Star Trek Social Club

• The title refers to the Gorn Hegemony, the name of the polity from which the Gorn hail. It was first mentioned on screen in the ENT episode, “Bound”, but it as used non-canon as early as the 1992 novel, “The Disinherited”.

• Captain Betel’s log gives us the stardate as 2344.2. Seeing as we’re in the season finale, let’s look at both seasons.

• The USS Cayuga is visiting a world outside Federation space, Parnassus Beta, which a colony built on the ”small town model,” and it was “made to look like the old Midwestern United States,” and certainly not like a backlot in Pickering, Ontario, just outside Toronto. In “Sub Rosa”, we were introduced to the Caldos colony, which was modelled to look like a Scottish village.

     • Like an authentic midwest American town, the Parnassus Beta colony is having trouble making sure everyone is vaccinated.

     • The Parnassus system is named for the mountain in Greece, and all the businesses we see are also named for Greek mountains or mountain ranges.

     • Despite being outside the Federation, the medical clinic still features the Starfleet Medical caduceus.

• Several the officers on the planet are wearing excursion jackets, and we get close up enough on Batel to see that the patch on her shoulder reads "USS Enterprise".

     • Based on the length of the word, it also looks like ensign Doug's shoulder patch is also the Enterprise one, we don't get a clear enough look at it that I saw.

• Nurse Chapel has tagged along for the ride so she can reach her fellowship with Doctor Korby. Korby was first mentioned in “What Are Little Girls Made Of” as Chapel’s fiancée. His expedition will go missing on the planet Exo III approximately two years after this episode.

• ”I’m not busting into song every ten minutes, so that’s a minor victory.” Pike is referring to the events of the previous episode, “Subspace Rhapsody”.

     • Pike is fidgeting with the Opelian mariner’s keystone Batel gifted him in “Among the Lotus Eaters”.

• A Gorn Destroyer, previously seen in “Memento Mori” breaks through the atmosphere.

• ”I’ve seen them up close and personal, and they’re not hard to understand, Bob. They’re monsters.” In “Arena” Kirk monologued of the Gorn, “Like most humans, I seem to have an instinctive revulsion to reptiles. I must fight to remember that this is an intelligent, highly advanced individual. The Captain of a starship, like myself. Undoubtedly a dangerously clever opponent.”

• According to Spock’s display, the Cayuga was a Constitution-class Heavy Cruiser, which settles the question as to whether or not it might be a second Sombra-class starship.

• We previously saw the Gorn Hunter ship class in “Memento Mori”.

• The Gorn have sent Starfleet an image with a demarcation line separating the Parnasus system. According to Tim Peel, the motion graphics designer for SNW, the intent is that as planets move through the system they’ll end up on the Federation side, tempting Starfleet to engage in rescue or reconnaissance missions, and eventually the planet will cross back into the side claimed by he Gorn, at which point any stragglers will be fair game to use as food, or breeding incubators.

     • According to display of the planet, Parnassus Beta’s year is 402 days. Whether that’s Earth days, or the 26.5 hour Parnassus Beta days is not explicitly clear.

• The crew has duct tapped random bits of scrap to a shuttlecraft so they’re disguised as debris to fool the Gorn Hunter. In “Lower Decks” Geordi and Taurik marked a shuttle with phaser burns to fool the Cardassians.

• ”Don’t worry, I did this a hundred times during the war.” It was established in “Those Old Scientists” that Ortegas served on the front during the Federation-Klingon War.

• “I thought you were a test pilot.” Pike’s first assignment out of the Academy was test pilot, as per “Light and Shadows”.

• La’an relates her memories of surviving on the Gorn breeding planet as a child. La’an’s history with the Gorn was established in the series premiere, “Strange New Worlds”.

• La’an questions why the Gorn ”younglings” aren’t fighting for dominance, which they apparently did in her experiences on the breeding planet, as well as when we saw them in “All Those Who Wander”.

• It’s Scotty! From Star Trek! Montgomery Scott first appeared in the second TOS pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” played by James Doohan. Since then the character has been played by Simon Pegg in the Kelvinverse films, as well as Matthew Wolf briefly offscreen in the alternate future Pike experienced in “A Quality of Mercy”. Here he’s played by Martin Qinn, who, unlike all the previous actors, is Scottish.

• Doctor M’Benga and Ortegas discuss having learned that Nurse Chapel beamed back to the Cayuga right before the Gorn arrived in system. ”I’m not sure how I’m going to tell her sister,” Ortegas mentions having once met Chapel’s identical sister who is named Kristine, and happens to also be a nurse serving in Starfleet.

• ”If you had answered like that in my class, I would have given you an A+.” Number One received a C in Pelia’s class at the Academy, as per “Lost in Translation”.

• ”Placing those rockets is a near impossible task. No human can do this.” Spock was a huge influence on Captain Solok, introduced in “Take Me Out to the Holosuite”, who published over a dozen papers on the relative merits of humans and Vulcans.

     • “...I am the only member of the crew who can pull this off.” Apparently it’s not just humans, but also Tellarites, Andorians, Illyrians, Lanthanites, Bolians, Denobulans, and whatever other non-Vulcan crew people are serving aboard the ship whom Spock looks down on.

     • Spock was right; no human could possible place a rocket on to the ship, wait for it to adhere itself, and move on to the next spot to repeat the process, which is what we see Spock doing on the wreck of the Cayuga.

• We see an adult Gorn with a rather lengthy tail. Or at least a mechanical tail built into its space suit. In previous episodes where we’ve seen adult Gorn -- “Arena”, “The Time Trap”, “In a Mirror Darkly, Part II”, “Veritas”, and “An Embarrassment of Dooplers” -- none of them have had tails.

     • We also saw a Gorn skeleton in “Context is for Kings” and no signs of tail.

• Batel has been infected by Gorn eggs. She claims it takes ”about a day and a half” for the eggs to mature. According to the records aboard the USS Peregrine in “All Those Who Wander” it took days for the eggs to mature in a human host.

• Batel invokes Hemmer and his sacrificing his own life for the good of everyone else in “All Those Who Wander”.

• The saucer of the Caygua crashes into the surface of Parnassus Beta, destroying the Gorn interference field tower. Fortunately Chapel was certainly the only one aboard the ship at the time of the attack who survived, and Spock didn’t just send a bunch of others still unconscious or trying to work their way off the ship to their deaths.

• We see a Gorn transporter effect, and it is green.

• Pelia is the only person this episode to call lieutenant Scott ”Scotty.”

• Admiral April orders the Enterprise to withdraw from the Parnassus system, despite the fact that Starfleet officers, and human colonists, were just beamed up by the Gorn. In “Saints of Imperfection” Pike gave a speech: ”Starfleet is a promise; I give my life for you, you give your life for me, and no one gets left behind.”

• In the final scene of the episode, Scotty and Pelia are working on his jury-rigged Gorn transponders in sick bay when the eggs in Batel’s arm hatch, exploding out out and spattering emerald viscera all over Scotty’s face. We get an extreme close up on his hundred yard stare, as he whispers hoarsely, ”It’s green,” echoing lines spoken in “By Any Other Name”, and “Relics”.