Review of Star Trek Starfleet Academy Episodes "Kids These Days" and "Beta Test"

Ring the bell, because school is in session for Starfleet Academy. Join Josh Gilliland and Jordon Huppert for their analysis of the first two episodes of the new Star Trek series. Did Nus Braka and Anisha Mir  have a fair "trial”? Where was defense counsel? Was that just a sentencing? Join Josh and Jordon for their analysis of Starfleet Academy. 

Chapters

• 0:00 First Impressions Of Starfleet Academy
• 4:45 Instant “Trial” And Due Process Gaps
• 12:30 Felony Murder, Conspiracy, And Scarcity
• 19:15 Post-Burn Justice And Moral Injury
• 26:30 Child Welfare And Parental Rights
• 31:30 Prison Transport Abuse And Escape
• 38:30 Cruel Punishment And Alien Justice
• 43:00 Conscription, Rehabilitation, And Starfleet’s Role
• 50:30 Training Culture, Discipline, And Team Building
• 58:00 Bullying The Klingon And Group Dynamics
• 1:04:00 Piracy At Sea Of Stars

Transcript

Joshua Gilliland: 0:02

Hello everyone. My name is Josh Gilliland, one of the co-founding attorneys of the Legal Geeks. With me is Jordon Huppert, and we are going back to school. That's right. We're talking Starfleet Academy. Jordan, how are you doing? I'm doing all right, Josh. How are you? You know what? I'm grateful to have more Star Trek.

Jordon Huppert: 0:19

There you go.

Joshua Gilliland: 0:21

What uh before we get into the legal analysis, which is why people listen to us, what did you think of Starfleet Academy?

Jordon Huppert: 0:28

I liked it. Um I I have decided since Prodigy that I'm gonna give any Star Trek show at least half a season before making um decisions on it. Because Prodigy really grew on me and by the end of season two, had me begging for season three. Um but I like this one. I think I will say I'm reasonably convinced that me being a middle-aged person, I am not the target audience for the show. That said, it really is ticking some boxes from things I would have loved when I was in high school that I could still find real appealing. And I love all of the little subtle references to uh to previous track that they're doing.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:23

Uh I liked it. And out of new track, this for me is from an opening. I think one of the stronger openings. It's like I didn't like the opening of Discovery. I had lots of problems with Discovery. I thought it was not well lit, and the bridge was dark and gloomy. This is a well-lit bridge. I like the characters, and yeah, I'm older than you and definitely in the middle-age category, and I found this enjoyable. I was thinking back to all the times that Kirk fell in love, whether it was sitting on the edge of forever, um trying to explain to a greenhaired woman what a kiss is. All of that, all of the Kirk wooing women love story is fine compared to what we just saw. What we just saw seems normal, and I think it's in the traditions of Trek that we see in beta test with the little teen romance that takes place. I think it follows motifs that we've seen in Trek before, whether it's Worf and Jazia falling in love, or well, it's a long list of dating episodes. You know, if Picard could make archaeology hot, this is fine. Which he could. I mean, yeah, good for him. Uh take the girl to go see the whale. Nice, well done, totally fine. And so I was afraid this would be, you know, Starfleet 902.10.1, and it's not. And so uh, because I was around in the 90s when we were having those kind of teen shows, and I found them annoying then. And now, as a middle-aged man, it's like, hey, that's fine, that's life, that's the point. And if if young people are liking this, I think it's checking enough at the Star Trek boxes that you have legacy characters, you have Holly Hunter, who I think is in her late 60s as the lead, and she's fabulous. So bring it on. I'm all for this, and I've read that the episodes only get stronger. Um, I've heard that there's one more that's more like teen that's not for people like us, and that's fine. I'm a Gen Xer, there's been lots of content specifically designed for my tastes my entire life. It's okay to share the wheel with the next generation. So uh, but but this follows the tradition that every Trek series has a trial, and this sets the speed record for having a legal proceeding in it, because it's the second act after mom and son. And there's immediately things for us to start, uh, talk about because it's a post-burn flashback, and you know, it's it's Ness Braca, and I I don't know if it's pronounced Aisha or Anisha Mir, yeah, uh Caleb's mom. Was this a trial? Was this a sentencing? Was this just a military tribunal with a captain presiding over it? There are no defense attorneys, there's no real arguments, it's a sentencing.

Jordon Huppert: 5:02

There's no real prosecutor either.

Joshua Gilliland: 5:03

No, and so like there's no defense counsel. I mean, all of this seems like a giant train wreck because under the Bill of Rights, you have the right to a trial, you know, you have the if you're gonna get convicted of something, you have the right to counsel. None of that is happening here, and you've you've defended people. Like, what were you what was your reaction to this?

Jordon Huppert: 5:31

Um I mean it was pretty it was pretty shocking to have this be the first second scene in the the show. Um because I mean you mention hearkening back to to older Trek, and each Trek has its trial episode, and in all of them we see like Star Trek has its due process. You know, take a measure of a man, which I think we're gonna talk about at some point soon. You've got a whole trial to decide whether or not data gets to be shipped out to some lab and disassembled. And this is one captain, Captain Ake, popping in saying, Hey, by the way, all this stuff happened, and we don't need any, you know, no witnesses, no proof, no, you know, no formal process at all. And you know, I've cut you a deal for this. Cut a deal with who? Like there's nobody there. And is she the judge? Is she the prosecutor? Is she just sole arbiter?

Joshua Gilliland: 6:47

Yeah, is this supposed to be like a captain's mast? Like, but these aren't military officers, these are civilians. So there's all kinds of funky due process arguments taking place.

