As a fan of mysteries, my mind tends to clasp onto details that writers felt important enough to mention, but had no bearing on the plot up to this point.
The fact that the ship Tendi recovered was a “medical frigate” triggered such an alarm in my head. Yes the ship was able to gas the Blue Orions, but that’s hardly a feature unique to medical ships.
We Know:
- Tendi wants to come back to help raise her niece.
- Tendi wants to be a captain
- The finale is going to have some tear jerking moments
- This is the last season.
I think we’re being prepped for the main cast to go their separate ways, not unlike the DS9 finale.
We’ve had some foreshadowing with Freeman and Starbase 80. I wonder if the finale might end with her being posted there, as an admiral. Fix it up, that sort of thing, rather than an exile.
I really want the S5 set, and the S1 poster.
Not really sold on a full set at the moment.
This is why minorities are a prime scape goat for politicians.
Why be mad at some faceless corporation/politician, when you can blame the world’s issues on Garry that you see in the supermarket?
Actually, I didn’t know. Never heard it used in an offensive context before today. But I’ll edit my comment just the same.
Airbags, Anti lock Brakes, and hopefully leg room are probably bonuses too.
Eeh.
While I agree with the sentiment, I think we’re in this situation because of the current medical climate.
-
You call an ambulance? You get charged an arm and a leg.
-
You take yourself to the hospital, you get charged an arm and a leg.
-
You get medical insurance, and you’re somehow even further behind because it’s their priority to find reasons to deny having to give you money back,
The current system does not work. As a consequence, people are attempting, however incompetently, to take their care into their own hands.
Fix why folks are resorting to this, and this should stop being an issue, or at least stop gaining traction.
Butter used to be dyed yellow. Now no one bats an eye that it’s off white.
It takes time, but new normals take over.
If we go by the gap between Strange New Worlds beginning filming, and S1’s release, we could see Academy around November of next year.
I feel like Dennis the buffer buff from the Lower Decks S3 Premiere was intended to be O’Brien, (Transporter enthusiast, war veteran) but for whatever reason it didn’t pan out…
… which I honestly felt worked out for the best. Dennis was like my grandpa.
Dude, you’re missing out then. I was dubious going in, but Time Lord Wesley was the absolute delight I didn’t know I needed. Wheaton’s performance was probably leagues better than in TNG.
Rok would still be considered an adolescent, if the lore from Star Trek: New Frontier applies, from which her species was largely fleshed out.
At that age, she would be very gruff and moody, only after molting in her 30’s (I think?) would she regain her more bubbly personality.
Dairy cows and beef cows are different breeds. There’s hardly any overlap worth mentioning. For the purposes of these kinds of reports, they might as well be different species.
Is that last one granting access to closed APIs?
That’s a double edged sword if I ever heard one.
Not impossible. Freeman was effectively the villain for S1 of Lower Decks, despite clearly being one of the good guys.
And Prodigy demonstrates how a personal vendetta can net some kids a nemesis, despite largely minding their own business.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance
Automakers care about how much R&D they have to invest and the impact on the quarterly profits. ICEs are dirt cheap in that regard, and it took the federal government bribing them to do so.
Because US automakers and oil interest groups actively sought to keep the status quo?
The Leif Ericson Class Incident
So, I just got my copy of the Lower Deck's Handbook (it's AMAZING) but one of the sections of the handbook goes into the legacy of the ships to carry the name Cerritos. (Think along the terms of the ships to carry the name Stargazer) and one in particular caught my eye...
A Leif Ericson class USS Cerritos was answering a distress call from Earth (in a manner not dissimilar to the Enterprise-E in First Contact), but before the Cerritos could reach Earth a Klingon Bird of Prey manned by Captain Kirk beat them to it.
But an unforeseen consequence of Kirk's time hopping erased the Leif Ericson class from reality.
--------
It was a short blurb, but I actually felt chills. I'm reminded of the scene where Spock expresses uncertainty on how to accurately bring them back to the present, and Bones tells Spock to just go with his gut or something along those terms.
