It is Stardate 2369.2, and Enterprise is docked at Starbase One. Chief Fleet Inspector Commander Pelia from Operational Support Services and her team are performing systems checks and upgrades.
No lawyer will take up Unaās case, not even the lawyer Pike and Una have in mind. The authorities have offered Una a plea deal but Pike advises urges her not to resign. Pike offers to confront the lawyer face to face. She is on the other side of the quadrant, 2.5 days round trip in āone of the newer shuttlesā, indicating they are warp capable. Spock becomes Acting Captain, although he points out the lack of a Chief Engineer, a Security Chief and Unaās absence.
MāBenga notes Spock seems to be suffering from stress. He points out that Vulcan emotions are stronger than human ones, but that they control them through suppressive cognitive blocks. Spock removed those blocks to fight the Gorn (SNW: āAll Those Who Wanderā), so his emotions are flowing more freely.
MāBenga presents Spock with a lyre, to help him channel emotion into expression. The lyre was first seen in TOS: āCharlie Xā, and subsequent appearances in canon have established it as a Vulcan lyre (or lute). This suggests that it was MāBenga who gifted Spock his lyre at this moment. This is consistent with MāBenga being familiar with Vulcans because he did his internship on the planet (TOS: āA Private Little Warā). Spockās heart rate goes down as he plays it, only for him to stop and have it shoot up when Chapel enters.
Chapel tells MāBenga sheās thinking about applying for a fellowship in archeological medicine, which will be 2 months on Vulcan. This is probably how she will meet her future fiancĆ© Dr Roger Korby (TOS: āWhat Are Little Girls Made Of?ā), who was a renowned figure in the field.
Ortegas has reversed the pitch and yaw controls on her helm console because the standard configuration wasnāt fast enough for her. Uhura is at the communications station and is no longer wearing her cadet insignia, indicating sheās graduated and is an Ensign.
Uhura tells Spock she has detected a distress signal from LaāAn originating in the Cajitar system, on the edge of Klingon space. April denies Spock permission to investigate, despite the message saying that there is a dangerous, anti-Federation threat on Cajitar IV and Enterpriseās resources are critical. Cajitar IV is a rich dilithium mining planet - the Federation alternates access to it with the Klingons thanks to a carefully negotiated treaty and for this month itās the Klingonsā shift. If Enterprise shows up it will be an act of war.
Spock briefs the featured crew, including navigator LT Jenna Mitchell, on his plan to get the inspectors off the ship and steal the Enterprise to help LaāAn. This foreshadows Kirk & Co. famously doing the same thing to help Spock in ST III, a sequence called āStealing the Enterpriseā on the soundtrack album.
Mitchell triggers an intermix chamber coolant leak alert in Engineering. Plasma coolant dissolves flesh, as seen in ST: First Contact, and lack of coolant can cause a warp core breach.
Pelia teaches a course in warp core breaches at Starfleet Academy. Heightened temperatures around an intermix chamber is the most common factor mistaken for a breach. Purposely simulating coolant leak on the sensors violates about 17 Starfleet regulations.
Pelia notes the Vulcan inability to lie (a myth, as weāve seen on several occasions, and Spock will get much better at it in future) and that they donāt do things without a good reason. She reveals she knows that Spock is Amanda Graysonās son and suggests Ortegas to vent ionized plasma from the warp nacelles. Doing so triggers an alert on Starbase One, with Docking Control blowing the docking clamps and ordering Enterprise to make space between the ship and the station.
Pelia offers her services as Chief Engineer and says itās been 100 years since sheās gone out with engines of her own. Ortegas scoffs, and Pelia says itās a really long story. Uhura identifies her accent as Lanthanite, and Pelia confirms it.
Spockās go-to-warp catchphrase is, āI would like the ship to go. Now.ā Mitchellās previous captainās was āZoomā, and Ortegas has been workshopping āvĆ”manosā (āletās goā in Spanish).
On Cajitar IV, LaāAn wins a bloodwine drinking contest with a Klingon, KrāDogh. She gets a meeting with someone named Greynax. One wonders how LaāAn is outdrinking a Klingon since the sense was that she was not genetically enhanced like her relative Khan - unless weāre being set up for another revelation like with Una, which might be over egging it with two genetically modified people in the main cast.
