The Greatest Generation - Uncle Silicon (TNG S1E18)

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

When a terrible workplace accident kills a guy on a terraforming station, it’s easy to blame the coworker that looks like Joe Exotic. But after the investigation reveals the true culprit, their defense is a little offensive. Is there such thing as a friendly-looking laser? What’s the worst insult you can call a human being? Can a hummer be a sign of life? It’s the episode that needs to decide what it wants you to drink, and what it does notSupport the production of our shows Members get benefits including bonus episodes and an ad-free experienceSign up for our mailing list!Get a thing at podshop.biz!The Greatest Generation is hosted by Adam Pranica and Benjamin Ahr Harrison The show is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Instagram | BlueskyAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.socialSupport the production of The Greatest Generation Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to hear an ad-free version of this show? Go to greatest.supercast.com. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage. Welcome to the greatest generation, the next generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys, just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast. I'm Adam Pranika.

I'm Ben Harrison. We're forming the Terra today. Is it Terraforming? Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, you know, if you're in this industry, you probably pick up a little bit of lingo, a little bit of jargon. That's probably a way that some people put it. I was kind of surprised at how few of them there were, you know?

Like, it feels like more could have been made in this episode of there being just four people at this site. Like, that they're all like up each other's asses in the way that like the people on the Nostromo are or they all have to be like really good friends. Like, they're talking about the psych profiles of terraformers all through this. When your camera finds an older person in the room, like, looking askance at a coworker in an environment like this, you can't help but think murder, right? Murder by person. And this episode sure does do a good job, you know, putting the murderer under the little basket and then like three card montiying. to mix up all of those sorts of carnival games. Yeah. Amazing that they put the murder under a clear dome and then mix up the other clear domes.

Yeah. Let's see if this episode lives up to our expectation of life. Are there any life signs here, Ben? We're about to find out as we recap Star Trek the Next Generation Season 1, episode 18. It's called Home Soil. make it so. So as we said, we're visiting some terraformers, but they're being a little bit weird about picking up the phone, you know? They're really letting it ring for a long time.

Maybe no one's home. It's just bullshit. If you're them and you're this many people doing this big of a job, I think you have to expect that if you're blowing in a call. Yeah, right. There's not a lot of hands down there. There's also this tone of admiration among the crew, which I really like the idea of, you know, like if you're a planet side person who lives in the Federation, I bet you think about the folks on Starfleet vessels. Like, wow, what a brave bunch.

Like, they're out there in the galaxy, going to strange new worlds, meeting all kinds of interesting people, getting into the strangest scrapes. But who do they admire? There is a curvature to this admiration that feels a little bit like when you encounter a person that does a dirty job, but it's like extremely necessary. Like, I mean, there was a whole TV series based on this sort of idea, but like the person who works in the wastewater treatment plant has like an amazing job that is so necessary. Oh, that would be me. I've been swimming in raw sewage. I love it. And yet, like, the vibe that you get from people who encounter folks in that line of work is like, man, good for you. I love it. Like, thank you for what you do.

And there's something that resembles that here, which is, like, fancy starship people doing cool, cooler even science fiction work, encountering someone who you could argue, like, is the reason for their being out in space to begin with. You go forth into space to create colonies that bloom into cultures and worlds, and then you'd, like, propagate. Yeah. And the propagation's essential. They finally get an answer from Director Mandel, who is the aforementioned old in the room. You know, he's like, hey, we got a schedule to keep down here. A lot going on. We're in a very busy moment.

It's pretty annoying that you guys are. poking your heads in right now, like this was like unscheduled, unannounced inspection vibe. Like, uh, our walk in is a mess. Like, nothing's labeled. Like, this could not be worse right now. Walter Gautel is the actor who plays Kurt Mandel. And I want to say he's great in this. I also want to say, Walters are only olds. Right? Like when you were naming your kids. Yeah. At any point, did Walter come up? Because I never meet young Walters, do you? Yeah, you never meet a baby named Walter.

What if you did? Yeah. How could you not be delighted by that? Walter! Look at this guy. A couple years ago, I met a lady who, I think she was in her 20s and her name was Jane. And I was like, man, like, Jane is a name that I just don't hear anymore.

Like meeting a baby named Jane sounds impossible. And yet. A friend of mine named their daughter Joan, and I just think that's one of the great names. Love it. It's a tip-top name. Bring back Walter, is what I'm trying to say. Emotional Bloodhound, Deanna Troy, is... I know what you're thinking.

Counseling Picard that this dude is really on edge, and it seems like attention is very deeply unwanted by this guy. And so Picard kind of puts his foot. down on the gas a little bit more. And it's like, so how's it going with the terraforming? Because like, people are curious. And Mandel gets even less even keeled. He is, he's a little panicky. And that's enough for Picard to say, okay, we got to like put some eyes on what's going on down here because it just doesn't smell right. The vibes really turn the corner here because I can totally get with unannounced visit by a supervisor being a reason to deflect or defend or maybe put off by this mandel guy like i get that part but panic being the word is suddenly different and so

Picard doesn't take no for an answer and arrangements are made to send a dustbuster club led by commander reiker down to the station and obviously you're going to send a Troy with just a just to see if they can get to the bottom of what's making this guy so panicky. I kind of think this episode becomes 10% better if you don't see the exterior of this station at all. And that is because it seems implausibly small for the work that they're doing. The center has to be at least three times bigger than this. In the way that would drive people crazy. This doesn't seem like enough if you're going to be out of the center.

there alone doing this kind of work with this number of people. He's absolutely right. Yeah, that's sort of what I was thinking. Like, when you see what the operation looks like in that brief scene on LV426 pre-alien attack, like, it is a bustling beehive of activity and their atmospheric engines are like enormous monolithic structures that are like spewing stuff into the atmosphere with like nuclear fire. And you can hide in plain sight there in a way that, like, I see a place this size and I see

the number of people and I just know I would never feel alone. The way that, like, you can feel usefully alone in crowds of large people or, like, on LV426 at that base. But, like, to never feel alone in a place like this, I couldn't do it. I need it. Yeah. I mean, the psych profiles. that it's a unique breed these people.

