met before. Sticking your hands down into the aliens' bags of lentils. Has to be fun and weird and like why you get into space exploration. Like, yeah, going to planets. Oh, these planets are so weird. They've got plants and animals I've never seen before. The whole circus carnival mirrorification of the place that you live on a starship happening

has got to be terrifying. And the react to this is so professional and cool, it kind of bumped me a little bit. Like when you see decks of the floor warble, like when you see people like have to dodge out of the way because a wall might like bend out and hit you, that's mind-bending shit. Because it's not just your home, it's your iron lung.

If it breaks, you're dead. It's why earthquakes are so scary. The idea that the thing that you just take for granted as being solid and sturdy and not out to attack you suddenly does, that's what this feels like. Yeah. It really does. They are not panicking, but they're stuck for a while. And while they're working on fixing all the stuff that broke as they anomalized, they pick up readings of another vessel that's not too far away to go at quarter impulse and see what's up with it. And we pull up on this ship and there are no life signs.

It's a salvage. Guess they got there first. Yeah. It's time to squad up with the Makos and their sexy, sexy bodies and get ready for some zero-G exploration. Didn't the energy of the change into the EV suit scene feel a lot like a gym teacher in the locker room?

Kind of vibes with Archer and these folks. I thought so. This is an alien ship we're boarding. We could run into magnetic variances. Watch your step. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yeah, a little early for a halftime speech. Reed also a little encouraging

of everyone taking a shower afterwards, like if you've gotten sweaty or not. Hey Reed, give it a rest. Like everyone can make their own decision there. I'm wondering if the Makos, like he's asking like what their level of experience is with this kind of mission. And it's like, you know,

they've all got a lot of simulator time. Like has Earth had any conflicts where the Makos would have had any like practical combat experience or are these all like fresh recruits essentially? I don't know. And I also share your curiosity about their whole deal. I wonder how much they wanted to go full colonial Marines with them and then like knew they just had to take five giant steps back from that sensibility.

Right. Cause I was, I had an appetite for that kind of badassery. You know? Salute these badasses. Let's pack them in. Get in there. You keep thinking what is gonna happen when they cut tomacos is that there's going to be like that snare drum music,

like... Yeah. Yeah. And Mackenzie's gonna do a bunch of pull-ups. Like... Like we're gonna get the whole thing. Like character for character. One of them's gonna be eating like peanut butter off of a bowie knife

and licking the blade or shit. I would be all right with that. Unclear whether Hawkins is gonna be our apone for this one. He has very little to do this episode. Yeah. If we change the words, then it's fair use all day long. They get aboard this ship and there are boots floating around and signs of weapons fire, but nobody is alive.

This place is a tomb. And that is underscored by a panel coming open and a dead tumbling out. Pretty solid jump scare, I thought. What was that guy doing behind the panel? I don't know. My headcanon is like, this guy died first, and then they lost gravity. And so instead of just having a dead guy float around,

they're like, well, I got this compartment behind the panel. Right. Maybe just for the moment we stick him back there so he doesn't float in. Because God, like the squick you get of like you're doing your, your starship business and then like a floating dead comes and nudges you. Yuck. I had a slightly different theory, which was that, I mean, we find out later

that the ship lost life support after they had started repairs. And I think this guy might've just been the nerd of the ship and he was in, he was in a locker when that happened. Here's my pitch for an AMC hit TV show, The Floating Dead, where the zombies are aboard a spacecraft without any gravity and they can't catch you. They just kind of flail around trying to get you, but they're just kind of floating in place.

Right, because if you're in midair, like you're... Yeah, very hard to get traction. Indeed. Well, we go to the bridge and there's a bunch more bodies floating in here. It's because they got no compartments with panels on the bridge, Ben. Yeah, the bridge was, you know, all the space was spoken for on the bridge. We're suddenly back in the EV suit locker where Archer and T'Pol are checking in and she's reporting that the ship is still

basically as fucked as it was when he left. And he is stressing about whether whoever attacked this other ship might be still about and still prepared to attack them. Ben, you are a much harder core science fiction person than I am in your consumption across like many franchises. What is your definition of particle weapon? Because in my mind, I went to like firearm, that shoots a particle, right?

Like is that what they mean by this or is that something else? I think, yeah, phasers, lasers, disruptors would be, would all be particle weapons. But not Tommy gun, which is where my head went, which is like a thing shooting a projectile or a particle. I don't think that that is what they mean when they say particle weapon.

That's firearm specifically. Yeah. Yeah, or projectile weapon, I guess, would be, I don't know. But yeah, like how big are we talking particle wise? You probably want particle weapons so you don't punch through a hole, right? Like that's the reason, that's the whole reason you invent particle weapons, is so you can shoot them inside a spaceship and it doesn't punch a hole through the hull, right?

It's no fun if you punch a hole through the hull, you know? You just want to kill people. Not the ship. It ain't no fun if both the homies can't get none and if your particle weapon shoots through the side of the hull. Everyone knows that. That's just common knowledge, alright? Yeah.

Anyways, Tripp is struggling with making a stable warp field because the Cochrane equation isn't constant here. And what we get as an illustration of this problem is every time they throw the big switches on the elevated platform of the warp core, the engineering section just fills up with warp lightning. You want to know what the Cochrane equation has been? C equals M plus W. Many plus women equals Cochrane.