MāBenga approaches LaāAn, drawing a line under his eye with a finger like he did in SNW: āStrange New Worldsā.
Cajitar IV became a valuable source of dilithium during the war. When it ended, a new mining syndicate made up of ex-Klingon and Federation soldiers decided peace was bad for business and want to restart the war. To an unknown end, they are acquiring Federation technology, and a recent mining explosion exposed the town to ion radiation, including Orianaās parents. MāBenga says that ion radiation isnāt from dilithium, but can be created by photon torpedoes.
Both Chapel and MāBenga served in the Klingon War (she implies that they served together). MāBenga likes reading up on weapons systems, and notes that the war produced 100 million Federation deaths for āa parsec of space or twoā.
MāBenga and Chapel go to offer aid to the afflicted, and Oriana recognizes them. MāBenga suggests inducing recombination to repair genetic damage on her parents, which Chapel administers via a hypospray. They are then taken at gunpoint by a female Klingon and her henchmen.
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Uhuraās PADD identifies the Klingons meeting with LaāAn (to buy phaser pistols) as speaking an obscure dialect called Kach-Ugh. She manages to decipher that whatever is being planned is happening tomorrow.
Spock calls up to Transporter Chief Jay, who informs him that they lost MāBenga and Chapelās signals an hour ago. The pair are brought to a huge cave, hollowed out from decades of mining, which has a Federation starship MāBenga thinks the faction built themselves.
Inside, MāBenga treats a Klingon (RoāQuegh) with ion burns that are normally too severe to treat, but Klingons had a redundant dermal system (like many other Klingon organs: TNG: āEthicsā).
MāBenga was stationed on the moon of Jāgal, and after the Battle of ChaKana, there was so much blood in the air that the rain turned red. Klingon blood was established as pink/purple in ST VI, but its depiction on screen has not been consistent.
Chapel says that the severity of the burns suggest the torpedoes are on this ship. MāBenga theorizes that they are going to use the Federation tech to attack the Klingons and restart the war.
MāBenga always carries a vial of green liquid with him that when injected gives him and Chapel enhanced strength and aggression, which they use to beat down a group of guards. He beats answers out of a Klingon: 30 soldiers on the bridge and engineering, armed with phasers, phase rifles and Klingon disruptors, and a transponder on Deck 13.
MāBenga reprograms the transponder to send a simple message which usually only sends out the name and class of a Federation ship. They escape through Airlock 5-E but the ship takes off.
A Klingon D7 battlecruiser warps into orbit. The Enterprise is hiding in Cajitar IVās rings, which are interstellar ice with a high iron content, so she looks like space junk. Ortegas says sheās hidden from enough Klingons to know when to take a breather, indicating she also served in the war.
LaāAn says her contacts in the Broken Circle have vanished. That must be the name of the faction that plans to restart the war.
Mitchell identifies the faction ship as a Crossfield-class (same class as Discovery), but it doesnāt really look like one, resembling more an Akira-class. Perhaps this is the standard Crossfield configuration and Discovery and her sister ship Glenn were variants.
Uhura picks up MāBengaās message (in Morse 2) from the transponder: āEnterprise, destroy this ship.ā
The transponders in EV suits activate automatically once they are in the vacuum of space. The D7ās disruptors are mounted on the sides of the nacelles. MāBenga says it will take about a minute for them to die in space, but they will lose consciousness after 15 seconds. While heās correct about the latter, it should take about 90 seconds before you die from asphyxiation.
The Captain of the D7 is named DāChok. Spock says he has been known to drink bloodwine, which surprises DāChok. Pelia interprets DāChokās toast as, āMay your blood scream,ā which Spock implies has to do with how drinking bloodwine feels.
Spock is visibly affected by bloodwine and gets a hangover, although he states in TOS: āThe Conscience of the Kingā that āMy fatherās race was spared the dubious effects of alcohol.ā It may be that the alcohol is acting on his human side. Though we know Vulcan port (DS9: āThe Maquis, Part Iā) exists, it is unclear if that produces an intoxicating effect in Vulcans or if it is intended for imbibing by non-Vulcans.