They meet one of these unique people. Louisa Kim greets them when they beam down. Another example of a weird older man putting the beautiful woman on his team out front for the crew of the entrepreneur to meet. That's just salesmanship. Yeah. She is the gardener of Eden's. She's the plant specialist on the team. And as the whole like first act of this episode is a lot about like what is terraforming for the home viewer.

If you've never heard the term, we're going to teach you all about it. And Louisa and Arthur and Bjorn are going to talk you through their specialties and what they do to make a dead planet into one that can become a cradle of life. Well, put simply, it is life from lifelessness. Louisa seems great. Louisa seems exactly who you want, being the face of your program, and the energy of your program specifically. The other team members a little less charismatic in my mind, including the guy who looks like Joe Exotic to me, Malinson. For the people of America. Your eye just finds the Joe exotic looking guy. This guy is named Bjorn Benson. Bjorn Benson is he's very curious about data. I feel like this may be, if we're going to take the script back for a rewrite, there might be an interesting theme to develop here with his curiosity about a non-organic life form like data. I feel like that sort of feels like something they're trying to set up here and would be interesting in retrospect when we get later into the episode. but now.

I feel like there is a quality now that we've seen an amount of episodes that seems to support the theory I'm about to tell you, is that I've never really had like awesome cars, but over the course of my life I've had interesting cars. And there are times when I have to do the math of like, if I'm going to a place, do I want to take an interesting car there and have that be a thing to talk about? Right. No. And so when you're assembling a Dustbuster club and data is possibly on it, don't you feel like you're doing a little bit of the math that's like, fuck, do I really want to talk about this?

Right, right. On this one or do I just want to like maybe leave data at home so we don't have to have the isn't it awesome that you have data conversation that is sure to pop off in most situations? This is like a struggle I have always had with baseball caps because I love the A's baseball cap colors and I agree. up in Oakland, so like I feel entitled to rock the A's cap. But I don't follow the sport. So I can't wear that hat in public because people who are A's fans who see somebody who is reppping A's want to talk about what the A's are up to right now. Subjects of protracted discussion. Perfect comparison. This is like data wearing an A's cap. So we get a little tour. I really love the augmented reality planet scanner thing that they have

where you can move this screen around and look through it at what the planet will look like later. Yeah. Just an absolute 10 out of 10 prop. And something that is in the room too. Like this, when you go to a planetarium or something and you see the spheres that big, you can't help it feel great about that.

And that's how I felt when I saw this scene. I literally wrote in my notes, like this place feels like a science museum and we're getting a tour from the really pretty docent, Louisa. And they're like on this tour going like, what about that old guy that picked up the phone? He seemed like something was really up his ass. And all the co-workers were like, yeah, I mean, Mandelson, you know,

a bit of a stress case right now. We're in a critical phase. We're talking about erratic power surges and the equipment. Arthur and Bjorn are trying to run down. And like they seem a little angry at each other. like, Bjorn is like, no, Arthur, that's not what's causing the erratic power surges. This is the energy of a couple fighting in front of their friends, you know? Like, it is so rare to have visitors at this facility.

Like, things really must be bad if they're fighting in public this way. Mandel finally marches in and gets in on the nut stomping that Arthur is receiving. I love this performance. This guy has got this like very old-timey, Thespian energy that is just so fun. I'm sorry about having been so abrupt during our initial contact. He sends Arthur to go do something in the hydraulics room. And this feels like a very pregnant suggestion.

Like everybody's like, oh, shit. And Arthur's like, you mean right now I have to go? I mean, as much as it is in his inflection with the dialogue, there's also a physicality to it appearing in some ways like he's being dragged to this task. Yeah, yeah. Against his will. The terraformers kind of file away

and data and Jordier are left to look at some of the computers and this tone of admiration continues. They're so amazed at all the precision and interesting graphs that these guys have. And as they're talking about this and Mandel is bragging about all of the amazing shit that they're up to, the camera finds Troy, who is very worried all of a sudden. She lets them know something bad is happening. Malensor, he's in trouble. The screaming they hear also underscores this suspicion, I think.

Yeah, I think she was on to the vibes before the screaming started. Yeah. Like she could feel the fear before it flew out of his mouth. You know how there are blast door jobs? Jobs you do inside a chamber? Yeah. That seems like a uniquely dangerous type of job. And like a whole genre of them too, right?

Like you are sealed into it for the protection of those outside. Right. You are taking a risk that others are not. Yeah. And that's where Arthur is. And they can't get these doors open. They're jammed or something. And when the door,

finally does open, Arthur is not looking great. He is just a pile of burger meat and it seems like it was the mining laser that hit him. You know what's so great about how this body looks is that it does not look posed.

It looks like it fell in place after being shot by a bunch of lasers. And that hits so much harder to me than like the precise angles of of a body made to look like it fell off of a building or was shot full of bullets or lasers in this case.

Like that he's also facing away from the camera and that you're seeing like past his legs and lower body, I think is just a great choice. I think if you drew a chalk outline of Arthur, the way he's lying, it wouldn't look like anything. It would just be like a totally irregular object and you'd have to like draw in like the arms and like maybe a smiley face.

Just so like people knew. like kind of where things were supposed to be. Were grimace to be killed and a crime scene created after his death? Like this is a grimace outline that you'd get from Melanson being killed. I mean, we've heard about his birthday. That implies that he has a death day. And I think that, you know, it's only right that we think about grimace in those terms. You don't deserve to wear that uniform.

