data1701d (He/Him)

“Life forms. You precious little lifeforms. You tiny little lifeforms. Where are you?”

- Lt. Cmdr Data, Star Trek: Generations

  • 89 Posts
  • 366 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: March 7th, 2024

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  • TLDR; Daystrom did bad stuff but under mental collapse, and it’s very much in part Starfleet Command’s fault.

    I think also, as much as Daystrom had much responsibility for those deaths, it was not as intentional as something like slavery, genocide, or sexual assault. He was fundamentally in a state of psychological distress partially beyond his control. Depending on when Daystrom Institute was founded (touched on above), he may have had decades for rehabilitation and redemption.

    Additionally, Starfleet command probably had ample opportunity to avoid this very early on, like:

    • Looking over Daystrom’s reports to consider potential risks of using engram imprints in a manner similar to a university’s Institutional Review Board - (Though perhaps Daystrom was rather secretive about it and kept it from reviewers.)
    • Running the M-5 in simulations. We know the Kobiyashi Moru existed, so we could probably create a wide range.
    • Not running the test on the Federation flagship, literally one of Starfleet’s most powerful weapons.

    While it’s possible Starfleet took more precautions than we see onscreen, Commodore Wesley’s enthusiasm in “The Ultimate Computer” almost suggests an over-enthusiasm in Command, possibly one that caused them to skip necessary precautions. In fact, we had almost this exact scenario happen in Lower Decks “Trusted Sources”/“The Stars at Night” with the Texas class a century later. Ultimately, Starfleet Command likely bears a non-negligible amount of responsibility in the M-5 affair.

    Of course, the above does not reduce the wrongness of Daystrom’s actions and perhaps only serves to deflect from the OP’s question. However, I feel Starfleet’s potential role combined with Daystrom’s mental condition may be mitigating factors that would make Richard Daystrom less unworthy of having an institution bear his name.



  • It looks like this rulebook was released 2 months before the Discovery episode.

    Honestly, I think I’d personally consider the Disco naming a canon goof up - Daystrom was only 37 years old at that point. While he’d certainly done a lot in his career by then, it still feels weird to name such a major part of Starfleet Federation research (thanks OP) after him when he’s still relatively young.

    I think my headcannon, and a reasonable retcon in my opinion, is that there was a predecessor organization to Daystrom, somewhat like how there was NACA before there was NASA. When Discovery mentions Daystrom, they should actually be mentioning the predecessor organization.





  • That’s nuts. I was just up in LA a couple of days ago to see They Might Be Giants. Stopped by the TOS cast signatures in the concrete in the walk of fame.

    I’ll have to see if I can get that in next time, although it’s a bigger detour than simply jealously checking out the Micro Center in Tustin, which we have had nothing like back where I live since Fry’s Electronics shuttered (and frankly, Fry’s staff never seemed so nice).




  • Rest in peace.

    You have brought even more dishonor to your house, Paramount, by canceling it.

    Although Prodigy got the equivalent of 4 seasons of Lower Decks.

    Honestly, I feel like it showed the value of longer seasons - I felt like we had plenty of time to both develop the plot and get episodic.

    While those executive geezers don’t give a darn about animation, seeing Prodigy and Lower Decks makes me really think a 50 minute episode TNG/DS9/VOY format animated series with 15-20 episodes a season could be genius, especially if it looked something like Arcane and was somewhat realistic in some aspects but with stylizations to avoid uncanny valley. You could get more time for character development with less labor concerns than an actual shoot, create more interesting aliens while spending less on VFX, and emulate a classic aesthetic without it looking ridiculous.











  • It seems like a large majority of females wear clothes sort of thing. I went through the episode to see if there were any more. I found up to seven or eight more instances, with screenshots below (some of these may be unintentional duplicates from different perspetives.:

    Interestingly in the first one, she is with an older man, suggesting that she might be an older woman, although we also see an older Ferengi woman in the background as well who is clothed.

    Re-evaluating the original image I posted, I notice that the person the unclothed woman is sitting with is drawn like a lot of other Ferengi women, which suggests she might be meeting up with another woman, possibly a friend or a daughter. Unfortunately, it’s not high-enough quality on my end (I’m limited to 480p by the Paramount jerks) to make out if the unclothed Ferengi is an older or younger women - maybe it’s clearer on someone’s Blu-Ray set.

    Overall, wow, this was a weird way to spend an evening. I’m even less proud to say I did this than when I did the Kim counting a few months back.