Just Kids Geeking
The Self-Study Room at CHS had, over the school's long history, become something of an unofficial student lounge. Available to all students during free periods, lunch, and after school electives, largely unsupervised, the Self-Study Room was a popular place for kids to get together and hang out during school hours. Kids were encouraged to use it for actual study, but as long as they behaved and didn't grossly violate school rules, the faculty didn't much care what the students chose to use it for.
A few weeks into the start of the year, the Student Council successfully lobbied to have a school Streamflix account set up for the Self-Study Room. For a while, this caused a bit of chaos and conflict, and the privilege was very nearly revoked as kids fought over what to put on in the room at any given time.
And then, a curious thing happened:
Someone decided to start a Star Trek binge.
"So let me get this straight," Rainbow Dash said. "This is a transporter accident...and a holodeck accident...in the same episode."
"It...kinda makes sense if you don't think about it too hard?" Twilight said. "I mean, the holodecks and the transporters use a lot of the same systems..."
It had started with the geek club watching the movies—the original movies, not the reboots. At some point, one of the drama club members had taken an interest and asked questions, which led to a whole week of episodes of the original series.
After that, it just kind of...kept going. Wandering through all five core series without rhyme or reason, with kids coming in, plopping down, watching, discussing, and debating.
"Okay but like, I mean..." Rainbow gesticulated. "It's like every three episodes it's either a transporter malfunction or a holodeck malfunction, and now they're goin' whole hog and havin' both at the same time? Hello! That's so lazy!"
"It is NOT!" Twilight retorted. "W-well...okay, I guess maybe it's kinda lazy? But the malfunction episodes don't happen that often, really..."
"You're missing the point entirely," Octavia Melody said. "Yes, it's a tired plot device, but it's being used to engineer a situation where the cast can perform an homage to James Bond that allows some of the main characters to be potentially murderous villains while retaining the dramatic suspension that a major character could very well die in the process."
"Like the time the holodeck made a bunch of evil gunfighter Datas?"
"Precisely."
"I don't get why they do so many of these Star-Trek-as-something-else shows," a girl with bobbed blueberry hair and a yellow and pink top and skirt said. "I mean, they're in freaking outer space, why do they need to do a James Bond story?"
"Because it's relatable and something that's also popular with their audience," Octavia said. "It's also a way for a writer to essentially publish a work of that genre when they'd never get a chance otherwise."
"Makes sense," Rainbow said. "If you wanna write a Bond movie but you know it's never gonna happen, write a Bond episode of Star Trek and hope it gets made."
"Well I prefer the original series and Next Generation and their take on classical literature," Watermelody said as she sketched in her sketchpad. "We had two series that used Shakespeare and Moby Dick and things like that extensively to explore the human condition, and then you get DS9 and the only real classical works it draws from are the Bible and Les Mis, and the rest of the time it's kitschy Sixties spy stuff, Fifties racism, or that stupid lounge singer. And then Voyager couldn't be bothered to have even that much class!"
"Hey, the original did kitschy spy stuff too," Twilight pointed out. "And it did it in the Sixties!"
"Next Gen is my favorite," Micro Chips said. "But objectively speaking? DS9 is the best of all five series."
Several others blinked at him. "How's that now?" Twilight asked.
"How can one show be your favorite but another be th' best?" Applejack asked, head tilted.
Micro Chips shrugged. "The crew of the Enterprise-D were kind of the first friends I had," he said. "I used to dream about going on adventures with them and doing all the cool sciencey stuff with Geordi and Data. I'd sit up all night trying to figure out how to invent replicators and holodecks and stuff." He pushed up his glasses. "But TNG's got a lot of problems with it, especially in the first two and last seasons."
"Ugh, yeah," Twilight said. "Season one had some just plain insulting episodes, and season two—didn't it happen during a writing guild strike?"
"Yeah, and you can tell," Micro Chips said. "But then in season three the quality picked up and TNG became one of the best things on TV. Season five especially had two of my personal favorite episodes."
