S03.E03: Mining The Mind's Mines

[AnimeMania]

On a remote science outpost, stone orbs are bringing fantasies to life. Tendi starts her first day as a Senior Science Officer Trainee.

Air Date: Sep 8, 2022

[starri]

For an episode I wasn’t expecting much of, this turned out to be great.

[DrScottie]

Continuing in their fine tradition of getting people from previous Trek shows to return, this time Susan Gibney returns to voice her holodeck fantasy version that Geordi and the computer created of Dr. Leah Brahms in "Booby Trap." I was expecting that cringe-worthy line: "Every time you touch it, it's me." Evidently, Geordi and Rutherford have the same fantasy woman although as they are both engineers, I'm not terribly surprised. She was presumably married to Geordi in the alternate future of "All Good Things", so maybe we'll find if the same is true in Star Trek: Picard.  

1 hour ago, starri said:

For an episode I wasn’t expecting much of, this turned out to be great.

I enjoyed it too. It was nice for them to hear that the Cerritos is recognized as one of the biggest fish in the small pond of StarFleet that is the California class from their fellow lower deckers.  

[marinw]

Glowing orbs are always trouble. At first I thought that the other crew admiring the Cerritos was a collective fantasy.

The actress who plays Leah Brahams gets the Good Sport award.

Edited September 9, 2022 by marinw

[starri]

2 hours ago, marinw said:

At first I thought that the other crew admiring the Cerritos was a collective fantasy.

I did too.  I'm glad it wasn't.

I think my favorite part was seeing T'Ana being so gentle (by her standards, anyway) with Tendi to get her confidence back up.  

I realized that they have Migleemo dressed like Paul F Tompkins.  The character is such a contrast to the rest of the crew.  They all may be fuck-ups, but they're all ultimately good at their jobs.  Migleemo is a terrible counselor.

[DrScottie]

27 minutes ago, starri said:

I think my favorite part was seeing T'Ana being so gentle (by her standards, anyway) with Tendi to get her confidence back up.  

To contrast that, she brings out the chainsaw afterwards to saw off that parasite that could be a baby version of the creature attached to the Cerritos nacelles in the credit sequence. 

15 minutes ago, starri said:

I realized that they have Migleemo dressed like Paul F Tompkins.  The character is such a contrast to the rest of the crew.  They all may be fuck-ups, but they're all ultimately good at their jobs.  Migleemo is a terrible counselor.

That he is indeed.

I'm not sure all of them are good at their jobs though. What is Lieutenant Commander Stevens actual job besides expressing his excessive man-crush on Ransom and getting himself injured? 

[starri]

6 hours ago, DrScottie said:

I'm not sure all of them are good at their jobs though. What is Lieutenant Commander Stevens actual job besides expressing his excessive man-crush on Ransom and getting himself injured? 

He might be the exception (and frankly, that's why I find that a little of him goes a long way), but compare that against T'Ana, who has negative bedside manner but is still a great doctor or Ransom, who's an egotistical blowhard but is still a pretty good first officer.  

I've always thought the Cerritos should steal its slogan from Legends of Tomorrow: "We screw things up for the better."

I hope Mariner and Jennifer DTR soon.

[Zaffy]

Klingon Clowns! 
Who's nightmare was that?

[marinw]

3 hours ago, Zaffy said:

Klingon Clowns! 
Who's nightmare was that?

That was terrifying.

[AnimeMania]

[dwmarch]

I guess that purple thing we see there explains why Boimler doesn't like that farm life...

[Ottis]

I don’t understand why others can see an individual’s psychic dreams. That doesn’t seem logical.

I love ST and some of these characters are winning, but I struggle maintaining attention with animation. Or at least this animation. Weirdly, I never had issues with the 1970s animated series.

Also, I am disappointed that the bald guy with a mustache is portrayed as a fool, even on this show. Very cliched. 

Edited September 18, 2022 by Ottis

[marina to]

This ended up being tons of fun. I like that our people are getting larger recognition. And it was great seeing Leah Brahms again.

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 9/18/2022 at 5:34 AM, Ottis said:

I don’t understand why others can see an individual’s psychic dreams. That doesn’t seem logical.

Through [insert technobabble here], the orbs are able to read people's minds and make a physical projection in the real world. Given a universe where telepathy is a thing and holo-projections are a thing, it should not be that big a reach to get there. 

What is less logical is the bad guys setting the mind-reading/holo-projecting things up to either scare people or kill them. 

For scamming purposes, it's way better to keep your victims alive and complacent for as long as possible to drag out more secrets.

Having them wanting to run away from the scanners defeats the purpose.

So does actually wounding/killing people. It opens them up to murder charges if found out.  

[johntfs]

59 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Through [insert technobabble here], the orbs are able to read people's minds and make a physical projection in the real world. Given a universe where telepathy is a thing and holo-projections are a thing, it should not be that big a reach to get there. 

What is less logical is the bad guys setting the mind-reading/holo-projecting things up to either scare people or kill them. 

For scamming purposes, it's way better to keep your victims alive and complacent for as long as possible to drag out more secrets.

Having them wanting to run away from the scanners defeats the purpose.

So does actually wounding/killing people. It opens them up to murder charges if found out.  

The scammers didn't set the things up to kill.  They became deadly when they got broken.

[Chicago Redshirt]

44 minutes ago, johntfs said:

The scammers didn't set the things up to kill.  They became deadly when they got broken.

I might be misremembering but the original impetus for the two crews being there was because these were supposedly ancient orbs that could seduce people with pleasant memories and kill them. There was a scene of that happening to some schmoe getting killed prior to either crew getting there, ala TOS's That Which Survives.

It could be that the scammers did in fact kill/injure someone to up the danger level and get more crew members to brainsuck. But that doesn't really make sense to me, since they could just as easily get people to the planet on some other pretense, or go where there are more interesting and well-placed people to brainsuck information from.

[Ottis]

5 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Through [insert technobabble here], the orbs are able to read people's minds and make a physical projection in the real world. Given a universe where telepathy is a thing and holo-projections are a thing, it should not be that big a reach to get there. 

It seems like if they have the technology to take an individual's thoughts and make them into a physical projection that everyone else can see, then why not just use the technology to manifest an army that attacks the visitors. Usually when something pulls a thought from a mind, it's an individual psychology ploy, not a group physical one. But, this is a cartoon version of Star Trek, so yeah.

[Chicago Redshirt]

2 hours ago, Ottis said:

It seems like if they have the technology to take an individual's thoughts and make them into a physical projection that everyone else can see, then why not just use the technology to manifest an army that attacks the visitors. Usually when something pulls a thought from a mind, it's an individual psychology ploy, not a group physical one. But, this is a cartoon version of Star Trek, so yeah.

The scammers were not looking to create an army. Their goal was to steal info rather than to conquer. It was just a screw up that had the projections go on the offense.

Hypothetically, it seems like creating a holo-army would not be that difficult.