Jordon Huppert: 7:00

And I get that the way the way trials would work in in the US in real life is there's a whole long, lengthy process to be had. You start off with uh, you know, someone's arrested, and then the prosecutor decides whether or not to charge them and with what, then they are formally presented with the charges that the prosecutor has to prove. They get an attorney, the attorney gets to you know do things like have discovery where the state has to give them all of their evidence and tell them all the facts the state knows, they get a chance to do their own investigation. You can plea bargain with the state where your attorney and the DA, you know, go back and forth, and they can say, you know, this is the deal, the DA can say, This is the deal I'll offer the the defendant, and the defense attorney has some power to bargain in that. Uh of course, ultimately, unlike uh Anisha's here, i it is ultimately the uh the person charged has the decision of whether or not to take a uh take a plea deal. And the defense attorney's job is to present them with the facts and to give them advice, but if the client, the defendant says, no thanks, then it's the defense attorney's job to go in and defend them, and I've done that. It's alternatively real fun and not real fun, depending on the situation. But uh none of that happens here. I mean, even putting aside the fact that we probably don't have time in the first second scene to do a whole trial montage, like some nod to the Federation still having due process would be nice.

Joshua Gilliland: 8:58

So this is supposed to be post-burn, and the charges center around a conspiracy between you know uh Mir and the pirate to steal food from a Federation shuttle, and in the course of that, a Starfleet officer is killed while they're stealing food, and that's what brings in the felony murder rule. That I mean, like you could do it. There's a conspiracy side because they clearly had an agreement to go out and rob the shuttle. Then with the conspiracy, is it a natural probable consequence of this conspiracy that someone's going to die? And maybe not if you're just stealing food. Like that doesn't necessarily mean that I mean, yeah, I mean, you it still can't, yeah. But let's just say lower likelihood for the sake of argument. Felony murder rule is more like there, there's no spectrum there. Like, if you're engaged in the felony and somebody dies in the commission of that felony, you're toast.

Jordon Huppert: 10:05

And no, they've used the felony murder rule to convict you when an otherwise co-defendant has died. So that's pretty broad. Um the conspiracy rule, they'd want to look at things like the planning stages of it. Did Nusbraka and Mir's mom plan to bring weapons? You know, if you plan to bring weapons, then yeah, somebody dying is much more likely to be a uh foreseeable consequence than if you specifically plan not to bring weapons. Did you plan, you know, to go on somebody's off shift when there wasn't weren't going to be people around? Or you know, did you understand that there was a risk that people were gonna be around? So, you know, again, in that whole process phase leading up to what we see, there would have been all of that kind of investigation about how do you prove a conspiracy and how do you prove the murder problem?

Joshua Gilliland: 11:08

We skip that. Yeah, yeah. And so which is why this scene is so weird and problematic, because it's it's not just sentencing, like it's passing judgment, and it seems to have skipped the trial. And part of this harkens back to, I think, some of the problems Roddenberry created for Trek, because apparently he thought he he had a more totalitarian view of justice in a perfect society, that people would just be taken and like either drugged and conditioned to not be bad anymore. And it was just like that's problematic on a whole bunch of other levels, or the number of times that truth serum is tossed around in the original series, Mantrap being one and Drewita Ba Babel being the other. That I remember there could have been there could be others, but so again, there's kind of this heavy-handed sense of justice, but it raises the issue how bad was it after the burn? I mean, people are this is supposed to be a post-scarcity society, and if food is scarce, you're no longer in that golden age of a post-scarcity society. So money comes back, and all of those things that that you got away from uh those problems pre-Earth World War III are now back. But that really doesn't excuse the lack of a trial. Like this is a big space station on this planet, or base, let's just say base.

Jordon Huppert: 12:49

Yeah.

Joshua Gilliland: 12:51

There there has to be more than five people there. And you you couldn't have any other Starfleet officers play JAG.

Jordon Huppert: 13:02

I mean, we established in TNG that the JAG officer on duty can just point to other officers and say, You're the prosecutor, you're the defense attorney, go nuts.

Joshua Gilliland: 13:14

Yeah. And each defendant should have had their own counsel.

Jordon Huppert: 13:18

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are rules that say you can represent multiple defendants um as one lawyer. You need some very specific permission in writing from both defendants, and they can't be at odds. And at least in my experience, it is always a bad idea. Um they're very much at odds, so that wouldn't have worked out anyway.

Joshua Gilliland: 13:45

This isn't my cousin Vinny, like the the with two innocent guys being you know accused of a crime. This is a mom who got wrapped up with a pirate trying to feed her kid, and somebody died in that process. Yeah, and the mom may very well have been the uh um the state's evidence, like and if that's the case, she the the a deal should have been cut. And so is the captain just reporting up to some admiral someplace else, and they're doing this over, you know, comms because they can't travel, uh, due to lack of you know, faster-than-light travel being unavailable or limited availability.

Jordon Huppert: 14:32

Um but again one thing one thing I will say about this, though, is that it does set up Ake's character really well in that it does a lot of justice to the concept of moral injury. And we we talk about that in public defense a lot, is like the idea that you are a part of a system that is doing injury to someone else, and you may not be the one doing that harm, but being part of that system still leads to a harm in you. It's a I could talk for a while about it, I won't. It's a fascinating concept if anybody wants to look it up.