"Let me guess," Twilight said. "'Darmok' and 'The Inner Light'?"
"Sokath, his eyes open!" Micro Chips said. Twilight giggled.
Rainbow facepalmed. "Temarc," she said. "The river Temarc, in wi—" She broke off, eyes wide. "Oh my god, I'm an egghead," she moaned.
"Ah still don't git that episode," Applejack said.
"That's because you only understand countryisms," Rainbow said, sticking her tongue out.
"HEY!" Applejack cried. Then, she paused. "Okay, it's true," she admitted.
Rainbow's phone chimed. "And now I gotta go," she said. "Dang it, I've never seen how this one ends!" She sighed and gathered up her stuff. "Ah well. Mirab!"
Twilight snickered as Rainbow left. "She's such a nerd," she said. She glanced over to Chips. "So, I get what you're saying about all TNG's problems, but what makes you say DS9 is the best of the series?"
"There's a lot of things," Micro Chips said. "I guess the main thing is that it spent so much time and effort developing its characters, moreso than any other Trek series. Everyone on the show really feels like a person, even the ones who are just barely there." He paused thoughtfully. "Also, it's like...it showed us more, you know? It took bits and pieces of the Trek universe that were just barely touched on elsewhere and showed us more. Especially the Bajorans, the Cardassians, and the Ferengi."
"Ugh, the Ferengi," Octavia said. "Obnoxious, backwards, moneygrubbing little trolls."
"Yeah, but Ferengi-based episodes are actually kinda fun in DS9," Twilight said. "Especially since DS9 basically fixed everything wrong with them from TNG."
"And not only did every major Ferengi character in DS9 grow exponentially over the course of the series," Chips said, "the entire Ferengi society evolved. Look how much the Ferengi changed by the end of DS9!"
"Weirdest. Women's lib. Ever," Octavia said flatly.
"Now that you mention it, DS9 handled homosexuality and gender fluidity way better than TNG ever did," Lyra said.
"Plus, we love the shipping in DS9 more," Bon Bon added, squeezing Lyra's hand.
"But the most important part is that DS9 holds a consistent level of quality from start to end," Chips continued. "Sure, it had some weak episodes and the ending was honestly a little rushed, but on the whole, all seven seasons had consistently strong writing and production quality, on par with TNG seasons four and five."
Everyone mulled that over. "Can't really argue that," Twilight said. "I haven't actually seen a DS9 episode I outright hated."
"There are...some," Vinyl Scratch said as she bobbed her head to a beat coming from one earbud while listening to the room at large with the other ear. "The Mirrorverse episodes get kinda old after a while."
"Oh yeah, DS9 spends way too much time in the Mirrorverse," Twilight said with a grimace. "I kinda forgot about that."
"Mirrorverse?" Pinkie Pie piped up. "You mean that one episode where the good guys were all bad guys and Spock had a beard?" She put on a fake pointy beard for emphasis. Nobody bothered asking where the beard came from.
"Yeah," Micro Chips said. "TNG never revisited the concept, not after all the criticism the first two seasons got for recycling old Star Trek plots, but there were some official novels that had the TNG crew go there. DS9, though, had several Mirrorverse episodes, and built it up into this whole huge alternate-reality soap opera."
"The only reason I don't like DS9 is it spends too much time sitting around on a space station and way too many episodes are about racism, religion, and PTSD," Flash Sentry said.
"There are those who would argue that those are the show's strengths," Octavia said. "If you think about it, most of the time we're never even told why two factions in Star Trek hate each other, they just do. A lot of episodes go on for a solid half hour about a race we'll never see again, but TNG told us very little about the Cardassians. In DS9, we learned almost everything there is to know about them, as well as the Ferengi and several other species."
"That's a good point," Flash conceded. "Plus, the Dominion were way better villains than the freaking tree-heads."
"Oh god, the tree-heads," Bon Bon groaned. "They're why we stopped watching Voyager."
"Tree-heads?" Applejack asked, quirking an eyebrow.