The design of the drilling laser being so aggressive, even when it's not in operation, is really fun. And when everyone looks at it, there's like a way that it is pointing that seems suspicious, you know? Yeah, it's spooky. I mean, we don't even know, like, how bad this is. Like, they're all standing on the other side of the threshold. And Riker is like, yeah, I mean, this guy doesn't look great. but, you know, we got to go in and beam him to Six Bay, but we're not sure if it's safe to enter.

Could they, like, throw a com badge at the pile of Arthur meat and have that beamed out? Do they have to go in to get him beamed up with Yarr? I love that idea so much. Has anyone thrown on com badge at someone else in a scene? I don't know. For use in any kind of way? I can't think of an instance.

And now that I'm thinking of, about it, it's all I can think about. Cadet Ralph 8-1 in New Star Trek, but that's the only unusual use of a com badge I can think of. Eventually, Data and YAR take the risk of going in.

They're like, oh yeah, we're pretty sure everything's off now, and yet we're not thinking of this as being like a totally safe choice, and YAR beams up. Data is inspecting the crime scene, and Louisa turns to

Mandel and is like, we should go up and make sure our colleague is okay. Like, we should go back to the ship and, like, be at his bedside in sickbay as he has nursed back to life by their physicians. And Mandel, like, definitely has to think about this. Do I want to leave these people down here to poke around my terraforming station without me able to control what they do and don't see? but, you know, she said it right in front of everybody. It's not like he can get away with being like, no, no. There's a real energy that's like workplace accidents at a warehouse facility kind of vibes and like a manager figure being like, well, we kind of still have to keep fulfilling the orders,

don't we? Just try to steer the pallet jacks around the pool of blood. That's sort of mandals. job here is to keep this work going. They beam up with Troy and Riker, and Data's still looking at the crime scene. And he's like, it's kind of weird how the laser is positioned. It kind of looks like it did this on purpose,

and then it stopped firing when Arthur stopped yelling. So that's weird. We should look at the drilling program, see if we can figure out what went wrong. Like, Jardy, why don't you throw some power on that computer? let me take a look. As long as I promise not to yell, I should be safe, right? That seems to be the trade-off here. I love this team of Data and Jordi when it comes to problem-solving. I think we get this a lot in the episodes and the seasons ahead. Yeah. But this feels like one of the first cracks at that kind of team

building. And I really think it's great, both because, like, Jordi is the most interested in data's deal, but also because they become such friends later on. Yeah. So data is like often this room that's kind of the transitional space between the terraforming lab and the Star Trek caves. And Jordy is in the lab. And we start to see what the laser does. And it like pivots around and shoots down these drill shafts and little puffs of smoke come out. I really like the combination of special effects and just puffs of smoke here. But then the laser kind of goes haywire and starts going after Commander Data. And he's bobbing, he's weaving. Laser can't get him. Doesn't make any sense because this thing is

supposed to be off. And he's not yelling. Why is this thing trying to kill him? What are we supposed to think, Laser? Like, what do you like, And not like. That's what we want to know. You're so right about the things that we're seeing and the things that we're not in this scene. And the decision to not see what is down range of the laser when it's doing its laser work, especially down those tunnels, is such a great choice if what you're trying to do is conserve a little budget, you know?

Let's make the holes. Let's not make the thing that's down in the tunnel. And we can just have a PA clap two chalkboard erasers together just on the other side of the hole. Yeah. Poor Jordy here gets to the blast door, can't get in. And so he radios up to Enterprise to tell Captain Picard about it. The Fortune Enterprise, we have a problem. Be specific. And Picard is like, get data out of there. What are you telling me for? Eventually the door's open and he's like, yeah, I mean, this thing was trying to kill me on purpose. And I saw enough to know that it was pretty clever about all of this. that and Bjorn walks in, give a mind, one of their crew members is clinging to life in the Sixth Bay on the ship

up above. And Bjorn is like, what did you do to our drill, man? What the fuck? What the hell are you doing? I think you're overstating a little bit, his explosive reaction to this. It seemed to me like he was just very sad, very sad about the circumstances, but specifically sad about the destruction of the thing that took so much work to make. Like, he looks devastated and exhausted.

Like, exhausted, like, you see on a person who works in health care or something, where, like, their job is just, like, triage and fixing and doing and blurp-o-blurp. Like, he just looks like he needs a good night's sleep. I was wondering about it because I was like, the laser itself is broken, but can't you get another laser? Like, the holes are still there. In a scenario where we continue the terraforming project, is this that big of a setback? You're a thousand percent right.

I thought the same thing. Like, if laser is so instrumental to the job, you must have redundancy. Redundancy? I know about redundancy, Mr. Hunter. So Mandel is in the ready room, and there is some discussion of the situation down on the planet. And Picard is like, yeah, we're going to have to pause what you guys are up. up to down there so that we can investigate what's going on. Like, this is a crisis, and Mandel is like so mad, so mad that they're standing in his way.

He's got a schedule to keep, and that is his primary focus. But because this is basically a murder investigation, Picard has the authority to shut down the operation until that investigation's complete. So Mandel gets escorted out by Yar, and Data and Jordy stick around to. talk about what happened with this laser. And data is like either that was being like joysticked by somebody or somebody that really knows their shit with programming programmed the laser to do that. And either way, it means somebody is trying to hide something down there. Like what is worth killing me and one of their coworkers that would be down there on that planet? It doesn't make any

sense. Why? Like, nobody can really think of, like, what would be a motive here? So, that's a little bit puzzling. And all you and I have to go on is Joe Exotic. I've had my days of coke. I have my days of drinking. That's who we're thinking is at fault. It seems like he's, like, not that broken up over Arthur being clinging to life. And then Crusher calls up and she's like, Yeah, I mean, Arthur Mallinson is dead, RSVP, Arthur. Like it gets played over the audio transmission from Zixfay, the little sound effect. So Data and Jordy are going to go back to the scene of the crime to gather more evidence. Troy is going to be given access to dossiers on all of the terraformers, see if she can come up with something that would give them a sense of, like,

means motive and opportunity. How exciting was that potential, Ben? I love a scene where we're flipping through files and dossiers, getting background information on folks. I was really looking forward to that. Born 7-647, Bully, Arizona of Indian-German descent. Didn't get it. We are becoming detectives, commander.