Oh, plus A, alcohol. Plus O, Ooby Dooby. Is it like divided by Ooby Dooby? Like times alcohol? So now we're doing the formula like with the parentheses and the division. I think we're getting close to it here. Like with the parentheses and the division. I think we're getting close to it here. Mm-hmm. Epsilon represents fingerless gloves. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

What's the symbol for a drunken commencement speech? Oh, yeah. Dollar signs. Yeah. Yeah, he's on the speaker circuit, you know? $10,000 in appearance. Got to. Yeah. Archer tells Tripp that warp would be nice, but we got to have webs.

He's the key. And he goes back to the clarinet rental closet and the coffee is still floating there. What a relief. Honestly. Yeah. Another really cool effect when he grabs the mug out of the air. I kind of feel like they did this by like tossing a mug to him and he just caught it right where they wanted

it to be floating. I love this moment. I love the effect. I love that there is also not dog urine floating in its own little cloud. Near the coffee. Yeah. Just dog logs spinning lazily in the air.

Like 2001, a space odyssey, dog logs. Thus shat Zarathustra. I was trying to puzzle that out of my mind. You did it. Well done. So here comes another ship and it's charging particle weapons, presumably? Yeah, I think so. I think that's right. Have you noticed everyone is just scowling this episode,

especially from this moment, because it definitely feels like a, how many more ships are gonna roll up on us? How many more are we gonna encounter? What is it this time? Kind of vibes. Indeed. And this is boarding parties, not external attacks.

And these guys are taking advantage of the fact that they can't polarize the whole plating and just coming in and slapping transponders on stuff left and right and it's beaming out. Like, it really feels like they knew exactly where to go and what to get in a way that's kind of terrifying. The energy really feels like a bunch of folks rushing a CVS and then stealing a bunch of razor blades

and candy or whatever. Like no one at the Ross is gonna give up their life to stop a thievery at this scale. I'm just gonna watch them take their spary top cider boxes and run them out into the street. Jinkos, yeah. They hit the enterprises laundry area and take every single package of Tide they've got down there. Yeah.

They seem to have a foreknowledge of where all the good stuff is. That's part of this scene that I thought was very striking. It's, they are not looking. They are, they're beaming and arriving at the spots that they need to be. And then they're getting the hell out of there. One of these guys is going for the database, which we hear about from Hoshi. And this is happening in engineering where Tripp is up on top of the warp core, which I really loved seeing him, him climb around up here.

Yeah, that was neat. He tries to clobber one of them and then trap a bunch of the rest of them in that spray of wharf lightning. And you're hoping that this is gonna connect with any of them, but it doesn't, and they're able to beam out. And this ship is Audi 5000. It is gone.

Amazing. And I've got faith of the far heart. Legally, it's just a fart joke. In the aftermath, we're in Six Bay where Archer checks on the condition of the folks that got injured during the smash and grab. And the stuff Dr. Flax needs to repair a lot of their wounds is down also. And he's like, hey, while you're going around the ship repairing systems, medical systems would be nice too,

if you're just gonna fly us around space with our pants down, waiting to get attacked by random folks. Yeah. That would be nice. Because I couldn't save them all, Captain, including, and for dramatic effect, he pulls open the curtain, RSVP Fuller. Yeah. Captain's like,

it's kind of weird that you have the shower curtain that's the New York subway map surrounding Fuller. What does that have to do with anything? I think that's nice. Yeah. That's fun. I mean, it's festive, you know? It's more fun than nothing. You wonder if anyone buys those things at the gift shop?

The answer is yes. They do. Dr. Fox. Yeah. He recognizes the species of the raider that they encountered. He tells Captain Archer that this guy is an Osarian. Oh, sorry.

Sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Don't hurt me. Sorry. Which is a bit of a surprise that this is not someone from inside the Expanse. This is somebody that is from outside back in normal space. Yeah, they don't even live in the neighborhood. They're just coming from far away and doing their shit.

It sucks. There's no Expanse away and doing their shit. It sucks. There's no expanse pride. And that's tough to see. Well, but it's like when those New York guys started showing up in Baltimore in season three of The Wire, you know? It's like, none of us like this, but we gotta like squash the beef

among the East side and the West side to get rid of them. Yeah. That is a good comparison. Oh, indeed. Out in the corridor, Triptychard gives Archer the laundry list of things that are stolen. Pretty disappointing is what you gotta be

when you see what's gone. It's a lot of things, but maybe the worst of all, antimatter storage pods, because without those, Enterprise is gonna be adrift after about a month using what little they have left. I really was tickled pink to see those antimatter storage pods speaking of because we just watched an episode of Star Trek Prodigy in which an antimatter storage pod is a key plot device.

And they look the same. Like they really did their research on that show. There's something that tickles the part of my brain and nostalgia centers of my body when a containment unit type piece of technology, We learned a little bit more about like the big lever that Tripp pulls to like shut off the power feels very containment unit. These antimatter storage pods feel very, what are the things in Ghostbusters that capture the ghosts?

Oh yeah, like the ghost trap device. Yeah, they seem very ghost trappy when you put them in and out of this thing. I thought it was really neat. I like systems like this. Yeah, interlocking pieces that do complicated tasks. I love that shit. Anyways, no trace of these guys, according to T'Pol.

They figured out a way to hide their ion signature. I love T'P Paul's shade here. She's like, you know, it's pretty hard to look for a ship that's actually prepared for the expanse in some way, like with modifications that make flying around anomalies and through anomalies like not that big of a deal. Unlike us, we're just out here fucking Winnie the Pooh, stumbling around the expanse, getting our fucking dicks be stung by every little anomaly that there is. Like, it'd be great.