"The Kazon," Micro Chips said. "They were introduced as the first major villains in Voyager. They're..." He fidgeted with his glasses. "Well, they're nomadic barbarians who are divided up into different sects and have technology that's two centuries out of date. The only reason they ever pose a threat is because of how heavily they outnumber Voyager, Voyager's lack of repair facilities, and the Kazon being really aggressive." He shrugged. "Basically they were supposed to be the new Klingons except they're really boring and have trees on their heads."
"Reaching Borg Space was the best thing that ever happened to Voyager," Twilight said. "Soon as they got to the Borg, the Kazon disappeared."
"I honestly didn't watch Voyager," Sunset Shimmer said. "Heard too many bad things about it."
Micro Chips raised a hand, index finger pointed upward. "Voyager is..." He paused, then put his hand down, his jaw working silently for a minute. "Voyager's a really mixed bag," he decided. "It doesn't deserve the hate it gets, and a lot of it is, well..." He looked around the room and gulped.
"Blatant misogyny," Twilight said sourly. "First against Janeway, then later against Seven of Nine."
"To be fair, the producers set themselves up for that with Seven," Chips said. "I mean, they added her for blatant sex appeal, it was bound to backfire somewhere."
"Honestly, Voyager lost me somewhere between Tuvok and Neelix getting fused together and Janeway and Paris turning into lizards and having babies," Flash said. "Whoogh."
"Voyager..." Twilight pursed her lips. "Voyager had a lot of really good ideas and a lot of really bad ideas. And some of the good ideas weren't really handled well."
Chips started ticking off points on his fingers. "Janeway is often criticized for being too harsh and arrogant or being too soppy and touchy-feely, then there's the debate on how she treats the Prime Directive like a pinata."
Trixie blew on her bangs. "Puh-leeze. Janeway is every bit the amazing captain Picard is. Perhaps even more so, she's willing to put on a show to resolve a crisis no matter how much it affects her dignity!"
"Pfft. Picard did that more than once."
Trixie lidded her eyes in challenge. "Queen Arachnia. Q in her bathtub."
"...okay, that's fair."
"Wait, what? Who in her where?!" Sunset cried in disbelief.
Chips grimaced. "That's...another bone the fans had to pick. Q's trickster rivalry with Picard changed into something a lot, uhh..." He bit his lip. "Twi? Help me out here?"
Twilight's entire face pinched like she smelled something turdy. "Q basically stalked her like a creep," she said.
"Wow. That's...yikes."
"Yeah, they went to some pretty creepy places with Q in Voyager," Chips said. "Moving on, the next big problem a lot of fans had was Chakotay."
Flash frowned. "Chakotay? What was wrong with him, apart from not having much of a personality to speak of?"
"They basically made him be from every single Native tribe ever," Lyra said in a bored tone. "I remember Dad getting pissed about that because he's a Native culture historian, and they just basically threw a bunch of Native traditions together for Chakotay to follow without bothering to research the tribes."
"I don't know about you all," Watermelody said, "but Neelix got on my nerves. Like, a lot."
"Wuff, yeah," Twilight said. "Neelix was a bad idea all around. Like Jar-Jar."
"Eh, he had his moments," Chips said. "Actually, that sums up a lot of what people think about the Voyager cast. It's not that they're bad characters, it's just that they're just kind of...there. Except for Seven of Nine, nothing about any of them is really anything new."
"Yeah, and Seven's such a raging bitch it's hard to get invested in her character arc."
"My personal problem with Voyager," Twilight said, "is that it relies on too many episodes about anomalies, wormholes, and other vague science-fictioney space weirdness." She twiddled her thumbs. "Voyager did bring some good things to the table, like the Vidiians. The Vidiians were really interesting."
"Eww, the Vidiians," Pinkie complained. "I didn't like them, they're super gross."
"Pinkie!" Twilight snapped. "Shame on you! They couldn't help it! I mean, yeah, they were, but it was part of the tragedy of their race and their fascinating backstory."
"It's hard to have any sympathy for a race of super-gross organ thieves," Pinkie said.
