Scientific Tricorder

Hyperfixating on Star Trek and need somewhere to share thoughts. Up for conversations and random messages.

[dreamerdrop-deactivated20250415]

I do think it's kinda neat that between Benjamin Sisko and Miles O'Brien, one of their major differences is that Ben is much more openly affectionate, joyful, and exuberant, whereas Miles is so backed up emotionally that even while shit faced drunk the closest he can get to saying he loves his bestest friend in the whole world is that he really doesn't hate them anymore.

They're both dads through and through, and damn good ones at that, they're both also pretty enthusiastic about tinkering and engineering, albeit in different forms. They're the kinda guys who would go on vacation together and end up doing a DIY project involving building a whole extra room on the beach house with plumbing and electricity. They do not go to the beach once. They have an absolute blast though.

They would make excellent friends, but I imagine they'd be boring if they had a lot of episodes focused on the two of them, because there is... basically zero conflict there.

Miles follows (reasonable) orders and works hard to get everything done properly and efficiently. Ben works very hard at being a straightforward commanding officer, he gives orders that are direct and means exactly what he says. There's no major idealogical conflict between them either, they largely share identical values.

Theres several moments of comparison between them, shared PTSD from former work in Starfleet, both wanting to be above prejudice but falling short of that (Ben & Ferengi, Miles & Cardassians), there's probably something to be said of their respective best friends in Jadzia and Julian too...

Which is why the points where they differ are sort of amusing to me.

Miles comes off very grumpy, but he hasn't got a manipulative bone in his body, and is blunt and sincere to a fault, even while making half assed attempts to be gruff about it. (He fails because he is, at heart, a teddy bear, just like Ben.)

Ben, who wears a stoic authoritative mask in his job as Commander, however, is like a ray of sunshine when he's in his element with family and friends, he smiles frequently and shows a goofy, fun sense of humour...

Ben is also a lot more pragmatic and more willing to play the underhanded manipulator when needed. Yet, both and Miles equally abhor the idea of needing to use dishonesty and cruelty to achieve any ends... Ben just more often gets backed into having little other choice, which is still something Miles can deeply sympathise with and understand.

Anyway, they're both neat!

[emerald-truth]

Sacred Ground shows the difference between Chakotay and Tuvok's love for Janeway in a really funny way because Chakotay is freaking out about how Janeway might be in danger and they need to beam her back to voyager because for all they know she could be DYING and Tuvok is like calm down don't you know she'd rather die than leave a task incomplete. And it just goes to show that as much as Chakotay cares for Janeway and wants to protect her he'll never show the belief in her ability and trust in her judgement that Tuvok does. Because as much as he admires her he puts his affection first and Tuvok puts Janeway's choices and convictions above everything, even above his love for her and her wellbeing. Janeway could probably use someone like Chakotay especially when they get back to earth but Tuvok having such total faith in and knowledge of her that he wouldn't save her when he knows it would be her choice to die is incredible.

[persbaderse]

i'm glad there are episodes in the next generation where data gets reprogrammed/possessed/we meet his evil twin/etc, because as much as brent spiner is amazing as data, his real talent is playing weird little freaks

[persbaderse]

@barleyinthemountains you are not the first person to call me out on this and you won't be the last. i'm a fool. i was so blinded by my love for data i forgot that he is, in fact, a weird little freak

[deadmaidclub]

i got into star trek as a bit and now unfortunately ive realized its one of the most beautiful shows ever. its about love and family and exploration and warmth and possibilities and a hopeful and wonderful future. and its also so so fucking stupid

[gay-trekkie]

The stupid has so much effort put into it

It’s beautiful

[bumblingbabooshka]

