Star Trek

How Nurse Alyssa Ogawa Paved an Aspirational Future for Asian American Women

Alyssa Ogawa is a symbol of hope for Star Trek’s promise of a more diverse and inclusive future.

https://deadline.com/2024/08/patti-yasutake-dead-beef-star-trek-actress-1236032961/

The official Doctor Who website has a companion piece, which has been shared here.

I’m on my umpteenth rewatch of DS9, and I"m in season 6, when it really gets goood. And, as you are all aware (It’s a fake!).

I often listen to TNG or DS9 or VOY as I know many of us do to fall asleep, but once again, I couldn’t close my eyes for “in the pale moonlight”.

I think it's a work of art on its own, but when you bring in the holier than thou morality of the federation, mixed with the horror of seeing all those names on the casualty lists, it really brings Star Trek to its knees - in, as usual, a major crisis of morality: the needs of the few, or the needs of the many?

That question of doing something bad, something that goes against one's morals, and yet will save thousands of lives of people you care about, is quintessential star trek. For me, this is when ST really gets good (and I’m a TNG zealot).

I think that I have wanted to write this on every re-watch and have never managed to do so because I’m a stupid ass dumb fucking idiot. I’m sure that many ST fans have written volumes on this very famous episode, but regardless, it deserves to be brought up over and over again, and should serve as a reminder of how incredible this episode was. This is the shit that makes ST great.

Sisko was out of options. Garak could open alternative options and Sisko asked Garak for what he needed, even if he didn’t realize it at the time. He was angry when he got what he asked for. And then…

“So I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But the most damning thing of all, I think I can live with it. And if I had to do it all over again, I would. Garak was right about one thing. A guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant, so I will learn to live with it. Because I can live with it. I can live with it.”

Even better, the episode didn’t treat us like children with showing a callback to the beginning of the episode, but I will fall on that sword… From the first scene:

GARAK: It would mean calling in all my favours, Captain. To do what you’re asking would use up every resource I have left on Cardassia. And it may be a very messy, very bloody business. Are you prepared for that?

SISKO: I posted my fourteenth casualty list this morning. I’m already involved in a very messy, very bloody business. And the only way I can see to end it is to bring the Romulans into the war. I am prepared to do whatever it takes to accomplish that goal, but I can’t do it alone. I need help. Now, are you in or out?

GARAK: I’m in.

What’s better than getting to gawp at some painstakingly recreated Star Trek ship models and sets? Getting to do that while Q himself regales you about how cool it is to do exactly that.

That’s pretty much the premise of “Return to Tomorrow,” a new video taking a look at some of the latest virtual recreations of Star Trek props, sets, and models hosted by the Roddenberry Archive. Over the past few years, the archive has worked with “holographic renderers” OTOY to create a digital Star Trek museum, painstakingly replicating sets from across the entire series, from the original Trek to contemporary shows like Discovery, Picard, and Lower Decks that people can take virtual strolls through, either online or through apps on VR headsets.

But if you just wanted to chill out and watch a video instead, this is a pretty great option, if only because you get to listen to John De Lancie, the man behind the irascible Q, poetically discuss why Star Trek design speaks to us in so many forms as it’s developed over the years.

Direct YouTube Link

Extended Clip: Strange New Worlds Season 2

Teaser Trailer: Lower Decks Season 5

Teaser Trailer: Section 31

Full Panel: Star Trek x Doctor Who

Video: Star Trek x Doctor Who Friendship Is Universal

Game Trailer: Star Trek: Lower Decks x Doctor Who: Lost In Time

This was mentioned elsewhere but I thought it was cool enough to deserve it's own post. The artist is Dusty Abell and they are selling copies on their website here: https://www.dustyabell.com/products/star-trek-doctor-who-friendship-is-universal-print

• The episode title refers to a textbook that several other characters have admonished Dal for not reading this season, beginning in “Into the Breach, Part I”.

• Rok-Tahk catches Murf having a discussion with a silhouetted figure in the USS Voyager A’s astrometrics lab. Previously we’ve seen Silik speaking with the silhouetted Future Guy, beginning in ENT’s premiere, “Broken Bow”.

• Janeway speculates that the temporal shielding aboard the Infinity is what’s preventing Voyager A from being affected by the changes to the timeline caused by Chakotay and Adreek escaping aboard that USS Protostar in the previous episode. Temporal shielding was used to great effect during the USS Voyager’s conflict with the Krenim temporal weapon in “Year of Hell, Part II”.

• A chyron informs us the stardate 52 years in the future where the Protogies are stuck is, 112152.1.

• ”Then we send a hundred ships.” It was established in “Preludes” that the Vau N’Akat did indeed send 100 ships into the anomaly in pursuit of the Protostar.

• Zero descends into the Va’Lu’Rah pit carrying Dal and Maj’el in a manner not dissimilar to Spock carrying Kirk and Bones up the turbolift shaft with his hover boots in “Star Trek: The Final Frontier”.

