USSBurritoTruck

• “Star Trek: Section 31” is the 14th feature length Star Trek film, and and the first film made specifically for streaming.

    • Other Star Trek films include: “Star Trek: The Final Frontier”, “Star Trek Nemesis” and “Star Trek Into Darkness”.

    • The film was originally announced in 2020 as a series, before being transitioned to a movie in early 2023.

• The film’s title refers to the Section 31 organization first introduced in the DS9 episode, “Inquisition”.

• “Star Trek: Section 31” was directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi, who was the co-showrunner for DIS beginning with season three, and directed several episodes of that series.

• The screenplay was written by Craig Sweeny, who also a consultant on season one of DIS, and co-wrote the teleplay for the episode, “Context is for Kings”.

• Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt are credited for the story; they were the going to be the showrunners for the “Section 31” television show, and wrote the pilot.

• The movie opens with a quote from the Greek playwright, Aeschylus. Michael Burnham also quoted Aeschylus in “The Sound of Thunder”.

• In a scene featuring a young mirror universe Phillipa Georgiou, we learn that the emperor of the Terran Empire is chosen via a battle royale of children ”culled from every corner of the Empire.”

    • In “In a Mirror Darkly, Part II”, we saw mirror Hoshi declare herself empress after taking control of the Constitution-class USS Defiant, and demanding Starfleet’s unconditional surrender. Granted, finding a ship from the future of an alternate universe is probably not a reliable enough occurrence to make it the basis of selecting your head of state.

    • In “Mirror Mirror” Kirk encourages mirror Spock to use the Tantalus field to change the course of the Empire, and in “Crossover” it is stated that he became the commander in chief, but he’s never referred to as having been the emperor.

• Georgiou tells her family the candidates for emperor were taken to Terra, implying that the scene takes place elsewhere. We know that the prime universe Georgiou was born in Malaysia, as per “Will You Take My Hand?”. Mirror Georgiou was aware of the fact.

• The character of San was first mentioned his body was seen in Georgiou’s flashbacks in “Scavengers”.

• The sword young Georgiou uses to maim San appears to be same one we saw her wielding later in life in “The Wolf Inside”. Or that one was modelled on this one.

• We learn that the head of Section 31 of the early 24th century apparently goes by Control, which was previously the name of the threat assessment artificial intelligence that went rogue, attempted to gain sentience, and kill all organic life in the galaxy in season two of DIS.

    • Control is portrayed by Jamie Lee Curtis. It’s a big reveal at the end!

    • The name Control originated in the Section 31 novels, “Disavowed” and “Control”, written by David Mack

• Control’s file on mirror universe Georgiou contains clips taken from season one of DIS, as well as the two episode mirror universe interlude in season three. According to Carl, the events of “Terra Firma, Part 1” and “Terra Firma, Part 2” took place in a test, not the actual mirror universe.

• Controls’ file says that Georgiou was brought to the prime universe in 2257, ”but after a few years we lost contact.” The events of season two of DIS take place almost immediately after season one, unless there were ”a few years” between the resolution of the Klingon war, and the USS Discovery setting out from Earth to pick up her new captain on Vulcan in “Will You Take My Hand?”.

• The Treat of Ka’Tann was mentioned in “Fallen Hero”, though it predates the Federation. Presumably the Federation still upholds the treaties established by Vulcan and other member states.

    • According to the map, shown, there are at least five Starfleet starbases on the other side of the border.

• According a chyron, it is stardate 1292.4. Which, if stardates were meant anything would place the film in season one of DIS, between “Battle at the Binary Stars” [stardate 1207.3] and “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” [stardate 1308.9]. However, stardates don’t mean anything, and are a mind trap.

    • According to a display in the film, this would take place sometime after 2314, and would be before Rachel Garrett’s death in 2344, as per “Yesterday’s Enterprise”, but there is not much information available to narrow it down beyond that. Alok says he was

• We learn that Georgiou has set herself up as the owner/operator of a space station lounge, the Baraam. A deleted scene from the end of season one of DIS showed Leland recruiting Georgiou to Section 31 in brothel in the Orion district on Qo’noS that she took over.