Not me. I'm not going to do anything. You guys do all the work. And that work continues on the station where Jordian Data returned to the scene of the crime. and data quickly finds something unusual inside one of these pipes that the laser was shooting at, and Jordy is brought over to take a look. Actually, Jordy is taken to a window to see into what data is seeing. There's so much Jordy looking at shit in this episode.

It's great. I mean, he's looking down this hole, and what they see down there is not organic. It's sandy, but it's bluish. and twinkling and Jordy describes the effects that he's getting as almost musical. Could this be life, and could it be

what they are trying to cover up here at this terraforming station? They aren't in a position to confirm this at all, but you know who is? Dr. Crusher and some folks on Enterprise, so they beam this thing up there inside a

terrarium inside Six Bay. But this thing as they sort of run through the list doesn't quite check all the boxes to qualify for life yet. It's really neat though. They're having the computer run all these scans. They do some like microscopy on it.

It looks really cool on the screen. Wesley is in this scene to just express wonder and awe. It's beautiful, whatever it is. And the thing starts emitting a hum. And there's some fun, like, wait, if we like all stand over here, does it hum? Oh, no. Okay. So, and then if we back away from it, it hums less. And then if we come forward, it hums more. Okay, so it seems to, like, know that we're here or be

reacting to our presence anyways. Yeah, and like as much as the list of scientific confirmations necessary to, you know, deem something as a living thing, humming louder when you get close and humming quieter when you back away, like, that belongs on that list to me. That feels like one of the things you consider. The hum test needs to be part of the testing. I mean, the computer feels like that's good enough. The computer disregarding the things that it takes as givens that this doesn't have. The computer theorizes that this thing is alive.

So Dr. Crusher says, all right, well, time to science the shit out of this. Like we got to do observation and theorization and figure this thing out. You know who's not happy about any of this is Director Mandel. He's told about all of this. And he's told he's a suspect, really, of knowing about it and covering it up. This planet was certified by top men as lifeless. They came here and looked at it. We wouldn't be here if they hadn't signed off on this being.

a perfect planet to terraform. So, you know, fuck you if you think this is something that I did on purpose. Great job of Picard in this scene to like poke and prod and like get him riled up enough to reveal that this is intentional.

And it gets something for emotional bloodhound Deanna Troy to get a whiff of, you know? We just move. It's like they're working in tandem to get the truth out of him. It seems like they drop the fact of Arthur's death on him in this moment. Like he hadn't heard yet. I mean, in Mandel's defense, he heard the sound played over the innercom, and he's like,

well, that's weird. That sounds like a video game sort of thing. I don't remember exactly what it's from. Did somebody plug their Xbox into the wrong audio input? I just didn't put it together, contextually. He plays this moment really well for what it's worth. He reps that he's really shocked. But when he leaves, they're like, so like, could this be something he's behind?

And Troy's like, yeah, very highly trained artificial intelligence and computer science guy, in addition to being a terraformer. So he could totally have made that laser do that thing. But there's a granularity to what Troy can pick up off of Mandel that goes so far as to say that, like, yeah, he's been covering things up. he's been acting suspiciously, but going far enough to commit murder to cover this up, that seems unlikely given what I'm feeling and the hits I'm getting off of him. And besides, he doesn't even know what to reprogram a drill. So that seems like he wouldn't be a suspect for that reason. Yeah, somebody else must have done at least part of it, if not the whole thing.

You know who would have the capabilities to get their hands around something drill or drill-shaped? Louisa Kim, Riker's going to be the perfect guy to ask about those qualifications. And in her guest quarters, we find her very upset. She is the only one that is grieving any of this at any point. She is not in the headspace Riker was hoping for when he went down to see what skills of a drill smith she has. He's like, you could reprogram my drill to target anything that's screaming. What's it like?

We have nothing we can compare it with. In fact, it comes free programmed for that, Louisa. Yeah, that's just a setting. I actually can't turn it off. It's very beautiful. I could arrange for you to see it if you like. He's like, hey, like, this isn't your fault. The planet did get signed off on by top men.

So, you know, it was a mistake, but you don't have to feel any guilt about it. It's the recon scout. It's their ass, you know? And it's not even their ass. Like, they don't look for shit like this. This is not like the kind of thing that they are trying to detect when they go looking for life. This is so weird, so far outside of the norm. It's just an outlier.

You can't feel bad about it. Yes, a year of your life just got fleshed down the toilet. But these aren't even career implications that are, like, you'll be fine. You'll find another planet to terraform. Picard gets called to the medical lab where they're keeping the life form. And there's been some changes that it's gone through. It's not humming anymore. It's actually doing a form of movement in shifting its energy, isn't it?

Jordy is really looking at this thing. and I mean, they're very impressed with what it looks like. Do you think Jordy has the ability to like filter what's going on on the visor? Because he's blinded by something he's seeing here. Yeah, he does a thing where he like holds his arm up when it's doing something that isn't. Like there are many moments where something happens that brightens the room to totally over exposed. Jordy needs auto ISO turned on or something and he doesn't. Yeah.

It seems like a manual thing. But sometimes that auto ISO is like kind of slow to react, you know, like it doesn't actually... Oh, you think that's slower than Jordy holding up his arm over his face? Come on. Anyways, now there's two of them, and that does it. That really seals the deal that this thing is alive. Humming doesn't always result in reproduction. Sure.