Joshua Gilliland: 15:13

Then it also makes me think back to law school when they warned us that a lot of people who become DAs and do it for too long can become embittered and just see uh very jaded, very negative. Um, and public defenders have a slightly different kind of nihilistic view. Um, that's fair. And and it's like that doesn't sound healthy uh in either category, which is why I didn't go that path. Respect those who have, uh, because making sure people have defense counsel or being prosecuted by the government is a fundamental right, and we should never abandon that. It was a long march to get there. I am not one of those lawyers that would want to do that for a career. That's why I like civil litigation. That said, their rights get stampeded on in that opening scene, and it's it's brutal. I don't know. I have mixed feelings on this. Doing one trial makes sense, and I know there's there's precedent for co-conspirators being on trial at the same time. There's also the opportunity to separate them and have different trials. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Jordon Huppert: 16:35

Um they should, I mean, assuming that um Anisha was cooperating with with the state, they should uh have done separate trials, would be my I mean, my take on it. I agree with you, there's precedent to do it as a joint trial, and maybe in your immediate post-burn when resources are really scarce the resource argument outweighs the uh fundamental fairness argument as it does sometimes even today. Um and you end up with one trial, but uh if there were an appeals court, I'd suspect it would be a decision for appeals.

Joshua Gilliland: 17:24

Yeah, and this isn't a planet that's the best case scenario. Like they're not on they're on something that looks more like City Alpha 5 with like sandstorms coming in and it being ugly, as opposed to say someplace that looks nice like Bejor. Like there, and so that goes to the scarcity issue that they have, and maybe enough personnel. Now, I don't know what that plant was supposed to be doing on that hostile planet, but you have civilians there again. Part of it is for the sake of having drama, and the other part is people live in rough towns all the time, you know, and they have hard jobs like that happens. And if you have a cataclysmic event where travel is now limited, and so and I was thinking about what would be comparable if we lost air travel and automobiles and were just like trains and ships, so it's like 19th century, things are gonna take more time.

Jordon Huppert: 18:34

Um it's it's not a perfect analogy, but you could look at the system um in New Orleans immediately post-Katrina.

Joshua Gilliland: 18:43

Yeah.

Jordon Huppert: 18:43

Uh you know, the city got basically destroyed. Um I've had friends who have who worked down there um just after, and you know, they've told me stories about like what happens at courthouses that had paper files. Uh those files are gone. And how do you put back together the court process, even just from a like a not a justice standpoint, just from a practical standpoint of how do you like physically replace a record that was washed away, and if if you can't, should you still be holding people in jail? And they were.

Joshua Gilliland: 19:37

Um so I mean we have we have some real world examples of what happens post tragedy, um nothing quite burn level, but yeah, and burn it's it's different than where it differs from like Kantrina or the 1906 earthquake where the city itself Is damaged uh horrifically, or the Alaska earthquake. You know, again, those are examples of um typhoons. There's a long list of natural disasters. This is different because everything with a warp core blew up.

Jordon Huppert: 20:17

Yeah.

Joshua Gilliland: 20:18

Active warp core. So that limits travel ability. And so you could, I think the travel analogy is the bigger one of you get thrown back to an age where it's sub-light travel, and the number of ships that still have dilithium, and you can get dilithium so you can have those that ability to travel is limited, which would be like not having uh petroleum for either gas or diesel, um, so you can actually get from point A to point B, which is why, again, like no more airplanes, uh, like we'd have to rebuild every plane and or truck. I mean, we we move so much produce um and and our supply lines with trucking. And if we lose trucking and then rails part of that, so rails.

Jordon Huppert: 21:14

Yeah.

Joshua Gilliland: 21:14

So if the only thing we have is horse-driven carriage and train, or you know, river boat, and to get something to a train that gets to another place that where it can get distributed, society takes a giant hit.

Jordon Huppert: 21:31

Yep.

Joshua Gilliland: 21:34

I mean, like, I did some work. The software company I was at post-Katrina actually helped do a legal like rebuilding event. And so I went uh to New Orleans about a year after. So it's oh wow, it was May 2007, is when I went. Um, no, where's it 2006? It was, I think it was May 2006. And so I toured the Lower Ninth Ward in the St. Bernard precinct and like saw the houses that were picked up and down the street, and talking with lawyers, like meah, big law firms died, and you had people spin out as solos. Um, I remember being at one legal um ABA tech show in Chicago and have being at our e-discovery booth, and a lawyer definitely with a southern draw asking questions about so if I suddenly had to had to leave my office and everything and and go like 300 miles away, would I still be able to access everything? It's like, yes, sir, you would. Uh uh, yeah. Hypothetically, and that's how we did it was like cartoon southern draw, and and he had a really sharp sense of humor in talking about the nightmare that he had gone through. Uh yeah, just horrific, horrific. So they the the idea that you have to get fast and loose with justice because your entire social structure took a giant hit is portrayed in like the first two minutes of this show.

Jordon Huppert: 23:21

Yeah. And not to you know, not to belabor the point, but we've talked a lot about Anisha and um uh new spraca's rights, but they also just like trample Caleb's rights.

Joshua Gilliland: 23:40

I mean it's so messed up. Like there's no social services, no child like there's no social worker there for the kid.

Jordon Huppert: 23:48

Yeah. Well and there's no process to take the kid from his mom. I mean, we have a a dependent a whole system of uh law called uh called dependency that um protects children from just being taken from their parents by the state. And there's some actually there's quite a lot of process to that.

Joshua Gilliland: 24:16

Where's his dad? I mean, and again, maybe he's deceased, like there's but like if dad's still kicking, dad has parental rights too.

Jordon Huppert: 24:28

Or any other, I mean, any other live family gets preference if they're suitable, so grandparents, aunts, uncles.

Joshua Gilliland: 24:38

Yeah, and is there an ill inability to travel because of the burn? And thus reuniting the kid with a family member is impractical. Yeah, it's like, yeah, it'd take 50 years to get to Gramps now, so that's not gonna work. Um we can't just put the kid in you know suspended animation until mom comes out because that won't be problematic. Um, yeah, but did it really? I mean, no.