• The Baraam’s majordomo appears to be from Cheron, which is notable only because according to “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”, no one was left alive on Cheron falling the conflict between their two cultures. Granted, they are extremely long lived, and warp capable, so it’s entirely possible that Bele and Lokai were not actually the last of their people.

    • Unlike Bele and Lokai, who were both brunette, Virgil’s hair colour is also half black and half white.

• Among the weapons in Georgiou’s office are:

    • A bat’leth - Perhaps notably a TNG style iteration, as opposed to the DIS style

    • A mek’leth - One of the varieties introduced in DIS

    • A Romulan dagger

• Georgiou reveals that she was able to clock all of Alok’s Section 31 agents, as they are not particularly discrete. When they were introduced in “Inquisition”, Sloan, and the other Section 31 agents posed as regular Starfleet officers, with nothing particularly remarkable about them. In “Point of Light”, when Ash Tyler was recruited, he spoke of Section 31 as being something mostly viewed as a rumour among Starfleet officers.

• ”And since Vulcans never laugh…” We’ve seen Vulcans laugh, such as Sybok in “Star Trek: The Final Frontier”, as well as Tuvok in “Riddles”. Spock is half-human, but we’ve also seen him laugh in “Q&A”, and in “This Side of Paradise”. Granted, in “Riddles” and “This Side of Paradise”, both characters had their faculties compromised.

    • There is a song titled “The Laughing Vulcan and His Dog” mentioned in “Disaster”.

• It’s Rachel Garrett! From Star Trek! Garrett was introduced in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” as the doomed captain of the USS Enterprise C.

• We learn that Fuzz is not actually a Vulcan, but a microscopic being called a Nanokin piloting a robot facsimile of a Vulcan. The crew of the USS Endeavour seen in “The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel” was microscopic, though they were from an alternate universe where everything was smaller, so perhaps they don’t actually count and I’m just using this to explain Fuzz’s whole deal.

• ”Noe’s on his way to the Baraam to sell his latest creation to the Minosian High Council.” The planet Minos was first seen in “The Arsenal of Freedom”. The people there had reputations as arms merchants, and they wiped themselves out with their own weapons, which the USS Drake investigated.

    • According to a display Garrett brings on, the Minosian Council was responsible for the destruction of the USS Stratford in 2314.

• When we see Quasi change his shape, he first becomes a mass of pseudopods. In “Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country”, Martia’s transition from one appearance to another was much smoother and quicker.

• Georgiou -- and San -- has a device called a phase pod, which allows her move a person or object out of phase with the rest of the universe, enabling whomever is phased to move through things. The effect is very similar to what accidentally happened to Geordi and Ro in “The Next Phase”, via transporter mishap. Unlike Geordi and Ro, Georgiou remains in phase enough that light still reflects off her.

    • Also similar to Geordi and Ro’s experience, Georgiou and San do not simply fall through the floor.

• The mostly nude Andorian is played by David Benjamin Tomlinson, who played Linus on DIS, as well as a variety of other characters.

• Dada Noe informs Alok and Georgiou that he was able to cross over from the mirror universe due to the intersection of two ion storms opening a rift. Ion storms played a part in: Kirk, Uhura, Scotty and McCoy being transported to the mirror universe in “Mirror Mirror”; and Mirror Lorca being transported to the prime universe, as per “Despite Yourself”.

• We learn that Alok was born in the 20th century, and fought in the Eugenics Wars against the augments before being captured and made an augment himself. As per SNW, we know that the Eugenics Wars didn’t begin until the early 21st century.

    • Alok says he slept most of the time between the Eugenics Wars and current day, after being exiled. In “Space Seed” the USS Enterprise located the SS Botany Bay, on which 84 augments were traveling in cryostasis.

• The bridge of the garbage scow is a redress of the bridge set of La Sirena.

