Spoilers ST Lower Decks - Starships and Technology Season Two Discussion

Starting off the 2x06 discussion with the Pakled ships. I'm pretty sure the big bruisers we saw last season and in 2x02 were not CG models but more hand drawn; lots of the guest ships last year were the same.

These new ones are in the opening titles and I didn't realize that they were all examples of the same CG model. These ones reinforce that they're bits and pieces of other races' ships, notably looking like someone sliced a Romulan warbird horizontally and used the halves to build two ships. Oversized Klingon-ish warp nacelles and wingtip disruptor mounts complement the main hull while the aft engines look like they were taken from an ENT-era guest ship that was, among things, the Xindi Arboreal ship. The usual Pakled ship model still forms the nose, and the weird cables and claws are poking out everywhere.

I guess that at least on Pakled Planet, they can haev more than one copy of the same ship?

Mark

 

I'd expect more of a hodgepodge of kitbashes in future for the Pakled, then...?

 

AKA the Tellarite ship, which I guess would be the more natural reference here.

The "Samaritan Snare" original was already supposed to be a hodgepodge, potentially a one-off, with stuff jutting out asymmetrically. And then it made multiple reappearances as a non-Pakled design, sorta defeating such original intent. I guess there's a yard somewhere churning out those, and the Pakleds merely buy or steal from there and then install stolen bits where it doesn't exactly show. (Except to the advanced sensors of the E-D!)

But it also makes a certain kind of sense that even if the Pakleds end up with an improved ship via kitbashing, they then lack the imagination necessary for improving upon that, and resort instead to mass-producing further kitbashes...

Timo Saloniemi

 

Pakleds are smart! We will bash kits. Then we will be strong. Our helmets are the biggest helmets.

 

How did Pakled ever achieve interplanetary flight much less FTL?

 

Likely someone gave them the tech. The old backstory for the Klingons was that they attacked and stole warp drive from the first Earth explorers to meet them, but ENT retconned that to the Klingons being a warp power even before humans were.

My own headcanon is that the Pakleds developed warp on their own but it was flawed and gave them all a form of degenerative neurological disorder. The equivalent of us putting lead in petrol for years.

 

To nitpick, theft was Diane Duane's backstory for Romulan warp, back when Klingons were considered cheapo villainettes and Romulans the true heavies of TOS.

Achieving interplanetary this-or-that does not call for anything much. You don't even have to sit on a pile of unobtainium to get visited by starfaring cultures: the Feds will do that for you out of sheer curiosity, the Briori or the Preservers will harvest your planet for slaves, and the Klingons will do it just for target practice. You can then choose to hitchhike, or to attempt to purchase a ride or a blueprint or an entire engine, or to steal said, or just to take so many photographs that some of that secret tech will peek from behind your foot and you can then reverse-engineer it.

Coming up with warp by purely indigenous means is the greater feat - but chiefly because it's so darn difficult to stay indigenous in the cosmopolitan Trek universe. Somebody else's warp engine will be parked on your lawn more often than not!

Timo Saloniemi

 

Both of those seem possible! Some types of warp can turn you into a tongueless salamander, and also if you meet a guy with warp drive you may be able to hit him with an axe until you have a warp drive.

I'm delighted and terrified that apparently plenty of people on Pakled Planet still believe in the crimson forcefield.

 

More on 2x06:

- Several new rooms on the Cerritos. Starting with the... Makeover room? It's probably not a holodeck, because it's still "on" when everyone leaves it. OTOH, it's got a lot of unused space aside from the couch, mirrors and two whole racks of uniform accessories. Are the patchy looking, non-uniform clothes like some weird camouflage outfits?

- Then there's the... Black box theatre room? Speaking as an actor who has improvised across many such stages over the years, it's both hilarious and baffling that the Cerritos has one. I'm glad to think that the ship may have an improv team - sign me up. <3 Fun to know that the simple folding chair is still a thing centuries from now, given we've never seen them on any Trek episode that doesn't happen in the 20th or early 21st centuries.

