Grail

Where’s Jay-Den Kraag?

If he was a competitive asshole because his parents made him into one, why did Kaira never see that side of him?

But I thought he was competing so hard with Genesis during the sportsball episode because Khionia was such a competitive society.

Kaira: Jay-Den’s toast. It was beautiful. But the man he described is someone I’ve never met. The Darem I know is quiet, always trying to appease, always one step behind me, our whole lives. […] Go. Be cocky. Walk on hulls. Live the life you were meant to live.

Jay-den: Congratulations.
Darem: Thank you. For-for what?
Jay-den: For realizing that you are essentially an asshоlе.

All that stuff about Darem becoming less of an asshole since joining Starfleet has been retconned out. Now the story is that he was quiet and selfless on Khionia, and became a confident asshole since joining Starfleet Academy.

Oh, what Kaira means is that back on Khionia, Darem was really quiet and dutiful and selfless. Starfleet is the first place he’s felt cocky enough to be an asshole.

It doesn’t make any sense.

This episode is far below the standard of quality I’ve come to expect from STA. From Chancellor Ake using an ableist slur, to the bad Darem retcons, this episode brings down the whole series.

Riker clones can only be made on that one planet with the reflective atmosphere

Hi Karim! Great job playing Jay-Den!

If you were a cadet at Starfleet Academy, which electives would you pick?

Lwaxana, you can’t ask that!

They’re in Lower Decks!

The bigger issue is the Borg queen. TNG Borg were the ultimate egalitarians. The ultimate communists. The federation’s ideals brought to an extreme.

VOY Borg are… a monarchy?

The best thing they could do in future lore is reveal that the Borg queen is a fake, invented purely to manipulate the psychology of individuals.

Good point. Picard needed a whole ass room to read his books. Chancellor Ake is ready for battle in two seconds flat.

Prodigy is great!

It was a long warp, she needed a book to keep her mind busy. I’d hate to have a boring dumb captain who just sits there all warp.

The Athena has inertial dampeners. The only reason she’d get hurt from curling up on the captain’s chair with a book is in a combat situation. And we saw her put the book down when things got serious.

I have an autistic friend who likes to go barefoot because it helps her sensory stuff. Chancellor Ake is good representation - she does a damn fine job with no shoes on!

I think the series with the worst long lasting impact is Voyager. VOY Borg are really bad compared to TNG Borg. PRO uses TNG Borg, which is great, but LDS suffers for its VOY Borg and I heard PIC stinks because it makes VOY Borg the main villains.

I didn’t like that they fridged Georgiou, who I felt was the strongest character they had thus far introduced. After that it became really really clear Burnham was the main character, which is a concept I don’t think belongs in Star Trek. The only other series that gets close to having a main character is TOS, which I dislike for the same reason. Kirk and Burnham both become boring when they’re the only point of view character for an entire episode.

Both is good

A neighbourhood watch would be way cooler. Daddy Kirk’s neighbour pulling up next to little Kirk and going “Whatcha doing with dad’s car, kiddo?” would be way more Trek but wouldn’t satisfy JJ’s craving for pointless action sequences.