"Wait what now?" Sunset asked.
Twilight took on her lecturing tone. "The Vidiians are a race who have suffered a pandemic called the Phage for over a thousand years. Every Vidiian is born infected, and the disease's effects begin to appear at different times in their lives. The Phage devours and destroys healthy tissues in every organ of the host's body, causing massive organ failure."
"As the crisis grew in their society, Vidiians could no longer live long enough to research cures or wait for help, so they overhauled their entire medical science industry," Chips picked up. "They basically put trying to cure the Phage itself on hold and put all their science into stealing healthy organs and skin from passing aliens and using it to patch themselves up."
"Internal and external organs," Twilight continued. "All replaced with comparable matches, but the grafts and implants would eventually become infected by the Phage as well. As a result, all Vidiians have a diseased, disfigured appearance."
"Oh gross," Sunset said. "And they just...steal body parts from passing aliens?"
"Tissue piracy is their central industry," Chips said.
"Okay now that is a good idea," Sunset said. "I didn't know Voyager had something like that and now I might have to watch it."
"I just can't stand the Doctor," Trixie piped up. "He starts out obnoxious and rude, has the most character episodes in the whole series that focus on him, and at the end of the series he's still obnoxious and rude!"
"Hey, I'll take the rude obnoxious hologram any day over the bland, vague Garak clone Enterprise had," Flash said.
There was a long pause.
"OH MY GOD HE KIND OF WAS, WASN'T HE!?" Lyra erupted, wide-eyed.
"Wow, I'd never even noticed it before," Twilight said, her glasses slipping, "but now that you put it that way, Phlox basically was Garak, just not as well-written!"
"That's pretty much why I left off Enterprise in the first season," Sunset said. "I mean, not specifically, but the characters are just...bland. The writing is bland." She frowned. "It's kind of like, I dunno...they figured they'd let Scott Bakula be Scott Bakula, throw a Vulcan with big tits in the mix, then pad everyone else out with half-developed characters and coast on it." She shook her head. "It almost worked except for the whole Temporal Cold War thing."
"Ugh, that was so unnecessary," Twilight said with a grimace. "Enterprise already had so much to work with! All the First Contacts, the whole history of Starfleet! Why come up with some lame weird story arc nobody wanted or needed that just gummed up the show with garbage?!"
"And then they made it worse with the Xindi," Chips said, frowning. "And the really awkward attempts to explain original series Klingons."
"And all of it done with a really bland cast," Flash said.
"Boy, it's funny how snobby we all get about a bunch of cheesy sci-fi shows that started off as a ham-fisted, cartoony space western with roughly defined characters and no real continuity!" Pinkie Pie said cheerfully.
The room broke into snickers and derisive snorts.
"Pfff."
"Pshaw."
"How ridiculous."
"What a randomly Pinkie Pie thing to say..."
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I think this is one of the best conversations in DS9
"A snake in a field of garden hoses."
"... Oh! Now it makes sense!"
I liked Voyager, but I was eight when it started airing, so...
And Pinkie with the perspective. Nice.
This was a lot of fun to read.
Star Trek is weird. Which is probably half the appeal.
Just Girls talking about Avengers: Endgame!
I wanna see their reactions to watching Discovery, now.
9598703 "... I was eight when Voyager began airing..."
...........
... don't mind me, I'll be along as soon as I finish unfolding my walker...
The later TNG seasons and DS9 were best because Roddenberry was gone and the writers were free to analyze and criticize his described ideal society.
"It's easy to be a Saint in paradise."
Darmok should be taught in all linguistics classes.
https://tenser.typepad.com/tenser_said_the_tensor/2006/12/darmok.html
Heck, a lot of Trek should be taught in humanities classes.
Highly recommended watching if you have the time. Or at least @6:00 to the end of part 2
VNA LINGVA NVMQUAM SATIS EST
....we just needed someone to walk in and say something about Star Wars for all hell to break loose.
Alternatively, Flutters coming in wanting to watch anime. Why? Otakushy. X3
God, that was good. I first saw Star Trek November 29th, 1986. Balance of Terror. And just... kept on going.