Tuvok is not as autistic coded in-narrative compared to what I've seen of Spock or T'Pol where they're othered heavily by those around them and have themes and arcs about struggling/striving to fit in BUT I do think he provides the vital autistic representation of not really angsting about your differences from other people because you're too busy and unaware and then even when you ARE made aware you mostly just think 'glad that's not me'. I think it's vital to have that sort of totally unbothered rep. I love that Tuvok is completely satisfied and proud of being Vulcan, doesn't long to experience emotion or struggle with a desire to express himself in a way his crewmates will understand, to be closer to them. I love that he has a long time and close friend that respects who he is and doesn't try to change him and that how close they are isn't framed as being in spite of his Vulcan nature. I love that being Vulcan isn't framed as a hindrance to him, like a roadblock to living a full and rich life. He has a wife and four kids and is a devoted husband and father. He's getting into gay horror scenarios. Tuvok was born on autism planet and he's thriving.

[captaincrusher]

One thing that I've always enjoyed with ds9 has been that the writers saw potential in characters and allowed them to grow. Even with Rom, that was introduced as a misogynist, two dimensional side character. When they saw Leeta and Rom had chemistry they put their characters together. Garak was supposed to be a one off character but he was so interesting so they brought him back.

That is what I missed with Voyager. Seeing potential and letting the characters grow into something truly new. Allowing side characters to become important to the story.

[captaincrusher]

I am rewatching Basics and I still have Feelings about the lost potential of Suder. I still hate the idea of self sacrifice as atonement, because it just allows the show to avoid dealing with the long term consequences of rehabilitation and incarceration.

The Voyager writers wanted to do this with Seven as well. The plan was for her to try to become human again and, realizing she couldn't be, instead she would sacrifice herself for the crew. The message this would send is obviously awful. If you can't become "human" enough, just die??

Especially considering the "humanity" presented for Seven is a very traditional, feminine gender role. As non binary afab I revolt so hard at the idea of Seven's humanity being defined within these narrow parameters and that her inability to fit into that would disqualify her from humanity all together. To the point that she is supposed to rather die a heroic death than just live with being different.

It irks me when writers tells me humans can't overcome their past or live with it. Not everyone is a murderer like Suder, but it is a much more interesting story to me seeing him regain his composure and being rehabilitated in his confinement. Seven also killed people as a borg and seeing her grapple with those memories and learning to live with that was also really interesting.

It speaks to a lot of trauma we all have. How we all must learn to live with it and grow despite of it.

[andy-888]

"I usually go to Quark's three or four times at random intervals just to let him know I'm thinking about him"

Odo are you hearing yourself

[quodo-brainrot]

The gravity of this statement becomes so much more immense when you consider two very prominent aspects of Odo's personality:

He's an introvert

One of the defining traits of his entire species is the fact that they're obsessed with order and control

This need for order almost certainly extends to his daily routine. A routine that he MODIFIES, EVERY DAY, just for the sake of pestering Quark. There are one of two scenarios happening here:

SCENARIO 1

Odo goes about all the rest of his daily tasks, and occasionally decides that he feels like it might be a good time to stop by Quark's, just for the hell of it. He defers his current task for later.

SCENARIO 2

Odo allocates several blocks of free time on his schedule every day, with the express purpose of randomly turning some of them into Quark Pestering Sessions.

Either one of these scenarios is insane.

A lot of us here are introverted and on the spectrum, so a lot of us can identify with Odo. So tell me... what would it take for you to do this?

What would it take for you to engage in a minimum of three planned disruptions to your routine,

every single day,

just to go to the noisiest, most chaotic part of the station,

to bicker with an extrovert?

I wouldn't even do this with my best friend, let alone my 'worst enemy!'

I know that we all already know that Odo is obsessed with Quark, but I feel like you can't understand just how bone-deep that obsession runs until you've really stopped to think about the mental/emotional load this behavior would incur.

Every single day, for the better part of a decade, Odo is actively fighting every social and environmental preference he has just so he can spend time with Quark.

In the real world, we'd consider this to be a frighteningly extreme case of pathological obsession, but on Known Trashfire Deep Space Nine, everyone is just like 'oh yeah, it's fine, we let him do that for enrichment!'