In this case, it did. Sometimes you can do it just for pleasure. Yeah. And it doesn't like the quarantine field. it does like talking but the universal translator is very confused at what it's been turned on to do and they're like who turned on the universal translator

what is going on and Picard's like everybody out of the room like I don't I don't like this at all like let's get the fuck out of here and they seal the whole lab off like the lab is quarantined and Picard talking to the bridge about like diverting

emergency power to keep this lab sealed up tight, lets them know that this thing is not just alive. It's intelligent. Yeah. Interfacing with the computer seems like something that could be fairly dangerous to allow a strange life form to be doing. I think they get right on the level of this being a crisis pretty quick here. And it's a crisis that's kind of ongoing. Like when we're up in the bridge, it seems like people are actually. actively working on maintaining the quarantine seal at all times. And that is when Picard and Troy head into another meeting with Mandel and his people in the observation lounge.

And it's a like, what did you know when kind of thing? And Mandel like tries to stick to his story. And Picard is like, no, dude, you're lying your ass off. Like you would not have picked up the phone the way you picked up the phone at the beginning of this episode. if you didn't know anything about this. Like, that's just, that doesn't hold water anymore. The thing about Joe Exotic in this scene is he's watching Mandel, basically being walked up to the gallows and the noose being put around him.

And for some reason, chimes in with a, yeah, I mean, sometimes we see Samcastles out there in the dirt. If you fall for that, ladies and gentlemen, you're worse than a bunch of nuts and a squirrel tree. And, I mean, without this context, we know. now have. We didn't really think anything of it. Yeah, you know, like when we were sent down here all under the impression that this was a lifeless planet, it never really occurred to us to ask any questions of the fact that designs and shapes were being described in the sand. And, you know, like, we're keeping a very tight schedule. Like, we showed you all the plants that are timed out by the weeks and the months over many, many years. Like, we got to,

we just got our minds on a lot of other things than exploring strange new worlds and seeking new life and new civilizations. That's not our bag. That's your thing. I feel like Louisa's in the room watching this conversation. And between Mandel and Joe Exotic, she's like, who the fuck have I been working with all this time? It's fucking crazy. It's wild that she doesn't seem to have known about the sandcastles either. Like, did you not look out the windows, Louisa? Like everybody else, Like, you were kept out of the loop, but maybe... I don't blame Louisa at all. I think when you work with six total people in an extremely tiny base,

the idea that Joe Exotic could see something out the window and not say anything at all, just because he's bored and he's looking to say anything at all to anyone in this circumstance, that seems weird to me. So Joe Exotic is like, okay, so like now that you say that this is probably intelligent life, amazing sandcastles and petroglyphs all over the surface of the planet start to make a little bit more sense. I have tried drugs through the younger years of my life.

I am starting to come around to the idea that there may be something to this. You guys might be on to something. I think it's really exciting, actually. We've seen rounds of applause happen in the conference room. I feel like this isn't round of applause worthy once Joe Exotic finally comes around to this.

in the lab they now have a whole bunch of these little guys and on the bridge, Worf Jordian Data have a little like tandem science session on all those computers at the back. They're all three just like lined up describing things about like the analysis of the creature. And while they're doing this, an engineer summons Riker down to the engineering section

because the seal is not holding and the lab is on the brink of not being quarantined any longer. It feels very submarineish here, right? When something is on the boat that you can't get off and you're stuck with it and you can't put out

whatever this metaphorical fire is, it feels like that, right? They're fucking trapped with this thing and they don't know what it wants. Right. It's not trapped in there with them. They're trapped in there with it. Right.

And interesting conversation with this engineer because she's like, yeah, it's like locking people into rooms all over the ship. It's kind of like doing to us what we did to it. And so like there's some people in a turbo lift. She mentions that some programmers are trapped in a bathroom. Oh my God, the smell. They can't contain it anymore. Like that part of the mission is over. This thing is taking control of systems on the ship, and it finally has gotten the translator to work to its desires and starts yelling at them on the bridge about being ugly bags of mostly water.

An accurate description of humans, sir. You are over 90% water surrounded by a flexible container. Those five specific words are so interesting, especially because one of them is like, an adjective, like the ugly thing, is such an interesting angle for making a first impression. And I think it says a lot in very few words about how this life form feels about who they've encountered. They're angry. They're very angry. And I think that, like, the sci-fi I have read so often puts humans at the center of a story where an awesomely powerful, alien race comes to Earth and cannot be communicated with.

And it is so interesting to see that story from the other side. Like they've just been like annihilating these guys and and they have been like trying everything. Like we're communicating. We're reprogramming their lasers and shooting them with it. Like nothing seems to get through to these fuckers that we're alive down here. And they all kind of step forward at various points to try and communicate back. Like Beverly is talking to them and then Picard's talking to them.

they for the first time have an opportunity to reason with this life form. And the life form is like, no, just fuck off. Like you have been ignoring us and killing us for too long for us to want to have a conversation now. Your guy Malinson knew and you guys kept killing us. So we're at war. Like this is serious. And just to underline that statement, the twinkly light creatures drop a banger on the shit. that really constitutes an escalation right you're suspicious about how integrated this thing is to the computer system and now you get confirmation that like this thing could create bangers or worse anytime it wants to it has kind of got a chokehold on their computer systems and there and it's and because it's growing it is becoming stronger like it is basically a computer that has

as self-replicating components, and it gets smarter and faster every time it reproduces. And they start calling it microbrain, which I feel like is A, not a great thing to call a guy who you're trying to convince not to kill you. Yeah, but if you've been called an ugly bag of mostly water, I feel like that's proportional. Yeah, but B, did they just get that from Q dunking on Wharf a few episodes ago? Oh, I didn't consider that. That's like in heighten cue, she calls Worf microbrain. Macrohead with a microbrain. Did Worf come up with it?

Like, let's call this guy microbrain. Like, don't call me that anymore, everybody. Call this guy. He's fairly absent this episode, though. I am lecutus aboard. You will respond to my questions. I am lecutus aboard. You abhor.