• Dal claims to be able to feel that Gwyn is in pain while displaced from time. Dal has latent telepathic abilities from this proto-Organian genetics.

• ”I’m a doctor, not an exorcist.” The Doctor has uttered variations on Bones’ famous, “I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer,” in 13 prior instances.

• ”I came across a mission log where lieutenant Worf was able to jump between quantum timelines by generating an inverse warp field, siphoned from a temporal anomaly.” Maj’el relates the events of “Parallels”.

• Characters this season have chided Dal for not reading Temporal Mechanics 101, but, to be fair, the text appears to be a short video lesson, so none of them actually read it either.

• Doctor Erin MacDonald was first mentioned in the LDS episode, “First First Contact”, and seen in “Supernova, Part II”. She is based upon, and voiced by, Doctor Erin MacDonald, the science advisor who has worked on every modern Trek series thus far.

• Temporal Mechanics 101 has three examples of how to travel through time:

    • Slingshot around the sun - “Tomorrow is Yesterday”, “Star Trek: The Voyage Home”, and “Penance”

    • Get on the wrong side of a Q - “Tapestry”, “All Good Things…”, “Deathwish”, “Farewell”

    • A wormhole - “Eye of the Needle”, “Into the Breach, Part II”

• Zero uses a chronitonic hypospray to temporarily prevent Gwyn from shifting between quantum realities. The Doctor did something similar in “Shattered” using a chroniton infused serum to bring Chakotay into temporal alignment after he was hit by a surge of temporal energy from an anomaly.

• The Doctor modified a phase discriminator to stabilize Gwyn. In “Timescape”, captain Picard, Data, Geordi, and Troi used phase discriminators to protect themselves from being trapped in a temporal fragment.

That's a damn fine poster, and the artist is selling prints (to people in the US).

• The episode title is a callback to the TNG episode, “Who Watches The Watchers”.

• Maj’el uses a band of cloth to hide her Vulcan ears, a maneuver Spock first performed in “Star Trek: The Voyage Home”.

• A chyron informs us the stardate during the present time is 61860.1.

• Gwyn challenges Ascencia to Va’Lu’Rah, a “sovereign ritual” for the Vau N’Akat, mentioned in the previous episode. Certainly this isn’t going to be some trial by combat.

    • Cultures that have ritual combat include:

      • Vulcans

      • Ligonians

      • Klingons

      • Gelrakians

• ”Those Vau N’Akat put a weapon on our ship that threatens the entire Federation.” Adreek is referring to the living construct, which the Protogies discovered and dealth with during the previous season, by destroying the USS Protostar.

• ”It would not be the first instance of a causal time loop in Starfleet history.” Maj’el confirms that the events of “Past Tense, Part I”, “Past Tense, Part II” and “Star Trek: First Contact” were the results of bootstrap paradoxes.

• ”Vulcans do not lie.” Maj’el lies right in Dal’s face.

    • In “The Menagerie, Part I”, Spock tells Pike, “I have never disobeyed your orders before, Captain,” which contradicts “The Red Angel” where he refuses an order to stand down.

    • In “The Menagerie, Part I”, Spock made a false entry in the Enterprise’s log.

    • In “The Menagerie, Part 2”, it is revealed that Spock has been aware the entire time that the trial was a Talosian projection and thus has been making false statements in service of that deception.

    • In “A Taste of Armageddon”, Spock lies as a distraction, claiming there’s a bug on someone’s shoulder before nerve pinching them.

    • In “Errand of Mercy”, Spock tells Kor he’s a merchant.

    • In “Amok Time”, Spock lies about his excitement seeing that Kirk survived kal-if-fee, claiming it was simply logical relief that Starfleet did not lose a capable captain.

    • In “The Enterprise Incident”, the Romluan commander asks if it is merely a myth that Vulcans cannot lie, to which he responds, “It is no myth.”

    • In “The Enterprise incident”, Spock claims he was unprepared for Kirk’s attack, and used the *”Vulcan death grip” instinctually. Clearly the attack had been planned, and there is no such thing as a Vulcan death grip.

    • In “Yesteryear”, Spock lies about his identity after travelling to the past and visiting his family.

    • In “More Tribbles, More Troubles” Spock claims that Vulcans don’t have a sense of humour, which they obviously do.

    • In “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”, Spock lies about how long it will take to repair the Enterprise in case the transmission is being monitored. When Saavik calls him on this, he claims he merely exaggerated.

    • In “Spock Amok”, Spock told Chapel that he had a dream where he had to fight his human side, whereas it was obvious that in his dream Spock was the human half fighting his Vulcan side.

• The timeline changes with Chakotay and Adreek escape aboard the Protostar instead of launching it under autopilot, causing Gwyn to start disappearing from existence. In “Children of Time” the descendants of the crew of the USS Defiant and their colony disappear when the alternate future version of Odo chooses to let 200 years worth of people never be born so he can save Kira from dying.