“Vulcans will choose whatever serves them best and insist it is only logical.” ~N’raj, Reunification III

…Is this a meme or a cry for help?

Look, the man also directed First Contact (the movie, not the episode) and Those Old Scientists, which are generally well received. I think we can begrudge him one ghost-fuckin’ episode.

You might want to see a doctor about that. But have fun!

T’Lyn’s story in Season 5 involves her and another character in an interesting way, and you see T’lyn embrace science and Starfleet more than I think people anticipate.

Until proven otherwise I’ll remain on the Sokel-is-T’Lyn’s-father boat and will assume this to be about him.

It’s pretty impressive since pure capsaicin tops out at 16 million, guess they started putting crazier spice moulecules in. Also makes Boimler’s pain in that episode less of a gag and more of a “how are you legally allowed to have this on your table?”

Kate Mulgrew-Janeway: I don’t have such weaknesses

Oh, very clever Worf. Eat any good books lately?

minor bit of pedantry, a minute isn’t that silhouette the Kelvin-verse Enterprise?

As far as I’m aware they never explain the rules of Stratagema. I feel pretty comfortable saying it seems like a terrible esport to spectate. You’ve got

• Incredibly quick games (Data’s first game with Kolrami ends in less than thirty seconds), so there’s little to no time to appreciate whatever finer strategies are going on
• crap graphics-- style is very bland and more importantly user unfriendly–as far as I can tell there are four colors, navy/blank, some sort of territorial highlighting colors (blue and yellow), and a red that appears to be units/agents of both players, which are not visually distinct except for small markers (seriously, why?).
• probably crap controls-- I get you have to move multiple things simultaneously, but you’d think they’d make something more intuitive for whatever 3-D controls this game needs. With the benefit of modern video game hindsight I think something like a mini keyboard in one hand would be a lot more believable for whatever quick selection and movements are needed by this game.

Basically, take a minimalist strategy game like Go and an RTS game and stick them together in a way that uses the strengths of neither. That’s Stratagema. Don’t play this game, it’s dumb.

(Minor edit, after thinking this over a little it’s possible the red pieces are neutral objectives. I don’t think that correlates as well with the finger movements, but whatever. That’d just make Stratagema 3d Liquid War with mario kart powerups tacked on)

Star Trek does this thing where formal rank isn’t actually as important as being in the captain’s in-group. Can you name anything important that provisional Lt. JG Ayala did on the USS Voyager? I sure as hell can’t, but it was less important than Harry “eternal ensign” Kim.

As much as the Lower Decks gang would like to think of themselves as unimportant, they’re very much confidants of the Cerritos’ senior staff so it’s illogical, but consistent for Boimler to be at the top of the list for acting captain when stuff’s going down.

Out of universe it’s obviously a narrative/screen time thing, I’d say you’ve just got to accept it and move on.

“Orange, really?”

The shitposters of c/risa : “we’re doing our part!”

Man, the years were far kinder to Tom Paris than Locarno. Guess being a Starfleet burnout is a pretty stressful existence.

Rutherford hanging out with Freeman is presumably setup for the finale, giving us three perspectives without compromising the focus on the main gang. He did feel a little tacked on though.

“Should we put Captain Lorca’s warp phrase on the image?”

“Nah, fuck that mirror universe asshole. Just add another Pike and call it a day.”

Dunno why they didn’t bother promoting this episode, it was great. I was initially skeptical that it was just going to be a “Mariner is angsty” episode without much of a payoff, but they finally revealed everything. And they gave Ma’ah screen time doing it!

The confirmation of how the Dominion War scarred Mariner wasn’t much of a surprise, but the tie back to the Lower Decks of old was. What an absolutely crushing reason to lose the optimism in what Starfleet can be. Props to Tawny Newsome for some good voice acting for an emotionally vulnerable moment.

Minor complaint/discontinuity: in this episode Mariner seemed surprised that T’Lyn was present at the fight against the Pakleds and the Klingon BoP in Wej Duj, although I seem to recall T’Lyn explicitly referencing that incident to her in Empathological Fallacies.

Speculation about next week: I’d hazard a guess that Locarno is a thematic version of what Mariner could become if she isn’t careful. He’s a Starfleet ace gone bad, and also Sito’s former friend, so he’s presumably got a lot to sell her on the troublemaker’s life.

God, I typed a lot and didn’t even get to Freeman’s misdirection this episode. It was good, watch it!

I mean if you look at Burnham and Sarek’s relationship in Discovery he did a pretty dang good job beating the human emotion out of her.

Sure, this kinda fucked her up emotionally in a way the series tragically didn’t look into nearly enough after season 1, but you can’t say that his methods never worked.

Tendi’s bit was wholesome, but this was a weaker episode overall IMO. I get what they were going for, the jokes just didn’t really land for me.

Has Janeway basically become Risa’s version of Bully McGuire? Not objecting, just trying to figure out what the proper name to use for her should be.