So they have turned off the turrets. terminal to the computer in the lab, hoping maybe that that will slow the takeover of the ship systems. But it's, it's like weirdly quiet after the banger. And Beverly is like, that might mean it's about to like duplicate again. And we're going to get into a situation where there's like an exponential increase in power. We're not going to be able to fend this thing off. if we don't start trying. There's this bangor refractory period here that they're all suspecting is going to be used for something bad. Yeah.

When Crusher describes the banger refractory period, Riker does look over at Louisa and blush. You know, it's like, I don't want people to know about that, you know? The strategy of beaming this thing out of the lab and back onto the planet makes so much sense. when it's offered up, I was like, why didn't we do this a long time ago? And it seems like it's going to work. Anytime that veil is dropped on something to be transported and then whatever's being transported is able to resist it or cast it away, it's such a great and pure Star Trek moment.

All of our neat whiz-bang technology can't save us now. Yeah. And your stomach drops. and they're like, oh, like maybe we starve it for oxygen, like, turn off the life support in the room, and data can't turn that off remotely. Mandelson is still marching around yelling that he's innocent and that he never knew to anyone who will listen. But nobody's really listening to Mandelson. The theory about this life forms a relationship to water is what they discuss in the observation lounge. like so much of what they were doing with respect to the terraforming had to do with finding and using the water.

And so siphoning it away from them like they were doing as part of their work has caused them to kill in self-defense. So at least we have a reason for what they're doing and how mad they are. Right. Like this was an existential threat for this species. This would have been xenocide. and as that is sinking in, Riker calls up and is like, you might want to turn on the news and a breathless wall-to-wall coverage broadcast

of this thing reproducing again is on the TV and it busts out of its little glass dome and it's now become a crystal nugget. I was going to call it a crystal ball because it is roughly spherical, but that implies crystal ball like a sear would have.

In the desperation, it feels like there are no bad ideas at this point. And one of the ideas offered by the crew is data suggesting that maybe this life form is photoelectric and that it's not depending on oxygen or water or anything to live. It's instead depending on light. So Picard, absent any other theories at this point, is like, cool, let's shut off the lights to the lab. we still have control of that, don't we? For some reason they do. Yeah, but they have to go down and, like, turn it off from, like,

they have to, like, go into the wall on the other side of the lab to do it. Like, they can't do it from the bridge. Right, but if you have control of the entire ship, it would seem as though you also have control of the corridor outside the lab. Yeah. But if it's, like, if it's a mechanical rheostat, maybe you do. I don't know. Have you seen a bunch of mechanical light switches and rheostats on,

enterprise? I don't know what's under all those panels, man. Like, Riker looks pretty smooth. Riker got his hands on something down there. Uh-huh. This was an interesting moment because, like, data comes up with this, turn down the lights thing. And there's like some, like, oh, when we were lowering the level of the water to below where light penetrates on the surface of this planet, that was like the lethal move. Like if that water is even a centimeter lower, it's lights out for these guys, har, har, har. But I also thought in this moment, data being a silicon life form would have been an interesting direction for this to go.

And it could have tied back to the like Bjorn being so curious about him thing earlier in the episode. Like what if data could be their emissary and be like, hey, like, I know that this has been a fucked up situation, but these guys aren't all bad. And I know this is a cold comfort right now, but it was a mistake that they killed so many of you. I think they probably still have hard feelings about someone who resembles data being in league with something that looks crystalline.

Mm-hmm. You have all sorts of preconceptions there about maybe that being a bad team. You're suggesting that they would consider him an Uncle Silicon? I would, and I'm glad you said it. Yeah. turning off the lights works and Picard is able to negotiate for peace and as a show of good faith turn the lights up a little bit and he's like that works so well like we got we ended the war really quickly and now Picard is like all right let's build some diplomatic bridges like microbrain

we think you're real neat we just want to know all about you like that's kind of what we're out here doing and microbrain is like fuck all the way off You arrogant piece of shit. The sheer fucking hubris. You can come back in, uh, I don't know, 300 years. A time period that folks who make Star Trek are completely uninterested in knowing anything about. Too soon. Riker really milks the moment when he goes into the lab to say goodbye to this little guy.

He, uh, you know, makes sure the transporter chief's ready. and then he calls up to the bridge and he's like, last moments with this guy aboard, but I'm going to send him off now. We get some last little moments, Mandelson expressing regret and guilt. Troy apologizing on behalf of what was done to them and a little crystal beams home

and the enterprise leaves with an indefinite quarantine erected around Fulara 3. This is becoming a speech. You're the captains, though. You're entitled. I've entitled to ramble on about something everyone knows. I got a big question at the end of this, Ben. It seems like the extinction of a living thing is, you know, very much at the forefront of this episode.

The possibility of that, the danger of it. And this episode is of a type that is kind of extinct in modern TV, I would say. You could even call it boring Star Trek. Right? Like, I don't think anyone thinks about home soil at all, like ever. No one talks about this episode, I don't think, or very little. And what I'm trying to say is, I think there is an appetite for a simple story well told. Why do you think that's so hard to encounter nowadays? I thought about the scene with data dodging the laser and how that would be the climactic moment at the end of the episode in present day. And you would see everything.

And it would be like a total action set piece. And it's like a moment that happens more or less behind closed doors at the beginning of this episode. I think that we're always ever in an era where the studio executive executive. are fighting the last war, you know? Like they have seen the things that make money and that audiences respond to and try to make cargo cult style reproductions of those kinds of things. And every so often, a unique idea or a unique thinker sneaks things through the system and pass the gole and pass the studio notes

that say move the big action set piece with data dodging lasers to the end of the episode, because that's what people like and get excited about, and make an episode like this. Like, this is cozy, boring Star Trek. It's my favorite kind. I realized after watching this. This is the rerun that you often encounter on a hotel television of, like, heroes and aliens channel. It is absolutely that. It is, like, the prototypical that.

