StillPaisleyCat

I understood that the EP/Showrunner is the same for all, and the writer of the first one. So, he set the tone. Sigh.

A am still hopeful for ‘Holograms all the way down’ as it has Aaron Waltke as the writer credited.

If you’re saying that the 90s shows have more direct references in Lower Decks than Discovery, I can agree.

I’d add The Animated Series too though. There are many Easter eggs from TAS included.

However, the OP should be aware that Lower Decks is written to be enjoyed by those completely new to the franchise. The deep cuts are added value not a necessity. There are numerous new fans that watched Lower Decks and only later got to the other shows they reference and enjoy discovering in reverse.

Discovery in-universe becomes a secret at a level that it’s not the kind of thing the Cerritos crew would know about from reading historic resources.

Sigh. It’s astounding how frequently, for a franchise that wants to be global, we are confronted with the perspective that really, to those marketing tie-ins, only the US market counts.

Yes, there’s legal stuff to deal with. So deal I say. It feels like Paramount licensing is still existing in the 1960s.

I’m definitely seeing that white light as a whale probe-style weapon.

I bet the whales found no cetaceans on the ship so it was destroyed, with the crew taken for a menagerie - or to repopulate a planet the whale probe inappropriately cleared.

Cerritos’ cetacean officers will save the day.

Alternate hypothesis - the ship belongs to the clown-alien species of Voyager ‘The Thaw, because what could be more frightening than a clown ship?

I’m a huge Relaunch novelverse fan. These books really kept me going in the absence of new Trek television. I’m still grieving the end of that era of publishing.

(I had never found many of the earlier tie-in books that interesting - the constraints on authors to finish the books with no lasting impact on characters or events made the books feel unimportant.)

The Relaunch Novelverse was something that authors had wanted for a long time. A real way to play in the Trek sandbox and move characters and events forward. Some of the authors seized the most from it, others seem to get stuck in documenting what they saw as history. In either case though, one can seen the influence of the Relaunch writers room thought experiments running through the new shows, to their benefit.

Recommendations? The crossover Destiny, Typhon Pact, and The Fall sequences are all solid overall. Destiny is stands out as great science fiction regardless of its tie-in fiction foundation.

The Bashir-S31/Control, Titan, Voyager Full Circle, and later TNG books are all reliably good to great reads. The DS9 books seemed to start off well and got me into the Relunch books but seemed to bog down. McCormack’s Cardassian books were all excellent. Bennett’s Temporal Investigations are fun reads for knowledgeable fans.

The Relaunch novelverse is not however upbeat and trippy. Its starting point at the end of the Dominion War shapes the backdrop. Even many of the TOS-era books that have a Relaunch basis can be fairly dark, including the much loved Vanguard Series by Mack, Ward and Dilmore.

I definitely have my favourite authors. Most of those became regulars contracted for the new books being released as tie-ins for the Secret Hideout era shows. Simon & Schuster has been managing their room of writers well.

There are however couple of Relaunch authors that I avoid even if it means skipping a key book in a series. There’s one who really knows his Trek stuff but writes exposition-heavy books that ready like background rather than stories. Fortunately, the other authors always fill in what I missed, and Memory Beta is there as a resource too.

In terms of books about the franchise, I have an original copy of the TNG Technical Manual and a few others. I recently got the TAS official guide and it’s great. However, no matter who writes them, I always consider these beta-canon.

Appreciated sincerely!

The moopsy appears in Star Trek Lower Decks S4E2 ‘I have no bones, yet I must flee.’

c/DaystromInstitute is next door on the same StarTrek.website instance.

Some of this meta discussion about American exceptionalism might also fit in the c/Quark’s community - if you want to broaden to the point that the discussion is likely to run less than 50% Trek.

I’d buy it!

I think you’re right. I was also thinking about reorienting a Pikachu pattern, but this would be better.

Some thoughts after sleeping on it…

— I found the 4 x 01 Twovix the best season premiere yet.

All the premieres seem callback and Easter egg heavy. Making this one a museum (ship) mishap episode worked that into the story in a natural way and allowed some of the weirdest and trippyest things from Voyager to pike on. Bravo.

While some reviewers have expressed regrets that the original Voyager actors voices weren’t used, I’m glad that the focus stayed on the Cerritos crew, the artifacts and how Voyager remains dangerous wherever she is, even as a literal museum.

I am unhappy that the Klingon lower decker and his ship were sacrificed for the seasonal mystery big bad. It’s clear it’s really dangerous though. (Perhaps the mystery ship is collecting humanoids to take them to another era where they are extinct….?)

It’s also likely the case that I enjoyed the ride of the premiere more for knowing I had another new episode to watch immediately.

— The second episode was mostly a straightforward Lower Decks classic, but one that did its job to move the main 4 lower deckers into their new roles.

We’ll have to see how well it works on rewatch, but the moopsie scenes seem likely to be classics. After the Voyager celebration of weird in the season premiere, it was very smart for Lower Decks to underscore its ability to give us its own very original weirdness, and remind us that humanity are the most dangerous in the menagerie.

I’m glad that they make Rutherford a bit of an odd man out in the promotions. I still feel that he’s a bit of an incomplete person/character because his ambition and drive has been submerged by the implant. I really hope that the writers will keep dribbling out more about that.

The Pakleds got added after becoming the big bad one season. So, hard to say.

I really hope this isn’t a permanent change. But with Lower Decks, who knows?