• ”He played you, Emperor; San’s alive.” Georgiou was born in 2202, and in 2256, she experienced a six month time jump while being transported to the prime universe. Then, in 2257, she ended up accompanying Discovery to the 31st century, where she had a brief stay before the Guardian of Forever booted her back to the early 24th century, 2314 at the very earliest. Young San appeared to be the same age as young Georgiou, so, unless San used some form of stasis, or hopped around time a bit himself, he should be, roughly 112 years old, at minimum.

• San’s ship has Georgiou’s sword displayed.

• “We’ll reign over this universe with righteous mercy, not like you!” Through the course of the film, we’ve had multiple characters state just how monstrous Georgiou was as emperor of the Terran Empire, and her killing her own family and building a weapon so horrific its engineers took their own lives certainly aren’t doing much for her perception here. However, in “What’s Past Is Prologue”, Lorca berated Georgiou for being weak on border security, and not doing enough to preserve the Terran way of life.

• Turkana IV is the colony where Tasha Yar grew up.

• It appears that the Baraam is not stationary, and is actually a warp capable ship in it’s own right. And it also has a significantly large fleet? And Alpha Team is going to take all the Baraam’s guests with them on their mission to the planet with the roving ”rape gangs.” Anyways, we’ve seen stations serve as ships before, specifically the 31st century Federation HQ was used as evacuation lifeboats in “Coming Home”.

• The episode opens on a freighter ”Somewhere in the Beta Quadrant”; the ship is modelled off Kivas Fajo’s ship, the Jovis, from the TNG episode “The Most Toys”. The Jovis was itself a kit bash of the studio model for the Husnok warship from “The Survivors”.

• Tendi [Noël Wells] is seen using a holographic disguise to infiltrate this collector’s ship. Mirror Georgiou used a similar holographic disguise while infiltrating Klingon high society as an agent of Section 31 in “Point of Light”.

• The collector, Yorif, is voiced by Eric Bauza, who has portrayed a number of characters in LDS, PRO, and the non-canon Very Short Treks.

    • Yorif is of the same species as fellow collector, Palor Toff, who was seen in “The Most Toys”. They even wear a similar golden ribbon piece of headgear, which is established this episode to be prescription.

• Among Yorif’s collection is:

    • A Risian horga’hn

    • What appears to be the Bajoran tablet that Captain Sisko broke in “The Reckoning”

    • A Veltan lust idol - Palor Toff and Kivas Fajo both claimed to own Veltan sex idols in “The Most Toys”

    • A gold Ferengi mask that may have been modelled off similar masks made in Ancient China.

    • A type-2 phaser of the sort used in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”

• Unlike the Orion interceptor previously seen in “Something Borrowed, Something Green” the one that arrives to pirate Yorif’s vessel does not have a number of spikes on it, or a grapple claw; it does appear to have some extra cannons.

• Yorif’s ship is crewed by Hupyrians. This is the first time we hear a Hupyrian speak, as the ones we’ve seen previously have taken vows of silence as part of their service to the various Ferengi Grand Nagi.

• L’Kar was previously seen in “Something Borrowed, Something Green” and is voiced by Kari Wahlgreen, who has voiced a number of characters in LDS and PRO.

• The opening title now has a warp effect to it. In it’s fifth season, TNG’s title screen also gained a warp effect.

• In addition to Klingon, Romulan, Pakled, Borg ships, whale probe, and crystalline entity seen previous season’s opening sequence’s large battle, there is now:

    • A giant green space hand, as previously seen in “Who Mourns for Adonis”

    • Tholian ships forming a web, as seen in “The Tholian Web”

    • V’ger, from TMP

• Mariner [Tawny Newsome], and T’Lyn [Gabrielle Ruiz] are playing kal-toh, a Vulcan game introduced in “Alter Ego”.

• Boimler [Jack Quaid] believes he’s going to be featured in Starfleet’s “Fleet” periodical, but he’s not. However, Naomi Wildman, does get an honourable mention in their 30 under 30 list.

    • “She’s like ten years old.” Naomi was born in 2372 in “Deadlock”, and this episode takes place in 2382.