Like, it is the raw uncut kind of a thing that Star Trek the next generation does. And could you imagine anyone pitching this in a writer's room right now with a straight face and anyone else in the room going like, like what? You can't be serious. I think you could probably tell a story a little bit like this in Starfleet Academy. But it would be like the gothawks. Thommer thin structure of the episode and everything would be about like who's fucking whom and who's got a rivalry and who's This is the C story. Yeah.

Who's got a deep, dark secret and everything and all of these fucking bells and whistles going off all over the place. Oh, my condom might be alive. I can't get it off. I'm in danger. This one is like we went down to the prop rental. shop and got like three computers and a couple of things with twinkly neon lights on them and put them in a room where we painted the floor brown and made a little like local science center set to play in. I think we'll come around. I think we'll find a time where this kind of shit gets to get made, but it might not be in like a studio system of the kind that we have now. Like this is never going to be part of a streaming show in the streaming era where everything

is falling apart and everything is like six episodes a season, you know. There is kind of a reaction to big, broad, loud things in a lot of spaces. Like there is this idea right now of. quiet golf, which is like it doesn't have a fucking stereo system in your golf car. It doesn't have a lot of loud clothing or a bunch of big personalities. It's just like being out in nature and being still and quiet and enjoying your time out there. And quiet Star Trek feels like a kind of Star Trek that I could really enjoy a collection of. I would love for that to be the trend in television. I mean, I think that it is, you know, it is like very widely observed that spectacle in

movies has kind of stopped being spectacle. And like the Odyssey is like, you know, very unusually spectacular for a movie because like when you look at them on a boat in a choppy, in choppy water, it's like very obviously an actual thing floating in actually nautical circumstances and not just a bunch of people on an articulated platform in a green screen studio. And maybe we will return to form. Maybe the pendulum will swing. We can only hope. Ben, I'm going to look down into the hole of Priority One messages and see if there's anything living in there. You want to come with? Ooh, I think I see a twinkle. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel.

You need a supplemental. Supplement. Supplement. Yeah, it's extra. the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Ben, we've got a personal priority one message here. It's to you and me, and it's from Ricky. Hey, Ricky. Here's how that goes. I discovered the pod during lockdown, and you help me get through that, and some other really tough times.

I've been slowly viewing the back catalog and just now hit the lockdown episodes. Oh, man. Seemed like high time to throw you boys some scarves from inside the temporal anomaly, and to say thank you for the story. wonderful thing you've put out in the world. Best of luck on your new indie adventures, and I can't wait to see what the future has held from the other side of the anomaly.

Thank you, Ricky. I had a little visit to the studio yesterday from our friend Brandon Bird, and we talked a little bit about what a weird time lockdown was, you know, like our podcast, like never slowed down. And so, like, we didn't have quite the same, like, everything is really different moment, at least work-wise. And he was like, yeah, I mean, it was great for me as a painter because, like, people were, like, sitting in their houses and thinking about what they wanted to look at in their houses and they bought my paintings. So he did great. Yeah. That's what he was trying to convey was he liked it and it was good. No, but I mean, I'm just saying, like, it's an interesting time. It's weird how seldom it comes up almost. That's because I think we were

fairly specific about to the extent that we possibly could not trying to time block the show in specific quarantine pandemic events, but like just general events in general. Like that kind of stuff always creeps into the show to a certain extent, but I know you and I were fairly intentional with not wanting to make a pandemic show for a period of time. Right. Well, our next P1 here is from Minnesota, Suzanne. and it's to all FODs everywhere. Sorry, it's boring. 500 characters is not a lot.

Message goes like this. I started listening in late 2016, but soon fell behind because I felt the need to be informed about current events. I have since lost that interest and was able to catch up with the show just in time for you guys to start over.

I have been a little embarrassed to go to two live shows and wish I could hang out with more FODs. No one I know knows I listen to this point. podcast. This is my birthday present to myself. Happy to know you're all out there and hoping we can warp into a

better future. Thanks, Suzanne. Hey, Suzanne, there's a large and good pocket of FODs in Minnesota specifically. So I think it's just a matter of finding them. Maybe like the Discord's a good

place to start, if you like. I love that idea. And yeah, we do not miss a Minneapolis show if we're doing a tour because Minnesota FODs come out in droves and it's always really fun to spend time with them. So yeah, I think there's some low-hanging fruit for Suzanne to get out there and make some pals. There's no need to keep up with current events anymore, Suzanne. Welcome to the club. Ben, our final priority win message here is to anybody canyon drop.

Anybody! And it's from Bond and Chris, full-time nomads hailing all Previa drivers with a P-1 message. Here's how the message goes, does your Previal lack a transporter to beam your poop? Have you at a conference ruined by a bang? Have you driven through a space butthole into an alternate timeline? If you answered yes, Previas of DeSoto is the Facebook subgroup for you. Previas of DeSoto for full or part-time nomadic previa dwellers. Wow.

Previa curious are also welcome to join. We live full-time and know the embarrassment of following the pod while on the road. Come share your embarrassment and your adventures. Amazing. So this is the van life meets the Friends of DeSoto life. Yeah. And it's the Previas of DeSoto. Yeah.

nomadic van people of the FOD persuasion. I have a cousin who is in the process of building out a nomadic van for living that life. And I was like, oh, cool, are you going to like document it and make like an Instagram account about it? And they were like, no, my life isn't content. And I was like, oh, yeah, shit. What a great impulse. But I imagine being in community with people that are hashtag, about that life. It would be very useful because I'm sure it has a lot of unique challenges and

fun opportunities that you would want to find out from like-minded FODs. So if you're whipping that previa around, check out this Facebook group. A couple of P1 messages today reaching out for community. If that sounds like the sort of message you want to put out there or any other kind is totally welcome. Podshop.biz is where you can get priority one messages and they go a lot way in supporting the production of our shows. And we really appreciate it. Thanks. Ben, it's time for a game.

Mm-hmm. One of the things this episode made me think of was how the human being is a body made of about 60% water. We are ugly bags of mostly water, aren't we? Hell yeah.