[kirksfattitties]

it’s actually so funny to me how gaycoded spock is and how he even had a shit estranged relationship with his dad but it’s not even for homophobic reasons. like sarek meets kirk and is like wow 👍 respectable. (and then is mad at him again when he thinks kirk just let spock die and then kirk gets him back and sarek is like okay cool 👍 again)

[clementine-kesh]

ya know star trek: discovery deserves more credit for how hard it went on drawing from genres outside of vanilla scifi, like the space fantasy for the mirror universe or dying earth for the post-time jump federation. it gives the show a really distinct and fresh feel

[shmreduplication]

that final loop in Star Trek Discovery is soo good

Mudd has been resetting the past 30 minutes dozens of times, trying to work his way incrementally towards taking over the ship. The loop device I guess only exists within the loop because it disappears when they exit the loop. Within seconds of exiting the loop, they reveal important info to him and muscle memory kicks in, he was going to press the button on the device to reset the loop but it's gone!

one problem with the trope of short closed timeloops is that there is no post script and the characters go through the stages of it soo effectively that no one has ever wanted to return to a loop once they escape it. Even in shows with good strong continuity where the writers are otherwise very good at referencing previous episodes (Stargate SG1, The Librarians) there is no discussion of the loops once they end

so it's incredible to me that Discovery had a very short loop (only 30 minutes!), put TWO characters in it, neither character is a POV character for the show, AND ON TOP OF ALL THAT (WHICH ARE ALL INCREDIBLY RARE FOR TIMELOOPS) they did something i've never seen before which is have a character leave the loop and then want to go back into it!

I've described the main problem with Groundhog Day as that no one who was working on it had seen Groundhog Day, which is to say that a lot of issues with it could have been avoided if the people involved had a greater understanding of what they were creating. I've also described Palm Springs as being very good because it has both seen and fully understood Groundhog Day. P much every post-Groundhog Day timeloop can be judged on a spectrum of how much it seems like the writers have only seen Groundhog Day at some point vs having truly understood Groundhog Day

For Star Trek Discovery, it's evident that the writers have seen and understood Groundhog Day AND seen & understood groundhog day loops as done by other shows/movies, because they did sooooo much that is extremely rarely seen in timeloops and they did stuff that i've never seen before in the context of a timeloop.

There are other timeloops in other Star Treks, and they go back to pre-the Groundhog Day movie, and it's clear that the people who worked on Discovery love and respect previous Star Treks so they've definitely seen every previous loop done by Trek. Which means I guess those are next on my list to watch

[penny-anna]

I think Seven of Nine would approach Tuvok like 'I am unaccustomed to being alone but the other crew members keep trying to socialise with me and I don't care for it. I've judged you the member of the crew least likely to engage in meaningless social interactions. I would like to spend some time with you.' And Tuvok is like 'that is logical. You may join me in my quarters this evening.'

She comes over and stands motionless by the wall while he sits and works on his reports and personal log. After 3 hours she's like 'that was satisfactory. I will join you again next week' and he's like 'acceptable'.

It's a major event in both of their social calendars.

[alternatemann]

I like to think in the mirror universe Section 31 is a secret group of idealists and lovers who refuse to do war crimes. The average Terran empire citizen finds them as morally detestable as a Federaation citizen finds prime universe S31. Mirror Sloan is a genuinely friendly guy

[haveashran]

WORLD-BUILDING PEEVE ALERT!

When Jhamel is talking to Shran in his recovery room she asks him “Is it true that where you come from, the temperature rises above freezing for weeks at a time?”

Now Andoria is pretty well known to be an ice world. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be, as Shran puts it, “a heat wave every few years”. What I am saying is that if Andorian culture and language developed on a world where the default state of water is in it’s solid form, ice, then context would demand that the phase change they would be most familiar with (and be referencing in this case) is melting, not freezing. So what Jhamel should have said is “Is it true that where you come from the temperature rises above melting for weeks at a time?”

