Given how offensive many Star Trek ‘fans’ were towards Mary’s weight, especially in the later seasons of Discovery, I have mixed feelings about seeing her choosing to go so far in her weight loss journey.

The increasing use of what was originally medication for diabetes management for obesity and general weight loss is a reality, especially for women in Hollywood.

On one hand the use of these acknowledges that maintaining healthy weights is not just a matter of self control and that behavioural weight loss approaches are largely unsuccessful and unsustainable for more than small losses.

On the other hand, it seems to be giving in to the stigmatization that Mary and others have been subjected to and that Discovery and Star Trek generally were trying to counter.

The thing is, for Darem, his family and his people, this might be a high stakes situation.

It’s a change in leadership model, with a young new monarch. It should have more weight — especially as we and Jay-Den learn that they have some advanced Ionian-level portal technology. So, they seem the legacy of an advanced species with a highly structured society.

But the feel of the event was more like a resort destination wedding than a constitutional event.

The Khionians clearly a society hiding behind masks, and Darem excels at that.

BUT in the end, Darem’s long time betrothed expresses betrayal that Darem had been wearing a kind of mask with her, never showing his true self.

So, she sees only the ultimatum of an abdication an annulment as a solution.

Being creative and allowing Darem to continue with Starfleet so he could grow and become more comfortable and confident in his own identity, was beyond her ability to imagine.

Those of us who were on the old social media boards of the day recall the outright hostility against a woman as a captain as the principal character of a show.

The number and toxicity of rants about ‘political correctness’ was extreme if less generally known outside fandom.

Personally, I loved the technobabble in Voyager — it conveys the process of engineering and science more authentically than in any other show in the franchise. At a certain level, it’s more important to have a realistic applied science and engineering process in a Star Trek show than to be restricted to what’s currently known in science or that can be extrapolated from limited current knowledge.

Voyager gave us nerds nerding out. What made it exceptional was not only was it two women with STEM expertise, but that they were enthusiastically supporting one another rather than competing.

We saw some of that positivity and STEM process with Geordie and Data in TNG, but Voyager gave us a captain who was an engineer who moved to command track. Janeway’s uncompromising work the problem dammit ethos is all engineer, and it made her the right temperament for the scenario of a ship lost in another quadrant.

LOL — saw k, thought thousand, wrote million

What I get for posting after an IM, screen heavy workday.

Yes, a thousand is huge, even if an order of magnitude lower. 🖖🏼

Over a million upvotes on this post!

Incredible engagement all.

Certainly an instance record but is that a Lemmy record? Are many of those upvotes coming via other APIs or is it just Lemmy’s

deleted by creator

Finally, someone asked the most important question for the fediverse!

Hello Karim,

Fantastic that you’re the providing the first Trek cast member AMA in the fediverse! Incredible way to get into the franchise.

I hope this will be a good experience on your side and that you might consider having your own account on Mastodon or Pixelfed.

A few questions please…🖖🏼

— In your study of previous Klingons in the franchise, have you considered B’Elanna Torres journey to accepting her Klingon heritage? Do you see some parallels in her discomfort with Klingon culture, its norms and expectations with Jay-Den’s search for a path to his own identity while still respecting his culture of origin?

— Was there a specific moment, in your preparation process for the role, when it suddenly came together for you and you knew who you need to be as Jay-Den? Could you share when that was?

— What other languages, if any, do you speak beyond English? If you are bilingual or multilingual, do you find that helps with the Klingon dialogue and phrases?

— How are you finding Toronto and the surrounding area? Have you got out much around the region? Other than what appears to be the Escarpment in S1E4, have you been out on location shoots?

As long as he isn’t a ‘badmiral’, I would love to see that happen.

Can’t we have more Short Treks please?

The article says: Genesis Lythe (Bella Shepard) and Caleb Mir (Sandro Rosta) try to stay out of trouble back on the quiet campus.

Wasn’t Roddenberry’s original concept for the Ferengi closer to the Furies in this episode?

They were supposed to have large bat ears and the cannibalism rings a bell too — at least the rumours Picard mentions about the Ferengi in TNG ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ included cannibalism.

While the “capitalists on steroids” concept for the Ferengi doesn’t align with the Furies, I still can’t help thinking that Secret Hideout and the Roddenberry estate haven’t pulled out another old idea and reworked it.

Roddenberry’s concept was reworked in the posthumous Andromeda tv show that combined a few of his ‘trunk’ of concepts that were never greenlit. According to the fandom wiki, Magog in Andromeda were “a savage bloodthirsty species feared throughout the universe…(with) baser instincts to kill other living beings for food, or forcibly infest them with Magog eggs for reproduction.“

This ForgottenTrek page on the Ferengi does mention cannibalism and big ears, but I don’t see the prosthetics sketch with the big bat ears that I am recalling.

Do khaosworks@startrek.website or USSBurritotruck@startrek.website happen to have any other references for the original Ferengi concept at hand?

My partner, our older GenZ offspring* and I were pretty stunned at the end of that.

I’m trying to think of the last time the franchise had an episode with such a dark ending that was not the first episode in a clear multipart sequence.

This is not cozy Star Trek.

That ship definitely has a late 24th century Sovereign-class look to it.

That third nacelle looks like the full scale Protostar drive.

That’s how Sam interpreted it, and it’s why she imitated it / mirrored it back.

But what if it wasn’t pro forma?

Does anyone else have any lingering questions or hypotheses around two nonsequiturs in the episode?

1. The Bajoran who welcomed Sam said that her “pagh is strong;”
2. Jake’s holographic reconstruction called Sam ‘sis’.

I’m wondering why and how the photonics chose the form for Sam - and whether her form is based on a real person - such as Sisko and Cassidy’s daughter Rebecca.

I’m also really wondering how a photonic being can have a pagh…

These definitely seem like things that might be followed up on later.

This has some value added in terms of contrasting the outcome of DS9 ‘The Visitor’ with Jake’s Prime Timeline outcome.

I like the SFA outcome, and I think it respects what Avery wanted in terms of showing that Sisko was a fantastic Black father who left a legacy of good parenting to future generations.

I was very moved at how Jake was a truly adult version of the youth we saw in DS9 but that he also had the posture and dignity that Avery Brooks brought to Sisko.

Cirroc Lofton really can act and it’s outrageous if he’s not been getting work if he wants it.

If you’ve seen him as himself in his podcast, there’s no doubt about his performance in this episode.

It makes me very much want to see him cast in something else.

Skydance only bought Paramount this past summer after production of SFA season one was well advanced and SNW was largely done seasons four production.

While there is genuine reason for concern regarding future Star Trek, it’s very hard to make the case regarding anything in pre production before 2025.

As if Star Trek wasn’t corporate from the beginning!

Every major difference between the original pilot ‘The Cage’ and the original series / TOS was rooted in corporate priorities.

The bright, primary coloured uniform tunics, bright colourful flashing lights on the bridge and other sets were designed to promote NBC’s ‘Living Color’ television broadcasts.

Kirk was younger, physically more vigorous and less cerebral than Pike, no matter what Roddenberry wanted. Action adventure hero, romancing women, was what the network wanted no matter that Roddenberry wanted Kirk to be a ‘stack of books with legs’ and for Yeoman Rand to be the original third principle character and long term romantic interest.

Oooh, so much further to go…