Trollheart

Couldn't let Star Trek Month pass without this...

Star Trek Personality Test - which character are you?

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Oriphiel

It says i'm Spock.

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The Batlord

^^^

Seven of Nine, bitches! Now excuse me while I go touch my girly parts.

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Pet_Sounds

I'm Spock! I'm quite happy, although I was hoping for McCoy.

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Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Thelonious Monkey

I'm Spock. Is that a good thing?

Chula Vista

Data.

I think that test is BS. You answer all the questions and it just randomly spits out a character. The questions are too damn generic.

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Trollheart

Fast running out of time here, as March draws to a close, so we're probably going to have one of these every day now in order to get them all in. We're now up to number

as we return to the movies. There's something very different, and yet familiar about this theme, imbued as it is with a sort of fantasy/fairytale motif, which is fitting considering the movie concerns the resurrection of one of Star Trek's most popular characters in a mystical, non-scientific way. As I mentioned in the review of the movie, it's odd that of all people the Vulcans believe this, being so logical and dedicated to clear thinking and cold hard facts, with little or no room for sentiment. You would think they would be the last race to believe in a soul, but there you go. At any rate, the theme for the movie, while retaining some elements from the previous one, builds its own identity and certainly pulls at the heartstrings, for me anyway. It's not as punchy as many of the others, but you can clearly identify it as a Star Trek theme, unlike that of the fourth movie, which just sounded like it could have been for any film.

James Horner returned to score his second Star Trek movie, and in my opinion did an amazing job with it. I would put his work above and beyond Goldsmith's, although I can't elevate him about Courage's; after all, that was the original theme. But as a continuation of the elements explored in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and a movie score in its own right, this one is well up there with the best of them.

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Changelings/The Dominion

Class: Shapeshifters, manipulative
Home planet: The Changeling Planet
Values: Strength, power, control
Changelings of note: The Female Changeling, Odo
Feature in: DS9

Originally hunted and feared by their enemies, the Changelings (also known as Shapeshifters) found a way to defeat their oppressors and thereafter became the oppressors, enslaving alien race after alien race and pulling them under the umbrella of their rule, The Dominion. The Dominion is made up of three races, these being the Changelings in control, the Vorta who are their enforcers and the Jem’Hadar, who are their soldiers. Changeling can take any shape they wish, from that of a human to a rock, and from an eagle to a floor, by morphing their fluid bodies into those shapes. At first, the shapeshifter Odo on Deep Space 9 is believed to be the only one of his kind, but later, to humanity and the rest of the galaxy’s misfortune, he comes to the notice of the Dominion, as does the Alpha Quadrant via the wormhole, and a great war explodes across the galaxy.

Changelings do not trust any not of their own kind, whom they call “solids”, and can’t understand why Odo works with them. They try to recruit him to their cause but ultimately fail. The Changelings use their power for shapeshifting to take the forms of many important figures in the enemy’s camp, leading to much confusion and great victories for the Dominion. They are offered the chance of peaceful co-existence with the solids but turn it down, distrusting those who are not of their kind. In truth, this distrust is mutual: after all, how can you ever trust someone who could take on the shape of someone you knew, perhaps even yourself, and carry out deeds unbeknownst to you? Like the telepaths in Babylon 5, nobody would ever really feel comfortable about their presence, and unease leads to prejudice and hatred. The Changelings know this, and are getting their retaliation in first, having already experienced the ugly side of this balance. Oddly, or perhaps not, since they exist almost in the same hive mind state that the Borg do, other than Odo there is only really ever one Changeling featured right through the war, and she is simply known as The Female Changeling.