    • The cover of the magazine claims to feature the Top 10 Riker moments

    • The cover also teases an article on the Continuum, titled *”Q Who?” mirroring the title of the TNG season two episode.

• The USS Cerritos is pulled through a quantum fissure, and encounters an alternate universe version of themselves, which, in honour of the episode title, I will be calling the Cerridos. In addition to their uniforms being slightly darker, the Cerridos crew appear to exhibit only minor differences from the familiar crew of the Cerritos which resulted in their lives turning out different, such as:

    • Mariner’s counterpart goes by Becky Freeman, and is the captain of the Cerridos

    • T’Lyn’s counterpart says ”Remarkable” while she prefers ”Fascinating”. Fasmarkable.

    • Boimler’s counterpart grew a beard

    • Billups’ counterpart became King of Hysperia, which would imply that he is also not a virgin

    • Rutherford’s counterpart wiped Tendi from his memory banks after she left to become a full time pirate, and then cyborged himself up.

• D’Erika was introduced in “Something Borrowed, Something Green” and is voiced by Ariel Winter”

• Tendi has a model of the Cerritos in her ready room aboard the Orion Interceptor.

• ”You miss debating the ethics of goop with your Starfleet nerds.” Most spineless goop in Trek has questionable ethics, at best:

    • Armus is a Skin of Evil

    • Odo is willing to engage in illegal surveillance techniques, and hold suspects under false pretenses

    • Rick Berman treated several members of the cast very poorly, hired a known fraud as the consultant on Native American culture for VOY, and prevented TNG from having an episode depicting an openly gay couple back when that would still have been uncommon

• The Billups propose a plan where the Cerritos and Cerridos are linked together so they can create a pulse which will open the rift again, and allow the Cerritos to return to the prime universe. Spock devised a similar plan in “The Time Trap” to allow the USS Enterprise and a Klingon vessel to the Delta Triangle.

• We learn that Mariner is Mariner’s middle name.

• The crashed Orion vessel has orbs on rotating spokes, similar to we’ve seen on previous Orion vessels, beginning with the ship seen in the remastered TOS episode, “Journey to Babylon”.

• A group of blue skinned Orions appear, wearing the same uniforms as the Orions from “The Pirates of Orion”.

    • The blues pronounce the name of their species as ”Or-ee-ahn”, which is how it was pronounced in “The Pirates of Orion” and no where else in the franchise until now.

• Becky recounts the events of “Second Contact” when Boimler gets gummed on by a Galardon spider-cow, implying that she experienced that episode very similarly.

• ”There’s no interpersonal conflict allowed on my ship.” Becky has the same views on human interactions that Gene Roddenberry held.

• Becky’s ready room captain’s trinkets include:

    • A California flag - Captain Freeman [Dawnn Lewis] has the same one in her ready room

    • A jewelled dagger - This looks like one of the ones Mariner was stabbed in the shoulder with in “Something Borrowed, Something Green”

    • A bat’leth - Mariner accidentally cut Boimler with one she brought aboard the Cerritos while drunk in “Second Contact”

• *”Don't you give me that sarcastic Vulcan salute!” Captain Freeman yelled those same words to Mariner in “Moist Vessel”

• We learn that the alternate Captain Freeman was reassigned to Starbase 80, which was first mentioned in “Terminal Provocations” as the place where Starfleet ships off its screw-ups.

• In the Cerritos’ bar, there’s a bottle of Kanar with a tag featuring the mural from Quark’s.

• ”I have fooled you.” T’Lyn deceived the Lower Deckers into believing she was her Minor Universe counterpart. Because Vulcans lie all the damn time.

This past week I received my pre-order copy of the new LDecks themed card game, so I made my friends play it as part of our regular game night, then I made a housemate play it, and here are my thoughts.

Gameplay
The game is a fairly straight forward push your luck style game.

You have four different decks of cards: Assignments, Side Projects, Shift, and Alpha Abilities. The Assignment cards have a target number and, frequently but not always, a leisure value on them. In turn, players can flip Shift cards, most of which have an effort value that needs to meet or exceed the target on the assignment, so the leisure points can be scored.