With the implied context that a miscalculation on Spock's part led to the erasure of the Leif Ericson class and presumably all hands, do you think Spock made the right call, given what he knew at the time?
Aw sweet! The Cerritos made it into the ships of the line!
No Discovery, Protostar, or La Sirenia… but I'll absolutely take what I can get.
Wild theory about the Mysterious Ship
Okay, so… I want to open with the observation that all the ships that have been attacked by the mysterious ship have been CGI.
Lower Decks tends to default to 2D unless the ship either will get a lot of screen time (California Class, Shuttles), offer fan service (Titan, Voyager, DS9, Sovereign Class), or get into combat (Bird of Prey, Clump Ship, Sh'Val, Texas Class, Green vessel).
Basically, Titmouse gets their money's worth from CGI models, and will use 2D where otherwise practical.
This season, as far as I can tell, all the attacked vessels have been CGI. Their screen time has all been extremely short. With the exception of the Bird of Prey (from 3 ships) all the attacked ships have been new to the series.
That said, their on screen appearances could've easily been substituted with 2D illustrations. Most of the ships barely move, which is perfect for 2D, but they opted instead for more expensive CGI.
Whatever McMahon has planned for these ships. it isn't going to be small.
---
With that stated. When the mysterious ship reorients itself to attack position, I can't help but feel like it looks kinda like a face. But humans are hard coded to see faces in things, so I didn't think much of it.
Then I saw the Bynar ship.
The 'nacelles' on the ship connect to a hub in the back… and it looks to me like hinges. Like the nacelles could arbitrarily reorient themselves like a pair of thighs attached to a hip.
Face. Hips. Legs.
The mysterious ship can't be stealing all these vessels for salvage. We've already seen that done with the Pakleds. The ship also can't be interested in these ships for their intended purposes, since there's nothing of substance that connects them all—beyond all having disgruntled lower deckers.
I don't know why they would do this, but I can't shake the feeling the mysterious ship is attempting to build something akin to Voltron or the Megazord. A giant bipedal mech made of a bunch of other ships.
Maybe the vertical Warbird is the torso. Maybe the Bird of Prey and the Orion ship are shoulder pads or feet. I don't know.
But I figured I'd bounce this idea off you guys and see if you could refute or add to this.
People shopping for electric vehicles starting next year will be able to get a $7,500 federal tax credit off the sticker price while at the dealership, rather than having to wait months to receive their tax returns.
Not much to add. Other than the IRS PDF is written is legalese…
Thoughts on LD S4’s mysterious vessel
Just a forward that I wasn’t sure if this belonged on Startrel or Daystrom… but the fact that this deals with minor spoilers for the latest episode and an analysis made me lean to here.
Anyways, it was brought to my attention by u/tunkfurmer on Reddit that every scene about the attacks started with some lower deckers complaining about their captains before the attack.
So I went back and reviewed those scenes and… IMO it tracks.
Starting with the most recent episode, the Ferengi Keith admits that he was in communication with the vessel in return for profit. He was earlier complaining about Rom’s policy changes.
Next most recent, the Orion vessel made an unplanned encounter with the vessel. The Orion plagiarist/buttmonkey was the only one focused on his console during the encounter. The Captain demands to know how it got past their systems before the ship is destroyed.
With the vertical Romulan warbird, we learn both the male and female Romulans intended to betray the captain. The captain accuses the male officer, but he claims innocence. The female remains off frame for that exchange, but otherwise doesn’t trigger my suspicions outside of ‘By omission’.
And finally the Bird of Prey. Somewhat similar to the Orion Plagerist, the Spear Wielding Klingon seems more detached from his female counterpart to the vessel’s presence. But otherwise, like the Female Romulan, doesn’t act especially suspicious.
So…All four crews include at least one Lower Decker who was:
- Dissatisfied with the chain of command
- Operating a bridge console at the time of the attack
- Could be interpreted as not being surprised by the ship’s presence (the death beam,though, is another story.