It was kind of interesting to see T'Pol use such a colorful metaphor in describing this to Archer. Like continuing the chase, kind of stupid, given the people that we're chasing are prepared and we are not. That's your point. Their ship and weapons seem to be anomaly proof in a way that we just aren't. Archer's response to this is so perfectly Archer because he's like, well, what else are we supposed to do? Yeah.

That's just our lot. You think this is a rhetorical question, but DePaul is like, find antimatter somewhere else besides chasing the folks that stole it from us. Yeah, that'd be nice. Yeah, how about that? Archer goes and visits their prisoner who really doesn't want to talk at first. Big prisoner energy here by Orgoth, huh? He is just fine. He's probably eating great.

Yeah. Do you think the ship's chef makes the prison food? They have to, right? I mean, who else but? Chef's the best in Starfleet. Although they do have rations aboard. Maybe they're just giving him MREs. I don't know. Anyways, he seems to be coming from a pretty desperate background.

And he's pretty resistant. And he's like, you know, like, there's nothing you can offer me. Like, you sending me back to my ship isn't going to help me. Like, my captain won't have me back. He's a fucking cutthroat. Hey, Archer, let me put it in terms you might understand. You remember how that one bounty hunter was going to return you to the Klingons? I'm that.

I'm you of a couple episodes ago. Yeah. Archer is kind of a new man here. He is not going to let his values and morality get in the way of getting information out of this guy. What'd you make of Dark Archer? and morality get in the way of getting information out of this guy. What'd you make of Dark Archer? Because I'm told we are going to have a Mirror Universe episode

on this show at some point, and I'm like, how is that Archer going to be distinct from this one? Because this guy is tough. He's a bad mamajama. Yeah, I remember, like, there being some sort of conventional wisdom around George W. Bush in, like, the post-911 years that, like, that's when he really became president. Is this when Archer really became captain? And I kind of wonder if that's what they're doing with his character a little bit. Like now that he has like something to fight, he's like come into his own.

That's really interesting. Yeah. I need what was stolen from me. Focus is what he's got instead of just broad exploration. Willingness to do war crimes is what he's got. He says it. He says it right to Orgoth and Orgoth doesn't believe him. Orgoth is like,

look. You seem like a really nice guy, Captain. Insulting. I read you as soon as you walked into the room. You're not going to bluff me. He says that Trillium D is the key to being in the Delphic expanse. That's the stuff from that mine. That's big. They should have gotten some of that stuff. It's weird how big of a feeling that piece of information

conjures. I know. Because I had the same thought. I was like, oh, we got to go back. Yeah. We got to go back to that mine and take it. Beat some Trillium D out of that wet guy. Yeah.

He describes the desperate measures that his fellow Osarians in him have resorted to to survive and Archer's like, oh, are you murdering hobos out here? And he's like, no, no, no, desperate, not extreme. I love the camera trick they pull with this guy as if somehow we don't see that one half of his face has melted off. They frame him in such a way where you can see it. And so his little head turn is meant to be revelatory.

It is not. No, we saw that before. Yeah. Yeah, and he also tells us that the barrier of the expanse, that purpley-pink stuff that they flew through, is a one-way deal. Yeah. Can't get back out.

Yeah, it turns you inside out if you even try. How did the Zindi send a device through it then? I mean, Zindi have future tech, right? That's gotta be the thing. That's gotta be it. This is real, you'll become like me soon energy from Orgoth here. He's like, look, once you're stepped in the expanse and you can't break free, you're gonna find that killing comes easy and remorse comes hard.

And that's just how it's going to be. Like, Archery, you're eventually going to become the person you're burlesquing at this point. Like, I know you think this is tough, but like, a real toughness comes with some face melting. You're going to have the weird ear situation I have pretty soon. Great job with the nostril on this meatloaf, like, because they kind of drag the nostril open so it's like, you could stick two fingers in this thing if you wanted to do a pick. You could really ream it out. Yeah.

Probably breathing great at night though, like probably no need for one of those nose strips. Yeah, the magnetic ones that they're always advertising on the internet. That's weird. I'm not gonna wear a magnet. Mine are sticky. Yeah. Sticky stickers. Sticky stickers, like Grandpa done.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. Legally it's just a fart joke. You gotta get a website, and to do that you go to the website website. Squarespace. legally it's just a fart joke. other top-level domain because you can buy your website right through their website website. Head to squarespace.com slash scarves for a free trial and when you're ready to launch your website use offer code scarves to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Website! Ah, the Chateau Picard t-shirt. It has been celebrated for its excellence, but there's a parody of that t-shirt. The Chateau Shimoda t-shirt that is vintage dated and available at Podshop.biz. It features

a hand-drawn illustration of the rolling hills of the Shimoda estate where the legendary wine of Jim Shimoda's family is bottled. You won't see him mud wrestling his brother. No, old Jim is minding his own business, snacking up isolinear chips. The design is also available in a coffee cup for those of you who would like to consume your wine at the office without raising suspicion. Podshop.biz. And if you'd like a discount on your Podshop purchases, make sure you're signed up for our monthly newsletter. Links in the episode description. Oh my gosh, hi, it's me, Dave Holmes, host of Troubled Waters, the pop culture battle

to the ego death. Okay, everybody, word host of Troubled Waters, the pop culture battle to the ego death. Okay, everybody, word association with Troubled Waters, first one to fumble loses, go. Comedy. Panel show. Guests. Celebrities. Games. Oh, sound rounds.

Improvised speeches. Puns disguised as trivia. A very niche Flash Gordon clip. Uh, Javel Rowan ah no Riley I'm sorry she will not return our phone calls I am afraid you're out a girl can dream oh but dreaming will not earn a girl any points troubled waters listen on maximum fun or wherever you get your podcasts hello sleepy heads sleeping with celebrities is your podcast pillow pal we Hello, sleepyheads.

