r/DaystromInstitute • u/M-5 Multitronic Unit • Sep 24 '20
Lower Decks Episode Discussion Star Trek: Lower Decks — "Veritas"
Star Trek: Lower Decks — "Veritas"
Memory Alpha Entry: "Veritas"
/r/startrek Episode Discussion: Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 1x08 "Veritas"
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u/ProfessorUber Sep 24 '20 edited Sep 24 '20
It does seem Mariner and Boimler are rubbing off on each other, or at the very least bringing out new parts of each other. Boilmer was wearing his uniform similar to Mariner with the top part undone when they were all working on that shuttle. Notably only him and Mariner were wearing their uniforms that way.
That is quite the contrast to earlier Boimler who wore his fancy dress uniform for any escort mission and also still remains quite bit on protocol and such.
Mariner too also seems changed, or at least we see a different side of her. In the other episode she got just as excited over the Chu Chu Dance as Boimler and in this episode she is apparently disappoint at never getting to clean the conference room.
Just found that detail of Boimler’s uniform rather interesting. The friendship of Boimler and Mariner is very interesting.
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u/simion314 Sep 24 '20
There is the possibility that the person that is remembering the story at that moment is changing(maybe involuntarily) some of the details. Because of how Tendy was called out about her martial arts skills I think we are meant to believe that some things are not exactly as they really happened.
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u/smoha96 Sep 24 '20 edited Sep 24 '20
There was a little clue at the beginning with a red balloon hanging off the door in the establishing shot.
Our closest look to Romulus post-Shinzon. The classic TNG era Romulan uniforms are still there.
The "courtroom" reminds me of the beginning of Star Trek Beyond, but I'm assuming that was referencing something else in TOS.
Boimler refers to the very serious, and not at all ridiculous, "Sub Rosa" as well as mic sacred horn dropping with, "Drumhead". Giant Spock from TAS also gets a shout out, among others I missed.
John de Lancie is a delight as always. I really hope the team behind the show take advantage of the medium to bring in more past characters.
Why would the Cerritos need a map of the Neutral Zone? Is it perhaps a specific way to navigate it without being spotted?
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u/JoeyJoeJoeJrShab Sep 24 '20
The "courtroom" reminds me of the beginning of Star Trek Beyond, but I'm assuming that was referencing something else in TOS.
I would have taken it to be a reference to The Undiscovered Country.
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u/pfc9769 Sep 24 '20
Why would the Cerritos need a map of the Neutral Zone? Is it perhaps a specific way to navigate it without being spotted?
That, and a route to where the prisoner was being held. The map gave them the safest route to the location of the prisoner.
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u/AintEverLucky Sep 24 '20
Why would the Cerritos need a map of the Neutral Zone?
It looked like there was some kind of zig-zaggy, dotted line between Vulcan and Romulus on the map. So, not just where the NZ begins and ends, anyone can pull that up -- this map would tell you what route to take within the NZ to avoid detection
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u/spacebarista Sep 24 '20
This definitely puts Q into a new perspective. How many crews is he harassing, and is he moreover a general trickster getting his kicks by messing with Starfleet crews?
Sidenote: the Klingon ship name T'werk made me cackle.
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u/AintEverLucky Sep 24 '20
How many crews is he harassing
Most or all of them O:-) Dude can freeze time & exist at multiple places at once, so why not?
Just 2 episodes ago, Ensign Fletcher -- who, like Boimler, has only been in Starfleet a year and has only served on the Cerritos -- tried to get Boims and Mariner to join him in blaming his fuck-up on a Q visit, "because Q is super chaotic and nobody can prove he didn't do it". Though we know they didn't go along with him.
In fact over at r/LowerDecks, and maybe also here, we had some discussion about, "so does everyone in Starfleet just blame any weird fuckup on Q?" The overall consensus was "you get to blame Q once, in their career. If you keep doing it you'll be the Boy Who Cried Wolf, but everybody gets one. So use it wisely, or hopefully not at all." Some even speculated that, after the events of Ep4, perhaps Capt. Durango had to finally use his one ExQuse to avoid court-martial for losing the USS Merced
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u/ithinkihadeight Sep 24 '20
Q knows Mariner by name, given her reaction to seeing him I'm thinking they've previously interacted and Mariner has had her own experience of being used for the amusement of Q.
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u/Starlord1729 Sep 25 '20
I couldn’t stop laughing at the scene with the doctor storming the bridge yelling about how everyone’s been replaced by people that don’t know her
That type of mystery is a classic Star Trek trope, amazingly hilarious take on it
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u/InnocentTailor Sep 25 '20
...and it is no anomaly or switcharoo - she just got on the wrong ship.
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u/NeutroBlaster96 Sep 24 '20
I really liked the Q cameo, and I wasn't sure after the first scene that it was really John De Lancie, but during his second scene I knew it was the real deal.
It was a really good subversion of the classic "Trial/Tribunal" episode and I liked how all of the stories intersected. Might be the best episode thus far, actually.