What a fun discussion about Star Trek. While I don’t geek out over the series or know every fact and trivia about it I still enjoy it and have fun watching it.
9598759
Ugh. Why are Klingons suddenly Yuuzhan Vong ripoffs?
9598790
Is There in Truth No Beauty? was the first full episode I can remember seeing. (Either that or City on the Edge of Forever).
Anyway, it's still my favorite.
Enterprise did get better but I didn't watch it until it had long since died and I could just watch in all on Netflix in a few days, that probably helped.
Thank God none of them are wasting money on STD, if they are this deep into Trek. Near as I can tell, the more you know and love about the old stuff, the more you hate STD, generally.
Do wonder if Micro Chips or any of the girls play STO now though.
9598737
Nice try, but too soon, as it hasn't even been that long since Endgame came to theaters. Why don't you wait, say, a few months before bringing that up again?
As for my suggestion, Just Girls Talking About Steve Irwin.
That was fun. It was nice seeing all the contrasting points of the various series presented fairly with objective analysis and the proper defenses.
...I will disagree about the holo-doc, though. He was my favorite character on Voyager. My three favorite episodes are Doctor centric.
In no particular order...
The first is the one where he has to rationalize why he saved his friend instead of the other patient when both had equal chances of survival against his programming, and tried to cope by erasing his memory of it only to come across the discrepancies and bring it back again. The almost existential crisis was very engaging.
The second is the one where his mobile emitter and Seven's nanites intermingle due to a transporter accident, resulting in creating One, the Borg who is several centuries ahead in technology. Seeing the Doctor and Seven trying to be parents - and not doing that bad a job, honestly - was rather endearing.
The third was when the Doctor was sent through the relays to the Alpha Quadrant onto a ship there and interacted with the other holo-Doctor, just for the comedy bits between them.
I only saw the movies before I started seeing the shows. Later SFDEBRIS helped make it better.
Jar Jar would have been great if Lucas hadn't gotten cold feet and changed/written him out of 2 and 3.
While I'm not as into Star Trek as the others here, I will admit what I've seen of DS9 is quality.
That said, my sister and her wife have issues with the episode 'Profit and Lace', where Quark has to undergo a sex change for a time. Both of them told me they couldn't finish it, because it was transphobic.
My fav part of ST DS9 were the Dominion and the war against the Federation. As for Voyager any episode with the Borg or the Hirogen
Confession: I can count the episodes of Star Trek I've actually watched on my phalanges. I got maybe 20% of the references.
I loved this got all the references
By any chance are you a fan of SF Debris? Cause if not, you'd like him.
9598863
Write Jar Jar out of 2 and 3, but leave him in the credits. He wins an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor by simply not showing up.
Ok, legit question that I’ve had since reading this, does this take place in the same universe as ‘just girls talking dirty”? I ask because I’ve read both and noticed there are some references to each other in each of them, so I just wanted to ask to confirm.
9598703
I was eight when Star Trek: The Next Generation started airing.
Thanks to it not being on any channel I got, and the local library only having VHS tapes of the first few episodes, though, I didn't see much of it until the DVD sets.
9598785
Amusingly, there is a manga (based on TOS), just no anime of it... unless you count TAS, which actual Japanese people would.
9598904
I was saying that Jar Jar WAS written out as opposed to what seems to be the original plan for the character: Jar Jar was the Sith Master undercover.
https://youtu.be/1rHyf0FBvt4
I'm surprised no one said anything about Discovery. And don't hate, that show is actually pretty good. They got Captain Pike down perfectly. And I LOVE their take on the Enterprise. Can't wait to see what Discovery finds in the 32nd century
Enterprise is my favorite Star Trek series, maybe because the technology is not too much advanced and the crew had often to improvise with their limited resources and knowledge to solve a problem, or maybe because I grew up watching it.
Just wait until they get into the computer games, like 25th Anniversary and Judgment Rites. They're like seasons 4 and 5 of TOS in video game form.