Sleeping with Celebrities is your podcast pillow pal. We talk to remarkable people about unremarkable topics, all to help you slow down your brain and drift off to sleep. For instance, the remarkable actor Alan Tudyk. You hand somebody a yardstick after they've shopped at your general store. The store's name is constantly in your heart because yardsticks become part of the family. Sleeping with Celebrities, hosted by me, John Moe,

on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Night night. You will never take the greatest shit alive. Ben would rather die. We have a McLaughlin group. Issue one. Paul has some data to suggest that what Archer is doing is going to lead them to all die, like the ship that they found. And we learn a little bit more about what went down on that ship. They figured out a way to track the ion trail of their attackers, but then

their life support failed before they could do anything about it. But, uh, that work is going to augment what enterprise is able to do to like, to actually proceed here. So that's good. The tension here is like, cool. We have ways to track proceed here. So that's good. The tension here is like, cool, we have ways to track this ship. We're starting to slowly but surely put ourselves back together.

But Reed has struggled to get webs going. And it's like, cool, it's one thing to find the Osirons, but we kind of need to be able to do something once we find them. And that question kind of hangs in the air. We cut over to the mess hall where, hey, Ben, have you ever read four pads at the same time? That's what Tripp Tucker's doing. Four pads at the same time are on the table when Reed walks in.

I've never had a million dollars, Adam. I would love to do four pads at the same time. Amazing. Yeah. All of his pads are open. I've never had a million dollars, Adam. I would love to do four pads at the same time. Amazing. Yeah, all of his pads are open. Reed's coming in for a late night drink and Tripp is there because he still can't sleep. So working late is going to work for him. And maybe tonight isn't one of the best nights to stimulate the neural nodes with DePaul. to stimulate the neural nodes with DePaul. Like there's some sort of suggestive language around what this may or may not mean. Reed has kind of poking the trip bear a little bit

about like, oh, that's fun. There's some disrobing involved. There's some intimate touching. Interesting, and Trip is like, nah, no, it's not like that. It's very innocent. It's just a back rub. I swear. The way Miriam people in college have put it. You know, like the fact that I can feel her bra strap through her shirt is merely incidental

to the proceedings. I got consent to undo the bra strap as a way to do an even better back rub. Yeah. So, Trip feels like... I feel like he's a little bit more realistic about their chances here than Reed is. Like, this is a suicide run. Like, none of us are coming back from this, and Reed's like, "'Way, mate, like, let's not be so doom and gloom about this.'"

I love Trip being like, "'What do I need sleep for? I'm going to be dead tomorrow. I'll sleep then. Yeah. We might as well paint a giant bullseye on the hall. It's weird to see Tripp as the pessimistic one of the two. I thought that was very striking because Reed says nothing about the letters he's pre-written to his ex-girlfriends or anything, which is what you'd expect from a guy like Reed.

It feels like the shoe is on the other foot, depression-wise. Yeah. So next scene, we're back to tracking the Osarians, and they come upon this weird thing where they've got like a reticle up on the view screen showing the ion trail of the ship, and it ends, and then it resumes again again like a little bit further out in space but there's like a weird big gap in the middle and the resumed trail is from nine hours later so they were they were here and stopped for a while and also like produced no evidence of their presence. If you were gonna make like a ramp over the Grand Canyon and on one side is

like the side that you're riding the motorcycle on to do the jump. And on the other side is the ramp you're going to land on, except the other side ramp is like 300 yards down the canyon, like somewhere else. Like it just doesn't look like one ramp would match up with the other. That's what this visual looked like to me. Something just seemed off about, like, there being this kind of break in the path. Maybe we shouldn't do a pay-per-view of this. I feel like this is bad. I think a lot of people are going to be traumatized if we actually show this on TV.

Yeah. It'll be fine. It's the 70s. Who gives a shit? Life's cheap. Let's see it. They decide to keep following the trail as though they are connected and the ride starts to get really bumpy and the ship goes through a cloaking field and we see it disappear in space. And once they get through that cloaking field and the ship reappears, despite some micro fractures in the hull described by T'Pol, they find a sphere 19 kilometers in diameter. That's tiny! Or is it huge? Who's to say?

Who's to say? That's almost as big as our ship. Or bigger? Archer says. For lack of anything else to order, Archer's like, okay, put us in orbit. And we'll look a little closer. Reid is pretty impressed by the tech, which means we've got to be impressed by it. And check it out. Is that a little hole in the sphere? A hole with doors? Well it's too small for enterprise to fit through. I love how that's the first idea they come up with. Can we get the ship through it and on the inside?

That should never have been the first idea here. You should always send a shuttle or a probe or something through that hole first, right? Yeah. Got to find out what's in there before you park the entire ship inside. Yeah. A shuttle pod can fit through. So Archer orders that, pretending as if that should have been the first option here. And on the shuttle, it's Mayweather at the controls with Reed and Archer and a whole bunch of Makos in the here. And on the shuttle, it's Mayweather at the controls with Reed and Archer and a whole bunch of Makos in the back. And they come up on this hole and it's locked. And Archer's like, where is the lock? And Reed tells him. And without asking anyone or telling anyone or anything at all, Archer just starts hitting buttons and shoots that thing

to smithereens. And then the door opens right up. It's great. Yeah. The interior is really wild. I loved how, like, Star Trek the motion picture of the alien environment felt in there. Yeah. And there's a fucking house in there

with a breathable atmosphere. Yeah. This is the part that bumped me. I was like, I've seen a property that looks like this in some nice parts of LA, you know? Yeah. It also a little bit reminded me of that terraforming station that they visited in TNG where they found the little light down the hole. Yeah.