The Side Project cards also have the target number and a leisure value, and can be added to the in play Assignment, making the amount of effort required to score that much higher, but increasing the reward. There is a goal number of leisure points you need to score depending on the number of players, and it would not be possible to meet those goals without adding multiple Side Projects.

The group only has five assignments, and once you're out and the group hasn't met the leisure point goal, you lose. Further complicating things is that there are six officer cards in the Shift stack, each of whom has a rank 1-3, and if officers with a total rank of 4 are in your play area during the Assignment, the Assignment fails, as do any attached Side Projects, and you lose the highest value leisure from your already scored area.

Alpha Shift cards are a pretty rare resource that allow you to do a wide variety of special things, including removing officer cards from the play area, or even adding another Assignment to the available cards. Each player begins with two, and you only gain new ones by being the player to score an Assignment.

Learning the game is simple enough, though everyone whom I played with are fans of games. Even my buddy who hates learning new games got into it after a couple rounds. Games are relatively fast, and it can accommodate two to six players, which is nice. The games I've played have had four, five, and two players.

My biggest complaint would be that the difficulty does feel a bit punishing. Failing an Assignment is already bad enough, but having to lose the highest value card you've already scored does not feel great from a player perspective. Of the five games I've played, my game night group one once, and my housemate and I won the game we played.  

Production
The only components for the game are the cards, so there isn't much to talk about.

The cardstock is nice, and they don't feel flimsy, which is good, because there is going to be a lot of shuffling. That said, the individual decks are small enough that I'm probably going to sleeve my copy, just to make shuffling easier.

Most of the art is simply stills from the show which is a little disappointing, but understandable. The effort icons are Badgey pushing a boulder up a slope, like Sisyphus, so that's fun.

The card backs, which are all really good looking and easily distinguishable, even the Assignment and Side Project cards, which are made to look similar.

The game box is nice and sturdy, looks great, and has a magnetic closure, so that right there is an A++ in my opinion.  

Theme
Let's be honest, the only reason I bought this game is because of the 'Lower Decks' theme, so how does that fit?

Fine. I guess.

The "buffer time" concept comes from the first season episode, "Temporal Edict", which was itself inspired by Scotty's claims in TOS and TNG that he always pads out his estimates of how long it will take him to complete any given assignment. So, the push your luck aspect fits the theme: you're padding out your assignments, and trying not to get caught by the senior staff.

All the cards have titles that relate to things that have actually happened on the show, and the first time I played, I did get some chuckles remember scenes, but the game itself doesn't have any humour aspect beyond stills of Mariner kicking Ransom in the junk or whatever. Which is fine; writing humour is hard, and I do usually hate it when a game tries to cram a humour in.  

Conclusion
Even though I wouldn't have bought the game without the LDecks theme, I'm glad I did because it ended up being a relatively light, quick game, that the people whom I forced to play it with me all said they enjoyed and would be happy to play again.

It's probably not going to hit the table too often during our regular game nights, but sometimes someone's going to be late or you finish the big game of the evening a bit early, so you need some filler, which I do not mean pejoratively despite how it sounds, and I think that is going to be Buffer Time's sweet spot for myself and my group.

• Gwyn records the stardate as 61886.6 in her personal log.

• ”It’s been a long road.” Gwyn references the lyrics of the Federation anthem.

• In the temple they find at the coordinates provided by the mysterious guide, the Protogies find statues of the Traveler’s species, if they’re not of the Traveler himself.

• The voice of the Traveler can be heard as the Protogies explore the structure. Eric Menyuk reprised the role for this episode.

• The vault door the Protogies discover is modelled on the one in Gary Seven’s office, seen in “Assignment: Earth”, as well as the one Tallinn’s apartment in “Fly Me to the Moon”.

• It’s Wesley Crusher! From Star Trek! Wesley is portrayed by “The Ready Room” host, Wil Wheaton.