- And the unseen, top secret Starfleet Gift Shop. On Earth, the gift shops are almost always next to the exit, so you can drop cash on stuff on the way out. Would the Cerritos gift shop be next to the transporters? Or shuttlebays?

- There are three identical labs, possibly side by side, labelled "LAB 4005" to "LAB 4007". Not that the number scheme ever really makes sense on any Trek, but are we perchance thinking of at least three labs on deck 4? Or seven, I guess?

- What's the protocol for picking up stuff from people's rooms on ACB day? Migleemo had a pile of crap next to the door, but Ransom and the labs had stuff lying around like they were in use, or in Ransom's case a bunch of crystals that could easily have been left on the desk while he went on spy escort duty.

- We know people have put unfinished food and plates back into the replicator they got them from, but this is the first mention of a "matter recombinator". It's basically the same concept I'm sure, but is there an actual "matter recombination" room or unit?

Mark

 

It would be located somewhere equidistant to both so that you're likely to access it.

 

They had a list on the padd to check.

 

And for those keeping track of starships (a time honored tradition ), a mention of a Starfleet ship called Ventura. Which, if it's named after the town and county of Ventura, California, might be yet another California class ship. Although it was implied it was a more prestigious posting than the Cerritos...

 

Or airlocks?

 

Could be a Parliament Class vessel =D

 

The Matter Recombinator Room might even be next to the Gift Shop- possibly similar to the room on the D where Data and Worf have an exchange in "Data's Day" about replicating a wedding gift for the O'Briens. One room to put trash in, close to the room where trash is reformed as something new. Ratty Old Storybook that manifests 3 Gigantic Pigs stops working? Turn it into a New T-Shirt!

There's a real theatricality to leadership in the minds of the Cerritos Red Shirts- is it sensible to imagine the Makeover Room is the dressing room of the theatre space? This is where Winger Bingston is workshopping his one man show about Jupiter's moons. The camouflage outfits call the MACOs to mind- maybe for a period drama about the 2150s?

 

More importantly the ship has bathrooms.

 

Are we absolutely certain? Perhaps she only has airlocks.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Only for species that are hostile to the UFP =D

 

Wasn't it suggested in canon (since TNG onward) that the Klingons were invaded by the Hur'q while they were radically pre-warp, managed to overpower the Hur'q and took their technology which allowed them to become warp capable?

I don't recall any mention of Klingons attacking and stealing warp drive from first Earth explorers. Was this in TOS or something?

Eh... possible, but a bit difficult to reconcile - although weirder things were seen in Trek.
If they developed Warp technology before the neurological disorder, you would think they would have noticed the effects early on and then put a stop to it until they could protect themselves against it. A few scientists showing early signs of degenerative neurological disorders would probably be a telling sign of the problem... but we have seen species who basically ended up recklessly using technologies which were harming them. The Malon for example. Heck, even humanity in real life (because its structured around capitalism, cost efficiency and profits - health and safety frequently goes down the drain).

My own explanation is that the Pakleds were probably visited by another warp species, who were then tricked and got their technology stolen.

Or it could be that the Pakleds are quite intelligent in matters of technology and overall science (which they seem to be), but come across as complete morons because their verbal communication is... lacking (which they started using to lul other species into false sense of security).
Maybe they began using their technology for communications in a non-verbal manner (much like a lot of people text today) and over several generations, they eroded their ability for eloquent verbal communication and have no largely meaningful body language.

 

No.

I mean, the Hur'q came up twice, in "Sword of Kahless", where they were raiders escaping with their loot, and in "Affliction", where they were notorious invaders of yore. But we still have no data on whether Klingons had starships when the Hur'q came, or still thought that steel-tipped plows were a pretty cool thing.

Diane Duane's Romulan novels had this backstory for the Romulans. I've never heard of it for the Klingons.

Both things would work in the aftermath of "Samaritan Snare". It's only in recent Lower Decks that we get the impression the Pakleds would actually totally lack the smarts for both feats, the theft and the invention, and that their hodgepodge collection of foreign tech must have some other explanation overall...

Timo Saloniemi