Yeah. It was a similar shape. I feel like these are plans that just make themselves. Archer's like, okay, dock us up with that house. And then like in the very next scene, they've cut off the hinges and they walk on in, dustbusters out and inside after a little bit of searching, they find a bunch of stolen gear, including their stolen gear. Yeah.

And there's even something better than that. What could be better than the recovery of their shit? A cargo manifest. Unfortunately, it's written in Osarian. Oh, sorry. But like maybe this is gonna be the key to finding more Zindi. Yeah. It's the idea.

So they download this manifest so that they can get it back to Hoshi. There's some light bangers happening as they sneak around and they're starting to beam their stuff back aboard the Enterprise. So presumably like the ship can like get it through the hole on the transporter beam. That's a great call.

I mean, do you think they were just bucket brigade shuttle pod shit of all of the gear back to the ship? Do you think that's what they were... Interesting. Because I was thinking... No, because I mean, we see a transporter pad, so maybe once the door was open, that works. Yeah. But like, yeah, because they couldn't scan through the sphere.

Yeah. But yeah, maybe they, like, if they've got line of sight through that hole to the house, they can get the stuff. Kind of a leap. Yeah. They get a lot of stuff back aboard. Tripp comes into Six Bay to get a burn treated by flocks because he's like really falling apart sleep wise

and was not doing perfect Six Sigma safety practices with some of the stuff that they'd recovered. I mean, he's also falling apart jacking it wise because Trip Tucker goes left. Yeah. I don't want to have to do the stranger for a week while this heals up, Phlox. What can you do for me?

There is another treatment that might be helpful. Maybe some burn gel could add a new layer to my onanism. I was trying to use shampoo and it's horrible. Dr. Flax asks about how the neuro pressure's going. Hey, what's going on with that? And Tripp's like, yeah, one session. It was fine. It was fine. I guess you could say my fears of intimacy are the major roadblock in between me and a good night's

sleep. Tripp does say something fairly reasonable here, which is like, she does it every night for like an hour. And that's a big commitment. Yeah. He also says something reasonable, which is like, maybe that hour is better than the leeches that you're offering me as an alternative.

Doc, I thought you were suggesting having a caramel ice cream treat before bed. Tres leches would be so much nicer than the three leeches you've suggested to me before sleep. How about I try tres leches first and then follow up with you with the leeches a little bit further down the road? Is that a thing? I like it a lot. So cut over to Archer in the clarinet rental room and T'Pol has reported Great news! We've gotten almost everything back that was stolen.

80% of the animator. Yeah. Weps. That's good, right? Engine's gonna be back online in 30 minutes or so. Check it out Archer. This sphere is almost as old as me. Almost a thousand years old is this thing. Except this new archer, season three archer, not excited by the exploration possibilities of the

sphere at all. He wants to go to warp and he wants to chase Osarians. And T'Pol hypothesizes that with the condition of this sphere and how it's not acting right, its systems are kind of blurping back and forth, this may have something to do with the anomalies outside because it's so powerful and yet it's a little bit squicky. It's a little, I don't know, something ain't right about the sphere. Maybe it's spinning anomalies out. It's been running for such a long time. Like, it would make sense that it's starting to break down.

And maybe this is why anomalies... And Archer is so bloodthirsty for these Osarians that he just doesn't give a shit. If he's so bloodthirsty, he should go pound on an Osarian that's in the brig. That really changes character on this show. I kind of wish that this scene was reversed with the next one, because then is when Hoshi finds the linguistic clue

that these pirates have hit Zindi ships in the past. And like, that feels like a strong motivation for Archer to be like, cool sphere to Paul, but like, this is a lead on the like overarching mission of the season. Yeah. I would like to go look into that. And he doesn't go that direction.

When Orgoth is confronted with the Zindi and the manifest information, he plays it off so casually, like it was nothing to destroy them. But I also feel like the flip of this is like, just because you're the enemy of someone doesn't mean they have to be my enemy. This felt like not everything has to do with Civ, but lately it has to do with Civ to me, which is like, cool. Like my allies warring with someone, but they're like on the other side of the continent. Like, I really don't care to be involved in that business. And that's kind of Orgas energy. It's not only like, yeah, the Zindi were easy to kill, but also like, I don't care about your, your beef with them.

No. And I don't know why anyone else would either. Who would? He has to like think really hard to remember which of the five species the Zindi were that, that to remember which of the five species the Zindi were that they blew out of the stars. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, we didn't check the debris for hair or scales. I have better things to do than familiarize myself with our victims. That's not really part of our process when we steal and destroy. Did you see us earlier? We kind

of like beam in, get our shit and beam out. Like we're gone before you notice, but we're gone. Archer's like, does the dust buster I'm holding to your neck jog your memory at all? No? Still not? How about if I march you to the airlock? So Archer drags his ass in there, throws him in, locks the door on the other side, and then, I don't know if this is just how the Enterprise system works, or if this is like a setting that Archer has dialed in on the decompression. But he's like, yeah, on this ship, these doors open very dulcimo, very slowly. So you got about 40 seconds to get with the information sharing, or else you're going to die.

And once Orgoth starts to have trouble breathing, he like gives the universal sign of, I would like to give you the information you're torturing me for. Yeah. And Reed watches a fair bit of this play out and kind of troubled is Reed by what he's seen of his captain.