Jordon Huppert: 25:09

No, it did not. No, um they all still die, so like that's still but we I mean, they just skip right over that and like haha, you're going to boarding school.

Joshua Gilliland: 25:20

Yeah, it just messed up.

Jordon Huppert: 25:21

Don't worry, it has grass, it's a nice place.

Joshua Gilliland: 25:24

Well then the kid escapes while Starfleet has custody of him. So, what's the liability for that? How do you explain to mom who's incarcerated, oops, we lost your kid? Because he outsmarted the captain, who's at that point like 407?

Jordon Huppert: 25:48

Like, so here's an interesting question that I I wonder if the show will answer. Did they tell her? I don't know, I would hope so. I mean, I would hope so too, but oh god, I think that's you also just like straight railroaded her to a prison colony. So respect for her as a person is probably not super high.

Joshua Gilliland: 26:15

No, and has crime exploded to such a degree that they're just inundated and can't keep up, and people who normally would not be trying to steal food are are getting you know thrown in the clink. Like this is this is bad. Um god, it's just so again, it's not what we saw in the original series, uh next gen, deep space nine, voyager, like there's yeah, like it's skipping all of that.

Jordon Huppert: 26:54

Uh that that was even Tuvics got more deliberation than uh Lemirs did.

Joshua Gilliland: 27:01

Yeah, it's messed up. So that that's like the first four minutes.

Jordon Huppert: 27:05

Um moving on then.

Joshua Gilliland: 27:08

Moving on. So Caleb, for some reason, like life not going well for 16 years, because when you take a kid away, he's he's in a prison transport, and there's all kinds of problems here. So let's try to spitball these of the guards decide to beat him.

Jordon Huppert: 27:28

Shockingly.

Joshua Gilliland: 27:29

Yeah.

Jordon Huppert: 27:29

So I was gonna say shockingly, statistically, the uh one of the number one um factors that makes it more likely that someone will commit criminal offenses is whether or not they have a parent incarcerated. So, you know, at least they're statistically accurate.

Joshua Gilliland: 27:48

Again, it's the kid he escaped into a sandstorm, living in dumpsters, like that was not a good childhood.

Jordon Huppert: 27:56

Yeah, I'm sorry, I should probably have pointed out earlier that uh the the one way of coping with the moral injury of of working in in public defense for a real long time is you develop a pretty candy sense of dark humor. So, you know.

Joshua Gilliland: 28:10

A lot of lawyers do. Um but yeah, it's like it's bad. So the there are a bunch of civil rights violations that take place here. So the you have the guards beating them up, but because they tried beating them up, that turns into a prison break scenario, which is again not good because escaping from prison, like there's very few times when you can do that and get away with it, and you still have to turn yourself over to somebody if there's like massive civil rights violations taking place.

Jordon Huppert: 28:40

Yeah, uh prison escapes don't usually go well. No, that one time in Alcatraz, maybe.

Joshua Gilliland: 28:46

Yeah, it's like that might be the only well that I yeah, I I have an ancestor with with a prison break story that uh Texas sentenced to hard labor, was incarcerated for killing a man over a watermelon, and um yeah. Okay, and the his wife petitioned the governor for a pardon on the basis of self uh self-defense. Governor pardoned great great-grandpa uh-huh, didn't send the letter. Sitting senator dies. Governor appoints himself as the replacement senator, so the I guess lieutenant governor becomes governor and then delivers the letter, that's an unconditional pardon, to the prison where great-great-grandpa is doing hard labor the day after great-great-grandpa escaped and spent a dec timing is everything spent a decade on the run going slowly insane. So he uh yeah, he uh ended up in California and then was uh in a mental institution. Yeah, uh it's just all bad and a weird like went to the Texas Supreme Court when he got captured eventually. So uh uh no, the didn't go the he didn't go to the Supreme Court, his wife did in getting the marriage like annulled for abandonment because he disappeared, yeah, and she remained so wild, but again, timing's everything, and yeah, and prison breaks don't necessarily end well because if he had not done that, right, you know, he would have gotten a full party, yeah. So, oh anyway, so we have uh hijacking that takes place with him commandeering the prison craft, and he's captured again. But these eight uh species, their system of judgment is to cut off each finger one at a time, then what's left of the stumps of the hands, and then make them go dig with what's left. That would be the definition of cruel and unusual, like that's it's it's not part of an evolving society that's done to mutilate, to be cruel. I mean, that's the textbook definition of cruel and unusual.

Jordon Huppert: 31:36

Yep.

Joshua Gilliland: 31:37

Sadistic.

Jordon Huppert: 31:39

Yeah.

Joshua Gilliland: 31:40

All right. We get um oh, you raised the issue of compulsory military service after, you know, oh yeah, our new space mom finds the way Ward Children's Yeah.

Jordon Huppert: 31:53

I thought that was interesting. I mean, I have I've never done extensive research on it, but I know that we don't do compulsive military service. Um and I know that because I had a judge tell a client of mine that he wished he could do that. Um but we don't. So there's always I don't know. It was uh one of those things that triggers memory um from that sentencing. I did a a quick search on it and found a uh an Oxford academic article about the effect of mandatory conscription um on folks who had committed crimes. Apparently it doesn't go well.

Joshua Gilliland: 32:38

No, I I can't imagine that. I mean, yeah, it'd be one there are countries that have mandatory military service because they're surrounded by people that want to kill them. Like I I I get that. Um we don't we have a voluntary military now, which is good. We still have selective service that you have to register for the draft because in the event of a war, we need people to fight. Again, makes sense, yeah. But this is, I mean, it's different, but and the guy has a long rap sheet and has made a series of bad decisions after becoming an adult. It'd be one thing if the rap sheet was all adolescent action, but that's not we have adolescent crimes that probably could be charged as an adult and some with some of them. We don't have the full rap sheet, but I'm just gonna guess some of them probably could be charged as an adult, and then we have the ones after after being an adult, yeah.