The Changelings have absolutely no regard, pity or respect for the solids, and are capable of quite horrendous cruelty; they see all means as an end towards their own protection and retention of power. They rule with an iron fist, feared because of their shock troops, the Jem’Hadar, who make Klingons look like pussy cats. They do not consider the fact that the Jem’Hadar fight for them not because they are loyal or believe in their cause, but because they are addicted to a drug manufactured by the Changelings, and which can only be administered by the Vorta. Without regular injections of this drug, the soldiers would die. Again, the Changelings see this as a means to an end, not cruel or barbaric. They fear that solids will invade through the wormhole at Deep Space 9, and in order to stave off such an incursion they declare war on the Alpha Quadrant, a war that will pull in Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans and of course humans and lay waste to half the quadrant before it finally comes to an end.

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Title: Yesterday's Enterprise
Series: TNG
Season: Three
Writer(s): Ira Steven Behr, Hans Beimler, Richard Manning, Ronald D. Moore, Trent Christopher Ganino and Eric A. Stilwell
Main character(s): Picard, Guinan, Yar
Plot: The Enterprise is sucked into a time vortex which changes the timelines; in this future, humanity is at war with the Klingons and the Enterprise is a battleship. The episode features the return of Denise Crosby as Tasha Yar, and rather too much of Guinan.

Without question one of the top three episodes of TNG, the ideas explored here --- what would happen if there had been no peace treaty between the human race and the Klingons --- are expertly woven into the story, which allows a return for Yar as she has not, in this reality, been killed by Armus. Guinan tells her though that she does not belong in this time. Yar realises there is something she is supposed to do, and eventually decides to go back with the alternate Enterprise (NCC-1701C) in order to sacrifice herself that the treaty happens as it was supposed to, and her life can have meaning. The episode is top-heavy with Guinan, one of my least favourite characters, but she's used well, as the only one who has the sense that what is happening is not what is supposed to be.

Rating:

Title: Let that be your last battlefield
Series: TOS
Season: Three
Writer(s): Lee Cronin (Gene L. Coon), Oliver Crawford
Main character(s): Kirk, Spock
Plot: The Enterprise picks up two aliens, the only members of a warring race who have achieved mutually assured destruction. One is a law enforcement officer (he says) the other a criminal (he says) and Kirk is torn as he tries to show the two that being the only two of their race left alive they should settle their differences, but the prejudice and hatred of so many thousands of years is too ingrained, and they go on fighting to the bitter end.

If ever a clearer and more clever representation of, quite literally, the ugly face of racism and bigotry was shown on TV, I haven't seen it. The two aliens have faces and bodies that are partially black and partially white, and when Kirk, unable to sort out the difference between them says incredulously “But you're both half black and half white” the policeman says “I am black on the right side! He is black on the left!” So simple, a message some have called heavy-handed but in the racially sensitive times of the late sixties, very telling I believe. The episode also carries another “heavy-handed message”, that if we allow our differences, or our perception of them, to colour (sorry) how we treat each other we risk total annihilation.

Rating:

Title: The Raven
Series: VOY
Season: Four
Writer(s): Bryan Fuller and Harry “Doc” Kloor
Main character(s): Seven of Nine, The Doctor
Plot: Seven begins to have troubling dreams where she dreams of a black bird (a raven) and soon realises that she is beginning to recover her lost human memories as the Borg implants, which have been removed from her body, no longer block them. She inexplicably steals a shuttle and heads for a deserted moon...

As ever, a decent Voyager episode centres on either Seven or the Doctor, in this case mostly the former. As Seven's memories come back she acts like someone under a compulsion, and eventually finds the crashed ship (The Raven) her parents and herself were assimilated from. It's pretty touching as we learn her real name, and see for the first time her giving in to human emotions, emotions she had thought gone forever.

Rating:

Title: Defiant
Series: DS9
Season: Three
Writer(s): Ronald D. Moore
Main character(s): Sisko, Riker (Thomas), Kira
Plot: Thomas Riker, the duplicate of Commander Will Riker created in TNG's “The Pegasus” comes to DS9 to steal the Defiant and use it against the Cardassians. Sisko is placed in a painful and awkward position, as he must now team up with Gul Dukat to hunt down the rogue ship, and hope to try to save not only Defiant but also its rebel captain.