He's like troubled, but he is jacking a little bit also. Like, you know. I need something to do with this shit. Come on. Fair enough. It did move for Reed. Yeah. It definitely did.

Tripp would be so proud of Archer at this moment. I was sad that Tripp wasn't here for this. If there's one guy that's going to enjoy this, it's Tripp Tucker. Absolutely. Yeah. So we got another McLaughlin group. Here's your two. Archer's pretty light on the details about how he got this information. Enjoy this. It's Tripp Tucker. Absolutely. Yeah. So we got another McLaughlin group. Here's your two.

Are just pretty light on the details about how we got this information. That's pretty fun. He tells everybody like, great news. Our prisoner was nice enough to give me the access codes to the main computer on his ship. And I would love to go in there and tap into it so that we can get the database that they stole from the Zindi that they hit. Trouble is to get the database required means getting very close to this other ship. As close as the sphere is big, maybe in kilometers, I don't know. I don't know the differences in sizes and distances, but it seems as though it's too close for comfort.

DePaul's just like, why are you doing this, man? They are heavily armed. Are you sure it's wise to engage them? I want that database. The same argument applies here. Like, that ship is so much better equipped for this. That ship is built for this, Archer. Yeah. And I'm looking around this one and I'm like, our doors take 40 seconds to shut when they're open to space. Like that's the technology we're dealing with over here. That's crazy. Archer, not trying to hear it. The plan is instead of going out to the ship, it's to wait them out inside. This is the

first smart plan Archer's had all season, I thought. Yeah, this is where they stashed their booty. Pirates are always going to come back to the cove where they stashed their booty. Yeah. Is this a trap house? Is that what they've posted up on? Yeah, yeah. I would say that they are triznappin'. I love it. There's a trap house in the trap house if there's that little house inside the sphere. Trap house inception.

Ah! Yeah. Yeah, so they lay this trap. Archer is like taunting the aliens on the radio when he gets a banger for his trouble. This is like a firefight with a much more powerful ship where they just kind of have to last while Hoshi attempts to hack into their mainframe.

And like, they're hit hard quickly. Like, they're venting atmosphere from some section. And T'Pol's like, this is so fucking stupid. And Archer's like, just close the compartment and keep hacking. There's that scene that you get in hacking films where Hoshi is like watching the bar crawl, like calling out percentages and so forth.

She's suddenly got glasses with yellow tinted lenses. Yeah, she's great. It's all she gets to do this episode. And it feels like minutes are needed to complete the transfer. Minutes does not seem like what they have strategically against this other ship. No. Because the bangers are hitting harder and harder and harder. And they keep losing connection because Mayweather is having such a tough time keeping close quarters with this other ship.

So they go back to the sphere, having gotten a third of the database and a further taunt of these bad guys. Archer starts shooting at the portal into the sphere to blow it open. It's a real hostage situation I thought, right? Yeah, bad guys, right? Yeah, yeah. Bad guys come back and, man, the ship

is really getting chewed up. Fortunately, they are able to knock out the engines of the enemy ship. I love this near crash that the enemy ship has on the surfaces of the sphere. That's neat. Yeah, it was neat. I was like, I was sort of wondering

if they were going to go in the direction of the enemy ship being destroyed and Archer being like, oh, maybe I like went too far today. I wanted that so bad because up until the very last second, this thing is nosing in. Yeah. And it was about ready to splatter on the surface of this thing. win the fight, they get 90% of the Zindi database and Archer goes to tell the prisoner that it's time for him to go back to the sphere. I'm not gonna space you, I'm gonna put you in a shuttle pod

and like leave you in that house. Did you feel like something changed at all with the terms of his return? Because I feel like Orgoth was pretty clear about the whole, if you return me, I'm gonna get killed because I gave them up. Yeah. I mean, I think that like they're talking about the idea that mercy is something that's

gonna get you killed in the Delphic expanse. And I feel like the subtext of this scene is that like Archer has fully adapted to that way of thinking. It's mercy or a lack of ship insulation. Those two things gonna get you killed out there. Yeah. So Archer goes to bum out in the command center and he fires up this Zindi database and it's just galaxy brain memes.

I love a shot with projected images onto a face. Yeah. Something I don't think anyone has ever seen in real life outside of a movie theater context. Yeah, it's a shame that computer screens don't actually do this. You know, computer screen resolution and technology has come so far so fast.

I love the fidelity of them. I would like an upgrade where I could just shoot myself in the face with what I'm seeing on a computer screen, just for dramatic effect. Hit me with it, got no case, tempting fate. I thought this episode was really exciting, great special effects, like really fun effects work throughout. Yeah. Interesting, like how much of the episode Archer spends going deeper and deeper into the moral gray without ever taking a pause to listen to what T'Pol is saying to him about that.

Archer's kind of riddling this episode, huh? He really is. And I have to think that he will confront consequences for these actions at some point. You don't think what happens inside the expanse stays in the expanse? I mean, I think that like what I was reacting to is like, I mean, and this is like a stupid hack observation, but it was like, this doesn't really feel like an episode

of Star Trek a lot of the time, because it is like every time the option comes up to fight or explore he chooses fight you know but it felt more self-consciously like that than I think some of the more like action-oriented modern Star Trek has felt. This is the second step in a long story that will examine some of these themes so I'm not ready to like say I didn't like it because of all the moral equivocation that's happening. But you know, like I find it interesting that they're experimenting with that on a Star

Trek episode. And yeah, Archer just feels like a really different guy this season. Yeah. I wonder if it hits different having endured a summer break. Yeah. I wonder if it hits different having endured a summer break. Yeah. Because it's very jarring watching it the way we are to go from the end of season two to the beginning of season three in a way that I'm sure it probably wasn't. Like I don't remember what haircut you had three months ago. Like you don't look different from then.