Had to get that off my chest. 

[anghraine]

I know it's well-understood at this point that Kirk/Spock is much more of a nerd4nerd ship than a nerd/jock thing, but it's just been kind of percolating around my mind that both of them aren't just space nerds but space nerds who were personally bullied.

Like, 18-year-old Kirk was targeted by an older bully who combines "total asshole" with "the most grating man in existence":

MCCOY: Well, yeah, I'm beginning to feel a little bit picked-on, if that's what you mean. KIRK: I know the feeling very well. I had it at the Academy. An upperclassman there. One practical joke after another, and always on me. My own personal devil. A guy by the name of Finnegan. MCCOY: And you being the very serious young— KIRK: Serious? I'll make a confession, Bones. I was absolutely grim, which delighted Finnegan no end.

This was five years after Kirk survived a genocide, btw, and likely well before his stint as an Academy instructor known to be strict and demanding (which is the period the "stack of books with legs" description of him comes from). By the time he's 33, fifteen years after all this, it turns out one of his deepest fantasies is just beating the shit out of his bully, but only if he can do it According To The Rules (the replica of Finnegan sneers, "Always fight fair, don't you? True officer and gentleman, you").

Spock, meanwhile, is viciously targeted by his Vulcan peers for being biracial from at least age 5; he's described as being tormented by other boys by that age, and "at home nowhere except Starfleet." I think he'd have been 18 or 19 when he left for Starfleet and it's... the least bad of his options, but he seems to have spent his entire career among humans and being persistently subjected to raw racism and profound disrespect for his culture at every turn.

Like, their histories of being metaphorically shoved into lockers are not identical or anything, but I think it's interesting that they both have them.

[tocautiouslygo]

#i feel like kirk and mccoy are generally seen as more temperamentally aligned despite kirk being emotionally closer to spock #spock representing cold logic and kirk and mccoy as the passionate emotional ones #but i feel like a) spock is wildly emotional just repressed. and coolly utilitarian in philosophy. and usually undemonstrative. #b) mccoy is highly intelligent and sometimes VERY much the voice of reason #(not typically cool rationality but certainly reason - he puts together clues that the others don't see on multiple occasions #he's not as easily derailed by obscuring details or over-cerebral analysis paralysis as the other two imo) #c) but mccoy sometimes struggles with the really big emotional shit and spock is more on kirk's emotional wavelength there #(this is especially obvious in conscience of the king and turnabout intruder but not only there - in both mccoy resists seeing #the full horror of the violations of the most basic rights that kirk has endured while spock is much more sensitive to those things) #and d) kirk is emotionally expressive but typically more cautious and measured in judgment than either of the others #more likely to formulate positions in terms of philosophical principles than mccoy's kneejerk sense of decency #(which sometimes is exactly what's needed and sometimes disastrously lacking in rigor and reflection) #or spock's often brutally utilitarian focus on outcomes that runs roughshod over... like. everyone. #that's why kirk is the mediator; he's not at the exact midpoint in every dispute #but broadly his personality and strengths/weaknesses fall pretty evenly between spock and mccoy #(interestingly i think this is especially noticeable with kirk's infamous seductions - which are rarely motivated by simple desire #they combine the focused perception and expressiveness of mccoy and the brutally self-denying calculations of spock #when sylvia exclaims that he seems warm and passionate but his mind is cold it's like... yeah. softly lit femme fatale james t kirk #it's like the unholy side of kirk's overall approach borrowing pretty equally from both mccoy and spock) #ANYWAY the point is that i don't think kirk is actually more similar to mccoy than he is to spock #and in particular his tendency to repress the horrors and focus on useful concrete action are very akin to spock

(tags via op)

[aromantictendi]

Star Trek Rewatch: Is there in Truth no Beauty?