Another example of the “grey areas” DS9 explored. Starfleet hates the Cardassians but at this point there is an uneasy truce, and Sisko knows that Riker's actions could spark a new war between the races. He is also, as a Starfleet officer, duty-bound to hunt down and bring to justice any of the Maquis. In addition, he does not want to let his new pride and joy be destroyed. The episode also hints darkly at the hitherto not quite understood power of the Obsidian Order, and is a nice tie-in with TNG, one of the few since the pilot.

Rating:

Title: The trouble with Tribbles
Series: TOS
Season: Two
Writer(s): David Gerrold
Main character(s): Kirk
Plot: An army of grain-eating, self-reproducing furry little creatures takes over the Enterprise. But they don't like Klingons!

Ah, what can I say about this episode? The plot is wafer-thin and it was obviously written to appeal both more to younger children and to women, with the purring trilling tribbles “so cute!” and it's as close as TOS ever came to an all-out comedy storyline. Shatner finds it hard to keep a straight face, and even cold, logical Spock is won over by the furry little things. You can't call it one of the greatest ever written episodes or anything, but damn are those tribbles cute. A real instance where the show just let itself go and said, fuck it, let's have some fun! The only thing that could have made this episode better was if they had had Harry Mudd in it.

Rating:

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Q, played by John de Lancie

Originally presented as an all-powerful, omnipotent and malevolent first enemy for the new crew of NCC-1701D to tangle with, Q is from a race called, well, the Q, who live in, um, the Q Continuum. To make it even more confusing, every member of the race is called Q! In the initial episodes of the first seasons Q appeared three times, each time seeming more dangerous and psychotic than before, and during their third run-in with him (season two's “Q Who”) he introduced them rather abruptly to the Borg, a meeting that should not really have taken place, if at all, for decades or centuries, as the Borg generally inhabited the Delta Quadrant, a fact Captain Janeway would later discover to her cost. Even so, it has been said that the Borg were aware of Earth, having attacked outposts along the Neutral Zone, as hinted at in the episode of the same name. Nevertheless, Q either intentionally sped up the process of encounter or perhaps used it as a way to forewarn Picard and his crew as to the existence of the Borg.

However, when we next meet him in season three's “Deja Q” he has lost his powers and is mortal. This episode tilts the balance away from the serious, godly aspect of Q and towards making him into something more of a buffoon, which is how he would generally be seen from this on. Although he regains his powers at the end of the episode, we never quite feel the same way about Q as we did before: he has been humanised, and made something of an element of comic relief, rather like the original idea for the Ferengi changes, and in doing so the writers make a very memorable character, allowing De Lancie free rein to camp things up and constantly prod and annoy the ever-serious Picard. It becomes a “Mister Burns” syndrome: you can generally guarantee that any episode with Q in it will be a good one.

Q has become fascinated with humanity, and if the truth be known, I would think a little jealous of them. Bored in his omnipotence and somewhat restricted by the rules of the Q Continuum as to what he can do, Q “tags along” with the Enterprise crew, sometimes butting on on important missions (“True Q”), or even trying to help Picard with his love life, as he does in “Qpid”, setting up a scenario from Robin Hood, to not very much hilarity really. In “Tapestry”, he poses as God (we assume) and tells Picard he has died on the operating table. He then gives him the chance to live his life over, in an homage to It's a wonderful life, allowing the captain to choose a less dangerous existence. He seems to delight in teaching Picard lessons, though often it turns out that he is the one who learns something. He fares less well with Captain Sisko though, and as a result is only used in DS9 once; a poor episode to be fair.

Next he latches on to Janeway (“Cath-y!”) in an increasingly silly series of episodes spread throughout the latter seasons of Voyager, firstly trying to convince her to have his child, then later leaving that child on board the ship to “learn about humanity”. By the end, Q has been reduced to a figure of ridicule and fun, though far more popular than perhaps he could have been. TNG does however bring him back in its finale, in the role of omnipotent villain as he tries to prevent life from ever evolving on Earth. Nice to see him keeping his hand in then!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018