Star Trek Social Club

The title is named after the eponymous 1966 Laura Nyro song which was more famously covered by The 5th Dimension in 1969. It has lent its name to various other media, including a movie, an episode of Gilmore Girls, as well as an episode of Cheers. It’s sung from the point of view of a woman wanting her boyfriend to marry her. 

The Stardate is 2251.7, three months after the events of SNW: “Hegemony, Part II”. The Federation Day Centennial being 3 days away places the Earth year as 2261. Various non-canon sources give different dates for Federation Day, ranging from an unused newspaper clipping from Generations giving the date as October 11 to May 8 in Geoffrey Mandel’s Star Charts. 

The music being played as we move through a Starbase One biodome (SNW: “Strange New Worlds”) is “Hacker De Tu Piel” by Lavanda Son, a Venezuelan tropical salsa band. 

Chapel has returned from her three month fellowship and brings along with her Dr Roger Korby (her future fiancé as per TOS: “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”). Korby was played in the TOS episode by Michael Strong. In that episode, Spock referred to Korby as the Pasteur of archeological medicine, whose translation of old Orion records revolutionised immunization techniques. Of course, in the original, there is no hint that Korby and Spock had met before. In any case, if the timeline in the original still holds, Korby will disappear on Exo III within the year. Cillian O’Sullivan, who plays him in SNW, has an Irish accent which Strong did not display.

As Spock digests the information that Korby is Chapel’s date, the background music echoes the “fight music” from TOS: “Amok Time”, indicating his jealousy.

Ortegas’s personnel file seen in SNW: “Among the Lotus Eaters” seemed to mention only one sibling, Fabiola (a feminine name). Here her brother is named “Beto”, which a nickname for Spanish names that end in “-berto”.

Pike does have an impressive array of medals (Memory Alpha lists 17), and in 2256 was ranked among the most decorated captains in Starfleet (DIS: “Choose Your Pain”). Batel makes a crack about Pike’s hair products, a rather meta joke considering the Internet memes about his hair.

The closed captioning says “Tilarian Star Gems”, but it could be “Talarian”, a race first seen in TNG: “Suddenly Human”. The Talarian Republic encompasses at least two Alpha Quadrant star systems in the 24th Century.

The second act resets to the same opening narration of the first act (similar to TNG: “Cause and Effect”), but then takes it into different events - the celebration of Spock and Chapel’s wedding instead of the Federation Day Centennial. 

One of the items on the wedding checklist is for a wedding licence and Pike’s approval, giving us a clue as to the legal requirements for a wedding for Starfleet personnel. 

Kal-if-fee refers to part of the traditional Vulcan wedding ceremony (the kun-ut-kal-if-fee), specifically where the bride opts for a ritual challenge where two males fight for the right to mate with her (“Amok Time”).

Korby says he’s checked himself for phase variances to see if he’s in an alternate dimension. As we learned from TNG: “Parallels”, each parallel universe (and its inhabitants) has its own quantum signature. Spock refers to an improbability field that once made the crew sing (SNW: “Subspace Rhapsody”). 

The entity says, “Greetings and many felicitations”. In TOS: “The Squire of Gothos”, Trelane’s first message to Enterprise is “Greetings and Felicitations”. His snapping of fingers is also reminiscent of Trelane and Q. The possible relationship between Trelane and the Q has been the result of much fan speculation and made explicit in some licensed fiction (the late and much lamented Peter David’s Q-Square being the best example). 

Scotty’s claim that he’s not much of a drinker is belied by his conduct during TOS, especially when he literally drinks the alien Tomar under the table in TOS: “By Any Other Name”. 

Korby’s remark about “wishing us all into a cornfield” is a reference to the classic Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life”, where Bill Mumy (who would later star in DS9: “The Siege of AR-558”) plays a malevolent child with immense reality-altering powers who banishes people who defy him to “the cornfield”, where they are never seen again. 

Spock quotes from Pablo Naruda’s Love Sonnet XI as part of his vows (and I believe it was also quoted earlier when he was speaking with Korby). 

While no names are mentioned, I think it’s pretty clear it is Trelane (he even lets loose with a “Tally Ho!”), and his father, appropriately enough is voiced by John de Lancie, namely Q. Why Spock doesn’t remember this when “The Squire of Gothos” comes around is now an open question. Trelane also mentions an unnamed “old home world” Korby was digging around in and that he is 8,020 years old.  

The song that closes out the celebrations is, of course, “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” by 80s pop duo Wham!. And it appears that Ortegas was more affected by her encounter with the Gorn than we thought although whether it’s PTSD (like Keyla Detmer in DIS) or something more sinister remains to be seen.