Right. You may be acting a little differently, but shit's happened. I'm way crazier, you know? You see it all the time in like modern global conflict. The reaction to the initial skirmish is terribly over the top and destructive to all involved, but especially the perpetrator initially or whatever. Like the response is terrible and terrifying

if, I'm gonna put it in quotes, if justified. And I think with an episode like this and the choices that Archer's making, he's searching for these justifications. I think when he looks at Tripp Tucker, he finds them. And that's all you need to make vengeance the topmost thing on his mind. I think his revenge is wrapped in the paper of like, if we get to break a couple of Osarian eggs

to make a Zindi omelet, like then that's what I'm gonna do at all costs. The way we get it here is so individualized though. It's just like what he's doing to one prisoner. I think not destroying that ship is crucial, Ben. If he splattered that thing on the sphere, I think the stakes are raised to a point where maybe you can't come back from that if you're archers morality. But here I am like measuring a man, measuring one person against the lives of a ship, it's complicated stuff. Because this is all fake, these aren't real people, I feel safe in saying,

I still like Archer better now. And I know that's fucked up. If these were real people and real stakes, I probably wouldn't feel that way. But like this fake spaceman has become more interesting to me and I'm interested in seeing where this goes and where he goes. Well, you want to see if there's anything morally equivocal in the Priority One inbox? I mean, they always make me think about whether or not I would write a message like this if I were in the same place. Priority One message from Starfleet coming in on Secure Channel.

Need a supplemental income. Supplemental income. Supplemental. Supplemental. Yeah, it's extra. By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship. A promotional P1 today, Adam, goes like this. Hi, B&A. Did I just finish episode five, six, seven, and then pay more money to tell you

how much I love Ichab's brother? Yes. But also, the Marin about seeing movies in theaters inspired me to share a priority one message about my work. Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Bergen County's only non-profit art house theater. FODs, did you know Fort Lee, New Jersey, Bergen County's only nonprofit art house theater. FODs, did you know Fort Lee is the birthplace of American cinema, home to the early studios like Universal, Paramount, and Fox? I did not!

Today we screen silent films, new releases, and everything in between. The call to action here is help us keep the movie theater experience alive for future generations of film lovers. Visit, donate, become a member, or just spread the word. And that's from Robin at the Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee, New Jersey. God, what a great message from Robin here. In my old home city of Seattle, I can count, I think, four great art house theaters that have closed in the past year.

Geez. Like, the epidemic of closures is happening at a terrifying rate. It sucks. And also, those that remain need our support. They do. Like, in LA, there are orgs like American Cinematheque that I'm a member of. That's probably one of a dozen in LA that you can become a member of and support.

And their programming is always so great and interesting. Robin's work is important because these places don't tend to come back once they're gone. So it's more important than ever to support them. Whether or not you live in New Jersey or anywhere else, support your local art house theaters in whatever way you can. Yeah, go find it, look up their schedule,

find something you like to go see and go check it out. People have this idea of like the art house theater being like, oh, they're only gonna show boring shit that I'm not interested in. But like, I've seen Terminator 2 in the movie theater at an art house theater because their programmers are cool. Like, you can see all kinds of movies for all kinds of people at art house theaters because they have the flexibility to do their programming that way.

They do all the stuff. Ben, our second priority one message is from Jeff Wallace, and here's how that one goes. I bought a promotional P1 for my map making biz back in 2021 and holy shit My greatest gen bump was nuts. Whoa My schedule for four years was filled instantly and One of the jobs was for the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art Check it out. We've got FODs at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. That's amazing.

That's amazing that somebody with taste that elevated would also listen to this. They hired me to make all of the maps for a huge gallery renovation that's opening on May 31st, so if there are any NYC FODs with some spare time on May 31st, come to the grand opening at the Met on Fifth Avenue. And if any FODs out there want a map of their own, you know where to go, right? It's walliscartography.com. That's where you can get all your maps.

Get on Jeff's schedule. It sounds like he's got a lot of work to do for the next four years. Yeah, no kidding. And if you're in in NYC come see some of Jeff's great work I'm crushed that uh that my trip to New York is not gonna be is gonna be too early for this Why don't you add some dates add some weeks to that trip just stay out there for a couple of months Yeah, yeah, that's my dream Adam. Don't tempt me with a good time for a couple of months. Why not? Yeah.

Oh, that's my dream, Adam. Don't tempt me with a good time. Always thankful are we for promotional priority when messages. Messages like these go a long way in supporting the production of the show and also get the word out on FOD's fun projects out there. Sure do. Hey, Adam. What's up, Ben? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Incredible.

Drunk Shimoda. Incredible. Drunk Shimoda. I mean, I'm a fan of anyone who is as cocksure as Orgoth. Easy to forget that Orgoth is the one in the prison on the other side of the bars. And yet he's one of those Hannibal Lecter types that seems almost at home there. Dead anyways, you know? Who's really calling the shots. I love characters like these for making things interesting for our main characters. So yeah, Orgoth is going to be mine and hope that guy's okay once he's picked up from that house. Yeah, he'll surely show up again, right?