Jordon Huppert: 33:40

Um but even so, it is not the uh the ideal demeanor you would be looking for in a a military or even quasi-military like Starfleet.

Joshua Gilliland: 33:53

No, he he doesn't want to be there, but I mean this is part of where we get to like core track values that Ake is like recognizes he's been treated bad his entire life. Yeah, and if you've treated, you know, this is like my fair lady, the you know, pygmalian that if you've treated someone horrible and you expect them to act accordingly, well, it's self-fulfilling. The idea of like, well, let's show him kindness instead and actually help him find his mom and actually give him a chance to excel, that's pure track.

Jordon Huppert: 34:28

Oh, yeah. I'm on board with it. I think it is you know, I think, and I I have made this argument in court, but if you as a society help break a person, so like you know, you cause like you did this, okay, as a you know, as a representative of justice in your society, you kicked that first domino down, the rest of them fell predictably. You as a society owe some measure of responsibility toward trying to fix this, which you know I am down for not just throwing people away in prisons. Um the idea that somehow serving in a a military outfit is gonna fix that is more questionable to me, but I am also down that Starfleet is not military.

Joshua Gilliland: 35:32

Yeah, I was that was gonna be my point that it's exploration, it's science. I mean, yeah, there's a part of national defense that comes with it for with a security package.

Jordon Huppert: 35:42

Oh the war college, yeah.

Joshua Gilliland: 35:45

Then let's save that, but yeah, there are questions uh about that. But Starfleet's always had they're armed. Yeah, sometimes you have to fight the bad guys that want to eat you, like totally fine.

Jordon Huppert: 36:00

So yeah, I mean, dating back to Enterprise, they had the makos.

Joshua Gilliland: 36:04

Yeah, but but that's also I mean, pre-federation, so like they were still figuring it out, and it hadn't been an integrated military yet. Um, but so we get to start fleet, uh, you know, we get to the ship, and there's advantages and disadvantages to having the ship be the campus.

Jordon Huppert: 36:25

Um it is cool looking, it is cool looking.

Joshua Gilliland: 36:29

So Coast Guard and Navy do deploy like those cadets to ships. So in the Coast Guard, they have their Bark Eagle crews. So like all the cadets, you know, each summer go out on the Eagle and sail around, and it's team building and all of that military service. Navy also it's they don't have a ship like the Eagle, but you know, summers they go tour with a ship, um, whether it's a destroyer or a carrier or whatever. So, like all of that that's not unreasonable. I mean, it's the plot to Wrath of Khan. Um, that cadets go out on a ship. It's like so it's their cadet crews for training. Like, we do that. Putting all your eggs into one basket is I think the high risk scenario. That wait, all of them are there. So so maybe reconsider that part.

Jordon Huppert: 37:27

But in their defense, they also don't have a lot of eggs or a lot of baskets.

Joshua Gilliland: 37:31

True, true, but um still putting all the fleet in one place is dangerous. So uh that said, uh when we get there, okay. So he gets he gets yelled at by the first officer and told to do 200 push-ups. And we have our Klingon aspiring doctor that uh is told to put his you know gear on Caleb's back. And I mainly thought, is that an illegal order? And because it's not a nice thing to do, and I don't think it's it wasn't like kick him while he's down, it wasn't like like abuse that would definitely have been in a legal order, uh, but I do think it's problematic, uh, because it's making his life harder, and there is uh you know unwanted touching with by putting a backpack on on his back while he's doing push-ups, yeah.

Jordon Huppert: 38:34

It does make the push-ups harder, and I suppose in that it could be seen as a discipline thing.

Joshua Gilliland: 38:42

Um but it goes to corporal punishment, and like I'm not opposed to you know push-ups. And like I I was at the naval academy for an event and sawing saw some poor young person carrying a weight and running and looking absolutely miserable, like that kid's gonna throw up very soon, and like I understand I understand the training aspect of it, but I don't like it, so same.

Jordon Huppert: 39:14

It's like although I don't know, sorry, I understand the training aspect of it, but I've never been there, so yeah.

Joshua Gilliland: 39:19

Neither have I. Uh many friends who have served, but it's like the the closest thing that I can identify with is law professors being abnormally cruel because somebody was cruel to them, and in practice, you will and encounter a jerk at some point, so therefore you should be used to dealing with jerks. I find that all a self fulfilling prophecy. That yeah, uh maybe you should try being excellent to each other and see how that works out instead, as opposed to we'll just I'll be mean uh because somebody might be mean to me. Um, I think there are other ways to prepare. People for jerks in confrontation.

Jordon Huppert: 40:03

Or I'll make someone cry and run away. Someone once gave a speech about the first link in a chain being forged.

Joshua Gilliland: 40:15

Yeah, I'll just well.

Jordon Huppert: 40:20

I don't think I don't think there's anything particularly legally wrong with having um the Klingon guy drop the backpack on Mir. Um but I wouldn't do it.

Joshua Gilliland: 40:35

It's also not really like in keeping with the spirit of team building that Starfleet seems to unless the goal is for the XO is supposed to be the jerk, and everyone identifies her as the jerk, therefore they're all unified in thinking that she's the jerk, so everyone's unified as one team. There are other ways to do team building that doesn't involve.

Jordon Huppert: 40:58

I guess that's what Tuvok did in uh the lower decks episode Voyager 2. Yeah. But still again, it didn't make anybody happier.