I've seen most series and loved them all. Voyager and Enterprise are my favorites. The only one I haven't seen much of is DS9. It's not due to lack of trying, though; broadcasters HATE DS9. The last time I saw an episode was 15 years ago and it was on at 2am. Half the commercials were advertising porn videos. EXACTLY half. It's never going to be shown on TV and I cannot afford any means of viewing it elsewhere.
9598847
What about if it was Girls Talking about Spoilers? Then it can be about the Rainbooms trying to avoid spoilers for Endgame?
Please come join STARFLEET International
We have chapters all over.
What, no mention of Sisko punching Q?
9599019
Not just Endgame, but other recent releases.
Oh man, I love this chapter.
I think Enterprise could have been good if they'd done the season 4 plots earlier. Season 4, which had the lead up to the birth of the Federation, aka what everyone wanted, was easily the best season. Also if the series had continued they would have done the Romulan war.
Also you didn't cover it here, but Discovery is actually pretty good...story wise. Their art and design departments need to be taken out back and shot though. Especially anyone behind the new look of the klingons. It seems really obvious that whoever was behind the designs wanted to do a new species but were told they were doing klingons, so they raised a stink until the execs gave in and tried to pass it off as a new 'artistic take' on them, despite them looking almost nothing like how klingons have looked, species and tech wise, since TMP.
9598984
Yeah no one broadcasts DS9 anymore. But it's great on streaming services like Netflix.
I can so relate to this chapter.
That said, growing up, my best friend was obsessed with Voyager. He was...odd.
9599110
That was a truly bad episode. Not like Spock's Brain which always unfairly shows up on worst episode lists. That one was HILARIOUS!
9598686
Yeah, the "root beer scene" is a classic. XD
9598865
That's a shame, they totally missed the point of that episode AND its pivotal role in Ferengi reform.
9598909
Some chapters do, some don't. It's not consistent.
9598949
I was 10 when TNG premiered and watched every episode in first-run syndication. When DS9 came along, I watched the first 2 1/2 seasons in FRS, but it started running too late at night for me to stay up for it, so I didn't get around to the full series until much later.
Good thing they aren't debating Game of Thrones.
9599080
That is incorrect about DS9 not being on broadcast tv. If you ave the digital over the air channels there is one called H&I that runs pretty much all of Star Trek, just about every series, in series premiere order. They run this block Monday through Friday. So it goes TOS, TNG, DS9, Voy, and Ent. They for a while also had the animated series before the Prime Time block but they are not doing it anymore.
Voyager, as said, is a mixed bag. But I like a lot of the characters actually, including both The Doctor and Seven.
The ironic thing about Chakote is I've head they did do research... but the person they hired for it turned out to be a complete fraud.
Also, you can't convince me that Tin Man from TNG wasn't a lost 8472 Bioship from back before they became so militaristic. Sort of their version of the Enterprise.
I really loved the Maquis storyline, and how that tied together TNG DS9 and Voyager.
And yes, the Dominion really were very good.
Enterprise...well, the truth is I have a terrible weakness for Time Travel.
9598686
Root Beer is a classic, but the one that really sells Quark is
Also, you really can't beat things like The House of Quark.
Pfft! Captain Janeway is the best Star Trek captain ever.
*pulls out shot gun* Bring it.
9599211
Wouldn't say "the best" but would absolutely say "not to be trifled with". Best example: Janeway defeating the Fear Clown.
9599229
Or this one... getting rid of alien researchers in Scientific Method.
9599075
That WAS a great part of the D&D series...
Welp, at least I understood this chapter slightly better than the She-Ra one. My Trek experience is as follows: The reboot movies, "Wrath of Khan", and "Space Seed" from the original series. I know who Picard and Q are, and those are the only characters named here that I know.
9598737
Let's talk when it's out on DVD and Blu-ray. Not while it's still in theaters.
Please, we all know the best Space Anything is not Star Trek, Deep Space or Dr. Who...It's this
Also would accept this. This was MY Star Trek