We discovered that the Gorn used light for ship-to-ship communications in SNW: “Memento Mori”, and in that episode they used it to fool one Gorn ship into firing on another. 

The first mention of wolkite, a rare mineral which apparently contains “subspace gauge bosons”. Gauge bosons are an elementary subatomic particle that acts as a messenger particle that carries forces for fermions (don’t ask me to explain further - I’m a lawyer, dammit, not a particle physicist), which apparently can be tracked with sensors. Let’s roll with it.

Inertial dampeners create subspace fields which protect crewmembers from the worst effects of acceleration and deceleration, especially when moving at faster than light speeds (VOY: “Tattoo”). This tells us that ships at warp speeds experience intertial effects, and that subspace fields affect inertial mass, both which run counter to claims that *Star Trek* warp drives run on the same principles as Alcubierre drives.

There is a slight blurring effect on the bridge as *Enterprise* moves to warp, reminiscent of the “wormhole effect” in *TMP* and when *Bounty* goes into time warp in *ST IV*. 

Chapel says that without certain shots, Batel’s tissues might turn necrotic in the statsis field. Why exactly this would be the case, if a stasis field is designed to suspend all cellular growth, is not explained - unless it only prevents growth and not decay. Epinephrine is another name for adrenaline, and can be used to prevent cardiac arrest and anaphylactic shock, among others. Batel is allergic to cryoserum and hence can’t be put into stasis. So stasis isn’t just some kind of force field but also involves cryogenic suspension as well? I have so many questions…

Joseph (M’Benga) isn’t around because he was part of the landing party kidnapped by the Gorn at the end of SNW: “Hegemony”.

April says the Federation is still recovering from the Klingon War (2256-2257), which occured in DIS Season 1, some 2-3 years prior. Chapel and M’Benga served in that war (SNW: “Under the Cloak of War”). 

As we learned in“Hegemony”, Pelia was one of Scotty’s engineering instructors at the Academy. Scotty better get used to working under time pressures, considering what he’s going to face in the years to come (at least, until he starts padding estimates).

La’an was the sole survivor, as a child, of her colony ship SS *Puget Sound* which was captured by the Gorn. The person she sees in her dream is Manu, her brother, who sacrificed himself for her during that time. He discovered the Gorn’s use of light as communication, and passed that knowledge on to La’an (“Memento Mori”). 

Scotty says “bawheid!” which is a Scottish invective meaning a stupid person (originally a person with a round face/head). *Stardiver* was Scotty’s previous assigment which was attacked by the Gorn (“Hegemony”). 

I will not, for the moment, debate the plausibility of the Gorn relying entirely on instrumentation and not visuals for their ships.

Una says that the radiation in the binary star system is so intense that they can only use impulse and shields won’t protect them. This reminds me of the conditions in the Mutara Nebula in *ST II*, where the static discharge and gas rendered visual and shields useless (*Enterprise*’s warp drive was out, anyway). 

Debulking surgery is a type of surgery used to reduce the size of cancerous tumours, commonly used in cases of ovarian cancer. 

Some Illyrians still use genetic engineering among their community, which is against Federation laws (SNW: “Ghosts of Illyria”, “Ad Astra Per Aspera”), hence the use of Una’s blood being against regulations. 

The screen at Una and Uhura’s briefing first shows the Finibus system which featured in “Memento Mori”, and then the Galdonterre system which was mentioned in DS9: “Blood Oath” as a place where the Albino hid from Kang, Kor and Koloth. Both  are in the Beta Quadrant. The larger scale map also shows systems where CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) events have occured, stellar events which trigger Gorn attacks.

X-class flares are the largest category of solar flares, which can cause radio blackouts and trigger radiation storms in the upper atmosphere. Supra-arcade downflows are sunward-traveling plasma voids seen during solar flares, which appear as voids because they are less dense than surrounding plasma. 

“A couple of litres” of Una’s blood seems like a lot - a human body typically holds about 5 litres of blood, so 2 litres is like 40% of your volume, which would send you into severe hypovolemic shock. Maybe they meant pints.

Valeo Beta V was where SNW: “Not All Those Who Wander” took place, where the USS *Peregrine* crashed after a Gorn hatchling outbreak on board. 

Pike’s strategy is similar to how Picard defeated the Borg in TNG: “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”, by sending a command to put them to sleep. While it works for now, Pike’s concern about whether they’ve just kicked the can down the road foreshadows Kirk’s future encounter with the Gorn about six years later in TOS: “Arena” (which has to be quite extensively retconned given the events in SNW). 

“I’m Erica Ortegas, I fly the ship,” was the mantra that kept Ortegas focused while a memory sapping field was affecting everyone during the events of SNW: “Among the Lotus Eaters”.