Joshua Gilliland: 41:15

So everyone's gonna be traumatized? That's the plan.

Jordon Huppert: 41:19

Shared trauma, trauma bonding.

Joshua Gilliland: 41:21

No, I mean like a common adversary can be good for team building because people get fucked, people put aside differences very quickly, which is what we see later in this of uh a hole one to a hole two. Like they've learned to work together despite not liking each other. And I think by the end of the series they'll probably be really good friends, but that's like there are other ways to do this without creating this. So uh we have an issue of bullying by you know taking the Klingons binoculars. First off, like if you go, I'm gonna go for the toughest looking guy on the playground and try to intimidate him. Good luck with a Klingon, because like you're no threat, he has no natural predators because they killed them all. He's nice, he's gentle for a reason. No one wants to hurt him.

Jordon Huppert: 42:26

And do you think you don't know that going in? I mean I get that this guy is not a classic Federation race, but you know, you look at the Klingon, and your first thought is not pacifist med student. Your first thought is where's he hiding that ballet?

Joshua Gilliland: 42:53

This is a culture that has thousands of years of wartime experience. I'm gonna go try to antagonize him. And by choice, nothing but wartime experience.

Jordon Huppert: 43:07

That's your plan.

Joshua Gilliland: 43:11

That's that's a bad plan. That's a that's a bad life choice. You're not gonna impress anyone, you're not gonna make friends with anyone.

Jordon Huppert: 43:19

Because you're not gonna live long enough.

Joshua Gilliland: 43:22

That's gonna be your epitaph. Poked the bear. And got the consequences. Uh, but again, it is a nice scene because we do see some team building with Caleb and the I I can't remember everyone's names yet, but um Sam is easy, Genesis is yeah, Jayden. Jaden. I like that he seems really cool.

Jordon Huppert: 43:47

I like him. I I also love the idea of a Klingon medic.

Joshua Gilliland: 43:52

Well, it because it goes back to Enterprise with Judgment, you know, the trial episode in Enterprise of the Defense Council talks about their artisans, their poets, you know, wharf-like opera. So like we know that Klingons have that part of culture. We've just seen the bro warrior cast, and you know, Lowerdex plays with it a little bit with a farmer. So, like so again, we know that there are others, not not everyone's just you know, headbutting.

Jordon Huppert: 44:25

Well, you can't run a society on all warrior people.

Joshua Gilliland: 44:29

No, it's like they would they they wouldn't leave the planet, like they wouldn't someone has to be the engineer to build the ship. Yeah, someone has to do math as opposed to I just stab things. I mean, you need the team, yeah. And having again, so we've seen the Klingon lawyers twice, Star Trek Six and um um Enerprise to a degree lower decks, but it's different. Um it was argument, but still yeah. So he it's like, I want to be a doctor, cool. Like, yeah, my mom taught me bird watching, cool. Like, let's hang out with him more and see what he does. Um, because again, he has some great lines with you know treating number one. Um but before we get there, we have the issue of piracy when this is full-blown piracy. Like they've boarded a ship, they're trying to steal a warp corps. Those are all the legal definitions of piracy. They've checked those boxes.

Jordon Huppert: 45:44

Yep. Which then goes because they're calling themselves pirates, so you know, truth in advertising.

Joshua Gilliland: 45:49

Yeah, or just but that goes to the issue that the United States Navy was founded to go out and kill pirates. Like it's that's in the charter. It was the Barbary pirates with we're just and Jefferson sent out the Navy with we're gonna go take care of the pirates. Do you really want the reformed federation and Starfleet have that be issue one of we're gonna go take out the pirates? So commerce can people can be free and safe. Because you guys are roadblock to people feeling safe. Okay, so the the ship actually has an absolute right to defend itself. The treating number one. Okay, so is it the unauthorized practice of medicine? No, they're like doing aggressive first day, and like the other optimists let her die. Um on the flip side, if you could call the doctor, again, there's some plot holes that you're able to call the doctor to the airlock, but not to the ER to actually do surgery. Forgivable.

Jordon Huppert: 47:02

I mean, it is their first day, they may not know that they could just go hologram doctor guy.

Joshua Gilliland: 47:06

Yeah. Please state the nature of the medical emergency. Like, again, so good to see him. So it's just so good to see him. Uh um, yeah, just more of that. So we then get good guys when Caleb goes, like, okay, so you uh unauthorized access of the comm system, and that's what put everyone into danger. But you do get great team building out of it, and you save the day, and you save the day after putting everyone into mortal danger.

Jordon Huppert: 47:46

Well, balances out, right?

Joshua Gilliland: 47:48

Again, you Star Trek to go like it's a mulligan, but you're still getting some discipline. So a hundred hours of of like community service and confined a base. That seemed pretty reasonable for for the amount of for like people were hurt. No one died, people were badly hurt, people could have died, yeah. And it's not a good first impression, but he did save everybody, so yeah. Um but again, it's so much core track with people who have different backgrounds learning to work together.

Jordon Huppert: 48:30

That's fine. Who may or may not like agree on anything or their worldview or whatever. But they all come together to save the ship. Which is what Trek is about.

Joshua Gilliland: 48:50

I mean, like it's people with extremely different cultures in one system getting along, and like the show checked the boxes, and when you think back to other first episodes, Man Trap, Encounter at Far Point, also yeah, Emissary D is Deep Space Nine's first episode was really strong, um, in my opinion. Voyagers, also a good start.

Jordon Huppert: 49:20

Yeah, Enterprise thought had an okay start. Well, it's starting Enterprise.

Joshua Gilliland: 49:25

Uh it was uh Klingon Crash Landing, and they had to get him back to I liked it.