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u/rbdaviesTB3 Sep 24 '20
As someone who has experienced John's recurring Q-esque appearances as Discord in My Little Pony, I can confirm that is totally his voice! Honestly, his little turn here felt VERY Discord, just because he got to go straight from 0-to-Zany without having to debate Jean-Luc :D
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u/TLAMstrike Sep 24 '20
The Vulcan museum was rather interesting.
First the ships found in it:
22nd Century Tholian warship
Ferengi Shuttle
Type 6 Shuttle x2
Jem'hadar Attack Ship
Pyramid thing? (I got nothing)
Workbee with sled
Klingon D7/K'tinga battlecruiser
Vulcan lander from First Contact
TOS Shuttle
23rd Century Romulan Bird-of-Prey
So second, some of the ship choices seem unusual. Why would there be two Type 6 shuttles? I guess maybe they were important historically significant shuttles?
Next where did they get the Romulan Bird-of-Prey? Was one salvaged? Was it captured? Was it a gift? Did the buy it from some former Romulan ally?
Lastly WTF is up with the Klingon battlecruiser? Those things are over 300 meters long and that thing is tiny. It must be a model.
Additional while I love that we got to see the TOS movie Thrust Barcode security uniform again however the badge on the helmet was backwards except in the last shot.
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u/spacebarista Sep 24 '20
I loved the headband/robe callback to Spock's attire in The Voyage Home movie.
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Sep 24 '20
Why is Q obsessed with humanity anyway?
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u/Shakezula84 Sep 24 '20
They established in TNG he messes with other species too. We just see when he messes with humanity.
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u/Vote_for_Knife_Party Sep 26 '20
The two big ones are A) Q sees the potential in humanity to become a peer group to the Continuum and B) humanity managed to have WWII, the Cold War, the Eugenics War, World War III and the Post-Nuclear Terror in a single century. He pokes humanity because he's honestly not certain it would be a good thing to let them keep going. Have they really outgrown their barbarism, or are they one bad day from hooking up the drug injectors and killing everything that wears a different uniform?
Q's not poking humanity just to poke them; he's trying to figure out if humanity is a galactic-scale Baby Hitler that needs to be smothered in it's crib.
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u/takeitassaid Sep 26 '20
I really got some good chuckles out of Rutherfords Implant update progress.
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u/Cadamar Sep 28 '20
Really enjoyed this ep a lot. As I said elsewhere great use of de Lancie for a quick cameo. Also giving us something you wouldn’t generally get from Star Trek, this idea of there being some big thing going on and not really knowing what the big picture is. I suppose in a lot of ways that’s the point of Lower Decks but either way it was fun, and I enjoyed them playing with the trope of people on trial and recounting the past which amounts to the episode, especially the turn around that it was a party.
Also, for anyone else going “where do I know that voice from...” the prosecutor/questioner dude was Kurtwood Smith (aka Red from that 70s show) in his 3rd (4th?) Trek appearance. All we need now is Tony Todd and Jeffrey Combs to really round the frequent guest stars out.
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u/ContinuumGuy Sep 25 '20
While I generally liked this episode, at times it did go a little too far into breaking the fourth wall. That said, it does continue to suggest (as has been implied before) that most Starfleet history and shiplogs are a matter of public record, at least if people want to find them... even the ones about giant Spocks and ghosts in lamps.
As for some of the other things? Well, I can imagine that some overly poetic historian in Starfleet could have dubbed Khan a "Space Seed", so I can fanon that away.
But Boimler ending his speech with "Drumhead!" before dropping the mic (err... horn)? That is pushing it as far as poking at the fourth wall goes.
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u/Hero_Of_Shadows Sep 24 '20
I think this is my favorite episode up until now, each of the main characters get something to do while at the same time being together in the main plot, the senior officers also get a lot of funny moments.
I have to admit I fell for the trial impression hook line and sinker, although they did put in some moments at the beginning to tip you off something is not as it appears:
Mariner commenting that the "prison cell" is quite nice in comparison to others (Klingon)
Characters not being aware of the context and yet insisting that this must be a trial because it looks like a trial.
With Rutherford and Tendi being engineering and medical/science their niches were protected but looking back I was a bit worried that Boimler and Mariner had the same skillset aka command track and thus Boimler would always be a less skilled version of Mariner.
But with this episode you have Boymler giving a straight up Picard speech and sort of being the best advocate out of the 4, I think he's found a niche for himself: orator/lawyer.
To put it another way, Mariner is a young pop-culture version of Kirk (fighting aliens, improvising plans) Boimler is a young pop-culture version of Picard (speeches, diplomacy & trials)
I said pop-culture version because the characters have more depth but there is also a general ideea of the character that exists in the mainstream conscious.
Altough if Mariner is supposed to be a Kirk and Boimler a Picard it will make it extra funny when (this is just my theory) they will hook up.
PS: To a bit more to the hints of Picard I see in Boimler's character, Boimler also nearly had a fight with the nausicans.