    • This is the third time we’ve seen Wesley wearing the orange sweater, which was previously seen in “Where No One Has Gone Before”, and “Lonely Among Us”.

• ”As if I needed another reason to dislike time travel.” In “Future’s End” Janeway claimed, ”Ever since my first day in the job as a Starfleet Captain I swore I'm never let myself get caught in one of these godforsaken paradoxes.”

• ”Edward, I only have three rules when captaining a starship: keep your shirt tucked in, go down with the ship, and never abandon a member of your crew.” Janeway echoes the rules for captaining she said to Naomi Wildman in “Dark Frontier”.

• Rok-Tahk recites Wesley’s resume:

    • Member of Nova Squadron - Wesley was shown to be part of squadron of elite cadets in “The First Duty” when they were under review for getting one of their team killed performing a banned flight maneuver

    • Genius of the Enterprise D - Data might cock his head slightly to one side at this

    • Made acting ensign at age 15 - Wesley was made acting ensign in the sixth TNG episode, “Where No One Has Gone Before”

• “When I was a young man on the Enterprise, I met an advanced being called the Traveler. He was part of a secret faction of explorers who watch over the cosmos. Very cool. The invited me to become one of them.” Wesley is referring to the events of “Where No One Has Gone Before” and “Journey’s End” respectively.

• Wesley lists a variety of different alternate universes:

    • Prime universe - First seen in “Where No Man Has Gone Before”

    • Mirror universe - Introduced in “Mirror, Mirror”

    • The Narada incursion - i.e. the Kelvin timeline established in 2009’s “Star Trek”

    • Fluidic space - Home of Species 8472, seen in “Scorpion, Part II”

    • The mycelial network - A subspace pocket first mentioned in “Context is For Kings”

      • Wesley tells the Protogies that they’re not supposed to know about the mycelial network, apparently respecting the fact that it was classified by Starfleet command in “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2”

• ”After the temporal wars, there just aren’t many of us left to repair timelines.” To the best of our knowledge, as per season three of DIS, the temporal wars ended either in the late 31st, or early 32nd century with the establishment of a ban on time travel.

• “My mom lives here!” Also his brother would be around three or four years old at this point, as per “No Win Scenario”, though I agree with Wesley that’s less of a concern.

• ”How do you know about the Supervisors?” The Supervisors were revealed to be agents of the Travelers in “Farewell”.

• Wesley makes it explicitly clear that he was the mysterious figure who was contacting Murf in “Temporal Mechanics 101”

• Wesley transports the Protogies to what appears to be Gary 7’s office as it was seen in “Assignment: Earth”. Presumably in the next episode, we will learn what happened to agents 201 and 347 when Wesley kills them to avoid some messy questions about why he’s there.

Hey, this is a little bit late, but it occurs to me that it's now October, and that means it's also Trektober, the annual Star Trek inspired daily drawing prompt challenge.

There are three sets of prompts which can be found at: https://www.tumblr.com/trektober-challenge. The first is a set of general Trek inspired prompts. The second is Trek specific. The third set is NSFW.

I'll be trying to participate us, and I'll be sharing the results here. I'd like to invite anyone else interested in attempting some or all of the challenge to do so as well. Maybe spoiler tag any of the NSFW entries, though.

Happy Trektober!

• The episode title calls back to the TOS season three episode, “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” which was the first appearance of a Medusan.

• We open with Zero’s personal log, where they record the stardate as 61881.4.

    • Zero also says it’s been a week since the previous episode, which was stardate 61875.9, though how precise they’re being isn’t explicitly clear.

• Zero mentions difficulty in repairing their containment suit, which was damaged in the previous episode. This does raise the question of who created their original containment suit on Tars Lamora, as it seems as though Zero is not involved in the repair process.

• Zero mentions the Paxans as one of the species of non-corporeal beings living at the colony that contacts them. When introduced in the TNG episode, “Clues”, the Paxans were so isolationist that they we going to destroy the USS Enterprise D to conceal their existence until Captain Picard was able to convince them to merely mindwipe the entire crew, except Data who helped to facilitate the deception.

