Right? We all know that the best tool for blending in is squeaky black pleather fascist cosplay.
It's been a busy week, but I finally got a chance to read Defiant. There's a lot crammed into the book, and most of it is fun.
• Personally I'm tired of Sisko and Worf's bickering at this point. Their fallout seemed pretty flimsy when it happened, and here Worf's dragging up a bunch of old problems from their time together on DS9 did not work for me.
• Similarly Tom and B'Elanna's bickering didn't really move the needle.
• I did like Sela, Doctor Crusher, and the Defiant's unnamed Orion drug dealer/medic rushing to save Martok that's good stuff.
• The highlight of the issue is definitely the Data Lore interactions. I especially liked their conversation as they run through the streets of Qo'noS incapacitating Red Path followers without even pausing. Data's always had the potential to be so much scarier than he is, and it worked really well here.
Nurse Chapel confirmed Doctor M’Benga’s story. You don’t think she would lie, do you?
Roddenberry’s memo about stardates being the episode producer’s birthday multiplied by the ship’s distance from Earth was a joke.
However even when you order the episode by production date the stardates still don’t line up. Even in season three where the episodes were aired in production order, the stardates still bounce around a bit.
That's right! Thanks for the correction.
A lot of the people who've made Star Trek over the years did not care about continuity from one episode to the next, let alone between series.
Personally I find long running media franchises with ongoing continuity fascinating. It's like the Winchester Mystery House; a beautiful maze like construct with sudden dead ends, doors to no where, abandoned additions, inconsistent design, and occasional Shakespeare quotes. Except instead of one mourning woman directing all the construction, it's been 56 years of countless writers, directors, production designers, and showrunners all contributing to Trek continuity.
It's fun to see how everything fits together, and those spots where it does not. That's just my take, anyway.
Are they doing something intentionally here?
Violence. Against me. Personally.
But also, as others have pointed out, in TOS there was very little rhyme or reason to the Stardates, and SNW seems to have embraced that. It's actually seems to be less non-sequential this season than in the first.
My personal headcanon is that after the Klingon, Starfleet implemented a sort of two factor authentication to the stardates so they're somewhat randomized, and can't be properly pieced together with the proper "key" that lets you know the actual sequence of events.
The general rule is that the only things considered Trek canon are what has appeared on screen in a series are film. But a lot of the comics are fun, regardless.
Edit: Your bitchy cunt response really proves my point.
Getting this heated over a discussion about how a streaming service is inconvenient is pretty over the top. I’m annoyed with Trek being removed from Crave as well, and I’m also annoyed with Paramount for a whole host of reasons right now, so I empathize, but no need to react like this.
Going to need you to edit your comment.
• Dak’Rah speaks of a chancellor who asked him about a Klingon speaking on behalf of the Federation, and he uses masculine pronouns while doing so. The title of chancellor has been used to describe a variety of positions, but I suspect that I am not the only one who initially assumed Dak’Rah was speaking of the chancellor of the Klingon Empire, their head of state. Last we saw, L’Rell was still chancellor, after having taken over in “Will You Take My Hand?”
• ”tlhIngan maH taHjaj.” Ortegas recites the rallying cry of T’Kuvma’s followers from “The Vulcan Hello”, ”Remain Klingon.”
• Uhura learned about Aenar philosophy from Hemmer in “Memento Mori”, and we learned that they’re pacifists in “The Aenar”.
• Doctor M’Benga and La’an have been practicing Mok’bara, a Klingon martial art Worf taught aboard the USS Enterprise D as seen in “Clues”. As per “The Vulcan Hello”, prior to the Federation-Klingon War, there was effectively no contact between the Federation and the Empire for 100 years, which does raise the question of how two Starfleet officers would have been able to learn Mok’bara.
• The red martial arts uniforms Doctor M’Benga and Dak’Rah wear for their Mok’Bara sparing session resemble the ones we see worn in “Charlie X” when Kirk is showing Charlie Evans some throws in the work facilities. Except those uniforms had tight leggings, an a Starfleet delta on the chest.
• In the flashback to J’Gal, we see the Klingons there all wore their hair long. Every Klingon we saw in season one, from heads of Great Houses to guys urinating in back alleys, was bald, and in “Point of Light” we learned that it was specifically because they were at war, first with other Klingons, and then with then with the Federation. We also so that each House had individual customs for dress and body modification, so unreasonable to assume that whichever House Dak’Rah and the other Klingons who held J’Gal were loyal to did not engage in such tonsure.
• The Klingon warlords we see Doctor M’Benga kill in the flashback are wearing the same armour as D’Chok in “The Broken Circle”.
• The D’k thag dagger was introduced in “Star Trek: The Search for Spock”.
• According to Doctor M’Benga’s service record, he was born in 2223, meaning he would be 36 years old.
• The subtitles for the episode call the Klingon homeworld ”Kronos,” but fortunately the map Number One gives to Pike has it labelled ”Qo’noS,” as it should be.
• ”How can we represent a Federation that believes in peace if we say some people aren’t allowed to make up for their past.” For example, Pike will probably be very grateful that during the events of “The Menagerie, Part I” the Talosians choose not to display the moment where he claimed, “It's just that I can't get used to having a woman on the bridge.” Look how far he’s come in only five years!
• Doctor M’Benga tells Dak’Rah, ”You turned me into a monster.” In “The Wounded”, Chief O’Brien tells a Cardassian officer, “It’s not you I hate, Cardassian. I hate what I became because of you.”
• Dak’Rah accidentally stabs himself during the struggle with Doctor M’Benga. In “The House of Quark”, a Klingon named Kozak accidentally stabbed himself while fighting Quark, an in “The Vulcan Hello”, the Klingon Torchbearer stabbed himself after ambushing Michael Burnham.
It's right after Troi quotes Data's speech from "Family". That line always gets me.
Yeah. Some of them are a lot of fun, too.