TOS really likes setting up the conflict that women have to choose between accomplished careers and being able to have traditionally feminine things like romance, domesticity, etc. in a way that feels kind of dated. Especially when they link finding love, settling down, etc directly with being a woman itself. All that said, I do like how this episode handles it with Miranda.

And I think this is one possibility for what the episode's title is about. Miranda and Kollos are psychics and navigators, and this job represents performing a type of truth. But because Medusans are considered ugly and she'll be isolated from other humans, by choosing her job (truth) over humanity/femininity/domesticity (beauty) the question gets asked, is there in truth no beauty (as in by choosing truth is she rejecting or losing out on beauty/can beauty even exist in truth at all)? And the title is a question, and it's challenged throughout the episode. Miranda asks are Medusans too ugly to bear or are they actually too beautiful to bear? Kirk acknowledges being attracted to beauty and repulsed by ugliness is a prejudice.

There's also the roses, which represent beauty, but Miranda immediately pricks herself on a thorn when she's given one. Which calls into question if beauty should be uncritically considered the right choice. Is there not also the possibility of danger or being hurt with beauty?

Or the contrast between Kollos and Miranda and how Kollos is considered ugly, but what we see of their personality is compassionate and honourable. Or how Miranda is considered beautiful, but she has an ugly jealousy that lurks underneath that that likely would have gotten Spock killed if she hadn't confronted it. Which leads to the question, is beauty an illusion created through human perception and prejudice? Or the other possible interpretation of the episode title, is there in truth no beauty (as in does beauty even exist at all)?

And this is also Miranda's true internal conflict, it's not whether she wants to work with Kollos (i.e. choosing between work and finding love), we know she very firmly chooses Kollos. It's whether she's too human (too much beauty), to fully accept and embrace truth. And it's only when Kirk confronts her with this truth that she's able to accept it and work through it.

I also thought it was an interesting choice to make Miranda blind. There's a long history of associating blindness and truth--Justice with her blindfold, the ancient trope of blind seers, prophets, storytellers, etc. But I also really like the representation in general. Early Trek seemed to understand that a utopia isn't a world without disability, but where disability is accommodated as well as it possibly can be. Miranda's dress is an accommodation that works so well most of the characters didn't realise she was blind until it was pointed out to them.

Anyways, interesting episode. I really like this one.

[leaky-port-nacelle]

TOS: what if, one day, we get past all of this? What if we get past all the wars, past our own prejudices, and support each other? What if we actually learn to work together?

TNG: and what if we keep going? What if we get past some more prejudices (surprise - we weren’t actually done with that one yet by a long shot, and we may never be actually. But we’ll keep trying)? And what if we get past our consumerism and manufactured scarcity? What if we give everyone what they need to survive and thrive without requiring anything of them in return? What would we become, when we don’t have to be anything? What do people do when they don’t have to?

DS9: and what if these ideals meet more complex situations? What if they meet complex cultural interactions, and the horrors of war? What if they meet people who disagree with them outright? What if we’re confronted with the way that building our ideal little world has isolated and abandoned some of our own people in the process? How can those ideals persist? And should they?

VOY: and what if you’re alone? Truly, utterly alone. With no backup coming, no reputation to carry you. What if it’s just you, one tiny little ship, and your ideals, in a vast quadrant that either doesn’t know them or opposes them entirely? Can Federation values persist? Can we stick to them and survive?

ENT: and what if we’re not even there yet? One day this path may be a major highway, but what if you’re the first one to take a step on this journey? Can we even get there?

DIS: and what if we’re just too far gone? What if you acted against those ideals, and did unspeakable, unforgivable, unredeemable things? What if the people who are supposed to support and represent those ideals the most lose their way, and weaponize them, and weaponize you? What if it’s all been lost? And the worst has happened? What if you find yourself in the aftermath of a war and disaster you can’t hope to understand? What if you aren’t just alone, but you’re alone and everyone here already knows you? Not just that, but they laugh at you when you try to make a difference? What if hope is lost? Can it ever come back? Sometimes today’s world makes me wonder. If we are more far gone than any of us imagined possible, can we still get back to the world that TOS and TNG promised?