Jordon Huppert: 49:30

Yeah, it's a good job of setting up the uh this is not the Star Trek you think it is.

Joshua Gilliland: 49:38

And it and again, the temporal cold war. So like all of that happens. Um you know, Prodigy, good start, Lower Decks, good start. Um I have problems with Discovery.

Jordon Huppert: 49:56

Also was not a huge fan of Discovery's first couple of seasons.

Joshua Gilliland: 50:00

No, and there's a reason why we didn't do a bunch of podcasts about Discovery. Uh but there are people who love it, and the why we're not going to attack it just wasn't for me.

Jordon Huppert: 50:15

No, I mean I don't aside from one friend that I uh have a playful rivalry with, I don't generally attack any of the Star Trek, they're all fairly good. Um and to be generally upfront, I don't like Deep Space Nine, and that puts me at odds with a lot of Star Trek fans.

Joshua Gilliland: 50:36

And and yeah, and that's again to each their own that you have yeah, people connect on fundamental levels with series, and you might not understand it. Um, but you go like there, I know people who love discovery, like it's they they see themselves in it, or there are other stories that they just absolutely identify with, and it's like, okay, but I didn't, yeah, and they're right, and you're right, yeah. And it's like, and that and it's okay, that's okay. Yeah, I really like Pike. Like it's there. We are two. Um anyway, getting to the second episode. Um, it's the it's pure diplomacy. Like, we have lots of Trek politics episodes. So can Caleb be confined to base? Yep.

Jordon Huppert: 51:29

Yep.

Joshua Gilliland: 51:30

Um, escape over the wall or use the door. I think you added that one.

Jordon Huppert: 51:35

I did. Okay, I just think it's funny that like the entire plot line that he's built up over an episode and a bit is you can leave if you want to, but you're choosing to stay, you know, for whatever reason, you're choosing to stay, but you you could just go, and he's trying to climb a wall to get out.

Joshua Gilliland: 51:57

He might be used to doing things the hard way. Um but it does get again. I after watching it, like I've watched it twice, actually, three times because took notes the last time for this. Their relationship, their intro is cute, like it's done in a nice way that both present strengths, both have uh in the tradition of Star Trek with two characters flirting, it is well done, and I think it actually uh harkens back to a lot of TOS episodes if they were done today. Yeah, and we've seen it done poorly in all the series, all of them, but uh we've also seen it well, and I think the one that did it the best was sitting on the edge of forever. And this is not like on that level, but it's still very good um with how they flirt, how they interact. Uh, but it raises the issue of uh did Caleb have a duty to disclose his past about his mom? And no. I mean most people don't open with here's the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me. That that's weird on a first encounter, like first date type of thing.

Jordon Huppert: 53:33

Yeah, or second, yeah.

Joshua Gilliland: 53:35

It's so what's your drama, dude?

Jordon Huppert: 53:38

Really? Like tell me your deepest, darkest secret, and I will tell you if we can be friends.

Joshua Gilliland: 53:45

See, people don't do that.

Jordon Huppert: 53:49

Not well adjusted people, not even most poorly adjusted people.

Joshua Gilliland: 53:56

I mean, it's one thing you're like, hey, who are you looking for? I can un you know, like just like, hey, I lost my mom at a young age and I want to find her.

Jordon Huppert: 54:04

Like, he doesn't need to go into like yeah, that could help level the playing field, but that's still not I mean maybe, but also like I feel for Caleb here because this is a kid who has grown up without trust. He hasn't had friends, he hasn't had anyone who's loved him since his mom, for all we know. Like And one of my one of my favorite little bits of this episode, and I tacked this on to the end of the notes, he doesn't know how to make a bed. Like he's never had a bed. So I just I thought that was a really really well done nod to the trauma that he's gone through um as a kid and in the system, and because of the system.

Joshua Gilliland: 54:52

Absolutely, because like that's horrible, yeah. Like they're like where we're sleeping in corners, like none of this is good. He did not have yeah, horrible life. Yeah, this is probably the first time he's getting three meals a day. He has clean clothes, it is culture shock, and he's not dealing with people actively trying to hurt him. He's gonna have some issues to unpack. Probably good to have a therapist for him to work through the horrors that he's endured, yeah. Um, but we see one, he makes friends that seem to be healthy friendships that trust has developed uh through over the course of the episode. And it's him learning to trust uh Ake, it's him learning to trust his roommate by the end of it. The I don't remember the beta zoid character's name or or the brother's name.

Jordon Huppert: 56:03

Uh I got a cheat sheet on the other screen. Tamira is the the beta zoid. I don't remember the brother's name.

Joshua Gilliland: 56:10

But who goes from quiet to bro really fast without dad around? So yeah. Um, but hey, good for him. They apparently all need friends in their own peer group. Good. I mean that the thing that struck me at the end when they're all roommates, there's only one visible bed.

Jordon Huppert: 56:37

I think I think there are two in one of the wide shots side to side of the room, but I don't know where the third is gonna be.

Joshua Gilliland: 56:45

Is it Murphy bed? I mean, it's just like you watch us like have none of you had friends before? Because, like, if that's the case, that's a bummer. You're in a safe place, you can have friends now.

Jordon Huppert: 57:01

All right, we know Caleb has it. I could see the diplomat or the head of state son president, I think they call him, growing up in a very odd uh friendship scenario.

Joshua Gilliland: 57:12

Yeah, what if your dad is the president and probably worked his way up, you know, to get elected, so it could have been a governor or whatever system of government that they have public life, yeah. Meaning that he never got to hang out, like never got to go play. Um again, did you ever have a buddy and a couple dudes working out? That's normal.

Jordon Huppert: 57:43

That's just I mean, if you say so.

