Star Trek

Annotations for Star Trek: Lower Decks 4x02: “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee”:

The title is a play on the classic science fiction short story “I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison, best known in Star Trek for writing TOS: “The City on the Edge of Forever”, although what ended up on screen was significantly different from what he originally wrote.

The opening scene plays around with the stereotypically treacherous nature of Romulan society. Remans were the indigenous species of the planet Remus whom the Romulans enslaved for centuries. The markings on the Romulan officers’ foreheads mark them as Northern Romulans (as opposed to the smooth-foreheaded Southerners). The torture chair is of the same type that was used for Geordi La Forge in TNG: “The Mind’s Eye”. The design of the Romulan ship is not your standard D’deridex but based on the initial concept art for the class by designer Andrew Probert.

The outfits that Ransom and Shax are wearing as they stretch are the ones from the infamous exercise scene in TNG: “The Price”, with Ransom wearing Troi’s tights and Shax in Crusher’s colors. Ransom suggests hot fudge sundaes - chocolate sundaes were a favorite of Troi’s.

Tendi packs the model of the Cerritos she and Rutherford built (LD: “An Embarassment of Dopplers”) - later we also see the Deep Space 9 model she gave Rutherford in the same episode. She refers to an unseen adventure where they swapped bodies because of cosmic rays, mind swapping being featured in several Trek episodes, most recently in PRO: “Mindwalk”. Tendi also has a picture of “The Dog” (LD: “Much Ado About Boimler”) among her possessions.

Boimler has his Stargazer model (LD: “Reflections”), his promotion certificate (LD: “No Small Parts”), his Captain Freeman Day Banner (LD: “First First Contact”) and the Klingon headpiece he wears when playing bat’leths & biHnuchs (LD: “The Least Dangerous Game”). He also has a Mirror Universe Archer figure (ENT: “In a Mirror, Darkly”, although how the Prime Universe knows about that is unknown), a commemorative plate with the Cerritos on it, the recruitment poster with Number One (SNW: “Those Old Scientists”), Spock in his monster maroons and Data in his First Contact uniform holding a phaser rifle.

The shuttles are named after National Parks, in this case Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Redwood. Mariner refers to a “menagerie”, alien zoos that are always scooping up humans (TOS: “The Menagerie”).

I don’t recognize the purple starfish-like creature, but next to it is a glommer (TAS: “More Tribbles, More Troubles”) and a cylinder of florkas (LD: “Moist Vessel”). In the other display case is a Ceti Eel (ST II). We also see among the exhibits an Aldebaran serpent (TNG: “Hide and Q”), a koala (“Moist Vessel”), a unicorn alien dog (TOS: “The Enemy Within”) and an Hanonian land eel (VOY: “Basics, Part II”).

The visor Boimler puts on is the one Spock uses in TOS: “Is There in Truth No Beauty” to protect against madness for gazing on the Medusan form.

Narj points to his Pyrithian swamp gobblers. Other Pyrithian species include the Pyrithian Bat and the Pyrithian Moon Hawk. Dr Phlox on the NX-01 had a bat and used a paper model of a moon hawk to scare the bat when it escaped (ENT: “A Night in Sickbay”).

Rutherford is working on The Most Important Device in the Universe, a common prop in Star Trek and other science fiction related shows. Rutherford calls a two tube configuration Tucker Tubes, presumably after Chief Engineer “Trip” Tucker of the NX-01. A Cochrane is a measure of warp field strength, with 1 Cochrane equal to a field strength that will produce Warp Factor 1, or the speed of light.

Mariner refers to the time Ransom stabbed her in the foot (LD: “Temporal Edict”), when he turned into a head and tried to eat her (LD: “Strange Energies”), their time on the orbital lift (“The Least Dangerous Game”).

Rutherford could have been promoted when he saved the Cerritos from the Pakleds in LD: “No Small Parts” and the crew of the Roubidoux from a cosmozoan in “Much Ado About Boimler” but he turned it down. He finally gets his promotion to LT j.g. for the time he removed Cerritos’ hull in LD: “First First Contact”.

Ransom’s reference to humans being “The Most Dangerous Game” is to the eponymous 1924 short story by Richard Connell, which basically created the trope of hunting humans and the hunter eventually becoming the hunted. The short story has been adapted and copied innumerable times. The title was inverted for LD’s “The Least Dangerous Game”.