Couple this with Keith’s betrayal and the Orion Captain’s bewilderment at the downed systems… I think we have saboteurs amongst the Lower Decks across the quadrant. Saboteurs that seem not to expect the sudden death beam.
All that said… I’m not sure what the vessel is after. The ships are destroyed, with no discernible corpses amongst the wreckage. It’s unlikely to be salvage considering how thoroughly the ships are vaporized. And none of the ships seem to fit a profile. You’ve got the small and nimble Orion Vessel to the large Warbird. None of the vessels seem to be in the midst of any especially important task.
With that established… I think we can possibly project what the vessel will strike next.
T’Lyn’s arc this season is about coming to terms with her exile from the Vulcan vessel. It seems likely to me that we’ll revisit the ship this season. And… given what we know of the profiles of the purported saboteurs… I suspect T’Lyn, as a misfit amongst Vulcans, is likely to be put in contact with the vessel.
As for the Cerritos herself, this season we’ve been introduced to two new ensigns. A command one who’s aware of the favoritism Ransom gives to Mariner and an engineer who out performs Rutherford, but gets snubbed out of a promotion. If the Cerritos gets put out of commission, I’d have my eyes on those two.
I was originally disinterested in the ongoing attacks… but in this light things have gotten quite fascinating to me.
Ralsei is not the Dark Prince… yet.
So, to summarize before I start explaining myself:
I don’t think Ralsei is the prince from the legend. I do however believe he is actively updating his résumé so when the prophecy comes into play he fulfills a loophole by being’dark prince shaped’.
__~
When we first meet Ralsei, his town is mysteriously empty. No citizens. No guards. No royalty. Further, the town shows no evidence of an attack or other forms of distress which throws doubt into the postulation that there could’ve once been a community that was forced to leave.
By completing chapters 1 and 2, the castle and town become occupied by refugees. Amidst those refugees are the King of Spades and the Cyber Queen.
So now we have a kingdom. It has subjects. It has a king. It has a queen.
On paper, these are all the things you’d need to have a proper kingdom. The pieces don’t properly fit, but they should be enough to pass a cursory check. Letter of the law vs Spirit of the law.
So… that leads to the question: Who is the intended prince from the dark?
Lancer seems like an obvious contender… except he introduces himself as the “Teardrop-headed kid. From the legend”—suggesting Lancer does indeed have a future role to play, but not necessarily as the prince from the dark.
Frankly, I have no idea who the intended prince could be. As far as we know, we might not have even been introduced to him yet.
So, assuming Ralsei is trying to insert himself into the legend… that begs the question of why.
When we first enter the dark world in Ch1, there’s a lot of iconography reminiscent of the Titans revealed in Ch2. It’s probably a safe assumption that the Titans are directly related to Ralsei’s true goals. But whether that’s to thwart them on his terms or set them in motion… I really don’t know.
Staggering buying an EV and EV charger
Something to consider:
Everyone knows about the US tax incentives for buying an EV, but less considered is the incentives for buying an EV charger.
The incentives come in the form of a tax credit, up to the maximum of $7,500/$4,000 or how much you owe in taxes (pre withholdings and the like) whichever is lower. The charger credit is up to $1,000.
So, if your taxes are, say, $3,000, then it doesn’t matter if you bought a new or used EV, you’re only getting $3,000 off your taxes, and your charger credit is effectively worthless.
Consider, if practical, buying your EV towards the end of the tax year, and your charger at the beginning of the next one. You’ll minimize the inconvenience of being locked to level 1 charging speeds, while maximizing your tax credits.
Obviously, if you need a level 2 charger you shouldn’t self sabotage and should just buy one. But if you’re counting your pennies, and think you can get by with level 1 for that window, then it’s something to keep in mind.
Ship Lighting
My biggest complaint with Live Action Trek vs the two Animation shows is that they seem obsessed with giving us a black ship on a black background. It’s nice to be given a reprieve, even if for only one episode.