SNW: and what if asking all these questions has taken us away from the mission? What if we’ve lost the plot? What if we take all those things that TOS and TNG were trying to do and update them to a modern world? Do they still fit? Is that form of hope, by itself, still relevant to a modern world?

PIC and most of the movies: and what if everyone tells you to step down, to yield to progress, but you aren’t done yet? Should you? Can you?

PRO: and what if you aren’t even there? What if it’s just the ideas and the means to carry them out? Is that enough? Is that enough for someone, even a child, even a group of traumatized and scared children, to adopt those ideals and carry them forward? Do they actually work without you forcing them? Do they have value devoid of cultural context?

LD: and what if you’re not the hero? What if you’re just some dude, just doing a job, just living a life in this world? Is it really all it’s cracked up to be? At the end of the day, can you still build community, and discover yourself, and grow?

Star Trek: no matter how dark things get, can we still hope?

[departmentq]

Star Trek has always been about the moments we are living in right now...

When handled with love and care by the people running it, Trek will always strive to have something to say.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

Something I love about DS9’s framing of Jake Sisko is how he’s consistently positioned as someone worthy of protection, whose survival and flourishing and emotional well-being are of tantamount importance, and whose innocence and vulnerability are precious.

It’s present from all directions in The Visitor. Everybody protectively closes ranks around Jake upon Ben’s disappearance, with those little moments of Dax and Kira and Bashir giving him physical affection and reassurance and Quark going out of his way to be nice to him. Jake’s older self’s protective impulses towards his younger self, as well as his desire to save his father, are the basis for the timeline reset. And then after the spacetime continuum gets wrenched back in line purely to save Jake from the emotional trauma of losing his father, the episode ends with Ben, who’s borne witness to everything and is the only one who remembers it all, continuing that work of shielding Jake from that knowledge.

And then Nor the Battle to the Strong carries on the thread of protectiveness towards Jake, in that case as part of the episode’s deconstruction of military heroism. As he’s marinating in shame over bailing on the mission to retrieve the generator, Bashir apologizes to him and says he was wrong to put Jake in harm’s way in the first place. And then at the end, he wakes up after sealing the cave entranceway and both Bashir and his father are tenderly looking after him, with similar imagery to The Visitor in terms of him being symbolically cradled by the other cast members’ concern for him. He never needs to toughen up or grow out of that need to be rescued - in fact, his fear and panic and feelings of being out of his depth prove to be immensely valuable, as his last conversation with his father emphasizes, because he’s able to bear witness to the experience of the soldiers through his writing.

That comes through in a really interesting way in Valiant as well, with Jake’s emphatic concern for his own survival in the midst of all the culty militaristic weirdness of the Valiant crew:

Nog: You don’t understand, because you’ve never put on one of these uniforms. You don’t know anything about sacrifice, or honor, or duty, or any other things that make up a soldier’s life. I’m part of something larger than myself. All you care about is you.

Jake: That’s right. All I care about is Jake Sisko and whether or not he’s going to be killed by a bunch of delusional fanatics looking for martyrdom.

And I love that exchange not only because it’s a rare articulation of how I would actually feel in a situation like that in a franchise full of characters who are all prepared to sacrifice themselves in the line of duty, but also because in the context of the episode, Jake’s position is actually the heroic one! It’s his sense of self-preservation, and the fact that he hasn’t romanticized the notion of heroic sacrifice, that enables him to see through the dogmatic ideology of the Valiant cadets and recognize how dangerously out of their depth they are. And it’s just a nice articulation of his own worth.

(And of course the Defiant rescues them at the end, because Jake’s grown up now, but he hasn’t outgrown needing his father to save him. And that’s never a shameful thing, but a really beautiful thing, and necessary to the fabric of the show.)