Which is all I needed to think about to design a brand new game called Ugly Bags of Mostly. water. Then, with me, I have three Ziploc bags of mostly water. I will

hold each of these up to the camera for you and everyone watching the stream to see. Okay. One of these bags is urine. The other two are not. It will be your job to determine based only on what you're

seeing which one of the two is not my urine and I will drink from that bag. Wait. You've talked a long time for a number of episodes, Ben, you're like, I'm always the one like having to pay the price for losing these games. I'm always the one screwing things up and getting into trouble and I'm so miserable because I never win. Ben, this is a game where you have the opportunity to punish me.

Okay. So you're going to drink from a bag. I'm picking a bag for you to drink from and I'm trying to make you drink pee? Here's the aspect of this game that is so diabolical. I don't know what you're trying to make me think. Okay. Your intention could be to make me drink pee. Your intention could be to save me from that possibility. You don't have to say which one you're trying for. I know I'm curious about what you're trying for. That's the whole idea of, ugly bags of mostly water. The hit game. Right, because pee is also mostly water. Precisely. I mean, we just had a long conversation, you and I,

about unconventional wellness routines, and I have heard that there's a pee consumption community out there. Ben, I've never drank my own piss. Were it to happen on this show, it would be my very first time. and probably our last episode. Are you ready to play? Yeah. Bag A, we've got the Ziploc brand of bag.

This is the kind with that little plastic thing that you can pull across the top. Very clear and about, I don't know, one-third full of water. The amount of filling is not a clue in any way. I tried to make sure that they were all fill. up to the same amount. Okay. This does have power shield technology, which I would want for a bag of piss. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. That is bag A. Okay. That's bag A. Okay. Here is bag B.

Okay. Okay. Oh man, the stream is going off. Bag B, same kind of bag. It's got a B written on it. And What we are looking at is evidence of profound dehydration. Yeah. Something I would be really concerned about if it came out of me. Mm-hmm. I'm sort of wondering if this is like peach tea or something because you said that, you said that the other two had water.

Yeah. This looks like, I mean, if this is pee, this is. dark dark pee. All right. That is bag B. Okay. Here's our final bag then. Okay.

So bag C, a little bit healthier color if it's P. But there's something about this that is distinct from bag B, wouldn't you say? I would say so because bag C has a certain amount of foamyness. and bublitude that I find troubling. Can you turn this bag sideways to the camera? Okay. Is this what you're going for? Yeah, because I was thinking like if those bubblers are coming from some kind of carbonation,

we might see the bag being puffed out by that, but that is not. Here's all the rest of the bags in profile too, just so you can see. I think they're all about the same. amount of puffiness. None of these have a carbonation would be my guess. Boy, Bag C is the one that scares me the most. Before you give an answer, I will ask the question fairly directly. What is your intention here? Do you want to find the bag that is not piss for me to drink, or do you want me to find the bag that is? I do not want you to drink piss, Adam. You're one of my best friends. I think there are some episodes where you would really, really want me to do that. There have been many times in our

long friendship that I've just thought it would be great if Adam would go drink a bag of piss right now. Yeah, I know. But man, I love you and I don't, you know, you may have read something compelling about the health benefits of drinking piss. But I don't want you to do that. And so that's the goal. It's finding a bag that isn't. And so it is for that reason. I'm going to ask you to drink bag A.

Wow. Bag A, the clearest of all the bags. You know how much water I drink. I'm a fairly hydrated man. I do, but I don't feel the same trepidation when I think about bag A that I do when I think about those other two. Okay, Adam has a stainless steel straw that he is inserted into a small opening in bag A. Oh boy, he is drawing fluid. Ben, that is a ugly bag of mostly water.

That is pure water. Oh, thank fuck. That I just drank. Oh, thank fuck. Can you tell me what we're behind the other two doors? Ben, bag C was Miller Light. Okay. Interesting.

The foam, I thought for sure, would suggest pee. It did. Yeah. I was pretty sure after I saw the color difference between C and B. that C must be the P-P. And that leaves B, Ben. What happened? Which is a combination of water and soy sauce.

Because there's no fucking way I would ever drink piss on our show. What the fuck is it matter with you? You think I would actually do this? That's insane. I couldn't figure out what planet we were on. But it was a psychological test, wasn't it? And I think we both learned a lot in playing Ugly. bags of mostly water.

We sure did, Adam. Well, that is our show for today. I am so relieved. The amount of tension that my body just went through is startling. I'm so proud of this one. Man, I think this is going to have people talking. Yeah, yeah. Well, that was a ton of fun.

For me. I can only imagine what sort of fun is in store next week on that episode. And here's the producer of this one to tell you all about it, along with our credits. Bye, bye. The greatest generation is an Uxbridge Shimoda podcast. It's hosted by Ben Harrison and Adam Pranika, who also helped out with the drops this week. And it's produced by Wendy Pretty. Next week, we'll be back with another episode of Star Trek The Next Generation.

so get ready for a parasite inspection because it's season one, episode 19, coming of age. Until then, we want to say thank you to all of the members who support this show. If you want to join them, you'll get an ad-free feed, plus a lot of great bonus episodes. Sign up at greatesttrecht.com. You can also just click the support link in the show notes right there in your podcatcher, and we appreciate your support. Music for the greatest generation is by dark materia. Social media is managed by Bill Tilley and Rob Adler,

who also puts together the greatest newsletter every month. Visit Podshop.biz to get signed up for that. You can also book a P1 there, and that, of course, also helps the show. So thanks. And along with our official social media pages on Blue Sky, Instagram, and YouTube, you can also check out one of the great FOD run communities online. Those are on Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Mastodon, and Wikia. Go join a group of FODs and use the hashtag Greatest Gen when you post about the show.

And don't forget to subscribe to Greatest Trek and join us for ongoing coverage of Strange New World Season 4. That's all for now. We'll see you next week on The Greatest Generation. So Uxbridge Shimoda