• Upon arriving on Ovidia IV, the Protogies are wearing protective visors of the sort shown in “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” to shield them from the horrifying, madness inducing appearance of any Medusans they might encounter.

• ”I’ve always had this [...] yearning to experience life. To touch and feel as you do.” This yearning has been depicted as far back as the second season premiere, “Into the Breach, Part I”.

• This is the first on screen depiction of parisses squares, a sport first mentioned in “11001001”. The ion mallets the game is played with was introduced into continuity in “Real Life”.

    • The game is being played with uneven teams, with the Nova Squadron cadets only having three players, and the Protogies having five. Though not explicitly stated, in “11001001” it is implied that teams have four players.

    • The holographic Protogies should be careful playing the game. A parisses squares accident is what led to the death of the Doctor’s holographic daughter in “Real Life”.

• The episode title is a reference to the most enduring piece of historical culture in Trek. Who could forget Picard’s line in “All Good Things…” paraphrasing Dom Toretto, ”I don’t got crew, I got family.” Chills!

• Dal records the stardate as 61875.9 in his captain’s log.

    • The Protogies dispute Dal’s status as captain of the Infinity; Dal claimed the role of captain aboard the USS Protostar in “Starstruck”, though he did temporarily turn over the position to Gwyn in “Supernova, Part 1”.

• This is the first mention of a sonic toilet in the franchise.

• The first usage of a Borg transwarp conduit was in “Descent” when the USS Enterprise D was pulled into one opened by Lore’s rogue Borg ship.

    • The conduit seen here appears to be maintained by a piece of hexagonal shaped Borg technology similar to the transwarp hub the USS Voyager travelled through in “Endgame”, though this is only on aperture, whereas the hub was a much larger structure connecting many such gates.

      • In “Descent” and other appearances of the transwarp conduits, no such technology was present.

• ”Borg? Not them again.” Zero was briefly assimilated in “Let Sleeping Borgs Lie”.

• ”I love science so much.” Rok-tahk is much more outwardly enthusiastic than Spock was in “Perpetual Infinity” when he deadpanned, ”I like science.”

• Zero claims the technology that rerouted the Infinity is Kazon. As per “Alliances” most Kazon technology was actually developed by the Trabe, who used the Kazon as slave labour until they were able to stage an uprising.

• Rok mentions the Kazon who sold the Protogies to the Diviner, as seen in “Preludes”.

• Kazon uniforms vary by sect. The uniforms the two Kazon androids who arrive to take the Protogies into custody are not wearing a uniform previously shown. These uniforms also include a mask, which familiar Kazon uniforms have not had.

    • It is revealed that the facility was established by the Oglamar sect, representatives of which were seen in “Maneuvers” an “Alliances”, wearing a different uniform.

    • The Kazon androids are wielding phaser rifles similar in profile to the ones seen in VOY with some distinct differences, such as glowing panels on the conical emitter, and housing on the top of the weapons.

• Crashed in the ice of the planet, we see:

    • A Gorn ship, as seen in the remastered release of “Arena”

    • A Tellarite cruiser, similar to the ones introduced in “Babel One”

    • The Excelsior-class USS Cairo which was the command of Captain Jellico before his temporary transfer to the Enterprise D in “Chain of Command, Part I”, and was thought to have been ambushed by the Dominion and lost in the Neutral Zone, as per “In the Pale Moonlight”. Unfortunately, we know Jellico did not go down with the ship when it was lost.

• The Kazon artificial intelligence is voiced by Debra Wilson, who’s voiced a number of characters, including Lisa Cusak in “The Sound of Her Voice”, Klingon captain Trij in “Supernova, Part 1”, and Orion pirate Z’oto in “Something Borrowed, Something Green”.

• Commander Tysess refers to Doctor Noum as a counselor. He was chief medical officer aboard the USS Dauntless, but presumably that duty has fallen to the Doctor aboard the USS Voyager A.