I mean, you double crossed him and you left him alive. That's the trouble. Matt, you, Ben? I got a kind of collective Shimoda for all the people in the lunchroom during that scene. Cause like that scene must have been so hard to reset. So like a high pressure thing to shoot because like giant pain in the ass

to have to get another take and then another take and then another take of it. But the practical effect of that food flying around and all those plates flying up to the ceiling was just so much fun to look at. And I have to imagine that if you're an extra, that's like kind of an interesting day on set to just like to be a part of something like that has got to be a lot of fun. So I think I'm going to give the lunchroom crew my drunk Shimoda today. I've never been in a food fight and I sort of kind of want to be, but like that's what the tomato festival is and like that those festivals with the powdered, like the colored powder that you throw at each other. Oh yeah.

Like that's basically food fight in an area that isn't a school lunchroom. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, religiously sanctioned food fight. That's how you get those food fight rocks off. You go to a thing like that. Faith of the fart. Well, we go to a thing like the next episode

at this point in the show. Let me tell you about season three, episode three, Extinction. On a mission to investigate an abandoned Zindi vessel on a jungle planet, Archer, Reed, and Hoshi succumb to a virus that mutates them into a primal life form. I mean, is this related to the Spider Barkley episode or the Cro-Magnon Riker? Yeah. Remember that one? That was a fun episode.

Yeah, because going forward in evolutionary time turns you into Salamander. Going backward turns you into Spider Barkley. Bathtub Troy. Oh, yeah. Bathtub Troy. Oh yeah, Bathtub Troy. To find out how we will be doing this episode, Adam, I'm heading to gach.biz slash game, where we keep the game of butt holes. The will of the Riker, Quantum Leap. Right now our runabout is on square 40? Doorstep of a Coco Nono.

Doorsteps don't matter anymore. Not in this crazy game because we got that 100-sided die. I think the details of this matter a great deal to the folks on Reddit who are almost uniformly against the game and the 100-sided-die-ness of it. Yeah. I disagree with them. I think the 100-sided-die makes every possible square open. It's the most tension there could be. We change it every series. It's fun. It's new. It's different. You're required to learn as you play. Roll.

I don't think the guys like the game. I don't think they like playing it. If we didn't like it and didn't want to play it, we wouldn't. It's our show. Well, you know, I think maximum fun pretty much doesn't let us change these things at this point, right? Imagine maximum fun not letting us do something. Oh my God, Adam. This is crazy.

I rolled a one. What? I landed us on that Coco-No-No. I almost forgot. Another Coco-No-No? Incredible! Incredible! Coco-No-No?

It's a hell of a combination. Drink will be gone. I think it's had enough already. This is gonna help me? The antidote! Another Coco-No-No? Bullshit. Bullshit. Incredible! Another Coco-No-No? Coco-No-No? Coco-No-No? Coco gonna help me? Another Coco-No-No? Bullshit. Another Coco-No-No?

More isn't better. Hey! Hey, amazing! That means next episode is a special Tiki-themed drunk-isode. How about that? Been a while. Look at us talking shit about the game, about the Redditors who don't like the game.

Well, there it sits. We made plans and the dice gods laughed, let's just say. I love it. I love this so much. I've got a bag of frozen pineapple in my fridge. I got a thing of Coco Lopez in my fridge. I'm ready. My body is ready. Sounds phenomenal. All right, we're ready to take this show into the credits. Hey, Ben, thank you for being a great co-host of the show for so many years, including today.

I try my hardest and I hope you do at some point soon. including today? I try my hardest and I hope you do at some point soon. At least as hard as Wendy does. Wendy, our great producer of the show, kicking ass, taking names. Chewing bubble gum when she has some, which is not often. No, no. She's great.

You can't have bubble gum out on a fucking roller derby, Jack, then your wheels run over the bubble gum. Sticky mess. Oh yeah. Terrible. If you go upside down on giant dirty ring, the bubble gum goes in your throat. You ever try getting bubble gum off a big dirty ring? You gotta go in there with one of those straight edge blades, but a big dirty ring is round,

so you're like going around the tube. Peanut butter is the trick. I don't wanna use my good peanut butter on that. I don't either. The good stuff is expensive. I get my peanut butter from my butcher shop. Oh yeah? It's the only place I've ever seen it.

Drop a brand name. What are we talking about here? We're talking about Kicks Peanut Butter, PIC apostrophe S. PIC apostrophe S. Okay I'm a big spoon roasters aficionado. I used to be, then I then I tried PIX and I'm like PIX is it for me. PIX is the best. I fucking love it. It's the only peanut butter I have now. Yeah it's great. Wow. Gotta to thank the friends of DeSoto who support this operation. MaximumFun.org says join. Got to thank our temporal Cold War time consigniary, Bill Tilly, who helps out a ton with Mail Call episodes like today. If you'd like to send something in for the show, slide

into the DMs on the At Greatest Trek accounts. There you will find a friendly man named Bill who wants to help you get your Spock taking a dump figurine to the right place. Yeah, Bill will change your life like he's changed ours. What a dude. Also got to thank Rob Adler, our social media director. Subscribe to the mailing list, gach.biz slash mail. Yeah. A lot of fun. You're going to read stuff in there that you'll never hear us say out loud. Find out what the Nuck of the Month is every month. Just do a Nuck of the Month calendar based on what we put in the newsletter.

What do you think of that? We should. It's just us posing to recreate each frame. How about you? I love that. each frame. How about you? I love that. Thanks to Adam Ragusea for our theme music based on Diane Warren's original Enterprise theme. And thanks to Dark Materia for the original Picard song.

With that, we will be back at you next week with another great episode, Star Trek Enterprise, an episode of the Greatest Generation Enterprise where Ben and Adam drink so much rum that they too begin to revert to an earlier form of man. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S. Infant Prize Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S. Infant Prize Make it show, make it show Jean-Luc Picard, car, car, car Maximum Fun, a workaround network

of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.