daystrominstitute

I want to live!...

To be clear, I’m not looking to debate whether this is the best Trek film. Rather, I’m asking why so many people see it as such....

It has occurred to me that Vulcan must have some form of sex industry to handle those going through Pon Farr who aren’t currently married or otherwise involved. Otherwise, they’d have constant issues with violence from those suffering the “blood fever” whose spouse was far away, or had died, or for some other reason had...

In DS9 Profit and Loss, three Cardassian political fugitives arrive at the station after evading the Cardassian military. Garak alerts the Cardassian Central Command of their presence. Gul Toran passes by his shop and tells Garak that he would be allowed to return home to Cardassia if he made sure the trio did not leave the...

In SNW 1x09 All Those Who Wander, the crew reenact Aliens with a handful of baby Gorn as their adversaries. We learn that Gorn breed by infecting a host animal with eggs, which hatch and burst out of the host when mature (which can take months or hours, apparently depending on the host). The babies are immediately hostile to...

In Voyager’s transporter room, there is an alcove on the side, and embedded in the wall is what appears to be a small transporter pad. I don’t believe anyone is ever shown interacting with this, so there’s no definitive explanation for what it is. Assuming it is what it appears to be, what would be the purpose of a very...

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Strange New Worlds 2x04 Among the Lotus Eaters....

There is something undeniably weird about the new Kirk that we’re seeing in Strange New Worlds. He doesn’t yet “feel” intuitively like Kirk to me, especially in the rom-com episode. But I do think his writing and, to a lesser extent, his performance show that the writers are thinking deeply about the character and what...

The title is taken from the lotus-eaters of Homer’s Odyssey, people who lived on an island filled with “lotus trees”, whose fruit had narcotic properties. Whoever ate it would fall into a state of apathy, content just to sit and eat the plant, forgetting their past and loved ones, never to return. In modern use, the term...

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Strange New Worlds 2x03 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow....

Of course, it doesn't literally have to be the orchid -- although it's thought-provoking to consider that angle. (An orchid suddenly gets super-evolved with the ability to speak and walk -- damn straight it's gonna want to live and would happily lie to do it.) But the point to consider is the source of various claims that are...

In Star Trek Picard we see Raffi living at rock bottom for a while. She has no job after her discharge from Starfleet, and is clearly not doing as well. She describes her life as humiliation and rage....

One of the fascinating things about this "third generation" of Star Trek (starting either with Star Trek 2009 or with Discovery) is the way the Star Trek universe has started to knit itself closer together by referencing existing backstory. For example, Discovery wholeheartedly embraced the idea that Andorians and Tellarites are...

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Strange New Worlds 2x02 Ad Astra Per Aspera....

Numerically speaking, the vast majority of Ferengi we see on screen are sporting what have sometimes been called “headskirts”. Virtually every Ferengi we see on-screen — from the marauder crewmen in Next Generation to Quark’s waiters to various Ferengi businessmen seen in the background — is wearing one. Rom and Nog...

To say Discovery has been "controversial" would be something of an understatement. From the very beginning the show sparked off considerable debate about it's quality, and the bevy of showrunner changes and resulting shifts in tone and plot choices just adds an extra layer of confusion. Many of the same groups and same people...

In DS9 Quark makes a throwaway line about the Great Monetary Collapse that happened during his early lifetime. He describes it as a period caused by "rampant inflation and currency devaluation."...

When studying vertebrate paleontology, the skeleton is one of the most important, and often the only, clue we have to the appearance of long-extinct animals. In Lower Decks: "Kayshon, His Eyes Uncovered", we were treated to the ghoulish sight of of Spock's skeleton ^1, ^2, courtesy of the remains of his giant clone from TAS:...

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Strange New Worlds 2x01 The Broken Circle....

In recent years, I have been surprised to find one part of DS9 that keeps on getting better with age: the Ferengi. As vehicle of social commentary, they go where Trek never went before....

The title was first used in the context of the Progenitors in TNG: “The Chase” when Picard remarked, “[The puzzle] is 4 billion years old. A computer program from a highly advanced civilisation, and it’s hidden in the very fabric of life itself.“ In DIS: “Red Directive” the phrase was used in conjunction with...

The title refers to points of gravitational equilibrium in space between two gravitationally massive objects, named Lagrange points after Italian scientist Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813). Five Lagrange points can be defined for two bodies. Lagrange points are well known in science fiction as locations where orbital colonies...

The title refers to Labyrinths of the Mind, a book written by Dr Marina Derex, a Betazoid and one of the group that hid the Progenitor technology 800 years prior. A labyrinth is also a term for a maze, the original designed by the inventor Daedelus of Greek myth to house the Minotaur....

As stated in DIS: “Mirrors”, an erigah is a Breen blood bounty....

The USS Locherer, a Merian-class starship, was first seen in DIS: “Jinaal”. It is named after the late JP Locherer, who was a cinematographer on DIS before he passed in 2022....