Pike reluctantly starts to recites the Lord’s Prayer, saying to his father, “You win.” Pike’s father was a science teacher who also taught comparative religion, who died some time previous (SNW: “Those Old Scientists”) and with whom he had a contentious relationship.

I wanted a very 90s web-feeling GIF of a TOS science division badge(technically animated WEBP, but whatever), so I threw together the badge in Inkscape, then imported it into Blender to do animation and rendering.

I decided to make the border gold instead of the canon black, as it just looks every so slightly cooler during the spin animation in a very dumb way. I also went for metallic rather than trying to mimic embroidery because I was lazy.

• This is the 40th, and ostensibly final episode of “Star Trek: Prodigy”.

    • During the episode, Wesley Crusher tells Dal that the reason the Protogies have to stick together ”hasn’t happened yet.” Maybe we’ll get some more PRO stores in comics or novels.

• The swarms of Loom flowing out of the wormhole above Solum is reminiscent of the extragalactic synths reaching through the portal in the PIC season one finale, “Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 2”.

• ”Once more into the breach,” Janeway misquotes “Henry V”. General Chang got the quote right in “Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country”, and a season seven DS9 episode also used the correct quote as its title.

    • In “Equinox, Part II”, Janeway described a message meant to communicate with nucleogenic lifeforms as ”Not exactly Shakespeare,” and apparently she’s an expert on that topic.

• The EMH back-up module was first mentioned in “Living Witness”.

• Dal places his combadge on the floor of the USS Protostar’s bridge for the younger Rok-Tahk to find, as she did in “Lost and Found”.

• We get a mini-clipshow, featuring scenes from: “Lost and Found”, “Starstruck”, “Dreamcatcher”, “Terror Firma”, “Time Amok”, “Supernova, Part II”, “Asylum”, “All the World’s a Stage”, “Crossroads”, “Masquerade”, “Preludes”, “Last Flight of the Protostar, Part I”, “Observer’s Paradox”, “Is There in Beauty No Truth”, “The Devourer of All Things, Part I”, “Last Flight of the Protostar, Part II”, “Cracked Mirror”,

• We see Tars Lamora again as the Protostar sets down. The series began here with the Protogies as slaves in “Lost and Found”.

• Janeway records the stardate as 62134.8 in her personal log.

• The crate two Vau N’Akat load on to a shuttle has the Daystrom Institute logo on it.

• Doctor Crusher’s desk features a plaque commemorating her away team being declared honourary citizens of Cor Caroli V, as mentioned in Allegiance. The plague was previously seen in “The Next Generation”.

• Doctor Crusher introduces Wesley to his brother, who we learned about in “Disengage”. The scene cuts before we see Doctor Crusher asking Wesley if he can use his Traveler powers to alter time so she wouldn’t be 60 year old woman raising a toddler whom she conceived with a 79 year old man who doesn’t even know he’s a father.

• Zero and Maj’el do Vulcan finger touching in a disgusting public display of affection. The practice was first seen in “Journey to Babel”.

• ”Jankom is practically royalty. Again!” Jankom first decided he was Tellarite royalty in “Asylum” after learning Tellarites were founding members of the Federation.

• ”I heard Admiral Janeway first wanted to be a science officer.” Janeway did serve as science officer on the USS Al-Batani.

• A display shows news coverage of the synthetic attack on the Utopia Planitia shipyards, as seen in “Maps and Legends” and “Children of Mars”.

• The Starfleet admirals we see have switched to new uniforms, first seen in the flashback in “The End is the Beginning”. Both Picard and Raffi were wearing the uniform there, despite her not being an admiral.

• Jellico states that due to the synth attack on Mars, Starfleet has lost personnel and materiel such to the point that they have so few resources they don't have enough combadges to upgrade half the fleet. In "Maps and Legends" Admiral Clancy stated that they didn't have enough ships left to maintain the Federation and continue to assist in the Romulan evacuation.

    • They apparently do have enough resources for new uniforms, though.

• Jellico claims Picard did not take the news of Starfleet halting their aid of the Romulan evacuation well. We learned in “The End is the Beginning” that he resigned his commission in protest.

• Janeway assigns the Protogies to crew a new Protostar-class starship, the USS Prodigy NCC-81084.

    • The Protogies are also given field commissions to ensign.

    • The Emergency Janeway Hologram refers to the Prodigy as the “Protostar”.

• The EJH has been upgraded from training hologram to emergency training hologram, an idea the Doctor first suggested in “Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy”, which he alludes to.

• The Protogies get an entirely new, entirely hideous uniform of their own to end the series.

I just had an amazing idea, that I need in my life.

William Shatner needs to perform a spoken word rendition of "Pants on the ground", in the spirit of "Rocketman".

Let's crowdfund this, and make it happen.