Joshua Gilliland: 57:45

Like, I was never in that, but that sounds like stuff my dad did. So, like, I'm familiar with the type that you know, like they hit the gym, like, okay, that was their thing. Um, we go to cons. That's something that I know my dad appreciated that like that would still have been alien for him to go do. Uh, but he thought it was cool.

Jordon Huppert: 58:13

Yeah.

Joshua Gilliland: 58:15

So we we do learn. Um bunch of diplomacy. We do see that they're descendants of whales.

Jordon Huppert: 58:26

Yes, I loved the whales. Yeah. My first Star Trek experience was uh voyage home, so I love all the anytime they make reference to that, it makes me happy.

Joshua Gilliland: 58:36

So I did a little research. Humpback whales live average 50 years, maybe a century. And if it's been 1100 years, yeah. Um, so we're talking what 20 generations of whale, maybe.

Jordon Huppert: 58:54

Um yeah, about so so that's cool.

Joshua Gilliland: 58:59

Yeah, I'm just gonna be glad they made it. Yeah, that's good for them, and they're singing.

Jordon Huppert: 59:04

I assume they're no longer endangered because I don't want them to be, and that's my that'll be my headcanon. They could dispute it if they want.

Joshua Gilliland: 59:11

Well, and it's not like with Prodigy, we had a whale as a crew member and also lower decks with the blue ghostation ops, yeah. They weren't studying them, they were crew.

Jordon Huppert: 59:23

I know.

Joshua Gilliland: 59:24

Uh God bless them. Uh but you know, like, so could a universal translator pick up what the whale's actually like saying? Yeah, because it could be like, hey, how are you guys doing?

Jordon Huppert: 59:37

Yeah.

Joshua Gilliland: 59:38

Well, might want to have a conversation, like, might want to look out behind you, don't kiss her yet. Dude. I don't know if live action audiences would be ready for that. Like, because it it could work with the animated comedies, yeah. And it worked with Prodigy, which was serious, but would With live action audiences except the talking whale. Um, I don't know.

Jordon Huppert: 1:00:08

Probably not in a setting like this.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:00:14

Dude, how are you doing? I'm Sheila. I'm kind of cool, but we'll see what what the future holds. Yeah. So uh and at the end he learns how to make his bed. And his roommate who he initially didn't like helps him make his bed. Good for them.

Jordon Huppert: 1:00:41

This is suspect he still will probably have a healthy I don't like you relationship with.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:00:46

It's but again, it's like bones and spoke.

Jordon Huppert: 1:00:50

Yep.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:00:51

You know, they despite that, they were still good friends. Like yeah, you know, the siblings who fought.

Jordon Huppert: 1:00:59

So but again Trip and Malcolm had that in Enterprise and um Yeah, I mean it's been all through. Yeah, it's Jacote Tuvac in Paris.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:01:17

It's core track. So I yeah, I really think the series is off checking all the boxes on why people like Star Trek. I don't I hope that they don't go too heavy into teen drama. That would be that's my this this worked for me. Yeah. So if it doesn't if it doesn't make the guy in his 50s go like, whoa, knock that off.

Jordon Huppert: 1:01:44

Um I'm sure there will be episodes that are very teen drama. Um the who should I date episodes that yeah, it's yeah, I wouldn't I hope they don't go, I hope it does not dominate the series, but I you know I I anticipate and accept that it will be a part of it.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:02:07

Um I've accepted it because again, Kirk was flirting with ladies left and right, and an academic setting that's going to happen.

Jordon Huppert: 1:02:19

So it'd be Kirk, Riker, Paris.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:02:27

Um a long and distinguished line of galaxy-wide flirtation, yeah, swashbuckling gentlemen and pressing you know those that they're there who are suit their suitors of so, but again, that's normal, that's track, yeah, and good for them. So uh, and you know what, and if it does help a younger generation get into track, cool. Because prodigy is how do you explain to a seven-year-old 60 years of Star Trek? And if having this theme of a show gets the tweens audience, good for them.

Jordon Huppert: 1:03:10

Yeah. Like I said, late middle school, early high school, this would have been like very appealing plot lines for me.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:03:20

Yeah, it's not me. I was I was again, I was watching Next Gen. I was actually watching it at that point in time.

Jordon Huppert: 1:03:32

So I was watching Voyager, but different time.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:03:36

I got a few years on, yeah. Yeah, so that said, yeah, we'll be back for more. Um I'm grateful to have another series for the 60th, and we'll get Strange New Worlds later.

Jordon Huppert: 1:03:49

So and also, I I am glad that they are doing new things.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:03:55

Same here.

Jordon Huppert: 1:03:56

Um I like Strange New Worlds. I'm still a smidge disappointed that it is set as a kind of prequel to TNG, or not TNG, well TNG also, but uh TOS. I like it, but it's it's nice that they are exploring a new time period.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:04:18

Yeah, it because it doesn't break any canon. Like if you have a Sulebank kid running around, fine. Like it's been a thousand years, like you can do that. It's the when you're flirting with breaking canon, which was again the Klingons in Discovery, like broke canon and just a little in their first episode, yeah, which is why I had problems with it. Um like none of that's happening, and and good for them. Yes, so uh, so again, hi Marks. I was initially concerned, now I'm not. I enjoyed it. I will be back weekly and grateful.

Jordon Huppert: 1:05:04

Same, same.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:05:05

All right, well, everyone, thanks for tuning in. We will be talking more. We'll be having episodes from each generation of track. We've already started with Journey to Babel. We have more coming up and identifying a couple others to talk about to round out the year. Um, so stay tuned. And wherever you are, stay safe, stay healthy, and stay geeky. Take care now.