Pelia wears a Starfleet delta with a black backing, indicating the Academy, along with another insignia which resembles the flower-like insignia worn by starbase personnel in TOS. Lanthanites are almost immortal and lived on Earth, undetected, until the 22nd Century. Amanda was one of the first people Pelia came out to and she says the worst thing about living almost forever is boredom - echoing Zefram Cochranās words in TOS: āMetamorposisā: āBelieve me, Captain, immortality consists largely of boredom.ā Her longevity and experience marks her as potentially a similar advisor-type character as Guinan in TNG.
The war April is worried about centers on what appears to be an incursion by a Gorn attack ship in proximity to Deep Space 2, the Galdonterre system (DS9: āBlood Oathā) and the Cestus system (TOS: āArenaā), the latter two of which are established in Geoffrey Mandelās Star Charts as near the border between the Federation, the Klingon Empire and the Gorn Hegemony.
The episode is dedicated āFor Nichelle, who was first through the door and showed us the stars. Hailing frequencies forever openā¦ā in memory of the late Nichelle Nichols, who was both a pioneer as a major black female character on TOS in the day and later worked with NASA to recruit people of color to the astronaut program.
One thing I have to note in more detail is that with the star chart showing Cestus and delineating the boundaries of Gorn space, we are getting further and further away from what was established in TOS: āArenaā.
While thus far we can handwave Sulu not recognizing the Gorn vessel as being an unfamiliar Gorn ship class, try and interpret the dialogue of Spock and McCoy has not recognizing that specific species of Gorn, or even - less plausibly - Kirk not being aware of the Gorn in the first place, the large continuity issue that looms here is that in āArenaā they should be well aware they are at the very least near Gorn space.
The dialogue in āArenaā explicitly states that the Cestus III outpost was established in ignorance of the fact that it was in Gorn space. McCoy even asks if that makes the Federation the bad guys in this scenario. With the chart seen in SNW: āThe Broken Circleā, this excuse rings hollow. Granted, at this point Cestus still lies outside Gorn borders, but surely there would have been some discussion about that if Spock, et al. had been aware of it or if the Gorn had indeed pushed forward to claim that area of space.
We can still sort of handwave it because Cestus isnāt in Gorn space on the map, but weāre treading closer to major revisions to āArenaā here which might not be able to be handwaved away as Iāve suggested above.
The showrunners have hinted that theyāre gonna play a little loose with established canon this season ā I think in particular with regard to Spock/Chapel, but also likely with the Gorn. Which honestly is an interesting choice ā SNW is supposed to appeal to folks who miss TOS (and the vibe of TNG, even if LDS and PIC are more literal successors to TNG), and so I wonder if they are counting on that ācredibilityā to seek āforgivenessā from fans who object to continuity issues.
(On the other hand, they also seem to be doubling down on certain elements from canon; for example, they are taking very seriously this notion that 2250s Spock is noticeably greener, no pun intended, than 2260s Spock, drawing much more on āThe Cageā than his later appearances. To me, this is in contrast to the Kelvinverse interpretation of the character, who, while still more emotive than 2260s Spock Prime, nevertheless seems to be drawing primarily from that version of Spock, rather than the one from āThe Cageā.)
Iām not sure if it contradicts Arena so long as we never have a face-to-face confrontation with adult Gorn.
We know by the 2380s the Gorn are on better terms with the Federation, so it would be cool to somehow flesh out Gorn culture even in SNW.
The difficulties are not about the physical appearance of the Gorn - itās about the fact of the Gornās existence in the first place (Kirk being seemingly ignorant of the species name) and that they didnāt know Cestus III could be considered an incursion on Gorn territory.
KIRK: I have been somehow whisked off the bridge and placed on the surface of an asteroid, facing the captain of the alien ship. Weaponless, I face the creature the Metrons called a Gorn.
and
MCCOY: Can that be true? Was Cestus III an intrusion on their space?
SPOCK: It may well be possible, Doctor. We know very little about that section of the galaxy.
MCCOY: Then we could be in the wrong.