• Tysess claims the cloaking device aboard the Infinity violates three Federations treaties. We’re aware of the Treaty of Algeron with the Romulan Star Empire. That treaty was first mentioned in “The Defector”, and it’s established in “The Pegasus” that in explicitly prohibits the Federation from developing cloaking technology.

• Rok-Tahk creates a hologram of the bridge of the USS Protostar, which was destroyed in the finale of season one.

• After Rok fiddles with the Protogies holographic duplicates, they believe they’re the real individuals, leading to shenanigans. Other holograms that have believed themselves to be real people include:

    • Cyrus Redblock - “The Big Goodbye”

    • Leonard da Vinci - “Concerning Flight”

    • The population of Fair Haven - "Spirit Folk"

• The Protogies end up getting into physical confrontations with their holographic duplicates -- except Rok-Tahk, who just just does a bunch of science with her hologanger, like a nerd. Trek characters have been fighting their doubles since "The Enemy Within". Fortunately Spock is not around to express to Gwyn that there's a certain allure the aggressive version of Dal.

• Maj’el distracts the Doctor by asking him about his willingness to give opera vocal lessons, and he asks if she’s ever heard him sing “Questa o quella”. The Doctor sang that piece in “Renaissance Man” while returning to the USS Voyager with Janeway aboard a shuttle.

    • Maj’el uses the same tactic to distract the Doctor that Zero did in the previous episode, engaging him in one of his interests.

    • Zero asks Maj’el why she would lie on behalf of the Protogies, and she responds ”Vulcans lie all the time,” which is surprisingly honest.

• Admiral Janeway states the stardate is 61865.1 in her opening log.

• Janeway, the Protogoies, and Maj’el recount the events of the previous two episodes, from their relative perspectives.

• Despite Jankom’s reversion to his more abrasive personality traits in the previous episode, he has restyled his hair with the more clean cut side part that characterized his attempts to blend with the cadets at Starfleet Academy.

• ”If you ask Jankom, it was a g-g-ghost.” While waiting to be debriefed by the senior staff, Jankom lit a candle and read a particularly erotic chapter in his grandmother’s journal

• ”I haven’t seen a crew this dysfunctional since the Cerritos*.”* Apparently the Doctor has never been to Starbase 80.

• I believe this is the first time it’s been explicitly stated that Murf, and presumably all Mellanoid slime worms, are immune to Zero’s telepathy.

• Zero asks the Doctor about his most recent holonovel. The Doctor’s first novel, “Photons Be Free” was featured heavily in the VOY episode, “Author, Author”.

    • The Doctor’s new holonovel is entitled, “Love in the Time of Holograms”.

• One of the humpback whales in Cetacean Ops is named Gillian, presumably after Doctor Gillian Taylor, the whale biologist the crew of the HMS Bounty encountered and absconded to the future with “Star Trek: The Voyage Home”.

    • Gillian is voiced by Bonnie Gordon, who also voices the ship’s computer, and several other incidental characters.

• While going through the Federation database for spirals that match the one Murf constructed in the mess hall, Gwyn and Dal see a Rubber Tree People Symbol matching one that was on a stone Chakotay had among his belongings while serving on the USS Voyager. We first saw the CHAH-mooz-ee in “The Cloud” when he used it as part of a ritual to help Janeway connect with her spirit guide.

• This is the first time we’ve been told on screen that the planet Chakotay grew up on is called Trebus, but the name comes from the novel, “Pathways”, written by Jeri Taylor and published in 1998.

• ”And if we get caught, we might as well have, ‘I love the brig’ signs around our necks.” We learned in “Temporal Edict”, that Mariner loves the brig. It’s her favourite place.

• Among the memorabilia in Janeway’s ready room are:

    • A silver spider which was not part of her costume as Arachnia, Queen of the Spider People in “Bride of Chaotica”

    • Her Starfleet Academy diploma, featuring the Science Department emblem developed for “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”.

    • A late 24th century phaser

    • A late 24th century combadge

    • Chakotay’s CHAH-mooz-ee stone

    • A trophy made from Tuvix’s hair

    • A photo of herself and Chakotay.

Trekkies were a mistake.