Then again, McCoy does refer to the alien as a āGornā without seemingly having previously heard the name (there are multiple possible explanations for this), so thereās that. My point really was that mental gymnastics already need to be employed to square āArenaā with SNW, and weāre getting into areas which need even more.
well, perhaps the Farragut is on the other side of the Federation, and the foreshadowed conflict with the Gorn might play out in some way where they end up not going very far into that region of space?
(Is this the aforementioned mental gymnastics?)
Yep. The map shows Cestus right there close to outlined Gorn territory, so the establishment of Cestus III being seen as an incursion on Gorn space canāt really be much of a surprise - at least not in the way Spock put it in TOS: āArenaā.
Whatās up with that āCrossfieldā class anyway? Clearly a refit after the end of Discovery or a misidentification I think.
I also didnāt make the connection of the black backing indicating the Academy or the Starbase personnel flower-emblem, but this makes sense since she would be an officer and the only other Academy badges weāve seen are worn by cadets. Assuming that when she says āshe teachesā that means she is currently teaching, perhaps out of a Starbase. Although, I wonder why only Pelia wears the flower-emblem when there are other starbase personnel who seem to be wearing standard issue uniforms.
The ship looked kitbashed from a Crossfield hull and something else to me. I assume itās a war wreck they salvaged and rebuilt on the moon for this purpose.
The Disco and the Glenn were the two spore drive bearing Crossfield class ships, but I doubt they were the only ones as they could be fit with a normal warp drive too.
It might be a standard Crossfield class ship, not heavily modified like the Glenn and Discovery and this is just what they normally look like when they arenāt refitted for mushroom engines.
It definitely looks to be made of a Crossfield primary hull with Constitution nacelles, and maybe a Miranda style rollbar on top. It did give me the kitbash feeling and the idea that the Klingons salvaged maybe two ships to create one is kind of interesting.
The ISS Discovery lacked a spore drive and looked externally the same as the prime universe counterpart (memory alpha has wide shot pics that are apparently from Terra Firma, and the USS Discovery was able to disguise itself well enough). Could be a point in favor of this episodesā Crossfield class being a kitbashed abomination.
To be honest, it resembles the starbase insignia but it isnāt quite the same as what we see in TOS, so it could mean something else entirely.
Spock is visibly affected by bloodwine and gets a hangover, although he states in TOS: āThe Conscience of the Kingā that āMy fatherās race was spared the dubious effects of alcohol.ā
Personally I always took that not as āVulcans arenāt affected by alcoholā, but āVulcans historically have no culture of drinking.ā
āBeing spared the effects of alcoholā could indicate that Vulcans arenāt affected by it. Their blood chemistry being different may mean their bodies donāt metabolize alcohol the way humansā do, and so thereās no hangover because of the lack of metabolic issues.
Not drinking enough to get hungover/at all technically āsparesā one from a hangover, but that phrasing would be strange and clunky. Itād be like telling someone who just got sunburned at the beach that āI never get sunburned at the beachā to convey that I donāt go to the beach, when just saying āI never go to the beachā is a direct statement that logically precludes sunburns from beachgoing.
I appreciate posts like this even or especially because I watched the episode.
Spock briefs the featured crew, including navigator LT Jenna Mitchell, on his plan to get the inspectors off the ship and steal the Enterprise to help LaāAn. This foreshadows Kirk & Co. famously doing the same thing to help Spock in ST III, a sequence called āStealing the Enterpriseā on the soundtrack album.
It also bears mentioning that Spock did more mutiny/Enterprise-stealinā of his own in The Menagerie. Sarekās kids truly are menaces.
Am I the only one who thought LtĀ Mitchell got a LOT of screen time this episode? Depending on what happens with her later in the series Iām wondering if they are planning to move Rong Fu (the name of her actress) to series regular next season.
That would be rad. I felt like she got a little more screen time towards the end of season 1 as well. Maybe they just like working with her.
Happened before for sure in Trek with recurring stars
inspectors off the ship and steal the Enterprise to help Una
I think you mean āhelp LaāAnā here.
Thanks!
I connected Spockās willingness to steal the ship for Laāan more directly to his willingness to do so later for Pike.
Yes, but thematically, the phrase āsteal the Enterpriseā - and the heist aspect of it, whereas in TOS: āThe Menagerieā itās a more of a one-man show - is more associated with Kirk & Co. because of the sequence in ST III.